Wizard DPS, agro wiping, bards and DA song

[EZ_Prexus Krynos]

Want to crank your Wizardly DPS through the roof? This is a very simple way to let

you nuke more than you ever thought possible without getting dead.

All you need is a bard or for long fights 2 bards.

Set your group up something like this...

(mob has AE that you are likely to take)
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard
Bard
Druid (for heals / cures etc)

or

(Pure melee mob or mob with avoidable AE, and low hps)
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard
Bard

or

(Pure melee mob or mob with avoidable AE, high hps)
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard
Bard
Bard

Now the important thing is that the bard have the DA song "Kazumi's Note of

Preservation" When sung everyone in the group who is within the radius of the song

becomes invincible like the priest class DA spell.

The cool thing is though... when your grouped with a bard and they group DA song...

it wipes your agro down to 1 point.

So basically it works like this. You have one wizard in the group who will call

nukes and DA. Once the fight is in progress and the mob is suitably agro'd on your

main tank, that wizard calls "nuke" everyone then begins to chain cast nukes on the

mob. When the agro is building to a level where Wizard death is imminent, the "DA"

call is made. At the point all the wizards lose all thier agro but one point. You

can then chain nuke again.

Kazumi's Note of Preservation has a refresh time of 3 minutes, so on a long fight

you may want to have 2 bards in the group or swap out the bard once DA is used with

a bard with it ready to go.

If the fight is going to be long, and your short on bards, it is a good idea to

nuke / concuss / nuke / concuss to extend the duration between DA's as you have

only one bard available.

Also, once the DA song hits, you can click it off without having to wait for it to

run it's full duration and still get the agro wipe.

The spell "Divine Aura" works differently to the bard song "Kazumi's Note of

Preservation". The spell does not wipe agro. The song does.

- Krynos
- Arcanist

[EZ_Charmy1]

DA does not wipe you from the agro list. You have 1 point of hate for the duration of the spell. When that spell has worn off you return to your previous amount of hate. Hopefully during that 15 or so seconds the other characters around you have built up more hate than you had prior to the cast of DA.

This agro management method will not buy you anything as far as agro reduction more than the wizards just not casting for the duration of the DA song. The nuke focus does retain it's effectiveness though.
Charmy D'Vecia ~ Coercer

[EZ_Roufas]

lucy.fnord.net/spell.html...ource=Live Roufas - Maestro of Utopian

[EZ_Swipey]

My wizard is 54, and often groups with tanks who are significantly higher level, so agro isnt what limits his damage, mostly. What does limit it is mana recovery.

With horse (continuous med), KEI, manaskin, familiar, Harvest and solstice earring, he recovers 38 mana per tick.

His most efficient nuke, with foci (damage, mana preservation) and specialization does about 4 damage per mana, if nothing gets resisted.

His most efficent rain (3 waves) with foci/pecialization, does about 6 damage per mana, again, if nothing gets resisted (much less likely with a rain vs a draught)

SO...
Starting at full mana (~3000) in a one hour camp (600 ticks) he will have 25800 mana to spend (3000 initial, +22800 recovered) which would convert to 154800 DPH (Damage per Hour) at most (all cast in unresisted rains, yeah right!)

A more accurate figure would be about 3/4 of that, 116100 DPH, tops. Rains get resisted a lot.

Now, a 54 rogue in another thread (Opeth Blackwater) reported his DPS as 70ish average with peaks up in the 100-110 range. This, of course, is only while engaged. His DPH varies widely depending on how much uptime (engaged time) there is in the group.

A 54 wizard (mine) works kinda the other way. Instead of steady DPS and variable DPH depending on uptime, he has Variable DPS and steady DPH depending on uptime.

Rogue : 70 DPS * seconds uptime per hour = DPH
30% uptime (slow pulls) = 1080 seconds = 75600 DPH
50% uptime (avg pulls) = 1800 seconds = 126000 DPH
70% uptime (fast pulls) = 2520 seconds = 176400 DPH

Wizard : 116100 DPH / seconds uptime per hour = DPS
30% uptime (slow pulls) = 1080 seconds = 107.5 DPS
50% uptime (avg pulls) = 1800 seconds = 64.5 DPS
70% uptime (fast pulls) = 2520 seconds = 46 DPS


In the end, if youre in a slow pulling group, get a wizard. If you're in a fast pulling group, get a rogue. If you think burst damage or evacs might be useful, the wizard gains points, as he does if you just want the convenience of a TL out at the end. But basically, the Rogue > the Wizard for well-oiled, fast pull exp grinds that do not have anything unexpected happen.


Ultimately, on a raid, putting a bard in with 5 casters is a great idea anyway, just because of the mana recovery song. Trying to pull agro tricks doesnt outweigh this.



PS: like DA, the agro returns after the duration is up. It isnt wiped so much as supressed.

[EZ_Zassk]

Charmy, the original poster said that the bard DA song DOES wipe your hate down to 1 pt, whereas the spell DA gives all your hate points back when it expires. If true, then it makes bard DA more useful than spell DA.
Sassinak (Warlord)
Zassk (Swifttail)
Elany (Heretic)

[EZ_Swipey]

My point was that agro isnt the limiting factor on a wizard's damage if you are looking at not just a single fight, but a series of them in a camp/raid situation.

I mean, why not put 5 rogues in with the bard, and have em BS like crazy and just forget about that unreliable "Evade" hotkey, using the bard's DA song to wipe agro every time they biuld up enough for it to matter?

Or better yet, put a bard in every group, except the Tank Group, which contains just the MA, the SA, and a third character who's only job is to target whichever tank needs healing and indicate via hotkeys which cleric should CH them. That way, anytime ANYONE other than MA/SA gets any agro, the bard plays his little tune, resets agro to 1, then immediately clicks the tune off so the cleric (and others) are available again.

Saves the Wizard from overnuking agro.
Saves the Cleric from healing agro.
Saves the Shaman from debuff agro
Saves the Chanter from debuff/Mezzfail agro
etc.

It doesnt work so well if the agro isnt actually wiped though.

[EZ_Slassh]

I got to agree with original poster. bard DA adds huge DPS.

If a wizzy can expend all their mana without this method, then the raid has low DPS.

Anon

[EZ_beastmaze]

I have yet to see a good wizard that is not able to get close to his max DPS during a raid on a high HP Mob.
If your wise and you time your nuke well you should be close to OOM when the fight end.
You start nukeing early and just spread your damge, the lower the HP mobs the faster you nuke, as long as you keep an eye about the MA agro level during the small fights BEFORE the main mob you should be able to know how fast to nuke.
And today with horses you don't even need to sit after the nukes so that save lots of mana and agro.
Beasthealer druid 65
darkmoon

[EZ_Swipey]

I just gotta ask...

Who among those who have responded to this thread actually plays a raiding level wizard? Edited by: Swipey at: 2/28/03 1:09:25 am

[EZ_Ramierez]

I'm a 65 wizard in a raiding guild, and while I like the idea, assuming the bard DA wiping aggro permanently is true, I'd have to say that it'd be better served in a cleric Cheal order group than with me. I can manage my aggro, a cleric has to heal regardless and therefore can't really. Only way I can see it being a greater benefit for a wizard group than cleric is if it's a "kill it before it kills you" mob and you want it burned hard. Edited by: Ramierez at: 2/27/03 6:02:23 am