True Flame Spell Selection

[Nitro]

So, I've realized there's no topic on the forums or wiki article that covers this. So I made a spreadsheet that shows all spells available to true flames including all the new Arelith evocation spells, how many are available in that level versus how many spell slots the TF gets, and how many spells of each damage type there are.


And below is a damage comparison for spells at TF levels 30, 27 and 25. I wouldn't recommend multiclassing more than 5 levels, the drop in damage for some high level spells and difficulty in penetrating SR makes it a hard sell.

No spells below level 3 were added in the comparison as their damage output is generally too low to be competitive. Over time spells were not compared because that's a headache to calculate. Observations of note are walls of fire/ice that are more effective with empower than maximize thanks to only containing 2d6 as damage variables, both can be stacked infinitely in the same place with themselves and the other wall spell, and WoF deals double damage against undead. And that Firebrand becomes more useful for damage dealing against 3 or more opponents than IGMS, presuming failed saves. Against crowds of 6+ it wins out even if they all make the save. Finally, sound lance outperforms its other elemental counterparts thanks to doing D8's of damage and not having friendly fire.

[chris a gogo]

You missed prismatic spray off.
Other than that looks good.

[gix gix]

Is there a way for "old" TrueFlamers to get the newly evo spells?

Mine is 28 in the meantime... and haven't picked any new since lvl 19/20ish... a year ago... but as they have added the new spells i am lacking 4 evo spells which is a lot.

Isn't Gust of Wind 2nd level?
Just to have a full list: Epic: Hellball + GRuin

[Good Character]

Is there a way for "old" TrueFlamers to get the newly evo spells?

Mine is 28 in the meantime... and haven't picked any new since lvl 19/20ish... a year ago... but as they have added the new spells i am lacking 4 evo spells which is a lot.

Isn't Gust of Wind 2nd level?
Just to have a full list: Epic: Hellball + GRuin

Advise a DM IG and do -badge DM. See if they're willing to drop you to level 2 then bump you up to 28. Naturally, explain why you need this done.

[Ork]

When you level up sorcerer, you can substitute any number of spells. The DMs will take levels but never give you them back. Level up on sorc, and you'll be able to change your spells.

[Nitro]

You missed prismatic spray off.
Other than that looks good.

Fixed. I'll keep it updated when new spells get added.

Is there a way for "old" TrueFlamers to get the newly evo spells?

Mine is 28 in the meantime... and haven't picked any new since lvl 19/20ish... a year ago... but as they have added the new spells i am lacking 4 evo spells which is a lot.

Isn't Gust of Wind 2nd level?
Just to have a full list: Epic: Hellball + GRuin

You can go to the support page: http://support.nwnarelith.com/
And select "retake level" select your last (sorcerer) level, so if you're 28, you select 27. This will put you back to the start of 27, and when you level up you can change around all your spells. You'll need to grind back up to 28 manually though.

And yes, Gust of Wind is 3rd level. Would still recommend taking it because the utility of being able to disperse gas clouds at will and open unlocked but trapped doors is strong.

I didn't include any epic spells because there's just two and they're both vanilla, if Arelith ever add any custom evo epic spells I'll add them.

[Nitro]

Noone's picking Cone of Cold over Firebrand/Ball Lightning. Again, Darkbolt's effects look good on paper, in its actual practical use, however, means:
A mid-level TF now needs to gear Cha, Con, and Dex instead of just 2, this definitely cuts into QoL as their intermediate gear now just requires more tempering and cost.
An epic-level TF needs to gear 3 stats, as well, in order to consistently land darkbolts on mobs that may or may not be CC'd by daze.

Darkbolt's damage part works as follows: (No spell components required)
2d8*7 vs 1 target or 7 targets with 2d8, maximized would mean 16 damage on 7 targets or 112 damage on 1 target. Daze for 1 round if the Will Save fails, no mind immunity present, AND the darkbolt hits (likely never vs a dex character). For PvP this is easily negated. For PvE this can be inconsistent.

IGMS: (No spell components required even if maximized using 9th level spell slots)
2d6*10 vs 1 target, 2d6*20 vs 2 targets, or 2d6*20 vs 7 targets, or 2d6*20 vs 20 targets,
120dmg vs 1 target, 240dmg vs 2 targets, 36dmg vs 6 targets with 7th gets 24dmg, or 12dmg vs 20 targets. Damage is negated with Shield Spell AND GSF: Abjuration (mainly for PvP)

If the target has DI or DR against fire and/or electric damage, IGMS is the default spell, anyways.

I personally picked Cone of Cold for farming various nodes of materials, 3 maximized 270 cold damage will play into the 280 damage calculation for maximizing gains from a node. Did I ever state it's a mechanically better choice? No. But Darkbolt as a trade-off isn't game-altering for a TF in this case is the point I'm trying to make. Nitro's overestimation of Darkbolt's usefulness will get many TFs reading this thread killed disappointed when they realize the CC isn't as consistent if the TFs aren't properly geared for it.

Continuing this here. One major draw of darkbolt, and the reason why it's borderline broken is that each of the bolts forces a save, even if they target the same enemy. If you're doing single target, that's practically a guaranteed daze every round since you're blasting off two per round (haste potion or autoquicken). Infinite CC while also doing damage that isn't that much lower than an IGMS except against high DEX targets. Even if we're conservative and assume you're only hitting 3 bolts per cast you're still forcing 6 will saves vs daze each round, fishing for 1's is very viable like that.

I'd go so far as to say that darkbolt is one of the most important spells in the TF arsenal, since their options for dealing damage and CC'ing at the same time are otherwise limited and being able to fish for up to 14 rolls of 1 each round against enemies lacking mind protection is by far the most likely CC in your arsenal to land.

[Kenji]

At this point, every TF's experience varies. In the niche scenario where Darkbolt is being spammed on a single target that isn't dex or has mind immunity, we're likely looking at a straggler or survivor of a mob or an unprepared PC. From my 4 TFs that took this spell, 1 of them bothered gearing dex just to test out both chromatic orb and darkbolt. My experience with the spell was that it was underwhelming throughout all levels unless I was soloing (which I dreaded to do, even if capable. Soloing is boring). I also hardly (or specifically never on those TFs characters) did any shotgun PvP.

Let us look at some popular areas: in places such as Sibayad tombs, firebrand was the obvious go-to compared to darkbolt. In Aurilite Temple, Wall of Fire was the obvious go-to compared to darkbolt. In RDI, Wall of Ice was the obvious go-to compared to darkbolt. At Blackfin, Ball Lightning was the not-as-obvious go-to compared to darkbolt.

All of the bosses there (dragons, undead mummies, liches) are immune to daze, so the single-target argument doesn't hold for the majority of the end-game bosses. IGMS will simply do better than Darkbolt without the gearing and landing touch attack hassle.

One exception: Orclands happen to be filled with dex-based mobs and darkbolt is the last spell I will use there, except for the bosses which fit the single-target profile that is also vulnerable to infinite CC.

Funnily enough, I always revert back to Cone of Cold over Darkbolt just so it's easier to farm resource nodes.

I will agree that should it come across those scenarios where you're shotgunning an unprepared PC without clarity or mind-blank in order to CC them indefinitely, it can be powerful. But is it the spell that's OP or is it the shotgun PvP that's actually making the spell more useful than it appears?

[Nitro]

Well, the shotgun meta may not be as cancerous as it was a year ago, but it's still very much prevalent and darkbolt is very strong in it and also makes soloing as a TF a lot easier in a lot of places. And if you're giving up darkbolt to harvest resources then cool beans, but people should be aware that what they are giving up for convenience.

Also, fun fact. Wall of fire deals double damage against undead. Quadruple against mummies who are vulnerable to fire. Wall of Fire deals hideously high damage in the sibayad tombs thanks to this fun interaction and the fact that you can stack it on itself.

[Kenji]

Ah yes, empowered Wall of Fire stacking to one-shot the bosses in the tombs is a signature move for any TFs.

Something ought to be done about that

[mjones3]

Honestly I've got 8 dex/11 bab and I'm hitting more often than not with every darkbolt strike, reavers, giants, all of the orclands. You just point it at the ground and every mob usually stops moving while its dazed, they move towards you in stop motion because they can move a few feet between spells. I can easily see its use drop off as enemies start getting more and more AC and concealment though.


Are Scorching Ray and Cone of cold our only 2 options for farming resources? Nothing else seems to hit that does the right kind of damage.

[Kenji]

There's Combustion, I don't remember if Wall of Fire/Ice works.

[Rico_scorpion]

Walls can't damage resource nodes. They drive (some) summons crazy tho

[Nitro]

Burst of glacial wrath, Chain lightning, lightning bolt and fireball and fireball equivalent are the other spells that do decent damage and can target resources. Not sure if meteor swarm works, but if it does, then up to 30d8 of damage to nodes would be very efficient.

[Nitro]

Updated the OP with a damage comparison chart. Fun fact, 3+ walls of fire and/or ice stacked together deals more damage than anything else in the TF arsenal, and savelessly at that, with no friendly fire to yourself, party members or corpses.

[Kenji]

Electric damage can't farm resource nodes, but I do use maximized Chain lightning for things like phylactery. Sometimes I stack empowered wall of fire/ice for phylactery, too, but it seems like the clear time is about the same.

Burst of glacial wrath is just... a waste of spell components and not as good as Cone of Cold for resource farming purposes.

Meteor swarm doesn't do damage to the resource nodes.

[chris a gogo]

Wall of fire/ice does not hit fixtures or resources so you can't hit a phylactery with it, I tested this last night to be sure.

For farming resources i always use scorching ray means you hitting for 144 damage each round which mines out the node in two- three rounds, as i mentioned before cone of cold is a thematic choice and it's only real use is for farming nodes and even them it's only doing 180 damage per round, for the investment of a level 5 spell slot compared to a level 2.
There was a mention of using darkbolt to mine which you can't do as magic damage doesn't "mine" it just destroys nodes same with chain lightning as was mentioned.
Also the saves from darkbolt are no longer per bolt hitting the target the target only has to make a single save vs daze now regardless of number of bolts hitting it, IIRC it was mentioned awhile back in the update or maybe feedback forum.

[Kenji]

Odd, I specifically remember using wall of fire on doors and phylacteries in the Black Fortress at one point (pre-hak and pre-darkness nerf). I have just tested it on other phylacteries and Wall of Fire does not harm those. Either I have a lapse in my memory or something has changed since.

As for farming resources, here's what I do if I want to maximize the resource gain from a node:
Maximize Cone of Cold twice: 90 + 90 = 180
Maximize Ice Dagger thrice (or Fireball if there are no chests/allies around the node): 180 + 20 + 20 + 20 = 240
Maximize Cone of Cold again: 240 + 90 = 330.

With scorching ray you can technically do it 3 times to get 216, then an ice dagger to get 236, then scorching ray again up to 308. But this doesn't maximize the yield as it doesn't have the last 25 damage tick at 325.

Unless it's also changed which I am unaware of.

[mjones3]

Fireball hasn't hurt resource nodes for me. I used to use that and ice storm when tf first came out but neither seemed to work lately. It's one of the reasons I asked. Some spells just don't seem to hurt them or even be able to target them.

[chris a gogo]

Your options ultimately are combust, scorching ray, ice dagger, cone of cold.

For attacking objects your stuck with the same plus darkbolt which maxes out at 7 bolts doing 14 damage per bolt.

Im presuming lightning bolt/chain and sound lance still work also for objects.

[Nitro]

A bunch of AOE spells had the fixture damage removed from them so people wouldn't accidentally fixture bash constantly while fighting. A choice I kind of disagree with, because people should think twice before firing off meteor storms in busy areas, especially now that fixtures can be repaired. Also lightning damage worked fine for mining nodes for me last I tested it a couple months ago, to my knowledge the necessity for specific elemental damage for mining was removed shortly after EE launched.

[chris a gogo]

Just tested chain lightning and sound lance cast both multiple times doing around 1k damage on a gem node and they reported doing the damage but didn't mine it and didn't destroy it.
Then used scorching ray and mined it in two rounds as normal.

So I would say that neither elec or sonic "mine" nodes, I don't have lightning bolt to test that.

[mjones3]

Only the base weapon damage + physical (slash/bludgeon/pierce) + fire + cold + acid damage counts towards damaging a node

From the wiki on resource nodes.

[Dreams]

I think spells really should at least have a toggle for whether you want them to be area destroying or not. Some spells damage fixtures, some spells don't. All spells that normally would SHOULD do this, as it is a risk of casting that particular spell. If that's too much of an inconvenience for people to learn the placement of spells, then having a toggle could help a great deal.

[daimon_d_heart]

You can farm resources using magic? Wouldn't that be inefficient since you're not using the correct tool like a mining pick?