by kitalrez » Tue Nov 06, 2007 10:47 am
Some things...
At 24? You haven't gimped anything. You don't realize it yet, but you have a long way to go before you're in danger of screwing yourself over with stuff.
What color is the level of the mob you fight normally? You're pre-30... one of the things all sorcerers have to learn the hard way is that you work up to whites and yellows, you don't automatically start with those. Learn to massacre large numbers of light blues, get a feel for what you can do, and how to use your skills effectively, then move up.
I am currently lvl 57, and job level 49. Here's some stuff I've learned along the way:
1. You will almost never need any skill on your skill tree to be beyond 50% of its limit for the job. I.e. if you go over lvl 5 in Fire Arrow, you're probably overdoing it right now. You can go ahead and buy cheap lower level skills, but don't push the levels on the higher end stuff, in a DP you won't need it, and solo you'll probably blow more mp than it's worth.
2. The above rule does not apply to support skills. Support skills are things like Creature Life Transfer, and as you've already learned: Power Support, and Life Leech. You don't need to max your support skills, but it's nice to have them higher. Pay particular attention to your meta-support skills... AKA, those 5 skills you got a job level 1 (only if you play on Pantera, otherwise hold off on the magic defense for now). Those 5 make every other skill more useful. The least useful support skill is Creature Soul Transfer. You will not need this skill unless you have a siren, blue or red pixie... blue pixie being the biggest hog until higher levels. Don't buy this skill until there is an actual need.
3. You will be completely unable to max any skill on your list until you hit job level 40. Do not tell yourself you're going to cap Life Leech as soon as you get it, or work on building up jp so you can get that last level or so. When the red text stating "Job lvl 40 required" pops up, you'll be very disappointed.
4. Creature skills are important, but with an Evo1 creature, and before job lvl 50 a maxxed skill in any of these isn't going to help much. Use Creature Mastery, then pick one toggle that seems to be helpful. I like Power support. I use this one even on my Blue Pixie. Why? Because when I attack, she has a tendency to hit first and draw aggro. She gets hit by a lvl 53 salamander for about 200 hp at lvl 50. Coincidentally, this is about what the spell gives her in extra hp. Especially true when she was much lower level, this spell keeps fragile pets alive. You'll want a level or two in Stability and Intimidate, but don't bother capping them yet. Hp and Mp expansions are up to you, I got a few in each, but Regeneration is big. You'll want a lot of this later on when your pet is bleeding hp or mp. Creature breeding is probably the most valuable of these, your pet dies a lot when you're learning, and later on you'll end up with more pets. I have a lvl 50 blue pix, lvl 23 red pix, lvl 48 turtle, lvl 46 skelly, and lvl 28 pantera. Breeding saves me all kinds of time.
5. The only really useful job lvl 40 skill is Pass Damage. Corruption is semi-useful in a boss battle, especially combined with fireball. Everything else is skippable for the forseable future.
6. On the subject of spells, Bloody Arrow looks useful. Contrary to what you've been told, it is useful. You want to combine it with your support skill, Nightmare. Use Nightmare first, and if it sticks use a soul chip and BA. If nightmare fails, switch to a new attack strategy for this mob. Wait until all 4 arrows are out before you do anything else, I like to follow up with Life Leach before the chip wears off.
7. Turtles are great... mostly because they're walking piles of hp for the first 30 levels or so. You'll spend a lot of time transfering hp back and forth depending on who needs healing. As you near the first evolution point, it'll start doing enough damage to steal aggro. Before this, you'll probably need to use Howl and Creature Indimidate.
8. Your melee skills are not vital by any means yet. Sorcerer weapon mastery raises your base attack and is useful, but at lvl 50+, I need almost 3 levels of charge stab to beat my normal attack. I don't use these skills at all unless I'm meleeing a boss. Of this line, I'd max Avoidance Mastery first, then raise weapon mastery. You only need about 3-4 levels of Concentration. Last night, I was invited to fight lvl 80 dungeon mobs in Crystal Valley, this was the first time I've ever needed more accuracy than Concentration 3. They're 25-30 levels above me. Trust me, you'll hit things just fine.
9. Fire Arrow is nice, but doesn't need to be your primary source of damage much after about 30 or so. Before then, I used it to kite quest bosses. Kills took forever, but with enough room, it was as good as dead as soon as the first spell landed. You'd be surprised how well you can do just using auto attack with the pet and a steady stream of force chips.
10. In a DP you'll feel underpowered a lot. This is normal. To help make yourself feel more useful and impress the rest of the party, volunteer to be puller/chipper. We attack fast enough with dagger that chipping doesn't cut our dps, and most pulls in a dungeon are from places you can already see from the party, so Fire Arrow's range is not an issue. Typically, by the time I'm back at the party with the mob, the ranged attacker's first shot has stolen aggro from me. I might get hit once or twice, and I'm gone to pull the next one before the first one's hit the ground. I'm starting to establish a reputation as being a really good puller and chipper; my usual party has 2-3 archers. Go figure.
Before lvl 40, you can't dig yourself a hole deep enough you can't get back out of. It's not your skills that are holding you back right now, it's more likely your tactics and expectations. If you work on both of those, you'll have a lot more fun at this job.
