Another Mfing Light Sorc Question

[SeCKSEgai]

I understand.

Is 200 fcr worth it though? I'm not sure how its possible to attain that... I currently switched my maras and shako to a 2 skiller/10 fcr amulet and griffons and I've yet to see how I can hit the 200 fcr with my current set up.

It depends on the player. While I haven't been on bnet recently, if conditions are similar to when I left, MF has really lost its value as so many items have dropped in value. So unless you're already fairly wealthy, it can be pretty hard to equip for 200fcr, and even harder to justify the cost.

In order to hit 200fcr, you need fcr from every location that allows it. 40% has to come from eschutas or hoto, 10-20% from rings, 20-30% from armor, 35% from spirit shield, 20 from arachnid mesh, 10-20 from amulet, 20-25 from helm, 20 from gloves.

As you can see, you're really limited in choices, like armor is either a viper (most common), ormus, stealth, or que-hagen's. But any place you get less than the maximum will mean you need to make up for it somewhere else.

Unless you only play a lite sorc or it's your main, its hard to justify the full setup unless you manage to find everything yourself (which is pretty unlikely).

[droid]

Key point no one's mentioned so far: you have to use a Caster Crafted ammy to get more than 10FCR on an amulet. The craft mod comes with up to 10, and then you can also get 10FCR as one of your random affixes. Naturally, a 2 sorc skills 20FCR amulet is extremely rare

Really, though, Griffs is the only really expensive piece. Arach and HotO are more difficult, but not beyond the reach of most established chars at this point. Vipers, Magefist, FCR rings, Spirit sets arent hard to come by at all. And once you get all those, you can get by with a gambled 20 FCR circlet and a lesser crafted amulet with 15+ FCR, and work your way towards Griffs and even just a basic 10 FCR + Skills ammy, or if you're really devoted a 20FCR +2 Sorc ammy and an SoJ

[Scudstorm]

No one mentions Wizzy in cheap 200fcr gear talk :(

[chenw]

Cheap and 200 FCR doesn't go into the same word unfortunately.

Even with the barebones set up of Wizardspike, Skin of Viper, Magefist, 35% spirit shield and Arachnid mesh, you are still 45% FCR shy of 200%. Assuming 20% comes from a rare circlet then, you need 25% FCR from Rings and amulets. Without using any sort of crafts, you are down to needing 10% of every one of those pieces, which would leave you at 205% fcr.

That is why people don't speak of Wizardspike, you sacrifice far too many skills levels from other things (such as compared to HotO or Eschutas) for the last FCR.

FCR breakpoints are only meaningful if you can achieve it to improve your damage output, which, unfortunately, Wizardspike does not provide at all. Suicide branch +1 all skills still falls short of optimal gearing.

Due to the difficulty of obtaining an Amulet with FCR, normally people would choose to craft one instead of finding a rare one. Should the crafted amulet come with an extra 10% fcr mod on top of its 5-10% craft mod, then, hands down, Hoto becomes superior to Wizzy, because now with the barebones, you have 210% FCR, so you can lose 10% going from Wizzy/Suicide to Hoto and gain the +3 skills without repurcussions, which is a much superior setup.

Generally speaking, the last BP gear is for the rich/lucky/gutsy-crafters, Budget gear could do well enough with the second last BP (the 105% for none light sorcs). 200% FCR would leave you extremely little room for any gear choices.

Consider the following setup, all containing the highest FCR possible for each respective slots

Griffon's Eye (25%)
20% FCR caster amulet (Absolute best case scenario)
50% from Wizardspike
35% from Spirit
30% from Skin
2x 10% rings
20% from Gloves
20% from Belt.
Any boots (no FCR possible here, at least not I am aware of)

This totals 220%, leaving you a room of 20%, which is very little room, considering every piece is best case scenario. The real kicker with the FCR price tag are the Amulet and rings FCR, which you need at the very least 1 out of 3 to get 200% FCR. Crafting a 10% amulet from purely the recipe's certain stat seems like a fast way out,, but you are gimping spell power in favor of huge amounts of FCR.

I am not saying Wizardspike is a bad weapon. I highly respect the weapon due to its extremely high amount of resists and FCR, but Wizardspike is only worth its salt if it means you can drop some other piece of FCR gear for something more useful overall, which in this case, you can't.

[SeCKSEgai]

Now that you mention it, I think I remember last season someone finally managed to hit 50k damage with 200fcr - using spirit branch. Doubt it works this season with the slight nerfing of LM, but never bothered to try it either.

Spot on about the point why no one considers wiz, its like you were in my subconscious =P

[Scudstorm]

He didn't hit 50k, I forgot the exact figure but the theoretical max was around 49k I believe.

And LM was only nerfed in the beta stage of 1.13

Back on topic.

While I agree that I'd take HotO over Wizzy most - if not all - the time, Wizzy's performance isn't low enough that it should not at all be considered.

It is obvious that if Wizzy is needed to get to 200 (mostly for poorer characters), it is preferable. So let's look at the case where it is not needed, where the character is a bit richer.

By choosing Wizzy over HotO, you are sacrificing:
- 2 skills (yes, 2: you gain a SoJ slot);
- 10 dex (a couple % block);
- some life due to dex reqs (which gain back the block).

And gaining:
- 35-45 @res;
- 25% max mana (from SoJ; both HotO and Wizzy have 15%);
- some more mana (+2/clvl);
- 1 socket slot, most probably a facet.

For the typical setup, we are looking at +13 vs +15 all skills:

Griff's +1
Viper +1
Arach +1
Spirit +2
Ammy +2
Anni +1
Torch +3
BC +1

SoJ +1
OR
HotO +3

This is a damage difference of 15.68%. Assumptions made: all synergies maxed, +24% from Griff's/facets (in other words +2 LM. I chose this value because it's close enough and I'm lazy ). This percentage will only decrease as you add skillers (13.79% at 3 skillers, for instance).

Now, let's see the extra damage from -5% ELR (the facet in Wizzy), on top of the -25-30% from Griff's and facets in Griff's+Viper:

115% LR: 15.63% -> 18.52%
110% LR: 13.51% -> 15.63%
100% LR: 10.64% -> 11.90%
75% LR: 3.57% -> 3.70% (Mephisto)
50% LR: 3.23% -> 3.33% (Diablo, Baal)
33% LR: 2.75% -> 2.82% (Minions of Destruction)

In other words, you are not losing much damage against broken LI's. Any veteran pure light sorc will agree that damage against those critters, while not the only thing that counts, is one of the best measures of how well your sorc really does.

In the end, all boils down to:
- -2.84 -> 15.68% more damage, and minior extra life for HotO;
- 35+ @res, and a lot of extra mana for Wizzy.

Which to pick? Depends on your build (ES would find Wizzy more attractive, though I wouldn't recommend PvM 200fcr ES), your other gear and what you prefer. I personally would go for HotO given what I usually end up investing in a light sorc, but Wizzy is certainly not an underdog unworthy of any mention.

[SeCKSEgai]

Someone claimed it hit 50k - but knowing the LCS is could have read 50k while actually being just over 49k