4: Fleshing OutSo far our Elemental Sorcerer will have the following powers
Overdrive (PA Energy Unlock)
Stormbringer (Wind Slotted Passive)
Concentration (Ranged Tech Toggle Form)
Time to start considering other key choices like:
Energy Builder
Single Target Attack
AoE Attack
Block
Active Offense
Active Defense
Buffs/Debuffs
Heal
SuperStats
Energy Builder
www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Energy_BuilderThis will need to have some kind of element focus but looking at the amount of dipping into differing powersets we are going to encounter it’s going to form a key choice as it’ll pretty much lock us into it’s powerset for the first few powerchoices and I’m already guessing powerchoices will have to be very tight. We can try and stick to the same powerset choice for our block then that’ll help with that restriction.
Attacks
www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Ranged_AttackLooking for Electric, Fire, Wind, Ice & Earth single target ranged attacks that are maintains we have Lightning Arc & Heat Wave. Typhoon is an absolute beast and I'd love to fit it in but right now it's not a maintain so I'm leaving this for later consideration.
Lightning Arc is a much better DPS choice that Heat Wave but Heat Wave has a Crowd Control element too. I’ve opted for Lightning Arc.
www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Ranged_Area_Attackwww.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Close_Area_AttackNow the same for Ranged Area Attacks I’m also considering Close Area Attacks but ranged area will work the concept better. Again I’m looking at Maintains.
Lightning Storm, Sparkstorm
Conflagration, Fire Breath
Hurricane, Wind Breath, Whirlwind
Frost Breath, Snow Storm, Avalanche
Quicksand
Quite a bit to go through so I’m going to start be leaving Electric out as we’ve already got one attack from there. Pure DPS wise I’m preferring Conflagration, Hurricane and Avalanche. Earth’s Quicksand is a bit more Crowd Control than DPS so I’m putting that aside. Fire will not get the same damage boost that Wind or Ice will so despite the fact that I love Conflagration I’m looking at Hurricane or Avalanche. At this point I’m planning for Avalanche but reserve the right to change my mind based on later choices.
Block
www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/BlockSo I’ve already decided to try and tie this in with the Energy Builder so we'd be better of in Energy Projector for build purposes and Wind woudl make for the tightest build.
I've drawn up 3 basic starter builds based on getting us from the Energy Builder to Lightning Arc. First is Wind based, 2nd is Force (which Stormbringer will work with) where we have to take a 3rd Force power (Protection Field) to get out of the powerset and the last is Darkness so we can have the Ebon Void block (my fave) and add a heal in, it has the same issue with needing 3 powers to leave the powerset.
Level 1: Wind Lash
Level 1: Stormbringer
Level 6: Wind Barrier
Level 8: Lightning Arc
Level 1: Force Bolts
Level 1: Force Shield
Level 6: Protection Field
Level 8: Stormbringer
Level 11: Lightning Arc
Level 1: Shadow Bolt
Level 1: Rebuke
Level 6: Ebon Void
Level 8: Stormbringer
Level 11: Lightning Arc
I'm going to take the Wind version as my basic build at the moment, I've added in the other choices but we need another power at level 17 to unlock Avalanche.
Level 1: Wind Lash
Level 1: Stormbringer
Level 6: Wind Barrier
Level 8: Lightning Arc
Level 11: Overdrive
Level 14: Concentration
Level 17:
Level 20: Avalanche
Active Offense
www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Active_Offenseso all of these have about the same damage increase but I'm looking at
Electric Sheath - gives Energy Management a Kick and the Adv looks good and causes damage to be part absorbed by our Energy
Immolation - reduced energy costs, adv gives us a PBAoE.
Ice Sheath - Crit Severity boost
Ego Surge - also boosts our EGO Stat
Lock N Load - crit chance boost & reduced energy costs
Well definitely be taking one, maybe even two and at this point is either an elemental one for theme or Lock N Load for Crits. Ego Surge with Nimble Mind would be great if we had some Con but I doubt that'll feature in this build.
We’ll have to come back to this later.
Active Defense
www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Active_DefenseOk, so I'm building to a strict trinity archetype squishy ranged DPS. More along, nothign to see here. Of course if I was building a survivable version of thei build I'd probably look at Unbreakable.
I'd also look at any other defenses at this point but we are planning to be squishy.
Buffs/Debuffs
www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/On-Next-Hitwww.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/DebuffSo now we look at other ways to boost damage, powers with buffs, powers with debuffs, any Crowd Control or On Next Hit boosts.
Now Imbue is due to change radically into a form so I'm not considering that at all. (shame as Imbue then Typhoon would be monster! (and yes I’m by this point I’m seriously looking to add Typhoon in later)
So going through the elemental powers we have this rough list:
Electrocute - Paralyze
Fire Snake - Reduces Targets Elemental Damage resistance
Twister - Paralyze
Ice Cage - Root
Cave In - Stun
Quicksand - Movement Reduction
I'm also considering the Gadget on next hit buff Toxic Nanites as Toxic is an element but it won't get the boost from Stormbringer. We'd have to use our imagination and pretend it was a magic attack though.
We're short a Fire or Earth attack and Fire Snake's debuff will make a great addition so it’s in. We may come back for more here later.
Heal
www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/HealingWe might not take much in the way of defenses but I'm not leaving a heal out if I can help it.
Arcane Vitality, Empathic Healing, Celestial Conduit, Rebuke, Conviction, Resurgence, Palliate, Lifedrain, Summon Shadows are the seem the best looking thematic choices.
Now here's where it gets to be a harder choice, with overdrive a maintain heal like Arcane Vitality, Empathic Healing (looks like fire too) or Celestial Conduit would help keep the energy flowing and thus keep up the chance to spam healing, but it's unlikely I'll be statting PRE so the heal won't be great unless we crit.
Palliate has a threat wiping adv we could use if we're going to get lots of DPS happening but has a long cooldown.
Summon Shadows is an almost a fire and forget heal and kinda works with the sorceror concept.
Resurgence has too long a cooldown really.
Rebuke is fairly cheap, weak heal but we can get it in early and use it as an attack too. It also slots in with that early prep build with Ebon Void.
Conviction would give a reasonable heal but have a short cooldown and usually works well in a crit build without PRE as long as you can bring the cooldown down.
Conundrum...
I'm going to go for Empathic Healing as it has a better heal per sec than the other maintains, can crit, fuels Overdrive so should be spammable and doesn't lock down movement.
SuperStats
www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/SuperstatsSo let's start by looking at at shich stats will fuel our energy
Overdrive prefers INT, END, REC
Concentration prefers INT and EGO
As both are fueled by INT it makes sense to Superstat INT, this also helps reduce power cost and cooldowns which will also be handy for energy management.
END raises our Max energy, handy for energy Management but only really if our powers are massively expensive (FYI, a full maintain of Avalanche consumes 232 energy but with overdrive it will help to fuel itself).
REC Boosts our equilibrum and increases energy returned. Overdrive reacts really well to REC.
EGO Improves ranged damage, ranged knocks and hold resistance. We'll want at least some in the build.
DEX boosts our Crit chance, something which can seriously help raise our damage output.
STR boosts Melee and provides Knock Resist, Melee is useless to us.
CON boosts our hit points but if we're staying true to squishy DPS we will be avoiding.
PRE improves healing strength, hold duration and crowd control so aside from our heal it's not much use to us.
So the build could use INT, END, REC, EGO & DEX.
Now it's time to see which Spec Tree we'll get the most out of.
Specialization Tree Info:
forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=145568Dr Sage's Guide to Spec Trees:
forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=145720So as Ranged DPS I'm considering the spec trees for END, EGO or DEX. These are either geared for energy management (END for blasters) or Crits (EGO and DEX) so should give us better DPS results that the other spec trees.
Here's the spec Tree choices I'd go for in either of them.
Specializations:
Endurance: Readiness (2/3)
Endurance: Gear Utilization (3/3)
Endurance: Outburst (3/3)
Endurance: Power Overwhelming (2/3)
Specializations:
Dexterity: Combat Training (3/3)
Dexterity: Gear Utilization (2/3)
Dexterity: Deadly Aim (3/3)
Dexterity: Expose Weakness (2/2)
Specializations:
Ego: Insight (3/3)
Ego: Aggression (2/2)
Ego: Follow Through (3/3)
Ego: Sixth Sense (2/3)
So if I went with the END tree it would be all about getting energy over 90% and maintaining the 15% damage boost from Outburst. END Mastery give you a percentage of your max energy.
EGO would give us a power cost discount and raise crit chance and severity as well as an offense boost. EGO mastery adds 20 to each Secondaru SS.
DEX would increase Crit Severity, the extra DEX would raise out crit chance, raise offense and when we crit it will debuff their damage resistance. DEX Mastery gives 20 Dex, 10% critical severity and some Avoidance rating.
We are going to get more mileage out of DEX. So it's DEX, INT and either EGO or END. I Suspect we'll need a higher EGO that END as we only really need that to raise the energy cap for Avalance maintains so DEX, INT then EGO it is.