A couple of baby sorc questions.

Karius_Imalthar

So I normally play an end game templar but I was trying out some other classes recently including a sorcerer. I didn't level very far but I noticed some strange things and I was wondering if this is normal or if I am doing something wrong.

1. Are sorcerer pets useless?: I took the scamp and eventually morphed it to the clannfear. I found the pets to be nearly useless. They are so slow that the mobs would be nearly dead before they get a hit in. I didn't see any evidence that they were healing me in any way. I had Command/Control Pet mapped to a key. I was not sure how this worked. I first thought I could target a mob and command it to attack. This did nothing. I then thought that during combat I could order it to heal me (like the tooltip says). This did nothing. I also found my pet lagging behind and fighting things I never even intended to fight. Maybe the command pet calls it back?
2. Crystal frags: I was using crystal frags. I am used to weaving in heavy and light attacks to keep my ultimate generating. I would open with a crystal frag and then start a heavy attack. Sometimes the fragment would instead just float next to me and not shoot forward and then disappear after a couple seconds. Other times it would visually disappear then hit as I struck with my heavy attack. My starter weapon was a 2h sword so it would look like my sword was making a small explosion when it hit. Though this was satisfying I don't know if this was working as intended. The crystal frag should have hit long before, I think, I charged up a full heavy attack with a 2 hander.

Thank you for your guidance!

Rouven

Well since no one else is chiming in so far here my two cents in regards to the pet, no idea about the crystals (never noticed that).

I like the clannfear simply for tanking when solo, sure normal mobs die fast - so no big help there.
You will have to press the button again that you used to summon it (1-5 by default) in order to get the heal.
Yeah, I guess as soon as you get aggro your pet engages, but you can still use the heal. No command to get it back afaik.

I wouldn't say useless but it's for heal and protection, not DPS.

Karius_Imalthar

Thank you for the reply. Any ideas then what the Control/Command Pet key is for? By default I think this is mapped to "Y".

Karius_Imalthar

I just read an old post that said you can press-and-hold the Command key (default "Y") then left click a target to make them attack or right click to recall them. Can anyone confirm this please?

BlackSparrow

Rouven wrote: »

Well since no one else is chiming in so far here my two cents in regards to the pet, no idea about the crystals (never noticed that).

I like the clannfear simply for tanking when solo, sure normal mobs die fast - so no big help there.
You will have to press the button again that you used to summon it (1-5 by default) in order to get the heal.
Yeah, I guess as soon as you get aggro your pet engages, but you can still use the heal. No command to get it back afaik.

I wouldn't say useless but it's for heal and protection, not DPS.

Agreed, pets are to give you a buffer, so you have a built-in tank and healer.

My sorc uses the unstable familiar instead of the clannfear: if you press the button that summons it, it pulses an AoE, which grabs the aggro of any nearby monsters. Same with the twilight: tap the button you used to summon it, and you will see a very obvious puff of light and noise that lets you know it just healed someone nearby (usually you). It will pull from your magicka pool, though, so keep an eye on that.

On normal mobs, pets aren't going to be very impressive... it's when you take on harder challenges that they really shine. I'm not a particularly good player, and my pet sorc can still solo group dungeons with very little trouble. She was soloing at-level world bosses before OT, too, at level 30. It's not the most impressive build as far as DPS or flashiness goes, but in terms of survivabilty, it's easily one of the best.

As for crystal frags: it has a long casting time, and if you interrupt that cast with another action, it fizzles. Same for if the enemy moves out of range or behind some sort of blockade (even a crate ). If you're moving while casting, that might be the problem. Can't speak for the delay you seem to be seeing... I haven't experienced that.

Rouven

Karius_Imalthar wrote: »

Thank you for the reply. Any ideas then what the Control/Command Pet key is for? By default I think this is mapped to "Y".

Cool, didn't know that exists - never used it myself *lol.

Did you try while in combat already or only before?

Edit: Inserted quote to avoid confusion.

Nestor

Pets are not useless, you just need to know how to work with them. Because they don't Aggro like you think they would. There are two ways to get them to Aggro before you engage in combat. Look at the mob you want the Pet to take down, then press the Y key and then left click and they should run towards it (Its muscle memory for me at this point but a left click might also be part of the process, I tend to play on autopilot)

EDIT Its hold the Y Key and Left Click on the target to get the pet to aggro

The other way to make them aggro that I actually prefer is to use Encase, once you cast that, the Pet will aggro on one of the mobs and this will keep them occupied. Focus your attacks on the mob(s) that are not aggro'd on the pet. I rarely get attacked doing this.

Make sure your pets are up near you when you start things out, they won't aggro reliably if the pet does not have line of site to the mob. They tend to straggle so this is an issue more often than not.

Use the Clanfear, I the Twilight does not seem to do much for me but die, but other people like it. Since I use Encase, it kind of forces me to use one pet if I want any other offense. Don't forget that the Clanfear has an excellent Heal, so use the same key you called him up with to get that heal.

As for Crystal Shards, I know people love this skill and when it can Proc, it can be powerful. But the Cast time and cost always seem to depress my DPS and leave me waiting for a potion cool down. I play around with it, but always go back to Crushing Shock when weaving Light or Heavy Attacks. Endless Fury would be good too, but I like the Interrupt. I may use Shards as an Opener, but after that, it's a Crushing Weave that carries the day. I will add in some Liquid Lightening as the mobs are generally dumb enough to stand in the Red. That or Wall of Elements.

Note, the Weave works best with an Inferno Staff.

Karius_Imalthar

Thank you. I will give pets another try. I used to play a mage back in the day on Everquest specifically because I liked controlling the pets. I can see this being a lot of fun if I can learn the control.

Ghostextechnica

Pets are also getting a massive buff in the next patch so you're on the right track!

Lukums1

Take pets, and put them in the bin. Literally in the bin.

They aren't good for anything if you wanna solo all the vet dungeons then sure... go for gold.

There are so many more important and useful things to slot than having a pet take up 2 valuable positions.

Also (opening with crystal frags) is incorrect you should be waiting for the proc to hit (harder) than using it willy nilly, hopefully that's what you meant.

Ghostextechnica

Lukums1 wrote: »

Take pets, and put them in the bin. Literally in the bin.

This is only true until the next patch .. watch the latest alcast video where he checks out pet dps. A single pet was doing 5k dps on a single target with an aoe ability. Probably 20k dps if there were multiple targets.

Lukums1

Cringe worthy, I'm just going to laugh at this even with next patch... increasing pets to 18k resistances doesn't make them viable in your setups...

Just think about what you lose to gain a pet...

force, crystal, wall, bound , innerlight - metor
liquid, power surge (ok could be swapped), harden or harness, bound, thundering - destro ulti?

Correct me if I"m wrong but I'd be amazed if people think getting rid of anything above is worth slotting for a pet....

Above doesn't even have curse... so just have a think.

greylox

Sorc pets are very useful. You have a tank in the familiar/ clanffear and a heal in the twilight. They take aggro and the familiar has a nice aoe stun. The floaty frag is where you weave too quick and it hits late, I've had it a lot. If you take the insta cast morph and only use it when it procs you don't need to worry about that.

Pets can allow you to do things you can't so easily with other classes.

AcadianPaladin

Forgive my ignorance on c-frags. How do you know when it 'procs'? Is there an indication of some sort?

greylox

A noise and the tooltip flashes.

Karius_Imalthar

Thank you all for the tips! I spent some time last night killing hundreds of mobs and practicing. Here is a little that I learned.

1. Hold Pet Command key + Left Click: Order pet to attack the target.
2. Hold Pet Command key + Right Click: Order pet to return.
3. Press Pet Summon key: Order pet to use its ability. For example, the clannfear will cast a heal on you and it BUT... it uses your magicka.
4. Under Nameplates if you enable NPC health bar then your pet will show a health bar.

I did have a couple more questions.

1. Is there a recommended add on for knowing that crystal frags proc'ed? I'm probably not attuned to it yet but I wasn't hearing a sound like other people are saying. I was playing around with Sorcerer Helper which is useful but I wasn't really hearing a sound. The visual queue is nice but it's easy for me to confuse it with the other visual spam it shows like my Wall of Elements or Mage's Wrath timers. Is there maybe a UI addon that has something built in? I currently mix parts of AUI and LUI but I haven't seen anything for sorcs specifically.
2. At low levels/skills is there any recommended skills for starting out with? I know Crystal Frags and Mage's Wrath are givens. I played around with Wall of Elements, Lightning Form, and Daedric Curse but I didn't feel that one was better than the other. I assume initially it's a good idea to take something from everywhere just to be gaining skills in those different lines. It's only a few hundred gold to respec several skill points later.

Nestor

I edited my technique about the Pets, sorry about that. I forgot about the return thing, that can be helpful. I also noticed that the Pets are preternatural about dolmen spawns moving to the spawn point before we even see Red. Neat. Anyway....

1. The Proc thing isthe reason I don't use Crystal Fragments. I never know when it is proccing (or quite frankly what causes it to proc). This proc thing may happen quite often, but to have a skill I can only use under certain conditions and can't weave with is not something I like to use. Anyway, an Addon that shows Buffs like Foundry Tactical Combat or AUI should have an annoying on screen indicator to tell you when the press the button. If you can see it among all the other stuff these addons can add to the screen.

2. During leveling your goal is to level your character, not devlop the strongest build. Thing about leveling, your buffed by the game big time, so it kind of really does not matter what skills you use. So, take advantage of this to level everything to at least Morph stage. This also makes you play with skills you may not otherwise consider and you can find out some interesting rotations that appeal to you. They may not be the Meta or the Max DPS rotation, but they can be a lot of fun.

In other words you don't want to hit CP160 and only have a few skills that some build site told you were the only ones worth using on some build you may not even be using.

Anyway, see the following for how to go about leveling so when you hit L50, or even better CP160, your character is flexible and prepared for anything:

While leveling you should be preparing your self for the future, not your build (as that will change). So:

1. While leveling, have one class skill from each class on your bars at all times. Classes level the slowest, so get them done now.
2. Have at least one weapon skill on your bar at all times
3. Have a flex or support skill you want to level at all times
4. Once the skill gets to the Morph stage, then put another one on the bar to level that rather than take the morph.

Your not going to have the best DPS now, but you will have the most flexibility later. You can apply this to both bars equally or some other way, but this is the best method while leveling 1 to 50. Reason, the game handicaps you right now to make you stronger than you really are. So, take advantage of that. You don't need the optimal skill load out, you need the optimal leveling load out.

Also, try to wear at least one of each weight of armor to get all those lines leveled.

Once you get up to or near 50, you should have all the skills that matter at Morph stage, your armors at 50 and most important, your classes at 50. Then, you can optimize your build.

VagabondLife

Karius_Imalthar wrote: »

2. Crystal frags: I was using crystal frags. I am used to weaving in heavy and light attacks to keep my ultimate generating. I would open with a crystal frag and then start a heavy attack. Sometimes the fragment would instead just float next to me and not shoot forward and then disappear after a couple seconds. Other times it would visually disappear then hit as I struck with my heavy attack. My starter weapon was a 2h sword so it would look like my sword was making a small explosion when it hit. Though this was satisfying I don't know if this was working as intended. The crystal frag should have hit long before, I think, I charged up a full heavy attack with a 2 hander.

Thank you for your guidance!

I main a mag sorc, and this happens to me all the time. I *think* it's because Frags has both a cast time, AND a travel time. So if you hard cast a Frags and follow with a light or medium attack weave, it will *appear* to cancel the animation and go straight to the weave, but you still have to get through both the cast time and the travel time before the Frags actually hits. Particularly when the mobs are far away, the light/medium attack can actually hit before the Frags does. (I hard cast Frags a lot when I'm just running around the world, questing or whatever, because you can cast it while moving, and it crits hard enough to one-shot most overland mobs.)

You can tell when you have a proc because your hands will glow with white balls of light - but this becomes really hard to see when you're using Power Surge (same effect but slightly brighter) or Boundless Storm (lightning on top of lightning, brilliant). S'rendarr has been a lifesaver for me with this - you can set it to play a unique noise every time Frags procs, and then display a countdown of the time you have left to use it. Nothing worse than guessing wrong, watching the proc fade, and getting stuck in a hard cast instead...

Karius_Imalthar

I really appreciate all the information. I've been playing templar forever so I have some things to learn about the sorcerer quirks.

VagabondLife

Nestor wrote: »

1. The Proc thing isthe reason I don't use Crystal Fragments. I never know when it is proccing (or quite frankly what causes it to proc). This proc thing may happen quite often, but to have a skill I can only use under certain conditions and can't weave with is not something I like to use. Anyway, an Addon that shows Buffs like Foundry Tactical Combat or AUI should have an annoying on screen indicator to tell you when the press the button. If you can see it among all the other stuff these addons can add to the screen.

You can totally weave with Frags. Sorcs are limited in spammable attacks for weaving anyway - we pretty much just have Mage's Wrath, which is only useful at the end of the fight. Most of the time you're just gonna be spamming medium attacks and Force Pulse (destro staff skill) between putting down your ground AOEs, so it's no problem to just substitute a Force Pulse with Frags when you have the proc. Once you get used to listening for the sound from the addon, it pretty much becomes automatic.

Frags has a 35% chance to proc on any magic damage. I've been told that the proc has an internal cooldown, but I've definitely had it go off 4-5 times in as many seconds, so I don't know about that.

And aside from the crazy damage, casting Frags also heals you for 8% of your total health, which is super useful. Between Frags and Power Surge, I have passive heals of ~3.5 - 4K HPS once I get all my AOEs going, which is more than enough to keep me fully healed in public dungeons (or PUG runs where the healer decides to just DPS the whole time, lol)...

jlboozer

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance on c-frags. How do you know when it 'procs'? Is there an indication of some sort?

Your hands will glow purple...and I think there's also an audio cue. But I just look for the purple hands, and then unleash frag fury!!