Strength and Honor

Some have asked how I play my wizard. How I play differs over time as different spells come into the mix. My way is not the only way. At time of writing, I am 39, but many of the spells I use have been on my bar a while with the exception of Lightning. Every wiz is different. I never want there to be only one way to play.

Focus

The wizard has something other casting classes do not. That is the three focus pools. I mention it first because it is key. And yes, I like having this mechanic. Its a fun part of the class.

To cast a fire spell you spend both mana and let’s say 3 of 5 focus bars. Each pool, Fire, Cold, Shock, has 5 bars. They will rebuild during a fight. That means the spell just consumed all but 2 of your fire focus and you either cannot cast it again or face a penalty. To cast a 3 fire focus when only having 2 fire focus left means you need 1 more fire focus. You get that by consuming 1 from each of the 2 other focus pools (so that 3 fire focus spell just took a total of 4 focus. 2 left from your fire, 1 from cold, and 1 from shock. Note, you now are not restoring mana as well because none of your focus pools are full. This is inefficient but possibly necessary if you are at the end of a fight and need a particular spell.

Some do this more often than others. I NEVER choose this route. I have never willingly done this. That could be a flaw. What happens if you don’t have enough focus? It takes it from your HP. In other words, you burn yourself and why not, you lost your focus you silly wiz. You can burn yourself hard enough to one shot yourself. Yes, you can kill it and you at the same time. This is how you learn. I have not killed myself in a very long time…this way.

How do you learn about focus and management? You answer this question, one I’;ve asked myself several times.

“What the fuck just happened? How did I die? How the fuck did I just die?”

and also this question.

“How did you die? You just went from full health to dead dude.”

It took a little while.

Mana is not the biggest concern because of focus. You can run out of focus well before running out of mana. You can have 30% mana available and nothing in any of your focus pools. For this reason, INT, for purposes of mana pool, would take a back seat. For purposes of spell damage it leans forward.

MANA REGEN

If you have a full focus pool you will restore mana quicker. You have 3 focus pools, so you restore mana best with all 3 full. Mana is obviously still important and over many battles it does get low, which leaves you with fewer options. If you have 2 full focus pools, you will restore mana even faster. So, if mana is an issue, only use 1 family of spells.

Static Storm is a shock DOT. Its very low cost but hits pretty well. If I’m low on mana I can contribute to a fight just casting that and sitting. This also leaves my other 2 focus unused, building mana faster.

The longer you sit, the faster your mana is restored. Choose to sit versus cast a spell that may not matter much. Nervous Magic can end a running mob faster than a tank. If its safe, let the tank do it, they’ll build their pools doing so. If its unsafe, running into a crowd, pop it two or three times to finish the mob. I usually just pop it though.

Choose a Stance

Use a stance that best suits the focus you are using. In my case, I start with lightning, a powerful DD. I get 2 of those before I only have 1 left but there is a good chance by the time I’m done casting 2 of these, that I will have restored 1 of the focus I used on the 1st spell. This is made more true because I use the Thunderous Flow stance. So sometimes 3 casts before I’m done. I use Thunderous Flow to gain 1 Shock Focus every 8 seconds, reducing both incoming and outgoing fire damage by 20%. However, I don’t use fire damage spells often because I like to leave it available to heal (and as a full focus pool for mana regen), so that’s not a big negative for me. I don’t use Icy Outlook which increases Cold Focus because its counter is that it reduces incoming and outgoing shock damage. I use shock, I don’t want to take a 20% hit on my shock damage. This is why I lean to Shock first and Cold second. Before Lightning, I would have chosen Icy Outlook because Ice Volley and after that Veyrules Spear kick butt. Before Lightning I was a Cold Wizard spamming Spear. Things change.

Focus Restoration

You get to restore all of your focus of a type on a 2 minute cool down using skills you get as you level. I try not to use this, reserving for a big fight or at the end of a fight knowing I’ll have a little time to get the skill back. So, theoretically, I could cast lightning, with a slight delay waiting for a 6th focus to restore, 5 to 6 times before needing to swap to a different focus family of spells. Which is cold. Veyrules Spear consumes 1 focus. So once I’m done with lightning, depending on whether I want to do the series twice or not, Ill start spamming Veyrules Spear.

By spamming, I mean I am clicking fast on the button even while in cooldown so its hit the first millisecond its available. Its 1 focus so its hard to burn yourself.

Ice Volley is a powerful DOT, hits fast and hard. It takes 4 focus but its important to remember that focus is not consumed or shows having been used until after the DOT is done. So if you are not paying attention, you may think you have more focus than you actually do. This I learned from Neffen. He dies a lot from self immolation. You have enough to do 1 Veyrules Spear and 1 Ice Volley.

DEBUFF MANAGEMENT

You also get debuffs that let you increase the power of each focus type at the expense of another type or being lost if you use that other type.

I usually first choose to increase my shock damage by starting each battle with Chill, use up all the lightning I have, and hit Ignite to boost my cold focus spells, and use up my cold series of spells. Note that Chill increases Shock damage but is removed if they take significant Fire damage. I don’t do fire damage, so this isn’t important to me.

Now as I said, I use Ignite to increase my Cold damage once I switch to that focus pool in a fight. Its downside is its removed if they take significant Shock damage. But usually by this time I’ve switch from my shock line of spells, and usually, if its a short enough fight, it doesn’t matter. Also, by the time I’m done with cold I’m back to shock and it doesn’t matter if I lose the benefit of Ignite buff.

Heal Thyself You Agro Taking Wizzy

I use the shock stance which increases my shock focus regen at the expense of doing fire damage. But note I rarely use fire spells. That’s because we get Phoenix Fire as a heal. The more fire focus you have, the more healing you have available. So if I am blasting away and piss something off, I wait until I get about 50% down in health and I’ll pop Phoenix Fire. With 5 fire focus available, this can heal me to full. It has a 2 minute cooldown. So Ill pop my fire focus fresh to get a full pool again. At which time I cannot heal again and I have a full bar of fire focus to use on a spell. I have 2 minute cooldsown on my heal anyway, so I may as well pop a refresh. I rarely use this full Fire Focus pool, instead keeping it for mana regen or as a last resort. If there is no danger at that point, Ill use a fire spell like Ckru-Venoth’s Barrage, 872 damage over the course of 4 seconds, a flame thrower. I use this on Zaruk if the fight seems stable.

Building the IntelligEnce Stat

INT is more important than spell crit as it is used all the time for all your spells in some fashion and for mana. INT adds to spell crit and mana pool as well as how hard you hit for some spells. Some spells take INT+CON to add to the power of the spell. So CON is good to have if you don’t have to sacrifice INT. Again, INT impacts everything you do.

Of course its nice to do a crit too. WIS adds to spell crit for a wiz. So if you can get wisdom without sacrificing INT that is good.

2 CON may be worth more to a shock wiz than 1 WIS because CON goes to the power of your shock spells and WIS is just the chance to crit, not a guarantee, CON is always there.

Its questionable if 2 CON is more than 1 INT for a shock wizard, but again, CON adds equally to the power of some shock based spells. The issue is, CON does not add to spell crit or mana pool, nor does it help with cold focus spells. For the broadest reach, don’t give up INT for CON. CON does have other important benefits that could outweigh INT when looking at the broader picture.

Stat Balance, Its not all about Intelligence

CON has other benefits. It helps resist being feared or stunned. Constitution increases overall Crowd Control (CC) resilience. If you are feared, you cannot cast, and thus all the mana and spell crit in the world is worthless.

I choose a well balanced stat pool with a decent push to the INT side. You want INT, but you don’t want CON to be at its baseline. You want CON to be higher more for its resist than its damage bump to Shock spells, though it does add 1 for 1 with INT there. Note there is a player made +2AGI +3 CON wrist which beats just having 1 INT in that slot for the sake of maxing INT. Again, a feared wizard cannot use INT.

Cold focus uses AGI, shock uses CON, Fire uses STR. You want these to be higher, but if you are a shock wizard, as I tend to be, you want CON more. I split between shock and cold fairly evenly at the moment. The different stats have their own benefits that go across your entire game, not just an individual spell hit.

But Fire is Fun!

Why not fire as fire is in the higher levels more available to you? Because its also my heal and I piss things off. I don’t want the cleric worrying about me. I tell them up front, I’m going to heal myself at some point, and its then I’ll tell them I cannot anymore. At which point I chill out until the mob is lower and I weigh the risk of opening up again, can I kill it before it kills me or runs?

Phoenix Fire is always on my bar, solo or group. It is a HOT, so you can die and have it pop you back up. Yes, it has a couple of times.

Leave Yourself an Out

My Gate spell, which is a 6 second port to my bind is always up when solo or harvesting in Hangorre. Shit happens, get out. Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, be capable of folding or die.

The Importance of Not Being Seen

Invis is also important for 2 reasons. The first is if the fight goes South and you know you cannot win it for the team and you find you don’t have aggro, you can invis and be able to pull corpses out. A corpse run is only possible through Hangorre, Mad run, and HC if you can invis.

Having it up in some group situations can be helpful. It is a tradeoff though and many times I do not have it. If fighting Wycan, I have it up. If fighting the Wyvern, I don’t. It depends on the group you are in and the challenge of the area.

My invisibility is always up soloing because its usually needed to efficiently travel. In Hangorre I am never seen by anything, snakes and boar included, so long as I am not taking environmental damage over time. A fall will not break invisibility. So getting max acclimation is important so that you can run invis.

Halnir’s Cave, is safe with invisibility regardless of level difference, unlike a rogue. Explore, because if your friend drops down the shaft and looks around from his corpse, you’ll know where they are and you can invis to get the corpse versus having to deal with a summon.

Acclimate Yourself

You cannot invis someone if they are taking environmental damage. So encourage them to get full acclimation or to carry gear on them that gets that. I say this and I have the Ghildassi Necklace which gives a 5% boost to my damage. I take it off and add a Chillgaze Choker that is +3 frigid because its just enough to take me over the line to where I no longer take damage. Invisibility is more important to me than doing max damage.

I can run safely to see if the Wyvern is up. I can go into slaver cave, stand on top of a snake, and find safe glittering to loot and time mobs when its partially safe.

Get full acclimation. The frozen skull off of Zaruk it not trash to you. It isn’t trash to the warrior either even though they can take the damage. Its not trash because if they had full acclimation the wizard could invis them through the BS to get to a boss mob faster before someone else. But this is rare to find someone that is full acclimation. For the warrior, at least carry it for when you need to be invisible.

Agro Management

I generally blast the ever loving fuck out of things without regard for pulling agro. But that depends on the fight and the group. I don’t want to cause problems for the tank losing agro, I don’t want to cause the cleric to have to swap targets to heal me (which is why I tell them not to until I have used my Phoenix Fire once). But if the shit is hitting the fan or the Cleric is low on mana and the fight is about to turn or the tank is losing life, Ill happily split my HP pool and blast away. When I do and when I don’t is dependent on the mob, the group, my mana pool, and the mana pool of the healer. More often than not the tank will keep agro.

More often than not is not always. Generally, with a balanced group within an appropriate level range, the tank will keep agro, certainly take if back and give you time to adjust. You are going to hit hard and its not like there is an agro bar giving you a warning line.

However, if the tank is much lower in level, this may take too long and cause you and others around you harm. Ease off. That can be difficult to do if you have a crit and it may not appear readily as tanks have skills to pull the mob to them which do not themselves build agro. So you may not know you have done something immediately and understand to adjust.

I do normally assist, but if things are getting crazy, that could mean deciding to root, snare, attack mobs to try to get the group out. Also, assist does not always work. Its buggy and the time it takes to adjust line of sight vs picking the mob you think is right is sometimes problematic.

The balance is hard to find. You sometimes have to adjust to the group. I have a harder time of this, sitting back, sitting down, not much else to do sometimes in some groups especially pushing limits. Listen to your healer.

My Bar

I’ll usually have invis, a pet – mitigation if thats the issue, damage if not, and Phoenix Fire up. If I skip having invis up, then Ill have my shield. I rarely have my INT buff up. At some point 2 INT isnt worth it. At lower levels it is.

There are many fights, even against tough mobs, that do not last enough time to debuff or cast long spells. So use your heaviest hitting shortest casting spell. In these cases I spam Veyrules Spear even though Lightning hits harder. I have Force up but I generally don’t take the time to debuff except at lower levels.

I do not use Abjure Lightning, which is a sort of stance that can rebuild Shock Focus over time by building up points as you cast because it consumes 10% mana. I do not use any Abjure spells for this reason. Though I did find it useful before Thunderous Flow and Icy Outlook were available. But Thunderous Flow uses 15% of base mana. Yes, once. Abjure you have to recast.

At the end of a fight, if you have the ability still to restore a focus pool, do so as it will help regen faster. The cool down is going to be used anyway between fights. By the time you are ready to fight again its likely available again or close enough. All of the focus restoration skills are on my bar.

In Summary

Lightning, Lightning, Veyrules Spear, Ice Volley

Lightning, Lightning, Shock Focus Regen, Lightning, Lightning, Veyrules Spear, Ice Volley, Cold Focus Regen (for either mana regen or continuation)

Varies on type of fight, availability of focus due to fouc regen, and dynamics of group and whether there is a fight right after.

The highlights:

• Always have Phoenix Fire up.

• Rarely use fire focus spells until you have used Phoenix Fire to heal

• Try to stick with one focus especially when low on mana, just use Static Storm or available DOT and sit when low on mana.

• Invisibility is your friend. It is not just a utility, it can keep the group going in the long term helping with corpse retrieval and very often saving you. The tank had 3 mobs pissed at them, you only had 1 and that 1 is dead as everyone else tries to flee. Invis…flee.

• You cant run in Hangorre invis without full acclimation. That is your key goal for gear. Yeah, you’ll get the other stuff too.

• Have gate up when solo, skip it in a group.

• DON’T burn yourself. It isn’t worth it to your mana regen to take from the other focus pools.

• The tank is going to complain that they cannot keep agro. Your job kill stuff, don’t worry too much. Have a little concern, but don’t sweat it.

• Watch the healer’s mana pool. Long fights kill their pool.

• Its your job to make the fight short. Its okay to annoy the tank to that end.

• You will likely give the tank time to build agro by first casting your debuff and then using a spell with a few seconds of wind up anyway.

• If you still have fire up and have significant damage, heal yourself now with Phoenix Fire because a new fight could start before you are ready.