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Starting Off/Leveling:
Dark Magic is key for damage, the higher it is the more you crit, and the more damage you take. Certain abilities give you a specific amount of dark magic but you can just use
Surging Pain and get 20 while running around, you don't have to attack anything. I always start out with max Dark Magic to kill shit fast. First off you gotta learn to not kill yourself, easy enough to do once you get the hang of things but just dump dark magic using
Dhar Wind if you think that your going to die while killing mobs. Dhar Wind is useless for anything besides dumping dark magic, it has very shitty damage.
To level you have two choices, the AE spec line (destruction), and the DOT spec line (Calamity). It seems counterintuitive but the dd line (agony) slows you down a lot. Destruction is best if you know your going to group a lot with a healer, you can kill ten mobs at a time easily if needed. Destruction and Calamity spec both have their benefits but if you want to play it safer go Calamity. If you don't mind the danger aspect of pulling multiple mobs solo, and if you quick/good enough Destruction is faster.
As Calamity, once you get
Hand of Ruin (9 mastery) you can nuke mobs down very quickly. Pulling a group of mobs with
Gloom of Night (5 mastery), and following up with Hand of Ruin etc is fine, or pulling single mobs with
Chillwind (career) which does a great deal of damage as the Calamity spec.
In the Destruction line,
Disastrous Cascade (9 mastery) does a lot of damage very quickly, but drains a lot of AP. You can tweak around with various combinations of
Pit of Shades (Career),
Shadow Knives (13 mastery), and Disastrous Cascade. Generally whatever you do, ending with Disastrous Cascade is the best (when they are around half life). I generally just pull with a quick spell, cast Pit of Shades on myself, then follow with Disastrous Cascade to kill them.
Alright thats the end of the newbie tutorial, Sorc's are easy enough to figure out.
End Game Talenting:
All three lines have their benifits, and as a Sorc you will probably respec a lot. There are a lot of various spells that can be used and I wont get into them all. Things like Gloomburst, Obsessive Focus etc should be used at will.
First, Destruction: The Destruction line is great for defending keep lords, the best by far. A couple sorc's can hold off an entire army atm because AE is very overpowered when spec'ed into it. Your AE's will do in between 750 and 1100 damage per person depending on your gear/what spell you use. Pit Of Shades is generally your go to spell. Destruction is also amazing when your grouped with a Magus. If your lucky to have one a couple Sorc's with the Magus pull ability will wreak larger numbers of enemies. Without either of the mentioned about the Destruction line is pretty weak compared to the other two.
Second, Calamity: Calamity is an all around good spec. You can deal out massive damage over time, topping 250k in scenarios if your quick enough. Tab dotting everyone in range with Chillwind, using Gloom of Night on bunches, and
Absorb Vital (13 mastery), and killing people with Hand of Ruin which will tick for around 1050 to 1250 on soft targets. Absorb Vital doesn't do a lot of damage but I keep it up all the time to get the minor health ticks. As Calamity spec you will take a shit ton of backlash damage from tab dotting everyone. In order to kill people quickly as this spec it requires a set up. Hand of Ruin will do a lot of damage quickly, but won't be enough to kill anyone because it hits tanks for dick (as most spells do), and casters like to run away and the spell stops working after they get out of range. Anyway, starting off with Chillwind, add Absorb Vital if you wish, then add 3 stacks of
Word Of Pain (Career). This can be skipped as it will cause a good deal of backlash, but once 3 charges expire from someone they will take around 1k dmg. If you do all of that then hit Hand of Ruin, most non-tank types will drop pretty quick. If you don't use Word of Pain (I don't always) they can possibly get away but you don't kill yourself in the meantime. Overall, Calamity sucks more than the others without a healer (although playing as a Sorc without a healer sucks in general). It's not good in keep sieges, and in open battle without some sort of backup its not very good either. A Couple Sorc's as the same spec could just dish out more damage to a group than healers can heal (I've seen it happen), it can cause healers to get behind and have an entire team at half life. It's fun, but not dependable.
Third, Agony: Agony spec in PvP is taking the argument of effective dps to an extreme. You won't normally top the dps meters but the burst potential to kill someone is by far the best in this spec. I start off with Doombolt, following it up with
Gloomburst (Career),
Impending Doom (9 mastery), then Hand of Ruin (Yeah thats right, Hand of Ruin). I found the best thing to do is to cross spec to get the most burst damage. Some argue that
Shades of Death (13 Agony) is better than Impending Doom, but I disagree. Overall its similar damage but Impending Doom happens instantly. You can't have both until you get renown rank 40. Until I get 2 more renown levels, this will be
my spec. Anyhow, using this spec effectively can push out 4k damage in less than two seconds, but be ware because it also has the potential of dealing upwards of 2250 damage to yourself in the same time frame. I end 15 min scenarios usually with around 125-150k damage (as opposed to 250k from Calamity), but also end with roughly 25 killing blows and of those killing blows nearly all of the damage to those players are from me alone.
Tactics:
1.)
Endless Knowledge: This + intel tactic is a must use for anything, never leave it out. Everyone wants more damage.
2.)
Umbral Fury: Hitting your target 75% of the time for an extra 125 ish damage is great, and it applies to your entire group. I always use this.
3.)
Infernal Gift: I use this talent about half the time depending on my group makeup. If more than one Sorc is in the group you can have one do Umbral Fury and one do Infernal Gift freeing up an extra tactic slot, although the one doing Infernal Gift won't get that buff (group only not self).
4.)
Devour Energy: If you don't use this you will always run out of AP quickly and have to use
Reckless Gathering (Career) every 30 seconds. If you use the tactic, you will need to use Reckless Gathering much less. It's an arguement between using a tactic slot and taking 3 seconds every 30 seconds to regen AP, personal choice but I use it more often than not in PvP.
5.)
Sleight of Hand: Always use it in PvE, less aggro is good. Nuff said.
6.)
Close Quarters: I always use this for PvE. In PvP is rarely usefull because well, Sorc's die quickly if they get to close. If your Magus grouping use it... If your within the keep lords room use it, otherwise don't.
7.)
Glorious Carnage: This is a personal choice, I use moral 1 or 2 95% of the time so I generally don't use this talent. If you want to use rank 3 or 4 a lot its a must.
8.)
Mastery, Swell of Gloom: If speced Agony, I always use this for more burst damage.
9.)
Mastery, Chilling Gusts: If specced Calamity I generally use it, the extra damage its very nice, and it applies to tick's not just the initial cast.
Morale Abilities:
1.)
Mage Bolt: Static 1200 damage, great for finishing off.
2.)
Dire Blast: Low initial damage, dot added. More overall damage than Mage Bolt. If your using Calamity this is useful to cast after Chilldwind while your setting up a kill, otherwise not to great.
3.)
Focused Mind: I use this a lot, just the 50% faster casting times can inflict a ton of damage when using Doombolt on a person.
4.)
Wind-Woven shell: This comes in handy, but I prefer more damage in PvP so I use the above.
5.)
Scintillating Energy: The stun doesn't work atm, but I still equip it. The only other rank 3 morale is
Darkstar Cloak, and I don't find it to be of any use. You don't regen AP when thats used so its a wash.
6.)
Unleash the Winds: This is the only non-talented rank 4 moral. I rarely use rank 4 at all because the lower ranks are much better overall. Also, talenting into the other rank 4 morale's just use of a mastery point you could use elsewere.
[WAR] Sorcerer
Moon Lander Champion!
Do NOT try this if the mob can stun and interrupt your PoS. You'll look like a fool with 4 mobs beating on you while stunned.
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