- Articles below from Biendur, Guenevieve, and Solarflame
Article #1:
A History of BW Speccing
- by Biendur, Archivist of Wizzie Arts, Altdorf Library
When WAR first came to our realms, BW's were universally
considered the posterclass for OP (overpowered). You might
be surprised to find out that during this period the BW immo
(immolation) spec ruled the day. The immo spec, of course,
is all about the DoTs (damage over time).
The immo spec is still a really neat and distinctive spec choice
for the BW. As a secondary spec it brings the powerful slow
at a great distance spell, too. However, when reading about
how awesome immo spec is, if you see a fairly old date, keep
in mind that immo was nerfed a bit at an early stage. You'll
need to test fer yerself, have fun with it!
Post immo nerf, AoE spec became the rage. Stacks of Rain
of Fire, and the Sorcerer's equivelant, rained death and destruction.
Then in one of the smartest rebalancing decisions I've seen, of
the many nerf options available, the decision was made to not
nerf the AoE damage itself, but instead to no longer allow AoE
to stack per class per sqft of ground. For example, two BW's
AOEing can no longer fully stack damage on overlapping square
footage of ground. So beware older forum articles pushing the
AoE path as the obvious choice or maxing damage.
The AoE spec is still very powerful, but no longer the cause of
stacked pools-of-death.
So here we are today, all specs are good choices, just very
different. No primary spec enjoys the clear, far and away damage
leadership any more. Though I will venture to say AoE and single
target direct damage appear to be the most common specs these
days.
Article #2:
Bright Wizard Tips!
- by Guenevieve, Igniting destro since the beginning, awesome lady
Tip #1 - You will die frequently, if you can't stand to die, don't play a BW!
Tip #2 - Make friend with healers and tanks, they like your dps and you
can do so much more with them by your side. If you would like
to play solo, this is the wrong character - and probably the wrong
game too.
Tip #3 - High intelligence is good, but don't worry about maxing it, consider
getting lots more wounds, too, to survive long enough to use that dps!
Mix and match equipment sets for the stats you want. Try out the
intelligence and wounds mixes to see how long you live. If you don't
die, you aren't pushing your intelligence hard enough.
Tip #4 - Ask your healers for advice. They'll tell you stay in heal range and
always in line of sight (LOS). If there is a WP nearby, try to stay
withing 100' of wp when possible. You might consider fighting with
a healer friend and get a feel for acceptable distances.
Tip #5 - There really is no substitute for testing out the large variety of options
for specs and skills. There is a rich depth of options covering all kinds
of playstyles and circumstances.
Article #3:
BW Single Target Part 1: RvR Build, Tactics, & Rotation!
- by Solarflame
After the last patch, 1.3.5, a lot of BW skills and tactics have changed.
I've figured out the following after much testing and forum discussions
and private chats with other bright wizards. And it really works, it bursts
through heals, it makes choppas and doks go how-did-I-die-with-my-
pocket-healer-spamming-me and it makes squig herders hate you with
a passion.
TACTICS to use:
- Endless Knowledge
- Devour Energy
- Ignition
- Fuel to the Fire (NOT Fueled from Within).
These are your solo tactics. If you know always that there will be a
knight in your group charging into the destro debuffing their resists, swap
out Ignition for Crown of Fire since ignition's debuff does not stack with
knight debuff.
If you somehow never run out of AP, say you're using warlord ring, sov ring,
sc weapon, and maybe 1-2 other pieces that regen AP or have a WP using
refreshing radiance tactic, you can swap out devour energy for something
else too, maybe Flash Fire or Fueled from Within.
Fuel to the Fire is an absolutely necessary tactic for this rotation to work,
it brings your Boiling Blood tick from 10 to 5 seconds and raises the
damage significantly.
Close Quarters is your enemy in single target spec. The whole point is to
snipe as single target, and if get close enough for close quarters to work
you might as well be bombing, that's a different play style.
These tactics are for RvR (PvP - as in realm vs. realm) only. PvE is a totally
different set of tactics.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
ROTATION:
Time (sec) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
---------------------------------- 8.5 sec rotation
1 Ignite 1 2 3 X 5 6 X 8 9 X
2 Slow Boil 1 2 3 4 5 X
---------------------------------- 5.5 sec rotation
3 Boil Blood 1 2 3 4 5 X
4 Pyro Surge 1 2 TX
5 BI/Sear 1 X
6 Nova/WH X
This is your bread and butter burst rotation. The red X's are the damage ticks
that matter.
8.5 sec Rotation:
Best case scenario, nothing gets cleansed. Everything hits between
7.5 seconds since ignite, to 9th second since ignite. Throughout the
entire rotation, Ignite will keep target corporeal resist debuffed.
Fuel to the Fire is required for this rotation. T is the half second travel
time for Pyro Surge. It might feel longer, but it's only half a second.
Two of Ignite's ticks hit right before and after the main burst combo,
at the 7 and 10 second mark, if you want to count that damage.
In a non-best case scenario, something's gonna get cleansed. This is
really up to you. If you prefer for ignite to get cleansed, the corporeal
resist debuff will be gone, so sb, bb, pyro, etc will all hit for less. You
can definitely switch to Slow Boil and Ignite, since they both don't
have cooldowns anymore, and let Slow Boil get cleansed first, so ignite
will still keep corp. resist debuffed for the burst hits, but there will be one
less hit from Slow Boil. Even if 2 things get cleansed, you'll still have
skill 3-6 hitting, which actually becomes the 5.5 sec rotation.
The great thing about this rotation is that it can be repeated almost right
away. Hence the need for Devour Energy. No time to rest.
5.5 sec Rotation:
Ignite is of course optional, as well as taking out Slow Boil, taking out
the two initial buffer skills, and starting at step 3 with BB will make this
a 5.5 second rotation with 4 skills hitting within 1.5 second of one
another (last 4 X's on chart). Do this if the destro is at less than 60%
health and not getting healed.
BUILD!
So which build to use? Two builds will work for these burst skills, either
high up incineration up to Fireball Barrage or high up immolation to Stop
Drop & Roll. I use high up incineration because I need Fireball Barrage
when I do VL, and sometimes I need to AoE a tight group of destro. Also,
Pyro/Sear/Nova all benefit from higher up Incineration tree. And these are
direct dmg attacks that can't be cleansed.
In the Incineration tree you want Nova, and Fireball Barrage, in the Immo
tree you need Withering Heat, Ignition tactic, Fuel to the Fire tactic,
and Playing with Fire.
I'll get into further the uses of Withering Heat, fbb, Playing with Fire, etc.
in another article. For now, have fun with the rotation.
Article #3:
BW Single Target Part 2: RvR Renown & Gear
- Solarflame
Article Definition: For the purposes of this article Single Target and DOT
spec BWs are one and the same. One is Fireball Barrage spec, and one
is Stop, Drop & Roll spec, I briefly mentioned that both specs are viable
with my burst combo.
Short Topic - Kiting: Single Target BWs still have to kite, even bomb
spec BWs have to kite when they don't have their guardbot. Though SDR
or DoT spec does this best. Kiting isn't the same as running, the difference
is when you kite someone who doesn't get heals, including a melee DoK,
they die. Kiting is an advanced technique for discussion another time.
RENOWN TRAINING
I've tried many things in the past with my BW's renown training. It's an
odd class when it comes to renown training.
Here's where the BW is different. While other classes have two main
stats to focus in and then either some kind of crit or block, in that priority,
for BWs, our priority goes magic dmg, magic crit %, wounds, in that
order. The reason I said magic dmg and not int is because a lot of the
times magic power bonus takes priority over the int stat.
I've tried, and discussed with others about a possible 2nd stat for BW
other than int to focus in. I tried toughness or initiative but there a few
reasons why focusing on a 2nd stat for BW isn't a great idea...
1. We're glass cannons. When you wrap a piece of leather over a glass
cannon it's still gonna break just as easily. Speccing into toughness or
init might allow you to take an extra 2-3 hits from a choppa or WE, but
since this game really gives few good means for BWs to escape from
a melee class once they catch up to you, you're likely dead either way.
Killing you in 4 seconds or 6 seconds really isn't much of a difference.
The key here is to NOT ever let any melee class touch you. Besides,
neither our toughness nor init will never be high enough to make a
significant difference.
2. Wounds are vitally important for a BW, because our own explosion
damage always does a flat 750 damage, and a lot of BWs run with
Funnel Power skill in the incineration tree, BUT training wounds
in renown training is a bad idea. You get way less wounds per
renown point than the primary skills in the first tier. Use wounds
talismans instead.
3. Speccing into a secondary stat lowers our damage and that's our
purpose.
Trading off dmg for slightly higher survivability is not a great idea. With
almost the best dps gear available in the game right now I can only just
barely burst down destro in certain premades. It's a lot easier when you
have two BWs both single target spec'ed focus firing on same target at
all times but when you're by yourself, you'll need to squeeze out
every single bit of dps you can to burst through certain healers.
So, what to train for renown:
Tier 1 - Acumen V, 5 clicks +102 intelligence, 34 points.
Tier 2 - Sage II, 2 clicks +9 intelligence/willpower, 6 points.
Tier 3 - Focused Power III, 3 clicks +12% magical crit chance, 30 points.
Tier 3 - Resolute Defense, 1 click, 5 points.
Total points spent: 75.
What to do with your last 5 points:
Some preferred mix of the 5% extra renown for scenarios, city, skirmish,
or objectives might be a good idea, depending on where you play most.
At rr80, as a bright wizard, to max your PVP damage you may choose
instead two out of three of the 2% extra damage vs [destro race] renown
tactics. For me, I like killing witchelves, squig herders, choppas, doks,
etc, so I chose 2% dmg vs darkelves and 2% dmg vs greenskins.
Get the renown clicks into magic crit % ASAP.
GEAR
- Tiers 1-3 are pretty straight forward. The pvp sets are your best choice,
with the scenario token weapons being the best available.
- When you get into tier 4, assuming your renown rank is following your
actual level, get into full annihilator pvp set, find and buy a dark
promise belt off someone. I wouldn't bother with sentinel set from
Crypts/Tunnels except to get greater wards.
- When you hit level 36, if you can get the expensive and rare Greatstaff
of the Sandstorm, this will be your weapon for a LOOOONG time until
you can get your scenario royal insignia weapon, usable at rr75.
If you can't get a Greatstaff of the Sandstorm, other good choices are:
- Bloodfist Greatstaff, Dwarf tier 4 warcamp influence reward weapon,
5% crit, good int, no magic power. Two tally slots, requires lvl38&rr38.
- The Greatstaff of the Bloodmoon, farmable from a PQ in Bastion
Stairs, usable at lvl 37, it has 7% crit on there. Two tally slots.
- The staff from Stage II City instances, purple bag. Only 3% crit though.
Usable at lvl 40, no renown requirement.
For your first greater ward armor set I suggest the Conqueror set,
rr40-rr45. Greater wards will allow you access to instances with
armor upgrades.
Conqueror has great set bonuses for the first 5 pieces: int, some armor,
wounds, and magic crit, in that order. The 6th piece bonus is next to
useless, so we'll use 5pc conq. But be sure to collect and wear at least
once full conq set or corresponding sentinel pieces to complete your
Greater Wards.
Conq gloves and boots can be easily found in the auction house, and for
the rest of the conq pieces, best way is to participate in the PQ to take
destro's warcamp in Land of the Dead. Be sure to keep accepting the
two repeatable quests at order's warcamp, Food for the Flies and
A Blight in the Sky. These quests become available some time after
hitting lvl 40 and after they get you 12 silver ankhs you can buy a cloak
and 2 more to buy a good jewelry piece, as well.
So after 5 pieces of conqueror, the final piece goal should be:
5pc Conqueror, +1 pc Illuminations of Ruin, which is the shoulders
from the Ruin set, the gold bag PvE set from tier 4 PQs.
5pc Conqueror, +1 pc Darkpromise Spatterguards (boots) dropped
by the last boss of Lost Vale's left and easiest wing (spider queen). If
you do this boss, as a BW your job is to kill all the little spiders before
they get to the boss.
In LoTD, before getting to vulture lord or getting top city siege gear, there
is some sweet gear to buy from the armor vendor in the lotd order warcamp,
using golden scarabs and silver ankhs. Golden scarabs are tradable and
farmable off mobs in lotd, and are sold in the AH. Once you get to lvl 40,
and get some silver ankhs, consider buying:
Emblem of Nehekharan Ritualists (jewelry)
which pairs with:
Veil of Nehekharan Ritualists (cloak)
for +90 magic power.
Icon of Nehekharan Ritualists (jewelry)
which pairs with
Nehekharan Icon of Knowledge (jewelry)
The next two pvp sets are Invader and Warlord, however note that beyond
the 2pc bonus, the rest of the set bonuses aren't as useful comparatively
for the bright wizard. Between conqueror and sovereign pvp sets, your best
bet for interim upgrades lie in either as yet unknown patch 1.3.6 changes to
armor sets or Lost Vale's Darkpromise or Vulture Lord's Tyrant sets (requires
greater wards). These two instances can take a very long time to get enough
pieces to trade up to these sets.
If you're lucky and spend a lot of time in LV, by the time you're in your rr50s
you'll have 4 LV pieces, plus something else. 3pc is doable, but the 4pc +72
wounds bonus is NICE. This is when we break the 5/1 gear pattern for a while.
The next progression after 5pc Conq 1pc Ruin shoulders/DP boots is 4pc DP
and 2pc invader. Keep in mind invader gloves can be traded/bought.
Into your rr60s, find and buy/farm/bump off someone the warlord ring and
gloves as soon as you can use them, and one more piece, preferrably NOT
the warlord boots if you're using Darkpromise boots.
Your next progression is 4pc Darkpromise, 3pc Warlord (including the ring),
with the Warlord gloves, and Darkpromise boots as required pieces, and
together with the lotd jewelry and cloak stuff listed above. The warlord
gloves and DP boots each have 3% crit, the DP 3pc has 5%crit, and
together with a good weapon like the ones listed above, your crit % should
be approaching ownage level.
TOP GEAR
With big gear stat changes coming in 1.3.6, some of this may change soon,
most likely just in the armor sets.
Weapon:
There is no question that the Nihilist's Greatstaff of Reckoning, purchased with
850 Royal Insignias + a ton of officer emblems, although at only 4% crit, but
gives great int, magic power, wounds, and AP bonuses, is the best weapon
for pvp for the BW. It is a rr75 staff.
If your AP isn't a problem, The Greatstaff of Sandstorm and the Ur Hondo Asaph,
sceptre of Vengeance, purchased with a Torn Page of the Liber Mortis (World
Boss PQ gold bag) + 5 Sacred Funeral Masks will still generate higher dps than
the Nihilist's Greatstaff of Reckoning for pve fights. As of this moment, no order
on the Badlands server has ever killed the World Boss, which is a 15min timed
fight, it's the statue in front of Vulture Lord instance entrance. He awakens after
someone with the curse buff from killing the 8th boss in Vulture Lord walks close
enough to him.
So realistically, grab the Greatstaff of Sandstorm if you an afford it and/or work
scenarios until you earn the Nihilist's Greatstaff of Reckoning.
Jewelry & Cloak:
Unfortunately, the top game jewelry pieces and cloak for BW pvp is in a pve
instance Tomb of the Vulture Lord and it will take many, many trips. There are
people who have done Tomb of the Vulture Lord for a year without completing
their set. Drops for the glyph/cloak set:
- Bosses 1-2 drops one glyph
- Bosses 3-5 drops one glyph
- Bosses 6-7 drops one glyph
- The 4th and last glyph is bought with 12 golden cartouches
(gold bag PQ reward for killing bosses in Vulture Lord)
- Note: The final 8th boss drops the backpiece that goes with
the glyph set. Don't replace the Emblem/Veil of the Nehekharan
Ritualist pair until you get the full set.
Armor set:
Patch 1.3.6 will make some major armor set modifications that have not been
announced in their final form. We'll revisit top-end armor sets after that release
release, however here are some things to be aware of, some covered above.
- The darkpromise boots from Lost Vale have 3% crit.
You will find many alternative top set-ups have this.
- The warlord gloves from city sieges have 3% crit.
Again you will find many alternative top set-ups with this.
- Tyrant armor thoughts
If you do Tomb of the Vulture Lord as a PvE route to high end armor, as a BW
we're concerned with:
- Boss 1 - Boots (for all dps)
- Boss 4 - Shoulders (for all humans)
- Boss 7 - Helm (for all dps)
- Boss 8 - Chest (for everyone)
To get the Tyrant gloves (3% crit so buy first) or Tyrant belt you will need multiple
Sacred Funeral Masks from boss 8 gold bags.
5 piece tyrant reduces cast times by half for 10 seconds. This stacks with
focused mind morale for even faster cast times.
A couple of things to keep in mind when using the 5 piece tyrant buff stacked
with focused mind. Casting super quick fireballs with a 1.5 second global
cooldown takes the EXACT same amount of time as casting a 1.5 second
fireball or fiery blast from just the tyrant 5pc proc or the focused mind
morale 2. The difference is, you cannot be set back by dmg while casting
instant spells. Also, just as a flashfire proc, spells that BECOME castable
super fast due to tyrant 5pc proc + focused mind CANNOT be cast successfully
while moving. If you try to throw one of these superquick fireballs while moving,
you'll see the animation, but the spell WILL NOT COME OUT. You must be
standing still.
If you read my first lesson, you know that my rotation relies heavily on dots,
so the 5pc tyrant proc isn't that important for that rotation. I do use it for PvE,
but these are pvp lessons, thus most of the time I actually replace the tyrant
belt with the darkpromise belt, using a 4 pc tyrant, 2pc DP gear configuration
with DP belt & boots, with the rest all tyrant.
- Sovereign armor thoughts
I have not explored with this option as I don't yet have my Sovereign shoulders
and boots, but I do believe this will work great once I can wear everything, and
it's good for heavy pvp focused players who don't have access to tyrant gear.
5pc Sovereign + 1pc Darkpromise boots. The 5pc Sovereign set will give
the same bonuses as the 4pc Tyrant, but with much much higher armor,
and 1% extra crit on the gloves. And the missing 5pc tyrant bonus, as I said,
isn't as important for my pvp setup. I'll need to try out this config once I have
all the pieces and reach rr80.
- Why Not to Do 4pc Tyrant 4pc Sovereign
This involves using 4pc Tyrant, and 2pc Sovereign, + Sov. Ring, + Sov. Cloak.
This config will give the BW a much higher int and wounds bonus and could be
great for bombing (AoE), but here's what you lose as a single target BW:
You lose the 3% crit from DP boots.
You lose the 4% crit from the Glyph set by using sov cloak and ring.
You lose the 5% dmg bonus from the glyph/backpiece set.
You gain 1% crit from using sov gloves.
Overall loss: 6% crit chance, 5% damage. Ouch.
TALISMANS
Here are my top gear talisman recommendations for pvp:
Helm: +23/24 wounds
Shoulders: +4% magic crit
Chest: +23/24 wounds
Gloves: +35 magic power
Boots: Odjira
Weapon: +23/24 int, +23/24 wounds
Again, keep in mind this is for pvp.
LOTD WEAPON
I never mentioned the vessal weapon with 3x lotd talisman slots from lotd, won
by killing bosses in the tombs, because it's a temporary step and +magic crit%
tallies from lotd (unlike the usual +magic crit% tallies) are very hard to come by.
If you really want to use it, ideally, you'll put in a crit% tally, +magic power tally,
and a wounds tally, all from lotd.
Dwooid Note: If there are more BW subjects you'd like to be
covered, or have comments you'd like me to pass on, obviously
feel free to contact them directly or send it to me through the
"Contact Dwooid" address on the sidebar and I'll forward :).