Sorcerer skills for Group Dungeons

BrassRazoo

I'm thinking of putting some effort into the Undaunted Pledges but have not done any dungeons for about 3 months and have not even done some Vet version at all.

What would people advise that a VR14 Sorcerer use on their bars to best contribute in Group Dungeons?

Septimus_Magna

Your role will probably be dps, in order to help the group you need to do high dps without dying.

The skills I would advise:
bar 1 - liquid lighting, force pulse/crushing shock*, crystal frags, inner light, bound aegis > Shooting Star
bar 2 - power surge, endless fury, shock ring/hardened ward/elemental drain**, inner light, bound aegis > Greater Storm Atronach

*Force pulse does more damage but the ranged stun from Crushing Shock can be very useful.
**Shock ring for situations with multiple adds, hardened ward/elemental drain for boss fights.

The goal is to constantly keep power surge and liquid lightning on, weave force pulse/crushing shock with medium atacks and crystal frags when it procs. Shooting Star on stationary/multiple targets and Atronach on moving target. The Liguid Lightning synergy helps the tank to restore attributes with the Undaunted passive. Stat wise you need at least 18k health, as much spell damage (most important) and magicka as possible. Inner light and Bound Aegis give a lot of extra magicka and thus damage.

For gear I advise:
-Martial Knowledge (4x) legs, shoulders, hands, shoes (VR14 if you have money/time to farm, VR13 is more affordable)
-Adroitness (2x) necklace, belt
-Torug's Pact (3x) heavy chest, light head, 1st bar fire staff, 2nd bar shock staff
-Cyrodiil's Light (2x) both rings (they cost a lot of AP/gold so you could replace them with Rings of the Healer, either VR14 or VR13 version).

Use magicka cost reduction on all jewelry and restore magicka enchant on your staffs and blue VR10 magicka/health buff food. With this setup I get 2,6k spell damage, 33k magicka with 19k health on my VR14 Altmer sorc and on average I do 12k dps single target.

I hope this helps!

Magdalina

I mostly agree with the poster above but I object to Surge. It simply isn't worth it anymore. Just use Entropy from Mages' guild, either morph is good. It literally costs about SEVEN times cheaper, it gives same buff(which last 5 seconds less but for seven times less magicka spent...yes please!), it does DoT, it has awesome Mages guild passives.
My main bar is usually Cryst Frags-Crushing Shock-Liquid Lightning-Entropy-Inner Light, off is Endless Fury-Liquid Lightning-Elemental Ring-Daedric Ward-Inner light. It's all subject to change though, like Liquid Lightning only really works on kinda stationary bosses, replace it otherwise. Inner Light and Entropy give same buffs as spellpower potions now so if you plan on chugging those might put something else there(though Inner Light also gives 8% magicka).

BrassRazoo

Thank you both for the replies.
I will try them out.
At least I won't get a "why are you using that skill" from the group.

Septimus_Magna

Magdalina wrote: »

I mostly agree with the poster above but I object to Surge. It simply isn't worth it anymore. Just use Entropy from Mages' guild, either morph is good. It literally costs about SEVEN times cheaper, it gives same buff(which last 5 seconds less but for seven times less magicka spent...yes please!), it does DoT, it has awesome Mages guild passives.
My main bar is usually Cryst Frags-Crushing Shock-Liquid Lightning-Entropy-Inner Light, off is Endless Fury-Liquid Lightning-Elemental Ring-Daedric Ward-Inner light. It's all subject to change though, like Liquid Lightning only really works on kinda stationary bosses, replace it otherwise. Inner Light and Entropy give same buffs as spellpower potions now so if you plan on chugging those might put something else there(though Inner Light also gives 8% magicka).

I have tried Degeneration (entropy morph) but my dps was lower because I needed to switch bars and cast it more often, surge lasts 20 sec and entropy only 12 seconds. Also if you use liquid lightning the mages guild passive is pretty much useless because it procs on the next damage which is a little lightning tick. If magicka sustain is a problem I could see why someone would choose entropy though. I do use entropy for pvp because it can proc and boost crystal frags damage pretty nicely. Also Bound Aegis gives 8% magicka and 2% spell damage, it helps quite a lot so I would advise trying it.

Valymer

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Magdalina wrote: »

I mostly agree with the poster above but I object to Surge. It simply isn't worth it anymore. Just use Entropy from Mages' guild, either morph is good. It literally costs about SEVEN times cheaper, it gives same buff(which last 5 seconds less but for seven times less magicka spent...yes please!), it does DoT, it has awesome Mages guild passives.
My main bar is usually Cryst Frags-Crushing Shock-Liquid Lightning-Entropy-Inner Light, off is Endless Fury-Liquid Lightning-Elemental Ring-Daedric Ward-Inner light. It's all subject to change though, like Liquid Lightning only really works on kinda stationary bosses, replace it otherwise. Inner Light and Entropy give same buffs as spellpower potions now so if you plan on chugging those might put something else there(though Inner Light also gives 8% magicka).

I have tried Degeneration (entropy morph) but my dps was lower because I needed to switch bars and cast it more often, surge lasts 20 sec and entropy only 12 seconds. Also if you use liquid lightning the mages guild passive is pretty much useless because it procs on the next damage which is a little lightning tick. If magicka sustain is a problem I could see why someone would choose entropy though. I do use entropy for pvp because it can proc and boost crystal frags damage pretty nicely. Also Bound Aegis gives 8% magicka and 2% spell damage, it helps quite a lot so I would advise trying it.

The trick is to work out your rotation to open with LL and then use Entropy followed immediately by crystal frag (assuming an instant proc) or Force Pulse / Crushing Shock.

In other words, you should ideally never be casting LL immediately after Entropy (or any other dot like Curse, if you are using that).

Also I didn't see Overload mentioned, it does redonkulous damage as an ultimate. Takes some getting used to as far as saving your ultimate for the boss fights, though.

Ygaer

Structured entropy's dot only lasts 14.4 seconds but the major sorcery buff lasts 20 seconds. There is NO reason to use power surge unless you just need a way to put up the buff without a target and don't want to use a pot.

Also, I call BS on you having 2600 spell damage while using 3 cost reduction enchants :P Unless you're also counting pvp spell damage buff and the minor sorcery buff from templars in addition to the major sorcery buff, which would all be kind of unrepresentative of where he should be aiming to end up.

Septimus_Magna

Valymer wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Magdalina wrote: »

I mostly agree with the poster above but I object to Surge. It simply isn't worth it anymore. Just use Entropy from Mages' guild, either morph is good. It literally costs about SEVEN times cheaper, it gives same buff(which last 5 seconds less but for seven times less magicka spent...yes please!), it does DoT, it has awesome Mages guild passives.
My main bar is usually Cryst Frags-Crushing Shock-Liquid Lightning-Entropy-Inner Light, off is Endless Fury-Liquid Lightning-Elemental Ring-Daedric Ward-Inner light. It's all subject to change though, like Liquid Lightning only really works on kinda stationary bosses, replace it otherwise. Inner Light and Entropy give same buffs as spellpower potions now so if you plan on chugging those might put something else there(though Inner Light also gives 8% magicka).

I have tried Degeneration (entropy morph) but my dps was lower because I needed to switch bars and cast it more often, surge lasts 20 sec and entropy only 12 seconds. Also if you use liquid lightning the mages guild passive is pretty much useless because it procs on the next damage which is a little lightning tick. If magicka sustain is a problem I could see why someone would choose entropy though. I do use entropy for pvp because it can proc and boost crystal frags damage pretty nicely. Also Bound Aegis gives 8% magicka and 2% spell damage, it helps quite a lot so I would advise trying it.

The trick is to work out your rotation to open with LL and then use Entropy followed immediately by crystal frag (assuming an instant proc) or Force Pulse / Crushing Shock.

In other words, you should ideally never be casting LL immediately after Entropy (or any other dot like Curse, if you are using that).

Also I didn't see Overload mentioned, it does redonkulous damage as an ultimate. Takes some getting used to as far as saving your ultimate for the boss fights, though.

Overload doesnt do as much damage as you might think, while using overload you do cant do your normal damage rotation, result dps isnt increased much. When using meteor/atronach you can just continue your dps rotation. Also the might of the guild passive buff procs on damage, with a good dps rotation there's damage at all time on the target which makes the buff unpredictable.

Ygaer wrote: »

Structured entropy's dot only lasts 14.4 seconds but the major sorcery buff lasts 20 seconds. There is NO reason to use power surge unless you just need a way to put up the buff without a target and don't want to use a pot.

Also, I call BS on you having 2600 spell damage while using 3 cost reduction enchants :P Unless you're also counting pvp spell damage buff and the minor sorcery buff from templars in addition to the major sorcery buff, which would all be kind of unrepresentative of where he should be aiming to end up.

Try 4x vr14 martial knowledge, 3x vr14 torug's pact, 2x vr12 adroitness, 2x vr14 cyrodiil's light, all gear improved to legendary quality. Its true you can replace power surge by spell power pots but that will make running dungeons very expensive. I can post a picture/video if you dont believe me having 2600 spell power.

Ygaer

I used to use that setup until I got Valkyn's, I'm very aware of where the numbers should be. Like I said, you don't get there using 3 spell cost enchants unless you're counting minor sorcery and PVP buffs too, which are by no means "standard".

Overload is WAY more DPS than anything else we can do single target, it's not even remotely close. Spamming overload while keeping liquid lightning going on cooldown is 17-20k DPS depending on the target and trial buffs. Without overload, you're pretty much topping out at 14-15k. It really isn't even close.

Structured entropy is not only good for the buff/hp but it isn't even a DPS loss to spend time using it. It does like 10k for the cast. If you want to use power surge to get the buff without a target, just slap it on your overload bar and voila.

Valymer

As stated, Overload + LL is much more dps than you are going to get with anything else single target. Trust me.

Septimus_Magna

Valymer wrote: »

As stated, Overload + LL is much more dps than you are going to get with anything else single target. Trust me.

Oke, I will give it another try. LL does 3k dps so you say overload does 14-17k dps? That would mean each light overload attack would hit for 15k on average because the attack speed is pretty slow.

Valymer

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Valymer wrote: »

As stated, Overload + LL is much more dps than you are going to get with anything else single target. Trust me.

Oke, I will give it another try. LL does 3k dps so you say overload does 14-17k dps? That would mean each light overload attack would hit for 15k on average because the attack speed is pretty slow.

My light attack hits Engine Guardian for 14,903 just now. Crit 21k+

Here's a screen from kwama boss (not a perfect rotation):

Ygaer

Valymer wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Valymer wrote: »

As stated, Overload + LL is much more dps than you are going to get with anything else single target. Trust me.

Oke, I will give it another try. LL does 3k dps so you say overload does 14-17k dps? That would mean each light overload attack would hit for 15k on average because the attack speed is pretty slow.

My light attack hits Engine Guardian for 14,903 just now. Crit 21k+

Here's a screen from kwama boss (not a perfect rotation):

And this isn't even a build designed to max out overload damage. I've had many many instances of 20-40 second fights where my average overload hit was over 20k.

Valymer

Ygaer wrote: »

Valymer wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Valymer wrote: »

As stated, Overload + LL is much more dps than you are going to get with anything else single target. Trust me.

Oke, I will give it another try. LL does 3k dps so you say overload does 14-17k dps? That would mean each light overload attack would hit for 15k on average because the attack speed is pretty slow.

My light attack hits Engine Guardian for 14,903 just now. Crit 21k+

Here's a screen from kwama boss (not a perfect rotation):

And this isn't even a build designed to max out overload damage. I've had many many instances of 20-40 second fights where my average overload hit was over 20k.

Exactly, I am sacrificing some spell damage for sustain and survivability, but this dps is more than enough to make me happy. I've seen much higher parses

Septimus_Magna

Ygaer wrote: »

Valymer wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Valymer wrote: »

As stated, Overload + LL is much more dps than you are going to get with anything else single target. Trust me.

Oke, I will give it another try. LL does 3k dps so you say overload does 14-17k dps? That would mean each light overload attack would hit for 15k on average because the attack speed is pretty slow.

My light attack hits Engine Guardian for 14,903 just now. Crit 21k+

Here's a screen from kwama boss (not a perfect rotation):

And this isn't even a build designed to max out overload damage. I've had many many instances of 20-40 second fights where my average overload hit was over 20k.

Impressive dps but its not single target dps. The dps rating of LL and TP should be devides by 3, boss plus 2 adds. Single target your dps would be: 16375 - 2*(3485/3) - 2*(1738/3) = 12907 dps which is very good but not more than build with meteor/atronach.

Also 29 overload attack hits suggest that you have stores up a lot of ulitmate (25*29=725 ultimate) which is not realistic for long boss fights imo.

Valymer

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Ygaer wrote: »

Valymer wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Valymer wrote: »

As stated, Overload + LL is much more dps than you are going to get with anything else single target. Trust me.

Oke, I will give it another try. LL does 3k dps so you say overload does 14-17k dps? That would mean each light overload attack would hit for 15k on average because the attack speed is pretty slow.

My light attack hits Engine Guardian for 14,903 just now. Crit 21k+

Here's a screen from kwama boss (not a perfect rotation):

And this isn't even a build designed to max out overload damage. I've had many many instances of 20-40 second fights where my average overload hit was over 20k.

Impressive dps but its not single target dps. The dps rating of LL and TP should be devides by 3, boss plus 2 adds. Single target your dps would be: 16375 - 2*(3485/3) - 2*(1738/3) = 12907 dps which is very good but not more than build with meteor/atronach.

Also 29 overload attack hits suggest that you have stores up a lot of ulitmate (25*29=725 ultimate) which is not realistic for long boss fights imo.

You can choose not to believe the strength of Overload if you like--I did for several weeks--but you are gimping yourself.

That's your call, though.

Ygaer

I don't really have much else to add to what Valymer said. Be as obstinate as you like, Overload is king for single target DPS right now. Not just for Sorcs, but for the whole damn game.