Class Changes: Wizard

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Wizard Single Target Balancing

For most of the server’s existence, wizards have been a class with a low damage floor but very strong scaling. This often meant that wizards were powerful when they had access to the best gear and clickies, but they would perform notably worse than other classes when they did not.

Part of this dependence on strong scaling came from poor spell design. Until wizards obtained Archaic: Moon Comet, their best damaging spells were rains. This was counterintuitive for many players, who assumed that their best spells would be large single-target nukes like Sunstrike or Relic: Tarhyl’s Embrace. However, these spells were outperformed by Tears of the Void and Tears of Tarhyl. This caused several issues.

Previously, area of effect spells had only one-third the critical strike chance of single-target spells. This meant that wizards’ focus on spell critical strike—such as their innate critical strike chance and AAs like Ultimate Blast—performed much worse than intended. This was never communicated directly, and many players were unaware of this mechanic. Additionally, this caused wizards to be slightly worse than magicians at this tier; their spells were comparable before relic spells, magicians had a pet, and wizards’ new spells were not actually DPS increases over existing ones, while magicians received spells that directly increased their power.

To fix this, we’ve buffed all wizards’ single-target nukes above level 20 to at least match their old rain spells on single target. We’ve removed rain spells to ensure wizards feel distinct from mages and make sure that what players expect to be good is actually good. The full list of changes can be found on the forums, but some examples are provided below.

Wizard Single Target Spell Change List:

  • Wizards no longer have rain-type spells.
  • All wizard single-target spells level 20 and above have been adjusted upwards to at least match the power of their old rain spells.
    • Sunstrike:
      • OLD: Damage 1675, 7s cast, Mana cost 450.
      • NEW: Damage 2075, 5s Cast, Mana cost 435
    • Ancient: Destruction of Ice:
      • OLD: 1200 Damage, 230 mana.
      • NEW: 1920 Damage, 320 Mana
    • Relic: Tarhyl’s Embrace:
      • OLD: 2250 Damage, 6s Cast, 510 mana.
      • NEW: 2350 Damage, 5s Cast, 450 mana
    • Archaic: Moon Comet:
      • OLD: 2575 Damage, 5.75s cast, 525 Mana.
      • NEW: 2650 Damage, 5s cast, 490 mana
  • Wizards have a new high-efficiency direct damage spell, similar in design to Ancient: Destruction of Ice, available at the runic spell level.
  • Intensify is no longer a runic spell and is now available from the Voices quest in the Murk.

Wizard Area of Effect Balancing

The progression of wizard area of effect spells was previously haphazard. While leveling, you’d often get a new area of effect spell that was somehow worse than what you already had. Additionally, at high levels, the best area of effect spells were the level 50-60 Benli’s point-blank area of effect (PBAoE) spells. While the power of these spells was not a concern at the highest points of character power, their superiority over anything that followed was often confusing to new players, leaving wizards with several point-blank area of effect spells that served little purpose.

In addition to these spells, wizards had a collection of targeted area of effect spells that were often outclassed by existing rains and competed for use in the same scenarios. The highest level one was particularly difficult to use due to its massive radius, often resulting in the caster hitting themselves.

We’ve made a balance pass on all wizard area of effect spells to ensure they have a logical progression and make sense relative to wizards’ new single-target spells. All area of effect spells above level 50 no longer have cooldowns, so players don’t have to cobble together multiple spells that are nearly identical to deal damage.

Previously, AOE spells had only one-third the critical strike chance of single-target spells, a mechanic that was invisible to players and didn’t make sense mathematically. This mechanic has been removed, so AOE spells now receive the full benefit from critical strike chance. As a result, their damage output will be better than it initially appears. The new high-level point-blank AOE spells, while slower, now benefit from the Quick Damage AA, giving them additional scaling that the Benli’s line lacked. At level 65, with the initial spell critical strike AAs and Ultimate Blast, the damage of Winds of Gelid should be similar to the Benli’s line, and it will scale beyond it as you gain more spell critical strike chance from AAs and charms.

Again, these changes affect many wizard spells, and the full list can be found on the forums. Some examples are provided below:

Wizard AOE Target Spell Change List:

  • All Wizard Area of Effect spells have gotten a balance pass.
  • Wizards now have a new Point Blank Area of Effect spell at the runic spell level.
  • Benli’s Static pulse, Zephyr of Ice, and Wave of Heat have been nerfed and the area of effect spells after them have been buffed.
    • Winds of Gelid:
      • OLD: Level 61. Damage: 1260, Mana 775, 6s Cast, 12s Recast.
      • NEW: Level 65 Damage 775, Mana 550, 4s Cast, 0s Recast.
    • Meteor Swarm:
      • OLD: Ae Radius 60.
      • NEW: AE Radius 35
  • Supernova has been moved down to level 44 and adjusted to reduce the large gap between point-blank area of effect spells. It is now being balanced against conflagration rather than ice comet which has caused a very large shift in its power.

Wizard AA Changes: Familiar

The Allegiant Familiar AA was accidentally added during the transition to the last client, replacing Fury of the Ashes. It was left in because by the time someone noticed, players had become used to it. However, this AA familiar was simply a strictly better version of Relic: Arcane Familiar, completely invalidating it. This AA has been removed, and Fury of the Ashes has once again taken its place.

Wizard Mana Changes

Wizard mana has been a long-standing issue on the server. Forbidden Harvest has caused many balancing problems. The AA was originally intended to grant a stance that temporarily allowed you to gain mana from killing blows. However, when it didn’t work, it was left as something that was always on. This turned wizards from a mana-limited class into one with infinite mana in any situation where they could reliably kill enemies. This caused numerous balance issues, forcing developers to jump through hoops to manage wizards being able to endlessly refill mana on specific fights. An attempt to fix this created additional problems, as fights had already become balanced around wizard’s unlimited mana availability.

In addition to the issues with Forbidden Harvest, wizards had a second mana AA, Leyline Mastery, which was drastically underpowered. It gave wizards a 20% chance per rank to gain bonus mana between 20 and 120 when they cast a harvest spell. For the amount of AAs this cost, the benefit was incredibly low, and having two special class AAs related to mana, while others were getting more interesting or powerful AAs, was odd and a bit boring.

With these issues in mind, our goal is to reduce the feast-or-famine mana aspects of wizards. We don’t want wizards to have infinite mana, but we also don’t want them to have to twiddle their thumbs and save all their mana to handle mechanics in some fights. We also want to reduce the DPS gap when wizards can spam Flash Flame compared to when they cannot. To that end, we’re making several changes to wizard mana.

Wizard Mana Change List:

  • Forbidden Harvest has been replaced with a new AA called Arcane Empowerment.
    • Arcane Empowerment provides the wizard a damage bonus relative to their remaining mana percentage. The maximum bonus is 2.5% per rank.
  • Leyline Mastery now causes your harvest spells to provide an additional 25% mana per rank. In addition, it gives your harvests a 2% chance per rank to double the mana provided.
  • Harvest spells now share a cooldown.
  • Ancient: Shiritri’s Harvest now restores 850 mana. This is the amount that was previously gained from casting both harvests.
  • A new harvest spell is now available at the runic spell level, providing 1500 mana.
  • A new 5 mana nuke is available at the runic spell level.
  • A new high-efficiency nuke similar to Ancient: Destruction of Ice is available at the runic level.
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