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Thoughts on caster specialization progression to liveFollow

#1 Aug 07 2018 at 8:45 AM Rating: Excellent
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I'm old school and haven't played the modern 75+ game really. My healers always spec alteration, my necros were always alteration, and with enchanter I seem to recall being conjuration once upon a time but then doing alteration forever after. Never spec abjuration or divination...

I am wondering what you all think about specialization on early progression, Agnarr's PoP-LDoN lock, and moving towards the live game?

I found this overview on a fandom wiki:


Quote:


Cleric
Alteration as the standard choice, for healing and for various other spells.
Abjuration for specific kinds of boxed clerics who are mostly used to provide Vie buff refreshment during battles, reverse damage shield and healing shield effects, and/or death save effects, while a merc or other player does the bulk of the healing.
Evocation for playstyles tightly focused on direct damage spells (e.g. for some early-game leveling strategies).

Druid
Alteration for playstyles emphasizing healing and debuffing. The late-game sporali swarm pet spells also benefit from this choice.
Conjuration for playstyles emphasizing DoT spells and short-duration damage shield effects. Also helps with auras.
Evocation for playstyles emphasizing direct damage spells.

Enchanter
Alteration for general-purpose playstyles, as it helps with debuffing, buffing, DoTing, and various other effects.
Evocation for playstyles focused on direct damage.
Conjuration for playstyles tightly focused on mez spells. Also helps with auras.
Divination for playstyles used in low-level AoE chain stunning setups. Generally not chosen for later level ranges.

Magician
Conjuration for most playstyles. The specialization helps with chain pet tactics, pet healing, gargoyle swarm pets, some short-duration damage shields, item summoning, beam spells, and many single-target magic-based direct damage spells.
Evocation for playstyles that emphasize the hard-hitting fire-based single-target direct damage spells and rain spells.

Necromancer
Alteration for most playstyles, as it helps with the efficiency of many DoTs and debuffs, lifetaps, and other utility spells.
Conjuration for playstyles tightly focused on dealing effective burst damage in a party, via short-duration conjuration DoTs that last about as long as the mobs do.

Shaman
Alteration for playstyles focused on healing, buffing, and debuffing.
Conjuration for playstyles focused on DoTs. Some direct damage spells also benefit from this choice.

Wizard
Evocation is the best specialization choice for all common playstyles.
The Secondary Forte choice is largely a matter of personal preference, but Abjuration is a reasonable decision for the sake of reducing the large mana costs on self-rune spells. Alteration (AoE snares) and Conjuration (temporary pets) are also options, but both are associated with spells of more trivial mana costs.



I bring this up because
1. I don't necessarily agree with all the logic in the quote and/or I don't know how that logic translates from early progression to modern end game
2. I am playing on Agnarr which creates a unique situation.

For example, many of the level 65 necromancer alteration spells are GoD era... the case for conjuration may be quite strong on Agnarr based on dot rotation math. I'm curious what others think?
#2 Aug 07 2018 at 8:57 AM Rating: Excellent
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This is a 1 year old official board thread that sort of talks about the necromancer specifics on progression:



TLDR: seems to be some agreement for a necro to go conjuration into Kunark, respec to alteration in Velious and then possibly respect to conjuration PoP... unclear after GoD though seems alteration is the overall favourite. Not clearly answering the specific to Agnarr lock question. Not really a lot of input, more like a couple of people arguing about it.
#3 Aug 07 2018 at 1:18 PM Rating: Excellent
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Once it was de-mystified that Specialization was just a straight mana savings and had nothing to do with crits or fizzles or spell amounts it became pretty easy to analyze.

You need to know what you cast in combat (I say combat because outside of a fight I generally don't care if it takes 5 seconds longer to regen back my mana - if you are a full time buff bot, just look at all casts). Logs would help. Ask yourself "per mob/minute/hour/pick-a-unit of combat time, how many times do I cast each spell" Then make a chart showing each spell, how many casts, mana cost per, total mana cost for time, school the spell is. From that you can get total mana cost each school. The one with the highest mana cost during the time you care about is the one to benefit most from mana savings.

On Agnarr your main spec will be 200 (iirc), the others 50. So the way you pick them matters a lot.

On a TLP with Gates you will get Secondary Forte. Pick the one you nearly picked as your main. Main is 200, secondary 100, others 50 (at this point Felicite switched to Conjuration main and Alteration secondary because I used Curse, Poison and Disease more than Fire and Lifetaps).

Sometime between then and Live, though, the changed the rules. On 110 Felicite my main and Secondary Forte are 285, all the others are 250. So the difference is quite small, actually - and main and Secondary Forte are equal.

Back to work, sigh!

P.S. I suppose you could narrow the "in combat" thing more - for example, if you have a key role like Raid Healer then your view might be mana savings doing specific things like "I want to cast the most possible Complete Heals from full mana to empty, so Alteration period".
#4 Aug 07 2018 at 1:44 PM Rating: Excellent
my sham I was solo for years 1-60 level
so I did Conjuration for playstyles focused on DoTs. Some direct damage spells also benefit from this choice.

then 60+ later raiding had to do the quest to switch to
Alteration for playstyles focused on healing, buffing, and debuffing.


Shaman
Alteration for playstyles focused on healing, buffing, and debuffing.
Conjuration for playstyles focused on DoTs. Some direct damage spells also benefit from this choice.


Know when you can switch on the server and pick your best choice your locked into until you an switch.

Edited, Aug 7th 2018 2:46pm by Larth

Edited, Aug 7th 2018 2:47pm by Larth
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