WF Necro/Conj. AM advice needed

[Silvyrfir]

Finally after 2,5 years of playing I've thought to pay a visit into the world of the acrane

After cruising here on the forums I ended up with a pure warforged necro/conj. archmage. Primary focus would be CC over DPS
My main problem now is that I have 13 feats I want and secondly in which order to take 'em.


Toughness
Mental Toughness
SF: Necromancy
GSF: Necromancy
SF: Conjuration
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration
Heighten
Maximize
^all of these I'll definetly take^
--------------
Quicken (Moved to definite selection)
Empower (For DPS)
SF: Enhancement (Personal flavor, at least going to check it out )

Dropped:
Extend and Insightful Reflexes
As my first caster and ranged toon I'll be trying to stay far from combat, but my playstyle will eventually show if I do have a need for IR after all.

Empower: for dps (d'uh )
Quicken: for reconstructs, disco and more
Extend: for hage, displacement and more
SF: Enh.: for disco, and I like the idea of 1sp -3 will debuff from SLA Hypnotism in the end game...
Right now I'm leaning on dropping Extend


A rough draft of the order:
1 - Toughness, Mental Toughness (I want to have sp on low lvls too :P)
3 - SF:Evocation will swap for Spell Pen./SF:Necromancy
5 - SF:Conjuration
6 - Maximize
9 - Heighten
10 - Quicken/SF:Enh. (In case I want to use Hypno already)
12 - Spell Pen./SF:Necromancy (I doubt I'll be using Necro spells before FoD)
15 - Greater Spell Pen., Quicken/SF:Enh.
18 - GSF: Necromancy
20 - Empower

Edit details in orange!
Any advice is welcome

[Bart_D]

I'd definitely get quicken, for the reasons you mention plus heightened+quickened Web SLA

SF:Enchantment won't give you any SLA since you can only have 2 lines, eg. necromancy and conjuration. (Edit: ...Right???)

My wizard has no Empower or Extend but instead Insightful Reflexes and PL:Wizard (great if you can get it). Both those feats would be nice to have but there isn't room for everything. I'm not sure which I'd rather have though.

[danlan]

I'd definitely get quicken, for the reasons you mention plus heightened+quickened Web SLA

SF:Enchantment won't give you any SLA since you can only have 2 lines, eg. necromancy and conjuration. (Edit: ...Right???)

My wizard has no Empower or Extend but instead Insightful Reflexes and PL:Wizard (great if you can get it). Both those feats would be nice to have but there isn't room for everything. I'm not sure which I'd rather have though.

SF:Enchantment gives you the SLA:hypnotism (most useful one) without affecting you choose conju as secondary major and get web sla. So optimally you can even take GSF:ENCHANTMENT as well to boost your enchantment further.

[Silvyrfir]

SF:Enchantment won't give you any SLA since you can only have 2 lines, eg. necromancy and conjuration. (Edit: ...Right???)

My wizard has no Empower or Extend but instead Insightful Reflexes and PL:Wizard (great if you can get it). Both those feats would be nice to have but there isn't room for everything. I'm not sure which I'd rather have though.

As stated by danlan, just having a SF:<school> and AM1 gives you access to the first tier SLA.

Since this is my first true arcane caster I don't have access to PL wiz =P but if I had I'd probadly drop Greater Spell Pen. to take all those 4 feats

SF:Enchantment gives you the SLA:hypnotism (most useful one) without affecting you choose conju as secondary major and get web sla. So optimally you can even take GSF:ENCHANTMENT as well to boost your enchantment further.

Aye, if I had spare feats I'd possibly take that. Currently I'd prefer web over disco if only the situation allows (web creates lesser performance lag and I feel pity for those without cutting-edge PC having been one of 'em )

Right now it feels I could do without:
Empower:
+ more DPS
- I will be focusing more on CC ...and won't have any damaging SLA's
Extend:
+ longer hage and such (happier melees )
- umm, none, but is ^ good enough?
maybe I'll drop Empower after all and swap it back if I feel I'm not contributing enough to DPS...

[Silvyrfir]

The feat order seems to be fine then since no one says otherwise
It takes ages for me to cap a toon so I want to gain as much from the journey as I can. + I need to keep this toon interesting enough to be willing to play it xD

[MRMechMan]

The main useage of hypno now is the debuff that lands regardless of DC-10sp is about as good as 3sp (it's nice to have it heightened for free and very powerful, but I skipped it on my wf conj/necro).

Extend is good for bards and good for palemasters, on sorcs and divines and archmages I find it to be very weak since the nerf to it. Recasting is almost never an issue.

Quicken is 100% necessary-you want your recons to go off every time, a fail cast=dead robot sometimes.

I think I went:
1 - Toughness, maximize
3 -insightful reflexes (really strong feat as int will be maxed and dex will be far from it)
5 - SF:Conjuration
6 - mental toughness
9 - SF:necromancy
10 - quicken
12 - GSF: Necromancy
15 - empower, PL:wiz
18 - spell pen
20 - heighten (probably should be moved forward, but getting epic diabolists docent, heighten, capstone and +2 exp int etc was like +13 web DCs )

Maybe move heighten up to level 15 and empower to level 20. Wizard bonus feat selection can be ****. Overall your order looks pretty good.

[shadowphoton]

A rough draft of the order:
1 - Toughness, Mental Toughness
3 - SF:Evocation will swap for Spell Pen./SF:Necromancy
5 - SF:Conjuration
6 - Maximize
9 - Heighten
10 - Extend/Quicken/Empower/SF:Enh.
12 - Spell Pen./SF:Necromancy
15 - Greater Spell Pen., Extend/Quicken/Empower/SF:Enh.
18 - GSF: Necromancy
20 - Extend/Quicken/Empower/SF:Enh.

Quicken at 20 is a good choice IMO, my WF Wiz life I didn't have a problem getting off heals until I was in endgame epics and elites, that depends largely on how you play your character though. I would put Spell Pen earlier (Greater Spell Pen is fine at 15). Extend if you want it you should try to take earlier, it shines in early to mid levels. At 20 many people drop it. Given your list this is what I would do:

1: Toughness, Mental Toughness
3: Maximize
5: SF: Conjuration
6: SF: Necromancy
9: Spell Penetration
10: Heighten
12: GSF: Necromancy
15: Greater Spell Penetration, SF: Enchantment
18: Empower
20: Quicken

My reasoning is this. You want to be Necro/Conj focused, so you want to take both of those early on. Your first Prestige opens for you at level 6. Take maximize at 3 so you can have added DPS early on and throughout leveling for boss fights, but leave Empower at 18 because you won't really have the SP to dump to make both worthwhile until then, and even then you'll never compete with an equally geared sorc. Spell pen at 9 because you'll start to notice it a lot by then. Heighten at 10 because it starts to shine in the mid levels. SF: Enchantment at 15 because you aren't speccing Enchant so that 1DC isn't going to make or break your game play up to that point.

Alternately if you really want Extend then swap it for Maximize at level 3 and put Max at level 18. You won't have the Emp/Maximize that will give you added DPS, but at level 18 you can run with Maximize on most of the time for some of your spells, and you can make the most out of extend. Many people drop it when they reach the higher levels. For the most part Extend is for haste/rage and maybe displacement, and that doesn't change at any level. Your main DPS will come from insta-killing anyways (the ultimate DPS IMO) and for boss fights you just dot the **** out of the boss anyways since you'll never be as hard hitting as a sorc.

[Silvyrfir]

The main useage of hypno now is the debuff that lands regardless of DC-10sp is about as good as 3sp (it's nice to have it heightened for free and very powerful, but I skipped it on my wf conj/necro).

Extend is good for bards and good for palemasters, on sorcs and divines and archmages I find it to be very weak since the nerf to it. Recasting is almost never an issue.

Quicken is 100% necessary-you want your recons to go off every time, a fail cast=dead robot sometimes.

I think I went:
1 - Toughness, maximize
3 -insightful reflexes (really strong feat as int will be maxed and dex will be far from it)
5 - SF:Conjuration
6 - mental toughness
9 - SF:necromancy
10 - quicken
12 - GSF: Necromancy
15 - empower, PL:wiz
18 - spell pen
20 - heighten (probably should be moved forward, but getting epic diabolists docent, heighten, capstone and +2 exp int etc was like +13 web DCs )

Maybe move heighten up to level 15 and empower to level 20. Wizard bonus feat selection can be ****. Overall your order looks pretty good.

I guess the SF: Enchantment has become a personal flavor preference for me now :P

I've come to the conclusion that having Empower/Extend/SF:Ench./Insightful Ref. depends much on the playstyle ...which I don't know yet.
Somewhat final changes have been made to the OP, check there for details

Thank you all for the advice

[Indoran]

I think your feat selection is good.

My sibeli was like that on second life but I dropped empower to get pl wiz. besides and idk what to take extend.

My advice would be enjoy it... looks like a good build... web is simply amazing CC as long as their is not a fireball happy caster in the group...

Right now I decided to get a few bard pl for the +1 dc to enchant... which I think could be something you can think about doing...

[Silvyrfir]

@shadowphoton: Sorry I didn't notice you'r post since was writing mine...

I doubt I'll take extend at all, since I'm lazy to swap feats in general... I just want to try that 1sp MM
I think I'll be taking Quicken a bit earlier to ensure my repairing.
I won't take Maximize too early for I will probaldy spam rays and use up my sp fairly fast before I learn to utilize my spells effectively

As for past lives... I rarely plan my builds on those, since I've played for 2,5 years and only have a second toon nearing the cap...

[MRMechMan]

Right now I decided to get a few bard pl for the +1 dc to enchant... which I think could be something you can think about doing...

Before you go tramping off to korthos, just a heads up:

The passive bard past life that stacks 3x is +2 to your saves vs illusions and enchantments.

The active bard past life does not stack and uses a feat, and gives +1 to your enchantment spell DCs.

So doing more than 1 bard past life is pretty useless, and personally even 1 is a bit meh as it's +1 DC against an already generally low very debuffable save, and feats, as this thread shows, can be tight.

[Faent]

So doing more than 1 bard past life is pretty useless, and personally even 1 is a bit meh as it's +1 DC against an already generally low very debuffable save, and feats, as this thread shows, can be tight.

This. My Archmage has a bard past life, but I don't slot it anymore. Spell Focus: Enchantment is far better, if you're only taking one Enchantment feat, since it opens up the Hypno SLA. I suppose a UMD build might benefit slightly from the Bard Past Life.