What's the best Build I can pick as a First Life F2P player?

[iKamo]

As the title says, I would really love to get into Wizards since it's my main choice in other MMOs and I prefer what's behind them compared to Sorcerers.

Now the question is: what Build should I choose to start off?

I might have to specify that it should be F2P friendly since I am not planning on spending money at the moment, still checking out the game.

In the meantime I quickly looked up some threads and I have a quick question (if it is not build dependent): on what weapons should I focus on at least in the beginning?

Thanks in advance for any replies and suggestions.

[unbongwah]

As the title says, I would really love to get into Wizards since it's my main choice in other MMOs and I prefer what's behind them compared to Sorcerers.

With a F2P wizard, you'll probably go with either a pure spellcaster (Archmage) or a melee / caster hybrid (Eldritch Knight). In both cases, you will most likely use Pale Master as either your primary or secondary Enhancement tree, because there are a lot of bonuses in there which apply to spellcasting and melee; also undead forms boost a wizard's survivability. In either case, you can go with either pure wizard or splash rogue to add trap skills.

on what weapons should I focus on at least in the beginning?

That will depend on whether you're going the Archmage or Eldritch Knight route. The Archmage is only looking for caster bonuses. The EKnight is using weapons for melee DPS and relying on other item slots for caster bonuses. One advantage of SWF is it lets you equip an orb in your offhand.

A few threads with build examples:

• Pale Master Guide - this thread is old and the builds should be considered obsolete, but there's good info on how to play a Pale Master wizard.
• Pale Trapper - the classic wiz 18 / rog 2 split. Again, an older thread and the build needs updating, but it provides a basic grounding on how to play.
• Bladesingers - melee wizards using the SWF combat style and the drow race, but they can be adapted to other races and melee styles.

[Draxani]

Hey there, hope you're enjoying DDO so far!

Wizards are one of my favorite classes as well, and I really like the flexibility they can offer. As far as builds go, I would advise staying away from the paths offered in character creation, they are typically fairly suboptimal or outdated, so you should select the custom option. Its fairly important to max intelligence and put your level ups there, but your other stats are up to you. Constitution is a nice option for first life (freshly created) toons, as it gives you a little bit of tankiness. Here is a link to some wizard builds, though some of the content is a little outdated. https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5759365

There are a couple primary archetypes that wizards fall under, that I'll explain quickly (and in a somewhat oversimplified way) to make sure I don't miscommunicate: DC Casting, DPS, and Eldritch Knight. DC casting is a type of casting that typically focuses on creating an effect to a target which it attempts to resist. These can include holding it in place, convincing it to fight on your side, or simply instantaneous death. This playstyle is very effective against certain targets, but if your ability to bolster your spell falls behind the enemy's ability to resist it, you may find yourself struggling. DC casters focus on spell schools such as necromancy and enchantment, and may struggle with constructs and undead, which are immune to many of the spells within these schools. DPS wizards use spells that do direct damage to their opponents, such as fireball and polar ray. While they also have some elements of dc casting, with agile mobs able to avoid some of their effects (in what is called evasion), they do have spells which cannot be evaded, meaning that they can guarantee damage. They are pretty fun to play in heroics, but you may find yourself simply outperformed by other classes in epics. Eldritch Knights focus on weapon based combat, and empower their weapons and themselves. I don't know too much about this archetype, as I haven't played through an EK life yet, but I have seen people finding varying levels of success with them, so they are still a viable option.

One thing you may need to decide is whether or not you want to play the wizard in the epic levels (levels 20-30). While wizards can find a lot of success leveling from 1-20, they start to encounter a bit more difficulty after that, since they often need past lives and other resources which are difficult for a first life player to access. If you do decide you want to pursue an epic past life (which is accessible at level 30), you may find a bit of difficulty soloing higher difficulties. To counteract this, you can try playing on normal or hard, or focus on dailies (where you run high xp/min quests, typically on lower difficulties) in order to reach level 30. You should be able to DC cast efficiently in lower difficulties, though I would still be wary of the more recent content, where you may find some difficulty. DPS wizards might also have some difficulty in epics, in that you may have trouble delivering good damage due to enemies' ability to evade your spells. Later content has somewhat inflated mob hp, which means you may not have the damage to burn through something before it kills you. For DPS, I'd suggest taking the Draconic Incarnation epic destiny, and running easier content, sticking to no-save damage if you move to higher difficulties in a group. (If you are first life f2p, you won't have access to higher difficulties right away, which means you'll primarily encounter them when grouping). Again, I'm not super familiar with the capabilities of EK's, but you may have some more pronounced survivabilty issues when in higher difficulties.

As for your weapons question, that is somewhat up to you. At lower levels, the spell "Master's Touch" gives you the ability to use martial weapons, so you can grab a greataxe and start slashing. At higher levels, people often move to caster sticks, which empower your spells' ability to do damage or avoid being resisted. If using a caster stick, you would tend to avoid melee combat, and avoid attacking with the weapons. An exception to this idea is Eldritch Knight, which to the best of my knowledge (which isn't saying much), will actually need to take combat feats such as Two Handed Fighting, and these feats should be tailored to the type of weapon you choose to use. If you want to pursue melee weapons in later levels, Eldritch Knight is a must, but if so, you should seriously consider if you really need to be playing a wizard, as there are several new player friendly melee classes.

Either way, I hope that covers the information you're looking for. I'm sorry for being a bit long winded, but if I explained something poorly, or you have any other questions, don't hesitate to let me know. Wizards are a lot of fun, and I wish you the best of luck!

EDIT: Just saw unbongwah's post, its a much cleaner and more concise explanation than mine. Feel free to read this though, just in case you pick up on something that wasn't covered

[AbyssalMage]

New player and wanting a wizard? F2P compatible?

EK, Drow (basically free with small time investment. If you don't want to invest the small amount of time, go human for the bonus feat.). Pure, don't splash.

Weapons...Buy of the AH and collect stuff from chests. People will pass you things, especially at lower levels, if it's an upgrade (most of us are running with crafted and gear we farmed before TR'ing). You get a "free" weapon from Ravenloft for completing Into the Mists. Grab an appropriate weapon for your fighting style.

At 10+ and again at 15+ join Ravenloft and Sharn PUG's. Speak up. People will usually pass stuff.

I honestly don't know what fighting style you want to use. SWF, 2HF, or Sword and Board (S&B). Honestly on a first life, F2P, no frills character S&B or SWF will probably be the best two options.

[Kaboom2112]

Human THFing Paladin.

Don't go Wizzy on your first life

[iKamo]

There is a lot going on so I took my time going through the various links and guides on the forum to get an idea on what I actually want to play, and even if some parts are still hieroglyphs to me, I think I got good notions on what I like and/or what I would prefer.

And not to anger anyone who suggests EK, but a pure Spellcaster definitely suits me more.

Said that:

@unbongwah: thankyou for the informations and links. Even if a bit outdated I might be able to compare them to the actual version of the game and work from there. I will need to learn/guess what Enhancements to prioritize during leveling, given the changes to the PM, but I guess is part of the learning process. And I am still not sure but I might want to go on the Pure Wiz route instead of the Pale Trapper.

@Draxani: I will start to enjoying it more with this Character for sure since is what I am looking to play. But at least I got an idea on how the game works and I was able to familiarize myself with the interface, controls and all of that. However I was able to pick up a lot of things I wasn't aware of in your reply, especially the part about Epic Levels. I think I will skip them to be able to get more Past Lives and more experience with the Class and the game itself.

@AbyssalMage: as I said up here, I would like to play a more Spellcasting focused character, but I will keep in mind the EK once I will want to change style a bit (and the Drow once I'll unlock it).

@Kaboom2112: I got what you are suggesting because I heard it everywhere, but I'm from the school that says "play what you like or care about the most if you want to have fun and be successful". Not that anyone who suggests other classes is wrong, but unfortunately or fortunately I'm like that, but thanks anyway!

And sorry for any mistakes, English is not my first language

[unbongwah]

This build is more recent. I might quibble about some of his build choices - I don't see what halfling brings to wizards apart from lulz - and he doesn't provide as much written info on Pale Master which is why I linked Andoris's guide first.

There's nothing wrong with a pure caster wizard. It's not the raw DPS machine that a sorcerer is, but it's pretty self-sufficient. And while summoning in DDO is bad at higher difficulties due to lack of scaling, the Skeletal Knight can help out while you're still a newbie. The spells which heal you in undead form will also heal your pet.

[iKamo]

Funny enough, I was already going to compare those two and see what I can make with them. Probably because those are the easiest for me to understand as they are written. And some replies in those Threads helps a lot in managing some flaws.

Plus they looks like a solid choice for a First Life end will help me understand the various mechanics and preparing myself for the 20 to 30 process in the future.

I will certainly have many more questions but for now thank you very much for helping me find the right class and build to start having fun in DDO.

[mr420247]

First life caster ok but it will have troubs

your probably better off with a lock or a wf sorc

then u can at least forget spell pen and focus completely on your dcs

If your dcs don't work and it will be hard getting them working its going to be a problem

Spell points and regen will be a problem too esp on a 1st life wizard

[iKamo]

I might want to pay to get a Warlock or the WF after my First Life but for now I would just like to get into the game as best as I can with what I would like to play.

[hyperstaz]

One of my 1st characters I tried was the pale trapper. At the time, there was only the main casting playstyle. It was fun as I could get traps with no issues and is pretty survivable. However, it detracts from the caster experience a little, since as a first lifer my DC is pretty low, especially since I didn't have the best gear. My spells were half effective at best, and crowd control spells tend to not work.

I did something similar my second life, and this time it was much better with maxed out gear at each level. I personally enjoy trapping and rogues, which was why I didn't go pure.

Looking back, I would probably choose to go pure my 1st life. There's a lot of spells to explore, and many different playstyles that work.

For instance, with a wizzy, you can gather a bunch of mobs, crowd control them, cast an aeo and blast away.

Or, you could choose variations of charm if you were soloing, and the monsters start fighting themselves.

I had a great time, but struggled greatly in epics. I took a long break, came back and am now playing around with eldritch knight quaterstaff builds and inquisitive builds, which are slightly better due to sustained damage (less effective damage is still damage, while low DCs are useless if you don't hit the threshold).

[A-O]

1. Don't go "paletrapper", since going qstaff is really bad for a new player. You won't have enough items/skill levels to deal with elite traps anyways, and lower difficulties will be walk-through anyways (i.e. pose no threat). And qstaff is really bad unless you have elemental bloom (which you don't) and even then it's worse than a gaxe. Plus, you'll be delaying important character breakpoints by a lot. E.g. level 12 wiz is a huge level, so is level 7, 17, 18, and 20. Delaying those breakpoints by 2 levels is massive. And you'll be far worse at every stage of the game.

2. Don't go SWF / TWF. THF (two handed) is just so much stronger. There is zero reason to go with TWF or SWF. And anyone telling you otherwise don't know anything about builds, dps, and/or efficient questing.

3. If you go full caster. Don't focus on instakilling (fod/wail), since you won't have the lives to get enough DC on your spells. Instead focus on evocation (nuking) and enchantment (mass hold is much easier to land than instakills), that'll give you a build viable of the hardest difficulties without past lives.


As a final note. I wouldn't go melee/ek without having harper tree. You need that int to dmg that you'll get from that tree.

[SirValentine]

1. Don't go "paletrapper", since going qstaff is really bad for a new player. You won't have enough items/skill levels to deal with elite traps anyways...

I have no comment about qstaffs or breakpoints, et cetera, but there's no reason a first-life Int-build can't get Elite traps just fine. There are reasons to do or not to do a trapper, but that is not one of them.

[PurpleSerpent]

Don't forget a few Skeletal Knight enhancements if you're going full Pale Master. One of these with a few upgrades is way better than the other class pets at high levels - you've essentially got your hands on a free Fighter hireling that scales to your level, allowing you to solo most 2-player quests, plus as an added bonus it's healed by negative energy which is the same as you'll be using to heal yourself. They're also immune to the worst Beholder attacks so use it to deal with them if you can't range them.

You should select Lich as one of your Pale Shrouds - choose the other depending on your play style. Get Lesser and normal Death Aura as soon as you reach the right level to unlock them.

[C-Dog]

Late to the party, but wanted to offer...

What's the best Build I can pick as a First Life F2P player?

This is a VERY open-ended and broad question, and not really what you are asking in your OP. Some posters only read the thread title (and miss that this is in the Wizard sub-forum!). :/

Unbongwah is not one of them, and his advice is usually spot on. He is one of the recognized "build gurus" on these boards - following his suggestions rarely steers one wrong. Even if you end up not loving his suggested build as it plays in game, they'll be strong enough that you'll get a feel for things "as they should be" (rather than "despite newbie mistakes"), and you can find your preferred build from there that much faster.

Also, be aware that very few players end up sticking with their first build - I'd hazard around 5%, maybe less. Just too many differences between imagined play and actual play. But you have to start somewhere, so, for you, Wizard, 100%.

Human THFing Paladin.

Don't go Wizzy on your first life

re this - I was going to say that (as you seem to have have noticed, ahem) you'll pro'ly get as many suggestions as responses. "Best" means something different to everyone, and even "Caster" seems open to interpretation at times.

"Wizard" in DDO may (or may not) be the same as you imagine from other MMO's, and certainly differs from tabletop D&D. It's a translation to this format. But if it sounds good, definitely give it a spin.

I was going to suggest that, with 8 different servers with (at least) 3 character slots each (9 if you include the currently open-to-all HCL), you could try different classes/builds/variations and see what feels right. Pro'ly won't have the time to get them up very high level*, so later game play won't be revealed, but you'll get a feel for them. Or, just go w/ Wiz to start, and go from there, that works too.

(* This also gets you a fast pile of DDO points (~1k+), so it's win/win - https://ddowiki.com/page/Free_to_Pla...nt_walkthrough)

... thank you very much for helping me find the right class and build to start having fun in DDO.

And that's the bottom line - having fun, however you define it.

Now, I will emphasize that the character as you currently imagine it may not end up being how it actually plays! But there is no way to explain it to you, so, yes - build the character, play, quest, die, laugh - re-build it if you think you made some mistake - explore the game as well as the game world.

And if you have more questions, come on back - we'll be here.

And haff fun stomin da cassul!
o/

[Lonnbeimnech]

Human THFing Paladin.

Don't go Wizzy on your first life

this

two handed fighting paladin, with 24 points in defender and 42 in knight of the chalice, rest in whatever
use a two handed sword

[boredman]

this

two handed fighting paladin, with 24 points in defender and 42 in knight of the chalice, rest in whatever
use a two handed sword

Maybe for low levels but pure wizard pale master is better at epics and cap.
I have both a pure Paladin and a Pure Wizard both first life level 30 and the Wizard is better on EE solo and low reapers ( i don't play above R6 lvl 32 quests on them yet) (The paladin is more tougher for some raids but overall the wizard (and casters in general are better for questing on EE and low-mid reaper)

For the wizard just need some Hitpoints and defenses beside the main focus on intelligence and spell dc (Going human for extra feat and taking insightful reflexes helps), also can take some Eldritch knight enhancements for light armor profiency, and of course pale master for self heals, spell penetration, immunities, the skeleton for soloing, etc)

Evocation and Enchantment/necro spec, Full caster (not meele) max int, decent con. some negative amplification and dc, spellpower gear and you are almost set for EE solo at least (magister Ed for epics).

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I don't see what halfling brings to wizards apart from lulz

Halflings have a racial Healing dragonmark. Since Wizards can't heal themselves, if I recall that correctly, it's be a good choice, plus the armor class bonus because of size.
This way they can heal themselves without sacrificing too much in Wisdom like Aasimar do, because the Aasimar's Healing Hands need a minimum of Wisdom in order to function correctly.

By the way, I think it could be a good idea to get the Eternal Wand of Healing Wounds (even if it is that low level) from Catacombs, if the Wizard is able to use it (UMD), because Wizards don't have healing spells.

Wizards have Repair spells, though, but Warforged Ones are not F2P (and look a bit ugly in my very personal opinion).


Quoted from the Wiki : Halflings :

Racial Traits
+2 Dexterity, –2 Strength
+1 size bonus to Armor Class
+1 size bonus on attack rolls
+4 size bonus on Hide checks
+2 racial bonus on Jump, Listen, and Move Silently checks.
+1 racial bonus on all saving throws.
+2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear: This bonus stacks with the Halfling’s +1 bonus on saving throws in general.
+1 racial bonus on attack rolls with thrown weapons.
Carrying capacity is three-quarters of that of a Medium character.
-4 Intimidate penalty for each class size lower (-4 vs. normal, -8 vs. large).

Edit : In my personal opinion, the Pale Master is favoured too much, I mean it is too good that people recomment playing an Undead One (which the Pale Master essentially is), which I personally find very ugly. I mean, horrificly ugly. Personally, i would NEVER play a Pale Master, because I just can't stand this concept.

What I don't like is that on the other hand the Pale Master is suggested so much because it is too good. Meaning : If I play a non-pale Master Wizard, I'm gimped.

[C-Dog]

Since Wizards can't heal themselves... If I play a non-pale Master Wizard, I'm gimped.

Pale Masters (of any race) can heal themselves, which also addresses the rest of your post.

[unbongwah]

Halflings have a racial Healing dragonmark. Since Wizards can't heal themselves, if I recall that correctly, it's be a good choice, plus the armor class bonus because of size.

Except Strimtom's build doesn't take the Dragonmark feat nor invest in any halfling enhancements. His wizard gains nothing from being halfling other than the STR / encumbrance penalty.

What I don't like is that on the other hand the Pale Master is suggested so much because it is too good. Meaning : If I play a non-pale Master Wizard, I'm gimped.

Yeah, well, you should be complaining to SSG about that. I'm advising the OP based on how wizards work now, not based on how they used to work or how I personally would prefer to play one.