Wizard Needs Balancing?

[TehMoustache]

Hello all!

I'm new to the forums and new to the game as well. I just picked up a copy a few days ago and this game is AWESOME!

I just wanted to see what other peoples thoughts were for the Wizard. To me it needs to be balanced out a little.

I would trade less damage for more fireball range and just a little more starting HP.

Or am I just playing this class all wrong?

[Hipshot]

Wizard is a really strong class that deals a lot of damage, but you probably wanna focus more on HP than mana with this guy in the beginning, especially since the fireball is so good and costs no mana.

In act 1, I buy the following upgrades, in the written order, with the Wizard.

Combo
HP upgrade 1
Damage and Range 1
Combo Nova

Then, More combonova or HP on floor 2, or both if I have the money.

[Heretic]

I agree with hipshot - the benefit of the wizard is the consistent high damage. The penalty is that low HP. It takes a careful and skilled player to be decent with the wizard at early levels, but in late game they payoff with the best AOE and DPS. The fireball range can be upgraded, if you prefer it higher you should upgrade it after you upgrade HP.

With the paladin heals later int he game, the wizard is amazing as his low HP is easy to be healed by the paladin. If you or your group is skilled enought o carry the wizard in the early acts, you're golden come boss fights and later levels.

[TehMoustache]

Yeah I figured as much. I feel like the Wizard has that potential and I'm trying to get used to playing with him. I usually play the Paladin. I like to get right in the middle of everything and grind meat. I'll go back to practicing.

[Heretic]

Yes, Paladin is a rock solid class all around. He's a bit OP!

It is known.

[sonicmega]

I pretty much always play wizard because of the facts mentioned above. He's super squishy in the beginning, and admittedly even in later boss fights he can be tough to keep alive. However, in both Boss 2 and 3 he has an amazing battle-finisher in the form of his Flame Breath; if you purchase an invulnerability potion and unload his entire MP bar's worth of Flame Breath onto the boss, you can usually take them out from 25-30% Boss HP left (with 4 people), 30-35% (with 3 people), and 40-45% (with 2).

If you have Rangers that can fire at them from the sides while he's focused on you (for being the closest party member to him), this can go by even faster, especially if they have Crit.

TL;DR Wizard is always at risk of being obliterated from an unlucky trap or a group of enemies, but his damage output potential is unmatched. I would expect him to be among the first classes to be nerfed if any of them had to be.

I am curious as to how you guys play Paladin though. Whenever I try him out he always seems to be the class I take the most damage with, as though he's far too melee for a game with a habit of throwing projectiles and groups at you. Any tips on playing him 'right' would be much appreciated.

[TehMoustache]

Super fast button mashing is a Pally's best friend. The faster you hit the button, the faster he swings (to a point it seems, may just be my finger's top speed.)

Also, I am super conscience of his defense cone (starts at 90 degrees and you get upgrades from there). If something seems like it's going to swarm me I take a step back, turn around and keep grinding that meat.

Also, most projectiles are blocked by his shield. This includes arrows and the green worm boogers but this is only in his defense cone. I usually try to funnel them if I can.

Things like the vine butt poking flower from hell, I usually just run around it spamming attack with small breaks right before hit pops up to hit you. That takes practice but you can get it down. The statues that shoot/ping out the blue death orbs I will get to the cover spot that is the closest to it, wait for the orbs to fly by, then run up and spam attack right until it gets ready to ping out the orbs again, then retreat to my cover. I also won't bother with them if a ranged class can handle it on multiplayer.

I do take the most damage with this class though and typically will eat over half of the food when in multiplayer. But I usually save my dash for large groups and I will dash through them for a huge damage bonus. If you have a good range class behind you (the Ranger is great for this), extra food isn't really needed.

Also, while playing the pally, just you swinging your sword makes everything in a fairly large area aggro to you.

Later when you get heals, I keep an eye on every ones health and will put most of my mana towards keeping them alive if needed.

[Hipshot]

I always go for combo with the paladin and wizard, not as much with the ranger and warlock until later (I usually never play the warlock, I must admit). Because the combo nova gives the paladin range, which makes him really powerful, especially later on and it's easy to keep the nova alive with him too.

Paladin, nova to hit things that are far away, sword to strike things close to you.
Wizard, nova to keep enemies from getting to close up and fireball for things a bit away.

As I've said before, we have nerfed the paladin quiet a bit in the upcoming patch, his dash is worse and his heal too. The heal is nerfed because we plan to add a priest that will do those things in the future - and the heal will most likely not work in the same way then.

[TehMoustache]

Well I'm glad to hear that you don't play the warlock often. It's a terrible character. You should leave it as it is.

And it saddens me to hear that the pally will get nerfed. I thought he was pretty well balanced, especially when dealing with all of the craziness that is in the 4th act. That place is nuts!

[sonicmega]

Well I'm glad to hear that you don't play the warlock often. It's a terrible character. You should leave it as it is.

Warlock is a true "late game" destroyer. A lot of people seem to think he's early-game OP because of his starting stats but he's really a walking sandbag most of the time once his HP runs out. Then you get to Act 3, and his Life Steal, Mana Steal, and Thunderstorm skills basically wipe entire maps out.