Sorcerer Avoiding Traps w/o Rogue Levels?

[kineticdreams]

Greetings!

I have successfully TRed 2 ranger lives and 1 paladin. I have never played a caster and want to attempt a mostly sorcerer toon this time. I have been reading the forums and considering options. This led to a few questions.

First a few general details:

- I am going to choose warforged for my race for the self-healing benefits
- I mostly adventure alone, sometimes with a hireling and sometimes solo, so survivability is key
- I plan to take this toon to lvl 20 and then TR again, so Epic survival is not really an issue, but I do plan on Heroic Elite content

The questions:
1. My previous three lives have included 2 levels of rogue so I could find and disable traps. I am considering ditching the rogue levels for the first time, but am not much of a twitch gamer. Just how difficult is it to survive traps without the rogue skills? I have seen post by Thalone on "Trap Damage Mitigation/Avoidance" which was useful, but it still worries me. Would choosing the Electric Enhancement tree with Wind Dance make surviving traps a lot easier?

2. I saw Rogann's scorcher build (18 sorc/2 FvS) and it made a lot of sense to me with all the fire damage adding up. If I do ditch the rogue levels I am strongly considering the 2 FvS levels. This build relied on fire with force as a backup. Is force really a good enough second option for fire immune enemies or should I consider putting some points into a 2nd element (electric, cold, or acid)?

3. I have also thought of trying to have it all (16 sorc/2 FvS/2 Rogue). This way I could disable traps (I have a 36 point build so could have 16 CH, 18 CN, 16 IN to get enough skill points). Would having only 16 levels in sorcerer hurt my DPS too much? I am not too worried about save DCs as I could focus mainly on the spells that have no saves like scorch ray, burning blood, wall of fire, etc.

Thanks in advance for the help. It is appreciated!

[Thalone]

Speak the name of the devil...

With the PRR/MRR updates, it's become much easier to run through traps. If you're set on WF, consider Adamantine or Mithral bodies with ASF reduction either through enhancements or gear. If you have Sapphire Augments of Defense, those can help too.

As for your questions: the impetus for my making that thread was going through a life as a PM Wizard without trap skills, while dualboxing a second account (worse scaling). With knowledge of where the traps are and how to avoid or mitigate the damage, they shouldn't prevent you from successfully completing heroic elite content. If you have wings, then you will spend less time in the trap damage zones, and it helps, but it certainly isn't necessary.

A good rule of thumb for any caster is to bring a lot of tools. The Force spells I usually use are Disintegrate and various Magic Missiles. I have found the Magic Missile damage to be anaemic, and Disintegrate is single-target with a longish cooldown. It's a good idea to have AoE spells of all element types just in case. (Note that Cloudkill is an underappreciated spell against living enemies.)

My personal preference with casters is to multiclass less and stay as pure as possible. My Sorc TR lives will generally be Arti 1 then rest Sorc. Any more splashing delays unlocking spell goodies. If you do end up picking Sorc 16/FvS 2/Rog 2, this would probably mean you're doing Vale with just 14 Sorc levels. Going Fire with that setup in Vale would be pretty painful, despite Just Reward, due to the prevalence of fire resistance there. If you have other levelling content, you might have to run that instead. My personal experience levelling an ungeared WF Sorc solo through the Vale was pretty painful, and I was pure (though in a bad element, acid).

[Sehenry03]

Greetings!

I have successfully TRed 2 ranger lives and 1 paladin. I have never played a caster and want to attempt a mostly sorcerer toon this time. I have been reading the forums and considering options. This led to a few questions.

First a few general details:

- I am going to choose warforged for my race for the self-healing benefits
- I mostly adventure alone, sometimes with a hireling and sometimes solo, so survivability is key
- I plan to take this toon to lvl 20 and then TR again, so Epic survival is not really an issue, but I do plan on Heroic Elite content

The questions:
1. My previous three lives have included 2 levels of rogue so I could find and disable traps. I am considering ditching the rogue levels for the first time, but am not much of a twitch gamer. Just how difficult is it to survive traps without the rogue skills? I have seen post by Thalone on "Trap Damage Mitigation/Avoidance" which was useful, but it still worries me. Would choosing the Electric Enhancement tree with Wind Dance make surviving traps a lot easier?

2. I saw Rogann's scorcher build (18 sorc/2 FvS) and it made a lot of sense to me with all the fire damage adding up. If I do ditch the rogue levels I am strongly considering the 2 FvS levels. This build relied on fire with force as a backup. Is force really a good enough second option for fire immune enemies or should I consider putting some points into a 2nd element (electric, cold, or acid)?

3. I have also thought of trying to have it all (16 sorc/2 FvS/2 Rogue). This way I could disable traps (I have a 36 point build so could have 16 CH, 18 CN, 16 IN to get enough skill points). Would having only 16 levels in sorcerer hurt my DPS too much? I am not too worried about save DCs as I could focus mainly on the spells that have no saves like scorch ray, burning blood, wall of fire, etc.

Thanks in advance for the help. It is appreciated!

Well I LOVE playing a sorc and leveled many of them up. Main question is are you gonna get to 20 and TR or go for 28?

If just going for 20 then I would just go pure sorc. Max Cha and Con on your WF. You most likely have a general idea of where traps are so you can easily avoid most of them. Being a WF with max con and taking AP's increasing HP's and maybe even taking toughness (I take it then swap later) you will have TONS of HP's as long as you keep a good con item and false life item on. You can easily live through most traps for 1-2 shots from it. The only thing that tended to kill me each life was doing Wizking and hitting the lever that caused a force trap to go off so I took full damage and might get killed. No other traps were a big deal.

If going for 28 then think of your build a little more. The Sorc/FS is a decent one. I LOVE fire builds but you will still keep disintegrate handy and things like AoE electric/Acid spells handy for fire immune mobs. Fire does not work well in the vale so without a group that gets tough but there is tons of content to do.

[Sunnie]

The Air Savant enhancement tree gives you access to Wind Dance (I think it's called) at tier 5 which is a really great help in getting past traps even with minimal twitch skills. Of course, if you go for that you won't get all goodies from the fire savant tree. Still, it might be something you'd want to consider at least.

[kineticdreams]

Thanks for the insightful replies everyone. Thalone, I had no idea citing your username would work as a summoning spell!

I think you all have convinced me to tone down the multiclassing. Artificer is the one class to which I don't have access, but maybe one rogue level? I am on the fence as it would be nice to grab the capstone in one of the elements. Now, just to figure out which element(s) to choose as from what I have read in the forums they all seem to have benefits and limitations...

[Michele]

You can get an "infused chaosdocent" that gives +10 reflex saves and +1 evocation augmentation. It's the best docent for caster warforged in heroic content

[goodspeed]

Definitely grab the adamantine plating and grab the spell failure gear for it. U'll be this armored death tower shrugging off melee and magical blows.

Ah its so much fun wearing heavy on a bathrober lol.