Wizard kittingFollow

I have attempted on several occasions to play a wizard just to see what it was like. My issue is I thought they got snare to be able to nuke and kill the mobs. I do not understand how to do it, soon as you nuke obviously the mob comes after you. Can't cast and run some spells by the time they go off mob is hitting you then your dead. Root is nice but does not always hold, how is it some people play this class fairly well yet I just can't figure things out.

Another key point is to not be afraid to take some hits. I think that many players panic when root breaks or snare fades (or they get an add that isn't snared). So they start trying to run first, then they don't pause long enough to cast, so they get interrupted. Or they don't run far enough, mob gets to them and they start moving before they finish casting. If you know you've got room, then move away to get safe distance. Here's the deal though, the faster the mob is moving the farther you have to run to create enough distance between you to be able to get a root off safely. I'll also point out that snare has a much shorter range than root. It's just barely enough range to start the cast on an unsnared mob and have it drop before it gets to you. So knowing that distance is important. Um... But some mobs (many mobs) run faster than that. So if you've got an unsnared mob chasing you, root first. Then snare.


Also, as I said above: Don't panic. You'd be surprised how long it takes most mob to kill you, even whilst wearing a dress. In many cases, if I'm fighting in semi-tight quarters, and I know if I move far enough to get distance to cast without getting hit I stand good odds of getting another add, I wont even bother moving. Mob's going to probably hit you anyway, right? So just cast your root. If he hits you, so what? You take some damage. Nothing a little regen or rest wont fix in short order. You're going to interrupt your own casting more often trying to move than if you just stand still and cast while the mobs hitting you. And, over time, you'll max out your dodge and defense and be even less worried about getting hit. Once rooted, now you can back away (a much shorter distance), snare, and then deal with the mob (and by "deal", I mean nuke to a nice splatty mess).

At higher levels, you'll get self rune spells that make things much easier. Also, 0 cast time spells make some kiting applications easier (still not terribly mana efficient though). And directional AEs which can be fun. It's a fun class IMO. Trickier to play than most I think. Deceptively simple (just nuke stuff, right?), but doing it well requires some different tactics than you'd normally use. One example. I was doing the bayle quest stuff in Oceangreen (for some reason I like that series, don't ask me why). I'd done it with my paladin and decided to do it with my wizard when he was of level. There's one task where you have to take out stationary catapults guarded by a bunch of zombies. With my paladin, I'd just carefully pulled 2 or 3 zombies at a time and killed them, then whacked on the catapults, killing any mobs that respawned. So, of course, with my wizard I initially thought I'd just pull zombies and kill them, clear the area around the catapult and then kill the catapult, cause I'm a damage causing king, right?. But I was having a heck of a time doing this. Too many adds, too much mana needed to burn the zombies down in time to fully clear the area (melee does have it's advantages after all). It was just a mess. Then I realized that I was going about it all wrong. There was no need to kill the zombies, just the catapults. And they don't move. So I just agroed the whole mess of zombies and ran around in circles (probably dragging a ton of other random critters as well, but who cares?). I just ran in a loop with a horde of mobs following me, and drop a 0 cast nuke on the catapult each time I ran by. Took a few loops, but no problem. Then just absond to safe point. Rinse and repeat. Oh. If you do something like this, warn other folks you're doing it btw.

Point being that I was able to get around the content restrictions rather than having to fight my way through it. There's actually a number of situations where this sort of method can be effective. Honestly not sure why I didn't think of it right off the bat. There used to be several raid strats that involved dedicating someone to kiting mobs around while the raid focused on the main target. Same logic here. In any case, wizards are actually quite fun. I love being able to get to places so much quicker than most everyone else. And we do get some pretty nice "get out of jail free" abilities.