Curly's Mark of Storm Sorcerer

[Andrewpoff]

Hello everyone,

This is a fun build I have been waiting to post for a long time. I waited to post it because I played it on HC and it performed very well as a first lifer. As all sorcerers do. This is a build that I designed to work with the Half-elven greater dragon mark of the storm. And thanks to the new imbue system it has a little more fire power.

Purpose: this build can participate and dps in raids and r10 quests, the dps of the build is very high and the cc works very well. It is also easy to use and level solo.

Dragon Mark of storm. The first part of the mark is pretty boring. Giving you Gust of wind and electric loop for free. Its pretty MEH. but all the abilities here on this last stack with spell power and meta magics, and cost NO sp. they do not act as an SLA and can still be effected by anti-magic. The second half of the dragonmark is where the build truly shines. As a sorc you will now have access to Call Lightning, this again stacks with meta magics and spell power, and will proc any secondary affects your items or feats may have. And lastly the greater dragonmark is a buff that gives you +25 stacking electric/cold spell power, electric absorb and temp sp. The buff lasts for a time =to your character level and concentration skill. The buff stacks will any other bonus and effects your ED damages.

Half elf Dilettante warlock. The Half-elf feats offer a great unique twist on the normal way a class may play or gear. I used to take the paladin feat for the save, as saves are good. However, thanks to the new imbue the Warlock Dilettante feat now adds stacking FIRE dmg to your cold/electric spells. And that damage scales with Imbue die. So its a nice way around weaknesses and all damage types add up. Its also a nice tid bit of damage, but is not a game breaking amount. So if you wanted to take paladin for the saves that is more than ok. It wont ruin the build.

Lvl 32 Half-elf Sorcerer.-alignment chaotic anything.

Skills Concentration, and Spellcraft are the big ones, if you have spare points UMD is important after.

---feats-------

Heroic
1 Half elf Dilettante, Warlock (or paladin)
1 Dragon mark of the storm
----After lvl 1 it does not matter what order you take feats.----

Spell focus Evocation
Greater spell focus evocation
Maximize
Empower
Quicken
Heighten
toughness.

Epic
Intesify
Embolden
Burst of Glacial Wrath
Epic Toughness

Epic Spell power Electric (or cold if you went cold tree)
Crush Weakness
Harbinger of Chaos (+2 Imbue die.), if U didnt take the warlock feat then instead take Spell power cold.
Legendary Toughness.

-----Enchantments-----------
16 into the half elf tree for the greater dragonmark upgrades. I usualy fully upgrade the dragonmarks, then focus on getting 1 +2 cha and a few of the warlock upgrades for more imbue. You can go human linage and get a spell power boost for 30 seconds, or go elf for some skills and dex, the choice is yours. I use the spell power.

41 into the Air savant tree, Focusing on charisma, electric spell power and crits, and lowering the sp cost of maximize and quicken. With tier 5 taking Awakening weakness, evocation, and the wind jump

15 points into Eldritch knight, for the imbue die, health, perma shield perma mage armor. You can also gain some arcane spell failure reduction in both the eldritch and the half elf tree. IF you chose the paladin Half-Elf feat put 15 into feydark for the sp/saves/perma shield and blur. No need to get the imbue die for the warlock feats.

Racial compleationist or racial past lives do compliment this build well, if you have extra points from tomes or pls, invest in the cold savant tree.

EDS:

Im not gona lie I am not gona tell you how to play your CC caster in end game, but I go Draconic as my main, Exalted as my secondary and my 3rd as unyielding for the LOH and health boost.

------------------Gear----------------
please note; I am not including any raid gear in this list as I expect everyone to be able to raid with this build. But if you do want to farm gear The walking ancestors, and feywild Autumn is all you need.

Head: Legendary Crown of leaves. Profane well rounded +2, Shadow Spike, Acurracy 20, Deadly 10, G Autumn.
Neck: Legendary Shaman Beads. Cha 13, Evocation 6, Shield bonus 13, Efficient intesify II, Efficient Maximize II. Y/C, Shaman's Fury set.
Trinket: Legendary Battlesworn medallion: Quality cha 3, Greater heroism, Action boost enchantment, Quality double strike 3 B
Cloak: Legendary Cloak of Winter: Cold absorb 34, False life 50, Legendary Ice Barrier, Lifesealed 34.
Belt: Legendary Strap of Autumn leaves: Minor Artifact Int 14, Magical sheltering 36, Natural armor 14, Magical Effieiceny 10 B/G/Y, Winter/Autumn,
Ring: Legendary Shamans Band: Spell pen 9, Conjure focus 6, armor bonus 13, Relfex 11, Y/C Shamans Fury Set.
Glove: Legendary Attunement Gauntlets: Magnetism 142, Lightning lore 21, Evocation 5, Feat quick Draw, G
Boots; Legendary Deep Snow boots: Insightful con 6, Quality con 3, Freedom of movment, Fort save 10, G, Winter.
Ring: Legendary Ring of Winters chill: Ice lore 21, Glaciation 142, Kinetic lore 21, Impulse 142. G Winter.
Bracers: Legendary Braccers of Deftness: Feat: Mobility, armor bonus 13, Dodge 13, tumble 20, Y/G
Armor: Legendary Robe of the Autumn Winds: 15 enhancement, exception spell lore/power 5/15, Prr 33, Parrying 6. B/G Autumn.
Goggles Legendary Collective sight: Con 13, Insightful cha 6, Quality res 2, temperance belife B

Weapon: Legendary Nightmother scepter: Spell focuses
Secondary Legendary Immaculate globe: Defensive +25 alchemical spell power.

The Autumn set and the Shaman set beefs your offensive spells, spell power and crit and gives you more sp. The winter set is just a flay 10% more health for those looking to farm raid gear.

Clikies.
Anything with mass death ward,
a stone skin cliki
legendary wolf whistle.

[Michele]

obsolete equipment.

no spell critical damage, no insightful/quality spell power, artifact with only 3 filigrees, only 13 charima item, too low spell focus on scepter snd useless alchemical spell power that you can obtain from 10 minutes potions.

Probably you don' t own isle of dread pack, in this case why posting your old equipment?

[Andrewpoff]

Hello everyone,

This is a fun build I have been waiting to post for a long time. I waited to post it because I played it on HC and it performed very well as a first lifer. As all sorcerers do. This is a build that I designed to work with the Half-elven greater dragon mark of the storm. And thanks to the new imbue system it has a little more fire power.

Purpose: this build can participate and dps in raids and r10 quests, the dps of the build is very high and the cc works very well. It is also easy to use and level solo.

Dragon Mark of storm. The first part of the mark is pretty boring. Giving you Gust of wind and electric loop for free. Its pretty MEH. but all the abilities here on this last stack with spell power and meta magics, and cost NO sp. they do not act as an SLA and can still be effected by anti-magic. The second half of the dragonmark is where the build truly shines. As a sorc you will now have access to Call Lightning, this again stacks with meta magics and spell power, and will proc any secondary affects your items or feats may have. And lastly the greater dragonmark is a buff that gives you +25 stacking electric/cold spell power, electric absorb and temp sp. The buff lasts for a time =to your character level and concentration skill. The buff stacks will any other bonus and effects your ED damages.

Half elf Dilettante warlock. The Half-elf feats offer a great unique twist on the normal way a class may play or gear. I used to take the paladin feat for the save, as saves are good. However, thanks to the new imbue the Warlock Dilettante feat now adds stacking FIRE dmg to your cold/electric spells. And that damage scales with Imbue die. So its a nice way around weaknesses and all damage types add up. Its also a nice tid bit of damage, but is not a game breaking amount. So if you wanted to take paladin for the saves that is more than ok. It wont ruin the build.

Lvl 32 Half-elf Sorcerer.-alignment chaotic anything.

Skills Concentration, and Spellcraft are the big ones, if you have spare points UMD is important after.

---feats-------

Heroic
1 Half elf Dilettante, Warlock (or paladin)
1 Dragon mark of the storm
----After lvl 1 it does not matter what order you take feats.----

Spell focus Evocation
Greater spell focus evocation
Maximize
Empower
Quicken
Heighten
toughness.

Epic
Intesify
Embolden
Burst of Glacial Wrath
Epic Toughness

Epic Spell power Electric (or cold if you went cold tree)
Crush Weakness
Harbinger of Chaos (+2 Imbue die.), if U didnt take the warlock feat then instead take Spell power cold.
Legendary Toughness.

-----Enchantments-----------
16 into the half elf tree for the greater dragonmark upgrades. I usualy fully upgrade the dragonmarks, then focus on getting 1 +2 cha and a few of the warlock upgrades for more imbue. You can go human linage and get a spell power boost for 30 seconds, or go elf for some skills and dex, the choice is yours. I use the spell power.

41 into the Air savant tree, Focusing on charisma, electric spell power and crits, and lowering the sp cost of maximize and quicken. With tier 5 taking Awakening weakness, evocation, and the wind jump

15 points into Eldritch knight, for the imbue die, health, perma shield perma mage armor. You can also gain some arcane spell failure reduction in both the eldritch and the half elf tree. IF you chose the paladin Half-Elf feat put 15 into feydark for the sp/saves/perma shield and blur. No need to get the imbue die for the warlock feats.

Racial compleationist or racial past lives do compliment this build well, if you have extra points from tomes or pls, invest in the cold savant tree.

EDS:

Im not gona lie I am not gona tell you how to play your CC caster in end game, but I go Draconic as my main, Exalted as my secondary and my 3rd as unyielding for the LOH and health boost.

------------------Gear----------------
please note; I am not including any raid gear in this list as I expect everyone to be able to raid with this build. But if you do want to farm gear The walking ancestors, and feywild Autumn is all you need.

Head: Legendary Crown of leaves. Profane well rounded +2, Shadow Spike, Acurracy 20, Deadly 10, G Autumn.
Neck: Legendary Shaman Beads. Cha 13, Evocation 6, Shield bonus 13, Efficient intesify II, Efficient Maximize II. Y/C, Shaman's Fury set.
Trinket: Legendary Battlesworn medallion: Quality cha 3, Greater heroism, Action boost enchantment, Quality double strike 3 B
Cloak: Legendary Cloak of Winter: Cold absorb 34, False life 50, Legendary Ice Barrier, Lifesealed 34.
Belt: Legendary Strap of Autumn leaves: Minor Artifact Int 14, Magical sheltering 36, Natural armor 14, Magical Effieiceny 10 B/G/Y, Winter/Autumn,
Ring: Legendary Shamans Band: Spell pen 9, Conjure focus 6, armor bonus 13, Relfex 11, Y/C Shamans Fury Set.
Glove: Legendary Attunement Gauntlets: Magnetism 142, Lightning lore 21, Evocation 5, Feat quick Draw, G
Boots; Legendary Deep Snow boots: Insightful con 6, Quality con 3, Freedom of movment, Fort save 10, G, Winter.
Ring: Legendary Ring of Winters chill: Ice lore 21, Glaciation 142, Kinetic lore 21, Impulse 142. G Winter.
Bracers: Legendary Braccers of Deftness: Feat: Mobility, armor bonus 13, Dodge 13, tumble 20, Y/G
Armor: Legendary Robe of the Autumn Winds: 15 enhancement, exception spell lore/power 5/15, Prr 33, Parrying 6. B/G Autumn.
Goggles Legendary Collective sight: Con 13, Insightful cha 6, Quality res 2, temperance belife B

Weapon: Legendary Nightmother scepter: Spell focuses
Secondary Legendary Immaculate globe: Defensive +25 alchemical spell power.

The Autumn set and the Shaman set beefs your offensive spells, spell power and crit and gives you more sp. The winter set is just a flay 10% more health for those looking to farm raid gear.

Clikies.
Anything with mass death ward,
a stone skin cliki
legendary wolf whistle.

To update, the warlock Dilettante no longer stacks with other imbues. So def go with the paladin feat.

[Andrewpoff]

obsolete equipment.

no spell critical damage, no insightful/quality spell power, artifact with only 3 filigrees, only 13 charima item, too low spell focus on scepter snd useless alchemical spell power that you can obtain from 10 minutes potions.

Probably you don' t own isle of dread pack, in this case why posting your old equipment?

Thanks for the feedback. You are correct the old gear isnt best in slot.

As I said the gear is for you to start raiding to get the isle of dread sets, and other minor artifacts more easily by using the old gear, that hopefully everyone else has. Furthermore, the old gear still cuts it and is, depending on the build, better than some of the isle of dread non crafting equipment.

you dont need 14 cha items, I ran raids with a 13 raid item as a storm singer bard and storm sorc and still crit for 48k, and cced on reaper 10 with no issue, so the 1 cha isnt a huge loss. So I didnt post it.

The isle of dread craftable items and sets are superior, but require farming and multiple runs and having the old gear makes that easier. Hoping most people have the old gear to get the newer gear. Both from isle of dread and the new updated lords march/planar eye items.

[Hobgoblin51]

poor feat choices.

sorc is not a good first life toon due to squishyness - that being said its more on not a good new player class

either ur new and you dont have the gear and it wont matter or your experienced and work around it. either way toughness not needed

i would go epic sf evo and leg focus enchant or necro

you didnt say your stats and the imp of con

concentration not needed thats what quicken is for

umd is super important

[Andrewpoff]

poor feat choices.

sorc is not a good first life toon due to squishyness - that being said its more on not a good new player class

either ur new and you dont have the gear and it wont matter or your experienced and work around it. either way toughness not needed

i would go epic sf evo and leg focus enchant or necro

you didnt say your stats and the imp of con

concentration not needed thats what quicken is for

umd is super important

Concentration is actually important for the Dragonmark, the duration of the 2 spells is based off of your concentration skill. And the build is intended to use the dragonmark. Though you are correct quicken negates the use of concentration as a skill.

As for what is or isn't a good first life class. It all depends on the intended content you plan on running. I made it to 1-30 on HC with no issue using this as a first life sorc, granted this was with groups. But not everyone is running first life tunes anymore, and it does say in the build description those with racial past lives would do better with this build. Furthermore, if you have past lives you have enough skill for concentration and UMD.

[C-Dog]

---feats-------

Heroic
1 Half elf Dilettante, Warlock (or paladin)
1 Dragon mark of the storm
----After lvl 1 it does not matter what order you take feats.----

Um... it greatly matters what order you take feats for a Sorcie.

Relying on SLA's, you want Maximize & Empower asap. This will crush lowbie content, where your other Feats won't make that much of a diff early.

concentration not needed thats what quicken is for

umd is super important

Meh, a lot is dependent on playstyle.

Having Quickness on all the time for all your combat casts really drains your spellpoints. Concentration is a) cheap, b) effective, and c) what else are you gonna take?

~Some~ UMD is important; a good Cha-based build + gear can stop taking it once they reach their UMD goals.

o https://ddowiki.com/page/Use_Magic_Device#Benchmarks

Skills Concentration, and Spellcraft are the big ones, if you have spare points UMD is important after.

Most any build should include a stat spread. If you want 3 skills, then (without any Int tomes!) this wants 12 Int for 3 skill points/level.

For this build, something like...

Helf Sorcie
Sorcerer 20
Half-Elf


Stats
. . . . . . . .28pt . . 32pt. . .34pt . . 36pt. . .Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . ----. . .---- . . ----. . .--------
Strength. . . . 10. . . .12 . . . 12. . . .12 . . . 4: CHA
Dexterity . . . .8. . . .10 . . . 12. . . .14 . . . 8: CHA
Constitution. . 14. . . .14 . . . 14. . . .14 . . .12: CHA
Intelligence. . 12. . . .12 . . . 12. . . .12 . . .16: CHA
Wisdom. . . . . .8. . . . 8 . . . .8. . . . 8 . . .20: CHA
Charisma. . . . 18. . . .18 . . . 18. . . .18 . . .24: CHA
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28: CHA

Note - less Strength if you have a Str tome. Maybe less Int if you have an Int tome.
If Ref Saves aren't important to you, put extra points into Con (@ 2:1) for a (very) few more HP.

[Andrewpoff]

Um... it greatly matters what order you take feats for a Sorcie.

Relying on SLA's, you want Maximize & Empower asap. This will crush lowbie content, where your other Feats won't make that much of a diff early.


Meh, a lot is dependent on playstyle.

Having Quickness on all the time for all your combat casts really drains your spellpoints. Concentration is a) cheap, b) effective, and c) what else are you gonna take?

~Some~ UMD is important; a good Cha-based build + gear can stop taking it once they reach their UMD goals.

o https://ddowiki.com/page/Use_Magic_Device#Benchmarks


Most any build should include a stat spread. If you want 3 skills, then (without any Int tomes!) this wants 12 Int for 3 skill points/level.

For this build, something like...

Helf Sorcie
Sorcerer 20
Half-Elf


Stats
. . . . . . . .28pt . . 32pt. . .34pt . . 36pt. . .Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . ----. . .---- . . ----. . .--------
Strength. . . . 10. . . .12 . . . 12. . . .12 . . . 4: CHA
Dexterity . . . .8. . . .10 . . . 12. . . .14 . . . 8: CHA
Constitution. . 14. . . .14 . . . 14. . . .14 . . .12: CHA
Intelligence. . 12. . . .12 . . . 12. . . .12 . . .16: CHA
Wisdom. . . . . .8. . . . 8 . . . .8. . . . 8 . . .20: CHA
Charisma. . . . 18. . . .18 . . . 18. . . .18 . . .24: CHA
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28: CHA

Note - less Strength if you have a Str tome. Maybe less Int if you have an Int tome.
If Ref Saves aren't important to you, put extra points into Con (@ 2:1) for a (very) few more HP.

I love this comment I have some egg on my face for forgetting to put stats, and I was told the day after posting this build that the warlock feat no longer stacks with other imbue dice, so I will probably go back to the drawing board. But in all the build was really fun and I had no issue in high reaper or end game content as a first lifer. Was it a walk in the park, no, but I stayed alive and got my loot/r-exp.

[peng]

I just had a conversation with someone the other day about how a warlock dilletante would be good on a charisma caster. I don't think it would beat out tiefling or dragonborn, but it's a good option when doing racials or if you just want a change.

Concentration:
Aside from the greater dragonmark sla, concentration is useful for scrolls, wands, buff spells, and spells so cheap it's not worth quickening them. Also, it's definitely worth it while levelling before you get quicken.

Feats:
On any caster with damaging slas that can be meta'd, I take maximize and empower as my first feats. Next I take past life wizard (if available), then usually quicken.

I would avoid the toughness feats. As of a recent update, 2 weapon style feats give more hp than toughness + epic toughness. See heroic durability. If going this route, I'd probably go with the shield feats as they add some extra survivability if using shields, while the other feats don't really give you anything else if you don't melee. However, for the hp bonuses, it doesn't matter which ones you take. You could take 2 shield and 2 single weapon fighting feats and get the full hp bonus in heroics.

If you want to boost DCs, you might want to take regular, greater, and epic spell focus for one school, then take spell specialty at 31 in a 2nd school. If not going for 2 schools like that, I'm not sure it's worth grabbing the spell focus feats at all.

Mark of storm isn't bad, but you only have 4 shared uses of the greater dragonmark unless you have an item that gives extra charges. If you were already planning an electric sorc, go for it. Not sure if the call lightning or 25 electric spellpower is more dps. With 60-90 concentration, you can keep the buff up for 8-12 minutes. Also, not sure if call lightning has a max caster level. If not, it's *very* nice, as the sla is based off character level, and should get bonuses to caster level from savant and epic levels (32 + 7 savant + 6 epic = 45) eg it should last for 135 seconds and hit for 45d6 + 270.

For destiny feats, I'd grab electric, fire, and maybe force or cold. Crush weakness isn't bad if you or your party are good about making the mobs you face helpless, but unless you're playing at high skulls, most mobs die pretty quickly, and crush weakness does not boost your damage vs things that can't be made helpless. I don't recommend grabbing law/chaos at 28, but if you do, embodiment of law gives 3 prr and mrr, while chaos only gives 2 dstrike/shot. At 31 I'd probably grab spell specialty or legendary toughness.

Warlock Dilletante:
Just did some testing. It appears to scale properly with imbue dice and spellpower, as well as metamagics if the spell that proc'ed it has metas on, and also seems to be able to crit separately from the spell that triggered it. More testing would be needed to 100% confirm that and to see if the imbue uses fire spellpower/crit chance or the triggering spell's. It does have a 2 second cooldown, which means that if you are spamming your spells on cooldown (1 per second), it will only trigger on 1 target every other spellcast. While that is pretty nice for single target dps, it doesn't have much effect on your aoe. Assuming you grab 5-6 dice from EK, 3-5 from feats, 3 from draconic, and 1 from augment, you'd have 13-16 d4 of scaling fire dmg every 2 seconds, which is nice, but not game-changing.

Gear:
For those who dismiss someone else's gear as obsolete: not everyone raids, not everyone has every pack. Is the gear posted the best possible sorcerer gearset? No. Is it *bad*? Also no (though if the imbue does indeed scale with fire spell power/crits, you should probably slot those in if you can).