What makes a good sorcerer?

[Old Gumphrey]

Not quite. The damage on the miss is a damage roll, so it gets full bonuses to damage, instead of half bonuses. So, if your bonus to damage is high enough, you deal more than half damage on a miss.

And if you look carefully you'll notice that the damage roll on a miss is "1d10." It's not "1d10 + Charisma modifier (like every single other power in the entire book)," it's "1d10". You get your nifty sorcerer damage bonus, your magic item bonus, and any feat bonus, but you don't get your Charisma bonus. Turning 3d10 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 2 into 1d10 + 1 + 1 + 2, or 24 average vs. 9 average; which makes sense for Chromatic Orb, since you still get the full secondary effect.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

The best Sorcerers in the long run I believe will be the area attacking ones. While Sorcerers can hit harder than a Warlock can, they really aren't going to compete with weapon using strikers on pure damage. Rogues, Rangers, Barbarians and Avengers are all going to out-damage Sorcerers against single targets, at least as the game stands now. What makes the Sorcerer unique is that his extra striker damage can be applied multiple times per round and multiple times per attack with area attacks. None of the other strikers can consistently do this.

Even when using area attacks, Sorcerers can do respectible single target damage, and hitting multiple targets shortens the back end of battles, which is an underrated bonus.