should i respec my wizzy

[5uperJ!mmY™]

Im following the below guide, im currently around lvl 7 on a normal, i discover most of the time i do not have enuff time to cast buff or even debuff during the fight. Should i respec and grab all the damage spell ?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

That guide covers three different wizards. Which one do you want to play?

Other than that, you should not face much trouble when playing at normal difficulty.

Which attributes to increase (or decrease) a lot should be a fairly easy decision, too. All that matters in Pillars of Eternity is that you need a plan, if you want to dump some attributes.

[5uperJ!mmY™]

I'm following this guide

12. Wizards - Moon Prism
Role: 3rd line damage dealer

Race: Moon Goodlike – hard to make sailor moon jokes about anyone else in this game, right? Moons make potent wizards as they compensate their frailty. Stat bonuses are good too. And this particular build can be quite self-harmful so healing waves are quite helpful.

Stats (The White That Wends bonus included):

M 18
C 10
D 10
P 19
I 18
R 3


Once again, you can go for the high-Dex one, but perception has a better synergy here.

Weapon of Choice: Wand.

Talents and ability choices:

2nd level: Blast – while it doesn't look flashy, the blast has one of the best damage outputs in the early game. It's not much individually, but sum it all up and it becomes quite a considerable amount. Great with the interrupts too – the interrupt time is only 0.5 seconds, but it can be applied to 3-4 foes at once. And it will be applied quite often once you get the combo going.

4th level: Interrupting Blows – at the level 5, we will be able to perform our basic “Deleterious Alacrity + Kalakoth's” combo and in the unarmored state that means attacking a group of foes once every two seconds with 0.5 interrupt time. That's 25% time wasting rate – generally, that's what I consider the start of a good interrupt rate. With some extra gear/buffs (Moon Prisms adore any extra speed buffs – Sure-Handed Ha, Hastening Exhortation, Gloves of Swift Action) it might rise even further. And you'll always have your Wall of Fire once you reach level 7. Interrupts are nice for the wizard. BTW, previously, there was a Silencer build dedicated to that – it pretty much got merged into this one after 2.0, now that high-perception became mainstream for wizards.

6th level: Dangerous Implement – 25% to the considerable Minor Blight damage. That's a very big damage output increase. And being moon godlike solves the problem of self-draining nicely – otherwise, with you swinging every 2 seconds, you lose 60 endurance in half a minute. That can be a bit suicidal.

8th level: Scion of Flame: makes our Wall of Flame (which we will cast frequently) much more powerful. Allso applies to the fire blights – all these talents apply to their corresponding blights, it's just that we no longer can afford to take as much of them as we were able to. If you feel like you're lacking survivability, you can always go for the Arcane Veil instead.

10th level: Apprentice's Sneak Attack – just an extra damage bonus for the blights.

12th level: Weapon Focus: Adventurer – blights count as normal wands so they also get bonus from this and 6 accuracy is a lot.

14th level: Marksman.

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

That guide covers three different wizards. Which one do you want to play?

Other than that, you should not face much trouble when playing at normal difficulty.

Which attributes to increase (or decrease) a lot should be a fairly easy decision, too. All that matters in Pillars of Eternity is that you need a plan, if you want to dump some attributes.

[5uperJ!mmY™]

so far i picked

Chill Fog – good cast range, good AoE, long duration, does damage every couple of seconds (it can easily add up to 100 damage against the average early foe), blinds foes for a significant duration and it's a strong debuff... As long as your tanks keep your foes inside the area, it'll slaughter the opposition. Oh, and there's another great part about such multi-part damage spells – since your initial accuracy is rather bad, one-hit spells are absolutely hit or miss. They can either do a lot or fumble pathetically. Composite spells, on the other hand, provide a much more reliable effect.

Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff – all the casters in this games are beefcakes and mages are no exception. So putting those muscles to action is a fine choice. This thing is insane - +8 accuracy (fixing our initially low stat) and ~30 damage dealt (before DR). And 20% of that damage goes to our endurance. And it lasts for a minute. And it's a reach weapon so we can use it from behind the backs of our tanks (but even if someone gets to us, it's not as scary because of endurance leech). Time to crush some skulls, baby.

Slicken – prone is a good debuff and it lasts long enough for an early spell. Good crowd control.

Spirit Shield - +3 DR doesn't suddenly make us a tank, but 30 concentration is invaluable in 2.0 – Resolve became the universal dump stat so we have to fix that somehow. You probably won't have the slots to cast it early on, but it becomes a mainstay once the mid-game begins.

Miasma of Dull-Mindedness – gives enemies -10 deflection, -10 Accuracy, -20 reflex, -40 will, -30 concentration. Any kind of a group can abuse that much debuffs strongly.

Bewildering Spectacle – it's not that strong of a control spell but wizard's 2nd level is rather weak so even mediocrity is appreciated. At least this is your foes not hitting you for 7 seconds.

Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon – 77 AoE damage sounds like a fine plan for a level 2 spell. Of course, that's damage over time so, in the end, it's gonna be less than that because of DR getting applied multiple times, but even then corrode damage is rarely resisted so the end result will be decent. And it even restores some endurance to you (though it rarely matters).

Deleterious Alacrity of Motion – one of the things that makes wizards better warriors than casters. 50% attack speed is not a joke, even if it costs some minor endurance. And parasitic Staff is already solid but there's even something better than that – read below.

Kalakoth's Minor Blights – superb. For a proper wizard, one blight will do about 30 damage per hit. It will also cause small AoE blast, touching 2-3-4 foes and dealing some nice (though smaller) damage to them. Blights change in a cycle, so you'll scroll through all kinds of elemental damage. And, most important, blights are actually wands. Weird, enchanted, one-use wands. So the talents that work with wands (blast, penetrating blast, dangerous implement, weapon focus: adventurer) totally work with blights. And they're powerful enough to merit their own build. And they last long. And under deleterious alacrity...

Llengrath's Displaced Image – now that's a deflection buff! Long duration and no strings attached. And even gives us lots of reflexes as a bonus – that's always welcome. And an insane hit to graze conversion - iddqd!

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

You've only quoted the guide, but what is your question?

That wizard needs a party to be successful. RES 3 implies that it is a very fragile build. Even if wearing heavy armor, which would slow down recovery a lot, it would not help your wizard much if enemies attack him directly.

Obviously, at the start of a fight, most enemies will rush towards you. You need a good line of defense, because none of the spells you've listed are a 100% cure against all enemies. Spells like Slicken used to be over-powered, but with immunities on more enemies since 2.03, don't hope for a godhammer spell.

And in Pillars of Eternity a good line of defense may need to include some capable damage dealer. To help, if enemies break through or teleport behind your back. If your front fighter has high defenses but doesn't hit enemies, that can be a hindrance. Building a party of specialists may be much harder to play.

[Planeshifter]

On normal difficulty you can have all your stats 13 or whatever you like and cast citzal's spear which will proceed to obliterating anything that comes close to you. Combine it with level 3 attack speed buff and you will be unstoppable, you will be hitting around 40-60 each hit and 15-25 aoe dmg aswell plus you will interrupt a lot. This is without buffs from other spells and classes on avarage might.

In my opinion mage is best as an aoe crowd control focused role. You have decent aoe damages aswell but they should be secondary. Proning enemies in a huge area followed by the minoletta's highest version works well all the time except for some boss fights. So among all your stats you should keep int as high as possible if you prefer this style, followed by dex and might.

Also i don't think giving any char 3 resolve is a good idea, it may work if you are going with hardened veil talent and using full plate or smth.. but it is a horrible idea to have heavy armor on a mage. With the latest patches AI will go for low deflection targets and with mages low hp and base deflection it will be an unnecessary nightmare.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Erathaol:

On normal difficulty you can have all your stats 13 or whatever you like and

Or with 10 on everything with the free points spent on some attributes you consider most important. There's enough freedom in the system. No need to push everything up to 18 or even higher. Too high intelligence can also be troublesome, if the area of effect becomes too large for narrow locations.

[Planeshifter]

If you contine reading that is similar to what I said, also never had a problem with my 24 int mage or 22 might fighter or 25 dex rogue..

I usually give 9 to all stats at first, make the most useless one 7 and distribute the rest according to the build I aim.

As for the area detail, the later spells generally have a small base area, the most usefull ones like gaze of adragan and minoletta's precise smth etc. so you will need that int, because even with 20+ int they wont be too large, you will still have enemies out of it's area of effect.

[Singrave]

Originally posted by Erathaol:

I usually give 9 to all stats at first, make the most useless one 7 and distribute the rest according to the build I aim.

That's pretty good cause you'll eventually get some items or rest buffs with at least +1 to those stats.

[Planeshifter]

Exactly, there are lots of misc items which gives +1 or +2/+1. Since you will give a +3 version to the main char that benefits, the +1 version will go to the other char which doesnt benefit that much from that stat.

For example at first you find +1 dex hood and you will give that to your rogue, but when you get +3 dex ring hood will go to your priest or warrior etc.

With this idea, at the end game i rarely see stats lower than 10 in any of my characters (maybe their 7 point stat remains around 9-10) and they have their primary stat at 20+ without food or rest bonus.