Nova's Magic Mastery Guide to Sorcery

I've noticed a use for Transmutation, sans Clown Box, of late. I was experimenting with that power in Arkham the other day, I started to notice that it was a good element against control. Players turn to ice box, Transmute. Encased by plants, same thing. I'm not 100% in everything that its done, but I was trying it on any control effect, including when Scarecrow's pack worried a downed player. I noticed two uses of it would return the player back up to his feet.

Now, I haven't run the numbers, nor do I really feel I am an experienced hand at the subleties of the game, but if I really am helping free teammates, and myself if I am fast enough, like clownbox clipping, that Transmute has a situational, but helpful secondary use.

Transmute blows stuff up. So if your teammate is being encased, then you can transmute the encasement.

right, I get that. What I am saying is that it has a role that wasn't immediately considered by me, nor mentioned on any Sorc guide. The ability to free allies or self from containment

The ability to free allies and self from containment?

The ability to free allies from containment/encasement, working as intended here. No issue.

Well, if you are talking about self, different thing. If one is encased (Arkham alert, Hero T4a where Grundy can encase you also), and while being encased, you break out by hitting Transmute, meaning it has a usable while controlled aspect? Hm, something new here. Never considered this. Still very very situational though.

In Pvp, would guard only against opponents using Doom Seed consumables for encasement or troller classes using powers for encasing. You don't have to worry about encasements in pvp. Worry more about troller defense debuffs and coming under heavy focus fire.

@Renzhe I can't reply to the initial post due to it being too long so I'll have to respond here. I will say that at times the Arbiter seems more viable than Transcendence more and more due to the annoying interruptions blowing 50% of a SC. Even more so since it also has uses to a DPS whereas Transcendence really doesn't. Also, Yes, the Bat form DOES suck .

As far as Sorcery powers go, I agree because even I don't have a full sorcery load out. While I have ran several before, they aren't nearly as effective as the new things that I run with and it shouldn't be like that in my opinion. I feel like I should be able to put together a solid devastating load out with pure Powers from out two trees but the Summoning doesn't really stack up to the Destiny tree in terms of damage potential. The Karmic Hex IV's do take 125 MoT each to make which can be costly so I can see why you wouldn't want to do so.

In Regards to using IoR to clip, it IS a viable free way to clip animations but my thing is that when I look at clipping, I try to do so in the fastest most accessible manner. Out of all the pure sorcery powers, Rejuvenate has the shortest cooldown followed by Sac Offering, IoR and Boon. Aside from our raw powers, Phase dodge is likely the fastest animation clipping/shortest cooldown in the game along with Karmic Hex's animation. Assuming one isn't a speedster, they only have the 4 Sorcery powers, consumables and trinkets to clip with. Elec's the only healer power without a 60% modifier so they miss out on Enduring Damage.

I do dislike having to use non-sorcery powers and I wish we had more suitable options. The current rotation I use with my loadout provides some insane burst damage in as little as 3 seconds. I've used it on players wearing PvE/PvP and the damage is can take 50-85% of their health away depending on role and gear. I tend to mix it up though depending on the situation as well. In my opinion, The Destiny tree is pretty much fine, though I'd like to have Polymorph replaced and Baleful dropped to a 50% like the recent string of SC adjustments.

I see what you're saying. Transmute does have the ability to free anyone ,even yourself, from encasements but your timing has to be right for the exploding aura to free you. It's not a Useable While Controlled move so if you try to use it while encased then it won't work. The ability to free allies from controlled effects is something I've never seen it do. Are you sure that it was transmutation that did it and not the players themselves via breakout etc? I will test it later on to be sure though.

Updated various sections in the guide and removed some outdated information.

Yea, the Arbiter has as many flaws as it does bonuses. It's more beneficial in PvE than PvP for said reasons in my opinion. You are right that running IoR to clip limits DPS potential which is why I'm working on a clever and beneficial load out + rotation for non speedsters to use. It involves using IoR in conjunction with Enduring Damage and also as a clipping ability. I am eager to test the benefits of the 60% Modifier vs having another slot filler. I would rather have the 60% modifier on another power as well.

Well, WD is the power eater of the two. PD is very power efficient and due to the Dashing Combos mod it also does damage now making it not completely useless in terms of DPS. As is right now, I have no issues beating any power set ran by a skilled player except HL and Gadgets. I will say that in the most recent Prime run I did with some friends, we ran with Two DPS, myself as Sorc and great Gadg Dps. At the end of the raid:

Him: 1,114,xxx Damage In || 133k Power In
Myself: 1,048,xxx Damage In || 130k Power In

The only difference is that he had Henchmen and Orbital Strike LV4 which I had not obtained at the time. He even told me that he'd never had anyone match his Power In and Damage Out like that and that I did so without the Clownbox. I have a very aggressive play style and while it's not a reckless berserk rage, it's very effective.

I put your loadout in the community because it features a different play style and viewpoint on PvP for those that may be interested .

I am not 100% on the pack's freedom, it could be that I just did damage to the dogs. I am pretty sure though I see the Transmutation circle appear underneath frozen players though. It is true that for self, you need to be right on it, with the same reaction to it as Clown Box, I imagine. However it does tell me that Transmutation has that use. My main reason for believing this works, is that when I Transmutate out of frozen, I see the Transmutate motion, not break out. So I think its working. I haven't analyzed it in depth or anything. What we could use is a good video of it happening.

That was most definitely Transmutation's normal effect of exploding objects. When allies are frozen, encased in Ice, it counts as an object and Transmutation will explode the object damaging enemies or healing allies depending on your role. I thought you meant that you used it to free from Control Effects like Terrifying and things of that nature. That it cannot do. I hope I cleared this up for you.

I'm currently using elec as my healing and I get outhealed most of the time, dunno if its because of the gear or whatever, but I might switch to Sorcery, I'm just thinking that I might not be that good at it. I'm trying it out on a diff toon I made but then again, post-30 healing is very different from leveling healing. haha. Great guide btw.

A lot of electric healers think it's supposed to work like sorcery or nature where HOT is there. The goal with electric is burst heal often and fast.

@FeelsGood
yeap noticed that huge difference, most likely that elec toons would get outhealed too since they're other heals don't proc if allies' hp is >35%.

But then I know there are some good elec healers there. I think I'll be buying 2000 SC for the change, hahaha just another 1000 just to be sure

Anyways, let me verify this, if there are 2 sorc healers, both of them casts CoP on the same area, the first circle will be overlapped by the next one correct? how about for soul well?

@Renzhe, Sorry for the late response, I've been busy as of late.

Regarding my run vs the Gadg dps in Prime,
He was a speedster but he was not using WD or consumables. Just Henchemen, Orbital Strikes and Gadg Powers. I'm not sure whether he was boosting numbers via decoy but we usually play fair whenever we run so I assume he didn't buff sodas boost numbers. I do agree that if I were to revert back to my Full Sorc loadout that it would result in a loss of Dps. Some power sets require more work and effort to put out damage than others do. I ran a Pre-Gu23 Ice dps for a while on my Tank toon and It was capable of doing some solid damage but I had to work a lot harder than I do on my Gadg Dps or when my Tank toon was Fire.

I would love for the Summoning Tree to be reworked in a fashion that would allow for better healing and dps'ing capabilities. As is right now, it's potentially as "exciting" as the old Gadg Tricks tree full of turrets and clown-themed powers. I've never liked the concept of using 35%< powers in my PvE loadout, though the only one I would consider useful is Photon Blast. Everything else doesn't crit enough for me and they're only essentially used on bosses which tend to stay at 35%< for only a matter of seconds. Running with good dps, everything else dies too fast for the 2nd tick to even get the chance to come off. I see it as a waste of a loadout spot and assuming you don't crit, you could've done more damage had you not used it. I use it them PvP often though.
Also, I'll update your information.

I wouldn't worry too much about healing out as a lot of things factor into it. All of the healing powers are likely the most unique power sets in the game. They all have different styles of healing and they achieve great results in different ways. It doesn't mean that one can't topple the others but the results vary on the play style of the user. The Healer Circles do not cancel each other out anymore, however two DPS circles will. The same thing goes for Soul Well as it's not necessarily a HoT so those can be used freely as well. So in theory:

Sorc Healer x Sorc Healer = Good
Sorc Healer x Sorc DPS = Good
Sorc Dps x Sorc DPS = Not Good

Dps circles will overwrite each other.

So Healer Soul Wells/CoPs do not overwrite, but stack with each other?

Switched to sorc heals, its been 2-3 days now. I have to say that despite being sad by losing my burst heals as elec, and not caring much about numbers, I finally won a healing numbers battle with a person who has higher cr than me, I don't care much for those numbers since I focus on doing my job but it was a good feeling to have more numbers sometimes.

I loved placing circles and forgetting about constant pressing heals. The challenge for me atm is the lack of burst heals for aoe since Invocation has a really long cast time.

Just popped in to comment that the guide looks great. Being a PC player I never got to discover this guide really. I used to be a Sorcery healer myself, then switched to Nature healing and got hooked. (Nature seems more fast paced and Sorcery more laid back, not meant in any bad way.) So I'm not sure if I'll be going back to Sorcery but...Now I know where to look if I do!

One thing I wanted to ask though. I remember back then Sorcery CoP used to cancel each other out. Though now they do not. I think I remember seeing that the CoP circle that gets placed down second will put out lower heals than the first one though?

Just wanted to ask if this was true in any way.

What combo have you used in prime battleground ? For the burst damage (gadget is burst ,so you must do big burst damage like him) I guess you used one hand spin chop clipped with what powers from sorcery ? what was your rotation ?

Another great weapon to use for the WoD procs is staff. Just like 1-handed flurry, if you use staff's 5xS hold, on the 3rd hold clip with WoD all the might procs come off at once and you finish the combo with 2 tap squares. I rotate between 1-hand and staff and find both equally successful. Also staffs downward smash(3xtap2xhold) and WoD works great for adding bad Karma to grouped up adds since its an AOE. Just clip the 2nd hold with WoD and it pops all adds around and adds Bad Karma to all as well while doing signifigant damage to all