WF Ice Savant constructive feedback

[mikameow]

Hi i was looking for constructive feedback into his build.

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Cthreepo Goneberskerk
Level 20 Chaotic Good Warforged Male
(20 Sorcerer) 
Hit Points: 292
Spell Points: 2188 
BAB: 10\10\15\20
Fortitude: 13
Reflex: 5
Will: 10

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
Abilities        Base Stats          Modified Stats
(32 Point)       (Level 1)             (Level 20)
Strength              8                     8
Dexterity             8                     8
Constitution         20                    24
Intelligence          8                     8
Wisdom                6                     6
Charisma             16                    24

Tomes Used
+3 Tome of Constitution used at level 11
+3 Tome of Charisma used at level 11

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
                 Base Skills         Modified Skills
Skills           (Level 1)            (Level 20)
Balance              -1                    -1
Bluff                 3                     7
Concentration         9                    30
Diplomacy             3                     7
Disable Device       n/a                   n/a
Haggle                3                     7
Heal                 -2                    -2
Hide                 -1                    -1
Intimidate            3                     7
Jump                 -1                    -1
Listen               -2                    -2
Move Silently        -1                    -1
Open Lock            n/a                   n/a
Perform               n/a                   n/a
Repair               -1                    -1
Search               -1                    -1
Spot                 -2                    -2
Swim                 -1                     5
Tumble               n/a                   n/a
Use Magic Device      n/a                   n/a

Level 1 (Sorcerer)
Feat: (Selected) Toughness
Spell (1): Jump
Spell (1): Protection From Evil


Level 2 (Sorcerer)
Spell (1): Magic Missile


Level 3 (Sorcerer)
Feat: (Selected) Mental Toughness
Spell (1): Nightshield


Level 4 (Sorcerer)
Spell (2): Knock


Level 5 (Sorcerer)
Spell (2): Resist Energy


Level 6 (Sorcerer)
Feat: (Selected) Maximize Spell
Spell (3): Frost Lance


Level 7 (Sorcerer)
Spell (3): Haste
Spell (2): Blur


Level 8 (Sorcerer)
Spell (4): Repair Critical Damage


Level 9 (Sorcerer)
Feat: (Selected) Spell Focus: Evocation
Spell (3): Lightning Bolt
Spell (4): Dimension Door
Spell (2): Snowball Swarm


Level 10 (Sorcerer)
Spell (5): Cone of Cold


Level 11 (Sorcerer)
Spell (3): Repair Serious Damage
Spell (4): Stoneskin
Spell (5): Niac's Biting Cold


Level 12 (Sorcerer)
Feat: (Selected) Empower Spell
Spell (6): Chain Lightning


Level 13 (Sorcerer)
Spell (4): Ice Storm
Spell (5): Ball Lightning
Spell (6): Disintegrate


Level 14 (Sorcerer)
Spell (7): Mass Protection From Elements


Level 15 (Sorcerer)
Feat: (Selected) Greater Spell Focus: Evocation
Spell (5): Eladar's Electric Surge
Spell (6): Reconstruct
Spell (7): Otto's Sphere of Dancing


Level 16 (Sorcerer)
Spell (8): Polar Ray


Level 17 (Sorcerer)
Spell (7): Mass Invisibility
Spell (8): Otto's Irresistible Dance


Level 18 (Sorcerer)
Feat: (Selected) Heighten Spell
Spell (9): Mass Hold Monster


Level 19 (Sorcerer)
Spell (9): Energy Drain
Spell (8): Symbol of Death


Level 20 (Sorcerer)
Spell (9): Wail of the Banshee
Enhancement: Sorcerer Bloodline of Power
Enhancement: Sorcerer Improved Empowering I
Enhancement: Sorcerer Improved Empowering II
Enhancement: Sorcerer Improved Empowering III
Enhancement: Sorcerer Improved Maximizing I
Enhancement: Sorcerer Improved Maximizing II
Enhancement: Sorcerer Improved Maximizing III
Enhancement: Racial Toughness I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness II
Enhancement: Racial Toughness III
Enhancement: Sorcerer Water Savant I
Enhancement: Sorcerer Water Savant II
Enhancement: Sorcerer Water Savant III
Enhancement: Glacial Spellcasting I
Enhancement: Glacial Spellcasting II
Enhancement: Glacial Spellcasting III
Enhancement: Glacial Spellcasting IV
Enhancement: Glacial Spellcasting V
Enhancement: Deadly Ice I
Enhancement: Deadly Ice II
Enhancement: Deadly Ice III
Enhancement: Deadly Ice IV
Enhancement: Deadly Ice V
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: Frost Manipulation VII
Enhancement: Storm Manipulation I
Enhancement: Repair Manipulation I
Enhancement: Repair Manipulation II
Enhancement: Repair Manipulation III
Enhancement: Repair Manipulation IV
Enhancement: Repair Manipulation V
Enhancement: Repair Manipulation VI
Enhancement: Sorcerer Energy of the Dragonblooded I
Enhancement: Sorcerer Energy of the Dragonblooded II
Enhancement: Sorcerer Energy of the Dragonblooded III
Enhancement: Sorcerer Energy of the Dragonblooded IV
Enhancement: Sorcerer Wand and Scroll Mastery I
Enhancement: Warforged Constitution I
Enhancement: Warforged Healer's Friend I
Enhancement: Warforged Inscribed Armor I

[DarkForte]

Drop mental toughness. At lower levels, the sp gain is low, and at cap it's about the same effect as dumping a glass of water in an Olympic swimming pool. Go for quicken instead (but only after level 12, since before that it's a waste of sp). Having uninterruptible self-healing is pure awesome.

Take heighten earlier, to help hitting with your niac's cold ray SLA, else it will miss consistently.

Drop the improved metamagics enhancements (take only improved max I and II for savant prereqs). Way too expensive for what they provide.

Also, I'd drop con a smidgen and take UMD for great utility: removing ability damage with heal and tossing your buddy an emergency heal sometimes, ressurrecting party members. That one is optional, though.

For spell selection, you'll adapt with what you like. One suggestion though: taking Wail at 17 increases your power greatly.

[DaSawks]

So let me get this straight. You intend to only have Magic Missle for levels 1-6? Jump and Pro:Evil are nice but can be had from a clicky, scroll or pot. Resist Energy, Haste and Blur are nice to have. Outside of that you really do not need such a heavy investment into buffs.

[muffinlad]

My feedback:

A) Ice is best mixed with Electric as your back up.
B) Do not take Knock as your first 2nd level spell, take Electric Loop. Even 1/1/0 ap (20% damage, 4% crit) is well worth it, and the spell lasts all the way up to level 20 if you have decent DC's.
C) On a personal level, I highly disagree with the UMD suggestion as a buy for a WF sorc. Unless you have an item that you really need to get UMD'd, your job is not to heal people, even if you can. Having an Aid clicky, or Greater Heroism scroll to get people back on their feet is all well and good, but scrolling people back to full health is not expected out of a Sorc in the first place...so unless you are duo/trio with your close friends on a regular basis and no one wants to play cleric, I would not go that route.
D) If you don't like Electric, Acid has some cool spells, I just find that the Cold-major, Elec-Minor, with occasional visit from Force/Untyped plays best for me on my Cold Sorc.
E) When Sorc's buff the party, it should be a pleasant surprise. My sorcs will help out with buffing, but you should not see yourself as the major buff dispenser, so a cleaner mix of damage spells, and priority on damage spells is really your forte.
F) Naturally, play how you like, if you want to take your UMD to max, and Heal/Reconstruct the party as a back up Cleric....what ever floats your boat. However, I find that Sorcs are best at DAMAGE, and that is where you should focus.
G) Use a +2 Int tome to boost your int at 7, and pick up a few skill points. My focus would be on Jump (to take your jump up to the max), balance (for trips) and tumble (for additional fall without damage distance), but putting it in bluff, and opening up sneak shots for people is not a bad way to go either.
H) Reconstruct should be your first 6th level spell. Swap out your level 4 spell for Ice Storm (which should be your first 4th level spell anyway). You can get by healing with wands and pots rather than your SP, unless you are really cash starved.
I) You may have healers friend at low level, but once you are a big boy with reconstruct, use those two AP for something else, like a boost to elec damage.
J) I never buy Improved Max/Emp III. Those 12 AP can be used to help boost the force line of spells, which will boost your disintegrate and Magic Missle spells (and toss a few more on electric while you are at it), and you will still have PLENTY of mana.
K) Mass Invis works just as well from a scroll. Take Finger of Death (for normal runs) or Prismatic Spray, or...well, just anything except Mass Invis.
L) Haste helps the whole party, and your groups will be happy to find a sorcerer who is kind enough to toss it out to the melee, but it will be of limited use at low level until you have extend. (I am not seeing your Feat list, but others are mentioning it....so not sure where it is.
M) Sorcs do not buy Mental Toughness. They are already the toughest there is....(ha)

Good luck and enjoy!

Regards,

muffinsorc

[Isharah]

Few comments:

1. Don't forget to swap out of mental toughness at mid levels (can move up your feats and go for quicken or spell pen later).
2. Drop either improved maximizing or improved empowering enhancement line at cap -- these are quite expensive and you will only want to take them for savant prerequisite.
3. Are you sure you want to go ice while leveling? A fire savant with heavy acid secondary would be much faster to level than a water savant. You wouldn't need to swap any feats in order to jump from savant to savant, just the 3-day timer and a bit of plat for the enhancement reset. Your set-up is pretty okay once you reach cap.

Cheers.

[JOTMON]

So let me get this straight. You intend to only have Magic Missle for levels 1-6? Jump and Pro:Evil are nice but can be had from a clicky, scroll or pot. Resist Energy, Haste and Blur are nice to have. Outside of that you really do not need such a heavy investment into buffs.

Makes sense to me, all I ever used for those levels was a greataxe.

Masters touch and a greataxe will do more damage and go further than any spells you have at that level.

Other posters above have shown good suggestions.

personally, I would Drop Con to 18 and increase Int to 12(for skill points-UMD) and STR to 10(str debuffs will leave you helpless)
Take Masters touch and Expedious Retreat followed by Nightshield.
Drop knock take Blur or electric loop then take the one you didint take here at the next level.

[DaSawks]

Makes sense to me, all I ever used for those levels was a greataxe.

Masters touch and a greataxe will do more damage and go further than any spells you have at that level.

Other posters above have shown good suggestions.

personally, I would Drop Con to 18 and increase Int to 12(for skill points-UMD) and STR to 10(str debuffs will leave you helpless)
Take Masters touch and Expedious Retreat followed by Nightshield.
Drop knock take Blur or electric loop then take the one you didint take here at the next level.

Masters Touch. Makes sense now. With scrolls of bulls and bears a arcane can kick some serious buttocks. Electric loop is awesome for CC at early levels too.

[Such755]

I completely agree that heighten should be taken earlier than level 15 for your 1st SLA. It really helps a lot.
Also, mental toughness is a complete waste. 100 more SP is insignificant.
My feats selection (Not in order)
Toughness
Maximize
Empower
Heighten
Quicken (Pretty sure you want that... no fail reconstruct is a life saver, many times concentration won't cut it.)
Spell focus: Evocation
Spell penetration
I rather have more spell pen and lose 1 evo DC, I feel it helps a lot with CR based spells.

Here's my level 20 water savant's spell list:
lvl 1:
Hypno
Jump
Magic missile
Nightshield
(Not a lot of spells to choose, I don't see anything crucial to have other than nightshield and jump)

Level 2:
Blur - Greatly increases survivabilty on the long term.
Knock - Scrolls' DC isn't high enough
Resist energy - Helps a lot if you \ party memebers lose ship buffs
Web - Just great for CC even with low DC

level 3:
Displacement - Greatly increases survivabilty on the short term
Frost lance - YES you get it as an SLA, but it's good for when you want to really spam the spell with no timer
Haste - Reduces quest times, one of the most (if not THE most) important party buffs
Lightning bolt - Gotta have some electric spells too, very powerful

Level 4:
DDoor
Fire shield - Increases survivability
Force missiles - Some untyped damage is good, but can be replaced with something else. I like having it.
Ice storm - One of my favorite spells, lods of damage over time

Level 5:
Cone of cold
Niac's biting cold
Eldar's electric surge
Protection from elements - Increases survivabilty temporarily, can be replaced, surely not a must
The two SLAs are a must for me, ridiculous boss DPS.

level 6:
Disintegrate - Great untyped damage
Otiluk's freezing sphere - Yes, you have cone of cold BUT: Sphere is for large distance, and sometimes you want to spam those AOE spells together for quick AOE damage
Reconstruct - nothing to see here. Don't leave without it as WF.

Level 7:
Finger of death - Very important, DC can be delt with via energy drain
Greater teleport - probably not the wisest choice here, so yeah...
Otto's sphere of dancing - Great for CC, can be very effective everywhere if you use symbol of death to mass de-level the mobs first

Level 8:
Otto's irresistible dance - can be a life saver, can just help in many cases
Polar ray - No saveat all? Yes please.
Symbol of death - awesome for kiting mobs through it and giving them neg levels over and over

Level 9:
Energy drain - a must, if anyone asks me. The 1-2 combo of this and finger is just a win.
Mass hold monster - very useful if it lands, can be used with symbol of death first, mobs recieve 50% more damage
Meteor swarm - Probably my mistake there, wail of the banshee is much better, even with low DC (Symbol of death comes to play again)

GH can be scrolled, invisibility can be wanded...

As for UMD:
Heal scrolls? I wouldn't count or even care for that. Not your job, don't worry about that.
Raise dead scrolls? Hell yeah. No need to try and you get 40-50% on those, which is just enough to get people back on their feet.

[Anthios888]

I can't even read this, are your levels in CHA?

[Kinerd]

With just a Superior Potency item and the first rank of Repair Manipulation, you get 255 HP from Reconstruct. This is plenty. Between those 6 AP and the 7 from Energy of the Dragonblooded 3 and 4, I think you can do yourself a great service by shoring up another element and getting some Spell Pen.

[goodspeed]

for an ice savent I really would go anything but wf. Mainly for the tier 3 robe with everything and anything an ice savent could want. Including that oh so sexy superior ice lore....

Anyway that aside. Just one word. FIRE. Burning hands, scorch and that ray thing that increases with lv.

When you make it there, fireball, after that wall of fire. Fireball and wall of fire, with stoneskin and displacment make you the solo god of low level content up until about lv 12. In fact even then you can still keep soloing the wiz king.

Forget magic **** missile. Feats look ok but quicken idk. Sorc's have just nothing for feats. If they had a few more then heck they could prolly be better cc then a wiz. But they don't they're starved to death. Which is why every feat counts. And sorc's already cast fairly fast enough.

Spell pen it's a great feat, it's a must have to cc. But I can tell ya this. It won't matter. You can cc norm no problem, but hard or elite especially epic ur just gonna fail without the past lives backing ya at the end. Hell even wizards struggle grasping at every ounce of gear sets named or crafted, with all their feats just to get the dc and spell pen for devils. Your not only starting with 1 feat less by being wf, your starting with 1 less dc as well. Actually 2 if ya count the enhancement odded.

So you could go for it, up to you, but if I were to go that route I'd want at least 1 past life backing me.

Don't really need mental toughness, and I would also suggest taking quicken by lv 9 or at least 12. Otherwise any spell with a reflex save is more then likly gonna reflex save. Around 8 everything's dex just shoots right up.

[NortheOfThelanis]

...Feats look ok but quicken idk. Sorc's have just nothing for feats. If they had a few more then heck they could prolly be better cc then a wiz. But they don't they're starved to death. Which is why every feat counts. And sorc's already cast fairly fast enough...

He would be using quicken to negate conc failure on his recon. I agree the speed difference is not entirely necessary, but for a WF, especially an aggressive / solo WF, quicken makes you much more survivable and your game experience more enjoyable.

@OP: My feat order sounds very similar to yours, except no mental toughness (quicken will serve you much better as a WF).

1) Toughness
3) Max
6) Empower
9) Spell focus evo (will be required at lvl 12 for tier 2 savant, but could swap order with quicken if desired)
12) Quicken (for recon mainly, but will scale SLAs for free as well)
15) Heighten
18) Past Life Wiz (if no past life, could take greater evo here)

As others have mentioned, dual element is a great idea, and ice works well with lightning. Niac Dots + Eladur Dots absolutely destroy. Dual element will help protect you from the sticky situation where you run into an ice immune and would otherwise have to resort to disints / cyclonic / mm. While the repair enhances will be giving you some sick recon scores, the dual element will give you more soloability (if desired) and boss dmg (dual dots).

Once you max your ice enhances and start maxing your electric enhances you'll soon see why people say not to pump into metas / sp / repair, as you will find yourself running very low on points. I actually like to up my con enhance twice, to unlock the additional racial toughness (IV) as well. A benefit of WF is that you can get some very nice HP for cheap.

As others have mentioned, fire has the potential to dominate throughout most of your leveling, if you wanted to seek that path temporarily until you got into the later content. I've found it makes the ride more enjoyable, but as the purpose of this thread is your ice savant I won't derail it going down on that tangent.

I also agree with a little less starting con, as con is very expensive from 18-20. I like to pump the bit I get back from doing 18 or (on 36 pointer, 19), into strength to alleviate burden / helpless, as strength is one of the main stats that are drained heavily throughout leveling. It also helps in the earlier levels if you decide to melee a bit until you get some decent spells.

Also not familiar with why an arcane would choose chaotic good, rather than tn. I may be old school and missing something about newer gear, but I always go tn. If nothing else, I can justify it with superior stability on crafted docents up until infused chaos docent.

[wax_on_wax_off]

Suggestions:

• Level as an earth savant. Fire spells rock at low levels and having the firewall/acid rain combo for mid levels is amazing.
• Consider human or halfelf (w/paladin dikettante) as a race. My first life human sorcerer managed to unlock artificer class mostly solo and grind out multiple challenge items (ie, soloing/self healing on any sorcerer is easy). The advantage of human was that I ended up with 30 spell penetration and 39 enchantment DC (38 necro/conj) which was enough to play the CC role in most epics (even eDA).
• Maximise, empower, heighten, toughness, spell focus: conjuration, spell penetration, greater spell penetration would be the suggested feat list. With greater spell pen you can debuff very tough mobs with SR with waves of exhaustion, energy drain, symbol of death, hypnotism, crushing despair and then follow it up with DPS (against new lowered HP), ottos ball or wail.
• Definitely take UMD. It's just silly to have a high charisma and to not at least be able to raise the parties cleric should they die. Other stuff is nice but this is a bare minimum.
• Intimidate is another fun skill.
• Try playing without quicken. No enemy should do enough damage while leveling to interrupt your reconstruct if you max ranks and get a concentration item (+15 concentration cove hat of superior false life is a good item)
• Be neutral or chaotic neutral

[Kinerd]

As others have mentioned, fire has the potential to dominate throughout most of your leveling, if you wanted to seek that path temporarily until you got into the later content. I've found it makes the ride more enjoyable, but as the purpose of this thread is your ice savant I won't derail it going down on that tangent.

I have been leveling wizogues recently and found Ice Storm to be just about as effective as Wall of Fire on everything but ghostly/phasing types. It takes a little longer on some targets, sure, but it is a lot less likely to get put out, at least until the Harbinger of Madness chain, which I'm pretty sure was designed to grief AoE DPS casters. I would expect it is even stronger with chilly savant souping it up.

Try playing without quicken. No enemy should do enough damage while leveling to interrupt your reconstruct if you max ranks and get a concentration item (+15 concentration cove hat of superior false life is a good item)

Well, it depends. I saw 50s from Gianthold elites in a full party, even my 20 cleric only has a high 40s Concentration with a Shintao Cord. For tanking the Spinner of Shadows at level, it's Quicken or go home (in a box). Soloing, sure, leave off Quicken.

for an ice savent I really would go anything but wf. Mainly for the tier 3 robe with everything and anything an ice savent could want. Including that oh so sexy superior ice lore....

I would rather go loreless and have spell-based healing than have Superior Lore and screw around with Heal scrolls. With Cannith crafting, it's pretty easy to squeeze plain Lore onto your ML 7 clickie, Greater Lore isn't too terribly high up in levels, there's just not that much difference between Superior Lore and Greater, and the Frozen Tunic looks pretty bad on half-elves.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I have been leveling wizogues recently and found Ice Storm to be just about as effective as Wall of Fire on everything but ghostly/phasing types. It takes a little longer on some targets, sure, but it is a lot less likely to get put out, at least until the Harbinger of Madness chain, which I'm pretty sure was designed to grief AoE DPS casters. I would expect it is even stronger with chilly savant souping it up.Well, it depends. I saw 50s from Gianthold elites in a full party, even my 20 cleric only has a high 40s Concentration with a Shintao Cord. For tanking the Spinner of Shadows at level, it's Quicken or go home (in a box). Soloing, sure, leave off Quicken.I would rather go loreless and have spell-based healing than have Superior Lore and screw around with Heal scrolls. With Cannith crafting, it's pretty easy to squeeze plain Lore onto your ML 7 clickie, Greater Lore isn't too terribly high up in levels, there's just not that much difference between Superior Lore and Greater, and the Frozen Tunic looks pretty bad on half-elves.

I think my TR'd wizard has:
17 ranks (at level 14)
9 constitution (17 base+1 LotD+6 item+2 tome+2 ship)
15 item (cove hat)
5 GS (conc-opp)
1 GL (ship buff)
4 GH (planar gird)
=51

Should be fine without quicken

Even if you take LotD and GS away you can replace it with 18 base con (or +1 adaptability) and improved concentration IV to hit 50 concentration. Again, fine without quicken.