Illusion or Necromancy?

[Firecloud]

Hi all, I have a drow Sorc who just hit lvl 9. I'm trying to improve my insta-kill spells...
My feats are: Empower, Mental toughness, Enlarge, Heighten (I will swap out mental toughness for Spell penetration once i can swap a feat).

Going forward, should I take the feat Spell focus Illusion (for PK), or should I take Spell focus Necromancy (for FoD)? I only get two more feats in this game and want to get your opinions about what to take.. Maybe I should take both?? or what about Great spell penetration??

Keep in mind, I want to specialize in insta-kill spells. thanks.

[Wizzly_Bear]

you wont get fod for several levels, but fod > pk. fod has only one save whereas pk has 2
it also affects more enemies

[arcticwolf666]

I would take Necromancy due to FOD. For the time being you can find illusion items, but prep now for FOD. You will find FOD is a blast and would be grateful you did Also, make sure you have decent spell penetration as the higher ups have more spell resistance. Less chance of failure

This is of course, my opinion

[Lillitheris]

Meh, against non-caster monsters PK is almost equal to FoD. Furthermore, PK costs less than FoD if you have the Improved Heightening enhancements.

And let's not forget Weird, which we will be getting further down the road

[Merkinsal]

I have Maximize instead of Enlarge and then have Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration and Extend. The Maximize, depending on exactly how your enhancements are set up will give you about 300% damage on a crit which will happen about 12-18% of the time and 150% damage all the time. Extend works really well at higher levels for buffs but especially for Firewall, The extra time on the spells if very useful and saves alot of SP. In comparison, the Spell Focus feat gives you less than 1 out of 10 greater chance to hit on just one class of spell. At level 16 I do not have enough feats for that small benefit imho.

[juniorpfactors]

dump enlarge for sure this will not fit your build...pick up spell resistance feat and necromancy/illusion bracer combo, and lastly necromancy feat
if you want to be a instakiller.....you must max all spell resistance for high end content so i would find a way to get Greater spell pen in there later once your mana # is high dump mental tougness once you have build a nice +++ spell point shroud item

[Firecloud]

In comparison, the Spell Focus feat gives you less than 1 out of 10 greater chance to hit on just one class of spell. At level 16 I do not have enough feats for that small benefit imho.

BUT if I also have an item of the same spell school (eg. +2 illusion), then it would stack with the feat would it not? This increases the DC by 3 right? I would think that's pretty signifigant when i rely on my insta-kill spells landing as much as possible!

I do agree that i need to swap out empower for maximize. would also like to dump mental toughness feat to take spell penetration.. so much to do, so little time! lol

[Merkinsal]

BUT if I also have an item of the same spell school (eg. +2 illusion), then it would stack with the feat would it not? This increases the DC by 3 right? I would think that's pretty signifigant when i rely on my insta-kill spells landing as much as possible!

I do agree that i need to swap out empower for maximize. would also like to dump mental toughness feat to take spell penetration.. so much to do, so little time! lol

As a character who is strictly a caster, not a fighter I would:

Definitely pick up the items. The focus feat is just better spent somewhere else imo. Maybe as the level caps go up and we get more feats I can put some in focus, but that is a long way off.

I always leave maximize and empower on.

Red names are tough for us in the mod 6 content because they are fire resistant and purples because they have sooo many hps. DPS seems least effective over all. At the same time, crowd control, pk and fod are more useful than ever due to the devils, clerics, trogs, lions, and other stuff. So many choices. I am trying to maintain a balance between cc, insta kill and dps which I hope will let me useful to parties (important distinction I think) in all the content (necropolis, gianthold, vale) to some degree. I think I can do that without being too weak in any one area. Green steel dagger, focus item(s) and high Cha is great for +dc. Feats (all), enhancements (all) and spell penetration item to overcome spell resistance. Feats, enhancments, and superior pot item for dps. Buffs for support.

Soon I guess we are going to the Shattrah home plane and I guess that means more devils and orthons. I wonder if DPS will be the least needed of all. In fact, lol, you have me wondering what my sorc would be like without any dps at all. I sure like my scorching ray, disintegrate, firewall and other dps on occasion but a party will not live or die by them in mod 6. You may have a stronger build for specific upper content with focus feats imo. Dismissal and banishment will not work on their home plane. fod and pk should work great. They will have higher saves and spell resistance than ever.

[Firecloud]

[QUOTE=Merkinsal;1710393] have Maximize instead of Enlarge and then have Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration and Extend. The Maximize, depending on exactly how your enhancements are set up will give you about 300% damage on a crit which will happen about 12-18% of the time and 150% damage all the timeQUOTE]

so do you have max on all the time?? i find much its too easy to burn through mana when using empower/maximize (as well as heightening/enlarge). I want to be as mana efficient as possible, hence the reason i want my PK (and soon to be FoD) to hit 99% of the time if possible..

[Barumar]

[QUOTE=Firecloud;1710520]

have Maximize instead of Enlarge and then have Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration and Extend. The Maximize, depending on exactly how your enhancements are set up will give you about 300% damage on a crit which will happen about 12-18% of the time and 150% damage all the timeQUOTE]

so do you have max on all the time?? i find much its too easy to burn through mana when using empower/maximize (as well as heightening/enlarge). I want to be as mana efficient as possible, hence the reason i want my PK (and soon to be FoD) to hit 99% of the time if possible..

Remember that you are going to have well over 2000 SP at level 16 (as in 2400+)! Maximize/Empower/Extended Firewalls rock!!! I also leave heighten on most of the time as the SP cost is minimal and makes all my spells act like 9th level!

I use PK/FOD combo every day. Have them next to each other on my hot bar and tab/kill(PK), tab/kill(FOD) all over the Vale, Desert - and of course in the Reaver raid. I do not have either specific focus feat, but do have spell pen as well as items to boost both.

Remember that feat respec tokens are not that tough to get now, as you can 'craft' your own if you save all those dragonshard fragments (forget which name - but the yellow ones!) and have a mule do the compressing (I do while I watch the news as takes so long for each round!) for you

Another feat to think about making room for by level 15 is Force of Personality! My only regret with my build (32 pt Human) is that I put points into WIS! I wish I had known they were going to add this feat, as I love it and those points I put into WIS are now wasted...

Barumar

[rimble]

so do you have max on all the time?? i find much its too easy to burn through mana when using empower/maximize (as well as heightening/enlarge). I want to be as mana efficient as possible, hence the reason i want my PK (and soon to be FoD) to hit 99% of the time if possible..

I had to get rid of my Spell Focus feats. First, because the two Spell Penetration ones were more important--if I don't get through that, nothing else matters. Secondly, because both Maximize and Empower are critical. How much do you plan on PKing or FoDing those red names? Probably not much. Unfortunately, now you can't even do good damage because your Wall of Fire won't do enough damage to get over its Fire resistance either. Or your Acid Fogs. Or whatever. I can't imagine boss fights without having both Maximize and Empower on...at those times you really need to NUKE.

If you plan on taking more Necromany spells that might benefit from the +1 DC also maybe there is more of an argument for taking it, but +1 DC on one instakill spell you use versus trash doesn't matter as much as +50% damage versus red names. Even then sometimes you're only doing damage if you crit your spell.

[Solmage]

Hi all, I have a drow Sorc who just hit lvl 9. I'm trying to improve my insta-kill spells...
My feats are: Empower, Mental toughness, Enlarge, Heighten (I will swap out mental toughness for Spell penetration once i can swap a feat).

Going forward, should I take the feat Spell focus Illusion (for PK), or should I take Spell focus Necromancy (for FoD)? I only get two more feats in this game and want to get your opinions about what to take.. Maybe I should take both?? or what about Great spell penetration??

Keep in mind, I want to specialize in insta-kill spells. thanks.

Dump enlarge. Get necro focus, AND as much spell penetration as you can you can get. (Enhancements, feats, items).

I also recommend the spell curse (necromancy) to debuff the harder to kill enemies, and the improved heightening enhancements. (While enervate is actually a better debuf and has no save aside from spell resistance, which is very cool, it DOES have the drawback of causing aggro, which curse doesn't, and it also doesn't work on named bosses to make all your other spells easier to land, whereas curse does). Still enervate is a solid choice however.

[Pyrothraxus]

Hi all, I have a drow Sorc who just hit lvl 9. I'm trying to improve my insta-kill spells...
My feats are: Empower, Mental toughness, Enlarge, Heighten (I will swap out mental toughness for Spell penetration once i can swap a feat).

Going forward, should I take the feat Spell focus Illusion (for PK), or should I take Spell focus Necromancy (for FoD)? I only get two more feats in this game and want to get your opinions about what to take.. Maybe I should take both?? or what about Great spell penetration??

Keep in mind, I want to specialize in insta-kill spells. thanks.

Drop Enlarge and exchange it for Maximise and get Spell Pen Feats rather than spell focus. I had necro focus originally myself but in the current content spell pen > + DC Saves. Grab a Reavers Napkin or a bracer of Necro/Illusion or both if u really want to up it and No they do not stack but the bracers are +2 on one or 2 focus while the napkin is +1 on all focuses so its a nice combo. Extend is not needed but I personally like to be able to take care of my own and not rely on other casters. Just because your focusing on a specific build dosent mean u cant be self sufficient in the process. Mental Toughness is not needed and when u get to 16 and have invested some time and effort into you will have +2000 sp. I personally dropped it to play around with other feats but have extra sp never hurts. Your preference really. I have extend and maximise constantly on and toggle Empower in key fights.

Long run FoD > PK. PK is cheaper to cast than FoD but its 2 saves and current contents high resistance causes it to fail more. FoD is more cost efficient in the long run.

[baddax]

Hi all, I have a drow Sorc who just hit lvl 9. I'm trying to improve my insta-kill spells...
My feats are: Empower, Mental toughness, Enlarge, Heighten (I will swap out mental toughness for Spell penetration once i can swap a feat).

Going forward, should I take the feat Spell focus Illusion (for PK), or should I take Spell focus Necromancy (for FoD)? I only get two more feats in this game and want to get your opinions about what to take.. Maybe I should take both?? or what about Great spell penetration??

Keep in mind, I want to specialize in insta-kill spells. thanks.

Necro/ hands down