Savant Prestige Information

[LordDamax]

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

I'll claim noob status on this one. What commonly used sorc spell is conjuration that gains a decent benefit from it? All the spells I personally use arent... web is the only thing I can think of, and I dont use web. Burns up in my fiery burnination of flame

[Riggs]

Hmm, I have no idea what I'm thinking of... It was probably something totally unrelated that I mixed up in my mind. Huh... Now that's gonna bug me.

Something that sounds familiar is a possible dev quote from maybe a year ago - about savants doing epic damage. I dont remember - but it does seem like someone did say it way back.

[LeLoric]

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.

No horrid wilting has no save. At least in it's current implementation.

[LeLoric]

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.

You don't think a sorc taking the savant prestige is not gonna max the enhancements for his favored element? It's secondary elements that are not prereqs that are not going to be maxed. And wizards will deal with the same things and not get the benefits sorcs do to a single element. An archmage or palemaster has very tight ap currently and maxing out two line is going to be even harder than maxing out two lines for a sorc with savant unless tier III carries some heavy ap requirements.

[LeLoric]

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

As I stated earlier for getting the prestige I think ap and feat costs are pretty minimum compared to some of the others out there but this also reflects the cost of losing an element. That being said you have 3 other options instead of your opposite element to supplement your main element. Everyone thinking fire/ice as must haves for elements as that's waht they are used to but the spell changes look promising from what I have seen and either of your non-opposite elements looks to be decent. Throw in the new kinetic line with boosts to force untyped and physical spells gives a decent secondary damage line.

When I added a prestige to my wizard I lost access to lightning/acid enhancement lines. So yes it did cost me flexibility in damage types on my wizard when I got my prestige. Other wizards had to drop most of their repair line when swapping to a prestige due to ap costs. Many wizards just like sorcs will only have the ability to max one line just the same as sorcs now without the big benefits to that one line. Is lack of ap's disqualifying you from purchasing a line any different really than a prestige enhancement nerfing down one line to boost another. Fact of the matter is that you still can't boost the second line up. However sorcs will have more ap to spread into another line than either of the wizard prestiges allow.

Sure a lot remains to be seen and a lot hinges on spell changes not yet revealed. Listing all the spell changes would be a good start to giving us the info but that is a lot of info to digest and turbine doesn't normally release that large of info before lammania.

I think too many people are hung up on having both fire and ice because they always have but if the spell changes provide the right spells to alternate lines it's not that big of change.

[Angelus_dead]

You don't think a sorc taking the savant prestige is not gonna max the enhancements for his favored element? It's secondary elements that are not prereqs that are not going to be maxed.

Since the prereqs for Savant 3 aren't known, I don't have a complete level 20 AP layout yet. But my intention is to avoid putting full spell crit APs into any element, if at all possible. The reasoning is:
1. Aside from the frontloaded step 1 APs, spell crits give a really poor damage-per-AP payoff.
2. Being a Cold Savant will probably make your cold spells plenty good, but it's against cold-immune enemies that you'll have problems.
3. The resistance-penetration of Savants slightly reduces the importance of spell crits in your prime element.

Regardless of which Savant element is picked, a damage Sorc should have good damage in at least two elements so as to be flexible against various enemies. I think there will be more benefit to getting decent damage in a second element than in absolutely maxing the spell crits for your primary element. (Depending on AP progression and stuff, there's conflict with Metamagic cost APs and similar)

[GotSomeQuestions]

The value of the crit chance boost goes up the higher your crit multiplier is, and vice versa.

If you grab every rank of both and use a major lore weapon, then you're looking at an 18% crit chance for +175% of your normal damage. That means each of your subsequent ranks of crit chance (+1%) is boosting your damage by 1.75%, and each of your subsequent ranks of crit multiplier (+10%) is boosting your damage by 1.8%.

If you stick with the base of 4% and 25% for 2 AP, and adding in the major lore, you have 13% crit chance for +75% of your normal damage. Adding 1 rank to crit chance would boost your damage by 0.75%, or, one to crit multiplier would net 1.3%. You aren't getting full value if you spend only a few AP more, because each side isn't worth as much unless the other side is maxed.

So, for 2 AP you can get a 5.25% boost to your damage, +2.625% per AP. And for 10 more AP, you can get an additional 21.75% boost, for +2.175% per AP. Spending all 12 nets +27% to damage for 12 AP, or +2.25% per AP.

That's a better value at the low end, or a bigger boost if you invest fully. The numbers look pretty bad if you take only some ranks beyond the first 2 AP though. I'm too lazy to figure out how much going from the minimum crit APs to qualify for the PrE up to the max crit is worth, but I suspect it's the right call to max things out if you have to make a substantial investment anywya.

Note, these boosts may be worth more if the changes to helpless mobs affect spell crits.

I'll do the math on how much your 1 AP is worth if you spend it for a 5% damage boost tomorrow, because I'm tired, but it's not 5%, because you have to add in potency effects and multiply against metamagics.

[Madryoch]

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.



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.



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.



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).



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.



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)



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.



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".


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".

1st . It's a curse but i doubt they d make it so mobs are immune to it ... after all it is MEANT for fights that take long enough to use it 5 times ...

2nd I know what i am talking about with ice storm cause if the duration increases by 2 seconds or more it's overall damage increases as well as another tick happens ...

3rd 1 DC won't have such a HUGE impact for u or 2 spell pen ... You are over-reacting ... same goes for toughness that many take ... there ARE feats to replace for one spell focus evocation so u can get extra power... If u want DCs again and while i know we DO cast faster go wizard ... this is what u want to be but u don't want to admit it ...

4th The Elemental Savant line which was the PRE announced for sorcs from ages back in tabletop d&d is a pre that increases offensive spell dcs mainly ,gives energy substitution, elemental form , ignores partially energy resistance and makes one vulnerable to the opposing element. It also completely bars the use of any other element spells ... but allows u to convert em to ur chosen element. Of the above characteristics ... which one helps u cc better again ? which one increases ur ... enchantment DCs? Which one sounded like it's a generic ability boost? NONE...If u want to complain bout something complain for the choice of PRE but no u don't get to complain about the PRE itself when u KNEW that it was going to be something like that ... You may argue all u want but 1 spell out of 10 failing for such a huge damage boost is a good tradeoff for me ...

Finally my dc unbuffed for enchantment is 41 i ve said so before and i could show how to get that. So i ll go to 40 and have all these stuff ... Not that horrible in my eyes...I know the average sorc will have issues ... but sorc MUST try harder to achieve greatness ... that's one of the reasons i remained a sorc ... I like a challenge . For those who don't want something as hard , they can always go wizard and have these dcs ...

If u don't wanna play a nuker and thus ditch EMPOWER then go play wizard ... that class is more suited to u . U have lower DCs as is now , less hp worse survivability u just cast faster but u even have worse spell pen (Due to extra feats unlesss u already have greater spell pen)that u so much cry for, u can't switch spells and without empower WITH clickie u were demonstrating the other day how u barely deal less damage compared to wizard with ur firewall ... while wizard was only using efficacy ofc but that's another story ... If u wanna cry so much bout DCs why haven't u tr-ed not even once? From wizard or bard for example to get that +1 DC ? Why are u playing drow when u DO know they are not the best option ?

I am sure u wouldn't complain at all if the text read ... sorc past life arcane prodigy as well as an optional req instead of spell focus evo or conj... Yet u still haven't TR-ed once ...Not even when tr-ing from wizard adds +1 to the dcs and +2 to ur spell pen ... a second TR from wizard adds another +2 to spell pen ... So why are u arguing ? Cause u are not feeling like doing something like that? Then what about the sorc past life optional req? would u have it? no ... u d remain the same. So do that now ... don't get the PRE if u don't like it

You wanna play ur sorc some way ... so what about the rest who wanna play it another way ...

Disintergate isn't meant to be used on harry ... use it on abbot and tell me if u have similar results or not ... but then again since u do know what's best for u ... u ve ditched disintegrate as well as u posted on another thread because u have the awesome damage dealing cyclonic blast spell which knocks opponents down (taking away all cloud and persistant effects in the area as well but who cares and deals crappy damage) Harry can still be hit by polar ray ,chain lightning , freezing sphere, lightning ball and other elemental spells of these two elements or force effects ...
Finally yes . I d ask barbarians to make room for 2nd savant if that would hugely boost both our damage capabilities. In my parties at least ... As things are now u see 1-2 casters per raid ... but 5452354254532 melee characters due to the fact that some think casters suck as dps...

To make it short ... All of u who are saying Le DooOoOommmMm are overreacting.I never said that 1 feat won't hurt us at all .. a feat starved class ofc but it isn't as bad as u make it appear ...Regarding ur spell pen enhancements that's a lie cause if i get to take extra healing amp of human + scroll mastery + 3rd tier of spell pen enhancement i can't understand how can u not have enough points to do so ...If u NEEDED to sacrifice something consider sacrificing 40 sp which is not enough not even for a mass hold and there u have 4 points ...

[Skyeson]

Sorcerer Air Savant II
Prereqs: Level 12 Sorcerer, Sorcerer Air Savant I, Storm Manipulation V, Charged Spellcasting III, Deadly Shocks III, and any one of Spell Focus: Conjuration, Spell Focus: Evocation, or Lesser Dragonmark of Storm.
Cost: 2 AP
Benefit: You have continued to focus your training on elemental mastery over lightning. You gain an additional +2 caster levels when casting air and electricity spells, increase the maximum caster level of these spells by an additional 1, but suffer an additional -3 caster level penalty to your acid and earth spells. Your electrical resistance grows to 10 points and you now bypass 10 points of electrical resistance of opponents. You can cast the Electric Loop spell as a spell-like ability. You also gain the ability to render an opponent vulnerable to electrical damage, an additional +2 bonus to the Tumble skill, and have a permanent personal Featherfall toggle.

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So tier 2 means +3 in your chosen school and -6 in the opposite school. Then that would imply tier 3 would be around +4 and -9?...

Tier 2 also cost a feat so tier 3 would cost another feat? (greater focus).

Doesn't sound to appealing to me beyond tier 1, especially because of the feats required. Though the Elemental Weakness ability could be interesting with a team of aligned savants.

[Jaid314]

@ madryoch (not quoting to avoid wall of text. you'll have to match up what i answer to as best you can).

- sure, just like the devs wouldn't ever prevent a light monk's basic light monk strike from applying to raid bosses... oh wait...

- longer ice storm deals more damage if you don't recast it, i guess. if you recast, it's basically no difference.

- 1 DC can absolutely make a huge difference. if i had 41 DC, it likely wouldn't be as *much* of a difference. but it could double a mob's chance to save, quite easily. half the duration on my mass holds would, as an example, be an undesireable outcome. as would triple the chance of failing to breach spell resistance, which is what +2 spell pen (a single feat) could mean.

- how about turning you into an elemental and granting you useful defensive bonuses? remember that? sounds pretty **** useful to be immune to stun and be able to reconstruct a horoth tank (or heal scroll the tank or a cleric). sounds pretty useful to be immune to crits without needing to slot it (or to be defended against crit debuffs or bypasses). it could even include built-in DR and similar effects. greater mobility. all kinds of things i could have looked forward to getting some form of reasonably. instead... just nuking. nothing whatsoever to help survivability (oh wait, my bad... one of them gives balance skill. assuming i can't manage to give myself any decent skills and skill buffs, this may actually be useful.)

- congratulations. your 41 DC can afford to be decreased. there are probably hundreds of sorcerers out there who struggle to reach even *my* save DC for every one that has reached your point. any of them who wish to be effective must also deal with this prestige pushing that point of DC further beyond their reach.

- i have a wizard. two of them in fact. the cooldown on critical spells drives me nuts. i'd rather play my sorc. my point the other day was that anyplace a wizard with potency would be fine, so would my sorcerer. it was a point to be made against everyone who was trying to tell me that my sorcerer *had* to have empower or i was totally gimp. since there still aren't any people checking whether my wizards have clickies or just potency, i can only presume they don't care one way or the other. which is pretty much what i speculated.

- i'd rather the feat requirement not even be there. i actually *have* a sorcerer past life (so you can shut up about "why don't i TR" as well). it's a crappy feat requirement, it costs a lot in an already feat-starved build, and it pushes useful save DCs in important areas beyond the reach of others. allowing the sorcerer feat to qualify would be nice for me, but would still leave a lot more people out in the cold (on the other hand, it would certainly help make the sorcerer past life feats suck less, which they could use compared to many of the other past lifes...)

- the new AP requirements are *brutal*. we've gone from 22 AP for 2 full lines, to 19 AP for *one* line, which would be fine if they did a bunch more than the old lines. but they don't perhaps you consider +10% base damage to be worth 8 AP. i don't. if they kept the same (or similar) costs, but split the enhancements, i wouldn't even be worried about that. now, because of a crappy enhancement system, not only will i not be taking this prestige enhancement... if i reset my enhancements *ever* i'm losing either a big chunk of damage spell effectiveness, or a big chunk of my other abilities.

- lots of people don't want to build their rangers as a deepwood sniper. that's not a good reason to make the prestige line suck compared to both of the other ranger prestige lines. it's certainly not a good reason to make it suck so badly that it's pretty much the butt of every other PrE's jokes, to the point that it makes even the *gimpest* of other PrEs look amazing by comparison. so sure, lots of people might want to be nukers. lots of us don't want to be nukers, or more to the point don't want to be *only* nukers to the point where if we want to do anything else we're being punished for trying to do that and also be nukers on the side.

- i don't use disintegrate on the abbot, that's what meteor swarm is for. i have in the past used it on him, and it does decent damage. meteor swarm does more (possibly the new force damage line will help ungimp disintegrate, but you've still got to compete with the clickies vs potency). meteor swarm also comes at a crappier level than disintegrate, where it was one choice from about 3 "meh" options for the third level 9 slot. likewise, cyclonic blast i have argued consistently as being great because it is good enough to deal with stuff that won't take damage from other things, while taking up a *crappy* spell level instead of a good one. it's *good enough* and it costs less. just like i would never argue that a +1 metalline of pure good weapon is the best option vs harry, but is good enough... obviously, the *best* choice is something else (probably a +5 holy burst silver of greater evil outsider bane, at a guess) but the metalline of pure good is just fine, and will cover all your needs without requiring you to sell your soul to get one. obviously, if you do happen to luck into finding that ultimate DR breaker, then hang on to it (just like if you can fit disintegrate into your plan, go with that). but if not, don't sweat it. cyclonic blast will perform well enough to not need disintegrate, at a fraction of the opportunity cost.

- i would tend to think that you are under-reacting actually. you can afford to lose a point of DC, you have lots. many more are struggling to get their DC to the point where it's borderline good enough. i would consider their needs to outweigh the needs of the very few who have a DC that is better than good enough.

- i don't actually have *any* of the energy of the dragonblood enhancements actually. that said, it's looking like sacrificing those won't be an option anyways, because they're part of the requirements for elemental savant (which is not a surprise, i was pretty much expecting it since it's one of the few ways to completely waste APs on a sorcerer)

this prestige enhancement could be useful to any sorcerer if built right. as the first sorcerer prestige, and the only option for a sorcerer prestige enhancement right now, it really *should* have been designed to be useful to the widest variety of people possible (though of course, it should be *most* useful to someone who wants to focus on nuking). right now, at least with the second tier only, it looks decently good for anyone who wants to nuke, *if* enough changes are made to the rest of the game to make nuking a worthwhile specialisation (which we don't know yet). it looks completely unappealing to anyone who wants more out of their sorcerer than *only* nuking to the exclusion of all else, barring the extremely rare few who are sitting on half a dozen past lives.

that said, at this point, i kind of am considering TRing into something else. that new favored soul prestige enhancement looks like it's actually a well-rounded caster option. with 2 sorcerer past lives and most of the offensive options being evocation (with the ones that aren't being largely "nice, but not required"), even my crappy sorcerer past life feats won't be *completely* sucktastic like they are on my sorcerer (where the best evocation spells all come with *no saving throw whatsoever*). and hey, if i ever do come back to sorcerer, when/if they make a PrE that doesn't suck, i'll have some bonus spell pen. who knows, maybe i'll actually *have* a feat to throw away on something that is largely never going to get used if i TR a couple of times into favored soul. heck, maybe i'll throw some cleric and wizard and even a bard life in there for good measure. perhaps by the time i get through with all that, there will even be a sorcerer prestige line i care enough to take. at the very least, if all i'm going into wizard for is to get some past lives, i won't have to deal with their agonizingly slow cooldowns so much.

as it stands, all this prestige line does is lead me to lower expectations for any future sorcerer prestige lines. apparently, in the unwritten rules of DDO, the sorcerer should be nukes only, except for a very tiny percentage of elite players who are permitted to be effective in other roles. the rest of us get told to shut up and stop whining about it, apparently.

to me, that sounds like a pretty crappy game, and if i was to start playing DDO today and find out that in order to be competitive i need to TR 3-4 times just to have a playable sorcerer, i'd be pretty discouraged.

[Jaid314]

Sorcerer Air Savant II
Prereqs: Level 12 Sorcerer, Sorcerer Air Savant I, Storm Manipulation V, Charged Spellcasting III, Deadly Shocks III, and any one of Spell Focus: Conjuration, Spell Focus: Evocation, or Lesser Dragonmark of Storm.
Cost: 2 AP
Benefit: You have continued to focus your training on elemental mastery over lightning. You gain an additional +2 caster levels when casting air and electricity spells, increase the maximum caster level of these spells by an additional 1, but suffer an additional -3 caster level penalty to your acid and earth spells. Your electrical resistance grows to 10 points and you now bypass 10 points of electrical resistance of opponents. You can cast the Electric Loop spell as a spell-like ability. You also gain the ability to render an opponent vulnerable to electrical damage, an additional +2 bonus to the Tumble skill, and have a permanent personal Featherfall toggle.

---------------

So tier 2 means +3 in your chosen school and -6 in the opposite school. Then that would imply tier 3 would be around +4 and -9?...

Tier 2 also cost a feat so tier 3 would cost another feat? (greater focus).

Doesn't sound to appealing to me beyond tier 1, especially because of the feats required. Though the Elemental Weakness ability could be interesting with a team of aligned savants.

we do know that tier 3 won't require a feat at least. as far as whether tier 3 will make it worthwhile for anyone outside a small area of focus (nuking), we don't know.

[TheHolyDarkness]

Simply add me to the list of sorcerers completely underwhelmed and discouraged by the structure of this prestige class.

It'd be fine if I could simply opt not to take it. But in raising the AP costs of enhancements on top of everything else I feel as though Turbine is deliberately trying to flip me the bird.

This prestige is an earthshattering disappointment. I expected it to be DPS oriented, certainly, but not at such terrible costs. +6/-9? I don't see my barbarian rage causing more AC loss as rage grows in power. Divine Sacrafice saps 5 HP and 1 SP from my paladin, regardless of whether I'm using the tier I, II, or III version. Basic monk stances are +2/-2 tradeoff initially, but at the Grandmastery level your getting +4/-2 (plus benefits) for all that effort in specializing. I'd be more receptive if Savant was +6/-3 by tier III, but for now I am simply agape that they'd create a prestige of such crippling overspecialization.

Then of course, comes the news of this feat requirement. I was alarmed at first when all we had was news of Tier I and the +6/-9 tradeoff, but I remained reserved. Just wait Holydarkness. Maybe they won't be so offensive as to require a feat. Maybe it'll be like the Paladin Prestige line or at least keep requirements to a general feat everyone takes anyway. Maximize? Ok. I can live with that if this is all that's mandatory.

Instead, you drop this UTTERLY debilitating feat requirement on us for Tier 2. In exchange for what again? So let me get this straight. Ultimately,the plan is for us is to cripple ourselves once over so that may further gimp one of our spell schools all the way down to -9, and completely forego any function of a caster outside of nuking? And we are supposed to look upon this tradeoff with glee? With excitement? As though it were someone a balanced tradeoff and overall improvement? As though we were not being made WORSE off than the status quo?

At least with Tempest, you're feats contribute to playing the role of AC Tank when built right (and furthermore, the ranger isn't what you'd call a feat strapped class to begin with given all that's granted). At least with cleave, you have an active feat that lets you hit multiple targets. At least in such things as these, you are only gimping yourself in one respect, as the PrE proper has no further negatives, leading to greater benefits on aggregate. But the opportunity costs of this Savant Line is far too draconian to be appealing, especially considering the balance of skills necessary to play a proper caster at endgame.

Overall, I predict that this prestige line will not stand in its current implementation, or the money spent developing this line will be marked as an abject failure not seen since feedback on the artwork of Half Elves. This enhancement will become as widely taken as the original rogue capstone, Deepwood Sniper, or the ranger capstone (for the purposes of Tempest Rangers). Something has got to give. Either that worthless feat requirement, or the final CL modifications will have to be +6/-3 as I would have initially thought it to be.

Right now, this line is full of so many holes as to almost be offensive. Stack this debacle with the news of our new AP costs, and U9 IS offensive as far as I'm concerned.

~TheHolyDarkness Out~

[Requiro]

(...)
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So tier 2 means +3 in your chosen school and -6 in the opposite school. Then that would imply tier 3 would be around +4 and -9?...

Tier 2 also cost a feat so tier 3 would cost another feat? (greater focus).

Doesn't sound to appealing to me beyond tier 1, especially because of the feats required. Though the Elemental Weakness ability could be interesting with a team of aligned savants.

That means: +4 in your chosen school nad -6 in the oposite. Probably +6 / -9 in Tier 3.

And no additional feat for Tier 3.

[Absolute-Omniscience]

The amount of doom and gloom here is astonishing. I mean, am I the only one seeing the INCREDIBLE potential of the savants?
Then again, I actually make calculations based on facts, not estimations. If I only account for the tier 1, 2 and +2 caster level from tier 3. And assuming that the curse works on raid bosses; I've come to the following conclusion when it comes to JUST polar ray:

140 base dmg
50% enhancements (assuming sorc capstone is till bugged)
75% potency (clicky) (could have 100% with eardweller)
100% maximize
50% empower
75% curse

=
140*(1+0,5+0,75)*(1+1+0,5)*1,75= 1378 damage per cast

Crit:
1378*2,75 = 3789 damage per crit

assuming 18% critical chance with spells

82*1378=112996
18*3789=68202

(68202+112996)/100=1811 average per cast

1811/3 = 603 DPS without casting ANYTHING in-between polar rays.

Now, assume eardweller and sorc capstone working and you're looking at around 2100 per cast, which is 700 dps with ONE spell.

And if you cycle the free niacs, and the free frost lance inbetween you're gonna have about 1500 dps. Where 2 of the spells cycled barely cost any sp, and polar ray at around 80 for a grand total of around 30 before running out of sp (not counting bauble, etc). Which leads to about 140 000 damaged dealt over 108 seconds. (After the initial 100 where you debuff and only cast SLAs)

Now, imagine what the tier 3 ability will be, AND the savant set from tod...

[quityourjobs]

This prestige is an earthshattering disappointment. I don't see my barbarian rage causing more AC loss as rage grows in power.

It actually does if you take the Power Rage enhancements. Sorry.

Instead, you drop this UTTERLY debilitating feat requirement on us for Tier 2. In exchange for what again? So let me get this straight. Ultimately,the plan is for us is to cripple ourselves once over so that may further gimp one of our spell schools all the way down to -9, and completely forego any function of a caster outside of nuking?

Taking one extra feat is debilitating? Your ability to do anything other than nuke is based on one spell pen or focus feat?

[Requiro]

The amount of doom and gloom here is astonishing. I mean, am I the only one seeing the INCREDIBLE potential of the savants?
(...)

No. You are not the only one. Lot's of us see it.

But there is no sense to argue with whining people. Most of them Just don't like it

[Qezuzu]

You are able to curse an enemy, increasing electrical damage they take by 15%. This effect stacks with itself up to five times. (Cost: 5 sp, 20 sec cooldown, 30 sec duration - refreshing a stack restarts its duration)

LitII

[karl_k0ch]

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.

If you don't mind leaking the changes you are hinting at piece by piece, there is a certain 'Specialists' Tier 3 PrE which might be impacted by these changes. In order not to derail this caster thread any further, I'll just leave this link here.

[Carpone]

The amount of doom and gloom here is astonishing. I mean, am I the only one seeing the INCREDIBLE potential of the savants?
Then again, I actually make calculations based on facts, not estimations. If I only account for the tier 1, 2 and +2 caster level from tier 3. And assuming that the curse works on raid bosses; I've come to the following conclusion when it comes to JUST polar ray:

140 base dmg
50% enhancements (assuming sorc capstone is till bugged)
75% potency (clicky) (could have 100% with eardweller)
100% maximize
50% empower
75% curse

=
140*(1+0,5+0,75)*(1+1+0,5)*1,75= 1378 damage per cast

Crit:
1378*2,75 = 3789 damage per crit

assuming 18% critical chance with spells

82*1378=112996
18*3789=68202

(68202+112996)/100=1811 average per cast

1811/3 = 603 DPS without casting ANYTHING in-between polar rays.

Now, assume eardweller and sorc capstone working and you're looking at around 2100 per cast, which is 700 dps with ONE spell.

And if you cycle the free niacs, and the free frost lance inbetween you're gonna have about 1500 dps. Where 2 of the spells cycled barely cost any sp, and polar ray at around 80 for a grand total of around 30 before running out of sp (not counting bauble, etc). Which leads to about 140 000 damaged dealt over 108 seconds. (After the initial 100 where you debuff and only cast SLAs)

Now, imagine what the tier 3 ability will be, AND the savant set from tod...

Thank you for posting the calculations. It's refreshing to see actual logic instead of knee-jerk reactions. For your DPS calculation of Frost Lance damage, did you assume the target (raid boss) is always going to make their fort save and take half damage? Same with Niac's Cold Ray and reflex saves.

[Carpone]

Wouldn't mind at least a "skimmed by a Dev" post.

Thinking the fact they went silent over 2 hours ago, is that maybe they are finally seeing things like the players do, but would like some confirmation this car wreck may get a "fail master" type revision prior to release.

Eladrin has been all over this thread. You're concerned a dev hasn't posted in 2 hours? You need to lower your expectations.