I'm going to assume you are bolting. The wizard circle is basically useless until way later for hunting. That is the circle you want to neglect. I would try these spells out and keep everything else the same. Get to 25 ranks in wizard later if you really want to enchant but you won't be great at it till later anyways and I would only throw spare

Spell Lists
Major Elemental....................| 34

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 33

Spell Lists
Wizard.............................| 20

This will give you 425 which is a HUGE upgrade for wizards, that spell alone is +25 AS bolting.

You should see roughly a +36 AS increase with these spells without your defense suffering all that much. If you haven't already get some 4x (or greater) full leathers and 4x (or greater) flaring runestaff. You can find one for super cheap especially after a Duskruin (which just happened). You should also keep Physical Fitness at max ranks as this is your defense against maneuver attacks.

You don't really say what your specific problem is so these are all just standard critiques of your build though. What matters also is what you are hunting. Not all creatures are equally easy.

If you want to talk more in-depth you can reach me on discord @ Sabotage#8049

What are you hunting?

>What is my timeframe for switching into wizard ranks and starting to enchant.

I don't know how accurate this post is but it can give you a good guideline how deep you need to go into wizard ranks to do a 7x vanilla enchant reliably.

http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?113310-Enchant-Formula

>>I don't know how accurate this post is

Since Robert (Faulkil) and Mark generated this information, I'd be willing to bank my enchants on it.

Doug

At your level, you probably need to decide if you want to be a good hunter or enchanter. I have literally no experience enchanting at lower levels, as I believe I was level 70ish before I bothered with enchanting anything. So someone else will have to chime in on that, or you can play around with the various enchanting formulas that are out there to see what skills you need to meet your own personal enchanting goals. I think it is possible to do 7x enchant on vanilla items as early as your 40s with the right training, but that build will likely have some difficulties hunting.

If you want to be a good bolter, I think MEKK51's advice is solid. For bolting wizards, my guideline has always been to have 513 at level 13, 425 at level 25, and to stay at least 2x in spells and at least 1x in MjE. MnE is good to train in as you get a more effective e-wave and additional AS on 425. MjE is good to train in for additional AS on 513 and a more effective mana leech (516). This leaves the wizard circle as the one to let fall behind, which is the one most important to enchanting.

In your specific case, my advice would be to get 425 ASAP. Either reduce your wizard ranks by 4 and increase MnE, or if you are set on keeping your skills as they are now, literally make training 4 MnE ranks your next goal. Even if you make no other changes than just getting 425, I suspect you'll find your hunts more effective.

I will definitely grab 425, that seems like an easy get. My question is is it worth retraining for some fire lore for minor steam bolt? That's basically doubles my mana assuming equal damage to 906, which is my current spell.

Would I be able to expect comparable damage? 75% damage?

>>My question is is it worth retraining for some fire lore for minor steam bolt?

In general, yes.

Doug

>I'm using basically only steam at cap. It is really powerful for the mana. Everything else just seems like a waste.

I wish I didn't agree with this, but this is correct. With the randomness of where bolts hit + crit randomization, you end up bleeding most stuff out anyway, so you might as well be mana efficient with it.

Not too fun, but still effective.


~ Methais

Thank you everyone for the help. I fixskilled to get 425 and the fire lore, and it really changed everything. I'm still overtrained in wizard circle by like 7 spell ranks, but I'm frying easily off 1 hunt in 5 minutes with ice trolls and cold guardians using 906. In particular the extra 25 AS is HUGE for after I wrack, so much so that I've stopped using 410 to get them prone.

Minor steam is great for bandit bounties where I need to spam 410 to keep control of the room. I'm able to finish a bounty quickly, though I still take enough damage that I need to go back to heal once. In short, everything is fixed. Thanks.

"If I remember right, the rule of thumb is 10 ranks per enchant, i.e. 60 ranks for 6x, 70 for 7x, etc." -- Methais

In 2007 I had finished a couple of test 7x's (in the realm of "just in case" to check beforehand), and then started doing the morphing rods. At 46th level I had 57 base-list spells, and got the first one just fine.
All of them had to go through the 5x & 6x cycles (except for the golvern one which started at +25), and three of them (ora, imflass, glaes) had to go through the 4x cycle; ora had to get 3x before that.
By the time I finished the fifth one, I was 48th level still with the same 57 spells.

.

So, "lower level with fewer spells" can still get those done.

7-for-7, in the 46-to-48th level range w/57 spells.
(5 morphing rods done, but only after 2 "can I do them" test cases.)