Wizards and Sorcs to become ranged DPS?

I started writing a reply to the comments on my previous post, but it got too long, so I figured I might as well post it properly...

The more PBAoE gets nerfed the better as far as I'm concerned. It's just a shame it took Mythic visiting the EU PTS to actually see for themselves what can really be done with it. From what I've read around the net so far, it seems like the US servers just don't have bombing in the same way. I don’t mean that as an insult regarding US player’s skills, it just appears they’ve not had the dubious motivation to try and perfect bombing as much as a lot of European guilds. They're all talking about how you can beat the organised bomb groups or warbands, which is totally true, but it’s also totally not the point. You have to scale it up, a lot. It's not the small groups that are the problem, it's all about reaching critical mass where game-play goes out of the window and mathematics takes over.

On Karak Norn we get full on uber blobs with a core made up of multiple tightly organised and skilled bomb warbands. These aren't random puggies, though the puggies follow these guys around ofc, these are seriously hardcore guild warbands that are well practiced and often optimised for bombing. People that have not witnessed this will be quick to yell L2P and other crap, but it is not a L2P issue, it is simple maths. If one warband has 8 Bright Wizards (or Sorcs) that PBAoE together, the damage is so high that everyone in range will instant die regardless of healing or mitigation. Now multiply that by 4+ warbands, add in the puggie warband followers and then mix in WAR’s funnelling of players into small RvR lakes… That “in range” is now unavoiadable. The end result is something you can't out manoeuvre, can’t fight with single target and delivers a massive area of instant death. They can only be beaten by equal number of bombers that detonate first. Seriously, when good bombing guilds like Red Guard, Crimson, VII, etc, etc hit you at the same time, how can you deal with that?

You can’t, unless you do the same thing, have equal numbers or more and detonate your PBAoE first. Now I have no problem losing fights against these guys, they are well organised, have excellent players and if we’re outnumbered, I quite rightly expect to die fast. However getting killed in under 2 seconds when I’m playing a well geared and defensive specced Chosen is ridiculous, I should at least have the option of a fight. Dying quicker than players can load on my screen is stupid. It is in no way fun and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, other than blob up and bomb back. And then if we did actually win, where is the fun in instant killing people? Where’s the fighting? That’s the key here, the complete lack of any fun in this style of game play. In small scale (group to warband) fights PBAoE is still too dominant and we still might lose, but we at least get a chance to put up a fight and feel like we were beaten by players, not a calculator. It is this horrible PBAoE reaching Critical Mass that some people have either not seen, or are denying because of bias perception of their own class.

Our warband went round a corner of the zig-zag road in Dragonwake recently straight into a bomb warband (or two), we died in two seconds. I'm not exaggerating either. No room or time to move. It's a small area, so it emphasised the AoE of course. Oh and I counted 12 bright Wizards... If that PBAoE wasn't so ridiculous we would at least have had a time to put up a last stand and perhaps, you know, felt like we were playing a game.. Not too much to expect eh?
I know some people reading this will think I’m just another QQer who got killed in RvR, but you’re wrong. I’ve bombed the crap out of people, I’ve had the same done back, so from both sides of it I’ve seen how it is spoiling the game. There is no need for this PBAoE dominance. Oh and btw the “it’s the only way a small group can beat a PuG warband” argument only applies if all you fight is PUGs. Anyone that doesn’t think that PBAoE is an issue needs to consider they may not have seen the full potency of PBAoE damage. If they spent a night on Karak Norn Tier 4, then they would see, exactly like Mythic has, the genuine problem here. It's not often you see Mythic react with a nerf like this so quickly, so don’t assume they did this for the sake of it.

Bright Wizards and Sorcerers are central to this problem. It is unfortunate they keep getting nerfed, but it’s only because they've never been nerfed hard enough. From what I’ve read today, it might not be enough again. Both classes are meant to be ranged DPS, which they are actually great at, but currently they are almost exclusively played as melee DPS which they are exceptional at. This maybe a nerf to Sorcs and Wizards AoE, but it’s a buff to every other DPS in the game. And strangely enough the single target Sorcs I've been speaking to don't seem to have any complaints...


The dominance of AoE, Wizards and Sorcs has been one of the main contributors to people quitting WAR since launch. This is why the other week when I was talking to people in DAoC they we’re laughing about AoEhammer.

AoEhammer. So true it's tragic. Excellent move Mythic.