Dread Knight - A Wizard Champion for New Players

[KoobTheProud]

This is a build designed specifically for a new player with access to nothing but 28 point builds and the basic races and classes. It is designed to be powerful right out of the gate and to continue gaining power on the game system as you level. It assumes that you will be soloing most of the time and opening quests on normal, although it will scale just fine into second life hard and third life elite when you get there.

Race: Human. We do this to get the extra feat at creation and also to get an extra skill point every level.

Attributes: Str 17 (13 pts), Con 14 (6 pts), Int 15 (8 pts), Dex 9 (1 pt). All level ups into Int. We do this because Str 17 is required for the Improved and Greater Two-handed Fighting feats and the bonus to hit and damage early on is important for smooth progression. Ultimately we will be using Int to hit and in some versions of the build for damage as well.

Classes: Wizard 20. This is a pure Wizard. We do this for the Eldritch Blade capstone in Eldritch Knight and it doesn't hurt our chances to penetrate spell resistance either. It also gives us access to key spells at the earliest possible level as they become available.

Skills: Spellcraft, Search, Repair, Heal, Balance, a couple of points into Jump early on and a couple into Tumble later on.

Basically we want to maximize spell damage, find secret doors, increase negative energy damage, get up quicker when we're knocked down and be able to repair mechanical friends as needed. Concentration is not necessary because we are taking Quicken early on and all of our non-buff spells will be quickened for use in combat. The couple of points into Jump early are useful for navigation and combat in the early game. We don't need to put more than a couple of points in because our strength allows us to jump in the early game and the Jump spell eventually caps out at +31 and will easily get us to the 40 hard cap. The couple of points into Tumble are to let us roll away from trouble later on when trouble sometimes warrants rolling away from.

Feats:

1 - Two-handed Fighting, Insightful Reflexes (Human), Quicken (Wizard)
3 - Extend Spell
5 - Maximize Spell (Wizard)
6 - Empower Spell
9 - Spell Penetration
10 - Spell Focus: Necromancy (Wizard)
12 - Improved Two-handed Fighting
15 - Heighten Spell, Spell Focus: Evocation (Wizard)
18 - Improved Critical (Slashing)
20 - Spell Focus: Enchantment (Wizard)

We take all the metamagics that we do to get extended buffs, to get damaging AoE effects that we can fight in, to get high-powered single target damage spells for when a tough mob presents and to give us powerful crowd control spells when we need them.

The 3 Spell Focus feats will offer a choice of school specialization in Epic Destinies in the Magister destiny which is the one you will want to start in. This specialization will greatly increase the effectiveness of your spells in the chosen school as you level into Epics where things like DC's begin to really matter to a first-life character without much in the way of good gear.

We take the melee feats to allow us to be a continual source of AoE damage ourselves without relying on spell points for damage when they are not needed.

We are a melee Wizard with pure Wizard benefits. Our enhancements will wipe away most of the melee detriments that being a Wizard creates, including giving us a full base attack bonus and a pulsing heal that allows us to regain full health in just a few seconds as long as we can momentarily get away from combat if we need too.

Spells:

L1 - Expeditious Retreat, Master's Touch, Jump, Protection from Evil, Featherfall. All level 1 spells are to enhance play at early levels. Expeditious Retreat lets us run faster and Master's Touch lets us wield 2handed martial weapons without penalty. Protection from Evil protects against some CC spells and gives us +2 AC against evil mobs. Jump helps with navigation and lets us jump out of clusters of mobs when we need too. Featherfall is for when we want to jump down a great distance.
L2 - Detect Secret Doors, Grease. Detect Secret Doors sometimes finds things you might have trouble searching before you get True Seeing. Grease is for making your fellow adventurers slip and slide (just kidding...)
L3 - Lesser Death Aura, Blur. Heal yourself for enough to get from fight to fight - will not save you in a tough fight but will let you keep moving from shrine to shrine. 20% miss rate for attackers.
L4 - Knock, Gust of Wind. Unlock chests and doors that lead to chests and clear enemy environmental effects quickly before they mess you up.
L5 - Displacement, Protection from Energy. Emergency 50% miss rate for tough fights and 50+ elemental damage prevented which with our high hp build can get you through a lot of traps alive.
L6 - Haste, Heroism. Spells that help you fight at low levels and Haste will be good later on as well.
L7 - Death Aura, Dimension Door. In-fight heals that generally outpaces mob damage and a get out of jail free card that will save you many times as well as getting you back to the entrance of the instance when that seems right.
L8 - Wall of Fire, Stoneskin. Fire damage to fight in and 80+ points of physical damage prevented with a DR of /10 applied to each hit until the pool is gone.
L9 - Teleport, Niac's Biting Cold. Discover the Portable Hole, stackable cold damage for high hp mobs.

Note that from here on out I am listing only rare spells because all the other ones can be bought from the Portable Hole and scribed.

L10 - Eladar's Electric Surge, Symbol of Pain. Stackable electric damage, Area effect curse on enemy mobs.
L11 - Necrotic Ray, Acid Fog. Prime one-shotter against archers at range, Area effect Acid DoT to fight in.
L12 - Control Undead, Symbol of Fear. You won't use either of these but they are rare so I took them.
L13 - Otto's Sphere of Dancing, Delayed Blast Fireball. Effective mass crowd control against most mobs. The instant version of DBF is really good fire damage.
L14 - Repair Serious Damage-Mass, Symbol of Weakness. Rare spells.

Note that from now on all spells are rare so I'm reverting to picking the best spells for the build.

L15 - Otto's Irrestistible Dance, Summon Monster VIII. Great crowd control for single mobs without significant spell resistance, no save. Summons a Greater Air Elemental who will knock enemy mobs down and away, really good opener in a crowded fight because the odds on you getting swarmed go way down.
L16 - Black Dragon Bolt, Polar Ray. Two ray spells that do Acid and Cold damage respectively. Good situational spells for certain fights. You'll swap into and out of these at shrines along the way.
L17 - Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Wail of the Banshee. Remove spell traps with a single cast. Area of effect kill spell for living mobs.
L18 - Rend the Soul, Thunderstroke. Negative energy DoT. High damage electric spell.
L19 - Acid Well, Meteor Storm. High damage elemental spells that like Thunderstroke above you will rarely find necessary in the build.
L20 - Energy Drain, Hold Monster - Mass. You'll cast Necrotic Ray instead of Energy Drain. There are a few fights in the game where you will put Energy Drain in the book and use it. Same for Hold Monster, Mass where you will usually use Otto's Sphere of Dancing instead. A few fights you'd rather hold than dance because other mobs might clear your sphere and let their allies loose early.

You will have most of the spells in your spell book by level 17 or so. The spells listed above are mostly rare spells that cannot be bought at any vendor. All spells of spell level 8 and 9 are rare and you will inscribe them as they drop in quests or you find them on the auction house. You get to pick 4 spells at each spell level and won't need to worry too much about purchasing rare spells as they drop fairly often in higher level content.

[KoobTheProud]

Enhancements Level 1-6

Eldritch Knight

1 - Eldritch Strike (our first cleave attack), Arcane Siphon 3 (a powerful single-target attack) - both on 12 second cooldowns. You'll want to siphon before you strike since Arcane Siphon increases your spell power and Eldritch Strike scales with spellpower.

2 - Improved Mage Armor 2, Improved Shield 2 (gives you +4 Shield AC, which is pretty good since you are using a 2h weapon, gives you +6 PRR, protects you from Magic Missiles.)

3- Spellsword (gives your attacks a d6 additional elemental damage of your choice), Improved Mage Armor 3 (gives you +10% AC and pre-requisite for Improved Shield 3), Improved Shield 3 (gives you +10 PRR total.)

6- Imbue The Blade.

Palemaster

3 - Dark Reaping.

4 - Deathless Vigor 1, Negative Energy Conduit 2.

5 - Pale Shroud - Shroud of the Lich, Negative Energy Conduit 3, Deathless Vigor 2.

6 - Deathless Vigor 3, Undead Augmentation I: Deathly Touch.

What we are doing with enhancements in the first 6 levels is giving you as much melee offense as we can, as good a defense as we can provide and as many hitpoints as we can squeeze in while we do that.

By the end of level 6 we are +61 hit points over a normal Wizard with our stats. We have something like +5 AC - which is very meaningful at these levels. We have +15 PRR and +15 MRR.

Play before level 7 is very forgiving, with traps providing most of the danger. We're going to wade in and melee with our greatsword and use spells sparingly to fill gaps. A bit of dodging and swinging is required however this becomes a repetitive pattern once we recognize how the mobs move during combat. Most of the time it's just taking a step to the left, swing, a step to the right, swing, a step back, swing, etc. (Let's do the time warp again.) Fight like an elf always on the move and a lot of the damage you would take vanishes. In the early levels a two-handed weapon wielded with the Master's Touch and backed up by a bit of strength is enough to roll a lot of the content. Later on our buffs are stacking up and enhancements are increasing the damage and we maintain that same relationship over time.

Eldritch Knight

7 - Critical Mastery 2, T3 Int

8 - Critical Mastery 3, Mystic Wards 3

9 - Knight's Transformation, Force's Point

10 - Armored Arcana, T4 Int

12 - Eldritch Accuracy, Subtle Force I, Improved Knight's Transformation (5 points spent because we saved one at level 11)

Palemaster

11 - Negative Energy Adept 3, save a point for 12 when new cores and EK T5 become available.

Through 12 we are significantly strengthening both offense and defense by giving ourselves a full BAB and lots of Negative Amplification to make an Extended Death's Aura a powerhouse regenerator. We are beginning the move to Int-based attacks although we will still stack as much Str as we can for damage. Interweaving damaging spells and melee attacks now becomes part of the process since Force's Point gives us benefits with one based on the other. When the packs we are fighting are fire vulnerable we like to lay down a Wall of Fire to fight in to increase AoE damage alongside our swings. When we run into mobs that we just want dead that are not undead an Empowered, Maximized Necrotic ray will generally do the trick. It's an expensive kill but it's often worth it. Against bosses we will often fight in a wall of Fire and also hit them with a Necrotic Ray every few seconds while whacking them down. Sometimes it is whacking alongside stacking Niac's Biting Cold or Eladar's Electric Surge. There are a lot of ways to kill mobs with this build and we'll be discovering synergistic methods as we go.

Note that we are still fighting like an elf as we do all of this. Once the legs die the person standing on them usually does also, so keep dancing in front of your foes and let the sweeps of your greatsword take them down while they futilely attempt to mass attacks against you. When faced with a dangerous pack sometimes the best move is just to swing, retreat a step, swing, retreat, etc, until the pack is reduced to manageable levels. Doorways also make good defense points as mobs cannot get past their cohorts to get at you. A doorway with a firewall placed in it has saved many a Mage. Keep moving side to side even when you have them bottlenecked like this. Mobs have a range their attack can hit at and if you are just outside that range when the attack goes off you are not taking damage from it. Similarly mobs cannot strike you through their buddies so using a mob as a shield by sidestepping such that the mob is directly between you and the other mob works as well.

Eldritch Knight

13 - Force's Edge, Knight's Arcanum (Knight's Controller)

15 - Eldritch Tempest 1

16 - Eldritch Tempest 3, Arcane Barrier

18 - Subtle Force II

19 - Radiant Forcefield

20 - Eldritch Blade and your choice of either Toughness 3 or Action Boost: Spellpower 3 depending on whether offense or defense feels more appropriate.


Palemaster

14 - Spell Critical: Negative Energy I, T3 Int

15 - Cloak of Night, Undead Augmentation II: Deathly Resistance

17 - Spell Critical: Negative Energy II and III

18 - Spell Critical: Negative Energy IV, Unholy Avatar

19 - T4 Int, Undead Augmentation III: Deathly Power

From 13 onwards the build gets stronger and stronger as the synergies and more powerful spells come into play. For solo play this is probably the strongest new player friendly build. It has damage of all types depending on the foe, lots of crowd control potential and tremendous self-regeneration in combat. It scales very well into the later levels because most of the spells and the melee damage scales as the competition gets tougher.

Defensively the build features: high fortification and immunity to sneak attacks, immunity to instakills that effect living creatures, immunity to most fears, immunity to level and attribute drain, immunity to poison and most diseases, immunity to most charms, immunity to magic missiles, displacement, stoneskin, elemental protections, basically almost all the gotchas that trip up new players.

Offensively it has elemental damage in all of AoE, single target ray and stackable damage over time, negative damage in single target and AoE, melee damage, instakills that effect living creatures, AoE instakills that effect living creatures, AoE instakills that effect undead, charms, crowd control in multiple forms, slows and debuffs, etc. There are so many ways to kill a mob in DDO and this build has access to probably 90% of them depending on which spells are memorized.

The build is based on Human due to the requirement that a new player has to have access to everything without having spent a lot of time or money on the game yet. I prefer to play an Elf, typically a Drow, because I like to take the Arcane Fluidity racial enhancement and wear platemail while doing all of the above. That's when things can get really nice for the build.

Also, once you have acquired Harper Agent you can fully use Intelligence for melee hit and damage and the build becomes even stronger as some of the less powerful EK and PM enhancements drop out for Arcane Fluidity and the 12 points you need in Harper Agent to get the most out Intelligence.

[Katalissa]

This is a really nice guide for the new player on one of my favourite types of character. Plus 1 for explaining why each feat/enhancement is taken and how to use it!

[cru121]

Attributes: Str 17 (13 pts), Con 14 (6 pts), Int 15 (8 pts), Dex 9 (1 pt). All level ups into Int. We do this because Str 17 is required...

16 / 14 / 16 / 10 with one level up to Strength, rest to Int is strictly better. You end up with +1 Dex and a few extra skill points.

[KoobTheProud]

16 / 14 / 16 / 10 with one level up to Strength, rest to Int is strictly better. You end up with +1 Dex and a few extra skill points.

That works for me. Thanks for adding.

[Escher]

I've really been enjoying this build, thanks for posting it. Question: I'm playing on a 2nd life Drow with access to Harper and I'm currently at level 16. So Arcane fluidity would be handy and you mention dropping out some low power EK and PM stuff to gain the INT bonus from the Harper tree. What enhancements do you drop to gain fluidity and the Harper INT melee bonus?

[KoobTheProud]

I've really been enjoying this build, thanks for posting it. Question: I'm playing on a 2nd life Drow with access to Harper and I'm currently at level 16. So Arcane fluidity would be handy and you mention dropping out some low power EK and PM stuff to gain the INT bonus from the Harper tree. What enhancements do you drop to gain fluidity and the Harper INT melee bonus?

The switchover to Heavy Armor requires 3 feats, since we have to take Light, Medium and Heavy in order to make it really work. As an EK we can cheat by taking the enhancements that let us use Light and Medium Armor however these do not count for taking the Heavy Armor feat so I rework the feats to allow natural Heavy Armor use. Because this is a Drow (or other Elf-inclined) we also lose the Human feat at level 1 and this sets us back from taking the armor feats early on. Typically I start using Heavy Armor at level 15.

The feat setup when I am doing this is along these lines:

L1 - Two-handed Fighting, Quicken (Wizard)
L3- Light Armor
L5 - Extend Spell (Wizard)
L6 - Maximize Spell
L9 - Medium Armor
L10 - Spell Focus - Necromancy (Wizard)
L12 - Improved Two-handed Fighting
L15 - Heavy Armor, Spell Penetration (Wizard)
L18 - Improved Critical - Slashing
L20 - Empower Spell

The tradeoffs are basically a bit of spell damage and some flexibility in Epic levels in return for stronger melee defenses. You won't see an enormous defensive difference until you acquire good heavy armor but then you will see a major difference. You're still fighting like an Elf though, with lots of movement in combat. There are very few builds that can stand still and not take a lot of damage in the process.

You need to find 16 AP to get Arcane Fluidity 3 (4 AP in Drow) and the 12 AP in Harper Agent to get Int to hit and damage and Know the Angles 3.

The enhancements that get dropped in PM are the second and third tier of Deathless Vigor, Cloak of Night, Spell Critical: Negative energy IV and probably Int 4. You want to keep at least 21 points in the tree so you can take the 4th core, Undead Augmentation II: Deathly Resistance. That's 9 points towards our 16. You will be able to get at least 10 HP down low in Harper Agent with Traveler's Toughness for 2 AP, so you're trading off -20 HP in PM with the Deathless Vigor 2+3 drop in return for +10 HP in Harper Agent and 2 extra points to put in Harper Agent tree on the way to the 10 you need before you can take Strategic Combat II.

In EK you can ditch Mystic Wards 1,2,3 (3 AP) + Eldritch Accuracy (getting the same thing low down in Harper Agent +2 AP) and I'd probably ditch Int 4 (the last 2 AP you need), although there are a bunch of different options. It's tempting to drop Arcane Barrier, however this is an excellent warning system for when you are in trouble. If you see pink barrier pop up it's time to double-check to see if you forget to put up Death Aura before the fight began.

I'm not staring at one of my plate Wizards at the moment and I'll edit tonight if I got anything obviously wrong in this post.

[Escher]

The switchover to Heavy Armor requires 3 feats, since we have to take Light, Medium and Heavy in order to make it really work. As an EK we can cheat by taking the enhancements that let us use Light and Medium Armor however these do not count for taking the Heavy Armor feat so I rework the feats to allow natural Heavy Armor use. Because this is a Drow (or other Elf-inclined) we also lose the Human feat at level 1 and this sets us back from taking the armor feats early on. Typically I start using Heavy Armor at level 15.

The feat setup when I am doing this is along these lines:

L1 - Two-handed Fighting, Quicken (Wizard)
L3- Light Armor
L5 - Extend Spell (Wizard)
L6 - Maximize Spell
L9 - Medium Armor
L10 - Spell Focus - Necromancy (Wizard)
L12 - Improved Two-handed Fighting
L15 - Heavy Armor, Spell Penetration (Wizard)
L18 - Improved Critical - Slashing
L20 - Empower Spell

The tradeoffs are basically a bit of spell damage and some flexibility in Epic levels in return for stronger melee defenses. You won't see an enormous defensive difference until you acquire good heavy armor but then you will see a major difference. You're still fighting like an Elf though, with lots of movement in combat. There are very few builds that can stand still and not take a lot of damage in the process.

You need to find 16 AP to get Arcane Fluidity 3 (4 AP in Drow) and the 12 AP in Harper Agent to get Int to hit and damage and Know the Angles 3.

The enhancements that get dropped in PM are the second and third tier of Deathless Vigor, Cloak of Night, Spell Critical: Negative energy IV and probably Int 4. You want to keep at least 21 points in the tree so you can take the 4th core, Undead Augmentation II: Deathly Resistance. That's 9 points towards our 16. You will be able to get at least 10 HP down low in Harper Agent with Traveler's Toughness for 2 AP, so you're trading off -20 HP in PM with the Deathless Vigor 2+3 drop in return for +10 HP in Harper Agent and 2 extra points to put in Harper Agent tree on the way to the 10 you need before you can take Strategic Combat II.

In EK you can ditch Mystic Wards 1,2,3 (3 AP) + Eldritch Accuracy (getting the same thing low down in Harper Agent +2 AP) and I'd probably ditch Int 4 (the last 2 AP you need), although there are a bunch of different options. It's tempting to drop Arcane Barrier, however this is an excellent warning system for when you are in trouble. If you see pink barrier pop up it's time to double-check to see if you forget to put up Death Aura before the fight began.

I'm not staring at one of my plate Wizards at the moment and I'll edit tonight if I got anything obviously wrong in this post.

Great! Thank you for the info. I'm going to start playing around with it tomorrow.

[Djjinni]

Great! Thank you for the info. I'm going to start playing around with it tomorrow.

Really can't recommend going the Heavy Armour route with this one, I'd suggest closely looking at what you actually gain vs the cost and see if it's still what you want to do.

[Ithildur]

Do the EK extra damage imbues proc on Strikethrough 2handed? [edit] apparently it doesn't. That seems like a fairly significant drawback to 2h


Is it just me that wishes EK added an INT to AC enhancement? With that DDO would finally have a real Bladesinger.

[KoobTheProud]

Really can't recommend going the Heavy Armour route with this one, I'd suggest closely looking at what you actually gain vs the cost and see if it's still what you want to do.

In heroics the gains are small. In Epics and Legendary they are huge. A plate wizard with an AC of 150+ and a high PRR/MRR takes very little damage in a solo situation. Yes, there is some exposure to elemental damage but there are multiple buffs to lower that and since we're fighting like an elf the usual melee destroyers like polar ray just don't actually land very often.

The thing that bothers my builds the most at any level is environmental damage and even that is completely manageable with elemental resistances, elemental protections and fire and cold shields on demand not to mention arcane barrier when something hits me hard enough to get my health lower than I'd like it to be.

I originally went with heavy armor many lives ago to get the benefits of the high DR from Shadowplate once it had been upgraded to Shadow Guardian. Then the various set bonuses began coming into play and I no longer use Shadowplate except in particular fights that are very melee damage intensive.

[KoobTheProud]

Do the EK extra damage imbues proc on Strikethrough 2handed? [edit] apparently it doesn't. That seems like a fairly significant drawback to 2h


Is it just me that wishes EK added an INT to AC enhancement? With that DDO would finally have a real Bladesinger.

I believe the extra damage procs on every hit. I twitch around enough during combat that my primary target is always changing during a multi-mob fight however I do not see damage on any of the mobs that does not also include the extra elemental damage from Spellsword. In epics except when I crit the damage from the imbues tends to be higher than the baseline damage. 35d12 passive elemental damage at level 28 is a lot of damage happening on every hit. Then you get to pick the elemental type going in to each fight and lots of mobs have weaknesses that double the elemental damage they take of a specific element.

There are other elemental effects in play when I'm fighting, like Ice Storm, Incendiary Cloud, Niac's Biting Cold and Eladar's Electric Surge, however I think the spellsword dice are doing their fair share of the damage overall. Arcane Tempest is also very strong and stacks alongside all the other damage.

[Ithildur]

I believe the extra damage procs on every hit. I twitch around enough during combat that my primary target is always changing during a multi-mob fight however I do not see damage on any of the mobs that does not also include the extra elemental damage from Spellsword. In epics except when I crit the damage from the imbues tends to be higher than the baseline damage. 35d12 passive elemental damage at level 28 is a lot of damage happening on every hit. Then you get to pick the elemental type going in to each fight and lots of mobs have weaknesses that double the elemental damage they take of a specific element.

There are other elemental effects in play when I'm fighting, like Ice Storm, Incendiary Cloud, Niac's Biting Cold and Eladar's Electric Surge, however I think the spellsword dice are doing their fair share of the damage overall. Arcane Tempest is also very strong and stacks alongside all the other damage.

I see; it seems I misread the entry on Strikethrough. Well that's good to know; I've got a new EK rolled up going 2h and med/heavy armor this time instead of SWF/orb/robes/light armor - it's certainly fun to switch things up and not have to worry about losing too much effectiveness and even discover new advantages.

[KoobTheProud]

I see; it seems I misread the entry on Strikethrough. Well that's good to know; I've got a new EK rolled up going 2h and med/heavy armor this time instead of SWF/orb/robes/light armor - it's certainly fun to switch things up and not have to worry about losing too much effectiveness and even discover new advantages.

The entry in the wiki is not clear about procs and it is possible that things changed in the recent update. I'm wondering if there is someplace where multiple test dummies would allow us to strikethrough on attacks made on one dummy to another? That would solve the current questions.

[teejax]

I'm wondering if there is someplace where multiple test dummies would allow us to strikethrough on attacks made on one dummy to another?

Place 2 dummies next to each other in a guild cargo hold.

But the elemental damage _does_ proc on all strikethroughs

[KoobTheProud]

Place 2 dummies next to each other in a guild cargo hold.

But the elemental damage _does_ proc on all strikethroughs

TY for confirming, that was what I thought was happening. Didn't know if the recent changes had affected it or not.

[Ithildur]

Tthe EK tree will net you 35% asf reduction; is Arcane Fluidity really desirable for this build? If so, why/what's the total asf you recommend shooting for? 2Handed means no need to worry about shield asf and full plate tops out at 35%...

[KoobTheProud]

Tthe EK tree will net you 35% asf reduction; is Arcane Fluidity really desirable for this build? If so, why/what's the total asf you recommend shooting for? 2Handed means no need to worry about shield asf and full plate tops out at 35%...

I take Arcane Fluidity because there are some situations where I will use a sunsword, like Celestia, alongside a heavy shield with situational stats/abilities. I use Master's Touch for the shield proficiency. These are generally fights where Celestia's DR is worth something or melee is less valuable than casting and I'm planning to take them down primarily with arcane spells. There are some very nice shield bonuses available also at various levels.

I don't put that in the build because for a new player it is overly complex and usually they're playing human and just doing 2hF. However once you get past the basic build there are so many things you can do with the tools in play.