No empower

[tekkentroop]

OP here...

Thanks all for the fruitful discussion. I still dont think empower is a must-have for all wizards, but I think I will integrate it in later lives of my wizard, just to have the option to crank up damage a little bit more. With the Spell Penetration past life feats, feats will be less tight, and in later lives spellpoints wont be a big issue anymore. I didnt get a torc during the first life (TRed after 20 DQ/shroud completions) but will probably do another 20 DQ this life.

On strong words from some people around here: if a wiz without empower was gimped, a sorc without spell penetration and high necro DCs would be gimped, too... it takes a few past lives and good gear to make an arcane an alrounder (nuke+cc+instakill) but its certainly worth it.

[Kinerd]

Um, what feats did you take if you don't have room for Empower? That doesn't make sense. Every wizard has room for Empower.

Listed above.

Trash mobs dont come in groups of hundreds at the same time, the difference 1 DC makes will be 1-2 trash mobs CCed or not at a time, tops. Thats nothing, unless your group has deeper problems than you missing 1 DC from your theoretical maximum, killing a trash mob is a question of seconds, no real danger to the party. Bosses pose several orders of magnitude greater danger than 1-2 trash mobs in MOST situations and 25% difference in your DPS there can make a significant contribution.

I'm not saying being a DC shy is going to cause a wipe, but neither is one person doing 80% DPS. In my experience as a cleric, I had to spend a lot more effort in runs where CC was almost-but-not-quite than when DPS was almost-but-not-quite. I mean look at Shroud, people still run that with MoPGs. There's just so much more tolerance in the game systems for low DPS.

Oh its still manipulation any way you cut it. Just as mie was. Maximize is an additional multiplier just as empower is. To count it as baseline is not really justifyable when comparing the other unless you were forced to take maximize.

Nobody's forced to do anything. You and I agree about taking Maximize. You and I disagree about taking Empower. That is why Maximize is the baseline. If you want to talk to someone who agrees with you about Empower and disagrees about Maximize, feel free, but that person is not me.

Your dps numbers are incorrect as there is no factor for spell dc. If your talking just no save dots then you aren't dps'ing right for many fights. All but a handful of raid /epic fights generally aren't long enough to make dots worthwhile. Most of those aren't long enough that you can't mix in some other spells. I find you cut melees pretty short on thios too especially since for normal runs at least many raid bosses are running at sub 50% fort.

The point was that with only two DoTs a very casually geared wizard without Empower outstrips most melees. Of course I mix in other spells when DPSing, but why bother calculating out exactly how much I get from them if the point's already made? If a fight's not long enough to make DoTs worthwhile, it's usually a fight I'm much more useful CCing or instant killing. As for selling melee short, in your experience, how many THF melees in pugs have an eSoS? TWFs with perfect Cannith khopeshes? Conversely, how many are THF dwarf barbs with a +2 MoPG Greataxe, no ToD sets, no epic gear? Let's reference mrphlegm's experience: "can easily hold aggro against barbs with dots and necrotic/polar nuking with my new PM, or even just dots."

No empower? You're joking right?

dammit. No wonder i can pull agro from most of the casters around. I'm the only one with empower going.


Here. Try this. start telling lfm groups you don't have empower. lets see how that works out mkay?

I tell lfm groups I have a rogue and they decline me sight unseen saying they need DPS. Let's not rely on lfm groups as a source of incontrovertible truth.

But... I guess as a melee I'd never not take a feat that gave +25% damage (only thing vaguely comparable is first TWF feat)... so I guess I'm now leaning toward empower.

Power Attack adds a lot less than 25% DPS on melees, and like Empower is not always useful. Yet every melee takes it, including most characters that only melee some of the time.

The trouble with the analogy is a melee's only job is to do damage (or in rare cases not take as much damage). A wizard's jobs also include CC and instant kill (or instant kill and CC). As has been demonstrated, a wizard built especially for this can still put out comparable or greater DPS to these other classes against what we all agree are the most dangerous targets. In my opinion, no one has explained how "comparable or greater" is equal to "gimp".

Now a wiz with specc'd cold or lightning casting niacs and eldars is invaluable. It doesn't matter if cold isn't maxed, or that harry has resistance to it. It'll still output a great number. With max and empower you can fill those rolls. Empower is just another situation feat.

That's just it, though. If you only have Maximize, how is it that you can't capably fill those DPS roles? Not optimally (sorc), but capably? Empower doesn't unlock the Manipulation enhancements, it isn't required to wield a Superior Freeze weapon.

[goodspeed]

true, it just helps drop something quicker. I find the faster the thing dies the better. (Well mostly, a few raids ive found time and slow cc wins the race alot easier) Technically your right. You don't really need emp, hell you don't even really need max either. But it's the human factor that requires them.

The human factor is basically kind of like murphy;s law. Whatever a **** human can do to cause all kinda of hell and require a sped up process or more thinking, will always, without fail, happen.

Like delera's. I know that when 40 things bust out of the ground everywhere all I need is a stoneskin, a displace and to get to a safe spot. From there I can whip a wall of fire unmaxed/ unempowered with only my sup clicky and in 15 seconds time archers and the like are dead.

Now enter the human factor. fighter/ranger/whatever screams WOO LETS KILL EM ALL!!! and rushes into about 50 arrows. All of a sudden hp starts dropping the cleric runs after and she's dieing. And so the mage has to crank it up and wipe out everything quick. (Me id prolly just leave em die but you know.)

Same thing with raids especially shroud. Sure it's easy to avoid the blades, hell we can stand back out of the way. We have all the time in the world. Now enter human factor. Oh no 3 people died. The healer somehow died. People are running all over like headless chickens after just 1 round.

And that's why meta's are important. Because we have to watch over the human factor lol.

[good_ole_corwin]

I'm not saying being a DC shy is going to cause a wipe, but neither is one person doing 80% DPS. In my experience as a cleric, I had to spend a lot more effort in runs where CC was almost-but-not-quite than when DPS was almost-but-not-quite. I mean look at Shroud, people still run that with MoPGs. There's just so much more tolerance in the game systems for low DPS.

In my experience as currently a FvS, effort maybe, resources no. But than again thats probably because CC and instakills I can help with. Especially if using Shroud as an example, thats one of the places where DPS>CC IMHO. Sure its convenient to have somebody instakilling stuff in part 1, sure its faster to bring all the trash into webs/discos in part 2/4. But without CC, you would just change tactics slightly, not pull everything, just kill it gradually, instakills and smaller scale CC can easily by handled by divines too. Killing Harry in one round in part 4 or before blades appear in part 5 brings way more in terms of chance of success and usually when I see him go to round 2, he doesnt have much red bar left, so yeah, 25% of arcane dots output could make a difference sometimes. Especially since dots still dmg him for a few seconds after melees jump out of blades.