Hand items for Fire and Force Wizard?

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

I currently have a level 32 Archmage wizard configured for Fire and Force. She uses a Kinetic Sphere and a Morninglord's Sceptre. The sceptre holds 5 Elemental Avatar filigrees. Excluding Feywild, Dread, and Unleashed, is there a better option?

 

[vryxnr]

EDIT: my apologies, for some reason my eyes glossed over on your excluded expansion packs... so uh, sorry, ignore everything I wrote in this post as it's all IoD. I'll look into more later unless someone else steps in with real advice. I'll keep it here instead of deleting it though, in case it's useful for others who might have the same question. Please read my NEXT post, as it had suggestions from non-expansion quests.

Look into the Powder Packed Barrel from Isle of Dread. That gives you both fire and force spellpower and crit chance in one item, opening up your mainhand for more utility. I'd have to do some digging for good sources of insightful spellpower and quality spellpower and insightful spell crit, but they exist (necklaces, mainhands, etc).

Pendant of the Earth is the Isle of Dread necklace that gives insightful spellpower to both force and fire.

...assuming you'd be able to farm for those two items means you have access to the Isle of Dread, which means you can do Dino Crafting. This would be a goal for your main hand weapon (any dinosaur bone one hander you can use). They can have sentience, and you can customize their powers. If you're going for a blaster caster (focused on dps), something like Shadowscale (-10% spell costs), Shadowfang (all spells put a curse on enemies that does 6d6+6 bane damage every 2 seconds for up to 85 seconds), Brightclaw (+2 exceptional bonus to Int), Flamehorn (spells reduce enemy MRR by -7 up to 3 times for -21 enemy MRR, making all your spells hit much harder).

Most people go for Meltfang for an acid dot instead of shadowfang, as it's more damage overall, but it's acid.

If you're feeling very squishy you can swap Flamehorn for Brighthorn (+1000 temp HP every minute).

 

[vryxnr]

So, there are many ways to maximize your fire and force damage. You can get those spellpowers and spell crits on many items. But if you want to keep it to your weapons, you can look into the Fusible Sceptre's of Combustion and Impulse. They both drop in the same quest, Beautiful Nightmares. Unfortunately, they cannot be combined into one extra powerful quarterstaff, so you'd be dual-wielding them.

Better weapons would be from expansions that are on your naughty list, or raids. :(

edit: for a more clear numbers comparison of your current weapons to the Fusible scepters, only looking at spellpower and spellcrit for Force and Fire (ignoring filigrees as those can be transferred):

Kinetic Sphere + Morninglord:
Force Power: +250
Force Crit: +21%
Fire Power: +206
Fire Crit: +0%

Fusible Sceptre of Combustion and Impulse
Force Power: +242
Force Crit: +21%
Fire Power: +242
Fire Crit: +21%

The very tiny drop in force spellpower is due to the spellcraft and insightful spellcraft on the morninglord's sceptre. If you can get an item or augment with spellcraft somewhere else, that will bump both spellpowers up by that amount. I recommend the Acolyte Lenses (goggles) from Lost at Sea which is a Free to Play quest. It gives you +20 spellcraft (increasing your fire and force spellpower's by 20 each), and it has both Int +13 and Insightful int +6 (yay wizards)!

 

[PersonMan]

If you are specifically only wanting to swap weapon slots then vryxnr has your answer.

 

[saekee]

And use your stealth toons to get those lenses out of Lost at Sea, very fast and easy quest for assassins

 

[Matuse]

Cinderfingers from Saltmarsh are quite nice.

For filigree, look at Dragonsoul.

 

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

So, there are many ways to maximize your fire and force damage.

Thank you very much, vryxnr. Breaking it down in such detail helped me understand a few things.

If I switch to the Beautiful Nightmares sceptres, I loose all my destiny and enhancement orb bonuses. I also lose potency for spells like Chain Lightning and Cyclonic Blast. I am unclear what happens with Ruin.

Therefore, as a quick fix, I have decided to aquire a...Cloak of Flames.

Wait! What?

Yeah. I know.

Edit: Yeah know...maybe I should switch to electric dragon. She is already wearing Bracers of Wind. Is Force and Lighting any good? It works for the Sith. That would mean a much less powerful Meteor Swarm. I like Meteor Swarm.

 

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

And use your stealth toons to get those lenses out of Lost at Sea, very fast and easy quest for assassins

Thank you, Saekee San. I already have them in storage on three accounts.

Also, I stopped using stealth about 5 years ago. I am all in on swirly stabnado.

 

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

Cinderfingers from Saltmarsh are quite nice.

For filigree, look at Dragonsoul.

Thank you, Matuse. I picked Elemental Avatar because my critical hits already one shot most enemies. Doing more damage will just one shot most enemies, umm, more, so I decided to cause more one shots. The plan is to use slots 7 and up for Dragonsoul, specifically to increase damage against boss enemies and champions.

 

[Pandjed]

If I switch to the Beautiful Nightmares sceptres, I loose all my destiny and enhancement orb bonuses. I also lose potency for spells like Chain Lightning and Cyclonic Blast. I am unclear what happens with Ruin.

Add all your destiny and enhancements bonuses for orbs together, if they're below 71 and you don't have any other sort of insightful spellpower, then the scepters are better and you can spend the points otherwise. But you can also run legendary fusible kinetic scepter and legendary flame sphere (The Newcomers) with little problem, though then you lack fire lore, which should be geared somehow.
Or run combustion scepter and kinetic orb and wave the insightful force spellpower.

Also, Cyclonic Blast runs on force spell power, same as Ruin. Force is also for all physical and untyped damage spells.

Yeah know...maybe I should switch to electric dragon. She is already wearing Bracers of Wind. Is Force and Lighting any good? It works for the Sith. That would mean a much less powerful Meteor Swarm. I like Meteor Swarm.

Without Immunity Bypass, it doesn't change that much, you just choose whether demons or devils take none of your primary damage.

 

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

Add all your destiny and enhancements bonuses for orbs together, if they're below 71 and you don't have any other sort of insightful spellpower, then the scepters are better and you can spend the points otherwise. But you can also run legendary fusible kinetic scepter and legendary flame sphere (The Newcomers) with little problem, though then you lack fire lore, which should be geared somehow.
Or run combustion scepter and kinetic orb and wave the insightful force spellpower.

Also, Cyclonic Blast runs on force spell power, same as Ruin. Force is also for all physical and untyped damage spells.

Without Immunity Bypass, it doesn't change that much, you just choose whether demons or devils take none of your primary damage.

Thank you, Pandjed, for those additional suggestions and the information on how Force spell power works. I also looked up demons and devils to get a better idea of what works against them.

I will ponder all this information at the Snack Bar of Smoothies and maybe eventually do something.

 

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

So, there are many ways to maximize your fire and force damage. You can get those spellpowers and spell crits on many items. But if you want to keep it to your weapons, you can look into the Fusible Sceptre's of Combustion and Impulse. They both drop in the same quest, Beautiful Nightmares. Unfortunately, they cannot be combined into one extra powerful quarterstaff, so you'd be dual-wielding them.

Hey vryxnr,

After spending a few hours with the DDO Wiki, I decided to follow your advice and was very lucky with Beautiful Nightmares, finding both fusible clubs in 4 runs. After moving filigrees from the Morninglord's Sceptre to the Fusible Sceptre of Impulse, the results were as follows:

Fire Spellpower: 697 > 745 > 745
Fire Critical: 18 > 39 > 40
Force Spellpower: 647 > 651 > 651
Force Critical: 39 > 39 > 40

The third set of numbers shows what happened after dropping in a sixth Elemental Avatar filigree. All other spell powers went down quite a bit due to the loss of Potency and Insightful Potency.

So...worth it?

My goal here was to make the character better for hunting equipment with a minimum of effort.

 

[vryxnr]

Hey vryxnr,

After spending a few hours with the DDO Wiki, I decided to follow your advice and was very lucky with Beautiful Nightmares, finding both fusible clubs in 4 runs. After moving filigrees from the Morninglord's Sceptre to the Fusible Sceptre of Impulse, the results were as follows:

Fire Spellpower: 697 > 745 > 745
Fire Critical: 18 > 39 > 40
Force Spellpower: 647 > 651 > 651
Force Critical: 39 > 39 > 40

The third set of numbers shows what happened after dropping in a sixth Elemental Avatar filigree. All other spell powers went down quite a bit due to the loss of Potency and Insightful Potency.

So...worth it?

If you're focus on on fire and force, and most of your damage is from casting fire and force spells, then yes, worth it. I suspect the fire crit change alone is going to make a huge and valuable impact on your ability to kill quickly.

This is one of the reasons why, with warlocks for example, utterdark blast is so desired. It reduces the number of spellpowers you have to maximize. Individual spellpower is always more than potency, and only having to focus on 2 (pact element and light spellpower) instead of 3 (pact element, force, and light spellpower) means more options to make you stronger in other areas (such as survivability).

Of course, there are also sources of potency on other items as well if you want to get that back for your non-fire-and-force spells. The Pansophic Circlet from Memoirs gives 98 potency, 49 insightful potency, and 15 quality potency.

Were you also able to get the Acolyte Lenses from Lost at Sea for the spellcraft bonus? or are your goggles already taken with something else you'd rather not lose?

 

[Archest]

the two items one malleable the other fusible can be combined into a staff at the lordsmouth caldron
the staff will have force lore, impulse spell power and fire lore and combustion spell power.
I think its just about the best staff in the game.

 

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

If you're focus on on fire and force, and most of your damage is from casting fire and force spells, then yes, worth it. I suspect the fire crit change alone is going to make a huge and valuable impact on your ability to kill quickly.

Red dragon fire breath sphere of death is probably her biggest attack and fairly cheap. It sometimes hits for 35,000 damage, which is crazy. If it starts hitting half of the time...yikes.

This is one of the reasons why, with warlocks for example, utterdark blast is so desired. It reduces the number of spellpowers you have to maximize. Individual spellpower is always more than potency, and only having to focus on 2 (pact element and light spellpower) instead of 3 (pact element, force, and light spellpower) means more options to make you stronger in other areas (such as survivability).

That is a good example of how I intentionally do it completely wrong. My prophetess leaves that on the table because it is evil alien squid magic.

Of course, there are also sources of potency on other items as well if you want to get that back for your non-fire-and-force spells. The Pansophic Circlet from Memoirs gives 98 potency, 49 insightful potency, and 15 quality potency.

Ohhhhhh. I meant to look that item up. It used to be very popular. These days, I doubt it would fit in a serious equipment set.

Were you also able to get the Acolyte Lenses from Lost at Sea for the spellcraft bonus? or are your goggles already taken with something else you'd rather not lose?

My wizard is wearing a level 20 Cannith Crafted necklace with +17 Spellcraft. Her goggles are also Cannith Crafted with Intelligence and...something else important. That set dates back 6 years. At some point she needs completely new, level 32 equipment. This effort is a quick fix so that she can bump the difficulty by one and gather Legendary equipment more easily.

Someone in the old forums designed an equipment set for her. I need to hunt that down, like, right now, before I forget.

Edit: Found it!

 

[vryxnr]

the two items one malleable the other fusible can be combined into a staff at the lordsmouth caldron
the staff will have force lore, impulse spell power and fire lore and combustion spell power.
I think its just about the best staff in the game.

The Fusible Scepter of Combustion and the Fusible Scepter of Impulse are both "Fusible". The combined quarterstaff requires one fusible and one malleable. As such, this specific combo cannot be combined and must remain separate weapons.