Sorcerer

The Sorcerer class, as spoke of a little previously, is for players who wish to do a lot of damage using magical skills. This also means that enemies will be focused on you, as you have no real tank to guard you from their attacks. At the same time, however, the amount of damage you are capable of dealing far surpasses the risk of having enemies attack you.

When looking at Sorcerers the biggest thing to consider is the survivability of the class. They die easily yet can kill easily as well, making it a very "on the fence" decision. It is the best of both worlds - life and death. This should definitely be factored into your decision if you are considering playing as a Sorcerer.

When playing as one it is highly recommended that you group with other players when the opportunity arises. This allows you to (hopefully) get a tank that can relieve you from taking near as much damage as you would alone. Grouping with a tank can be a great duo because he can take the hits while you do the massive damage to your enemies.

Now, one of the most forgotten things when looking at the highest damage dealers is that it will often pull aggression from the other mobs around you. Doing too much damage will override the tank's hate, causing enemies to rush at you (PvE). Because of this, if you are spamming skills nonstop you will be risking death for not only you but the tank as well. More information about this can be found in the Strategy section.

Strategy

With the Sorcerer you are not only focused on yourself, but also your allies as well. Your main goal here is to deal as much damage as you are capable of doing, without pulling aggression from the mobs on to yourself. This will take a lot of practice on various mobs to figure out how many spells you are able to cast at various levels, of various types, and against various mobs. This can not really be detailed here because there are just too many factors involved.

A good rule of practice is that if you are nuking an enemy and you find that they have strayed from the tank and are coming after you, you are doing too much damage. If this happens try doing the following checklist.

Step One - When the mob is dead pull another of the same type and this time spread out your spells by a short distance. For example, if you are casting each spell as soon as the cool down is over, try separating it by half of a second. If this does not work, try one second.

Step Two - If separating your spells is not helping with the aggression, try using a weaker spell. Keep in mind that the damage you do does influence the aggression that the mobs have on you.

Step Three - If this still is not helping with the situation, use less spells. Let's say you were using four spells before pulling aggression. This time only use three instead. Let the mob die (if it is near death) by the tank, or if it is not almost dead give it a little while (4-5 seconds) before casting any more.

This may seem to be inefficient at first, but if you are dying to the mobs you are experiencing a lot of down time that you could be avoiding otherwise. Not to mention if you have too many mobs and your tank is not capable of killing them all solo he will die along with you. Consider efficiency over speed and it will take you a long ways.

When determining which mobs you wish to fight solo, it is recommended that you try different mobs around your area and see your performance based on that. Let's say you are level 15 at the time and there are level 13-16 mobs around you. You attack a level 13 and it takes 2 spells, a level 15 takes 4 spells, and a level 16 takes 5 spells. At this point you would want to hunt primarily the level 13's. These will give a small decrease in the amount of experience that you gain (as compared to hunting mobs your level or higher) but your down time will be decreased significantly. You want to always hunt the mobs you are able to kill very fast, with the least amount of MP as possible. At the same time, do not hunt mobs more than three levels below you (assuming you are level 15, you will not want anything 11 or below). Also keep in mind that some mobs may be a higher level but could be weaker against your magic than others. So do not always judge which ones to hunt solely by their levels, but instead test out the mobs in your area first.