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Post by desocupado on Dec 29, 2012 3:13:03 GMT
Feat/level breakdownYes, that would be an open subrace wizard with 5 school focus (very high versatility). I'd delay ESF: Transmutation to level 42 and get Great int X at 35 for more skill points and DC early. RaceWhile a Gnome version is possible, that has a annoying consequence: -"Gnomes can't equip a staff and an offhand accessory or shield". You will need the much more rarer smaller caster "wands" or "fans" to be able to keep better defenses. To make up for the lost feat you can discard Extend spell (Empower spell is mandatory for a conjuration Wizard due Greater Orbs) to make up for the lost feats as human. Class breakdownTruth be told, going elf and splashing is the most interesting choice for Wizards because you can maximize skills from other classes (Able learner) in Legendary levels. 4 classes are interesting: - Monks give Wisdom AC (not that important late-game, since some rare shields provide better AC) and Evasion. Skill-wise you get access to Discipline, Parry and Tumble. This is a highly defensive option.
- Ranger give access to a bonus Spell Focus Feat and Shield Proficiency. Skill are Discipline, Parry and Search. This is a great balance between offensive and utility.
- Paladin gives Charisma bonus to saves and Shield Proficiency. With Discipline and Parry as skills. Usually wizards don't bother with saves or Cha, so this one isn't very recommendable.
- Rogue get just skills: Appraise Open Lock, Search, Disable trap and Parry. While ESF Open lock is required to open all chests - with it you have full rogue capabilities in dealing with chests, proving a valuable party asset;
Back on build, you can splash Monk or Rogue in addition to Ranger, to get +4 Ac form tumble (and even more with Monk)
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Post by cjmills2069 on Dec 29, 2012 3:38:24 GMT
I plan on using the wizard/rogue build on the open race forums, but cant decide if I should drop the evocation feat from that and use conjuration since what everyone is saying that I will do half damage most of the time with evo anyway since of the low dc and get conj for better summons and cloud damage/orbs? What do you guys think?
Also, I have a feeling in LL I will be doing a lot of soloing...is there any page I can look at that can tell me good spells to have for certain legendary runs? If not can anyone send me a personal message with the most solo'd legendary runs by mages with the basic spells to memorize and which to use most, how to handle enemies, which buffs should I use, just the basics of the arcane class. Read they are very squishy if not geared/played right so a little worried about that.
(Also got NWN working very well on windows 8, if anyones having problems getting it to, send me a pm and ill tell ya how I did it)
Thanks so much everyone for all the information and input, it is greatly appreciated. And as much as I would like to fit both evocation and conjuration on this character, I have a feeling that while soloing I will like the open lock capabilities of the rogue splash and 4 epics versus just the 5 epics.
Sorry for the long post, will sum it up below:
- Need input on evocation versus conjuration on a necro/illusion/trans focus wizard/rogue. - Need basics on soloing the most solo'd LL runs by wizards, preferably PM'd to me for easy viewing later on.
Thanks!
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Post by chirality on Dec 29, 2012 5:51:28 GMT
Well, honestly I would take Conj for sure if it is between that or Evo for a few reasons: Summons, ulimited Gate (sure it's fluff but a real nice time- and hassle-saver when solo grinding), and epic grab. Evo epic is not as useful in my opinion (I think most share this)--still has a use but low utility. Now here is the conondrum because although taking Conj foci ranks grants these perks, I think most people would agree that you really don't need conj foci to get orbs and evards to land. However the clouds and vit sphere could be compared more to Evo, in that DC helps you do more damage but either way it's gonna be dealt (exception: successful save with improved evasion ). So really it's kind of a weird tradeoff. Now the one thing is that Evo offers Karsus which would normally make this a nonissue (Evo no brainer). However if this toon (or this iteration anyway) won't be going to paragon levels then it is a nonissue in that respect. If you want my opinion I'm not sure I'd take Trans to Leg. I honestly cannot see you getting much mileage out of spending feats on Trans DC. Flense and RG, call em Evo cause it'll still hurt even if they make the save....Disint, good luck making that one stick, and if you aren't a high-iteration demi I don't think it'd be worth bothering in Tia or Dis, and if not hells, well mediocre-DC disint doesn't offer much for LLs. Many exceptions! But put on some elec gear and heck you can just bash the Thids robots, fire dmg, you get the picture. I'm only offering this about Trans since the question of swapping schools came up--I'm not trying to critique exc's very nice build. I'm just saying though, if you are thinking of modifying it, conj/evo doesn't have to be the "one or the other" point. There are some possibilities, but I think the least evil may be to drop Evo for Conj plain and simple. You get all 3 nice utility epics (DoM wall grab), nice summons, good acid dmg (most acid spells are conj, including the workhorse vitriolic sphere and acid cloud). Evo leaves you without grab but with a "meh" exotic damage option for bosses (that's about all the epic can do). This can be handy. It also leaves you with higher DC for what are, honestly, the "can't live without em" damage spells...freezing sphere. Did I say spells? I meant spell Also meteor storm which is a really great one for some LL grinds. Edit: all joking aside claps is also Evo and that is a real nice one too. In the end it's a real close toss-up. After all my BS above I guess that is overthinking it, Evo or Conj, hard choice but shouldn't matter too much in the end. Otherwise could drop Trans or Nec but that's a bit more complicated and it'd be a real shame to lose epic wall. Due to the base build it's hard to mess too much with that. Edit: this is not a veiled jab at the build, I mean loot mage in general.
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Post by Mudeye on Feb 4, 2013 17:30:34 GMT
Here's my two cents worth...for what it's worth.
Clouds: Level 7 and 8 clouds are evocation not conjuration. The game engine has no damage save for the level 6 cloud Acid Fog, only a movement penalty save. (I don't see a damage save in the logs from the test area. They could have implemented a hidden save for this server but I don't see any documentation for it). That being the case you might be better off taking evocation if you want clouds. Clouds do work well for lower DC characters though, because the save usually gets rolled every round. You cast once and get lots of chances to do maximum damage.
Conjuration Orbs vs Evocation spell DC: Ability modifier is used to determine spell DC. BUR races can get 6pts of added ability scores which ups the DCs. You could have some trouble with open subrace DCs because of this. However, the AB for Orbs is also dependent on ability modifier. So your will have similar trouble getting orbs to hit because of the lower Attack Bonus of the Orbs. With Evocation spells if the enemy makes the save they still take half damage, but if they resist the AB of the orb they take no damage. Personally I'm cautious of any spell that will fail completely based on the ability modifier if my subrace has lower ability modifiers. Half damage is better than no damage.
Legendary levels: Talking about what you are going to do in legendary levels when you make your very first caster on this server seems a little iffy. Chances are pretty good that you'll remake your character a few times no matter how you start. Once you get to level 21 with a character there is the ability to reincarnate and make another character at the level you are currently at. Most of the builds published here are aimed at Legendary levels and the Hells. The leveling section and often the build itself works for a reincarnated character, but if you try leveling it from scratch you might have serious problems. An example of that is the Lootmage discussed in this thread. It has one level of rogue and uses the elf trait that facilitates cross class skills in legendary levels. Before level 41 you will really not be able to pick locks or disable traps.
Clouds and Illusion: People have been advising about how great clouds are and about how great the sanctuary effect from Ghostly Visage(illusion is). Note, though, that the two don't mix well. If a cloud does any damage after you cast ghostly visage, the sanctuary immediately disappears. So if you need to quickly hide in a sanctuary, you will need to cancel the clouds first. Hopefully, you'll still have time to cast GV before you die.
Necromancy: Necromancy is primarily a school for instakills. The enemy makes the save or dies. It's great fun to instantly kill monsters. A couple of issues though. You're DC will never be as high on an open subrace as it could on a BUR so you'll never be as successful as they would. Also, lots of things are immune to necromancy spells or death magic. In particular, Boss level monsters are usually immune to instakills. Some people are fine with that, specialize in Necromancy and hang back during the boss fights. Some people do the opposite, let the melee fighters kill the trash mobs and save the spells for the boss. Necromancy does have a couple of nice debuffs though that can be good against bosses.
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Post by chirality on Feb 4, 2013 18:31:55 GMT
The game engine has no damage save for the level 6 cloud Acid Fog, only a movement penalty save. This is also the case with cold cloud (similarly Conj, and like acid, similarly a very good damage type for dealing consistent damage to quite some hells mobs which are otherwise tough to remove easily due to high saves, immunities, etc.). Keep in mind however that cold and acid clouds have the worst damage calculations (cold is terrible). Fire/elec is much more impressive base damage, as well as higher level for an extra couple DC (although fire cloud cannot be empowered or maximized, and although elec cloud can be empowered it consumes 9s to do so). Conversely while acid/cold are low base damage, it's basically a "given" that you'll be casting them empowered so that helps a lot. Edit: Also keep in mind that Acid Coud "double damage on first round entering the cloud" seems to be bugged/non-operational. i.e. it does not ever seem to work. Not such a huge deal I guess. My opinion with Evo is much like Nec, you're not gonna be seeing mobs fail saves very often without a lot of DC. We talk Reflex saves in particular and this is a rough area for low DC builds. So for Evo the point is at least you're consistently doing SOMETHING even if it's not full damage. And thus even moreso, as you say mudeye, the point with clouds is to capitalize even more on slot conservation and chance/round to do damage, to help make up for low DC. Well said: Clouds do work well for lower DC characters though, because the save usually gets rolled every round. You cast once and get lots of chances to do maximum damage. Conjuration Orbs vs Evocation spell DC: Ability modifier is used to determine spell DC. BUR races can get 6pts of added ability scores which ups the DCs. You could have some trouble with open subrace DCs because of this. However, the AB for Orbs is also dependent on ability modifier. So your will have similar trouble getting orbs to hit because of the lower Attack Bonus of the Orbs. With Evocation spells if the enemy makes the save they still take half damage, but if they resist the AB of the orb they take no damage. Personally I'm cautious of any spell that will fail completely based on the ability modifier if my subrace has lower ability modifiers. Half damage is better than no damage. I must say that recently I have been testing orbs vs. hell/abyss mobs, with only Conj 2. And much to my surprise I really have a hard time landing them, the difference in GSF --> LSF on my last wiz is very noticeable on high-AC mobs. I stopped bothering because it was a waste of my time. Edit: Meanwhile I did find that 5 ranks (or even after I had 6) it did not make much difference for landing orbs on mobs--after a certain point it's overkill. Although I am not sure what that point actually is number-wise, but I think somewhere around 80ish AB on orbs is about right if you want to hit the higher-AC mobs. What I'm getting at by this is that, now even more than ever, I think you should pick Conj or Evo, one or the other, and go with it. You don't need both for damage necessarily, but only use clouds or non-save spells from the school you don't have. Don't waste your time spamming something you have no focus in. Clouds and Illusion: People have been advising about how great clouds are and about how great the sanctuary effect from Ghostly Visage(illusion is). Note, though, that the two don't mix well. If a cloud does any damage after you cast ghostly visage, the sanctuary immediately disappears. So if you need to quickly hide in a sanctuary, you will need to cancel the clouds first. Hopefully, you'll still have time to cast GV before you die. I beg to differ; they do mix extremely well. How so? Because GV has no timer. So yes, as you illustrate, it is a very hairy and dangerous situation, and you're playing with fire. But learn how to do it right and it's the only way to play a mage imo...GV ftw...you should never ever die unless the random dropped a Magebane right on top of you. I can't speak for anyone else but that's the primary fear of Buer to me anyway: no GV, no escape I couldn't care less about what a mob does if I can GV and reposition Hence Buer, worm, these are #1 most wanted list because they make your ninja a dead ninja, and a dead ninja can't spam RG from safety 50 ft away
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Post by desocupado on Feb 4, 2013 18:45:44 GMT
Conjuration orbs get +3 AB per focus +1 AB per 4 Int
So difference between open ad BUR is just 1 AB (there are open subraces with +2 Int)
That's why I recommended Focus Necro and use conj for damage instead of evoc. Spec on Transmutation is also interesting. Regardless of this, only Spec after getting immortal as IGMS is too godly to kill Immo.
Also wizard have the ability to use all necro spells: (Sorc usually can't know them all) Negative Energy Ray Fear Neg Energy Burst Wrack Enervate CoD UTD FoD Horrid Wail ED
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Post by chirality on Feb 5, 2013 3:11:33 GMT
I was not comparing open vs. BUR subraces. Only a few points' worth of AB from foci.
As for sorc vs wiz Necro spells, you are correct that technically a wizard may learn more than the average sorc.
But this distinction is a bit misleading as I don't think in practice it means much. I would expect any sorc with Nec to have ED, UtD, CoD by default. These are the only 3 they need. The rest are far from a necessity and even when "useful" it's pretty fluffy that a wizard would likely never prepare in the first place:
Fear--sure with uber DC it can be nice. Not on open sub wiz with 0 perform. Wail--sure it's nice and the +3 DC over CoD helps but then again low slot wizard likely doesn't have the luxury of prepping it for hells or most anything except Sissy and Thids. Which is nice I guess. [edit] well to be honest it is a big plus for these 2 runs. DoM is also nice for these 2 runs in particular. Lowbie Neg Damage Spells--Meh the damage is a joke I'd rather spam PK, BC, persistent blade, extended GV, with those slots FoD--quite nice but unless you have anubis plate i doubt you'll be relying on it as an instakiller. Damage is nice and great for some fights but again, unneeded and the sorc you compare to has better things to do than spam FoD anyway Horrids--worthless except for instakilling a few mobs, and i doubt open wiz is farming PoM (and even with 70 int LSF Nec it's pretty hard to land the insta on them without save lowering...pre-curse/bt/prayer I usually get something around 1/3 success rate vs Meenlocks) Wrack--nice if you can land it, which is really really really hard to do on any mob you actually want to land it on, especially as open sub, waste of combat time spent spamming this imo, not only wasted time but better things for those slots anyway
And some sorc gets Wrack also. Which I'm sure lands much better with uberchannel.
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Post by axis16666 on Feb 5, 2013 4:39:40 GMT
Heh heh...my first level 60 wiz was a derrzagon dwarf..
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