I'm awful at Casters. My wizard is lvl 19 with mediocre gear and I find myself very undermotivated to play them.

WF AM, Necro/Conj focus.

Max INT, 18 CON, some STR to prevent Ray of Enfeebling.

Can anyone suggest a feats list/AP list?

Oh yeah, and play it for me. I'm terribad at this.

I thoroughly love my WF Pale Master.

There are a fair number of times that I don't want to be in form either because there is more damage than aura/burst healing can handle or because there's lots of light damage flying around.  Having Reconstruct as a backup is damn sexy.

I'm sure I'm just a huge noob, but where are you losing DC?  Just not being Drow? 

WF only get -2 to CHA and WIS, not INT.

Oakianus wrote on Apr 1^st, 2012 at 8:34pm:


He's counting the 2 Int that you get from being in Lich form even though he shouldn't because I spend most of my time in Lich form just like every other PM.  The only times when I'm out of form are when the DC doesn't matter or when there is a specific reason to be out of form.  I'm happy to have the extra 60 HP and extra flexibility that WF gives me over the 1 DC that Drow get.

Being a robot has other benefits as well.  I have a supressed Quorforged Docent of Battle that I wear when my daughter wants to watch me play DDO. 

Purple robot with pink armor smashing up bad guys = happy 3 year old daughter.

rev Jim wrote on Apr 1^st, 2012 at 9:24pm:


He typed Human PM, but the Lord of Blades infected his computer in order to set him upon the proper path.

popejubal wrote on Apr 1^st, 2012 at 8:35pm:


I don't run eLOB, but AFAIK DCs are damn important in eLOB - I would not want to go in with -1 DC. Arcanes (other than WF air savants maybe) are less than ideal kiters. A WF PM is basically worse at the stuff he should be doing in exchange for being better at the stuff he shouldn't be doing. The groups that speedrun eLOB bring in fleshie DC sorcs for arcanes and have a favored soul kiting.

Shadow tanking is dead simple and I'm pretty certain shadow damage doesn't even scale. You absolutely do not need to be reconstructing for that.


popejubal wrote on Apr 1^st, 2012 at 8:37pm:


You also lose half a DC from no human adaptability or a full DC from not being drow, so at least a DC.

The whole reason to be PM is DCs. If you don't care about maximizing your necro DC, play a necro sorc or an AM.

I'm really awful at casters. I need help, not just for the build, but for how to play one, how to gear one, etc, etc, etc.

Things in general that I learned while playing my caster:

The biggest improvement that I saw in my own caster play was when I started to get the hang of what spells were appropriate at what time and how to target them for maximum effectiveness.

Throwing a Fireball/Wall of Fire between two archers instead of hard targeting one, for instance.  Knowing that lots of archers have Evasion, so the wall of fire might be better even though they probably would be taken out by one maximized fireball. 

Melee have weak will saves, casters (both divine and arcane) tend to have weak fort saves and pew pew you can just run past and ignore.

Cycling through multiple unmaximized damage spells is more SP efficient than throwing one maximized damage spell, but spells that don't stack with themselves (Ice Storm, Wall of Fire, etc) should be maximized so that you get the most damage for your time.

One well placed charm thrown *before* you get into a room can make everything in that room aggro on that single charmed enemy.  That's good.  One charm thrown after you are in a room and already have aggro is just an annoyance that you'll have to un-charm later.  That's bad.

Melee will feel good about themselves if you knock off a bunch of HP and let them finish the kill.

You can have a tremendous amount of fun by waiting until your melee party member slivers that bad guy before fingering it.

My biggest handicap, it seems, is mana conservation/usage.

That and I'm so very used to melee, but that's easily adjusted.

What should I look at gear-wise for now? Almost capped, so Epics at some point, but how would I go about gearing for Epics BEFORE having the Epic gear?

rev Jim wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2012 at 3:30am:


That's prolly a nice idea.

I have Death's Touch actually. Just unsupped it yesterday

Farm your eardweller from Dreaming Dark if you haven't. Farm Bauble if you can - requires torc or conopp. Get +3 excep int from a TOD ring or single shard GS weap. Make +45 HP conopp GS gloves if you don't have conopp. Run elite DQ religiously for Torc. Get the Magewright's Goggles and Magewright's Cloak from the House C manufactury. Make a epic Ornamented Dagger when Cove comes out. Run Abbot since it's back to being easy.

I wear zero epic gear on my caster unless you count Epic Robe of Shadow or Epic Ornamented Dagger. There's really not a lot of good epic gear for wizards until you get to the really hard to get stuff like epic 3pc Abishai, epic Staff of Inner Sight, etc.

Epic Docent of the Diabloist is decently easy to get if you run Chrono at all, though, and especially great for WF AMs.