Just returning - Need assistance with EK Wiz build from 2019

[ccd1977]

Just noticed I lost completionist. Subbed with spell Penetration.

My feats are blank. This is a sword and orb build from 2019. Any advice on the enhancements?

I tried to copy and paste images but I keep getting a security token error.


Eleazzar
Wizard 18 - EK
Lawful Good Bladeforged




Stats
. . . . . . . .36pt . . Tome . . Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . ----. . .--------
Strength. . . . .8. . . .+6. . . .4: INT
Dexterity . . . 10. . . .+6. . . .8: INT
Constitution. . 20. . . .+6. . . 12: INT
Intelligence. . 18. . . .+6. . . 16: INT
Wisdom. . . . . .6. . . .+6
Charisma. . . . .8. . . .+6. . .

[slarden]

Obviously EK Tier 5 which improved significantly since you played last. Now instead of not being to cast spells at range you just can't have enlarge and the EK stance at the same time. So you can go with more of a hybrid build and introduced more spellcasting.

I really like EK with a splash of harper and feydark illusionist for int to-hit/damage and greater color spray. Mass Hold is awesome at higher levels, but greater color spray is great while leveling and still great at end game - working on things where other forms of cc fail.

If you are 18/2 paladin and solo there is an argument to go with 3 paladin for defense stance giving 25 MRR/PRR/HP% bonus. However, in groups you don't want the threat and depending how you play may not even want the threat when soloing. It's not as important now as you can get 15% hp bonus in the top tier of Eldritch Knight. Losing the 18 core is not a small thing so it depends how you value defense vs dps.

The ED system is also more hybrid friendly, but end-game gear still isn't, but it's better than it used to be.

[ccd1977]

Obviously EK Tier 5 which improved significantly since you played last. Now instead of not being to cast spells at range you just can't have enlarge and the EK stance at the same time. So you can go with more of a hybrid build and introduced more spellcasting.

I really like EK with a splash of harper and feydark illusionist for int to-hit/damage and greater color spray. Mass Hold is awesome at higher levels, but greater color spray is great while leveling and still great at end game - working on things where other forms of cc fail.

If you are 18/2 paladin and solo there is an argument to go with 3 paladin for defense stance giving 25 MRR/PRR/HP% bonus. However, in groups you don't want the threat and depending how you play may not even want the threat when soloing. It's not as important now as you can get 15% hp bonus in the top tier of Eldritch Knight. Losing the 18 core is not a small thing so it depends how you value defense vs dps.

The ED system is also more hybrid friendly, but end-game gear still isn't, but it's better than it used to be.

What are my options for armor? Should I go adamantium? to stay med?

[droid327]

What are my options for armor? Should I go adamantium? to stay med?

Adam is heavy and totally kills your dodge. Only worth it if you can crank your mrr up over 100 by a good chunk

Mithril gives you 100 mrr, which is workable in epic, plus lets you take shadow dancer for evasion...though it kinda kills your dodge too

One more option would be composite, running in gmof for lotus and helpless damage, since you should be using long sword and that's ki compatible

[ccd1977]

Does strategic combat in Harper stack with Eldritch accuracy?

[slarden]

What are my options for armor? Should I go adamantium? to stay med?

If you aren't building for evasion you can definitely go with adamantine armor once you have 12 levels of wizard and sooner depending on gear, ap point availability, etc. If you aren't splashing 3 paladin for the extra 10% hp bonus then it probably only makes sense if you can get your MRR over 100. On hardcore my first-life 17 wizard / 3 paladin had about 150MRR at epic levels so I liked having the adamantine armor. We were only running R2 on hardcore. But I was using a shield - not sure how much I would lose without that shield.

As droid said this limits your dodge cap, but in general dodge is something you build for mainly for high skull reaper because it's a broken mechanic that isn't debuffed. Blur and ghostly are debuffed by skull and effectively useless on R10.

If you are mainly running R4 or below you still get some benefit from displacement and ghostly. One Elite or below you get the full benefit of displacement and ghostly.

For ways to get rid of arcane spell failure you have eldritch knight core 3/4 , tier 1 bladeforged, augments and a few cannith crafting options.

Does strategic combat in Harper stack with Eldritch accuracy?

It does not stack. Int to Hit in harper is available sooner, but once I get eld accuracy I'll swap it out for something else. Know the Angles and Strategic combat II are the main things you want. Since you aren't using a shield you can pick which tree to take int to hit from, but you only want one. The big thing with harper is int for damage and the know the angles trance.

[unbongwah]

Just noticed I lost completionist. Subbed with spell Penetration.

Alchemist was added in 2020 so you'll need to run an Alchy life to re-earn Completionist. The good news is it's now auto-granted at level 3 so you no longer have to sacrifice a feat slot for it.

My feats are blank. This is a sword and orb build from 2019. Any advice on the enhancements?

Your typical pure wizard Eldritch Knight is going for at least 41 EK (tier-5s + capstone) / 12 Harper Agent to get INT to damage and Know the Angles. After that, it's up to you what to do with your remaining APs. Fleshies will likely invest in Pale Master (undead immunities, self-heals with Negative energy, etc.); magic robots can rely on Repair / Reconstruct instead, freeing APs to invest in something else like their racial tree. You can also invest a little (or a lot) into Archmage for some extra SLAs. Feydark Illusionist (added with the Feywild expansion) also has some goodies for Illusion-focused casters (hence the name).

The good news is SSG just got rid of the "touch range only" restriction on spells from Knight's Transformation. They also eliminated Epic Defensive Fighting and added Competence HP bonuses to more trees, including tier-5 Eldritch Knight (Improved Knight's Transformation). So EKs can cast spells at range again while still gaining all their melee bonuses.

The bad news for SWF casters is SSG swung the nerf bat hard at Offhand Versatility and got rid of Versatile Empowerment: "If you have an Orb or a Runearm in your Offhand, your Vorpal strikes cause you to gain Versatile Empowerment. Versatile Empowerment: Your spells automatically crit for the next 5 seconds." Now it just provides a static bonus to Imbue dice. But silver lining: Offhand Versatility was introduced while you were away, so you never got to experience the glory days of Versatile Empowerment and won't know what you're missing. Lucky(?) you.

You can read about the new Imbue system and the HP changes in the U57 Release Notes.

I tried to copy and paste images but I keep getting a security token error.

Use an image-hosting site like Imgur, then post with the Insert Image From Url command.

[ccd1977]

Alchemist was added in 2020 so you'll need to run an Alchy life to re-earn Completionist. The good news is it's now auto-granted at level 3 so you no longer have to sacrifice a feat slot for it.

Your typical pure wizard Eldritch Knight is going for at least 41 EK (tier-5s + capstone) / 12 Harper Agent to get INT to damage and Know the Angles. After that, it's up to you what to do with your remaining APs. Fleshies will likely invest in Pale Master (undead immunities, self-heals with Negative energy, etc.); magic robots can rely on Repair / Reconstruct instead, freeing APs to invest in something else like their racial tree. You can also invest a little (or a lot) into Archmage for some extra SLAs. Feydark Illusionist (added with the Feywild expansion) also has some goodies for Illusion-focused casters (hence the name).

The good news is SSG just got rid of the "touch range only" restriction on spells from Knight's Transformation. They also eliminated Epic Defensive Fighting and added Competence HP bonuses to more trees, including tier-5 Eldritch Knight (Improved Knight's Transformation). So EKs can cast spells at range again while still gaining all their melee bonuses.

The bad news for SWF casters is SSG swung the nerf bat hard at Offhand Versatility and got rid of Versatile Empowerment: "If you have an Orb or a Runearm in your Offhand, your Vorpal strikes cause you to gain Versatile Empowerment. Versatile Empowerment: Your spells automatically crit for the next 5 seconds." Now it just provides a static bonus to Imbue dice. But silver lining: Offhand Versatility was introduced while you were away, so you never got to experience the glory days of Versatile Empowerment and won't know what you're missing. Lucky(?) you.

You can read about the new Imbue system and the HP changes in the U57 Release Notes.

Use an image-hosting site like Imgur, then post with the Insert Image From Url command.

So I am about to level to 19, if I wanted to increase my DPS and tankiness, would you recommend a 2 Fighter splash and something from there? I really like Wail of the Banshee, I just wish it hit more often. My school is Evocation also. I dont know why I choose that, its been too long to remember but what do you think?

OK, here are some images. https://imgur.com/a/VsWq3fj

Another question is, should I dump the Orb and do THF or Shield? I am readying Orbs and Off hand items got nerfed.

[Bjond]

My feats are blank. This is a sword and orb build from 2019. Any advice on the enhancements

I'm partial to PM for survive, but that particular penchant only works up to about R4. If you're focused on mid+ reaper, L/DA from PM won't really help a whole lot and it's only gain over WF/Repair is that it's a HOT and permits full-time DPS'ing.

My favorite EK build is 3 Bard 2 Rogue 15 Wiz. SWF+Buckler with H.Axe ends up with a 15x4 profile. T5 EK. T4 PM. T3 Swash. It's lots of fun, but your levels put you on a different style. SWF+Orb using Khopesh or (better these days) Long Swords can put you at 16x4 profile for that kind of build (or SWF+Empty for more physical DPS).

Melee EK has a BAB issue for acquiring the necessary melee feats, though. It's a VERY late-blooming style that doesn't hit it's stride until L24+.

One more option would be composite, running in gmof for lotus and helpless damage, since you should be using long sword and that's ki compatible

Yeah, WF's racial MDB cap is so low I'd call it buggy.

in general dodge is something you build for mainly for high skull reaper because it's a broken mechanic

It's not really broken, it's how you have to build if you want survive on builds that can't wear a shield with high MRR and still DPS. And, it works great in elite and low reaper, too. I have a dodge-built raid tank that does R1 and under raids at cap. It's a lot of fun, but sadly has issues dealing with high incoming magic damage. So, it's not a universal tank.

So I am about to level to 19, if I wanted to increase my DPS and tankiness, would you recommend a 2 Fighter splash [..] Another question is, should I dump the Orb and do THF or Shield? I am readying Orbs and Off hand items got nerfed.

Easiest and quickest way for an EK to gain some big defense is SD's Shadow Form Mantle. It STACKS with Displace for 75% total incorporeal. This is VERY handy for r4 and under builds while leveling up. However, it has a few caveats, like it does nothing for anything with true-seeing (all bosses) and it's L24+. It won't help in heroics, but EK is pretty much an epic-only style.

IMHO, building as you level is likely to be a high-frustration experience. I'd suggest getting Maetrim's Builder and plan things out -- if not for this build, for your next. You're so close to L20, you can then TR into your next with plan in hand.

BTW, in general, I've found that making DC spells work sub-cap is pretty easy. So, you can likely mix CC and/or instant kills into your EK play while leveling. However that ends abruptly at cap. At-cap DC casting is all-in fully focused on DCs or they fail.

[slarden]

It's not really broken, it's how you have to build if you want survive on builds that can't wear a shield with high MRR and still DPS. And, it works great in elite and low reaper, too. I have a dodge-built raid tank that does R1 and under raids at cap. It's a lot of fun, but sadly has issues dealing with high incoming magic damage. So, it's not a universal tank.

It's a broken mechanic because unlike other forms of defense it doesn't scale by skull.

Displacement becomes less useful by skull
Ghostly becomes less useful by skull
AC becomes less useful by skull (enemy to hit increases)
HP becomes less useful by skull (enemy damage increases)

Dodge is exactly the same from Elite to R10. This is the reason why people build for it in high skulls.

[Bjond]

It's a broken mechanic because unlike other forms of defense it doesn't scale by skull

Neither PRR nor MRR scale by skull. Barbarian %DR doesn't scale by skull. Absorb% doesn't scale by skull. Saves and Resists don't scale by skull. Are these all broken, too?

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Wrote a really long reply on Dodge v PRR and then realized it basically completely derails OP here. So, will just leave a link if you want to read more.

[slarden]

Neither PRR nor MRR scale by skull. Barbarian %DR doesn't scale by skull. Absorb% doesn't scale by skull. Saves and Resists don't scale by skull. Are these all broken, too?

---

Wrote a really long reply on Dodge v PRR and then realized it basically completely derails OP here. So, will just leave a link if you want to read more.

They work properly as you move up skulls. See response here in your other thread: https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showth...=1#post6557304

Dodge is the unicorn which is why it's used and abused on R10.

[McLoopie]

Dodge is exactly the same from Elite to R10.

I hate to be pedantic but some Red Crown Champions disagree!

[slarden]

I hate to be pedantic but some Red Crown Champions disagree!

Champions exist on elite and R10. There is no scaling as you move up skulls.

And the same thing is true of champions that have true seeing completely bypassing concealment bonuses. It's a champion mechanic not reaper scaling.

[McLoopie]

Champions exist on elite and R10. There is no scaling as you move up skulls.

And the same thing is true of champions that have true seeing completely bypassing concealment bonuses. It's a champion mechanic not reaper scaling.

But there are no Red Champions in Elite, so the chances of finding mobs in Reaper that completely ignore your dodge may us much as triple compared to Elite. I agree theres no scaling as you move up skulls (unless the number of Champions you get in high reaper increases), but the below statement you made earlier is only mostly accurate.

Dodge is exactly the same from Elite to R10.

Sorry, I think its just my brain overthinks things, I read something and think "But surely...." and then I think out loud and probably annoy people.