Archmage vs. palemaster

[brandoncast]

I'm still fairly new and don't understand the full detail difference between an archmage and pale master. currently I am a palemaster, but I would really like to know the pros and cons between the two. Thanks!

[Shade]

Palemaster lets you kill/cc everything and self heal.

Archmage lets you be gimped.

heh.. Well they USED to be better balanced before u9, with palemaster perhaps having a slight edge in some quests..

Yet despite the fact it was already generally agree to be better, turbine saw fit to massively nerf archmage, while massively buffing palemaster.

Mostly refering to endgame tho.

Archmage can be a decent choice for leveling purposes if you spec it out right. Evocation spec warforged for example gets your far better survivability (repair spells without the light vulnerabiltiies or cumbling to dust) and offense (magic missiles galore) then a palemaster.. Palemasters really get their best stuff at lvl18, and decent stuff at lvl12 and 18, while archamge is useful as early as 6, great 12, but gets less useful at 18-20.

[danlan]

WF archmage with necromany/enchantment focus is very strong. 44 necro dc + 43 enchant dc (effectively +3 to 46 with mana-free hypno and the incredible irresistable dance), and reconstruct spell+scroll give better survivability imo. Not to mention that archmage could achieve near 2400 sp vs 2200 of similar palemaster (effectively -100 from lich form so only 2100).

[Kriogen]

Pale master: undead form
Archmage: spell like abilities

So whatever undead form gives you vs 1 or more cheap(er) spells.

PM feels more like a generalist Wizard. AM feels a bit like sorcerer.

PM is cheap. PM wants less feats as pre-req as AM. You'd probably take those feats anyway. In return you get (in undead form) immunities, selfhealing, lots of HPs, zero mana nuke SLA, increased INT and so increased DC in all spell schools. Very high price/performance. Feels like generalist Wizard (capital W).

AM is not so cheap. Wants more feats and you may not even want/need them. SLA cost action points and lower your mana pool. It boost you chosen spell school only. Casting SLA is not free, it cost mana. Not much, but not totaly free. So SLA not free, but still cheap to cast compared to normal spell. Key is to pick the right spell school. The one that gives SLA that you'd spam 24/7 anyway. Feels like some sort of Sorcerer.

[Shade]

WF archmage with necromany/enchantment focus is very strong. 44 necro dc + 43 enchant dc (effectively +3 to 46 with mana-free hypno and the incredible irresistable dance), and reconstruct spell+scroll give better survivability imo. Not to mention that archmage could achieve near 2400 sp vs 2200 of similar palemaster (effectively -100 from lich form so only 2100).

The probelm is they gave palemaster the stupid overpowered vampire form.. So aside from form swappiong annoyances, palemasters effectively have superior DCs everywhere now. (well equal in enchantment, couple higher in necro and 1 higher in all other schools)

And yea WF healing > palemaster healing, but it's not exactly mutually exclusive. You can be a WF palemaster and drop form when crtical/faster healing is needed.

so it comes down to some more sp/cheap CC, versus all around better DCs. Maybe less of an issue at your levels, but most players aren't exactly at the DC44 level.

[richieelias27]

The probelm is they gave palemaster the stupid overpowered vampire form.. So aside from form swappiong annoyances, palemasters effectively have superior DCs everywhere now. (well equal in enchantment, couple higher in necro and 1 higher in all other schools)

And yea WF healing > palemaster healing, but it's not exactly mutually exclusive. You can be a WF palemaster and drop form when crtical/faster healing is needed.

so it comes down to some more sp/cheap CC, versus all around better DCs. Maybe less of an issue at your levels, but most players aren't exactly at the DC44 level.

I would not agree that PM Vampire is "stupid overpowered" at all. It is simply makes PM Superior to Necro/Ench Archmage in every possible way. That, however, is not the fault of the PaleMaster, it is the fault of Archmage for being so heavily watered down as to be nigh useless.

Some things they stole from your Archmage Prestige before it even had a chance to walk into the room:

Arcane Reach: Ottos Irresistable Dance from 30 ft away! Awesomesauce.
Mastery of Elements: Swap Elements for spells. Polar Ray doing electric damage? Yes please.
Spell Power: +1 to caster level on all spells. This would also affect your spell penetration value.

Granted those things do make for some unbalance in the Archmages favor, but they could easily have tweaked the values so that the abilities were no longer overpowered. Perhaps making elemental swap and Arcane Reach function identically to a metamagic feat with additional SP per cast? Anything wouldve been better than not including them at all and leaving us with an entirely inferior PRE.

[danlan]

I would not agree that PM Vampire is "stupid overpowered" at all. It is simply makes PM Superior to Necro/Ench Archmage in every possible way. That, however, is not the fault of the PaleMaster, it is the fault of Archmage for being so heavily watered down as to be nigh useless.

Some things they stole from your Archmage Prestige before it even had a chance to walk into the room:

Arcane Reach: Ottos Irresistable Dance from 30 ft away! Awesomesauce.
Mastery of Elements: Swap Elements for spells. Polar Ray doing electric damage? Yes please.
Spell Power: +1 to caster level on all spells. This would also affect your spell penetration value.

Granted those things do make for some unbalance in the Archmages favor, but they could easily have tweaked the values so that the abilities were no longer overpowered. Perhaps making elemental swap and Arcane Reach function identically to a metamagic feat with additional SP per cast? Anything wouldve been better than not including them at all and leaving us with an entirely inferior PRE.

I can not resist to laugh when I saw those ideas. This is DDO not P&P.

[richieelias27]

I can not resist to laugh when I saw those ideas. This is DDO not P&P.

Do you have anything constructive to add or are you just here to amuse yourself?

I'm going to go ahead and walk out on a limb and guess that you don't because you're the type of person with plenty to say, but lacking any real content to your discussion.

So, to put the PnP rules into some sort of DDO perspective:

30 feet isnt actually that far. It is the diameter of the Fireball spell. You're still pretty close to melee range.

They cried foul when the idea of having lightning wall of fire came up saying it would be ridiculously overpowered. Well, we now have acid rain and Ice Storm doing effectively just that - AOE dots in almost every flavor. Guess what: It aint Overpowered. Giving Archmage this ability at an increased SP per cast cost would basically add utility while decreasing SP efficiency. It would also make playing Archmage incredibly fun.

Increased Caster level: this is +1 to Spell penetration and +1 to DC. It does nothing else at level 20. It is my understanding that this does not actually increase spell damage beyond the spell cap. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of how it works than I could either confirm or refute that.

Add one of those 3, add 2 of those 3, add all of those 3. It doesnt much matter, but Archmage needs *something* to make it a unique and viable choice over PaleMaster, while at the same time leaving PM as a unique and viable choice over Archmage (Necro DC's and survivability). As it stands now, the only reason to take Archmage is so you can web things.

So, I say again, would you like to explain exactly what is "laughable" about that, or are you just here to increase your post count?