After initially being unimpressed with Calamity spec, I ended up playing it from rank 25 through to 33. When I started doing tier 4, the shortcomings of the spec really became apparent, and without some key improvements (which I have outlined here), Calamity just doesn’t perform as well.
That being said, Calamity still lets me top the damage charts with ease. The Gloom of Night / Pit of Shades combo really boosts my overall damage done; however, this really means nothing if most of that damage is being healed through. With the amount of healers Order side usually, it’s near impossible to ‘run them dry’ of AP as it is constantly regenerating, unlike mana. Without a resist debuff to bump the damage we do, or a healing debuff to prevent it being healed through as easily, I really feel Calamity underperforms when it comes to finishing the job. We’ve won Serpent’s Passage games 500-0 with 3 Bright Wizards in the top 5 damage. Topping the damage charts is one thing, winning is another.
After not playing Agony for nearly 10 ranks, I really thought I would just be going back to how things were before, and that I hadn’t really acquired any new spells to help me out. To put it simply, I was wrong. The addition of Swell of Gloom, Echo of Power, and Shades of Death really push the Agony damage to what seems almost too much. While it may not seem like it, Shades of Death really adds a lot more burst. Let’s take a look at each Agony spell and its usefulness:
Doombolt / Gloomburst / Impending Doom
Most of you should be familiar with these spells, as they are the bread and butter of the Agony line. Doombolt hits very hard, but the 3 second cast makes it less-than-stellar as a main nuke. Gloomburst is great spell with a short cooldown. Impending Doomg is a great finisher; instant cast and solid damage, useable on the move of course, I use this spell whenever the cooldown is up. I’ve listed them here with the stats linked on mouseover for reference.
When I first saw this ability in the mastery tree, I was very disappointed. I’ve dealt with ‘activate on defence’ abilities before, and it’s usually too much of a hassle to keep track of when they are active, for virtually no reward. Echo of Power however, actually makes me WANT to get disrupted. It’s a strange feeling, suddenly when one of my spells pops a ‘Disrupt’ I’m overcome with joy rather than anger. It’s all in the mechanics; when one of your spells gets disrupted, Echo of Power becomes available to use for approximately 5 seconds. The great part is that there is no cooldown! I can regularly get 2 Echo’s off with every disrupt, sometimes 3. They each crit for around 850 for me, so getting 2 off makes up for almost all the damage I would have lost from a disrupted Doombolt, except it’s useable on the move. The problem is that it costs 35 AP of course, but with Recover Energy, it’s not so bad.
Shades of Death, while at first doesn’t seem like that great of a spell, adds a solid 350 damage to the next five attacks on that target if they crit. SoD procs off of any attacks, so even if I drop this on a target, the damage will be dealt if anyone attacks them. The damage adds up. At lvl 38 this ability gives me an extra 1750 damage if it all crits, on a 5 second cooldown. On paper, this really didn’t seem like anything special to me, but after playing with it for a couple of weeks, it’s become one of my favorite things to do as a Sorceress.
Again, a tactic that I wasn’t too thrilled about when I saw it listed on the mastery tree. This tactic makes Agony spec the killer that it is, period. The damage of Swell of Gloom pops up separately, so don’t be disappointed when your Gloomburst does the same damage as without it. I crit my Gloombursts for around 1k, and Swell of Gloom pops up a quick 700 shortly after. Combined, this essentially gives me a 1 second cast Doombolt! Granted, there is a cooldown, but 5 seconds is bearable, and there’s plenty to do in that 5 seconds that I’ve made Gloomburst main nuke, replacing Doombolt…
Recover Energy (tactic)
I find the one downside of Agony spec is that my AP drains much faster than if I were to spec Calamity. Recover Energy somewhat remedies this by granting a 25% chance to regain 50AP on every Agony tree spell hit. This definitely lets me last much longer in battle, however I still do eventually run out. That’s what Reckless Gathering is for though.
I know this isn’t an Agony spell technically, but it’s instant, so it’d be dumb not to utilize it. The range on it is only 65 ft as well, so the usefulness of it is limited, but it’s allowed me to finish off targets in a number of clutch situations. Even though it’s a frontal-cone attack, it’s still in the path of Destruction, and Triumphant Blasting works with this spell, giving it a knockback on crits. This little knockback effect can really make melee fights go a lot smoother.
Boosted damage from speccing Agony, and a chance to proc of each of the Agony DD spells, Frozen Touch really shines with an Agony spec. As soon as I get Umbral Strikes, I’m going to slot it in my tactic bar for an additional 50% crit chance on Frozen Touch. At rank 38, my Frozen Touch is proccing for around 146 damage. I could’ve sworn that I’ve seen this spell crit as well, but lately I haven’t been able to catch a crit on it; though it might be getting lost in all the damage spam from Shades of Death. Maybe it’s not supposed to crit? Or maybe it is, and it’s just bugged. More probable is that I just haven’t been paying enough attention. Umbral Strikes would be slightly less desirable if FT was unable to crit, but still a solid choice in this player’s opinion.
The Rotation
It makes sense to get the longest cast time spell off first; that way people don’t realize they’re even being attacked until Doombolt cuts that big chunk of their health away. Ideally, I would start every spell rotation with Doombolt, and in theory, it’s the most logical way of doing things. However, when in a true PvP/RvR situation, application is often difference than theory-crafting, and this is why I’m going by what I’ve found to work from experience, rather than calculations.
Most Agony Sorcs, I was one of them, have a spell rotation similar to this:
Shades of Death -> Doombolt -> Gloomburst (Swell of Gloom) -> Impending Doom
It’s a great spell rotation, and I use it when the situation arises that will let me get it off. If you can manage to sneak up and flank an Order group, this spell rotation will drop people before they realize what’s hitting them. However, using Doombolt is entirely impractical when getting attacked, or when the fight is moving, which is the case 90% of the time.
Most of the popular scenarios and world RvR require players to be constantly moving. If you stand still to cast a 3 second spell while the enemy is aware of your presence, they will either run out of range, out of line of sight, or close enough distance on you that it won’t matter if you get the spell off.
With Grip of Fear being as bad as it is, I’ve stopped rellying on it completely, and prefer to stay on the move, stopping for no more than 1 second to get Gloombursts off.
My new rotation is this:
Shades of Death -> Gloomburst -> Impending Doom -> Doombolt -> Gloomburst -> Infernal Wave
If the target is closing distance, I drop the Doombolt from the rotation entirely and use Infernal Wave in its place.
Or if they charge me, which is usually the cast, I replace Doombolt with an Infernal Wave for:
Shades of Death -> Gloomburst -> Impending Doom -> Infernal Wave -> Gloomburst
The theory behind this was that standing even 100ft near my target for 3 seconds means I get all kinds of DoTs applied, melee charging me, Withering Heat and Playing with Fire, and my Doombolt cast usually gets pushed back a fair amount resulting in what seems more like a 6 second cast rather than a 3 second one. This way I have a quick way to burst my target at the start, and follow up with a heavy hit spell. After SoD/Gloomburst/Impending Doom, most players are already at 20% health (unless it’s a tank), and the resulting effect is panic. Seeing your health drop to below half instantly means you’re running away, and as long as I can start the Doombolt cast before they pass the 100ft mark, I’ll hit them with that as well. If the player decided to charge me, I stick with quick or instant cast spells; don’t dismiss Surging Pain as a melee finisher. If the target disrupts, drop what you’re doing and spam Echo of Power.
Infernal Wave is, of course, much shorter range, and really only an insurance move if the original combo hasn’t killed my target. It has often given me that extra little bit of damage needed to finish the job, and while I didn’t use this move regularly at first, I’m pleased to say it has made its way into my main spell rotation. With Triumphant Blasting it even provides me with a knockback when struggling with melee.
Gloomburst > Doombolt
Gloomburst + Swell of Gloom = 337 + 225 = 562 base damage at rank 40.
Doombolt = 600 base damage at rank 40.
A 2 second cast difference for a total of 38 base damage.
Tactics
Endless Knowledge - Swell of Gloom - Recover Energy -
Those are the three main career tactics I use with the Agony Spec. Once I hit 40 I’ll have another slot to fill, and I still haven’t decided what I’m going to use for sure. I’m fairly certain that Infernal Gift will fill that last slot if I’m playing with my guild group; a 20% damage buff to everyone is too good to pass up, even if I don’t benefit from it myself. When solo, or duoing with my healer, I’ll probably stick with Umbral Fury, or if that doesn’t live up to expectations, Triumphant Blasting. Triumphant Blasting really limits me AoE damage capabilities, but it gives me some much-needed defense against melee classes.
Just an aside here: I’ve considered slotting Hastened Fear in the final spot, in fact it was one of my first choices early on, but I’m very disappointed with how Grip of Fear works at the moment; half the time I cast it, the enemies caught in its range (and animation) just don’t get affected by it (without a disrupt popping up). I’ve considered that maybe the animation doesn’t represent the actual range of the spell, but this happens even when I’m directly beside an enemy player as well. The odd time it does hit, it’s broken instantly 90% of the time because every melee class has a root breaker, or I’m already snared because laggy melee range allows them to hit me from 30ft out. But I digress; terrible CC is a topic for another day.
1.5 second cast Doombolts with Focused Mind
Quite possibly the best Morale ability we have. Not only does it break roots/snares/silences, but it cuts all of our cast times in half! The 10 second immunity to roots/snares/silences doesn’t seem to work, as I’m often just re-snared and re-rooted right after using this, but the cast time boost is enough for me to make this my main morale ability. Naturally, I spam Doombolts with this ability up. 1.5 second cast Doombolts for 10 second is insane. I usually hit this with Obsessive Focus to bring down those pesky rank 40 Ironbreakers.
I still have rank 1 Mage Bolt slotted, because sometimes I need that extra 1200 instant damage to finish someone and I just don’t have any AP.
In Conclusion…
The added mobility of not having to rely on a 3 second cast is huge. I’m constantly moving now, relying only instant cast spells and a 1 second cast main nuke. I really think this is the key to an effective Agony playstyle. Doombolt still gets used regularly, but only when the situation allows me to use it safely, or when I have focused mind up. You have to play very carefully as a squishy caster, if melee gets in range of you, you’re perma-snared, and it usually results in your death. I find that being able to drop enemy players quickly is much more useful than AoE’ing or DoT spec.
Until Calamity gets some kind of healing debuff, I feel that it is really underpowered versus a group with solid healers. The burst potential of Agony is just too good. I was an advocate of the Agony line when the game first released, but a few weeks of Calamity spec and its ease of use made me lose sight of that.
I honestly think a 3 second Doombolt is too much if this is intended to be our ‘main nuke.’ I’m finding a lot of success using Gloomburst over this, and just using Doombolt with Focused Mind or when I know I can cast it without losing any ground. The problem is, lowering the cast time to 2 seconds could make it too powerful, so lower the damage too? If the damage was any lower on Doombolt, there would be absolutely no reason to use it over Gloomburst unless everything else was on cooldown. Food for thought.
I still top the damage charts regularly, just not by as much. While Calamity allows numbers in the 300k+, The highest I’ve managed with Agony in tier4 so far is around 225k, which isn’t bad, considering how much faster I’m dropping Bright Wizards and their healers. I get tells from Shaman asking if I need a healbot for scenarios. I still get tells from other Sorceress’ asking how I do so much damage, and when they find out I’m Agony spec (most assume I’m Calamity/Destruction for that kind of damage) they’re very surprised. Interrogation about my gear/spec/spell rotation usually follows, and that inspired me to write this article. It seems I may be doing something right.
At first, I thought I would be taking more Backlash damage, seeing as I’m casting a lot of instant/quick spells in succession; but it seems to be about even due to the majority of Calamity being instant as well. The one big problem this spec poses is AP problems, which are somewhat alleviated by Recover Energy. I think you could slot the baseline Devour Energy alongside it to ensure you never run out of AP, but I’m not willing to devote 2 tactic slots to AP regen.
Agony spec is useful, deadly, and most of all; fun. I recommend everyone at least gives it a shot in the higher tiers. I’ve decided I’m staying Agony spec until some major changes are made to our lackluster Calamity line, or we get something useful in Destruction. I would still love to get a spell akin to Funnel Power, but I’m overall satisfied with the power of Agony. With a Magus teammate, this spec would be even more deadly due to Glean Magic and its wonderful spirit resist debuff.
I was really starting to get discouraged about the Sorceress class. Sure Calamity put up big numbers, but I couldn’t power through the Order’s healing. Agony breathed new life into the class for me, and suddenly my Sorceress is seeing more playtime than my lowbie alts again.
Pro Tip:
Didn’t know where to squeeze this into the article, so here it is; you can use Reckless Gathering on the run. It will get interrupted immediately, but you will get 70 AP from the first tick anyway.