Archmage - how many 1st tier SLAs can you get?

[dougnugget]

Hi,

I've been looking at the Archmage enhancement info on the DDO wiki, with a view to levelling my first ever Wizard toon.

It looks as though the first tier of each SLA chain only requires the Spell Focus feat for the school in question, and doesn't require the relevant Archmage spell mastery enhancement.

So in theory, I could buy Magic Missile and Hypnosis as SLAs at Lvl 6 (despite only having one of them as my designated Archmage school) and by Lvl 9 - if I swap my mastery school to Conjuration - I could have Web (as this is a 2nd tier ability, it requires mastery) and still keep Magic Missile and Hypnosis (as non-mastery tier 1 SLAs)

Of course, I would need 3 feats for spell focus, but by Lvl 9 I could have 7 (normal feats at lvl 1,3,6 & 9, class feats at 1 & 5 and human bonus feat), which would still leave room for toughness, mental toughness, extend, maximize - biggest loss there is probably heighten

Has anyone actually tried this in practice, and if so does it work? Would love to know this before I start grinding Waterworks and Kobold's New Ringleader again (yes, I'm an altaholic...)

Thanks in advance,

- doug

[Trillea]

Yes, you can have as many 1st lvl SLAs as you have Spell Focus feats chosen. Whether this is WAI or not is yet to be seen, but it works for now.

[Xaearth]

biggest loss there is probably heighten

No. Just no.

1) Blowing a feat on spell DC to a single school over max spell level DC on all schools is... a poor choice
2) Dropping heighten for SLAs that are useless without it... that's just plain stupid

Edit:
Erp... nevermind, was reading like you weren't planning to take Heighten, not postpone it till a later level. Carry on.

[Eladrin]

Yes, you can have as many 1st lvl SLAs as you have Spell Focus feats chosen. Whether this is WAI or not is yet to be seen, but it works for now.

It is intentional. The costs of generalizing are pretty steep, since you'll need Spell Focus for each school you want.

[Trillea]

It is intentional. The costs of generalizing are pretty steep, since you'll need Spell Focus for each school you want.

Cool. Yes, the cost is there, but I am glad that you gave the choice. Thanks for the really quick feedback!

[dougnugget]

Thanks to all for the very quick responses.

Actually, since that was dealt with so quickly, for anyone who is still reading, advice on filling out the rest of the feat slots is most welcome! I'm thinking Heighten, Empower, Quicken, Spell Penetration & Greater Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Focus to qualify for the extra Archmage tiers.

Or I could just stop at tier 2 archmage and save a lot of enhancement points - I get the feeling that the higher tiers are less cost-effective. This also means that I could use the same build on a non-human caster as I no longer need Greater Spell Focus.

Can anyone pick any major holes in this? Or suggest which feats should be taken earlier?

Thanks again,

- doug

[Jaid314]

i dunno. i'd take it up to 4 at least, get the second focus in your primary school.

[dougnugget]

I suppose I'm wondering whether getting Spell Mastery II is worth spending an extra feat on (for greater focus) - I'm not convinced that the 4th and 5th tier SLAs are that good value for money, although the +2 to DCs (1 for greater focus, 1 for mastery) may actually be the best part of the deal - I can see the value of that in Enchantment or Evocation. Think I'll give it a try (besides, it will be a long time before I have to worry about selecting my high-level feats!)

Again, thanks all for the responses, really helpful.

- doug

[Jaid314]

I suppose I'm wondering whether getting Spell Mastery II is worth spending an extra feat on (for greater focus) - I'm not convinced that the 4th and 5th tier SLAs are that good value for money, although the +2 to DCs (1 for greater focus, 1 for mastery) may actually be the best part of the deal - I can see the value of that in Enchantment or Evocation. Think I'll give it a try (besides, it will be a long time before I have to worry about selecting my high-level feats!)

Again, thanks all for the responses, really helpful.

- doug

for the most part, only a tiny handful of the spell-likes are worth taking at all. most of the ones worth taking are level one or two, in fact.

so definitely, ignore the SLAs for archmage 4, just grab tier 4 and your bonus to save DC, and then quit while you're ahead.

[GuruWarrior]

I agree, most of the SLA's are meh. Decent spells, but not worth the cost to obtain. I did a breakeven analysis to see how many would I have to cast to justify the initial cost in SP to aquire it. Since the casting cost savings goes down as you progress through 1-5 (90%, 80%, 70%, 60%, 50%) The breakeven was about 3, 4, 5, 7, 8. IOW, you had to cast Hypno at least 3 times between shrines to justify its cost. But you had to cast Hold Monster at least 8 times. Any less and you're losing SP on the deal. So the higher level SLA's were not as attractive. Plus it's not cafeteria style. You have to pick a school, then take the SLA's sequentially. I'd love to spam Haste for 6 SP, but I don't want spend the AP's and SP's on Jump and Knock first.

For the SP you get, though, Arch I-V is a good value. I decided to give up Quicken and Improved Mental Toughness for Spell Focus and GSF. My Wiz18/Rog2 is more CC than nuke, so I usually don't have aggro. And the 225 SP from Arch III-V made up for the 95 lost from IMT.

Which school to go with? I thought about Necromancy to help with spells like Wail, FOD, etc.. But, I went with Enchantment to help with CC. The +4 DC from the two feats and the two school masteries I thought would be helpful.

After much deliberation and several iterations, I settled on Archmage I-V, Spell Mastery Enchantment I & II, Hypno SLA, Arcane Bolt & Blast. We'll see how the Bolt and Blast work out. With some Force Manipulation enhancements they could do some good damage for the SP cost. Plus, as far as I know, metamagics affect them without increasing SP cost. I like the idea of Heightened Hypno for 1 SP. And Max/Empowerd Bolt and Blast for In the end, by not taking all the SLA's, I end up with 200 more SP than before I went Archmage.

Let me know what you all think about this.

Afterthought: I had this amusing image of entering a room of mobs, casting hypno, then force blast, then hypno, then force blast. It would be like a deadly game of Red Light - Green Light.

[dougnugget]

Just reporting back on my progress with this. I'm now at level 6 and had taken the following feats:

Lvl 1 - Extend, Toughness, Mental Toughness
Lvl 3 - Maximize
Lvl 5 - Spell Focus (Evocation)
Lvl 6 - Spell Focus (Enchantment)

I was just able to buy the 1pt Magic Missile and 1pt Hypno, although it was very tight on my APs. Haven't yet taken any spell masteries, just the SLAs, which also means that I have more SPs than I started with.

I must say I am very happy with the results, as I normally solo, I used to concentrate on using my SP for direct damege, but having CC available for just 1SP means I am using it a lot and liking it a lot. Was very useful when running Tangleroot.

I had originally planned to take Spell Focus: conjuration at Lvl 9, but I think I will probably take Empower instead, for the extra bump to my Magic Missile Damage (and Arcane Bolt, I believe this will also take enhancements). Also, I'm thinking 3 schools may be spreading myself too thin, and the +1 to DCs look to be more attractive for Evocation and Enchantment than they do with Conjuration. I could have taken Empower earlier, but would have had to lose Toughness and I didn't want to go down that route.

Again, thanks to all who gave advice - I have spread as much rep as I can in the last 24hrs, but will come back and spread some more!

Regards,

Doug

[Jaid314]

conjuration: web is amazing, it gives you an AOE crowd-control effect that can force multiple saves until it works, and they don't drop out when you damage them. glitterdust is also not always completely useless, cloudkill can be nice, and trap the soul, well, you probably don't want to lose out on the material component, they're expensive enough as-is :P

oh, and neither arcane bolt or arcane blast benefit from metamagics. your magic missiles will though.