Newb Sorcerer Speccing Question

[Elizar_Naki]

Ok, this comes from someone who's new to playing the class. I've spent most of my time since launch running a sentinel, and while said time has sadly been limited to the point that I've barely started act 3 (even though I hit 50 already), I'm looking to get started on the sorcerer I'll be running for my next character. Problem: I have absolutely no clue what to do long-term. I have the basic abilities figured out pretty well, and I'm confident that I can pick up the later ones well enough once I get them, but I don't know what I'm gonna do about skill speccing. I know I wanna mainly dps, which crosses Corruption off the list unless I decide to offheal (doubtful, but possible), but I'm not sure exactly what Lightning and Madness are supposed to help me do. I'm guessing Lightning is built around ranged lightning attacks, and I know Madness is a) shared with the Assassin, and b) pretty widely mentioned in other threads here, but I don't know what exactly it's meant to do (everybody just seems to mention it and specs revolving around it in passing, but rarely in any detail, and when they do they all talk in shorthands and allusions that I don't understand since I've never used the tree). If anyone could put their two credits' worth in on what Lightning and Madness are specifically designed to help me do and which one would help me dps the best, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance for any help provided.

[Chikun]

Madness focuses on DoT damage and life leaching while the lightning focuses more on turning you into a stationary conductor spewwing destruction. Speaking of endgame they are similar in dps with the exception of lighting doing more if you don't need to be mobile for a boss fight while madness does more if the fight mechanics require you to be on the move.

 

It's also this reason that people gravitate towards madness in pvp builds but I hear that a hybrid build is more superior.

[Jayshames]

Madness is basically throwing DoTs around and buffing them with death field, you can spec to get spammable force ligtning with 0 cooldown and it actually replenishes energy the more you use it.

 

Lightning is more turret like, mostly focuses on cast time spells but can get good damage and has loads of buffs to speed up casts or increase damage.

 

I prefer Madness as it's more mobile, though if you're spamming lightning you get spotted easily and then you become pirority target number one because sorcs are pretty easy kills if the person doesn't play smart.

 

Throw dots around, slow, knockback and keep gaining some distance and renew dots when needed and use force lightning to fill, as long as you keep distance between your enemys and use the environment to LOS you can do very well.