Ice storm slot for sorc

[fuzzy1guy]

Has anyone thought about how ice storm will fit onto a standard sorc?

You get 4 level 4 slots.

Firewall
Dimension door
Stoneskin
Fireshield

Which one do we give up?

Sure you can stoneskin scroll. For much lower damage absorb and duration. And expensive fast to buff the party with who already demand it now. Make yet another greensteel for a clicky like the melee all have?

Ddoor scroll? Yeah you can't buy those in the store... 5-10k each on the ah so someone can jump out of the shroud fast? lol. no. Save that walk back thru quest X? Nope.

Fireshield? Maybe.. if you don't plan on being the ToD kite. Or going anywhere with massive fire damage. Or if the monsters also get this same upgrade to ice storm.. Noplace with casters who have lvl 4 spells avail. Most anyplace starting in gianthold and above. Half damage for fire/cold is just far too useful in many places.

Firewall? Get rid of the other good spell you're already specced for? That lasts much longer than ice storm?


Looking like dimension door won't be an option anymore from your party sorc...

[FluffyCalico]

Why would you have stone skin? Just buy the wands. Not like everyone doesn't have 2-4 clicks of it themself anyway. Also stoneskin doesnt stack with other DRs so for alot of classes its a total waste. I probably cast stoneskin from a wand 1 time a month and I have never had the spell on any caster and never had anyone say anything.

[fuzzy1guy]

150pt physical damage absorb that will also absorb damage from many traps. And the bludgon from spells like meteor and also including the new ice storm.

That's a total waste?

Wand or scroll is only 70pts.
Clicky IS 150. But on the expensive side. And most casters have no need for an mineral item as it is now.
Can't cast a wand or scroll mid combat without swapping an item either. Potentially the same for a clicky.

Most dr items are /5 at best. stoneskin is 10.

There are other characters besides warforged and those without epic dr items you know... Alot of them. And for someone who has spent so many posts talking about hit points.. You really don't see the value in a free 150pts damage absorb on demand for any toon in the party with a F button and a click? LOL


Dimension door is still far less useful.

[Clay]

Gotta agree with Fluffy on this one... why take a spell slot for something that makes little difference if you use a wand and give up something that you cannot buy in the form of a scroll or wand?

have you really looked at the spell description? It is 15 ticks of 10dr... not 150.

So... instead of 15 ticks, you get 7... big deal. so you buy more wands.

Dimension door less useful than a spell slot that CAN be replaced with either a tier 2 shroud clickie, or a consumable? I think you fail to use dd properly then.

[malicia]

Firewall - Not optional

Dimension door - I run without this occasionally, its not as useful as it used to be, worth swapping in if you need it for some specific solo farming of some quest, but if folks want out of the shroud they can hit their recall button i wouldnt pay that any mind

Stoneskin - I keep this but mainly because im currently farming out Demon Queen completions solo and the extra duration and damage absorb are useful. Swapping in a stoneskin wand, casting it, is a little clunky when you have Lailat on yer tail. When im done with that mission, this will be likely the one to go. Itll go before ddoor does, SS is most useful lvl 7-15, wand is fine after that.

Fireshield - a lot more feasible from scrolls now that the duration is longer, but if you have to kite TOD scrolling it mid kite will end up in yer death. Still youll get over that sooner or later, if youre going for marathon TOD completions then it should probably stay in your book but for everything else, the scroll is perfectly fine.

If they ever fix up solid fog to work like it did then its gonna start to get complicated at L4, and there are many times i miss Bestow Curse from my spellbook as it is

[Lord_WC]

150pt physical damage absorb that will also absorb damage from many traps. And the bludgon from spells like meteor and also including the new ice storm.

That's a total waste?

Wand or scroll is only 70pts.
Clicky IS 150. But on the expensive side. And most casters have no need for an mineral item as it is now.
Can't cast a wand or scroll mid combat without swapping an item either. Potentially the same for a clicky.

Most dr items are /5 at best. stoneskin is 10.

There are other characters besides warforged and those without epic dr items you know... Alot of them. And for someone who has spent so many posts talking about hit points.. You really don't see the value in a free 150pts damage absorb on demand for any toon in the party with a F button and a click? LOL


Dimension door is still far less useful.

Problem is it's only dr 10. Traps usually deliver some nice chunk of damage in one hit. So yeah, you are able to block 10 damage from the 300 you receive 15 times instead of 7.

Also, mobs hit for 60-70 in epic. If you want to stay there with cl15 ss, you have to have 750-900 hp, to make use of it. What I'm saying is you will be long dead from the number of hits required to deplete even the 70 hit one. So, you will back off, hold them/kill them either way and it's only just a question of habit to whip a wand once before a fight.

If you get more than one hit from a meteor swarm, you are doing something wrong. Probably the slowest spell around, and you can just step away from it... But yeah, a stoneskin saves you from 30 damage from a MS. The difference between the two is that you have to renew the wand one after 2 MS, the casted one after 5. Not a big deal.

And I have yet to meet people who directly request stoneskin. Besides, from wands you can provide that free of charge, since they dont consume any sp afterall...

[sirgog]

Stoneskin is easy to cut.

Back when the cap was 16, the spell was awesome. Most melee damage came in chunks of 30 to 40, so Stoneskin cut a huge amount of that out. Noone had permanent DR. Most melees could survive 10 to 15 hits, so Stoneskin was like 100-150 temporary HP.

Now, melee damage comes in chunks of 60-90 in many places. Most melees can survive only 6-8 hits, making Stoneskin more like 60-80 temporary HP if you are taking solely melee damage, and 30-40 if half the damage you take is melee and half is from spells. In the latter case, Stoneskin may not even buy the target enough time to take one more hit.

My Sorc used to carry it as a spell. They've been TRed into a Wizard that is now level 13. I haven't even bothered to scribe the spell, let alone prepare it or take the thousand-odd components for it out of my TR cache.

[Hokonoso]

stoneskin is useless as a spell, the GS clickies actually last 1 min longer for the same effect making them better than the spell, anyone can get those, so if someone in ur party cries then tell them to run shroud. i dont even carry the wand, 10dr isnt a huge deal, especially if you are a sorc that plays right (ie you dont get hit at all).

but if you have a problem switching out a spell then that is your problem, all other sorcs will have dropped stoneskin (or whatever they had in that place since it was already useless) and pick up ice storm.

[Chai]

150pt physical damage absorb that will also absorb damage from many traps. And the bludgon from spells like meteor and also including the new ice storm.

That's a total waste?

Wand or scroll is only 70pts.
Clicky IS 150. But on the expensive side. And most casters have no need for an mineral item as it is now.
Can't cast a wand or scroll mid combat without swapping an item either. Potentially the same for a clicky.

Most dr items are /5 at best. stoneskin is 10.

There are other characters besides warforged and those without epic dr items you know... Alot of them. And for someone who has spent so many posts talking about hit points.. You really don't see the value in a free 150pts damage absorb on demand for any toon in the party with a F button and a click? LOL


Dimension door is still far less useful.

Ddoor is more situational. When you get to those situations and dont have it its REALLY going to suck.

This is another reason why I like DnD, and why I didnt like the fact that DDO made only a fraction of the arcane spells available. If you think this thread is a debate trying to figure out which spell to drop, roll up a PnP sorc once, where you have ~150 spells to choose from, 1/3 of them are decent, and you still only get 4, heh.

Sorc were only really superior to Wizards for so long due to the spell pool being so limited. People knew which spells they wanted each level. Yes there are some levels that bottleneck, but for the most part, had there been ALOT more available psells, there would have been more of a justification to roll up a wizard for the last 4 years.

[gott_ist_tot]

If you're considering making SS clicky, why not make a 10%/15%/20% cold absorption item? Especially since shield is only kept for ToD kiting, and scroll is good enough for the rest of game?

//Edit: Do fireshield and elemental absorption item stack? If so, you could throw a resist to take care of remaining 5% and re-apply the scroll in spite of long casting time.

[fuzzy1guy]

Yep it does. With resist, fireshield, exceptional cold resist item. and cold absorb weapon. I usually see 45 dmg from a shadow if it touches me.

Buys just enough time when it gets laggy to not be overrun and last long enough to complete.
Altho if they get a good step on me. Or don't follow their normal spawn pattern due to lag or any other reason. It's still game over.


As for stoneskin. It's saved me so many times in epic it's not even a choice for being removed. Most mobs get 2-3 free hits after they are held/danced/stunned/stoned. And ss helps absorb some of that.

Or if you're in damage mode and pulling agro/kiting.. It can save you from various projectiles and glancing blows giving you enough time to heal yourself and re-apply stoneskin.

Has it changed since you carried it last? idk. But for me it's a free 150hp 1 click away with an instant cast time.

It's been the diffrence between dead and not very often. And dead is expensive and chaotic.

On other people you drop a quick heal, ss, displacement and they're now 'good' for awhile again. If something unexpected happened and you need some time. Cleric dc'd. Died. ect.

I'd still drop DD. It's used the least. And usually only for lazy reasons for the most part. For those once a month uses where it's actually NEEDED. a scroll would work fine.

[Impaqt]

DDoor is almost always just a shortcut. Rarely is it ever required. and in most quests, we have a bard with the spell as well and I have emergency backup scrolls to use if needed. No big deal to carry around a handful.

Of course, I dont carry Stoneskin either. I find that wands are sufficient. I carry Enervation for my 4th.

WoF, Fireshield, Enervation, and Ice storm will be my 4 on my sorc.

[fuzzy1guy]

Enervation is eventually obsoleted by its big brother energy drain. 1-4 lvls vs. 2-8 neg levels.

But to be fair. I don't see either of them being used as much as they should be. Seems overlooked by many.

[Carpone]

Stone Skin is the easy choice to dump for Ice Storm as a sorcerer.

Enervation is eventually obsoleted by its big brother energy drain. 1-4 lvls vs. 2-8 neg levels.

But to be fair. I don't see either of them being used as much as they should be. Seems overlooked by many.

There's very little content that requires Energy Drain, Amrath being one of the few exceptions. Do elite ToD and be the sole arcane responsible for the boss-fight trash in p1 and p3, and you'll be glad you have it.

[Thrudh]

Sorc were only really superior to Wizards for so long due to the spell pool being so limited. People knew which spells they wanted each level. Yes there are some levels that bottleneck, but for the most part, had there been ALOT more available psells, there would have been more of a justification to roll up a wizard for the last 4 years.

This...

I'm glad we're slowly getting to the point where sorcs have to actually make CHOICES about which spells to take...

We need about 6-8 more GOOD situational spells (and the sorc PrEs of course), and we'll have the two classes solidly balanced.

[Impaqt]

Enervation is eventually obsoleted by its big brother energy drain. 1-4 lvls vs. 2-8 neg levels.

But to be fair. I don't see either of them being used as much as they should be. Seems overlooked by many.

Stone Skin is the easy choice to dump for Ice Storm as a sorcerer.


There's very little content that requires Energy Drain, Amrath being one of the few exceptions. Do elite ToD and be the sole arcane responsible for the boss-fight trash in p1 and p3, and you'll be glad you have it.

If you run Epic, Energy Drain and Enervation are quite handy for crowd control.

Its faster for me to hit Enervation then Energy Drain, then Flesh to stone ta it is for me to wait for Energy drain to recharge.

[sirgog]

I'd never drop D-Door. It saves too much time.

People raid for ages to eek out a little more DPS to cut 3 seconds off Shroud boss fight times - why bypass a spell that can save you 2-5 minutes in quite a number of endgame quests (particularly epic VON6, VON5, epic Wiz-King, Into the Deep and Fathom the Depths) and that can prevent a wipe or allow escape from a fight that's going to hell?


Enervation can be scrolled most of the time. (Exception - high SR foes)

[Carpone]

If you run Epic, Energy Drain and Enervation are quite handy for crowd control.

I run epics all the time. Mass Hold Monster works on the majority of mobs without neg leveling any of them. There's only a few mobs that warrant neg level+Flesh to Stone. If you need to neg level, might as well do it with Energy Drain instead of multiple casts of Enervation.

[Impaqt]

Bring a Bard with ya folks.

[fuzzy1guy]

Not an option. Not nearly enough bards around. Let alone good bards.