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Post by Raj on Jun 24, 2017 17:01:43 GMT
Greetings and welcome to what is going to be a very detailed guide to the simplest build ever. This is the cookie cutter Sorcerer that lacked a proper topic: all the previously posted builds suck are outdated, and generally speaking they show you the final product only. Playing a sorcerer from scratch means you're going to revolution your spell list every few levels, reincarnate once you reach some milestone and are able to upgrade your build, eventually specialize into a less generic sorcerer for the very end game. While such specialized builds exist, and I'm going to post them as well, they are not efficient to build up both demigod and abyss iterations, while the basic sorcerer has everything needed to compete in all legendary areas of the module. Screenshot of buffless freshly reinced sorcerer, using a Spell Penetration artifactBuild | Sorceror 39, Paladin 1 (taken last) | Sorceror 39, Paladin 1 | Sorceror 40 | Sorceror 40 | Race/Subrace | Human "Yuan-Ti" CHA +2, INT +1, DEX +1, WIS-3, STR -1, +5 Spellcraft SR 5 +1/lvl | Gnome "Rakshasa" STR -1, CON -1, CHA +4 SR 15 + 1/lvl | Human "Radiance Genasi" STR -2, CON +2, DEX +2, INT +2, CHA +6 Free Feats: Empower Spell, Silent Spell, Maximize Spell 25% immune fire | Human "Half-Efreeti" CON +2, INT +2, CHA +8 Free Feats: SF/GSF: Evocation, Maximize Spell, Empower Spell +1 DC on Evocation spells, Survival: Firewalking | Abilities at character creation (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha) Note: Int and Wis as listed in different order at creation compared to how they appear on sheet | 8, 11, 14, 13, 8, 18 | 7, 14, 13, 12, 8, 18 | 8, 14, 12, 12, 8, 18 | 8, 14, 12, 12, 8, 18 | Abilities after Subrace edits | 7, 12, 14, 14, 5, 20 | 6, 14, 12, 12, 8, 22 | 6, 16, 14, 14, 8, 24 | 8, 14, 14, 14, 8, 26 | Ability points | All Points in Charisma | All Points in Charisma | All Points in Charisma | All Points in Charisma | Pre-epic feats | Spell Focus: Illusion Greater Spell Focus: Illusion Spell Focus: Transmutation Greater Spell Focus: Transmutation Spell Focus: Necromancy Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy Spell Penetration Greater Spell Penetration | Greater Spell Focus: Illusion Spell Focus: Transmutation Greater Spell Focus: Transmutation Spell Focus: Necromancy Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy Spell Penetration Greater Spell Penetration | Spell Focus: Illusion Greater Spell Focus: Illusion Spell Focus: Transmutation Greater Spell Focus: Transmutation Spell Focus: Necromancy Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy Spell Penetration Greater Spell Penetration | Blooded (or SF: Lore/Toughness) Spell Focus: Illusion Greater Spell Focus: Illusion Spell Focus: Transmutation Greater Spell Focus: Transmutation Spell Focus: Necromancy Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy Metamagic: Silent Spell | Epic feats | Metamagic: Empowered Spell Epic Spell Focus: Transmutation Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy Epic Spell Focus: Illusion Epic Spell Penetration Great Charisma x2 | Metamagic: Empowered Spell Epic Spell Focus: Transmutation Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy Epic Spell Focus: Illusion Epic Spell Penetration Great Charisma x2 | Epic Spell Focus: Transmutation Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy Epic Spell Focus: Illusion Epic Spell Penetration Great Charisma x3 | Epic Spell Focus: Transmutation Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy Epic Spell Focus: Illusion Epic Spell Focus: Evocation Great Charisma x3 | Sorceror bonus feats | Great Charisma x6 | Great Charisma x6 | Great Charisma x6 | Great Charisma x6 | Tome | Evocation | Evocation | Evocation | Spell Penetration | Legendary level feats | Legendary Spell Penetration Legendary Spell Focus: Illusion Legendary Spell Focus: Evocation Legendary Spell Focus: Transmutation Legendary Spell Focus: Necromancy Great Charisma x2 | Legendary Spell Penetration Legendary Spell Focus: Illusion Legendary Spell Focus: Evocation Legendary Spell Focus: Transmutation Legendary Spell Focus: Necromancy Great Charisma x2 | Legendary Spell Penetration Legendary Spell Focus: Illusion Legendary Spell Focus: Evocation Legendary Spell Focus: Transmutation Legendary Spell Focus: Necromancy Great Charisma x1 Bonus Extra Spell VI | Legendary Spell Penetration Legendary Spell Focus: Illusion Legendary Spell Focus: Evocation Legendary Spell Focus: Transmutation Legendary Spell Focus: Necromancy Great Charisma x1 LSA: Tumble (or Bonus Extra Spell VI) | Paragon level feats | It's about time to reincarnate | Paragon Spell Penetration Paragon Spell Focus: Evocation Paragon Spell Knowledge: Evocation Paragon Spell Focus: Transmutation Paragon Spell Focus: Necromancy Paragon Spell Focus: Illusion | Paragon Spell Penetration Paragon Spell Focus: Evocation Paragon Spell Knowledge: Evocation Paragon Spell Focus: Transmutation Paragon Spell Focus: Necromancy Paragon Spell Focus: Illusion | Paragon Spell Penetration Paragon Spell Focus: Evocation Paragon Spell Knowledge: Evocation Paragon Spell Focus: Transmutation Paragon Spell Focus: Necromancy Paragon Spell Focus: Illusion (or Bonus Extra Spell VI/IX) | Artifact | | CHA | CHA or SP | CHA or SP | Pandect | | SR/ER/CA | Shield | Shield | Skills | Concentration 63 (raise every level) Craft Armor (dump all spare points at 60) Discipline 43 (save and invest on paladin level) Lore 63 (raise every level) Parry 43 (save and invest on paladin level) Tumble 30 (raise every level, crossclassed) | Concentration 63 Craft Armor ~40 Discipline 43 Lore 63 Parry 43 Spellcraft 1 Tumble 30 | Concentration 63 Craft Armor 62 Discipline 31 Lore 63 Spellcraft 1 Tumble 30 | Concentration 63 Craft Armor 63 Discipline 31 Lore 63 Tumble 60 | Paragon Skills | | Craft Armor 20 Lore 20 Tumble 10 | Craft Armor 20 Discipline 10 Tumble 10 | Craft Armor 20 Discipline 10 Lore 20 |
It's heavily recommended to start your sorcerer career with a splashed build: 1 paladin level provides the much needed shield proficiency and makes your saves skyrocket; high level/demigod/rich sorcerer players can give up on that for added offensive power, so I'd keep the splash up to your second demigod iteration. Use that playtime to farm/trade for immunity gear and a wereable source of shield proficiency, then losing the paladin splash is not going to cause a sudden drop in survivability. The Yuan-Ti build: You're not going to play into Hells and beyond with this one. The first race upgrade is really cheap and usually attained around level 45-50, or even earlier if you are good at begging. That means that stat-checks are not something you should be afraid of, hence an higher CON than DEX (@newbies: dexterity is more important than constitution later on). You might want to take the paladin level even earlier than 40, likely around 35 when having discipline and high saves is going to be helpful for some tags. The Rakshasa build:This is an end game build. Despite this subrace belonging to the secret tier only, for all pratical purposes the resulting character is stronger than a genie wizard, a negatai palemaster or whatever wannabe mage you are tempted to make ''just because you own a bur race''. If by some chance you aren't able to put your hands on a Radiance Genasi by the time you're 2x demigod and ready for a reincarnation, opt for a Cambion, a Shard or stick to this one, just without the unnecessary Paladin level anymore. There're some merits about dropping 2 Great CHA feats (heresy! I know) for Metamagic: Silent Spells and Extra Spells: VI. More on that later. Notice I went for base race (gnome): Rakshasa can be of any base race, gnomes provide a feat you'd take as human anyway (SF:Illusion), are allowed 2 bonus skill levels instead of 1 of humans (HG change, takes effect at level 41+, retroactively) and size and favored class are going to be overwritten. Gnome is simply better, especially when you don't look like one of them. Just make sure of saving enough skill points to put in the paladin-only skills at 40, before the racial skillpoints kick in. The Radiance Genasi build:Welcome to the top of the food chain. You have all necessary spell foci and metamagic feats now. The big change here is about skillpoints: you are forced to crossclass discipline, and parry is not worth it anymore. Paragon levels allow you to raise discipline to 41 and get effective 63+20 into craft armor so all you need is enough levels. I assume you own a shield pandect and are already demigod so higher ac is worth more than a little critical damage reduction (that was okay on lower tier builds due to their lower armor class). The Half-Efreeti build:That's me blatant bragging. The race has a (weak) pre-epic feat too much so It's possible to follow a LSA tumble route. Alternatives are SF:lore, Toughness, +2 to some save... nothing important, XR gives you 'only' +2 CHA and +1 dc to Evocation. Half-djinni is slighty better (in fact I reincarnated into that, see page 2) I just happened to gamble this one first.
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Post by Raj on Jun 24, 2017 17:01:53 GMT
Spellbook(s)!The pre-Immortal levels are where you should feel free to change spells every level and experiment a bit, to check how HG-Enhanced spells look like. You're going to have an easy time with a sorcerer (should be able to solo all the way to Lolth, then hire a couple grunts for the final push) as long as you keep a handful of must-haves: IGMS, Bigbies, Invisibility/Sanctuary, Evards, Time Stop, some summons and the spells to buff them. If you need more details in order to master the lowbie areas, knowing exactly what combination of spells works best against each single lame boss (hint: it's always the same) and what incredibly niche tactic is going to save you 10 seconds of gameplay (at the cheap price of couple days of theorycrafting), feel free to ask for guidance in-game. To somebody else. Once you kill The Old Fart and are allowed into the real game, the first thing you're going to complain about is that all your spells are not working. Enemy saves are balanced for a medium size party in the proper level range, and Spell Resistance finally becomes an issue. This is when scrubs give up and make a new level 1 toon (knowing that even clicking 'recommended' the build is going to be a successful pre-Immo one), when annoying beggars wait for some highbie to start a run and then leech the next 20 levels (realizing a bit too late they're under geared and don't know what to do when it's their time to actively play), and when real nerds start to shine. Possibly after reading my other guide. You're going to make frequent changes to your spellbook, depending on the areas you're farming and the parties you can gather; levels are not coming that quick anymore though so you better pick some solid spells and change just 1-2 from each spell level should you wish to keep testing. I'm going to highlight some of the most relevant spells you should focus on, at the specific level, or new picks that aren't making much sense at a first glance. If this is a bit too confusing for you, go play a barbarian just read the last column. Level | 45-50 | 50-55 | 55-60 | 60+ (Hells) | 65+ (Final) | Level 1 | Burning Hands Endure Elements Expeditious Retreat Mage Armor Shelgarn's Persistent Blade Shocking Grasp | Endure Elements Expeditious Retreat Horizikauls Boom Mage Armor Shelgarn's Persistent Blade Shocking Grasp | Endure Elements Expeditious Retreat Horizikauls Boom Mage Armor Shelgarn's Persistent Blade Shocking Grasp | Endure Elements Ice Dagger Expeditious Retreat Ray of Enfeeblement Shelgarn's Persistent Blade Shocking Grasp | Corrosive Grasp Endure Elements Expeditious Retreat Protection from Alignment Ray of Enfeeblement Shocking Grasp | Level 2 | Combust Flame Weapon Ghostly Visage Melf's Acid Arrow Shock Weapon Vocalize | Combust Flame Weapon Ghostly Visage Melf's Acid Arrow Shock Weapon Vocalize | Combust Flame Weapon Ghostly Visage Melf's Acid Arrow Shock Weapon Vocalize | Combust Flame Weapon Ghostly Visage Melf's Acid Arrow Shock Weapon Web | Combust Darkness Flame Weapon Ghostly Visage Melf's Acid Arrow Shock Weapon | Level 3 | Displacement Gust of Wind Greater Magic Weapon Keen Edge Scintillating Sphere | Displacement Gust of Wind Greater Magic Weapon Keen Edge Scintillating Sphere | Clarity Displacement Gust of Wind Keen Edge Scintillating Sphere | Clarity Displacement Gust of Wind Keen Edge Slow | Clarity Displacement Fireball Gust of Wind Keen Edge | Level 4 | Elemental Shield Evard's Black Tentacles Ice Storm Vortex of Teeth Wall of Fire | Bestow Curse Elemental Shield Evard's Black Tentacles Lesser Spell Breach Remove Curse | Bestow Curse Elemental Shield Evard's Black Tentacles Lesser Spell Breach Remove Curse | Bestow Curse Elemental Shield Enervation Evard's Black Tentacles Remove Curse | Assay Resistance Bestow Curse Enervation Evard's Black Tentacles Remove Curse | Level 5 | Bigby's Interposing Hand Energy Buffer Lesser Mind Blank Lesser Spell Mantle Vitriolic Sphere | Bigby's Interposing Hand Energy Buffer Lesser Mind Blank Lesser Spell Mantle Vitriolic Sphere | Bigby's Interposing Hand Energy Buffer Lesser Mind Blank Lesser Spell Mantle Vitriolic Sphere | Bigby's Interposing Hand Energy Buffer Flensing Lesser Mind Blank Lesser Spell Mantle | Break Enchantment Energy Buffer Flensing Lesser Mind Blank Lesser Spell Mantle | Level 6 | Flesh to Stone Isaac's Greater Missle Storm Ethereal Visage Freezing Sphere | Flesh to Stone Ethereal Visage Freezing Sphere Undeath to Death | Disintegrate Ethereal Visage Freezing Sphere Undeath to Death | Circle of Death Disintegrate Ethereal Visage Freezing Sphere Undeath to Death (extra) | Chain Lightning (extra) Circle of Death Disintegrate Ethereal Visage Freezing Sphere | Level 7 | Bigby's Grasping Hand Delayed Blast Fireball Finger of Death Great Thunderclap | Bigby's Grasping Hand Delayed Blast Fireball Finger of Death Great Thunderclap | Delayed Blast Fireball Finger of Death Great Thunderclap Static Field | Banishment Bigby's Grasping Hand Delayed Blast Fireball Great Thunderclap | Banishment Delayed Blast Fireball Great Thunderclap Rebuke | Level 8 | Greater Planar Binding Greater Sanctuary Incendiary Cloud Premonition | Greater Planar Binding Incendiary Cloud Premonition Sunburst | Greater Planar Binding Incendiary Cloud Premonition Sunburst | Bigby's Clenched Fist Incendiary Cloud Premonition Sunburst | Bigby's Clenched Fist Horrid Wilting Premonition Sunburst | Level 9 | Meteor Swarm Mordenkainen's Disjunction Wail of the Banshee Weird | Meteor Swarm Mordenkainen's Disjunction Wail of the Banshee Weird | Bigby's Crushing Hand Mordenkainen's Disjunction Wail of the Banshee Weird | Bigby's Crushing Hand Energy Drain Mordenkainen's Disjunction Weird | Energy Drain Mordenkainen's Disjunction Power Word: Kill Weird |
45-50Around this level you're getting ready for at least one Sissy run (two or more should you need her blood to upgrade to Rakshasa, sorry spoiler), Dachy, Toyshop, Myconids, some Feywilds or Shallow Elemental Planes when your're alone or some xp festival in big party in Desert or Uroboros. Anywhere else you're a bit too weak so let focus on these areas. You might have noticed very few save-or-else spells, that's because you still need a bunch of great CHA or spell focus feats, spellslots are lackluster and if you're solo-farming (a common occurrence, but you're good at that don't despair) you're best served with direct damage spells. Even more true if you happen to join some higher level party and play in areas way above your level, it's better to play safer focusing on damage while leaving higher level casters instakill. Some exception to this rule are Flesh to Stone (with a built-in +5 DC, use this over Disintegrate for now, they share most targets) and the evergreen Weird and Wail of the Banshee (''somebody'' is going to fail a save there). These are the last levels you should use Greater Sanctuary (Ghostly Visage with enough levels and illusion foci saves your sorry butt the same way and has no cooldown, as long as you use one of your many low level slots to spam it) or Isaac Greater Missle Storm (really I left it there mostly to get rid of Dachy, but you can still get some decent xp out of drow/immortal areas so it stays). Even without enchantment you should keep Greater Magic Weapon for some more levels, simply because a proper buffer is not available all the time. Swap one of the many lowbie items with one spell focus (caster claps, some helmet I forgot the name... common loot) for a +11 enhancement bonus that is enough for a bit. And better than nothing later on. Tip: a competent sorcerer player around this level should be able to solo the Toyshop up to the random miniboss Sphere of Annihilation. Lower its resistance, feed it some summon, hide behind your epic wall or dance around in GV while you spam Finger of Death and that's one good farming adventurer (good xp at your level and 1 billion or more worth of loot)50-55Beside soloing all previous runs, by now you can better contribute to some of the best XP grounds (Dustbone, Illithids) and the more exotic Locathah or Dulvuroth runs. It's about time to gather a party and get into Beholders (INT artifact) and Pyramid (WIS artifact) areas as well, because at 55 people can use some artifacts and those make for good trade baits. Both harsh runs for first timers, and the latter is usually avoided by balls-lacking players until after demigod because it's a fugue zone. The issue with waiting that long is that demigreedy players might decide to duo/bot the run on their own and leave you cute newbie out of action. Undeath to Death and Sunburst enter the spell list mostly because of Dulvo/Pyr and Dustbone's Lost Souls: you should have enough DC and CL to make them work now. Bestow Curse is also providing enough of a SP drop to matter, saving you from wasting Mordenkainen's Disjunction on single targets (but still use it AoE if you have no druid in party... did you read the previously linked guide right?). You'll fight Frozen Arcanists quite often around this level and Vocalize followed by Lesser Spell Breach/Sunburst is a nice way to bypass their silence aura and instakill them. Dropping our good ole friend Ice Storm because you're starting to play in areas with a lot of kickback and double damage type = double kickback, go figure. Tip: a competent sorcerer player around this level should be able to solo the Desert for XP, but very little loot, so do it to prove yourself worthy and then focus on Loca/Dulvo; you should be able to (slowly) clean these areas as well, and your pixie familiar is able to search for secret spots. Should you find some forge ingredient from these areas, they easily sell in bulks for hundreds of millions gold)55-60Your SP and DC are good enough not to be a drag but a good contributor for Hive, PoM and Rona runs. You might find yourself dragged to Avernus (Tia) right after an Illithid run and experience some brutal SR values, but it's a good moment to unleash your good karma and win some caster gear so join them. Both Bigby spells at 7 and 9 are the safest way to contribute in Tia runs for <60 sorcerers, a stuck Abishai is as good as dead and it's better than casting spells with low DC that never work. That being said, finally Disintegrate shows up in the spellbook (if you happened to party with good clerics/bards often in past, you might want to anticipate this moment tho) and you'll grow addicted to its animation. Say good riddance to your loyal Greater Planar Binding summons because you are never going to summon them anymore in a competant party. They are not doing enough damage to matter and soon become an issue (big size causing clusters, attacking kickback stuff); simply stock up on Black Blades of Disaster scrolls from some lowbie scriber, that's the only summon that matters. Tip: a competent sorcerer player around this level should start farm gear for future toons, and solo Dustbone at ~55 is very well doable. Once you have a good assortment of weapons you might even start think about some tank build, or just trade the good ones away and build a good wallet 60+ (Hells)Gone are the days of rooms full of death-vulnerable weaklings, so Wail of the Banshee has to go. Circle of Death is cheaper, has longer range and faster animation, and it's all you need as AoE death magic because it'll be hard to have more than 3-4 Death targets at the same time (and most of them would be vulnerable to Weird as well). Undeath to Death and Banishment are there mostly for the odd Elysium run (that, despite popular belief, is easier than deep Hells so you should push for some of those runs to happen more often, the loot is very well worth it): clerics can cast the same spells and are usually better at it, but for small greedy party (4-5 level 60 people for now) Ely they are less necessary than other roles, so you cover that. With Tia gear in place you finally have enough level 9 slots to (ab)use Energy Drain, and Enervation to finish the job. Ray of Enfeeblement is a niche spell you use on ability-drain vulnerable monsters to speed up a druid's infestation of maggots; if that looks minor to you, consider with good coordination you can kill in 1-2 round Rakhugons, Gelidarchs, Mariliths, Alkiliths, Goristros and even some bosses. Make sure to tell the druid he sux if you are serving him free kills he doesn't grab though. Bestow Curse also speeds up the ability drain process if the enemy fails a save, so you might want to cast it twice (first to lower SR, then to lower stats) against some annoying miniboss. 65+ (Final)Horrid Wilting shows up for your Abyss and Aboleths runs (you use it to instakill specific monsters, not for the damage), Power Word: Kill is mandatory for Abyss (and you don't need to be a Divination specialist to make it work, more on that later) while Chain Lightning is simply a HUGE convenience (laghati, sibriex, viper trees, goristros... you could use other sources of damage but you'd end up wasting higher level slots - 9 instead of 8 should you use empowered claps/dbfb over empowered chains, and 9s are drained quick - or simply don't pack enough damage). Flensing helps a lot against slime-like creatures in both runs. Assay Resistance gives you enough of a punch should you meet high paragon enemies (SR really gets problematic in high demigod Abyss runs) and by now (assuming level 70+ and 2x + demi) you have enough DC to try Rebuke even without enchantment focii, against some particularly annoying enemies (Abyssal Drakes, Babaus, Babeliths) you can't instakill in other ways. Protection vs Allignment (pick Evil) prevents being turned by Death Knights in GM, cast it on yourself anybody without 40+ wisdom score. It's 100% redundant everywhere else in the module so don't put it in the autocaster. Note: Power Word: Kill respects Death Magic immunity everywhere in the module, but in the Abyss some monsters have specific vulnerability to it and can be instakilled no matter how many hit points they have; everywhere else, it is useless if the target has more than ~1300 hit points (standard Hell monsters have ~3000 hit points). Let just say using a level 9 to finish off a badly wounded enemy is silly, so restrict its use for Abyss only, and keep using CoD against death-vulnerable foes. More in the Abyss Sorc section.
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Post by Raj on Jun 24, 2017 17:02:10 GMT
MOAR Sorcs!I know what some of you are thinking... ''you could make an incredible versatile wizard instead of multiple sorcs!'' Yeah guess what, I made a wizard, played it a lot in Aboleths/Abyss and came to the conclusion they are simply not efficient in the endgame. At the end of the day you can add one more focus compared to sorc builds, but losing in SP, DC (no way you can afford sacrifice two schools to specialize) and are royally screwed up by heavily randomized spawns due to lack of flexibility on-the-fly. Do yourself a favor and use the wizard mostly as a LL farmer or scrollmaker. Also, even as a wizard you can't cover enough spell schools to be the perfect arcane user in all areas so that sort of ends the debate. These are area-specific sorceror builds you are going to make out of your 'spare' sorc slots: the cookie cutter build works fine in both Aboleths and Abyss when using the final spellbook selection, but since you're such a good xp farmer you might be tempted to make multiple sorcerors on multiple accounts to train your other toons, or simply reach 80 before having completed all tag runs. A specialist sorceror also allows for very small parties: just add a construct/outsider shifter and you can duo Aboleths, some sort of battlebard/cleric/druid (just one, to hold the frontline while you do your stuff) and you can duo Abyss, and a bard and a couple of grunts to farm Limbo p1. Area Focus | Aboleths | Abyss | Limbo | Build | Sorceror 40 | Sorceror 40 | Sorceror 40 | Race/Subrace | Human "Radiance Genasi" STR -2, CON +2, DEX +2, INT +2, CHA +6 Free Feats: Empower Spell, Silent Spell, Maximize Spell 25% immune fire | Human "Radiance Genasi" STR -2, CON +2, DEX +2, INT +2, CHA +6 Free Feats: Empower Spell, Silent Spell, Maximize Spell 25% immune fire | Human "Radiance Genasi" STR -2, CON +2, DEX +2, INT +2, CHA +6 Free Feats: Empower Spell, Silent Spell, Maximize Spell 25% immune fire | Abilities at character creation (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha)
| 8, 14, 12, 12, 8, 18 | 8, 14, 12, 12, 8, 18 | 8, 14, 12, 12, 8, 18 | Abilities after Subrace edits | 6, 16, 14, 14, 8, 24 | 6, 16, 14, 14, 8, 24 | 6, 16, 14, 14, 8, 24 | Ability points | All Points in Charisma | All Points in Charisma | All Points in Charisma | Pre-epic feats | Spell Focus: Illusion Greater Spell Focus: Illusion Spell Focus: Transmutation Greater Spell Focus: Transmutation Spell Focus: Necromancy Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy Spell Focus: Abjuration Greater Spell Focus: Abjuration | Spell Focus: Illusion Greater Spell Focus: Illusion Spell Focus: Enchantment Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment Spell Focus: Necromancy Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy Spell Focus: Evocation Greater Spell Focus: Evocation | Spell Focus: Abjuration Greater Spell Focus: Abjuration Spell Focus: Enchantment Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment Spell Focus: Divination Greater Spell Focus: Divination Spell Focus: Evocation Greater Spell Focus: Evocation | Epic feats | Epic Spell Focus: Transmutation Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy Epic Spell Focus: Illusion Epic Spell Focus: Abjuration Great Charisma x3 | Epic Spell Focus: Enchantment Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy Epic Spell Focus: Evocation Epic Spell Focus: Illusion Great Charisma x3 | Epic Spell Focus: Abjuration Epic Spell Focus: Divination Epic Spell Focus: Enchantment Epic Spell Focus: Evocation Great Charisma x3 | Sorceror bonus feats | Great Charisma x6 | Great Charisma x6 | Great Charisma x6 | Tome | Spell Penetration | Spell Penetration | Spell Penetration | Legendary level feats | Legendary Spell Penetration Legendary Spell Focus: Illusion Legendary Spell Focus: Abjuration Legendary Spell Focus: Transmutation Legendary Spell Focus: Necromancy Great Charisma x1 Bonus Extra Spell VI | Legendary Spell Penetration Legendary Spell Focus: Illusion Legendary Spell Focus: Evocation Legendary Spell Focus: Enchantment Legendary Spell Focus: Necromancy Great Charisma x1 Bonus Extra Spell IX | Legendary Spell Penetration Legendary Spell Focus: Divination Legendary Spell Focus: Evocation Legendary Spell Focus: Abjuration Legendary Spell Focus: Enchantment Great Charisma x1 Bonus Extra Spell VII | Paragon level feats | Paragon Spell Penetration Paragon Spell Focus: Abjuration Paragon Spell Knowledge: Abjuration Paragon Spell Focus: Transmutation Paragon Spell Focus: Necromancy Paragon Spell Knowledge: Necromancy | Paragon Spell Penetration Paragon Spell Focus: Evocation Paragon Spell Knowledge: Evocation Paragon Spell Focus: Enchantment Paragon Spell Focus: Necromancy Paragon Spell Focus: Illusion | Paragon Spell Penetration Paragon Spell Focus: Abjuration Paragon Spell Knowledge: Abjuration Paragon Spell Focus: Evocation Paragon Spell Knowledge: Evocation Paragon Spell Focus: Enchantment | Artifact | CHA | CHA or SP | SP | Pandect | Shield | Shield | Shield | Skills | Concentration 63 Craft Armor 63 Discipline 31 Lore 63 Spellcraft 1 Tumble 30 | Concentration 63 Craft Armor 63 Discipline 31 Lore 63 Spellcraft 1 Tumble 30 | Concentration 63 Craft Armor 63 Discipline 31 Lore 63 Spellcraft 1 Tumble 30 | Paragon Skills | Craft Armor 20 Discipline 10 Tumble 10 | Craft Armor 20 Discipline 10 Tumble 10 | Craft Armor 20 Discipline 10 Tumble 10 | Level 1 | Burning Hands Endure Elements Expeditious Retreat Mage Armor Shelgarn's Persistent Blade Shocking Grasp | Corrosive Grasp Endure Elements Expeditious Retreat Ray of Enfeeblement Protection from Alignment Shocking Grasp | Charme Endure Elements Expeditious Retreat Mage Armor Shocking Grasp Sleep | Level 2 | Flame Weapon Ghostly Visage Lesser Dispel Melf's Acid Arrow Resist Elements Shock Weapon | Combust Flame Weapon Ghostly Visage Ghoul Touch Melf's Acid Arrow Shock Weapon | Blindness/Deafness Combust Flame Weapon Ghostly Visage Melf's Acid Arrow Shock Weapon | Level 3 | Clarity Displacement Keen Edge Mestil Acid Breath Negative Energy Burst | Clarity Displacement Gust of Wind Greater Magic Weapon Keen Edge | Clarity Displacement Greater Magic Weapon Gust of Wind Keen Edge | Level 4 | Bestow Curse Enervation Evard's Black Tentacles Vortex of Teeth Remove Curse | Assay Resistance Bestow Curse Enervation Evard's Black Tentacles Remove Curse | Assay Resistance Elemental Shield Evard's Black Tentacles Ice Storm Remove Curse | Level 5 | Bigby's Interposing Hand Break Enchantment Energy Buffer Flensing Wrack | Break Enchantment Energy Buffer Flensing Lesser Spell Mantle Mind Fog | Break Enchantment Energy Buffer Hold Monster Lesser Mind Blank Mind Fog | Level 6 | Bigby's Forceful Hand Disintegrate Ethereal Visage Greater Dispel Magic Mass Haste | Circle of Death Chain Lightning Ethereal Visage Freezing Sphere | Chain Lightning Ethereal Visage Greater Dispel Magic Tenser's Transformation | Level 7 | Banishment Energy Immunity Prismatic Spray Spell Mantle | Banishment Delayed Blast Fireball Great Thunderclap Rebuke | Banishment Delayed Blast Fireball Energy Immunity Great Thunderclap Rebuke | Level 8 | Bigby's Clenched Fist Horrid Wilting Mind Blank Premonition | Antipathy Horrid Wilting Premonition Sunburst | Antipathy Bigby's Clenched Fist Mass Charm Premonition | Level 9 | Energy Drain Mordenkainen's Disjunction Wail of the Banshee Weird | Dominate Monster Energy Drain Mordenkainen's Disjunction Power Word: Kill Weird | Bigby's Crushing Hand Dominate Monster Greater Spell Mantle Mordenkainen's Disjunction |
The Aboleth SorcererYou need to be able to quickly dispatch all the thralls fodder (weird/wail), Cildabrins/Gibbering Mouthers/sharks/mites/crabs (weird) and banish the various mist creatures. Abj/Illu/Necro are hence a given, and Trans a convenience against annoying Witchlight, Marids and Dream Larvae (disintegrate). Level 6 Bigby to disable Phanes, Prismatic Spray works good vs them but is there mostly for Pygros, Drains/Enervates for Mu Spores and Crystal Oozes. Flensing against the latter is also great. Horrid Wilting takes care of Shaboath. Evards and Bigby8s for Eidolons. Death of Magic epic spell the only realistic way to get rid of Flux Slimes hence take PSK: Necro for a second use. Aboleths themselves come with undispellable spell mantles so casting at them is pointless: just dispel their other defences and let a shifter poison them to death (normal ones) or use Azer/Modron/Spectre shapes (savants and bosses). Or have some tank have their moment of glory. With the Aboleths being immune to direct mord/breach, your options are hire a paladin/blackguard with holy sword/poisons or be an Abjuration master with 100% success rate on Greater Dispel. Aoe Mord is not a real option due to annoying hitboxes, and a lot slower due to many buffs on every single fishguy. During Savants and Boss fights you sit there in counterspell mode (hence some weird low level choices, to counter stuff) or mass haste your tank mates should you go with a big party; alternative to mass haste for solo/duo-ers, Acid Fog for a better Eidolon Soup or Tenser's for some more defense. Keep your finger ready on Remove Curse to take care of mazed partymembers, Break Enchantment for bigby-zed ones. Be ready to recast Spell Mantle and Mind Blank often to be protected from enemy weirds and confusion effects if you're not outright immune (better to cover the latter full time though, also an INT score of 35+ counts as immunity). The Abyss SorcererThis one plays very similar to the standard sorcerer, but if you want to 2-4 men Abyss the Enchantment School is a safer pick than Transmutation. In a small party you might want to use a warchanter over a standard bard or go with a battlecleric only, so GMW is easier to mantain than multiple IoF epics; you probably lack high DEX tanks/disarmers so you need a way to disable Balors (Antipathy/Maze); there're more Rebuke than Disintegrate targets (and they're more annoying, especially the Babaus). Generally speaking Disintegrate loses a lot of appeal compared to Hells and being able to control the battlefield with Enchantment spells is safer: there're a lot of disabling attacks you want to avoid. In big parties avoid over-use Antipathy and prefer to selectively Maze single nasty foes, so that tanks don't have to follow enemies in all directions and can focus on fewer enemies at time, leaving some sturdy Alkilith or Balor for last. "!cancel maze" command to anticipate that moment. As you can see, not even the specific Abyss sorc build cares about Divination foci, but sports PW:Kill nonetheless. This is because you can instakill all vulnerable enemies even without foci. No focus = 'normal' rank enemies only, Spell Focus = up to 'greater', Greater Spell Focus = up to 'superior', Epic Spell Focus = up to 'elite', aka everything. You'll be using a Tia staff by now, so normal Spell Focus is a given: that covers like 90% of spawns. Drink one of the many Divination Draughts you keep find in loot and have no other use for in the rare circumstances a Superior enemy spawns, and if you really want to rack all kills then wear/swap some item with Greater Spell Focus (a Simbul ego, or better a GSF augmented item) while your draught effect is running. That's a little (and rarely needed) annoyance well worth saving 3 feats. List of Abyss monsters vulnerable to PWK, and alternate killing method in brackets: Glabrezu (none), Adaru (none), Wastrilith (none), Artaaglith (none - cleric, HB - druid, stoning), Incubus (none - druid, drown), Succubus (none - druid, drown), Uzoullru (none - cleric, HB), Verakia (none), Fiendish Roc (disintegrate - cleric, HB), Vorr (disintegrate - cleric, HB), Chelicera (cleric, HB - druid, pesticide), Tiefling Assassin (disintegrate - cleric, HB). Turning can get the outsiders in the list, quite hard on paragons tho. Adaru healers are the obvious top priority there, followed by Wastriliths and Artaagiths (Mord away their mantle first); always focus on those enemies no matter party composition. For the other targets decide if a level 9 slot is worth it, depends if other party members are doing their job. The Limbo SorcererMust haves here are Drawmij's Preclusion and to a lesser extent Karsus' Avatar for boss fights. You can play some other sub optimal arcane caster just with those and bigbies, or be a real asset to the party with very specific spell choices that are going to make this toon incredibly weak outside of Limbo so definitely keep this as a level 75+, 2x demi 2x abyss or similar reinc project. Abjuration is a necessity for Banishment (especially due to the MANY summoned enemies in Part2), Greater Dispel (it works as a damage dealer against Nishruus even without spell foci, but it's worth dispel the many caster and buffed up enemeis as well) and, should the druid slack or you wish to snipe some far away target, direct Mord spell lowering SR by 14. In fact, with the absurd high SR values in Limbo I decided to give up on Bestow Curse because -12 wasn't simply cutting in. Direct Mord followed by Bigby, eventually with an Assay Resistance in between should the target be a paragon, is the best way to deal with Kaorti Alienists (tell the bard/cleric/druid to not 'help' you dispel them in advance, so they don't risk to dispel your bigby should the coordination be poor). Evocation offers the usual assortment of AoE damage spells, except Freezing Sphere that is less of a must and is substituted by Ice Storm (lower max possible damage, but no-save so useful against enemies with high saves/evasion, namely the Slaad Lords). Against generic Slaads Chain Lightning is a solid damage spam, while mixed spawns in p1 are best dealt with fire. All Slaads are 100% sonic immune so do yourself a favor and forget that spell for p2 spawns, it shines in p1 (boss fight included) only. Bigby8 is the way to go on Amorphons and Kaortis. Gust gets rid of Eolians, while Grey/Green Slaads are also known cloud spell spammers, you want to clean up asap. Enchantment is again incredibly useful to control the battlefield with Antipathy (turned enemies don't use some nasty attacks like KD checks either), but in p1 the big variety of enemy race types makes selective Maze a smarter choice (you also don't want to risk people to run after uncontrolled spawns with how the triggers work). Your first Maze targets should be Arucha (they heal next to each other and can instakill you/moltiplicate self), Amorphons (gets rid of the antimagic aura), Titans (no KD to care about). Then everything annoying that you can't insta and mates aren't focusing on. Rocs and high level Slaads can't be mazed so Antipathy. Hold Monsters vs Zeugalak, Reds, Stalkers. Mass Charme (daze) vs Windrazor, Reds, Chaonds and Titans. Rebuke works on a lot of stuff: all Feral Elves, melee Chaonds, Souls, Voidworms, Quarks, Naunets, Giants, Minotaurs, Mimics, Blue Slaads, and then all no-paragon elementals, Avengers, Zerths, Stalkers, Howlers and Snakes. That's a lot more targets than death magic or Disintegrate, that we are skipping. We also skip Illusion, due to very few Weird targets (Blues, Chaonds, Monasts only), but I heavily recommend a GSF: Illusion augmented item to have some decent GV duration (relying only on the SF from staff proved to be disastrous, especially after being disarmed). 4th school is a tossup between Conj (that I despise, but would be nice for stronger Evards and cheap aoe Bigby) and Div (yes, even w/o pwk). Divination is just stronger for part 2 so it wins. We can't take the 4th school beyond Legendary anyway and that's a nice spot to stop at with Div: Premonition becomes +16 and considering everything hits with a +15 weapon or better, it gives us some much needed survivability after the conceal drop due to no illusion (AC with both abj-powered Mage Armor and Tenser is very good though). Contingency is just convenience, but unlike other areas of the module it's hard to end a run with 0 deaths on a mage due to common CS/MS/DevCrits so it's not totally wasted. The true Div strength is Assay Resistance, making you able to reliably land spells on enemies who have a base SR of 90+ even on no-paragon versions. When you don't know what to do and looks like tanks are carrying the run, remember you're the dedicated Break Enchantment (removes Keketars degenerating damage curse) and Clarity user (both Trilloch and Green Slaads cause berserker), dispel anything glowing funny, gust laggy aoes, or just save your spellslots against caster-unfriendly targets, no shame in that and you might need to channel power and drain slots quicker on the next spawn: Amorphons, Titans, Rocs and Anarchic Storm Giants have the rare and annoying immunity to curse song save drop so it's not uncommon to have to spam a number of channeled antipathy/maze spells before anything lands.
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Post by Raj on Jun 24, 2017 17:02:22 GMT
GearingAs with every single toon on this server, you have to properly cover all elemental/exotic/physical damage resistances, be immune to the most common debilitating checks and when necessary cover breach/mord/dispel immunities. Then cover the most dangerous elemental/exotic damage immunities, all while wearing caster slots gear. If that sound scary, let me rephrase: the sorcerer is the easiest and cheapest toon to gear up efficiently. A lot better. This because most of the time you aren't forced to close up the distance with enemies like other casters, are protected by some great buffs that don't care if you're a poor scrub or a rich nerd, wear mostly set gear and the quality of no-set gear doesn't even matter that much. I personally spent a lot more resources into trading and crafting for gear and augmentors for other casters (and even more for needy tanks), simply because every other class requires higher dr/imms or more bonus slots compared to sorcerer. Level 60+ gear in detail: Armor: Wrap of Fistandantilus, any quality (you need it for the +1 SP more than anything else it can provide); no other robe can compare so this is a must. Helmet: Mask of Mystra and later Mask of the Blood War; they are both cheap/free sets Gloves: Golden Guard or anything with immunities such as Manacles of Mephistopheles if you want to apply augmentors Cloak: Cloak of the Axerian Grandmaster; before being demigod (no Asmo shield, so lacking exotic DR), something cheap like Ectoplasmic WeaveAmulet: Amulet of Eramus until you read a Shield pandect, then swap to Amulet of the Pharoah, quality doesn't matter much as long as it's not nerfed to the ground (you pick it for the misc imms on a cheap slot) but having the AC randomized up to 18 would be something to aim for. Belt: Belt of Axerian GrandmasterBoots: Boots of the Axerian Grandmaster until you tag to Abyss (Zioyn2) and switch to Corruption of the BloodOff hand: Any shield that doesn't interfere with spellcasting and EV, such as this or this until you swap to Rampart of the Pact Primeval after demigod Main hand: Staff of the Axerian GrandmasterRings: Breach/Mord/Imms Mote: Pelor or some Abo/Ely one With such gear you cover physical DR on the amulet slot, exotic DR on shield (cloak before demi, or some boots) and rely on the powerful Energy Buffer for elemental DR; in level 60+ areas you should also be full time fear and poison immune: Pharaoh's amulet covers that, or apply some cheap Lion/Serpent's augmentor on the un-augmented gear (robe, bracers, amulet, maybe cloak), or use the relevant Abo/Ely motes. Sorcerer gear is the most pricy one but you know where to farm it so it's only a matter of time, also Tia runs are common enough. Ideally you could get even better high level slots using UR quality belt/staff with good randomization and applying slot augmentors, but it's going to be even more pricy and leaves you with very little low levels: if you only focus on level 7-9 you are quite a poor mage player, also in some circumstances you really want a bunch of low level slots (channeling gusts vs fumes, being druidless and having to bestow everything, using combust/melf when they're actually better than level 9 alternatives... yes it happens). The free abj/ench foci on Tia staff make it a better alternative to pretty much anything you could randomize out of an UR staff too, for when you get to use the final spellbook. It's not the end of the world if you are still using some Dachy/PoM/Rona/UR caster gear by the time you are demigod, as long as you don't fall into the scary gear traps for noobs... THE SCARY GEAR TRAPS FOR NOOBS!!11!1!oneoneone!!!Using a different Asmodeus' Artifact You can come up with a lot of justifications for wearing the Styxwalkers but the only one I'm going to accept is ''I didn't roll high enough for the shield''. The upgrade from Dis/BUR caster shield to Asmo one is worth 5-6 points of AC, implosion immunity, great imms and DR and immunity to slag. Asmo boots? Some more slots, amnesia immunity, +16 to mental stats (wiki needs and update). Guess what, you don't need more slots and +16 charisma is cheap from Azz helmet (if you don't run Abyss after demigod but stick to Hells, your fault). Worse than that, not being able to use Tia or Abyss boots tanks your Lore skill, and giving up on Abyss boots means no easy source of +16 str/dex for checks before Pelor Mote, no epic skill focus discipline, no 5% phys imms... Styxwalkers would take place of a good pair of boots, while all shields are inferior to Rampant by a wide margin. Amnesia! I hear you whiners crying. How many times is it going to realistically happen to a paladin splashed sorc, or a high demi one? Even if it happens, just clic rest ring, be back in 30 seconds, buff with your 2-3 spells and you're back to action. 10 rest charges. Tell me the last time you ran out in Hells (disclaimer: you must have not forgot to recharge 3 runs in a row). The amount of unnecessary hits, damage, interrupts and deaths you're going to suffer due to wearing such poor artifact option (well, compared to the alternative) is going to cause a lot more issues/delays than that. Wearing an Abyssal Vestige full timeSimilar to the above issue, not using the 20 deflection Thid/Azz3 helmets hits your survivability. Vestiges are very poorly designed for casters, but among them the Gaze into the Abyss helmet is probably screaming to be worn. It is an infinitely better option than Styxwalkers should you explore underwater Abyss layers or take a bath into the river Styx but limit its use to those areas and wear the other set helmets when amnesia stops being an issue. Even better, go farm some rings in Elysium so we can stop talk about this amnesia panic nonsense and simply swap a ring when necessary. About that... Using spellslot ringsAbyss and Tia caster rings: the trademark of noobs. I might have used one to solo 'no-rest' Dustbone in 20'ish back when 60 was the cap and there was no randomized gear. Random LL bragging aside, they have no place in the setup for more serious runs. You always need to wear either a breach or a mord ring, sometime both. When only one is needed, you still want to have good elemental and exotic immunities (giving up a 30%+ magic in Hells or 30%+ div/pos in Abyss is asking for troubles). With both ring slots 'swappable' you can also quickslot amnesia/immunity/conveniency rings, while swapping a spellslot ring in and out destroys your spellbook. Having more spellslots but not being able to fire the same amount of spells in the same time of a well-protected competant sorc (because of healing due to kickback/damage taken) is counterproductive. You're always going to sleep when other casters (who lack sorc innate +50% slots) run out of stamina so aiming at 70-100 lvl 9s is overkill. I mean, it gets you unnecessarily killed over and over. I usually run with 50ish 9s and used to solo Abyss with ~40, that's enough for 1 map, 1 map and a half even with channeling (and by then the druid/cleric/bard are already dry), as long as you use your whole spellbook wisely. Using breach bootsI'm ashamed of having to write about this, but it keeps happening. Take a moment to read the breach boots description. 10% less concealment. From 85% to 75%. In practice, after blindfight, from 72% to 56%. Enemies hit you on 44% of successful strikes instead of only on 28%. You pretty much suffer +50% damage taken. Wear a damn breach ring. BuffingStore your buffs in the autocaster in order of importance. That means: 1. Ethereal Visage 2. Energy Buffer 3. Premonition 4. (Lesser) Mind Blank 5. Endure Elements 6. Empowered (Lesser) Spell Mantle 7. Expeditious Retreat If you are playing in Hells or some other run where enemy casters are not an issue, after activating the autocaster cancel (clic over the top screen icon) the Spell Mantle before it gets cast (and effectively wastes you a slot). If you are playing in Abyss or some other run where enemies have a grapple attack (Toy, Uro, Dulvu, Loca, Rona, Abyss, Limbo... Ely as well but safe skip there), cancel Expeditious Retreat and beg for a Freedom of Movement from your party cleric/druid, or cast it yourself through a Supernatural Augmentor or other CL 41+ items. Should you die in combat, more often than not the best course of action is GV, then clic autocaster and cancel the queue (side-stepping) after EV only, or at max 1-2 buffs more, and then go back to contribute to the fight. In caster-heavy areas (Abo, Abyss, Limbo) you might want to manually refresh spell mantles before that though. While levelling up, remember that your EV and Premonition scale every 5 levels and, when applicable, you should use !mm channel 1-3 on those two buffs as well. The autocaster remembers channel settings, so for the 39/1 builds remember to use !mm channel 1 on them once you hit 60. That gives you max concealment and soak and is well worth the spellslots. By not ignoring armor class you're going to enjoy a >120 AC after demi, maxing out at around ~130. While this doesn't look that much, it is coupled with 85% concealment (effective 72% against most enemies in LLs who use blindfight) and you are harder to hit than most str-based tanks, or other casters. That means no panic when one or two enemies ignore the tanks and come straight for you: as long as they aren't disablers you can hold your ground and keep casting spells. Be sure to be in defensive casting mode to not give them free attacks. Elemental Shield/Mestil Acid Shield/Death Armor: these spells can (and will) kill you and your party should a kickback enemy reach you. For every hit you receive, they take 3x retribution damage (usually for 0 or little damage) and hit you or your party 3x more. The measily acid immunity on the Mestil spell is next to useless and the spell causes more problems than the damage it prevents, while death armor is plain useless past Dachy maze. I keep Elemental Shield because a cheap total 100% immunity is worth that spell slot, but start use it only in big parties where you can safely hide most of the time, or when your AC reaches decent values and you know how to cast defensively. Standing still and keep on casting when under pressure is how a well geared sorcerer ends performing much better than a glass cannon with Tia rings. Less time wasted running from mobs and go ethereal, less damage taken leading to fewer interrupts and less time used to chug healing potions. More spells, more damage, more kills.
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Post by Raj on Jun 24, 2017 17:06:55 GMT
Gameplay TipsManage your quickbarsSo you have ~30 combat spells with metamagic feats competing for your quickslots. Potions, rods, scrolls, ringswaps and chat commands are also happy to contend the little space you have at disposal. Handle your quickbar as a mutable thing and never occupy more than one slot with different metamagic versions of the same spell: should you notice slots are running low for a determinate level, substitute on the fly the spell you're over-using with a different metamagic version of it (or back to the base spell). It takes few clics and it's best done in between spawns, just remember to restore defaults when you go rest. Here spamming a bit too many Empowered Freezing Spheres left me few level 8s to play with, so let start use Maximized metamagic on the Spheres since it looks I'm not using many other 9s, and move Circle of Death to its normal version for safety as well. Hint: in the turn you're running Karsus' Avatar, cast the normal version of damage spells, they're not going to be double-empowered afterall. Also don't keep the PSK just for boss fights, it's quite a good way to make use of your level 6-7 damage slots should you start to run low of 8-9s (or expect to, and the spawn you're fighting is big enough to justify it). Channeling and DrainingThese effects stack with each other, up to a cap of 3 bonus channeled/drained levels. Pure sorcerers automatically channel 1 level, so they can get up to 2 extra only. Channeling is a very powerful way to boost your spells and a good use of all your extra spellslots, when you really need to remove a threat quick. Best used as opening shots when hit by a random spawn, on disablers or huge KB sources. !mm channel 2/3 and quickly gust a fume, disint the elite machine or CoD the sneaky Camizu. Should you play an Enchanter Abyss/Limbo specialist, maze-ing or turning priority foes should be done with channel up as well. Damage spells aren't usually worth the channel investment, as you risk running dry quick, except for ''timed'' boss fights like Asmodeus or Abyss Lords. Using Energy Drain as one of your first combat actions lets you save spellslots while applying the channeled power to all the successive spells, but since it costs you a level 9 slot and it requires to pass both a SP and a DC check, make sure you land it where it's going to land and is going to be worth. Namely, don't waste it on level drain immune foes, even if it looks like it's working because you see The Shiny Red Pillar of Awesomeness upon your character. That only means that the enemy failed the save and you're going to appreciate the extra channeled power, but you effectively wasted half the power of the spell. Because the Level Drain Penalities are so strong, you're better cast it on something that is vulnerable to the debuff, because it's going to help your next spells (it'll be a lot easier to land a second or a third drain on the same target, to max your channeled power) and can assist your party members should you focus targets you can't instakill (except draining to death, but it's going to take quite some time) but that are easy prey for them. Examples: Energy Drain the Gelugon so that the cleric can follow with a successful Heartbane, or drain the Abyssal Ant Swarm so that the next druid's Drown is a sure kill. Learn about enemies immunities by examining them when not under pressure and fill the information gaps by reading the Wiki bestiary entries. Once you know them adequately well, you're ready for the next tip: Should I instakill or damagekill?I'm going to tell you a secret: ''Near Death'' enemies deal the same damage, inflict the same vulnerabilities and status effects, move as fast and kill you as quick as ''Uninjured'' ones; if this doesn't ring a bell, keep on reading. The best way of approaching end game runs is making sure the 'fodder' gets cleared quick, because even the least fearsome enemy in level 60+ runs has a way to ruin your day. The lame Imp can get lucky and paralyze you, and the cute Fiendish Boar destroy your shiny armor. If all casters know what to do, the players are soon in control of the battlefield, outnumbering the few nasties left. Should you focus on damage from round 1 instead, in most cases all those wounded enemies are forcing so many saves/checks that your party slowly falls apart. If you are forced to reposition/heal/hide due to that, you're also giving enemies the time to regenerate the damage taken. Especially when low-manning, you want to be sure you're facing as fewer as possible enemy checks so start thinning out the ranks based on their kickback potential (press TAB when in doubt there is a fume creature in mid of the spawn, before spamming damage spells), number of vulnerable targets (prefer to weird 3+ future kills than focus on death magic against the single vulnerable enemy in the spawn) and annoyance (KD, CC monsters first usually). Pratical examples, smart sorc approach to random Pazunia spawns: Step 1. Don't panic. That's a lot of stuff. GV/Reposition if you're caught with your pants down. Step 2. Mentally check your party and leave obvious targets to the ones dealing best against them. If there was a cleric there, I'd skip gust assuming he'd implode it quicker and easier. Step 3. Make room. This means focusing on easy kills (usually the weird-vulnerable fodder, given its high DC) and stuff that could cause pathfinding issues (Abyssal Rocs, Cinderscales and other fat stuff, Aartagiths before they flood the map with summoned zombies). Having room to manouver is crucial should things start go bad. I would have used Antipathy if that didn't ruin the screenshot Step 4. Selective kills of problematic stuff, bonus points if they take a different damage type than the leftovers. So try rebuke the Abyssal Drake before spamming fireballs on the Nalfeshnee/Vrok/Marilith/Chasme combo. Step 5. Finish off what you can't instakill or realistically kill without wasting too many slots: hence better focus on AoE the leftovers, picking the damage working best against the mass. About picking the right damage to clean up... Read the spawn as a wholeIn every end game situation you have to decide what is the best course of action on the fly: priorities depend on party composition, you strength and enemy danger level. Those are volatile variables. In a no danger situation your priority should be the using the spells that are going to speed up the killing of the sturdiest and most problematic enemies; at the same time, doing the best collateral damage to the rest of spawn leads to even quicker runs, and saves up slots. This means that sometime the best damage spell to pick is not the one doing the best damage to your main target. Some examples: In this iconic first Nessus spawn your party is probably going to be pinned down by the two big red guys on the frontline, so you might be tempted to start cast Freezing Spheres until the pit fiends are down, because cold works best. Doing so is actually detrimental to your spellbook and run speed due to the sneaky kocrachon/infestiarch healers who take cold not very well and at the same time heal their buddies. So start shot Thunderclaps to remove that threat and at the same time damage the whole spawn, because sonic is also best type vs Osyluths and Erinye and second best vs Pit Fiend and Imp, where cold nets 0 vs both Erinye and Osy, and heals their paragon versions. While this might look like unnecessary log-whoreing, it guarantees the faster clearing time even on the main threats (PFs), that are going to receive less healing over time. A similar situation where you have to deal with backward healers. It's tempting to spam thunderclaps as well but you have to consider the rest of the spawn. Malebranches are the main threat and are 50% fire/70% sonic immune; secondary threat, the Cornugons who are 50% fire/100% sonic immune; knowing that Kocrachons resist 20% sonic/30% fire and the rest of the spawn doesn't really matter, spamming fireballs from the start is going to be a better alternative: the healers are going to die at around the same time, maybe only 3 seconds/1 cast later, and the other threats are more heavily damaged (at that point, even if the Kocs healed one more time, the Malebs/Cornis health would be lower). Remember that every paragon iteration raises elemental immunities of the target by 10%. The Superior Infestiarch in the previous screenshot resists 70% cold / 40% sonic / 50% fire and would out-heal cold spheres for example. Generally speaking, to be a good damage spammer is not only needed to know what damage enemies take best, but also their second or even third vulnerability. Compare the previous situations with this one of easier reading: here it's better to start focus on cold damage spam from round 1, due to no healers and cold being good against both Cornugons and Pit Fiends. Using sonic is going to do more damage overall, due to Erinyes/Lemures/Hamatula all suffering that to a certain degree, but Cornugons are 100% immune to it and all the damage on fodder is probably going to be wasted should your party members do their job. Right, the party. That's the other variable, and while it's tempting to always assume they are Bad and you have to do all the work, most of the time their actions affect yours. You'll Never Walk AloneCleric and Druids can make short work of most fodder creatures, and then you're free to focus on the big boys left. On the other hand, they are also prone to disables, unlucky deaths or random brain fart. If you trust your druid is going to dispatch quickly those healers, you might as well start taking down the main threats from turn 1, or even better land an Energy Drain on that superior Infestiarch of previous example #1 to make sure it fails the next save vs petrification; this doesn't apply if the druid wants to play safe and uses Dust to Dust epic, or if it's the cleric taking care of draining duty (see, variables). Get a feeling of what your mates are able to do and what they like to do: the druid focusing on elemental swarms right at the start of the combat obviously doesn't know how to play (pretend he doesn't exist or spam him in tells "NB NB NB drown this stone that hey do you know you can defoliate it omg you suck"), but there're other subtle skill hints. Both clerics and druids can use death magic against the advespa, but only the sorc has an AoE version of it; otoh, you can disintegrate kytons one at time or let a drown take down a bunch of them. When both you and the other casters know what you're best at, then focus on your strengths and the spawns will be cleared quicker. There're times everybody focuses on the same target and it's not even a bad stuff: big packs of erinnies or kytons are best left to divine casters, but being nasty disablers there's nothing wrong by combining your forces to make sure you kill them before somebody fails a check (aim your channeled Disintegrate to the paragon versions first). Other times you have to trust your mates and hope the disable doesn't hit, because of more pressuring priorities you can deal with better than them (hey look Dustmen Necromancers in the back, hope the cleric is ok against that sea of Abyssal Zombies... ah derp). When one of your mates dies or is disabled you have to quickly ask yourself: is this spawn going to be cleared quicker if I keep casting, and is it safe to do so, or if I pt2/rez the party members so that they can help? Don't hate me but the answer is always ''depends''. If the death happened very early, and the spawn has the potential to wreak havoc still, it's better to save them. Afterall you lose one round of casting, in which you might have had to cast 2x disintegrate, but a single implosion is going to recover the lost time. Or rez that tank who rolled a 1 but was doing a fine job keeping the big bad boy away from you, instead of be tempted to finish the job but fail victim to the same attack the round later. Unlike other casters you have a good damage output against the non-instakillable stuff so if that's the only thing that's left to deal with, and there's no emergency timer you can be a selfish sob (there's a bard around for the support duty right?). Should everybody around you start fall like dominoes, thanks to no-cooldoww GV you are the one who can save the situation: summon a blade (level 1 or BBoD from scroll/rod) somewhere distant from the players graveyard so that enemies move away and aren't going to insta-gib the freshly rezzed unbuffed tank, before resurrecting people. Low Levels MatterIt's easy to overuse the level 6-9 slots and forget half of your arsenal. Corrosive/Shocking Grasp, Combust, Melf's Acid Arrow, Horzakaul's Boom are full CL (d4 or d4+1, compared to the d6 of higher level ones) damage spells that you should switch to in order to finish spawns, when it looks like it'll be some time before party syncs to rest. Touch spells in particular have no save and, should the target have no concealment, are better than their high level alternatives if the target is alone. Think at them as your Orb spells. Not much use in Hells/Ely due to concealment everywhere (combust on Mammon's Tears deserves an honorable mention), but great against many foes in Abyss/Limbo. When you want to drain a target to death, stop after 3x (if you have a paladin splash) or 2x successful Energy Drain spells, that's all you need to hit the cap to 3 temporary caster levels, and finish the job with (Empowered) Enervation. If all you want is to weaken a nasty foe the party is focusing on (thinking about paragon Alkiliths or Mariliths) normal enervation, should it land the infliction effect, acts as a very well worth force multiplier. Gust of Wind (and by extension, the druid version Desert Sirocco) is a very underused spell, with players using it only as a fume-creatures killer. While that is the main purpose of the spell, don't forget the AoE Knockdown effect with built-in bonus +5 DC. The knockdown lasts quite some rounds and a surprisingly amount of creatures is not immune to that. In the Hells, pretty much everything smaller than a Pit Fiend can be knocked down. Most Abyss humanoids as well, along with all Ekolids (remember to dispel Chitterer's EV) and Molydei. Pratical effects of a couple of casting of this level 3 spell: whole spawns disabled. If you're not kill-hungry this is a great way to open a spawn, and the safest one in 2-3 men small parties. Caster Duels: You SpawnThere's nothing more annoying of having to dispel multiple layer of defences off enemy casters before you can finally dispatch them, time during which they are free to unleash their offensive spells on the party. Once you are familiar with spawning triggers, there're a couple of ways to deal with it: 1. Time Stop It's not a recommended spell because the party is going to hate you. Your level 9 are also precious few, so after level 40-45 you drop it. There're some sources of TS (most notable one, illithid -rechargeable- wands) you can use when solo/lowmanning though, and come handy against casters: by activating it after the enemy spawns but before their autobuffing script kicks in, you effectively fully dispel them (they're not going to cast the buffs once the Time Stop ends). Definitely don't put in practice my example and only use when 2+ casters spawn in some hard to reach spot (Stygia/Malbolge/Elysium/Thanatos) and only if you feel the party is not going to get annoyed by it, and you're actually saving up time. 2. Hit them before they are readyKnowing where enemies usually spawn (read: be a nerd who played this game too much) you can win the initiative and have one spell travelling to the enemy before its defenses are up. This require you to be the one spawning, have a vague idea of what area of the map is marked as a trigger (aka, you walk over it and enemies spawn - the yellow marked area in the example) and cast at ground in the approximate range of the spawning enemies as soon as you activate such trigger (weird target on the blue circle, enemies caught with their pants down in the red one). You have time for ONE attempt before enemies start their pre-buff routine, but mastering this lets you drop bigby9 spell because Rakshasas become less of an issue. Should you not trust much your timing skills or they make their DC check, drop a Starfire to buy yourself time to do the usual mord->weird routine, or activate Death of Magic before people complain 'omg free raks you need Bigby!' You should start practice with this during Legendary Levels and try to land a Sunburst over those pesky Frozen Arcanists before they buff with Spell Mantle. Hell+ runs you can't complete on your own and without much practice you would probably fugue on the first spawn, that's why paying attention at what the other players do when you're playing a different role is helpful; still, you have to wait for such runs to happen or, you could solo Hells at level 60... Solo PracticeYou run in etherealness and examine enemies. I know, it's not the hint you were hoping for, but it is surprisingly useful. Memory works better if you observe stuff in game rather than trying to memorize the wiki before even knowing where enemies spawn. Pick a server close to reset (you don't want to ruin a possible run that's going to happen on the same server) and enter a Hell layer. Do not try to ninja the loot spots, they will be empty. You can get a feeling of spawns strength and monster variety, so in future real runs you already know what spawns where and (for the maps you can't reach) have a fair idea of what are the layer most dangerous inhabitants. Until you're not confident with instakill vulnerabilities, take your time (but remember to refresh GV, or use some GS item) to scroll down the enemy description and see if they lack death magic/fear/drain immunities as well. It comes handy to take stupid build guide screenshots as well...
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Post by Raj on Jun 24, 2017 17:10:13 GMT
The corner for all the questions you were too shy to make (rightfully so, because they're stupid ones):
Is this a damage sorc or an instakill sorc?
Assuming you are referring to the main build, it's both. Not the sort of jack-of-all-trades build that is a polite way to describe builds who suck at everything equally (hello battle bards and rogue splash wizards), but the best arcane caster you can level up alone or offer to a party.
I quickly checked some builds who claimed to be "damage mages" and it's not that they're outdated, they sucked even back then. I saw some of those in action, busy try killing a narzugon with half a dozen of acid orbs or spamming aoe damage for a good minute on spawns that could have been cleared with a single Weird. Woah, nice damage logs. But the run took twice as long.
If you want to boost your e-peen by posting your end-run damage logs like a certain Werecheater (be sure to copy-paste logs 1-2 times per map to religiously follow his steps tho, also works best by editing some variables on your character to deal double damage, only way to drag Bad parties), by all means focus on Evards, Meteors and kill with empowered orbs every single enemy.
The truth is that, playing smart in a party with people of about your same skill level, you're not going for example to score more kills than a druid in Azzagrat or a cleric in Malbolge. It's tempting (for a loser) to give up on the instakill log-whoreing they know they can't win, in order to focus on damage, but it's not that effective; as I said, a near death enemy kills you just as good than a full health one, and all the damage you land on secundary targets (think some Evards or damage clouds on stuff that is going to be imploded in the next two rounds) is 100% useless, not going to make the run smoother nor quicker. It often is even detrimental, by causing unnecessary kickback or making the battlefield more laggy/chaotic.
There're some situations where a Orb spell is going to deal great damage: nuking down a Death Knight or some 0% conceal nasty foe surrounded by healers like Obox-ob, you sure are going to appreciate big numbers. Giving up a school and many different spell choices in order to shine in few fights (hint: for all Hells/Ely playing, where almost everything is high concealed, orbs suck; or you can cast some aoe hitting more than one vulnerable foe) on the other hand makes you sub-par in many common situations where you are better soften up a big spawn first. If you still want to be the king of single target non-instakillable dps, play a two hander.
Focus only on instakill? Sure, go play a palemaster. Then come back to mommy crying you feel useless in 75% of spawns. That's not the truth because a pm has some good tricks up his steeves, but sure it can feel very low impact in many situations, especially if your party sucks and you have to turn the tides of a battle by nuking down some insta-immune big foe or speed up a boss killing.
I offer you the best of both worlds, by covering all relevant instakill spells and have next to perfect damage output in all situations. It is also worth note that by not giving up on a role, be it insta-killer or damager, parties that include you are a lot more flexibile, and it's not necessary to wait for all cores/spots to be filled before approaching a hard run.
I read about these nice quasi classes I want to try them all! Pariahs, Dragonstorm and Bloodfire Mages, Heralds !!! They look so much funnier than plain ole boring sorcerer, so why not them?
Sure play them. It must be incredibly fun to always use the same 5-10 spells on a bfm instead of having to learn how to properly manage a whole spellbook. Or not being able to provide the crucial epic spell that makes a run happen. Also crap in your pants whenever you lack the spell to deal with a particular mob, hoping for the party to have a real caster too.
This is the thing with quasiclasses, often they cannot be the only arcane in the party, there always has to be one of those boring cookie cutter mages. Or play with a 10 men party in Dis. Once core spots are covered, I'd always take some weird hybrid build over tank number #6, and when players are good the cores are more flexible: I ran every hell and abyss layer without a mage in party, sure having a dsm tag along wouldn't have been bad at all. A plain sorcerer on the other hand, could have easily saved 10-30 minutes from each run.
I'm of the opinion that new players should make a generalist mage before deciding if a specialist build/quasi is worth it, and in the end they're going to realize that they get to play the generalist a lot more often, due to party constraints. Save your bfm for when you want to laugh at Viper Trees (hint: chain lightning is great there anyway) or Mammon Tears (they take cold almost as good tho), but also keep note of all the times you are idle because there's nothing in your arsenal useful against that other guy right there...
As a wizard I can have the same spells and more. There're a lot of wizards around, most of them can also cover rogue duty, unlike sorcerers! Sorcerers lack spellbook flexibility isn't it?
Yeah there're a lot of wizards around. And they are all terrible. No joke, I've been here forever and I know who played what in most runs: the end game wizards are very few (Dash, Doom, Dex... wth all D ones) and they're playing sorcerers/something else way more often anyway. I've been playing a wizard through ~3(?) demi iterations, 3 Abyss cycles and ~30 solo Ely/Aboleths as well just so I could be knowledgeable enough when I trash talk them (well, I also had to farm xp on an old sorc-pm-reinc). I could even claim to be best wizard player everrrrr if I gave a damn and stick with it lil more: I prefer to ignore that period of my nerd career. Most of the wizards you see in game never set a foot in Abyss (and if they did, they weren't the only arcane anyway, damn leechers) and reach level 70+ only by farming LL runs.
If you're a proud wizard player and feel offended by this, do yourself a favor and check your spellbook, assume you're going to any Hell layer and let us know what did you memorize and in what quantity. Then we'll compare that with what a standard sorcerer can cast. I'm sure we aren't going to see much variety in spell selection, and about quantity... In Ely and Abo the spell selection would be even more limited, while in the Abyss you're going to yell at your spellbook limitations every few spawns, or just memorize random damage spells and run out of useful stuff to do halfway through a map, when lucky. The randomness in Abyss spawns is so punishing for wizards who rely on memorization (and would rule in less-randomized runs like LL and Hells, but as I said there they lack in quantity and use the same spells of a sorc so...) that I even started to appreciate sorc/pm over wiz/pm, despite the incredibly limited spell variety. Both pm options are terrible compared to real casters tho, let ignore them.
So why so many of them around? Well, INT subraces/gear/artifacts are damn cheaper than CHA ones. There's also this widespread opinion that by splashing rogue on a wizard you suddendly become incredibly useful, while a sorcerer's pixie can spot all LL search checks (not that people making wizard even know what a LL search check is useful for, or know where to look) and you can safely skip all Hells secrets up to Nessus, where you better bring a real rogue if you don't want to waste 15+ minutes of run time with re-gearing, re-selecting spells, rolling a 20 on the check and probably missing all search triggers over teleports in the Malsheem Maze. Heck the only place you really want to have some picker and asmo-ing a rogue is not possible would be those Abyss pt3 runs that you never see happening if there's just a weak splashed wizard as main arcane.
It doesn't matter if people sell you cheap spelljammer, negatai or genie, they are worth next to nothing in the end game economy because what they help you make are just trap builds, so make a lower subrace tier sorc and come back thank me when you'll be the one carrying runs.
Where is Epic Ruin? It destroys everything! It's a great spell! Why don't you recommend it?
Epic Ruin is crap and you should feel bad. Let read the description together (because you obviously didn't when you decided to pick this spell):
Greater Ruin - Does 70d6 damage to the target. - Receives an extra use per day at 50 base Spellcraft. - When cast using the feat, the target must make a Fortitude save against a DC of (CL + 5) or be reduced to quivering jelly. - To be immune to this effect, the target must be immune to mind spells, death magic, the Implosion spell, and be immune to critical hits or have a Parry skill of 100 or higher.
1) 70d6 positive: that's not relevant past East Road bandits. 2) ONE extra use at 50 spellcraft. So you're using one of your precious feats for something you can do once/rest, or twice if you also waste 50 points so 2 more INT or less craft armor or parry. 3) 64-65 DC. The Yuan-Ti version has a DC of 10 (base) + 27 (chamod) + 8 (foci) +6 (spell level) = 51, 54 channeling on a disintegrate at level 60. If you look at that, sure DC is great. Way to go, use your Epic Ruins to steal kills from the imploder. Now let look at a double demi paragon radiance with artifact and ego, DCs are the following: 64 on Disintegrate/Circle of Death, 67 on Energy Drain, 74 on Weird. On normal spells. Remember, you have many spells.
4) and now, where people Epic (Ruin) Fails happen. The list of things immune to it is simply huge. It pretty much covers everything that matters. I see you nub mages spying this thread, so please stop trying to Ruin Bueroza or Orthon Fists. Heck you can't even kill a paragon Rakhugon, Cornugon or Gelugon with it. Usually if you or your party can't kill with any of you other spells, it's not like ruin opens up that many new strategies. By all pratical purposes, this is not Eradicate, it's just a glorified weird/disint/cod/heartbane all in one, and you already cover 75% of the list with your other slots, of which you have multiple uses. If you or the cleric can't kill it with your normal spells, then greater ruin won't work. ONE exception, Aboleths (Abyssal ones as well, but those are dead in ~5 freezing spheres anyway). Normal ones obviously, because Savants are immune. Now at the cost of one feat you can attempt instakill 2 of them per rest, when a shifter can kill one (usually 2-3 with ok positioning) with two Gas Burps, about 80 times per rest. I hope you can realize by now how much of a waste this feat is.
If not, know that Epic Ruin is very similar to the command "/s I AM A NOOB AND DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO CAST AT THIS MONSTER". Try quickslot the latter, usually people help you and works better in the long run.
On a serious note, the Epic Ruin had some merits before Paragon Levels and Heartbane spell introduction, with lower DCs for casters, a bunch of stuff clerics couldn't easily kills, and especially when you weren't sacrificing a feat that could have been worth a Paragon Spell Focus or Spell Knowledge (casters were usually stopping at Epic with Evocation).
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Post by axis16666 on Jun 28, 2017 21:15:38 GMT
Superb post Raj. Great layout, well written, informative as hell, with a nice dose of humor/sarcasm. Well done indeed (as usual).
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Post by LordKas on Jul 3, 2017 22:13:33 GMT
Finally i'll have something to read to improve my Sorc's Lore <3
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Post by simpetar on Jul 4, 2017 11:57:52 GMT
reserved, probably some stupid joke Come ooooon, this is the part I was looking forward to the most!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2017 1:01:07 GMT
There're some merits about dropping 2 Great CHA feats (heresy! I know) for Metamagic: Silent Spells and Extra Spells: VI. More on that later. are u serious This doesn't sound like the raj I know..!
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Post by Raj on Jul 6, 2017 9:10:02 GMT
There're some merits about dropping 2 Great CHA feats (heresy! I know) for Metamagic: Silent Spells and Extra Spells: VI. More on that later. are u serious This doesn't sound like the raj I know..! Come back and play instead of just lurking this forum so we get to know each other a lil more 8===D In fact, it's not that great of a suggestion so I forgot to say something "more on that later", but it would work on the rakshasa (or cambion) build for promising players who are going to upgrade to radiance in less-than-an-eternity, aka people who already play some core in deep hells/abyss and want to start a sorceror but don't own RG or good tradebaits yet. The flexibility provided by an additional metamagic is necessary and better get the feeling of how to best use your spellbook before making the final build. If I had to make (another) rak sorceror I would probably drop PSF:Ill only and get just silent spells, also scaling back all feats. Since I didn't really want to make this collection of builds even more complicated with alternate level-ups, I'm not going to delve too much into details, but it's not a bad option for new players. reserved, probably some stupid joke Come ooooon, this is the part I was looking forward to the most! Updated. I might be finally done with this. Time to wait for a wiz vs sorc thread bait.
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Post by desocupado on Jul 6, 2017 14:01:19 GMT
I offer you the best of both worlds, by covering all relevant instakill spells and have next to perfect damage output in all situations. It is also worth note that by not giving up on a role, be it insta-killer or damager, parties that include you are a lot more flexibile, and it's not necessary to wait for all cores/spots to be filled before approaching a hard run. Enchantment school rules! I'd like to add that the epic is still quite on aboleths - my summon did some weight lifting there due good damage types (fire pos div). Phanes take antyphaty + flensing too, no? They deserve it.
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Post by Raj on Jul 6, 2017 15:41:50 GMT
I offer you the best of both worlds, by covering all relevant instakill spells and have next to perfect damage output in all situations. It is also worth note that by not giving up on a role, be it insta-killer or damager, parties that include you are a lot more flexibile, and it's not necessary to wait for all cores/spots to be filled before approaching a hard run. Enchantment school rules! I'd like to add that the epic is still quite on aboleths - my summon did some weight lifting there due good damage types (fire pos div). Eh, no, the Balor sucks. Same with all summons when you use them offensively honestly, bar Illusory Army. It was ok pre-summon nerf obviously but now the dmg output is very low. If you were doing comparable damage to tanks with the Balor, it means that those tanks were terrible 11d6 fire, 10d6 pos, 10d6 div; Abos are 100% immune to Divine and have 70% +15/ positive, so 0 damage from that as well. You can't even summon it and buff with a flame weapon due to underwater environment and no epics in the ppd. Phanes auto-restore flensing each round, not sure about your point there though. They're the only outsiders there so you specifically have to target antipathy at them, if you cast it on a koa-toa, only other thralls will be turned for example. About Ench spells, you can Rebuke some thralls and the gibbering mouthers, but Weird is plain superior there. I recommend Ench for Abyss/Limbo specialists (and I never use the summon, if not to kill some paragon archer on p1 limbo cliffs, when I want to save spells or just be funny) but in Abo it makes no sense and for a generalist it's inferior to the canonical schools by a wide margin. tl;dr Enchantment school rules! but Deso sorc does not :/
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Post by Raj on Jul 6, 2017 16:47:18 GMT
I think I'm done. Just a couple hundreds typos to fix but if nobody minds they'll stay there.
If you do have any walkthrough request (such as, 'what do I do in xxx map/run?') for the standard build I can share even more detailed infos, anyway you must have gone there at least once with an arcane to have a clue of what I'm talking about and share what you tried to do/what caused you more issues/what caused the the party wipe, if it wasn't Dets; that way I can just fill the gaps w/o writing another poem.
For the more specialized builds, first play the standard sorc in the relevant areas anyway.
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Post by desocupado on Jul 6, 2017 18:14:09 GMT
It's funny how both summons and Reverse gravity were nerfed (both of those were key on my build) but Karsus remains.
That being said - Do you remember any LL+ boss other than Toyshop's one that take a sorcerer disable/instant kill? (that boss takes level drain)
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