Heighten Spell Opinions

[DDOcam]

I have been playing my sorcerer the most out of my characters lately. I just got him to level 9 but have not leveled up yet. I basically just use direct damage spells all the time and have been keeping heighten spell, but I am not sure if it is worth the sp and feat.

I have just been getting acid and ice spells and figured heighten spell would be good mainly for my spell like ability (niac's cold ray so far). I was wondering If it is even worth it to keep heighten spell on for spells like acid blast and frost lance. Thanks for any replies.

[Cauthey]

I think that Heighten's best application is for crowd control (CC) spells like Web, and the disco ball. As these are lower level spells, they have much to gain with Heighten in terms of boosting their save DCs.

From what I've read, the only time many arcanes turn Heighten on is when they're running Epic quests.

Interesting thought about Niac's, though. I'm sure that it might benefit from Heighten some. However, I think that arcanes typically move on to bigger and better damaging spells. Or, spells that damage enemies without offering a save (Frost Lance, Scorching Ray).

[gerardIII]

Take Heighten at lvl 12+

[jaegarnel]

Heighten is not worth it at low lvl (9 is low lvl), simply because the increase in your DC won't be noticeable enough to be worth the sp cost in the vast majority of cases.

You will need it when you get to high level for every CC/instakill spells, because you need those to work when you cast them and a +2 DC to finger of death, for instance, can make a big difference.

Whether it's useful for damage spells is more debatable imo. To take frost lance as an example, assuming no maximize/empower, it can cost you 8 sp and usually fail for half normal damage, or 38 sp and usually succeed for full damage. In this case, heighten is not really sp-efficient imo.

On my wizard, I have heighten on all the time, but that's because it only costs me 3 sp per spell lvl instead of 5 and I use CC/instakill spells much more than nukes, unlike most sorcs.
Plus I didn't really start using it until lvl 11 or so, and I only left it on all the time from lvl 15.

[Xenostrata]

I'd actually like to hear an opinion on this.

I took heighten on Wyl, mostly due to the truly **** DCs on the SLAs and I was tired of seeing "Evasion" pop up on random monsters when I was trying to be sp-efficient.

Do people consider it to be worth it for something as minor as this? (Also, any chance I was just not paying attention and SLAs are automatically heightened?)

[FuzzyDuck81]

Heighten is a feat thats 100% worth it to take.

The only real issue is exactly WHEN to take it - as others have said, at higher levels when the boosted DCs outweigh the extra SP cost is naturally very good - since you're a sorcerer & mentioned Niacs ray i guess that means you're a water savant? that little level 1 spell is nice damage when it hits, and heighten will certainly be a big boost to it though naturally leaving it on will mean your other spells may end up costing more unnecessarily.

However, u11 goes live very soon with the wonderful ability to individually assign metas to specific spells (and presumably SLAs) so you can set it up that the majority of your spells wont have it applied, but still have it in place on your SLA to make that much more likely to hit & therefore boost your effective DPS significantly for little cost.

Therefore, personally i'd go for it :)

[DDOcam]

Thx for all the replies.

That answered my question about niac's cold ray. So I think I will keep it for now. Can't wait for U11.

[GotSomeQuestions]

Heighten is a worthwhile feat, but it'll be really good once update 11 goes live, and we can set spell-specific metamagics. I wouldn't swap it out now, because you'll definitely want it at that point. You can perma-Heighten your SLAs and Webs, keep it always off for no-save debuffs like Hypno and Crushing Despair, and toggle it for general use on your other spells.

[furbyoats]

Take it at lvl 12. I run it ALL THE TIME. why? Because I don't like mobs saving for half damage...that means I have to cast again which is more than the meta is costing me :) Plus web is grrrrrrrrrrrrreat even if you are a sorc, and I've seen Niacs crit well over 1000 multiple times.

[danotmano1998]

Typically this is used in epics, and for the two of the three SLA's I get, Niac's and Snowball.
Good mana saving abilities that cost nothing extra to have it on, and it makes a BIG difference. with just a couple of SP spent, you can be doing 1000ish with Niac's single target and in the 150-200's with snowball on mobs.

Don't bother casting frost lance with it or polar ray, these have no saves.

You'll want heighten for the Crowd Control stuff, as others have mentioned. Careful with web though. That one costs 40 extra SP to have heightened, where as the higher level spells it only costs 5-15 dpending on the level of the spell.

[MrkGrismer]

However, u11 goes live very soon with the wonderful ability to individually assign metas to specific spells (and presumably SLAs) so you can set it up that the majority of your spells wont have it applied, but still have it in place on your SLA to make that much more likely to hit & therefore boost your effective DPS significantly for little cost.

Not presumably, you can assign them to SLAs and you can do so separately from the spell, according to reports from Lam.

Should be on live by EOD on Monday.

[FuzzyDuck81]

ahh sweet - hadnt been paying much attention to it for anything other thna actual spells since i respecced my archmage to PM, but good to know.

I'm rather looking forward to having those few 100s extra SP per rest now i wont have to remember to switch off quicken & extend for all those buffs, and having no heighten on death aura :)

[PNellesen]

Not presumably, you can assign them to SLAs and you can do so separately from the spell, according to reports from Lam.

Should be on live by EOD on Monday.

I went out to Lam a couple days ago on my Cleric, and you can assign them to Radiant Servant I & II too. I cannot WAIT for this to go live :)

And to the OP - I took Heighten as my level 18 feat on my Pure Cleric, and use it all the time in Epics (and in Amrath) for things like Destruction, Cometfall, Blade Barrier, etc. From a cleric perspective, I definitely think it's worth it if you plan to be using any lower-level spells in high-end quests/raids. I would assume the same would hold true for a Sorc

[kuro_zero]

Frost lance has a fort save for half. Meaning even evasion chars will take damage from it on save, but certainly helps to have heighten.