If my wizard was homeless, his sign would say...

[Sirea]

yeah I have been doing that...but here is the thing. I have made several bards that are in the teen levels they all have lots of charisma so UMD is kind of a no brainer. My wizard on the other hand has been on occassion confused with the hell hound he summons...(you know sometimes pets look like their owners) is it worth it to spend points on UMD in this case?

You don't need UMD if you are using wands for spells that your class can cast. You'll just need to at least meet the minimum level requirements for the wand you want to use.

[leadhead]

Notice he said "on bosses". If you've done a good enough job conserving throughout the quest, you can unload on the last guy(s).

The key at lower levels is mana conservation, and using strategies to maximize your damage while minimizing your SP costs.

Gathering up groups of mobs and using AOE is one way to do this. Doing the same and crowd-controlling so the melees can beat them up for you (or you grabbing a Master's-Touched greataxe) is another way to do this (and the healer in the group will love you for that too).

Both are viable strategies, though don't do it to the extent that either a.) you bite off more than you can chew and drag the mess back to the party or b.) you're kiting stuff away from the melees so they can't help you out in killing it.

Playing a caster is about finding the sweet spot where your playstyle and the needs specific to the group/quest meet so that you can achieve both at their maximum potential. (I hope that makes sense, it made more sense in my head)

no no, perfect sense..I play mostly bards...actually specifically warchanters... sometimes I swing my weapon, but sometimes I need to run around and play ironskin chant and cast haste/rage because it ran out.

My mistake was thinking wizards are like wizards in other mmos where they do the most damage but cant take a licking.

[Tirisha]

Actually the trick is too zerg if you are fighting one mob at a time you will run out of SP. At lv 5 spec Acid or Fire (preferably Acid at this lv) gather as many mobs as you can with Maximize on use a Corrrosion Clicky for a 75% boost too your spell and acid blast them all away in one shot. If you can't manage this then pick up support spells until you hit lv 7 and Firewall...... nothing will compete with FW dps for a very long time.

[leadhead]

Actually the trick is too zerg if you are fighting one mob at a time you will run out of SP. At lv 5 spec Acid or Fire (preferably Acid at this lv) gather as many mobs as you can with Maximize on use a Corrrosion Clicky for a 75% boost too your spell and acid blast them all away in one shot. If you can't manage this then pick up support spells until you hit lv 7 and Firewall...... nothing will compete with FW dps for a very long time.

So get creative but mind the dungeon alerts as well.

[leadhead]

You don't need UMD if you are using wands for spells that your class can cast. You'll just need to at least meet the minimum level requirements for the wand you want to use.

right right...but with my bard I get to the point where I can use wands from any school pretty effectively...I am gathering wizards should probably not try to put points into their UMD.

[Jaid314]

Web them together... yeah my buddy hates when I use charm person. I will get web and fear and whatnot so that the melees can just finish them off.


What about debuffs? I am afraid to get them because fights in are so short anyways, it would seem like a waste.

web, yes.

debuffs, you're quite right that nothing is living long enough to bother at this point.

fear? no. please no. in fact, forget that you even *have* that spell. you are better off without it. that spell is the antithesis of crowd control; it doesn't control squat, it makes them run all over the map and then you have to chase them down and kill them one by one. it's almost like kiting in as many different direction at once as the number of monsters you just feared.

oh, and uhhh... don't worry too much about kiting monsters not near the melees, *if* you can kill them all yourself easily without getting killed. that said, you may not have enough experience yet to know what you can handle... and in any case, you should probably be near the melees kiting stuff anyways, especially once you get wall of fire (pretty much *the* spell for kiting) since you just want to run things through the wall over and over.

[Westerner]

Forget Cause fear. Single target spells have to be really really good to be worth casting. This spell isn't.

1-Niac's Cold Ray and 2-Web are your main offensive spells.

Others to consider are:
1-Hypnotism (panic button if you get surrounded)
1-Expeditious Retreat (good for outrunning mobs and keeping up with barbarians)
1-Jump (good for avoiding mobs)
2-Glitterdust (blinds a crowd, even works on undead)
2-Blur (cast extended version on melees at start of quest, all purpose damage mitigator)

Wands to carry for misc buffing:
Resist Energy
Bear's Endurance
Bull's Strength
Fox's Cunning
Owl's Wisdom

All of the wands above are handy but not usually worth memorizing the spell or using SP, with possible exception of fox's cunning.

[Jamma]

The key to good wizardry is situational awareness and adjustment to tactics for same.

The endless stream of kobold bashing from 1-6 is a good example. Melees will chew through the melee and ranged kobolds like beavers through a willow tree. What they have problems with are kobold shamans, and there's a LOT of them. I throw webs at key chokepoints, and try to concentrate on picking off the shamans at long range with a Niac's cold ray. 10 points for massive damage, assuming you pick up some super cheap Superior Freeze I potions from Object Desire. Shamans have low reflex, so you'll mow them down pretty handily, even on elite.

The Crystal Cove area provides two items that are great for low level wizards, because there's no decent low level wiz gear for trinkets and hats anyway. A cunning trinket is +50 sp, stacks with anything, and even gives a +1 enchantment (hypnotize) and +1 necromancy (command undead) increase. The second item would be a custom built hat. You can set them up for different levels, but if I was to just use one, it'd probably be a Wizardry II + 5 concentration hat, which would be equippable at level 3.

Thats 100 extra SP, or 10 extra niac's or webs between shrines.

The rest of the time I just use a 2 hander and Master's Touch till 7. For levels 5 and 6 you can also try the run and blast technique with fireballs and acid blasts, but I've found Sorcs more suited to this form of mayhem. With the higher spell costs and DDO's abilty to bork the most perfectly aimed fireball on occasion, you could find yourself facing 20 ****ed kobolds and an empty sp bar. But... run and gun is a blast, so maybe give it a whirl on occasion!

[leadhead]

Whoa thanks a ton guys, you have changed my disposition from "am I wasting my time" to " I cant wait to level this class"

[Westerner]

Indeed. Wait til you qualify for Archmage at level 6, it gets even better.

[Bogenbroom]

Comments:

- I completely agree with the "do not nuke" contingent. Max & Empower are hugely wasteful when used on low level spells.
- Avoid AoE damage like the plague. If you need/want to do damage stick with Magic Missle, Niac's, Scorching Ray, (and soon, Frost Lance) *unless* you KNOW your Fireball or whatever will kill things. Aggro=bad.
- Crowd Control rocks. Hypno and Charm.
- Debuffs are useful, but only on tough baddies. Otherwise not worth the SP.
- Early levels on a Caster can be tough and unsatisfying. Master's Touch and a greataxe are much more efficient than actually playing a caster. But that changes.
- Once you get Wall of Fire all rules above change.

[spyyder976]

To answer the OP's question, my wizards (and everything else) are homeless, and their signs all say, "Will cast for guild reknown."

[leadhead]

Comments:

- I completely agree with the "do not nuke" contingent. Max & Empower are hugely wasteful when used on low level spells.
- Avoid AoE damage like the plague. If you need/want to do damage stick with Magic Missle, Niac's, Scorching Ray, (and soon, Frost Lance) *unless* you KNOW your Fireball or whatever will kill things. Aggro=bad.
- Crowd Control rocks. Hypno and Charm.
- Debuffs are useful, but only on tough baddies. Otherwise not worth the SP.
- Early levels on a Caster can be tough and unsatisfying. Master's Touch and a greataxe are much more efficient than actually playing a caster. But that changes.
- Once you get Wall of Fire all rules above change.

Yeah I think if I did it over again, I would have taken maximize later and taken extend which would have cut most of my buffs to one round per quest saving me mana right there. Maximize makes my level 1 chill touch cost 40sp LOL!

[sirgog]

Acid Blast comes next level.

With a clickie to enhance acid spells (Superior Erosion 3 or higher - these clickies add 75% damage despite saying 50%), and Maximize Spell active, it's around 100 damage. 50 when you can't afford Maximize, or on Normal difficulty mobs where you don't need it.

That's a save-or-die effect in most level 5 and under quests on Normal. Should you live the dream and fluke a spell crit, it's a save or die effect on most quest bosses too.

Plus, for situations where your SP just needs to go further, Haste is incredible, and as a Wizard, you can slot both next level. I usually advise players to use scrolls of Haste at first to save SP, but this probably isn't an option if you are on a first character.


Also, next update low level wizards and sorcs are getting gigantic buffs. You can read up on them here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=307823, but my arcane's next life will not involve him using a Hellstroke Greataxe and +1 Holy Quarterstaff of Righteousness at the low levels. They'll be burning stuff down instead.

[erikbozelie]

use the buddy system.

get maximize & empower if needed( not likely, depends on the quest).
run with your buddy to the back of the dungeon, kite everything into an corder and use hand spells(90% ones).
such as hands of fire(or something like that) or the acid variant.

use your buddy to shield block the monsters as compact as possible.

instakill an dungeon... how is this not nuking enough?

just have to play it smart.

[MeliCat]

Please have dismiss charm handy if you're going to use charm.

Lots of good advice here - I have to ween myself off my lazy fw / wail ways

[PopeJual]

So get creative but mind the dungeon alerts as well.

And once you get more practice with your caster, you can use the Dungeon Alert levels to let you know when it's time to nuke.

"Well, we're at Orange Alert and the rest of the party gets cranky when I take the alert to Red. I guess it's time to chuck a Fireball or two."

Actually, I don't like letting things get to Red Alert because I end up moving so slowly when double harried, but if you can gather up more aggro before throwing a spell, then you get to kill more critters with fewer spell points.

Also, if you turn on Maximise and Empower at the same time, then you'll run out of spell points faster than you would believe. Instead, I'd normally leave both off and just use Superior Inferno clickies (and make sure that you have the extra damage enhancements loaded for fire spells) for Fireball and Wall of Fire to take out most of what you encounter.

You'll die fairly often while you get used to the practice, but that's okay. If you solo with your Wizard, then you can get used to grabbing up aggro by running past enemies and then nuking them with a Fireball once you have enough enemies gathered to make it worthwhile and you won't be embarassed when you die.

...and before level 4, I mostly use Master's Touch to make myself proficient with a big Greataxe and then sprint through the quest with Expeditious Retreat and Blur on.

[arjiwan]

Take masters touch( 1st level spell, you can use scrolls), grab a bulls strength wand. grab a greataxe....cast masters touch while holding axe. Cast bulls strength, use axe to kill mobs.

How can you scroll it if you are holding the greataxe? Now I am confused.

I bought 100 master's touch scrolls then I realized I can't use it with my greataxe.

[PopeJual]

Aggro=bad.

I have to disagree with this 100%. Aggro is dangerous. That doesn't mean that aggro is bad, though.

I don't necessarily want the aggro of big boss monsters, but if I have trash aggro, then I get to kill them quickly and efficiently. If the critters are spread all throughout a room, attached to different players, then I might as well not cast at them at all.

You will die when you get aggro while you're getting used to your caster. That's okay. That's how you know you're doing it right. You'll stop dying when you get Reconstruct.

[PopeJual]

How can you scroll it if you are holding the greataxe? Now I am confused.

I bought 100 master's touch scrolls then I realized I can't use it with my greataxe.

If there is a second arcane caster in the party (or someone with enough UMD), then you could give them a couple of scrolls and ask them to cast it on you.

I just load the spell myself since the only level 1 spells that get me excited are Jump, Expeditious Retreat, Master's Touch, Expeditious Retreat, Nightshield and Expeditious Retreat.