Magsorcs weak, or I doing something wrong?

markulrich1966 · April 2021

the strongest AOE skill, Crystal Blast, was replaced by Crystal Weapon.
Since then I prefer playing magplars instead, puncturing strikes are as easy to spam as crystal blast formerly.

To get my jobs still done without too much frustration (daily delves/bosses on up to 36 characters, cp 1000), I use a non-meta build. Mothers Sorrow + Torugs Pact, infused lightning staff with flame damage glyph. So the AOE now mainly comes from haunting curse + heavy staff attacs.
I also tried Mad Tinkerer instead of Torugs Pact. Works ok on those builds that I use for fun (woodelves/redguards), but with Highelves TP gives me quicker gameplay.

But if I'm low on time and have to choose among my templars OR sorcerers for dailies, I use the templars now, or dual wield stamina characters.

ThorianB · April 2021

markulrich1966 wrote: »

the strongest AOE skill, Crystal Blast, was replaced by Crystal Weapon.
Since then I prefer playing magplars instead, puncturing strikes are as easy to spam as crystal blast formerly.

To get my jobs still done without too much frustration (daily delves/bosses on up to 36 characters, cp 1000), I use a non-meta build. Mothers Sorrow + Torugs Pact, lighning staff with flame damage glyph. So the AOE now mainly comes from haunting curse + heavy staff attacs.
I also tried Mad Tinkerer instead of Torugs Pact. Works ok on those builds that I use for fun (woodelves/redguards), but with Highelves TP gives me quicker gameplay.

But if I'm low on time and have to choose among my templars OR sorcerers for dailies, I use the templars now, or dual wield stamina characters.

I hate crystal weapon, but frags is an awesome spammable with great sustain.

markulrich1966 · April 2021

ThorianB wrote: »

markulrich1966 wrote: »

the strongest AOE skill, Crystal Blast, was replaced by Crystal Weapon.
Since then I prefer playing magplars instead, puncturing strikes are as easy to spam as crystal blast formerly.

To get my jobs still done without too much frustration (daily delves/bosses on up to 36 characters, cp 1000), I use a non-meta build. Mothers Sorrow + Torugs Pact, lighning staff with flame damage glyph. So the AOE now mainly comes from haunting curse + heavy staff attacs.
I also tried Mad Tinkerer instead of Torugs Pact. Works ok on those builds that I use for fun (woodelves/redguards), but with Highelves TP gives me quicker gameplay.

But if I'm low on time and have to choose among my templars OR sorcerers for dailies, I use the templars now, or dual wield stamina characters.

I hate crystal weapon, but frags is an awesome spammable with great sustain.

yes, but single target, while crystal blast was AOE, a very strong AOE ability.

Septimus_Magna · April 2021

I dont have any issues with AOE on my magsorc, you can cast Mystic Orb, Scamp Pulse, Boundless Storm and spam Unstable Wall of Elements, the final explosion happens on each cast. If you have issues with AOE its probably down to the gear quality, do you have gold quality weapons for example? I read you're using MS but what other 5pc set do you use? Purple MS jewelry is pretty cheap so its easy to combine with something like Julianos or False God.

Tesman85 · April 2021

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

I dont have any issues with AOE on my magsorc, you can cast Mystic Orb, Scamp Pulse, Boundless Storm and spam Unstable Wall of Elements, the final explosion happens on each cast. If you have issues with AOE its probably down to the gear quality, do you have gold quality weapons for example? I read you're using MS but what other 5pc set do you use? Purple MS jewelry is pretty cheap so its easy to combine with something like Julianos or False God.

I have full sets of Law of Julianos and Armor of the seducer, as stated in an earlier post. MS is Mother's Sorrow? I do have most of that collected, but have nowhere near enough transmutation crystals to get a full set. As for gear quality, I won't waste gold materials for lvl 20-something gear, so armor is blue and weapons purple.

I have to try that Wall of Elements trick. I just got that morph and a few others, and changed my skill bar's abilities according to the tips I saw here. When I'm less tired I'll take my sorc for a round or two of Sentinel docks and see what happens. Let's hope it's less frustrating.

Agenericname · April 2021

Sorcs have a bit slower start on the curve than what templars do. You'll want crit surge, ward, your pets, etc later on, but they take some time. Sorcs are late bloomers in this respect, but they make very capable classes and worth the wait.

MS is Mother's Sorrow. Youre right not to put a lot of time and effort into gear at your stage. Any 2 sets that benefit magicka will help you.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · April 2021

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

With this patch sorc is by far my weakest class.

in Markarth it hit like a truck.. now it slaps....

I don't really like frags.. I know everyone seem to use it this patch.. but it feels weird.

My sorc is not in a good place.

@Grandchamp1989

Crystal Frags is frankly not in a good place. Sorcs are I believe leading the magic classes in ST damage. At first glance from a sorcs perspective, great nothing to see here. The problem is, that sorcs recently got a lot harder to play, and this all comes down to how cyrstal frags functions. People figured out (thanks Revelx), that you can actually weave hard cast frags just as fast as you can any other skill, again, great on paper. It means you can drop a spammable, add another DOT or shield, again all good.

Here is the problem. A Frags hard cast is a 0.8second skill. That means you basically have a .2 second window to weave your LA for the next frags cast. Too early, doesnt fire. Too late, your pace is slow and you lose DPS. In other words, even though your can weave frags as fast as any other spammable on paper, it takes more precision with your fingers to do so. This of course increases the power gap between players, as some are just better at it.

The other issue, is that swapping off of a crystal frags hard cast can't be done within the pace of a global cooldown. Therefore if you are playing dynamically (what I usually suggest, even for newer players on sorc), its another layer of complication. Any time you need to go to the back bar, you need to do it off of another front bar skill, or a frags proc, which adds an element of RNG as to when you can swap. Again, this increases the power gap because what was one of the easier dynamic rotations to play, now is one of the hardest.

ZOS keeps talking about this magical power gap they are trying to shrink. Stuff like this needs looked at.

Tesman85 · April 2021

Agenericname wrote: »

Sorcs have a bit slower start on the curve than what templars do. You'll want crit surge, ward, your pets, etc later on, but they take some time. Sorcs are late bloomers in this respect, but they make very capable classes and worth the wait.

MS is Mother's Sorrow. Youre right not to put a lot of time and effort into gear at your stage. Any 2 sets that benefit magicka will help you.

Well, I actually planned on Excel what sets I should craft for my two lvl 50's, and decided to do the same for my eight lower-level characters while I was at it. At the moment I'm using only craftable sets since I have only about 100 transmutation crystals. There are only two characters unequipped according to the plan anymore.

But yeah, that was the extent of the trouble I took since I decided that craftable sets are enough at least for the low-levels, and for armor blue is maximum quality since I'm crafting a new set for them every 15 levels or so anyway. That said, even that small time investment (something like an hour for the set planning and 15 min for crafting a full set of gear for each character) did improve the characters' effectiveness suprisingly much.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · April 2021

Tesman85 wrote: »

Agenericname wrote: »

Sorcs have a bit slower start on the curve than what templars do. You'll want crit surge, ward, your pets, etc later on, but they take some time. Sorcs are late bloomers in this respect, but they make very capable classes and worth the wait.

MS is Mother's Sorrow. Youre right not to put a lot of time and effort into gear at your stage. Any 2 sets that benefit magicka will help you.

Well, I actually planned on Excel what sets I should craft for my two lvl 50's, and decided to do the same for my eight lower-level characters while I was at it. At the moment I'm using only craftable sets since I have only about 100 transmutation crystals. There are only two characters unequipped according to the plan anymore.

But yeah, that was the extent of the trouble I took since I decided that craftable sets are enough at least for the low-levels, and for armor blue is maximum quality since I'm crafting a new set for them every 15 levels or so anyway. That said, even that small time investment (something like an hour for the set planning and 15 min for crafting a full set of gear for each character) did improve the characters' effectiveness suprisingly much.

Dont overthink your gear at low levels. The only "requirement" would be to make stuff in training if you can. Crafted sets are fine. Hundings for stam, Julianos for mag, perhaps pair with a regen set if you want to go all out. Certainly dont go beyond blue/purple quality, even green (or white) is fine. Gear is not going to make that much of a difference, getting a few more skills on your bar will.

Farming any type of gear below CP 160 is a colossal waste of resources unless you are specifically trying to build for under 50 PVP. I have leveled toons from 1-50 in level 4 training gear. It just doesnt matter that much.

Diminish · April 2021

LashanW wrote: »

Diminish wrote: »

In my opinion, I feel like Mag Sorcs lack in single target abilities. You end up relying on Crystal Frag, and your monster set to proc for some big damage output to single targets.

It's the other way around. Magsorcs are a bit lacking in AoE damage compared to other classes. Not that magsorcs can't get the job done, it's just that all other 5 classes have more AoE options that hit harder.

Magsorcs do however, have the highest single target damage atm (among mag classes). They got some serious hard hitting single target skills, some of them are based on pets so they are automated; frags, twilight tormentor, storm atro (best single target ultimate in the game for PvE). Due to how their pet rotation works, magsorcs also get a lot more time with their spammable, which also leads to more single target dps.

As a sorc main (4 in total) currently playing magBlade again, I was going to type a long response but decided not to. magBlade is by far superior when it comes to damage output; especially single target.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · April 2021

Diminish wrote: »

LashanW wrote: »

Diminish wrote: »

In my opinion, I feel like Mag Sorcs lack in single target abilities. You end up relying on Crystal Frag, and your monster set to proc for some big damage output to single targets.

It's the other way around. Magsorcs are a bit lacking in AoE damage compared to other classes. Not that magsorcs can't get the job done, it's just that all other 5 classes have more AoE options that hit harder.

Magsorcs do however, have the highest single target damage atm (among mag classes). They got some serious hard hitting single target skills, some of them are based on pets so they are automated; frags, twilight tormentor, storm atro (best single target ultimate in the game for PvE). Due to how their pet rotation works, magsorcs also get a lot more time with their spammable, which also leads to more single target dps.

As a sorc main (4 in total) currently playing magBlade again, I was going to type a long response but decided not to. magBlade is by far superior when it comes to damage output; especially single target.

@Diminish
Yeah, not too sure that is the case on live. Highest parses I have seen (no cheese or vamp).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dITBJ5_aTsc
Magic Sorc 104K+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q71eTKHvCwE&t=4s
Magic NB 99K+

In personally get similar discrepancies on a dummy. I am personally about 97k on mag sorc and 92k on NB this patch. Havent done a tone of parsing this patch, but from a straight DPS perspective (not counting Vampire toggle), Sorc is ahead. The NB rotation is a dynamic rotation. The sorc I can do either way with similar results. I have not played a static rotation on a sorc in years, but using frags as a spammable sure does make me want to because its more consistent (but doesnt have the same ceiling).

Historically, NB has had the higher ceiling with a more difficult dynamic rotation, which I have always been okay with. I dont believe that is true ATM.

Zodiarkslayer · April 2021

Tesman85 wrote: »

Agenericname wrote: »

Sorcs have a bit slower start on the curve than what templars do. You'll want crit surge, ward, your pets, etc later on, but they take some time. Sorcs are late bloomers in this respect, but they make very capable classes and worth the wait.

MS is Mother's Sorrow. Youre right not to put a lot of time and effort into gear at your stage. Any 2 sets that benefit magicka will help you.

Well, I actually planned on Excel what sets I should craft for my two lvl 50's, and decided to do the same for my eight lower-level characters while I was at it. At the moment I'm using only craftable sets since I have only about 100 transmutation crystals. There are only two characters unequipped according to the plan anymore.

But yeah, that was the extent of the trouble I took since I decided that craftable sets are enough at least for the low-levels, and for armor blue is maximum quality since I'm crafting a new set for them every 15 levels or so anyway. That said, even that small time investment (something like an hour for the set planning and 15 min for crafting a full set of gear for each character) did improve the characters' effectiveness suprisingly much.

You should level only one toon at a time and bench all the others. After all you can only play one at a time, right?

Craft a set if Julianos (maxmag glyphs) on the body and weapons(shock glyph), and a defensive set (Torugs pact/Deaths Wind with health enchants) on head and shoulders. Do that for lvls 14 22 30 38 44. And then do the Dolmen Runs in Deshaan to get a full set of mothers sorrow (jewelry and two body parts, whichever drop, to replace 2 pieces of julianos with). That is both cost efficient and gives you easy survivability boosts, while making your grind acceptably fast.

If you are using Stamina Characters, replace Julianos with Hundings Rage and Deshaan with Bankorai.

And since you are keeping the training gear for later levelling, you can upgrade to purple quality.

Level 4 gear grinds to Max Level is only something for expert bears. The last levels are a real slog and really slow.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · April 2021

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

Tesman85 wrote: »

Agenericname wrote: »

Sorcs have a bit slower start on the curve than what templars do. You'll want crit surge, ward, your pets, etc later on, but they take some time. Sorcs are late bloomers in this respect, but they make very capable classes and worth the wait.

MS is Mother's Sorrow. Youre right not to put a lot of time and effort into gear at your stage. Any 2 sets that benefit magicka will help you.

Well, I actually planned on Excel what sets I should craft for my two lvl 50's, and decided to do the same for my eight lower-level characters while I was at it. At the moment I'm using only craftable sets since I have only about 100 transmutation crystals. There are only two characters unequipped according to the plan anymore.

But yeah, that was the extent of the trouble I took since I decided that craftable sets are enough at least for the low-levels, and for armor blue is maximum quality since I'm crafting a new set for them every 15 levels or so anyway. That said, even that small time investment (something like an hour for the set planning and 15 min for crafting a full set of gear for each character) did improve the characters' effectiveness suprisingly much.

You should level only one toon at a time and bench all the others. After all you can only play one at a time, right?

Craft a set if Julianos (maxmag glyphs) on the body and weapons(shock glyph), and a defensive set (Torugs pact/Deaths Wind with health enchants) on head and shoulders. Do that for lvls 14 22 30 38 44. And then do the Dolmen Runs in Deshaan to get a full set of mothers sorrow (jewelry and two body parts, whichever drop, to replace 2 pieces of julianos with). That is both cost efficient and gives you easy survivability boosts, while making your grind acceptably fast.

If you are using Stamina Characters, replace Julianos with Hundings Rage and Deshaan with Bankorai.

And since you are keeping the training gear for later levelling, you can upgrade to purple quality.

Level 4 gear grinds to Max Level is only something for expert bears. The last levels are a real slog and really slow.

I LOL'ed at that. And yeah, Level 4 from 1-50 without some CP is probably not the best advice. I carried full stam and magic training gear in the exact levels you mentioned for a long time. I decond'ed them after leveling my Wardens. I did my Necros in Level 4 gear. You will definitely start to feel weaker as you get further from your gear level. If all you are doing is grinding, and you know what you are doing, not sure it matters all that much, but gear about every 8-10 levels is a wiser move if you have the ability to make it and you are lower CP.

My bigger point was that overthinking gear below CP 160 is generally a wasted effort. Gear is likley not what is holding you back. Some classes feel stronger earlier than others.

Tesman85 · April 2021

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I LOL'ed at that. And yeah, Level 4 from 1-50 without some CP is probably not the best advice. I carried full stam and magic training gear in the exact levels you mentioned for a long time. I decond'ed them after leveling my Wardens. I did my Necros in Level 4 gear. You will definitely start to feel weaker as you get further from your gear level. If all you are doing is grinding, and you know what you are doing, not sure it matters all that much, but gear about every 8-10 levels is a wiser move if you have the ability to make it and you are lower CP.

My bigger point was that overthinking gear below CP 160 is generally a wasted effort. Gear is likley not what is holding you back. Some classes feel stronger earlier than others.

Well, if you refer me planning the sets for even the non lvl 50's, I don't think it's overthinking. Rather, I did it as a way to test even more different set combinations which would have been in order anyway when those characters were lvl 50. You see, I've realized only lately the effect the right sets can have and am searching for good "final" combinations so as not to waste max level materials with useless trial-and-error. Grinding to 50 with level 4 gear sounds pretty epic, though! Have to respect someone who can endure that, since for me about 10-15 levels with the same gear is maximum before playing starts to feel a chore.

But, of course I now realize the problem with my sorcs lies in the wrong skill selection, not gear.

cyberjanet · April 2021

Yeah, I'm also a terrible sorc.

Psiion · April 2021

Greetings,

As this thread is mostly discussing character mechanics, we have gone ahead and moved it to the Combat and Character Mechanics section of the forums.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · April 2021

Tesman85 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I LOL'ed at that. And yeah, Level 4 from 1-50 without some CP is probably not the best advice. I carried full stam and magic training gear in the exact levels you mentioned for a long time. I decond'ed them after leveling my Wardens. I did my Necros in Level 4 gear. You will definitely start to feel weaker as you get further from your gear level. If all you are doing is grinding, and you know what you are doing, not sure it matters all that much, but gear about every 8-10 levels is a wiser move if you have the ability to make it and you are lower CP.

My bigger point was that overthinking gear below CP 160 is generally a wasted effort. Gear is likley not what is holding you back. Some classes feel stronger earlier than others.

Well, if you refer me planning the sets for even the non lvl 50's, I don't think it's overthinking. Rather, I did it as a way to test even more different set combinations which would have been in order anyway when those characters were lvl 50. You see, I've realized only lately the effect the right sets can have and am searching for good "final" combinations so as not to waste max level materials with useless trial-and-error. Grinding to 50 with level 4 gear sounds pretty epic, though! Have to respect someone who can endure that, since for me about 10-15 levels with the same gear is maximum before playing starts to feel a chore.

But, of course I now realize the problem with my sorcs lies in the wrong skill selection, not gear.

First, if that's what you want to do, then awesome. Certainly not here to tell anyone how to go about creating their character.

What I will say is that once you get to "end game", and that can obviously mean different things for different people, you will find that crafted sets are generally a supplement to your build. Very hard to figure out ideal gear combos at low levels because you probably wont have access to the trial, dungeon, and world drops that you might want for a complete build. You also get slightly skewed results at low levels because there is battle leveling affecting your stats that is likely smoothing out some of the rough spots in your build.

That said, you can do just about any content that this game has to offer in all crafted sets if you want and some people do for various reasons, ease, RP, whatever. And of course, that is a perfectly fine way to play.

Happy adventuring!

Tesman85 · April 2021

You guess what? This problem no longer exists. I changed my bar to Lightning Splash, Mage's Wrath, Unstable Wall of Elements, Encase and Volatile Familiar. When I went to Coldharbour to do main quest stuff, I saw that the enemies practically melted before me. I didn't even have to explode the familiar once because spamming the three first mentioned skills were so devastating together. So, the problem was in skill selection all along.

Thanks, everyone! Now I can play my sorcerers without getting frustrated.

Priyasekarssk · June 2022

Mage sorc is definitely weakest especially on high end. All streamers blatantly lie about mage sorc. They will never play or show how mage sorc is op. Stam sorc is pretty fine even op. On 1v1 you will always lose horribly against all class. It’s not the your skill. Mage sorc design to be cannon fodder for long time. Only thing you can do is zerg in pvp.

Never trust anyone who says mage sorc is op or even fine. They are lying.

Browiseth · June 2022

pretty much every class and major build type is strong enough to the point that for general play you shouldn't see very much discrepancy in overall power (except mag wardens apparently L O L)

i think it may be worth re-examining you actual mechanical performance with your character before pondering if you've picked the right gear or playstyle. your rotation and ability to weave - essentially how skilled you are - is going to be the biggest factor in how powerful your character is.

NordSwordnBoard · June 2022

Comment #49 by OP, from April of 2021 makes me think the issue was resolved. I'm not quoting them so they don't see the corpse of an issue overcome long ago come back to life.

Mr_Stach · June 2022

Browiseth wrote: »

pretty much every class and major build type is strong enough to the point that for general play you shouldn't see very much discrepancy in overall power (except mag wardens apparently L O L)

Kahnak · June 2022

etchedpixels wrote: »

itscompton wrote: »

OP is on a Lvl 20ish character and has less than 200 total CP. That means he/she doesn't have most of the abilities/passives that make Sorc so strong when fully leveled unlocked yet, nor the amount of CP to make standard mob PvE encounters trivial, so you can quit trying to skill shame them.

At CP 150 you've got the 50 points in rejuvenation you need to work around the sustain over-nerf. Yes the dps will be a fair bit lower as penetration will be lower, critical will be lower and a lot of the sorc passives and general buffs are not there (although the key ones you can get via the mages guild skill line)

More important is going to be the skills slotted and the gear worn. The reason you can solo a dolmen on a level 20 sorc isn't primarily CP, and it's not rockstar keyboard skills. It''s a combination of

- A 5 piece set giving a load of extra spell critical, spell damage and AoE damage (eg mad tinkerer)
- A 5 piece set giving masses more critical (mother's sorrow)
- Lover mundus stone to get penetration up
- The right set of skills - which is not the same set you use at high level

The skills side I agree is more difficult at level 20 but you'd usually have obtained some of the important ones and passives in the process including the storm atronach ultimate, unstable wall of elements, haunting curse and mages wrath, plus some of the damage increasing passives and a good pet based heal. Mages wrath is really handy on trash because it's both an execute (does lots of damage to low health targets) and causes them to then explode on death.

What you probably don't have are the mid level range passives (worth a good 5%+), a class way to get major sorcery/prophecy - worth a good 25%+ together and all of amplitude and energized passives (again worth a lot).

Some of that you can get by other means. If you go read loads of books you'll get mages guild up a bit and at mages guild 2 you get magelight (slot but don't use so you get major prophecy) and at 4 you get access via degeneration to major sorcery.
(dedicated readers get fire rune at 6 which isn't a bad AoE and the volcanic rune version I tend to run on levelling mag toons mostly because it's so funny watching goblins go suborbital). You can view the mages guild book collecting two ways - it's either an incredibly irritating activity or a very convenient way to get a bunch of skills at low level.

Sustain is also hard at low level as unstable wall is expensive if you spam it too much, but you can mix in heavy attacks

"At CP 150 you've got the 50 points in rejuvenation you need to work around the sustain over-nerf. Yes the dps will be a fair bit lower as penetration will be lower, critical will be lower and a lot of the sorc passives and general buffs are not there (although the key ones you can get via the mages guild skill line)"

There is no sustain over-nerf. With the exception of some classes whose sustain is borderline too good, it's not difficult to sustain on a Mag Sorc even as a High Elf, especially considering the hybrid changes.

"What you probably don't have are the mid level range passives (worth a good 5%+), a class way to get major sorcery/prophecy - worth a good 25%+ together and all of amplitude and energized passives (again worth a lot)."

Surge gives Major Sorcery/Major Brutality AND is a strong heal. This makes me wonder if you even play Sorcerer considering you advocate for getting a 'pet based heal' earlier in this diatribe.

"- A 5 piece set giving a load of extra spell critical, spell damage and AoE damage (eg mad tinkerer)"

Uh, do not wear this set outside of PvP. Not only are there very few sets that give all three of those at the same time, but Mad Tinkerer is probably one of the worst PvE overland sets. Julianos is far and away a better set and I'd be willing to make a purple 5 piece body set of it for free @Kahnak0.

"- Lover mundus stone to get penetration up"

Wearing 7 light pieces of gear will get you all of the penetration you are required to bring to an organized group. You try running an organized trial with the Lover and you will be overcapping on Penetration by a significant amount and wasting stats.

"Sustain is also hard at low level as unstable wall is expensive if you spam it too much, but you can mix in heavy attacks"

Sustain is actually easier the lower your level, because your stats are inflated due to the level normalization.