Specialist Casters ( @Malbek )

:points to Malbek's DDO profile:
How's that Illusionist working these days? Are high level saves still an issue?

We really need to poke the devs to make non-enchanters, necromancers, conjurers, and evokers more meaningful.
Abjurer Spellbreakers, Warders..
Illusionist terrain manipulators and shadowcasters..
Transmuter buffers and form manipulators (especially now that wild shape mechanics work)..

It isn't as if PnP doesn't provide the opportunites.. :/

(Besides, as I see it: More relevant Illusionists->Higher chance of Gnome inclusion ;D )

Oh! I'm loving it!!!
Its 32 build points Elf: int 18, con 16...the rest i dont remember..
all level points on Int as usual for a wizard.

+3 tome of Int right now...planning on getting a +2/+3 Tome of Con.

The only draw-back is that is fleshy with low reflex saves, i haven't taken "insightful reflexes" yet, so every trap or reflex save spell makes a lot of hitpoints and sometimes an Elf Soul Stone.

Its my first experience with a wizard and elf race, so it's like a test.
I chose Elf for the "elven arcanum" enhancements that adds Spell Penetration.

One good point here is that I have run about all of the quests in Elite at the character level range or higher.

Short Story
Its level 15 now....and in all the quests I run on elite PK is working fine, instakilling about 55%% of the time for 10 spell points.

The long story:
So this wizzy life has been like this...

Until level 6:
- The usual tactics: charm the melee with "charm person", "Niacs" against casters, Web with others, Melf's Acid Arrow as a DOT and Scorching ray for damage.

After Level 6:
 - I added "heighten" to Hypnotism SLA.
 - Here you just hypnotise everything you see and cast MM, Heightened Web, scorching ray, and Heightened "Command/Halt Undead", in fact I could almost solo (with a hire?) any "Delera's Quest" in Elite with just Command Undead on skellies, even better on Those lightning bolt Archane Skeletons. It's not the same with ghouls, on them: scorching ray, web, Acid Blast.
  - The tactics against undead is like Charm the skeletons and do damage to non-skellies while you're not getting aggro.
  - With living mobs: hypnotism , heightened web, suggestion, there's not much to do here until you hit level 9.
  - One good thing here is that you can have a lot of fun charming melees (Ogres, Giants, Minotaurs) on House J quests, like Gwylan's stand, Shan-to kor, RedWillows, but you use a lot of spell points.
  - I use charm spells this way: Charm mobs only when they're a lot to mitigate party damage, then I dismiss the charm one by one, so melee can beat them down easily.

After Level 9:
 - Well, things get better here, meaning that you charm less and make them dance a lot, with "otto's resistible dance" SLA.
 - Otto's is good, melees love that, because they feel like they're killing everything, your kill count never goes over 2 or 3, but there are a less deaths because of crowd control.
 - One bad thing of otto's is that is a "touch range" spell, so when they save, you are dead, so I added "enlarge" to cast it from ...lets say 6 six meters away...and I no longer got dead while they saved the spell.
 - With all the enhancements towards SLA, heighten, enlarge and Elven Arcanum I could make dance Renders and even Elves "decently" on the VON chain on elite.

After Level 12:
 - You have the following SLA: Hypnotism, Otto's Dance and Hold Person.
 - Secondary Archamage Ilussion: so you have invis and blur as SLA.
 - Tactics, make dance/hold then hit with damage spells. Melf's as DOT, and I dont remember what more.
 - The Ottos Sphere of dancing works great!

After Level 15:
 - I made a respec here, changing to Ilussion asPrimary Archmage and secondary archmage Enchantment, and everything changes. You can kill any giant/ogre/minotaur/elemental (not madstoned) with a 10 spell point SLA (Phantasmal Killer) and I usually got the highest kill count on Gianthold in every quest.

- One good thing is that you can instakill with PK SLA a living mob "at first sight in the distance" using enlarge, without them even knowing where you are.


Started at lvl 4....
Feats:

Lvl1: Toughness, Mental Toughnes (Requirement for Archmage)

Lvl3: Heighten (for Enchantment SLAs):

Lvl5: Spell Focus Evocation (for Magic Misil SLA at lvl 6)

Lvl6: Spell Focus Enchantment
 - Took Archmage Mastery I Enchantment: SLA Hypnotism
 - SLA: Magic Misil

Lvl 9:Spell Focus Ilussion
 - ArchMage Mastery II Enchantment
 - SLA: Otto's Resistible Dance:

Lvl 10: Enlarge:

Lvl 12: Greater Spell Focus Enchantment

Lvl 15: Respec:
Changed: Greater Spell Focus Enchantment for Greater Spell Focus Illussion.
Took:
- Maximize
- Improved Mental Toughness


And here I am.....figuing out what to do.


I will only take
- Archmage IV Illusion to get PK: It requires SF and GSF Illusion.
- Sencondary Archmage only to level II (It only requires SF Enchantment)


- I usually spend spell points on Hypnotism (that lowers Will saves) and PK, then otto's dance, and the rest on damage spells that don't do much damage, but again I make them dance and cast DOT spells: Melf Arrow, Burning Blood, MM and so on. So if they are not instakilled it takes a while to kill them.

- The Magic Misil SLA is not working fine since I need Maximize and Empower and all the enhancement line of force spells that i havent took.

- So now, the toon is nice instakilling, it doesnt do much damage but its nice with crowd control. The original idea was a CC toon with an instakill and little damage spells (the opposite of Nyliah), so its heading that way.

- Its low on hit points and saves, so Im thinking about changing "spell focus evocation" and "improved mental toughness" for "insightful reflexes" and another "toughness". This makes the toon lose a not so usefull SLA (MM) and more survivable.

- Then the other feat will be spell pen and greater spell pen.

I've been checking...I usually fail my 5th or 6th PK SLA...so it instakills 50%/60% of the time, using 10 pell points.

If im not wrong the DC looks like this:

DC = 40
+ 17 int (int 35 = int 18 + 3 tome + 3 level ups + 6 int item + 3 enchancements + 2 ship buff)
+  2 feats: ( 1 Sf illussion + 1 GSF Illusion )
+  1 ship buff: The enchanter...dont remember the name
+  8 fourth level spell heightened
+ 2 ArchMage
+ 10 base

The main problem was epic DCs needing to be in the range of 60, as I recall.
Guess you'll have an answer on how that is now soon enough

Yeah! I've heard about it ...specially they say that in High Road!!!
I'll keep you all informed....anyway if this doesn't work...Ill surely TR it into something new..

TRing should get interesting soon, if they do all they say they will for it (new TR options, lower xp increases per life).