What build did I see? WF Sorc DPS insanity...

[Absolute-Omniscience]

Of course I know how to use it, it's not difficult is it? What I hate about it is the very slow cast time
which makes it miss a lot. I guess it's a question of playstyle - I prefer to be in the mix than sniping.

I know that I miss less than 5% of the scorching rays, but I guess having unhittable ac helps in that front, as you can go full melee and cast it on a named troll without being bothered.

No I didn't. I said from the outset that SR has higher DPS but lower overall damage. Melf's is a great spell,
you should try it.

I have tried it, but as I prefer to bring the boss down fast, I go with Scorching ray, and save some time.

Before you get wall of fire, the most effective combination, IME, is acid/electric - for the
reasons I have stated several times. This is mostly because acid blast is a superior spell to fireball. Again,
IME Melf's is a superior boss killer than SR. This is from the perspective of a soloist. SR is absolutely junk before
L7 (Niac's is better unless mob has a really high reflex or is immune). As Yargore said earlier, it's a question
of playstyle and tactics, if you don't use web then fireball probably isn't a lot different to acid blast.

By absolutely junk you mean 1-3 shots most bosses, then yes; it's junk.

Well, sorry I don't agree. I prefer to be invis. and just run past everything, hit the boss with Melf's and hide/kite
for the 30 seconds or so it takes :P

Same outcome, except that with SR it goes 20-25 seconds faster.

Well, bottom line. By doing it the route me and Yar are, you will reach level 10 in less than a day, you wont ever go into a quest with fire immune mobs until eastern part 2, where you cast niacs for *2 damage. And you wont ever need web for CC.
And on top of that you will never lack SP before the end fight, and thus you can nuke him down with SR in fraction of the time it takes for Melfs.

[Yargore]

Before you get wall of fire, the most effective combination, IME, is acid/electric - for the
reasons I have stated several times. This is mostly because acid blast is a superior spell to fireball. Again,
IME Melf's is a superior boss killer than SR.

The superiority of acid blast vs fireball is greatly exaggerated.
That it destroys web is pretty irrelevant, as how often do you kill things in webs and care if the web is still there? Never.
More or less every (every fire immune that you need to kill atleast, and those are pretty rare in the first place) fire immunes can be taken out by snowballs and fireball is double damage vs some mobs.

So acid blast is barely better if even better at all.

And melfs is a joke compared to SR.

[Arctigis]

By absolutely junk you mean 1-3 shots most bosses, then yes; it's junk.

I did qualify my statement by saying before L7. In that situation, I'd use SG which pre -L7 does more
damage than SR (whilst having Melf's ticking away for 20+).

Same outcome, except that with SR it goes 20-25 seconds faster.

Well, bottom line. By doing it the route me and Yar are, you will reach level 10 in less than a day, you wont ever go into a quest with fire immune mobs until eastern part 2, where you cast niacs for *2 damage. And you wont ever need web for CC.
And on top of that you will never lack SP before the end fight, and thus you can nuke him down with SR in fraction of the time it takes for Melfs.

Tactics and playstyle are what our differences are really about I think. I do carry SR (and no acid spells)
on my L20 sorc (3 rays with an 18% crit chance each is v.nice) . For the level range we are talking about
I personally find SR sub-optimal. My perspective is as a soloist playing WF pretty much exclusively (hence
why I am down on Niac's).

[Arctigis]

The superiority of acid blast vs fireball is greatly exaggerated.

Yes, we really are talking shades of grey.

More or less every (every fire immune that you need to kill atleast, and those are pretty rare in the first place) fire immunes can be taken out by snowballs and fireball is double damage vs some mobs.

Yet those mobs are as rare (actually rarer) than fire immune mobs - your argument cuts both ways. You're
actually recommending snowballs?

So acid blast is barely better if even better at all.

Why? it's as good as fireball in nearly all situations and better in some. It also has the advantage of not
destroying web - which, although you may not use it, is still a popular CC at low lvl.

And melfs is a joke compared to SR.

From the soloist perspective, this is flat out false.

[Arctigis]

Fixed.


Won't bother with more bickering.

Well, insult me again because I don't agree with you. Nice.

[Absolute-Omniscience]

From the soloist perspective, this is flat out false.

For a slow player, it's false. For a speed runner that aims to level fast(er), it's true.

[Club'in]

Nightshield is useless if you twink.
Blur is overrated, at those levels you have ~30 ac anyways, the mobs wont hit you unless it's a 20. You can live with that.

Once you get fireball, hypnotism and all that is CC is obsolete. Resists are from house P buffs, which you will run around with permanent till you reach GH and can't be arsed with it anymore. Haste are from potions.

And even without considering all those obvious points, you can still cast ~20% more spells with those enhancements, so your point is null and void.

Nevermind. We're on completely different wave lengths. See, I actually enjoy developing a character. I enjoy playing the game. I enjoy participating in a party, and helping them succeed (which seldom means I "blast everything I see, and the rest of y'all can just follow in my wake and marvel at the glory that is me"). I'm very happy to hear that you don't group with other people much. They'd be bored to tears grouping with you. I personally tend to stop playing a character once they're capped. Running the same **** over and over again just to slightly enhance the gear that a character has doesn't interest me. But your goal is to get up to cap as quickly as possible, so that you can run the same **** over and over again. To each their own, I guess...

[Absolute-Omniscience]

Nevermind. We're on completely different wave lengths. See, I actually enjoy developing a character. I enjoy playing the game. I enjoy participating in a party, and helping them succeed (which seldom means I "blast everything I see, and the rest of y'all can just follow in my wake and marvel at the glory that is me"). I'm very happy to hear that you don't group with other people much. They'd be bored to tears grouping with you. I personally tend to stop playing a character once they're capped. Running the same **** over and over again just to slightly enhance the gear that a character has doesn't interest me. But your goal is to get up to cap as quickly as possible, so that you can run the same **** over and over again. To each their own, I guess...

Actually, I also enjoy developing a character, very much infact. Hell that's why I play the game.

I also enjoy participating in a party, I rarely solo at cap. Though, I always do it at my best, meaning if I can blast through it all; I sure as hell will.

And actually, people *love* playing with me / Yar when we level alts, you have no idea how many that wants to join us in our brutal exping. We don't mind some company, and prior to mod 9, we often LFMed so others could get free exp. Though, it's a shame with DA, as we rarely do that anymore, if ever.

My goal is not to get to cap asap, my goal is to have as fun as possible, and I have that by performing my best the whole time.

[ddoer]

.. See, I actually enjoy developing a character. I enjoy playing the game. I enjoy participating in a party, and helping them succeed. ... I personally tend to stop playing a character once they're capped. Running the same **** over and over again just to slightly enhance the gear that a character has doesn't interest me. But your goal is to get up to cap as quickly as possible, so that you can run the same **** over and over again. To each their own, I guess...

... I rarely solo at cap. ...

obviously, there is nothing wrong with any playing style or preference.

one of the reasons people get up to cap as quickly as possible is because they have played the low level content for hundreds of times and there is no reason not to zerg through and gain xp in a fast pace.

without the uber gears, getting to the cap is still far from achieving the full potential of your toon. just assume the 80:20 rule applies, getting to cap maybe just 80% of the progress, and only when you get all desirable/necessary gears, you get to 100%. (true reincarnation is not considered at this point) So it is a matter of how you view character development.

without good gears, you simply may not be able to, or at least much harder, to solo many quests, esp on elite. Without good gears and a good build, you probably won't be the first choice in an epic quest party.

people keep running the same quest again and again are not (just) because they are bored. it doesn't mean you have to follow them, but it's better for you to understand why they do so.

[Club'in]

...we often LFMed so others could get free exp.

You're doing a nice job of arguing my point for me.

[ForwardWu]

Out of all those argument, I just have 1 question...

You guys really consider niac ray is superior than shock grasp??

I have run all 3 races of a soccy (human/wf/drow), and out of the 3 I found that only drow has some enjoyable time with niac ray. Human, and especially wf, hate that spell.

Even quest like butcher(hard), my wf can only land niac about 60% of time. Dont underestimate the inability of wf to land save based spells in low lv.

As I solo most of the time, I will not recommend niac ray unless you have really good confidence in landing it. In the past, we have little choices of ice spells at low lv (other types as well), and I only use burning hand as the only low lv AOE spell. Nowadays we have acid spray...so why be so resistant to use it?

Dont be scared by the touch reach of SG. Used it right you can land it without being hit at all...(no CC needed, or 1 hit kill, just tab on the monster u need to kill and press SG shortcut and pull back. You have about 0.25 secs to runaway)

The only reason I will take Niac Ray is that I will do Low lv PVP. Hypo + Max/Emp Niac Ray basically kill anyone at lv before 5, making use of its all or nothing property to not breaking the hypo...

P.S. Basically I will only consider a soccy take Resist Energy / SR before lv 7 is an idiot....

[Arctigis]

Out of all those argument, I just have 1 question...

You guys really consider niac ray is superior than shock grasp??

I have run all 3 races of a soccy (human/wf/drow), and out of the 3 I found that only drow has some enjoyable time with niac ray. Human, and especially wf, hate that spell.

Even quest like butcher(hard), my wf can only land niac about 60% of time. Dont underestimate the inability of wf to land save based spells in low lv.

As I solo most of the time, I will not recommend niac ray unless you have really good confidence in landing it. In the past, we have little choices of ice spells at low lv (other types as well), and I only use burning hand as the only low lv AOE spell. Nowadays we have acid spray...so why be so resistant to use it?

Dont be scared by the touch reach of SG. Used it right you can land it without being hit at all...(no CC needed, or 1 hit kill, just tab on the monster u need to kill and press SG shortcut and pull back. You have about 0.25 secs to runaway)

The only reason I will take Niac Ray is that I will do Low lv PVP. Hypo + Max/Emp Niac Ray basically kill anyone at lv before 5, making use of its all or nothing property to not breaking the hypo...

P.S. Basically I will only consider a soccy take Resist Energy / SR before lv 7 is an idiot....

Well said. At least somebody gets it ;-)

[ddoer]

Even quest like butcher(hard), my wf can only land niac about 60% of time. Dont underestimate the inability of wf to land save based spells in low lv.

As I solo most of the time, I will not recommend niac ray unless you have really good confidence in landing it. In the past, we have little choices of ice spells at low lv (other types as well), and I only use burning hand as the only low lv AOE spell. Nowadays we have acid spray...so why be so resistant to use it?

for my new caster, when it was at level 4, it was a sorc2/monk2 with cha 20.(18 init stats, +1 from enhancement, +1 from leveling) It used the following for Niac:

• eagle splendor, +4 Cha / +2 DC
• conjuration focus item +1 DC
• double conjuration focus, +2 DC

The exactly DC is 10 + 1 (spell level) + 5+2 (cha modifier) + 2 (spell focus) + 1 (item) = 21

I went straight to kobold ring leader right after creation. On normal, it's land by 80-90%, and usually one shot any kobold. On hard, it usually either one-shoot or drop the kobold's HP by 80-90%. On elite, it require 2+ shoots to kill a kobold. I don't remember the percentage for hard/elite and it is for sure lower than normal.

for shocking grasp, I don't use any electric damage boost item/clicke, nor put any action point. My Niac deals with 2-3 times more damage than shocking grasp.


I've just reset my enhancement to max both fire/ice and acid/electric lines, and did a quick test in Tear of Dhakaan on normal. the mobs in the first room and the first bridge should have around 70-80 HP, and with greater potency, my niac hit at around 70 and most of them are killed in one shoot or becomes almost dead. shocking grasp hits at around 40 and it takes 2 hits to kill a mob. In this case, a fireball/acid blast + niac works much better than shocking grasp to me.

the key issue is landing rate. for the Tear of Dhakaan test, other than the two bowmen, the landing rate is 90%. I tested twice on bowman, the first time I missed niac 3 times and success at the fourth shoot; in the 2nd time, I one-shoot killed a bowman in the first shoot. For niac, I seldom use it to shoot at sprider, merphits, rogue, and archors. When I run low level quests in solo, i usually use niac to kill all melees and casters and use my rapier to kill any archors.

I don't know about the other damage spells, but, imho, Niac is definitely better than Shocking Grasp because of its high damage figure and high landing rate.

[ForwardWu]

I think for a typical wf soccy, the dc will be:

10 + 1(for conj focus item) + 6 (cha 22 at lv 4 with eagle) + 1 spell lv = 18.....

i will say if you can land niac at 90%...a wf can only land it 75% of time...(without double focus....com'on...at lv 4 double focus on conjuration???, wf need toughness and maximize more).

75% on norm setting, so 60% is a reasonable rate on hard....

SG has another advantage over niac...you can use it on slimes and high reflex save mobs...

Actually both spells start losing their effectiveness pass lv 6, as you start getting your AOE spells

P.S. why are u guys always mentioning clicky? isnt greater potency / superior potency item offer the same effect??? As far as i know greater potency 2 item is available at lv 1....

As far as my memory is right, niac does about 90 / hit while SG does 60 / hit with the best potency and enhancement you can have at lv 6...

As a side note, if you like to 1 shoot the mob with niac ray, you can also do it with 1 shoot of wand of scory ray (lv 3) + 1 cast of shock grasp. It will be "save-free" too....

[Arctigis]

for my new caster, when it was at level 4, it was a sorc2/monk2 with cha 20.(18 init stats, +1 from enhancement, +1 from leveling) It used the following for Niac:

• eagle splendor, +4 Cha / +2 DC
• conjuration focus item +1 DC
• double conjuration focus, +2 DC

The exactly DC is 10 + 1 (spell level) + 5+2 (cha modifier) + 2 (spell focus) + 1 (item) = 21

I went straight to kobold ring leader right after creation. On normal, it's land by 80-90%, and usually one shot any kobold. On hard, it usually either one-shoot or drop the kobold's HP by 80-90%. On elite, it require 2+ shoots to kill a kobold. I don't remember the percentage for hard/elite and it is for sure lower than normal.

for shocking grasp, I don't use any electric damage boost item/clicke, nor put any action point. My Niac deals with 2-3 times more damage than shocking grasp.


I've just reset my enhancement to max both fire/ice and acid/electric lines, and did a quick test in Tear of Dhakaan on normal. the mobs in the first room and the first bridge should have around 70-80 HP, and with greater potency, my niac hit at around 70 and most of them are killed in one shoot or becomes almost dead. shocking grasp hits at around 40 and it takes 2 hits to kill a mob. In this case, a fireball/acid blast + niac works much better than shocking grasp to me.

the key issue is landing rate. for the Tear of Dhakaan test, other than the two bowmen, the landing rate is 90%. I tested twice on bowman, the first time I missed niac 3 times and success at the fourth shoot; in the 2nd time, I one-shoot killed a bowman in the first shoot. For niac, I seldom use it to shoot at sprider, merphits, rogue, and archors. When I run low level quests in solo, i usually use niac to kill all melees and casters and use my rapier to kill any archors.

I don't know about the other damage spells, but, imho, Niac is definitely better than Shocking Grasp because of its high damage figure and high landing rate.

Firstly, thanks for posting this and actually taking the time to look into it. However, I still refer back to
the point I made earlier in that it's unreasonable to compare the effectiveness of a spell which you
have invested two feats into than one you haven't. Are you comparing Niacs' vs. SG with enhancements
only - no potency or metamagics? My SG, empowered + maximised + Tier2 enhancements + superior
potency hit for ~110-120.

[ddoer]

Fireball is the older choice of good area of effect blast spells for that level range. I'd recommend Acid Blast now that it is available as an alternative being it doesn't destroy Web and it allows you to easily harm fire creatures (Fire Elementals, Hell Hounds, Fire Mephits, etc.).

I'm quite an old school sorc who mainly use Niac and fireball, and it works well.

I've reset my enhancement and got gears for swapping fireball to acid blast and it turned out to work very well. Acid blast works in a similar way as fireball except that the animation looks very cool, looks like some kind of ion beam.

Acid Blast won't destroy web.

For a conjurer, Niac + Web + Acid Blast is a perfect set.

[zooble]

Very little is immune to fire aswell.

thats quite an understatement especially for fw. alot more mobs are resistant aswell including certain trolls. some mobs that arn't immune on normal suddenly become immune on hard/elite. eg: threnal hill giant

shavarath devils (current highest level endgame content pack)
cinderspawns
mantle of invulnerability
fire shield
undead immune to fire just because they can (denoted by some kind of the word "flame" in their name or the blackbone variety)
gop beholder
hellhound family
fire outsiders (pyrodemons/reavers/mephits)
fire elementals
red dijinn
red scourge (floating undead humanoid shape)
giants
off the top of my head

if you skip the blackbones you'll be skipping around 50% of undead low-mid level content. now considering those dungeons usually have non fire immune mobs (which you'll excell at) i'd hardly want to skip the exp granted from those by merely wanting fb over ab causing you to avoid some specific mobs.
- haunted library is one that jumps out at me as being excellent exp with blackbones in the mix causing headaches if you can't kill them.
- if you're ftp my bet is that you'll want to run church and the cult for sigil which has a pile of blackbones in the cold side.

[karnokvolrath]

hehe you are all picking a fight you cannot win, yar and omni are correct 98.3% of the time, are complete elitist tards, and acually know what they are talking about. as much as i hate to say it, they are correct and that is exactly what you should do in the low level quests to get threw them as fast as possible.

now, i do not think that your goal is to get threw the low level quests as fast as possible so you can disregard omni and yars advice completely.

have a nice day,
Cluedout

Epic Win on that one, i just take it for granite that they are right 98.3% of the time, ohh and btw guys...on this one...your right again....acid elec? meh...fire FTW period. Finger and Wail eventully, but just because hps start overpowering saves/SR. As far as named bosses at endgame go, from what ive seen, arcanes help dramatically for trash mobs, but raid bosses usally come down to highly tuned tactics that usally are based off melee DPS

[SINIBYTE]

Hi, OP here, I'm back. I rerolled my drow as a WF, picked up scorching ray (was incredibly happy to be rid of niacs on my reroll, nothing worse than "save save save"), FW, Jump, Haste, Suggestion, EMP/MAX/Heighten. I've been having a lot of fun, ground out level 8 over my 4 day weekend, and began following suit. Not sure I have the exact build I saw when I initially posted this, but max CHA and CON, couple points in INT, maxxing UMD, and following a fairly generalist build - I've been having alot of fun with it.

I'm curious how I can increase my survivability though... One thing I've noticed is I need to keep my balance a little higher, but as for defenses, what do you guys do? How can I better pull off the "stand in the firewall with defensive stance on and survive" routine? I wand buff myself beforehand, but any other tips?

[Arctigis]

I'm curious how I can increase my survivability though... One thing I've noticed is I need to keep my balance a little higher, but as for defenses, what do you guys do? How can I better pull off the "stand in the firewall with defensive stance on and survive" routine? I wand buff myself beforehand, but any other tips?

Displacement.
Stoneskin wands.
Position yourself so you can't be flanked and get out the biggest + tower shield you can get hold of. At higher
levels, have divine power on as well (blocking DR is based on BaB). When shield blocking you should be resistant
to most 'special' attacks such as trip. However, get a +balance item as being trip locked sucks.