Any Pure WF Wiz builds?

[Ebforest60]

I'm still "relatively" new to DDO, started in November 09 and I figured it was time to dive into the casting world (so far I've played mostly melee types.) I was thinking of making a WF Wizard and have done some looking around but can't seem to find anything except vague advice (WF wiz is a great new player char, etc.)

I think I understand which metamagic feats are good though I'm not sure how great the enhancements are. Should I be looking to specialize in fire/cold to get the most from firewall? What about schools, are they worth investing in? And what about the WF spell failure chance, how do you mitigate that (or should I even bother?)

If someone could point me to a WF Wiz thread I'd appreciate it. I do read the forums quite a bit and I've done some digging in the search function...maybe I just need more coffee, there HAS to be a thread or 16 on building a WF wizard!

Thanks in advance for any help!

[PopeJual]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=218205
is the build that I'm copying to make my first Rogue2/Wiz18 and I'm having an absolute blast with it.

If you want to go pure Wizard (and I think that is the best choice if you don't have a high level character to pass the +5 Thieves Tools on to you), then just drop the two levels of Rogue, replace with Wizard levels and enjoy the extra feat and the capstone that you get.

[PopeJual]

I think I understand which metamagic feats are good though I'm not sure how great the enhancements are. Should I be looking to specialize in fire/cold to get the most from firewall? Yes. Throwing a couple of action points at the enhanced Force/Repair spells isn't a terrible idea either since you'll be casting repair spells on yourself (and on any nearby WF in your party). Also, the feats that reduce the spell point costs for metamagic feats are worthwhile as well.

What about schools, are they worth investing in? Don't worry about focusing on schools at this point. You'll have plenty of time for that later. Also, don't take the Necromancy spell focus feats just for the Pale Master prestige class. The Pale Master prestige class is a horrible trick played on the Wizards by Turbine.

And what about the WF spell failure chance, how do you mitigate that (or should I even bother?) there's an enhancement that you can take at second level that eliminates the spell failure chance. You should take that and Healer's Friend as soon as you possibly can.
WF Inscribed Armor and WF Healer's Friend.


Answers in red above

[entropiccanuck]

How are wizard enhancement different for WF? Basically, the force/repair line is a little bit more attractive due to self-repair. The WF inscribed armor is 1 AP and removes the spell failure penalty, and is something you should get at level 1. Healers friend can be useful depending on your play style. Most of the rest is the same as for other wizards.

My personal take on the enhancement lines:

Enhancement lines for wiz:
***** Fire/Cold: for standard wiz builds this is essential for its boost to firewall and polar ray. All 3 lines (elemental manipulation for base damage, Lineage of Elements for crit chance, Lineage of Deadly Elements for crit damage) are useful, the crit ones less so at the start but once you have more mobs with spell resistance they're needed.
***** Spell Penetration: Before Vale, of limited use. Vale and after, mandatory. (The feats are useful too)
***** Int: It's your stat. Put in points as long as it gets you to the next even tier. More important later on when you're not firewalling as much and spell DC matters more.
***** WF Inscribed armor: It's 1 point, -5% ASF. Get it at lvl 1, don't worry about it after. You can get it on armor, but there's usually better options.

**** Wiz Improved Maximize: -9 sp on every maximized spell, which should be all your damage ones. Adds up quickly.
**** Wiz Improved Heighten: Saves a lot of points, especially when you're using it on web. This was the last metamagic I got enhancements for though, as the cost of heighten grows in higher levels.
**** WF Toughness: A couple ranks at least are nice, but the last couple are expensive.

*** Force/repair: I never got too into these, though I tried it for a while. They were more useful before I had reconstruct. I still have a couple points in force manipulation (base damage/repair) but not the crit lines. Some like the magic/force/chain missiles line a lot, so this line will obviously be more important for them.
*** Wiz Improved Empower: -6 sp on every empowered spell, but at the same cost as the -9 from imp maximize. A rank or two is good from a AP/discount ratio, but I wouldn't spend 6 AP on the last tier.
*** Subtle Spellcasting: less aggro. This depends a lot on your playstyle. It's useless in solo, and barely useful in normal difficulty when stuff dies quick. On the other hand, it can save your life. When I found I was pulling aggro consistently I'd save up some AP for a slot in this line.
*** Healers friend: +healing from divine healers. Doesn't work on repair, so if you're soloing mostly or rely on yourself or other arcanes for heals it's useless. I had 2 ranks, but ended with 1 as I wanted those 4 AP elsewhere.
*** WF Con: I've taken 1 to even out a con tier. I've never had the extra AP for the second, or really needed the HP that badly.


** Acid/Lightning: If acid wasn't almost solely low DOTs that acid resistance negates, and lightning had something that wasn't a reflex save ....
** Energy of the Scholar: The first couple are decent for the AP cost, but later on I found it more efficient to put points into improved maximize/heighten.
** Wands: The first point is pretty effective for 1 point (+25%), which I took for repair wands. The others are just +10% for 2,3 or 4 points, so less bang for more buck. The DC on offensive wands is usually pretty useless, so don't bother with that line.
** Improved quicken and enlarge: Only saves you 1/2/3 sp for 2/6/12 AP (cumulative) ... expensive AP for not much benefit.

* Concentration, Repair: Unless this becomes necessary for a Prestige class I'm not sure why you'd put points here.
* Other WF feats: not for a pure casting wiz.

For the spell schools, necromancy or enchantment seem the most popular, though transmutation (disintegrate, flesh to stone) and conjuration (web, fog spells) can be useful. The best evocation spells (fire wall, polar ray, scorching ray, *missiles) don't have saving throws so DC doesn't matter, though it might be a decent school to get a feat in if you were into lightning spells. I got necro focus a while back but I'm saving my dragonshards to respec that as it's not so useful at 20.




Hope that helps some the response became more than I expected.

[Ebforest60]

Thanks for the great responses, and the thread links. I feel like I have a better understanding of some enhancements and how they'll impact me now. As I said before maybe my searching was just off...but thanks again.