Sorcerer DPS Build

Tolmikarc

So I just recently got back into ESO and my main character, a Sorcerer, is CP 95, and is a half healer, half dps build. I have been struggling with finding a good way to keep a lot of magicka with good regeneration but also survivability because I find myself struggling to fight more than 3 things at a time in PVE and withstanding a couple hits from bosses. I just got a full set of Seducer Items which I heard is great for a Sorcerer DPS builld, enchanted them all with mostly health enchantments and some magicka, and my attributes are About 22k Mana and 16k Health. I have 37 points into magicka and 27 into health. If anyone has any ideas on how to make my build more survivable that would be great. On one set of my build I use a fire staff with Force Pulse, Wall of Elements, Crystal Frags, Bound Armor, and Magelight and on my other set (the healing set) I have every restoration staff ability minus the ward replaced with Dark Conversion. Any ideas of either set items to get, how to improve my items, change of attributes/enchantments, change of abilities. Anything Ill take into consideration.

~Tolmikarc

dpencil1

The answer to your problem is simple. You need to learn how to use the Conjured Ward skill. This skill is one of the most important skills in the Sorc toolkit for survival. When you cast it, you gain a big damage shield that enemies will have to beat through to even get to your health. The ward only lasts 6 seconds, but you can level it up and morph it into Empowered Ward, which will last for 10 seconds. You don't have to put the Ward up before a fight starts. You can just use it if you begin to take damage. Combine that with Power Surge (morph of Surge), which will heal you whenever you do a critical hit, and you won't need to worry about any other healing skills for most questing content. If you really want an on demand heal as well, the Twilight Matriarch morph of Winged Twilight has a great heal, and she does nice damage as well.

Now, your shield size is directly tied to the amount of magicka you have, so you're actually better off pumping up your magicka with attribute points, enchantements, and gear sets as much as possible. This will also increase the power of your damaging and healing skills, so you'll kill things faster and won't need to cast healing skills as much since they will be more potent. I'd say the maximum number of attribute points you could give to health would be 5-7, if any at all. Don't use health enchants at all. Get armor sets that boost max magicka (spell damage and spell crit are good too).

Do this stuff and learn to use your Ward well and you'll be able to solo world bosses.

seedubsrun

As said above, the combination of the ward shield and Power Surge should be enough to keep you alive quite easily. If your plan is to be a sorcerer damage dealer then you can drop the resto and go damage staves on both bars. The goal would be to increase the amount of damage you do to the point where you're killing things before they have a chance to hurt you too much and you'll use ward+surge to assure you don't die. Here's a couple things you could look into:

Do you always have a food buff active? 16k health is pretty low for having 27 points into health. If you don't have food or don't have good food, I'd recommend the Solitude Salmon-Millet Sauce for max health+magicka. You can run a build with no points into health at all with that. Another option is the Witchmother's Brew which offers good health+magicka buffs and also give magicka regen which is very nice now. You'll probably want 10 points into health with that though.

Have you done any work towards your Undaunted rank? At rank 9 you can unlock all the passives. The last one will give you an additional 6% max health, stamina, and magicka if you are wearing 5 light armor, 1 medium, 1 heavy. It's very very useful. Ultimately for end game content you'll want your health to be at least 17,200. However, you can get by with a little less if you get good with your ward. if your Undaunted is not leveled up yet and you don't feel comfortable with dungeons yet, there is a daily delve quest offered that recently got the amount of Undaunted rank received as a reward increased greatly. Doing that every day will help a lot.

What is your Mundus stone? For a DPS Sorcerer you'll probably want Thief. It's fantastic for increasing your damage and if you use Power Surge the increased critical chance will heal you more often as well. Make sure the trait on your armor is all Divines to make the most of the Mundus.

Speaking of armor...The Seducer set is probably great for you right now. You'll get a lot of sustain out of it. After you reach CP 160 I'd start getting gear that boosts your damage output a bit better. Here's what would probably work pretty nicely for now:
5 Seducer armor, all light, divines, with magicka enchantments. 2 Julianos head and shoulders, 1 medium, 1 heavy, divines with magicka enchants. 2 Julianos destruction staffs, both Sharpened, 1 lightning, 1 inferno, both with increase weapon/spell damage glyphs. After CP 160 get yourself some Willpower jewelry but for now farm dolmens in Malabol Tor for Spinners necklace and rings. Put magicka recovery glyphs on the rings and spell damage on the necklace. The boost to magicka from it will be helpful and should easily get you by til 160.
After CP 160, swap the sets and do 5 Julianos, 3 Seducer, 3 Willpower. All divines (arcane on jewelry w/ same glyph setup as before) make your weapons gold at this point all the time. The increase in spell damage from purple to gold is fantastic. That set will get you by great until you can get some monster head/shoulder gear.

Skills: Play around with the different lines and see what works best for you. There's lots of great combinations. Something you could start with to get better with DPS output would be:

Bar 1: Lighting Staff
Inner Light
Force Pulse
Bound Aegis
Crystal Frags
Hardened or Empowered Ward
Ulti- Shooting Star (from mages guild line) or Storm Atronach

Bar 2: Inferno Staff
Power Surge
Mages Wrath or Fury (or Boundless Storm)
Bound Aegis
Liquid Lightning
Wall of Elements
Ulti- Destro staff ultimate

Inner light for max magicka and crit chance, Bound Aegis for max magicka, Shooting star (morph to Meteor) is the best single target ultimate in the game and will give you extra magic too. If you don't have your mages guild line maxed out try the Storm Atronach morph that does more damage, it's easier to get and is still pretty solid.
Mages wrath/fury is a great execute. Use it when your target is at 20% health or less to kill em quick. You could use Boundless storm there too for extra tankiness and AOE damage, drop liquid lightning and wall of elements on top of each other for excellent damage. Heavy attacks from a lightning staff are AOE too so you'll do a ton of DPS. Destro Ultimate is the best one there is. Choose the one that has a set location you drop it in.

These are just suggestions and you'll want to put in a bunch of practice if you adopt any of them. They'll get you pointed in the right direction though for end game DPS