.: Wizard PvP - Frazzity Boom tbh. :.
This guide was created by Narl of the EQ2 Wizard Forums. All credit for this guide goes to him. To see the original posting click here.
Introduction:
There doesn't seem to be many articles on Wizards in PvP, due to good reason perhaps, we don't have track and bow with pointy sticks. I've tried to cover here a few things for a PvP wizard to keep in mind, and I've not focussed on any particular tier, instead I've taken a more general approach to the class over all. If anyone would like to add to this, in a constructive way, please feel free. However I would like to keep the thread clean. This guide isnt intended to be a full walkthrough to pwnage on a Wizzy, just a help in the right direction.
This articles aim is to give a little perspective on the following points with regards to Wizzy PvP:
- PvP'ing in Cloth Armour
- How to Spec your Wizzy
- Tactics
- AA Lines
- Adornments
- Spell Order / Casting Orders
- PvP & Clothies in General
PvP & Clothies in General:
As it currently stands (19/06/2007), Clothies in general have a hard time to say the least at T7 in PvP, however below that, wearing Cloth isnt such a bad thing. Taking a look at T1 - T6, lets see why cloth really isnt that bad. Presuming you remain in full master crafted between levels 22-52, your mitigation should float between 30%-37% solo, leather wearers will have around 3% on you most of the time, at T7 the difference between cloth and leather is pretty big, so immediately we can see the an upside to PvP as a clothie below T7. However, as a T7 clothie, this presents problems, you will need to aim for high mitigation gear, and defensive procs (Shielding of Magi etc) to survive, at lower levels... this really isnt too much of a problem.
At T5, you get a great opportunity as a Wizard to go after some amazing gear. The Iceloom and Stonewoven fabled sets are superb, and offer a variety of procs, ranging from Fear procs, DPS debuffs, Damage Shields & Power Procs. If you manage to get any of this, for the balance in the stats & resists, it will see you through to your late 50's, or even lvl 62 for new master crafted. The armour itself drops from a lot of T5 contested, which a significant amount coming from Kra'Thuk in EF. The other option you have is to farm Klak'Anon for the "Clockwork Spidersilk" set. This has some awesome set bonuses, which offer +disruption, a heat nuke on successful hostile spell, and a de-agro proc. If you intend to stay around your 50's, then its crucial you get some of the T5 fabled armour for the fear procs, these will be life savers.
At T7, you have a lot of options if your not raiding. However there are a few easy ones, firstly make sure you finish the Planar Orbs collection and get yourself the heat-proc ear ring. Nest also has a nice Fabled Robe with a Ward proc and power proc on a successful hostile spell. Then you can look at getting the EoF legendary set from Valdoon / OoB / MMC / Unrest etc. Another good drop is the staff from Unrest which will proc a stifle.
I've not gone into too much detail for T7, as you honestly can go down several roads, whether is be defensive procs, or offensive, or resists, stats... etc. We all know about the stuff available here.
How to Spec your Wizzy:
Between level 10-30, your goal for Wizzy is to spec for HP & INT. Ignore anything else. From 30+ you have to start thinking outside the box a little bit. I have tried to spec solely for power, then damage, then HP, and finally resists, none of which worked alone. Currently in this order, I look for:
1. Maximum Power
2. Intelligence
3. HP
You will get the option throughout the course of levelling to pick either 2.5% max health, 2.5% max power, some incombat power regen, or incombat health regen. Until you reach your 50's, make sure you are choosing the 2.5% maximum health. You can respect this later, however for the moment you need to ensure you can live long enough to cast.
How you spec your wizzy is going to depend on your AA lines etc, however presuming you choose the STA line, the above priority order works best I've found. Currently at level 55, my Wizard sits around 3.9k HP, 5.2k Power and 600-700 INT incombat, I am nearly all fabled on my armour though at the time of writing this. I wont go into detail here too much, as it will be covered more with the AA section below.
Wizzy Adornments, Which Ones?:
Adornments can help us a lot, however there is no real need to get them until you reach lvl 30, and even then your starting early! Here is a break down of the tiers for adornments. Note, ORNATE tagged items cannot be adorned.
Glimmering = T4 (lvl 30)
Luminous = T5 (lvl 40)
Lambent = T6 (lvl 50)
Scintillating = T7 (lvl 60)
To see what adornments are available at each tier, simply type the quality of the adornment in the search field on the broker, e.g. Lambent. The adornments you should be after should be intelligence based, so some to look out for are:
Rugged Polish (+HP for rings, this cannot be used on imbued rings as they gain the ORNATE tag) - Fingers Prismatic Appliqué (Gives +6 to all stats at T7, +5 at T6, +4 at T5, and +3 at T4) - Chest Metaphysical Lining (incombat power regen) ~ Cloak Silver Lining (reduces falling damage) ~ Cloak Gritty Spurs~ Feet Restorative Stitching (Gives +30 to all healing spells, which will increase your Magi Shielding) ~ Gloves Barbed Guard ~ Shoulders Intellectual Backing ~ Ears Arcane Clasp (Procs a DoT nuke) ~ Neck Magi's Second Sight (+1% Crit chance, only available at T6+) ~ Weapon Epiphanic Imprint ~ Head
PvP Tactics:
Use Freedom of Action & Freedom of Mind potions frequently. These will save you constantly, and can beused whilst stunned / stifled. At 52+, Numbing Cold is your best PvP spell. Unbreakable snare? chance to root? Quick cast? Yes please tbfh. I always open up with this, its a god send. Kite! Against rangers + swashies this is a little difficult, but in general a scout will still hit you at range, but will do significantly less damage. Ice Flame (lvl 35 spell), your single root, AoE root and Numbing Cold allow us to kite pretty well. Keep Mail of Frost off, resist the urge to press the pretty button when its up and your buffing! If Mail triggers when your out of combat, it will pull you into combat, and with the new no-zoning rule, you will be stuck, and very dead.
Its an instant cast, so save it and cast it during a fight when its actually needed. If you have Manashield, do not use it at the start of a fight, save it until around 40% if you can help it. This way if / when Manashield does drain your power, the next hit will trigger Mail of Frost given you time to run or some other flash of genius you may have. Use your stifle line. Whilst our De-agro in PvP only interrupts and stifles, do not under estimate the spell. Use this constantly. Your encounter De-agro will clear target from a group, use this frequently, especially on long range fights. Use your arcane cure to rid yourself of roots etc. If you can afford Pumice Stones always carry one around. These are superb vs Healers and will strip a lot of useful spells... like natures walk.
Do not try and use the stones on Warriors, you wont remove a single buff. Keep Frostshield up. This is a quick cast time and guaranteed damage, do not forget it, especially when you have Manashield active. The big thing to remember when your playing your wizzy, is to watch the other players buffs, look for short term timers etc and work alongside them, do not try to work against them. If you see a swashbuckler put up inspired daring... mezz him and wait until it goes away.If you see a Zerker put up Destruction, mezz him. DoT's. Try not to sit on the spot casting your biggest nuke constantly, get your smaller DoT's off. The damage that our 3 main single DoT's can quickly add up, especially if you manage to get ST down and kite them.
AA Lines:
If you honestly want to PvP on a Wizard, and do it solo at times, you have 1 choice in the Sorcerer tree, the STA line. The STA line will offer you a damage shield, increased mitigation, increased focus and disruption (gives around +36 with 8pts at time of writing), which means less interrupts and less resists, and best of all Manashield.
After you have the STA tree, anything is fair game, but for PvP the AGI or STR lines are by far the best second option. I personally would be tempted to go for the STR line to get the crits on DoT's over the casting speed in the AGI tree. A quick note about Manashield, at the current moment in time this works on a 1:1 ratio (1 point of power consumed, per 1 point of damage taken). However it is due to be improve to 1:2 (1 point of power consumed, per 2 points of damage taken). Obviously this makes the STA tree a must for any PvP wizard.
As for the Wizard tree, you only have 1 ability you will need to take which is 10 points into Magi Shielding, this will save you countless times, do not under estimate it. After that, good choices include the Cold & heat lines. Just to cover this off, Manaburn is a terrible choice for any serious PvP'r unless your a low level toon and intend to leech using it, in which case L2P =)
Sample AA Spec:
STA - 4.6.8.8.2 (Damage Shield, Mit, +Disruption etc, Manashield)
STR - 4-4-6-8 (PB AoE Nuke, Uncontested Parry Chance, Spell Crit)
The above AA spec works nicely in general, but another good option is either the WIS line for the raw +% to our spell damage, or the AGI line for casting. At the time of writing, the INT line is useless, none of the de-agro's work in PvP unfortunately. The STR line does offer a small amount of safety in the uncontested parry %, which is hard to pass up. To clarify, uncontested means that the skill is not checked against in the normal method, see below.
Contested Parry (e.g. each point gives you 2.2 parry), would take into account: [ Player Level ] + [ Attacking Players Offensive Skill ] vs [ Defending Players Level ] vs [ Defending Players Parry ]. What you end up with is a check that will rarely ever work.
Uncontested Parry however is simply, your raw % vs each hit. For example, if you have a 5% chance to parry all incoming attacks, its simple.. you will basically parry 5/100 melee attacks made against you. Whilst it may not seem a lot looking at it as a trigger chance... its pretty huge.
Wizard AA Tree:
At a glance, you may struggle to think of a dedicated line to go down. Let me tell you now... Spell Reach is a GOD SEND (End ability for the Shielding Line). This will give you an extra 5 meters on every spell you have, including roots... your stuns... stifles, everything. Make sure this is the first line you get in the Wizard tree. Its not too important how you spend your points getting it, just do it!
I personally sit at for the Shielding tree:
Pre-GU36:
10 Magi Shielding - 3 Lapse - 2 Mail of Frost.
Post-GU36:
7 Magi Shielding - 3 Lapse - 5 Mail of Frost
The reason for the change Post GU 36, is that Mail of Frost will protect vs Physical Damage and Magical Damage, where as Magi Shielding will only ward vs Magical. I have balanced the points out to benefit from both.
After Spell Reach you can either spec 100% for Solo PvP and go down your Heat line, reducing the casting time / power cost on a lot of your nukes, which when combined with the AGI line can be nasty. Or you can go down the cold line, and own faces (I'm not bias, honestly.)
Your Cold line for group PvP and solo PvP is awesome. It increases the damage of a rather weak AoE, and turns it into something actually quite viable (storm of thunder and its upgrades). Reduces the recast on Ice Comet + resistability, and also decreases the reuse time on Icy Winds... superb line. However, the huge benefit is Iceshape + Frigid Gift. Frigid gift adds a snare proc, and a damage proc onto all cold based spells, which is great for PvP, however how many cold spells do you have? and how many will your group members have? Not that many. However, if you take Iceshape, you turn all Heat + Magic spells for your GROUP into Cold spells. Combine this with Frigid Gift and you end up for approx 18 seconds, with every nuke doing approximately 180 extra damage in PvP, and snaring everyone you hit. If you coordinate this with your group via a macro, it can turn a fight. Here is the macro I use.
Line 1: /usea Iceshape
Line 2: *Ice Shape *ON* - START CASTING NUKES NOW - 18 Seconds Remaining!*
Line 3: /usea Icebound Gift
Your group casters / priests should drop all AoE attacks during Iceshape for max damage, and snaring. It works a charm and is not only great when your solo as you can spam cast your quick recharge nukes, but is amazing for group PvP. I hope this has helped.
Casting Order:
The problem with a wizard is knowing what to use and when. You will have to adapt against different opponents and classes each time, that's the beauty of playing vs other people. However, you can add in an element of certainty. For example, my casting order can change depending who I am fighting, but here is a good instance.
You have been Jumped:
1. Stifle / Interrupt
2. Paralyze and its upgrades (stun)
3. Single Root
4. Encounter De-Agro
5. Frost Shield
6. Piercing Icicles (Elemental Debuff)
7. Ice Comet or Ball of Flames and its upgrades
You jump get the jump on your enemy:
1. Root
2. Paralyze and its upgrades (stun)
3. Piercing Icicles (Elemental Debuff)
4. Ice Comet
5. Stifle / Interrupt
6. Ball of Flames and its upgrades
Now obviously, a huge amount of things can change that entire order, but generally I stick to that if possible, as it seems to work best. However vs multiple opponents Numbing Cold is the first spell out of the bag, simply as it's a snare and I can get away. Then I will de-agro, and AoE root if possible, if not... then I try to kite and nuke with ball of incineration etc. If you get the time during a long fight, do not rule out using a +INT hex doll to debuff magic resists, it helps a ton.
Its all situation dependent, but get an idea in your head of what is effective, and it will stop you panicing.