Spell Point Conservation

[Enoach]

I think everyone who has ever played a Spell Caster where the majority of their contribution be it DPS or Crowd Control or even Buffs have found themselves looking at an empty Blue Bar and asking themselves the Question - Do I drink a mnemonic potion or do I wait for the shrine?

This can be a tough question at the time it happens and made even worse when your potions will grant 300 - 600 SP back and you only need about 200ish. But have you ever stopped to ask the question "How did I get here?" and "What I could have done differently to get more out of what I have?"

Now back in the early days a caster with buff spells would "burn" any remaining spell points buffing party members that were not resting or rest last to buff others before they rested. While this wasn't a time saver it did help to conserve that SP for other uses. This method does still work as long as others are not in a hurry to finish the quest while you get your SP back so you can continue to contribute

But that is not really what I want to discuss. I want to discuss how Metamagic Feats can contribute to diminishing our available Spell Points, some of which we don't even realize (Like a slow leaking toilet)

The Big Boom Feats Maximize/Empower/Empower Healing
This is the need for big number when we cast a spell it is only second by the flashness of the spell - Be honest you like Fireball because of the explosion hehehe. But have you ever thought about the cost of that +25 SP when Maximized, or +15 SP when Empowered etc. ?

One of the features that the Monster Manual offers is the ability to know how many HP certain unlock monsters have as well as have left. But even before that a person that took time to observe a spell hit and its amount vs the movement of the Red Bar could make an estimate ie, 300 Damage moved the bar about 10%, hmmm this looks like it might have about 3,000 HP etc.

So what is my point? My point is we have options that allow us to scale how much SP we invest by adding the spell multiple times to the hotbar and setting the Meta's. Picking the right version of the spell can maximize the SP to Damage needed ratio. Allowing you to save between 15 and 40 Spell Points because the spell's base damage is enough to finish the job.

This was something I learned while playing a cleric with healing - Learning the right spells to use so that I could heal a person in the fewest casts but at the same time minimize over-healing. I've run with builds that were worse then WF with zero healing amp/or making heal friendly to players were a cure light wounds would be enough (and sometimes too much) to heal them. Again the trick here is learning when you don't need to spend the extra SP to get the desired result - Killing the mob.

Enlarge
Enlarge is by far one of the more obvious Meta's but it can cause problems with SP consumption if you leave it on. This is one I totally recommend having as its own Hotbar as the toggle off/on may be hard to remember/do depending on what is happening

Quicken
I have talked to several caster players that toggle this on and forget it accepting the +10 SP for a no failed concentration check. This is important because if you are tripped, made helpless or incapacitated while casting the Quicken will not prevent the spell failure.

But this is not a very Spell Point conservation way to use this ability. Sure it sucks to attempt to cast and fail - even more so if the spell was for healing and you died or was all that was needed to end that mobs life but now you died...

This is another Meta that is best used with a Hotbar for a specific purpose. The reason is that depending on your playstyle this meta only benefits you when you need to make a concentration check. If you spend more time outside of things like taking damage say as a back line spell chucker then you will have fewer instances of this feature. If however, you like to jump in the middle and blast away like a barbarian spamming cleaves then sure having this on all the time will be beneficial and you might want a hotbar where this is off so you can conserve for those times you find yourself outside of taking lots of damage - say when a tank/CC has the room covered.

Heighten Spell
I think of all the feats this one is by far the one that is nefarious. The reason I say this is we are constantly concerned about keeping our DCs relevant with some people looking for between 80% and 100% effectiveness in the content they are playing. Which is made even more so by the fact so many run elite and at level. But have you ever considered the cost between 5 SP (+1 DC) and 40 SP (+8 DC) vs what DC is actually needed to be as effective as your considered effectiveness. I'm willing to bet many turn this feat on as soon as they get it and never turn it off - I know I've done this until I really thought about it.

Example: This last life I ran on my Wizard I took Heighten, but decided I would not turn it on until I noticed stuff was saving. Now keeping in mind that at every level possible I always have the right Int booster - Including Insight and Exceptional from Greensteel and even a level 16 +8 Int item, so before anyone jumps at this, yes I realize Gear can make a difference [I have spell school gear appropriate for the level as well]. But is surprised me that it was not until I started to run the new content of "Search and Rescue" (I out leveled the other ones before I could give them a try) and only in the Drow area that I found I needed to turn Heighten on. Even then it was more to bring some of my spell DCs up but was still not needed for all my spells. I even ran the Amrath Level 13 quests in a full group without need to use heighten and my webs were very sticky.

Now obviously this does not effect your highest spell level, but consider what spells you are using and the potential of how much SP you could have had for another cast(s) if you realized your DCs were high enough with your natural abilities and available gear.

In the past I've talked about turning off heighten to conserve SP when you know the mobs are saving and taking 1/2 damage anyway. But people should also consider turning this off if your DCs are already high enough to be very to extremely effective.

-------------------
So if anything I hope I have stimulated your brain on thinking how you might be over-using SP when you don't need to.

[Thrudh]

The real trick to SP management is to let that fighter kill the 1-2 mobs that's left without casting another spell.

It's actually okay to sit back once a while as a caster, and do nothing.

[Enoach]

The real trick to SP management is to let that fighter kill the 1-2 mobs that's left without casting another spell.

It's actually okay to sit back once a while as a caster, and do nothing.

This gave me a laugh, but it is so true. Sometimes it is hard to fight that urge just to finish it 1 to 2 seconds faster. But if you are going to do it, make sure you don't spend any more SP then what you need to do it so you can have SP without having to drink mnemonics to keep up .

[AlcoArgo]

[SARCASM ON]
Thank you for telling us all how to play a caster.
[SARCASM OFF]

The only 2 hard and fast MUST DO rules in DDO are 1) CON is not a dump stat and 2) Always invest in UMD

Yes, that is my opinion and the irony is intentional. Everything after this is also opinion because while there may be bad choices there are no absolutes.

There are very few quests that require a caster to closely watch their SP bar - especially if a Sorc/FvS where you essentially get double the spell points. The introduction of SLAs and Echos of Power mean that a caster is never truly out of it.

I have had no trouble running with Max and Emp on at all times and that will only change if in a quest that has a particularly long time between shrines or no shrines at all. With the current style of quest design to overpopulate the landscape with shrines I often skip a few of them. The other metas are specific to spells.

What you didn't mention is the ability to select which metas are active by spell. Your quicken example being perfect for this as it is very useful to have on at all times for heal spells (or recon for WF) and pointless for buffs. Beyond that you need to look at casting times - Otto's dancing ball has a long casting time and is likely to be interrupted so quicken away while magic missile doesn't so why bother?

While I always have the metas on my hotbar in case of emergencies, toggling these metas from your hotbar is a rather silly waste of time in a fight and I will bet that far too often people will forget to toggle them back when not needed.

[Enoach]

[SARCASM ON]
Thank you for telling us all how to play a caster.
[SARCASM OFF]

The only 2 hard and fast MUST DO rules in DDO are 1) CON is not a dump stat and 2) Always invest in UMD

Yes, that is my opinion and the irony is intentional. Everything after this is also opinion because while there may be bad choices there are no absolutes.

There are very few quests that require a caster to closely watch their SP bar - especially if a Sorc/FvS where you essentially get double the spell points. The introduction of SLAs and Echos of Power mean that a caster is never truly out of it.

I have had no trouble running with Max and Emp on at all times and that will only change if in a quest that has a particularly long time between shrines or no shrines at all. With the current style of quest design to overpopulate the landscape with shrines I often skip a few of them. The other metas are specific to spells.

What you didn't mention is the ability to select which metas are active by spell. Your quicken example being perfect for this as it is very useful to have on at all times for heal spells (or recon for WF) and pointless for buffs. Beyond that you need to look at casting times - Otto's dancing ball has a long casting time and is likely to be interrupted so quicken away while magic missile doesn't so why bother?

While I always have the metas on my hotbar in case of emergencies, toggling these metas from your hotbar is a rather silly waste of time in a fight and I will bet that far too often people will forget to toggle them back when not needed.

First, I was not telling anyone how to "Play" their caster. I was offering my experience on how we "burn" SP sometime unaware and sometimes when not needed, as well as providing lessons I have learned that can help them stretch their SP further.

I did mention the Setting of Spells Meta's - See where I mention separating Hotbars. Now I didn't explicitly say use the Right Click and set the Meta's with the menu. But I did mention setting them up as their own hotbar. So yes this is a good point that you can explicitly set the Meta's associated to a spell on the hotbar that way your Toggle of the meta's can be your default for the 51% of the time spells and give you that flexibility to conserve the SP for a cast of more spells.

I'm glad you feel running Max/Emp on at all times and you don't run out of SP. And it is totally up to everyone if the 500 damage Fireball for +40 SP is worth it instead of the 200 point one that would also kill the mob. I think you are an exception as I've been running up in levels multiple times and have run into many a spell caster that is out of SP after the first one or two fights only to talk with them to find they had to have all the metas on All the time. Playing a caster is more fun when you can cast spells and not waiting for your 12 SP from Echoes.

As a Note three lives ago on my Wizard I ran with Max/Empower always on but 99% of the spells I cast didn't use Max/Empower

Now SLAs are a different animal, here having all the Meta's on all the time make sense. But SLAs are not always available to different styles, such as the Heavy CC caster or Instant Death. Also not everyone is a Sorcerer/Favored Soul. Druid, Cleric, Wizard etc also are casters .

You do bring up a good point on casting speed. Quicken does help for spells like Symbols, Dancing Ball, Clouds and even the Mass Heal to also cut down on their casting time. But these are also not spells commonly spammed in the course of combat.

The other thing to consider is if the 5 SP per level you spend to raise the DC of your spell is actual giving you the best benefit.

If a 30 DC is enough for 99% success rate, is 31 DC providing enough benefit to justify the extra 5 SP. After 5 casts that is 25 Spell Points per DC, and many players of casters cast more than 5 spells between shrines.


What I was doing with this post was showing places we can conserve and stretch SP that may not have been thought about by a fellow caster player.

[UurlockYgmeov]

nice post!

personally, after just finishing three lives as a cleric (with well over 4K spell points by 30)...

1. sla mass moderate cure's are great! free metamagics.
2. if they used can as a dump stat, or die more than a couple of times - there is always space in my backpack till the next shrine. From that point on - cheaper to use a raise dead scroll than mana on healing them.
3. don't chase heals. don't attempt to heal around corners.
4. spot healing is for suckers and those with blue koolaide addictions.
5. curses,diseases, MTD's, poisons, blindness, slowed, paralyzed, : that is what potions are for. Find them, buy them, hotbar them. Don't ask your cleric to do it for you.
6. Always spell dump at the shrine. masses follow.
7. if you miss masses - better have a potion cause I won't cast it again until next shrine. :P
8. if you run into a trap and die when there is a perfectly good trapper in the party... you can sit there and think. :P
9. see that nice flaming circle on the ground? its sacred and heals you.... use it!
10. Divine Wrath!!! every 35 seconds massive AoE healing and light damage - free metamagics!
11. If you out run your cleric, better have pots. Questions? See 3 above.
12. see 1-11 above.

PS - don't forget to thank your cleric, tip your cleric, and most of all - Bark and Jump your cleric! :P

[Uska]

In the old days you actually had to conserve sp as SP potions weren't that widely available to bad that's no longer the case.

[JOTMON]

The real trick to SP management is to let that fighter kill the 1-2 mobs that's left without casting another spell.

It's actually okay to sit back once a while as a caster, and do nothing.

The caster unwritten rule book says..
1. wait for melee to engage or otherwise almost kill a mob then insta-kill it to get credit for the kill before they can..
2. If party members runaway while you are buffing, they don't need buffs... if they wanted buffs they would have waited..


Things to keep in mind..
~Manage/adjust your SP bar to the Boss HP bar.. you don't want to run out of SP before the boss dies...
~Know where you mana bar is in relation to where rest shrines are.. its ok to ask if you don't know..
~buff anyone not shrining and those done shrining with individual buffs with any left over mana before you shrine.. save mass buffs for when you are done shrining
(and make sure to target yourself...don't want some pesky party member running off with your mass buff).
~some shrines you can go back to, some are use or lose.. get to know which you can save and come back to..
~remember where the shrines are when progressing and ensure they are cleared before moving forward.. when things go bad.. a fallback shrine is a good backup plan...
~set your meta's by spell on your hotbars.. not all spells need full meta's and you can have multiple versions setup in different hotbar locations.



Mana bar is not your only resource..
Try and save your mana for the midst of battle, outside of battle consider using alternative resources..
Use scrolls ,wands, potions when appropriate.. GH, Stoneskin. poison, curse lots of things are easily and readily available from those Unlimited resource scroll/potion/wand vendors..
Rez/Heal/restoration scrolls.. the NPC's have an unlimited supply of resources for you to spend that excess plat on...


Mana resources.. stockpile mana pots of all sizes, and any other Mana regen options.. you don't always need to use the biggest and best ones..
but you want to have some mana regen options for when you might need them.. adjust what you need to suit your inventory...


Man regen items..
http://ddowiki.com/page/Spell_point

Resting Resting at a Rest Shrine Ethereal Rest Shrines can be purchased from the DDO Store or by turning in a Large Eberron Dragonshard Fragment. Note that the shrine is Bound to Character, but the Eberron Dragonshard Fragments are not bound and can be traded, purchased on the Auction House, etc.
Rest of the Eladrin Statuette from the DDO Store or from turning in 3 Small Eberron Dragonshard Fragments.

Waiting in a public area (Inn or around town) regenerates 1 HP + 5 SP per 6 seconds, or 4 HP + 10 SP if you have the Blessing of the Silver Flame permanent favor reward effect. More if you are inside an Inn and drink a beverage.
Consumables Draught of Sparkling Apple Cider from turning in 1 Commendation: Villagers of Eveningstar restores 120 (approx) Spell Points over 20 seconds
Mnemonic Elixirs can be found in chests, picked as quest end rewards, traded, purchased on the Auction House, or purchased on the DDO Store.
Shard Trinket of Mnemonic Enhancement from turning in 3 Medium Eberron Dragonshard Fragments.
Essence of Cunning potions regenerate 1 SP per 6 seconds for 15 minutes for a total of 150 SP over time and can be purchased in Amrath for about 1000 pp each if you attain 75 favor with The Yugoloth.
Festivult Silver Coin turn-ins include Dal Quor, the Region of Dreams Jelly Cakes, which disease the consumer and regen SP over time.
Xachosian Larvae from Xachosian Eardweller disease the consumer and regenerate SP over time.
Clickies Archivist's Necklace from Korthos has 2 charges per day of Minor Mnemonic Aid which restores 10 to 35 SP.
Ring of Spell Storing from General Tanankh's chest in the Sands of Menechtarun has 3 charges per day of Spell Store which restores 25 SP. Epic Ring of Spell Storing has 3 charges per day of Major Mnemonic Aid which restores 105 to 600 SP.

Mysterious Bauble from The Weapons Shipment in Amrath has 1 charge per day of Major Mnemonic Aid which restores 105 to 600 SP.
Vile Blasphemy from the Ascension Chamber raid in the Upper Necropolis has 3 charges per day of Power Drain (clicky) which restores 2d6 SP every 6 seconds for 66 seconds.
Twisted Talisman from The Last Stand in The Red Fens has 3 charges of Blood Sacrifice which restores 50 SP in exchange for 25 HP. These charges recharge 1/day. Epic Twisted Talisman has 5 charges per day of Blood Sacrifice.

Items Greensteel items can be crafted with the Concordant Opposition property that give a 4% chance to gain 30 SP each time the wearer is damaged in battle.
Halcyon Boots have a 5% chance to grant 15 temporary spell points when the wearer is damaged in battle.
Torc of Prince Raiyum-de II from the Zawabi's Revenge raid has the Transform Kinetic Energy property that gives about a 5% chance to gain about 20 SP each time the wearer is damaged in battle. Epic Torc of Prince Raiyum-de II has the Transform Kinetic Energy property

Toven's Hammer has the Transform Kinetic Energy property
Class abilities Clerics can use the Divine Vitality enhancement only on other party members to return some SP to them.
Bards with the Spellsinger II enhancement can sing the Spellsong Vigor song on themselves or party members to return 2 SP every 2 seconds for the length of the song.
Bards with the Spellsinger II enhancement have a percent chance equal to their Perform skill that each song will also do a Spellsong Burst that returns 19-25 SP to every party member near the bard.
Echoes of Power ensures that no caster can truly run out of spell points.

[UurlockYgmeov]

In the old days you actually had to conserve sp as SP potions weren't that widely available to bad that's no longer the case.

Uurlock so dreaded cleric lives, he had stockpiled them since he tr'd out of wizard (first life). Burnt through many, and I suspect that the shortage will return in general soon enough.

The entire player base is currently nursing a full-blown epidemic of blue (and red) koolaide addiction!!!

[Enoach]

In the old days you actually had to conserve sp as SP potions weren't that widely available to bad that's no longer the case.

I still practice conservation myself. I have a hard time feeling like I'm doing a good job as a caster if I have to drink 2 to 3 times my spell point bar just to make it to the next shrine. But that also reminds me of another key point in spell point conservation: the Right Spell for the Job... Such as any elemental damage where the mob is highly resistant - sure it will eventually kill it, but using something else would be better either damage per cast wise such as reducing the number of casts.

It also gives me the feeling that I don't trust the other party members to contribute to the success of the mission. To me that is a big deal because I prefer a team effort.

Uurlock so dreaded cleric lives, he had stockpiled them since he tr'd out of wizard (first life). Burnt through many, and I suspect that the shortage will return in general soon enough.

The entire player base is currently nursing a full-blown epidemic of blue (and red) koolaide addiction!!!

I agree, because I tend to lean towards conservation I also find that I have more than enough - I ended up stashing a bunch (300+ collected over my time playing) in TR CACHEs to get some shared inventory back.

[SirValentine]

Not sure why turning metas on or off should matter much. We have permanent meta settings for each instance of each spell on our hotbars. And we've had it for many years.

Before they implemented that, toggling metas on and off was a really big deal. It's simply not anymore. Set them right for each spell. With multiple copies of a spell, with different metas selected, if appropriate.

[Uska]

Uurlock so dreaded cleric lives, he had stockpiled them since he tr'd out of wizard (first life). Burnt through many, and I suspect that the shortage will return in general soon enough.

The entire player base is currently nursing a full-blown epidemic of blue (and red) koolaide addiction!!!

I got pretty good at doing ToD, Shroud, or VoD solo cleric no pots unless they donated them it was pretty close sometimes especially VoD when idiots forgot remove curse pots, I let them die and if nobody rezed them I would if I had scrolls or SP at the end of the quest.