My Sorcerer MC is just support

[Jorge_S]

I am playing at Hard difficulty, sage sorcerer.
I am currently near the end of Act 2

problem: my spells are a bit underwhelming during combat, I feel like a secondary character, not the leader.

Basically, in ACT 2 I am finding too many enemies that are immune to ACT 1 winners like grease, glitterdust, fireball, etc plus very high spell resistance and either immunity to fire, poison, ice, etc
End result is that I had to refocus my MC's spells on buffs to the party so that it can survive and hit enemies (spells like: Haste, Mirror Image, Displace, Greater Invisibility. That way, while I am not doing a lot of damage (other than a weak magic missile or equivalent each turn, at least I am helping the other guys to survive damage (Displace) or shoot more often (Haste) or actually hit the high AC enemies (Greater Invisibility).

Any winning Level 3 or 4 spells I am missing? something that can hurt the tough demon gargoyle hunters? or that can be good against bosses?

Important to say, I am doing OK, with haste + mirror image + Greater Invisibility I can more or less survive and win tough fights, it is just the feeling that my MC is underwhelming.

[PainkillerDCXVI]

My Sorc MC only started doing work when my lightning attacks started ignoring immunities. Took quite a while to go from a small help in damage to a big chunk...

[MjKorz]

ptirodaktill の投稿を引用：

You can pump that DC with touch of glory

Touch of Glory is fixed and no longer gives raw CHA bonus.

ptirodaktill の投稿を引用：

There is no pure AoE mage, cause you need extra Juice to deal dmg

There is, but it's inferior to both ray casters and DC casters. You can build a Lich that shoots CL42 fire Chain Lightning and deals 1260 damage on the main target and 420 damage on secondary targets. You can also build a Demon that does good comparable Chain Lightning damage and can use Abyssal Storm to deliver over 1k damage to primary target and roughly 700 damage to secondary targets. These builds require proper dedication, though, and are not compatible with ray casting so you can't be both a ray caster and an AoE blaster. And these builds will crush enemy saves.

[ptirodaktill]

MjKorz の投稿を引用：

ptirodaktill の投稿を引用：

You can pump that DC with touch of glory

Touch of Glory is fixed and no longer gives raw CHA bonus.

[
There is, but it's inferior to both ray casters and DC casters. You can build a Lich that shoots CL42 fire Chain Lightning and deals 1260 damage on the main target and 420 damage on secondary targets. You can also build a Demon that does good comparable Chain Lightning damage and can use Abyssal Storm to deliver over 1k damage to primary target and roughly 700 damage to secondary targets. These builds require proper dedication, though, and are not compatible with ray casting so you can't both be a ray caster and an AoE blaster. And these builds will crush enemy saves.

I`m glad they fixed Glory.

Do they work in act3?

[MjKorz]

ptirodaktill の投稿を引用：

Do they work in act3?

They do, but you will never deal impressive damage.

[Battler]

MjKorz の投稿を引用：

I suggest such number would me only in act 5 with Aoe mage on Main?

[MjKorz]

Battler の投稿を引用：

MjKorz の投稿を引用：

I suggest such number would me only in act 5 with Aoe mage on Main?

I'm posting numbers for late act 5 with full gear, correct.

Also I made an error with Lich Chain Lightning CL: it's 40, not 42, because CL42 is what a Lich DC Evoker reaches. A blaster Lich reaches only CL40. The damage is stil 1260, though.

[atm]

Some ways that might make a sage sorcerer work:

-Build as a blaster. It can be done. Use bolster, empower and maximize on all your ray spells (hellfire ray is the king). You can use metamagic to do one or two, and use a rod for the other. You'll be slightly behind a draconic bloodline sorcerer, but not by all that much. When your rays do 1000 damage, losing the 90 or so you'd have gotten from the double draconic crossblooded bloodline isn't all that much of a big deal.
You could (but definitely do not need to) take medium armor, the arcane armor feat, and potentially hellknight signifier prestige class level or three, to be able to cast in medium armor, and then gain another +1 elemental damage per die from the armor you get from wintersun.
You would want to go trickster mythic path for the extra crits and higher damage on crit, and might consider taking the Eldritch Knight prestige class to gain free quickened spells on crit (especially since when sorcerers use metamagic it makes their spells into full-round actions).

-Build as a melee. (Bear with me). I have played a completely unfair-viable melee sorcerer. Take the lich mythic path. Use dragon form to be a dragon, combined with the lich's fear control, its vampiric weapon buff, and the power from death spell (which appears to minutes per level, not rounds per level as it says, meaning it can easily be made 24h). All your 8+ attacks will do extra negative energy damage and restore your health, making you very tanky and do fairly competent melee damage. The nice thing is that then later on you don't have to go full lich - you can decide to switch to the Gold Dragon or the legend path, and retain the knowledge of the lich spells you learned (but not your mythic lich powers). In my melee sorcerer playthrough I switched to gold dragon, which was the point of that playthrough. I would recommend getting the claws of a sacred beast (item from the crusade map) that will add extra damage to all your natural attacks, and maybe the shroud of eternal hunger (crusade relic decision item) which will add +4 to all your natural attacks in dragon form.

-Build as a crowd control caster. One way you can do this that you might not have thought of is to take a few levels of Loremaster, to get a couple of divine spells that will open up some new options. There are some spells that absolutely RUIN enemy parties even when the *pass* their saves. One that I never see mentioned is Holy Word, which you can take with a single level of Loremaster.
Holy Word will insta-kill anything that is 10 levels below your caster level on a failed save, but even if they save they will be both paralysed and blinded. That includes basically all demons. If you build in such a way that you maximize your caster level, you can probably get to nearly 40, and most Act 4 enemies are late teens, early twenties in level. I've had fun with a merc who was built specifically for this, and can attest that it will save your butt when you can't just charge down an enemy pull, such as with random encounters. My advice for maximizing caster level:

--Fiery Spellweaver staff +2 to evocation level
--School specialization (evocation) (mythic ability) +1
--Spell specialization feat (holy word) +2
--Robe of the Seven Sins +3
Then, mythic path dependent:
--Merged Spellbook - up to +8
--Lich +2
--Aeon +4 from gaze
--Up to +8 from having prestige caster classes as a legend
--probably others I'm forgetting
So basically, you can get to the point you can guaranteed stun and blind any number of vavakia and mariliths with a single spell, with a chance of outright killing them if they fail their saves. It's worth noting it's a sonic spell (apparently) so, items that increase the DC of sonic spells will help make the enemies fail their saves.
Overwhelming presence is another spell worth looking at, but it is mind affecting (which somehow holy word isn't??) so more enemies will be resistant to it. It will still stagger all enemies that pass their saves, so will always do something pretty good.

Anyway, some thoughts for anyone trying to make their sorcerer strong :)

[MjKorz]

atm の投稿を引用：

--Fiery Spellweaver staff +2 to evocation level
--Spell specialization feat (holy word) +2

Fiery Spellweaver is the +1 CL to all spells staff. Ashmaker is the +2 CL to Evocation spells staff.

You do not want to take Spell Specialization in Holy Word, because it requires Spell Focus Evocation, which disables Expanded Arsenal Evocation, resulting in a massive opportunity cost (up to -22) of Evocation DCs for a Lich who takes no (Greater/Mythic) Spell Penetration feats.

This particular Lich Evoker build is best on an Exploiter Wizard who can buff his spells by +2 CL via Potent Magic.

The CL you can hit without Spell Specialization is:
- Caster Level for Evocation Spells: 42
20 base at level 20
+10 from Mythic Spellbook merge
+2 from Potent Magic spell CL increase
+2 from Dark Rites
+2 from Ashmaker
+2 from Storyteller's Knowledge
+1 from School Mastery - Evocation
+3 from Robe of Seven Sins

Which is enough to instakill all but the highest HD bosses in the game and clears Inevitable Excess non-boss mobs in a jiffy.

[Raikon]

Considering your reference is a ich, how could a lich not overcome a bosses DC. They get the lich corrupt magic.

[MjKorz]

Raikon の投稿を引用：

Considering your reference is a ich, how could a lich not overcome a bosses DC. They get the lich corrupt magic.

You can easily overcome buffed boss DCs (except Areshkagal who is not buffed and has the highest saves in the main campaign), but you will have trouble in unfair Inevitable Excess as a DC caster Lich without expanded arsenal, if you're trying to cast an AoE spell and beat the saves of IE mobs in a group. IE mobs come massively prebuffed with very high saves and Corrupt Magic is a single target spell - the action and spell cost of corrupting all of them is too high. You need a passively high spell DC for unfair Inevitable Excess, if you want to be a DC caster.

This is why I take dispel synergy on this particular Lich build - to cast an AoE greater dispel and produce a -2 save debuff, then cast an AoE disabling/death spell.

[MjKorz]

ManBearCannon の投稿を引用：

The tactical leader is the best spell caster buffer in the game

No. That's Court Poet. The +4 Morale bonus to main casting stat which translates into +2 spell DC early is stronger than literally infinite amounts of spell penetration. Later it grows to +6 at level 16 which is even better, but it's the early +4 boost that's the real powerhouse since at that point in the game every point of spell DC is invaluable.

Spell penetration is a useless meme stat for any school or mythic path at the start of chapter 3 due to the availability of spellpen boosting items: Robe of Inevitability (which you actually get in chapter 2), Ring of Pyromania and Quarterstaff of the Warmage. Moreover, chapters 1 and 2 can be played through a combination of Conjuration and Evocation spells with a complete and utter disregard for any and all SR due to Grease, Glitterdust and Shout spells ignoring SR outright.

Even if you do not use SR-ignoring spells, you can use Sosiel's Bit of Luck to grant yourself an advantage on spellpen rolls and achieve very high spellpen success rates against the highest SR bosses in Chapter 2: Darazzand, Blightmaw and Staunton:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2849290996

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2926914167

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2844849404

[MjKorz]

ManBearCannon の投稿を引用：

Court poet only adds +2 DC.

The witch can add +4 DC with evil eye, +4 DC with bestow curse (persistent), +8 DC by utilizing both on the same turn with sorcerer's reflex -- and late game +12 DC with evil eye and bestow curse greater (persistent).

The thug can add +2 DC with shaken, +2 DC with sicken, and +2 DC with frightened on a single hit at level 3. That's +6 DC and -6 attack by level 4.

The court poet is actually underwhelming as a casting buffer, but still decent.

Lol. Court Poet is the absolute best, because the Morale bonus stacks with everything you've mentioned. It's +2 ON TOP of two Evil Eyes and Touch of Law and/or Vision of Madness. The only case where Court Poet can be ditched is when you're playing Azata in the midgame and have Believe in Yourself for a Morale bonus to any stat(s).

Bestow Curse is something only a dedicated Necromancer DC caster can land on unfair when we're talking about targets actually worth debuffing.

Besides, a high Charisma Court Poet can Demoralize all the bosses in chapters 2-3 even on Unfair difficulty without actually needing to beat the high AC of undebuffed bosses. And if you make him a DEX-based Kitsune with Master Shapeshifter and a Scaled Fist dip you can use him as the main or secondary tank, if you choose so lmao.

[MjKorz]

ManBearCannon の投稿を引用：

Bestow curse 1 and 2 are well worth making a dedicated necromancer for any spellcasting party. +8 DC early game and +12 DC late game on a single turn is just a bit too sweet. Persistent and reach metas are must haves for it to function in addition to necromancy focus.

Bestow Curse spells are relevant only if your dedicated DC caster is a Necromancer. You cannot support two DC casters in one party properly due to lack of gear. If you're playing something like an Enchanter, Illusionist or Evoker you don't care about those spells since you can't land them reliably on unfair due to lack of Necromancy DCs and take Necromancy as opposition anyway.

Besides, if you can beat the target's Will save why are you even casting Bestow Curse? Just Fear or Banshee Blast the target to cause disability via Fear and it's over lmao.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

One of the problems with the pathfinder games is owlcat love for increasing monsters stats.
Making many of your spells outright useless at higher difficulty.

That said here are a few tips:
1: Early game your a buffer.
Early game is where fighters rule and late game is where casters rule.
Most of the game there both usefull.

2: Look for ways to increase your spell dc.
I believe it is called spell level in your spellbook.
As sorceror you want to stack charisma like there is no tommorow.
More charisma is always good.
Get items that increase your spell dc.

3: Spell dc decide what your enemy needs to roll to not be effected.
Cloadkill can really hurt if your enemies need to roll a 30 or higher every turn.
For spells like fireballl get selective spell, empowered spell and maximize spell feats.
These 3 will help you with offensive spell damage.

4: Dont think: Fireball will kill or hurt most of them.
Think:
Fireball has a massive area of effect.
I can hit 24 enemies with one spell.
They take around 25% health damage from 1 fireball.
I need to cast 4 of them to kill them.
Alternatively i can cast haste. The a fireball to soften them up for the team.

5: The biggest advantage of spells is that they always hit.
A fireball isnt powerful because of its poor damage.
it is powerful because your enemy will get hit.
If it will get hurt depends on spell resistance, evasion feat(Rogue's are cheaters!) and if they make a dex save.
But they will get hit.
A fighter doesnt get that.
They dont get to say:
Make a dex save to half 8d6 damage.

6: Action economy.
Pathfinder is all about that action economy.
Summons arent strong but every single action taken against a summon is an action not taking again something harder to replace.
Both you and your enemies can only do so much per turn.
Playing on turnbased will give you a general idea of the rules that play in the background when playing in real time.
A demon that is busy fighting your paladin will do several attacks against the paladins ac.
If sad paladin got 24 ac the demon needs to roll a 24 of higher.
Now if you level drianed or strenght drain that demon it might not be able to roll a 24.

Playing a sorceror is playing discout wizard.
Playing a wizard is a game of:
How can i spend the least amount of spells to compleetly criple my enemies ability to swing that oversized weapon.

[MjKorz]

ManBearCannon の投稿を引用：

The witch casts evil eye before bestow curse, which immediately lowers saves by 4. Then the witch has the DC items in the late game because the follow up of persistent bestow curse is another -8. So when this hits, no one else needs DC items because save are lowered by 12 from the witch's one turn.

The thug adds -6 saves on top of that, an enchanter can persistent mind fog on top of that for another -10, court poet, etc. The witch is the only one who needs the DC item because once the curse and evil eye hit -- it's all over for them; but I'm playing on Core Azlanti mode.

1. Witches are horrible DC casters: they lack the bonus feats of Wizards and Sorcerers and have no class features that provide them with a passive spell DC boost like Aura of Despair, Foretell-Hinder, Potent Magic or School Power.

2. Evil Eye alone is not going to allow a Witch with no spell DC boosting items to overcome Will saves of unfair undebuffed bosses. The Witch will not have the DC-boosting items, because she should NEVER EVER be the dedicated DC caster of the party due to her inferiority to other classes. The Witch acts as a debuffer for the actual DC caster by providing Evil Eye save debuff.

3. If you can land Bestow Curse spells on a target by beating their Will save, you don't actually need to land Bestow Curse, because you can just cast Fear or Banshee Blast, beat the same Will save and disable the target.

4. The Thug is completely irrelevant, because its debuffs can be (mostly) taken over by Prediction of Failure in the lategame and Demoralize in the early game AND you do not need to hit the high AC of undebuffed unfair bosses.

5. Having two DC casters in a party is a massive waste of a party slot so you're not going to cast any Mind Fogs on top of curses, unless you're playing some kind of Enchanter-Necromancer, but there is absolutely no point in doing that from an optimization standpoint.

And last - core is completely irrelevant in this discussion, I'm talking about unfair only where saves are not trivial to beat.