Hitting a wall?

[Vernah]

I started my first crowd control pale master and have gotten him to level 18, but seem to having troubles with the end game content (amrath, path of inspiration namely).

What are some good strategies for a wizard to use against RED named monsters with a lot of hit points? Most content before this I could easily just use insta death or just spam scorching ray. Now monsters have much more hp and I seem to have hit a wall. Since I'm fairly new to playing casters, I really only thought of using energy drain along with some simple debuffs, but have no idea on any offensive spells that would work well. I hope this makes sense.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

[ashvsaod]

Hi,

Eladars and Niacs are great for red names..

Good luck!

[efreet5]

At the later levels single-target damage spells are very inefficient against boss mobs. Once you get to amrath and IQ you'll find that Damage-Over-Time spells (or DoTs) are much more effective. Good examples include: Melf's Acid Arrow, Acid Rain, Eladar's Electric Surge, Niac's Biting Cold, Firewall, and Ice Storm. In Amrath I tend to use a combination of Acid Rain, Ice Storm, Melf's, and Niac's to drop boss mobs. Hope this helps!

Also, in between timers you can spam the PM SLA's for a little more damage, not much, but anything that kills the boss faster is better since it will save you resources.

[jaegarnel]

As the other posters said, DoTs, especially the lvl 4 and 5 ones, are the best way to go with bosses. You should also try to identify if the boss has a weakness and exploit it.

OTOH, unless you're soloing, you should be careful about using Niac's and Eladar's. They do a lot of dmg when fully stacked, and if you don't let melees build up aggro first, using them will quickly make the boss attack you.

If you're a PM or a WF, you might be able to handle that, but otherwise your party will be happier if you let the non-squishy classes tank.

[Vernah]

Thanks for the quick replies! Much help

[xtchizobr]

At the later levels single-target damage spells are very inefficient against boss mobs. Once you get to amrath and IQ you'll find that Damage-Over-Time spells (or DoTs) are much more effective. Good examples include: Melf's Acid Arrow, Acid Rain, Eladar's Electric Surge, Niac's Biting Cold, Firewall, and Ice Storm. In Amrath I tend to use a combination of Acid Rain, Ice Storm, Melf's, and Niac's to drop boss mobs. Hope this helps!

Also, in between timers you can spam the PM SLA's for a little more damage, not much, but anything that kills the boss faster is better since it will save you resources.

if you're soloing, you must be aware that Ice Storm and Acid Rain are AoE DoTs and do not move with the target. that is, if you want the full damage, you need to keep the target in a relatively small area for six seconds or more... not really feasible.

most groups will be moving around a lot too, depending on the boss, so very often you will just be losing a ton of damage.

spells like Acid Fog or Cloudkill are easier to keep things inside while kiting, they last longer, and provide other benefits (concealment, -AC and other such).

now would be the time to petition the devs to un-nerf Extend, btw...