spell choice

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Well I'm playing around considering my first FvS (offensive caster and healing focused) and I was surprised how easy it was to make the spell selections. Its sad that 3-4 spell choices really are all we need on a cleric/FvS most of the time. It's far easier than the wiz/sorc choices. Clearly they need to work on the clerics spell list.

The only place I'm stuck is L6 spells... It seems all my favorite spells hang out there. Banishment, Blade Barrier, Cometfall, Mass Cure Mod, Heal.

I can't decide if I'm better off skipping cure mod (and then using MCL and MCS to group heal) or switch between CF and Banish depending on my level (and thus where I'll probably be fighting).

What have others done for their L6 spell choices?

[Borror0]

Banishment won't be much use when you get to end game so grab it when running Vale and spec it out when you outlevel the Vale.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

I found my spells up to around level 13 where I was almost exclusively soloing were different from those once I started grouping. i.e. I didn't need any mass spells no could put different ones in, but then once I got higher I could drop e.g. dw and get mass dw. My FvS doesn't have any wisdom so I don't think I have any DC based spells except BB/cometfall for which I just hope the mob doesn't have evasion (switch to searing light if they do).

I also found FvS spell picking far easier than I thought it would be, and don't really miss any spells from my cleric at all... no switching to mass bulls/bears before a Hound though :(

All in all even though my FvS is primary melee, he's probably a better healer than my other clerics purely though the fact that he's got more mana, while still having access to Heal and mass cure spells, and in addition being far more robust and self-sufficient, and also useful for secondary dps when people aren't taking much damage.

Garth

[Twerpp]

Well I'm playing around considering my first FvS (offensive caster and healing focused) and I was surprised how easy it was to make the spell selections. Its sad that 3-4 spell choices really are all we need on a cleric/FvS most of the time. It's far easier than the wiz/sorc choices. Clearly they need to work on the clerics spell list.

The only place I'm stuck is L6 spells... It seems all my favorite spells hang out there. Banishment, Blade Barrier, Cometfall, Mass Cure Mod, Heal.

I can't decide if I'm better off skipping cure mod (and then using MCL and MCS to group heal) or switch between CF and Banish depending on my level (and thus where I'll probably be fighting).

What have others done for their L6 spell choices?

Level 6 is a doozy, I hate living without cometfall they are so fun. I am putting Greater Dev 8 on a ToD ring so I can put my 2 mass cures in 7-8th level slots where the spell list isnt so exciting. Then I'll run with BB, Comet, and Heal. I cant give up heal, being able to alternate scroll heal/spell heal is too nice. Like they said above, if you can only have 3 banishment will go. It doesnt work in Shavarath and Destruction does the job, and Implosion will too hopefully they fix that by the time you get get your FvS leveled.

[MrWizard]

only on my first spell for that slot and had to go with blade barrier.
I seldom use the mass spells so far and use scrolls instead.
Only on a very poor party makeup has this left me wanting a bit.

I find greater command, soundburst, and bladebarrier very effective at aggro management and to keep from having to heal anyone.

Soundburst works extremely well on those ogre magi by the way (in restless isles, gianthold)....quite incredible and makes me wonder why no one ever used the dang thing much before on them.
<soundburst><stunned ogre magi><beatdown><done>

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Banishment won't be much use when you get to end game so grab it when running Vale and spec it out when you outlevel the Vale.

Ya, that's what I was considering. But then I was thinking about my last few weeks of running my cleric up from 17 to 20 and realizing that I was frequently moving between the vale and Shav. Given that I plan to do this on a TR I'll need more XP so I think I'll spend more time doing both as there isn't that much XP in shav

Maybe I'll spec out Cfall at those levels, I'm not finding it extremely helpful in Shav either and its less fun the Banish in the vale.


I also found FvS spell picking far easier than I thought it would be, and don't really miss any spells from my cleric at all... no switching to mass bulls/bears before a Hound though :(

A while back I stopped even doing that on my cleric, wasn't worth the effort. Grab a stack of mass bulls and mass bears scrolls, works fine.

I do find it really odd that its as easy as it was to pick spells. I'll make slightly higher use of scrolls (true seeing by scroll not sp for example) but over all it made me realize how many of the spells on my clerics spell bar almost never get used.




I find greater command, soundburst, and bladebarrier very effective at aggro management and to keep from having to heal anyone.

Agreed, those are staples for me as well.

[Borror0]

Lorien, remember that, by the time you get TR, we'll also have 5 new quests and the epic desert as level 20 content.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Lorien, remember that, by the time you get TR, we'll also have 5 new quests and the epic desert as level 20 content.

Good point...I haven't tried the new quests so I can't judge them yet but from what I understand banish won't help there... Certainly by the time I hit 20 and can start the epic stuff I doubt there will be much reason to return to the vale... I just hope we get it down to less than 138 (or whatever it was) deaths to kill the DQ :p

Guess maybe this isn't so hard a choice...

[Matuse]

I haven't found spell selection to be very difficult at all. There are some low level ones (cure light) that I removed later for something else...really the only 2 levels where I run into a real issue is 4 and 6.

4 has:
Chaos Hammer
Holy Smite
Cure Critical
Freedom Of Movement
Panacea
Recitation

6 has:
Heal
Harm
Blade Barrier
Banishment
Cometfall
Mass Cure Moderate

Paring those lists down to 4 is proving difficult.

[Osharan_Tregarth]

The only place I'm stuck is L6 spells... It seems all my favorite spells hang out there. Banishment, Blade Barrier, Cometfall, Mass Cure Mod, Heal.


I ditched banishment and cometfall. Greater command seems to work well enough for crowd control purposes, and dropping a blade barrier works well enough as a replacement for banishment... Just takes a little bit longer.

Just use destruction for the occasional mob with evasion.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

remember cometfall keeps getting better (2d6 per 2 caster levels, no cap) but BB caps out at 15d6. But then if you're willing to run mobs though bladebarriers then it's probably more dps overall. I just find kiting mobs through my BBs terribly tiresome.

Garth

[binnsr]

remember cometfall keeps getting better (2d6 per 2 caster levels, no cap) but BB caps out at 15d6. But then if you're willing to run mobs though bladebarriers then it's probably more dps overall. I just find kiting mobs through my BBs terribly tiresome.

Garth

Especially since they all seem to want to stop and pull out a bow these days rather than trying to follow you back through the barrier. :(

to the OP - I haven't gotten around to leveling my FvS yet (she's lvl4 and stalled right now) but on my cleric, I noticed quite a while ago that I wasn't really switching her spells out most of the time ..

[DrgnMstr333]

I haven't found spell selection to be very difficult at all. There are some low level ones (cure light) that I removed later for something else...really the only 2 levels where I run into a real issue is 4 and 6.

4 has:
Chaos Hammer
Holy Smite
Cure Critical
Freedom Of Movement
Panacea
Recitation

6 has:
Heal
Harm
Blade Barrier
Banishment
Cometfall
Mass Cure Moderate

Paring those lists down to 4 is proving difficult.

Easy:
hammer, smite, Freedom, recitation
heal, harm, BB

next?

[Letrii]

For 6 I will be taking Heal, Blade Barrier, and MCM.

[Mellkor]

For an offensive caster/healer spec, I would go with:

Banishment
Blade Barrier
Heal
Comet Fall

You can get by just fine without Mass Cure Moderate, just get the level 7 mass cure as a substitute.

As a caster/healer all of those spells are useful in more places than a mass cure spell you can easily work around.

For a melee/healer spec its a different story, in that case I would go with mass cure instead of banishment.

-JR

[Matuse]

I only have 2 L6's right now, heal and BB. I plan on taking mass cure moderate, and skipping mass cure serious for the simple reason that I have a devotion VI and no VII item. Mass cure light just seems completely pointless as a spell to me. It would barely make a dent in anyone's HP at the level you get it, nevermind higher.

[mistahnice]

the only logical choice is to take

word of recall
undeath to death
eagle's splendor mass
inflict moderate wounds mass

any other choice could be perceived as powergaming

[Nott]

For an offensive caster/healer spec, I would go with:

Banishment
Blade Barrier
Heal
Comet Fall

You can get by just fine without Mass Cure Moderate, just get the level 7 mass cure as a substitute.

As a caster/healer all of those spells are useful in more places than a mass cure spell you can easily work around.

For a melee/healer spec its a different story, in that case I would go with mass cure instead of banishment.

-JRThis is how I've built my caster/healer too, and I'm fairly happy with it. I expect that once I get to serious raiding, I'll be mostly done with vale and I may swap out banishment for mass cure. I'm currently a level 16 TR though, so I'm milking xp rather than raiding much. At 17, I won't be power leveled in raids anymore, so that may be the time to switch.

[Fennario]

For an offensive caster/healer spec, I would go with:

Banishment
Blade Barrier
Heal
Comet Fall

You can get by just fine without Mass Cure Moderate, just get the level 7 mass cure as a substitute.

As a caster/healer all of those spells are useful in more places than a mass cure spell you can easily work around.

For a melee/healer spec its a different story, in that case I would go with mass cure instead of banishment.

-JR


That's fine, except that you only get 3 level 6 spells to choose.


Whoa: Didn't notice this was a crusty old necro thread.

[Nott]

Whoa: Didn't notice this was a crusty old necro thread.Neither did I.... sorry all!

[Osharan_Tregarth]

That's fine, except that you only get 3 level 6 spells to choose.


Whoa: Didn't notice this was a crusty old necro thread.

Well... I'm not absolutely certain, but I believe the thread was moderated a fair amount yesterday. I kinda vaguely remember there being some more posts in it earlier this week.