Question about Heighten

[Soraksis]

I am running a pure arti and have reached level 11. At level 12 I get new feats one being IC range the other I was going to take Heighten but I was reading descriptions and not sure if it would do anything for me. I am currently using Lightning spere and Blast rod as sla's from the arcano line. Now while empower and maximize helped increase the damage at level 12 would heighten do anything for damage increase? The descriptions of the spells lightning sphere and blast rod say they do so many dice of damage per caster level up to 10. Heightens description says it allows the caster to cast spells at the highest level your caster can cast. Now it would seem based on descriptions that heighten would not do anything but I wanted to ask because hopefully I am reading it wrong.

Now if heighten does not increase damage of my spell and I already have maximize and empower, what else can I take to increase their damage?

[Satyriasys]

Dont get highten on an arti

[Hilltrot]

Heighten only increases the difficulty of the saves that must be made against your spells. Many people only cast the 6th level spell Blade barrier and for this, heighten is worthless for arti.

However, for those who are using the AoE spelllike abilities alot, heighten is very helpful. Increasing a level 2 to a level 6 is 4 more levels of DC. Damage will increase in that your enemies will save less often. It won't make your numbers bigger, but it will make your numbers bigger more often.

(At level 12, you can only raise the spell level to 5.)

Hope that's a little more helpful.

[Rush007]

I'd take heighten for SLA's if you can find room for the feat. 1-5 dc on spells your going to be casting every six seconds, yes please.

[unbongwah]

Spell DCs are partly based on the spell level; Heighten raises a spell's level to your current max spell lvl (6 for an arty 15+ build). E.g., Static Shock is a lvl 1 spell, so normally it adds +1 to the DC; but with Heighten, that goes up to +6 after you hit arty lvl 15. So get Heighten if you plan to use the Arcano SLAs; skip Heighten if you only plan to use Blade Barrier & TacDet (which are lvl 6 spells so Heighten does nothing for them). Either way, also pick up at least one Spell Focus:Evocation feat to open up the DC bonuses from Magister & Draconic; bear in mind Spell Focuses aren't arty bonus feats, so they have to go in your regular feat slots.

[Phaeton_Seraph]

By level 16, with the spell critical and electrical enhancements from the Arcano tree, your Sphere's will be stunning a whole lot with Heighten.