Advice on Crossing Nuker & Instakill

[Eldun]

I'm not sure about feat selections on trying to cross a Nuker build and a Instakill build. I love the extra SP w/ MT and IMT and will keep empower vs. extend because my buffs are decent in length and I don't mind having to get a little closer to enemies before casting.

Human:

Max
MT
IMT
Empower
Spell Pen
Skill Focus: Necro

I'm only at LV12 and not sure how the mobs are with FOD. I have spell pen I enhancement and find running PoP elite my PK's land perhaps 2/3 of the time. Was wondering if Heighten will add more punch to the PK and FOD or take a skill focus in one and then the other with the next cap raise.

[Varis]

You will do fine. You got some moderate nukes on your insta kill build. FOD broadens your target selection. For example before, PK vs a cleric was a bad idea. With FOD, it will work fine. Vs rogueish types either is fine and vs tough melees it is still better to cast hold monster.

In short, if it is not FOD bait, it is hold monster bait. With the feats you have, a maxed out charisma and some spell penetration toys, you will get your spells off 95% of the time.

Only toughies are the raskashas but those you can just web or nuke.

[Citymorg]

I'm not sure about feat selections on trying to cross a Nuker build and a Instakill build. I love the extra SP w/ MT and IMT and will keep empower vs. extend because my buffs are decent in length and I don't mind having to get a little closer to enemies before casting.

Human:

Max
MT
IMT
Empower
Spell Pen
Skill Focus: Necro

I'm only at LV12 and not sure how the mobs are with FOD. I have spell pen I enhancement and find running PoP elite my PK's land perhaps 2/3 of the time. Was wondering if Heighten will add more punch to the PK and FOD or take a skill focus in one and then the other with the next cap raise.

My Sorcerer is exactly what you are talking about. Started out with fire/cold specced nuked and wound up with an instakill specialist (who can still make it rain fire). Feats I took were:

MT
IMT
Extend
Empower
Enlarge
Maximize

I recently traded IMT for Spell Penetration. It only cost 75sp, and with 1733 afterwards I almost never run out of SP. I now have in the range of +11 for my pen. I routinely FOD the Rakshas in Potp.

I took extend because I got tired of casting haste every 1:40.

I would say that the spell focus: necromancy or even evocation will be nice to have, but you will find an item with that on it, whether it is raid, bracers or a mace. You can switch that out.

[Eldun]

Doesn't the spell focus feat stack with an item?? I currently have a necro/illus rod and a conj/abj rod that I dual wield with a greater spell pen V item.

[Eldun]

thanks Jammy! what feats do you have?


oops: Ninja'd your post

[BUpcott]

Doesn't the spell focus feat stack with an item?? I currently have a necro/illus rod and a conj/abj rod that I dual wield with a greater spell pen V item.

yea it does

[boldarblood]

I would drop the mental toughness/imp mental toughness and take more spell penetration or focus line. You will more than make up for the spell points with the ability to have your spells land more imho.

[wiglin]

I would drop the mental toughness/imp mental toughness and take more spell penetration or focus line. You will more than make up for the spell points with the ability to have your spells land more imho.

Hmm here we go again...lol

[Varis]

I would drop the mental toughness/imp mental toughness and take more spell penetration or focus line. You will more than make up for the spell points with the ability to have your spells land more imho.

seriously, they make it sound like it's hard to land a finger on elite lol. I don't have any mana with a focus when they only make the save on a nat 20.

It will help against targets that have a strong fort save... but those are supposed to be held and punctured anyways...

(btw, if you really do have a hard time... just cast enervation before the finger lol)

[wiglin]

You could walk around with all toughness feats and as long as you have a good spell selection you'll be fine...lol

Seriously though just do what makes you happy.

I currently have both spell focus's in illusion. Yep 2 feats for 1 spell. I can pk clerics like there is no tomorrow. I have no spell penetration feats, and with greater item and 2 levels of enhancement I do not have any issues. Sure I get the blue shield sometimes, but hey thats what conjuration spells are for.

Under the current mechanics of this game sorcerers are not locked into their decision, so I will not always be illusion specked. If it looks like we are going to be spending all of our time in mod 5 content, then I will respec for mental toughness for sure. Feats, and spells are relevent to the quests you are running, and if you never wanted to switch out your feats, then Varis has the right idea on another post, MT and IMT will always be helpful.

As far as the original poster, here is what I would do if I wanted to be necro focus instead illusion.

Spell Focus-Necro
Greater Spell Focus-Necro
Maximise
Heighten
Skill Focus:UMD <-----UMD junky here. replace this feat with whatever.

Now just make sure you have a good line of necro spells. Fear, Enfeeblement, FoD...etc

I do not have empower and maximize, mainly due to the fact I have never seen a fight in this game last long enough where having both would have much of a difference.

Alot of people take the focus feats because they want the extra ump behind their spells when casting against the mobs strong saves. You can get by just fine without it, do as Varis said and cast spells that are against the mobs low save.

Fear= Anything about to hit you.
FoD= Casting spells at you.

Etc...

[Shade]

Nuker title minimum,
Max + Empower - check.
Nuke title recommended:
Max + Emp + Xtend (wall of fire is often the best DPS spell and extend doubles its damage)
Instalkill title minimum,
Heighten + Necromancy focus, fail.

Heighten provides +3 DC for PK. Required feat to do well with it.
Necromancy focus gives you +1 to FoD, as heighten doesnt effect it.

At low levels you should take illusion focus, swap it to necromancy once your 14.

Solution = drop the stupid toughness feats, you can get over 1800 without them, which is a hell of a lot, where as 140 is not much. You also do not need spell penetraiton as a feat. The enhancemetns and items are plenty for that, they can give you +20 to your spell pen roll, which is fine for even for elite rakshasa.

[wiglin]

What fight in this game lasts long enough that you need an empowerd maximized extended firewall? I have not found one instance where just a plain old maximized firewall wasn't enough. I guess when I was level 8 and doing pop it may have made the last boss die quicker...lol

Extends double the duration, so sure if they are in the fire the whole time it will double the damage, and this is quite doable with a good party that knows aggro management, but my battle's don't last long enough to matter.

Heighten on a necro build isn't for FoD but for the other spells you are using. (FtS, Fear, Web, ....) Even a pure necro build will have other spells.

I agree no spell penetration feats.

[Eldun]

Well, I hit LV14 last night but still haven't done any serious runs yet to play with the FoD.

I've taken all the enhancements for SP's and have a Wiz VI item and am topped off just over 1900 sp's which I don't know where else to milk a few more points until I get a Wiz VII helm or a +3 CHA tome to push me from 32 to 34 CHA (anything I may have missed?).

I've rearranged my feats to be:

Maximize
M.T.
I.M.T.
Heighten
SF: Necro
SF: Illusion

I find my instakill spells MUCH more effective and as several of the posters have pointed out, with the team I regularly run with fear of monsters and their survivability is not critical for me to have that long lasting suped up firewall. Maximized w/ all the enhancements works just fine.

Best yet, after seeing the new content with all my free dragonshards I can always go back to the drawing board.

Thanks all :)

[Shade]

What fight in this game lasts long enough that you need an empowerd maximized extended firewall?.

Circle of Eternity (boss)
The Titan Awakes (boss)
The Reavers Fate (boss + elementals)
Gianthold Tor (4 bosses, several large fights)
The western excavation part 3 (lure all to end, massive firewall for speed)
The Crucible (boss + archers)
Jungle of Khyber (boss + archers)
Any undead quest (archers)

Thats just a few I can think of where I know using max emp ext firewalls kicked ass and wouldn't of been nearly as effective non-extended.

Re; Mobs leaving the wall of fire .. This never happens for me. I stand directly in my wall of fire and do not move, I don't rely on my group to help me with that. Easy enough with the right buffs and tower shield.

Then theres undead quests with those pesky archers, that just stand in place and shoot, even if you put a firewall on them. A regular extended wall of fire willl kill them, where as a non xtended one will not. Advantage there for sure, since you can drop one and move on and they will die as you continue the quest.

Anyways, I wouldnt play or even group with a sorcerer that doesnt have extend. Its far too important a feat to skip. Sub 2 minuit haste, displacement and fire shield is for gimps imo.
I also use it for all these spells, all the time:
Rage
Hypnotic Patern
Symbol of pain
Web
Hypno

[juniorpfactors]

well we wont play together then...I dropped extend at 14...max/empow is more than enough if not I will drop another....buffs last plenty long enough once capped...wizards have plenty of feats

[Aspenor]

Circle of Eternity (boss)Lailat doesnt stick around long enough to need extend, its a waste of SP
The Titan Awakes (boss)Which one? Illithid, disintegrate is faster. Titan, magic missiles and disintegrates are faster.
The Reavers Fate (boss + elementals) Unnecessary, unlimited mana
Gianthold Tor (4 bosses, several large fights) Extend not necessary, and scorching ray > firewall on most of these bosses
The western excavation part 3 (lure all to end, massive firewall for speed) Once again, extend not necessary
The Crucible (boss + archers) Extend not necessary for either
Jungle of Khyber (boss + archers) Uh, use fireballs. Firewall is a waste of time
Any undead quest (archers) Unnecessary to extend


Points in red.

[wiglin]

Points in red.

Agreed.

[Varis]

Points in red.

also agreed

[sigtrent]

I like extend for buffs but I almost never use it on firewall.. I've hardly ever seen anything live through a normal duration firewall and even if they could, thats the sort of thing I'd tend to have more than one down on anyhow.

I think maximize and a line of enhancements is enough arcane DPS to handle most situations. Empower on top is nice if you really want insta kill but I've never felt like I needed it.

For insta kill, I think its mostly just what your DC is. how you get there matters less. And if you want to be at the top of that game having some spell penetration is ideal. My caster has a nice DC 28-30 depending on the spell, but his spell pen is sub par so I tend to throw damage at high SR critters. I think any DC 26+ is servicable. In a way with a sorcerer its less essential that it be as high as it can since you cast fast and have mana to burn.

[Shade]

Points in red.

Unnesarry is a nice word.

Having a good charisma is unnesarry
Having firewall at all is unnesarry
Having haste at all is unnesarry
Hell, having a sorcerer in the party at all is unnesarry for all quests.

.. But having one that casts kick ass firewalls rocks.

You think magic missle is faster then firewall? lol not sure how u got your MM to do such uber dmg but good job. I've taken the titan down (well down to where he wants to be) with a single max emp xten firewall in 5 seconds. If you did that faster with magic missle, good job.
Yea lailats agro is hard to control, if your a noob.
Jungle of khyber, firewalls more efficient. Done at lvl14, yes fireballs way faster. But done at a lower lvl, like 10 - firewalls the way to go.

[SteeleTrueheart]

You think magic missle is faster then firewall? lol not sure how u got your MM to do such uber dmg but good job. I've taken the titan down (well down to where he wants to be) with a single max emp xten firewall in 5 seconds. If you did that faster with magic missle, good job.


Sorry for the derailment, but I am new to the Sorc class just rolled one up yesterday and I have been watching some of these 'conversations' in this class forum.

This point doen't make much sense to me though could you explain it a bit more? If you took the titan down in 5 seconds why do you need extend? does it improve damage in some way? Does it continue damaging him in some way?

[Aspenor]

Unnesarry is a nice word.

Having a good charisma is unnesarry
Having firewall at all is unnesarry
Having haste at all is unnesarry
Hell, having a sorcerer in the party at all is unnesarry for all quests.

.. But having one that casts kick ass firewalls rocks.

You think magic missle is faster then firewall? lol not sure how u got your MM to do such uber dmg but good job. I've taken the titan down (well down to where he wants to be) with a single max emp xten firewall in 5 seconds. If you did that faster with magic missle, good job.
Yea lailats agro is hard to control, if your a noob.
Jungle of khyber, firewalls more efficient. Done at lvl14, yes fireballs way faster. But done at a lower lvl, like 10 - firewalls the way to go.

Lailat's aggro has nothing to do with what I was saying. If you're too much of a noob to understand why I said what I did, then responding is useless. You are closed minded, sir. I can build a sorceror that can outplay yours in my hands any day of the week, out of any of my three builds. Move along, please.

[Jakylpops]

It's a ridiculously silly argument that doesn't matter all that much.

Most of it comes down to childish bragging rights...my SP is bigger than your SP.

I have one caster with and one without extend...the one with extend is a bit easier to solo with because you don't have to keep refreshing haste and displacement as often, but I don't miss it badly enough to drop something else.

The only times you really really really wish you had extend are the quests that require you to defend an area, in which case extend will save you loads of SP when you're basically just casting firewall, cloudkill, solid fog, or some other CC spell over and over as they run out.

So it's not a make or break your character decision, but by all means Aspenor feel free to write another book about why it is, I could use a good laugh.

[Aspenor]

So it's not a make or break your character decision, but by all means Aspenor feel free to write another book about why it is, I could use a good laugh.

I have said no such thing, that it's a make or break your character issue. You can keep putting words in my mouth though :)

All I said was extend is unnecessary for the OP's build. It appears he has purposely built a selfish-type character from the beginning. He is going for DPS, and instant-kill ability. Nothing in that description indicates extend would be needed.

But if you want me to write a guide thread concerning the ins and outs of the various metamagics, well I could do that too :)

[Deragoth]

I am a Nuker/Instakill cross, and it seems to work very well.

First, my feats...

Maximize
Heighten
Extend (Not really needed)
SF: Illusion
SF: Transmutation

Drow
33 Charisma (REALLY need a +2 tome to make 34)
HP: 172
SP: 1658 (only have a Magi item, would love a Wiz6 item, but not needed)

Important Enhancements: Spell Pen 2, Fire/Ice 4, Fire/Ice Crit 3, Crit mod 2.

Important Items: Superior Potency 6, Greater Spell Pen 5, Greater Arcane Lore, Necro/Enchant goggles, Trans/Illusion bracers.

With this build, I've been able solo quite a bit of endgame content on Elite. Usually, I end up 3-4 manning stuff, and its a lot of fun and works great.

I Stone, PK, and Hold Monster, and I consider all 3 to be an instakill. I do not have FoD (took dancing sphere, and it rocks). Sometimes I lead with fear, and deal with all that are only shaken first (which isn't that many, if any at all). I don't have enervation, I find fear more effective (ok, its mostly just REALLY fun) for my playstyle. But when it comes to dishing out damage, I find Firewall, Cone of Cold, Disinigrate and Scorching ray do just fine.

Firewall is great for groups and stacking on additional damage. It's FANTASTIC for undead. However, I never extend it. The battle is always over before an extended firewall runs out. I'd rather just cast it again.

If I had to swap a feat, it would be extend. I just have it for Displacement, Haste, and Dance Spheres in the Reaver. The feats I would consider taking would be empower or enlarge. Enlarge offers a serious advantage when soloing. My Warforge wizard has it, and it's great. However, with the upcoming change to Metamagics, I'll probably take Empower.

Hope that helps with your planning.

[Eldun]

All I said was extend is unnecessary for the OP's build. It appears he has purposely built a selfish-type character from the beginning. He is going for DPS, and instant-kill ability. Nothing in that description indicates extend would be needed.

Wow Aspenor, thanks for the put down on my character creation; selfish. :(

[Aspenor]

Wow Aspenor, thanks for the put down on my character creation; selfish. :(

It's not a put-down by any means, Eldun. You play the character the way you want to play it, don't let anybody tell you that "this is your role." I don't know about you, but I'm not afraid to tell somebody "no." "Can I get a GH?" "No, you don't need GH, you just want it." I make the decisions when I am the caster.

Don't take my comment as a putdown whatsoever. I have a nuker/instakiller and when he is high level, I won't be afraid to admit that he's a selfish character. Frankly, I know where my SP is best spent, and it's NOT always on buffing somebody else.