finding the balance between damage and sustainability

SlyFox1979

I just got my sorc to V12 and i've made most of my gear including 5pc seducer, 4pc magnus sets, added weapon damage & spell damage to my rings both having over 700 magicka, neck spell damage with over 700 magicka, fire,ice,lighting staves with 5% crit and 400-490 glyphs for each staff and being breton on top of this with seducer 5pc thats 11% magicka reduced and in long fights i still run empty on magicka also using power surge my spell damage ranges from 1500-1600+
60%+ crit with gear and inner light, so my damage has greatly improved with some better set gear and enchants. i'm not sure if the real problem is my magicka regen or magicka cost.

Teiji

What's your Champion Rank?

SlyFox1979

90

Soulshine

As a Sorc and a Breton one at that, you already have considerable passives at your disposal to reduce the costs of spells and increase magicka. Over investing in spell cost reduction at the expense of spell power and spell damage is a recipe for both bad dps and bad survivability combined.

I would consider swapping out one of your crafted sets or both in fact, for sets which are going to increase your spell damage first off, total magicaka and then magicka regen. You can also using regen drinks rather than stat food, unless you are so low on health that you feel you need the boost. If so, consider adding Stuctured Entropy to your skill bar -- not really for the health boost per se, though that is nice, but also for the spell damage boost you will get from it; when combined with Magelight you will get an even bigger boost to magicka, on top of the spell damage bonus, health and health return any time it procs. If you are using a destro staff consider using Elemental drain on your bar and you will find you rarely if ever run out of magicka.

Main rule is simple: the faster things die, the less you need to spam skills. As a damage dealer, that is primary. You will find rotations are far more sustainable when you are hitting harder - hence less often, less regen issues.

Stalwart385

Most endgame magic users have spell damage over 2k and max magic around 30k. You should try to approach those numbers despite your sustain. Granted you're at VR12 and can't use the best endgame gear.

The main thing I don't see you using is martial knowledge. It is the primary magic user four piece set and available from VR12-14. I think you are currently sacrificing to much damage for sustain. This meta favors damage over sustain. You can just use basic magic pots to help keep your mana up. Being a sorc you can use overload. Don't use surge. Entropy is more efficient and better overall. You can look up surge versus entropy discussions for many reasons why. DPS are generally going to favor reduced magic cost over magic regen, while keeping a big mana pool. Keep that in mind for your champ points.

Soulshine x4 (VR10), Marital x4 (VR12), Tourg's x3 (VR12) may be the best setup for you until you hit VR13 then 14. Adjust your stats so that you're around 20k health and everything else in mana. Of course everything is about to change in about a month.

SlyFox1979

attributes
magicka 30
health 25
stamina 5
(this is mostly for dodge rolls & break free)
Race-Breton
faction-daggerfall
champ rank 90

with health/magicka food buff
max magicka 27408 /without food 21.9k magicka
max health 16837 /without food 12.7k health
max stam- 9183
magicka recovery 1138
health recovery 326
stam recovery 514

spell damage- 1338 unbuffed / 1595 buffed power surge
weapon damage-1074 unbuffed / 1288 buffed power surge
spell crit 43% without inner light- 63% with inner light
weapon crit 21%
spell resist 9410
physical resist 3303

fire staff build
crushing shock IV
crystal frag IV
elemental ring IV
inner light IV
power surge IV
shooting star-meteor ultimate IV

lighting staff build
mages wrath IV
power surge IV
liquid lighting IV
inner light IV
hardened ward IV
suppression IV ultimate

every crafting skill is maxed out and all have maxed skill points except for blacksmithing
also have around 200 skill points

SlyFox1979

^