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Post by simpetar on Sept 20, 2020 7:37:43 GMT
If using full plate, i believe the max dex bonus is 3? Correct. At least for now. I believe there are plans to make heavy armors more appealing, possibly raising the dex bonus. Yes. Higher dex helps with reflex saves for stuff like dragon breath and couple others. Getting constantly petrified / frozen by arachil webs is especially annoying. Then there are dexterity checks, for instance malebranche toss, erinyes domination, balor whip etc. All of these will try to kill / disable you, that is why you should avoid leaving dexterity at minimum. If you wear heavy armor (Plate of Anubis, Bonds of Decay or somesuch), you will end up with lower AC than in robes and wizard bracers (Prescient's Guard, Bracers of Pelion) and it will cost more feats. The advantage is that your physical immunities will be higher. Also, if your bank chests are not overflowing in perfect gear, you can put any armor or shield on to fill gaps and not worry about spell failure thanks to auto-still 3.
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Post by drunkenboastor on Sept 20, 2020 18:35:26 GMT
I think that using a robe is best in most cases for a pale master, with the stygia wizard robes that give +1 DC to level 6 and under spells being best in slot.
The fod plate is useful in a few runs, hive and elysium come to mind, finding some items with minus to arcane spell failure allows bypassing of need for auto still spell feats.
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Post by starcore on Sept 21, 2020 5:42:15 GMT
I think that using a robe is best in most cases for a pale master, with the stygia wizard robes that give +1 DC to level 6 and under spells being best in slot. The fod plate is useful in a few runs, hive and elysium come to mind, finding some items with minus to arcane spell failure allows bypassing of need for auto still spell feats. I agree, i think robes are probably the best choice. If going robes, i think chainlink's build is probably perfect at the moment (unless you want to splash rogue instead). In this case i plan to build around the plate of anubis though I don't really have gear to be able to build around finding -arcane failure reduction, so i plan to take the still spell feats (maybe a future reinc could think about this?) I think the final? build is going to be this: (controversial points are skipping maximise, and only taking Illusion to ESF) Wiz 9 / Ranger 1 / PM 70 Book: Abj Genie Sub: Elf Spec: Necro Ban 1: Ench Ban 2: Conj (Maybe Evo instead?, haven't decided) Str 8 Dex 14 (18) Con 14 (14) Int 18 (24) Wis 8 Cha 8 Race feats: Spell Pen Greater Spell Pen Feats: Heavy Armor (Ranger Bonus Feat) SF Nec GSF Nec SF Ill GSF Ill SF Div GSF Div Still Empower Great Int 1-7 ESF Nec ESF Div ESF Ill Auto Still 1 Auto Still 2 Auto Still 3 Great int 8-10 Legendary Spell Pen LSF Nec LSF Abj Epic Mage Armor Paragon Spell Pen PSK Nec PSF Abj PSK Abj Paragon Adaptivity 1 Paragon Adaptivity 2
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Post by simpetar on Sept 21, 2020 7:13:54 GMT
1. If you are dead set on going in heavy armors, you might want to use Negatai instead of Genie. If you are worried about gear (namely shields) without ASF, they can be found as random (UR, BUR), set loot (in Arcane Archives), and ultimately asmo or vestige shield. 2. Skipping maximize spell is not very controversial. There are only handful of PM spells that are worth maximizing: Enervate and damage forms of GSC and Shades and even these have niche uses. If you want to contribute to damage, even empowered Shades can hit hard. 3. If you leave illusion at ESF, you willingly nerf half of what PMs are good at. Please don't do that. It will hurt you offensively and defensively. Especially if you lack extend spell, your GV is not going to get you reliably out of trouble.
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Post by starcore on Sept 21, 2020 21:55:33 GMT
3. If you leave illusion at ESF, you willingly nerf half of what PMs are good at. Please don't do that. It will hurt you offensively and defensively. Especially if you lack extend spell, your GV is not going to get you reliably out of trouble. So the consensus around the paragon feats, seems to be that not taking PSF illusion, and instead taking Environmental adaptivity is the most sensible choice. (At least that's what quite a few knowledgeable and well respected people here have recommended) This would mean i need to try and take 1 more rank of illusion (LSF). The actual benefits of taking the extra rank of LSF illusion appear to be: Weird: +2 DC Displacement: +2% Concealment Ghostly Visage: +2 Rounds duration (CL 67 / 15) vs (CL 67 / 10) Phantasmal Killer: +2 DC I don't think i cast any other illusion spells that get affected by spell focus... am i missing anything? The options to get the extra illusion feat are: Take Human or Gnome as base race (Human for the extra feat, Or gnome for the free SF Illusion). This would loose me cross class skill levels (Lower: search & disc are the painful ones to loose) Going Negatai would give an extra free feat (Still, Auto Still 1, Auto Still 2) so i could solve it that way if i had the race. (And give an additional feat from the base race human) Alternatively i could drop something else (Maybe epic mage armor, or ESF Div) I'm not really sure what the best option is here (well actually I am, the best option is probably to give up on plate, but that would make me sad )
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Post by chainlink on Sept 21, 2020 22:55:27 GMT
Yes I took 16 Dex mainly to give it a decent chance of making at least the basic Dex checks as being constantly dominated and/or kd gets on my nerves and adversely affects your ability to pwn stuff with your uber PM'ness.
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Post by Enius the White on Sept 22, 2020 3:28:21 GMT
I'm not really sure what the best option is here (well actually I am, the best option is probably to give up on plate, but that would make me sad ) Why be sad, when with your Contingency from ESF Div, and Plate of Anubis, you can experienced suicide bombing Pale Master style! Just queue ~20 FODs onto your autocaster, then run into the center of a big agro pile of mobs, no buffs needed, and hit them with your staff until... Whamo! You die, and Contingency triggers, firing off 20 AOE FODs on you simultaneously, reducing all your immediate enemies to a pile of necrotic dust with you left standing in the middle, fully buffed. A bit extreme, perhaps(especially around AOE KB mobs, while in a party ...), but so much more rewarding, and cheaper, than a temporal autocaster!
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Post by starcore on Sept 22, 2020 3:52:47 GMT
Autobomber FoD sounds really fun At the moment i think i'm leaning towards keeping plate, and changing my base race to gnome, for the extra feat to be able to pick up LSF Illusion. I'll loose out on some discipline due to not having able learner, but i think this should be ok?, given EMA is giving me +38. Bit of a shame to loose out on search though.
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Post by simpetar on Sept 22, 2020 6:49:15 GMT
I don't think i cast any other illusion spells that get affected by spell focus... am i missing anything? DC on Rainbow Pattern - one of the most powerful non-epic defensive spells, effectively forcing a separate 60% conceal check unaffected by Blindfight DC on SC, GSC and Shades - in particular Web (there is only 1 monster in hells immune to it, the rest will be stuck and unable to move), or its damage variants, one of which works as instakill in the end game With all due respect, I think Environmental Adaptivity is just a matter of taste. By the time you get to level 75 and 78, chances are that you will have completed a few abyss cycles. I have taken my PM to every run in the game (many, many times over) and never felt penalized enough to consider EA, including Limbo 2 hard mode. Plus PSK illusion is fun to use and only wee little bit frustrating when misused By any means, go in plates. If you find you like it, there is nothing to talk about. If not, you can reincarnate later (usually after completion of hell or abyss cycle), possibly opening all the options we list here.
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Post by starcore on Sept 22, 2020 9:24:29 GMT
Wow, never tried Rainbow pattern, or though about web from SC! Cool things to try out, TY for the advice!
I do like the idea of taking PSF, and PSK illusion, I was just going with EA as that's what most people here suggested
I think for how i'm playing now i'd see more use out of PSF/PSK illusion, but I've only just barely ventured into hells (done tia a few times), so i'm totally reliant on the advise of others for the best paragon choices for latgame.
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Post by chainlink on Sept 22, 2020 12:00:27 GMT
Basically it is not possible to fit in everything you want into one build so you will have to make decisions based on what you value the most for your character, worst case make a couple of PMs (ideally on different accounts) then you can have your cake and eat it its what people who want Sorcerers for specifics areas tend to do.
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Post by starcore on Sept 23, 2020 5:14:38 GMT
One other potential i just though of for getting an extra feat....
I could take 1 more level of wiz during epic levels. This would give the bonus feat from 10 levels of wizard. It would mean only 29 pre legenday levels of PM, and i'm not really sure what the implications of this are...
I note from the wiki, it would mean loosing access to lifeblight (i don't really use this much, should i be?)
It wouldn't make any difference to my final Nec/Illusion CL, and would actually boost my other schools CL by 1
9 Wiz / 50 PM = PM CL (50*7/6) + WIZ CL (9) = 67.33... 10 Wiz / 49 PM = PM CL (50*7/6) + WIZ CL (10) = 67.16...
9 Wiz / 50 PM = NON PM CL (50*1/3) + WIZ CL (9) = 25.66... 10 Wiz / 49 PM = NON PM CL (50*1/3) + WIZ CL (10) = 26.33...
I think i'd loose 5hp due to deathless vigor being every 5th. I don't think i loose any PM bonus feats as they're every 3rd starting at 13 I don't think i loose any AC as thats +2 for every 4th starting at lvl 1
Are there any other drawbacks i'm missing?
Would it mess with the 2nd lich transformation or free passwall?
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Post by chainlink on Sept 23, 2020 6:18:43 GMT
Lifeblight, when used appropriately, can get you several thousand temp HPs (I think I've managed to get them over 10,000 when really surrounded by stuff), forget about boosting other schools they'll still be bad.
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Post by starcore on Sept 23, 2020 6:48:13 GMT
Yeah, i'd not be doing it to boost the other schools, mainly just for the extra feat. The hard part is deciding if its worth loosing lifeblight for an extra feat. It's a much harder choice now, as the way you describe it sounds pretty damn useful I was assuming there was some other big drawback as well as that, as most people tend to build pure for their PM's
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Post by simpetar on Sept 23, 2020 6:50:59 GMT
Would it mess with the 2nd lich transformation or free passwall? Liches do NOT get free passwall. I have no idea where this myth came from, but it has been debunked. Testing is pretty simple: try to go in any level of Elemental Plane of Earth without ring: it will not let you. You do however get free water breathing and levitation carries over from Genie.
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