Pure or Splash?

[SirAppleheart]

Hey,

I am in the process of planning and rolling a WF Wizard, and I am a bit torn about whether or not to go pure 20 Wiz, or go 2 Rog / 18 Wiz.

Is the advantage of being able to do traps and such worth the loss of one free feat, some spellpoints, and the capstone?

Worth noting is that I do solo a fair bit, as I am an EU player and guildless. That, and I actually enjoy soloing at times.

So what do you guys think? Would a Rog 2 / 18 Wiz still be a good enough caster to keep up with the pure casters?

Cheers!

[Jeromio]

I've played both variants. IMHO, pure WF Wiz is more powerful due to the higher DC and a bit more spellpoints. Both are extremely survivable when soloing. However, for me, my toon with rogue splash is more fun to play with.

[r3dl4nce]

Not going drow you are losing 1 DC, so you are not going for max DC. So you can go for wiz18/rog2 and have a graeat utility char (even with a DC slightly lower than pure drow)

[SirAppleheart]

Great, thanks for the input so far guys.

Following up on that same thought then, with the amount of skill points available starting with 18 Int, putting all 5 level up points into it, and getting a +2 Tome at level 7 I seem to be able to max Concentration, Search and Disable Device just fine, and still have enough points left to max one more skill, and get one more at around 18 ranks. Is it worth maxing Open Lock, or will 18 ranks of Open Lock be enough? And will 23 ranks of UMD be enough with 6 base CHA, or will I still be unable to do enough with the skill to be worth taking it in the first place?

Cheers

[r3dl4nce]

Max Concentration, Search, Disable, UMD

[Irinis]

UMD 23 ranks -2 CHA bonus for 6 CHA + 4 GH +2 HOGF = 27
Increase by 3 if you use a +6 CHA item.

Not 100% on heal scrolls or raise dead, but you would be able to use a lot of race- and alignment-restricted items, those are often around 20-24. Although if you crafted a +6 chaskills shroud item you could use Raise Dead scrolls at 36 UMD, and the percentage on Heal wouldn't be too bad. That's a lot of shroud ingredients and gearswapping but very useful.

The DC's and spell pen are much lower on a splash build, so you will need to focus your build by choosing at least one spell focus. In Amrath, wizards have difficulty anyway, so I went with the splash. She's a ton of fun to play ...except in Amrath. Once I get a +3 exceptional INT item for her I can shuffle around enhancements to get more reflex save and she'll be able to do even Epic traps. If I got a +4 INT tome... I'd probably TR her with almost the exact same build. She's that much fun.

TOD part 1 she can help against the fire ellies but not against the dogs (out of sp way too fast with energy draining down to low enough DCs for stoning)
TOD part 2 she kites well (when I remember to stock up on components, go me!)
TOD part 3 she's rather useless unless there's a WF around to be repaired (conjuration focus instead of necromancy might help here, with webs holding Orthons better at least, but I find necromancy focus useful for shroud and in a good group you can just distract the Orthons until the end, as long as you keep their aggro off the healers it's fine)

Epics: A lot of epics seem to just use firewall and some aoe, you just will need slightly more mana pot usage than a pure wiz would.

I'm sure pure wizzies are fun too, it's just a different kind of fun is all.

[excess]

Related Question: do you find you suffer mostly due to DC related failures or Spell Pen related ones? How many enhancements are absolutely necessary to minimize these failures - 2 feats (spell pen/greater spell pen) and the best spell pen item available are probably a given, but are all 3 spell enhancements required or?