Guide pt III - Nuker

[Aspenor]

So yea, if your goal is to solo always or ignore the request of your allies, by all means. Just don't be surprised when I don't recruit you for my groups.

Neither Nick nor I wants to be in your groups Trust me.

[Aspenor]

This nuker has no use for extend. I maintain that and I will continue to do so.

This IS a selfish build. My mana pool is mine, if you want buffs go get a buffomatic, or a bard.

[wiglin]

If a mellee wants to have haste the whole quest they can drink a potion. Much like if I want to top of my life I can drink a potion. I never ask a cleric to remove curse, blindess, fear, or anything else I can drink a potion for. I carry haste potions on all my mellee. If I am not in a fight I am not going to ask the caster to haste me so I can run faster.

For those few quest where the boss fight take a minute or two, I have full sp so I can cast firewall after firewall, no need for extend.

[Aspenor]

So I finally actually ROLLED this character on Ghallanda not long ago. Since it is a brand new server for me, I had only 28 points and no drow. I chose human, went 18 charisma, 16 con, and 10 intelligence.

Maxxed UMD, Concentration, and Diplomacy.

1st level spells - charm person, niacs

2nd level - burning hands

3rd level - hypnotism

feats-
1st level- mental toughness and empower
3rd level - maximize

So far this guy is a powerhouse, even mostly untwinked. I have received some donations from people around the server, but so far I still have the base potency staff and just a robe of spearblock. I solod my way almost to level 3 in the harbor using charm person and diplomacy, and niacs when I need to kill. Duod through waterworks and STK with a friend.

BEHOLD MY 00BER UNTWINKAGE!!

Good times

[wiglin]

I donated

[Sutek]

(with an armored sorc I mean 8 str, 16 dex, 12 con, 10 int, 8 wis, 20 cha in a mithral chain shirt)

What negative effects if any are associated with wearing armor that you're not proficient with?

[Aspenor]

What negative effects if any are associated with wearing armor that you're not proficient with?

None for a caster, you're not worried about penalties to-hit since you're casting spells and not meleeing.

[Shade]

What negative effects if any are associated with wearing armor that you're not proficient with?

Well sorcerers aren't proficeint in any armor.
Even most light armor has some armor check penalty, which will lower your movement skills like tumble, balance and jump. Jump is of rather critical importance on a nuker build so I woulrn't recommend wearing any armor due to that.

Then ofcourse spell failure, agian the non-proficieny doesnt effect that, but most armor has some.

Then the direct non-prof penalty is -4 to attack. Now it is pretty difficult to melee on a sorcerer, but if you load yourself up with stoneskin, haste, displacement and rage and pick up a nice +5 wep (best use a simple wep like quarterstaff) you can actually melee pretty much anything on normal just fine with little risk.
I use a shining cresent and got a 16 str so it works pretty nice really when the sp runs dry.

[Varis]

Well sorcerers aren't proficeint in any armor.
Even most light armor has some armor check penalty, which will lower your movement skills like tumble, balance and jump. Jump is of rather critical importance on a nuker build so I woulrn't recommend wearing any armor due to that.

Then ofcourse spell failure, agian the non-proficieny doesnt effect that, but most armor has some.

Then the direct non-prof penalty is -4 to attack. Now it is pretty difficult to melee on a sorcerer, but if you load yourself up with stoneskin, haste, displacement and rage and pick up a nice +5 wep (best use a simple wep like quarterstaff) you can actually melee pretty much anything on normal just fine with little risk.
I use a shining cresent and got a 16 str so it works pretty nice really when the sp runs dry.

Glad to see Shade is such an expert...

when you wear armor, the armor check penalty will affect skills regardless of proficiency. The difference is, if you are not proficient, the penalty applied to your skill is ALSO applied to your attack bonus.

If you are in padded armor, leather armor, masterwork studded leather armor or a mithral chain shirt, there is NO PENALTY. It won't matter if you are proficient or not.

ALSO, there is no -4 penalty for fighting in armor. Aside from a possible armor check penalty lowering you to hit, only fighting with a exotic weapon that you are not proficient with, will you get you a -4 to attack.

At least Shade was right that arcane spell failure and armor check penalty are separate and independant.

That can be overcome or reduced by mithral, twilight, arcane fluidity and 7 fingered gloves.


So as long as you plan for it, fighting in armor is no problem at all. There is no reason for it to restrict your character.

A fully buffed sorcerer can hit most opponents in the game. How hard that hit is? Umm well that's another story
Let's just say that unless it's a holy+greater bane weapon, it will be slow going.


edit: oh this vid is old but it shows how you can make use of armor and weapons even as a sorcerer.
http://stage6.divx.com/user/VarisRoa...Vault-of-Night

[Aspenor]

Charm + Diplomacy FTW

Who needs a tanks? Heck, who needs a party?

[Varis]

Charm + Diplomacy FTW

Who needs a tanks? Heck, who needs a party?

sheesh, not everyone wants to con and argue their way through a dungeon. Some casters like the good old fashion nuke n fight and not have a whole army of pets stuck to their ass.


It certainly has it's uses like I charm a group of "meat" together myself in cabal for the final fight.

Casters still get the finger

Overall though, there is nothing better then nuking your way through a dungeon.

[Aspenor]

sheesh, not everyone wants to con and argue their way through a dungeon. Some casters like the good old fashion nuke n fight and not have a whole army of pets stuck to their ass.


It certainly has it's uses like I charm a group of "meat" together myself in cabal for the final fight.

Casters still get the finger

Overall though, there is nothing better then nuking your way through a dungeon.

LoL Oh I nuke, don't get me wrong. There are times and places for it though. And you can't exactly nuke your way through everything at level 6

At least not without a few fighters around to dish some damage too.

[Varis]

LoL Oh I nuke, don't get me wrong. There are times and places for it though. And you can't exactly nuke your way through everything at level 6

At least not without a few fighters around to dish some damage too.

it can be done. In fact it's almost an art like proper charming if a bit more risky. You just gotta learn how to gather up the masses and burning hands or firewall them to death... without getting killed in the process. Using Niacs to blast your way through will only work till like level 4, perhaps 5. After that you don't 1 shot them anymore and there is just not enough mana going around.

It is also not wise to solo on elite with just nukes. You'd have to be really twinked to pull that off.

[Aspenor]

it can be done. In fact it's almost an art like proper charming if a bit more risky. You just gotta learn how to gather up the masses and burning hands or firewall them to death... without getting killed in the process. Using Niacs to blast your way through will only work till like level 4, perhaps 5. After that you don't 1 shot them anymore and there is just not enough mana going around.

It is also not wise to solo on elite with just nukes. You'd have to be really twinked to pull that off.

As you well know I'm playing on YOUR server and I have zero twinkage available. Trust me, if it were possible to nuke your way through everything alone at this level, I'd know. It's not. Calling it an art and trying to rationalize it is pretty cute, but not at all realistic.

[Varis]

As you well know I'm playing on YOUR server and I have zero twinkage available. Trust me, if it were possible to nuke your way through everything alone at this level, I'd know. It's not. Calling it an art and trying to rationalize it is pretty cute, but not at all realistic.

gimme your name on my server and I can take you on some quests that you feel require charm to get through solo. (not von3... I already did that heh)

I might as well hit up my bank as well to see if you can use any toys. Perhaps it is a bit different now, but I soloed Roa up to 7th level. Soloing WW, STK, gray moon, tangleroot, depths, the set of level 5ish houes k quests, etc without even having a charm spell.

With bunching up I meant just like trolls in my clip. 1 fireball and like 15 kills.

[Aspenor]

The damage output just isnt there at low levels, even on a fully twinked sorc, unless youre talking about multiple normal runs instead of the standard norm/hard/elite progression. Multiple normal runs are an ungodly waste of time though....

btw my name on your server is the same as you see above

[Aspenor]

Comment for build modification pending mod 5:

A human nuker may decide to take a Spell Focus: Necromancy in place of the Spell Penetration feat. This will increase the killing power of his Fingers of Death and will help control crowds of undead, which will be quite prevalent in mod 5.

[Aspenor]

Touched up some mistakes in the copy/paste from previous threads, this build is alot different than they.

[Aspenor]

Upon nearly reaching level cap 14 for my 28 pt Human on Ghallanda, I finally got my final SP enhancement. I was resting at 1908 SP, so I swapped IMT for Extend. This will only be useful on buffs anyway, but that's okay. Big boy hastes and displacements are worth more than 70 more sp at the moment. I'll get some more back if I can get 34 charisma.

[TommyBoy]

Asp, Why Diplo and not Bluff?