Tactics: Sorcerer Skills Guide

A basic overview of practical usage of currently known sorcerer skills.

Now for Valaka's commentary:

PvE:

“It’s all about timing, tactics and emplacement.”
 
Sorcerer, it’s all about timing, tactics and emplacement. Anyone can simply rush to an enemy and spam all their skills but the player will quickly realize that this is not how it works here. To be truly successful with a minimal lose of HP a sorcerer has to set up a tactic. Mobs in Tera will require different tactics and different approaches. The most important thing is to keep your enemy “cursed” and at a distance, meaning: stun and slow them as much as you can and keep your distances.
 
“Hit Hard!”
 
This is very important for a sorcerer; often their tactics will be to hit the enemy very hard before they can reach you. Skills such as Blastball are charging skills which are often the first to be casted. The most powerful combination would be the use of Contract of Wreck together with a charging skills such as Blastball as your first attack and make sure you hit as much minions as you can (if there are).
 
“Mana, Mana, Mana”
 
This is an obvious thing, without mana a sorcerer is pretty much dead meat, luckily Mana Boost will restore a part of the Mana. Use it as much as you can! As a magical class you don’t want to run out of Mana.
 
PvP:
 
For me PvP was tricky part, I’m more like an average-to-good PvPer.  As chime mentioned in this article, some skills have hitscan while other simply uses collision detection. Your opponent will mostly likely try to evade your attacks, especially if it is a slow attack using the collision detection system, at this time distance who was your ally might also become your enemy. Using traps in PvP might be useful but the opponent can easily figure out where it is, at least if the opponent kept an eye on you.
Make sure you know what skills use the hitscan system and which don’t. Hitscans are easy, all you have to do is point at your opponent, make sure they're in range and attack! Collision skills might require an immobile or slowed target, but it will mostly likely require anticipation. Yes, anticipate the movement of your enemy; this is very important for those collision detection skills and skills with a slow attack movement such as Blastball.

Pros:
-          Very powerful and devastating attacks
-          Ability to stun and slow
 
Cons:
-          Weak and quickly knocked back
-          Skills are very Mana consuming


Page 1: Attacks
Page 2: Movement/Recovery, Utility/Situational
Page 3: Valaka's Commentary

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Comments

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Bomb of Annihilation/Backstep
# Jul 21 2010 at 5:26 PM Rating: Decent
Interesting. Bomb of Annihilation sounds like a fun skill - not only for the sorcerer that is casting it, but also for the person on the receiving end - scary dodge or die moments anyone?

Backstep looks like a somewhat two sided PvP skill as well, since Sorcerers will be able to get away easier, and yet if they turn to the left or the right, it's possible to predict where they will move (even if they only stay in that position for .5 of a second or so, other people will be able to read where they will move next during that time). On another note, I'm assuming that it has a cooldown, or high mana cost - could someone provide me with that information?
Bomb of Annihilation/Backstep
# Jul 21 2010 at 11:52 PM Rating: Excellent
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137 posts
Backstep doesn't even need prediction although it would help for setting up a longer startup skill or moving into position first. It has a travel time which people with reasonable reflexes will be able to notice the direction and landing point near the start of the skill. It also does have both CD 5s and MP 20 cost.
Bomb of Annihilation
# Jul 21 2010 at 3:29 AM Rating: Decent
Quick question, does Bomb of Annihilation use hitscan or collision? And if collision, how fast/slow does it move?

As Sorc is most likely going to be my class of choice, I found this very interesting. But from this and videos I cant really see this class being all that great in pvp. I mean, it depends on how hard the spells hit in PvP though. They dont seem to have anywheres close to the mobility of an archer, some of their skills seem very slow and hard to connect (especially hellfire), and their survivability seems pretty low (the 5min cd on the shield is pretty hefty).

Really seems like the deciding factor is damage here.
Bomb of Annihilation
# Jul 21 2010 at 12:15 PM Rating: Excellent
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137 posts
Afaik the only sorc move to use hitscan is Fireball but I haven't actually had the chance to see or test Bomb being a much higher level skill. The comments made on it were basic enough to be applicable without that knowledge. If I had to guess, and I could be wrong, that it would be similar to the other 24m range projectiles like the mystic Flash Shot, which is essentially like a FPS rocket. As more details get confirmed, I can always update the guide. It's doubtful that any of these guides so far have every nuance of every skill figured out, hence why these are basic overviews.

Sorc damage is much higher than archer per shot... depending on skill, anywhere from ~2-10x damage, with the addition of also being able to hit more AoEs. While they have less mobility than an archer, they get a ranged snare which archer does not. Their slow spells like Hellfire are best saved for setups or gambles, but the rest of their skills are actually relatively fast in both cast and travel time. It's because they have so much AoE and deal so high damage that their survivability is lower... they're the glass cannon of TERA.
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