"End game" sentient weapon

[hit_fido]

What are people using for a sentient weapon at levels 29, 30 and why?

I am having a hard time seeing any obvious choice for a palemaster. Spell power and spell mastery come on so many items aside from a weapon. I have no trouble fitting in nullification/lore on wearables... lets assume a Legendary Styigan Wrath so the insightful nullification/lore is accounted for too. Those generic ml:29 sceptres with spell mastery/penetration (+insightful) could have been candidates but wearables cover those too.

My default choice is to just keep using the ML:20 borderlands epic sceptre of nullification with a lot of sentient xp in and would prefer to keep for epic levels anyway. It adds nothing beyond the sentient bonuses but would save the trouble of building up a new higher level item with sentience. Are there obvious high level main hands for casters and/or palemasters that I've overlooked which would make a significant difference?

What about something like Legendary Celestial Beacon to increase damage from shiradi light procs? Would that make enough of a damage improvement to justify plugging in another 40 or 60k sentient xp?

[Arkat]

I went with the Legendary Nightmother's Scepter (instead of the Legendary Prince's Scepter) because of the Orange slot that I could put the Meridian Fragment in.

[Alled78]

What are people using for a sentient weapon at levels 29, 30 and why?

I am having a hard time seeing any obvious choice for a palemaster. Spell power and spell mastery come on so many items aside from a weapon. I have no trouble fitting in nullification/lore on wearables... lets assume a Legendary Styigan Wrath so the insightful nullification/lore is accounted for too. Those generic ml:29 sceptres with spell mastery/penetration (+insightful) could have been candidates but wearables cover those too.

My default choice is to just keep using the ML:20 borderlands epic sceptre of nullification with a lot of sentient xp in and would prefer to keep for epic levels anyway. It adds nothing beyond the sentient bonuses but would save the trouble of building up a new higher level item with sentience. Are there obvious high level main hands for casters and/or palemasters that I've overlooked which would make a significant difference?

What about something like Legendary Celestial Beacon to increase damage from shiradi light procs? Would that make enough of a damage improvement to justify plugging in another 40 or 60k sentient xp?

Depends which destinies..
U use shiradi?
Maybe 1 force sceptre.
I wont go 100% negative energy damage... Which damage on dragon breath?

[hit_fido]

I went with the Legendary Nightmother's Scepter (instead of the Legendary Prince's Scepter) because of the Orange slot that I could put the Meridian Fragment in.

That makes good sense, and lo and behold, I already had one bound to account. Didn't even think about the orange slot vs red...

Maybe 1 force sceptre.

Trying out Shiradi mantle with Primal epic strike (Carrion Swarm); I'm using that ring with negative/poison/acid from feywild. You'd prefer force over light for a spell power main hand in this case? Is that mostly for Ruin? If I used dragon breath instead I'd probably stick with acid.

[slarden]

It's all about filling out missing stats - usually DC or spellpower.

Having a weapon in your hand with spellpower or a spellpower augment grants an implement bonus and you don't want to miss that. So that's a consideration.

The sentient bonuses at 30 are significant so I definitely suggest using a level-appropriate item with as much sentient xp as you can.

[Katalissa]

I'm using the Legendary Nightmother's Sceptre too. A total of +6 DC and +12 spell pen is nothing to sneeze at! Offhand I'm using Stygian Wrath but I have a handful of different orbs that would be suitable. It's just my Stygian has insightful INT on it so until I get another source for that, it's my go-to orb.

You will also want to save up Threads of Fate from raids to get the +2 INT filligrees, if you don't already! https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Thread_of_Fate

Thanks for the Meridian Fragment idea Slarden - my orange slot is currently empty...

When I was playing more EK/melee I was using Moonwillow, but back then it had a higher base-damage than most longswords! It was since nerfed back to "standard" short-sword damage...

[PrinceOfAsphodel]

What are people using for a sentient weapon at levels 29, 30 and why?

I am having a hard time seeing any obvious choice for a palemaster. Spell power and spell mastery come on so many items aside from a weapon. I have no trouble fitting in nullification/lore on wearables... lets assume a Legendary Styigan Wrath so the insightful nullification/lore is accounted for too. Those generic ml:29 sceptres with spell mastery/penetration (+insightful) could have been candidates but wearables cover those too.

My default choice is to just keep using the ML:20 borderlands epic sceptre of nullification with a lot of sentient xp in and would prefer to keep for epic levels anyway. It adds nothing beyond the sentient bonuses but would save the trouble of building up a new higher level item with sentience. Are there obvious high level main hands for casters and/or palemasters that I've overlooked which would make a significant difference?

What about something like Legendary Celestial Beacon to increase damage from shiradi light procs? Would that make enough of a damage improvement to justify plugging in another 40 or 60k sentient xp?

I completely agree with your assessment. There is no stand-out choice for a primary weapon as Pale Master. The only ones that come to mind are Null, the Darkness Without for when your build needs insightful nullification and insightful necromancy (though I find it difficult to build a "complete" gear set without Attunement's Gaze, so you'd ideally have +3 insightful DCs already), the Prince's Scepter for when you need spell penetration (or for when SSG names a weapon after you :P), or a weapon that increases a different spell power, like Wild Flame.

Like I hinted at already, my weapon of choice is the Prince's Scepter (Having "Prince" in the name > orange augment slot) because the spell penetration is really handy and it lets me skip slotting spell penetration elsewhere. I do also have a sentient epic scepter of nullification for epic leveling (only 5 filigrees) but unless I'm already consistently hitting through spell resistance in R10 Tethyamar, I don't see myself leaving out Prince's for endgame.

[mr420247]

If you are using an elders set or gomf with elders n force

I'm def farming enough adqs for a green blade for 20 off hand

Not sure if its worth it for legendary i'd wait to see the dread pack probably in feb b4 spending all your mats

And figure out your new set the new kama looks almost perfect for a wizard if it gets n orange slot and 6 evoc dcs