Manaburn NerfsFollow

Hmmm... First off. I'm not aware of any recent nerfs to manaburn. But you've been gone for "awhile", so recent is relative I suppose.



The Sleeper kill had nothing to do with any MB nerf. I don't think there's been any modificaiton to MB since like a year before the Sleeper was killed on RZ. MB would not have worked anyway, since the sleeper is totally magic immune. At the very least, I don't recall hearing anything about MB being used as a tactic in that fight. They used non-melee, non-magic damage to kill it (damage shields and pets and procs? Don't remember the details on what worked and what didn't). Um... They won because they just eternally click rezzed melee folks back into the battle until it died. Nothing more sneaky then that.



I don't know of all the nerfs, but this is what I'm aware of:

1. Two MBs cannot land on the same mob within a set amount of time. I don't know that time offhand (30 seconds? 1 minute? dunno).

2. A MB will never do more then 75% of the total hp of a target in a single strike.


These changes were made to prevent two things:


1. MB teams taking out Kunark era dragons (and other mobs) trivially. Kunark era mobs have a hp cap of 32k. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that you can kill *any* raid mob from that era in a single blast if you just bring enough MB capable wizard to do that much damage total (which could easily be less then a single group).

2. MB was too powerful in PvP. A MB wizard could essentially kill any single target with that target having absolutely no way to avoid dying (except to just not run into the wizard). That's why they added the 75% hp rule. Note, that two wizards working together can still wipe any one player off the map with no problems. But then EQ is a "social" game...



I think you've figured wrong actually. But that's just my opinion. I'd much rather have a level 65 wizard with the better spells and increased chance of landing a nuke for full, or critical damage, then insisting that all our guild wizards stop at level 59 and get MB. I can count on the fingers of zero fingers how many times a MB has been the critical factor in defeating a raid mob (ie: It really isn't that important).

As far as a group (not raid) is concerned, who cares? You're going to spend all your mana killing *one* mob. Honestly, you will do more damage over time just using your normal nukes. MB is only useful when you really need to drop a ton of damage on a mob. For a normal group, this just doesn't happen that often (if ever).



Since I haven't leveled my wiz past 49, I'll let someone who's taken the time to look through them a bit more answer that. I would tend to think that there probably are more important AAs to work on then MB.



Depends. MB can still be used to great effect in some specific situations. It's not the overwhelmingly powerful AA that it was back in the day, but it's not totally useless either. Having the ability to simply nuke that annoying add in an instant is one of the reasons you bring wizards with you. Lots of "trash mobs" have few enough hps that a wizard who's keeping his mana pool at a decent level will be able to MB them to death if needed.

It's just one tool a wizard can have in his toolbox IMO. It's no longer a class defining ability like it was, but it's still there. I think stopping your leveling process to get it is proabably a bad idea. There just isn't a huge demand for MB like there used to be. Honestly, a single MB capable wizard wasn't really that important back then either. It was guilds who could field groups of them that unbalanced things.


I'm sure other folks can have more detailed info for you. That's just what I understand of the ability.