Sorcerer 2.1 (Shieldbreaker) Theorycrafting

Sublime

As you probably realized, the last patch contained a set that makes shields useles as only defensive tool. In that regard I'd like to encourage my fellow class-mates (not correlation intended, seriously) to produce and share ideas on how to successfully 1vX as 2.1 sorcerer.

To start it off I'd like to share an idea that I had some days ago:

I'm still going to use the triple shield combo as it still is really strong against anybody that doesn't use shieldbreaker.

Now to avoid shieldbreaker I have to either find a way to eat less light attacks or get more consistent heals.

As combat basically got slowed down by 50%, having 20k HP isn't that important anymore, which allows me to go for stam/magicka regen drinks. The additional magicka regen allows me to drop some cost reduction enchants for spell damsge which makes up for some of the lost max magicka.

I then use the gained stamina regen to roll dodge/cc break, which should make avoiding shieldbreaker a lot easier. Since dawnbreaker got fixed it doesn't really hurt to swap it out for clouding swarm for some additional regen and 5s free dps, which almost includes a free heal from ward.

To supplement the healing I use power surge instead of degeneration and a setup that has a rather high spell crit ratio:

Bloodspawn: 1x
Scathing Mage: 5x (if I use crushing shock, otherwise 4x + 1x molag kena)
Willpower: 3x (jewellry, the 50% stat boost is rediculously op)
Torug's Pact: 2x

All enchants are max magicka/arcane, while the traits are infused/divines and precise respectively. (nirn's gone so spell pen isn't that important anymore while 7% crit really helps with the surge heal and scathing mage.

Crit chance mundus.

LA passive: 10%
CP passive: 12%
Weapon trait: 7%
Exploitation: 3%
Potion: 10%
Mundus stone: 5%
Scathing Mage: 4%

This adds up to 51% crit chance, meaning that you will, given the target isn't dodging and including weaving, get on average one heal every second.

Apart from that I use crushing shock since it has 3 attacks in one skill. Combining this with a weaved light attack and an enchantment, results in up to 5 crittable attacks per second (depending on the enchantment cooldown). Since scathing mage's proc has a 10% chance on crit and my crit chance is ~50%, I should get a proc every 20 crittable attacks.

20/4=5 and 20/5=4

I.e. I should, every 4-5s, get 440 spell dmg that last 6s, which is a pretty high uptime imo.

Thought's?

Sanct16

scrub.

Ahzek

Stam sorc is the real sorc !

Derra

Your setup is hardly sustainable. No magicareg whatsoever. You need to spam abilities to combat someone utilizing shieldbreaker because you essentially have to do three things:
- heal the setdmg
- shield the normal dmg
- dealdmg / cc yourself

Combined with the longer TTK in general your posted setup will most likely work against inexperienced players but going up against anyone competent you will just die starved for resources.

I´d go for a build with magelight, attronarch and maybe 1 regen enchantment on jewelry.

Tankqull

roll dodging does not negate shield breaker so your core assumption falls apart...

Sublime

Sanct16 wrote: »

scrub.

Ahzek wrote: »

Stam sorc is the real sorc !

My sorc's an altmer.

Tankqull wrote: »

roll dodging does not negate shield breaker so your core assumption falls apart...

You mean, if I dodge the LA the associated shieldbreaker proc still applies?

Derra wrote: »

Your setup is hardly sustainable. No magicareg whatsoever. You need to spam abilities to combat someone utilizing shieldbreaker because you essentially have to do three things:
- heal the setdmg
- shield the normal dmg
- dealdmg / cc yourself

Combined with the longer TTK in general your posted setup will most likely work against inexperienced players but going up against anyone competent you will just die starved for resources.

I´d go for a build with magelight, attronarch and maybe 1 regen enchantment on jewelry.

I thought magelight and potion buff didn't stack?

I agree on the regen glyph, but won't regen drink + atronach be a bit overkill, since it would probably result in about 2k< regen?

Kronuxx

Ahzek wrote: »

Stam sorc is the real sorc !

No, magicka NB is the real sorcerer.

Derra

Sublime wrote: »

Sanct16 wrote: »

scrub.

Ahzek wrote: »

Stam sorc is the real sorc !

My sorc's an altmer.

Tankqull wrote: »

roll dodging does not negate shield breaker so your core assumption falls apart...

You mean, if I dodge the LA the associated shieldbreaker proc still applies?

Derra wrote: »

Your setup is hardly sustainable. No magicareg whatsoever. You need to spam abilities to combat someone utilizing shieldbreaker because you essentially have to do three things:
- heal the setdmg
- shield the normal dmg
- dealdmg / cc yourself

Combined with the longer TTK in general your posted setup will most likely work against inexperienced players but going up against anyone competent you will just die starved for resources.

I´d go for a build with magelight, attronarch and maybe 1 regen enchantment on jewelry.

I thought magelight and potion buff didn't stack?

I agree on the regen glyph, but won't regen drink + atronach be a bit overkill, since it would probably result in about 2k< regen?

I would not under any circumstance use drinks as a sorcerer who´s planning to use shields with shieldbreaker in play. The extra HP are mandatory for reaction time - as are tristat potions (the heal is kinda important when you´re caught offguard - my personal alternative are still detection potions - no room for spellcrit).

Also i´ve found raw spelldmg + a few cp in healing increase to be the best counter to this set. All resto staff heals scale really well with high amounts of spellpower. This also helps in killing the shieldbreaker guy faster. It´s a win-win.

Sublime

Derra wrote: »

I would not under any circumstance use drinks as a sorcerer who´s planning to use shields with shieldbreaker in play. The extra HP are mandatory for reaction time - as are tristat potions (the heal is kinda important when you´re caught offguard - my personal alternative are still detection potions - no room for spellcrit).

Also i´ve found raw spelldmg + a few cp in healing increase to be the best counter to this set. All resto staff heals scale really well with high amounts of spellpower. This also helps in killing the shieldbreaker guy faster. It´s a win-win.

Interesting. Out of curiosity, how much hps do you get on average?

Derra

Sublime wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

I would not under any circumstance use drinks as a sorcerer who´s planning to use shields with shieldbreaker in play. The extra HP are mandatory for reaction time - as are tristat potions (the heal is kinda important when you´re caught offguard - my personal alternative are still detection potions - no room for spellcrit).

Also i´ve found raw spelldmg + a few cp in healing increase to be the best counter to this set. All resto staff heals scale really well with high amounts of spellpower. This also helps in killing the shieldbreaker guy faster. It´s a win-win.

Interesting. Out of curiosity, how much hps do you get on average?

I´m running with 2500 spellpower buffed currently (without nerieneth that would be 2900) and 38k magica - hps depend entirely how lucky i get with crits. So far rapid regen + surge seem to do fine for me. I had to quit using harness though which is kind of annoying.

Also resto staff as a must have is absolute nonsense imho. I was really looking forward to a destro 1h+shield build. Thanks for getting that out of the way zos.