First Time Sorc Advice

[Target-Practice100]

HI,

Planning on building a sorc for the first time, something to learn the class with. Never done much with casters before so would appreciate some advice.

Based on what I have read on the forums, this is what I am planning to do.

WF race for survivability/self repair. (Maybe female WF for those sexier curves!)

Will use fire and acid spells for leveling, then change to cold for the higher levels.

Feats so far would be Empower, Maximise, Extend, and 1 Toughness. I would appreciate some advice on the feats required for spell focus etc, and any others required.

So thats what I have so far, just the basics, so any advice most appreciated.

[MsEricka]

Your feats so far are good, add evocation focus and heighten and drop Extend. Extend only works on buffs such as haste/rage and while it might save you some SP since you won't have to cast so often, Sorcs are feat starved and with the high SP you can get away with it.

[Madryoch]

HI,

Planning on building a sorc for the first time, something to learn the class with. Never done much with casters before so would appreciate some advice.

Based on what I have read on the forums, this is what I am planning to do.

WF race for survivability/self repair. (Maybe female WF for those sexier curves!)

Will use fire and acid spells for leveling, then change to cold for the higher levels.

Feats so far would be Empower, Maximise, Extend, and 1 Toughness. I would appreciate some advice on the feats required for spell focus etc, and any others required.

So thats what I have so far, just the basics, so any advice most appreciated.

Is there any chance i can convince u to go human instead of wf? WF makes self healing easy at low lvls but keep in mind that healing that way still costs you sp. How about going human as an approach to the matter , lvl up UMD and since it's ur first life take as human extra feat skill focus :UMD.

start with 18 charisma and get 3 enhancements from sorc and 1 from bonus human. Add all 5 leveling points into charisma so that will give u a 27 charisma then add +6 charisma item and try to craft for starters a weapon from shroud with +1 exc charisma and +2 exc charisma. That will get you to 36 charisma with basic items only which translates in a +13 bonus. Then once u craft conc op gs sp item u get +5 bonus to skills.

So for UMD = 11 ranks +13 mod + 5 gs conc op + 3 skill focus + 3 persuasion item (can be crafted for minimal cost)+ 4 GH = 39 UMD

To cast heal scrolls you need 40 total so 39 +1 from the roll in the worst case scenario. That will give u 100% chance to use heal scrolls which cost u pp instead of SP without switching gear, that can be affected a LOT by healing amp (note that human gets 30% hamp enhancements , and there are items like gs weapons that can have up to 1.1*1.2*1.3*100% hamp bonus practicaly making a heal scroll fill u.)UMD will also give u the ability to res people if u carry resurection scrolls, or cast restoration and greater restoration from scrolls with only the later having chace to fail.

For Lower lvls healing u can use pots of cure serious wounds that u can buy from the guild potion vendor in House K to sustain urself without having to rely on healers who might be bad and without having to stay back and wait for the next shrine.

Anyway to ur question I d suggest

Empower
Maximize
Heighten
SF evocation/conjuration (depending ur spec)
Toughness(since it's ur first life)

and the other two feats (to hit 7 for non human) can be

Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Penetration
Greater Spell Focus evocation/conjuration (whichever u chose as ur primary savant focus)
spell focus in another school ( not recommended by me )
Quicken Perhaps if u go wf after all (a wasted feat but people tend to like uninterruptable heals on themselves so they are willing to pay extra sp and one feat out of 7 for it...)

Choose a combo of the above i guess.

If I made new sorc now i d be human with

Empower
Maximize
Heighten
Spell Focus Evocation
Greater Spell Focus Evocation
Toughness
Spell Penetration
Skill Focus : UMD till i can get these extra three points from gear then probably greater spell pen.

As to what feats are required for focus

All savants except earth use evocation spells to deal damage while earth uses conjuration. U can have either to qualify to be a savant but as u can imagine if u go conjuration while air savant ur damaging spells will have a lower DC than what they could have had which rather often results in mobs evading ur attacks in areas like amrath where edvils get evasion on higher than normal difficulty. Even without evasion if a mob saves it still takes only half damage so u would like the score of the DC on the school ur savant specs in as high as possible so u are the most efficient caster u can be.

Also I d like to say that I agree with you choice to go water at higher lvls. They are the most reliable dps with the most powerful single taret no save spell with higher damage, frost lance is fort save spell which means no mob will evade it ever (even if they will save from it and take reduced damage) and their sp costs are lower than air. Earth has little sp costs but the damage they deal most of the times ends up making em use more sp than what they would have if they were another type of savant since they take forever to kill mobs.Now Fire Savant is nice for lvling up to the point u are done with necro IV quests and then u hit areas with devils where devils are immune so i would discourage anyone from keeping that spec after that point while i would encourage em to have it up to that point.

There's a nice post by Isharah with feedback from other people as well that has information concentrated regarding the sorc class. The link would be

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=361303

Hope I helped

[BurningDownTheHouse]

snip

Hope I helped

While it's a good advice for building a fleshy sorc, I believe that's not what the OP is asking for. He is looking for survivability. And after all, no heal scroll can compete with a quickened reconstruct when an epic mob is whaling on you doing 60 damage a pop.

As for the OPs question:

The feats I would suggest are Empower, Maximise, Quicken, Heighten, SF Evocation (for Savant pre), Spell Penetration and Toughness.
To make things more comfortable while leveling you may want to take Extend and switch it to Toughness at higher levels.

Madryochs gear advise will nicely for a WF as well. Don't dump UMD just because you have great self healing. High UMD is nice for using RR gear and using various none arcane scrolls (most important one is raise dead, everyone should have the ability to raise imo).

Good luck and have fun with your build.

[MsEricka]

I really have to question Spell Penetration.

Spell Pen Formula
caster level + spell pen + greater spell pen + past life + enhancement + items
20 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 2 = 26

A spell pen of 26 is quite low but is still usable if you debuff. Add to that the fact that many sorcs are built for damage and not crowd control or insta death and spell pen is just a wasted feat.

If the OP is going for damage and not crowd control or insta death then don't take spell pen.

[Target-Practice100]

Thank you very much everyone for your detailed advice.

While I know humans are the great all-rounder race, I still think I will go WF for my first spell caster, in part for the self healing and immunities, but also as I have never gone WF before and I would like to give them a try.

The advise by BurningDownTheHouse to still put points in UMD even though a WF leaves me wondering if I could get UMD high enough to be useful as I think UMD on the WF is a cross class skill.

I too was wondering about spell pen on the WF sorc, as I have read elsewhere that its not so high, thats why I was in fact intending to build a damage dealer sorc, and do little in the way of CC or insta kills.

[Madryoch]

Thank you very much everyone for your detailed advice.

While I know humans are the great all-rounder race, I still think I will go WF for my first spell caster, in part for the self healing and immunities, but also as I have never gone WF before and I would like to give them a try.

The advise by BurningDownTheHouse to still put points in UMD even though a WF leaves me wondering if I could get UMD high enough to be useful as I think UMD on the WF is a cross class skill.

I too was wondering about spell pen on the WF sorc, as I have read elsewhere that its not so high, thats why I was in fact intending to build a damage dealer sorc, and do little in the way of CC or insta kills.

I made the calculations for umd as human. If u are wf u should have like up to 2 modifier less. And 1 less feat. Each point u are lacking compared to what i suggested (39) means u have 5% less chance to use the scroll that the other build would cast at a certain rate. The items i ve used are minimal for a sorc to hit 39 UMD so if u do all the rest except the skill focus and -2 mod from charisma u ll still have 75% chance to cast heal and 95% chance to cast raise dead from scrolls which is very useful in parties.

Regarding spell pen... in most cases it's not something to worry u if u play a pure nuker yet there are spells like otto's irresistable dance which is going to be ur best spot cc in game that u want em to go through. Every little bit helps but as i said it's not mandatory. Though it's not like u have many feats to take in its place

[muffinlad]

Regarding Race: I have played WF, Drow and Human Sorcs.

WF have higher hit points, have great self heal ability and their Insta-kills are just fine on normal/hard setting for most adventures. Unless I plan on taking a build into a great deal of epic settings (normally not my thing), I don't bother with quicken. Without lots of past lives as a FvS or Wiz, spell pen can be a problem. I usually take Spell Pen, 2 Enhancements and have something that can give me 1 or 2 additional up to level 7 or 8. It helps, but you still see the blue shield on elite, and Epic....use Web.

Human, that extra feat makes a big difference. Spell Pen, and GSpell Pen, added in with two enhancement levels (the third at 6 AP I choke on, and never do) and an Item, with any past lives as an add on. First time, it will still be tough, but as you TR, you will find it very simple.

Drow, The Extra Cha, combined with items that add to DC and Feats, make Crowd Control very easy. You will get the UMD, but even then, the lower con will keep you at "glass canon that needs to make friends". I found my self heal was fine, other than a 25% fail rate at anything that was less than 100% (39) on UMD.

IMHO, I would go with WF first. The self heal and immunities makes this a much easier build to play.

Regards,

muffinrobotmagic

[Carpone]

Feats so far would be Empower, Maximise, Extend, and 1 Toughness. I would appreciate some advice on the feats required for spell focus etc, and any others required.

I've played a first life WF Sorc before and learned a ton about arcanes. Extend used to be "required" for spells like Wall of Fire, but persistent damage spells aren't affected by Extend any more. It's still ok for Displacement, Rage and Haste but is by no means necessary anymore.

In roughly the order I'd take them:

Maximize
Empower
Evocation Focus
Heighten
Toughness
Greater Evocation Focus

The remaining feat is malleable. You might take Mental Toughness until you get some gear. Spell Penetration for the same reason if you like using Otto's, Finger or Wail.

[pr0phet00]

First off, welcome to the "master" class.

j/k, but I've built both a drow sorc and a WF sorc, and I can tell you so far that the WF is much more survivable, even undergeared.

The drow was an Air Savant (no TR'd into a PM but that's a different story) and to be perfectly honest, I had little to no issues with DC's provided I was using the right spells. IMHO, Sorcs are to Wizzies what Barbs are to Fighters...it's less about the tactics than it is about raw power.

Think ahead about your spell selections, as it's a pain to change. The Argo favor reward, Blood of the Dragon is excellent in allowing you to fully respec your spells when you are ready to do so, and they are BTA, not BTC.

Accept that you won't have every buff spell. Haste/Rage/Blur are my required spells, while I scroll Prot from Elements, GH, and some others.

Grab a spell or two for your second line..currently I'm Ice specced, but have Wall of Fire, Disentigrate, and a few other Force spells for when the time comes that Ice doesn't cut it.

If you're playing in a group, everyone in front of you is a meatshield. You WILL draw aggro on trash mobs with one AOE spell, so play accordingly. Either have a good shield wall in front of you or open up and destroy the trash before it gets to you.

*Always let the tank get aggro on the boss*

I've seen double-triple stacks on Harry before where a group actually lost aggro..it didn't end well for the sorc :/ A simple solution is to let the party get a good chunk of the aggro before you open up.

Enjoy playing a caster!

[Kinerd]

Thank you very much everyone for your detailed advice.

While I know humans are the great all-rounder race, I still think I will go WF for my first spell caster, in part for the self healing and immunities, but also as I have never gone WF before and I would like to give them a try.

The only thing you may regret is not having tried it sooner. It's Just That Good.

And just to reiterate a point: take a Savant PrE. It's only an enhancement swap to change element, so you can have it line up with whatever spells you are using for that swath of the game.