Starting new sorc at lvl 7 - need advice

[Trillea]

now i jsut made lvl 9 and i'm not sure what feat I should go with. Any advice for feats, spells and enhancements? maybe through the next few levels. I've noticed i have no good spell for fire immune creatures.

For fire immune I would suggest magic missile, force missiles, and chain missile. Force FTW. Also, take disintegrate as soon as you can since iron golems just melt when it's meta'd.

[Cardtrick]

now i jsut made lvl 9 and i'm not sure what feat I should go with. Any advice for feats, spells and enhancements? maybe through the next few levels. I've noticed i have no good spell for fire immune creatures.

Did you take Heighten yet? You'll want it for SLAs if nothing else, especially if you still end up going Air primary like you were planning.

As for fire immune enemies, it is sort of a problem in the level range you're at when going fire/air, just because there aren't many good low-level non-SLA air spells that are worth keeping at cap. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I do prefer either fire/acid (Melf's and Acid Rain) or fire/force (magic/force/chain missile) for leveling, partly because of this. With quest knowledge, it's very possible -- and probably most efficient -- to mostly avoid quests that have many fire immune enemies who you actually have to kill, at least until you get into the upper teen levels (at which point, you'll have plenty of options to deal with them).

If you do want to have significant fire-immune-killing arsenal, I agree with Trillea that the best option is probably to swap out one or two spells in favor of the force "Missile" spells (and probably swap the spells back at higher levels).

Another option is to respec your enhancements (no 3-day time limit on respeccing enhancements like there is for swapping spells, and it's cheap) to move more into the Air Savant tree and take the first 2 tiers of Electric SLAs. It will mean backing way off the Fire Savant enhancements for now, since you're still pretty AP-starved at level 9, but that's fine -- you can always swap back later at any time. If you go that route, you'd continue using a lot of the fire spells (Scorching Ray, Fireball, and Wall of Fire are all very useful), and you should continue investing in the Fire Savant tree to enhance them, but your SLAs would instead be electric. (It definitely hurts your speed/power not having a Fireball SLA, but Lighting Bolt isn't too bad -- you just have to aim it a lot more carefully. Electric Loop is actually really nice for the CC.)

Until you get into the higher levels, with lots of devils, the only fire immune enemies you'll face are typically not threats, since they primarily do fire damage themselves -- as long as you're casting fire shield (blue) and have some fire resistance, they're easy to handle, and if it takes you a little time due to using missile spells or SLAs, there's really no danger.

[HardRobble]

how does stacking spell points on equipment work?

[Cardtrick]

how does stacking spell points on equipment work?

The same as (nearly) any other type of bonus in the game -- bonuses of different types stack, but for bonuses of the same type, only the largest one counts.

Most spell point boosts from equipment are of type "Enhancement", meaning only the largest one counts. These include the standard Power, Wizardry, Magi, Archmagi enchantments.

There are a few other types of spellpoint bonus. The most notable are Elemental Spell Power (which gives 50 spell points) and Greater Elemental Spell Power (which gives 100). These two bonuses are actually considered separate types, so they do stack with each other, for an extra 150 spellpoints (300 on a sorcerer or favored soul). The most common place to get this bonus is from green steel crafting by running the Shroud raid. It's also available on a very few other high level sources. There are also weird things like the Greater Cunning Trinket from the recurring Crystal Cove event, which gives 50 points that stack with everything.

Finally, remember that on a sorcerer, boosting your Charisma modifier will also boost your spell points. There are more ways to increase a base stat like Charisma than there are to directly boost spell points, so this is definitely an important thing to look at when you're trying to increase your SP pool. Of course, increase Charisma has an even more important benefit -- it will increase the DCs on your spells so that enemies save less and take more damage, hopefully meaning you need to cast less and saving even more spell points in the long run.

[HardRobble]

thanks, you just opened up 3 equipment slots for me to put other things in.

[Cardtrick]

thanks, you just opened up 3 equipment slots for me to put other things in.

Haha, great!

One other thing worth mentioning -- it's less important at low levels, but at higher levels when you start getting a ton of gear, some of which is named loot and has odd combinations of effects, you may want to consider not wearing your biggest SP item all the time, just because you have so much other good stuff you want to wear.

At the start of quests and after shrines, you will presumably have a lot of buffs to cast. What a lot of us do is wear a "swappable" SP item for shrining, cast our buffs to use up the extra SP, and then swap that slot to something more useful. Now, you're not going to be spending 400 SP on buffing, probably, so it doesn't make sense to swap from an archmagi item to nothing. But if you have one of the Cove trinkets, or if you're getting Wizardry VI and some other useful effects from one item that you wear all the time but could instead use an Archmagi item, it can make a lot of sense to consider doing something like this.

[HardRobble]

Thanks for all the advice. I really appreciate it and I've been having a lot of fun with my sorc. In groups I've come to LOVE firewall.

Anyway, I am now level 10 with enough xp banked to go lvl 11 so I have kinda outgrowna lot of the advice. Cardtrick has given me enhancements to lvl 15 but I'm wondering what spells to go with now. The last spell I took at lvl 10 was the 5th lvl cloudkill. I don't know if that was a great choice but I'm using it in place of firewall against fire immune creatures (actually now after reading the wiki on cloudkill it probably is NOT the best lvl 5 spell I could have chosen). What spell progression should I go with. (too bad I have to wait until lvl 12 to get my fb sla)

Also, I've heard dimension door is great but what exactly would I be using it for?

Also I think I will probably take the pally splash for the saves since when I fail a save I often get 1 shot. Should I wait until i get to sorc 18 to do that?

jsut a side note, I love running a xp pot and getting elite bravery bonuses - I sometimes break 20k xp on a quest. I got 23k on one last night.

[Cardtrick]

Thanks for all the advice. I really appreciate it and I've been having a lot of fun with my sorc. In groups I've come to LOVE firewall.

Anyway, I am now level 10 with enough xp banked to go lvl 11 so I have kinda outgrowna lot of the advice. Cardtrick has given me enhancements to lvl 15 but I'm wondering what spells to go with now. The last spell I took at lvl 10 was the 5th lvl cloudkill. I don't know if that was a great choice but I'm using it in place of firewall against fire immune creatures (actually now after reading the wiki on cloudkill it probably is NOT the best lvl 5 spell I could have chosen). What spell progression should I go with. (too bad I have to wait until lvl 12 to get my fb sla)

Also, I've heard dimension door is great but what exactly would I be using it for?

Also I think I will probably take the pally splash for the saves since when I fail a save I often get 1 shot. Should I wait until i get to sorc 18 to do that?

jsut a side note, I love running a xp pot and getting elite bravery bonuses - I sometimes break 20k xp on a quest. I got 23k on one last night.

Cloudkill isn't bad at all. It's actually useful even at cap, for the Concealment effect it provides (20% miss chance for enemies fighting in the cloud), without having an overly annoying visual effect.

The main reason I didn't suggest cloudkill is that you were planning on a fire/air sorcerer -- cloudkill's duration and damage will be negatively impacted due to the reduced caster level from the air savant tree. Plus, as a fire/air sorcerer, you're unlikely to be carrying much in the way of Corrosion/Acid Lore gear. But if you're finding it useful now, great! And honestly, none of those drawbacks matter later on if you want to use it at cap just as a means of providing Concealment.

Dimension Door is not always useful -- but when it is useful, it's irreplaceable; no clickies, and and you can't buy scrolls of it. A lot of groups will expect any arcane to carry it. But for someone primarily soloing, it depends a lot on your playstyle. In a very few quests, DDoor, allows you to solo something you otherwise couldn't (because it lets you get out of situations where a solo player has to pull a lever and then get locked in a room until someone else pulls a different lever). More often, it allows you to save some time -- whether that's just a few seconds, from DDooring out rather than recalling out, or much more, by allowing you to skip a bunch of running. (Or by letting you zerg to a required objective, ignoring all the enemies on the way, then grab an item or pull a lever and DDoor back without having to ever fight the giant mob trailing behind you.) It is most essential when soloing the Challenges and Crystal Cove, since rapid movement is the absolute key to a good ingredient haul, and since even the kobolds carrying crystals can use a DDoor once you've plopped it down. So if you're a zerger, or if you're interested in the Challenges, you'll find it a lot more useful than someone who plays slow and deliberately.

My preference on the pali splash, if you're going to do it at all, is to wait until either you've got 14, 16, or 18 sorcerer levels. These are the levels at which you get access to 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells, respectively. 14 gets you Delayed Blast Fireball, if you're going primarily fire which is a huge increase in your damage potential. 16 gets you some useful 8th level spells, although less so for fire/air (Black Dragon Bolt and Polar Ray for single-target boss damage are the real treats here, but they're earth and ice). Even without those spells, I personally like the 8th level spells Greater Shout, Otto's Irresistable Dance, and Symbol of Death -- even on a sorcerer, I prefer not to be a pure DPS machine. 18 gets you your choice of Wail, Meteor Storm, or Energy Drain.

That said, if you're having trouble with failed saves, be sure to take a look at your gear, too. The Paladin save boost is a big help, but it's not going to do enough on its own. You should be wearing the highest level Resistance item you can find (I think +4 to all saves should be achievable at your level). You should also be wearing a DEX item, even if it doesn't seem like you need it. +6 to DEX is +3 to reflex saves, which are typically the most important. Also consider wearing some lootgen Parrying bracers -- the Save bonus these give is of type Insight, which means it stacks with Resistance. Finally, as you get up in levels, one item I really like on warforged sorcerers is the Infused Chaos Docent. It boosts the caster level of all your evocation spells and randomly procs an alchemical increase to one of the elemental damage types. But just as importantly, it can be upgraded to give +10 to Reflex save. That doesn't stack with Resistance, but it's still a much higher reflex save bonus than you can get anywhere else in the heroic levels.

Also, if you really are considering a splash, you should consider doing 2 levels of favored soul, either in addition to -- or instead of -- the paladin levels. Favored souls have a nice save progression, so there's some benefit there, but the biggest reason is that there is a second tier enhancement in the Angel of Vengeance tree called "Just Rewards" -- this gives you bonus spellpoints every time you score a critical hit with a fire, force, light, or physical spell. Even better, there are more AoV enhancements available to give you bonus critical chance and spellpower with these sames types of spells. The SP savings is huge. Certain level spells, if you can get a high enough critical chance, actually gain you spellpoints on average when you cast them.

Now, obviously there's a lot more synergy with a fire/force sorcerer than a fire/air, it's still worth at least considering. Again, this is purely my opinion, but I think the easiest way to level a sorcerer is to do straight sorcerer for either 14 or 16 levels, speccing fire/force with a minor dip into acid, then 2 levels of favored soul. Then, if you went 14 sorc, take another 2 sorc to get to 18. Either way, at 18 you're 16 sorc/2 fvs. Then you don't level up again until you hit 20 -- just bank all your XP. Those last 2 levels can therefore be anything -- 2 more sorc, for a 9th level spell, 2 more fvS, for more fire/force critical chance, or 2 paladin, for saves. I just really don't feel like the bonus saves from paladin are particularly necessary until epic levels, whereas extra SP from favored soul is a big help in leveling quickly.

EDIT: More thoughts on saves:

Where exactly are you failing them? And what type?

If it's to elemental traps, I suggest keeping Protection from Elements up all the time (use scrolls if you didn't take the spell, particularly scrolls of Mass Protection from Elements, since they have a higher caster level).

If to physical traps, keep Jump cast on yourself all the time, and be aware that DDO's traps are actually simulated quite thoroughly -- if you can avoid the spinning/slashing/chopping visual indication of a trap, you can usually avoid the damage.

If to casters, be sure that you're prioritizing them first. Most low and even mid level casters will die to one or two scorching rays, which -- if you remember -- have double range. You can often hit the casters before they can hit you. Also, my way earlier suggestion of keeping un-metaed Sonic Blast tied to an easily accessible key remains true. It costs basically no SP, targets a save that is typically fairly low (Will), and uses your Evocation DCs (which you should be keeping as high as possible anyway) -- even as late as elite Gianthold quests, an un-heightened Sonic Blast from a reasonably well geared sorcerer will usually Daze most targets it hits. That only lasts 6 seconds, but it should be long enough for you to kill the casters before they can hit you.

You know what they say -- the best defense is a good offense. For a sorcerer, who gets low HP and saves progressions but immense offensive potential, that's especially true. The best way to deal with low saves is never even to have to make them. (Obviously that's not always possible, especially in epics, and I don't want to entirely discourage the paladin splash -- I just think that if you want to do it at all, you should push it later.)

[cru121]

I take dimension door on my sorc at level 8.
I am using it in the following level 6 quests:
* Caged Trolls to return to the entrance to loot the vault at the end
* Redwillow Ruins to quickly return to start to return collected stuff to dude.
* The Bounty Hunter after acquiring the key to boss room
* Sorrowdusk Isle to quickly travel through wilderness from Bruku back to quest entrance

I postpone Wall of Fire at 9; I really like it to burninate through Graverobber.

[HardRobble]

one electrical trap that was giving me a really hard time had the electrical pulses coming down in random spots from the ceiling. don't remember which quest but one hit and I was dead - twice. someone in the group mentioned i must have low wisdom - which i do at 9. got some wis gear after that quest but i haven't been back to "test" it.

occasionally i'll get one shot by a spell from a monster but don't know which spell they were casting. it's not a death spell since I have an immunity from death spells gear. my fortitude is over 100 too i think

[Cardtrick]

one electrical trap that was giving me a really hard time had the electrical pulses coming down in random spots from the ceiling. don't remember which quest but one hit and I was dead - twice. someone in the group mentioned i must have low wisdom - which i do at 9. got some wis gear after that quest but i haven't been back to "test" it.

Wisdom only affects your Will save, which is typically used to resist enchantments. As a warforged sorcerer who can self-cast Protection From Evil, you're actually immune to most (but not all) effects that target your Will Save. Wisdom is probably the single lowest priority stat for you.

I definitely can't think of any lightning damage that checks your Will save. It's possible there's something, but it would be very odd. I wonder if the person in the group was instead suggesting that there was a Wisdom rune you could use to turn off the trap?

Damaging spells and traps instead usually check your Reflex save, which is based on Dexterity.

I'm not sure which quest you're talking about with random lightning coming from the ceiling. It kind of sounds like Recovering the Lost Tome, but that's a level 2 quest, which you probably didn't do since you started at level 7. Also the runes there to turn off the lightning are INT based, so Wisdom still wouldn't make much sense.

As a general rule, most traps are Reflex saves. Poison traps are Fortitude saves. Illusionary and certain magical traps can be anything, including Will, but I'm not sure off-hand if there are any lightning ones like that around the level you're running. Maybe someone more knowledgeable will chime in.

But regardless, the most important save for avoiding trap damage and taking half damage on spells is Reflex.

occasionally i'll get one shot by a spell from a monster but don't know which spell they were casting. it's not a death spell since I have an immunity from death spells gear. my fortitude is over 100 too i think

Your fortitude can't be over 100 . . . do you mean your hitpoints?

If you mean hitpoints, that's actually on the low side for level 10, especially if you're running Elite difficulty. Try to find as good a CON bonus item as you can. Also, wear the best False Life item you can get. You're getting close to the levels when wearing a Minos Legens or some other item/augment with Vitality becomes possible (Vitality is another type of HP bonus that stacks with the Enhancement bonus from False Life). If you're having trouble on gear, back out of the savant trees a bit and put more points into the Warforged tree to get the HP up; being unable to be one-shotted is more important than nearly anything else, and you can always readjust the points later on once you've got better gear for HP.

[HardRobble]

Your fortitude can't be over 100 . . . do you mean your hitpoints?

If you mean hitpoints, that's actually on the low side for level 10, especially if you're running Elite difficulty. Try to find as good a CON bonus item as you can. Also, wear the best False Life item you can get. You're getting close to the levels when wearing a Minos Legens or some other item/augment with Vitality becomes possible (Vitality is another type of HP bonus that stacks with the Enhancement bonus from False Life). If you're having trouble on gear, back out of the savant trees a bit and put more points into the Warforged tree to get the HP up; being unable to be one-shotted is more important than nearly anything else, and you can always readjust the points later on once you've got better gear for HP.

Guess I was wrong about the fortitude.. for some reason I thought I saw 120 at some point. my current hp is around 140. On my fire enhancement tree I've got all the "good" ones I can grab until I hit level 12 and can get the FB sla so I had just started grabbing the hp node on the warforged tree.

[Cardtrick]

Guess I was wrong about the fortitude.. for some reason I thought I saw 120 at some point. my current hp is around 140. On my fire enhancement tree I've got all the "good" ones I can grab until I hit level 12 and can get the FB sla so I had just started grabbing the hp node on the warforged tree.

Yeah, that's definitely a reasonable number for a first life character at your level. There shouldn't be much of anything (except certain Elite traps) that can one-shot you at the level of the quests you're running, if you're fairly proactive about keeping your health topped up when it dips down.

[HardRobble]

Yeah, that's definitely a reasonable number for a first life character at your level. There shouldn't be much of anything (except certain Elite traps) that can one-shot you at the level of the quests you're running, if you're fairly proactive about keeping your health topped up when it dips down.

The one with electrical was a lvl 10 being run on elite (12) in necropolis.

Is firewall affected by spell power/maximize/empower/heighten?

[Cardtrick]

Is firewall affected by spell power/maximize/empower/heighten?

Spellpower, maximize, and empower -- yes. Heighten -- no.

Heighten only affects spells that have a DC. Wall of Fire has a DC (with a Reflex save for half damage) on only the first tick of its damage. The remaining ticks (for an enemy staying within the wall) have no save. For this reason, fire wall is not Heighten-able.

It can be Maximized, Empowered, Quickened, and Enlarged.

It's rarely a good idea to apply any of the metamagics to wall of fire, though. It's biggest selling point is efficient damage per spell point, especially for long quests with few shrines. It loses that benefit if you blow up the cost with metas. At that point, you're usually better off using a maximized fireball and not having to worry about waiting around.

One weird little thing while we're talking about fire wall -- unless this has changed, you want to be sure never to cast two fire walls that touch each other. If you do, the first one is cancelled out by the second one.

[HardRobble]

One weird little thing while we're talking about fire wall -- unless this has changed, you want to be sure never to cast two fire walls that touch each other. If you do, the first one is cancelled out by the second one.

good to know since I do sometimes cast two firewalls. thanks for the info about the meta magics

Your fortitude can't be over 100 . . . do you mean your hitpoints?.

I could have sworn that I saw 120 fort at one point (not at home to check this moment). Since reading your reply I looked it up on the Wiki. It seems that since I am warforged I can stack the racial 25% with other fortification stuff and get over 100. It talks about striving for 150% fort when you are doing epic elites. Perhaps I am still incorrect on this though.

Thanks for all the info you've given in this thread. It's helped me a lot and I've no doubt that it will help future sorcerers who are also just starting. Most threads in this section are for advanced players.

Which spells would you recommend me take between levels 10-15? Also, I've taken no enhancements other than fire and warforged so it's not too late for me to change my mind about going fire/air. I have taken some lightning spells but can change them. I found a dragons blood in a chest.

[Cardtrick]

good to know since I do sometimes cast two firewalls. thanks for the info about the meta magics
I could have sworn that I saw 120 fort at one point (not at home to check this moment). Since reading your reply I looked it up on the Wiki. It seems that since I am warforged I can stack the racial 25% with other fortification stuff and get over 100. It talks about striving for 150% fort when you are doing epic elites. Perhaps I am still incorrect on this though.

Oh, fortification! I'm sorry, I should have guessed that.

Fortitude is different -- it's one of the three save types (reflex, will, and fortitude).

Fortification is a measure of how well you're able to resist critical hits and sneak attacks. A fortification of 100% means that -- unless the enemy has some means of bypassing fortification -- a critical hit against you will instead just do normal damage. At your level, you definitely do want to be at 100% fortification if possible. It helps avoid damage spikes, which are a lot more likely to kill you than just steady incoming damage. One nice thing about Warforged is that the core tiers in the enhancement trees provide fortification. It's a lot easier to get 100%+ fort at an early level on a warforged than on any other race.

You don't need more than 100% until the high levels -- epics, or at least the very high heroics. Very few enemies before then have any way of bypassing fortification.

Which spells would you recommend me take between levels 10-15? Also, I've taken no enhancements other than fire and warforged so it's not too late for me to change my mind about going fire/air. I have taken some lightning spells but can change them. I found a dragons blood in a chest.

Enhancements are super easy to reset. It costs nothing but plat, and not even very much plat. You can -- and should -- change enhancements several times as you level up, to best fit the gear and spells you have available to you. So don't worry about only being in the fire and warforged tree. If you wanted to switch completely, it's just a matter of a couple thousand plat.

Feat changes are a different matter. You get one free one, but after that, they cost ever-higher levels of siberys dragonshards, which can get very expensive. Fortunately, most sorcerers will take the same feats regardless of what school they're focusing on (earth savants may choose spell focus:conjuration rather than spell focus:evocation).

Spells are harder. It's not expensive to switch one spell, but there's a time limit, as you've no doubt found, of no more than one switch per three days. That's enough to swap out a couple of spells as you level, which you can and should do as your needs change. But a bigger overhaul -- like switching savant types entirely -- requires either a lot of patience or a blood of dragons, like you found. Don't use that too lightly, though -- they can't be purchased in the auction house and they have an extremely low drop rate, except in a few specific dragon-related chests, where the drop rate is just annoyingly low.

Anyway, to directly answer your question . . . it depends on playstyle a lot. For me, Delayed Blast Fireball (a level 7 spell, available at character level 14) is the best single spell in that level range. And regardless of what elements you focus on, you're going to want both Niac's Biting Cold and Eladar's Electric Surge (the 2 level 4 stacking DOTs) for boss DPS. I don't know if this will be helpful, but my last sorcerer (who was fire/force with a minor spec into acid), picked the following spells in the level range you're talking about:

Level 8 (Sorcerer)
Spell (4): Force Missiles

Level 9 (Sorcerer)
Spell (3): Haste
Spell (4): Acid Rain
Spell (2): Web

Level 10 (Sorcerer)
Spell (5): Eladar's Electric Surge

Level 11 (Sorcerer)
Spell (3): Chain Missiles
Spell (5): Niac's Biting Cold
Spell (4): Dimension Door

Level 12 (Sorcerer)
Spell (6): Reconstruct

Level 13 (Sorcerer)
Spell (6): Acid Fog
Spell (5): Protection from Elements
Spell (4): Solid Fog

Level 14 (Sorcerer)
Spell (7): Delayed Blast Fireball

Level 15 (Sorcerer)
Spell (6): Disintegrate
Spell (7): Otto's Sphere of Dancing
Spell (5): Mind Fog

Level 16 (Sorcerer)
Spell (8): Black Dragon Bolt

Different people will have different priorities. I think the only absolute must haves in the level 4-8 spells are Reconstruct (if warforged), DBF (or Otiluke's if going Cold), and the 2 DOTs (regardless of savant type). Everything else is negotiable, although some of them can be a pain to do without.

Protection From Elements is a "sort of" must have. You definitely need the ability to cast a fairly high level Protection From Elements effect on yourself. If you don't take the spell Protection From Elements, you have to either take the higher level Mass Protection From Elements or carry a stack of Mass Protection From Elements scrolls (even if you're just using it on yourself -- the Mass version has a higher caster level than the individual version when cast from a scroll).

[HardRobble]

Oh, fortification! I'm sorry, I should have guessed that.

oops my bad.. I did say fortitude the first time!

I've hit level 12 and got reconstruct. I've also noticed I have a couple spells I don't use so I do need to do some shuffling. I had plenty APs on hand so that when I hit level 12 that I was able to take the FB sla all the way to level 3 when i could grab it. 6 sp fireball with all the metamagics? heck yes!

[Cardtrick]

oops my bad.. I did say fortitude the first time!

I've hit level 12 and got reconstruct. I've also noticed I have a couple spells I don't use so I do need to do some shuffling. I had plenty APs on hand so that when I hit level 12 that I was able to take the FB sla all the way to level 3 when i could grab it. 6 sp fireball with all the metamagics? heck yes!

Yup, level 6 (fireball spell), 12 (fireball SLA and Reconstruct), and level 14 (DBF) are the big "Oh man I am unstoppable" levels for a warforged sorcerer. Lots of fun!

And definitely do swap your spells if you don't like them or don't feel like you use them enough. Even though I love sorcerers, that's why in some ways a wizard is a much better first arcane character to play -- there's a lot more freedom to try out different spells and figure out what works for your playstyle.

[HardRobble]

Yup, level 6 (fireball spell), 12 (fireball SLA and Reconstruct), and level 14 (DBF) are the big "Oh man I am unstoppable" levels for a warforged sorcerer. Lots of fun!

oh yea! made lvl 14 so now with 3 different fireballs on my hot bar I can pretty much spam fireballs rapidly (FB, SLA FB, and DBFB). If it's not fire immune, it's as good as dead.

Each FB offers something different. SLA FB has super low SP cost but only fires horizontally (which sucks), DB FB has highest damage with highest cost, and regular FB is in the middle with lower cost and damage than DBFB but you can fire it up and down.