Build - Magicka Sorcerer Tanking - VmoL Aprroved - Videos Included

iam117

Originally started off as just a couple videos to showcase that magicka sorcerer is indeed a very capable tank even in the hardest content currently in game PVE side. because its garnered some interest in the build itself i am going to write a little about it and why i chose it over my DK, NB, and Stamplar tanks currently. this by no means is me saying that you shouldnt tank on any other class, each has its strong points, and each imho has a place in end game. it is not a dk only tank world. Completing the Sorc tank i now have all 4 classes tank ready. my Stamplar tank, DK tank and Sorc tank have completed everything in game vmol included. Hope to get nb through soon.

A little background on why the sorcerer. Originally my main reason was mobility. having played magicka sorc in pvp i have always been interested in how fast you could move around as a tank on the pve side of things, i finally decided to take my magicka dps and turn it into a tank. after playing around with it for a few days i came to realize something very important, with 1800 magicka regen, the resource management is better than that of a dk. by alot in my OP. Part of me hates to say this: @wrobel was right about one thing, firing dark deal and getting half your stam back with a 9.3k heal is pretty legit. although the idea of a crit tank is still completely useless afaik. But since my pvp build will likely be ruined with the next patch, il be trying to get a heavy armor s/b sorc going for that as well. I always enjoy playing the class that people consider the worst, and lately most of the online forum community seems to think that sorcs have it bad, very unfounded. From the magicka dps side of things sorcerer is the highest achieving class, BUT it also has imho the hardest rotation to get down, mostly because it is not fluent. From the tanking side of things they have alot to offer in passives. ulti reduction, stat recovery increase, stat reduction, passive heals, giving minor buff to allies, to name the more important ones, also, because of boundless you can proc disintegration, this is really cool to see go off from a tank in dailies. From the Active skills, i haven't played with it yet, but you can use pets to help out, the entire dark magick skill line is very useful for a tank aside from frags, and the entire storm calling line is useful as well depending on if you want to add dmg to group or not. sorc tanks are the only ones who can effectively use the skills no one else wants in pve.

the build is pretty simple and standard right now 5 tava 5 ebon 2 bloodspawn, changing to 5 dragon 5 ebon 2 bloodspawn in near future, i believe the extra ulti reduction from dragon (especially on a sorcerer) will outweigh the ulti gain from tava's dodge chance and will allow bloodspawn to work more often. This is up for debate sure, but its rng vs a flat reduction amount, i would rather have the flat rate and not worry about tava and bloodspawn arguing with each other over who gets to proc.

Bars i use mostly are:

1: Bound Aegis, Pierce Armor, Boundless Storm, Hardened Ward, Dark Deal - War Horn
2: Bound Aegis, Inner Rage, Shuffle, Daedric Minefield, Streak - Negate/Overload
Overload Bar: Bound Aegis, Boundless Storm, Dark Deal, Hardened Ward, Streak

On bar 2 Daedric Minefield is a flex spot, for single target i will usually run heroic slash for the ulti regen.

Also the nice thing about streak is it seems to apply a soft taunt similar to chains and sap essence, you if you streak through trash groups, most of them will run straight to you if they are still alive after they stand from stun, i use this skill ALOT in pledges. i intend to start playing around with pets and added damage for daily pledges soon, until then i hope this has been helpful, lmk if you have any questions or feedback.





here is 2 vids of my magicka sorc tank doin work in vmol. this place was made for sorc tanking. The first Vid is the Twins and the Second is me Off Tanking Rakkhat AND running the back room, i came up with this strat about a week ago, and a huge thanks to @hedna123b14_ESO for letting me give it a go in our core runs. also thank you to our guild From The Dust for making it happen and putting in the work! still have some cleanup to do, but its a solid idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1JH9qf9big&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHNMi8tKt_o&feature=youtu.be

hedna123b14_ESO

iam117 wrote: »

here is a vid of my magicka sorc tank doin work on the twins. vmol was made for sorc tanking.
the build is pretty simple and standard right now 5 tava 5 ebon 2 bloodspawn, changing to 5 dragon 5 ebon 2 bloodspawn in near future, you can see the bars but if you have a ? feel free to ask.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1JH9qf9big&feature=youtu.be

Sorc Tank OP

iam117

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

Sorc Tank OP

sorc tank soo fun too!

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

have to applaud the choice of music, most of the time it is terrible hip or some such nonsense. +1 for bloodhound gang.

one of the first time i completed the 160 vDSA was with a sorc tank, though he used the clanfaer. i suppose the biggest question is you ever find it hard to dark deal? i tank on the standard stam dk, i could not imagine doing it without the stam return from battle roar and helping hands.

solid tanking by the way.

Sludge04

Could you tell me where you put all your attribute points and also your spells etc. I sometimes inadvertently become a tank in some dungeons because the bosses always chase me for some reason. I'd like to try it out for myself as I can manage in most dungeons with my light armour set up.

Tremors

Been a sorc tank on Xbox NA since launch. Alllllways a work in progress. My absolute favourite toon still to this day. Nice vid.

iam117

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

have to applaud the choice of music, most of the time it is terrible hip or some such nonsense. +1 for bloodhound gang.

one of the first time i completed the 160 vDSA was with a sorc tank, though he used the clanfaer. i suppose the biggest question is you ever find it hard to dark deal? i tank on the standard stam dk, i could not imagine doing it without the stam return from battle roar and helping hands.

solid tanking by the way.

I am getting used to dark deal, the more I play it, the easier it gets, the resource management is so nice. Dark deal and half your stam comes back. If you kow mechanics it's a breeze! Call me crazy but I find it much easier than a dk if you have good timing. Now I need to complete vmol on a nb tank amd I will have done all 4 classes as a tank through there. But playing a sorc tank is like playing a whole new game, really freshened up tanking for me.

Edit: I always try to use interesting music, this time I wanted something offensive and funny cause you know most don't agree with sorc tanking, I have like bloodhound gang forever so I thought it would be an awesome fit. Thank you!

iam117

RedVyperOfDorne wrote: »

Been a sorc tank on Xbox NA since launch. Alllllways a work in progress. My absolute favourite toon still to this day. Nice vid.

I started sorc tanking about a weeks ago when I came up with a wild idea for vmol. It is quite rewarding! Was also my 4th and final class to tank with

iam117

Sludge04 wrote: »

Could you tell me where you put all your attribute points and also your spells etc. I sometimes inadvertently become a tank in some dungeons because the bosses always chase me for some reason. I'd like to try it out for myself as I can manage in most dungeons with my light armour set up.

Sure. IL post a build pic later today. I can say right off the bat I have all attribute points in magicka, and use stam/health food. Armor enchants split between health and stam. Skills change depending on where I am but il give a basic layout when I post the state pic later. Don't be shocked at my resists :P

Bars i use mostly are:

1: Bound Aegis, Pierce Armor, Boundless Storm, Hardened Ward, Dark Deal - War Horn
2: Bound Aegis, Inner Rage, Shuffle, Daedric Minefield, Streak - Negate/Overload
Overload Bar: Bound Aegis, Boundless Storm, Dark Deal, Hardened Ward, Streak

serenity_painted

Started picking up heavy armor and S&B for my stam sorc so i could find groups faster a week or 2 ago. It's frickin amazing!
Underrated as ***.

iam117

updated with another vid and some stat pics........

code65536

Very cool, thanks for posting!

hedna123b14_ESO

code65536 wrote: »

Very cool, thanks for posting!

Code check out our new Rakhhat strat for vMoL in General Discussion...its dope.

iam117

serenity_painted wrote: »

Started picking up heavy armor and S&B for my stam sorc so i could find groups faster a week or 2 ago. It's frickin amazing!
Underrated as ***.

easily the most fun i have had tanking since launch. its like playing a whole new game for me

iam117

@TotallyNotVos sorry forgot

Foxic

This is sweet, good job man

OGNZ3

Sorc Tank is just amazing
I switched my Sorc DD to Magicka Tank for the new trials and i swear its really fun to play, especially because people are afraid of you until you tank 5 axes or The Warrior better than a DK

Glory to Sorc Tank, glory to OP!

One question that maybe you ll find it laughable, but why Bounded Aegis?
I dont really need the 8% more magicka and the really little defense buff, but i use to replace it with Héroïc Slash or Absorb Magicka (for the block cost réduction)

Sludge04

So, having never played as a tank, obviously I need a shield and sword but how do you taunt? I see that quick chat message "tank and taunt the boss" How would I go about taunting? Sorry for the noob questions it's just something I've never done.

I created a set of heavy Julianos with a shield a while back and have never tried it out, would this be a decent set to use starting out?

I'm sure I have other bound heavy gear from trial runs but I'm definitely going to give this a try.

iam117

OGNZ3 wrote: »

Sorc Tank is just amazing
I switched my Sorc DD to Magicka Tank for the new trials and i swear its really fun to play, especially because people are afraid of you until you tank 5 axes or The Warrior better than a DK

Glory to Sorc Tank, glory to OP!

One question that maybe you ll find it laughable, but why Bounded Aegis?
I dont really need the 8% more magicka and the really little defense buff, but i use to replace it with Héroïc Slash or Absorb Magicka (for the block cost réduction)

Def not laughable, it's a good question, for bound aegis there are 2 reasons, one fully buffed (without bloodspawn proc I'm only at 25k resists, and I can tell when bloodspawn isn't procced, so it's for a little extra cushion, the other is since I'm still learning sorc tanking I feel currently I like having the cushion of the extra magicka pool, sometimes on my back bar I run heroic slash instead of mines. As for absorb magicka, I find the cost reduction to be mehh simply because you can dark deal back to full stam so fast and get a 9k heal from it. If you notice in the vid of rakkhat I die standing behind main tank, that wouldn't have happened on my dk or temp tank because I use absorb as a shield and the health return is great in there, it also spamms faster than ward. habitually I thought oh il be good. Didn't work out lol. Also idk about you but I find streak manditory, I have been feeling like it applies a soft taunt about 80% of the time, so it's easy to streak through groups of trash, they all run right to you when they stand back up.

iam117

Sludge04 wrote: »

So, having never played as a tank, obviously I need a shield and sword but how do you taunt? I see that quick chat message "tank and taunt the boss" How would I go about taunting? Sorry for the noob questions it's just something I've never done.

I created a set of heavy Julianos with a shield a while back and have never tried it out, would this be a decent set to use starting out?

I'm sure I have other bound heavy gear from trial runs but I'm definitely going to give this a try.

The first skill in the 1h/s line is a taunt as well as the 3rd skill in undaunted, these are used to taunt anything to you for 15 seconds. Reapply as needed. I usually taunt with about 4 second's left on timer.

As for julianos, it would work yes, but there are better crafted options, the best tanking set for learning to tank imho is histbark. But to get the same effect you just slot the skill shuffle, really the best thing to do is throw on your Heavy set and go do some silver/easy gold pledges, learn how to control the adds then move to the harder gold pledges, from there if you like it enough, start trials. It's all about practice. So far on sorc tank I have Done aa/hrc/vmol and it works awesome, going to be trying out vso next week as well. Sorc tanking is very strong imho.

iam117

decided to actually turn this into a build thread instead of just showcasing some videos, updated original post and will continue to do so over the next few days.

The_Duke

I have an imperial stam sorc tank. Its by no means intended to run trials but is a blast in dailies. With the new stam dps meta I wear 5 nightmothers to debuff the boss and adds and 4 kvatch and 3 sithis rings to get some extra health. I want to get 5 piece briar heart to complete this set but the jewelry I find hard to get. I still enjoy my sap tank more but this one is growing on me. I have thought about switching to magicka but I like stam sorc tank in PVP better.

iam117

The_Duke wrote: »

I have an imperial stam sorc tank. Its by no means intended to run trials but is a blast in dailies. With the new stam dps meta I wear 5 nightmothers to debuff the boss and adds and 4 kvatch and 3 sithis rings to get some extra health. I want to get 5 piece briar heart to complete this set but the jewelry I find hard to get. I still enjoy my sap tank more but this one is growing on me. I have thought about switching to magicka but I like stam sorc tank in PVP better.

Yeah! Very cool to hear someone say stam sorc tank is working for them, that's a rarity, would be really sweet to see one speced out and working for trials. How much dps do u output or are you running dual s/b?