Melee Wizard

[hinnehmen]

Did anyone tried a melee wizard in PotD?

Something like wizard (no subclass) multiclass with barbarian, paladin, fighter..

using the nuke and buff spells from wizard while you are fighting the foes with dual battle axe

[jakesmurf]

I'm sure it would work fine.  Wizards can be very powerful melee combatants because they have access to a LOT of self-buffs with martial purposes, especially things deflection related from Illusion.  

I would suggest that you plan that build more around using a summoned weapon though (there's a bunch of them in Wizard).  You cannot melee attack AND cast spells at the same time, so casting nukes from melee range doesn't really do much unless you just want to absorb damage.  

[Vastus]

I'm currently doing a Solo PotD run with a Berserker/Wizard. Port Maje was actually kinda tough, but as soon as I got my ship and was able to sail to Neketaka to pick up Whispers of the Endless Paths and Abraham (pet on top of the Luminous Adra Mill) it really started to pick up. Wizard buffs have no recovery and a very short cooldown so you can just buff yourself up at the start of a fight and start wailing on enemies. 

 

Summoned weapons aren't worth the long cast time I think. For Paladin and Fighter you'll want to dual wield btw, much more effective with the full attacks.

[Abbzug]

I'm playing a nalpazca monk/wizard, and sometimes I take Aloth along as a fighter/wizard. The summon weapons are really bad, and so are the offensive buffs so I skip them. But the defensive buffs are generally .4 seconds with no recovery. So I just AI script all the defensive buffs at the start of fights. I don't generally have the spell slots and time to also throw out offensive spells so when I do it's usually when I spend empower points.

[Yenkaz]

Add to this, there's a lot of good melee weapons that add to wizard abilities on the side (Griffin's Blade, Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff). It's certainly workable.

[eschu101]

just arrived at neketaka, im playing aloth as battlemage and works really fine so far...really fragile early but when starts getting really tanky whenl you are able to use infuse vital + arcane + spiti shield + displaced image


eder is swashbuckler, pc min-max pure wizard, serafen and xoti...ill replace serafen with maia when i finder her, i think

[marc5477]

Wizard/Fighter. Starts slow but get strong by level 10. Excellent tank along with Wizard/Paladin. The warrior version has much better melee dps however. 

Wizard/Monk: Like other monk crit builds, is basically so OP that it might be considered broken. Spirit Lance + Gaze (15% crit) + monk crit abilities makes for silly results.

[Anoregon]

I want to eventually try a 2hand Devoted/Wizard in order to sort o try a different take on the BG2 kensai/mage. I know 2hands in general aren't great, but the soulbound Pollaxe is available essentially right after you leave Port Maje, or you can go 2hand swords if you  want to use Whispers of Endless paths.

[Owlbear]

Wizard/Fighter. Starts slow but get strong by level 10. Excellent tank along with Wizard/Paladin. The warrior version has much better melee dps however. 

 

Wizard/Monk: Like other monk crit builds, is basically so OP that it might be considered broken. Spirit Lance + Gaze (15% crit) + monk crit abilities makes for silly results.

 

Most of that melee dps for the wizard/fighter comes from charge and cleave. After playing with various fighter multis I realized that even if fighter is one of the most effective base classes for multis, it's still kinda boring. Now I started a paladin/wizard and I enjoy it a lot more, even with the weaker melee dps or the non-existent melee pbaoe I enjoy the support parts of the class. (also now that I decided to bench both Aloth and Pallegina a paladin/wizard made more sense. :D)

[Yenkaz]

just arrived at neketaka, im playing aloth as battlemage and works really fine so far...really fragile early but when starts getting really tanky whenl you are able to use infuse vital + arcane + spiti shield + displaced image

 

 

eder is swashbuckler, pc min-max pure wizard, serafen and xoti...ill replace serafen with maia when i finder her, i think

 

Do yourself a favor if you get the random encounter in the city where you can get the Griffin sword and check out its enchantments. It made my otherwise rather straightforward sceptre-wielding wizard go all dual-wielding Gandalf until I found the Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff.

[Tosho]

It's okay, but a bit lacking due to no special accuracy or weapon effects talents, and no full attacks coming from the wizard side of things. You're mostly getting +defenses from the wizard side.

 

But mixing in big aoe spells helps even the odds. 

Edited May 21, 2018 by Tosho

[LogInOff]

If you want to deal damage with wizard spells in wizard/multi on potd avoid tanking.Enemies interrupt too often.On other side wizard/assassin deals such huge damage with spells,that encounters often end in few seconds.Max int and mig.Shadowing beyond to position yourslef and then torrent of flame.90% of enemies just burst into gibs.Main problem is bosses(you have very few spells to cast and bosse just love to focus on you) and killing poor eder(thats why it is much better to make him fighter/rogue multi)

[lpro]

I'm not a hardcore/habitual POTD player, but battlemage was an enjoyable build to play.

I built a Battlemage around Dexterity, Perception, and Intellect, originally intending to use a summoned 2-hander. However, these seem to be bad, excepting perhaps the Martial Lance.
By lvl 12, I had switched to dual-wielding Modwyn and the Gravecaller from Crookspur. This potentially lost me dps since knockdowns are primary attack but the advantage was that knockdown always was ready before a big attack from a boss.

Program AI behavior so that your PC casts Llengrath's Displacement, Llengrath's Safeguard (apparently the two Llengrath spells stack deflection bonus), Ironskin, and Citzal's Martial Prowess in the endgame. Then program disciplined strikes. All of this takes basically 4 seconds and then you program to charge into battle. This would be tedious without the AI behavior programmer but it goes off seemlessly in reality!

My cumulative recovery and action speed for the 1h weapons at this point could be brought down to less than 2s per swing, because I also had quick switch and started combat using the pistol from RDC that buffs recovery, plus Modwyn seems to stack up action speed bonuses. I was in full plate and had an armor rating of around 15-18. This battlemage was extremely good at killing all spellcasters and only went down twice.

At the end of the game, my total damage was around 80k and I had been knocked out 2x. Aloth (single-class Wizard) had damage of 90k but had gone down 8x even though I also programmed him to buff defenses using the same spells and he had the good grimoires (Ningauth, Concelhaut, Arkemyr). I had to micromanage Aloth not to hurt the party and constantly to get good spellcasts. 

[marc5477]

 

Wizard/Fighter. Starts slow but get strong by level 10. Excellent tank along with Wizard/Paladin. The warrior version has much better melee dps however. 

 

Wizard/Monk: Like other monk crit builds, is basically so OP that it might be considered broken. Spirit Lance + Gaze (15% crit) + monk crit abilities makes for silly results.

 

Most of that melee dps for the wizard/fighter comes from charge and cleave. After playing with various fighter multis I realized that even if fighter is one of the most effective base classes for multis, it's still kinda boring. Now I started a paladin/wizard and I enjoy it a lot more, even with the weaker melee dps or the non-existent melee pbaoe I enjoy the support parts of the class. (also now that I decided to bench both Aloth and Pallegina a paladin/wizard made more sense. :D)

 

I mean... melee dps is mostly from auto attack regardless of class played even a paladin. The pally just replaces stances + barrage with devotion + mark as bread and butter (until late game AOE DPS + resurrect cheese which cant be achieved with multi anyway). Also, its sort of wasteful to use charge for DPS. That is not the best use of discipline. If you want dps, just use barrage. Charge is for movement to take down priests, wizards, druids and ciphers (in that order).

 

For support, the fighter excels at speed and mobility. They can cross a battlefield to tackle casters or to rescue allies. They can pull baddies (and allies), knock down, charge, and engage lots of baddies. All the while putting out respectable DPS. They are lightening fast even with heavy armor thanks to armored grace. The fighter is significantly more active when it matters the most, at the start of combat where he dictates the flow of the battle. They are also effective all game long. The key active abilities are all taken by power level 4 instead of near end of the game when they dont even matter any more. Armored grace is tier 5.

 

Paladins on the other hand are not meant to move. They have no mobility skills and they also lack any hard disables. They make up for this with better defensive passives and heals (at least early on, later the warrior has a better self heal). The few debuffs they have are long cast time/recovery and short duration but most importantly is they dont have a hard disable. Also, the big fancy AOE (sacred immo) does not come until very late in the game and is risky especially, if youre a multi without the resurrection cheese at tier 9.

 

There is nothing wrong with pally. Its a great class and possibly broken OP if you go pure. I built Pelligina this way my 1st game. I especially like Pally because it can easily be handled by AI triggers. Good luck getting the AI to properly decide when to tank and when to charge at casters with a fighter. It cant do it.

Edited May 22, 2018 by marc5477

[Owlbear]

 

 

Wizard/Fighter. Starts slow but get strong by level 10. Excellent tank along with Wizard/Paladin. The warrior version has much better melee dps however. 

 

Wizard/Monk: Like other monk crit builds, is basically so OP that it might be considered broken. Spirit Lance + Gaze (15% crit) + monk crit abilities makes for silly results.

 

Most of that melee dps for the wizard/fighter comes from charge and cleave. After playing with various fighter multis I realized that even if fighter is one of the most effective base classes for multis, it's still kinda boring. Now I started a paladin/wizard and I enjoy it a lot more, even with the weaker melee dps or the non-existent melee pbaoe I enjoy the support parts of the class. (also now that I decided to bench both Aloth and Pallegina a paladin/wizard made more sense. :D)

 

I mean... melee dps is mostly from auto attack regardless of class played even a paladin. The pally just replaces stances + barrage with devotion + mark as bread and butter (until late game AOE DPS + resurrect cheese which cant be achieved with multi anyway). Also, its sort of wasteful to use charge for DPS. That is not the best use of discipline. If you want dps, just use barrage. Charge is for movement to take down priests, wizards, druids and ciphers (in that order).

 

For support, the fighter excels at speed and mobility. They can cross a battlefield to tackle casters or to rescue allies. They can pull baddies (and allies), knock down, charge, and engage lots of baddies. All the while putting out respectable DPS. They are lightening fast even with heavy armor thanks to armored grace. The fighter is significantly more active when it matters the most, at the start of combat where he dictates the flow of the battle. They are also effective all game long. The key active abilities are all taken by power level 4 instead of near end of the game when they dont even matter any more. Armored grace is tier 5.

 

Paladins on the other hand are not meant to move. They have no mobility skills and they also lack any hard disables. They make up for this with better defensive passives and heals (at least early on, later the warrior has a better self heal). The few debuffs they have are long cast time/recovery and short duration but most importantly is they dont have a hard disable. Also, the big fancy AOE (sacred immo) does not come until very late in the game and is risky especially, if youre a multi without the resurrection cheese at tier 9.

 

There is nothing wrong with pally. Its a great class and possibly broken OP if you go pure. I built Pelligina this way my 1st game. I especially like Pally because it can easily be handled by AI triggers. Good luck getting the AI to properly decide when to tank and when to charge at casters with a fighter. It cant do it.

 

 

Fighter is better for solo dps (even more so if you pick devoted) but most of his advantages over others comes from self buffs and passives, while the paladin can support your whole party instead of just himself. I mean yeah disciplined barrage is the single best accuracy buff in the game, but zealous aura isn't that bad if you count in it's for your whole party. Also sworn rival is basically a free ability and even more so with virtuous triumph. It's just like when we talked about fighter/wizard and fighter/cipher, one feels more powerful on his own, but the other one gives you much more choices when it comes to dealing with the enemy and as I mentioned earlier the support parts of the paladin felt just right for my party. 

 

 

I agree the fighter is more active on the battlefield when it comes to mowing down enemies, but charge with it's full attack and cleave stance is for much more than just movement.

 

I wouldn't give the AI control over abilities like charge, just like I won't allow it to freely use other aoe damaging abilities. It can debuff, buff, heal and single target damage just fine, but I will take care of the rest manually.