Back when I didn’t have a computer I rolled a lot of dice. And I mean a lot. 2-4 times a week for a few hours at a time. I even had a weekly game at a special booth at a Pizza Hut in the next town over. I would go to work at Wendy’s until Tobril would get off work and pick every one up and then we would all drive over to Hoe Town.

That was its simi-official nickname, Hoe Town. I didn’t give it the name, but I will agree it was full of hoes and whores. 🙂 Hmm tasty… the pizza! I am talking about the pizza. Not the 20 something easy riders, I swear!

So I would buy the Pizza, Tobril would drive and Jack would chip in when he could. Aka, free load.

I don’t think I have ever told the story of Jack. Believe me when I tell you he is a special guy, that and he almost always played some kind of wizard.

Anyway we would head up to the hut and game. We played there a lot as it allowed our friend Justin to play some as he worked. This was our core group. Well at least for a long while.

So I Dmed most of the time, being the guy with the most dnd time. And I did a lot of Dming from the seat of my pants. Some people are not set of the pants guys. You have to do a lot of thinking on your feet and getting the group to bend and flow like you want is hard. But I didn’t have time or money for a lot of published modules and it was the dark ages of the Internet. Took you minutes to download a dirty pic. I would hate to see how long it would take to get a sexy video, days?

One of the most popular themes we used, was what I called the “magic shop”. You the PC were kidnapped by a strange man/wizard/robot and would fine yourself stripped in a small closet. Looking a round you would find a gold coin and a slot in which to “buy” your way into the game and opening the doors and allowing you to step into the shop.

Pcs were greeted by your “kidnaper” you were explained the general rules. You would go from “level/world/plain” find a magical portal defeat what ever guardian/s was trying to stop you from entering said portal. After X number of completions you would be turned and give the choice of worlds to defend and players would test your defenses. To aid you, you where give to 3 items from the vast supply of items found in the shop. allowing the player/s to cherry pick an items powers to fit their character’s needs. And i normally didn’t worry about power creep, as the dm i could add weird side effects when ever it was needed.

For example, Jack once asked for a Swiss army sword. The sword granted its owner proficiency with the weapon no mater what form of the weapon.

If he wanted the sword to be in sword mode it could be a long/short/great/or any other kind of sword. He made it in to mace/hammers/etc but the form he used the most was chainsaw mode.

Once I had a player get a few more arms and hands. And became a muiti arm monster.

The Original Tobril ended up putting on some black dragon armor that bonded to him and became his skin and slowly started to turn him into a dragon. I wonder why he hasn’t gotten his DDO Tobril any black dragon armor….

Anyway a quick story mostly to have a point of the post. I hate to burn this one already but this is one of the best pnp stories. And Tobril and I still joke about this to this day.

Jack and Tobril were making their way through a maze in a mountain knowing that they had to get to the far side to complete the stage. It had many levels and was moving a lot slower then I had wanted. So around one bend they found small room. All that was in this room was a small box with a hole in it. And a rod that clearly went into the hole. With a little playing they discovered that putting the rod in the hole and tilting the up the door closed and the hole room moved up very fast. They found a magic elevator, that ran all the way up to the top of the mountain. But it was a high mountain and the air was thin and they had to go back down quickly before passing out. So they returned the lever to level and found themselves back where they started.

So with a quick estimate of how high the mountain was and some careful math Jack developed a plan to use all of his first level spells slots on feather fall and glide down. Jack and Tobril go to the top of the mountain. Jack counts to 3 and jumps off. And Tobril turns and looks to me and says “I didn’t jump.”

The look of shear terror on jacks face, so great. All of his careful math was done on a bad estimate of the height of the mountain and he miss used his feather fall spells. He was saved by an npc at the last moment. But the look remained for a long time.

Tobril rode the elevator back to the start. And then tried moving the rod down and found himself at the foot of the mountain not long after Jack made it to the bottom.

A purple dragon was waiting at the foot of the elevator, awakened by the elevator’s use. And a wonderful fight broke out. But if I didn’t let the group lead the way they might still be in that mountain and we never would have had this story to hold over good old jack.

❤

So last night I was running around Giant Hold solo or helping the wife’s acrobat get Tor flagged. And it was about 10 and Tobril finished what ever he was doing and joined group for voice chat. About that time I got the sudden urge to do something else. Always up for an epic (even the baby ones with me) Tobril was on board. Thinking he I and could just burn our way though a epic Bob we both switched to alts. I loaded up Samiusbot, Tennie for Tobril and I started to remember where spells are on the bars and whatnots…
Now Samiusbot has been re-tuned a few times since we got a way to do so. But for the most part he is a WF (pure) wizard Pale master. He has a 39 int, no really great items, a unlocked Deaths Touch and a mad trickery rod are in his hands most of the time. And only get pulled out if I am going to do a few epics or turn earth eleis into rocks to boost some items with low Hp/hardness. He is only so good, but in the house D epics he works fine. His Dcs/spell pen is way low compared to other casters that run this kind of stuff all the time, 40-43 for enchment/necro spells. (That is why I am working on Samius.)

Now I know that epics have changed a lot. I have played some epics since the change happed. Tobril is working on fleshing out his Red Fin stuff and I mostly help him if I am in the mood. So I know what my toaster can do. He can finger mobs with out SR hold the ones with good fort saves or web and pray to hold drow long enough to nerco bolt/blast/touch them down. I don’t epic everyday like some but often enough to know the drill.

Any way the Tobril puts up a group. Surprised I guess he wants to try and get a few done and is using the first run as a warm up. No big. We get started and I finger or circle a few guys, bolt and bast dps along the melees. Things are going fine. And I get asked for haste and rage. Well this shows up in the txt box. “haste??rage??” I say over mic, oh sure, I have haste/rage one sec here we go…as I find/ cast them. Some people run off and miss out. They must not have needed them… A sec or two later I get another “haste??rage??” I say, “I just cast them but be sure to be in range and I will go again” and rage/haste.

As that is going on, Tennie/tobril as picked up some agro while trying to pull a lever and asks for someone to pull the lever or take the agro. A blast or two later he still has agro so I move to finger mode and a person moves to help with the lever. Tennie regroups and then the other person joins us and we begain to move on, but the lever didn’t get pulled. So tennie goes back to get the lever.

Now there is a place where in BoB by the shrine where a red named cow can come up from below and attack the group if the group is standing around. So Tennie and I always move around the corner as quick as we can and clear trash as to not have to worry about the mad cow. I turn and watch the rest of the group (all good players according to Tobril) as the stand right at the little intersection right past the shrine, and they are fighting. Okay as long as they are fast is it fine. But the Cow has joined the fray. So I start on trying to control the cow and clear the agro and a air ele shoots down into the crowd below stirring up all sorts of trouble. I let tennie know that this half of the group is getting over whelmed and he runns back just in time for ding, ding, ding. There is lots of talk of reforming and trying again real fast. But tennie says no way there is a shrine right here we will salvage this as it will be faster. And we do and all is well.

We move on to the area where you have to shoot one of the two levers to open the way to the final boss and I am standing, waiting. And blades shoot out of the floor killing most of the group. I here an minor ass chewing from Tobril as to if you don’t know what lever to shoot then don’t… As the remainder of the group gets killed with out their healer healing them, as he is dead in the trap along with me and someone else. So reform.
While we are reforming I see this in the box. “As the healer, I like it when mobs don’t hit me back.” Now in a foul mood I take that has a slight and ask him if hold person got taken off his spell list? Thankfuly Tobril I think picked up on my mood and diffused me about to go off on this guy. We move along a lot better now, as I don’t care any longer and is mostly finger/circling/wailing like crazy. At one point a hold lands and the healer types “thanks”. Oh, boy. Never mind the all the other spells that are being cast, but a blue ring and the healer type is all warm and fluffy. Never mind keeping the party together or healed. Blue MOTHER F*ING RINGS…
Okay I am a big boy I let it go. And Tobril makes a joke about not hitting the wrong side like… “Lets hit the right side this time okay?” So I guess someone took him at this word and killed at least 4 of us…
At this point I didn’t care anymore. I got rezed and we recovered. And finished. But I had all the “something else” I could handle for the night. A fun 10-15 min epic took 2 tries, 2 full party wipes, 2 near party wipes, 2 recoveries to complete and 41 minutes.

*head shake*

I don’t know… Maybe next time I want to do something different I will suggest a first time abbot run or just use rusty nails and nail my wang to the chair. Sounds about the same amout of fun, atm.

After 10+ minutes of Tobril trying to convince me that this is not normal and most go smoothly I still don’t fully believe. I do know that I need some time, because if I get in another epic right away and it also goes poorly then I will be pissed at epics and swear them off for a long time. Same kind of thing happened to me with the Hound raid shortly after the F2P people started to get into it and I still hardly run it anymore. All do to a few bad runs. And I have 3-4 guys near their 20ths. And have been for little more then a year…

I just need to re tune Javabot or Buterz for epics. And take a break from being the “caster” people want/assume me to be with out asking or informing me that they want me to be. What i find to be funny 2 weeks ago we did a large handful of epics tennie + 3-4 wizards (short maned) and had 0 problems. Why do things become hard when you let 2+ melees and a healer in?

❤

Yesterday I was asked about soloing the Crucible. And I thought it was possible. And thought my way through how to do it. The way that came to me as the easiest was to use a hireling and a DD or two.

But thanks to all the great comments, I got a few videos and whatnots explaining that if your fast enough you can get past the doors as they are closing. So you can pull your own levers, hall ass, and make it. And some of the doors I didn’t have a problem with. Others I had to try many times, but I was able to make it sooner or later.

But the run through method doesn’t leave a lot of margin for error. At least not in my mind.

One of the things that you have to be able to do if your doing the run through method is make it through the doors. That last one, the one that is opened with the horn, closes real fast. I couldn’t make it with haste/invis alone. I watched Mr. Cow’s video and it looked like he was using a sprint boost most of the time. Maybe that little extra boost was what I needed…..
Watch the video, The Crucible part 1.avi by Ukenburger http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWpLSH5SeII

So I used DD and a hireling and got it down to 30 mins on my second completion. I will admit I did try to make it through both times and failed and had to DD and go for the horn. Think if I didn’t try for the breakables, or tring for the run through and failing I think I could get to 20ish minutes.

The other nice thing about using a hireling was I was able to use it to try for the horn of Guessing. I was not 100% sure my wisdom was low enough to get the right answer. You need a 13 for the Clr Dilettante. So having someone that I wasn’t super worried about living helped when it came to opening dangerous doors. 🙂

You can also solo Pop in the same ways. Either run/tumble as you finishing pulling the levers. Or get a hireling and SET THEM TO PASSIVE ONLY to handle the lever jobs. In Madstone, Invis and lots of killing is your friend, also totally soloable. May have to see about finding a hireling that can defend a box in Tor with out leaving it….

❤

Believe it or not I was thinking about this question before @skaggy_the_poet replied to my twitter call for blog topics for today. Mostly due to 2 things, one Samius is now level 14 which means Gh time and @tobril shot me a link (again via twitter) to a ddo.com forum post, Forums are down for me atm, so I dont have a title but here is the link….

I once saw an animated gif of a 2 man team solving the maze, I think it was by Mr Cow… I will see if I can dig up a link some time. (isilmerel: just tweeted me the link To Mr. Cow’s animated gif)

Any way, this life has been one where I have soloed a quest or two I didn’t think was soloable. Namely The Tomb of the Shadow Lord..This is what the ddowiki has to say about this quest.

“Requires extra player(s)/hireling(s) (mandatory: the party has to split several times in order to pull simultaneously several pairs of levers) “

But with the aid of a hireling and Dim Door, it was/is totally soloable….

There is no such note on the Crucible’s wiki write up, but that doesn’t make it soloable. Thinking through the maze, however, I do think it could be done with a hireling. The trick is understanding the maze and how the doors work..

Each valve controls a set of 3 doors. A door can either be N-S or E-W. Using the valve puts each door it controls in the opposite orientation. Each set of 3 doors has 2 doors that share their default orientation, and 1 door that is odd man out.

For example the three “I” doors (red in the map above thanks DDowiki), if the valve is set for its default you will see that the two most east doors will be in the N-S orientation and the third door will be in the E-W orientation. Solid color means that the door in its default orientation (off), two black lines means the alt (on) orientation.

Now you can use a hireling to camp the valves and switch it back and forth as long as YOU keep the valve targeted yourself. This is where you can get into trouble as you have to pick up crests, but if you keep the door directions in mind, and the path you need to take, you should be able to set the door your working with before locking yourself into a corner.

For example when you are getting the most northern crest, You are working with the I doors. You want to be sure the South I door is in the N-S orientation, or back to its default. Then you can Dim Door.

So soloing the Crucible should be very doable, with a hireling and at least 2 Dim Doors, one behind I and one behind K.

Of course you also have to be able to make the swim, and work the top part of the maze (you have lots of time as long as your fast).

I will try to solo it tonight, watch my twitter feed (@samiusgurobo) for completion details.

❤

Saturday… maybe late Friday… had to be early saturday…. any way the when is not important. Can you tell I am a little sleepy? Anyway sometime this weekend I uesd a lesser heart of wood taking out the helf dragonmarks. Why? Well after testing them out I decided while they are good… Okay Call lighting storm is good.. look I will get in to the marks in a minute. While they are good, I was being hurt by the lack of a few meta magic feats, and trying to play as a fire savant 1 at level 12-13…

The marks:

The first gives gust of wind, a good spell for limited uses. I need to clear a aoe spell mostly. But I did use it a few times to slow baddies chasing me while a dot killed them. Good on my sorc do to having a small spell list, and swapping in to GoW at a shrine when you notice that casting mobs are a little wall or cloud happy is not possible…

The second mark gives Electric Loop a really great spell. But at the time I had already focused on fire and air and had the spell. A second timer was well and good, with out heighten however, its Dcs are kinda low so 20-50 damage… Still good but just not for me atm..

The third mark, big daddy… Call Lighting Storm. The spell itself is super. A minute of really good spell damage that auto killed guys. Problem was some (most) of the kills are off screen or not right in front of you removing bad guys that are actively trying to kill you. Also one minute? For 3 feats? Wow. Okay you can burn ap and get a few more uses. And 3 minutes is much better. But for that much the dps has to be killer.

I really loved Call Lightning during Frame Work. It is all out side, there are tons of baddies to kill. It mostly one shots every non-boss in the quest. So for 3 minutes you get 1 kill every 3-4 secs…or about 45 kills..I think that mostly sums up the spell. I would totally cast the CLS but devote all those feats and Ap in to 3 minutes? I couldn’t any longer. To solo the kind of content I have to start soloing now my build has to be tighter. And the wiggle room is just gone.

So when I remove the Marks my reasoning for not being an air savant (aka the marks + air S == buged) is gone. Air savant has all the best spells available to it. Ice Storm as always been one of my favorite spells. And is one of the best spells, the cold dot and frost lance rounds out my ice splash, WoF, Fire Ball and Scorching Ray for fire and then there are so many good air spells, Shocking grasp and Elc loop are 2-5 sp clickies but I still pick up Shocking grasp for the second timer. Bolt has become my main spell followed up by Chain Lightning and Ball Lightning, and of course Eladar’s.

Once I was all swapped over, and gotten my bars resetup with my new metas, clickys and whatnots, I thought I needed a good test. Mired in Kobolds is a level 13 quest. Takes about 4 mins to zerg. And has a optional really hard dragon fight that is a real challenge to solo even a few levels over the quest. Is worth about 3k and can drop black scales. Aka $$$.

This fight, while intense, is not super hard for this build. Lots of pack pedaling. Keeping Dots up. Watching the timers and keeping up a few buffs. I ran it solo about 4-5 times. No scales. Just confirms to me that air is the right elemental to focus in as it looses the least amount. And that Helf is the right race for my kind of sorc, even if they are fugly.

❤

Last night I gathered xp for level 12. Ran over to the trainer and leveled up, got the 3rd dragon mark for the call lighting.

Started taking enchantments and noticed that I had made an error and I didn’t have the right feat for the prerequisites. So I bum a dragon shard so I don’t have to switch around characters. And talk to Fred and swap to Spell focus: Evoc and run to the trainer again and fail????

Spell focus: Ench is not Spell focus: Evoc, Doh!

Okay fine then I wont take my second tear of the savant line. I will just focus on trying out my lightning feats. Lets max out the enchantments. And all done. Run out to an explorer to test them out and it is rocken. The lowest damage I have seen in my limited testing is 119 and the max is 503. Normal numbers in the 220 point range. But I didn’t take any extra uses so right now it is a really good min of damage.

Boy I kinda wished I had just logged off last night and saved leveling for today now… Well I do what I can with what I what I have for the next few days.

❤

Level 11 is one of those sweet spots for many Trs. Okay I am mostly talking about me here. But I know at least a double fist full of people that also think of 11 as groovy. Its not lvl 12, but 11 is real good.

Why?

Well gear, 11 isn’t a feat or a pre-tear or anything like that as far as I know. So it must be gear…. Lets hit the high notes for me.

Lion Headed belt buckle: Str, Con, fear immunity, important for desert quests, and for me normally frees up a ring slot.

Torc, CordOp..Sp regen… I miss you guys, I will rarely take you off again until I TR again….

Min2 helm, 3x water booties, after sp regen these are my 2 favorite items. Hp and guards. Oh and ring of earth here… For stone skin cliklies. I am that arcane caster that wont take stone skin because 5 clikies and the stone skin guard trinket should be good enough.

Don’t get me wrong, I lov level 12 too, Green Blades, and Shroud weapons. I will carry my maul this life but will almost never use it as I am trying to stay as caster based as possible….

I am still way lighting based, Lighting Blot has been super good. I can hardly explain how good. But I just got Ball lighting, and Bolt is still way better. I am hopeing at 12 and the next level of the pre I will see a noticeable damage increase in fire spells. If not I think I will milk Shadow crypt with Wall of Fire then switch to Ice for the other 5th level Dot spell. But I have to do the trial and error thing as this is about 7 levels more then I have ever managed to get a sorc to before….

Okay have a good day and see you in game.

❤

So last night after taping Ddo Cocktail Hour I log on thinking okay I will just get a little xp and log off simi early. I have been so tired lately. I thought a few extra hours of sleep might do me some good. So anyway I get logged in and Stiner shoots me a tell, “Debera part4 – elite- window farm?“

So I say sure, get the invite, and it is me, Stiner(wiz/rog), another sorc, and a fighter. I get to the graveyard and I see that people are in, step in and everyone is standing around. So before I zerg off, I asked if we are zerging, max xps, other? And get told max xp but lets not take all day. Done and Done. I am down the hall pulling levers zerging along cleaning house with the group behind me doing their best to keep up.

I ending up doing some wand healing to keep party members alive. I keep my cure wand in my hand but it doesn’t feel too bad. Ending up with all bonuses and no deaths or problems. I look at the xp chart to check out the totals. And I noticed I have 80+ of the kills. The next closest is Stiner, in the 20s I think.

So I D Door and catch the window. Everyone leaves and get back in. Stiner has to sell, but everyone else gets in and we go. Bang, Bang, Zoom, ZAP.

Keeping an eye on the bonuses again, I can’t help but notice that I am not only leading the kills but dominating. Stiner gets in and he starts cleaning up the traps and then the shrine side. I end up rezing our party leader the other sorc. Good thing I have a 75% chance for a rez atm..We finish up the quest and our fighter picks up the leaders stone and runs him to the shrine. This time he got hit with the Touch of Idiocy and stopped moving to try to figurer out why he can’t cast and got nailed. So totally understand able. And I shoot him some info for fixing that up. But still 2 deaths in Debera’s 4?

I check out the old kill list again and see that I have 98 kills, Stiner (coming in late and then doing the traps) is in the 20s again. The other guys are in the single digits. WTF?

While the group is fun, and the people are funny as hell on mic I don’t need to carry a group that much. So I thank them and take off, I notice that I have one cure wand left…. I emptied a whole wand and change into that group…. I entered with 3 cure critical wands(one only had 10 charges other ones full) and left with one wand with 40ish charges…. Thought I was playing my sorc life, must have been dreaming as I was clearly a clr in there….

Stiner and I headed into an elite pit run. 42 mins and a few hireling deaths and 2 stiner deaths later, we completed for 21k.

Right around 40k in 90 mins, lots of laughs and was able to catch up with one of my busier (in real life) friends and guildies. Couldn’t have been a much better night if I had planed it.

Well I could have gotten that 20 DQ done for Samiusbot…. And you know other things… like a good night sleep would have been amazing

A warchanter bard for sword and board people.

If you lesion to to DdoCocktail hour, you might remember I told Lessah that I was kicking around a sword and board bard build that might be right up her alley. Well here it is….

The Stalwart Song Level 20 True Neutral Human
(6 Fighter 1 Barbarian 13 Bard)

BAB: 1616212626
Fortitude: 15
Reflex: 9
Will: 9

Strength 18 all level ups Tome + Human Adaptability 28
Dexterity 8
Constitution 16
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 8
Charisma 12

Tomes Used
+2 Tome of Strength, Constitution, Intelligence and Charisma used at level 7

Balance 3-14
Concentration 7-24
Haggle 5-24
Intimidate 3-34
Jump 4-8
Perform 5-23
Swim 4-8
Tumble 3-3
UMD 5-26

Level 1 (Bard)
Feat: (Selected) Power Attack
Feat: (Human Bonus) Toughness

Level 2 (Barbarian)
Level 3 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Shield Mastery
Feat: (Selected) Two Handed Fighting

Level 4 (Bard)
Level 5 (Bard)
Level 6 (Bard)
Feat: (Selected) Weapon Focus: Slashing Weapons

Level 7 (Bard)
Level 8 (Bard)
Level 9 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword
Feat: (Selected) Improved Two Handed Fighting

Level 10 (Bard)
Level 11 (Bard)
Level 12 (Bard)
Feat: (Selected) Improved Critical: Slashing Weapons

Level 13 (Bard)
Level 14 (Bard)
Level 15 (Bard)
Feat: (Selected) Greater Two Handed Fighting

Level 16 (Fighter)
Level 17 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Weapon Specialization: Slashing Weapons

Level 18 (Fighter)
Feat: (Selected) Improved Shield Bash

Level 19 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Improved Shield Mastery

Level 20 (Bard)
Enhancement: Fighter Armor Class Boost I
Enhancement: Fighter Haste Boost I
Enhancement: Barbarian Sprint Boost I
Enhancement: Barbarian Power Attack I
Enhancement: Bard Inspired Attack I
Enhancement: Bard Inspired Attack II
Enhancement: Bard Inspired Attack III
Enhancement: Bard Inspired Bravery I
Enhancement: Bard Inspired Bravery II
Enhancement: Bard Inspired Bravery III
Enhancement: Bard Inspired Damage I
Enhancement: Bard Inspired Damage II
Enhancement: Bard Inspired Damage III
Enhancement: Bard Lingering Song I
Enhancement: Bard Lingering Song II
Enhancement: Bard Lingering Song III
Enhancement: Bard Warchanter I
Enhancement: Bard Warchanter II
Enhancement: Fighter Stalwart Defender I
Enhancement: Human Adaptability Strength I
Enhancement: Human Greater Adaptability Con I
Enhancement: Human Improved Recovery I
Enhancement: Human Improved Recovery II
Enhancement: Racial Toughness I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness II
Enhancement: Racial Toughness III
Enhancement: Improved Intimidate I
Enhancement: Improved Intimidate II
Enhancement: Bard Charisma I
Enhancement: Bard Charisma II
Enhancement: Fighter Strength I
Enhancement: Fighter Strength II
Enhancement: Fighter Toughness I
Enhancement: Fighter Toughness II
Enhancement: Bard Wand and Scroll Mastery I

This concept combines a few main ideas:
added dps of the Bastard sword + the THF feats
stacking double strike % from the Inspire Recklessness + the Swashbuckler
the lessened Physical damage vulnerability (aka the shield feats) to take even less damage while keeping up this builds max dps and hate.

I got a rough hp total at about 538 = 20(hd) + 78 + 12 + 60 + 10(A) + 60(base con) + 20 (+2 tome) + 60 (+6 con item) + 20 (+2 exp con) + 45 (GS hp item) + 30(GFL) +10(SFL) + 20 (rage or stance) + 23(toughness) + 20 (Fighter Toughness II) + 30 (Racial Toughness III) 20 (toughness item)

Feel free to check my math, and/or add in things like Guild buffs and yugo pots…

Okay well that is my bard.

❤

So Sorc life Samius is level 10. As I said before I am doing fire savant with a even split fire and lighting. Okay maybe a bit more lighting even. But there are 2 spells that stand out, Lighting Bolt and Gust of Wind.

Okay first of all Gust of Wind is coming from my dragon mark. I would not use one of my so few spell slots on it as a sorc. There are quests I would swap into it as a wiz…

Any way if you want to read the description for here is a link to the ddowiki.

I have been doing von 3-4 a lot (solo) to power though levels 9 and 10. And believe it or not I have been finding myself in a place that I need to use GoW. Just tons of cloud spells, and bad guy AOEs. I have even used it to put out my own firewalls to stop healing Iron Golems.

GoW is a fine spell and probably way under used but the spell that has become my bread and butter right now is lighting bolt. First of all double strike. Wow. In pnp it would be like casting a forked spell. Hits them twice and deals double damage 50% of the time. In my case I am seeing 300+ points at level 10, counting the double strike fairly often. At this level that kills most bad men.

Also the range, it is naturally a long spell. And with the last update it is now doubley as long. For 12 sp it has become ranged death. At a max range a to get 2 shots on a beholder before it gets you in range of the anti magic zone or any of its other ray attacks, if it is charging you at a full float… Is that how a beholder runs? Any way zap zap dead beholder. Von3 has become a lot faster now that I can just stand way over there and kill them in 1 or 2 shots with out them being able to shoot back.

How to line up bolts to hit at least two guys at once. Hard target one guy that is not going to be moving. A caster or an archer is best. Any one in a long standing still pose will work. Then side step so there is a bad man not your target between you and your target. Bolt.

Then you have a moving target it is the same idea pick one that will be at the rear of your line when you cast, cover him with another guy and fire. Often I will target the guy closest to me and then run past him turn sight a 2nd or 3rd target and fire. There is a bit of timing involved but not too bad.

I say take the time to try out different spells then what is on your normal list once and awhile. Who knows when you will find another “permanent” addition to your list?