Aion’s Mage subclass The Sorcerer

One of the most popular Aion’s classes are Mages with two subclasses Spiritmaster and a Sorcerer. Few weeks ago we wrote about Aion’s Mage subclass The Spiritmaster and now is time to make a sneak peak at The Sorcerer.

Brief Introduction

Sorcerers take an academic, almost scientific, approach to magic and manipulating Aether. Through careful study, they’ve learned some of the natural laws that influence how Aether flows through the world, especially how it interacts with water, fire, wind, and earth. In South Korea, they describe the Sorcerer as the “sword of glass.” This metaphor evokes the damage a Sorcerer can do (like a sword) and its vulnerability (made of glass). A Sorcerer can only equip cloth armor and its physical defense and health are extremely low. Its evasion is also low, so in general, a Sorcerer is weak against physical attacks. In the low levels of Sorcerer, the class doesn’t have many skills that recover mana points (MP), so a Sorcerer may find they spend a lot of time on MP recovery.

The Sorcerer’s Play Style

Sorcerers can do a ton of damage so long as they aren’t hit in melee. A Sorcerer is a force to be reckoned with at range, but the closer an opponent gets to a Sorcerer, the more vulnerable the Sorcerer becomes. Keeping enemies at a distance is definitely key for this class, but there’s a lot of tactical crowd control that comes with that. When an enemy begins to close on a Sorcerer, the Sorcerer will want to use an attack skill that decreases the enemy’s movement speed. If multiple opponents are coming at a Sorcerer, or enemies are attacking the Sorcerer from several sides, the smart Sorcerer inflicts sleep or immobilization skills. Even though a Sorcerer’s defense abilities are weak, as long as a Sorcerer can control the distance between it and its opponent, the Sorcerer calmly proceeds to devastate its enemy.

It is critical for a Sorcerer to understand the cooldown time and the effects of the Sorcerer’s skills. The Sorcerer’s main role is as a damage dealer, specifically as ranged magic dps. Sorcerers have numerous ranged attack skills, including AoE attacks that can attack multiple opponents. The additional role that a Sorcerer has is as a mesmerizer (for crowd control). Mesmerizing skills allow a Sorcerer to take on groups of linked creatures one by one.

Spell Cast and Movement

Sorcerers can perform their melee attack while running, but Sorcerers most often cast spells. Much like a ranger can’t fire an arrow while moving, a Sorcerer needs concentration for spellcasting, and as a result, it can’t move while spellcasting. Sorcerers can fly and cast—they just have to be stationary in flight and not moving. A Sorcerer can use immobilizing or slowing spells when it is a good distance away from a target so that it has time to throw a couple of spells before a target can close the distance to the Sorcerer. Tangling with a Sorcerer is still quite dangerous, even though it has to stand still for casting.

Mana Regenerations

Mana regenerates slowly on its own. Sorcerers normally take steps to boost their mana regeneration when feasible. High damage spells consume a high amount of MP. However, plenty of items in the game (potions, consumables, buffs, manastones) help a character to recover MP. Resting your character is also another quick way to regenerate mana. (The default key command to rest is a comma.)

Sorcerers Weapons

Sorcerers can use spellbooks and orbs as weapons. A spell always has a chance of being interrupted during combat. Some items in the game (like manastones) help reduce the chance of being interrupted while spellcasting. A Sorcerer has plenty of spells up its sleeve in order to get out of close combat situations. The best part is that most of them have relatively quick casting times.

Here’s an example of a Sorcerer close combat attack routine that my character uses: First restrain your enemy, essentially rooting it in place (an instant cast). Then take a Blind Leap (another instant cast that teleports a character 15 meters back) in order to gain some distance. Follow this with Ice Chain (two-second cast), which reduces an opponent’s movement and unlocks the chain skills Frozen Shock or Cold Wave. End with a Frozen Shock or Cold Wave, both of which deliver a devastating knockback.

Popular Sorcerer Builds

Sorcerers are all about the magic damage, so if you’ve got the ninja skills to keep your fragile self alive, then by all means max it out. Aion’s resident ‘glass cannon’ class is especially weak to physical attacks though, even more so than you may be used to in other MMOs, so you might decide to trade in some of that damage for HP.

1. Max Damage Build
Gear: +Intelligence Cloth Armour (bonus available on certain Abyss armour)
Enhancements: +Magic Spell Damage
Cooking trade skill highly recommended for +Intelligence food

2. Survivability Build
Gear: + HP Cloth Armour (bonus available on certain Abyss armour)
Enhancements: + Max HP, + Max MP
Cooking trade skill highly recommended for +Intelligence food

Source