Water savant viable as a leveling build?

[EssenceofEvil]

Well the question is in the subject title..

Is a water savant viable to level up with? I was thinking of when my evoker cleric makes it to 20 to tr her into a sorcery, I was originally looking at water savant but I then recalled all the skeletons I fought to her level right now. If it is viable Whatdo I use for me backup element for those pesky ice immunes while I level up?

[Charononus]

You can do it, with perhaps acid as a secondary. However it is far far easier to level as fire until you hit the vale of twilight and the switch your spells over with a blood of dragons and go water savant or electric savant at that point. To avoid buying a blood you can claim a blood of dragons from the t1 favor reward for agents of argo, which you get from running gianthold sides.

[BoBach]

Hi,

water servant is pretty bad for leveling. The dps from fire and/or acid is far better. The SLA are bad designed, because half of the spells are evaded by the Mobs (niacs, frost Lance). Even with heighten feat does not help here.

Regards Bo

[psykopeta]

Well the question is in the subject title..

Is a water savant viable to level up with? I was thinking of when my evoker cleric makes it to 20 to tr her into a sorcery, I was originally looking at water savant but I then recalled all the skeletons I fought to her level right now. If it is viable Whatdo I use for me backup element for those pesky ice immunes while I level up?

click on reset enhancements and go fire

go fire with some ice spells(useful for more than blasting) like ice storm and niac biting cold

both spells aren't much affected by the savant penalty and are useful further than for damage: niac on bosses, ice storm for slowing mobs

however placing a firewall+ you in middle blocking with a shield+fireball when needed is a pretty fast way to kill mobs

i would use fire til 16, when u have access to lvl 8 spells, time for swapping to ice and get that outstanding polar ray (keep in mind that cone of cold+otiluke sphere are close ranged/area so u'll need mobs near u/gathered)

before 16 (lvl 14 quests) most mobs aren't immune to fire, in fact lots are weak to it, or immune to ice (skellies)

i did 3 sorc lives, the only 1 that wasn't same savant all the life was fire+ice, because isn't as strong as going fire at beginning and then swapping to ice, air and earth were ok lives, nothing compared with the difference of the fire+ice swap XD

[sirgog]

Cold suffers horribly on undead, and a fair bit of levelling is usually done in undead quests. Also you have a caster level penalty to the best levelling spell (Delayed Blast Fireball with its ridiculously large AoE)


You can do it, but fire and acid are considered optimal because they encounter few immunities (fire a couple more than acid, but not many outside Amrath and Rainbow in the Dark; you just skip Amrath if fire specced) and they have DBF and Acid Rain (the best one-shot AoE by a mile and the best persistant AoE by a mile for use on mobs under 2000hp)

[Charononus]

Hi,

water servant is pretty bad for leveling. The dps from fire and/or acid is far better. The SLA are bad designed, because half of the spells are evaded by the Mobs (niacs, frost Lance). Even with heighten feat does not help here.

Regards Bo

frost lance is a fort save and can't be evaded, the evade message you can get currently is a display bug.

[HastyPudding]

Simply put, water is useless against skeletons, which are found in abundance in the early-mid levels of the game, whereas fire, earth, and air have fewer enemies with immunity in these levels, and if they are, they're few and far between. Not to mention the fact that water isn't the best spec for aoe damage until you get freezing sphere and cone of cold and even then they fall flat in comparison to fire and air. In the early parts of the game you are basically barraged with hordes of weak enemies that will fall quickly to a fire savant's ridiculously OP sla/spell rotation (scorch, scorch sla, and burning hands sla in rapid succession will clear entire rooms in seconds). Earth is a solid leveling spec throughout the entire game with few immunities, but the damage isn't as fast-paced as fire or air and lacks single target nukes like water; earth is slow and steady damage, and makes for a great secondary to fire.

While leveling, fire and earth make good main specs, while air doesn't come into power until later with ball lightning and chain lightning, dishing out amazing aoe damage very quickly. I wouldn't even bother with ice spells on a sorcerer until level 18+ when enemies have a major jump in HP and saves and some glaring immunities to fire and quite a few resistances against air (wizards can use ice spells because they can adapt on the fly).

[voodoogroves]

So, leveling through another sorc life right now. She's a water savant; just hit 13. A shade of spend in the earth savant tree (so acid as a secondary).

She levels, through undead, at a sprint. Web, Acid Rain, Acid Burst is all she's needed to deal with skellies, ice flensers, etc. Ice storm works somewhat too, don't forget that.

For me, Ice has been super, super easy. Zergy fun. Low level (say 4-5) Niac's was critting the the multiple hundreds (and still does). Most content simply dies with the 2 SLAs, + additional Ice Ray. When needed, cone of cold and ice storm.

I'll do fire next life, but ice has been far, far faster than earth or air lives.

[EssenceofEvil]

Thanks for the tips. I was thinking fire but I wanted to be different and try water savant through out my entire life. I'm on fence on if I want to try air or not. It will be a third life toon but first life sorc. So many I should start with acid and take advantage of the +1 to conjuration dc I'll get from my cleric lvl and move from there. I used to have a acid sorcerer when the savants first came out but deleted her during my althism. If I go acid do I go wf for durability or go half elf/fvs dilly for the spell power enhancements and wand/scroll healing?

[Charononus]

Thanks for the tips. I was thinking fire but I wanted to be different and try water savant through out my entire life. I'm on fence on if I want to try air or not. It will be a third life toon but first life sorc. So many I should start with acid and take advantage of the +1 to conjuration dc I'll get from my cleric lvl and move from there. I used to have a acid sorcerer when the savants first came out but deleted her during my althism. If I go acid do I go wf for durability or go half elf/fvs dilly for the spell power enhancements and wand/scroll healing?

Go wf so you can self heal, best choice for a sorc imo.

[voodoogroves]

Mine is a human, and sometimes the other TRs who are running behind me toss me a heal because they can't catch me with all the murderous killing I'm doing. WF is not necessary (I have pots and scrolls for when I solo).

Best quote so far "I'm going to go the other way from voodoo so I can pretend I'm zerging".

[HastyPudding]

Mine is a human, and sometimes the other TRs who are running behind me toss me a heal because they can't catch me with all the murderous killing I'm doing. WF is not necessary (I have pots and scrolls for when I solo).

Best quote so far "I'm going to go the other way from voodoo so I can pretend I'm zerging".

And what level are you now? Because a fleshie sorcerer in end-game epics (let alone 18ish content) is going to be stopping to scroll heal every few seconds whereas a warforged can just tap a quickened reconstruct button and keep going. It might seem like an easy button, which it is, but the alternative is staggering if you're trying to get your zerg on. And, depending on what those other TR's were, it's not out of the question for ANY arcane to zerg far ahead of the rest of the group, that's what sorcerers do best is dishing out damage. A barbarian or lower level artificer can keep up with them but only just.

In my opinion, fleshie sorcerers got nerfed in the enhancement pass due to the sorcerer losing out on scroll/wand mastery. And going half-elf is in no way equal to the self-sufficiency of a warforged arcane.

[voodoogroves]

And what level are you now? Because a fleshie sorcerer in end-game epics (let alone 18ish content) is going to be stopping to scroll heal every few seconds whereas a warforged can just tap a quickened reconstruct button and keep going. It might seem like an easy button, which it is, but the alternative is staggering if you're trying to get your zerg on. And, depending on what those other TR's were, it's not out of the question for ANY arcane to zerg far ahead of the rest of the group, that's what sorcerers do best is dishing out damage. A barbarian or lower level artificer can keep up with them but only just.

In my opinion, fleshie sorcerers got nerfed in the enhancement pass due to the sorcerer losing out on scroll/wand mastery. And going half-elf is in no way equal to the self-sufficiency of a warforged arcane.

Sorry, thought this question was about leveling builds, not parked-at-endgame builds.

If I were to be fleshie and endgame, I'd use Cocoon though ... like ... well ... everyone else?

[Vellrad]

I leveled sorc to 20 3 times:
1Xpure WF, acid savant, then change to water.
1X1rogue18sorc, then 1 rouge again, same, first acid then cold.
Traps was nice, but DPS suffered a little.
1Xdwarf pure sorc, first (as always) acid, then cold.
This was actually the easiest life, despite fact dorf is the worst sorc race, because this was my main, so UMD heal scrolls, good gear, tomes, etc. and instead of reconstruct I had to carry on WF, OP mummy summon that is the best CC in heroics, and IMO, the best spell your character can cast before EEs. (I wish I could have a mummy at epics that got decent aura DC and is not 1 shotted by everything. Yes, I'd spend feat on it, or even 2).

Edit: I'll say why I love mixing water with acid: because of uberness of acid rain together with ice storm. Sure, it can be done with firewall, but I always liked having 3 types of damage hotspot, in case mob is resist.

I never tried pure water from 1 to 20, but I must say that I tried fire- didn't liked the fact that oozes, blackbones and few more mobs are fireproof, so I always swapped to acid. Also, fire seems lacking in ST departament.

[BoBach]

Hi,

are you talking about leveling on elite streak? In heroic normal any build will work quite well (cold, acid, fire, dwarf, half-elf sorc, etc.).

When you run the new expansion or IQ at lvl18 quests where the mobs come in crowds and have 2000+ hp (5-7k in IQ) then you will love the fire sav. You can cycle through the SLA dn delayed blast fireball.

Regards Bo

[Vooduspyce]

Well the question is in the subject title..

Is a water savant viable to level up with? I was thinking of when my evoker cleric makes it to 20 to tr her into a sorcery, I was originally looking at water savant but I then recalled all the skeletons I fought to her level right now. If it is viable Whatdo I use for me backup element for those pesky ice immunes while I level up?

Yes water is awesome to level with!! I've played all savants at least to 20. I regularly play air savant but wnted 3 sorc PLs on my druid so figured I do all the others. I avoided water savant til my last sorc life because I thought it would be the worst, but turned out to be the best! Take acid as secondary element, all you need really is acid splash to spam on mobs that are immune to cold like undead. Iirc there were only a couple mobs that are immune to both cold and acid and for that I just used disintegrate. I remember casting otiluke's freezing sphere and cone of cold back to back on large groups of mobs and obliterating everything. Water is way fun!!