Pale Master Guide

[danbevj]

It really comes down to the content you are planning on running. If you are running GH EE's necro dc's are just fine and you will feel very powerful. When it comes to Stormhorns, it will require significant debuffing to get them workable. I would actually recommend an enchantment focus for Stormhorns, you can get to a 66 enchant DC (67 with completionist) with just a change to the magister spell specialist (I would recommend that you keep necromancy in archmage for the enveration sla and easy swapping between the two modes)..

Great advice - I'm waiting to TR back into my PM.

Have you updated your build yet with change in feats/enhancements?

[TBot1234]

It really comes down to the content you are planning on running. If you are running GH EE's necro dc's are just fine and you will feel very powerful. When it comes to Stormhorns, it will require significant debuffing to get them workable. I would actually recommend an enchantment focus for Stormhorns, you can get to a 66 enchant DC (67 with completionist) with just a change to the magister spell specialist (I would recommend that you keep necromancy in archmage for the enveration sla and easy swapping between the two modes).

Self healing is good enough for EE (~280+ bursts) as long as you remember that you are a wizard.

Playing a DC caster is viable but not by any means easy. You are not going to be soloing content and running full speed killing all in your path (at least not in Stormhorns, you will crush EE GH), but you will fill an invaluable role in the team.

The Shiradi builds are more powerful in EE Stormhorns individually, but that doesn't mean that the DC caster has no role, you can't overstate the value of a mass hold to the team, with the mob densities we are seeing these days.

If I had a caster completionist I couldn't imagine not going DC caster. That +1 to all dcs (+2 intelligence) is a big deal. If you want a Shiradi -- roll up a first lifer they are just as good, don't waste all the work you did to get to completionist.

Sounds great. Will build for PM Necro DC with ability to switch to Enchantment. Either that, or I'll just stay the heck out of Stormhorns. Thanks for the info. Am 2 lives and 1 level away from starting back on a Wizard. I hope it's as glorious as I dream it will be.

[Devachan]

Sounds great. Will build for PM Necro DC with ability to switch to Enchantment. Either that, or I'll just stay the heck out of Stormhorns. Thanks for the info. Am 2 lives and 1 level away from starting back on a Wizard. I hope it's as glorious as I dream it will be.

I'm doing the same. Just capped my final past life and am now about to TR back into Wizzie for final life. I will have completionist and 3x wiz, sorc, fvs, cleric, and arti. I am sooo looking forward to getting back to a wizard.

Feats:
Wizard: Maximize Spell (1),SF: Necro (5), SF: Enchant (10), Heighten Spell (15), Quicken Spell (20)
Base: Insightful Reflexes (1), PL: Wizard (3), PL:Bard (6), GSF: Necro (9), GSF: Enchant (12), Spell Penetration (15), Empower Spell (18), Great Intelligence (21), Great Intelligence (24), Great Intelligence (27)
Destiny: epic SP: Negative (26), Elusive Target (28)

Question regarding feats. I really like Enlarge Spell for the greater range for FOD and circle of death (and others). I also need to fit in Completionist. So that's two feats to drop from the above. Empower looks like an easy swap for Enlarge. Any suggestions for the other one? Perhaps GSF: Enchantment?

[EllisDee37]

Question regarding feats. I really like Enlarge Spell for the greater range for FOD and circle of death (and others). I also need to fit in Completionist. So that's two feats to drop from the above. Empower looks like an easy swap for Enlarge. Any suggestions for the other one? Perhaps GSF: Enchantment?

Maybe spell pen?

[Devachan]

Yeah, would love to drop it, but it is a pre-req for Piercing Spellcraft. I guess its really only needed for EE drow, so once I get menace out of the way on EE I could drop Spell Penetration and pick up GSF: Enchantment.

[Andoris]

Question regarding feats. I really like Enlarge Spell for the greater range for FOD and circle of death (and others). I also need to fit in Completionist. So that's two feats to drop from the above. Empower looks like an easy swap for Enlarge. Any suggestions for the other one? Perhaps GSF: Enchantment?

Spell pen is the weakest of the feats (and the one I would drop for Completionist)

As for dropping empower for enlarge, it is not a bad idea, but remember that you are giving up and average of ~40 points of burst healing.

As for empower -- Did a test (20 castings with empower + maximize, 20 castings with just maximize) and the results are below:

Maximze+Empower: average=282.2, min=197, max=528, standard Dev = 96.05, mode=tie 234 and 242 (3 each)
Maximize:average=243.25, min=161, max=453, standard Dev = 85.17, mode=tie 181 and 205 (3 each)

Personally I like empower, but there is nothing wrong with Enlarge -- let me know how it works out for you

[mixomatozis]

Can't wait to hear more. I'm 3 lives away from Completionist (with 3xWiz, 2xFvs), and am thinking about one of these for my end-life:

1. Drow Pure Pale Master Wizard, or
2. Shiradi Sorc (with Monk splash), or
3. Shiradi Wiz (with FVS/Monk splashes)

Really, I've been trying to determine from reading the forums whether DC casting is going to viable for most/all EE content, or not. Am getting a lot of mixed messages about the topic. If your awesome build reduces you to tears after the recent changes, this is pretty frustrating to hear.

I've had fun as both Wiz and a Sorc, and would love to go back to being a Pure PM, but only if the self-healing is sufficient for EE and only if the DC casting can work without having to do 3 debuff spells first each time.

Thanks for all your work.

Why would you ever waste your effort and long run for completionist on the shiradi sorc? You can make uber second life shiradi sorc that will be able to solo any current ee content. The completionist will get you nothing being magic missile monkey.

[Devachan]

Why would you ever waste your effort and long run for completionist on the shiradi sorc? .

Because he want to be relevant in EE content. If PM (or a DC caster in general) cannot contribute meaningfully because DCs are too high, then he is better off taking his completionist and playing a different build. If you love arcanes and want to play an arcane, but can't get a DC build to work, then shiradhi is probably your only other choice. I was facing the same decision with my completionist and was pleased to hear that necromancy and enchantment are now viable in a lot of EE content, and (with work) enchantment is even viable in the Stormhorns.

I always wanted to go back to a necro-focused PM. Fallback would have been enchantment focus. If neither of those was viable then I would have preferred to go Shiradhi rather than play something which benefited from all of the past lives but still fell short of the EE mark.

Of course, it would always have been with an eye to the increase of level cap to 30 and the hope that I could make a DC caste work after that change.

[EllisDee37]

I'm about to roll up a dedicated epic challenge farmer, and that's one place where a true DC PM will shine.

The plan is pure 21 drow wizard, staying 21 forever.

[thouston]

I'm about to roll up a dedicated epic challenge farmer, and that's one place where a true DC PM will shine.

The plan is pure 21 drow wizard, staying 21 forever.

hope you share the build. your builds are well planed and easy to follow

[Devachan]

I'm about to roll up a dedicated epic challenge farmer, and that's one place where a true DC PM will shine.

The plan is pure 21 drow wizard, staying 21 forever.

Is that for earning tokens of the twelve or for some other reason?

[Devachan]

As for dropping empower for enlarge, it is not a bad idea, but remember that you are giving up and average of ~40 points of burst healing.

So I'm back on my (final) PM life and I have just noticed that Maximise Spell is incompatible with Death Aura. I assume Empower would be the same.

Is that working as intended?

[EllisDee37]

Is that for earning tokens of the twelve or for some other reason?

A few reasons, none of which are particularly compelling except that it'll be fun for me:

- Farming eveningstar mats
- No penalty farming epic cannith mats (28s and 30s will get steep penalties)
- More level choices for crystal cove & mabar
- A legitimate application for DC casting regardless of endgame DC viability
- A viable / fun use for the skeletal knight pet (stand guard at center)

I'm most excited about the pet thing. Pets are terrible in DDO because they don't scale properly for (epic) elites. Challenges are never elite content, but rather are essentially at-level content on hard. Pets are pretty viable in hard content, and especially useful as something you leave behind to guard the home base and foreman without adding any scaling. I would never waste AP on the pet line for a "real" character, but a dedicated challenge farmer? Sure, you bet!

It'll also be nice to have a true DC caster that never needs to worry if endgame DCs aren't viable. The 21 build should hit low/mid 50s necro DC (and 37 spell pen) with no past lives, which is plenty viable in CR25 challenges (for a 40% reward bonus running on a 21) regardless of how high of a DC you need for level 30 epic elites.

I cannot stand running sunset ritual without having a dball caster, so if I ever want platinum tricrowns I either need to have a DC caster to bring or wait for someone else to join. Much nicer to just be able to solo farm them at-will if I ever want a cloak or cormyrian weapon. In a vicious self-sustaining cycle, my heroic level human monk challenge farmer would like ML16 cormyrian wraps.

Apologies to the OP for the sidetrack.

[nibel]

With U20 allowing TRing iconics, Sun Elf might be a better choice than drow. Stats are +2 int/-2 con, have +2 int on racial core, and get 36 points builds instead of drow 32. Also get access to feywild tap.

[EllisDee37]

With U20 allowing TRing iconics, Sun Elf might be a better choice than drow. Stats are +2 int/-2 con, have +2 int on racial core, and get 36 points builds instead of drow 32. Also get access to feywild tap.

And of course the +1 enchantment DC from the Enchantment Lore line. (Which is a prereq for feywild tap.)

6 AP for +2 int from core
3 AP for +1 enchant DC
1 AP thrown away on useless whatever to meet "points in tree" prereq
3 AP for feywild tap
---
13 AP in racial tree

Depending on how hard it is to remove that first cleric level, yeah, I'm liking sun elf a lot for a PM. Is that irony?

EDIT: The AP by tree if you wanted feywild tap would then be:

13 racial (feywild tap III)
41 pale master (capstone)
25 archmage (enervation sla, tier 4 int, +1 necro dc)
---
79 AP, with 1 to spend on whatever

[Andoris]

Just updated the Build and main post due to U19.2 changes (mostly Spell Mastery no longer stacking).

Decided to focus on Enchantment DC's for U19 EEs, ran a EE WGU yesterday with the changes and it worked great (~80%+ success on mass holds (all mobs), nearly 100% after a crushing dispair or hypnotism). I still like necro focus for pre U19 EE's, but necro just doesn't cut it for EE storm horns. For the time being I am staying necromancy in archmage and just swapping between Necro and Enchantment via the Magister tree. Reasoning is partly laziness (don't feel like redoing the tree constantly just for 1 dc), and partly the awesomeness of the enervation sla.

The gear is ugly, but it works. If someone can devise a better gear layout (or just a cleaner one) I am all ears.

As always comments and suggestions are welcome

[Andoris]

And of course the +1 enchantment DC from the Enchantment Lore line. (Which is a prereq for feywild tap.)

6 AP for +2 int from core
3 AP for +1 enchant DC
1 AP thrown away on useless whatever to meet "points in tree" prereq
3 AP for feywild tap
---
13 AP in racial tree

Depending on how hard it is to remove that first cleric level, yeah, I'm liking sun elf a lot for a PM. Is that irony?

EDIT: The AP by tree if you wanted feywild tap would then be:

13 racial (feywild tap III)
41 pale master (capstone)
25 archmage (enervation sla, tier 4 int, +1 necro dc)
---
79 AP, with 1 to spend on whatever

When U20 hits I will likely be looking at Sun Elf as well. Feywild tap is a nice source of SP, and gold elves (the precursor to sun elves) are just to cool lore wise (imo). It might be worthwile to go to 14 AP in racial tree, if Rejuvenation of the Dawn works while you are undead (how is that for irony). The Loss of Efficient Heighten out of Archmage will be annoying, but more than made up for with Feywild tap.

[Panzermeyer]

This is an awesome guide Andoris.

I need to spend time looking it over more throughly.

I just had a game changer today on my current caster TR. I was planning on ending up as a cleric. But I have gotten more focused on melee than casting. Trouble is I have 3x Wiz, 3x sorc, 1 fvs, and 1 cleric. I was gonna focus on being a caster cleric. However just today I pulled an epic elite Gloves of the Master Illusionist. And well Wiz, Arti, and Int Assassin build are the only Int builds. Bard could use the Enchantment DC bonus, but the +11 int would be wasted. So this has me seriously looking at ending up a pale master. I already have a pale rod, few orbs etc sitting on mule toons.

I am very close to having ALL destinies maxed out. And so have plenty of Fate Points for twists.
I think a pale master would let me get the most out of my past lives and these nice gloves.

Few questions.

The way i read it on the ddowiki. Bard past lives, add +1 to SAVES versus enchantment. Not bonuses to the DC's of enchantments. Am I reading this incorrectly? Or is it listed incorrectly?

I am not sure if you have discussed this or not, but what does your SP pool look like?

**** I knew I had more, but that is a start. =) I was mainly looking to see if a pure Pale Master is still viable. And this post definitely answered that for me.

[EllisDee37]

The way i read it on the ddowiki. Bard past lives, add +1 to SAVES versus enchantment. Not bonuses to the DC's of enchantments. Am I reading this incorrectly? Or is it listed incorrectly?

The passive past life grants +1 enchantment save, stacks up to three times.

The active bard past life feat (ie: the past life feat you select as early as level 3 and takes a feat slot) is +1 to the DC of your enchantment spells.

[Panzermeyer]

The passive past life grants +1 enchantment save, stacks up to three times.

The active bard past life feat (ie: the past life feat you select as early as level 3 and takes a feat slot) is +1 to the DC of your enchantment spells.

Ah right I read that further as I was going back to the very beginning of this thread and reading everything. Thanks.

I was also disappointed to realize that the Gloves are a +5 to DC's of Illusion. PK being the only beneficial spell =/

Is there anything else that is dropping that is a Int +11 from the new content?