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Post by zerragon on Oct 31, 2006 22:40:50 GMT
Thanks for a very detailed and good explanation from both of you!, appretiate it.
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Post by mishimayukio on Nov 1, 2006 5:14:42 GMT
On the other hand, I hear if you GMW your own weapons it will increase your AB there for helping your touch attacks land better Not true, GMW is the only AB increasing buff that isn't included in the calculation for touch AB.
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Post by jillybean on Nov 1, 2006 5:48:57 GMT
On the other hand, I hear if you GMW your own weapons it will increase your AB there for helping your touch attacks land better Not true, GMW is the only AB increasing buff that isn't included in the calculation for touch AB. Figures!
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Post by chainlink on Nov 1, 2006 9:50:43 GMT
I'm guessing you can't fit Balor and Wall into your build as my Wiz uses both all the time? Whilst epic wall does have some areas its tricky to use in with a bit of experimentation you'll find its possible to lay down a solid wall in most places and if it does have a gap you can usually plug this with a standard wall.
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Post by thedomicron on Nov 1, 2006 17:10:56 GMT
i have balor and wall, it cost me 1dc on my wails. (2 grt charisma). i use both fairly often, so to me the loss of 1 dc is owrth it, although i know to many it would seem too high a price to pay
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Post by cathedralmaster on Nov 1, 2006 18:10:24 GMT
You could probably go with only evo and necro as epics and not notice much of a loss. In my experience, the arcane caster epic spells are like candy - they're nice sometimes but not really required anywhere (at least no where near as required as the Druid or Cleric epics are to their respective caster builds).
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Post by Yomi on Nov 1, 2006 22:49:04 GMT
Silent vs. Extend: Silent all the way. At level 19 my casters always think it's horrible and they can't live without extend. Then caster level 20 hits and whew, some of the spells finally last long enough to not drop in the middle of the first fight. But still just not long enough.. Stick it out until caster level 41 and things get much better. I had the same thought on my bard, but stuck with it, and realized there was no need (worse there since caster level was 5 levels behind player level).
Silent isn't as useful on the sorc as it is on casters with a spellbook, but still pretty nice. There are places where those FoD's, IMGSs, thunderclaps, or what have you are just more effective than something else, and having double the number is nice. You can also slap a few of the silent ones down to not deplete your supply of the previous level spells.
As Yue said, GMW doesn't help touch attacks. I tried it on the cleric as well and it definitely doesn't change the touch attack number (it would be awesome if it did).
My wizard has the wall, balor, and starfire in addition to the other two. I'm torn on which one to take for my new sorc, but mainly between Balor and Starfire.
I was never one for using the wall on regular desert runs for instance. For me it's a tactical spell for places like illithid room(s) or certain boss fights, or for use when soloing cautiously. I hardly ever use it -- just my play style (it really takes effort to use it effectively). I've also seen plenty of new wall users skillfully wall the meleer's inside while fighting archers. Then find out they're wizards and don't have any loot breaking spells memmed so nobody can get out. Lol. A user problem rather than a spell issue though.
Balor is awfully handy. Useful in desert though with mixed results (not uncommon for him to try walking off regardless of how many times you tell him to stay still; common for the archers to focus on some party member(s) and totally ignore your Balor; you have to be careful of healing him while he's soaking implodes since you're walking right into them). Weak parties like it for ssith bridge, though it's not usable for any of the earlier parts. Cleaner upper in Illithids. You can stay GS'd and have the Balor fight stuff, which is handy. A variety of uses, but also places where it's not very useful at all. Oh, you get +13 GMW's, while illusion gets you pretty much nothing.
Starfire is also darn nice and effective everywhere. Ranged use gargantuan area magic damage with two round knockdown. Very handy if you've massed ... well, anywhere. Desert, illithids, furrow, dragons with guardians, dragons themselves, ssith, etc. That KD effect can be darn nice if the server lags and that mustering grounds despawn didn't actually work and the whole place insta-spawns as the tired and unprepared party is walking through. It can be like a 1-2 round whole-party timestop. Damage is a bit over double what a meteor storm will do.
I'm leaning toward starfire for mine, though I will certainly miss the Balor, and I know there will be some time when I'll want a wall. One of the many sorc vs. wiz tradeoffs in my mind. As Cath just said, really these are one use per rest spells, albeit powerful -- perhaps even epic spells. They're a very nice bonus, not like a caster druid without shunt. The wall is the only one I can see would actually make a noticible difference in the team requirements to do some of the harder areas, but for me, 99% of the the time it sits unused while the other two I'll pack out a good chunk of the time to speed things up or save things going downhill.
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Post by Kazatel on Nov 12, 2006 15:23:07 GMT
Survivability!!!!
This build was my first toon in HG, and it has been working wonderfully after a few tweaks I'd like to mention here. I went with the Yuan-ti subrace and used Jilly's link to another thread and the comments here on which spells to use. I also got ALOT of very useful information ingame from veteran sorcerers. Here's what I have changed.
In the mid 30's I took epic warding. This will mean I miss on GC 10, but I believe it was worth it. After moving on from the farm I was getting my clock cleaned religiously until I got this spell. After that the tables turned and I started owning any and all.
Another thought, not really a change in the build, is that instead of focusing on equipment that gives spell slots, get AC. Premonition really hasn't been useful. You may not take physical damage, but you still get hit which means you take damage from the extras. Besides, after not too long you'll have all the slots you'll need, and good AC equip will most likely give slots anyway. NEED good AC.
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Post by jillybean on Nov 12, 2006 17:00:46 GMT
In the mid 30's I took epic warding. This will mean I miss on GC 10, but I believe it was worth it. After moving on from the farm I was getting my clock cleaned religiously until I got this spell. After that the tables turned and I started owning any and all. I believe by switching out a GC for epic warding using the Yuan-Ti subrace, you will end your cha on an odd number at 60. (35) Since you are sacrificing a GC anyway, and therefor missing out on 1dc, you might as well skip another GC so you end on an even number. The only thing I would caution is that even though Epic Warding is helping you now at the farm, the extra DC will mean the difference between life and death at the higher levels. The reason most people skip Epic Warding, is because it is easily available on items (at level 35 and up iirc). Another thought, not really a change in the build, is that instead of focusing on equipment that gives spell slots, get AC. Premonition really hasn't been useful. You may not take physical damage, but you still get hit which means you take damage from the extras. Besides, after not too long you'll have all the slots you'll need, and good AC equip will most likely give slots anyway. NEED good AC. AC is important, there is no doubt about that. As you gain levels, you will gain slots and AC and in the end, both should be high enough to make it easy for you to survive. Although I might agree that sacrificing slots at lower levels for AC is worth while for a hardier build, at higher levels your spells are your life. I will always give up a point or two of AC for more spell slots. Remember, you are a mage, not a fighter. With the proper buffs, surviving should not be a problem.
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Post by chainlink on Nov 13, 2006 11:46:37 GMT
Starfire is OK but you have to take into account that it actually stop you doing stuff as well, with my Wiz I tend to use a ts, 3-4 ms then a starfire to finish them off. If you do the starfire first you'll find that you only get about one ms off before they get up and this might not be enough to put them down.
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Post by Yomi on Nov 13, 2006 21:44:21 GMT
Replace AC with immunities, and I'll agree. Once you have very high conceal, AC is nice but it's still going to be terribly low by meleer standards, no matter what you do to it. But adding damage immunity percentage, good DR (e.g. wear a Wistan's Gouge ring in ssith or desert), elemental or exotic immunes, etc. are all quite useful. I don't wear the Dachy cloak, for instance, because wearing some of the other nice cloaks in the game really increases survivability. Using an amulet of adaptation to free up both ring slots was a huge help in Sssith, but it dropped spell slots. I'm not overpleased with how many slots I have left now, but dying every other round is a really ineffective way to kill stuff. This may be less help solo -- in a party I find it safest to assume some AA is going to cleave over to a snake and do 14 kickbacks a round even if they don't mean to. Epic warding is one of the few if not only bioware epic spells I'd consider. But you do get it available on the staff once per day. Not really long lasting (hint: don't turn it when you start buffing and the party sits around doing nothing for 20 rounds -- wait until you see the whites of their eyes). Having it as a spell would at least let you use it a second time, but sacrificing overall DC for it I wouldn't recommend at all. It may be equipment and level oriented, but my experience with pretty much this build is that you do have to remember you're not a cleric, dexer, or dwarven defender -- if you go rushing into the arrows, you will die really fast, where the cleric just shrugs them all off even without epic warding, and the dexer just doesn't get hit. Your saves are fantastic and Rakshasa SR is nice against casters, but the hp isn't stellar and you're going to get hit by melee stuff. Following the Pale Master who's massing the ssith barracks isn't good for survival -- you have neither his 3000+hp from lifeblight, his 125ish AC with lots of damage immunity and shield, nor the critical immunity. Gald's comment on TS is, in my opinion, probably correct for solo play. Starfire is quite useful in parties also, where even if you don't get two rounds or personally kill them all off, everyone else gets their two free rounds to whack away, and there may be other casters there to take advantage (maybe even a wiz who probably will take personal credit for killing everything . Starfire cast across the wall or chasm on the cinder flats maps is pretty nice, and will hit more than your meteors will from that position.
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Post by thedomicron on Nov 13, 2006 22:13:31 GMT
the only gear i wear on my mage is dachy amulet, dachy boots, dachy staff, and mask of mystra. the rest of the gear i wear is to get me 30% phys immunity (robes, gloves, cloak) elemental resist, immunities, and for rings, i wear bauphins and whatever utility ring is necessary, be it elemental immunity or water/lev
archers are a pain, gs and balor help with that, as does ts. if you have tanks, then by all means let them do the massing, sit in gs and let them round them up, when they're close, a nice wail tends to do teh trick.
i agree that spell slots are important, but if you take some time to know the environment and think about how to tackle each area, i think you'll be able to realize that more spell slots are not always preferable to reists, dmg reduction, and to an extent ac.
a nice thing to remember is that there are many ways to disrupt archers, be it the stunning effect of grabbie hands, or horakizaulsboom.
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Post by zerragon on Nov 14, 2006 8:44:44 GMT
I completely agree. With a mix of Dachy and UR stuff at lvl 51, I have about 94 AC, and everything seems to hit me all the time anyway, so I depend mostly on EV concealment and epic warding/premonition. Ive gone for the Rakshasa version with max DC, and chosen Balor as my spell. The GS/Balor combo is very nice, if you can get it to stand still, and then you can heal it to take out those pesky Devarials in the desert. Yesterday I even noticed that my spell resistance began to soak up some Implodes, yay ! . The lvl 40-50 were tough ones though...
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Post by Cimion on Nov 14, 2006 15:55:36 GMT
The only thing I would caution is that even though Epic Warding is helping you now at the farm, the extra DC will mean the difference between life and death at the higher levels. The reason most people skip Epic Warding, is because it is easily available on items (at level 35 and up iirc). Easily availale on Items? You are talking to a new player. I am realativly new I suppose and the only items I have found it on is the sash of alysium and dachy staffs, thats not a lot, and deffinitly not readily available. And where are people going where premonition works? I haven't been anywhere but the farm where premonition actually beat the fighters magical enhancement on thier weapons. I suppose at level 60 you could use premonition effectivly in Manatakloss , but that seems rediculous. As the spell progression is now I haven't used it in a long time and I really don't see a come back. I guess I just like to stay on my feet and I am more with warding than without. What buffs are you people using that is equivalent to epic warding? I took the feat and I use the staff. With EV and warding I do pretty well and thats really the only time. Cimion
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Post by Yomi on Nov 14, 2006 22:00:22 GMT
I'm not sure I would have said easily, but it is available on a few items. The main one is the Dachy (or UR for the very lucky) staff that is really important for a mage to get. If you don't have a Dachy staff, work hard to get one. However, this only gives you epic warding once per rest, and unlike a rogue or bard, you can't swap in a spare without losing spell slots. There is a helm that has epic warding once per day also. I would not call it easily available at all -- it's not UR, but certainly not common, and obviously in demand since it is usable by any class. It's also rather nerfed for sorcs, since anyone who has one of those helms will almost certainly have a Mask of Mystra which is the sorc helm to use. Taking it off will blow spell slots. [Hey, knock off the snickering you wizards out there!]. I'm not familiar with the other items -- belts would have the same spell slot issues.
All that said, there is a Ssithrak item that gives +20 soak 10 as well as some other things. This helps quite a bit as it's like a partial-strength epic warding that's always on. I also recommend making sure you have at least DR 10/- physical from items, if not better. The well heeled might have specific items to swap in for specific areas to give even more for the most important physical type if that's hurting. But that requires both aforeknowledge of the area and damage taken as well as the items, both of which come (one hopes) with playing quite a bit. So I'll buy epic warding as a not wasted feat, especially for a first caster. Also make sure you have enough CON (and it's maxed to +12 from items or spells) to survive some hits -- it's an important stat.
Premonition works in illithids. I should check on Ssith. It doesn't seem to kick in for quite a few levels though.
Similar to theDom, I've chosen more immunity gear for my sorc, though I'd be more interested in what equipment some of the really good sorcs wear. Mask of Mystra (you can use this before level 55 though you don't get the deflection or magic), Dachy staff, sorc belt, and dachy boots are all the spell slot equipment mine is wearing. I'd like more spell slots, but not willing to sacrifice the survival equipment to do it. My wizard uses spell slot gear on bracers, staff, robes, belt, and boots.
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