Casting on the Fly: Guide to
Metamagic Feats
By Darkgolem
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Metamagic Feats are the most useful Feats for a spell caster in
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (DDO). Consider this;
Metamagic Feats can (among other things):
- Effectively increase your spell points by ½.
- Allow you to affect opponents without letting them even attack or
see you. - Allow you to cause up to 1275 points of damage in 34 seconds,
before counting any Enhancements.
These Feats can make you much, much more effective when used prudently
and in the right circumstances.
Types of Metamagic Feats and Their Benefits
The following are the Metamagic Feats available in DDO, and how best to
use them:
Healing Spell
Cure spells heal ½ more damage but cost ½ additional to
normal spell
points costs. This additional healing also applies to this spell when
used to damage undead. This is a very useful Feat. In effect, you can
reduce your recharge times on your cleric spells by ½ because
each use
of the spell gives more heal for the casting.
Remember that if you are healing more than a person's maximum hit
points, you are wasting spell points. This means when using this Feat,
use lower level spells so that you are not overhealing. Often a wand
used to top off hit points can be effective in a combat situation,
while using Empowered Healing for healing a lot all at once.
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album07/Maximize_Spell.sized.jpg"
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Empower Spell causes ½ more damage but costs twice as many spell
points
than normal. Useful, but mainly meant for situations when an opponent
heals quickly, or when something absolutely must die style="font-style: italic;">right now. I
recommend getting Maximize Spell first if you want this option.
Maximize spell causes twice the damage but costs three times as many
spell points than normal. In any situation where you must kill some
thing quickly due to healing ability or desperation, Maximize is better
than Empower. Besides, in any situation where you don't need to do
those things, Maximize and Empower are not desirable due to cost.
However, for added emergency damage capacity, if you really want to be
able to put down some hurt, take Maximize then Empower.
Spell
One of the most useful of Metamagic Feats, this allows you to double
the range of your spells, but the spell will cost ½ additional
spell
points. This allows you to cast spells on opponents without them being
able to see you if the spells are of medium or long range to start with.
Also, Enlarge Spell can keep you out of the range of opponents who
could cast spells at you in returnvery useful for spell duels. The
only big issue with this Feat is that often you can cast spells beyond
your visual range, preventing you from knowing if you hit your target,
especially if your target is a point on the ground rather than a
creature.
Spells do not use spell components, but cost an additional 1/3 spell
points. This Feat would be more useful if spell components were not so
relatively inexpensive, or if it was harder to carry large stacks of
spell components. Exotic components for spells such as Teleport,
Dimension Door and Stoneskin are not affected by Eschew Materials. The
only benefit I can imagine for this Feat would be if isolated from any
stores for a long time due to an extended adventure.
Spell
Spells lasts twice as long but cost an additional ½ to normal
spell
points cost. This is the most useful Feat in the game. You benefit from
this Feat any time you cast a spell multiple times in a quest since you
have to cast it only half as much. In effect, if most of your spell
points are spent with spells that you are recasting, and they have
durations (i.e. Haste) you should be using this Feat.
The only drawback to Extend Spell is that at the time of the writing of
this guide, certain spells charge extra spell points for this spell
while gaining no benefit. Note that spells that have wasted usage are
less benefited by this spell. For example, if you only need protection
from evil for one encounter, and you extend it, you will probably have
many minutes of extra protection that are not necessary.
The spell level is increased to the highest level you can cast, and the
spell point cost of the spell is increased to that of the highest level
you can cast. This Feat is excellent for any spell which is all or
nothing in effect. For example, crowd control spells like phantasmal
killer or charm spells like Hold Person. In effect, all your spells
have the highest DC (difficulty check) you can cast.
Like Extend Spell, there are spells that apply the cost of Heighten
Spell without providing benefits. These would be any spells that
provide no save, or do not need a save (such as Haste).
Spell
Spells cast under the Quicken Spell Feat are cast with a short duration
and cannot be interrupted, but the spells cost twice as many spell
points than normal. The animation for spells takes ½ half as
long as
normal when using Quicken Spell.
Because spell casters often have many skill points, and not many
critical skills to put skill points in, a skill point should always go
into Concentration. The manner in which Concentration is applied in
game results in spell casters almost never failing Concentration
checks. This reduces one of the advertised benefits of Quicken Spell.
Unfortunately, Quicken Spell does not affect the recharge time of
spells, limiting the spells that benefit from this Feat. Overall, this
Feat is not very useful. The (eventual) highest level spells in the
game, if following the pattern found so far in DDO, will have extremely
high casting times, as much as 24 seconds for 9th level spells. This
may result in Quicken Spell in being more useful.
How Enhancements Affect Metamagic Feats
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alt="Metamagic Feats"
src="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album07/Metamagic_Feat.sized.jpg"
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Enhancements reduce the costs of the Heighten, Empower and Maximize
Spell Feats. These Enhancements reduce the total costs of spells under
effects of these Feats by a percentage each time they are used. For
example, Improved Empowering 2 reduces the spell points cost of a spell
by 15% when it is cast with Empower Spell. So if Fireball was empowered
and cast with Improved Empowering II, the cost of the Fireball would be
34 spell points [20 (the base spell cost) x2 (Feat cost) / 1.15
(because of the Enhancement)]. The first version of these Enhancements
reduces costs by 10%, and each additional version (II & III)
reduces costs by 5% more. Improved Maximizing III is not in DDO at this
time, but this may be added at higher levels.
Players should select Metamagic Enhancements if they specialize in
damage or all-or-nothing spells. For example, a caster specialized in
crowd control and charms is rewarded for choosing the Improved
Heightening Enhancement. At 10th level, his Charm Person spell costs 5
spell points per cast when he uses Heighten Spell. The result is that
he'd get 4 extra casts of charm person per full spell points pool.
To a generalized caster who uses all sorts of spells without using any
Metamagic Feat each time, other Enhancements will be more useful. For
instance, the spell points bonus Enhancements (such as Energy of the
Zealot) are more beneficial to her.
Parting Thoughts
Want some spells to go with these Metamagic Feats? Check out
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=157">Spells
Guides portal! Wizards get extra Metamagic Feats, so they can
accumulate more than any other class. Learn about wizards in our
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=146">Wizard
Portal! For more spell casting basics, read
href="http://ddo.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=105">Sacred
and Sorcerous.
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