Critique wanted

[Thailand_Dan]

Hey Guys! I have a Level 11 WF sorc. Higest toon: Level 12 Bard, but my Sorc is quickly catching up and becoming my main toon. I do not really plan out builds, as my style of play is choose as you go. However, I would love advice for improving my sorc, as well as ideas where I went wrong for builds in the future. Who knows, I may even plan out a build before I roll it someday. I solo a lot in the dessert (and I did in sorrowdusk and Tangleroot before I completed it). But, I also like group play.

Main weapon: Maximized and/or Empowered Fireballs (Depending on mob), and of course Firewall.

I have included every bit of info I can think of, probably too much. All comments are welcome.

Level 11 WF Sorc

STR 11
DEX 10
CON 15
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 24

TM Rank
BAL 0 0
Bluf 7 0
Conc 5 1
Dip 7 0
DD n/a n/a
Hagg 21 7
Heal 0 0
Hide 0 0
Intim 8 1
Jump 2 2
List 0 0
Mov Sil 0 0
Open L n/a n/a
Perform n/a n/a
Repair 6.5 .05
Sear 0 0
spot 11 1
Swim 0 0
TUmb n/a n/a
UMD 9 2

Feats
Attack
Composite Plating
Defensive Fighting
Empower Spell
Force of Personaility
Heroic Durability
Light Fortification
Magical Training
Maximize Spell
Mental TOughness
Simple Weapon Prof
SNeak
Sunder Trip
Warforged Immunities

Spells
Level 1: Chiil TOuch, Jump, Exp Retreat, Magic Missle
Level 2: Blur, Invisibility, Repair Moderate, Resist Energy
Level 3: Fireball, Haste, Heroism, Protection from Energy
Level 4: Ice Storm, Stoneskin, Firewall
Level 5: Cloudkill, Cone of Cold

Enchancements
Sorc Improved Maximize I
SOrc Concentration I & II
Sorcerer Lineage of Elements I & II (Fire/Cold)
Sorc Lineage of Force I (Repair/Force)
Sorc Lineage of Deadly Elements I (Fire/Cold)
Spell Elemental Manipulation I, II, III, IV (Fire/Cold)
Sorc Force Manipulation I (Repair/Force)
Sorc Eneger of the Dragonblooded I, II, III
Sorc Charisma I, II
Sorc Wand and Scroll Mastery I
Warforged Constitution I
Warforged Damage Reduction I
Warforged Hardiness I
Warforged Healer's Friend I
Warfrged Mechanic I

Action Points Spent/Available: 42/42

Gear
Head: Nothing (Looking for Affordable Charismatic Helm)
Necklace: Switch between Bear's Endurance clickie and Haggle item
Trinket: Pearl of Power VIII
Cloak: +3 Char
Belt: +1 Str (Not Stackable), Moderate Fortification
Ring: FF ring (Gold, Not STK one)
Gloves: +3 Str
Boots: 15% run speed
Ring 2: Empty
Wrist: +5 repair
Docent: +5 Lesser Arcane Docent (-5% Arcane Spell Failure)
Goggles: +10 spot
Primary Hand: +1 Greater Fire Lore Scepter (+9% Crit hit, +0.25 to spell critical damage multiplier, +1 enhancement bonus)
Secondary Hand: +2 Superior Potency IV Septer (4th lvl and lower spell effectiveness increased 50%, +2 bonus to attack and damage)

Other Weapons:
Dual Muckbanes, +2 Frost light crossbow of Precision, and a few other weapons I really need to get rid of, as I never use them (ie cursespewer, pure good mace of righteousness, Frost mace)

Other things in my pack
Repair serious pots, Detect secret doors wand, Repiar Moderate wands, +1 Deathblock Docent, a few firewall and Dimentional Door scrolls, Blind Ward goggles

Plat: close to 100K (or a million gold)
HP: 86
Spell Points: 1255
A/C: 17
Fort: +6
Reflex: +3
Will: +14
Base Attack Bonus: +5
Fortification: 100%
Damage Reduction: 1/Adamantine
Alignment: Lawful Good

A good place I would love advice is on gear. Please make note of how much plat I have when giving suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

[Thailand_Dan]

One additional thing. Its a 28 pt build, and suggestions along those lines would be good, as I have not yet unlocked 32 pt builds. Thx

[Atax]

Attributes
Firstly, we should see your attributes (str, dex, con, etc) without any equipment or enhancements.

If you had planned to take Force of Personality, you could've left your wisdom super-low, like I did. (Mines at a 6, and unless I roll a 1, I succeed every will save) Assuming you bumped it to 10 at the start, you could've used those points to move Con up to an 18.

I can't really tell by looking, because I dont know what your base is for them.. but it seems the rest of your statistics are fine.

Skills
Your skill ranks are all over the place. It's not a HUGE issue.. but it essentially weakens your character overall to not have things minmaxed.

.5 repair is a waste when you can reconstruct
1 spot is better spent elsewhere, though not necessarily a waste if you had maxed it. (If spotting is what you want to do.. usually rangers/clerics/rogues do it fine)
1 Intimidate is a huge waste, considering its a cross-class skill AND a sorc should never be intimidating stuff.. Nor would you need to when you'll always have aggro.
2 Jump is also a waste because you'll have a lv1 slot open for Jump

1 concentration means you seriously suck at casting while being hit. Essentially, you'll be disrupted every time you're running from a group of mobs after a Fb/Fw. To counteract this, I suggest dropping the feat Mental Toughness (which only adds a minute amount of mana for a sorc, which is wasteful) and picking up Quicken. Quicken lets you drop spells very quickly AND makes them uninterrupted.

2 UMD is a waste because you didn't max it out. If you maxed out items and bonuses to UMD with only 2 ranks in it, you might be able to equip RR stuff.. but you definitely wont be using raise dead scrolls and other divine goodies.

Feats
As stated, I suggest removing Mental Toughness and getting Quicken. If you don't like it, you can always trade back.
You have 2 feats left (12, 15), and your best options are:
-Spell Pen/Greater Spell Pen (+2 to spell penetration EACH FEAT. Very helpful, because once you get to lv12+, lots and lots of mobs have SR.)
-Heighten Spell (Raises your spell's innate-levels up to the highest you can cast. A lv1 charm monster becomes a lv7 charm monster, which means it's DC is raised by 6 also. It also makes all spells heightened cost as much as a lv7 spell. Believe me, heighten is essentially REQUIRED if you use spells with DCs aside from FoD.)
-Enlarge Spell (Increases the casting range of certain spells. You can PK/FoD from a mile away. This feat, however, is only for personal preference.. I wouldn't suggest it to everyone. If you are interested, you can do some very neat stuff with it.

Another option is extend, but I find extend is only useful for three things: 1 Low level buffs, since they dont last long. 2 Crowd Control spells. 3 Haste. At higher levels, your buffs last forever anyways.. and if you dont CC much, extend might be a waste.

Spells
Generally speaking, your spells look good so far. You look like you've chosen to be a nuker, exluding crowd control, charms and other stuff. Since expeditious retreat doesn't stack with haste, you might want to drop it for, say, Nightshield.. which gives resistance bonus AND blocks magic missiles. (From pesky missile-spamming mobs like Raksashas and Warforged in VoN4) Totally up to you, though, it won't make or break your build.

When you hit lv12, pick up reconstruct FIRST. Believe me, once you have reconstruct, you wont need any other repair spells.. so you'll be able to drop repair moderate and grab SCORCHING RAY, which you should already have. (Scorching ray outdamages fireball per-hit for single targets, its GREAT. Even on fire-resistant mobs like Orchard golems, you can 2 shot them.)

When you get high enough, grab disintegrate.. its your tech answer to anything fire & cold resistant (Golems!) Once I got that, I soloed wiz king like a breeze. (Previously, I was using tensers + masters touch + smiting mace)

Enhancements
Some good choices, some bad. What you need to do here is the same thing you need to do in skills: Stop spreading points all over and focus. Your spells and feats indicate that you will be a world-class nuker.. so let's pump up how big your crits hit for.

I suggest dropping these:
-Sorc Wand and Scroll Mastery I
-Warforged Damage Reduction I
-Warforged Hardiness I
-Warforged Healer's Friend I
-Warfrged Mechanic I

They're all useless for you. Pump up your FIRE/ICE crit range, then your FIRE/ICE crit multiplier.

Gear
Finally, your gear. You need a bit of updating, my friend. You firstly need a better charisma item. You can easily afford a +5 with your money.. they go as cheap as 1,500 plat on AH, depending on when you buy.

You need a resistance item. +4 resistance will do for now, but look on getting a +5 or +6 when you can muster it.

Go to the orchard and start doing tapestry runs. If you have a guild or friends to help you, you can get 20 taps in 1-2 runs. You'll trade them in for the famous Minos helm, which gives Heavy Fortification and Feat: Toughness (boosts hp). If you don't want those, get a good concentration helmet.

Get a good CON item, like +4/+5/+6, whichever puts you at the highest even number of con. Also, if you can, get a Improved or Greater false life item. HP is important! Its your HP and self-healing advantage over other [drow] casters.

Pop 7? Pop 10 is EXPENSIVE, but try to get a pop9.. should be alot cheaper. If you can't, get a magi weapon for 4k plat off a broker and use it to buff yourself, then switch to your damage weapons. (Be sure to re-equip before shrining)

For your docent, I suggest this: get a fearsome docent, get a deathblock docent. Use the fearsome docent until you can get the blue dragonscale (Which means you'll have to invest 1 Action Point into getting rid of that annoying 5% failure, but who cares?). Fearsome is AMAZING for casters.. just be sure to unequip it when you fight bats or lots of creatures you have to kill for a Q.



Well that's that, I might have overlooked some stuff.. if you're on Thelanis, send me a PM on the forum and I might be able to help you out.

[Thailand_Dan]

This toons on Sarlona, but thank you very much for the comments. Excellent advice, and points very well taken.

- Concerning concentration, at lower levels it was easy standing behind the melee and popping off a magic missle or burining hands, killing everything, and then moving on to the next mob. However, Gianthold quests are proving to be a bit more of a challenge, as 20 things start coming after you, with little place to hide. I guess I'll shop the AH for a concentration item.

- I really cannot remeber putting a single point in Intimidate (as I know better than to do this), but the numbers say I put 1 in there somehow. The 7 I believe is from a piece of gear (which I failed to mention).

- The reason I use +10 spot goggles is due mainly to soloing wilderness areas. I like to see the mobs, before they see me. With move silently and hide stats at a minimum, a high spot seems to be important, especially for mummies. I can take them down in 1 shot (not even maximized) before they try to fear me or cast fire protect, which will require a second, or sometimes even a third shot to kill. I have been trying to find a fear immunity item on the AH, but they all seem priced at 20K plat and up. I can afford this, but would rather find something cheaper. A fear immunity item would make this less of an issue, atleast in situations with mummies.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to look through all my stats and offering your comments.

[Atax]

I have a -2 spot and -2 listen and its true that I can't see a damned thing. Though I have no trouble with this because of blur + stoneskin + haste + high saves (greater heroism from planar gird + 5 resist item + Force of personality means my saves are all decent and my will is nigh impregnable). I generally run through things hasted and jumping.. when I get enough mobs, I just firewall and hop back and forth. Anything fire immune gets CoC/Disintegrated/PK/FoD.

Its really personal preference, I suppose. The big three sorc skills are UMD, Balance and concentration (if you don't use quicken all the time).

[ShadowFox1978]

Fear immunity shouldn't be an issue. Cast greater heroism on yourself(scrolls are pretty cheap if you can't fit it in your spell list), Ghero grants fear immunity. There are very few mobs(Ice giant is the only one I can think of) that both dispell and cast fear.

[Thailand_Dan]

Thanks guys. Marked improvement already seen. Added a +5 char ring, adding some spell points. Pulled a +2 CON item from the Crucible today. I would rather a +3/+4/+5 item, but hey it did jump up my hps a little. In addition, I pulled a +2 Lesser Arcane Docent of Lesser False Life in House of K. This brings total hp to 102.

In addition, added a +10 concentration helmet. Already noticed I was hitting succesfull concentration checks, where before I usually missed.

The second poster mentioned I can spend 1 Action Point to get rid of 5% spell failure, so I can switch to a fearsome docent. What enhancement is this?

About 30K to level 12, planning on picking up reconstruct. On the look out now for a higher CON item, greater false life item, and a +5 saving throw item.

Anyone know what is better for casters with A/C's in the teens...Greater False Life item (+30 hp) or Moderate Fort Belt (For a WF, giving full fortification)?

[Atax]

http://compendium.ddo.com/index.php/...cribed_Armor_I

Warforged Inscribed Armor I

Glad to hear you see positive improvements. My WF Sorc (lv14) is sitting on 210hp with 18 base con + 6item + Improved False Life + Toughness (Minos helm) + 1con (WF enhancement. Im only taking 1 point of this in preperation for a +1tome. When I get a +2 I can change enhancements.)

Once I have a con tome, Greater false life and shroud HP items I will be pretty close to 300.

[Thailand_Dan]

Coming along great. Picked up a +4 CON necklace. A Docent of Heavy Fortification (this makes little sense to make a docent like this, as it now shows 125% fortification in my character sheet, but oh well). Greater false life belt and +5 Charisma ring also added. Leveled to 12 and took reconstruction.

HP: 146
SP: 1375
With Full Fortification.
A +4 or higher Cloak of Resistance is the last thing I am really looking for (as essentials) to upgrade my gear at this level. HUGE DIFFERENCE to a couple days ago. I'm running so well, I am tempted to roll up another Sorc to correct earlier mistakes. But, I am trying to hold off until I unlock 32 point build. I also took WF Inscribed armor to get rid of the 5% Arcane failure.

Whats great is my toon has improved so much, my plat hasn't gone down at all. I spent a day looting Giant caves, a little in the desert, whisperdoom, and The Pit which paid for all the gear I bought. Also pulled a muckdoom FINALLY!

Thx again for the advise, it has helped tremendously.

[Atax]

No problem matey. Look into running Orchard for tapestries - with a friend helping you, it would take about 2-3 runs around to get 20 of them (Or if you're lazy, just buy 20 for 20k plat). Minos Legens helm is Heavy Fortification & Toughness (feat).. and looks badass. Then you can make room in your docent slot for a fearsome/deathblock/blue dragonscale.

Glad you've seen improvement!

[Thailand_Dan]

This will probably be my last post on this thread, but I just wanted to thank Atax again. I never realized the difference a few, fairly inexpensive items could make.

Here is where my toon stands on gear now:

HEad: Minos Legens
Necklace: +4 CON
Trinket: PoP 8
Cloak: +4 CHA
Belt: Greater False Life +30 hp
Ring 1: Feather Fall
Gloves: +5 STR
Boots: +20% Striding
Ring 2: +10 Concentration
Wrist: Lesser Restoration 5 clicks
Docent: +3 Fearsome
Goggles: +10 spot

As a result:

Hp: 160
SP: 1373
Full fortification, and fearsome.

My hp has almost doubled in 1 level and I have sp grown by more than 100. Hopefully I can pull a PoP 10, or find a magi club.

A buddy showed me how to hit 5 rares (if they show up) per run in the Orchard. After a few runs, I was soloing the run in under 10 minutes. Took a few hours to hit 20 taps, but I got there. However, I made about 50K plat from the other pulls while looking for taps. My gold now stands at 130K plat, as a result. I think the Orchard is going to become a regular looting ground for my toon.

I never realized how much room for improvement my toon had. Thx again!