FC as a wizard

Burnificator - Archosaur

Supplies:
HP charm, MP charm (or herbs), crabs (around 50 or so).
A lvl 100+ wizard with okay gear (here's mine: http://pwcalc.com/025751b8977f1850 but i have since sharded it more so I have 4.7k HP unbuffed.)
HP buff (poultices, spirit of defense, barb friend) - not necessary but helps
At least 4.5k HP, below that - HP buff is necessary.
Decent weapon.
Maxed water/earth shields.
Sage/demon stone barrier is especially helpful here.
Cleric buffs.

A cleric will make this a lot easier, anything that can BB and heal is really good enough.

Good genie:

Have at least 150 max energy.
Skills:
Holy path
Eartflame is not necessary but can be helpful sometimes.
Extreme Poison - speeds up boss/shade kills.
Absolute Domain - will save your butt when nothing else will.
Cloud Eruption - especially if you are demon, wizards are all about chi, plus you can do hefty combos
with that skill. (3spark, Cloud, 2spark ulti/sutra = pwned)
Earthquake - also a nice skill, less priority than the others. Get it if you can't get AD. AoE knockback.
Mage Star - wizard specific skill. It's our "**** you I'm invincible" skill, the poor man's AD.
Works on magic damage only, sadly, but gives a breather on the bosses.
Expel - Mage Star's physical cousin. It also seals you, so it's better to use if you are doing DB. Note that this information
is not from own experience as I haven't used Expel myself.

Skills for the wizard:
Hailstorm. Yes, this skill is underused, and yes, you will love it in FC (more on that later).
Phoenix's Will. Our kiting skill #1.
Dragon's Breath. Have it maxed. Sage DB is even better.
Undine Strike. Seriously, get it if you don't have it.

General strategies:

Most mobs are physical, so you will be running around with Stone Barrier most of the time.
Bosses hit with water damage though, so use Glacial Embrace before these.
On shades with physical adds, take out the shade first (sutra), tabbing for one of the adds and throwing
a phoenix somewhere inbetween.
Mob groups:
Hailstorm, tab for one that didn't get frozen (if all got frozen, you are a lucky person),
cast phoenix. Finish off the rest, gush and pyro are a great help here. If something has
like 1-3k hp left, just use undine strike - it's almost instant and has negligible cooldown.
Bishop/siren groups:
Use Seize Mountain as it has an almost guaranteed stun. Follow up with hailstorm, as soon as stun wears off on the bishop,
use force of will for keeping it disabled for some more time. Always target the bishop first as the sirens do pathetic damage.

Walkthrough.

The hallway before the first shade is all water damage, so have glacial up. After the first shade dies,
switch to stone barrier.
It's really handy that shades are metal, since we're the only class that can cast fire spells.
There are two rooms with shades that need to be killed before getting access to the first boss.
DON'T try sneaking past groups, as it's almost impossible to do and will result in aggroing more than necessary
as well as losing the first strike advantage wizards live on.

There is a harpy in this hallway, also conveniently metal. It's almost as if the instance was made for wizards.

Sutra and spellspam is a great way of dealing with both shades and harpies.
Spells after sutra: Divine pyro, SS, divine pyro, glacial snare/other spell. Don't use glacial as the first or second spell,
its cast time eats up the sutra seconds.

The hallway with the boss is just more bears and these golem things, as well as a group or two of the catgirls.
All physical, the catgirls can be one-two shot (Blade Tempest + hailstorm for survivors or hailstorm + phoenix).
There are also a few walkers (a golem in the wide part and a bear in the narrow part).

The shade in there comes with a couple of bears, so the usual applies, either try BT and phoenix on the bears or
do the sutra combo with a phoenix at the end.

BOSS: Thunderclaw.

This guy is easily the second most annoying boss in the entire instance, especially for melees and pet using classes.
If you have a cleric, tell him to stay far away and in no case use BB.

He attacks with water spells which inflict slow, as well as a 2-tick DoT that I am not sure about but might be non-elemental magic damage.
It hits me around 700-800 with the magic attacks and does 2 1k+ ticks with the other thing.
The dangerous part is his circles. Every time there's a ring of fire around his feet, he spawns 3 circles, which are a bad thing to stand in.
Start running around already as he is preparing and don't cast anything long (maybe with the exception of Morning Dew if you
have decent channeling). Distance Shrink (blink) will help A LOT in getting out of the circles, just don't port right
into another circle. Been there, done that. The circles DO give some time to escape. Otherwise, the boss doesn't do anything special.

After the boss dies, a door opens in the main hallway, there will be more catgirls camping right at the doorway.
Dispose of them any way you wish. DON'T forget to have stone barrier on.

There's a group with a shade, too, kill it.

Then next hallway is all magical mobs, so use Blade Tempest whenever you can, otherwise do hail, then phoenix (will make you
run up to the mobs), then tab and spellspam the survivors.

The way to the boss is the first left in the hallway, there are a few more magical groups, and a group with a bishop.
Avoiding that group is easy and preferable, as bishops are a pain in the ***.

There is one more shade before the boss, with magical adds.

Talk to the NPC to start the boss "summoning". Kill as many of these elementos that spawn around the boss platform as you can, if you have a cleric he should RB at a safe distance.
Please note that RB overrides both sutra and spark, so use the chi on ultimates instead or save it for the boss.Eventually the boss gets summoned, if you have killed a lot of the elementos he will be weaker.

Warning: please pull the boss somewhere off the center of the room (around the tunnel back or just fight him where he spawns).
As soon as he dies, a few groups with bishops will spawn.
His damage is pathetic, but the bubble is nasty. You will live most of the time though, if you have a cleric, you should heal eachother
whenever the other one gets bubbled (cleric can also purify).

There's also another way of doing the boss, but it's considered bug abuse, so I won't discuss it here.

Just return to the hallway through the path you came in through.

There will be more mob groups as well as a few walkers and a harpy. Most importantly, there are 3 groups with sirens around
a bishop. Use the strategy with Mountain Seize/FoW to keep the stuns/aoe damage to the minimum as bishops have haxor range.
Make sure you have disposed of the walkers/harpy before engaging the bishops.

There's another shade before the next hallway.

The next hallway is purely physical.

If you have a cleric and a puller, you can "pretend to be a seeker here". Have the cleric set up BB, hailstorm the nearest group and set up
DB on somewhat in front of the cleric. It is important to have the range of DB extend past the BB range, otherwise with lag and bad luck
the mobs will aggro on the cleric (this is because DB doesn't do truly continuous damage, it ticks every 3 seconds). Set up so that the mobs
cannot reach the cleric in 3 seconds after hitting the edge of DB. Remember, the actual range is about twice as big as the circle animation.

It is possible to tank up to 4 groups with crabs, cleric buffs + BB or heals, stone barrier and decent HP. I have 3.5k pdef while buffed but you can do with less.
(2k+ should be okay).
Note: if the cleric heals instead of BB, there's no danger of healaggro. The mobs aggro on the cleric because the puller receives the heal from BB
before the mobs receive damage from DB.

You can also do groups one by one.

BOSS: Dreadindra.

This guy is THE annoying boss. It does AoE damage, AoE sleep and spawns bishops. This guy is essentialy a bigger and meaner version of the bishop.

You can set up DB to deal with both the boss and the bishops at the same time, but prepare for a lot of interrupts. That's where
cloud eruption and being sage comes in play. The interrupts are kind of random, once I was interrupted only once, and another time
I couldn't keep up with putting DB up as it was interrupted right after. Same goes for the cleric, squad heals and purify is the best thing here
The AoE is percentage based, as are most aoe's here. If you are going solo, DB is still viable, but consider just attacking the boss while hitting
Tab now and then and killing off the bishops as they spawn. In this case the bishops are a priority as getting 2 or more at the same time
is almost certain death/squad wipe.

Continue towards the next boss. If you did pulls this hallway should be empty, otherwise just more physical groups. They have about 70k HP
so unless you're R9/uber refined Nirvana or get a lot of lucky crits, you won't be oneshotting anything.
There is also a shade surrounded by two bishops. This obviously sucks, so hit the shade with Mountain Seize, then concentrate on one bishop.
Sleep one bishop after stun wears off, FoW the other one and finish that one off. This will optimize the time they are not attacking.


BOSS: Asoteric Runewolf.

This one is my favourite. There's so much QQ about him, and now and then you see people wipe on him because they weren't timing right
or didn't know what they were doing. I once had a high level cleric set up BB, die and ragequit on this guy.

This boss does slowing water spells like Thinderclaw coupled with the percentage AoE of Dread, but without the sleep. He can also seal a single target
but it's not long and doesn't happen often. He also seems to reset aggro randomly, mostly right after THE SLASH OF DOOM.

THE UBER CHEESY SLASH OF DOOM.

This is the part that makes this boss so hilarious. Again, this guy feels like he was made for a wizard to kill off. I once had the entire squad
wipe on him, being the only survivor, a level 9X squishy wizard, and I finished him off.

Now and then, this guy stops in his tracks and starts "talking" in the normal chat. It goes like this:
"SUPER POWERFUL MIGHTY WHIRLING SLASH! ", each word on its own line. When he says super, run away then cast a spell. If casting
made you run up to him, you are in a safe range. If you used phoenix or emberstorm for this, ran up all the way and died, you fail as a wizard.
When he gets to the part where he says "SLASH!" he will oneshot everything within his range (it's not so big, actually - when he runs up to someone
he is effectively at that range). You, however, will be able to cast spells just fine, so use the opportunity to heal up. Blink helps here, too.

After you have successfully pwned this boss (Hermione, are you a witch or not?), go up the hallway killing off stuff.
There's another shade but it's nothing special.

BOSS: Messenger of Fear.

He does the same attack as Dread but without the bishops. The sleep range seems to be less than the damage range, and the sleep
comes a few seconds after the damage (the boss knows about combos :O). If there's a pro cleric, he can squad heal right so that the heal lands
after the damage. He says "Drown in the endless nightmare" seconds before doing this attack, so you can use that as a reference
for timing the squad heal or running away like on the runewolf.

When the boss dies, he spawns an NPC that teleports you to the hallway leading to the EXP room.

There is a shade with 2 adds and two groups of mobs, all same as the mobs in the EXP room.

The easiest way to deal with these is to blink towards the shade and start DB. If your HP and pdef is good enough, you will survive on
charm and crabs, although a BB definitely helps. If you have someone who can pull, have them pull the groups into DB as well.
If you can't handle the damage, just handle the groups one by one with sparking and ultimates (that's where cloud eruption is a big advantage).

In the EXP room, there are 5 harpies and a boss, you will need to dispose of these to get a "clean" room.
Do the harpies first, there's one in each corner plus one flying along side the long "road" in there. Try not to run into the mobs while trying to catch it,
use Undine Strike as a way to get its attention quickly.

BOSS: Oceania Master.
Warning: do not AoE unless you know when and how to time it.
This is another boss that requires you to know what you are doing. He doesn't hit too hard, but he spawns hands on a random squad memeber
that has engaged the boss or healed anyone during the fight. This means that if you have a low level cleric or other squad memeber around, keep them
in the hallway before the EXP room and keep the rest of the squad clustered, if you have a squad that is. The hands spawn range is effectively infinite,
I once died on my cleric from the hands and kept on getting them on me while running back to the room. As a wizard, you are well suited for taking care of the hands
with Undine Strike. The hands are effectively oneshots for any class, so it's important to deal damage quickly rather than hit hard.
If the hands are not killed on time they will hit for 5k and that most certainly means death. He also spawns small clones of himself with 50k HP.
DO NOT ATTACK THESE. These are also the reason why nobody should AoE - if the clone is hit in any way, it retaliates with 5k damage on every squad member.
The boss also does an AoE for around 2.5k, not percentage based. With my 4.7k HP it ticks the charm while if I have the buff (6.1k) it doesn't. That's also the reason
to keep anything with less than 2.5k HP away from this guy. As the boss dies, you have completed the "EXP Room" FC run.

Do not talk to the NPC yet as this will trigger the heads part of the room. The mobs should be killed first if you/your squad aren't selling the room or using it for alts.
With decent HP, PDEF, crabs and BB you will be able to handle up to 3 groups. As for the heads, undine is again your friend. Make sure you have both talked to the NPC
when starting heads, regardless of who was starting to begin with, as well as afterwards (when it says "All the Undead have been cleared"). This earns you an item: "[Sincerity]".

If you are going for a full run, you will need Purify in one or other form. You shoul've also killed the optional boss somewhere after the Shocktrooper, but then you have to
have the quest taken from the beginning, at the same NPC as the one to open FC. Talking to the NPC in the small room on the right side
after the Shocktrooper spawns this boss. This guy does a few nasty things, one of them is spawning dragoons. These guys can hit hard and there's also a seal going on now and then.
That boss is called Cyclotra Siren. Killing it earns you the item "[Faithfulness]".

Back to the part after the heads. After the heads are done for, one of the four doors opens. A boss is waiting for you there.
NOTE: I haven't done this part solo, but managed fine in a squad, however I have less experience on the full FC runs.

BOSS: Decaying Fragrance.

This guy does the same debuff as Pole from 69, though it seems to be less hard (although sins disagree), as the boss hits with magic damage mostly. There's also an AoE stun.

This guy opens another door in the big room as he dies.

BOSS: Asoteric Phoenix.

Finally us wizards can take revenge on the QQnix! Although this one doesn't flesh ream you, he does some AoE sealing and regens life.
You will also have to kill the mob it spawns after dying.
If you were going for the title quest, you can stop here, but why, if there's only one boss left anyway?

There are dragoons in the following hallways leading up to the final boss, these stun and interrupt, so don't rely on DB too much.
There are also a few groups of the mobs with swords like in the EXP room, so take them out one by one or DB, whatever works best.

BOSS: Holeen.

There are two "Bosses" there, pull either and destroy it however you please.
Note: it's really easy to fail a genie pull here.
After either is dead, the real boss spawns. AoE seals, AoE damage, self buffs, all kinds of nasty stuff, and I still think that Dread is
way more annoying. Unlike other bosses that either drop green FC equipment (inferior to TT in my opinion but great for alts) or a "[The Past of Frostcovered City]" this one drops shards.

He spawns an NPC on death that will give you a chest in return for the two items you got earlier on. The chest can contain nice stuff
like perfect stones or shards, but also useless stuff like socket stones. There's also a small chance to get a gold magic ring or gold might ring.
This is the drop table of the chest you get: http://www.pwdatabase.com/pwi/quest/20028 .

Kittysama - Raging Tide_1432680721

Kitty's wondering if this ish a solo guide or squad FC guide since you mentioned having cleric at some parts.

First this Kitty took note of: You're using purely elemental ornaments. There's no real reason to use elemental ornaments unless facing magic mobs only. With phys. belt and necklace with decent refine(+3 or +4) a wizzie has about 3,2k p. def. self-buffed, about 5,5k with full buffs, making wizzie much tankier than 3k full buffed with elemental ornaments. Of course for boss fights elemental ornaments with either -channeling or +vit/HP are useful.

Expel ish indeed useful in FC, a wizzie with phys. ornies can solo halfpulls easily by using Expel when channeling DB. Distance shrink -> DB ish quite useful combo for killing bishop groups when conserving chi, Mountain Seize (if enough chi for that) might 1-shot the sirens. If not, Hailstorm and they're dead for sure(unless there's something totally wrong).

If wizzie has T2/R8-weapon or better, shades can be dealt quite easily with Undine on Shade and suitable ulti to 1-shot adds, continued with spamming fire attacks.

For bosses Undine -> Stone Rain -> Sandstorm -> Pyrogram combo ish quite useful as bosses are water-element, especially as sage with sage Pyrogram helping get chi for sparks. With Cloud Eruption-genie a sage wizard can be sparked at least 1/4 of time, usually more. In 90+ squads it can be enough strong combo to take aggro at times.
As it's fully single-target combo, it can be used on Oceania Master macro'd, killing hands quickly by hitting them with auto-attack(true, Undine ish fast, but auto-attack ish faster and gives also 3 chi when Undine doesn't generate chi).
On Runewolf wizzie can just Distance Shrink away when wolfie starts whirling. 20 meters ish minimum safe range(not "escape until you need to take a step back" 27,5 meters or "step too close" 19,9 meters) and it can be recognized with enough FC experience(if you've ever played a seeker in FC, it's rather easy after that since most seeker attacks have exactly that safe 20 meter range).

To get middle harpy easily in XP room, just run to there right after killing the shade so it should have just started flying from south end of the room. Rest of harpies might be annoying during heads, but not necessary to kill as they can be evaded when pulling(taken that puller knows his/her stuff) and they are too far to really hit them during heads. And wizzies of course use DB during heads to get as many heads as possible so there's not risk about hitting harpies that time. f:cute

For XP room's pull, there's 3 viable options that Kitty likes to use: If someone else ish pulling, 3-Spark -> Mountain's Seize(using Cloud Eruption for chi) ->Hailstorm -> Phoenix -> Pyrogram/Gush survivors, 3-spark -> Hailstorm -> Dragon's Breath -> Expel or Mountain's Seize -> Hailstorm -> Dragon's Breath -> Expel.
If doing wizzie pull, AD -> Mountain's Seize -> IG or Dew -> Hailstorm -> Dragon's Breath.

About rest of FC Kitty doesn't know much since Kitty's not gone further than XP room on wizzie, hardly even on any other char.

Burnificator - Archosaur

Who is this kitty you are talking about?

Burnificator - Archosaur

That being said...

Stone rain casts 1.4 seconds, Divine Pyro 1 second. Pyro wins.
Stone rain: 200% weap dmg, 4.8k + damage.
Divine pyro: 300% wap dmg, 4.9 + damage. Pyro wins again.
Yes, Stone rain hits an elemental weakness, but Pyro's damage outweighs that.
Plus, with Divine Pyro I can actually feed FOUR spells before sutra runs out. Then I can pop a zooming thunder and feed the boss some more punishment.

Otherwise, I use regular (sage) Pyrogram most of the time anyway, so I tend to be good on chi.

As for ornaments, the PDEF I got seems to suffice and I will get more with gear upgrades anway. Most mobs that live enough to deal any specific damage tend to be magic hitters anyway. That Silver chained star also gives 6% chan and 7 magic.

As for the harpies, I don't have troubles myself pulling the flying one.
I use Undine a lot since it keeps the enemies debuffed which is a good thing.

Leaving the rest of harpies sure saves time, but only if pullers indeed know what they are doing. I learned not to rely on others having the necessary skill.

Mountain Seize + Hailstorm is what I actually use on the siren groups, as of OP. FoW is a nice add because it keeps the bishop in check in case it survives the barrage.

I have Undine bound on 1 so I can hit Tab and then 1 without moving my hand. With my channeling Undine goes instantly.
I tried doing DB on heads before, while it seems like a good idea, it requires to set up DB which might result in losing target a few times, plus doesn't cover the whole area.
With undine I cover as many heads as a character with a bow.

Wizards rock, and Undine is our president.


Please use a readable colour, though. My eyes hurt a bit. Dark red on brown? Seems legit.

Ynxi - Archosaur

Kittysama - Raging Tide wrote: »

Kitty's wondering if this ish a solo guide or squad FC guide since you mentioned having cleric at some parts.

First this Kitty took note of: You're using purely elemental ornaments. There's no real reason to use elemental ornaments unless facing magic mobs only. With phys. belt and necklace with decent refine(+3 or +4) a wizzie has about 3,2k p. def. self-buffed, about 5,5k with full buffs, making wizzie much tankier than 3k full buffed with elemental ornaments. Of course for boss fights elemental ornaments with either -channeling or +vit/HP are useful.

Expel ish indeed useful in FC, a wizzie with phys. ornies can solo halfpulls easily by using Expel when channeling DB. Distance shrink -> DB ish quite useful combo for killing bishop groups when conserving chi, Mountain Seize (if enough chi for that) might 1-shot the sirens. If not, Hailstorm and they're dead for sure(unless there's something totally wrong).

If wizzie has T2/R8-weapon or better, shades can be dealt quite easily with Undine on Shade and suitable ulti to 1-shot adds, continued with spamming fire attacks.

For bosses Undine -> Stone Rain -> Sandstorm -> Pyrogram combo ish quite useful as bosses are water-element, especially as sage with sage Pyrogram helping get chi for sparks. With Cloud Eruption-genie a sage wizard can be sparked at least 1/4 of time, usually more. In 90+ squads it can be enough strong combo to take aggro at times.
As it's fully single-target combo, it can be used on Oceania Master macro'd, killing hands quickly by hitting them with auto-attack(true, Undine ish fast, but auto-attack ish faster and gives also 3 chi when Undine doesn't generate chi).
On Runewolf wizzie can just Distance Shrink away when wolfie starts whirling. 20 meters ish minimum safe range(not "escape until you need to take a step back" 27,5 meters or "step too close" 19,9 meters) and it can be recognized with enough FC experience(if you've ever played a seeker in FC, it's rather easy after that since most seeker attacks have exactly that safe 20 meter range).

To get middle harpy easily in XP room, just run to there right after killing the shade so it should have just started flying from south end of the room. Rest of harpies might be annoying during heads, but not necessary to kill as they can be evaded when pulling(taken that puller knows his/her stuff) and they are too far to really hit them during heads. And wizzies of course use DB during heads to get as many heads as possible so there's not risk about hitting harpies that time. f:cute

For XP room's pull, there's 3 viable options that Kitty likes to use: If someone else ish pulling, 3-Spark -> Mountain's Seize(using Cloud Eruption for chi) ->Hailstorm -> Phoenix -> Pyrogram/Gush survivors, 3-spark -> Hailstorm -> Dragon's Breath -> Expel or Mountain's Seize -> Hailstorm -> Dragon's Breath -> Expel.
If doing wizzie pull, AD -> Mountain's Seize -> IG or Dew -> Hailstorm -> Dragon's Breath.

About rest of FC Kitty doesn't know much since Kitty's not gone further than XP room on wizzie, hardly even on any other char.

Reading this entire episode... "Ynxi"'s wondering if "kitty" ever saw any room inside FC except for XP room....b:chuckle

Kittysama - Raging Tide_1432680721

Ynxi - Archosaur wrote: »

Reading this entire episode... "Ynxi"'s wondering if "Kitty" ever saw any room inside FC except for XP room....b:chuckle

Well, Kitty's seen all rooms in the casual route FC ish done in maybe 1,500 times this far, about 80 of those on wizzie, Kitty estimates(well, about as many runs as it takes from lvl 80 to 93). Though, of course Kitty can't answer how FC ish done well on wizzie since Kitty's wizzie ish just 93 atm and thus lacks necessary experience to say anything.f:sweat

SMASHnHEAL - Dreamweaver

Nice guide and all but at level 100 a wizard should know what to do in FC well in truely by then. With your gear to duo the instance to big room takes you how long? I'm guessing well over an hour. My suggestion for anyone over 100+ looking for xp to do phoenix valley instead, more xp in a much shorter time frame.

It is 2013 after all, casters have been soloing/duoing fc for years now and your guide is pretty generic like the many other fc guides already on the forums. Well done for being able to do it all the same.

Ynxi - Archosaur

True but pv doesn't have all other nice benefits..
Xp room for alts or sales, drops,... Just saying that indeed fc is not about xp for 100+
Btw, If Fc takes a veno with pisspoordamage about an hour and a half to solo then i'm estimating this guide on about 50minutes.
Also in his guide he states "if ya have a cleric" which kinda means that its handy but not necessary So the guide goes for both solo and squad mode << which will also have his effects on the time.