Invokers

[MrCarb]

Just a quick question for anyone who's played an invoker before;
is there any point in learning any afflicive spells except hellstream and icicle? Are any races or important mobs weak to fire or lightning, for example?

edit - forgot about jet steam. About that; does the source of water have to be in the same room, or just within so many rooms distance?

[Vhrael]

[pip]

oooh, vhrael said versatilltiy..i'm impressed

[Vhrael]

[Mandor]

fireball is a pretty good damage spell, better than anything below it, and it also hits anything in the room, very useful against thieves, pets, etc. personally, if you need to faerie fog a room to get a thief, and theres noone else there, go for the fireball.

[Soldier]

I've had more then my share of Invokers and to get good friends to help you level is hard now that pyrogiants are gone your fucked. But they are very powerful even the shittiest spells can rock people if you still had burning hards you would be surprised on the damage that bitch can dish. As for races Elf and Drow are good for autosneak, theres nothing like a silent walk in and fireball. Plus if you go elf there are lots of eq you can get that adds hp and with the axtra pracs you can put more on. Avians are good for the movements but if plague hits you get ready to get your ass kicked. Gnomes can be made good I've only made one so I'm not an expert on Gnomes.

[Xerties]

I've had an invoker or two in my day, so I guess I can speak intelligently about them.

Magic missle - I would say no. It's funny to use to finish someone off, but I think the practices could be better used elsewhere.

Lightning bolt - This one is debatable. I would say yes because it does a pretty good amount of damage at the low levels and is good for when you have lightning vuln mobs.

Icicle/flame arrow/jet steam - Yes. Just yes.

Hellstream - duh.

Fireball - Yes, for ranger and necro pets and whatnot

Chain lightning - Definitely. This is a pretty underrated spell and can be very useful.

Ice/thunder storm - Another debateable one. Their damage range is pretty wide, but they can do a pretty good amount of damage.

Meteor swarm - Definitley. Not only can it be used for crushing damage against gnomes, but it also isn't considered a 'magical' attack, so mana shield doesn't protect from it, something that you're really going to want if you should end up another invoker.


So that's my two cents. Someone will probably say not to listen to be because I don't PK much, but they can go hang.

[_Clifton_]

What Xerties wrote is just about right.

[Xerties]

<-- scrapes himself up off the floor.

[MrCarb]

Thanks, lots of very useful insight. hadn't thought about meteor swarm for gnomes; that should be very useful. Of course, all this will probably change now with the afflicitve module.

[Davairus]

Considering that aff module work is on the way, you probably don't want to go the route of leaving skills at 1% (to spam trains/pracs into hp) because you think they're no good right now. There's at least one shaman who did that with the cure and cause spells, and now he has no pracs, and its an expensive game bargaining for them back. Sooner or later, that's going to bite back. With a mage character especially. I suggest saving at least a couple trains for contingiencies. If you don't plan to keep the character too long, or figure you'll delete and start over, by all means the power-route is better.

You'll need to get reliable proficiencies in all the useful spells... else you'll be back here saying none of it worked when the actual cause is losing concentration 25% of the time, due to pk spells (icicle, chain lightning especially) that you don't use a lot, if at all, while you rank up. This factor certainly makes chain lightning a lot less dangerous than it really should be, else every invoker would be spamming it instead of hellstream, I'm pretty sure.

[MrCarb]

In that case I'll keep some practices aside. As for skill percentages...well, i can't be bothered with training, so i'll take my chances with 75%. Actualy I get the impression very few people train these days, but i may be wrong. When i played before i used to do my defences (back when they took about 20 minutes) but now just about any skill seems too daunting.

[Vhrael]

Especially with surges now, it shouldn't take anything for an invoker to get a specific afflictive (icicle, flame arrow, lightning bolt, etc.) up to at least 80% during a ranking session. I'd say to start with that, just concentrating on one spell at a time until you get at least to 80%.

At least for starting out you probably don't need to worry about getting to 95-100% proficiency, but 80% is a good place to start everything else from once you decide you want to do some hardcore training.

[MrCarb]

That sounds like a good idea; i'll switch between spells for different ranking sessions. By the way, I was reading what Davairus said about chain lightning. Now chain lightning is are of effect right? So is it better than fireball, all things being equal? (no vuln/resistance)

[Soldier]

Yeah but whatch out way back when chain lightning hit you too so you needed mana shield up or your gonna get hurt too. And when the fuck did Invokers get magic missle?

[Davairus]

Chain lightning doesnt always hit back, under certain conditions. But yeah, you do use mana shield with it.

[Xerties]

Invokers got magic missle in place of burning hands (for some reason that I have yet to fathom.)

On an unrelated note, is guest posting still allowed in the Graveyard?

[Baer]

Your mom has magic missile.


I don't know.

[Xazappith]

Alot of how much you practice should depend on what you're going to be using the charactor for. If you're going to try to PK, then yeah, you want to practice all the way up to 75, or something close to it, but if you're raising a Patron or a Herald or maybe even a Noble, and you'll be playing more of a support role, I don't see any problem with 56% for your spells. (Excepting enchant weapon, you don't want to fail that one IMO) On my herald, starting from 56% I have one spell mastered and 6 or 7 others close, including hellstream, just from helping people rank, which I don't even do all that often. So spend your practices based on how you're going to play.