Psionic dualing - good idea?

[Ziggurat]

I have a Psionic lev 13. I'm considering dualing her to something else on next lev. She is effective so far but can't see the advantage later on. And the hint BBs such as Janthral's don't cover this class for best development. Her stats are the following:

"Psycha" Human Female

Str = 55 plus Ebon Staff (+5 more = 60)
Int = 99 plus Brilliant Helm (+20 more = 119)
Pie = 75
Vit = 55
Dex = 53
Spd = 55
Sen = 60

AC = 12
HP = 49

Cl. Comb. = 51 (+10 more from Ebon = 61)
Rang = 36
Sling = 29
Staff/Flail = 39
Psionic = 92 using the 25% bonus
Fire = 48
Mental = 73
Divin = 33
(rest of realms less than 12)

Using Ebon Staff and Wrist Rocket with Impaling Stones

She has most good available spells for her lev (Psychic Fire, Sanity, Freeze All, Ego Whip, Hypnotic Lure, Psychic Blast?, etc.). I could see her becoming a Bishop or Alchemist, maybe even Valkerie with an extended weapon. Any suggestions? Or should she stay put?

[ 10-08-2003, 12:28 AM: Message edited by: Ziggurat ]

[Kasura]

Portal Spells covered?

a number of tests done by players on the board has shown that caster experience level has a huge impact on spell effectiveness. this is the biggest issue to deal with when dual-classing spellcasters.

so if you switch out to alchemist, for example, you will not be able to cast your psionic spells at higher than level 13 effectiveness (unless you switched back). i would expect this would become a greater problem as the game went on.

similarly, your alchemy spells would start out at level 1 effectiveness. against level 13 opponents, even a power level 7 fire bomb from your fire college would struggle to do damage.

of course, it's not so simple to work out either. spells that overlap in the two spell books would be cast at your total level. however, alchemy and psionic are the two least overlapping spell books in the game.

the switch to a bishop is a little nicer, in as much as you would keep levelling up your psionic spellcasting power with each level gain. so when you are a level 5 bishop, your psionic spells would be cast at level 18 (13+5), and similarly you would qualify for your level 7 psionic spells. however, all your other books would still be cast at level 5. the additional spell points from having all those books open would be nice, but since your most effective spells would still be psionic, one must wonder if it's worth the slower levelling.

you could switch out to monk and take advantage of your staff and throwing skills. this would also give you continued access to developing your psionic book, but only after giving up 4 levels of non-casting. that would also mean you would cast at effectively 4 levels below your total level. that might be the most even trade-off: slightly lower spell effectiveness against improved melee effectiveness (plus you'd open stealth and critical strike). if you were to do this, i'd still go for powercast, as you're too close to pass it up. one thought, though, you may have to double check your monk attribute minimums, as you may need to boost dex to 55 to qualify. fortunately you can do that with 2 points at your next level up, as you make the switch.

as you can see, dual classing has some complicated nuances, particularly where spell casters are concerned. for most people, it's not worth working out the details. for others, it's an opportunity to take advantage of the full breadth of variety in skills in the game within individual characters, and worth the effort.

in any event, be prepared to do a bit of experimenting before you finally work out what's best. perhaps it'd be worth keeping a save of the game before you make any switch, in case you want to try a different switch, or make the same switch but develop differently, or just stay with the psi and keep going.

edit - sorry, zig, didnt realise that was your post. you're obviously more experienced at the game than my post above gives credit for. i assumed it was from someone new to the game! pardon me.

[ 10-08-2003, 01:08 AM: Message edited by: sultan ]

[Ziggurat]

First: yeh, our portal spells are covered with three casters, including the Psi. It's been a while when I could say that.

I never worry about peoples assumptions about experience, and how much you have done. I'm playing in a rock band and you have to be wide open to survive that! Don't ask.

Sultan, still digesting your wisdom.

Do I need a higher level of spells for a Psionic? I think I have enough. Correct me if I need more.

Alchemy would start out slow if Psycha dualed. But we are only at lev 13. The Psi spells have some advantage, but they are not full strength, I admit. I know Alchemy has the best atack spells.

I also like your idea of Monk, I wasn't thinking of that. But, as you say, it would hold her back. Will think about this a bit more.

Edit: removed a paragraph, sorry if I got too meta

[ 10-08-2003, 03:37 AM: Message edited by: Ziggurat ]

[Loudhy]

Hi Ziggurat,

I prefer changing a magic profession to a dual charakter earlier ( L10 or L11 )
The spellpower drops after changing because you lose the magic bonus and later in the game I need the full magic power of the spells .

I reach L11 usually in the swamp. After that I finish the T'rang quests up to Bayjin after that the Umpani quests also up to Rescue Sgt. Glumph ( Soul Shield
level to low for me )
With all the experience points and the necesserary (not too hard) combats you have L15. When you enter the more difficult areas the character can develop again normally.

If you want change your Psionic later to a Monk maybe you'll have also problems developing the critical strike and stealth skill ( I mean without training ).

Greetings

[Wereboar]

Do I need a higher level of spells for a Psionic? I think I have enough. Correct me if I need more.

You are at level 13, one level away from level 6 spells, and one intelligence point from powercast. I'd make at least one more level as a psionic.

Alchemy would start out slow if Psycha dualed. But we are only at lev 13. The Psi spells have some advantage, but they are not full strength, I admit. I know Alchemy has the best atack spells.

You are already at level 13. In a normal game, expect the game to end around level 25 (or less). You'll get your level 4 alchemist or whatever spells near the end of the game. Don't expect a fire bomb cast at spell level 3 in green from a low-level alchemist or bishop to do much damage. If you switch at that late point to another scool of magic, your offensive casting won't improve much for the rest of the game.

Forget about the valkyrie, too. Only thing you get is the cheat death ability. Any you'll get level 1 priest spells at level 19. Big deal. Change to a fighter would probably be better. Forget about the polearm polearm skill, and get berserk.

IMHO the only reasonable change at that level is monk. You already have good staff skill, and may use Zatoichi Bo at some point (staff of doom until then). And you'll continue to improve your magic abilities after a four level gap.
But i'd make one more level as a psionic before, to get the level 6 spells.

[Halsey]

Ya know, your post hits on a something that I've wanted to comment on for a while - the fact that changing professions - primarily magic throwers - doesn't really pay in this game. Many of us brought over our ideas about it from prior Wiz games, but it just doesn't seem to be worth it in Wiz 8. It seems OK in all the other professions, but the penalties for magic users seem to negate most benefits.

[Loudhy]

I don't believe that class-changing from mage to a dual-class character is that bad. In my games my magicians were a great help in the beginning to make battles shorter and easier and the midgame the loss of the bonus wasn't a great penalty in my combats.
Of course in W7 class-changing was more powerful.

[dplax]

Originally posted by Halsey: Ya know, your post hits on a something that I've wanted to comment on for a while - the fact that changing professions - primarily magic throwers - doesn't really pay in this game. Many of us brought over our ideas about it from prior Wiz games, but it just doesn't seem to be worth it in Wiz 8. It seems OK in all the other professions, but the penalties for magic users seem to negate most benefits.

Dual or triple classing or even more-classing a solo character does pay off, as was said in an earlier post on the board, about solo development.

[petertmorgan]

I'm not sure exactly what the rest of your party is, but you mentioned three spell casters.

I recently finished a full-fledged (6+2) party that included fig-rog-ran-bar-bis-psi-vi-rfs.
We finished at levels 18-22 and really, the melee capabilities of this party were so good that my psionic was basically worthless at the end except for providing a fast 1st round level 7 soul shield. Even with powercast in the 70s, her spells did little to the high level/high hitpoint monsters (compared to the 100-300+ points my meleers each did every round). The bishop, on the other hand, was very useful, nicely covering all the spell books except Psionic, even at level 19.

I think that if you are a magic heavy party, then by developing you psionic's powercast up to 100 you might have a useful late game character (more useful than switching), but if you have a few strong meleers, or don't have all the books covered, you might get more out of dual classing to bishop to keep you psionic expertise (plenty of time to up Psionic back to where it was with the bonus) and add spell books. On the other hand, I agree that if this is the case it would have been done to your advantage sooner