Warhammer Bright Wizard Blog

DoT Rotation

smokeie — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:06:15 +0000

I see that some people are searching for a good DoT rotation to use with their BW. What I recommend is very simple. Ignite, Boiling Blood, Slow Boil, Withering Heat. That should be the basis for any DoT rotation. You can toss in situational abilities as needed, but you can rotate thru those 4 abilities and maintain a respectable DPS on about anyone.

how to kill a tank

smokeie — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:04:18 +0000

One of the things I do is keep an eye on the searches that bring people to my site. One of the top searches of late has been “How to kill a tank.” Here are my thoughts.

It depends on how you are spec’d. If you have set yourself up for AOE damage, you do not take out tanks. You try to overwhelm the healers, not take out tanks. You should only be concerned with surviving against tanks, not killing them.
Tanks have good resists and high HPs. A spike will not have an easy time killing them. Therefore a direct damage spec is not advisable unless you are working in conjunction with others in your group/warband.
Immolation has a good set of tools to burn down a tank if the tank is not beating on you.

These 4 abilities are the keys. They will reduce the resistance to Corp damage, reduce incoming healing to the tank, snare the tank, and do corp damage to them. Once you throw in the rest of your DoTs, maybe a Stop, Drop, and Roll, you can burn thru 10k hit points unless the healer is paying special attention to your target.

The DoTs also give you the ability to cast instantly (except WH) and wear your target down.

Basically, if you want to take a tank down, DoT the hell out of them.

Never be afraid to respec

smokeie — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:57:42 +0000

Do you remember back in Tier 1 when you constantly got new abilities. Most of them seemed cool, and because you had no mastery points, all of them were about equally powered in the right situation.

Now you’re a big bad level 40. You’ve spent a lot of time thinking about your spec, your gear, and how you play. Your rotation is down to a science and well tested.
What if I told you that you are missing out?We all know the Bright Wizard has 3 distinct trees. Each tree is useful in its own way. Immolation is great for taking down those stubborn targets (especially with the AP changes). Incineration is great for pinging those darn healers and other soft targets with some spike damage. And Conflag is our old friend who just doesn’t quite always do as much as he used to.

I’ve found many ways to spec my BW, and all of them work well. All points into a single tree, spread out across a couple trees, focused on abilities, and about every other way you could do it without purposely trying to mess it up.

What is most important is that you have the right spec for the right job.

Would you immolation spec for a keep defense? That would make no sense to me. Healers can stay out of range and deal with the dots without having to deal with you.

Would you immolation spec to take a keep? Hell yes. Don’t you hate it when you’re trying to cast a spell at a defender and they duck away behind the rampart just in time to mess up your spell? There’s no need for that with the Immolation spec. Most people won’t notice the damage right away and you’ll land your dots fast. More over, when they do notice the dots, they will move…and many actually end up moving away from their healers (or out of their LOS).

What about Conflag? I am finding conflag to be of great use in keep defense and city instances. Any time you have a large grouping of people there, go conflag. Many players will say you must be guarded for it to work. I disagree. Guard gives you the option to get close, but never underestimate the power of fiery blast. Large damage, good splash, and can be done by more than one BW at a time.

So, when should I spec Incineration? I’d say when you don’t know what you’re going to do. Dungeon? City? Solo? Open Field? Any of these situations can work for an incineration spec. The most important thing here is that you have a clear target. You do not want to have damage spread amongst different targets with this spec. Pick your assist and stick with it.
Last thought. If you really want to tick some destro off, go with Immolation. The debuff tactic, Stop drop and Roll, Withering Heat, all give you great utility against all classes and make you very useful against runners.

Immo is back

smokeie — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:35:57 +0000

After the CC changes in 1.3.2, it seems that the immolation spec is quite awesome again. It contains our best CC abilities, and people do not often have immunity timers anymore.

If you haven’t run the DoT spec in a while, give it a shot.

Boy things are quiet

smokeie — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:50:34 +0000

I don’t know what the dev team is working on, but since the last patch, things have just been slow. There has been very little new information coming out about future patches and such.

There is a live event coming up that will have a new instance to try out. That could be fun…

Oh, and a MAC release of the game. That doesn’t really have much of an effect on me, but it will be good if it brings more people into the game.

1.3.0b is on PTS

smokeie — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:33:03 +0000

Ok, so here come the AOE nerfs for real this time…
Maybe.

We will see how long it lasts on PTS. Honestly, I’m not sure why these changes didn’t make it in with 1.3.0.

BTW, one fun thing is they are putting the Nordenwatch Scenario up on test for all levels. I always have a blast in that /sc.

Two big things. First the AOE changes. The general discription is:

All area-of-effect abilities have been standardized based on type (Melee “Cleave”, Conical, Line, Point-Blank or Ground-Targeted).

And maybe the one that is actually more important, they have started the CC revamp.

Area-of-Effect & Crowd Control Ability Changes

General Crowd Control Changes:

* Immovable: Root immunity and knockback immunity have been combined into a new single immunity effect, and its duration has been increased over the previous effects. When affected by either a root, knockback, or pull effect, you will become immune to them for 30 seconds. This immunity will also persist through death.

* Resolute Defense: This new ability is now available for purchase from Renown trainers. When activated, your character will become briefly immune to all Crowd Control effects. Please note that this ability will not remove any pre-existing effects; it is a tool to help you prevent yourself from becoming afflicted in the first place!

* Unstoppable: The duration of this stun, knockdown, disarm and silence immunity buff has been increased from six times the duration of the disabling effect to 10 times the effect duration, and will now persist through death.

When I have a chance to test these, I’ll try and put up my impressions.

Drops

smokeie — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:30:52 +0000

I don’t know what experience you BWs have, but doesn’t the drop rate for our gear just blow in Crypts and Tunnels? It is getting a bit nuts for me. I still don’t have a complete set of Sent gear. What does it take to get that crap?

So far as I can tell, the best way to get it to drop is not to have a BW along on the run…

Do most BWs know what they are doing?

smokeie — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:48:47 +0000

While running PQs in the Land of the Dead, I keep running into BWs that can’t seem to solo level 40 NPCs. I can’t help but wonder if some of these wizards have spent their whole life casting RoF as many Destro accuse us of doing.

If you have trouble soloing non-champ mobs, let me give you some tips.

1. Start with Fireball from as much range as you can safely.
2. Hit ignite. May as well. It is instant cast and may as well take the damage.
3. Sear and Burning Iron are your friends. We all have them. The do good damage. Don’t discount them.
4. Shield if the fight gets tough. It can save you long enough to get another cast off.
5. If you are at max range, you have time to get 2 fireballs off before the mob gets to you. While not our highest DPS spell, it is best to save the fast cast spells for when the NPC is beating on you.
6. Use your CC. If you have a spec knockdown use it. If you need extra range, Fire Cage and back up some.

MOST OF ALL DON’T PANIC

Stay calm. We have all taken deaths before. Be flexible and try new things. We have very few useless spells.

Land of the Dead: PQ Playground

smokeie — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:16:58 +0000

Now that I’ve gotten a chance to play some in the Land of the Dead (LOTD) expansion, I have a few observations.
First, it does a great job of highlighting one of the best features of WAR, the PQ system. Before you enter the various instances, you have to unlock them by doing PQs. The nice thing is that there is almost always at least a warband running between PQs right now. I think most of these PQs could be done by a single group, so it shouldn’t be too hard to scrap one together once the new wears off the content.

And here’s a nice surprise for the expansion, the RVR in it is fun. I’ve only gotten to be on the defensive, but it is a fun aspect in that there is nothing to loose. Once you’re on defense, you cannot revive, but you can be rez’d. Meaning that Destro is coming to wipe you out. If they do, you don’t loose Altdorf, a fort, or anything you can’t or won’t get back later. You get in there and scrap it up with them till Destro wipes you.

I haven’t had a chance to make it into the instances yet, but if the inside is as fun as the outside, this expansion is a hit with me. The only down side I can say is that it doesn’t feel connected to the rest of the game. And honestly, I’m not sure that’s bad.

I’m not gone

smokeie — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:56:15 +0000

Sorry for lack of posts the last bit, but I’ve been busy with personal stuff. My wife just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. I should be back on top of my posts here very soon.