Another Returning Wizard

[Askip]

I do not remember if they stun, but with turtled Ithzir I now plink away with the new 502.

Have you tried Call Wind?

[Tenser]

I tried it once on a single taint and still couldn't hit it with my fire bolt. I will try call wind on my next attempt to give it another shot.

[Askip]

So Tenser, how are the 'ducts treating you?

[Donquix]

The taints sometimes put up wall of force, so kinda shit out of luck when they do. proning and stancing them with 912 will obviously help but, still sucks.

[Tenser]

So the last few times out my old trick of tap/fire bolt works sometimes, but then I run into the wall of force or a super dodgy gremock.

Instead, I have found using a quartz orb and leading with 505, followed by a tremor tap and earthen fury has a 90%+ kill rate. I only have issues when it gets swarmy. In those situations I use a core tap with 410, 505, 502, 502, 502, 917. That usually does the trick, but is rough on the mana pool.

The other night I lost my runestaff in a swarm but made it out alive. Ozzan retrieved the staff for me. I'm glad to have it back, but it's a low value one and all of my decent stuff is locked away while in Otf.

Tremors+Cone/Bolt seems to be more mana efficient, but not as reliable as 505/Tremors/917 and being on the lower level side of things I'd rather play it safer.

[gs4Pawn]

If you train as a sword and board, and just use the shield you net a bit more DS, you can eblade a weapon and come out ahead!

[Tenser]

If you train as a sword and board, and just use the shield you net a bit more DS, you can eblade a weapon and come out ahead!

Ahead of what?

[Tenser]

So, Tenser is closing in on 82 now. I've tried various strategies and the best seems to be 505/tap tremors/917. I use a heavy quartz orb to get my CS up to where I hardly fail a 505 stun or a 516 mana leech. As soon as it gets swarmy, I do a 950 Core Tap with 410, 505, 502, 502, 502, 917 or if I don't have the mana or I'm on 950 cool down I run away. Been working so far.

Also, I've stayed super light and only had one gremlock injure me with a garrote, which resulted in a minor wound. I usually try to incapacitate the gremlocks fast, so I've only had 4 or 5 garrote attempts on me so far.

[Tenser]

Here is Tenser at post cap (just over 10m XP).

Tenser (at level 100), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 20 4
Physical Fitness...................| 201 101
Arcane Symbols.....................| 302 202
Magic Item Use.....................| 302 202
Spell Aiming.......................| 302 202
Harness Power......................| 200 100
Elemental Mana Control.............| 302 202
Spirit Mana Control................| 50 10
Elemental Lore - Air...............| 155 55
Elemental Lore - Fire...............| 90 20
Elemental Lore - Water...............| 25 5
Perception.........................| 201 101
Climbing...........................| 150 50
Swimming...........................| 150 50

Spell Lists
Major Elemental....................| 100

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 75

Spell Lists
Wizard.............................| 100

Not sure where I'm going to go next. Maybe a little water lore (~30 ranks?) and then start getting harness power up. I'd love earth lore for the extra TIME STOP and/or CORE TAP, but 40 and 60 ranks is a lot. I could also resign myself to the 303 spell rank slog, but I'm not quite ready for that.

Between having crit padded armor, high air lore, and keeping encumbrance low I haven't had many issues with combat manuevers in OTF or the Sanctum. Also, I can solo bandits (but need to be careful). So, given that I don't feel the need for CM ranks at this point.

Hunting strategies: 909/917 works great still on softly armored opponents, otherwise I use 410 -> 510/518 or 515 -> 903 (steam) depending on the number of opponents in the room. I have almost no issue with mana (thanks to 516) so rarely wrack in the field anymore, but more mana would nevertheless be a nice thing.

Deaths: In October 2016 I had 96 deeds, now I'm at 69 deeds. That's 27 deaths in 33 months. The deaths have slowed down somewhat, but still almost a death a month on average. I'm sure it would be a lot worse if I were hunting in a more challenging area (instead of OTF).

Any thoughts on what to train in next?

[Lord Orbstar]

I’d get swimming to 70 to be nice and safe in nelemar