AM Build Questions

[Autolycus]

I'm looking to try out a wizard and would like to create a WF Evoker/Enchanter Archmage. I'm considering a pure 20 Wiz, an 18/2 Wiz/Rog, and an 18/2 Wiz/Monk but I have a few questions. I'm thinking 18 INT, 16 Con, 16 STR.

If I splash Rog or Mnk, will my reflex save be good enough to benefit from Evasion?

Thoughts on Rog .vs. Mnk splash?

Thoughts on pure .vs. splash?

Can anyone recommend good builds for the above options?

[Cardtrick]

I'm looking to try out a wizard and would like to create a WF Evoker/Enchanter Archmage. I'm considering a pure 20 Wiz, an 18/2 Wiz/Rog, and an 18/2 Wiz/Monk but I have a few questions. I'm thinking 18 INT, 16 Con, 16 STR.

If I splash Rog or Mnk, will my reflex save be good enough to benefit from Evasion?

Thoughts on Rog .vs. Mnk splash?

Thoughts on pure .vs. splash?

Can anyone recommend good builds for the above options?

A wizard is going to have an extremely high Int. This influences your answers:

1) Your base reflex save will be very bad. People building evasion wizards take the "Insightful Reflexes" feat. If you take this, your reflex save will be plenty good enough for evasion. In fact, this is the primary reason people build 18/2 splash wizards.

2) Rogue is the standard splash. Both Rogue 2 and Monk 2 will give you evasion. Monk will give you better AC (worthless, since your AC will be nonexistent anyway), stances (none very helpful to a wiz), a free feat (toughness is useful!), and better unarmed fighting (useless on a wizard, at least after the first couple of levels). Rogue will give you sneak attack (useless), a few weapon proficiencies and light armor proficiency (useless, at least after the first couple of levels), and rogue skills. Rogue skills are very useful to soloers, and a warforged arcane is an excellent soloer. A warforged wiz 18/rogue 2 is almost completely self-sufficient. Wizards, again because of that high Int, can take full advantage of these skills. It's possible for a properly geared wiz 18/rogue 2 to handle any trap or lock in the game. Most importantly, you will be able to reach a high UMD score.

3) A pure wizard will have higher DCs at end game. They will be more effective in epics, especially. A rogue/wizard will be more survivable, easier to level, and a better soloer. It's really up to you -- there are advantages to each. I don't personally think a monk/wizard brings enough to the table to be worthwhile.

4) For a pure wizard, a recent example build is here. It's worth reading the whole thread to get a sense of people's suggestions and why the build ended up like it did. The "classic" wiz/rogue is SigTrent's Arcane Archeologist, but it was made pre-Archmage. A more recent thread, by the same author as the first one, can be found here -- again, read the whole thing to get an idea of the tradeoffs and see other peoples' suggestions, as it's not perfect. In particular, that build would be better with a true neutral alignment.

[sephiroth1084]

You will get enough Reflex to make Evasion worthwhile if you take Insightful Reflexes. If not, it will be mostly useless. With IR, by the way, you'll be able to get a pretty significant Reflex save (comparably to that of a rogue's).

To elaborate, I consider this to be an almost necessary feat even on my non-Evasion wizard. It's that good.

[Autolycus]

A wizard is going to have an extremely high Int. This influences your answers:

1) Your base reflex save will be very bad. People building evasion wizards take the "Insightful Reflexes" feat. If you take this, your reflex save will be plenty good enough for evasion. In fact, this is the primary reason people build 18/2 splash wizards.

2) Rogue is the standard splash. Both Rogue 2 and Monk 2 will give you evasion. Monk will give you better AC (worthless, since your AC will be nonexistent anyway), stances (none very helpful to a wiz), a free feat (toughness is useful!), and better unarmed fighting (useless on a wizard, at least after the first couple of levels). Rogue will give you sneak attack (useless), a few weapon proficiencies and light armor proficiency (useless, at least after the first couple of levels), and rogue skills. Rogue skills are very useful to soloers, and a warforged arcane is an excellent soloer. A warforged wiz 18/rogue 2 is almost completely self-sufficient. Wizards, again because of that high Int, can take full advantage of these skills. It's possible for a properly geared wiz 18/rogue 2 to handle any trap or lock in the game. Most importantly, you will be able to reach a high UMD score.

3) A pure wizard will have higher DCs at end game. They will be more effective in epics, especially. A rogue/wizard will be more survivable, easier to level, and a better soloer. It's really up to you -- there are advantages to each. I don't personally think a monk/wizard brings enough to the table to be worthwhile.

4) For a pure wizard, a recent example build is here. It's worth reading the whole thread to get a sense of people's suggestions and why the build ended up like it did. The "classic" wiz/rogue is SigTrent's Arcane Archeologist, but it was made pre-Archmage. A more recent thread, by the same author as the first one, can be found here -- again, read the whole thing to get an idea of the tradeoffs and see other peoples' suggestions, as it's not perfect. In particular, that build would be better with a true neutral alignment.

+1 Great reply. It addressed all my questions.

One thing in your reply I'm confused about though. I thought 2 Monk levels granted 2 extra feats, not 1?

[sephiroth1084]

+1 Great reply. It addressed all my questions.

One thing in your reply I'm confused about though. I thought 2 Monk levels granted 2 extra feats, not 1?

It's 2, but I'm not sure what feats you could take that would be useful to a wizard other than Toughness...

[Autolycus]

You will get enough Reflex to make Evasion worthwhile if you take Insightful Reflexes. If not, it will be mostly useless. With IR, by the way, you'll be able to get a pretty significant Reflex save (comparably to that of a rogue's).

To elaborate, I consider this to be an almost necessary feat even on my non-Evasion wizard. It's that good.

Thanks for the insight. I'm usually on my cleric for my guild so I don't have any chars with Evasion yet.

BTW, how important, if at all, is UMD for a Wizard?

[Autolycus]

It's 2, but I'm not sure what feats you could take that would be useful to a wizard other than Toughness...

Thanks. I haven't played a Monk yet, so I'm not familiar with their list of "free" feat choices.

[Feithlin]

Thanks for the insight. I'm usually on my cleric for my guild so I don't have any chars with Evasion yet.

BTW, how important, if at all, is UMD for a Wizard?

Perhaps not that much on a WF, but extremely usefull with a fleshy, because it will open up self healing up to heal scroll use. For a PM, it will allow you to use inflict wounds/harm wands/scrolls.
Now that FoM and DW scrolls are available, it will allow you to get those very usefull buffs when soloing.
Aside from that, there are the usual aptitude to wear RR items.

[sephiroth1084]

Thanks for the insight. I'm usually on my cleric for my guild so I don't have any chars with Evasion yet.

BTW, how important, if at all, is UMD for a Wizard?

You don't really have anything else to spend your skill points on.

I tend to max Balance, UMD, Concentration, then play around. Hide and Move Silently if you like sneaking, a little Jump (about 5 ranks) to max it out with the spell + other buffs. Swim for convenience/Crucible. Haggle.

Basically, you have GH available, may be making a greensteel SP item at some point that may well have +5 to +6 Cha skills on it anyway, and haven't really got anything better to spend points in. Max UMD. At worst, you get to equip some otherwise restricted gear, while at best you get to use Heal scrolls.

[sephiroth1084]

Now that FoM and DW scrolls are available,

Where?

[Cartheron]

3) A pure wizard will have higher DCs at end game. They will be more effective in epics, especially. A rogue/wizard will be more survivable, easier to level, and a better soloer. It's really up to you -- there are advantages to each. I don't personally think a monk/wizard brings enough to the table to be worthwhile.

I can not agree that 18/2 wf wiz will be better soloer than pure wiz, it is not true. As a splash, you will get your seplls 1 or 2 levels later, that really impact leveling speed and comfort (especially getting wall of fire, reconstruct and wail of the banshee earlier makes your life much easier). Traps are mostly irrelevant, they can be either avoided by careful jumping or polain ignored - elemental resistances, protection, high hp and excelent self healing let you ignore 99% of them.

Truth is it is a tradeoff between earlier spells and evasion - I think that evasion is great, but as WF wiz you can dodge/survive/heal everything that you would avoid by evasion.

Both builds are great soloists and both are hard to kill, which one is better is a matter of personal preference and game style.

[sephiroth1084]

Evasion definitely makes for a stronger soloist. If you wait on Rogue 2 until after you gain firewall, you haven't offset your spell level to dungeon level ratio too much as far as power goes, mostly because firewall rules nearly all content.

You delay Recon for 2 levels, but you can use Recon scrolls, which cover most of the situations you'd need the healing in at that point.

Evasion, though, is doing more than saving you from traps: it's saving you from Cometfall and such as well.

[Feithlin]

Where?

Got my DW scrolls from random chests and my FoM scroll as a reward from one of the plaza collectors.

[sephiroth1084]

Got my DW scrolls from random chests and my FoM scroll as a reward from one of the plaza collectors.

That doesn't really count as being "available."

[Feithlin]

That doesn't really count as being "available."

Still better than when there was none, but granted, you won't use one in every quest. It's quite useful for some specific occasions though.

[sephiroth1084]

Still better than when there was none, but granted, you won't use one in every quest. It's quite useful for some specific occasions though.

When were there none? When did these supposedly start dropping? I feel like I've come across DW and FoM scrolls for a long time.

If they were dropping as wands, that would be a different story, since one wand could be good for several quests, but scrolls in 1s and 2s? Hardly useful.

[Cartheron]

Evasion definitely makes for a stronger soloist. If you wait on Rogue 2 until after you gain firewall, you haven't offset your spell level to dungeon level ratio too much as far as power goes, mostly because firewall rules nearly all content.

You delay Recon for 2 levels, but you can use Recon scrolls, which cover most of the situations you'd need the healing in at that point.

Evasion, though, is doing more than saving you from traps: it's saving you from Cometfall and such as well.

1. You DO offset your spell levels - all other things aside, wail and mass hold at 17 compared to 19 is a big difference.

2. You loose 1 feat to get evasion, which makes taking insightful reflexes more painful, you have to sacrifice something (spell pen or DC) to get this.

3. My PM pure wizard have similar reflex save as 18/2 splash AM thanks to 4 more int. In non epic content I usually pass all reflex saves (with exception of some elite traps, but they still can't kill me if I am careful so why bother). I hardly notice damage from spells on passed saves - elemental resist gives really nice protection, and cometfalls are 1. easy to avoid. 2. Not so dangerous on passed save.

4. On a failed save you will take full dmg from cometfall and be knocked down, evasion or not.

5. Having stronger instakill (higher DC) earlier (lev 13 and 17, not 15 and 19) let you just kill mobs casting those spells before they will hurt you.

6. You really want to convince me that 15/2 splash will solo vale quests better that pure 17 wiz? Splash won't kill mobs in Running with 1 dbf, splash won't wail anything, splash will have to use firewall instead. And splash's devil slaying arsenal without wail is much weaker. To what use splash will put evasion and trapsmithing there? IQ quest are a joke for both builds, and in Amrath splash will suffer from lower DC and spell pen.

7. I am not saying that evasion splash is useless or a weak soloer. I am just saying that it has some disadvantages you have to consider before splashing. Both builds will solo exceptionaly well. Neither is better, just both have some advantages and disadvantages. It all depends of your gamestyle and personal preferences.

PS. Almost every locked doors that gives additional xp can be knocked (I managed to knock optional doors in elite Desacrated Temple of Vol at lev 17 without using my +3 exceptional int GS), so only xp gaining advantage of a splash is disarming traps, which is nice but takes time, you could use that time to run q again or run some other q, I will call both aproaches equal.