Beginner Wizard Concerns

[markel2011]

Greetings!
I'm a new player and was playing for about a month now. Currently I'm going for pure Human Wizard which is level 9.
My focus is on Evocation spells and Archmage tree
My Feats:
Augmented Summoning
Insightful Reflexes
Mental Toughness
Improved Mental Toughness
Spell Focus Evocation
Spell Focus Conjuration
Greater Spell Focus Evocation
Enchantments:
Race: Human Versatility: Spell Power Boost
Human Adaptability: Intelligence
Archmage: - main tree for nuking
Core: Evocation I-III (Magic Missle, Gust of Wind, Chain Missles)
Tier1: Energy of Scholar 3/3, Traditionalist Caster 3/3, Spell Critical I
Tier2: Spell Critical II
Tier3: Arcane Bolt 3/3, Intelligence +1
Tier4: Intelligence +1
Pale Master: - taken for pet support and Int.enchantments later
Core: Dark Reaping
Tier1: Skeletal Knight 3/3
Tier2: Corpsecrafter 1/3

Spells i'm usually using:
Level 1:
Shocking Grasp - cheap, no saves so its nice finishing spell when mob gets close but its kinda outdated now.
Shield - for obvious reasons
Acid Spray - using it instead of Burning Hands as a backup againts mobs with fire immunity as oozes and hellhounds
Expeditious Retreat - running buff
Ray of Enfeeblement - just too fill the slot i guess, dont use much
Level 2:
Scorching Ray - very nice - no saves, good damage, long range
Knock - utility, usefull in like 25-30% dungeons
Resist Energy - a lifesaver, using all the time
Web - either i dont know how to use it or spell itis too weak also most mobs i want to use it on either too strong or to dexterous to be affected.
Glitterdust - probably should use it more but only use it occasionally as i'm too much busy casting Fireball
Level 3:
Displacement - kinda dont require an explanation
Fireball - same!
Frostlance - usually for mobs that immune to Scorching Ray
Lightning Bolt - same us above, also for some reason having hard time to aim well enough to hit more than one mob at a time
Level 4:
Lesser globe of Invulnerability - usufull against in a room with a lot of casters, especially if they are scattered or in high places
Death Aura - its for healing my Skeletal Knight pet, also i'm thinking about taking a zombie form so i can self-heal too though i'm usually using potions.
Stoneskin - obvious, though i'm hesitating to use it often due to expensive ingredient costs.
Level 5: - still figuring out which spells would more usefull, so far i took:
Cloudkill - kinda fun one if you stand in the middle of it and wait for mobs to swarm on you, especially nasty unfireballable fire mephits. But too expensive, too long to cast and not really effective on undead.
Cyclonic Blast - i got it to try it out before i'll get it as a spell-like from Archmage enchantment. Still same problems as with Lightning Bolt - too hard to aim.


As you can see i'm totally neglecting metamagic feats. Its because i cant think of any good use for them.
Maximize, Empower and Heighten are usually overkill and do not worth extra SP cost. +20 Spellpower Boost from Human enchantment tree usually enough for bosses. If i remember to use it at all.
Eschew is worthless in my opinion.
Quicken - cant think of any spell that would benefit from it. Mybe Cloudkill, but to get it for only 1 or 2 spells is kinda a waste.
Extend - could use it for displacement but not really necessary
Enlarge - i can see some potental with spells like Fireball or Web or Cloudkill but not sure.

My stats are:
saves - Fort +9, Reflex +15, Will +8
with Int 28 and equipement i have 118 spellpower for Fire, Force, 112 for Electric Cold and Acid
HP 103
SP 847

My concerns:
I run most quest on Hard difficulty without any problem. Simply too easy otherwise.
But if quest is Medium or Long, i have to use Shrine at least once, otherwise i'm out of spell points. So i have to be careful with my spendings.
My biggest problem is probably that my Will save is too low, as i'm getting hit by almost every Hold Person spell from enemy caster.
My playstyle is based on just nuking everything i encounter with my pet being a distraction or wiping trash mobs.
Its simply more effective to just blow stuff away then to CC it first. Why is that? Am i missing some good spells that i should be using? Or should i try to build my character some other way?
So far i'm enjoying my Wizard but worried about lack of CC.

Skills:
I'm capping Concentration and Spellcraft atm.
For cross-class skills i'm trying to cap Heal, Search and Spot and Balance - dont have points for everything else.
I'm totally neglecting UMD. Am i wrong?

Pets:
First 4 or 5 levels i used Summon Monster line and despite treacherous pet AI that wants you dead it kinda usefull for destraction purposes.
Skeletal Knight is much better. Not only he can open doors/levers with STR check, but recently i discovered that it can get you soul shard to ressurection shrine.
That raises a question: is there mobs from from Summon spell line that can disarm traps? Or are they all uncontrollablle?
Also, how far should i go into enchantment pet line to develop him? Should i just take 1/3 and leave it or go all the way and spend 16 points in Pale Master to buff him?

Any advise would be helpfull. Thank you in advance.

[Cardtrick]

I run most quest on Hard difficulty without any problem. Simply too easy otherwise.
But if quest is Medium or Long, i have to use Shrine at least once, otherwise i'm out of spell points. So i have to be careful with my spendings.
My biggest problem is probably that my Will save is too low, as i'm getting hit by almost every Hold Person spell from enemy caster.
My playstyle is based on just nuking everything i encounter with my pet being a distraction or wiping trash mobs.
Its simply more effective to just blow stuff away then to CC it first. Why is that? Am i missing some good spells that i should be using? Or should i try to build my character some other way?

You haven't needed CC for a few reasons:

1. You're still relatively low level. Enemy HP and damage potential ramps up a lot as you get into higher levels.
2. You're playing solo, or solo with a hireling.
3. You're playing on Hard difficulty. Dungeons scale based on party size in DDO (meaning both the number of enemies and how tough they are). Scaling is very pronounced on Normal and Hard difficulties. It has a much smaller effect on Elite.

Basically, CC is only necessary when it's not possible to kill the enemies before they do a dangerous amount of damage to you or your party. When playing with a party on Elite, that might be true right from the early-to-mid game. It's a lot harder for a whole group to use movement to avoid damage, the dungeon scales much more aggressively, and each player in the group receives less dedicated healing than when soloing with a pocket cleric hireling.

For sorcerers and (maybe to a lesser extent) evocation archmages, who can put out some very solid burst damage -- it may never be necessary to use much CC while soloing. On my last sorcerer life, I used the low level Sonic Blast (4SP) regularly to get a quick daze effect (only lasts 6 seconds, doesn't persist once damaged) on groups, but other than that I think I cast maybe 5 CC spells before hitting cap and TRing. And they were all while grouping with others.

On the other hand, CC can still be useful without being mandatory, especially if you spec for instant-death / Necromancy spells or use a lot of Damage Over Time AOE spells (Acid Rain, Wall of Fire) -- whenever having enemies stuck in one place in a group where they can all be hit by a single spell would save you SP compared to having to cast several times to deal with moving mobs.

As for which CC spells to cast -- there are 4 big ones:

Web (which has to be heightened, since it's a low-level spell). Arguably the best pure CC spell, since it works on everything that can't fly.

Otto's Sphere of Dancing -- really nice in some quests because of the extremely long duration and because it keeps snagging new enemies that wander into it's area of effect. Downsides are that it's slow to cast (I rarely use it un-Quickened) and is a mind-affecting spell, meaning it only triggers on enemies with an Int of 1 or higher (excludes vermin, a lot of undead, etc.).

Otto's Irresistable Dance -- single-target, which seems terrible at first glance. But there's no save at all! Use this situationally, particularly for dangerous orange-named enemies while you take out their friends.

Mass Hold Monster -- fantastic, especially in high level groups, because, unlike Web and Otto's, monsters affected by MHM are considered "helpless." Any helpless monster automatically takes 50% extra damage from any source (including spells). There are enhancements available to a lot of melee types to boost that extra damage even higher. Plus, helpless enemies are treated as having a Dexterity of 0, meaning they're virtually guaranteed to fail any Reflex save -- so your spells like Fireball, that have a save for half damage, are nearly guaranteed to get their full damage and the extra 50%. Awesome! Downside is that it's also a mind-affecting spell, plus there's no persistent AOE -- you cast it once and it only affects monsters that were in the vicinity at the time of that original cast.

[Cardtrick]

Forgot to address a couple of other things in my last post.

On spells:

You're a wizard, so you can swap these out any time, even at shrines. So no worries.

But if you join groups with other players, be sure to take the level 3 spell Haste. It is a huge boost to melee DPS, and everyone will expect any arcane (wizard or sorcerer) to cast it on the group. I use it even on myself when purely soloing, so that I don't need to bother with a Striding item (plus the extra dodge chance is nice).

For level 4 spells, strongly consider taking either Wall of Fire, Acid Rain, or Ice Storm. They're all area of effect DOT spells. Slower than Fireball, but on a wizard (rather than a sorcerer) it's often worthwhile to be as SP-efficient as possible. Wall of Fire does extra damage against undead, so if you're running a lot of Necropolis and Delara's, it's very worth taking. Ice Storm includes a physical component to its damage, which can't be resisted, so that can be nice. My favorite is Acid Rain -- it's somewhere in between fireball and the other 2 DOTs in terms of speed; it just does 4 ticks of damage, but each of those ticks is bigger than Ice Storm / Fire Wall. And there's not much that's acid immune compared to fire or ice.

For level 5, definitely take at least one of the single-target stacking DOTs (Niac's or Eladar's). Eventually, you'll probably want to carry both of them. They're a waste of SP against most enemies, but they're absolutely indispensable against big rednamed bosses. If you cast these, it's important to stack them -- the first cast is a waste of SP, the second one is starting to break even, the third (with 3 stacks of damage) is awesome. And then it just takes one cast every 10-12 seconds to keep all 3 stacks running. For long fights -- and only for long fights -- these represent the best non-SLA damage-per-spellpoint in the game.

Metamagic feats

You are badly hurting yourself by not taking these. And unfortunately, swapping feats gets more and more expensive as you level up. Strongly consider either swapping a feat for these now or at least committing yourself to taking them going forward.

You won't use them all the time -- they're almost always not worth the SP on most spells -- but there are situations where you really want to throw out a lot of burst damage fast. (E.g., a boss fight, or a room of dangerous enemies that one Maximized + Empowered fireball would take out, or a beholder who will prevent you from casting once it gets closer if you don't kill it first).

Heighten is rarely worth using for direct damage spells, but is essential for CC and instant kill spells, which are much more dependent on DC. You're already getting to the point where it's almost not worth bothering to cast Web if it's not Heightened.

But the biggest reason to take the metas isn't for your normal spells, it's for your SLAs. They all apply free to SLAs. Your force missile SLAs will pack a lot more punch with an extra 215 spellpower from Maximize and Empower.

Skills:

Arcane casters are the only class type that I don't feel like UMD is absolutely required. This is because you can already use most of the good UMD-able scrolls (fire shield, teleport, etc.) and typically have some innate form of self-healing. I still end up taking it anyway, though.

If you don't go pale master and get self healing that way, you're 100% going to need to invest heavily in UMD (probably including crafting a greensteel +CHA skills item at some point) in order to get to the "no-fail" point with Heal scrolls. That requires 39 UMD, which is hard to hit on a first life wizard. Potions just won't cut it for healing. They don't get any better than they are right now, but your HP and enemies' damage will go way up.

Spot and Search are nice to have, but very expendable.

Summons/PetsTraps
Summoned monsters are always uncontrollable.
I've never played much with the new pale master skeletal knight line, but I know it works like a hireling or druid/artificer pet rather than a summon.
No way to do locks/traps in the heroic levels without rogue/artificer levels (or buying things from the DDO store). In epic levels, there are hirelings available. (Who knows why.)

Pale Master

With the way enhancements work now, you definitely don't need to go pure Pale Master or pure Archmage. Since you're a fleshy (meaning not warforged/bladeforged, so you can't cast Repair spells on yourself), it is very nearly mandatory to get at least far enough into Pale Master to get Shroud of the Wraith, and ideally Shroud of the Lich. Self-healing is just incredibly important as you level up and content gets more difficult.

The undead forms are really nice for other reasons, too (well, not zombie -- that slow movement is killer). Lich in particular gets +2 Int, for more spellpoints and better DCs with all spells (it's like a free Spell Focus feat in every single spell school). Wraith has really nice damage avoidance (except against light spells . . .).

[gelack]

greetings!
I'm a new player and was playing for about a month now. Currently i'm going for pure human wizard which is level 9.
My focus is on evocation spells and archmage tree
my feats:
Augmented summoning - imho this feat is a waste
insightful reflexes
mental toughness
improved mental toughness - i'd swap this out for something else later on
spell focus evocation I'd swap for necro focus
spell focus conjuration Illusion for this one
greater spell focus evocation Greater Necro here
I'd fit toughness and dodge in here somewhere.
Greater spell focus illusion is also a good idea.
Quicken, max and empower you really do want at some point
enchantments:
race: Human versatility: Spell power boost - I wouldn't take this myself, but each to their own
human adaptability: Intelligence
archmage: - main tree for nuking
core: Evocation i-iii (magic missle, gust of wind, chain missles) - Personally I take illusion line. The cheap displcament and PK is sweet
tier1: Energy of scholar 3/3, traditionalist caster 3/3I don't think this is really that useful, spell critical i
tier2: Spell critical ii
tier3: Arcane bolt 3/3Don't see much point in this one, intelligence +1
tier4: Intelligence +1
I would take spell pen and school mastery
pale master: - taken for pet support and int.enchantments later
core: Dark reaping
tier1: Skeletal knight 3/3 Pets really are only useful for lever pulling come higher levels
tier2: Corpsecrafter 1/3
I would drop all pet enhancments. I also suggest taking
Core: Dark reaping, zombie, vampire, wraith, lich and master of death.
T1: Deathless vigor, Spell crit: negative energy, negative energy conduit, and maybe 1 point into the pet.
T2: Bone armor and spell crit: neg
T3: Cloak of night, spell crit: neg, +1int
T4: Spell crit: neg and +1 int
T5: Animate ally (for the lolz), Necromantice focus, Improved shrouding

Then spend any left over points and human or eldritch knight.

spells i'm usually using:
Level 1:
Shocking grasp - cheap, no saves so its nice finishing spell when mob gets close but its kinda outdated now.
Shield - for obvious reasons
acid spray - using it instead of burning hands as a backup againts mobs with fire immunity as oozes and hellhounds
expeditious retreat - running buff
ray of enfeeblement - just too fill the slot i guess, dont use much
level 2:
Scorching ray - very nice - no saves, good damage, long range
knock - utility, usefull in like 25-30% dungeons
resist energy - a lifesaver, using all the time
web - either i dont know how to use it or spell itis too weak also most mobs i want to use it on either too strong or to dexterous to be affected.
Glitterdust - probably should use it more but only use it occasionally as i'm too much busy casting fireball
level 3:
Displacement - kinda dont require an explanation
fireball - same!
Frostlance - usually for mobs that immune to scorching ray
lightning bolt - same us above, also for some reason having hard time to aim well enough to hit more than one mob at a time
level 4:
Lesser globe of invulnerability - usufull against in a room with a lot of casters, especially if they are scattered or in high places
death aura - its for healing my skeletal knight pet, also i'm thinking about taking a zombie form so i can self-heal too though i'm usually using potions.
Stoneskin - obvious, though i'm hesitating to use it often due to expensive ingredient costs.
Level 5: - still figuring out which spells would more usefull, so far i took:
Cloudkill - kinda fun one if you stand in the middle of it and wait for mobs to swarm on you, especially nasty unfireballable fire mephits. But too expensive, too long to cast and not really effective on undead.
Cyclonic blast - i got it to try it out before i'll get it as a spell-like from archmage enchantment. Still same problems as with lightning bolt - too hard to aim.
Spells I use.
Lvl 1: Tumble, jump, shield, exp retreat and sonic blast.
Lvl 2: Web, lesser death aura, resist energy, Knock and scorching ray.
Lvl 3: Fireball, haste, Lightning bolt, rage and chain missiles. Once I get a few insta kill spells I never really use fireball or lightning bolt unless I come across something I cant insta kill.
Lvl 4: Negative energy burst, Dimension Door, Death aura, Firewall, Phantasmal killer (PK)
Lvl 5: Niacs biting cold, Mind fog, Eldars electric surge, protection from elements and hold monster. I have a bunch of teleport scrolls. If you don't swap out mind fog for it.
Lvl 6: Disintegrate, Necrotic ray, Circle of death, Undeath to death, Greater heroism.
Lvl 7: Finger of death, Prismatic spray, Ottos sphere of dancing, Symbol of stunning, Banishment or mass invis.
Lvl 8: Otto's Irresistible Dance, Symbol of Death, Power Word: Stun, Black Dragon Bolt, Horrid Wilting
Lvl 9: Wail of the Banshee, Energy Drain, Meteor Swarm, Hold Monster, Mass, Power Word: Kill.

These are the spells I like to use. Obviously you might need to change some around for different quests. For example you might want to take some ice spells for enter the kobald.

As you can see i'm totally neglecting metamagic feats. Its because i cant think of any good use for them.
Maximize, empower and heighten are usually overkill and do not worth extra sp cost. +20 spellpower boost from human enchantment tree usually enough for bosses. If i remember to use it at all.
Eschew is worthless in my opinion.
Quicken - cant think of any spell that would benefit from it. Mybe cloudkill, but to get it for only 1 or 2 spells is kinda a waste. Good for higher levels where things hit harder and you wont want to fail a concentration check on some spells
Extend - could use it for displacement but not really necessary This is more for keeping barbs happy. Dat 6min haste
enlarge - i can see some potental with spells like fireball or web or cloudkill but not sure. This one is meh. its nice for soloing when you might like to keep far away while you insta kill everything. Not needed

My stats are:
Saves - fort +9, reflex +15, will +8
with int 28 and equipement i have 118 spellpower for fire, force, 112 for electric cold and acid
hp 103
sp 847
A wiz is pretty simple. Max int, atleast 14 con and enough dex to take dodge later on. So depending on tomes you could start with 8 dex if you have a +5 dex tome. However i wouldnt do this because you cant take dodge untill 21

my concerns:
I run most quest on hard difficulty without any problem. Simply too easy otherwise.
But if quest is medium or long, i have to use shrine at least once, otherwise i'm out of spell points. So i have to be careful with my spendings.
My biggest problem is probably that my will save is too low, as i'm getting hit by almost every hold person spell from enemy caster. Undead form stops just about every CC I cant think of. Add a freedom of movment item and you're just peachy
My playstyle is based on just nuking everything i encounter with my pet being a distraction or wiping trash mobs. This will work on low levels. Not so much at higher levels if you plan to run anything other then norm/hard. Might not even work on hard later on
Its simply more effective to just blow stuff away then to cc it first. Why is that?Because stuff doesnt get hard untill alot later on (like 16+). Especially if you play on hard. Am i missing some good spells that i should be using?Yes Or should i try to build my character some other way?imho yes. with a little help from a nice crafter to make you a nice +2necro and a +2 illusion dagger set you can easily pull off a insta kill wiz on a first life. Maybe not in epics, but easily for heroics
So far i'm enjoying my wizard but worried about lack of cc. Web, power word stun, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Disco ball and hold monster should be all the CC needed

Skills:
I'm capping concentration and spellcraft atm.
For cross-class skills i'm trying to cap heal, search and spot and balance - dont have points for everything else.
I'm totally neglecting umd. Am i wrong? Dump search and spot, worthless unless your a 2rog/arti splash. I like to take umd just beacuse i like to throw heal scrolls at people. Spend atleast one full rank (2points) into tumble

Pets:
First 4 or 5 levels i used summon monster line and despite treacherous pet ai that wants you dead it kinda usefull for destraction purposes.
Skeletal knight is much better. Not only he can open doors/levers with str check, but recently i discovered that it can get you soul shard to ressurection shrine.
That raises a question: Is there mobs from from summon spell line that can disarm traps? Or are they all uncontrollablle?
Also, how far should i go into enchantment pet line to develop him? Should i just take 1/3 and leave it or go all the way and spend 16 points in pale master to buff him? Burn it. No seriosuly you're wasting your time with this one

Any advise would be helpfull. Thank you in advance.

Imho necro illusion wiz is master race (when it comes to wizs). especially if you're human and or drow.

All the red is more or less for a undead insta kill wiz. might no be your play style but you did ask if you should be playing it differently. my answer is yes, i think you should be. you might not like playing a insta killer.

Sorry for any mistakes, its 2am when I wrote this.


Cardtrick basically said what I said but better, and probably more usefull. However I did just fight sleep for the last 20mins while I wrote this so I'm going to post anyway.

Good luck with being a wizard. It's a really fun class once you get to around 12.

[markel2011]

First, let me say thank you both for very quick and detailed response. It really sorted out things in my head. Alot.
After some thinking i decided to go through lesser reincarnation to get metamagic feats and put ability points a bit differently.
First, instead of Augmented Summoning and 3 Spell focus feats i took Maximize, Empower and Heighten and Spell focus:Illusion. I tried to do a Hard run on the Keeper's Sanctuary. (it became lvl 10 - 1 level higher then me)
Maximize and Empower works wonder with Magic Missles and Chain Missles! And with Heightened, Web actually works now.
Also i rearranged my Enhancments a bit. I took very seriously Gelak's advise about insta-kill illusion-focused Pale Master build, but for now (at lvl 9) i decided to keep Evoker line in Archmage.
Here's my reasoning.I only have 3 insta-kill spells: Cloudkill(conjuration), Phantasmal Killer(illusion) and Prismatic Ray (evocation). PK as SLA only available at lvl 12 as well as Shroud of Wraith.
If i take Illusion enchantment line now, i will only get SLA Invis, Blurr(do not stack with Displacement) and Displacement with reduced cost from 20 to 6 sp. Atm i using SLA MagicMissles(2sp) and ChainMissles(10sp) all the time, and with new metamagic feats on them as Cardtrick advised, they hitting roughly for 20 to 40 per missle. Not to mention that very few mobs are immune to force.
I dumped Traditionalist caster and reduced Arcane Bolt from 3/3 to 1/3 and put those points in Spell Crit and Penetration.
In Pale Master tree i only took 1/3 in Skeletal Knight and dumped all else. Instead i took Deathless Vigor 3/3 and Shroud of Zombie. Cant take Wraith form until lvl 12 anyway.
That raise a question: should i use Vampire and Wraith form all the time as soon as i get them or they had to be turned on for specific situations only?

I need to mention that Augment Summoning and all those points i put into Skeletal Knight line before, not really worth it, as you said. I think problem lies in poor AI your pet/summons has.
While i found it really usefull as distraction, putting those points in to improve durability and damage doesnt really help much as most of the time stupid bone head just stands there while you getting attacked.

[markel2011]

I have a question about equipement.
Gelack mentioned 2 dagger combo - necro and illusion. I assume dual wielding them for their stats right?
For now I'm using +2 Thaum. Quarterstaff of Kinetic Lore - +13% to Force Crit chance, +36 to USP, +54 to Fire SP and +54 to Force SP. I havent seen any Orbs yet but i've seen some caster daggers and scepters and as i recall scepters have better stats and i guess you can dual-wield scepters too, right? So why daggers?

[Ancient]

It is great to see a player trying to figure things out in the forums! That will help you a lot over time.

Max/Empower
You get these for free on your force SLAs. In Heroics, this lets your magic missile/chain missile SLAs pack a punch. In epics, Shiradi procs use the spell power of the source spell. My most frequent attack chain against a crowd is

chain missile (spell) -> chain missile (SLA) -> magic missile (SLA) -> chain missile spell -> some epic SLAs

In that sequence, half my force attacks are metad which is a big increase in the spell power of my procs. In heroics, you do not get shiradi proc, but that means you need the force spell to do all the work... which the procs help.

Quicken
The biggest need for quicken is the save me now type of spells, or spells with a timer that you do not want interrupted. Since you do not have self healing (I suggest you reconsider...), you don't have any save-me-now spells to need quicken. You should still however have the level 5 dot spells. Niacs and Eladars do more damage as you stack them (up to 3 time), but they have a timer. Getting interrupted can mean losing the whole stack and starting over.

Extend
Two of your best defensive spells are displacement and haste (haste has speed and 1% dodge). They don't last long and extend helps. If you are a palemaster, extend helps with your aura. I know you don't have an undead form... but I am a big fan of self-healing.

Enlarge
Your force SLAs have a very short range. Enlarge provides the ability to use these at a considerable distance. I have it, I value it, but it is the most expendable of this bunch.

Umd
If you are not a robot, and you are not in undead form. Then I can with 100% certainty that you are neglecting UMD. As your opponents do more damage, you will need some way to heal. The three most viable options in heroics are repair (be a robot), negative energy (undead form) and heal scrolls (UMD).

Zombie form
Zombie form is not well respected, but it does not however have a movement penalty. I has an attack speed penalty... but you shouldn't be attacking. It has an int penalty which hurts your DCs. Wraith form is far superior for survival and lich form is far superior for DCs... but zombie form at least gets you self healing. Since magic missile and chain missile don't have savings throw, DCs don't matter and I used zombie form with no issue. Being a drow however, you have the potential for nice high DCs and you should probably find a way to use them. *EDIT* oops, not a drow! */edit*

Other random opinions:
Arcane bolt is not very strong.
I like traditionalist caster, spell power is good.
The pet is very useful for opening doors, standing on things, etc... but spend the bare minimum.
Long term, there are three general paths to arcane success: Kill instantly, Survive dang near anything or disable your opponent (crowd control).

[Ancient]

I have a question about equipement.
Gelack mentioned 2 dagger combo - necro and illusion. I assume dual wielding them for their stats right?
For now I'm using +2 Thaum. Quarterstaff of Kinetic Lore - +13% to Force Crit chance, +36 to USP, +54 to Fire SP and +54 to Force SP. I havent seen any Orbs yet but i've seen some caster daggers and scepters and as i recall scepters have better stats and i guess you can dual-wield scepters too, right? So why daggers?
If you are dual weilding for the stats, the only reason for daggers would be named daggers. You can even mix and match if you are just after the stats. If you are a DC caster, the dual wielding can help.

If you are a force spam caster, quarter staff and traditionalist caster can be a nice setup. Especially if you splash monk.

[Cardtrick]

I have a question about equipement.
Gelack mentioned 2 dagger combo - necro and illusion. I assume dual wielding them for their stats right?
For now I'm using +2 Thaum. Quarterstaff of Kinetic Lore - +13% to Force Crit chance, +36 to USP, +54 to Fire SP and +54 to Force SP. I havent seen any Orbs yet but i've seen some caster daggers and scepters and as i recall scepters have better stats and i guess you can dual-wield scepters too, right? So why daggers?

No difference between scepters or daggers -- as long as they're spellcasting implements. You can use either one. You're not going to be physically hitting anything with them, so the weapon damage profile doesn't matter.

Gelack's advice was great, but a lot of it was targeted toward being an instant-kill necro/illusion focused wizard. For that kind of playstyle, you don't care as much about spellpower, because whenever possible you're going to be using instant-kill spells rather than spells that do direct damage. Similarly, metas like Maximize and Empower are much less useful than Heighten for that style, since it's all about maximizing DCs rather than maximizing damage.

Either one can work, and definitely if you're interested in being an instant killer, there's nothing better than a wizard. (Whereas a damage-focused DPS/evocation wizard is really more like a more-versatile sorcerer with less SP, slower casting, and worse damage.) I tried to keep my advice tailored a bit toward what seemed to be your playstyle (shooting things with painful spells, rather than controlling or instantly killing them).

My advice would be to avoid focusing too much right now. Try both styles, and see what you find fun. You should be able to be pretty effective at both damage and DC casting as long as you stick to playing on Hard like you have been (if you start playing mostly Elites, you'll need to specialize much more to have success). Get to level 20, and experiment with epics a bit. When you've settled into a playstyle, TR. If you decide you like the direct damage more, consider TRing into a sorcerer rather than a wizard. But either way, getting at least one wizard past life is the best way to make any caster better -- it provides a passive +2 to spell penetration and allows you to take an active feat that gives +1 to all DCs (like a Spell Focus feat in every school). And a wizard's ability to swap out spells frequently and figure out what they like makes them a great class choice for a first arcane caster character.

EDIT: Also, listen to Ancient rather than me. He hadn't posted when I started this, but I was hoping he would post here. He's definitely an expert on the evocation-focused wizard playstyle -- it's been a long time since I've played one.

[Ancient]

If you have not already read EllisDee37's pure wizard challenge farmer build thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/434231-Epic-Challenge-Farmer-(21-drow-pure-wizard)?highlight=challenge+farmer). I would suggest it as some good background material. There is also a Palemaster guide by Andoris (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/405017-Pale-Master-Guide).

If you wish to follow the path of evocation destruction. The grand master build in my sig is a start, and that post has a link to CDRs build which has a lot of great information... but is less compatible with non-robots. I actually plan to be a human in a future TR.

p.s. I don't buy that wizards are second fiddle to sorc's in regards to evocation destruction. I had the privilege of grouping with (IMO) one of the best pure sorc's on thelanis recently. He did do more dps, but I was not that far behind. My survival capability was far higher, and I had far more endurance. We actually made a really good combo.

[Ancient]

Try both styles, and see what you find fun.
...
EDIT: Also, listen to Ancient rather than me. He hadn't posted when I started this, but I was hoping he would post here. He's definitely an expert on the evocation-focused wizard playstyle -- it's been a long time since I've played one.

Card trick has given you great advice. Seek the council of many and then go see what works for you. The advice to try several styles and see what clicks is perhaps the best single line piece of wisdom in the whole thread.

[gelack]

I have a question about equipement.
Gelack mentioned 2 dagger combo - necro and illusion. I assume dual wielding them for their stats right?
For now I'm using +2 Thaum. Quarterstaff of Kinetic Lore - +13% to Force Crit chance, +36 to USP, +54 to Fire SP and +54 to Force SP. I havent seen any Orbs yet but i've seen some caster daggers and scepters and as i recall scepters have better stats and i guess you can dual-wield scepters too, right? So why daggers?

I crafted myself a +2 illusion dagger and a +2 necro dagger. I chose daggers because they look alot better imho then scepters. I use 2 sai looking daggers.
Loosing say combustion from a dagger/scepter doesnt matter to me much since A) I have next to no spell power in anything other then negative B) I slot magnetism and combustion at level 14 (imo spell power doesnt become that important untill here, but I do run with max on all the time and just chug pots if I need to)

From memory the earliest Orb you can get is level 12 Madstone Skull.

If you are a nuker I would suggest using a Q'staff. There are some pretty good ones, the random gen staffs are pretty nice now.

For the most part I use my daggers untill 15 when I swap to Branch of vile curses. (ML15: Spellcasting Implement +15, +5 Enhancement Bonus, Red Augment Slot, Improved Cursespewing, Potency +52, Nullification +78, Necromancy Focus II)
I don't have the abbot staff or I would use that. (Staff of the Petitioner - +5 Quarterstaff: Power Store, Enchantment Focus II, Necromancy Focus II, Concentration +5, Spell Penetration III)
At 21 I swap to staff of the necromancer. (ML21: Spellcasting Implement +18, +6 Enhancement Bonus, Equipment Potency +68,Equipment Nullification +102, Spell Penetration III, Lesser Arcane Augmentation IX, Necromancy Focus III)
At 23 I swap to Twilight, Element of Magic. (+7 Quarterstaff: 2.50[1d8] 20/x2, Spellcasting Implement +21, Potency +80, Impulse +120, Evocation Focus III, Enchantment Focus III, Arcane Augmentation IX, Spell Lore VI)
I'm not to sure what I would use past 24 as I normally TR again at 24.

About using zombie form, I use zombie form from 5-6 then I swap to vampire form. Vampire form can be a little hard to use, light damage will just about 1shot you so you really have to know the quests and know when to go out of form or when to turn cloak of night on. Then wraith from 12-18. Lich form imo is a must if your a fleshy wiz. Not only does it look badass but you get +4con, +1necro DC and with improved shrouding you gain +4int, aswell as a few other things.

Ancient and cardtrick know alot more about other types of wizs than I do, so I'm going to keep away from saying too much about anything other then a necro wiz. As a insta kill wiz is the only type of wiz I have played.
I myself am not a big fan of nuking, so I don't know too much about it.

[Greantun]

Since you are new, and were worried about meta and SP costs, take the advice above.

But the trick is that you can right mouse click on a spell that is on your bar, and then designate that that spell always, never, or follow activeness (is that a word) of the meta feat.

SO, for example, I have Resist Energy. When I right mouse on it I get a popup with the list of all the meta's available, and when you hover over each of them you can select: always on, always off or standard.

What I do is pick the things that I always want maximized, or quickened, etc. and make sure the option is set for that spell.

For the longest time I was maximizing and empowering everything, and that IS a waste of SP.

[Vellrad]

At low levels, excelent weapons are:
Luckblade (very hard to find, expensive as hell, but have 3 augment slots to be filled with spellpower augments)
Threnalian war blade (requires ruins of threneal, easier to get if you can kill of lots of beholders, 2 slots to fill with spellpower and +5 bonus granting +15 implement spellpower).

If you can craft, I'd go with random 1 hander with red slot and lore.

At low levels, I usually go with warblade filled with augments in one hand, crafted/looted lore with red augment filled with 3rd spellpower type, and DC bonus crafted at ring.

[Lanhelin]

First, let me say thank you both for very quick and detailed response. It really sorted out things in my head. Alot.
After some thinking i decided to go through lesser reincarnation to get metamagic feats and put ability points a bit differently.
First, instead of Augmented Summoning and 3 Spell focus feats i took Maximize, Empower and Heighten and Spell focus:Illusion.

Mind that Phantasmal Killer requires two failed saving rolls to insta kill (will and fortitude), so if you really want to focus on Illusion for this spell only, you should raise your DC as high as possible. PK is also affected by Spell Resistance, so I recommend to take the Spell Penetration feat line too. The Archmage Spell Pen enhancements alone won't be sufficient.

In general there are two main playstyles regarding Wizard: Spell Power/Spell Crit nukers and DC casters (insta kill a/o cc). The nukers mainly use spells that are not subject to spell resistance and either have no savings or do half their dmg on a successful saving roll. DC casters on the other side heavily use spells that are subject to spell resistance and usually have no effect on a successful saving roll, so pushing DC is most important. Trying to do both nuking and insta killing/cc probably won't be very effective in higher content.


In Pale Master tree i only took 1/3 in Skeletal Knight and dumped all else. Instead i took Deathless Vigor 3/3 and Shroud of Zombie. Cant take Wraith form until lvl 12 anyway.
That raise a question: should i use Vampire and Wraith form all the time as soon as i get them or they had to be turned on for specific situations only?

Turn them off in specific situations (when encountering mobs that cast light damage spells). But beware when unshrouding you also lose the 100% Fortification which could be worse than the light dmg if you have no Fortification item.


I need to mention that Augment Summoning and all those points i put into Skeletal Knight line before, not really worth it, as you said. I think problem lies in poor AI your pet/summons has.
While i found it really usefull as distraction, putting those points in to improve durability and damage doesnt really help much as most of the time stupid bone head just stands there while you getting attacked.

Augment Summoning is nice to have when playing a cc Caster who often casts charm spells, or when you dump STR a Cleric Hire with AugS would be able to pull STR related levers too. Or a Fighter Hire WIS based ones.

[Noritine]

Augment Summoning is nice to have when playing a cc Caster who often casts charm spells, or when you dump STR a Cleric Hire with AugS would be able to pull STR related levers too. Or a Fighter Hire WIS based ones.

But keep in mind that augment summoning (and druid past lives) raise there stats which also raises there saves.
And most spells that use augment have saving throws every few seconds...

Not to big of a deal just something to keep in mind.

[Lanhelin]

But keep in mind that augment summoning (and druid past lives) raise there stats which also raises there saves.
And most spells that use augment have saving throws every few seconds...

Not to big of a deal just something to keep in mind.

At least AugS alone without Druid pl did nothing remarkable, the charms always lasted long. With the Druid pl in addition I guess to get stronger mobs for a shorter time - if 3x pl + AugS = kinda Epic Ward on heroic. But I'll figure this out soon (probably at the end of the year when I got the three Druid pl).

[markel2011]

Sorry for delayed answer.
I did some thinking and some testing. Read those threads from Ancient's links. Then some thinking again. Learned to live with a thought, that it possible to build Pale Master that can put Vekna to shame.
Struggling with myself over wich weapon to use - dual daggers/scepters or Quarterstaff. First choice obvious better for DC build but aesthetically i like staff more. Not to mention that one famous Wizard used to say: "Magic maybe good and all, but a good half-brick in a sock quarterstaff never failed anyone!"

Now, after some more running, i noticed that my blast everything strategy starting to fail more often. As you folks mentioned. Main reason is that i'm out of spellpoints. Wiki says that shrines reuse is 5 min on Normal and 15 on Hard, but in reality on Hard, shrines can only be used once. Next i'm expecting for more tough bosses to appear that cant be burned down before i kill them. So far i encountered only 2 of such bosses. All others were down by 2 or 3 hits, maybe 4 max. That made me to look into Enchantment and Spell Focus choices again. Here my thoughts.

1. Illusion. While Phantasmal Killer build Gelack mentioned is quite interesting, i'm having serious doubts about it. Basically i had to pump all DC's into Illusion, which have 7 spells in total and only PK and Hypnotic pattern spells are subject to DC. Useful SLA's in Enchantment line are only Displacement and PK.

2. Conjuration. Very tempting. All those cloud-spells and web on Enchantment line. For 3sp you can get Heightened and Enlarged Web. Even Grease can be usefull on lower levels.

3. Evocation. I still quite fond of that one. After i switched out Evocation Spell Focus feats i noticed that mobs started to have more half-damage saves. Not critical so far but annoying.
Also Enchantment line for Evocation i like very much. So far with Maximize/Empower Magic Missles and Chain Missles are probably best in damage/cost ratio. CM crits up to 200 dmg and MM up to 50 per missle. Not sure how usefull will be that Fire Shield SLA but Cyclonic Blast is quite awesome as its affected by all metamagic, has nice knockdown effect, and is untyped damage. Yes that means those nasty Iron Golems take full damage from it. Also Prismatic Ray/Cone are of Evocation school.
On the other hand there are tons of Evocation spells that dont have DC check and even if i wont specialize in it, i will probably still be doing decent damage.

4. Necromancy. My main doubt about this school is that i dont quite understand it. It has tons of interesting spells for different situations. Some good debuffs, self heals for undead form, insta-kill, DD and even Create Undead. Basically all type of spells you ever need. But i have impression that its more heavilly relies on DC than any other school, so quite hard to build a character for it? SLA Enchantments are mostly situational. Enervation probably the most useful, as i read somewhere that its one of the best debuffs in game. never had a chance to try it myself though.

5.Enchantment. Now that one school is very good. Buffs, debuffs and CC. I'm not sure how usefull is Charm line of spells in game, but i think Hold's are a must for a Wizard after level 10.
But it lacks any DD spells compared to Necromancy, and i'm afraid that using it on anything but boses will be simply a waste of SP.

Now off for more testing.

[Vanquishedfo]

Dear OP, the first question to be asked is on a first life, do you aspire to play in the games highest lvl, and hardest dif setting? If your goal is EPIC ELITE then sad to say but your arcane casting first life options are fairly limited to a self healing wraith evocation specced archmage running in shiradi champion and using the various multi projectile spells that work oh so well with it.

Otherwise if flavor is more your focus, and EN to EH will be enough for you to enjoy the end game content, then many more options exist.

However if EE is the goal with an arcane, you need to start mentally prepping for the TR train, something that will kill virtually any and all reason to play multiple characters.

You see to be viable in EE without Shiradi multi missiles to help provide low cost functional spells via proc buffs, your only option is to aquire every past life for every DC and Spell pent bonus you can get, not to mention completionist. Then you can embrace more traditional magical approaches to problems that may arise while being a useful tool in the party.

[Lanhelin]

5.Enchantment. Now that one school is very good. Buffs, debuffs and CC. I'm not sure how usefull is Charm line of spells in game, but i think Hold's are a must for a Wizard after level 10.
But it lacks any DD spells compared to Necromancy, and i'm afraid that using it on anything but boses will be simply a waste of SP.


If you focus on Enchantment you can have a very easy life, especially when you plan to solo a lot (but you should like this playstyle, otherwise I'd recommend to follow the Necro/Evocation path). I played two Enchantment Wiz lives so far and can't wait to play it again^^ Red-named Bosses are immune to cc but their adds are not, and most of them have a few to quite a lot of them. The more mobs, the better for you to build up your "army". The SLA's are your best friend as they save lots of your Spell Points. You'll have fewer damage spells available, but it's your charmed mobs that add the damage/take the damage. Also slot a repair spell and/or buy some scrolls and a Warforged Hire for tanking/dmg purpose. Repair him if necessary. Low SP is not much of a concern as you can still use the SLAs to clear rooms/wilderness areas by dancing/holding/charming a few mobs to savely get to the next shrine.

Enchantment requires high DC and Spell Penetration, Metamagics like Empower or Maximize are not necessary, because 1) they cannot be applied to the Enchantment SLAs and 2) it's only a matter of a few seconds whether a mob dies by an empowered/maximized spell or an unempowered/unmaximized one. Highspeed-gameplay is not very compatible with an Enchantment focused Wiz anyhow. Though you can still insta-kill mobs with insta-kill spells, it just won't happen successfully as often as if you were focused on the related school, but it doesn't mean that you will never experience these effects. It's all about dice rolls.

[markel2011]

Dear OP, the first question to be asked is on a first life, do you aspire to play in the games highest lvl, and hardest dif setting? If your goal is EPIC ELITE then sad to say but your arcane casting first life options are fairly limited to a self healing wraith evocation specced archmage running in shiradi champion and using the various multi projectile spells that work oh so well with it.
I dont know and tbh dont even care at this point. I just got my Wizard to 10 and i'm exploring different possibilities. So far i'm running on Hard by default cause Normal is too easy. On Hard i'm having it pretty close on Spell points, and seeing that shrines only can be used once i'm not even trying Elite difficulty. With Skelteal Knight and maybe a hireling it would probably be possible to beat dungeon on elite by using low-cost spells and Echo, but i dont really want to bother. I started asking question here because my early level "blast everything" strategy starting to fail, and i have a feeling that i'm not using my Wizard to its fullest. Again, i'm not thinking about past lvl20 yet. I'll think about it when i get there. So now the question would be: What is possible for my wizard to do from lvl10 to 20? Is it normal to run on Elite difficulty? If so why i have troubles with running out of spell points? What am i doing wrong?


Lanhelin
If you focus on Enchantment you can have a very easy life, especially when you plan to solo a lot (but you should like this playstyle, otherwise I'd recommend to follow the Necro/Evocation path). I played two Enchantment Wiz lives so far and can't wait to play it again^^ Red-named Bosses are immune to cc but their adds are not, and most of them have a few to quite a lot of them. The more mobs, the better for you to build up your "army". The SLA's are your best friend as they save lots of your Spell Points. You'll have fewer damage spells available, but it's your charmed mobs that add the damage/take the damage. Also slot a repair spell and/or buy some scrolls and a Warforged Hire for tanking/dmg purpose. Repair him if necessary. Low SP is not much of a concern as you can still use the SLAs to clear rooms/wilderness areas by dancing/holding/charming a few mobs to savely get to the next shrine.

Yes i'm playing solo right now. I actually would like to try a party, but i guess i was too absorbed in exploring the game so i never actually bothered to LFG.


Red-named Bosses are immune to cc
Is that a general rule in game mechanic or does that mean their spell resistance/saves too high so its not worth to do it?
Are they immune to insta-kill too? If they immune by default, that means in solo for the boss i have the only option to have any kind of pet tanking - SK, summon, Hireling, or Charmed, right?
Then how effiective and reliable charm spell line overall? Would it be effective to run through dungeon by using charm/dominate on mobs and sneakishly nuking from the corner while they fight between themselves? Then returns me back to square one - why people hate Skeletal Knight that much? So far i never had any issues with his survivability only with his AI.

[Lanhelin]

I dont know and tbh dont even care at this point. I just got my Wizard to 10 and i'm exploring different possibilities. So far i'm running on Hard by default cause Normal is too easy. On Hard i'm having it pretty close on Spell points, and seeing that shrines only can be used once i'm not even trying Elite difficulty. With Skelteal Knight and maybe a hireling it would probably be possible to beat dungeon on elite by using low-cost spells and Echo, but i dont really want to bother. I started asking question here because my early level "blast everything" strategy starting to fail, and i have a feeling that i'm not using my Wizard to its fullest. Again, i'm not thinking about past lvl20 yet. I'll think about it when i get there. So now the question would be: What is possible for my wizard to do from lvl10 to 20? Is it normal to run on Elite difficulty? If so why i have troubles with running out of spell points? What am i doing wrong?

Running out of SP is an issue I guess every Wizard is familiar with, but there are a few options to compensate: Pots ofc but they are rare; do not cast meta'ed spells too much, save them for boss fights; if you buy a Cleric Hire who has Divine Vitality, she/he can fill up your SP; when you buy the Starter Pack in the Shop, you get a bta permanent Lvl 3 Cleric Hire with DV, use her as "mobile pot": call - fill SP - dismiss - wait 5 min - recall - and so on, no matter where you are in a dungeon/wilderness; try to get an item that raises your SP pool (Wizardry, Magi, Archmagi or Power). With about 1.500+ SP the "running out of SP" issue should be gone.



Is that a general rule in game mechanic or does that mean their spell resistance/saves too high so its not worth to do it?
Are they immune to insta-kill too? If they immune by default, that means in solo for the boss i have the only option to have any kind of pet tanking - SK, summon, Hireling, or Charmed, right?
Then how effiective and reliable charm spell line overall? Would it be effective to run through dungeon by using charm/dominate on mobs and sneakishly nuking from the corner while they fight between themselves? Then returns me back to square one - why people hate Skeletal Knight that much? So far i never had any issues with his survivability only with his AI.

It's a general rule. Bosses are also immune to insta-kill effects with one exception: one of the beams from both Prismatic Ray and Spray teleports its victim to another plane, which is similar to a death effect but not affected by immunity to death effects. If you're lucky you can teleport bosses away.

When you charm a mob all the others in its range will attack it. While the spell description says that a charmed/suggested mob won't follow you through a dungeon, it will in fact move quite huge distances when trying to reach its opponents. It is very effective and secure, but slower than other play styles. You can place a Web or the dancing ball at the position of the charmed mob, followed by an AoE like Ice Storm. Or you can charm all but one and take them out one by one by releasing one by one. Or you can charm a caster who in most cases will kill everything else (or be killed, this or that way it's good for you). The reliabilty of your charm spells depends on chosen feats/enhancements and equipped items that push DC and Spell Penetration. The melee Hires are pretty durable and useful in Boss fights when you heal/repair them.

[markel2011]

I'm a bit hesitating to use hirelings, as for me it seems like cheating. I olny used it once for that Necropolis quest where you need to step on four platforms simultaneously.
Though i admit i'm tempted sometimes to hire a rogue, as i mostly dying from the traps. Need to think about it.

Idea of charming enemy casters behind the fronline sounds very cool and interesting, i'm going to try it.

I'm guess i just need to let go of your average mmo mentality where most mages using glass cannon gameplay.

[Rimblade]

Using hirelings in higher-difficulty settings is definitely not cheating. As you get to higher levels, you'll hopefully find it a little less necessary, but bringing a FVS or some meatshields along is certainly not a sin. Also, frankly, hirelings don't really reduce the difficulty of most quests as much as you'd think. The AI is bad enough to keep them from being terribly effective.

I think Skeleton Knight has a bad rep around the forums because he's really, really worthless in high-tier content. My personal opinion is that Mr. Bones is a fantastic asset throughout the leveling process. He takes aggro (he doesn't keep it, but he does take it), he survives fairly well off the incidental healing of being in Death Aura, he's not aggressive or apt to wander off like some hirelings, he's always willing to grab your soul-stone and run away and he pulls levers. I mean, some people snark about him for being good mostly for pulling levers, but sometimes that's really nice to have around. I think he's a steal for a single AP, although I don't think investing in the tree is a good idea.

I have terrible news about your trap situation: it won't change much. Traps are the #1 thing that kills me whenever I'm solo'ing through Heroic, and having a trap-monkey is probably the single best way to make quests easier. Plus, playing in a party allows you to conserve some SP and be a show-off. Spheres of Dancing, Prismatic Sprays, sniping a nearly-dead orange with Finger of Death? That's why I became a wizard! I want to Flesh To Stone casters in hilarious positions, obliterate battalions of archers with a single Circle of Death and spam Prismatic Spray at Dire Bears until they get banished! Magic is much more entertaining when you can show off with it.

My experience with wizard is that you start to become noticeably more powerful between level 13 and 15, and you'll experience another jump around 18. Hang on, and keep an eye out for new spell levels and which spells you think could be game-changers in both your internal battle to conserve SP and your external battle to create the world's best mobile magic disco.

[Lanhelin]

@markel

Just in case you didn't know yet: every week there is a free sample to get in the Shop (open it ingame with Ctrl+s) and this week it's 10x Major SP potion which should help you a bit too. The free example changes every friday and you find it on the top of this site under Store - Weekly Sales. Just enter the code you find there in the coupon/code field of the free item sample in the ingame shop buying window.

[Ancient]

Dear OP, the first question to be asked is on a first life, do you aspire to play in the games highest lvl, and hardest dif setting? If your goal is EPIC ELITE then sad to say but your arcane casting first life options are fairly limited to a self healing wraith evocation specced archmage running in shiradi champion and using the various multi projectile spells that work oh so well with it.
The guide for this can be found in my sig :)