Shaverath.. AKA.. Oh ****, oh **** my firewall isn't working!!!

[Shade]

No one ever mentions necromancy.

Necromancy is a fully viable spec for amrath. I certainly made extremely heavy use of it while leveling my sorc, and even after hitting lvl20 to get the yugoloth favonr on elite.. It works.

It just requires specialiazation. As mrcow showed, the fort saves are in the 20-27 range - not particularly higher then reflex. The big difference is, if they make a fort save vs an install kill, well there ****ed off and not really overall harmed, so you need to make them fail.

So max you cha, max your necromancy DC with both feats, get heighten, get a greater necromancy item (upgraded deaths touch sickle is pretty easy) and go to work. My sorcs Dc wasn't amazingly impressive at lvl17 years ago either, but it still worked.

One thing to know: DC is far more important then spell pen in amrath. Allot of sorcs makes the mistake of going spell pen. I only ever took 1 spell pen, 2 necromancy, and it was extremely effective.

Just have to lead off with a energy drain sometimes depending on teh targets, and sometimes use enervate instead as it will generally have a higher spell pen roll (depending on your equipment). Casters? wail of the banshee and they will die. Orthon/Barbazu.. Enervate - FoD/Wail. Tiefling soldier (no/low SR, decent fort) energy drain + wail. Or try an aoe approach - symbol of pain, agro a big loan, run them thru tell they fail there saves, then spam a few wails, they will die.

Necromancy is just as viable as evocation in amrath. Even on a warforged. Just requires good gear and smart spell selection.

Hell even on elite it worked well for me (which I was surprised by after reading many posts on the forums about the saves). I'll admit my sorc was extremely well geared when I did elite (necro DC in the 40-42 range) but when you hit that level, its incredibly effective.. Last few quests I did before I TR'd I severely outkilled all the melee using only insta kills - while keeping up on the standard sorc duties (haste/displace, the odd web) without using any sp pots. Getting a hundred plus kills in a elite quest like genesis, invasion or sins, was a pretty common thing.

Just sucks its woefully useless on epic.. Thus the reason I tr'd. Tho the same can be mostly said about evocation on epic too (well, with a couple quests being the exceptions - mainly undead ones). Really only super effective spec there is enchantment.

[tinyelvis]

Wow, a 40 - 42 DC.

So, with 44 charisma and double focus you get DC 38. +2 focus item gets your DC to 40.
(This assumes a +4 tome, and cumulative +10 charisma item bonus as well as an Amrath potion, not to mention Drow)

Now you can pick up one more point of charisma with litany, but how did you get a running DC of up to 42 DC, or are you counting the 1 minute alchemical potion?

Essentially, that is every single piece of high end gear and rare potions for charisma. You can play a year and not get half of that stuff for those who are wondering. Also for those wondering out there, if you get your DC to 38, that's high. 42 is ultimate. Even with this high DC you technically still only land finger less than 50% of the time against the DC 23 foe. Did you see better than 50% success?

[Arctigis]

Wow, a 40 - 42 DC.

So, with 44 charisma and double focus you get DC 38. +2 focus item gets your DC to 40.
(This assumes a +4 tome, and cumulative +10 charisma item bonus as well as an Amrath potion, not to mention Drow)

Now you can pick up one more point of charisma with litany, but how did you get a running DC of up to 42 DC, or are you counting the 1 minute alchemical potion?

Essentially, that is every single piece of high end gear and rare potions for charisma. You can play a year and not get half of that stuff for those who are wondering. Also for those wondering out there, if you get your DC to 38, that's high. 42 is ultimate. Even with this high DC you technically still only land finger less than 50% of the time against the DC 23 foe. Did you see better than 50% success?

Agreed.

I think Shade generally talks a lot of sense. However, his perspective is a little skewed by having access to the
best equipment in the game.

A WF with: +3 tome, +3 excep, +2 store pot is going to have a charisma of 38 - +14 on DC. If we assume
double spell focus and a greater focus item, the best DC is 37. Not too shabby, however, from my perspective,
that's exceptionally well geared. Even with 37 DC they will still save a lot (fort ~23 +4 environmental bonus) -
and you need spell penetration. As I said, Amrath is fine _if_ you plan/build for it. If you run with a party all
the time, you're better off picking up enchantment focus and hold monster, mass.

[Shade]

Essentially, that is every single piece of high end gear and rare potions for charisma. You can play a year and not get half of that stuff for those who are wondering. Also for those wondering out there, if you get your DC to 38, that's high. 42 is ultimate. Even with this high DC you technically still only land finger less than 50% of the time against the DC 23 foe. Did you see better than 50% success?

You post a ton on this forum, yet you have no caster spec'd and gearred appropratiely to test this yourself?
And your expect people to take your advice more seriously then mine?

My caster didn't always magically have the max DC. I played him in amrath from beta on a insanely old verison of my cahracter that didn't even have a +3 cha tome. Then on live I played it almost exclusively to level up from to 16 to 20.

So Im familar with how well necromancy works from DCs as low as 32 straight up to 42. Every single point makes quite a big difference it's true, but the lower scores can certainly contribute a good share of the kills in a group.

Better then 50%? lol. On max DC on normal, I get 95% success rates everywhere. People get pretty shocked when they group with me in Sins and every single devil in a 10 devil encoutner dies in a flash. Even for what im not speced for - enchantment: Mass hold is also fun in there, tons of blue rings all over the place heh.

Back when I had DC's in the 32-35 range, sure success rates were around 40-70%. But that's more then enough. Just cast wail several times in a row vs large packs, youll kill allot of mobs even with a moderate DC on normal. Stronger individual targets I just usually went for enervate + finger of death, that was almost never resisted.

You only need the kind of DC's I have for elite. Before I really maxxed it out, I was fairly useles on elite, with success rates extremely poor unless I energy drained allot.

But on normal with average gear? It works great.

Here's the results of the last Genesis elite I ran before I TR'd. I kept up yugoloth cha potion and did drink a couple +2 house D ones, but didn't maintain them for like 90% of the kills so they didnt matter much:
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/989...nshot02991.jpg

All kills were with necromancy except the red named tiefling I killed with a crit wall of fire and polar ray. And the melee I was up against weren't noobs. The top one is actaully a guildmember that I group with often in epic, a very strong player. The rest I dunno, but theyre level20 at least.

Saves scale pretty highly on elite. What I can do on elite.. Newer casters with more avaerage equipment should be able to pull off on just fine normal.

Necromancy is perfectly viable in amrath. Just might require a bit more foretought, good target selection, decent gear (not much really, cha +2 tome, reaver cloak maybe or a necromancy focus lootgen item, spell pen item and some hp to handle the agro) and the right build.

Most of the complaints from casters about necromancy not working there are from players who did NOT specialize in it. Ones who often made the mistake of not specializing in any school and just getting dual spell penetration - which is really not neassary out there.
Strong build for amrath just need to specialize. You get 7 feats on a regular sorc, and 2 of those should always be spell focus. 4 should be meta magics, and that last one, whatever you prefer.

[Cerwan]

Guys, these posts are awesome..

I wont quote anyone specific, since so many have and are contributing to my (it seems now) sincere lack of sorcerous knowledge..

Please keep it up, the discussion highlights some very interesting points and bring them to focus, which is pure brilliance, since I might not've picked them out on my own (and I might not be the only one watching..)

Not only do I have a much greater understanding of Amrath, but of the end-game content in general and with every new post I read, it seems I understand just that little bit more..

Thank you all, I really appreciate it..

[PyrosianFelicity]

(necro DC in the 40-42 range)

Can you post the formula you followed for this?
I don't doubt you, I'm just a pretty new player, so I don't know what all you'd need to get that.

10 base
+9 Spell Level (Assuming Heightened FoD or Wail)
+2 Foci feats
+1 Reaver Napkin
+x Necromancy item? Does that stack with a focus feat? And how much does it add?
+x Cha bonus
-----
42

For the ones that I know of, that's +22, leaving 20 points of DC.
It sounds like max Cha is in the 40's? I'm not aware of what Yugoloth potions boost, or what boosts there are that can stack.
If 40 Cha though, that's +15.

I don't doubt your DC's, I'd just love to be able to imitate them.

[tinyelvis]

You post a ton on this forum, yet you have no caster spec'd and gearred appropratiely to test this yourself?
And your expect people to take your advice more seriously then mine?

My caster didn't always magically have the max DC. I played him in amrath from beta on a insanely old verison of my cahracter that didn't even have a +3 cha tome. Then on live I played it almost exclusively to level up from to 16 to 20.

So Im familar with how well necromancy works from DCs as low as 32 straight up to 42. Every single point makes quite a big difference it's true, but the lower scores can certainly contribute a good share of the kills in a group.

Better then 50%? lol. On max DC on normal, I get 95% success rates everywhere. People get pretty shocked when they group with me in Sins and every single devil in a 10 devil encoutner dies in a flash. Even for what im not speced for - enchantment: Mass hold is also fun in there, tons of blue rings all over the place heh.

Back when I had DC's in the 32-35 range, sure success rates were around 40-70%. But that's more then enough. Just cast wail several times in a row vs large packs, youll kill allot of mobs even with a moderate DC on normal. Stronger individual targets I just usually went for enervate + finger of death, that was almost never resisted.

You only need the kind of DC's I have for elite. Before I really maxxed it out, I was fairly useles on elite, with success rates extremely poor unless I energy drained allot.

But on normal with average gear? It works great.

Here's the results of the last Genesis elite I ran before I TR'd. I kept up yugoloth cha potion and did drink a couple +2 house D ones, but didn't maintain them for like 90% of the kills so they didnt matter much:
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/989...nshot02991.jpg

All kills were with necromancy except the red named tiefling I killed with a crit wall of fire and polar ray. And the melee I was up against weren't noobs. The top one is actaully a guildmember that I group with often in epic, a very strong player. The rest I dunno, but theyre level20 at least.

Saves scale pretty highly on elite. What I can do on elite.. Newer casters with more avaerage equipment should be able to pull off on just fine normal.

Necromancy is perfectly viable in amrath. Just might require a bit more foretought, good target selection, decent gear (not much really, cha +2 tome, reaver cloak maybe or a necromancy focus lootgen item, spell pen item and some hp to handle the agro) and the right build.

Most of the complaints from casters about necromancy not working there are from players who did NOT specialize in it. Ones who often made the mistake of not specializing in any school and just getting dual spell penetration - which is really not neassary out there.
Strong build for amrath just need to specialize. You get 7 feats on a regular sorc, and 2 of those should always be spell focus. 4 should be meta magics, and that last one, whatever you prefer.

I was actually being nice. I had a feeling that your comments were 85% fact, 15% exaggerated baloney (as usual), and now that I read your reply, I can see the truth more clearly. You call out my expertise, yet its precisely my knowledge of the game that ferreted out your slight of hand 42 DC.


Point 1:
So, as I guessed you don't have a sustained DC in the 42 range as you seemed to imply. I didn't think so. So tell us do you really have a +7 item, a +4 tome, and/or litany, or were you just postulating what a toon with that DC might be able to do.

Point 2:
How do you get 95% success even with a 42 DC? The fort save we are looking at is 23 +4 =27 fort save for the Barbazu (This info was provided by MrCow who I completely trust). On a single attack then you are looking at failure save rolls of 15,16,17,18,19,20 for the guy. That is at least 25% of the time on a single cast, and this is not even the highest mob fort out there. Spamming wail until you kill half a mob is certainly possible but is not really my criterion as success, and is not how I would calculate percent of success.

I ran beta necro focus build in Shavarath with essentially a 37 DC. Your comment about 40 - 70% success back when you had a smaller DC is nothing but baloney. I had nowhere near this success. It was much less and convinced me to look for other alternatives. Its why I pushed the community to use enchantment focus and offensive spells. You definitely have lots of knowledge but your habit of making these exaggerated unsubstantiated claims makes me feel what you write is often very suspect. Your evidence for anything has never ever advanced beyond anecdotal.

The image in the post for example is cool, but what does it prove. You may have got the kills with necro, you may not have got the kills with necro. There is no time. You may have left the quest for mana or used pots and just spammed spells (regardless there are tons of shrines in that quest and no need to spare mana). There are lots of questions. I am not saying you did any of these things. I tend to believe that you got all the kills with necro (I highly highly doubt you achieve anywhere close to 95% success with wail alone), however, I cant be sure. You only were essentially competing with one fellow for kills and achieved just over 50%. This does not at all seem like 95% success. If you did, you would have a much higher kill count. I certainly would not guarantee your performance here to someone. I am just saying you have a big habit of overstating facts and that clouds how at least I view your points.

[ddoer]

Hell even on elite it worked well for me (which I was surprised by after reading many posts on the forums about the saves). I'll admit my sorc was extremely well geared when I did elite (necro DC in the 40-42 range) but when you hit that level, its incredibly effective..

nice. so do you expect any average sorc to use your strategy?

[Trillea]

Right now a max sustainable (no potions) CHA for a sorcerer - drow is 43, human 42, WF/dwarf 39, other races 41. This is from:

20 base (drow)
5 levelup
7 epic item
3 exceptional
4 CHA tome
1 Litany
3 enhancement
_____________
43 total - DC bonus of 16

This gives a max necro sorc DC of:

10 base
9 spell level (wail/heighten)
16 CHA
2 focus feat
2 upgraded Death's Touch/Staff of the Petitioner
_________________________________________
39 necro DC

Yugo pot can bump this to 40 with a +2 to CHA
Store potion can bump this to 41 - max attainable by a sorcerer currently ingame.

Now neg lvls give a -2 to save per neg lvl. So a single energy drain (2d4 neg lvls) will give monsters somewhere between a -4 to -16 on these saves. This is per casting, since negative levels stack.

[Merlocke]

I used trap the soul and irresistible dance alot in amarath. I like that its is a Will save and bypasses deathward and such. You can buy the gems from the vendor. A truly great spell, only downside is expense of plat (finally found a use for it) and the gem crunching. A couple cleric past lives would be good for higher DCs.

[Shade]

Right now a max sustainable (no potions) CHA for a sorcerer - drow is 43, human 42, WF/dwarf 39, other races 41. This is from:

20 base (drow)
5 levelup
7 epic item
3 exceptional
4 CHA tome
1 Litany
3 enhancement
_____________
43 total - DC bonus of 16

This gives a max necro sorc DC of:

10 base
9 spell level (wail/heighten)
16 CHA
2 focus feat
2 upgraded Death's Touch/Staff of the Petitioner
_________________________________________
39 necro DC

Yugo pot can bump this to 40 with a +2 to CHA
Store potion can bump this to 41 - max attainable by a sorcerer currently ingame.

Now neg lvls give a -2 to save per neg lvl. So a single energy drain (2d4 neg lvls) will give monsters somewhere between a -4 to -16 on these saves. This is per casting, since negative levels stack.

This is accurate. And what I had on my character. You can myddo him if you don't believe me and whish to verify the fact. His name is Obliterator of Khyber. Check his past life tho, currently hes a wizard.

40 Sustained DC thourough the quest via yugoloth pots. Boosted thru house D pots, I did not use store potions. +3 house D potion = +2 spell DC, and thus the 40-42 range I posted. I posted a screenshot with a DC43 DC using store potions on the forum long ago too.

Note the DC can be further enhanced thru TR (what im doing now) Wizard past life: +1 all spell DC

[Shade]

nice. so do you expect any average sorc to use your strategy?

On normal, Absolutely.

[tinyelvis]

I used trap the soul and irresistible dance alot in amarath. I like that its is a Will save and bypasses deathward and such. You can buy the gems from the vendor. A truly great spell, only downside is expense of plat (finally found a use for it) and the gem crunching. A couple cleric past lives would be good for higher DCs.

It's not too bad. What is it around 9k plat and a few minutes work nets you 8 stones. I wish we could use these in epic play (those mobs just happen to be a few levels too high). It shows just how short sighted the designers are. Taking trap the soul prohibits taking one other good 8th spell. It would do a lot to open up variety. People would also run other quests to get money to support their TTS habit.

[tinyelvis]

This is accurate. And what I had on my character. You can myddo him if you don't believe me and whish to verify the fact. His name is Obliterator of Khyber. Check his past life tho, currently hes a wizard.

40 Sustained DC thourough the quest via yugoloth pots. Boosted thru house D pots, I did not use store potions. +3 house D potion = +2 spell DC, and thus the 40-42 range I posted. I posted a screenshot with a DC43 DC using store potions on the forum long ago too.

Note the DC can be further enhanced thru TR (what im doing now) Wizard past life: +1 all spell DC

This is a great goal. It's a shame in epic play the designers don't allow death effects with a hard to obtain high end DC needed. This would really go a long way toward making these quests fun. A caster spec'd like this or maybe a little higher should be able to kill trash epic mobs 70 -80% of the time (say 44 DC).

[Shade]

Point 2:
How do you get 95% success even with a 42 DC? The fort save we are looking at is 23 +4 =27 fort save for the Barbazu (This info was provided by MrCow who I completely trust). On a single attack then you are looking at failure save rolls of 15,16,17,18,19,20 for the guy. That is at least 25% of the time on a single cast, and this is not even the highest mob fort out there. Spamming wail until you kill half a mob is certainly possible but is not really my criterion as success, and is not how I would calculate percent of success.

A barbazu is a example of a very high fort save monster in amrath. Tieflings are much lower. and Orthons may be lower as well - tho im my experience they are probably about equal to a barbazu.

And Barbarzu's almost never come alone.. usually in packs. DC42 wail vs a pack of Barbazu is at least a 95% chance of getting at least 1, if not higher.

If it did come alone , I would use energy drain, then FoD, and the succes rate would be 90% even on the worst roll. (2 = -4 saves = 23 fort = failed a save on a roll of 18) 95% if I first let it hit me a couple times to proc my lionheaded belts buckles shaken effect.

If it was a very large pack (almost always wil lbe as I run ahead and tend to zerg allot on normal) I would lead off with a prayer clicky and ensure my wail hit as many targets at a time, with a 75% success rate brought up to 80%, that generally means several kills per cast (at least 95% of the time).. At 50sp a pop, thats very successful. Also I wear the lion headed belt buckle - this belt gives enemies -2 saves everytime they score a critical hit - which for devils is extremely often. So after hopping around tossing myselfh ealing scrolled, I can often have a whole pack of devils shaken with -2 saves waited to be destroyed (and a 90% success rate after that shaken effect is applied)

If you don't consider killing at least 1 monster per cast a "success" your defintion of the word is questionable at best. 50 spell points per kill in amrath on a sorcerer with access to well over 3000 is very successful imo. 100sp (actaully slightly less with improved heighten) for a drain + fod isn't the best, but still workable and a good contribution to a group.

[Arctigis]

Most of the complaints from casters about necromancy not working there are from players who did NOT specialize in it. Ones who often made the mistake of not specializing in any school and just getting dual spell penetration - which is really not neassary out there.
Strong build for amrath just need to specialize. You get 7 feats on a regular sorc, and 2 of those should always be spell focus. 4 should be meta magics, and that last one, whatever you prefer.

I totally agree with this, particularly if you are WF. Whatever spell school you choose, if the spell has a DC, you need
to specialise.

[tinyelvis]

A barbazu is a example of a very high fort save monster in amrath. Tieflings are much lower. and Orthons may be lower as well - tho im my experience they are probably about equal to a barbazu.

And Barbarzu's almost never come alone.. usually in packs. DC42 wail vs a pack of Barbazu is at least a 95% chance of getting at least 1, if not higher.

If it did come alone , I would use energy drain, then FoD, and the succes rate would be 90% even on the worst roll. (2 = -4 saves = 23 fort = failed a save on a roll of 18) 95% if I first let it hit me a couple times to proc my lionheaded belts buckles shaken effect.

If it was a very large pack (almost always wil lbe as I run ahead and tend to zerg allot on normal) I would lead off with a prayer clicky and ensure my wail hit as many targets at a time, with a 75% success rate brought up to 80%, that generally means several kills per cast (at least 95% of the time).. At 50sp a pop, thats very successful. Also I wear the lion headed belt buckle - this belt gives enemies -2 saves everytime they score a critical hit - which for devils is extremely often. So after hopping around tossing myselfh ealing scrolled, I can often have a whole pack of devils shaken with -2 saves waited to be destroyed (and a 90% success rate after that shaken effect is applied)

If you don't consider killing at least 1 monster per cast a "success" your defintion of the word is questionable at best. 50 spell points per kill in amrath on a sorcerer with access to well over 3000 is very successful imo. 100sp (actaully slightly less with improved heighten) for a drain + fod isn't the best, but still workable and a good contribution to a group.

I think its a fine way to go. Super high necro build. Again, I wish they could make it work in epic play. But of course even setting the saves high, most people would just energy drain first and do the same thing.

With a 37 DC I could energy drain and kill almost all of the time. However, having to use 2 spells irritated me. A good item to wear is a fearsome robe. Every time something hits you it gets a -2 save. Of course occasionally it will get feared but this really is not a big problem because it comes back quickly. I wonder if this effect stacks with lion. Probably not since its same modifier.

[Carpone]

Aspenor, do you still use Greater Focus:Evocation? Just curious.

Given the spells he listed, I'm guessing not. Probably replaced them with Greater Spell Pen feats to better land Otto's Irresistible and Mass Hold Monster.