Queston for Battle Casters

[valorik]

here's a breakdown of my first battle casters ab wf 13/2/1 wiz rog ftr

was looking over this again, and though I'd post up about some ab
+8 BaB
+4 GH
+5 weapon
+10 Strength
+2 tumbleweed or spectral gloves
+1 haste
30
-5 power attack
+8 teser's/DP
33 self buffed combat mode

with jsut power attack you're at +25, which isn't too bad on most red nameds, there's probably more ways to get it higher too.

[fluffi]

I use DP clickies on my battle caster (30 of them). Hes a WF 13/2/1 (Wiz/ftr/barb). I took barb first, then wiz, then fighter (extra feats and str). Only reason for barb now is the speed boost which makes him a really fast runner.

I started with something like 18 str, 15 int and rest con. Used a +1 int tome and all level pts into str. I have around 405 hp with shroud item (+25 as only T2), minos, and toughness but only 1115sp with magi item.

I have PA on all the time and its unusual that fights last more than 45 secs, so while the baddies are coming to you, lay down fw, solid fog, dp clickie, change to min2 falcion and hack/jump around. Pt4 spans 2 clicks, but I think the extra attack is worth the pause.

I took 13 caster levels for dancing ball as a 1 every 5 baddies out the action is better than none

Its a very versitile build but sometimes hard to get in groups unless you send tells saying your hp, + to dmg, and that you have full BAB. I am usually accepted as the 2nd caster/2-3rd tank type. On the old fashion beat down, you won't get agro when there is a barb around, so all your dmg is a bonus.

[Valiance]

This was my main concern - and why this build will probably not see the light of day - I just can't see the viability of having my DPS potential depend on a 40 second clickie. Thanks for the responses all; looks like I'm sticking with bards.

I am really trying not to make this sound snarky but if you can't see hitting a divine power clickie from time to time then a battlecaster is definitely not the build for you. They are VERY user dependent to be successful. I have a "balanced" battle caster WF 15wiz/1barb with a 32 str (no madstone) and about 375 hp. 36 str if I rage, 40 with double madstone, more with scorge choker though I rarely, rarely use anything that keeps me from being able to cast.

Here is why you go battle caster-

Straight melee fight
1) see fight coming up
2) hit a button to engage your feather falling boots of divine power
3) charge into battle with your stoneskin/displacement/rage/fireshield on
4) beat up on stuff pretty well, all while taking some dps that is getting through your arcane defenses
5) By the time my hp is down to 100 my torc of prine raiyum and concordant opposition item have normally proc'd enought o give me back 50-60ish sp
6) Hit a quickened reconstruct that is hitting me for over 200 hp at the cost of 45 sp (net gain of 10-15 sp from torc/concordant opposition
7) Kill mobs and move on with completely full sp and full hp

Now that alone I think is pretty nice, a decent dps tank that is completely self perpetuating? No healing needed, can literally go forever.

But it gets even better when you face, say an air elemental-
1)hit ele with enervation
2) FoD air ele
3) move on

Or maybe you leave a solid fog/cloudkill trap, or maybe you drop webs and leave 3 max/emp'd firewalls just offset so mobs roast.

Finally, maybe you toss on your Hound shield and hit your intimidate that you can get up to 50 since you have all those int based skills and keep all aggro on you at all times all the while you are self healing and immune to any curse of healing.

Anyways I kind've went off on a tangent but let me just say, if you don't like hitting a lot of buttons then battle caster is NOT the path for you. However, if you are a very active player and don't mind hotkeying about 20 keys on your keyboard than battlecasters are one of THE most fun, versatile and powerful characters.

Val

[Accelerando]

How do you get your + to hit in the realm of relevant?

Do you waste half your time in combat clicking DP clickies? Do you tensor and, essentially, sacrifice the whole benefit of battle casting anyway? Do you just drop PA and let your damage struggle compared to a true tank?

Was bored enough to try to conceptualize this the other day but this was the one factor I couldn't get past the number-crunching into the realm of relevancy.

*** man you are on our server have you never enountered Fisherwin?

[Anthios888]

Stuff like Tharne's goggles are a huge huge bonus, giving you almost as much to-hit as divine power when you are sneak attacking.

One of the things people have not mentioned is the potential for stat damage with battlecasters. So much of endgame right now, and you don't need power attack most of the time to do it effectively.

[Eudimio]

A couple more things.

Battle casters work very well at low lvls.

I haven't lvled up a real battel caster to high lvls yet, but they have two problems.
Half BaB and Half HP.
You can disguise it all you want, but they will always be half BaB and half HP melees.

Now...that's not as bad as it first sounds though. As they will always be the best buffed melees around....and many are self healing as well.

I've seen some perfom as main tank in top raids. And do well.

But I feel that in general they are ill suited for a main tank / Intimitank role.

Divine power and tensers temp solves the BaB problem.
And good buffs and self healing makes the HP issue not so important.
But both are still a disadvantage.

I do plan on lvling my lowbie one up eventually though.....and he is a ton of fun at low lvls.
And I've also had fun with my Pure Wiz meleeing on occasion. She doesn't do much damage, but with a host of good weps can help out the party a lot.
Paralyser alone frees other melees up to use pure DPS weps.
Vorpals and Smiters, and Puncturers def add to party's kills.
Most battles end so quickly that it seems a waste to use SP in many of them.
So I save SP for the big fights. It's made my Wiz more fun to play IMO.

Paralyzers are the enemy of DPS. It doesn't matter who is using it.
Try mass hold person.

Just because a wizard melees doesn't mean they give up their spells.

[Eudimio]

I dont think ive ever seen a battle caster with 12+ caster levels ever serve the purpose of main tank. Ive seen 8/8, 9/7, and 8/6/2 splits work as well, or even better, in melee then a "real" melee class.
With 12+ caster levels you just cant achive a high enough attack/ hit points to fight as well without clickies. (although i would love to be proven wrong) And its better to focus on being able to fill a normal "caster" role and max int/cha.

I don't think we're talking about "main tanking". We're talking about DPS. It doesn't matter if you splash or not, a WF wizard can provide as good or better DPS as a "real" melee class. It's more difficult on a sorceror since they are more feat-starved.

And anyone that doesn't use clickies is lazy and unoptimized.

[Eudimio]

Monkey Archer, I also think divine power gives a battle arcane more dps because it increases the number of attacks. When you hit a divine power clicky you have to cheat the last attack or the last couple of attacks in the sequence, but you get more attacks then a wizard with its regular bab and hence do more dps.

Norg,

I don't like using the "barbarian two-step" on my wizard. That -4 to-hit for moving does come into play. Except for portals, but I don't DP for those anyway.

But, of course, I will throw a polar ray on Harry as my 4th attack is going off (or reconstruct, stoneskin, pro fire).

[Samadhi]

*** man you are on our server have you never enountered Fisherwin?

Nope - but I avoid PUG's as much as humanly possible too - so it's not THAT surprising.

[Samadhi]

One of the things people have not mentioned is the potential for stat damage with battlecasters. So much of endgame right now, and you don't need power attack most of the time to do it effectively.

This is absolutely true, if you are say a battle cleric (i.e. still competent at one roll, clericing, but can still mix it up plenty for trash battles).

To other posts:
The build I had in mind though is envisioned as far more of a melee style DPS machine (i.e. barely enough stat points invested into int to even cast level 6 spells). The eventual class breakdown would be almost 50/50 at level 20 cap, but is front-loaded with wizard levels to get to reconstruct fast.

I was calculating HP to 424 before shroud items on what I was looking at, that problem was worked around.


More generally speaking, I dislike WF, but have done virtually every other class combination I could think of except for this - hence my extreme game boredom had me thinking.