• You've discovered RedGuides 📕 an EverQuest multi-boxing community 🛡️🧙🗡️. We want you to play several EQ characters at once, come join us and say hello! 👋
  • IS THIS SITE UGLY? Change the look. To dismiss this notice, click the X --->

Guide - Guide to Playing a 105 EoK era Wizard: Part I (1 Viewer)

aspire2008

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 10, 2012
RedCents
2,825¢
Guide to Playing a 105 EoK era Wizard: Part I



<<<INTRO>>>
This guide version is for a 105 group geared wizard with maxed out AA through EoK, all 105 spells up through EoK should be acquired. Your mana pool should be over 100k mana for this guide to be effective. You can use the weave in this guide for 96 through 100 spell line as well and it should be just as effective i.e. if you only have up to RoF expansion, just use the equivalent version of the spell that corresponds to the same in the weaves I've mentioned.



There are many ways to play a wizard, but the information in this guide is how I normally play my wizard and setup my conditions for macros (Part 2 of this guide will be found in the Level 2 section as it primarily deals with conditionals for KA and other macros). Most of the information in this guide was gathered from various websites and sources, which I'll footnote at the bottom of this guide if you feel like reading up on further strategies.



Lastly, I do not main a wizard, so all the information is derived from reading numerous forums, threads on people who are more of experts at playing a wizard.




<<<The Core - Best DPS spells and Weaving>>>
Weaving


This is 95% of everything you do as a wizard class, the rest (itemization & adps).


Theoretically, your best DPS spells are, in order from best to worst:

1. Cloudburst Stormstrike
2. Magmatic Burst
3. Ethereal Skyblaze
4. Ethereal Rimeblast
5. Ethereal Flash

6. Claw of the Flameweaver/Oceanlord
7. Shocking Vortex
8. Ethereal Fuse

Noticed I said theoretically, that means your weave (how you rotate and cycle the spells) can change due to various factors. This is not how you would weave these spells in real world situations, as many other things need to be factored in to your decision of your best obtainable dps, especially the most powerful wizard spell - The wizard Claw line of spells (more on Claw and how powerful a spell it is further down, read on!).



If we look at Rank I of Cloudburst Stormstrike vs Rank I of Ethereal Skyblaze,

Cloudburst Stormtrike
16278 damage / (0 sec cast time + 1.5sec GCD + recast time of 3 secs) = 16278 / 4.5 total seconds = 3617dps

Vs.


Ethereal Skyblaze
30231 damage / (3.75sec cast time + 1.5sec GCD + 5.5 sec recast time) = 30231 / 10.75 total seconds = 2812dps

GCD = Global Cool Down time, this varies depending on your latency to the EQ server. You should never use a value of 1.5 sec in your calculation unless you are playing from the EQ server room J. A value of 1.8 secs to 2.0 secs with a latency between 75ms to 120ms is more realistic. Your distance to the server greatly effects your GCD time. If you are in Asia or Europe and have 200ms or more then you need to approximate your GCD to be higher than 2.0 secs.
So you can see Cloudburst easily out dps's your highest damage nuke (Ethereal Skyblaze). But, each has its own benefits on which to cast first in the weave.

Ideally, if conditions were perfect your weave would be:

Claw >> Cloudburst >> Magmatic Burst >> Ethereal Fuse > Ethereal Skyblaze >> Claw

Due to the nature of Magmatic Burst being a rain spell, it becomes a very situational spell as it can break mezzes, makes tank lose agro on adds, kill you, etc..So while it's an amazing dps spell (and very mana efficient), it can be very sour to use in a lot of situations.


There are 2 weaves I primarily use and each has its own benefits in real world settings.



Weave # 1 - Burst mode weave



Shocking Vortex >> Claw of the Flameweaver >> Ethereal Fuse >> Ethereal Skyblaze >> Cloudburst Stormstrike/Ethereal Rimeblast > Claw

Real world scenarios -When to use?
a) group setting, when your fight time is < 15 secs
b) group setting, when burning i.e. namers
c) when mana isn't an issue as this weave is very inefficient on mana
d) when you or your group is moving a lot and not camping 1 spot (due to Cloudburst Stormstrike debuff rooting you, you can switch to Ethereal Rimeblast in the weave)

Weave #2 - mana efficiency weave



Shocking Vortex >> Claw of the Oceanlord/Flamewing >> Cloudburst Stormstrike > Ethereal Fuse >> Ethereal Skyblaze > Claw

Real world scenarios -When to use?
a) Chain pulling, when you know you will never go out of combat

b) When you are camping in one spot without moving (due to the nature of Cloudburst debuff rooting you)
c) When you know you will be weaving for a long time i.e > 6+ hours of playing in 1 spot

d) When you are having mana issues.

Notice, the only thing that is changing is the movement of Cloudburst Stormstrike in both weaves. Generally, if you are struggling with mana you move up Cloudburst in the weave.


When you play for hours at a time, you start approaching your perfect theoretical possible conditions as RNG becomes less of a factor.





<<<Claw of the XXX>>>


If I'm taking the time to write a paragraph on this one spell over all others, it means you should really pay attention to this part, as this is your most important wizard spell even though it is very poor dps. Any Claw you use (fire, ice, magic, note: spell line is on same timer, you can only use 1), procs a bunch of beneficial effects:

[44608/16653] Claw of the Flameweaver
Classes: WIZ/103
Skill: Evocation
Mana: 1535
Target: Single
Range: 200'
Resist: Fire -20
Reflectable: Yes
Trigger Spell DS: Yes
Focusable: Yes
Casting: 3s, Recast: 6s, Timer: 11, Rest: 1.5s
Recourse: Fire Claw Reflection
1: Decrease Current HP by 19651
2: Cast: Blazing Infiltration (33% Chance)
Text: You are rent by fiery claws.
Claws your target with fire, doing #1 damage. There is a #2% chance this spell will provide enhancements to your casting ability.

[44544] Blazing Infiltration
Target: Single
Range: 300'
Resist: Fire -300
Reflectable: Yes
Focusable: Yes
Casting: 0s
Duration: 2m (20 ticks), Dispelable: Yes
5: Decrease Fire Resist by 52
Text: You feel a burning sensation.
Decreases your target's resistance to fire.
[44611] Fire Claw Reflection
Target: Self
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
Focusable: Yes
Casting: 0s
1: Cast: Syllable of Fire (35% Chance)
2: Cast: Syllable of Ice (5% Chance)
3: Cast: Syllable of Magic (5% Chance)
4: Cast: Syllable of Mastery (12% Chance)
5: Cast: Twincast (10% Chance)
6: Cast: Syllable of Angerwarding (12% Chance)
7: Cast: Syllable of Mana Boost (15% Chance)
8: Cast: Syllable of Refreshment (6% Chance)
Randomly reflects spell effects back to the caster.


The most important of these beneficial effects are Syllable of Refreshment and Twincast. While the other Syllables are nice, they are in no way as important as these 2 effects because your weave depends greatly on these 2 effects.



Syllable of Refreshment, resets all your spell gem timers except for Twincast !!
That means it resets the 36 sec cooldown of Ethereal Fuse/ 24sec cooldown Shocking Vortex (which is why its higher up in the weave compared to other better dps spells). But more importantly it resets your Harvest and Gambit spell lines as well, i.e. therefore you can gain mana back faster with Refreshment proc if you use Gambit right afterwards (more on the importance of Gambit over Harvest further down in the guide, read on!). Which means you don't have to spend so much time medding and more time dps'ing !! Because every second you spend medding means you are not dps'ing at all.


The Twincast proc is straight forward, it greatly boosts your dps if you get a Twincast proc.
a) Claw should always be the single most spell you cast per hour compared to your 2nd most frequent cast spell. 2nd most being (Cloudburst or Skyblaze, depending on your weave setup).
b) Claw should also be cast as much as you can when you have Twincast buff on you. Why? Each time you cast Claw during a Twincast it further increases the chance of another Twincast or Syllable of Refreshment proc! Please see the excel sheet bookmarked at the bottom for actual proc rates calculations done by Sancus, for each successive proc.


Given the importance of (a) and (b), you should be casting the Claw line 2x more often then your 2nd most frequent cast spell. Which is why you always weave claw first minus if you use Shocking Vortex. The best way to check that is load up Gamparse and make sure you are getting 2x more cast of Claw per hour. And for fucks sakes, stop using the built in option in KA to check your dps or the mq2DPSAdv plugin. They are just horrible at parsing.





<<<Harvest vs. Gambit>>>



[44589/16606] Quiescent Harvest
Classes: WIZ/102
Skill: Alteration
Mana: 1
Target: Self
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
Focusable: No
Casting: 12s, Recast: 7m, Timer: 3, Rest: 3s
1: Increase Current Mana by 21722


Vs.

[50286/16660] Quiescent Gambit
Classes: WIZ/104
Skill: Abjuration
Mana: 1023
Restriction: Cannot Remove
Target: Self
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
Focusable: No
Casting: 1.5s, Recast: 7m, Timer: 3, Rest: 1.5s
Duration: 18s (3 ticks) Song, Extendable: No, Dispelable: Yes
Max Hits: 4 Matching Spells
1: Increase Spell Damage by 7605 (After Crit)
2: Cast: Quiescent Refreshment if Max Hits Used
3: Limit Max Level: 115 (lose 10% per level)
4: Limit Effect: Current HP
5: Limit Type: Detrimental
6: Cast: Quiescent Reflection on Duration Fade
7: Limit Max Duration: 0s
8: Limit Min Level: 99
9: Limit Max Casting Time: 3s
10: Limit Min Mana Cost: 100
Text: You attempt a magical gambit.
Adds #1 damage to quick casting spells. If all 4 charges are used before %z passes, a large amount of mana will be returned to you. If this spell wears off naturally, you will be damaged and receive a smaller amount of mana.
[50292] Quiescent Reflection
Target: Self
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
Focusable: No
Casting: 0s
1: Increase Current Mana by 12296
2: Decrease Current HP by 11305
Text: Your gambit fails!
Grants you #1 mana and damages you for #2.
[50289] Quiescent Refreshment
Target: Self
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
Focusable: Yes
Casting: 0s
1: Increase Current Mana by 19833
Text: Your gambit pays off!


STOP using the Harvest line to gain back mana. You need to get into a habit of using Bucolic or Quiescent Gambit depending on your level. The benefit of the Gambit line greatly exceeds using harvest. First of all, just based off cast times alone, Gambit with 1.5 sec cast time vs Harvest 12 sec cast time. That means you are not doing any dps in that time frame if you are harvesting. So a net difference of 10.5 secs of zero dps. Every second you med or are casting you are not dps'ing so just stop using that crap spell line. Start using Gambit.

Gambit also has additional benefits. It adds (after crit) dmg to 4 spells so that means it slightly increases your dps. It however returns less mana than Harvest, about 1889 less mana for a slight dps bump if you use it properly.
What do I mean by using it properly? You need to use up all 4 procs of Gambit buff that shows up in the song window to receive its full benefit or else you get even less mana returned back. The spell has to be < 3 sec cast time, so its best to chain a few fast casting spells to use up the Gambit counters.


The last thing about Gambit/Harvest. If you've been paying attention to what I mentioned about Claw earlier, it will reset the reuse cooldown of these spells if Syllable of Refreshment procs of Claw. That is even more incentive to be casting Gambit whenever its off cooldown to keep your mana topped off. That means you are spending less time medding = better overall dps.


For fucks sake, stop using Force of Will, Flame and Ice AA abilities.


Pretty much the above. They are shit spells ever since the nerf last year (2016) when mana values were added to them. They are extremely inefficient mana usage spells and not worth the time of dps'ing. The most often defense I get from people is "I like to weave them between the spell global cooldowns". Just stop, you are not helping yourself by casting these as all they do is deplete your mana for how bad they are at dps'ing. Which means you will eventually run out of mana and sit there medding, when you could be dps'ing continuously. They were quite useful when they were free mana spells, and it made sense to cast them. But you need to remove them from your weave.

While I'm mentioning these AA, stop using Banestrike in your weave. 15k dmg on a 5 million + hp mob is not helping you dps, its laughable. That's 15k dmg every 1 minute i.e. horrible dps. You don't need to be stupid because the EQ developers are stupid and won't update this line. Not to mention the Banestrike spell doesn't crit either.

Familiars and Pyromancy - use them. You should be using Kerafyrm's Familiar






<<<Burning>>>

Burn 1: Silent Casting >Mana Burn> Frenzied Devastation > Arcane Fury > 2nd Spire> Improved Twincast > Intensity of the Resolute


Burn 2: Silent Casting (if up) > Arcane Destruction> Arcany Fury (if up) > ITC (if up)


That should be your 2 burns. Personally, I never save Frenzied Devastation and use it whenever its off cool down. Frenzied Devastation does not stack with Arcane Destruction is the only reason why its split into 2 burns.

Generally, speaking if it's a long recast time you save the disc for named mob.



My rule of thumb is any disc that's < 7 min recast, I use it when its off cooldown. If its > 7 mins < 15 mins, this a grey area, and usually I use these when there are more than 3 mobs in camp or there is a Named in camp. If the disc is > 15 min recast I use it solely for namers.



So using Frenzied Devastation as an example:


Frenzied Devastation, recast 12m, Song duration: 5m42s w/ extenstion, Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 50% && Increase Critical Nuke Damage by 175% of Base Damage, if Named or 3 mobs and SONG is not Arcane Destruction)

Notice the song duration is 5m42s, so the effective recast time is 12minutes minus 5m42s.

One more example, Fury of Kerafyrm:

Fury of Kerafyrm (AA, recast 15m w/ max hastened, buff duration 8.5m w/extension, increase dmg by 1500 on dd spells, if buff not Fury of Ro)

So the effective recast is 15 minutes minus 8.5m duration.





<<<ADPS, (before crit) vs (after crit) dmg, and + Spell Dmg mod2 values>>>


ADPS(attributed DPS) can play role in your burn and dps, it's not as important as your weave but still important. Enchanter, Druids and Bards are your friends for ADPS so its always nice to have them around or box one. As their buffs can improve your critical rate as well change base dmg critical mod values.

De-aggro and ADPS (attributed DPS) buffs/debuffs that you can add to your burn -for example Fury of Ro/Kerafyrm, Arcane Whisper, Shocking Vortex Effect etc, all of this is discussed in Part II of this guide, as primarily these are setup as conditions.

I will talk briefly about Shocking Vortex here in Part I, since it is part of your weave. If you have Evoker's Synergy AA trained to max, Shocking Vortex procs a buff called Evoker's Synergy I, which adds about 25k (before crit) dmg to your next non-fire based spell. Not only that, but it applies a debuff on the mob that adds 50 to 100% variable (before crit) dmg to any dd spell with 100 mana cost or more. This is primarily a ADPS spell for that reason. I have not parsed if it should come before Claw in the weave or after Claw in the weave, but for now I have included it as casting before Claw in the weave.


(Before Crit) vs (After Crit) dmg is fairly straightforward, anything marked as Before Crit dmg is always better than After Crit dmg. BC dmg is multiplicative, which means it receives the same benefit from your base crit multiplier, while AC dmg is additive which means it is pretty much poor dps.


Examples of Before Crit dmg are Evoker's Synergy, Shocking Vortex Effect, Ancient Hedgewizard Brew, enchanter Mana reiteration line, certain bard songs etc. You should always try to get as much Before Crit Dmg as you can stack.

After Crit dmg is additive so its dps but not great I would even go as far and say its fairly poor to utter shit dps. Examples of that are + Spell Damage Mod 2, Gambit dmg counters, etc.


Time for another "fucks sakes". Stop itemizing around + Spell Damage Mod 2 stat. Its fairly worthless, you are better off itemizing around mana or ac/hp than up your + Spell Damage Mod. I'm going to briefly explain how bad this stat is.

Assume your + Spell Damage Mod value is 1500 spell damage.

(Cast_Time + Recast_Time) / 7 * Spell_Damage = bonus damage per hit of spell
If we take Ethereal Skyblaze as an example,
(3.75s + 5.5s)/7 * 1500 = 1.32 * 1500 = 1980 extra (after crit) dmg

Compare that to another (after crit) dmg buff Quiescent Gambit



1: Increase Spell Damage by 7605 (After Crit).

So you are better off casting Quiescent Gambit then trying to itemize around Spell Damage mod stats.


Keep in mind these are (after crit) values, so they still pretty much aren't good dps when you put them in perspective against (before crit) dmg.


For example, Evoker's Synergy I, adds 25k dmg. Being that this is (before crit) dmg, it gets multiplied by your crit multiplier value (dependent on buffs you have on you and your aa's etc). Typically, with max AA, Evoker's Synergy crits for ~128k for me).

So 1980 dmg added to your spell vs. 7605 added to your spell vs 128k dmg added you to your spell on a mob that has 5 million + hp (typical EoK mob), its pretty laughable worrying about (after crit) dmg.



So in summary, try to hoard (before crit) dmg and don't waste your time with (after crit) dmg.





<<<Itemization>>>


Worn weapon effects seem to be (before crit) dmg. That means you should use a 2 hander weapon over a primary + shield. Reason being the base dmg value of the 2handers nowadays have a higher value, and will crit for more.


Type 3 augs - If you are not using these shame on you! These are (before crit) dmg, meaning it adds to your base dmg of the spell and before your crit multiplier is applied to the spell.


Miniature Horn of Unity - get this, it helps your mana


Robe - Use a robe that returns mana



Item clickies that do direct damage - Stop using these garbage spells. Its laughable. They don't crit and they do shit dmg like Banestrike. One example being Necrotic Dragon Bone , it does ~20k dmg. If you are fairly certain you are not going to harm being off your Global Cooldown (meaning you will get the cast off before your GCD is over), then I suppose you can weave this into your weave, but otherwise I would just avoid using item clicks that do dmg, they are laughable dps on modern expansion EQ mobs that have 5+ million hp.


Ancient Hedgewizard Brew - use this, its (before crit) dmg, infact try to have this available at all times, its 3 hour buff that improves your dps more than all the crappy (after crit) dmg put together.










References



I strongly suggest starting here:

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...h-me-how-to-dougie-105-wizard-edition.233230/
and here:
http://forums.eqfreelance.net/index.php?topic=3166.0


Sancus - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...OwUCobashAdbqqRVvyWJ-be0Q/edit#gid=1044445875



Beimeith - http://elitegamerslounge.com/home/calculator/EQ_Spell_Damage_Calculator.xlsm


http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/eqwizards/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=72

http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/eqwizards/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=26




Tools

Kizant - Wizard DPS Web App

http://aws-website-dpscalc-h7kq8.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/#

Gamparse - Learn to use this, it will help you tweak your weave, adps, and spells conditions for macros

http://gambosoft.eqresource.com/downloads.php
 
Last edited:
Are rains not fixed at 40pct crit rate anymore?


Believe they are still capped at 40% from the nerf in 2015? I've read on the eq boards that its still better to use rains if you have 3-4 mobs in camp as their still better overall dps over the ethereals, but I've never attempted to try using rains as it would require some coordination with your tank/or tank macro to be able to be keep aggro on those mobs in those type of situations.

The ini I posted in Part II, in the level 2 section, will not use the rain spell but for one specific situation.
 
Give arcomancy a try, especially when solo. It should add a bit more DPS than pyro since it adds an OK amount of before crit damage. And as long as you're using cloudburst/vortex it should proc plenty. Plus when it backfires it doesn't do any damage to you, which is nice. Oh and as a small bonus is it has a magic resist debuff and considering cloudburst probably gets resisted more than anything else it's nice to have.
 
Guide - Guide to Playing a 105 EoK era Wizard: Part I

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top