Synalon
Choose another soldier
I've played Wizard since starting DDO way back in late 2006, notwithstanding several multi-year breaks here and there. Though casters, and especially Wizards, are not regarded so highly of late, I still love the class. DC casting, the area in which Wizards excel, is fun and effective once you can get it to work. And the versatility of Wizard allows us to branch out to other concerns, in this case the DPS required to meaningfully contribute in endgame raids and to solo high skull quests.
With this write-up, I want to show that a DC caster, despite their high barrier to entry, can be both accessible to those without heaps of past lives and unattainably rare equipment, and viable for r10 soloing. I do not have any reaper gear, use no Myth Drannor equipment, and I have no beneficial curses. Only recently did I reach heroic completionist - I did 95% of my r10 runs before getting it (playing since '06 and just got completionist in '25, what have I even been doing with my life) - and I strongly doubt I will ever grind out racial completionist. Nevertheless it is possible, with use of some stopgap measures and strategies, to build a DC caster and nuker viable for raid pushing and soloing.
Whether you are looking to build a Wizard for the first time and want help with getting started, or you are a veteran caster who wants to get into high reaper challenges, read on.
There are three points to the build:
1) Spell DCs. Everything that can be instakilled should be dead. Everything that can’t should be held, stunned, frozen, turned to stone, and the like. For this reason, we pump our DCs as high as possible, in the following order of importance: Necromancy > Enchantment > Illusion > Conjuration/Transmutation/Evocation. Necro and enchant, really, are the schools of utmost importance; Illusion merely supplements these two. The others are important also but have more situational use. To be an effective DC caster in r10 and raids, you need high DCs.
2) Negative spellpower and crit chance. This lets you DPS bosses, Dooms, deathblock champs, etc. You can’t AoE nuke, but that’s fine – we’ve got CC and instakills for that. Your single-target DPS is very respectable. We can’t compete with the meta DPS builds, as we shouldn’t, but given the high reaper spell damage nerf and the fact that we are playing a Wizard, our DPS is more than serviceable. For example, we can be entrusted with killing the vrocks in r1 Fire Over Morgrave, freeing up the 'true' DPS characters to focus on the boss. You will be able to kite and kill Dooms and bosses on r10 when required. Of course, not only do we get strong DPS this way, but we also improve our self-healing; extremely important for surviving r10.
3) Survivability. In the days of single epic destinies and EDF, I would run as a DC caster in r10s, then switch gear and tank Dooms and the boss in Magister (thanks to a brilliant build write-up from Zappy on the old forums). I would switch to Unyielding Sentinel and tank a raid when required. Sadly, this is no longer as feasible...though I have plans to try. Nevertheless we wish to retain as much of this requisite hardiness as possible. As the saying goes: you can’t contribute to the party from a backpack. So our third aim is to maximise our defences within the circumscription of our first two objects.
With introductions out of the way…here is the detailed write-up:
Abilities and Skills:
Intelligence - 20
Constitution - 16 (18 if not an Elf)
Wisdom - 12
All level-ups in int.
Our ability distribution is very simple. We take the maximum Intelligence we can, which will be 20 for any int race. Then also max out Constitution for HP. With 36 points, we have 4 left over to play with. Usually I go for Wisdom to get a couple more points of negative spellpower. However, Strength can be useful to prevent getting medium load/encumbered if you don't have an item for it, especially in low levels. You can even go Charisma if you feel you might need the extra points in UMD. With 32 and fewer points, just maximise Intelligence first and then as much as possible in Constitution.
Concentration – 23
Spellcraft – 23
Balance – 11
Haggle – 11
Heal – 11
Search – 11
Spot – 11
UMD – 11
Tumble – 10
Obviously as Wizards we have more skill points than we know what to do with, so you can play around with these to your taste. The above allocation is not the full spend. As you see, I have taken some skills for convenience, like Haggle, since we have so many points to spare. Repair can be good for the repair spellpower. Just be sure to max Concentration, Spellcraft, Balance, Heal, UMD, and Search, and put ten points in Tumble for the extra tumble charge.
Heroic Feats:
Insightful Reflexes – Essential on any int caster. Reads “+50 or more to reflex saves.”
Wizard PL – +1 DCs, and the Magic Missile SLA is nice for debuffing.
Quicken – De rigueur. Without this you will cast spells so slowly that your character is basically unplayable. Your hand gestures as you cast without Quicken are slower than the shifting of the tectonic plate upon which you stand. Quicken is essential.
Maximise – +150 to our already hefty spellpower. Not to be sniffed at.
Empower – And another +75. This makes for, at time of writing, an effective sustainable neg spellpower of 1,300.
Heighten – Obvious. You want your spells to land.
Extend – This is a quality-of-life pick. It doubles our Death Aura durations, not to mention Displacement, Haste and Rage. You could probably swap this out for +1 to an ancillary school DC if you really want but I find it just makes the game more enjoyable.
Enlarge – If you are a DC caster and have not been using Enlarge, you should rethink your life thus far. Enlarge is excellent for completely killing or immobilising entire groups of enemies before they’ve even had a chance to see you. You know when I was banging on earlier about survivability? The best way to stay alive is to not get hit. So, employ some tactical artillery. This also makes it easier to set up traps between you and the enemies for them to run into before you’ve aggroed them.
SF Necro – Duh. Our most important school. Not only for instakills, but our DPS spells use necro DC as well.
GSF Necro – More DC for our prime school. With this and Spell Specialty, we’re getting +5 necro DC from feats.
SF Enchant – Our second-most important school. We’re going to take this, GSF Enchant, and Epic Spell Focus Enchant; then we can take Spell Specialty Necro.
GSF Enchant – As stated. With this and the epic feats, we’re getting +3 Enchantment and +5 Necromancy focus.
Epic and Legendary Feats:
Arcane Insight – +6 to DCs for 30 seconds. Between this and Reaper’s Potency, you’re going into most fights with a DC boost. Also, if you’re having trouble with a particularly high-fortitude monster, you can hit it with a Power Word: Kill and then pop this boost to instantly reset the spell’s cooldown, provided you’ve taken the ability in Magus (which you should). Without all the past lives, reaper gear, curses or Myth Drannor equipment, boosts are very important for running the latest content on r10.
Epic Spell Power: Negative – Increases our DPS and self-healing. No-brainer.
Embolden – +2 to all DCs. Another no-brainer.
Epic Spell Power: Force – There are slim pickings at this level and this is what I’ve chosen. Force is a (distant) second spellpower concern, as Arcane Tempest is a good enough spell to keep in my DPS rotation, and I sometimes take Arcane Pulse for situational use. Plus it does increase our universal crit damage (that is, our neg crit damage) by 5%. However, it may transpire that a better choice could be made here. Even Elusive Target could be better. For now I’ve taken this, but that might change in the future. I tried Channel Power but did not find it apt for our manoeuvrable playstyle.
Burst of Glacial Wrath – You know, for ages I resisted taking this spell. But for what? Before, I had to switch to an LGS ice and spam Magic Missiles at golems and such. Now, I can just freeze them all in one wintery cone. It is also great for plants, vermin, and other Enchantment-immune enemies. And not only does it stop such spell-resistant mobs, it’s also a great option for CC layering – something you should always strive to do. Held and frozen (and stunned and blind and…) is better than just held, especially in high reaper. Can’t believe I didn’t use this for so long.
Arcane Pulse – Again, I use this situationally when required, but I’m not fully convinced. It’s good to at least have an option for when we can do absolutely nothing else, and that’s why I’ve got it for now. But as I say, other feats could prove useful enough to supplant it. I am tempted by Deific Warding, which I have taken many times in the past. Do as thou wilt. [Addendum: I started writing this guide on a life where I took Arcane Pulse. At present I have indeed gone with Deific Warding and I would say it is better. Especially if you don't have so many PRR past lives, Deific Warding is a great way to buttress your defences. And Arcane Pulse is so seldom required and so weak that I think it best to dispense with. If you are really worried about constructs, however, then go ahead and take it.]
Epic Spell Focus: Enchantment – The crown jewel in our Enchantment focus line. Most importantly, apart from the +1 enchant DC, this lets us take the +3 DC Spell Specialty feats as well.
Scion of the Shadowfell – This legendary feat gives us everything we need. +4 to our main spell school, neg spell power and spell crit, and neg heal amp. The others are tempting, probably Feywild being the most so (+4 enchant and illusion, plus positive heal amp?!) but Shadowfell seems the best given the goals outlined at the start. However, I do think other choices would be viable.
Great Intelligence – I don’t really like these feats. Sadly, I have to take this to get an even int score. If you don’t have to do that, Wellspring would be an excellent choice for nuking, which I would take if I weren’t obliged to take this one. Basically how it works is, if you would otherwise end up on an odd Intelligence score, take this feat. If not, you are at liberty to take something more exciting, like Wellspring or Intensify.
Spell Specialty: Necromancy – At last, the much-vaunted +3 to Necromancy, our most important school.
Spell Specialty: Illusion – It is also important to have our Phantasmal Killer (PK) and Greater Colour Spray land.
For Epic stances, you want Arcane Alacrity as your Arcane stance to help attenuate Wizard cooldowns, and Colours of the Queen in Primal because there's nothing else there that helps casters at all. In Martial it's best to go with Fortification, especially given the -50% fort from our Yugo int pots, but I didn't have those lives until very recently and used Skill Mastery instead, which is perfectly serviceable. In Divine I go for Power Over Life and Death to increase our DPS and self-healing. Ancient Blessings, giving +15 positive and negative heal amp, would also be a good choice. Long ago I used Brace by preference, and they were the first Divine lives I got, but now saving throws have too much variance for +3 to make much difference.
The Iconic stance I've been using is Deep Gnome for +3 Illusion DC. I don't have the Dark Bargainer lives yet, but will probably switch to that when I can, since they also increase our negative spellpower. Either way, if you have both, choose whichever you feel you need the DC boost for the most.
Enhancements:
Finally, some proper pictures.
As you can see, I don’t have enough racial points for it to matter what race I choose so long as it’s an int race. For now I’ve gone with Sun Elf for Rejuvenation of the Dawn. It would be preferable to have at least 6 racial AP to get the Intelligence cores. If you have less, you will lose out on a DC point by missing the int either here or elsewhere; not ideal, but certainly not the end of the world. With max racial AP, Deep Gnome is indisputably the best choice: it has bonus Illusion DCs, a PK SLA, you get dodge bonuses and MRR in the cores; the list goes on. However, they are kind of ugly, so I’m happy being an Elf for now.
Most of these decisions are self-explanatory. Of course, Pale Master is our main tree. I took +2 necro and +2 enchant for the first two PM cores, then +25 HP and +5 PRR for the third. The third could be a variety of options, like the +15% cold or electric absorption. The +10 negative spellpower is too negligible to be worthwhile. But the DC boosts are essential.
Shroud of the Lich seems the best overall. Obviously Zombie is out of the question (except when we could run as a tank…). +3% dodge in Wraith is kinda nice, but the incorporeal does nothing in high skulls (i.e., the only place you really need it), and I dislike permanent feather fall. Now, Vampire is a viable contender, giving +1 Enchantment DC. I would respect the decision to go Vampire. But Lich gives us more HP, more neg heal amp, more neg spellpower, and +15 MRR and MRR cap. The defensive benefits therefore outweigh the +1 enchant for me. And as a little bonus, you get +10 stacking electric and cold resistance, and -5% cost of spells. So, I always end up choosing Lich, even though the Vampire red shroud looks cool.
The skeleton is another QoL pick. 95% of the time I do not summon him. But on occasion he is very useful for pulling levers or solving puzzles you can’t do solo. And since he’s not a hireling you can summon him anywhere, including in raids. He can also draw the aggro off you for a little while if you are soloing a high skull dungeon. Supplemented by summons, you can have a little menagerie following you around and, though they perish almost instantaneously, in doing so they take an arrow or sword meant for you, like keen but feeble bodyguards.
Beyond that, we take the full neg heal amp and crit chance lines. This gives us +50 neg amp and +8% crit chance, improving both our DPS and our self-healing. With the Greater Death Aura capstone, we have three auras ticking away for passive healing; at time of writing, my neg heal amp is sitting at 307. You might not be able to press a button and heal to full health mid-combat in r10, but even so the healing ticks are extremely helpful, increasing our chances of survival against fear reapers, champ DOTs and similar deadly threats. If you're kiting a boss or a Doom and they manage to clip you, your auras will tick you back up while you DPS and evade them.
Unholy Avatar is our ersatz immunity strip. It's essential, basically, as you wouldn't be able to DPS the most common (?) enemy type in the game without it.
Finally, the SLAs. They're not the highest damage nukes, but Necrotic Blast and Bolt are very decent for rounding out our DPS rotation. I often use Bolt to tag undead bosses first, making them vulnerable to negative energy; otherwise, we would waste a high-damage nuke on healing them. Blast is good for tagging groups of undead. You want to cast these in your DPS rotation when the higher damage spells are on cooldown.
Improved Shield in Eldritch Knight and You’ve Got my Back in Feydark Illusionist are synergistic. Together they give you +20 PRR, along with the SLA to get it, saving a spell slot. I don’t need the MRR boosts as I seem to reach the 115 cap anyway. However, if you are short, or if such a time comes that our MRR cap can be raised further, it will be a simple matter to swap in Night Shield for another +10 MRR.
Also synergistic are Reactive Discorporation (Pale Master), Refraction (Feydark), and Arcane Barrier (EK). If you drop below 50% HP, you instantly gain Radiant Forcefield, Dark Discorporation, invisibility, and 15% missile deflection while the invisibility lasts. Meanwhile, your auras will be healing you, allowing the reaction to trigger several times. Plus, Refraction combined with Cloak of Night from PM gives you 15% missile deflection when blocking. Though we usually don't do too much of that, all told.
The rest of the stuff is standard. We get some hitpoints and spellpower in EK. The Mage Armour SLA is only taken for Improved Shield, but since we have it, we may as well cast it. And in Feydark, we get more DCs from the int, some spellpower and spellpoints, +3 spell pen, and +2% crit chance. You could exchange the spell pen for the +3 to saves if you felt like it. But we don't take any spell pen feats and I only have +9 spell pen slotted in equipment, so it's good to get easy boosts like this where possible. Twist Reality gives a stacking -1 Will debuff whenever you hit an enemy with Greater Colour Spray, PK or Hypnotic Pattern.
Besides that, we are obliged to go into Feydark for Greater Colour Spray, not being a Gnome. Perhaps if we were a Deep Gnome we wouldn’t spend so many points in this tree. But we’re not, so we do, and it’s a great tree anyway, so I am not overwrought about it.
Epic Destinies:
Here you see that we use the excellent Magus of the Eclipse as our primary destiny, supplemented by Draconic Incarnation and Exalted Angel. This spread lets us get +3 to necro, enchant and illusion; the three we want. The epic strike in Magus is very strong – it does great damage, thanks to the T5 upgrade, and it paralyzes on a necro DC. Pesky elemental or scorpion immune to your hold? Just zap it with Gloomspear. Most of the stuff in here helps our DCs or our DPS – it’s a great destiny. Not to mention Time Stop; soon you will tire of the proper DPS players begging you to pop it on the raid boss. It’ll become instinctive eventually. And it’s very occasionally helpful in a pinch if you’re in a tight spot of mobs. Plus, all the spell pen in this tree is surely a boon: +10 in total, I believe. I only have +9 spell pen slotted on equipment (in the dino crafting), so no insightful spell pen, and no feats to speak of. But I never have problems with it. Of course, it helps having all the Wiz and FvS past lives.
Other assorted choices: +3 to fear-based spells, raising our Phantasmal Killer DC. Dark Light of the Moon AoE DoT; good for boss DPS, especially with the explosion. I take Lunar Insight to reset Power Word: Kill whenever I pop the +6 DC boost feat we took. The Self or Summons is just to get to 30 points really, so I magnanimously decided to buff my militia of summoned weaklings rather than getting a useless +2 to Will saves, since we are immune to practically everything with a Will save already. And in T5, Moon's Shadow is another excellent single-target nuke. Yes, of course you take the +3 to DCs here dumbass.
In both Magus and Draconic, we take all the abilities that grant +10 negative spellpower at tier 3. This is a nice +30 spellpower. Draconic we are of course using for the extra spellpower, in these abilities as well as the cores (another +30), but mainly for its brilliant mantle. This really ramps up our single-target DPS with the DoT effect, gives us an additional -10% to spell cooldowns, and we get Mobile Spellcasting. As if that wasn’t enough, we also get frequent temporary hitpoints to go along with our Affirmation and Demonheart Emerald, and the wonderful QoL feature of not having to carry material components. Core 2 essentially reads “gain half a backpack slot.” We get a little bit of PRR, MRR and Reflex, but that's mainly to spend the required points.
Exalted Angel, as you can imagine, is taken solely for the wings. These for my playstyle are absolutely essential and I can never go back. Their use in kiting mobs, escaping dangerous situations, evading traps, reaching safespots etc. cannot be overstated. However, while we are here, we can make the most of what the rest of the tree has to offer. Healing Pillar and the Mass Cure Moderate Wounds SLA are great for playing back-up healer, and especially for answering the question of “who heals the healer in r10?” You also get 5% fire absorb and a bit of PRR, MRR and spellpower, plus the aforementioned +3 to Enchantment DC. Since I have the points to spare, I also grabbed Shadows Upon You for the debuff when raiding. This is good enough for me for a tertiary dip. But yes, 99% of the reason to take this tree is the wings. They are that awesome.
Equipment:
While the build as a whole is meant to be flexible, equipment is especially so. There is no one true loadout, as there was in times past. Here is my main equip loadout for questing after I've buffed and swapped out the SP items:
(Hopefully you can read that.)
I swap in the Acolyte’s Lenses (Insightful Wizardry +134), some Green Steel Gloves (Elemental Spell Power +150), and the Ring of Spell Storing (to avoid the -5% SP drain from Clouded Dreams) when in public or at a shrine to raise my spell point total by about 600. I also like to swap in the Direbear Belt to pretend I have +10% HP, for all-important MMO posturing purposes. When we're in the quest and done buffing, I swap in the proper gearset. Depending on what gear you have, you might prefer other SP items; there is a good SP belt from Saltmarsh, for example.
[There are a few decisions here that require explanation. I've run this loadout for a while, and have done all of my soloing with it thus far. The design philosophy is outlined below. However, my thoughts have shifted on some of these points, mainly on Affirmation vs Ash/Vuln and on the necessity of Stygian Wrath, and I am close to assembling a new gearset. So, don't take these ideas as gospel. Gearsets in the present meta vary wildly; this is just an example of one that worked for me and that does not require elusive rare loot.]
Almost every other caster, as I understand, takes Ash in the LGS dino bone slot. I have taken Affirmation. ‘Swapping into’ Affirmation is just not realistic in a lot of situations. You have to track if the minute timer has expired (often difficult), you need to actually get it to proc on something (not always possible), and then you need to swap back to whatever you use normally. In the chaos of battle and zerging parties, this is not feasible. Certainly I would love to fit Ash in for the bonus to DPS. But having Affirmation permanently slotted does wonders for survivability. Since it is almost always active, I can have effective hitpoints of over 4,000 in reaper; probably why I can afford to keep the LGS belt on all the time. However, if you want to use Ash, and find the Affirmation-swap strategy effective, more power to you. When I have a second maxed-out sentient jewel then I intend to make a DPS Ash stick and swap to it for bosses.
I regard Stygian Wrath as essential. There is no other source of +13% insightful neg crit chance in the game. [Now there is Lesser Oblivion from The Wizard's Labyrinth, with +14%.] Even over Pomura’s Memento this is +8%. It also gives insightful nullification and our insightful int. So this really helps our gear tetris – insightful int is otherwise quite irritating to fit in without using something subpar, like the Shattered Onyx ring, all the other effects of which are duplicated elsewhere (and we reach our dodge cap in reaper without it anyway). Plus, the Sinister Chill helps keep us going for a long time. Along with the spell replenishment items, you will basically never have to shrine, even with all your metamagics permanently enabled.
Most equipment philosophy seems to revolve solely around set bonuses. Sets are certainly important, but I find that focussing on getting the desired sets to the exclusion of all else results in lower power overall. For example, take the five-piece profane Vecna set bonus (I forget its name). I do not find this set impressive. Profane bonuses are less useful than artifact bonuses for one, as they are often found on equipment natively. But more importantly, most of the Vecna equipment just wasn’t that good for this build. The three good items – the hat, the cloak and the armour – I have used and placed the Vol’s Influence artifact set on, as you see. If I squeezed into the five piece and managed to get my artifact bonuses elsewhere, I would gain +1 profane DC and +1 profane to all stats. I suppose the +30 profane prr would be nice provided I also have +30 artifact. But to do this, the actual effects on my equipment would be far less useful, with a great deal of duplication. Everything I have equipped is providing a lot of use in its own right, even before accounting for set bonuses. So this is why I do not build myself into a box by focussing on getting the absolute highest DCs – 1 or 2 more at best – to the detriment of all other aspects of the build.
[Now, as I say, I have reflected that insightful void lore is perhaps not so required, since if we have both Ash and Vulnerability stacking on bosses we'll get +40% DPS; far more than what we're getting from the extra crit chance. I will try having an Affirmation swap-in, and I will swap to off-hand Lesser Oblivion for casting auras. But this is the equipment set with which I did all my soloing thus far, so it's what I've put in the guide.]
In any case, we have four artifact sets active:
Vol's Influence: +25 universal spellpower, +6% universal spell crit chance, +15% spell crit damage, +3 spell DCs.
Desert's Starless Night: +30 negative spellpower, +6% neg spell crit chance, +15% damage vs the helpless. These stack with Vol's Influence.
Eminence of Winter (3-piece): +30 PRR, +30 positive and negative heal amp.
Piercing Mind: +3 Intelligence.
And here's my filigree setup. All rare except for the Zarigan's int:
Minor Artifact (Dinosaur Bone Ring): Beholder/Grave int +2, Zarigan's/Voltaic int +2, Otto's int, Zarigan's int
Dinosaur Bone One-Hander: Beholder/Grave int +2, Zarigan's/Voltaic int +2, Grave int, Grave neg heal amp, Otto's int, Otto's spellpower, Otto's con, Zarigan's int, Beholder int, Beholder spellpower.
Now that we've gone through the build and equipment, let's finally look at some numbers!
This is all sustainably self-buffed in reaper. So, with rem and Yugo pots, and commendation and nihil pots for spell power, but no boosts or finite resources like Abishai cookies. Then the number bottom right is with boosts, though no cookies. Apologies for the hideous formatting here.
Probably elite players will not be overly impressed with these numbers. There's space to get a lot higher of DCs; like I say, with new expansion equipment, curse cards, reaper bonuses etc. But, along with liberal use of boosts and some strategy, it's enough to solo r10s. The point being, you can have reasonably outdated equipment and not have a ton of past lives, and still do well in, or even solo, high reaper. So I encourage you to try it sometime - it's good fun!
(I don't actually know what's going on with my spellpower. It was 1,075 before; now I've done a bunch more TRs including getting completionist, and I got the +4 spellpower tome, so I don't know why it's 1,072. What a mystery. Probably I forgot a toggle somewhere or whatever)
And here's my character sheet:
Again, nothing unattainable. For the PRR, I confess I do have all the PRR lives, so 200+ PRR might not be realistically achievable if you're just starting out. In any case, it's enough to take a hit or two in r10, at which point you turn around and fly away.
Now, some videos
My favourite one:
The most popular:
And my most recent:
(Except don't watch that one because I used the wrong mic like an imbecile 🫣)
Most of these were recorded when I was a Drow with 8 racial AP and no completionist. A few were at level cap 32. So, my DCs were lower, and HP, PRR etc. were a little worse. DC casting can be difficult to get into, given extremely high monster saves and the consequent past life requirements. But with some supporting strategies, like the use of DC boosts and wings, you can get to a level to contribute at endgame with a fairly minimal base. In the next post, I'll go into playstyle advice and tips for r10 soloing; the 'guide' portion of this thread.
So, that is my Wizard build! I know it is nothing especially innovative; my aim is just to show how to build a solid endgame DC caster and nuker Wizard, without necessarily having heaps of past lives and rare loot. I hope anyone who wasn't convinced about Wizard might be moved to reconsider. The class is super fun, powerful, and the most accessible in the game for high difficulty DC casting. Questions, comments and critiques welcomed. Thanks for reading!
With this write-up, I want to show that a DC caster, despite their high barrier to entry, can be both accessible to those without heaps of past lives and unattainably rare equipment, and viable for r10 soloing. I do not have any reaper gear, use no Myth Drannor equipment, and I have no beneficial curses. Only recently did I reach heroic completionist - I did 95% of my r10 runs before getting it (playing since '06 and just got completionist in '25, what have I even been doing with my life) - and I strongly doubt I will ever grind out racial completionist. Nevertheless it is possible, with use of some stopgap measures and strategies, to build a DC caster and nuker viable for raid pushing and soloing.
Whether you are looking to build a Wizard for the first time and want help with getting started, or you are a veteran caster who wants to get into high reaper challenges, read on.
* * * * *
There are three points to the build:
1) Spell DCs. Everything that can be instakilled should be dead. Everything that can’t should be held, stunned, frozen, turned to stone, and the like. For this reason, we pump our DCs as high as possible, in the following order of importance: Necromancy > Enchantment > Illusion > Conjuration/Transmutation/Evocation. Necro and enchant, really, are the schools of utmost importance; Illusion merely supplements these two. The others are important also but have more situational use. To be an effective DC caster in r10 and raids, you need high DCs.
2) Negative spellpower and crit chance. This lets you DPS bosses, Dooms, deathblock champs, etc. You can’t AoE nuke, but that’s fine – we’ve got CC and instakills for that. Your single-target DPS is very respectable. We can’t compete with the meta DPS builds, as we shouldn’t, but given the high reaper spell damage nerf and the fact that we are playing a Wizard, our DPS is more than serviceable. For example, we can be entrusted with killing the vrocks in r1 Fire Over Morgrave, freeing up the 'true' DPS characters to focus on the boss. You will be able to kite and kill Dooms and bosses on r10 when required. Of course, not only do we get strong DPS this way, but we also improve our self-healing; extremely important for surviving r10.
3) Survivability. In the days of single epic destinies and EDF, I would run as a DC caster in r10s, then switch gear and tank Dooms and the boss in Magister (thanks to a brilliant build write-up from Zappy on the old forums). I would switch to Unyielding Sentinel and tank a raid when required. Sadly, this is no longer as feasible...though I have plans to try. Nevertheless we wish to retain as much of this requisite hardiness as possible. As the saying goes: you can’t contribute to the party from a backpack. So our third aim is to maximise our defences within the circumscription of our first two objects.
With introductions out of the way…here is the detailed write-up:
Abilities and Skills:
Intelligence - 20
Constitution - 16 (18 if not an Elf)
Wisdom - 12
All level-ups in int.
Our ability distribution is very simple. We take the maximum Intelligence we can, which will be 20 for any int race. Then also max out Constitution for HP. With 36 points, we have 4 left over to play with. Usually I go for Wisdom to get a couple more points of negative spellpower. However, Strength can be useful to prevent getting medium load/encumbered if you don't have an item for it, especially in low levels. You can even go Charisma if you feel you might need the extra points in UMD. With 32 and fewer points, just maximise Intelligence first and then as much as possible in Constitution.
Concentration – 23
Spellcraft – 23
Balance – 11
Haggle – 11
Heal – 11
Search – 11
Spot – 11
UMD – 11
Tumble – 10
Obviously as Wizards we have more skill points than we know what to do with, so you can play around with these to your taste. The above allocation is not the full spend. As you see, I have taken some skills for convenience, like Haggle, since we have so many points to spare. Repair can be good for the repair spellpower. Just be sure to max Concentration, Spellcraft, Balance, Heal, UMD, and Search, and put ten points in Tumble for the extra tumble charge.
Heroic Feats:
Insightful Reflexes – Essential on any int caster. Reads “+50 or more to reflex saves.”
Wizard PL – +1 DCs, and the Magic Missile SLA is nice for debuffing.
Quicken – De rigueur. Without this you will cast spells so slowly that your character is basically unplayable. Your hand gestures as you cast without Quicken are slower than the shifting of the tectonic plate upon which you stand. Quicken is essential.
Maximise – +150 to our already hefty spellpower. Not to be sniffed at.
Empower – And another +75. This makes for, at time of writing, an effective sustainable neg spellpower of 1,300.
Heighten – Obvious. You want your spells to land.
Extend – This is a quality-of-life pick. It doubles our Death Aura durations, not to mention Displacement, Haste and Rage. You could probably swap this out for +1 to an ancillary school DC if you really want but I find it just makes the game more enjoyable.
Enlarge – If you are a DC caster and have not been using Enlarge, you should rethink your life thus far. Enlarge is excellent for completely killing or immobilising entire groups of enemies before they’ve even had a chance to see you. You know when I was banging on earlier about survivability? The best way to stay alive is to not get hit. So, employ some tactical artillery. This also makes it easier to set up traps between you and the enemies for them to run into before you’ve aggroed them.
SF Necro – Duh. Our most important school. Not only for instakills, but our DPS spells use necro DC as well.
GSF Necro – More DC for our prime school. With this and Spell Specialty, we’re getting +5 necro DC from feats.
SF Enchant – Our second-most important school. We’re going to take this, GSF Enchant, and Epic Spell Focus Enchant; then we can take Spell Specialty Necro.
GSF Enchant – As stated. With this and the epic feats, we’re getting +3 Enchantment and +5 Necromancy focus.
Epic and Legendary Feats:
Arcane Insight – +6 to DCs for 30 seconds. Between this and Reaper’s Potency, you’re going into most fights with a DC boost. Also, if you’re having trouble with a particularly high-fortitude monster, you can hit it with a Power Word: Kill and then pop this boost to instantly reset the spell’s cooldown, provided you’ve taken the ability in Magus (which you should). Without all the past lives, reaper gear, curses or Myth Drannor equipment, boosts are very important for running the latest content on r10.
Epic Spell Power: Negative – Increases our DPS and self-healing. No-brainer.
Embolden – +2 to all DCs. Another no-brainer.
Epic Spell Power: Force – There are slim pickings at this level and this is what I’ve chosen. Force is a (distant) second spellpower concern, as Arcane Tempest is a good enough spell to keep in my DPS rotation, and I sometimes take Arcane Pulse for situational use. Plus it does increase our universal crit damage (that is, our neg crit damage) by 5%. However, it may transpire that a better choice could be made here. Even Elusive Target could be better. For now I’ve taken this, but that might change in the future. I tried Channel Power but did not find it apt for our manoeuvrable playstyle.
Burst of Glacial Wrath – You know, for ages I resisted taking this spell. But for what? Before, I had to switch to an LGS ice and spam Magic Missiles at golems and such. Now, I can just freeze them all in one wintery cone. It is also great for plants, vermin, and other Enchantment-immune enemies. And not only does it stop such spell-resistant mobs, it’s also a great option for CC layering – something you should always strive to do. Held and frozen (and stunned and blind and…) is better than just held, especially in high reaper. Can’t believe I didn’t use this for so long.
Arcane Pulse – Again, I use this situationally when required, but I’m not fully convinced. It’s good to at least have an option for when we can do absolutely nothing else, and that’s why I’ve got it for now. But as I say, other feats could prove useful enough to supplant it. I am tempted by Deific Warding, which I have taken many times in the past. Do as thou wilt. [Addendum: I started writing this guide on a life where I took Arcane Pulse. At present I have indeed gone with Deific Warding and I would say it is better. Especially if you don't have so many PRR past lives, Deific Warding is a great way to buttress your defences. And Arcane Pulse is so seldom required and so weak that I think it best to dispense with. If you are really worried about constructs, however, then go ahead and take it.]
Epic Spell Focus: Enchantment – The crown jewel in our Enchantment focus line. Most importantly, apart from the +1 enchant DC, this lets us take the +3 DC Spell Specialty feats as well.
Scion of the Shadowfell – This legendary feat gives us everything we need. +4 to our main spell school, neg spell power and spell crit, and neg heal amp. The others are tempting, probably Feywild being the most so (+4 enchant and illusion, plus positive heal amp?!) but Shadowfell seems the best given the goals outlined at the start. However, I do think other choices would be viable.
Great Intelligence – I don’t really like these feats. Sadly, I have to take this to get an even int score. If you don’t have to do that, Wellspring would be an excellent choice for nuking, which I would take if I weren’t obliged to take this one. Basically how it works is, if you would otherwise end up on an odd Intelligence score, take this feat. If not, you are at liberty to take something more exciting, like Wellspring or Intensify.
Spell Specialty: Necromancy – At last, the much-vaunted +3 to Necromancy, our most important school.
Spell Specialty: Illusion – It is also important to have our Phantasmal Killer (PK) and Greater Colour Spray land.
For Epic stances, you want Arcane Alacrity as your Arcane stance to help attenuate Wizard cooldowns, and Colours of the Queen in Primal because there's nothing else there that helps casters at all. In Martial it's best to go with Fortification, especially given the -50% fort from our Yugo int pots, but I didn't have those lives until very recently and used Skill Mastery instead, which is perfectly serviceable. In Divine I go for Power Over Life and Death to increase our DPS and self-healing. Ancient Blessings, giving +15 positive and negative heal amp, would also be a good choice. Long ago I used Brace by preference, and they were the first Divine lives I got, but now saving throws have too much variance for +3 to make much difference.
The Iconic stance I've been using is Deep Gnome for +3 Illusion DC. I don't have the Dark Bargainer lives yet, but will probably switch to that when I can, since they also increase our negative spellpower. Either way, if you have both, choose whichever you feel you need the DC boost for the most.
Enhancements:
Finally, some proper pictures.
As you can see, I don’t have enough racial points for it to matter what race I choose so long as it’s an int race. For now I’ve gone with Sun Elf for Rejuvenation of the Dawn. It would be preferable to have at least 6 racial AP to get the Intelligence cores. If you have less, you will lose out on a DC point by missing the int either here or elsewhere; not ideal, but certainly not the end of the world. With max racial AP, Deep Gnome is indisputably the best choice: it has bonus Illusion DCs, a PK SLA, you get dodge bonuses and MRR in the cores; the list goes on. However, they are kind of ugly, so I’m happy being an Elf for now.
Most of these decisions are self-explanatory. Of course, Pale Master is our main tree. I took +2 necro and +2 enchant for the first two PM cores, then +25 HP and +5 PRR for the third. The third could be a variety of options, like the +15% cold or electric absorption. The +10 negative spellpower is too negligible to be worthwhile. But the DC boosts are essential.
Shroud of the Lich seems the best overall. Obviously Zombie is out of the question (except when we could run as a tank…). +3% dodge in Wraith is kinda nice, but the incorporeal does nothing in high skulls (i.e., the only place you really need it), and I dislike permanent feather fall. Now, Vampire is a viable contender, giving +1 Enchantment DC. I would respect the decision to go Vampire. But Lich gives us more HP, more neg heal amp, more neg spellpower, and +15 MRR and MRR cap. The defensive benefits therefore outweigh the +1 enchant for me. And as a little bonus, you get +10 stacking electric and cold resistance, and -5% cost of spells. So, I always end up choosing Lich, even though the Vampire red shroud looks cool.
The skeleton is another QoL pick. 95% of the time I do not summon him. But on occasion he is very useful for pulling levers or solving puzzles you can’t do solo. And since he’s not a hireling you can summon him anywhere, including in raids. He can also draw the aggro off you for a little while if you are soloing a high skull dungeon. Supplemented by summons, you can have a little menagerie following you around and, though they perish almost instantaneously, in doing so they take an arrow or sword meant for you, like keen but feeble bodyguards.
Beyond that, we take the full neg heal amp and crit chance lines. This gives us +50 neg amp and +8% crit chance, improving both our DPS and our self-healing. With the Greater Death Aura capstone, we have three auras ticking away for passive healing; at time of writing, my neg heal amp is sitting at 307. You might not be able to press a button and heal to full health mid-combat in r10, but even so the healing ticks are extremely helpful, increasing our chances of survival against fear reapers, champ DOTs and similar deadly threats. If you're kiting a boss or a Doom and they manage to clip you, your auras will tick you back up while you DPS and evade them.
Unholy Avatar is our ersatz immunity strip. It's essential, basically, as you wouldn't be able to DPS the most common (?) enemy type in the game without it.
Finally, the SLAs. They're not the highest damage nukes, but Necrotic Blast and Bolt are very decent for rounding out our DPS rotation. I often use Bolt to tag undead bosses first, making them vulnerable to negative energy; otherwise, we would waste a high-damage nuke on healing them. Blast is good for tagging groups of undead. You want to cast these in your DPS rotation when the higher damage spells are on cooldown.
Improved Shield in Eldritch Knight and You’ve Got my Back in Feydark Illusionist are synergistic. Together they give you +20 PRR, along with the SLA to get it, saving a spell slot. I don’t need the MRR boosts as I seem to reach the 115 cap anyway. However, if you are short, or if such a time comes that our MRR cap can be raised further, it will be a simple matter to swap in Night Shield for another +10 MRR.
Also synergistic are Reactive Discorporation (Pale Master), Refraction (Feydark), and Arcane Barrier (EK). If you drop below 50% HP, you instantly gain Radiant Forcefield, Dark Discorporation, invisibility, and 15% missile deflection while the invisibility lasts. Meanwhile, your auras will be healing you, allowing the reaction to trigger several times. Plus, Refraction combined with Cloak of Night from PM gives you 15% missile deflection when blocking. Though we usually don't do too much of that, all told.
The rest of the stuff is standard. We get some hitpoints and spellpower in EK. The Mage Armour SLA is only taken for Improved Shield, but since we have it, we may as well cast it. And in Feydark, we get more DCs from the int, some spellpower and spellpoints, +3 spell pen, and +2% crit chance. You could exchange the spell pen for the +3 to saves if you felt like it. But we don't take any spell pen feats and I only have +9 spell pen slotted in equipment, so it's good to get easy boosts like this where possible. Twist Reality gives a stacking -1 Will debuff whenever you hit an enemy with Greater Colour Spray, PK or Hypnotic Pattern.
Besides that, we are obliged to go into Feydark for Greater Colour Spray, not being a Gnome. Perhaps if we were a Deep Gnome we wouldn’t spend so many points in this tree. But we’re not, so we do, and it’s a great tree anyway, so I am not overwrought about it.
Epic Destinies:
Here you see that we use the excellent Magus of the Eclipse as our primary destiny, supplemented by Draconic Incarnation and Exalted Angel. This spread lets us get +3 to necro, enchant and illusion; the three we want. The epic strike in Magus is very strong – it does great damage, thanks to the T5 upgrade, and it paralyzes on a necro DC. Pesky elemental or scorpion immune to your hold? Just zap it with Gloomspear. Most of the stuff in here helps our DCs or our DPS – it’s a great destiny. Not to mention Time Stop; soon you will tire of the proper DPS players begging you to pop it on the raid boss. It’ll become instinctive eventually. And it’s very occasionally helpful in a pinch if you’re in a tight spot of mobs. Plus, all the spell pen in this tree is surely a boon: +10 in total, I believe. I only have +9 spell pen slotted on equipment (in the dino crafting), so no insightful spell pen, and no feats to speak of. But I never have problems with it. Of course, it helps having all the Wiz and FvS past lives.
Other assorted choices: +3 to fear-based spells, raising our Phantasmal Killer DC. Dark Light of the Moon AoE DoT; good for boss DPS, especially with the explosion. I take Lunar Insight to reset Power Word: Kill whenever I pop the +6 DC boost feat we took. The Self or Summons is just to get to 30 points really, so I magnanimously decided to buff my militia of summoned weaklings rather than getting a useless +2 to Will saves, since we are immune to practically everything with a Will save already. And in T5, Moon's Shadow is another excellent single-target nuke. Yes, of course you take the +3 to DCs here dumbass.
In both Magus and Draconic, we take all the abilities that grant +10 negative spellpower at tier 3. This is a nice +30 spellpower. Draconic we are of course using for the extra spellpower, in these abilities as well as the cores (another +30), but mainly for its brilliant mantle. This really ramps up our single-target DPS with the DoT effect, gives us an additional -10% to spell cooldowns, and we get Mobile Spellcasting. As if that wasn’t enough, we also get frequent temporary hitpoints to go along with our Affirmation and Demonheart Emerald, and the wonderful QoL feature of not having to carry material components. Core 2 essentially reads “gain half a backpack slot.” We get a little bit of PRR, MRR and Reflex, but that's mainly to spend the required points.
Exalted Angel, as you can imagine, is taken solely for the wings. These for my playstyle are absolutely essential and I can never go back. Their use in kiting mobs, escaping dangerous situations, evading traps, reaching safespots etc. cannot be overstated. However, while we are here, we can make the most of what the rest of the tree has to offer. Healing Pillar and the Mass Cure Moderate Wounds SLA are great for playing back-up healer, and especially for answering the question of “who heals the healer in r10?” You also get 5% fire absorb and a bit of PRR, MRR and spellpower, plus the aforementioned +3 to Enchantment DC. Since I have the points to spare, I also grabbed Shadows Upon You for the debuff when raiding. This is good enough for me for a tertiary dip. But yes, 99% of the reason to take this tree is the wings. They are that awesome.
Equipment:
While the build as a whole is meant to be flexible, equipment is especially so. There is no one true loadout, as there was in times past. Here is my main equip loadout for questing after I've buffed and swapped out the SP items:
(Hopefully you can read that.)
I swap in the Acolyte’s Lenses (Insightful Wizardry +134), some Green Steel Gloves (Elemental Spell Power +150), and the Ring of Spell Storing (to avoid the -5% SP drain from Clouded Dreams) when in public or at a shrine to raise my spell point total by about 600. I also like to swap in the Direbear Belt to pretend I have +10% HP, for all-important MMO posturing purposes. When we're in the quest and done buffing, I swap in the proper gearset. Depending on what gear you have, you might prefer other SP items; there is a good SP belt from Saltmarsh, for example.
[There are a few decisions here that require explanation. I've run this loadout for a while, and have done all of my soloing with it thus far. The design philosophy is outlined below. However, my thoughts have shifted on some of these points, mainly on Affirmation vs Ash/Vuln and on the necessity of Stygian Wrath, and I am close to assembling a new gearset. So, don't take these ideas as gospel. Gearsets in the present meta vary wildly; this is just an example of one that worked for me and that does not require elusive rare loot.]
Almost every other caster, as I understand, takes Ash in the LGS dino bone slot. I have taken Affirmation. ‘Swapping into’ Affirmation is just not realistic in a lot of situations. You have to track if the minute timer has expired (often difficult), you need to actually get it to proc on something (not always possible), and then you need to swap back to whatever you use normally. In the chaos of battle and zerging parties, this is not feasible. Certainly I would love to fit Ash in for the bonus to DPS. But having Affirmation permanently slotted does wonders for survivability. Since it is almost always active, I can have effective hitpoints of over 4,000 in reaper; probably why I can afford to keep the LGS belt on all the time. However, if you want to use Ash, and find the Affirmation-swap strategy effective, more power to you. When I have a second maxed-out sentient jewel then I intend to make a DPS Ash stick and swap to it for bosses.
I regard Stygian Wrath as essential. There is no other source of +13% insightful neg crit chance in the game. [Now there is Lesser Oblivion from The Wizard's Labyrinth, with +14%.] Even over Pomura’s Memento this is +8%. It also gives insightful nullification and our insightful int. So this really helps our gear tetris – insightful int is otherwise quite irritating to fit in without using something subpar, like the Shattered Onyx ring, all the other effects of which are duplicated elsewhere (and we reach our dodge cap in reaper without it anyway). Plus, the Sinister Chill helps keep us going for a long time. Along with the spell replenishment items, you will basically never have to shrine, even with all your metamagics permanently enabled.
Most equipment philosophy seems to revolve solely around set bonuses. Sets are certainly important, but I find that focussing on getting the desired sets to the exclusion of all else results in lower power overall. For example, take the five-piece profane Vecna set bonus (I forget its name). I do not find this set impressive. Profane bonuses are less useful than artifact bonuses for one, as they are often found on equipment natively. But more importantly, most of the Vecna equipment just wasn’t that good for this build. The three good items – the hat, the cloak and the armour – I have used and placed the Vol’s Influence artifact set on, as you see. If I squeezed into the five piece and managed to get my artifact bonuses elsewhere, I would gain +1 profane DC and +1 profane to all stats. I suppose the +30 profane prr would be nice provided I also have +30 artifact. But to do this, the actual effects on my equipment would be far less useful, with a great deal of duplication. Everything I have equipped is providing a lot of use in its own right, even before accounting for set bonuses. So this is why I do not build myself into a box by focussing on getting the absolute highest DCs – 1 or 2 more at best – to the detriment of all other aspects of the build.
[Now, as I say, I have reflected that insightful void lore is perhaps not so required, since if we have both Ash and Vulnerability stacking on bosses we'll get +40% DPS; far more than what we're getting from the extra crit chance. I will try having an Affirmation swap-in, and I will swap to off-hand Lesser Oblivion for casting auras. But this is the equipment set with which I did all my soloing thus far, so it's what I've put in the guide.]
In any case, we have four artifact sets active:
Vol's Influence: +25 universal spellpower, +6% universal spell crit chance, +15% spell crit damage, +3 spell DCs.
Desert's Starless Night: +30 negative spellpower, +6% neg spell crit chance, +15% damage vs the helpless. These stack with Vol's Influence.
Eminence of Winter (3-piece): +30 PRR, +30 positive and negative heal amp.
Piercing Mind: +3 Intelligence.
And here's my filigree setup. All rare except for the Zarigan's int:
Minor Artifact (Dinosaur Bone Ring): Beholder/Grave int +2, Zarigan's/Voltaic int +2, Otto's int, Zarigan's int
Dinosaur Bone One-Hander: Beholder/Grave int +2, Zarigan's/Voltaic int +2, Grave int, Grave neg heal amp, Otto's int, Otto's spellpower, Otto's con, Zarigan's int, Beholder int, Beholder spellpower.
* * * * *
Now that we've gone through the build and equipment, let's finally look at some numbers!
This is all sustainably self-buffed in reaper. So, with rem and Yugo pots, and commendation and nihil pots for spell power, but no boosts or finite resources like Abishai cookies. Then the number bottom right is with boosts, though no cookies. Apologies for the hideous formatting here.
Probably elite players will not be overly impressed with these numbers. There's space to get a lot higher of DCs; like I say, with new expansion equipment, curse cards, reaper bonuses etc. But, along with liberal use of boosts and some strategy, it's enough to solo r10s. The point being, you can have reasonably outdated equipment and not have a ton of past lives, and still do well in, or even solo, high reaper. So I encourage you to try it sometime - it's good fun!
(I don't actually know what's going on with my spellpower. It was 1,075 before; now I've done a bunch more TRs including getting completionist, and I got the +4 spellpower tome, so I don't know why it's 1,072. What a mystery. Probably I forgot a toggle somewhere or whatever)
And here's my character sheet:
Again, nothing unattainable. For the PRR, I confess I do have all the PRR lives, so 200+ PRR might not be realistically achievable if you're just starting out. In any case, it's enough to take a hit or two in r10, at which point you turn around and fly away.
Now, some videos
My favourite one:
The most popular:
And my most recent:
(Except don't watch that one because I used the wrong mic like an imbecile 🫣)
Most of these were recorded when I was a Drow with 8 racial AP and no completionist. A few were at level cap 32. So, my DCs were lower, and HP, PRR etc. were a little worse. DC casting can be difficult to get into, given extremely high monster saves and the consequent past life requirements. But with some supporting strategies, like the use of DC boosts and wings, you can get to a level to contribute at endgame with a fairly minimal base. In the next post, I'll go into playstyle advice and tips for r10 soloing; the 'guide' portion of this thread.
* * * * *
So, that is my Wizard build! I know it is nothing especially innovative; my aim is just to show how to build a solid endgame DC caster and nuker Wizard, without necessarily having heaps of past lives and rare loot. I hope anyone who wasn't convinced about Wizard might be moved to reconsider. The class is super fun, powerful, and the most accessible in the game for high difficulty DC casting. Questions, comments and critiques welcomed. Thanks for reading!
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or, when I get a new gearset with a 5-slot minor artifact, I can put +1 int and remove the feat.