elements for a Pale Master?

[GlassJaw]

I've read a lot of the PM threads but wanted a little more detail on choosing energy enhancement lines for a PM.

I'm currently getting ready to TR my PM and have relied almost solely on fire and cold as far as enhancements go. Fire obviously gets somewhat less powerful at the high levels but for leveling it's a no-brainer.

Cold has been cool (no pun intended) and has a nice array of AOE and single-target spells but I don't feel like it's a must-have.

The biggest problem with cold and fire is that a lot of things are immune to both, or at least heavily resistance. I also regret not putting APs into the force line, even for Disintegrate alone. Having that for bosses, golems, etc is really handy.

I've dabble with some lightning spells, mostly because I needed something to get through resistances in a pinch (like quests with a lot of Blackbones). Seems like it would be a god option for dealing with trash since their are a lot of AOEs (chain lightning, ball lightning, etc).

Acid I have virtually no experience with. It seems like a good option for getting through resistances and having some DOTs is nice.

So in my next life, I'm definitely taking both fire and force to at least 7/1/1. I also want to take a third element but not sure which yet. I'm currently leaning towards lightning. Any thoughts?

[HatsuharuZ]

I have found acid, well, Acid Rain at least, to be very useful on my lvl-capped PM. I also took cold for the Niac's DoT and Polar Ray. Skeletons are immune to cold damage, but you don't find many of those at high levels. Also, I have an Arcane Lore item, so I don't bother with more than one rank of the +crit chance % enhancement lines. The reason being, I had to spend alot of AP on enhancements to increase my spell pen and reduce the cost of maximize and heighten, the two metamagics I use the most, amongst other things. I've found that a combination of web or hold, plus both death aura spells and acid rain, are good for taking out most enemies... and yes, there are my death spells, but they don't work on everything and they have long cooldowns.

[Faent]

Since either Cold or Electric is a must have (at least have one solid DoT), and Cold provides so much more, I like Cold. Cone of Cold is awesome. Ice Storm is awesome. Then the question is what to pair with Cold. The answer is pretty clearly Acid. So I run Acid/Cold now. I ditch Fire for leveling purposes these days. And I stay Acid/Cold at cap for boss and Abbot DPS.

You can stake your maxxed Ice Storm with your maxxed Acid Rain. You can't stack your maxxed Ice Storm with Firewall.

[sirgog]

At present endgame I'm partial to max acid, medium cold, medium electric (medium meaning 1 point in crit intensity and crit chance and maxed base damage). The big DOTs hit for ~360 a tick without clickies (60% item, Epic Ring of Elemental Essence) or a bit more with them, but they don't crit much.

It sacrifices a little bit of damage (compared to the cookie cutter cold/elec spec) in the very longest fights, but in return you pick up insane AoE damage output that can be sustained quite some time, and unlike the cold/elec spec you more than pull your weight in the Abbot raid. Plus usually fights are short enough that you can throw Acid Rain and Black Dragon Bolt into your rotation and that really increases medium-term damage output.

Of course with an expansion next week, things will change. The three damaging PM SLAs are massively better post expansion and this might impact what you want to invest AP into.

[IdyllShade]

Of course with an expansion next week, things will change. The three damaging PM SLAs are massively better post expansion and this might impact what you want to invest AP into.

With no negative enhancement line, how are you speccing to improve SLA damage that you aren't able to do on live? Also, is there still an issue with level 20 characters respeccing and getting 76 enhancement points (so respec before xpac goes live)?

[bonscott87]

I've got my PM up to level 10 now, almost 11. I've changed out my enhancements quite a bit and right now settled on Fire and Cold. There is just something about hitting 200+ damage on a Fireball that makes me smile.
I've got some points into Force but I just don't use Force/Untyped spells much. Magic Missile is a nice backup but won't take someone down. Not high enough for Disintegrate yet so I'll prolly drop those 3 pts and put them somewhere else for now..
I'd tried Acid and just haven't liked it so far. Wall of Fire seems better then Acid Rain when I've tried both. As I get another couple levels I may spec for Acid and see how it goes.

Nice thing is they are all Enhancements and easily respecced as you get access to different spells.

No Negative Energy enhancement line stinks. But I have a +75% negative damage clickie I use which is helpful.

[good_ole_corwin]

No Negative Energy enhancement line stinks.

I wish people stopped saying that. PM I/II/III is your negative energy enhancement line. PM III is the equivalent of -energy- manipulation VI and -energy- spellcasting VI (sadly no deadly -energy- but meh). The difference is it costs 8 APs to get there and brings additional benefits as opposed to 12 APs it costs for the elemental lines.

[HalfORCastrator]

At present endgame I'm partial to max acid, medium cold, medium electric (medium meaning 1 point in crit intensity and crit chance and maxed base damage). The big DOTs hit for ~360 a tick without clickies (60% item, Epic Ring of Elemental Essence) or a bit more with them, but they don't crit much.

It sacrifices a little bit of damage (compared to the cookie cutter cold/elec spec) in the very longest fights, but in return you pick up insane AoE damage output that can be sustained quite some time, and unlike the cold/elec spec you more than pull your weight in the Abbot raid. Plus usually fights are short enough that you can throw Acid Rain and Black Dragon Bolt into your rotation and that really increases medium-term damage output.

Of course with an expansion next week, things will change. The three damaging PM SLAs are massively better post expansion and this might impact what you want to invest AP into.

How do you fit it all in? I can't find space for much more than 7/1/1 in 2 elements. (Hum pm)

Edit: talking about a wiz w/ multi past lives?

[bonscott87]

I wish people stopped saying that. PM I/II/III is your negative energy enhancement line. PM III is the equivalent of -energy- manipulation VI and -energy- spellcasting VI (sadly no deadly -energy- but meh). The difference is it costs 8 APs to get there and brings additional benefits as opposed to 12 APs it costs for the elemental lines.

Sorry. My PM is only level 10. Just going off what other people say (wrongly then) I personally will investigate more your line of thinking. I see on the wiki you are correct that the PM enhancements include a negative energy damage enhancement. Nice!

[Fefnir_2011]

Currently I am tri-specced, 7/1/1 into Acid, Cold, & Electric. It brings with it a large degree of versatility, but it can feel lacking at times. I've also done max Cold/Electric and even max Cold/Fire.

I would say the most powerful AP spread I've ever done was simply max Cold, and then I put the AP I would have spent on another element into Maximize/Empower SP cost reduction lines. The problem with that, and the reason I'm not still specced that way, is that when cold works, it REALLY works, but when it doesn't work, you're screwed and doing 0 DPS. Thus, while I'm dissatisfied with the numbers I'm seeing from being tri-specced, you are no sorcerer, and your versatility is the strength you should play to.

[good_ole_corwin]

How do you fit it all in? I can't find space for much more than 7/1/1 in 2 elements. (Hum pm)

You have to choose what to concentrate on. For example Im an elf atm. and going for max spell pen (not max possible within the game, just max I can get with the PLs I have), so thats 10 APs sunk into elven arcanum that other races can spend on spell DPS. I assume as a human you have 6 APs in (greater) adaptability and another 3 in the extra racial toughness tier, which is similar.

To put it in another way, bare minimum for a capped PM is 30 AP, for PM III (+prerequisites), lich form and capstone, leaving 50 to play with.
7/1/1 in 2 lines (reasonable minimum for spell DPS IMHO) is 18 AP, 32 left
2 racial toughnesses is 3 AP, 29 left.
wiz spell pen III is 12, 17 left.

That can be invested either into your racial peculiarities (human adaptability + toughness, elven arcanum, WF con + toughness), split into DPS or efficient metamagics or any combination of the three. Depends on what youre building for, your playstyle and obviously, race. But the APs to get more spell DPS than 7/1/1 in 2 lines are there (at cap of course) if thats your choice, no matter the race.

[BlueSilence]

Like the OP, I have read many threads about PMs and have found myself in a very similar situation. I want to make sure I understand all of this better.

And I apologize in advance for the tl;dr but I have been waiting forever for this post and I have many questions...

Fire:
Why exactly many leave fire out at higher levels? Resistance/Immunities? I still like to use WoF against undeads. Scorching Ray for single targets sometimes. Im amazed I rarely used Fireball (and most of the time it was to knock doors) but I found DFB (Trap) very interesting. Id like to experiment more with it but havent been able to slot it.

Ice:
I really like the Ice spells but, again, I found myself using only a few of them. I really want to keep ice and get to know some other ice spells better. Ice Storm has been my preferred elemental AoE most of the time. Even if enemies had resistance the bludgeoning/untyped damage would do its part. Which one is preferred between Frost Lance and Polar Ray?

Electric:
I found the stun, dazed effects interesting but never really tried them except for Sonic Blast at lower levels and what about Sonic Spells btw? I understand very few enemies has resistances to it sp why not?

Acid:
I must confess I would like it more for flavor than for anything else but I just recently decided to try more of them and so far Im liking them (Acid Rain and Cloudkill) so I think they should stay for now.

Force:
I was about to ask "Why not? Ice Storm and Meteor Swarmwould get even better with this!" But then I checked the DDO wiki and realized it wont stack with other elemental enhacements. And I dont think it will be very worth for the few spells it improves, right?

Since I now got a Darkstorm Helmet *blush* Im now more inclined to try the Electric spells now but I dont think it will be easy for me to let fire go. Someone said there is not too much difference between 7/1/1 and Full. So Im guessing I will try 7/1/1 Acid, Cold, Electric? How does that sound?

Thanks and... thanks for your patience : D

[Kinerd]

Fire - yes immunities, also its only significant spell is Wall of Fire. Fireball is otherwise identical to Acid Blast, DBF otherwise Otiluke's.

Cold - Frost Lance gives you 3 of 4d5 + 20, total expectation of 96. Polar Ray gives you 1d3 + 3 per level max 25, so as a wizard you'd expect 20d3 + 60 = 100. Pretty much the same, except Frost Lance has a Fort save for half and is subject to triple resistance. If you therefore Heighten it, it costs 40 to Polar Ray's 20.

Electric - the big money is Eladar's Electric Surge.

Acid - Black Dragon Bolt is good too. The raw damage part of Cloudkill is nothing, so no need to devote Acid enhancements if that's all you use, but you'll use more.

Force - true that it does not stack with proper elementals, but Disintegrate is pretty sweet. Wouldn't go all the way in it, but a little goes a long way.

7/1/1 vs. 7/6/6. Before u14 yes, 7/6/6 didn't mean a lot over 7/1/1. It's possible u14 has changed some of this wisdom, but by astonishing coincidence, I just ran through the math on it and it didn't! So stick with 7/1/1.

[Vellrad]

Force is quite good to put few points into- horrid wilting is nice damage now, especially with good necro DC.

Electric and cold are important for dots- unless there are trash mobs that needs to be taken care of, you have to put DPS in boss figths.

I don't like fire, since ice storm is better than firewall, which is the only useful fire spell (meteor swarm will be powered by force, if you take it).

Acid is nice for acid rain and black dragon bolt.

But how much points you wish to put there, it depends on how much do you got

[BlueSilence]

So far Acid + Cold is looking really nice. I should be able to move some points from Fire to Force and see how it goes. Thanks for the advices!

[wax_on_wax_off]

I like acid/electric. Best dot for devil content (EES) and best spell for the abbot (BDB). BDB isn't stellar for DQ but it's decent. Chain lightning/acid rain for trash works nicely. Slotting this is easy with (Epic) Darkstorm Helm and (Epic) Rock Boots.

[flipstre]

Hi whats good between lvl 6-16 and how to use it?

[Lonnbeimnech]

I like fire with acid while leveling up. Stacking web, firewall and acid rain is extremely deadly.