Best savant in your opinion

[Samadhi]

IMO, lightning's compatibility with web is particularly important. Lightning is the only source of large-area blast damage that will not interrupt a web, and with mob saves rising, web is going to be the most reliable way for a sorceror to clump up mobs to bombard with the aoes.

This is what I have been doing with Nixole for two years now. Gather 25+ mobs (or else nuking not mana effective). Place 2-3 webs right on top of each other (she was already conjuration spec'd). Lightning, lightning, lightning until so few left you need to go back to gathering

[Zodh]

J, I'm surprised, you havent mentioned Cone of Cold!
That's the best addition to Electric spells, especially in Amrath content.

Only if Freezing Sphere wasnt bugged and could hit just like DBF or AT LEAST the regular fireball - that would be awesome.
And what's the problem with fixing it, jeeez =\

[Anneliese]

For my 2 capped casters, I want both cold and fire spells available, so cold/fire savant is out (Cone of Cold and FW).

On my drow sorc I will take lightning/air: The knockdown immunity and the 6s-cooldown-wings will greatly help her survivability (if she dies, then usually because she gets knocked down or cant retreat fast enough out of a bad situation induced by lag etc). The curse will also help on most raid bosses where many people will use a LitII.

On my wf sorc, I will take the earth line. He solos a lot and has a high con - allowing a high DC earthgrab. It is also very sp-efficient. Furthermore, even when out of SP, I can shoot a maximized empowere Melf SLA for nice DPS every 6 seconds. (this is a minor issue, but could prevent the usage of pots in situations where only a few mobs are missing).

[Raiderone]

There won't be any over. Not as you need maxed subtle spell casting, along with the savant requirements and the cha enhancements.

Won't even fit any of the spell penetration enhancements.


EDIT: Will obviously have one rank in force, for that +20%.

There are plenty of AP's to get two full lines and most of a third. Forget Subtle spell Casting... I have no problem with getting Aggro...heck I expect it.
I dropped ChaIII and took bare minimums of Impr MaxI&II..

I'm going Earth Savant and was able to get all Acid & Fire Lines (8%,50%,125%) with Cold at 8%,50% and 85%...

And far as Force is concerned, I'd rather have Cold cause I'll use it more.

And I think saying Fire is useless past lvl16 is way off base. If Fire was useless past the Vale, they wouldn't be going thru so much trouble to NERF Firewall....

Now with Earth Savant, you can choose your AOE with Acid Rain, Acid Fog, FW, Cloudkill, or Inc Cloud. Then If I want to Single Target, Burning Blood, Melf's Acid Arrow or Niac's, Frost Lance,Polar Ray. Then throw in Acid Blast, DBF and MS for some masses...

[Xaxx]

I think every savant has its place, but I personally break down the 4 into these categorys.

Fire - leveling spec

Ice - end game raid spec

Earth- middle of the road more single target and general dps than air

Air - middle of the road, more in the bag of tricks and a bit more aoe damage than earth.

Fire for levin, ice for raiding, earth/air for a bit of both. Thats my general take on em.

[Arctigis]

Horses for courses...

However, some people are seriously underestimating Air Savant. Reserving final judgment until the spell caps
are fixed.

[Crimsonplayer]

So Ice is better than Acid at endgame?...and is Earthgrab DC good with a 26con?

[Gol]

One thing I'd like to point out that I haven't seen mentioned...

Party DPS of the Air Savant. Elec Curses with a party swinging lightning 2 shroud sticks = HUGE damage. I'm inclined to think this will actually be more "DPS" than any of the others without casting a single direct damage spell.

Shroud / VoD / ToD normal/hard runs, Lit 2 is better DPS than Min 2. Same for ev6. It only falls short in eDQ2 and Abbot, but you still have full access to your cold/fire lines for those.

[Jaid314]

So Ice is better than Acid at endgame?...and is Earthgrab DC good with a 26con?

water and earth will probably be really close in DPS to each other, depending on immunities/resistances. the sheer volume of damage generated by acid SLAs (edit: should be DoT, not SLA, though that's also better in generl) is huge. water/ice spec with a secondary earth spec will be higher than just earth (or earth with an ice secondary spec), i think, but it will be an interesting comparison, and in both cases i expect it will be fairly close.

26 con should make earthgrab somewhat useful in certain situations, but not all situations by any means.

i suspect that one or the other of the two will be in first place by a very small margin, with the other being right behind, and then most anything else will be far enough behind those to make the difference between water/earth look small by comparison (well, fire will be close against stuff that isn't immune, and water will pull *way* ahead against anything with a mantle of invulnerability...)

but ultimately, you're really going to be happy either way with water or earth, i should think. either one should be able to make a max DPS melee green with envy until they run out of SP.

oh, and i'm not convinced that fire is the best spec for leveling up. earth is about as good with SLAs and spell selection, and i'm doubtful wall of fire will compare all that favorably to acid rain any more...

[Crimsonplayer]

I'm most likely going to end up going Water Savant more than earth because if my playstlyle

[Raiderone]

Alot of spell changes with this last update. Melf's, Acid Rain, FW and Burning Blood were all reduced.

I dont believe Burning Blood benefits from only one line now.




after more testing and basically going with Savant that'll benefit me the most...which is Air Savant.

So going Air Savant for immune to knockdowns and wind dance plus getting high resistance isnt bad.
Going Full Electric and Cold Lines(9%,50%,125%) with Fire as my Third Line (8%,40%,85%).

[Skirmish]

Trying Ice now, is a lot of fun so far. The third tier ice attack that locks people in place for you like an Earth Grab is just fabulous.

But, for my money, I absolutely love Earth. A lot of AOE spells. Plus Earth Grab and the 260pt stoneskin were a lot of fun to play around with. Will be even more useful/impressive now that several high-end mobs are losing their natural acid resist.

[hityawithastick]

Boing boing boing boing Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee


Translation: I prefer air savants due to their useful abilities.

[Attropos]

I'm really digging both Acid (even with the acid nerf) and Lightning, but I think we 3 Wiz lives and 3 Sorc lives, a human air savant will be the best DPS as well as soloer. I'm also considering making a single lifer WF acid savant however. I think without the many TR's, acid will be by far the most powerful, whereas elec will be the most powerful with the tr's.

Why Lightning > Ice?
Lightning- Much more survivable, better SLA's. With quicken to fix LB's speed issue, LB will be the best single target SLA available. It's not resisted by the main end game bosses like Ice Lance is, it targets a weaker save on most raid targets, and it deals slightly more damage than Ice lance (19.5d6 versus 12d10). Factor in that Ice Lance gets hit by resistance 3 times, versus LB's 1-2, it will deal more damage. Shocking grasp will deal more damage unless you have an extraordinary Conjuration DC, which most Ice specc'd casters won't have. Lightning also affects the entire party's DPS with its curse. Ice will be able to dump mana slightly better than Lightning, but with Abishai set and Epic Staff of Arcane power, you will still have 25d8 polar rays. Ice will be better versus DQ, but she is such a small part of this game that Elec's superiority versus other raid bosses makes up for it.

Bottom line, Ice and Electricity put out the sameish single target damage. Going Ice penalizes your fire, which is more severe than punishing acid in my opinion. Electricity will be much more survivable and much more solo friendly.

[Crimsonplayer]

Alot of spell changes with this last update. Melf's, Acid Rain, FW and Burning Blood were all reduced.

I dont believe Burning Blood benefits from only one line now.

I'll probably still stay Earth Savant. But may swap Acid Rain for Ice Storm.
I don't like the short duration of 8secs. And it now has same reflex save on 1st tic.

I'll have enough acid spells,,, acid spray, melf's, acid blast, burning blood, cloadkill and acid fog.

fire spells will be scorching ray, firewall, dbf and meteor swarm.
cold spells will be frost lance, ice storm, cone of cold, niac biting cold and polar ray.

but i dont know...might have to try water savant

go all cold line, acid line and electric..forgetting about Fire

I thought Firewall was increased.

[Kralael]

Now ?

Cold.

[Maegin]

Not sure if it is "best" but for me Air = wings = WIN

This.

As soon as I read that they got wings from eladrins teasers, I was sold.

[Raiderone]

I thought Firewall was increased.

No Firewall was changed to a level 15 max instead of lvl 20. It's spell cost was reduced from 35sp or should we say brought back to original cost of 25sp.

So Firewall has been nerfed twice.

[Arctigis]

No Firewall was changed to a level 15 max instead of lvl 20. It's spell cost was reduced from 35sp or should we say brought back to original cost of 25sp.

So Firewall has been nerfed twice.

Someone, with a FiS III, should check that the cap is increased (to +18). I'm not convinced this is
happening in all cases where it should.

[Mister_Peace]

"Boing boing" "boing boing" Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Translation: I prefer air savants due to their "useful abilities."

I read that, and I imagined Noira Splashpaige. She's probably fire-spec though.