Fire/Ice based Necromancer 30base int lvl 20

[Espario]

need advice. i dont usualy run casters. but i notice that a necro with tensai transformation is pretty resiliant and can actualy kick some @$$. this is all unbuffed stats. so its not including the items you add to the toon. so the int is maxed as much as possible and is inexpensive for the +1 tome you need for it. should be great with DC, and should be a fun self healing build. while in a undead form the shroud or the neg energy burst will heal both the caster and the undead just fine. sp is maxed as much as i could get it. i dont think there is any way to get the base sp higher without being a tr or having higher int. so items will have to do the rest. easily could have 2500-3000 sp by using items. have fun. the hp is decent seeing as the shroud will be constantly healing you while you have it equiped. fire and ice is what i chose because some of the undead summons require them. so might as well go along with it and have some fun. though some quests you will have to rely one spells that arent buffed by enhancments because of the enemies resilient to both ice and fire. so necro spells and your pets will have to do the rest.

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Emplic D' Buiriconis
Level 20 Neutral Good Drow Male
(20 Wizard) 
Hit Points: 222
Spell Points: 1815 
BAB: 10\10\15\20
Fortitude: 9
Reflex: 7
Will: 11

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
Abilities        Base Stats          Modified Stats
(28 Point)       (Level 1)             (Level 20)
Strength              9                    10
Dexterity            11                    12
Constitution         14                    16
Intelligence         20                    30
Wisdom                8                     8
Charisma             10                    10

Tomes Used
+1 Tome of Strength used at level 20
+2 Tome of Constitution used at level 20
+1 Tome of Intelligence used at level 20

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
                 Base Skills         Modified Skills
Skills           (Level 1)            (Level 20)
Balance               0                     1
Bluff                 0                     0
Concentration         2                     3
Diplomacy             0                     0
Disable Device        n/a                  n/a
Haggle                0                     0
Heal                 -1                    -1
Hide                  0                     1
Intimidate            0                     0
Jump                 -1                     0
Listen               -1                     1
Move Silently         0                     1
Open Lock             n/a                   n/a
Perform               n/a                   n/a
Repair                5                    10
Search                5                    12
Spot                 -1                     1
Swim                 -1                     0
Tumble                n/a                   n/a
Use Magic Device      n/a                   n/a

Level 1 (Wizard)
Feat: (Wizard Bonus) Mental Toughness
Feat: (Selected) Toughness


Level 2 (Wizard)


Level 3 (Wizard)
Feat: (Selected) Spell Focus: Necromancy


Level 4 (Wizard)
Ability Raise: INT


Level 5 (Wizard)
Feat: (Wizard Bonus) Improved Mental Toughness


Level 6 (Wizard)
Feat: (Selected) Extend Spell


Level 7 (Wizard)


Level 8 (Wizard)
Ability Raise: INT


Level 9 (Wizard)
Feat: (Selected) Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy


Level 10 (Wizard)
Feat: (Wizard Bonus) Maximize Spell


Level 11 (Wizard)


Level 12 (Wizard)
Ability Raise: INT
Feat: (Selected) Empower Spell


Level 13 (Wizard)


Level 14 (Wizard)


Level 15 (Wizard)
Feat: (Wizard Bonus) Augment Summoning
Feat: (Selected) Spell Penetration


Level 16 (Wizard)
Ability Raise: INT


Level 17 (Wizard)


Level 18 (Wizard)
Feat: (Selected) Greater Spell Penetration


Level 19 (Wizard)


Level 20 (Wizard)
Feat: (Wizard Bonus) Heighten Spell
Enhancement: Wizard Master of Magic
Enhancement: Elven Dexterity I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness II
Enhancement: Glacial Spellcasting I
Enhancement: Glacial Spellcasting II
Enhancement: Glacial Spellcasting III
Enhancement: Glacial Spellcasting IV
Enhancement: Combustive Spellcasting I
Enhancement: Combustive Spellcasting II
Enhancement: Combustive Spellcasting III
Enhancement: Combustive Spellcasting IV
Enhancement: Deadly Ice I
Enhancement: Deadly Ice II
Enhancement: Deadly Ice III
Enhancement: Deadly Ice IV
Enhancement: Deadly Flame I
Enhancement: Deadly Flame II
Enhancement: Deadly Flame III
Enhancement: Deadly Flame IV
Enhancement: Frost Manipulation I
Enhancement: Frost Manipulation II
Enhancement: Frost Manipulation III
Enhancement: Frost Manipulation IV
Enhancement: Frost Manipulation V
Enhancement: Frost Manipulation VI
Enhancement: Flame Manipulation I
Enhancement: Flame Manipulation II
Enhancement: Flame Manipulation III
Enhancement: Flame Manipulation IV
Enhancement: Flame Manipulation V
Enhancement: Flame Manipulation VI
Enhancement: Wizard Energy of the Scholar I
Enhancement: Wizard Energy of the Scholar II
Enhancement: Wizard Energy of the Scholar III
Enhancement: Wizard Energy of the Scholar IV
Enhancement: Wizard Subtle Spellcasting I
Enhancement: Wizard Intelligence I
Enhancement: Wizard Intelligence II
Enhancement: Wizard Intelligence III
Enhancement: Shroud of the Lich
Enhancement: Wizard Pale Master I
Enhancement: Wizard Pale Master II
Enhancement: Wizard Pale Master III
Enhancement: Summon Blackbone Archer
Enhancement: Summon Frostmarrow Archer
Enhancement: Summon Skeleton Archer
Enhancement: Summon Blackbone Knight
Enhancement: Summon Frostmarrow Knight
Enhancement: Summon Skeletal Knight
Enhancement: Summon Blackbone Mage
Enhancement: Summon Frostmarrow Mage
Enhancement: Summon Skeletal Mage
Enhancement: Shroud of the Vampire
Enhancement: Shroud of the Wraith
Enhancement: Shroud of the Zombie

[Feithlin]

Dex is useless for you, so you'd better put the point in Str (Dex -> 10, Str -> 10).
Try to eat the +1 int tome at 3 and a +2 tome at 7, to optimize skill points.
Augment summoning is not very useful (to not say totally useless), especially if you take it at 18 (it may have some use at lower levels, but I would simply skip it).
Imp. mental toughness is also useless (you can keep mental toughness for wraith form though).
Some options to replace those 2 feats (not in any particular order):
* SF: conjuration for webs
* gSF: conjuration for webs
* Quicken (good for neg. energy burst and to prevent interruption)
* Insightful reflexes (use Int mod for Ref saves instead of Dex)

I didn't look at enhancements since it can easily be reseted.

*Edit: Just looked at your skills. Repair and Search are pretty useless for you.
Skills you may consider to max, in addition to Concentration: Move silently (with wraith form and some buffs/items, you should be able to hit 55-60), UMD (even with 11 ranks, you can get enough with buffs/items to raise someone and use some inflict wounds wands), Spot (if you sneak, best be able to see where you walk), Hide, at least 1 in Tumble.

[Espario]

Dex is useless for you, so you'd better put the point in Str (Dex -> 10, Str -> 10).
Try to eat the +1 int tome at 3 and a +2 tome at 7, to optimize skill points.
Augment summoning is not very useful (to not say totally useless), especially if you take it at 18 (it may have some use at lower levels, but I would simply skip it).
Imp. mental toughness is also useless (you can keep mental toughness for wraith form though).
Some options to replace those 2 feats (not in any particular order):
* SF: conjuration for webs
* gSF: conjuration for webs
* Quicken (good for neg. energy burst and to prevent interruption)
* Insightful reflexes (use Int mod for Ref saves instead of Dex)

I didn't look at enhancements since it can easily be reseted.

*Edit: Just looked at your skills. Repair and Search are pretty useless for you.
Skills you may consider to max, in addition to Concentration: Move silently (with wraith form and some buffs/items, you should be able to hit 55-60), UMD (even with 11 ranks, you can get enough with buffs/items to raise someone and use some inflict wounds wands), Spot (if you sneak, best be able to see where you walk), Hide, at least 1 in Tumble.

yes. UMD and conc are maxed. and so is haggle. for better deals. lol. i didnt put any into search or repair. augment summoning is actualy VERY useful. the effects of it are unseen though. it gives your living pets fortification. keeping them alive longer since you can only heal your undead pets. it also makes them miss alot less and gives them more health. it is very useful when you rely on pets to fight. it also makes them hit harder. this was a throw together build. augment summoning will probably be taken earlier when i run this build. you are correct about insightful reflexes though. its very good and imp mental toughness is an good amount of extra sp. which can help when you have to use 100sp to turn into an undead. so i perfer it. this is always changable if i do not like it later on. i put UMD on every toon of mine that uses INT or CHA as there main skills. (INT for extra pts and CHA cuz it already buffs UMD). as you can see. i have it set for tomes already. i put 1 pt in str and 1 in dex first lvl so tht at 3rd lvl it can be +1 tomed on both to make them both even. would be doin that exact same thing if i had added them both to the str except tht dex would be 10.

[Rawel_San]

yes. UMD and conc are maxed. and so is haggle. for better deals. lol. i didnt put any into search or repair. augment summoning is actualy VERY useful. the effects of it are unseen though. it gives your living pets fortification. keeping them alive longer since you can only heal your undead pets. it also makes them miss alot less and gives them more health. it is very useful when you rely on pets to fight. it also makes them hit harder. this was a throw together build. augment summoning will probably be taken earlier when i run this build. you are correct about insightful reflexes though. its very good and imp mental toughness is an good amount of extra sp. which can help when you have to use 100sp to turn into an undead. so i perfer it. this is always changable if i do not like it later on. i put UMD on every toon of mine that uses INT or CHA as there main skills. (INT for extra pts and CHA cuz it already buffs UMD). as you can see. i have it set for tomes already. i put 1 pt in str and 1 in dex first lvl so tht at 3rd lvl it can be +1 tomed on both to make them both even. would be doin that exact same thing if i had added them both to the str except tht dex would be 10.

The trouble with the augment summoning is that your pets suck even with the feat, and that's not taking
into account the fact that in most quests they will usually actively work against you by aggroing things you don't
want aggroed messing with where enemies are and in general being a nuisance. The 105 sp gained from improved
mental toughness is imo almost certainly not worth the feat, even mental toughness is usually wasted. It's main
redeeming feature being wraith form (taking it for leveling and dropping at cap is the usual method I see) and
possibly the fact you get to swap between PM and Archmage easily.

Quicken on the other hand I think is a great, if not quite a must have, feat not just to make sure your spells land
(and belive me if an abishai hits you with a 200hp dbf your concentration will not cover that) but just
in general to be able to cast them faster. Being able to cast crushing despair followed by circle of death in the
time you would normally cast just one of those spells is incredibly useful imo.

Also as for the dex dump it without a second's thought, imo. The 4 levels between 3 and 7 where you get even
stats in dex and str aren't worth losing a point of str at cap.

Just my 2 copper,
Rawel

[Such755]

How do you plan to "Easily" reach 3k spell points?
I have just about 2,000 with 42 int and archmagi item. GS will add 150, so that's 2150.
If you get 46 int that's about 2200. What next?
(Please don't say Mental Toughness, there are better ways to burn a feat.)

[jaegarnel]

Several things:

1. Pets are generally useless in endgame content, with the possible exception of the air ele which can provide some nice CC (or could, haven't bothered summoning on in endgame content since the change to them).
This is especially true of the pm-only pets, those are nice when you can first acquire them, but quickly become useless afterwards, they just don't do enough damage or have enough hp.

The other drawback of pets is that there are plenty of quests, and especially raids, where having a pet out can potentially make things more difficult for the group.
There's a reason people tell you not to have summons out in most raids (usually because they'll aggro things and start encounters before the group is ready) and it always annoys me when the first thing casters and divines do even in epics is to cast their best summon. They're very weak DPS, and they get in the way.

2. You overestimate the impact of items on sp, unless you're counting the bauble or other sp regen clickies as additional sp.
You get less than 50 sp every 2 int, so +6 int and +3 exc is around 200 at best, archmagi if you can fit that on your gear is 200 and a GS sp item is +150. That's around +500 sp from gear, around 2.3k sp.
Only sorcs and FvS can get 2.5 to 3k sp, wizards can't. Well, a wizard could potentially hit 2.5k, but they'd have to gimp their build to do so.

3. fire spec is completely useless in endgame because most of the mobs you fight are either immune or highly resistant to fire. It's usually recommended to go ice + lightning, with a few points in force, to maximize your two DoTs and still keep a workable disintegrate for things that are immune to both ice and lightning (mainly liches like the Abbot, Sor'Jek or eRaiyum).

4. your feat choices could use some work.
Improved mental toughness is a waste of a feat, as is Mental Toughness if you don't plan on using wraith form/swapping to am sometimes.
An additional 105 sp will make very little difference to your success in quests, 2k or so sp is quite enough provided you know how to conserve sp.
Augment summoning is even worse, as I said in point 1 pets are useless, and they stay useless even with augment summoning. In the few situations that augment summoning could be useful (HoX...), there is an epic wand that provides the feat for free and that is relatively easy to get.

Taking heighten as late as level 20 is a bad idea, it makes your low lvl spells like web useless. it's best to take that feat at mid levels.

While you can insta kill most things you can CC, most mobs have a much higher fort save than reflex or will saves, and you can't count on landing wail in Amrath or epics until you have quite a bit of gear.
It's much easier to land web or even hypno + mass hold, which is why some spell focuses in enchantement or conjuration wouldn't go amiss.

Taking quicken is also extremely useful for a wizard, because cast times are slow and quicken will both boost your DPS, allow you to react faster to "oh sh!t" situations by laying a irresistible dance, mass hold or web faster and save you from having that negative energy burst you need to self heal fail because a mob just hit you for 100+ dmg.

In summary you should ditch augment summoning and improved mental toughness (and possibly mental toughness if you don't plan on tanking in wraith form) and replace those by quicken and a spell focus conj or enchant.
You should also take heighten sooner, having the DCs of most of your spells low by a few points until lvl 20 doesn't cut it as a wizard.