What feats should a sorcerer take?

[Peter_Principle]

What feats does everyone think a pure sorcerer should take? I imagine maximize and empower are typically standard.

Should an unadulterated sorc go for school focus, greater school focus, heighten and spell pen, or skip those in favor of other meta magics, mental toughness, etc?

[Makkuroi]

What feats does everyone think a pure sorcerer should take? I imagine maximize and empower are typically standard.

Should an unadulterated sorc go for school focus, greater school focus, heighten and spell pen, or skip those in favor of other meta magics, mental toughness, etc?

Heighten and Quicken are a must imho. Quicken works on most SLAs and destiny abilities (for example energy burst) and helps recon a lot.
You should at least take the normal school focus (probably evocation) to unlock the magister +3 school dc twist and draconic +2 dc.
Wizard active past life and completionist feat are better than greater spell focus if you have access to them.

Mental toughness is ok for crit chance if you have spare feats, its especially interesting on shiradi sorcs who benefit a lot from crits but not that much from DCs.

I wouldnt go for spellpen feats on a sorc.

[thesnoman]

What feats does everyone think a pure sorcerer should take?

Well you're definitely going to get a full gamut of answers here to that one.

The problem for me is that I don't know what type of Sorcerer you want to play other than it's going to be pure Sorcerer.

To assist in your feat selection I would need the following questions answered:

1. What race do you plan on playing?
2. What Savant(s) are you planning to focus on?
3. Are you playing a first lifer?
4. Are you playing to 20 and reincarnating or are you planning on playing into Epic Levels?
5. If you are planning on playing into Epic Levels, do you have any EDs already unlocked? Which Ones?

I could continue to ask about play style and other fun things, but this will give me a good idea on what you're planning so I can give you an informed answer to your initial question.

[Peter_Principle]

Right now I'm running a human nuker, fourth life (PL: wiz, sorc, fvs), probably going into epics for a little while (just enough to get one or two more epic reincarnations, try some different things with those ETR respecs, that sort of thing) and then HTR and do maybe another sorc or another wizard or another fvs life. This is going to be comlpetionist toon, but (at least right now) I'm focused on running a caster of some sort. My next sorc life will probably be a warforged.

[thesnoman]

OK - Human Sorc/Nuker is pretty straight forward 1-20.

Maximize
Empower
Heighten
SF: Evocation (Fire/Air/Ice) or SF: Conjuration (Acid)
GSF: Evocation (Fire/Air/Ice) or GSF: Conjuration (Acid)

2 Choices of remaining decent Feats

Quicken
SF:Second School
GSF: Second School
Mental Toughness
Improved Mental Toughness
Toughness

[Peter_Principle]

OK - Human Sorc/Nuker is pretty straight forward 1-20.

Maximize
Empower
Heighten
SF: Evocation (Fire/Air/Ice) or SF: Conjuration (Acid)
GSF: Evocation (Fire/Air/Ice) or GSF: Conjuration (Acid)

2 Choices of remaining decent Feats

Quicken
SF:Second School
GSF: Second School
Mental Toughness
Improved Mental Toughness
Toughness

Thanks! Does that suggetion change at all if you're doing a warforged or a 2/18 bladeforged?

[Makkuroi]

Thanks! Does that suggetion change at all if you're doing a warforged or a 2/18 bladeforged?

for warforged, quicken is more important (due to reconstruct). Otherwise a nuker should have the same feats. Id always take PL:wiz over GSF:evo, or in addition to GSF:evo. Id always take quicken on a caster, for SLAs and some slow-casting spells (dancing balls, fogs etc).

[thesnoman]

Thanks! Does that suggetion change at all if you're doing a warforged or a 2/18 bladeforged?

Yes - what Makkuroi said regarding Warforged/Bladeforged

If you're going to multi-class there are plenty of other threads regarding what to take and when. There are many varied opinions about what to take and when - it all depends on the build.

If you want a fun Warforged/Bladeforged build to play, have a look at the Toaster thread in my signature

[DDOisFree]

Depends on what type of sorc you're making. On my sorc I have:

Quicken, Maximize, Empower, Evocation Focus, Mental Toughness, Improved Mental Toughness, Force of Personality and Insightful Reflexes.

Its a non DC shiradi scorching ray and missiles spec. I originally had heighten but didn't need it for anything and my disco ball was completely useless, so I swapped heighten to Insightful Reflexes (10 dex, 30 int), and disco ball to mass invis.

For epic feats I took Ruin, Epic Mental Toughness, Epic fire spell power, and epic focus spellcraft. I think I used one or two epic feats to gain a couple of regular feats above as those were more useful.

[Peter_Principle]

Regarding heighten, isn't it useful for those spells that have a "save for half damage" effect?

[unbongwah]

Regarding heighten, isn't it useful for those spells that have a "save for half damage" effect?

It's useful for any lower-lvl spells with DCs.

The base DC for any spell is 10 + spell level + caster stat mod. Heighten raises the spell level of lower-lvl spells to whatever is your current max spell level. E.g., on a lvl 12 sorc who casts firewall, the base DC is 10 + 4 + CHA mod, since FW is a lvl 4 spell. But if you activate Heighten, the base DC becomes 10 + 6 + CHA mod because you can cast lvl 6 spells; when you hit sorc 18, it becomes 10 + 9 + CHA mod.

[Peter_Principle]

Yeah, that's what I thought. But I can never be sure what weird quirks are floating around in DDO that turn seemingly straightforward advantages into wasted points. It wouldn't surprise me if half-vs-full damage was completely overshadowed by some other mechanic, or saves were worthless because of the redonkulous high save values that monsters have.

[DDOisFree]

Regarding heighten, isn't it useful for those spells that have a "save for half damage" effect?

Yes. The only such spell I have on my Sorc is Meteor Swarm. He just spams Scorching ray and missile spells otherwise, so I took Insightful Reflexes instead (2 pally / 18 sorc though).

I've been thinking of changing to 2 fvs / 18 sorc, but I still prefer the saves over a little extra fire and force spell power and crit.

[unbongwah]

I've been thinking of changing to 2 fvs / 18 sorc, but I still prefer the saves over a little extra fire and force spell power and crit.

The real reason to take a FvS 2 splash on a sorc (or wiz or druid) is for Just Reward: "When you critically hit with a Fire, Force, Light, or Physical damage spell, you gain 3/6/10 Sacred temporary spell points." Those temp SPs help out a lot, particularly in epics. The extra Spellpower & crit chance is just the cherry on top, IMHO.