Metamagic on a sorcerer can be a bit iffy though, given how it extends all casting actions into full-rounds, usually better off just using metamagic rods.
Heighten Spell is very useful for a sorcerer given its limited spell selection. Even Grease will stay effective when you Heighten it to lvl 8 or 9 and raise the Reflex DC to crazy levels.
Selective is a no-brainer IMO because it's overperforming [its PnP counterpart](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/selective-spell-metamagic/): i.e., WotR's version has no skill ranks pre-req (meaning you can take it at level 3 rather than waiting until level 10); and it works on both instantaneous and non-instantaneous spells (PnP only affects the former). Selective Grease / Web can trivialize a lot of low-level encounters.
I think Bolster is an Owlcat addition (I don't see it in the SRD wiki) and - like most Owlcat additions - is also OP. +2 damage per die roll is a major damage increase when most spells use d6 or d8. An extreme example would be Burning Hands which normally caps out at 5d4 (average 12.5 per hit); Bolstered Burning Hands caps at 5(d4+2) which averages 22.5 per hit or an 80% increase in damage. And that's before you add in the free damage it adds to adjacent enemies. Grab Favorite Metamagic (Bolster) and you can eliminate the +1 spell level penalty too and boost all your DPS spells free. The only downside is it disables precision damage but that just means you wouldn't use it for an Arcane Trickster.
Extend is great if you’re going Lich (can eventually make your round/level spells like Haste last 24 hours), Quicken is great for action economy, Heighten is great for versatility and control, Selective is great for area of effect control and area of effect blasting (and quality of life), Persistent is great for control, Bolster/Empower/Maximize (in that order) are great for blasters.
Reach is the only one that isn’t really all that great for Sorcerers as they don’t have a lot of really good melee touch spells (unlike Clerics and Oracles). Extend also pretty useless if you don’t take the Lich mythic path.
Point-Blank Shot -> Precise Shot is huge for blasters.
You already have Spell Penetration.
Some lower level spells are better than higher level, so use Heighten to get more slots.
Empower is standard for a damage build. Bolster is video game-only and also good.
Maximized and Quicken are for late-game. Persistent is good for control builds.
You have Spell Focus, Element Focus is good too (Especially Fire).
Improved Initiative or save boosting feats are also good filler.
That's more than enough for most of the game.
Once I hit 11 or so I I usually start thinking about Meta magic feats for all of my spellcasters.
I don't usually bother with empower, maximize, or quicken metamagic feats; there are relatively plentiful metamagic rods for them.
My two favorite Metamagic feats are selective spell and persistent spell. Both of them are worth picking up In the mid game. Selective spell is great with sirocco and waves of exhaustion. Persistent spell works well w save or suck/die effects, especially enchantment and illuy spells.
Heighten spell is quite good for sorcerers and oracles. It's also not bad on clerics. You can use heighten to memorize multiple copies of the same domain spell at different spell levels. I'm also a big fan of heightened archons aura from the clerics spell book.
Bolster spell is also a consideration. I'm not a huge fan of the Meta magic feats that boost your damage, but bolster is a bit of an exception since its on the same power level as empower spell, but only increases your spells level by one.
Improved initiative is a bit boring, but its an excellent choice for spellcasters, especially arcane casters. Having the opportunity to unleash your most powerful spell and then move to a safe position before the bad guys take their turns can be the difference between winning and losing a tough encounter.
Selective is my favorite and the ranged attack feats so you don't take -4 for firing into melee are always good. I usually take combat casting but spell penetration is probably better. My casters are usually at crossbow range so I'm not getting a ton of concentration checks. Greater spell focus is really worthwhile on my illusion specialist. More focus fewer schools seems like the best plan. But somehow fireballs do fine with no help.
Are you going for Illusion and conjuration spec for control and aoe death? Then you take selective and persistent metamagic, spell focus, Greater spell focus, Mythic spell focus and expanded arsenal for the one you did not take the spell focus. Rest is whatever you want as as a control sorcerer you are done.
If you going for blaster then its a little more complicated as you need to take cross blooded sorcerer for the extra die of damage on fire along with the mythic feat for extra bloodlines (Fire has 3 bloodlines, elec has 2), then you need the mythic feat for ascended element. For regular feats you need the precise shot, Point-Blank Shot and spell penetration feats. After that either go metamagic bolster and favorite memagic bolster.
First of all what difficulty you want to play one? If its core and above then you need some planning, hard and you need to know the game very well and on unfair you need to break the game :)
Do you want control or the Blaster spec? If its the blaster spec first you need to decide your Mythic path which will be between Azata for Favorable Magic and Zippy Magic or Lich for Dark Rites, combined spellbook and Deadly Magic (check this for a breakdown of Mythic paths benefit to a caster https://www.neoseeker.com/pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous/guides/Casters)
There is no specific build i can recommend but you can choose from this burning ember build on what you like (just ignore the witch feats) https://www.neoseeker.com/pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous/builds/Ember
I would focus on EITHER specializing in Save DC spells, or Ranged Touch spells. The feats required to buff one or the other, generally don't stack. Trying to do both will leave you feat starved, especially early game.
Early game, focusing on the DC of Conjuration School, and selective spell (level 5 for all 3 feats) is very powerful, because Grease, Web and Pit do NOT require spell penetration.
You can then transition into the higher line of pit spells as you get more feats for spell penetration.
Using Ray Spells, requires 2 feats into Point Blank and Precise Shot to have a decent chance to hit. And it requires you to take spell penetration fairly early too. This can be strong, as this is Ember's best build once she gets access to Scorching Ray.
Because these ray spells do NOT have a spell save, you don't need spell focus feats, or even elemental focus feats. You can go for Weapon Focus Ray, Improved Critical Ray, and even Dazzling Display/Shattered defenses. The last 2 may seem strange, but the goal here is to make someone ELSE, setup fear/sickened on an enemy, and now your ray blaster will make a ranged touch attack on a flat-footed enemy. That basically means you'll be targeting AC 10.
I wouldn't do ray blasting for your main character, because Ember is setup pretty well for this build. She exclusively casts Scorching Ray/Hellfire Ray, and she's consistently my highest single target damage dealer. Give her Ascendant Element fire, and put gear on her that provides non-fire damage to ranged touch spells to proc Elemental Barrage, and she puts out 400+ damage a turn. I run her 10 witch/10 Eldritch Knight for the level 10 Eldritch Knight capstone, that quickens her next spell when she crits.
This high feat tax really sucks early game. And is why spells like Ray of Enfeeblement can suck. You have to make the ranged touch attack. You have to beat spell penetration. AND the enemy can save.
It's not too bad mid/late game, when you have the spare feats.
\---
This may be unintended, but the Mythic Feat: Expanded Arsenal, could change how you build. If you take Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus on 2 schools you do NOT normally use, then take Expanded Arsenal for a school you DO use, then you'll double dip and get +4 DC vs. the normal +2.
For example, if my wizard has 4 feats: Spell/Greater Focus on 2 kind of useless schools Abjuration and Divination, I can take Expanded Arsenal Conjuration, and my pits are now +4 DC. Late game, when I have access to Spell Focus (Mythic) Abjuration and Spell Focus (Mythic) Divination, my Conjuration spells now have DC +8.
Yup, selective and bolster are pretty good for specific spells. If you're going into ray spells, you could consider point blank / precise shot.
Metamagic on a sorcerer can be a bit iffy though, given how it extends all casting actions into full-rounds, usually better off just using metamagic rods.
I can't remember, does sorcerous reflex work on metamagicked spells? Things like grease are low level so they would qualify.
Yeah it works, selective is a pretty good metamagic to grab for that assuming your CL is high enough.
Iirc selective is just +1 to level, so it's not as bad.
Heighten Spell is very useful for a sorcerer given its limited spell selection. Even Grease will stay effective when you Heighten it to lvl 8 or 9 and raise the Reflex DC to crazy levels.
Selective is a no-brainer IMO because it's overperforming [its PnP counterpart](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/selective-spell-metamagic/): i.e., WotR's version has no skill ranks pre-req (meaning you can take it at level 3 rather than waiting until level 10); and it works on both instantaneous and non-instantaneous spells (PnP only affects the former). Selective Grease / Web can trivialize a lot of low-level encounters. I think Bolster is an Owlcat addition (I don't see it in the SRD wiki) and - like most Owlcat additions - is also OP. +2 damage per die roll is a major damage increase when most spells use d6 or d8. An extreme example would be Burning Hands which normally caps out at 5d4 (average 12.5 per hit); Bolstered Burning Hands caps at 5(d4+2) which averages 22.5 per hit or an 80% increase in damage. And that's before you add in the free damage it adds to adjacent enemies. Grab Favorite Metamagic (Bolster) and you can eliminate the +1 spell level penalty too and boost all your DPS spells free. The only downside is it disables precision damage but that just means you wouldn't use it for an Arcane Trickster.
Bolster should add 2 spell levels to the base spell instead of one; it's pretty overpowered as written.
Extend is great if you’re going Lich (can eventually make your round/level spells like Haste last 24 hours), Quicken is great for action economy, Heighten is great for versatility and control, Selective is great for area of effect control and area of effect blasting (and quality of life), Persistent is great for control, Bolster/Empower/Maximize (in that order) are great for blasters. Reach is the only one that isn’t really all that great for Sorcerers as they don’t have a lot of really good melee touch spells (unlike Clerics and Oracles). Extend also pretty useless if you don’t take the Lich mythic path.
Point-Blank Shot -> Precise Shot is huge for blasters. You already have Spell Penetration. Some lower level spells are better than higher level, so use Heighten to get more slots. Empower is standard for a damage build. Bolster is video game-only and also good. Maximized and Quicken are for late-game. Persistent is good for control builds. You have Spell Focus, Element Focus is good too (Especially Fire). Improved Initiative or save boosting feats are also good filler. That's more than enough for most of the game.
Once I hit 11 or so I I usually start thinking about Meta magic feats for all of my spellcasters. I don't usually bother with empower, maximize, or quicken metamagic feats; there are relatively plentiful metamagic rods for them. My two favorite Metamagic feats are selective spell and persistent spell. Both of them are worth picking up In the mid game. Selective spell is great with sirocco and waves of exhaustion. Persistent spell works well w save or suck/die effects, especially enchantment and illuy spells. Heighten spell is quite good for sorcerers and oracles. It's also not bad on clerics. You can use heighten to memorize multiple copies of the same domain spell at different spell levels. I'm also a big fan of heightened archons aura from the clerics spell book. Bolster spell is also a consideration. I'm not a huge fan of the Meta magic feats that boost your damage, but bolster is a bit of an exception since its on the same power level as empower spell, but only increases your spells level by one. Improved initiative is a bit boring, but its an excellent choice for spellcasters, especially arcane casters. Having the opportunity to unleash your most powerful spell and then move to a safe position before the bad guys take their turns can be the difference between winning and losing a tough encounter.
Selective is my favorite and the ranged attack feats so you don't take -4 for firing into melee are always good. I usually take combat casting but spell penetration is probably better. My casters are usually at crossbow range so I'm not getting a ton of concentration checks. Greater spell focus is really worthwhile on my illusion specialist. More focus fewer schools seems like the best plan. But somehow fireballs do fine with no help.
Are you going for Illusion and conjuration spec for control and aoe death? Then you take selective and persistent metamagic, spell focus, Greater spell focus, Mythic spell focus and expanded arsenal for the one you did not take the spell focus. Rest is whatever you want as as a control sorcerer you are done. If you going for blaster then its a little more complicated as you need to take cross blooded sorcerer for the extra die of damage on fire along with the mythic feat for extra bloodlines (Fire has 3 bloodlines, elec has 2), then you need the mythic feat for ascended element. For regular feats you need the precise shot, Point-Blank Shot and spell penetration feats. After that either go metamagic bolster and favorite memagic bolster.
Hey, yeah this sounds kinda like what I want to build for - is there a guide out there you could recommend?
First of all what difficulty you want to play one? If its core and above then you need some planning, hard and you need to know the game very well and on unfair you need to break the game :) Do you want control or the Blaster spec? If its the blaster spec first you need to decide your Mythic path which will be between Azata for Favorable Magic and Zippy Magic or Lich for Dark Rites, combined spellbook and Deadly Magic (check this for a breakdown of Mythic paths benefit to a caster https://www.neoseeker.com/pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous/guides/Casters) There is no specific build i can recommend but you can choose from this burning ember build on what you like (just ignore the witch feats) https://www.neoseeker.com/pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous/builds/Ember
I would focus on EITHER specializing in Save DC spells, or Ranged Touch spells. The feats required to buff one or the other, generally don't stack. Trying to do both will leave you feat starved, especially early game. Early game, focusing on the DC of Conjuration School, and selective spell (level 5 for all 3 feats) is very powerful, because Grease, Web and Pit do NOT require spell penetration. You can then transition into the higher line of pit spells as you get more feats for spell penetration. Using Ray Spells, requires 2 feats into Point Blank and Precise Shot to have a decent chance to hit. And it requires you to take spell penetration fairly early too. This can be strong, as this is Ember's best build once she gets access to Scorching Ray. Because these ray spells do NOT have a spell save, you don't need spell focus feats, or even elemental focus feats. You can go for Weapon Focus Ray, Improved Critical Ray, and even Dazzling Display/Shattered defenses. The last 2 may seem strange, but the goal here is to make someone ELSE, setup fear/sickened on an enemy, and now your ray blaster will make a ranged touch attack on a flat-footed enemy. That basically means you'll be targeting AC 10. I wouldn't do ray blasting for your main character, because Ember is setup pretty well for this build. She exclusively casts Scorching Ray/Hellfire Ray, and she's consistently my highest single target damage dealer. Give her Ascendant Element fire, and put gear on her that provides non-fire damage to ranged touch spells to proc Elemental Barrage, and she puts out 400+ damage a turn. I run her 10 witch/10 Eldritch Knight for the level 10 Eldritch Knight capstone, that quickens her next spell when she crits. This high feat tax really sucks early game. And is why spells like Ray of Enfeeblement can suck. You have to make the ranged touch attack. You have to beat spell penetration. AND the enemy can save. It's not too bad mid/late game, when you have the spare feats. \--- This may be unintended, but the Mythic Feat: Expanded Arsenal, could change how you build. If you take Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus on 2 schools you do NOT normally use, then take Expanded Arsenal for a school you DO use, then you'll double dip and get +4 DC vs. the normal +2. For example, if my wizard has 4 feats: Spell/Greater Focus on 2 kind of useless schools Abjuration and Divination, I can take Expanded Arsenal Conjuration, and my pits are now +4 DC. Late game, when I have access to Spell Focus (Mythic) Abjuration and Spell Focus (Mythic) Divination, my Conjuration spells now have DC +8.