Transmutation/Alteration specialists out there?

[drachine]

Are there any out there? I have heard of people specing for Illusion and Necromancy and Enchanter, but i was wondering if there were any Transmuter/Alteration specialists out there.

Namely I would be interested in increasing the DC of spells like Flesh to Stone and Disintegrate. I really like these two spells and unfortunately the only Transmutation Spells which are not buffs that DDO has bothered to implement.

So be it though. I like them both a lot. Disintergrate will do up to 40d6 base damage with the level cap and Flesh to Stone gets around things like Death Ward. How good is that?

Thoughts?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

They are both good spells that should be a staple in most builds.

The increase to FtS DC is good. Depends on what you will give up to get it.
Spell Pen will be important.

Since they are both popular spells, no one will notice that you are any different than any other Sorc. (although they might admire how often your spells land)

[Shade]

They are definetely great spells, but the DC of them is not as important as say finger of death for a few reasons:

Nearly everything you can stone, you can enervate first.. And jump cast it to avoid losing any time doing so. Once you max your cha, very few things will save after 1 enervate. If they do, do 2. Enervate imposes a -2 to -8 penalty per cast.. So a single cast is as good if not better then both focuses.

Sure it costs more spell points.. But in quests where stoning the mobs is extremely helpful - such as Stealer of Souls.. I can do stone 95%+ of the encouters and not run out of spell points using this tactic anyways.

For Disintegrate.. Often when the spell is called for, the target has a very poor fort save anyways, so your not failing much either way. Otherwise if the target has a high fort save - just use DBF or other good nuke spell - as it does more damage then Dint and is AOE to boot. (well more damage on criticals, 1150 vs ~1000, less dmg per regular shot - ~350-400 vs ~400-600 - but fireball is faster to cast and much easier to aim)

In cases where you need to Disintegrate - like ghost beholders.. They are undead, so very weak fort sava nyways.. Altho Choltullz can still save occosaonally on hard/elite (fought him hundreds of tiems farming the GoP) .. There is a solution to that: Symbol of pain.. Necromancy - as im necro focused I do that first, -4 to to his saves nearly always lands. Also ask the Cleric to try a bestow curse for another -4.

Same applies to the black abbot, Sorjek, and other undead bosses. Easy to debuff, easy to land.

Just personally haven't found any cases where im using disint where I thought: Hmm wow I really wish this would land more often, and couldnt help it with debuffs.

[VKhaun]

If two dice would actually make it significantly easier to land a spell, you picked the wrong spell for the target to begin with and should have cast a will-based save instead of fortitude (Flesh to stone/Disintegrate), enervated the heck out of it first, nuked it to death, or thrown a fresh haste/displacement on your buddy with the great axe and let him have a kill.

Even on middle-ground enemies, mental toughness and improved mental toughness would give you power to spend on comparatively 'free' re-casts that will be harder for an enemy to save against TWICE, then it would be to save once modified by two, and you can expend those spell points on any school. The dice roll for spell pen comes before the save and they're +2 each. Even lesser used metamagics like enlarge or quicken give you better guaranteed tactical options then the maybe of a +2 on a dice roll with one set of spells.

The spell save DC feats have no place on a character for end-game effectiveness. They're really only justifiable on a theme build trying to force through one school for flavor, as the last and smallest increase for maximization. If that's what you want to do, go for it all the way. You better be human with 18 and adaptability 1, or drow with 20. Pure wizard for +1 DC's on the capstone. Both DC feats. Both MT for recasts. Both spell pens. And TRANSMUTATION tattooed on your @$$ sitting in the chair playing the thing.

[Shade]

If you can somehow believe .. metal toughness. of all feats.. is better then any focus. You either never played with either feat and are talking out your ... or just are really really bad at math.

Basic example:
MT/+IMT for max/emp/height Disint.. Gets you 4-6 more casts depending on gear.

Lets say you have only 2000 sp, thats around 30-40 casts of the spell.. If you only landed 4-6 more casts then your would have otherwise, the focus is superior.

"it's only +2, or 10%" Poor thinking.

If you need the enemy to roll a 2 or less to fail. thats a pretty poor chance. If you suddenly need 4 or less (for double focus), you've increased your chances to land - on every mob you cast on, by +100%..

40+ casts, with double the chance of landing on every cast. Vs 4 more cast.. Lacking any real logic if you can't see whats better there.

Real ingame example:
I often run the quest "let sleeping dust lie" as a lootrun - always on elite beause my DCs are high enough that it's not any slower for me. Can also solo it wiith ease. But to speed it up and because I enjoy grouping I take along other casters often.. Casters who often have the exact same stats as me except no focuses, but do often have the spell pen/grter spell pen.. These casters get 10-15 kills. I get 90+.. If seposedly they only land "10%" less often then me.. How come they never get only 10% less kills? or vs the ones with spell resistance, somehow more? It's because its not "just 10% more" . Thats not the right way of thinking about it.