Gale

I want to learn more about this skill. I want to learn its uses, potential, and what upgrades most of you sorcerers out there take. I would appreciate any feedback and all opinions.

Gale Force

Gale Force: 101.5 mana, 5.5 sec cool-down, 9m range, 84-105 damage, increase damage on a critical.
Outward Squall: Converts your charged gale force to be an area-of-effect attack.
Protective Current: Charging up your gale force will grant you a dodge bonus of 25% for 3 seconds.
Speed of Wind: Charging up your gale force increase your movement speed by 25% for 5 seconds.
Weighted Wind: Enemies knocked down by gale force have the potential to stay down for 2 additional seconds.

Depends what you want to use it for...

I used to love for elite runs, for another aoe type skill and extra crowd control if you knew how to use it to position/blow enemies into place rather than scattering them. The addition of the dash has somewhat made this skill a little less easy to use in Elite runs. If using for this purpose I would recommend against getting the speed of wind upgrade.

For pvp, the speed of wind upgrade is great for flagging. Get a curse, gale, life and shield build and no one can touch you. You can get flags all day long without too much fear of dying.

In terms of specific upgrades:

Outward squall: I think most would discourage you against getting this upgrade to prevent you from scattering mobs. Perhaps the one place where it is most useful is in tomb runs. Due to the hallways and close walls you can't scatter the enemies too much. Also since enemies die pretty easily in tombs, even if you do scatter mobs they are more likely to die while you are doing so. Most useful for twink timed runs in the tombs.

Protective current: obviously a defensive upgrade, good if you have the extra skill point to use, especially for elite runs.

Speed of wind: again, very good for flagging. Also can be useful for timed runs especially pure ones in the hauntlet. Can be a pain otherwise as never good to dash into the enemy or an ice patch etc when you don't want to. I guess if you get this upgrade you can always use the skill unchanrged to avoid the dash, but you lose the other benefits of charging the skill.

Weighted wind: good for the extra crowd control if you can spare the skill point.

Other notes... you cannot blow enemies that are already stunned. This can either be useful or a real pain. Good as if you do not want to blow/scatter your enemies you can use right after fireball to avoid blowing/scattering the enemies. Bad when you actually do want to blow you enemies into position, especially if there is another mage in the group who will also be stunning the enemies with fireball. There also seems to be a sweet spot in blowing your enemies. Not all the enemies in the cone of the skill will be blown. They can't be too close or too far away from you for it to work (probably need to be about 10m away).

I want to love Gale but I can't. I can't because it is too hard to make work in a decent build. The closest I have come is my Elementalist build, posted last week.

The problem with Gale is that it has great utility in theory (speed, kd armor buff) but its utility is hard to find practically. It either moves enemies around inappropriately, or moves the character around inappropriately. It is useful leveling up but less so in the end game.

Well I'm a bit late but anyway.
Gale has it's uses but:
1. Don't get Outward Squall. Easy as that.
3a. Do get Speed of Wind. As a sorcerer, you'll be running after death a lot, plus helps farming Jarl. Just Jarl is worth the 2 points for me.
3b. Never charge Gale in combat.
2. Since you never charge Gale near mobs, don't get Protective Current.
4. Weighted Wind sounds great but I tested it and there is only "potential" to stay down. Works on low level enemies but does little to tomb mages and nothing to Shuyal mobs.

So, my recommendation: get Gale, and upgrade with the speed/forward dart. Never charge in combat. Use to position mobs into tight pack, or as emergency stun when other skills are on cooldown.
I've switched to shield for elite runs but Gale worked well for me.