Project 1999 - Making Norrath Great Again

Wizards are terrible, terrible in non-aoe exp groups. If you don't parse your damage and compare it with other classes then you cannot speak to this. Parsers are mature and readily available; get one. Hell wizards aren't even the kings of burst sub level 50, mages are.

Wizards weren't even great on raids until bane spells because of resists. I still have some old raid logs from 14 years ago. I don't know what raid boss resists are like on p99 but resists crippled caster damage back in the day. A discing rogue would shame a wizard's DPS on any 32k raid mob.

Evac from unrest? Just group a druid to keep SoW up and train to zone. Even if you evac, the run from BB is faster than gfay. (particularly if the wizard group has no SoWer)

If you want stuns, your cleric and enchanter have them. Or your paladin if you have one. Mage air pet and tank slams/bashes are unreliable but you will interrupt some casts with them. More importantly the massive increase in dps from not grouping a wizard will kill mobs faster which means they cast fewer spells.

a_skeleton_02_sl said:

But they press them more often.

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aka constantly. So much fun mashing backstab hotkey over and over and over again.

Torrid_sl said:

Wizards are terrible, terrible in non-aoe exp groups. If you don't parse your damage and compare it with other classes then you cannot speak to this. Parsers are mature and readily available; get one. Hell wizards aren't even the kings of burst sub level 50, mages are.

Wizards weren't even great on raids until bane spells because of resists. I still have some old raid logs from 14 years ago. I don't know what raid boss resists are like on p99 but resists crippled caster damage back in the day. A discing rogue would shame a wizard's DPS on any 32k raid mob.

Evac from unrest? Just group a druid to keep SoW up and train to zone. Even if you evac, the run from BB is faster than gfay. (particularly if the wizard group has no SoWer)

If you want stuns, your cleric and enchanter have them. Or your paladin if you have one. Mage air pet and tank slams/bashes are unreliable but you will interrupt some casts with them. More importantly the massive increase in dps from not grouping a wizard will kill mobs faster which means they cast fewer spells.

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Unrest is actually before wizards get evac, so that's a weird example. CRing in OS or HS takes longer than running back from EJ, too.

Nightmare_sl said:

It's sad that people think wizards are terrible for groups just because their overall DPS is lower. That isn't the power of a wizard. It's in the ability to make hard mobs disappear quickly and stun the ever living shit out of annoying casters. Not to mention using eye of awesome to get shit done.

Wizards that just sit and AFK 90% of the time in groups have ruined it for the general population on P99.

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You can't really do that very effectively in most of the groups one ends up in. For large portions of the game's content, it simply isn't possible to quickly and easily nuke a mob dead faster than it can do harm. Once you get beyond level 45 or so, most mobs have too much HP for this, not to mention resists. Any of the tougher Lguk mobs have like 9k HP, for instance, while a wizard of that level nukes for 500-1000ish. Even if you have a tank that can hold aggro against chain nukes, you won't have the mana to kill hard mobs or stunlock casters long enough, and then comes the fact that resists are brutal in many dungeons because mobs buff the shit out of eachother and/or have innately high resistances.

To make matters worse, in order to even attempt to do this, the wizard must save most of his mana for these hard fights which means he'll be worthless the other 95% of the time. If he wants to actually speed up the regular killing and xp income, he's probably at half mana when the named mob spawns or the bad pull brings in adds. The wizard class isgarbagefor conventional xp groups, its design is completely antithesis to the way you play in that setting. With mobs coming in every couple of minutes and with not enough burst DPS to take them down swiftly in a meaningful manner, the whole point of the class is gone.

It works on raids where a) you can pour everything into one fight and b) you can have enough wizards to actually produce significant burst that makes a difference. The rest of the time, being able to nuke a mob for 10% of its HP six times over the course of like 40 seconds is really not very much better than what a rogue or magician can do, but they can keep doing it forever without downtime.

Quineloe_sl said:

Unrest is actually before wizards get evac, so that's a weird example. CRing in OS or HS takes longer than running back from EJ, too.

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Guess my brain sort of assumed you meant unrest from all the posts about it, but unrest can take people up to level 40 or so. A group would probably run out of mobs in the upper 30s though; the basement was prime solo magician hunting grounds in the late 30s. The first evac is of course level 29.

Well either way, if someone wants to level an alt - let me know.

The discussion about the effectiveness of a Wizard is pretty similar to the discussion Ive always had to have about a Warrior. Why would you play a Warrior over a Shadow Knight in Classic? Regardless of the slight HP difference, SK's just do it better. I was never big into Kunark and Velious > so Im clueless about those time periods.

Daidraco_sl said:

Why would you play a Warrior over a Shadow Knight in Classic?

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Evasive and defensive discs make warriors far better at boss tanking than SK's and Paladins. They also do much better dps when not tanking.

Torrid_sl said:

Guess my brain sort of assumed you meant unrest from all the posts about it, but unrest can take people up to level 40 or so. A group would probably run out of mobs in the upper 30s though; the basement was prime solo magician hunting grounds in the late 30s. The first evac is of course level 29.

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That's a lot of green barbed bones and monks you have to kill in the basement if you're going much higher than mid 30s there. I've never seen people that high do the basement on live, vztz or here.

Quineloe_sl said:

That's a lot of green barbed bones and monks you have to kill in the basement if you're going much higher than mid 30s there. I've never seen people that high do the basement on live, vztz or here.

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Agree. I believe the highest mobs in Unrest are 33 or maybe 34, and they are spread amongst a lot of stuff in the high 20s. I believe it's basically GDBs and Tents that can reach that level; Hags and Werebats top out a bit lower. Unless your kill speed is really slow and you don't need a lot of mobs to sustain you, there are plenty of better options by 35 or so. Although far more boring, Upper Guk basically blows Unrest out of the water for XP from 20 onward really. UGuk also scales into the low 30s at a much better pace and has more predictable mob density that Unrest as well. Too bad it's super boring and has none of that Festering Hag charm to it.

Prova are you playing on P99?

Pizoi_sl said:

Evasive and defensive discs make warriors far better at boss tanking than SK's and Paladins. They also do much better dps when not tanking.

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I said in Classic. You even quoted it. I dont even... what?

pharmakos_sl said:

someone once told me that hybrid tanks are like your car you drive to work in every day for the good gas mileage (great for every day groupage), and warriors are like your weekend sports car (great for taking out raid mobs)

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Yea, I get that. I still thought that when I was tanking in Hate on my Ogre Warrior that the Ogre Shadowknight just did it better than I or any of the other Warriors. Taunt was just annoying as fuck in Classic.

Daidraco_sl said:

I said in Classic. You even quoted it. I dont even... what?

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Semantics; yours and my idea of what is considered classic clearly differ. They're still better for boss tanking due to higher skill caps, and their dps is superior too for all those times you're not tanking.

As a dps though, it's really fucking annoying when anyone but a hybrid is tanking trash.

Pizoi_sl said:

Semantics; yours and my idea of what is considered classic clearly differ. They're still better for boss tanking due to higher skill caps, and their dps is superior too for all those times you're not tanking.

As a dps though, it's really fucking annoying when anyone but a hybrid is tanking trash.

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Quineloe_sl said:

That's a lot of green barbed bones and monks you have to kill in the basement if you're going much higher than mid 30s there. I've never seen people that high do the basement on live, vztz or here.

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I said it could take you to 40, not that it would be optimal for a full group to reach 40 there. The basement is a fantastic place for the low 30s group though. Upper 30s it's still a great place for soloing or for 2-3 man groups as it's almost all single or double pulls, is outdoors and has a ZEM. Top level greens still give exp unless they changed it.

Upper Guk is of course one of the best exp zones in the game with a 2x ZEM (larger than Unrest) but that zone's mobs top out at the same level or slightly lower than Unrest does (30, with the rare occurrence of a mid 30s shaman) and it's also easy to run out of mobs to kill there, and they tend to come in 3-4 mob pulls. If your group can get the ancient croc room to go with the surrounding mobs though, then yeah it's the best place for the low 30s easily, unless your group is very strong then SolA might be better due to mob availability.

It's worth noting that while huge ZEMs are common in very low level dungeons, higher level dungeons all have small ZEMs. Unrest, UGuk, and SolA are the last large ZEM zones to exp in and all top out with level 30 mobs, give or take. (gnomes being the exception but that tanks your faction. easily the best exp spot in the late 30s low 40s range for those who don't care about faction) This give Unrest more 'staying power' as it were because higher level dungeons have shit ZEMs.

I just started out on P99 yesterday, so if anyone has any throwaway warrior stuff (Wood Elf), hit me up. My warrior is named Araminta. Or if anyone in my level range wants to group, that also works.

Unrest is definitely one of my favorite zones, but I've always found trying to level there beyond 32 or so to be pretty futile, the level spread is just too big in the tougher areas and there are way fewer spawns.

Unrest is a great zone for solo players, but for group play, I think that Upper Guk basically has it beat for xp/hour for the entirety of its level spread due to higher mob density, higher ZEM, more reliable pathing, and more consistent mob level per leveling spot. Too bad the loot sucks and leveling in the zone is like watching paint dry. I think Unrest really shines in the low-mid teens just due to the sheer volume of stuff in the yard. Definitely more to chew on there than in CB for that level imo. It's also great if you're a class that needs chain or bronze or you're short on plat.

I always thought it was a real shame that Mistmoore didn't have a larger ZEM. It is certainly the most challenging of any zone for a low 30's group, but it's not rewarded for it at all. I've always made a point during various progression servers etc to take groups deep into the castle. Usually makes for some really tense but really fun game play. I think on Combine, I had a group clearing out the gypsies when an entire ROI bot group warped into some safe spot and just started massacring everything even though they were in their mid 40s.. pretty pathetic.

Sort of tangential to the discussion, but if you don't mind the faction hits, the Sol A gnomes are probably the best XP available between 33 and 40 or so, at least in classic. Like you had mentioned, it's the last of the real high ZEM zones at that level. Unfortunately their MR is super high so it's pretty tough on certain classes. IIRC, there were like 50+ people in Sol A at all times in the initial race to 50 on combine, and there were like 6 different groups trying to carve out pieces of the gnomes spawn.

Fiyero - Not currently playing on P99. I'd actually love to start up, but I'm basically pouring all my free time outside of work into studying for the GMAT. I'm pretty sure any sort of EQ installation would completely de-rail that process = )

Prova_sl said:

Fiyero - Not currently playing on P99. I'd actually love to start up, but I'm basically pouring all my free time outside of work into studying for the GMAT. I'm pretty sure any sort of EQ installation would completely de-rail that process = )

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Ah. Would be fun to group again. Don't know if you remember but you and grouped a lot when Combine first opened. I was a cleric, Daryaen. I vaguely remember us being two of the highest levels on the server at one point. Go go Oasis crocs!

Yup, I do remember. I want to say we played a bunch in GFay and Crushbone early on. Early combine was really fun, I wish I could have put more time into it. After the first few days, work caught up with me and all the good XP spots got super crowded because I got behind the curve.