To pure or not to pure?

[LongshotBro]

Nearing the end of my third arti life, I am looking ahead to the other PLs I'd like to get under my belt and have decided to pursue 3 Sorcerer lives next. I have never capped or even gone past lvl 12 on any toon but this arti. Air Savant appeals greatly to me; as an arti I've used electricity quite a bit.
My question is thus - would it horribly gimp me to go 14/6 Sorcerer/Arti? This is strictly for heroic levels to TR mind you. I thought about maybe building a Lit2 bastard sword to use with Chimera's Breath, and making use of an extensive collection of heavy repeaters and the Battle Engineer, and naturally Air Savant 2. I thought maybe it would be fun, with Lightning Motes and stuff, doing some ranged and melee in addition to spell slinging.
This build would be primarily for fun, and leveling to 20. I've never played a Sorcerer before, so if this isn't an abomimation, maybe some tips/advice/suggestions? I have invested heavily in the toon: greater learning, +1/2/3/4 tomes across the board, VIP, etc.

As always, thanks in advance to any and all feedback. As a final note, and I know this is sub-optimal, but I will not make a WF. Personal preference, I just loathe the way the look and will not subject myself to it visually.

[Loromir]

Nearing the end of my third arti life, I am looking ahead to the other PLs I'd like to get under my belt and have decided to pursue 3 Sorcerer lives next. I have never capped or even gone past lvl 12 on any toon but this arti. Air Savant appeals greatly to me; as an arti I've used electricity quite a bit.
My question is thus - would it horribly gimp me to go 14/6 Sorcerer/Arti? This is strictly for heroic levels to TR mind you. I thought about maybe building a Lit2 bastard sword to use with Chimera's Breath, and making use of an extensive collection of heavy repeaters and the Battle Engineer, and naturally Air Savant 2. I thought maybe it would be fun, with Lightning Motes and stuff, doing some ranged and melee in addition to spell slinging.
This build would be primarily for fun, and leveling to 20. I've never played a Sorcerer before, so if this isn't an abomimation, maybe some tips/advice/suggestions? I have invested heavily in the toon: greater learning, +1/2/3/4 tomes across the board, VIP, etc.

As always, thanks in advance to any and all feedback. As a final note, and I know this is sub-optimal, but I will not make a WF. Personal preference, I just loathe the way the look and will not subject myself to it visually.

If your just looking to have some fun, then go ahead with your idea. If your going for a quick run through 3 sorc lives, go pure or take one lvl of Barb for extra speed & Warforged for self healing. Your sorc lives will prolly go quicker than any of your other lives.

[Inouk]

Nearing the end of my third arti life, I am looking ahead to the other PLs I'd like to get under my belt and have decided to pursue 3 Sorcerer lives next. I have never capped or even gone past lvl 12 on any toon but this arti. Air Savant appeals greatly to me; as an arti I've used electricity quite a bit.
My question is thus - would it horribly gimp me to go 14/6 Sorcerer/Arti? This is strictly for heroic levels to TR mind you. I thought about maybe building a Lit2 bastard sword to use with Chimera's Breath, and making use of an extensive collection of heavy repeaters and the Battle Engineer, and naturally Air Savant 2. I thought maybe it would be fun, with Lightning Motes and stuff, doing some ranged and melee in addition to spell slinging.
This build would be primarily for fun, and leveling to 20. I've never played a Sorcerer before, so if this isn't an abomimation, maybe some tips/advice/suggestions? I have invested heavily in the toon: greater learning, +1/2/3/4 tomes across the board, VIP, etc.

As always, thanks in advance to any and all feedback. As a final note, and I know this is sub-optimal, but I will not make a WF. Personal preference, I just loathe the way the look and will not subject myself to it visually.

I'm trying to imagine 6 arti providing any real benefit over pure sorc... and failing. You'll want every spell level as fast as you can get it. You'll want every savant tier as fast as you can get it. Firewall alone will make repeaters and swords irrelevant. 2 paladin for the incredible saves increase I could see (not really on a 1-20 TR run though). 1 Barb for faster run and greataxe proficiency (canifex) I could understand, but isn't personally my style. 6 arti... I just can't see a benefit other than for the sake of experimentation. And the 2 classes have no synergy stat wise or ability wise.

[onivedlav]

Imo wf sorc is one of the easiest and most fun class to cap. Get yourself a Vibrant Purple Ioun Stone, and nuke away!

Fire savant with a touch of corrosion enhancements. Switch to cold at level 17/18 for vale and above.

In the first few levels get a great axe and cast Master's Touch. You may find your power/sp poll short.

[Kinerd]

Sorcerers and especially savants are heavily geared towards direct damage (which is not to say that they cannot fill other roles at a very high level). While leveling, direct damage is ridiculously powerful. I don't see how 6 artificer would help leveling at all. Even factoring in trap XP seems a losing battle: getting to the next sorc spell level ASAP and blitzing the traps seems easily more efficient.

Air savant is not great for leveling simply because Shocking Grasp has lousy range and Electric has a relatively poor spell selection. For tier 1 SLAs compare to the cold's Niac's Ray or the 1st level cone of fire or acid. Electric Loop's CC is really handy, but dead is always a better enemy state than controlled, and cold and fire have a huge leg up there. Once you get to tier 3, {Lightning Bolt, immunity to knockdown, wings} are incredible, but tier 3 is not as relevant for leveling.

Being able to self heal with spells is such a tremendous advantage, and the only way to get that as a sorc is as WF. Have you considered first person mode? It's not even a question of optimization, to me it's really a quality of life matter.

.

With all that said, arcane is a tremendously powerful platform. I have no doubt a 14/6 arti would be successful, it just seems you have higher ceilings easily within your grasp.

[Jasparion]

You can start with 2 Paladin, swing an Axe / Great Sword for a while, as you take the next 18 levels as Sorc.

WF.

Crazy saves, slight hit on Spell Pen - but who needs that when your Maximised/Empowered SLAs obliterate everything !

And you can take the build all the way to 25 in Elite content.

[LongshotBro]

I'm trying to imagine 6 arti providing any real benefit over pure sorc... and failing. You'll want every spell level as fast as you can get it. You'll want every savant tier as fast as you can get it. Firewall alone will make repeaters and swords irrelevant. 2 paladin for the incredible saves increase I could see (not really on a 1-20 TR run though). 1 Barb for faster run and greataxe proficiency (canifex) I could understand, but isn't personally my style. 6 arti... I just can't see a benefit other than for the sake of experimentation. And the 2 classes have no synergy stat wise or ability wise.

Thanks to all for the helpful feedback. I think this nailed it though: "for the sake of experimentation." I'm a very casual player, and intellectually I understand all the pros and cons. But i may end up trying this anyway just for the heck of it. On the other hand, the increasing ability to nuke from afar also sounds quite appealing.

For the most part, i just like the artificer so much and i'm reluctant to let it go. Additionally, i know i won't be the best sorcerer out there, so maybe a hidden benefit will be groups that see arti/sorc, think "wha huh?" let me join anyway, and don't expect an experienced nuker.

Well, i'm not quite ready to talk to Kruz yet, so there's still time to make the decision. I'll let you know what happens.

[LongshotBro]

For fun and because i wanted to try it, and also because i just don't want to let go of my arti obsession, i'm working through my first sorcerer life with 2 arti levels that i took right off the bat.
basically i just maxxed CHR, 15 DEX, and i think CON 17 as a human. i'm took toughness and empower at level 1, SF: evocation for the free arti feat, and maximize at level 3 (first level of sorc).
i'm sure this will cause a lot of groans, but i'm not going to use the prestige enhancements (i suppose i could always respec and take advantage of them later). for now i'm planning on just 7/7/7 kinetic and taking all the force spells. learning that disintegrate and...one other one...horrid wilting (?) are enhanced by that sounded like a good perk to me.
so far it's been going quite well actually. Thought Spike gets a little bump from the enhancement, and i've been experiementing with that + Impulse scepter and magic missles, or that + a bleeding heavy repeater. both work pretty nicely together. as a bonus, i can handle traps too.

side note: anyone else's trap sense not too good lately? when i was on my previous arti life, my spot was in the 50's and the trap sense rarely ever went off, even on below-level quests.

anyway, thanks for all the helpful feedback. i'm looking forward to seeing how this Forcerer pans out.

[Kinerd]

Forcerer is an excellent coinage but suffers from a very poor palette. Disintegrate boils down to an untyped Niac's Cold Ray: awesome if you can beat the DC, pointless if you can't. Neither of Eladar's Electric Surge or Niac's Biting Cold, neither of Polar Ray or Black Dragon Bolt, no persistent AoE SP saver. Horrid Wilting is interesting but unlike Disintegrate its "untyped" damage does not work on everything, so keep that in mind.

[Darkrok]

I'm not crazy about the build but one thing in favor of it for you is that Ice Storm uses the greater of your enhancements/gear between force and ice. So you'll actually have a persistent AoE spell in your repertoire.

Personally, if I weren't staying with the life (ie just trying to cap) I'd do the 1 barb and go acid to 17 then ice. Just way easy to level and pretty fun as well. I really love the 2 paladin splash (especially if you enjoy shiradi) but personally I took them at 19/20 - it was a lot easier for me to level getting the spells first - the saves weren't really that critical in the under-20 game.

But back to your build, if you're going to do it I'd go straight-up arti to level 6 and ignore trapping at higher levels (since you won't really have the skill points for that). Arti is so front-loaded that you'll be blasting through the low-level content. The transition levels as you're trying to raise sorc levels though...not sure how those will play out.

[LongshotBro]

More good feedback, thank you! I thought about going 6 arti as well, but what i'd give up in sorc levels didn't seem worth it. Felt like i'd be great low level, then high level just a gimpy spellcaster with sub-par xbow skills.

one thing i do have going for me is a stone in the bank, so mid-levels are moot. so essentially i'll have this sorc life under my belt PDQ. the way i look at it, i'll get to see what it's like at the high end of heroic levels right away. if it really stinks, i'll definitely take all the great suggestions to heart on the next TR train. basically i'm just working on getting several useful PL's for the eventual return to straight-up artificer, and this is my first foray into something other than the arti itself.

at this point, i'm 4/2 sorc/arti and i will say that lil ol' Thought Spike and Maxxed/Empowered magic missles + a good heavy repeater is laying the smack down pretty handily.

as for traps...even with gear, human versatility II, and skill points, i'm having a heck of a time getting trapsense to even go off, let alone finding the dern boxes. what's up wit dat?

[psykopeta]

Nearing the end of my third arti life, I am looking ahead to the other PLs I'd like to get under my belt and have decided to pursue 3 Sorcerer lives next. I have never capped or even gone past lvl 12 on any toon but this arti. Air Savant appeals greatly to me; as an arti I've used electricity quite a bit.
My question is thus - would it horribly gimp me to go 14/6 Sorcerer/Arti? This is strictly for heroic levels to TR mind you. I thought about maybe building a Lit2 bastard sword to use with Chimera's Breath, and making use of an extensive collection of heavy repeaters and the Battle Engineer, and naturally Air Savant 2. I thought maybe it would be fun, with Lightning Motes and stuff, doing some ranged and melee in addition to spell slinging.
This build would be primarily for fun, and leveling to 20. I've never played a Sorcerer before, so if this isn't an abomimation, maybe some tips/advice/suggestions? I have invested heavily in the toon: greater learning, +1/2/3/4 tomes across the board, VIP, etc.

As always, thanks in advance to any and all feedback. As a final note, and I know this is sub-optimal, but I will not make a WF. Personal preference, I just loathe the way the look and will not subject myself to it visually.

im getting 3 pl each class and what i'm doing:

1st life, pure, the most simple and brute role, in this case wf sorc fire savant, 1st life always pure, hard to gimp a pure toon
2nd life, time to mess the toon, insert here your build, now you can judge what's funnier
3rd flavour of the month or any mix between 1st and 2nd life, here you could try tukaw asexample

with this i get sure of:
try the class, with cap and earliest spells/skills/whatever
try what i thought about the class and compare it with pure
try the flavour of the month and compare what's the fun than min/maxers look for

[LongshotBro]

For any interested parties...yeah I went ahead and re-specced as a pure sorcerer. It was a difficult decision to let go of my beloved runearm and repeaters, but after weighing the pros and cons it only made sense.

That being said, I absolutely love my sorcerer. As I mentioned, I've never accomplished much with anything other than the artificer so it was tough to consider not being able to do traps and all that other stuff.

On the other hand, tossing around huge amounts of damage spells is a lot of fun. Leave the traps to the rogues. I'd rather be awesome at spellcasting than pretty good at a several things.

Having all those arti past lives is pretty nice though, for the no-fail resurrections and heal scrolls.

Next time around maybe I will try one of the elemental savants. I will probably be surprised by how much more damage they do as well, but I must say that maxxing out the Kinetic stuff does not seem to be lacking in the ability to put the hurt on.

So far, I have found good ol' Magic Missle, Prismatic Ray, Horrid Wilting, and Meteor Swarm to be my bread and butter.

[Standal]

I'm glad you're having fun, but the spells that you like are the ones my cold savant carries to use as a last resort against mobs that aren't cold vulnerable. Not being a savant is really gimping your DPS potential.

[LongshotBro]

I am definitely having fun, and so far keeping up with parties including other sorcerers both ice and earth.

[LongshotBro]

i respecced into pure 20 sorcerer air savant.

HUGE difference. Example: last week's guild raid night we ran EH Chronoscope. i did some damage, killed a few guys, threw out some helpful buffs.

This week's guild raid night EH Chronoscope: i had way more SP, conserved a lot through SLA's, did ridiculously more damage via capstone, enhancements, etc, killed a LOT of guys, threw out buffs, and never ran out of SP before hitting a shrine.

Touche, people that warned me. Touche.

[blerkington]

If your just looking to have some fun, then go ahead with your idea. If your going for a quick run through 3 sorc lives, go pure or take one lvl of Barb for extra speed & Warforged for self healing. Your sorc lives will prolly go quicker than any of your other lives.

Hi,

This is exactly what I'm doing now, and it works like a charm. WF sorcs are unbelievably strong as levelling machines, both solo and in group, if you know the game well.

My first time through I took one level of barb for faster movement, sprint boost, more hp, and martial weapon proficiencies. You can melee well enough to get through elite content solo until you pick up fireball, and from there on your life is quick and easy. Run, gather, kill, repeat.

I ended up finishing that life as a sorc 15/barb 5 then LR'd for a past life. At the moment I'm getting close to the end of another one, which will probably be for the sorc past life, so I get extra SP and +1 evo DC for future lives like this. I plan to do the other classes I don't want to play like this too.

The only drawbacks is it's a repetitive playstyle and you are not really getting the full experience of other classes if you're doing to it get past lives in something other than sorc.

Anyway, good luck with what you decide.

Thanks.