Some Sorcerer Questions

[GMilici07]

Greetings Forum Community,

I recently started playing a sorcerer, and I gotta say I love it. I feel like I have much more control over the battles, moreso than playing me melee character, and its not as stressful as playing my cleric. I decided to take the Ice route, and be a frost type sorcerer. I'm level 7 right now, and my spells are:
Niacs Cold Ray
Burning Hands
Mage Armor
Snowball Storm
Ice Lance
Web
Blur
Haste
Charm Person
I figured I should take some crowd control and buff spells as well.

I do have a few questions though:
I have a love/hate relationship with Niac's Cold Ray. I love it when it hits, but I hate that it never seems to do so. The mobs either save, or it misses them. But when it hits, it hits like a truck, usually hitting for 51 to 60 something, and critting for upwards of 110.

But I got tired of casting 4 or 5 in a row, and took Ice Lance instead, because I figured it would hit more, and at least it would always do damage, even if it was halved. Now, People have told me that if I have Ice Lance, there's no point in keeping Niac's, but I've been noticing something:
Even though it is two levels higher than Niac's, it hits for way less.
It hits for around 30 something, unless the damage is halves, which happens often, and when it crits it only crits for about 60 something. Seems like I'm wasting even more mana with trying to bring down mobs.
Is it a spell worth having? Does it start to shine once you get 3 bolts going? If I have it, should I get rid of Niac's?

Also, why does Niac's hit harder? My guess would be that it's my Improved Glaciation Helm, which increases 1st level cold spells by 30%, but I didn't think it would make it that much more powerful than Ice Lance.

Could use some opinions, sorry for the tl;dr, probably going to think of another question though I knew there was something else...

Oh yeah, any spells that I should definitely pick up or replace some of mine with?

[DarkRadiance]

May want to swap out Mage Armor for Nightshield, since +saves is a lot more useful for you than AC later on.

Are those damage values off of the same mobs? And are you only doing 30 total damage with Frost Lance, or 30 per ray? The quest difficulty and type of enemy can also make a big difference. On normal Stormcleave, I can hit fire mephits for around 50-60 per ray, but on elite they only do around 30. Then again, I can't remember if the damage values on normal were crits or not :rolleyes:

[GMilici07]

Well sometimes its around 30 damage, but sometimes its 17 on one ray and 30 on another. I'm starting to like it a bit more, just because it always does damage. I think I probably will swap out MA for night shield

[Aspenor]

It is definitely the helm, and that niacs does d10 damage. Once you get around level 8-9 you won't need niacs anymore, too many saves for no damage. Use Wall of Fire extensively, as cold and fire come together. Don't limit yourself to only one energy type.

[DarkRadiance]

Fire and ice may come together in terms of feats, but not in terms of item effects.

[Kalundan]

Fire and ice may come together in terms of feats, but not in terms of item effects.

You ofcourse mean enhancements when you say feats. When you are referring to your items, you mean lore items which add crit and crit multiplier. Potency Items are universal (I'm sure you know othe difference, but the OP might not). There is infact greater arcane lore (which covers all damage types at a .25 multiplier, with the same crit %) which is available from two high level sources(Demon Queen Raid + Skiver Colections) also two more available from one very difficult collection (Blue Dragonscale Armor) and regular arcane lore available from another easy collection (elfcrafted Robe), available at level 10.

If you must have 9% crit .5 multipliers then you will be swapping based upon your damage type. Fire, Cold, Acid, etc. Personally I would recommend doing minimal swapping so you can stay nimble and once your more seasoned and have a more versatile spell selection then you can worry about optimization. Most of the above in terms of crit items is for further into the game once you've add on a few more levels.

At low levels, carry the best potency and spell point item you can find. Once you hit 8 make sure you carry a lore item and a potency item to rock the house with firewall.

[tinyelvis]

Niacs is a great spell, one of the best. You miss with Niacs because monster roll their saves. There are ways to make your niacs very deadly and useful into high level play if you desire. You can even use this spell to great effect in giant hold areas. Some methods for improvement have been mentioned (i.e. the proper lore item).

To improve your spell DC try some or all of the following,
1. Charisma: The charisma modifier directly applies to your spell DC. Increase your charisma by starting as high as possible, apply stat boosts to charisma, optain item boost like +2 charisma helm, read a tome, and temporary potions like those in house D (note, the later not too useful).

2. Spell Level: Buff your spell level with the Heighten feat. If you want a first level spell to be usefull into higher levels then grab heighten as soon as possible and use it (suggest 3rd level).

3. Spell Focus: Spell focus and Greater spell focus in conjuration for niacs (will help your web too). This is perhaps the best way to radically improve your performance.

4. Target Selection: Learn which targets have the worst reflex saves. Niacs works best often on enemy casters, and big monsters like ogres, trolls, giants and worst on things like wolves and spiders.

To improve your damage output try some or all of the following,
1. Enhancements: Max out your fire/ice damage and crit enhancement lines.

2. Potency Item: Obtain a potency item, especially a superior potency item as soon as possible. This stacks with your enhancements.

3. Lore Item: As mentioned above get a greater ice lore item as soon as possible. dual wield this with your potency item.

4. Potion: If you do not have a superior potency item dont fear. Head to "object of desire" arcane shop in house P and get a stack of superior freeze I potions relatively cheap. Use these when needed. Note, will not stack with potency item.

5. Maximize/Empower feat: This really is not necessary and will burn thru mana fast however, if you really want to see big damage numbers (i.e. at end boss and lots of mana left) then turn these on. They actually are applied after potency and enhancements so its a big nonlinear boost.

Niacs is also great because it is easy to buff to maximum output and has a super fast cast time. Only perhaps a superior enhanced scorching ray at 11th level approaches the single target damage/mana output, and even then the niacs can cast much faster. In many cases you dont need heighten (so long as you double focus). This means you can spam this10 pts spell at targets for great success.

If you are a Drow caster, and you use most of the above suggestions you will be hitting regularly. Most of your miss complaints will disappear. Don't listen to naysayers who claim the spell is not useful past some arbitrary level point. What they really are telling you is that they just don't know how to make the spell useful. Be self critical of negative comments in forums because this is usually the reason behind them.

Edit:
If you do choose frost lance keep in mind you will lose a couple of things.
a) It will be tougher to buff it to max
b) It is a 3rd level slot and it may mean a great spell like fire ball is taken out of your inventory
c) It uses a fort save, so will not be as effective against the big guys as niacs, but more effective against spiders and wolves.
d) Mana costs are higher

[the_brigand]

Let me get this straight, you can maximize AND empower a spell at the same time?

[tinyelvis]

Yes, the two feats stack essentially into one big buff. Essentially producing two and half times the damage. What is great is, this buff is not applied to the base damage but rather its applied after your enhancement and potency buffs. In essence, you get a two and a half buff to both your base damage and your enh/pot buff damage. Very costly even at capped level where your spell points are 3 to 3.5k. There are more efficient ways to DPS targets.

[Barumar]

Let me get this straight, you can maximize AND empower a spell at the same time?

Maximized, Empowered, Heightened, Extended (turn off if in mana conservation mode :rolleyes:) FTW!!!

[ddoer]

5. Maximize/Empower feat: This really is not necessary and will burn thru mana fast however, if you really want to see big damage numbers (i.e. at end boss and lots of mana left) then turn these on. They actually are applied after potency and enhancements so its a big nonlinear boost.


disagree. Sorc without Maximize feat is a joke. Nuker build usually have both Maximize and Empower. There is a Sorcerer Improved Maximizing line of enhancement and there are items to reduce mana usage for metamagic in high level.


Maximized, Empowered, Heightened, Extended (turn off if in mana conservation mode :rolleyes:) FTW!!!

For damage spells, Extended mainly affect spells like Firewall and Acid Fog. You don't need to turn it off to save mana when you fire niac. For heighten, make sure your potency/lore item could cover your spell level. I generally don't heighten damage spells but use damage spells that has no save, e.g. firewall, polar ray etc.

[tinyelvis]

disagree. Sorc without Maximize feat is a joke. Nuker build usually have both Maximize and Empower. There is a Sorcerer Improved Maximizing line of enhancement and there are items to reduce mana usage for metamagic in high level.......


You either jumped in without reading the post or are a fool.

Niacs costs 10 pts to cast. Maximizing Niacs will double the damage for a cost of 35 pts. This is three and a half times the cost of the spell to maximize. When you consider you can cast niacs as fast as you can press a button you realize that for the cost of 2 maximized niacs, producing potentially 4 times the damage of one, you could get 7 niacs casts potentially causing seven times the damage. That is almost double the damage potential for the same price. Only a fool would maximize this unless, as I stated, you were perhaps at an end fight with tons of mana and wanted to kill your foe in 3 seconds as opposed to 6.

Now that I have pointed out to you that your statement is foolish and shown this with real numbers, its time for you to take the usual tactic of claiming....."Oh, I was not talking about that case.....blah blah blan...."

[OnyxBMW]

Now that I have pointed out to you that your statement is foolish and shown this with real numbers, its time for you to take the usual tactic of claiming....."Oh, I was not talking about that case.....blah blah blan...."

Not to defend the other person, but Empower and Maximize are still pretty potent tools, just not with Niacs.

Your example was pertaining specifically to Niacs, where empower and maximize, though potent with niacs, are inefficient and best used if you want to use niacs to dump damage (why?)

However, going off just the point that empower and maximize are relatively needed, you can use them both on any spell above level 7, really, and gain a net benefit out of it. Maybe even 6 (too lazy to do the math atm) since you will be spending 40 SP on a spell that costs 35 to do double and a half extra damage, or getting ~87.5sp worth of in a package of only 75 (in this case), a net gain. (That is without enhancements, so it only gets better with those, mind you) [OMG STATING TEH OBVIOUS!!!11!11!]

To that end, however, empower and maximize are probably the 2 worst metamagics to even be considered for any level 1 spell, and all-but require you use at least a level 4 spell with just maximize to gain any sort of actual "positive" return without a disproportionately negative return that is unfavorable.

It's, again, unfair to single him out for saying that empower and maximize are in fact necessary tools in a Sorc's arsenal, since they are potent. However, it was asinine to point out their necessity to a post directly aimed around a single level 1 spell that happens to be deceivingly potent.

[Varis]

;)
You either jumped in without reading the post or are a fool.

Niacs costs 10 pts to cast. Maximizing Niacs will double the damage for a cost of 35 pts. This is three and a half times the cost of the spell to maximize. When you consider you can cast niacs as fast as you can press a button you realize that for the cost of 2 maximized niacs, producing potentially 4 times the damage of one, you could get 7 niacs casts potentially causing seven times the damage. That is almost double the damage potential for the same price. Only a fool would maximize this unless, as I stated, you were perhaps at an end fight with tons of mana and wanted to kill your foe in 3 seconds as opposed to 6.

Now that I have pointed out to you that your statement is foolish and shown this with real numbers, its time for you to take the usual tactic of claiming....."Oh, I was not talking about that case.....blah blah blan...."

Elvis, at least when it comes to arrogance did you breach level 20 and reach epic levels :D

There is a time to max+emp and there is a time to be conservative. Just by pure numbers, nuking without metamagic give you more damage per mana.
A lot depends on that though...
- does the mob have resistance? If so, max+emp will actually be more mana efficient.
- how many regular shots does it take to kill? Poking a bear with a needle may be efficient to you... but could also very well make the cleric cry.
- are there enemy healers? Often the "mana efficient" nukes leave them time to heal up your damage.
- If you have room to kite and there are no nasty saves to be made during a now longer fight, a standard nuke is indeed the efficient way to go.
- At early levels, a regular niacs will 1 shost most anything so metas are not needed until higher levels.
- While a low level spell like niacs is not ideal to max/emp (as tinyelvis pointed out the the increase in mana is pretty bad), a higher level spell will be far more efficient.


oh and in my case at high levels, max and empower is permanently on :D

[the_brigand]

I have another question for you geniuses (compliment not sarcasm) and I hope I can be insightful enough to warrant answering...

Force Missile is a level 4 spell, Globe of Invulnerability protects against spells of fourth level and lower, Heighten Spell raises the level of a spell... Can I use Heighten Spell in order to make Force Missile unblockable by Globe of Invulnerability?
Corollary: Do a lot of mobs at high level use Globe of Invulnerability and does Mordenkainen's Disjunction or Greater Dispel remove it?

[Dretharis]

I have another question for you geniuses (compliment not sarcasm) and I hope I can be insightful enough to warrant answering...

Force Missile is a level 4 spell, Globe of Invulnerability protects against spells of fourth level and lower, Heighten Spell raises the level of a spell... Can I use Heighten Spell in order to make Force Missile unblockable by Globe of Invulnerability?
Corollary: Do a lot of mobs at high level use Globe of Invulnerability and does Mordenkainen's Disjunction or Greater Dispel remove it?

You actually see a worse version of the globe in "Mantle of Invulnerability" - it's rare, but it shows up on some bosses such as the Wizard King, and as far as I know can't be removed by anything.

You don't have to worry about that for quite some time - I think the first boss you encounter with it would be probably Temptest Spine, but that's a raid boss, and it's removed from him once someone does the puzzle anyway. Once you get up to quests like Wizard King, you can use disintegrate on the boss. Now, at times you'll encounter other annoying immunities - again, in Wizard King you encounter a few Golems, but disintegrate (or just the melee characters) can handle them.

However, Force Missiles in particular are also blocked by Shield/Nightshield - I think it's up in the air as to whether that's WaI, but for now it's something to keep in mind, albeit relatively uncommon.

As for the OP - you may want to consider resolving yourself to less of a damage dealing role until you hit level 8 and get access to firewall. Niac's as you've observed gets saved against with increasing frequency - it's usable on normal difficulties, but once you hit elite you might cast it a dozen times against trash mobs with no success. With haste (and extend, preferrably), you'll have very little trouble in finding groups until 8.

If you're adamant in using it, you can also pick up a couple of things to improve your success rate - a Conjuration scepter will add +1 to the DC, as will the feat Conjuration focus. I picked up conjuration focus early to improve niac's and web (which, if you don't have, you should almost certainly pick up - it's amazing CC, and parties will love you for it), then dropped conjuration focus at 8 for maximize.

Also, a sidenote - the potency does make a huge difference. If you were to add an equal bonus to your Ice Lance, if it's hitting an average of 30/ray, you'd get a bump up to 39/ray, or ~80 damage total. The spell gets much, much better as you level - Niacs is already capped at 5D10, or potentially 50 damage before items/enhancements, while your Ice Lance is at 2 rays and 7D8/Ray, or a max of 56/ray (30 does seem a little low for your average damage with it, by the way - DDO uses weighted dice). Once you hit 11, you'll be throwing 3 rays at 11D8 per ray, or a potential maximum of 264 per cast before enhancements.

[the_brigand]

You actually see a worse version of the globe in "Mantle of Invulnerability" - it's rare, but it shows up on some bosses such as the Wizard King, and as far as I know can't be removed by anything.


Ah yes, I just read about it too. That's ... disheartening. I will need to pick up some other spells, well, there's no force spells after lvl 4 anyway.


If you're adamant in using it, you can also pick up a couple of things to improve your success rate - a Conjuration scepter will add +1 to the DC, as will the feat Conjuration focus.

Believe it or not I am adamant about using it, there's no saves just spell penetration, the damage is fantastic and the Enhancements also improve the Repair spells line. So, Heighten Spell does not bump the spell's level as intended? (it appears to say so on the Wizard's handbook thread)

[Dretharis]

Believe it or not I am adamant about using it, there's no saves just spell penetration, the damage is fantastic and the Enhancements also improve the Repair spells line. So, Heighten Spell does not bump the spell's level as intended? (it appears to say so on the Wizard's handbook thread)

The second portion was aimed at the OP =P

You're correct, there's no save for force missiles, and there's no spell penetration for damage spells either. The question on heighten, I actually had to double check that - as far as I knew it didn't get through mantles, but I've never read about it. Here's the most recent discussion on the topic I found, with reasons why it doesn't: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=196847

A force-specced caster can certainly work, especially if you're a WF Wizard. It's just that for certain popular quests and areas, fire/cold is overwhelmingly effective, primarily due to firewall - it's difficult for melee characters to hold a candle to a caster with firewall in the Shadow Crypt, for example. At the high level content you start to see more immunities though.

I've never played a force-specced caster myself, but I've heard positive things, and you can always respec if you don't like it (or even if you want to be specced out for one spell line for say, levels 7-14, then switch it out after that). Force spells are incredibly efficient for damage/sp output once they've gotten most or all of their missles.

[tinyelvis]

I have another question for you geniuses (compliment not sarcasm) and I hope I can be insightful enough to warrant answering...

Force Missile is a level 4 spell, Globe of Invulnerability protects against spells of fourth level and lower, Heighten Spell raises the level of a spell... Can I use Heighten Spell in order to make Force Missile unblockable by Globe of Invulnerability?
Corollary: Do a lot of mobs at high level use Globe of Invulnerability and does Mordenkainen's Disjunction or Greater Dispel remove it?

Force missile is a great spell, and one of the best damaging spells (in addition to polar ray) at capped level in the end content. Heighten only effects spells with DC's. And even then the heightened spell is still considered its original level for every purpose but DC calculation (i.e. an 8th level heightened niacs will still be canceled by a globe or similar effect). One great thing about force missile is that it is efficiently maximized. That means once you decide to start running with maximize full time it will not make you anymore mana inefficient. One more thing, i noticed someone telling you to get conjuration to buff force missile. I think there was miss-communication here. No spell focus buffs force missile since spell focus only effects spell DC and forcemissile has none.

Globe of invulnerability will protect you from 4th level or lower spells. However, the globe is immobile and short duration and for most people this means a spell of little use (however, it will stop bees and some ongoing damage in "A devil you Know raid"). Oddly enough, some end bosses use a good mobile version of this spell called "Mantle of invulnerability." The game designers have decided that we cannot have access to this spell and that it cannot be dispelled by any means including disjunction on enemy. Regardless if you are willing to wait an hour it will disappear on them.

I had high hopes for Mordenkainen's Disjunction. However, it does not debuff important buffs on any end boss, or at least none that I hve found. This spell seems to be a big let down and only really useful in PVP. I finally just got rid of it for good in my spell list. Perhaps in the future someone will find a use for it.

[tinyelvis]

;)

Elvis, at least when it comes to arrogance did you breach level 20 and reach epic levels :D

There is a time to max+emp and there is a time to be conservative. Just by pure numbers, nuking without metamagic give you more damage per mana.

This statement is incorrect. Not sure how the poster comes to this conclusion because some simple math will show you the truth. In general, using maximize on spells equal to or greater than 4th level will result in the same or more damage output per mana use. For example,

Polar ray costs 45 spell points and two for double damage cost 90 points.
Maximized polar ray cost 70 points and does double damage.

As you can see, the damage/mana efficiency is higher with maximize turned on. It is my opinion to always use maximize with 4th or higher level spells. I am not surprised that this poster does not understand this idea since most casters seem to miss this point. If you get raid items and/or metamagic enhancements you can reduce the cost of maximize and make it even more efficient. Efficient mana use is an element key to being a good offensive caster.

The same sort of argument could be made for empower, however, without raid loot or enhancements it will never be as efficient as maximize. Consequetly, it is not near as important of a feat. In most cases, a caster will perform better without using the usually wasteful empower.

A lot depends on that though...
- does the mob have resistance? If so, max+emp will actually be more mana efficient.

This of course is generally not the case. A mob that say takes half fire damage still takes half fire damage whether you are using a mana efficient method of delivery or not. I just dont understand this statement.

- how many regular shots does it take to kill? Poking a bear with a needle may be efficient to you... but could also very well make the cleric cry.

There is no "needle" spells or bears for that matter in the game.

- are there enemy healers? Often the "mana efficient" nukes leave them time to heal up your damage.

There are so many factors here. This sort of blanket general statement is really rediculous. You could charm, you could PK, your could stone, you could kill them with niacs if spec'd well (niacs is deadly to most casters well into gianthold quests). It really depends on a lot of factors. These sound like comments from someone who does not know how to get their damage up on spells or which spells to use on which targets.

- If you have room to kite and there are no nasty saves to be made during a now longer fight, a standard nuke is indeed the efficient way to go.

Define standard nuke...lol.

- At early levels, a regular niacs will 1 shost most anything so metas are not needed until higher levels.

It is clear this person has never really used a well spec'd niacs if he confines its use to low levels.

- While a low level spell like niacs is not ideal to max/emp (as tinyelvis pointed out the the increase in mana is pretty bad), a higher level spell will be far more efficient.

oh and in my case at high levels, max and empower is permanently on :D

Well thats fine. I have toons spec'd to play in an a mana inefficient way like that too.


Ok, a lot of incorrect statements in this post. I suppose I am even more arrogant for pointing all of them out. However, I can think of other forum behavior that is much more distasteful than pointing out incorrectness or incompetence.

[Varis]

Ok, a lot of incorrect statements in this post. I suppose I am even more arrogant for pointing all of them out. However, I can think of other forum behavior that is much more distasteful than pointing out incorrectness or incompetence.

Don't worry elvis I'm here to help ;)



- does the mob have resistance? If so, max+emp will actually be more mana efficient.

This of course is generally not the case. A mob that say takes half fire damage still takes half fire damage whether you are using a mana efficient method of delivery or not. I just dont understand this statement.
I was thinking less of things that cast fireshield and more of "fire resist 10/20/30 like the queen, anything devil, marut, etc


- how many regular shots does it take to kill? Poking a bear with a needle may be efficient to you... but could also very well make the cleric cry.

There is no "needle" spells or bears for that matter in the game.
That's ok, I guess metaphors are also not ingame.


- If you have room to kite and there are no nasty saves to be made during a now longer fight, a standard nuke is indeed the efficient way to go.

Define standard nuke...lol.
A standard nuke is not heightened, extended, empowered or maximised... otherwise I would be talking bout a "maximised fireball" or "heightened fireball"


- At early levels, a regular niacs will 1 shost most anything so metas are not needed until higher levels.

It is clear this person has never really used a well spec'd niacs if he confines its use to low levels.
reading comprehension is a wonderful thing... I said that niacs rocks so **** much, you don't even need metamagics (maximise,empower, etc) until higher levels

:D

[ddoer]

You either jumped in without reading the post or are a fool.

Niacs costs 10 pts to cast. Maximizing Niacs will double the damage for a cost of 35 pts. This is three and a half times the cost of the spell to maximize. When you consider you can cast niacs as fast as you can press a button you realize that for the cost of 2 maximized niacs, producing potentially 4 times the damage of one, you could get 7 niacs casts potentially causing seven times the damage. That is almost double the damage potential for the same price. Only a fool would maximize this unless, as I stated, you were perhaps at an end fight with tons of mana and wanted to kill your foe in 3 seconds as opposed to 6.

Now that I have pointed out to you that your statement is foolish and shown this with real numbers, its time for you to take the usual tactic of claiming....."Oh, I was not talking about that case.....blah blah blan...."

you are right. I have overlooked your post and don't realize your are talking about Niac and Niac only, as i don't expect someone to write a long post to talk about Niac only. My comment is refer to taking the Max feat in general.

sadly, i am regret to have comment on sb with no forum manner.