Who still running alchy or sorc as a main build?

[redoubt]

I tried a couple arrangements post nerf on my alchy, but did not care for them and TR'd out. In the past couple weeks I cannot remember seeing any sorcs or alchys. I'm sure some are out there.

If you are still playing one (as a main, not just for a past life), please give a shout here and a brief description of the build. (i.e. fire dps sorc, poison/negative alchy etc.)

[Lonnbeimnech]

i was a fire sorc on my main...

anyway I've been running a bunch of R10s in pugs and there is always a sorc in group, running in magister and mass-holding/glacial wrathing/prismatic spraying mobs.

its now a support class, again

[Valerianus]

i was playing fire sorc pre-nerf and still playing it post nerf. atm doing racials + etr cycles.

but you know, i'm a lazy casual vet. so don't take me seriously. few days ago a friend of mine was a bit upset, he asked me how much damage with your energy burst and i answered, the truth...i don't know. don't look numbers. i press buttons, stuff dies. not because i'm a sorc, but because i'm a vet. but casually, didn't even tried. sorc trees are outdated and weird btw. it's just that the game dumbed it all down with moar mobs and nuked stealth with moar mobs guarding small paths with doors that don't open till they dead...so...the answer is dumbing my game down spamming aoe without even looking at how much damage i am doing.

running racials + etr. sorc is really good for tr. the nerf fans don't realize meteor swarm kicks in only at lvl 18 cause they are clueless, are just satisfied to know "sorc has been nerfed, lol take that sorcs" they are detached from reality. also, no ravenloft belt in heroics, who cares. no real difference.

in epics it's messing the rotation i feel clumsy. also not happy to lose 200 spell power, it was cool to have 1000+. 4-digits was cool. you can have 4-digits anyway but i'm too lazy, i'm in the 850 range now. i prefer burst of glacial wrath cause it's an evo cc over master of fire, i mean, i hit meteo, dbf..and then? meh poor dps options, slas or scorchig ray lol dunno. well to be fair it's a problem in raid, but no raid leader ever has said " we need dps let's form an all caster party". caster sustained raid boss dps was always a no-go, nothing new. but the nerf ppl are clueless about this too.

in high reaper, if i am the only caster, better switch to magister for cc dc, sure. also this is nothing new. if i am the only arcane in party, better cc is better contribution obviously.

gear as before, i play snowy korthos cause the grotto is my favourite quest and then i just go on. random loot cause it's fun. at level 5 fey gear. lvl 8 a couple of slavers. lvl 10 raven set. lvl 15 sharn set + cannith crafted. lvl 20 sentient borderlands stick. lvl 23 upgrade the lvl 15 cc that's charisma, const, spellpower stuff. at 29 the magic happens. atm instead of raven belt i wear that sharn belt with insight false life just because. waiting for level cap raise to redo gearset. using esoteric + 4 winter + 1 lgs for critical, cause that's what i had in bank toons, it's working and happy with it. as i mentioned, lazy. also i like, instead of ek medium armor, to go illusionist till free enlarge + vistani deflect arrows. i know it's not what's popular but don't care. i'm not top and don't care but it's working.

i'm clueless about alchemist, sorry, played it only once as inquisitive for completionist. if you ask me about nerfs, i'll say they damaged the clueless ppl that were asking for them as always, not the players that know what they are doing. even casuals like me.

(for reference, all tomes, heroic completionist + several triples, some triple iconics, epic completionist + some more, reaper points i can't remember, did i mention i don't care about numbers? something like the critical part is getting all the cha\dc\spell pen and dc boost and the +100 hp core, the rest is just an extra. yes i am a casual. playing 10+ years on and off, in a 10 years time span this list is a casual player achievement, just being real)

[PedXing20]

Long time caster player here. Main was a sorc for eons, then I moved to alchemist and fell in love with the play style. Most of my time was spent in R10 quests (gear pretty well optimized, racial/heroic completionist and a bunch of other PLs, ~90 reaper points).

After the nerf I tried to stick with alchemist but the changes disrupted my flow dramatically and combined with the DPS nerf I wasn't able to do the same things I used to and eventually moved on.

I'm on khyber and don't see as many alchies in R10 as I used to. Still see sorcs but they're CC/Insta-killers. I don't see arcane DPS really at all any more :(

I'm of the opinion that alchemists and DPS sorcs were overpowered in heroic and low reaper content but reasonable in R10 questing - not the optimal builds (melee is king in R10) but good enough that they contributed. The changes made them useless in R10.

As an FYI - https://www.playeraudit.com/servers - is an awesome site that gives you the stats you're looking for vs anecdotal evidence.
Props to Clement of Thelanis for putting it together and keeping it running.

[LeoLionxxx]

I JUST TRed out of alchemist on Sunday, but that was mostly because I got my alt to cap and felt like my gearset was out of date.

As an alch at cap, I was mostly just raiding, so I didn't notice a lot of difference post-nerf. I found the single-target DoT spell to be a good addition to my rotation. My CC, instakills, and off-healing were still great, so I still felt very effective for raiding, and continued to have fun with the playstyle!

I'll confess though, I didn't do much regular questing as an Alch post-nerf, so I can't speak to how different it was on the mow-down-mobs side of things.

[Avocado]

YES!! Alch is still awesome. I smash through R8s still, R10 is rough. All be it doom reaper dps is bad now but effective killing power hasnt changed much.

[FuzzyDuck81]

I don't really run reaper but one of my mains is an alchemist - I never really liked bombardier, a bit too boring, but having a blast with apothecary with secondary in illusionist & fatesinger destiny, it does a mixture of dps (inflict admixtures, energy burst, DoTs vs. bosses, fan of shadowblades), crowd control via ice, glue & salt, blinding via cindersmoke, frog instakills, healing & curative stuff. Also have the option to go into magister if I need to maximise DCs though that comes with a pretty hefty drop in spellpower.

[redoubt]

Wow...

Sounds like alchy and sorc are done for dps, but can still be used for CC.

[MaeveTuohy]

i was a fire sorc on my main...

anyway I've been running a bunch of R10s in pugs and there is always a sorc in group, running in magister and mass-holding/glacial wrathing/prismatic spraying mobs.

its now a support class, again

In an effective team, isn't everyone a support class?

[Lonnbeimnech]

In an effective team, isn't everyone a support class?

That would be an ecumenical matter.

[boredGamer]

Wow...

Sounds like alchy and sorc are done for dps, but can still be used for CC.

My main is still alchy. Mostly because it still crushes R1 for gear farming and I haven't had time to reroll her yet. DPS isn't completely dead, but CC/heal/insta is definitely the stronger thing to be doing most of the time.

[AbyssalMage]

I've seen 3x Ice Sorcerers and 1 Alchy since the nerf (all are primary Raid toons, grouping second). Although to be fair, the Alchy is waiting to TR once he has the time to do the dash back to 30 in a weekend with some of his guildmates.

[Carpone]

Alchemist and sorcerer nukers are fine in all aspects of the game, except for high end reaper. In R10, you're better off bringing a DC instakill sorc with 150+ necro who doubles as a tank for red-names.

[blarhblarhblarh]

Still running sorcerer because I enjoy it and I am finishing racials. I never tought sorcerer was OP in endgame, think it´s very strong in heroics but this is the way D&D set the party roles.


I added in my spell rotation a eletric spell and this is how I solved the issue. To me the worse is waiting for cooldowns, even a bard spellsinger cast at will and keep on casting, having to wait to cast spells with a sorcerer took the fun out of the class. Would like to move on to alchemist but playing an alchemist doesn´t give me the D&D feel so... will try something else since SSG didn´t nerfed sorcerers and alchemists, they nerfed the nuler party role.

[Wizard1406]

What I find more problematic than the meteor nerf and spell power nerf are the extremely high reflex saves and so many mobs have evasion now. Even those that didn't use to have it. Was that really necessary? Most arcane spells without a reflex save don't do much damage as a sorcerer or they cost a lot of SP. How is this in PnP? Rats and spiders and archers (a simple archer fighter, not rogue or ranger) all have evasion?