Unlike quick cast thats strictly for one self, you can actually get the effect of linker and thauma from your teammate.
Therefore you will only need quick cast for future proof build.
Ele 3 will not fall off because no matter how strong the future class is, the ele 3 based build will still be dealing more damage with the help from frost cloud.
Now tell me, how many Linker 3 friends do you have? What you are saying is like going monk expecting to find Cryo 3 in every party you go to feel like a really good DPS.
Even if I have a linker 3 in my party with this build. It is still fine, all my skills are multithit and singletargeted, just look at the numbers, and I donāt even have to make monsters stand up on a little circle I casted. All I have to do is use my Link for the mobs left from his Links. He will be my x10 multiplier and I will make it x5 when his is not available.
If you go Ele 3 a Thauma 3 is what you want probably, I think parties with linker 3 would prefer a Chrono for Pass, a cleric and 2 Archers, Ele 3 would be for parties that do not rely on linking.
I think Iāve seen one, maybe two Thaums, and Iām level 160. Theyāre so hard to find Iāve made a couple builds for one, I just canāt steel myself enough to go through that miserable leveling process. I wish Thaums could sell their buffs, tooā¦
Thatās the point, you donāt see Linkers 3 or Thaumas 3, most of them have fixed parties because they are simply every partyās dream, very hard to grind though, so itās much easier to make one if you already have a party.
Linker and Thauma 3 are probably the classes from wizards with LEAST players on Rank 3 playing. Iām at level 200 and have seen 1 Thauma 2 and around 4 Linkers 2, not even one of these linkers were taking linker 3 later.
Hey letās buddy up, Iām leveling both Linker3 and Thau3 lol
I wasnāt aware they are this rare though. Good to know my class will be sort of a hot commodity xD
On topic, did you ever consider not picking your rank7 class till they announce more info on rank8? I am considering doing that for my Thau3 lol
Frost cloud scales ~200%(idk how else I can hit 2.8k for frost cloud when I only have 1300matk - mobās magic def)+100 attribute = 400% = x4.0 with int.
It does scale multiplicatively.
Yes, I have. I hate not knowing. Are you on orsha?
Iām on Silute 
btw you ācantā talk about lvl 15 skills warlock, why? because we dont know if the C2 and C3 of warlock circle have good aoe skills we need more info about later ranks.
And im thinking the same thing that @miyasaki003c, i dont know if pick or not Warlock because we dont know nothing about sage, shadowmancer, onmyoji and other futures clases.
Do you have a guild or group? Iām not attached to this server since none of my friends play.
Not really. I have a couple friends that play but I hardly ever play with them.
Silute is the SA server though, Iād advise against playing here unless you donāt mind all the āhueheuhueā lol
Orsha doesnāt speak English, so I think I know?
This build seems all right but it seems to fail to account for party compositionā¦?
Why do you need a rank of linker if you have a linker or two in party already?
Honestly the fact here is: Linkerās very good.
In what content though? We have: grinding, bossing and ET. Theyāre nice for grinding, useless for bossing (actually the second best support for bossing right behind chrono if youāre linker3 with a party built around lifeline) and amazing for ET. The thing is, i wouldnāt take someone who went linker 1 > pseudo dps for ET - id take a linker2/3 who went full support, and leave the DPS to actual DPS builds.
Thereās a lot of āx might be like this or have this much HP in the futureā, you know whatās a sure thing about the future though? That you can linker3chrono3 on a single character. Link the max amount of targets + lifeline with Pass to keep lifelineās downtime to a minimum.
So what does a ET comp look like? 1 swordie (usually pelt+squire), a cleric, a support wiz and 2 DPS between ele/archer. So really, id take a full fledged linker2chrono3 (id say linker3 but not sure Earth Tower will still be relevant by the time we have rank8, but if not im sure theyāll pump out new endgame content) plus a full fledged DPS wiz with both frost cloud AND dark theurge and/or archers 
Also, saying āhow many linker3s or thauma3s do you see?ā isnāt really valid - iām sure as hell not just gonna pick out the first people i see sitting in front of ET to run with. Iām already coordinating with friends to make good class combinations - and if we ever have to sub 1 or 2 slots it surely wonāt be something that isnāt great at neither support nor damage.
Do you go ele3 for 1~2 skills? Yes. Thatās also true for most DPS classes out there: Fletcher? Magic and Barbed Arrows. Rogue? Backstab. Psychokino? PP and Pole. Sapper? Broom Trap basically. Also just about every DPS cleric class? None of these classes get good mileage out of low investment either, the best skills come at circles 2-3 (and the ones that come at 2 usually dont get good till 3: see Magic Arrow).
Lastly, iām not trying to diss your build or anything, this actually looks interesting (should they ever fix both the bugs and useless skills within sorcerer itself), i applaud you for trying something different. This could turn out to be a great solo build - but the game seems to gravitate away from soloing the higher you go.
Sorc3 > Sorc2+Warlock
It is not about being offended. Iām annoyed by this kind of topic because you know some noob is going to read this topoic and try this build thinking itās the best thing ever. Then they are to have a really hard time getting to Rank 6 and realize their build does half the damage that a Wiz3Ele3 does and quit.
As I said before, if you want to discuss how good Sorc is going to be in the future, fine! But donāt throw comments saying Ele3 isnāt going to be good, youāre just misleading people with nothing to back your arguments.
Or - you know - they might add some huge buffing skill to elemental damage to some later class.
Similar to Rune of Ice. Theorycrafting is fun (and probably the biggest selling point of this game), but yeh, noone knows where we will be by Rank 10.
So wait, theurge IS a good skill for earth tower?
Or is it invocation + frost cloud that pulls the weight of having that class in ET?
Asking if warlock really contributes enough to ele3, cause Iāve been considering different options for rank 7 since hearing what others have said in this thread.
Look, the name of the topic says itself, this is an alternative build to Wiz 3 > Ele 3. Iām saying I believe Ele will fall off, Frost Cloud wonāt, it will remain as the best AoE skill until later AoEs come, if they ever come. All I wanted was to show people they donāt really NEED to go Ele 3 if they want a DPS build.
Any number of Linkers can work fine in a party if they can manage it well. It is all about not linking mobs that are already linked, when that happens just save your link for the next pack or the leftovers or the current one.
Obviously for ET any group will still prefer Ele 3. Thatās because everygroup right now just makes a barrier and let AoEs kill the mobs outside. But that does not mean this char is bad for ET. People who donāt understand how could this be so have NOT played a Sorc C2 and got really used to it. Temple Shooter does more damage than most elementalist skills with his auto-attacks. The skill from temple shooter can not do as much damage as frost cloud right now because level cap on templeshooter affects it much more than players, who can keep on buying better items to make their damage grow. But what needs to be said is: Temple Shooterās basic attack is already AoE, 2 hits every second or 2 seconds to ALL mobs, plus 20 hits from itās skill with 40 seconds cooldown.
More points:
Linker 1 is great for PvP, Sorcerer is great for both PvP and GvG if you know how to use it. Elementalist does not excel at PvP, you can one-shot things with meteor but frost cloud aināt that huge there as anyone can get away from it if you donāt stop them.
People say I canāt talk about Warlockās skill at level 15. Look, Iām not talking about future warlock skills, Iām talking only about his current skills, when able to reach higher levels. You can ignore that like if itās not bound to happen but the fact is: What I am talking about is currently knowledge on the game, all Iām saying is if they donāt NERF Dark Theurge (this is the real point that we canāt know if will happen, because honestly, 75 hits for someone with no linker aināt even that great later on).
Sorc 3 has a better summon, but Iām pretty sure Warlock wins over it because Sorc 3 new skills are a joke. Also youād have to take Warlock at rank 8 if you want it.
This build excels at solo playing and is a very good build to help in a party. Even linker 1 is useful when it comes to killing mobs and doing dungeons.
Earth Tower: People here are talking about party setups for Earth Tower. Not ONE party have cleared Earth Tower. They got to the 10th (of 20) floor and were wiped by a boss that erases AoE. Obviously this does not mean Ele 3 is useless, he still helps a lot clearing previous mobs, but the point is: even your so said party is only theorycrafting, the party you talk about is exactly a sort of formation used to get to floor 10 and even koreans canāt go beyond that.
Also this build is not made to be better at ET than Ele 3. I want to be able to be useful at ET, obviously, it is the last dungeon in the game right now. But the game does not look like ET outside of that place.
What I wanted was a build that could be good at both general PvE so I could reach higher levels than 280 when they are released and also very good at PvP. Which it is. Even if Iām only able to make very few floors on ET thereās no need to hurry, Iāll end up having the same Lolopanther equipments and leaving them behind later on when new and better equipment comes.
The fact is, all the grinding and dungeons and even PvP works pretty great for a Linker, even at Circle 1.
Now think about it. You got 9 ranks, this is the future. You have a Wiz 3 > Ele 3 > Warlock 3. You donāt have a linker in party. You are OUTSIDE of Earth Tower (ONE dungeon in the game). Basically that dark theurge you put 15 points into will be simply something that hits mobs that come to attack you, you will still be using Frost Cloud, Hail and Pole of Agony mostly, that and some other AoE from Warlock (may or may not get).
Why it is stupid to only make characters based on Earth Tower:
If it really was like this, every party should look like this:
1 Healer (mostly full support)
1 Tanker (should be squire too for 20 floors)
1 Chrono 3 (Pass)
1 Ele 3 (AoE)
WHO? Here comes your archer, or your other wizard or anything else.
This is saying 90% of the builds are useless. ET is not everything. It is important but even if you can only make something like 5 floors or less with a ārandomā party you will end up having the same gears as someone who goes much higher. Afaik those gears are not tradeable.
I honestly think that the OP does not intend to say that his build is better than Ele, really. Those who read the forum and do a lil bit of research will already know that W3 Ele 3 is one of the most popular wiz builds for dps.
I think what OP offered here is a good alternative build, and itās nice that he justified and explained why he chose this build so people can understand better about some possible combinations in the wizard tree.
People who do research and look up othersā builds will decide themselves whether this build is good or not. I myself, read lots of builds and through reading many suggestions from others, start to understand the advantages and disadvantages of having the build. For example, those who want to focus on support classes before going for Warlock or FF may find difficulty at leveling and need to depend on the party (suffer first, before it pays off XD)
It is oneās partial fault to decide on something without thorough research, and blame on someone and call him as misleading. If the person thinks it is hard to level up and give up, then perhaps the build does not suit his style, and just try other builds. Sometimes what people think is the best build, may not be the best, the most enjoyable build for others and we cannot force people to think the same way as us. Otherwise, there wonāt be any variations for wiz build.
In short, it does not matter whether OPās post is correct or not (who knows what happens in the future? and each person has his own opinion whether āXā build is the best or not). What I appreciate is how he took his time to write, give his opinion to us about interesting variations of wiz build that does not wish to conform to the āmost popular buildsā. This itself will encourage people to try and experiment more. In the end, the most popular builds come from theorycrafting and experimenting.
P.S: Yes, itās super duper long. I am in the mood of long typing XD And itās just because I have been checking peopleās comments on this post, wishing to find more knowledge and have constructive discussions about about the main content of the post. However, it seems the recent posts are not. Just my two cents. I did not intend to offend anyone >___<~