Speed Farming Build Guide.
Hybrid Sorcerer (Updated for Waking Flame DLC) Speed DemonBuild Demo VideoIntroduction
This is the build I use for my regular farming sessions. I also donate farming runs for guild auction and they sell in excess of 500-800k per hour. It's been fun enough to play that I put the effort into making the gear all gold quality to make it as efficient as possible for farming Craglorn.
The goal of this build is to use one of the Streak skill morphs for high mobility while keeping our 200% sprint speed cap. Ball of Lightning (Streak morphed) ranges between ~740%-920% movement speed based on the terrain you are traveling over. I used minimap by Fyrakin to get these values for movement speeds.
Anyways I hope this guide is helpful in making you more gold and if anything you will be playing the fastest build in the game if you use this setup
- Enchants/ Attribute Points / Mundus
- Gear
- Abilities
- Combat
- Passives
- Miri - Abilities and Gear
- Champion Point Passives
- Food Buffs
- One Bar Setup / Non Combat Version
- Addon Settings
- Tips & Tricks
Pros/ConsPros
- All of the gear is tradeable and can be bought or crafted except for the monster set and the Maelstrom weapon. (Both optional) Gear quality only needs to be purple.
- 200% Sprint speed cap always active. (With 6 medium armor and CP passives)
- Never runs out of resources.
- Skills that enable faster than sprint speed mobility. (And faster than mounted in most situations)
- Enough damage and survivability to solo most world bosses.
- Vampire (Optional) Boosts damage with sprint invisibility and enables you to skip packs of monsters without having to sneak and the sprint cost reduction helps also.
- Does not require specific traits on gear.
- Can regenerate Stamina while sprinting and sneaking.
- Doesn't require you to use potions for regen but you could go for Magicka regen if you wanna push things to the max.
- Food buff is also optional so pick your favorites.
Cons
- Without ESO+ using this build will be a literal nightmare for inventory management.
- This specific setup only works with Sorcerer.
- Gear for build is very specific to slot location if you want to min/max your stats and have both 5 set bonuses active.
- Lack of passive health regen from Vampire and bonus fire damage taken.
- Having to feed to maintain Lv4 Vampire buff. (Plenty of neutral NPCs can be nommed tho)
- Skills are not very flexible for alternative options.
- Can take a bit of time to prepare and farm skill lines to reach maximum potential and uses a few DLC passives.
- Requires a fair amount of effort to play to full potential and can be a bit draining over long periods but gets a lot done in short bursts. (If you are susceptible to burnout I suggest not using this build)
1.) Enchants / Attribute Points / MundusAttributes:
You want to have around 12-14k Magicka unbuffed. The rest can go into Stamina.
Mundus: The Warrior for a balanced setup or The Atronach for more mobility.
Enchantments:
Armor: All Stamina.
Jewelry: Reduce Spell Cost. (Helps with the 33% cost increase from Ball of Lightning per cast. I get to 5 stacks regularly sometimes 6 with 13.5k Magicka)
Weapons: Main Bar: Weapon Damage Buff. Back Bar: Pick whatever you like. You wont really be using it during combat. It's only for the 5 piece bonus.
2.) GearCowards Gear (Or any set that offers 30% movement speed for the 5 piece with medium armor. Adept Rider would be an easy alternative to get started with but it lacks Stamina regen) Medium Armor: Chest, Belt, Boots, Gloves, Legs. (Main set, Always active) Trait: Divines or Infused.
Velidreth (Or Domihaus, Engine Guardian, Grothdarr, Kra'gh, Selene, Sellistrix, Slimecraw, Stormfist, Maw of the Infernal all of these sets will work with the build. Some will be better than others of course) Helmet: Heavy Armor. Shoulders: Medium Armor. Trait: Divines or Infused. If a monster set is out of reach for you, look for a 2 piece bonus that adds to weapon damage like the Diamonds Victory crafted set.
Prisoner’s Rags : Jewelry: Necklace, Ring x2. Trait: Bloodthirsty / Robust / Infused. Use Bloodthirsty x2 and Infused x1 for a well rounded build. Go with Infused x3 for maximum Magicka efficiency. (5 piece bonus only active when on back bar) Weapon Back Bar: 2h Axe or Sword. Trait: Take your pick.
Weapon Main Bar:
Maelstrom Battle Axe or Sword 2h. (doesn’t need to be perfected to work. We just want the set bonus) Trait: Sharpened or Nirnhoned.
This setup uses six medium armors and one heavy. Missing out on one piece of light armor doesn’t have any downsides for this build. The damage boost and speed bonus from the 6th piece of medium armor is more valuable considering it only takes a few seconds of sprinting to fully refill Magicka with our set bonus and CP passive. The heavy armor is for a little more safety padding during longer fights or against groups of monsters.
Cowards Gear is more or less the core of most speed run builds. (Or something similar) And this one is no different. Where this build really shines is making use of Prisoners Rags and Refreshing Stride for the bonus Magicka regen while sprinting so that we can spam Ball of Lightning (Bolt Escape Morph) As much as possible to keep movement speed maxed out.
On a side note I chose this setup to be optimized for fighting monsters quickly in Craglorn while making sure I have enough Magicka sustain to keep my mobility up between harvest nodes. It's a balance between the two. You have the freedom to gear this build more for damage at the cost of fewer uses of Bolt or go the other direction and have a bigger max Magicka pool and greater cost reduction for spamming Bolt much more before having to sprint to regenerate.
**I'll be referring to Ball of Lightning as Bolt during the guide**
3.) Abilities Main BarCritical Charge Morph into
Stampede (The AOE ground effect from Stampede will activate the set bonus from Maelstrom Battle Axe on any target that walks over it)
Uppercut Morphed into
Dizzying Swing (Main damage source for single target and high hp monsters like world bosses. Miri will take advantage of the off balance status)
Reverse Slash Morph into
Reverse Slice (This will be your main go to skill for clearing packs of monsters. The splash damage off of the main target will wipe out any nearby monsters)
Vigor Morph into
Echoing Vigor (This is your main heal when Critical Surge isn't enough and it can heal Miri and the Clannfear)
Summon Unstable Familiar Morph into
Summon Unstable Clannfear (The Clannfear can taunt targets away from you and will generally get the attention of anything you are in combat with leaving you free to continue harvesting while you run away)
Back BarCaltrops Morph into
Razor Caltrops (Major Breach from the Caltrops is very handy when farming for leather in places like Craglorn or against world bosses)
Dark Exchange Morphed into
Dark Deal (Restores Stamina and health in exchange for Magicka. Can be used during sneak and won’t reveal you. Also restores Stamina over time countering the cost of sprint and sneak for the duration and sustains us during longer fights)
Surge Morph into
Critical Surge (Boosts damage by 20% and heals you on critical attacks for 30 seconds. What more could you ask for)
Bolt Escape Morph into
Ball of Lightning (This skill is what defines the entire build and what enables you to break the 200% move speed cap. Ball of Lightning does not do damage, and this is crucial to keeping you out of combat so that you are not locked out of harvest nodes from dealing damage to some random target. And yup you can harvest in combat as long as you have not dealt or received damage recently)
Summon Unstable Familiar Morph into
Summon Unstable Clannfear (Skill has to be slotted on both bars or else the pet dies when you weapon swap)
4.) Combat
I usually start off with Surge and then lay down Caltrops followed by Stampede and then Dizzying Swing spam with light weaving into Reverse Slice execute for NPCs that have a larger HP pool. For multiple targets the only difference is skip the Dizzying Swing and go straight to Reverse Slice with light weaving. The splash damage from Slice really adds up. Reuse Stampede as a gap close when needed.
5.) PassivesDark Magic: Unholy Knowledge.
Daedric Summoning: Power Stone, Daedric Protection, Expert Summoner.
Storm Calling: Capacitor, Energized, Amplitude, Expert Mage.
Two Handed: Forceful, Heavy Weapons, Balanced Blade, Follow Up, Battle Rush.
Medium Armor: Dexterity, Wind Walker, Improved Sneak, Agility, Athletics.
Heavy Armor: Resolve, Constitution, Juggernaut, Revitalize, Rapid Mending.
Excavation: Keen Eye: Treasure Chests (Optional but making them easier to see never hurts)
Legerdemain: Improved Hiding, Locksmith.
Vampire (Optional): Dark Stalker, Strike From The Shadows, Undeath, Blood Ritual (Only if you want to infect others), Unnatural Movement.
Fighters Guild: Slayer, Banish The Wicked.
Psijic Order: See The Unseen (Complete first quests to unlock Psijic Portals)
Thieves Guild: Finders Keepers (Just needs DLC to unlock Thieves Troves)
Undaunted: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle.
Racial: Take everything and pick your favorite race. Argonian boosts swim speed by 50% and most zones will have water in a few places making it worth it. At Least IMO. Imperial / Breton for cost reduction and the better overall choice.
Crafting Passives: Take all of the passives that let you craft the highest level items. (Not quality like green blue purple) The nodes that you will see are split 50/50 between your maximum level material you can use and your characters actual level and CP up to 160.
Optionally you can take all of the Keen Eye passives as they do help a lot at spotting things you can collect and the addon is not always reliable at showing every currently spawned node. Also during a new expansion the addon just won't have the data yet so you will have to rely on sight.
6.) Miri
The reason to use Miri is she has great damage all things considered and she has a 30% chance to give you a bonus loot bag that can have recipes and furnishing plans among other stuff when you open a locked chest or mug a random merchant with Intimidate.
For armor you will want to go with five heavy and two medium so that she can tank a hit and still receive a small damage boost. For the traits anything works it just depends on what you need her to be better at. Try to get blue quality or better but greens are also fine. Blue is fairly cheap after the initial rush and drops often enough. Same goes for the jewelry using blue is ideal but green quality just fine until you find better and is the cheaper way to go. For her weapon you will want to go with the two hander of your choice. The quality here will make the biggest difference on how well she can solo things. I currently only have a blue weapon on her and it works just fine for overland. Depending on the fight you don't actually need her to kill anything, she's just a distraction for the other NPCs so you can keep farming.
For skills Miri has access to two skills that can execute at >25% with her class skill and the two handed skill line and she does a great job of making sure she uses them the moment the target's HP drops that low and she will heal you and herself. She will need support healing from time to time but not often.
Skills in priority order:
Warp Strike, Slayers Blade, Sever, Sunder and Blood Transfusion.7.) CP Passives / SlottablesGreen: Treasure Hunter, Master Gatherer, Plentiful Harvest, Homemaker.
Blue: Reaving Blows (Main focus), Precision, Fighting Finesse, Quick Recovery, Hardy, Elemental Aegis, Preparation, Tireless Discipline, Piercing, Weapons Expert, Biting Aura, Endless Endurance.
Red: Sprinter, Hasty, Refreshing Stride, Celerity, Hero's Vigor, Mystic Tenacity, Tumbling, Defiance, Slippery, Fortified.
8.) Food Buffs
Candied Jesters Coins (My preferred buff food), Corrupted Bloody Mara, Dubious Camoran Throne, Witchmothers Potent Brew, or Tri Stat.
9.) One bar setup / Non combat version
- Remove the Maelstrom weapon and only use Prisoner’s Rags weapons. Anything will work to fill the 5 piece bonus. Go with sword and shield for the most regen / max Magicka. Replace Velidreth with Engine Guardian. All Divines on armor with Magicka enchantments. All jewelry Infused with spell cost reduction. Weapon with Powered for the trait. Use 6 medium and 1 light armor. If you decide to take this route unfortunately the largest gains for potential upgrades come from gold jewelry and the bonus cost reduction from Infused. Any other slots will give small bonuses to regen. Still helpful but won't have as much of an impact overall.
- Attributes / Mundus: 64 Magicka. The Atronach Mundus for more regen.
- Skills: Clannfear, Ball of Lightning, Dark Deal, Bound Aegis, Inner Light, Replenishing Barrier Ulti.
- Passives: Dark Magic: Unholy Knowledge. Daedric Summoning: Daedric Protection, Expert Summoner. Storm Calling: Capacitor. Light Armor: Grace, Evocation, Spell Warding. Medium Armor: Dexterity, Wind Walker, Improved Sneak, Athletics. Legerdemain: Improved Hiding, Locksmith. Vampire: Dark Stalker, Undeath, Unnatural Movement. Mages Guild: Magicka Controller. Psijic Order: See The Unseen. Thieves Guild: Finders Keepers. Undaunted: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle. Support: Magicka Aid. Racial: Take everything. Crafting Passives: Take all of the passives that let you craft the highest level items. Keen Eye passives: Take them all.
- CP: Green: Treasure Hunter, Master Gatherer, Plentiful Harvest, Homemaker. Blue: Eldritch Insight, Quick Recovery, Hardy, Elemental Aegis, Preparation, Duelist's Rebuff, Enduring Resolve, Unassailable, Bulwark, Blessed. Red: Sprinter, Hasty, Refreshing Stride, Celerity, Hero's Vigor, Mystic Tenacity, Tumbling, Defiance, Slippery, Rejuvenation.
10.) AddonsHarvest Map (Shows all of the currently spawned materials near you to help you be as efficient as possible. You will want to go to the addon settings and change the 3D pin settings to make the pins a little taller and narrower and also disable the 3d pin buffer. Doing this will allow the pins to still be visible through walls and obstacles in the environment. Then lastly enable any option that only shows currently spawned resources near you to save time from checking every possible spawn location)
Harvest Map Data (Updater for Harvest Map that you need to run without the game open. This will give you all of the known locations for harvest nodes in the game. Only needs to be updated periodically and preferably a month or two after a new zone is released. To find the Updater go to your documents folder and find the ESO addons in the game folder)
Map Pins (Shows locations for basically everything in the game with options to enable or disable different pin types. Works great for finding treasure maps and crafting surveys. The menu will show up next to the map when it's open)
DFT Farming Tools (Keeps track of your crafting bag* and will pull everything out that you farmed and tell you the value of each item if you have the addons below installed. To open the addon window type /dft) Only use this if you are an ESO+ member*
Tamriel Trade Centre, Master Merchant, Arkadius' Trade Tools (To help you value your loots. ATT and MM require you to be in guilds with active merchants. TTC uses a 3rd party program that you will need to get and has a central database)
Mailbuddy (Will auto fill the last character or user name and subject you entered. Very helpful for mailing out lots of items. Just find the mail-brain section in the addon menu)
11.) Tips and Tricks to help you shine n' stuff- Always have your weapon out. A simple light attack will draw your weapon and can be done while sprinting. Doing this will reduce the time it takes to cast a skill. I do this after literally every node I harvest if I am not already casting Bolt to get to the next node. Casting skills will draw the weapon for you.
- You can queue up a skill while harvesting or opening chests if you activate the skill midway through the animation. (Start too soon and nothing will happen) This is the best way to get from node to node extremely quickly using Bolt. You will want to point the camera in the direction you want to go. A lot of harvest points are very close to the distance Bolt travels from eachother.
- Sometimes spamming the harvest key actually helps. The server doesn't do an awesome job of keeping your exact location when you are flying around the map at these speeds and sometimes using the harvest button multiple times will help get your request through. Also swapping weapons can reset a bug that keeps you from interacting with anything or being able to sprint.
- Hold sprint down as much as possible even when falling or between casts of Bolt when the animation is happening. The Prisoner's Rags bonus doesn't care how you are moving as long as sprint is being used and doing this can really add to how much regen you get. So basically get used to always having your sprint button held if you are not doing something else lol. The play style is similar to medium attack weaving with a channeled skill. (The set bonus has its own animation and a sound it makes and sometimes the buff will not activate. So if you do not see or hear it just stop and start sprinting again and it should start working) On a side note having sprint and weapon swap bound to mouse side buttons is a finger saver.
- Use Stampede to get places. Lots of Boars, Mudcrabs and random critters drop decent loot like raw leather so use them to your advantage.
- To add to the last point. Always be scanning around you for the next place you need to go while the harvest animation finishes. This will really help keep you moving especially if you are using the tip from above to cast Bolt while you harvest.
- Treat it like nobody else is around when you are farming. Focusing too much on what other people are doing will cause you to take less effective routes and make less money overall.
- Get used to swapping weapons all the time to take advantage of Stampede when you have a target and Bolt when you don't. Again all about covering as much distance as possible. Bind weapon swapping to your mouse keys if you have them.
- Running low on Magicka? Just sprint for a few seconds and you will be maxed out again. (Make sure you are on the right skill bar too lol) Running low on Stamina? Dark Deal has you covered.
- The last thing is practice. You will get faster the more you adjust to this style of play. It's fairly unique to what most other builds offer.
Have Fun!
Hit me up in game PC NA
@D.P or comment on here if you have any questions. If you tried the build out and like it let me know. I'll help give any advice if possible.
(I'll make updates if any major changes happen)