Lightning Immune mobs make me sad

[Kielbasa]

So I've been playing an Air savant lately and I love it. But I've been in three different raids in the last couple weeks and every boss is immune to lightning. Tempest spine- Sorjek, ADQ- Queen Lialat, Reaver's Fate- Stormreaver. (even the air elementals in there are immune to lightning unlike traditional air elementals) This makes me sad.

So how does your Air Savant deal with immunities? I've been cycling niac's, disintegrate, and polar ray, now that I have it, but it doesn't work as well as I had hoped. How well does cyclonic blast work on an air savant?

One last thing are we ever going to get any good sonic spells in this game? Seems like every sonic spell is a new player trap other than sonic blast which is awesome in the early levels.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Lightning immune mobs "are" difficult for an Air Savant.

But Disintegrate is such a useful spell that everyone should consider having it.

My Air Savant also has a few other tricks. Cyclonic Blast, Sonic Blast, and Greater Shout.

Several Enchantment spells as well.

[Kielbasa]

Can you tell me more about cyclonic blast? Does it actually properly benefit from the savant pre? Hows the damage compared to some of your electric spells? From the times I have used it from a scroll to test it out seems to be like lightning bolt in that its hard to hit multiple targets with it unless you line them up and target the furthest target. How often do you get the knockdown effect from it? It also seems to blow away friendly area of effect spells. Is this intended or a bug?

Sonic Blast- I stopped using this because the damage was poor after it stopped scaling and the only way to make it useful would be to heighten it which would increase the sp cost too much. Pretty much became a glorified box buster due to the nice aoe effect of it.

Greater shout- Can someone tell me more about this spell? If its anything like shout I won't pick it up that spell was awful.

[Tuney]

Greater Shout befor the lowering of the SP cost... wasn't much in use about only class that would use it was bards. Its use is almost never for damage. It is a ok sized Cone stun.

[SHOCK_and_AWE]

Can you tell me more about cyclonic blast? Does it actually properly benefit from the savant pre? Hows the damage compared to some of your electric spells? From the times I have used it from a scroll to test it out seems to be like lightning bolt in that its hard to hit multiple targets with it unless you line them up and target the furthest target. How often do you get the knockdown effect from it? It also seems to blow away friendly area of effect spells. Is this intended or a bug? ...

Cyclonic Blast is more of a line spell than a conical spell, much like Lightning Bolt (which you will become intimately familiar with after level 18). The knockdown has two bases for its save; strength or dexterity checks will avoid knockdown. It also has a reflex save for half (hello evasion!). If it hits for full effect, it does a nice bit of untyped damage and is indeed affected by Air Savant max caster level modifications (you can get it to CL20 with the ToD set). The "blow away" effect is intentional; this is the main reason my Air Savant has this spell loaded (non-meta'd, it costs 15SP to remove nasty enemy clouds, firewalls, and ice storms). However, unless your target is immune to lightning and ice and has a high fort save, I wouldn't recommend using this spell for damage. You are better off using Disintegrate and (if you have an Eardweller or Superior Efficacy/Laceration IX) Meteor Swarm against such enemies anyway.

... So how does your Air Savant deal with immunities? I've been cycling niac's, disintegrate, and polar ray, now that I have it, but it doesn't work as well as I had hoped. How well does cyclonic blast work on an air savant? ...

As a warforged Air Savant, I fully spec'd Electric (of course) then the damage lines of the following: Cold, Force, Repair. Cold allows you to use the other most SP-efficient damage spell in the game (Niac's Biting Cold) as well as Polar Ray, the premier nuking spell. Force enhancements allow a fallback to some spells with little-to-no resistant enemies including the Magic Missile spells, Ice Storm (covered by Cold in my case), Cyclonic Blast, Horrid Wilting (now with fixed targeting!), and Meteor Swarm. Having one or two of these in your spell list means you will just about never be in a situation where you can deal no direct damage to an enemy.

... One last thing are we ever going to get any good sonic spells in this game? Seems like every sonic spell is a new player trap other than sonic blast which is awesome in the early levels.

Unless bards are going to get massive attention from the devs, I'm guessing that Sonic spells will be left bereft for the foreseeable future. A few of them are good at lower levels like you said, but they don't have much to offer later on (especially for an elemental savant).

[hecate355]

paired ice with my air savant, niacs biting/polar/frost lance/ice storm

[Tom_Hunters]

I took a minor in the force line:
Disintegrate and Ice Storm. (Arcane lore + Superior efficacy VI, sup freeze clickies + sup ice lore)

That said, I also have Niac's biting cold and polar ray at hand, though without AP enhancements. (But I do have ToD clickies + sup ice lore)

And yes Greater shout too, coz storm enhancement also gives sonic bonus. But as I have no item bonus to lvl VIII spells, it's dmg is usually low.



If i am to nuke and encounter sth immune to electric, it's usually disintegrate, unless it has a high fort or takes extra from cold.

[Sarisa]

I also second carrying Ice. I also took a couple points in Force, and one point in Repair for raid recon'ing.

For Lailat, I use Polar Ray and Niac's Biting Cold, and keep Cloudkill up on the party. If the party isn't lagging too badly, I'll use Ice Storm as well.

For the Deeps Demon, I DoT tank him wearing an Anathema with Niac's, and the occasional Polar Ray. I avoid AoE's here to avoid drawing the Reavers.

For Raiyum or the Abbot, I use Disintegrate, and the new form of the Epic Brimstone Verge.

I avoid Cyclonic Blast for two reasons. One is that it blows away persistent AoE's (Wall of Fire, Ice Storm, Clouds, Otto's Sphere of Dancing). Second is that it is bugged to be treated as a level 2 spell, due to it being based off of Gust of Wind. This makes it not work against monsters with Mantles, like Suuly and Raiyum.

[chodelord]

I use acid rain a lot on my water savant. For air I would think firewall would be the goto spell.

I've also been using prismatic spray a lot, it is really effective particularly if you have a source of potency 7. As an air savant you will be casting it at level 26 and I don't think there is a cap on the damage beams.

It has instant death that works on undead, turn to stone, and a lot of damage including a chance for targets to be hit by more than one beam.

The force damage line is good to max as that helps meteor swarm, disintegrate, and ice storm. Chain/force missiles aren't bad particularly since there is no save.

[Kielbasa]

Some interesting feedback all. I've been messing around with more spells lately.

Prismatic spray not a bad spell. I mostly use it for the flesh to stone, instant death, or banishment effect. Nothing better than a superior potency 6 item yet so I can't say much about the damage. Not a bad spell from my testing just not reliable . Not sure if there are more sp efficient ways to do what this does for an Air Savant.

Polar Ray- So far a bit of a letdown on my air savant at the moment but this is probably more of a lacking gear issue and the fact that I need to dump more enhancements into the cold line to see any success with this. Not sure if I'll be keeping this as disintegrate serves the same purpose.

Disintegrate- Definitely been a good spell for me when things don't make their save. The damage seem pretty good. Its just hard to decide on if my enhancements are best spent on ice or force I won't have enough to utilize both.

The spells that have really made the biggest impact on my game play so far once I reached 18 are: enervation, finger of death, symbol of death, and wail of the banshee.

Finger of Death- Wish I had picked this spell up as soon as I had access to level 7 spells would have been a game changer then. Still is great now. It really is the solution to high reflex enemies. All the enemies that give evade a lot I just give them a finger now and laugh.

Enervation- anything that i think will save on a finger of death I use this first. Will swap this out once I pick up energy drain. But nice spell wasn't using this enough in the earlier levels.

Symbol of Death- Really seems to soften up groups of enemies if you can kite them through this for a while. That and it sets up Wail nicely since I won't have the dcs to make necro spells highly effective like a palemaster.

Ice Storm- So the force line ups the bludgeoning damage on this? I've had this for when I find groups of mobs immune to lightning but don't find that i use it all that much. So to get the most of of this I need decent ice and force enhancements? As well as a crit item for both those lines in hand when I cast it?

One last question. Is circle of death worth picking up at some point? Seems like symbol of death is doing a pretty good job of negative leveling stuff at the moment. Currently carrying chain lightning, disintegrate, and greater heroism as my level six spells. I need greater heroism right now for umd healing until I can craft greensteel and grab a planar grid. Any suggestions are always welcome still new to the whole caster thing as well as most high level content.

[danotmano1998]

As a savant, I've noticed a need for a secondary line of enhancements.

Go force to up your untyped damages from ice storm, disintegrate, cyclonic blast, and there's probably a few more I can't recall off the top of my head.

I usually put the max enhancements into my primary line, and at the very least put one action point in a secondary line. Just ONE AP gets you a significant bonus to the damage output.


Here's something I've learned as well:

Ice and Electric have the best boss dots... Sure there are some immune to one or the other, but I have yet to find one that is immune to both. I went Ice, and there are very few places where my spells are not devastating both to mobs and bosses.

Don't put all your focus into just one line. Or you will regret it later, as you are discovering. Just know that you can't be optimal in every situation. A good player will know to swap tactics when it is necessary.

Maybe you can buff the melee's up and scroll/wand heal for a fight. Maybe you can hold or enchant a handful of mobs to make things easier. Perhaps a wail will be the best use of your powers.

Is circle of death worth picking up at some point?

Personally, I'm finding it quite fun. It also seems to land reliably, and is a nice way to either outright kill them, or drain a handful of their levels away which makes the finger or wail so much more effective. Even on level 15 Elite quests, I can say I've seen some good results for this spell.

I need greater heroism right now for umd healing until I can craft greensteel and grab a planar grid

This is a "Must Have" spell for all of my casters..

Not just for myself and UMD, but for every tough fight. Buffing the rogue an extra 4 skill points alone can make the difference between a party wipe and a cake walk. Not to mention a fair amount of other players expect a caster to have this as a staple, like haste and rage.

[nivarch]

I need greater heroism right now for umd healing until I can craft greensteel and grab a planar grid. Any suggestions are always welcome still new to the whole caster thing as well as most high level content.

You can scroll cast greater heroism. In a raid, or epic quest, you can expect to have a wizard to cast it a bard to sing it, or people wll just have their own clickies.

[Sarisa]

Polar Ray- So far a bit of a letdown on my air savant at the moment but this is probably more of a lacking gear issue and the fact that I need to dump more enhancements into the cold line to see any success with this. Not sure if I'll be keeping this as disintegrate serves the same purpose.

Polar Ray is a no-save spell, so it's consistent and high damage. It increases in power as you go up in levels a larger amount than Disintegrate.

Most boss mobs have either exceptionally high Fort saves, or have an artificial resistance to Disintegrate (the Abbot) that makes it less useful as a boss nuke. Disintegrate is still well worth casting, and it's incredibly useful in the House Cannith quests, and during many portions of raids where you have to take out pillars or crystals.

Levels make a huge difference in Polar Ray's power, along with an Amrath belt clickie (Telvi's Sash), and enhancements.