MHM or Meteor Swarm

[Lord_Agalon]

Im an air savant with secondary cold. All electric and cold spells. My question is for level 9 spell slot to take MHM for crowd control effects or Meteor Swarm for some fire damage. Im leaning towards MHM since i have no specialization in fire but looking for some advice.

[skullzz]

I think it depends on what you lvl 9 enchanment dc looks like and what your spell pen is.
If DC is in mid to high 30's go MHM especially if you want to run epics. If your looking for just damage Metor

[Therigar]

Im an air savant with secondary cold. All electric and cold spells.

You answer your own question.

[-Zyxas-]

My brother has a cold savant, the prestige has no negative impact on meteor swarm (does not run off of caster level) so his would be just as strong/wimpy as yours. He took wail (who doesn't want it?... maybe a few), mass hold (very useful in almost any quest, helps everyone by immobilizing which I find is more important than the 50% damage boost, imo a must have), and energy drain (sorc max DC is 39 before spell foc's which are feat tight, helps greatly to land stuff), and never misses not having meteor swarm.

[Vellrad]

What are you going to do at endgame?

Most endgame mobs are 100% immune to fire, and most got no resist to electric. And even if, you got your secondary option- cold.

So IMO you don't need meteors.

[NecroKovy]

I keep MS loaded for a showoff.

When it REALLY counts, the way MS 'works' I don't really think it's ever what I 'need'.

I had a fascination with the power and idea of this spell as a kid.

[Tid12]

I'm an air savant with cold too.
I took Meteor Swarm since my DC on ench are really BAD so its not really worth it. Plus, if you have spent some points in the force line (even 1), the damage of MS will be higher.

[Jaid314]

if you can cast disintegrate (and can therefore damage liches that have mantle), you don't really need meteor swarm (though it may be nice). if you can't cast disintegrate, meteor swarm may be the only spell you have for nuking liches, and you probably should take it.

[Burtle]

Well from what I've read ... Air Savant have a weakness when casting earth/acid spells,
Water Savant, have a weakness when casting fire/flame spells,
Fire Savant, have a weakness when casting water/cold spells,
and Earth Savant, have a weakness when casting air/electric spells,

so an Air Savant, (specced w/ cold) shouldn't have a problem w/ Meteor Swarm. .. but might not be as effective as Ice Storm but still pretty dang painful..

[soulaeon]

Get both. You dont need Disintegrate if you have Meteor Swarm, and you can use Circle of Death instead of Wail of the Banshee. Both heightened death spells have the same DC, and Circle costs less than Finger of Death with the added benefit of negative levels if they fail a save; Wail does nothing when it fails.
Also, you can master the Force line which will boost all your untyped damage, Meteor Swarm and Ice Storm.

Well from what I've read ... Air Savant have a weakness when casting earth/acid spells,
Water Savant, have a weakness when casting fire/flame spells,
Fire Savant, have a weakness when casting water/cold spells,
and Earth Savant, have a weakness when casting air/electric spells,

Meteor Swarm has no scaling, so it will behave the exact same way for everyone.

[Burtle]

Meteor Swarm has no scaling, so it will behave the exact same way for everyone.

Meteor Swarm Chunks of flaming stone crush and burn your enemies causing 4 spheres of 2 ft. diameter explode on impact, each meteor deals 6d3+18 fire damage (A successful Reflex save reduces the damage by half.), and 2d3+6 bludgeoning damage (No save.) to targets in the area.

says here it's Fire/Bludgeon damage...

[soulaeon]

says here it's Fire/Bludgeon damage...

The Force enhancements affect this spell, and Ice Storm. And yes, Ice Storm also says bludgeon damage.
Also, Meteor Swarm counts as an "earth" spell, not fire, but will be affected by whichever enhancement is highest (Force or Fire).

[Jaid314]

The Force enhancements affect this spell, and Ice Storm. And yes, Ice Storm also says bludgeon damage.
Also, Meteor Swarm counts as an "earth" spell, not fire, but will be affected by whichever enhancement is highest (Force or Fire).

it counts as both earth and fire, but it really doesn't matter anyways.

it deals 32d6 (or the DDO equivalent, rather), regardless of caster level. if you were to get it at caster level 1, it would still deal 32d6 damage.

[Tuney]

I should mention 'Circle of Death' is a 'double save' spell like Phantasmal killer. Though it is a Reflex save for nothing , then a Fort save for Neg level or Cake... err Death. So overall Wail will beat Circle of death... Though Circle is a target based AoE vs Player Centered AoE.

[Dirichlet]

I was planning on trying out Meteor Swarm. I don't find that Disintegrate is all it's cracked up to be. I've only done one Abbot run so far, but I felt like a spare limb. He's supposed to have low Fort, but Disintegrate was getting saved time after time. Meteor Swarm has the advantage of being Evocation (the one School a Sorc can be reasonable at), and does something like 62.5% damage on a save instead of Disintegrates 12%. I'll have to try it and see, but it's looking good on paper.

Also, +1 for Cake-or-Death reference.

[soulaeon]

I should mention 'Circle of Death' is a 'double save' spell like Phantasmal killer. Though it is a Reflex save for nothing , then a Fort save for Neg level or Cake... err Death. So overall Wail will beat Circle of death... Though Circle is a target based AoE vs Player Centered AoE.

They both have their trade-offs. I did not consider the double DC to be a deterrant since I already have Finger of Death.

I was planning on trying out Meteor Swarm. I don't find that Disintegrate is all it's cracked up to be. I've only done one Abbot run so far, but I felt like a spare limb. He's supposed to have low Fort, but Disintegrate was getting saved time after time. Meteor Swarm has the advantage of being Evocation (the one School a Sorc can be reasonable at), and does something like 62.5% damage on a save instead of Disintegrates 12%. I'll have to try it and see, but it's looking good on paper.

Disintegrate would have been the only spell I had that could pass his mantle, but it also has a very limited use. Meteor Swarm has a wider range, and misses a lot less. One could always get both, if needed too.

[Malison]

I've never been impressed with meteor swarm. It doesn't seem to do more, or at least not much more, than other aoe spells, and has the disadvantages of (1) dealing fire damage, which will be resisted by a lot of content, and (2) not being an elec or cold spell, which are your specs. Personally, my sorc went with Wail / Energy Drain / PWK for his level 9's. MHM would have been nice, but with only moderate DC's, I'd rather enemies just die if they fail a save instead of getting a new save every couple seconds. I may swap it in once I finish gearing up.

[Kmnh]

mhm is better, if it works. if you need 4 or more spells to kill a group of mobs, it would be cheaper to cast a mhm first.