Squishy sorcs--is there an advantage to them?

[KingOfCheese]

The purpose of this thread is to provide build guidance and address build subtleties. The focus is end-game play. Fact: some sorcs are hp squishy and some aren't. Regardless of race, sorcs can achieve relatively high hps without any major sacrifice (let's call this range 250-375 hp--of course some are higher). Likewise, some sorcs are below 200 hp at end game. Fact: a well played sorc with low hps can be very effective--but the low hps do require more tactics to retain survivability. Fact: many low hp sorcs running around die a bit too frequently. Fact: relatively high hps can be achieved by readily available gear + a high initial CON (16-18, for example).

The ultimate question: are there good arguments for intentionally building a sorc that does not hit the relatively high hp range? Are there meaningful advantages to be had in sacrificing hps for other things? What are those other things (specifics please)?

Goal: Have experienced players provide build guidance to people thinking about rolling a new Sorc. Is there one or a few right answers? If so, lets make it/them clear. If not, what are the other considerations?

Having built sorcs of both lowish and high hp, my personal experience makes me believe that there is no meaningful reason to go with a lower hp build. I have learned to keep a lower hp sorc survivable with tactics, but find that my high hp sorc can do everything the lower one can without requiring such tactics. This adds more freedom to concentrate on other things. If others have contrary knowledge/opinions, please share.

Please try to keep the discussion constructive and not build bash.

[Irongutz2000]

Ya hit pionts r important, my drow has 222 unbuffed, with out shroud hp item. She works just fine , I wouldn't recommend any lower than that though. Especailly if u can't umd heal scrolls, or repair scrolls.

I will say this though, alot of playing a sorc is about buffs though, always keep them up no matter what.

[KingOfCheese]

Excellent advice on the buffs. ALWAYS keeping them up can be critical in many instances. Cold shield/fire protect/fire resist essentially gives infinite hps against many of the worst fire chuckers at end game.

It makes me wonder whether any advantage can be had in building a lower hp specced sorc that gains more of a self-buffing/healing advantage that compensates for the lower hps? I'd love to hear anyone who has taken this approach.

[DoctorWhofan]

squishy casters=usually ubar damage/charms/healing.

My 16 sorcerer is sitting at about 220-240 range. So is my cleric.

[KingOfCheese]

squishy casters=usually ubar damage/charms/healing.

My 16 sorcerer is sitting at about 220-240 range. So is my cleric.

This is exactly the type of response I was looking for. What stats/items/enhancements/feats would you advocate to get the uber damage/charm/healing that sacrifice hit points? (I would not consider 220-240 squishy though--not high, but not squishy).

[KingOfCheese]

squishy casters=usually ubar damage/charms/healing.

My 16 sorcerer is sitting at about 220-240 range. So is my cleric.

This is exactly the type of response I was looking for. What stats/items/enhancements/feats would you advocate to get the uber damage/charm/healing that sacrifice hit points? (I would not consider 220-240 squishy though--not high, but not squishy).

[Riorik]

squishy casters=usually ubar damage/charms/healing.

My 16 sorcerer is sitting at about 220-240 range. So is my cleric.

This is exactly the type of response I was looking for. What stats/items/enhancements/feats would you advocate to get the uber damage/charm/healing that sacrifice hit points? (I would not consider 220-240 squishy though--not high, but not squishy).

I do. Based on my own experience, every hit point beyond 200 raises you above the 50/50 survival threshold in the fourth segment of the Shroud. 220-240 is in the good range, but it's not far into the good range (without evasion and/or massive saves).

Pre Shroud, my cleric was 190 HP, post shroud he's 320.
Pre shroud my original wizard was ~180 hp, post shroud he's 264.
Both of these were very early 28 pt builds from around module 1 salvaged from the re-roll heap because I taught myself how to survive everywhere with them.

I would say, however, don't bother with more than one Toughness feat on a Sorceror---or even most other characters. It simply takes away too much. At least one toughness feat plus at least the first two tiers of racial toughness is pretty mandatory - 38 HP really does make a huge difference. After that it's all about knowing how to survive - coming prepared - knowing to put down crowd control BEFORE you blast away, etc. I'd recommend looking for other ways (than multiple toughness feats) to get into the right range for your character - whatever it takes really and force the rest of the equipment to match the HP needs.

Caster's often do not really need much anyways - potency item - penetration item - item for casting stat - the rest can be dedicated to survival/hp.

[Aspenor]

squishy casters=usually ubar damage/charms/healing.

My 16 sorcerer is sitting at about 220-240 range. So is my cleric.

every sorc, regardless of low or high hit points, can accomplish these.

the answer to the question....

No, there isn't an advantage to being squishy. there is only the level of "squishyness" a person can play with comfortably. regardless of build, a sorcerer is better off with higher hit points. can you get by with less than 250 hit points? sure. would you be better off with 300+? absolutely. hit points = survivability, especially when it comes to monsters blasting with 200+ damage fireballs or high melee damage output.

[baddax]

The biggest advantage i see is when you get tripped and mauled you dont have to scream "OMG IM GONNA DIE" for 5 minutes, that you die very quickly and can then take your rez.

[KingOfCheese]

every sorc, regardless of low or high hit points, can accomplish these.

the answer to the question....

No, there isn't an advantage to being squishy. there is only the level of "squishyness" a person can play with comfortably. regardless of build, a sorcerer is better off with higher hit points. can you get by with less than 250 hit points? sure. would you be better off with 300+? absolutely. hit points = survivability, especially when it comes to monsters blasting with 200+ damage fireballs or high melee damage output.

Agreed. Depending on play style, any level of squishyness is tolerable to completely functional. I'm hoping to find a general consensus of what hp people can expect to get with no real sacrifices on other traits so the community can have a rough standard of what they should be shooting for. Likewise, I am trying to identify concrete reasons why someone might want to run low hps in favor of other goodies (keeping in mind that many low hp builds are not people's ideal build, but what they made--but hoping to give good guidance to people making new builds).

[Samadhi]

Skill points. There are a lot of useful skills out there, and sacrificing some con for higher intel can get you a long ways.

Overall, though, I do agree that for most players high HP is the way to go.

[Drekisen]

AC works with displacement going. I currently have my 16 sorc at 51 AC self buffed, that's not including umd'ing recitation scrolls. I find that I can get along just fine, and do not have to rely so much on melee types to keep the aggro of of me.

IMO, u can go pure sorc, and be squishy, but it's kind of pointless if u put down a 400 point firewall and expect not to die.

[Mindspat]

Mindspat(28pt Elf build) has 210(ish) hitpoints, 2200sp and a 47 AC all without buffs; without t3 GS item for spell points. with items equiped the character has a 20 Con, 32 Charisma and a 24 Dexterity. I think the character has a UMD of 36 with Greater Heroism. My character plays very well although there's plenty of room to expand upon it if I were to reroll.

Hitpoints become more important as more attention is put into Raid content.

My Cleric has 220 hitpoints by comparison.

P.S. I forgot to mention the reflex and will saves helps a lot, but **** my poor Fort save!

[KingOfCheese]

Mindspat(28pt Elf build) has 210(ish) hitpoints, 2200sp and a 47 AC all without buffs; without t3 GS item for spell points. with items equiped the character has a 20 Con, 32 Charisma and a 24 Dexterity. I think the character has a UMD of 36 with Greater Heroism. My character plays very well although there's plenty of room to expand upon it if I were to reroll.

Hitpoints become more important as more attention is put into Raid content.

My Cleric has 220 hitpoints by comparison.

P.S. I forgot to mention the reflex and will saves helps a lot, but **** my poor Fort save!

This is another of the Dex build options. Are you seeing the reflex saves saving your life quite frequently. I'd like to hear some more thoughts on the benefits of non-evasion, reflex-save builds.

I think your Raid comment is a good one. Most non-raid quests (perhaps Sorjek as an exception) seem to put less stress on the hp aspect of survivability than the raids do.

If you were re-rolling this one with a 32-point build--where do you think you would set your CON? Based on your experiences with this character, would a re-roll include the high DEX?

[Mindspat]

This is another of the Dex build options. Are you seeing the reflex saves saving your life quite frequently. I'd like to hear some more thoughts on the benefits of non-evasion, reflex-save builds.

I think your Raid comment is a good one. Most non-raid quests (perhaps Sorjek as an exception) seem to put less stress on the hp aspect of survivability than the raids do.

If you were re-rolling this one with a 32-point build--where do you think you would set your CON? Based on your experiences with this character, would a re-roll include the high DEX?

Being that I succeed on a lot of my Reflex saves it must deffintely have an overall advantage to the characters usefullness. Tanking Sorjack generally isn't an issue but it obviously depends on other factors such as the party make up for it to succeed. The character's nemesis is the appearance of a 1 on saving throws and I'll never understand how it's statistically possible to roll so many 3's or 5's back to back.

On a reroll I would max Cha, push the Dex expecting to hit 24 (I did not mention in my previous post that Mindspat had consumed a +3 dex tome) and the rest into Con. Skill points in UMD and Concentration with something into Tumble just to have it available.

When I play Mindspat I frequently Melee but only to apply debuffs from weapon proc's; my winning rapiers are Cursespewing of Destruction, Cursespewing of Shattermantle and Strength Sapping of Shattermantle. I am now currently carrying 6 bracers each with Divine Power (Tensor's Transformation is a joke!) that insures I hit whatever I'm swinging at. this character entirely depends upon Raid loot and the outcome was dumb luck.

I did not use any template or fotm build that's become common place when I first made the character nor did I know a single thing about the rules DDO was to employ thus a few "mistakes", albeit minor, were made. The character was rolled on the second or third day of the game's launch.

[KingOfCheese]

Being that I succeed on a lot of my Reflex saves it must deffintely have an overall advantage to the characters usefullness. Tanking Sorjack generally isn't an issue but it obviously depends on other factors such as the party make up for it to succeed. The character's nemesis is the appearance of a 1 on saving throws and I'll never understand how it's statistically possible to roll so many 3's or 5's back to back.

On a reroll I would max Cha, push the Dex expecting to hit 24 (I did not mention in my previous post that Mindspat had consumed a +3 dex tome) and the rest into Con. Skill points in UMD and Concentration with something into Tumble just to have it available.

When I play Mindspat I frequently Melee but only to apply debuffs from weapon proc's; my winning rapiers are Cursespewing of Destruction, Cursespewing of Shattermantle and Strength Sapping of Shattermantle. I am now currently carrying 6 bracers each with Divine Power (Tensor's Transformation is a joke!) that insures I hit whatever I'm swinging at. this character entirely depends upon Raid loot and the outcome was dumb luck.

I did not use any template or fotm build that's become common place when I first made the character nor did I know a single thing about the rules DDO was to employ thus a few "mistakes", albeit minor, were made. The character was rolled on the second or third day of the game's launch.

Thanks for the follow up. Very interesting (in a good way) build. I love that your initial guess-work ended up making a useful combo. I am envious. All of my original characters based on guesswork have been churned through the re-roll (or banker) machine. Thanks for the details on the weapons. I like that approach. It sounds like the optimized version of your original build would be both high hp and carry sufficient dex to achieve the results you achieved. This sounds like a non-cookie-cutter build that people should consider. Thanks for sharing it.