Difference between revisions of "Category:Wizards"

In the words of Thrull, "Wizards are what all Mages should have been." Wizards are mystically stronger than Mages, but physically weaker. They get more mana and their spells are more effective, but they also get lower hp gains and are, at best, unimpressive in melee combat. They can also learn some very rare spells by researching them from obscure spellbooks. These spells are not listed on their skill lists. Like all Prestige Classes, they retain the original class's Prime Requisite, in this case, Intelligence. Wizards cannot become Sorcerors. They disdain what they see as the Sorceror's crutch-like dependence on the Dark Powers. Wizard trainers can sometimes be found researching lost tomes in musty libraries.

Abbreviation: Wzd.

Base Class: Mage.

Prime Requisite: Intelligence.

Wizards in General

Wizards are similar to Mages in their gameplay. They get more mana and less hp (the difference is more noticeable at lord). They also have flash, though it's out of class for them. They lose out on psionic spells which mages receive (fortitudes is the most important one). The other main loss is that they cannot remort to Sorcerers.

In general, a wizard is preferable to a mage, unless you wish to remort sorcerer in the future.

Wizard Creation

Note: The wizard trainer, Threnadir, mentions rather clearly that wisdom is an important factor of becoming a wizard.

Races need at least a base of 19 wisdom to become a wizard. Races with sufficient wisdom: Ents, Gnomes, Deep Gnomes, Centaurs, Tuataurs, Griffons and High Elves.

There is also a quest involved to become a wizard (See: Book Of Exorcism)

If your Wisdom is too low, Threnadir will say 'You lack the wisdom. You will never be a Wizard. *tsk tsk*' If Threnadir says 'You would make a poor Wizard with such paltry arcane might.', you might need more mana. Wearing mana gear will help out. 968 mana appeared to be enough on one occasion. Thanks Z.

To actually become a wizard, you need to be at Threnadir and use the Prestige command.

Wizards at Hero Tier

Training

The usual rules of training stats apply: Wis first, then Int and Con. Dex is of value in lowering your unspelled AC.

Practicing

Beyond the usual buffing spells (foci, awen, concentrate, etc.), wizards make particular use of acumen and savvy in their spellup. The lack of fortitudes is a drag, but the relaxed rules on bots mean that its rarely difficult to find a spellup. During combat, I've found that flash, acid rain, and a quickened calm are quite useful. In the right area, acid rain and calm can be used to gather many mobs (I've seen as many as 10 in a room) together, and then the skillful wizard can flash, and acid rain them all together. This takes a bit of practice, but can greatly enhance a solo run. Obviously an arc charged shield is a plus in this situation.

Fighting

Soloing: While difficult at first, wizards are at their heart, solo creatures. Since wizards, unlike other casters, do not get dodge until Lord, but they do get shield block, having a charged shield is quite handy. As a low-hero, start with simple areas such as rot cor. the section is uncursed, has for the most part unagressive mobs, who are prone to flee. Use a surge 2 disintigrate to kill them with about three surge 2 disintigrates. If you are getting hit a lot, or have poor AC, try using flash after the first round. Once you've built up your mana sufficiently, Tortuga cay is a caster's paradise. Even without flash, most tortuga's can be slain with 3-4 surge 2 disintigrates. At about Hero-150, Wizards finally hit their stride. The extra hp, mana, and of course acid rain, ward, and med ii at hero 101 help a lot. Once you've built up confidence with tortuga, teleport into breen, and begin using flash and acid rain to knock out 3-4 mobs at a time. Do not stack acid rain spells, as they will fire whether there are mobs in the room or not. Breen is a safe place to begin practicing your calm-flash-acid rain strategy. First find a room with 2-3 mobs. cast acid rain, then use a quickened calm to allow yourself to leave into another room. make sure that you are not sneak/movehidden/invis. In the next room, begin attacking the mobs as usual, and very quickly, the mobs will follow you into the second room. Using this technique, it's not difficult to gather many mobs in a room. Once you have a significant number, flash them, and take them down with acid rain. Wash, rinse, repeat. Once you have significant stats, (3Kmana, 1.5khp, -750 unsp AC) you should consider a larger, swarmier area such as ruined lairs. With at little practice, it is not hard to get 8-10 mobs in a room. At 95-150xp each, this can add up quickly. Watch your hp/mana however, as ruined lairs is cursed. CRs in lairs are quite messy and painful.

Tanking: The lack of rescue makes a wizard a poor choice of tank, but on the other hand, their ability to Flash can help a lot. Wizards will need at least one large hitter/healer who can act as a back up tank to grab people.

Hitting: Wizards, like mages, do not make good hitters. If you are the kind of person who thinks mages are OK hitters when they have hit gear, well, Wizards don't even do that as well. They get a lot of mana, but casters at hero just aren't that great at hitting.

Healing: Wizards are as good as mage or stm for brandishing.

Wizards at Lord Tier

Wizards are the tops, bar none, for area damage at lord. With their large mana base and the spellbook 'Ether Link,' they can deal a huge amount of damage when dealing with multiple foes. Unfortunately, this is balanced out by their damage against single mobs. Mnds and Sors both will (or should) outdamage and outgun a wizard outside of gear runs and swarms. Wizards are OK for duo's and soloing; their lack of significant single target damage is most noticeable here. It should be noted that the damage meted out by a Wizard worshipping Bhyss vs. a Sorcerer (without immolation, which is short-lived anyway) doing the same is no more than a single damage verb, at best. (Usually, it's merely a matter of the number of asterixes and equal signs on the same damage verb.) Furthermore, since they both get roughly the same hp and defensive skills, neither one is in a better position to solo for a *sustained* period of time. It's also worth noting that, unlike mages, wizards cannot chaos channel their unsurged maelstroms.

In general, Wizards are welcome additions to any group, and incredibly useful for gear runs.

Wizard Remort Options

Racial remort only. HiE is a good choice, as HiE is a good caster. Tuataurs is the other racial option that will give you enough hp. DSD and Sprites are both good choices, as they're good casters, but require the player to have a wizard first. Dragons is another choice, but requires QP unless you have a gf'd liz/drc/fdk wzd. Normal rules apply here: a caster is good as any race that is good as a caster. Sprite casters die fast if the player neglects their SVS and Mystic Barrier and Ether Warp, and continually neglect to monitor their own health and heal themselves using augmented heal ii. But in general, it's fairly easy for a wizard to keep themselves at full hp on a normal run. A few gear rooms and things like that will present problems without a dedicated healer doing augmented mass comfs, but those gear rooms will present problems for a lot of lower hp casters, not just sprites.