Revisiting the Fire Savant

[Hobgoblin]

Today let's take a look at a fairly optimized level 10 gear set for a sorcerer. Although I'm playing a fire sorcerer, this can be applied to other savants without much modification.

I'm using a 4-piece Feywild set (up through +1 to all ability scores) of the Cloak of Autumn, Nocturne Ring (for true seeing and secret door detection), Duskbone Ring, and Green Dragonscale bracers.

I'm also using a 5-piece Ravenloft set of Gauntlets of Innate Arcanium, Kindred Pendant, Flightfoot greaves, Summoner Spectacles, and the Mistfallen Orb.

Other items are the Burnscar sash (other savants can swap this out for appropriate spell power type), Barovian Noble's Regalia, Flaming Forum Post, CC Tricorne with Greater False Life, and a Bottle of Shadows.

You'll note that I'm using two items from the Beacon of Magic Set, which is a better set bonus than the Mists of Ravenloft. However, the Gauntlets of Innate Arcanium are so superior to the Blurfingered gloves that I prefer to go with the Mists. If you do like the Beacon of Magic Set, you could swap out the Orb for either the Kundarak Warding Shield or the Scorpion Shield which are both good defense options (and the scorpion shield opens up your trinket slot).

This setup provides a sorcerer with a ton of HPs and tremendous power. It has shelved my Slavers items and Greensteel HP/SP items. Since all the items in the sets come from Feywild and Ravenloft the need for farming is limited and focused.

look at elders and sacred sets from fens as well.

[majorhavoc]

A lot of good advice here, take what works for you and modify it for your play style.

I have played a lot of Sorc builds & played with a lot of Sorcs in my guild, at cap post U51 is seems clear to me that Fire Sorc with strong force SP is the top DPS build, the T5 draconic Ruin Intensified is amazing, it is a real game changer, 100k hits are common, just be ready, it will draw agro quick.

As for race, IMHO it is a toss up between Tiefling & Red Dragon, for sure heroic leveling with Tif is easer due to Improved Scorch, but at cap that advantage is gone, which is why I am currently running Red Dragon as my final build.

Lastly, if you are not wielding LGS Salt item in your off hand you are insane, the life saving functionality of a salt item is beyond measure for everything except boss fights.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Have you discovered Carrion Swarm from Primal Avatar yet? If not, you owe it to yourself to check this spell out. This Epic Strike is amazing. No check that, it's AMAZING. I wear the Epic Bramblecasters to pump it up and this SLA wrecks mobs. Although it can't be Enlarged, the range is decent and the cooldown is almost non-existent. Thorn is also pretty good although you need to be in close range. Still, for those quests where you are fighting at close quarters and find yourself in the midst of mobs, this can quickly become a force multiplier.

There was a thread a while back where someone was complaining about spell penetration and Drow in early epics. I paid specific attention to that this life and had no problem breaking drow spell resistance with both Finger of Death and Dancing Ball. I was L22 and the ES chain one and two were run at R3. My spell pen is +53. I never got a blue shield.

As for race, IMHO it is a toss up between Tiefling & Red Dragon, for sure heroic leveling with Tif is easer due to Improved Scorch, but at cap that advantage is gone, which is why I am currently running Red Dragon as my final build.

Lastly, if you are not wielding LGS Salt item in your off hand you are insane, the life saving functionality of a salt item is beyond measure for everything except boss fights.

This is my last Tiefling life and will be doing Dragon racials next. The other nice thing about Tiefling is that you can make one other element like Fire for spell power. Improved Scorch is important for quests like Grim and Barrett where you face multiple mobs that are elementally resistant. Still, it's always bothered me a bit because you end up having to waste the other scorch SLA from Fire Savant since both are on the same timer. I'm going to try out Ruin shortly. Also, heard in raid chat that new items from U53 one has salt and one has ash on it. Looks like the need for making an offhand LGS casting stick is going away.

[Marshal_Lannes]

If you're looking for where to spend your first 25 or so ED points I've found that this is an ideal setup:

Shiradi - Core 1&2, Good Luck x3, Prism, Stay Good x3, Double Rainbow, Beguiling Charm
Primal - Core 1&2, Carrion Swarm, Spider Friend of Nature, Cocoon, Spirit Boon Mind x2, Shard Storm, Magic of the Old World Evocation x3

You don't have much left for a third tree so either skip it or take the 35 HPs out of US or threat diversion out of Shadowdancer.

Optimize your Carrion Swarm with the Epic Bramblecasters and Shiradi light damage from Stay Good can be enhanced with the Epic Luminous Truth. The incineration from Luminous Truth does trigger on spell casts but it's rare. You can pretty much level all the way up with this setup. I didn't even spend the extra destiny points I was getting until I hit 29 and swapped out Shiradi for Draconic. This is extremely powerful devastating low reaper content.

[Marshal_Lannes]

I've decided to take a winter interlude and try out water savant to both break up the routine from fire and to try other spells. We also have the chance to discover further play opportunities by deviating from a pattern. Staying with the same build can make us complacent so let's see if we can learn some new tricks with the opposition of fire.

Both out of habit and because I think burning hands works well while soloing Borderlands with sonic blast and there is no real water equivalent I went fire focus for levels 2 and 3 switching over at level 4 when we get access to Snowball Swarm. This spell is a significant upgrade over fire savant as there is no equivalent. Able to easily maximize this L2 spell then getting it as a free SLA, Snowball Swarm clears mobs with ease until about the Sentinals chain. It continues to work well in quests like Tear or Gwylan's but mob HPs are too much for it to kill groups with one-shot in Sentinals. Still, that is a lot of life for a L2 spell. The other water SLA, Cold Ray, is of mixed use. It's a full damage or no damage spell based on the save, and it's a L1 spell. So unless you are taking Heighten it quickly becomes unreliable.

Fireball is L3 so it exists between Snowball Swarm and the next significant cold AOE spell Cone of Cold at L5. Both Fire and Water have underwhelming L4 spells in Wall of Fire and Ice Storm. Ice Storm brings some bludgeon damage so you can use it vs undead in a pinch but overall the results will be disappointing for the speed of play you're using Sorcerer for. Because Water has a L2 AOE spell in Snowball, a L5 in Cone of Cold and a L6 with Otiluke's Freezing Sphere, it ends up leveling a lot faster than Fire Savant which relies almost exclusively on Fireball/Scorch before DBF. Otiluke's/Cone of Cold racks up staggering kill counts on R3 quests at L12.

The major drawback for Water Savants is that Skeletons are immune to cold. And while Sonic Blast then Shout are somewhat effective you will need it to cast it more than is comfortable when running Reaper in quests like Delera's or Castle Ravenloft. Every rose has its thorn I suppose.

Gearing through level 12 is similar to Fire Savant with the obvious exception of swapping the appropriate spell power items. I found that I stick to the L5 Feywild set a bit longer (using a 7 piece actually for a while) and only work in a few Ravenloft items. I also use a GS spell point item since you do use a few more SPs since my standard opening salvo is metamagic'd Otilukes and Cone of Cold. Enhancements are also similar. Running Dragonborn I've found that the Breath Weapon from your enhancement tree is slow, clunky and underwhelming compared to Cone of Cold so you'll probably never use it.

Water Savant is off to a rather surprising comfortable, and powerful start.

[mr420247]

Can you post a good setup for lgs salt very interested in making some but the crafters are still broken and can't stand the planners

Really hate wasting mats

[Marshal_Lannes]

Can you post a good setup for lgs salt very interested in making some but the crafters are still broken and can't stand the planners

Really hate wasting mats

I used this video to learn how to LGS works. It's 30 mins, but once you go through it all you'll have an understanding of how the shards combine.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...6FORM%3DHDRSC3

[Marshal_Lannes]

Water and Fire savant are different enough that if you're looking for a change to your playstyle, or perhaps you prefer a slightly different casting experience, you'll want to try both and see which suits you. The point of demarcation is level 9 spells and the difference between Meteor Swarm and Iceberg. You'll use both all through epics. Meteor Swarm is the AOE you're used to while Iceberg is a massive hit single target spell. This changes both your spell rotation, how you approach mobs, and what you are looking for in a combat encounter. I would liken this to the difference between using IPS as a ranger vs marking targets with Horizon Walker in AF. Iceberg allows you to make surgical strikes eliminating the most dangerous threats to your group. Now, your kill count will suffer, but if you have the confidence in your abilities and can sacrifice the ego boost the kill count meter gives you then Iceberg allows you to have more quality kills.

Going into epics it's important to note that we won't be going Ruin/Greater Ruin for two reasons. First, we are going to take Burst of Glacial Wrath at 24 then Intensify at 27. I'll be running in Magus of the Eclipse for my primary destiny here and one of the T5 skills is free Intensify costs. Second, Zero Degree Comet, another high DPS single target spell is also at this tier so we don't need (and can't fit in) Greater Ruin since we already have multiple high damage single target spells.

To my surprise (and disappointment), Carrion Swarm with Stay Frosty doesn't work as well as Carrion Swarm with Stay Good (enhanced by epic Luminous Truth). I ended up swapping out of Carrion Swarm and taking my elemental focus Thunder Snow. Base Thunder Snow isn't anything that will wow you but it gets much better when you level up the spell getting double damage and a slow effect. This does require a slightly deeper investment into Primal. Early epics aren't as seamless because you are using heroic spells for your AOE. Definitely not the group slayer that is Fire Savant. However, you start to pick up steam at level 24 when you get Burst of Glacial Wrath.

I tried out a 3-piece Epic Abaishi set since I wasn't going to use the Burning Sands fire-based items and this also allows me to move away from the L15 Sharn Esoteric set getting back my Spell DCs plus adding in extra HPs. I went Helm (Cha/cold) Cloak (CON) and Bracers (useless - fire) because I don't have the boots or didn't feel like Alt hunting them. I'd recommend these over the Bracers.

Epic Destinies I've gone Magus for primary and T5, Shiradi for the mantle, and Primal. I'll go into my thoughts on Magus in a later post. Knowing I was going to take Magus I took Discipline as my L18 feat. With Discipline, you can double your threat reduction in Magus from -30% to -60%. This is huge and noticeable. A major survivable boost in higher epic reaper.

[majorhavoc]

[QUOTE=Marshal_Lannes;6500311]If you're looking for where to spend your first 25 or so ED points I've found that this is an ideal setup:

Shiradi - Core 1&2, Good Luck x3, Prism, Stay Good x3, Double Rainbow, Beguiling Charm
Primal - Core 1&2, Carrion Swarm, Spider Friend of Nature, Cocoon, Spirit Boon Mind x2, Shard Storm, Magic of the Old World Evocation x3

You don't have much left for a third tree so either skip it or take the 35 HPs out of US or threat diversion out of Shadowdancer.


A few other recommendations:

Having reset my EDs now a few times, I am really liking 14 points in Exalted Angel, solve all the healing problems, single target long range heal, Mass heal & for when times get really tough AOE no cast heals, really liking the extra healing.

Also check out putting 14 points in Shadow Dance for an additional stacking -10% casting time, with -10% from Dragconic & -10% from filigrees for a total -30% reduction in casting time feels really good for chain casting big nukes.

[Marshal_Lannes]

.

Also check out putting 14 points in Shadow Dance for an additional stacking -10% casting time, with -10% from Dragconic & -10% from filigrees for a total -30% reduction in casting time feels really good for chain casting big nukes.

Check the last paragraph in Fire & Water. The -60% (taking Discipline) is absolutely noticeable. I don't have destiny points yet to be able to get the reduction to casting time but I will be taking that for sure when I do.

[Sonoma]

Notes: Resist Energy is no longer needed once you're in epics.

.

I'm new to epics, and this is my first true sorc. Question: why is resist energy not needed? Also, why the need for extra speed?

thanks for the description, it's been a great help

[Marshal_Lannes]

I'm new to epics, and this is my first true sorc. Question: why is resist energy not needed? Also, why the need for extra speed?

thanks for the description, it's been a great help

If you go into the Unyielding Sentinal destiny (for HPs) it's very easy to take the Divine Energy spell which is better than resist energy. There is also the draconic resist augment and much of your gear might have built-in resist/absorbs or someone in your group likely has Divine Energy that they cast. If none of these situations apply to you then yes, you can still take resist energy. What do you mean about extra speed? Casting speed?

[Marshal_Lannes]

Update 53.1 is bringing about a massive asteroid falling to the earth nerf of the Shiradi mantle for casters. Shiradi previously allowed a 30% proc rate of cold or good damage per cast with damage scaling 100% of spell power. Those are being reduced to a minuscule 5% proc rate at 50% spell power. Yikes. I'm not going to debate whether such a severe reduction to the mantle is appropriate, I'm sure there will be plenty of threads in the next few weeks addressing this. We must adapt and deal with it as these changes almost never are reversed. As such, for all intents and purposes, Shiradi is dead as a mantle choice for our Sorcerers.

This change will affect water savants far more than fire. Recall that in fire while I began epics in Shiradi I switched to Draconic by mid-epics. However, this will cause me to completely change my mantle with the water savant since I ran Shiradi mantle plus Magus T5 and Primal Avatar. I'm only level 17 right now in a racial TR so I'll report what adjustments I make for the water savant mantle. The first one that I'll likely try is Shadowdancer for the enhanced cast speed. I'll have to see how much DPS is lost in early epics without the Shiradi mantle buffing up AOE spells.

A lot of people will likely be angry over this change but this thread is for finding solutions and enhancing sorcerer play. I'll post updates once I get back into epics and have a chance to see how different mantle combinations work for water savant.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Shiradi is as bad as advertised. The play style you experienced last week is gone. There have been a lot of posts detailing this so I don't feel there is much more I have to add except to say Shiradi is no longer a viable tree for the sorcerer. The most frustrating thing about that is there is now only one mantle choice. I spent a few levels in Shadowdancer and yes, you do cast faster, but you're getting nothing else from the mantle and no damage enhancement to any of your spells. No other ED mantle helps you out. The Magus mantle is strange and seems like only an option for Eldritch Knight Undead melee wizards. Granted, that's a cool archetype, but to create an entire ED mantle for it when casters who sling spells only have one (now) seems a bizarre game choice.

And so, we're going to be in Draconic which means we have to spend at least 10 in Draconic to get the lasting dot. We already have to buy a lot of filler in Magus to get 30 points for the top tier. Fire Savant gets a big nod over Water Savant from my experience in low/mid epics. Before the Shiradi enhanced Carrion Swarm was melting everything. Since that no longer exists you're going to be falling back on your heroic spells. With Fire, you can still Meteor Swarm through everything. With Water, not so much. You'll be stuck with Freezing Sphere which is solid but without DCs mobs are gonna save through it so I'm not sure I'd recommend this for new or under-geared players. The end result of this change seems to be twofold; the bar for playing a sorcerer has been raised with more reaper points and DCs needed since they've taken away what felt like an "epic" spell and you're once again pushing up against epic mobs with heroic spells. Second, almost all casting build diversity has been reduced and we are pigeonholed into the Draconic mantle.

Look, I'm not saying you can't succeed in low-level epics. For example, I ran Reaper3 Chrono at L20 and still led the group in Kill Count. But it felt a lot harder. The real sweet spot of I'm tossing epic spells and melting mobs is gone and gameplay requires meta-knowledge and tactics. That isn't necessarily a bad thing but the class plays differently there is no denying that.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Here is my current water savant 56 point ED layout. Why 56 points you might ask? Well, that's what I have. I bought a +1 to +2 Tome of Fate but it didn't add a point, so stuck with 56 (Epic completionist, Tome of Fate, Historic Tome of Fate, and one from wherever)

Magus - 36 points

All three cores (all good). Imperceptible Casting 3 (with Discipline 60% threat reduction this is amazing), Moon Lance, Great Summoner (filler, a bit too much filler in this tree), Impregnable Mind 3 (more filler), Cold Light of the Moon (great for slowing those charging mobs in high reaper), Call Upon Golem (filler), Moontouched 1 (filler, I've taken Fear before but it totally changes how you cast), Partial Eclipse 3 Evocation (great), Lunar Imbuement (strong), Starlight 3 (this is what makes Cold Light of the Moon so good but the incorporeality buff to allies could be enhanced - I mean 5%? That's like a L5 heroic ability) Piercing Spellcraft 1, Enhanced Metamagic Maximize 2 (with savant tree this gives free Maximize), Greater Beams (amazing and one of the highlights of the tree), Nullmagic Protection (never really notice this working), Total Eclipse 3 (great), Zero Degree Comet (amazing), Time Stop (good for raids, high reaper bosses), Ehanced Metamagic Intensify (amazing we have both free maximize and free intensify on this build).

Draconic - 13 points

All three cores. Attune the Arcane mantle, Arcane Studies 3 (not bad for low tier), White Dragon Breath 3 (without the double damage and this being an epic strike that shares a cooldown with both carrion swarm and moon lance it's basically never used. These 2 points can be spent in Coalescene or Draconic Perception because we need 10 for...) Inevitable (the key point of the Draconic mantle).

Primal - 7 points

Core one. Carrion Swarm (good while leveling then mostly obsolete), Rejuvenation Cocoon (our "healing"), Spirit Boon Mind (nice). Thunder Snow is fairly good in here but you need to invest over 10 points to get it which we don't have. That means you need more than 56 points or you have to cut some T5 stuff from Magus and since all those are really good. We used to run in Shiradi and didn't have to go all the way up to the 10 points needed for draconic Inevitable but that changed. Core 3 that gives you super protection of elements is a loss here as well.

[mikarddo]

At cap I prefer Shadowdancer 13 ap for 10% cooldown and mid 80s reflex save Evasion. 33 points in Draconic and 13 in EA for wings, 10% SP and Mass Cure. Points above 59 in tier 3 +DC. Thats using light armor Dripping with Magma.

[Marshal_Lannes]

At cap I prefer Shadowdancer 13 ap for 10% cooldown and mid 80s reflex save Evasion. 33 points in Draconic and 13 in EA for wings, 10% SP and Mass Cure. Points above 59 in tier 3 +DC. Thats using light armor Dripping with Magma.

That's a solid split. I assume that's for fire. My above breakdown is for water and from my experience, the two elements will have different ED choices. The difference between 56 and 59 ED points (and ideally 60) is big. There is a lot of value in those extra 8-9 points above the base of 52. In this case, evasion.

[Marshal_Lannes]

My normal setup from L14 to L20 has been Wild Frost with Mistfallen. However, in this Water Savant life, I used the Creeping Dust Conduit staff and I have to say I give it high marks. The selling point for Wild Frost has been the insightful glaciation, however, the 2 added levels from the CDC staff are an overall DPS increase over Wild Frost. It's fairly easy to still fit in a Ravenloft belt such as the Thrummingspark Cord so with the CDC staff you'd have fully boosted up water, acid, and electric spells. This could be an ideal layout for sorcerers who want more of a wide spectrum when casting. Also worth keeping in mind that the CDC Arcane augmentation increases ALL spell levels by 2, not just cold based. I had this staff sitting the TR bank for so long I'm glad that I finally pulled it out and gave it a try. Well worth using if you're primary water or earth.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Our journey with the Fire Savant has taken a detour into other elemental disciplines which I think is helpful both as a general survey of the sorcerer and how the other savants measure up to fire in regards to DPS, playstyle, equipment, and spell selection. With that in mind let us take a look at the Air Savant.

A quick look at the Air enhancement tree gives the impression that the SLAs are the weakest among the Savants. True, Shocking Grasp is a nice L1 spell and it can be Enlarged but its low damage makes it dead space on your toolbar by level 6. Even so, the ability to be Enlarged changes feat selection for the Air Savant.

1 - Maximize
3 - Enlarge
6 - Completionist
9 - Empower
12 - PL Wizard
15 - Quicken
18 - open (we won't be going in Magus with Air so won't be taking Discipline)

Sonic Blast is one of the best spells in terms of both utility (breaks) and damage among the arcane repertoire and Air Savant brings out the best in this gem. This is much needed since DPS spells through level 9 are nowhere near as fun as fireball (or even snowball swarm). I've already touched on Shocking Grasp, a few more notes: useful for deleting low-level reapers, has a somewhat strange targeting, single target when you think it should be an AOE. Electric Loop is terrible damage, even Maximized which is too expensive until you get it as your 2nd SLA. Granted EL has a CC effect but Web is just as effective at stopping lowbie mobs. That's two SLAs that probably won't be used much once we are mid-level. Lightning bolt is excellent and even without being Maximized deletes almost everything. I haven't had mobs save against this although those without lives/gear might not find it as effective as it is all or nothing. Shout at level 4 is as you'd imagine a supersized sonic blast and finally we have an AOE that wipes mobs. SLA Electric Loop to daze everyone then Shout deletes groups of mobs in a SP efficient manner. Dealing with red names is Lightning Bolt and Shout till they drop. Sonic and Electric pair well together since no mob is resistant to both. Has enough power that soloing through Feywild was no issue on reaper.

[Marshal_Lannes]

If you've played in a group with an Air Savant before you probably already know that no one racks up the kill count quite like them in heroics from level 10 on. Ball lightning, and then Chain lightning crush dungeons. Chain lightning in particular since it hits all enemies you haven't spotted yet and goes around obstacles is a complete game-changer. Having spent many, many hours on Fire and Water savants I can tell you that Air Savants kill the best in mid heroics. The awesome power of Chain lightning further renders your SLAs into oblivion. I have never even considered using Shocking Grasp or Electric Loop. Lightning Bolt is still somewhat useful for Reapers or Red names. Most Savant trees are the same except for SLAs and of course what element gets the boosts. Each does have a unique T4/5 combo ability though. Air Savant has Feather Fall (toggle) and Wind Dance (leap ability). These are both excellent quality of life abilities, especially if you aren't playing Dragonborn.

Spell changes are surprisingly different with Air Savant and I'll lay those all out next time.