I see people praise their wizard/monk 18/2 builds...

[Cyr]

A wizards reflex save means that you will take full damage from those spells *ONLY* when you roll a one. You know, just like your precious evasion wiz will. And half damage from comet fall in epics is around 120dmg, not that much.

I think you misunderstood why cometfall was mentioned.

[Viisari]

I think you misunderstood why cometfall was mentioned.

Nope, the fact that you might fall down is irrelevant, an annoyance maybe but it won't get you killed.

<edit> Well okay, it *might* get you killed but that hasn't happened to me to this day. And I've run my wiz through epics for quite a long while.

<edit2> And after double checking from wiki, the trip portion is a reflex save too, so a pure will also only fall down when rolling a 1. Just like your monk wiz will. Evasion has no effect whatsoever to the knockdown portion of the spell.

Other than the damage, I don't really know why you'd want evasion just because of that spell.

[Viisari]

Yeah, I've read for years how all you have to do is avoid everything in the game and you suffer no damage. It's nonsense and has been used to justify all sorts of dumb build ideas such as dump stating con throughout the years.

In reality having played for years with the best players and the worst I know that everyone makes mistakes and that sometimes your party makes things harder on you.

Considering how often I have seen fairly average to poor players pull off difficult kiting tasks with ease with survival arcane builds and how I still occasionally see max dc/spell pen builds played by truly incredible players go ding at the same tasks it tells me alot.

As far as 50 or so hp, well it depends on the situation but often times we are talking about mass aoe spell damage on top of that which comes out to much more then 50 or so more hp.

Places like DQ, kiting in deeps, and such come to mind as far as that type of mixed damage goes and where you often see the difference between the two builds due to knock downs.

Also, it is useful to note that the 600 hp warforged caster does not have top DCs either.

When I think of these things I think in the terms of building one build or another...either top dc or not. If you are talking about merely the difference between the level split or not on a top DC build otherwise then of course you are going to go the two extra levels into wizard. Otherwise it is an entirely different animal that could have physical damage reduction from sheild feats and different racial choices for more survival.

I wrote a detailed respones to this but the forums ate it so I'll keep it short this time :/

Only thing you need to kite in the current endgame might be LoB doggies in some groups, get spell absorb against cyclonic blast if needed.

It's more reliable to tank shadows in ToD, and unless your deeps group has very bad dps it's better to instakill portals.

In DQ only thing that might get you killed is disintegrate from monkies, which is a real threat to monk splashes too. Or lag in second Lailat fight, but that's more of an technical issue.

Yes everyone dies from time to time and nothing can ever prevent that, but I don't generally plan my toons around making mistakes and dying because of those, has been working pretty well so far.

The warforged will be 1 dc behind a drow or human, that's about it. So pretty much max dc.

Wizards are pretty simple currently:

Always pure.

If you want spell pen, get past lives and go elf. (and I'm talking about "I want to instakill epic drow" -levels of spell pen, if that's not your aim then it's not really worth it to go elf)

If you want large hp pool and very powerful & quick heals go wf. (wf also make powerful palemasters because they will still have self healing out of form and even moar hp in form, but imo 3sp web is far better if you go wf)

If you want PM, go human.

Drows, while not bad, are rather suboptimal currently, good if you're missing gear or tomes maybe but otherwise not very.

Everything else is pretty much flavor from a pure power perspective, and that's cool with me, go flavor if you wish I won't decline you from group or anything because of that, but those are pretty much the best choices as far as wizards currently go.

[Dark-Star]

I wrote a detailed respones to this but the forums ate it so I'll keep it short this time :/

Only thing you need to kite in the current endgame might be LoB doggies in some groups, get spell absorb against cyclonic blast if needed.

It's more reliable to tank shadows in ToD, and unless your deeps group has very bad dps it's better to instakill portals.

In DQ only thing that might get you killed is disintegrate from monkies, which is a real threat to monk splashes too. Or lag in second Lailat fight, but that's more of an technical issue.

Yes everyone dies from time to time and nothing can ever prevent that, but I don't generally plan my toons around making mistakes and dying because of those, has been working pretty well so far.

The warforged will be 1 dc behind a drow or human, that's about it. So pretty much max dc.

Wizards are pretty simple currently:

Always pure.

If you want spell pen, get past lives and go elf. (and I'm talking about "I want to instakill epic drow" -levels of spell pen, if that's not your aim then it's not really worth it to go elf)

If you want large hp pool and very powerful & quick heals go wf. (wf also make powerful palemasters because they will still have self healing out of form and even moar hp in form, but imo 3sp web is far better if you go wf)

If you want PM, go human.

Drows, while not bad, are rather suboptimal currently, good if you're missing gear or tomes maybe but otherwise not very.

Everything else is pretty much flavor from a pure power perspective, and that's cool with me, go flavor if you wish I won't decline you from group or anything because of that, but those are pretty much the best choices as far as wizards currently go.

+1 nice summary.

[Cyr]

The warforged will be 1 dc behind a drow or human, that's about it. So pretty much max dc.

That is what we are talking about here also...

AS far as everyone dying form time to time, yup sure does happen. The question is how many of those can be avoided (and how many of those would have been group wipes if a particular player wipes) due to a higher hit point total and evasion.

The comet fall was noted because it is a knock down effect. Not because that mob can then hurt you, but because then everything you have agro of can hit you. Without evasion that generally means death in many epics. With evasion you often have just enough hit points left to stand up and hit yourself with recon/burst.

Really knock down is the difference between bunny hop avoidance and ding in my experience...again with the best of the best and truly some horrible players also. Knock down is one of the few things which can take out the best of the best besides a rare mistake.

[Keylon]

Also as a monk splash you get +5 to your reflex save, (+3 more from monk levels and +2 from stance) which means you're even less likely to get knocked down. Oh and FYI 40 reflex save is decent but Gnoll Clerics have a higher DC than 40. And outside of Web there are very few spells that can beat their fort save and will save. My 40 DC FOD failed on them several times even after I hit them with enervation, so your best bet against these guys is mainly to necro ray them to death, which means surviving their cometfalls.

[gloopygloop]

Also as a monk splash you get +5 to your reflex save, (+3 more from monk levels and +2 from stance) which means you're even less likely to get knocked down. Oh and FYI 40 reflex save is decent but Gnoll Clerics have a higher DC than 40. And outside of Web there are very few spells that can beat their fort save and will save. My 40 DC FOD failed on them several times even after I hit them with enervation, so your best bet against these guys is mainly to necro ray them to death, which means surviving their cometfalls.

Is this in Wiz King? I always just gather them up, hop to the safe space, poke my head out and toss down a Wall of Fire or an Ice Storm until they eventually die. Very cost effective and I haven't died yet.

That works fine for me and I don't even have Insightful Reflexes.

[slimkj]

NOTE: the above only applies to wizards, don't ever splash a sorc.

So many absolutes in this thread! This is just one... Why not? Sorc has high consistent DPS with SLAs now; you can afford to lose the capstone and still be effective, if that's what you want.

As to pure Wiz is best argument: yes, for most tasks, pure is best. Best isn't always right for someone though. Some of us already have capped TRed pure casters and like playing them enough to mix it up a bit on new chars or to make an nth life a bit more interesting. There's room for mutts, that's the beauty of DDO (/D&D).

[richieelias27]

So many absolutes in this thread! This is just one... Why not? Sorc has high consistent DPS with SLAs now; you can afford to lose the capstone and still be effective, if that's what you want.

...

I wouldnt go so far as to state "Dont mix a Sorc ever!", but there are reasons that Sorc simply does not make a good multiclass.

1. CHA does not provide much of anything to the most popular splash classes.
2. Sorcs get spells 1 level later than Wiz, making class splits even more problematic.
3. Sorcs already suffer from not having enough feats

[slimkj]

1. CHA does not provide much of anything to the most popular splash classes.
2. Sorcs get spells 1 level later than Wiz, making class splits even more problematic.
3. Sorcs already suffer from not having enough feats

All fair points but still you could dump some Sorc lvls and still have a fun build. Especially if you're only looking to pick up past lives, for example, and don't plan to hang around end-game for long, if at all.

I'm looking forward to an 12 Earth Savant/8 Monk fun TR at some point in the near future.

A lot of people really like the Tukaw style build or a variant thereof too.

[Viisari]

Oh and FYI 40 reflex save is decent but Gnoll Clerics have a higher DC than 40.

Now while I can't say for sure because I haven't done the testing, I can say that from running helluva lot of desert I'm pretty inclined to say that no, they don't.

And outside of Web there are very few spells that can beat their fort save and will save. My 40 DC FOD failed on them several times even after I hit them with enervation, so your best bet against these guys is mainly to necro ray them to death, which means surviving their cometfalls.

44 necro dc has around 60-75% chance to kill epic desert cleric gnoll from my own experience, add energy drain and they should die every time unless they've had time to cast deathward. It's the **** archers who have crazy high fort saves.

In eCoF for example, I quite often just rush into rooms full of casters and cast web, crushing despair, maybe hold, wail, and circle of death in rapid succession. Most of the time this results in most of them dead or incapable of doing anything, throw pw:stun and pw:kill on any surviving ones. And all of this has to happen in under 5 seconds. You can even approach them with invis if you feel you need to cut their reaction time down even more. Also one thing of note is that quite often the gnolls buff themselves with something before actually casting any offensive magic, use this to your advantage.

No, once you know your stuff, cometfalls are not an issue, and even if they were, a monk splash wouldn't really gain much against them. No cyclonic blasts can knock you down if you fail your reflex save AND str check, but I don't honestly remember the last time I got knocked down by one in an epic quest. And even then it's not the evasion that helps you against them but more reflex save, which can be gotten from other sources than splashing.

LoB doggies do use from cyclonic blast from time to time on harder difficulties than normal though, but that just means it's smart to kill them and not kite them. Or get tons of spell absorbtion items for the kiter. And no, your monk splash isn't any better for kiting them because you too will roll a 1 eventually and fail your str/dex check at some point and that *will* kill you.

<edit> One thing about the harder epics is that the mobs can have really high saves. That means you can't use just one spell and hope it gets the job done, you need to first debuff them and then use several cc/instakill spells (preferably a bit of both) to get the job done well. If you just use one spell on a group without any debuffing you're unlikely to get the desired effect.

[Theolin]

Well if you have to be the best of the best of the best .....

Then you have to go completionist, with 3xPL of wiz, sorc, barb, pal, clrk at lest to make sure you get every single little point of DC you can from everywhere and might as well get more HP & healing amp cause you can never have enough of those either.

Oh and you might as well get 3 arties as well for the bonus to UMD, well as long as your this far might as well just get 3 of all of them just in case, after all you never know what might be changed / made useful

Guess I better get back to the grind ....

Oh and you will have to be a pure human wiz at least for now until they change something, sorry no WF -1DC too bad.

Darn I forgot about all the gear you will need, the +4 tomes, +3 exceptionals, epic stuff, +7 items ..... ahh more grind

I am beginning to feel all warm and fuzzy all over

However did I manage before all that was available? I must have walked both ways uphill in many feet of snow on a 40 below day.

/sarcasm

Good thing you don't have to be so totally ... something to be completely devastating to the content

[Viisari]

Good thing you don't have to be so totally ... something to be completely devastating to the content

Well you actually do in certain places if you wish to do certain things. All I'm arguing though is that it is a waste to splash a wizard if the player knows how to play, because the gains are much smaller than what you're sacrificing.

That said, I don't really care if you do splash your wizard, but the question of the topic was what's so good about it? Well, to a new player it ups their ability to survive a bit, for an experienced player who knows how to not die, it's a bad choice.

[Therigar]

A few things:

1) I have a sorcerer/monk multiclass. She often melees at her current level. She will melee less as she continues to grow. There isn't much synergy between the two classes but 2 added feats, slightly better saving throws and evasion are worth the investment for me. Your experience may differ.

2) I prefer the wizard/rogue multiclass to wizard/monk. The synergy between the two classes is huge.

3) That said, wizard/monk makes sense if you are in it for the 2 feats, slightly better saving throws and evasion. I would probably opt for Insightful Reflexes just as with a wizard/rogue build. Anything done in the AC area is likely pointless once the character reaches L20. OTOH, AC until then can be very useful and crazy high. Building for AC on a monk splash for L1-19 with a lesser reincarnate at L20 to reset stats isn't all bad.

[Tolath]

viisari first of all ritualist-pyromancers etc are not cleric mobs they are caster mobs and their weak save is fortitude.

channelers are the priest mobs there and they have both good will and fortitude.this guys cant die with 1 finger no matter what is your dc.ofcourse we have pwk for them and no save spells.

i agree about all other things you said but from what i understand is that you are an experience caster.not all have the experience to play a wizard like this.and wizard class is all about experience.ofcourse all die and for every experience wiz to die is either a bad choice(overated his ability) and a roll 1 most of the times both of them needed to kill you.but you cant expect everyone that is new to class to be able to do things like this.

what i say to to everyone want to try the wiz class and really want to know everything and be great as wizard.
dont focus to make a char that can survive everything focus in a char that can die from everything.
that way you can learn how to play how to avoid mobs and dangerous situations.no need to have top gear that way you will learn how to use combo spells and the weak save of the mob.run some epics too when you hit 20 you will get great experience by playing them with a easy to kill char.and when you see you have learn alot then tr and use whatever you learn from the first life as wizard to create the char you think is for you.you will have the experience to decided if 1 dc matters if evasion rocks and everything and your decision will be right for you.

ofcourse probably alot will tr to barbarian or roll a dif char than wizard but guide was not about play as you like and have fun is about to be a great wizard.and as you already understand no 50 dc no evasion can make you top but experience and knowledge of the game.

[Viisari]

viisari first of all ritualist-pyromancers etc are not cleric mobs they are caster mobs and their weak save is fortitude.

channelers are the priest mobs there and they have both good will and fortitude.this guys cant die with 1 finger no matter what is your dc.ofcourse we have pwk for them and no save spells.

Of course they *can* die with one finger, it's just smart to use energy drain on them first because of their fort save. They also have a crappy reflex save like most endgame mobs do, which is the very reason I still love playing archmage, 3sp webs are, in my opinion, the best single spell in the game

And as for the rest of your post, this is exactly why I said it might be good for new players, but the more experienced you get, the less useful evasion is, and at some point it's simply not worth the trade anymore even if it at some point was.

Also, for some strange reason, of the casters who regularly run endgame content on Thelanis, I know exactly zero who are splashed.

[Malison]

My 2cp:

1 DC is very nice. It is not gamebreaking.
Evasion is very nice. It is not gamebreaking.

I cannot imagine a situation in which you could fail a quest or raid because your DC was just 1 too low. Having died 5 times to cometfall in LoB last night, I know exactly where you could fail a raid because you didn't have evasion (or at least because your reflex save was too low).


I would recommend to all players to splash rogue on their first wizard. The fact is that your DC is inferior whether or not you're pure. You won't have a +7 item, a +4 tome, +1+2 exceptionals, litany. You won't have yugo pots for a long time. You might not have a greater X focus item. But if you toss an energy drain, it doesn't matter what your DC is as long as you didn't dump int. Almost nothing will save after energy drain.

I would further recommend to TR that toon based on how you felt playing it. If you didn't mind throwing debuffs to land your spells, or if you wished you could just deal damage, make it a sorc (and imo go pure; you cannot convince me that any splash is worth 10% bonus spell damage). If you were frustrated by not landing your spells from the start, make it a pure wizard, and reap the rewards of past life and capstone as well as the gear you've gotten.

If you've been capped there for a while, do whatever you want. You can make an 18/2 work. It's only 1 DC, after all. You know exactly how well your spells worked with 1 less DC, as you had it before you got your last int bonus.

If you're going to splash the wizard, I feel rogue is a lot stronger than monk. UMD and traps are useful far more often than no-feat no-BAB melee and 20-some hp.

[sephiroth1084]

Mostly it's for Evasion and two extra feats. While monks splashes can melee, they are never going to be good at it.

Wizard over Sorc? - Pale Master.

The monk levels are usually taken at 2 and somewhere around 10. It all depends on when you want the evasion and extra feats. Combat Expertise - a martial feat - meshes well with those who stand in the back and nuke things.

Yes, your SP cost is going to double but that's better than getting made into a pin cusion or totally beaten to death with a single blow. It's more of an "Oh SH!T" sort of move that can save your life.

No. Just no.

Combat Expertise is going to do far more to kill you than anything else you would be doing, as you're going to burn through all of your spell points twice as fast, and then essentially be a useless lump until the next shrine. You know how you don't die with a single blow as a caster? Don't gimp your HP and use your protective spells. Start with a 14 (if elf or drow) or 16 Con (more if you feel like it or are a multi-TR), pick up Toughness early and some racial enhancements to go with it. Wear the best +Con item you can, and try to work in a (Improved/Greater/Superior) False Life item.

One you hit level 6 and can go into undead form, you're at even less of a risk of getting killed.

Monk splashes are for:

• Evasion, first and foremost (use with Insightful Reflexes)
• 2 extra feats (likely Toughness x2)
• __
• __
• Melee synergy with the palemaster forms
• __
• __
• __
• __
• __
• __
• __
• __
• __
• __
• AC

[Michele]

I think that taking 2 monk levels "only" to get evasion and 2 feats is a total waste.

+2 intelligence from the capstone and +2 spell penetration and more spell points are too useful for epics (especially epic elite).

Here you can find an uncomplete monk 2 / wizard 18 build, but in order to be effective it needs a huge amount of past lives:

http://arcimaghieterni.forumfree.it/?t=64113574

[Inouk]

I think that taking 2 monk levels "only" to get evasion and 2 feats is a total waste.

+2 intelligence from the capstone and +2 spell penetration and more spell points are too useful for epics (especially epic elite).

Here you can find an uncomplete monk 2 / wizard 18 build, but in order to be effective it needs a huge amount of past lives:

http://arcimaghieterni.forumfree.it/?t=64113574

Holy thread necro!

Also don't forget that you lose 1 each 7th and 8th level spells, and 2 9th level spells. It's enough to be a factor, even if not exactly crippling.