The Sorcerer's Handbook: A Guide to Building and Playing Sorcerers

[spymasterx]

Thanks for the Guide Aspenor, I just started playing a week ago and rolled my first Sorc using your guide.
I roller a WF sorc and having tough but fun time w/ him.
The only thing I would disagree w/ you about so far is Niacs for a damage.

[Aspenor]

Thanks for the Guide Aspenor, I just started playing a week ago and rolled my first Sorc using your guide.
I roller a WF sorc and having tough but fun time w/ him.
The only thing I would disagree w/ you about so far is Niacs for a damage.

On a WF it may be a good idea to use Shocking Grasp, as it has no save.

[spymasterx]

I rerolled and went w/ Magic Missile.It never misses,good range,no save for damage and so far nothing has resisits to it. And w/ Maximise Spell it does nice damage.
My complaint about Niacs is that most things save pretty often and there is alot of undead in the 1-3 lvl quests and Niacs does 0 damge vs undead and those ice spiders.
Your advice on Hypno was right on, It works nicely.
Thnks again for the guilde.

[daniel7]

You could perhaps rank the races according to survivability for new players or for new casters. Often I see posts that say something along the lines of "I never could level a caster past level 4". Perhaps you should strongly suggest wf for new casters for the extra hp and self healing capabilites.

[Valtar]

It's been a lot of fun reading this thread, which is a valuable one for anybody new to playing Sorcerers. It seems the most posts, however, have been the Drow vs. Human vs. Warforged argument.

The primary advantage of the Drow is their stat advantages over 28 point builds, and slightly better DC's and spell points. Their disadvantage is mostly related to survivablity.

The primary advantage of the Human is their extra feat, extra skill points, and somewhat improved survivability over Drow, and they have no real disadvantage.

The primary advantage of the Warforged is their much improved survivability, both hit points and immunities, and their better self-healing. Their disadvantage is their inferior DC's and spell points.

The main (rather amusing and vitrolic) assertions of the Drow camp are the much better offensive power of their favored race. The main (rather amusing and vitrolic) assertions of the Human/Warforged camp is the better survivability of thir favored race, primarily at higher levels.

It seems to me, both sides are looking at the question from a soloers point of view, and exaggerating the differences. I suspect Drow can survive in the end game and Warforged pack plenty of offensive or casting punch.

My advice would be, first and foremost, play the race you enjoy, in the manner you are most likely to actually use. If you are a power gamer who will reach the end game with certainty and want to squeeze every last ounce of usefulness out of your character, and have no friends or guildmates to buff/heal/taunt/protect you, a Warforged makes a lot of sense. If you may or may not reach the end game and have good friends who will make up for your shortcomings surviving tougher encounters, maybe Drow is better. If you just prefer humans, and relish the extra feats and skill points, by all means play a human.

In the end, player skill and familiarity with the quests will ultimately be the biggest factor in which Sorcerer is most effective. Sure, all things being equal (including skill levels), one build may prove overall more effective than another. I don't know who is right, and really don't care.

My question is, did you have fun? I suspect most would answer, "yes".

Finally, how much will things change when Mod 9 comes out, new items/quests/spells are released, and the level cap goes up to 20? I'm sure there are many opinions... and all of them right. Sometimes.

[tinyelvis]

Is this guide to making a mediocre caster still alive? I am guessing the OP'r has actually learned a bit about playing sorcerers by now and is even embarrassed by what he wrote back then.

Best to let this one die off. I don't think anyone can take much of it serious anymore.

[Aspenor]

Is this guide to making a mediocre caster still alive? I am guessing the OP'r has actually learned a bit about playing sorcerers by now and is even embarrassed by what he wrote back then.

Best to let this one die off. I don't think anyone can take much of it serious anymore.

You're still here? I thought you'd gone running with your tail between your legs. This thread lives, and remains pertinent. Much moreso than the gibbering drivel you posted here. I remain correct, and stand by my assertions made within this thread. You, however, were so ignorant to actually believe Polar Ray has a save and DC's make a difference in its usage. Therefore, nothing you say can be taken seriously.

Furthermore, this is not a "mediocre" caster by any means. You, my friend, are a mediocre caster. The fact that you don't even know how spells function is enough evidence for that to be conclusive. I find it amusing that you can't handle the fact that you're something special. Nobody knows you, nor cares what you think.

Also, FWIW, if you haven't noticed the majority of people agree that this is a well-done guide. The only people that don't feel so are the ones that actually get butt-hurt that I disfavor drow.

[Crarites]

*will do lower levels when I get around to it*

End-Game Targets
Head: Minos Legens
Neck: Tier III Green Steel HP item / Talisman of the Silver Flame
Goggles: Supreme Tyrant Green Steel Goggles of Positive Energy (or Air) : Wizardry VI, +150 SP, +6 Charisma-based skills
Trinket: Head of Good Fortune / Litany of the Dead
Robe: Blue Dragonscale / Dragontouched (Resistance +5, Spell Penetration VIII, Glacial Assault)
Bracers: Bracers of the Glacier / Bracers of the Demonic Consort / Tier III Green Steel HP item
Gloves: Gloves of the Glacier / Seven-Fingered Gloves
Cloak: Stormreaver's Napkin
Belt: Belt of Brute Strength
Boots: Feather Falling Boots / Green Steel Boots of Useful Effect (Negative boots for immunity, fire absorption boots for Abbot, etc.)
Ring 1: Constitution +6
Ring 2: Swappable item slot depending on situational Need (blindness immunity, poison immunity, etc.)
Main Hand: Skiver / Superior Potency VI / Greater Potency VII
Off Hand: Supreme Tyrant Green Steel [Weapon] of Air (or Positive Energy) : +6 Charisma, +1 Charisma, +2 Charisma

Asp, about the new eq in mod 9.

Just to clean-up my thoughts some more now that i'm not distracted.

Head: Minos Legens
Neck: Tier III Green Steel HP item / Talisman of the Silver Flame

Will you combine these 2 slots? so you can add the warchanter set here? superior potency 6 is nice on neck and freees up your hand for skiver + stat item all the time.

Goggles: Supreme Tyrant Green Steel Goggles of Positive Energy (or Air) : Wizardry VI, +150 SP, +6 Charisma-based skills
Trinket: Head of Good Fortune / Litany of the Dead
Robe: Blue Dragonscale / Dragontouched (Resistance +5, Spell Penetration VIII, Glacial Assault)
Will you switch around your armor? move boots of innocent to feet gfl to eld + con or str tempest? Also do you see value in the glacial set at all if you can equip both the bard set and savant set?

Bracers: Bracers of the Glacier / Bracers of the Demonic Consort / Tier III Green Steel HP item
Gloves: Gloves of the Glacier / Seven-Fingered Gloves
Cloak: Stormreaver's Napkin
Belt: Belt of Brute Strength
Boots: Feather Falling Boots / Green Steel Boots of Useful Effect (Negative boots for immunity, fire absorption boots for Abbot, etc.)
Ring 1: Constitution +6
Ring 2: Swappable item slot depending on situational Need (blindness immunity, poison immunity, etc.)
Main Hand: Skiver / Superior Potency VI / Greater Potency VII
Off Hand: Supreme Tyrant Green Steel [Weapon] of Air (or Positive Energy) : +6 Charisma, +1 Charisma, +2 Charisma

[tinyelvis]

Ok you got to be kidding me. This guide is so amateurish. There is almost not a paragraph with poor information in it. In some places you miss the mark completely. At best, these comments are merely personal preferences of yours.

Lets look for the nonsense in each paragraph,
Para 1: -

There aren't enough useful skills in DDO to give intelligence-based spellcasters a worthwhile benefit.

There are lots of useful skills UMD, concentration, intimidation, hide, move silent, tumble, spot, jump, diplomacy, and haggle to name a few. If we could we would max out all of these. Depending on play style a sorc will want to select as many as desired.

Racial Comparison
From an OP perspective, there are really only 3 races to choose from when building a sorcerer. These races and their benefits are as follows:
This is rediculous rubbish, any race will make a good sorc. You dont even have a solid understanding of the differences between the most common sorcs races.
- Human - The human sorcerer has the advantage of extra skill points. There are only a few useful skills for a sorcerer, Typical dribble from you. The Drow has a better intel in effect canceling this benefit.
but having the extra skill points makes it easy to optimize Additionally, the bonus feat humans receive at level one can be a major bonus throughout the course of the life of the build. Why dont you point out that the human can boost its charisma by 4 points with enhancements while the other races only 3.
- Warforged - Although the warforged sorcerer suffers a penalty to his primary casting stat, he also gains a racial boost to his second most important stat, constitution. This is really only true for rookie casters. The more rookish the caster, the more constitution is needed. Additionally, the warforged sorcerer finds his racial immunities and arcane magic-powered self-healing to be extremely useful.
- Drow - The drow sorcerer gains a racial boost to his primary casting stat, a "free" skill point for his racial boost to intelligence, but suffers a penalty to his constitution. The Drow will also effectively have more points to spend on enhancements than either the warforge or human.

My opinion -
In my honest opinion, there are only two races from which sorcerers should be built, from an OP perspective. These races are human and warforged. The drow sorcerer will be quite a bit more squishy than either of these racial choices, and only gains +1 DC over a human and a few spell points for his lack of hit points. He gains +2 DC over the warforged, but will be quite a bit less survivable due to the warforged's easy self-heals and racial immunities/toughness. I am glad you pointed out that this is your opinion because the constitution. Your squishy argument and hit points makes little sense. A rookie caster playing a drow will set his con to 14 while a very experienced WF player might set his con to 10 or 12. By your strange logic then, the WF is quite a bit more squishy when in fact squishy is really a function of play style.

Stat allocation
A sorcerer will almost always want to max his charisma, unless you are building a melee/sorcerer hybrid. This is not true. Some players may choose to forgo all DC related spells. This option may in fact become more popular with Mod 9 and the ridiculously high saves. In this case charisma need not be max. Again, this is up the player not some cornball statement from you. This thread is not going to discuss these hybrids. The second most important stat is constitution. Constitution governs the sorcerer's hit points and fortitude saves. In general, constitution is only important for newer players. I think we all know where you fall.

From a min/max OP perspective, these are the main two stats to be worried about. You can forget almost everything else.
- Strength: Strength gives bonuses to melee to-hit and damage. What kind of idiot full spellcaster hits anything with a weapon? There are plenty of good times for a caster to use a melee weapon. For example, when you stone a foe, you hit it with at least a dream spitter to quickly kill. The only use for strength to a sorcerer is to prevent being rendered helpless by strength damage. This can easily be avoided by drinking bull's strength potions at low levels, and wearing a strength item at the higher levels. Don't waste those precious stat points.

- Dexterity: Dexterity gives a sorcerer a higher armor class and higher reflex saves. However, beyond the lowest levels, the sorcerer is wasting his time by trying to have armor class and reflex saves. He has resistance and protection spells to make up for his clumsiness. He has stoneskin and displacement to make up for his lack of armor class. The ranged touch attack does not exist in DDO, thus making dexterity useless for all those ray spells. You seem really clueless here. Dexterity modifies some very useful skills.....namely balance, hide and move silent. Further, a dexterity bonus to saves need not be a trivial thing. Again this depends on a players desires. If you make just one critical reflex save you will end up sparing more HP's than you gain with constitution. When death comes to a sorcerer, it is usually due to a missed reflex save or balance check. For example, you miss you finger of death attack on the enemy cleric and he drops a comet fall on you. Or, you are solo'n reaver and an elemental knocks you down.
- Intelligence: A sorcerer should only take enough intelligence to have enough skill points to max ranks in 3 or 4 chosen skills. Where do you get this nonsense. The number of skills a caster chooses depends on his desires. It can range from 1 to many. My recommendation is 3 skill points/level, you may wish to have 4. Five skill points per level is a waste of stat allocation points.
- Wisdom: Wisdom gives a bonus to will saves for a sorcerer, and that's all it offers. Sorcerers have the high will save progression, and thus allocating stat points to wisdom is more often than not a waste. If you are really worried about those will saves, take Force of Personality to add your charisma bonus to will saves instead of wisdom. This is not necessarily bad advice, however, everyone does not wish to use a feat on this save. It is an important save. Next to dex based save failures, will save failures come in second as sorcerer killers.

Skill Point Allocation
First, you will want to make choices on which skills you wish your sorcerer to have. The following skills are, generally speaking, the only useful skills for a sorcerer.
-Concentration: This skill is of utmost importance to any sorcerer, despite the availability of the Quicken Spell metamagic feat. Nonsense, this skill is only marginally important. Perhaps given your play style this skill is important and in that case by all means add points to it. Quickened spells cost a lot of extra spell points, and you don't get hit every time you cast a spell. Running around with Quicken on all the time is a ridiculous drain on spell points for little benefit. Maximize your concentration skill at all times.
-Use Magic Device: Use Magic Device (or UMD) is probably the single most powerful skill in DDO. A sorcerer uses his UMD skill to have access to divine spellcasting via scrolls. A sorcerer, with his high charisma, can easily raise dead, or with UMD boosting loot resurrect his party members. A fleshy sorcerer with high UMD can easily heal himself with heal scrolls at high levels, and at lower levels can use wands for cheaper healing (and faster healing, when used in combination with potions).
-Diplomacy: Diplomacy is the twitch-players backup for armor class. Diplomacy drops the sorcerer to the bottom of a monster's aggro list for 6 seconds, and it has a 6 second cooldown. You'd have to be dense to not see the synergy there, and the usefulness of the skill. Though not a complete waste of skill points, this skill is usually only marginally effective, especially in the hands of a rookie caster. Relying on diplomacy as an aggro management technique is a sure way to death,....only 6 seconds later. Diplomacy use is an advanced technique and I would not recommend for the novice.
Sorcerer's get a lot of aggro throwing fireballs all over the place. With the simple press of a hotkey the sorcerer can shed all aggro onto either a more sturdy party member, or a charmed monster lackey. It's charisma-based, and thus sorcerers can use it to great results even though it's not a class skill.
- Intimidate: You, as a player, may decide that you WANT aggro. You may want to be able to grab it all to group monsters up for one big blast. You may want it to keep monsters cooking in your walls of fire. Whatever the reason, intimidate is another great skill. It's not for everybody, but can be supremely useful. It's charisma-based, and thus sorcerers can use it to great results even though it's not a class skill.

You skipped the most important skill, balance and the second most important jump. Also what about hide and move silent. Tumble will also be useful come mod 9. I am not saying all casters need these skills but depending on play style they may be the most important to them. Your somewhat arbitrary selection of skills is sad.

[Aspenor]

If my opinion is "amatuerish," so is yours. Get over yourself, champ.

[Aspenor]

Lets look for the nonsense in each paragraph,
Para 1: - There are lots of useful skills UMD, concentration, intimidation, hide, move silent, tumble, spot, jump, diplomacy, and haggle to name a few. If we could we would max out all of these. Depending on play style a sorc will want to select as many as desired.

Hide? Move Silently? Useful? You've just revealed your knowledge right here. At no point in this game are these skills more useful than just destroying. Haggle? Roll a bard. Tumble? Yeah right.

Racial Comparison
From an OP perspective, there are really only 3 races to choose from when building a sorcerer. These races and their benefits are as follows:
This is rediculous rubbish, any race will make a good sorc. You dont even have a solid understanding of the differences between the most common sorcs races.

I do. Yes, any race can make a good sorcerer (if the player is good). You completely fail to comprehend how to synergize racial features, however.

- Human - The human sorcerer has the advantage of extra skill points. There are only a few useful skills for a sorcerer, Typical dribble from you. The Drow has a better intel in effect canceling this benefit.

False. The drow must spend build points to gain the benefits of more skills. The human needs not waste his build points on INT.
[QUOTE=tinyelvis;2307409] but having the extra skill points makes it easy to optimize Additionally, the bonus feat humans receive at level one can be a major bonus throughout the course of the life of the build. Why dont you point out that the human can boost its charisma by 4 points with enhancements while the other races only 3.
Another point for human. I didn't mention it yet because I haven't done the enhancements section.

- Warforged - Although the warforged sorcerer suffers a penalty to his primary casting stat, he also gains a racial boost to his second most important stat, constitution. This is really only true for rookie casters. The more rookish the caster, the more constitution is needed. Additionally, the warforged sorcerer finds his racial immunities and arcane magic-powered self-healing to be extremely useful.

This thread is written for rookie casters, ones like you.

- Drow - The drow sorcerer gains a racial boost to his primary casting stat, a "free" skill point for his racial boost to intelligence, but suffers a penalty to his constitution. The Drow will also effectively have more points to spend on enhancements than either the warforge or human.

Proof?

My opinion -
In my honest opinion, there are only two races from which sorcerers should be built, from an OP perspective. These races are human and warforged. The drow sorcerer will be quite a bit more squishy than either of these racial choices, and only gains +1 DC over a human and a few spell points for his lack of hit points. He gains +2 DC over the warforged, but will be quite a bit less survivable due to the warforged's easy self-heals and racial immunities/toughness. I am glad you pointed out that this is your opinion because the constitution. Your squishy argument and hit points makes little sense. A rookie caster playing a drow will set his con to 14 while a very experienced WF player might set his con to 10 or 12. By your strange logic then, the WF is quite a bit more squishy when in fact squishy is really a function of play style.

False, again. More meaningless dribble with no evidence to back it up.

Stat allocation
A sorcerer will almost always want to max his charisma, unless you are building a melee/sorcerer hybrid. This is not true. Some players may choose to forgo all DC related spells. This option may in fact become more popular with Mod 9 and the ridiculously high saves. In this case charisma need not be max. Again, this is up the player not some cornball statement from you. This thread is not going to discuss these hybrids. The second most important stat is constitution. Constitution governs the sorcerer's hit points and fortitude saves. In general, constitution is only important for newer players. I think we all know where you fall.

Everything is up to a player, this is a suggestion guide for new caster players. You still have failed to comprehend it, and I find it amusing.

Your weak attempt at insulting my play abilities is hilarious. I am known across multiple servers as one of the best arcane spell casters in all of DDO. Who are you again?

From a min/max OP perspective, these are the main two stats to be worried about. You can forget almost everything else.
- Strength: Strength gives bonuses to melee to-hit and damage. What kind of idiot full spellcaster hits anything with a weapon? There are plenty of good times for a caster to use a melee weapon. For example, when you stone a foe, you hit it with at least a dream spitter to quickly kill. The only use for strength to a sorcerer is to prevent being rendered helpless by strength damage. This can easily be avoided by drinking bull's strength potions at low levels, and wearing a strength item at the higher levels. Don't waste those precious stat points.

When you stone a foe, they are automatically critically hit regardless of strength score. Again, you fail to understand the simplest of spells and the benefits provided.

- Dexterity: Dexterity gives a sorcerer a higher armor class and higher reflex saves. However, beyond the lowest levels, the sorcerer is wasting his time by trying to have armor class and reflex saves. He has resistance and protection spells to make up for his clumsiness. He has stoneskin and displacement to make up for his lack of armor class. The ranged touch attack does not exist in DDO, thus making dexterity useless for all those ray spells. You seem really clueless here. Dexterity modifies some very useful skills.....namely balance, hide and move silent. Further, a dexterity bonus to saves need not be a trivial thing. Again this depends on a players desires. If you make just one critical reflex save you will end up sparing more HP's than you gain with constitution. When death comes to a sorcerer, it is usually due to a missed reflex save or balance check. For example, you miss you finger of death attack on the enemy cleric and he drops a comet fall on you. Or, you are solo'n reaver and an elemental knocks you down.

You bother to run the Reaver? Well that says a lot about you. Hide, move silently, balance, all unnecessary. Useful? Perhaps, but you'd be just as successful without them. The fact that you can't understand how reveals your clueless status.

- Intelligence: A sorcerer should only take enough intelligence to have enough skill points to max ranks in 3 or 4 chosen skills. Where do you get this nonsense. The number of skills a caster chooses depends on his desires. It can range from 1 to many. My recommendation is 3 skill points/level, you may wish to have 4. Five skill points per level is a waste of stat allocation points.

Everything is up the the player. This is a GUIDE (I can't believe I have to say this again). It's not like I'm holding a gun to people's heads.

- Wisdom: Wisdom gives a bonus to will saves for a sorcerer, and that's all it offers. Sorcerers have the high will save progression, and thus allocating stat points to wisdom is more often than not a waste. If you are really worried about those will saves, take Force of Personality to add your charisma bonus to will saves instead of wisdom. This is not necessarily bad advice, however, everyone does not wish to use a feat on this save. It is an important save. Next to dex based save failures, will save failures come in second as sorcerer killers.

That's funny, I never have dex based save failures kill my sorcerer. Never.

Skill Point Allocation
First, you will want to make choices on which skills you wish your sorcerer to have. The following skills are, generally speaking, the only useful skills for a sorcerer.
-Concentration: This skill is of utmost importance to any sorcerer, despite the availability of the Quicken Spell metamagic feat. Nonsense, this skill is only marginally important. Perhaps given your play style this skill is important and in that case by all means add points to it. Quickened spells cost a lot of extra spell points, and you don't get hit every time you cast a spell. Running around with Quicken on all the time is a ridiculous drain on spell points for little benefit. Maximize your concentration skill at all times.

You show more how little you know. It's almost painful to watch you embarass yourself like this.

-Use Magic Device: Use Magic Device (or UMD) is probably the single most powerful skill in DDO. A sorcerer uses his UMD skill to have access to divine spellcasting via scrolls. A sorcerer, with his high charisma, can easily raise dead, or with UMD boosting loot resurrect his party members. A fleshy sorcerer with high UMD can easily heal himself with heal scrolls at high levels, and at lower levels can use wands for cheaper healing (and faster healing, when used in combination with potions).

What, no comment? I'm surprised you didn't take balance instead of UMD.

-Diplomacy: Diplomacy is the twitch-players backup for armor class. Diplomacy drops the sorcerer to the bottom of a monster's aggro list for 6 seconds, and it has a 6 second cooldown. You'd have to be dense to not see the synergy there, and the usefulness of the skill. Though not a complete waste of skill points, this skill is usually only marginally effective, especially in the hands of a rookie caster. Relying on diplomacy as an aggro management technique is a sure way to death,....only 6 seconds later. Diplomacy use is an advanced technique and I would not recommend for the novice.

So first I'm a noob, but now I'm recommending an advanced technique? Can you get your story straight or are you just trying to make yourself look bad?

Sorcerer's get a lot of aggro throwing fireballs all over the place. With the simple press of a hotkey the sorcerer can shed all aggro onto either a more sturdy party member, or a charmed monster lackey. It's charisma-based, and thus sorcerers can use it to great results even though it's not a class skill.
- Intimidate: You, as a player, may decide that you WANT aggro. You may want to be able to grab it all to group monsters up for one big blast. You may want it to keep monsters cooking in your walls of fire. Whatever the reason, intimidate is another great skill. It's not for everybody, but can be supremely useful. It's charisma-based, and thus sorcerers can use it to great results even though it's not a class skill.

You skipped the most important skill, balance and the second most important jump. Also what about hide and move silent. Tumble will also be useful come mod 9. I am not saying all casters need these skills but depending on play style they may be the most important to them. Your somewhat arbitrary selection of skills is sad.
[COLOR=Red]

Balance = unnecessary, as the sorcerer should not find himself in a situation where he lands on his back. He should have the target eliminated or rendered unable to fight by then.
Hide and Move Silent = I certainly hope you are joking because this is preposterous. These are not useful skills for a sorcerer that can merely destroy everything at will.
Jump = JUMP SPELL. Jump caps at 40. Jump spell gives 30. Put on a jump item, which stacks with the spell. End of story, and a waste of skill points.
Tumble = back up your claim with evidence that it's useful in Mod 9. You provide all attacks with no evidence, period. You also demonstrate you don't even have a fundamental understanding of how many spells work. It's hilarious to watch and I find myself feeling bad for the people whom you play with.

[Visty]

False. The drow must spend build points to gain the benefits of more skills. The human needs not waste his build points on INT.

well, here you are wrong asp

drow and human get the same skills per lvl considering same buildpoints used in int
human get an extra skillpoint, drow have a higher base int

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

This is an excellent guide and covers the key points of playing a sorc for 80-90% of the people who just want to roll a normal pureclass sorc for nuking and zapping. Aspenor makes it quite clear in his first post that it was based on his views of sorcs.

To cover all the different things you might want to do with your sorc such as go multiclass, become a sneak-sorc, take rarer feats, would just dilute the guide and make it less useful for a whole set of new players who are already confused enough without having to be further confused by more options.

Yes, there are many ways of playing a sorc and many other feats or races or skill points or enhancements you could take, but criticising the guide just because it didn't cover what maybe 0-5% of the DDO population want to do with their sorc is just trolling.

Garth

[Varis]

This is an excellent guide and covers the key points of playing a sorc for 80-90% of the people who just want to roll a normal pureclass sorc for nuking and zapping. Aspenor makes it quite clear in his first post that it was based on his views of sorcs.

To cover all the different things you might want to do with your sorc such as go multiclass, become a sneak-sorc, take rarer feats, would just dilute the guide and make it less useful for a whole set of new players who are already confused enough without having to be further confused by more options.

Yes, there are many ways of playing a sorc and many other feats or races or skill points or enhancements you could take, but criticising the guide just because it didn't cover what maybe 0-5% of the DDO population want to do with their sorc is just trolling.

Garth

Aspenor makes a great guide for starting players. I'm just a bit bothered by his hate for drow. Especially considering that a starting player will have access to them at a reasonable rate compared to a 32 point build.


Also, while totally off his book... if you can get your AC to the 20's as a starting sorc it will make a huge difference below 10th. Making AC work at endgame is tough and certainly not recommended for beginners.
(Although perhaps worth a mention that Drow are the natural choice for a dex armor build at high levels)

[Aspenor]

Aspenor makes a great guide for starting players. I'm just a bit bothered by his hate for drow. Especially considering that a starting player will have access to them at a reasonable rate compared to a 32 point build.

I don't hate drow. I do not feel they are as strong a choice as a 32 point human or warforged, that is all. I make this abundantly clear in the OP. Drow are a solid choice, especially if you do not have access to 32 point builds.

[tinyelvis]

Ok, here are some specifics.

You advise players to take Hypnotism and Niacs at first level. As a feat you advise them to take empower. On the surface this looks fine and a new player might take this advice, however, this is nothing more than average advice. It is hardly knowledgeable. Furthermore, following this advice will lead to nothing more than mediocre performance.

Hypnotism, though a great spell in its own, in practice only functions properly if the party respects the hypnotism. When you are talking a new player in a party of new players, this spell will usually be wasted. A caster using this spell in this case may as well leave and go get a soda. A rookie would not know this, but an expert should have warned him. Furthermore, expert advice would also involve pointing out to a new player that scrolls of hypnotism are easily available at low costs and at low levels will perform as well. In effect, there is no need to waste the first slot on this spell even if you plan to run with a hypnotism friendly party. Or if you find yourself in a hypn unfriendly environment 50% of you spell capability is not wasted.

Nowhere in your early level spell suggestions do you advise any player to take one of the save free damage spells that are available (i.e. shocking grasp or mm). You don't even suggest wand use of these spells. A warforge, for example, relying on your poor suggestions will find himself lacking when it comes to end boss fights or in advanced level quests, having to rely on his low save niacs. Further, your caster will play little to no role against high reflex save mobs immune to hypnosis. This lack of advice seems negligent. People taking your advice will be unprepared to play their expected role.

Your choice of empower as a feat selection, though common, is equally poorly thought out. Empowering a low level spell like niacs is an incredible waste. Empower cost 15 points and the first level spell only costs 10. Just cast the spell twice for 50% more damage and less cost. Using empower at that level is a rookie mistake. Its the sort of thing you should be advising against. A much better informed suggestion would be to instruct people to at least temporarily take spell focus as a feat, to properly spec enhancements, and obtain a weapon bonus. Not only will this lead to better damage but also a better chance of a success.

So, not only is your advice not cutting edge or professional, in some cases, it is actually bad advice that will lead to poor player performance if followed. You should be reading a rookie guide to arcane use instead of writing one. This is why I critique it.

[Aspenor]

So, not only is your advice not cutting edge or professional, in some cases, it is actually bad advice that will lead to poor player performance if followed. You should be reading a rookie guide to arcane use instead of writing one. This is why I critique it.

You, my friend, just honestly haven't got a clue. I will not bother to read, nor respond to your insolent blathering any longer. Say what you like about me, because nobody besides you agrees with you nor cares what you think.

You haven't even got the rocks to put a guild name in your sig, and it is amusing that you are so jealous of me.

[RavenStormclaw]

Aspenor love the guide. Even though I have a 16th level sorcerer (sadly gimped as he was my first character when I knew nothing) I still found a lot usefull.

But gotta tease you about one thing: In one of your response to tinyelvis you made some quote about him bothering to run the reaver as if you thought it was pointless..... yet in your equipment list you have stormreaver napkin! Kinda of funny I thought.... and of course I'm just goofing off with you... I really do like the guide.

Raven

[FluffyCalico]

Agree thread post is 25% bad advise 75% good

[muffinlad]

No guide is perfect, unless the subject matter is so dull, so easy it basically does not even require a guide (One step, turn knob. Enjoy your new turning knob. It turns....)

So, the purpose of any guide is to help others with the best advice you can offer. Sometimes, you get great feedback, and that helps you make improvements to a guide. I have seen that happen here, and I have seen the guide change for the better.

Now, while I don't think the guide is perfect, I do think it is pretty darn good. So, no need for me to put the time and effort in writing "The Not-Aspenors, Completely Better Than His, Guide For Sorcerers (or TN-ACBTHGFS), however...it seems to me that some people really believe that Aspenor has written what is effectivly a code for causing the heads of Noobs to implode once they turn their car on in the morning.

Let me assure you, that will not happen. This is a game, and a guide for a game. If you do not like Aspenor's guide, write your own. If you do not want to write a full guide, write a polite Rejoinder and move on. No noobs will be slain by reading this guide (there are plenty of other reasons they will perish).

All the nerd rage in the world, from either side, is not going to change anything unless actions (like writing your own guide, for example) are taken, and thats a durn fact.

muffinpeace