Help with a starting Sorcerer

Neboh

It's been a few days since I've purchased the game and I'm liking it so far. I'm currently a high elf and have chosen to be a sorcerer. Should I be focusing on Magicka or Stamina? I've been reading other reads wherein there are Sorcerer tanks that have focused on Stamina and health. I really thought Magicka would be the focus of the job. I'm currently at Lv9 and I'm excited to see what my character can do at higher levels. Any advice on character builds for sorcerer?

FriedEggSandwich

Yeah focus on magicka for most of the game. Stam sorcs are a bit of an end game experiment for most; effective only due to player skill. Magicka is the sorcs true domain in this game.

There are many different builds for different purposes, but for solo levelling you probably want bar 1 as offense and bar 2 as defense. Some people will choose bar 1 as single target and bar 2 as aoe which is a great strat for end game pve where you have other players for support, but for solo-levelling and pvp you really need wards and self heals on bar 2. For most this would mean running a destruction staff on bar 1 and a restoration staff on bar 2.

To deal with large groups of mobs, which is mostly what solo-levelling will give you, you want to equip cc and aoe. I recommend Encase and it's morphs from the Dark Magic skill line for your cc, and either Impulse and it's morphs or Wall of Elements and it's morphs from the Destruction Staff skill line for your aoe. The rest is up to you; read tooltips and try out everything, most of the time you will never regret levelling up a skill, even if later you stop using it.

Neboh

Thanks for the great advice! I did play around with morphs the other day. Can you morph back and forth between the skills or is it permanent once you have chosen that "morph" on the skill?

FriedEggSandwich

Neboh wrote: »

Thanks for the great advice! I did play around with morphs the other day. Can you morph back and forth between the skills or is it permanent once you have chosen that "morph" on the skill?

Choosing a morph is semi-permanent (if that makes any sense); you can pay a gold fee to get all your skill points back to respec them, but you don't want to be doing this too much. Read the tooltip carefully before selecting a morph to avoid making mistakes, but it's not the end of the world if you choose the wrong morph. I have both morphs levelled on all my skills.

Neboh

Gotcha. What would be some suggested morphs to look out for as I level up?

Nestor

Neboh wrote: »

Thanks for the great advice! I did play around with morphs the other day. Can you morph back and forth between the skills or is it permanent once you have chosen that "morph" on the skill?

You can just respec Morphs, so you don't have to reset all your skills.

As for Morphs, pick the Magic ones if given a choice. You also want at least one skill from each Class Skill line on your bar at all times. First for passive bonuses and second, you want to grow your class skill lines and that is how you do that.

Boundless Storm (can't remember the base skill name) that will give you some protection until you can unlock Hardened Ward. But, other than that, try to grow all the skills until at least Morph stage as that is when they get interesting.

Also, a Destro Staff is great with a Sorcerer, so use that if you can. Most other weapons need or want Stamina to use, especially the skills. I run two destro staffs on my Sorcerer, one for Class Skills one for Destro Staff Skills or AoE.

For armor, you want to end up in Light, but until you unlock the 5 piece passives, mix it up. You will eventually end up in 5Light/2 Heavy (chest and legs or helm). However you want to level all your armor skills while you are leveling your character, so a 5/1/1 mix is a good way to go, or even 3/2/2 until you get the 5 piece passives.

Neboh

Great advice. Thanks fellas.

f047ys3v3n

Here is your help, do not level a sorc. Go back, start again, and roll a templar. You will be much happier in the end.

FriedEggSandwich

Neboh wrote: »

Gotcha. What would be some suggested morphs to look out for as I level up?

I can talk about the morphs I use and why, but I only pvp so these might not apply to you as you level.

Sorcs have a few bread-and-butter skills; the main one being Crystal Shard from the Dark Magic skill line. 99% of pvp sorcs choose the Crystal Fragments morph for the 35% chance to get an insta-cast with 20% more damage. The opposing morph is called Crystal Blast and just deals some of the original damage as aoe damage. It's obvious why frags is chosen by most.

Then you have Mage's Fury; the sorcs only execute, and imo the best execute in the game. It can be morphed into Endless Fury for returned magicka on a successful execute, or Mages Wrath for more damage on the execute. Most sorcs choose Endless Fury for the magicka return, but what if your regen is good enough that you don't need the return? Then Mages Wrath is probably better.

Bolt Escape is another skill all sorcs use, but you don't unlock this until lvl42 in Storm Calling. This is a teleport/mobility/escape skill with some cc tagged on. The morphs can be seen as offensive and defensive. Ball of Lightening is defensive; it will leave a ball of energy in your wake that will absorb spell projectiles for x amount of seconds but won't do any damage. Streak is the offensive morph that will do aoe damage when you streak through people, but won't protect you. Both morphs stun for something like 2 seconds. These morphs are definitely offense/defense, but when you consider the current pvp meta you could also see Ball of Lightening as anti-magicka, and Streak as anti-stamina.

Another useful skill for a sorc is Force Shock from the Destruction Staff skill line. This will morph into Force Pulse for added damage and an aoe that procs when targets have a debuff, or Crushing Shock which will interrupt and stun casting targets. Many people choose Force Pulse for the added damage but what you might find is that Crushing Shock is actually more useful to you in end-game pve and pvp due to the ranged interrupt.

Anyway there's loads more I could talk about but reading tooltips should give you a good idea if the skill will be useful to you or not. If you're trying to level up solo then aoe and cc will be what you want.

Neboh

So much to take in but very grateful for the advice. I'm excited to see how those mentioned skills and strategies will work for me. Of course everyone has their own playstyle and I'm sure it's based on what you're planning to do ingame. Keep the advice coming and I'll be noting it down. Thanks!

Neboh

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Here is your help, do not level a sorc. Go back, start again, and roll a templar. You will be much happier in the end.

I was under the impression that a Tenplar was more of a healing class job? I could see how it could keep up defensively, but can it keep up with a sorcerer offensively?

Caesar Tantalia

Neboh wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Here is your help, do not level a sorc. Go back, start again, and roll a templar. You will be much happier in the end.

I was under the impression that a Tenplar was more of a healing class job? I could see how it could keep up defensively, but can it keep up with a sorcerer offensively?

don't listen to him (yet). While his comment may be true for many, it is not for all. As it currently stands, it's easier for other classes to put some high number DPS out there but in the end, if you know your build and your class, you can be competitive.

This comment is true however when it comes to versatility (at least imho). My DPS sorc has great single target DPS, massive AoE DPS and can also be a healer, albeit never as good as a templar. A templar on the other hand can have similar (or even better) single target DPS comp to the sorc.

However - at the end - it's all about what you want to play. By the time you get to end game stuff (unless you're a grinder), the rules may have easily been changed (again). One ZOS patch and the statements above are void. As such, please play what you want to play and learn how to deal with patches and changed mechanics when and if they come.

Have fun !

Edit - If you're on PC - feel free to speak to me in game. I can and will help you if you want.

Neboh

I kinda knew what Fo meant about Templar and I had a feeling jobs at Lv50 can be decent at something that is not primarily their main role. I was just asking for clarification. I am no stranger to grinding as I've spent the last 10 years on a former MMO where such things were required. It is there where I also learned how to play other subroles decently and sometimes better than those players who main role(s) were just that.

I'm still learning a lot about the game so feel free to give me more advice. I'm here to learn and enjoy the game that is ESO.

Egg_Death

I am in the same position as the OP at the moment, but I just got to level 15 last night (well...later this morning than I'd care to admit). I started out rocking a destruction staff, but I've been having a blast leveling the restoration staff, even solo. It's gotten me out of more than a few pickles, and in large battles it is nice to get the magicka from the heavy attack (something you have to look up to learn about). Combine this with the Endless Fury (highly recommended) morph on Mage's Fury and you get a nice bump of magicka on a kill. There are also passives to heal 15-30% of heavy attack damage and to increase the magicka regen by 15-30%. The resto staff also lets me be a bit more glassy since I have more ways to heal, so I've been running a heavy chest with all light armor elsewhere.

I can vouch that the bread and butter of the sorcerer at this point is Crystal Shard, especially once you morph to Crystal Fragments. With this upgrade, casting other spells gives you a 35% chance of causing the next Crystal Fragments to be instant, doing 20% more damage, and costing 50% less magicka. Before a fight I use Lightning Form (highly recommended) to buff defense and also Regeneration from the resto staff for a preemptive HoT, and I usually get the insta-shard by the second cast. If I don't get it from the first two casts I'll add in a quick Endless Fury or a second Regeneration for another chance. It's real nice to get an instant knock-down, and opening with a few attack spells until it procs and then knocking them down is very effective. Without Fragments you generally have to open with the Shard since it takes so long.

One ability I like is Encase from the dark magic line. It's part of my opening for groups of enemies, but it does require you to be a bit close. I've messed with using Lightning Splash with Encase, but timing is critical to keep them within the AoE. I've had the best luck with casting Lightning Splash first and then Encase, because Splash takes a little more time because of the aiming step. Doing that first and casting Encase ASAP keeps them in the effect for longer. I'm not too impressed by this for smaller groups, but I can see it being useful in dungeons. Now that I have my second slot I'll probably try to focus on AoE and CC for taking out the mobs when everyone is all healed up. Not sure if I want to double restoration staves or not. There's just so many options.

Speaking of second slots, if you use the Overload ultimate ability you actually get a bar just for that, so you actually get 3 bars. I had two bars before level 15 with it. Overload just burns through mobs, and looks real badass (heavy attack = Emperor Palpatine). You don't even need to use the ultimate abilities if you just want to use a few other skills on the bar. I tend to use it for brief periods of time (oh crap moments), so I almost never run out of ultimate. I expect that as I unlock more buffs/CC moves I will want to run them in at least the two weapon slots so they don't disappear, so the third bar for less-used abilities will only become more useful (at least that's my hypothesis). I've also heard that the Atronach is a great ultimate, but I have no experience here. I might try running him as my second ultimate in Bar 2 if that is possible (I believe you can use two ultimates, but I have not done so myself). He appears to be better for groups and large battles.

I'm thinking of going for:

• Bar 1 - Healing/support (use overload for Ultimate)
• Bar 2 - AoE/CC (possibly use atronach for Ultimate)
• Bar 3 - (Overload bar) Single target DPS

For passives, definitely get the light armor ones for spell cost reduction and magicka regeneration. I'd also get the dark magic passive Unholy Knowledge for spell and stamina cost reduction for all abilities. To my knowledge there is no cap, so any cost reduction is a must-have in my book. Also buy/make enchantments for your armor to increase magicka and/or health. More magicka = more damage. I also have enchanted rings to reduce cost by a fixed amount, but I hear that this is taken before the % reduction effects, so you may get diminishing returns. Woodworking and light armor are good to pick up. I make my resto staff buff my defenses to help a little bit with my being a glass cannon. I like how in this game crafting can net you better equipment than most loot or stores have (at least where I am in the game), so you don't feel like you're wasting ability points that could be put to use on morphing/gaining offensive abilities and/or passive abilities.

I am slightly behind in my Daedric Summoning skill tree (favoring Encase for CC), but with three bars I'll probably start working on it more to get the better abilities. I'm not too impressed with the summoned creatures, but the later abilities are worth it from what I hear. Maybe with both summoned the CC would be more useful, and that is another good part of having the third bar with Overload since you'd have to have 2 slots used to keep them from disappearing (one reason I wasn't running it for a few levels).

I'm looking forward to Dark Exchange to make more use of stamina, and I might be experimenting with Rune Prison to see how it might fit in with my build.

I ran my first dungeons last night, and healing/support was a blast. I enjoy the challenge of managing health and keeping the mobs at bay (and trying not to die myself). One tip I learned is to stay in the fray with your group. Most times I died were because I was on the side or got chased out by mobs. You also miss out on the synergy effects of your group's abilities if you are not in range. ALWAYS remember to keep your Lightning Form (or other armor/spell resists) up on bosses that can hit you unexpectedly. There was one that randomly (no agro needed) chooses a member and zaps them with a very powerful spell, and it KOd me in spite of healing and using potions if I forgot to keep Lightning Form up. I would also chalk this up to trying to stay on the sidelines as well, since most of my healing (Grand Healing) was on others. If you stay in the action your AoE heals can also keep you alive, and your team can keep mobs off of you easier (counter-intuitive to me, but it works). The insta-shard morph is super helpful as the group healer since you're casting a ton of spells and just keep proccing it. At first I thought healer would be boring (started out on destro staff), but once I read up on how offensive it can be I had to try it. You most certainly are not just standing on the sidelines healing people while they get all the fun. If anything I get more fun, because some restoration abilities restore magicka you can use to attack with.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I figured I'd post everything I've learned from one newb to another. I wish I'd known some of this stuff earlier, like how the resto staff heavy attack restores magicka, or how the Overload ultimate gets you another ability bar. There are so many choices in this game, so it's nice to hear what other people have been doing, but a lot of what is out there is more for high-level players. Hopefully this helps out you and any other up-and-coming sourcerers - altmer or otherwise. (I'd also hope higher-level players can comment on my setup from a more experienced position)

Neboh

Thanks so much Egg_Death. That was very helpful. I may already know what it looks like and may just be misunderstanding it but what is meant when you mention bar 1, bar 2, bar 3 etc?

Egg_Death

Neboh wrote: »

Thanks so much Egg_Death. That was very helpful. I may already know what it looks like and may just be misunderstanding it but what is meant when you mention bar 1, bar 2, bar 3 etc?

No problem. I mean your ability bars (5 abilities + one ultimate). You start out with one bar and and one weapon, but at level 15 you get an alternate weapon with its own bar and ultimate ability. Also, it is hard to notice this before trying it, but the Overload ultimate ability has its own bar too. If you activate Overload and go into your abilities, you can map new ones to the slots. This configuration of abilities doesn't wipe out your normal one (the weapon ability bar), and it is remembered when you go back into Overload. This lets you run two entirely different sets of abilities, one in normal weapon mode, and one in your Overload ultimate ability mode. This lets me tailor the abilities on my second "ultimate" ability bar to the Overload "weapon".

At level 15 you get a second weapon ability bar, so you could equip two different staves/swords/one sword and a bow/etc and have different sets of abilities for each one (on PS4 left-D-pad toggles between your two sets). When you switch between bars one thing to remember is that any "toggle" ability (like a summoned clanfear) will disappear unless both ability bars equip that summon ability. That's one reason why Overload is so nice, because each defensive buff and summoned creature is going to take up a slot in each bar if you want it to be persistent. If I have a defensive toggle ability and my clanfear I essentially use up 4 out of 10 ability slots (two on each bar). With Overload I move that to 6 out of 15, so I get 3 more ability slots. I imagine this is allowed because other ultimates, like the storm atronach, allow you to still use your weapon to do damage while it does damage, where Overload replaces your weapon and you attack with it.

I hope that clears things up; I know I was confused when I first read about having a third bar with Overload (before I even had my second weapon bar). The only way I could see anyone figuring it out on their own would be changing their abilities on their regular bar and noticing that they are unchanged when they use Overload. There is no popup to tell you about this like there is with the 2nd weapon bar at level 15.

Neboh

Much appreciated. I'm glad there still exists patience for those who are not elite players yet. Lol. I'm just curious. How long did it take you to level up to 15? And is there a preferred way of leveling up (PvP @Cyrodill etc)? I've had this game for almost a week now and play about 3-4 hours a day and currently only at Lv12. Is this normal? I'm also playing on the Xbox One so I have a feeling there a few things I can't do that PC players can. For example, is there a chat log on consoles? If so, I haven't seen it or how to bring it up.

Egg_Death

Neboh wrote: »

Much appreciated. I'm glad there still exists patience for those who are not elite players yet. Lol. I'm just curious. How long did it take you to level up to 15? And is there a preferred way of leveling up (PvP @Cyrodill etc)? I've had this game for almost a week now and play about 3-4 hours a day and currently only at Lv12. Is this normal? I'm also playing on the Xbox One so I have a feeling there a few things I can't do that PC players can. For example, is there a chat log on consoles? If so, I haven't seen it or how to bring it up.

I got the game last Tuesday, but I've been playing it quite a lot lately. Two 15GB download sessions took two days from my Tamriel time. I'd hardly qualify myself as elite. The only prior "MMO" experience i have is Destiny, and that doesn't even compare to this game honestly. I did do Runescape back in the day, but never seriously. I have read a few beginners guides and whatever class guides I can find for sorcerers, as well as whatever I can find on the forums. Google is also helpful when I want to know the pros/cons of a particular morph or other attribute.

I was level 12 yesterday until after putting maybe 3 hours into doing my first few dungeons with a more experienced player leading the group. I did mostly normal questing by myself up to that point, but I might start doing dungeons and PvP to vary things up. I also explore a lot, so I'm only just now at Skywatch. Exploring does net XP, so that can be a factor. Up until now I have played mostly like how I played Skyrim or Oblivion.

I do sometimes feel disadvantaged by people who have played years of World of Warcraft or other MMOs, but this game is enough different that I feel it is a minor advantage (at least on consoles where it isn't modded to be like WoW with damage numbers and such). Nobody expects you to know how to play the game before having played the game. As I understand it you can re-spec your skill points later if you want to change up your build with different skills or morphs (by paying gold probably). People who run 5 alternate characters to service a single main that they have been grooming from lvl 1 to be the best ______ he can be will always have some advantage over us normal folk.

There is no text chat on consoles, but we're not playing against people who do have it so I wouldn't worry about it.

Caesar Tantalia

Neboh wrote: »

Much appreciated. I'm glad there still exists patience for those who are not elite players yet. Lol. I'm just curious. How long did it take you to level up to 15? It took me a 8 months to get to v14 (being sort of a completionist) And is there a preferred way of leveling up (PvP @Cyrodill etc)? Whatever you like doing, PvP, quest. Grinding is the fastest way but not my cup of tea. I've had this game for almost a week now and play about 3-4 hours a day and currently only at Lv12. Is this normal? I'd say an hour per level is about right if you're questing. Some parts will be quicker though since some quest lines give massive exp at the end of the chains I'm also playing on the Xbox One so I have a feeling there a few things I can't do that PC players can. For example, is there a chat log on consoles? No chat logs. They decided to completely ignore people with a hearing impairment. Another (for me) important element you're not going to have on consoles are addons (unless they incorporate it into the game) If so, I haven't seen it or how to bring it up.

Neboh

Thanks for the replies Egg and Caesar. Now that I'm at Lv12, I know I can go to Cyrodill and do PvP. Do I need to join a group/guild to participate in this? I hear PvP and Dungeons are alternate and quicker ways to level up your character. How do you participate in both? I'm up for those because I am getting tired of running around slaying monsters just to grind my character's level.

Egg_Death

Neboh wrote: »

Thanks for the replies Egg and Caesar. Now that I'm at Lv12, I know I can go to Cyrodill and do PvP. Do I need to join a group/guild to participate in this? I hear PvP and Dungeons are alternate and quicker ways to level up your character. How do you participate in both? I'm up for those because I am getting tired of running around slaying monsters just to grind my character's level.

I don't know if dungeons are faster in the long run, but they probably are if you have a competent group and clear the dungeons in a reasonable timeframe. They are kind of like normal quest boss fights one after the other, but most bosses can kill you quick if you aren't careful, especially as a mage. The first run will give you quest XP and skill points for each one, but after that you're still kind-of grinding, just with friends or random people. Unless you're lucky or set up a routine with a few friends you're going to be spending some down time waiting for people. Fortunately the group finder runs in the background so you can keep questing until you get into a group. You use it on PS4 by going into the menu to Social->Groups and putting yourself into a queue. You can choose what role your character is as well (tank, healer, etc). I am told by MMO-vets that healers get chosen for queues faster, so that might be another benefit of the restoration staff (but this game is plenty different so that might not be true).

I'm not sure about PvP, as I have yet to join a Campaign. In any case I'd recommend doing a little bit of everything, because each method of leveling is going to have diminishing returns. I am still in Auridon in the main quest, but I'm already over the level cap for the region as far as I can tell. Enemies have started dropping next-level gear (Oak instead of Maple), but the world is still in the first 5-15 or so range. I might be wrong, because I haven't explored everything on the north of the island. I honestly think I'm going to have to skip/abandon some quests to keep up with the main story line for content at my level. If you do the main quest line with a handful of side quests along the way you should have no trouble keeping up with the content as far as your level is concerned.

Have you explored everywhere and done all the quests available? If not I would do both of those to find more skyshards and get more XP and gold from quests. I've got a long list of quests to do still, and I haven't even explored the top 20% of the land except for the area around one of the dungeons. I wouldn't trade exploring and questing for grinding dungeons until I've finished the quests at least. That would get boring fast. There is little reason to grind at such a low level unless you've explored everything. Every once in a while I'll hang out where there are lots of decent mobs to test out new skill combinations or to gather materials, but by no means have I grinded my level by farming mobs. If I notice I'm close to leveling I might go fight some mobs or a world boss, but not unless I'm close enough that a few minutes will do it. Don't grind unless you have to (or unless you by some sadistic logic enjoy it).

BurtFreeman

in all my alts, i put all attribute points into health and all the things i can into magicka; this is not a common place anymore, after 1.6 update.
i also play sorc, nord, as my favorite class, and seem unbelievable, but i feel fine with it.
i have decent magicka pool from armours and passives, survivability is strong, and the sorc dps is unbelievable.
i died very few time in pve, becouse i can assorb very high damage, streak a bit, restore my resource, and keep going into fight.
i also tryed to put attributes into magika, or mix it up, but i never been well satisfied in doing that.

Neboh

Egg_Death wrote: »

Have you explored everywhere and done all the quests available?

I'm sure I'm not even a quarter of the way done with the main story line. I actually just defeated the High Kinlady Estre. But that's how I've been typically keeping up with exp and gold. I will kill go run around killing a few mobs, like you said, if I'm close to leveling up. I currently have 10 skill points invested in Magicka. Should be there a point where I should invest points in Health or Stamina? I know certain spells and armor will protect and guard my health. I'm just wondering what the baseline health should be for a sorcerer. Same for Stamina.

Egg_Death

Neboh wrote: »

Egg_Death wrote: »

Have you explored everywhere and done all the quests available?

I'm sure I'm not even a quarter of the way done with the main story line. I actually just defeated the High Kinlady Estre. But that's how I've been typically keeping up with exp and gold. I will kill go run around killing a few mobs, like you said, if I'm close to leveling up. I currently have 10 skill points invested in Magicka. Should be there a point where I should invest points in Health or Stamina? I know certain spells and armor will protect and guard my health. I'm just wondering what the baseline health should be for a sorcerer. Same for Stamina.

Ah, ok; you made it sound like you were just farming mobs and not advancing the storyline. I wouldn't lump questing with grinding since you aren't doing the same quests over and over again and are actually exploring the world. All of Skyrim would be grinding by that definition.

I have all but one point invested in Magicka, but I'm not sure how optimal that may be. There are enchantments for increasing magicka and health, so you can make up for some imbalance via armor and enchantments. I believe I've heard that at some point you get diminishing returns if you go all in one stat, but I haven't checked this for sure. Given the fact that your max magicka affects your damage output with spells I am investing heavily in magicka, but a more offensive role might benefit from being less fragile.

With restoration staff abilities I have good survivability unless I get hit hard or by too many bad guys at once. Even though I am the least armored with the lowest health I am generally the last to survive a botched dungeon boss attempt (if I'm not the first to die). I'd say that at least in lower levels a healer can run more on the glass cannon side of things than a destruction mage. If you don't run a healing staff in one of your bars you are going to have a harder time soloing things unless you can keep them from attacking you. Melee enemies are easy enough to keep away and work at, but CCd mages and archers can still seriously mess you up. At least with Overload a sorcerer can run one bar of healing and CC, one bar of AoE damage and CC, and run Overload for single target damage. I might be looking at the Rune Prison ability for putting difficult ranged mobs out of commission while I deal with their more manageable comrades.

I can see a lot of where your questions are coming from, but as I see it this game is diverse enough that you'd probably have to actually try to make a bad character, like putting all points into stamina for a sorcerer. There really isn't a "should be" for any of the classes, at least not to the extent of other similar games. The different classes are each clearly more suited for certain things, but there is a lot of variety within each class. Also, since many of the non-sorcerer class abilities require magicka, they can make use of a lot of magicka-based abilities that you'd normally designate to a sorcerer. Templars can make better healers because they can combine their healing with the staff healing abilities. Other classes can use destruction staves to get more magicka damage/control, and mages can wield swords and shields like anyone else. From what I've heard a lot of the variety comes later when you have more abilities unlocked. The small number of available ability slots combined with a large and diverse set of abilities is what makes all this possible.

I myself have a tendency to try to figure what the "best" possible ability/setup/strategy to use is, but this "min-maxing" can make the game less fun at best, and it breaks the game at worst. Instead of playing the game for enjoyment you are studying technical data about every active/passive ability and skipping large chunks of the game content because they might slightly impact your DPS compared to other players who have 7 alternates to tend to their mechanically-generated main. There are certainly people who enjoy crunching the numbers as a part of their experience, but at some point you're not playing the game so much as hacking it. A certain amount of analysis is necessary for competition, but going too far is a bad thing and tends to get nerfed quickly after discovery. It makes things predictable and boring, but some people like certainty in combat and want to find the next great exploit that makes the game easy and gives them an unfair advantage over most other players. Any decent game I can think of is designed to counter the effectiveness of min-maxing and exploiting game mechanics unfairly.

A great example of going too far would be a heavy Orc 2-hand character a friend of mine played in Skyrim. He used potions to improve enchanting to improve alchemy to then make better potions to improve enchanting...and so on, until he could make the strongest possible enchanted weapons and armor along with ultra-potions to OHK anything and be able to take a godly amount of damage.