Savant Prestige Information

[bobbryan2]

since the momment wizard got 5 bonus feat while u didn't ...

Not saying that sroc can't ahve high dcs ... in fact i have 41 dc enchantment unbuffed yet it IS the forte of wizards since they have more feats to spend ... like it or hate it that's how it is

All those feats are available to sorcs. Wizards don't have to specialize... but sorcs should be able to hit the same numbers.

[Madryoch]

"On top" meaning "better off than we currently are". I submit the current PrC (together with the other changes) barely leaves us the same or possibly a bit weaker than we are without any changes at all.

Secondly, being able to do more damage than an arch mage is amusing, but a pointless measurement. Unless the damage I can contribute to the party throughout the quest AND throughout the end boss fight is about that of a fully epic twinked melee (provided the caster is also epic gear'd - ofc we don't actually HAVE any good caster epic gear that helps us in any real way to do more damage..) then I am nothing more than a waste of a party slot, unless I can crowd control or do other stuff the melees can't.

Currently the bard can haste, buff, and DPS, and in a pinch fill the healer spot, and you could run entire epics like chains with fascinate way before hold monster was useful.



Yep...

Sure would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.

Uhm .... When my Polar ray hits for 800+ damage with eardweller and i can cast it , cycle it with freezing sphere for a 650 and and frost lance and repeat i believe my damage for as long as i can sustain that FAR surpasses any melee damage (Notice i didn't calculate criticals which would make my damage go over the top)... Oki now ... consider this.... This damage i deal now without:

10% extra damage from cold line,
over 20% increase in polar ray base damage
20% increase in base damage of freezing sphere
75% damage boost from stacked curse on boss
15-20 points of piercing resistance resulting from 15-60 points of extra damage depending on the spell i use mentioned above...

compare these numbers to a melee of ur choice for their damage dealt in 4 seconds (cooldown of polar ray and duration of a cycle of these spells)

Then tell me again ... who deals more damage me or the melee?

[wolfy42]

So...it's good for Drow-sorcs in high-level guilds with the first two feats being Spell Focus: Conjuration and Heighten?

While I don't doubt that that's true, is all that focus on one spell really worth it for only a few levels?

And, why not take Empower or Maximize first to pump up the more reliable spells?


The 1 SP cast would probably be worth using though, just because it's so cheap.

I still need to catch up on replies since the page this response was on, but didn't want to lose it in the flood in this thread so I'm replying now. Sorry if someone already covered this.

The numbers I posted was for an 18 cha which any race can reach except WF and HO. Humans and Drow could reach a higher number.

Yes, you need a decent level (not exactly high) guild to get all of the bonuses (need +2 stat bonuses and the DC bonuses) but it's only 10% difference if you do not have it. That could have an effect though it's true.

For a human (which I was suggesting due to the extra feat which lets you take Maximize & spell focus conjuration at 1, Empower at level 3 and Heighten at level 6 when it will start to matter (And can be used for free with your Niacs).

For the most part a 25 dc will hit everything even on elite 95% of the time in quests pre level 10 (with some exceptions). It's not that hard to get a 25 DC...and honestly your going to want a high DC anyway for other spells. Not that much different then trying to hit the DC for CC etc on enemies.

I was even going light on equipment bonuses etc, no +2 tome at level 7, no past life bonuses etc. Add any of that in and yeah, no problem hitting with Niacs. With free Heighten going your DC is going to stay relevant to all other spells with Niacs as you level up...the only difference is ALL monsters count as having evasion when you cast it...but honestly your already going to be trying to beat enemies saves so it's not a huge deal.

Niacs can EASILY be relevant and very worthwhile till level 12 without having to take greater spell focus (you probably never would as a sorc...need other feats too much). Heck even a WF sorc can reach a high DC (2 less then a human...but still high).

Huge difference between a character with wizard past lives, access to a +2 tome at level 7 and a decent guild and a brand new player it's true....but Niacs is still a very cost efficient and useful spell. I've used it many times along with firewall throughout the early to mid levels and having an extra Niacs that costs only 1 sp...with heighten, max and empower going is going to be awesome for leveling up early on. Might even be worth it to just stick with water from 12-18 if it didn't thrash your firewall damage so much.

Funny thing is once your level 12 y ou could STILL use Niacs as a fire savant because the -6 CL would only drop you down to CL 6...which still casts a maxed normal Niacs....so even as a fire savant you could still use Niacs if you really wanted. Since you wouldn't need a +dc evocation item and web is nice to have a +dc conjuration item on for anyway....it would almost make sense to do so (Except the fire and ice enhancements are being seperated so you'd have to boost them both....and honestly once you have scorching ray there isn't much point to casting Niacs (should be mentioned though that Niacs would be far better then frost lance at that point due to the negative caster levels) unless against fire type enemies.

Niacs though will compare favorably to Scorching Ray (and it's a level 1 spell costing only 1 sp vs 3 sp for SR). Both act almost identical when used (one being fire, the other cold of course) with the biggest difference between the two being SR has no save.

A fire savant could cast SRs at 3 sp each and burning hands for large groups at 1 sp each.

A Water savant could cast Niacs at 1 sp each and snowball at 3 sp each. It's kinda like a reverse order in a way heh.

Anyway I've played way to many wizards and sorcs up and Niacs is certainly a viable spell through the early to mid levels and not totallly worthless (with heighten and everything else for free) at the high levels.

It certainly will make mincemeat out of normal difficulty quests allowing sorcs to obliterate most non-undead quests with their eyes closed.

[Madryoch]

All those feats are available to sorcs. Wizards don't have to specialize... but sorcs should be able to hit the same numbers.

The fact that they are available to u and me doesn't make u an ideal DC caster ... If u want to be one sure u could even get completionist and get up to 42 enchantment dc at the expense of damage ...

Also for the record u ll never get the same dcs as a pure wizard .... Due to PRE bonuses and Capstone ... they can have 2 to 4 extra dcs than u provided both wizard and sorc carry similar quality gear ...

u don't NEED Greater spell penetration ... u don't NEED toughness ...
If they are useful ? yes ... NEEDED ? .... no
I said so many times ... Mass hold ignores SR and while people complain bout their Spell resistance issues without spell pen that adds +2 to checks to overcome SR vs drows ... that's a stupid argument cause it only makes 1 spell out of 10 to not work ... If u already had a minimal chance to succeed on something then it's not a reliable method anyway ...
For example : If 2 out of 10 spells of urs land on drow due to spell resistance ... well find something else to use against em cause that's not reliable a method to use obviously ...

As Human i currently have

Empower
Maximize
Extend
Heighten
Past Life Wizard
Past Life Bard
Spell Focus enchantment
Greater Spell Focus Enchantment

well i know i ll switch Greater Spell Focus and get and evocation focus feat ...

And before u call me squishy i ll tell u i have unbuffed 360hp without exceptional con +2 item or greensteel hp item ...

Finally if i succeed in holding stuff with 41 Unbuffed DC ... what make it so hard for u to get a yugo pot (i mean it's relatively easy to get access to em) and have the same after sacrificing 1 point of DC

Now if u want to argue with me with the ... ''Not every sorc is as geared as u are to be able to do that ...'' Then i ll tell u it's not a class issue ... it's more of an effort issue or luck of finding the right scrolls and stuff call it what u will ... It is MEANT that it's harder for us to attain that high DCs.

These are solutions i could think for ur sorc

[Solmage]

I disagree with this. [....] And a caster will always deal more damage than a twinked out melee, at least so long as they have sp. The issue usually comes down to running out of mana,

Ahh, this is why you're disagreeing. You should be aware that a sorcerer mana dumping (casting as fast as possible cycling through any spell not on timer) does quite a bit less damage than a top-of-the-line melee.

Of course, those are kind of rare, and an average caster will do more damage than many a melee while he has mana, so I do understand where this perception comes from. Just because I can pull aggro from 80% of the melees out there does not mean I don't know I don't come even close to the real melee.

For S&G try this: Find a devil boss, an intimitank, a bard, and one of your server's top DPS melees. Measure how much damage the melee does in 60 seconds by measuring the red-bar (can be done with screenshots) while fully buffed and getting full sneak attack, like they would in any non-tanking raid scenario. Now reset the encounter and try it with a sorcerer. You can use haste to time both tries. It is an eye opener

Then after you have done all of that, now imagine what your damage will be when instead of mana dumping you're only allowed to toss SLAs, and explain to me why I'm not taking a 600 dmg per second barbarian instead. (FAR higher in auto-crit mode btw)

[Solmage]

Uhm .... When my Polar ray hits for 800+ damage with eardweller and i can cast it , cycle it with freezing sphere for a 650 and and frost lance and repeat i believe my damage for as long as i can sustain that FAR surpasses any melee damage (Notice i didn't calculate criticals which would make my damage go over the top)... Oki now ... consider this.... This damage i deal now without:

10% extra damage from cold line,
over 20% increase in polar ray base damage
20% increase in base damage of freezing sphere
75% damage boost from stacked curse on boss
15-20 points of piercing resistance resulting from 15-60 points of extra damage depending on the spell i use mentioned above...

compare these numbers to a melee of ur choice for their damage dealt in 4 seconds (cooldown of polar ray and duration of a cycle of these spells)

Then tell me again ... who deals more damage me or the melee?

The uber melee, by a fairly large amount as things currently stand.

With the PrE you're able to approach melee DPS levels vs bosses, only because melee DPS drops significantly on bosses due to bosses fortification. But then that is about to disappear, isn't it, thanks to the totally OP FvS PrE, and all melees will get uber boosted yet again.

The melee is dealing between 500-650 damage per second - before auto crit.

[Zachski]

Who said Sorcerers couldn't CC? You can, you just have to sacrifice DPS.

I have a problem with Sorcerers wanting the best of both worlds, which would put Wizard at a disadvantage.

Let me put it this way.

Elemental Savant is for those who want to focus on DPS.

It's a DPS line. As such, naturally you're expected to create your sorcerer with DPS in mind.

This would mean sacrificing some of your CC, but that's what you have to do when you specialize.

If you want to CC or be a balanced sorc, Elemental Savant isn't for you.

[Madryoch]

Ahh, this is why you're disagreeing. You should be aware that a sorcerer mana dumping (casting as fast as possible cycling through any spell not on timer) does quite a bit less damage than a top-of-the-line melee.

Of course, those are kind of rare, and an average caster will do more damage than many a melee while he has mana, so I do understand where this perception comes from. Just because I can pull aggro from 80% of the melees out there does not mean I don't know I don't come even close to the real melee.

For S&G try this: Find a devil boss, an intimitank, a bard, and one of your server's top DPS melees. Measure how much damage the melee does in 60 seconds by measuring the red-bar (can be done with screenshots) while fully buffed and getting full sneak attack, like they would in any non-tanking raid scenario. Now reset the encounter and try it with a sorcerer. You can use haste to time both tries. It is an eye opener

Then after you have done all of that, now imagine what your damage will be when instead of mana dumping you're only allowed to toss SLAs, and explain to me why I'm not taking a 600 dmg per second barbarian instead. (FAR higher in auto-crit mode btw)

curious where these 600 dps barbarians numbers come from ... i want a screen shot of sustained 600 dps from a barb pls ... Last time i checked their average number of hits per second even abusing the speed bug is very low (less than 3 swings)... and their NON crit damage is less than 180 per swing on a two hander ... so ? I on the other hand showed some numbers of which i can provide screenshots if needed ... Also who gives a **** about autocrit ? Melees are there to kill trash? is this what u are telling me? if that's their purpose GJ to the melee dpsers ... yes it speeds things up but vs helpless mobs everyone can do it ... stack 2-3 dreamspitters and see the mob drop almost as fast... What kind of argument is the autocrit damage thing lol ...


Or perhaps u are comparing ur damage if u are not geared with the best stuff in game with melee who DO have the best stuff in game ... In which case i ll just reply it's only natural ... In my eyes while u have sp with teh correct combination of spells high evocation dcs and stuff and eardweller no melee can hope to catch up to a sorc considering both have top gear and the sorcerer has sp to dump ... THing that has been improved with the dagger clickies from cove event ...

[Coldin]

Ahh, this is why you're disagreeing. You should be aware that a sorcerer mana dumping (casting as fast as possible cycling through any spell not on timer) does quite a bit less damage than a top-of-the-line melee.

Of course, those are kind of rare, and an average caster will do more damage than many a melee while he has mana, so I do understand where this perception comes from. Just because I can pull aggro from 80% of the melees out there does not mean I don't know I don't come even close to the real melee.

For S&G try this: Find a devil boss, an intimitank, a bard, and one of your server's top DPS melees. Measure how much damage the melee does in 60 seconds by measuring the red-bar (can be done with screenshots) while fully buffed and getting full sneak attack, like they would in any non-tanking raid scenario. Now reset the encounter and try it with a sorcerer. You can use haste to time both tries. It is an eye opener

Then after you have done all of that, now imagine what your damage will be when instead of mana dumping you're only allowed to toss SLAs, and explain to me why I'm not taking a 600 dmg per second barbarian instead. (FAR higher in auto-crit mode btw)

I have a hard time believing that a melee, even going against a devil, will out DPS a sorcerer spamming spells. Granted, because you made it a devil, that limits effective spells to basically just lightning, cold, and force spells. That said, one can still spam Force Missile, Ball Lightning, Polar Ray, and several other spells.

Of course if you put the caster against a monster that isn't immune to acid and fire spells, then we can stack Firewall and Acid Fog, increasing the DPS significantly.

[Geonis]

I love that the only logical argument for this PrE is ".....but Polar Ray......"

[Madryoch]

The uber melee, by a fairly large amount as things currently stand.

With the PrE you're able to approach melee DPS levels vs bosses, only because melee DPS drops significantly on bosses due to bosses fortification. But then that is about to disappear, isn't it, thanks to the totally OP FvS PrE, and all melees will get uber boosted yet again.

The melee is dealing between 500-650 damage per second - before auto crit.

i ll tell u what
polar ray CD is 3 seconds ...

so in 3 seconds i deal

800+500 +300 ? non crit at ALL calculated
so add to that crit chance

which would be 18%

to deal

2.75 times normal damage

so out of one hundred cycles my damage should be equal to 82 non crit cycles +18 fully crit

so
the numbers are

1600 per cycle non crit
4400 per crit cycle

multiplied

1600x82=131200
+
4400x18=79200
=210400
/
3(seconds)
70133
/
100(cycles)
=701.33 dps

Damage i ve calculated is with the idea in mind that freezing sphere and frost lance can be partially avoided due to enemy saving

THAT is MATH...

the things u type are estimations ...

Let's try a better cycle considering u have high dcs and specced in both cold and lightning as i used to be with yugo pots and stuff

(yes i know the dps is not that high cause mobs save sometime just showing stuff)

so polar ray and chainlightning deals similar damage which the third spell will be lightning ball since mobs are less resistant to electricity (most devils that is)

depending on how high ur dcs are (can be up to 43 DC Unbuffed then guild ship buffs cookies and yugo pot for 4 extra)

u ll have something like chain lightning polar ray chain lightning (since it has shorter CD) lightning ball

U calculate the dps now with a similar idea on ur own ... then come talk again about the awesome melee dps outdpsing a fully mana dumping sorc with good gear as well who goes all out ... lol
ALso consider that in these numbers i didn't calculate the damage ice storm would continuously deal over its duration as bludgeoning alone 65-70 per tick for 17 ticks (17x2= 34 seconds duration due to increased caster lvl from greater might of abishai)

and all of the above is without exploiting any speed bug as barbs tend to do to get even CLOSE to the damage u mentioned

[Madryoch]

I love that the only logical argument for this PrE is ".....but Polar Ray......"

i wish we had more options as well ... but the damage options are limited unfortunately ... though if i am not mistaken Eladrin posted some new spells as well so who knows ...

ANyway this is meant to be a damage dealer pre... Can u think bout many (skills that melee dpsers use then ?) oh wait ... they don't :P

[quityourjobs]

"On top" meaning "better off than we currently are". I submit the current PrC (together with the other changes) barely leaves us the same or possibly a bit weaker than we are without any changes at all.

...

Sure would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.

If you'd look at the other changes being planned, you might not cry doom so quickly.

[quityourjobs]

Who said Sorcerers couldn't CC? You can, you just have to sacrifice DPS.

I have a problem with Sorcerers wanting the best of both worlds, which would put Wizard at a disadvantage.

Let me put it this way.

Elemental Savant is for those who want to focus on DPS.

It's a DPS line. As such, naturally you're expected to create your sorcerer with DPS in mind.

This would mean sacrificing some of your CC, but that's what you have to do when you specialize.

If you want to CC or be a balanced sorc, Elemental Savant isn't for you.

But Sorcs are worthless unless they have buffs, massive sps, fast casting, sustained ranged DPS equal to a Barbarian, CC, and self healing.

Sheeze.

[HarveyMilk]

Doom threads are SO twf nerf

I personally can't believe the amount of /cry here

[Solmage]

curious where these 600 dps barbarians numbers come from ...

I did elaborate that I was using barb as a placeholder for DPS melee in general. So with that in mind:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=299620

Barb is 506, Fighter 543, Rogue 646, etc

Also who gives a **** about autocrit ? Melees are there to kill trash? is this what u are telling me? if that's their purpose GJ to the melee dpsers ... yes it speeds things up but vs helpless mobs everyone can do it ... stack 2-3 dreamspitters and see the mob drop almost as fast... What kind of argument is the autocrit damage thing lol ...

DPS is DPS, and to not count something that is extremely common in epics and will in fact make a significant difference in completion time and thus resources spent, is silly. If you're not able to DPS like the melee, and you're unable to do those mass holds, you better hope your dreamspitter is doing the same damage or your spells are, or you're esssentially just a waste of a party slot taken out of pity, carried by the real contributors to the end, where you can then proceed to do meagre DPS with your little mana.

Or perhaps u are comparing ur damage if u are not geared with the best stuff in game with melee who DO have the best stuff in game ...

Before the might of the abishai set, for during which I took a bit of a vacation to protest among others the rather well thought out changes to firewall (make it more powerful when it's overpowered, at low levels, and insanely weaker when it's barely adequate, in epics and elite high level content), I had everything I wanted and was one of the highest DPS casters in my server. Now I need to go farm that set to gain a full 15% to polar ray, which should boost my overall DPS by .. not a lot.

But then when I did do those DPS tests, the melee in question also didn't have any might of the whatever stuff either courtesy of it not existing.

[Solmage]

But Sorcs are worthless unless they have buffs, massive sps, fast casting, sustained ranged DPS equal to a Barbarian, CC, and self healing.

Sheeze.

You are missing the point, as is the person you quoted. If you CANT do CC, then you HAVE to do DPS. If you CAN do CC, then whatever DPS you do is gravy, since you are essentially filling the wizard slot in the party, and all is well.

My sorcerer currently can do CC. If I'm forced to change away from that, the damage would need to be rather impressive to compensate for the loss of damage from not being able to choose between fire and cold AND not being able to CC. That is the point.

[Solmage]

i ll tell u what
polar ray CD is 3 seconds ...
[semi-pointless stuff]

1) First of all, Polar ray has a casting time, as do the other spells mentioned.

2) Secondly, you will not be casting a polar ray exactly each 3 seconds if you're also trying to cast 2 other spells in between due to point 1).

3) Reflex save will make your reflex-based spells save for half 50% of the time IF you have a really good DC like mine, say 38-40, or if you waste DPS time landing an exhaustion. And this is on normal. Save for 0 on hard and elite.

4) Unlike the melee in autoattack mode, latency actually affects your ability to DPS with spells.

[Madryoch]

1) First of all, Polar ray has a casting time, as do the other spells mentioned.

2) Secondly, you will not be casting a polar ray exactly each 3 seconds if you're also trying to cast 2 other spells in between due to point 1).

3) Reflex save will make your reflex-based spells save for half 50% of the time IF you have a really good DC like mine, say 38-40, or if you waste DPS time landing an exhaustion. And this is on normal. Save for 0 on hard and elite.

4) Unlike the melee in autoattack mode, latency actually affects your ability to DPS with spells.

Casting time is less than a sec for sorc so if i use 3 spells per 3 seconds i believe it's oki ... i know latency affects my dps ofc i do and the dcs i was talking about was something like 43-47 which are better than urs ... so no it won't save 50% of the times ... i also said 500 damage per frezing sphere which would be the 650+325/2 average more or less. Atm if something lowers ur dps significantly is the fact that quite a few bosses have Resistances to ur element ... but hopefully that's about tochange according to what the pre gives and and to my understanding of what's to come from what eladrin mentioned...

[quityourjobs]

You are missing the point, as is the person you quoted. If you CANT do CC, then you HAVE to do DPS. If you CAN do CC, then whatever DPS you do is gravy, since you are essentially filling the wizard slot in the party, and all is well.

My sorcerer currently can do CC. If I'm forced to change away from that, the damage would need to be rather impressive to compensate for the loss of damage from not being able to choose between fire and cold AND not being able to CC. That is the point.

This PRE makes you suddenly unable to cast CC spells? You can't mem Mass Hold now?

Yes, elemental lines will be more expensive if you want to max the same crit lines you get now, but that doesn't make you unable to CC.