Archmage Analysis

[Hercanic]

(Author's Note: I made a fatal flaw in my initial interpretation of how the requirements work for Spell-like Abilities. Please keep this in mind as you read on, as I address this fact fully in my next post. I am leaving my first impression intact for several reasons, not the least of which could be considered a suggestion to the developers.)



These are very exciting times, with many great things coming in Update 7! I'd like to go over the new Prestige Enhancement for Wizards, the Archmage.

+400 SP from the five levels of Archmage. Sorcerers now have a run for their money!

-125 max SP for +2 DC on your choice of school. (Two separate, but hierarchal, enhancements)

-150 max SP for two attacks, 1 SP and 5 SP per cast respectively, dealing 20d6 force damage (at level 20) to either one target as a bolt or all targets in a radius as a blast. (Two separate, but hierarchal, enhancements)


Spell-like Abilities (SLA)

-25 max SP per level 1 spell
-50 max SP per level 2 spell
-75 max SP per level 3 spell
-100 max SP per level 4 spell
-125 max SP per level 5 spell

1 SP per cast of a level 1 spell, instead of 10 (a savings of 90%)
3 SP per cast of a level 2 spell, instead of 15 (a savings of 80%)
6 SP per cast of a level 3 spell, instead of 20 (a savings of 70%)
10 SP per cast of a level 4 spell, instead of 25 (a savings of 60%)
15 SP per cast of a level 5 spell, instead of 30 (a savings of 50%)

Based on this information, we can gauge how many times we would need to cast a SLA between shrines to offset the max SP deduction.

3 casts of a level 1 SLA (28 SP SLA vs. 30 SP normal)
5 casts of a level 2 SLA (65 vs. 75)
6 casts of a level 3 SLA (111 vs. 120)
7 casts of a level 4 SLA (170 vs. 175)
9 casts of a level 5 SLA (260 vs. 270)

If, on average, you will not cast a particular SLA at least the minimum above, it's not worth taking. The 6 and 12 second SLA cooldowns should also be taken into consideration (especially for single-target party buffs).

I wonder if Metamagic will still work on these, and if they still retain their material cost. I will assume they do. If so, using metamagic will not always be SP-efficient. A Level 3 SLA, for instance, is 6 vs. 20 (70% savings). If Extended, it becomes 16 vs 30 (~50% savings).

One other thing to keep in mind is that by the time you get your choice of level 1 spell-like abilities, you already have level 3 spells at your disposal. The difference increases the higher you go. What you want to be aware of is many lower level spells get replaced by better, more effective versions down the line. By the time a particular SLA is available to you, you might also, for instance, be able to use the Mass version of that same spell.

Level 1 SLAs available at Caster Level (CL) 6, normal level 3 spells available at CL 5
Level 2 SLAs available at CL 9, normal level 5 spells available at CL 9
Level 3 SLAs available at CL 12, normal level 6 spells available at CL 11
Level 4 SLAs available at CL 15, normal level 8 spells available at CL 15
Level 5 SLAs available at CL 18, normal level 9 spells available at CL 17

Let's look at the actual spells now:


Ratings

1. Must-have
2. Great
3. Good
4. Decent
5. Okay
6. Meh
7. Poor
8. Terrible
9. Complete Waste

Level 1

Shield: A good spell, but self-cast only. With its long duration, you aren't likely to need to recast very often. Rating: Terrible choice.

Grease: Other than as a joke, does anyone ever use Grease? It's certainly the quickest spell to get people to drop group and squelch you, due to its friendly-fire knockdown. If everyone has Freedom of Movement at higher level, you might be able work it in with Heighten. Rating: Terrible choice at low level, but potentially salvageable at high level.

Hypnotism: A decent crowd-control spell at low level, but must be heightened at higher level. If heightened, you still only need to make at least 3 casts to offset the initial investment in SP. Rating: Okay choice.

Magic Missile: Good vs. certain spectral bosses and elemental-immune monsters. Damage caps at level 9, so you will outgrow it. It is useless against any caster mobs that throw on Nightshield or Shield. Honestly, though, you would get more damage out of the Archmage's Arcane Bolt (unless it has a ridiculous cooldown). Rating: Meh choice.

Invisibility: While a helpful spell under specific circumstances (running to a quest), potions are just as good. Rating: Poor choice.

Chill Touch: Melee range and damage caps at level 5 (you will be level 6). Need I say more? Rating: Poor choice.

Jump: A handy buff, but the tripled cooldown will make it cumbersome to give to your entire party. If you keep up on the buff and put it on everyone, you will offset the cost, but I don't think many people have the patience for that. Rating: Meh choice.

Verdict: Despite offering the greatest SP savings, the actual choices are pretty dismal.


Level 2
Resist Energy: If it weren't for the extended cooldown, this would be a must-have, but even so it's still a smart pick. Rating: Great choice.

Web: Every wizard's go-to CC. Rating: Great choice.

Otto's Resistible Dance: A great spell vs. elementals, and generally useful elsewhere, but eventually outmoded by the no-save Irresistible Dance. Rating: Good choice up to mid level, meh choice at high level.

Gust of Wind: A new spell, so hard to judge. Certain enemies love casting clouds, so Gust could see a lot of usage. Rating: Potentially good choice.

Blur: A standard buff, but again, the tripled cooldown will slow down party preparation. Could be worthwhile at lower level, but less so as the buff's duration increases at higher level. Rating: Decent choice.

Command Undead: A good spell in undead quests, but otherwise too specialized to recommend. A charm-focused caster might think otherwise. Rating: Poor to okay choice, depending on build emphasis.

Knock: A handy spell, but you will never cast it often enough to justify the investment. Rating: Complete waste.

Verdict: As a whole, the best selection of spells of any SLA level.


Level 3
Protection from Energy: Rendered pointless by Mass Protection at spell level 7. You cannot get this SLA until level 12, and level 7 spells become available by level 13. You might get some steam out of this during that one level, but otherwise why bother? Rating: Terrible choice.

Stinking Cloud: I'm not big into most cloud spells, since anything inside gets a concealment bonus. If True Sight is available, though, this ceases to be a concern. The benefit of this cloud is the Nausea effect, which slows movement and attack speed. A good spell, but can be saved against and will require Heighten (cutting down on the ability to spam it -- well, that, and the 12 second cooldown). Rating: Okay choice.

Hold Person: A great spell initially, giving your party auto-crits against the target and preventing it from taking any action. A fun spell to spam, justifying the investment. The only problem is the limitation on targets, and at higher level Hold Monster and Mass Holds become available. Rating: Good choice at low level, poor at high level.

Chain Missile: If you like having aggro, this spell will give it to you. It is especially weak against a single target, as only one missile hits. Rating: Terrible choice.

Displacement: A fantastic spell with a short duration means it needs a lot of recasting. Once again, this would be a must-have if the cooldown weren't tripled. Half a minute to buff a party and a minute for a raid every 1-3 minutes can be taxing (Extend would help), so you'll probably have to do it on the move or give preferential treatment to front-liners. Still, who doesn't love its fluffy goodness? Rating: Great choice.

Halt Undead: A nice spell for undead quests, but specialized. Smart undead have high will saves, making this spell difficult to land on them. Unintelligent undead do not get a save versus this spell, which means scrolls would be a better option. If planning to slog through numerous undead quests, this could be pretty good to have; just reset your enhancements afterward. Rating: Decent choice when relevant, otherwise a terrible choice.

Haste: If there is one universally loved spell from a Wizard, it is haste; a requirement for any caster worth his salt. Like Displacement, it has a short duration, but its area-effect means cooldown is not an issue. However, with extend, at high level it's not likely you'll need to cast it more than six times between shrines. Rating: Must-have choi--requirement at low level, but otherwise a decent choice.

Verdict: It's nice to see at least two standard spells as options.


Level 4
Stoneskin: A great spell, but its material cost is exorbitant. It's usually preferred to use wands instead. Rating: Meh choice.

Dimension Door: Like Knock, you will never, ever cast this enough to justify the investment. Rating: Complete waste.

Charm Monster: The spell Suggestion tends to be preferred over this, due to Suggestion lasting its entire duration. In certain defensive quests, being able to spam a cheaper Charm Monster could work well. Rating: Meh choice.

Fire Shield: Like Shield, being only self-cast limits how often you will need to cast it. Rating: Meh choice.

Phantasmal Killer: A mild form of Finger of Death, which requires a Will and Fortitude save, when you already have FoD. It is an Illusion spell, while the popular FoD and Wail are both Necromancy, so you will need a separate DC boost item for PK (unless wearing a Stormreaver Napkin or the like). Rating: Poor choice.

Enervation: Not subject to Spell Resistance like the higher level Energy Drain, so there is a legitimate use for Enervate. A great spell to weaken a target before hitting them with FoD. Rating: Good choice.

Stone to Flesh: Too rarely used, and scrolls work just as good. Rating: Terrible choice.

Verdict: Level 4 doesn't fair too well, with only one good choice.


Level 5
Dismissal: At only a 50% savings when you already have the area-effect Banishment, it's hard to recommend. Rating: Meh choice.

Cloudkill: You're looking at 1d4 CON damage and 2d6 + 18 to 20 acid damage that cannot be empowered or maximized. By and large, a weak cloud spell, especially at level 18 when you can get this SLA. The CON damage will help reduce Fortitude saves, though, so would be a good partner with FoD/Wail. Rating: Okay choice.

Hold Monster: The SP savings of these level 5 spells is pretty dismal, you must cast it many times just to break even, and a higher DC Mass version of this spell is available. Hard to recommend, but sometimes targets are alone. Rating: Meh choice.

Cyclonic Blast: Like Gust, a new spell that cannot be fully judged. Gust would be a better (cheaper) choice if using primarily to remove clouds and firewalls. The prone effect sounds interesting, but dual save checks means it won't happen very often. Rating: Potentially an okay or terrible choice.

Shadow Walk: A helpful running spell, but otherwise limited in application. You will not likely cast this 9 times per rest, unless implementing some odd maneuvering strategy in combat. Rating: Terrible choice.

Waves of Fatigue: This does not stack with the more effective Waves of Exhaustion. Rating: Poor choice.

Flesh to Stone: An excellent spell in any quest with targets you don't want to kill (spiders in that Vale quest, Silver Flame soldiers in that Necro 4 quest). Aside from those instances, I cannot recommend taking this normally, let alone as a SLA. You would need to be constantly using it to justify the investment. By level 18 you have far, far better options. Rating: Poor choice.

Verdict: Level 5 offers little of interest. The ratings suffer in particular because this level has the worst SP savings.



Overall Verdict
It would seem taking Archmage may only be good for the 400 bonus SP, +2 DC of your choice, and a very few amount of spell-like abilities. The arcane bolt and blast also look interesting, but the cooldown and radius are unknown.

+ 400 max SP
-125 for +2 DC
-150 for bolt/blast
---------------------
125 SP left for SLAs
-50 for Resist Energy (L2, 3 SP per cast vs. 15 SP)
-75 for Displacement (L3, 6 SP vs. 20)
-100 for Enervation (L4, 10 SP vs. 25)
---------------------
-100 max SP

As you can see, that bonus SP from Archmage goes pretty fast.

[Hercanic]

Hm, reading more, I find I made a false assumption. I thought you could select any of these spells, with the only pre-req being the applicable Archmage level (1-5). Instead, I realize you must also have:

• Level 1: Archmage I, appropriate Spell Focus feat.
• Level 2: Archmage II, Archmage Spell Mastery I or Secondary Spell Mastery (+1 DC enhancement), AND the level 1 SLA within the same school.
• Level 3: Archmage III, Greater Spell Focus feat, AND the level 2 SLA within the same school.
• Level 4: Archmage IV, Archmage Spell Mastery II, AND the level 3 SLA within the same school.
• Level 5: Archmage V AND the level 4 SLA within the same school.

Wow, that is an incredibly restrictive and expensive tree (in feats, AP, and SP). Most of the spells aren't even worthwhile, so it's a huge shame.


...


...


...


I am still in disbelief as I work through the math on this. What are the developers thinking? The accumulated costs are stupidly excessive. Most of these spell school trees I foresee never being used by anyone (meaning wasted development time), except for the curious or uninitiated (newb-trap). Since these immediately hook into the Spell Focus feat at SLA level 1, you cannot even casually switch around trees with an enhancement reset.

Let's look at the accumulated max SP cost for a full SLA tree:

-25 for level 1
-75 for level 2 (25 above + 50 for level 2)
-150 for level 3
-250 for level 4
-375 for level 5

That's almost all of the bonus SP from Archmage V. Although required in a full SLA tree, I'm sure it's a safe bet to assume that anyone taking Archmage will also take advantage of the two +DC feats, regardless of picking a SLA tree or not.

-50 for Spell Mastery I
(-50 more for Secondary Spell Mastery)
-75 for Spell Mastery II

In total, that's a -500 max SP cost for one spell tree, netting you a bill of -100 max SP after Archmage V. The arcane bolt and blast are also extra (-150 for both). For the whole package, you're looking at being in the hole for -250 max SP, -15 AP, and down two feats. If you're a real glutton, you could get up to level 3 on a second spell tree for two more feats, four more AP, and -50 more max SP.

Now, these costs could be perfectly justified if the spell trees are worth it. Are they? Let's have a look:

Abjuration
Shield - Terrible
Resist Energy - Great
Protection from Energy - Terrible
Stoneskin - Meh
Dismissal - Meh

Conjuration
Grease - Terrible
Web - Great
Stinking Cloud - Okay
Dimension Door - Complete waste
Cloudkill - Okay

Enchantment
Hypnotism - Okay
Otto's Resistible Dance - Good
Hold Person - Good to poor
Charm Monster - Meh
Hold Monster - Meh

Evocation
Magic Missile - Meh
Gust of Wind - Potentially good
Chain Missile - Terrible
Fire Shield - Meh
Cyclonic Blast - Decent to terrible

Illusion
Invisibility - Poor
Blur - Decent
Displacement - Great
Phantasmal Killer - Poor
Shadow Walk - Terrible

Necromancy
Chill Touch - Poor
Command Undead - Okay to poor
Halt Undead - Decent to terrible
Enervation - Good
Waves of Fatigue - Poor

Transmutation
Jump - Meh
Knock - Complete waste
Haste - Must-have to decent
Stone to Flesh - Terrible
Flesh to Stone - Poor

Here's where the pricing becomes unacceptable: Because you have to buy the lower spells, if you do not use them the required number of times to just break even, that debt is added onto the spell(s) you do use.

For instance, if you take Necromancy up to level 4 in order to use Enervation, but aren't using Halt Undead 6 times, Command Undead 5 times, or Chill Touch 3 times per rest, you need to use Enervate a total of 17 times (420 SP vs. 425) just to break even on the -250 max SP penalty from the enhancement line. It's even more severe for a level 5 SLA.

The above ratings after the spells in each tree are from my original assessment. You can assume that, because of the accumulating cost of reaching higher tiers and the burden of SP debt inherited from the weaker requirement spells, each tier's rating beyond first degrades by at least a partial rank per level.

Unless it gets a serious overhaul on pricing, requirements, or spell selection, I'd recommend avoiding the SLA system entirely and keep your +400 SP from Archmage V.

[Mister_Peace]

Excellent post. I would nitpick a couple of your ratings.

Grease cannot be heightened.
Magic Missile gets Empowered and Maximized at no sp cost, unlike Arcane Bolt, and has no save unlike Arcane Bolt. Although Arcane Bolt punches through Shield and Nightshield, Magic Missile is the better SLA.
Illusion must be recast if broken, so a shadow mage will get good mileage out of this.
Cloud spells only give miss chance to enemies of the caster, so they're more useful than you think. Also Cloudkill is currently bugged and gives miss chance to enemies with True Seeing, including raid bosses.
Stoneskin clickies probably won't eat components.

Enervation is SR no? That would make ToD easier, I guess.

[dunklezhan]

Unless it gets a serious overhaul on pricing, requirements, or spell selection, I'd recommend avoiding the SLA system entirely and keep your +400 SP from Archmage V.

I hadn't done the actual math, but my gut was telling me to do just that, if I bothered at all. For just extra SPs, its probably worth it. Maybe getting arcane blast or bolt.

[sephiroth1084]

There are quite a few mistaken assumptions in your analysis, as Mister_Peace pointed out.

In addition, you missed two fairly major points when analyzing the spells. Many of the picks that would be pretty reasonable as SLAs require you to spend 1 or 2 feats to boost DCs to the school, yet for many of the schools DCs don't matter at all. Sure, Resist Energy is a great spell to be able to cast on the cheap, but why would you ever want to take Spell Focus: Abjuration otherwise? Is it worth completely wasting 1 or 2 feats just to save some SP?

The other point is that, while some of the damage-dealing SLAs are pretty reasonable in terms of damage vs. SP spent (especially when including free Maximize and Empower--you seem to have missed the fact that metamagics apply the school-based SLAs for free, which changes the math on cost vs. actually casting the spell considerably), but these spells are all force-based, and with the other costs of AM, improving any of these will end up impinging upon a caster's other important enhancements, specifically Fire/Cold damage, crit damage and crit chance as well as the discounts on metamagic feats.

I'm not awake enough to try to figure out how many times you'd have to be casting some of these in order to offset the costs including all variables, but the numbers are definitely higher than stated in the OP.

[sephiroth1084]

Also, your ratings for a few spells seem to indicate that you aren't too familiar with them. I don't mean to be harsh--criticism of Archmage needs to happen, but it needs to be done in a way in which the devs will realize that changes need to be made, and assessments that are off-base won't help matters much.

Specifically:
Knock is very worthwhile as an SLA as casting it repeatably is likely later in the game when you'll need a high roll in order to bust a lock. Also, Transmutation Focus isn't a complete waste of a feat since it benefits Flesh to Stone, which brings me to my next point...

Flesh to Stone is an excellent spell and is basically useful almost constantly after you first acquire it. Having it on the cheap is a big plus. Yes, it is not the ideal spell to be using in epics vs. most stuff, but casters are more likely to succumb to this than to Mass Hold. Again, handy transition...

Hold Monster would be a must have if it weren't overshadowed by Mass Hold Monster, but even with that in mind, being able to hold stuff that didn't fail to your Mass Hold, or to hold single monsters when groups aren't around for a very cheap cost is excellent. Also, since Enchantment Focus is worth taking even for non-AMs, the stock of this SLA is pretty high.

Charm Monster, while somewhat weaker than Suggestion in nearly every instance, represents a solid choice when available at such a discounted price. Again, it fits with Enchantment Focus generally being a good choice on its own as well.

Chain Missile doesn't just hit a single target with one missile. It hits with the whole group and then sprouts additional damage to targets around it. It's not stellar as a single target attack, but it's pretty good. Again, however, there is the issue of Evocation Focus being somewhat of a waste.

Enervation is subject to SR, but I don't know why that would matter. Having a cheap Enervation is fantastic, and Necromancy Focus is a decent use of a feat, even if it doesn't apply to this.


My take on the whole thing:

Alternative costs for the spell schools that don't have DC-based spells would be fantastic!

Lower the cost to cast SLAs so that the higher tier offers a bigger discount, and change the requirements for the tiers so that you don't have to take earlier SLAs just to get the later ones. If you want just Hold Monster, you should be able to purchase Archmage V and Hold Monster without having to also purchase Hypno, Otto's, Hold Person and Charm.

Arcane Bolt and Blast need to either:
A) allow metamagics to apply
or
B) use the highest spell enhancement bonuses the AM has to boost their damage

[Hercanic]

Grease cannot be heightened.

I did catch a mention in an older thread (~2008) that Grease was locked at a 12 DC, but I assumed that was a bug (which would have hopefully been fixed in the intervening years). I guess you can disregard my comment on it being potentially salvagable. How useless can a spell get? To think Grease was the first SLA a developer teased us with, you'd expect they would have done more for it.

Magic Missile gets Empowered and Maximized at no sp cost, unlike Arcane Bolt, and has no save unlike Arcane Bolt. Although Arcane Bolt punches through Shield and Nightshield, Magic Missile is the better SLA.

The other point is that, while some of the damage-dealing SLAs are pretty reasonable in terms of damage vs. SP spent (especially when including free Maximize and Empower--you seem to have missed the fact that metamagics apply the school-based SLAs for free, which changes the math on cost vs. actually casting the spell considerably), but these spells are all force-based, and with the other costs of AM, improving any of these will end up impinging upon a caster's other important enhancements, specifically Fire/Cold damage, crit damage and crit chance as well as the discounts on metamagic feats.

I found no mention of how metamagics work with regard to SLAs in the Update 7 release notes I linked to. Is this info coming from another source? I did write the following in my original post:

"I wonder if Metamagic will still work on these, and if they still retain their material cost. I will assume they do. If so, using metamagic will not always be SP-efficient. A Level 3 SLA, for instance, is 6 vs. 20 (70% savings). If Extended, it becomes 16 vs 30 (~50% savings)."

Illusion must be recast if broken, so a shadow mage will get good mileage out of this.

Illusion? Do you mean Invisibility? Or Shadow Walk?

Cloud spells only give miss chance to enemies of the caster, so they're more useful than you think. Also Cloudkill is currently bugged and gives miss chance to enemies with True Seeing, including raid bosses.

I suppose I should try clouds more often, as I took the spell description of "Creatures" to mean anyone inside, regardless of affiliation.

Stoneskin clickies probably won't eat components.

It'd be fantastic if that were true, but considering how they specifically exempted Stoneskin from Eschew Materials metamagic I wouldn't be so sure. I'm amazed the wands don't also require Diamond Dust; I mean, seriously, talk about gimping an already weak feat -- but that's another topic.

In addition, you missed two fairly major points when analyzing the spells. Many of the picks that would be pretty reasonable as SLAs require you to spend 1 or 2 feats to boost DCs to the school, yet for many of the schools DCs don't matter at all. Sure, Resist Energy is a great spell to be able to cast on the cheap, but why would you ever want to take Spell Focus: Abjuration otherwise? Is it worth completely wasting 1 or 2 feats just to save some SP?

I kinda touched on it with:

"For the whole package, you're looking at being in the hole for -250 max SP, -15 AP, and down two feats."

It's an important point to be clear on, though, for sure, so good call. The thought had crossed my mind, but I didn't go into detail because I have not looked through the entirety of each school's arsenal to determine which +DCs are useless. For instance, most might think +DC to Conjuration would be useless on a Cleric, but in fact it would benefit Cometfall.

Knock is very worthwhile as an SLA as casting it repeatably is likely later in the game when you'll need a high roll in order to bust a lock.

How often does this really happen? Sure, once in a while you might need to throw down 10-20 knocks (which as an SLA will take a couple minutes due to the tripled cooldown), but realistically is this happening between every single shrine in every quest? That was my starting point in rating these spells. Keep in mind every quest, between every rest, you've front-loaded the cost of 5 Knocks.

Flesh to Stone is an excellent spell and is basically useful almost constantly after you first acquire it. Having it on the cheap is a big plus. Yes, it is not the ideal spell to be using in epics vs. most stuff, but casters are more likely to succumb to this than to Mass Hold. Again, handy transition...

Yeah, I can see what you mean, though I must also emphasize what I wrote:

"Verdict: Level 5 offers little of interest. The ratings suffer in particular because this level has the worst SP savings."

Considering what you have to do to even get those meager savings, it's a hard sell when no one is saying you can't use the normal F2S.

Hold Monster would be a must have if it weren't overshadowed by Mass Hold Monster, but even with that in mind, being able to hold stuff that didn't fail to your Mass Hold, or to hold single monsters when groups aren't around for a very cheap cost is excellent. Also, since Enchantment Focus is worth taking even for non-AMs, the stock of this SLA is pretty high.

I agree, Enchantment is one of the strongest lines here and benefits other useful spells beyond SLAs.

Chain Missile doesn't just hit a single target with one missile. It hits with the whole group and then sprouts additional damage to targets around it. It's not stellar as a single target attack, but it's pretty good. Again, however, there is the issue of Evocation Focus being somewhat of a waste.

I guess I wasn't explicit in my description:

"Chain Missile: If you like having aggro, this spell will give it to you. It is especially weak against a single target, as only one missile hits. Rating: Terrible choice."

By single target, I mean one target in the entire area. Really, only one missile hits. If there are other targets around, that's when you get all those pretty damage numbers, which is what I implied with "If you like having aggro..." This is a problem with any low-damage, multi-target spell.

Enervation is subject to SR, but I don't know why that would matter. Having a cheap Enervation is fantastic, and Necromancy Focus is a decent use of a feat, even if it doesn't apply to this.

You may be right about the SR bit. As I was doing research on all these spells, I could have sworn I read a relatively recent post from someone knowledgeable, like MrCow, stating that Enervate, unlike Energy Drain, was not subject to SR. Older posts say otherwise, but things could have changed. The compendium says otherwise, but the compendium has been wrong before. Now, looking back through my entire web history for the day, I cannot for the life of me find that post I referenced. =o\

[sephiroth1084]

I found no mention of how metamagics work with regard to SLAs in the Update 7 release notes I linked to. Is this info coming from another source? I did write the following in my original post:

"I wonder if Metamagic will still work on these, and if they still retain their material cost. I will assume they do. If so, using metamagic will not always be SP-efficient. A Level 3 SLA, for instance, is 6 vs. 20 (70% savings). If Extended, it becomes 16 vs 30 (~50% savings)."

The least you could do, if you're going to start an entirely new thread about a topic that already has half a dozen up, is do a little more research than simply reading the release notes and guessing at how spells you never use function.

The school SLAs (not Arcane Bolt and Blast) are affected by metamagics at no cost whatsoever. So, if you would normally be Maximizing, Empowering and Heightening a particular spell, that's 55+ SP saved just from removing the metamagic cost. Additionally, the SLAs do not require material components, including Stoneskin.

The other source(s) are people actually using the PrE on Lama and reporting their experience and findings, and from dev comments, all of which have been going on rather consistently for the past few weeks. While I have not personally played around with Archmage, I have read almost all of the threads on the subject, as perhaps should you.

How often does this really happen? Sure, once in a while you might need to throw down 10-20 knocks (which as an SLA will take a couple minutes due to the tripled cooldown), but realistically is this happening between every single shrine in every quest? That was my starting point in rating these spells. Keep in mind every quest, between every rest, you've front-loaded the cost of 5 Knocks.

While not in every quest, but if you run Epic Chains, Epic OoB, A New Invasion, The Shroud or several other quests that have a lot of locks that have some kind of DC, you'll be using Knock several times in each quest, and that's just at the end game. While leveling there are many places with locked doors and chests for which a cheap Knock would be useful.

[Crystalizer]

i like this prestige line, especially necromancy, enchantement and transmutation, so DC sensible schools
it opens the way to infinite spellcasting

[Lord_WC]

I don't agree with being resist energy/blur and these kind of buffs useful for archmage. The reason is simple, you wont get return on your investment:

Lets see lvl2 spells (i'm sorry to break it down again, but your calculations are incorrect OP):
Normally they cost 15sp and at lvl20 they last for 20 mins.
With archmage they cost 3 sp. Net saving is 12 sp. Cost is 75 sp + 50 sp for the spell mastery feat. All in all you throw out 125 max mana for 12sp saving/cast. So you should cast 11 lvl2 spells between 2 shrines to make it worthwhile. Moreover - and here is the problem - this 11 casts should be meaningful, so no fire/sonic resist in SOS cold room, not blurring summons, etc. etc. I'm trying to think hard for a situation when last I HAD to cast 11 resist energies all by myself on my arcane.

And as you are approaching higher level spells these savings dwindle. They are absolutely worthless from lvl4+ on buffs (even haste has a silly amount of needed minimum time between shrines to make it break even).

Their only saving grace is combat spells. These can be metad (your net savings will be much more) and will be cast numerous times. 3 spells stand out: magic missile, hypnotism and web.

Magic missile - Empowered, Maximized MM is nothing to sneeze about, it does 100ish damage for only 1 sp. It suffers from the 6s cooldown (cant help to compare with the sorc past life elemental ray which does absolutely insane damage compared to this), but certanly this is the spell which can damage the biggest variety of foes. You have to pick SF:Evocation for it, which I personally would never consider on a wizard.

Hypnotism: Heightened hypno is awesome. Stopping multiple foes for 1 sp is a great thing. The 6s cooldown is bearable for this too. You need SF:Enchantment which is a solid choice for end game.

Web: A heightened web sounds good, and anyone who casted one ever know how effective it is. But taking a SF:Conjuration and the archmage spell mastery is not the best idea, you really would be a one-trick pony (and while I would LOVE to have 1sp grease, I think I'm mostly alone with this).

As per the above seriously I would only consider taking SF:Enchantment, GSF:Enchantment, Spell Mastery I, II, Hypnotism and grab my 250 bonus max sp if I can fit in the AP. But I still have my doubts about this and somehow feel that a PrE-less wizard is still the best wizard.

[Crystalizer]

...As per the above seriously I would only consider taking SF:Enchantment, GSF:Enchantment, Spell Mastery I, II, Hypnotism and grab my 250 bonus max sp if I can fit in the AP. But I still have my doubts about this and somehow feel that a PrE-less wizard is still the best wizard.

very much depends on your playstyle indeed, at least it brings variety in builds

[seobanio]

Thanks for taking a look at archmage and posting a breakdown!

I have a couple of comments about your spell descriptions (below), but you did a nice job on the posts.

Level 3

Chain Missile: If you like having aggro, this spell will give it to you. It is especially weak against a single target, as only one missile hits. Rating: Terrible choice.
I actually think this is a great choice, and probably the one damage spell listed I would love to be able to spam the most. Wizzy's should always have one force spell mem'd, because some things are going to be resistant to most of your other spells. Not sure what the aggro comment means, lots of spells do damage to targets within an area, so this spell shouldn't be impacting your aggro anymore than firewall or chain lightning does.

Level 4

Fire Shield: Like Shield, being only self-cast limits how often you will need to cast it. Rating: Meh choice.
Depending on how often you get hit, perma-fire shield could be really nice. Especially once you get torc/conc-opp going, those two with fireshield combo and being in the thick of things works well.

Level 5

Flesh to Stone: An excellent spell in any quest with targets you don't want to kill (spiders in that Vale quest, Silver Flame soldiers in that Necro 4 quest). Aside from those instances, I cannot recommend taking this normally, let alone as a SLA. You would need to be constantly using it to justify the investment. By level 18 you have far, far better options. Rating: Poor choice.
Flesh to stone would be a nice choice mainly because FOD isn't on the list. FTS doesn't usually make sense against targets you want to kill because with heighten on its spell point cost will be almost identical to FOD (depending on what enhancements you have). they also run off the same save, so thats why you don't see a lot of casters stoning things. However, with the ability to spam this for less sp you would see it start to make more sense.
Having said that, I'm not sure its worth it with the current archmage setup, just pointing out that it could be very useful if the sp/feat/ap costs get changed.

[Lord_WC]

very much depends on your playstyle indeed, at least it brings variety in builds

True, and I'm all out for that. This was my personal oppinion.

What I would really loved to see instead of this is that every school/spell has different max sp cost/casting cost depending on general usefulness and spell type (all buffs for 1-5sp, combat spells a bit more, maybe 1+level sp for buffs or 1+2*level for damage spells or something).

I'd love to see not Necro/Enchantment specs all around. But my racionalist side is screaming if I try to make a new kind: -It simply doesn't work.

And that's why it is a sad attempt to bring more variety, yet a good first step. If they could introduce more spells that would make wizards more spell slot feel DIFFERENT to a sorc (Hey, me can has this fancy spell on lvl6 and you don't bwahahahaha), and changing the possible SLAs make this class useful.

But honestly now the game is all about 2 spellschools (1 if you care about epics). And I'd like to see it change.

And my reason for not liking this PrE is that I fail to see a reason why to pick a wiz over a sorc. And this PrE didn't change it.

[Riorik]

In addition, you missed two fairly major points when analyzing the spells. Many of the picks that would be pretty reasonable as SLAs require you to spend 1 or 2 feats to boost DCs to the school, yet for many of the schools DCs don't matter at all.

Stuff like this was part of my own analysis. Archmage, as implemented by Turbine, looks a bit more like a Specialist than an arcane Master of Magic. Frankly, the Wizard capstone is probably a better fit than nearly all of what's been proposed.

I think you suggested this in a later post but I think dropping the spell focus requirement entirely is a good beginning. The DC bonus should probably be for *all* schools and possibly limited to a maximum of +1 instead of the current +2.

From there, I'm not sure. Being able to grab *just* enervation & flesh-to-stone seems like a pretty sweet deal, for example. Perhaps too good?

[Hercanic]

The least you could do, if you're going to start an entirely new thread about a topic that already has half a dozen up, is do a little more research than simply reading the release notes and guessing at how spells you never use function.

The school SLAs (not Arcane Bolt and Blast) are affected by metamagics at no cost whatsoever. So, if you would normally be Maximizing, Empowering and Heightening a particular spell, that's 55+ SP saved just from removing the metamagic cost. Additionally, the SLAs do not require material components, including Stoneskin.

The other source(s) are people actually using the PrE on Lama and reporting their experience and findings, and from dev comments, all of which have been going on rather consistently for the past few weeks. While I have not personally played around with Archmage, I have read almost all of the threads on the subject, as perhaps should you.

Wow, I'd love to assume positive intentions, but you're really coming across as condescending here. I did not just spend the better part of today putting this all together, doing research, calculations, and what have you, to be snidely told over a single point that the least I could have done is read and know every last little thing. Sorry, but no, I'm not perfect and don't know everything. There are likely to be mistakes, things I missed. I will happily correct them when they're pointed out.

If you want to help, give me data, links, something tangible, not bull about what I should and should not do with my time.

The least you could do, if you're going to start an entirely new thread about a topic that already has half a dozen up…

I started this as a post for my guild, but thought the general DDO public might appreciate seeing the results. I did not, and still do not, see any of these half dozen other threads you say exist about the Archmage, done in a similar manner that I approached ("Give us some clues about the Archmage!" is the only thread, and a massive one at that, on the first page here, and I wouldn't say it's similar) or in Lamannia Discussion ("Arcane Bolt/Blast Question" is the first related topic I see, on the second page -- how far back should I go before I'm allowed to post my own thread?). A Google search turns up too much irrelevant information, from the Archmage set items to other sites parroting the Lamannia release notes.

Now, I don't doubt that these threads probably exist, somewhere, but they aren't exactly on the front page either. If you know about them, you could help by providing links. If you don't have links handy, and I can't find them, then we're at a bit of an impasse, no?

While not in every quest, but if you run Epic Chains, Epic OoB, A New Invasion, The Shroud or several other quests that have a lot of locks that have some kind of DC, you'll be using Knock several times in each quest, and that's just at the end game. While leveling there are many places with locked doors and chests for which a cheap Knock would be useful.

Is this why Rogues are rarely accepted into high-level groups?

By Shroud, do you mean the locked levers that open the puzzle barriers? What else are you using your mana for in there?

[sephiroth1084]

Stuff like this was part of my own analysis. Archmage, as implemented by Turbine, looks a bit more like a Specialist than an arcane Master of Magic. Frankly, the Wizard capstone is probably a better fit than nearly all of what's been proposed.

Well, the Archmage PrC from PnP was necessarily a specialist after a fashion, though the PrE requirements here are much steeper than in PnP (Skill Focus: Spellcraft--junk, and 2 Spell Focus feats plus ranks in relevant skills vs. 4 Spell Focus feats and Mental Toughness, and costly ranks in rather pointless enhancements)

I think you suggested this in a later post but I think dropping the spell focus requirement entirely is a good beginning. The DC bonus should probably be for *all* schools and possibly limited to a maximum of +1 instead of the current +2.

From there, I'm not sure. Being able to grab *just* enervation & flesh-to-stone seems like a pretty sweet deal, for example. Perhaps too good?

Well, I don't know about dropping Spell Focus entirely, but offering some alternatives for stuff like Abjuration, which has, what?, 2 spells in the whole school worth improving the DC on would be a good change.

Or allowing just Spell Focus to grant access to all the features of one spell school, rather than also requiring Greater Spell Focus, which ramps the feat requirements up to ridiculous.

If the PrE cost was 3 feats (2 spell focus feats and MT) it wouldn't be as problematic as it is now.

As for being able to grab just Enervation, as an example, you'd still have to get Archmage I-IV, and possibly the DC-boosting portion as well, plus spend 2 or 3 feats. That seems like a reasonable cost, particularly since casting Enervation as an SLA isn't free and it benefits less from being an SLA since there are no metamagics that frequently get applied to the spell (Quicken and maybe Enlarge being the exceptions).

If you want to help, give me data, links, something tangible, not bull about what I should and should not do with my time.



I started this as a post for my guild, but thought the general DDO public might appreciate seeing the results. I did not, and still do not, see any of these half dozen other threads you say exist about the Archmage, done in a similar manner that I approached ("Give us some clues about the Archmage!" is the only thread, and a massive one at that, on the first page here, and I wouldn't say it's similar) or in Lamannia Discussion ("Arcane Bolt/Blast Question" is the first related topic I see, on the second page -- how far back should I go before I'm allowed to post my own thread?). A Google search turns up too much irrelevant information, from the Archmage set items to other sites parroting the Lamannia release notes.


Now, I don't doubt that these threads probably exist, somewhere, but they aren't exactly on the front page either. If you know about them, you could help by providing links. If you don't have links handy, and I can't find them, then we're at a bit of an impasse, no?

There is a Search function on all of the DDO forums pages. Type in Archmage, check the first post and do a quick scroll down to see if anything useful is being said.

These are just the threads on the Lama forums that have some relevant information.
Would a Dev Mind Addressing Archmage Concerns?
Review of Archmage
Archmage is too Expensive
Archmage - bugs
Archmage impressions
Arcane Bolt and Blast can be metad?
An interesting thing I noticed about the Archmage at-wills

Yeah, the Give Us Some Clues thread is massive, but it does have a lot of relevant information in it, though reading through the whole thing is a pain in the ass. My point, however, wasn't simply that you didn't research Archmage, it was that you don't seem all that familiar with the stuff we've had to work with for years, namely wizard spells.

Several of your comments indicate that you either didn't use spells that you were analyzing, or that you've never paid any attention to how they function. Have you ever tried using Enervation in Amrath? Have you ever tried using a fog spell, or seen anyone else use one?

That is my issue here. That if a dev comes and reads this while they are poking around to see people's impressions of Archmage, most of what appears here may be written off as coming from someone who doesn't have enough experience playing wizards to present informed opinions and facts.

By Shroud, do you mean the locked levers that open the puzzle barriers? What else are you using your mana for in there?

Well, unless I'm on empty I usually run right into Shroud 3 to start solving and Knocking, and it's nice to be able to do that without having to take a dip, but I'll concede that Shroud 3 was not the best example. The other points stand.

As for rogues, the point of Knock is to give the group flexibility. If there is a rogue present it is irrelevant, clearly, but if not, it is very useful.