Spell Costs

[Wilshire]

First off, Clerics don't have level 12 or 16 spells: Intelligence casters get them every four levels, but Wisdom casters only get them every 5 (5/9/14/etc.).

You're right. I don't know why I even said that since I am a wisdom caster and I know when I get my spells. Guess I wasn't thinking completely yesterday.

This. Most of the level 9 Cleric spells are garbage. Root is the only one I'd consider essential, with Center, Fear, and maybe Sense the Dead being potentially useful. You won't care about resists, won't want a summoned hammer, won't be AEing anything, stamina doesn't work on P99, etc.

14 has more good spells, but still plenty of garbage. Bind Affinity, Healing, and Invis vs. Undead are essential, and Symbol, Smite and Expluse Undead are probably worth it also. But you probably won't be dispelling, buffing resists, summoning a lightstone or sensing summoned things (although that last one might be useful in niche situations in the future, so maybe get it eventually).

This might be class specific, though. Some classes do get a lot of spells that are at least useful enough to buy at certain levels (druid at 14, for example) and you don't really want to pass on any of them, but I guess there are others that aren't really useful.

Any of the resistance buffs probably aren't that helpful until higher levels so they can wait until later. The spells that are basically "Summon a Light Source" are kinda useless for an elf that already sees just fine in the dark.

I'm a bit torn on the symbol spells, though. They're definitely very useful and worth having, but at the same time I can't really afford the components for them so I wonder if I'd use them enough to justify buying the spell. I might find that I only cast it once or twice before I've leveled up enough to get a better symbol.

Anyway, yesterday, I went to a spell vendor and priced my next-level spells. I didn't pre-buy them, but now I know how much I have to make over the next five levels.

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Wilshire [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This might be class specific, though. Some classes do get a lot of spells that are at least useful enough to buy at certain levels (druid at 14, for example) and you don't really want to pass on any of them, but I guess there are others that aren't really useful.

There's always exceptions that prove the rule ... but Druid level 14 isn't it. Cascade of Hail, Expulse Summoned, Halo of Light, and Invigor are all straight garbage. Befriend Animal probably won't get used at that level either (unless you are a twink with the Goblin Gazughi Ring), See Invisible won't be useful for a very long time, and Summon Food/Water are only useful circumstantially.

Originally Posted by Wilshire [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Anyway, yesterday, I went to a spell vendor and priced my next-level spells. I didn't pre-buy them, but now I know how much I have to make over the next five levels.

Honestly, if you kill anything that drops stuff, you sell that stuff, and you don't buy gear (gear is a waste of plat at early levels) you really shouldn't need to worry. The game provides enough plat to cover the good spells ... unless you only kill mobs that drop nothing for four levels.

[Wilshire]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There's always exceptions that prove the rule ... but Druid level 14 isn't it. Cascade of Hail, Expulse Summoned, Halo of Light, and Invigor are all straight garbage. Befriend Animal probably won't get used at that level either (unless you are a twink with the Goblin Gazughi Ring), See Invisible won't be useful for a very long time, and Summon Food/Water are only useful circumstantially.

Cascade of Hail is actually better than Ignite in terms of damage per mana.

Ignite - ~37 damage for 30 mana at level 14.
Cascade of Hail - 81 damage (3 waves of 27 each) for 62 mana at level 14.

While there's no way an untwinked toon is going to have enough mana to be quadding at 14, it's still actually a pretty decent spell if you root bomb (and grasping roots doesn't break). While it's by no means critical, and Ignite is definitely better if you're kiting, Cascade isn't totally worthless. Cascade is only sort of worthless if you're just snaring instead of rooting the mob. I guess it depends on playstyle.

The same with Befriend Animal. It's not necessary to be charm kiting at that level for sure. There are some areas where a 14 could use it though. West Commonlands, Oasis, or Karanas, for example.

Neither of those spells is totally worthless. Yes, they aren't strictly necessary. At 14, you could still pretty easily handle most blues or on-level cons by root rotting (Grasping Roots + Stinging Swarm), nuke kiting (Snare + Stinging Swarm + Ignite while running), and even by meleeing a mob to finish them off. So, I guess that you could ignore those spells if you really wanted to (or at least save them for later) but to say that they're useless is a stretch.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by Wilshire [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Cascade of Hail is actually better than Ignite in terms of damage per mana.

Ignite - ~37 damage for 30 mana at level 14.
Cascade of Hail - 81 damage (3 waves of 27 each) for 62 mana at level 14.

While there's no way an untwinked toon is going to have enough mana to be quadding at 14, it's still actually a pretty decent spell if you root bomb (and grasping roots doesn't break). While it's by no means critical, and Ignite is definitely better if you're kiting, Cascade isn't totally worthless. Cascade is only sort of worthless if you're just snaring instead of rooting the mob. I guess it depends on playstyle.

The same with Befriend Animal. It's not necessary to be charm kiting at that level for sure. There are some areas where a 14 could use it though. West Commonlands, Oasis, or Karanas, for example.

Neither of those spells is totally worthless. Yes, they aren't strictly necessary. At 14, you could still pretty easily handle most blues or on-level cons by root rotting (Grasping Roots + Stinging Swarm), nuke kiting (Snare + Stinging Swarm + Ignite while running), and even by meleeing a mob to finish them off. So, I guess that you could ignore those spells if you really wanted to (or at least save them for later) but to say that they're useless is a stretch.

Interesting point. But I would expect the percentage of root breaks to be pretty decent and as such the rain spell could be a complete waste of mana if the mob moves from that spot right? Or am I thinking of a different line of spells?

[Wilshire]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Interesting point. But I would expect the percentage of root breaks to be pretty decent and as such the rain spell could be a complete waste of mana if the mob moves from that spot right? Or am I thinking of a different line of spells?

You're correct.

I've been testing it out with my druid at 14/15. In theory, it's the best nuke I've got, and when it hits with all three waves, it's really effective against blue con mobs.

In practice, the mob either resists one of the waves or the root breaks before all three waves hit it. That wrecks the mana efficiency big time when compared to a faster casting one-shot nuke.

Which leads me to the following conclusion: It might be decent with a charmed pet or a duo partner holding the mob in place so that all three waves hit.

We're going to have to disagree on the use of Befriend Animal, though. I have been having a decent amount of success using it to charm a high green or blue mob and then use that as a pet to attack an even con. I usually have to assist my pet win, and it ends up at 25% to half health when the fight ends. Then I hit hide, break the charm, and root-rot my (former pet). Gets me two xp kills pretty easily.

I'm not sure if this way of killing two mobs at once would be more mana-efficient than just rooting both of them and dotting though. I have to test that still.

[bcbrown]

Originally Posted by Wilshire [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Cascade of Hail is actually better than Ignite in terms of damage per mana.

One problem with Cascade of Hail is that if root breaks on the first wave, the mob will run at you and the next waves won't hit it. And if you want to melee the mob to avoid that problem, then every wave will also hit you. A single cast isn't gonna kill a mob, and it has an 18 second recast time. So if you're gonna be sitting around with a rooted mob, might as well use Stinging Swarm, which is 45% more damage per mana.

The only situation where I could see it being useful is if you're in a group with someone else tanking. But in that case I'd rather spend the 62 mana on a Shield of Thistles and a Light Healing.

Have you ever used the AOE Rain spells while leveling? I used it once, realized how unhelpful it was, and never used it again. I can't think of any situations where I'd want to use them.

Oh, and Befriend Animal isn't really useful before about level 20, I think. I tried using it at lower levels and it just wasn't efficient. The mobs you'll be fighting are so close to your level that you can't expect charm to last an entire fight. And your mana pool is small enough (and snare doesn't last long enough at that level) that you won't be able to keep both animals snared the entire time. So usually halfway through the fight charm will break and you'll have two mobs coming at you unsnared, and it'll take time, mana, and health before you get the situation under control again.

Loramin's right.

[Snaggles]

I expect the philosophy of the original developers is acquiring spells for a caster is similar to getting weapons for a melee. To some degree a struggle with slow progress.

Luckily a lot of spells just aren’t needed. Putting aside the clearly dumb ones (true north and the summoned cleric hammers), the effects and duration per cast rarely justify some of the lower ranks. I think the first symbol I filled a backpack worth of regs for was Pinzarn.

[Duik]

From memory, each rain gets a save as well.
I dunno what that does to the mana/damage/save ratio though. Im sure i read a great writeup somewhere about it (wizard/mag/druid aoe various spells). Maybe its on P99.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by Duik [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

From memory, each rain gets a save as well.
I dunno what that does to the mana/damage/save ratio though. Im sure i read a great writeup somewhere about it (wizard/mag/druid aoe various spells). Maybe its on P99.

Would love to read that if you ever find it

[Duik]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Would love to read that if you ever find it

Well this wasnt the post i meant it does have some relevant info.
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...ls+area+effect

This is a quite relevant snippet from the magician page.

Originally Posted by Wiki
Target-Based Area of Effect

Mages have two types of target-based AoE fire spells: "columns" and "rains". Both are limited to 4 "hits" which includes the target (this is in contrast to the player-based AoE spells, which have a max of 25 hits). Unfortunately, from classic until about three months into Velious, if your pet is within the AoE it will "use up" one of those hits (it will not do any damage, but it will count against the number of enemies that can be affected). Without any in-class snare, the use of these types of spells is already quite limited, but rain spells have several quirks that make them even worse than you might think at first glance. First off, your pet eating one of the hits every wave (and only being allowed to hit 4 things, total) means that you will only ever hit your target mob twice if doesn't move. The work-around for this is understanding that the AoE is centered on where the mob was when it was first cast (it doesn't follow the mob around). Because of this, if you can move the mob after the first wave such that your pet is out of the AoE, but the mob is still in, it will take the remaining two hits (the mob and your pet taking the first two). That said, there are two other drawbacks to using rains compared to other types of damage spells: they have an innate 20% resist chance, and they can never kill a mob (if the mob is below 10% health and/or it would land the killing blow, it is automatically resisted). Both of these things were around until well after the P99 timeline and so they will always be in effect here.