Sorceress, Death Knight… WAR & WOW, Respectively.

Started a new Sorceress on Ironclaw with some friends. Haven’t played Warhammer Online in a while, but the gameplay feels quite a bit smoother and the casting animations are faster. Already I’m enjoying it more than at launch.

Haven’t had a lot of play time today, but will be writing more about the Sorc again soon.

A huge thank you goes to Muradi for taking time to write some very well constructed posts on SpellDamage in my absence. Thank you!

1.2 and 1.2.1 brought some changes to the tactics I use, some good and some really bad. Vision of Domination tactic got a huge buff, and it’s a must use, OP, cheap tactic right now which will make WoP’s insane as well as give you a + 80AP in your rotations. One of my favorite tactics Swell of Gloom got borked to insanity. It is still good for extra damage but by no means can be compared to what it used to be, which was well deserved for a level 11 talent ability. I also realized that Tapping the Dark got ninja-nerfed although the absorb shield was increased to 350, it does not stack anymore. Channeling aoe to a bunch or using Gloom of Night to have huge shields to protect you does not work like it used to.

That leaves 3 must slot tactics: Endless Knowledge, Frozen Fury, Vision of Domination with room for 1 to go. Some of my personal choices for the 4^th tactic are Triumphant Blasting, Devour Energy, Glorious Carnage and Close Quarters.

I love Close Quarters when soloing, especially melee. You will see a huge difference in damage, and they will be <45 distance most of the time. I am using an add-on called Equipment Sets to switch the gear set and an associated tactic suite I pre-made. It cannot be switched during combat, but if you see your opponent in distance, the add-on is priceless. It is also very useful in general, imo a must have addon. Other than soloing, I use Close quarters when my team is pinned down and all we can do is basically fight their mdps and tanks. Close Quarters can melt them down in that situation. I remember a SC we were against a premade and I did 300k single target dmg with 20 kb’s, almost all melee. Single target dmg for me is usually 200k dmg for >35 kb’s , so that tells you how effective Close Quarters is.

Devour Energy is a very useful tactic. It will give, on average, a +50~80 to AP pool. I think Vision of Domination covers this as of 1.2, so I don’t use Devour Energy anymore.

Glorious Carnage is a fun tactic. It is most definitely useful while it’s not a must have game breaker.

Lately melee has been overwhelming; too many Slayers, Witchunters 2 shotting you… Sometimes it takes 3 seconds to die. Godly CC on order side also helps. Once CC’d, you basically insta die. Focused mind is a 10 second counter but that leaves you open for more than 85% of the time. I have gone back to using Triumphant Blasting lately. I do not like aoe, although it’s useful I think it’s unfairly and easymode. So, I don’t mind using AE for CC and survivability. 2, 3 seconds is a lot of time against mdps. It is also a huge annoyance to healers casting group heals which have cast times, as well as bw’s who channel their rain of OP’ness. Kotbs’ hate it if u delays them from knocking everyone down from 65feet – u can use your 65 cone aoe, aoe Silence or a tick of PoS which are all instant and can be used while moving, with range at 65 and 80 feet.

Tapping the Dark used to do better but it’s not working anymore. Devour Energy and Glorious carnage are not needed. Close Quarters is very good but can’t be used 100% of the time (depending on spec, some love Aoe easy mode with guard&heals…). Swell of Gloom is the love of my life, but it’s more useful when the team is doing good and you want to score higher, although extra dmg can’t hurt while you have focused heals. For now I sincerely recommend using Triumphant Blasting as the 4^th tactic to work around the broken T4 CC, AoE and OP mdps.

 Muradi 

I realized I am referring a lot of sorcs to this site and most are not aware of the basics that are expected of them. So I am going to go through information about situational awareness. Every single patch the sorc is loosing ~10% damage. It is not possible to buttonmash and do good anymore. Previously I covered what spell rotation to cast on who. In this article I will go over situational basics.

Healers: You can’t give 100% without them. If you don’t have a good healer with you know that you will have to tone it down. Some things that can help are Absorb Vitality, Bathing in Blood, Tapping the Dark and definitely Dhar Wind .

If you have good healers and you are against a good team know that they will be focusing on your healers. You have to stop what is bothering them so they can heal you and those are : melee trains, healing debuffs, focus fire on you, line of sight on you.

1.Melee trains:

A. Tanks:

It is next to impossible to stop them by yourself, you can only slow them down. Good opposition tanks will always be on you or your healers and that is their job. And they will be healed like no tomorrow. They won’t go down unless focus fired but still you should not prioritize on them. I hear some sorcs attack the tanks only when the tank attacks them. No. Ignore damage on the tank as much as you can. The good thing is they can’t really hurt.

Here are the things you can do to slow them down:

- If the tank is on you, first move is to Detaunt and move on.

- If the tank is on you (you don’t have Detaunt up ) or your healers you can in priority order: Disarm, Knockback (T.Blasting), Root, Snare. The rest is left to your healer, they might be able to knockback the tank and they will most definitely use their detaunts. At which point the tank will not pose a threat.

- If it’s a dps specced tank or one that feels squishy the best thing to do is to focus fire. The ultimate focus fire is done with a healing debuff (ex: Squig Herder Rotten Arrow) + Magus Glean Magic (Spirit Debuff) + Zealot corp debuff and Zealot morale 1 Tzeench’s Talon which reduces all resists by 500 as well as a ton of armor.

B. Melee dps:

They have to be focus fired no matter what. They can be hurt and they can hurt you and your healers bad. They have #1 priority on things to kill list. Prioritize on the one that can do the most damage and is the most squishy.

When they are on you:

- Definitely use Disarm and apply your rotation (refer to Spell Rotations article). When there is more than one on you, apply your Disarm rotation on one, while simultaneously apply Detaunt on the other and if there is a third melee (tank or dps) rank3 Disable is of the next thing to do. Knockback and Root are secondary options after Disarm&Detaunt&Disable, they will give you 2 global cooldowns at most (While Disarms gives you 3+, Disable gives almost 5)

When they are on your healer:

-Disarm rotation. Simultaneously Disable a second melee dps if you morale is up. Again Knockback and Root are secondary options.

Ultimate Assist Defence Coordination:

The first tool an advanced sorc has to learn is ISAssist Tracker. You also have to have TargetRing so you can actually see that target your buddy dps or healer is calling for. 2 sorcs stopping the melee dps is much easier. Always call for who is being Disarmed and/or Disabled. Save you disables until every sorc’s Disarm is used. When melee train is on either of you or your healer know that sorc1 will be disarming the high priority target. Use assist and identify the target to be disarmed. Sorc2 should use Disarm on the 2^nd priority target Always use Disarms first, this should take care of 2 melee dps/tank for 3 GCD’s. For the 3^rd and and following use Disable, Knockback and Root as in order. Once all melee dps is CC’d both sorcs should return back to the high priority target and focus fire. Remember all Melee dps on your healers will be focus healed.

2. Healing Debuffs&Focus Fire:

Healing Debuffs. Killer. They have to be gone. As far as I know it is Shadow Warriors and Bw’s on order side who have them. Once melee train is taken care of your next target is their rdps or healers, whichever is more convenient. It could be argued which is important. They are both important. If you don’t kill the healers they can keep rezzing like a factory, but rezzing will stop them from healing their dps and your focus fire will succeed. If you don’t attack their rdps then you healers will have a hard time keeping you alive. So attack whichever is more convenient. Remember that it is easier to focus fire and take down the rdps because there is a chance that that their rdps might not be assist healed. If you attack a healer you will be trying to overcome the healer itself and another healer assisting them.

Ultimate Assist Offense Coordination:

What I recommend in the situation where the opposition is majorly healers and rdps are rotations that simultaneously cover both targets making use of Detaunt, Silence, Disarm (SW) and Disable

-If you’re assisting and either of you has Disable up, disable the healer immediately and focus fire.

-If you’re assisting and Silence is up, Silence the healer and focus fire. Remember Silence is an AOE attack, if you pick your target well then you might be able to disable that Bw or Engi also.

-If youre assisting without any CC up: use your best judgment, personally I go for the healer.

-If you are by yourself without an assist: use your best judgment, once you pick your target simultaneously Silence/Detaunt the other target and switch back during your rotation. For example you’re against a healer and a caster dps and you pick the healer: Wop (healer), Silence/Detaunt (the dps), and switch back to the healer to finish the rotation. This will prevent you or your healer from taking dmg while attacking your target. Bottom line is: Always use your Detaunt and Silence whenever possible. Your rotations should cover 2 targets at a time. You must at all times reduce the damage you are taking and the healing the enemy is recieving via what CC you have available. ‘Target Previous’ and ‘Target Next’ keybinds are very useful for this.

Other than that, never, ever attack different targets. All dps should focus on a single target unless one of the dps’ is an aoe spec. Sometimes it is hard for melee dps to assist you, but it is always possible for rdps to assist the melee dps. Always have an assist macro ready for your healers so when they call for help you can immediately respond.

3. Line of sight

Healers cannot heal you without LoS. Always watch for where you healer is. Marking the healer as your friendly target helps. Make sure you don’t go behind obstacles. This is very important.

This is all for now. I will be editing the article as I get recommendations or new thoughts.

Muradi

Update 1.2: I have realized that the good T4 players usually have high resists around 550s. The soft cap is around about 650. The Archmage buff they get increases that by a good amount. If your target’s resistance is considerably (200 or more) less than 650 then the Obdurate set is viable. However, the spirit resistance easily goes above 650 and the Erosion proc becomes less effective. The closer they are to 650 the less effective the set is. For insance if their resists are at 550 and they get resist buff of 200, then the resistance will be at 750 which is 43%. If you debuff that, then they’ll be at 550 which is around 35%. You only debuffed 8% compared to what 200 is worth before the soft cap, which is 12%. As of patch 1.2 I am not using this set anymore. Neither will I use a 5 piece DP set.

On the bright side, thanks to your self resist buff, you will be able to almost negate the Engi and BW resist debuffs if you have resistances close to 650.

Update Note: Since I posted this article I have done some testing and had to make some changes, particularly about Frozen Touch not proccing the Erosion debuff, as well as Erosion debuffs, despite of appearing twice on a target, not stacking. Debuffs don’t stack, even if they appear twice. Two effects debuffing the same stat only counts the larger of the two. (this item is not so beneficial for bw’s ).  I have also noticed that Erosion does not proc off Shades of Death but it procs off individual dot ticks. So, Chillwind would give you 3 ticks (second 3,6,9); aoe dots would give a lot more ticks (huge advantage). I updated the numbers based on these.

I have been itching to share some incredible findings.

One of my Magus friends recommended the Obdurate Seal Set, he said he tried it in an instance and loved it. I went to wardb.com to check out the items.

The items have some of the highest resists on jewelry, which is great for us Sorcs. Compared to our regular 2 jewelry pieces of +20wounds /+20 int each, they will cost you 27 wounds and 40 int while giving about 13 Toughness (and some weapon skill which is not worth mentioning). So you loose about 40 int and 27 wounds, gain a bit of toughness and above 150 resistances for each magic defense stat. You also gain set bonuses. the 2 set bonus of this jewelry set is a 10% chance to debuff all enemy resists by 200 for 10 seconds upon damaging them (Erosion). The 3 set bonus is a 25% chance of debuffing 50 morale on being hit, which I did not find too appealing. Erosion is also the 5 set bonus of Darkpromise armor set. While debuff effect is known not to stack, my hypothesis is that the chance to proc would increase to 19% while this set and 5 pieces of Darkpromise are worn.

So why was I so interested in the 2 set bonus? It procs on damage. Ticks. Let us think: 10-11 second rotation, 6/7 casts, For example one of my main rotations: WoP + Chill + ShadesOfDeath + VisionOfTorment + Gloom + ImpDoom + HoR hits with 8 + 3 ticks, 3 ticks for Chillwind. Each tick has 10% chance to proc the 200 resist debuff for 10 seconds. So you have 69% chance to proc this resist debuff by the end of your rotation.

In the above rotation, before 9^th second where you have your biggest burst as WoP, VoT and HoR hit at the same time at second 9, you get ticks from ImpD, Gloomburst and 3 ticks from Chillwind . By the time of the big burst at 9th second where WoP, VoT, HoR hit at once, the chance of Erosion to debuff is as high as 57%. (5 ticks before 9th second, 3 spells hit at 9th). Having the Obdurate set and Darkpromise at the same time would increase Erosion proc chance to 82%.

As a baseline for sorc: 100int = 8% crit = 6% damage = 100 resist-debuff. This data is rounded, but it’s a rule of thumb which I came up with after forum research and combat parsing.

What does this mean? For a Sorc this ring is 12-13% damage if resists are debuffed all the time. Worst case scenario for a given target, 2/3 of your damage has 57% chance to increase by 13%. On an Average that is ~5% damage increase (equivalent to 62.5 int). All you loose is the 40 int, which is 3.2% damage and 26 wounds. There is also the huge resist bonus you get so casters won’t be annoying you.

If you consider using the Obdurate set together with 5 piece Darkpromise, the damage increase would be 2/3 of your damage has 81.5% chance to increase by 13%. Which would make ~7% damage increase. Which proves that Erosion is not as effective when procced from 2 different set bonuses.

The Obdurate set, cost&benefits considered, is a HUGE win for us in the end game where the most precious thing we lack is a resist debuff. It gives 13/9/0 sorcs about 10% more protection against spells, average 5% more damage while only taking away 26 wounds and ~3.2% damage due to loss of 40 int .

Muradi

This is my first article on Spelldamage.com. Hello to you all. My toon’s name is Muradi, I am a Sorc that plays on Praag open RvR server who is part of a successful guild and alliance. During my free time at work, I obsess on my Sorc and try to find out how to play better and become more competitive.

While working on the math for the Sorc, I try different spell rotations with the goal to utilize time and Action Points in the most efficient way to give maximum damage and possible maximum burst damage.

First, here is the data about my Sorc. The graph is based on: 885 int + 71magic power, 22% chance to crit. The total crit was calculated at full Dark Magic and the opponents chance to be crit was calculated at 10%. The average damage was calculated by a weighted average, all data was based on damage calculator on spelldamage.com. This chart does not consider damage mitigation.

The mastery configuration is 13/9/0;abilities are spent for Shades of Death, Swell of Gloom, Impending Doom and Hand of Ruin, (Swell of Gloom, Echo of power, Tapping the dark): Single target max burst dmg Sorc.

In the rotations, Swell of Gloom tactic is being used, Impending doom can be switched with Swell of Gloom. Hand of Ruin is stopped at 4 seconds. Using ImpD first gives more mobility before Hand of Ruin. Using Swell of Gloom times the cooldown perfectly (5secs) , so if somehow you get +AP by the end of Hand of Ruin (tactics, friendly spells, banner or  Renown Rank 65&75) you can use another Gloomburst at the end of the rotation. Except for rotation 4 where the Gloomburst is already used twice; once before HoR and once after.

The spell rotations being compared in the chart are:

1.  Word of pain + Chillwind + Shades of Death + Vision of Torment + Impending Doom + Swell-of-Gloomburst + Hand of Ruin (255 AP) in dark blue

2. WoP + Obsessive Focus + SoD + VoT + ImpD + SoG +HoR (245 AP) in pink

3. Wop + SoD + VoT + SoG + ImpD + HoR + SoG (260 AP) in yellow

4. WoP + SoD + SoG + ImpD + HoR + SoG (225 AP) in light blue

Let’s consider different Scenarios:

Heals and resists. We hate them. We have no way to debuff them. What we have to do is time our damage so nothing is healed through, or healed through in minimum amount possible. This is also called Spike damage. We have 2 DoTs that damage after time, and there is the beauty of it. Rotations 1 and 2 try to have WoP and VoT hit together at the same time. How to fill the 2 casts between the 2 dots depends on the situation. Shades of death is perfect right before VoT. That leaves us with the Filler spell that we can change based on the situation. Let’s compare a pure damage scenario. As you can see the dark blue line (rotation 1) is very close to the pink (rotation 2). The sad thing is that throughout this time the Chillwind will probably get healed through and be a waste of AP. Rotation 2 has also an advantage with extra 10 AP. Unfortunately OF has a 1 minute cooldown. These 2 are my main rotations for burst damage.

When you compare rotation 1&2 with rotation 3&4, you clearly see how 3&4 can be healed through and the damage done can be a waste of AP. How can heals be a problem on a 1:1 situation? 3 out of 11 enemy classes are healers, 3 are tanks while I am not sure which, some of them can heal themselves, bw’s can use their gloomburst counterpart as a healing ability that heals 67% of the dmg it deals, any class might pop a potion in 1:1.

For situations that there are no healers, potions, tanks or bright wizards, it is fair to say rotation 3 deals the most damage after 13 seconds have passed, while it uses the most AP (260) this is only possible with a tactic or at RR 65. Rotation 3 skips the Filler for another Swell-of-Gloomburst at the end. In my opinion the extra 1k dmg at the end is not worth the extra AP spent and the 2 seconds.

Compared to 260AP in Rotation 3, Rotation 4 uses 225 AP, it skips VoT and achives the most damage at 11 seconds. If the target is being focused on and going to go down quick, Rotation 4 is the most suitable one. you can also drop WoP, maybe even SoG and break HoR at 2 seconds to plug in SoG at the end - which is not beneficial AP/dmg wise but it will deal the most direct dmg in the shortest time and take the killing blow >> SoD, ImpD, HoR(2sec), SoG.

Let’s consider different situations in the heat of battle.

Against any caster, specifically bw’s (also engi’s), you can plug in a Silence in place of the filler. Engi’s will still be able to use their gun but not most of their hurting dots. This would look like Rotation 1 with Silence as the Filler : Word of pain + Silence + Shades of Death + Vision of Torment + Swell-of-Gloomburst + Impending Doom + Hand of Ruin (245 AP). The bw will be silenced from second 1.5 to second 6.5- right when you finish casting your SoG and hit with your ImP. Here note that SoG is cast before ImpD in case the first thing the bw does might be silence, but most of them dot you instead. That way your SoG will be already cast and wont be interrupted. Depending on the situation, it is beneficial to cast a +Resist before you get in range of the wizard, since it lasts for 20 seconds this will be fine. If the morale 1 is up, a smart bw will use their Rank 1 morale knockback when silenced, to knock you out of range. You can also cast the resist if you get knocked back out of range, while flying in the air- you will be making best use of your time.

For ranged Healers the above rotation is effective. You can also use Rotation 2 (or 1 ) if there are cooldown problems with Silence.

Against Shadow warrior:

use the above rotation and substitute Silence with disarm. Since you won’t be kiting him standing there to cast the Disarm won’t be a problem. Most of them don’t try to kite you since the max range difference is 10feet.

Against Witch Hunter:

Hopefully your initiative is high enough so you can see them at least 1 second before they get to you to cast a Disarm. This will give you 4.5 seconds to keep hitting them. Here, I am not sure if they can silence you once the Disarm expires; this I have to research. But the good WH and also the usual one (they will get freaked out of your nukes) will put up Shroud of Magnus (which lasts 7 seconds), at second 4.5. You have to do max dmg in 4.5 seconds, waste 1 spell to be distrupted and spam 3 or 4 Echo of Power’s. My choice would be Impending doom, SoG, HoR (first HoR tick hits at 3, the second gets distrupted at 5 ) (this will cost 105 AP until here) Immediately you can start spamming Echo of Power, if you’re lucky you might hit 4 times but probably you will hit 3, at which time you’ll be at second 10.5. You will have wasted 200 AP, there is room enough for your SoG, so slam that and that will hit at 11.5, right when his Shroud will have expired. Things might not always work this way but remember the basics, always Disarm first, do most direct dmg in 4.5 seconds, be ready for Echo of Power, remember to wait 7 seconds for Shroud o Magnus, your Echo of Power availability is 5 seconds. So wait for 1 more second and cast SoG.

Tank, Warpriest:

If you can have >250AP try Rotation 2 with a Twist: WoP, OF, SoD, VoT, ImpD, Disarm, SoG, HoR. This will cost 270AP. If you have 250 AP skip OF and pass on that GCD. It is more important that you do all your damage at once so it cannot be healed. Casting instants until Disarm will make sure you are kiting

White Lion

I left this one for the last because this is my most used rotation, dude to being melee-trained most the time J . Most probably the WL has fetched you 5kmiles or jumped at you 60feet J amazing huh? If you’re fetched you have to target the WL and start casting your instants before you land , preferably as soon as you can at 100ft range. If you see him at 100 ft try to kite. Use this variation of Rotation 1 or 2, using a Detaunt for the filler. This would look like Wop, Detaunt, SoD, VoT, SoG, ImpD, HoR. You will have him do half dmg to you for 5.5 seconds until SoG hits. The burst will come after that. If he did not fetch you and is going to jump at you try this: WoP, Disarm, SoD, VoT, SoG, ImpD, HoR. I have to do research to see if he can silence you while disarm, I belive he can, but at least he won’t be hitting you, and none of the most the spells you cast are instant which will have less thatn GCD timers. If the worse is the case skip SoG.

What I find myself doing in 1 on 2 situations when the melee is on me, or I am trying to kill a caster with a healer next to him or kill a healer with a SW next to him etc. I cast the WoP on my first target, switch target to the next one: if against 2 melee I cast Detaunt on the 2^nd target and switch back and forget about him. From there I continue the rotation as I skipped 1 GCD after Wop. Since I cant’ run away I do a disarm and go on as such: SoD, VoT, SoG, ImpD, HoR. If there are 3 melees on me and I have a rank3 up I do a Detaunt on target 2, disable 3 and hit the initial with the same rotation. Similar to that, you can get very creative with detaunt to kill a healer with a dps next to him pounding you. Or to kill the dps silencing the healer and switching back to continue the rotation.

Finally, I am at rank 66 and I am not using GoN because the ticks from it cancel out my detaunts. I might get it at 70 but it will be even more situational, casting on target that I am not or not be related with in the next 15 seconds, which is very very situational. In keeps it’s always good. I might go on to add a point to my Agony line for 2.5% more dmg to those spells. But again, that part is my preference.

Muradi