Filler spells OR a stamina focus as well and utilizing left click weapon dmg/weapon skills + buffs like surge and when needed lightning form. Plus any weapon skill buffs such as momentum from 2hand line. Personally I find Crystal fragments (the insta cast morph) + mages wrath + 3secCurse to be a great combo. Starting fights off with the curse.. and if insta cast for crystal fragments proc's then use it, if not play defensive/offensive depending situation til it explodes and try again..and of course once enemies at half health(typically) use mages wrath so that when curse goes boom so does mages wrath..you can have all 3 spells hit at the exact same time for a massive burst damage situation.

Yep

It all depends on what kind of build you're going for. Don't underestimate the other skill lines though (although Daedric summoning does feel a little underpowered compared to others). Endless fury, crystal fragments, and velocious curse combo works wonders against groups. With spell cost reduction perks, you can even get endless fury to not only be free, but restore some magicka on executes. It's good to mix in some stamina abilities with these (I went with bow because it deals good damage).

And as others have said above, there are excellent utility spells in storm calling that are very useful for kiting. Also each tree has very good passives, so you'll want to make sure to level up each.

Daedric Summoning is not underpowered, it's strength lies primarily Velocious Curse and Twilight Matriarch, as a matter of fact anyone going deep into Daedric Summoning is going to be wanting those particular spells/morphs.

The Twilight Matriarch is a useful tool in PvP as life safer, and more notably, as exceptionally effective aggro magnet in PvE, it does the job the Clannfear fails at; Tanking mobs. Seeing as the Familiar/Clannfear is the entry level spell on Daerdric Summoning, I can easily understand why people think the entire role is underpowered.

Velocious Curse does very good damage, my standard combo is as follows:
- Cast Velocious Curse
- Do a heavy destruction staff attack
- Velocious Curse explodes exactly as the staff heavy attack hits
- Finish target with Endless Fury for additional AoE damage and Magicka back.
- Any non-standard mob will "near-instantly" (after 3.5 seconds of delayed damage in fact, after which it is dealt all at once) die to this combination unless it out-levels you by 2+ levels.
- Both Velocious Curse and Endless Fury deal AoE damage, causing extra DPS on packs of mobs.
- Because all damage is dealt after 3.5 seconds, healers (players and mobs) can be overwhelmed with the burst of damage. It kills healer mobs before they can cast their heals, shortening PvE fights significantly.

Therefore my hotbar, using a destruction staff, is as follows:
Velocious Curse, Endless Fury, Thundering Presence, Twilight Matriarch, Unstable Clannfear, Greater Storm Atronach.

I plan on replacing Unstable Clannfear with something else when I see an opportunity, it currently is my weakest spell, and I will likely swap Thundering Presence with Hardened Ward once I unlock that. Hardened Ward may in turn make the Clannfear more useful again, so who knows.

TLDR: Sorcerers don't need Dark Magic to come up with viable builds, mine uses the "underpowered" skill lines perfectly fine.

The minions are absolutely a leveling thing first and foremost. Once I reach level 50 (and 50 in Daedric Summoning), I will replace them unless by that point they have resolved the AI issues as well as the stealth/hiding issues with PvP. You might notice that my standard DPS rotation doesn't really involve them, it's simply because I use them for PvE aggro.

I'll show you OP:
My build http://tinyurl.com/pqjuxcc

steinernein wrote: »

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Daedric summoning has the best AoE out of all the mage line under many circumstances. Name one other AoE that stuns and is hitting for almost as much as Crystal Shards and has a shorter cast time? Oh wait, none. However, said AoE is *** for PvP unless you're in a melee group.

...There isn't a non ultimate AoE that does this in any sorcerer tree. I you're talking about Daedric Curse, then it doesn't stun, does middling AoE damage, and it has a delay factor that reduces it's viability as a spammed nuke. It's still a great ability (ONLY if morphed to have a 3.5 second timer. It's terrible otherwise), especially if the delay isn't important since you're a hybrid using the odd spell in between stamina feats, but Crystal Fragments will always be a better choice as a main ranged nuke, although it may be worth using Velocious Curse on some builds since it can proc an instant Crystal Fragments.

It's AoE is probably the best out of your 2nd tier class abilities (it's the only semi spammable one we have at that point), but Lightning Splash will beat it both in raw damage and because you can actually spam it. Also, once someone actually activates Lightning Splashes synergy it becomes our highest damage ability.

This is only really relevant for lower level stuff though. Once you unlock it, Impulse from the Destruction Staff tree will become your most powerful spammable AoE.

Teloran wrote: »

...There isn't a non ultimate AoE that does this in any sorcerer tree. I you're talking about Daedric Curse, then it doesn't stun, does middling AoE damage, and it has a delay factor that reduces it's viability as a spammed nuke. It's still a great ability (ONLY if morphed to have a 3.5 second timer. It's terrible otherwise), especially if the delay isn't important since you're a hybrid using the odd spell in between stamina feats, but Crystal Fragments will always be a better choice as a main ranged nuke, although it may be worth using Velocious Curse on some builds since it can proc an instant Crystal Fragments.

It's AoE is probably the best out of your 2nd tier class abilities (it's the only semi spammable one we have at that point), but Lightning Splash will beat it both in raw damage and because you can actually spam it. Also, once someone actually activates Lightning Splashes synergy it becomes our highest damage ability.

This is only really relevant for lower level stuff though. Once you unlock it, Impulse from the Destruction Staff tree will become your most powerful spammable AoE.

If you're too lazy to look at the options, you could just ask for the answer.

I already gave you a few clues; instant cast, high damage, stuns, and requires you to be in melee range, is in the summoning tree.

What the *** could I be talking about?

Summons an explosive familiar to attack enemies. Explodes on death, causing 20% of your Max Magica as damage and stunning affected enemies for 2 seconds. Toggle to activate. Reduces Max Magicka by 10%. Familiar deals 15% additional damage.

Does this look at all... familiar... to you? Consider the fact that it will out damage every AoE (probably) at any given level except for the lowest ones if you're gearing for magicka. The costs on it are deceptive due to the passive return + non-capped cost reductions which makes it pretty spammable.

Crystal Fragments, Dark Conversion, Unstable Familiar are hands down our most abusive abilities and two of them are questionable in PvP due to how CC immunity works (though I guess you could use Unstable Familiar as a homing missile of sorts).

And synergies generally consume the producer so you have to consider that you're taking away two GCDs to do what one person is doing with Unstable Familiar.

And obviously, yes, when you de-summon your imp it counts as death thus causing the explosion, and yes it can crit. And the max magicka reduction doesn't affect your max magicka return when it dies (just like it doesn't reduce your damage when you have it out).

steinernein wrote: »

snip

If you can instantly explode it, then it may not be terrible but Impulse (unmorphed) and Lightning Splash (without high DPS synergy) are still better in terms of both DPS and DPM. Even then, considering that you need to wait for it to walk up to your enemy means that you loose out on DPS. If you can't cause it to explode manually by de-spawning it (which is what I assumed) then its not reliable enough to consider.

The stun is nice for PvE trash, but won't wond anyone for more then a second in PvP who knows how to CC break and won't work on PvE bosses.

steinernein wrote: »

You're asking for three global cool downs to match ONE GCD; what if you had two sorcs casting unstable familiar? Even just by myself by the time someone takes advantage of the synergy I am already up by 400~ damage. So no, it's pretty obvious that unstable familiar has the highest DPS.

I'm guessing you're talking about Lightning Splash here. Firstly, there isn't a global cooldown on this game, there's just animation times. The synergy is pretty much instant and the cast animation, including the ground targeting, are not that long. It is prone to lag since you need two inputs but so is the familiar cycle, especially since it takes a moment for the familiar to phase in. Even without the synergy, Lightning Splash will beat it in DPS. At VR10 the soft cap for magica is about 1800, hence you get 380 damage at the cost of 486 magica.

Lightning Slash does 432 over its duration for 364 magica and can be stacked. If you add in the synergy, then it will do 782 damage for the same cost. Even assuming that you can do two minion explosions for each splash with synergy, Lightning Splash still beasts it in DPS and blows it out of the water in DPM. It can also be done safely and reliably from range without having to worry about your familiar being killed by a stay AoE before it reaches your target.

The AoE itself is also pretty small, so I doubt you will actually get more then one or two enemies in it.

Do yourself a favour and go to Tamriel Foundry. The Entropy Rising members there were in the closed beta and hence have tested most of this stuff up to VR10. I've hear Volatile Familiar mentioned in their streams without much praise.

steinernein wrote: »

Also, you're not really considering people who deliberately push into the 'second' soft cap nor are you looking at the passives that can support either subjects (be it lightning splash or summoning - 15% refund of max magicka).

At any rate, just run a sim through your addled head and here's a http://repl.it/ environment for you to do it in.

Why don't you do yourself a favor and run the numbers yourself instead of being mentally addled by having people spoon feed you nearly irrelevant information? Are you so poor in character that you have no curiosity about the matter and cannot contribute meaningfully to the discussion by adding decent push back? Every time you write back you reach farther away from the subject; you don't understand what the concept 'DPS' means, you don't really understand how animation locks affect damage, you don't really read your opponent's arguments either, nor are you intelligent/willing enough to consider what environments may support the both of them.

But then again you're the person who thinks 782 damage with exact timing in 3 seconds can beat two brain dead sorcerers putting collectively near 800 damage per second.

I think you're really overestimating the animation times

All those numbers are from esohead, which data mines straight from the game client. They should be pretty accurate, and I DID include the 15% max magica refund from passives (it would be 756 magica otherwise). Honestly, if you can't see that Lightning Splash has a higher sustained AoE DPS from them, I cannot help you. Have fun with your overpriced small radius AoE that spawns a meter to your left, prevents you from sneaking if pre loaded and that can soak up lowest ally heals from your party.

steinernein wrote: »

Teloran wrote: »

I think you're really overestimating the animation times

All those numbers are from esohead, which data mines straight from the game client. They should be pretty accurate, and I DID include the 15% max magica refund from passives (it would be 756 magica otherwise). Honestly, if you can't see that Lightning Splash has a higher sustained AoE DPS from them, I cannot help you. Have fun with your overpriced small radius AoE that spawns a meter to your left, prevents you from sneaking if pre loaded and that can soak up lowest ally heals from your party.

No you're just mentally incapable of thinking about the issue due to the fact that you're relying on being spoonfed (or invested too much trust in a source that isn't telling you the entire story) then again you haven't responded properly to any of the arguments and you probably haven't investigated the issue thoroughly. If you think that I am overestimating it go parse it out yourself and see how much it does matter.

The imp detonation radius is the same as lightning splash unless you morph it to increase its radius in which case you lose out on some minor front loaded damage. Secondly, you don't use the imp unless you plan on detonating it immediately, so why would you bother pre-loading? It's to be treated as a slightly different PBAoE. Thirdly, you aren't even doing the calculations properly.

A character at 50 with 7/7 light armor and some 2k magicka (yes, it's slightly overcharged mostly due to food buff if we're looking for pure damage) will be tossing Lightning Flood out for ~255 mana per cast while a person who is using Volatile Imp will be throwing it out for ~267 mana per cast after refunds..

I think it is perfectly sustainable and only requires ONE person to utilize it effectively rather than wasting another person's effective GCD. Not to mention that the imp detonation can crit and has an extremely high base damage for an AoE - 400 with 2k.

But it's nice to see you change your tune from DPS to sustained DPS which doesn't even matter if you're dropping mobs due to front loaded damage then again you also have no idea how mana costs work either.

Is it really that hard to talk like a normal human being instead of littering the forums with some wall of invective? Grow up, this is some wasted data and theorycrafting when people won't care to get past your first paragraph without the raging *** factor making them decide to tune you out.

Which is a shame because the Daedric Summoning line COULD use some robust discussion that isn't cluttered with some petty, toxic forum war.

If you use a pet at the moment it is probably better off as a delayed nuke via dying/swapping bar with volatile than as a permanent pet - two slots for a weak pet is just too much.