Water Savant - new player seeks help

[Coju]

Hey everyone, new player here. I was looking for help on how to build a Water Savant. I pretty much know how to do the skills maxing Concentration, UMD, and +1 in Tumble. I am looking for information on what spells and enhancements to take and what levels would be best to take said spells and enhancements. I tried to make a build using the character planner, but I ended up with only 140 HP and that seemed way too low. Sorry for being a total noob, but I got to start somewhere.


Here is what I have for starting stats so far. I chose Empower Spell as my first feat.

Drow - True Neutral
Str - 8
Dex - 10
Con - 14
Int - 12
Wis - 8
Cha - 20

[adamkatt]

First go wf. Screw concentration. Max cha max con. For low lvl spells i like to cc until about lvl 8.

[Paleus]

Taking the toughness feat will net you an additional 42 hit points if you also take both racial toughness enhancements. I tend to pick up toughness as one of my first feat, especially on squishy types, as the early levels at which you can get toughness enhancement +10 hit points can make a difference.

Also, I'm guessing you partly took drow for the high DC, but also partly for the free 32 pt build. You may want to consider human. You can net another 20 hit points from con and 10 hit points from enhancements, while really only losing 1 pt of charisma. You'd have to sacrifice some of int and your dex if you only have 28 pt builds, but the dex boost is fairly unneeded at the least.

After build characteristics, the next way to increase hit points is to concentrate on your gear. Wearing the best false life item at your level can net you between 5-30 hit points (ok more with superior but lets just assume whats within easier reach of a likely f2p person), and the best con item as well. Assuming you get relatively good gear thats 30 for GFL and 60 from con item. Making all of those changes you get your build up to 302 Hit points, certainly not bad for a caster type, but always room for improvement. A racial con enhancement of +1 and a +1 tome can get you another 20 hit points.

Long term you can get even more hit points from a greensteel item in the Vale of Twilight pack for another 45, as well as +10 from Agents of Argonnessen favor, doable from Gianthold adventure pack. If you dont have those two packs I highly suggest getting them both, not just for your hit points, but because they include some of the best content. In other content pack exclusive items, getting the minos legens nets you an additional +20 hp and the heavy fortification that everyone is basically expected to have at end game. That said, it comes from Necro IV, and while also good content, especially for an arcane, I'd hold off on purchasing it at least until you have the previous two I mentioned.

Almost forgot, don't be afraid to use the rage spell. Its another +2 to your con and the downside of a negative to your AC wont matter because on a sorcerer you were going to get hit anyway if a mob attacks you.

Anyway, thats all I can think of at the moment for hit points that is likely applicable to a new player that I am assuming is F2P. Others can come and respond about other parts of your post, but I think you were right to note that your low hit points would potentially be a problem end game and its good to start mapping out how to address that. If you are P2P definitely think about looking into warforged. You'll definitely take a hit on your spell DC's, but in exchange you'll get a very survivable arcane caster. Nevertheless, F2P or P2P remember that a good build only gets you partway, the rest is having proper gear for your character.

[goodspeed]

well I don't know. I kinda like that extra feat that humans get. Either or though I don't think id go for any other race besides those 2.

Maxing con and cha to 18 is an automatic. Unless you have a 28 pt build then ma cha and throw the rest in con.

Feats I took toughness right off the bat. Can't cast to long if a dog trips and kills you.
empower
mental toughness
force of personality
Your also going to need to train in one of the schools for water savent. I went with spell focus evocation.
Maximize. now some people just go with maximize alone. That's fine but when ive got the mana to spare which I always do, I figure I might as well blow everything in the room to hell and back.

After these people have their own opinions on whats great. Some like extend, some like spell pen, some go greater school of magic.

I went with heighten.
Then spell pen.

Concentration wise I don't know. I mean I threw some in there originally, and some swear by it, and I suppose I could see needing it if you were casting a longer spell like the disco ball or something.

I threw a bunch into umd, and balance. (I really don;t like to be tripped by the many flippn animals in this game)

Action point wise basically spec for the 2 elements you want. I went with frost and storm, then spec for the requirements for the water savant build, and always pick up all the charisma given. Doesn't matter the cost. You get 2 or 3 points of charisma plus human gives you another point, and later you can even get another point in another stat like con if you want.

[Coju]

Thanks for all the responses guys! I am not a F2P player. I enjoy the game so much I wanted to actually play it and not be limited on micro transactions so I paid the 14.99. I guess I will remake him Warforged!

[illowock]

I'm not sure if you are hard set on being a Water Savant, but I would suggest playing a Wizard as your first arcane toon. Sorcerers have very limited spell selection, unless you know exactly which spells you will use, switching them out could get expensive and time consuming. (There's a 3 day wait for each spell exchange. You could always use the Blood of Dragons but that's overkill to switch out a couple of spells every now and then.) With a Wizard you can always inscribe the spells you want to try while developing your playing style.

You would need a lot of help to make your UMD useful (11 skill points + 15 ability with 40 CHA = 26). Keep this in mind when putting points into UMD. If you have a purpose for it and is easily attainable then go for it, otherwise it might be a waste of skill points. As a WF arcane you can reconstruct yourself so getting to "no fail" heal scroll is no longer necessary. 10 Balance, 10 Jump, and Diplomacy would be useful along with Concentration.

[Isharah]

Too lazy to read all the posts here, so sorry if i sound redundant.

If I were you, i would go about it like this.

1. go human. with the spell changes and savant pre, those points in CHA you will lose for rolling drow will not matter as much as the extra feat and CON that you get as human.
2. max CHA, dump everything else into CON.
3. the only skill you will practically die without is UMD. max this out. all the other skills are gravy. but of all that gravy, concentration is the yummiest. :P
4. you might want to choose feats something along the line of this: toughness, empower, extend, maximize, sf:evoc, heighten, and 2 of the following: sf:ench/gsf:ench/spell pen/greater spell pen. can dump toughness when you get better gear, and extend if you think your gamestyle can manage losing it. just remember that at level 20 you should have well over 300 hp unbuffed.
5. don't worry too much about self-healing. by level 20 you should be able to self-heal with reasonable success rates using heal scrolls. unless you plan on tanking stuff or soloing epics: then you might want to consider warforged. note though that you lose more DC as a warforged, and you also lose one of your feats.
6. must-have spells at all levels: displacement, rage, haste, crushing despair, greater heroism (scrolled is good enough), otiluk's freezing sphere, polar ray, hold monster among many.

[chodelord]

if you don't have WF I would do human, drow, or elf wiz pale master instead of sorc

self healing > all

pew pew is fun but I think the instakills and overall utility of wiz is better "endgame" than sorc

[ProdigalGuru]

WF Wiz is a great choice for a first-time arcane. Self-healing is priceless on Arcanes.

If you like Drow, there is no reason to avoid it, just accept the fact that your HP are going to be 20-40 points less than a Human or WF. Drow have the highest possible DC's, and that is not to be taken lightly. High-level UMD Sorcs can cast Heal from scrolls, which is pretty strong.

The Character Planner is not going to show you all the bonus HP from items, so don't let it fool you. Don't forget spells like Aid, False Life, and Greater Heroism can give you temporary HP, as well.

If you are not going to get Quicken, then Concentration is a must-have.

[thenalim]

I strongly disagree with not taking concentration, sorcs are feat starved and quicken eats a lot of sp.
I agree with previously stated get some con leave int at 8. skill points in UMD and concentration, if you can get a +2 tome put that 3d skillpoint into balance.

Human or WF are both good races. Personally I prefer WF, especially now with Con based dc of ice prison.

MHO about PM vs. Sorc:
For almost all raids sorc>PM
Epic regular quests PM>sorc

[Nephilia]

Too lazy to read all the posts here, so sorry if i sound redundant.

If I were you, i would go about it like this.

1. go human. with the spell changes and savant pre, those points in CHA you will lose for rolling drow will not matter as much as the extra feat and CON that you get as human.
2. max CHA, dump everything else into CON.
3. the only skill you will practically die without is UMD. max this out. all the other skills are gravy. but of all that gravy, concentration is the yummiest. :P
4. you might want to choose feats something along the line of this: toughness, empower, extend, maximize, sf:evoc, heighten, and 2 of the following: sf:ench/gsf:ench/spell pen/greater spell pen. can dump toughness when you get better gear, and extend if you think your gamestyle can manage losing it. just remember that at level 20 you should have well over 300 hp unbuffed.
5. don't worry too much about self-healing. by level 20 you should be able to self-heal with reasonable success rates using heal scrolls. unless you plan on tanking stuff or soloing epics: then you might want to consider warforged. note though that you lose more DC as a warforged, and you also lose one of your feats.
6. must-have spells at all levels: displacement, rage, haste, crushing despair, greater heroism (scrolled is good enough), otiluk's freezing sphere, polar ray, hold monster among many.

This is pure gold
And u can see my thread of water savant to get a nice spell list http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=317881

[Mastercard]

Unless you know exactly what you're doing, go Archmage WF Wizard. You can basically do whatever you want with it and if you mess up it's not hard to change things around. Sorc can get expensive and time consuming if you mess up.

*edit* I would suggest mapping your character out with a character planner if you want to do sorc.

[Coju]

Well, with what a lot of you have been saying I might just go wizard instead. I have only been playing for about a week and if sorcerer is that hard to fix if you mess something up I will probably do wizard instead lol. I appreciate all of your input.

[goodspeed]

bah you can't mess it up. And even if you did theirs a free full feat respec available which most use when they make it near end lv.

I do know this. I just started playing a wiz, and I sure do miss the combativeness of my sorc let alone the sheer speed. Sure you use quicken, but it always came back to why am I doing this when my sorc already does it with a better mana pool? Spell wise if you want to have everything and be the jack of all trades guy, go with a wiz, buff up your group.

But if your nuking you don't really need so many spells and by 12 you'll have a great many in each. On my sorc I mainly just go with CC's after a certain time because you already have your main nuking element spells.

I was just gonna trash the wiz all together but I thought id be cool to go palemaster and play with the forms. All I could see when I looked at archmage was a way for the wizard to match up to sorc mana pool before the pre's. And with the new spell like abilities on the sorc pre's, I just like the feel of the sorc better.

Course it's all up to the player. But on my sorc I know exactly what I can take; and how fast I can whip out multiple attacks with no regard to sp whatsoever.