Sorc questions

[Mumu720]

Ok i have a soon to be lvl 9 wf sorc( one more rank), and i have a few questions. Forst off i was wondering what peoples thoughts were on the pk spell and how effective it is and basically some pros and cons for it, and basically what it is most effectivly used for, i already have fw so i dont need that anymore so you dont have to tell me how much more effective fw is. My second question is about spell pen. Im just curious what spells it affects, does it affect all spells with a save or just a select few? Will it help with nuking later on? Any help is greatly appreciated thank you ahead of time.

[KingOfCheese]

PK is useful for a while through the mid levels (until you can pick up finger of death). It has its downsides--in particular 2 saves. To make this effective, you'll want to have as high a charisma as possible. You may also want to get an item that boost the DC's of your illusion spells (which PK is a member of).

It is great against beholders.

Spell pen affects all spells with a save (the most relevant ones where it will matter are insta-kill spells and crowd control spells). It generally won't be a problem at low and mid levels because the enemies don't have high spell resistance. It will start being an issue at level 12 and up. At that point, you'll want to start investing in feats, enhancements, and gear to boost your spell pen. By level 16ish, you want at least one feat, the enhancement chain, and a good item.

[Mumu720]

Ok next question is about the heighten feat, is that worth it and what exactly does it do? Right now i have extend empower and maximize

[Pfamily]

Heighten allows you to raise the DCs of all your spells to the highest spell
level you can cast. For example: the web spell is a 1st level spell, but a
20th level caster with heighten will cast that spell as if it were a 9th level spell,
GREATLY increasing it's effectiveness. Very much worth it.

[Mumu720]

Ok cool. Yeah i was planning on getting heighten for my 9th lvl feat cause ive been told
it was a must but i wasnt sure exqctly what it did. Another very noob question, what does DC stand for? I no what it does but i dont know anything else about it.

[KingOfCheese]

Ok cool. Yeah i was planning on getting heighten for my 9th lvl feat cause ive been told
it was a must but i wasnt sure exqctly what it did. Another very noob question, what does DC stand for? I no what it does but i dont know anything else about it.

The DC (difficulty check) is the number that the enemy uses to determine if they save or not against your spell. The enemy rolls a d20 and adds this number to the their save and compares this to the DC to see if they resist. For example, lets say you cast Finger of Death and have a DC of 30. Finger of Death is defended against by Fortitude saves. Let's say the enemy has a Fortitude save of 15. They roll a d20 and get a 10. 15+10 = 25 for their save roll. Since your DC is higher, they die (assuming that they don't resist your spell with spell resistance). If they had rolled a 19: 15+19 =34, they save and don't die.

You can find the DC of a particular spell by mousing over the spell symbol on your hotbar--you'll see a number for the save (e.g., WILL 22). The higher the number, the more likely that the spell hits. Your DC is controlled, in part, by your casting stat--charisma for a sorc. For each 2 points of charisma, your DC goes up 1 point.

There is also gear that increases the DCs. Some items increase the DC of specific spell schools (e.g., Illusion boosts the DC of your PK spell but would have no effect on web or other non-illusion spells). Some items (raid loot Reaver's Napkin) boost the DC of all spell types. Feats can also be used to boost DCs.

The spell level also affects DC. A level 9 spell adds 9. Heighten kicks in to make the DC add-on of a 1st level spell (which otherwise would be 1) into a 9 when you are able to cast level 9 spells. A big difference.

DCs can also be increased by True Resurrections via the past life feat.

DCs are calculated as follows: 10 (default base number) + spell level + casting stat bonus (stat minus 10 divided by 2).

So let's say you are casting PK and have a charisma of 26 and have no enhancing gear or feats. Your DC will be 10 (base number) + 4 (spell level) + 8 ( (26-10)/2) = 22.

A decked out high level caster could look like the following for Finger of Death DC:

10 (base number) + 9 (heightened) + 17 (based on boosted 44 charisma) + 2 (feats if they took 2 necromancy school feats) + 2 (from item--Abbot raid staff) = 40. That is a wicked high number. Mobs with 19 or less fortitude save are doomed even with lucky dice rolls.

Each higher DC point can make a big difference, particularly if the enemy has very high save or if you are trying to affect a large number of enemies (with web, for example) and hope to hit them all.

[Arctigis]

Personally, I'd stay away from PK on a WF Sorc unless you are spec'ed for it.

[Kaervas]

Spell pen affects all spells with a save (the most relevant ones where it will matter are insta-kill spells and crowd control spells). It generally won't be a problem at low and mid levels because the enemies don't have high spell resistance. It will start being an issue at level 12 and up. At that point, you'll want to start investing in feats, enhancements, and gear to boost your spell pen. By level 16ish, you want at least one feat, the enhancement chain, and a good item.

That's not quite right to say that "Spell Pen affects all spells with a save".
Most direct damage spells allow a save for half but offer no Spell Resistance check.

It's more accurate to say that Spell Penetration primarily helps offensive spells which deal something other than damage as their primary effect (largely crowd controls and insta-kills as you listed, but also including a wide array of debuffs).

The tooltips of every spell will tell you whether Spell Resistance applies to the spell or not. If the answer is Yes, then Spell Penetration feats/enhancements/items will help with the frequency of landing that spell on a target with spell resistance.

[Zereth501]

the web spell is a 1st level spell

Web is second level actually.