State of the Sorcerer

[frugal_gourmet]

Personally I don't get it. If I am going into a quest I do everything I can do to finish no matter what it takes if I got it. I had never heard so much whining in my life. Maybe I'm just an idiot but the idea of knocking the board off the table because I don't like the way the game is going seems lame. Of course I have not finished a quest before, but in VoD we were all alive and well until the clerics decided they had had enough. I don't know anybody who believes a cleric only ever carries around a few majors. Maybe that's practical as a cleric, to pull out at the first sign of trouble if you run that quest alot. As for me, thats the last time I'll be handing out buffs like that. 6 per person times 12 party members times deaths times expirations times portals. Never heard about those kinds of demands on a sorc before.

I'm the same way with resources. I have a mana potion sitting there and if I we need, I will burn it gladly. I'll do anything to win the quest.

I will admit that I'm new to the game. Maybe that's why. I've just gotten to the top level with my first character (a sorcerer, of course). I had a blast getting here. There's something different now, though. There are many leaders who demand that I do things, which is cool in general because I'm relatively new. Ironically, though, I find that they are rarely much better than I am (despite my newness), and the strategy I was leaning towards in the first place was perfectly applicable. It's expensive to retrain my sorcerer and can require many days of waiting. I don't like every single new leader demanding I pick a different spell that happens to be their one and only strategy for beating the quest.

One thing I am not new to is PNP D&D. And, I will say, evey good DM finds a way to help feature and use the skills of as many character types as possible in nearly every quest. I'd love for a bit more of that.

I guess I just don't find the end grind as much fun as I hoped. I find the end games players way more irritating and overly serious about the game than the players on the way up here. I love playing as a team, but I also feel that now I am expected to follow a template rigidly without deviation. I doesn't feel like adventuring to me. It feels .. well.. kinda dull. Especially after I've already done the same thing a bunch of times.

I guess I have a few more months to see if I stick with the game or not. At times I love it, but at times it drives me nuts.

[transtemporal]

Dancing ball useless? well, not quite for me.. its a question of duration: often i will drop one where i know something will spawn so i can come back and kill it when i am done doing something else (esp in part1 shroud).

Discoball works fine in quests but I think the reason it isn't encouraged in shroud/vod is mostly because of the lag factor (and partly the visual factor as well, can be hard to see through multiple discoballs and fogs).

Its almost gotten to superstition levels now... people think if you don't have lag, you're golden. Don't go attracting the lag monster by casting discoball...

I notice that many many sorcs are still not doing much debuffing. When not on my sorc, I have been in many reaver/shroud runs were no-one casts debuffs on the named... even when there are multiple casters in the group. I mean, not even a ray of enfeeblement which lands nicely off a clickie!

Ha ha, I'm totally guilty of this. My theory is that people who play sorcs are into instant gratification. If we weren't we'd play wizards. Basically if we can't see a cool visual effect or see an icon appear on top of a mobs head or see the mobs bar go down immediately, its a wasted spell. Debuffs require sorcs to rely on others to capitalize on them. *shiver*

I got stoopid enervation and waves of fatigue... but I won't like it...

[transtemporal]

They make their save against that *every*darn*time* we had 2 clerics trying that last time around and i think 1 of those devils got blinded.

****! Oh well, I'll stick to healing and BB.

[transtemporal]

In Vod the leader asked me to get some Glitterdust scrolls. I cast that on top of Solid Fog and Web. I couldn't see anything through all the aoe and have no idea if the Glitterdust was bypassing will saves or not. It is a level two spell and unheightened on scrolls so I doubt it worked too well. Once again I beg the devs for longer and saveable combat logs.

Glitterdust is interesting but I wouldn't have thought that would work from a scroll in vod. Proof is in the Poison maybe. The leader probably saw it cast by someone with the spell, saw it work and thought the same effect would be produced by a scroll.

Is GD subject to SR? Does anyone know? I can't remember and it used to be one of my favorite spells. As you say though, along with acid fog, you wouldn't be able to see a **** thing in there. I'm tempted to try it though, lol.

[transtemporal]

6 per person times 12 party members times deaths times expirations times portals times rest shrines. Never heard about those kinds of demands on a sorc before.

I agree. In my (admittedly limited) experience of the two raids, it seems to be standard to assign one caster to resists/GH/blur/haste/displace/reconstruct and one caster to fogs, webs and debuffs. Its not really practical to get one caster to do everything. Unless you've only got one caster.

Personally I don't get it. If I am going into a quest I do everything I can do to finish no matter what it takes if I got it.

You're a better person than me Merkinsal. I've learnt that I have a threshold and generally it can be measured in terms of resource usage (XP loss and party wipes are part of it too but not as much).
If I've used 1/4 of my expendable resources in a quest on normal difficulty, then I'll be getting close to calling it quits.
If I've used 1/2 of my expendable resources in a raid on normal difficulty, then I'll be getting close to calling it quits.
The use of those resources can be particularly pronounced on my clerics because some players use clerics as a crutch for their bad playstyles (thats a generalisation Merk, I'm not referring to you ). Those thresholds tell me that the group probably doesn't have what it takes to complete the quest/raid without completely bankrupting me (and probably everyone else).

[Merkinsal]

I agree. In my (admittedly limited) experience of the two raids, it seems to be standard to assign one caster to resists/GH/blur/haste/displace/reconstruct and one caster to fogs, webs and debuffs. Its not really practical to get one caster to do everything. Unless you've only got one caster.

Then I should probalby look at GH as a spell instead of a scroll and swap in blur, but I probably will not. I have the fogs, webs and debuffs and some aoe for the bats. But, that is good information to know.

I have only been on this one Vod and there were two casters but the leader did not intend to take two. My initial job, as he explained to me when I sent the join request, was to handle crowd control and I was to be the only caster. We ended up with two and he asked the group in general who had reisists and protects and there I was, alone in the silence (no one else spoke up which I thought strange at the time). I should have done something different about how many buffs to give out. Funny, few ever seem to be asking for buffs in shroud and do just fine.

You're a better person than me Merkinsal. I've learnt that I have a threshold and generally it can be measured in terms of resource usage (XP loss and party wipes are part of it too but not as much).
If I've used 1/4 of my expendable resources in a quest on normal difficulty, then I'll be getting close to calling it quits.
If I've used 1/2 of my expendable resources in a raid on normal difficulty, then I'll be getting close to calling it quits.
The use of those resources can be particularly pronounced on my clerics because some players use clerics as a crutch for their bad playstyles (thats a generalisation Merk, I'm not referring to you ). Those thresholds tell me that the group probably doesn't have what it takes to complete the quest/raid without completely bankrupting me (and probably everyone else).

I'm just foolish. I would rather burn thru mats, finish, and moan about it later lol than not finish at all. Like you, playing my clerics much longer may break me of that attitude soon enough, but I hope not. I don't want to be thinking, "How many more mats do I use before I call quits." My sorc at end game doesn't seem to have any trouble with gold. I thank alot of clerics and never seem to run out, but then I can't afford those ah prices for some of those uber items either.

[Merkinsal]

Human 16 sorc
28 points

8 -> 15
8 -> 9
16 -> 24
10 -> 16
8 -> 9
18 -> 38

Maximize, Empower, Heighten, Extend, Spell Penetration, Mental Toughness

299 Hit Points
2505 Spell Points

For all the talk about max spell pen, maybe we do have a feat to burn after all, Spell Pen 2, in the end game. Asp swapped his out for mental toughness. This post is from another thread.

I'm not sure just where the end game starts The thread does not really say. The last mod? Vale? In any case, hope you don't mind me copying this and pasting here big guy, but alot of us are very interested in what you do

[Pyromaniac]

Personally I hate AOE in hounds as it draws aggro to my caster - but each to their own. I have fun enervating and FODing the mobs in hounds myself. No loot in there anyways for my caster so I've got to do something to make hounds fun to do.

[Aspenor]

For all the talk about max spell pen, maybe we do have a feat to burn after all, Spell Pen 2, in the end game. Asp swapped his out for mental toughness. This post is from another thread.

I'm not sure just where the end game starts The thread does not really say. The last mod? Vale? In any case, hope you don't mind me copying this and pasting here big guy, but alot of us are very interested in what you do

Personally I have several reasons for dropping Greater Spell Penetration (feat).

1. I now have solid fog and web, and no dancing ball. As neither spell has an SR check, they are superior to max spell pen instakills and dancing balls. (I keep heighten on all the time now for web)
2. Even with max spell penetration and a spell penetration 7 item, monsters in the new content (read: Subterrane) still require spell penetration rolls of >5 at the least, and after that only seem to fail their save <50% of the time with heighten and 38 charisma. Due to this combination, it is my opinion that using spells subject to an SR check and requiring a fort/will save is a waste of my time and spell points.
3. Even if I decided to run Vale quests on elite, web is still superior for controlling devils and other teleporting outsiders.
4. The additional spell points from mental toughness can be used for buffing and crowd control, and greater spell penetration is only useful when using spells that have an SR check. As I don't use these spells as much as previously, it makes sense to have more spell points to use for spells I will use often.

I would consider end-game to be Vale, Shroud and Subterrane.