MY GOD! How do you PM's do it?

[squishwizzy]

Wait, we're supposed to enjoy the Archmage? That's news to me. I"m pretty sure AM is just lip service to the idea of wizards having a non-PM PrE (and I say that as an AM player, never having played a PM).

AMs are for people whose uber-ness cannot entirely fit into a self-contained Lich shroud, and cannot stand crackling purple auras around them everywhere they go.

After all, your average lich is very skinny....

[Galeria]

Zombie form is pointless. As a fleshie wizard, CSW pots should heal you fine up until 12ish or so. Not only does being a zombie slow you down and prevent normal healing, it lowers your int. Nothing to recommend it.

Once you get wraith/vampire and death aura, the healing is pretty nice and the spells get better too. Negative energy burst can keep you alive when you took too much aggro.

Wraith adds incorporeal to your defenses as well so you'll take less damage.

[sirgog]

Zombie form is godmode at level 7 (not at 6 because you don't have Death Aura yet).

Next to nothing can kill you, and you just run around damaging things with your Death Aura, gathering aggro, until you have a whole pack following you and then 'Acid Rain, BOOM'. The combination of DR, passive healing from the aura and decent burst healing from the burst lets you go toe-to-toe with anything but one or two bosses.

Personally I keep Zombie Form until level 18. Vampire is too dangerous to ever use, and there are a fair number of places where featherfalling slows you down unacceptably (Litany, Ghosts of Perdition, Wiz-King, etc) making Wraith not the right tool for the job. The -1 DC is a serious drawback for DC casting but is next to irrelevant when throwing persistant AoE damage spells.

[Matuse]

Wraith form at 12, and a permanent blur item make you pretty much indestructable. Then just alternate between the two SLAs, and stuff dies slowly but steadily.

It picks up quite a bit at 18 when you have (essentially) all of your feats, lich form, and a full suite of instakills. The PM3 blast is also leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessors, since it is AOE.

Generally, I'd just gather up a whole bunch of monsters, drop an ice storm on myself, and launch necro blasts until they all died, and then moved to the next group. Unless they are unusually annoying enemies (read: Eladrin with their searing lights, or a knockdown spammer like cats/dogs/minotaurs), they really don't have a prayer against you.

Once you get to epic levels, stuff starts hitting hard enough that you actually need to pay attention to what is going on. Although I did have fun tanking against Deadheart in EH VoN1...Basically just sat inside an acid cloud with my auras running and he died without being able to do anything to me. Turns out undead forms are immune to his dancing club proc.

[Carpone]

Zombie form is pointless. As a fleshie wizard, CSW pots should heal you fine up until 12ish or so. Not only does being a zombie slow you down and prevent normal healing, it lowers your int. Nothing to recommend it.

Once you get wraith/vampire and death aura, the healing is pretty nice and the spells get better too. Negative energy burst can keep you alive when you took too much aggro.

Wraith adds incorporeal to your defenses as well so you'll take less damage.

+1

Regardless of my final build, when leveling a wizard I choose Arch Mage until level 12. Considering I zerg as fast as possible while TRing, zombie snare is a dealbreaker for me.

[danotmano1998]

Considering I zerg as fast as possible while TRing, zombie snare is a dealbreaker for me.

Excellent point. +1

[psi0nix]

I think someone has already said it, but :

AM till lvl 18 then go PM.

(currently I'm a fleshie PM, I got sick of WF, and don't care if it's 'harder' or whatever, I just never want to play a WF again)

[azrael4h]

I find it interesting that everyone but Sirgog advises to stay away from Zombie form. I agree with the pack; Zombie is a pointless waste of sp to shift into form. On my original test Wizard, a first life Elf, I found her more able to survive with CSW pots until VoN or so, then a Cleric hire and staying mobile was plenty. So far my TR, with much better gear and a couple of caster-oriented past lives, is not even going into form.

In both cases, I've stuck by PM out of laziness, but IMO until 12 it's pointless. AM at least gives sp. Once you get Wraith though, that changes. My test Wizard stays in Wraith form constantly.

[sirgog]

I find it interesting that everyone but Sirgog advises to stay away from Zombie form. I agree with the pack; Zombie is a pointless waste of sp to shift into form. On my original test Wizard, a first life Elf, I found her more able to survive with CSW pots until VoN or so, then a Cleric hire and staying mobile was plenty. So far my TR, with much better gear and a couple of caster-oriented past lives, is not even going into form.

In both cases, I've stuck by PM out of laziness, but IMO until 12 it's pointless. AM at least gives sp. Once you get Wraith though, that changes. My test Wizard stays in Wraith form constantly.

I really don't get this at all.

What can ever kill you in zombie form at that level other than traps? I can think of only two places where a zombie form caster is at risk - Purge the Heretics (which noone runs but the light spells will kill you) and the VON3 marut on elite if you are careless (because it hits so hard). You don't care about the real dangers of those levels - melee crits from rednameds, being overwhelmed by 10 mobs that each hit for 8-10 and tripped, or the like, because you are immune to crits (at a level nothing but Masterful Craftsmanship crafted gear will allow this), you keep healing while tripped and little hits often bounce off your DR. Plus in a really bad situation, you can just actively block and whatever is attacking you will die to your aura in time (this is a last resort but will save you solo once or twice a life).

You can zerg so much faster when you can completely ignore mobs until orange alert then throw AoEs (either the persistant or immediate type). Level 7 is when you go from careful to completely, utterly reckless and just stop dying.


OTOH an Archmage has to spend time drinking Cure potions and runs out of SP because they can't survive orange alert and so have to blow things up at yellow or green. Zombie form I don't stop moving unless harried.

[BlueSilence]

Maybe for a new player on a first life PM Zombie form is not the best choice but if I understood correctly, the OP is in a third life, most TR chars' players will have gear and gaming skills to compensate for Zombie's slow movement and lowered INT.

[Daemoneyes]

I second Sirgog, Zombie form is the way to go

+ selfheal, without need for money (and way better then pots)
+ heavy fortification (one item less to slot)
+ axeblock (one item less to slot)
+ Underwater Action (one item less in inventar, also i forget that stuff always)

- 2 int, nuking doesnt require int and you nuke more till 16 then anything else
- Speed, exp.retreat helps but its still together with -meleespeed the biggest drawback, although till 12 you dont have to fear much especially when carrying a shield so its ok.
- light damage, not really an issue because light damage is not as heavy and common as in later levels.

[Daemoneyes]

Maybe for a new player on a first life PM Zombie form is not the best choice but if I understood correctly, the OP is in a third life, most TR chars' players will have gear and gaming skills to compensate for Zombie's slow movement and lowered INT.

exactly the opposite, as TR you have the equip and plat to compensate what you miss from Zombie form.

[Inouk]

Thought about this too but then why bother being pm of your wf.

Agreed, being WF PM you get very little of the benefits of being WF but all of the drawbacks, it's sub-optimal. Sure, it's better for the first 11 levels but why gimp your toon for the last 14 to avoid using hirelings for the easiest 11?

I didn't even bother with PM forms until 12th level. You must remember what the strengths and weaknesses of the PrE are.

1) there are no wizard enhancements for negative energy. All of your benefit here comes from the PrE bonuses and gear, and since both are very low at low levels you get very little benefit until 12th when you can take tier 2 and also get wraith form. This means your healing won't be very good until 12th.

2) free damage SLAs. You don't get one worth using until 12th.

3) bonuses to necro DC, but you don't really get any serious necro spells until 13th when you get finger of death.

In short the first tier of the PrE is pretty weak, but the 2nd tier makes it worthwhile and the third is very potent.

So once you get your GS, tier 2 PrE, and torc the class will feel much much stronger, especially once you get FoD. Lich form takes it to a whole new level. I regularly solo Devil Assault on EH and can just stand there and tank the bosses because of aura, robe, and consort bracers. I may burst heal once or twice during the final fight, other than that it's all passive from the aura (and I don't even have the 24 mabar robe, just the 20).

[Carpone]

Level 7 is when you go from careful to completely, utterly reckless and just stop dying.

No need to wait that long when level 5 provides Vibrant Purple Ioun Stone and Maximized, Empowered Fireball.

Any perceived survivability from zombie form is offset by zerging slower (an oxymoron).

[Vellrad]

On my 2 lifes (or lives, IDK) of dwarf PM, I was archmage until lvl12, carrying arround few cleric or fvs contracts in pocket. They're so great at nannying, I didn't needed any other healing items.

[bonscott87]

I took a PM to level 10 and I used Zombie mode all the time. Nothing could touch me. Walk into a room, gather aggro, get the melee to get next to me and fire off a death aura. I damage everything around me, 100% fortification, self heal the whole time, fire off a fire wall on top of me for extra crispy effect, burst if I drop HP a lot, use my necro SLA for anything on me or just swing my stick/scepters if I want to beat on something and viola everything is dead at my feet and I'm fully healed. My wife plays with me and she tends to go get aggro and bring everything to me and everything is dead around me pretty quick. She even complains that I kill stuff too fast for her to beat on things. Same when going solo, everything dies at my feet.

What's not to like? LOL

Obviously at 12 I'd go wraith form but zombie has a lot to offer on the way there. Very hard to kill and tons of self healing. Never ran out of SP (with no pots). Yea it's slow to walk but that's what exp retreat wands are for. My new toon from level 1 is a Pale/Trapper and zombie will be used a lot again on this guy.

[LeLoric]

Yes to zombie form.

First off there is no reduced movement speed on zombie form not sure why everyone thinks so.

Second there is no better survivability at this level than zombie form for a fleshie wiz.

Third, brains.

[Gunga]

I hated my first PM life, tolerated the second and actually really enjoyed the third. Last time through, I swung an axe until wraith and then nuked and instakilled to cap. Healing was a breeze.

[squishwizzy]

I find it interesting that everyone but Sirgog advises to stay away from Zombie form. I agree with the pack; Zombie is a pointless waste of sp to shift into form. On my original test Wizard, a first life Elf, I found her more able to survive with CSW pots until VoN or so, then a Cleric hire and staying mobile was plenty. So far my TR, with much better gear and a couple of caster-oriented past lives, is not even going into form.

In both cases, I've stuck by PM out of laziness, but IMO until 12 it's pointless. AM at least gives sp. Once you get Wraith though, that changes. My test Wizard stays in Wraith form constantly.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the SP drains, Zombie form is very good for doing with Sirgog mentions, and especially for solo-ing. Blur, stoneskin, web, firewall, death aura, gather stuff around you, and hit the shift key. I gave up using Master's Touch around lvl 7, and never looked back.

Most times, I don't even need to drop death aura. And If firewall is a problem, I switch to Ice Storm.

Plus, if I want to do damage, I spam Necrotic touch. They mobs are already in range...

[LafoMamone]

Any perceived survivability from zombie form is offset by zerging slower (an oxymoron).

Slower attack speed, not slower run speed.

Yes to zombie form.

First off there is no reduced movement speed on zombie form not sure why everyone thinks so.

Second there is no better survivability at this level than zombie form for a fleshie wiz.

Third, brains.

If this is how you really feel, you should probably update your endgame palemaster thread. It advises against taking zombie form, and I am pretty sure it is still read by many.