droping extend for insightful reflexes?

[krogyy]

i'm a really melee kind of guy but after the recent changes to the game i felt compelled enough to roll an arcane.

i went for a wf necro/conj archmage (lvl12 atm). i went for conj secondary instead of enchant in order to have a cheap and effective CC option i can use also when OOM. the planned feats are:

2x S.F Necro, 2x Spell Pen, Though, Mental Though, Extend

Bonus Wiz feats:
S.F Conj , Heighten, Maximize, Empower, Quicken

i was considering adding insightful reflexes to the mix to boost my survivability but the issue is what to drop for it.
i would drop thoughness but i want to keep open the option to easily respec to PM.
so i was considering extend, as it is useful only for an handful of spells (haste, rage, displacement and fire shield maybe).
are there serious downsides? any other alternatives?

[Jaid314]

actually, if you go pale master you are more likely to want extend, because it works on your auras. it's still more of a convenience than anything, but it does also give you a visible reminder if you use clickies instead of potency or other always-on abilities (the duration of your aura is just under 3 minutes at level 20 when extended)

that said, you don't strictly speaking need toughness for pale master. you need it for lich form.

if you were willing to be satisfied with wraith form, you could ditch toughness.

that said, i doubt you'll really need insightful reflexes. it's a nice feat to have, but you don't really *need* it.

[Spookyaction]

I would drop the spell focus conjuration. Think of how much mana you are going to waste having to recast haste and displacement every 2 mins. You dont have to tr but 1 tr will save you a spell pen feat then you can pick up conjuration focus if you really want it.

[gogetta101]

drop 1 of the spell pens...there is also a feat for that so keep extend and get rid of spell pen..

[Mrmorphling]

Imho extend is 'droppable' for an arch mage but very very handy for a pale master as your death aura really benefits from it.

I.R. is near a must have at end game as pretty much every spell caster will make you regret it; in Echrono, for example, your avg life time will jump from killed by 2nd spell unless i roll 20s to i'll survive the 4th one unless i roll only 1s.

[Forzah]

I would drop the spell focus conjuration. Think of how much mana you are going to waste having to recast haste and displacement every 2 mins. You dont have to tr but 1 tr will save you a spell pen feat then you can pick up conjuration focus if you really want it.

Not that much actually, since they are lvl 3 spells. You waste 5 mana :P

[licho]

Stick to what you have and choose, reason (little weird):
Extend is a silent hero feat, while extend is active. Once you play with it its easy to decide how important it is, how useful, convinient and must have.

There is many of players who do well without one of them.

[krogyy]

i didn't know extend worked on the auras...

dropping s.f:conj is not an option for me, without it there is no point to go with archmage.

well, since the option to switch to PM was just to get the feeling about it i think i'll indeed drop extend. if i find out i like better the PM playstyle i may decide to TR and drop s.f: conj and a spell. pen for the active PL and extend.

[krogyy]

Stick to what you have and choose, reason (little weird):
Extend is a silent hero feat, while extend is active. Once you play with it its easy to decide how important it is, how useful, convinient and must have.

There is many of players who do well without one of them.

the point is it may feel different at cap and i'd prefer doing a feat swap at lvl12 than later as it is much cheaper.

[Mrmorphling]

And if you decide to TR to a pale master you can also consider the option to switch to human to get an extra feet as PM immunities will cover lots of holes and the ability to reconstruct while out of form is only slightly usefull in certain dire situations

[licho]

the point is it may feel different at cap and i'd prefer doing a feat swap at lvl12 than later as it is much cheaper.

You have one free feat swap, after finshing Lockhania quest in marketplace (something drafonmark related).
So as long as its only iR vs extend you can swap them at cap without any cost.

[Spookyaction]

Not that much actually, since they are lvl 3 spells. You waste 5 mana :P

4 mins haste with extend 27sp without 40. Plus you dont have to get every one together as often which makes it worth it for me.

[ferrite]

Except Maximize, you could drop any of the other bonus feats you've listed to achieve the goal.

S.F Conj- Don't bother. As an Archmage you are better off taking NONE of the secondary garbage and instead gaining all the tiers of the PRE just for the max mana total--you're gonna need every point you can get your hands on. Welcome to Wizard, the mana starved arcane class. I'd stick with the enchant line, but no need right now to waste a feat for that. Epic content, perhaps, but not now.

Heighten- Never cared for this, too much MP/benefit make this cost prohibitive for the wizard (for sorc and their gobs of SP its a different story). As a Wiz you need to manage very carefully your precious SP, this will kill it faster than anything.

Empower- A judgment call. The cost/benefit for this is far lower than Maximize, even with item enhancements. For Sorcs is a necessity, for wizzys, an option.

Quicken- Maybe, but why? Archmage already requires ConIV, its a class skill you can max, numerous wizzy items come with Con15 on them.. displacement, invis.. there's really no need right now. Yes you can cast slightly faster, but IMHO not really worth a feat slot. I'd go for more SP.

Consider replacing any of the above for IMT as well, again every ounce of SP helps here.

[Mrmorphling]

Heighten is absolutely mandatory if you want the slightest chance to land anything past lvl 16; maximize and empower are again absolutely mandatory if you plan on dealing damage.

Quicken is slightly different as you'll run without a lot of times but there are a few situations where it'll be extremely handy (all at hi lvl but you rightfully chose to take it as lvl 20) like:

- Tanking shadows in ToD and needing that crucial recon now
- Not so flawless eDA where you absolutely positively need that dsicoball NOW
- When tanking very hard hitters like Turigolon (melee hits on the 70+) where you can't trust concentration
- When you are dealing with difficult foes for your DC and you need hypno+hold or other similar debuffs before CC.

MT and IMT are quite useless as sources of SP as their total is very low compared to a standard end game amount of 2k (which is very low for an archmage, you can push past it w/o much effort).

One crucial thing to learn is mana managment as, both when soloing and when in a party, you need to use the right tool at the right time: cheap SLA when possible (free metas ftw) and real costly spells when needed; that plus knowledge of the quest you are in will do much more than IMT.

[Autechre]

Not that much actually, since they are lvl 3 spells. You waste 5 mana :P

Dont forget the quicken cost too (:

[krogyy]

You have one free feat swap, after finshing Lockhania quest in marketplace (something drafonmark related).
So as long as its only iR vs extend you can swap them at cap without any cost.

i know but i prefer to keep that just in case for eventual future changes. you never know when and where there will be nerfs so better be prepared.

4 mins haste with extend 27sp without 40. Plus you dont have to get every one together as often which makes it worth it for me.

well on the other side we have heightened webs for 3sp with s.f:conj vs around 30-40ish without. but i do agree on the convenience of the 4min hastes.

Except Maximize, you could drop any of the other bonus feats you've listed to achieve the goal.

S.F Conj- Don't bother. As an Archmage you are better off taking NONE of the secondary garbage and instead gaining all the tiers of the PRE just for the max mana total--you're gonna need every point you can get your hands on. Welcome to Wizard, the mana starved arcane class. I'd stick with the enchant line, but no need right now to waste a feat for that. Epic content, perhaps, but not now.

heightened webs for 3sp looks awfully attractive to me. that means you can burn all your mana with instakills/damage spells and still be able to CC just with echoes.

Heighten- Never cared for this, too much MP/benefit make this cost prohibitive for the wizard (for sorc and their gobs of SP its a different story). As a Wiz you need to manage very carefully your precious SP, this will kill it faster than anything.

without heighten my circle of death would have a DC 3 lower my finger 2. that's quite significant.

Empower- A judgment call. The cost/benefit for this is far lower than Maximize, even with item enhancements. For Sorcs is a necessity, for wizzys, an option.

yeah this could be a candidate but i'm not so sure of the consequences...

Quicken- Maybe, but why? Archmage already requires ConIV, its a class skill you can max, numerous wizzy items come with Con15 on them.. displacement, invis.. there's really no need right now. Yes you can cast slightly faster, but IMHO not really worth a feat slot. I'd go for more SP.

also an alternative but being new to the arcane arts i want to play it safe and know that reconstructs will land no matter what.

[MindCake]

I have an Enchantment-Conj AM myself. Quite similar to your build, except I have enchantment instead of necro, and insightful reflexes instead of empower.

I'm considering swapping quicken or extend for empower.

I would drop the spell focus conjuration. Think of how much mana you are going to waste having to recast haste and displacement every 2 mins. You dont have to tr but 1 tr will save you a spell pen feat then you can pick up conjuration focus if you really want it.

About 6 SP per minute (and that's only if you're the only arcane or volunteer for the buffing role and you decide to keep yourself/tank displaced continuously).

Meanwhile 3SP web saves you 40SP per cast.

[Kmnh]

I didn't swap it yet on my wizard, but I think I should. the only spot where extend is useful is the tod end fight, and it doesn't even help that much

[NoidRoid]

That's a very nice 1st life wizard build, one that I've used myself and would recommend to others. Extend is your weakest feat as it's only providing a convenience factor instead of increasing your survivability or effectiveness like all other feats on that list.

Go with your first instinct, you have a better grasp on this build than many of the people giving advice.

[jaegarnel]

I made a build mostly similar, and I'd advise you to take insightful reflex and drop extend. Extend mostly provides utility and is situational, since it's only useful for haste, displacement and possibly rage on an archmage.

However, it's only useful if: you're in a party, that has at least two melees, and that doesn't have another arcane or a bard that took extend. Frankly that kind of setup happens less often than you think, at least in PUGs.
Out of my last 5 PUGs, there was only 1 group where having extend would've been useful. I still did fine without it, it just meant it took more sp to buff.

OTOH, insightful reflex will do a lot for your survivability, since casters make up most of the dangerous mobs and many of the spells they cast have a reflex save. Most traps have a reflex save too, so if you don't have a rogue in the party (again, happens more often than it should), you'll be glad to have the feat.
I know I've died a lot less since I took insightful reflex at level 12.