New post because I replied to this guy and I didn’t want to, my response was a general one not directed at them.
Too much damage by mob clusters and special monsters’ abilities for any skill which requires the player to be a sitting duck to work. Unless you can somehow gain enough ward to not be eviscerated in less than a second the skill will be probably fun to use but very weak.
First thing that came to my mind is:
You can take “Infernal Ray” and “Electrify” what happens if you pick up both?
Isn’t the initial channel cost pretty high or does the spell itself deliver insane dmg? Thinking about a mage with let’s say 400 Mana who would drain herself in seconds if she took the dmg steroids. Getting most dmg out of the skill seems to cost 96 mana/sec from my point of view… that’s nuts!
The “Inferno” node seems pretty much useless you simply don’t want enemys near you as a ranged caster.
How does this skill work with the teleport node that makes the next cast free? Is it just the initial cost or can you Desintegrate the world after a teleport?
Well if the base damage of the skill is high everything might be fine, if the damage is low it might not be used that much.
It looks bad tbh. I cannot see anything unique in the skill tree it looks the same as every other sorcerer skill. You are pretty much forced to go with high mana cost build to make the skill damage somewhat good compared to the other skills and of course achieving enough damage to push Arena/Monolith of fate(assuming it has similar base damage as other end game sorcerer skills like volcanic orb). It will synergies with the new sorcerer skill tree mastery but still(assuming the mastery bonus is working with mana drain skills)…
The only interesting and good nodes seems to be Twinbeam and Backfire.
The so-so choices are Tendrils, Escalation + Amplification .
The terrible skill tree nodes are Laser Focus(this is one of the worst skill tree nodes i have seen for the sorcerer skills), Subvention.
The rest is just mainstream kind a ok.
Missing nodes:
No + add critical chance for the lighting tree. No nodes that would allow your beam to create laser beams to enemies standing in a few meters around the main beam or after the main beam hits a target etc…
In general the skill needs a touch before it achieves its final release version.
P.S I am planning to release my frozen orb - volcanic orb build for all the guys that are struggling to find a viable sorcerer build. And yes i can agree that there are very few viable builds for end game currently for the sorcerer.
Mallar
Level 80 Sorcerer
It would be cool to see a node in there where you can get damage scaling per mana pool (ray scales with your max mana amount).I liked how shield throw had a node which scales it with your block chance it would be cool to see new abilities have similar function option.
Overall I like what I see tree and want to play and I also with players feedback.
The worst thing is: After Fireball every spell that was added to the game feels lackluster. Mechanicly everything is fine but I miss the glascannon feel from other games. Sure you can build a fulltank mage here what’s a flaw by itself in my eyes but with all the crappy dmg numbers we see from the mage it looks like the class is on the reciving end.
You can make things work with the mage but why should someone do this if every other class has easier and saver as well as more damage dealing builds? It feels a bit like mage classes are for the masochists out there.
The wizard class is lackluster, not in the mood to build anything that makes you marvel at playing, lacking more powers of devastation until magician is enviable powers, when when we were children and even today we dreamed of having, with more elemental powers. diversified with modifiers that really modify the ability that makes it look great … but maybe it’s me dreaming too much … 
Sorry bad english.
Sorc got to be good tough?u seen leaderbord at sc waves? 800+ SORCERER? Im playing warpath i even cant get to 70+😅
Cascade don’t feel that great. With the mana comsuption and the lack of mana efficiency node, the buff will stack against foes where the buff is not needed.
Moreover, I don’t understand why it’s behind Praesidium. Same for Subvention behind Twinbeam. There is often a “theme” on a branch, but not there. So I don’t understand why I should spend points on the previous nodes to unlock the further ones.
For Twinbeam, it would be fun if one beam is only fire and one is only lightning (and both become fire or lightning if we take the nodes to convert all damage).
By the way, Infernal Ray and Electrify should be further on the branches to prevent someone to take both. You only need 6 points to unlock both and have a paradox (it could become a void ray exploding in a black hole though).
(If we convert all damage to fire, do we keep chances to shock?)
I don’t understand why Amplification and Unbridled Power can have up to 5 points.
Why Laser Focus doesn’t reduce width of the beam? With such a name, it’s an effect we expected. With such a name, we could even expect the skill to not pierce before and becoming piercing with that node.
Instead, it’s a massive nerf of the ray. And the tooltip is not clear: does the mana regen replace the mana comsuption of the skill or is it -20 + 10 mana/sec while damaging enemies? (And not even +10 per enemy :’( )
That’s actually a bug (one of which I’d mentioned in my post, but I’d missed the other one).
Sarno, when does patch 0.7.4 come out? Is it early November? 
We’re not yet ready to announce a release date.
Currently I expect us to release it mid-November-ish. That’s a guess - not a promise. 
Please add some items aswell 
The will to have meaningful nodes is commendable of course, but the trade-offs proposed in this preview are way too harsh. Let’s take a look at the main offenders.
Glass cannon could result in taking 144 % increased damage while channeling Disintegrate (provided we can reach enough mana regeneration to sustain channeling it at Tier 3). Since we are channeling, we cannot do anything to defend ourselves against incoming damage. We already take more damage because we don’t dodge incoming attacks and can’t use defensive skills to mitigate incoming damage while we are immobile and channeling. Adding a damage increase effect on top of that isn’t going to bode well for us. In every ARPG, channeling builds are known for the need to mitigate damage more than non-channeling builds, with the exception of movement channeling skills (aka Spin2Win). On top of being a very bad choice to make, the damage bonus we gain is 33 % lesser than the damage increase we take. This cannot work.
Escalation/Amplification/Unbridled Power : the mana drain penalty is extreme. You said base mana regen is 10/second. The skill costs 20 mana/second at Tier 1, making it 60/second at Tier 3. Even with Laser Focus and Hyperfocal, we would still be losing mana at an alarming rate, and Laser Focus kills our damage to provide meager mana regeneration.
Laser Focus : the net gain is negligible in that it won’t offset the additional channeling cost that comes from other nodes, and we have to sacrifice 70 % of our damage output for that.
All in all, the trade-off should exist between nodes and not inside them. I really appreciate having to choose between different playstyles, but what’s the use of having to spend points on skills if different nodes just cancel each other out or destroy our viability or damage output to offer a meager bonus to something else ?
Having to take Laser Focus to alleviate the increased mana cost from Escalation, while sacrificing a huge portion of my damage output that is granted precisely by the node that is responsible for bumping my mana drain through the roof is the perfect example of why this design doesn’t work.
I think the tree is fine (Overall as an idea and Concept), and I can imagine that it plays well too while leaving interesting choices playstylewise, too.
I feel, for myself, and maybe also for other People, that the general theme of the mage as he finds himself now with the skills currently available, is that you have mostly “shoot” skills that lack diversity in the way they are played (as skills and therefor as how the mage plays itself).
That leaves less room for the mage to be a mage. To also be tactical in more adverse ways that highly differentiate from each other. Right now, the mage feels - despite the many skill choices (in regards to damaging skills like fireball, Meteor, orb, etc) - that there`s not much choice in playstyle other than differentiating melee with spell. So either you go melee, or you cast. But you cast damage, and for me most damage skills feel the same the way they are cast and played out: Cast, deal dmg, cast again. Positioning, Timing ain´t important. Its mainly: dish out damage.
The only skill that feels more tactical and changes the Gameplay dynamic a bit, for me, is the orb - for it can be prolonged via decreasing its Speed, therefor it being a longer-lasting Duration-spell skill that is dealing damage over a few seconds (without being a “DoT”).
Spells that deal Damage over a period of time (not necasserily “DoT”) - but something like… a firestorm, a hurricane, a Blizzard, a Lightning-storm in a targed area, that deals its Damage in X seconds. A stationary Hydra, a thunderstorm that strucks enemys in the Cloud, or something.
A “click-and-Forget” and “use-other-abilites-too-during-its-duration”.
I love mage for being a kiter, or having a feel of the kiter! Black-hole comes closest to that, although it is very different in its concept and purpose of usage - its mainly crowd control and high CD, which is fine - but thats not what I`m pointing at.
For me, right now it feels bland because all his abilities - albeit being different - “feel” like the same, as in, there`s not much choice… the only choice is, “with what will I deal Damage with”, but not “how will I deal Damage differently and therefor play my mage differently”. Which skills i will use will not alter my game-Play much, because the differentiation between the skills is more a matter of “how much dmg and mana does it cost”, but not necasserily “how will it make me play my mage differently in the way I deal my damage and survive”. For it plays differently in the sense that there´s another visual skill coming from my mage when I press that button, yes, but not to the degree that makes it interesting and fun as in, I have to play and move my mage differentl, not in the sense that gameplay-Dynamics really change.
Other classes do this quite well, IMO. They feel diverse with each of their dmg-skill-choices, because they all more or less allow for different game-play and do different things that matter. Mage mainly does damage, so there`s not as much choice involved, other than Maybe being Ultra fast and efficient (cast Speed, dmg, mana reg).
E.g., lets say we have a thunderstorm skill that Costs 60-80 mana or something and lasts 4 seconds, dealing moderate amount of Damage in an AoE over its duration. It`s not meant as a crowd-control like black-hole is; its mana cost are expensive, because it actually is a strong damage-dealing-skill. It IS meant to be played around, so its cooldown is shorther than its duration.
I could think of many skills like that that would have good Synergy with current skills in the game, making for a looot more viable and different builds and playstyle-combinations than there are atm (in my opinion) for the mage. Disentigrate does a good Addition to that I feel, since it offers alternative mechanics (quite the opposite of the above, which is: stand still and deal damage over time (which isnt DoT)).
E.g. Any type of Elemental-Hydra - medium mana cost (35), long Duration (6-7s), Shorter cooldown (2-3s), medium damage Overall (can have multiple on the field, 2 or 3 total), stackable in damage with medium range
Any type of storm (firestorm, Blizzard (Cold), lightningstorm) - high mana cost (60-70), medium Duration (4s) and cooldown (3s), non-stackable in damage, high AoE
Some other Kind of this, like a Hail, or a fire-eruption, middle-high in mana cost (45), middle in Duration (5-6 seconds) and low in CD (2-3s), stackable in damage with medium range and damage-output
Its stationary and viable as a damage-skill, and it can be combined effectively with all the “spam” spells that youve got - fireball, Meteor, orb, etc. Glacier and meteor too feel more like a fireball skill than it does like this “stationary-duration-based” skill, therefor being on the same tactical-skill-choice-chart as the other “cast-and-hit” skills essentially (except melee-mage-skills and the defensive ones ofc, they of course do alter play-style wise^^)
I`d wish for more variety in active damage-spells playstyle-wise. Disentigrate does a good Job with this! I think in that regard, we Need no more “shoot” skills (which I see Meteor and glacier also being such), and more like this (disentigrate offering different mechanicsplaystyle-wise).
Elemental nova does a good Job in adding to the variety, although its not my favourite skill on its own and its not ranged-and-kite-ish, but it adds to the way a caster could be played, it combines good with a melee based mage because it profits from being up-close, and is nice with spells that make you less mobile, therefor “force” you to be more up-close at least sometimes - like disentigrate, therefor adding interesting Juices to your play-style-possibilities.
As you see in your example: There are a lot of people up there in arena waves with a warpath build, personal skill has a big impact. Sure you CAN build sorc builds that work but with a ton more effort then other builds. I’m pretty sure there are people out there who could push Druides in hundrets of waves just by using bearform and right click because the use the right items.
Not a fan of this tree. Lightening seems to get the short end of the node stick. Shock being as bad as it is right now I find these nodes not that great. Unless shock changes. Over all not a very interesting or good tree but others seem to have laid that fact out good.
In don’t understand all those negative post.
For me the tree feel really interesting.
Don’t forget the new passive give for class specialization: +30 mana and lmana cost = increase damage for mage.
i don’t play mage for now (I can’t play a lot). But my full melee spellblade is my best char (ward leecher).
I feel the Tree allow you to use the skill as many viable ways.
You have many way too make aoe or single damage and to make hight damage/hight mana or medium or low to spam.
I really like the lighteneing way with the interact with enother skill.
Tendrils is very interesting to make desintegrate as fuel to the other skill.
Praesidium is very interesting too to make the skill as primary.
Backfire feel really fun.
I really love all the tree and all the concepts.
The number feel right to me, but is hard to say without testing.
I really want to play it
Class specialization isn’t there yet so it don’t count for anything. They can still change it to something like fire skills improve the dmh of ice skills and ice skills the dmg of lighning skills and so on. Don’t count in stuff that isn’t there.
The raw tree looks like “Go for more dmg with insane high mana costs” or “Go for utility and do medium wannabe aoe” or “Whatever you try to accomplish it isn’t working” kind of builds. Don’t forget with this skill you root yourself and depending on the ability to animationcancel it this makes you more vulnerable to ranged attacks. If they implement a sustained dmg that keeps you in place I totaly miss stuff like “increased resistences while channeling” and stuff like that.
So far i would use EVERY other spell over desintegrate even when I absolutely LOVE this kind of skill. It’s just to flawed and the only meaningfull dmg increase skyrockets the cost of the spell far to much on paper when you consider dmg/mana spent. Sure if the base dmg of the skill is insanely high everything is fine but it would be rather braindead to implement a channeled skill like this with a high ammount of base dmg.
Praesidium give ward during channeling.
How can you say that without testing:
It is indeed a risk but the opposite is true too, that could be a wonderfull skill that allow many things
With all the possible ward retention out there, there ward is still faster gone then generated even on heaviely ward relient builds. Maybe I do something wrong but I don’t understand why people think ward is in a good place. On top of it it seems like it isn’t enough vs the increased weakness to ranged attacks.
I can tell this because there isn’t that much synergy in the tree from my point of view. You can go the pure dmg route with the increasing beam stages adding in a second beam or add a bit of utility like some AoE proccs and stuff but with 20 points in the skilltree it’s hard to make that skill meaningfull compared to other spell options. I still think you’ll be better of with the 100% pierce chance fireball spell because at the end of the day it makes the same thing like desintegrate but in a bursty rather then a sustained way.
Sure everything can change when the skill goes live depending on the base dmg of the skill but I still don’t see that much room for interactions in the skilltree that are meaningfull.