What is the most common effective Sorc build?

Theosis

Just looking at ideas on how to make enemies go boom.

Is there a known effective AOE sorc build?

Any videos on youtube about sorc pvp builds that are known to be reliable and useful?

Id like to learn me some skillz. Im a terrible pvper and I am interested in getting better.

Ezareth

If you're a terrible PvPer you're not going to enjoy playing a Sorc at all in Cyrodiil.

I'd suggest trying a DK as they're more forgivable than a Light Armor sorc. If you really want to "blow people up" you should be playing a Nightblade.

Theosis

Im not shooting to be a master pvp, Id go for average at this point. With the veteran system as it is I'm not really interested in leveling another class for a while.

Derra

Healing ward, hardened ward, harness magica, daedric minefield (optional?), velocious curse, crystal fragments, crushing shock (reflect in cast of S&B), ball of lightning + X + X

Pretty basic setup that allows to build in different directions. You should get one ability with the major sorcery buff though.

iseko

Derra wrote: »

Healing ward, hardened ward, harness magica, daedric minefield (optional?), velocious curse, crystal fragments, crushing shock (reflect in cast of S&B), ball of lightning + X + X

Pretty basic setup that allows to build in different directions. You should get one ability with the major sorcery buff though.

Endless fury man. Need that execute. But basically this yes. I dont use velocious curse on my dps bar because of buggy weapon swap. Crushing shock, endless fury, cryst frag, hardened ward, bol. Ult is storm atronach. Its handy in small 1vx. Plus i refuse to use meteor...

Second bar is resto staff or s&b if you have acces to necrotic orb is an option (them heals). If you dont... Stay with resto for hardened ward.

Problem with this build is that it isnt very easy to play with. But very effective when u know how.

As for sets... U can go sustain or burst. I.e.: high regen or high spell dmg. I prefer sustain but each his own..

Theosis

so healing staff is the way to go?

what gear do you guys use? gear sets I can make?

do you guys stack health in skills and then use magicka enchants?

Ezareth

Theosis wrote: »

so healing staff is the way to go?

what gear do you guys use? gear sets I can make?

do you guys stack health in skills and then use magicka enchants?

Since you're serious and not trolling I'll help a little.

You want everything into Magicka on your enchants and attributes. You want to make your damage shields are large as possible. Every Warrior Champion point you get goes into Bastion.

If you want to play "glass cannon" you have to go destro staff. If you want to play with a more defensive yet powerful build you'll want to go S&B and Resto staff for healing ward.

It's really had to survive as a sorc without dedicating one of your bars to S&B right now. The first time you kill a DK by reflecting a crystal fragment of yours back at a DK after he reflected it you'll never take it off your bar.

As far as good PvP sets.

Defensive: Whitestrakes, Seducer, Warlock, Arena
Defensive/Offensive: Archmage, Cyrodiil's Light
Offensive: Martial Knowledge, Adroitness, Torugs Pact.

Laerwen

Ezareth wrote: »

Defensive/Offensive: Archmage, Cyrodiil's Light

Cyros light 5 piece bonus does not apply to instant cast spells does it?

Derra

iseko wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Healing ward, hardened ward, harness magica, daedric minefield (optional?), velocious curse, crystal fragments, crushing shock (reflect in cast of S&B), ball of lightning + X + X

Pretty basic setup that allows to build in different directions. You should get one ability with the major sorcery buff though.

Endless fury man. Need that execute. But basically this yes. I dont use velocious curse on my dps bar because of buggy weapon swap. Crushing shock, endless fury, cryst frag, hardened ward, bol. Ult is storm atronach. Its handy in small 1vx. Plus i refuse to use meteor...

Second bar is resto staff or s&b if you have acces to necrotic orb is an option (them heals). If you dont... Stay with resto for hardened ward.

Problem with this build is that it isnt very easy to play with. But very effective when u know how.

As for sets... U can go sustain or burst. I.e.: high regen or high spell dmg. I prefer sustain but each his own..

Have not bothered with endless fury since 1.6 when it became blockable. Worst execute ability in the game imho...

k2blader

Ezareth wrote: »

Since you're serious and not trolling I'll help a little.

You want everything into Magicka on your enchants and attributes. You want to make your damage shields are large as possible. Every Warrior Champion point you get goes into Bastion.

If you want to play "glass cannon" you have to go destro staff. If you want to play with a more defensive yet powerful build you'll want to go S&B and Resto staff for healing ward.

It's really had to survive as a sorc without dedicating one of your bars to S&B right now. The first time you kill a DK by reflecting a crystal fragment of yours back at a DK after he reflected it you'll never take it off your bar.

As far as good PvP sets.

Defensive: Whitestrakes, Seducer, Warlock, Arena
Defensive/Offensive: Archmage, Cyrodiil's Light
Offensive: Martial Knowledge, Adroitness, Torugs Pact.

You're so cool. :-) Also I'm happy to note I've been on the right track as defensive/offensive. I have found the S&B reflect necessary these days, though ideally I'd prefer running destro if I could get away with it.

Ezareth

Laerwen wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Defensive/Offensive: Archmage, Cyrodiil's Light

Cyros light 5 piece bonus does not apply to instant cast spells does it?

It did at one point I believe but def not now.

Derra wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Healing ward, hardened ward, harness magica, daedric minefield (optional?), velocious curse, crystal fragments, crushing shock (reflect in cast of S&B), ball of lightning + X + X

Pretty basic setup that allows to build in different directions. You should get one ability with the major sorcery buff though.

Endless fury man. Need that execute. But basically this yes. I dont use velocious curse on my dps bar because of buggy weapon swap. Crushing shock, endless fury, cryst frag, hardened ward, bol. Ult is storm atronach. Its handy in small 1vx. Plus i refuse to use meteor...

Second bar is resto staff or s&b if you have acces to necrotic orb is an option (them heals). If you dont... Stay with resto for hardened ward.

Problem with this build is that it isnt very easy to play with. But very effective when u know how.

As for sets... U can go sustain or burst. I.e.: high regen or high spell dmg. I prefer sustain but each his own..

Have not bothered with endless fury since 1.6 when it became blockable. Worst execute ability in the game imho...

cheapest way to proc Crystal Frags though ( =

k2blader wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Since you're serious and not trolling I'll help a little.

You want everything into Magicka on your enchants and attributes. You want to make your damage shields are large as possible. Every Warrior Champion point you get goes into Bastion.

If you want to play "glass cannon" you have to go destro staff. If you want to play with a more defensive yet powerful build you'll want to go S&B and Resto staff for healing ward.

It's really had to survive as a sorc without dedicating one of your bars to S&B right now. The first time you kill a DK by reflecting a crystal fragment of yours back at a DK after he reflected it you'll never take it off your bar.

As far as good PvP sets.

Defensive: Whitestrakes, Seducer, Warlock, Arena
Defensive/Offensive: Archmage, Cyrodiil's Light
Offensive: Martial Knowledge, Adroitness, Torugs Pact.

You're so cool. :-) Also I'm happy to note I've been on the right track as defensive/offensive. I have found the S&B reflect necessary these days, though ideally I'd prefer running destro if I could get away with it.

Ohh I'd love to be like so many other Sorcs spamming light/heavy attacks and crushing shock but tbh doing the exact same thing in both PvP and PvE is pretty boring. Destro staff is pretty OP right now if played right but I just hate dying so it's rare that I use it outside of delves.

Laerwen

Reflect is overrated. Anyone half decent is going to light attack before every skill anyway, and we dont normally have the stamin for it. Destro/Resto ftw. The utility vs scales is nice though.

Derra

Ezareth wrote: »

Laerwen wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Defensive/Offensive: Archmage, Cyrodiil's Light

Cyros light 5 piece bonus does not apply to instant cast spells does it?

It did at one point I believe but def not now.

Derra wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Healing ward, hardened ward, harness magica, daedric minefield (optional?), velocious curse, crystal fragments, crushing shock (reflect in cast of S&B), ball of lightning + X + X

Pretty basic setup that allows to build in different directions. You should get one ability with the major sorcery buff though.

Endless fury man. Need that execute. But basically this yes. I dont use velocious curse on my dps bar because of buggy weapon swap. Crushing shock, endless fury, cryst frag, hardened ward, bol. Ult is storm atronach. Its handy in small 1vx. Plus i refuse to use meteor...

Second bar is resto staff or s&b if you have acces to necrotic orb is an option (them heals). If you dont... Stay with resto for hardened ward.

Problem with this build is that it isnt very easy to play with. But very effective when u know how.

As for sets... U can go sustain or burst. I.e.: high regen or high spell dmg. I prefer sustain but each his own..

Have not bothered with endless fury since 1.6 when it became blockable. Worst execute ability in the game imho...

cheapest way to proc Crystal Frags though ( =

Actually the cheapest way is entropy. My Fury would cost me a 1050 magica while doing 1800 dmg my shock is at 1230 magica for 4000 dmg. Given that lightning staff heavys put me at the same dmg output as endless fury spam against dk - i can´t see the point of the skill atm

Laerwen

Derra wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Laerwen wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Defensive/Offensive: Archmage, Cyrodiil's Light

Cyros light 5 piece bonus does not apply to instant cast spells does it?

It did at one point I believe but def not now.

Derra wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Healing ward, hardened ward, harness magica, daedric minefield (optional?), velocious curse, crystal fragments, crushing shock (reflect in cast of S&B), ball of lightning + X + X

Pretty basic setup that allows to build in different directions. You should get one ability with the major sorcery buff though.

Endless fury man. Need that execute. But basically this yes. I dont use velocious curse on my dps bar because of buggy weapon swap. Crushing shock, endless fury, cryst frag, hardened ward, bol. Ult is storm atronach. Its handy in small 1vx. Plus i refuse to use meteor...

Second bar is resto staff or s&b if you have acces to necrotic orb is an option (them heals). If you dont... Stay with resto for hardened ward.

Problem with this build is that it isnt very easy to play with. But very effective when u know how.

As for sets... U can go sustain or burst. I.e.: high regen or high spell dmg. I prefer sustain but each his own..

Have not bothered with endless fury since 1.6 when it became blockable. Worst execute ability in the game imho...

cheapest way to proc Crystal Frags though ( =

Actually the cheapest way is entropy. My Fury would cost me a 1050 magica while doing 1800 dmg my shock is at 1230 magica for 4000 dmg. Given that lightning staff heavys put me at the same dmg output as endless fury spam against dk - i can´t see the point of the skill atm

This and I believe lightning heavies will eat more stam as 99.9% of them have a paperweighgt on their block button.

k2blader

Laerwen wrote: »

Reflect is overrated. Anyone half decent is going to light attack before every skill anyway, and we dont normally have the stamin for it. Destro/Resto ftw. The utility vs scales is nice though.

That's a good point, but I guess it depends on your angle, i.e. who are your more likely targets. "Half decent" could mean the same as "average," and I've noticed on average folks don't light attack first. I've been having fun with S&B though am definitely keeping a destro bar on my swaps.

Cinnamon_Spider

Laerwen wrote: »

Reflect is overrated. Anyone half decent is going to light attack before every skill anyway, and we dont normally have the stamin for it. Destro/Resto ftw. The utility vs scales is nice though.

With decent stamina regen, this is not an issue. As soon as I notice my defensive stance is down, I apply it again. I especially love spamming it when someone tries to use overload on me. I can easily send two or three back before they realize it and by that point they are dead or stunned.

Ezareth

Laerwen wrote: »

Reflect is overrated. Anyone half decent is going to light attack before every skill anyway, and we dont normally have the stamin for it. Destro/Resto ftw. The utility vs scales is nice though.

That's why you reactive reflect instead of relying upon it going into a battle (although there is nothing wrong with that as well).

I reactive reflect my frags and overload all the time.

That's also why you should be running triple Stamina Cost reduction enchants....because they're freaking OP.

Derra wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Laerwen wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Defensive/Offensive: Archmage, Cyrodiil's Light

Cyros light 5 piece bonus does not apply to instant cast spells does it?

It did at one point I believe but def not now.

Derra wrote: »

iseko wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Healing ward, hardened ward, harness magica, daedric minefield (optional?), velocious curse, crystal fragments, crushing shock (reflect in cast of S&B), ball of lightning + X + X

Pretty basic setup that allows to build in different directions. You should get one ability with the major sorcery buff though.

Endless fury man. Need that execute. But basically this yes. I dont use velocious curse on my dps bar because of buggy weapon swap. Crushing shock, endless fury, cryst frag, hardened ward, bol. Ult is storm atronach. Its handy in small 1vx. Plus i refuse to use meteor...

Second bar is resto staff or s&b if you have acces to necrotic orb is an option (them heals). If you dont... Stay with resto for hardened ward.

Problem with this build is that it isnt very easy to play with. But very effective when u know how.

As for sets... U can go sustain or burst. I.e.: high regen or high spell dmg. I prefer sustain but each his own..

Have not bothered with endless fury since 1.6 when it became blockable. Worst execute ability in the game imho...

cheapest way to proc Crystal Frags though ( =

Actually the cheapest way is entropy. My Fury would cost me a 1050 magica while doing 1800 dmg my shock is at 1230 magica for 4000 dmg. Given that lightning staff heavys put me at the same dmg output as endless fury spam against dk - i can´t see the point of the skill atm

I don't run with Entropy on my main bar and Magicka cost currently is irrelevant to me unless it is over 2K. Fury is spammable and procs shards along with damage on each cast, isn't blockable and hits sorcs through BoL. The only time I dont spam fury is if they are running Harness Magicka which is much rarer these days.

I agree though, Endless Fury is far far weaker than it used to be, especially now that it had 10% added to its cost. If I ever wanted another ability on my main bar I would replace that. The execute itself is almost worthless as if you're through a targets shields they're rarely below 20% health to even proc the execute. It's normally like 30-35% > Dead. With <40% bonus health pool in 1.6 the value of executes themselves was greatly diminished.

k2blader

Ezareth wrote: »

I don't run with Entropy on my main bar and Magicka cost currently is irrelevant to me unless it is over 2K. Fury is spammable and procs shards along with damage on each cast, isn't blockable and hits sorcs through BoL. The only time I dont spam fury is if they are running Harness Magicka which is much rarer these days.

Can I ask how you get Fury to proc shards on each cast? My proc rate seems pretty low, if I had to guess something like 30%.

Tankqull

k2blader wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

I don't run with Entropy on my main bar and Magicka cost currently is irrelevant to me unless it is over 2K. Fury is spammable and procs shards along with damage on each cast, isn't blockable and hits sorcs through BoL. The only time I dont spam fury is if they are running Harness Magicka which is much rarer these days.

Can I ask how you get Fury to proc shards on each cast? My proc rate seems pretty low, if I had to guess something like 30%.

it does dmg on each cast - its not procing CF on each though
but the dmg is horrible currently ~1k against non nirn user and 600-800 vs someone with nirn.

k2blader

Tankqull wrote: »

it does dmg on each cast - its not procing CF on each though
but the dmg is horrible currently ~1k against non nirn user and 600-800 vs someone with nirn.

Oh darn, was hoping I was just doing something wrong, lol. Yeah, I'm so underwhelmed by the damage, though it often seems the "best" option as I rely primarily on actual class abilities (no destro staff).

Xael

@Theosis

"Defensive/Offensive: Archmage, Cyrodiil's Light"

If you don't have a million gold or a *** of AP, good luck getting this.
Archmage (aside from neck) is anywhere from 220-250k gold a piece.
Getting your 2pc CL is going to cost 500k AP unless you get the lowbie version of the rings ;/

It's all doable if you dedicate yourself to grinding it all out, which to be honest, will likely make you a better sorc as you will be on him quite a bit.
You are better off using the other sets suggested in the meantime.

ToRelax

Xael wrote: »

@Theosis

"Defensive/Offensive: Archmage, Cyrodiil's Light"

If you don't have a million gold or a *** of AP, good luck getting this.
Archmage (aside from neck) is anywhere from 220-250k gold a piece.
Getting your 2pc CL is going to cost 500k AP unless you get the lowbie version of the rings ;/

It's all doable if you dedicate yourself to grinding it all out, which to be honest, will likely make you a better sorc as you will be on him quite a bit.
You are better off using the other sets suggested in the meantime.

Like Warlock ?

Ezareth

k2blader wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

I don't run with Entropy on my main bar and Magicka cost currently is irrelevant to me unless it is over 2K. Fury is spammable and procs shards along with damage on each cast, isn't blockable and hits sorcs through BoL. The only time I dont spam fury is if they are running Harness Magicka which is much rarer these days.

Can I ask how you get Fury to proc shards on each cast? My proc rate seems pretty low, if I had to guess something like 30%.

TBH I think there is a bug with the proc. In practice my proc rate is much higher most times. This is because the process chance I believe is determined on the client side. Spamming an ability while hopping or moving in and out of LoS of your target can cause the process before you cast and sometimes without casting at all.

This is pretty evident to me from watching my videos but it is not intentional on my part....just product of my play.

k2blader

Ezareth wrote: »

TBH I think there is a bug with the proc. In practice my proc rate is much higher most times. This is because the process chance I believe is determined on the client side. Spamming an ability while hopping or moving in and out of LoS of your target can cause the process before you cast and sometimes without casting at all.

This is pretty evident to me from watching my videos but it is not intentional on my part....just product of my play.

Interesting! (.. awaiting new thread calling to nerf sorcs' ability to hop in and out of LOS.. )

Theosis

so nobody uses fire staff with the aoe spell and the impulse or that knockback ability?

sad I love those two spells

I never liked the sword and board but Ill give it a try again.

I know Im gonna die in pvp, its inevitable, there is always gonna be a surprise nightblade and a ton of DKs stomping the hell out of me and everyone in my little group.

I am just glad there are more than a few tips to help me get a little better.

Thanks guys. (or gals if there was any)

Xael

Theosis wrote: »

so nobody uses fire staff with the aoe spell and the impulse or that knockback ability?

sad I love those two spells

I never liked the sword and board but Ill give it a try again.

I know Im gonna die in pvp, its inevitable, there is always gonna be a surprise nightblade and a ton of DKs stomping the hell out of me and everyone in my little group.

I am just glad there are more than a few tips to help me get a little better.

Thanks guys. (or gals if there was any)

Yes people still use fire staves. If you are going to play a destro staff user make sure you weave your staff attacks into your spells. If you are not weaving you are losing a ton of damage.

As for the other...
People use the hell out of Destructive Reach/Clench. It's an amazing skill, especially couple with fall damage.
As for aoe, I do occasionally see people spam Impulse, though it's nothing like it was a year ago.
Stick to Force Pulse (whichever morph you want) and the knockback if you want. If you go glass cannon without shields you will likely die pretty damn quick. Let's be real a second, pvp is rarely 1v1, it's all about zergs and group fights. I do get some occasional 1v1s, but im mostly on a mobile skirmisher that takes advantage of sneaking and hit and runs. That said, at least use Lightning Form and Hardened Ward.

Theosis

More things I would like to ask.

What boon is suggested?

What trait should I use. Ive been using Impenetrable.

Thanks again for all the help.

Ezareth

Theosis wrote: »

More things I would like to ask.

What boon is suggested?

What trait should I use. Ive been using Impenetrable.

Thanks again for all the help.

For Sorc, either Mage or Attronach.

Traits should be Nirnhoned whenever possible but since that is so expensive you're better off with infused(on large pieces)/divines(on small pieces) with magicka enchants.