Wizard Will Ruin Battle Arena

The revive disable is apparently limited to a specific attack by the wizard, but I don't have that yet as I'm only a specialist on him so far. I think it's indeed spell disaster, that AoE attack that it applies to. It is actually better on an ally's head as if you're looking in the correct direction, the orbs it fires home in to a degree if you do.

Zee-lixir doesn't heal (although with an upgrade it can start their regen cycle early, I haven't tested it yet), but does make them immune to damage briefly, I think it's 1.5 seconds I used it in Ops a lot last night. I'm not sure how long it stops sprinting or jumping, I think that's 3 seconds or so, I didn't use him in PvP last night so not sure on that. It cures some effects too but I found it doesn't help against Hypno-shrooms.

The main attack does do 22 on a crit, I think it's 18 normally. His charge shot is odd but effective vs. tight clusters of AI and rooted plants, especially with the 'slow roll' upgrade where it lingers on targets longer to inflict more damage, it does 4 per tick. I imagine the charged shot is not so hot against other players though.

I'm not sure how much armor you have as the co-star or for 'wizard needs help' as I can't see opposing damage numbers. I'd love to see how much damage reduction it gives.

You have 65 health as a co-star as opposed to 125 normally, but I didn't take that much damage as a co-star so no idea how easy it would be to vanquish a wizard off someone's head.

Wizard is an absolute blast to play. He felt like a real support character and his playstyle is fantastic. I was going to make a post about him but saw your post here first. Spell Disaster could likely use a damage nerf as they do 80 damage each, although it's not hard to avoid the orbs (even the AI can avoid them although it's pretty powerful vs. large clumps of weeds in Ops). I like the version of the butter beacon you and your host get too, to see plants nearby and through walls, but I don't know how far you can see. If it's too far, it would need a nerf. In other words, tweak certain numbers as needed but don't ruin how fun he is. Basically, some of his damage numbers may need to be reduced and have the starz align vision buff adjusted if needed. I'll be making a separate wizard post here soon.

I do really wish they would have added characters equally per side and honestly considering what BA is and that we're getting ranked later, they should do like other games do with modes like BA and ban new characters until we've had more time playing and testing them and at least until the sides have equal characters.

I have yet to unlock him myself but mere hours after the Prize Map launched I encountered players who had obviously immediately spent whatever amount of real world cash was necessary to get the character unlocked and accessed.

My only personal experience so far was seeing a Wizard among a horde of Giddy Park spawn campers while I was a Sunflower trying to help the other Plants break up the campers and while we were able to vanquish pretty much all of them the Wizard continued to be the only survivor which demonstrated to me how good the character could be in capable hands. I haven’t experienced the character support from the Zombie side of things yet and I haven’t been in PvP since the new festival started.

I expect that we’ll likely see the character targeted by the next balance fix if he tips the balance of power too far towards the Zombies as you describe. Hopefully the character which serves as the best counter is not months away from being introduced.

@realitysquared ugh, so sick of the spawn campers, they ruin Giddy Park and are the reason I'm usually in a private version. They need to arrange things so this either isn't possible or is punished. It's not hard to survive as a wizard in my Ops experience as you can jump off the host before they fall (if you are still on their head when they're vanquished, you are briefly stunned when you eject)., and even though you only have 65 health as a co-star, I didn't take a lot of damage.

He probably needs some tuning, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some adjustments, especially to spell disaster, the big AoE.

My understanding is that the Berry Brigade is next, I'm hoping April but it must be here my no later than May! 

I should’ve clarified this was all speculation but to me... only makes sense that it would upset the balance of BA.

@Iron_Guard8  by all means, you should start a Wizard discussion thread. I’m sure it would be stickied or at minimum, very popular.  I think the character will be fun to play but geez... the advantages this casts in BA until (I’m assuming Gnome is his counter) the Gnome is released?  @realitysquared  .... I think that last sentence applied to your comment, too.  Isn’t Berry Brigade scheduled to drop next?

I don’t watch streams so I can’t remember what’s hearsay/datamined and what’s official.

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@chogath_player wrote:
@spIash_damageI had a lovely game of turf with a wizard bumming off a max rank allstar. With wizards help the allstar managed to effortlessly snag 60+ vanquishes. Allstar+ Wizard is completely unfair if they know what they are doing. There isnt much counterplay to the duo atm. I had to switch to snapdragon to try and quickly burst them down. Wizard seems to be too good atm. He fits into any zombie team comp very easily. He has counters for nearly all the plants. I say they just don't let wizard into battle arena until plants get a new character : ^/

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I’m into Grand Master rankings on my Wizard and the more I play him, the more I’m concerned with his current state.

No offense to anyone posting about the Wizard now that’s yet to obtain him, but y’all have no clue just how incredibly game-breaking this character can be, especially with the “right” upgrades (one enables longer riding time when you or ally gets a kill... another that leaves the effect of X-ray vision and weapon buff to ally even when you’re off their head)... Game breaking for BA, for sure.

They should keep him out of battle arena for a long time. We still have issues with balance before he was added that should be fixed before ranked is a thing already, much less adding a new character for just one side.

They should wait to add characters until; A) more players have them, have played them, and have encountered them, and B) the sides have balanced numbers. Even if Berry Brigade is in the map next month, that character and Wizard shouldn't be added to the arena until at least a month after brigade is generally available.

I added a long post to the feedback thread. It really isn't hard to knock the co-star off of people's heads as I found out last night, I was wondering what was happening when my host was still alive and I was stunned and off their head. And this happened a lot. You can't really avoid getting hit when you're not driving.

Double headed dragon, the upgrade that let's you stay longer for vanquishes is the one that has a lot of potential, as well as the drive by head rub that lets the armor and sight linger on the host after you leave. I saw the video on these before he was launched. I'll be testing them out once I get there.

When ranked battle arena is released, I wonder how balanced it will be because of the Wizard? He’s likely to give the entire zombie team a large advantage since the new plant  character has not been released yet.