6 wizards!

[Phyriel]

Hey guys. After finishing 2 sessions with Tyranny (potd group and solo) I'm feeling like I need a proper rpg again so I'm back to PoE:P 

 

I wanna go with my original dream of completing the game on potd with full squad of wizards (inspired by Grayhawk Circle of the Nine, although I don't know much about them... I just remember them from cinematic for Temple of Elemental Evil... anyone? they had kinda kewl introduction there ) so I'm gonna do it! 

 

How would you go about it guys? What stats for main (melee focused correct?) and the others? I was thinking about having different mages like one wizard tank, one wizard melee dps, one wand specialist, maybe one or two cc and one full nuker. How would you advice me with that in mind?

[Raven Darkholme]

Hey.

(Victor Creed from Tyranny here.^^)

I'd built 2 melee and the rest wands, AoE wand on wizard is really good.

You'd want max int on everyone, melees also max might and a lot of con. (res can be dumped in late game, as soon as you get draining wall your selfbuffs last forever. :D, on the melees dex can probably be dumped too if you wanna max con, but you could also leave it at 10.)

The non melees need less con and can do with more Dex.

As to the spells you can make the distinction between debuff and damage, I personally would probably go with different spells to master but try to get the max amount of different spells in there.

For more specific information people like grausch are wizard specialist and Boroer knows all things.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Raven Darkholme

[K Galen B]

Hah, this is fun to think about. I think you'll want at least three wizards with Blast and a different implement for each, even if they do other things half the time. Golden Gaze, Gyrd Haewanes, and Curoc's Brand are too nice to miss if you can AoE with all three at once. A lot of the difference between the others (except maybe the tank) will be spell mastery, elemental talent, and memorized spell choices. Well... gear too. You might juuust a little low on optimal wizardy pieces.

 

Maxing con might not be all that necessary, particularly late-game - just enough to survive nasty hits. A dedicated tank can sleep with survival healing bonuses and use spell mastery: Infuse with Vital Essence every single fight and Veteran's Recovery + being mostly unhittable when facing the really nasty stuff.

 

Edit: forgot about the not-quite-as-amazing-but-still-awesome CC wands. Now I want to see a 7-person party with just one wizard-tank and 6 wizards disorienting, stunning, pronating, interfering, making vulnerable, dominating, and igniting wounds. Might not need offensive spells vs anything vulnerable to crushing damage...

 

...I guess you could drop Elawen Ein from the implement rotation, though, barring any 7-person parties.

Edited November 21, 2016 by K Galen B

[Braven]

I have 6 words for you.  Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball

 

Who needs a tank when everything is dead in one ranged volley? ;P

 

For more fun, I can totally see having different wizard party roles.

 

The tank could self buff for very high defenses (wizard double, mirror image, Iron skin, etc).  That one will have plate, large shield (doesn't really need accurancy for self buffs) and max resolve and con.  Maybe the rest in might for self-healing (veteran's recovery).  Pick up the engagement talent and an engagement weapon.

 

The CC wizard would just cast crowd control type spells (disables, not damage), spells like the 1st level one that Prone enemies.  I would max INT and PER for maximum duration and area of effect.  They could also off-tank by putting the rest in CON and Resolve.

 

Single target damage wizard would do simple damage spells without duration.  They could minimize INT and go for MIGHT and PER.  They can also off tank, since they only need two primary stats.

 

The AOE damage wizards could do area effect damage (like fireball).  They need INT, MIGHT, and PER and should stay farthest away.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Braven

[K Galen B]

Fireball, yuck! It would almost be a mediocre spell if it weren't on the same level as DAoM, Kalakoth's Blights, Expose Vulnerability, or Displaced Images.    I get what you mean though.

[Braven]

Fireball, yuck! It would almost be a mediocre spell if it weren't on the same level as DAoM, Kalakoth's Blights, Expose Vulnerability, or Displaced Images.    I get what you mean though.

 

It's damage is not particularly impressive, but it is fast cast (chain spam with high dex) and has a huge area which I think makes it quite good.  But the point, of course, is damage AOE spells in general at all spell levels.  Often, I find the limiting factor is time (how long it takes to cast), not total damage.  Of course, the one that increases your casting speed by 50% (and also a fast cast) is at that spell level and should be used too.  Also, there are tons of items that grant fireballs.  I think someone figured out once you could have a single character cast something like 17 fireballs per rest by using an assortment of items.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Braven

[Boeroer]

I can only imagine 6 * Wall of Flame on top of each other + Combusting Wounds. Maybe the game breaks.

I would go for three melees and three ranged with implement + Blast. Implements for Blast would be The Golden Gaze, Rod of Pale Shades and the soulbound one for the on hit/crit effects with blast. The melees would all be trained for 2H WF soldier, grab a 2H soldier weapon (Great Sword or Pike, likely Tidefall, Hours of St. Rumbalt and Tall Grass) and use Citzal's Spirit Lance asap and aoap. Lance and Blast all work with Envenomed Strike (turns it into an AoE poisioning). They also work with the hobbling part of Runner's Wounding Shot and the lance also turns Knockdown from Girdle of the Driving Wave into an AoE prone effect.   

[Ben No.3]

I can only imagine 6 * Wall of Flame on top of each other + Combusting Wounds. Maybe the game breaks.

Not only the game... I doubt your 2005 (?) laptop can handle that one

[Raven Darkholme]

 

I can only imagine 6 * Wall of Flame on top of each other + Combusting Wounds. Maybe the game breaks.

Not only the game... I doubt your 2005 (?) laptop can handle that one

 

Stop pretending this game has graphics!

[Ben No.3]

 

 

 

I can only imagine 6 * Wall of Flame on top of each other + Combusting Wounds. Maybe the game breaks.

Not only the game... I doubt your 2005 (?) laptop can handle that one

Stop pretending this game has graphics!

Pffff.... Graphics.... Overrated...

Who needs a witcher 3 sunset when you can have handdrawn backgrounds?

 

 

 

Those sunsets are pretty impressive though...

[Raven Darkholme]

It's all good I don't care that much for graphics myself.

[Phyriel]

Hey thanks for replies guys:) ill give it a shot and see how it goes;) btw stop pretending witcher 3 got graphics;P my skyrim with... umh 80gigs of mods looked better;P

 

Imagine end game with 6 wizards;p those spells from wm2 hammering everyone. 

Edited November 21, 2016 by Phyriel

[Phyriel]

Hi guys so I've been slowly following my 6 wizards dream last few days. My party is level 6 with mc being level 7. I got 1 wizard tank (getting deflection talents, shield talents etc) 2 melee centric that use draining staff for now but are traited toward spirit lance and 3 ranged with implements that also unleash extreme crowd control and aoe damage. 

 

I'm thinking about tweaking stats/talents with some respecs - mainly tank. I took cautious attacks, 2 talents for veil, 1h + shield spec - I think they are totally worthless on wizard tank. I mean veil is ok but other deflection talents meh... I need just enough deflection to pull some big groups and not get 1 shot by instant ranged attacks+spells but then when I put my enemies where i want them I can 100% control them with cc and they barely hit me... I also seem to activate draining staff spell on him most of the time for extra sustain. Would you build him like the rest of melee dps but just keep his stats more balanced or take saves talents for some boss fights? (tanking dragons will be tough with wizard tank)

 

Oh also one weakness of that group is lack of healing... with all the buffs I often get knocked out here and there because of low endurance but keep most of hp. I enjoy it atm, it feels like really really op when I control it enough but if I just let things slide even a bit it backfires a lot. Few times I've been like "damn I got this, easy" and just wanted to end with autoattacks etc... and all of a sudden I wake up with my melees knocked down and heavy hitters running after my squishy backline. Ofc I salvaged the situation but it turned from what looked like a breeze into fighting again. 

Edited December 8, 2016 by Phyriel

[Boeroer]

I think if you have three melee wizards you don't need a dedicated tank. With their defensive buffs those three can turn into good enough tanks anytime. The only exceptions will be dragons and some later bounty fights. Here a wizard with total focus on tankyness and survivability might be crucial to make those fights easier. And most of the time it's not only deflection but fortitude and reflex which save the day against dragons and such. 

Edited December 8, 2016 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

Deflection is not needed in a 6 wizard party.

It's a different story if you have a cipher and use mindweb, having a tank with overall strong defnses is very nice, but if you have 3 melee and 3 "ranged" wizards I would focus on fortitude which also means maxing might and your damage, that is a much better package than a pure tank and also saves you from most disables.

As soon as you get wall of draining you will also be able to prolong your arcane Veil for whole long fights so combined with LLengraths your deflection will be op anyway.

[Phyriel]

Ye thats what I did. Anyway after finding shadowflame spell I have 3 mages in backline spaming paralyze, prone, confuse, expose weakness. Its complete madness how AI are screwed. With 3 melees hacking on them with draining staff on alacrity and merciless gaze buffs ;p Can't wait for lance tho and those concelhaut spells (that hammer was fun but now x6 O_o)

[Boeroer]

Haha - I imagine Concelhaut's Crushing Doom 6 times on a dragon's head. 

Edited December 15, 2016 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

I have 6 words for you. Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball

 

 

Why fireball, fireball when you can shadowflame, shadowflame ?

 

6 Freezing pillars.

 

6 Blackbows + Alacrity (rangers are so cute)

 

6 freezing rake (say hey to god of death, but avoid it in corridors !)

 

Ahah 6 wizards !

Almost as steamrolling as 6 druids casting relentless storm.

[Boeroer]

The Blackbow itself is nice, but it comes way too late and is not that powerful regarding the spell level. Llengrath's Blunt Wisdom or Citzal's Spirit Lance are better in my opinion. It (or maybe a weaker version) would have been a nice summoned weapon at earlier levels to build an arcane archer around.

 

I just realized that you can cast 7 Concelhaut's Crushing Doom on a dragon's head...

 

Fireballs by the way: I always wanted to build a dual sabre wielding fire genie wizard with the maximum of 17 (or was it 18?) fireballs per rest. No time.... no time.

Edited December 15, 2016 by Boeroer

[Braven]

These are the ones I can think of, but there might be more.

 

6 - Flames of Fair... Saber x2 with wax (weapon set 1)

3 - Staff in Hearthsong (weapon set 2)

1 - Curoc's Brand (weapon set 3)

4 - Base Wizard

1 - Spell Mastery

2 - Ring of Selonan

1 - talent

 

=18 fireballs

 

If you are looking for maximum fireballs for a single encounter, you could add in the necklace of fireballs (8 fireball charges) and 6 stacks of fireball scrolls (30 fireballs).  For a grant total of 56 fireballs for a single combat, solo.

 

With 6 wizards, they could each in theory have 30 fireball scrolls (if it is possible to get enough crafting supplies) and also 6 for being a wizard and then we duplicate the necklace instead of the saber... for a total of 241 fireball spells in a single encounter.

 

There are lots of other items that give (often 3) fire-type spells per/rest.  if you include fireball-like spells, such as delayed fireball, the total could be increased further.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Braven

[Boeroer]

Yes, exactly. You could wear the Sun Touched Mail of Hyran Rath and the Amulet of Summer Solstice and gain 6 Sunbeams per rest. It's a nice starting spell because of its blinding component.

The armor is one of the best looking pieces in my opinion, too.

The char's name would have to be Jerry Lee Lewis of course...