The Deep Gnome Iconic is a win.

[KoobTheProud]

I've been playing the Deep Gnome Iconic solo with a hireling since it was released and it's definitely a win amidst all the gloom. Playing as a Wiz x/Rog 1 has been a blast. It's not Warlock powerful but it's good enough to give players a real shot at soloing in heroic hard content on first life with just the gear included with the Iconic plus an Impulse weapon. The character graphics are excellent and alongside the Eberron Gnome give a lot of choices for appearance after the first life.

The only hangup so far is a bug with the Dragonmark appearing in Iconic females whether you have the feat or not and whether you have selected it or not. You can toggle the status in UI settings and that removes it for the play session.

[Steve_Howe]

I found the Deep Gnome version of my Artificer 20 to be surprisingly better than the WF version.

Very happy with the Deep Gnome iconic.

[EvilGremlin]

I've been playing the Deep Gnome Iconic solo with a hireling since it was released and it's definitely a win amidst all the gloom. Playing as a Wiz x/Rog 1 has been a blast. It's not Warlock powerful but it's good enough to give players a real shot at soloing in heroic hard content on first life with just the gear included with the Iconic plus an Impulse weapon. The character graphics are excellent and alongside the Eberron Gnome give a lot of choices for appearance after the first life.

The only hangup so far is a bug with the Dragonmark appearing in Iconic females whether you have the feat or not and whether you have selected it or not. You can toggle the status in UI settings and that removes it for the play session.

Man I tried playing the deep gnome iconic. I really tried hard to make it work too. I just think it is really difficult to solo with. I ended up investing into vamp form an short swords. The combo of healing while you melee and cast spells sounds really great... it just isn't. After about the 100th time running out of SP, I respecced my deep gnome wizard to a full on assassin. Which is supposed to be a difficult solo class. Yet he out-solo's the **** out of the wizard. lol You have to be a very patient and diligent person to solo on a wizard. My hat is off to you, sir.

I found the Deep Gnome version of my Artificer 20 to be surprisingly better than the WF version.

Very happy with the Deep Gnome iconic.

Yeah, they make great rogues too. I love the deep gnome assassin. But I'm surprised that the deep gnome artificer would be better than the warforged. Why is that?

[FranOhmsford]

I've been playing the Deep Gnome Iconic solo with a hireling since it was released and it's definitely a win amidst all the gloom. Playing as a Wiz x/Rog 1 has been a blast. It's not Warlock powerful but it's good enough to give players a real shot at soloing in heroic hard content on first life with just the gear included with the Iconic plus an Impulse weapon. The character graphics are excellent and alongside the Eberron Gnome give a lot of choices for appearance after the first life.

The only hangup so far is a bug with the Dragonmark appearing in Iconic females whether you have the feat or not and whether you have selected it or not. You can toggle the status in UI settings and that removes it for the play session.

bolded and in yellow is the problem.

Heroic Hard?

On Heroic Elite Deep Gnome Wiz/Rogue is not good, not good at all!

Having the Rogue Levels drops your SPs, your DCs, your Spell Pen and you're basically a CC bot {Enchant & Illusion} so soloing is a nightmare anyway because you have NO DPS!

You also cannot take Rogue at Lvl 1 unless you have a spare +1 Heart handy and therefore will have reduced trap skills and as you're talking about new players on 1st Life I have to point out that you won't have the gear to make up for these losses.

Pure Wizard is a nightmare for a newbie.
Wiz/Rogue despite the perceived wisdom that this build has always been great is actually worse unless you know exactly what you're doing!


Players who want to start as a Caster should either buy Warlock or start as a Sorc {Pure or 18/2 Pally} or Bard.
The extra SPs and Evoc DC from the Sorc Past Life {possibly Draconic Destiny completed, maybe Magister and Fatesinger too}, the extra MRR from the Warlock Past Life {Chances are you will max 4 destinies as a 1st Life Warlock because this character will most likely get to 30, it's possible you'll do 1 or even more ERs before TRing} or the extra Enchantment DC from Active taken Bard Past Life will ALL Help with a later Wizard Life!

In fact I'd go so far as to say that if you really want to play a Wizard it's probably best to get 3x Sorc, 3x Warlock, 3xPaladin, 3xBarbarian, 3xFavSoul, 3xCleric and 1x Bard done along with all relevant Epic Past Lives done and out the way BEFORE you attempt it!

[Steve_Howe]

But I'm surprised that the deep gnome artificer would be better than the warforged. Why is that?

Racial tree, specifically the Gnomish Weapons Training enhancements are VERY nice for Light Repeaters. Check out the Tier 4 one.

Granted, pretty much the same is available to the non-iconic Gnomes but starting at level 15 really speaks to me.

BTW...to make Gnomes really work, you should take the Construct Exemplar epic feat (and its heroic feat pre-reqs) so you can Repair yourself like WF/BF can.

[slarden]

bolded and in yellow is the problem.

Having the Rogue Levels drops your SPs, your DCs, your Spell Pen and you're basically a CC bot {Enchant & Illusion} so soloing is a nightmare anyway because you have NO DPS!

You also cannot take Rogue at Lvl 1 unless you have a spare +1 Heart handy and therefore will have reduced trap skills and as you're talking about new players on 1st Life I have to point out that you won't have the gear to make up for these losses.

Pure Wizard is a nightmare for a newbie.
Wiz/Rogue despite the perceived wisdom that this build has always been great is actually worse unless you know exactly what you're doing!

i am currently playing a 18 wiz / 2 rouge deep gnome and tearing up le where pk works. It is not as reliable as necro as there is no undead killer and several things are immune to pk but not immune to fod . I was the first person on salona running a pk build in le raids as far as I know and have been running the build heroics, epics and legendary since the day deep gnome came out for a total of 13 life's on 4 characters.

it's really strong but it's a 1 trick pony and when the trick doesn't work it gets real expensive in terms of spell points.

I generally don't like to splash on a dc build but I did in this case because I only lose 2 spell pen and I didn't have room to take the capstone anyhow due to the ap requirement to get the 2 pk slas and Archlich which also gives int. The other option is to give up an sla for 1 dc.

the evasion is nice with the high reflex from insightful reflexes and as an int build i could max out the 4 key trapping skills.

yes you can solo heroics but the build is best for party play where other team members can cover for your weaknesses. Pk is available at level 7 so compared to necro you are instakilling super early.

[FranOhmsford]

i am currently playing a 18 wiz / 2 rouge deep gnome and tearing up le where pk works. It is not as reliable as necro as there is no undead killer and several things are immune to pk but not immune to fod . I was the first person on salona running a pk build in le raids as far as I know and have been running the build heroics, epics and legendary since the day deep gnome came out for a total of 13 life's on 4 characters.

it's really strong but it's a 1 trick pony and when the trick doesn't work it gets real expensive in terms of spell points.

I generally don't like to splash on a dc build but I did in this case because I only lose 2 spell pen and I didn't have room to take the capstone anyhow due to the ap requirement to get the 2 pk slas and Archlich which also gives int. The other option is to give up an sla for 1 dc.

the evasion is nice with the high reflex from insightful reflexes and as an int build i could max out the 4 key trapping skills.

yes you can solo heroics but the build is best for party play where other team members can cover for your weaknesses. Pk is available at level 7 so compared to necro you are instakilling super early.

I'd just like to point you back to the last line of the snippet you quoted from my last post.

Specifically this bit:

unless you know exactly what you're doing!

And as you've detailed in your signature the multiple builds you know inside and out I'd suggest that you DO know exactly what you're doing!

There's people out there playing completionist Clerics and doing well - That doesn't mean Cleric is a good choice for newbies! {Cleric's a massive TRAP for Newbies!}.

[slarden]

And as you've detailed in your signature the multiple builds you know inside and out I'd suggest that you DO know exactly what you're doing!

.

Thank you but some on sarlona will disagree with you!

[LightBear]

bolded and in yellow is the problem.

Heroic Hard?

On Heroic Elite Deep Gnome Wiz/Rogue is not good, not good at all!

Having the Rogue Levels drops your SPs, your DCs, your Spell Pen and you're basically a CC bot {Enchant & Illusion} so soloing is a nightmare anyway because you have NO DPS!

You also cannot take Rogue at Lvl 1 unless you have a spare +1 Heart handy and therefore will have reduced trap skills and as you're talking about new players on 1st Life I have to point out that you won't have the gear to make up for these losses.

Pure Wizard is a nightmare for a newbie.
Wiz/Rogue despite the perceived wisdom that this build has always been great is actually worse unless you know exactly what you're doing!


Players who want to start as a Caster should either buy Warlock or start as a Sorc {Pure or 18/2 Pally} or Bard.
The extra SPs and Evoc DC from the Sorc Past Life {possibly Draconic Destiny completed, maybe Magister and Fatesinger too}, the extra MRR from the Warlock Past Life {Chances are you will max 4 destinies as a 1st Life Warlock because this character will most likely get to 30, it's possible you'll do 1 or even more ERs before TRing} or the extra Enchantment DC from Active taken Bard Past Life will ALL Help with a later Wizard Life!

In fact I'd go so far as to say that if you really want to play a Wizard it's probably best to get 3x Sorc, 3x Warlock, 3xPaladin, 3xBarbarian, 3xFavSoul, 3xCleric and 1x Bard done along with all relevant Epic Past Lives done and out the way BEFORE you attempt it!

Being a deep gnome does help to land your illusion spells and it does help to add some damage to your spells.
That said, my first life as a deep gnome illusionist was a failure but that was prob due to multiclassing.
While having proper gear and points invested in Illusionist I could hardly get a mob to fail againt a Phantasmal Killer.
So I just swapped to raw force damage and yes that does drain your manapool faster then...
I might give a pure deep gnome illusionist another go once done with sun elves and FvS, Cleric, rogue and arti but the cooldown times of that spell makes it realy slow gameplay. You can't rely on it to get through a quest and it kinda makes for a boring play if you just go for that one school.
One school that has just two spells in it that effects mobs, true they stack somewhat on each other but c'mon two of which one is a crowd control.

Btw, I did have fun playing a deep gnome. I just love it that they're the nr 1 scobadivers! (You'l get it once you take one out for a swim. )

[EvilGremlin]

Racial tree, specifically the Gnomish Weapons Training enhancements are VERY nice for Light Repeaters. Check out the Tier 4 one.

Granted, pretty much the same is available to the non-iconic Gnomes but starting at level 15 really speaks to me.

BTW...to make Gnomes really work, you should take the Construct Exemplar epic feat (and its heroic feat pre-reqs) so you can Repair yourself like WF/BF can.

Yeah that totally makes sense. I will look in to getting this feat. Doubt I will ever attempt a deep gnome wizard (or any wizard) again though. It is just too much effort for too little return. My deep gnome assassin's next life will be a deep gnome 18 war/2 rogue. A plate-wearing, dual short-sword wielding trap monkey Intelligence build. Two-weapon fighting, max UMD, tumble, traps, massive dire charge DC and a boat load of damage reduction... On paper it just looks so **** good. I hope it plays like I think it will. LOL