MagSorc PVP build advice

WarLord2905

I am running a magsorc and can't find much up to date info on them because the meta is StamSorc. There are a lot of Magsorcs on the battlefield that are hitting like trucks but I don't seem to be hitting like that. I am running 5x twice born, 3x willpower, 1xKena(spellpower), 1x illambris(extra magic), sharpened flame staff, defending resto staff. All gear is purple except a gold flame staff. Magic is 45k, health 24k, Stam 11k, spell power 2.8k with blue magic/health food. Running force pulse/frags/shield/ageis/Mage wrath/elemental rage on front bar. Streak/healing ward/hardened ward/aegis/power surge/ice comet on back bar. I have tried running 5xheavy armor all impen but didn't hit hard enough so I am back to all divines 5L/1H/1M for the undaunted passive and extra spell pen (can't crit on a shield anyway). I have all points into elemental expert and spell pen in the blue tree. My crit resist is at 1.7k, physical resist is 15k and spell resist is 12k.
Any advice on hitting harder? I am ok with my survivability so don't need any commentary on that.

WarLord2905

Made a mistake on the back bar. I don't run hardened ward I am running rune prison.

dpencil

You're missing curse, right? You could take off either Comet or Destro (whichever you use least) and put Overload on. You can put Power Surge there to free up a spot for curse. Also, getting Ele Drain on the target helps if you can get it on your bar somehow.

TBS doesn't seem to be a very common PvP set, at least from builds I've seen. But it does offer some well rounded stats and flexibility with the two mundus stones.

Personally, I run a pet build with Necropotence, which hits very hard, and has good survivabilty.

If you want to keep your build as close to what it is as possible, I'd focus on the skills first before changing out gear. Getting Curse and Ele Drain and lining up the burst with Wrath and C-Frag should be enough with your gear, I think. Maybe if you post how hard you're seeing others hit and how hard you are we could see what the numbers really look like. You might be closer than you think but just not stacking enough simultanions attacks.

dpencil

Rune prison is not a great skill in the middle of combat. Defensive Rune is good for anti-gank. You really should have a Ward besides Healing Ward for protection somewhere. Is that what "shield" is on your front bar? If so, ditch the Rune for a more important skill.

WarLord2905

Hi sorry I meant defensive rune on the back bar. I am running hardened on the front bar which I swapped out for curse seeing as it is going to be nerfed in the next patch I thought I would start running without it especially as I wasn't seeing huge dps numbers with it anyway. My back bar with defensive rune is where I was running hardened ward and then had curse on the front bar but survivabilty was an issue, is it less so now. Most of my death recaps from a sorc don't seem to have curse on there as much anymore either. More so just wrath & crystal frags that both seem to be hitting beyond hard. Some wrath explosions are 10-15k and Sorcs seem to be spamming them a bit like Jesus beam Templars do, even at full health just waiting for your health to drop

dpencil

Some sorcs run dual weild, in which case Wrath becomes the spam ability to proc Cfrags. That's why they might use it when you're at full health.

I guess you missed the latest comment from Rich Lambert. Curse is back to 3.5 seconds plus another free explosion at 8.5. That is a major buff, so I imagine many sorcs who took it off will put it back on next patch.

Defensive Rune is not a good skill during combat either, only to protect you from getting ganked, and so belongs on your Overload bar.

In my opinion, this is the priority list of skills you want to try to find room for:
Cfrag, Curse, Wrath, Crushing Shock, Ward (either Hardened or Empowered), Ele Drain, Power Surge (Overload bar), Daedric Minefield (Overload bar), Defensibe Rune (Overload bar), Harness Magicka, Streak, either Healing Ward or Twilight Matriach...if you're going the pet route get Volatile Familiar and Daedric Prey (which will be very strong together next patch). Only after considering all of those would you go for Inner Light, unless you plan on empowering frags, in which case it is a high priority. And only after that consider Bound Aegis.

aLi3nZ

I am going to test this, should be pretty strong. Astronanch mundus for regen.

5x Burning Spell Weave
5x Julianos
1x infernal guardian (max magika)

Another you could try:

5x spinners
5x twice born star
1x molag kena

WarLord2905

I guess you missed the latest comment from Rich Lambert. Curse is back to 3.5 seconds plus another free explosion at 8.5. That is a major buff, so I imagine many sorcs who took it off will put it back on next patch.

Yep definitely missed that.

I will give this build a go. Thanks @dpencil . Looks like i may need to drop bound aegis, although it will drop my magic pool. I used to run both harness and hardened ward before the reduction in time and i just can't figure out why anyone would run both still? By the time you swap bars, put both on and swap back you get about 3secs with both up. I would think another offensive or stun skill would be better suited?

dpencil

Well, I use Empowered Ward, which is 10 seconds. When I'm running two shields I've got 25k in PvP for 6 seconds when both are up. The Empowered Ward is about 15k by itself in PvP. The high burst build I've been using lately doesn't use Harness Magicka on the main bars. I have it on my Overload Bar and pop it when I'm there to refresh Power Surge or Daedric Minefield, or if I'm really low on magicka and fighting a magicka class.

If I'm running my aoe build then I run both shields.

WarLord2905

I just found a video by Codi on YouTube that looks really good. He is running spinners and Lich but I might try swapping spinner for Julianos because that's what I have and is still a solid damage set. He had cp spent in elfborn for crit damage but I think spell pen is better for PVP as everyone is running crit resist. Anyone know what is better in PVP
Elfborn - crit damage
Erosion - spell penetration

Biro123

To see the big numbers, try empowering your hard hitters with a mages guild skill.

Elfborn vs Erosion... I kind of like to spread mine out to get a bit of everything. You get more per point spent that way too. But it really depends - if you *need* more penetration (which you won't with spinners (see below) - and probably won't with light-armour/sharpened), then spend on Erosion. If you have a decent crit chance - spend in Elfborn..

I'm not a fan of spinners - basically because you NEED a sharpened weapon for it to work. If you don't have the sharpened weapon - well, you can get more penetration than the spinners 5-piece bonus from a sharpened crafted set - and have another 5-piece bonus too! Which means with spinners - its light armour... + sharpened weapon + spinners bonus = enough penetration tot totally negate light armour and most of medium and probably 2/3 of the average non-tank heavy wearer. That's with nothing in Erosion. Its a LOT of penetration - but it all means nothing against a dmg-shield user. I'm seeing more magicka-classes in Cyro now already since EOTS - and I think will see even more again after U13 - so I think the benefits of Spinners will be limited.

But then I'm not a massive fan of using dropped sets for your weapons - mostly because I'm not a fan of farming/don't have much gold to spend!

Lord-Otto

WarLord2905 wrote: »

I just found a video by Codi on YouTube that looks really good. He is running spinners and Lich but I might try swapping spinner for Julianos because that's what I have and is still a solid damage set. He had cp spent in elfborn for crit damage but I think spell pen is better for PVP as everyone is running crit resist. Anyone know what is better in PVP
Elfborn - crit damage
Erosion - spell penetration

Yes, Kodi knows what's up. Even Deltia took inspiration from him.

Julianos is okay if you can't afford that expensive Spinner's. But you'll need Spell Erosion to compensate.

Speaking of which, that CP star has terrible diminishing returns. The point in Spinner's is to hit that 15k spell pen (sharpened+concentration+spinner) without having to use Spell Erosion. Elfborn then gives you more damage, even against your usual impen-wearing heavy armor.

So, alongside Spinner's/Julianos, you need a sustain set. Lich is phenomenal, and can have 5-piece bonus on back bar only, without any drawback. Farming it is feasible. I really wouldn't make a compromise here, but if you absolutely can't get a lich resto, you could go 4 pieces Seducer or 5, if you give up the second monster piece.

And at the moment, Infernal Guardian is BiS monster set. Grothdarr is also good. Molag Kena is difficult to proc and expensive, but can work. It is very inconsistent, though.

Thief is best mundus, it is just too potent. But you'll probably need sustain food. I advise Witchmother's.
You could also go for Atronach and blue or purple food, but it'll cost you burst potential.

WarLord2905

Tried Kodi build last night and it was great. I was pretty much my old skill set up before shield times got nerfed. I changed a few things up did and put defensive rune and mines on the overload bar, power surge on the back and inner light on the front to increase crit (was sitting at 32%, now 60% with inner light and thief mundus) and magic plus get the empower. Also wasn't a fan of dawnbreaker so went with meteor. I am not running a monster set just 5xlich/5xJulianos/1xKena. Damage was better and the sustain is unreal, basically never ending magicka. I ran with blue food. Although my regen is only 1.3k when it drops and Lich cuts in it jumps to 3k. In the cases when i thought I might be in trouble a pot did the trick. Going to farm for spinners though to give that a go, plus I ran crypt of hearts 6 times for a Lich resto with no luck. But this set up is way better than what I had.

Lord-Otto

Good to hear!

Takes-No-Prisoner

WarLord2905 wrote: »

...and inner light on the front to increase crit (was sitting at 32%, now 60% with inner light and thief mundus)

I had a guildmate suggest Inner Light on front bar when I first started MagSorc. It does feel a lot better with Inner light+Thief.

Spinners body pieces aren't too bad to get, it took me 6hours to get a sharpened mace though. I was one of those peeps who started farming the Lich pieces at Dolmens in Cyrodiil a long time ago. So I already had access to a lot of Lich body pieces and the restro staff. Got 2 sharpended lightning 1 fire staff from doing normal runs of CoH. Eventually got rings/neck pieces too, it'll come eventually.

WarLord2905

Yeah inner light on the front bar makes a huge difference. I always ran it in PVE but never PVP. I had to sacrifice my treasured bound aegis though but to be honest it made no difference in PVP. I had all the Lich peices including jewellery after two runs in CoH. I got lucky because my group members weren't interested in it (or didn't know what it was).

I think I am going to continue with the 5xJulianos/5xLich/1xKena for a while as it seems to be working well with my skill set up now. The Lich on back bar with a resto is so you can run the infernal guardian set. That is only the go to monster set for magsorcs at the moment because it's broken. It's being fixed next patch so I don't think you will see it as much and there are not any other monster sets around that would benefit a magsorcs in PVP, except maybe the ice shield one (can remember the name)so I think two five piece sets will be the way to go next update.

Lord-Otto

Slimecraw. It's always worth it on a mag sorc. Grothdarr is also nice. Pirate Skeleton. There are many useful 2-piece boni available, it's very worth freeing your head/shoulder slots for them.

Also, spellcrit potions can replace Magelight.

SamTheSwan

My friend (creator of the video) and I run a lot of the same build that can be found at this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJeBEqwN3A8

The playstyle revolves around being able to go offensive and time your burst with the BSW proc, and to negate damage by managing shields.

Takes-No-Prisoner

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Slimecraw. It's always worth it on a mag sorc. Grothdarr is also nice. Pirate Skeleton. There are many useful 2-piece boni available, it's very worth freeing your head/shoulder slots for them.

Also, spellcrit potions can replace Magelight.

Gonna try Slime once I get a good head piece, got a light/divine shoulder

@SamTheSwan Your vid is all squished up on my screen, might want to take a look at it so the video displays normally

n/m looks like it fixed itself

Izaki

WarLord2905 wrote: »

I just found a video by Codi on YouTube that looks really good. He is running spinners and Lich but I might try swapping spinner for Julianos because that's what I have and is still a solid damage set. He had cp spent in elfborn for crit damage but I think spell pen is better for PVP as everyone is running crit resist. Anyone know what is better in PVP
Elfborn - crit damage
Erosion - spell penetration

Personal preference, I personally stack everything into Elfborn. I also even use Shadow as my main mundus stone. With all this crit damage, I'm basically ignoring Impen and points into resistant. Again the usual stamina build with 50 points into resistant and full impen, my crits are still hitting for 50%. Against squishier targets, I can reach 20k Frags. So crit is important.

Penetration... You get 5.3k from Sharpened and 4.9k from light armor. That's 10k. I have 17 points in Spell Erosion. I find that 12k penetration is more than enough.

Remember, never neglect crit and crit damage in your build. You won't kill people with non crit attacks.

Lord-Otto

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Slimecraw. It's always worth it on a mag sorc. Grothdarr is also nice. Pirate Skeleton. There are many useful 2-piece boni available, it's very worth freeing your head/shoulder slots for them.

Also, spellcrit potions can replace Magelight.

Gonna try Slime once I get a good head piece, got a light/divine shoulder

@SamTheSwan Your vid is all squished up on my screen, might want to take a look at it so the video displays normally

n/m looks like it fixed itself

Cool!

SamTheSwan

If you're not opposed to a lot of farming, running 2 pirate skeleton with 5 lich 5 burning spellweave is definitely a sweet choice. Giving you the 30% damage mitigation without sacrificing damage or sustain.

However it does require a BSW destro staff, and preferably a BSW sharpened inferno. (For more BSW procs from light attacks and for the 8% single target damage next patch) but other types of destros can still proc BSW when using force pulse/crushing shock.

Takes-No-Prisoner

.

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Penetration... You get 5.3k from Sharpened and 4.9k from light armor. That's 10k. I have 17 points in Spell Erosion. I find that 12k penetration is more than enough.

Remember, never neglect crit and crit damage in your build. You won't kill people with non crit attacks.

Destro Staff's offer 10% penetration on Penetrating Magic passive [2/2] I'm not sure how much this % is numbers wise. Which is odd a % is used on the tooltip over the number given to us on Spinner's / Sharpened weapons.

I always seem to over look that LA has penetration

KisoValley

Lich/spinner is a standard setup.

You can replace spinner with julianos or a different damage set too as I don't really like spinners atm.

As for 2pc undaunted sets, infernal guardian is good, but so is pirate, grothdar and slimecraw. 1 kena 1 max mag, or even 1 chokethorn if you're struggling for sustain. Lots of different options for mag sorc atm. It's probably the most diverse class atm in terms of gear setups.

Skills wise is easy, sorcs aren't as diverse in this case.

Force pulse/Frag/Endless/Curse/Surge/Hardened ward/Harness/Healing ward/Streak/Boundless or Mines

How you set your bars up is optional, the 'proper' way to play sorc is streak/shields backbar, but with the current proc/burst meta which will be around for next patch as well, I personally play streak/hardned front bar and moved curse/surge to my backbar. I also take boundless over mines. One of the reasons is because both good players and simple zerglings don't care about mines atm, even light armour players and they just run/dodge roll through them. Another is the movement speed + resistances is really nice from boundless, but again that's just personal preference. I found that a lot of PC NA's sorcs prefer mines whereas PC EU sorcs prefer boundless. There is no right or wrong it's just preference.

Sorc in group is different, different skills and gear.

Takes-No-Prisoner

KisoValley wrote: »

I found that a lot of PC NA's sorcs prefer mines whereas PC EU sorcs prefer boundless. There is no right or wrong it's just preference.

This is interesting.

On PS4 NA no one really understands how mines work. I've gotten into situations where I throw them down, and I see people roll dodging through them. OK, I understand where this thought process comes from, they go through them they can get to me, but they take damage. Often against my playstyle, that is a dangerous idea to execute. These aren't situations where it's zerg vs zerg, it's open field fights I see people do this. If I cuddle up into a corner and place mines in an area I know someone will walk into them they just kinda do it with little regard for the consequences.

I come from a background where I appreciate and study spaces between me and my opponent. Mines to me create a 'no fly' zone. So in open field situations I can place them down so to create the illusion or bluff of a 'no go area' and I have yet to get ganked by someone. Either... the ganker is not knowledgeable about how to maneuver around the mines, or they are too scared to risk engaging in a fight if they do break the mines.

From my experience, there seems to be a even number of Sorc's running mines and using boundless on PS4 NA. I run mines because I remember/saw Sorcs back when I played PC NA and I emulate more of their playstyle when I get into fights.

Waffennacht

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

I found that a lot of PC NA's sorcs prefer mines whereas PC EU sorcs prefer boundless. There is no right or wrong it's just preference.

This is interesting.

On PS4 NA no one really understands how mines work. I've gotten into situations where I throw them down, and I see people roll dodging through them. OK, I understand where this thought process comes from, they go through them they can get to me, but they take damage. Often against my playstyle, that is a dangerous idea to execute. These aren't situations where it's zerg vs zerg, it's open field fights I see people do this. If I cuddle up into a corner and place mines in an area I know someone will walk into them they just kinda do it with little regard for the consequences.

I come from a background where I appreciate and study spaces between me and my opponent. Mines to me create a 'no fly' zone. So in open field situations I can place them down so to create the illusion or bluff of a 'no go area' and I have yet to get ganked by someone. Either... the ganker is not knowledgeable about how to maneuver around the mines, or they are too scared to risk engaging in a fight if they do break the mines.

From my experience, there seems to be a even number of Sorc's running mines and using boundless on PS4 NA. I run mines because I remember/saw Sorcs back when I played PC NA and I emulate more of their playstyle when I get into fights.

If they are a Temp/DK Tremorscale/Grothdarr then they'll run right through them because it won't kill them, even if you burst at that moment (well what you can when they decide to go through) and vigor/BoL/rally etc back up while getting a HA buff.

Vampires just mistform them and LAUGH.
Magicka builds range it

Mines are best against:
Melee NBs
Stamsorcs
Glass cannon proc builds that are not Tremorscale heavy SnB guys

Edit: Conclusion Boundless has a use in every match, mines not so much, though mines when effective is very effective. Atm I'm running neither as looking at their magicka cost makes me sad

FriedEggSandwich

In my personal opinion, having tried both lich and seducer in pvp, lich is only worth it if you back bar it. If you plan to use 5 lich on both bars then I think seducer is superior. Seducer allows for the mixing of heavy armour with light armour, whereas lich just comes in light. Even if you're happy in full light armour the 8% cost reduction from seducer is better for sustain than the burst regen from lich. I haven't calculated this, just tested it in open world pvp and I run oom less with seducer. As far as I'm concerned the only benefit to using lich is that you don't need it on both bars, and this frees up a spot allowing you to use a full monster set. Spinners is almost necessary in pvp right now.

For pvp I use 5 seducer, 5 spinners and vma destro/resto with vulnerability poisons on the destro. The seducer chest and legs are heavy and the rest is light, all impen. The heavy armour increases my hp by ~800 and allows me to take a small dip into the constitution passive. Resto staff on back bar is defending and I use boundless storm instead of harness. I have 23k resistances on back bar and 18k on front bar, with over 2k crit resist. I'm also a vampire which comes with a passive to reduce the damage you take when at low health. I only put 30cp into bastion choosing to distribute the rest between hardy, elemental defender etc. I keep boundless storm up at all times (it lasts 20s) and only use hardened ward when I need to deal with pressure. I still use healing ward as a burst heal to recover from low hp.

All these damage mitigation mechanics combine to make me much harder to take down than if I was wearing all light armour with harness and just 8k resistances. I make up the damage loss from using all impen traits by slotting combat prayer and vulnerability poisons. Combat prayer adds 8% damage for 8s and the poisons add another 8% damage for 4s. These poisons don't drain your opponents resources or even do any damage themselves, they just make your opponent take 8% more damage for 4s. This allows for some nice burst. My setup is pretty unorthodox and I haven't come across another sorc that runs a similar build, but I imagine there are some. I'm a mostly solo player and I die a lot less than I did when I was wearing 5 spinners/5 lich/1 kena/1 BS. It's a viable alternative to "the meta", whatever that may be.

Most sorcs will use something like 5 spinners/5 lich/2 pirate skele which is a very strong setup if you can keep your wards up at all times. Personally I feel like I'm trying to swim against a current when attempting to keep 2 wards up at all times, I find it much more relaxing to just hit boundless storm every 20s and then use hardened while actually taking damage.

Zander98

If you find yourself dying a lot 5 piece hist sap can help more than you would think.
#underrated

Takes-No-Prisoner

Waffennacht wrote: »

If they are a Temp/DK Tremorscale/Grothdarr then they'll run right through them because it won't kill them, even if you burst at that moment (well what you can when they decide to go through) and vigor/BoL/rally etc back up while getting a HA buff.

Vampires just mistform them and LAUGH.
Magicka builds range it

Mines are best against:
Melee NBs
Stamsorcs
Glass cannon proc builds that are not Tremorscale heavy SnB guys

Edit: Conclusion Boundless has a use in every match, mines not so much, though mines when effective is very effective. Atm I'm running neither as looking at their magicka cost makes me sad

I totally see what you mean by Temp/DK... thanks for laying that out. Interestingly enough I've yet to run into them in a 1v1 situation. So my example of the guy(s) who role dodge through my mines are mainly medium armor/stam NB which should explain why it'd hurt them. I have not had a situation where I'm using mines against a vamp either... I will take note of that though.

I agree about Boundless.

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Most sorcs will use something like 5 spinners/5 lich/2 pirate skele which is a very strong setup if you can keep your wards up at all times. Personally I feel like I'm trying to swim against a current when attempting to keep 2 wards up at all times, I find it much more relaxing to just hit boundless storm every 20s and then use hardened while actually taking damage.

I've mostly been using just Hardened. I run into the same issue you do here, 2 shields to stack I can't wrap my head around.



But I made just poping Hardened work.

KisoValley

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

I found that a lot of PC NA's sorcs prefer mines whereas PC EU sorcs prefer boundless. There is no right or wrong it's just preference.

This is interesting.

On PS4 NA no one really understands how mines work. I've gotten into situations where I throw them down, and I see people roll dodging through them. OK, I understand where this thought process comes from, they go through them they can get to me, but they take damage. Often against my playstyle, that is a dangerous idea to execute. These aren't situations where it's zerg vs zerg, it's open field fights I see people do this. If I cuddle up into a corner and place mines in an area I know someone will walk into them they just kinda do it with little regard for the consequences.

I come from a background where I appreciate and study spaces between me and my opponent. Mines to me create a 'no fly' zone. So in open field situations I can place them down so to create the illusion or bluff of a 'no go area' and I have yet to get ganked by someone. Either... the ganker is not knowledgeable about how to maneuver around the mines, or they are too scared to risk engaging in a fight if they do break the mines.

From my experience, there seems to be a even number of Sorc's running mines and using boundless on PS4 NA. I run mines because I remember/saw Sorcs back when I played PC NA and I emulate more of their playstyle when I get into fights.

Yeah I get you. Problem on PC EU is the meta. You rarely find 1v1s or even 1vX nowadays so even if a medium armour stam proctato is rolling through mines he has 2-3 healers spamming BoL to keep him alive. I know guys like Force Siphon who has played both servers can confirm that the meta on PC EU is a lot more zergy and finding small scale on PC EU is much tougher than PC NA. Not sure on PS4 NA of course.

Waffennacht

I'm wondering if with tbe changes to proc sets does 2k crit resist cut it or is investing more still a decent idea?