Taking on monsters

Ragnarock1982

Hey all,

I have a level 22 sorc... had to abandon my level 21 templar, damn update made him sooo feeble... anyway, my level 22 sorc.

Im taking on monsters that are level 21-22, but am getting battered. Im currently burning the khajiit boats in deshaan, forget which mission it is, but anyway, I keep getting battered. Should I level up till im 1-2 levels higher than them, or could it be summit else?

Fyi, im using 5 light/2 heavy armour
Skills:
Summon twilight thing, not morphed
Shards, morphed to the instant cast one
That skill that drops their spell defense...cant remember the name
Curse, which deals massive damage, and love it...morphed to the 3.5 second one
Electric armour skill...not sure if morphed yet.
( I should really try to remember these skill names)

Character points from memory, which isn't too reliable , I have 13 in magicka, 4 in health.

KraziJoe

Are you Destro? 2HS? S&B? What do you use for weapon?

Ragnarock1982

KraziJoe wrote: »

Are you Destro? 2HS? S&B? What do you use for weapon?

Oh yeah, destruction staff, fire at mo, but depends on whether I find a better destruction staff while in the field. If I do I just switch it out.

wayfarerx

My general strategy when leveling a sorc is to fill my bars with as much as possible from the Daedric Summoning line and plow through stuff until you get Conjured Ward. The pets from that line are quite helpful when leveling and once you have the ward you are functionally immortal in the PvE leveling zones.

Ragnarock1982

wayfarerx wrote: »

My general strategy when leveling a sorc is to fill my bars with as much as possible from the Daedric Summoning line and plow through stuff until you get Conjured Ward. The pets from that line are quite helpful when leveling and once you have the ward you are functionally immortal in the PvE leveling zones.

Which one is conjured ward? I remember what all the skills do, just not their names. Lol

magnusthorek

I assume you're Magicka Sorcerer. It's not the strongest class to start with (and even at high levels it's not the strongest in game) but apart from what @wayfarerx said, about the shields (helps A LOT), pick the Summon Familiar and try to morph it into Unstable Clanfear.

The Clanfear is a small tank that will take aggro of most of mobs while you stay back hitting with ranged attacks, be it Destructive Touch (or its morph Destructive Reach for longer range) or the bread-and-butter Force Shock, morphed into Force Pulse.

Ragnarock1982

magnusthorek wrote: »

I assume you're Magicka Sorcerer. It's not the strongest class to start with (and even at high levels it's not the strongest in game) but apart from what @wayfarerx said, about the shields (helps A LOT), pick the Summon Familiar and try to morph it into Unstable Clanfear.

The Clanfear is a small tank that will take aggro of most of mobs while you stay back hitting with ranged attacks, be it Destructive Touch (or its morph Destructive Reach for longer range) or the bread-and-butter Force Shock, morphed into Force Pulse.

I did have my clanfear on but was told that twilight was better.

Force shock? That one that does 400 flame, 400 cold, 400 shock damage( at my level) ? I did have that on as well, but found that it didn't seem instant cast, and didn't seem to do much damage, also no animation with it really so couldnt tell when I'd cast it.

wayfarerx

Ragnarock1982 wrote: »

wayfarerx wrote: »

My general strategy when leveling a sorc is to fill my bars with as much as possible from the Daedric Summoning line and plow through stuff until you get Conjured Ward. The pets from that line are quite helpful when leveling and once you have the ward you are functionally immortal in the PvE leveling zones.

Which one is conjured ward? I remember what all the skills do, just not their names. Lol

It's the fifth one in the Daedric Summoning line.

Nestor

Ragnarock1982 wrote: »

Force shock? That one that does 400 flame, 400 cold, 400 shock damage( at my level) ? I did have that on as well, but found that it didn't seem instant cast, and didn't seem to do much damage, also no animation with it really so couldnt tell when I'd cast it.

While there are other skills in the Sorcerer or Staff line to use, Force Shock has low cost, it's fast (why you don't see much of animation) and is easy to weave with Light and Heavy Attacks from a Staff.

Where are your Attributes? If your Magic, then all points should be in Magic. What glyphs do you have on your armor? Again, they should be all magic. What rings/necklace are you wearing? Again, they should be magic boosters with either Magic Cost reduction or spell power glyphs on them. Are you wearing light armor? Do you have any of the passives unlocked? Do you have Inner Light from the Mages guild unlocked yet? If not, get that and slot that on your bar.

How are you approaching the battles? Just spamming a skill or are you weaving light/heavy attacks with your skills.

Ragnarock1982

@nestor

Using 5 light/2 heavy armour. Most of which have increase magicka glyphs on. Most attributes in magicka.

Ive tried to use the passives which give more magicka, magicka regen and the health one from the heavy line.

Only at level 3 on the mages guild line... struggle to find the books.

I may just do a skill reset and try out that force shock skill again... what does the morph do?

I just dont seem to have enough health...keep eating things that increase my health bar, just to survive normal battles. I was ok until about level 15, was killing everything easy then.

Nestor

The key to the game is to be Mobile, Agile and Hostile. Never stand in one place, move around and attack as you can.

Peel off the third of the 3 mobs (they almost always patrol away from the other two) and take them down separately. If your approaching a static grouping, lay down a DoT like Elemental Wall (I like the exploding morph so I know when it needs to be applied again). Use Encase or other crowd control methods to hold up two of the mobs while you whittle on the third.

In other words, look at the skills you have, figure out what order you should use them in to get the most benefit. Like some skills boost the next attack, use that first. Some skills have Damage over time, use those early on. Some skills snare or lock your enemies into place, use them on mobs you need to keep occupied. Note, most snare and locking skills dissipate on damage, so place them,, then whittle on one mob while the others are being held.

You should get Inner Light by L3 in Mages, maybe it's L4, but it is one of the first skills you unlock so you might even get it sooner. Put a point into to it and have it on your bar at all times and toggled on.

Eat Blue food that gives a Health and Magic Boost

Ragnarock1982

Oh

Nestor wrote: »

The key to the game is to be Mobile, Agile and Hostile. Never stand in one place, move around and attack as you can.

Peel off the third of the 3 mobs (they almost always patrol away from the other two) and take them down separately. If your approaching a static grouping, lay down a DoT like Elemental Wall (I like the exploding morph so I know when it needs to be applied again). Use Encase or other crowd control methods to hold up two of the mobs while you whittle on the third.

In other words, look at the skills you have, figure out what order you should use them in to get the most benefit. Like some skills boost the next attack, use that first. Some skills have Damage over time, use those. Some skills snare or lock your enemies into place, use them on mobs you need to keep occupied. Note, most snare and locking skills dissipate on damage, so place them,, then whittle on one mob while the others are being help.

You should get Inner Light by L3 in Mages, maybe it's L4, but it is one of the first skills you unlock so you might even get it sooner. Put a point into to it and have it on your bar at all times and toggled on.

Eat Blue food that gives a Health and Magic Boost

Thanks for the tips. Gonna have a look at that mage guild one. Toggle though? So it always stays on?

I think ive been focusing too much on heavy single target damage, which is great, but when there's 2-3 mobs, I struggle. May put encase back on, that one was useful.

daemonios

If there's an enemy healer in the group, make sure to focus him first. They heal themselves and their buddies, dragging the fight and possibly leaving you with no magicka. Whenever they start to heal, bash them (right click to block, then left click while blocking) to interrupt the cast, same as with channelled attacks.

Pay attention to the visual cues for heavy or channelled attacks. You can block or interrupt (see above) those to negate most of the damage and put your enemies off-balance, which can be further exploited to knock them to the ground.

Ranged enemies (casters, archers, etc) can be a pain because they keep trying to move away from you and hit you while you're busy fighting other enemies. Try killing the ranged ones first, they're usually quite weak.

If you pay attention and adapt to the fight, you should have no problems with any solo content at level, save for some world bosses (then again they're not really meant to be soloed at lower levels). For group content, you're going to have to come up with a good skill rotation in order to deal good damage, if that's your role. There are lots of guides for sorcerers and other classes in these forums and other websites.

ProfessorKittyhawk

I gently use the elemental touch line from the destruction staff skill line to knock enemies down and hit em with liquid lightning. Little bit of crowd control and aoe damage going on. And if you chose crystal frags as your morph (and really, who wouldn't?) at some point the auto cast for that will proc and you can smash your enemies with that. All skills you can get fairly early on.

Also doesn't hurt to level restoration staff on your second bar for off heals. It's good to have for those "oh crap" moments.

Volkodav

After this newest patch,both my DK and my NBs seem to be suffering from a sad amount of nerf. They just arent working well now.

ProfessorKittyhawk

My dk still seems to be doing well. I do recall hearing they upped the amount of damage mobs do a couple updates ago.

Grendel_at_ESO

I have not played a Sorc yet but what made your Templar feeble? In PvE mine is a god, from level 1 to V11 it's just jab, jab, jab, jab,......Sometimes with bosses I may need to use some other skill. No problem with either of my NB's either, must have missed this nerf patch......

Koopa

One important question to ask is what weapon are you using on your second bar? As a mage I would go with a restoration staff, this would allow you to slot a couple heals for when you need them.

It also could be something like blocking at the right time, interrupting attacks when you can or needing close to at level gear.

Depending on skills a possible set up could look like:
front bar
force shock, curse, clannfear, crystal fragments, skill of your choice to level
back bar
blessing of restoration or any heal, encase, clannfear, lighting splash, skill or your choice, plus an ultimate on each bar

This would allow you to curse a target, switch bars, encase and lighting splash, then start you force shocks and heavy attacks mixed in with instant fragments. Just an example and a place to start.

Johngo0036

I have one question,

The templar was too squishy?

Templar is one of the easiest to level in dungeons.....

Sword and shield and puncturing sweeps with BOL incase you need it,
All other skills not req..

Ragnarock1982

Grendel_at_ESO wrote: »

I have not played a Sorc yet but what made your Templar feeble? In PvE mine is a god, from level 1 to V11 it's just jab, jab, jab, jab,......Sometimes with bosses I may need to use some other skill. No problem with either of my NB's either, must have missed this nerf patch......

Not sure? Just seems that after the update everything was battering me. Before the update my health never dropped below 90%. Even without me blocking I was shrugging off blows. I never changed my skills out... he just seems to have become soft.

Ragnarock1982

Johngo0036 wrote: »

I have one question,

The templar was too squishy?

Templar is one of the easiest to level in dungeons.....

Sword and shield and puncturing sweeps with BOL incase you need it,
All other skills not req..

They are exactly the skills I was/am using. Every mob attacks goes straight through him like a vindaloo on a sunday morning.

Arunei

@Ragnarock1982
While the Twilight can be useful, whoever told you it's better than the Clannfear needs to be bopped with a rolled-up newspaper lol.

The Clannfear has a solid amount of health and, was already mentioned, will grab aggro off you almost all the time. That doesn't mean all the enemies you engage in will target it 100%, but if you're only tackling small groups, it's wonderful for taking some of the heat off you. This is especially true for bosses.

DRXHarbinger

Lightening staff and destructive clench. It'll stun most adds and give you some time. Ultimate. Best one to grind with as a noob (no offence I've been there trust me) Negate magic / absorption field. Again for the stun and stat boost inside plus they cannot cast magic inside it. It's not all about going gun how and trying to wreck. You need your shield first and you got to sweat it out the hard way. Sorcs are painful before you unlock ward.

Ragnarock1982

Arunei wrote: »

@Ragnarock1982
While the Twilight can be useful, whoever told you it's better than the Clannfear needs to be bopped with a rolled-up newspaper lol.

The Clannfear has a solid amount of health and, was already mentioned, will grab aggro off you almost all the time. That doesn't mean all the enemies you engage in will target it 100%, but if you're only tackling small groups, it's wonderful for taking some of the heat off you. This is especially true for bosses.

Lol. Cheers @Arunei .

I'm gonna put pup back on tonight.

Arunei

@Ragnarock1982
Heh, not only that, but come TG going live, they'll have a special ability to heal you just like Twilights do. For now, whenever the Clannfear either dies or is desummoned, it restores a nice chunk of HP for you. So if you're running low on HP, desummon your Clannfear for a boost in HP, then summon him again while you hang back to get more HP regened.

Also, did you know you can send your Familiars into combat for you without engaging personally? Just hover your mouse over an enemy, press and hold the 'Y' key, and left-click. You Familiar(s) will charge the enemy while you can hang back. This is especially useful for bosses you can send your Familiar(s) in and then immediately focus on either setting up shields or using ranged attacks.

DRXHarbinger

Another way is how I actually did my Sorc not having a clue and going all skyrim on the game. 5 heavy 2 light armor. 2 handed and level it up to get rally. A few sorc skills slotted and they'll level up and all points into stamina lol. Pretty beast at low levels but once I hit vet1 (took a while to understand mmo builds etc) I respeccd to all magika and went from there. I barely ever died. Good old vampires kiss set. So much heals it's stupid.

Bossdonut

Spam impulse

Ragnarock1982

@Arunei

I'm on xbox. Wish we had that that option to send our clanfear's into battle first. For us they dont attack unless we attack, unless they're really close to the mob.

Good news, I switched my skills out and am now finding it as easy as before. FYI, I've switched to clanfear, shards, curse, lightning splash, mage light.

Mage light is sooo useful. My spells seem so much stronger. It's just a shame that the blue orb really irritates me. I end up watching it rather than the battle... but its not there on 1st person view?

@bossdonut , I don't spam skills. I'm a healthy person, prefer to have my 5 a day.

DRXHarbinger

You used to be able to switch mage light off and it was much better. On xbox too. Not sure where the option has gone now. Also op you need to have mage light on both bars. If you swap weapons it'll toggle it off and you'll need to keep reapplying it again.

Ragnarock1982

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

You used to be able to switch mage light off and it was much better. On xbox too. Not sure where the option has gone now. Also op you need to have mage light on both bars. If you swap weapons it'll toggle it off and you'll need to keep reapplying it again.

I know you can turn mage light off, but I want that orb to just either be less bright, smaller or just... different.

Funny thing is, I'm level 23 now, and still not used my second bar.

DRXHarbinger

No I mean as an option. So you can have mage light on but without the orb.