Melee Wiz - what to do after 11 Wiz Levels

[fluffi]

My fun toon Flufty now has gotten to 11 Wiz with 1 level of Barb (1st level)

Str = 27 (18 + 3 lvl + 5 item + 1 tome)
Dex = 12 (10 + 2 item)
Con = 22 (16 + 2 enh + 4 item)
Int = 24 (15 + 3 enh + 5 item + 1 tome)

Feats = power attack, toughness, mental tough, imp mental tough(bonus - extend, max, heighten)

HP = 240ish (unraged - imp false life dusk heart)
SP = 950ish

I buff with false life, stoneskin, GH, resists, prot energy, displacement, rage, jump, and of course haste.
I use divine power clickies to allow myself to actually hit things (current BAB is +6). I have a total of 11 at level 12 with another 10 when I hit level 13 (should be good for running between shrines).
I can cast reconstruct, and cure crit (with +50% repair helm for 5th & lower) so I get 140ish from recon and 60ish from rep crit.
My AC is 18ish, so I don't bother with that
I use +4 holy greatsword of maiming, vorpal falcion, +1 transmuting of right, +3 para greatsword, +1 greatclub of disruption, +3 frost greatclub of maiming, +3 wounding, usually standing in a firewall, with a smattering of glitterdust and cloudkill.
My sp are used for buffs, repairing and AOE spells. I use wands for stuff like scorching rays as I hit for around 60dmg.

My question is what for next levels.
I'm kinda swinging towards another level of barb (total of 2) I will get an extra +1 con enhancement, then the rest fighter to get +1 str and extra feats which would be imp crit slashing (when I can), maybe cleave/greater cleave or weapon focus/spec then I can use my level feats for toughness.
When Mod9 comes out I could get Kensai fighting (6 levels fighter) so my vorpal would have a chance to hit more than 1 of the mob

What does anyone think?

[WeaselKing]

My first instinct is to go with at least 15 wiz levels. This will max out your this will also get you another metamagic feat, either max or emp for your repairs or quicken for you repairs and reconstructs. Also get a 6th level superior potency item and you will be nearly immortal with uninterruptible reconstructs that can hit for over 200 hp easy. Then after level cap maybe add that level of barb and a couple ftr levels for feat leaving one more level for any of the three classes.

[hu-flung-pu]

Another level of barb wouldn't hurt, you'd pick up uncanny dodge for a quick spurt of AC and reflex.

But you'd also lose out on spells.

[fluffi]

What good spells (for melee wiz) are there at 7th or 8th Level? I don't use cone of cold or scorching ray very often, but since getting 3 scorching rays, its getting to be a better usage than hitting with a sword.
My DC or SR won't be good enough for PK and FOD is 7th level.

[hu-flung-pu]

Mass hold person, waves of exhaustion, disco ball (aka dancing sphere), delayed blast fireball, symbol of weakness. Those are all seventh.


It's eighth level I'm having a hard time justifying for a melee caster.

[Vyctor]

The problem that those spells run into as a melee caster are the low dcs. The lower intelligence of a melee caster make those spells hard to land and generally a waste of sp. Couple that with the lower sp pool of a splashed wizard and it creates an issue. I would drop heighten for quicken spell. Lower dc's make heighten not as good a choice near the end game, while quicken allows you to get reconstruct off while you're getting beat up. I don't care if you've maxed out concentration, the damage that mobs do at end game is enough to disrupt most of your spells.

Since you've already splashed barbarian, that means you're not lawful so the argument for you to take monk is out, but I would advise you to take rogue 2. You would add a d6 damage for the times you do not have aggro. It would also give you evasion, which at current end game will save you a lot of hp and is likely to continue to do so. Though your lower dex might create cause for concern with your reflex save, Insight Reflexes can alleviate that.

[fluffi]

I like the rogue idea, but I suppose I'm kinda bummed as I could have been a partial trapmonkey (maybe next re-incaration) and with my int I should have enough skill points to keep them high enough (I've just been putting them in conc, balance, spot, jump). Evasion and inciteful would be nice though

[fluffi]

Does cleave (and greater cleave) allow magical effects to all that it hits (disruption, vorpal, etc)?

I just about got my 13th level, so.... what to take. I like the idea of getting disco ball, so I think I'll go up to 13 levels of wiz, then I can examine my feats to see if I can get SPen and GSPen shoehorned in them to help with cc. This way, I can still take 6 levels of fighter to get the Kensai enhancement (3 bonus feats) and by then everyone will have tried it out. This wiz level will also give me more sp, which is always nice as I've started using max on fw more and more.

Last chance for some input before the next level is taken.....

[Riggs]

Take either 2 level of rogue and insightful reflexes, or 2 fighter for more feats.(Always need more feats).

3 levels of anything else and you can still hit 17, for 9th level spells. They wont land on anything if stuff gets a save, but there should be some useful spells you dont really want to lose out on.

Quicken is an absolute must. Heighten will stil be useful on web, but with a 24 int you wont be landing a lot of spells anyway except for the trashier monsters, which is still useful, but not worth a feat if your short.

Improved critical would be handy, and if your spending mroe time meleeing than casting...drop a mental toughness. If you plan to keep casting damage spells more sp is handy.

Evasion is huge endgame, every raid has massive area damage to deal with.

If you ever plan to reroll I would suggest losing the barb level and go wiz/rogue/ftr. 13/2/1 at 16 gets you evasion, Dont bother with traps, just locks and umd (rr weapons), the fighter gets the extra feat, and all weapons. Take it last at 15 or 16 so you can use it on improved critical, and use masters touch until then.

Would also get a higher int, and dont worry about maxing str out as much. A 17 int to start say, and 15 or 16 str and your only losing 1 to hit and damage, but gaining spells that will land. if your not planning on having spells land there is pretty much 0 reason to go past 11 wiz anyway.

*Edit.

Well some spells will land, 4-5 dc less than a 32-34 int wiz however means you will often have to cast things twice to get them to land, or cast a dancing ball and half the stuff just ignores it and hits you anyway. It will cost a lot more mana to double cast everything than just hit stuff sometimes and heal up after.

Oddlived on Ghallanda has a 13/2/1 wiz/rogue/barb that is very successful, but it takes a fast hand to be good at soloing stuff. I think its more for the speed boost than the str anyway....

The best thing to do is pick a path and stick with it. Either go the rest melee (rogue is still melee), or rest wiz, but with those stats going rest wiz would be less than optimal.

[sirgog]

Would also get a higher int, and dont worry about maxing str out as much. A 17 int to start say, and 15 or 16 str and your only losing 1 to hit and damage, but gaining spells that will land. if your not planning on having spells land there is pretty much 0 reason to go past 11 wiz anyway.

*Edit.

Well some spells will land, 4-5 dc less than a 32-34 int wiz however means you will often have to cast things twice to get them to land, or cast a dancing ball and half the stuff just ignores it and hits you anyway. It will cost a lot more mana to double cast everything than just hit stuff sometimes and heal up after.

You can simply use different spells. On my toons, Numot's Greater Command is mediocre and Cacophonous's Discoball is useless, but both have mass charm effects (Symbol of Persuasion and Mass Suggestion) that rock on packs of trash mobs - cast one on a pack of twelve mobs, and Numot will land it on an average of 4, Cacophonous on 2. Either way, that's enough to soften up and distract the whole pack, so the party can kill them one at a time - which is pretty much exactly what the party would gain from a higher-DC Greater Command or Discoball in the first place.

For reference, Numot has a Wisdom of about 26, and Cacophonous has a Charisma of 20, and neither ever use +DC items like the Reaver's Napkin.

[fluffi]

I just got to 13 wiz, so I got disco ball over the weekend. I'm still running GH for relics and its effective there, esp on norm. I know that I'm a couple levels too high for the quest, but its fun anyway. Everyone has been saying evasion, so I probably should as half dmg is better than full. I think next feat has got to be imp crit as I only see 134 dmg every so often when using my para greataxe (how quickly you can go through mobs with 4 fighters with para weapons and my discoball (other peoples are more effecive though).

Cheers for the replies, this toon stopped me from playing my capped cleric and I haven't even done the 2 of the new quests.

[Huebacca]

It's eighth level I'm having a hard time justifying for a melee caster.

irresistible dance is good.
with spell pen feats and enhancements it will be very good if you need cc.

[Coldest]

11/3/2 Wiz/Rog/Barb FTW

[Riggs]

You can simply use different spells. On my toons, Numot's Greater Command is mediocre and Cacophonous's Discoball is useless, but both have mass charm effects (Symbol of Persuasion and Mass Suggestion) that rock on packs of trash mobs - cast one on a pack of twelve mobs, and Numot will land it on an average of 4, Cacophonous on 2. Either way, that's enough to soften up and distract the whole pack, so the party can kill them one at a time - which is pretty much exactly what the party would gain from a higher-DC Greater Command or Discoball in the first place.

For reference, Numot has a Wisdom of about 26, and Cacophonous has a Charisma of 20, and neither ever use +DC items like the Reaver's Napkin.

True, most quests wil have a fair portion of monsters with lower saves, so yeah spells will land on a fair bit of things, esp on normal.

I should go back to my first sggestion, no more than 3 levels of anything else, so level 9 spells will still be there for 20.

Charm rocks.

[fluffi]

I think I'll get the xp for this toon as high as I can without levelling (probably 1 below level 16 as I'm level 14 at the moment), then wait for level 9 spells to see what they look like and decide if there is anything worth getting, else its either rogue for evasion or fighter for feats and kensai.