So just how bad are fleshie sorcerers?

[Faent]

Please help me understand 2 things. 1. Why would you build an instant kill sorc over a wiz?

In the past, they were very powerful. A little behind wizzies in terms of DC's, of course, but fast casting is nice and more SP helped them debuff before the kill attempt (and they have the SP for quite a few debuffs). It's incredibly past-life intensive, and currently, they will be very subpar in Epic Elite content. But they'll still do fine in Epic Hard.

Personally, I wouldn't do it. But some like it. If you need to be convinced about their viability in everything up through Epic Hard, take a look at this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckw3y1n2C1M

[Machination]

Sorcs are starved on a couple of things:

1. Feats - all these players that rely on quickened recon lose a feat slot for it. They also lose the free feat humans get, or the helf dillante feat. So a feat starved class gets 1-2 feats taken away instead of using heal scrolls, which are in endless supply and cheap (and can be used on ALL members of the party)

2. Spell Slots - Now I really like playing a sorc. But boy they sure seem short of spell slots after playing a wiz (especially if you go wiz/sorc back to back lives on the same toon, you really miss those spell slots when doing sorc life). Now, if I have to give up more of these slots for repair spells, that makes me feel crippled. Its like somebody took my small toolbox, and threw 1 out of 10 tools away. I prefer the big toolbox, but that's just me.

I guess it all comes down to play style. And people who say "WF better" or "Human better" as an all out statement are missing the point. It really all depends on your playstyle. Each has its bonus.

So this is everything I was thinking but I didn't want you to feel like you have to go WF. Keep in mind that when you are taking a lot of damage you aren't limited to just reconstruct, you can use repair critical or one of the mass repair spells as well (I use mass repair). Scroll healing sucks in combat.

[Faent]

Sorcs are starved on a couple of things:

1. Feats - all these players that rely on quickened recon lose a feat slot for it. They also lose the free feat humans get, or the helf dillante feat. So a feat starved class gets 1-2 feats taken away instead of using heal scrolls, which are in endless supply and cheap (and can be used on ALL members of the party)

2. Spell Slots - Now I really like playing a sorc. But boy they sure seem short of spell slots after playing a wiz (especially if you go wiz/sorc back to back lives on the same toon, you really miss those spell slots when doing sorc life). Now, if I have to give up more of these slots for repair spells, that makes me feel crippled. Its like somebody took my small toolbox, and threw 1 out of 10 tools away. I prefer the big toolbox, but that's just me.

I guess it all comes down to play style. And people who say "WF better" or "Human better" as an all out statement are missing the point. It really all depends on your playstyle. Each has its bonus.

Sounds about right to me. It does depend on your playstyle. The Human Sorcerer is going to have to play much more conservatively than the WF sorcerer, who is VASTLY more survivable.

[Luthe111]

just something to point out, a wf has healing in spell form, meaning class ability. UMD while letting u use scrolls and the like, these must be purchased and rnt inherently part of the class. that and they cost money, which is a pain(though a sorc should have nice haggle) the human extra feat and skill points r very very nice, specially as a CHA based class u get cha based skills through the roof. however the survivability of the two is where ull want to decide what play style u r. as a wf, i will happily grab red alert and take it on at once as i can easily heal through it. the fleshie though, must put up his caster sticks, and take out scrolls, which dont even go off if ur taking alot of damage cause u cant quicken em. this is fine if u stand back and kill slowly, or r smart bout it, but the wf can just nonchalantly zerg to his hearts content. its is this difference in play style that should determine the pros that outweigh the cons.

[grgurius]

WF if you are only grinding out sorc past life, human if you plan to stay sorc.

WF immunities are nice while leveling, but cant justify drawbacks of the wf race.

Also, a funny thing i noticed in these WF vs Human sorc threads is that new players usually claim that wf is the better choice, while more experienced players usually stick with Human.

Helves are to ugly to be sorcs

[wax_on_wax_off]

These defensive benefits are the reason to play a WF over a human and i don't think you should just dismiss them as insignificant. If you want to build an Arcane that can tank and deal with more incoming damage then a palemaster is the superior choice.

Ftfy.

[Dagolar]

You know, every time I see this thread up on the new posts search, I read its title [Just how bad are fleshie sorcerers?] and think of bad-to-the-bone sorcerer bikers.

Sadly, this is the closet image the internet had to offer to that:



Dunno. That shirt'd make for a great armor kit.

And where are our beards, anyway?

[Lonnbeimnech]

Also, a funny thing i noticed in these WF vs Human sorc threads is that new players usually claim that wf is the better choice, while more experienced players usually stick with Human.

For players that are new to sorc, wf is more forgiving of inexperience and lack of gear - which is why I recommend wf, esp is just passing through.

[Nephilia]

My Half-Elf Sorc with the FvS dilettante feat is a lot of fun to play, and pretty self sufficient. I've been nothing but happy with the build.

Only problem is having to look as a Half-Elf.

Fixed for u :P

My opinion is:
Fleshie are more powerfull for the extra DC (a human got at least +3 cha then a WF 2 from initial stats 1 for human versatiliy) and the extra Feat are really tasty.
WF are lovable for all the immunities (once they used to be loooooooooot better but... ok still nice!) and for a zerg build the self heal are really reliable!

[Truga]

This makes it sound like their close. They aren't. The Warforged sorcerer has VASTLY better self-healing available. Both have scrolls. The WF has MULTIPLE spells, which can be Quickened, Maximized and Empowered, etc... There is no comparison between their self-healing abilities. The WF utterly and totally dominates the Human on this score.

I can confirm this. Long post incoming.

A little story: I had a WF PM on my previous life. Yeah, yeah, redundant and all that but... Every time I'd be the designated raid tank, I'd equip DoD and Lorrik's shield (epic kundarak warding shield is better now, though, has a slot to remove ASF, so you don't need to slot that elsewhere, and provides the same DR). Yeah. Lorrik's got nerfed from 15 DR. We're down to 12DR shields now.

UMD a scroll or use a Divine Power clicky and you're looking at 42/- DR when blocking. Add in con-op and all that other temp-life junk and you're looking at 50+ easily. DoD procs often enough, especially against enemies that hit hard and often that it's always up. Then just keep blocking and reconstruct if/when needed, while keeping up your dots, acid rain and icestorm/firewall.

Now that epics under elite are easier a WF caster can probably do any end-game non-epic-elite boss easily and require less/no healing/recons thanks to DR. This works especially well in demon queen, cause she hits over 9000 times per second, and keeps procing your temp hp, dod and artificer's ring with low damage hits.

In a group, self-heals probably don't matter... much. From my Favoured Soul's point of view: I never go out of my way to heal anyone with a blue bar that isn't standing inside mass heal range. If you're not in range for mass heal and have a blue bar, I assume you can keep yourself alive. I'm not saying I'll never heal fleshy people with blue bars, just that they don't get priority when healing. They have a very easy way of attaining very powerful self-healing and damage reduction (recon, cures, heals, displacement, protection from energy, cold shield, haste, etc).

I have other things to do than heal people that are jumping around after pulling aggro with their chain lightning or whatever fleshy sorcs do these days. Melees (fighters and barbs more or less) tend to not have any self-healing outside of pots and maybe cure wands. But they also usually get hit by mass heal (unless I don't time it right, sometimes people die because of me too, yes), while ranged people and casters don't. Rangers self heal fine. So do artificers, rogues, wizards (mostly PM these days anyway) and WF/UMD sorcs.

Casters (non-PM) that can't reconstruct and don't carry SF pots are probably going to die eventually though, when things get tough. HP isn't high (doh, d4 HD), self-healing depends on concentration (hi, 200+ point damage spells on elite), get hit three times in a row with such spells and you're out. There's no way around it. Putting pressure on the healer like that is the last thing you want to be doing if things are going south. All because you feel like -1 or 2 DC makes a huge difference on a class that doesn't even need them when they can just nuke everything into the ground with no save, no SR spells, and even has the SP pool to support such play style.

And yes, WF self healing and DR is just that good.

Ed: Not saying fleshy sorcs are bad. Just saying that WF sorcs are that much better when you use them correctly. Use no-save spells, use the same damage reduction techniques you would on a fleshy (haste kiting, displacement, blabla), and use quickened recon when you get hit. Just because you're a WF doesn't mean you should be lazy and just tank (though you can do that effectively through DR), and throw SP out the window for recons. It does mean you have that button though, and can use it.

[HastyPudding]

A lot of people are saying a lot about red alerts and zerging. The only time I zerg is when I'm in a zerging party and farming quests as such. I rarely solo past level 6-7; I just get bored easily while soloing and enjoy parties much, much more, so I'm highly unlikely to zerg ahead. As a healer I've learned to stay with the group and it annoys me when people zerg off on their own, regardless of their self-sufficiency, even as a non-healer.

I've played through enough caster/healer lives to know how to keep, lose, and avoid aggro; the new destinies will aid in this immensely. I'm happily content to sit in the back with the healers and archers and belt out spells as they're needed, being careful not to grab aggro unless I'm intending to kite through it, and from 2 lives as a FVS I like to think I've done that quite well thus far.

I don't like to toot my own horn, but through all lives and all characters, I've shown an uncanny knack for survival; several times I've been the only party member left standing and saved the party from a wipe many times, even as a wizard. It's a mixture of luck, an innate cowardice, and knowing when you need to pull back and regroup.

I have a very defensive playstyle, which I think offsets the less-defensible human. And it's another reason why I would like the air savant; you can blast out some high damage and not need to constantly use firewall/ice storm/acid cloud for your main damage output. Sure, I'll probably take a secondary element in ice spells, but the main damage will come from lightning. And more CHA means more DC's for those chain lightnings and lightning bolts.

[Truga]

I have a very defensive playstyle, which I think offsets the less-defensible human.

That's OK then.

There's a bunch of Sorcs around that just rush in, spam some chain lightning and proceed to take tons of damage. Which is passable... if you're a WF. Or a Defender. Most sorcs aren't WF, and none of them are Defenders, though. :P

[Jaid314]

just use no-save spells? heck, if you're going to limit yourself to only wall of fire, ice storm, and acid rain for AOEs, you may as well roll a wizard, because you're *really* missing out on what a sorcerer can bring to the table.

no-save spells are nice. but they tend to be not as good as the ones that have saves, provided you can make your DC high enough to work consistently.

furthermore, anyone who plays a sorcerer as a nuker and ignores the other abilities a sorcerer can bring to the table is missing out on a lot. just because you may not be the absolute maximum possible DC doesn't mean you don't have or shouldn't use crowd control or instakills. 1-2 DC is still huge. i get a real kick out of all the people who are talking about how the new epic destinies add so much DC that it doesn't matter.... i find that kinda funny, because i bet that at least in the most difficult content, mob saves went up too.

just because you can cast chain lightning or delayed blast fireball doesn't mean you should ignore web, dancing sphere, or mass hold monster. and believe me, there will be times where 1-2 points of DC make a huge difference.

now sure, if you're just talking about a raid boss, spam polar ray and your DoTs to your heart's content. but if you plan on dealing with trash - any trash - a high DC is an invaluable tool. because by far the best spells for killing trash quickly all have saves.

also, while i never ran up red alert deliberately on my sorcerer, i certainly did spend plenty of time kiting enemies through wall of fire while self-healing. i may not have planned on doing that with 50 different mobs at a time if i could avoid it, but squishiness is relative; i've survived in many very nasty fights as a fleshy sorcerer. sometimes you have to run around a corner or behind a pillar for a few seconds if you've got a caster lobbing high damage nukes at you, but then again... webbed or dead casters don't throw nukes at you.

[Truga]

Web + firewall/acid rain. Deals with anything and everything in quick order. Since _everything_ worth webbing in the old content has almost no reflex saves, the 1-2 DC from WF won't make much of a difference on web. The only exceptions are rogues (which deal almost no damage against 125% fort) and archers (which deal almost no damage against stoneskin). Both have HP that is below average, so acid raining them is the same as using FoD, except for shorter delay and no save/SR. They do take a couple potshots at you while they're dying in agony, though.

Yes, in end-game, things are quite a bit different, what with the bloated HP and saves of enemies. But OP is talking about TRing as far as I can understand. I might have misunderstood the OP though. :P

But, OP's already said he intends to stay back and use chain lightning and whatnot so going fleshy is quite possibly better.

P.S. Oh also, Black Dragon Bolt doesn't allow saves, neither does acid fog, and while cloudkill does allow saves it still kills awfully fast by draining large amounts of CON. Too bad metamagics don't work on it, it'd be at least as good as firewall... Maximized+empowered Burning Blood is also more or less a DoT version of the Finger, with no save and no SR, and a shorter cooldown, in my experience.

[Jaid314]

P.S. Oh also, Black Dragon Bolt doesn't allow saves, neither does acid fog, and while cloudkill does allow saves it still kills awfully fast by draining large amounts of CON. Too bad metamagics don't work on it, it'd be at least as good as firewall... Maximized+empowered Burning Blood is also more or less a DoT version of the Finger, with no save and no SR, and a shorter cooldown, in my experience.

and every last one of those are either single target, or very slow damage (also, cloudkill only drains large amounts of con if you have the DC for it).

not one of them compares favorably to chain lightning with the DC to back it up. (also, web + acid rain means you're casting 2 spells, minimum. more if the enemy does manage to make a save and get out of it, which is more likely due to your lower DC. not that web + DoT spell is a bad combo, but it does take more time and SP to use then just flat out nuking in the first place, and still relies on the enemy failing a reflex save just like chain lightning would in the first place).

[Therrias]

Saying "Oh, I'm not going to give up 1-2 DC for a little better self-healing" is a joke.

Warforged sorcerers have the best self healing in the game bar none. (Yes, divines can get much bigger (overkill) numbers, but sorc spells go off twice as fast.)

Meatbag sorcs have to make serious investment/sacrifice to get viable self healing. My warforged isn't going to waste 19 ap maxing out healing amp and scroll mastery enhancements. Definitely not going to waste a feat on skill focus UMD, and I don't have to put skill points in UMD or slot/swap gear for it either for that matter.

Oh, and I still get to carry around a 100 stack of reconstruct scrolls too.

[Alex301]

just use no-save spells? heck, if you're going to limit yourself to only wall of fire, ice storm, and acid rain for AOEs, you may as well roll a wizard, because you're *really* missing out on what a sorcerer can bring to the table.

no-save spells are nice. but they tend to be not as good as the ones that have saves, provided you can make your DC high enough to work consistently.

furthermore, anyone who plays a sorcerer as a nuker and ignores the other abilities a sorcerer can bring to the table is missing out on a lot. just because you may not be the absolute maximum possible DC doesn't mean you don't have or shouldn't use crowd control or instakills. 1-2 DC is still huge. i get a real kick out of all the people who are talking about how the new epic destinies add so much DC that it doesn't matter.... i find that kinda funny, because i bet that at least in the most difficult content, mob saves went up too.

just because you can cast chain lightning or delayed blast fireball doesn't mean you should ignore web, dancing sphere, or mass hold monster. and believe me, there will be times where 1-2 points of DC make a huge difference.

now sure, if you're just talking about a raid boss, spam polar ray and your DoTs to your heart's content. but if you plan on dealing with trash - any trash - a high DC is an invaluable tool. because by far the best spells for killing trash quickly all have saves.

also, while i never ran up red alert deliberately on my sorcerer, i certainly did spend plenty of time kiting enemies through wall of fire while self-healing. i may not have planned on doing that with 50 different mobs at a time if i could avoid it, but squishiness is relative; i've survived in many very nasty fights as a fleshy sorcerer. sometimes you have to run around a corner or behind a pillar for a few seconds if you've got a caster lobbing high damage nukes at you, but then again... webbed or dead casters don't throw nukes at you.

The dps differences between a WF and human is pretty marginal. +2 DC means 10% more damage on average against mobs with evasion and 5% without and that's assuming all your spells have a reflex save for half damage. I usually use no save spells as well, such as acid raid, so you're looking at a few percent difference in dps but, more often than not, this mob will die just as quickly anyway. The minor difference in average dps isn't the reason to go human imo.

The ability to tank also brings a lot to a party as well imo and it's not something a fleshy sorc can do, or at least not to same extent. You can quite quickly grab the aggro of everything in the room and it makes it easier for the healer to keep everyone alive and saves their sp, the melee dps don't have to worry about grabbing too much aggro since you have it anyway and it usually means you can round up enemies to nuke more quickly. In my experience this leads to faster quest completions and makes things easier for the rest of the group.

I just think that, when played to their potential, WF and human offer two different things and both are valid choices that are able to do something the other can't. Neither can claim to be superior in all situations.

[wax_on_wax_off]

The dps differences between a WF and human is pretty marginal. +2 DC means 10% more damage on average against mobs with evasion and 5% without and that's assuming all your spells have a reflex save for half damage. I usually use no save spells as well, such as acid raid, so you're looking at a few percent difference in dps but, more often than not, this mob will die just as quickly anyway. The minor difference in average dps isn't the reason to go human imo.

The ability to tank also brings a lot to a party as well imo and it's not something a fleshy sorc can do, or at least not to same extent. You can quite quickly grab the aggro of everything in the room and it makes it easier for the healer to keep everyone alive and saves their sp, the melee dps don't have to worry about grabbing too much aggro since you have it anyway and it usually means you can round up enemies to nuke more quickly. In my experience this leads to faster quest completions and makes things easier for the rest of the group.

I just think that, when played to their potential, WF and human offer two different things and both are valid choices that are able to do something the other can't. Neither can claim to be superior in all situations.

1-2 DC is not a 5 or 10% difference. 1-2 DC means that mobs can be twice or three times as likely to save against your spells, that's twice or three times as many mobs who are left after an AoE (whether instant kill, nuke or CC) to beat on the party. This also gives a much greater chance that multiple mobs are left after an AoE which is a very different experience in resource expense when 1 left over mob can be stunned/danced or whatever.

It's a subtle difference noticing that you can room clear with a single nuke only because of your high DC but once you realise this you'll never look back. Another way of looking at is that you might see as many as 1/3 of the saves if you were fleshy instead.

WF are definitely useful for some combination of solo, less than elite and pre-level 20 but otherwise I think fleshy has the advantage.

[Alex301]

1-2 DC is not a 5 or 10% difference. 1-2 DC means that mobs can be twice or three times as likely to save against your spells, that's twice or three times as many mobs who are left after an AoE (whether instant kill, nuke or CC) to beat on the party. This also gives a much greater chance that multiple mobs are left after an AoE which is a very different experience in resource expense when 1 left over mob can be stunned/danced or whatever.

It's a subtle difference noticing that you can room clear with a single nuke only because of your high DC but once you realise this you'll never look back. Another way of looking at is that you might see as many as 1/3 of the saves if you were fleshy instead.

WF are definitely useful for some combination of solo, less than elite and pre-level 20 but otherwise I think fleshy has the advantage.

It is a 5% or 10% difference in average DPS. If the mob only saves on a 20 for the human but saves on a 18,19 or 20 for a WF then they will save 3 times more often compared to the human but they will still only save 10% more often out of the total number of times you cast the spell on them. The sp used to finished off 1 mob could just as easily be used to aoe 3 of them. A melee could easily finish them off if they are that low on hp anyway or you could just have them follow you to the next group of mobs and finish them then.

When I lose ship buffs or swap some gear around for a lower evocation DC I don't notice the difference in the time taken to kill a group of mobs tbh. This is a bigger issue for CC or insta-kiling but for nuking the difference is negligible imo.

[HastyPudding]

just use no-save spells? heck, if you're going to limit yourself to only wall of fire, ice storm, and acid rain for AOEs, you may as well roll a wizard, because you're *really* missing out on what a sorcerer can bring to the table.

no-save spells are nice. but they tend to be not as good as the ones that have saves, provided you can make your DC high enough to work consistently.

furthermore, anyone who plays a sorcerer as a nuker and ignores the other abilities a sorcerer can bring to the table is missing out on a lot. just because you may not be the absolute maximum possible DC doesn't mean you don't have or shouldn't use crowd control or instakills. 1-2 DC is still huge. i get a real kick out of all the people who are talking about how the new epic destinies add so much DC that it doesn't matter.... i find that kinda funny, because i bet that at least in the most difficult content, mob saves went up too.

just because you can cast chain lightning or delayed blast fireball doesn't mean you should ignore web, dancing sphere, or mass hold monster. and believe me, there will be times where 1-2 points of DC make a huge difference.

now sure, if you're just talking about a raid boss, spam polar ray and your DoTs to your heart's content. but if you plan on dealing with trash - any trash - a high DC is an invaluable tool. because by far the best spells for killing trash quickly all have saves.

also, while i never ran up red alert deliberately on my sorcerer, i certainly did spend plenty of time kiting enemies through wall of fire while self-healing. i may not have planned on doing that with 50 different mobs at a time if i could avoid it, but squishiness is relative; i've survived in many very nasty fights as a fleshy sorcerer. sometimes you have to run around a corner or behind a pillar for a few seconds if you've got a caster lobbing high damage nukes at you, but then again... webbed or dead casters don't throw nukes at you.

Who said I was ignoring crowd control or DC's? There was a reason I did a cleric and some FVS lives before sorcerer (in fact I had intended 3 FVS and 3 cleric before sorc lives, but got a little tired of healing) and it was for the added spell pen and conjuration DC's so I could have a decent web.

I ran through several epic hard quests in the demonweb the other day with an air savant; he seemed pretty adept at casting web and then using ice storm and a chain lightning while I used a cometfall. The melee finished them off quickly and we moved on with no trouble. When ice storm didn't seem to be needed, he spammed that lightning bolt SLA, and from what I saw of it, his DC's seemed pretty nice and his web seemed to work the vast majority of the time.