Update 47 is now available for testing on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/680228
[BUILD] Magicka Sorcerer: Necropotence AOE/DOT Build
dpencil
✭✭✭✭
UPDATED FOR UPDATE 13: HOMESTEAD
Greetings! I wanted to share my build that I've been using since One Tamriel. Perhaps others would like to give it a try as well. This is an AOE/DOT build utilizing the Necropotence set as it's centerpiece.
PROS: Simple rotation, Massive AOE dps, High magicka sustain, Huge shields, Playable in ALL content, Does not require Trials gear, High survivability, Very few traditional sorc counters work against it.
CONS: Pet required (if that bothers you), No upfront burst, Less single target damage than some other builds, Lack of available skill bar space for some common sorc abilities.
Before I share my build, let me just give a shout out to Nos's No Spamable Build and Thelon's Pet Sorc Build, both of which I've learned a lot from. If you are doing trials as part of a high level guild or solo vet dungeons, their builds may do better for you than this. I don't get a chance to run trials much and don't have any of the trials sets. I also really hate running out of magicka, and since most of the time I can't rely on healers to support me (PUGing and such), this build keeps that from ever happening. I do trials and solo vet dungeons occasionally on this build and it works well for me even if it may not be pulling the absolute highest dps possible.
Why Necropotence?
Arguably, Infallible Aether is a better PvE set in terms of raw set bonuses (almost 18% improvement, assuming no one else is applying Minor Vulnerability), but in my calculations Necropotence outshines most other sets because of its huge magicka pool bonus. Like 11% improvement over 6-8% improvement from most other good sets. A big magicka pool also improves shield size and pet strength, as well as simply giving you more casts before running out (which means regen is less important when combined with heavy attacking frequently). It also does the same thing that Spell Damage does, just at the rate of 10.5 : 1. That means that the cumulative power of a 40k magicka, 3k spell damage build would be about 6910. So a build with 50k magicka would only need 2148 spell damage to be equally as powerful. This build sits at about 52-53k magicka and 2615 spell damage with blue food and power surge up. All of these reasons made me want to invest in making what had simply been a theory crafted build a reality.
But you need a pet!
This is one reason why people will satisfy themselves with a different set over Necropotence. Lots of people don't like running pets for various reasons, so if you're one of those people this build will immediately turn you off. For me, on PC, I feel like I'm able to control my pet easily and keep it alive almost all of the time, and you'll see it actually ends up being very powerful.
But...so many toggles!
This is the other, and more serious, drawback to the build. Because you really need Inner Light and Bound Aegis to get the full benefit of the % increases to Necropotence's magicka pool buffs, it leaves you with precious little space for much else. You can't effectively run the standard C-Frag, Force Pulse rotation you'd do on most builds, so that's where the use of Heavy Lightning Attacks comes in. The skill choices I made were largely to compensate for this problem, but in the end they all synergize well.
Alright windbag, get on with it!
Ok, ok! The build has a few minor alterations between PvE and PvP. The PvE version can be run for all PvE content including dungeons, trials, and vMA. The PvP build can be used for dueling, IC crawling, and overland Cyrodiil either solo or in a group.
First up, PvE with Ilambris (self-buffed with Blue Food and Power Surge)
Next, PvP with Infernal Guardian (self-buffed with Blue Food and Power Surge)
Explanation of Gear:
- Divines is the best trait choice for this build in either PvE or PvP. We will be stacking two shields worth about 25k in PvP, so we can keep our rotation up and refresh shields on the fly. If you do take some heat with shields down, Power Surge will get you back up in a few seconds. Impenetrable is a wasted trait here. Divines is also better than Infused because we want higher crit chance from the Thief mundus stone for more heals from Power Surge.
- Obviously, Necropotence is used for the reasons listed above.
- Ilambris is the best PvE monster set for magicka sorcs. It procs a ton off of heavy attacks, liquid lightning and blockade of fire. Even without crits, it still performs well.
- Infernal Guardian is the best PvP monster set for magicka sorcs. It's free pressure on your opponent for using shields you'd use anyway. Even if it doesn't hit them it makes them focus on getting out of the red instead of just being free to wail on you. And when it does connect it hits hard.
- You can choose to run Infernal Guardian in vMA instead of Ilambris. The choice is yours.
- I ended up getting an Infused Heavy Infernal Guardian helm (I've got a Light Divines too) and decided to keep it as is for the extra 1.1k health enchant. You could go Divines if you prefer with a magicka enchant, trading some survivability for a little more dps. The extra 1k health has saved me a number of times, gIving me that extra second to stack shields and make a comeback.
- Willpower is more powerful on its own than any 4 piece except for Infallible or Moondancer, and stronger than those in PvP. So the front bar staff does not need to be part of any set. You can craft it or get one from some other set. Just make sure it's Sharpened, obviously. No need for vMA staff on the front, the weapon damage enchant is better for the front bar.
- Back bar vMA Inferno Staff is important. You can get by with a non-set staff, but you'll want to try to farm it along with the monster sets. Since we're using Lightning Heavy attacks it will provide a pretty significant boost to each tick's damage. Sharpened would be best. I just have Precise, which is still good and not a huge deal since we dont stay on the back bar for long anyway.
Explanation of Champion Points:
Blue Tree:
- Since we're using practically 100% dot damage, we split points equally between Elemental Expert and Thaumaturge, with 44 in Spell Erosion and 9 in Elfborn. You can play with the numbers a little, but the difference will be very slight. I have tested these numbers down to the difference between 1 point, and this is the most optimal for this build.
Green Tree:
- Because we don't have much base regen to begin with anyway, I put some points into Tenacity to boost heavy attack resource regen. I like this balance. It allows you a little more direct control of when you get more resources or when it's not as important. Like, if you're in a long duel and have been taking a lot of pressure, just stop using the ground dots and focus on heavy attacks and Familiar pulses and that will usually be enough to get back up to a good resource level again in short order.
Red Tree:
- 100 points into Bastion. The rest go into resistances. Do what you want here.
Explanation of Skills:
Front Bar:
Power Surge - We're using this for both Major Sorcery and the heals on crit. With crit chance around 57% and many ticks from all the dots, this skill will heal you back to full quickly as long as you keep shields up, especially if enemies try to fight you with melee in the middle of all your dots.
Inner Light - Passive bonuses are necessary for maximizing dps. Stealth detection is nice to have too. The empower buff won't usefully effect any of our normal rotation. You could empower a fire heavy attack from the back bar to open, but it only applies to the last tick of the lightning heavy attack, which isn't worth the magicka cost.
Volitile Familiar - We'll talk about him on the back bar.
Bound Aegis - Passive bonuses are necessary for maximizing dps. Extra resistances are nice should your shields go down for a second.
Empowered Ward - Some will prefer Hardened Ward because of its increased size. I prefer this because it costs less, increases magicka recovery, and lasts 10 seconds. It ensures that you can have both shields up together for the full 6 second duration of the 2nd shield in PvP and gives us a little buffer on either side of the 2nd shield falling off. And since our magicka is so high, the shield is already as big or bigger than Hardened Ward on other lower magicka sorc builds.
PvE Ulti: Thunderous Rage - This is a must-have skill on the front bar, as it's the only skill from the destro line we can put up there, which means our front bar benefits from the Ancient Knowledge 8% AOE damage increase. The ulti should be up about once every minute (6 rotations). And yes, the lightning version is actually stronger than the fire version due to lightning and aoe passives.
PvP Ulti: Soul Assault - This ulti is a beast and the only real surprise burst this build possesses. The tooltip is about 85k damage. It will kill basically anyone who doesn't shield/heal through it, even from full health. I'll talk more about its synergy with Volatile Familiar in the PvP Rotation section.
Back Bar:
Liquid Lightning / Elemental Drain - Liquid Lightning is a very powerful, cheap, and long lasting aoe dot. It will be less effective in PvP fights against ranged opponents, so in those situations you can switch it for Elemental Drain. You ideally want the Major Breach debuff on any serious target you ever fight. If you can get a healer to run it, that would be best. I tested switching out other skills for this on the target skeletons, but applying it to all targets slows the rotation down somewhat, and it ended up being a dps loss over what I've chosen.
Blockade of Fire - Another great aoe dot, boosting staff attack damage via the vMA staff. The buff can be applied by casting Blockade on the back bar and then reaping the benefits on the front bar. Although the lightning version does more damage due to passives, this is our only source of fire damage to get the fire attack from Ilambris to proc. For this reason, there's just no getting around needing the sharpened vMA fire staff.
Volitile Familiar - He's squishier than the Clannfear, but regular shielding makes that a non-issue. You don't usually need the Clannfear heal or the Twilight heal, so you're better off with the extra dps from the Familiar. It's a lot of dps too. The Familiar regularly crits for 10k damage. That's potentially 30k damage over 8 seconds with an aoe stun at the end. The stun is also very important to synergize in PvP with Soul Assault, which I'll explain in more detail in a minute.
Bound Aegis - as above
Daedric Prey / Dampen Magic/ Elemental Drain - In PvE, Daedric Prey works well to amplify the Familiar pulse and has a nice burst at the end as well. You could slip Elemental Drain here if ou prefer, especially if you are running group content and no one else is applying it to the boss. Just ask the healer before you start. Inner Light is a fine choice if you don't have something else you want. Dampen Magic is for PvP and is essential. You will die a lot faster and more often with only one shield. Harness Magicka is an alternative, but I prefer the increased shield size and don't really need the regen from the potential incoming magic damage. Also, I think it's important to have a shield on each bar so you can just insert a shield cast into what you're doing without needing to swap bars.
Ulti: Energy Overload - In PvE this is to provide an ulti point dump after fighting trash for a while. You use this after dropping dots instead of heavy attacking until your ulti points get to 213, at which point you switch to using the destro ulti when it's up. In PvP this can be another surprise burst option, though it has some easy counters. It's also useful for some utility skills on the 3rd bar. In any case, the 3rd bar needs Volitile Familiar and Bound Aegis on it. You can have Inner Light on to boost damage of light attacks or drop it for a utility skill. You'll also want Empowered Ward on there for some protection. In PvE, I usually put Mage's Wrath on for boss execute phases. In Cyrodiil, I slot Defensive Rune, which I put on whenever I'm out of combat, and Charging Maneuvers for faster mount speed. For duels, you could put Mage's Wrath and Crystal Frags on to maybe get a Mages Wrath, C-Frag, Overload combo in if your normal rotation isn't cutting it. Or you could put Daedric Minefield on there. Lots of options to choose from.
Alternately, in PvP, you could put Eye of the Storm here.
For vMA, I take off Thunderous Rage for double barring Energy Overload, just so I don't accidentally blow my ulti before the boss round. I also put Liquid Lightning on my Overload Bar in vMA instead of Mage's Wrath, so I can keep my Lightning and Familiar dots up on the boss without dropping out of Overload.
Explanation of Rotation:
PvE
Power Surge (33 seconds) > Empowered Ward (10 seconds) > Thunderous Rage > Liquid Lightning (10 seconds) > Blockade of Fire (8 seconds) > Volatile Familiar (8 seconds) > Daedric Prey > 2 Lighting Heavy Attacks
If you're responsible for casting Elemental Drain, get that in near the beginning and keep it up. Keep repeating the above rotation as stuff falls off. You can hold off on continually recasting Empowered Ward if you're taking low or no damage.
The fall off times of the dots line up perfectly, so you can always just go 1, 2. 3 on your back bar every 10 seconds and keep everything up almost 100%.
PvP
Power Surge (33 seconds) > Empowered Ward (10 seconds) > Dampen Magic (6 seconds) > Liquid Lightning (10 seconds) > Blockade of Fire (8 seconds) > Volatile Familiar (8 seconds) > Lighting Heavy Attacks
If you've slotted Elemental Drain instead of Liquid Lightning, fit that in near the beginning and keep it up. For duels, you can drop dots before shields during the count down at the start of the fight.
Volitile Familiar + Soul Assault synergy:
The 5th pulse of the Familiar attack is a stun. If you watch the Familiar pulses and start Soul Assault just after the 4th pulse, the target will be hit with a stun in the middle of the ulti and will take massive damage even if they attempt to break free. Usually they haven't reacted fast enough to put on a shield or heal yet, so they are completely vulnerable. I have won MANY duels against every class type using this technique. Sparring for a long time with players, they will begin to develop counter strategies, but almost everyone is taken by surprise initially, which is really what counts in Cryodiil.
The Sorc House:
Aside from the above synergy, dropping Liquid Lightning, Blockade of Fire, Volatile Familiar Pulse, Infernal Guardian mortars, and Lightning Heavy Attacking while stacking 25k shields will spell immediate death for anyone foolish enough to melee attack you without serious PvP skills. You only have to resort to Soul Assault if your opponent proves to be a non-potato. The whole build is outside of the norm of what other players expect a sorc to do, and that works to your advantage.
PvP Counters:
Standard sorc counters don't really work against this build. Our attacks are not dodgable or reflectable. However, because the Familiar is integral to the surprise burst of Soul Assault, if the target is running Immovable pots, disables the Familiar via cc, or constantly kills it while aoeing you both, you'll find the fight more difficult. This is one reason why we run Overload on the back bar. If you are consistently thwarted, you can switch it up and try to get an Overload combo in. Even on players who use these techniques, you can sustain the fight using the normal rotation for a really long time without resource issues and look to exploit a mistake.
DPS Parse
Here is a DPS Parse against 3 Target Skeletons standing close together. Essentially, the best-case scenario for your general AOE fight. You can see that the single target DPS against each skeleton is about 24-26k. This will simply be multiplied by however many enemies you have within your Liquid Lightning circle. Also note that the Mag Regen is higher than the Mag Drain. This rotation is infinitely sustainable and was used without interruption until all 3 skeletons were dead. It took 2 minutes to kill all three skeletons.
...Ok. That's it. Thanks for reading!
Edited by dpencil on January 11, 2017 12:45AM Greetings! I wanted to share my build that I've been using since One Tamriel. Perhaps others would like to give it a try as well. This is an AOE/DOT build utilizing the Necropotence set as it's centerpiece.
PROS: Simple rotation, Massive AOE dps, High magicka sustain, Huge shields, Playable in ALL content, Does not require Trials gear, High survivability, Very few traditional sorc counters work against it.
CONS: Pet required (if that bothers you), No upfront burst, Less single target damage than some other builds, Lack of available skill bar space for some common sorc abilities.
Before I share my build, let me just give a shout out to Nos's No Spamable Build and Thelon's Pet Sorc Build, both of which I've learned a lot from. If you are doing trials as part of a high level guild or solo vet dungeons, their builds may do better for you than this. I don't get a chance to run trials much and don't have any of the trials sets. I also really hate running out of magicka, and since most of the time I can't rely on healers to support me (PUGing and such), this build keeps that from ever happening. I do trials and solo vet dungeons occasionally on this build and it works well for me even if it may not be pulling the absolute highest dps possible.
Why Necropotence?
Arguably, Infallible Aether is a better PvE set in terms of raw set bonuses (almost 18% improvement, assuming no one else is applying Minor Vulnerability), but in my calculations Necropotence outshines most other sets because of its huge magicka pool bonus. Like 11% improvement over 6-8% improvement from most other good sets. A big magicka pool also improves shield size and pet strength, as well as simply giving you more casts before running out (which means regen is less important when combined with heavy attacking frequently). It also does the same thing that Spell Damage does, just at the rate of 10.5 : 1. That means that the cumulative power of a 40k magicka, 3k spell damage build would be about 6910. So a build with 50k magicka would only need 2148 spell damage to be equally as powerful. This build sits at about 52-53k magicka and 2615 spell damage with blue food and power surge up. All of these reasons made me want to invest in making what had simply been a theory crafted build a reality.
But you need a pet!
This is one reason why people will satisfy themselves with a different set over Necropotence. Lots of people don't like running pets for various reasons, so if you're one of those people this build will immediately turn you off. For me, on PC, I feel like I'm able to control my pet easily and keep it alive almost all of the time, and you'll see it actually ends up being very powerful.
But...so many toggles!
This is the other, and more serious, drawback to the build. Because you really need Inner Light and Bound Aegis to get the full benefit of the % increases to Necropotence's magicka pool buffs, it leaves you with precious little space for much else. You can't effectively run the standard C-Frag, Force Pulse rotation you'd do on most builds, so that's where the use of Heavy Lightning Attacks comes in. The skill choices I made were largely to compensate for this problem, but in the end they all synergize well.
Alright windbag, get on with it!
Ok, ok! The build has a few minor alterations between PvE and PvP. The PvE version can be run for all PvE content including dungeons, trials, and vMA. The PvP build can be used for dueling, IC crawling, and overland Cyrodiil either solo or in a group.
First up, PvE with Ilambris (self-buffed with Blue Food and Power Surge)
Next, PvP with Infernal Guardian (self-buffed with Blue Food and Power Surge)
Explanation of Gear:
- Divines is the best trait choice for this build in either PvE or PvP. We will be stacking two shields worth about 25k in PvP, so we can keep our rotation up and refresh shields on the fly. If you do take some heat with shields down, Power Surge will get you back up in a few seconds. Impenetrable is a wasted trait here. Divines is also better than Infused because we want higher crit chance from the Thief mundus stone for more heals from Power Surge.
- Obviously, Necropotence is used for the reasons listed above.
- Ilambris is the best PvE monster set for magicka sorcs. It procs a ton off of heavy attacks, liquid lightning and blockade of fire. Even without crits, it still performs well.
- Infernal Guardian is the best PvP monster set for magicka sorcs. It's free pressure on your opponent for using shields you'd use anyway. Even if it doesn't hit them it makes them focus on getting out of the red instead of just being free to wail on you. And when it does connect it hits hard.
- You can choose to run Infernal Guardian in vMA instead of Ilambris. The choice is yours.
- I ended up getting an Infused Heavy Infernal Guardian helm (I've got a Light Divines too) and decided to keep it as is for the extra 1.1k health enchant. You could go Divines if you prefer with a magicka enchant, trading some survivability for a little more dps. The extra 1k health has saved me a number of times, gIving me that extra second to stack shields and make a comeback.
- Willpower is more powerful on its own than any 4 piece except for Infallible or Moondancer, and stronger than those in PvP. So the front bar staff does not need to be part of any set. You can craft it or get one from some other set. Just make sure it's Sharpened, obviously. No need for vMA staff on the front, the weapon damage enchant is better for the front bar.
- Back bar vMA Inferno Staff is important. You can get by with a non-set staff, but you'll want to try to farm it along with the monster sets. Since we're using Lightning Heavy attacks it will provide a pretty significant boost to each tick's damage. Sharpened would be best. I just have Precise, which is still good and not a huge deal since we dont stay on the back bar for long anyway.
Explanation of Champion Points:
Blue Tree:
- Since we're using practically 100% dot damage, we split points equally between Elemental Expert and Thaumaturge, with 44 in Spell Erosion and 9 in Elfborn. You can play with the numbers a little, but the difference will be very slight. I have tested these numbers down to the difference between 1 point, and this is the most optimal for this build.
Green Tree:
- Because we don't have much base regen to begin with anyway, I put some points into Tenacity to boost heavy attack resource regen. I like this balance. It allows you a little more direct control of when you get more resources or when it's not as important. Like, if you're in a long duel and have been taking a lot of pressure, just stop using the ground dots and focus on heavy attacks and Familiar pulses and that will usually be enough to get back up to a good resource level again in short order.
Red Tree:
- 100 points into Bastion. The rest go into resistances. Do what you want here.
Explanation of Skills:
Front Bar:
Power Surge - We're using this for both Major Sorcery and the heals on crit. With crit chance around 57% and many ticks from all the dots, this skill will heal you back to full quickly as long as you keep shields up, especially if enemies try to fight you with melee in the middle of all your dots.
Inner Light - Passive bonuses are necessary for maximizing dps. Stealth detection is nice to have too. The empower buff won't usefully effect any of our normal rotation. You could empower a fire heavy attack from the back bar to open, but it only applies to the last tick of the lightning heavy attack, which isn't worth the magicka cost.
Volitile Familiar - We'll talk about him on the back bar.
Bound Aegis - Passive bonuses are necessary for maximizing dps. Extra resistances are nice should your shields go down for a second.
Empowered Ward - Some will prefer Hardened Ward because of its increased size. I prefer this because it costs less, increases magicka recovery, and lasts 10 seconds. It ensures that you can have both shields up together for the full 6 second duration of the 2nd shield in PvP and gives us a little buffer on either side of the 2nd shield falling off. And since our magicka is so high, the shield is already as big or bigger than Hardened Ward on other lower magicka sorc builds.
PvE Ulti: Thunderous Rage - This is a must-have skill on the front bar, as it's the only skill from the destro line we can put up there, which means our front bar benefits from the Ancient Knowledge 8% AOE damage increase. The ulti should be up about once every minute (6 rotations). And yes, the lightning version is actually stronger than the fire version due to lightning and aoe passives.
PvP Ulti: Soul Assault - This ulti is a beast and the only real surprise burst this build possesses. The tooltip is about 85k damage. It will kill basically anyone who doesn't shield/heal through it, even from full health. I'll talk more about its synergy with Volatile Familiar in the PvP Rotation section.
Back Bar:
Liquid Lightning / Elemental Drain - Liquid Lightning is a very powerful, cheap, and long lasting aoe dot. It will be less effective in PvP fights against ranged opponents, so in those situations you can switch it for Elemental Drain. You ideally want the Major Breach debuff on any serious target you ever fight. If you can get a healer to run it, that would be best. I tested switching out other skills for this on the target skeletons, but applying it to all targets slows the rotation down somewhat, and it ended up being a dps loss over what I've chosen.
Blockade of Fire - Another great aoe dot, boosting staff attack damage via the vMA staff. The buff can be applied by casting Blockade on the back bar and then reaping the benefits on the front bar. Although the lightning version does more damage due to passives, this is our only source of fire damage to get the fire attack from Ilambris to proc. For this reason, there's just no getting around needing the sharpened vMA fire staff.
Volitile Familiar - He's squishier than the Clannfear, but regular shielding makes that a non-issue. You don't usually need the Clannfear heal or the Twilight heal, so you're better off with the extra dps from the Familiar. It's a lot of dps too. The Familiar regularly crits for 10k damage. That's potentially 30k damage over 8 seconds with an aoe stun at the end. The stun is also very important to synergize in PvP with Soul Assault, which I'll explain in more detail in a minute.
Bound Aegis - as above
Daedric Prey / Dampen Magic/ Elemental Drain - In PvE, Daedric Prey works well to amplify the Familiar pulse and has a nice burst at the end as well. You could slip Elemental Drain here if ou prefer, especially if you are running group content and no one else is applying it to the boss. Just ask the healer before you start. Inner Light is a fine choice if you don't have something else you want. Dampen Magic is for PvP and is essential. You will die a lot faster and more often with only one shield. Harness Magicka is an alternative, but I prefer the increased shield size and don't really need the regen from the potential incoming magic damage. Also, I think it's important to have a shield on each bar so you can just insert a shield cast into what you're doing without needing to swap bars.
Ulti: Energy Overload - In PvE this is to provide an ulti point dump after fighting trash for a while. You use this after dropping dots instead of heavy attacking until your ulti points get to 213, at which point you switch to using the destro ulti when it's up. In PvP this can be another surprise burst option, though it has some easy counters. It's also useful for some utility skills on the 3rd bar. In any case, the 3rd bar needs Volitile Familiar and Bound Aegis on it. You can have Inner Light on to boost damage of light attacks or drop it for a utility skill. You'll also want Empowered Ward on there for some protection. In PvE, I usually put Mage's Wrath on for boss execute phases. In Cyrodiil, I slot Defensive Rune, which I put on whenever I'm out of combat, and Charging Maneuvers for faster mount speed. For duels, you could put Mage's Wrath and Crystal Frags on to maybe get a Mages Wrath, C-Frag, Overload combo in if your normal rotation isn't cutting it. Or you could put Daedric Minefield on there. Lots of options to choose from.
Alternately, in PvP, you could put Eye of the Storm here.
For vMA, I take off Thunderous Rage for double barring Energy Overload, just so I don't accidentally blow my ulti before the boss round. I also put Liquid Lightning on my Overload Bar in vMA instead of Mage's Wrath, so I can keep my Lightning and Familiar dots up on the boss without dropping out of Overload.
Explanation of Rotation:
PvE
Power Surge (33 seconds) > Empowered Ward (10 seconds) > Thunderous Rage > Liquid Lightning (10 seconds) > Blockade of Fire (8 seconds) > Volatile Familiar (8 seconds) > Daedric Prey > 2 Lighting Heavy Attacks
If you're responsible for casting Elemental Drain, get that in near the beginning and keep it up. Keep repeating the above rotation as stuff falls off. You can hold off on continually recasting Empowered Ward if you're taking low or no damage.
The fall off times of the dots line up perfectly, so you can always just go 1, 2. 3 on your back bar every 10 seconds and keep everything up almost 100%.
PvP
Power Surge (33 seconds) > Empowered Ward (10 seconds) > Dampen Magic (6 seconds) > Liquid Lightning (10 seconds) > Blockade of Fire (8 seconds) > Volatile Familiar (8 seconds) > Lighting Heavy Attacks
If you've slotted Elemental Drain instead of Liquid Lightning, fit that in near the beginning and keep it up. For duels, you can drop dots before shields during the count down at the start of the fight.
Volitile Familiar + Soul Assault synergy:
The 5th pulse of the Familiar attack is a stun. If you watch the Familiar pulses and start Soul Assault just after the 4th pulse, the target will be hit with a stun in the middle of the ulti and will take massive damage even if they attempt to break free. Usually they haven't reacted fast enough to put on a shield or heal yet, so they are completely vulnerable. I have won MANY duels against every class type using this technique. Sparring for a long time with players, they will begin to develop counter strategies, but almost everyone is taken by surprise initially, which is really what counts in Cryodiil.
The Sorc House:
Aside from the above synergy, dropping Liquid Lightning, Blockade of Fire, Volatile Familiar Pulse, Infernal Guardian mortars, and Lightning Heavy Attacking while stacking 25k shields will spell immediate death for anyone foolish enough to melee attack you without serious PvP skills. You only have to resort to Soul Assault if your opponent proves to be a non-potato. The whole build is outside of the norm of what other players expect a sorc to do, and that works to your advantage.
PvP Counters:
Standard sorc counters don't really work against this build. Our attacks are not dodgable or reflectable. However, because the Familiar is integral to the surprise burst of Soul Assault, if the target is running Immovable pots, disables the Familiar via cc, or constantly kills it while aoeing you both, you'll find the fight more difficult. This is one reason why we run Overload on the back bar. If you are consistently thwarted, you can switch it up and try to get an Overload combo in. Even on players who use these techniques, you can sustain the fight using the normal rotation for a really long time without resource issues and look to exploit a mistake.
DPS Parse
Here is a DPS Parse against 3 Target Skeletons standing close together. Essentially, the best-case scenario for your general AOE fight. You can see that the single target DPS against each skeleton is about 24-26k. This will simply be multiplied by however many enemies you have within your Liquid Lightning circle. Also note that the Mag Regen is higher than the Mag Drain. This rotation is infinitely sustainable and was used without interruption until all 3 skeletons were dead. It took 2 minutes to kill all three skeletons.
...Ok. That's it. Thanks for reading!
5
-
Biro123✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Not my cuppa tea in terms of playstyle - but some good ideas there. Like it.Minalan owes me a beer.
PC EU Megaserver
Minie Mo - Stam/Magblade - DC
Woody Ron - Stamplar - DC
Aidee - Magsorc - DC
Notadorf - Stamsorc - DC
Khattman Doo - Stamblade - Relegated to Crafter, cos AD.0 -
Waffennacht✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Your gear is very close to my PvP cheese version. Instead of willpower and MA staff I run Alchemist, the difference being you have a flat 350ish spell damage equivalent 100% uptime above my version when Alchemist isn't up, when Alchemist is up my version has 350ish spell damage more than yours for that 15 secs.
For PvP may I just add: Curse can detonate while you're SAing, unblockable, makes a well timed SA really deadly (combo with familiar too)
I also use IG, however I'm considering running Skoria instead, (lots o dots is good) but it also procs on SA, another potential 4kish damage while SAing.
Just some food for thought (in mainly duels)Edited by Waffennacht on November 21, 2016 4:06PM0 -
Waffennacht✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I do have some questions buddy
Do you notice it more difficult at all running dampen magic and keeping your familiar alive? - I found it slightly increased the death rate of my familiar (no ward on pet from dampen)
In a duel do you still kill if they killed your familiar? What strategy do you use? Like do you try to recast familiar and if so when?
Do you use elemental drain in duels? If so how does it feel?
I noticed you posted something I discovered you get like 3 wins then people start developing a counter strategy, do you change anything up once that happens?
LL in duels, do you keep it slotted? If so where do you cast it? Your location or theirs?
Lastly, whatcha think of mines?0 -
cschwingeb14_ESO✭✭✭✭The problem with all of these pet builds is that you can get 45k magicka (or more if you really go for it) without the pet. And the 2 slots you free up dramatically increase utility and recovery. Plus being able to have a different 5-piece possibly
Using the pet as a "second bound aegis" just sucks IMO. And the current combined state of pet control, survivability and abilities/damage is way too much effort for return. The volatile imp ability is a classic example. It could be a targeted, ranged attack against an enemy. But instead, it's a small radius PBAE, so positioning is tough.0 -
STEVIL✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭@cschwartzy926b14_ESO
I prefer the aoe. To me trying to apply time to target my pet atracks is not gonbacwork, since i want to be targeting my attacks and weaves. The pet as a mobile dot works better as fire forget for me. Main reason i dont like the other twilight.
Proudly skooma free while talks-when-drunk is in mandatory public housing.
YFMV Your Fun May Vary.
First Law of Nerf-o-Dynamics
"The good way I used to get good kills *with good skill* was good but the way others kill me now is bad."0 -
dpencil✭✭✭✭@Waffennacht
1. Well the only shield the pet ever gets is whatever Empowered Ward gives him. Even Hardened Ward's bonus only effects yourself, and you need another shield. So I guess I don't understand what sort of alternative you're thinking of. Did you miss that I'm running both Empowered Ward and Dampen?
2. I'm usually able to recast the Familiar if it dies. It's easy to see if the enemy is trying to focus it down so as soon as it's gone I summon it again. Only super good opponents will bash me out if it. If I get bashed a few times, I try switching things up with Overload to get them more defensive then try resummon in again.
3. I usually don't start with Ele Drain since most fights are in melee range and LL helps a lot there, maybe more that Ele Drain would. If I am countered by a very range-oriented opponenet, that's when I usually drop LL for Ele Drain since there's no point using LL with them.
4. Even after people develop counter strategies I'll still be able to win using my normal routine, it just becomes tougher. If the fight is dragging on and they are constantly frustrating my attempts, that's when I move into Overload mode.
So far the toughest fights for me have been with Stam Sorcs. Just about everyone else I do pretty well against. Earlier today I was in Cyrodiil taking resources and a poor templar kept trying to take a resource and wait for me to try to take it back, hoping to jump me while I was fighting all the npcs. I just ignored him, killed all npcs and then finished him off. Felt kinda bad for the guy.
5. At the start of the duel I will stand right on top of the opponent and cast all my aoes, so...yes.
6. I like mines, but I just don't have room for them most of the time. I think I like having Mage's Wrath and C-Frag on my Overload Bar more than mines. Also, mines is the universal symbol for "stay away" but I actually want them to try to melee me.Edited by dpencil on November 21, 2016 9:07PM1 -
dpencil✭✭✭✭In PvP, there are always going to be players who are better than you. Either they have super optimal gear and are highly experienced, or they are very quick to react to what you do, or they have the ability to hard counter you in some way. So the way I look at it, if I were using a more normal PvP build, which I have tried to get comfortable with many times before, I would struggle taking resources alone and die pretty quickly against anyone who was not a potatoe. With this build, I am super practiced at it because it's what I run in all the PvE content too. I can easily solo resources and wipe the floor with everyone except the very good PvPers who I'd hardly ever beat anyway.0
-
dpencil✭✭✭✭I do like the idea of trying to maximize burst inside SA... Familiar, Curse, Mage's Wrath, SA (with Skoria proc). I'll have to think about that one.
0 -
Waffennacht✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Actually what I meant was do you find yourself having any difficulty maintaining the familiar while using Dampen magic as Dampen magic does not cast a ward on the familiar. I found when I used dampen magic on one bar and h ward on the other, that time when I cast dampen magic the familiar gets killed because he went wardless for a moment.
But you answered that in another answer lol
Thanks a bunch! I think Ill stick O load as my other Ult for my cheese build. Im also really tempted to now add boundless armor (right name?been a while since I used it) and go full on that bar...
The curse + SA is devastating, most players do block SA but when Curse goes off it almost always brings them into execute range. It's just mean... i can only imagine a skoria going off too...0 -
dpencil✭✭✭✭Heh, yeah. I do prioritize Empowered Ward. If they are just attacking my pet, I'll weave it between other casts and not use Dampen. If they're attacking me, which usually means they're ignoring the pet, I'll use both.
The big problem with Overload itself is that it's so easy to counter, either by dodging or reflecting. I like Eye of the Storm as an alternate when Overload doesn't seem to do much good, it just takes a long time to fill ulti points that high.
By the way, my PvP shield strengths are:
Empowered - 10k
Dampen - 15k
And my PvP health is 25kEdited by dpencil on November 22, 2016 1:48AM0 -
dpencil✭✭✭✭Build updated for Homestead PTS. This patch has majorly buffed this build in several ways:
- Increased pet tankiness
- Daedric Prey now buffs the Volatile Familiar pulses!
- Volatile Familiar pulses 5 times over 8 seconds, instead of 3 over 6 seconds. This actually fits better into our rotation, basically eliminating down-time. Immediately after the Familiar stuns the targets, you'll be recasting it.
- Lightning staff AOE buff with Ancient Knowledge having a destro skill equipped [Thunderous Rage, front bar; Blockade of Fire, back bar] (8% more AOE damage...all of our attacks are AOE!)
- Concussed status effect (from Lightning attacks: Staff attack, Liquid Lightning, Familiar pulse) applies Minor Vulnerability (8% more damage again!) No more need for Infallible Aether's 5 piece. 75% up-time on all targets is easy to maintain!
Also, it appears ulti costs were reduced across the board. Overload costs 55, down from 64. Thunderous Rage costs 183, down from 213. EDIT: Apparently this is a bug in the first PTS update.Edited by dpencil on January 7, 2017 12:09AM0 -
Lord_Wrath✭✭✭✭✭Ill admit, ive never cared to try pets but this sounds interesting!1300+ CP | Lørd Wrath | - Sorcerer - Palatine - Grand Master Crafter - 30000 Achievement Points
Launch Player - PC - NA - EP0