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Eternal Wands - good or bad?

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Abub
Paks
Rodylac
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Post  Rodylac Tue Jan 24, 2012 5:34 am

So yeah, I'm back. Hi guys.

Shortly before my unexpected hiatus I TRed from Rogue to Wizard, going for a Necromancer build posted by Tihocan on the official DDO forums. Would link to the description but not allowed to post links, please search it out yourself if you're curious.

I was smart enough to farm myself some starting gear before TRing, so I'm running around in full 5-piece Abishai which (I think) does wonders for my general ability to do stuff.

However, I've run into a bit of an issue. I farmed two Eternal Wands, a Greater Corrosion III Eternal Wand of Acid Splash and a slightly less potent Eternal Wand of Finger of Fire. Switching between the two I never fully run out of charges, which is nice. However ... their damage doesn't really seem to change from level 3 to now level 7, meaning each cast still only does some 10 damage on average. That just doesn't cut it anymore, the mobs do way too much damage against me and take too long to die.

I don't seem to have a good array of offensive spells, either; the ones I have that actually do decent damage cost a sizable percentage of my mana pool, so unless I want to chug mana potions (I'm sorry, Mnemonic Potions) like crazy I'd go out of mana after the first few packs of enemies.

What am I doing wrong? Is there some uber attack I'm missing? Some stronger wand I should aim to get?

Rodylac

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Post  Paks Tue Jan 24, 2012 6:01 am

Rody,
Unfortunately wands do not scale to level; they are also unaffected by potency or spell pen items (meaning they will only ever do minimal damage). However, they are good backup for those times you run out of mana between shrines. Wands do become less effective as you advance in level, but your spells will become more effective to balance that out.
It is also an unfortunate fact that wizards don't get very many good damage spells until later (usually level 9-11), nor do they have a great mana pool. There are items that can boost mana and potency, as I'm sure you know, but the more damage you're doing, the more mana you're spending.
The best I can recommend right now is to have a non-weapon spell-point item on, such as a pearl of power.

If you need help with gear, or just general wizzy questions, feel free to ask.
Paks
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Post  Rodylac Tue Jan 24, 2012 6:07 am

Well, I currently have 513 mana selfbuffed, ie. without ship buffs.

My spells of choice are Scorching Ray for single-target and Fireball for AoE; especially the fireball seems really great against groups of enemies surrounding me.

Of course I've put points in Flame Manipulation for some extra punch.

I'll try to get up to level 9 and see what it has to offer spell-wise.

Rodylac

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Post  Abub Tue Jan 24, 2012 12:02 pm

Rodylac wrote:Well, I currently have 513 mana selfbuffed, ie. without ship buffs.

My spells of choice are Scorching Ray for single-target and Fireball for AoE; especially the fireball seems really great against groups of enemies surrounding me.

Of course I've put points in Flame Manipulation for some extra punch.

I'll try to get up to level 9 and see what it has to offer spell-wise.

I still use scorching ray on OotsAbub (lvl15 wizzy) as a mainstay for its range and with all my flame focus it hits pretty hard. I choose to not use wall of fire except in the occasional stand and defend places in quests but instead prefer to hit them with fireballs.... yes I know WoF is the be-all-end-all spell but I hate it so much in this game. Also after that spell point rebalancing thing they did a few updates back, fireball is now cheap enough to cast multiple times I think.

Are you going Pale Master or some kind of necro based arch-mage?


And wands... I mainly use wands as either back up or just when I want to conserve spell points, but I play him with this concept in mind.... "let the fighters do their job" or "It's ok to let the fighters do their job". I don't strive to be at the top of the kill count but instead enjoy being able to unload the damage for when the fights start getting rough and out of hand. I guess I look at it in a similar fashion to clerical "over healing", save you spell points for when you need them and don't "over cast". Its sucks being totally out of SP.

Well, that's my opinion... I wouldn't count myself as a highly skilled caster in DDO yet. Maybe others can point out where I'm full of crap or if they hate casters that don't "pull their weight" by depleting their SP pool every battle.
Abub
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Post  Lauranda Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:20 pm

IMO, firewall is very situational since it got nerfed a few updates ago. Until I was level 18 on my sorc, fireball and delayed blast fireball were my bread and butter. Unless I am in a group with an uber melee, I often lead in kill count. Of course as a sorc, I have more SP to play with. But even before I TRd, when I was a wiz, I could lay down the death. It's all about knowing the spells and what do use when, etc.

As far as wands, I carried all the eternals with me for when I ran out of SP, but that didn't happen often. As a sorc (maybe because of the extra mana), I noticed I almost never used them, so I dumped them in my bank to conserve backpack space. Just like my statement above about knowing spells and such...you also have to learn your mana pool. It helps if you know the quests and how many shrines there are and where. Then you can adjust your casting on the fly. It just takes practice and experience.

Lauranda

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Post  pms Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:31 am

Know too - that wizzies and sorcs are EXTREMELY hard to solo with at low levels - TR or not. If you've run out of sp and are facing mobs armed with eternal wands - yeah, you are about to be humbled.

Until you get into mid-levels and death dealing insta-kill type spells - gather guildies or pug about.

Firewalls got nerfed because wizzy/sorcs would hit 7 or 8th level and use theri manna pool and potency items to crisp everything - way too overpowering. It can still be used rather effectively - but it is not easy to solo with just that spell anymore (unless cleaning up favor on low level quests).

pms
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Post  llev Wed Jan 25, 2012 10:25 am

Like others have have said wizzy aint laying to waste enemies at lower levels with spells.

What alot of ppl do, myself included, is plan for just a little bit of melee ability at low levels. Really doesnt take that much investment to be able to handle low level stuff. I llev I soloed until about level8 quests on hard.

Also to note, to start off I had augment summoning(with this and buffs even low level summons are pretty hardy) and two weapon fighting. Both respecced out at level 9.

Kinda used to doing this from pnp, may not seem "right" but I think its more intended than trying to nuke your way through low level dungeons. All the spells are there at low level to get you through in this manner.

llev

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Post  Rodylac Thu Jan 26, 2012 4:18 am

I'm surprised no one mentioned this, as it seemed blatantly obvious to me the moment I did it. Since running around without a hireling when trying to solo stuff is just stupid, I went and got a cleric as I always did.

And then I remembered some cleric hirelings have Divine Vitality. Which restores a chunk of SP.

At level 7 I get ~200 extra SP from my hireling per rest shrine, an increase of around 40% of my total SP. Since I'm not burning it all in one fight anyway it gives a bit more leeway in SP usage.

Rodylac

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Post  Commodore Thu Jan 26, 2012 5:48 am

Just as a reference point, here are all the eternal wands in the game. There are enhancements that can be taken to improve their DC and power. Without such an investment, they are of limited, albeit creative "Plan B" utility.
Commodore
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