Savant Prestige Information

[Angelus_dead]

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

Qualifying for elemental Savant costs feats, which a Sorcerer would have to take out of places like Enchantment Focus, Spell Penetration, Toughness, or Extend.

[Solmage]

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...

A DC of 47 would require a charisma of around 54, which I somehow doubt you have

Also, you can't mix what we may get in the future with what you have right now in the same argument, sorry. It also makes it a lot easier to read if you write in full sentences.

[Siskel]

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...

I am going to have to play with Horrid Wilting with the changes. Water Savant will make it 23d3+69 damage, and it can be enhance by the force line now. Get the right clicky and it is doing some impressive no save untyped damage. Rotating that and polar ray will work nicely. Other items though will not raise the damage because the cap is currently at level 20.

You can effectively rotate HW and PR for some nice no save damage on living targets. It will be interesting to see new spell rotations with the changes and savant lines.

[LeLoric]

Also, you can't mix what we may get in the future with what you have right now in the same argument, sorry. It also makes it a lot easier to read if you write in full sentences.

This whole thread has people doing that. This is all based on what happens in the future but everyone still wants to compare current data. Spells are being reworked, immunities removed, spell point costs reversed. I can't believe how much moan and groan there is over something that is relatively unknown. Wait and see the entire scope of the changes before we all declare doom. No wonder devs don't like to post information on the forums.

[Zachski]

Qualifying for elemental Savant costs feats, which a Sorcerer would have to take out of places like Enchantment Focus, Spell Penetration, Toughness, or Extend.

It seems like the Enchantment focus is what will have to go. Like someone said, get Conjuration for the Web.

It's about minimizing your losses while maximizing your gains. Toughness and Extend are necessary, flat-out. (Well, you could drop Extend, but it actually increases your SP efficiency) So... there you go.

Between Spell Penetration and Spell Focus, losing Spell Penetration would hurt worse (In simplified terms, -10% for all spells that are resisted vs. -5% for enchantment spells) so it seems natural that if you're going to drop SF: Enchantment.

You'll still stick your CCs, and with the cost of nuking going down, you'll have more SP for that.

Not to mention Conjuration will actually help stuff like Niac's Cold Ray stick, which is infamous for either being god-like or worst spell ever, depending on the charisma of the person you ask.

[LeLoric]

Qualifying for elemental Savant costs feats, which a Sorcerer would have to take out of places like Enchantment Focus, Spell Penetration, Toughness, or Extend.

Yes but pretty much every prestige enhancement has done this. Archmages lose better feats because they have to take mental toughness. Tempests have some pretty questionable feats. Bard prestiges have some bad stuff. FB's have cleave.

Those that don't have bad feat consequences generally tend to have bad ap investments. Both wizard prestiges require wiz int III which often times makes wizards spend 6 ap for an odd int number. Also taking all 4 tiers of energy of the scholar. Kensai and assassins take ranks of action boost. Stalwarts have to take item defense.
Kotc paladins spend 6 ap for the faith line that they would probably never take anyways.

Sorcs actually appear to be getting off fairly easy here although we dont know tier III requirements. They would have already maxed an elemental line and taken empower so no change there really. Energy of the dragonblooded is not an ideal one but so far it only takes 3 ap. And one feat which I will admit is tough for sorcs but no tougher than abarb having to take cleave. So you give one feat and 3 additional ap you would have never spent otherwise plus 6 ap for tier one and two.

[Requiro]

This whole thread has people doing that. This is all based on what happens in the future but everyone still wants to compare current data. Spells are being reworked, immunities removed, spell point costs reversed. I can't believe how much moan and groan there is over something that is relatively unknown. Wait and see the entire scope of the changes before we all declare doom. No wonder devs don't like to post information on the forums.

Exactly

[wolfy42]

It seems like the Enchantment focus is what will have to go. Like someone said, get Conjuration for the Web.

It's about minimizing your losses while maximizing your gains. Toughness and Extend are necessary, flat-out. (Well, you could drop Extend, but it actually increases your SP efficiency) So... there you go.

Between Spell Penetration and Spell Focus, losing Spell Penetration would hurt worse (In simplified terms, -10% for all spells that are resisted vs. -5% for enchantment spells) so it seems natural that if you're going to drop SF: Enchantment.

You'll still stick your CCs, and with the cost of nuking going down, you'll have more SP for that.

Not to mention Conjuration will actually help stuff like Niac's Cold Ray stick, which is infamous for either being god-like or worst spell ever, depending on the charisma of the person you ask.

For Naics it's based on equipment, guild buffs, past lives etc as well. Niacs rocks pretty much universally on normal difficulty but needs a bit more umph for higher difficulties.

With spell conj working for water.....you might actually have BETTER CC's over all, at least your web will be harder to break. I'm not sold on the whole 10% for spell pen vs 5% for focus though since not everything has spell resistance (so it's 10% some of the time vs 5% all of the time). You could just blast the heck out of anything with spell resist.....and then there is no loss really from ditching spell pen.

Honestly though taking the PRE doesn't really seem to drop Sorcs CC abilities that much if at all. 1 feat is sacrificed but can even be taken as a CC boosting feat (spell focus conj)...so it's not like a huge sacrifice.

[Samadhi]

Nice, they made PrEs that will worsen your character. Like any Sorc can really afford to waste a feat on SF:Conjuration/Evocation.

Oh, before a few people decide to spam the same comment. Yes, I understand this will make a single spell (Polar Ray) more useful.

I love SF: Conjuration TBH

[Jaid314]

Well this is not the way u put it ... Consider what happens with 2 or even three elemental savants of teh same element in the same raid ... means after 20 seconds they all cast with increased damage by 75% while they start with 45% from the beggining (when u have three). Mobs that would die before the passing of 20 seconds are not worthy targets for ur curse ... the damage boost is HUGE ..

Consider

with greater might of abishai ... i ll be casting polar ray at 28d3+84 instead of the current 23d3+69...
That's over 20% increase in BASE damage which gets multiplied by many stuff ...Also consider that the lines add +10% extra damage than what they now add ... So even more damage and with the right setup ... u can get +75% damage very fast ...

consider. that is a curse, which several raid bosses are immune to. consider that you are assuming you have 3 elemental savants with the same damage line (apparently we're going to see raids where people tell those barbarians to make room for a sorcerer according to you)...

and we're still looking at +75% damage only on a tiny fraction of the mobs in the game. you know how often i've wiped in shroud because the sorcerer wasn't doing enough DPS? i'll give you two clues, it starts with z and it ends with ero. you know how often i've even cast a single damaging spell at sully? same clues as with shroud. you know how often i've cast a damaging spell at horoth? same clue. at least i can say that i have at some point cast a damaging spell at lailat. hopefully she's not immune and/or out of range when you need to curse her.

Then u ll tell me firewall damage takes a huge hit .... perhaps but then ur ice storm gets increased damage and duration

no, then i'll tell you to learn the spells you're arguing for. ice storm does the same damage whether you're level 1 or 20. you will get a bit more duration, though, for what it's worth.

The measures have been taken to adress the issue of sorcs being unable to fulfil their initial role which was being spell dpsers. Yes the -1 dc that i am going to have on enchantment is a blow to me but i d certainly sacrifice 1 dc for all this ...
Also the Curse amplifies damage of ALL sources by that amount so while air (lightning specced) savant will deal less damage due to Dc and reflex saves imagine how much does the 75% increased damage add to wizards using that element or to so many melee using shocking burst or lit2 damage from bows on arcane archers using Multishot :P i mean It's something that affects the game in more than the obvious ways :P

oh joy, the arcane archers will be dealing more damage. thankfully, that's what everyone looks for in raid DPS... arcane archers. why just the other day, i was talking to someone who applied for a DPS slot on their barbarian who was told to go away, arcane archers only. or wait... that may not have happened. in fact, come to think of it, that definitely didn't happen. in fact, it's the other way around... people tend to reject arcane archers from their raids to make room for barbarians.

New lines also added the ability for untyped spells to have crit chance and crit damage bonus and huge one at that ...

Earlier i saw someone complaining bout force being underpowered cause in the past he could get 125% crit damage bonus on two elements at the same price or something from ENHANCEMENTS ... last time i checked the bonus damage for all lines was 75% might be wrong though ...

sure, the untyped damage line is nice. it's also incredibly expensive, and the spells tend not to be the greatest choice (or perhaps you've had better luck landing disintegrate on harry than i have).

Finally u are complaining about the damage when in other posts of urs u even said u have ditched empower ... i mean cmon u obviously don't want to play a damage sorc ... so just don't get the pre and pickup two lines as u had now and have the same feat and stuff so u can play the same ... the fact that u don't like damage caster doesn't mean that everyone who does when that pre is introduced should compromise it so u can play something dc based ... If u want to play both drow AND dc caster well at least try wizard :P

exactly. i took at look at the reality of things, and realised that nobody cares what my DPS is as a sorcerer. nobody is putting up DPS LFMs for a sorcerer. and odds are good, people are still not going to want sorcerers as DPS, with the possible exception of the raid with 2 favored souls (to buff holy damage) and 8 arcane archers (and i guess we can allow paladins also, to leverage the light damage bonus too) looking for 2 lightning-spec elemental savants to buff their damage. i'll tell you one thing, i'm not planning on holding my breath on that one.

My suggestion for sorc damage dealer would be spec in both force and water so u can have very nice polar rays and for undead like abbot disintegrate to destroy them ...

or, in other words, there's only one option that's even worth a corroded penny. and it costs you 38 points just for the basic damage, and almost guarantees you'll be unable to CC effectively both because of lost action points (which are needed for spell pen) and lost feats (which will lower your DCs, or lower your spell pen further). you are giving up all your CC versatility, and your effectiveness in a strong DPS area, so that you can be good at *one* element. it would be nice if the sacrifice wasn't so big for a bonus so small. heck, you probably won't even have enough action points left for the DPS options you want (like cheaper maximise and empower)

Also take into consideration that epic quests will undergo changes as well so perhaps ur current playstyle won't be needed anymore...

sure, just like mobs don't move around when they're CC'd anymore, right? oh wait... we don't even know what the change is, but i for one am not putting any money that it will be better than CC, for one simple reason: if i mass hold a mob, it is now doing 0 damage. even if we ignore the autocrit (it sounds like that may be changing), they still do 0 damage. if i lightning bolt or polar ray or horrid wilting a mob, it still deals full damage. the way to complete with less resources spent will *still* be with CC, and people are still not going to care what your DPS is on a sorcerer, they will want to know what your crowd control DC is.

I personally am satisfied with the new pre stuff i ve seen so far .. The only thing i want to see is tier 3 PRE and then i hope we see a decent damage dealing spell as a SLA.I understand that one feat hurts but there has to be something as a requirement ... The feat is not unreasonable even though it could also contain the substitute feat of passive past life sorc + 1to evocation spells... That would give even more motivation to a sorc to TR into sorc again... Try to think the game in a way that one class complements the other (example fvs saves lowering ability solves ur 1 feat problem unless u are of the mentality ''i am angry cause i want to keep soloing everything''... This is an mmo and supposedly exists so people cooperate with each other.)

and a lot of people think it sucks massively, and we don't want anything to do with it. in almost every other case, a PrE is always a good move. for a sorcerer, it's only a good move if you want to limit yourself to spell DPS right now. if every other PrE was the same way, fine, no problem... but they're not. you go over to the Angel of Vengeance PrE and you see there's plenty of melee favored souls planning on taking it, because it is awesome for everyone. you go look at the wizard PrEs, and they are both excellent choices that add more than they take away. you take a look in this thread, and it's obvious that you have a lot of people who think this prestige enhancement SUCKS at present. it is absolutely worthless to me. i would be happier if it didn't exist, because then at least i might hold out some hope for it not being useless. every other class gets an "everyman" PrE that is good for anyone. why is the sorcerer prestige line a festering pile of suck for anyone who has built their sorcerer to be effective in everything a caster needs to do in this game? if it at *least* didn't *punish* me for choosing to play my sorcerer the way i want, i wouldn't mind so much. instead, i've got a PrE that if i take will actively detract from my ability to be as effective as my sorcerer is now. it doesn't just not help me, taking this PrE would actually make me less good at what i want to do. it actually makes my sorcerer WORSE to take this PrE.

*that* is what i'm upset about. it could have been a PrE that was geared towards DPS, but still allowed some benefit for sorcerers in general (much like pale master offers benefits for all wizards even if they don't care about wail of the banshee or finger of death). instead, it's a PrE that slaps you in the face and says "hey, you're playing your character wrong, get into the cookie cutter so we can fix it for you".

My question would be ... what happens with the tod sets for elemental savants? What extra thing do they get?

not that i particularly care, but i'm guessing it will increase your damage. if you're really lucky, it may actually stack with something else (not that turbine has a history of providing caster buffs that stack with *anything* in the past several updates). in the event that it does stack, my money is on increasing caster level and maximum caster level in the specific element. if not... i'm going to guess the same thing that pale masters got... a great big serving of "wow this is actually less useful than the clicky that comes on the belt".

[Angelus_dead]

Energy of the dragonblooded is not an ideal one but so far it only takes 3 ap. And one feat which I will admit is tough for sorcs but no tougher than abarb having to take cleave. So you give one feat and 3 additional ap you would have never spent otherwise plus 6 ap for tier one and two.

With the new expensive AP pricing for the spell crit enhancements, using them to qualify for Savant is getting away from things a player would automatically have maxxed anyway.

[Zachski]

For Naics it's based on equipment, guild buffs, past lives etc as well. Niacs rocks pretty much universally on normal difficulty but needs a bit more umph for higher difficulties.

With spell conj working for water.....you might actually have BETTER CC's over all, at least your web will be harder to break. I'm not sold on the whole 10% for spell pen vs 5% for focus though since not everything has spell resistance (so it's 10% some of the time vs 5% all of the time). You could just blast the heck out of anything with spell resist.....and then there is no loss really from ditching spell pen.

Honestly though taking the PRE doesn't really seem to drop Sorcs CC abilities that much if at all. 1 feat is sacrificed but can even be taken as a CC boosting feat (spell focus conj)...so it's not like a huge sacrifice.

Well, the equipment and buffs are to be considered, yes, but I was trying to pull off some deadpan humor

then I remembered that I'm on the internet.



As far as the +6 -9 deal... I should add that, if you were to play Sorcerer the same as always, then yes, this would be a bad thing. But then, with spells getting reworked (hopefully for the better), it seems like it's time to call for a new strategy rather than cry doom. Once we get information about all the new spells, brain tank time.

Who knows? Despite all the doom and gloom, Savant may end up being completely OP We won't know until we know all the information.

[Thriand]

This whole thread has people doing that. This is all based on what happens in the future but everyone still wants to compare current data. Spells are being reworked, immunities removed, spell point costs reversed. I can't believe how much moan and groan there is over something that is relatively unknown. Wait and see the entire scope of the changes before we all declare doom. No wonder devs don't like to post information on the forums.

I'll agree with you that we can't fully judge details until we know everything, but you can't blame people for speculating. The devs could easily put a rest to all that by releasing all the information. You can't blame people for being upset with the current implementation given the details we have at the moment. If nothing else it may cause the devs to give it a second look just like they did with the pale master.

Yes but pretty much every prestige enhancement has done this. Archmages lose better feats because they have to take mental toughness. Tempests have some pretty questionable feats. Bard prestiges have some bad stuff. FB's have cleave.

Those that don't have bad feat consequences generally tend to have bad ap investments. Both wizard prestiges require wiz int III which often times makes wizards spend 6 ap for an odd int number. Also taking all 4 tiers of energy of the scholar. Kensai and assassins take ranks of action boost. Stalwarts have to take item defense.
Kotc paladins spend 6 ap for the faith line that they would probably never take anyways.

Sorcs actually appear to be getting off fairly easy here although we dont know tier III requirements. They would have already maxed an elemental line and taken empower so no change there really. Energy of the dragonblooded is not an ideal one but so far it only takes 3 ap. And one feat which I will admit is tough for sorcs but no tougher than abarb having to take cleave. So you give one feat and 3 additional ap you would have never spent otherwise plus 6 ap for tier one and two.

I agree with you, all PrEs have had pretty significant costs, but none of them have been anywhere near as significant as the elemental savants. The biggest penalty to the elemental savant comes in the fact that in near obsoletes an entire elemental line, a penalty more than large enough to offset the benefits we've seen so far.

Sure kensais take attack boost, barbarians take cleave, warchanters take weapon focus. etc etc. but their prestige enhancements pretty much provide no built in drawbacks either.

Sorcerers are the only class I can think of that has to take useless feats, useless enhancements, and have more drawbacks built right into the prestige, I'd hardly call that getting off fairly easy.

Of course full judgement has to be reserved until all details are revealed, but as an initial look I'm very disappointed with what turbine came up with here, rivaling my initial look at the pale master PrE

[Angelus_dead]

The devs could easily put a rest to all that by releasing all the information.

The process of interpreting the implications of full information is too complex for people to rapidly arrive at an accurate concensus. There would still be speculation regardless.

Sorcerers are the only class I can think of that has to take useless feats, useless enhancements, and have more drawbacks built right into the prestige, I'd hardly call that getting off fairly easy.

Yeah, imagine if a melee specialty had this done to it. Like first they make you blow feats on Cleave to qualify, and then you could get crazy drawbacks like damaging your hp each time you swing... nobody would tolerate that.

[Jaid314]

Yeah, imagine if a melee specialty had this done to it. Like first they make you blow feats on Cleave to qualify, and then you could get crazy drawbacks like damaging your hp each time you swing... nobody would tolerate that.

healing is a lot easier to come by than CL boosts, ime.

[LordDamax]

You get +4 to your chosen element and -6 to your opposition element at tier two, with +2 max caster level to your chosen element. It's expected that a dedicated <x> savant will pretend their opposition element simply doesn't exist, and fall back on one of the other elements or the force line when things immune to their chosen element appear.

Hrm. Something I hadnt thought of, being trained since 'birth' to use ice when fire was not appropriate. Maybe I'll just dump all cold spells in favor of force. I was in the mindset that my "other" element, ice, is being nerfed. But I'm no longer tied to ice.

Hrm.

I dunno. I still dont like the massive cost for fire savant when such a massive number of endgame mobs are immune to fire. Hell... there are currently 8 raids that are run at endgame. (Von6, abbot, chrono, shroud, vod, hound, and tod, and dq. I dont count titan, as its more of a puzzle, isnt epic, and isnt really popular, or reaver because it's an 11 man pikefest). Of those 8, FIVE of the bosses are immune to fire. That leaves the abbot and DQ, who are immune to level 1-4 spells (DQ partially, abbot completely) which eliminates the 'free' spells we get. All that's left is chronoscope.

One endgame raid where a fire savant can really DPS the boss. (Ok, I'll step down the drama - there's fire spells you can torch the abbot and DQ with. Two of em to be exact).

I'm just underwhelmed. The Spell Focus feat requirement is making me rethink the "benefit". As a human, my sorc gets 8 feats. Two of which are gone instantly, because Max/Empower are required. Toughness is **** near a requirement for a nuker. Extend is not required, but... lets be honest... unextended firewall, haste, and hold spells? Thats not an option. Spell Pen and Greater Spell pen are requirements given the stupid high SR of endgame mobs. There's the TR feat which, again, not necessary, but it's a mental toughness plus free damage 10/rest.

I dunno. I'm just... I've looked forward to this forEVER now, and I'm really underwhelmed. And the cost is scaring me.

I dunno.

[LordDamax]

Arcane Prodigy sounds like a fair alternative to the Spell Foci.

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My biggest problem with the feat requirement is that it's worthless. Really, who the hell needs +1 DC to evocation spells? It's a total blown feat. If I gotta spend a feat at least make it be something I'll get some use out of.

Pretty please?

[Riggs]

The tier III Elemental Savants will not require an additional feat expenditure. (Unless you opt for the Greater Dragonmark of Storms.)


Yeah, that was mean, so I'll elaborate a little.

There are a bunch of changes being made that will have major impact on Epic (and other high level) content. The hit points of epic trash are getting reduced significantly. Death wards have been removed from non-bosses in nearly all high level content (though some changes have been made to "zero opportunity cost" death effects to prevent levels 17+ from become purely vorpal-fests). Changes have been made to social skills (some of which has been discussed). Changes have been made to the helpless state to make it affect all damage sources, but makes the state a bit less game-breaking. Many spells have been modified to make them more in-line with expected efficiency.

More details will be forthcoming shortly.


Or a partial splash of a non-opposed element. (But I'd probably go with the force line myself.)

Sounds like a lot of positive changes for epics coming. Smoothing the bell curves of difficulties/effectiveness as it were.

Note on vorpals - as per recent pnp changes from various editions - one way to make a vorpal a useful weapon, even if you cant instakill something - is have it do a lot of damage on a 20 - like Fod is apparently getting - failed save(or not immune) dead, made save - 200+ damage say.

Vorpal should be a feared weapon.

[Zachski]

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My biggest problem with the feat requirement is that it's worthless. Really, who the hell needs +1 DC to evocation spells? It's a total blown feat. If I gotta spend a feat at least make it be something I'll get some use out of.

Pretty please?

Conjuration is also an option, and that's actually worthwhile.

[BananaHat]

I am going to have to play with Horrid Wilting with the changes. Water Savant will make it 23d3+69 damage, and it can be enhance by the force line now. Get the right clicky and it is doing some impressive no save untyped damage. Rotating that and polar ray will work nicely. Other items though will not raise the damage because the cap is currently at level 20.

You can effectively rotate HW and PR for some nice no save damage on living targets. It will be interesting to see new spell rotations with the changes and savant lines.

Horrid Wilting has a fort save for half damage.

I hope they do change the force clickies to enhance everything the enhancement will do. This would lead to bonus damage for Clerics/FvS that use Blade Barrier (Hint: They all do, even my terrible wisdom melee WF FvS). It would also work nicely with the Angel of Vengeance prestige line enhancing the physical/untyped damage spells.