>Anyway my question is...does being in Voln have a significant effect on hunting the Scatter vs. Sunfist for a wizard? If so, in what way(s)? - Methais

There's lots of neat stuff in NuVoln, and Seeking up to the Cavern is definitely awesome, but little of it I would call specifically relevant to the Scatter. For the Rift in general, Symbol of Renewal is very convenient: after being spirit-drained by the sphere, just use your symbol and you're back up to 8/10, so no waiting for spirit to regen before getting your full AS back in play.

However, there are two things I'd consider significant for the Scatter specifically, and they are:

1) Symbol of Courage provides three phantom levels vs sheer fear, making you immune to soul siphon's fear completely and immune to fear from all but the two highest levels of lich. For a class with no access to a native fear defense, which I don't believe wizards do, this is a big deal.

2) Symbol of Holiness kicks lich butt. My sorcerer in Plat had immense success using Holiness as an opener against them: it invariably prones and stuns the lich without incurring RT for you, then you can just immediately blast it away worry-free. Considering how fast they move and how dangerous they can be, this is also a big deal for post-cap hunting.

Dave, Brandain's Bard

>That could be a dealbreaker on its own. Liches are pretty annoying for me, since I have to open with ewave and then usually 530 them to be able to hit them hard enough. Any idea about how long the stun lasts from Holiness? - Methais

I knew there was something wrong with that statement when I made it, but couldn't put my finger on it. I left Plat a while back so haven't played that character lately, and was working from memory. So please excuse my slight misinformation: Holiness will invariably prone and stun frostborne liches. It will still prone the infernal variety, but without doing damage or a stun. So it's still a big deal, but not quite as big a deal as it may have sounded. Sorry 'bout that.

With that said, the damage/stun for frost liches is just what you'd normally expect from a fire-based attack on a cold-based creature. A few rounds at least, or more depending on the crit severity. Frankly, I don't think one ever survived long enough to get out of the stun...

Exhibit A:

---

A frostborne lich strides in, leaving thin layer of frost in her wake.

>sym holi lich

A wave of power flows out of you and toward a frostborne lich. Suddenly the frostborne lich bursts into flames and falls to the ground! The frostborne lich rolls around desperately trying to extinguish the flames.
... 30 points of damage!
Flames cook a frostborne lich's back. Looks about medium well.
The frostborne lich is stunned!

>inc 719

You are now targeting a frostborne lich.
You trace an intricate sign that contorts in the air while forcefully invoking Dark Catalyst...
Your spell is ready.
You gesture at a frostborne lich.
CS: +516 - TD: +490 + CvA: +25 + d100: +89 == +140
Warding failed!
... and hits for 21 points of damage!
A frostborne lich is suddenly engulfed in flames of pure essence!
... 25 points of damage!
Left hand fried to a crisp. Think barbecue sauce.
... 30 points of damage!
... 40 points of damage!
Massive blow to left eye sending bone back into the brain!
You hear a sound like a weeping child as a white glow separates itself from the frostborne lich's body as it rises, disappearing into the heavens.
A sheen of ice forms a glossy rime over each of the frostborne lich's eyes as she grasps at the gnarled bone phylactery hanging around her neck and collapses to the ground.
The glowing specks of energy surrounding a frostborne lich suddenly shoot off in all directions, then quickly fade away.
The bright luminescence fades from around a frostborne lich.
A frostborne lich appears somehow different.
The brilliant luminescence fades from around a frostborne lich.
The translucent sphere fades from around a frostborne lich.
A frostborne lich glances around, looking a bit less confident.
A frostborne lich just arrived. Wait, wasn't she here already?
You feel 1 mana surge into you!
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

---

Three-second kill on the single baddest regular-gen critter in the game.

(insert "not bad")

Dave, Brandain's Bard

>I knew there was something wrong with that statement when I made it, but couldn't put my finger on it. I left Plat a while back so haven't played that character lately, and was working from memory. So please excuse my slight misinformation: Holiness will invariably prone and stun frostborne liches. It will still prone the infernal variety, but without doing damage or a stun. So it's still a big deal, but not quite as big a deal as it may have sounded. Sorry 'bout that.

Either way, if they're prone they'll still have to waste a round standing back up and all that, right? Anything to slow them down is always good.

>Don't forget that holiness doesn't come cheap. If you were hardcore lich hunting you would probably run negative favor when using that method, but most of my experience is that unless you're doing a task, you're not killing a ton of liches. If you're only using it on liches that seems like a reasonable approach. I used to use that method on vaespilon when I was weighed down with loot. It was effective there too.

I'd probably only be using it on liches since they're the only real threat up there besides Vvrael. According to the Voln guide on Krakiipedia it costs 99 favor at level 100, so assuming I used it just as an opener, I'd still come out slightly ahead on favor.

Which reminds me of an unrelated question...are there any good hot spots for racking up on favor? Way back when I was in Voln (like 10-13 years ago) I'd hit up Bonespear Tower since it swarmed a lot and would rack up pretty big. Think I mastered in 2-3 days from that. Are there any good hot spots like that? Or is it just kill capped undead in the Rift or Nelemar for the most part?

I'm so out of touch with a lot of the changes over the past few years, I feel like such a noob sometimes.

~ Methais

+1 to the favour cost of holiness as a factor, but +1 also to farming favour on plane 5. After cap, my guy would just drop in on 5 periodically and had no problem staying ahead of the curve that way. You should have no trouble mastering there.

>Either way, if they're prone they'll still have to waste a round standing back up and all that, right? Anything to slow them down is always good.

Prone is definitely better than standing, but they will still cast when prone, so it's not a slam-dunk.

D, B's B

That depends, Doug. Call wind isn't 100% reliable. Liches are susceptible to it, but due to the level disparity they can sometimes require a few casts to knock down. But when it does knock them down, it forces their stance, and if you spawn vortexes they'll usually keep a lich effectively tied up as long as they don't have haste.

If holiness is 100% effective at sending them prone, you're best off using it. Just use 417 to ensure they lose any spell they may have had prepared, then take them out. If stance is an issue, you can safely allow them to stand into offensive stance since you've already dispelled them. Knock them down with ewave at that point and they're in offensive stance.

Alternatively, if you have air lore and 100 ranks in wizard spells, rapid fire call wind for a knockdown with stance forced and take them out. Their bolt DS can still be in excess of 500 lying down in offensive, though. So you may still need to dispel unless you have very high bolt AS.

~Taverkin

Sounds like Voln kicks butt! I better get my mana up so I can deal with losing wracking.

~Taverkin