Newb Wizard to Shroud

[Thok]

So I almost have my wizard flagged for the Shroud. I've run through that quest alot with other toons, but since I don't usually play casters I haven't paid alot of attention to what the caster does. I know that casters do crowd control and fod/pk in part 1, in part 2 they pretty much destroy the crystal when the other bosses are dead (not sure on the details there), in part 3 I don't think they do anything special (aside from puzzle solving and water running like everyone else), and parts 4 and 5 I don't really know. Could someone give me a detailed explanation of what my wizard should do in the Shroud so I can go in there somewhat prepared? Any specific or special spells needed? I'd like to go in and not be a hindrance to the party. Thanks!

[Sirea]

Part 1: rove around and either webs/CK on portals or FoD/PK the spawns. Caste haste/rage on the portal beaters.

Part 2: Main task is either isolating one of the elementals (have FoM on you for the earth elle and fire resist/pro/fireshield for the fire elle), or breaking the crystal.

Part 3: Solving puzzles and running water. If you get to the fountain and the barrier is still up, throw a FW or a disint at the crystals. Buff up the party before you shrine.

Part 4: Cast fogs on Harry and keep haste/pro/rage on the tanks. Save enough mana to FoD/PK, the regen gnolls when they come out. When Harry's HPs get low (less than 10% and blades are still far out) mana dump with Polar Ray and Ball lightning.

Part 5: Buff party as soon as everyone rezzes. Get your mana back in a pool. Same as part 4, minus the gnolls. DDoor for those who might want to leave when the battle is over.

[Chiapet]

The main thing to remember about playing a mage in the Shroud is mana conservation. I have to constantly remind myself of this when running my Sorc through the Shroud. As a Wizard, you do have 1 advantage to loading spells that I must carry in scroll form. I would definatly keep FoD & PK, but I would also load spells such as Solid Fog, CloudKill, Acid Fog, Mind Fog, Waves of Exhaustion. Rememeber No dancing balls in part 1. I would most definatly keep Greater Hero, Haste, & Blur loaded also. Also, keep Polar Ray, Harry hates it really bad. You will need Firewall, and Distenergrate is always a plus, espically for the crystal. Your main job in part 4 & 5 is buffing the DPS & throwing crowd control in Harry. I know that all the above CC spells work on him most of the time, but as with every other NPC, he has saving throws, and they can be pretty good. Just remember to avoid his DBF's and Metor Swarms & you should be fine.

[Ollathir]

... Also, Waves of Exhaustion and Waves of Fatigue work on Harry and Sally. Hit them early on.

[Sirea]

... Also, Waves of Exhaustion and Waves of Fatigue work on Harry and Sally. Hit them early on.

Heh, yes that too. If you run this raid about 15 times a week you're bound to forget stuff when you pretty much operate on auto-pilot most the time

[Quikster]

You can take one of the ele's in two or destroy the crystal. As far as the crystal goes you can place up to 4 FW on the barrier befor the last mob dies, once tha mob dies and the barrier drops the crystal will take damage from all of them and be destroyed.

load knock for pt 3

symbol of stunning is a great cc for pt 4

some type of debuff for 5. I use waves of fatigue I think (-6 to str whichever that is) and an acid fog(really the only fog you need in here)

[bandyman1]

As peeps have said; Debuff Harry. That's what seperates wizards peeps will take on another run, from wizards peeps will try and replace with a sorc in the future. Face it; Sorcs have a lot more mana than you do. If all you are going to do is staple buffs and nuke, you're easily outclassed. You're strength is versitility of spell selection, so be sure and bring the right ones for the job.

Also it should be noted; In part 4 you will have to debuff Harry each time he comes down to melee. Just be sure the gnolls are taken care of first.

[Impaqt]

Load Reconstruct and help Spot heal WF in Parts 4 and 5.

ty

[Riorik]

Part 1: rove around and either webs/CK on portals or FoD/PK the spawns. Caste haste/rage on the portal beaters.

Part 2: Main task is either isolating one of the elementals (have FoM on you for the earth elle and fire resist/pro/fireshield for the fire elle), or breaking the crystal.

Part 3: Solving puzzles and running water. If you get to the fountain and the barrier is still up, throw a FW or a disint at the crystals. Buff up the party before you shrine.

Part 4: Cast fogs on Harry and keep haste/pro/rage on the tanks. Save enough mana to FoD/PK, the regen gnolls when they come out. When Harry's HPs get low (less than 10% and blades are still far out) mana dump with Polar Ray and Ball lightning.

Part 5: Buff party as soon as everyone rezzes. Get your mana back in a pool. Same as part 4, minus the gnolls. DDoor for those who might want to leave when the battle is over.

This was the closest although there were multiple sets of good suggestions.
Ones I didn't see where:

Mass Protection - feel free to knock this out in Segment 4 & 5 to reduce fire damage for the non-evasion types.

On Segment2 - There are lots of ways to kill the crystals and no need to assume the only method is Disintegrate. I like dropping an Acid Fog plus a couple Walls of Fire (different area's so they stack) and then I walk away...usually the crystal pops within a second of the shield dropping...often it's shattered before I even realize the 4th Lieutenant has died.

[Zenako]

As a Wiz I would usually find a place for Knock on the list for Part 3 as well.
Can help speed things up.

The other thing is to offload some of the buffing burden from the clerics who WILL be using up their Spell Points on healing.

So since you will have shrining options before each part, you can swap around a few spells to have the best at each step of the way. (Like no need for Knock after part 3, just an example, not the whole recommendation.) Debuffing the Fiend can be very very useful.

Also generally make sure to have ways to quickly take out the gnolls, letting them heal the fiend for long can undo a lot of DPS goodness pretty quick.

[moops]

For part 1 & 2 just ask what the leader wants, as each server/Guild does it a bit differently.

For instance I do NOT use CC in part 1 and just want my casters to kill, and expect people to bring their own buffs. And since I like to kill 3 or 4 bosses at same time in Part 2, I ask my caster to use no AOE spells and just keep a crit Firewall ont eh Crystal, or if I have 2 or 3 ask one of them to not use any AOE and keep the Crit Firewall on the Crystal. Other times I may expect my caster to SOlo the Ele or Heal a WF on the Ele/Devil depending on our 4 Boss Pull and if there is only 1 CLeric, and if there are alot of people I don't knwo in group.

Anyway, you might need to ask since some leaders might be on auto pilot and expect that everyone knows how they run their raids.

[Wu_Jen]

Part 1 Rove around and kill the trog shamans that spawn from the portals. If you kill them all you will never seen an Orthon spawn. If the caster is doing his job you'll never even see an Orthon. If you do see one your doing it wrong. Some portals spawn way before others, learn the spawn order.

Hint: It's not the one that players run in the Shroud.

Part 2: Web & Acid Fog, Fire Shield, Wall of Fire, Polar Ray, Cone of Cold, Scorching Ray, Fireball, Finger of Death

Part 3: Knock

Part 4: Symbol of Stunning, Acid Fog, Waves of Fatigue, Waves of Exhaustion, Web, Finger of Death (Gnolls)

Part 5: Mix of 2 & 5.

[maddmatt70]

Load Reconstruct and help Spot heal WF in Parts 4 and 5.

ty

This is definitely a Thelanis thing. I have led a few shrouds on Thelanis and heard this same comment which just made me chuckle. There is nothing more inefficient then a wizard spot healing when mass healing is what the clerics are doing.. Break out the dps well before you even consider spot healing. Due whatever silly debuffs you think you need to do and then break out the dps with some mana saved in reserve for the gnolls..

[natakeu]

The main thing to remember about playing a mage in the Shroud is mana conservation. I have to constantly remind myself of this when running my Sorc through the Shroud. As a Wizard, you do have 1 advantage to loading spells that I must carry in scroll form. I would definatly keep FoD & PK, but I would also load spells such as Solid Fog, CloudKill, Acid Fog, Mind Fog, Waves of Exhaustion. Rememeber No dancing balls in part 1. I would most definatly keep Greater Hero, Haste, & Blur loaded also. Also, keep Polar Ray, Harry hates it really bad. You will need Firewall, and Distenergrate is always a plus, espically for the crystal. Your main job in part 4 & 5 is buffing the DPS & throwing crowd control in Harry. I know that all the above CC spells work on him most of the time, but as with every other NPC, he has saving throws, and they can be pretty good. Just remember to avoid his DBF's and Metor Swarms & you should be fine.

For starters the Debuff spells are Waves of Exhaustion Ray of Enfeeblement Ray of Exhaustion. Primary job of a wizard is to debuff the Pit fiend and kill the gnolls. As a wizard you may have selected the route of taking the necromancy feats highten and both spell pen feats. With a spell pen item you should be able to roll a 7 or higher and be successful at debuffing him. Every round in part 4 the Pit Fiend will come back w/o the debuffs, but such is not the case for the Horned Devil in VoD. Although, Suulu is only able to be debuffed by Waves of Exhaustion and is immune to all spells lower than lvl 4. Parts 4/5 of shroud everyone should have the buffs they already need with exceptions to bard buffs (haste included). Fog type spells only serve to impair your party's vison on where the blades actually are if they need to jump out. It also matters not since he has true sight as a inate ability. Heightened web can do just as well or better than any fog spell if they (trash mobs) fail their str check. Pit Fiends have an inate immunity to fire and a Damage Resistance to Acid and Cold, but will take full damage from Lightning.

So Ball of lightning and chain lightning will deal red damage numbers. Force Missles will also give you the same kind of numbers since nothing in game currently is immune to force. With 30 fire resist Fire shield(cold version) and Prot from fire you will be able to survive a head on collison with any of his spells he throws at you. Firestorm Greaves or +45 Fire absorbtion weapon is optional, but will increase your survivability even more so.

Firewall itself is only useful for parts 2/3 if your the one blowing up the crystal since you can extend it and run away if needed. Disintegrate works for a oneshot kill on the crystal, but its overall damage is resisted on anything else.

It is my personal oppinion as a wizard you do not have the sp to support buffing the entire raid, help when you can afford it sure, but otherwise your primary job is what you focus on. Greater hero is a marvelious spell but does not give the +2 moral bonus to damage that good hope does and will stack for a total +4 damage bonus with cleric's prayer luck version.

[Kalari]

My wizards shrouds tend to go as followed

Part one:

roam and kill things sometimes I finger them, sometimes I stone them and let the other cleaners whittle them down. If no bard I haste the party while running about keeping trash off them. since we dont really pass buffs in part one haste is the only thing I worry about and once again only if we have no bard in the party rage to.

Part two

once the wall is dragged and blocked I throw a firewall then head to the middle throw firewalls on the crystal but I also have a disintegrate loaded for quick one shot break. Pretty much the easy part for a caster is part two since the fighting is more on the others and all we do is babysit a stupid crystal that we have to break once everything is dead.

Part three

carrying knock helps a lot though most runs we have a rogue its always nice to help those who cannot get their puzzles and makes stuff go quicker.


Part four

Debuffing but most important is carry the fire shield spell you want the blue version on your caster and keep your resists and fire protects up. they will come in handy when Harry launches them fireballs at you. Web for trash mobs help the melees cut them down quick and finger for the gnolls. Debuffs I carry, ray of exaustion, waves of fatigue, fogs (acid and solid though you dont have to throw both and fighters do appreciate being able to see so acid is better). And ray of enfeebling. Then once Harry is down we all go in and I force missle him always a good time.

Part five

same as four though you may be asked to pass out buffs, between you and the clerics you maybe asked to hand out resists, Gh, blur and protection from elements. Other things like stoneskin/displacement is a waste of mana on a wizard unless you know your gonna use a pool which Id rather leave for the clerics during the thick of things. So I try to pass out the GH blur and resists quickly grab one of the pools that will dry up get full up then wait till its time to debuff harry. Then like in four once its time to wail on him give him what you got with missles or cold spell, polar ray is a nice one for this part.

Extra if there are WF in the party its always good to carry reconstruct scrolls. Kalari my main is force and repair specced so I just carry the spell as well and it does come in handy my wf buddies like it to cause they know that I will help keep them up while they are tanking Harry. Shroud can be a easy place for a caster to run as long as they work with the party with their spells. And like others said do not go in with your wizard thinking your gonna nuke everything. If you want to do that build a sorc. A wizards best friend in the Shroud is crowd control. Thats my opinion on that one.

[Cherry]

Remember that the more mobs you kill in part one the more that spawn. I hate when casters just run ahead and nuke everything at the portal...only for it to spawn again soon thereafter.

I guarantee you that PUG shroud runs will be well over 100 kills for part one...our guild does it far less than that.

[daniel7]

In part 5 I recast stone skin on some of the melees during the fight. I also cast mass protection after I see the animation for delayed fireblast. I let the clerics know that I am casting mass prot in part IV and part V so they can focus just on healing.