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View Full Version : [3.5] Best multi-target arcane damage combos



jiriku
2009-10-13, 11:29 AM
I'm developing an arcane caster optimized for blastomancy, and could use some suggestions for power combos, as I've never played a blaster wizard before. What are your best combos?

Why optimize blasting? Blasting sucks. Yes, it does, which is why playing an effective blastomancer will be oodles of fun for me.

What are you looking for? I'm looking for practical optimization in this thread, not TO. I want precision assault capability so I don't fry my buddies. I want versatility so the DM can't shut me down by selecting enemies who are immune to my stuff. I'd also like to explore whether I can optimize a Blast-O-Buddy (TM) capability wherein I buff my allies to make them more blasty, so they won't feel like I'm killing all the bad guys by myself. I'm also interested in your surprise combos that make spells more blasty in unexpected ways.

Winning combos proposed so far:

Stock up on dispel magics and (ab)use explosive runes like they're going out of style
Time Stop > Dimension Lock > Force Manifest > Maw of Chaos > Forcecage
Empowered Fell Drain Enervating Twinned Chain Missiles w/optional Energy Sub (Electric) and Born of Three Thunders, and/or Energy Admixture.
Greater Arcane Fusion, Arcane Fusion, Hail of Stone, plus twin, repeat, maximize, empower, fell drain, and others.

Melamoto
2009-10-13, 11:32 AM
Energy Immunity for your allies always helps if you work a fair amount in a certain area.

Also, try taking a look at some of the Magic Missile Op; it's a perfect blasters spell, it simply requires optimization to make it powerful.

sambo.
2009-10-13, 11:43 AM
Quickened TrueStrike followed by Maximised, Empowered Disintegrate for 360 points of No-Save Ouch (unfortunatly, only to one target)

i'd also be exploring the endless possibilities offered by Energy Admixture (Complete Arcane iirc).

Kylarra
2009-10-13, 11:43 AM
I'll start by suggesting psionics as the best blasty chars, but the easiest way is to just take incantrix, arcane thesis your attack spell of choice and go to town.

Tavar
2009-10-13, 11:45 AM
If you want to use area spells, your best bet would be Archmage to get the mastery of shaping class feature.

Lycanthromancer
2009-10-13, 11:50 AM
Stock up on dispel magics and (ab)use explosive runes like they're going out of style? There are all sorts of imaginative ways to use explosive runes, and they're something you can use your downtime to stock up on (as well as any spell slots you haven't used for the day, esp. if you're a spontaneous caster).

But yes, psions do make really good blasters. I'd suggest a shaper with crystal-based powers; they're awesome for direct-damage and have insane utility to boot.

Eldariel
2009-10-13, 12:06 PM
Yeah, Incantatrix [Player's Guide to Faerun] or that War Mage PrC [Age of Mortals] (not to be confused with Warmage Base Class [Complete Arcane]) is the way to go. A combination of the both would obviously be awesome, but that's cross-settings.

In particular, Incantatrix can really fuel blasting like no tomorrow (particularly the level 20 ability). Heavily Metamagicked Orbs of Fire are excellent, for example (but Close range; Orb of Force is medium). Searing Spell insures that Fire-immunes succumb to your blazing balls of fire, and they by default penetrate SR and the damage can't be stopped with save (but the save is nasty Daze-effect too; Daze-immunity virtually doesn't exist). You could also learn stuff like Manyjaws, Streamers, Orb of Force and overall Force-damage.

Maw of Chaos is the ultima; on level 17 you can pull off Time Stop > Dimension Lock > Force Manifest > Maw of Chaos > Forcecage. Their only way out of there is to be able to dispel the lock-spells (or somehow walk through Forcecage; Legendary Dreadnought can do it, but is epic) while under Maw of Chaos (Maximize it for good measure; DC 70+Spell Level Concentration-checks are fun, and that's if they make their save!).


And yeah, feats you'll want (with Arcane Thesis, Practical Metamagic, Easy Metamagic [Dragon Magazine] and Incantatrix Capstone):
- Twin Spell
- Energy Admixture
- Quicken Spell
- Split Ray
- Empower Spell
- Maximize Spell
- Fell Draining
- Persistent Spell
- Chain Spell

and just, unrestricted application all around your spells. Arcane Thesis drops adjustments to 0. Oh, and you don't need to pick 'em all, of course. Just pick the ones that feel the most useful and then reduce their adjustment o +1 and Arcane Thesis the biggest spells you plan on using.

Godskook
2009-10-13, 12:10 PM
Dragonfire Adept sounds like what you're looking for, except invokers don't really 'feel' like they're arcane. They've got the precision AoE thing covered a lot better than Vancian casters do.

jiriku
2009-10-13, 12:13 PM
Quickened TrueStrike followed by Maximised, Empowered Disintegrate for 360 points of No-Save Ouch (unfortunatly, only to one target)

i'd also be exploring the endless possibilities offered by Energy Admixture (Complete Arcane iirc).

Doesn't disintigrate offer a save?

tyckspoon
2009-10-13, 12:20 PM
Doesn't disintigrate offer a save?

Yes. Also Maximize doesn't interact with Empower like that.

Kylarra
2009-10-13, 12:20 PM
Doesn't disintigrate offer a save?
fort save partial (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disintegrate.htm).

Also empowered+maximised doesn't work like that.

edit: bah ninja

lsfreak
2009-10-13, 12:21 PM
Multi-target blasting usually isn't that efficient unless your DM regularly throws you up against 4+ equal-level opponents. Lower-level guys can be taken care of with weaker spells, and if you're not up against multiple high-level opponents you might as well stick with Orb optimization.

That said, iirc Chain Missiles is one of the best base spells to metamagic. Long range, 1d4+1 per two levels to the main target (faster than magic missile), and each missile can also hit one secondary target (but no more than one missile to a secondary target). You use the auto-chain effect to a) never hit your allies and b) stack on penalties and the like rather than just do damage, since 1d4+1 isn't going to be much no matter how much metamagic you stack onto it. So, for example, an Empowered Fell Drain Enervating Twinned Chain Missiles would take up a 4th level slot (with two reducers), dealing an average of ~16 damage to chained targets, ~160 damage to the main target, and dropping 2 negative levels on every target. Throw in Energy Sub (Electric) and Born of Three Thunders and you also just flattened them (and can fit in Energy Admixture to double the damage).

Douglas
2009-10-13, 12:22 PM
Look up the 1st level spell Hail of Stone in the Spell Compendium. It caps at 5d4 damage, but it's an area effect with no save, no SR, and untyped damage. I don't think it's possible to be immune to it. I have played in a level 50 gestalt arena where characters commonly have every single immunity a player can figure out how to get, and I seriously considered building a character based around that spell because no character in the arena was immune to it and no one even had resistance to it aside from just having lots of hit points.

Take Arcane Thesis for it at your first opportunity. Add lots of metamagic. Go Sorcerer and eventually take Arcane Fusion and Greater Arcane Fusion. Take a level of Archmage for Mastery of Shaping. Its area isn't very big IIRC so you won't have much trouble fitting it into spaces that hit only enemies, but Mastery of Shaping eliminates that concern entirely. Add Incantatrix for even more metamagic.

At the upper end of optimizing this it is possible to end up with 100d4 unavoidable damage from a single casting of Greater Arcane Fusion, and that's before applying Empower and Maximize. You can scale this down to just about any point you want by reducing the number of metamagics you apply and how much you reduce their cost.

Arcane Thesis (Hail of Stone) is the one truly mandatory feat here. Others you may want include: Rapid Metamagic, Maximize Spell, Empower Spell, Twin Spell, Repeat Spell, Arcane Thesis (Arcane Fusion), Arcane Thesis (Greater Arcane Fusion), Easy Metamagic (particularly for Twin Spell), Practical Metamagic (particularly for Twin Spell), Fell Drain, Fell Weaken, Fell Frighten, Widen Spell, Sculpt Spell, and Quicken Spell.