Sorc Feats

[Lehrman]

My Sorc, Boliard has:
Force of Personality
Mental Toughness
Empower
Extend
Maximize
Spell Pen
Greater Spell Pen

Human, 34Cha, 2495 sps. (Archmagi and Shroud gear.) I could drop mental toughness for any other feat and have 2410 sps. On my list of things to get are:
Hieghten
Enlarge

Thats it. I have plenty of sps and now that firewalls dont stack, I probably have too many.

[Lehrman]

I'm curious, why do so many sorcerers take the Force of Personality feat? Yes, it raises your Will save by at least +10, but are people really having that much trouble with Will saves? From what I've seen, I run into a lot more problems with Fort or Reflex saves, particular at later levels. I can't even remember the last time a failed Will save caused me to die. Fort and Reflex, on the other hand, have caused numerous deaths on my sorc.

Touch of idiocy, feeblemind, hold monster, hold person, command, greater command, dancing sphere, phantasmal killer, dominate, etc. My Sorc had a problem with getting held and mauled or commanded and mauled, or feebleminded and annoyed. Swapping my lousy +4 to will saves for a +12 to will saves dramatically altered that problem. Now, there is a 5% chance that I will succumb to one of those spells whereas my previous will save was horrendous.

[Venar]

Way back before they gave us double SP from item, we sorc didnt have that much spell points. So we used what i like to call "smart casting".
What is smart casting? It's casting just enough to make things smooth.
Exemple? Open a door to a small room, 6 trolls behind.
Smart casting could be: Haste, Fear. Then let the melee kill the trolls. Or, Haste + dancing Ball.
With the improved SP, sorcs have become spoiled, and new sorc feel like they NEED to cast, so the scenario goes: Door opens: Dance Ball, Firewall, FoD, PK, FoD, PK, FoD, Pk. That last Pk is on a mob at 5%.

Seriously. How many times do you see this, stupid sorc Fingering mobs that are already almost dead, that just TAB-FoD non-stop.

These are the sorcs that will tell you to drop Heighten and Extend, and to take Empower.
But technically, if you can accept that you are in a party, a simple extended Haste with an Heightened extended Web will take care of most fights.

That beeing said, let go of Mental Thoughness. Let go of your dragonblood line. And learn to use you mana. 2k is plenty if you think about what you do.

Cast smart, get a spell Pen 7 item and a greater spell pen 6 item.

Checked out the shroud. 2 types of sorc.
The one that will finger each and every trog that pops.
The one that just cast a CK and a Dancing Ball.

Guess which runs out of SP?

[Desteria]

Way back before they gave us double SP from item, we sorc didnt have that much spell points. So we used what i like to call "smart casting".
What is smart casting? It's casting just enough to make things smooth.
Exemple? Open a door to a small room, 6 trolls behind.
Smart casting could be: Haste, Fear. Then let the melee kill the trolls. Or, Haste + dancing Ball.
With the improved SP, sorcs have become spoiled, and new sorc feel like they NEED to cast, so the scenario goes: Door opens: Dance Ball, Firewall, FoD, PK, FoD, PK, FoD, Pk. That last Pk is on a mob at 5%.

Seriously. How many times do you see this, stupid sorc Fingering mobs that are already almost dead, that just TAB-FoD non-stop.

These are the sorcs that will tell you to drop Heighten and Extend, and to take Empower.
But technically, if you can accept that you are in a party, a simple extended Haste with an Heightened extended Web will take care of most fights.

That beeing said, let go of Mental Thoughness. Let go of your dragonblood line. And learn to use you mana. 2k is plenty if you think about what you do.

Cast smart, get a spell Pen 7 item and a greater spell pen 6 item.

100% agree up to this point, well maby notthe gtr 6 item but that because my spell pen is on my robe and I dotn wan swap my hand items and the DQ refuses to give up the torq for my sorc any way ya smart casting is GREAT, on ocation i will still do the open door FoD, PK, FoD, PK, FoD, PK.... note i dotn wast SP on the web or fire wall or ball befor that but that cause it;s fun an di know i have enough SP to do it in said room or that there is a shrine commign up and i still ahev to much sp...

Checked out the shroud. 2 types of sorc.
The one that will finger each and every trog that pops.
The one that just cast a CK and a Dancing Ball.

Guess which runs out of SP?

Here I dissagree for a few reasons:
1- Discoball for some reason causes a LOT of people to lag in part 1 of the shroud.
2- With a decent group even as solo Sorc caster IT is very posible to FoD every trog and NOT run out of SP, at least any tiem i run it though to behonest a few will get vorped befor i get to them and the cleric tend to Destruct a few to not that I'm tryign to let them just when 3 spawn at once I can only cycle FoD/PK so fast and if 2 clerics and my self all target a dif one at the start we all gona kill one each or if we get new spawns at the portal beign fought they often get killed by melle because i'm off preping the next portal already... and way the FoD every trog thign does work as solo caster with 2 it;s a joke SP shoudl never be an issue.

SO to answere the question "Guess which runs out of SP?" the answere is Nither and the foD guy didnt cause half the raid to lagg to heck and back.

[Merkinsal]

Way back before they gave us double SP from item, we sorc didnt have that much spell points. So we used what i like to call "smart casting".
What is smart casting? It's casting just enough to make things smooth.
Exemple? Open a door to a small room, 6 trolls behind.
Smart casting could be: Haste, Fear. Then let the melee kill the trolls. Or, Haste + dancing Ball.
With the improved SP, sorcs have become spoiled, and new sorc feel like they NEED to cast, so the scenario goes: Door opens: Dance Ball, Firewall, FoD, PK, FoD, PK, FoD, Pk. That last Pk is on a mob at 5%.

Seriously. How many times do you see this, stupid sorc Fingering mobs that are already almost dead, that just TAB-FoD non-stop.

These are the sorcs that will tell you to drop Heighten and Extend, and to take Empower.
But technically, if you can accept that you are in a party, a simple extended Haste with an Heightened extended Web will take care of most fights.

That beeing said, let go of Mental Thoughness. Let go of your dragonblood line. And learn to use you mana. 2k is plenty if you think about what you do.

Cast smart, get a spell Pen 7 item and a greater spell pen 6 item.

Checked out the shroud. 2 types of sorc.
The one that will finger each and every trog that pops.
The one that just cast a CK and a Dancing Ball.

Guess which runs out of SP?

All three of these spells are 45sp apiece. Three trogs per spwan = 135sp for three fingers or 90sp for Dk and DB, but the trogs often don't stay in the ball long enough, even with max Spell Pen and DC, and that requires more spells. Sure you can draw them back in the DB with the agro and jump around while they die in the CK but the sorc also has to handle usually two or sometimes three portals at a time and can't be jumping around in just one. I have not seen a shroud run in quite a while the sorc is asked to use DB and CK. Maybe it's the lag issue as well, but Fod works out much better from what I can see. A sorc and a ranger make a good team for roving portal duty and the sorc usually will have enough sp sharing kills that way. DVs help of course. If all the above fail, the sorc can draw the mobs to the group or chug a pot. You could make the argument the CK and DB will stay up thru two spawnings and that would be quite a job managing that on two portals. Their rangers don't go back into the CK after they escape and there are a lot of those.

Your analysis of Mental Toughness is right on. There are a couple of good quests out there, Coalescence Chamber on elite for one, that require good spell choice and sp conservation by a sorc. With only one shrine, finishing with sp for the final fight is a great challenge. If anything requires a sorc to be selective and effective in their casting, that is certainly one.

I don't think most sorcs cut down mobs with low hps on purpose. Sometimes it's the accidental timing and sometimes its to save the cleric sp if the fighter is taking a beating and taking too long. And, sometimes a melee's job is to hold agro off the sorc so they can spam fod.

[frugal_gourmet]

I don't think most sorcs cut down mobs with low hps on purpose. Sometimes it's the accidental timing and sometimes its to save the cleric sp if the fighter is taking a beating and taking too long. And, sometimes a melee's job is to hold agro off the sorc so they can spam fod.

I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally fingered a near-dead bad guy and felt like an idiot. Yeah, it happens. Sometimes just as the spell is going off a fighter whacks the living hell out of the mob you have targeted.

[Pyromaniac]

Checked out the shroud. 2 types of sorc.
The one that will finger each and every trog that pops.
The one that just cast a CK and a Dancing Ball.

Guess which runs out of SP?

The CK/Dancing Ball Sorc in the shroud will:
-Lag some of the party, reducing overall party effectiveness
-Not kill a lot of mobs as the melee on the portals will be tempted to whack on the stuck mobs, which means part 1 takes longer
-Some mobs will make their save running all over the map chasing the sorc. This leads to bezerkira, orthons, portal keepers and maybe a party wipe.

The FOD Sorc in the shroud will:
-Kill all trash mobs so nothing more difficult spawns
-Not run out of spell points if they are mostly specced for instakill

I'd pick the FOD Sorc.

[jscott457]

With all due respect, that is absolutely wrong. It is the "gambler's falacy" and one big reason Las Vegas has such nice hotels

Wikipedia Quote:
"The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the false belief that if deviations from expected behaviour are observed in repeated independent trials of some random process then these deviations are likely to be evened out by opposite deviations in the future. For example, if a fair coin is tossed repeatedly and tails comes up a larger number of times than is expected, a gambler may incorrectly believe that this means that heads is more likely in future tosses.[1] Such an event is often referred to as being "due"."

In other words, each time that mob rolls to beat the unheighted web he has just as good a chance to beat it "each roll". His chances do not get worse becasue he has to roll to beat three webs. He has just as good a chance to beat it all three times as the first. Just as for example my chances of flipping tails are not any better if I have rolled heads 10 times in a row or once in a row already.

There is no substitute for good odds. More shots with bad odds are no substitute and in fact does not work.

If you want dc spells to hit, heighten is absolutely neccessary. No question, no debate. Math is math. 2 + 2 = 4.

Gambler's fallacy...important concept...grossly misapplied here...

Suppose with a heightened spell, the mob saves on an 11 (10 out of 20 or 50%). Suppose without heightening, the mob saves on 5 (16 out of 20 or 80%).

The chance that the mob fails at least one save when given three chances at 80% is 48.8% (= 1 - 0.8^3) [This is clear once you realize the chance of making three consecutive saves is 0.8^3]

So if the question is would you rather have a mob that has to make three saves each at 80% or make one save at 50%, the answer is ... you would rather force the mob to make the three saves! (with an overall save chance of ~49% vs. 50%)


Suppose the mob makes the first two saves at 80%, what is the chance of making the third save? Well it is of course still 80%. Falling victim to the gambler's fallacy would cause you to think that because he made the first two he is more or less likely than 80% to make the third. This is very very different from assuming multiple chances at lower odds is somehow guaranteed to be inferior to a single chance at high odds.

Of course if saving vs. a web gives web immunity for a period of time, then all bets are off! (but that is not relevant for the probability discussion)

JS

[FluffyCalico]

Your list pretty much proves that Wiz does have 1 advantage over us which is feats. We simpily can't take all the good ones. The wiz can.

[FluffyCalico]

The only time you should be casting multiple Spheres and Fogs is in Reaver. Multiples of those in Shroud or VoD are beyond wasteful. You might as well, at that point, be throwing Extended Mage Armor on yourself.

Well I can think of 1 reason to toss more than 1 in those places. If you are trying to **** off whoever has a borderline PC

I think fog DB and prismatic hurt slow PCs more than anything else you could cast.

[FluffyCalico]

I'm curious, why do so many sorcerers take the Force of Personality feat? Yes, it raises your Will save by at least +10, but are people really having that much trouble with Will saves? From what I've seen, I run into a lot more problems with Fort or Reflex saves, particular at later levels. I can't even remember the last time a failed Will save caused me to die. Fort and Reflex, on the other hand, have caused numerous deaths on my sorc.

1) You always notice what you fail on more than what you succeed on as people hate being dead.
2) You do know that there is a very nasty level 9 spell comming that is will based that hoses your magic gear (which all of it is at level 20)
3) Most will spells are more annoying than deadly

[Desteria]

Your kidding right? Web is like one of the most useful spells I've ever encountered. I still use it in Vale works great against devils and the like.

Also it's great to use in conjunction with the heighten metamagic.

I begin noticing Web not hitting well around level 4 in the Harbor without help.

Well tecnically at level 4 in harbor web will actuly suck sorta, because your largly casting it against kolbolds a +dex race with favored class of rouge strong Ref save... basicaly they prolly have some of the highest ref saves in the game VR's monster level. But once your fighting most high level moster have low ref saves, and combined with highten WEB becomes a BEAST of a CC spell

[FluffyCalico]

Well tecnically at level 4 in harbor web will actuly suck sorta, because your largly casting it against kolbolds a +dex race with favored class of rouge strong Ref save... basicaly they prolly have some of the highest ref saves in the game VR's monster level. But once your fighting most high level moster have low ref saves, and combined with highten WEB becomes a BEAST of a CC spell

Web is great. For those of us who have been here a long time. Remember back to when web origionally came out? It was the sole CC for most casters. It's currently in a highly nerfed form of what it used to be. But even in it's current nerfed form its still very powerful.

[Desteria]

Web is great. For those of us who have been here a long time. Remember back to when web origionally came out? It was the sole CC for most casters. It's currently in a highly nerfed form of what it used to be. But even in it's current nerfed form its still very powerful.

Oh i rember pre nerf Web, it was great, though i also alsways had hypno wich rocks the weak willed kolbolds

[Xylitol]

1)
2) You do know that there is a very nasty level 9 spell comming that is will based that hoses your magic gear (which all of it is at level 20)

Think about that if that spell would be just like in PnP. That spell really destroys your magic in magic items (change them to normal). High lvl content would be "no magic items" and all players would quit

[DragoonPenguin]

My take:




The two Spell Pen feats are critical, as every Finger of Death, Fear or Suggestion that fails to bypass SR is more than just a waste of SP - it's a potential partywipe if it happens at the wrong time.

hahaha youre joking right? lol in what twisted universe does a trash mob pose any threat to you?

[Desteria]

hahaha youre joking right? lol in what twisted universe does a trash mob pose any threat to you?

when it;s the cleric that then poroceds to spam comitfall & Greater comand on the whole group keepign you all perma on your but untill you are all dead

[Monkey_Archer]

My sorc's current feats:
Spell pen
Greater spell pen
Maximise
Empower
Extend
Necromancy focus 1
Necromancy focus 2

I have been putting off getting heighten though... cant decide if i really want to pay and extra 5 sp for the same DC on my finger of death

I would definately reccomend replacing necro focus with heighten though.

[Samadhi]

Wow several -

MT and IMT; just not needed on a sorc, period. The percentage jump in mana is so minimal as to be a huge waste.
Force of Personality - do you really need to worry about saves that much?? Aggro management FTW - other than the occassional greater command you shouldn't even need to be making will saves that much.

What you NEED -
HIEGHTEN - this spell is must-have for any caster that is ever going to do crowd control. Take it and never turn it off.

Other good feats -
More spell pen is always useful.
Enlarge is really nice, IMO, but I could see having trouble fitting it in in general. Given the feats mentioned above though, looks like you have room.
Maximize - Much better than empower. Most sorcs have both, and it looks like you can fit both. If you are just going to use one though - use maximize.
SF UMD - If your UMD is approaching heal scroll / no fail limits, then I would say go for it. If not, then this is probably secondary for you.

[Desteria]

My sorc's current feats:
Spell pen
Greater spell pen
Maximise
Empower
Extend
Necromancy focus 1
Necromancy focus 2

I have been putting off getting heighten though... cant decide if i really want to pay and extra 5 sp for the same DC on my finger of death

I would definately reccomend replacing necro focus with heighten though.

Level 18 comming soon, get highten then and gain 2 MORE dc on Finger and you cna kepe the focuses, also highten will make soem other spells MUCH more effective higten web IS sweet, a Highten hyipno before you finegr every thign will keep a whole group still while you pickthem off one at a time