Do you use elemental drain? light attack + force shock = 4 ticks of mag return
Do you clip light attacks with force shock?
Do you use dark conversion to restore magicka?
With max magicka/spellpower, spellpower pots on cooldown, elemental drain with light attack/force shock, and mages wrath execute, you should be able to pull 800-900 single target.

SirEwan wrote: »

I was wondering if anyone had some tips to raise my Sorcerer's DPS for Trials and general End Game VR12 Gameplay.

Right now I can sustain at least 500DPS in Single Target encounters such as bosses in Trials. At times, my DPS peaks at 800-900 single target but this is vary rare, usually only in the execute phase using Spell Power Potions, and Mage's Wrath.

Im currently doing everything to increase my DPS. I have 49.8% Crit chance and 130 spell damage. Staffs enchanted to refund magicka. Experimened with restoration staffs for the increased damage. No luck really. What am I missing here?

Anyone have any tips / builds for sustaining at least 800 Single Target DPS?

Thanks!

The only way get anywhere close to 1k or above dps is to invest in the destruction tree, more specifically Force shock. Using only Sorc skills, they hit hard, but have low dps.
This is because Sorc's main damage dealing spells all have either cast time, or a duration before damage applied. I did a video here where i peaked at 1.2k and sustained around 1k, but there is a better option. Replacing the twilight with shards and using Force shock to proc the shards instant cast.

Other than that, there is no way to hit and sustain 1k dps with only using Sorc's spells

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXEmTcdGLTQ

The following link contains a very detailed guide to sorcerer dps:

http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/tripwyrs-sorcerer-a-high-dps-trial-oriented-sorcerer-build/

The guide is not well contained however. It is a discussion amongst several sorcerers over time experimenting with different abilities. It may take some time, but reading through the entire thread, you can see that they have a lot of insight about sorcerer dps. It should ne noted that the crystal oriented dps guide in the first post of that link is not the conclusion that they arrive at for achieving the maximum dps.

The basic set up which they arrive at is as follows. (This is for single target dps)

A destruction staff, and a restoration staff on your other bar. Build is crit orientated, and aim for 60% spell crit rating (this may require the cyrodiil campaign buffs). You're jewelry would have spell potion cooldown reduction glyphs. If you are lacking potions to be able to use them on cooldown, replace these with either spell cost reduction or weapon damage glyphs. Weapon damage glyphs will only be a minor help, as you will be maintaining critical surge at all times (the weapon caps have just been raised in 1.3.3 so weapon glyphs may now have a more substantial effect).

*This part is not in the link, but is my opinion regarding the new sets arriving in patch 1.3.3. Use the 4 set piece bonus from the V12 light of cyrodil set obtained from the elite PvP vendor in Cyrodiil (this set includes rings, gaining 2 additional set item slots over crafted gear). Use the 3 set piece bonus from the twilights embrace set, and the 3 set piece bonus from the willows path set. Usually it is recommended that you spend all your attribute points on HP. However, with the new raised caps, and the fact that the twilights embrace 2 piece set bonus is an additional 118 HP, you could probably spend a few attribute points in Magicka. Put Magicka glyphs on all your armour pieces. Infused trait on head, chest and legs, divines on the rest(you cannot place traits on the light of cyrodiil set bonus pieces however, you get what they come with). Weapon glyphs, I would use the magicka return glyph on your destruction staff, and a shock damage glyph on your restoration staff (the reason for the shock damage glyph is that you will be using your restoration staff in the execute phase, so you want to maximize your chances of getting disintegration procurements. Your weapon traits would be precise.

*Ok, back to my summary of the linked guide.

Your main dps weapon is the destruction staff, and the ability set is as follows:

Weapon 1: Flame staff
1) Elemental drain.
2)Crushing Shock. (you can use the alternative morph, but generally I use impulse when there are more than one target, and crushing shock on one target making the other morph redundant. The interrupt from this is also handy)
3)Critical Surge
4)Inner light
5) This requires some discussion, see below*

Ultimate: Flawless Dawnbreaker. Your main damage comes from crushing shock and just having flawless dawnbreaker slotted increases the damage of all weapon abilities (destruction staff included) by 13%.

Weapon 2: restoration staff
1)Endless fury
2)Ultimate generation ability (this used to be siphon spirit, but it now generates no ultimate, I find rapid regeneration an ok choice)
3)Caltrops
4)Inner light
5) critical surge

Ultimate. Usually the Greater storm atronach. Your goal is to keep this up with a 100% up time as much as possible.

*Ok, the 5th slot of the destruction staff, what goes here? This is situational. Usually a magicka sustain ability like spell symmetry. However, with potion cooldown reduction glyphs on your jewelry, and using potions on cooldown, you won't have magicka sustain issues. In this case, using the restoring twilight can be a good choice if you know it will survive (this rarely happens), it will give an increase of 50 dps. If you cannot use potions on cooldown, then spell symmetry. If using spell symmetry is too dangerous, for example there is persistent raid wide damage, where using spell symmetry could see you killed as you will loose self healing from critical surge for 4 seconds, slotting crystal fragments here is an ok magicka sustain option. Wait, what did I say Yes, if you use crystal fragments on every proc, it's magicka cost is halved, and the animation even for the instant cast crystal fragments is longer than usual. It is actually a dps loss to use crystal fragments on procurement, because you have base spell damage in this build, and it disturbs your light attack - crushing shock rotation, but it does conserve magicka.

Ok the basic rotation. Keep caltrops up at all times. This ability has a very high damage per execute time. It only does slight damage every tick, but it lasts for 30 seconds, and the overall damage is worth it. It will also help with magicka recovery if someone (possibly you) is keeping siphon spirit on your target. It ticks every second, so siphon spirit will grant you magicka every second. Activate critical surge then apply elemental drain on your target (doing it in this order I believe should allow them to expire almost simultaneously, as critical surge lasts a bit longer than elemtal drain) and light attack -crushing shock weave. You will need to weapon switch when you have generated enough ultimate to activate your storm atronach. Each time you weapon switch, using rapid regeneration will help gain ultimate over time. Elemental drain and critical surge as well as caltrops need to be re-applied when they expire. When your target drops to 20% HP, switch to your restoration staff and use light attack + endless fury. The reason for using a restoration staff on your other bar is for the 10% bonus damage you get from cycle of life that will increase the damage of both your caltrops and the execution of endless fury.

There are other situational builds for bosses with large hit boxes that can achieve much higher dps than the above build. They work around daedric minefield, but this is a bit more difficult. I personally have not had much success with the daedric minefield build.

Advo wrote: »

First off that vid, is outdated as of patch 1.3.
A couple of things to keep in mind when trying to increase dps of destruction staff skills is, as its a weapon skill line its damage scales off stamina and weapon damage but still uses spell crit. Sustain is easier to obtain in trials if you have someone running Siphon Spirit(resto staff skill) gives back more magicka.

As far as I know, the destruction staff scales of Magicka and Weapon damage. Your light/heavy attacks will scale of stamina however.