You can get to 57% quite easy once you're vr12. I have 3x Aether (8% spell crit), 3x soulshine jewerly (4% spell crit) and 3x Twilight (4% spell crit), 6% spell crit on staff plus undaunted 2-set. I like the engine guardian but you can go daedroth or nerien for extra damage. And I use the thief mundus stone for 5% extra crit.

Armor sets: 22%
Light armor passives: 10%
Inner light: 20%
Thief: 5%

Total: 57% spell crit

then survivability skill because sorc are so weak in hit point ?

There might be some confusion regarding pve and pvp builds. Pve builds work great with spell crit, they dont work well in pvp because everyone has high crit resistance and surviving is more important.

For pve I would advise high spell crit with crit surge for extra damage and self heals. The well known crushing shock build works really well.

For pvp I would advise high magicka cost reduction and spell damage build. You need sword and board for defensive posture imo. In big groups I use a destro staff for aoe damage, in small groups or solo i use a resto staff for self helaing. I have seducer + arch mage + cyrodiil's light sets. Deltia has a good pvp sorc build called revamped frag out or something.

encase or rune prison = +15% crit

What would one recommend to build spell damage as opposed to spell crits ?
Is spell dmage better than spell crits ? or do they work together beter as opposed to individual builds of spell damage and spell crit

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Encase is not very useful in my experience. For the magicka cost I rather use 2 more impulse for more aoe damage.

Different playstyles. Encase is may be best CC for large area cover. I prefer to keep up shattering prison and elemental blockade and sometimes thundering presence casting elemental ring eventually then to use pure impulse spam. Cause after nerf impulse covers rather small area. And if your magika gets low you can use only shattering prison and elemental blockade and have time for heavy attacks so your magika is endless.

MADshadowman wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

WhiteTigre wrote: »

What would one recommend to build spell damage as opposed to spell crits ?
Is spell dmage better than spell crits ? or do they work together beter as opposed to individual builds of spell damage and spell crit

Right now spell damage doesnt affect destro staff skills, this changes in update 1.6 btw. But destro staff does scale off spell crit so spell crit is currently the best way to increase dps with destro staff. Spell damage is better for pvp because many people have high crit resistance and you can rely on burst damage instead of sustained dps.

When update 1.6 goes live, there will be a balance between spell damage and spell crit because destro staff uses both to calculate its damage. High spell damage also gives higher critical hit damage so you probably should have both. Right now you need 3 spell damage or 2% spell crit to increase damage by 1%.

This is not true. Max magicka and spell power have quite some influence on destro and resto staff abilities. Plus they boost your class spells, so it's overall better to go for a high max magicka and spell power instead of weapon damage.

Nope. Spell damage as of right now has ZERO effect of destruction and restoration staff abilities. None. Until 1.6, these abilities are tied to weapon power.

MADshadowman wrote: »

Your 60% will not give you more crit hits than normal hits on targets with impen, which is very widely spread in cyrodiil. In pve this might work, but i can easily pull 1200-2000 dps with only 10% crit chance in pve too. I prefer spell power over crit chance cause i want my spells to hit hard no matter if they crit or not.

Like stated before, spell crit is for pve. Spell power for pvp due to the inpenetrable trait. When I say dps I'm talking about single target sustained dps for longer than 60 seconds, not 6 target aoe burn all magicka type dps. There is no way you do 1200 dps single target with 10% spell crit for 60 seconds. Your class spells hit hard with a lot of spell power true, but weapon skills like destro staff abilities arent affected by spell power in any way.

Why do you think crit surge increases destro staff damage when it increases weapon power? And why would people use the flawless dawnbreaker ultimate which passively increases weapon damage by 13%?

Here is some proof I actually know what I'm talking about, my single target dps (1167 dps) and aoe dps (2786 dps).

Dracane wrote: »

And you totall forget, that you can't crit against blocking targets or targets with damage shields, no matter how high your crit chance is. So spell damage is better here.

Because bosses in dungeons and trails are always blocking and have a damage shield up? You can have 1000 spell damage but if you only have 50 weapon damage your destro staff abilities will hardly do any damage.

Please show your damage (single target damage for 60 seconds) staticitcs with spell damage build to prove me wrong.

@Septimus_Magna‌: I see no light attacks in your FTC report. You need to learn how to weave/animation cancel, that would significantly increase your DPS. Also, try power surge instead of critical surge, you'll see a large improvement quickly as well.

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

And you totall forget, that you can't crit against blocking targets or targets with damage shields, no matter how high your crit chance is. So spell damage is better here.

Because bosses in dungeons and trails are always blocking and have a damage shield up? You can have 1000 spell damage but if you only have 50 weapon damage your destro staff abilities will hardly do any damage.

Please show your damage (single target damage for 60 seconds) staticitcs with spell damage build to prove me wrong.

I'm only talking about pvp and regular damage.
Only uncapable fools can't sustain in PvE.