A wizards purpose

[tralese]

I've recently joined the ranks of DDO players and have always enjoyed playing wizards in pen and paper, and other MMORPGs I've played. So my initial instinct was to try and play a wizard in DDO. I made it through the first few levels (I'm now level 4) and have noticed that I run out of power often because I try to keep everyone buffed, and also try to fling a few offensive spells to some of the harder to take down mobs.

It is my assumption that wizards can fulfill three purposes in this game, buffing, and crowd control. The question I would like to ask is, "What is typically expected?"

Do other players expect to be buffed, and also expect you to CC mobs to make taking them down easier? Do they also expect you to lay down some damage to make taking mobs down easier? Is it all of the above?

I just find that it's nigh impossible to keep up with the demand and am wondering if I should focus on one or maybe two of those three things instead. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Aspenor]

The answer is all three, but be judicious about it. Don't stack all the buffs you can on people all the time. They should be able to handle some of it themselves.

[rimble]

At low levels it's often a much more efficient use of spell points to buff the party...but even then, not always. A well timed web, say to hold a rampaging Ogre, can be crucial, and often, when doing low-level Elite content fighting things the melees have trouble hitting, you can bring the confrontation to a close with some nice unavoidable no-save damage spells (I prefer Shocking Grasp).

Honestly, at low level, the group probably expects a view buffs (Blur, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, maybe Mage Armor for the Monk) and for you to keep up.

You can get far in the low levels just Charming things, but that sometimes makes the rest of the party feel left out.

[Gelandor]

There is only one spell you will ever need.

Haste.

Just kidding. (Kind of)

In all seriousness, you should be able to find a good mix of buffing, croud controll, and damage spells that works for you. Not all players need all buffs. Learning to stretch your mana until the next shrine, or in some cases until the quest is over is an important part of playing a caster.

Good luck!

[CSFurious]

buff

haste

cc

that is all

[tralese]

Thanks everyone for the advice. So far, I'm trying to keep everyone blurred at the very least. I've gotten my hands on a few buffing wands (cat's grace and bear's endurance) and have a web handy for the big bad meanies. I try to use my +2 light crossbow to do some spot damage here and there when I'm running low on power.

Charm person is a good suggestion. Do people frown upon its use in PUGs? Especially with mobs being able to break out of it at a possibly inopportune time.

I have to go through the spell list again to see which ones don't get saves. I used to know all of that back in my PnP days.

One more level until I get Haste. That's definitely on my to acquire list... along with fireball. How could I say no to fireball

[Denssor]

At low levels it's often a much more efficient use of spell points to buff the party...but even then, not always. A well timed web, say to hold a rampaging Ogre, can be crucial, and often, when doing low-level Elite content fighting things the melees have trouble hitting, you can bring the confrontation to a close with some nice unavoidable no-save damage spells (I prefer Shocking Grasp).

Honestly, at low level, the group probably expects a view buffs (Blur, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, maybe Mage Armor for the Monk) and for you to keep up.

You can get far in the low levels just Charming things, but that sometimes makes the rest of the party feel left out.

That pretty much nailed it on the spot. At your current level, just blur the party members, drop a few webs down and use a few damaging spells.

The higher level you get the more SP you will have and the more spells you will be able to cast. My caster has a little bit of everything loaded up. I got the common buffs that every one likes (haste, blur), got the CC everyone likes (soild fog, dancing ball), and I got the damage/nuking spells everyone likes (PK, firewall, FoD) and the rest of my spell slots aare whatever I want.

I would just carry a few buffs, a few CC and a few damaging spells, and see which spells you like best and use those.

[tralese]

On a side note, how do you guys get those fancy images on your signature? I checked my User CP and it says I have no characters available when I look at my signature. I know I am limited to 4 lines, but it would be ever so nice to be able to have one of those pictures.

[Kalari]

My wizards at low levels pretty much do the same thing try to hold or disable the mobs the party is facing as best as I can. Youd be surprized how spells like hypnotism helps in quests like ww. You get those Kobolds standing still and have the melee's pick them off. I noticed you also said you use web a very good spell even after the change to it.

one thing I noticed you said you like fireball which is good but remember do not web and fireball its a waste fireball will dissolve the web. web does work with scorching ray though. Once you are running deleras you may want to try the halt undead/fireball combo it is a lot of fun keeping those deadies still

My wizards now focus on crowd control like fogs/webs/ck but they can also insta kill help wf with repairs and I love the force spells even though its magic missle/force missle right now they pack a real wallop when you spec yourself for it.

Also at later levels debuffs can be your friend and get you more recognition in a party. Ray of exaustion, Waves of fatigue, waves of exaustion, ray of enfeebling, bestow curse, mind fog, touch of idiocy all those spells can be very good to a wizard and very bad to an enemy. The cool thing about being a wizard is you can pretty much test spells and find what you like to do. I hope you enjoy the class I know I do.

[Kalari]

On a side note, how do you guys get those fancy images on your signature? I checked my User CP and it says I have no characters available when I look at my signature. I know I am limited to 4 lines, but it would be ever so nice to be able to have one of those pictures.

They are still perfecting it but it was given last year I think as a gift to players and it currently lists characters you had then. I know that a few of the girls on my list were ones I had long deleted or re rolled. If they ever get back around to updating it you maybe able to get one right now there are many players who have been here for awhile and still cannot get a proper character sig.

[tralese]

Kalari,
good point about web/fireball, and you mention debuffs. Would you say those are more for bosses? I find that fights go so fast at my level that I often feel like I missed my opportunity to help the group out.

You also mentioned speccing. So far, I've pretty much picked enhancements that give me more spell power and damage dealing/crit capability. Is there a point in investing in the wand enhancement tree?

[tralese]

They are still perfecting it but it was given last year I think as a gift to players and it currently lists characters you had then. I know that a few of the girls on my list were ones I had long deleted or re rolled. If they ever get back around to updating it you maybe able to get one right now there are many players who have been here for awhile and still cannot get a proper character sig.

Thanks for the heads up on that. I know they said something in some dev chats about increasing the social aspect of the DDO website by adding some kind of myDDO capability (something about it coming in a later release). It's not a huge deal to me, but a nice to have since I'm not very good at photoshop.

[captain1z]

The advantage of a wizard is his flexability.

Because he is able to change spells at rest points he can be a buffer, a nuker or a crowd controller at almost anytime as needed. A sorc is pretty much locked in to whatever spells he takes and at times they can be less useful.

Example:
- most sorcs never seem to carry greater hero but a wiz can load it as needed
- in a fire based quest a sorc with only fire spells has limited options
- in a quest where magic is less effective offensively sorcs have fewer party buffs normally

A wizard can very easily customize his spells to best compliment the current party make-up and quest demands at the cost of more sp. Played wisely this advantage can be invaluable.

[Arnya]

I know I am limited to 4 lines, but it would be ever so nice to be able to have one of those pictures.

Meh, pictures are for noobs. Get a cool guild and use their sig then everyone thinks you are teh uberz

What?

[Kalari]

As to your ask about debuffs it depends definitely good for bosses but you have to know that bosses like Sully (vod) are immune to any debuffs under level 4 I believe. So I use wave spells on that boss. Harry is pretty much the same though I could have sworn ive gotten a ray spell off on him the fatigue so not sure (plus wont lie kind raid drunk now but I do try all my debuffs on the bosses). I use debuffs on any non regular mobs though if I can afford the sp that means orange names as well since making them weaker helps the party out. And in raids like vod again I like to try to debuff the orthons with str damaging debuffs as well.

As for speccing a mage can use enhancements to boost certain spells including force enhancements that help magic missle/force missle and repair spells

Fire/cold for firewall cone of cold polar ray and the like

Electric/acid for acid arrow ball lightning and spells that way

Currently there is non for sonic but greater arcane lore on certain items help that.

And you can also use feats for spec like Kalari my main is focused on Necromancy for her debuffs and death spells like finger of death. And spell pen feats to help land stuff better.

Hope this helps not an expert but have 6 wizards under my belt.

[Manko-ALE]

when playing a wizard, you have to play smart

i like playing casters. i think one of the best arcane spells at level 1 is hypnotism, its an area of effect spell and when heightenned at end game , it is still a very usefull spell. it slows things down , and when the fighters pay attention can make even elite quests easy.

next fav spell is halt undead, it is just great to have on those troublesome arcane archers in check.(i'll never do deleras elite without it)
other mandatory wizard spells

firewall... haste...suggestion...enervate...finger of death

at low and mid levels , let the other players buy pots... resists, rage , whatever..save your magic for crowd control and taking down bosses or tough mini bosses.

a buff that you should have on hand when needed is jump.

[Kalari]

Oh and to answer your question sorry got lost in talking about speccs I had wand/scroll mastery back in the day on Kalari did not really do much so I redid my enhancements and got rid of them. I found it was better to focus my enhancements on spells I use spell points for since the only damage wands I use now are scorching ray 11 to get a mobs attention.

I had thought by taking the wand/scroll thing that wands like phantasmal killer and the like would hit better but they simply did not. Dunno if it was just my luck but I never bothered with it again. Most of my wizards take enhancements towards their damage spells, more sp, spell pen and at least one each of the enhance meta magic ones so that using them cost a little less.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

My wizards at low levels pretty much do the same thing try to hold or disable the mobs the party is facing as best as I can. Youd be surprized how spells like hypnotism helps in quests like ww. You get those Kobolds standing still and have the melee's pick them off. I noticed you also said you use web a very good spell even after the change to it.

one thing I noticed you said you like fireball which is good but remember do not web and fireball its a waste fireball will dissolve the web. web does work with scorching ray though. Once you are running deleras you may want to try the halt undead/fireball combo it is a lot of fun keeping those deadies still

My wizards now focus on crowd control like fogs/webs/ck but they can also insta kill help wf with repairs and I love the force spells even though its magic missle/force missle right now they pack a real wallop when you spec yourself for it.

Also at later levels debuffs can be your friend and get you more recognition in a party. Ray of exaustion, Waves of fatigue, waves of exaustion, ray of enfeebling, bestow curse, mind fog, touch of idiocy all those spells can be very good to a wizard and very bad to an enemy. The cool thing about being a wizard is you can pretty much test spells and find what you like to do. I hope you enjoy the class I know I do.

Actually, Web and fire spells can be used together......sorta.
Even though the web is destroyed, stuck creatures are not immediately freed from it's effects.
I'm not sure if they actually have to make a Str check or not, but they are at least trapped until it's time to make their next check (1 round?)

Just being nitpicky.
it's still usually a waste of SP, but it does have a slight tactical value to Web then Fireball/wall.

[Samadhi]

It is my assumption that wizards can fulfill three purposes in this game, buffing, and crowd control. The question I would like to ask is, "What is typically expected?"

Do other players expect to be buffed, and also expect you to CC mobs to make taking them down easier? Do they also expect you to lay down some damage to make taking mobs down easier? Is it all of the above?

Because of a wizards spell selection, all of the above is what is typically expected, of course :P

Buffs - Personally, I go light on most buffs, but this is partially from generally running with self-sufficient players. I have no problems not handing out stuff or asking "why" something is crucial for them. If their answer is good, sure. OTOH, once you get haste, this is by far the most powerful buff in the game. Use it judiciously and always and players will like you if you do almost nothing else!!

Nuking - Not much is expected at low levels, a lot will be expected when you get firewall, then it will becomes less mandatory again. If you divide nuking into two types: Crowd nuking, single target DPS. Crowd nuking without getting yourself killed is a rough skill. Practice it when you have extra mana, but don't think it's a priority. Make the melees do the work :P Single target DPS I really only use for end bosses, let aggro get grabbed for a bit by the melees, then empty my mana bar.

Crowd Control - Extremely useful when done right. Heightened web is your most versatile spell for a vast amount of content, assuming you aren't burning them up. Personally, I try to control encounters completely, but at lower levels your mana pool will be better spent on key scenarios only, i.e. watch for when it is needed and when it is not.

[herzkos]

I love my wizards . I've written this before but, to me the difference between
wiz and sorc is that the wiz is strategic and the sorc is tactical. Wizards don't have
the sp (generally) to just wade in and throw spells left and right like the sorc does. So
the wizard has to use their spell points to better effect. If you know the quest you're set
but if you don't know which spells are best, ask the party before entering the quest. On my
wizards, I'll cast the spells I think I need to in order to help the party the most. I'm not going to
bull strength every character nor will I blur everyone. If you're not in melee, you're not getting either.
(except the cleric, I'll always blur the cleric(s)).
To me, wizards influence the battle as a whole while generally only nuking the high priority
targets. It's not an ego game to me like it is to some others: if the barb is charging for the mob,
I won't try to PK or fod him. I might throw a hold depending on how much damage i think he'll do before
he goes down though.