Sorcerer origins’ best qualities

[Harrysonford]

So, I’ve never played a sorcerer before, and I am planning on playing one soon.
It would be a big help if you guys could help me by telling me which sorcerer origin is best at the following things.

1) damage
2) control
3) theme
4) helping out party members
5) staying alive

[Arkhios]

So, I’ve never played a sorcerer before, and I am planning on playing one soon.
It would be a big help if you guys could help me by telling me which sorcerer origin is best at the following things.

1) damage
2) control
3) theme
4) helping out party members
5) staying alive

1) Draconic/Storm
2) Storm/Shadow
3) Wild/Shadow/Storm
4) None/All
5) Divine Soul

Edit: Foxhound made compelling arguments and I tend to agree with them, for the most part.

[Foxhound438]

1) damage. This is kind of a situational tie between draconic and storm. Storm ends up doing more damage overall, getting up to +10 damage per spell and another +20 if you get hit in close range, but both require you to be pretty close to an enemy. Draconic can shoot spells from 120+ feet away to get a smaller damage boost from a more reasonable distance.

2) control. shadow sorc is the only one that gets anything close to controlly on their subclass features, but it's just darkness from spell points. It can blind casters, but beyond that it's just going to be a source of advantage for yourself. Most of the control you'll find is in the class's spell list, and combining select options with twin (hold monster for example).

Edit: shadow sorcerer's hound of ill omen can also be pretty strong for control since it imposes disadvantage on their saves vs. your spells. This makes it at least as good as heightened spell, and in fact a lot better for spells like hold person that have repeated saves. Best of all it's the same SP cost, so you can pretty easily justify saving a metamagic option with shadow sorc.

3) theme. It's more or less buyer's choice. I think shadow and storm are the coolest, but it's purely subjective.

4) helping party members. I think divine soul has this one in spades, since it gets the cleric spell list. That said, generally the "buff" option for sorcerers is twinned haste, which any origin can do.

Edit: though Haste is my personal go to whenever discussing buff spells, there are in fact a ton of single target buffs that sorc's have access to, and again divine soul has the widest range of options, so they still take the cake by a wide margin.

5) stain alive. ah, ah, ah ah stayin aliiiiiiiiive... I'll show myself out, but this is probably again the divine soul. Healing spells for HP and favored by the gods to make saves that you would have failed. Draconic is probably a distant second with its extra HP and AC, but it has nothing for saves.

[Kane0]

Fox pretty much has the long and short of it, although Chaos sorc has access to Bend Luck for the 'Control' category. Not that it's a strong option for a control sorc, but it's an option nevertheless.

[SharkForce]

1) damage. This is kind of a situational tie between draconic and storm. Storm ends up doing more damage overall, getting up to +10 damage per spell and another +20 if you get hit in close range, but both require you to be pretty close to an enemy. Draconic can shoot spells from 120+ feet away to get a smaller damage boost from a more reasonable distance.

2) control. shadow sorc is the only one that gets anything close to controlly on their subclass features, but it's just darkness from spell points. It can blind casters, but beyond that it's just going to be a source of advantage for yourself. Most of the control you'll find is in the class's spell list, and combining select options with twin (hold monster for example).

3) theme. It's more or less buyer's choice. I think shadow and storm are the coolest, but it's purely subjective.

4) helping party members. I think divine soul has this one in spades, since it gets the cleric spell list. That said, generally the "buff" option for sorcerers is twinned haste, which any origin can do.

5) stain alive. ah, ah, ah ah stayin aliiiiiiiiive... I'll show myself out, but this is probably again the divine soul. Healing spells for HP and favored by the gods to make saves that you would have failed. Draconic is probably a distant second with its extra HP and AC, but it has nothing for saves.

on 2) shadow sorcerer also gets the hound, which gives disadvantage to enemy saves. it's like heighten spell except better. also, i disagree that twin is of great importance for control. it can help with some things, but most of the best control spells are already AoE or can multitarget at a lower cost by using a higher level spell slot.

on 4) divine soul has much better options than twin haste eventually, and much stronger options in the right situation not too long after. frankly, i'm not convinced twin haste even stays the best option on non-divine sorcerers for very long; twin polymorph is crazy stupid OP at level 7, and twin greater invisibility is much much stronger on anything other than perhaps a pair of rogues who can already hit reliably for some other reason, plus it doesn't have a huge extra drawback if you lose concentration.

on 5) storm gets a low-cost reposition (not amazing, but it helps), and shadow gets the ability to ignore a killing blow which can be pretty important too.

[LeonBH]

1) damage. All Sorcs can deal massive amounts of damage. Draconic and Storm get a let up due to their damage boost, but Draconic gets their damage boost earlier and it costs no reactions, unlike Storm. Also, Draconic can get up to a +10 damage per round if they Quicken and cast a cantrip.

2) control. Heighten Spell does this nicely, so all Sorcs.

3) theme. Pick which you like. This isn't really a mechanical thing.

4) helping out party members. All Sorcerers, due to Twin Spell.

5) staying alive. Shadow Sorc. They get a Con save to return to 1 HP any time they're dropped to 0 HP. Because of this, they are hard to kill.

[Foxhound438]

on 2) shadow sorcerer also gets the hound, which gives disadvantage to enemy saves. it's like heighten spell except better. also, i disagree that twin is of great importance for control. it can help with some things, but most of the best control spells are already AoE or can multitarget at a lower cost by using a higher level spell slot.

on 4) divine soul has much better options than twin haste eventually, and much stronger options in the right situation not too long after. frankly, i'm not convinced twin haste even stays the best option on non-divine sorcerers for very long; twin polymorph is crazy stupid OP at level 7, and twin greater invisibility is much much stronger on anything other than perhaps a pair of rogues who can already hit reliably for some other reason, plus it doesn't have a huge extra drawback if you lose concentration.

on 5) storm gets a low-cost reposition (not amazing, but it helps), and shadow gets the ability to ignore a killing blow which can be pretty important too.

all pretty true. I'll edit my post for completeness.

[UrielAwakened]

Your best bet for damage is taking two levels of Warlock.

[Naanomi]

The ability to combine Heighten Metamagic and Bend Luck makes for some strong Wildmagic control potential

[SharkForce]

Your best bet for damage is taking two levels of Warlock.

well sure, but that's not a sorcerer origin :)