So, are Wizards the best non-burst physical DPS characters or am I crazy?
I’ve been planning a PoTD/Trial of Iron run recently and dabbled with the idea of making a Gish/Battlemage type of Watcher that focuses on conjured weapons and self-buffs. I’ve never really played Aloth in this way and naturally assumed that conjured weapons were a bit of a trap (as they are in a lot of RPGs with spellcasters), but holy shit. A Wizard with Citzal’s Spirit Lance, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, and decent DEX does some insane damage after testing and will pretty much cap out their recovery speed unless they’re in heavy armor (I’d need to look into it further, but I think they can still cap out their recovery speed in the heaviest armor with enough DEX and the Gauntlets of Swift Action). This is without stuff like Savage Attack, Two-Handed Style, Weapon Focus: Soldier, and other consumables/buffs active too. Hell even without the Spirit Lance, you can just use Tall Grass and save the Spirit Lance for tough fights. Spell Mastery lets you take DAoM and Merciless Gaze later on, so you can have both up pretty much 24/7 alongside all of the other martial stuff.
The only comparable builds I can think of are Spiritshifting Druids (they can only do this twice with the right items and not for nearly as long though), Zahua specifically (he can cap out his attack speed indefinitely with two-handed weapons because of his special passive, but you’d have to reforge the weapon in Durgan Steel and he can’t wear heavy armor to do it), and Rogues with spellstrike/spellbind weapons (that’s obviously burst damage though).
I’ve gotta say, I really like how Pillars Wizards are designed if my idea holds out to be true. Let me know if I’m wrong, but it’s kind of crazy that this comes online at level 5/whenever you can afford Tall Grass. I always knew the build was an option, but I didn’t think it was this good.
Edit: Ok, so I redid the math and realized that the recovery speed calc WAS NOT RIGHT (you’ve still got like less than 10f of recovery even with like 16 or above DEX in less than heavy armor), so Zahua is still the king of attack speed. However, the fact that you beat him out for pretty much the whole game (in regard to two-handed weapons) until you get his personal ability and access to Durgan Steel is bonkers since you‘ll get the Spirit Lance/Tall Grass way before you try to take on Durgan’s Battery in PoTD.