Wizard DPS in The Darkened Sea

[Manaelil]

I've played wizard for 129 full days and I pretty much top every parse. This has very little do do with skill and more to do with the knowledge that I have accumulated.

Basically I will post my setup and spell priorities here.

I have two main spellsets. One is low mana for when I need to conserve mana (I try not to use low mana if I can help it) and the other one incorporates cloudburst stormstrike. The differences between the two spellsets are highlighted in red.

Hotkeys:

Regular Spellset

1- Force of Will
2- Force of Flame
3 - Force of Ice
4- claw of flameweaver 
5- cloudburst stormstrike
6- wildflash barrage
7- ethereal fuse
8- magmatic burst
9- ethereal skyblaze
10- ethereal hoarfrost
11-synapsefreeze (depends on the event)
12-macro with /xtar 1

spells not in hotkeys but on spellbar
twincast
bucolic harvest
bucolic gambit
shield of consequence

Low Mana Spellset

1- Force of Will
2- Force of Flame
3 - Force of Ice
4- claw of flameweaver 
5- wildflash barrage
6- chaos incadescence
7- ethereal fuse
8- magmatic burst
9- ethereal skyblaze
10- ethereal hoarfrost
11-synapsefreeze (depends on the event)
12-macro with /xtar 1

spells not in hotkeys but on spellbar
twincast
bucolic harvest
bucolic gambit
shield of consequence

Im going to list the casting order that you should follow in terms of spell priorities. Spell priority means that if something is higher in terms of priority like Claw of Flame > wildflash barrage you should cast claw of flame before wildflash barrage if they are both up.

There are discs that you need to concern yourself with. The first is the full burn which is

*******************FULL BURN*******************************

Prolonged destruction
silent casting
second spire of arcanum
improved twincast
arcane fury
fury of kerafyrm
empowered focus or arcanum

This gives you a 91 percent chance to crit and a 600% crit multiplier (250% (second spire) + 250% (passive aa) +100%(base)) and +15% percent additional dmg and mana cost (arcane fury)

This is your full burn. During this burn the spell priority is as follows:

Ethereal Fuse > Magmatic Burst (AE) > Ethereal Skyblaze > Ethereal Hoarfrost

Don't ask why this is the spell priority just use it. This has been determined to be the best spell priority after extensive testing during a full burn.

When you can't use AE do the following spell priority

Ethereal Fuse > Ethereal Skyblaze > Ethereal Hoarfrost

*****************Every Other time*******************
Disc combinations that fall under this category

Arcane destruction + Fury of Ro + Ordinary twincast (Secondary Burn)
Prolonged destruction + ordinary twincast
Prolonged destruction
Arcane destruction
No Discs

Everything outside of the usage of improved twincast falls under this category.

The following spell priority is to be used at all times except when improved twincast is up in which case you will use the full burn spell priority.

Claw of the Flameweaver > Ethereal Fuse > Cloudburst Stormstrike > Magmatic Burst > Ethereal Skyblaze > Ethereal Hoarfrost

This has been tested extensively. There are many reasons why this is the best setup but I don't feel like listing them

****************************The Forces**********************

Global Cooldown -  Spells have something called a global cooldown. This is a 1.5s delay after casting a spell during which you are unable to cast any other spells.

You cannot cast any spells during this cooldown but you can use the forces. By this I mean the AAs Force of Will, Force of Flame, and Force of Ice. They should always be casted in between spells. So for example if you were going to cast claw of flame and then Cloudburst stormstrike you should insert a force in between them.

So "Claw of Flameweaver - Force of Will - Cloudburst stormstrike" would be the spell order.

Always use the forces when you can. They cost no mana and they do not consume counters. They are essentially free dps when they are up since they can be casted during the global cooldown.

*********************Claw of the Flameweaver****************************

This spell is so central to wizard dps that I have an entire section devoted to it.

Claw of the Flameweaver always procs beneficial effects. The chances and effects are listed below:

5: 10% Chance to trigger: Twincast
8: 6% Chance to trigger: Syllable of Refreshment

Not only can you proc twincast (twincast is the best thing ever created for casters. You basically spend 1x mana and 1x counter for 2x damage) but you can proc forceful rejuvination which will refresh your harvests.

Note:

One of the most important things about claw is that during ordinary twincast (the 18s to 21s one) it should be spammed as many times as possible. If used consecutively 3x times during twincast there is a 50 percent chance of another twincast. There have been times where I've chained twincasts for an entire raid boss. This doesn't happen often but when the stars align it can be a significant boost to dps.

General Guidelines:

Wizards do more damage when they are aggresive. Therefore you should seek to burn as many times as you can during a fight. The earlier you burns are used the earlier they will be up again and 2-3 burns are better than one burn during a fight. Therefore burning early and often is better than burning late and the same principal applies to harvests and clickies.

With this in mind however wizards are mainly useful for the ability to do major amounts of damage in short periods of time. Dpsing during dps totems on lucia and during spark workers on calix is far more important that doing sustained dps on a raid boss. Try to balance burning early with making sure burns are up for these critical moments.

****************A note on ADPS********************

Don't even bother trying to control this because trying to get adps to use certain discs during certain times in an open raid force is like herding cats. Just pray that you get a pro like Sirenea or Baghdaddy.

If you do want to try and optimize ADPS though the following website will provide all the information you need on certain adps discs

http://www.elitegamerslounge.com/home/eqwizards/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=26

*******************Procs****************************

I haven't done a lot of legwork on procs. Basically just try to use ancient Hedgewizard Brew if you can.

http://www.eqtraders.com/items/show_item.php?item=42140

Wizard procs do more damage than procs for other classes. This is mainly because of the Fury Line of AAs including Fury of Ro and Fury of Kerafyrm. Instead of critting for 6k a staff of first life will crit for 20k and an ancient hedgewizard brew will crit for 40k instead of 10k. Therefore always be sure to do the brew and to make sure your fury discs are up as much as possible.

Another important note on fury discs. They don't stack with each other so use them seperately.

**************************Glyphs*******************************
Use Glyph of Lost Secrets unless you have a bard in which case you should use Glyph of the cataclysm when no burns are running.

This has been a general guide to wizarding. I have not posted any of my secret sauces but if you send me an email I will be more than happy to go into more detail.

[Evilash]

I will do my best to follow in your footsteps, maybe I will get closer to the top with my uber SK dps.

[Furro]

Thanks for posting Manaelil!

Curmugly is our other active Wizard as you know.  We have some boxed Wizards as well, semi-actives (Dekabos [Stainn], and Bitsoblowsemup [Bitsofriar, I believe raids with another team now]).

I'm not sure if Curmugly or the others have read your post.  Have you mentioned it to them?

[Manaelil]

I haven't shown it to Curmugly but I'm hoping he will take a look at it. He's skilled and smart enough to understand and use what I'm saying. This is the knowledge I've accumulated over playing 129 full days distilled into something you can read in 10-20minutes.

The reason I posted this is not to pad my ego but because having one person do 20 percent of the dps on calix mobs isn't a system with any redundancy. I could die during an event easily (unlucky with Ire Liches or Spark workers) and all of a sudden 20 percent of spark worker dps is gone. If there is another wizard doing that dps then the raid is still in good shape but the way things are now a small subset of skilled players pick up the slack for all of the other players. This is a major problem on an unforgiving event like calix.

Some things that I didn't include in the post above is adps. Here's a discussion on mana regen and  adps that I had with someone else:


   Line 2653566: [Tue May 05 23:50:40 2015] You told Usually, 'for mana regen'
   Line 2653567: [Tue May 05 23:50:54 2015] You told Usually, 'it might seem like a small increase but it leads to a lot of mana over time'
   Line 2653568: [Tue May 05 23:51:09 2015] You told Usually, 'ticks happen 10x a minute'
   Line 2653569: [Tue May 05 23:51:17 2015] You told Usually, '600 times an hour'
   Line 2653570: [Tue May 05 23:51:31 2015] You told Usually, 'so 20 mana regen is 200 a minute'
   Line 2653571: [Tue May 05 23:51:56 2015] You told Usually, 'and 12000 mana over the course of an hour'
   Line 2653575: [Tue May 05 23:52:25 2015] You told Usually, 'which is more than any of the mana clickies '
   Line 2653576: [Tue May 05 23:52:40 2015] You told Usually, 'they only give 10k max once a day'
   Line 2653577: [Tue May 05 23:53:39 2015] You told Usually, 'there are 3 major classes u need to concern urself with in terms of adps'
   Line 2653578: [Tue May 05 23:53:49 2015] You told Usually, 'chanter is the easiest'
   Line 2653579: [Tue May 05 23:53:58 2015] You told Usually, 'they cast chromatic haze and IoG'
   Line 2653580: [Tue May 05 23:54:12 2015] You told Usually, 'IoG gives crit modification + crit chance'
   Line 2653584: [Tue May 05 23:54:31 2015] You told Usually, 'so u can cast a full burn and leave out second spire'
   Line 2653585: [Tue May 05 23:54:59 2015] You told Usually, 'second spire gives 250 percent crit mod'
   Line 2653586: [Tue May 05 23:55:08 2015] You told Usually, 'which is the highest u can get'
   Line 2653587: [Tue May 05 23:55:33 2015] Usually tells you, 'nice, and then use second with backup burn'
   Line 2653588: [Tue May 05 23:55:38 2015] You told Usually, 'IoG gives like 12 crit chance + 250 percent crit mod'
   Line 2653589: [Tue May 05 23:55:51 2015] You told Usually, 'yeah u can do that'
   Line 2653590: [Tue May 05 23:56:01 2015] You told Usually, 'or use 2nd when ur IoG wears off'
   Line 2653594: [Tue May 05 23:56:34 2015] You told Usually, 'IoG also lasts longer than 2nd spire'
   Line 2653595: [Tue May 05 23:56:45 2015] You told Usually, 'prolonged destruction gives 91 percent chance to crit'
   Line 2653596: [Tue May 05 23:56:57 2015] You told Usually, 'when ur burning u want to fill that extra 9 percent'
   Line 2653597: [Tue May 05 23:57:15 2015] You told Usually, 'IoG is the most convenient way to get the effects of both 2nd spire'
   Line 2653598: [Tue May 05 23:57:23 2015] You told Usually, 'and to plug that crit chance hole'
   Line 2653602: [Tue May 05 23:57:38 2015] You told Usually, 'it gets both at once'
   Line 2653605: [Tue May 05 23:58:03 2015] You told Usually, 'unfortunately though its difficult to coordinate adps'
   Line 2653609: [Tue May 05 23:58:23 2015] Usually tells you, 'yea, i dont run with too many ench either, which stinks, not alot around'
   Line 2653617: [Tue May 05 23:59:22 2015] Usually tells you, 'yea, shame really, ive seen some really good ench and they just blow me away'
   Line 2653632: [Tue May 05 23:59:38 2015] Usually tells you, 'its why i made my own ench, he's 95 currently, on same account as occa/me so i dont get to play him much'
   Line 2653636: [Tue May 05 23:59:59 2015] You told Usually, 'understanding adps will allow u to improvise when they are used'
   Line 2653637: [Wed May 06 00:00:17 2015] You told Usually, 'like for example u see IoG up and ur full burn is down but u can still use ur alt burn + twincast'
   Line 2653638: [Wed May 06 00:00:53 2015] You told Usually, 'even though chanters can be uncooperative they will burn themselves'
   Line 2653639: [Wed May 06 00:01:09 2015] You told Usually, 'at certain points during the fight'
   Line 2653640: [Wed May 06 00:01:12 2015] Usually tells you, 'yea'
   Line 2653641: [Wed May 06 00:01:52 2015] You told Usually, 'another ability u want to be aware of '
   Line 2653645: [Wed May 06 00:01:57 2015] You told Usually, 'form of the black wolf'
   Line 2653646: [Wed May 06 00:02:08 2015] You told Usually, 'gives 9 percent crit chance and 200 percent crit mod'
   Line 2653647: [Wed May 06 00:02:19 2015] You told Usually, 'and u dont want to use it with IoG because they dont stack'
   Line 2653648: [Wed May 06 00:02:25 2015] You told Usually, 'it lasts 4m'
   Line 2653649: [Wed May 06 00:02:32 2015] You told Usually, 'which is a long ass time'
   Line 2653650: [Wed May 06 00:02:58 2015] You told Usually, 'ideally u want to cast IoG -> second spire -> form of the black wolf'
   Line 2653651: [Wed May 06 00:03:22 2015] You told Usually, 'with each one being popped as soon as the preceeding one has worn off'
   Line 2653656: [Wed May 06 00:04:49 2015] Usually tells you, 'ok, good to know'
   Line 2653657: [Wed May 06 00:05:10 2015] You told Usually, 'bard is kind of difficult to understand even i dont fully get it yet'
   Line 2653658: [Wed May 06 00:05:26 2015] You told Usually, 'but i do know that a good bard > chanty for a long term fight'
   Line 2653659: [Wed May 06 00:05:28 2015] Usually tells you, 'gotcha, ill have to ask deadcan or someone that mains a bard on what they give exactly'
   Line 2653663: [Wed May 06 00:05:53 2015] You told Usually, 'also they give 800 mana regen'
   Line 2653664: [Wed May 06 00:06:09 2015] You told Usually, 'which is 480000 mana over the course of a fight'
   Line 2653665: [Wed May 06 00:06:16 2015] You told Usually, 'or 24 harvests'

[Huevos]

Furro wants a parse of "Any QM available" per event.

[mistatk]

very nice post.  I notice you say getting adps to work together is like herding cats.  I run into the same thing on berserker.  I wonder if anything could be done with triggers or assigns or any other way to get adps to work together with people who depend on them.

[Drogba]

the trick is to have a hotbar with every clerics name on it and /tell QM available?  along with paragon tells to beastlords.

[Furro]

This post needs to be updated to reflect the current TBM expansion.  It doesn't appear Manaelil is active currently though, so if one or more of our other Wizards that make up the team on this front can update/contribute these details, that'd be helpful.