I am relatively new to this game and this class in particular, but I have been seeking info for myself and figured I'd compile what I had together in one post for my guild members and friends. Figure I'll share it with you all here as well. Most of this info may be repeated to some people, but for others this could be useful.

If you see anything I should change please let me know as it will both help me and enable me to change it to help my guild thanks in advance.

Original Link to my guide: http://relentless-assault.com/forum/m/34744825/viewthread/25357046-lightning-sorcerer-40-shock-awe/page/1

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- Stats

- Gearing, augmenting

-Cooldowns

-Rotation tips

Disclaimer: I'm writing this guide for my friends and guildies, I am not exactly an experienced player for this game at the time of writing this, it is my first guide for this class and game in general. Feel free to suggest changes below.

Stats

I am still working on perfecting my own stats but what I am reading and do know for sure so far is a few basic numbers. Since Mastery and power is on all gear now we don't need to augment for it at all. This makes it really easy to decide what stats to look for. Each slot has a stat that seems to be assigned to it. This makes managing our stats a bit easier.

* Most importantly is Accuracy, you want to hit 110% accuracy as soon as possible. This will prevent bosses and mobs from resisting your attacks. If you are super close, for example I am at the time of writing this 109.99% You can forgo stacking anymore as it won't be worth it. Also you'll more then likely get that last bit on an upgrade before you know it.

* Critical Rating: Crit is combined as of 4.0, so you no longer worry about balancing crit and surge etc. Your bonus damage increases with your crit rating. Once again, really usefull change as now we just push our crit up and get both benefits.

* Alacrity: Speeds up casting and activation times, this is your 3rd most important stat, it will decrease your cast times, although not by a ton, don't try to stock pile it thinking you will get 1 second casts. As an added bonus it increases your force regeneration rate by a tiny amount. Not that we should be having any problems with that as Lightning, unless we are throwing out a ton of off healing or spamming only AoE's for extended time. I'm hearing that we should aim for 8%.

Gearing

Gearing is simple, since stats are assigned to certain slots the only choice really is what augments to use. According a post on the game forums the "Ideal" amount of each is 5 critical, 4 Alacrity, and 5 Accuracy. This is not always going to be true however, in my case I was already where I needed to be for hit with only 3 Accuracy. So I have an extra augment to boost my other stats. As Stated above, your first goal is to get to 110% once that's achieved then start building up crit and alacrity.

My current stats in 216/220 gear are as follows

Accuracy: 109.99%

Critical: 41.51%

Crit Multiplier: 69.45%

Alacrity: 5.82

Cool down usage

Activating cool downs at the right time and the right order can be more effective then on their own. Try to keep use them as often as possible, unless saving for a specific phase or mechanic (burn phase or adds etc)

Unlimited Power: pop this at the start of your "Nuke" phase It is a flat 10% increase to mastery and endurance for your raid or group. It is the only one of your cool downs not effected by Alacrity. So use it before others.

Polarity Shift: Use as often as possible, whenever it comes up, use it. Should be holding this cool down no more then a few seconds if you wish to align it with a big ability. (thundering blast, if you know you'll need to throw some off-healing, or a battle rez this can be really useful)

Recklessness: Gives you 2 (3 with set bonus) charges of "increased crit chance" at later gear levels this basically guarantees your next abilities will critical, tho not always so do try to note this. Best used with Lightning strikes or flash of lightning. As with Polarity Shift, this can help in emergencies to throw out some big heals but this is not ideal. You can also use this to do a ton of burst AoE dps as this will increase your crit on the entire channel of Force Storm! So each hit, on each mob is a crit with each and every tick of the damage.

**Note: Technically Sorcs are bugged, as we are supposed to be able to use Recklessness with Thundering Blast for a super-crit but it is not currently working that way. Do not cast this, then immediately follow it with Thundering Blast as you'll just waste a charge. I'll update this if I hear that has changed.

Force Speed: Last but not least, force speed can be used as an escape 'sprint' ability as well as a dps boost. It will give you 2 instant casts of Lightning Strike, enabling you to keep dps going while you need to move. Note that using it while standing still is barely an increase as you will still have to wait that 1.__ for the GCD.

Pro-tips

Nuke Time Rotation:

- Pop Unlimited Power

- Pull with Mind Crush, try to time a precast with your tank so it casts just after the tank has taunted.

- Affliction

-Use Polarity shift

-Thundering Blast (guaranteed crit with Affliction on the target)

-Use Recklessness

-Lightning Flash

-Mind crush if it's back up yet

-repeat as cool downs allow

-Continue with your usual rotation.

Use this burst method every chance you get and on phases where high dps is extra important. Remember to save your cool downs for these types of situations.

* Do not underestimate Cloud Mind, Sorcerers do pull a good amount of aggro because of the nature of our abilities. This will help the tanks keep aggro off you and help keep you from tanking the floor.

- Do not stop casting, ever. If you missed your cool down, don't stop casting to cast a different ability. Just finish that cast and then let fly what you wanted to cast. It is a bigger dps loss to stop the cast and start a new one.

Exact opening is -

Pre-casted mind crush/crushing darkness (as you said)

weaken mind/affliction

Polarity shift

Turbulence/Thundering blast

Force potency/Recklessness

TK Gust/Lightning Flash

TK WAVE/Chain lightning (was made instant by Turb/TB)

TK burst/Lightning bolt until -

Turb/TB gets off cooldown - reproc wave/CL instant

TK wave/CL

More TK burst/Lightning bolt

WM/CD

Tk gust/LF

*PS fall off*

Being able to squeeze the last one in probably depend on alacrity.

Regardless of opening or not, the priority list is simple enough and as follow:

1-Weaken Mind/Affliction (should be applied only once and refreshed after by your other abilities, but some fight have pause or target switch, it HAS to be there)

2- Turbulence/Thundering blast

3- Mind Crush/Crushing Darkness (IF you have the TK gust/Lightning flash proc for it)

4-Tk Gust/Lightning flash

5-Tk wave/Chain Lightning (procced)

6-TK burst/Lightning bolt

Under potency/recklessness always use gust/flash before wave/CL since if it hits more than one target it WILL eat all your charges.

Always try to use Reck/Potency on Gust/Wave inside a polarity shift window (would be damn easier if we had TK gust/LF back to 12 sec cd tough) Same for adrenals, for the reason you mentionned.

Tk wave/CL is less of a priority than Tk gust/LF since they are limited by their cooldown, while it doesn't matter if you use tk wave/CL just after it procced or toward the very end, it will proc right back up still since its the proc internal clock that matters, not the ability cooldown that gets reseted by the proc when it happens.

So you have plenty of time to deal with a turb, MC, LF should it really be "mistimed". Next one might just be a bit closer by.

Exact opening is -

 

Pre-casted mind crush/crushing darkness (as you said)

weaken mind/affliction

Polarity shift

Turbulence/Thundering blast

Force potency/Recklessness

TK Gust/Lightning Flash

TK WAVE/Chain lightning (was made instant by Turb/TB)

TK burst/Lightning bolt until you get a proc for instant WK wave/CL

TK wave/CL

More TK burst/Lightning bolt

All good and everything on what was said above EXCEPT that you need a burst/bolt right after turbo/blast and before potency or due to the time of travel of turbo/blast you will consume 1 potency charge with it and given that there is no superscrit there then it gets wasted. Also you can burn force speed in the pre-pull phase to make 2 bolts instants in order to fit them within relic procs (would not recommend it in fights such as underlurker though especially now with the long cd).

PS: actually the last part is not correct.

TK burst/Lightning bolt until you get a proc for instant WK wave/CL

TK wave/CL

More TK burst/Lightning bolt

You forgot turbu/blast. And with perfect timing wave/chain will always be proced by turbu/blast. Usually, they drift by one gcd as over time with qing abilities it will be proced by a last bolt right before turbu/blast.

generally you should already be at chain lightening before your tank needs to taunt. if your tank is opening with a taunt, you need a new tank...

I guess I could have said pull...just meant generally.

All good and everything on what was said above EXCEPT that you need a burst/bolt right after turbo/blast and before potency or due to the time of travel of turbo/blast you will consume 1 potency charge with it and given that there is no superscrit there then it gets wasted. Also you can burn force speed in the pre-pull phase to make 2 bolts instants in order to fit them within relic procs (would not recommend it in fights such as underlurker though especially now with the long cd).

 

PS: actually the last part is not correct.

 

You forgot turbu/blast. And with perfect timing wave/chain will always be proced by turbu/blast. Usually, they drift by one gcd as over time with qing abilities it will be proced by a last bolt right before turbu/blast.

True, I forgot a TB/Turb in there. I use it in my rotation edited it, just I hardly think about it anymore (was 2 am when I wrote that waiting for a craft to be done and then get to bed, had to actually remember what I now do without thinking about, my bad, shouldnt type tired )

As for the extra bolt, I'm unsure if its wise to delay that much LF, since it would prevent it to be reused in the Polarity shift window. (i normally get it off just before it fall off) so I'm currently taking a tiny break (doesnt take full 1,5 sec to travel, and depends on distance.) My alacrity is just a few point short of full 220, so perhaps with 224 level its possible to squeeze one extra bolt there.

I do agree tough easiest way would be fixing the damn reck already. Would certainly help giving the spec a bit of the burst it lost.

As for the extra bolt, I'm unsure if its wise to delay that much LF, since it would prevent it to be reused in the Polarity shift window. (i normally get it off just before it fall off) so I'm currently taking a tiny break (doesnt take full 1,5 sec to travel, and depends on distance.) My alacrity is just a few point short of full 220, so perhaps with 224 level its possible to squeeze one extra bolt there.

 

I do agree tough easiest way would be fixing the damn reck already. Would certainly help giving the spec a bit of the burst it lost.

You delay it by 1gcd=1.5s. If you want to hold back a bit on that gcd then it means 0.5s-1s, so the actual difference is 0.5-1 but you lose an extra bolt in there.

My AoE I pop Reck if it's up, do 2 full channels of Force Storm (ticking about 8-9k per target right now) and then Chain Lightning for around 10k.

With reck superb aoe is:

hard-cast chain > reck/full storm > full storm > chain

(recall chain buffs your aoe attacks so your for reck storms will hit even harder).