1.6 Veteran Redguard Sorcerer, is it salvagable?

Hocofaisan · February 2015

This character is my crafter so I cannot delete them, and they need to be viable enough to get to the various crafting stations throughout the game.
I am also wanting to stay stamina based, as I am a redguard whose bonuses only apply to melee and stamina based builds.

I am overwhelmed by the amount of Stamina Sorcerer hits that took place during the 1.6 testing and I am feeling hopeless in trying to fix this character.
Would anyone be willing to provide me with a good starting place for skills my 2H/DW/Bow (i have these skills leveled) Medium Armor Sorcerer should take?

Is my reality, DW, Bow, and/or 2HW standard picks and:

SORCERER:
Dark Magic-Dark Deal
Daedric--Bound Armaments+Twilight/Clanfear (for solo)
Storm Summoning- Ball of lightning+Critical Surge

How can I even afford to use all those Magicka powers as a Stamina Build in a game where the devs have effectively killed Hybrid build viablility?

I would appreciate any help getting pointed in a direction that can salvage this character.

Hocofaisan · February 2015

Can you edit posts?

I wanted to add: Dark Deal isn't viable at all Imo... a 4 second maintain in late game content is effectively useless.

Snit · February 2015

ZOS posted yesterday that they intend to do something about stamina sorcs someday. They didn't indicate what or when, other than to say it's not now. They're focused on Tamriel Unlimited, etc.

That said, if your only goal is to get to crafting stations, you should have no real problems. Two-Handers + Medium Armor are incredibly powerful in 1.6. Sorcs make the worst stamina classes, but I can't imagine you'd have trouble navigating Tamriel with one. You may have to address magicka regeneration by adding in some regen armor (Seducer, etc), or perhaps by switching from Food to Drink. But you should be fine.

Sheuib · February 2015

I wouldn't worry about it to much. I have a stam sorc wood elf and I do not have any problems with dps. The only big hit the stam sorc really took was lose of a good portion of the healing from critical surge. However, you can make a lot of that up with the rally morph to momentum in the 2 hand line.

I did eventually drop the pet and basically only use magicka for a few buffs so never have any issues with running out of magicka. I am looking forward to getting vigor on my sorc then I am sure my healing will have no problems at all.

Basically, your a stamina character so focus on the stamina abilities. On my bow bar I run surge and 4 bow abilities. On my 2 hand bar I run lightning form with the increased duration morph, which is even better in 1.6, and the rest are 2 hand abilities. Cleave, reverse slash, and momentum always and just vary with the last one.

Oh and just in case anyone reading this didn't know you can recast rally, the healing morph to momentum, and it counts as the end of the current rally and gives you the heal. So yes I will spam that and cleave with the bubble morph when things get rough.

Surge will still be good for the dps buff just won't get all the healing you had before. So still worth it I think. Especially when you are sniping with the bow.

I did originally have venom arrow and focused aim but I found that I was doing better with poison injection and lethal arrow. Especially for PVP where you do not have a lot of cast times to interrupt but there is a lot of healing that needs to be reduced.

I will probably work in evil hunter with 1.6. From what I have read I am thinking I should have it but I just haven't gotten a chance to try it out yet. I will probably drop one of my bow abilities.

Hocofaisan · February 2015

Thanks both. Didn't see the Sorcerer comments from the dev till this evening, and they give me heart.
Going to follow your advice Sheiub.

Armitas · February 2015

Sorc soloing an AA raid boss. Should give you a lot of hope

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-me-ksl_gD0

Mricci1988 · February 2015

Armitas wrote: »

Sorc soloing an AA raid boss. Should give you a lot of hope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-me-ksl_gD0

WTF HOW??

Surfinginhawaii · February 2015

Armitas wrote: »

Sorc soloing an AA raid boss. Should give you a lot of hope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-me-ksl_gD0

That was pretty damn awesome, great job!

andy_s · February 2015

This is a video of mine with full champion system. I believe it is not needed to have all 3600 points, and there is a amount of points when you can play ESO as a single player game, which is sad, assuming next pve content is not coming soon...

But I'm glad you liked it, so here is another one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPKhn5TZGII

Erock25 · February 2015

@andy.s Were you doing this before or after they made it so Brawler wouldn't stack with itself from multiple uses?

Either way, I wouldn't look at these videos and say stamina sorc is okay. He is using a very specialized sustain build with constant spamming of a shield proc ability with very low DPS. It isn't a viable build unless you are doing what he is doing.

At this point we can only wait and look to this post as hope.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

In the current state on 1.6, stamina sorc is pretty awful. They lost all of their advantages over other stam classes (mainly that we could stack weapon dmg higher than anyone else) and also gained literally zero benefits with our stamina morphs while other classes did.

andy_s · February 2015

Erock25 wrote: »

@andy.s Were you doing this before or after they made it so Brawler wouldn't stack with itself from multiple uses?

Brawler works as intended here. Combined with critical surge it makes sorc immortal on packs of mobs.

For single target dps with a healer in group there is a Wrecking Blow skill, and sorcs can do ~15k dps as any other class with 2handed build (overload ulti hits hard). One of the HODOR members promised to make a video for each class

Personally I don't care which build is the best, I will just use it, but I find it strange that 1 button builds (wrecking blow spam) are gonna be more effective than more complicated rotations of magicka abilities with less armor and resists.

Erock25 · February 2015

andy.s wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

@andy.s Were you doing this before or after they made it so Brawler wouldn't stack with itself from multiple uses?

Brawler works as intended here. Combined with critical surge it makes sorc immortal on packs of mobs.

For single target dps with a healer in group there is a Wrecking Blow skill, and sorcs can do ~15k dps as any other class with 2handed build (overload ulti hits hard). One of the HODOR members promised to make a video for each class

Personally I don't care which build is the best, I will just use it, but I find it strange that 1 button builds (wrecking blow spam) are gonna be more effective than more complicated rotations of magicka abilities with less armor and resists.

Brawler works nice with Crit Surge but immortal is a stretch and this only really helps you in certain content. You are frequently getting surge heals for 200-400 HP which basically don't do anything. Also I believe you have been playing 3600 CP too long because you can't sustain Brawler without throwing in a lot of heavy attacks.

Wrecking Blow certainly is an issue currently but my point is that every other class has bonuses to their stam build, be it better sustain or weapon dmg passives or better active buffs, while Sorc basically gets nothing. Rally > Crit Surge for most content and then stamina Sorc is really only left with Lightning Form.

I mean templars are getting 2k DPS from a passive ability of theirs. Not to mention they have another passive 6% weapon dmg and OH YEAH 2 class skills that are bread and butter to their stamina DPS. Sorc is stuck with 5% stam cost reduction anddddd? Wait is that really it? Is that all that I will have as a Sorc to contribute to my group PVE DPS in stamina build? The horror.

andy_s · February 2015

Developers think: "we gave sorcs an unique cool looking armor, why would they complain?"

Digiman · February 2015

Armitas wrote: »

Sorc soloing an AA raid boss. Should give you a lot of hope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-me-ksl_gD0

OMG that's the video everyone is talking about? So to be effective, have Bound Armor and Crit surge while dumping in the rest with 2 handed while also have 1200 champion points to dump in to solo the first DAEDRIC BOSS that your Fighter Guild Skill line will give you a huge advantage over.

No I am really worried come 1.6 live!

Surfinginhawaii · February 2015

andy.s wrote: »

This is a video of mine with full champion system. I believe it is not needed to have all 3600 points, and there is a amount of points when you can play ESO as a single player game, which is sad, assuming next pve content is not coming soon...

But I'm glad you liked it, so here is another one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPKhn5TZGII

I enjoyed this video also, never really thought stamina build sorc but you obviously make it work. Are you wearing heavy armor and what skill is the green man on your bar? Thanks!

Elloa · February 2015

This discussion was very interesting as I planed to resurect my Sorcerer Redguard aswell.
I tried a bow-2hander build on the PTS, and I had tons of funs!

Here is a short video of me discovering and testing that new build with a premade Khajiit Sorcerer (I only placed 30 Champion point to keep it fair in each constellation). At 8min52 doing a dark anchor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqvU-bLxWb4&list=UUsjC7Aj5HVbnf63BbqsFfQw

andy_s · February 2015

Surfinginhawaii wrote: »

I enjoyed this video also, never really thought stamina build sorc but you obviously make it work. Are you wearing heavy armor and what skill is the green man on your bar? Thanks!

The green skill is a new pvp stamina healing. As for gear, most sets will work as long a they provide weapon crit (it should be around 40-50%), because critical hits heal you. I think I had hunding's rage (5x medium armor) + dreugh king slayer (amulet + 2 heavy parts) + master 2h sword on that video.