Template for a U43 ARCANE warrior

[Emerge2012]

Did you even read what I wrote? Here I'll quote myself for emphasis:



KT is the same number of feats as Khopesh Proficiency.

Longswords give you better options up until cap, when Calamity is competitive with longswords (though arguably they're equal, you could stay Longsword as well). There's zero reason to take Khopesh until you're at cap, with a Calamity in hand, at which time you can swap KT for Khop Prof at Fred and be good to switch over.

And, like I said, going KT has the advantage of Oathblade already being Keen, which means you can push your IC:Slashing feat back until right before cap, allowing you to front-load other things first. Going Khop early would mean you need to also take your IC feat earlier, which means not getting something else.

I unironically edited my post just before you posted this apparently.

Though I'll quickly point out again that for leveling purposes you'll never need to melee so even bothering to use any of that over instakills and nukes is stupid. If you wanna flavor then go ahead and flavor but at cap, the only thing that matters, khopesh still has the goods. You'll notice in OP's post he doesn't frontload for khopesh, because melee early is pointless.

Lastly, fast-stacking vulnerable > everything every longsword offers.

[PublicEnemy]

Trinket: Deadly, Neg Healing Amp 61, Ins Phys Shelt 18

Where in the hell does that item come from?

[Djjinni]

Where in the hell does that item come from?

I read this as a cannith crafted item but I think Neg Amp and Deadly are conflicting in the Suffix slot if so :/

Editted because can't tell difference between prefix and suffix apparently

[Emerge2012]

Where in the hell does that item come from?

I read this as a cannith crafted item but I think Neg Amp and Deadly are conflicting over the Prefix slot if so :/

Cannith Crafted. Also Neg Amp does indeed go into the suffix slot.

[PublicEnemy]

Oh I see, it always seems....unfinished/lacking to me when you have to resort to such things as crafted ***** like cannith or slavelords.

[slarden]

Oh I see, it always seems....unfinished/lacking to me when you have to resort to such things as crafted ***** like cannith or slavelords.

I will update when the new gear comes out this week. The new armor has neg hamp so the cannith crafted trinkt won’t be needed. The new boots may well remove the need for slavers boots but with recent changes it’s no more than 2 runs to make a slavers item.

[Zretch]

A couple of things.

Are you picking up haste boost anywhere? Now that you're out of vistani, are you twisting it in from LD? I find that, for bosses, haste boost is a huge difference maker for any fight that lasts more than a few seconds.

Second, I'm not sure the value you're getting from Khopeshes is worth the feat slot. How about just use scimitars, like the KT scimitar which slows things?

[Pilgrim1]

A few things:

* If you have access to a good keen weapon then you can drop IC and OC from the build to free up 2 feet slots.
* have you thought about a 3 AP dip into inquisitive to grab duel xbow style?
* I have a PM setup that does not use weapons and i have no difficulty doing enough DPS in r5 to kill camps and bosses.
* If you go t5 in arch mage for arcane supremacy you can easily set up situations that each tick you full heal, in r7.

[Montegue]

A few things:

* If you have access to a good keen weapon then you can drop IC and OC from the build to free up 2 feet slots.
* have you thought about a 3 AP dip into inquisitive to grab duel xbow style?
* I have a PM setup that does not use weapons and i have no difficulty doing enough DPS in r5 to kill camps and bosses.
* If you go t5 in arch mage for arcane supremacy you can easily set up situations that each tick you full heal, in r7.

Would the dual crossbow thing be worthwhile without all the feats that make shooting viable? Precise shot, rapid shot, rapid reload, etc?

[Zretch]

Would the dual crossbow thing be worthwhile without all the feats that make shooting viable? Precise shot, rapid shot, rapid reload, etc?

Dual wield crossbow takes away two stat items. Single weapon fighting was selected so you wouldn't lose the orb slot, which can be a big source of spellpower (nullification/insightful nullification) or neg healing amp. In my EK builds, I tended to go towards two weapon fighting so I could actually melee with two stat-sticks, as the first number damage wasn't as significant to me as the added damage from spellsword and scion. Being able to dual wield a nightmother's for DCs and a wild flame for fire spellpower was nice. With Sharn gear, nightmothers isn't as much a requirement anymore, so there's better options for having a better non-stat stick weapon in your main hand.

[Montegue]

Dual wield crossbow takes away two stat items. Single weapon fighting was selected so you wouldn't lose the orb slot, which can be a big source of spellpower (nullification/insightful nullification) or neg healing amp. In my EK builds, I tended to go towards two weapon fighting so I could actually melee with two stat-sticks, as the first number damage wasn't as significant to me as the added damage from spellsword and scion. Being able to dual wield a nightmother's for DCs and a wild flame for fire spellpower was nice. With Sharn gear, nightmothers isn't as much a requirement anymore, so there's better options for having a better non-stat stick weapon in your main hand.

One of the things I haven't been able to get around is the lack of +4 Insightful when I'm not using a Nightmother's. I use the Moonwillow shortsword, which has a really nice stat line up (Keen, Vorpal, bonus Holy damage, and a good damage dice profile). I can then toss Mistfallen in my off hand for Insightful, or use Stygian if I want a little more Neg power.

I think with the raid goggles, the crossbow might be viable (at least in terms of maintaining your DC numbers). I dual wield on my Sorc a bit (obviously, not as well because of no +cha to hit, but he uses NM Scepter and the Wild Flame as you describe).

With my setup, however, I have SWF, ISWF, and GSWF. That puts out a lot of hits when I want it to, and if spellsword is landing the damage is decent. I have long been curious if we could make a shooty Pale Master work well, and how many feats would need to be invested to make shooting worthwhile (especially if we don't get T5 Inquisitor).

[Kolbathin]

Why Mass Frog in the build? Do you have enough DC on it to use it?

Also how will the gear layout look with the new Dreadkeeper set?

[SpartanKiller13]

Why Mass Frog in the build? Do you have enough DC on it to use it?

My 19-Wis tank alt with 0 DC gear can hit Mass Frog on a hilarious amount of enemies. Stuff like constructs and undead, which arcane casters are notoriously weak against, often have terrible saves I wouldn't take it on that toon if I was running higher-level content, but I pick up a surprising amount of kills with it in raids.

At higher difficulties it'll require slightly more investment, but any DC caster gets a lot of that by accident (Spell Focus Mastery etc) and it's pretty trivial to throw a swap item or two before hitting Frog for even more of a DC bump. Also stuff like Magister, and sentient weapons etc. So yeah, even if you can't use it on everything like a Wis-caster can, it's highly effective and definitely worth considering on all casters IMO.

[Emerge2012]

Why Mass Frog in the build? Do you have enough DC on it to use it?

Also how will the gear layout look with the new Dreadkeeper set?

With the listed gearset and zero tomes you should still end up with 42 or so Wisdom and most of the Transmutation DC gear covered. This is enough to work very well against undead and constructs.

If you have Cannith Crafting to make the trinket then stick with the listed gear as it's quite superior to the Dreadkeeper set in almost every way.

[Montegue]

With the listed gearset and zero tomes you should still end up with 42 or so Wisdom and most of the Transmutation DC gear covered. This is enough to work very well against undead and constructs.

If you have Cannith Crafting to make the trinket then stick with the listed gear as it's quite superior to the Dreadkeeper set in almost every way.

Um...


Yeah I don't know that I agree with that. I have full dreadkeeper and just got the new orb (+5 enchant, +5 necro, Qual int 5)...


I'm destroying stuff. It's actually a little silly. The Necro spells are amazing. I'm missing magical efficiency (I'm not really missing it, 2bh, my SLAs mean I'm spending a lot less mana per encounter). My DCs are solid, I have plenty of damage in close, and I only seem to be suffering on boss fights and against constructs. Everything else literally can't kill me. I can't get my neg spell power high enough, I don't think, wearing arcsteel. YMMV, but I like the new set quite a bit. If only Stygian had +4 insightful spell focus...

[slarden]

Why Mass Frog in the build? Do you have enough DC on it to use it?

Also how will the gear layout look with the new Dreadkeeper set?

Mass Frog has limited utility but there isn't much else to take at 28 and it works on things that pale masters can use a boost - constructs and undead. With just your standard gear without overloaded wisdom mass frog still works on many constructs and undead. I like to buff my wisdom some to get a larger # of undead and constructs, but even if dumping wisdom you will get some with all the universal dc boosts.

I probably will retool with dreadkeeper but haven't done it yet. The main issue will be spell pen.

[Montegue]

Mass Frog has limited utility but there isn't much else to take at 28 and it works on things that pale masters can use a boost - constructs and undead. With just your standard gear without overloaded wisdom mass frog still works on many constructs and undead. I like to buff my wisdom some to get a larger # of undead and constructs, but even if dumping wisdom you will get some with all the universal dc boosts.

I probably will retool with dreadkeeper but haven't done it yet. The main issue will be spell pen.

I'm having issues with spell pen, too. My bandaid solution was a +7 on my slavers trinket, but that's still coming up short against harpies even with three wizard past lives. Haven't gone into Tethymar to see if the Drow bounce me on epic or low reapers yet.

[Tilomere]

I'm having issues with spell pen, too.

AFAIK it still uses the spell pen of the ability in front of it. So an attack or fireball won't cause mass frog to work, but a soundburst will.

As to OP, if you want to melee in legendary, the AC on mobs means you will need to go all in with seeker, deception, accuracy including insightful bonuses to confirm crits and have a decent hit chance. Basically drop your DC to 0 and use dire charge for helpless to further drop AC (Dex 0 mobs) and allow deception to work. And you need the crit range/multiplier bonus from EK or other source for that crit to matter much. Plus doublestrike of ~100%. And armor-pen of ~100% for all the undead and constructs. And tensors for BaB.

You also need melee power, and the 30 you have from epic levels is about 170 short of what a melee has.

129 necro isn't going to be that great in high reaper either, and the sacrifices to get it there and melee are going to drop your mass hold and PK down to a level it just will fall apart.

When your character does 1/2 damage due to attack rating/lack of tensors/deception attack/seeker attack, 1/2 damage due to a lack of melee power, 1/2 damage due to a lack of doublestrike, 1/2 damage due to a lack of seeker damage/deception damage/scion of ethereal/armor pen/deadly, and 1/2 damage on trash due to a lack of helpless damage, you are just better off tossing meteors and necrotic rays while Rend ticks. Missing too many x2 multipliers on this to get good melee damage for elite, let alone R5.

You could also go TWF Aasimar Fallen, because that is another x2 damage from:

Suffering + LGS Dust Offhand
Damage debuffing = x1.86
Vulnerability 20% (Aasimar Fallen)
Melted -10 PRR/MRR (Sufferng)
LGS Dust -35 PRR
Shattered -10 PRR/MRR (Suffering Sentience)

This will give you a melee that literally does 32x damage.

[jasonayoung]

Mass Frog has limited utility but there isn't much else to take at 28 and it works on things that pale masters can use a boost - constructs and undead. With just your standard gear without overloaded wisdom mass frog still works on many constructs and undead. I like to buff my wisdom some to get a larger # of undead and constructs, but even if dumping wisdom you will get some with all the universal dc boosts.

I probably will retool with dreadkeeper but haven't done it yet. The main issue will be spell pen.

I went T5 in PM for big aura. And melee as dagger VKF in Shadowdancer. Max int, great necro and enchant. Vamp form and scion of shadowfell giving vampirism on fast hits. Vamp does fascinate now as CC.

The kicker is consume in shadowdancer is int based implosion. Ten times better than frog imho. It rocks. And you get melee boosts and defense in dancer.

[Zretch]

Vulnerability 20% (Aasimar Fallen)

Aasimar fallen is a form toggle. I'm going to guess that it won't work with a pale master shroud, so take that into account if you go this way.