Need help on Sorcerer Build

mambo12 · February 21, 2019, 9:38am

malawiglenn:

Do thermite mines deal lots of damage? not that much

Mortar traps require you to be kinda tank though, otherwise they will miss.

Look, use whatever you can deal lot of damage with in safe way. And focus on one element. Do not go with lightning and physical, or lightning and fire. Just choose one. Then get resistance reduction and +%dmg to that type.

If you chose lightning, you can go stun jacks and transmuted grenado for instance.
Like this
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RZRaaerV
the actual points spent in each skill depends on how much +skill you can get.
I just wanted to show you one way of focusing damage and how to use arcanist to survive.

Devotions you go up to Hourglass and spear of heavens. The proc on hourglass can make you cast Mirror of erectoes two times in a row if needed.

Stun jacks are pretty easy to find gear that supports it, like faction gear and MI’s
Greando has a MI medal that has pierce > lightning conversion. You can shop those at the secret vendor in blood groove.

tks for the clarification. don’t think mortar is my kind of play style. and i think i’ll just go along the fire route as i’ve already got the gear now and if i choose to branch out, i’ll have to find gear from scratch.

mambo12 · February 21, 2019, 9:41am

idontwannaknow0:

11 is when speed stops scaling each level. After that you only get +10% damage per point and more speed every 2-3 levels, it’s not as worthwhile and at your level there bigger gains to get elsewhere first.

However you like. Unless you want the physical damage debuff wait until mastery lvl 40 to take bwc.

It comes with experience. Generally +%damage eventually yields small gains to damage because characters can reach +2000% to damage types, an extra +10% on top of that is very small boost. During levelling +10% to fire damage is more meaningful but still quite small. Resist reduction on the other hand is a very powerful multiplier in this game because the multiplier is separated from +%damage (e.g x21 fire damage From +2000% fire damage is doubled if you reduce monster res to -100%). Having low resist reduction means your damage is penalised vs monster with fire res (which is common on story boss).

learning lots, tks!

i have been always obsessed with +% damage and didn’t realize that it is not the most efficient thing to do now that i already have alot of it and shld focus on resist reduction. So if that’s the case, why not flashbang?

mambo12 · February 21, 2019, 9:43am

wow i didn’t know that there are fixed levels where skills are more effective. so i shld pull points out of blast shield for now, until i can hit level 10?

mambo12 · February 21, 2019, 9:50am

malawiglenn:

You could also do something like this with the basic build from my guide https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2GDDeXV
(just note how I set up the skills and devos)

it is kinda opposite of what I did above with the lightning caster version. Here we pickup the defensive and offensive aid-skills from demo and use the arcanist skill callidor tempest for main dmg output. Dmg focus will be aether once we get dmg conversion items.

here is the guide http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80822

read the guide on how to get and what to get.

What will be tricky to get with sorcererr is OA, you can reduce targets DA with flashbang but that is just one more skill to cast.

Here is (an old patch) decked build by mad_lee that uses the same concept http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63779

tks for the suggestion. however to go into aether now means i got to get a whole set of gear isn’t it? think i wld rather continue along the line of fire.

hammyhamster1:

I’m going to assume that your are about to go into or are in elite atm.

My direction would be this another current build opinion

The main points:

components to bring resistances ~ soft max. Some is from your Runic Bracers which do have a limited duration of protection…but you can find better resistance gear as you go.

gameplay:
-flashbang for crowd control and possible application of eldritch fire
-calidor tempest for a burn Dot and application of elemental storm
-mortar trap to proc fissure
-main attack is Fireblast which procs flame torrent.
-devastation for more fire damage on single targets (bosses). This is the skill you could pull points from if you want to tweak other skills.
-maybe mines and OFF(see below)

The idea is to stack some burn and Resist Reduction and then pew-pew with fireblast on top. Increasing resist reduction is a method of increasing damage, much like increasing %fire/burn.

Note that I only put a point in Thermite mines because you may or may not like how they work; if you like them, then add more points for more RR (pull points from devastation). I put a point into OFF because of the RR; OFF will not work on the bosses eventually, but might help general CC …get rid of the point if you find it to be generally ineffective.

Keep in mind that skills and devotions can be moved around as you progress (through special NPCs). But it’s not free - minimizing this will keep the costs down. I mention this because you may have some other path in mind for later - so skills/devotions can be changed at a later point.

Also aether: I don’t expect you’ll get great value out of the aether damage as it is small relative to the fire/burn…but it is just part of some skills.

If you feel too fragile with this low blast shield, then pull some points from devastation and put them there. That is something you’ll need to tweak for your playstyle. Don’t forget you also have Mirror of Ereoctes.

what does “proc fissure” mean?

and why did you not choose BWC if RR is our objective? wldn’t that be easier to deploy than mortar or thermite?
and why mental alacity?
the other thing i don’t understand is why so much more points on inferno than CT?

malawiglenn · February 21, 2019, 9:58am

Most of the gear for Aether are from faction shops… so I still think you will have an easier time making a decent aether sorc build

Fissure is a devotion skill from the “magi” constellation

You need as much resistance reduction as possible, and you can get flat rr from Rhowans crown so the last bwc modifier is not needed unless you for some reason dont wanna do for that devotion.

Mental Alacrity is good for skill cost reduction and casting speed.

I have no idea why he went with maxing inferno before the main CT skill.

hammyhamster1 · February 21, 2019, 3:59pm

I have no idea why he went with maxing inferno before the main CT skill.

For me there are 3 reasons to use a component attack skill:

primary attack because it’s better than options or saves skill points or simply you want to use it
support another primary attack via dots mostly
activate(or proc) a devotion or other proc

So at your level, skill points are restricted, equipment is limited, and it makes no sense to alternate between fireblast and CT, as they do mostly the same thing at this point.

It’s cheaper on points to maximize the burn of CT and then spam fireblast for the main. I might have recommended the transmuter on CT, but with ~5m radius you may find it better to spam it around the room a bit to start some dots on everything, rather than waiting 5s for each group. (transmuter is better for more damage on single targets such as bosses, though)

And I assume you would probably migrate to potentially better component attacks such as seal of destruction’s Stormfire or the Conflagration Relic’s channeling skill.

So the concept is to put lots of burn on stuff -from a few different sources. Then let that do much of the extra work while you use fireblast. A dot lasts for a number of seconds, but each not-dot is only applied based on cast or attack speed. Both fireblast and CT don’t do amazing amounts of non-dot fire and it doesn’t make sense to alternate between them for the non-dot damage.

You did indicate you wanted to use fireblast…

malawiglenn · February 21, 2019, 4:02pm

Ok, Inferno is maxed since (greater) fireblast is to be used as the primary spam spell.

mambo12 · March 1, 2019, 4:26am

one other question, what types of equipment shld i be looking out for? i know for sure +fire and burn damage. how abt +aether? is that necessary?

malawiglenn · March 1, 2019, 4:57am

It depends on what route you wanna take.

You definitely want to make sure your defenses are top notch first either way.

mambo12 · March 4, 2019, 2:58am

idontwannaknow0:

I suggest something like this: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YZe77Lp2

Overmax reckless power is less useful early game because the attack/cast speed stops scaling up each point and you only get the minor damage boost (which itself isn’t much considering high +% fire damage). Most skills are most efficient in the early levels (except some like blast shield) so it makes sense to get the efficient bonuses first.

Thermite mines is mostly only for bosses and high health hero/big monsters. They are annoying but you are free to use them as much as you want. BWC comes with flat resist reduction and is a duration skill, you use it every 5 seconds, the resist reduction does not stack with elemental storm but it saves devotions points for use elsewhere. BWC also gives the 18% reduced physical damage debuff and an OA reduction debuff, both are very nice. You can still use CT and/or fireball alongside bwc.

ulzuin torch is very nice. As explained above flat reduced res reduction does not stack so points from crown can go elsewhere if you use bwc agonising flame.

i went for something like what you suggested. Now for every new point i get, i’m still stuck wondering where i shld put into? Put into thermite, devastation, CT, vindictive flame, agonizing flames,bwc?

The main issue i have is, i’ve absolutely no idea how to compare the benefits of one skill over another at this point? how does -resist (thermite or AF or BWC) compare with adding more damage (Devastation, CT)?

And even among -resist skills, which gives the most value for each point now? BWC, AF, VF, OFF?? how do i even get some idea??

totally lost… :undecided:

malawiglenn · March 4, 2019, 3:21am

Thermite mines have an awkward hit function so I would just go for devastation as primiary source of damage.

You can see the damage numbers in GrimTools so you can figure out what the most damage gain per point is

mambo12 · March 4, 2019, 9:03am

yeah i know i can see damage, but you can’t tell how -resist effectively works on enemies. So when shld you prioritize +damage and when -resist?

malawiglenn · March 4, 2019, 9:13am

+% damage will always work. Resistance reduction is more imporant for monsters with high resistances on that particular element. What is good about thermite mines is that they scale bad so you only need a few points into them. What sucks about thermites is that they are awkward to aim.