Caster early levelling woes

some of these are very powerful

fencoil and deodre's combined are more than enough. lifesprig wands are so crazy powerful that no wonder people sell them for so much

but ti the OP - issue is the Spectral Throw. not spells

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sidtherat wrote:

some of these are very powerful

fencoil and deodre's combined are more than enough. lifesprig wands are so crazy powerful that no wonder people sell them for so much

but ti the OP - issue is the Spectral Throw. not spells

i don't doubt that lifesprig is good for leveling.

but it needs MASSIVE increase in droprate.

it doesn't sale for 1ex because it is that good. It sells because it is also quite rare for a damn leveling unique.

fencoil is quite meh. I can dual wield low level wands for more than 80%+ spell damage.

the issue, is that at lvl14 i had 455 dps.
at lvl 26 i had nearly 700 single target dps
at lvl 34 now i have 640 AOE dps+ the blast from corpse explosion.

the above numbers are out of the reach for even the most twinked casters by insane amounts.

i'm not even talking about ST, atm i'm levelling with IB.

at the LEAST lifesprig needs to have double it's stats AND have insane droprate to even begin to compare.

edit: p.s.:
my current dps is with my "safe" setup of brightbeak+crest of perandus, i dont even bother to check how much dps i would have with geofri's baptism

currently im leveling with a skill that everybody knows is bad: glacial hammer

and ill tell you that - it sucks to do so and i DO have twinking stuff (however staff/mace only limitation of GH isnt helping)

it sucks because survivability of melee vs caster at this level is bad. stuns, lucky crits, freezes = casters can mostly ignore such stuff



if anyone wonders why im trying that - Breath of Rime. one of the strongest notables placed in absolutely horrendous spot. want to try this out in combat. and i curse my own stubbornes of NOT using ST to level (or spark with dual Lifesprigs)

ps fencoil + trapped spells like ice nova/fireball works quite nice

again - i think it is the ST that is the problem (And paper dps means little)

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sidtherat wrote:

currently im leveling with a skill that everybody knows is bad: glacial hammer

and ill tell you that - it sucks to do so and i DO have twinking stuff (however staff/mace only limitation of GH isnt helping)

it sucks because survivability of melee vs caster at this level is bad. stuns, lucky crits, freezes = casters can mostly ignore such stuff

if anyone wonders why im trying that - Breath of Rime. one of the strongest notables placed in absolutely horrendous spot. want to try this out in combat. and i curse my own stubbornes of NOT using ST to level (or spark with dual Lifesprigs)

ps fencoil + trapped spells like ice nova/fireball works quite nice

again - i think it is the ST that is the problem (And paper dps means little)

i'm telling you i don't even use ST, i use IB.

as far as survivability, wanderlust gives immune to freeze, tricorn gives immune to shock, i have overcapped resists except cold res, i have at lvl 34 something like 1000 (i think?) hp and 100es, i have 40%block, i have LL, i have regen... really, it's stupidly easy to run in the middle of the pack, hit once or twice with IB and watch everything die, usually without even losing my ES.

the problem is flat elemental damage on items: 25-100 elemental +10-20 physical +125% effectivness +2 base aps +WED comes out as +282 dps without even accounting for any %increased damage (which i have ~60-70% atm)

Searing Touch is a great leveling unique for casters. +2 to Fire Gems FTW. Put Fireball + LMP, and leveling will be much easier. Hardest thing I've always found for casters is leveling CI builds. You have to level for life, and then spending all respec points + regrets when you hit late merciless and get gear good enough to safely go CI... early game ES gear is trash.

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ComradBlack wrote:

- Several core mechanics don't efficiently work with casters - to use life leech effectively you've got to use the life leech gem, and (probably) ghost reaver.

Life leech and mana leech on gear is broken, it's only for physical but it should be for any damage.