An argument for acid/electric spec

[FluffyCalico]

Im generally not saying to use this on the random mob its main use is for the pitfiend and pretty much all ticks hit for about 40 dmg non crit but due to the length of the fights I generally cast several and crit on a good share with full spec when crit this spell hitting for up to 100 dmg per tick is nasty about 20 ticks x100 = 2k dmg.

Any other spells you know that do that kind of dmg? Plus while its ticking off you can cast other spells.

LMAO now you are getting 20 ticks per cast and 100% of them are crits. *** how can I get a 100% crit rate on my spells please tell me this magic secret of yours.

So you are building around a creature most bugg anyway. 1 creature noone fights straight up? lol

[LeLoric]

Acid rain:
3d4 acid damage every 2 seconds for the duration of the storm. The duration starts at 6 seconds and increases by 2 seconds at level 9 and every 3 caster levels thereafter.

Acid fog:
2d6 acid damage every 2 seconds to targets within the cloud.

Acid arrow:
Deals 2d4 acid damage to a target with a magical arrow of acid. The arrow does an additional 2d4 damage every 2 seconds for a 12 second duration. This duration increases by 6 seconds for every three caster levels after level 3.

The base damage is so low, your DPM (damage per mana) is going to be greatly reduced by anything with acid resistance. Do you even see numbers on normal if you don't get a crit? What about hard/elite?

yes i do on any difficulty, pit fiend acid resist does not increase with difficulty. avg dmg on acid fog without crit is about 35-40 x about 20 ticks = 700-800 thats almost as much as a crit lightning spell will do. And while these ticks are counting off I am blasting him with those same lightning spells.

Guaranteed a acid/light spec caster will do more dmg against pit fiend than a fire/cold, same goes for any red named devil/bezekira. Other red nameds are about a wash except fire elemental.

[LeLoric]

LMAO now you are getting 20 ticks per cast and 100% of them are crits. *** how can I get a 100% crit rate on my spells please tell me this magic secret of yours.

So you are building around a creature most bugg anyway. 1 creature noone fights straight up? lol

if the spell crits all ticks are at crit dmg same thing for firewall I dont say i crit all the time.

are you saying you exploit now?

[FluffyCalico]

if the spell crits all ticks are at crit dmg same thing for firewall I dont say i crit all the time.

are you saying you exploit now?

Are you saying your tank can keep aggro to hold him in the cloud and you alive while you hit him with 2000 damage spells?

Cause I promise you even with 40% hate reduction I can pull a boss off any tank in the game if I try.

[LeLoric]

Are you saying your tank can keep aggro to hold him in the cloud and you alive while you hit him with 2000 damage spells?

Cause I promise you even with 40% hate reduction I can pull a boss off any tank in the game if I try.

three tanks positioned around him correctly will hold him in the fog.

I wanna see you gain sole aggro on the pit fiend and hold it, honestly have you ever fought him?

[FluffyCalico]

three tanks positioned around him correctly will hold him in the fog.

I wanna see you gain sole aggro on the pit fiend and hold it, honestly have you ever fought him?

Yep almost to my 20th end reward. And don't need sole aggro. Just need him to turn and whack me once.

I do something useful in that fight. I use repair spell and reconstuct scrolls on the WF tank (always take 1 of them). With 2 sorc doing this you don't have to bug him to win. And you don't need 3 clerics or 2+1bard either.

[Vhlad]

This moved fast. lol. I think people missed my edit so I deleted it and am putting it here instead!

Rain
3d4 = 7.5 average.
7.5 * 1.9 (sup pot + full enhancement) * 1.5 (empower) * 2 (maximize)
42.75 average non crit damage. I guess you would see some numbers.
Duration at lvl 16: 14 seconds * 2 (extend) = 28 seconds = 14 ticks of damage.

Fog
2d6 = 7 average
7 * 1.9 * 1.5 * 2 = 39.9 average
(what's the duration of this?)

Arrow
2d4 = 5 average
5 * 1.9 * 1.5 * 2 = 28.5 average
Duration at lvl 16: 36 seconds * 2 (extend) = 72 seconds = 37 ticks of damage (initial + 36 ticks).

Hmmm. I doubt a melfs is going to do much of anything there with such a low base.

Anyone know the fiends acid resistance on norm/hard/elite?

[LeLoric]

This moved fast. lol. I think people missed my edit so I deleted it and am putting it here instead!

Rain
3d4 = 7.5 average.
7.5 * 1.9 (sup pot + full enhancement) * 1.5 (empower) * 2 (maximize)
42.75 average non crit damage. I guess you would see some numbers.
Duration at lvl 16: 14 seconds * 2 (extend) = 28 seconds = 14 ticks of damage.

Fog
2d6 = 7 average
7 * 1.9 * 1.5 * 2 = 39.9 average
(what's the duration of this?)

Arrow
2d4 = 5 average
5 * 1.9 * 1.5 * 2 = 28.5 average


Duration at lvl 16: 36 seconds * 2 (extend) = 72 seconds = 37 ticks of damage (initial + 36 ticks).

Hmmm. I doubt a melfs is going to do much of anything there with such a low base.

Anyone know the fiends acid resistance on norm/hard/elite?

The only acid i use on pit fiend is fog so couldnt tell ya with melfs if it hits or not, acid resist is about 20-25 on any difficulty and like ive said it usually takes a crit to get a decent result but ill try several times per round on 4 or cast till i get one up on 5 once its up tanks keep him in it and it does some pretty good dmg, sure not more than a tank on him but the fog helps the tanks also

[LeLoric]

Yep almost to my 20th end reward. And don't need sole aggro. Just need him to turn and whack me once.

I do something useful in that fight. I use repair spell and reconstuct scrolls on the WF tank (always take 1 of them). With 2 sorc doing this you don't have to bug him to win. And you don't need 3 clerics or 2+1bard either.

Rarely if ever use 3 clerics and if theres a wf ill heal i can do that after a fog is up. Even if it didnt do dmg its still useful for the miss chance, however my point is it can still do decent dmg too.

[LeLoric]

duration of extended acid fog at 16th is 2 min 6 sec so thats actually 63 ticks on a crit that gives max of 100 dmg per tick so up to 6300 dmg costs me 79 spell points

[Vhlad]

Guaranteed a acid/light spec caster will do more dmg against pit fiend than a fire/cold, same goes for any red named devil/bezekira. Other red nameds are about a wash except fire elemental.

You assume mana is an issue in all cases. With the red named, it's not, and the cold cycling is much better IMO. Resistance to cold is not that high. Polar ray (no save) ends up doing more than chain lightning. Cone of cold is 15d6 vs only 10d6 for lightning bolt. So even with cold resistance I'd say you have parity with cycling lightning. The 5d6 difference from cone of cold alone results in 99.75 average non crit damage difference, so cold is still ahead even if it has cold resist 30.

Regarding fiend:
These 2 sites list acid and cold resistance at 10.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm#pitFiend
http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Pit_fiend

Although not sure if it is actually 10 in DDO. If it is only 10 then cold is still pretty super, although the acid DOT would be good too.

Arrow would average: 18.5 * 37 = 684.5
Fog (don't know duration, oh 2 min 6 secs? are you sure it's that long?): 29.9 * 63 = 1883.7
Rain: 32.75 * 14 = 458.5

You can't stack fogs. Can you stack rains with rains and arrows with arrows? I think a 2nd acid arrow just extends the duration. Not sure if multiple rains stack though.

If all these acid spells don't stack and you're in a group killing the fiend in 2 rounds, then you're not really doing more damage compared to spamming polar ray. I say polar ray because people don't cycle 3 spells vs the fiend because DPS is not as important as DPM, so it's really just polar ray (although the sup pot staff apparently goes poof after the portals) vs 2 casts of fog/arrow/rain + chain lightning spamming. He saves a lot so you're still doing more damage with polar ray even without potency.

[LeLoric]

With a 32 dc he rarely saves so polar does not do more than chain as theres resist to it and no potency unless you have the staff i suppose. polar ray without the staff is about what my lightning bolt does comparing the numbers form my wiz and my fire/cold sorc.
Ball lightning beats coc due to resists. Chain beats Otilukes due to 1 extra d6 and resists.

Yeah resist are higher than what srd shows.

no acid spells stack unfortunately

i just verified duration on my wiz for acid fog

[LeLoric]

Just wanted to add that the last post i made is generally considering normal shroud elite polar ray is best due to evasion.

[Vhlad]

With a 32 dc he rarely saves so polar does not do more than chain as theres resist to it and no potency unless you have the staff i suppose. polar ray without the staff is about what my lightning bolt does comparing the numbers form my wiz and my fire/cold sorc.
Ball lightning beats coc due to resists. Chain beats Otilukes due to 1 extra d6 and resists.

Yeah resist are higher than what srd shows.

no acid spells stack unfortunately

i just verified duration on my wiz for acid fog

He has a 19 reflex save from the link I provided. It's probably higher in DDO but who knows (except maybe cow), but we'll go with 19. A 32 DC means you're doing half damage 35% of the time.

[Vhlad]

no acid spells stack unfortunately

Period? or with each other?

If arrow does not stack with fog, then that's pooh.

[LeLoric]

Period? or with each other?

If arrow does not stack with fog, then that's pooh.

with teh same spell sorry for not being clear on that yes fog and arrow stack but arrow and arrow or rain and rain do not

[sirgog]

Everyone that's recommending hitting Arrietrikos with spells that have a Reflex: Half save, think again.

He has a high reflex save (something like 25 on normal i think), and evasion.

You can burn an entire tank of mana on Cone of Cold/Ball Lightning, and not deal a huge amount of damage at all.

Arrietrikos also has an insane Fort save, so Disintegrate sucks.

When I'm on my sorc, part 4 I spend most of my SP on CC and gnoll killing, and drop in the only spell I carry that does much damage - Acid Fog - whenever it's needed. As I'm fire/cold specced but have also dabbled in acid/elec (to the tune of 7AP), I get solid but unspectacular damage on him (about 22 a tick on a normal fog, 60-65 a tick on a crit, but my crits are rarer and less potent than someone fully specced).

Only when he hits 5%hp do I run in and 'go nova' with the rest of my SP.

Part 5, I keep him under acid DoTs, keep the party hasted, displaced and stoneskinned, and resurrect clerics if there's a near-wipe. Again, at 5% I'll go nova.


Still, if you want to do real damage to Arrietrikos, you probably do not want to be an arcane caster.

[Huebacca]

Everyone that's recommending hitting Arrietrikos with spells that have a Reflex: Half save, think again.

He has a high reflex save (something like 25 on normal i think), and evasion.
You can burn an entire tank of mana on Cone of Cold/Ball Lightning, and not deal a huge amount of damage at all.

My wizard has a 30 dc on evocation spells and arrietrikos never saved twice(this is in the last fight while using the pools)

Arrietrikos also has an insane Fort save, so Disintegrate sucks.

I agree with this statement

[rattgang]

pit fiend and devils are both immune to acid. dont see how you could be doing any damage let alone 20-100 dmg

[Tallyn]

Fog (don't know duration, oh 2 min 6 secs? are you sure it's that long?): 29.9 * 63 = 1883.7

Positive that duration is that long at 16th level