Frosted Death - a Water Savant build

[Ridag]

I've been going over the spell pass changes in Update 9 and have pretty much worked out the build that I am going to try. I just TR'd this character into his final life and have a lesser heart saved to swap to this build once U9 goes live. His past lives are 3x Sorcerer and 1x Wizard, and I've tried to tailor to these strengths. The stats are laid out with tomes that I already have, everyone has a different opinion on where to put points after Charisma. I prefer max con and the leftovers spread around, you should lay out your stats however you see fit, these are just recommendations.

Level 20 Human Sorcerer - True Neutral - 36 point build

Stats -

Str - 10 (+2 tome, +6 can be slotted in if you feel it is necessary = 12 or 18)
Dex - 8 (+2 tome, +6 item = 18)
Con - 18 (+2 tome, +6 item, +3 Exceptional, +1 Human Greater Adaptability = 30)
Int - 9 (+3 tome = 12) because I have the tome and like the skill points
Wis - 9 (+3 tome, +6 item = 18)
Cha - 18 (+5 Levels, +6 item, +2 tome, +3 Sorc Enhancements, +1 Human Adaptability, +3 Exceptional = 38)

I have access to +2 ship buffs as well, but not Yugo pots (at least not for a little while). I also am without a +7 Charisma item and a Litany, so there is room for growth.

Feats -

1 - Maximize
1 - Toughness
3 - Extend (take for the early levels and if you can live without it swap it for Spell Focus: Necromancy around before level 18)
6 - Spell Focus: Evocation (or Past Life: Arcane Prodigy if you prefer)
9 - Empower
12 - Past Life Arcane Initiate
15 - Heighten
18 - Spell Focus Necromancy (Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy if you swapped out Extend)

My Spell Pen is 28 and I am finding that to be fine in epic content, even on orange devils and abashai while solo farming scrolls in eChrono

Spell List -

Level 1 - Jump, Nightshield, Protection from Evil, Hypnotism (-3 Will Save is awesome)

Level 2 - Resist Energy, Web, Knock, Scorching Ray

Level 3 - Haste, Rage, Displacement, Halt Undead (or Fireball if you have no need for Halt or want to scroll it)

Level 4 - Dimension Door, Enervation, Wall of Fire, Fireshield (or Ice Storm and just scroll Fireshield, I'm just not a fan of Ice Storm at all - if you don't take Extend definitely scroll Fireshield the duration difference is negligible)

Level 5 - Protection from Elements, Cloud Kill, Niac's Biting Cold, Cyclonic Blast

Level 6 - Otiluke's Freezing Sphere, Circle of Death, open slot here whichever level 6 spell you can't do without - I change between FtS, Acid Fog or Disintegrate depending on what I'm into at the time

Level 7 - Finger of Death, Otto's Sphere of Dancing, Waves of Exhaustion (Prismatic Spray is a fun one to carry here as well)

Level 8 - Polar Ray, Symbol of Death, Otto's Irresistible Dance (tried Horrid Wilting and didn't like it, Power Word Stun is pretty nice spell here as well)

Level 9 - Wail of the Banshee, Power Word: Kill, Mass Hold Monster (Energy Drain is an option here but I prefer Enervation, MHM still works especially if you hit them with a Hypno first)

The spell list is designed to get the best out of the Water Savant cold damage, maintain powerful instant kill abilities and deal with threats through a variety of CC with some Negative leveling thrown in for good measure. For dealing with cold immunes you still have Wall of Fire and Scorching Ray, as well as untyped.

Enhancements - As listed in Character window

Sorcerer Bloodline of power
Human Adaptability
Sorcerer Improved Maximize II
Racial Toughness II
Sorcerer Water Savant III
Glacial Spellcasting VI
Combustive Spellcasting II
Kinetic Spellcasting I
Deadly Ice VI
Deadly Flame I
Deadly Kinetics I
Frost Manipulation VII
Flame Manipulation VII
Force Manipulation I
Sorcerer Improved Spell Penetration III
Sorcerer Energy of the Dragonblooded II
Sorcerer Charisma III

Yes I am a Water Savant with a secondary focus in Fire, and it works! I chose to use my AP to take the full damage enhancements in fire, mostly to increase the damage of Wall of Fire. I planned to put 1 point in the crit line and crit multiplier line but ended up with an extra point and stuck it in the second rank of the crit line, you can use it in scroll mastery or whatever you like. I also dropped a point into each of the Force lines to give a little boost to my untyped damage of Cyclonic Blast or Disintegrate if I happen to be carrying it, and the Wiz Past life missiles for kicks. If you prefer you can use those points elsewhere, if you drop the 3 points in force and the extra in the Fire crit line that frees up 4 AP which you can use elsewhere.

Gear - a work in progress, just going to list what I have or wish I had

Off-hand - +9 Charisma Dagger (Alternate Skiver)
Main hand - Ornamented Dagger level Tier 2 level 16 version (Alternate Epic Ornamented Dagger, Upgraded Death's touch)
Helm - Minos (Going for Epic Helm of Frost eventually)
Goggles - Conc/Opp, 150 exceptional SP, Blindness/Disease Immunity, +5 Cha skills
Trinket - Eardweller (Litany someday)
Necklace - Cartouche (Epic Shaman's would be nice for the greater Evocation Focus as would Torc)
Cloak - Napkin (Epic Envenomed someday)
Boots - I swap boots too often to really decide on a single pair, many useful choices
Belt - Water Savant belt (have all the caster belts)
Rings - FF random, Spell Storing, Bucaneer etc (Still need to get ToD rings)
Gloves - Undecided
Bracers - 45 HP Min II, (Ideally would like Epic Scorched Bracers here and hp item in gloves slot)
Robe - DT with GFL, +6 Con, Greater Spell Pen VIII

I think that covers just about everything. Of course it is a work in progress, but I am really enjoying it in all aspects of play. It has room for tailoring to specific playstyles, in the feats and spell list.

I'm open to comments and suggestions, hope you enjoy!

[Jaid314]

i'm confused. your plan if you have problems with spell pen is to use AOE enervation (i assume you mean circle of death)... which has to beat SR to work?

[wax_on_wax_off]

Web will be your only option for crowd control? No charms or holds? Please explain.

[Ridag]

i'm confused. your plan if you have problems with spell pen is to use AOE enervation (i assume you mean circle of death)... which has to beat SR to work?

Circle and Symbol yes, and mobs can be run through until SR is overcome if necessary. Mainly I will be relying on spell pen from items, enhancements and past life Wizard. If I find it is a problem I'll drop an Evo feat for a spell pen feat and I should be fine. For very high SR enemies nuking would be the first option, of course.

Web will be your only option for crowd control? No charms or holds? Please explain.

That's the same exact CC I solo'd epics with before I tacked on the last 2 past lives, minus a crappy DC mass hold, if I find it lacking I'll update. Symbol of Persuasion is an easy swap if you desire some charm, as is mass charm, though symbol is probably the better choice as you can run mobs through a few times rather than recast.

The Water Savant spell damage and removal of death immunities in epics should make the low CC a non-issue.

EDIT: Alternately I could run 2 more Wizard lives to make up the extra spell pen as well, been running about a life every 8 days in my current TR group so it would just be a short delay. Though I would like this leveled and mostly complete before U9 hits live.

Thanks for reading and for your feedback! This is obviously an untested build and won't be fully refined until U9 goes live.

[sirgog]

Web will be your only option for crowd control? No charms or holds? Please explain.

Like a Barbarian, this character's party role will be DPS. Any crowd control they provide will be a minor bonus; just as the Barbarian's Stunning Blows are.



I posted a build a while back that was somewhat similar in design, called the Chillblain. Personally I'd never consider making a fleshie arcane without Toughness; endgame has too many unpredictable incoming damage spikes not to have the HP buffer.

[Jaid314]

ok then, on to taking a look at the spell list.

1 - personally, i'd opt for ray of enfeeblement. sure, it won't make red-names helpless, but it still works on *normal* beholders (including epic normal beholders) and is a *ray* which means you can use it from beyond their antimagic cone to render them helpless. surely that's worth *something* to you? (i also wouldn't personally bother with protection from evil, but have nothing particularly better to suggest for it, except maybe expeditious retreat for long-term running speed)

2 - looks fine, i personally like blur over melfs, but it can work.

3 - deep slumber would be another option to replace frost lance. halt undead is fine from scrolls for the most part anyways.

4 - meh, i doubt you'll be all that impressed by wall of fire in your case. your ice storm will deal 3d6+18 total (+20 with ToD rings if they get it working right), the wall will deal 2d6+11 (or 4d6+11 to undead). i'd put acid rain in here, personally, and respec those fire points into acid to supplement this and your melf's acid arrow.

5 - main thing i notice is a lack of spells to clear persistent AoE - i would recommend either cyclonic blast or break enchantment. cloudkill will benefit from the acid-damage theme i suggested you build (and is great for use on raid bosses for the miss chance), so i'm going to suggest you drop protection from elements (you can scroll it for 102 points instead of 120 if you care all that much) and put one of those two in, your choice as to which.

6 - well, i'm not a fan of building a sorc with no reconstruct, but if you don't care about certain raids (or if you group with a good tank) you shouldn't need it. if i was going to drop one of those spells, it would be the freezing sphere... yeah, i know, ice spells is your theme, but it really doesn't do anything cone of cold won't do. are you really going to need two AOE cold nukes that badly? still, if you don't feel you will ever need to worry about reconstructing a warforged, it's quite doable.

7 - hmmm... not sure how i feel about losing the dancing sphere. it would add an imo much needed third form of CC (you've got fort and ref covered, but not will), and with the helplessness change i'm not sure there's much need to make absolutely certain your specific caster has waves of exhaustion anymore (it's still a great debuff, i'm just not convinced it's a great enough debuff to replace dancing sphere). if you're not particularly attached to prismatic spray, i'd ditch that first, *but*.... with 3 sorc past life feats and 2 evocation focuses, prismatic spray will likely be your highest DC spell for potential CC, so it might work out to keep it as well. in any case, i'd definitely try to bring dancing sphere back in (and sadly, i really can't recommend ditching finger of death either, since it's only getting stronger next patch and especially since the CD on AOE death spells is going so long).

8 - looks ok, not sure how well symbol of death will do... i prefer OID for the no-save treatment, but whatever works for you :P (by all means, if you find you get good results by running stuff through symbol of death, use it... but it's got a pretty nasty cooldown).

9 - ok, if you like. i'm not a huge fan of PW:K, but i'm not sure meteor swarm is a worthwhile choice on a sorc with so little investment into the damage enhancement lines. i'll grant that PW:K is at least better than most other level 9 spells in its new incarnation. still, that cooldown is nasty... i like to pick spells that i can use often on my sorc, and to me this spell feels like it's not needed - anything it will work on will likely also drop to an energy ray followed by finger of death.

[Ridag]

Like a Barbarian, this character's party role will be DPS. Any crowd control they provide will be a minor bonus; just as the Barbarian's Stunning Blows are.



I posted a build a while back that was somewhat similar in design, called the Chillblain. Personally I'd never consider making a fleshie arcane without Toughness; endgame has too many unpredictable incoming damage spikes not to have the HP buffer.

I saw The Chillblain and found it too generalist for my taste for this character. My generalist savant will be an Air Savant with a wiz past life, possibly Warforged.

I haven't worked out the HP, but I should be able to break (or come close to) 400 without toughness, if I find it to be to low I can re-arrange. I will have no fail heal scrolls and about 4 years of (on and off) experience playing a nuking focused caster in ddo, so I'm fairly confident I'll be ok.

ok then, on to taking a look at the spell list.

1 - I agree on ray and might drop chill touch for it

2 - I can live without blur, as I'll keep myself displaced (even without extend I am OCD about self buffing)

3 - Halt Undead from scrolls is being fixed I believe, I will test to confirm

4 - Yeah, I will try it both ways and see which I prefer

5 - I've read this a lot lately on the forum, but never found a real need to clear the field of persistent aoes that is better than taking out the caster

6 - My guild doesn't really run any WF tanks, all high healing amp/hp/ac dwarves that can be kept up fairly well on heal scrolls alone. I have no use for reconstruct outside of scroll. I can see how it could be useful for some.

7 - Dancing sphere was a bit of a sacrifice that may make its way back in over WoE at some point, if I find WoE less than useful. Prismatic Spray is going to be phenomenal on this build, I really look forward to playing with that.

8 - The cooldown isn't too bad for it's purpose, oid is something that I always forget about even when I have it. I'm just not a CC oriented player, so I stick to my strengths.

9 - We need more level 9 spells, PW: Kill is just the ultimate get out of jail free card and I want to play around with it a bit

[Ridag]

Re-arranged after tweaking in Update 9.

[skarlspeedbump]

If we are building a first time build, instead of the past life feats, would I be safe using the feats Greater spell focus: evocation and Greater spell focus: nercomancy? I am playing with your build but admittedly do not have your knowledge.

[Ridag]

If we are building a first time build, instead of the past life feats, would I be safe using the feats Greater spell focus: evocation and Greater spell focus: nercomancy? I am playing with your build but admittedly do not have your knowledge.

While I wouldn't recommend such a build for a first life, I hope you find it enjoyable.

If you are a first life build you would be better off going with Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy over GSF: Evocation.

Spell Penetration would also be a decent choice if you find you are having trouble with Spell Resistance.

[skarlspeedbump]

Thanks for the response. So i will go greater focus Necro and just maybe spell penetration. I am playing around with tbhe spells etc and I am level 10 at this time. I play with a small group of friends and figured I would give it a go

Is there a reason why this isn't a good first build? Is it a stat thing?

[Ridag]

Thanks for the response. So i will go greater focus Necro and just maybe spell penetration. I am playing around with tbhe spells etc and I am level 10 at this time. I play with a small group of friends and figured I would give it a go

Is there a reason why this isn't a good first build? Is it a stat thing?

The Wizard past life passive feat provides +2 spell penetration which allows you to skip taking a spell pen feat, and the Wizard active past life feat gives +1 to all DCs which allows you to get those necro DCs up there.

The Sorcerer passive past life feats aren't as important, but each one gives +1 to your evocation spells making it not as vital to take any Evocation feats in turn allowing more room for the necro feats.

[goodspeed]

why would you take scorching ray or fireball if your building a water savent mage? And while ya might not like the ice storm id say firewall might get you killed; unless you were using a cc with it like mass hold.

[Ridag]

why would you take scorching ray or fireball if your building a water savent mage? And while ya might not like the ice storm id say firewall might get you killed; unless you were using a cc with it like mass hold.

Well, by being a Water Savant you get -9 to caster levels on your fire spells, so at cap your fire spell are caster level 11.

Scorching Ray gets its 3rd ray at caster level 11, so it is the same at CL 11 as it is at CL 20.

Fireball caps out at 10d3+30 at CL 10, so at CL 11 it would be the same as CL 20.

Wall of Fire caps out at CL 15, so a CL 11 one loses 4 points of base damage which works out to about 35 max damage short of a CL 20 Wall. As a Water Savant I'm still seeing my Wall of Fire crit in the 400s (on non-undead), certainly nothing to sneeze at considering the usefulness of WoF.

[unknownturok]

what feats should i do sinve im only 32 point build not TR

[Ridag]

what feats should i do sinve im only 32 point build not TR

On a first life I would probably go with -

1 - Maximize
1 - Toughness
3 - Extend (take for the early levels and if you can live without it swap it for Spell Penetration between levels 18 - 20)
6 - Spell Focus: Evocation
9 - Empower
12 - Spell Focus Necromancy
15 - Heighten
18 - Greater Spell Focus Necromancy

Your Necro DCs and Spell Pen are going to be lacking on a first life build, but this is the best you can do.

[unknownturok]

On a first life I would probably go with -

1 - Maximize
1 - Toughness
3 - Extend (take for the early levels and if you can live without it swap it for Spell Penetration between levels 18 - 20)
6 - Spell Focus: Evocation
9 - Empower
12 - Spell Focus Necromancy
15 - Heighten
18 - Greater Spell Focus Necromancy

Your Necro DCs and Spell Pen are going to be lacking on a first life build, but this is the best you can do.

thank you