Blasty Sorcerer Spell Reccomendations

[Drad1713]

So our party has gone through some changes since people have had to leave for personal reasons. Our party originated with a bard, paladin, rogue, psychic/psionic, wizard, monk and shadow sorcerer(me). Since then we have lost our monk and wizard(a lot of our dps). Our psychic/psionic is very utility based and our bard doesn’t follow plans or even use all of their abilities making combats harder than they should be. I want to transition more to a blasty sorcerer to try to make up for the damage we’ve lost. Any advice or spell change recommendations?

Current level: 8
Current Spells:
Prestidigitation
Minor illusion
Message
Ray of frost
Fire bolt
Shield
Disguise self
Maximillian’s Earthen Grasp
Suggestion
Scorching ray
Hypnotic pattern
Darkness(Free known)
Counter spell
Fireball
Polymorph

[bendking]

So our party has gone through some changes since people have had to leave for personal reasons. Our party originated with a bard, paladin, rogue, psychic/psionic, wizard, monk and shadow sorcerer(me). Since then we have lost our monk and wizard(a lot of our dps). Our psychic/psionic is very utility based and our bard doesn’t follow plans or even use all of their abilities making combats harder than they should be. I want to transition more to a blasty sorcerer to try to make up for the damage we’ve lost. Any advice or spell change recommendations?

Current level: 8
Current Spells:
Prestidigitation
Minor illusion
Message
Ray of frost
Fire bolt
Shield
Disguise self
Maximillian’s Earthen Grasp
Suggestion
Scorching ray
Hypnotic pattern
Darkness(Free known)
Counter spell
Fireball
Polymorph

Drop Disguise Self. Get Wall of Fire. It's extremely blasty.
Also, I'd think about getting Mage Armor in your list somehow. Perhaps in the place of Maximillian’s Earthen Grasp, since you already have Hypnotic Pattern and Polymorph for you concentration spells.

[Corran]

I want to transition more to a blasty sorcerer to try to make up for the damage we’ve lost. Any advice or spell change recommendations?
Make sure you pick animate objects (and go with the tiny objects) at next level. Not a blast spell, but it will help you deal a very good amount of damage when you use it. If you are fighting in dim light or darkness, and you need to drop a scorching ray, try to do it from outside the range of the enemies' darkvision (as a shadow sorcerer you get darkvision of 120'), so that you'll get advantage on your attack rolls. Same with firebolt. Between scorching ray, fireball and animate objects, I'd say that you are covered as far as dealing damage is concerned. If you want, you could grab two warlock levels after sorcerer 9, so that you improve your at will range attack by character level 11. If you pick repelling blast as one of your invocations (the other one could be agonizing blast), you could combine it with spells like wall of fire hopefully for a good damage output combined with some light control. Quicken at sorcerer 10 in this case.

[Nidgit]

Storm Sphere is a pretty solid choice for Concentration-based blasting. Synaptic Static and Cone of Cold are prime blasting for 5th level spells; Animate Objects is very good but if you do take Storm Sphere I probably wouldn't double up on those.

Other than that, your spell list looks pretty good. I'd add that people rarely regret taking Mage Armor.

[TheUser]

Wall of Fire actually has a poorly worded RAW interaction that makes it deal the same 5d8 roll twice for any creature that ends their turn in the 1ft thick wall of fire itself. Whether it's RAI I am not certain.

The spell is extremely flexible beyond that, especially the ring option, and since it can deal 10d8 in it's first round (5d8 for when you first cast it and 5d8 for any creature that ends its turn there) it often gets value very quickly and can be ended early.

What should be noted is the same 5d8 is used for creatures ending their turn in it's area each and every round, making empower -very- efficient for boosting Wall of Fire damage (1 empower boosts the entire duration damage).

EDIT: Oh yeah it's exceptional as a vision blocker. Spells that target a "creature you can see" can't work on anything hidden behind the wall.

[sophontteks]

Can't answer this well without knowing more about your subclass and metamagic.

EDIT: free darkness, so you must be a shadow sorcerer.

First, remember to cast darkness before the fight. It lasts 10 minutes and can be turned on/off as a free action once per turn. Also don't bother with first level spells much outside the sparing use of a defensive one. Turn them into metamagic.

Scorching ray for single target DPS behind darkness, which is where you should be most the time.

Blindness/deafness for non-concentration CC that doesn't break darkness and works with hounds.

Sickening radiance for your wombo combo. Cast hounds. Hounds or teammate grapples with advantage (does dm allow hounds to grapple with their mouth?). Opponent suffers disadvantage vs. saves every round until they die.

Fireball. Because you should have empowered metamagic if you wanna be blasty. It increases the potency of a fireball quite a lot.

Get rid of concentration spells for the most part. They won't serve you well. You can't use your darkness feature with them. Spells like sickening radiance come out when the sleeves need to come off.

[ImproperJustice]

Storm Sphere is a good long term blasting spell in a protracted fight.

Watery Sphere isn’t blasty, but can snag multiple opponents, and be moved.

A nasty combo is to grab some bad guys with it, and then quicken an empowered fireball into their midst, which results in a failed dex save and maximum damage.

Web is a budget option for the same.

I also like Tidal Wave. The damage is lesser, but if you have a lot of allies who like to mix things up, it helps them AND it’s area is easy to aim, meaning you may use it far more often than fireball.


Otherwise, compared to scaling cantrips, your first and second slots will often get more mileage with mobility and defensive spells like Misty Step, Absorb Elements, Shield, Feather Fall, etc...

I have a level 15 Blasty Sorc, and it is a great deal of fun.

[Drad1713]

Storm Sphere is a good long term blasting spell in a protracted fight.

Watery Sphere isn’t blasty, but can snag multiple opponents, and be moved.

A nasty combo is to grab some bad guys with it, and then quicken an empowered fireball into their midst, which results in a failed dex save and maximum damage.

Web is a budget option for the same.

I also like Tidal Wave. The damage is lesser, but if you have a lot of allies who like to mix things up, it helps them AND it’s area is easy to aim, meaning you may use it far more often than fireball.


Otherwise, compared to scaling cantrips, your first and second slots will often get more mileage with mobility and defensive spells like Misty Step, Absorb Elements, Shield, Feather Fall, etc...

I have a level 15 Blasty Sorc, and it is a great deal of fun.

Would you mind sharing your spell list for comparison?

[TheUser]

Would you mind sharing your spell list for comparison?

I dunno if that's a good idea.

His Watery Sphere + Fireball combo ignores the fact that creatures submerged in water have resistance to fire damage. (PHB 198)

So either he theory crafted it or the DM(s) he played it with lack a solid grasp of the rules.

But yeah...that combo only works if you have Elemental Adept and the lack of mentioning that has me thinking it wasn't accounted for in the beginning....