PvP stam sorc advice. Any Sorc masters here?

LittlePinkDot

So I'm tweaking my Altmer PvP stamsorc. I switched her daring corsair set for Tzogvins Warband set to try to get more health from crit surge. It's paired with Diamonds Victory and Markyn ring of majesty.

What's your opinion on Tzogvins for sorc?
She uses shrouded daggers, haunting curse and whirling blades.
I figured whirling blades with hurricane would build up Tzogvins stacks faster than most other skills.

But most info I can find about Tzogvins is about PVE DPS.
She uses restoration staff backbar for healing.. So she doesn't have weakness to elements. She's using dual sharpened maces for Pen. It's a balancing act between pen and crit.

OBJnoob

I confess I'm not familiar with Tzogvins. I've heard it said though that anything requiring stacks in PvP can be tricky. I guess it just depends on if the stacks apply to the target or the wearer.

I'd say Rallying Cry or Orders Wrath might be better options. Particularly because, since you're trying to get high pen and high crit at the same time, a few pieces of light armor might be beneficial.

Plus those two sets have defensive properties as well.

Necrotech_Master

i would agree that tzogvins is more of a pve set, it is good for building crit, but requires keeping stacks up, not unlike kinras, or similar

the only reason people use relequen in pvp is because it can tick twice per second, but my experience when getting hit with relequen is the dmg is generally very low and i hardly notice it (master DW and or vateshran staff probably does more dmg)

One_Bad_Bosmer

Stam-Sorc Vet here! So by the sets mentioned it looks like you're going for more of a Crit-Sorc type build? I usually don't mess with any of the sets mentioned. Trick is to look for sets that benefit the class and your playstyle. Look at what you are missing, raw stats-wise and seek to fill in the gaps.

That being said, I build for more of a brawler-style build. I've been having the most fun I think I've ever had on the class in ages. The build is simple and I can post here but it just depends on what you are trying to achieve. And they aren't Meta Sets per-se. But I also try to stay away from proc builds as well.

Best of luck ;-)

gariondavey

@StaticWave can probably help you
@MashmalloMan probably could too

StaticWave

What I'm currently using for crit build:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=552020

It may or may not work for you, but it's doing well for me.

LittlePinkDot

StaticWave wrote: »

What I'm currently using for crit build:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=552020

It may or may not work for you, but it's doing well for me.

How do you get that much weapon/spell damage if you're using shadow mundus?
Is that unbuffed? Would it be the same without cp?

OBJnoob

A nirnhoned DW mainhand, sorc abilities slotted on FB, and a healthy amount of medium armor.

It isn't hard to get weapon damage on a sorc. Mine wears Orders Wrath and Rallying Cry (same weapon damage modifiers as his sets,) and has about 6k on a bow.

What I think is nice about Static's build is the recoveries. And of course the unique 10% from essence thief.

What I find odd is his choice of axes. I wonder if his crit chance is high enough to warrant axes over daggers. But I also have no doubt he's tested it thoroughly and knows what works.

StaticWave

You can look at the stats in depth if you create a copy of the build I sent.

It’s fully self buffed (no continuous or outside buffs). I’m on Khajiit so my WD is currently lower, but I get maximum 119% crit damage. Crit chance is 35-37% depending on which bar I’m on. I can always drop Shadow for Thief and get 41-42% crit chance and still be at 108% crit dmg.

I’m in 3 med, 3 light, 1 heavy, with all infused jewelries, nirn + sharp axes, and a defending back bar (I normally play with an Infused back bar, so my weapon damage can get up to 6.4k fully buffed).

This is with Pale Order. With Sea Serpent I’ve reached 7k+ Weapon damage with zero Infused haha.

StaticWave

Also, the reason I went with axes was because I needed to increase my healing while keeping my crit damage above 100%. I swapped to Khajiit and dropped double maces for that. I got some of the crit chance and pen from wearing extra light armor pieces. My pen is still good at 17.5k fully buffed before balorgh, and my crit chance is still 35%+ so it’s all good

LittlePinkDot

StaticWave wrote: »

Also, the reason I went with axes was because I needed to increase my healing while keeping my crit damage above 100%. I swapped to Khajiit and dropped double maces for that. I got some of the crit chance and pen from wearing extra light armor pieces. My pen is still good at 17.5k fully buffed before balorgh, and my crit chance is still 35%+ so it’s all good

I've got the 35% crit chance. I don't know where you're getting the 17.5k pen stat when on the link you sent it says it's around 4k.

My pen as it says on the character sheet is about 10k. But I have no source of major breach since I use rapid regen with restoration staff back bar. At 29k health I need the healing. I would never be a vampire.

There's no way I could function without points into stamina. Whirling blades is expensive. I have to use a cost reduction glyph on one of my rings and stamina regen on another ring.
She's wear 3 heavy and the rest is medium

But even being an Altmer with Warrior mundus and Markyn ring my weapon damage is around 4970k buffed with major brutality. I would have another 450 on top of that when diamonds victory procs.

So I'm not sure how to get over 6k weapon damage. Maybe I should switch the trait of my main mace to nirnhoned?

I just feel like my hits are lacking the oomph it needs.

And this is in battlegrounds.

StaticWave

3 light, sharp off hand, Major + Minor Breach, CP pen, and Crystal Wep is 17.5k pen.

You have to be a vamp for this build because you have an excessive amount of healing, so you can use blood 4 blood and have good recovery.

I’ve used this a lot in BG and had great success even with Pale Order. Switch it out and I can get healing from teammates.

The 6k WD is with berserker enchant and fully buffed.

OBJnoob

Yeah crystal weapon is a small source of pen. It's also a 10% cost reduction for your next ability. I know you like Shrouded Daggers for the multiple targets helping with Crit Surge but replacing it with Crystal Weapon might help make your spins more sustainable.

LittlePinkDot

OBJnoob wrote: »

Yeah crystal weapon is a small source of pen. It's also a 10% cost reduction for your next ability. I know you like Shrouded Daggers for the multiple targets helping with Crit Surge but replacing it with Crystal Weapon might help make your spins more sustainable.

I don't want to change my skills though.
I just want to make the skills I'm using do more effective damage. I also need to use my skills to proc Diamonds victory, and I don't want to change that set because it's my weapons and it takes me months to get enough gold mats. I really wish they would half the gold mats required for one handed weapons like they halved the enchants of one handed weapons. It's not fair that I need to use double the gold mats of a 2 handed weapon. And I still need to get gold tempers for my mag blade I'm switching to DW.
So I could switch Tzogvins set, but not Diamonds Victory.

I do prefer ranged and aoe skills because they're easier to hit people with.
I would barely be able to hit anybody with crystal weapon or a skill like blood for blood. I rarely land light or heavy attacks either unless I'm using bow.
Most kills I've ever had in battlegrounds is with my Bowcanist.

I definitely use shrouded daggers to pick people off if they're running away from me. Or if I notice somebody already low on health. Ranged skills are easier to aim.

To be honest I don't think I could play Shockwaves build as good as he can play it. There's a skill gap there.

whirling blades is so effective for me because I barely have to aim it.

I have a Templar with over 6k weapon/spell damage and can barely hit anybody with wrecking blow. If I hit it once I can't hit it twice 😅. I love radiant oppression though.

MashmalloMan

Haven't played for about a year so my opinion might be outdated, meta's change. My perspective is that of no CP and mainly BGs. The intended context of the build is pretty important. I don't think my playstyle (which I'll get into) would work as good in open world.. but I don't know, maybe it does.

Like you, I've aimed for a crit build in my majority of time playing ESO even when it wasn't as popular as today because I personally like the Brawler, but Evasive playstyle Sorc offers. I'm talking Malacath meta and even before then, I was still rocking crit when no one else was to great effect usually coming in 1st/2nd in high MMR on PC NA (sounds pretentious).. mainly because it helps in multiple ways as our source of damage, but also props up healing a lot. I think at the time people weren't as aware how useful crit was for defence. I still remember seeing Dizzy builds with Rally, dropping Crit Surge which is just absurd to me. I need it to survive the way I play.

Since Stam Sorc lacks a reliable burst heal, crit Dark Deals works pretty well to offset that, but the passive criting Crit Surge procs makes a big difference no other class has. Couple that with some decent armor and Vigor Crits and you're tankier than people expect.

Again, haven't played in awhile, everyone can use vigor now and crit is much more popular so I'm not sure how well it holds up.

However, I've tried about everything and Tzogvin despite being great on paper falls flat more often than not. I intended to use it for front bar, since there is important body sets you can use instead. It works exceptionally well in PvE because you only stay on your back bar for 3 GCDs, but in PvP that rarely ever happens. As a front bar sets, in BGs the 10 stack uptime was pretty low.

For a body set like you're using it as, it's definitely better.. but why not just use Orders Wrath?

1. Minor Force doesn't buff healing.
2. Orders Wrath is up 24/7, no minigame, no falloff, crit healing/damage and crit chance in 1 package. Best of both worlds. Crafted too, can slot different armor weights.
3. Stam Sorc has Minor Force from Dark Deal now. If I found Tzogvin wasn't great before we had it, not sure how it would be better now.

Oh and diamonds victory is just an average set in my opinion, if you're going to use a weapon damage set, at least get one that buffs healing. Diamonds victory only buffs skills. I'm sitting on 300-400 gold mats per crafting line so if that's a problem for you, I could mail some to you. You really only need 8 tempers for the main weapon, offhand can be purple and jewelry you probably have purple of another set anyway.

I generally prefered Gaze of Sithis over Markyn. It has 4k armor instead of 2k, no 200 damage, but has 3k health and 1k HP regen (nerfed hard if you go vamp stage3). The only time I block is to avoid a stun like Meteor, so the downside isn't noticable for me. Since the downside is null, the upsides provide better value than Markyn if you do the math for set values, but you lose a potential monster set too.

Damage is important, but since it only effects 1/3 of our heals (Vigor) I don't find it as necessary comparitively to other classes.

For my shoulder, I use any monster set piece with 129 Stam+129 mag regen. The setups usually end up looking like this:

1x Sithis Head
1x Monster Shoulder
1x 5 piece body set.
1x 5 piece jewelry + front bar.
1x 2 piece back bar.

So an example I used for a bit would be:

Head - Sithis
Shoulder - Magma Incarnate
Body - Rush of Agony, Azureblight, Unleashed Terror, Dragons Appetite
Front - Plaguebreaker, Sheer Venom, Essence Thief
Back - MA 2H or BRP DW

My favourite setup for awhile was Rush of Agony + MA 2H. Setup was precast Crystal Weapon, Haunting Curse someone in a group, Stampede them pulling their group into your MA 2Hs dot, Dawnbreaker or Streak, Spin to win.

Unfortunately they reworked MA 2H, so this doesn't work the same anymore. The dot was important because it refreshed and ticked once a second for 7s, resulting in Crit Surge being up all the time. The burst on the group was huge, pairing it with Plaugrbreaker front bar was "explosive".

Technically this could still work for me now. MA 2H buffs direct damage which Sorc has in spades. Plaugrbreak applies 2 dots which can both crit, so should proc Crit Surge. I use to do this back before hybridization too, so my Haunting Curse didn't hit very hard. It was maybe a 8-9k tooltip.

Out of all weapons, I prefer DW front bar, spin to win will always be the most successful and fun for me. It can't be dodged and hit detection is reliable. I can't stand Dizzy Swing, Executioner is good, but lacks cleave kill potential. 1h + shield is too far in the defensive direction with no execute potential. Bow is very good for Sorc's, highly evasive, but I could never really get into how you basically just peck and kill steal from afar, I prefer the in your face playstyle.

Rest of the build is Khajiit, Thief or Shadow mundus depending on if I can reach 40% crit or not, Mag+Crit+HP potions, Daggers Nirn + Sharpened/Precise front, Sword(s) backbar with Infused Berserk Enchant, Haunch or Jewels food.

All of this gets me a bit of everything, good healing, crit, armor, health, sustain, etc.

I know people recommend defending or powered back bar, but I prefer 100% uptime on a better berserk enchant because 2H Stampede or DW Deadly Cloak will keep it up easily. Also a better combo for me to use Sithis + Infused Berserker + 3x Swift, than Markyn + Defending.

Both defending and powered only buff you when you're on that bar. Since Crit Surges healing is mostly happening when I'm on front bar, the majority of the time it's wasted. Vigor also gets better front bar healing after you bar swap with an infused berserker enchant because it copies your damage on cast while powered just buffs you while you're on that bar.

Last thing I'll say about context, I didnt slot Major Breach on my builds or Rallying Cry simply because those bonuses are redundant in BGs. Everyone has easy access to them so I opted out of them.

If you're in solo or open world, probably more important.

I also just love Stampede so much, can get to vertical locations and chase people so easily especially when you pair it with streak. I just don't like the rest of the 2H skills so it's usually my backbar weapon.

SandandStars

@LittlePinkDot , do you have a wireless router for your internet? Reason I ask is bc if you do, even a small amount of lag can make it very difficult to land skills in PvP, which is a significant factor in choosing aoe skills, especially whirling blades (which as you stated, hit opponents easily/consistently)

Lag will also significantly affect the ability of ranged skills to hit. When your connection and the server are too slow, you’ll see dodge rates go up dramatically. I know it sounds highly speculative, but it’s been my consistent experience for almost 3 years.

I have a couple builds w/skills tailored to laggy conditions. Some skills just work bettet in PvP than others, regardless of your skill/familiarity with them.

MashmalloMan

Oh and incase it wasn't obvious, I do try using at least 1 dot set or skill to help proc Surge outside of being directly on top of people. I feel like that power can't be understated for survivability. Sucks that they deleted my baby MA 2H..

OBJnoob

Oh I'm quite sure there's a skill gap between Static and me as well. That's okay we do the best we can.

I feel you on the ranged attacks and AoE thing. When I played stamsorc like 5 years ago I definitely used shrouded dagger, dawnbreaker, and spin to win for the exact reasons you're saying.

I don't have much success with that style anymore. For one thing enemies are much faster now so the hit-and-run "jousting" style of fighting doesn't seem to work as well as it used to-- but since Stamsorc's are still kinda squishy I elected to go more ranged not less. Also, people can be tankier than they used to be, and I don't find myself able to two-tap like I used to... So I play a more pressuring style.

But that's just me talking. My only advice stays the same. Try rallying cry or orders wrath. They kinda serve the same purpose and are arguably better sets.

LittlePinkDot

SandandStars wrote: »

@LittlePinkDot , do you have a wireless router for your internet? Reason I ask is bc if you do, even a small amount of lag can make it very difficult to land skills in PvP, which is a significant factor in choosing aoe skills, especially whirling blades (which as you stated, hit opponents easily/consistently)

Lag will also significantly affect the ability of ranged skills to hit. When your connection and the server are too slow, you’ll see dodge rates go up dramatically. I know it sounds highly speculative, but it’s been my consistent experience for almost 3 years.

I have a couple builds w/skills tailored to laggy conditions. Some skills just work bettet in PvP than others, regardless of your skill/familiarity with them.

Actually yes I do use WiFi, but it's only about 6 feet from the playstation.

MashmalloMan

@StaticWave I know you probably already min/maxed this the way you like, but why do you aim for 100% crit DMG specifically? I avoid axes because it doesn't double dip for healing where as Daggers, Shadow, Thief, and Precise do.

Based on what you said (without CP):
Axes - 1.91x crit DMG, 1.69x crit healing, 35% crit chance.
Daggers - 1.79x crit DMG, 1.69x crit healing, 41% crit chance.

The daggers give a boost to your crit chance of 14%, while axes give your crit damage 6.7%.

Even if you add the 20% crit resist for base char and assume they have solo Rallying Cry's 25%. Axes give an increase to crit damage of 9%.

You can hit harder when it crits, but with no way to guarantee it (outside Crit Rush for 2h), the consistency and added bonus of better healing looks better from Daggers to me.

Edit: Just swapped your build to daggers and your power went up slightly so it is accurate, also better healing so why not.

For your skill bars, you can swap Vigor from back bar with Hardened Ward or Bound Armaments on front bar. You'll get 20% Stam/HP Regen on back bar from Daedric Protection and a stronger Vigor tooltip on front bar because of DW. Vigor copies the damage/stamina from the bar it's cast from. Also nice to have it on front bar, it becomes really easy to stay offensive because you'll start to keep up the 5s hot more often. Drawback is you lose the front bar 2% weapon damage, but I think it's worth it for the sustain and healing.

Could be awkward to use 1 of those 2 skills on back bar until you get used to it, but I'd probably put Hardened Ward back there. You can bar swap off a vigor cast and still get the benefits of it as you spam Dark Deal and Ward from backbar when you need them.

StaticWave

MashmalloMan wrote: »

@StaticWave I know you probably already min/maxed this the way you like, but why do you aim for 100% crit DMG specifically? I avoid axes because it doesn't double dip for healing where as Daggers, Shadow, Thief, and Precise do.

Based on what you said (without CP):
Axes - 1.91x crit DMG, 1.69x crit healing, 35% crit chance.
Daggers - 1.79x crit DMG, 1.69x crit healing, 41% crit chance.

The daggers give a boost to your crit chance of 14%, while axes give your crit damage 6.7%.

Even if you add the 20% crit resist for base char and assume they have solo Rallying Cry's 25%. Axes give an increase to crit damage of 9%.

You can hit harder when it crits, but with no way to guarantee it (outside Crit Rush for 2h), the consistency and added bonus of better healing looks better from Daggers to me.

@MashmalloMan
I'm aiming for 100%+ crit damage because I duel a lot and many of my opponents use Rallying Cry. These are my crit chance and crit damage in No-CP with Shadow Mundus and Axes:

With Thief Mundus and Axes this is my stat:

With Daggers and Shadow this is my stat:

It's basically 12% crit damage vs 6% crit chance. I could use 1 dagger but that's as much as I'm willing to give up lol.

MashmalloMan wrote: »

For your skill bars, you can swap Vigor from back bar with Hardened Ward or Bound Armaments on front bar. You'll get 20% Stam/HP Regen on back bar from Daedric Protection and a stronger Vigor tooltip on front bar because of DW. Vigor copies the damage/stamina from the bar it's cast from. Also nice to have it on front bar, it becomes really easy to stay offensive because you'll start to keep up the 5s hot more often. Drawback is you lose the front bar 2% weapon damage, but I think it's worth it for the sustain and healing.

Could be awkward to use 1 of those 2 skills on back bar until you get used to it, but I'd probably put Hardened Ward back there. You can bar swap off a vigor cast and still get the benefits of it as you spam Dark Deal and Ward from backbar when you need them.

Yea I know Vigor copies the healing from which ever bar it was casted on. I put Hardened Ward on front bar because this build heals from being offensive. Vigor is usually only top 4-5 of my healing:



Basically, the way I play this build is similar to a magsorc. I'm front loading all damage on front bar and heal off Crit Surge + Blood Magic + Pale Order, and only Vigor when I need the extra heal. Most of the time I don't even use it lol. The shield is there for when I need a cushion against burst or DoTs. This is why I can sustain Blood 4 Blood spam even without Pale Order, cause the offensive healing is so much.

StaticWave

Also, the best thing about this build IMO is you have so much offensive healing from Surge + Blood Magic + Pale Order, defense from 38k HP + Hardened Ward + blocking, and sustain from Essence Thief + using B4b which doesn't cost stam or mag. You're able to spec as much into damage as possible without being squishy even though your stats should make you squishy. On the live server I use an Infused Ice Staff instead of Defending, so my fully buffed resistances look like this:




I'm still able to reach 5k+ HPS in basically 95% stat build (if you don't count Pale Order). The only stamsorc builds I know that can survive 5k DPS are Rally/DA/mDW/Pale Order, Maarselok/DA/Vate/mDW/Pale Order, or basically any mDW variant builds with some healing set. These involve at least a proc set though.

I can always swap those Axes out for a Bow, drop B4B and DB, slot Curse and Overload, and basically become a hybrid ranged sorc. The sets I'm using are also BiS for hybrid ranged sorcs atm too. It's pretty versatile imo.

MashmalloMan

StaticWave wrote: »

@MashmalloMan I'm aiming for 100%+ crit damage because I duel a lot and many of my opponents use Rallying Cry. These are my crit chance and crit damage in No-CP with Shadow Mundus and Axes:

Yeah I figured. Still ends up about the same effective power from tests on build editor. I suppose you are reducing burst potential because you would be lowering the ceiling of your damage for more consistent crits, but since we can't guarantee crits, it's still RNG dependant either way.

With Thief Mundus and Axes this is my stat:

With Daggers and Shadow this is my stat:

This was basically my point, if you had to pick between these 2 options, go daggers + shadow (although I know you prefer axes + shadow). Axes + thief has the same crit chance and crit damage, but it's missing 11% crit healing. Axes aren't well designed, in ZOS infinite wisdom they nerfed it for no reason despite daggers, swords and maces "double dipping".

Yea I know Vigor copies the healing from which ever bar it was casted on. I put Hardened Ward on front bar because this build heals from being offensive. Vigor is usually only top 4-5 of my healing:



Basically, the way I play this build is similar to a magsorc. I'm front loading all damage on front bar and heal off Crit Surge + Blood Magic + Pale Order, and only Vigor when I need the extra heal. Most of the time I don't even use it lol. The shield is there for when I need a cushion against burst or DoTs. This is why I can sustain Blood 4 Blood spam even without Pale Order, cause the offensive healing is so much.

So if your aim is to be more offensive, and you're not really keeping up the Vigor hot, then have you considered just trading the 2 skills functionality?

Yeah you miss out on the buffer to the health it offers, but based on your build, it shows you have a decent 38k HP and Wards tooltip is only just under 8.8k. Vigor ticks 6 times over 5s, your tooltip is 20.5k with it on front bar, so 3.4k a second that can crit to 6.4k.

Just based on value per cast Vigor is providing next to triple the value for much less cost. It is over time so you can't spam cast it like you can Ward for more bursty defence, can't argue that, but I suppose you could just rely on Dark Deal for that. They basically have the same tooltip as each other with a 1.5k Mag cost difference. Not fullproof conversion because of the cast time, but similar, just thinking out loud.

That Vigor tooltip is not far off from being a Ward that reapplies itself once every 2 seconds for 6 seconds, except Vigor only costs 2.5k Stam, instead of Wards 4k Mag.

With the mag sustain you save, you could even swap Blood for Blood to Arterial Burst, again, increasing your healing. For your build it deals 300 more tooltip damage, 75% damage bonus swaps to 33% based on missing health, but under 50% it now guarantees a crit, which based on everything you're going for, seems to synergize much better than the damage bonus differences since you heavily invested into crit damage.

Just seems like you'd end up with very similar offensive/defensive capabilities, while being able to sustain better since Ward costs a frick ton, potentially frees up a skill slot or you can just keep Ward for those oh *** moments on back bar.

Sorry if this all seems nitpicky, just theory crafting with you for fun. I'm sure the build works great either way and is just a difference in playstyle. Since you think you have enough healing, relying on Ward makes sense.

Frankly I've never fully tried a Blood for Blood or Arterial Burst build yet since hybridization. Before hybridization, I used to theory craft using it for a Melee Mag Sorc with a staff+2h sword, basically a hybrid. At the time it was pretty weak because it had to use sets like Shacklebreaker, I bet it's super fun to play now that everything works so well together. I feel like Arterial Burst has such good synergy with Sorc because of the guaranteed crits.

StaticWave

MashmalloMan wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

@MashmalloMan I'm aiming for 100%+ crit damage because I duel a lot and many of my opponents use Rallying Cry. These are my crit chance and crit damage in No-CP with Shadow Mundus and Axes:

Yeah I figured. Still ends up about the same effective power from tests on build editor. I suppose you are reducing burst potential because you would be lowering the ceiling of your damage for more consistent crits, but since we can't guarantee crits, it's still RNG dependant either way.

With Thief Mundus and Axes this is my stat:

With Daggers and Shadow this is my stat:

This was basically my point, if you had to pick between these 2 options, go daggers + shadow (although I know you prefer axes + shadow). Axes + thief has the same crit chance and crit damage, but it's missing 11% crit healing. Axes aren't well designed, in ZOS infinite wisdom they nerfed it for no reason despite daggers, swords and maces "double dipping".

Yea I know Vigor copies the healing from which ever bar it was casted on. I put Hardened Ward on front bar because this build heals from being offensive. Vigor is usually only top 4-5 of my healing:



Basically, the way I play this build is similar to a magsorc. I'm front loading all damage on front bar and heal off Crit Surge + Blood Magic + Pale Order, and only Vigor when I need the extra heal. Most of the time I don't even use it lol. The shield is there for when I need a cushion against burst or DoTs. This is why I can sustain Blood 4 Blood spam even without Pale Order, cause the offensive healing is so much.

So if your aim is to be more offensive, and you're not really keeping up the Vigor hot, then have you considered just trading the 2 skills functionality?

Yeah you miss out on the buffer to the health it offers, but based on your build, it shows you have a decent 38k HP and Wards tooltip is only just under 8.8k. Vigor ticks 6 times over 5s, your tooltip is 20.5k with it on front bar, so 3.4k a second that can crit to 6.4k.

Just based on value per cast Vigor is providing next to triple the value for much less cost. It is over time so you can't spam cast it like you can Ward for more bursty defence, can't argue that, but I suppose you could just rely on Dark Deal for that. They basically have the same tooltip as each other with a 1.5k Mag cost difference. Not fullproof conversion because of the cast time, but similar, just thinking out loud.

That Vigor tooltip is not far off from being a Ward that reapplies itself once every 2 seconds for 6 seconds, except Vigor only costs 2.5k Stam, instead of Wards 4k Mag.

With the mag sustain you save, you could even swap Blood for Blood to Arterial Burst, again, increasing your healing. For your build it deals 300 more tooltip damage, 75% damage bonus swaps to 33% based on missing health, but under 50% it now guarantees a crit, which based on everything you're going for, seems to synergize much better than the damage bonus differences since you heavily invested into crit damage.

Just seems like you'd end up with very similar offensive/defensive capabilities, while being able to sustain better since Ward costs a frick ton, potentially frees up a skill slot or you can just keep Ward for those oh *** moments on back bar.

Sorry if this all seems nitpicky, just theory crafting with you for fun. I'm sure the build works great either way and is just a difference in playstyle. Since you think you have enough healing, relying on Ward makes sense.

Frankly I've never fully tried a Blood for Blood or Arterial Burst build yet since hybridization. Before hybridization, I used to theory craft using it for a Melee Mag Sorc with a staff+2h sword, basically a hybrid. At the time it was pretty weak because it had to use sets like Shacklebreaker, I bet it's super fun to play now that everything works so well together. I feel like Arterial Burst has such good synergy with Sorc because of the guaranteed crits.

What I meant is that I heal so much with Blood Magic and Crit Surge that I don't actually need to keep up Vigor at all. Hardened Ward allows me to be offensive as much as possible because all my healing is from doing damage. If I slotted Vigor front bar, I would lose 2% wd. For a skill that I barely use, I'd rather keep the 2% wd.

I actually originally used Arterial Burst, but the problem with that is that now I'm stressing my mag pool way too much. B4B is essentially "free" as the health cost is covered by my over healing, so I'm able to almost perma block on front bar and can spend all of that mag on Hardened Ward.

So basically the reason I had these abilities laid out like that is because I wanted to be as offensive as possible while also having a decent amount of survivability. This was accomplished by doing 3 things:

1) Using B4B to free up my entire stamina bar for almost permablocking (I block A LOT, especially against NBs. I've blocked more than 50% of their Spectral Bows even with 250 ping lol).

2) Using Crit Surge + Blood Magic to provide enough healing to stay offensive and even over-heal.

3) Using Hardened Ward with a 38k HP pool to act as a cushion and pseudo "burst heal"

All of these have to be working together. I already tried Arterial Burst instead of B4B, but that means stressing my mag pool and I can't use Hardened Ward as much. I already slotted Vigor front bar, but I didn't need it most of the time so it's pretty much a wasted slot.

What I have now suits my playstyle best. It allows me to stay in the fight for a really long time unless I'm severely outnumbered or taking too much damage from several good players.

Turtle_Bot

MashmalloMan wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

@MashmalloMan I'm aiming for 100%+ crit damage because I duel a lot and many of my opponents use Rallying Cry. These are my crit chance and crit damage in No-CP with Shadow Mundus and Axes:

Yeah I figured. Still ends up about the same effective power from tests on build editor. I suppose you are reducing burst potential because you would be lowering the ceiling of your damage for more consistent crits, but since we can't guarantee crits, it's still RNG dependant either way.

With Thief Mundus and Axes this is my stat:

With Daggers and Shadow this is my stat:

This was basically my point, if you had to pick between these 2 options, go daggers + shadow (although I know you prefer axes + shadow). Axes + thief has the same crit chance and crit damage, but it's missing 11% crit healing. Axes aren't well designed, in ZOS infinite wisdom they nerfed it for no reason despite daggers, swords and maces "double dipping".

Yea I know Vigor copies the healing from which ever bar it was casted on. I put Hardened Ward on front bar because this build heals from being offensive. Vigor is usually only top 4-5 of my healing:



Basically, the way I play this build is similar to a magsorc. I'm front loading all damage on front bar and heal off Crit Surge + Blood Magic + Pale Order, and only Vigor when I need the extra heal. Most of the time I don't even use it lol. The shield is there for when I need a cushion against burst or DoTs. This is why I can sustain Blood 4 Blood spam even without Pale Order, cause the offensive healing is so much.

So if your aim is to be more offensive, and you're not really keeping up the Vigor hot, then have you considered just trading the 2 skills functionality?

Yeah you miss out on the buffer to the health it offers, but based on your build, it shows you have a decent 38k HP and Wards tooltip is only just under 8.8k. Vigor ticks 6 times over 5s, your tooltip is 20.5k with it on front bar, so 3.4k a second that can crit to 6.4k.

Just based on value per cast Vigor is providing next to triple the value for much less cost. It is over time so you can't spam cast it like you can Ward for more bursty defence, can't argue that, but I suppose you could just rely on Dark Deal for that. They basically have the same tooltip as each other with a 1.5k Mag cost difference. Not fullproof conversion because of the cast time, but similar, just thinking out loud.

That Vigor tooltip is not far off from being a Ward that reapplies itself once every 2 seconds for 6 seconds, except Vigor only costs 2.5k Stam, instead of Wards 4k Mag.

With the mag sustain you save, you could even swap Blood for Blood to Arterial Burst, again, increasing your healing. For your build it deals 300 more tooltip damage, 75% damage bonus swaps to 33% based on missing health, but under 50% it now guarantees a crit, which based on everything you're going for, seems to synergize much better than the damage bonus differences since you heavily invested into crit damage.

Just seems like you'd end up with very similar offensive/defensive capabilities, while being able to sustain better since Ward costs a frick ton, potentially frees up a skill slot or you can just keep Ward for those oh *** moments on back bar.

Sorry if this all seems nitpicky, just theory crafting with you for fun. I'm sure the build works great either way and is just a difference in playstyle. Since you think you have enough healing, relying on Ward makes sense.

Frankly I've never fully tried a Blood for Blood or Arterial Burst build yet since hybridization. Before hybridization, I used to theory craft using it for a Melee Mag Sorc with a staff+2h sword, basically a hybrid. At the time it was pretty weak because it had to use sets like Shacklebreaker, I bet it's super fun to play now that everything works so well together. I feel like Arterial Burst has such good synergy with Sorc because of the guaranteed crits.

I actually used to run an arterial burst melee magsorc build in U33, DW front, resto back, it was honestly some of the most fun I have ever had on magsorc in PvP in such a long time.

The build was front bar NMA, back bar wretched, it had good damage and a lot of healing from the offensive heals + blessings.

Front bar was curse, arterial burst, frags, vigor, streak, overload
back bar was radiating, blessings, RaT, hurricane, crit surge, resto ult.

I miss that build, it got hit hard by the nerf to resto staff in U34.

Reading how @StaticWave 's build plays I'm tempted to give something similar a go again myself actually (reworking it a bit for magsorc). I've been struggling to find a good mythic for sorc, DDF is nice, but falls behind other mythics peak potential and takes too long to get going with the current levels of burst from NB, SSC is nice, but I'm not liking the snare outside of my stamden, might try pale order for the additional healing.

StaticWave

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

@MashmalloMan I'm aiming for 100%+ crit damage because I duel a lot and many of my opponents use Rallying Cry. These are my crit chance and crit damage in No-CP with Shadow Mundus and Axes:

Yeah I figured. Still ends up about the same effective power from tests on build editor. I suppose you are reducing burst potential because you would be lowering the ceiling of your damage for more consistent crits, but since we can't guarantee crits, it's still RNG dependant either way.

With Thief Mundus and Axes this is my stat:

With Daggers and Shadow this is my stat:

This was basically my point, if you had to pick between these 2 options, go daggers + shadow (although I know you prefer axes + shadow). Axes + thief has the same crit chance and crit damage, but it's missing 11% crit healing. Axes aren't well designed, in ZOS infinite wisdom they nerfed it for no reason despite daggers, swords and maces "double dipping".

Yea I know Vigor copies the healing from which ever bar it was casted on. I put Hardened Ward on front bar because this build heals from being offensive. Vigor is usually only top 4-5 of my healing:



Basically, the way I play this build is similar to a magsorc. I'm front loading all damage on front bar and heal off Crit Surge + Blood Magic + Pale Order, and only Vigor when I need the extra heal. Most of the time I don't even use it lol. The shield is there for when I need a cushion against burst or DoTs. This is why I can sustain Blood 4 Blood spam even without Pale Order, cause the offensive healing is so much.

So if your aim is to be more offensive, and you're not really keeping up the Vigor hot, then have you considered just trading the 2 skills functionality?

Yeah you miss out on the buffer to the health it offers, but based on your build, it shows you have a decent 38k HP and Wards tooltip is only just under 8.8k. Vigor ticks 6 times over 5s, your tooltip is 20.5k with it on front bar, so 3.4k a second that can crit to 6.4k.

Just based on value per cast Vigor is providing next to triple the value for much less cost. It is over time so you can't spam cast it like you can Ward for more bursty defence, can't argue that, but I suppose you could just rely on Dark Deal for that. They basically have the same tooltip as each other with a 1.5k Mag cost difference. Not fullproof conversion because of the cast time, but similar, just thinking out loud.

That Vigor tooltip is not far off from being a Ward that reapplies itself once every 2 seconds for 6 seconds, except Vigor only costs 2.5k Stam, instead of Wards 4k Mag.

With the mag sustain you save, you could even swap Blood for Blood to Arterial Burst, again, increasing your healing. For your build it deals 300 more tooltip damage, 75% damage bonus swaps to 33% based on missing health, but under 50% it now guarantees a crit, which based on everything you're going for, seems to synergize much better than the damage bonus differences since you heavily invested into crit damage.

Just seems like you'd end up with very similar offensive/defensive capabilities, while being able to sustain better since Ward costs a frick ton, potentially frees up a skill slot or you can just keep Ward for those oh *** moments on back bar.

Sorry if this all seems nitpicky, just theory crafting with you for fun. I'm sure the build works great either way and is just a difference in playstyle. Since you think you have enough healing, relying on Ward makes sense.

Frankly I've never fully tried a Blood for Blood or Arterial Burst build yet since hybridization. Before hybridization, I used to theory craft using it for a Melee Mag Sorc with a staff+2h sword, basically a hybrid. At the time it was pretty weak because it had to use sets like Shacklebreaker, I bet it's super fun to play now that everything works so well together. I feel like Arterial Burst has such good synergy with Sorc because of the guaranteed crits.

I actually used to run an arterial burst melee magsorc build in U33, DW front, resto back, it was honestly some of the most fun I have ever had on magsorc in PvP in such a long time.

The build was front bar NMA, back bar wretched, it had good damage and a lot of healing from the offensive heals + blessings.

Front bar was curse, arterial burst, frags, vigor, streak, overload
back bar was radiating, blessings, RaT, hurricane, crit surge, resto ult.

I miss that build, it got hit hard by the nerf to resto staff in U34.

Reading how @StaticWave 's build plays I'm tempted to give something similar a go again myself actually (reworking it a bit for magsorc). I've been struggling to find a good mythic for sorc, DDF is nice, but falls behind other mythics peak potential and takes too long to get going with the current levels of burst from NB, SSC is nice, but I'm not liking the snare outside of my stamden, might try pale order for the additional healing.

Yea, vamp spammable is pretty underrated imo. Sorc's probably one of the best classes to use it. Idk how you'd build your magsorc. You'd probably have to go max HP I think

Turtle_Bot

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

@MashmalloMan I'm aiming for 100%+ crit damage because I duel a lot and many of my opponents use Rallying Cry. These are my crit chance and crit damage in No-CP with Shadow Mundus and Axes:

Yeah I figured. Still ends up about the same effective power from tests on build editor. I suppose you are reducing burst potential because you would be lowering the ceiling of your damage for more consistent crits, but since we can't guarantee crits, it's still RNG dependant either way.

With Thief Mundus and Axes this is my stat:

With Daggers and Shadow this is my stat:

This was basically my point, if you had to pick between these 2 options, go daggers + shadow (although I know you prefer axes + shadow). Axes + thief has the same crit chance and crit damage, but it's missing 11% crit healing. Axes aren't well designed, in ZOS infinite wisdom they nerfed it for no reason despite daggers, swords and maces "double dipping".

Yea I know Vigor copies the healing from which ever bar it was casted on. I put Hardened Ward on front bar because this build heals from being offensive. Vigor is usually only top 4-5 of my healing:



Basically, the way I play this build is similar to a magsorc. I'm front loading all damage on front bar and heal off Crit Surge + Blood Magic + Pale Order, and only Vigor when I need the extra heal. Most of the time I don't even use it lol. The shield is there for when I need a cushion against burst or DoTs. This is why I can sustain Blood 4 Blood spam even without Pale Order, cause the offensive healing is so much.

So if your aim is to be more offensive, and you're not really keeping up the Vigor hot, then have you considered just trading the 2 skills functionality?

Yeah you miss out on the buffer to the health it offers, but based on your build, it shows you have a decent 38k HP and Wards tooltip is only just under 8.8k. Vigor ticks 6 times over 5s, your tooltip is 20.5k with it on front bar, so 3.4k a second that can crit to 6.4k.

Just based on value per cast Vigor is providing next to triple the value for much less cost. It is over time so you can't spam cast it like you can Ward for more bursty defence, can't argue that, but I suppose you could just rely on Dark Deal for that. They basically have the same tooltip as each other with a 1.5k Mag cost difference. Not fullproof conversion because of the cast time, but similar, just thinking out loud.

That Vigor tooltip is not far off from being a Ward that reapplies itself once every 2 seconds for 6 seconds, except Vigor only costs 2.5k Stam, instead of Wards 4k Mag.

With the mag sustain you save, you could even swap Blood for Blood to Arterial Burst, again, increasing your healing. For your build it deals 300 more tooltip damage, 75% damage bonus swaps to 33% based on missing health, but under 50% it now guarantees a crit, which based on everything you're going for, seems to synergize much better than the damage bonus differences since you heavily invested into crit damage.

Just seems like you'd end up with very similar offensive/defensive capabilities, while being able to sustain better since Ward costs a frick ton, potentially frees up a skill slot or you can just keep Ward for those oh *** moments on back bar.

Sorry if this all seems nitpicky, just theory crafting with you for fun. I'm sure the build works great either way and is just a difference in playstyle. Since you think you have enough healing, relying on Ward makes sense.

Frankly I've never fully tried a Blood for Blood or Arterial Burst build yet since hybridization. Before hybridization, I used to theory craft using it for a Melee Mag Sorc with a staff+2h sword, basically a hybrid. At the time it was pretty weak because it had to use sets like Shacklebreaker, I bet it's super fun to play now that everything works so well together. I feel like Arterial Burst has such good synergy with Sorc because of the guaranteed crits.

I actually used to run an arterial burst melee magsorc build in U33, DW front, resto back, it was honestly some of the most fun I have ever had on magsorc in PvP in such a long time.

The build was front bar NMA, back bar wretched, it had good damage and a lot of healing from the offensive heals + blessings.

Front bar was curse, arterial burst, frags, vigor, streak, overload
back bar was radiating, blessings, RaT, hurricane, crit surge, resto ult.

I miss that build, it got hit hard by the nerf to resto staff in U34.

Reading how @StaticWave 's build plays I'm tempted to give something similar a go again myself actually (reworking it a bit for magsorc). I've been struggling to find a good mythic for sorc, DDF is nice, but falls behind other mythics peak potential and takes too long to get going with the current levels of burst from NB, SSC is nice, but I'm not liking the snare outside of my stamden, might try pale order for the additional healing.

Yea, vamp spammable is pretty underrated imo. Sorc's probably one of the best classes to use it. Idk how you'd build your magsorc. You'd probably have to go max HP I think

yeah, it will definitely be max health, not entirely sure yet, but I'm going to tinker around with a few sets to see what I can come up with.

Rhaegar75

stick to the typical proc sorc: Marselok, Vateshran, Master DW and whatever 5pc set you want (Appetite, WoF). It's the current *** proc meta

Many Sorcs I find in BGs use this setup: it can generate a lot of damage but fragile in the wrong hands.