Elf Second Life Wizard - feat help

[deahamlet]

Edit: I forgot Heighten and Toughness! Shame on me. I only have to give up ONE feat from the list below. Only one.

Hi everyone,


I would like to make an elf wizard for my second life (first life human wizard) for the Spell Penetration and for sexiness. And cause... why not. I want to try it. I'm getting sick and tired of humans (human sorcerer, human FvS, SIGH), of half-elves (TWF multiclass and TWF/AA multiclass), and of WF (caved in and TRed my artificer into a WF).

So the question is... what feat do I give up?!

I'd like to take:
Past Life: Wizard
Empower
Maximize
Quicken
Extend
Heighten
SF: Necro
GSF: Necro
SF: Enchant
GSF: Enchant
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration
Toughness

I'm thinking maybe Extend? What do the wizard experts think?

Oh yes, Pale Master. But I want to CC as well as instakill so I'm not interested in a pure instakill caster.

Thank you.

[-Zephyr-]

Sf and gsf : enchant. Why both ? Because you want heighten as well.
And in the current state of the game, you don't need them.

[dynahawk]

Looks like the Heightened being missed was just a typo since there is only 11 feats in the list.

For the High spell penn build you are trying to obtain here I would probably drop GSF: Enchantment. I really like Extend for a PM, but others would disagree I am sure.

[deahamlet]

Yes, I forgot Toughness and Heighten. From my calculations I only have to drop one feat... I do like Extend for the Aura, and I can imagine the whining in raids if I don't have extend Haste/Rage (though my sorcerer just recasts and she has no extend... and this wizard will be solo-ing quests...)... but I only have ONE past life and I want high Enchant DCs or else what's the point of all that Spell Pen...

Dilemma!

[Habreno]

Empower. It's a very minor benefit with Maximize that you won't entirely miss. Spell Penetration and DC's, however, mean a lot. The times the group will wipe when you don't have Empower are much less than when they will wipe if you drop *any* other feat.

[Faent]

You should not give up Extend. As a PM you need it. An Archmage can give up Extend, but a PM without an Extended Death Aura is not a pretty thing.

You can give up Toughness. Properly equipped, you should have plenty of HP without it, especially as a PM.

You can give up Greater Spell Penetration. You have a wizard past life, which nets you a +2 to Spell Penetration. While GSP is nice, it is not essential. You will perform in the Spell Penetration area (properly geared) as well as a first life wizard (properly geared) would perform. That's not too bad.

You can give up GSF: Enchant. If you want to be a Necro/Enchant PM, I would not give up SF: Enchant.

I suppose you *could* give up Empower. I wouldn't.

If I were you, I'd drop Toughness and Greater Spell Focus Enchant. And I'd pick up Insightful Reflexes. Insightful Reflexes is far more valuable than Toughness, and especially so on a PM.

[Habreno]

You should not give up Extend. As a PM you need it. An Archmage can give up Extend, but a PM without an Extended Death Aura is not a pretty thing.

You can give up Toughness. Properly equipped, you should have plenty of HP without it, especially as a PM.

You can give up Greater Spell Penetration. You have a wizard past life, which nets you a +2 to Spell Penetration. While GSP is nice, it is not essential. You will perform in the Spell Penetration area (properly geared) as well as a first life wizard (properly geared) would perform. That's not too bad.

You can give up GSF: Enchant. If you want to be a Necro/Enchant PM, I would not give up SF: Enchant.

I suppose you *could* give up Empower. I wouldn't.

If I were you, I'd drop Toughness and Greater Spell Focus Enchant. And I'd pick up Insightful Reflexes. Insightful Reflexes is far more valuable than Toughness, and especially so on a PM.



Believe rtoughness is lichen form requirement. So that's an impossibility to drop.

[Faent]

Believe toughness is lichen form requirement. So that's an impossibility to drop.

You are correct, sir. Brainfart. Revised to: I'd drop GSF: Enchant and Greater Spell Penetration.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I'd say empower, spell focus: enchantment and greater spell focus: enchantment. With the 2 spare feat slots pick up shield proficiency and shield mastery.

If you have a Torc and Conc-opp HP item you can drop Extend I think.

[Faent]

I'd say empower, spell focus: enchantment and greater spell focus: enchantment. With the 2 spare feat slots pick up shield proficiency and shield mastery. If you have a Torc and Conc-opp HP item you can drop Extend I think.

This advice is not helpful to the OP. He's not anywhere close to ready to picking up Shield Proficiency and Shield Mastery.

[wax_on_wax_off]

This advice is not helpful to the OP. He's not anywhere close to ready to picking up Shield Proficiency and Shield Mastery.

Second life sounds ready to me but if you know him personally then maybe a different story.

[MRMechMan]

-dump GSF:enchant for insightful. +15 or more to your most (only) important save is huge in most content. Can debuff will saves really easily anyway. 40-41ench is plenty for most content.
-extend is pretty useful for aura.
-spell pen is main reason to go elf so hold onto both pen feats
-toughness needed for lich
-both necro foci needed for PM
-heighten is amazing
-quicken is required
-PL:wiz is pretty nice
-Maximize very nice too.

Hate to say it but empower is probably the one to get the axe. This isn't a nuker build so your DOTs will be slightly less powerful but not the end of the world.

[wax_on_wax_off]

-dump GSF:enchant for insightful. +15 or more to your most (only) important save is huge in most content. Can debuff will saves really easily anyway. 40-41ench is plenty for most content.

/signed

[deahamlet]

Thank you very much for the suggestions. I think Empower is the best choice. I'm not interested in being a nuker on that life really, this toon will only do raids enough to gather btC items.

I have the first life to see if I see the difference for Insightful. I have not taken it yet, I can't say I'm feeling the pinch. I'm only going to take it at 18 when I swap out Mental Toughness.

I want to max out DCs and Spell Pen for both Enchant and Necro. I know for some people Necro is where it's at, I want the flexibility. I think Shield Mastery feats are best reserved for a human life and even then I'm not sure I'd take them. I don't want first life DCs, I want slightly better.

I'm not staying at cap past 1-2 Shrouds and 1-2 DQs in my first life so there will only be mostly crafted and btA gear for quite some time. Once I have a ton of great gear and maybe on a human life... shield mastery will make sense.

Again, thank you all. I can always drop GSF: Enchant for Insightful once I get nice gear. Maybe.

[MRMechMan]

If you are not staying at cap, you don't need GSF:ench or even SF:ench...your disco/MHM will be 95% until amrath and even then if you debuff and have the spell pen 2 DC is enough to suffer through for those few quests. While leveling, 90% of mobs have truely horrible will saves. It's like a dex based well geared rogue burning a feat on lightning reflexes. Overkill.

Insightful reflexes, on the other hand, is incredible. Failing a reflex save ranges from annoying to dead depending on difficulty. Without insightful you will fail a reflex save probably 70% of the time...with it you will fail 5% of the time.

On any character that will have an int more than ~8-10 higher than dex, I would consider taking insightful.

Most wizards have an int ~14-34 higher than dex depending on level, gear and buffs. You can get by without it, but it is incredibly handy in any content with traps, enemy AOE spell casters or environmental effects-which is a lot of content.

[deahamlet]

I'm not staying at cap on my first life (currently human). I AM staying at cap for a month at least on the elf life.

As I said, level 15, no Insightful... shall see if I feel a huge difference once I do take it.

[zeus0407]

why dont you consider drow for wizard? they can get 20 int at start! thats better DC atany school
i would take Dc over spell penetration any time

as for feats

past life feat
toughness - you dont want to drop that cause every HP you can get is important, just as SP
mental toughness (casue you will be PM, every spell point you can get is good, some will say you can get it from items, but still)

for spells: Extended empowered, maximised, heighten

i dont use quicken ever, i really dont see the point of it, with some practice you can do anything, and even if you play solo alot like me you still dont need to have it if you just use brain for a bit

spell penetration
spell focus: necro
spell focus: enchantment
gr. spell focus: necro

and one that is very good insightfull reflex

also some wizards use feat for summoning, i understand them, casue 2 air elementals can do wonders, but i dont like that

also ifyou have some very powerfull items you can add that second spell focus in enchant, but you need to think ahead and know you items

sorry for spelling i was in a hurry

also you can consider some other feats depending on your items of the way you play

[Jsbeer]

why dont you consider drow for wizard? they can get 20 int at start! thats better DC atany school
i would take Dc over spell penetration any time


Not sure I would agree with this as if your spell penetration is too low, then there's pretty much nothing you can do.

But if your DC is too low, you can lower mob's saving throw's by using Enervation, or Hypnotism, or Crushing Despair, or Mind Fog, or Solid Fog or Cloudkill or ......

[zeus0407]

Not sure I would agree with this as if your spell penetration is too low, then there's pretty much nothing you can do.

But if your DC is too low, you can lower mob's saving throw's by using Enervation, or Hypnotism, or Crushing Despair, or Mind Fog, or Solid Fog or Cloudkill or ......

If you have second life that means you did TR, and that should mean that you know what you do, i never saw any TR wizard who is drow complaining about spell penetration, but yeah you are correct, i should have wrote that also

but again when you are doing end game, SP counts especialy when you have only one shrine in map, plus epics with one shrine, so using spells to lower mobs DC cost sp, sure you can use pots or other things, but if you need to do that you have one more thing to worry about, and its easyer to get higher spell penetration then higher DC, lots of items can help, but again thats thinking ahead, and having good plan, every player knows what he wants, so i do and dont agree wuth Jsbeer :)

P.S. also if you take wizard past life feat, it gives you +2 spell spenetration so you can just take spell penetration from feats (it also gives +2), and leave out Gr. spell penetration, so youll have +4 from those two just like from two spell penetration feats

[deahamlet]

Well because I want to be an elf :P. I'll try drow maybe on a third life, I don't know, but I want elf...

And I know the pain of Spell Penetration. I have a sorcerer who likes to pretend to instakill and CC sometimes. Also have a fvs and I am hating the blue shields. So I want to try higher spell pen build and I've been wanting an excuse to make an elf for months! (already made a gimp drow FvS that is getting erased)

[Kinerd]

Thank you very much for the suggestions. I think Empower is the best choice. I'm not interested in being a nuker on that life really, this toon will only do raids enough to gather btC items.

I have the first life to see if I see the difference for Insightful. I have not taken it yet, I can't say I'm feeling the pinch. I'm only going to take it at 18 when I swap out Mental Toughness.

I want to max out DCs and Spell Pen for both Enchant and Necro. I know for some people Necro is where it's at, I want the flexibility. I think Shield Mastery feats are best reserved for a human life and even then I'm not sure I'd take them. I don't want first life DCs, I want slightly better.

I'm not staying at cap past 1-2 Shrouds and 1-2 DQs in my first life so there will only be mostly crafted and btA gear for quite some time. Once I have a ton of great gear and maybe on a human life... shield mastery will make sense.

Again, thank you all. I can always drop GSF: Enchant for Insightful once I get nice gear. Maybe.Regarding seeing the difference, I have found that like Evasion IR is something you only really notice when it's gone, usually in the form of "...why am I dead?"
i dont use quicken ever, i really dont see the point of it, with some practice you can do anything, and even if you play solo alot like me you still dont need to have it if you just use brain for a bitThanks to dungeon scaling, soloers get less benefit out of Quicken, not the other way around. Cutting your incoming damage in half is like having a Concentration score in the 90s.

[zeus0407]

i get you, just one more thing, about some numbers.

for good cc and instant kills on wizard you sould have DC (in enchant and necro) around 40 and over, but 40 is a good start, that is if you plan doing epics and some elite endgame quests.

for spell penetration if you have 29, 30 or 31 total without roll youll also be fine, cause youll hit almost everything, you wont be able to hit drows on epic, cuase of their high resistance, you shoul have spell penetration close to 40 i think, but you lose alot of things casue of it

anyway try your best, wizards seem to be very easy to play casue you only need int and some items (people who dont play wizards say that) but to be good you need to see it in anction really, then youll see whats wrong and whats good

good luck

[Zio_Kose]

If u drop Greater Spell Pen have no sense be Elf unless u want spend a lot AP for take elven arcanum 4, because Human give u 1 bonus feat have better stats and with that 10 AP u can pick Wizard Spell Penetration 3 (usually i pick only 1 and 2) and have 4 more AP.

Empower work on Negative Energy Burst so u need it for big heal (for example in Epic ADQ) and are very good for DOTS.

Feats: (12)
Toughness
Extend
Maximize
Empower
Heighten
Quiken
SF Necro
GSF Necro
PL Wizard
Insightful Reflex
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration

U dont need SF Enchanted because with good gear u will have 40 DC and that's fine.

Mental toughness its only for Wraith Form but i use it only for Epic ADQ the rest of time i stay in lich so i think u can drop it.

PS. Human is better ;)