Looking for some guidence

[Jasimine]

So I finally reached 18th and got Wail of the Banshee. I ran around Vale of Twilight like a little girl with a new doll showing it off to all the neighborhood kids... who promptly fell over dead in this case. I was joyous, I was insanely happy, I was bouncing around in glee.

Then I join some guildmates in SoS.

This was my 2nd run with this character in SoS, the first one, last night, taught me the values of getting fireshield asap so I swapped out enervation for it and sighed in relief when I tested it around town and saw the damage I took from fire spells was mitigated so much that I stood a chance when DBF spells started getting thrown at my clutzy sorc.

This 2nd run however I suddenly felt useless again, only this time it was in the stone giant area. My DC 32 Flesh to Stone did nothing on the giants to slow them down, my DC 33 webs didn't do much either. I might catch one out of 18 giants running around the end room but that was about it. Against the shamans I had to dump about 1/4th of my blue bar just to help get him down and so by the time we got to the end fight of that level I had very little SP left to work with and didn't know what to do other than throw as many firewalls down as I could and try to lead the trash through them. However they had to many HP to make that viable.

So what exactly is my role? My nukes don't seem to do enough damage in group settings to make a difference unless the target is specificly weak against my spells and doesn't have a few hundred points of protection up. My normal means of crowd control are generally ineffective, Flesh to Stone is fort save which giants have plenty of. They are immune to mind compulsion spells so dancing sphere is out. And they are so huge I can usually only get one giant per web. Death spells are pointless since they are immune to them even tho I have double spell pen feats, 2 ranks of the spell pen enhancements, and a spell pen VII item.

In the end I bounce around nuking like made, seeing nothing drop to them as I have in previous content, and go squish rather fast despite 290 HP (Toughness, double tough enhancements, 22 con, minos helm, GFL item). I hate feeling like I have nothing to contribute and am sure it is just myself trying to adjust from a melee mindset (Main is a paladin) to a caster one and don't seem to be making the connection of what I am doing wrong.

[Jasimine]

I realized after posting this that it likely is not enough information. Was seriously frustrated at the time and didn't think about numbers so...

Relevent stats..

Drow, Sorc 18

HP 290 unbuffed
SP Just shy of 2100
Cha 36

Gear : DT Armor (working on getting it crafted completely, currently +5 resist +1 excpt cha)
Sup Pot 6 scepter
Major XXX Lore scepters for fire, ice, acid, and electricity
Spell Pen VII Scepter
Minos
Misc + Stat gear for Cha/Con

Enhancements I have the %Damage ones maxed for Fire/cold and Elec/Acid, same for crit chance. Crit multipliers are both 1 rank from max.

I haven't really started playing with the clickie items yet as all I keep finding are the low end ones that do less than my static Sup Pot 6 scepter.

Spell List is a bit of a mish mash right now. I have F2S, Web, Mass Charm, and Disco Ball for crowd control. Scorching Ray, Polar Ray, Acid Blast, Ball Lightning and Cone of Cold as direct damage spells, wall of fire and cloud kill for AoE DoT's. For insta killing I have banishment (looking at droping now that I have wail), Finger of Death, and Wail of the Banshee. Buffs I carry the usual as far as I can tell. Jump, Nightshield, blur, haste, displacement, stoneskin, fireshield, resist elements, and have the single target protection from elements.

I'd like to evolve into a successful nuker with wail for trash and some crowd control for when it is more effective. Just having issues figuring it out right now and it gets frustrating when you die multiple times in a quest.

[Varis]

hmrmm seems to me you have a pretty standard sorc there. No overabundance on raid/greensteel items but you should do just fine. You DO want to max your nuking ability if you're not geared specially for insta kill. So that means you need to make room for ALL crit enhancements and all fire/cold damage enhancements.

Giants are hard to firewall because they run around, stop, throw some rocks, run around some more, etc... so you gotta run out of missile range and make them all chase you. That will bunch them up. In the giant boss room of part 1 SOS you will have plenty of room to firewall the middle and run WIDE circles around the giants.

If you have some decent damage reduction (via tower shield or light and darkness) then you can also just turtle up in a firewall. you will get knocked around a bit (run or tumble right back in the wall) and they will run off for a short while to shoot some arrows/rocks... just keep waiting, they always come back to melee =)



some more tips on nuking can be found here (if you can handle euro music he he)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfKJry5Pk3Y

[ddoer]

your best option is more related to your party composition and strategy than your build.

energy drain + fts do work but it consumes too much damage and not too worthwhile. Not to say you don't have enervation anymore. Tell your melees to bring wounding/puncturing weapons if they can't stun the giants.

if they need cc, throw web and wave of exhaustion.

if they do wounding/puncturing, and they do it too slowly, help with a cloudkill.

there is nothing wrong to save all your mana and unload them all for the end fight.

[Jasimine]

hmrmm seems to me you have a pretty standard sorc there. No overabundance on raid/greensteel items but you should do just fine. You DO want to max your nuking ability if you're not geared specially for insta kill. So that means you need to make room for ALL crit enhancements and all fire/cold damage enhancements.

Giants are hard to firewall because they run around, stop, throw some rocks, run around some more, etc... so you gotta run out of missile range and make them all chase you. That will bunch them up. In the giant boss room of part 1 SOS you will have plenty of room to firewall the middle and run WIDE circles around the giants.

If you have some decent damage reduction (via tower shield or light and darkness) then you can also just turtle up in a firewall. you will get knocked around a bit (run or tumble right back in the wall) and they will run off for a short while to shoot some arrows/rocks... just keep waiting, they always come back to melee =)



some more tips on nuking can be found here (if you can handle euro music he he)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfKJry5Pk3Y

Yea I have been watching your vids over the last week off and on trying to study them and see if there was something I was doing wrong. I can manage the techniques in them easily enough provided I am solo and don't have to worry about who has aggro. However when in a party things kinda get out of my control as to were the mobs are and how they cluster so my AoE's loose alot of potential and it is frustrating.

And as for the damage amp stuff I will, at level 20, have all the damage mod enhancements maxed out as well as Imp max 2 and Imp Heighten 1. Figure that 2 SP per level of heightening will be worth while since I keep heighten on almost 24/7.

I do prefer the nuking role, it's much more satisfing, but I am holding onto wail and FoD for now as they are just to OP doing my vale runs for GS stuff, both in normal questing and in Shroud.

[Varis]

Yea I have been watching your vids over the last week off and on trying to study them and see if there was something I was doing wrong. I can manage the techniques in them easily enough provided I am solo and don't have to worry about who has aggro. However when in a party things kinda get out of my control as to were the mobs are and how they cluster so my AoE's loose alot of potential and it is frustrating.

And as for the damage amp stuff I will, at level 20, have all the damage mod enhancements maxed out as well as Imp max 2 and Imp Heighten 1. Figure that 2 SP per level of heightening will be worth while since I keep heighten on almost 24/7.

I do prefer the nuking role, it's much more satisfing, but I am holding onto wail and FoD for now as they are just to OP doing my vale runs for GS stuff, both in normal questing and in Shroud.

I feel your pain =) My solution to that problem has been to be the first in, always on point so I get the initial damage off. With all the aggro on me I don't worry about melees peeling off a few of them so they can feel somewhat useful. The bulk is on me and with that I control combat.

Noobs will call you a zerger because they don't understand what you're doing. Good groups will make use of your aggro for dps and to single out stronger targets. Healers will be able to conserve a lot of mana.