No way to deal with Drain but Enduring Death Ward??

[ApathicAlpaca]

It seems there is no reliable way whatsoever to prevent attribute drain than Death Ward. And that only lasts some minutes plus using it on a big party (with animals etc.) means you just wasted all your spell slots on it.

To make it 24h I have to waste 2 precious mythic ability slots (and I still lose all spells for that day and level) which is really painful on a healer who desperately needs stuff like unbound healing and abundant spells.

Starting late act 3 and then heavily in act 4+5, you get overwhelmed particularly with Dex and Wis drain (but also others).

Is there ANY more efficient way to deal with it? My brownfur transmuter does not have enough mythic abilities yet to get both Greater Enduring AND abundant casting. Meaning she can only use Ice Form (could be any other form) on 3 people per day.
So right now my best bet is Ice Form on some, Deathward on rest. It's very tedious and constantly needs refreshing.

To be clear, I speak about act 3/4, so please don't reocmmend anything requiring more than 4 mythic ability slots (including the feat->ability one).

Glad for any advice :|

[Koveras]

I don't bother with the enduring mythic ability. Most dungeons don't last long enough to make it worthwhile.

Death ward scrolls are inexpensive. Buy 100 of them and forget about it for the rest of the game. Apart from a select few battles, e.g., the town infested with bodaks, you probably don't need to worry too much about drain. I only bother using restoration if the character is close to level 0 or the drain is significantly impacting their combat effectiveness.

Nothing you can do about ability score drains except use restoration spells, last I checked. Restoration scrolls are also relatively inexpensive.

[Storm]

I usually have at least one caster with both enduring spells so they last 24 hours and ranks in use magic devices. I always buy the 100 death ward scrolls in drezen which is good enough for the whole game. Those scrolls buffed by your "enduring" caster last 24 hours.

Not exactly what your looking for, but that's what I do for death ward which I think only prevents negative levels not drain but not sure about that.

[Storm]

Originally posted by Koveras:

I don't bother with the enduring mythic ability. Most dungeons don't last long enough to make it worthwhile.

Death ward scrolls are inexpensive. Buy 100 of them and forget about it for the rest of the game. Apart from a select few battles, e.g., the town infested with bodaks, you probably don't need to worry too much about drain. I only bother using restoration if the character is close to level 0 or the drain is significantly impacting their combat effectiveness.

Nothing you can do about ability score drains except use restoration spells, last I checked. Restoration scrolls are also relatively inexpensive.

Heh, good answer.

[Falkon Swiftblade]

so, early on you can use lessor restoration to return lost attribute abilities for like 1-4 at a time or 2 back to back for a negative level gain. Or Restoration for several at once. The intel wisdom and charisma spell is a higher level spell i forget off hand I think its Heal its either a lvl 5 or 6 spell that heals those. You might be able to use some meta magic spells to make them more powerful or last longer too as ya lvl up.

[Rex is back, baby!]

This is why I make resting the 'cure all' in difficulty settings :V.
I tried doing it as Koveras suggested, but it, to me, just got too tedious xD

[FeurinLongcastle]

Improved Abundant Casting is a better use of your mythic slots, you just use up that entire spell level slot (unless you take Heighten Spell or something to spread it across other spell slots)

1 min/lvl should be long enough between rests by Act 3-4, honestly.

[Edstyles]

Enduring is great on Daeran imo.

[Dekkion]

Can’t remember exactly, but doesn’t a higher level version (maybe spell lvl 5+) of the angel path mythic spell book’s Ward spell series prevent ability damage along with a ton of other resistance and status protections?

[wendigo211]

If you're worried about ability damage, then Death Ward, Delay Poison and Blind Fight (Feat) should cover most of it. Basically:

• If it's from undead/necromancy spell then Death Ward will prevent it.
• If it's from poison, then Delay Poison should prevent it.
• If it's from a gaze then Blind Fight should prevent it (although it hasn't been stopping gazes in my current playthrough).

There are a couple of enchantment and illusion spells that still won't be covered, but you'll cover everything else. Alternatively, you could make a Dhampir merc/MC (they are immune to ability damage).

For ability drain, you can't really do anything until you get access to Fiery/Icy body.

For level drain, death ward should cover it.

Note that eventually you'll be fighting mythic enemies who can ignore resistances/immunities.

[GunStarX]

Originally posted by Edstyles:

Enduring is great on Daeran imo.

I always use him as a buff bot healer, and pick up a animal companion so he brings something else to the fight

[ApathicAlpaca]

So... I read again and Elemental Form (like Ice Form) only protects against ability DAMAGE but not drain.
Death Ward description is very confusing. What is 'energy drain' supposed to be? It says nowhere that it protects against EITHER ability damage OR ability drain OR negative levels. It protects against 'death spells' and 'energy drain'...

The only way to remove drain seems to be Greater Restoration (500g per use)?

https://i.imgur.com/VXBjWb5.png
https://i.imgur.com/KFaPUgg.png

[Dekkion]

Energy drain typically means level drain. Ability damage/drain are the same. Both energy/level drain and ability score damage/drain can be either temporary (the debuff will have a timer and will recover at the end of it or after a long rest) or permanent. Temporary drains/damage can be treated with Lesser Restoration, permanent requires Restoration or the Greater version. Heal can also remove temporary ability damage, can’t remember if it affects permanent ability damage.

[Balekai]

Use death ward for level/energy drain from death spells. It also makes the party immune to negative energy channels and gives +4 saves vs. all death spells. Death Ward does not protect against ability damage.

At higher levels, use Ice Body and/or Fiery Body or any other transmutation spell that gives ability damage immunity on a tank, if possible, via an alchemist with infusion. Any spellcaster, especially with low saves should cast these on themselves to prevent ability damage.

Use Greater Restoration or Heal as suggested, to remove ability damage/level drains when you don't have the proper immunity available. In this case a highly buffed party can sometimes be a great ounce of prevention vs. ability damage/level drains because not failing the save in the first place is a good idea.

Enduring Spells and Greater Enduring Spells are very useful in my opinion, but only on spontaneous casters that are not focused on many casts like say an evoker or necromancer would be. Its best to take it with someone like Daeran with a summon/conjuration/pet focus that use very little spells per day for offensive/CC use. At most one arcane spontaneous caster and one divine spontaneous caster should have enduring spells while all the others are abundant casters that focus on lots of casts per day (evokers and/or necromancers).

In the end, being able to casts about 10-40+ individual single/party wide buffs that last for a day or more, will give those buffers back more spell slots than Abundant Casting would provide at low/mid spell levels anyways. Even for high spell level buffs you may only have 4 casts, but you can cast 4 buffs then rest and not have to cast those buffs again until another 2-4 rests thereafter.

Having a full layer of buffs and defences all the time is going to eliminate the need to rest and mitigates a lot of incoming damage that forces you to do so. Except for fatigue/exhaustion getting in the way while travelling too much. There's ways to mitigate that too with lesser restorations/lay on hands but that's another topic.

Unlike Kingmaker, you can hit 2 if not 3 dungeons in one day. Also extending a greater enduring spell makes it last 1 day, 15 hours which can make it easy to hit up at least 2 dungeons on one set of buffs.

[Indure]

1. Angel has a ward spell that provides party wide protection from drains.
2. One of the first mythic choices (aeon flavor) is Rectify State which can clear drains.
3. Paladin's Mercy can be specced to remove ability damage and drain.
4. Like others have said scrolls of deathward work great.

[zpc]

For my main I use the mythic "pre path" which grants immunity against negative energy (Dance Macabre) - if it fits the character. (So no undead paladin angel or stuff like that)

Helps a lot if this char also has a tank role and one doesn't need to pre-buff every encounter with death ard. Other then that I pump out death ward potions / scrolls and try to have as many casters as possible with that spell. ( I ~really~ hate stat / level drain. )