Leveling Archmage with no SLA?

[voxson5]

I saw an idea by... Neil-someone in another thread which works quite well

-illusion SLA's (AMIV) (gives blur, displacement, something else & PK)
-enchantment SLA (1st) (hypnotism, only 6 seconds but can be a lifesaver - cooldown is 6 seconds to..)
-evocation SLA (1st)
-arcane bolt & blast
-conjuration SLA (2nd) (grease & web)

twiddle it around, maybe get evoc 3 SLA & necro 1 SLA (for dessert epics)


but for your echos of power, you'll get a couple of buffs, an insta-kill, couple of CC, AND single target & AoE damage spells that you can *always* cast



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I did a CoF run a few days ago on a WF AM evoc/enchanter (lv 10, going to more or less follow Neil-someones build idea), pretty much did the whole quest just cycling hypono, MM SLA, arcane bolt. good times

[MindCake]

Throw in Echoes and we now have an infinite supply of pew-pew if things get silly. Can someone shed some light if I’m missing something, because I just can’t see the nerf.

You can now have infinite pew-pew by just taking MM, Force Missile or Scorching Ray spell. No need to spend feats and permanent SP on it.

Basically, evocation AM was nerfed slightly, while everything else got a significant boost. Evoc. spec wasn't popular before, and now the balance only shifted further away.

[lppmor]

Thanks for all answers guys.

I created my Wizard already. My goal is to not get the SLAs and only enjoy the enlarged sp pool, going without metamagic until higher levels when I really feel the need to use some Maximize (or until they fix metamagic to cost less with the cheaper spells). I'm considering only getting Arcane Bolt, since this SLA does not require metamagic to do reasonable damage againt non-evasion mobs, and it'is always nice to have something to cast inside an antimagic field.

[Junts]

In my observation, this is exaclty how most archmages level, though they may take the 1 sp hypno (pretty uber) and usually take the dc-bonuses along the way, especially those speccing necromancy.