PvE Sorc Pet 1-bar, quandry with skills

Kamatsu

Hope this forum is fine for this, it could belong in Combat... but this isn't for end-game . dungeons / etc. This is for PvE questing (no PvP).

I'm looking to level a Sorcerer through PvE and do the PvE questing, and I've been debating what skills to use (well, once I've unlocked them). This will be for 1-bar only, since I'd be using the other bar to swap to for skill/weapon learning - and because of the lag & my terrible reaction speed. Here's what I was looking at using:

Weapon: Lightening Staff
Based on mundus, armor sets, sitting on 60-65% spell crit.

Option 1: Daedric Prey, Power Surge, Unstable Clannfear, Twilight Matriarch, Inner Light & Elemental Rage

- Tactic: Cast Power Surge, sic pets on enemy, cast Daedric Prey, heavy attack with staff. repeat as needed.

Option 2: Elemental Blockade instead of Daedric Prey

- This likely does more damage vs groups of 2-3+ mobs, even with both pets attacking. Also likely triggers healing via Power Surge more often as well, but self-healing will be less relevant with Clannfear likely tanking at least 1 mob.

Option 3: Volatile Familiar instead of Clannfear

- No pet tanking, but more damage output. This would likely go better with Elemental Blockade over Daedric Prey due to more healing with Power Surge.
- Tactic would be: Cast Power Surge, cast Elemental Blockage in front of me, heavy attack with staff & trigger Volatile Familiar's AoE attack

Yes this isn't going to be a huge dps build or strat, but it's not meant to be. It's aimed for easy low input PvE'ing that doesn't rely on switching bars around a lot, that self-heals well. Even if it will take some time to get to some of the skills for it... but that will be easy to deal with.

But I'll admit I just can't decide what to go with regarding Familiar vs Clannfear & Elemental blockade vs Daedric Prey.

I'm also wondering about dropping Inner Light for a defense spell - however that drops me to 50-55% crit, and lower crit means lower healing. The other option is to ditch the Twilight Matriarch for a defense spell instead, though that leaves me with only the 1 pet.... and likely would mean going with Elemental Blockade over Daedric Prey due to this.

Any thoughts, advice, etc would be appreciated.

AcadianPaladin

Wow, one bar? If I had to take my pet sorc to one bar, I'd keep her front bar just the way it is. Lightning staff of course.

Lightning Flood (I like the bigger radius)
Blockade
Empowered Ward - as much to shield the pets as me
Clannfear - I much prefer the tank - especially given the two strong dps skills in slots one and two.
Matriarch - largely to keep the clannfear healed.
Destro Ultimate

Now, that said, you really might consider running a second bar with another lightning staff focused on rarely having to swap bars:

Power Surge - 33 seconds. +20% damage and heals you on crits!
Elemental drain - 24 seconds. Debuffs foes to magicka damage and gives you 300 magicka per second.
For the third slot, anything you want - I run crystal blast. I start on this bar, open with surge, Eledrain (does not aggro), toss blast (AoE with stun), then switch bars and stay on bar one unless the fight last long enough to refresh Surge and Eledrain.
Pets in slots 4 &5 of course.
Consider the soul trap ult here - for rogue or running bosses that won't stay still for the destro ult.

What I just described is exactly what I run and I'm very happy with it. My sorc is somewhat specialized as a solo WB killer. If playing with a group (especially if it has melee dps or a tank in it), she simply swaps clannfear for bound aegis since clannfears are somewhere between not very helpful to actually irritating to tanks when grouping.

Haquor

For one bar i would go:

Elemental blockade, liquid lightning, surge, volatile familiar, bound aegis: meteor

Keep surge up for heals, Drop both blockade and lightning, hit your pet aoe effect and heavy attack. Thats basically all you need for pve. If you do feel like bar swapping occasionally like the rest of us i would use surge on the back bar and put twilight matriarch on both bars so you habe the instant heal aswel.

dpencil1

@Kamatsu
If you are on PC, there are addons that will let you change your skills with a single button press. So you can have your normal skill setup on F1 and the bar of skills you want to level on F2, and whenever you go to turn in a quest, just hit F2, turn in, then hit F1.

You can manage the majority of combat on one bar if you prefer, but you will miss out on the utility of a second bar if you just fill it with leveling skills. You can leisurely switch to your second bar, apply buffs like Power Surge, Boundless Storm, and Defensive Rune, then switch back, then enter combat.

Alternately, you could have your "leveling skills" on your Overload bar, if you don't actually plan to use it during combat.

So my recommended loadout would be:

1. Liquid Lightning, Blockade of Storms, Volatile Familiar, Twilight Matriarch, Empowered Ward, Thunderous Rage

2. Power Surge, Boundless Storm, Volatile Familiar, Twilight Matriarch, Defensive Rune, Overload

Overload: Any skills you want to level when turning in quests.

You can put skills on your Overload bar by activating Overload and then going to your skills page and adding skills to your bar.

In the above setup, just before combat you would start on bar 2. Apply Power Surge, Boundless Storm, and Defensive Rune, then switch back to bar 1.

To begin combat, use Liquid Lightning, then Blockade of Storms, then Volatile Familiar. You will have time to do 3 heavy attacks with a lightning staff at that point before you need to cast those three skills again. Use Thunderous Rage on bosses.

When you go to turn in a quest either activate Overload or use a skill bar addon to switch to your leveling skills.

Happy questing!

VaranisArano

If you want one bar, I highly recommend having an AOE (area of effect) ability on there like Elemental Blockade or Liquid Lightning. AOEs let you do constant damage on multiple enemies, meaning you spend less magicka doing single target damage.

My pet sorc Heavy Attack build brought down to one bar would be:

Lightning Staff - Most of the time, I am heavy attacking for direct and splash damage. I really don't run out of magicka and my DPS is the same as when I used much more complicated rotations.
Single Bar: Ward/PowerSurge - Elemental Blockade - Volatile Familiar - Twilight Matriarch - Mage's Wrath/Power Surge

Ward is an on demand shield that is amazing for not getting killed.
Elemental Blockade is a great AOE, could be substituted with Liquid Lightning.
Volatile Familar has pulse for extra damage and stuns. The Clannfear is only useful if you need a tank.
Twilight Matriarch's heals are often unnecessary, but when they are, I'm glad I have her. Between the ward and the matriarch, I haven't needed Power Surge for the heals.
Mage's Wrath has an execute at 20% that's well worth it to kill low health enemies, but this skill can be replaced.

Ultimate: Destruction Staff or Negate. Destro Staff has amazing DPS but requires level 50 destro staff skills which you aren't going to have while leveling. Negate...well, Negate doesn't work in every fight and doesn't always stun bosses. However, Negate does stun adds and turns a fair amount of quest boss fights with magicka enemies into executions. If you have a fight with a lot of adds, you can burn them down with the Destro Staff ultimate or you can stun them with Negate and kill them at your leisure. When I was leveling my StamSorc, I was surprised to find how much I loved using Negate and my preferred morph Suppression Field.

Kamatsu

@AcadianPaladin - One bar for leveling skill lines. I have OCD when it comes to leveling all class, weapon skills, armor skills, and guild skills to the point of morphing. I've got a Templar that I'm, doing the same with - one bar for combat and other bar for leveling skills.

However this is easy with Templar... since it's jabs, the ground AoE protect skill, heal skill & Inner Light. That's all you need for Templar to do PvE... but I've never really played Sorcerer, so no idea if they have an easy 1-bar setup like that.

@dpencil1 - I am on PC, so there's addon's that can change skills on the fly? If so, that would definitely put aside my issue with running 2 bars. The thing is I don't always know when talking to an npc is going to be a quest reward or a quest continuation... and some quest's have a fair amount of talking to a few npc's before finishing, so having to stand around for minutes switching skills around... arrg. But if an addon can do it at a touch of a button? Then that's great!

Do you have a name for an addon that does this?

dpencil1

@Kamatsu
I use Iakoni's Skill Changer and Gear Changer
http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1728-IakonisSkillChanger.html
http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1727-IakonisGearChanger.html

Also, any time you will be turning in a quest you'll always see a reward (gold, items, etc).
If you haven't changed out your skills yet, just don't click on the last response in the dialogue to accept the reward. Press Esc, switch skills, re-enter dialogue, and then finish the quest.