Sorcery I

What is a sorcerer without knowledge? I'll tell you. Nothing. Do yourself a favour, my soon-to-be-clued-in sorcerer friend. Heed the advice found within, for it contains the built up raw energy and aetheric power that can only come from a dedicated sorcerer with blog access and lots of free time. Without further ado I introduce my sorcerer column: Sorcery. Because who needs smarts when we have magic?

Flame Harpoon? Mo' like Harpwn

Within this column I will endeavour to touch upon all the theorycrafting and knowledge the budding sorcerer needs, dispensed at my somewhat hardcore pace. The basics, the advanced, all will be covered in time. So what to start with? How about...

Stats!

Rather early on, you're going to have to choose between two items with different stats. Be prepared! Only a handful of stats are worth taking as a sorcerer. Many stats look good but are in fact completely useless. Other stats only take precedent when in great number. At low levels these generally can be ignored - go with whatever gear shows lots of 'green' numbers on them when compared to your equipped item - but you will eventually want to start looking into improving your edge, starting in the early 20's. Don't worry, Aion's stat calculations are very simple.


Should I use an orb or a book?
Books attack from a range; Orbs do more damage, but can only attack in melee range. But this isn't really the aspect of orb vs. book that you should consider.

Books have more magical accuracy. Orbs have more magical boost. These two stats are in balance point for point, for example if a book has 500 accuracy and 450 boost, an orb of the same quality and level would have 450 accuracy and 500 boost. Orbs however, have a little something extra: loads of additional stats. You'll notice a level 20 orb will vastly out-stat a level 20 book.

Don't be decieved by this. The reason the orb has more stats is to compensate. Point for point, Magical Accuracy is vastly more valuable a stat than Magical Boost. Were the choice only +50 MA or +50 MB, it would be obvious: take the MA. Hence the additional orb stats to sweeten the deal. This technically makes the two the same but as a rule I still tend to float towards the book. It can be difficult to raise MA, the value of which I cannot put enough emphasis on, while it's easy as all hell to raise MB and HP.


The best
Aim for these stats above all others!

• HP

Health is a requirement for a sorcerer. We're squishy and we can't heal. Our two main defenses are our five-minute-cooldown shield and our mobility. That's all fine and good against a melee class you have the drop on, but when fighting other ranged classes or a melee character that's seen you first, you have only one other defense to fall back on: health. This is mostly important in PvP but it is also very important in PvE; many bosses can one-shot you with an AOE skill if you ignore the stat. Prioritise!

• Magic Boost

Unlike other games' equivalent stat, Magic Boost in Aion simply increases all of your spell's damage by a certain %. This percent is equal to your total Magic Boost, divided by 12, eg. 600 / 12 = +50% damage. As one of only two stats that will increase your damage, this is obviously something to pump. Just don't ignore HP!

• Magic Accuracy

Increases your chance to hit a monster. This is something you do not want to leave in the dust: having something resist sleep or snare can equal life or death (not to mention it's damn annoying). Likewise, having your Flame Bolt miss will not only reduce your damage for that spell to 0%, it'll interrupt the skill chain. The formula is simple: the difference between your Magical Accuracy and your opponent's Magical Resistance is your chance to be resisted.

For example, if you have 400 accuracy and your opponent has 500 resistance, you have a 10% chance to be resisted... which is more crippling than it may sound. Keep this stat up! You may need to experiment to find your sweet spot. Consider using a Book instead of an Orb; books have more innate magical resistance. Manastones can also be +MA, though they arrive at higher levels.

As a rule, make sure your Magical Accuracy is above your own Magical Resistance by a few percentage points, but you will find huge benefit from just socketing them no matter what your MA is currently. For example, at level 36, I am able to grind on level 40 mobs quite comfortably and if any players resist my spells it is only because they vastly outlevel me.

• Magic Resistance

You will get this stat on almost all gear you equip so you may be tempted to just ignore it. Cloth has more MR than other armour types. If you read the above on MA, you'll know the equation. If you have 500 MR and your opponent has 400 MA, you'll resist their magical abilities 10% of the time. This might seem like it has limited use... clerics, spiritmasters and other sorcerers only you may think... but all classes have magical abilities. One of the most important abilities to resist for example is an Assassin's Ambush, which would otherwise deal heavy damage and stun you. In group PvP you will also find people trying to CC you to prevent you from CCing them; MR will help. Don't be afraid to socket MR manastones in your gear but the easiest way to keep this up is to keep your gear up to date with your level; all accessories for example have magical resistance as a standard stat.


The okay
They help but...

• Concentration

The more you have, the less likely incoming damage will interrupt your spells. Sounds nice, but in practice it's not all that useful. Against melee you would ideally never be casting anything other than instants in melee, though against range it will come into play. You should get enough incidentally to get by.

• MP

You have plenty of mana regeneration abilities to keep yourself in the game. The only real use for MP would be to have enough mana to get through an extremely long fight; these don't really exist unless it's a chain pull or a stream of enemy players. Aiming for MP will nerf your survivability and/or damage without providing any real benefit. Again, you should get enough incidentally. Even in straight PvE, +magic boost and magical accuracy take precedence.

• Evasion

Evasion is a stat you either put all or nothing into. It's the melee equivalent of MA vs. MR and uses the same formula, so if you're fighting melee players, they tend to have a lot of accuracy; usually more than enough to cover any incidental evasion you have from gear. In order to make evasion worth it you must aim for gear, but it only increases your survival against physical damage... you'll be weaker against range and won't survive as long if attacks do get through your evasion, or have nerfed damage if you sacrificed magical power/accuracy instead. In addition, you have plenty of kiting abilities; theses should be more than enough. The only real advantage such a stat would bring is when fighting rangers (which are on pretty equal footing in a 1v1 with a sorcerer).

• Attack Speed

This doesn't speed up your casting speed but it does speed up your after-cast animation. You may have noticed that after casting a spell, your bars have greyed out while your character finishes her arm-flailing. This speeds that arm-flailing up so that you can cast faster. Apparently, you should aim for +20% -- this allows things such as seven Aether Flames during one Aether's Hold -- but this stat won't appear on gear until your later levels.


Mobility
Keep up or fall behind. If your opponent is faster than you, you're gonna have some serious problems fighting them. Likewise, if your opponent can stay in the air longer, they'll be much faster than you for a time after you land (... or fall). Don't socket +flight time mana stones though, they're best used for the first three main stats.

• Movement Speed
• Flight Speed
• Flight Time - not so important as Potions can keep you in the air almost indefinitely, especially after you acquire level 30 wings
  

Nublet
Don't ever aim to get any of these stats on purpose! Especially Magic Attack and Magic Crit, which both sound misleadingly good.

• Physical Defense - same issue as evasion, less easy to aim for as a cloth wearer
  
• Magic Attack - only affects your orb/book's damage!
  
• Magic Crit - only affects your orb/book's crit rate!
  
• Attack
• Physical Crit
• Accuracy
• Block
• Parry

But Zot, there's not much +HP cloth gear! Almost all gear I see has mana on it!
Yeah, I noticed. The simple truth is that it's difficult or impossible to roll with just +HP cloth gear. Don't even try; you'll be gimping your other stats by not upgrading from your low level +HP shoulders to a brand new +MP piece. Instead, devote at least half of your gear sockets to +HP manastones.


Next issue of Sorcery: Rotations or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Delayed Blast.

Updated 9/10/09 :)