I had the same impression: For soloing, of all the classes I played, the wizard felt the safest by a large margin. Because you can one- or two-shot most mobs of the same level. Resists rarely happen, so that's no problem either.
Regarding arcane cords: Is your conjuration skill maxed? That might influence if you can successfully land the root.
At level 7 with my wizard here so I guess my feedback arrives just in time.
I am soloing yellow boars and doing just fine. When snare is resisted I am in trouble (60 secs cooldown) and must rely on root, run and nuke. I die one out of ten times so pretty good. Very good so far when in group, I never blow all my mana unless I must over emergency, so I never sit out of fights.
About techniques, I don´t really understand them. The fact that I have three different bars where to move my abilities to is still a mistery to me.
Now, about the focus, I do NOT like it at all. The concept is a penalty if you weave it wrong, and not a reward if you weave it right, as it should be in my opinion. Honestly, I stopped playing attention to the focus, I just ignore it and think in real time about what spell to use, depending on damage, health left on target, casting time and resist chances. I have more than enough with that to additionally check focus that is being lost. No thanks.
As it is designed right now, focus system tells me NOT to weave more than 2-3 spells of the same element, or I´ll be punished. What is the reason because of this? If I play attention to focus, I am pretty much stuck to certain (and optimal) rotation of spells, no matter the situation I am at. I could be soloing a blue or a yellow, I could be with a friend, I could be with a group, we could have adds to deal with, etc... These situations and my wits to adapt to them should determine my choice of spells, and NOT how much focus I have remaining in each of the three elements.
I would certainly revamp the focus system into something rewarding specific element weavings, in a way that you would build focus by casting. For example, fire focus could provide a small increase to spell crit rate (incremental the more focus you have); shock focus could provide a small increase to spell haste; and cold focus could provide a small decrease in mana cost of next spell. As for penalties, I´d introduce them when you cast a spell of certain element having max focus with it; self damage if casting a fire spell with max fire focus, and so on. And of course you would lose focus over time when not casting.
I´d also like to see a wider variety of spells, in terms of damage values, casting times and specially ratio mana-damage. Something that would allow me as a wizard to have a tactical approach with my range of spells depending on the situation (the classical debate sustained vs burst DPS). I am aware that is too early (not even in EA yet) and I am low level, but anyhow, wanted to share some thoughts. Honestly I hope for a big change of the focus system, or I´ll just keep ignoring it and enjoying everything else.
- Elia
you get stacks of mana weaving using different schools for added dmg. 1% per stack. the issue is the number displayed on the buff bar is in WHITE and IMPOSSIBLE to read. a cuople of nukes and i'm doing 10 % more dmg..so you can alternate dmg vs maybe faster mana regen leaving at least 1 focus at full (or refreshing it to full).
change the font color on the mana weave stack please OR put a number below it like the number of minutes left on buffs. no way to tell what' sthere for the levle 10 mana weaving nuke.
Hello,
All my life I have played wizards in all kinds of RPGs, online and offline, it is the class I know best and whose playstyle I enjoy the most. Specifically, in EQ, over 7,500 hours dedicated to a wizard up to level 70 with more than 600 AAs. In Pantheon, it couldn't be any different, so I created a wizard from the start.
I write this post with the intention of analyzing the current focus system of wizards in some depth. I understand that we are not yet in EA, so it is potentially subject to changes. I start by saying that I don't like the system as it is presented, and I will explain the reasons.
The system penalizes you for not casting spells in a certain order, instead of rewarding you for casting spells in a certain order. The focus of the three types charges over time, so it's common to have them at maximum every time an encounter starts, practically always when you go solo. If you go in a group, it is very likely that the system will force you to alternate spells of different elements, because otherwise, you will quickly run out of focus and start losing health. On the other hand, every time you cast an offensive spell, you gain elemental weaving charges, each charge providing an additional 1% damage to offensive spells. This accumulation of charges does not take into account the combined elements, but rather assigns a fixed number of charges per spell. The proposal I am making is as follows:
Focus system (redesigned)
- You can only accumulate focus of one type at a time, each time you cast an elemental spell
- If you have accumulated focus of one element and cast a spell of a different element, you lose all the accumulated focus and gain 1 focus of the element of the most recent spell.
- The accumulated focus will gradually be lost over time if you don't cast any spells.
- The accumulated focus up to 5 provides elemental weaving charges, which give a different bonus to offensive spells depending on the element that generated them:
o Fire: 1% additional damage per charge
o Shock: 1% critical chance per charge
o Cold: 1% mana saving per charge
- You cannot have charges of more than one type of elemental weaving at the same time
- If you cast a spell of an element different from the elemental weaving charges, they disappear after affecting the spell.
- The focus accumulated above 5 is not shown, but it provides elemental Hazard charges, which give a damage over time (DoT) debuff equal to 1% of health per second for each charge.
In summary, casting spells of the same element in succession provides an advantage, but also a risk beyond a certain point. The greater the benefit, the greater the risk. In any encounter, the wizard has complete freedom to choose which element they want to build, and to make that decision, they can take into account the DPS they need to deploy in the group, when mana is available, if the monsters resist or are vulnerable to a certain element, etc.. I think this would lead to a more enjoyable and rich gameplay for wizards.
Thanks,
- Elia
I've only played RNG, SHM, WIZ, and PAL between lvl 7-14, but comparing the RNG and WIZ (as DPS classes) I personally feel that the wiz spell damage is appropriate for these levels. I'm taking into consideration that it is the only thing they're designed to do, so they should do it very well. The RNG can do decent damage at range... while moving... can take a hit (once geared) and can toss a heal here and there (enough to raise someone out of a downed state). If the wizard's damage was low, it would be absolutely boring to play - standing still for 2-3 seconds casting a spell, to only do mediocre damage would be incredibly underwhelming for me, and I would likely play a caster that could also heal or have a pet if the wiz did the same damage but had no other utility except teleporting way later. I say 'bombs away' for the wiz :)
The white text on the number of charges was incredibly difficult to see.
I also need to point out the NPC that gives the "leaning tower" quest should be facing the opposite direction because he references the cave and cliff "behind him" but he is facing the cliff. ;)
I really enjoyed the WIZ otherwise (at low level at least).
I am not concerned with wizard´s damage, at least at low levels. I assume that, in order to keep a fun and challenging gameplay, there should a thrilling pendulus between burst and sustained DPS, among many other things such I explained in my post above. I am way more concerned with those, as well as the sustainability of the actual focus system (from five loaded focus down to zero) when wizards are casting 30 or 40 spells before running OOM, instead of the 8 or 9 spells low level wizards are casting.