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ReplyI'm sure this has been talked about before, but I'm having a doozy of a time finding any discussion on the message boards. I've read the lore chart, and the guides, and stuff on the wiki to the point I feel like a lot of it is memorized. The problem is that I don't have any post 30th level wizard experience yet, and I don't know what elemental lores I should focus on training or even why? I prefer passive effects and skills over active skills, and I already have 20 ranks of fire lore for minor steam. What is the typical suggestion while leveling? And why?
If you're a warmage, you should start picking up some EL:Air and some EL:Earth.
If you're a pure mage, you should start picking up some EL:Water and keep on with the EL:Fire where possible.
Ultimately, all mages are going to want some blend of EL lore - I personally advocate an even split as 'best', although some will counter that more EL:Fire is more gooderer the way the lores are currently set. But at an even split and with a modest EL Lore rank or skill enhancive of 10, the wizard gets pretty good essence gathering, two time stops, a minimal cooldown on 950, and not too bad with additional damage and what not, plus all the passive procs that you're looking for - albeit at a somewhat reduced percentage of firing.
So it really gets down to how you want to advance and what you're willing to live with / without until well post cap when you can settle into your desired state. That is usually driven by the type of mage you are portraying (pure, magus, war) in your earlier years.
Doug
If you're a pure mage, you should start picking up some EL:Water and keep on with the EL:Fire where possible.
Ultimately, all mages are going to want some blend of EL lore - I personally advocate an even split as 'best', although some will counter that more EL:Fire is more gooderer the way the lores are currently set. But at an even split and with a modest EL Lore rank or skill enhancive of 10, the wizard gets pretty good essence gathering, two time stops, a minimal cooldown on 950, and not too bad with additional damage and what not, plus all the passive procs that you're looking for - albeit at a somewhat reduced percentage of firing.
So it really gets down to how you want to advance and what you're willing to live with / without until well post cap when you can settle into your desired state. That is usually driven by the type of mage you are portraying (pure, magus, war) in your earlier years.
Doug
Since I have a slightly different take on Elemental Lore taining than Doug (Fire is one of my least favorite elemental lores at present) I'll go ahead and post to provide a different perspective:
I'll also put up front that unless you have a specific goal (e.g. reducing your warmage swing RT / unlocking steam bolts / similar) I think most lore training is likely better saved until after you have learned most of your available spells and even then you will get a lot of benefit out of increasing spell ranks over lore training.
Warmage: Agree you will primarily focus on Air to reduce your swing round time. My warmage at 41 has 38 air and 5 earth lore. He has a 1 second swing with broadsword but I continue to train air lore so he can eventually swing two-handed or pole weapons in 1 second.
Pure Mage: I agree with Doug insomuch as I think a wizard is well served to have a minimum number of ranks in every lore (around 20) to unlock various base lore benefits.
Pre-cap my goal was to get to ~20 ranks in each lore to unlock the basic benefits of each lore with some adjustment for specific lore tiers (e.g. I had a bit more air lore to support a larger disk). I didn't train much beyond this until I had learned all of my spell ranks way into post cap.
Current Lore training for Faulkil with notes on the lore factors that are important to me (note there are many other beneficial abilities that are nice but they are not key factors in my lore training decision to increase a lore much over ~20 ranks):
Elemental Lore - Air...............| 192 92
- This is the primary reason that I have a full 92 Ranks of Air Lore. 60 Percent round time reduction in combat. This is a pretty HUGE benefit in my book. Instead of being put into 10 seconds of RT (two rounds) you are instead disabled for 4 seconds, leaving you time to react before most opponents can even take their next action (assuming most opponents take action evey 5 seconds or longer). Even being thrown into 20 seconds (a death sentence in some hunting areas) means you get to react in 8 seconds (so your opponent gets to take one action instead of four before you can react). Also when combined with decent First Aid training this allows you to tend to injuries very quickly between battles or even during combat.
- Open Cast Slow: I use this ability frequently in the confluence and sometime for other encounters. Having at least 24 Ranks in Air Lore adds 1 additional second of delay. Given I am 8 ranks shy of 100 Ranks (which adds yet another second of RT delay) I may look to adjust my other lore training or seek out 8 additional Ranks (bonus) of air lore via enhancives.
- Celerity: Amazingly low round times when Foraging (as low as 1 second) or searching for missing heirlooms (2 seconds)
- Who doesn't want a bigger DISK? At 91 Ranks you gain a disk capacity of 15, nearly double the standard size of 8.
- 20 Ranks unlocks (518) Cone of Air (vacuum based bolt). This is my default Cone element.
- Call Wind (912) While not a key factor in my training decision, it is very nice to have a decent vortex chance with this spell. At 92 Ranks I am just 3 ranks shy of hitting the 20% mark.
Elemental Lore - Earth.............| 140 40
- Mage Armor - Earth (my primary hunting armor) Provides 21 Ranks of padding (on top of my existing armor padding) when stunned.
- Time Stop (550) - 40 Ranks provide 1 additional use of this spell per day. While I generally don't use this 2x per day it is there if I decide I need it. Without this requirement I would probably drop my Earth Lore training down to 30 or so (freeing up additional points for Air Lore!)
- Minor Acid (904) - this is one of my go to spammable bolt spells when I am using Rapid Fire - the high chance to acid burn (60% at 40 ranks) is a nice benefit for this spell.
Core Tap (950) - A number of wizards advocate having 60 Ranks in Earth Lore so they can use this spell a second time each minute. For my hunting style, I have found that a single cast per minute is generally more than sufficient so this is not a trainng target for me.
Elemental Lore - Fire..............| 120 30
- There are not a lot of drivers for me within Fire Lore to train outside of having a base training to capture all of the base benefits with a slight boost.
- Enchant Item (925) - At 27 Ranks I gain a bonus static to essence conversion of +3. The extra Plus One conversion is probably the primary reason I haven't dropped this down to 20.
- Elemental Focus (513) - The boost to AS is handy on this spell and probably one of the few reasons I might train Fire Lore higher. Presently (at 30 Ranks) it takes 6 cast to get the full Bolt AS bonus.
- Core Tap (950) - Similarly the AS / CS boost for Core Tap spell is nice to have. I find them to be sufficient at my current lore training.
Elemental Lore - Water.............| 140 40
- Similar to Fire, not a lot of drivers for me to train this lore higher once the base benefits have been unlocked. Some of the benefits offered for training higher in Water Lore (e.g. call familiar anchors) are just not worth the tradeoffs (lower training in other lores) to get them.
- Enchant Item (925) - At 40 Ranks, I gain an additional 14% (64% vs 50%) of essence absorbtion while not on a node (which is probably the majority of where my essence absorbing time is spent). This bonus probably saves me an hour or more per week in essence gathering. Dropping down to 30 only loses 2% of this bonus and going up to 80 nets me an additional 4%. Looks like I could drop my Fire down to 27 and my water down to 35 to capture that additional 8 air lore I am pondering.
- Earthen Fury (917) - I cast the Cold version of this spell frequently in my current hunting (specifically SoS). The bonus chance to gaining an extra, more powerful critical is low but nice when it occurs given the frequency with which I cast this spell.
- Core Tap (950) - I do get some mana savings when using Core Tap by having this element trained higher.
-- Robert
>> A halfling magistrate picks up a small rock and throws it at a half-elven bandit in a valiant effort to subdue him.
I'll also put up front that unless you have a specific goal (e.g. reducing your warmage swing RT / unlocking steam bolts / similar) I think most lore training is likely better saved until after you have learned most of your available spells and even then you will get a lot of benefit out of increasing spell ranks over lore training.
Warmage: Agree you will primarily focus on Air to reduce your swing round time. My warmage at 41 has 38 air and 5 earth lore. He has a 1 second swing with broadsword but I continue to train air lore so he can eventually swing two-handed or pole weapons in 1 second.
Pure Mage: I agree with Doug insomuch as I think a wizard is well served to have a minimum number of ranks in every lore (around 20) to unlock various base lore benefits.
Pre-cap my goal was to get to ~20 ranks in each lore to unlock the basic benefits of each lore with some adjustment for specific lore tiers (e.g. I had a bit more air lore to support a larger disk). I didn't train much beyond this until I had learned all of my spell ranks way into post cap.
Current Lore training for Faulkil with notes on the lore factors that are important to me (note there are many other beneficial abilities that are nice but they are not key factors in my lore training decision to increase a lore much over ~20 ranks):
Elemental Lore - Air...............| 192 92
- This is the primary reason that I have a full 92 Ranks of Air Lore. 60 Percent round time reduction in combat. This is a pretty HUGE benefit in my book. Instead of being put into 10 seconds of RT (two rounds) you are instead disabled for 4 seconds, leaving you time to react before most opponents can even take their next action (assuming most opponents take action evey 5 seconds or longer). Even being thrown into 20 seconds (a death sentence in some hunting areas) means you get to react in 8 seconds (so your opponent gets to take one action instead of four before you can react). Also when combined with decent First Aid training this allows you to tend to injuries very quickly between battles or even during combat.
- Open Cast Slow: I use this ability frequently in the confluence and sometime for other encounters. Having at least 24 Ranks in Air Lore adds 1 additional second of delay. Given I am 8 ranks shy of 100 Ranks (which adds yet another second of RT delay) I may look to adjust my other lore training or seek out 8 additional Ranks (bonus) of air lore via enhancives.
- Celerity: Amazingly low round times when Foraging (as low as 1 second) or searching for missing heirlooms (2 seconds)
- Who doesn't want a bigger DISK? At 91 Ranks you gain a disk capacity of 15, nearly double the standard size of 8.
- 20 Ranks unlocks (518) Cone of Air (vacuum based bolt). This is my default Cone element.
- Call Wind (912) While not a key factor in my training decision, it is very nice to have a decent vortex chance with this spell. At 92 Ranks I am just 3 ranks shy of hitting the 20% mark.
Elemental Lore - Earth.............| 140 40
- Mage Armor - Earth (my primary hunting armor) Provides 21 Ranks of padding (on top of my existing armor padding) when stunned.
- Time Stop (550) - 40 Ranks provide 1 additional use of this spell per day. While I generally don't use this 2x per day it is there if I decide I need it. Without this requirement I would probably drop my Earth Lore training down to 30 or so (freeing up additional points for Air Lore!)
- Minor Acid (904) - this is one of my go to spammable bolt spells when I am using Rapid Fire - the high chance to acid burn (60% at 40 ranks) is a nice benefit for this spell.
Core Tap (950) - A number of wizards advocate having 60 Ranks in Earth Lore so they can use this spell a second time each minute. For my hunting style, I have found that a single cast per minute is generally more than sufficient so this is not a trainng target for me.
Elemental Lore - Fire..............| 120 30
- There are not a lot of drivers for me within Fire Lore to train outside of having a base training to capture all of the base benefits with a slight boost.
- Enchant Item (925) - At 27 Ranks I gain a bonus static to essence conversion of +3. The extra Plus One conversion is probably the primary reason I haven't dropped this down to 20.
- Elemental Focus (513) - The boost to AS is handy on this spell and probably one of the few reasons I might train Fire Lore higher. Presently (at 30 Ranks) it takes 6 cast to get the full Bolt AS bonus.
- Core Tap (950) - Similarly the AS / CS boost for Core Tap spell is nice to have. I find them to be sufficient at my current lore training.
Elemental Lore - Water.............| 140 40
- Similar to Fire, not a lot of drivers for me to train this lore higher once the base benefits have been unlocked. Some of the benefits offered for training higher in Water Lore (e.g. call familiar anchors) are just not worth the tradeoffs (lower training in other lores) to get them.
- Enchant Item (925) - At 40 Ranks, I gain an additional 14% (64% vs 50%) of essence absorbtion while not on a node (which is probably the majority of where my essence absorbing time is spent). This bonus probably saves me an hour or more per week in essence gathering. Dropping down to 30 only loses 2% of this bonus and going up to 80 nets me an additional 4%. Looks like I could drop my Fire down to 27 and my water down to 35 to capture that additional 8 air lore I am pondering.
- Earthen Fury (917) - I cast the Cold version of this spell frequently in my current hunting (specifically SoS). The bonus chance to gaining an extra, more powerful critical is low but nice when it occurs given the frequency with which I cast this spell.
- Core Tap (950) - I do get some mana savings when using Core Tap by having this element trained higher.
-- Robert
>> A halfling magistrate picks up a small rock and throws it at a half-elven bandit in a valiant effort to subdue him.
