Difficulty Playing an Arcane Caster

[Thurbus]

Frequently I've heard this game favors spell casters over melee classes, but I've found playing a spell caster to be very challenging.

I first discovered DDO a couple years ago. I made a halfling sorcerer and jumped right in. I quickly became frustrated by how frequently I died or depleted my spell points. After scraping my way up to level four, I threw up my hands and gave up.

I revisited DDO a year later with my girlfriend. Remembering my previous experience, I chose to play a paladin instead. I couldn't dissuade my girlfriend from making my same mistake, however, and she chose to play an elf sorcerer. She too quickly became frustrated with her character and eventually switched over to a human fighter, which she's been playing ever since.

So, my question is, what is it that makes spell casters so great? How does one play a caster effectively? It was probably a mistake to attempt one as my first character, but I've made a couple since then and experienced the same difficulties. It's disappointing because playing a spell caster looks like a lot of fun, but I can never seem to get the hang of it.

If anyone has some tips or can recommend any threads about playing a spell caster, I'd love to read them!

[Zachski]

Arcane casters are not easy to play at low levels.

A few things.

1. Constitution should be your secondary stat. No ifs, ands, or buts. After maxing int/charisma, there is no other stat that provides as much benefit as constitution. Not even dexterity, you will not be getting your AC high enough to matter.

2. Investing in crowd control spells, such as Sleep and Web, might be good for both Sorcerers and Wizards, as an enemy that is asleep or tangled in a web is an enemy that isn't dealing damage to you.

3. Toughness is a feat worth investing in as early as level 3, but having it before then is not a bad thing. Namely, it unlocks the Toughness line of racial and class enhancements (but only racial matters for Sorc/Wiz, as they don't have class toughness enhancements)

4. Spells like Niac's Cold Ray tend to be better picks against enemies that have low reflex saves, as it can deal massive damage.

[Shishizaru]

It takes a little bit of pushing before you get the ball rolling. Especially at low levels, you don't have enough SP to kill everything with spells alone. One of the easiest ways around this issue is completely unintuitive:

Slot Bull's Strength and Masters Touch.
Find the meanest looking two-handed weapon you can.
Cast both those spells (make sure you're holding the two-hander when you cast Master's Touch).
Kill things with your weapons.

Partying up with melee's is great for getting through the low levels as well. In these scenarios, things like Charm Monster or Web will really help keep the party safe while the melee's clean up.

Once you get to level 6, you can unlock some of the Prestige Enhancements for your casters, which usually gives you access to some Spell Like Abilities (SLAs). These either use a different resource (e.g. health) or only a handful of SP, giving you something more efficient to use instead of low level spells. Now you have something to contribute to DPS without having to expend too much SP.

At around level 7/8 (for Wiz/Sorc respectively), you get access to fourth level spells, including the powerful AoE spells Wall of Fire and Ice Storm. With these at your disposal, you'll be able to clear groups of mobs without having to spam spells.

At this level, you also get Phantasmal Killer, which is one of your first "insta-kill" spells. This tactical weapon allows you to (hopefully) eliminate key threats like enemy casters quickly and efficiently. Later, Touch of Death adds to your insta-kill arsenal. Eventually, you'll gain access to things like Circle of Death and Wail of the Banshee, expanding your insta-kill powers into an AoE effect.

Many of the reports you get about "OP Casters" comes from those with some nice gear. In particular, things like Concordant Opposition Greensteel Accessories (Vale of Twilight pack) and the Torc (Sands of Menachtarun pack) provide a lot of SP regeneration for casters so they can keep on casting. Life is a little rough if you haven't quite got those, but by no means impossible.

Maybe not the best advice ever, and I'm sure others will have some stuff to add, but hopefully this will help you level your casters a bit further to see more of what the classes have to offer. :)


SIDE NOTE: When I say "caster" in this post, I'm referring to Arcanes (Wizard/Sorcerer). Technically Clerics and Favored Souls are casters too (often referred to simply as Divines), but most of the stuff I posted is specific to Arcanes.

[Phidius]

Warforged. Fleshies can't compete until they have accumulated sufficient levels, gear, and/or both.

Only Warforged are born OF and FOR arcane power.

[ArizonaBay]

Warforged, agreed. Max con and int right from the get-go. Self healing and resistances that are especially useful at lower levels, before you get access to the "big" spells.

[t0r012]

couple things to keep in mind with low level arcane, besides MT and swing a carnifex.
clickies! superior clickies!
+75% damage(inferno in this case) and and empower run around the whole darn dungeon gather all the mobs you can find that will chase you(the melee) leave the archers where they stand and let your blur/spearblock/invu do its thing and hit the casters with a scorching ray as you see them running by to gather the melee then unload a burning hands on the melee and watch them roast.
it is when you start trying to pick everything off individually do you have major SP issues.
----
early on it isn't an awful idea to grab a SP Enh to help get you over the early hump, but you should dump them later.
----
also if you have knowledge of the quests it helps a whole ton. not wasting SP on say acid, elec and cold resist when you don't have too saves SP.
------
speed is many,many times your friend every second you dawdle you buffs are ticking away and your clickies are counting down. meaning you are much more likely to run out of SP and or superiors before seeing your next shrine.

[Galeria]

Surprised I haven't seen this advice yet but the standard advice for low level casters is master's touch and a greataxe. Melee and crowd control is definitely easier at low levels than trying to kill enemies with your tiny pool of SP.

[Zachski]

Surprised I haven't seen this advice yet but the standard advice for low level casters is master's touch and a greataxe. Melee and crowd control is definitely easier at low levels than trying to kill enemies with your tiny pool of SP.

Third post.

Though with Echoes of Power and a Wand of Finger of Fire, there's really no need to go the greataxe route anymore.

[Thurbus]

Thank you for the advice, everyone! I created a warforged wizard and used the master's touch/greataxe approach, which I hadn't considered. It made a big difference!

Can anyone recommend some must-have equipment for wizards?

I'm also thinking of trying on a pale master for size, but that may be a poor idea given my inexperience with casters. Any build suggestions?

[Such755]

What makes casters so great, buy Such755:

1) Extreme survivabilty and solo ability.
1a) Self heals: Clerics and FVS get the divine healing spells, nothing to say here.
Sorceres are charisma based, thus have natural high UMD that allows them to use heal scrolls with no failing.
Warforged sorcerers have it better; quickened reconstruct, better healing, faster, no need to switch weapons.
Wizards: Arch mage should always be warforged, quickened reconstruct once more. (Can be anything else on his own risk.). Pale master get healed by lesser death \ death aura and negative energy burst. Over time healing and burst like reconstruct, some say it's even better.

1b) Self buffs and utilities.
Haste, rage, displacement, blur, greater heroism, knock, dimension door and divine buffs for divine casters.

2) Amazing DPS.
Sorceres: SLA (Spell like abilities) based on savant. Const nearly no SP at all, metamagic are free on them.
Wizard arch mages: Once more - SLA. Webs and the other stuff.
Wizard pale masters: negative energy bolt \ blast, cost some HP, but with death aura on it's almost nothing. Pretty decent damage. More: Pale masters are amazing at necromancy, mass death effects (Circle of death, wail of the banshee to insta kill dozens of mobs.)
Clerics and FVS: Blade barrier. Cast, kite mobs repeatedly, repeat. Enough said.
All: DOT (Damage over time), niac's biting cold, divine punishment, etc... By far the most SP Efficient and causes very high damage.

3) Versetile:
Can either stay safe at distance, or grab a shield and be the tank. It's that fun.

So that's why they're so awesome.

[Inferno346]

Can anyone recommend some must-have equipment for wizards?

6 stacks of 100 invisibility scrolls :)

75% clickies (called things like Superior Inferno IV)
+con and +int items
false life item
moderate fort item
docent of invulnerability
guild slot items (depending on size of your guild, can give you up to no-ML +20 HP or +80 SP)

There's a bunch more that's nice to have but a bit harder to get.

[AtomicMew]

Warforged, agreed. Max con and int right from the get-go. Self healing and resistances that are especially useful at lower levels, before you get access to the "big" spells.

I disagree. Just use repair pots at low levels, they heal for basically the same and don't waste your precious SP.

[SoloPhalanx]

What makes casters so great (@ a low level):

Lifeshield Light Mithral Shield of Invulnerability + (Major/Greater) Acid Lore Club/Scepter/Dagger
+
Diabolist's Docent

(+4 int without any crafting or whatever and +1 Conj DC (if you have no access to the ship buff one) @ level 2 is reason enough to never get a docent for Invulnerability)

+ web + acid blast -> web +acid rain + firewall -> DBF + Otiluke's -> Wail + FoD + CoD

all along with Reconstruct

PMs only shine in epics and after a lot of gear towards DR is accumulated imo.

[Kmnh]

As a newbie caster, you should be fully buffed at all times. Expeditious retreat, jump, prot from evil, elemental resists, protection from elements, haste, displacement, rage... As long as you have all the defensive buffs and a invulnerability item, you can run to the boss and ignore most of the trash. Buffs are always on a timer, so you can't afford to stand around for too long.

Move quickly, get to the boss, spam spells until you kill it. If you are having ssues with dungeon alert, kill some of the dozens of mobs that are after you :D

[EpiKagEMO]

With no gear and race, I suggest not to do a caster unless you know how to stand back. Casters at low levels need to know how to one shot mobs with easily crafted clikies, if you have a crafting toon. Level 20 crafting should suffice easily at that level.

Some of the better races for casters are:
Wizard:Human/helf(Extra Feat always helps), Dwarf(Higher hp and no penalties to INT) Warforged(Repairs) Drow(Higher DC)

Sorc: Human/helf(Extra Feat for Sorc is nuke power at level 1), Drow(Higher DC) Warforged(repairs)

What makes them so good?
Sorcs do one shot wonders. Wizards should do the same at low levels, but switch on to CC at higher levels. Buffs, as others have said, definetly help. Wizard that are necromancers get self heals starting at 6. I believe its better at 18 than it is at 6 since zombie is one of the worst forms to be in.

Qualities that really help:
Kite, running around with exititious retreat and casting in the air at mobs. Avoids damage, and takes enemy mob out.

What buffs help?
At the top of my head, LVL1-Expitious retreat, jump, night shield. LVL2-Blur LVL3-Haste, Rage, Displace Lvl4-Stoneskin.... thats all i can think of.

For damaging at low levels:
I suggest crafting a superior Freeze I item and spam Niac's. +100 damage(unbuffed) at level 2-4. Crafting is pretty cheap at lower levels.

Hope this helped, gl :)

[MRMechMan]

Melee-best way to get through a quest: kill each mob one at a time
Caster-best way to get through a quest: group mobs together in groups of 5-10...or many more.

Surviving yellow/orange/red alert on a caster is much easier than on a melee. As such, casters are much faster to play. Throw in the self healing aspect and it's just no comparison.

Also, casters scale much more with quest knowledge and skill. Melees scale with those too, but more moreso with gear. A naked caster plays 1-->20 faster than most melees from level 6+ in most quests.

There is a reason people dualbox casters on their main characters melee lives-or simply go 10/13/15 sorc and than eat a heart for whatever past life they want.

[zenguitar]

Surprised I haven't seen this advice yet but the standard advice for low level casters is master's touch and a greataxe. Melee and crowd control is definitely easier at low levels than trying to kill enemies with your tiny pool of SP.

My first toon was a wizard, and my second toon a sorc, and I'm surprised you guys are giving this advice to people. I had no troubles using my casting spells to level up. It's important if you are a lowbie caster to join TEAMS, don't try to solo everything on elite. Only reason why you would be dying too much and running out of sp is if you are trying to solo stuff on elite. Your other problem is you might be playing a wizard. Play a sorcerer, warforged if possible. With my WF sorc I have easily solod many quests on elite, and some maybe i had to go down to hard. Occasionally you have quests that require you to ration out or your spell points more than others (those are the ones you should be doing with a team anyways).

The most important things for not running out of spell points:

1. Use aoe spells, and make sure to cluster the creatures in one spot, so your one aoe spell (burning hands for example), will hit as many targets as possible.
2. Use 75% clickies. If you time them right, you can have 75% damage buff up almost 100% of time. 75% more damage per spell means you don't have to cast nearly as many spells to kill everything.
3. Unless you are in a full team, always use a hireling cleric with "divine vitality" (which gives you spell points).
4. Do quests with teams, then you can let team do 5/6 of the damage.
5. Never use a rest shrine unless you are completely empty.
6. The eternal wand of fire that you get in starter area is actually very useful all the way up to level 10ish. Whenever a creature has very low health, don't cast a spell, use the wand to finish it off. Undead creatures are vulnerable to fire, so the wand actually does even better damage to them.


The most important thing to avoid dying too much:

1. Join a team.
2. Let tank get aggro before blasting away.
3. CC spells like web, dancing ball.
4. Play warforged sorc, then you can heal yourself all day long.
5. Learn to kite. Even running in circles around an enemy forces them to reset their attack constantly.

[squishwizzy]

Frequently I've heard this game favors spell casters over melee classes, but I've found playing a spell caster to be very challenging.

So, my question is, what is it that makes spell casters so great? How does one play a caster effectively? It was probably a mistake to attempt one as my first character, but I've made a couple since then and experienced the same difficulties. It's disappointing because playing a spell caster looks like a lot of fun, but I can never seem to get the hang of it.

If anyone has some tips or can recommend any threads about playing a spell caster, I'd love to read them!

Well, I agree with the "find a party" comments. You'll level faster, and have more loot if you run with Pick Up Groups (PUGs) or a static group. Plus, they compensate for your early weaknesses.

Later on is is the spellcaster does the most damage in the game, bar none. Want to cast a fireball for 1000 hp of damage while a similarly equipped fighter does less than a quarter of that? Well, a caster can do that.

While people will tell you to properly gear-up - and that's not advice to be ignored - spell selection is kind of important. At low levels you'll be struggling so summoning a monster to fight with you, and bringing a hireling is pretty important. Heck, if you've got the money, you can basically load your party with hirelings you buy at DDO, and walk through thr quest, barely shooting a spell if you really want to. At the bare minimu, however, summoing a celestial dog can be real effective for getting a monster's attention off of you so that you can shoot it with a spell.

I generally start my wizzys using Web, Magic Missile, and Sonic Blast along with Summon Creature, Shield, and so on. You also might want to look at getting Invisiblity too as if you're going solo, Invisibility would allow you to sneak past mobs without actually having to fight. When opening doors, cstand to the side, click the lever, and make yourself invisible again. That helps sometimes. Another thing is to use expd. retreat and invisibility to zoom past mobs, invisible, so that they can't target you. Try using those tricks.

There's more than one way to skin a cat (so the experssion goes).

People have beaten how to use Web and CC to death, so that's been covered. However, one thing no one really talks about is setting up hotkeys and the command bar to shoot spells. I usually set up one command bar set to default, and this contains my "shooting" spells, meaning I target something via the tab key or the mouse, and then press 0 - 9 keys to fire off the spell. It takes a little getting use to, but I guarantee you'll bet more comfortable firing stuff off with the keyboard alone than having to use the mouse alone, or a mouse / keyboard combination.

I'll put up a second command bar for AoE, CC, summon create spells, and buffs. Since these are not so reaction-sensitive, I use a mouse to trigger them. Then you can set up command bars to switch weapon combinations (dual-wielding scepters is a way to have two items that can increase your spell effectiveness more than carrying a single staff with some of these clicky items on it), potions, and so on.

Another thing is to try and avoid melee altogether. Take up a bow and shoot stuff from long range. Then when they get close finish them off with a spell. It cuts down on sp loss, and allows you to keep some distence between you and the mobs.

[Kinerd]

6. The eternal wand of fire that you get in starter area is actually very useful all the way up to level 10ish. Whenever a creature has very low health, don't cast a spell, use the wand to finish it off. Undead creatures are vulnerable to fire, so the wand actually does even better damage to them.Undead are not automatically vulnerable to fire. Mummies are, spectacularly so, and frostmarrows, but other than that they take standard damage. Wall of Fire is the exception, not the rule.

[msdesign]

(...)

I'll put up a second command bar for AoE, CC, summon create spells, and buffs. Since these are not so reaction-sensitive, I use a mouse to trigger them. Then you can set up command bars to switch weapon combinations (dual-wielding scepters is a way to have two items that can increase your spell effectiveness more than carrying a single staff with some of these clicky items on it), potions, and so on.

Another thing is to try and avoid melee altogether. Take up a bow and shoot stuff from long range. Then when they get close finish them off with a spell. It cuts down on sp loss, and allows you to keep some distence between you and the mobs.

Well, this is pretty much exactly what I do. My active toolbar nr 1 has the "shoot-and-attack" spells, while the other toolbars have stuff like Maximize, Haste, and other buffs and spells I don't need to cast in a rush in the middle of a fight.

My current sorc is a TR from a previus life sorc too. I like to play sorcerer, and as female elf. I do not like Warforged, period. They are ugly and don't seem to have the looks of a sorcerer. But thats up to the player. Plus, WF is a p2p race, so not everybody has access to it.

Group in parties, use a hire, but it always possible to play a caster without a struggle, if you know what you are doing. Let me tell you a story:

The other day I was at Sorrowdusk, fighting ogres and trolls, we were a 4 player party: me (elf sorcerer), a WF monk, a human fav soul and a human ranger with a rogue splash. That said, we went in for one of the chain quests, where we must fight our way to the end boss with lots of trolls and ogres surrounding him. Well, the WF monk and the healer died fast in the trap they couldn't avoid. I got behind the trap, my elf sorc had less HP than everybody else in the party. The rogue couldn't disable the trap, too high DC for her in elite, so I went on one step at a time between the force waves. We carried on ahead, killing everything on the way. Yes I was doing massive damage but I had to stay back and drink health pots a few times. We were not above quest level limit, so care was the word. At the end fight, ogres popping from all over the place, got me pinned down, but as the ranger got their attention, I managed to stabilize with -5 HP or so, after what I filled myself with ennough health pots to get decent HP. Then more slaying and shocking them all over with force and electricity spells. Diehard feat is a must for a caster.

So for short, the WF monk with lots of strengh, evasion, HP, I don't know what more monks have, plus being a WF, did almost nothing in that quest. I end up killing most of the mobs, sure with the help of another player, but the funny here is how people tend to tell lots of stuff just because "it is the only way" when they actually can be different, and end up OK anyway. And there are 2 straight forward ideas I must contradict:

1. The idea of WF and / or characters with more constitution are better. That is not always true. Remember, when you don't use points on constitution, you use them somewhere else. That somewhere else is important. Weaker with a strong attack? Stronger with a weak attack? Your call. Up to the player.

2. People tend to rely only of technical information and data, pure numbers, to achieve "THE best toon ever". I don't care about that, simple. I play for fun. I want to play with a toon that pleases my eye. I want to try some things that are given to me, I want to choose them, I don't need the others to customize my own toon. They make theirs, I make mine. The key is not in the character abilities, but in the player ones.

About that story back there, I forgot to tell: we finished it. As there was no shrine, we couldn't get the monk and the healer back to life. But we did it.

Note: I noticed people don't reply this a while, so my tips go on the new players reading this.

Cheers

[AirbornedChild]

Warforged. Fleshies can't compete until they have accumulated sufficient levels, gear, and/or both.

Only Warforged are born OF and FOR arcane power.Disagree. Read lore, man. WF are fighters, not arcanes.

[Thurbus]

The other day I was at Sorrowdusk, fighting ogres and trolls, we were a 4 player party: me (elf sorcerer), a WF monk, a human fav soul and a human ranger with a rogue splash. That said, we went in for one of the chain quests, where we must fight our way to the end boss with lots of trolls and ogres surrounding him. Well, the WF monk and the healer died fast in the trap they couldn't avoid. I got behind the trap, my elf sorc had less HP than everybody else in the party. The rogue couldn't disable the trap, too high DC for her in elite, so I went on one step at a time between the force waves. We carried on ahead, killing everything on the way. Yes I was doing massive damage but I had to stay back and drink health pots a few times. We were not above quest level limit, so care was the word. At the end fight, ogres popping from all over the place, got me pinned down, but as the ranger got their attention, I managed to stabilize with -5 HP or so, after what I filled myself with ennough health pots to get decent HP. Then more slaying and shocking them all over with force and electricity spells. Diehard feat is a must for a caster.

I enjoyed your story, msdesign! Sounds like the kinda tale we adventurers like to trade down at the Wayward Lobster.



2. People tend to rely only of technical information and data, pure numbers, to achieve "THE best toon ever". I don't care about that, simple. I play for fun. I want to play with a toon that pleases my eye. I want to try some things that are given to me, I want to choose them, I don't need the others to customize my own toon. They make theirs, I make mine. The key is not in the character abilities, but in the player ones.

My playstyle's much like yours. I like coming up with cool names and back stories for my characters. I still like to kick butt though, which is why all of this arcane caster advice has been so helpful!

[Thaxlsillyia]

:) playing a caster is a bit hard in the initial levels, except may be for tincan casters who get 2 ways to keep them selves up, pots and spells.
for fleshie wiz who go necro lvl 6 is a breaking point with self healing from aura. till then try to hold back, throw a few webs, charm a few if you are zerging through to the end and let the barbarian yap on and on and on.... well you get the picture ;)

die hard might be a tad useful at lvl 1-5 where mobs tend to get you below 0 but almost never hit hard enough to kill you outright. beyond that its just a wasted feat