Epic Sorcerer Damage Output is not Epic

It's a while now that ED have been released. I've been testing various Sorcerers Builds in the attempt of maxing out the damage output.

Right now i'm playing an Air Savant (Lightning/Ice Spec) with 11 Past Lives and almost all ED capped (this means 18 available fate points with tome used). I use for nuking the Frozen Robe (EDIT: using Greendragonscale robe with superior ice lore on scepter now) and the Bracers of Wind from the challenges with two scepters that have 114 Spell Power on each of my spec elements (EDIT: got now a Magnetism 120 scepter and 120 Glaciation one). Useless to say i maxed out the two elemental lines.

Basically Sorcerers to max out damage have two choices now:

1. Draconic Incarnation - Fairly obvious that sorcerer's destiny boosts his own spells damage on both primary and secondary line, but what makes draconic useful are the SLAs that are nice occasional bursts (though very occasional, the one that has the lowest cooldown is energy burst 30secs all the others have very long cooldowns) that do consistent damage and allows caster to spare up some mana. Though we have to say that even non sorcerers have very nice damage on these SLAs, they are not a prerogative of the class.
2. Magister Evocation spec- With the right twists this one shines in the spell damage (consider slotting the tier 4 ability from Draconic for the +3 caster level) but has the evident lack of the good and realiable SLAs the Draconic has. Basically this one does more damage with spells than Draconic do and represent the BEST choice if you want to pump your spell DPS.

What makes me sad though is that even if you run Magister the damage output of my Sorcerer doesn't shine at all. I have serious problems nuking masses of mobs because i have to engage battle for that much time that on epic elite might be extremely dangerous. Consider that my sorcerer has something like 710 hps without epic thoughness, displacement always up and still has a real problem of squishiness against epic mobs, especially orange nameds. The only thing that saves me sometime is the 44 DC of enchatment that just SOMETIMES holds mobs even in epic elite content but is very far from being a reliable form of defense (EDIT: i reached with a different build, explained below, 48 DC on enchantment and i still have problems with CC in epics elite, probably for more reliable CC you need to raise yourself above the 50 but that's the realm of wizards not sorcerers).

The global consideration is that even if pushed to its limit the Sorcerer is no longer a useful class in the endgame content unless you run a very equipped one to partially balance his power. If you want some reliable CC or instant kill you'll take a Wizard, if you want some serious DPS (which is not as squishy, remember that deads don't DPS) you'll group Barbarians and not a Glass Cannon which is no more a real Cannon. Blasting SP in few mins to barely match or surpass by little margin a full geared endgame barbarian swinging eaga with momentum swing like we have in my guild is not fun at all. The only things that a sorcerer can cast that do a serious damage are the Draconics SLAs, though they are sporadic nukes that doesn't make up your real spell damage output.

Hope something will fix this, maybe the upcoming update15. The class can use some decent DCs or just a bit of extra damage on the normal spells, not on the Draconics SLAs or some forms of defense, considering it is an actual DPS class. The hilarious part is that wizards can have shield mastery because of the availability of extra feats, sorcerer need to sacrifice much to get some physical resistance and the class really needs some.

Well, Best Regards,
Zerkul.

I think you need to take a step back and play a divine evoker.

When your sorc crits for around 600 for most spells/slas and the ED tier 6 does 1.5k crit aoe, then yeah sorcs need a buff.

You my want to check your enhancements. 114 seems a little low. My spell power on my wizard is 208 acid, and 202 electric.

Could you please give us some examples of the numbers you hit? Otherwise, I have to disagree by default, because the only other ranged DPS that could come close to sorcerers are probably artifisters.
My electric spells, at level 20 long before U14, can critical hit for over 3000 damage. One of the fire savants on my server said he could hit over 5000 against an opposing elemental source, although I never got any confirmation.
So, my concern is that you are either not doing something to its full potential, or the recent updates have significantly reduced our damage output to make artifisters seem more special.

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Hope something will fix this, maybe the upcoming update15. The class can use some decent DCs or just a bit of extra damage on the normal spells, not on the Draconics SLAs or some forms of defense, considering it is an actual DPS class. The hilarious part is that wizards can have shield mastery because of the availability of extra feats, sorcerer need to sacrifice much to get some physical resistance and the class really needs some.

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I had not yet explored much of the new content, but in Hard/Normal epics, there was no problem. I have at least +4 to my DC from past lives, which served very well. Not much could evade me, but there are still some areas where a higher than usual Evocation DC is needed more than others.

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Originally Posted by Simplesimon1979

You my want to check your enhancements. 114 seems a little low. My spell power on my wizard is 208 acid, and 202 electric.

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He is probably talking about the value on the item only.

The only things epic about the update are bugs and nerfs.

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Originally Posted by Simplesimon1979

You my want to check your enhancements. 114 seems a little low. My spell power on my wizard is 208 acid, and 202 electric.

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114 is the scept spell power not total.

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Originally Posted by soulaeon

Could you please give us some examples of the numbers you hit? Otherwise, I have to disagree by default, because the only other ranged DPS that could come close to sorcerers are probably artifisters.
My electric spells, at level 20 long before U14, can critical hit for over 3000 damage. One of the fire savants on my server said he could hit over 5000 against an opposing elemental source, although I never got any confirmation.
So, my concern is that you are either not doing something to its full potential, or the recent updates have significantly reduced our damage output to make artifisters seem more special.

I had not yet explored much of the new content, but in Hard/Normal epics, there was no problem. I have at least +4 to my DC from past lives, which served very well. Not much could evade me, but there are still some areas where a higher than usual Evocation DC is needed more than others.

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DC wise my evocation is strong and even if there are lots of evasion mobs in the new content, if properly played allows me to nuke those as well. Is my other DCs that are really low. I'm almost 10 points under a properly specced pale master and 44 enchantment DC in epic elite is really poor for CC. Hard and normal epics, i don't even consider them they are much far easy than the old epics.

Very little has changed on the spell damage post expansion: ED have introduced very little improvement to what was the situation pre-nerf. Remember that criticals aren't DPS but contribute to it ... I used to reach almost 3000 damage crits on chain lightning before the update, now i reach them but that's just a crit and it happens 21% of the time with xacosian: this means the average damage of a chain lightning stays near to the 1300 more or less with a xacosian clickie (which isn't always on of course) ...

Magister's Air Savant Chain Lightning:
=(((31*5)*(1base+150maximize+75empower+0,2+1enhanc ement+1,2equipment+0,2capstone+0,25xacosian+7*3/100+0,15feypower)*0,21 + ((31*5)*(1base+150maximize+75empower+0,2+1enhancem ent+1,2equipment+0,2capstone+0,25xacosian+7*3/100+0,15feypower)-damage_resistance)*0,79

The point is 1300 damage is not 1300 DPS you have to include that spell in a rotation and most likely you will not raise yourself above 1600 DPS if flawlessy push your buttons. The point is a Barbarian that rotate momentum swing, cleave, greatcleave and supreme cleave with an eaga and under the LD destiny can really get close to this number of DPS. Anxia my friend barbarian completionist is there i can feel it because it's really really hard to get aggro off him while dpessing a boss and he just uses claw set: if i don't nuke up mana with all metas on i'm not able to draw aggro, but this means few minutes only of nuking.

Further ... remember a sporadic draconic incarnation SLA is not DPS. I've critted an held mob for 10,000 damage with dragon breath, but after that you know ... 2min of cooldown.

I really think that sorcerers should do a little more damage or at least they should become a little more survivable than they do now, the class doesn't feel epic at all. I can play epics elite with my sorc but how many sorcerers out there can be really "useful" in an epic elite?

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DC wise my evocation is strong and even if there are lots of evasion mobs in the new content, if properly played allows me to nuke those as well. Is my other DCs that are really low. I'm almost 10 points under a properly specced pale master and 44 enchantment DC in epic elite is really poor for CC. Hard and normal epics, i don't even consider them they are much far easy than the old epics.

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If it puts your mind at ease, sorcerers are specialists, not meant to perform equally well in all schools. It would be way too overpowered. No one really looks at the sorcerer for crowd control, unless they specify they can.
I'd have to to get back into the new content to see those numbers; am currently at the end of another wizard TR so I cant really comment on the numbers you mentioned.
If you are aiming to crowd control as well as you DPS, then it's actually no suprise your damage numbers are low because you would most likely have to trade something in your gear or feats to make up for it.

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Originally Posted by soulaeon

If you are aiming to crowd control as well as you DPS, then it's actually no suprise your damage numbers are low because you would most likely have to trade something in your gear or feats to make up for it.

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First of all i did sacrifice nothing for damage. This means i have all the stuff currently achieavable ingame to pump the spelldamage items/enhancements/destinies included (if requested i'll give you breakdown but should be easy to figure it out). If you read the first post you would knew it. I'm not your friendly casual gamer, i plan stuff ahead and i did plan my spellpower and caster levels for damage spells as well.

Secondly i just respecced and i loosed one twist (a mana one, endless faith) to make space for magister twist enchantment focus (had to drop pastlife wizard to make space for spell focus enchantment in my feats). My twists on Draconic Incarnation at the moment are Fey Form (15 Spell Power), Echantment Specialist, Echoes: Draconic Power (+7 elemental spellpower)... the only other twist that could raise my spell damage is something from shiradi to give my spells a lousy proc of 1d100 damage with 7% probability: useless to say that this is just a marginal part of my damage output, the effort doesnt balance the gain. I'm running with full DPS spec and a decent 47 enchantment DC and i still think the DPS is low and the DC is not enough to reliably crowd control the epic elite content.

A Max DPS spec with a 47 sustainable enchantment DC selfbuffed, 47 Evocation all the time with 10% debuff -10 reflex possibility, 47 spell penetration (with arcane augmentation IX) is quite exteme for a sorcerer trust me.

I actually swapped OUT shield mastery on my wizard because.. it's pretty darn lame now ;p
Don't be jelly :)

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Originally Posted by Kilarthia

I actually swapped OUT shield mastery on my wizard because.. it's pretty darn lame now ;p
Don't be jelly :)

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:) you should use it with the Legendary Shield Mastery from Sentinel it wil be awesome combo.

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A Max DPS spec with a 47 sustainable enchantment DC selfbuffed, 47 Evocation all the time with 10% debuff -10 reflex possibility, 47 spell penetration (with arcane augmentation IX) is quite exteme for a sorcerer trust me.

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MY DDO was not working yesterday, so I couldnt see your characters. Please forgive the additional questions. Also, I am not criticising, I am trying to understand.
First, my definition of sacrifice means that you spend feat slots or swap gear for anything other than DPS (Spell Penetration, Enchantment, etc). When I said that, I meant something specific.

What feats are you taking? What past lives are you taking?
You said you have 11 past lives, but your Evocation DC are the same as your enchant DC, and you said that you went for Spell Penetration in the Magister tree. You also mentioned higher spell DC, which I assume means you took the spell focus abilities in that tree, too. This tell me you had to spend at least three feat slots, not including Past Life.
The only possible way your enchant and evocation DC could be the same, is if you are taking Enchantment Focus, and possibly do not have all 3 sorcerer past lives, which may also include a bard past life. Please correct me here.

Counting three compulsary feats, you also had to spend at least one feat slot for either a spell foci, or Arcane Prodigy in order to take all three Savant enhancements. That's 4 feats.
Which Meta feats do you have, and do you have Toughness or any other feats that are not spell-related?

At least two feats you spent are non-DPS related. So you did in fact sacrifice something, although I am not sure what yet until we can see whch past lives you have and which feats you took.

I looked at the Magister tree again, quickly. The first thing I notice is that you cant take all of the Charisma abilities if you took any of the middle enhancements. That is a potential loss to your DPS in exchange for Spell Penetration or whichever spell focus enhancements you took.

Honestly, without being able to see your actual build, there is fairly little anyone here could do to help. I can personally say that my sorcerer feels a bit OP at the moment, but I haven't started running epic elite stuff yet, so that might be the reason for the different outlook. What are the damage numbers you are seeing? For me, when I use the draconic incarnation energy burst ability, I am hitting for around 2k on a normal hit and 6.5k on a crit. To me, that is quite spectacular damage.

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Originally Posted by soulaeon

MY DDO was not working yesterday, so I couldnt see your characters. Please forgive the additional questions. Also, I am not criticising, I am trying to understand.
First, my definition of sacrifice means that you spend feat slots or swap gear for anything other than DPS (Spell Penetration, Enchantment, etc). When I said that, I meant something specific.

What feats are you taking? What past lives are you taking?
You said you have 11 past lives, but your Evocation DC are the same as your enchant DC, and you said that you went for Spell Penetration in the Magister tree. You also mentioned higher spell DC, which I assume means you took the spell focus abilities in that tree, too. This tell me you had to spend at least three feat slots, not including Past Life.
The only possible way your enchant and evocation DC could be the same, is if you are taking Enchantment Focus, and possibly do not have all 3 sorcerer past lives, which may also include a bard past life. Please correct me here.

Counting three compulsary feats, you also had to spend at least one feat slot for either a spell foci, or Arcane Prodigy in order to take all three Savant enhancements. That's 4 feats.
Which Meta feats do you have, and do you have Toughness or any other feats that are not spell-related?

At least two feats you spent are non-DPS related. So you did in fact sacrifice something, although I am not sure what yet until we can see whch past lives you have and which feats you took.

I looked at the Magister tree again, quickly. The first thing I notice is that you cant take all of the Charisma abilities if you took any of the middle enhancements. That is a potential loss to your DPS in exchange for Spell Penetration or whichever spell focus enhancements you took.

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First of all, i tried magister ... even if it does more spell DPS than Draconic with the right twists, the lack of the energy burst (which isnt slottable if you take the +3 caster level from draconic) is too heavy. Energy burst is extremely useful SLA i cannot give up and remember that if you go evocation magister you cannot have +3 enchantment DC. So i went Draconic which does a little less DPS but has more reliable abilities and can slot enchantment boost to DC.

Here's my build. Feel free to copy it :p ...

Feats are:

• Maximize
• Empower
• Quicken
• Heighten
• Spell Penetration
• Greater Spell Penetration
• Epic Spell Penetration
• Spell Focus (Evocation)
• Spell Focus (Enchantment)
• Toughness (with yugo pot and ship buffs + small augment hp on my +8 charisma ring, my hps sits at 714 all the time)

I didnt take any mental toughness because i own all the mana clickies achievable ingame ERSS included. To reach 47 SR check on Mass Hold i must equip Spell Penetration IX item (currently Epic Hryvayah medallion) + Arcane Augmentation IX item + Greater Enchantment focus for the DC.
When i nuke i equip Epic Shaman's Beads that gives me Maximize discount and Greater Evo Focus. Weapons are two weapons with 114 spellpower on cold and another with 120 on magnetism. Before starting to nuke i use +20 alchemical spellpower clickies and +25 xacosian clickie

Pastlives are:

• Sorcerer x3
• Wizard x3
• Barbarian x3
• FVS x2

Evocation DC sits at 47 beause i did spend just one point in the destiny on it. Charisma should be 54 with ship buffs and Yugoloth pots which are sustainable.

Enhancements have two elemental lines maxed (Ice and Lightning)
Epic Destiny is Draconic with:

• Twist: Fey Form
• Twist: Enchantment Specialist
• Twist: Echoes of Ancestors: Draconic
• Spell Penetration II, Maxed Damage on electrical and secondary spec ice, cannot remember if 1 or two electrical effect that debuffs saves and 1 on energy sheat, go out with bang and energy burst.

I didnt take the dragon breath and vortrex. My burst is not maxed to 3 because that's a sporadic nuke i use to clean mobs masses without using mana. I chain it in my nuking rotation but it has 30secs cooldown so not that much contributing to global DPS. It just creates a DPS spike in the normal nuking rotations.

My best nuking rotations is:

• Debuff
• DoT
• DoT
• Lightning Bolt
• Polar Ray
• Lightning Bolt
• Chain Lightning
• repeat

Lightning bolt has a really low cooldown and if exploited in a nuking rotations gives you a real good DPS. Its doublestrike feature makes it a very nice spell. You need to put down a solid fog before nuking high reflex saves targets else you loose spell DPS. I should probably sit at 1400/1500 DPS with this rotation (with all metas on) but just on those mobs that fails with 1 my spells and doesnt have energy resistances. Nuking in this way is mana intensive, so i cannot keep the rotation for long. For sustained combats i just rely on DoTs + SLAs.

HOPE everything was clear on my build :P if you have any questions PM me.

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Originally Posted by shadereaper33

Honestly, without being able to see your actual build, there is fairly little anyone here could do to help. I can personally say that my sorcerer feels a bit OP at the moment, but I haven't started running epic elite stuff yet, so that might be the reason for the different outlook. What are the damage numbers you are seeing? For me, when I use the draconic incarnation energy burst ability, I am hitting for around 2k on a normal hit and 6.5k on a crit. To me, that is quite spectacular damage.

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Your numbers are standard, nothing special. The spectacular damage you're talking about it's just one nuke each 30secs / 2min cooldowns. Cooldowns cut down your DPS potential. As i already said above these SLA just create a spike DPS into your normal spell rotation.

What i really complain about is spell DPS: that means continuosly nuking the same target or a mass of mobs rotating some spells that assure you get the max damage per second. Epic Sorcerer Spell DPS is not Epic in my humble opinion: try nuking some masses of epic elite mobs. Hard and normal settings are that much easy that everyone can shine in them.

This said i still think sorcerers need a damage boost on normal spells not on the Draconic SLAs which are already good as they are. I bet whoever played epic elites in faerun with a sorcerer probably thinks it the same way as me.

Thanks for clarifying.
You have a lot of spell penetration modifications, which I see as a problem if your concern is DPS; you could use Greater Evocation and Epic Evocation, and Arcane Initiate (+3 more DC). Personally, I dont care about spellpen any more because it's not relavent to my playstyle or the higher level content where one usually has to specialize in CC in order to do it right.
Quicken I dont understand. I assume you're a Warforged, so that makes sense.
Of course, I love Draconic Incarnation already and have no plans to take Magister more than two tiers. I dont see how Magister does more damage in itself, unless youre talking about the DC stuff; I'd have to get into it to see what you mean.
Endless Faith is a cool ability. I would get it, but I plan on taking Sentinal instead for the defensive powers and additional constitution or charisma, depending on how I spend my epic feat slots.

Ryu is one of the best nukers on my server, with every piece of gear, enhancements, twists and past lives that are needed to be a top sorc; he also plays melee at an epic/endgame level. So he has seen both sides of the picture. This isn't just a "buff me!!!" thread, this is a call for balance.

If he thinks sorc dps needs buffing he is probably right.

Sorcs should be top burst dps...after all, to burst they need to consume valuable resources to do so while melee...not so much.

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Originally Posted by soulaeon

Quicken I dont understand. I assume you're a Warforged, so that makes sense.

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Last I checked he was still a meatbag. One day I will corrupt him into a robot :D.

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Ryu is one of the best nukers on my server, with every piece of gear, enhancements, twists and past lives that are needed to be a top sorc; he also plays melee at an epic/endgame level. So he has seen both sides of the picture. This isn't just a "buff me!!!" thread, this is a call for balance.

If he thinks sorc dps needs buffing he is probably right.

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I was not disagreeing with him, just pointing out that he may not personally be doing everything to raise his numbers, and the amount of points/feats into spell penetration seems to be consistent with that. If the extra stuff is working well that's fine, but he could drop that stuff and hit even harder is all I am saying.

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Last I checked he was still a meatbag. One day I will corrupt him into a robot .

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lol that's actually impressive, because most sorcerers with that amount of HP are Warforged.
Now, I cant understand why he needs Quicken if he's not Reconstructing himself. I just move a lot, and dont need to make any concentration checks that way.

Hey Mech :D ... ! Good to see you!

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Originally Posted by soulaeon

I was not disagreeing with him, just pointing out that he may not personally be doing everything to raise his numbers, and the amount of points/feats into spell penetration seems to be consistent with that. If the extra stuff is working well that's fine, but he could drop that stuff and hit even harder is all I am saying.


lol that's actually impressive, because most sorcerers with that amount of HP are Warforged.
Now, I cant understand why he needs Quicken if he's not Reconstructing himself. I just move a lot, and dont need to make any concentration checks that way.

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Anyway Soul, my first build with ED had over 50 Evocation and i have to say that it was a bit overkill, let me explain. Evocation DC just raises the probability that the mob fails the save against a save-spell which does damage: from a probabilistic point of wiew we say that the actual/mean values of my Damage spells raise, the more the DC the more the actual/mean damage get close to the max damage potential which happens when mobs fail their saves 95% of the time (20 is always a success). So the point is double: 1) the evocation DC doesn't raise the max damage potential of my spells (it just augment the average i get but the max it's always the same), 2) an helpless mob (held ones for example) is not entitled to a reflex save to save against my damage spells (this means he always fail) and most of epic elites mobs are nukable with 47 evocation DC if you have a solid fog ongoing or some other debuffs (crushing despair for example) and they fail very very often (must remember you that -5 reflex saves gives my 47 a virtual boost to 52). The thing is very simple ... on raid bosses i exploit the solid fog ... on trash if i'm not able to hold the mobs i exploit the combination of solid fog + ice storm which gives a consistent movement debuff and allows me to kite and nuke down my targets. To finish this nice picture, air savant have more mobility and this helps me even more.

Summarizing everything, the investment in spell penetration doesn't at all diminish the damage potential of my sorc. I could raise my evo DC but right now i'm ok playing with it because i use lot of debuffs.

About Endless Faith ... Usually i prefer Fey Form, but sometimes when i go for solo or for caught in the web raid i drop it and take endless faith (when i slot endless faith my mana gets up to 4000 sp). The good thing of ED is that you can switch your twists on the fly.

As Mech already said i play both a Melee at near top levels and a Sorcerer: this means i have a clear picture of the DPS potential of both kind of classes. I also play with the accounts of my friends sometimes and i run lots of aggro tests that just serves as a confirmation to what i calculate with my spreadsheets: i like to play with excel to check the numbers of DPS on both casters and melees, when i see something cool i run an aggro test ingame ... the hypotesis is that the one with most DPS, at equal conditions of aggro generation (usually 0%), gets the aggro of the mob used as a test ... What i'm seeing with this new update is that a properly specced barbarian is matching almost my burst DPS on sorcerer with the exception that he can sustain his DPS for much more time than me, and this is not nice in my humble opinion.

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Originally Posted by soulaeon

Thanks for clarifying.
You have a lot of spell penetration modifications, which I see as a problem if your concern is DPS; you could use Greater Evocation and Epic Evocation, and Arcane Initiate (+3 more DC). Personally, I dont care about spellpen any more because it's not relavent to my playstyle or the higher level content where one usually has to specialize in CC in order to do it right.
Quicken I dont understand. I assume you're a Warforged, so that makes sense.
Of course, I love Draconic Incarnation already and have no plans to take Magister more than two tiers. I dont see how Magister does more damage in itself, unless youre talking about the DC stuff; I'd have to get into it to see what you mean.
Endless Faith is a cool ability. I would get it, but I plan on taking Sentinal instead for the defensive powers and additional constitution or charisma, depending on how I spend my epic feat slots.

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Magister Evocation Spec has on tier5 an ability that boosts the max and the actual caster level of the evocation spells. Remember always that +3 Max Caster Levels >> +30 Spell Power: this is true for almost all Evocation Spells except for DoTs that at the moment do not benefit from caster level increases. A Magister can slot in a tier4 twist an ability from the Draconic Incarnation Destiny which gives +3 Max and actual Caster Levels on your main element: with this ability a Savant shooting a Chain Lightning is actually doing 31d6 electrical damage (20d6+3d6 from savant+2d6 from ToD set+3 from Magister+3 from Twist).

Why Quicken? If there is just one thing i learned from playing Sorcerer all these years that Quicken is a must. I do not use it always because i'm not specced to have a consistent discount on it: the use i do of Quicken is situational. Sorcerers, because of their high AOE damage can draw very often unwanted aggroes: under the enemy fire you do not want your spells to fail their concentration checks. If you want to shield tank something you need quicken. If you want to nuke epic elite drows (often they range as well) you need quicken. If you want to put some aoe CC down on the floor during a stress situation, you need quicken. If you want to cast a massprotection to lessen the elemental damage the fire elementals do to you in isle3 of EVoN6, you need quicken. If you want to tank the shadows in Elite ToD you need to renew your protection each time you can, drink silver flame pots and of course have quicken. For me a Sorcerer that runs without having this feat havent played the class enough. It is true that a Sorcerer if dodges with the right timing, if he jumps in the right spot can cast without Quicken, but for some stress situations Quicken is mandatory and is difference between life and death.