Wizardly Questions

[chad878262]

none of those options sound great.... Improved Crit would be nice and all, but you are still talking about going from 5% chance to crit to 10% chance. IMO that is not worth an epic feat (great INT or an epic spell), nor is it worth the loss of Extended Spell. If you feel one of the classes isn't adding to the build than sure that might be the way to go, but all in all if you are walking the line between DC and blaster than how often are you going to use your RTA spells that can crit? I think you'd use extended spell more often, and the extra DC is ALWAYS useful.

[Side]

The main reason I considered it as an option is because of Arcane Fire, which would allow me to prepare a full DC/utility spellbook and convert them into crit capable blasts as needed. If it wasn't for that Improved Critical would be completely off the table right now. It's one of those things where I pretty much know I can't get it, but I still want to get it.

The class I'd be getting rid of is Arcane Scholar, which ironically is there mainly for it's ability to boost direct damage spells. I'd be getting five levels in it, for the free Maximize, Quicken, and Practical Empowered metamagics. It has clear strengths that could even help a DC build a bit, but I could free up two pre-epic feats if I passed it by.

My big thing here is I love the idea and RP for focusing on Transmutation, but it's really only got two offensive spells. Both spells have a save attached, but one is also a direct damage spell. A 10% chance is significantly better than a 5% chance, but maybe it would be better to simply focus on raw damage instead of a small chance at a massive hit. The difference between 5% and 10% would be bigger if it was on a larger die than a d20.

I think that's what I'll do. I'll pass up Improved Crit, maybe hoping it's a feat option for items when enchanting comes out, and run with everything else. Without this one feat everything seems to fit together decently well, giving me Epic Spell Focus Transmutation, 30 INT before buffs, and one epic spell.

I guess the only questions I have left are the following:
What makes Epic Ruin so much better than Hellball?
Should I take Epic Spell Focus and an epic spell, or two more Great INT?

[chad878262]

Your thoughts are sound, but I'd say AS is not worth it. The free metamagics are not really free and all you are getting is practical empower...nice, but not that nice. If you drop the requirements for AS you can get your improved crit, quicken, extend and empower. IMO that is all you need. Maximize is not that important since you have arcane fire, you don't need to fill out multiple spell levels with empower and maximize. As I said previously, AS is actually better for a sorcerer anyhow and based on what you are talking about it seems like that PRC is the main block toward you getting your 'complete' build that you are trying to make.

Just my thoughts, it's your character obviously, but based on your commentary I think you'd be happier with your build if you drop Arcane Scholar and get all of the feats you want.

[Side]

I just like to think everything out before I make any decisions. I have some very, very suboptimal characters that are by far my favorites, but I also knew exactly how they were suboptimal and how that would effect my time playing them before they made it to the server.

In any case thanks for all the help! Odds are I'll end up making another thread with more questions a few months from now, but other than the couple in here that I don't care all that much about I'm all out of wizard questions for now.

[Side]

Final question before I hit the RCR: Mastery of Shaping or Spell Like Ability?

It seems like it would be easy to just avoid AoE spells with allies around, but again my lack of wizardly experience is showing. Having an emergency spell on standby, be it teleport or a spell mantle, has fantastic use as well, but both of these feats lock me in once I've got them. If I end up not using AoE very much it will feel like a wasted feat, where as a spell like ability, depending on what I choose, can save me a spellslot for a very useful ability, but I have to choose exceptionally carefully.

[Valefort]

Don't choose yet, play and see what you need then pick one or the other

[Side]

Fair enough. With the way I play my build will probably involve 5 more RCRs and will end up being completely different, but will better match the character as it grows. Pity wizards are so expensive to RCR!

[chad878262]

Fair enough. With the way I play my build will probably involve 5 more RCRs and will end up being completely different, but will better match the character as it grows. Pity wizards are so expensive to RCR!

As you adventure/grind/whatever keep all the spell scrolls you find, even more common ones (at least one copy). With persistent storage there's no reason not to. That way if/when you RCR you will (hopefully) have a stock of scrolls to get you started. May help to make a spreadsheet to track which scrolls you have, and also to mark prices for the key spells you want to get, where you can obtain them and how much they cost. That way at RCR time you can prioritize selecting those spells that cannot be purchased, are the most expensive, and any other spell you don't have a scroll for. It may seem like a fair bit of work, but if you know you've a habit of RCR'ing you might as well plan for the eventuality and in the long run it will actually save time and gold. Once you have the spreadsheet it will be much easier to update so that after you RCR you only need to make updates to your inventory of scrolls. Good luck!

[Hawke]

Meh, if you do AOE and can't avoid hitting friendlies just hit them. There are also AOE spells that target enemy only...Use that.

RCR with wizard hurts more than any other class because of the 20k +gold you need to refill your spell book. You might have the gold now, but keep RCR and you will be as poor as me