Noob Wizard mistakes

[KoboldWithTnT]

Pulling out the greataxe is brain damaged. You have no concept of the amount of damage a proper melee does with a weapon and the pathetic amount of damage a wizard does. Going in and doing practically nothing but costing the cleric SP to heal you is very bad playing. Telling newbie wizards to do it is harmful.

Hey there, I started a wizard a few days ago, let me give you a bit of advice, since, y'know, I don't have any high level characters (15+) and I started playing very recently, so I fit into that 'newbie wizard' group.

As a low level caster, you want to melee. It's that simple.

Buff yourself up and melee things. Seriously, it's not rocket science. If you know more or less what you're doing (hacking stuff and hiding from range) then you might even beat up more stuff than a fighter or barbarian.

What you don't seem to see is that, unless you are running on elite, mobs at lower levels are not hard to hit. On top of that, add in that at lower levels, fighters and barbarians don't have all the goodies that make then awesome bulldozers and you're pretty even.

Now, by no means do I say that a making a melee wizard build is a good idea, but you will want to melee, or have a group carry you.
If you choose to have the group carry you, well, you're costing the other guys time, sp and any resource they will use.

[Sutekx]

Hey there, I started a wizard a few days ago, let me give you a bit of advice, since, y'know, I don't have any high level characters (15+) and I started playing very recently, so I fit into that 'newbie wizard' group.

As a low level caster, you want to melee. It's that simple.

Buff yourself up and melee things. Seriously, it's not rocket science. If you know more or less what you're doing (hacking stuff and hiding from range) then you might even beat up more stuff than a fighter or barbarian.

What you don't seem to see is that, unless you are running on elite, mobs at lower levels are not hard to hit. On top of that, add in that at lower levels, fighters and barbarians don't have all the goodies that make then awesome bulldozers and you're pretty even.

Now, by no means do I say that a making a melee wizard build is a good idea, but you will want to melee, or have a group carry you.
If you choose to have the group carry you, well, you're costing the other guys time, sp and any resource they will use.

If I wanted to melee when I was a low level caster, I wouldn't have rolled a wizard. What about the use of charm or even web if you are in a group, so that those low level melees will look like awesome bulldozers?

[MithrilSoul]

Hey there, I started a wizard a few days ago, let me give you a bit of advice, since, y'know, I don't have any high level characters (15+) and I started playing very recently, so I fit into that 'newbie wizard' group.

As a low level caster, you want to melee. It's that simple.

Buff yourself up and melee things. Seriously, it's not rocket science. If you know more or less what you're doing (hacking stuff and hiding from range) then you might even beat up more stuff than a fighter or barbarian.

What you don't seem to see is that, unless you are running on elite, mobs at lower levels are not hard to hit. On top of that, add in that at lower levels, fighters and barbarians don't have all the goodies that make then awesome bulldozers and you're pretty even.

Now, by no means do I say that a making a melee wizard build is a good idea, but you will want to melee, or have a group carry you.
If you choose to have the group carry you, well, you're costing the other guys time, sp and any resource they will use.

The only issue with giving true noobs this advice is...if they spend all their time at low levels meleeing mobs, then suddenly you are going to have lvl 10+ or 15+ or 18+ wizards running around who don't even know the basics of how to play a spellcaster in the game.

In any MMO that I can think of, playing a caster has a larger learning curve to it than just about any other class. The early levels--whether solo or in groups--is where noob wizards make noob wizard mistakes...and (of course) hopefully learn from those mistakes. So that by the time they get up to the mid- and high-levels, they have learned all the important lessons about what to do, and not do, as a caster.

If they don't make those mistakes as lvl 4 players, they are going to make them as lvl 10 players. Or level 15, or 18, or 20. When the price of one of those mistakes is going to be much, much higher.

[gwlech]

Hey there, I started a wizard a few days ago, let me give you a bit of advice, since, y'know, I don't have any high level characters (15+) and I started playing very recently, so I fit into that 'newbie wizard' group.

As a low level caster, you want to melee. It's that simple.

Buff yourself up and melee things. Seriously, it's not rocket science. If you know more or less what you're doing (hacking stuff and hiding from range) then you might even beat up more stuff than a fighter or barbarian.

What you don't seem to see is that, unless you are running on elite, mobs at lower levels are not hard to hit. On top of that, add in that at lower levels, fighters and barbarians don't have all the goodies that make then awesome bulldozers and you're pretty even.

Now, by no means do I say that a making a melee wizard build is a good idea, but you will want to melee, or have a group carry you.
If you choose to have the group carry you, well, you're costing the other guys time, sp and any resource they will use.

The fact of the matter is, melee coupled with some basic CC is the easiest way to level an arcane before wall of fire. One can easily load up on bulls, rage, haste, masters touch with a greataxe and exceed the kill count of many other melee characters without even trying. Why? There is really no huge difference between a low lvl barb and wizard in terms of melee prowess. Do I advocate a melee wizard? Hell no. It has its time and place, and when I get wall of fire on an arcane, I ditch the greataxe and it grows rusty in my backpack.

If you started with more str on a wizard/sorc, its not going to hurt anything. Other than your casting stat and Con, everything is just gravy. I know that being tripped or enfeebled sucks, and having that extra str at low lvls especially really helps new players, and in no way will "gimp" a character endgame.

Simply put, if I am in a group with an arcane who becomes worthless when he/she runs out of sps, that person isn't around much longer.

[ddoer]

... One can easily load up on bulls, rage, haste, masters touch with a greataxe and exceed the kill count of many other melee characters without even trying. Why? There is really no huge difference between a low lvl barb and wizard in terms of melee prowess. Do I advocate a melee wizard? Hell no. It has its time and place, and when I get wall of fire on an arcane, I ditch the greataxe and it grows rusty in my backpack.

If you started with more str on a wizard/sorc, its not going to hurt anything. Other than your casting stat and Con, everything is just gravy. I know that being tripped or enfeebled sucks, and having that extra str at low lvls especially really helps new players, and in no way will "gimp" a character endgame.

/not signed

"There is really no huge difference between a low lvl barb and wizard in terms of melee prowess." you could define huge difference has 1,000 more dmg per swing and then say there is no huge difference in the end game too.

I just created a normal L4 dwarf DPS barb with veteran status to test. With all starter equipment, it could rage to Str 25 (init str 18, +1 in leveling, +1 gear, +5 barb rage), with damage boost 2 (+3 damage), axe damage 1 (+1 damage), and with THF feat (that adds glancing blow damage). The +1 starter greataxe is 1d12, i.e. roughly 6.5 mean base damage.

compare to a wiz, say, a human wiz with str 14, con 16, int 18. with the same starter greataxe, on every swing, the barb deals 9 more points of base damage per swing with the same greataxe. I consider 9 points of additional damage over a 6.5 base weapon damage is huge.

both the barb and wiz could use bulls, rage, haste.

I think you have no clue in the difference between melee and caster at all. While both a caster and a melee type could use melee mean to kill mobs, it doesn't mean both of them have similar melee power. besides, the caster is more likely to get killed due to his low hp.

for a fleshy caster, putting points in str mean sacrifice of HP or UMD for self-healing in end game. the str ability points are likely to be waste in end game because you may use an gear that come with str +6 anyway.

[Astarte269]

I must agree with ddoer. Saying that at low levels a wizard and a barbarian are equal in melee is plain wrong. Not to mention that rolling a wizard and even considering beeing a melee at any time or level is, in my opinion, outrageously silly. If you want to melee there are other classes that does it far better.

My recently rolled wizard is far more effective at killing stuff using burning hands/scorching ray with an easy to get +50% fire damage clickie scepter than any melee I have met thus far. Just saying.

[Kyln]

I have a few questions for those of you who are able to cast your way through early levels. As a new player I rolled a rog/wiz wf build with max intelligence and high constitution. I took mental toughness and scholar enhancements. I found I still did not have enough spell points to get through a lot of quests if I tried to blast my way though. Is this a result of the one rogue level on spell points? Are you using twink gear to get more spell points or more damage from your spells? Is it a matter of knowing the quests well enough to aggro everything and then blast at a choke point?

Now that I have firewall, I am trying to break my use of melee, but sp conservation is still tricky. I am wondering if playing a wizard well is highly dependent on knowing the quests ahead of time: you get exactly the right spells and know exactly where to use them. This is challenging for a new player, who is often facing things for the first time and trying to adapt on the fly. For the early levels, I found self buffs and a two-handed weapon were very forgiving. Just cut down trash mobs and blast/web big guys/bosses.

One of the concerns I have as a new player, and for other new players, is the suggesting of a course of play that requires a lot of knowledge about a quest ahead of time. Even guides only help so much before you actually do a quest, and I am not convinced everyone is going to be keen on reading a write-up before they do every quest.

Other than an alignment error, I have tried to avoid the major new player mistakes. I probably could have spent my spare attribute points better, but I do have max intelligence and a high constitution. I find playing a wizard to be rewarding, and I want to get the most out of it. That is why I am trying to figure out how some of you are able to play through content so differently from how I did, when that avenue didn't seem to work well for me. The more I know about how to play a good wizard, the better my experience is my philosophy.

[DANTEIL]

I am wondering if playing a wizard well is highly dependent on knowing the quests ahead of time: you get exactly the right spells and know exactly where to use them. This is challenging for a new player, who is often facing things for the first time and trying to adapt on the fly.

Speaking as a relatively new player who has until recently played pretty much exclusively as a wizard, I can definitely say that this has been my experience. The first time through a quest, especially the high-level quests, I am often either running out of SP (because I don't know where the next shrine and/or big fight is going to come) or using the wrong spells (because I don't know yet what kind of tactics will be effective in a given situation). Sometimes I can get helpful input from other players in group on these matters (although not always -- I've been in a couple of wipes where my thought afterward has been "Gee, I could have been more help to the party there if someone had told me ahead of time what to prepare/do/expect"), but often there is no substitute for hard-earned experience. The first time (or several times) through, I am usually just trying to catch up and still do what I can to help out and stay alive.

[sephiroth1084]

I have a few questions for those of you who are able to cast your way through early levels. As a new player I rolled a rog/wiz wf build with max intelligence and high constitution. I took mental toughness and scholar enhancements. I found I still did not have enough spell points to get through a lot of quests if I tried to blast my way though. Is this a result of the one rogue level on spell points? Are you using twink gear to get more spell points or more damage from your spells? Is it a matter of knowing the quests well enough to aggro everything and then blast at a choke point?

Try to acquire +SP items, and more importantly, try to acquire Greater or Superior [insert element type] items or clickies for your primary damage spells, but keep in mind that blasting your way through a quest is almost never the best way to completion for a wizard.

Compare the effect of throwing one Magic Missile vs. one Charm Person: the latter will almost always result in at least one dead monster (as the charmed dude's friends beat the snot out of him), while the former may not deal enough to kill even one crittur. Mass damage spells tipped the scales a bit, but not far enough to justify that playstyle as a primary means to beating a quest.

Also, what you charm can dramatically improve the efficiency of your spells. If you grab a kobold shaman in Butcher's, for example, you've just spent 10 SP for free crowd control and nuking (Cause Feat, Hold Person, Fog Cloud, Acid Orb, Scorching Ray, Lightning Bolt) and will probably get 2-4 monsters dead for that one spell.

Knowing good choke points can help, but you don't necessarily require foreknowledge to use the gather and blast tactic effectively. Look around you for usable choke points or places where you can put some distance between you and monsters you may be kiting in order to assemble a sizable pack. Try not to hit the first group you come upon with whatever AoE spell you have, but set-up as much as you can in the area first. Web + Acid Blast is a great combo for this.

If you are soloing, try using stealth tactics. Sneak + Invisibility (wand, scroll or pot, not from SP) + Melf's Acid Arrow = WIN. Hell, Melf's is a dramatically underutilized spell; against anything with a lot of HP, and particularly against high-HP, high-threat targets (ogres, trolls and most bosses), Melf's is much more efficient use of your mana than Fireball. Hit the thing you want dead, then kite it until that goal has been achieved.

Remember, though, you don't have to kill everything in order to complete most quests, so crowd controlling stuff and running by can work in a lot of instances.

When grouping, my philosophy at low levels was that I shouldn't be spending more than 2 spells per encounter, whether you're talking Web + Acid Blast, Web + Haste (Haste will almost always be better damage per SP spent than any other spell you cast, including firewall much of the time), Web + Otto's (for the dangerous target that avoided the web)...notice a trend?...2 Fireballs for particularly dangerous groups, whatever. After light buffing (I tended to keep myself buffed with Blur, Jump, Nightshield and Expeditious Retreat, as well as any necessary resists, while only tossing the absolute necessities to others) you won't have enough SP to be dominating every encounter.

Now that I have firewall, I am trying to break my use of melee, but sp conservation is still tricky. I am wondering if playing a wizard well is highly dependent on knowing the quests ahead of time: you get exactly the right spells and know exactly where to use them. This is challenging for a new player, who is often facing things for the first time and trying to adapt on the fly. For the early levels, I found self buffs and a two-handed weapon were very forgiving. Just cut down trash mobs and blast/web big guys/bosses.

One of the concerns I have as a new player, and for other new players, is the suggesting of a course of play that requires a lot of knowledge about a quest ahead of time. Even guides only help so much before you actually do a quest, and I am not convinced everyone is going to be keen on reading a write-up before they do every quest.

Obviously knowledge helps, but it isn't absolutely necessary, and much of what you need to know can be gleaned from actually reading what the person who bestows the quest tells you as they tend to inform you of what monsters you'll be in store for. Also, think about what else you have faced in a particular area and level range--if you're heading into a quest found in a graveyard, expect undead, a refinery, expect constructs, etc... While there are obviously quests that separate themselves from others in their zone, many tend to adhere to a particular theme (almost every Harbor quest features kobolds and oozes for example).

Also, wands and scrolls can help smooth out your spell selections. Resist is just as effective off of a wand as it is self-cast (accounting for 7th and 11th level wands for when the spell upgrades). Protection from Elements and Mass Prot are excellent off of a scroll. Blur is available on wands. Try to save spell slots and SP for spells that have DCs or deal damage. And try to keep some of the universally useful spells prepared as often as possible:
-1st: Charm Person, Jump, Nightshield
-2nd: Web, Otto's (unless you expect a lot of undead, constructs or vermin)
-3rd: Haste, Suggestion, Acid Blast (many more fire resistant or immune monsters than acid resistant/immune)
-4th: Wall of Fire, Fire Shield (though scrolls work pretty well), Solid Fog, Dimension Door...

[Angar]

First thing you have to understand, before all else, is the role of your caster. A wizard is traditionally a "tool" for a party to take care of specific tasks. You may very well find yourself waiting for the group to deal with mobs, wondering if there is something to do. In times like that, slinging a wand is not a bad option. While you can build your toon to play outside that role, you will be hard pressed to maintain good SP conservation at any level.

If you are after a "nuker", someone who can lay down a LOT of damage very fast, then I suggest you roll a sorc. The wiz can, with the right skills and equipment, be just as good as a sorc for a short period of time, but in the long run just simply can't keep up. This is NOT to say that a wiz and sorc aren't interchangeable at any level of the game, just that playing a wiz the same way will probably cost you a lot of money in SP pots in the end. When I play my wiz the way I play my sorc, I find myself short on SP long before any shrines come up. It is an easy mistake to make, particularly if you go from a high level sorc to a high level wiz from one quest to the next. You remember in a hurry that they are not the same.

That being said, in my opinion, barring any Role Playing choices, there are two choices you will have to make: Whether to take 2 levels of rogue, and whether to go WF, Human, or Drow. Human and Drow are the two races that offer the highest possible INT, and since your SP and DC are based on that stat, you would have to seriously question taking another race. Drow offers the ability to reach 42 int without a +4 tome, and Human gives you the chance to get to 40 with only a +2 tome and also gains an extra feat. WF offers, above all else, the ability to self-heal while not really sacrificing INT. If you take any other race, you are giving up either SP and DC or the ability to heal yourself. It can be argued that 1 point of DC is not that important, or that other classes can still hit 40 INT at level 20, but the flexibility of a human is a strong point when you consider you are playing a class whose strongest ability is that of flexibility. That extra feat is nice too.

As far as the 2 levels of rogue.. the only reason not to take them would be to have firewall 1 level earlier and to gain 1 point of DC with the capstone. You gain evasion and the ability to disable any trap in the game, PLUS you can gain 10 more UMD. Yes you lose a couple spell slots, but there isn't much in the level 8 and 9 spell slots that you really need. If you go that route, put your spare points into dex and start level 1 with rogue, taking the second at level 9 or 10. This is important so you can maximize your skills, particularly Concentration, UMD, Disable, Search, and Spot.

For feats, I take everything except eschew. Enlarge doubles the range of spells.. I can't tell you how many times that has come in handy. Yes, beholders are super easy with enlarge, and it isn't a spell like maximize or extend that is practically left on all the time once you hit the higher levels, but it is a feat I was hesitant to take and now wouldn't want to be without it. Also, I don't see a reason not to take at least one feat in necromancy. FoD and WoB are the most SP efficient means of killing for a wizard. Even in Amrath, using energy drain and FoD can kill faster and more efficiently than any DD spell. It leaves the option to take the PrE open without having to respec a feat, and doesn't have a downside in my opinion. Toughness, Mental Toughness, Imp Mental Toughness, and Insightful Reflexes are all a given.

Melee: Any time a wiz pulls out a weapon, dons a shield or armor, and wades in to combat, I cringe. Having two high level healers, all I can say is that they become a mana sink, and do not benefit the group in any way. You are FAR better off wielding your eternal acid wand, doing 8-10 damage every time you sling it, because unless you have a 16 str (14+tome), a divine power clickie, and a +5 weapon, you are never even going to hit anything in the upper levels, and even if you do, you will miss more than hit, and do maybe 10-15 damage when you do hit. Put the weapons down, you don't know how to use them. I am currently leveling a wf wiz/rog, and on any quest above level 3, I can't hit anything with melee often enough to justify getting into melee range. Yes, I have met some wizards (with fighter levels) who can melee very effectively, but their build is very specific to their function, and NOT a "noob" build.

Points: Max INT, 16 into con, and if you have a 32 pt build, the rest is up to how you want to play. If you are worried about being enfeebled, put a few points to STR. Dex would be ONLY for the rogue splashes, and is a complete and utter waste for a pure wiz, serving absolutely no function whatsoever (hence insightful reflexes). Wisdom is not a bad choice if you want a little more will save. CHA is good if you are not WF, but keep in mind that currently a wizard can use a heal scroll with zero UMD (this will be fixed someday, so don't build your toon around it). At level 20, you should be well over 300 hp. If you are not, then you did something wrong. You can easily get to 2000 SP at level 20, but it will go fast since you will have to have Maximize and Empower on at all times to even think about DD's or FW. This is why FoD and Wail are so important to a wiz..

In the end, you can build your wizard however you want, and within reason you will have a viable toon to play any quest. Just remember that anything you do to diverge from the idea of maximizing your assets (diversity and DC) and minimizing your deficiencies (SP, slow casting), will have an impact that needs to be considered before you act. It can take dozens of hours to reach level cap (more if you stop to enjoy the game) and it is a shame when you get there and realize you made some critical errors and have to start over. Thank God for LR and GR.

[sephiroth1084]

For feats, I take everything except eschew. Enlarge doubles the range of spells.. I can't tell you how many times that has come in handy. Yes, beholders are super easy with enlarge, and it isn't a spell like maximize or extend that is practically left on all the time once you hit the higher levels, but it is a feat I was hesitant to take and now wouldn't want to be without it.

I admit that I've never tried it, but there have been so few places where I would have liked the extra range that I can't imagine this being a particularly worthwhile use of a feat slot.

Also, I don't see a reason not to take at least one feat in necromancy. FoD and WoB are the most SP efficient means of killing for a wizard. Even in Amrath, using energy drain and FoD can kill faster and more efficiently than any DD spell. It leaves the option to take the PrE open without having to respec a feat, and doesn't have a downside in my opinion.

SF: Necro can be useful until you hit Amrath, at which point ED+FoD is pretty effective even without spending a feat, and there are plenty of monsters immune to death spells in Amrath, not to mention everything in epic quests. I'd only take SF: Necro if you don't mind planning on swapping it for SF: Enchant later in the game as Otto's Sphere of Dancing, Suggestion/Mass Suggestion, Dominate and Mass Hold are all very useful.

Also, just to clarify, SF: Necro shouldn't be taken until you acquire Finger of Death.

Toughness, Mental Toughness, Imp Mental Toughness, and Insightful Reflexes are all a given.

Mental Toughness and Improved Mental Toughness are nice to have early in the game, but not really worth hanging onto all the way up to cap. I'd go so far as to say that one should probably skip grabbing IMT entirely in order to facilitate swapping out MT down the road more easily.

Melee: Any time a wiz pulls out a weapon, dons a shield or armor, and wades in to combat, I cringe. Having two high level healers, all I can say is that they become a mana sink, and do not benefit the group in any way. You are FAR better off wielding your eternal acid wand, doing 8-10 damage every time you sling it, because unless you have a 16 str (14+tome), a divine power clickie, and a +5 weapon, you are never even going to hit anything in the upper levels, and even if you do, you will miss more than hit, and do maybe 10-15 damage when you do hit. Put the weapons down, you don't know how to use them. I am currently leveling a wf wiz/rog, and on any quest above level 3, I can't hit anything with melee often enough to justify getting into melee range. Yes, I have met some wizards (with fighter levels) who can melee very effectively, but their build is very specific to their function, and NOT a "noob" build.

Eh. While I'm not a big proponent of meleeing wizards in general, it can definitely be very useful. On my first wizard (pure drow), I did virtually zero meleeing until I acquire a Dreamspitter (raid quarterstaff), and even then typically only on CC'ed stuff, but I do occasionally wade into combat vs. some stuff and can take out single targets much faster with that than I could with a wand.

On my second wizard (2 rogue splashed WF), I planned on meleeing a little bit more and made sure to keep a decent DPS quarterstaff on hand at all times. I found that I was doing much less of this in Gianthold, but had been fairly successful up to that point so long as I stayed buffed with things like Blur and sometimes Displacement. If you're soloing, I'd recommend only meleeing stuff you have crowd controlled, but in a group, go hop on the back of anything someone else already has the attention of. Master's Touch + a greataxe would be better than using a quarterstaff, but I like the attack animation with staves.

Oh, and both of my wizards began with an 8 Str, and the drow can hit orthons and devils in Amrath quests on about a 5+ self-buffed.

The one thing to keep in mind if you are planning on meleeing at all, is that you have got to take care of yourself. No healer is going to be happy healing your squishy ass while you're being foolhardy. Drink your own pots, keep your defensive buffs up, manage your aggro, etc...

[Kyln]

Thank you for the replies.

I do use CC, and found that charm person was golden for all of Korthos and most of the market. Sometimes i was having a hard time getting it to land on difficulties above normal, but I guess that is to be expected. I still love web, and maybe because I am new, but I have found glittering dust to be pretty good at reducing the threat of melee mobs.