Well all i can say is that Sorcerer will be more tanky than my Warlock, this character is really squishy and i play him on HC, i havent died on him yet and he is fun to play. You have to be realy careful tho. What i would definitely avoid fighting will be the “SECRET Boss” of this game and Iron Maiden, they will most likely kill you for sure. And if i would remake this Character i would definitely start it as a Sorcerer, because the general idea behind the Warlock didnt work which was double Conversion.
If this is less durable than Sorcerer, then I really don’t see how you do it. There is an extreme likelihood I get killed against any boss mob if I made a single mistake. I don’t make huge mistakes very often, but anyone is going to make minor mistakes here and there, and certainly against some of the tougher bosses, minor mistakes WILL get you killed sometimes. Its unavoidable.
The inherent problem with Aether Ray in boss fights, is you’re forced to kite mostly, which means you can’t even use all your DPS potential. A considerably less geared melee build who can sit in one spot long enough to deliver a beat down effectively has 3-5x faster killing speed in these boss fights because they’re able to use 100% of their DPS potential when it matters the most.
And that’s a balancing issue with the game IMO. Mages or builds that are forced to kite need to have the ability to do more damage to make up for their shortcomings on the defensive end. Some other ARPGs managed to get that balance right, Grim Dawn didn’t. TQ had the same problem with how kiting/caster builds were simply outperformed by melee. In PoE the opposite is true, melee has it way tougher. Too many mobs are overtuned and can kill melee easily that aren’t nearly as threatening to ranged builds with a little bit of kiting.
I t-bagged the iron maiden on my 2H warder, whos using mostly faction vendor gear. Tell me that’s balanced?
And still…people already want Time Dilation to be nerfed into the ground even though you can make it work only for 4 niche builds and even then it needs god gear (which 80% of the player base won’t even have) to operate just as good as a Blademaster - who btw, has the same damage output everywhere, anytime, not just for 8 seconds.
I think it’s not fair to say every mage when talking about the worst mage skill in the game, aether ray. Other mage usually have an higher clearing speed for packs of monsters.
While I agree that aether ray is bad because it’s a single target skill that need a lot of investment for a single target damage skill, I think it’s a question of mages vs melee in terms of clearing speed that you have there.
The question is, should melee and mages kills as fast for AOE and single target damage? That’s almost impossible the balance right and frankly I like the fact that some build are a bit better for AOE and some are better for single target. Some of them are even good at about everything. Really, it’s a matter of skill mechanics and balance.
Problem is MrTek that new players operate around the nebulous term of the “meta”. And this “meta” tells them not to bother with trash mobs because the only thing that matters in GD is how fast they can kill the nemeses or guys like Alkamos, Shar’Zul, the Mad Queen, etc.
Unfortunately, this is not 100% a myth because even on Ultimate, legendary drop rates for white mobs is usually around 1/50.000. Because only a handful of players do it the hard way - i.e. completely self-found - they don’t care about the fact that medals such as BoM cost chipped claws and Sigil of Bindings. They learn from the “veterans” that they should just make a BM (or anything that has nightblade in it in order to capitalize on +% damage to humans), farm Fabius ad nauseam and then trade…sadly that was actually right !
I kill everything self found currently.
I mean, if people think that white mobs really isn’t worth it then maybe the problem is more a problem of legendary on white/heroes mobs than the clearing speed of mages vs melees (dualwield/2H)
I can’t tell for sure which one is faster for gearing up, all I know is some rare (MI) items drop off monsters so it does worth it in the end. But most build here use a lot of legendary items… and kill only heroes/boss/nemesis
Yeah, so do I, but I am not sure if this practice is the best way to do it, nor do I believe that increasing the legendary drop rates of white mobs will make those ppl who complain that casters suck very happy.
There is definitely some balance for melee vs caster here for sure. Usually there is a lot more trade off for being the tanky melee character in terms of doing less DPS…but that doesn’t appear to be the case here, at least not for most mobs… There some mobs that casters excel at vs melee (ie mad queen) but when that happens, all the melee players complain… Caster definitely require a lot more skill to run as you can’t mindless run mob to mob and facetank everything. Casters do clear away trash mobs and heroes much faster then nemesis and end bosses… But most of the big loot is not on the trash…
This issue with AAR is not that you’re forced to kite, it is your forced to channel it. So if you want throw out your other DPS skills, you have to break the beam. However, as it is also really hard to facetank with most AAR builds (nothing to do with AAR itself, just the general squishiness of casters), you just need to make sure you build in other sources of DPS for kiting. Deviation is a great skill for this as the large AOE will hit the mobster as it follows you. Thermite mines (adding meteor shower helps for another large aoe) is also a good skill. They are a pain to deploy but if your kiting things, typically they run through them. But the biggest thing is getting gear that will proc off those skills… Outcast’s Secret, aethereach and warpfire are just a few that work well. This allows you to keep up your DPS while waiting for pots and mirror to complete their CD.
Depends on which skill people complain and if they actually gear/make the build the right way. I mean people shouldn’t complain about killing packs of monsters faster 
Yet aether ray need something that would give it some aoe damage, not as much as the Panetti’s Replicating Missile though.
That guy actually followed ad litteram a very popular build guide posted on this forum. Furthermore, I’ve seen his videos and he had BiS gear.… that can only make me conclude that AAR is indeed very weak (I also have a solution for this skill and will post it in the Ideas & Feedback section). For now, however, AAR is one of the worst single target damage skills in the entire game - both in terms of how it destroys your mobility AND in terms of damage/mana consumtion.
Picking the right skills definitely helps! I hear that a lot that AAR needs help with AEO, but it has a lot of support with AOE…it just comes in a less direct form… Disintegration does not add an overall huge boost to the DPS of AAR at least not end game with other + damage boosts, so getting that to the ultimate level isn’t as critical. AAR to ultimate helps… But as it is only one skill (compared to things like fire strike/primal strike) that you have to max. So as you don’t have to spend 40 points to get AAR working, AAR’s AEO capabilities comes from you being able to spend those skill points on thing like OFF and devastation. That is where a AAR build should be looking for its AOE damage. AAR is a MASSIVE single target DPS skill…the skill itself doesn’t need AOE without a large drop in DPS, but then it becomes worthless… If the DPS stays and it gets AOE, then you’d be hearing complaints about it being OP…
Depends how much AOE.
I suppose… What would be a good AOE for AAR? Maybe if the beam just pierced through targets, it would go a long way to helping… Especially as without a warpfire, to turn OFF into a crazy AOE clearing skilling the AOE of an AAR build is more limited. Tough to build in Cold with fire and aether… Having to depend on one item to make a build work isn’t the greatest design… with the warpfire I don’t typically even need to use the beam except to pick off a stray mob or two after OFF and devastation (along with other gear procs) clear the screen…
I would change the skill for a mid range beam that pierce. Start wider near you and finish it sharp/pointed. And the animation should use both hands too imo. 
Just started this thread : http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?p=407063#post407063
AAR + devastation works fine for clearing large groups of trash mobs. That’s not the issue here. The issue is I’m not able to capitalize on a good portion of my DPS in a lot of boss fights because I’m forced to kite around. I know there are better boss killing casters than AAR builds. But they probably abuse TD. Pet builds are considerably better, but its a stretch calling them casters though.
This setup struggles vs a lot of boss fights, and it most definitely is NOT HC viable. I made a decent effort at a AAR build, and its mediocre at best. Bosses like mad queen take several minutes of kiting to take down. Like 5+ minutes. Every time I’ve tried to speed things up she heals, or I get instagibbed. Nemesis mobs like Fabius or the Iron Maiden? Not a chance in hell. Benn Jahr? Moose? Maybe, but they’d essentially be a repeat of the Mad Queen fight, just longer. I ran into Moose. Killed his first form which took forever, then ended up abandoning the fight due to boredom.
The stats posted are with all buffs, including Maiven’s Sphere & Aether + Chaos ward. Not including badge of mastery. With badge of mastery + the -250 DA debuff, and another proc that gives -80, I’m approaching close to 3000 DA on mobs. The DPS listed is for AAR. Devastation is around 28Kish.
Grimcalc:
most of the time i melt bosses in a couple of seconds you just cast devastation and if they are on you u press mirror and most of the time they are dead at this point
the point of the build was that i just wanted to enjoy a AAR build and made it even in HC i know that AAR sucks but i still wanted to enjoy it and this build does insane dmg in a 4 man party Game so i enjoy it alot.
yea i think so too the aoe you need comes from Devastation and Devotion Procs + Agrivix Malice. The only Problem is see is you have to channel and the time it takes to be able to move again.
100% chance to pierce would make the skill way too strong
Which bosses are you melting down in a couple of seconds?