What's wrong with my stamsorc?

darthsithis

Trying to do maelstrom and failing hard. Only ever done a magsorc, but switched race to redguard, and just can't get past round 3 of maelstrom

I am running 5 vicious ophidian, 5 hundings, maelstrom bow sharpened and dw maelstrom dagger and axe (sharp- weapons are purple tho not gold).

Bow bar is poison execute thing, endless hail, hurricane, surge, bound armaments. Overload for third bar.

Dw is flurry morph that heals, blood something, spin to win, dark deal, bound armaments. Lacerate is ulti.

Overload bar is random stuff, caltrops, and rearming trap.

Cp 100 reduce cost, rest in recov, blue tree 100 mighty, rest in crit boost and thaumaturge, red tree I have no idea so I split hardy, elemental defender, thick skinned, and put some in quick recov.

Anyways my dps is pretty bad and I have no survivability or sustain . I know it's probably mostly due to user error, but I consider myself pretty good at the game...any thoughts on why i can't do enough damage and eventual get melted?

I only used one ward on my magsorc so not totally dependent on that, just feel squishy and weak...any advice for a maelstrom stamsorc build (online ones were useless and out of date) would be much appreciated!

DRXHarbinger

Keep at it and get stuck in. Drop 2pc VO for stormfist. Just keep hurricane and surge up and you can face tank anything in malestrom. It's a completely different playstyle to magika and just takes a little while to adjust to it.

darthsithis

Hmm never heard of stormfist, but I'll do some daily pledges then!

Yeah stam is so different I can barely animation cancel. People are saying stamsorc is the most efficient way to get flawless scores and be high up on the leaderboards...

Masel

darthsithis wrote: »

Hmm never heard of stormfist, but I'll do some daily pledges then!

Yeah stam is so different I can barely animation cancel. People are saying stamsorc is the most efficient way to get flawless scores and be high up on the leaderboards...

Rather drop the vma weapons for hundings weapons and use stormfist/velidreth. Most stuff dies too fast to make use of the cruel flurry. Vicious ophidian makes the arena a lot easier. If you use alphagear you can switch to your vMA setup for bosses, but for me, that isn't necessary.

darthsithis

I see hundings daggers and a monster set, but my bow bar will lose a hundings trait won't it?

Artemiisia

I would remove spin to win and dark deal and replace it for razor caltrops and vigor instead.

I just single target everything to death, while having endless hall, caltrops for ground aoe

darthsithis

Caltrops on dw instead of overload, gotcha! Got vigor on backbar already.

What about dealing with squish? Need daggers and crit surge/hurricane/caltrops/hail/blood craze up all the time? If it's that easy I just need rotation work.

Dumb question, so I ever light attack with my swords or spam flurry and blood craze only?

DRXHarbinger

No caltrops. Useless and a waste if stam. It'll proc stormfist in the wrong place.

Dw bar, Bloodthirst and blood craze, armaments, hurricane, trap.

Bow, hail, injection, surge, armaments, dark deal.

That's all you need. Just charge at everything and cut it down. Know the spawns, drop trap and hail at spawn and just charge at the next add. Hail and trap will kill the enemy on it. Takes me 41 mins using this set up. I use nmg over hundings though.

darthsithis

I'll let ya know how t goes!

Highest score was ~450k, fewest deaths was 2.

Can I get away with purple weapons or no though?

DinOwned

Try this setup and rotation. You'd probably want Overload on your back bar so you can have Caltrops and Dark Deal on your overload bar.

Setup:


Rotation:


Champion Points:

darthsithis

Awesome!!!

DinOwned

I might be missing out on some DPS but I run 5 VO, 5 NMG, Maelstrom axe & dagger, and Maelstrom bow. No monster helm. I find it easier for sustain during some of the tougher boss fights.

Toast_STS

Swap out steel tornado for quick cloak and hundings for briarheart if you are feeling too squishy. Also, vigor is good idea.

Qbiken

This is the build I use for vmsa on my stamsorc: (class redguard)
5 piece vicious ophidian (3 jewel+2 body in divines)
5 Nightmother´s gaze (2 sharpened daggers, 1 with increase weapon damage and one with poison enchant. + 3 body)
2 velidreth
Sharpened maelstrom bow on backbar.
All bodypieces have maxstamina enchant

Frontbar skills: Rearming trap, rending slashes, armanants, rapid strikes, steeltornado, Ulti: rend
Backbar skills: Hurricane, endless hail, armanants, poison injection, critical surge. Ulti flawless dawnbreaker

j_s

Use sigils

darthsithis

j_s wrote: »

Use sigils

Lmao I seriously was so used to not using them almost ever on my magsorc that I totally forgot about them hahaha. Ty

darthsithis

Toast_STS wrote: »

Swap out steel tornado for quick cloak and hundings for briarheart if you are feeling too squishy. Also, vigor is good idea.

What's quick cloak? And I do have vigor

Also, purple weapons ok or no?

Bandit1215

Drop dark deal and s2w for expert hunter and rearming trap

code65536

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Keep at it and get stuck in. Drop 2pc VO for stormfist. Just keep hurricane and surge up and you can face tank anything in malestrom. It's a completely different playstyle to magika and just takes a little while to adjust to it.

lolwut? That 5p VO bonus is the last thing the OP should drop.

The vMA weapons, on the other hand, need to go. Do not use vMA dual-wield weapons in vMA itself. Why not? Because vMA dual-wield is best for sustained DPS, not for burst DPS. It's what you would use in a trial on a boss fight that lasts a few minutes. In vMA, things are supposed to be dead in a few seconds. What's the point of empowering your DoTs if your DoTs don't even have a chance to run their full course?

So, first, get rid of the vMA dual-wield weapons. You'll want 2p monster set (Velidreth, Stormfist, Kragh are all good options), 5p VO (jewelry plus armor), a 5p core set (armor plus two daggers) (NMG is best, but if you want to reuse some of your current gear, Hunding isn't far behind), and a vMA bow on the back bar.

You'll also want to gold out your main-hand dagger. Off-hand dagger, you can leave as purple since the off-hand only contributes 20% of its tooltip. And you should use 2x dagger instead of dagger+axe for the same reason: DoTs aren't as useful in vMA.

Finally, remember that vMA is about burst DPS, not sustained DPS. So whoever posted a trials DPS rotation earlier in the thread is missing the point.

Oh, and for squishiness: You can enchant an armor piece to health and/or change an armor piece from medium to heavy (+4% health from Undaunted and heavy armor passives). Make sure Surge is always up as well as Hurricane so that you have a stream of Surge heals. While most people say Vigor is not necessary, it does help. Blade Cloak mitigates AoE damage, but much of the damage in vMA is not AoE, so I would not use it as a mitigator.

darthsithis

Wow code thank you...

darthsithis

And to everyone- I think I have a firmer grasp of this and will try again today!

Kutsuu

Really sounds like you need to L2P stam. I don't mean that as an insult, it's just a pretty major adjustment and not super easymode as some people have probably told you it is. You need to learn your rotations and animation cancelling.

Personally I do not advocate using VMA 1hers in VMA. Mobs don't live long enough to take benefit except for bosses, which can be bursted very fast either way. 5x NMG (2x daggers + 3x body) + 5x VO (3x jewelry, 2x armor) + 2x Velidreth (IMO better than stormfist in VMA) is an extremely solid, capable, and proven gear setup.

However that said, you should be able to beat it with the gear setup you mentioned in the OP.

darthsithis

Kutsuu wrote: »

Really sounds like you need to L2P stam. I don't mean that as an insult, it's just a pretty major adjustment and not super easymode as some people have probably told you it is. You need to learn your rotations and animation cancelling.

Oh no worries I know it's 70% me not knowing how to play a stam build. It's been really fun making it work though honestly. Don't worry though my animation cancelling is so on point tho

darthsithis

@Lukums1, message me your twitch I'd love to watch

Lukums1

Hello Darth,

It's in my signature matey.

It's Lukumms.

I'm happy to help with all aspects builds, tips and tricks you may or may not know.

Will be streaming all day tomorrow.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

code65536 wrote: »

DRXHarbinger wrote: »

Keep at it and get stuck in. Drop 2pc VO for stormfist. Just keep hurricane and surge up and you can face tank anything in malestrom. It's a completely different playstyle to magika and just takes a little while to adjust to it.

lolwut? That 5p VO bonus is the last thing the OP should drop.

The vMA weapons, on the other hand, need to go. Do not use vMA dual-wield weapons in vMA itself. Why not? Because vMA dual-wield is best for sustained DPS, not for burst DPS. It's what you would use in a trial on a boss fight that lasts a few minutes. In vMA, things are supposed to be dead in a few seconds. What's the point of empowering your DoTs if your DoTs don't even have a chance to run their full course?

So, first, get rid of the vMA dual-wield weapons. You'll want 2p monster set (Velidreth, Stormfist, Kragh are all good options), 5p VO (jewelry plus armor), a 5p core set (armor plus two daggers) (NMG is best, but if you want to reuse some of your current gear, Hunding isn't far behind), and a vMA bow on the back bar.

You'll also want to gold out your main-hand dagger. Off-hand dagger, you can leave as purple since the off-hand only contributes 20% of its tooltip. And you should use 2x dagger instead of dagger+axe for the same reason: DoTs aren't as useful in vMA.

Finally, remember that vMA is about burst DPS, not sustained DPS. So whoever posted a trials DPS rotation earlier in the thread is missing the point.

Oh, and for squishiness: You can enchant an armor piece to health and/or change an armor piece from medium to heavy (+4% health from Undaunted and heavy armor passives). Make sure Surge is always up as well as Hurricane so that you have a stream of Surge heals. While most people say Vigor is not necessary, it does help. Blade Cloak mitigates AoE damage, but much of the damage in vMA is not AoE, so I would not use it as a mitigator.

Pretty much everything he said. VMA weapons (other than bow) kinda suck in VMA itself. I would also suggest either going 5/1/1 or 5/2 (heavy) with your armor. I found about 18.5k health to be pretty comfortable in there. I just threw a healthy glyph on my chest piece. 2 more things. When I die in there, there is a 98% chance that I let surge expire. This is your lifeline. Also, remember that vigor is a HOT not a burst heal. It is FAR more effective if cast right before you are about to take a bunch of damage than after you already took it.

For stage 3, this is what I do. When the normal waves are spawning, I put trap and hail on the portal where I am standing (that alone will kill the add). I then charge a heavy attack and Poison Injection the guy spawning on the island to my right (that will kill him), I then run to the last add and melee him. With a little practice, all three will die at once. For the boss, I just straight burn. When the adds spawn, pop suppression field and keep buring. It become one of the easiest bosses in here. Some people like Overload on their back bar for utility, but honestly, I think it is overly complicated. Furthermore, there are a few fights where suppression field is highly useful.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

darthsithis wrote: »

I see hundings daggers and a monster set, but my bow bar will lose a hundings trait won't it?

Sorry for Double.

Yes, same goes with nightmothers. It doesnt really matter though, because you should never be on your bow bar for more than about 3 seconds at a time. There is certainly more than one way to set you bars and gear, but what @Kutsuu and @code65536 is certainly the best for gear. (You could split hairs and debate Spriggans Vs Nightmothers, but the later is much easier to obtain and useful elsewhere). 5 VO/ 5NM / 2 Veli (sharp daggers, VMA bow).

For Bars, well the really good players like Streak (who uses this setup above for 600K) are going to drop Vigor. When learning, I think that's a really bad idea. I have flawless on my stam sorc and still run it, mostly because I dont care that much about score, and it makes life easy. I think the simplest bar setup is as follows.

DW: Bloodthirst, Bloodcraze, Hurricane, Vigor, Bound Armaments, Dawnbreaker of Smiting or Rend (depends on boss, but both work)
Bow: Poison Injection, Endless Hail, Rearming Trap, Crit Surge, Bound Armaments, Suppression field.

As you get more comfortable, you can change your DW skills to the damage morphs. When you get really confident you can drop Vigor for Tornado. That is pretty much the exact setup streak got his 600k score with. If you watch the video, he adjusts his front bar ultimates in a few places, but he does not run Overload or Caltrops. I think Trap is better than caltrops in the arena for portal killing and the lockdown. It also is really nice for single target DPS on bosses. Finally, its like half the cost of caltrops. Funny how everyone saying run caltrops are also saying you need an overload bar with dark conversion to manage your stam. I think the two are related. Simple is better in the arena, that is for sure.

[Edited for removed content]

Kutsuu

I usually run this:

DW: Bloodthirst, caltrops, bound armaments, steel tornado, hurricane, Dawnbreaker
Bow: Poison Injection, Endless Hail, bound armaments, rearming trap, crit surge, Ballista

I use regular white stam pots unless I am doing a score run or want a boss to die faster and I'll pop weapon crit pots. If I am going for a score run I'll swap Caltrops or Steel Tornado out for Blood Craze on boss fights. I use Ballista on bosses and find the burst DPS to be super nice. Rend could be better depending on the length of the fight. It's definitely better if you use VMA daggers instead of a 5/5/2.

I also tend to slot Vigor on round 2 because it lets me be lazy with the blades.

I don't like to give up Caltrops when I'm not running Vigor because I feel like crit surge heals are more consistent with caltrops down.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Kutsuu wrote: »

I usually run this:

DW: Bloodthirst, caltrops, bound armaments, steel tornado, hurricane, Dawnbreaker
Bow: Poison Injection, Endless Hail, bound armaments, rearming trap, crit surge, Ballista

I use regular white stam pots unless I am doing a score run or want a boss to die faster and I'll pop weapon crit pots. If I am going for a score run I'll swap Caltrops or Steel Tornado out for Blood Craze on boss fights. I use Ballista on bosses and find the burst DPS to be super nice. Rend could be better depending on the length of the fight. It's definitely better if you use VMA daggers instead of a 5/5/2.

I also tend to slot Vigor on round 2 because it lets me be lazy with the blades.

I don't like to give up Caltrops when I'm not running Vigor because I feel like crit surge heals are more consistent with caltrops down.

Interesting point on Caltrops with surge. I feel like if could pre-program my bars, I would probably swap Rending Slashes for Caltrops or Tornado in trash, but I am lazy. Haha. I have done it without vigor, but you need to pay attention a little more. Certainly the best if pushing score. For me, it was all about the path of least resistance to get my weapons. I also think that for someone working on their first complete, there is nothing wrong with overkill on the heals.

Kutsuu

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kutsuu wrote: »

I usually run this:

DW: Bloodthirst, caltrops, bound armaments, steel tornado, hurricane, Dawnbreaker
Bow: Poison Injection, Endless Hail, bound armaments, rearming trap, crit surge, Ballista

I use regular white stam pots unless I am doing a score run or want a boss to die faster and I'll pop weapon crit pots. If I am going for a score run I'll swap Caltrops or Steel Tornado out for Blood Craze on boss fights. I use Ballista on bosses and find the burst DPS to be super nice. Rend could be better depending on the length of the fight. It's definitely better if you use VMA daggers instead of a 5/5/2.

I also tend to slot Vigor on round 2 because it lets me be lazy with the blades.

I don't like to give up Caltrops when I'm not running Vigor because I feel like crit surge heals are more consistent with caltrops down.

Interesting point on Caltrops with surge. I feel like if could pre-program my bars, I would probably swap Rending Slashes for Caltrops or Tornado in trash, but I am lazy. Haha. I have done it without vigor, but you need to pay attention a little more. Certainly the best if pushing score. For me, it was all about the path of least resistance to get my weapons. I also think that for someone working on their first complete, there is nothing wrong with overkill on the heals.

You are console I take it? I have hotkeys to swap bars so it's basically instant. And yeah my first clear on stamsorc was done before I had vigor and it was rough. I went out and got Vigor that same weekend, and did my next ~5 runs or so with it. Really helps to get a feel for the class, and learn how to make crit surge your only major heal. I think I'll be keeping Bloodthirst long term because I feel like it lets me ignore more damage that I might want to block or dodge otherwise. Someone did the math and it's roughly a 6% loss in damage going from Rapid Strikes to Bloodthirst - not a 6% loss in total damage, just from that skill. So for me that's like ~2% decrease in DPS.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Kutsuu wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kutsuu wrote: »

I usually run this:

DW: Bloodthirst, caltrops, bound armaments, steel tornado, hurricane, Dawnbreaker
Bow: Poison Injection, Endless Hail, bound armaments, rearming trap, crit surge, Ballista

I use regular white stam pots unless I am doing a score run or want a boss to die faster and I'll pop weapon crit pots. If I am going for a score run I'll swap Caltrops or Steel Tornado out for Blood Craze on boss fights. I use Ballista on bosses and find the burst DPS to be super nice. Rend could be better depending on the length of the fight. It's definitely better if you use VMA daggers instead of a 5/5/2.

I also tend to slot Vigor on round 2 because it lets me be lazy with the blades.

I don't like to give up Caltrops when I'm not running Vigor because I feel like crit surge heals are more consistent with caltrops down.

Interesting point on Caltrops with surge. I feel like if could pre-program my bars, I would probably swap Rending Slashes for Caltrops or Tornado in trash, but I am lazy. Haha. I have done it without vigor, but you need to pay attention a little more. Certainly the best if pushing score. For me, it was all about the path of least resistance to get my weapons. I also think that for someone working on their first complete, there is nothing wrong with overkill on the heals.

You are console I take it? I have hotkeys to swap bars so it's basically instant. And yeah my first clear on stamsorc was done before I had vigor and it was rough. I went out and got Vigor that same weekend, and did my next ~5 runs or so with it. Really helps to get a feel for the class, and learn how to make crit surge your only major heal. I think I'll be keeping Bloodthirst long term because I feel like it lets me ignore more damage that I might want to block or dodge otherwise. Someone did the math and it's roughly a 6% loss in damage going from Rapid Strikes to Bloodthirst - not a 6% loss in total damage, just from that skill. So for me that's like ~2% decrease in DPS.

Haha no. I am on PC and run Alpha gear. In most trials, I swap gear 3-4 times. I have had issues with it in VMA, because usually you just arent out of combat all that long. Also, like i said, I am pretty lazy. On most classes I try for one set of bars to coast through the arena with TV on in the background. Haha. Also, yeah, I always keep bloodthirst on my stam sorc. I dont really use it in trials, but I love it for pug runs and farming. I got more than enough DPS with it. As you stated, I tried the Rapid Strikes and could barely tell the difference in DPS, but really noticed it with my healing, especially on bosses.