Struggling with Hunting

[kutter]

Afternoon everyone, my background was always as a swinger in the game, so casters are new to me, as such I created my wizard as something new to tinker with, to spell up friends, do a little enchanting, and it has come through in all respects. I trained as a warmage the first 25 ranks then switched over to what I thought was a pure bolt caster, only he seems to suck as a bolt wizard. I am having trouble hunting undead that are 3-4 trains below me. My CS just seems awfully low, can some give me an idea of what I might be doing wrong please.

XXXXXXX (at level 27), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 20 4
Physical Fitness...................| 111 27
Arcane Symbols.....................| 156 56
Magic Item Use.....................| 156 56
Spell Aiming.......................| 156 56
Harness Power......................| 111 27
Elemental Mana Control.............| 114 28
Elemental Lore - Air...............| 114 28
Perception.........................| 111 27
Climbing...........................| 78 17
Swimming...........................| 50 10

Spell Lists
Major Elemental....................| 18

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 20

Spell Lists
Wizard.............................| 27

Race: Half-Elf Profession: Wizard (shown as: Airweaver)
Gender: Male Age: 0 Expr: 885626 Level: 27
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 89 (19) ... 89 (19)
Constitution (CON): 87 (18) ... 87 (18)
Dexterity (DEX): 71 (15) ... 71 (15)
Agility (AGI): 84 (27) ... 84 (27)
Discipline (DIS): 83 (11) ... 83 (11)
Aura (AUR): 71 (10) ... 73 (11)
Logic (LOG): 76 (13) ... 76 (13)
Intuition (INT): 76 (13) ... 76 (13)
Wisdom (WIS): 79 (14) ... 79 (14)
Influence (INF): 50 (5) ... 50 (5)

[AbnInfamy]

What spells are you using? If you're not using 904 you're missing out. You're still at a level where you shouldn't expect to fry off of one load of mana.
A typical wizard style of hunting is to "stay fried". Head out, blow all your mana, mana drain some lower level monsters nearby if available. Kill as much as you can and head to town for more mana, repeat until fried. Then head back to town until becoming numbed or numbed and head back out to kill 1-2 more.

[DaCapn]

Your spell research priority is the opposite of what it should be. You want MjE and MnE to be at level and wizard base to lag. You don't have 425. You'll probably want to go more like 1.5x HP. Cap your air lore at at 24 or get rid of it. You shouldn't be aggressively training in lores at low level.

Personally, I don't train in perception at all on my wizards. If you want to train it, you should probably save it for later.

[kutter]

Ok, maybe, I do not understand the formula, but I typically use 904 and 906 to hunt, depending on which appears to do better damage on the relative critter. That having been said, as I understand it, training in that circle, ie. Wizard, will maximize my CS and the other two circles will add but not as much. I know my aura is not great but it is set for growth at cap, probably optimistic but what can I say.

Mana is not so much of an issue as I hunt with a bard that can send and have a ranger friend that can make wands/rods for me that I can prep before. If it was only about killing some, resting, going back out that would be ok as I understand I handicapped myself some by my only singling in HP training. But I cannot hit critters reliably that are a fair amount younger than me, is that normal at this train area for a bolt wizard?

Capn, I know that there is not universal acceptance on perception training, I know it helps on critter maneuvers, hence the reason I trained in it.

As far as I read HP does not in any way impact CS, correct? It is just that I will have a little more mana and greater regen rate so I can cast more right?

[Mathari]

Ok, maybe, I do not understand the formula, but I typically use 904 and 906 to hunt, depending on which appears to do better damage on the relative critter. That having been said, as I understand it, training in that circle, ie. Wizard, will maximize my CS and the other two circles will add but not as much. I know my aura is not great but it is set for growth at cap, probably optimistic but what can I say.
904 and 906 are bolt spells. Bolt spells do not use CS. They use bolt AS (which is based mostly on your Dexterity stat and training in Spell Aiming). You seem to be mixing up CS spells with bolt spells. CS only applies to warding spells.


But I cannot hit critters reliably that are a fair amount younger than me, is that normal at this train area for a bolt wizard?
You need 425, as DaCapn suggested. And are you using 513, too?


As far as I read HP does not in any way impact CS, correct? It is just that I will have a little more mana and greater regen rate so I can cast more right?
Correct on the first thing. Pretty much correct on the second thing, too, though I'm not sure that HP increases your regen rate. AFAIK, it's Elemental Mana Control that does that (at +1 mana per pulse for every 10 ranks).

[Aluvius]

904 and 906 don't use CS, they use bolt AS (spell aim skill/dex/513/425). The only CS you should be worried about right now is your Major Elemental spell list base CS for 516 Mana Leech.

Your CS is broken up into various lists and is most improved by training in spells of that list, next by training in spells of the other lists. So what you've done right now is pump up your Wizard spell list base CS and there aren't any useful spells there at your level or really any level that uses Wizard spell list base CS (you are pumping up your other lists CS but by much smaller amounts then training in them directly).

As was said before, get your Minor and Major Elemental spell lists up to 27 each, keep them at your level as you train up. Use 425 and 430 when you get it. 513 will give you more bolt AS now as well since you are training up MjE spells, that plus what you get from 425 will bump up your spell bolt AS quite a bit. You'll probably need to lose all of your air lore, drop perception to .5x, I'd also drop Wizard spell ranks down to 920 and AS/MIU down to 1x if needed though of course that would you'd have to put off enchanting till a bit later. At the least get up to 425

Start using 516 when you're about half mana or so, I wouldn't leech a critter more than once usually at your level if you get a good result.

Also, definitely go to krakiipedia.org and look up all of these terms like CS, bolt AS, read up on 516/425/430/513, etc.

[SHAFT]

Get wands, lots of wands. Blue, metal, crystal, aqua, twisted, silver and iron, whatever. Buy fresh wands and dupe.

[kutter]

Thanks very much everyone, I am all mixed up it seems, will have to so some reading to try and get myself cleared up. But now that everyone mentioned it, I do recall 904 and 906 being AS based spells, maybe I was thinking about 516, as I do not have much luck using that against like age critters either. Ok, time to spend some time reading the krakii and re-evaluating my training path.

[Mathari]

Thanks very much everyone, I am all mixed up it seems, will have to so some reading to try and get myself cleared up. But now that everyone mentioned it, I do recall 904 and 906 being AS based spells, maybe I was thinking about 516, as I do not have much luck using that against like age critters either. Ok, time to spend some time reading the krakii and re-evaluating my training path.
For the best use of 516, you'll want to go to the nearest hunting ground with critters that you can ward reliably (i.e., critters lower in level than you). It's not best used on like-level foes.

[SHAFT]

I also tend to use 516 on warrior and rogue type critters when I'm warcamping. The clerics, sorcerer, wizard types all have a higher TD.

[kutter]

That is a good idea Mathari and Shaft, I guess I never thought about just shifting one hunting ground or so to leech something I have a much better chance of then going back to what I was hunting previously, it should increase my success rate a lot.

I still think a lot, probably too much, as a swinger who never had to consider these things.

[Aluvius]

HP does indirectly increase mana regen since it increases your total mana pool from which the main part of a mana regen pulse is calculated. Its not a bad idea to be 2x at your level but yeah you could just stop training in it for awhile so it'll slide back down a bit. I'm 1x at 54 and with leech/emergency wand; mana isn't much of a problem.

[Whirlin]

Look... even if you do all the fixes that everyone outlined here... I'm not gonna sugar coat it... the 20s and 30s will be tough. Those are simply difficult levels for casters. CS doesn't really 'stabilize' til 40s+, just due to poor migration from GS3 to GS4 in terms of critters and TDs.

I recommend dropping to 1.5x in MIU and AS... to free up more points for either more Harness Power (temporary), or more spell ranks.

Harness Power is still a marginally effective training path. I do NOT recommend going a full 2x for life or anything, but I do recommend pre-training in it up until your 30s... While it's only +1 Mana per rank, +1 mana at level 20 is much more relative to your max pool than +1 mana at level 60.

Once you're at 50 ranks or so... just don't bother training in it anymore until you're level 50, and work on just dumping all those extra points into spell research.

Your first order of business at your level should be unlocking 425 and 430. Following that, you want to get MjE and MnE up to your level in ranks. This will take you a while. Once they do finally reach your level (I'm anticipating level 40ish)... Then drop that 3rd spell research rank that you occasionally get into Wizard Spell Circle.

But for the interim, manage your expectations. Don't anticipate getting fried each hunt, just work on minimizing downtime, maximizing hunt time. When you can, pick up wants to help bridge the gap. Pures have a tough time earlier on in levels, and a much easier time down the road... It's kinda the opposite of squares.

[Jace Solo]

Should have picked a Semi, it's easy street the whole way

[kutter]

Whirlin, thanks very much, I sort of anticipated that it would suck after I transitioned from a warmage and I have tweaked him some to help out, I think my best bet right now is to make sure I have someone to hunt with, have a ranger friend and when she cast weed and puts them on the ground, everything is SO much easier, imagine that. I use 505, but it is not foolproof yet and weed is pretty close. I think I just need to accept that if I want to keep him so he can enchant, which I like, he will have to hunt with someone for a while.

Jace, I have a bard as well, and I know what you mean, at 30 trains he hunts 8-10 trains over his head without any real issues.