Sorcerer build PVP/PVE

Kellso

I'm currently leveling my Breton Sorcerer but it's been difficult.
Right now i'm not sure which skills to pick and I find it hard to stay alive in light armor.
So I was hoping that someone had a simple sorcerer build or some tips for me?
I am using staff's only at the moment, is that viable enough the further I get into the game ?

Thanks in advance.

Grengoshi

I have been putting points into crystal shard... destruction wall, encase and lighting.
crystal shard is your strongest hitter make sure you morph it to multiple NPC. with encase morph it so it does an extra 4 sec snare... and then level the destruction wall based off that... This allows you to take on multiple opponents at once... the reason you want to do this is because most mobs are bundled together.

FYI i could have given the worst advice possible but this is what i have been using.

Bunzaga_ESO

What faction are you on? If you are in Daggerfall, msg me in game and I'll give you some advice

LadyChaos

I played sorc in beta and launch and I started out similar except I have skipped the deadric line on launch for now. I will be leveling it up though to get the armor buff etc...

LvL 15. Altmer, 11 points in magica rest in health. I'm going back to magica, I just kept hitting soft cap I wanted to take advantage of more survivability. Getting all the racials as they open.

Lightning line is my primary focus both pve and pvp. I live by mage fury and overload, adding lighting form and just recently the ae, 3rd one down. I have 3 points in the passives, plan to put couple more in later levels. I'm going to get the teleport for lightning but I think that's it after that.

I put points into light armor for regen and magica and plan to use the 5 peice bonus set also for more damge.

I'm using only wall of ele in the staff line but ive put some points into the passives also.

I use crystal for pve and not much in PvP but I want to get the power conversion ability down the road so I'm trying to level it up. I've also used the 1st passive in dark magic, but that's it.

I use blood alter like crazy from undaunted line, and the speed boost from PvP assault line, they are always on my bar.

Everything else i use is situational or for leveling the line.

I focused on killing it/him/them before they get me mentality of Light Armor casting. I get owned when jumped by something that can stun in a 1v1 but never in PvE. In pvp I am very happy with both siege and defense and contribution to the group via dps/heals. I try not to get hit but if they get close I find overcharge and spammed lightnings tend to mix nicely, but no claiming a 1v1 against anything that gets a stun on me ends well. No stun power and like I I said.. I walk into a 1v1 fight knowing one of us is going down in 5-8 casts or less...

This is only my way. I hope it helps

landdeld

Hi, I know this sounds totally n00bish, but I need to know it. What line of skills for sorc is dps or, like WOW, are they all dps but for different things? Also, if I'm in the wrong place sorry but this was the closest thread I could find to my question. Thanks.

melimoo22

I dunno how to build mine either. Mine seems to die really easily

LadyChaos

all 3 are dps/cc/defense but in different ways with a survivability ability like armor or CC in each one.

1. Dark magic is "the big nuke" but mostly CC (root), power/health conversion from STA, and debuff in rest of line (actives)
2. Summoning is 2 pets that you trade max magica to use, debuff and Armor
3. Lightning is Insta-cast DD, 2 AE damage (1 is small DD and the armor buff for line) and a teleport

You do not have to go down one path soley you can pick an chose from each, and using the passives in each line to guide how much mixing and matching is worth it to your play style. No one is better/worse IMO they are situational.

You can be a solo pet caster but a nuker in raid or an insta caster or DOT in PvP... you can be whatever form of DPS you like without being stuck with it 24/7 for the next how many years you play

Spacefiddle

If you're leveling a sorc and questing / exploring, there's a couple things to focus on first that I've found work really well:

1. Crystal Shard. This is your opener, because it has a long cast time and knocks things down. You don't want to be standing there making swirly-hands while something is eating your face.
2. Mage's Fury. This is your finisher. I see people opening with this, and spamming it, and then running around while something is nipping at their heels. You don't want to do that either. It does very little damage until the target is at low health; and at low health, it's a nice instant nuke. There is absolutely no good way to see when something is at "low health" and the shrink-to-middle graphic makes it hard to estimate a percent, but you'll get used to guesstimating over time. Later on, you can make killing blows refund mana with it. Use it on when you're pretty sure it's going to kill.
3. Destructive Touch, and later Clench, with (for me) a Fire Staff. I call this Sorcerer Golf. You may have seen it. Something gets close, you yell FORE and knock it away a good bit (and when you morph it to Clench, stun it there on the ground for a few seconds).

So now you have one knockdown, one knockback, and a killshot. Open with Crystal, zot it with your left-mouse staff (i see no major difference between one heavy move and several light, honestly - later you can get skills that will make this matter, but it doesn't right now), and when it gets close Destro Touch it away from you again. If it's low health, Fury it to death. If it isn't, then start casting Crystal as SOON as you knock it into the air. If that doesn't kill it outright, zot it to death with Fury or, if low mana, your staff. If you think it might get close again, use the staff attack so mana regens then Destro Touch / Clench it away again.

This pretty simple rotation / priority will annihilate 90% of anything in PvE trying to eat your face while questing, if they try to melee you.

If it's a ranged mob, sidestep things like the imp's fire lines and circles (good practice for Not Standing In Bad) and try to alternate Crystal with staff shots, to keep it on the ground. Remember you can move while casting, but slower, so account for this while dodging badness. Again, practice using Fury as a killshot.

This is not really for pvp, but if you're having trouble leveling and questing as a Sorc, this "stay the hell away from me" system will probably make life a little more easy and a LOT more fun.

FORE

edit: many silly typos

LadyChaos

I use crystal more for the knockdown/cc.. and yes the opener on something tough myself.. but I use mage fury unless I need the CC of crystal. I'm totally that kind of jumper you hate with the lightning lol.

This is what I meant by the passives playing a part in deciding which ones you want to focus. If you have reduced power costs for lightning and increased damage for lightning and increased damage for shock... casting lightning 5 times and don't have to stand still or keep facing target, you get to combat roll keeping close to target bringing the lightning... at a far lower magic cost per dps.

also fury can be morphed to do second strike if target drops to low health in 4s from casting it... so 4 strikes he could be dead with the passives

But if you put the points into dark magic passives then for sure crystal beat mage fury hands down as a big nuke. I just don't have Dark magic passives so I use my lightning more for DPS. But ... less survivability if things go wrong is tradeoff.

in PvE the crystal shard imo is clutch on the bar for survivability agree though even if you use it as CC primarily lol.

lynzriches

I've been doing well solo-ing by myself so far (Level 12 Altmer sorc), however last night I joined a group to do Spindleclutch and found myself dying pretty easily, especially on the end boss.

Is there any benefit/penalty to using medium armor? I was thinking of asking my crafting guild to see if someone can craft me a set of medium armor. Right now I'm just using a mix of light/medium that I've found in various places.

I'm also a crafter so I haven't put ALL my points into my sorc build so I know that's affecting me but I'm still hoping I can continue to join in dungeons with this toon.

Pyatra

lynzriches wrote: »

I've been doing well solo-ing by myself so far (Level 12 Altmer sorc), however last night I joined a group to do Spindleclutch and found myself dying pretty easily, especially on the end boss.

Is there any benefit/penalty to using medium armor? I was thinking of asking my crafting guild to see if someone can craft me a set of medium armor. Right now I'm just using a mix of light/medium that I've found in various places.

I'm also a crafter so I haven't put ALL my points into my sorc build so I know that's affecting me but I'm still hoping I can continue to join in dungeons with this toon.

Make sure you have a point or two in the light armor passive that gives you spell resistance... that should help keep you kicking against any spell or long range attacks from mobs. I'm going with heavy/light mix so I have passives that up my damage mitigation from both magic and physical... helps a lot.

LadyChaos

lynzriches wrote: »

I've been doing well solo-ing by myself so far (Level 12 Altmer sorc), however last night I joined a group to do Spindleclutch and found myself dying pretty easily, especially on the end boss.

Is there any benefit/penalty to using medium armor? I was thinking of asking my crafting guild to see if someone can craft me a set of medium armor. Right now I'm just using a mix of light/medium that I've found in various places.

I'm also a crafter so I haven't put ALL my points into my sorc build so I know that's affecting me but I'm still hoping I can continue to join in dungeons with this toon.

IMO if you are beefing up armor class for survivability I would go heavy > Med unless you Melee or use a lot of sta skills. Med armor boost mele attacks and stamina users, Heavy is physical mitigation king and light is the magic regen/spell resist/magic damage choice

I am running full light armor for PvP and PvE Adventuring, but now working back to get 2-3 heavy pieces in for dungeons for this very point you bring up.

LadyChaos

lynzriches wrote: »

I've been doing well solo-ing by myself so far (Level 12 Altmer sorc), however last night I joined a group to do Spindleclutch and found myself dying pretty easily, especially on the end boss.

Is there any benefit/penalty to using medium armor? I was thinking of asking my crafting guild to see if someone can craft me a set of medium armor. Right now I'm just using a mix of light/medium that I've found in various places.

I'm also a crafter so I haven't put ALL my points into my sorc build so I know that's affecting me but I'm still hoping I can continue to join in dungeons with this toon.

IMO if you are beefing up armor class for survivability I would go heavy > Med unless you Melee or use a lot of sta skills. Med armor boost mele attacks and stamina users, Heavy is physical mitigation king and light is the magic regen/spell resist/magic damage choice

I am running full light armor for PvP and PvE Adventuring, but now working back to get 2-3 heavy pieces in for dungeons for this very point you bring up.

rhubbert_ESO

Kellso wrote: »

I'm currently leveling my Breton Sorcerer but it's been difficult.
Right now i'm not sure which skills to pick and I find it hard to stay alive in light armor.
So I was hoping that someone had a simple sorcerer build or some tips for me?
I am using staff's only at the moment, is that viable enough the further I get into the game ?

Thanks in advance.

Here is my Sorceror build:
Current:
http://tinyurl.com/lmhllwm
Planned:
http://tinyurl.com/pqjuxcc

It is a lot of fun and super-effective despite being non-conventional

LadyChaos

so as an experiment I rolled with all heavy army yesterday to see how much more survivability got me for the magics loss of light armor. I can say I'm never wearing heavy armor again now lol. I died soooooo much it was humiliating and unbearable at a couple point. I only had enough magica to cast 4-5 spells at full power and it took forever to refill the magic pool in between fights mobs respawned for I was ready for another major attack. The amount of extra times I could be hit was significant, but then I just didn't have the magic to finish the job and fights go to long I get re-spawns or just very inefficient.

I put my cottons back on and went back out.... I had enough magica at full to spam cast until 2 mobs dead.. 8-12+ spells per mob, then its completely regened before hit the next group... No were near as painful from my point of view. My hats off to you metal wearing casters... I did not enjoy it. I can see mixing in 2-3 pieces without sacrificing too much magic and DPS IMO.

(this is in response to previous comment about armor choices for beefing up)

Master_Quack14b14_ESO

At low levels the pets seem good but they don't scale. After about level 20 they are not really that good (and reduces max mana).

You should definitely use a Frost Destro Staff for Destructive Reach. The root makes killing things a breeze!

My rotation is Elemental Drain -> Destructive Reach (Frost) -> Velocious Curse -> Crystal Fragments (Instant Cast at this point) -> Endless Fury (As needed....) and Overload for the ultimate ability.

This rotation has allowed me to consistently mow through things 5-8 levels higher.

I also only use light armor with all of the abilities that I can put points into up to my current level. I am also a High Elf with all the Race specific abilities maxed for my level plus Unholy Knowledge and Capacitor. I also recommend enchanting rings/necklace with mana cost reduction. At level 21 I feel with the spell cost reduction/regen buff/large mana pool/ability mana return, that I can chain cast all of the time and rarely have to use light/heavy attacks unless I pull 3+ mobs.

Memnock

This is a simple build that you can use while lvling , and with the morfed abilities listed there , you can have an option for most of the situations you could encounter while lvling , of course , as you progress and get more experience you will see what exactly fits with your taste of approaching situations I would Having Unstable Familiar , on your first bar , so you can level all the Sorc skill lines , in order to get Velocious Curse , then remove it ( pets are... kind of in the way since you can't control them , at least that my view ) and for if you are in a bind, you can swap in the Lightning Form for that extra protection.
As a last note , I used 5 light + 2 Heavy armor pieces for this build , for that extra mitigation

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#cMzze0hMio8hMyM8NNg08AIQI8AIPM8AISz85mNUkD808e7mMaqk6Maqj8H7zMbHm8J7mcziB6IziY8K7bMkg6MzuN6mzun8zc7zzgeXm

PS: i don't know how to make the link smaller , so i apologize for that

LadyChaos

I am wishing I had leveld the summoner line in earlier levels tbh in stead of now as the pets are getting a little squishy.

bagaloko

I play a melee sorcerer with a 2 hander. It's great. I've put points in heavy armor, as well as light and am currently running with 4 pieces of heavy and 3 pieces of light armor. A good way to do this is to pull from ranged, making the melee mobs chase me. When they get close, I swap to the 2hander, and charge the ranged mob. With the charge skill morphed to give extra damage based on distance travelled, most ranged mobs die rather quick, and I can turn around and charge back. In all melee packs, I drop lightning aoe, use the lightning armor and cleave them. The lightning armor, together with the armor skill u can get from the heavy armor skill line, you are damn near unkillable while they last. And if things get hairy, I can always go ranged again, use slows and kite until my health regens a bit (assuming i have killed off all the ranged mobs of course).

I do not know this, but it does seem that if I would put points into 1hand and shield instead of 2hander, I would be able to tank as sorcerer, because I can take a good beating before dying when all defenses are up. I just don't have taunts with 2handers.

Dekkameron

My sorc currently is focusing on Bow/summoning/medium armour.

Fairly standard gameplay, just run around nuking stuff with bow/dark magic skills whilst the pets dps/tank.

It seems fairly good, although i messed up a couple of morphs which i prolly need to sort out.

crislevin

http://tinyurl.com/ksmo6vp

Have two pets ready.

In the beginning, crystal and fury are main attack, normal staff damage is sandwiched in between. Throw in lightening flood for some AoE if possible.

When I began to take damage, swap weapon and add armor, spell resist and knock back. (This part I am still practicing, right now this is a paper idea)

Plan to use bolt escape and dark conversion later.

In a group, let melee guys tank, I would suggest using:

crystal shard, opener
mage fury, finisher
lightening flood, AoE
thunder presence, self preservation
destruction touch, knock back, self preservation

storm atronach/meteor, AoE

Censorious

In PvE the pets are very nice. They hold aggro nicely and prevent the mob getting in your face.
The volatile familiar does nice damage when it dies too.

I find that Crystal Shard is not so useful as it looks. Sure it hits hard but it's a long cast and uses a shedload of magika. If you're running low you can't cast and that's worse than using several lower yield spells rapidly. Bang for magika, it's not so much better anyway.

The curse is a good opener, it gets your pet running for the mob and can be timed to blow as you hit it with a lightning finisher. Soul trap isn't to be sneezed at either, plus it fills a gem (or two - nice!).
Encase earns a place on my bar, if a mob gets away from the pet, I can stop it getting too friendly.
The Destro staff has nice damage, especially the power attack and I often kite with it while waiting for magika regen.

Storm A. is imo the best ultimate - if I ever get a chance to use it. I never attack enough mobs in one go to really need it.

PS. CS is a no-no in PvP, long cast skills are just suicide.

crislevin

Yeah, I only had limited exp with PvP in beta, CS might work if he/she doesn't notice you or is being occupied. Indeed cast time is a great concern. The instant cast morph may help a bit.

In PvP, I will ware heavy armor and put up thunder presence at all time. Pets are useless as players will just try to get you. Use bolt escape immediately if got hit.

There are a lot of sneakers around in there. If you die, it will be a long way to run back to the battle, especially if the transport portal can't be used due to enemy attack of your hold.

ahampelb14_ESO

This is something like what I'm running - at work so no access to the full details

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#cMkrx0AhIV8NNax8wAim8NPXh8NUoH8NUVP85oL7ozdoQr6zdoQF8T7ozrqLw6zrqAi8x7Vqsfr6zwGAR8e7MIaqk8H7RIbHm6zNieT8J7GqziB6MziZ6MziD8K7rqkg6zzun6zANRQ6zANRU847VzxLCe6zxLDm6zxLDo

you won't die that for sure.

mage's wrath once or twice (look for glowing purple hands = instant crystal fragment at half cost) - charge in and start hacking.

looking forward to getting level 15 since I might throw some skills in there for destruction staff

btw i'm wearing heavy 5 light 2

no one says you have to be a cloth caster

ahampelb14_ESO

This is something like what I'm running - at work so no access to the full details

http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#cMkrx0AhIV8NNax8wAim8NPXh8NUoH8NUVP85oL7ozdoQr6zdoQF8T7ozrqLw6zrqAi8x7Vqsfr6zwGAR8e7MIaqk8H7RIbHm6zNieT8J7GqziB6MziZ6MziD8K7rqkg6zzun6zANRQ6zANRU847VzxLCe6zxLDm6zxLDo

you won't die that for sure.

mage's wrath once or twice (look for glowing purple hands = instant crystal fragment at half cost) - charge in and start hacking.

looking forward to getting level 15 since I might throw some skills in there for destruction staff

btw i'm wearing heavy 5 light 2

no one says you have to be a cloth caster

willjones1122

lvl 15 breton
i always have my volitial familiar up, then i open with crystal shard with the morph for aoe, mage fury morph for mana replenishment, soul siphon also morphed for mana/health replenish, and hit with mage fury one last time. 4 spells and everything is basically dead before it gets to me, plus i have a full health bar and pretty close to full mana for the next mob. oh and i run with 2 heavy/5 light armor with points in all the passives i can get. my magika regen is capped as is my spell def. not really sure this would work in PvP, in fact i'm pretty sure i'd get owned, but for questing it works really well have fun, and cheers!

bagaloko

ahampelb14_ESO wrote: »

btw i'm wearing heavy 5 light 2

no one says you have to be a cloth caster

This. I'm was running 5 heavy and 1 light and 1 medium, just to level light and medium too. Now I have changed to 4 heavy and 3 light. That gives me a nice chunk of armor and even more spell resist.

I don't have a single point in Daedric Summoning, since I have always hated pets in MMOs.

But, if I would go all out ranged (currently using 2hander and destro staff), I think I would have stacked light armor, and perhaps some medium for stam regen. As it is now, when I need to kite and go ranged, I am pretty much able to avoid most melee damage, which suggests that all that armor for a pure ranged char is a waste.

bagaloko

But... reading this thread, and seeing how many different ways people are playing one single class... It's awesome. Is there respect ingame? If not, I might have to level more sorcerers, because I already know a whole lot of stuff I want to try out that I've not got on my current one..

ahampelb14_ESO

there's a respec - http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/64941/rededication-shrine-how-to-respec-skills-and-attributes

kowalski_mt

Just going to say it in case some don't know (and I didn't see it in here) you don't have to actually use a skill to level that skill line. The skill only has to be in your cast bar, and when you earn XP that skill line will level up. SO....what I did was put skills like soul magic or summoning in my 5 and 6 slot and let them go along for the ride. That way when I'm high enough in level I'll get to use all three schools and they all seem to have pretty sweet skills high up in the tree.

Just my $.02

gimmethecreepsb14_ESO

Where a lot of sorcs are going to struggle early on is realizing this is not the same as playing a Mage in WoW or a Wizard from EQ1. Sorc doesn't necessarily require you to wear cloth armor and dump all points into magicka and wield a staff. However, if you do want to, that's cool, here's a few tips:

1. Dump your stat points into Health. I know, you've grown up playing games where casters value Magicka over Health. However, in TESO, there is no such thing as AOE tanking (for the most part) and putting points into magicka has no effect on your spell damage, nor does it effect your magicka recovery. You can use 2 abilities from Sorcery (dark exchange, energy overload) to effectively recharge your magicka. You can also increase your magicka recovery and max magicka with armor enchants and food buffs. For each point you put into health, you get 15 max HP. for each point you put in magicka, you get 10 magicka. So it's 33% more efficient to stack health over other stats for stat point allocation.

2. You don't need to run 7 pieces of Light armor. You realistically only need 5 pieces of light armor to maximize the light armor passive buffs. If you're suffering from survivability issues, run 5 piece light, 2 piece heavy. Wear a heavy chest piece and leg piece or shoulders, anything. It'll increase your defense and you'll gain the HP and HP regen passives from heavy armor, as well as resistances, etc.

3. CC's are your best friend. Like I said, this is not like WoW where you stand around, play through your "rotation" and try to move as little as possible. Tanks will not be holding aggro on all mobs that attack. They simply cannot. in beginner instances especially, tanks will be trying to pick up the most damaging enemies to the group, and rely on their CC's and yours to help keep everyone alive. You will be expected to use CC's often and effectively, and it starts in solo play. I generally have more CC's on my hotbars than damaging powers.

4. Dark Magic seems to be the better skill line early on from what I've seen. The CC's increase your survivability and Crystal Shards is probably our most effective skill period. Storm Calling doesn't seem to have the raw DPS that Crystal Shards brings to the table.

5. Movement is EVERYTHING. You will have to kite some enemies, and will have to take away the movement of other enemies. This isn't a game where someone in cloth armor can stand and face-tank a few mobs because unlike in games like WoW, your armor isnt going to give you 4-5 different stat boosts. You'll get eaten alive.