Stand n Spam bot (perma first life Shiradi perfected for 2020)

[DDOisFree]

*I've been advised to wait until the upcoming paladin changes to ETR to this build, but prior to that it is fully viable, and should hopefully improve after. Its already tried and tested as both 18 Sorc / 2 Paladin and 16 Sorc / 4 FVS, and while either of them work individually, combining both together is the key to making the ultimate Shiradi caster.

Bladeforged with your personal preference of 12 Sorcerer or Wizard (can try both while getting optional ETR PL's), plus 4 levels each of Paladin and Favoured Soul. I'm planning on trying 12 Wizard now on my next ETR. The FVS levels are for Angel of Vengeance force spell buffs (crit and temp SP on crit), and the Paladin levels are to achieve total saves immunity which vastly boost not only your defense but DPS as you will avoid most enemy CCs (knockdown is still an unavoidable ^$%"£^&).

Either class maximizes INT, not CHA for Spellcraft. Sorc only cares about SP from CHA not DCs, which will still be higher due to gear bonuses being doubled:

8 STR
6 DEX
16-18 CON
18 INT (all ability raises go here even for a Sorc)
6 WIS
14-16 CHA (you need to be able to reach 38 CHA from this base alone with gear / buffs / tomes based on the current mechanism for Divine Grace to reach +14 all saves with 4 Paladin Levels. Start with 16 CHA, and once you are able to reach 40 CHA, ETR / LR to 18 CON / 14 CHA)

Max out (23 / 11 points) in Spellcraft, Repair, Perform (for shiridi sonic procs), Balance, Heal to improve your CLW / CMW (slow to heal others but you will have more SP than you need to spam them between fights or on someone close to death. Only raise this during the FVS and Pal levels ofc). UMD only needs to be high enough to optionally use Resurrect Scrolls, 1 point or 11 points based on your gear, raise dead scrolls are still fine if you are prepared to spam CMW / CLW / Recon after. Either Haggle or Search, or both over concentration if you have +5 or better INT tome. Concentration can also be maxed but is the least important, normally it can be left at 12-16 hard points to ensure you have the other skills maxed. This is still enough for a sorc to leave quicken turned off even on low level reapers, just have it set to always on for Reconstruct and Displacement. 1 point in tumble if you want it, maybe even 11 because its still more useful than Concentration tbh. Wizard doesnt need conc all as you will always need Quicken on.

You need 4 spells and these 4 spells only - Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, Chain Missiles, Force Missiles (use all your other slots for buffs / utility). Force missiles is needed to spam on fire immune mobs instead of scorching ray (for sorcerer), or if you're a wizard it becomes better than scorching ray, with that being used on missile immune mobs (both classes can also easily fit two more level 3 spells out of Frost Lance, Lightning Bolt, Acid Splash, but due to all having a save you only need to use these on mobs immune to both fire and missiles, of which I haven't come across any*. It helps to have Frost Lance the most to rotate with Scorching Ray on missile immune mobs) ... *Wait theres Raiyum and only Raiyum.

Sorcerer only gets 1 level 6 spell slot for mandatory Reconstruct (communion of scribing isnt useful due to its cooldown being too long so dont bother wasting points on it). Maybe a wizard can spec a bit into PM, but other than doing so to get the skellie, this isnt necessary. Sorcs can cast GH from scrolls. Wizard can have Recon, GH and True Seeing or even Chain Lightning.

Wizard gets 3 extra feats, more spell slots, repair as a class skill and magic missile and chain missile as SLAs, plus archmage adds more to force crits ... but you always need to have quicken turned on plus longer cooldowns.

Heroic Feat list (you no longer need maximize / empower / intensify** for anything other than CLW / CMW [which is optional] on this build).

Quicken Spell (still mandatory for Reconstruct and Displacement alone), Mental Toughness, Improved Mental Toughness, Skill Focus: Spellcraft, Force of Personality, Insightful Reflexes, Enlarge Spell, Lord of Blades, Grace of Battle.

Wizard - add Luck of Heroes and 2 x Toughness, or 3 x Toughness. I've already tested out Self Sufficient and Skill Focus: Repair - they dont help enough for self healing on higher reaper difficulties to be worth it compared to HP.

Epic Feats:

21 - Epic Mental Toughness
24 - Toughness or Epic Toughness (Intensify** is **** for this build, the Master things are ****, Glacial Wrath isnt necessary, more SP isnt needed, survivability is key).
26 - Epic Focus: Spellcraft
27 - Epic Will - Never be affected by enemy crowd control spells again
28 - Epic Spell Power: Force
29 - Epic Spell Power: Repair (already tried fire and it isnt as worth it, +20 repair will help you much more with maintaining self healing into mid reaper levels, your missiles are already better than Arcane Pulse).
30 - Epic Reflex (rolling a 1 is consistently worse than losing 10 PRR from Epic Damage Reduction), Scion of the Plane of Fire

** While Spellcraft / Spellpower are the only thing you need, this mostly applies for the Shiradi procs. Missile spells and Scorching ray base damage doesnt benefit enough from the metamagics to offset the SP increase, Enlarge Spell is better for safety.

You need to level all EDs to unlock level 4 / 3 / 1 twists for Stormrage, Summer Smoke and Interrogation for most content that you can self heal though, or Imperceptible Casting for higher level reaper content when you dont want aggro. While Dragonhide can be used to give full saves immunity, fortitude things are never as crippling as failed will or reflex saves and you should ofc have deathward / deathblock.

Total Reflex and Will save Immunities allow you to keep casting and bunny hopping through almost anything which significantly boosts the DPS output of this build compared to Magister or Draconic level 20 casters. More HP means you are less susceptible to death from missile aggro. The points to put in Shiradi are mostly self explanatory, for enhancements you simply want all the Force / Fire crit and temporaty SP on crit buffs from AOV, and likewise from Fire Savant or Archmage. Either Sorc or Wizard can splash into EK up to the force field bubble or at least to remove the WF arcane failure, or wizard can also have a pet Skelly.

Friendly fun fact / advice - The short duration on displacement is easily managed by learning how to set up mouse macros on any standard mouse with two browser thumb buttons. Look up and learn how to assign 3 of your skill buttons to middle mouse click, and two thumb buttons. Assign Stormrage, Displacement and Reconstruct to these three buttons as you prefer (I use middle click for stormrage, back button for displacement, forward button for reconstruct). Also everyone playing DDO should learn how to do this with any class that relies on mid combat self heals or buffs (E.G for my DC wizard, I have Finger, Neg Energy Burst and Wail set to these 3 buttons). If theres anyone that actually still plays a healer, this is also how you can heal others almost instantly as soon as you see their HP drop. Even better than this is a 12 button MMO mouse - having and setting up such a mouse in this way for DDO and getting used to your own personal preference is and has always been the best way to play a caster in DDO, and every time you see any such caster spamming instakills on everything and leading kill figures, this is exactly how they are doing it. You can also find mice with a tilting mouse wheel, e.g. - tilt left for PK1, middle click for Finger, tilt right for PK2 - this is how I used to enjoy playing my DC wizard when running an Illusion and Necromancy build and it makes you as OP as the Spinner of Shadows herself.

What I have still been unable to find is a 12 button MMO mouse with a side tilting scroll wheel, if anyone knows if such a god tier mouse exists please do advise me on one and if you are interested in buying such a mouse not just for this game but any MMO / RPG, such a mouse is what you should try and find if it exists.

Disclaimer 1 - Thanks for reading my guide. Also please do not confuse this as being anything elitist or such, I am simply trying to help any player that is interested in such information, and with getting as much enjoyment out of playing a caster in this game as I already do.

Disclaimer 2 - I've played DDO on and off since the day it launched always as a DC caster Wizard main, and I made a Shiradi Sorc alt quite some time ago and it is without any doubt faster for soloing at everything, maybe except for Raiyum once I lose DBF from reducing my caster levels to 12. I've already been there and done that through the days when the game was full of nothing but elitist jerks and most of my old post history here was intended around making fun of such players. I've done the whole racking up 100+ kills in most quests while no one else manages even 10 with most caster builds, as well as passively playing a conjuration and enchantment CC bot with barely any kills and being told off for it all the time because *your double webs are useless, they dont kill anything*. I was the first person on my server to add two rogue levels to a FVS for grinding out my 3 FVS past lives and I became a meme or something due to this on some of the nastier forums for this game with such comments as 'Even people on Argonessen server have heard of that useless FVS with rogue levels and running around in a Regalia of the Phoenix ***'.

[Riffolk]

Hey, I'm pretty new to the game and very new to casters.
Would you mind helping a newbie understand how Shiradi casters work? I can see from the tree the % chances at procs but what is the main source of a Shiradi casters power?

For this build, where do you put your enhancement AP?
What does a typical engagement in quest look like?

Thanks!