Dear EverQuest friends,
I wish first to excuse to all for my not so perfect English which sometimes
will make difficult to understand what I wish to say without little thinking
I�m Italian so I don�t maxed English to excellent for now but I�m working on it
. I divided my letter in 3 parts first one is recapitulation of previous action
and information gathered in meantime, second is list of problems with relative
examples and third is a list of proposed modifications which can help to
compensate or eliminate this situation. Also as official place to reply and
comments to this letter is a
EQ_Wizards@onelist.com but you must first visit
www.onelist.com and get approval to write in this group please send all your
comments to this place it is much better then any message board to menage
posts. If you dont wich to reply to list my personal email is
Wizard@...
Some time passed after I started a first petition for wizard class and we don�t
get any official reply to at last I don�t have seen it, I have seen some
modification in last patch that decreased a wizard casting time better to say I
noted most a decreasing of recovery time for a force shock spell which I
started to use. But this last modification is only part of a all casters
classes rebuild and is mainly introduced to compensate faster damage dealing
from a necromancers (DOUBLED damage done in unit of time, enchanters, and
magicians pets spells) so I talked with some of my friends which are high lv
40+ and I started o be seriously preoccupied as one of them messaged me this �
We are useless against reds, yellow resist our spells 60% of time and GREEN in
najena once resisted 2 lighting bolts! So I started a bard and a paladin to get
some satisfaction� second thing was a message which I received from other
player which I know � none is so crazy to get a wizard in his group against a
Lady Vox we will never get kill he will be resisted all time, we can use it
only for evacuation and to kill low mobs fast so that warriors don�t have to
spend HP and mana on healing from low guys, but for this he don�t need to be in
group�
Problems with wizard class
1.) Many people hate wizards as kill stealers and think they are too
powerful with their fast transport by teleport so they don�t have to be buffed
any more ! (WRONG)
First wizard is very weak class once a monster get on you at higher levels
there is no hope to survive for him. Kill stealing for now exists in places
where many groups fight a newly respawned monsters and nearly all at middle lv
from 16 to 29 as I seen and against blue monsters where one wizard hit is 35
40 % of total HP what monster have . Places like high hold, south ro, lake
rathe comes to mind. But to get a whole picture you must also imagine that a
wizard will never go steal in any high lv dungeon, only try to imagine lone
wizard stealing a Fire giant wizard (guy can burn a lv 40 player with one spell
and is in depth of a dungeon full of similar MOBs) so this is only temporally
middle lv problem when wizard start to get his high damage spells and all are
hunting in intermediate overcrowded areas. So this problem is same as low lv
casters which look a mob at which they hack half hour killed by warrior classes
which pass by in 4 sec for this all say it is normal casters are weak at start
eheheeheh :-). High level transportation is not only wizard domain lets look at
one other class which have SOW AND transportation! I really wish to make one
other statistic here in. Question is really simple FROM ALL CLASSES WICH
ONE DIE
MOST ? reply to this is simple WIZARD ! Think about it !
2.) mana inefficient use !
Now Verant start to see mistakes they create with warrior class when will you
admit a mistakes in wizard class. Verant guys say a wizard is class which we
balance all other casters on so we will not touch it, hell you buffed and
rebalance all other class and until now you don�t have seen a weakness of
wizard class I�m angry at this one mistake!
I look at wizard from opposite direction wizards are ONLY magic only class !!
They are like a warrior or monk class which is only pure simple weapon user,
wizards class are simple spell only damage dealer and they are penalized in
same time with all magic restrictions much much more than any other caster
class. Fizzles or resists are much more dangerous and time wasting for a wizard
they are death for him! Why ? .. because as wizard without mana cannot fight,
cannot run and can only die. A little example of this is what I say in one of
my previous letters it that we use more mana to deal same kill than any other
caster class !!
First hand example .. after I got lv 21 I decided to go to lake rathe to try
powerleveling killing aviak guards I go to a little 2 aviak isle and there was
already one very nice enchanter which solo this hut but admitted my company to
share a spawn spot we passed very nice time there and I noted that he can alone
solo any bird using only 2 bubbles of his mana he can lull one and pull only
one bird on him also ! His pet killed it easy and all time when I have to go to
sell he soloed 2 birds easy. On the other side I used from min 3 bubbles of
mana and to OOM where he at last two times saved my life. Ok I say he is higher
lv so he spend less mana. Then comes a lv 17 enchanter on isle and we get him
in turn he spend all mana but he can solo same bird what I nearly die from.
What was my main problem? Resistance ! I spend 200 mana in every fight at
resisted spells !! and it is normally at last one force shock and some roots
and flame shock! It is one bubble and half of my mana !! and I have +23 INT and
+70 mana in items ! cc 770 total. 22 lv.
Lets think at this on this way at lv 50 one necromancer and one wizard decide
to kill all in dungeon of najena how will they do this in shortest time
possible?
- Necromancer summon a skeleton and leave it kill all what moves,
loot all
items and sell for great profit don�t wasting any time for meditation also.
(this is same for all pet owners)
- Wizard on other time sit and memorized his lower lv spells WICH ARE NOT
SO MANA EFFICENT AS HIGER LV SPELLS so he have to spend much more mana to deal
same damage but for most guys here in this will be waste of mana to use a high
lv ones. He kill some ogre guards, elementals and tentacles to start with and
is OOM so he find one place and start to meditate to get some mana back, argh
one guard passing buy start hacking at him so he needs to root it until get
some mana to kill it��.. and so on long story. I hope you get what I wish to
say.
3.) Resistance of high lv mobs BUT also low lv ones
Wizard is a group class which is used to stop and destroy fleeing monsters in
normal battles with root and by giving a last deadly touch and to intercept and
destroy a dangerous MOBs which try to join a fray. At last it is what I
understand maybe I�m wrong. There are some thing what I never understand or
used AE and PAE spells which Verant guys put in and which are absolutely
useless and can be only used as a fast suicide, glimpse spells are also very
useless as I seen for now they probably remain from times where you can used
them for aiming bolts which were limitless range? There is also one presumption
that a MOB is less resistant when he is wounded but I�m not sure on this and
this will be a nice add on?
If a wizard is a group class then why they put in a high MOB resistance? I
think it is because they donut wish a group of wizards dealing high damage make
a short work of much higher lv MOB. But here are Two mistakes in this what
result of this is. Wizards are useless in group fighting high lv mobs! And I
think that we will need to wait quite a bit of time to find someone to fight a
lady Vox, beautiful dragon and that she will be considered blue to him! So
wizards are deprived from a pleasure of reaching many hard victories. I was in
a group which hunt najena for example and my friends were from a lv 20 26 and I
was lv 20. First time I used all my mana on fear and with resisted fizzles I
don�t have any damage !! 0 !! null , bard which was a same lv helped in
combat actually hitting her, healed with his song and so on I was totally
useless. Druid 23 cast a damage shield, combat and healed. Only useless one was
me wizard not great feeling I can assure you. Ok next example I fight a blue
aviak guard great !! I�m at last 3 lv higher and in one combat he resist at
last 2 of my spells and sometimes 4 !! I use 10 to 12 spells in all combat so
this is from 20 % to 40 % of my mana wasted !! with high risk that I will die
if 2 roots are resisted or not hold long enough!
CONCLUSION what to change to make wizard at last worth a time invested to
develop it to high levels and to make this way at last more funny.
A.) Game mechanic !
Magic resistance If for balance reasons you cant make all wizard spells less
resisted which is very dubious for me but as I don�t know game mechanic I can
accept this. Then you can make a spell recovery time doubled but mana is not
wasted, AND monster don�t get a full hit on his hate list if you don�t damage
it make it 1/6 spell max damage.
I think there is much place to redo a magic resistance in base of group lv in
difference of MOB lv.
Kill stealing I suggest that a wizard damage is reverse proportional to full
health of MOB so a wizard do less damage at start of battle as MOB have full
health and do more and more damage as MOB have less and after passed 50% he can
gain a full hit. But to compensate this a wizard spend only mana for damage
inflicted. So only fix thing for a spell is a damage to mana ratio. All other
is calculated. Hmm I know this is a difficult one to get programmed but I liked
idea.
Faster mana regeneration, - I suggest that wizard get max meditation skill
7*(leve+1) for recovering mana faster. That is because a wizard is ONLY I
repeat only magic fully dependent class. All other classes can have pets which
are permanent 0 mana damage spell, can cast many buffs transfer hit points to
mana, summon things��..
B.) Modification to spells !
Shadow step there are many solutions one is what I see in previous post on
eq_wizards to make it not any more random direction but in direction where you
are looking to with higher minimum range.
Other is my idea to give it a 30 40% chance to be permanently removed from MOB
heat list and the last lets MOB have to wait a 2 or 5 seconds until they start
to chase you again.
So solution can be to make it a personal teleport with radius stun spell!
AE and PEA spells my opinion to make this spells useful is to add to them a
invulnerability component like a clerics have but with no move component. So
you cast a spell it hit 5 guys and 3 leave what they were fighting before and
start hacking at wizard ! but wizard is temporary invulnerable so his group
members have some time to get a MOBs from him. I also added a auto-root so that
it cant be used to run from battle to balance.
Invisibility lets it start to blink before it wears off now it is too risky to
be used.
Disintegrate series of spells DD and AE High level kill only low mana spells
which kills green MOB fast and without wasting too much mana it is used for
cleaning. To compensate its power it also DESTROY all items and money a MOB
have so no loot !! and no experience. Kill only so you cent help someone making
experience. It is to compensate somehow wizard inability to deal with a green
mobs without loosing exaggerating much mana.
Gaze spell series What for is this ? You think that I will stay on zone wall
and look around or this have some better use?
Verant at last for my look on it balanced classes and races with time and
effort needed to reach certain level so a human wizard is penalized with low
mana and lack of infravision but is advantaged with high experience gain
against dark elf who start with high night vision and high INT but is KOS in
many places. But they forgot to think about frustration of how many times a
wizard die, without hope to gain satisfaction of giving a killing blow to any
monster higher than a lv or two from him all time judged too powerful and so
expected must to meditate all time looking on his beautiful Spell book hoping
that something will not jump on him so that he will have to waste his mana and
again meditate.
Post scriptum --- Thanks you for reading it all I put much time into this
letter and I�m not paid for it to be more precise I�m paying to write it (hmm
any place in online game industry for me?). I like this game very much and I
appreciate a job which a Verant guys do very much they created one of greatest
games ever! Of course there is many things which take too much time to get
resolved, and worst of all feedback is lost in mass boards and lists there is
no central FAQ or PLAN . They created a beautiful and very complicated game and
they I�m sure have lost many nights working on it and thinking about problems,
all my moaning and lamentation is to give them one I hope creative look from
other side of table from us players which wish to spend our immense quantity of
time with greater satisfaction, and that they can create our world more funny.
Silverion Dragonrider
Fenin Ro - land of endless souls