What's so amazing about Web? (web vs hypnotize)

[zioth]

I've seen many discussions where Web is listed as THE must-have spell for wizards and sorcerers. I haven't found it to be all that great. It's good at immobilizing weak enemies like archers and casters, but who cares? They don't move much anyway. Melee-types, who you'd want to keep away, can walk right through a web. To make it even worse, fire spells destroy the web, and Firewall and Fireball are two of the most popular spells.

Am I using the spell incorrectly? Does it have some extra effect I'm not aware of? I've gotten great use out of Hypnotize, which seems to do basically the same thing, and it only costs me 1 spell point as an archmage. Yes, Hypnotize ends when the enemy is attacked, but it keeps the enemies you're not focusing on from fighting, so you can get to them later. I've gone through entire quests using pretty much nothing but Hypnotize, and it can keep the entire party alive.

[Bracosius]

Web allows them to be attacked while remaining immobile. I have never had a problem webbing a mob and having them walk right through. Is your DC low for some reason?

[Fetchi]

Hypnotize is great until you get that one person who hits all the hypno'd mobs and wakes them all up, making it pointless.

On rare pug scenarios you will get intelligent party members who realize to attack the same target one by one, making hypno great. But again, this is rare.

The reason people would opt for web is because you don't have to worry about the above scenario. You can crowd control many things and still have the people doing damage not have to worry about what not to hit.

Furthermore, if your caster has max'd INT for a wiz or max'd CHA for a sorc and use highten, you can even web spiders and giants! So, it's not just limited to casters and things with low STR. Or if you are having problems webbing something, hit it with a ray of enfeeblement, waves of exhaustion, or other STR reducing debuff spell to reduce its STR then watch it get webbed.

[Shade]

In DDO is number one factor is always DPS.

Web = More DPS.

Hypno = Less dps.

Why..

Web = Persistant. Place it in a key location, let enemies run into it in such a way that they are packed up closely together. THF melee come in, crushes them. Win.

Hypno = Instant. Fast. All mobs are hypno'd but all in different places where they spawned, all spreado ut.. THF melee cannot glancing blow and has to single target kill. DPS Lowered. Quest slower.

Web = -2 AC to target and allows constant flank bonus and unlimited sneak attacks! (Web targets stand still, letting you flank, and suffer -2 AC as part of the spell. If you go behind an enemy with any type of sneak attack bonus, be t from rogue levels or items, it applies 100% of the time, even if you have the agro.. )
Web = Enemies dies FAST!

Hypno = hit target once and he runs away! arghh...

Web is basically the low level mass hold. It's the best cc spell in the game until mass hold, and even then beats mass hold due to it's persistant nature.

Not to mention it's easier to land on most things.

Hypno = SR check : Yes
Web = Ignores all SR

Hypno = Will save.. Tends to high on casters
Web = Reflex.. Tends to be low on casters

Casters are the most important tragets to neutralize quickly as they are almots always the largest threats.

Web is the superior spell. But if you like hypno a lot, you could use both!

PS: There are tricks to allow webs and wall of fire to function together. You simply need to place them slightly apart, its actually quite easy these days, used to be harder.
Same goes for fireball, you can fireball a webbed target without breaking the web with careful aim.

[hockeyrama]

Hypnotize is great until you get that one person who hits all the hypno'd mobs and wakes them all up, making it pointless.

On rare pug scenarios you will get intelligent party members who realize to attack the same target one by one, making hypno great. But again, this is rare.

The reason people would opt for web is because you don't have to worry about the above scenario. You can crowd control many things and still have the people doing damage not have to worry about what not to hit.

Furthermore, if your caster has max'd INT for a wiz or max'd CHA for a sorc and use highten, you can even web spiders and giants! So, it's not just limited to casters and things with low STR. Or if you are having problems webbing something, hit it with a ray of enfeeblement, waves of exhaustion, or other STR reducing debuff spell to reduce its STR then watch it get webbed.


I totally aggre abou thte first point. The reason why hypno is not considered great is the way most groups play. They have thf and cleave all your hard work away. If you get a really good group then hypno combined with a hold person is absolutely amazing in all levels of the game. Go archmage enchanter and watch as they all stand held while you pick the next one to hold while they beating the last one down. But again this only works in good groups. If you get a zerger you might as well just cast stoneskin on him and tell him to have fun and after he dies you will kill everything yourself. Then when he dies hypno the mob, hold one, pull out your picks and kill it as fast as he kills a non-held mob. They hate it when you do that while they sit in your backpack.

[Eladiun]

A place for everything and everything in it's place. They are both good spells. I have them as SLA's and I use them both with Mass Hold in Epics very effectively.

Hypno for 1 SP save a ton of SP. Hypno a room and then Mass Hold what the melee is working.

Web is great for high SR drow and high Will save Casters and Clerics who generally have low strength and can't break free.

[Khurse]

AS mentioned,Hypno can fairly easily be broken.
While web prevents casters from casting while webbed. Not so much as issue early game,very nice in Epics.

[zioth]

Alright, I'm convinced. I think I'll go for Conjuration so I can get web as an SLA. 6sp isn't as good as 1, but it's still pretty good. Hm... Do I take Heighten next, or Spell Focus?

Too bad I'm short on feats. I'm going for halfling rogue2/wizard18, which knocks out 2 (1 from human, 1 from wizard20). Rogue/wizard is lots of fun, but I want those Archmage powers sooner! :)

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Generally, I lke Hypno better. But...

Hypno breaks as soon as they take damage. (and no one sems to care enough to not damage everything you just Hypnoed, so it's usefullness lasts about 1 second. :( )

Web holds them for a little while you beat on them.

Web is useful for things that Hpno is not. Undead, Golems.
And....

The kicker....the reason you hear people say it is so good...
Is at high lvls of play. things have really, really high saves.
They have high Frt saves, high Ref saves and high Wil saves. In fact, they are quite often immune to most things that a Wil save would be used for. (like Hypno)

But... Web. Uses a Dex and/or Str save. (I need to look this up) To either catch them, or to break free.
And just like players, monsters tend to have low Dex.

So....add something like Waves of Exhaustion, that can hit a bunch of monsters at once....lower their Dex Then Web em. And they get caught. Even the high lvl ones. With high saves and immunities.

Web can also be casted ahead of time....like say before you open a door, or talk to an NPC to start a fight. And you can drag things that save once back into the Web and try again.

So.
Use Hypno when it works. Use it first and fast. Cause it's good for stopping a charging army in it's tracks.

But use Web too.

[Fenrisulven6]

It's good at immobilizing weak enemies like archers and casters, but who cares? They don't move much anyway.

Casters are game-changers and need to be taken out first. Thats why you'll see most Barbs and Rogues jumping over the melee scrum to get at them.

Web is also the go-to spell VS skeletons. I've seen web-spec'd casters make Delera's Elite a snooze-fest.

[Kominalito]

Web is also the go-to spell VS skeletons. I've seen web-spec'd casters make Delera's Elite a snooze-fest.

i just started a palemaster, and i havent even considered web on skellies. i'll give this a go.

[hityawithastick]

1. Web a door. Observe mobs scrunching into web.
2. Spam necrotic bolts into the web.
3. ????
4. Profit!

I solo GH quests (the soloable ones) for relics to sell. Web makes it less "Oh god, oh god we're all gonna die" interesting and more "I wonder how many minions I can kill without running out of SP" interesting.

[MrkGrismer]

It's good at immobilizing weak enemies like archers and casters, but who cares? They don't move much anyway.

The question has been answered in depth above, but the above I have to say 'really?' Casters and archers are the biggest pains in the butts because they do move a lot. More than they should, even with a knockdown they will move. Take an air elemental out into the desert to near the entrance of the Vulkarum Spiral and watch how much those archers 'don't move much'. Casters tend to be just as bad. Either one seems to have an if (inmelee) then (move to random location) statement in their AI.

[dkyle]

The problem I tend to have with Casters and Web is that some of them do a "move in a random direction and cast a buff" animation as soon as they activate. That movement seems to exempt them from webs, and they don't get caught in the web until they activate, so I find myself putting webs on casters as I approach, only to have them walk out without needing to make a save.

[Jaid314]

web is amazing. you do need some practice to get it right, but it can lock down targets for up to 1 minute, and if you can get things to run through it multiple times they can easily get stuck. with my sorcerer, i've been able to get my DCs on it to the point (with no feats) that most mobs will get caught and stay caught.

web is great as an alternative to hypnotism because it targets a different save (reflex, not dex... waves of exhaustion works by lowering dex which lowers reflex save, so it still helps), which means stuff that is resistant to hypnotism may not be resistant to web. it's great because it not only keeps the target from moving, it keeps them from attacking. it's great because even though certain fire AOEs tend to burn it away, it isn't necessary to use those AOEs, and it's easy to place a wall of fire near enough to damage without burning the web anyways. it allows no SR check, and is a strength check to break free (and most mobs will have a hard time breaking free; for example, my DC 36 webs require someone to have a +16 strength modifier to have a chance to break free on a 20; it's not a save, so the natural 20 rule should not apply. +16 strength modifier comes from having *42* strength, and that's not all that common even in epics... especially on casters and clerics).

it's an excellent spell, odds are good you just need to experiment a bit more ;)

(oh, and i wouldn't bother switching your archmage focus. grab conjuration spell focus sometime, then when you get a secondary choice choose conjuration and add web).

[donfilibuster]

I gather you do need heighten to use it on epics.

[Desteria]

When hyponoed a mob will fight back once atacked.

When webed a mob is unable to fight back while being killed!

This above is the MAIN reason web is one of the best CC spelsl avalible conmbined with NO SR.

WEB stopps telaporting devils where as most other CC does not, not sure for hypno dances and hold do not stop telaporting.

Web IS reflex a week save on teh magority of mobs it seams, Hypno is WILL week on a lot but Strong on casters the biggest thret.

dont get me wrong i have hypno on my sorc and it has it's place, most notaqble on fire creachers sicne they are imune to web ;) btu it;s handy other places to btu ofter it woudl be hit a hypno first then drop a web where the fight will take place and pull the stuff in to it.

[Relenthe]

Also web works on death-warded mobs, while most other cc spells do not

[ReaperAlexEU]

Web is also the go-to spell VS skeletons. I've seen web-spec'd casters make Delera's Elite a snooze-fest.

nope, halt undead is the goto spell vs skellies, if your a wizard and have the flexibility.

simple skellies and zombies get no saving throw vs halt undead. when halted the party gets auto-crits. ok, that not not the most amazing thing ever, considering the crits wont do extra physical damage, but think about it some more. with auto-crits the whole party will only miss on a 1, even a wizard with 2 heavy picks and -10 to attack! special on-crit effects still fire off on crit immune mobs, like say holy burst.

a good web in delerah's might be a snooze fest, but halt undead and bursting heavy picks will be a zerg fest!

and the best bit is, if your twinking a new caster, you can throw the cash at a stack of halt undead scrolls. no need to have a high DC as there is no save for mindless undead! intelligent undead like the gouls and wights get a saving throw, and break out of the CC when hit like hypno. also be aware that special skellies like the blackbones are intelligent too. casting skellies like the ones in delerah are strangely mindless.

[tihocan]

a good web in delerah's might be a snooze fest, but halt undead and bursting heavy picks will be a zerg fest!
Or, you know, you could just throw firewalls and fireballs and actually kill stuff fast :p

[Lord_WC]

Web in epics is great against hold immune mob types. Mobs won't hit back, and there you really don't want mobs hitting back. The party can be the most disciplined ever and killing one mob at a time, web will still win there.

[hermespan]

Alright, I'm convinced. I think I'll go for Conjuration so I can get web as an SLA. 6sp isn't as good as 1, but it's still pretty good. Hm... Do I take Heighten next, or Spell Focus?

Too bad I'm short on feats. I'm going for halfling rogue2/wizard18, which knocks out 2 (1 from human, 1 from wizard20). Rogue/wizard is lots of fun, but I want those Archmage powers sooner! :)

Web should be sticking pretty reliably without conj spell focus. Did you start with 18 int? you have a conjuration +1 dc item? Max naked int item (at level)?

Max int is a necessity on a wizard, period, end of story. A max int wizard won't have mobs saving against web much.

Ideally you also started with 16(for 28pt)-18(32pt) con. Suggest one of the many wizard guides laying around the forums. As well you will always have resists, and ideally not have agro much so evasion is a waste of a level. You are better off increasing your DC by 1 and dropping the second level of rogue. You can still max trap skills and umd. Even with the second level of rogue, your saves won't be high enough for evasion to matter and this is offset by your resists, which are considerable.

I have a pure wizard at cap. He doesn't die any more than my toons with evasion do and they're melees with a lot more hitpoints.

I'd start there. If the answer is no about the starting int, either re-roll or LR. 2 int = +1 DC and +1 DC is HUGE in marginal situations. It's only 5% difference where the mob only fails on a 1.

An important concept to grasp about DC is Total Spell Effectiveness vs. spell DC and how the relationship works.

For example. If you have a 30% chance of landing a spell on a given mob, and add +1 DC, you now have a 35% chance of landing the spell. That's a 16.6% increase in TSE for 1 DC, and a 16.6% decrease (statistically) in spell points used trying to land the spell. That +1 DC is doing a ton more than increasing your DC by 5% would indicate on the surface. Not only are you increasing the party's effective DPS by 16.6% over not having the +1 DC, when you have a marginally favorable roll of the dice, you are also saving a ton of spell points getting there.

Every DC is critical and you need to absolutely max it as a wizard. However you shouldn't rely on spell focus to make you effective. Your DCs should be high enough and you should be effective before adding a spell focus at least til Meridia. Spell focus isn't needed much before mid to end game, on a properly built wizard.

Spell focus is for what you will be doing in end game/epics where the saves are insane. That means enchantment focus and necro focus til you are done with meridia, maybe swapping out necro focus for conjuration once you are done with shroud since necro focus is utterly useless in epics and pointless in amrath.

Feat order is best researched carefully. I wouldn't consider a spell focus or heighten before extend/empower/maximize, mental toughness, toughness etc. Gotta get the basics first.

I'd read some wizard guides, all of them. They all have something to offer, however some are better than others, and it's up to you to distill the best advice out of all of them.

DC, survivability and metamagic are your primary concerns. As far as SLA's go, most are a complete waste of AP. They wreck your spell point cap severely to get stuff that's usable in end game. They should be used at low level when your spellpoints are low. By end game you should have gotten rid of most of them.

my wizard was my first character, and I've torn him down and rebuilt him a few times. This is what I learned about what's important. Consider robot if you are going archmage. You need to stay out of the group heal circle with mobs so the self healing via reconstruct comes in really handy.

[GentlemanAndAScholar]

I've seen many discussions where Web is listed as THE must-have spell for wizards and sorcerers. I haven't found it to be all that great. It's good at immobilizing weak enemies like archers and casters, but who cares? They don't move much anyway. Melee-types, who you'd want to keep away, can walk right through a web. To make it even worse, fire spells destroy the web, and Firewall and Fireball are two of the most popular spells.

Am I using the spell incorrectly? Does it have some extra effect I'm not aware of? I've gotten great use out of Hypnotize, which seems to do basically the same thing, and it only costs me 1 spell point as an archmage. Yes, Hypnotize ends when the enemy is attacked, but it keeps the enemies you're not focusing on from fighting, so you can get to them later. I've gone through entire quests using pretty much nothing but Hypnotize, and it can keep the entire party alive.

Errr web has a different kind of save. It's a STR-based save. Which, among other things, means that an enfeebled/exhausted mob will stay put 'till either they roll a 20 or your party members kill it. Another HUGE issue is the fact that tanks can beat on a mob on a web, whereas a mob under hypno will wake up as soon as it is attacked.

[FrozenNova]

No spell resistance check.
Persistent.
It's otto's sphere of dancing with a reflex save instead of will.
It's the only reflex based CC. Devils generally have poor reflex.
Functions on golems, on earth elementals, on undead, and all kinds of things generally immune to hold or hypno.
It completely immobolizes targets and enables sneak attack.
Archmagi can cast it for free with one conjuration focus feat.
Web is perfect.

As a side note, SLA resistable dance is underrated. Many things are immune to hold so people don't bother with will-save DC, but resistable dance works fine for immobolizing otherwise awkward foes for long peroids of time. Many are against the archmage SLA's - eh, I think they're wonderful. Between dance, hypno and web, my enchantment/conjuration wizard barely needs to lift a finger to nullify all opposition.

[awesomekill]

Very interesting thread. I am level 14 on my wiz and I never even tried web yet.

[NaturalHazard]

I've seen many discussions where Web is listed as THE must-have spell for wizards and sorcerers. I haven't found it to be all that great. It's good at immobilizing weak enemies like archers and casters, but who cares? They don't move much anyway. Melee-types, who you'd want to keep away, can walk right through a web. To make it even worse, fire spells destroy the web, and Firewall and Fireball are two of the most popular spells.

Am I using the spell incorrectly? Does it have some extra effect I'm not aware of? I've gotten great use out of Hypnotize, which seems to do basically the same thing, and it only costs me 1 spell point as an archmage. Yes, Hypnotize ends when the enemy is attacked, but it keeps the enemies you're not focusing on from fighting, so you can get to them later. I've gone through entire quests using pretty much nothing but Hypnotize, and it can keep the entire party alive.

web allows them to be attacked while immobalized while hypotise they break out of it when they are hit. Do you have a gimp web dc?

[HallowedOne]

I love Hypno because it costs me only 1 SP and allows me to stop huge groups from attacking party members, but I realize that it only works until the big killage group moves on - when that happens, I throw Mass Holds & Webs.

[ReaperAlexEU]

i'd just like to clear up the confusion regarding saving throws

web has a reflex saving throw

if the mob fails that reflex saving throw they then have to succeed a strength check to break free

source: http://ddowiki.com/page/Web

Reflex save negates, Strength check every 2 seconds to escape

[ReaperAlexEU]

Or, you know, you could just throw firewalls and fireballs and actually kill stuff fast :p

yah could do that, but oddly enough on my first wiz with a single shocking burst heavy pick of pure good i got more kills with halt undead (90 odd in one part!) than i did later with firewall! i went into this killing frenzy and was throwing my mage about more than i threw my fighter about! so i decided his dad had to be a barbarian, nice RP excuse that :)

[zioth]

Wow. I came back to this thread and found all sorts of useful advice.



Web should be sticking pretty reliably without conj spell focus. Did you start with 18 int? you have a conjuration +1 dc item? Max naked int item (at level)?
I started with 18 int and 16 con. I don't have a conjuration item yet.

The reason I want spell focus isn't for the DC, but to qualify for the archmage SLA. You say the SLAs aren't worth it because they waste spell points. I disagree. I often cast Hypnotism twenty or thirty times between shrines. That costs me around 25sp instead of around 1000sp with Heighten. What did I pay for that ability? 25sp off my cap. Once I get web as an SLA, I'll do the same with it -- 25 heightened webs as an SLA cost 75sp, much cheaper than the 1000 or so as a normal spell, or much more than that once I'm heightening to 9th level. What does that SLA cost? One useful feat and 75 max sp (grease+web).

I agree with you when it comes to the level 5 SLAs. Those cost 375 max sp, for spells that aren't all that amazing. Unless you really love one of those spells, it will be hard to justify it.


As well you will always have resists, and ideally not have agro much so evasion is a waste of a level.
I have Insightful Reflexes, so my reflex save is very high. With evasion, traps won't be nearly as much of a problem. I realize traps don't matter when you've played this game long enough to memorize every quest, but I'm not sure I'll ever do that.


You are better off increasing your DC by 1 and dropping the second level of rogue.
I'm not sure where that extra DC comes from -- a level 19 wizard has the same spell DCs as a level 18 wizard. Do you mean caster level for spell resistence?

There are times when I regret choosing wizard/rogue. I get spells later, I have fewer spell points and my DC will be lower at level 20. It is fun though. I really enjoy finding and disabling traps, and once I have evasion, I'll be able to tumble through them without worrying too much. If I ever TR, I think I'll try a pure wizard.



Feat order is best researched carefully. I wouldn't consider a spell focus or heighten before extend/empower/maximize, mental toughness, toughness etc. Gotta get the basics first.
Out of those feats, I'm missing extend and maximize. I have some difficulty with maximize. It would give me tons of extra damage, but at a hefty cost of 25sp per spell. Since I tend to do more crowd control than direct damage, I wonder if it's worth it. Just Empower and Heighten eat away at my spell points like crazy.

[zioth]

Out of those feats, I'm missing extend and maximize. I have some difficulty with maximize. It would give me tons of extra damage, but at a hefty cost of 25sp per spell. Since I tend to do more crowd control than direct damage, I wonder if it's worth it. Just Empower and Heighten eat away at my spell points like crazy.

I figured out the answer to my own question. If I'm already paying more than 25sp to cast a heightened spell, an extra 25sp to double the damage is almost always worth it. That means I can avoid casting the spell twice at a higher cost.