Human Sorcerer build advice please

[BhoAh]

Just recently started playing DDO and want to try a caster, but am concerned about being really squishy. I'm not very clicky or twitchy and have been playing Clerics or Paladins for the self-heals. I'm having trouble finding current builds for Human Sorcerer; I'm thinking of something along these lines:

Human Female Sorcerer
True Neutral
32 pt build

Starting Stats:
Str 10
Dex 8
Con 16
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 18

Skill Points:
Concentration
Balance
UMD
1 each in Jump and Tumble

Feats (in order):
Toughness
Mental Toughness (swap out at higher level for Extend?)
Diehard
Empower
Maximize
Heighten
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration or FoP or Spell Focus (and if SF, which school?)

What would you experienced Sorcerers recommend? At what level would you suggest I take which feats for durability and over-all enjoyment as a caster?

I have no idea what school of spells I'll be interested in--I've read that Necromancy has been gimped at higher levels--is that true? Which tends to give the best damage output--fire/cold or electricity/acid? Wondering if I should specialize with my Ability Points or just try everything and specialize in nothing? Do I want to go for insta-kill or crowd control as a newbie, and what do I need to select to make that happen?

So many questions! Thanks for the time and input any of you may offer; I'll greatly appreciate any suggestions, modifications and links to builds

[QuantumFX]

HERE you go.

[Hobgoblin]

Just recently started playing DDO and want to try a caster, but am concerned about being really squishy. I'm not very clicky or twitchy and have been playing Clerics or Paladins for the self-heals. I'm having trouble finding current builds for Human Sorcerer; I'm thinking of something along these lines:

Human Female Cleric
True Neutral
32 pt build

Starting Stats:
Str 10
Dex 8
Con 16
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 18

Skill Points:
Concentration
Balance
UMD
1 each in Jump and Tumble

Feats (in order):
Toughness
Mental Toughness (swap out at higher level for Extend?)
Diehard
Empower
Maximize
Heighten
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration or FoP or Spell Focus (and if SF, which school?)

What would you experienced Sorcerers recommend? At what level would you suggest I take which feats for durability and over-all enjoyment as a caster?

I have no idea what school of spells I'll be interested in--I've read that Necromancy has been gimped at higher levels--is that true? Which tends to give the best damage output--fire/cold or electricity/acid? Wondering if I should specialize with my Ability Points or just try everything and specialize in nothing? Do I want to go for insta-kill or crowd control as a newbie, and what do I need to select to make that happen?

So many questions! Thanks for the time and input any of you may offer; I'll greatly appreciate any suggestions, modifications and links to builds

diehard is worthless
so is mental toughness on a sorc
i prefer sf: enchant for end raids and epic sf: necro for leveling
the spell pen feats, i found to be a waste on my sorc either i was easily making the spell pen check or i wasnt so 1 or 2 wouldnt help much.

balance jump and tumble dont need lots of points put in them
my sorc has no points in jump and still easily hits the 40 jump mark, tumble is either all or nothing, balance i miss, but is still nice. haggle is something else to consider, since you will have a sick cha

the necro school rocks untill you hit amarath. then it blows lol. still for leveling its nice.

i would stick with fire and ice for right now, maxing your damage and your crits. depending on if you can fit it in i would also max the damage on your elec/acid line as well but not as important.

hope that helps
hob

[BhoAh]

Wow, thanks for such quick responses!

QuantumFX: I've already bookmarked that link, it rocks!

Hobgoblin: Good to know that Diehard, Mental Toughness and Spell Pen aren't worth taking--will definitely go with SF in Necro, since I just play with one other person, a few hours every few days, so I'm way more concerned about leveling with a teeny tiny party than about epic raids and endgame! But will try to remember to switch it out for Enchant when and if I ever get that far (feels a loooong way away!)

I may be overly concerned about the squishy factor since I've sort of gotten used to the heavy full plate armor and being able to survive being bashed (most of the time) since there's just the two of us on quests. Adding to this concern was the fact that I rolled DDO's Arcane Cannon and Dynamic Hands Sorcerers to level 4 (JUST bought Veteran Status) and BOTH of those paths had Diehard, one had Mental Toughness and the other Heroic Durability, so I figured I'd better roll something on the safe side. But i guess not

Does this seem like a better line-up(in order)? My concern is the way all these feats gobble up SP
Toughness
Empower
Extend
Maximize
Heighten
Spell Focus: Necro
GSF?
FoP?

And how did my starting stats seem?

Thanks again!

[Jaid314]

i hear a lot of people claiming spell pen is not worth taking. i find this curious as i have a level 20 sorcerer with both spell pen feats, a spell pen item, and the entire line of spell pen boosting enhancements... and i still don't break spell penetration 100% of the time.

this leads me to wonder if there are just a lot of people out there who *enjoy* their spells failing, or perhaps if i'm just delusional when i see stuff display that blue shield and my dice roll comes up telling me it was a failed spell pen check...

simply put: when i cast a spell, my goal is for it to work, the first time, and not require that i cast it 5 times. if i find that i'm routinely breaking spell penetration on a 1 everywhere i go, and that i could break it even if i rolled a -1 somehow, i might consider not taking every available method to boost my spell pen checks. until then, i'm going to consider spell pen to be a valuable tool in my arsenal.

oh, but as far as the die hard feat, they're 100% right about that. force of personality can be occasionally useful, but you should be fine without it...

and if i was going to invest in spell focus, i'd invest in enchantment anyways. there's not much of a difference between "dead" and "held" if you have a decent set of heavy picks plus, enchantment is much more versatile... you can throw hold spells, charms, hypnotism, dancing sphere, suggestion spells (important note: from what i gather, charm and suggestion do in fact cause different effects, and some creatures that are immune to one are not immune to the other), dominate spells, debuff spells (well... mostly *a* debuff spell, and you are only semi-likely to use it... but i'm getting really attached to my crushing despair spell personally... though i suppose mind fog is another consideration)... there's even stuns, theoretically (note: symbol of stunning has a really slow casting time, and an absolutely horrid cooldown. power word: stun is a steaming pile of garbage, and if you learn it i reserve the right to point the finger of mockery at you). of course, there is also technically an instakill spell, but:

1) it has no save anyways.
2) by the time it can actually have an effect on the target, it would be a waste of spell points to cast a level 9 spell on it.

[Hounder]

I know it may seem irrelevant but your build says: Human female Cleric*
Hehe. Actually I suggest you take the enchantment focus from the start instead of swapping it out later~ It's not terribly difficult trying to land your wail on monsters in vale even without any enhancements making lvling pretty easy already
Saves you money from having to swap feats tooo!
I like the evocation focus too
Gather a big group of monsters in Armath and 2-3 casts of un-saved maxxed cone of cold should bring them down! (Disclaimer- Normal and hard difficulty only! Not too sure about elite!)
At the end of the day you gotta try it out and decide what you like first

[SEMPER]

take the 2 points out of wis and put it into con or str , especially if you plan on taking force of personality those points can be spent better somewhere else imho

[soulaeon]

Starting Stats:
Str 10
Dex 8
Con 16
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 18

You need Dex a little more than Str, because Balance will be very useful. What you can do is get yourself some +1 or 2 tomes and do something like this:

Str: 9 (+tome)
Dex: 10
Con: 14 (+tome, or +2 from Wis)
Int: 11 (+tome before level 2)
Wis: 10 (This could be a negative stat)
Cha: 18

Before level 2, use a tome on Int which will give you more skill points the next times you level. This way, you can get Concentration, UMD and Haggle maximized. At the same time, you can add your +1.0 to Tumble and not waste much doing so.

Toughness
Mental Toughness (swap out at higher level for Extend?)
Diehard
Empower
Maximize
Heighten
Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration or FoP or Spell Focus (and if SF, which school?)

The only defensive feat we should have is Toughness. Since you're a human, you have one extra and that can still be used to boose spells rather than defense. You're a caster, so dont try to use your feats to make-up for what you lack, but embellish what you already can do.

Mental Toughness
Empower
Extend
Heighten
Toughness
Maximize
Spell Penetration
Last two could be both Spell Focus (Enchantment) or that and Improved Mental Toughness, or Skill Focus (UMD).

[Timmeke123456]

I'm playing a LV16 sorc atm without toughness. Playing with less health points, you'll quickly learn that the trick is to kill mobs before they can even hit/kill you. And it gives spare action points (not taking the racial toughness enhancements) you can use on other usefull enhancements.

It's all about your playing style... It really is a big difference between playing a barbarian with 700 hitpoints at level 20 or a sorcerer with only 250 hitpoints at level 20. But with the right gear (minos legens & greater false life & con+6 belt at higher levels give you a third more hitpoints) you'll get there I tried to get all the lineage of element enhancements + critical chance + critical multipliers asap. Spending skill points on racial toughness won't let you do this.

So my point is ??? look at what u want to do / how u wanna play...

==> U want to kill mobs with one hit/spell ? max out the spell enhancements asap without toughness. Take Maximize and Empower as early as you can. Than, try to get the lineage of energy asap, together with the critical chance & critical multipliers

OR:

==> U want to feel more comfortable with some more hitpoints & less spell (critical) damage? Than take toughness early & empower/maximize. And spend action points on the racial toughness first.

OR:

==> U don't care at all about the spell damage but prefer playing the crowd controller ? than focus on spell penetration & enchantment focus... I've been in a group once where an enchanter wizard charmed half of the 200 kobolds in kobold assault(150 miscellaneous kills), played with him later and he manages to gather a group of mobs in vale, charm half & let them fight each other Downside of this is that questing takes way more time than usual.

Consider how u wanna play since spell swaps & feat swaps & enhancement resets are costly if u do it again&again&again..

Hope this was helpfull

Cheers!

[Rodasch]

Take Maximize before Empower.

Maximize is the better of the two as a stand alone, and having maximize makes empower much stronger.

My recommended order for metas is:

Extend
Maximize
Empower
Heighten
anything else

As for other feats, I recommend taking your human bonus feat in toughness and your sorc 1 feat in force of personality, and losing all the wis points you spent in favor of dex to bring your reflex save up by 1 back to base. -1 to reflex save is bad news for a caster who will basically be living and dying by their saves and resistances.

I might even suggest dumping str to bring dex up to 12.

So feat lineout looks like this:
Toughness, Force of Personality
Extend (you'll want this for your buffs, it will save lots of sp)
Maximize
Empower
-----------after this point it begins to get more variable based on your play style and build purpose but if you're looking for good general usefulness (a little of everything) then a good balance is:
Spell Penetration
Heighten
Greater Spell Penetration

That should make sure you land a lot of your spells, no matter what kind they are.

Spell focus doesn't impress me much, but then I'm not running into a lot of saves versus my spells, and I use a lot of no-save spells as my staples, or target the weak saves of the monsters. However spell penetration can be a sticking point when you need to land a Finger or Banish or a CC spell (except mass suggestion which bypasses SR, or web which also ignores SR). Heighten will fix most of your "save throw" issues on your spells, and you'll want the spell pen.

[Hobgoblin]

You need Dex a little more than Str, because Balance will be very useful. What you can do is get yourself some +1 or 2 tomes and do something like this:

Str: 9 (+tome)
Dex: 10
Con: 14 (+tome, or +2 from Wis)
Int: 11 (+tome before level 2)
Wis: 10 (This could be a negative stat)
Cha: 18

Before level 2, use a tome on Int which will give you more skill points the next times you level. This way, you can get Concentration, UMD and Haggle maximized. At the same time, you can add your +1.0 to Tumble and not waste much doing so.


The only defensive feat we should have is Toughness. Since you're a human, you have one extra and that can still be used to boose spells rather than defense. You're a caster, so dont try to use your feats to make-up for what you lack, but embellish what you already can do.

Mental Toughness
Empower
Extend
Heighten
Toughness
Maximize
Spell Penetration
Last two could be both Spell Focus (Enchantment) or that and Improved Mental Toughness, or Skill Focus (UMD).

i still say mental toughness is a waste. my sorc breaks 3k sp at 20 without, it hads what 100? 150? drop in da bucket! and you cant take an int tome till 3 minimum, 7 is more likely

hob

[SEMPER]

this is what I would do imho

str : 12
dex : 8
con : 16
int : 10
wis : 8
cha : 18

the reason I put the remaining points into str is that you will get encumbered pretty easily otherwise even with a str item

feats:
lvl 1 : maximize
lvl 1 : force of personality
lvl 3 : empower
lvl 6 : extend
lvl 9 : toughness
lvl 12 : heighten
lvl 15 : spell focus - enchantment
lvl 18 : greater spell focus - enchantment
or
lvl 18 : spell pen
or
lvl 18 : spell focus - anything else u want to focus in

IMHO u don't need mental toughness you will have plenty of of mana at lvl 20 probably around 3100 or so which is enough for end game

dex is not needed as your balance won't be the greatest anyway and your str won't be high so your going to get tripped anyway

skill points i'd put them into concentration/umd/diplomacy or bluff

after lvl 7 you can take a +2 int tome to get another skill point but its not needed but if you have one you could put the extra point into balance i guess or fill out bluff or diplomacy as you level up

hope this helps

[BhoAh]

Thanks everyone, you've given me a lot to think about. I'm going to have to re-read everything when I'm not so tired and sort out what exactly I'm going to do feat-wise.

Now, if you have it in you, I've just come to realize how important spell selection is! Again, being more used to a cleric (ha! funny I listed my sorcerer as cleric...old habits die hard) I thought I could just run into a tavern and swap out one for another, but I've just learned that's not the way it is with a sorcerer. So I'm in serious need of help.

So far I've only done quests with my boyfriend, so groups are tiny, at times a hireling makes 3. I really like AOEs that can affect as many in the mob as possible, so he has fewer to bash, or at least more time to bash them! Which spells would you experienced guys suggest I take? (BF has never played a caster, so he has no idea how to help me out).

Thanks in advance for even more input

[Rodasch]

Thanks everyone, you've given me a lot to think about. I'm going to have to re-read everything when I'm not so tired and sort out what exactly I'm going to do feat-wise.

Now, if you have it in you, I've just come to realize how important spell selection is! Again, being more used to a cleric (ha! funny I listed my sorcerer as cleric...old habits die hard) I thought I could just run into a tavern and swap out one for another, but I've just learned that's not the way it is with a sorcerer. So I'm in serious need of help.

So far I've only done quests with my boyfriend, so groups are tiny, at times a hireling makes 3. I really like AOEs that can affect as many in the mob as possible, so he has fewer to bash, or at least more time to bash them! Which spells would you experienced guys suggest I take? (BF has never played a caster, so he has no idea how to help me out).

Thanks in advance for even more input

Honestly, the best choices for sorc spells are ones that scale with level and that you'll use a long time. You CAN swap a spell every 3 days at the trainer for a substancial plat cost, so you're not permanently stuck with a bad choice. But most of what I'm going to suggest is stuff you'll find you want or need throughout your char's levels

Level 1: Nightshield, Jump, 2 others of your choice
Level 2: Resist Elements, Blur, 2 others of your choice
Level 3: Haste, Displacement, 2 others of your choice
Level 4: Wall of Fire, Stoneskin, Fireshield, Dimension Door
Level 5: Pick 4 that fit your build, but I suggest taking Cone of Cold and Prot from Elements
Level 6: Greater Heroism, Disintegrate, 1 other of your choice
Level 7: Finger of Death, Otto's Sphere of Dancing, 1 other of your choice
Level 8: Polar Ray, 2 others of your choice
Level 9: Wail of the Banshee, Mass Hold Monster, 1 other of your choice

You'll notice we only get 4 spells of each level 1-5, then 3 spells of each level 6-9. This is our biggest limitation and is the primary reason we have to be so picky with our spells to get the most useage out of them.

When Ice storm change goes live you can probably add that to the list above, and maybe remove disintegrate, as right now it's in there as a way to deal with stuff like golems and elemental immune mobs like blackbones.

for further discussions on spells you can find many good ones in the sorceror forums here if you just dig around. One such thread was "Low level spells on higher level sorcerors" where I asked the vets for their input on my spell setups.

[soulaeon]

Spell focus doesn't impress me much, but then I'm not running into a lot of saves versus my spells, and I use a lot of no-save spells as my staples, or target the weak saves of the monsters. However spell penetration can be a sticking point when you need to land a Finger or Banish or a CC spell (except mass suggestion which bypasses SR, or web which also ignores SR). Heighten will fix most of your "save throw" issues on your spells, and you'll want the spell pen.

That's because you're not doing much high end content, or not doing epics. Try to keep something held with only 30 DC or less than 35 in a raid or epic dungeon, or try to instant-kill something with Epic Ward. I could not land anything in Devil Battlefield, but I had enough SP to spam Hold in epic House P-- if I had more DC, I would not care about some extra Will saves (which I usually make any way).
Taking Force of Personality over something as vital as DC is a waste, because a lot of healer buffs prevent mind-control or other enchantments. Even spell resistance serves one better than using a feat.

[Rodasch]

That's because you're not doing much high end content, or not doing epics. Try to keep something held with only 30 DC or less than 35 in a raid or epic dungeon, or try to instant-kill something with Epic Ward. I could not land anything in Devil Battlefield, but I had enough SP to spam Hold in epic House P-- if I had more DC, I would not care about some extra Will saves (which I usually make any way).
Taking Force of Personality over something as vital as DC is a waste, because a lot of healer buffs prevent mind-control or other enchantments. Even spell resistance serves one better than using a feat.

You still that upset over me suggesting FoP for the low levels? Dude, everyone gets 1 free feat swap and he can use it whenever he wants to get something "more useful" when he's 20 and doing nothing but epics and raids, if he needs to. Until then, he might just want to do something that doesnt' involve being buffed to the gills and trotting about casting nothing but Mass Hold and Firewall while the melees kill everything (yeah I know it's an exaggerated generalization).

Also, name me the instant kill spell that is no-save and not 300hp capped which would make bringing that up even slightly relevent in this conversation?

[BhoAh]

I know it may seem irrelevant but your build says: Human female Cleric*
Hehe. Actually I suggest you take the enchantment focus from the start instead of swapping it out later~ It's not terribly difficult trying to land your wail on monsters in vale even without any enhancements making lvling pretty easy already

Thanks, fixed!

So what exactly do you mean by taking the enchantment focus from the start....? Like at lvl 1 or 3?

[BhoAh]

So my point is ??? look at what u want to do / how u wanna play...

==> U want to kill mobs with one hit/spell ? max out the spell enhancements asap without toughness. Take Maximize and Empower as early as you can. Than, try to get the lineage of energy asap, together with the critical chance & critical multipliers

!

This is the path I want to take. Thanks for halping me clarify that. Would I want to take the lineage of energy for electicity/acid too, or just stay with fire/cold?

What spells would be most effective for me to max my crowd killing capabilities?

Thanks to all the input, thinking about what I really want with this build, this is what I'm planing feat-wise as a human:
Maximize
Empower
Extend
Heighten
Spell Focus: Enchantment (or ??)
GSF: Enchantment (or ??)
Spell Penentration
GSP

Or should SF come earlier??

With starting stats:
Str: 8
Dex:12
Con: 16
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 18

My plan is to use Bull's Strength pots, but will the pot negate enfeeblement/burden once its already occurred?
Upping dex to try to help with low reflex saves and poor balance.

Skill Points in Concentration, Balance, UMD, a few in Jump.

Thanks again!

[SEMPER]

no toughness feat ?? why ?? you will need the hps for the people in here saying you won't are just flat out wrong bottom line

why dex ?? what does it do for you ?? your reflex save will suck anyway the str helps you more then that does for carrying things and not getting burdened as easily or dump both and put everything into con either way dex is a total waste.... being tripped is based off of str , the only thing the balance skill points are for will be how fast you get back up so if this is your reasoning i guess its good enough but I don't think so

as for a bull str potion yes it will help but with your str starting so low it's not going to help out that much by the time u have all your gear / scrolls / components etc..... you want to be able to carry some things and not get burdened especially when your trying to evade defenders when you have agro , because trust me you will have agro

as for your feats drop either a focus or a spell pen for toughness everything else looks fine

[BhoAh]

no toughness feat ?? why ?? you will need the hps for the people in here saying you won't are just flat out wrong bottom line

why dex ?? what does it do for you ?? your reflex save will suck anyway the str helps you more then that does for carrying things and not getting burdened as easily or dump both and put everything into con either way dex is a total waste.... being tripped is based off of str , the only thing the balance skill points are for will be how fast you get back up so if this is your reasoning i guess its good enough but I don't think so

as for a bull str potion yes it will help but with your str starting so low it's not going to help out that much by the time u have all your gear / scrolls / components etc..... you want to be able to carry some things and not get burdened especially when your trying to evade defenders when you have agro , because trust me you will have agro

as for your feats drop either a focus or a spell pen for toughness everything else looks fine

I think your points are pretty convincing. I had bf read thru this thread, and he's a huge dex fan (most of his builds are dex heavy) and he agreed with the one poster who said to go dex instead of str. I'm a bit of a loot 'ho, i love to pick everything up, and I hate being tripped, so I think I may go Str 12 Dex 8 afterall.

All the people telling me I don't need Toughness that I just need casting capability made me think maybe it would be ok to go without. I was thinking that my Sorcerer would then be really different than my OCCleric and BCleric, but as I stated in my op, I really am concerned with squishiness. Will taking Toughness and the racial feats gimp my casting? Which level do you suggest I take it...right away or late?

Which spells do you think I should have? Do you agree with Rodasch's list? Are there any you would add or that you feel strongly about? Do I stick with fire/cold or do I take acid/electricity too?

Sorry for all the questions but I'm so tired of having to constantly reroll toons. And since I've never gotten above lvl 5 I don't have a lot of platinum or anything to twink out a build.