Thoughts on new enhancements - Wizard

[Thrudh]

Level 20 Elf PaleMaster Wizard on live.

I very much like what I see with the new enhancements. Being able to take BOTH Arch-mage and PaleMaster is very sweet... I have more INT than before, more Spell Points, higher spellpower on all elements, and a bunch of useful SLAs. Oh and I can afford to get the meta-magic reductions now, which I couldn't before, so that's even more SP for me. Spell Crits are higher for me as well, at least on paper (those working?)

Spell Pen is slightly down. Devs, there's really no reason to take Elf anymore as a pure wizard... I don't fancy completely wasting 5 APs (absolutely nothing of value there on the first row for a pure wizard) to get to the Elf Spell Pen enhancements.

So I'll TR into human probably or maybe back to Warforged.

Overall, very nice changes for wizards.

I forgot to mention, I love the new enhancement UI... so much better than the old enhancement UI.

[EllisDee37]

I don't dislike the wizard trees; my PM should do fine and be fun to play.

However, it was pointed out that if you have multiple wizards, the enhancement pass will turn them into essentially the same build. I have only one wizard so I'll be fine with "the one wizard to rule them all", but if, say, I had a conjuration/evocation archmage and an enchantment PM I might end up tring one of them out of wizard due to the overall sameness wizards will likely become.

[Thrudh]

I don't dislike the wizard trees; my PM should do fine and be fun to play.

However, it was pointed out that if you have multiple wizards, the enhancement pass will turn them into essentially the same build. I have only one wizard so I'll be fine with "the one wizard to rule them all", but if, say, I had a conjuration/evocation archmage and an enchantment PM I might end up tring one of them out of wizard due to the overall sameness wizards will likely become.

This is a very good point... There's only two PrEs, so any pure wizard build is going to have 75% of both ArchMage and PaleMaster...

[Meretrix]

Having a 3rd PrE will solve this problem. We can only hope we don't have to wait years for it.

[Wizza]

Having a 3rd PrE will solve this problem. We can only hope we don't have to wait years for it.

*Cough*1PrESorc*cough*

But yes, this new enhancements for Wizards will turn them into the same.

[soloist12]

*Cough*1PrESorc*cough*

But yes, this new enhancements for Wizards will turn them into the same.

The way I see it, there are 2 versions of wizards. The DC wizard, and the Shiradi Wizard.

The DC wizard hunts down every dc and efficient meta enhancements in the trees while keeping spell power at an acceptable level. With a +4 tome and yugo pots, 60 dc necromancy is achievable with a +5 dc item and 18 starting int without too much trouble by going 40+ PM and 30+ AM, 3 necro dc feats and the wizard past life, so long as you take necro SLA line for another 1 dc. This gives you enervate SLA as well, if you choose to go beyond the core point.

The shiradi wizard floods the AM tree with sub points in PM to back it up, taking all 3 mental toughness feats, and going some variation of 18/2 if you value evasion/saves. You select the evocation SLA line for MM/CM SLA's, taking empower/maximize to benefit both. You dump all forms of DC casting on this build, thus it is past life friendly. The difference between a shiradi wizard with 0 past lives and a shiradi wizard with 3 cleric/3 wizard/3 sorcerer/3 favored soul lives is 120 spell points (go farm a bauble for 2-3 times this bonus).

What do I prefer playing? The DC wizard by far. What is more effective via current game design and massive boss hp/lack of efficient damage spells on a DC wizard? Shiradi. The necro SLA line is absolutely useless on a boss and the arcane blast/necrotic line do not receive meta bonuses for some bizarre reason.

60 necro DC is barely sufficient in EE, requiring at least one energy drain to pull it off. By focusing so hard on necro DC, you completely sacrifice any other DC from functioning, such as conjuration and enchantment. Why such focus for trash mobs that doesn't function on orange named on EH+ is still ineffective is beyond me. I'm sure evocation sorcerers feel the same way.

I'm aware EE is intended to be difficult, but there are builds soloing it currently, so don't give me the balance speech.

[Thrudh]

Devs, there's really no reason to take Elf anymore as a pure wizard... I don't fancy completely wasting 5 APs (absolutely nothing of value there on the first row for a pure wizard) to get to the Elf Spell Pen enhancements.

Looking at my other characters, I see half-elf enhancements ALSO have the Spell Pen line... and the base half-elf enhancements actually have some stuff my wizard can use (another +1 INT!), so it looks like half-elf could make a decent wizard... Straight elf is no longer a worthwhile choice.