Which de-buff should i be using?

[Ryan220]

I have a L17 WF Earth Savant - my first Sorcerer and the first Arcane ive taken to this level.

Im absolutely loving him because his damage output is great and his survivabilty is superb.

Anyway onto my question about de-buffs - which ones should I be using? Acid Fog, Cloudkill or Waves of Exhaustion? These are the ones i can currently think of that I have.

Its all well and good blasting everything, but I cant help feel that sometimes my SP might be better spent on debuffs that aid the melees too.

Any advice most welcome

[FrozenNova]

Acid fog and cloudkill don't really aid the melees.
They deal (fairly low) damage, and provide concealment - which isn't really an issue for trash. If you think that enemy heavy hitters are a problem, that sp would be better spent on displacing the melees.

Waves of exhaustion is, against trash, an area slow - which is really more for your benefit if you're kiting them, the melees don't care.
Against bosses, it's -3 damage and to-hit - definitely worthwhile for an ac tank, good on multi-hit bosses like lailat with any tank.

If you can't kill everything in a few seconds and the melees are in danger of taking damage, just throw down a disco or web where appropriate - the melees don't really need debuffs.

[Jiirix]

If there is to much trash for the melees to take down at once web is your best freind. Acid spells don't burn web away. If you are facing a boss without true seeing displacement is the best aid for melees.

[Cogdoc]

I have a L17 WF Earth Savant ...*snip*... Its all well and good blasting everything, but I cant help feel that sometimes my SP might be better spent on debuffs that aid the melees too....*snip*

Aid the melees? When Maximized Empowered balls of pure death clean out rooms in one or two casts? What aid would they need? STR buff to pick up all the loot from corpses maybe....:)

These strange spells called debuffz are only needed on raids, and even there sometimes its ok to only have a clicky for it (solid fog in HoX for example). Also buffz and debuffz are so wizard, sorcerers are selfish and just burn everything to death in the shortest time possible.

Cogdoc

[Ryan220]

Aid the melees? When Maximized Empowered balls of pure death clean out rooms in one or two casts? What aid would they need? STR buff to pick up all the loot from corpses maybe....:)

These strange spells called debuffz are only needed on raids, and even there sometimes its ok to only have a clicky for it (solid fog in HoX for example). Also buffz and debuffz are so wizard, sorcerers are selfish and just burn everything to death in the shortest time possible.

Cogdoc


My previous frequently used alt was a Bard which probably explains why I want to help the melees out. Subconciously I must be wanting them to kill more so that I can pike

[Cogdoc]

Ah, that explains your approach.

Wizards are a bit more of a buffer class, having a larger selection of freely interchangeable spells. I can picture a wizard buffing out all his sp on the party and pike, but if a socrerer does that, I would seriously question the skill of the player. Sorcerers should be the ultimae aoe dps class, very convenient to have them around to quickly kill trash, and keep up endless dots of pain on bosses.

Cogdoc

[Eilierie]

Ah, that explains your approach.

Wizards are a bit more of a buffer class, having a larger selection of freely interchangeable spells. I can picture a wizard buffing out all his sp on the party and pike, but if a socrerer does that, I would seriously question the skill of the player. Sorcerers should be the ultimae aoe dps class, very convenient to have them around to quickly kill trash, and keep up endless dots of pain on bosses.

Cogdoc

yea until your lvl 15 earth savant pulls aggro off lvl 20 tank with a Melf SLA on elite Stormreaver after you finger the air elementals :eek::p:cool:

[Cogdoc]

For all those cases, I can only offer the words of my former guild leader in EQ: "You spank it, you tank it!"...:)

[Paleus]

Getting debuffs on a sorcerer can be a hard choice because some of the best ones are found in some tight spell levels. Crushing despair, for example, is a solid will debuff that is in spell level four competing with things like ddoor, ice storm, firewall, stoneskin, etc.

I would first choose what save you want to attack. While leveling you may have a decent enough DC to land against the will saves of mobs, so crushing despair or hypnotism might be good choices when followed up immediately by mass hold or ottos sphere. Some people stack mind fog on top of that.

A second choice is to attack reflex saves with solid fog or waves and follow that up with web.

Also, to emphasize an underlying point, you are not using the debuff just for the debuff. You are using the debuff to compensate for your likely to be less than stellar DCs when landing CC. Queue people posting about how their pimped out sorc has awesome DCs which is besides the point. While as a sorc you can get good crowd control with some gear and debuffs, while leveling few things crowd control better than flat out killing the mobs with your spells of doomity death.