How do I avoid losing rounds as a wizard

[Layla0340]

I quite frequently get attacked by well, anything as a spell caster.

My toon attacks back with her fist instantaneously, far faster then I can react.

I then have to wait a full 6 seconds before I can even start to cast a spell, and then another 3 seconds to achieve a cast. Which is 9 seconds in which to die in.

This is extremely frustrating, as this is easily responsible for 90% of my deaths.

Is there any way to prevent a toon from burning up standard action rounds like that?

note: Parry does not work, because the toon still counter attacks, and will never cast a spell if being attacked

[Tsidkenu]

My only suggestion would be to improve your reaction time as a player. Have your most commonly cast spells (defensive or offensive) on your 1-10 quickbar and when you're in a hostile zone, keep a finger over one of those numbers. As soon as you see a monster move position to attack you, hit the number and click your target (or the ground if it's an AoE such as IGMS).

Practice makes perfect!

[bono_bob]

it is kind of odd that we have no choice if we auto attack back or not lol

[Blackman D]

use the time wasted to move around if possible, really the only thing you can do, then wait for the round to nearly be over and then cast

only time it really doesnt work is indoors if you get cornered - but indoors... with doors, you can use the doors to by you time also, run in or out of a room and slam the door in their face

[mrieder79]

I did some testing on this in PVP a year or so back and I think that if you keep moving the autoattack will not fire. Try to keep moving and see if that helps. As you progress and get higher in levels, you should have enough buffs where it doesn't matter. Also, you will have more spells to handle enemies before they get too close.

[Blackman D]

movement override everything except AoO - thats when parry mode helps, you will not take AoOs in parry mode

[Layla0340]

What is AoO?

[kellendril]

Attack of opportunity

[gedweyignasia]

There's a button to target the nearest enemy (for me it's tab). If you press this, you might find enemies before they engage you. Once they're targeted, you can hit your spell and your character will cast as soon as she closes the distance.

[Seventh Sister]

There's a button to target the nearest enemy (for me it's tab). If you press this, you might find enemies before they engage you. Once they're targeted, you can hit your spell and your character will cast as soon as she closes the distance.

The Tab (monster select) function is really useful.
Only problem with that is that is freezes the game quite easily.
Or at least that's my experience and that's on three different computers/installations/games over the years.

I think it happends when you move the camera around while hitting tab but I'm not entirely sure what triggers the freeze.
At least I know it never freezes if I don't move the character or camera.
But I still tend to avoid using it.

I'm with "Tsidkenu" on this one.
Keep your spells on your hotbar and your fingers ready over the keys.
With some practice you will quickly learn to be fast enough.
The biggest problem is the targeting (clicking on the enemy when it moves).
The tab button works well here but as mentioned that's not without problems.
But if you don't experience this freeze bug when using the target button you shouldn't have any problems.
Then it's two buttons.
Tab and your hotkey.

[mrieder79]

Not sure if anyone suggested this, but if you keep your spell queue up, then you will not lose an attack either, IIRC. Always have at least one additional spell queued and it should fire instead of the autoattack.

[Thorsson]

I use Tab a lot and never get a freeze. Must be something about your set up seventh.

[gedweyignasia]

Yeah, never had freezes related to tab-targeting.