Sorcerer

Disclaimer: This guide is not min max sorcerer however it will build a strong foundation and will help any new player that reads it thoroughly.This guide focuses only on PVE, as such certain skills will not be listed and discussed much.

Credits: Huge thanks to Vamparella with this guide.

Introduction to Sorcerer

Sorcerer is supposed to be a “semi-ranged class” and sustained type of DPS, however in most ideal conditions it is to be played as a melee class as your attacks will connect faster. Thus, by technicality resulting in  higher DPS if played in closed range. Unlike Archers, sorcerer’s do not have a passive ability that rewards them with damage buff to play at range. If mechanics of the dungeon’s are not in your way, position yourself as close to the boss as possible. But don’t be afraid to attack from range under circumstances where you need to be far from the boss.

Class Building

Weapon rolls:

• Decrease cooldowns by 7.2% (top line)
• Decrease cooldowns by 7.2%
• Increase damage by 9.3% when attack enraged monsters
• Increase damage by 6.9% when attack from behind
• Increase Crit power by 0.3

Etching: Energetic Etching on weapon

Crystal Setup: Fine Pounding Niveot, Fine Focused Niveot , Fine Savage Niveot and Fine Spiteful Niveot

For Dyads: Try to get all Poisedly types of the above mentioned crystals.

Chest Rolls:

• Increase damage of Meteor strike by 10% (top line)
• Decrease damage taken from frontal attacks by 6.9%
• Decrease damage from enraged monsters by 10%
• Decrease damage taken by 6%
• Raises max HP by 8%

Crystal Set up for Chest : Fine Hardy Niveot x4.

Dyad Recommended: 1 Glistening type, 1 Brilliantly or cunning, 2 Brutally. (for starter, try to get 1 Glistening and everything else is second thought)

Etching for chest: Pumped or Keen (if you can meet the crit factor with your jewelry and innerware, go with pumped)

Gloves Roll:

• Increase Crit Factor by 9
• Increase Power by 5
• Increase Attack sped by 2.25%

Etching for gloves: Energetic 

Footwear Rolls:

• Replenishes 2% of MP every 5 seconds
• Increase movement speed by 6%
• Increase endurance by 4%

Etching for shoes: Pumped or Keen (if you already met the crit factor need, highly recommended to use pump)

• Critfactor: I usually run around 220-250 crit factor in most dungeons. In higher crit resist dungeon like Corrupted Skynest and Akalath Quarantine, I run 270 to 300. (The lower number in range represents mystic and higher with priests). You can achieve this with any combination of craving + pump jewelry and innerware of  your choice.

• Power: Once crit factor requirement listed above is met, put the rest of the points into power.

• Glyphs: It’s listed in order as it appears on TERA console, anything thats missed, just skip it and do not glyph that all. It’s a basic set up. As you get more points you can invest into more that you like.

1. Frost sphere : Glyph of carving only
2. Arcane pulse: Glyph everything
3. Meteor Strike: Glyph everything beside “Hindering burning breath”
4. Lightning strike: Glyph it for carving lightning strike and Persistent lightning strike
5. Void pulse: Glyph everything
6. Glacial Retreat: If points allow then, glyph Energetic teleport jaunt and blazing.
7. Hail storm: Keen nova. You can glyph mp if u you got extra points
8. Warp barrier : Glyph everything
9. Mana boost: Glyph everything

• Circlet: Mystel for short fights (under 1 min) and Transcendent ethereal circlet for longer fights.

• Mask: Bahaar energetic mask recommended.
• Brooch : Shadow hunter brooch. For new players, keep Quatrefoil until you can get shadow hunter.

STIGMAS : 4 Attack + 3 Souls . Once you get both T5 energetics, then 5 attack + 2 souls.  Percentage damage is usually better than power roll. Aim to get all damage rolls on attack stigmas and double cooldown lines on soul.

PVE SKILLS Information

• Your main damage PVE skills are: Meteor strike, Hail storm, ice lance, frost sphere, arcane pulse and lightning strikes. These skills along with fusions (will be explained later) are your main damage contributors. 

Meteor strike is your bread and butter. This skill hits very hard and always try to make sure that it back crits. This skill is a charging skill and make sure it is fully charged before releasing it, so it hits at its full potential. It applies a burning breath effect on monsters when hit by it. This skill gives you one elemental stack (fire). 

Void Pulse : Only to be used when there is a burning breath effect. There is no fixed rotation, just make sure you use it when the burning effect is active.  The burning effect lasts about 10 seconds roughly.

Hailstorm and Ice lance: Hailstorm gives you crit buff (+72 crit factor  stays on for 5 seconds ) as well as applies ice snap effect on  boss. The ice snap effect stacks up-to 5 times. That’s when you want your ice lances to hit ideally because each ice snap effect buffs the damage on ice lance.

 Glacial Retreat: It’s a movement skill that activates 6 seconds of back crit regardless wherever you are positioned relative to the boss. (This can be found on your passive skill ability)

Arcane Pulse and Lightning strike: Arcane pulse is a charging skill that when it hits the boss, leaves some orbs near the boss. When those orbs are struck by lightning, they explode and do more damage. Arcane pulse also gives a +72 crit buff that stays up for 5 seconds. Arcane pulse is also a damage mitigation skill, while you are charging it you take less damage. This skill gives you one  elemental stack (arcane)

Frost sphere: This skill is primarily used for crit buff, adds stack or refreshes ice snap effect as well as gives you an elemental stack (ice stack).

Implosion: This is your ultimate skill that hits very hard. Most ideally you want to use it in manaboost so it receives cooldown reduction, and damage buff. This will be explained later in the guide.

Other skills:

Warp barrier: This is your greatest defense skill, that allows you to continue to attack even through mechanics. It acts as an invincible frame (I-frame) and can be glyphed to last longer (highly recommended)

Mana barrier: It’s another defense skill, and it lets you absorb some damage. Not very often used, but it may help you cheese certain mechs when coupled with arcane pulse. 

Teleport Jaunt: It’s your i-frame, used mostly if warp barrier is on cooldown or as movement skill. 

Glacial Retreat: It’s a great movement skill that has a passive ability.. The passive ability gives you a buff that will allow all your hits in the next 6 seconds to be back hit regardless where you are positioned to the boss.

Stone skin: Not very used, but turns you into a stone and acts as an iframe as long as you don’t cancel it. Stays on for 5 seconds unless canceled.

Mind blast and Lightning trap : Mind blast is a sleep skill and lightning trap is a stun skill. Very rarely used unless dungeon mechanics need it. Most players do not keep these on the skill bar.

FUSION:

Sorcerers have a fusion meter located above their health bar. It is split into three bars. These bars get filled by elemental stack.

There are three skills that give you an elemental stack : Meteor strike (flame stack), Frost sphere (frost stack) and Arcane pulse (arcane stack)

Fusion is a combination of three skills listed above. Activating fusion skill requires filling the fusion meter with two different elements from Flame, Frost and Arcane. After two elements are used, one of the skills activates.

 Possible fusion attacks are:

•  Prime Flame (flame + frost)
•  Arcane Storm (arcane + flame), 
• Iceberg (frost + arcane). 

Casting these fusion skill uses no mana. Damage is reduced (15%) if two same attacks are used in row. For optimal damage you have to rotate your Fusions.

 Skill priority and rotation. 

Most of sorcerer’s rotation revolves around synergy, and skills buffing other skills.So it is important to understand that concept first.

Elemental Attunement: Equipoise is a buff that you receive that increases the damage of a certain skill by 15% after certain fusion is used. The whole point of this buff is to maintain elemental balance. It is explained below how it works:

• Meteor strike + frost sphere  gives primal flame. After casting primal flame, Equipoise buff will now appear on your BUFF bar that  boost arcane by 15% meaning arcane pulse and lightning are priority

• Arcane pulse + frost sphere gives iceberg. After casting iceberg, Equipoise buff will now appear on your Buff bar that boost flame by 15% meaning your next attack is meteor strike and void priority 

• Meteor strike + arcane pulse gives arcane storm. After casting arcane storms, Equipoise buff will now appear that boosts frost by 15% which means frost sphere and hail and ice lance are priority.

Rotation can change due to interruption by boss attacks or mechanics, however keep “Equipoise” in mind and do not repeat the same fusion.

Basic Rotation will look like:

Hailstorm → Meteor Strike ( use ice lance while charging meteor)–>Frost sphere→ Primal Flame→ Void pulse→ Arcane pulse->Lightning strike->Frost sphere->Ice berg →Meteor strike -> hail storm as meteor is dropping→Arcane pulse + while it’s charging use ice lance →Lightning strike → Arcane storm->Frost sphere→Meteor Strike and the rotation will keep flowing into the next fusion skill and keep maintaining equipoise buff correctly.

As previously mentioned, remember these key points:

•  Hail storm generates an ice snap effect under Monster’s HP bar that stacks up to 5 times and this stack buffs ice lance. So learn the timing on when to use ice lance after a hailstorm..it is roughly 1 second after a hailstorm. Ice lances can be used  when you are charging another skill.

• Meteor strike puts a burning breath effect under the monster’s HP bar that  buffs your void pulse.

• Arcane pulse and hail storm gives +72 crit buff, so try to spread it a bit in your rotation so the buff uptime is maintained.This is possible only in your starting rotation, then due to difference in cooldowns, the offset will eventually diminish, and return over time.

• Re-read Equipoise and elemental attunement that was explained earlier, as this will greatly impact your DPS and separate you from the average sorcerer player.

Manaboost 

Manaboost is your burst state, which when activated lasts for 24 seconds. Make the most of it, this is when your DPS is at peak. It gives damage buff, attack speed buff and cooldown reductions. This is used alongside your Brooch. (Brooch is a gear item that can be equipped on your skillbar and activates whenever you press. It gives many different types of buffs, so highly recommended to use it with mana boost). 

Always  try to use your implosion skill inside mana boost, to get damage buff and cooldown reduction. The animation of implosion can be canceled with teleport Jaunt or glacial retreat. When the boss is moving around a lot, use glacial retreat to cancel, otherwise teleport Jaunt is okay. You want to try to cast implosion when your mount crits are proc’ing which is usually within 1-4 seconds after you start hitting the boss. In an emergency situation, if the boss is almost dead or a dps check mechanic comes up and most of your party is dead, you can use implosion outside mana boost but don’t make it into a habit.

Mana boost allows you to combine all  3 elemental stacks in the fusion meter, and gives you a new skill called “Elemental Infusion”

In dungeons, the tank enrages the monster at the start of the fight and all the DPS players start with their “BURST skill”.

You’re starting will look like:

Basic Version:
Activate mana boost → Activate Brooch right away—>Start rotation with Hailstorm→Meteor Strike→While meteor charging Ice lance→frost sphere→Implosion→Arcane Pulse→Elemental infusion->1x Lightning strike→Meteor strike→frost sphere→hailstorm→Arcane pulse→while charging use ice lance →Elemental infusion->Lightning strike—>so on , it’s almost like a loop… try to get as many elemental infusions

Slightly Advance Version if ping permits:

Hailstorm→:Meteor strike → Before Meteor strike hits the ground activate mana boost and poop brooch →: and the rest is the same as above.

Use root beer food buff in your mana boost to help you get extra fusion in manaboost.

Lastly, adapting to the situation, remembering your skill synergies and properly understanding Equipoise buff will turn you into a good sorcerer player.

Written by C-Tier Reaper (lights#0653)