You be the Judge on Quagmire and Earth Skills

[MistressTifa]

It's definitely a must have for a Wizard and High Wizard, hands down

recently though, I've been thinking exactly what level of Quagmire is enough?

I have 2 High Wizards on Sakray who both have Quagmire 1 and Quagmire 5. The current HW n Chaos I have right now has Quagmire 1 but I was thinking if 3 was decent enough judging from my past experience. However having said that I was from Sakray doesn't help this situation because

a) There wasn't really anytime where I figured I would need to use Quagmire in WoE on Sakray (well not really, I still coulda used it on 1 person or to slow down someone but) to really make a judge out of it, there were only a few MS's that'd HSCR and you'll see occasionally 1-2 people running to the emp after emp breaks instead of the flock of people on Chaos where Quag would def be useful.

b) I never had to use Quagmire in Labs, simply because I 99d in Labs with just a MS, and a HP at Instant HW. We used the GTB there too so I never had the use of Quagmire. On Chaos though, I use Quagmire just to slow the MS's so I don't have to see Priests and champs having to use Dec Agi just to fist them.

Same goes with Earth Skills. Pre Req is Earth Spike 3 and Heaven's Drive 1 but i've been thinking if Earth Spike 5 or Heaven's Drive 5 was the way to go. I'd be thinking Earth Spike 5 but then go rofl are you serious? But there were some people saying it actually really isn't that bad against hiders and cloakers and I guess I felt it reasonable to think about it, and just use HD1 on Portal yada yada.

You be the Judge fellas

[Atog]

imo, quag 1 is good enough for WoE, higher lvl quag needed when u want to solo prison etc

during bio, quag 1 very useful for dec agi the monsters, and u dont need higher lvl

during WoE, i personally use quag 1 only to debuff n slow the incoming rush..higher lvl quag ofcourse can reduce dex/agi even further and last longer for the quag...but whoever stupid enough to stand in the quag to get those reduction deserves to die
Beside that, quag in WoE will affect ally as well, so the usage of the quag is very situational...so if u have spare point for quag 2 or 3, it'll be good, but not a must for me

[Teshlin]

Quag is pretty handy for labs, but if you get it for labs, get higher then level 1... its really bad for the pullers if/when the mobs just suddenly start running faster.

[luix]

I really like Heaven's Drive 5. Maybe because i play Sages, not Wizzies, but anyways...

[Dishonru]

I'm a big fan of quag 2. One dissapears too fast, five is alright, and anything over two but under five lasts too long with too little affect.

ES5 is solid in pvp and only takes 2 points to get. The thing with ES5 is that FB10 will always do either more damage or the same damage against players. They are both reduced by ifrit. The other difference is the cast time and after cast are the same as FB5. In trans pvp it isn't really a big deal, but it's as usable as fb. Do you use low level JT/bolts, or do you play against other wizards? If you do then it's worth getting but not by a lot.

HD5 is ok in pvm and can be used in place of ES but it takes 4 points to get. It is an area skill and wind unfrozen armors are probably reasonably common now. If you have the points it's the same as es5, but if you could put the points else where I'd drop this for ES5 in a heart beat.

In conclusion get quag 2 and spend your points else where unless you have spare points. I'd also take ES5 or HD5 over max icewall or something like that. Icewall over 3-6 is pretty pointless if you ask me.

[Sho Lin]

Quag and dispel pretty much rapes someone from trying to do instant cast. HD 1 should be a must though. Damn scholars and wizards un hiding me :(

[MistressTifa]

HD1 is a prereq to Quag so its not even a question of must, u'd have it

[Sho Lin]

I knew some people that skipped on quag they made me :(

Quag 5 can have a down side, if you need to rush in right that second and quag is up.

Also I found HD 5 to be a complete waste not too much to level on with it. Also, if you use HD 5 in woe /e5

HD does jack for damage in the first place you're better of doing something else to them.

[Dusk Redux]

My wiz had and high wiz will have ES3 HD1 Quag1 because I'm stubborn and just lay multiple level 1's when I want to keep re-adding the slowdown effect. It disappears fast enough that the whole "only 3 at a time" thing usually doesn't bite me in the ass. But then again, I don't solo prison anymore (bye FW, hi SW), but when I used to, I loved the higher level quags. Just too situational for my taste.

[Nibbles]

Typically, I find that having the longer duration and more significant effect of Quag 5 tends to make it more useful than the lower levels. Particularly when you consider that, as a 9x wizard in a pre-cast, you can have 3 firewalls, 3 quags, and 2 or 3 LoV/SG/MS casts going at any one time... having that extra duration really does ease up on the SP costs.

As a general de-buffer, Quag 1 is typically just as effective as Quag 5 (sometimes moreso, since the reduced duration allows you to move the Quagmire as needed), they both will strip 2HQ, IC, Agi, and Cart Boost. However, and this goes back to pre-casting, when dealing with wizards and sages, the further you can get them from that 150 dex mark, the better off you are, typically.

There are also other tricks a higher level Quag is good for.

[Ryock]

I personally like level 1 the best. I find higher levels of Quag being more of a con than a pro in most cases. Like some people here have already said, usually the quicker they run out, the better, since I can place my Quags in a different area for the situation.

I used to level in GH prison, when I was a Wizard. I thought having Quag 1 back then was a waste, and could have done better with Qiag 3-5, but I was wrong, and I found level 1 to be the best for that place. I still solo GH prison once in a while now, too, but nowhere near as much (no FW XD). I find Quag 1 being good enough anyways for those precasts as well. Gives enough time to get out of the line of precasting usually.

[Dishonru]

The advantage of high level quag is it debuffs more dex/agi. It's great on the emperium, to stop instant cast, and in a few other situations. Low level quag is better just for slowing things.

[alekth]

I had lvl2 on reg. wiz, then lived with lvl1 on high wiz for quite a while, skill reset for lvl5 and haven't regretted it.

I wouldn't mind HD5 but it's too many extra points, I have ES5 just because it's more spammable than FB10 on wind.

[Nibbles]

Yanno what with Thor's being packed with boss monsters that use 2HQ, I suddenly wonder how bosses get affected by Quag.

[Pantsu]

I have HD5 on my High Wiz. I like it alot. I guess it depends on your build because my High Wiz doesn't have LoV or MS. In siege it's definitely nice to spam alongside SG. I also use it for ice breaking when I'm leveling somewhere with strings. I guess if you had LoV or MS it'd be a different story, but my only AoE skills are SG, HD, Grav Field. (and I guess fire wall!)

I would also get quag 5 if I were to ever level him again. The percent of agi/dex reduction is nice.

[rxkire]

PvP environment, I enjoyed Earth Spike 5 and never looked back to HD again. HD5 is unreliable to target against decent players, and ES5 just gives you much more offensive power against rogues/sins.

As far as quagmire I always preferred 5. There is a point where you learn to manage your quagmire with efficiency, meaning you know where you want to the quagmire in respect to your/targets position. It takes some learning with lower level JT's and icewall, but after the quagmire update long ago I still never needed that "4th quagmire".

Hope that helps.

[Ellonia]

It's really situational for both earth and quagmire skills. Undoubtedly the reason you quag anyone in WoE or pvp is to remove buffs and slow them down; quag 1 and 2 accomplish this just fine and disappear rather quickly.
Personally I enjoy quag 5 myself, as long as I don't quag a narrow path I won't screw over my allies and for pvm I know the stalkers appreciate it when trying to steal =P.
ES and HD again are situational. With the wind armors coming out I've decided to keep HD max'd, then again I don't have Meteor storm or LoV, so for me it's my 2nd AoE. (MS sucks for pvm and the only place I'd used LoV would be ice caves and JT does just fine)

[Jaay]

They're definitely NOT must haves... lol

I'd say the opposite most likely

[Simple.]

I've always just used Quag1 to quickly drop on a mob if I'm about to SG or drop on an emp/rushing guild. It was severely potent back in the day when you could rape a Hunter's attack speed and damage, but now I use it to buy me some time or aggravate friends in WoE <3.

[Lutz]

I use Quagmire lv3, for maximum stat reduction in pvp (also if I ever consider using MC for instant cast) and reasonable duration in pvm. I suppose ES lv5 is enough for pvp and pvm but you'd still have to rely on HD lv1 to unhide players... I'm not too keen on spending an extra hotkey just for that so at the moment I'm using HD lv5 for all purposes (it casts fast enough with high DEX).

Dunno, if I ever decide to re-work my skill build I might go for ES instead.

[rxkire]

HD5 can't hit moving targets reliably even at capped dex. HD1 is THE most effective way to unhide players. Whether you have HD5 or 1, you should have HD1 hotkeyed if you consider yourself a competitive player in WoE/PvP.

[Hadas]

I don't have HD or ES anymore (yay skill reset), though it occurred to me recently that HD could be highly useful for solo leveling as a wizard if you have enough int and vit to effectively mob hill winds together and can oneshot them.

Could easily get a mob of 5 of them or so in 30 seconds and if you can oneshot them with a ~1 sec cast time, you could make 1.2m/hr or more, which really isn't bad at all when it comes to soloing.

[Bane]

too bad we can't just delete homuncs so that we can solo in zenorcs again ;-;

[MistressTifa]

I recently found HD5 to be decent in WoE. Don't ask me why, I never had HD5 on any of my other 3 HWs before, tested it today, it worked out quite decently. Probably cuz of the over mass production of Wind Armors these days

[rxkire]

HD5 has always been nice for a precast. It's the only AoE which is "truly spammable" because of it's instant application of damage.

[Master_Loki]

Quagmire 3 was the best option for me. Vert fw +quag 3+ horizont fw+ sg is basically all a wiz needs to solo anything (pvm).

In woe, quag 1 is basically the agi up remover, and its hella fucking annoying, especially if its set on a portal, but most effective at the entrance of a fort, or to delay attackers.

Only reason I see for quag 5, is if you want to set it on top of the cp team on a defense (usually the emp room), that way all the people rushing will be fucking pissed off. Guild leaders usually recall during a rush, so allies will be unaffected, unless if they really want to go in it (dumbasses). Its good at the entrance of a fort too, since it'll stay there for a while, while you run to lvl2.

Quag 5 in pvm, you can usually run in circles around the quag'd monster (after firewall runs out or something) so he goes back into the quag, then you can firewall again and sg or w/e. This is good for soloing. You can't really do that with the other quag lvls, since you'd have to recast it, although not sure if its do-able with quag 4, but I know its not do-able with 3. And yes, I've tried both quags before (3 and 5).

HD 5 isn't so bad when you do the vert fw+ quag combo. Sg moves the monsters around and freezes them, HD doesn't.

Then again, I haven't lvled my wizard in quite a while, since he was my first character, and I've remade him a billion times. So correct me if I'm wrong on anything.