What should I do with my wizzy

[skaught78]

So my main has multiple past lives, mostly the melee classes. I finally decided to make a move to the caster classes. Right now I am a wizard at level 11. I've been specing out for archmage. I've got my combustion and glaciation maxed as much as possible with enhancements and gear. They all hit respectably hard. Then the other day. I opened up a slot and took necrotic ray, and low and behold it one shot kills tons of stuff, or at least brings mobs close to 0hp, despite the fact that the only thing I've done to boost necro is taken spell focus necromancy feat. So, Im thinking of respecing to boost necro stuff. But I'm not sure what to do along with it.

I was thinking of boosting necro stuff as much as possible, and as a secondary, boosting force spells, and if I have room, boosting cold spells. Would this be viable? Or do other things go better with necro?

Also, of all the different enhancements, gear prefixes/suffixes etc etc, what stacks and what doesn't? Whats the best way to get the best boosts to spell power?

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense, but I'm totally new to casting classes, and don't fully yet understand all the lingo!

[Toro12]

So my main has multiple past lives, mostly the melee classes. I finally decided to make a move to the caster classes. Right now I am a wizard at level 11. I've been specing out for archmage. I've got my combustion and glaciation maxed as much as possible with enhancements and gear. They all hit respectably hard. Then the other day. I opened up a slot and took necrotic ray, and low and behold it one shot kills tons of stuff, or at least brings mobs close to 0hp, despite the fact that the only thing I've done to boost necro is taken spell focus necromancy feat. So, Im thinking of respecing to boost necro stuff. But I'm not sure what to do along with it.

I was thinking of boosting necro stuff as much as possible, and as a secondary, boosting force spells, and if I have room, boosting cold spells. Would this be viable? Or do other things go better with necro?

Also, of all the different enhancements, gear prefixes/suffixes etc etc, what stacks and what doesn't? Whats the best way to get the best boosts to spell power?

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense, but I'm totally new to casting classes, and don't fully yet understand all the lingo!

Well since I don't really want to tell you how to play your wizard , which is what you seem to be asking, I suggest you continue on as you are , experimenting.

Keep trying out new stuff and tweaking till you get what you like.

One thing I will mention is that where you are at now fire speced at 11 is about the most gravy time for being a fire speced wizard. Firewall really gets the job done till the vale.

Used to be when you hit the vale you would drop the fire and go necro for the insta kills in the vale but I don't know how viable that is anymore. I haven't played a wizzie in he mid to upper teens since the insta kills were "adjusted". That was never really my schtick even when I had a wiz in the teens.
Having played a melee with the god like insta killers in the vale I didn't want to bore the melee to death like I was when playing with instakillers in the vale.

Back on topic ;
Wizards are great to learn casters on because of their flexibility. You have the option of playing around with new stuff way easier than sorcerers.
Enjoy testing it all out and figure out what you like the best. If you like elemental nuking , try a next life as a sorc.
And it is always good to have a back up spec like your fire with ice. You were suggesting taking necro and getting a 3 spec but that is a bit tricky with gear usually. If you have a ton of it from past lives like a mabar robe for every tier letting you use your sticks solely for other elements you could swing it. other than that it gets a bit tight as casting gear tends to leave some gaps so you can't stick to one slot for a spec.
If you have tons of wealth I guess you could cascade your gear over every couple of levels to fit everything in for 3 elements. Problem is the levels go by so quick you spend more time shopping for your toon than you do playing.

[skaught78]

Good advice, thanks! Yeah, See I like to build up past lives in 3s. I think I'll like wizzy a lot, so I might get my sorcs done before coming back to it. But If I do three lives of sorc, I think I'll be tired of the ele stuff. Which is also why im thinking of going necro for the rest fo this life, so I can get a taste of it and learn how to do it.

Money isnt really a problem for my character. All my crafting levels are 150, so I can usually just craft whatever I need. I also have lots of wealth built up so I can usually buy whatever I need, provided it's available to buy. The one thing I lack is decent named loot. Still need to do some farming for that.

[fmalfeas]

One thing to keep in mind is that if you're necro-specced, focusing too much on ice can actually be pretty bad for you. Skeletons, mainly. Healed by negative energy, immune to ice. I made that mistake once. Fire is generally a good backup for necro (if it's immune to fire, unless it's a blackbone skeleton, it's almost certainly vulnerable to negative energy). Force-spec, as much as I like it for its reliability, tends to be fairly low damage with the exception of Disintegrate (which really needs Transmutation focus for epics to avoid just being a really, really expensive 5d6 damage).

Some people are big fans of acid, due to the rarity of immune mobs, but I find that the limited spell selection, and levels of the spells (they're high competition levels) makes me not like it so much. Fire and Lightning are my general go-to's on a PM. (Note - Crateos is immune to negative energy, force and lightning...but not Disintegrate. Another thing I learned the hard way.)

And while there's still some negative stigma attached to using fire due to the very long time where endgame was Vale and Amrath, fire is an excellent weapon in epics. Just don't try to use it on Garos, Malicia, fire giants in EGH, or in epic Chrono. Other than that, it absolutely rocks, and you can /still/ cheese out with Displacement + Wall of Fire, at least in EN.