Failed to sorc solo a quest 1 level below me

[CircleK]

I got on my warforged sorc and he's level 18, so I thought about attempting ritual sacrifice on hard, which should be a very easy task. I died. It was an easy quest, with only gnolls and the occasional elemental, 1 level below me. I was a sorcerer. With selfheals. And I died. I simply ran out of sp. Can anyone tell me good ways to conserve sp and spend less sp on reconstruct and more on acid rain? Because, there were a myriad of moments where I came to 24 hp and I was spamming reconstruct and took a while to actually kill everything. How can I stop those moments?

[Hobgoblin]

I got on my warforged sorc and he's level 18, so I thought about attempting ritual sacrifice on hard, which should be a very easy task. I died. It was an easy quest, with only gnolls and the occasional elemental, 1 level below me. I was a sorcerer. With selfheals. And I died. I simply ran out of sp. Can anyone tell me good ways to conserve sp and spend less sp on reconstruct and more on acid rain? Because, there were a myriad of moments where I came to 24 hp and I was spamming reconstruct and took a while to actually kill everything. How can I stop those moments?

2 things. +

1: scrolls
use recon(the spell) as an oh $%$# moment (just to get you out of a jam) and use scrolls for the rest of it

2: no acid rain.
in this particular quest with few shrines acid rains is not as usefull.

3: use your slas -
Fire savant- fire ball maxed/emp/heightened all for 8/10 sp? (cant remember the cost of the top of my head, been a while since i played a fire sorc around capish) drawback - devils/orthons are immune to this
Earth - see above but nothing in the quest is immune.
air - good single target, not as good on groups.
cold - see above

4: i cant count.
See above.

5: I just wanted a 5 in here.

hope that helps
hob

[Lonnbeimnech]

Invis and run past everything, kill only the enemies you have to kill.

[Hobgoblin]

yes forgot about that - only kill what you have to.

Player knowledge helps alot here as well.

hob

[Ukenburger]

I thought about attempting ritual sacrifice on hard, which should be a very easy task. I died. It was an easy quest, with only gnolls and the occasional elemental, 1 level below me. I was a sorcerer. With selfheals. And I died. I simply ran out of sp. Can anyone tell me good ways to conserve sp and spend less sp on reconstruct and more on acid rain?

You may get some ideas by watching the actions of others.

[CircleK]

I've seen Cowstalker's videos, I'll look at them some more. And I do invis through a lot. But for some reason I STILL run out of sp. What should i use instead of acid rain? Because, I'm an acid savant, and acid rain is one of my fav spells I feel like it does tons of dmg since it only costs 15 sp.

[Enoach]

• Run past any fight you don't need to fight
• Use SP for Reconstruct during fights - when you need emergency Healing
• Use Wands/Scrolls to "repair yourself" between fights

How far did you get, Orthon Fight? Upper Levels? First Room?

Next, how are you "Fighting"? When using AoE the goal is to get as many with as few casts as possible, such as are you keeping them in the AoE? (Web, holds, Kiting). Are you trying to kill everything? Even the stuff that won't chase you. Many that solo on an Arcane don't chase kills, they kill only that which is between them and their goal.

Gear - Are you utilizing the right damage enhancements for the spells your casting? Is the gear the minimum for the Level Range you are at? Be it SP gear, spell damage gear, Stat Gear.

Consumables - Are you utilizing consumables - Wands/Scrolls/Potions (not just SP potions)

Next have you successfully solo'd Normal?

[CircleK]

I have successfully soloed normal, I never use consumables, I usually kite them through my AoEs instead of holding them there, I got to the room with the windlasher mystics, and on my way to the second shrine, I got ambushed by elementals because I was out of sp, my gear sucks badly. I need to tier 3 my gs goggles and get the torc, the rest of my gear still sucks badly.

[Jeromio]

This quest can be a little bit taxing on the SP pool even if you run with invis and only try to fight when necessary.

A Torc helps a lot in this quest... there are quite a few archers so you can replenish your SP quickly. Bramble-casters, a shield and Life Sheild on a docent helps when torcing. With a con-op item it goes even faster to get back your SP.

... and as others already said... use scrolls when you can, don't kill when you don't really have to, cast effeciently and use your SLAs. Insta-kill enemy casters and air elementals to reduce the need for emergency reconstructs.

[teh_meh]

Vale quests are very unforgiving in terms of shrines. There's all kinds of tricks you can use to extend your SP pool but in the end, there aren't enough shrines. I've solo'd them all on various difficulties with a wiz, sorc and FvS and it doesn't matter...you'll need to pot eventually, occasionally...even if you invis and zerg past as much as possible.

Acid rain is great against mobs but the duration is too short. I'm guessing 10 seconds versus a 30 second Wall of Fire or Ice Storm.

Even if you're WF, a cleric hireling will leave you virtually free to focus you SP on killin. Just make sure you park it before entering tough sections cause they'll cost you 10% on hard/elite runs when they die. But you'll still need to pot/bauble.

Scrolls are a pain. Sure they are neat but the switching-to and cast animation is too much of a time sink for my patience. It'll kill your XP/min when you're doing already long Vale quests. Even with scrolls, you'll still need to pot.

Best way to avoid potting is simply party up and share the burden. Otherwise, run it on normal so you can hit shrines repeatedly but you will massacre your XP/min doing this obviously.

PS. going from normal (LVL 16) to hard (LVL 17) does not mean mob CRs only increase one level. They scale up much more than that. You can easily find yourself in over your head if you're not used to the differences in difficulty.

[Jeromio]

Vale quests are very unforgiving in terms of shrines. There's all kinds of tricks you can use to extend your SP pool but in the end, there aren't enough shrines. I've solo'd them all on various difficulties with a wiz, sorc and FvS and it doesn't matter...you'll need to pot eventually, occasionally...even if you invis and zerg past as much as possible.

Acid rain is great against mobs but the duration is too short. I'm guessing 10 seconds versus a 30 second Wall of Fire or Ice Storm.

Even if you're WF, a cleric hireling will leave you virtually free to focus you SP on killin. Just make sure you park it before entering tough sections cause they'll cost you 10% on hard/elite runs when they die. But you'll still need to pot/bauble.

Scrolls are a pain. Sure they are neat but the switching-to and cast animation is too much of a time sink for my patience. It'll kill your XP/min when you're doing already long Vale quests. Even with scrolls, you'll still need to pot.

Best way to avoid potting is simply party up and share the burden. Otherwise, run it on normal so you can hit shrines repeatedly but you will massacre your XP/min doing this obviously.

PS. going from normal (LVL 16) to hard (LVL 17) does not mean mob CRs only increase one level. They scale up much more than that. You can easily find yourself in over your head if you're not used to the differences in difficulty.

• No need to pot if you can torc... although it of course kills xp/min a bit if you're in a hurry.
• Acid rain is actually more SP effecient than wall of fire (except against undead mobs), and has a larger AOE.
• Jump-cast scrolls.... use them outside of fights.
• A dead hireling is 5% loss of the base xp... still should of course be avoided.

Except for the above points... agree.

[red_cardinal]

See, you miss the point by far.
Charms are your friends when you're soloing - even if you're in an undead quest.
Also, you need to know how AI works in order to move and when to move.

You're human and you should be the first to call the shots.

Tip: before they even spot you, drop a charm on one monster and it will get aggro for you.
(Mass suggestion or Charm monster).

In my mind, charms are a very valuable tool - even better than a instakill or Disco. Charms may be best when you cant invisi through, but you're soloing.

[MRMechMan]

For that quest specifically, solo.

DR: at least 5/piercing prevents a large chunk of damage. 10/piercing prevents a LOT of damage. archers hitting you for 12-14 vs 2-4 is a massive difference.

Don't forget concops and lifeshield-they are effectively DR, actually better as can proc sp through them. ALso the artificer cannith challenge ring is very good...when turtling up and taking some serious punishment it is the difference between cure serious wounds being barely able to keep your HP afloat and barely needing to cast it.

Reflex/Fort saves: Disintigrates, chain lightnings and otilukes being tossed down like hotcakes. Even solo on hard these will hurt on failed saves. 30pt resists a must.

Torc/concops: tons of archers, 2 shrines for a longish quest.

Avoiding enemies: You don't need to fight a ton of enemies here. Invis past, if they notice you just keep running. Alert matters little when on a sorc. Know where levers are and how to pull them with minimal chance of being disrupted.

Did elite solo with 10sorc/7 barb. Deliciously gimpy. A lot of it is gear/quest knowledge.

Spells to use:Wall of fire is nicer in high-hp enemy situations than acid rain (but both are good, and better than insta effects usually). The more enemies you can group up before dropping an AOE, the longer your sp will last. Some quests only need 5-6 "killzones" and people set up one every time they see enemies-sometimes pulling 2-3 or more enemy groups together is riskier but saves you SP. As a WF sorc with recon you should have the survivability to agro 10-20 mobs at a time and dance around a firewall/acid rain (or tank with shield).

Insta spells like chain/ball lightning, DBF, cone of cold etc are fairly inefficient. Maybe use em if you can get to red alert and hit a ton of enemies at once. But generally AOE damage over time effects are much more efficient particularly against high HP enemies.

As for hard vs normal...well it is definitely more than 1 level of difficulty if soloing. For vale maybe CRs jump up from 15 to 18 and mobs have 50%-75% more hp. So don't sweat not being able to solo it, running out of sp on an ungeared sorc is somewhat inevitable once HP bloat starts to hit at level 15+. Running a sorc without instakills in IQ elite and such is horrifying (and an 10sorc/8barb goes beyond horrifying into rediculous ).

[red_cardinal]

You may get some ideas by watching the actions of others.

That too. (tl; didn't watch)

[Llewndyn]

2 things. +

1: scrolls
use recon(the spell) as an oh $%$# moment (just to get you out of a jam) and use scrolls for the rest of it

2: no acid rain.
in this particular quest with few shrines acid rains is not as usefull.

3: use your slas -
Fire savant- fire ball maxed/emp/heightened all for 8/10 sp? (cant remember the cost of the top of my head, been a while since i played a fire sorc around capish) drawback - devils/orthons are immune to this
Earth - see above but nothing in the quest is immune.
air - good single target, not as good on groups.
cold - see above

4: i cant count.
See above.

5: I just wanted a 5 in here.

hope that helps
hob

This is almost verbatim what was in my head, except number 3 was more about squirrel migratory patterns. The only thing I have to add is the heavy use of web/dancing ball/ mass suggestion if you are soloing, let them beat eachother up so you don't have to (haven't made a WF caster, so take this with the proverbial grain but on my fleshy gimp casters (and that would be all of them) this is a must have for soloing anything since your average mob usually does better DPS (that's damage per second (I love nested parenthesis (No I don't)) for the uninitiated) than I do)... that is how I usually save SP and it's funny to watch too.

I can't remember if on hard they will follow you throughout the dungeon but going invis might work too... and if all else fails instead of acid rain where they run through it and maybe take 250 damage I would hit up a cloudkill and run in circles like a moron, but that's more because I AM a moron and that's how I live my life.

[Tres_Tacos]

The simplest solution is open the store and buy some pots.

[Llewndyn]

• No need to pot if you can torc... although it of course kills xp/min a bit if you're in a hurry.
• Acid rain is actually more SP effecient than wall of fire (except against undead mobs), and has a larger AOE.
• Jump-cast scrolls.... use them outside of fights.
• A dead hireling is 5% loss of the base xp... still should of course be avoided.

Except for the above points... agree.

Let me start by saying I agree... now let me completely derail this thread.

Please listen, O DDO forum community: Torcs are tough to get. Baubles are tough to get. Conc opp items take a while to craft. Telling someone they should torc up or just whip out the conc opp item or use their bauble is as useless of a suggestion as if your buddy asks you if you know a quicker route to the library because he has to run from class to make it there on time and you suggest he buy a Lamborghini Diablo, because that's how you get there and you always make it.

This is the reason I ignore people's builds and just go with my own. The minute I read "Use full suite of +3/ +4 tomes" or "Torc" or "conc opp" and it's lower than a 5th life setup, and heck even then, I realize the build cannot stand on it's own merits and they have to have those items to make it work. People come on these very forums to bemoan getting 20 completions (meaning 2 months before the DDO store easy button) and STILL not getting a Torc, and I know people who have been farming weapons shipment for weeks with no sight of a bauble, but these are required items for the majority of caster builds. That smacks of laziness to me, TBH, not calling anyone out or anything, but of course your build is going to be awesome if you have a Torc/ Conc Opp/ Tier III GS item/ HP GS item/ Bauble/ Vibrant purple unsuppressed ioun stone, the CHALLENGE is to make a build that is good with only one or two of these things, or even more impressive none of them at all.

This goes back to the oft-repeated mantra us newbs keep trying to get across: Think back to when you did not have all of these things and try to answer his question from that standpoint. If you can, you are elite and bragging rights are yours. If not....

Epilogue - Some may point out that I have all of these items. That's not my point. I would NEVER expect someone on their first, second, or even third life to have half the cra- I mean, stuff, I have. I got mine through pure, unadulterated luck because I am too lazy to farm. Telling everyone else to randomly be as lucky as me smacks of a superiority complex and as a forum community we're better than that.

[Thrudh]

Charms are your friends when you're soloing

Tip: before they even spot you, drop a charm on one monster and it will get aggro for you.
(Mass suggestion or Charm monster).

In my mind, charms are a very valuable tool - even better than a instakill or Disco. Charms may be best when you cant invisi through, but you're soloing.

This. Good advice.

[Jeromio]

Let me start by saying I agree... now let me completely derail this thread.

Please listen, O DDO forum community: Torcs are tough to get. Baubles are tough to get. Conc opp items take a while to craft. Telling someone they should torc up or just whip out the conc opp item or use their bauble is as useless of a suggestion as if your buddy asks you if you know a quicker route to the library because he has to run from class to make it there on time and you suggest he buy a Lamborghini Diablo, because that's how you get there and you always make it.

This is the reason I ignore people's builds and just go with my own. The minute I read "Use full suite of +3/ +4 tomes" or "Torc" or "conc opp" and it's lower than a 5th life setup, and heck even then, I realize the build cannot stand on it's own merits and they have to have those items to make it work. People come on these very forums to bemoan getting 20 completions (meaning 2 months before the DDO store easy button) and STILL not getting a Torc, and I know people who have been farming weapons shipment for weeks with no sight of a bauble, but these are required items for the majority of caster builds. That smacks of laziness to me, TBH, not calling anyone out or anything, but of course your build is going to be awesome if you have a Torc/ Conc Opp/ Tier III GS item/ HP GS item/ Bauble/ Vibrant purple unsuppressed ioun stone, the CHALLENGE is to make a build that is good with only one or two of these things, or even more impressive none of them at all.

This goes back to the oft-repeated mantra us newbs keep trying to get across: Think back to when you did not have all of these things and try to answer his question from that standpoint. If you can, you are elite and bragging rights are yours. If not....

Epilogue - Some may point out that I have all of these items. That's not my point. I would NEVER expect someone on their first, second, or even third life to have half the cra- I mean, stuff, I have. I got mine through pure, unadulterated luck because I am too lazy to farm. Telling everyone else to randomly be as lucky as me smacks of a superiority complex and as a forum community we're better than that.

I guess it depends on the perspective. Personally I consider 20 completions (or maybe 40... hopefully it shouldn't take more ) taking 2+ months, being quite a short period, and it's well worth it for a caster... especially if you intend to do a bit of soloing.
DQ1+2 takes what... maybe 30-35 minutes if you solo it, else much faster, i.e. about an hour per week or less. Even a half-gimpy first lifer can do it easily.

No, I don't actually expect others to grind out a Torc/bauble/con-op/ioun stone... but if you run into the problem that the OP has, IMHO, it's good advice to start grinding a little bit for these items.
There are other quests where you'll need such things even more if you intend to solo without quaffing pots.

[MsEricka]

Check the links in my signature for ways to save SP and to get some back in quests.