Hold-DPS sorcerer: how viable?

[MRMechMan]

Clearing a room with chain lightning+ball lightning is very effective generally.

Cone of cold and otilukes just as much so, however, and coupled with having the only spell that savant really benefits a lot (polar) as well as fewer immunities makes cold the obvious choice IMO.

I still keep my 18air/1barb/1arti around for speed runs but for dps cold is the way to go...and dps is what sorcs DO.

Earth was nice but earthgrab needs line of sight now which kills any entertainment I had from it. Acid rain is great but the lack of a DBF/chainlightning/otilukes type nuke is very noticable.

Fire...dunno, still wary of it I guess, but against non demons/devils I guess its fine with firewall/DBF/meteor swarm (although not having meteor swarm benefit from more caster levels kinda kills that off too)

Having used cold/elec/acid, lightning bolt is the best teir3 SLA of them. The one thing frost lance has going for it is that it is a fort save and is nice for evasive types. But I'd rather be able to do damage to 2-3 or more mobs if you line em up,

[DarkForte]

First of all, thanks for the feedback everyone!

Responses to various issues raised:

- On the Quicken issue: I actually like the idea... I'll have to see how my HP end up at endgame before considering it though.

- On the EE Drow issue... the current situation is I'd do EE once for favor. You guys speak of it as if the de-facto run on everything was EE... I see nothing wrong with speccing for no-fail holds on eHard. On EE, I should still have top-of-the-line caster DPS EVEN if the plethora of spell pen feats I'm taking doesn't guarantee a good enough success rate. Still gives me something to strive for

- On the past life issue: I'm testing this concept, if I find it worthwhile, I might do the PLs, else I'll just LR and spec differently.

- On the elemental specialization:
* I was air savant on my first life, switched to water at 20 and never regretted it. Single-target DPS is that much better.
* Reason I was considering lightning is because the +CL boosts on DI wouldn't affect Polar Ray past level 30 - 25 CL + 5 DI already hits that mark (probably will be using abishai set) - didn't actually look it up too much, my math is probably flawed - while chain lightning has no dice cap listedNope, it caps at 20..
* Acid savant is kind of lackluster for me because Damage/SP becomes less and less important as you get more SP.

[DarkForte]

And now for something completely different (not really):

How's the standard for sorcerer gear nowadays? Does 5-piece abishai still rule supreme for water savant? My plan as of now:

* +3 insightful charisma Spidersilk;
* 5 piece Abishai (I'm pretty sure I have most of the parts for this);
* Goggles: ???
* Necklace: Ideally torc, but I'd have to get one first (maybe the 20th completion on my fvs life will grace me with one).
* Trinket: ideally litany, but given how much I dislike Abbot, I'll probably not have it.
* Ring: Any with +1 exceptional charisma, slot with 20% healing amp.
* Ring: RoEE.
* Belt: Was thinking lion-headed belt buckle.
* Hands: Corrosion of Enchantment Mastery / Glaciation of Cold Mastery.
* Hands: Swap in epic flameward for scroll-healing.
Any obvious or less obvious oversights?

[knockcocker]

First of all, thanks for the feedback everyone!

Responses to various issues raised:

- On the Quicken issue: I actually like the idea... I'll have to see how my HP end up at endgame before considering it though.

- On the EE Drow issue... the current situation is I'd do EE once for favor. You guys speak of it as if the de-facto run on everything was EE... I see nothing wrong with speccing for no-fail holds on eHard. On EE, I should still have top-of-the-line caster DPS EVEN if the plethora of spell pen feats I'm taking doesn't guarantee a good enough success rate. Still gives me something to strive for

- On the past life issue: I'm testing this concept, if I find it worthwhile, I might do the PLs, else I'll just LR and spec differently.

- On the elemental specialization:
* I was air savant on my first life, switched to water at 20 and never regretted it. Single-target DPS is that much better.
* Reason I was considering lightning is because the +CL boosts on DI wouldn't affect Polar Ray past level 30 - 25 CL + 5 DI already hits that mark (probably will be using abishai set) - didn't actually look it up too much, my math is probably flawed - while chain lightning has no dice cap listed.
* Acid savant is kind of lackluster for me because Damage/SP becomes less and less important as you get more SP.

CL, DBF and Otiluke's are all capped at CL20.

[knockcocker]

And now for something completely different (not really):

How's the standard for sorcerer gear nowadays? Does 5-piece abishai still rule supreme for water savant? My plan as of now:

* +3 insightful charisma Spidersilk;
* 5 piece Abishai (I'm pretty sure I have most of the parts for this);
* Goggles: ???
* Necklace: Ideally torc, but I'd have to get one first (maybe the 20th completion on my fvs life will grace me with one).
* Trinket: ideally litany, but given how much I dislike Abbot, I'll probably not have it.
* Ring: Any with +1 exceptional charisma, slot with 20% healing amp.
* Ring: RoEE.
* Belt: Was thinking lion-headed belt buckle.
* Hands: Corrosion of Enchantment Mastery / Glaciation of Cold Mastery.
* Hands: Swap in epic flameward for scroll-healing.
Any obvious or less obvious oversights?

With the arcane caster level increases from EDs, I think +CL items are far less useful than they were.

[Tid12]

Lightning Bolt: 15d3+45=75 w/50% chance for *2 damage= 75*1.5=112.5 to target
Frost Lance: 4d5+20*4=128

Is that right?

Frost lance has a max of 3 lances.

Clearing a room with chain lightning+ball lightning is very effective generally.

Cone of cold and otilukes just as much so, however, and coupled with having the only spell that savant really benefits a lot (polar) as well as fewer immunities makes cold the obvious choice IMO.

I still keep my 18air/1barb/1arti around for speed runs but for dps cold is the way to go...and dps is what sorcs DO.

I think some missunderstood my point. We can generally agree that Ice is better DPS. But AoE damage Air is ahead. And saying that Air isn't DPS just makes me laugh really. It's a little behind Ice but it's not like trying to compare a level 1 druid to a lv20 FotW barb like people are making it look.

[Tid12]

With the arcane caster level increases from EDs, I think +CL items are far less useful than they were.

Many abilities of DI are based on Caster level. At least that's how they should work..so I'd say they are worthwile but it's hard to justify a 2h Epic Staff of Arcane Power nowdays. I just use it for the Archmagi at the moment.

[DarkForte]

With the arcane caster level increases from EDs, I think +CL items are far less useful than they were.

I see your point. This puts me at a loss for gear slots, though... also, I completely forgot I had 2 greensteel accessories on the breakdown above ¬¬ goggles and gloves are taken then .

Do you think it'd still be worth it to keep boots + helm + cloak?

[Tirisha]

Why not? you can cycle perfectly between the 2 SLAs (still free dps) and Ball/Chain lightning.

when you cast chain lightning then cast an SLA Chain lightning is now off CD. So your next spell, if you wanna keep your best AOE on CD, should be chain lightning. (assuming you prefer chain lightning to ball lightning in the first place)

on my Savant I'll use DBF then fireball sla then DBF then scorch. If I were to cast DBF then Fireball then Ball lightning I'd lose DPS cause I wasn't keeping DBF on CD.

If I'm on a mana dump then it's DBF then Meteor shower which does more AOE dps than lightning has available.

[Tirisha]

- On the EE Drow issue... the current situation is I'd do EE once for favor. You guys speak of it as if the de-facto run on everything was EE... I see nothing wrong with speccing for no-fail holds on eHard. On EE, I should still have top-of-the-line caster DPS EVEN if the plethora of spell pen feats I'm taking doesn't guarantee a good enough success rate. Still gives me something to strive for

To be honest those feats would be wasted on EH not on EE. You don't need that much spell pen especially if you buy it in your ED and twist it. EE you'll still be able to reliably hit most drow. If you go for the new staff and trinket you'll have spell pen 9+2 arcane augmentation and when all is said and done your spell pen will be mid 40s which is enough to hit most drow pretty reliably on EE.

while chain lightning has no dice cap listed.

I'm pretty sure chain lightning caps at 20. I'll have to check for sure...

[DarkForte]

I'm pretty sure chain lightning caps at 20. I'll have to check for sure...

Yes, it does, my bad.

No reason to go lightning then, since I was under the mistaken impression that Otiluke's would cap at 20 but CL wouldn't. With that out of the question, ice becomes a no-brainer for me.

[AtomicMew]

@Lightning bolt cumbersome: Just have to learn to use it. Not really hard to hit more than 1 mob at time.

The only difference is Frost lance being not evadable but its damage is inferior to Lightning bolt and single target. Elec offers a really cheap stun (couple with Greater shout) also so I wouldn't say Ice is FLAT out better.

It doesn't matter that frost lance has a lower DPS potential. Archers and monks do have enough to reflex to occasionally save and some mobs have improved evasion for automatic 50% reduction. Any savant already has more than enough spells that work on reflex, you don't need more than 2-3 reflex-based nukes. The important point is that it adds variety to your arsenal and works on a different save.

Taking time to reticle the target in back to properly use lightning bolt does take time, which could be other be spent on spamming more nukes. Being hard or easy isn't really relevant.

[Tid12]

It doesn't matter that frost lance has a lower DPS potential. Archers and monks do have enough to reflex to occasionally save and some mobs have improved evasion for automatic 50% reduction. Any savant already has more than enough spells that work on reflex, you don't need more than 2-3 reflex-based nukes. The important point is that it adds variety to your arsenal and works on a different save.

Taking time to reticle the target in back to properly use lightning bolt does take time, which could be other be spent on spamming more nukes. Being hard or easy isn't really relevant.

Archers and monks can be dealt with many spells. Polar, Wail, or you can actually ignore the archers and run past them while taking care of monks. Don't see the problem here, really, I've playin an air savant since the savants came out and I never encountered a situation where I'd wished I had another savant cause of two-three mobs.

Taking time does take time yeah..1 more second. It's not heard, I've learnt to use it and mastered it. While I take that second to use an 8 SP spell, you will have to use a Otiluke/CoC to hit all of them for 50+ SP. 1 more second to hit 4 targets with 8 sp with a chance of 2k+ crit: yes please.

You talk like you don't use spells that are based on Ref saves. That's just not true. Unless you just use Polar ray and frost lance and that will mean I clear room much faster than you.

Anyway, we can be here all day discussin about this. You think Air does suck and not worth it. I don't know if you tried it but having one and not regretting it so I don't agree, that's it.