NEW best wiz race

[Meat-Head]

It' s a matter of opinion and it will differ from one person to the next.

Yep. Which is why I stated my opinion and gave my explanation as to why..

Again, I never said non-elf wizards are gimp or something? a friggin' horc PM decked out in gear is powerful as heck.

But, elves are best overall, imo.

[K_0tiC]

For the original op how much EE drow have you actually played with? I can tell you from in game information 55 dc still isnt enough for EE drow, I have to energy drain drow and still sometimes they save from my 55dc fod, even when I burst to 60dc I still have them save when not debuffing or draining levels.
Currently I have 2 int twisted in for 62int and 55spell pen with epic feat which is the right number for spell pen, have not seen a blue shield yet on anything I try to hit with necro spells and 52 everything else seems to get by 95% as well.

My Human pm when I bother to make the 6mil i need for twists have all the gear already just need the exp:

18base
+6 levels
+8item
+3insight
+1comp from tod ring/slotted
+1bard stance twist
+4tome
+2ship
+2yugo
+2capstone
+2lich
+1twist
+1human
+6 destiny
+3 enhancements
+1litany
+1 epic int feat
=62int no storepots abishi cookies etc

necro dc:10base+9levels+26mod+3item+4feats+1lich+3destin y=56

my hps will be 750ish when I take 25. Currently sitting on 701 at 24 missing +2insight to con which will go on my tod ring since insight 3 will be on my robes.

Spell pen break down:
20 levels
9 past lives
8 feats
5 magister base
3 magister tree
3 sorc peircing twist
2 bard stance twist
3 item
3 enhancement
2 augmentation item
58/61 for necro spells

Minus 4 if I want to drop epic spell pen feat for epic necro focus
54/57necro which means 55 on the dice and covers all the drow in EE that I have come across.

So human is still the clear winner, my stats are even drow would have 1 too many and 1feat less and less hp.
Elves would have less hp 1 feat less and 4 more spell pen which is over what is needed -1int human so lower dcs.

[Faent]

Non-Elf Spell Pen on Wail, with Past Lives:

25 levels
03 Enhancements
02 Spell Penetration Feat
02 Greater Spell Penetration Feat
04 Epic Spell Penetration Feat
03 Draconic Twist
03 Magister
02 Spell Penetration IX Item
01 Lesser Arcane Augmentation IX (Staff of the Necromancer)
06 3x Wizard Past Lives
03 3x FvS Past Lives
= 54 Spell Penetration

With the Past Lives, that's easily do-able and requires only two Destinies (Magister and Draconic). I'd call it quits here, and forget Elf in favor of a WF Archmage at this point. Oh yes, you still have those basically freely spammable Webs in case you happen to roll endless 1's.

If I'm not mistaken, a CR 45 mob will have SR of 55. Meaning 54 Spell Pen beats this on a 2 and fails on a 1. If CR 45 is the highest around, failing on a 1 is not that big of a deal. It's good enough, but suppose we want the non-elf to no-fail. We just need to slot 1 more Spell Pen. Assuming we're sticking with the Staff of the Necromancer, where is this going to come from?

Well, the Bard Twist, no doubt. That's +1 INT and +2 Spell Pen. Done.

[Djeserit]

All this will likely change in a few months when enhancements are completely reworked.

We don't know what it will look like at all, but it may be that humans win because they will have the most choices for racial PrE's. Which might be very powerful.

[goodspeed]

how can you say archmage is tops? The classes are pretty evenly matched last time I saw assuming a necro-aligned archmage v pm. Is AM really hitting that much harder than a pm? i crit for about 2600 and easily hit for more than 1k a pop - couse I just prefer to FoD and be done with the mob. And the change to Wail has been of some benefit more than hinderence.

I think it's because with a pm your focusing on death. Only problem is the new content where everything is, is dc as well as high pen based. That's not to say the things that you can't do it on. So you gotta jack up those stats and for the others you have to use the reg crowd control spells heightened like web.

Now an AM gets the extra sp, but more importantly gets these cc spells that work on dc alone that can be jacked up for really nothing at all. It's a spamfest of cc sla's. So the archmage has moved ahead in content. They could still do the same thing in old content but the pales do it better as (well even that points been already debated with numbers and necro school vs lich form and whatnot) they zerg in heals pumping and insta kill everything.

Course it's no shocker it was obvious when they described the new content and changes that pales were taking a backseat in efficiency.

Anyway as for race i'd say either human for PM simply because why not. And for an AM either the robot or you could even go for a helf with a cleric dili. I enjoyed the one I made.

[Vellrad]

1. DWARF
2. ELF
3. WF
4.1 Human
4.2 Drow
3. Others

Just my OP obviously.


Thoughts?

My thoughts ^^

[morticianjohn]

With all of the light damage getting thrown around and the fact that negative energy burst and death aura haven't scaled up as much as the content I'd say WF AM continues to become the more attractive selection. It's probably a matter of playstyle but with the bug where a friendly can kill you with a light spell or that you can't heal your stat damage while in form it just seems like I'd rather be playing a WF AM.

[Malky]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...ight=spell+pen This point indicates EE drow have been seen at CR levels of 45.

This makes their SR 56.

Hmm iirc drow spellpen = CR+10, so that's 55 and since afaik you don't fail spell pen checks on a 1, you need a spellpen of +54 to pass all checks for cr 45 drows.

[Faent]

Hmm iirc drow spellpen = CR+10, so that's 55 and since afaik you don't fail spell pen checks on a 1, you need a spellpen of +54 to pass all checks for cr 45 drows.

Above, I wasn't assuming you failed on a 1. I was assuming you had to beat SR, not tie it. But I don't know which it is. You're indicating that tying the SR beats the check. Is that right?

[Rawel_San]

You do not fail on a one and you don't need to beat the check just tie it. That said I'm quite sure there are
Ee drow with a cr of at least 49 thus necessitating a spell pen of 58.

[Thrudh]

For the original op how much EE drow have you actually played with? I can tell you from in game information 55 dc still isnt enough for EE drow, I have to energy drain drow and still sometimes they save from my 55dc fod, even when I burst to 60dc I still have them save when not debuffing or draining levels.
Currently I have 2 int twisted in for 62int and 55spell pen with epic feat which is the right number for spell pen, have not seen a blue shield yet on anything I try to hit with necro spells and 52 everything else seems to get by 95% as well.

My Human pm when I bother to make the 6mil i need for twists have all the gear already just need the exp:

18base
+6 levels
+8item
+3insight
+1comp from tod ring/slotted
+1bard stance twist
+4tome
+2ship
+2yugo
+2capstone
+2lich
+1twist
+1human
+6 destiny
+3 enhancements
+1litany
+1 epic int feat
=62int no storepots abishi cookies etc

necro dc:10base+9levels+26mod+3item+4feats+1lich+3destin y=56

my hps will be 750ish when I take 25. Currently sitting on 701 at 24 missing +2insight to con which will go on my tod ring since insight 3 will be on my robes.

Spell pen break down:
20 levels
9 past lives
8 feats
5 magister base
3 magister tree
3 sorc peircing twist
2 bard stance twist
3 item
3 enhancement
2 augmentation item
58/61 for necro spells

Minus 4 if I want to drop epic spell pen feat for epic necro focus
54/57necro which means 55 on the dice and covers all the drow in EE that I have come across.

So human is still the clear winner, my stats are even drow would have 1 too many and 1feat less and less hp.
Elves would have less hp 1 feat less and 4 more spell pen which is over what is needed -1int human so lower dcs.

To twist in two Tier III ED abilities (from bard and sorc EDs) is going to take a ton of ED grinding... Plus you have 6 past lives in that breakdown...

I'm thinking I might go elf next life (it will be my 3rd wizard life, no other past lives), just to avoid having to TR 3 more times, and I'll only need to twist in ONE Tier III ability instead of two.

[Thrudh]

With all of the light damage getting thrown around and the fact that negative energy burst and death aura haven't scaled up as much as the content I'd say WF AM continues to become the more attractive selection. It's probably a matter of playstyle but with the bug where a friendly can kill you with a light spell or that you can't heal your stat damage while in form it just seems like I'd rather be playing a WF AM.

This is a very good point.

[NytCrawlr]

I'm thinking I might go elf next life (it will be my 3rd wizard life, no other past lives), just to avoid having to TR 3 more times, and I'll only need to twist in ONE Tier III ability instead of two.

Yeah, pretty much my plan for my current Elf PM since I am tired of the TR grind. I'll get her up to a Legend +1, so 4 lives, and call it a day and also not worry so much about grinding out so many fate points.

Still on the fence of whether I am even going to bother with EE content past favor, so that makes my life even easier if I decide to stick to my guns.

[NytCrawlr]

With all of the light damage getting thrown around and the fact that negative energy burst and death aura haven't scaled up as much as the content I'd say WF AM continues to become the more attractive selection. It's probably a matter of playstyle but with the bug where a friendly can kill you with a light spell or that you can't heal your stat damage while in form it just seems like I'd rather be playing a WF AM.

The bugs will get fixed in time and I already have a plan to combat some of the light damage (twists, epic mirror cloak, etc.), but I can see the desire for such a thing, I am just not a fan of WF in general.

[Devachan]

You do not fail on a one and you don't need to beat the check just tie it. That said I'm quite sure there are
Ee drow with a cr of at least 49 thus necessitating a spell pen of 58.

I can confirm this. I haven't paid attention in the Underdark and Demonweb quests (but I will do so next time I run them), however in Spinner of Shadows, you get the following:

Drow Warrior CR -- EpN:22 / Eph: 27 / EpE: 45
Drow Priestess CR -- EpN:23 / Eph: 29 / EpE: 49

Hence spell pen of 58 is the 'magic' level to no-fail a Priestess's spell resistance. Of course it may be worse in later quests. I'll check it out.

My PM has 4 wizzie lives (and a sorc life). I will run another 3x FVS +1 back to wizzie next time I have a month or 6 weeks to push through the lives. At the moment I am sorely tempted to go Elf on that final wizard life as well. It is almost certainly a less popular choice right now, however I find that a Nullmagic Strike will shut down a drow priestess almost every time (10x15% chances to proc on a wiz past life force missile clicky. No more light DOTs, no more DW. Enlarging it works even better because at extreme range you can throw a second volley at a second priestess or caster before the first volley hits). Enlarged FOD's are great too. You can snipe insta-kills well beyond their aggro range. They just stand around looking stupid as they 'pop' one by one. Enlarged circle of death is fun too... oh wait, I forgot I wasn't intending to sell Enlarge here!

The point is, I would really like to find points in Magister to accommodate Nullmagic. It probably means sacrificing 3 points of intelligence and losing Magister Piercing Spellcraft (or losing Master of School). So that means I need the full set of past lives and also elven arcanum IV to get to 57. I could get to 59 if I were to dual-wield weapons with Alchemical Tier 3 Mystical Earth and Fire, however thats a lot of Epic LOBs for me to complete. The Staff of the Necromancer gets me pretty close.

[SirValentine]

I'm thinking that EDs have been a bit of a game changer on Wizzys in terms of race.

WF wizzys can acheive DCs OVER 50 now. So, the extra 1-2 from human/drow seems less important than ever.

Additionally, the increase in drow AND the CRs on Epic Elites makes SPELL PEN the big deal.

Consequently, I propose that the definitive best race for end-game DC wizzys is now ELF. Which, I find kind of kewl "Lore-wise" or whatever. The +4 spell pen and 80 SP from Elven enhancement lines is worth more than 1-2 DCs now IMO.

Certainly a valid point of view. Even before the expansion and Epic Destinies (and the Wail nerf), it was pretty cool to see an Elf Wiz walk into, say, Epic VoN3, and Wail all the Drow.