Half-Elf vs. Warforged & Air Savant vs. Earth Savant

[Failedlegend]

OK so I'm making a Sorceror for my friend because shes more into Blasting than crowd controlling and what not so she asked me to make a Savant sorceror (she likes the SLAs)

Now my Dillema is whther to go Air or Earth and Warforged or Half-Elf...personally I'd probably go Half-Elf Air Savant but I don't have much experience with Sorc 'so I figure I'd ask you guys.

Now warforged have the obvious advantage of self-healing from their blue bar but a Half-Elf w/ Pally Dilly can use basic divine wands/scrolls and if I fit in UMD even with half-ranks the HIgh Cha of a Sorc I should be able to get no-fail heal scrolls and heal amp is easier to boost than repair amp...so I'd say their about even and Half-Elf gets +5 to saves out of the deal but Warforged get Immunities....its a hard call.

Now my main issue is Air Savant vs. Earth (or fire or Water) I love the utility (featherfall, monk-like jump that Air savant brings and the Archer and Barbarian in our group will love the boost to lightning strike. Plus Lightning spells just look cool but Water,Fire & Earth Savant have better attack SLAs.

Anyways here's the two builds.

Half-Elf Sorc 20 (Air Savant)

Str 10
Con 16
Int 12
Cha 18 (Lvl ups here)

HE Pally Dilly (+5 Saves & Free Divine Wand/Scroll Use FTW)
1 Toughness
3 Empower
6 Maximize
9 DM1
12 DM2
15 Heighten
18 DM3

Skills: UMD, Concen, Diplo

Warforged Sorc 20 (Likely Air or Earth Savant but open to suggestion)

Con 20
Cha 16 (Lvl ups here)

1 Extend
3 Empower
6 Maximize
9 Toughness
12 SF: Conj
15 Heighten
18 Quicken

Skills: Concentration

[-Zephyr-]

I went helf air on my first sorc. Very fun to play leveling, although bravery didn't exist back then, so wand healing was an options (mobs don't hit quite as much on norm than on hard.). Once capped... Bleh. Way too squishy for my taste, being used to a WF Wizard, still failing heal scrolls UMD in some critical moments, divines so used to self sufficient arcanes they forget to save you when you have some pack of epic mobs on you making you fail self heals concentration... I haven't played that sorc for about 5 months.

Then, when they came up with bravery. I gave sorc another go with WF earth savant... It just felt even more powerful than the helf. Wand/scroll self heal at low levels, but getting quickened reconstructs is huge for high levels.
I liked that build so much I wanted to keep on playing it... I did 3 lives of that build. (+1 wiz and is now Evoker FvS but that's another story).
The only thing is acid looses a bit of its power end game. Air is too reliant on saves imo, mobs will save/evade a lot till you can gear well enough.
Yes air has nice peaks, but it lacks some power imo..

To be honest, I think the most fun while being effective is leveling as either acid or fire (your choice, I tried both, both are good) then swap to water with acid secondary (and some points in lightning for the DoT ofc) when lvl ~17. I strongly recomment WF, especially if first life without all the raid/GS twinked gear to help leveling.

[darthhento]

Go acid WF first life, it's easier and less gear dependant.

Second life go air human (extra feat anyone?), max con and cha rest into int. Max concentration and UMD, max elec and ice.

[Malison]

My arcane's gone through the following lives so far:
1 drow wiz PM
2 wf sorc (pre-savant)
3 wf wiz AM
4 human sorc (levelled as earth, air savant at cap)

After being capped for several months, I can't stand using heal scrolls any more. I've died more times than I can count simply from the delay in putting on the heal scroll before being able to use it. Failing to lost conc almost never happens with an item, and UMD isn't a problem, but being fleshy just is not conducive to surviving. I'll be TRing back to wf as soon as I hit a couple 20ths.

A minor aside: I'd take human over half-elf for a sorc any day. Feats feats feats. Dilettante could get you cure wands, but you can already use cure potions (faster, no weapon swap required). Heal scrolls will run off your UMD in any case.

As for savant... earth was a lot of fun, and several of my guildies play capped earth savants which are exceptional in epics with their spammable earthgrab. They're a little poorer in a raid with the loss of eladar's, but not gamebreakingly so. I keep telling myself I'll switch to ice so I can go 3-element and be useful in abbot, but it's hard to give up wings and knockdown immunity.

I disagree strongly that water and earth have better SLA's than air, though. Acid spray sucks as bad as shocking grasp, but acid arrow is pretty meh damage to one target while electric loop's bouncing puts out a decent amount of damage and gives brief cc. Lightning bolt vs acid blast is less clear, but the huge range and doublestrike chance is really strong. Ice SLA's are all underwhelming.

Outside of SLA's things to consider would be, when you're casting damage spells what do you cast? For AoE an earth savant has otiluke's and acid blast, acid blast being terribly inferior to ball lightning, chain lightning, or DBF. For single-targets, every acid spell in the game, but you could just DoT those and move on.

[goodspeed]

Well for sorc id say WF, though I personally like human because of the extra feat that sorcerers are in high need of.

You know being a savent isn't set in stone. You can change those enhancements every 3 days. Blood of dragons drops from tor and the dude in the marketplace gives 2 as a reward for I think 50 favor. (10hp for 150 favor)

As for which acid is a pretty solid choice all the way. Very few things are immune to it or have grand resists to it. Plus your able to have a good web dc by investing in conjuration which is a requirement for the pre. (I wonder if you'll need to do that still come summer for those savents?

Gear wise you can have a +2 in any school just buy buying a greater shard from the ah and slapping it on something. I believe the ml for it is lv 11. Also never forget to take niacs dot spell. Even if you don't have anything invested in it, it's still a great dot. Especially if there's a water savant their to drop resistance to it and make it a purple dot.

The sla shot aside from above, melfs has a great tick to it. Once you maximize empower and highten it, it's like a clock ticking down on an enemy. Which is especially nice when you don't want to be anywhere near the enemies sight. Beholders come to mind. Nothing like hitting melfs, and niacs and diving behind that rock.

If earth id invest in ice as well. Be able to use ice storm and acid raid to unleash all kinds of fun hell.

[AylinIsAwesome]

Did something change with Ice spells? I haven't had time to play much since Savant came out until recently, but I remember Ice being touted as the best Savant to be for end game DPS, with Earth second. What happened?

[Ironforge_Clan]

As for which acid is a pretty solid choice all the way. Very few things are immune to it or have grand resists to it. Plus your able to have a good web dc by investing in conjuration which is a requirement for the pre.

Also never forget to take niacs dot spell. Even if you don't have anything invested in it, it's still a great dot. Especially if there's a water savant their to drop resistance to it and make it a purple dot.

The sla shot aside from above, melfs has a great tick to it. Once you maximize empower and highten it, it's like a clock ticking down on an enemy. Which is especially nice when you don't want to be anywhere near the enemies sight. Beholders come to mind. Nothing like hitting melfs, and niacs and diving behind that rock.

If earth id invest in ice as well. Be able to use ice storm and acid raid to unleash all kinds of fun hell.

This! I absolutely love my earth savant and took cold as my back up.

[scoobmx]

For non-cc builds, I suggest WF Earth. Ultimately, a high DC WF air is more powerful but only if you are willing to also CC

[Failedlegend]

So warforged is pretty much unanimous and element is personal preference (except fire I guess) will probably go Air

[Dark-Star]

For race, WF. It's not even close.

For Savant, after trying them all, I have settled on Air, and am very happy with it.

Leap and knock down immunity rock.

The two SLA's are solid, relative to the other elements.

You can get both level 5 DoTs.

Ice Storm for static AoE.

Ball Lightning and Chain Lightning wreck groups of bunched mobs. 1,200 a hit is not uncommon.

[goodspeed]

Did something change with Ice spells? I haven't had time to play much since Savant came out until recently, but I remember Ice being touted as the best Savant to be for end game DPS, with Earth second. What happened?

it's all preference. Personally I find water to be the only thing for me, though earth is alot of fun to. I just don't like the sp useage of air. (Which is odd because I leveled up my sorc before we had echo's or sla's to conserve while blasting. Just had to mentally judge sp useage while clicking and declicking meta's.)

But Now that we do have sla's, I love my max'd empowered heightened forst lance. Niacs when it lands, even better if it crits, and even snowball is ok if it isn't evaded. I can ko one mob after another with em.

I think I'd like air better if they actually put in an area over time dot. With ice I like to hit stone, and displace and then cast a couple of ice storms, then go into kite/ray mode picking off a group of epic mobs. They really need to get more electrical spells for mages. Whats bs is how they create one (motes) and then they give it to an arti only instead of all mages. I mean ***.

Of course my opinions could greatly change with the coming of this new content. In the near future once shroud and the like have been done for farming weapons and tod is done for gear, that leaves new content where a fire savent could very well take firm step. And that has some very good end spell possibilities as well. It's just been swept aside because everything immune in the current end game content.

But with new content, id be willing to switch it up and then use it on that plus epic runs. Not to mention the supposed changes to requirements for enhancement pre's. That's a whole new though process ball game.

[Failedlegend]

I think she'll probably like Warfoged Air Savant the most

[tinyelvis]

For a beginner, WF is probably the best way to go. A fleshy requires a heck of a lot of skill.

As for type of sorcerer it really does not matter. A beginner is going to perform marginally anyway. If her favorite color is green go with earth. If blue or white then go with air or water. And if red of course fire. As skill and play style develops she can go back and respec based on performance.

[-Mojo-]

My Main is Moju Darkspell, lvl 20 WF Air Savant whom is on his 3rd life.
I tried all savants at level 20 and can honestly say I gave them all a good chance.
I always went Fire leveling up with Fire Wall and while this is great for leveling, end levels it lacks as many bosses and quests have immunities to fire.

I tried Water for quite some time and this is always a great choice for leveling as wel.

Acid... Takes time to get used to, many low hitting spells that DOT and in the end can be VERY overpowering.

WHy I stuck with Air....

I solo EPic stuff and do a lot of Epic farming and here are 2 things about Air Savant that are critical:
1) You can not be tripoped by normal means.
THIS IS HUGE! how many times on EPic do you get tripped and you just die, end of the story.

2) You have a monk/FV like ability to have a rush of wind carry you when needed.

THis is HUGE when trying to get to places you normally can not reach. THis is the only ARCANE with the ability to do this (without splashes or special boots). This allows access to area's where you can essentially AOE and kill stuff from a distance. It allows quick travel and is sooo nice.

3) (not as important but nice) free Feather Fall, 1 less item to carry.


Other notes with AIr Savant:

Let me begin with my thoughts on Air Savant. I NEVER USED LIGHTNIG PREVIOUS TO THIS SAVANT! I hated Lightning bolt, never looked into the spells the DOT etc.

Air S, Has a DOT, that with Chain Lightning, ball of lighning (essentially fireball for air S) your 3 granted spells (Lightning bolt, etc etc) and along with weaken elemental, makes short work of groups of mobs fo 1,200 Dmg to many of them at one time. THIS IS HUGE!

The downfall of this build (to be fair):

-Saves from reflex for half by creatures (new)
-Creatures that are immune to lightning (Demon Queen, reaver)
-lack of Crowd Control (or many savants for that matter).
-You tend to go through Mana at a faster rate then other savants and need more Mana to burn (my opinion.)

So those are my thoughts folks, Can you tell I love my Air Savant?

[Failedlegend]

The downfall of this build (to be fair):

1-Saves from reflex for half by creatures (new)
2-Creatures that are immune to lightning (Demon Queen, reaver)
3-lack of Crowd Control (or many savants for that matter).
4-You tend to go through Mana at a faster rate then other savants and need more Mana to burn (my opinion.)

So those are my thoughts folks, Can you tell I love my Air Savant?

Heh yeah I'm loving my Air Savant so far (although I'm playing a H-Elf...I love robes and not being 10ft tall too much) and most of thopse issues are non issues for me.

1. Yeah this one sucks...but a little meta-gaming can help adjust in some situations
2. Again sucks but VERY uncommon as least compared to fire..and i have a secondary element for that
3. meh I play a wizard as well and I enjoy the fact my Sorc plays differently
4. This one is VERY minor I'm used to wizard level Mana values so this is very much a non-issue

[Isharah]

Now warforged have the obvious advantage of self-healing from their blue bar but a Half-Elf w/ Pally Dilly can use basic divine wands/scrolls and if I fit in UMD even with half-ranks the HIgh Cha of a Sorc I should be able to get no-fail heal scrolls and heal amp is easier to boost than repair amp...so I'd say their about even and Half-Elf gets +5 to saves out of the deal but Warforged get Immunities....its a hard call.

So I guess the issue here is not about self-healing.

If she intends to solo or shortman the majority of quests, warforged would be good. If she intends to be more of a team player and be able to contribute to party heals and perhaps crowd control, half-elf is good.

Now my main issue is Air Savant vs. Earth (or fire or Water) I love the utility (featherfall, monk-like jump that Air savant brings and the Archer and Barbarian in our group will love the boost to lightning strike. Plus Lightning spells just look cool but Water,Fire & Earth Savant have better attack SLAs.

You might be interested in these rules of thumb for savant selection:
1. The best savant selection until Necro 4 is Fire Savant
2. The best single-target damage at end game comes from Water Savant
3. The best all-around damage at end game comes from Air Savant
4. The most SP-efficient damage at end game comes from Earth Savant
5. Fire Savants are frowned upon at end-game due to the fact that devils (which consist a lot of end game content) are immune to fire

...And these facts about air savants:
1. Half the people who take air savant do so because of the wind dance
2. Air is the most DC and SP-intensive savant
3. A WF air savant makes a very good kiter

Safest choice at end game for a lightly-geared nuker would be earth or water.

Cheers.

[voodoogroves]

If she intends to solo or shortman the majority of quests, warforged would be good. If she intends to be more of a team player and be able to contribute to party heals and perhaps crowd control, half-elf is good.

I lol'd.

I'd probably have said "WF offers the best low-gear survivability with self healing". I'm not sure why WF wouldn't be a team player. ;-)

You might be interested in these rules of thumb for savant selection:
1. The best savant selection until Necro 4 is Fire Savant
2. The best single-target damage at end game comes from Water Savant
3. The best all-around damage at end game comes from Air Savant
4. The most SP-efficient damage at end game comes from Earth Savant
5. Fire Savants are frowned upon at end-game due to the fact that devils (which consist a lot of end game content) are immune to fire

...And these facts about air savants:
1. Half the people who take air savant do so because of the wind dance
2. Air is the most DC and SP-intensive savant
3. A WF air savant makes a very good kiter

Safest choice at end game for a lightly-geared nuker would be earth or water.

Solid advice.

Part of the lightly-geared aspect is that Earth and Water both offer some pretty significant single target CC options as well; a geared sorc may not need them but the CC options for both which ignore SR are pretty handy.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I've capped 2 sorcs, both human and don't mind scroll healing at all. I unlocked Artificer with my base 14 con human sorc which included a lot of soloing of epic challenges. Dying in challenges only occurred from failed will saves, if I had my time again I'd swap extend for force of personality (reflex saves are already good with a +10 reflex save chaosrobe).

I've tried water, air and earth savant. I really wanted to like air as it's less costly on low con (no DC on SLA based off con) but I couldn't get into it. In the end I settled on water. Water has best DPS in most situations and is always a top contender even in the situations that it isn't outright best. I've managed to take 7/1/1 in acid and lightning as well which makes a very well rounded nuke character with enough CC from web and disco ball for easy epics or as support (with PLs can maybe do CC job but not first life). Acid is mainly for Abbot.

Earth Savant is possibly my favorite but it is severely lacking in hard/elite raids where resistances are higher. I swapped it out as Yugoloth are immune in extraplanar palace challenges (dragon is immune to lightning here too). Water Savant is one of the best builds for farming challenges IMO.

-2 DC from WF and a 2 feat deficiency (if you take quicken) is a pretty big loss of potential for a sorcerer. WF Sorc is a massive easy button though but it lacks a bit in epics. Without a GS HP item my 14 con human spec is at 442 buffed HP. 482 with 18 base con, 507 with GS HP item, 527 with LGA HP item is pretty decent.

UMD isn't a big deal.
11 base
12 charisma (18 base +5 levels +4 enhancements +2 tome +6 item)
4 GH
1 luck
1 enhancement
3 Competence
6 t3 charisma skills item (I did triple positive for mine, cheap and effective)
=38 (95% on heal scrolls)
5 (+3 exceptional charisma +1 epic charisma item +2 ship +2 yugo +1 LotD)
2 7 fingered gloves/epic flame warden
2 epic big top/treasure hunters spyglass
1 luck (crafted, buccaneers ring, green epic slot etc)
=48
2 versatility: skills
=50

Lots of versatility here depending on what's accessible. I'm up to 100% on resurrection scrolls iirc and I'm due for a gear reshuffle which'll see higher potential and better standing (waiting for 20 shroud completions though for GS Concopp HP item).

[Isharah]

I lol'd.

I'd probably have said "WF offers the best low-gear survivability with self healing". I'm not sure why WF wouldn't be a team player. ;-)

Your statement supports the fact that a warforged is good in soloing.

Think of it like this. In terms of healing, at least 3/4 of the population can't be healed by repair spells. If you are warforged, you will invest on repair enhancements since there's no such thing as "repair amplification" in the game. Since you put AP into repair enhancements, it would be reasonable that you no longer invest in the scroll enhancement line. On the other hand, if you are a helf (heals with scrolls), you don't need repair enhancements -- you will invest in a couple tiers of the scroll enhancement line instead. The fleshy majority of your party will benefit from this.

On top of this, a warforged has -1 DC as compared to an equally geared helf. Which means that when a group needs some form of crowd control, a helf will generally perform better than a warforged.

Hence, saying that a helf is a better team player, while a warforged is a better soloer.