It's not pink, it's a shade of redYou are of course wondering. "But Zot," you say, "the spells already have descriptions on them! What could you possibly add?" You are of course right, dear reader. Add a chuckle in there for effect. But certain spells may not seem entirely useful, or you may not realise the full awesomeness behind them. Allow me to edjumacate.
Note: I mention CC. If you don't know what this is, it stands for Crowd Control and refers to disabling a player or creature to the point where it is useless. Examples are sleeping a monster or freezing a melee monster away from the group.
Root
You start with this spell but probably just used it to try to kite before you got Ice Chain, then turning your back on it, only using it when you're trying to escape or catch an enemy. This spell only has a one minute cooldown, so don't be afraid of using it whenever an unslowed monster makes it up to you alive and isn't almost dead (use it before the monster gets within range of you though, as if the monster starts casting something, it will go off no matter how far you get away from him. an aion 'feature' xD). It's also an excellent CC for melee monsters or players; just root them in place for 20 seconds, it's like an instant sleep. At higher levels this is less useful versus players due to the availability of dispel potions.
Stone Skin
Aside from a massive health pool and CC, this is our only defense against ranged classes and pesky assassins. It's also the only thing between us and death when somebody gets the jump on you. Keep it up on you at all times when not in a city! And don't refresh the shield until it's down to its last minute of duration, in case you need to refresh it when it's needed but you just wasted it a minute ago.
Sleep and Curse of Roots (stigma)
Your two "main" crowd control spells, these completely lock out a monster for their duration (PvP duration is 8 seconds). The main difference between the two is that tree (curse of roots) has a 1.5 second cast versus sleep's 2 second and a longer cooldown. The two don't share a cooldown so with these two spells you can lock two monsters out (though the tree will break before it is off cooldown so be ready with a root, slow or tank). In PvP it is thus best to cast tree due to its quicker cast time as you are more likely to get it off. Speaking of PvP, these spells are excellent for gaining your bearings; simply cast it on any other class and you can regain your senses, especially if you've just had someone get the drop on you. Against Spirit Masters, always CC their pet!
Note that both spells raise the elemental resistances of your target. This means that they'll take less damage on the first spell you cast at them, so either wait for it to wear off, get someone else to break it or don't open with your highest damage abilities. It's important to nail that resistance distinction: Elemental resistance resists a portion of magical damage, Magical resistance resists spells entirely.
Flame Cage and Erosion
Back in the magey levels you received Erosion, a decent Damage over Time (DOT) spell. That will eventually wither and die as you level up as it has no extra ranks for sorcerers (only SMs). What sorcerers get instead is Flame Cage which is pretty much the exact same thing, except with fire damage. Cast it when something is almost dead and running out of your range, or when the monster you're fighting is expected to live for at least nine seconds more after you cast it -- if it dies earlier, the spell is not as efficient and you're wasting mana. Using either Erosion and FC triggers a short cooldown on the other, so at lower levels you can actually get both dots up. This is particularly useful when doing the level 18 elite areas as the monsters last long enough to get the two spell's full benefit.
Dots typically look arse when you look at the tooltip. "Only 30 damage!" you say. You need to add it up. If left to run for its full duration, a level 16 Flame Cage does 424 damage. Congratulations, you've just done 424 damage with an instant cast spell!
Robe of Earth, Robe of Flame
There is a Robe of Cold too, but let's stick to the <=25's. You'll pick up Robe of Earth early on and thank Aion for that. Natural Mana Treatment is your passive mana regeneration stat and it's always working. There's no "five second rule" or anything. RoE helps keep your mana rolling. You will pick up Robe of Flame eventually and I'm happy for you, Ima let you cast it, but Robe of Earth is one of the best robes of all time. Cast RoE if your mana goes down too fast for your liking. Blind Leap
Nyerk yeah. This is one of my favourite spells. It's free, it's fast and it doesn't have much of a cooldown. It's the perfect spell to cast when a monster's getting close to you; simply leap and you'll barely notice the ability lockout while it's cast... you're back to casting damaging spells almost instantly. But that's not all! You've pulled a monster and you want to get it back to your tank? Turn around and leap forward into the fray. You'll want to get used to turning+leaping. It's a valuable asset to catch up to anyone or anything, or to further escape from something you're running from.
There is a trick to it of course. In order to change the direction you're facing in Aion, you must use a movement key; turning while in a midair jump doesn't cut it. So you need to nudge your direction key in the opposite direction to that which you want to move in (or turn around while holding your right mouse button), then hit Leap. Note also that you need to account for lag; if you're a lucky 50 pinger you won't need to, but if you're in the mid 200's (like me) you'll need to pause for a fraction of a second between turning and leaping or you'll leap in some random direction off to the side.
Winter Binding
Firstly, this thing may be instant but it takes time to for the animation to run through and you can't move while doing so. This means you need to time it to go off before things get up to you, preferably. If you can't, well, casting it's better than nothing ^^. Another thing to note is that it has a massive 15m radius. If casting in the wilderness you will probably freeze some random monster and it'll chase you in eight seconds. If cast in an elite area, I hope your group is the type to laugh an accidental wipe off. This massive radius is a boon in PvP however; you can get near the front lines of a group and freeze them all in place, giving people time to escape from melee or burst down someone before they can retreat for healing. It's also good for catching runners in smaller scale PvP if you're near them. Finally, it's perfect for using against Rangers or Assassins that use hide. It's the first AOE ability you get (and the last for quite a while) and it does the trick of knocking them out of hide. You can see where they're moving for a few seconds after they hide; make use of that to judge where they're going to place your WB.
Delayed Blast
Chances are the first time you saw this spell, it confused the pants off you. What the hell is the use of it? Well, go out right now, cast it on a monster and follow it up with Flame Harpwn. You'll notice that DB triggers as your harpwn hits the target for incredible burst damage. Follow that up with a quick FB->Blaze for extra splodey fun or IC->FS to screw up any healing your target might be attempting. In PvP this is one of your best tools against healers but the burst comes in handy against all classes. You'd be amazed how much someone panics after they take such a massive hit.
In PvE this spell is useless to cast during a fight. Where it shines is before the pull while soloing: it does not alert a monster until the damage component comes into effect (or the spell is resisted ... stack up on MA :P). Thus an excellent rotation is open with DB followed quickly by Ice Chain. The two should go off at roughly the same time, essentially giving you chunkier Ice Chain damage. Note that if you're soloing monsters you should avoid casting FS after DB->IC as Delayed Blast has a 30 second cooldown. When you move onto your second monster, open with IC->FS then reset your rotation back to DB->IC for your next. Efficient use of cooldowns for the win!
Freezing Wind
Right at the apex of this issue comes level 25's Freezing Wind spell. It's essentially an instant melee-range high damage burst spell, perfect for finishing off monsters or players. It's also great to cast while you're trying to gain some distance from something that has closed in, assuming it won't break any snares. But don't be tempted and actually run up to something that's attacking you to use it. Exceptions to that rule are classes that aren't any better off in melee range, which pretty much just means Spirit Masters (don't run up to rangers; they have traps, and other sorcerers have Freezing Wind!).
Absorb Energy, Mana Treatment and Lumiel's Wisdom
With these three spells (and Robe of Earth) you should never truly run out of mana. It can take some getting used to but you need to get into the habit of using mana regeneration spells as soon as they are off cooldown (obviously Absorb Energy and Lumiel's Wisdom take precedence here as they don't require reagents). Lumiel's Wisdom in particular can be hard to get used to, but if you do keep it up every time it's off cooldown, you effectively make everything you cast 25% cheaper. I recorded a grinding session which I'll youtubeify eventually in which I was at or below 10% mana for the entire duration without pausing or resting.
But at lower levels, stock up on potions or prepare to rest a lotAnd finally, a brief note on Illusion Gate
With only a one minute cooldown, feel free to use this spell around your city to get a fast trip back to the obelisk for free. ^^
An addendum to this issue containing further tips and tricks is located here.
Next issue of Sorcery: Sorcerer professions
Nice column, thanks for posting, very useful.
ReplyDeleteVery nice column, I had never thought of using a few of the abilities in the ingenius ways described here.
ReplyDeleteThanks Zot!
ReplyDeleteThis column was most helpful and full of details, thanks for the hard work you put on this! ^^