Force Manipulation Feat

[pelenor]

Is it worth getting force manipulation feat (or any of the Spellpower feat) if i already have Maximize, empower feat's? I use chain missiles so I am wondering what, if any, gains would I get on damage? I am a 16 lvl archmage and can't understand why I haven't chosen any of these feats before, but now they are available and wondering what kind of difference they would make, specifically the force manipulation since I use chain missiles, arcane blast, arcane bolt and magic missile which are all spell like abilities. So any suggestions on this? Or would it be overkill with the empower, maximize feats? Yes, I know it sounds like a Noob question, but hey, there it is.

[Gkar]

Do you mean force enhancements?

If so, it pretty much always make sense to take the first level enhancement in any element you use (+25SP for 1AP is a good deal)

[pelenor]

Yeah, sorry enhancements not feats lol. So it would help with my archmage attacks with his spell like abilities? Because now all seven of the force manipulation feats are available an dI have enough Action points to get them.

[Gkar]

Yeah, sorry enhancements not feats lol. So it would help with my archmage attacks with his spell like abilities? Because now all seven of the force manipulation feats are available an dI have enough Action points to get them.

A lot of people recommend that you also pick up the first level of the one that increases your chance to crit with, sorry, I forget the exact name, but it gives you something like +4% chance to crit and +.25 damage to crits

[FuzzyDuck81]

Arcane bolt & blast dont seem to benefit from it, but the magic missile & chain missiles SLAs will certainly get boosted by it - as will any other spells that deal force, physical or untyped damage, including force missiles, disintegrate, cyclonic blast, ice storm, meteor swarm etc.

[DynaTheCat]

I'm full force... and.. I feel it's worth it.

Chain missiles, Force missiles, Arcane Initiate, disintegrate, horrid wilting.

If you go full force, maximize / empower, chain will do around 300 non crit the first hit and blow up on others around it for around 100-200.

Force missiles will generate around 400+

Arcane initiate if will be around 300+

Disintegrate when bypasses will do 1.1k. When 1 crits 2.8k+. When 2 crits; 3.8k+. If you do not bypass the dmg, you will do around 100 non crit. 300 crit.

horrid wilting does around 500+ untyped aoe, Crit makes it go to 1.1k+

If you take full force crit enhancement, you will get a lotta crits because of the number of times you're hitting mobs.

I am using twilight however... so might be different for you.

It's just nice solid consistent dmg and you don't have to worry about resistances or immunity. You should still use the 3 dots (eldars, bdb, niac's) though.

[pelenor]

You should still use the 3 dots (eldars, bdb, niac's) though.

I'm assuming they're spells? I'm guessing Niac is cold ray. What are the other 2?

[squishwizzy]

I'm assuming they're spells? I'm guessing Niac is cold ray. What are the other 2?

Niac's Biting Cold, Elders Electric Surge. These are DoTs (Damage over Time). You cast them, and they do damage each second (or on a specific frequency) over a certain timespan. Burning Blood is another. You use these to cast on Boss characters as they a) usually have some form of evasion that makes landing damage with Lightning Bolt, Acid Rain, Fireball, Oltiluke Freezing Sphere (one of my personal faves) nothing but a SP drain, and b) some of them you can "stack" damage over time. The last is important because you can increase your damage output by multiple casts of the same DoT, and do some vicious damage.

Generally, you use these on stuff you know you can't kill outright with a few ranged spells.

[Rawrargh]

I'm assuming they're spells? I'm guessing Niac is cold ray. What are the other 2?

Yes and nope, DOT stands for Damage Over Time: here's some links for you

Niac's: http://ddowiki.com/page/Niac%27s_Biting_Cold
Eladar's: http://ddowiki.com/page/Eladar%27s_Electric_Surge
Black Dragon Bolt: http://ddowiki.com/page/Black_Dragon_Bolt

Both Eladar's and Niac's stack up to 3 times and should be used for taking down red named boss-guys. They have a fairly long ramp-up time before the damage starts rolling in, but once both of them are fully stacked they'll hit for about 200 every two seconds at your level (provided you wear apropriate spell power items)

Black dragon bolt is kinda optional. I rolled with it on my wizard, but he was acid specced so for me it was obvious to pick it up. It doesn't stack, but it's doing a fair bit of damage over 3(?) ticks for 15 SP or so... Oh it's also a ray spell, so it's got double range.

To answer your original question, you should get 7 enhancement points in your main damage school (force). 1 point in the crit chance enhancement and 1 point in the crit multiplier. Most wizards then go for 1/1/1 in every other element (atleast get the first point in damage for each school, since that's where you get the most bang for the buck.

[hermespan]

I'm assuming they're spells? I'm guessing Niac is cold ray. What are the other 2?

He's referring to Niac's Biting Cold. It's a stackable DoT like Eladur's electric surge. You can cast it on a target, then cast it 2 more times for stacking damage. Timer lasts for 12 seconds, and each time you cast it it stacks more damage and resets the timer. Then you can keep the stacked damage going and reset timer by casting it again before timer runs out.

A DoT is a single target stackable Damage over Time spell, not to be confused with AoE like firewall or ice storm, which are area of effect spells that do damage over time. Unlike DoTs AoEs don't increase damage over time by casting them more than once. However the initial burst of damage will hit once for each firewall that's burning. It's really not worth it tho.

DoTs are really good for boss fights or other mobs that have a ton of hitpoints. Against trash you are wasting spellpoints with DoTs. Against bosses cast it 3x, then once every 10 seconds or so (spell duration is 12 seconds, you _don't_ want to lose that stack!). You can cast a couple of other damage spells between refreshes. You can also stack both DoTs on high HP mobs. With both Eladurs and Niac DoTs stacked you are doing around 200 damage per second, assuming normal resistance and the usual metas and items that apply to cold/electricity.

AoEs are better for lots of mobs that have less hitpoints and are ideal for trash mobs.

So when a party leader asks you to "dot up" something, that's what they are talking about, Niacs biting cold and Eladurs electric surge. They don't mean AoEs even though some AoE's are technically DoTs by broad definition.

[squishwizzy]

I believe force applies to things like Ice Storm and Meteor Swarm as well, which are two of the better AoEs in the game, and is one of the few damage types that has very few mobs either immune or resistant to it. The notable exceptions are a subset of Constructs.

In short, it wouldn't hurt you at all.


Edit:

D'OH! Someone already mentioned this.

[DynaTheCat]

The problem with ice storm is simply it has a dmg cap.

I hate that.....

Also, the full force line does make the "no-save" bludgeon dmg on meteor swarm do around 150+ no crit; 300-400+ crit. This is per meteor (you will get 4 explosions).

Yes... that bludgeon is kinda a monster especially cuz it's no save.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Planning further ahead for epic stuff, the boulder toss ability from fury of the wild & wild shots from shiradi champion will also be boosted by force spellpower & crit chance, and are very powerful, no-SP damage dealers, definitely worth twisting in - on a non-crit, my fully force specced shiradi evocation archmage usually deals 700-900 hp damage with wild shots & 1.2k-1.8k on boulder toss, with crits far higher - my record so far is something like 8.5k hp on a helpless mob from boulder toss.. not too shabby

I'd highly recommend working towards a shiradi evo archmage - i mainly use SLAs & un-meta'ed low level spells for damage & rely on shiradi procs to boost the dps... every individual missile, damage proc from a DoT, and even being caught in a web can have a chance to proc some damage, which incidentally are boosted by spellpower too so they can be fearsome sp-efficient dps machines & if youre a warforged, especially with the 18wiz/2rogue split, they have some great survivability.. a combo thats just pure FUN to play

[DynaTheCat]

Planning further ahead for epic stuff, the boulder toss ability from fury of the wild & wild shots from shiradi champion will also be boosted by force spellpower & crit chance, and are very powerful, no-SP damage dealers, definitely worth twisting in - on a non-crit, my fully force specced shiradi evocation archmage usually deals 700-900 hp damage with wild shots & 1.2k-1.8k on boulder toss, with crits far higher - my record so far is something like 8.5k hp on a helpless mob from boulder toss.. not too shabby

I'd highly recommend working towards a shiradi evo archmage - i mainly use SLAs & un-meta'ed low level spells for damage & rely on shiradi procs to boost the dps... every individual missile, damage proc from a DoT, and even being caught in a web can have a chance to proc some damage, which incidentally are boosted by spellpower too so they can be fearsome sp-efficient dps machines & if youre a warforged, especially with the 18wiz/2rogue split, they have some great survivability.. a combo thats just pure FUN to play

whoooaa didnt know force lines affected boulder toss or wild shots. That's awesome will try it out.