Last Stand: Sorcerer for dummies

Overview

This guide will overview the basics and some advanced tricks for Chaos Sorcerer class.

Are you competent enough to write this?

My sorcerer is currently 20 level with three elite stars, and I have tested numerous loadouts to try to win this game.
I don’t play sorcerer as a team player, though, for a reason which I will explain in Items section.

Caution: reader may experience an “alternate opinion on the internet” syndrome. If, during reading, you would suddenly feel an urge to write something like “doomblast narciss rocks”, or “oracle stave ftw” stop reading immediately!

Why sorcerer?

Not convinced yet, Emperor lapdogs?

Check out that sweet-

• -high damage output
• -wonderful clone ability
• -you carrying the Anvil of Khorne! which is kinda useless since nobody plays it
• –
  –
  –
  FIRE

How do I level with my sorcerer?

Killing stuff obviously helps. But new sorcs will find themselves dying quite often, due to their low mobility.

How do I avoid this?

• You might have already seen swords in your loadout screen. So guess what — don’t use them. Please. Engaging in melee will produce a case of death and displease of the Ruinous Powers. You don’t want to displease poor ol’ Tzeentch, do you?

  The only exception of the rule above is using sword* with Curse of Tzeentch together with a Greater Sorcery (red) sigil. Until you unlock Warp, that is.

  *They really should’ve made a label “NOT TO BE USED IN MELEE” on it, though.

• Don’t hesitate to re-clone your minion, if it wanders too far away from you.
  Also, you can re-clone at the end of the wave (example – two carnifexes fighting, and yours would win, but with low health – just re-clone him a few seconds before)
• Use covers, duh! Even yellow cover gives you like 60% damage resistance, and reduces enemy accuracy by 40%! (Up to 77% total mitigation for a deathless sorc)
  NB: while in cover, flamers damage you x 2!* But if a melee dreadnought – only flamer in Last Stand, let aside wave 16 clones — gets to you in melee, you are dead anyways.

* Source: wiki. However Lord General and Tau flamers’ descriptions state only “ignoring” cover

Your typical gameplay until unlocking Warp should look like this:

• Select one gate
• Stand near it with your dopple (or slightly IN it, preventing it from closing)
• Kill everything with warpfire / curse of tzeentch
• Save your doombolts for close-combat problems
• Don’t stay too far from your team, so they may resurrect you when if you perish.
• ???
• DARK GIFTS

Weapons — Armor

(in the order as on image):
Note: The description is a granted ability’s description, not the weapon’s, since abilities are your main source of damage.

• Staff of Warpfire
  (hotkey – W)
  Ah, good old warpfire. Gives you ability to damage everything between you and target of your choice in a line (range is roughly half of staff’s itself attack range) with a series of blasts. Blasts do not come all at once – they rather appear one by one, starting at you. The warpfire does no damage to allies. Positioning is the key when using this spell.
  15 energy is a bit of an overprice for such spell, but you don’t really feel this cost while playing.
  Normally, you should use this staff until receving Staff of Tzeentch, and ignore everything else.

• Sword of Spite – EXCOMMUNICATE USELESS
  If you are not a new player, why are you even here?, you can put this sword to a limited use. Relate to comment section.

• Cataclysmic Hellblade – EXCOMMUNICATE USELESS
  Just don’t.

• Sword of Fate
  (hotkey – T)
  A curse of Tzeench is an interesting ability – placed on a single foe, it does damage until wears off, or foe is defeated. The total ticks damage is roughly enough to kill a ravener or space marine. But wait, there is more! It also removes target’s hp regeneration (which is not really useful) and (*drums*)… if the foe dies while cursed, a friggin’ blast will erupt, dealing AoE damage enough to kill most infantry. If it hits and kills another cursed target (and it can, since the cooldown is lightning-fast)… think for yourself.
  Just note that, the CoT costs whooping 20 energy! So no sweet map-wide rape for you.

• Staff of Daemonic Flame
  (hotkey – F)
  Grants you a Let The Galaxy Burn! ability, which is, essentially, the GREAT BALLS* OF FIRE gracefully flying from you, knocking back and damaging your enemies, and leaving a fairly wide(the size of an imperial guardsmen squad) burning area for a few seconds. The cooldown is such you wouldn’t let your enemies get up… yeah… right… IF you had infinite energy…
  I was able to play more or less adequately with my tau friend, and his energy regeneration unit.
  If you dont have such friend – the 20 energy cost will drain you in 4-5 casts.
  The balls are not-so precise, in long-range terms especially so you will be wise to camp near one of the gates.
  Another funny thing is, enemies will sometimes start to – read carefully – attack the afterburn areas. Like shoot at them and stuff. Not particularly useful, just for fun.

  *Wait, did i say balls? lol Don’t get me wrong, there is only ONE ball without sigils

• Staff of Tzeentch
  (hotkey – J)
  And behold! One and only weapon I can’t complain about!
  Grants you a Warp ability, which is a teleport. The range is such you can teleport near any of 4 gates from the center on a Bloodied Collosseum. The cooldown is low(like 1.5 seconds), although not low enough for you to warp into the banshee pack on Wave 9 of the BC, and warp away unscratched. Or alive, in some cases(found out the hard way).
  The 7 energy cost is fairly small, although you will notice a 50% drain after 5-7 warps.

• Oracle Stave – EXCOMMUNICATE USELESS
  5 melee damage, 1.4 speed (which is pretty fast, Space Marine Lighting Claws have 1.0)
  Hitting a target in melee has a chance to charge you up (notice some violet glow). Attacking in melee while charged makes your attack super powerful (I broke half of carnifex with it, with IoP and unshakable armor). Then, the buff fades.
  Why is it useless? Well, first because melee sorcerer is already a joke. Second, you become extremely random-depended. I don’t like when my survival depends on random. Third, I noted mobs immuning my special attack, leaving me without lifesteal(which is very important, thus making this loadout possible at levels 19-20 only). Fourth, I can’t even fight a wraithlord 1×1 with it, since of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Rubric Touched Helm mechanics.
  …
  Oh, and the special attack leaves a cool Tzeentch mark on the ground for a moment.

Note: The Sigils extend described spells’ capabilities. Look at their description to learn more.

• Armor of Eternal War – EXCOMMUNICATE USELESS
  Your starting armor, useless beyound no limits, minion buff does not really save it. But you simply got no other options.
  Well, don’t be sad. If your team is an actual team, and not 3 solo players, and they are sworn to protect your chaotic butt at all costs, then pairing this armor with Let the Galaxy Burn! and some energy regen (Tau, Eldar – also note the group teleport thingy, maybe even Orc) will provide an infinite joy, and maybe even win.

• Robes of Unholy Fortitude
  Nothing particularly “unholy” about that fortitude, to be honest. You are still going to die in most encounters, but still better than previous one.

• Armor of Might Undivided – EXCOMMUNICATE USELESS
• Vestments of Power Undivided – EXCOMMUNICATE USELESS
• Robes of the Deathless
  Once you go deathless, you never go back.
  It essentially doubles your health, and more.
  So, the point is, when you receive damage and die in other armors, you will receive damage and restore your health AND energy with this bad boy. Two minor nuisances are extremely low armor value(try find less!) and a cooldown (20 seconds or so) after this armor can save your bacon again. The tactics is to activate it in right situations to
  • don’t get damaged after you activated it
  • have a time to regain it

  like, if there is one Ork Nob left, and your energy is 0, you can let him hit you 1-2 times, warp away and wait to recharge deathless.
  have those in mind, and you will kite like a boss.
  Oh, on a side note – your MINIONS get the boost too! Every one of the squad(if you cloned squad) Do you need any more reasons to use it?

  PLEASE FORGET THE NEXT PARAGRAPH AFTER READING IT
  After activating deathless, all your damage is doubled for a small time. (Visual effect is similar to Lord General’s Take Aim! ability). Avoid abusing this, since warping around leaving AoE makes you more vulnerable than ever, and once buff wears off, AoE damage reverts to normal. Doombolts are only effective close-up aswell.

Accessories

• Mark of Tzeentch
  Gives you 25 energy, plain and simple.
  Meh.
  Energy is of no value when you have no regeneration.

• Tome of Hunger
  (hotkey – C)
  Ability kills your active minion, while restoring your health to full amount. The type / health / faction / sexual orientation / whatever of your minion does not impact the effect.
  This is a quite useful ability for sorcerers without Warp, due to their horrible mobility. But even then consume is not always an option. Once you get your tainted grip on Icon of Summoning (somewhere around level 5), your minions will be of extreme value, and consuming them is NOT advised.
  Other important part is the time Consume takes to cast. You just stand still for half a second, which is more than enough to kill you in some cases. Apart from that, the ability is free (0 energy). Narciss-peasants, bad news: not for you. It will cost you 25 energy, since you have no minions. And the health restored is less than 100%.

• Tome of Doom
  (hotkey – Q)
  Doombolts are the kind of thing you won’t want to leave once you mastered it (Spoiler: but you’ll have to :sadface: ).
  For as low as 15 mana, you get a weapon of ultimate butt devastation.
  • The spell fires numerous bolts, resulting in AoE damage.
  • Use it as close to your target as possible – bolts have a “feature” to spread. DON’T USE IT FROM AFAR.
  • You can oneshot a Force Commander and both Apothecaries on BC Wave 4, if you are lucky.

• Accursed Idol – EXCOMMUNICATE USELESS
  Seriously, this is not a Diablo 2 Act 1 Normal difficulty, where you have WAY more health than enemies to allow Thorns to take effect without you dying. Damage returned is 1:1 damage taken, with all mitigations in effect. So no.

• Rubric Touched Helm – EXCOMMUNICATE USELESS
  Gives you non-stackable 150 armor for 10 seconds every time you get hit in melee. Why is it bad? First, there are ranged units in this game. Second, and more important, is that the attack which procs these 150 armor is unmitigated [Carnifex waves friendly]. And the most important thing is, you don’t need it, like you dont need the melee sorcerer.

• Scroll of Blood*
  (hotkey – B)
  A peculiar ability which creates a red hemisphere size of two imperial guardsmen squads (which is quite large). The sphere lasts 15 seconds, so does cooldown. Every ally, while standing in it, restores a bulk of health on attack (1:1 damage dealt). Very effective on tau / yourself / everything ranged.
  BUG? The sphere disappears the moment you die. However, friendly units keep gaining health until the 15 seconds duration ends.

  Although dealing damage with abilities gives off regen animation, no actual health is gained.

  Now, why I dont use it myself? Well, as I said, your minions are much, much more valuable than yourself and even 95% of your usual teammates. This is especially visible on the Anvil of Khorne.
  So I prefer to boost my minions to their limits, while my excuse to lay off this spell is that my teammates are usually too mobile to benefit from it.

• Scroll of Vengeance* – EXCOMMUNICATE USELESS
  (hotkey – V)
  See Accursed Idol

• Scroll of Unholy Might*
  (hotkey – M)
  An interesting ability – creates an semisphere similar to other scrolls, where all your allies knock knockable enemies back on dealing damage.
  I did not use it much, but from what I get, with the scroll, an experienced Mekboy or Tau can save you the otherwise impossible waves. If you’d like to test it – do it on Bloodied Colosseum, because Anvil has way too much vehicles.

  *all orbs cost 10 energy

• Daemonic Gift of Spite
  The blast from your dead minions is useful when your minions are supposed to die!
  So it’s kinda useful in extremely rare cases, I guess. And before you ask – pairing it with Consume does not work for ♥♥♥♥, (cooldown and very fast mana drain) although the idea itself is tempting.

• Daemonic Gift of Retaliation
  Two words – Must. Use.
  Since your minion must be tanky(otherwise you are doing it wrong), this little nasty will spice him up! Your minions will have a chance to emit a Doomblast on getting hit. And they will get hit. A lot. I’ve also noted doomblasts without any enemy units in a mile-wide range. Probably lags.

• Daemonic Gift of Sustenance
  Another musthave in every self-respecting sorcerer’s loadout. Your minions are already tough with that deathless of yours and doomblasts – why not give them a huge(1:1 damage dealt) life regen on hit? (No health from abilities, though). No, seriously, why?
  “Because doombolts are fun >:(“
  I agree. But since you are 19, all grown up and play to win, you should know your keys to victory – 1) your minion 2) your survival. By warping into the fray to gloriously unleash doombolts you might as well tape a “rape me” sign to your forehead. So by swapping Doombolts with this gift from a Dark Power (probably Nurgle), you 1) eliminate the need to expose yourself and 2) offer your minion a wonderful sustain (they can win a fight with an Avatar or a Swarmlord).

Accessories-Sigils

These things boost your damage spells aquired from weapons.

• Sigil of Greater Sorcery
  
  • Doomblast – adds damage. Since you do much less damage on level 19 (because of abandoning doombolts) you will surely need this little extra damage kick from your minion.
  • Let the Galaxy Burn! – adds a ball, just as other sigil.
  • Warp – burns the ground where you teleported to. Spam those babies (3-4 times) before wave (especially Wave 9 of BC), and every light, and some heavy infantry units will be sacrificed a few seconds after their arrival.
    Works great on guardsmen, SM scouts, banshees(just don’t die fast), Orks (except nobs), Heretics, Kasr’kin, Ogryns are meh, and Catachan devils require the most precise timing. Make sure you are in a faraway, peaceful place when those jerks spawn, or you would end up in one. Get it? Cause you’d die
  • Warpfire – knocks enemies back with each blast. It opens a new technique for you: knocking foes with one blast on another blast. I have achieved maximum of 3 blasts damage. With some damage boost, you can kill a Force Commander with that.
  • Curse of Tzeentch
    Restores your energy as curse ticks. You know, if the overall amount restored was at least twice the curse cost, I’d only play with CoT (although other loadouts would be still valuable) because it’s pure fun and joy. Sweet dreams.

• Sigil of Master Sorcery
  
  • Doomblast – increases unit’s armor up to near cap. Attention – just like the other one, this DOES affect your minions with Daemonic Gift of Retaliation, so your units might get practically invincible, given good Doomblast procs. But I’d stick with Daemonic Gift of Sustenance, since it is not proc-dependent.
  • Let the Galaxy Burn! – Adds one ball of fire (there is only one without sigils, duh)
  • Warp – burns the ground where you teleported from. You can combine it with Red sigil for doubling the power, but I’d recommend to use the Red sigil with DGoS.
  • Warpfire – double fire range. Pretty cool, but by the time you get the sigil, you should already switch your weapon.
  • Curse of Tzeentch – heals the caster as the curse ticks. Improves survivability, but CoT is still not viable since Warp.

Commander items

• Icon of Summoning is the type of thing you get on yourself, and never get it off. Just like parenting.
• Icon of Change — EXCOMMUNICATE USELESS
• Icon of Pain is an option, but your gamestyle and survival chances would change greatly.
  The only possible loadout I see includes Let The Galaxy Burn!, narcissistic regen armor, and this bad boy.
  Possible does not mean useful though.

Dopplegangers or What should I clone?

Bloodied Collosseum:

• Wave 1 – 3: don’t clone anything. Seriously, slack a bit.
• Wave 4 – Force Commander
  if your retarded teammates kill him before you get to clone him, stick with apothecary, he’s pretty cool, too.
• Wave 12 – if your FC died, clone wrathlord. He kills nob in 2 hits. But beware – they are slow, and stupid. And I mean it. They are likely to die from rokkit boyz the next wave.
• Wave 14 – Ravener packs deal much more damage (from afar) than Warriors, while having a lower survivability. If your loadout has sufficient sustain (DGoR, DGoS, Deathless Robes), go with Raveners. Although if your Force Commander is still alive by some miracle, keep him.
• Wave 16 – regardless of your current minion, clone the most damaging of enemies. I mean damaging autoattack, not abilities. Tau with twin weapons is ideal, (single weapon – plasma or blaster would work), Mekboy with Big Shoota, maybe Space marine with plasma will do. DO NOT clone yourself in hope of chain reaction. Won’t work.
  Alternatively, you clone the fattest enemy – like tyrant (DLC armor rocks here). However, chances are good you won’t even pass the wave because of enemy fatty, so why bother.
• Wave 17 – If your clone died, go with Lictor. Carnifexes have Wraithlord’s problem – speed.
• Wave 18 – Warboss is tough melee, but he won’t usually go for it, preferring to be a weak shooter. Stick with Deff Dreads (Killa Cans).
• Wave 19 – Melee dreadnoughts are fast’n’furious, and will make excellent clones. Just don’t mistake them with ranged ones. Terminator, most likely, would lay his barrage on your head.
• Wave 20 – same as 16, but you can try to clone chaos lord aswell, as he’s extremely fat. Demons land a ton of damage, by the way.

Anvil of Khorne

• Wave 1 – Chaos Space Marines.
• Wave 4 – Lictor
• Wave 8 – Dreadnought
• Wave 12,18 – Bloodcrusher (daemon on robotic hound)
• Wave 14,20 – A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Space Marine Predator!

At this point I am forced to accept that ungodly battle bus as the top-tier dopple on Anvil. My concerns about its health were over-exagerrated. It can survive most of the jump-pack melee units with ease, live through Eldar Wraithguard horde, and even has a situational chance versus Avatar and Swarmlord. Bloodcrushers are much more healthy still, it’s just they do an actual zero damage in comparison.

Don’t clone Chaos Predators though – their damage is laughable for whatever reason.
It’s worth noting that the wave 18 chaos predators appear to be fatter than the wave 12 one, since they are obviously Nurglite. But its unclean(get it?) whether this fatness extends to your dopples. Not that anyone should care, since like I said, both of them aren’t worth cloning. The wave 12 predator is Khornate and I had just assumed it does more damage. Reality was, no it does not, or it is a neglectible increase.
Clone those braindead Space Marines’ stuff. But keep in mind they need al least DGoR and Deathless Robes to actually survive. Clone Bloodcrushers otherwise.

Bloodied Colloseum

• Wave 5, 8, 14, 17 – Tyranid Warrior Brood
• Wave 7, 9, 12 – Banshees

Aaand that’s a wrap.

Anvil of Khorne

• So it means you went to AoK with less than level 5? Get out of my sight.

  In case you are still here:

• Wave 1 – Chaos Space Marines
• Wave 2 – Banshees (if marines died)
• Actually, just dopple the fattest melee unit available. Always. Except Nobs. Because ♥♥♥♥ them. They tend to throw grenades right under their feet and fall with a blissful smile on their stupid faces. Then get up and repeat.

Section summary:
The cloning guidelines do not mean you have to run through the entire map full of suppressors to clone that precious warrior squad. Until Warp, either look where to run before wave (eg.: Force Commander gate on Wave 4 BC starts opening last) or clone whatever lies around.

Why not Narcissistic / Melee?

“I still want to be narcissistic >:(“

You’ll lose your clone ability.

How many times did I say clones are more useful than you? I guess more that once.

Your high health pool from IoS (225) is a good thing, but it’s the regeneration that matters, not pool.
If you pass a wave with 10 health left, your 225 max health won’t save you in any way (except for consume, but I explained it in description, too. Oh, and your consume is impaired, since you are narciss)

“But there is an energy regen armor! I take it, and spam doombolts for the win, no?”

It looks good in theory, but then again, there are melee units in this game. Practice shows walker units will happily smash you into the ground if you try to cast bolts on them in close range (any other range for doombolts is out of the question).
BUG? on Bloodied Colosseum, many mobs do NO DAMAGE (though animation is in place) for a couple of seconds after appearing. Observed on wraithlords and nobs. This may be just enough for you to pop ’em. Note though, there are 4 gates to kill, not one.

“But swords stack fire DoT!”
More like fire Don’T. The damage is still neglectible, many mobs regen faster than this DoT ticks.

I’ve played with countless sorcs so far, a big chunk of them being narcissistic/tanky melee. Were they useful? Nah. Some were able to survive, but not kill. Sad, but true.

Common melee classes are space marine, tyrant, mekboy. To be honest, CoH engine was not meant to have melee combat, therefore it’s kinda “special”.

Stop trying to make melee sorcerer happen. It’s not going to happen.

TL;DR Give me a loadout already!

«’Ere! Fo’ you!» – Mekboy

• Weapon – Staff of Tzeentch
• Armor – Robes of Deathless
• Accessories –
  • Daemonic Gift of Retaliation
  • Daemonic Gift of Sustenance
  • Sigil of Greater Sorcery

• Commander item – Icon of Summoning

A logical conclusion

Stay safe, rely on your dopple and spells, warp to resurrect dead teammates and don’t die!