The Author
Just a quick introduction, I play as the Sorceror Kablam on Loki and have
pretty decent experience with the class in PvE/Baphoment raids as well as
generally killing things and people (PvP). I've once in one day gone through
every sorc build imaginable just to see what works best for this versatile
class. I'm not saying I'm the best, but I have gotten around to learning about
sorcs. So as there is no guide on the forums yet, I'd like to share most (but
not all) of my knowledge.
The Sorcerer
The sorceror is one of the most versatile classes to play, in such a way that
your skill build varies to your playing style as well as what you'd like to
bring forward in parties and raids.
Sorcs are one of the only two classes in the game people depend on for healing
(the other obviously being the priest). What makes a sorceror's heals different
from a priests is that it focuses more on Area of Effect and Heals over Time.
Sorcerors also provide other types of support in the forms of defense buffs,
ressurecting other players, targeted heals (not as good as priests of course).
And of course hailing from the mage class, sorcerors also pack their own arsenal
of spells to whittle down the enemy via combinations of spells, instant cast or
double damage procs.
The Spellbook
The sorceror has 4 tress that can be followed namely: (1) Water, (2) Fire, (3)
Wind/Lightning, and (4) Earth. How you go about the skills depends on your
heart. Captain Planet pun aside, I'll be giving some insight on all of the
skills and suggestions to skill levels in this section.
Water:
Cold Bolt ●●●●●
Second fastest/strongest of the three bolts; it has a 40% slow debuf which is
the same across all the levels. This is the bread and butter skill for all
Ice-Lightning sorc builds because it triggers Wind Arms. Unless you're a full
support Sorcerer, this skill should be at level 5.
Frost Driver ●●●●●
Your first disable. Freezes your target for 2/4/6 seconds and during that time
all Lightning spells do double damage. ALL. Including your party's. The only
thing bad about it: diminishing returns. Your next frost lasts half duration,
and the third frost will miss. The diminishing returns is counted by the
monster so if another mage freezes it it will be counted towards the 2 freeze
rule.
This is your key to burst damaging anything that can be frozen, Frost Driver
into Varetyr Spear and Jupitel Thunder usually does a ridiculous amount of
damage. Great for taking out small adds, and absolutely necessary for disarming
the Devil Bomb in Baphomet's Garden (Hard).
Water Arms ●●●●●
You don't take this skill for the HP/SP regeneration. Your heal skills and mana
potions take care of that. You don't take this skill to be your main Arms
either. This skill is strictly for swapping into when you know you're about to
get hurt. 10% damage reduction may very well save your life when you find
yourself dead center of a boss' AoE. Only take this skill if you have the extra
points for it (for whatever reason). Swapping between arms can be a bit tedious
and is no way standard for any sorc, but if it keeps you from dying and you've
got the points for it, why not.
Summon Aqua ●●●●●
This is your automatic mobile Cold Bolt turret. Summons a water elemental that
is immune to everything and doesn't go away until his time is up. It's pretty
much an extension of the sorcerer as its damage is based on your stats; and not
to mention it can even do critical hits. It will unleash 15 cold bolts over 30
seconds (one every two seconds) at whatever you targeted when casting this. He
doesn't stop, he doesn't die, he doesn't need you to do anything, he'll chase
your target down. And when the target is dead, he'll move on the the next
closest one. Amazing skill for long term burst damage.
Healing Wave ●●○○○
Your basic point and click heal spell. Considerably Much weaker than
the Priest's Heal. Only for full support. I personally do not advocate sorcerer
doing point and click heals, since they do damage much better, and really, AoE
heals from Deluge and Land of Recovery is what is expected. But if you want to
go for a full support sorc, it's definitely possible.
For Hybrid builds, if you find yourself needing to choose between Healing Wave
and Earth Arms. Just get Earth Arms. Since the 10% affects all of your heals.
That and the difference between level 1 and level 5 Healing wave is right about
10% anyway.
TL;DR: LVL 5 EARTH ARMS IS BETTER THAN LVL 5 HEALING WAVE.
Soul Cleansing ●●●○○
Removes status such as stun and freeze from my testing which can be useful.
Example's would be Final Boss in Culvert Abyss stun and Blue Crab in Arena's
Freeze. Only issue is that the number of status removed is actually spread
across the AoE. So at level 2 if you target 4 frozen players (poor saps) only 2
are set free.
Not sure if it works on Silence etc.
Meditation ●●●●●
Ever since this skill was changed it's been pretty amazing. At level 1, it
gives you 340% of your (Accuracy -95%) as critical. This skill truly shines
later in the game when you're geared out with accuracy pumping equipment. Level
1 should suffice, but if you're looking to do a full Agi/Dex critical build,
then feel free to take it to higher levels if you have the excess skill points.
Needs confirmation on whether or not this works for non-healing skills. I
personally have never confirmed this and I've always felt like it helped with
my general crits. If anyone has done substantial testing on this please let me
know.
Deluge ●●●●●
The sorcerer's "oh s**t" skill. This skill saves lives during raids
and is absolutely necessary to have if you plan on going raiding. If you don't
have it, don't expect people to be happy with you. What makes this better than
the priest's sanctuary is the fact that it boosts the party's maximum HP as
well, this can be a real blessing (pun intended) when you can anticipate bosses
using their AoE's (learn to watch the raid icons, it warns you). Don't skip
this skill, it's pretty high priority, get it at level 1 at the very least. But
the higher the level the better.
Fire:
Firebolt ○○○○○
Cold Bolt is better.
Fireball Mastery ○○○○○
You are not going to use Fire Bolt.
Fire Arms ○○○○○
Wind Arms is better.
Fireball ○○○○○
This skill says 30% damage burn. That 30% isn't 30% of your MATK. It's 30% of
the 56% you did with the skill initially. That's 72.8% damage. That's 8.8% more
damage than what Jupitel does. If you think 5 skill points are worth 8.8% of
damage while you could have just been using Cold Bolt at least 3 times (Which
is more than 72.8%) while casting to set up a double damage Jupitel. Go ahead.
But my professional advice: No.
Wind / Lightning :
Lightning Bolt ●●●●●
If you're looking for a "cheap" source of DPS so that you can spend
your points into being a support sorcerer, look no further. This is as cheap
and efficient as it gets. Don't be mistaken though, this skill spammed alone
can't hope do deal more damage than the Ice-Lightning build of course. That and
it's pretty mana intensive, so get ready to spam those Mana Potions.
Thunder Storm ○○○○○
No. Just. No.
Wind Arms ●●●●●●
Yes those are 6 ratings. This skill is amazing. Forget about how it makes you
cast faster (actually no, don't forget it, it's awesome), 30% chance to
do DOUBLE DAMAGE on your next TWO LIGHTNING ATTACKS after
using Cold Bolt? Nothing says burst damage like double damage.
Best part is, it's not a de-buff on the monster that says "the next two
lightning attacks done to this monster do double damage" it's a buff on
you that says "the next two lightning attacks you do inflicts
double damage". This is the cornerstone of all Ice-Lightning builds. This
is the reason we spam Cold Bolt.
Jupitel Thunder ●●●●●
This is the skill that follows all Frost Drives and all Double Damage procs.
128% Damage? Yes please.
Don't use this skill unless you've got the Wind Arms proc or if the monster is
Frozen. This is a good skill that has synergy with other good skills. Max it if
you're doing DPS. There's really nothing to talk about here.
Jupitel Thunder Mastery ●●●○○
Same as Fireball Mastery 5%/10%/15% chance to get an instant cast buff for
Jupitel Thunder after using Lightning COLD BOLT.Did I mention how
cold bolt triggers wind arms? If you have the excess skill points to toss into
here, go for it if you want more DPS. Low priority skill, but if you've got the
points to toss in here go ahead.
Foresight ●●●●●
Rating of 5. But only for PvP/WoE. Otherwise it really doesn't have any
use. Frost Drive -> Jupitel -> Varetyr -> Jupitel is about as burst
damage as you can get. Most players will drop dead from it.
Until PvP/WoE becomes implemented and unless you're making a PvP build: leave
this skill at 1.
Lord of Vermilion ●●●○○
Okay. So this skill is the much better Thunderstorm. It does as much damage as
the Warrior's Brandish Storm, and Priest's Magnus Exorcismus. I personally
don't like maxing it. simply because Sorcs can Nuke Adds/Mobs/Summons better
than they can AoE them; I like to leave the mob clearing to Wizards and
Warriors personally.
Biggest downfall of this skill? The AoE has you in the center. Normally you
don't want to be standing in the center of the adds.
Varetyr Spear ●●●●●
NUKE. That's what this spell is. No requirements, you push the button and the
spell flies out and does a ridiculous amount of damage. 30 second cooldown is
nothing to worry about. If you're leveling up, you'll probably only use this
once per monster anyway. Great generally killing anything. It also has a 3
second stun! In PvP Frost Drive->Varetyr+Jupitel pretty much spells the end
for most opponents. 80% damage on demand is nothing to laugh at.
Earth
Earth Arms ●●●●●
Absolutely necessary if you're going to go for the healing route. +10% Heal
goes into your LoR, your Deluge, your Healing Wave, your Rejuvenation. The heal
over time (HoT) triggered by the critical only gets triggered by single target
heals. This skill is kind of silly with stats since it depends on you landing a
crit, as well as having high MATK. The HoT isn't based on the amount your
healed (like Fireball's DoT) but based on your MATK so this is constant.
Soul Binding ●●●●●●
6 Stars. Level 3. No questions asked. 3 minutes is a lot shorter than 5
minutes. And in a raid, one of the most common reasons for wiping out is
because resurrect hasn't cooled down yet.
WAIT A MINUTE! So in RO2 SEA, it's been confirmed that the cooldown for this
skill has been changed to be 10x longer, that's 50/40/30 minutes. Now, that
generally means you're probably only going to use this skill once every boss
battle, so whether or not you max it to level 3 depends on how patient your
party is and how willing people are to wait an extra 20 minutes between fights.
But as far as in-combat rating goes, it's the same across all the levels.
Rejuvenation ●●●●●
If Healing Wave is to the Priest's Heal, then Rejuvenation is to the Priest's
Highness Heal. This used to be worse, since there was this whole dance involved
in casting this "instant" heal. But they've sped that up and it's
speed is comparable to Healing Wave and the amount it heals makes up for any
difference.
Earth Shield ●●●●●
I'd like to rate this lower. Because really this skill works on percentages.
Meaning, it's better for tanks, but kinda whatever for people who aren't
stacking up on defense. Unlike wind arms that gives you a solid 20% to your
speed this skill is based on how much defense you have. But you know, people
like their buffs, and every little bit counts, so get it at 5, otherwise you'll
have to depend on another sorc to have it at 5.
Land of Recovery ●●●●●●
Another 6 rated skill. The Sorcerer's signature skill. This is the skill that
makes Sorcerers an auto include in any raid. The Land of Recovery can ALWAYS be
on the floor since the duration lasts 10 seconds and the cooldown takes 10
seconds but somehow you can overlap your current and next casts to keep it
going. Pro tip: ALWAYS keep Land of Recovery down. ALWAYS. Regularly you'll
want to keep it on yourself, and regularly the RDPS and healers would be
standing near you benefitting from this. On other occasions though the LoR's
are dropped on the tanks, particularly for bosses without much AoE skills.
Stat build:
Int - 48/50
Agi/Vit - Remaining points.
Starting off, you want to have some Vit, around 25-40 should do, for the most
part it's because you don't have any gear that boosts your health. And a dead
sorc is a useless sorc.
Also, you need to have int more than you need Agi. Simply because your critical
rate is pitiful to begin with anyway and you simply do more damage with more
int, raw power wins out in this one.
HOWEVER! End game, when you're all decked out in the best gear, you want to
have maximum Agi and the rest will go into Int. Simply because your gear will
already give you truckloads of Int and you'll have enough HP to survive most
things anyway.
The safest way you can go is to put 25 Int asap, then decide whether or not you
want to force yourself to do a skill reset later on. You can hope to later just
pick up Scratch Raider Cards so you dont need to put vit in, but trust me for
those first few Raids you want the HP. Agi really wont help you out too much
early in the game.
Another build, for those of you who want results asap, is to bring your Int all
the way to 40-50. With your Int at 40 you can still raise Agi all the way to 40
as well, while not squeezing the juice out of your sorc completely, it keeps
you from running around as a 25/50/5 (Int/Agi/Vit) sorc without the proper
gear.
Cards:
Poisoner (DPS)
Scratch Raider (Fresh 50, or if you go for the support/vit build).
How to play your Sorcerer:
Rule Number 1: Always. Always. Always. Use Land of Recovery.
Rule Number 2: Don't forget you can heal. Even a level 1 Healing Wave and
Rejuvenation can keep your Tank from dying while the healers are preoccupied.
Rule Number 3: Know who to resurrect. Priorities are Tanks and Healers
(for chain resurrections).
Addendum to Rule Number 3: Be careful not to resurrect at the same time as
others, communication is key in any party/raid.
Rule Number 4: Always drop Summon Aqua unless otherwise told not to DPS.
Otherwise, proceed to annihilate your opponents with your attack skills.
Skill Rotations and Combos:
Skill Combo 1: Foresight > FD > JT > VS > JT
Skill Combo 2: FD > JT > VS
Skill Combo 3: FD > JT > LB > LB, FD > VS
Use rotations when combos aren't available.
Skill Rotation 1: Spam Lightning Bolt.
Skill Rotation 2: Spam Cold Bolt. When Wind Arms triggers, use Varetyr if
available, otherwise use Jupitel. Use Cold Bolt when Jupitel is on Cooldown.
Reference:
