Evasion on a Sorcerer?

[Fefnir_2011]

I'm getting ready to do my casting past lives on my favored soul, and I have a couple of build questions. The wizard and favored soul builds were easy to put together, but I'm having trouble trying to fit everything I want into an evasion sorc build. Here's the two options I came up with:

Sorcerer 18 / Rogue 2
Str 8
Dex 8
Con 16
Int 16
Wis 8
Cha 18

Insightful Reflexes to shore up that save, maxed skills are UMD, Concentration, DD, and Search. Focused mostly on being highly survivable while doing Elites leveling. This would be a Human Conjuration-focused Earth Savant, giving me enough to run ENs and challenges while at cap for tokens and to get some Epic Destiny XP.


Sorcerer 18 / Monk 2
Str 12
Dex 8
Con 16
Int 14
Wis 8
Cha 18

Insightful Reflexes again, with Concentration, UMD, and some Bluff/Balance. I'd probably go Cold/Air Savant on this one. No trap skills, but there's strength enough to melee in the early levels instead.

Does one of these sound like a better idea over the other? Is it bad in general to try and shoehorn evasion onto a sorc, even for leveling? Anybody have suggestions for this? I know a few people have done something similar, so I'm hoping someone has a better build suggestion than what I have here.

TL;DR, need great human build for getting sorc past lives, interested in evasion, don't know where to go or how to build.

[akiraproject24]

Never made an evasion sorc but knew a few. Way back...I wanna say a popular way to do it was 16 sorc 2 rogue 2 pally? I believe this allowed cha mod to apply to saves? Not 100% on it but there were a bunch runnin around a few years ago.

[Olath_Senger]

Never made an evasion sorc but knew a few. Way back...I wanna say a popular way to do it was 16 sorc 2 rogue 2 pally? I believe this allowed cha mod to apply to saves? Not 100% on it but there were a bunch runnin around a few years ago.

The 16/2/2 was used a split used as a sort of battlemage type build; main way of killing things was with a sword and in the middle of AoEs, launching off the occasional DoT. I don't recommend it for a caster-focused build as you miss out on DCs, SP, and the almighty tier 3 Savant SLAs.

I'd personally go with the 2 Rogue option if you have the skills to keep DD up. It would be a much more solo-friendly build than the Monk. Monk only gives feats and Evasion, whereas Rogue gives trap skills, Evasion, and UMD which will be ridiculously high as a Sorc/Rogue and will ultimately mean you need less gear slots for your Heal scrolls to hit no-fail numbers. Personally, I don't see anything Monk gives that Rogue doesn't do better aside from feats.

[Adrian99]

If you must insist on being a fleshy Sorc (which I consider to be an abomination), then you need to go 18 sorc / 2 rogue and max UMD. if you can't heal scroll without fail, don't bother wasting time on a fleshy Sorc. But that's not the real problem here. The real problem is taking Insightful Reflexes and pumping Int on a Sorc. I can't think of anything that makes less sense than that. Put the points in Dex and save a feat. Done. But seriously, think of your group mates and make it a WF. Being invincible makes you immeasurably more valuable.

[Arlathen]

I am not a Caster player, but what about a Half-Elf Sorc 18/2 Rogue with Pally Dilly for +5 to all saves as a starting point?

[slimkj]

I have an 18Sor/2Mnk Earth Sav WF with a focus on boosting his reflex (without using Insightful Reflexes or putting much into Dex) and he does ok. He has high enough Reflex to deal with most things and a nice fat HP bar for when that occasionally fails.

Used the Infused Chaos Docent with +10 Reflex as part of the gear set to help get Reflex to a reasonable level.

[Fefnir_2011]

The 16/2/2 was used a split used as a sort of battlemage type build; main way of killing things was with a sword and in the middle of AoEs, launching off the occasional DoT. I don't recommend it for a caster-focused build as you miss out on DCs, SP, and the almighty tier 3 Savant SLAs.

I'd personally go with the 2 Rogue option if you have the skills to keep DD up. It would be a much more solo-friendly build than the Monk. Monk only gives feats and Evasion, whereas Rogue gives trap skills, Evasion, and UMD which will be ridiculously high as a Sorc/Rogue and will ultimately mean you need less gear slots for your Heal scrolls to hit no-fail numbers. Personally, I don't see anything Monk gives that Rogue doesn't do better aside from feats.

I had considered the Tukaw, but dismissed it because I do want to spend a little time at cap on these lives just to gather tokens and to punch through getting my Fate Points.

I think you are right on the rogue issue. I tend to spend large amounts of time soloing while TRing, which is why I don't really mind going fleshie, and why I want to try and fit in a decent evasion+save. My WF Fighter/Pally had no trouble scroll healing himself through hards and elites this life, and that was a toon with mediocre UMD and no Concentration. The main reason I had considered Monk was for the better stat distribution, and because it would give me some melee to offset spell point issues at low levels.

If you must insist on being a fleshy Sorc (which I consider to be an abomination), then you need to go 18 sorc / 2 rogue and max UMD. if you can't heal scroll without fail, don't bother wasting time on a fleshy Sorc. But that's not the real problem here. The real problem is taking Insightful Reflexes and pumping Int on a Sorc. I can't think of anything that makes less sense than that. Put the points in Dex and save a feat. Done. But seriously, think of your group mates and make it a WF. Being invincible makes you immeasurably more valuable.

I don't have a problem with going fleshie, and since I'll be soloing 50-90% of the time (depending on who's TRing in guild), that's all that really matters. I know the reasons for going WF over human, and it's personal preference for me.

As for Insightful Reflexes and Dex, last time I checked I can't put points in Dex to get skills. I need skill points to keep the relevant skills maxed while doing sorc levels, and since I don't plan on doing much if any Spell Pen casting, I don't really need those feats anyway.

I am not a Caster player, but what about a Half-Elf Sorc 18/2 Rogue with Pally Dilly for +5 to all saves as a starting point?

This is a good idea. Unfortunately, I don't own helf. Humans get the extra feat though, which is better for reflex but worse for fort and will (16 base + 2 tome + 2 ship + 6 item = 26 int for a mod of 8 to my reflex save).

I have an 18Sor/2Mnk Earth Sav WF with a focus on boosting his reflex (without using Insightful Reflexes or putting much into Dex) and he does ok. He has high enough Reflex to deal with most things and a nice fat HP bar for when that occasionally fails.

Used the Infused Chaos Docent with +10 Reflex as part of the gear set to help get Reflex to a reasonable level.

Interesting... did you put starting build points into dex?

[slimkj]

Not logged on but checking my build spreadsheet tells me I went:

STR	11
DEX	13
CON	17
INT	10
WIS	6
CHA	16

and level ups into CHA, of course. He is 34pt TR from an FVS if I remember correctly.

In case you're interested, the pre-U14 build plan was:

Lvl	Class	Feats
1	Sor	Extend
2	Mnk	Toughness
3	Sor	Maximise
4	Sor	
5	Sor	
6	Sor	Heighten
7	Sor	
8	Sor	
9	Sor	Quicken
10	Sor	
11	Sor	
12	Sor	SF: Conjuration
13	Sor	
14	Sor	
15	Sor	Empower
16	Mnk	Toughness
17	Sor	
18	Sor	GSF: Conjuration
19	Sor	
20	Sor

Rarely 100% stick to plans though, and when I LR him, I will probably dump Empower now. For what I'm not yet sure, but you could get more HP or +Reflex there if you wanted and didn't fancy another caster oriented feat...

Been running my main Sorc with Empower only switched on for SLAs and seems to manage fine so will dump it on most casters from now in all likelihood.