I heard that 4 wizards took out Gorenaire yesterday on Cazic ... 4 wizards only

Of course it was 4 wizards with Casting AA skill and Manaburn, but still...

Wanna bet this gets nerfed quick?

LOL...there also was a single druid along. Wanna bet the druid gets hit with the nerf stick first?...:)

Obviously this means druids are overpowered and should be "enhanced". <img src=http://www.geocities.com/lag999/eek.txt>

Weren't those wizards very lucky to get that kill anyway?

Semi lucky. 6-8k for a manaburn is 'usual'. A relatively small precentage of critically manaburning, though one crit in 4 wizards would be enough to assure the kill. So they were... semi lucky, yes. :)


Toodlepip,

My guess will be the other way. It is kind of silly to have the Kunark Dragons stuck at 32k anyway. Though, I suppose, given that MB is unresistable, no matter what mob we are talking about, it is just a matter of getting enough MB capable wizards to the fight, so maybe it will get nerfed afterall. I wonder if some server could come to an agreement to let the sleeper rest until that server had enough MB capable wizards to single shot him when he is awakened. :)

hehe, I doubt Verant is all that worried about manaburn except for Veeshans Peak. Kunark dragons outside VP arent challenging at all anymore for "uber" guilds so they can be done with 2 groups or so. The only place I'd really expect a nerf/change is VP. Maybe they will make it not work there, or increase the hitpoints of mobs there? Mobs in Velious and Luclin for most part have too many hitpoints for manaburn to be viable - far more damage is done casting normal nukes over time.

Kunark dragons "stuck" at 32k.....????

That is the right level for them in those areas.... Remember not all people are playing the high end of the game, VI can't go round uprating all the areas in the game to cater for the high end players.

If I have misunderstood your point, please accept my apologies but that is what it read like to me....

They were mad to try this and lucky they won, at the end of fight there were 4 OOM wizards and one dead dragon, if it gone the other way there would be 4 dead wizards :)

Triena Twobooks
57 Druid of Xev

Yeah..they were pretty crazy.

Next time they need to make it 5 wizards and a ranger.

whats the ranger for? a hilarious death while the wizards escape? :)

whats the ranger for?

For laughs.

didnt i say that? "hilarious death by ranger" isnt funny? :)

I think it's pretty cool. That's what wizards (are suppose to) do - damage - and lots of it. I'm glad to see they have finally received a reasonable upgrade.

/em taps foot and waits for ours... hopelessly.

TahitiBlue says: Kunark dragons "stuck" at 32k.....????
That is the right level for them in those areas....

The 32K limitation is built into the code. Remember, though, that a 32K hit point dragon is not simply like killing, say 2 sebilite juggernauts, because Verant added in insane regeneration to some of the dragons to artificially lengthen the fights and get around the limitation. Using an insta-nuke technique, you get around this limitation and make the dragon MUCH easier than it was intended to be. That is where the exploit lies.

I wonder what all those wizards are saying today that feel they are underpowered...

Nothing shoots your argument about damage to hell like having 4 of your own class go wack a dragon. I can only imagine the conversations over at the wizard board...

One of the 4 wizards: "Hey guys, guess what we did this weekend!"

Wizard Board in General: "You're in idiot... we almost had our changes in and you guys go and show the real power of wizards. Werent you at the board meeting where we discussed scaling back for a while?"

:)


Imagine how tough our argument for healing would be if an uber guild took some druids instead of clerics on a raid (note: no clerics, just druids), got them all bitched up in great gear and actually managed to all stay alive as well as be fairly successful on the raid. Not saying it is feasable but it is remotely possible and that is all Verant would need to table any druid changes regardless of the rarity of the gear involved or the legality of any tactics used...

There's also a massive opportunity for killstealing here.

Let's say a guild gears up to kill Severilious, to get a Green Scale for their warrior epic. They form 4-5 groups and attack. At 50%, Mr. Anonunguildedwizardguy decloaks and drops a manaburn/AA Crit nuke for 17K damage. He gets the kill, loots, gates out.

Next day in EC you see /auction "Green scale 150K!"

With the way Verant's system works, it wouldn't even have to be a critical blast to get the kill. Usually whoever does the most damage in the last 30% of the mob's life gets the kill. A normal manaburn for 8K would probably do it.

I'm not saying this should be nerfed, but there's a massive unbalancing here. And I'd for sure hate to play on the PvP servers. Level 60 melee players being dropped in one shot? Hmmm.... no thanks

Thanks for pointing out what the 32k restriction was, being a programmer I was suspicious that this may be why which is why I put the "misunderstood" qualification at the bottom of my message, was good to have it confirmed tho!

Cheers!

Well, we know that the 32k limitation can be worked around (the enraged golem in Fear - an "old world" zone- has around 100k hitpoints, and I beleive Cazic and Inny also have more than 32k), so why not just remove the insane regen, and up the hitpoints?

ill bet all pvp servers are in hell right now. i have a friend on a pvp server, and she says that some wizards simply sit next to teleport points, and kill anyone who gates in in one shot before they even know what hit em. how can anyone possibly stop this from happening to them? not a single character in all of norrath can survive 8k damage, not even the most uber warrior with the most uber buffs. how fair is this? wizards simply own pvp now. no class can even begin to compare.

I'd like to point out that it's really really hard to find four level 60 Manaburn-capable wizards.

/devilsadvocate off

hehe. this is also a setback in PVP. wizzys who use this will stay away from clerics, pallys and necros, cause:Divine aura, harmshield, and oom wizard. sounds like payback to me....gehehehehehe

Wizards need 6 in general, then level 3 mental clarity (18 points) and then the 5 points for the manaburn skill

not that much, though

I do play on a pvp server (Rallos)... yes its crazy. You port in, with all no drop and everything else bagged. If you don't you are all but asking for it. There is only one wizard on the server who runs with random pkers (named Faikus) who has manaburn atm. I'm sure several others are up and coming. He also has a 100k+ horse thus he burns, then can speed away at bard speed. Then can get mana enough to gate back to the Bazaar and wait 2 hours for it to refresh.

My guild currently has 3 manaburn capable wizards. You can check out some killshots with manaburn at www.ascendingdawn.com you can judge for yourself if its out of control or not lol.

Q

Rather than upgrading the mobs, they should make manaburn not work on things with 32k or less HPs. The giant and dragon bane spells have a similar restriction but they only work when the mob has 100k or more HPs. Right now, killing these types of things is just a novelty. But in a month or so when there are much more manaburn capable wizards it could get a little out of control.

I'd like to point out that it's really really hard to find four level 60 Manaburn-capable wizards
basically to get a manaburn able wizard, you need to find a wizard with 39 AA points (6 points for base skills, 14 points for Mental Clarity 3 required for manaburn, 14 points for spell casting fury 3 that most wizards will take as a priority and finally the 5 points for Manaburn) ... not that hard to find

"Right now, killing these types of things is just a novelty. But in a month or so when there are much more manaburn capable wizards it could get a little out of control."

I agree... as with quite a few past changes to the game, I think Verant either didnt think this one through or grossly miscalculated the time it would take for players to reach the higher level of AA abilities. Most likely a combination of both...

Do I understand these points right in that it takes about the same amount of exp to get one AA point as it does to complete level 51? If so, that is pretty easy... I recall it taking me less about 5-6 days of maybe 1-2 hours nightly to quad my way through 51. That was with a bunch of downtime due to not getting back to the computer right when my mana was full. Had I been more dedicated I dont think it would have even taken that long.

I think your assessment is correct Sorrun. If you are level 60, it goes fairly quickly since the mobs you are killing give more exp per kill than mobs you killed as a level 51. Plus compared to level 59, anything goes fast =)

I havent even worked on AA; I have just been killing things for random quests/errands/specific items for my ranger, and i have a couple of points now. So I dont think it would be too hard for a quadding/AOE/grind wizard to get the points necessary for this. Just takes focus.

Heck there are high level 50's beastlords now =) cant take the ppl that really want the exp for that stuff too long =) Hmmm are there level 60 beastlords? I havent seen one, anyone else?

I just thought of something....

My guess for the next big nerf will be that Verant will adjust how many points each skill needs to increase class by class.

This would allow them to "tweak" each class skill by skill to further "balance" the game... i.e. Dire Charm for druids will cost ALOT more AA points then Dire Charm for enchanters... :)

Mark my words.. this prediction fits Verants past actions WAY to much not to become reality... hook the players on AA points then make it harder once thier addicted!!

And of course, all the ones who were 60 when Luclin came out and already have 30 or 40 AA points will once again reap the rewards of being first.

Those of us still struggling through the 50s who get AA points after that nerf (if it comes) will be shafted again :(

BriennaMonk says: And of course, all the ones who were 60 when Luclin came out and already have 30 or 40 AA points will once again reap the rewards of being first.

Or, more likely, a number of those skills will just be nerfed to uselessness, and then YOU will reap the rewards of being second (by knowing what to avoid wasting your time building). Isn't it nice to have all those level 60s taking all the risks for you?

ROFL

Exactly.

Ducking the nerf bat for now;)

>>>Or, more likely, a number of those skills will just be nerfed to uselessness, and then YOU will reap the rewards of being second (by knowing what to avoid wasting your time building). Isn't it nice to have all those level 60s taking all the risks for you? <<<

Hmmm... well, there is that :p

This would allow them to "tweak" each class skill by skill to further "balance" the game... i.e. Dire Charm for druids will cost ALOT more AA points then Dire Charm for enchanters... :)
Hehe, I think the opposite should happen, Dire Charm for chanters should cost like 100 AA points ;)

may i point out all the wizzy actually has to do.

get manaburn. get nexus gate aa skill.

sit at a port in spot, manaburn something dead, loot, aa gate to nexus

you don't even hafta med up for gate mana, you just book it :D

alternately, i'd like to see a few PKers waiting in the nexus for all the wizzies who were f**cked and used nexus gate :D

maybe it's just the servers i play on, but manaburn wizards killing kunark stuff is nothing new.

Much like this thread (nothing new. The top posts are from February)

Anyway, I think that the Nexus is a no combat zone, if I remember correctly.

>> I'd like to point out that it's really really hard to find four level 60 Manaburn-capable wizards.

Heh

I'd like to point out a group of 6 wizards on Drinal killing the following on a weekly basis:

Gorenair
Hoshkar and some other VP dragons
Serv
Wuoshi
etc

They are causing quite the stink lately. Not to mention some interesting auctions lately.

On one hand I'm very impressed. 6 Wizards zoning into VP with no cleric, pulling a dragon and killing it takes some balls. On the other hand for many of the dragons they kill they have done so when other "full raid" type groups were already forming.

oh COME ON tudamorf.

ccalling this anexploit is ridiculous.

a little unbalanced? yes. i think dragons should take at minimum a full group. but an exploit? dont be absurd.

Well, they have already done something to at least Gorenaire if not others. Last night Gore was up on The Rathe. My guild mobilized to drop her. Mind you, she is a piece of cake, we are just trying to get Pally books for their epics. Bard pulls her to the waiting groups. 60% of us get feared. 30 level 56's and up, Gore gets only down to half health before we are all wiped out. At level 56 druid, I could not land a single solitary spell on her. I stayed Feared for half the battle, this is at level 56 with 200 MR. I could not even get Ro's Fiery sundering to stick, let alone Ros' Smoldering Disjunction, nor did any of my DD's hit at all. I cast 22 spells in total, ALL of which were fully resisted.

We killed Gore on a second attempt, but it was all due to Melee damage. The only person who even got any spell damage at all to stick was a level 60 wiz with the lure series. Druids, Mages, etc. etc. got NOTHING to stick on her at all.

As if casters were not already having problems in the game. Verant themselves acknowledges that casters need balancing. Now they do this because of Manaburn. I told my friends when they created that skill that it would be trouble, that it was just too much. Looks like I was right. Now Verant instead of fixing the broken skill, is going to make casters even less viable to play yet again. Boo Verant.

"By Tunare's Adamantium Epi-Lady!"

I sure am glad that I'm a perma-n00bie!

Blessed Be!

Shree Glistens
Lvl 32.5 WE Druid of Low Ambition
Lanys T'Vyl

i doubt 6 wizards went into VP

there's lot of other mobs in there besides the few named dragons, 10k hp mobs and such, and i believe on a 2 min timer.


static mobs in outdoor zones maybe, but no way they could do VP

Make sure yer in melee range :cool:

Hehe... all this time and I still forget to do that.

As for VP... you can invis past 90% of the stuff in there, and if yer +RoS you can invis up to Hosh's lair and set up.

God I hate Hosh... permakill him for all I care heh...

Tia

I think the VI solution I saw on Graffes, that someone claimed inside information had, was to make it a icon on the mob. If the mob had the icon so would MB not stick nor do damage. A easy way to limit its uses without totally destroying the skill giving you 1 MB / mob (no time on the buff was told).

Dangrim, 60 cleric

Moving to the Rant Section - Say good bye to General EQ.

First off being a wizard I have many druid friends , but to sit and point out things that need to be nerfed on other classes is wrong.

Manaburn on average 6k to 8k damage
Normal nukes I can average well over 6k on 50 mana
Does MB have its uses .... sure
Is it overpowered .... not really

Since you want to speak of nerfs however lets talk about druids kiting 8 mobs at a time. Verant really need to put say a 5 minute recast time on druid snare that would cut down on that. You wanna call for nerfs then lets look over what druids can do that no other class can. If you don't want people pointing out druid faults dont point out other classes for the nerf bat.

With all this said I still believe some druids to be great friends and allies. A druid who can play their class is 1 of the able classes still in game. You be jack of all trades and I'll stick with being a master of damage.

Being a wizard and pointing out quadkiting as needing a nerf is a bit ironic in my book =)

While manaburn is extremely nice and balanced in alot of cases(luclin/velius), its pretty much asking for a nerf - not saying its gonna happen, i like it as it is - but 4 people killing dragons with 1 press on a button, including the ones in VP isnt something i could imaging it was meant for.

Not to mention players suddently having death touch on the PVP servers and in duels - thats probably the worst part about it.

who said anything about quad kiting?
quad=4
I'm talking 8 mobs at 1 time
On a side note i've never quadded so for all I care they can nerf it =).

I would love to know how to kite 8 at a time and do damage to all 8.

Share please =)

here, here! do tell!

Probably involves pulling 8 instead of 4 of whatever you're normally going to quad, assuming you can do the first quad with half mana. Or perhaps use a Lumi staff a bunch.

Don't really get where his complaint comes from though, even if he doesn't quad, he'd royally annoy his own class by calling for nerfage, and personally I've had far more annoyance with monks soloing light blues (all of them that is) than wizards or druids cleaning an area out.

Well im not calling for a nerf. I didnt start this topic one of you dr00ds did in hopes wizards would get nerfed.Quad kiting itself isnt bad and truthfully after 50 thats about it for druids.
I simply pointed out that there are things Verant could still nerf on druids like it or not.
Point is dont start nerf topics unless you want people to point back at ya. As for how you do 8 I havent a clue since ive only seen dr00ds doing it. Don't know don't care. I'm sure however Verant did not mean for druids to make 8 mobs such a trivial encounter.
As part of wizard community I stand against nerfing unless its in dire need , yet ive seen a few druids posting on how wiz skills should be nerfed. Many druids wonder why people act the way they do towards them /points to this topic.

okay. first of all, we are not "dr00ds". we are druids, only those druids who act all cool and awesome and add 0r to every word are dr00ds. secondly, we didnt post that hopign for a nerf. it was merely a thought, since you wizards can now basically kill kunark dragons with 4 people, so easily. it basically totally destroys the risk vs reward theme.

Qaldaliele 666, A druid would kill 8 things in exactly the same way a wizard would, only less efficiently.

Also, for wizards or druids they would need to be green because you would run out of mana way before they were all dead.

Next, I am sure no one here has called wizards, Wiztards. try to return the favor. We are druids. Not a hard concept.

Next time you decide to complain about killing multiple targets at once, maybe you should look at the wizards jyll's line and ask a few high level wizards what they use them for.

Also, all classes have a few people who call nerf at one time or the other. just read one on the wizard boards about how monks FD needed to be nerfed. Take it in stride, Druids get people screaming nerf at us all the time, we deal with it.

Last and not least, I think most of us do not want manaburn nerfed, (I do not) but we are curious how many more kunark dragons will be killed by a handfull of wizards before VI takes notice.

In the end, if wizards start to monopolize the kunark dragons it will be the wizards who bring a nerf on yourselfs. Much like we did with the dot kiting years ago, or clerics with free CH off the donnals BP.

Your own class is your worst enemy in this matter, not us.

Twonk you make many valid points so I'll address it in a respectful manner.

There are dr00ds and there are druids
There are wiztards and there are wizards

As to the 8 mobs at 1 time they are at least light blue to the people doing them.

By Jylls I take it you mean AE groups-average AE group consists of anywhere from 20 to 30 mobs
6 druids together using the above mentioned kite method could do 48 mobs

If wizards cause MB to get nerfed by their own actions then so be it but making topics about it is foul. If a wizard posts on Graffe about nerfing another class we also berate said wizard.

And as you have already stated if druids don't recieve fair treatment or get nerfed its prob your own classes fault.

I don't hate druids nor even dislike druids but topics such as this serve no purpose.

BTW 4 wizards using MB and only hitting for 6k each would be 4 dead wizards even 6 wizards could die if MB didnt do max damage for all of them.

The problem here is on multiple fronts.

First, they could not be any higher than light blue, and even then its iffy. Light blues do not have half the hit points of their slightly higher level counterparts. So when you end up killing 8 light blues, it takes almost twice the mana as a normal quad. meaning

Second, it is at least twice as difficult, danger factor is at least twice what a normal quad would be.

And last, you get the same exp as you would with one quad. (as light blues give you half the exp of a normal blue)

All in all not worth the effort. Wizards could do this too, but as I said, its too little returned for the effort put into it, that is why you do not see 6 druids or 6 wizard groups going out and doing this.

The only time the risk would be worth the reward (as far as I could tell) would be aoeing greens for faction.

AoE on the other hand, you do see quite a bit, the exp return is higher and risk is right in line with reward. that is why you see quite a few aoe groups and quadding groups are almost non existent.

<hr size="1">
I don't hate druids nor even dislike druids but topics such as this serve no purpose
<hr size="1">

While I agree this thread serves little purpose. When people do amazing things, other people tend to talk about it. :) (The shammy soloing yeldema in WW for example)

We were not shouting nerf, in fact quite a few people were even defending the wizards.

Verant does not need us to say anything about manaburn, they know that it could be used to take out the raid style 32k mobs, and I am sure they are watching it to make sure it does not get out of control.

Like the cleric complete heal BP, as long as it did not get out of control, nothing happened. but a year or so later when the BP was more common and people were using it in a way that was not intended, it got the nerf bat.

In the end. I truly hope mana burn stays the way it is, its a great ability and I happy that they wizards have it. I just hope they do not abuse it to the point that verant deems it overpowered.

Very well said Twonk.

Actually both wizards *and* druids can kite eight blue mobs or more/less, using a regular ae(4x). What of it? This is not possible to do in all places and through all levels. Manaburn also is not possible in all places and through all levels. AE groups? Same story.

IMO, if one thing needs to be changed in this game... it's pathing, and AI.

Oh, and if four to six level 40's couldn't kill me a level 55, I'd sorta be dissapointed.

Don't nerf the wizard AA abilities, because the creators lacked the foresight to properly gauge human pettiness. Want to nerf manaburn? Heh, give it to some of Norrath's mobs. Better yet, give it to a trap triggered mob that roams.

-Sylvanos

most every wizard in my guild has manaburn. The ones that don't are working their butts off to get it. With ae groups they can get it fast. they take down gor and whoushi with ease. We call them team manaburn.