Arcane Prodigy worthless?

[prowessss]

It's pretty nice to have an extra mental toughness--but the actual spell has a reflex save to negate damage... and it does less damage than scorching ray...

now... wizard's reincarnate magic missles are pretty dominant... they go right thru shield and do force damage... why is it that the sorceror's ability is so skeet?

[Spisey]

apparently you haven't leveled to higher levels with this? Reports are it one shots early level bosses and can crit for over 1200 after level 12ish.

I'll let you know how I feel about it when I do my wizzy tr's!

[Varis]

It's pretty nice to have an extra mental toughness--but the actual spell has a reflex save to negate damage... and it does less damage than scorching ray...

now... wizard's reincarnate magic missles are pretty dominant... they go right thru shield and do force damage... why is it that the sorceror's ability is so skeet?

It does 1600+ damage on a crit at 20th. That blows the wizard clicky damage out of the water but has the disadvantage of a random element.

Also, this is not like niacs, you get to save vs half only. only things with evasion get to save for no damage.

[MrCow]

Ray of Elements (Evocation)

1st level spell-like ability (CHA-based)
Reflex save for half damage
Subject to Maximize, Empower, Quicken, and Enlarge
Cooldown: 4 seconds
Deals 1d8 + 1d8 damage every 2 levels afterwards of a random element (fire, cold, acid, electric). Use the best spell power boost of any of the 4 elements to increase damage done in an randomly selected element.


If there is a question I do have about the spell-like ability is does the Red Dragonscale Armor make it exceed being a 20th caster level spell (11d8 damage) to a 23rd caster level spell (12d8 damage).

[Xionanx]

It's pretty nice to have an extra mental toughness--but the actual spell has a reflex save to negate damage... and it does less damage than scorching ray...

now... wizard's reincarnate magic missles are pretty dominant... they go right thru shield and do force damage... why is it that the sorceror's ability is so skeet?

I should point out that the Wizard Magic Missles are NOT as powerfull as you have heard.

On average on my 18th level Wiz TR, my "Free" magic missles do 19-23 a missle, and up to 47 on a crit. So when you look at the "Max" of 10 missles at 20th and then multiply by 47 you get 470 Damage. And thats IF you are lucky enough for ALL 10 missles to crit, which isn't likely to happen.

Also. you are missinformed as far as it going through the "Shield" spell. Everthing that stops a "normal" magic missle, stops the "Free" magic missles, except beholders anti magic Aura. You CAN cast your missles while in the anti-magic Aura.

So, in a nut shell, if you have BOTH available to you, and you dont want the extra +1 to your spell DC's that the wizard free missles one gives, then take the Sorc one for the damage it deals.

[prowessss]

hmm... i use it for sure it's just it has a reflex save to negate damage... at level 4 it does 2d12 (i thought it would be level 3 that it goes from 1d12 to 2d12 but it was level 4 I'm pretty sure), so at level 7 it'd do 3d12, 10-4d12, 13-5d12, 16 6d12, 19 7d12... at level 11, scorching ray does 4d6x3... almost effectively 12d6... with a little bit of math you can figure that at 6d12... with no save and a much quicker cast...

[prowessss]

I tested it in the brawl pit... reincarnate free missles go thru shield and nightshield and mage armor...

[Xionanx]

I tested it in the brawl pit... reincarnate free missles go thru shield and nightshield and mage armor...

Thats odd considering every enemy I cast it at thats immune to magic missles is also immune to the wizards missles. Could be bug, who knows, the devs aren't exactly forthcoming with info when to comes to how things are "supposed" to function.

I also dont and wouldn't rely on results you get from PvP arena's for just this very reason. Find an enemy that has the "Shield" spell in effect, for instance the boss of DQ 2, and see if they work. I'm pretty sure the last time I ran DQ2 I tried them and they didn't.

[Shade]

I also dont and wouldn't rely on results you get from PvP arena's for just this very reason. Find an enemy that has the "Shield" spell in effect, for instance the boss of DQ 2, and see if they work. I'm pretty sure the last time I ran DQ2 I tried them and they didn't.

Lailats Sheild spell can be dispelled on normal hard and elite.
Haven't tried on epic, but I imagine it could be.

She will recast it occoasonally (not often, kind of a small chance after she teleports only)
But will always recast it when she goes berserk.

RE: OP.. Reading the original description I thought the ray spell would suck too.. But after watching a couple of MrCows videos, I'm conviced.. It's awesome.

And his info is almost always 100% accurate, so if he says it's 1d8 + 1d8 for every 2 lvls, it probably is.

Not sure why it's so vastly different from the description Eladrin gave out a while ago tho? Perhaps they just improved it since the initial incarnation.

Past Life: Arcane Prodigy
You recall more about your past life as a sorcerer. Your maximum spell points are increased by 10 at first level, and 5 spell points for each additional level and can produce random elemental damage spells ten times per rest. (Activate this sorcerer ability to blast a target with a ray of combined elements, doing 1d12 damage of a random elemental type plus an additional 1d12 per three caster levels on impact. A successful Reflex save reduce the damage by half.)

Has the ingame description been updated to match what you say Mrcow?

[MrCow]

Has the ingame description been updated to match what you say Mrcow?

The description in the game still doesn't completely reflect what it does. When I did the Diaries of a True Reincarnate (Arcane) one of the personal questions I answered through that trek was the damage gains on Ray of Elements came at 1d8 + 1d8 per 2 levels (I noticed gains at level 4, 6, 8, 10, etc.), which was in opposition with the current description.

But after watching a couple of MrCows videos, I'm conviced.. It's awesome.

And in those videos I only cast it at a pathetic DC 10-14!

[MrCow]

Also, to reinforce prowessss' statement, I did find that Arcane Initiate: Magic Missile will penetrate both Shield and Nightshield (courtesy of the Sulatar Wizards and Sulatar Clerics in Searing Heights).

[bashemgud]

Yeah free magic missiles do in fact penetrate shield effects, and that makes it pretty solid imo. Even more considering you can use it freely around beholders.

I would say you need both ^^

[Cylinwolf]

Thats odd considering every enemy I cast it at thats immune to magic missles is also immune to the wizards missles. Could be bug, who knows, the devs aren't exactly forthcoming with info when to comes to how things are "supposed" to function.

It bypasses shield effects, not actual immunities.

It will penetrate an NPC caster's "shield" spell, but it will not pass a golem's immunity to all spell levels.

[shagath]

I'm sorc, true reincarnated as sorc again. At lvl6 currently. I have Empower, Maximize and Extended feats. Can't really grasp the concept of if it's worth taking around these levels. Should I switch something to it, what do you think? And if I should, Empower or Maximize? I'm using mostly niac's, acid and webs. Nuker. This sounds something much better than Niac's.

UPDATE:
With no answer or recommendation, ended up to try it out myself. I do like it at this level. A lot. Swapped empowered.

UPDATE2:
Now reached lvl12 and got disintegrate back. No need for "Prodigy" anymore. Anyhow, just reporting back that highest damage I saw with it was around 800dmg(emp/max) so nothing special but it was cool scorching ray/disintegrate replacement before getting more rays for scorch. Niac's is really bad spell. Even though Prodigy is "save of half damage" it's no damage if you get elemental damage for which target is immune. Like cold against skeletons. Or if you have worst luck, you will get to heal monster(constructs with acid and so on..) which is worse than not casting at all.