Legendary Mage's Guide to Sorcerer Solo PVP and Dueling

LegendaryMage · April 2015

Hi all,

Legendary Mage from EU here. I've been asked many times in game about what I'm currently running in terms of gear/skills and since I was never a secretive player, here it is, everything that I can think of.

Take whatever you can from it, work on it further and improve, or ignore entirely. Some things might seem odd to you but my playstyle is such that this setup is the most satisfying for me at the moment. Things will inevitably change over time, however for now this is basically it.

Gear and stats setup:

- 5 pieces of seducer: Chest (heavy), legs, sash, shoes are light armor and 2 staves from the set.
- Staves are lightning sharpened trait with disease enchant, and restoration weighted trait with deal magic damage and restore stamina.
- 4 pieces of Cyrodiil's Light for max magica and spell damage. Shoulders and hat is reinforced unfortunately, everything else is arcane and infused.
- Medium Alessian gloves + pendant for stamina regen.

All jewelry enchants are reduce magica cost of spells.

Enchant with best possible magica glyphs, if you don't have enough gold, go epic quality until you do.

My current stats with epic food buff are: http://postimg.org/image/sbnvlx7cp/

All enchants magica, all points into magica and at least epic quality since not all of us are rich enough to improve everything to legendary (I can but I'm lazy tbh). The goal is to take advantage of undaunted passives and hit the following pools: At least 32K max magica, at least 12.5K stamina and at least 20K hp with at least 'some mitigation', more on that later.

I am missing level 2 undaunted so I'm slightly below that, but in time I will grow a bit stronger with those extra stats and more improved gear.

Atronach mundus stone and everything else maxed out in terms of passives and skills that provide passives, including alliance war ones. I am a werewolf for a long time now for the extra stamina regen.

Regens are: 350+ hp, 830 stamina and 1500 magica. Push these further when you earn more champion points, you can never have enough regen in fights. Make sure you put skill points in all 3 armor types, even though 1 or 2 perks might not do much for you, you can leave those without points if you really need the skill points elsewhere.

Skills and orders between bars:

- Your destruction bar is your offensive bar. I use: Boundless storm for the extra movement buff which is very handy in all situations, slight damage over time if you're fighting near your opponent as well as obvious mitigation bonuses. Sometimes in open pvp people even have a hard time seeing you and just target someone else instead of you which is nice due to the fact that I do not use Ball of Lightning morph.

Next skill is streak which should be used tactically. It is less strong now in patch 1.6, but you can still take advantage of it nicely. Take a look at my dueling video to see how it can be used in 1v1 situations, most opponents will breakfree out of it so it's still semi-useful.

Crystal fragments is your hard hitter vs most opponents and though I do not intend to write down how I specifically fight all types of opponents, I have many play styles depending on the class/setup I'm fighting, feel free to ask questions and I will do my best to explain tactics and strategies.

Curse is your next skill as well as crushing shock. Ultimate is Meteor (Ice Comet for 1v1 and maybe other morph for open pvp is better) which is extremely handy vs other sorcerers if used right.

- Restoration bar looks like this: Hardened ward, shuffle, daedric minefield, harness magica and healing ward with atronach ultimate. I use atronach for open pvp the most but in 1v1 fights it's kinda lame that they can neutralize it so easily, so ZOS please make them CC immune.

Champion Point Distribution (I change this all the time but at the moment with rank 141 it is):

Thief Galaxy:

- In The Tower tree I only have one point into Magician passive for reducing magica costs by 1%. I plan to go up to 3-4% or so if possible, 5% would be ideal but I am a pvp'er so it goes fairly slow.

- In The Lover tree I have 27 points into Mooncalf for 10% increased stamina recovery and 19 in Arcanist for 7.8% increased magica recovery (plan to go to 10% as well).

Mage Galaxy:

- I have 30 points in the Apprentice tree to get the spell critical passive and it's distributed with 10 points into Spell Erosion, Elfborn and Elemental Expert passives.

- Thaumaturge passive from The Ritual tree has 17 points in it for 7.2% more magic damage. I plan to invest more in here.

Warrior Galaxy:

- The Lady tree is where all of my points have gone, passives are Hardy and Elemental Defender. Equal distribution for reducing damage you take from magic and elements such as fire/ice and shock. I may re-distribute these a bit more soon but for now it's like that. I've had them all in bastion but I do not like the diminishing returns too much so I may get a few points over there again soon, but not all definitely.

This is basically how my CP system looks like at the moment, however this is something unique to all of you so make sure you experiment and see what could benefit you the most depending on your play style.

If you like to block a lot, it makes sense to put some points into the block reduction passive etc. If you want more damage, then go for more damage passives and so on. I like to balance things out and be a pretty balanced fighter overall but still specializing in a few things along the way, such as increasing overall magic damage instead of elemental one or so.

These are pretty much the basics, if my contribution helps at least one sorcerer improve something and have more fun then I'll consider this thread a success. If you have any questions for me or if you'd like to discuss some fighting tactics, I'm all up for it!

Whyn Aurum · April 2015

Thanks, will chip in after testing.

Lhorion · April 2015

The best thing with Legendary Mage is not having a standart sorc with the standart build. He could play with medium armour using magicka skills.... If it is Legendary Mage using this build it will succeed!

ToRelax · April 2015

What's your reasoning behind moving points out of Bastion? After putting like 20 points into it, the progress becomes very linear, so if stamina is still the greatest threat and like 0.2% shield strength offer a higher benefit than 1% less elemental damage, I don't see the point, really.

LegendaryMage · April 2015

ToRelax wrote: »

What's your reasoning behind moving points out of Bastion? After putting like 20 points into it, the progress becomes very linear, so if stamina is still the greatest threat and like 0.2% shield strength offer a higher benefit than 1% less elemental damage, I don't see the point, really.

Well, a 10% stronger shield on 10K base is 1K extra. I compared that with 10% less elemental damage and 10% less magic damage and I think the latter is better if you're down and unable to get up.

Meaning, 1K shield will get eaten through easy as it has no mitigation and you will be left defenseless on the ground if you got no stamina to get up and recast. This way at least you get 'some' protection vs casters and magic users and last a bit longer should you get in a sticky situation (I'm trying to push my hp and mitigation higher rather than relying on shields exclusively).

It is totally fine to put points into bastion, I just find it that as long as I'm on my feet I have no magicka issues and can simply recast when needed. I will put some points in there again most likely I just won't push it so hard when I can get better trade-off somewhere else.

The only good reason I can think of to put all points in there and only in there, is if you run some super efficient setup and you know 'exactly' when your shield is up so you can take advantage of that 1K extra shield every time.

Meaning, if you re-cast your shields and use them 100% efficiently, you can have 'insert number'+ extra shield value over a fight in total, or much much much more depending on how long the fight goes.

But since I usually refresh them even before they 'end' or 'expire' totally, I don't see any point in trying to squeeze out that extra 1K out of them when I'm most likely not going to use it anyway.

Mumyo · April 2015

Hello mage, just wanted to let u know that i train with the shaolin atm, very soonish u will get ur invitation to the "Mortal Kombat" and we will end this vendetta!

HI HA HUJAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAA!!!
Afraid?^^

MoneyOverEverything · April 2015

i agree with lhorion to the [snip] albenhaupt that LM even is good while hes naked under a wedding dress.

I also recommend to every sorc to not use ball of lightning no matter how long you`re playing. You dont need it. 40% more Movementspeed for 8 seconds is so much better. Pls dont use the magical projectile absorb, its so much harder to kill ppl if they move 40% faster than usually. Just have tristatpots on cooldown while cc-breaking 4-5 times in a row until your mates show up.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

Derra · April 2015

What i don´t understand: Why no major sorcery?

DisgracefulMind · April 2015

People, listen to Mage, I watched his level 11 beat Vets. :P

olsborg · April 2015

Derra wrote: »

What i don´t understand: Why no major sorcery?

Yea I was pondering about this too, care to explain mage?

LegendaryMage · April 2015

Mumyo wrote: »

Hello mage, just wanted to let u know that i train with the shaolin atm, very soonish u will get ur invitation to the "Mortal Kombat" and we will end this vendetta!

HI HA HUJAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAA!!!
Afraid?^^

Eats dominion citizens mostly, its name is @Mumyo...
Just replace Jozin with @Mumyo and crop duster with daedric mines.

olsborg wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

What i don´t understand: Why no major sorcery?

Yea I was pondering about this too, care to explain mage?

Occasional spell powah pots.

Sublime · April 2015

Why don't you put points into bastion?

LegendaryMage · April 2015

Sublime wrote: »

Why don't you put points into bastion?

I will probably put some points I earn later in there once I hit 10% magic reduction and 10% element damage reduction (first one is taken cared off I believe).

TheFamousMockingbird · April 2015

Very insightful about use of bastion. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. 1000HP shield boost versus ~2000 possible mitigation against magic or elements is significant. I was thinking bastion was going to be where I was putting a lot of points but rethinking that now.

I am surprised at no Surge or Entropy though.

LegendaryMage · April 2015

1.6 dueling video in the making guys, will post a new thread either tonight or tomorrow. You get to see this setup in action very soon!

TheFamousMockingbird wrote: »

Very insightful about use of bastion. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. 1000HP shield boost versus ~2000 possible mitigation against magic or elements is significant. I was thinking bastion was going to be where I was putting a lot of points but rethinking that now.

I am surprised at no Surge or Entropy though.

No problem, glad I could help! I get spell boosts via potions mostly when I need them.

Teargrants · April 2015

I just use hardened ward, "cast it and bam I'm done..I can dance a jig..have tea..invite friends to watch my dancing and having tea..my hardened ward is up!"

Don't need anything else, gives me all the dps.

TheElementalPlatypus · April 2015

What do you think of streak over BoL? I recently switched to streak and I am LOVING the stun/combos possible with it but miss the zerg baiting and bringing enemies to where I want to fight them with ball of lightning. Just want to hear your take on it

Soulac · April 2015

Mage op

LegendaryMage · April 2015

TheElementalPlatypus wrote: »

What do you think of streak over BoL? I recently switched to streak and I am LOVING the stun/combos possible with it but miss the zerg baiting and bringing enemies to where I want to fight them with ball of lightning. Just want to hear your take on it

I guess it depends on your playstyle. I'm kinda mixed between kiting and diving into the action like a tank, but not really being a tank.

BoL can help you if it's working properly, take away a lot of heat off of you, but your biggest threat will still be hard CC such as invasion, fear, wrecking blow and such. Neither streak or BoL will help you deal with those, maybe equally but none is better.

In 1v1 I still think streak is better as you will soon see vs some talented sorcerers I've fought (and I fought top ones with BoL too, still the same to me).

Soulac wrote: »

Mage op

Video coming up today cat

Ezareth · April 2015

LegendaryMage wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

What's your reasoning behind moving points out of Bastion? After putting like 20 points into it, the progress becomes very linear, so if stamina is still the greatest threat and like 0.2% shield strength offer a higher benefit than 1% less elemental damage, I don't see the point, really.

Well, a 10% stronger shield on 10K base is 1K extra. I compared that with 10% less elemental damage and 10% less magic damage and I think the latter is better if you're down and unable to get up.

Meaning, 1K shield will get eaten through easy as it has no mitigation and you will be left defenseless on the ground if you got no stamina to get up and recast. This way at least you get 'some' protection vs casters and magic users and last a bit longer should you get in a sticky situation (I'm trying to push my hp and mitigation higher rather than relying on shields exclusively).

It is totally fine to put points into bastion, I just find it that as long as I'm on my feet I have no magicka issues and can simply recast when needed. I will put some points in there again most likely I just won't push it so hard when I can get better trade-off somewhere else.

The only good reason I can think of to put all points in there and only in there, is if you run some super efficient setup and you know 'exactly' when your shield is up so you can take advantage of that 1K extra shield every time.

Meaning, if you re-cast your shields and use them 100% efficiently, you can have 'insert number'+ extra shield value over a fight in total, or much much much more depending on how long the fight goes.

But since I usually refresh them even before they 'end' or 'expire' totally, I don't see any point in trying to squeeze out that extra 1K out of them when I'm most likely not going to use it anyway.

I just thought I'd chime in here and mention that Bastion is multiplicative with your other modifiers (33% hardened ward,42% Dampen Magick(max), 300% Healing ward)

If your base hardened ward is 10K, the actual value is 13,333. With Bastion at 25% it becomes 16,666. In Cyrodiil this becomes 14166(15% reduced) Without Bastion it becomes 11,305.

The biggest reason you want to max your shields is to reduce the "Bleed effect" when it is destroyed which then does damage directly to your health and ignores all mitigation as well as damage reducing champion points. Sheilds are both our saviors and our destroyers.

Secondly 80-90% of damage done to you is done to your shields.

Finally Hardy and Elemental Defender are only going to protect you from Magicka damage, not physical. Bastion works on *every* type of damage done your shields.

I like the Weighted Resto staff on your defensive bar, that's a nice tweak and especially useful for dodge rollers. I think if I end up going Double Nirn-weapons with Resto I'll do that as well.

Why are you using Sharpened instead of Nirnhoned on the Destro staff? Just haven't been able to afford the upgrade or is it something else?

LegendaryMage · April 2015

@Ezareth yeah that's exactly what I've been thinking in terms of scaling, but even so, I still do not want to put all points in there as I have in the past, I actually feel a bit tankier with this CP tweak and I'm almost at 10% magic reduction so Bastion will be prioritized pretty soon and I should be able to catch up significantly due to diminishing returns. Or alternatively reduce 10% reductions to 8% and go Bastion rest. I'll figure something out eventually.

I'm not using nirn because I never really felt like I needed it, but thanks for reminding me, I'll give it a try provided it's not broken and it's working as intended.

Ezareth · April 2015

LegendaryMage wrote: »

@Ezareth yeah that's exactly what I've been thinking in terms of scaling, but even so, I still do not want to put all points in there as I have in the past, I actually feel a bit tankier with this CP tweak and I'm almost at 10% magic reduction so Bastion will be prioritized pretty soon and I should be able to catch up significantly due to diminishing returns. Or alternatively reduce 10% reductions to 8% and go Bastion rest. I'll figure something out eventually.

I'm not using nirn because I never really felt like I needed it, but thanks for reminding me, I'll give it a try provided it's not broken and it's working as intended.

Yeah it's slightly better (Not what you'd expect from 4% over Sharpened) but the spell resistance is bonus so why not.

LegendaryMage · April 2015

Build video is up: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/168504/legendary-mage-v14-sorcerer-duels-30-minutes-of-dueling-footage

ginoboehm · April 2015

what people don't understand is this is mage his build is like 5% responsible for what he can do perhaps the best dueler there is.