Sorcerer DPS + Videos

[Selvera]

When preview #1 went up; I had trouble transferring over my character and all their gear; so I created a new character and demonstrated how I think sorcerer DPS is overperforming in mid heroics (I'll trust it to others to explain how sorcerer dps is still underperforming in high reapers). To this end I geared up the character with some half-decent, but still suboptimal gear and ran through cabal for one at elite bravery level; oneshotting all mobs.

https://youtu.be/ILCcug4ULGM

I got some comments on that video to the tune of:
1) But first lifers wouldn't have a thrown together set of ravenloft gear at level 16
2) But first lifers are supposed to roflstomp elite difficulty at bravery level

I tend to disagree. So does the first lifer being locked out from elite difficulty on their first run through mechanic.
Yeah, I had to run the quest twice beforehand to even unlock elite difficulty, and it really didn't feel any harder on elite when I 1shot mobs then on hard when I 1shot mobs.

When preview #2 went up (for the short period that I was able to actually play on it; about 1 evening's worth); I went and created a whole bunch more videos with my actual character wearing some nearly optimal gear. (My optimal gearset would have included the wild frost instead of the boravian scepter; but I don't have that yet).

Here's a direct comparison video

https://youtu.be/NgqdK0jz2GA

Yeah; fair enough, noob -> half veteran and elite -> R1 seems to be a net decrease in damage (a little); but I'm still speedrunning the quest and 1 hitting gardak at the end; and with the extra runspeed I even end up completing the quest even faster. As a comparison; the 2 times I have down for cabal quest completion while speedrunning on heroic-focused power melee builds are 5:51 and 5:57. (To be fair the last time I recorded times was a few lives ago, but since I've moved to harder difficulties/slower times mostly).

A couple other comments I had gotten before were about doing things at reaper xp level; and that I hadn't shown the gear that I was showing; so I proceed to do both of those in this video of the same build:

https://youtu.be/AxoIrkibDLc

I suppose that even though sorcs are pretty powerful in heroics; they do occasionally meet up with a mob that's immune to both of their main damage types; and their only bypass (below level 20) is single target, so killing groups of them can be annoying and all. Especially if that mob type happens to be immune to instakills as well; That, and probably having to self heal slowed down my times a bit I guess; my melee zerger times I have recorded for Lords of Dust are 9:03 and 9:55, (One of those times is R1 at level, the other is elite at level 17, both would have had hirelings or party members to heal me and umm... help out or something).

So; if Sorcerers are; as I believe, vastly OP in N/H/E difficulties and pretty proficient at zerging R1 on a geared toon with half the requisite pastlives; are they good at farming reaper xp in higher difficulties? My answer is:

https://youtu.be/45L6Ebvb5E0
https://youtu.be/-EJKreYQkkE

Spell damage still scales pretty poorly as you go up skulls; and the possibility of running out of spell points starts to present itself in higher difficulties at/near reaper xp level. But I expect a player who's more used to playing casters then me would have a pretty smooth run through reaper 3 at reaper xp level with this amount of DPS, and pretty good clear times. For me I know the tips/tricks of how to play melee better then spellcasters and my pastlives are melee-focused. And still I'd probably get rxp faster if I just do dps caster heroic lives then melee lives if this goes live.

With all that said; here's a video of how new sorcerer dps looks at a bit of a lower level:

https://youtu.be/bH1Vr6rZgao

I didn't transfer my full lower-level gearset over to lamania and didn't bother filling in most of the missing spots with dojo gear; so as you can see I'm missing a few items and using a mask of comedy as a permanent item instead of just a clickie. But in general I believe that Sorc DPS hasn't scaled up to insane levels by this point, most of the spells I'm using do less then 50% more damage then they do on live; and as a result I actually have to do things like think about tactics and crowd control as I'm fighting; instead of just mindlessly blasting stuff dead in seconds flat. This is closer to how I think that sorcerers SHOULD play.

tldr:
Sorcerers in heroics on live are just fine; they don't need a buff -> Don't over-inflate base spell damage.
Sorcerers in epics don't scale their damage very well -> Fix to this is removing max caster level
Sorcerers in high skull reaper run out of spellpoints and don't scale well -> Fix is reduce reaper magic-damage scaling and reduce cost of dps spells in reaper depending on skulls.

[psykopeta]

Cabal and LoD? Couldn't you try newer packs? I mean, everybodu raises the skulls they run in these chains due to how easy it is (same win h vale)
Not sure if i explained properly lol but we all know they don't release new packs thinking of 1st lifer (i would say cabal's boss hp is what average mobs have in newer quests) using same logic to compare enhancements we should try new ones on new packs

Ofc sorcs got a dps boost on heroic and not much on epics/reaper, but even w/o changes you would roflstomp the quests u posted

[lillentle]

Do R1 since it’s the norm now, also do it at level, so do cabal at level 14, also like the above post says do something newer.
I think most players are running the above nowadays
Anyone can blitz elite cabal at level 16, I agree they shoudnt be able to but that’s seperate;

[Selvera]

Ofc sorcs got a dps boost on heroic and not much on epics/reaper, but even w/o changes you would roflstomp the quests u posted

And that's exactly what I was here to prove. Sorcs don't need boost in these quests, and do need it elsewhere.

Why LoD/Cabal/etc? Because that's quests that people actually run to level. I don't run my melees through slavelords, mines of teth or dragonblood prophesy in heroics because they're terrible XP full of high HP mobs in big groups which each do a ton of damage. I also don't run my ranged characters through those quests. Actually; a sorc is already one of the best classes for such content; both in their dps and instakill builds. Balancing classes isn't about trying to make up for mob HP inflation in content that people don't run anyways.

Do R1 since it’s the norm now, also do it at level

I did this with LoD and with into the mists. I also did higher difficulties then this for Cabal and for Litanny.

Saying something is the norm doesn't make it the norm; I still see lots of lfm's posted for elite and know plenty of folk who are scared to put up lfms because they don't want content that's even as hard as elite is. Nor do they want to run with people who can breeze through elite content as if they weren't in the party.

I disagree; not all builds are capable of blitzing elite bravery on a first life character; and I'm skeptical that many can do it at near the speed that my example sorc did. But heck; when I have time I'll test that too. (Maybe the weekend)

[psykopeta]

No need for slavers and mine lol but RL and rage? U can skip toxic treatment np, but these are run foor loot and xp at lvl

[janave]

No need for slavers and mine lol but RL and rage? U can skip toxic treatment np, but these are run foor loot and xp at lvl

Exactly, massively buffed 2018 game rules vs slightly upscaled 2007 content.

I totally respect Selvera btw, always super insightful, ..but cant agree here for the base of comparison.

[Coffey]

Great videos Selvera

Always interesting hearing your perspective on things.

[FuryFlash]

tldr:
Sorcerers in heroics on live are just fine; they don't need a buff -> Don't over-inflate base spell damage.
Sorcerers in epics don't scale their damage very well -> Fix to this is removing max caster level
Sorcerers in high skull reaper run out of spellpoints and don't scale well -> Fix is reduce reaper magic-damage scaling and reduce cost of dps spells in reaper depending on skulls.

Nice videos. I agree with your summary here; see my post about this exact thing on the official thread.

[Selvera]

So for comparison I rolled up a first life melee using my theorycrafted optimized gearset from a few lives back -> minus any BTC items, in which case I swapped in what I considered the best BTA alternative to those items. (Greensteel +45 HP stacking bracers of 20% blur and displacement clickie swapped out for bracers of the wind 20% burr but not the rest of that for example).
I've done some non-insignificant amount of theorycrafting and testing melee builds; and this is up there as probably the most dominant melee build I've played in heroic levels. So ran it through some similar content.

Heroic Elite Cabal for One

Yep; fair enough; even without pastlives; my build is durable enough to not have those "close call" moments the sorc build did. But in exchange; my 17-20 x4 critical profile (remember inventory tab doesn't show the correct critical multiplier) had maximum around 500 damage crits; while the sorcerer build was able to do 5,000 damage with a critical polar ray before the nerf; and consistently did 2,000 + damage with AoE spells.

In terms of actual completion times; this didn't matter too much since 500 damage is enough to kill most enemies in the quest; so my optimised Fighty McFighterton build got a completion time only 25% longer then the sorc.

After a bit more testing; I got to running R1 trial by fire. This is at BB level, but not rxp level, and doing what I found to be the easiest quest on reaper for melees. Would my first life melee hold up to the lowest challange reaper can provide?

R1 Trial by Fire

Answer is pretty much yes. I guess a first life melee with some pretty good gear and build can do R1 bravery solo. Although I do reccomend both melees and especially casters to bring along a hireling healer in such quests. Melee might encounter slightly slower completion times (which already seem slower then casters); but a build like the one I did there has trouble healing itself outside of combat (all it's healing/durability is by hitting enemies or being hit by enemies); and if a lucky champion or reaper gets the build low; healing up can be troublesome. Meanwhile the caster; if they get unlucky and die; will need a hire (or other player) to raise them if they don't have jibbers. Also hires are great for restoring mana (if they run difficulties high enough to need it). And the extra HP of enemies really won't matter when they overkill enemies that much.

I also did a test with one of my alts - who's currently experimenting with a healer-archer build and is level 14 with semi-optimized gear and only a handful of pastlives; but all of them very pertinent to archer builds (3x ranger pastlives, 3x doubleshot pastlives) And they completed the quest pretty easily given all the healing; but it took longer then 15 minutes to complete the quest; so I can't currently upload the video to youtube... I'll work on upgrading my youtube account and/or shortening the video so that I can show off that run as well.

[Coffey]

Some nice crits out of the great axe with that build. Improved uncanny dodge, no worries armor and no worries healing too.

You could try using Twitch streaming. It can be set so your video will save to your channel automatically after streaming.

[janave]

I definitely critted over 1k while boosting on my unoptimized pure barb in gianthold r1s, t5 berserker. Nothing truly special gearwise either. SoS with X5 crits, a luckier character using other weapons with the 10W attack from ravager would crit quite a bit higher too, cooldown is a bit too long compared to spells. I think that is a fair tradeoff for heroics where the risk is much much lower on a typical thf melee.

[Zretch]

I've done some non-insignificant amount of theorycrafting and testing melee builds; and this is up there as probably the most dominant melee build I've played in heroic levels. So ran it through some similar content.

I honestly don't believe casters should be compared to melee in overall dungeon run speed. Melee are so absolutely dominant in single target DPS (boss killing), that balancing caster (sorc, wizard, warlock) AoE down to melee level would leave DPS casters completely unbalanced. Every time I play a melee, I understand that I will kill packs of mobs more slowly than I do on my warlock, but the red name at the end of the dungeon will be laughably trivial while on the lock I can spend, in extreme cases like Through a Mirror Darkly, over 6 minutes to beat down the boss.

If sorc/wizard/warlock single target boss level DPS is going to remain orders of magnitude lower than melee, then I do think it's fair and balanced for their AoE to be far more effective. At that point, you have to start looking at the dungeons themselves as being unbalanced. Dungeons that have only one red named boss while throwing a sea of trash packs after you very much benefit casters. Dungeons like White Plume Mountain or VoN3 which have more red names (ignoring the fact that VoN3 red names are pushovers and the WPM crab boss is ridiculous) are going to be more balanced. Trash packs of 4-6 rather than 8-12, more than one boss (optional bosses with real rewards that allow high single target DPS classes to "make up" for the slower trash kill speed with good bumps from faster boss kills) would be a better balanced system if they're going to continue to have casters do big AoE and melee do big single target sustain.