Heavy Sorc PVP Build Crafting // Twice-Born Rockstar

SkylarkAU · July 2015

With 1.7 on the horizon and nerfs to nirn and bolt escape looming over the sorcerer class I decided to try and cook up a build that would be "tougher" overall but still capable of delivering that sorcy burst that is central to the class.

The build I'm working on is still evolving but I thought it would be a good time to share it for feedback and to show some of the doomsdayers that a build beyond the status quo can be viable..

So, the problem any magicka class that gives up light armor has is the sacrifice of 3 crucial benefits - magicka regen/sustain, spell penetration and spell critical. To try and work around this I've taken the following approach..

Magicka regen/sustain

- 2 piece light for 8% magicka regen
- Vampire passive for 10% magicka regen
- CP dump in to arcanist + magician for regen and reduction
(vs light armor passive of 20% for 5 piece light)

Spell penetration

- Apprentice mundus stone for 5.1k additional spell penetration (1 of the 2 mundus stones allowed for twice-born 5 item set)
(vs light armor passive of 7.2k for full 5 piece light)

Spell critical

- Here you can either go with inner light for the extra 10%, or 10% pots, or both (I go with pots + medicinal use passive)
(vs light armour passive of 10% for full 5 piece light)

From here I choose to go with magicka/stam drinks for the higher sustain plus the mage mundus stone for extra max magicka. For dungeons I'll switch over to purple food and the atronach mundus for the extra magicka regen instead. Either way, the sustain element of the build does hinge on the use of pots with the medicinal use passive which for any sorc that carries both high sustain and burst DPS in to battle shouldn't be unusual.

In terms of bar slotted abilities it is pretty flexible (this isn't meant to be a full guide), though I stick with structured entropy on both bars while running drinks for the extra max health/magicka and magicka regen. As a vampire I also use clouding swarm as a temporary get out of jail card while I reapply wards/buffs in the middle of a zerg (or finish off a target) and wait for the 4 second streak/bolt to reset (the heavy armor helps against the AoE in these situations).

So anyway, if you're anything like me then numbers are the real indicator so here's what it looks like.. This is with all buffs running (drink, pot, thundering presence), without undaunted passives, and ~180 CP. The points in elemental defender would shift over to hardy once vampire fire damage is reduced in 1.7..

I think the basic summary would be a viable pvp sorc build with increased survivability at the cost of some high end DPS. I think this build could potentially shine after nirn is nerfed and we return to realism..

Anyway, would like to hear thoughts/opinions from other crafters...

Cheers.

Akinos · July 2015

Looks and sounds alot like what I've been doing for a long time now on my Templar, with the twice born heavy set that everybody thinks is garbage. Wonder where you got that idea from...:) What addon shows you all your stats and gear and such like in the screenshot btw?

SkylarkAU · July 2015

Haven't seen any of your builds before mate but it is a very versatile armor set..

Addon is called My Build

Akinos · July 2015

SkylarkAU wrote: »

Haven't seen any of your builds before mate but it is a very versatile armor set..

Addon is called My Build

It is very versatile indeed, thank you for the info about the addon

Erock25 · July 2015

Go with medium instead of heavy. You have 3/4ths of the mitigation and gain stam regen, dodge roll cost reduction, and other ancillary benefits like movement speed, sneak speed, and sneak radius reduction.

Also I would go with Healers accessories and Belt (or whatever) to go with your 5/5 twice born star and that way you can get a 2/2 monster helm set of your choice (ENGINE GUARDIAN FTW).

SkylarkAU · July 2015

Keep in mind the legerdemain & vampire sneak passives + stamina regen from drinks already gives plenty to work with, that said as a vamp the heavy armor health passives are fairly useless.. the extra armor is nice though.

Healers vs Arch-mage/cyro light is a toss up between regen and spell power.. whatever you need more I guess. Monsters sets would work nicely. I need to do some PvE..

glavius · July 2015

Remember armor is basically useless. Ppl mitigate 100% armor with most setups. (sharpened mace/maul, sharpened other weapon+champ armor piercing)

Minnesinger · July 2015

glavius wrote: »

Remember armor is basically useless. Ppl mitigate 100% armor with most setups. (sharpened mace/maul, sharpened other weapon+champ armor piercing)

I have been thinking of uses for Twice-Born Star. Thought I give my magicka nb a test run with it. It could be very nice set. Btw really liked how you made this thread. Pictures and all that

As a plus you don´t write novels about attributes, food/ drinks etc. that usually kills my interest in player made builds. Don´t want to read everything because I don´t want to copy everything. I give you Awesome!

Septimus_Magna · July 2015

Heavy armor sorcs will probably be pretty bad after update 7, here's why I think so:
1. the BE nerf will make it very hard to manage magicka while moving, especially with heavy armor.
2. all sorc skills cost much magicka to cast, with heavy armor you will have only a little cost reduction and low magicka regen.
3. stamina regen will stop while blocking, heavy armor has block cost reduction as advantage but sustaining stamina will become more and the sorc class skills dont have anythings that helps stamina regen or blocking.
4. damage will be reduced so heavy armor will do even less damage which gives people more time to react.
5. spell/armor penetration is broken, you wont have much damage mitigation if you get attacked by players with high penetration.

Also the twice-born star is not very useful in my eyes, you only get 1 extra mundus stone buff for the 5-set bonus and 2 rather useless set boni. If you have the Seducer for example, all your set boni are useful, the magicka regen makes up for the extra mundus stone plus you get 8% cost reduction.

Ive been trying to figure out a heavy armor spell damage build with:
-4x Storm Knight
-4x Elf Bane
-2x Cyrodiil's Light
-2x Torugs Pact
This would give 6x spell damage bonus but I never got around to test it.

Docmandu · July 2015

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Also the twice-born star is not very useful in my eyes, you only get 1 extra mundus stone buff for the 5-set bonus and 2 rather useless set boni. If you have the Seducer for example, all your set boni are useful, the magicka regen makes up for the extra mundus stone plus you get 8% cost reduction.

It is very useful in BWB though.. where most stats do diddly squat.. ie. in BWB only the 8% cost reduction on Seducer works.

Joy_Division · July 2015

This is an interesting build.

I tried to make Twice Born Star "work" after 1.6, but two of the other traits are very uncompetitive and the increase to max magicka borderline.

The numbers you have posted do look pretty good for a sustained/survivable build though. I have never been one who could waste slots so I would value another skill instead of running structured entropy on both bars...especially since you are thinking of using pots and you can get your spellpower buff from them.

I also am wondering about your atronach / apprentice selection. I find that in trials, sustain is not an issue at all and the apprentice provides a significant boost in DPS. I normally run atronach for PvP because I do not have my pocket elemental drainer, but 2019 is pretty good so perhaps you should just go apprentice for both.

Xsorus · July 2015

Joy_Division wrote: »

This is an interesting build.

I tried to make Twice Born Star "work" after 1.6, but two of the other traits are very uncompetitive and the increase to max magicka borderline.

The numbers you have posted do look pretty good for a sustained/survivable build though. I have never been one who could waste slots so I would value another skill instead of running structured entropy on both bars...especially since you are thinking of using pots and you can get your spellpower buff from them.

I also am wondering about your atronach / apprentice selection. I find that in trials, sustain is not an issue at all and the apprentice provides a significant boost in DPS. I normally run atronach for PvP because I do not have my pocket elemental drainer, but 2019 is pretty good so perhaps you should just go apprentice for both.

Same in 1.6 I ran it for a bit..

You're probably better off with something else to be honest.

SkylarkAU · July 2015

Updated build for a battle-mage / caster spec..

Shown running purple food, boundless storm, pots & undaunted mettle 1/2. Also viable running drinks though the max magicka runs a little lower (~27k) and magicka regen a little higher (~2.1k) than I like/need.

The dominion/pact/covenant items are from the potentates set for the extra ult generation since casters generate ult slower without the light attack weaving etc (108 ult bats ftw). The extra stam regen from potentates + the max stam from twice-born goes towards vigor and defensive posture on the back bar. No structured entropy required

Hootnannius · July 2015

The Add on is called 'My Build".

Septimus_Magna · July 2015

Docmandu wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Also the twice-born star is not very useful in my eyes, you only get 1 extra mundus stone buff for the 5-set bonus and 2 rather useless set boni. If you have the Seducer for example, all your set boni are useful, the magicka regen makes up for the extra mundus stone plus you get 8% cost reduction.

It is very useful in BWB though.. where most stats do diddly squat.. ie. in BWB only the 8% cost reduction on Seducer works.

I might be, I havent made builds for BWB myself so I wouldnt know.
The post is about a VR14 sorc who has no access to BWB so I didnt take this into consideration.

eliisra · July 2015

Do we even know if ZoS plans to re-visit spell/armor penetration values and fix mace + sharp bug?

Because if not, why theory-craft and use heavy builds, you're going to take almost full dmg regardless of armor and will be better of using a full set of medium or light like today. Well, unless you need 20% block cost reduction. Some DK's still use 5 heavy for block passives.

Would love to start planning a heavy build to, but if I'm still taking 100% dmg from mace and now also magicka users stacking pen, why bother? It's not like 20% block reduction alone will be worth anything, after the nerf to stam regen. Think many of us would like to have some heads up about these issue from the devs.

Other than that, the build looks really nice, if armor actually made a bloody difference.

Erock25 · July 2015

They have to fix the penetration values. It would be ridiculous not to. The armor pen with a Mace thing has to be fixed for sure.

SkylarkAU · July 2015

eliisra wrote: »

Do we even know if ZoS plans to re-visit spell/armor penetration values and fix mace + sharp bug?

Because if not, why theory-craft and use heavy builds, you're going to take almost full dmg regardless of armor and will be better of using a full set of medium or light like today. Well, unless you need 20% block cost reduction. Some DK's still use 5 heavy for block passives.

Would love to start planning a heavy build to, but if I'm still taking 100% dmg from mace and now also magicka users stacking pen, why bother? It's not like 20% block reduction alone will be worth anything, after the nerf to stam regen. Think many of us would like to have some heads up about these issue from the devs.

Other than that, the build looks really nice, if armor actually made a bloody difference.

The whole idea of the above build is really predicated on 1.7 bringing about a whole range of fixes and balances changes, the ones we know about and the ones we'd expect (like nirn and the mace bug).

We exist in a pretty narrow meta right now but with dodge/block/bolt set to change and TTKs lengthening I think this 1.7 meta will widen the path for a broader range of successful pvp builds.. Now is a good time to start getting creative, think about old ideas that didn't work while testing new theories. How will our minutes long battles play out vs our seconds long battles in 1.6?

That said we can also expect a whole new range of gear in the major update with all sorts of different perks we haven't seen before. Nonetheless this is a good time to start looking forward!

SkylarkAU · July 2015

Final build for anyone interested.. seems to be very strong for aggressive style pvp play. ofc spell damage would be much higher with duel wield but I prefer the fast ulti regen for those decisive moments.

Buffs running: tri-food, spell pot (magicka+major sorcery), inner light, thundering presence
Mundus: apprentice + atronach
#noexploits

Lava_Croft · July 2015

Hello! What addon are you using for that nice overview window? Thank you in advance!

Read thread are hard.