Experienced Player seeking caster advice

[Archmage49]

Been playing for about 3 years now, but to this point, been almost exclusively melee types. Never been able to quite figure out the whole caster thing. Basically, I've got a few questions that'd help me out.

1. For a first time caster, which class would be a good idea? As in, the least likely to completely screw the pooch on the build?

2. Gear, biggest issue I get confused, which gear is critical?

3. Is it ever a good idea to multi caster classes, or best to just stay pure?

That's the stuff I think I need the most help with, melee is getting boring to me now, and while I'm good at it, want to try something different.

[janave]

You can find a vast amount of resources about casters so, just briefly.

I. Any is a good idea, if you want to heal yourself, and help out others FVS and Cleric are great choices. They have different play styles inherently, and further tweaked on choosing your spells.

And there is the "Cheap 3": I never played them since i think they are game breakingly OP -- but i dont judge anyone and all the "coolkids" have one.

*Warfoged Wizard Archmage
*Warforged Sorcerer
*Human Palemaster
These toons require little to no skill, rotating between 3-5 spells get the job done in 90% of the quest. You can jump into a crowd of mobs, shoot yourself in the foot with some aoe, and do the dance emote.

If you want some more challenge go with an Elven Mage, Enchantment, Transmutation focuses have some great times, they not nearly as OP as aoe instantkills but more interesting and your party will notice your supporting efforts.

II. Gear is critical for all classes: For casters the same protections apply as for melees, heavy fort, decent hp. AC and dodge is less of an issue as your protective spells are really good.
- Your caster stat, best you can slot at any level. -- spell dcs/some sp
- Spell Focus items, +1-2 to DCs -- to beat saves
- Spellpen items, +1-3 -- to beat spell resistance, not too relevany early on
- Spell power items, for your choosen damage types.
- Spell point items, Power,Wizardry, Magi, Archmagi

III. Ever, yes, for starting out as a mage, NO.

Go Pure until you get TR pastlifes and ubergear, once you have those, you might wanna consider a splash of 2 .
For casters multiclassing can turn into a serious drop in power.

I hope this helps a bit

[Archmage49]

WF as sorc? Isn't the charisma issue they have issues with? Sorc might be my best fit, since as a melee, I have a very aggressive approach to fighting. I'm uber at making half-orc THF death machines. What about half-elf sorc, or also human and drow? I get the Con issue for drow, but wouldn't the higher charisma make it worthwhile?

And the savant prestige, which of them is the most useful? Or, are any of them really all that great? I wonder if it's better to use the AP's spent getting the prestige to instead boost other spell related effectiveness.

I have the lvl 7 vet status, so nice thing is I can get a very good idea of how a build will work before I get too invested in it.

[Ryiah]

WF as sorc? Isn't the charisma issue they have issues with? Sorc might be my best fit, since as a melee, I have a very aggressive approach to fighting. I'm uber at making half-orc THF death machines. What about half-elf sorc, or also human and drow? I get the Con issue for drow, but wouldn't the higher charisma make it worthwhile?

Warforged means you can self-repair as an Arcane. So while Drow might mean higher DCs, it also means you won't be able to just throw a Reconstruct and keep going.

[sireric]

Warforged means you can self-repair as an Arcane. So while Drow might mean higher DCs, it also means you won't be able to just throw a Reconstruct and keep going.

As true as that is recon isn't the only way for a caster to heal themselves. If you go Sorc, and drow at that add a little to your int. As a drow you will already be granted +2 at character generation, adding 2 more points will give you extra skill points to dump into UMD. Being a CHA based toon like a sorc, it isn't that hard to get your UMD high enough to no fail heal scrolls, especially since you can give yourself a GH. Make a GS sp item (mine is a triple positive, with boost to, you guessed it cha based skills. Not only is it an item that grants me a **** ton of bonus sp, but gives my 6 to my UMD and is a res clicky to boot.) and you shouldn't have any problem healing yourself. Is Recon faster? yes, but not the only way to heal yourself.

[Eldried]

I would suggest either Warforged Sorcerer or Warforged Favoured Soul.

Sorcerer are pretty powerful and get very cheap abilities from their Savant Prestige Enhancenments. I like Cold Spec and kill stuff fast with niacs cold ray/snowball swarm and midgame Icestorm. Warforged for the self healing.
Sure you can heal yourself as a non Warforged to, but not as fast and efficient. You get -2 to cha, but get +2 to con.
Those are baisicly your 2 main stats. You want HP and a high Cha.

Warforged also get a bunch of immunitys, which I like a lot - no holding and no negative levels being the most important while leveling up.



Warforged Favoured Soul might appeal to you since you are used to melees, and you can combine melee and casting stuff.

Go With a Greatsword for hitting stuff and be able to heal yourself and others while you hit stuff yourself. I would go Max Str/Con and min Wis, and only as much Cha as needed to be able to cast the spells(You need 19 to cast level 9 spells so if you have a +2 tome in cha and a +6 item you could put it as low as 11). With this build you dont want many spells that require a save, cause Your Wisdom sucks, which is your stat for your DC. Go with healing spells, Buff spells(divine favour, devine Power, and some damage spells like devine punishment and Blade barrier later. Blade barrier=BB is basicly the only spell that requires a save, but if you take empower and Maximize, even if the monsters save you do a lot of damage.

[Archmage49]

I created a human sorc as a start, figured humans are usually a safe choice for most classes. Basically maxed out cha, 16 to Con, and a few points for dex. Took mental toughness, toughness, empower, SF evocation, and made her fire savant. For spell selection, I took pretty much all attack spells, except for a few buffs. Is fire any use? Haven't invested anything other then time in the toon to this point, so scraping and tweaking wouldn't be an issue.

[MarDeRoam]

Is fire any use?

I'm only lvling my first arcane, at lvl 7 atm. But what i learned from these forums is fire is good for low+mid lvls.
At higher lvls too many mobs are fire immune. Acid and ice might be better options then. Or maybe even elec or force.
My wiz will be acid and fire untill the mid lvls, then switching fire to ice for high lvls.

[Kinerd]

Regarding Savant choice: Cold will be useful in all content everywhere. It will not be the best in all content, especially in low levels where Wall of Fire's quirks are unmatched, but if you don't go in for enhancement swaps just stick with Cold.

As true as that is recon isn't the only way for a caster to heal themselves. If you go Sorc, and drow at that add a little to your int. As a drow you will already be granted +2 at character generation, adding 2 more points will give you extra skill points to dump into UMD. Being a CHA based toon like a sorc, it isn't that hard to get your UMD high enough to no fail heal scrolls, especially since you can give yourself a GH. Make a GS sp item (mine is a triple positive, with boost to, you guessed it cha based skills. Not only is it an item that grants me a **** ton of bonus sp, but gives my 6 to my UMD and is a res clicky to boot.) and you shouldn't have any problem healing yourself. Is Recon faster? yes, but not the only way to heal yourself.

There are two major problems with scrolling:
1. Concentration checks. You cannot Quicken a scroll. This grows more and more dangerous as content gets more and more difficult, or exactly when you least want to worry about your self-healing.
2. Gear swaps. No matter how good your (IRL) reflexes are, it takes non-zero time to switch from whatever caster item to Heal scrolls, even longer if a) you also need to swap UMD items or b) you get gear swap lag.

This is not to say that Heal scrolls are absolutely useless, just that they are irreducibly not as reliable as spell-based self-healing. One important pro they have is they cost exactly 0 SP, but if you have plenty of SP left and -10 HP your SP is not so good.

I created a human sorc as a start, figured humans are usually a safe choice for most classes. Basically maxed out cha, 16 to Con, and a few points for dex. Took mental toughness, toughness, empower, SF evocation, and made her fire savant. For spell selection, I took pretty much all attack spells, except for a few buffs. Is fire any use? Haven't invested anything other then time in the toon to this point, so scraping and tweaking wouldn't be an issue.

I have seen so many of my guild mates start a fleshy sorc and give it up in disgust that I feel bound to suggest you reroll as WF or PM wizard. Arcanes without spell-based self-healing are basically rogues, and rogues while powerful in the right situations can be very discouraging to play in the wrong. There are literally no wrong situations for a self-healing arcane.

It's a lot harder to mess up a sorcerer than a wizard because you have so few free feat and enhancement choices, and so few enhancement choices that are just terrible. Wizards are significantly more versatile, but to just try out an arcane sorcerer is a fine choice.

Gear-wise, you are in luck. The u14 revolution has made Thaumaturgy staffs (much) better than our old golf bag full of scepters. They have Potency, two elemental enchantments (Corrosion, Combustion, etc.), and usually a Lore. As a sorcerer try to match one of the elemental enchantments (not the Lore) to your Savant, and really anything you ever use as the other one is fine. You can make elemental clickies but they are really not worth the hassle. Additionally, while there is plenty of gear treadmill you can get on, missing a level or two makes very little difference overall.

Also, I'm shocked no one has expressed their surprise that someone with the handle Archmage has never played a caster before!

[Ivan_Milic]

I also suggest you start wf sorc,my first caster is wf sorc,lvl 10 now,loving it,being able to self heal is so great.

[sireric]

Regarding Savant choice: Cold will be useful in all content everywhere. It will not be the best in all content, especially in low levels where Wall of Fire's quirks are unmatched, but if you don't go in for enhancement swaps just stick with Cold.There are two major problems with scrolling:
1. Concentration checks. You cannot Quicken a scroll. This grows more and more dangerous as content gets more and more difficult, or exactly when you least want to worry about your self-healing.
2. Gear swaps. No matter how good your (IRL) reflexes are, it takes non-zero time to switch from whatever caster item to Heal scrolls, even longer if a) you also need to swap UMD items or b) you get gear swap lag.

This is not to say that Heal scrolls are absolutely useless, just that they are irreducibly not as reliable as spell-based self-healing. One important pro they have is they cost exactly 0 SP, but if you have plenty of SP left and -10 HP your SP is not so good.I have seen so many of my guild mates start a fleshy sorc and give it up in disgust that I feel bound to suggest you reroll as WF or PM wizard. Arcanes without spell-based self-healing are basically rogues, and rogues while powerful in the right situations can be very discouraging to play in the wrong. There are literally no wrong situations for a self-healing arcane.

It's a lot harder to mess up a sorcerer than a wizard because you have so few free feat and enhancement choices, and so few enhancement choices that are just terrible. Wizards are significantly more versatile, but to just try out an arcane sorcerer is a fine choice.

Gear-wise, you are in luck. The u14 revolution has made Thaumaturgy staffs (much) better than our old golf bag full of scepters. They have Potency, two elemental enchantments (Corrosion, Combustion, etc.), and usually a Lore. As a sorcerer try to match one of the elemental enchantments (not the Lore) to your Savant, and really anything you ever use as the other one is fine. You can make elemental clickies but they are really not worth the hassle. Additionally, while there is plenty of gear treadmill you can get on, missing a level or two makes very little difference overall.

Also, I'm shocked no one has expressed their surprise that someone with the handle Archmage has never played a caster before!

I have leveled a toon to 20 as both a wiz and a sorc 3x each now and have never been a PM or WF. heal scrolls, silver flame pots, kargon's hams and regular old serious heal pots have seen me through. I think most get way too caught up in the self healing aspect and ignore the fact that you can heal yourself other ways. as fast as a recon? No, but you can do it.

[Archmage49]

Regarding Savant choice: Cold will be useful in all content everywhere. It will not be the best in all content, especially in low levels where Wall of Fire's quirks are unmatched, but if you don't go in for enhancement swaps just stick with Cold.There are two major problems with scrolling:
1. Concentration checks. You cannot Quicken a scroll. This grows more and more dangerous as content gets more and more difficult, or exactly when you least want to worry about your self-healing.
2. Gear swaps. No matter how good your (IRL) reflexes are, it takes non-zero time to switch from whatever caster item to Heal scrolls, even longer if a) you also need to swap UMD items or b) you get gear swap lag.

This is not to say that Heal scrolls are absolutely useless, just that they are irreducibly not as reliable as spell-based self-healing. One important pro they have is they cost exactly 0 SP, but if you have plenty of SP left and -10 HP your SP is not so good.I have seen so many of my guild mates start a fleshy sorc and give it up in disgust that I feel bound to suggest you reroll as WF or PM wizard. Arcanes without spell-based self-healing are basically rogues, and rogues while powerful in the right situations can be very discouraging to play in the wrong. There are literally no wrong situations for a self-healing arcane.

It's a lot harder to mess up a sorcerer than a wizard because you have so few free feat and enhancement choices, and so few enhancement choices that are just terrible. Wizards are significantly more versatile, but to just try out an arcane sorcerer is a fine choice.

Gear-wise, you are in luck. The u14 revolution has made Thaumaturgy staffs (much) better than our old golf bag full of scepters. They have Potency, two elemental enchantments (Corrosion, Combustion, etc.), and usually a Lore. As a sorcerer try to match one of the elemental enchantments (not the Lore) to your Savant, and really anything you ever use as the other one is fine. You can make elemental clickies but they are really not worth the hassle. Additionally, while there is plenty of gear treadmill you can get on, missing a level or two makes very little difference overall.

Also, I'm shocked no one has expressed their surprise that someone with the handle Archmage has never played a caster before!

I have played a caster before, about 2 years ago? Drow PM wizard, everything was going good until the update with all the new spells and such came out. I got extremely frustrated with how they made acquiring those spells, and in a fit of rage, sold all my gear and deleted her. Was level 11 at the time, one shy of getting the undead form to talk to the collector. If they'd allowed us to swap a few spells (if I recall, they did allow sorc's to do that after an update), I'd have chugged along. But now they've changed so much about caster stuff that I felt totally lost.

I can play a melee with my eyes closed, if you've got 32 pt build and half-orc, its stupidly easy.

[Rawel_San]

Hmm well I don't quite see how playing a melee is stupid easy unless you have a healbot sitting around
taking care of your red bar. If you are partying most of the time I guess melee becomes somewhat
easier but in any non trivial content the lack of CC that melees have makes them IMO quite challenging
to play right without being a drain on the party's resources. Even more know that you can't get decent AC.

That said casters are super easy you kill everything that hits hard at range with nukes or instakills, occasionally
CCing it first in case it threatens to catch you too fast, and then you keep the stuff that hits lightly to get your
mana back with torc and conc opps. See, no harder then a 32 pt horc THF.

[Kinerd]

I have leveled a toon to 20 as both a wiz and a sorc 3x each now and have never been a PM or WF. heal scrolls, silver flame pots, kargon's hams and regular old serious heal pots have seen me through. I think most get way too caught up in the self healing aspect and ignore the fact that you can heal yourself other ways. as fast as a recon? No, but you can do it.

In order...
1. I believe I addressed the specific problems I have with Heal scrolls.
2. Silver Flame pots are great, sure, but grinding out 400 Silver Flame favor is no joke, and the stacking for them is just super annoying.
3 and 4. The point I made was that Reconstruct or NEB are more reliable than other options. Obviously they're more reliable than serious pots.

Again, it's not that these other options are useless, just inferior. Because casters are so powerful, this frequently doesn't matter, but in a few cases it will. That's all I'm saying.

[squishwizzy]

Been playing for about 3 years now, but to this point, been almost exclusively melee types. Never been able to quite figure out the whole caster thing. Basically, I've got a few questions that'd help me out.

1. For a first time caster, which class would be a good idea? As in, the least likely to completely screw the pooch on the build?

2. Gear, biggest issue I get confused, which gear is critical?

3. Is it ever a good idea to multi caster classes, or best to just stay pure?

That's the stuff I think I need the most help with, melee is getting boring to me now, and while I'm good at it, want to try something different.

Ok, from some experience - that is a guy who made a wizzy without having a clue as to what is required in playing caster character - I've got a few suggestions. They basically come from the school of hard-knocks.

My thought is an Archmage, warforged or not.

Sorcs are nice, but the ability to swap spells in and out with an AM give you a feel for the casting mechanic, and what spells you're going to rely upon for most fights. Mainly because had I started with a Sorc as a first caster, I probably would have screwed-up spell selection so bad, I'd probably go back to melee and never play one again.

On an AM, the gear you're going to need is as follows:

1) Anything that boosts spell penetration.
2) A variety of weapons that boost crits and damage in any of the spell classes (Void lore, Ice lore, etc.)
3) A deathblock item,
4) A major fort item (Minos Legens comes to mind),
5) Anything that boosts Spell Points (Power / Wizardry / Magi items).
6) A false life item,
7) A CON item,
8) An item that regens mana or a whole buttload of mana pots.
9) An effficacy clickie,
10) An INT item.
12) Anything that boosts each of your chosen schools (Necromancy, Enchantment, Conjuration, etc.).
13) A striding item (of course).

Likewise, lots of plat to replenish spell components.

Later on you might want to get some specialized items: a spell-regen item is one, an Ornamental Dagger from Crystal Cove, and so on.

If you go AM, you'll probably want to focus on Void lore and Enchantment. One is great for instakills, and other is great for crowd control. if you go this route, take as many spell penetration feats and enhancements as you can. Anyone can learn to do damage via a ranged spell. Crowd Control tends to be a little harder to pull off and master.

Looking for elemental spells? Fire is good for non-endgame content...in fact, it is really good. However, endgame tends to favor lightning, cold, and acid, and fire ends up sucking eggs.

As for pure or spash, you could go either way depending on how comfortable you are with splash characters. A wizzy with evasion is helpful, but I fear you may end up giving up some spell pen for evasion. That's a tough call. My thoughts would be to stay pure until you understand the whole caster thing, and then maybe transition to a blend.

Pale Master might be a consideration also, but I think it would probably be a little tougher to play out-of-the-chute with the various undead forms, and how to use them.

[LordMond63]

I would suggest warforged for your race, if for no other reason than it's your first arcane, and WF are incredibly forgiving when it comes to allowing you to survive situations that others either could not at all or only if they were extraordinarily lucky, talented or both. The combination of being able to self-heal virtually at will and immunities (even though they aren't as good now as they were) is unmatched.

The choice between Wizard and Sorceror, to me, comes down to a choice between playstyles. It's rare to find a subtle Sorc. They tend to be brute force, high burst DPS casters. I've run into very few that did much other than nuke the living **** out of the enemy (not that there's anything wrong with that). For early- to mid-game, Fire is a great choice because so many of the mobs you fight (undead) are vulnerable to fire. Once you hit your mid- to high-teens, though, more mobs become resistant or even immune to fire and thus many Sorcerors change their Savant. I went Air from the start, but I've discovered that a disturbingly high percentage of end- game and new content mobs have very high Reflex saves and so my various Lightning spells are are often totally evaded. I'm considering going Acid, because I note that many mobs are vulnerable to spells such as Black Dragon Bolt. The downside is a lack of versatility: you just can't change spells at the next shrine, and you have fewer slots for spells at each level, making choices often tough. You can also be Feat-starved, or so I read here.

Wizards, on the other hand, are (or can- and should- be) highly-individualized. You can swap spells at the next shrine so, if one set of spells isn't getting it done, try another. You can still have good dps, even if not quite equal to that of the Sorceror. I recently respecced from an Evocation focus Archmage to an Enchantment focused one to specialize in Crowd Control spells because the new content almost demands that you first divide the enemy so you can then successful conquer them. That's more evidence of the Wizard's excellent versatility. Finally, in my experience, it seems easier to find INT-boosting gear than it does finding CHA-boosting gear, but that could very well be just me.

I think you'll be fine whichever you choose, as you're a veteran player. Knowing what the game is about gives you a leg up on truley new players.

[EllisDee37]

I wouldn't do fleshie sorc. Stick to the basics for your first arcane: warforged sorc or human pale master. For a little flavor you could try a wizard with a rogue splash.

III. Ever, yes, for starting out as a mage, NO.

Go Pure until you get TR pastlifes and ubergear, once you have those, you might wanna consider a splash of 2 .
For casters multiclassing can turn into a serious drop in power.

This is no longer true. Destinies add such a ridiculous amount of power that the last two levels -- 2 spell pen + capstone -- are essentially a drop in the bucket for a first life. I mean, geez, my first life 18/2 wizard/rogue pale master (my first and only arcane, build developed through trial and error) gets 6 int and 8 spell pen from his destiny. Kind of hard to fret about being down 2 int and 2 spell pen from the rogue splash. Plus I have evasion and can handle traps.

I'm only lvling my first arcane, at lvl 7 atm. But what i learned from these forums is fire is good for low+mid lvls.
At higher lvls too many mobs are fire immune. Acid and ice might be better options then. Or maybe even elec or force.
My wiz will be acid and fire untill the mid lvls, then switching fire to ice for high lvls.

This is no longer true. Fire is quite effective at the new endgame, namely the xpack. Electricity, not so much. Cold continues to be good. I wouldn't know about acid, the only element I never use, because acid rain hoses my frame rate.

[BladeTricks]

WF Sorc, Acid savant. You will dominate as soon as you get to lvl 6 and get Acid Blast. Then at lvl 8, you get Acid Rain for even more AoE damage goodness. WF for the self repair (for my play style -jumping in and blowing **** up-, heal scrolling does not cut it). Stay pure. Maximize and Empower are must haves for the cheap SLAs savants get and the option to turn them on for regular spells if you want to unload massive damage in a short time (e.g. you shrined just before the final boss).

Gear-wise: equip the Abishai set at lvl 5, at least for the Boots of Corrosion boosting your acid damage. If you have the challenge pack, run them enough to craft Rock Boots lvl 12/16/20, by that time they are a significant boost compared to Boots of Corrosion.

You will more often than not out-kill the other 5 party members combined (while self-healing) and ask yourself: what was I thinking playing a barb all this time?