Extend on a Sorc?

[Impaqt]

I TR'd my Wizard into a Sorc, At level 14 now and plan on taking 15 tonight sometime.

Currently my Feats are

Toughness, Past Life: Wiz, Maximize, Empower, and Spell Penn.

I havent missed extend all that much and was just wondering how many sorcs actually take Extend? the only spell I feel it would be really useful with would be Haste.

SInce i have some extra Spell Penn from the Wiz Past life, I'm thinking SF and GSF Necro as my last 2 feats. Heighten doesnt seem to be as important since Wail is such a kick ass spell... Or would it be handy for FtS in Epics?

[Samadhi]

I would never drop Heighten, but then again I use web as my primary CC in a lot of different places.

If not having extend doesn't bother you now, I would think it would only get better.

I never take Toughness; you can get HP lots of other ways; you can't get higher DC's as many.

[richieelias27]

I use extend for several reasons:

I keep haste up 100% of the time just because I hate running slow and exped retreat doesnt quite cut it.
Displacement also 100% of the time. It's pretty much muscle memory now to hit both buttons in succession.

Aside from that, I might use it situationally to lay down traps in those quests where you have to sit in a room waiting for several spawns to come.

Otherwise, I could easily get along without it.

[LethalSmockMaker]

Extend: A 40 minute buff does look sexy, but yes rarely is it absoluelty needed. For me the benefit is on haste, displacement and fire/cold shield. Also with grinding epics, it's nice to not have to keep casting Wall of Fire and other timed spells over and over.

I still use web a ton, so heighten is excellent.

Spell focus - I tend to notice a gap on saves for spells like Wail, Web, etc. Either mobs don't save at all, or the mob's save is strong enough that I can energy drain once before casting (Pt 3 ToD, Flesh to Stone or Web on Orthons comes to mind). So taking 2 feats to bump up the DC to +2 on 1 school, I'm not sure is worth it on my build at least. Reaver's Napkin does well enough for me.

[TheDearLeader]

Haste
Displacement
Rage
Fire/Cold Shield
Otto's Irresistible Dance
Wall of Fire

I like having all these things sexily extended.

[Sweyn]

Haste
Displacement
Rage
Fire/Cold Shield
Otto's Irresistible Dance
Wall of Fire

I like having all these things sexily extended.

This.

Also, if you're soloing an epic quest and score a crit firewall, you're gonna wish you had extend.

[dkyle]

Also, if you're soloing an epic quest and score a crit firewall, you're gonna wish you had extend.

I'd have to imagine it helps with kiting in ToD as well. It's pretty important to keep the steps fire-walled, at least for the kiting strategy I usually see.

[JohnWarlock]

Personally I take Emp / Max / Extend of all my casters.
Wizards I do take Heighten for the extra amount of feats they can take.

Like previous posters commented.

Haste for myself and the dps in the party, that way I don't keep them on a tight leash.
Displacement, 50% chance to miss on me, less healing.
Fire Shield very useful.
Also personally I prefer extending my firewalls

with sufficient knowledge of the quests you're playing in, an extended firewall can kill enough mobs. The difference between 10 mana to get extend on it, and another 65 mana firewall.

[richieelias27]

This.

Also, if you're soloing an epic quest and score a crit firewall, you're gonna wish you had extend.

That was supposed to get fixed in Update 7 (persistant spells counting a crit at cast and critting for the duration changes to crits calculated for each tick), but as far as I can tell on Lamania everything is still working as normal. (yay)

They were also saying that Ice Storm would change to be a persistant spell like Wall of Fire, but that also did not happen. boo to that.

[Sweyn]

That was supposed to get fixed in Update 7 (persistant spells counting a crit at cast and critting for the duration changes to crits calculated for each tick), but as far as I can tell on Lamania everything is still working as normal. (yay)

They were also saying that Ice Storm would change to be a persistant spell like Wall of Fire, but that also did not happen. boo to that.

It was just an idea they were thinking about implementing, it was not going to be "Fixed" in U7, let alone it was not even stated by a dev that it was a definite change. If they did change that, it wouldn't be getting "Fixed," as it was not broken, but rather it would get "Changed."

[Impaqt]

That was supposed to get fixed in Update 7 (persistant spells counting a crit at cast and critting for the duration changes to crits calculated for each tick), but as far as I can tell on Lamania everything is still working as normal. (yay)

They were also saying that Ice Storm would change to be a persistant spell like Wall of Fire, but that also did not happen. boo to that.

I believe both those changes were canceled or delayed.

[dkyle]

They were also saying that Ice Storm would change to be a persistant spell like Wall of Fire, but that also did not happen. boo to that.

It didn't pass Q&A muster for this update:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=3270326&highlight=ice+storm#post3270326

[moops]

I could not live without extended Displacement and Rage. . .literally. But I solo a fair amount, as well as take the aggro off the melees, if you do not do these things, perhaps you could do without extend.

[Impaqt]

Maybe I learned to be more frugal as a wizard first, I dunno, but recasting Haste and Displacement doesnt seem to be too taxing. I'm not even carrying Rage right now, maybe I'll get it back when its fixed in update 7.....

Firewalls in ToD might be a concern for kiting..... does Cloudkill work for aggro? That lasts a lot longer than Wall of fire....

[fuzzy1guy]

extend is a must.. haste, displacement, firewall, cloudkill, rage, irresistable. gotta have extend.


and heighten? if you never do anything past vale. (amrath, epics, iq even) or plan on being just a buff/hastebot in those areas... Or plan on only using the top 3 levels of spells as cc or damage.. you don't need heighten.

To me heighten is a must too. I'd drop empower first before heighten. And have on one caster.

[TheDearLeader]

Firewalls in ToD might be a concern for kiting..... does Cloudkill work for aggro? That lasts a lot longer than Wall of fire....

It does, yes. Personally I use firewall, as per my Guide (Shameless plug (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=274832)), but Cloudkill will work, and does have a longer duration. However, it does have a longer casting animation, so a re-cast can be.. fun. Kinda like a Cleric without Quicken trying to cast a Blade Barrier.

[richieelias27]

It does, yes. Personally I use firewall, as per my Guide (Shameless plug (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=274832)), but Cloudkill will work, and does have a longer duration. However, it does have a longer casting animation, so a re-cast can be.. fun. Kinda like a Cleric without Quicken trying to cast a Blade Barrier.

It could be just me, but I noticed the casting times on lamania for Dancing sphere and cloudkill *seem* to be faster on my sorc without quicken than they were before.

I have done no live vs test testing to prove this as my sorc has neither of these spells on live.

[TheDearLeader]

It could be just me, but I noticed the casting times for Dancing sphere and cloudkill *seem* to be faster on my sorc without quicken.

True.

Wizard Casting Times < Sorc Casting Times < Quicken Casting Times, either class is how it goes.

Its still slower on a Sorc w/o quicken, but probably tolerable. Personally, Kiting ToD takes me very few spell points, so I turn all my metamagics on.

[Impaqt]

It does, yes. Personally I use firewall, as per my Guide (Shameless plug (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=274832)), but Cloudkill will work, and does have a longer duration. However, it does have a longer casting animation, so a re-cast can be.. fun. Kinda like a Cleric without Quicken trying to cast a Blade Barrier.

My runs usually have a FvS doing the kiting in Prt2 anyway.... But after the initial aggro, Its not hard to drop a new firewall every pass. If its placed properly, you really only need one on the stairs.

[richieelias27]

True.

Wizard Casting Times < Sorc Casting Times < Quicken Casting Times, either class is how it goes.

Its still slower on a Sorc w/o quicken, but probably tolerable. Personally, Kiting ToD takes me very few spell points, so I turn all my metamagics on.

Hehe, you got in right before I edited it. I forgot to insert that I was talking about live servers vs lamania

[moops]

Maybe I learned to be more frugal as a wizard first, I dunno, but recasting Haste and Displacement doesnt seem to be too taxing. I'm not even carrying Rage right now, maybe I'll get it back when its fixed in update 7.....

Firewalls in ToD might be a concern for kiting..... does Cloudkill work for aggro? That lasts a lot longer than Wall of fire....

I had 2 wiz lives, and sp cost was defintely a concern, and why I used extend. Plus the times I did forget to extend displace it always needed recasting it the worst possible times:) Even at 20 I could not stand a 2 min Displace, not to mention that Otto's Dance extended is a godsend in many places if you are perhaps trying to invis/stealth your way through a quest, esp one with a Red Alert Problem--or in Epics. This will come down to how you are playing and who you are running with--if you pug alot--having less than extended haste might get you flack. Plus it is nice to only have to cast Haste once at the start of Part 1/2 of TOD and then go on to your business, and maybe a couple times in part 3. Same for all parts of the shroud which are roughly one extended haste long on normal. Or Extended haste keeps your runners on the outside of Hound hasted almost till the beholders come out. But if you are always running with nother caster, or geared out people who have clickies it doesn't matter as much.

The Rage is for myself, every HP counts when soloing or shortmanning stuff--or kiting.

[Impaqt]

I had 2 wiz lives, and sp cost was defintely a concern, and why I used extend. Plus the times I did forget to extend displace it always needed recasting it the worst possible times:) Even at 20 I could not stand a 2 min Displace, not to mention that Otto's Dance extended is a godsend in many places if you are perhaps trying to invis/stealth your way through a quest, esp one with a Red Alert Problem--or in Epics. This will come down to how you are playing and who you are running with--if you pug alot--having less than extended haste might get you flack. Plus it is nice to only have to cast Haste once at the start of Part 1/2 of TOD and then go on to your business, and maybe a couple times in part 3. Same for all parts of the shroud which are roughly one extended haste long on normal. Or Extended haste keeps your runners on the outside of Hound hasted almost till the beholders come out. But if you are always running with nother caster, or geared out people who have clickies it doesn't matter as much.

The Rage is for myself, every HP counts when soloing or shortmanning stuff--or kiting.

:rolleyes::cool:Any Pug that tries to give me a hard time for not having extend haste is gonna be sucking pots the rest of the quest.:rolleyes::cool:

[tinyelvis]

Until the invention of epic questing extend was a great feat not to have. You dont need and wont miss it, as you pointed out, (unless you're a buff bot) until epic questing. I cannot live without it in epic play.

[Impaqt]

So should I just skip the Spell Focus feats and take Extend and Heighten?

[tinyelvis]

It depends on the spells you plan to use. If you only plan to use Mass hold monster you don't need heighten. Outside of that, heighten can be critically important. I suggest you make room for all by epic play time. Also, spell penetration can be buffed by items. You will not need so much since you have the wizard past life.

[moops]

So should I just skip the Spell Focus feats and take Extend and Heighten?

If you are going to be running EPic. . .Mass Hold, Ottos, and Firewall are the popular way people run them, at least on Sarlona.

Im sure you know this but. . .The prob with Mass Hold is as soon as the mobs come undone--even 700-800 HP barbs get pounded pretty quick In a quest like "into the deep" where its rather hard to see which mob you are swinging at when they are bunched up and held, one can find 2 or 3 members of a party taking a ton damage fairly quick from the Trolls. . .So the longer the better IMHO.

THere are ways to work around this, say dancing ball and Mass hold, but its not all fool proof, and casting Mass Hold over and over or Ottos is costly if you don't have extend.

Also in many of these quests its popular to otto things that one does not need to kill, or that do more damage, while the trash is cleaned up.

I run with a sorc quite regularly who does not have spell pen feats, and i think no enchantment feat and he does awesome in Epic. But I also play with a Wizard who has it all, and he is top down no questions asked, the best caster Ive seen in Epic thus far.

[therobb]

As others have pointed out, extend is invaluable in longer raids and epics.

As for heighten, I haven't run a ton of epic, but I've run enough to reach the conclusion that mass hold alone is not enough. Some of the best crowd control spells are low level spells like web, glitterdust, hyptnotism, charm, etc. All are incredibly effective when heightened- even in epic. Without heighten, not so much.

All of these work very well when extended as well.

If you have room for spell focus feats, I suggest enchantment over necro.

[fuzzy1guy]

Heighten + All those semi-useful low level spells..

Effective and still semi-useful in high lvl and epic content.


The only one i personally hate is web.. Yeah everyone says you gotta have web cuz it works so well. And i call bs.. i've tried it over and over. wasted slot. it serves no purpose at all that cant be done by a spell that has more uses in more places than web.
doesn't last long enough, the spell area itself or the holding part. doesnt work well enough on the things you'd want it to. and costs too much. the only thing it DOES have is a short casting time. I won't ever load it up again for use past level 8-10 again. Web needs an auto-crit. That'd make it have a purpose to me.

[tinyelvis]

I dumped web too for the same reasons. I imagine a conjuration focus guy might be able to make it work better. I like glitterdust much better.

[Raiderone]

I think Extend is a must for any Sorc that uses FW period.

Look a FW without extend (Max/Empowered) spell cost of 50
(with all Empower/Max Enhancements) last 30 Sec.

Now cast it twice cause a Extended FW lasts 1 Minute.

100 Mana used.

Now use Extend on same FW, mana cost 60.

Just saved 40 Mana...for every FW.

[Impaqt]

I think Extend is a must for any Sorc that uses FW period.

Look a FW without extend (Max/Empowered) spell cost of 50
(with all Empower/Max Enhancements) last 30 Sec.

Now cast it twice cause a Extended FW lasts 1 Minute.

100 Mana used.

Now use Extend on same FW, mana cost 60.

Just saved 40 Mana...for every FW.

I did indeed wind up taking extend at 15.

I dont really see the benefit to FIrewall though.

WHen Crit fishing, your wasting 10 mana per cast.

and

very few mobs survive an un-extended Firewall anyway. Especially when it crits.

I'll probobly keep it though, It is nice for haste and Displacement. we'll see once I cap him if I really need it though.

[Holymosher]

Some one private message me what "CC" means




Also my opinion is extend is definitely a must for end game at least if ya swap it with w.e once ya are levels 17-20 it's awesome in shroud decking those players with long masses of haste also good for you to solo with slap on displace and Zerg through don't have to worry bout it running out so quick, also fire shield, also reg buffs blur gh, all that . - zakk

[Carpone]

SInce i have some extra Spell Penn from the Wiz Past life, I'm thinking SF and GSF Necro as my last 2 feats. Heighten doesnt seem to be as important since Wail is such a kick ass spell... Or would it be handy for FtS in Epics?
Heighten:

I couldn't imagine doing elite ToD w/o a Heightened FtS. In our raids, the sole arcane is responsible for locking down Orthons in p3 with FtS while the melee focus on Horoth (and portals as of U7). Also, Cyclonic Blast is an excellent new spell in U7 that's similar to Disintegrate. +4 DC on the Reflex save is huge. Heighten is also a must have for Web if you plan to use it at all. (I lean on Web alot, as I don't carry Disco Ball.)

Extend:

Haste, Rage, Mass Hold Monster, Flesh to Stone, Displacement, Firewall are reasons to take Extend. Firewall Extend may not matter to you at level 15, but you'll want it in epics.

At one time, I had GSF: Necro. I found Spell Pen to be much more useful for elite ToD. My suggestions for a non-human sorc with a wizard past life: Wiz Past Life, Spell Penetration, Maximize, Empower, Heighten, Extend, Toughness. If you go human, I'd go with Greater Spell Penetration for Otto's Irresistible and Energy Drain.

[blitzschlag]

slightly other topic:

i found quicken to be pretty important in certain epic quests even with the faster sorcerer casting... a interrupt at the wrong time and youre done

[DropList]

The past life wiz puts a hurt on a sorcs feats for sure. I would hate to lose extend...but other than heighten extend seems like only option really...maybe spell pen but that seems like a poor choice too. Unless you have a lot of gear lined up for HP toughness is huge. Can you live with 400 hp with the right gear..sure.

[DropList]

Quicken is a no brainer....heck I would even say turn it on and take off of bar:) Only reason to turn it off is to buff...and well that takes a little doing for the lazy...like this guys!

[soulaeon]

Extend is definitely worth the slot. It's not as valuable as Heighten because we're a spammy-class, but it's convenient.
Displacement, Haste, Fire Shield, Wall of Fire, Rage, and all those other short-duration spells are nicer when they last longer. I typically dont bother extending any buffs that are below level 3, or I just dont extend those at all because I rarely can not shrine within 20 minutes before completion.


The only one i personally hate is web.. Yeah everyone says you gotta have web cuz it works so well. And i call bs.. i've tried it over and over. wasted slot. it serves no purpose at all that cant be done by a spell that has more uses in more places than web.
doesn't last long enough, the spell area itself or the holding part. doesnt work well enough on the things you'd want it to. and costs too much. the only thing it DOES have is a short casting time. I won't ever load it up again for use past level 8-10 again. Web needs an auto-crit. That'd make it have a purpose to me.
If you have Mass Hold Monster, Mass Charm Monster, or Otto's Sphere, then that basically trumps Web. At least one of those is sufficient if you want to be the main CC person; I dont usually bother.


I did indeed wind up taking extend at 15.

I dont really see the benefit to FIrewall though.

WHen Crit fishing, your wasting 10 mana per cast.

and

very few mobs survive an un-extended Firewall anyway. Especially when it crits.

I'll probobly keep it though, It is nice for haste and Displacement. we'll see once I cap him if I really need it though.
One does not need to extend Wall of Fire casually. Extend is useful during boss fights or particularly tough enemies in general. Like, the Demon Queen raid tends to require Wall of Fire, and you cant keep casting if you want to avoid the Blade Barriers.


Quicken is a no brainer....heck I would even say turn it on and take off of bar Only reason to turn it off is to buff...and well that takes a little doing for the lazy...like this guys!
Never had it. Never wanted it. Never saw any reason to use it.

[tinyelvis]

I think Extend is a must for any Sorc that uses FW period.

Look a FW without extend (Max/Empowered) spell cost of 50
(with all Empower/Max Enhancements) last 30 Sec.

Now cast it twice cause a Extended FW lasts 1 Minute.

100 Mana used.

Now use Extend on same FW, mana cost 60.

Just saved 40 Mana...for every FW.

This is a good reason to take extend in epic play. I usually take the feat at 18th level. However, before that, most of the time one non extended wall of fire is enough for the job, so ironically it leads to wastage of spell spell points more often than not before then.

Typical feats to drop at 18th level (in order) if you need to pick up extend

1. Toughness
2. Greater Spell Pen (get good item buffs)
3. Empower (the roughly 12% boost in damage seen with this feat will be noticed, but can be lived without, while extend in epic play cannot. You will find that you cast typically the same number of walls of fire to kill most all things)
4. Heighten (As far as DC spells are concerned, plan to only use the spell mass hold monster )
5. Greater spell focus

If you still want extend and do not have one of the following to drop, I would consider another game.