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I've got a number of questions that I'm going to ask after the build.  Note, though that it's under 2 restrictions: 1) No theme, and 2) Nothing from setting specific books/articles (FR, Eberron, Dark Sun, etc)

Spoiler: Show

1) As noted before, no themes, no setting specific things (that will play a role later on).  Also, Fearsome Reputation was granted as the result of a miniature quest, and, as far as he's concerned, the daily power has had the word "weapon" taken out.

2) Because of the way others are switching characters right now, I have the opportunity to rebuild him however I see fit.  So if any answers below involve multiple retrainings or ability changes, feel free to toss them in.

3) In terms of the build from here, I was thinking about the following feats:

Level 8- Superior Will
Level 10- something to retrain at 11
Level 11- Arcane Admixture (Elemental Bolt/Cold), Retrain Level 10 feat to Secrets of Belial (for Eagle's Cunning)
Level 12- Lasting Frost, Retrain Implement Focus to Fiery Blood
Level 14- Dual Implement Spellcaster
Level 16- Wintertouched
Level 18- Icy Clutch of Stygia
Level 20- [Defensive feat- Improved Defenses? Dispater's Iron Discipline?]
Level 21- Quickened Spellcasting

Look good?  Something to change?

4) Alternatively, I had kind of liked the idea that has been thrown around (by Nirafelos, among others) to try and multiclass divine and pick up a Champion's Weapon to do radiant (and cold).  The problem with that is that Morninglord is an FR thing.  Am I right in thinking that not having Morninglord would make this pointless?

5) Which Paragon path?  Academy Master (assuming I can get the DM to agree that the powers work)?  Essence Mage?  Switch things around to 12 Dex/12 Wis, Multiclass Seeker at 11, and take Crimson Hunter?

6) If Essence Mage- is it worth the feat to grab Reserve Maneuver and get rid of the paragon ecounter power?  If so, is flame spiral the right move, even without forced movement?

7) Which enchantment for the main hand?  Wyrmtooth might be good for the next couple of levels, but becomes much less valuable after 10th.  Rebounding?  Wyrmtooth for now, Jagged at 12 (though the Crit feature would be obsolete, or less effective, relatively soon)?  Jagged has the advantage of allowing Ruthless Spellfury in epic with a 10% chance.  The only other ways I can see of easily getting that would be Crimson Hunter as a PP or drop CON 1, make DEX and STR both 13, and pick up Sorceror Implement Expertise at Paragon.  Or is the extra 5% to critical hit just not worth worrying about.

Many thanks to all. 

Your PP should probably be Demonskin Adept. Pending lots of party forced movement, it's your only way to get something vaguely resembling a nova.

Alternatively, you could grab a PP with a terrible e11, and powerswap for flamespiral. Both work.

Jan 21, 2013 -- 5:27PM, zelink551 wrote:

Alternatively, you could grab a PP with a terrible e11, and powerswap for flamespiral. Both work.

Yeah, I like Demonskin because it is usually one more hit than FS without shenanigans, but if your party is OK at tactics go with Flame Spiral and, uhhhhhhhhhh, some other PP all the way.

It's a ludicrously feat and item intensive way to go, but I'm highly entertained by my extremely devout Fire Elementalist/Morninglord whose EB deals Fire/Cold/Radiant due to a Crusader's Mace and Admixture, using both vulnerabilities due to Morninglord 16 and frostcheese. 

It should be noted, of course, that this isn't really optimized, just entertaining. It does do a lot of damage, but if your party had a separate morninglord, any divine MC and pervasive light would have much the same effect for muuuch less opportunity cost.  You also give up using a superior implement for this build. 

Turathi Highborn isn't all bad if you replace the encounter power - the massive damage boost vs bloodied comes up very often. Adding +2/+9 vs bloodied at level 11 is pretty sexy. 

Jan 21, 2013 -- 6:21PM, Nirafelos wrote:

It's a ludicrously feat and item intensive way to go, but I'm highly entertained by my extremely devout Fire Elementalist/Morninglord whose EB deals Fire/Cold/Radiant due to a Crusader's Mace and Admixture, using both vulnerabilities due to Morninglord 16 and frostcheese. 

It should be noted, of course, that this isn't really optimized, just entertaining. It does do a lot of damage, but if your party had a separate morninglord, any divine MC and pervasive light would have much the same effect for muuuch less opportunity cost.  You also give up using a superior implement for this build.

Sadly, that's not going to happen, for the same reason Morninglord won't work for me (no FR stuff allowed).

Turathi Highborn isn't all bad if you replace the encounter power - the massive damage boost vs bloodied comes up very often. Adding +2/+9 vs bloodied at level 11 is pretty sexy. 

Hm, I hadn't noticed this one- a bonus +6 damage against bloodied enemies definitely helps at 11 (as I'll be at +5 CHA bonus then, +6 at 14), and a bonus 2d6 on action points is interesting as well.  Where are you getting the +2/+9 from?

As for Armisael's comment- they're not particularly good at tactics, but there's an Illusionist mage who can probably add knock a few folks through a flame spiral. 

Here is a similar character that I built. I am sure there are ways it could be better, but it might give you a few ideas. I MC'd Wizard for fire support. Especially Burn Everything, which doesn't help a whole lot before epic, but the big thing is it turns immune into resist, and then the level 24 feature of Prince of Hell ignores resist, so basically nothing will be immune to your fire attacks.

Obviously admixing another element would take care of that, but I wanted to keep his attacks all fire. Nova turn is 4 attacks with base +48 damage, which isn't bad. Plus I took Icy Clutch of Stygia and Hellfire Master to make saving vs. ongoing fire attacks deal 33 damage. Again, I'm sure there is room for improvement, but I like it.


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Jan 21, 2013 -- 6:33PM, masteraleph wrote:

Hm, I hadn't noticed this one- a bonus +6 damage against bloodied enemies definitely helps at 11 (as I'll be at +5 CHA bonus then, +6 at 14), and a bonus 2d6 on action points is interesting as well.  Where are you getting the +2/+9 from?

For attack bonuses:
+1 from Bloodhunt Tiefling Racial
+1 from Impending Victory (at-will attacks only)
For damage:
+7 from Turathi Highborn (less if you didn't start with a 19-20, and of course starting with a 20 is probably silly. Mine was a LFR character, so I started it with a 17+2.).
+2 from Gauntlets of Blood (heroic tier)


To be clear here, however, the +1+CHA damage vs bloodied is the ONLY good thing in Turathi Highborn (for elementalists). Everything else is pretty much garbage.  There are other better sources of +damage, but they're either disalowed in your game (Lyrandar Wind-Rider) or key off of the wrong stats. It's probably not the optimal choice if you're trying to solve the game, but it's better than the default elementalist PP.

I also actually managed to combo the E11 nicely with a pacifist cleric's Pacify from Messenger of Peace as well. I was weakened and the elite was insubstantial, so it was worth giving up 1/4 normal damage to stun it for a round (after it had already chosen not to attack to avoid being stunned!). 

Jan 21, 2013 -- 7:50PM, Nirafelos wrote:

Jan 21, 2013 -- 6:33PM, masteraleph wrote:

Hm, I hadn't noticed this one- a bonus +6 damage against bloodied enemies definitely helps at 11 (as I'll be at +5 CHA bonus then, +6 at 14), and a bonus 2d6 on action points is interesting as well.  Where are you getting the +2/+9 from?

For attack bonuses:
+1 from Bloodhunt Tiefling Racial
+1 from Impending Victory (at-will attacks only)
For damage:
+7 from Turathi Highborn (less if you didn't start with a 19-20, and of course starting with a 20 is probably silly. Mine was a LFR character, so I started it with a 17+2.).
+2 from Gauntlets of Blood (heroic tier)


To be clear here, however, the +1+CHA damage vs bloodied is the ONLY good thing in Turathi Highborn (for elementalists). Everything else is pretty much garbage.  There are other better sources of +damage, but they're either disalowed in your game (Lyrandar Wind-Rider) or key off of the wrong stats. It's probably not the optimal choice if you're trying to solve the game, but it's better than the default elementalist PP.
. 

Hmm, I'd been thinking about going with Gloves of Ice, if I'm going full on frostcheese on Elemental Bolt.  Gauntlets of Blood apply only to bloodied targets.

The other PPs I was considering (until Demonskin and Turathi got tossed out there) were Academy Master and Essence Mage.  If AM works then the encounter is decent, though the same is not true on EM.

As a side point- if I do grab Reserve Maneuver/Flame Spiral, what do people think of taking Howling Zepher at 9?  It would be less accurate (non-fire/non-RBA/non-Reflex), but it would give a bit of forced movement.  As an action point nova with Turathi Highborn, the sequence could go something like:

Flame Spiral
AP
Howling Zepher (which now gets fire bonuses due to TH's action point feature)
Weapon of Speed- Elemental Bolt/Elemental Escalation

Escalation could instead be done on the Zepher if I can get enough people surrounding him, though I'd probably stop doing that after level 17 to make sure that the primary target gets hit with cold, as well. 

Awww, no Lyrandar Wind-Rider.

Demonskin Adept or Academy Master are probably the best straightforward choices on a PP then.  I tinkered with an Elementalist MC Seeker for Crimson Hunter's expanded crit range and bonus to hit, Reserve Maneuvering the e11, but decided Melegaunt's/Jagged dagger worked better.

By Epic, you want an expanded crit range to pair with Ruthless Spellfury.

Wizard multiclass is also strong, giving you access to Wizard's Wrath to strip immunities/resists for a turn, or to turn fire immunity into resistance (Burn Everything), which can be dealt with as normal.

Dispater's Iron Discipline + Superior Will lets you laugh off conditions, very worthwhile. 

Other than the level 16, what's so great about Demonskin?  I see the action point feature as very useful, and definitely enables your team for a turn, but Variable Resistance (the F11) is utterly useless, and there's no way to get a hold of Flame Spiral while keeping Demon-soul Bolts (and while it's an interesting triple tapper, it misses out on all the bonuses to RBAs, attacks vs. Reflex, fire, and cold, which is a lot...flame spiral at least gets fire).

I'm also still having trouble on feats, unless the general advice is to skip frostcheese.  I just don't know where you get in the Wizard multiclass and other feats while still grabbing frostcheese and the rest of the damage dealers, defensive feats, etc. 

Jan 21, 2013 -- 9:15PM, masteraleph wrote:

Other than the level 16, what's so great about Demonskin?  I see the action point feature as very useful, and definitely enables your team for a turn, but Variable Resistance (the F11) is utterly useless, and there's no way to get a hold of Flame Spiral while keeping Demon-soul Bolts (and while it's an interesting triple tapper, it misses out on all the bonuses to RBAs, attacks vs. Reflex, fire, and cold, which is a lot...flame spiral at least gets fire).

I'm also still having trouble on feats, unless the general advice is to skip frostcheese.  I just don't know where you get in the Wizard multiclass and other feats while still grabbing frostcheese and the rest of the damage dealers, defensive feats, etc. 

Didn't need to go further than that. It saves a feat to not have to pick up Flame Spiral too.

Jan 21, 2013 -- 9:41PM, Armisael wrote:

Didn't need to go further than that. It saves a feat to not have to pick up Flame Spiral too.

True, I guess.  I guess I'm just concerned because it loses out on bonuses to hit from fire (Hellfire Blood) and vs. Reflex (Incendiary Dagger), as well as all the +fire damage, which by level 11 or 12 could easily be +7 per hit (unless I admix fire onto it, which doesn't save the feat).  Also needs to hit each time, which wouldn't be true of flame spiral in the same way.  On the other hand, for single target damage, admixing fire does make it more powerful, and the target could then be hit with a Bolt (weapon of speed) or two (action point).

Jan 21, 2013 -- 10:13PM, masteraleph wrote:

Jan 21, 2013 -- 9:41PM, Armisael wrote:

Didn't need to go further than that. It saves a feat to not have to pick up Flame Spiral too.

True, I guess.  I guess I'm just concerned because it loses out on bonuses to hit from fire (Hellfire Blood) and vs. Reflex (Incendiary Dagger), as well as all the +fire damage, which by level 11 or 12 could easily be +7 per hit (unless I admix fire onto it, which doesn't save the feat).  Also needs to hit each time, which wouldn't be true of flame spiral in the same way.  On the other hand, for single target damage, admixing fire does make it more powerful, and the target could then be hit with a Bolt (weapon of speed) or two (action point).

You nailed it. It's really nice to see someone asking questions who has a clue what he's doing.

Jan 22, 2013 -- 12:09AM, Armisael wrote:

Jan 21, 2013 -- 10:13PM, masteraleph wrote:

Jan 21, 2013 -- 9:41PM, Armisael wrote:

Didn't need to go further than that. It saves a feat to not have to pick up Flame Spiral too.

True, I guess.  I guess I'm just concerned because it loses out on bonuses to hit from fire (Hellfire Blood) and vs. Reflex (Incendiary Dagger), as well as all the +fire damage, which by level 11 or 12 could easily be +7 per hit (unless I admix fire onto it, which doesn't save the feat).  Also needs to hit each time, which wouldn't be true of flame spiral in the same way.  On the other hand, for single target damage, admixing fire does make it more powerful, and the target could then be hit with a Bolt (weapon of speed) or two (action point).

You nailed it. It's really nice to see someone asking questions who has a clue what he's doing.

Would you prefer if I phrased it as:

  On the other hand, for single target damage, admixing fire does make it more powerful, and the target could then be hit with a Bolt (weapon of speed) or two (action point)...or if positioning is right, a third bolt in Epic (Quickened Spellcasting...by which point there will have been 7 attack rolls, so better than even odds of another bolt (Ruthless Spellfury) if I'm using a jagged dagger...?"

Ruthless Spellfury only procs on At-Will power crits, not a bad feat if you have 19-20 crits and a way to roll twice; with both of that, it's not great.

Jan 22, 2013 -- 6:08AM, Zathris wrote:

Ruthless Spellfury only procs on At-Will power crits, not a bad feat if you have 19-20 crits and a way to roll twice; with both of that, it's not great.

Hadn't noticed that.  That's more of a problem for me than for others in the same position- if you have Infernal Prince, you can use Secrets of Belial to grab Borrowed Confidence.  Without it, though, it would mean a 40% chance in the best round, even in epic (with two possible minor Bolts, standard, and escalation).

At this point, I'm still undecided regarding which paragon path.  If people are willing to take a look at this list of possible feat choices, though:

Level 8- Superior Will
Level 10- something to retrain at 11
Level 11- Arcane Admixture (Elemental Bolt/Cold), Retrain Level 10 feat to Secrets of Belial (for Eagle's Cunning)
Level 12- Lasting Frost, Retrain Implement Focus to Fiery Blood
Level 14- If Turathi Highborn: Reserve Maneuver (flame spiral).  If Demonskin Adept: Arcane Admixture (demon-soul bolts, fire)
Level 16- DIS
Level 18- Icy Clutch of Stygia
Level 20- Wintertouched
Level 21- Quickened Spellcasting

That leaves him one more defensive feat short, but I'm not sure what to do about that.  I'd say drop the Wintertouched, but our DM(s) have a tendency to throw monsters about 2 levels higher than we are at us, so it feels a bit dangerous to do that for the length of an encounter.  Arcane Spellfury is another possibility, and would work on the Demon-Soul Bolts if I used Elemental Bolt first.

If you go that route.... White Lotus Enervation over Arcane Spellfury, as your allies can benefit from it as well.  Our Elementalist (in a free Expertise/ImpDef game) had WLE in Heroic and early Paragon, but found things just didn't live long enough for the benefit to come into effect that often.

I would drop implement focus and superior will to get DIS and Icy Clutches going in heroic. Kinda early, but you want the frost stuff as quickly as possible in paragon.

Jan 22, 2013 -- 9:47PM, TheMalteseFalchion wrote:

If you go that route.... White Lotus Enervation over Arcane Spellfury, as your allies can benefit from it as well.  Our Elementalist (in a free Expertise/ImpDef game) had WLE in Heroic and early Paragon, but found things just didn't live long enough for the benefit to come into effect that often.

Except Bolt targets Ref and DSB targets Fort, so while some allies may benefit, his Main Attack won't.

Jan 22, 2013 -- 10:06PM, Backmask wrote:

Jan 22, 2013 -- 9:47PM, TheMalteseFalchion wrote:

If you go that route.... White Lotus Enervation over Arcane Spellfury, as your allies can benefit from it as well.  Our Elementalist (in a free Expertise/ImpDef game) had WLE in Heroic and early Paragon, but found things just didn't live long enough for the benefit to come into effect that often.

Except Bolt targets Ref and DSB targets Fort, so while some allies may benefit, his Main Attack won't.

Exactly.  The idea would be to lead the attack with Elemental Bolt instead of Demon-Skin, which would then throw in the +1 to hit, and possibly bloody them as well (another +1 to hit).  If I'm going: Action point, elemental bolt (escalated), elemental bolt (minor/WoS), demon-skin, the goal is to have it dead at the end.

As far as DIS and Icy Clutch goes- there's only so much faster I can get them; IF was going for Fiery Blood.  Superior Will could be delayed, but he then pretty much fits the definition of Glass Cannon.  If I can get a Steadfast Amulet and grab Maiden's Waking at 10, that at least provides some protection from stuns, etc.

After a long gap thinking about it (and trying unsuccessfully to lobby the group to allow the use of themes), here's what I'm looking at, at level 7 and hitting level 8 after the next session:

*PP Demonskin Adept
*Desired main hand implement: Melegaunt's Darkblade if I can get it, Jagged Dagger if not, for extra Blinding at level 16 and more potential of Ruthless Spellfury in early Epic
 
Feats:

Level 8- Superior Will
Level 10- something to retrain at 11
Level 11- Arcane Admixture (Demon Soul Bolts/Fire), Retrain Level 10 feat to Secrets of Belial (for Eagle's Cunning)
Level 12- Lasting Frost, Retrain Implement Focus to Arcane Admixture (Elemental Bolt, Cold)
Level 14- Fiery Blood
Level 16- DIS
Level 18- Icy Clutch of Stygia
Level 20- ?
Level 21- Quickened Spellcasting 

Questions:
1) Is Superior Will a necessity for high heroic/low paragon, or should I grab something else there and pick it up later?  Arcane Spellfury?  DIS (though the Weapon of Speed is currently still a +1)?  I would have Maiden's Waking starting at 10, if that makes any difference.

2) Am I best off going with Lasting Frost?  I think the answer's yes, even though DSB generally won't trigger it, unless I've used a Frost Whetstone.  EB would, Elemental Escalation's ongoing at 17 would, Jagged Dagger (if that's what I have) would, and Icy Clutch would.  I guess the alternative would be Echoes of Thunder, and it would apply to new targets and DSB, but it feels worse in this case since it's only on rolls.

3) If the answer to 2 is yes, Gloves of Ice or Gauntlets of Blood?

4) Is it worth the 2 feats it would take in at level in Epic to pick up a multiclass to swordmage and Acolyte Power for Borrowed Confidence?  It feels like Eagle's Splendor is the best option for Secrets of Belial all the way through- am I actually wrong about that?  Would retraining SoB-Eagle's Splendor for SoB-Borrowed Confidence and taking Arcane Spellfury be better, at one fewer feat?  Note that this isn't an issue for those who can take Infernal Prince; it's solely a problem because I can't get that.

5) Alternatively, is there a better option than the expanded Crit range from the primary dagger?  It seems like that's still the best option, but I could be wrong.