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Guide: Leveling a tri-spec Sorcerer 1-50


Iselin

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I see many posts in threads promoting different end-game specs from people requesting a more detailed breakdown on how to get there. This thread is for you, beginning Sorcerers.

 

First a disclaimer: This spec is all about leveling a Sorcerer while being competent in all aspects of the game but the emphasis is on solo play. Like it or not, you will spend the vast majority of your time soloing so that's where the emphasis of this spec is. I also want to mention is that I don't believe there is an ultimate way of picking talents while leveling--there are many ways to do it and the truth is that most of us did it slightly differently and it worked. This post is written with the advantage of hindsight.

 

Companions

 

Khem is it. Let's get this one out of the way early so you don't waste a lot of time and money attempting to gear them all as you level: unless you're determined to ignore this thread and level as a full-fledged healer(definitely doable but someone else can write that healer guide,) in which case you'll want better DPS than what Khem puts out even if you use his DPS stance and gear him for that by emphasizing Strength over Endurance/Absorption/Shield/Defense. (Ashara is my favorite DPS companion for Sorcerers.)

 

Khem is all you need. You do get an alternative to Khem (another tank) much later on (45+) but by that time it's unlikely his gearing will be on par with Khem's. Which brings up the first crucial point: Always, always gear your companion up as if he was the main character...you gear him first and yourself second...really.

 

Khem is a tank. Not only can he take several things beating on him, more importantly, he holds aggro which allows you to DPS things down without attracting a lot of attention. Please note that you can also maximize his effectiveness by using focus fire, just the same way as if he was a player tank. If you go AOE crazy or attack something other than Khem's target, you will pull aggro off him and generally just slow things down. That's not to say you can't throw your AOE around some: just don't start with it before he has a chance to attract all the attention to himself.

 

Jack of All Trades

 

There is no reason in the world why you can't heal flashpoints while you level. This is especially true of FPs before level 30 or so. You really can do it all the way to 50 but dedicated healers with healing-focused specs will have a much easier time at the higher levels. The emphasis of this spec is DPS, but don't be afraid to heal an FP, especially if you have a good group where everyone knows their role: If you're mostly healing the tank you'll have zero problems but if everyone starts taking too much damage, it'll be a struggle with this hybrid spec.

 

Levels 10-14

 

The goal of these early levels is to overcome the force cost of your abilities which can easily leave you depleted after a tough fight. 2/2 Reserves and 3/3 Electric Induction should be your first 5 points spent resulting in this at level 14: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201Zf.1

 

You'll see end-game specs without any points or perhaps 1/3 in Electric Induction. There are good reasons later on to make those compromises for increased DPS...just ignore that for now.

 

Levels 15-19

 

You want to start increasing your DPS. The easiest ways to do this is by Increasing your Willpower by 6% with 2/2 in Will of the Sith (Willpower increases, damage, healing and critical chance) and putting 3/3 in Calcify to increase your Force Lightning damage by 12%. Force Lightning is the signature ability of the Sorcerer and you will use it as your primary attack always. Increasing its damage is essential. Your spec will look like this at 19: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201ZfZcM.1

 

Levels 20-23

 

Let's emphasize defense a bit so we can get out of jams more effectively. By now you will have realized that our bubble shield is not bad at all...pretty damn good actually. Let's make it even better (+20%) by putting 2/2 in Lightning Barrier. You will probably have also come to love Dark Infusion and hate the meager heals at a high cost of Dark Heal. The problem is that Dark Infusion takes 3 seconds to cast... let's improve that to 2.5s with 2/2 in Dark Mending. The end result at 23 is: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201MZf00MZcM.1

 

Levels 24-34

 

OK. Let's get serious about Madness. Over the next 10 levels you progressively become more adept at killing with an almost limitless pool of Force, No one else in the game will be able to sustain this much damage for as long as you can. You should start out by increasing the critical chance of Force Lightning by 10% with 2/2 in Disintegration. Yes Lightning Strike gets the same buff but you'll seldom if ever use LS with this build. A word about Lightning Strike: you might use it occasionally while Force Lightning still has a cool down but once you get rid of that CD, LS will only ever be used in the rare situation that it can be cast instantly, Crushing Darkness is on cool down and you either don't have Chain Lightning yet or CL is not appropriate because it might break a crowd controlled mob nearby. It's just not part of the main rotation with this spec.

 

Your next 3 points should go into 3/3 Chain Shock. Shock is a great little instant with very decent damage that you can cast on the run (comes in very handy in PVP.) Making it 22.5% more potent (extra 50% damage 45% of the time) is a very good thing.

 

Now get rid of the cool down for Force Lightning with 1/1 in Madness and if that isn't great all by itself, let's make it regenerate force also with 3/3 in Sith Efficacy. The force regeneration here is huge since Force Lightning is what you'll be using most of the time anyway.

 

Your next 2 points will be spent in 1/1 Death Field which is a very nice and potent AOE and 1/1 in Wrath which makes your Force Lightning trigger an effect that allows the next damaging ability that would otherwise have a cast time become instant (and therefore useable while moving) and hit 20% harder. You'll use that "proc" to cast Crushing Darkness whenever it's available or Lightning Strike when it's not. Later on, after you have Chain Lightning, it will be CD and CL you'll use it on 99% of the time.

 

At level 34 it looks like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201MZf00MZcMcRs0z.1

 

Levels 35-39

 

Now it's time to round-out the Lightning tree and get the two great 3rd tier abilities in this branch but before we do that, it's time for a quick re-spec. Why re-spec at this point? Well you don't need the 9% force cost reduction from electric induction as much as you used to now that you can regenerate force with your Force Lightning spam. Those points are better spent increasing the damage from Crushing Darkness, Lightning Strike and the Chain Lightning you will soon be getting. A straight up 6% increase with 3/3 in convection is very nice. Your new level 34 spec looks like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201MZbc0MZcMcRs0z.1

 

Your next 2 points should go into 2/2 Exsanguinate to increase the time of your core Damage Over Time ability, Affliction by 6 seconds. Contrary to what some people think, this does not spread the same damage out over a longer period of time which would be a DPS decrease. What it does is it adds 40% more damage per cast of affliction and, not insignificantly, it now only needs refreshing once every 21 seconds instead of once every 15. For your next point you have a choice: you can either go ahead and put one point back in 1/3 Electric Induction for a 3% force cost reduction on everything, increase the range of some of your damage spells to 35 meters with 1/1 in Lightning Spire or gain a 50% chance that some of your damaging abilities will trigger a 10% faster force regeneration with 1/2 in Subversion. Personally I prefer the guaranteed 3% cost reduction and that's where I put the point.

 

In any event at level 38 you get the very best damaging AOE ability you have in Chain Lightning which also happens to be a close 2nd best single target ability to Crushing Darkness. You will be using the +20% damage instant procs from Wrath on this and CD constantly. The next point goes into an equally spectacular ability with 1/2 in Lightning Barrage which gives you a 50% chance that any critical tick from your DOT, Affliction, will allow Force Lightning to channel twice as fast dealing the same amount of damage and regenerating force twice as fast for a whopping 100% increase in damage and force regeneration per second for the ability you're always going to be spamming anyway. So if this ability is so good why only 1/2 points for 50% instead of 100% chance? Well it's a compromise because you'll need that point later on to gain a 100% chance of something even better....read on.

 

At level 39 it will look like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201MZdcMMkZcMcRs0z.1

 

Levels 40-50

 

Finally the time has come to round-out the healing while getting some nice DPS boosts along the way. With 3/3 in Seeping Darkness you increase the critical chance of everything you do--damage and heals--by 3%. The next 2 points after that will be spent for 2/2 in Force Suffusion which is a great 10% increase to all your AOE damage abilities (healing too but you'll never see the AOE heal with this build.) You now need to spend 3 points somewhere to get to the 3rd tier and there are few wrong choices. You can go 3/3 in Lucidity to reduce the push-back when something is beating on you while you try to heal and additionally reduce the threat generated by healing, increase the effect of self-heals by 8% with 2/2 in Empty Body or increase your Presence attribute by 6% while also increasing your heals by 2% with 2/2 in Haunting Presence. Since you're still leveling and Presence directly increases the effectiveness of everything your companion does, you might as well put it there and get a 2% healing bonus on top of that. Put the other point in 1/2 empty body for the 4% self heal increase.

 

Your final 3 points will go into your instant small heal plus heal over time (HOT) ability in 1/1 Resurgence and 2/2 in Force Bending. It's Force Bending why we only put 1/2 in Lightning Barrage instead of 2/2 earlier. What this does is that every time you cast Resurgence, your next Dark Infusion has its cast time reduced by 1 second. This extra second makes a huge difference in keeping yourself, your companion and others alive. Your emergency healing routine will be to cast a bubble, followed by Resurgence and followed by Dark Infusion...all in 4.5 seconds. (Note that there is currently a bug with ability activation queues: if you have the activation queue set to 1 second, you can cast a 2nd Dark Infusion also at 1.5s cast time if you do so before the previous one has finished casting. Enjoy it while it lasts but don't get too used to it.)

 

Your final tri-spec hybrid at 50 will look like this: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201GMdRZdcMMkZcMcRs0z.1

 

Closing Thoughts

 

As I said at the start, this tri-spec while very useful and potent for leveling, is by no means the best spec for anything at end-game. You'd be very lucky to heal a Hard Mode flashpoint with this and you'd manage it only if you had an exceptional group. For PVP it's missing what many of us consider essential, 2/2 in Haunted Dreams for an instant Whirlwind and there are much better DPS specs to be had by getting those 13 points out of healing and using them in the damage areas. (I currently am DPSing with the 13/28 spec which is very potent in PVE or PVP both (http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201ZdcMMdZcrcRsMkrc.1)

 

But for leveling 1-50 it's really tough to beat that tri-spec and it's a helluva lot of fun to play with.

 

I want to give credit to Hokonoso whose guide around Christmas time inspired me to try this tri-spec. His is a bit different than mine (he went for the extra range and 3/3 reduced pushback/healing aggro) but pretty well the same. That thread can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=101500

 

Hope you find this useful and have fun being good at everything :)

Edited by Iselin
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Nice guide, respec coming up but at least i got it early. only at 16 on sorceror atm:0

 

There is no need to respec at 16 just because you don't have the spec he has proposed here.

 

Also, there is no need to simply increase the size of your text to make it look better, lol.

 

Also, you are dead wrong on the issue of Khem. He is not all there is. A LOT of your leveling is better with a dps companion, such as Andronikus. When fighting against packs of normal mobs, he is perfectly viable. Also completely ignoring your dps companions is silly. There is simply no reason why you can't gear them up without spending a lot of credits. It is amazing sometimes what you can get from the comendation vendors when you find yourself not needing the gear yourself. I have gotten to 50 myself and helped other people level up.

Edited by Canarith
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Also, there is no need to simply increase the size of your text to make it look better, lol.

 

That would be for readability not to "make it look better...lol." I use an iPad for reading these forums and I bet I'm not the only one who uses a small screen--It helps.

 

Also, you are dead wrong on the issue of Khem. He is not all there is. A LOT of your leveling is better with a dps companion, such as Andronikus.

 

A DPS sorcerer doesn't need a DPS companion. A Corruption sorcerer does. And if I were to use a DPS companion for killing trash quickly while soloing, I'd take Ashara with dual lightsabres over Andronikus any day. A healer companion with a healer build would also "work" but I neither have the patience to do that nor the need to go DPS + DPS.

 

A DPS class like the sorcerer who can also do some nice healing on the side is made to use a tank companion.

 

When fighting against packs of normal mobs, he is perfectly viable. Also completely ignoring your dps companions is silly. There is simply no reason why you can't gear them up without spending a lot of credits. It is amazing sometimes what you can get from the comendation vendors when you find yourself not needing the gear yourself.

 

There is gearing and then there is gearing them right. Having been 50 for a while, all of mine have good sets of epics now from HM drops and dailies. While leveling to 50--which is the purpose of this guide--there's no way you'll be able to keep them all in same-level mods and epics but you can easily do that for one...Khem.

 

Unless you're skipping content and always questing in planets at your level or below, the commendations from the planet you're on are not the best gear for either you or the companions. That will only be the case in the first 3 planets but if you do any PVP, FPs or even Space Combat, you'll quickly outlevel the planet quest content and the mods and gear you get as drops or from commendations will be 4 or 5 levels less than you need.

 

Yeah you can gear all your companions with that stuff but that isn't even remotely close to gearing well.

 

I have gotten to 50 myself and helped other people level up.

 

Like I said at the top, there's a whole lot of ways to do it. Maybe you want to do a guide and tell us how you would do it in detail? Post a link to it when you do.

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I want to give credit to Hokonoso whose guide around Christmas time inspired me to try this tri-spec. His is a bit different than mine (he went for the extra range and 3/3 reduced pushback/healing aggro) but pretty well the same. That thread can be found here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=101500

 

 

Wow really?

 

Hoko's original spec had very little to do with healing at all, it was a full Max DPS Madness/Lightning hybrid build.

 

I had posted a few days before he did, the idea of the 3 spec hybrid, in which I have always used, then he goes and changes his original post to more mimic what I had introduced.

 

And people go and give him credit?

 

Not to mention, taking Haunting Presence over Lucidity is pretty dumb no matter what level you are.

 

Cmon mannnnn......

 

No respect :(

Edited by Wheelerific
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I'm leveling madness now and about to switch to lightning to work up to chain lightning. Based on my experience, I'm not sure how you can skip Oppressing Force in the Madness tree. I find it invaluable for leveling and easily completing boss fights. A build with points in Madness that does not include Oppressing Force for leveling just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. With 2 points in Oppressing Force, you can avoid the 2 points in the corruption tree as you will rarely, if ever, need to heal. Also, I have had 0 problems with force so I would avoid points in force generating abilities, for now. For what it is worth, my experience is based mostly on solo leveling. I cannot speak to FP's and Heroics though the ones I have done, have not been a problem. Edited by Mickloven
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Wow really?

 

Hoko's original spec had very little to do with healing at all, it was a full Max DPS Madness/Lightning hybrid build.

 

I had posted a few days before he did, the idea of the 3 spec hybrid, in which I have always used, then he goes and changes his original post to more mimic what I had introduced.

 

And people go and give him credit?

 

Not to mention, taking Haunting Presence over Lucidity is pretty dumb no matter what level you are.

 

Cmon mannnnn......

 

No respect :(

 

ROFL... oh wait, you're serious... OK here it goes:

 

I want to thank the academy and everyone who thought of this spec whether they posted it as a one liner, wrote a guide or just dreamt they had... I want to thank my parents for having me and everyone elses's parents for having them... and baby jesus too.

 

Hoko's post, where he took the time to explain it, is where I saw it first, hence my thanks to him... who are you again?

 

And about haunting presence, lucidity and dumbness...lucidity is most useful for dedicated healers in groups. In a solo/leveling spec where you use a tank (Khem) and mostly DPS with some occasional heals, your lucidity is the lesser, mostly wasted, choice because you should not be getting beat-on and you're one helluva lot more likely to pull aggro off Khem by DPSing than healing... it might come in handy in PVP but that'd be about it. Besides, I did mention that those points were optional and people could put them where they wanted... or did you miss that part?

 

Maybe when you posted this before Hoko (link?) you used the same trollish, "any way but mine is dumb" attitude and that's why we missed it? Just guessing.

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I'm leveling madness now and about to switch to lightning to work up to chain lightning. Based on my experience, I'm not sure how you can skip Oppressing Force in the Madness tree. I find it invaluable for leveling and easily completing boss fights. A build with points in Madness that does not include Oppressing Force for leveling just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. With 2 points in Oppressing Force, you can avoid the 2 points in the corruption tree as you will rarely, if ever, need to heal. Also, I have had 0 problems with force so I would avoid points in force generating abilities, for now. For what it is worth, my experience is based mostly on solo leveling. I cannot speak to FP's and Heroics though the ones I have done, have not been a problem.

 

That's a fair point about Oppressing Force. The more frequent stun and extra CC are both nice. Personally I didn't use them at all until end-game but I'd see no problem taking it with 2 of the points from Chain Shock.

 

You used it a lot as you leveled so obviously you consider it essential. I didn't so I don't but your suggestion is just fine with me.

 

Cheers.

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As a madness spec'd sorc at 27, I can attest that Adronwhatever works way better than Khem. Granted, I haven't gotten to the higher level stuff, but bubble him, control who he attacks with ctrl 1 / 2, whirlwind (or whatever it is) for cc'ing 1-3 npcs, heal him a little if needed, repeat. Does this become not viable 30+?
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As a madness spec'd sorc at 27, I can attest that Adronwhatever works way better than Khem. Granted, I haven't gotten to the higher level stuff, but bubble him, control who he attacks with ctrl 1 / 2, whirlwind (or whatever it is) for cc'ing 1-3 npcs, heal him a little if needed, repeat. Does this become not viable 30+?

 

Tatooine is pretty easy compared with what's to come. 30+ has noticeably harder hitting strongs.

 

Like everyone else I expect, I was pretty happy to get someone other than Khem (this was before I knew that you really can gear the ship droid well enough to make him an effective healer companion if you want to) so I used Andronikus a bit in Tatooine.

 

He does fine with trash pulls since we and him can DPS stuff down quickly. The same--even more so--applies to Ashara after you get her since her DPS is better. If anyone really, really wants to use a DPS companion with this spec you could pull it of.... better? Absolutely no way. Elite fights you'll have to deal with the elite hitting/shooting you constantly instead of just DPSing it down.

 

Our DPS is very, very good especially after getting chain lightning, We really don't need another DPS companion's help to kill anything and for me, it's a pain in the butt to have to deal with the mobs I've aggroed when playing with a companion that can't hold aggro.

 

Using a tank is just way easier and requires Seethe between fights much less frequently.

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This is great. I am lvl 33 currently and tried this build first at PVP and boy I did some damage, I never did so much damage at pvp I was at the top scorers.

 

It was also easy to fight againts NPC'S that outleveled me, killed some elites easily.

 

Nice build and thanks!

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Thanks for the feedback on 30+ leveling. So far, I'm mostly pvp'ing for valor in between class quests, though I've done a lot more questing than I had anticipated. Partially because I love Tatooine. I'm about at the point where I may start putting my other points into corruption or lightning. Folks posts have given me something to think on. I can vouch for madness up to 27 in pvp though :)
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I had been leveling as heal spec so far, going to try this out. I'm 31, so i don't have Death Field or Wrath yet. What should my spell priority be?

 

At your level you don't have any of the 3 AOEs. You'll have 2 of those--Death Field and Force Storm--soon, and that will affect how you deal with trash...especially Force Storm which is hard not to like with it's additional CC for normal and weak mobs.

 

Everything you do is still single target so you're best off spreading Affliction to all the mobs you're dealing with and then focusing on one with Crushing Darkness when available and just spam Force Lightning--which by now should have no cooldown and regenerates force. Just refresh Affliction when needed and that's it for the DPS side of things. Throw in a Shock here and there to finish mobs off or an oppressive force to stun (and interrupt non-elites.)

 

Defensively you just bubble and heal your companion--or rarely yourself--as needed.

 

Its a very simple rotation.

 

Once you have wrath you'll be using those instant +20% procs on Crushing Darkness and Lightning Strike until you get Chain Lightning. Then it'll be CL and CD you'll use the instant wrath procs on.

 

One things that's a bit different in SWTOR from other MMOs, and very cool to have, is that you will start to run into more and more elites with some very high damage special abilities that need to be interrupted. You won't see those just in flashpoints either you'll see them in your more difficult class story instances and in some other elites even in non-heroic instances. When you run into those, stopping your rotation to throw in a Jolt will be your top priority.

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Thanks. Giving this a well deserved bump and I have another question. WP is the obvious stat to pump, but what after that? Crit, Power, Force Power?

 

I think the jury's still out. Once we can parse damage/healing, I'm sure we'll figure it out.

 

Personally I prefer WP > Power (force or not) > Crit > Surge > Alacrity. But as you level, don't waste too much time worrying about it. You'll get drops that will make the decision for you a lot of the time.

 

End game you can't help but get a lot of Alacrity with level 50 epic drops.

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Well, after 10lvl's using this build (currently lvl 40), I dont see that much improvement from since I started using it, sure it was better than my last build, but at a higher level you need more damage, not always balance, it doesnt always work. Great guide anyways. Edited by Athred
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