Sorceress leveling experience

Played monk initially and wanted to try something new and decided to roll a sorc.

My wand and focus together gave around 80%+ dmg, and I took spell damage with a few lightning nodes.

Please keep in mind that as someone who is below level 58 as of writing this, I do not have access to archmage.

Ascension I went with Stormweaver, and picked arcane surge passive. Main damage dealing skill was spark and flame wall combo.

Everything on the class was fine in the initial few maps, but once acts 2-3 on normal kicks in, the damage on the class just wasn't adequate for the content.

The class was still playable to a certain degree if mob pulls weren't too dense, but it required a great deal of focus and dodging to survive. I did pick a large number of ES buffing nodes on my tree and raised my ES to around 1.3k with over 800 HP.

My main frustration during the campaign was with bosses and this was especially evident when fighting the viper boss in Utazal.

Flame wall, solar/lightning orbs, along with spark was how I initially fought this boss. But with her dodging around so much I forgo solar/lightning orbs quickly.

With the arena closing in gradually, along with my low damage output, it took me 10 minutes just to get the boss down to 50% HP. After that I mistimed a roll and got killed by the surrounding guards.

On suffering this defeat, I looked through my passive tree for damage buffing nodes or keystones, but regardless of the nodes that I specced into, my damage output was still just tickling the boss.

I looked at my weapons next and noticed that there wasn't a base damage number on them like a bow/quarterstaff/mace.

I came to the conclusion that my damage numbers were completely reliant on my skills with the addition of rolling for spell/elemental damage percentage on the weapons.

With how RNG the weapon upgrading system in this game is, I can't possibly hope to guarantee myself a decent upgrade from my initial spell damage of 80%+.

Looking at the damage numbers for my spells, I saw that comet with my current setup does 1.3k+ damage in the skill socketing page, but it had a slow casting time. Socketing arcane tempo fixes this somewhat, but I think the original design of this skill was meant to have it be placed into a trigger gem for activation. But since that's been nerfed, it's no longer viable for use via the trigger gems-whether that be for bossing or mob clearing.

Ice wall quickly became my method of stalling the boss and trapping her in, and this was effective with giving it the gem that raised the walls' HP along with a passive node on my skill tree for an additional 200% life.

My boss fight after that was using ice wall to trap the boss and cast comet to chip down their HP. I won in the end, but this still took 15+ attempts after I figured out my strat.

During the strat making process, I spent a great deal of gold coins to respec my passives along with gambling for a better weapon via the vendors. For a player that has already hit endgame with over 200k gold in their wallet, this wasn't that big of a deal for me, but I can only imagine how difficult it would be for a first-time player to go through this process of respec-ing and retrying over 40 times to eventually figure out an effective strat.

Going through act 1 on cruel and reaching the cemetery, it became clear that every boss fight was going to take over 15 minutes of me tickling them to death while being fully concentrated on the fight and not mistiming my rolls. Clearing through the campaign while being on my monk was also somewhat difficult, but all I had to do was get a freeze in and drop my bell prior to using tempest or ice strike. By the time freeze ends, I would have deleted 30% of the boss's HP. Occasionally I'd still die when the boss does a point-blank high damaging ability, but I felt like this was deserved and was a consequence of playing melee.

Going back to talking about sorc, for mob clearing while going through act 1 cruel, I knew that this wasn't going to work with my current damage output, unless I want to spend over 5 minutes a pack with the risks of dying and resetting the map. It felt like the first 3-4 maps of the game on normal were still on the slow side and you had enough time to setup your damage dealing formations whether that be putting up a flame wall with the elemental orbs prior to casting spark.

With mobs rushing at you in Utazal, where you're charged at by over 15 mobs at Mach 5, setting anything up is suicidal, as you'll die by the time you even get to cast a spell or two.

Looking at builds online for stormweaver to see if I can do anything to raise my damage output to an effective degree, all I find are endgame builds with archmage. No content creator seems to have played the leveling portion of this class post-trigger gem nerfs.

Eventually, I looked at using a different weapon on this class, along with looking at a few of the items in my stash. I had a radiant grief laced hood, and then I recalled gas arrow builds. So my sorc went from being a mage to a ranger, and effectively cut down the time on killing bosses along with making mob clearing much easier and faster.

It felt nice to have a better damage output and clear speed, but in my head I couldn't help but think that this was just stupid. Why is my mage using a bow instead of a wand or staff?

I do not have a suggestion on how to improve the class's leveling experience, but clearly something about it needs to be adjusted to make the leveling experience better.

If this class was balanced around archmage, then this skill needs to be accessible much earlier in the campaign. If they were to buff the base #s on spells, then endgame archmage builds would just be more busted than it is now. This isn't something that should happen, so maybe cut a portion of archmage's damage output onto the skills themselves instead of being completely reliant on this passive alone for damage buffing?

To talk about trigger gems a bit, I think the original damage output on them was too much. But they shouldn't have been nerfed to the degree that they are currently in now. Maybe turn them into skills that are exclusive to mages instead of having them be universal? This way their numbers can be adjusted easier without them effecting all classes.

I also changed from lightning to frost for this fight, because lightning damage completely sucks. Frost is way better in terms of dps, but it's slow, so while I made it to Tier 7 maps without major problems and bosses are realtively easy to do, I can't really do breaches or delirium.

That's a big wall of text to just say "I have skill issue" :/

Edit: Just in case, I'm gonna say that I just leveled a spark character from scratch without buying twink gear in the last couple of days, and it was smooth as hell. If you struggled, your problem solving in-game is just not good enough.

That's quite different to my experience (SSF clean slate).

Sorc power during leveling is really just a couple of things:

1. +Levels to Spells is infinitely better than +% Spell Damage
2. Mana Tempest (Lv 31) + Sigil of Power (Lv 26+ on Chiming Staff)
3. Archmage (Lv 58)
4. Mind over Matter + Aldrich Battery (dependent on gear)

With #1 and #2 in my kit (I was SSF from clean slate), the Viper boss was a short 2-phase fight.

The hardest for me was towards the later half of Act 2 normal, when I was unable to find upgrades to my level 1x gear, and I still didn't have access to Sigil and Mana Tempest. Dreadnought felt like a crawl before I got Mana Tempest.

With Mana Tempest, I sailed through everything all the way to the endgame (obviously with gear upgrades when I pick up something good).

The key to using Mana Tempest is to not stay inside and deplete your mana. You want to put down either Fire Wall or Orb of Storm (depending on how far the mobs are), hit Mana Tempest, then hold down Spark while moving out of Mana Tempest. You'll enjoy 2-3 seconds of Mana Tempest damage without consuming your mana this way. If any mobs are still alive, then rinse and repeat, always only using the first 2-3 seconds of each Mana Tempest.

On stronger rare mobs I had to deplete my mana but generally they'd be dead by then, or very close to dead.

Boss fights are mostly the same, except you want to put down everything first. Sigil of Power, Orb of Storm, Fire Wall, curse, then Mana Tempest and exhaust your mana. Then leave the tempest, hit Mana Flask, start putting down all the things again, and hit Mana Tempest again.

Most bosses during the campaign would be dead after 3-4 rounds of Mana Tempest, more rounds if I had to dodge too much.

All in all, I'd say Mana Tempest made Sorc leveling into easy mode and melted trash and boss alike. It made Cruel Acts 1-3 feel like a walk in the park really.

Archmage was just even more of the same, except it forced me to respec from pure damage into a lot of mana regen, but the net outcome was even higher damage.

Gearing was just +Levels on weapons (+Levels over everything else, even if that meant using a level 20 staff at level 40), lots of Max Life or ES, lots of Max Mana and Mana Regen.

Get as much cast speed as you need to feel comfortable, with Arcane Tempo doing most of the heavy lifting on Spark. Use Controlled Destruction and ignore crit altogether.

For passives, take the Spell Damage path and go for Exploit the Elements and Chronomancy early on, extending towards Touch the Arcane and All Natural.

Then start heading towards Ingenuity to have enough Int to equip the higher level gear items.

Then with Archmage due to its high spell damage bonus and harsh mana consumption, you want to spec out of additive damage and get more mana regen nodes on the passive tree.

I think Sorc leveling has been mostly fine, if not easy. The only lull in power growth inherent in the class is during late Act 2, when the new skills we gain are curses only which were not only expensive, they also added to the set-up time during a time when the zones are full of mobs that charge and do range damage (throwing spears).

Mana Tempest turns that around, so I would only propose that the tier with Mana Tempest be swapped with the tier with the three elemental curses.

The amount of power locked up in build problem solving in this game is not 20% or 200%, it's 20x.

The way to get strong is to either theorycraft the hell out of the skill gems, support gems, and passive tree... or find someone who has and follow their lead.

There are lots of people on the official discord that can help, and tons of leveling builds posted on maxroll.gg and mobalytics and other similar sites.

As for the specific situation, it sounds like you need to understand the diminishing returns of increased damage, and look into a crit respec.

After learning the game on a ranger and monk through act 3 with suboptimal builds, I rerolled and facerolled the campaign with a self-made freeze-monk spec that puts out stupid level damage in SSF crafted gear. Currently level 83 and having more trouble getting map keys for T12 atlas quest than deleting maps and breeches.

Plenty of people have destroyed the campaign and game with sorceress post trigger nerfs. Figure out how, or find them and ask them.

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PrimordialDarkness#3913 wrote:

That's a big wall of text to just say "I have skill issue" :/

Edit: Just in case, I'm gonna say that I just leveled a spark character from scratch without buying twink gear in the last couple of days, and it was smooth as hell. If you struggled, your problem solving in-game is just not good enough.

People like yourself doesn't do anything to make this a better experience for everyone. I have a friend that sounds just like yourself when I have 3 characters stuck in Act 2 normal. (no good wepaon drops /weaponbases to upgrade and few upgrade materials) Anyway, he play on PC and I play on my PS5 (Pro) so I invited him to help me out. He had quite a few beers on my behalf and even got dinner but even after 6 hours he gave up with "I don't know what to say" "It's impossible on your characters but it was sooo easy on mine" "Maybe you should play on PC - seems easier".

Short version: If you don't get the drops you are f**ked!! That has nothing to do with skill issue. Only bullies use that term anyway.

I saved the video there Jonathan stated "it will take about 25 hours for an ABSOLUTE NEW player to beat the campaign". Even Playstation support know about that statement and they are totally prepared to reimburse me for my $390 I spent on this EA so far unless they actually make that promise come true during the EA.

So with 200 hours ingame so far, with all my "skill issues" and what else people try to throw my way, I'm still waiting for a balance on Act 1-3 normal with actual drops while farming. As of right now the mobs just drops the same underleveled items. I'm just glad I have in writing that PS will refund the money if I don't get a better product in the end... ;)

"

PaladinZeke#9011 wrote:

People like yourself doesn't do anything to make this a better experience for everyone. I have a friend that sounds just like yourself when I have 3 characters stuck in Act 2 normal. (no good wepaon drops /weaponbases to upgrade and few upgrade materials) Anyway, he play on PC and I play on my PS5 (Pro) so I invited him to help me out. He had quite a few beers on my behalf and even got dinner but even after 6 hours he gave up with "I don't know what to say" "It's impossible on your characters but it was sooo easy on mine" "Maybe you should play on PC - seems easier".

Short version: If you don't get the drops you are f**ked!! That has nothing to do with skill issue. Only bullies use that term anyway.

I saved the video there Jonathan stated "it will take about 25 hours for an ABSOLUTE NEW player to beat the campaign". Even Playstation support know about that statement and they are totally prepared to reimburse me for my $390 I spent on this EA so far unless they actually make that promise come true during the EA.

So with 200 hours ingame so far, with all my "skill issues" and what else people try to throw my way, I'm still waiting for a balance on Act 1-3 normal with actual drops while farming. As of right now the mobs just drops the same underleveled items. I'm just glad I have in writing that PS will refund the money if I don't get a better product in the end... ;)

It's not my job to make it a better experience for you. Where on earth did you pull that entitled attitude from? I could care less if you struggle.

"If you don't get the drops". Bullshit. I didn't upgrade any gear throughout Act2 normal either. I "got unlucky" and solved the problem. You can't solve the problem because it's not in game, it's you and your poor understanding of the game's systems.

The game has been out for almost a month and you have multiple characters stuck in normal difficulty. You are the definition of skill issue.

I hope PS will indeed refund you.

i lvl with sorceress too and i have a long way before understand couple of thing.

in poe 1 gem lvl stick to caracter prog to garantee a certain amont of output dmg.
so i mean in poe 2 it's close to the same but -4 lvl of gem..

first find asap a +2/+3 wand and +1 focus or +3/+4 staff.
( and in endgame the game is not balance for lvl20 gem, but for 25 or 26 gem (with weapon-off hand affix)

game difficulty is day and night !!


second:

skill themself are really not equal , better to try to find one or combination you like.
this one was hard for me, i want to play freezing pulse but it's no more here, and there is not a single spell that "hit hard" before fireball (here speak about my personnal feeling).

like ohter said, mana tempest make a huge diff too.

another tips i using during a big part of campaign is minion, just for distract enemy, this one help a lot too.

"

PrimordialDarkness#3913 wrote:

It's not my job to make it a better experience for you. Where on earth did you pull that entitled attitude from? I could care less if you struggle.

"If you don't get the drops". Bullshit. I didn't upgrade any gear throughout Act2 normal either. I "got unlucky" and solved the problem. You can't solve the problem because it's not in game, it's you and your poor understanding of the game's systems.

The game has been out for almost a month and you have multiple characters stuck in normal difficulty. You are the definition of skill issue.

I hope PS will indeed refund you.

So, what's my actual skill issue? I get a "good" white weaponbase. I upgrade it to a blue with 2 affixes. I upgrade that to a rare and if materials allow I upgrade that to a weapon with 6 affixes. I smack on 2 +20 Physical damge runes and what can I do after that apart from dodge, roll, dodge, poke the bosses with substandard damage and keep on dogde/rolling until flasks are empty and boss has 50% health due to me doing to little damage?
So, in your egoistic brilliance, enlighten me what else I can do to enhance my DPs when my gear has the necesseary resistances/armour/+ damage I can get.
I follow tons of guides and noone works WITHOUT the gear...

"It's not my job to make it a better experience for you" No it's not. But I'm sure GGG want more than a few poisonous gamers as yourself in their game. But maybe I'm wrong?!

And if I'm the "problem" and don't understand the game mechanics, Isn't that really GGG's fault to not make the game more "beginnerfriendly" for us new players to begin with? It was GGG that said "PoE2" will be a much better experience for new players, not me.

I think I have a pretty good grasp about gearing, but I don't get drops to actually practice that on. And the loot I do get is not on par with the damage I recieve, or the damage I'm supposed to deal imho.