Archmage: Spell Mastery and Secondary

[samthedagger]

I am leveling a WF Archmage at the moment. Right now I am specced for Spell Mastery Necromancy and Secondary Spell Mastery Conjuration. But I am waffling between whether I should go with something else. Back when I used to play on another server I had an archmage who was specced for primary Enchantment and secondary Evocation but the game has changed a lot since then. The best choices seem to be:

Necromancy: solely to boost DCs for FoD, Wail, etc.
Conjuration: for web CC, which is generally superior to enchantments
Enchantment: for CC, which offers more choices to cycle through (hypno, dance, charm, holds)
Evocation: for DPS via magic missile and chain missile (particularly good with Shiradi ED from what I hear)

All of the other options seem really poor. So some combination of the above four seems like it would work best. I think one CC (Conj or Ench) plus one DPS/Insta-kill (Evo or Necro) would be the best combination for ultimate versatility. I am probably going to TR as soon as I hit 20 and do another wizard life, so I may experiment with another combo next life. But I want to know what others with more wizard experience think.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Conjuration as a secondary for the cheap web SLA is always awesome, but yeah primary is the trickier one to figure out - at epic, evocation with shiradi is pure fun & very easy-going on the equipment (saves, spell pen etc. aren't really all that important).

[Kinerd]

Even with Shiradi the Evo SLAs just have too long a cooldown to manage good DPS. Their big benefit is damage per spell point, which is outstanding, but to me the category itself just isn't that compelling. The other downside is you can go a long time without caring about a spell with an Evocation DC, which is exacerbated by being Shiradi and caring more about the missile (no save) spells, so the DC bonus is the least useful of the big 4.

Necro/Conj is pretty boring, but it's just so brutally effective. An alternative to changing your Spell Masteries may be to squeeze in extra SF feats: you only need SF Evo (no mastery) for SLA MM, you only need SF Ench (no mastery) for SLA Hypno. These double as probably the most useful bonuses of what you would get in their masteries anyway, so you can get a good feel for them without otherwise crimping your style.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Even with Shiradi the Evo SLAs just have too long a cooldown to manage good DPS. Their big benefit is damage per spell point, which is outstanding, but to me the category itself just isn't that compelling. The other downside is you can go a long time without caring about a spell with an Evocation DC, which is exacerbated by being Shiradi and caring more about the missile (no save) spells, so the DC bonus is the least useful of the big 4.

Necro/Conj is pretty boring, but it's just so brutally effective. An alternative to changing your Spell Masteries may be to squeeze in extra SF feats: you only need SF Evo (no mastery) for SLA MM, you only need SF Ench (no mastery) for SLA Hypno. These double as probably the most useful bonuses of what you would get in their masteries anyway, so you can get a good feel for them without otherwise crimping your style.

If you're only working on the SLAs yeah they aren't great dps.. but since the shiradi procs are per individual projectile or damage tick you just need to mix in unmeta'ed versions of other spells (like magic missile & chain missiles! SLA & from spellbook have different cooldowns) & overwhelm them with sheer volume - constantly using different abilities it almost makes for a caster that plays like a monk