U9 Sorcerer Prestige worth it?

[richieelias27]

being able to turn into an elemental is definitely *not* niche, whatever else it is. you get some very nice immunities by doing so.

In DDO you would be absolutely correct. Not only would being able to turn into an elemental *not* be niche, it would be totally bada**. In PnP however, all it would do is give you powers you already had access to through spells/a spell.

For an 'easy' DC I'd say a more accurate target would be 32. Add 5 (6?) to 7 (8?) if you drop a crushing despair first (in prep for disabling) for a 15 second effective DC of 37 (38?) to 39 (40?). Follow up with Mass Hold Monster or Deep Slumber for a one-shot. It takes some prep and costs 20sp more, but it is still very effective.

[Solmage]

That's backwards. The fact that D&D 3.5 has a bigger list of useful spells means that Elemental Savant is even weaker in D&D than otherwise.

Look: If you train Elemental Savant in D&D 3.5, you are being stupid. The best way to kill enemies in D&D 3.5 is not to blast them with energy damage or even hitpoint damage, but to fire either neg levels or stat penalties, or some kind of Save Or Lose. Elemental Savant takes away 2 levels of regular casting progression, making you much worse at the spells that are actually useful. In exchange you get some benefits with energy damage blastomancy, which is a bad thing to be good at.

So no, my point that the Elemental Savant in D&D 3.5 has bigger penalties than it does in DDO is not false. The truth is that because the DDO Elemental Savant can still cast 4 kinds of energy damage and can cast Mass Hold and Wail at the regular CL means that it has much weaker penalties.

I hate to agree with this, but in PnP Elemental Savants are the one PrE class that actually makes you a significantly weaker caster, and except for role playing purposes, or if the game world requires it "(All sorcerers have to be savants of one type, that's where their power comes from, and no wizards currently exist..)", nobody chooses a savant.

This is particularly true once they released the element substitution feat, but even if your GM doesn't allow it, archmages which are core did, and without ridiculous penalties.

Of course, I never thought the developers would do such a good job of trying to implement the 'class is now weaker with PrE' aspect of it

My kingdom for my old enhancements without PrE.

[Solmage]

It isn't "already hard" to hit appropriate dcs for epic. My sorceror is capable of dcs up to 39 (I don't have any spell focus feats), but has no issues even at 37 (sans ship buff or yugoloth) and my cleric, who's junk with a 32-33 dc, can land appropriate spells a good half the time or so.

It isn't "easy" to reach 39 DC on a sorcerer by any stretch of the imagination. It is doable, after oh about 6+ months of hard grinding, and what, exactly, are you supposed to do until then? Glorified piking? And what if you have a life and CANT do hard grinding, and have to settle for 2-3 hours a day, at most, of game play?

37 DC is NOT enough, not even close, and that's in Pre-U9 epics. Heck at 41 (my least geared wizard) it felt like he needed more in several quests.

Now add the fact saves just went up by some 4-5 points? (I forget if 4 or 5) and suddenly you are CCing as well as a sorcerer with a 35 DC, or rather, not at all. But wait, there's always irresistible dance, right? But now it lasts around 6 seconds and can't be extended, 9 on average.. oops sucks to be you.

Meanwhile, the wizard in the party will have SOLID mass holds that will add +50% damage to HIS AoEs, and everyone can be left wondering 'why the heck did we bring a sorc again, when we had this wizard with a 45 DC?'

Also, everyone mentions that there are spells like crushing despair who can be used to lower saves.. sure there are, but who exactly is going to have an easier time slotting all of those spells, the wizard or the sorcerer, and still having room for any DPS spells?

It seems to me the solution for sorcerers is to forget damage spells, choose electricity for the passive and active benefits (wings, knockdown, featherfall) and completely change your spell selection into CC and insta-kill only spells, and forget about damage completely. That, or try to become a melee who can't CC nor insta-kill worth anything, and will have to pike after 2 minutes of burst.

[Desteria]

Sure noone looks specifically for aoe dps but sorcs can also fill single target dps also as well as crowd control and even help heal with scrolls. Not sure what other role you would want them to do here. Sorc tanks?

Hey my sorc has over 500 hp and displacment and SS clikies I cans tanks stuffs and who knows I might beable to hold agro nuking now

[Jaid314]

It seems to me the solution for sorcerers is to forget damage spells, choose electricity for the passive and active benefits (wings, knockdown, featherfall) and completely change your spell selection into CC and insta-kill only spells, and forget about damage completely. That, or try to become a melee who can't CC nor insta-kill worth anything, and will have to pike after 2 minutes of burst.

eh, i wouldn't take *no* damage spells... but i would definitely advocate primarily ignoring damage. but, if you're going CC and want a savant PrE for some reason, earth is the way to go. earthgrab and a better flesh to stone, make earth the strongest choice for CC imo. not really good, mind you, but definitely less bad.

[LeLoric]

It isn't "easy" to reach 39 DC on a sorcerer by any stretch of the imagination. It is doable, after oh about 6+ months of hard grinding, and what, exactly, are you supposed to do until then? Glorified piking? And what if you have a life and CANT do hard grinding, and have to settle for 2-3 hours a day, at most, of game play?

37 DC is NOT enough, not even close, and that's in Pre-U9 epics. Heck at 41 (my least geared wizard) it felt like he needed more in several quests.

Now add the fact saves just went up by some 4-5 points? (I forget if 4 or 5) and suddenly you are CCing as well as a sorcerer with a 35 DC, or rather, not at all. But wait, there's always irresistible dance, right? But now it lasts around 6 seconds and can't be extended, 9 on average.. oops sucks to be you.

Meanwhile, the wizard in the party will have SOLID mass holds that will add +50% damage to HIS AoEs, and everyone can be left wondering 'why the heck did we bring a sorc again, when we had this wizard with a 45 DC?'

Also, everyone mentions that there are spells like crushing despair who can be used to lower saves.. sure there are, but who exactly is going to have an easier time slotting all of those spells, the wizard or the sorcerer, and still having room for any DPS spells?

It seems to me the solution for sorcerers is to forget damage spells, choose electricity for the passive and active benefits (wings, knockdown, featherfall) and completely change your spell selection into CC and insta-kill only spells, and forget about damage completely. That, or try to become a melee who can't CC nor insta-kill worth anything, and will have to pike after 2 minutes of burst.

Like those 45 enchantment wizards don't require a huge grind also.

37 is still capable of ccing in most epic content. And 37 is not that hard to do. Sure some mobs may require a little hypno debuff but sorcs have lots of sp for this and fast casting to fire off the two almost simultaneously.

All that being said theres little better CC than death and sorcs can kill at an extremely fast rate. I was playing around in echrono today with my 44 dc palemaster and had to work hard to outkill the sorc in there with me.

[Junts]

It isn't "easy" to reach 39 DC on a sorcerer by any stretch of the imagination. It is doable, after oh about 6+ months of hard grinding, and what, exactly, are you supposed to do until then? Glorified piking? And what if you have a life and CANT do hard grinding, and have to settle for 2-3 hours a day, at most, of game play?

37 DC is NOT enough, not even close, and that's in Pre-U9 epics. Heck at 41 (my least geared wizard) it felt like he needed more in several quests.

Now add the fact saves just went up by some 4-5 points? (I forget if 4 or 5) and suddenly you are CCing as well as a sorcerer with a 35 DC, or rather, not at all. But wait, there's always irresistible dance, right? But now it lasts around 6 seconds and can't be extended, 9 on average.. oops sucks to be you.

Meanwhile, the wizard in the party will have SOLID mass holds that will add +50% damage to HIS AoEs, and everyone can be left wondering 'why the heck did we bring a sorc again, when we had this wizard with a 45 DC?'

Also, everyone mentions that there are spells like crushing despair who can be used to lower saves.. sure there are, but who exactly is going to have an easier time slotting all of those spells, the wizard or the sorcerer, and still having room for any DPS spells?

It seems to me the solution for sorcerers is to forget damage spells, choose electricity for the passive and active benefits (wings, knockdown, featherfall) and completely change your spell selection into CC and insta-kill only spells, and forget about damage completely. That, or try to become a melee who can't CC nor insta-kill worth anything, and will have to pike after 2 minutes of burst.

A 37 dc sorc is one with 1 spell focuses, zero trs, and a 38 base charisma before yugo/ship buffs.

All you need to get that is to be a drow or a human and complete tower of despair abour 4 times to make a +3 exceptional cha ring.

That is easy. if you can't do that, you probably shouldn't be any good at epic, b ecuase epic is supposed to be harder than tower of despair on normal.

[Dilgar]

If you're doing tower 4 times to get 9 trophies, you're not doing it on normal.

[Skyeson]

A 37 dc sorc is one with 1 spell focuses, zero trs, and a 38 base charisma before yugo/ship buffs.

All you need to get that is to be a drow or a human and complete tower of despair abour 4 times to make a +3 exceptional cha ring.

That is easy. if you can't do that, you probably shouldn't be any good at epic, b ecuase epic is supposed to be harder than tower of despair on normal.

I've completed TOD 4 times. only saw a Cha item drop once and then someone said in chat "Give it to the paladin he's the only one who's going to benefit from it ..."

[Jaid314]

A 37 dc sorc is one with 1 spell focuses, zero trs, and a 38 base charisma before yugo/ship buffs.

All you need to get that is to be a drow or a human and complete tower of despair abour 4 times to make a +3 exceptional cha ring.

That is easy. if you can't do that, you probably shouldn't be any good at epic, b ecuase epic is supposed to be harder than tower of despair on normal.

38 cha = +14 modifier.

10 base + 9 spell level + 14 modifier = DC 33, which means a single spell focus is not going to bring you up to DC 37 as a general rule. not even with a +2 DC item, most of which are also not trivial to get... dreamspitter isn't hard, it's just a PITA because it never drops and up until very recently, everyone wanted one. and of course, it's also a nuisance because it's a two-handed weapon. eardweller isn't too hard... provided you've already got your DCs pretty good to solo the right quests, and know how to farm said quests. but again, it's not by any means a guaranteed drop...

wanna try again?

[Junts]

38 cha = +14 modifier.

10 base + 9 spell level + 14 modifier = DC 33, which means a single spell focus is not going to bring you up to DC 37 as a general rule. not even with a +2 DC item, most of which are also not trivial to get... dreamspitter isn't hard, it's just a PITA because it never drops and up until very recently, everyone wanted one. and of course, it's also a nuisance because it's a two-handed weapon. eardweller isn't too hard... provided you've already got your DCs pretty good to solo the right quests, and know how to farm said quests. but again, it's not by any means a guaranteed drop...

wanna try again?

Most high-end casters use staffs regularly, but there's a greater enchantment focus 1 handed weapon in the new questchain. +2 dcs is readily available if you want it to be.

Also, I said a base 38 cha. That implies that temporary buffs are not included. That simple 38 cha sorc is a 40-42 cha sorc as long as you invest a little effort in it (yugo cha pot has next to zero downside, and I use mine most all of the itme .. and the +2 shrine is available to a pretty decent percentage of guilds). Spell focus 1, item 2, 1-2 from temporary buffs means that 38 cha sorc I just described has a 37-38 dc, as long as he puts in even a moderate amount of effort to his character. Added tip: use the new sceptre in your primary hand so when you use heal scrolls you take it off and lose its concentration penalty.

Expecting you to have a little experience in Amrath and have run a little lowerlevel content is not unreasonable to expect from a character who wants to be extremely effective at epic CC. But honestly, I poersonally don't even carry a spell focus: enchant (though I do have arcane initiate), so my enchantment dc is often only 1-2 pts higher than I outlined here (due to my charisma mod), and you know what? In epic, the main reason for me to cast mass hold monster is so my spells deal more damage!

My sorceror was wantonly overpowered today and isn't even done gearing up for his build. Mobs that were held were actually 1-hit crit kills to chainlightning and friends - my highest crit on a mob I neither used eardweller on nor used my vuln curse on was around 3600 damage. With eardweller and vuln, I broke 4000.

[Junts]

If you're doing tower 4 times to get 9 trophies, you're not doing it on normal.

People pass them.

[slimkj]

I've switched my sorc over to Air as planned and I'm enjoying it for now. Reasons;

• Learning to play it again with a new flavour, hotbar and approach
• Wings (although halve the cooldown please...)
• Very cheap, so sustainable, electric-based damage
• Glowy bits
• Wings
• Knockdown perks

I think when I TR it'll be something else whilst levelling and Air at 18. Can't see it'd be the best one to level.