Best Feats for a Storm Sorcerer?

[Kinneus]

I'm playing a halfling storm sorcerer in a new campaign. I'm used to playing stuff like Shaman, Swordmages, or various leader roles... lots of fiddly bits with careful positioning and conditional bonuses and penalties. For once, I thought it'd be fun to just play a straight-up blaster. I'm specifically building this character to do a whole lot of damage without being cheesy.

I'm pretty good at picking powers that compliment each other, but one part of character creation that's always bored me is picking feats. The sheer glut of choices just makes my eyes glaze over. I tend to automatically ignore anything from Dragon just to reduce the tyranny of choices thing a bit. So I was hoping some more feat-savvy people than I could help me figure out my character's feat progression, at least through heroic tier.

Damage is my main focus with this character. I want to blast dudes with lightning and blast them hard. What are the big feats to take to accomplish this? Weapon Focus, Dual Implement, probably some sort of Superior Implement Proficiency... but what beyond that?

 

[Knowme]

I know the Wizard's char op boards get a lot of hate here but honestly I find their handbooks to be amazingly useful for exactly the reason stated - with so many sources, it's really nice to have everything condensed into one area.

It's also really useful to see what someone else thinks about your options, especially if they've probably spent a lot of time at it (and it's been effectively peer-reviewed). That isn't to say that you should follow them exactly - I never do - but often they will point out things I missed, misread or just didn't think fully about. For example, when I was making a rogue I read through the handbook and found Low Slash - an ability I had totally ignored on my read-through because I missed the fact that it was a Minor Action.

 

[Kralin Thornberry]

If Eberron Dragonmarks are allowed, the Mark of Storm is nice for a storm sorcerer. Gives you a controllery feel, as you can slide targets that take lightning or thunder damage (like into flank, off a cliff, etc). Not a direct damage dealer, but could lend to damage being dealt!

 

[Mentat55]

Tempest Magic gives bonus damage with thunder and lightning powers. Echoes of Thunder and Oncoming Storm reward you for mixing up thunder and lightning attacks. Improved Initiative is perhaps boring and maybe overkill (since you will have a high Dex), but it gives you a very high chance of making the opening move in combat.

 

[Armadillo]

Tempest Magic gives bonus damage with thunder and lightning powers. Echoes of Thunder and Oncoming Storm reward you for mixing up thunder and lightning attacks. Improved Initiative is perhaps boring and maybe overkill (since you will have a high Dex), but it gives you a very high chance of making the opening move in combat.

Good picks. Plus, using Arcane Admixture to add Thunder to your Lighting At-Will will give you both the Thunder bonus and, if you go the route of the Essence Mage Paragon Path, additional damage for having 2+ damage types. There is also a feat that allows you to arc a lighting attack to an additional target.

Unarmored Agility is good for any cloth wearer.

 

[DracoSuave]

Essense mage is meh.

If you're going Mark of Storm, Lyrander Stormrider is a damn good Paragon path.

+1 to hit, +Con to damage (which you have a little bit of as you need a bit of it for the Storm Sorcerer's bonus damage feat, which you take)

I was a fan of the Oncoming Storm-style feats, but now the Dagger of Lightning/thunderbolts that you have no longer maintains the Thunder keyword of your powers, so that falls by the wayside.

The other thing is that it's cheaper to get a few points in Con than it is to get a couple more points on Dex, in the end your total damage bonus will be higher.

Going Half-elf:

13 Strength, 13 Con, 15 Dex, 10 Int, 8 Wis, 16 Cha before racial adjustments will qualify you for Tempest Magic, Sorcerer Implement Expertise, Ruthless Spellfury, Fury of the Storm, and Sorcerous Flux.

Once you get Fury of the Storm, invest in a vicious dagger as your implement of choice. You're going to go from milking thunder or lightning (which should be on all your powers anyways) to crit fishing with AoEs.

Fury of the Storm makes it so that all crit damage is maximised (hense the d12s for crits), then Sorcerous Flux makes it so that wherever you rolled that 19 or 20 gets assigned to the primary target everyone is taking down (focus fire is better than all.) Ruthless Spellfury then gives you an extra at-will. Deadly critical as well!

So what happens is that you hit more guys, rolling more dice, getting more crits, and those crits get assigned -exactly- where you want, and those crits do maximum damage.

And then, Lightning Arc kicks in.

So, let's say you're using a +6 Vicious Quickbeam Staff, and you have four enemies, 3 you targetted with a lightning AoE.

Let's take Thunderpulse.

3d6+32 damage on a normal hit, and with a crit, that becomes...

50+6d12+1d10=132 damage assigned directly to the target of your choice (rather than who you initially rolled the crit for), 132 damage assigned to the guy you didn't target, and a free at-will blast.

Not. Terrible. At. All.

Retreivers (level 27 soldier) has 248 hit points. You just bloodied him in a single SHOT.

AND did massive damage on the side to the other guys because this is focused fire with an AoE.

Seriously. Storm Sorcerer is =power=.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

I have perfectly no idea (*1) what feats would be good for you so I suggest:

Ultimate Power: The Sorcerer's Handbook (May 2010) - Reg06
Joe's Sorcerer Guide (April 2010) - joemama1512




(*1): The basic spellcaster dpr feats are probably all mentioned and the hot specific stuff I don't know.

 

[Mentat55]

Doesn't Lightning Arc require you to turn your critical hit into a normal hit, and then you do normal damage to the original target and someone else?

 

[DracoSuave]

Doesn't Lightning Arc require you to turn your critical hit into a normal hit, and then you do normal damage to the original target and someone else?

My bad, you're right.

Forget Lightning Arc then once you reach epic.

That doesn't change the fact that Fury of the Storm and Sorcerer's Flux and Sorcerer Implement Expertise, combined together with a Vicious weapon, are POWER OVERWHELMING.

 

[Mentat55]

Yeah, storm sorcerers are pretty rad. Probably my fave sorcerer -- something about gettin' all thunder and lightning on some poor schmuck of an orc is just too cool.