Help Creating a Beam Wizard

[hansvedic]

Greetings,

 

I am theorycrafting a wizard that will utilize Ray of Fire, Ninaguath's Death Ray, and Ninaguath's Bitter Mooring, potentially together during boss fights. I am considering a more frontline or off-tank wizard that might even use Citzal's Martial Power and Infuse w/ Vital Essence after the beam spells to provide staying power and damage.

 

I have a couple questions I am working on, and I wanted some input from the forum community.

 

First off, can you have multiple beam spells active on the same foe target? If so, would I be correct in assuming the beam spells must be different (e.g. can't have two Rays of Fire active on the same target)?

 

Second, does Combusting Wounds trigger from Beam damage?

Third, I am debating what the ideal stat spread for such a wizard would be. I know that high might and intellect will be good for damage and making the beams last, but what I am mainly debating is how low to drop Resolve and Constitution and how high to raise dexterity. High dexterity is good for quicker casting, but I know that having DAoM handy will mitigate casting recovery significantly.

 

Any thoughts?

[MasterCipher]

First off, can you have multiple beam spells active on the same foe target? If so, would I be correct in assuming the beam spells must be different (e.g. can't have two Rays of Fire active on the same target)?

 

Ciphers can cast 2 different beams on 2 different targets on the same time. However, they cannot have 2 of the same beams active at the same time. Mechanics are probably similar for Wizards, but as Caliscia says, "No promises".

 

Second, does Combusting Wounds trigger from Beam damage?

 

It should because beams are not DOTs, they deal direct damage.

 

Thoughts?

 

A beam's range is merely it's starting range. You can run backwards and it will increase in length.

[Boeroer]

Last time I did test this you could cast different beam spells on the same target. You need high casting speed though in order to stack them. Alacrity and low armor penalty help a lot. Funnily enough INT doesn't do anything for the beams (range and duration are fixed) so you could dump INT completey if you'd only want to use beams (which I doubt, but theoretically).

 

As a side node you can only use one wall spell at a time.

 

Combusting Wounds does get triggered by the beams' "pulses", yes.

 

As MasterCipher said: the range is only the casting range. If you stack lots of move speed bonuses you can cover a huge area with those beams. Things like Boots of Speed, Fast Runner and Alacrity stack, so you could end up with +6 move speed without a lot of hassle - which is superfast. Also, running away lets enemies follow you in a straight line - very useful, too.

 

You'll need high MIG to raise the dmg, high PER to ensure more crits and also interrupts and I would also use high DEX in order to cast faster.

 

If I remember correctly either Vulnerable Attack or Penetrating Shot and also Ryona's Vambraces work with beams - but I may be mistaken here.  

Edited November 3, 2017 by Boeroer

[MaxQuest]

First off, can you have multiple beam spells active on the same foe target? If so, would I be correct in assuming the beam spells must be different (e.g. can't have two Rays of Fire active on the same target)?

Yes you can have multiple beams active at the same time. But yes, they should be different.

 

Second, does Combusting Wounds trigger from Beam damage?

Yes.

 

Third, I am debating what the ideal stat spread for such a wizard would be. I know that high might and intellect will be good for damage and making the beams last,..

Surprise: beam's duration is not affected by INT. It could be a bug, but it's so since v 2.0 at very least.

I remember joking about 3 INT wizard focused on beams and missile spells.

 

So for the stats spread you gonna first decide what you want:

- v1. cast cc spells and deal damage with beams: ranged wood elf 16/7/15/18/19/3

- v2. just use beams and missiles as often as possible; in this case you can dump INT. But it would make sense to make this wizard an offtank, because it's great when a character can fill two non-concurrent roles at the same time: 17/12/14/20/3/12 melee orlan with 1h+shield. Depending on how high is your swing/crit rate gonna be, I guess Barricade could fit nicely here.

Edited November 3, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

Or look at the Last Tower (large shield). It will give you +1 move speed which stacks with everything since it's on a weapon. Just for the sake of stacking absurd move speed bonuses.

 

Also look at Dimensional Shift - maybe it's cool with beams? You knpw: stun in a beam shaped AoE + beams vs. reflex and so on. Could be devastating with a fighter + Charge. First the fighter charges to the other end of the battlefield, you cast beams on the nearest enemy and pull the figher back with Dimensional Shift, stunning those the fighter charged and dragging the beams across them all. Then the fighter can charge again... should be ouch.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Boeroer

[Braven]

I always liked the idea of a 3 int wizard using Wizard’s Double since it has no duration and provides a massive deflection buff. While it is pretty easy to avoid hits with deflection, it is harder to avoid hits against fortitude/reflex/will. You basically need to dump one of them in order to focus on the other two defenses. Dumping int and resolve means higher reflex and fortitude defenses to prevent wizards double from popping. Take Bears Fortitude and sword/shield style to help those further along with the dwarf or amuana racial defense. Deflection can be raised to “graze-only” levels without resolve’s deflection contribution, I think. Of course, you need a plan B for encounters with Will attacks, but it could really boost tankiness for the majority of encounters and can be mastered at level 9 to save spell uses.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Braven

[Boeroer]

It also helps a lot to prevent rushing. I currently have it on Blast-Aloth as Spell Mastery and since he uses it in every battle he never gets rushed (also uses Iron Skin).