Dual wield Sorc lockdown

exiledtyrant · March 2015

I have a setup that relies on liquid lightning, destructive clench(frost), and wall of elements ( frost) for a fairly large chunk of my damage on my melee sorc but I am having trouble keeping people pinned down when I am ambushed or in small skirmishes. It is less trouble in large scale but when fighting small scale I can't hold anyone down long enough to use my full combo. This is partly due to destructive clench not activating on damage shields. As a sorcerer what hard CC would I have to help set up a combo? Crystal shard won't proc a lot on my build and casting it leaves me to open. Run cage breaks on hit and leaves me open as well. Encase can be dodged to easily and jumped over. I was thinking of trying to use volcanic rune with it's 4 second stun but you can walk out of it before it arms even under a 60% snare.

Maybe a volcanic rune into streak? Streak on it's own isn't enough but the two combined might work. I'm not sure what else I could use.

Snit · March 2015

exiledtyrant wrote: »

Maybe a volcanic rune into streak? Streak on it's own isn't enough but the two combined might work. I'm not sure what else I could use.

Streak is no longer a disorient, but a stun. It now grants CC immunity. I haven't touched Volcanic Rune for a while, but I assume it does, too.

Your best bet is probably Encase. Or perhaps Daedric Tomb (the instant-arming morph), but I've never tried that.

exiledtyrant · March 2015

My problem with encase is it's hard to land. Not only is it narrow but you can literally jump over it and not get rooted. I had a healer earlier this week just bunny hop me while I tried to get them encased. Daedric tomb would be nice if it didn't cost so much and had longer range. 1 missed tomb is like 22% of my magicka. Destructive clench was a great filler for me since its a 6.5 root, but it doesn't work on damage shields.

When you say streak triggers CC immunity does that mean it gives immunity without having to use a CC break? If so that looks like I'll never get volcanic rune to trigger so that's out the window too.

LameoveR · March 2015

exiledtyrant wrote: »

When you say streak triggers CC immunity does that mean it gives immunity without having to use a CC break? If so that looks like I'll never get volcanic rune to trigger so that's out the window too.

Without CC break. You just stun someone and he receives CC immune for 5 sec.
So there will be no knockdown\stun by volc. rune after streak.

Vis · March 2015

Your answer is Defensive Rune.

exiledtyrant · March 2015

what about the rune that doesn't break from dot damage? Anyone know what skills can be used on that? I'm going to do some testing later tonight but any more ideas would be nice.

*************
So pretty neat after testing on the PTS. Rune cage works with a lot of abilities. Abilities that don;t break rune cage include:
Flurry
Soul trap
Liquid lightning
caltrops ( even the one with the initial damage boost)
Thundering presence
entropy
elemental blockade
lightning staff's heavy attack as long as you dont use the final pulse
Soul Assault
Blade cloak
Overload Heavy attack ( channel lightning)
daedric curse before explosion
magicka detonation before explosion

I'll play around with a bit and see if i can get it down to something useable. If I can stay alive long enough to land a rune cage I can definitely strip a shield and setup for clench or a burst combo.v
Definitely dropping destro staff for sword and shield so i can block longer and mitigate more damage. Curse + migcka detonation lead into fire rune is a pretty large hit. I still get the ruffian bonus since it's a stun and i don't have to worry about people rolling out of it if i wasted enough stamina with disorients.

It appears that there is a bug on the PTS shield slam lets you chain disorient but on live shield slam doesn't so it's harder to land rune cages but it should still be doable.

Snit · March 2015

That is some interesting research. If you catch someone out of stamina, Rune Cage + Lighting Splash + Elemental Blockade should be a death sentence. You would have to drain that stam first, though, which means this would work best on casters.

exiledtyrant · March 2015

I think i could drain the stam regardless simply because I can chain disorients. If you don't break it I can just Dot the victim to about 50% hp and unload on them with a dual wield burst combo. If they do break out i just turtle them with shield until they are set up for another combo. Not to mention dawnbreaker and soul assault are both 85 Ultimate abilities thanks to power stone. I see definite potential.

The big combo is rune cage > liquid lightning > magicka detonation > velonious curse > fire rune. That is well over 15k damage thanks to the empower before even critting. I'm a hybrid using torugs so my melee attacks do almost almost 1.4k combined damage for light attacks I should be getting them to around 2k combined at VR 14 + 35% from ruffian and slaughter passives. I'll use liquid lightning + entropy until i get magicka detonation though.

cschwingeb14_ESO · March 2015

If you have someone rune caged and they can't break it you've already won and can kill them any number of ways. It doesn't even have to be the dot-allowing cage.

If someone isn't blocking then magicka/prox det, curse, frag and overload-light will kill them with enough spell damage. Have these skills on your overload bar with lightning flood to wear down a shield. Your other 2 bars can be dedicated to survival and stam drain

Sadly, it's a 5.8 second setup for damage, so getting interrupted by another person is pretty likely

exiledtyrant · March 2015

I am finding it works in smaller fights better and is way harder in large scale. There is definite setup and and pacing that needs to be going on to pull it off.

kokoandshinb14a_ESO · March 2015

...how is any of this info relevant to dual wield?

I opened up the thread in hopes of reasing about a sorc stam build that has become viable, and that by using dw, sorcs can somehow lock down oponnents.

exiledtyrant · March 2015

Why would you think duel wield could lock down opponents on it's own? It has literally 0 hard CC and even it's snares are weaker than other offered weapon lines. Rune cage is looking like the best bet so far with its cheap price and long range. Immobilize would be nice if roll dodging wasn't so abundant, and they were actually easy to hit but they aren't. At least with rune cage you can force a CC break that cost a lot of stamina vs build not specifically built for it.