How to be less squishy?

[balagorn]

I have a human sorc. that i love to play. My only complain is on elite quests I die constantly...I mean literally 1 or 2 hits and i'm a goner. I relize due to spell faliure casters can't really wear armor. Presently I use night sheild,mage armor and displacement as my defensive buffs but they don't seem to be enough... is there any other items or spells that would possibly keep me alive a little longer?

[Kmnh]

I have a human sorc. that i love to play. My only complain is on elite quests I die constantly...I mean literally 1 or 2 hits and i'm a goner. I relize due to spell faliure casters can't really wear armor. Presently I use night sheild,mage armor and displacement as my defensive buffs but they don't seem to be enough... is there any other items or spells that would possibly keep me alive a little longer?

Haste, jump, and to a lesser extent expeditious retreat. If you are dying on too few hits, don't get hit

At low levels, wear a crafted light mithral shield or light mace of invulnerability. (the mace is cheaper, the shield is better) and a robe of moderate fortification (if you can find one).

At level 9 you can get a heavy fortification necklace from "A relic of a sovereign past" on casual. Ask about it, there is always someone willing to help.

False life and +Con items are always useful

[danotmano1998]

Tough question to answer because there aren't a lot of details as to what you have and why you are dying...

Off the top of my head, I'd say:

Stoneskin (10/dr)
Resists (Cold/Elec/Fire/Acid/Sonic)

I always have blur loaded and cast. It doesn't stack with displacement, but the first time you see a "Blurry" pop up over your head, it's a good reminder to refresh that displacement.

Take a shield along for bad moments. The uh-oh! When you grab somethings aggro and you need to just stand still and take the punishment until it's either dead or moves away.

Other than that, your best defense as a mage is your distance. Kill everything before it comes close. Hold/Charm anything that is about to whack you silly. Run away, jump over, dive behind a pillar.

And of course, Toughness. Take the feat. Period. Get your hit points up as high as you can. Get false life items, con boosts, ship buffs, etc..

[Sarisa]

Blur, Displacement, Stoneskin. For Stoneskin, you may have to depend on wands or scrolls to cast it, due to very tight spell slots. Keep yourself properly resisted with Resist Energy. Keep yourself buffed with Haste and Jump.

Don't dump CON, wear a CON item, wear fortification, wear False Life items. Take the Toughness feat and Toughness enhancements. At lower levels, wear Invulnerability items as well (they're cheaply crafted, or bought if you aren't a crafter), they mitigate a lot of damage. Take the Human Improved Recovery enhancements to boost up how much a cure potion recovers you for.

Use Web, Electric Loop, Otto's Sphere of Dancing, and other crowd control spells along with your nukes to take things out. When solo'ing, pets and charm spells can take a lot of heat off you.

Carry a nice shield with low spell failure (Twilight+Mithril) and turtle up behind that when necessary to heal up.

With practice, you'll also get better at dodging damage; and you'll learn where the danger zones are and can position yourself to avoid them. Casters are an active class, so you will need to learn how to cast on the run. Mastering the "Jump Cast" is a very important skill as well.

[werk]

As others have said, AC is not the best route for a caster. Rather than making it harder for an enemy to hit you, make it harder for an enemy to damage you.

Blur and displacement. I prefer displace, all the time, blur is for the rest of the party. When they hit, they don't.

Stoneskin. When they hit, it doesn't hurt. Scrolls or wands.
Energy resist and prot...they sell prot elements and mass prot elements scrolls now.

Freedom of movement and protection from evil also help protect you from that, "oh no, now I die" when your save fails.

Have enough hit points and a fortification item so that you can soak a solid blow. A level 13 character without 100% fortification isn't holding up their end of the deal.

Manage agro and move. Unless you are playing solo, there is no reason for you to stick your neck out and grab all the agro every combat.
Wait. Hit tab a couple times, shoot a non damaging debuff, or pick a target that you can blast away in one shot or that the melees have firm agro already. Take your time, pick your targets and hit them hard enough to neutralize the threat.
I understand that one of the benefits of casting offensive spells is range, you can hit mobs before your tanks can close on them, try to resist this urge. Melees will much rather have you vaporize a crowd that is slightly damaged and beating them into the ground than to chase mobs around hoping to distract one long enough to kill while you run around screaming 'get it off!'

Once you have agro, move out of it's way. Haste, jump, move! You do not need to go toe-to-toe with a mob and let it sink its full attack sequence at max bonus to hit into your face.
Use a meat shield. Literally. Put a teammate between yourself and your foe. Move so that foe remains opposite your teammate from you. Sorry, but I'd much rather kill someone than die myself...I think that's called role playing. Running away is much less effective than running through your mates...or rather, running away is solo, running through mates is team play.

Hope that helps.

[dragon2fire]

Hmmm lets cover some basics real quick. Do you have hp gear? Do you have a heavy fort item? Buffs are awsome but lets make sure the basics are covered first. Usually when some one is dieing in one hit its form a lack of fortification or hp or both. Also do you have umd high enough to heal scroll yourself? If you focus on it you should be able to around level 14 or 15 or so.

[goodspeed]

Stone skin, displace, and every resist known to man. Mix those with basically gears of war wall cover in fights and wand/scroll healing and that's how you survive as a squishy.

[Esserbe]

Displacement is your #1 defensive buff. Blur is something you should always have up, and Displacement is for tight situations. Don't keep it on a dedicated buff bar - I have it on Shift+1, for quick access.

[svinja]

In addition to what has been mentioned, the #1 way to prevent damage as a caster is movement. Monsters in DDO seem to lag just as much as players, and if you are moving, they will mostly swing at air. Movement + jump casting + displacement + haste = very little damage.

And yes, I know it sounds absurd that monsters would lag, but I don't know how else to describe it. Maybe they just have slow attack animations, and once they start an animation, they don't change the direction they're facing.

[glouky]

I have a human sorc. that i love to play. My only complain is on elite quests I die constantly...I mean literally 1 or 2 hits and i'm a goner. I relize due to spell faliure casters can't really wear armor. Presently I use night sheild,mage armor and displacement as my defensive buffs but they don't seem to be enough... is there any other items or spells that would possibly keep me alive a little longer?

You can wear a fearsome robe at lvl 6, (and easier to find with other features at higher lvl).
This often allows you to get hit only once (the mob is feared and run before the second one).
I found these items incredibly usefull for soloing.

Using charm/suggestion also allows mobs to focus on someone else (charming a mob inside of group basically kill it, AND distract the other from hitting you).

[EpiKagEMO]

maybe fix your con. if its under 14 for a human sorc, you might need to reroll. or just dont grab aggro. just finish things when the mob's hp is fairly low.

[DaSawks]

If you are less than level 13 find someone to craft you 2 shards. Invulnerability and Lifeshield. Put these on a robe with a medium guild augment slot (if you are in a medium guild) and put a guild shard of health in it. Also keep scrolls of Fire Shield. It will reduce either fire or cold 50%. Wands of Stone skin are a must. Wear the highest level of False Life item you can. Always have the highest level Constitution item on. Always have the highest level Fort also. Without knowing your toon it is hard to say exactly what you are missing. I would not wear a shield unless you have a Torq and/or Con Op items. Movement and displacement will serve you better.

[Cauthey]

Try being a little more careful with your timing, and make sure to check your aggro. If you're grouping with some melees, get them to use some tactics. Have them stand in a doorway, where the mobs cannot push past, and nuke them from the safety created behind the melees.

Don't cast first. Wait for the melees to work the mobs down, then strategically kill steal. Yeah, it's a Richard move, but it'll accomplish a couple of things: 1) it'll make you look more awesome, 1-shotting mobs, and 2) the best crowd control is a dead mob.

Make sure you pick up the biggest +CON item you can wear. Toughness ought to be a required feat in everyone's build plan, along with the associated racial or class Toughness enhancements.

[Purkilius]

All of the posts are good suggestions.

What I have noticed when playing a sorc is that a healers tend to focus on melee for healing and before you have enough umd to cast Heal scrolls it is good to have the best healing wand you can use and a potion, they have separate cool-down so you can heal yourself up in little time.

[Such755]

* Heavy fortification
* Greater false life
* Toughness (Minos legens \ Thaarak bracelet \ Slotted in epic item
* Large HP guild slot (If your guild is level 70, else anything else will do)
* +6 con item
* +2 exceptional constitution (Probably on your ToD ring)
* Toughness feat
* Toughness enhancements
* Constitution tome (Higher the better)
* If human Constitution enhancements
* If you end up with a non round con score - +7 con item (Epic Envenomed Cloak) or +1 exceptional
* Stoneskin (I can't say that this one makes a huge difference for me, even at level 20 it seems to break so fast...)
* Discplacement (If not then blur)
* Always be hasted for when you need to bail
* Jump helps many times when you need to bail
* Greater heroism for better saves
* Superior stability for better saves (If not neutral then highest resistance you can find)
* Quicken spell for when damage is just too high - Sometimes the best solution is to kill the major threat. You wanna do it fast, and make sure your spells land.
* Good shield for turtle mode - Sometimes you have unwated agro, it may be best to stop attacking and let the tank grab the aggro. Levik's defender \ Lorrik's champion offer the highest DR, but I find Light and Darkness to work out well. Less grind needed, and much lower arcane spell faliur.
* Heal scrolls - Your charisma and UMD should be high enough to use those. Have a big stack of those for self healing.

I hope that helps =)