What made you decide to play a spell caster?

[Nahual]

FoD, PK, FoD, PK, FoD, PK, FoD, PK, FoD, PK, FoD, PK

should I continue?

[infernalmagiks]

I must have built about 30 different characters before I capped my first, a cleric.

I'm not into swing swing swing, I like variety in the ways I kill stuff. Casters have that. Most everything else is swing swing swing swing swing swing swing swing swing swing swing.

Unfortunately that's just not my thing, couldn't keep me interested.

[hityawithastick]

Explosive runes?

[Xyfiel]

grease?

Because melee is 90% run to mob and hold mouse button, with slight variations
Healing is target player(s) heal, repeat
Ranged is tab target, hold mouse button
Casting(divine also) is much more involved

What/when/where to cast, when to nuke/cc/heal.

[MeliCat]

It's such a fundamental class in DDO I felt I had to try one to understand them even though I have no aptitude or burning need to play one. I am dexturally challenged such that the latest spell changes that stop me doing the lazy firewall and wailing caster play are really going to give me problems. However just because something seems just impossibly difficult to me doesn't mean I won't at least *try*. There are plenty of nice people I can ask and good guides I can read such that I bumble along. And casters are kind of interesting/fun even though I'm so terrible at them.

I have a capped, geared WF sorc - built like a tank and good for soloing easy stuff (I soloed a lot of CC25 on this WAY too many times). And a capped mostly geared drow wiz who I will TR into wiz with the oncoming changes to see if I can get the hang of her. The wiz I want to do a ton of abbots with for gear but with my dexturally challenged self I am too nervous to lfm them and am at the mercy of any pug who is unwise enough to let me in! (Mellizzic in case you're wondering... you've been warned! I can do roids ok but non DIed ice and goggles I need to work at). Reading up on past lives I realised that clerics and bards could help so maybe I'll delay any real attempt at end game arcanes by those 6 TRs... (I like playing clerics and bards...)

In the meantime I have guildies who were shortmanning epics anyway who let me come in to see how often my CC works (not terrible... but in Lam this is worse so I will really lose out without those past lives).

They're an interesting and fundamental class. And in midgame they feel just uber. Come Amrath and epics though and it feels like the role is more buff bot and CC so it will be interesting to see how the whole sorc thing turns out.

[Emili]

It's such a fundamental class in DDO I felt I had to try one to understand them even though I have no aptitude or burning need to play one. I am dexturally challenged such that the latest spell changes that stop me doing the lazy firewall and wailing caster play are really going to give me problems.
...

You play a fine arcane and comes down to it is nothing but practice and awareness... not just 'bout yourself but of what is going on. You play a good game Mel no mater what class you're on, I've noted such before, you're attentive.

[Claransa]

Always played one in PnP will always play a "blue bar" on DDO, i just like all the spells!

[MeliCat]

You play a fine arcane and comes down to it is nothing but practice and awareness... not just 'bout yourself but of what is going on. You play a good game Mel no mater what class you're on, I've noted such before, you're attentive.

Em ty for your kind and encouraging words. I've had such exellent advice and teachers :P Practice as you say... we'll see how it goes...

[Scraap]

The capacity to turn the game on it's self with malice aforethought and preparation.

Whether that is throwing a summon and invising, tossing out a mass suggestion and letting them beat each other to death (bonus points if you land on everything but the redname so you don't have to take the time to release them ), door-blocking/kiting with an aoe and watching them frantically try and get at me while damaging themselves in the process, or buffing the gills out of a party and letting them go to town, it allows for more immersion than the typical 'walk 10-15 steps and treat the next mob as nothing more than a sack of meat to be carved/stabbed/blown up' approach.

[phillymiket]

Because it's there

I'd probably roll up a chimney sweep if it was introduced as a class.

I must respectfully disagree with the "melee is easy button" sentiment, however.

I have capped melees, healers and arcane. They each have their own challenges. They are all a blast to play.

I like the fact that on an arcane it really pays to know your enemy. If you know their weakness and which of their saves are strong and which are weak it really helps.

I like that there is one or just a few of your class in the party and you can do things no one else can.

I like that there are more ways for an arcane to get creative in solving a problem than other classes.

I like the flashing lights and big sploshuns.

I like to blow stuff up. Blow it up good. Real good.

[tgu]

Going to throw out some responses:

I try to portray myself as a sophisticated, knowleagable person

Are you? Cause it would be funny if you were quite the opposite :P

MOAR BIGGER NUMBEHRRSSS!!!!!!

Big numbers > little numbers :P

Fingering people without a follow-up lawsuit. Sometimes wailing or screaming is involved too.

I didn't even know how to react to that, not the every-day-kinda reply.

So I could farm epic scrolls.

Seriously.

Sometimes the best reasons are simple.

My initial thoughts starting any new game are,

-Melee is the easy button, and fails to keep my attention
-Casters require thought, planning, use of limited resources, and have HUGE NUKES!!!!

This is along the lines I thought, melee is slash slash until you win. Casters usually have to pick certain spells in certain situations....again this is ALL in the beginning.

Actually I find it quite the opposite... caster being less thinking that is. A caster is easily in control in the higher levels. There is less to think about than a melee when at mid or higher levels. i.e. solo inferno, solo epic fens...

This is why I put the quote under his. INITIAL thoughts vs. sustained thoughts. A new player comes in thinking quite the opposite, and often times low levels is not easy to control and there is a lot more thinking. Some people STILL don't know how to play a battle cleric/FvS, or what spells to use/not use.

With that said, at high levels the game changes. This thread is about initial thoughts of casters, so don't forget that next time :P

Because I played when the level cap was 14, back when casters were so much better than melees it wasn't funny.

How much better we talking Sirgog? Examples.

To the OP---by "spell caster", did you mean Wizard/Sorcerer (as all of the replies seem to be about arcane casters) or did you mean any class whose primary focus is to cast spells?

...

If you are looking for any spell caster, I enjoy playing clerics because it is fairly easy to find groups. I like helping out, too...

Like anything in life a "spell caster" can be what you define it as. Bards, Clerics, Favored Soul, Sorcerer, and Wizard are the five conventional caster types; however, that doesn't mean everyone thinks so. I still don't see bards as a specialist, just like a cleric/FvS are often times more hybrid and can do any number of roles. Another thing - paladins COULD BE considered melee oriented casters.

So, if I HAD to define it: the ability to cast spells with frequency. That is a whole different debate though.

[slimkj]

Wanted to do something a bit more interactive than mash the mouse button (no autoattack in those days).

[JasonJi72]

While Rogues will always be my favorite (especially for solo quests), because you have to use strategy, casters will always have a special place in my heart.

The reason is mainly due to my time in pnp and nwn. In nwn, you had to be good at pvp, and mages ruled that, but you had to know what you were doing. I remember my apprenticeship days (yes, I was an apprentice), and how much I learned, while being constantly reminded about how much I had yet to learn and what I still needed practice with.

I did not play a mage until I had learned the game, and learned casting as a divine. You can choose a lot of options as a caster that are not in the mainstream and still be effective, and that is why I play a caster.

[sirgog]

How much better we talking Sirgog? Examples.

One word - firewall.

Almost nothing was immune to fire or even heavily resistant, lots of undead around to take double damage, even some icy undead to take quadruple.

But most of all - multiple firewalls in the same location stacked, each one doing damage, not just the most recently cast one. After a buildup (while they cast all the firewalls in the one spot), a single arcane that didn't need to preserve SP could unload 1000+ damage per second on a stationary boss and sustain it for 2+ minutes.

And that's not even mentioning the potent array of crowd control, Finger of Death and hjaste.


In short, arcanes were the highest single-target DPS, the highest AoE DPS, had the best insta-kills, and the best crowd control. Melees - well, you needed someone to tank the Stormreaver, and the arcanes back then usually didn't have enough hitpoints to do that smoothly, so they had one use.

[fuzzy1guy]

Because theres alot of people to kill and take their stuff.

[leadhead]

Hadnt played one yet so I made one, now its kind of morphed into learning an entirely new part of DDO. I am having a blast playing my wizard, but I am going to have to say that it is pretty much the least powerful class in the game.

[bryanmeerkat]

Sometimes I cant be bothered to wait for a group so I started a cleric so that any group i started would have a cleric , then i realised i didnt need the group anymore . Expanded out after that for a WF wizzie .

[bryanmeerkat]

Hadnt played one yet so I made one, now its kind of morphed into learning an entirely new part of DDO. I am having a blast playing my wizard, but I am going to have to say that it is pretty much the least powerful class in the game.

Hehe , you will learn little padwan . When you learn the ways of the Force (and Fire wall) and everything dies as you run through you will asee that this class is now the ultimate force in the galaxy .

( i may of stretched the starwars reference a bit here )

[Kriogen]

Because it was there.

Well, I have many alts. One is this, one is that, and one of them happens to be a spell caster.

[DaSawks]

His name is Woodward. I was part of a 3 man DPS team. Then along came Woodward and everything became easy. "Hey guys fight in my Wall of Fire" The heavens opened and I copied Woodward and made Spacewalker.