How much Concentration do I need?

[Kyleron]

So, I am running a 10th level wizard and have 30 concentration currently. Every level I put the max I can into it. I don't have any concentration items. However I am making my first hat from the Cove. I put the wizardry as the one slot and was thinking about the skill slot. I was going to go with Diplomacy as that is a weak skill given my charisma but really useful when I mess up aggro. So adding +15 would really help my diplomacy, +15 to concentration would not be as big of a total increase.

So, I read the wiki and I see how concentration is used but I am not sure if making concentration a really great skill or have two generally high skills is better. Honestly, other than Jump I am not sure how much of a skill is considered "good".

[Coyopa]

I would probably say do whatever you want, but skip Concentration. It really is not that useful. Keep it max'd (if you want), but when you are able take the Quicken feat. Stuff with long casting times, turn Quicken on for.

Another note: You can right-click your spells in your hotbar and customize which meta-magic feats are active for that spell. You can even put multiple copies of a spell on your hotbar, enabling you to customize your meta-magics for each copy that is on your hotbar. This will save you a lot of aggravation not needing to turn it on during combat.

[Kyleron]

Ok, so I guess put another way, if I was going to use the Cove hat for a wizard, what would be a good skill? Is diplomacy useful? For a rogue or a fighter it seems so much easier to select a skill for the hat. I am just having trouble with selecting a skill for a wizard.

[AbyssalMage]

Ok, so I guess put another way, if I was going to use the Cove hat for a wizard, what would be a good skill? Is diplomacy useful? For a rogue or a fighter it seems so much easier to select a skill for the hat. I am just having trouble with selecting a skill for a wizard.
Diplomacy and Haggle seem to be the more popular choices. Hide or Sneak are other options if you play "sneaky" on your Wizard.

[Coyopa]

Well, Diplomacy is a fine choice, especially if you have been investing skill points in it. I cannot really think of anything else that would really benefit you as a wizard, except (if you are like me and like a high innate skill in) Jump. Haggle is an okay choice, but unless you've been investing skill points in this, then a 15 or 20 haggle really does not matter.

[unbongwah]

I disagree with Coyopa - keep Concentration maxed. First off, Quicken doesn't work with scrolls; Concentration does. Second, Quicken is unnecessary a lot of the time with max Concentration; so save your SPs for when you really need it. [I usually keep Quickened & un-Quickened versions of key spells on my hotbars.] And third, you're a wizard, you have a ton of skill pts anyway, so it's trivial to have max ranks.

I made a Superior False Life hat of Concentration +15 for my WF wiz; not bad for a ML:12 item, IMHO, although I'm debating replacing SFL w/INT +6.

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm another player who prefers having a good concentration to using Quicken on most of my characters, largely because I make builds that are extremely tight on feats most of the time. The people who advise against taking it are usually the ones who claim spot is a "useless" skill on a rogue. Sure, it's "useless"--if you have the location of every single trap in the game memorized. I see these people die in traps a lot. It's the same for people who rely overmuch on Quicken. "I can't get my heal scrolls off! Why isn't this working! Stupid game bugs!" Dead.

[Lanhelin]

The people who advise against taking it are usually the ones who claim spot is a "useless" skill on a rogue. Sure, it's "useless"--if you have the location of every single trap in the game memorized.

No. Spot is only useless if you plan to take hirelings, because all the hirelings (on appropriate Level) have Spot maxed and will inform you about traps nearby.
And they are more helpful than you think: today my Warrior Hireling was able to use an Intelligence-based Rune, I (Cleric) did never think that he could do so, but I tried just for fun.

[bsquishwizzy]

You're going to get two opinions here: max Concentration, or that Concentration is a newb trap.

The people who use Quicken over Concentration do so with several possible compensations:

1) They have the gear to overcome the SP loss on each and every spell they cast,
2) they run with an ample supply of pots to compensate the overhead of SP loss due to quicken,
3) they have alternative ways of doing damage to mobs, and thus having a huge SP pool is not a big deal,
4) They know how to be uber-efficient with their casting to avoid running dry before they reach the next shrine.

If you are a newer player, don't have the gear, and are limited in funds go the Concentration route. Max it. Use Quicken rarely. Once you have the appropriate gear and/or enough SP pots to keep you going in quests, then maybe try the Quicken route.

I max concentration personally, and as a wizzy you generally have a decent amount of skill points to play with.

[Coyopa]

Well, to be honest, I keep concentration max'd on my casters. The problem is that concentration is more useless than you would expect. So, if you have the skill points available - sure, keep it max'd. Why not? Just don't expect it to actually do very much for you. Is it worth burning a bunch of shards from the Cove to get a +15 to concentration? Not in my opinion. The only class that really benefits from concentration is monks and that is for their ki. If they were a spell casting class, concentration would suck as much for them as for everyone else.

[nibel]

Concentration is 100% useless in Epic Elite. That is it. In heroic levels (1-20), maximized concentration is enough to keep you casting, except under the rare spike damage (mostly, enemy spells). On epic levels, the same is worth for epic normal and epic hard.

Quicken allow you to cast ignoring Concentration. However, +10 SP per spell add up quick. If you don't have a lot of stuff that allow you to recover SP, avoid keeping quicken on 24/7.

[PsychoBlonde]

Concentration is 100% useless in Epic Elite.

Balderdash. Not 100% effective is not the same as 100% useless. It's not particularly difficult to get your Concentration up into the 70's, which makes you basically immune to being interrupted by anything that does 50 damage or less, which even in epic elite is a large amount of stuff, particularly if you have any damage mitigation whatsoever. Yes, it won't help you against the big whammies, but the spell you NEED to get off is that heal AFTER you get hit with the whammie. The chances of you getting hit by ANOTHER whammie immediately afterward aren't huge (unless you just decide to try killing the mobs with your face), but it's HIGHLY likely that you'll get numerous annoying nicks in there.

All Epic Elite quests are not the same level, either. The lower-level ones are substantially easier and often contain mobs that just don't hit that freakin' hard. There have been a couple of times when I went in on Epic Elite by accident (comes from elite streak habit) and didn't realize it until halfway through the quest. And then I was like, SCREW IT, IMMA FINISH. And I did.

[EllisDee37]

Concentration on a cove hat is awesome, I definitely recommend it. I have +15 concentration hats for my pally, wizard, cleric and monk. (I would for the ranger too but he wears a devotion hat.)

For my wizard, the only spells that I quicken are dancing ball and negative energy burst. On my cleric the only quickened spells are mass heal and heal. (And burst, of course, but that's not a spell.)

When I run EE content (usually lowbie-EE raids like chrono or ADQ2) I toggle quicken on full-time, but other than that I rely on concentration. Works great.