RvR: Bright Wizards

Ho-hum. With this article, I’m hoping to kickstart a series focused on ways of stomping various Order careers and kicking their dogs (or lions in one case). We’ll start with the Bright Wizard, one of the squishiest foes you’ll meet on the field yet at the same time, one of the deadliest ones.

The Bright Wizard is pretty much the Order’s version of the Sorceress, only with less emo and more blowing things up. If you’re new to WAR, you’ll find that this is one of the first few classes you learn to recognize immediately. They’re the red buggers running around and melting everyone’s video cards with their firey spell effects of doom.

As with most casters in WAR, one of the things Bright Wizards have going for them is range. They can hit you from up to 100 feet away and a smart wizard will always use the surrounding terrain to his advantage, in order to keep the distance. The good news is your Black Orcish self can endure alot of punishment, more than enough to close the distance and smash the git’s scorched mug in. The bad news is to do so you’ll usually have to cross through the entire enemy rank. The worst news is that Bright Wizards like to work in packs, barbecuing one target at a time.

The other good news is that these guys are pretty squishy. So once you’ve closed the distance and dealt with their attempt to get out of your range again, they’re pretty much toast (har har). Also, due to their backlash mechanic, some of these silly wizards have a tendency to do half the job for you, mostly by blowing themselves up.

Tip #1 - Most Bright Wizards are scared of you.

You’ve got roughly 3 times their hp, can block spells (you do use a shield, don’t you?), can heal yourself upon landing a blow (with Da Toughest!), you can snare, root and you can punt them into bad places. Hell, I’d be scared too!  The thing to remember here is, do not expect a BW to sit there when you charge towards him. Instead, expect him to hit Fire Cage (AoE root) and vamoose towards the nearest friendly tank.

Tip #2 - Bright Wizards like playing with fire

You don’t say, Einstein! But no seriously, they do. One thing they like to do is root you (by means of aforementioned Fire Cage), then stop a few feet away from you and load up a spell, counting on you to stay rooted and die. Doubly so if you’re very low on HP. Fortunately, you have several ways of dealing with this.

Tip #3 - Taunt is your friend

it has a very nifty interrupt effect which frustrates casters to no end - remember to time this right, as it’s on a ten seconds cooldown; as a rule of thumb, if you’re passing by a Bright Wizard and they’re doing that motion where they’re pulling their hand back from the elbow, feel free to taunt them and smack them a couple of times, that should get them running.

Tip #4 - Hold The Line

Can you say 45% extra disrupt chance? Whether you’re being rooted or just trying to get up and personal with a Bright Wizard, this will help alot, although at a pretty harsh Action Points cost.

Tip #5 - Use Juggernaut to free yourself

Then continue hacking away at the poor bastard - they hate it when you don’t stay in your Fire Cage.

Tip #6 - Snare them

Use Trip’em Up to reduce their mobility. This will also allow your friendly neighbourhood marauders to make them into minced meat more efficiently.

Tip #7 - Kick them around

Big Slash is amazing, moreso when you use it to throw some unsuspecting wizard into a gang of frenzied Witch Elfs.

Tip #8 - Fight fire with fire

Well, literally, it’s fight fire with ..purple bolts of…doom? Anyhow, if you simply cannot get all the way to the back where the wizards are, you can still make yourself useful by protecting your ranged dps. One tactic me and a Sorceress friend use has me standing in front of him and attracting attention, then Holding the Line while he nukes away, until he kills himself from the backlashes that is.

Tip #9 - Bright Wizards simply LOVE numbers

Critical Mass

Big numbers that is. This is especially true for scenarios but also applies to RvR. Plenty of times, Bright Wizards with an ego in need of boosting will completely disregard their team’s efforts and pursue their own agenda. The reason behind this is that, at the end of a scenario, their number will be bigger than the other guys’ numbers and that’s always better than actually working with your team. (remember kids - lone wolves are AWESOME and everyone will appreciate you more if you name your bright wizard Elsminsterrrr). This being said, count on alot of BWs being vain and interested more in the damage they dish out than anything else. The good news is their team will usually figure out they’re muppets and lend them no help whatsoever when you hack away at them.

In a nutshell, the Black Orc won’t have any trouble taking on most Bright Wizards. Of course, there’s always the occasional prodigy who will fry you faster than you can say “choppa” and leave you going “what the hell just happened?”. Otherwise though, your tank is pretty well equipped for dealing with whatever them walking flamethrowers can throw at you. Just keep chopping and make sure they don’t make it back to their friends.

Tags: Black Orc, Bright Wizard, RvR, tips