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I have only seen disjointed and misinformation on this subject from various sources. As a new wizzy can someone please clear up our aoe lines for me? Namely;
1) do our aoe spells do listed damage to all mobs in the area of effect or is it divided by the number of mobs hit?
2) are spirals higher mana and lower damage due to the larger area or is there something else i am missing?
3) which type is the way to go when i begin trying to kite more than one mob in a few levels?
Thanks for the help
1) Column/Pillar damage is per target, rains have less waves the more targets you hit. I believe Whizbang's guide explains this.
2) Al`Kabor spells used to hit unlimited targets and were nerfed down to 5 targets while keeping the high mana cost unchanged.
3) You'd want to use columns/pillars for kiting.
1.) Depends on which AOE.Quote:
Originally posted by Soldarin
1) do our aoe spells do listed damage to all mobs in the area of effect or is it divided by the number of mobs hit?
2) are spirals higher mana and lower damage due to the larger area or is there something else i am missing?
3) which type is the way to go when i begin trying to kite more than one mob in a few levels?
Thanks for the help
Some spells are PBAE (point-blank AE), they used to have a purple icon (might still, if you have standard interface.)
They will hit anything within a certain range of the caster, without limit. They are not targeted, they radiate out from you.
Some AE spells are Rains. They hit in "waves", not instantly like all our other spells. They will hit either three times or four times. If there is only one target, it gets hit three times. If there is more than one target in the area, four hits are distributed evenly between them.
Pillar spells hit up to 4 mobs that are in the area of effect. They are extemely mana-efficient on more than one mob. They are used for quad-kiting.
2.) Spirals are a complete joke and not ever worth casting. Don't even bother buying them. They can hit up to 5 targets, and work sort of like Pillars, except they suck.
3) Pillars are what you use for quad kiting. Quad kiting becomes viable at level 34 when you get Circle of Force.
Thank you for the help. How do I access Whizbang's guide?
Depending on level, and excluding the more risky/fun quads: assume you start at level 29 with Bonds of force.Quote:
3) which type is the way to go when i begin trying to kite more than one mob in a few levels?
Use Bonds of force and your (level 24 ?) pillar/collumn spell.
Start with 1 MoB and see if you can kill it using that pillar only while kiting. If you can, then you can go to 2 , 3 and 4 in the end.
If not, there are several options:
- Wait till 34 and use your CoForce AE that you will use untill level 51.
- Get more mana + INT.
- Get a lower level mob with less HP.
Fun quads: go to East (or west) Karana, tag 4 Beetles with your flux staff, and full speed (SoW) quad them (they unsnared) with your level 16? Pillar. Mage focus ring helps with casting speed.
And remember that both rains and pillars will damage YOU as well if you are in range of the targeted area. PBAOE is safe from this, as you are the center of the AoE.
-Mirc
The average player wouldn't want to kite with PBAE's (although I've heard of people doing it).
The "real" kiting usually starts at level 34 (Circle of Force) since previous targetted AE's are ineffective.
speaking of ae's, here is wishing we get a pop level magic rain next expansion. tears of druzzil is soooo kunark era...
Rain AE spells are very good for grouping purposes. Especially on one-mob encounters, but I've used them on multi-pulls too.
The reason for this is that the mana efficiency on rain spells is very good.
So if you e.g. compare Ice Comet (1100 damage for 400 mana) to Tears of Druzzil (1800 damage for 380 mana) you'll see that it is much better, assuming that all waves hit. Rain spells do tend to hit less than other spells, especially if you compare to draughts, but I find it still lands often enough to make it worthwhile (especially with some debuffing).
ice comet vs tears of druzzil is so a biased comparison.
pillar of lightning
up to 4 targets
mana 344
damage 828 to each mob
2.41 dmg per mana but 9.64 with 4 targets
volcanic draught
1 target dd
mana 215
damage 658
3.06 dmg per mana
Thunderbold
unlimited targets in range of you
mana 300
damage 600
2.0 dmg per mana but unlimited targets. also a 3 second stun which lowers efficiency for balance reasons. 20 targets gets a 40 dmg per mana ratio though so can be very powerful.
tears of solusek
2 mobs twice, 3 mobs once or 1 mob 3 times
mana 408
damage 645 per wave. against one opponent 1935
1.58 dmg per mana per wave but 4.74 for 3 waves on one target. damage takes longer and rains have more resist problems than most spells.
used lv 54 spells and tears is lv 55. big difference between original release spell and kunark spells.
Bane spells are more useful than spirals. It's all relative.
To get the biggest bang out of Rains, you need two or four mobs to get hit. Each will result in a total of four rains (2 x 2 for two mobs, 4 x 1 for 4 mobs). Rain spells vs. a single target are pretty effective too once you get the Tears series.
Woo? Time warp?
spirals were very good but just like graffe said were nerfed, HARD. they would let us do bard swarm kiting if they were like the original. as they are now though they are pretty worthless.
bane spells are good for those young guilds still doing those mobs, esp dragon bane for the simple fact that it is unresistable and keeps you out of ae.
and i dont believe AoW is banable with giants bane.
1) the damage is not divided, it is always per mob. The limit is in the number of mobs different spells affect.
2) all spiral spells suck. I laugh when I see them for sale in the bazaar for thousands of PP. The sellers are either trying to rip you off or are ignorant. The al'kabor spells are about as useful as the giant and dragon bane level 60 spells (i.e. those are worthless too).
3) I didn't really start quad-kiting until level 42 or so, I had lowbie equipment, thus no mana pool to use up. Now with all the buffs, critical blasts and the cheap equipment available, lower level wizards can surely do it at lower levels. It's a simple matter of kiting one mob with a particular spell to see if you could do 4.
To get the bane spells you have to quest them, and they cost 2 peri's per cast. I understand what they were for, but on an Avatar or War raid, I didn't have the giant bane spell and I still manage to do plenty of damage to all the uber giants. If the spells did 6K of unresistable damage, they would be interesting, at 2K they are a joke.Quote:
Originally posted by Ikeya
Bane spells are more useful than spirals. It's all relative.
But they probably have the edge on spiral spells, which should be eliminated from the game simply to avoid confusion.
even the usefullness of rains is now questionable over time, because of the ~22% resist rate on them. I will look up the math, but I beleive they barely if at all are anymore efficient than an unfocused draught anymore, and are no match for a focused draught. Don't quote me ont he above just yet because it has been a long time since I did the math, But I will post it up here in a few.
Turns out that rains are still more efficient, in the vacuum of best case math. I didn't do any factoring of dps because rains are gnerally looked at for efficiency, and because choosing what to cast between rains is too much work to factor into the equations atm for me 8P. lately I have found myself staying away from them, because ele bosses seem to be mega resistant except to draughts, and factoring in the disadvantages of rains, i.e. stationary mob, no mobs near, open area so you aren't hit, etc. makes it seem like the other spells are the way to go. They do have their place, but ever since the parses showing such a large flat resist rate came about, that place has kinda gotten tucked back into a corner somewhere.Code:[ Damage Focus ]
Draught [__00%__I__25%__I__30%__I__35%__]
Damage | 950 | 1064 | 1093 | 1112 |
Efficiency | 3.73 | 4.17 | 4.29 | 4.36 |
[ Resist Rate ]
Tears [ 22% | 00% ]
Damage(3) | 2040 | 2550 |
Damage(4) | 2720 | 3400 |
Eff.(3) | 4.8 | 6 |
Eff.(4) | 6.4 | 8 |
like any spell, rains are situational. there are always going to be times and places where rains are the obvious call over straight draughts and vice versa. regardless of the resist rate they are still one of the more useful nuke lines we have.
I have to agree with Dephton that the resist rate and the situational need for RAIN type spells just make them not one of my top choices for offense. I like my draughts and my SoS. They are fast, efficient, and will not cause unnecessary aggro or wake a mez'd baddie sitting in the corner.
How about a spell that generates almost no aggro. Doesn't have to be used in Melee range. You are real low on the summoning list. And is unresistable.Quote:
To get the bane spells you have to quest them, and they cost 2 peri's per cast. I understand what they were for, but on an Avatar or War raid, I didn't have the giant bane spell and I still manage to do plenty of damage to all the uber giants. If the spells did 6K of unresistable damage, they would be interesting, at 2K they are a joke
Oh wait, that is the bane spells. You use a stack of p-dots and the raid usually pays stone fund anyhow (1k at most).
They rock.
They offer other things as well -- Dragonbane lets you hit from range on Lendi, for instance, instead of standing under her belly to nuke. That means less time spent either recycling Force Shield (more DPS overall) or less time for the healers spent keeping you alive.Quote:
To get the bane spells you have to quest them, and they cost 2 peri's per cast. I understand what they were for, but on an Avatar or War raid, I didn't have the giant bane spell and I still manage to do plenty of damage to all the uber giants. If the spells did 6K of unresistable damage, they would be interesting, at 2K they are a joke.
There's a fair argument that Giantbane isn't that needed if you're over level 62, but Dragonbane is a great spell. And even Giantbane is your best choice until level 63.
At 65 and 100aa I still choose the bane spells whenI can use them. The reason have all benn stated. You can cast from range on mobs with the "must be in melle range to hit" thing ..... Its invaluable to just stand back and let loose. And I rgularly crit them for 4k instead of the standard 2k so I think they are great! ;)
Unresistable means I dont have to rely of moving everywhere the mob is pushed to for placement to cast, I dont have to worry about insane pushing the mob away from me after i have vasted and causing an innate range resist and finally I dotn have to rely on proper debuffing or the fact that on some mobs it can be ineffective anyway.
Bane spells are great!:D
I tend to mem giants bane and use it if the damn fool melee start pushing it places i cant be arsed to walk too ;o)
i still think rains have their place. for example we just did the emperor for the first time last week (damn game crashed on us before we were able to dish out the loot, two swords and that ft4 cape... also lost about half the rifts). i was doing some spellshield duty on the tank, but pretty much chained tears of marr. i couldn't get concussion to land so felt this was an easy low aggro spell i could use from engage. by the end of the 12 minute fight i was almost oom and ended up doing just under 80k of damage (more than anyone else by far). sure there were plenty of resists and nothing was focused, but the bard i had in group didn't have rizlonas in any form so i figured it was a small loss.
as for the banes, dragon owns but i never mem giant anymore. draughts or whatever do just fine. but as whizbang notes being able to nuke dragons from a range is nice.
I prefer rains in group environments myself. However, I also load both Lures I currently have, because I can chain then starting at 95% mob health in relative safety, even without Concussion (I know, I'm a slacker for not getting it yet). The only times I have aggro issues are when the tanks can't hold aggro on an orc pawn. Still, I want the added security of Concussion. Guess I have to round up some guildmates to get it done.
One thing not mentioned here...
Rain spells generate far less aggro than draughts or big nukes (Ice Meteor, AT, SoS), so they are a great start for your first nuke in an xp group or LDoN dungeon.
I generally have two Rains memmed (ToMarr, ToRo), cast them both almost at the beginning of the fight, then finish with SoS. That will give you about 7500 damage (assuming crits balance resists on Rains) which is very respectable for a 12K hp mob, and rarely get aggro.
Lots of people are saying how good rain spells are meaning "TEARS" spells. The original poster is only lvl 21.
So: don't use any of the under 50 rains, they suck. Like the spiral spells they have very low efficiency because they originally hit unlimited targets.
Just to repeat, do NOT use rain spells under lvl 50.
Learn how to move mobs with Thunderstrike. Then you don't wake up any mez'd mobs, and you get to use a fairly efficient way of nuking.Quote:
I like my draughts and my SoS. They are fast, efficient, and will not cause unnecessary aggro or wake a mez'd baddie sitting in the corner.
I've been using Tears of Marr in Cazic Thule while camping my sanguine tome, and it shreads those lizards. I usually cast a ToM, then an Ice Meteor, then another ToM and a Draught of E`Ci. by that time, the lizard is either dead or below 7%.
Rain spells are about as close to a DoT as our class will ever get. If you're on a horse, have some AA crits and a mana preservation item, rain spells kick ass.
Oh yeah, and this...... is completely inaccurate information. Thunderbold is a targeted AE, and so it has the same target cap as circles, columns and pillars (4 targets max).Quote:
Thunderbold
unlimited targets in range of you
mana 300
damage 600
2.0 dmg per mana but unlimited targets. also a 3 second stun which lowers efficiency for balance reasons. 20 targets gets a 40 dmg per mana ratio though so can be very powerful.
Thank you all for the great info! I am very impressed with the vast amount of info that was shared with this newbie wizzy. I am pushing 29 now and am looking forward to trying to quad (or at least dual). I finished my Jboots quest and am halfway through my Staff of Temp Flux quest. Trying to build a competent wiz and I appreciate all the insight posted here.