PVP Sorc Build, need help

Jules · April 2015

Imma preface this by saying I’m a pretty nooby PVP player. I’ve spent most of my time in PVE but am starting to get into PVP more lately. I've been reading up on some builds and talked to some people about skills/ect but wanted to see what else I could learn. Doesn’t seem to be too too much information out there about PVP sorcs, atleast I didn’t find more than a couple people talking about it.

Current set up listed below
Some skills are in parenthesis because I’m unsure which is better.

BAR 1 - DESTRO
Shattering Prison (/Daedric Mines)
Crystal Fragments
Force pulse (/Destructive Reach)
Velocious Curse
Mages Wrath
ULT: Greater Storm Atronach

BAR 2 - RESTO
Hardened Ward
Ball of Lightning
Harness Magicka
Immovable Brute (/Shuffle)
Healing Ward
ULT: Power Overload

OVERLOAD BAR
Hardened Ward
Ball of Lightning
Degeneration
Velocious Curse
Mages Wrath

GEAR
-5 light / 1 medium / 1 heavy for undaunted mettle passive
-All enchanted with magicka
-5 warlock / 5 seducer (also tested out 5 warlock, 5 whitestrake)
-Jewelry enchanted with spell cost reduction x3
-Staves enchanted with fire dmg

MUNDUS
The Tower, for increased stam, always running low.
~ 22k health / 26k magicka / 16k stam

Biggest weakness is definitely lack of stam. I get stuck in talons/petrify/ect and stunned unable to do anything. Trouble is that speccing more into stam means less magicka and less damage. This is the catch 22 I’m trying to sort out.

Any input for improvement would be greatly appreciated! Also appreciated, links to builds/ discussions I might’ve not come across. Thanks in advance

ToRelax · April 2015

I would suggest Crushing Shock over Force Pulse, but either will do if you can not change because of your PvE...

What's the point in Immovable? Shuffle offers far better defense, and since you have stamina problems, Boundless Storm may be a better option as well.

2 abilities that are good but not necessary are Endless Fury and Harness Magicka - use them if you are comfortable with it.

What are you doing with Velocious Curse on your Overload bar? Really curious, what it's for? I would devote that slot to something you don't have to cast very often, that doesn't find a place on your main bars but you'd still like to use, like Minefield or Defensive Rune.

Why is Degeneration on your Overload bar only? You need the spell damage buff for Overload but not on your destro bar, with all those offensive spells?

If you have stamina problems you need stamina regen and/or cost reduction, the Tower stone certainly can help, but if your management is right it's simply a waste I think.
You'd already be better off swapping out Seducer for Arena and using Atronach instead, blue stamina + magicka drinks would be an option as well.

Ezareth · April 2015

Jules wrote: »

Imma preface this by saying I’m a pretty nooby PVP player. I’ve spent most of my time in PVE but am starting to get into PVP more lately. Ive be read up on some builds and talked to some people about skills/ect but wanted to see what else I could learn. Doesn’t seem to be too too much information out there about PVP sorcs, atleast I didn’t find more than a couple people talking about it.

Current set up listed below
Some skills are in parenthesis because I’m unsure which is better.

BAR 1 - DESTRO
Shattering Prison (/Daedric Mines)
Crystal Fragments
Force pulse (/Destructive Reach)
Velocious Curse
Mages Wrath
ULT: Greater Storm Atronach

BAR 2 - RESTO
Hardened Ward
Ball of Lightning
Harness Magicka
Immovable Brute (/Shuffle)
Healing Ward
ULT: Power Overload

OVERLOAD BAR
Hardened Ward
Ball of Lightning
Degeneration
Velocious Curse
Mages Wrath

GEAR
-5 light / 1 medium / 1 heavy for undaunted mettle passive
-All enchanted with magicka
-5 warlock / 5 seducer (also tested out 5 warlock, 5 whitestrake)
-Jewelry enchanted with spell cost reduction x3
-Staves enchanted with fire dmg

MUNDUS
The Tower, for increased stam, always running low.
~ 22k health / 26k magicka / 16k stam

Biggest weakness is definitely lack of stam. I get stuck in talons/petrify/ect and stunned unable to do anything. Trouble is that speccing more into stam means less magicka and less damage. This is the catch 22 I’m trying to sort out.

Any input for improvement would be greatly appreciated! Also appreciated, links to builds/ discussions I might’ve not come across. Thanks in advance

The solution to your problems lies in Drink. 372 Magicka/Stamina Regen multplied by the rest of your regen modifers.

5 Warlock IMO is not get at all in 1.6 for sorcs.

I'd advise switching Warlock to Rings of Cyrodiil's light and adroitness/torugs/seducer.

You may also want to look at switching your enchants to stamina cost reduction for the dodge roll/break free bonus. It all depends on how much magicka sustain you need compared to stamina sustain.

Your overload bar shouldn't contain many damage spells unless you want to throw frags on it for the procs. I use Rune prison, Daedric Mines, Ball of Lightning, Structured Entropy and Hardened ward on mine.

I'd switch Mundus to either Attronach, Mage, or Apprentice depending on your needs.

Teargrants · April 2015

I have it on good authority from a number of elite forum warriors that the only skills you need on your bar are bolt escape, crystal frags, and hardened ward. Then all you need to do is enter this code and you will one shot everyone with your new godmode sorc class.

Cinnamon_Spider · April 2015

Teargrants wrote: »

I have it on good authority from a number of elite forum warriors that the only skills you need on your bar are bolt escape, crystal frags, and hardened ward. Then all you need to do is enter this code and you will one shot everyone with your new godmode sorc class.

The first four parts of that code is obviously bunny hopping followed by bolting back and forth twice.

Jules · April 2015

ToRelax wrote: »

I would suggest Crushing Shock over Force Pulse, but either will do if you can not change because of your PvE...

What's the point in Immovable? Shuffle offers far better defense, and since you have stamina problems, Boundless Storm may be a better option as well.

I was thinking immovable brute because of the immunity to knockback and break free costing less. You think shuffle is preferable? I guess shuffle for the dodge chance and the removing roots. Question though, the remove roots part of shuffle, does it work when shuffle is up or does shuffle have to be reapplied to remove?

ToRelax wrote: »

What are you doing with Velocious Curse on your Overload bar? Really curious, what it's for? I would devote that slot to something you don't have to cast very often, that doesn't find a place on your main bars but you'd still like to use, like Minefield or Defensive Rune.

I'm not entirely sure why I did that. I think my PVE execute bar is set up this way and that's why I did it. I suppose I could swap that minefield from destro bar with degeneration?

ToRelax wrote: »

Why is Degeneration on your Overload bar only? You need the spell damage buff for Overload but not on your destro bar, with all those offensive spells?

I just recently picked up degeneration. My sorc was primarily PVE focused until about 2 days ago & had entropy. So I know that the spell dmg buff is needed I just didn't know where to fit it on main bars. Just threw it on OL bar for convenience but I guess in retrospect it's not all that convenient.

ToRelax wrote: »

If you have stamina problems you need stamina regen and/or cost reduction, the Tower stone certainly can help, but if your management is right it's simply a waste I think.
You'd already be better off swapping out Seducer for Arena and using Atronach instead, blue stamina + magicka drinks would be an option as well.

Yeah I tried out tri drinks but it put my health so low in comp - like 18.5k and I got like 2 shotted couple times. I like the look of that arena set though, pretty nice. Any idea if the break free cost stacks w immovable brute?

Thanks for all your help btw, super informative and helpful. Asking questions I wouldn't have otherwise asked myself.

Jules · April 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

The solution to your problems lies in Drink. 372 Magicka/Stamina Regen multplied by the rest of your regen modifers.

Yeah this seems to be what a lot of people are saying. Tristat drink put me at like 18.5k health. It seems I'll have to spec more attributes into health and that makes me worry. Sure I'll sit at 20k health but what will my resource pools look like. Mostly, will I be able to regen resources faster than I can use them... I guess I'll just have to give it a shot. Not sure what optimal health to run at is... What do you run for each stat with drink on?

Ezareth wrote: »

5 Warlock IMO is not get at all in 1.6 for sorcs.

I'd advise switching Warlock to Rings of Cyrodiil's light and adroitness/torugs/seducer.

Sweet, I have all of these things. Just a matter of equipping em. I presume you mean: adroitness neck/sash, cyro rings, torugs 2, seducer 5? What is your opinion on that arena set mentioned above?

Ezareth wrote: »

You may also want to look at switching your enchants to stamina cost reduction for the dodge roll/break free bonus. It all depends on how much magicka sustain you need compared to stamina sustain.

magicka sustain didn't seem to be much of an issue. But keep in mind that was in warlock/seducer so makes sense that it wouldn't. Switching around gear could make that totally different.

Ezareth wrote: »

Your overload bar shouldn't contain many damage spells unless you want to throw frags on it for the procs. I use Rune prison, Daedric Mines, Ball of Lightning, Structured Entropy and Hardened ward on mine.

Okay, good to know. Rune prison I liked but wasn't sure where to fit it in. With the long cast time seems meh on main bars, so that's a good solution. do you keep hardened or BOL on multiple bars? Also why do sorcs seem to prefer structured entropy/degeneration over power surge? Are the heals/flat health just better?

Thanks for all your insight, really appreciate it.

ToRelax · April 2015

Immovable cc immunity was reduced to 5 seconds, if you already have stamina problems, this skill will just make it worse. And if you don't wanna run a lot heavy armor the break cc cost reduction will be negligible.

Shuffle removes snares and grants immunity to them, but again scaling with medium armor pieces - you just morph to Shuffle because the initial removing of snares is not limited regardless of how many medium armor pieces you got.

Entropy has more functions than just the spell damage buff. You buff hard-hitters like Fragments, Meteors or Detonations with Might of the Guild. You gain extra magicka and regen, more damage from that than if you'd use Surge instead. And ofc there's also a DoT and HoT and the morph effect of your choice... but those aren't very relevant atm.
I use Power Surge on my Overload bar instead, to have the benefits of both of them but still be able to buff my bursts outside Overload. Others use Degeneration with Overload, to maximize it's damage and to get heals from the morph.
I would not remove a spell damage buff from the Overload bar entirely except if you are not going to use the Overload attacks most of the time.

Idk how break free costs stack, but as I said already, if you're not heavy armor setup it's irrelevant. Arena set is nice indeed, the 2-4 set item bonuses are not exactly perfect, but they are not useless either and a full set is very helpful. You just need your magicka regen from somewhere.
Also, don't use tri drinks, use magicka/stamina drinks if you decide for drinks, hp regen is pretty worthless for most classes and by the most for a magicka sorc.
Health pool can vary from like 14k-22k, it's all possible, but yes, you will die a lot with less health. Just try it out and see wether you rather die from running out of resources or from burst damage, then make your adjustments. And even in the latter case it doesn't have to be adding health. That would be pretty much the last alternative, when you have no other idea.

You ill always, always be able to deplete your resources very fast spamming Bolt Escape. The question is how often it is needed / you do that and wether it's enough or not.

Cinnamon_Spider · April 2015

Jules wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

The solution to your problems lies in Drink. 372 Magicka/Stamina Regen multplied by the rest of your regen modifers.

Yeah this seems to be what a lot of people are saying. Tristat drink put me at like 18.5k health. It seems I'll have to spec more attributes into health and that makes me worry. Sure I'll sit at 20k health but what will my resource pools look like. Mostly, will I be able to regen resources faster than I can use them... I guess I'll just have to give it a shot. Not sure what optimal health to run at is... What do you run for each stat with drink on?

I have all my points into magic and all enchants into magic. With drink, magic and stam regen are both high enough to make up for having a minimum amount of stamina. I'm not worried about my health pool as along as I can keep my ward up and be able to reflect/dodge attacks.

I also agree with what Ezareth said about the warlock set. You have decent magic management with it, but that is it. Your spell power will be too low to do much damage. With magic regen high enough, it almost seems like you're wearing warlock without having to lose the spell power.

Jules · April 2015

Cinnamon_Spider wrote: »

Jules wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

The solution to your problems lies in Drink. 372 Magicka/Stamina Regen multplied by the rest of your regen modifers.

Yeah this seems to be what a lot of people are saying. Tristat drink put me at like 18.5k health. It seems I'll have to spec more attributes into health and that makes me worry. Sure I'll sit at 20k health but what will my resource pools look like. Mostly, will I be able to regen resources faster than I can use them... I guess I'll just have to give it a shot. Not sure what optimal health to run at is... What do you run for each stat with drink on?

I have all my points into magic and all enchants into magic. With drink, magic and stam regen are both high enough to make up for having a minimum amount of stamina. I'm not worried about my health pool as along as I can keep my ward up and be able to reflect/dodge attacks.

I also agree with what Ezareth said about the warlock set. You have decent magic management with it, but that is it. Your spell power will be too low to do much damage. With magic regen high enough, it almost seems like you're wearing warlock without having to lose the spell power.

Hmm. I guess I was considering magicka regen and sustain over damage.

What about:
4 martial knowledge - shoulders, gloves, legs, boots
2 adroitness - sash neck
2 cyro - rings
3 seducer - head chest staff (or potentially torug instead?)
With magicka or potentially stam cost reduction on rings?

that would be optimal for spell damage + some magicka regen. I just don't know how it would be on resource management. Question is whether regen would be enough w this. Gotta find that balance

Cinnamon_Spider · April 2015

I don't think I'd do any less than a 5 piece seducer with something else.

Jules · April 2015

Mmk. So one way to go would be:
Seducer 5 - staff & 4 armor
adroitness 2 - neck / sash
Torugs 2 - armor
Cyrodiils 2 - rings

Like @Ezareth said.

That'll be strong in terms of magic regen and damage, then it's just a matter of stam. Drinks will help. Do you run shuffle to aid in reduction of roots?

ToRelax · April 2015

Jules wrote: »

Mmk. So one way to go would be:
Seducer 5 - staff & 4 armor
adroitness 2 - neck / sash
Torugs 2 - armor
Cyrodiils 2 - rings

Like @Ezareth said.

That'll be strong in terms of magic regen and damage, then it's just a matter of stam. Drinks will help. Do you run shuffle to aid in reduction of roots?

If you have the time...

I would usually just Bolt Escape + dodge roll, I'll always dodge something ^^.

Cinnamon_Spider · April 2015

Jules wrote: »

That'll be strong in terms of magic regen and damage, then it's just a matter of stam. Drinks will help. Do you run shuffle to aid in reduction of roots?

I've never used shuffle.

LegendaryMage · April 2015

Welcome to pvp Jules! I'll tell you what currently works fine for me.

I'm aiming for 30K magicka pool, 13K stamina pool and 21k+ hp pool with decent mitigations. Regens are 1.5k+ magicka, 850+stamina and 400+hp. Spell damage is about 1.5K+, buffed with potions it's closer to 1.9K or so. I have no stamina issues at all, even using shuffle. However to stay on the safe side, I will invest more CPs into stamina regen and try to go 1K+ if possible with buff food (not with drinks).

I use chest heavy (seducer), gloves+pendant alessian for stamina regen and rest is light armor which you can combine how you see fit (I'm mainly using things such as torug, cyro light etc).

I'm also missing the level 2 undaunted passive for another 3% so there's something to work for I guess, as well as improve all gear to legendary quality.

I do not use any exploits or broken gear (nirn?), nor do I use anything else that's not considered 'normal' and needs a fix. This makes you a worse player in the long run and it's better for you to get killed many times and actually improve, than be impossible to take down (until the next fix that is).

Mundus is atronach, potions can be either tri-stats or spell power (I prefer spell power to buff damage, regen and critical rating).

Last but not least, I like dwemer heavy style for the cuirass, breton shoulders/hat and ancient elf staves of course.

Tankqull · April 2015

LegendaryMage wrote: »

Welcome to pvp Jules! I'll tell you what currently works fine for me.

I'm aiming for 30K magicka pool, 13K stamina pool and 21k+ hp pool with decent mitigations. Regens are 1.5k+ magicka, 850+stamina and 400+hp. Spell damage is about 1.5K+, buffed with potions it's closer to 1.9K or so. I have no stamina issues at all, even using shuffle. However to stay on the safe side, I will invest more CPs into stamina regen and try to go 1K+ if possible with buff food (not with drinks).

I use chest heavy (seducer), gloves+pendant alessian for stamina regen and rest is light armor which you can combine how you see fit (I'm mainly using things such as torug, cyro light etc).

I'm also missing the level 2 undaunted passive for another 3% so there's something to work for I guess, as well as improve all gear to legendary quality.

I do not use any exploits or broken gear (nirn?), nor do I use anything else that's not considered 'normal' and needs a fix. This makes you a worse player in the long run and it's better for you to get killed many times and actually improve, than be impossible to take down (until the next fix that is).

Mundus is atronach, potions can be either tri-stats or spell power (I prefer spell power to buff damage, regen and critical rating).

Last but not least, I like dwemer heavy style for the cuirass, breton shoulders/hat and ancient elf staves of course.

are you an imperial? otherwise i have no clue how you get those stats...

LegendaryMage · April 2015

I swapped some gear right now and the altered numbers look like this:

http://postimg.org/image/sbnvlx7cp/

I am missing another 3% stats so I think I will be able to go 32K magicka (my gear is epic quality too), 20K hp (took one hp and stamina enchant off) and 12.5K stamina or so in the end. I am happy with those pools.

Spell damage has decreased but since I've added 1800 more magicka via other gear, my damage has actually increased slightly and I have a better pool in the end.

I have also altered some champion points so my regens are slightly lower than yesterday, and the most dramatic change was taking out the bastion points and putting them into reduce magic damage and elemental damage (I have also swapped some skills few days ago and now I have boundless storm so it makes sense for me to make myself as tanky as I possibly can 'naturally' without any exploits).

This would be my base for now, I will work on improving it further but there's not much more that I can do unless I manage to combine some other gear and get more magicka/stamina regen. I can also try drinks again but I'm more of a food fan even though I've been preaching since the beginning of time that drinks are better than food the longer the fight lasts.

High elf here.

Ezareth · April 2015

Jules wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

The solution to your problems lies in Drink. 372 Magicka/Stamina Regen multplied by the rest of your regen modifers.

Yeah this seems to be what a lot of people are saying. Tristat drink put me at like 18.5k health. It seems I'll have to spec more attributes into health and that makes me worry. Sure I'll sit at 20k health but what will my resource pools look like. Mostly, will I be able to regen resources faster than I can use them... I guess I'll just have to give it a shot. Not sure what optimal health to run at is... What do you run for each stat with drink on?

Ezareth wrote: »

5 Warlock IMO is not get at all in 1.6 for sorcs.

I'd advise switching Warlock to Rings of Cyrodiil's light and adroitness/torugs/seducer.

Sweet, I have all of these things. Just a matter of equipping em. I presume you mean: adroitness neck/sash, cyro rings, torugs 2, seducer 5? What is your opinion on that arena set mentioned above?

Ezareth wrote: »

You may also want to look at switching your enchants to stamina cost reduction for the dodge roll/break free bonus. It all depends on how much magicka sustain you need compared to stamina sustain.

magicka sustain didn't seem to be much of an issue. But keep in mind that was in warlock/seducer so makes sense that it wouldn't. Switching around gear could make that totally different.

Ezareth wrote: »

Your overload bar shouldn't contain many damage spells unless you want to throw frags on it for the procs. I use Rune prison, Daedric Mines, Ball of Lightning, Structured Entropy and Hardened ward on mine.

Okay, good to know. Rune prison I liked but wasn't sure where to fit it in. With the long cast time seems meh on main bars, so that's a good solution. do you keep hardened or BOL on multiple bars? Also why do sorcs seem to prefer structured entropy/degeneration over power surge? Are the heals/flat health just better?

Thanks for all your insight, really appreciate it.

I run with nothing buffing my health other than structured entropy. Over 50 points into Bastion to make my hardened ward as big as I can get it. Same with healing ward. If you want to run destroy instead of reso you may be better off having some additional health to make up for the lack of healing ward.

The arena set looks good on paper but the 2,3,4 piece bonuses aren't good and the 5 piece bonus works out to a few hundred extra stam regen if you are cced every 8 seconds. I'd like to do testing on it as well to determine how it stacks with other break free enchants/CPs.

Defensive rune is the morph I use. Its invaluable against NB snipers and 2hander chargers. Power surge doesn't provide might of the guild which allows you to boost an ability +20%....which stacks with the frag proc and also provides the spell power bonus. Unpredictable heals on a cool down just don't seem very good. You can also keep spamming it on 20 guys and unless it is purge each ticj will heal you and do damage. The cost is neglibile. I may try out degeneration but I'm most vulnerable in overload mode so the 8% health from structured helps.

Jules · April 2015

LegendaryMage wrote: »

Welcome to pvp Jules! I'll tell you what currently works fine for me.

I'm aiming for 30K magicka pool, 13K stamina pool and 21k+ hp pool with decent mitigations. Regens are 1.5k+ magicka, 850+stamina and 400+hp. Spell damage is about 1.5K+, buffed with potions it's closer to 1.9K or so. I have no stamina issues at all, even using shuffle. However to stay on the safe side, I will invest more CPs into stamina regen and try to go 1K+ if possible with buff food (not with drinks).

I use chest heavy (seducer), gloves+pendant alessian for stamina regen and rest is light armor which you can combine how you see fit (I'm mainly using things such as torug, cyro light etc).

I'm also missing the level 2 undaunted passive for another 3% so there's something to work for I guess, as well as improve all gear to legendary quality.

I do not use any exploits or broken gear (nirn?), nor do I use anything else that's not considered 'normal' and needs a fix. This makes you a worse player in the long run and it's better for you to get killed many times and actually improve, than be impossible to take down (until the next fix that is).

Mundus is atronach, potions can be either tri-stats or spell power (I prefer spell power to buff damage, regen and critical rating).

Last but not least, I like dwemer heavy style for the cuirass, breton shoulders/hat and ancient elf staves of course.

Aww thank you

Those resource stats sound kinda similar to mine. I was at 20k health, 28k magicka, 14k stam. Could easily stack more into my magicka pool I just felt I kept getting rooted and unable to do much.

I think honestly it might be a l2p issue haha. I need to learn to stay further away on my sorc and not allow roots/stuns on me. It's a much different play style than im used to on my dk- used to charging in, being in melee range ect. Only just recently started experimenting on my sorc.

I think on my sorc now I have
2 cyrodiil light
5 seducer (w three nirn)
2 adroitness
2 torug pact

Which seems to give me around 1.6k ish spell dmg and 1.5k+ magicka regen. Decent spell resist I think around 17-18k. Stats are all ok except stam and armor. Those 2h's get me pretty good.

But yeah, regardless, thank you for your help!

Edit: are all your enchants on gear magicka or do you run a diff combo?

Jules · April 2015

Also, idk if anyone knows more about this but I've seen some sorcs with like 14k health and I'm always confused as to how that happens. Even w 0 attributes in health, 0 on enchants I'm at like 17k with the 5k you get just for being in cyrodiil. Meaning they have to get their health down to 9k in PVE. Just confusing, any ideas?

Ezareth · April 2015

Jules wrote: »

Also, idk if anyone knows more about this but I've seen some sorcs with like 14k health and I'm always confused as to how that happens. Even w 0 attributes in health, 0 on enchants I'm at like 17k with the 5k you get just for being in cyrodiil. Meaning they have to get their health down to 9k in PVE. Just confusing, any ideas?

Because you're in a campaign where you have the Emperor buff and they do not.

Jules · April 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

Jules wrote: »

Also, idk if anyone knows more about this but I've seen some sorcs with like 14k health and I'm always confused as to how that happens. Even w 0 attributes in health, 0 on enchants I'm at like 17k with the 5k you get just for being in cyrodiil. Meaning they have to get their health down to 9k in PVE. Just confusing, any ideas?

Because you're in a campaign where you have the Emperor buff and they do not.

Isn't that only ~2500 hp though? Coulda sworn I was in chill and red didn't have emp when I checked this. I'll have to look again you're prob right.

LegendaryMage · April 2015

@Jules I had the same exact gear (just never had nirn) and I switched torug/adroit for more cyro light (shoulders/hat). Your spell damage will go down but you will actually do slightly more damage and have higher pool due to extra magicka provided by Cyro light 4 piece set. That's how I'm doing it right now.

gibous · April 2015

Jules wrote: »

Also, idk if anyone knows more about this but I've seen some sorcs with like 14k health and I'm always confused as to how that happens. Even w 0 attributes in health, 0 on enchants I'm at like 17k with the 5k you get just for being in cyrodiil. Meaning they have to get their health down to 9k in PVE. Just confusing, any ideas?

They're probably running full magic enchants and attributes with drink buff instead of food.

Joy_Division · April 2015

Hey Jules!

Most of the stuff I would suggest has already been covered by others, but I will reiterate for emphasis.

1. Stamina regen is more preferable than a larger pool. Switching to Mage Mundas and a blue stamina-magicka drink will serve you better more often than Tower + purple food.

2. If you like force pulse for PVE, I wouldn't change it as it will still serve as a serviceable ranged AoE and more damage gets you that much closer to an endless fury proc.

3. Somewhere there is a fine balance between regen (important in PVP) and spell damage. I don't think you need a set dedicated to sustain and you certainly do not need 2. I find that 3 cost reduction glyphs + Atronach stone gives me just about all the mana I need. Alternatively you can slot elemental drain and force pulse spam. I think most sorcerers would advise MOAR spell damage to take advantage of their burst as sustain is noticeably easier to get around in 1.6. Your last post strikes a decent balance, if erring on the side of sustain.

4. Nerfed duration for 1.6 immovable has really sucked the efficiency out of that skill

5. I moved away from degeneration because of the phrase "weapon attacks," which might mean you aren't getting much out of the spell when it does proc. The flat % bonus to health is better anyway as it is *always* there.

6. Disease > fire in PvP because healing debuffs are stronger than straight damage. An argument can be made for a sorc using lightning for disintegrate procs.

7. In the end, comfort will dictate what skills you will use. One of the ironies in PvP is that sorcs are accused of shield stacking, but, as some posters here have noted, many don't use harness magicka and thus shield stack. I agree it is not strictly necessary, *however* it is a strong, if specializes skill, and you will notice its absence if u get in a 1v1 fight with another magicka user.

8. I am of the opinion the mage's fury is the best PvP execute in the game and should be slotted.

Jules · April 2015

Hey there! Lots of info, lemme get to it:

Joy_Division wrote: »

1. Stamina regen is more preferable than a larger pool. Switching to Mage Mundas and a blue stamina-magicka drink will serve you better more often than Tower + purple food.

If I use food, I can get away with speccing nothing into health and pour it all into magicka/ stamina. But with drink, I think I'd need to go more health right? This would give me less stats for magicka / stamina but the theory is that I would have higher regen making it viable. I see some sorcs running 62-0-0 and just not sure if that's w drinks or w food.

Joy_Division wrote: »

2. If you like force pulse for PVE, I wouldn't change it as it will still serve as a serviceable ranged AoE and more damage gets you that much closer to an endless fury proc.

Agreed. I much prefer force pulse I think. It does more damage. Also, crushing shock can only interrupt players who are channeling. Channels that are long enough to get a crushing shock off include radiant destruction and soul assault. Maybe others but prob not many. Ofc there are channels or long cast times like snipe/crystal frags, I just don't think it's feasible to get that interrupt off in under 1 second shy of good luck. I think the +dmg will be better.

Joy_Division wrote: »

3. Somewhere there is a fine balance between regen (important in PVP) and spell damage. I don't think you need a set dedicated to sustain and you certainly do not need 2. I find that 3 cost reduction glyphs + Atronach stone gives me just about all the mana I need. Alternatively you can slot elemental drain and force pulse spam. I think most sorcerers would advise MOAR spell damage to take advantage of their burst as sustain is noticeably easier to get around in 1.6. Your last post strikes a decent balance, if erring on the side of sustain.

Would you mind sharing your stats if possible? I'm trying to figure out what the sweet spot is for regen, max and spell dmg and want to get as many opinions as possible.

Joy_Division wrote: »

4. Nerfed duration for 1.6 immovable has really sucked the efficiency out of that skill

Yeah it's no longer on my bar. Took far too much stam and didn't give me what I really wanted. I have hardened + harness now but might experiment with hardened + shuffle.

Joy_Division wrote: »

5. I moved away from degeneration because of the phrase "weapon attacks," which might mean you aren't getting much out of the spell when it does proc. The flat % bonus to health is better anyway as it is *always* there.

Agreed. I just reviewed morphs a few days ago and swapped to structured for the exact same reason. Structured still gives a heal + flat 8%. That *** heal based off strictly weapon attacks is meh.

Joy_Division wrote: »

6. Disease > fire in PvP because healing debuffs are stronger than straight damage. An argument can be made for a sorc using lightning for disintegrate procs.

Thx. I had heard this only once before and for 1h sword. Didn't realize it was best for all weapons.

Joy_Division wrote: »

I don't think you need a set dedicated to sustain and you certainly do not need 2. I find that 3 cost reduction glyphs + Atronach stone gives me just about all the mana I need.

I haven't tried with this combo of -600 cost and +mana regen. I'll give it a go.

Also, do you also have a toon named joy division on EP? If so, I'm pretty sure you were in potato w me for a short time last year. If not, sorry for being a weirdo lol

Thanks for all the tips!!

TheElementalPlatypus · April 2015

This is coming from a v8 - OP sorcerer, stamina is definitely the hardest thing to manage. Which is obvious but honestly the more you play/pvp the less you will be affected by it. I can say the ONLY thing that consistently has been killing me lately has been invasion/talons spam because it causes some weird unbreakable CC, not even fear is giving me issues.

I run 4 pc cyro's light
4 pc magnus
2 pc torugs
random necklace

My regen is 1371 magic, 317 health, 561 stam
My stats are 17-18k health/30-33k magic/12k stamina

You honestly dont need more than 1500 regen as a sorc, I mean more is better if you want to be able to spam BoL but if you play with your surroundings (and use streak as I do) I dont find myself NEEDING to spam abilities, and in the occasions I DO need to spam bolt to run, I can do it plenty.

Sorc builds HEAVILY rely on your playstyle as builds can be very specific. Ezareth has overload as his main attack pretty much so he has success with a build that focuses on bringing out that strength, some sorcs use BoL to bait a few people in a zerg and kill them. Some sorcs are solo mostly, as myself and I tend to kite enemies and play the resources/burst game with them. Some builds are great for multiple things but I would focus on if I want to solo/small group or zerg, as those 2 can be a lot different when it comes to builds (at least for me).

I've tried running seducer/cyros or seducer/cyros/torugs but honestly seducer is too much sustain that I dont need. When I hit v14 I plan to run 2 pc engine/4 pc magnus/2 pc torugs/random neck/2 pc cyro's light.

You can change how tanky you want to be with max magic, atm my tooltip shield is 8.1k on hardened ward. Heavy armor is a viable option too. I think its important to find a build that personally fits your playstyle.

Streak + Boundless storm is tons of mobility, and ever since I switched I love it, I know the BoL train is hard to get off of with 90% of sorcs running it, but trust me give streak a try

Both a great and equal so its really personal preference.

I'm constantly testing new things and seeing what works, such as right now it seems I am too addicted to entropy for that might of the guild for them 14k frags, but I have found myself barely using it in fights, so I'm trying surge instead for some extra heals. Thats the beauty of it really, some classes have very few viable builds, but sorc there is a lot to choose from. Being a special snowflake is always fun lol.

ALSO - Crushing shock is underrated

I cant tell you how many times I've cursed a sorc then interrupted their frags and then stunned them with a frags proc for the awesome burst

Joy_Division · April 2015

Jules wrote: »

Hey there! Lots of info, lemme get to it:

Joy_Division wrote: »

1. Stamina regen is more preferable than a larger pool. Switching to Mage Mundas and a blue stamina-magicka drink will serve you better more often than Tower + purple food.

If I use food, I can get away with speccing nothing into health and pour it all into magicka/ stamina. But with drink, I think I'd need to go more health right? This would give me less stats for magicka / stamina but the theory is that I would have higher regen making it viable. I see some sorcs running 62-0-0 and just not sure if that's w drinks or w food.

Joy_Division wrote: »

2. If you like force pulse for PVE, I wouldn't change it as it will still serve as a serviceable ranged AoE and more damage gets you that much closer to an endless fury proc.

Agreed. I much prefer force pulse I think. It does more damage. Also, crushing shock can only interrupt players who are channeling. Channels that are long enough to get a crushing shock off include radiant destruction and soul assault. Maybe others but prob not many. Ofc there are channels or long cast times like snipe/crystal frags, I just don't think it's feasible to get that interrupt off in under 1 second shy of good luck. I think the +dmg will be better.

Joy_Division wrote: »

3. Somewhere there is a fine balance between regen (important in PVP) and spell damage. I don't think you need a set dedicated to sustain and you certainly do not need 2. I find that 3 cost reduction glyphs + Atronach stone gives me just about all the mana I need. Alternatively you can slot elemental drain and force pulse spam. I think most sorcerers would advise MOAR spell damage to take advantage of their burst as sustain is noticeably easier to get around in 1.6. Your last post strikes a decent balance, if erring on the side of sustain.

Would you mind sharing your stats if possible? I'm trying to figure out what the sweet spot is for regen, max and spell dmg and want to get as many opinions as possible.

Joy_Division wrote: »

4. Nerfed duration for 1.6 immovable has really sucked the efficiency out of that skill

Yeah it's no longer on my bar. Took far too much stam and didn't give me what I really wanted. I have hardened + harness now but might experiment with hardened + shuffle.

Joy_Division wrote: »

5. I moved away from degeneration because of the phrase "weapon attacks," which might mean you aren't getting much out of the spell when it does proc. The flat % bonus to health is better anyway as it is *always* there.

Agreed. I just reviewed morphs a few days ago and swapped to structured for the exact same reason. Structured still gives a heal + flat 8%. That *** heal based off strictly weapon attacks is meh.

Joy_Division wrote: »

6. Disease > fire in PvP because healing debuffs are stronger than straight damage. An argument can be made for a sorc using lightning for disintegrate procs.

Thx. I had heard this only once before and for 1h sword. Didn't realize it was best for all weapons.

Joy_Division wrote: »

I don't think you need a set dedicated to sustain and you certainly do not need 2. I find that 3 cost reduction glyphs + Atronach stone gives me just about all the mana I need.

I haven't tried with this combo of -600 cost and +mana regen. I'll give it a go.

Also, do you also have a toon named joy division on EP? If so, I'm pretty sure you were in potato w me for a short time last year. If not, sorry for being a weirdo lol

Thanks for all the tips!!

Yes, that's me

I too recognized your name.

To address your questions.

I too was initially concerned about "losing" the health buff switching to drinks. I don't think attribute points are important as there are many ways to achieve the target goal fro each attribute (armor enchants, unduanted sets, gear bonuses, etc), so those people who do 62-0-0 may not be a reliable guide. My unbuffed health is 16494 (a bit high for a DPS) and that is undoubtedly higher than most of the better known sorc players (I've seen Teargrants run with noticeably less health and still never die lol). To be honest, I think I can (and should) drop about 3k health and put that into magicka because sorcs survive through other means than their health pool. That I have not done so is a combination of laziness, frugality, this being an "alt" as opposed to a main, and that this character does good enough.
I use 2 adroitness, 3 Cyrodiil Light, 3 Burning Spellweave, 2 Valkyn Skoria, Master's destruction staff. This is not strictly optimal as dropping the Spellweave and 1 piece of Cyrodiil's Light would give let me wear 4 pieces of Martial Knowledge and squeeze in a bit more spellpower. I don't do this for several reasons, mostly idiosyncratic: it is my little protest against the idiocy of the how there is only one magicka DPS gear set worth a damn. I can tell you I hardly ran out of magicka before I used drink (thus about 1300 regen), so here is another area a strict min-maxer could squeeze more effectiveness out of my build. Though I dislike constantly changing my mundas stone when I PvP and then PvE with pugs that I cant rely on the healer to elemental drain, so I just leave on atronach
My stam recover would be something like 1150 if I were a wearwolf (and there is no reason not to be...except I'm a sentimental sucker for stuff like character creation & consistency...the thought of being a mangy mutt who howls at the moon does not square with my vision of this character. As a side not: ZoS really should make it so "human" or "mer" is equally as viable as being a lycanthrope or undead; there is literally zero reason for us to retain our humanity).

As I am typing this out, I didn't realize my stubborn refusal to adapt to what is "best" in multiple areas was quite as extensive as it is - the cumulative effect of all these quirky concessions is unsettling. I really dislike how this game (I don't know if other MMOs share this as I have not played any other) constantly tugs you in multiple directions toward one objective best that is superior to any other way. I mean, I should not feel like I am at a competitive disadvantage for not wearing a specific set of Craglorn vendor trash, but it is what it is.

In the end, player skill and experience are what matter most in PvP IMHO. Eventually you develop a sixth sense of what to do and what not to do and provided you have a build that is "good enough" and are comfortable with the skills on your bar, then you will be able to compete in most situations that you will find yourself in.

cozmon3c_ESO · April 2015

as a new sorc i would put on defensive rune, its like training wheels and will help you not get 2 shot shot. i say training wheels but im seriously considering putting it back on my bar lol. also it only activates if you run out of shields so it gives you some breathing room to reapply hardened ward or healing ward.

its pretty much a must to have a healing staff as a magicka sorc, i only use healing ward from that line, its all you need for survivability if you are not insta killed.