Horow’s AFK vMA Sorc Build for people looking to clear for the first time

Horowonnoe

Magicka Sorc Build for vMA
For people looking to clear for the first time

SETUP

• 5x Necropotence
• 2x Ilambris if you are comfortable and want more dmg. Use 2x iceheart if you have a problem with dying or 2x infernal guardian if you have issues with killing adds on the edges of the arena.
• 4x Moondancer or Infallible Aether - Infused or Sharpened Lightning Staff with shock enchant
• 1x Crafted random (or moon/infallible if you have another) Infused or Nirnhoned or Sharpened Lightning Staff with spell/wep. damage enchant**

*If you don’t have infallible/moon staves, you can also use master architect if you have that. Otherwise use a random crafted lightning staff in infused trait and enchant front bar with shock and back-bar with weapon/spell dmg glyph. In that case you would use willpower jewelry with spell dmg enchants. For more see the "Help im out of magicka" section.

Bar Setup:

F-Bar: Streak, Liquid Lightning, Inner Light, Volatile Familiar, Hardened Ward, Elemental Rage
B-Bar: Lightning Form, Lightning Blockade, Inner Light, Volatile Familiar, Surge, Meteor

Rotation:

Basically you will always start with popping a potion, surge, shield, put down your dots (LL+wall) on the enemies, activate the pet and heavy attack until the dots run out. Rinse and repeat forever. Make sure your surge+shield is up 100% of the time and you will not die. Don’t use stamina to run, since you will need it to break free when you are CC’d. If you need to get anywhere use streak. You will be spending most of your time on your front bar that has shield and streak so it will be easy. For more damage you can swap meteor with Destro ult, but i like having destro ult handy for the bosses.

Save your destro ult for each stage miniboss. On main boss, drop destro ult at will. If you find your ult has not generated, you can use meteor instead.
Ilambris setup will do more damage, but if you find you are dying a lot and working on your first clear - Iceheart can be of help. Infernal guardian can also be a nice help, since it procs from using a shield, which you will be using all the time.

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Q&A AND NOTES AND STUFF

I am out of Magicka, HELP!
You should not be running out of magicka! Heavy attack more. JK
Replace one or two of your jewelry with magicka regen if you are having issues, otherwise run spell dmg.

CP (HotR):
Master at Arms - 44, Elemental Expert - 49; Elfborn - 40; Thaumaturge - 81, Staff Expert - 6.

Mundus
Lover

Food: I like using witchmothers or mag/health blue food for first 8 stages and then use tri-food for the stage 9.
Why? Because i find i don’t have enough stamina to survive the last boss top phase otherwise. This is purely personal preference. Feel free to experiment with this. If you find you are having the stamina issue earlier in the Arena, use tri-stat-food for the full run.

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NOTES
This is NOT a competitive vMA build. This is meant for people learning and getting their first clears.

CREDITS
Build idea and base skill setup: @peatzaugh
CP setup/weapon traits: @hedna123b14_ESO aka Nos
Iceheart hack / Infernal guardian additions: @MaddPowered aka Rhzolen

MaddPowered

o hey dat me

AtraisMachina

Disagree. Try mothers sorrow and juli. Frags and crushing. Lover stone. Significantly easier than attempting this with a heavy attack build

AtraisMachina

Pets sorcs are overrated

idk

Thx @Horowonnoe it's good to see players providing their proven builds for a specific purpose.

Horowonnoe

AtraisMachina wrote: »

Disagree. Try mothers sorrow and juli. Frags and crushing. Lover stone. Significantly easier than attempting this with a heavy attack build

Well you are welcome to write your own build then.

And i disagree, frags and crushing is not easier for someone starting out and learning mechanics. Also pet contributes a significant amount of damage, it's like a moving DoT which is great in vMA.

Americanfunguy

AtraisMachina wrote: »

Disagree. Try mothers sorrow and juli. Frags and crushing.

While I agree with the idea of using Frags and Crushing, this build is made for those who are trying to get their first clear. Idk about you, but I had a hard time with sustain BEFORE morrowind when I was first doing vMA.

But the fact that you offer MS as a set tells me you either;
A: have no idea what you're talking about or
B: haven't run competitive trials and discovered IA.

In either case, sustain frags and crushing can be quite hard and Horowonnoe has provided for a easy way to sustain.

This was made for people looking for their first clear. If you have other opinions how about you write up a guide yourself @AtraisMachina

Horowonnoe

idk wrote: »

Thx @Horowonnoe it's good to see players providing their proven builds for a specific purpose.

This build helped me when i was working on my first clear. Since then, i occasionally shared it with others in need of assistance and this build has helped make vMA clears possible for people who never thought they could do it. So I figured it was time to share it with more people. : )

idk

Horowonnoe wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Thx @Horowonnoe it's good to see players providing their proven builds for a specific purpose.

This build helped me when i was working on my first clear. Since then, i occasionally shared it with others in need of assistance and this build has helped make vMA clears possible for people who never thought they could do it. So I figured it was time to share it with more people. : )

Fantastic. Many lose sight of what their first clear was like and some of them may have used builds that made it a little more challenging for them.

For new players, or any player, looking to start vMA it's good for them so see ideas from players first clears.

Saint314Louis1985

run a pretty similar build only i trade out streak and backbar inner light for bound armaments. also use daedric prey because it buffs your pet dps quite a bit. daedric prey + bound armaments = higher shields & higher pet dps

i found streak only useful as a stun in stage 8 round 4 when everything spawns at start of round and wrecks you. plus streak can really kill your magicka with slight over use

you can get through many rounds overall with mostly heavy attacks but its good to have the real dps there when you need it (especially on final boss when its time to burn)

Horowonnoe

Saint314Louis1985 wrote: »

run a pretty similar build only i trade out streak and backbar inner light for bound armaments. also use daedric prey because it buffs your pet dps quite a bit. daedric prey + bound armaments = higher shields & higher pet dps

i found streak only useful as a stun in stage 8 round 4 when everything spawns at start of round and wrecks you. plus streak can really kill your magicka with slight over use

you can get through many rounds overall with mostly heavy attacks but its good to have the real dps there when you need it (especially on final boss when its time to burn)

Yeah, streak would have to be used sparingly. However it makes some rounds easier, such as round 3 when the CC plant spawns or round 6 to escape the tiny spiders. Or round 7 when you are poisoned.

ShadowProc

Horowonnoe wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Thx @Horowonnoe it's good to see players providing their proven builds for a specific purpose.

This build helped me when i was working on my first clear. Since then, i occasionally shared it with others in need of assistance and this build has helped make vMA clears possible for people who never thought they could do it. So I figured it was time to share it with more people. : )

Shared your build? Lmao this has been posted by others for a long time.

Plagarism?

idk

ShadowProc wrote: »

Horowonnoe wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Thx @Horowonnoe it's good to see players providing their proven builds for a specific purpose.

This build helped me when i was working on my first clear. Since then, i occasionally shared it with others in need of assistance and this build has helped make vMA clears possible for people who never thought they could do it. So I figured it was time to share it with more people. : )

Shared your build? Lmao this has been posted by others for a long time.

Plagarism?

Really good point made by someone who joined the forums a mere few months ago and has made a whopping 32 visits.

Further, OP even cited her sources that helped her and from my more than 32 visits have seen the hedna guy post his builds and contribute so it's very likely OP derived this build outside of a random threads. It's not to much of a stretch that there would be other pet Sorc builds similar.

Some are just salty.

Americanfunguy

ShadowProc wrote: »

Shared your build? Lmao this has been posted by others for a long time.

Plagarism?

I don't see anywhere were the OP explicitly said that it was THEIR BUILD. Furthermore I haven't seen any post a vMA guide in a long time in general. The OP is simply saying, "hey I've put in some work towards a setup that gets me through vMA, maybe you guys could find it useful."

Plagerism by definition is taking someone else's work and ideas and claiming it as your own. This is a video game. All original work goes to the game devs.

Get off your high horse, this is just someone trying to help players out.

hedna123b14_ESO

ShadowProc wrote: »

Horowonnoe wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Thx @Horowonnoe it's good to see players providing their proven builds for a specific purpose.

This build helped me when i was working on my first clear. Since then, i occasionally shared it with others in need of assistance and this build has helped make vMA clears possible for people who never thought they could do it. So I figured it was time to share it with more people. : )

Shared your build? Lmao this has been posted by others for a long time.

Plagarism?

Can you provide a link to support your claim?

timmayyyboy

I use 5 necro, 3 ancient grace, 2 maw for easy stress free runs. Bi stat food with mage mundus. Heavy attack your way thro. You have big shields and enough damage to clear but not for score runs. I do different setup for them.

SoLooney

Ignore the guy who suggested julianos and mothers sorrow, he doesnt know what hes talking about.

I agree, pet sorcs probably have the easiest tine, they do a lot of damage and can help take away aggro. Frags and force pulse will provide more burst damage and faster runs, but its hard to sustain and heavy attacking is probably your best bet for first timers.

FoldingStars13

My first few completed runs of vma was using a very similar build to this (slightly different skills). I ran two pets until I learnt mechanics. The healing pet was especially good as a beginner to vma.

pdebie64b16_ESO

I like to add for players who just starting Vma on a Mag Sorc is the Matriach pet, it does some damage but its heal is really a lifesafer, also Prismatic enchants really helps on the stage 6 boss and stage 9 (Crematorial guards)

I use Surge, Ward, Matriach, Volitair, Bound Aegis and destro ulti main bar, Blockade, Liquid Lighting, Matriach, Volitate, Destro ulri offbar.

Infused backbar, Sharpened or Charged mainbar.

5x Necro, 4x Moondancer/Aether/Martial, 2x Grothdar, Illambris, Maw monster.

Witchmother food, Aprentice mundus, dropped magicka potions, on stage 9 boss health/health regen/magcka potions.

AtraisMachina

Americanfunguy wrote: »

AtraisMachina wrote: »

Disagree. Try mothers sorrow and juli. Frags and crushing.

While I agree with the idea of using Frags and Crushing, this build is made for those who are trying to get their first clear. Idk about you, but I had a hard time with sustain BEFORE morrowind when I was first doing vMA.

But the fact that you offer MS as a set tells me you either;
A: have no idea what you're talking about or
B: haven't run competitive trials and discovered IA.

In either case, sustain frags and crushing can be quite hard and Horowonnoe has provided for a easy way to sustain.

This was made for people looking for their first clear. If you have other opinions how about you write up a guide yourself @AtraisMachina

Its just my opinion man everyone I help with vma struggles when they use heavy attack builds in vma. Running ms allows for much more survivablity with out having to spam shields. Ms and julianos provides alot more flexibility and utility with healing and interupts. I just run less max magika then pet sorcs which is pretty irrelevant. From my experience these builds are just youtube click bait and in reality its easier to use a more active set up. Especially for beginners.

As for Ia I would get more damage but again thats not why i run ms.

Bobby_V_Rockit

Nice I just converted my stam sorc to a mag sorc (after 2 years) and was thinking about giving vMA a go. I do have survival troubles though (much squisher than stam sorc). I have IA and Julianos gear with Ilambris, will try guardian instead

Masel

Netch > Necropotence on Heavy Attack sorc. Other than that ofc a solid build.

Currently at around 570k with a similar build...

Also, Charged>Infused in vMA anytime. The basically guaranteed off-balance is so strong.

NotNormanBates

AtraisMachina wrote: »

Pets sorcs are overrated

Lol. Get lost

NotNormanBates

Im getting flawless 550k scores on ps4 with basically this same setup.
Nothing is easier then never having to worry about magic. +necro/heavy is still out parsing force pulse. So stuff just melts.

Another good option is to use mage mundus and put 43 points into spell erosion. Bigger shields and the same damage as Lover.

Guennwyvar

Horow shared this build with me when I was struggling to complete vma for the first time. I wouldn't have ever been able to clear it without this build. I do agree that bound aegis is a good idea over inner light, but for someone who occasionally hits the wrong button it does more harm than good to my magicka pool etc. The build is a great tool for someone trying to learn the mechanics and how to make it thru. I've tweaked it here and there since then, going for higher scores and less deaths/time but my skills are still pretty much the same as what she'd given me.

Horowonnoe

Guennwyvar wrote: »

Horow shared this build with me when I was struggling to complete vma for the first time. I wouldn't have ever been able to clear it without this build. I do agree that bound aegis is a good idea over inner light, but for someone who occasionally hits the wrong button it does more harm than good to my magicka pool etc. The build is a great tool for someone trying to learn the mechanics and how to make it thru. I've tweaked it here and there since then, going for higher scores and less deaths/time but my skills are still pretty much the same as what she'd given me.

Awww : )

Olupajmibanan

Endless fury is simply too good in VMA to be passed.

Heavy attacks build is too slow for me. I am sticking with fast clear build Fire staff/Shock staff along with Force Pulse and Endless Fury. No magicka problems at all.

bhagwad

Thanks for this. I used this build immediately after I leveled up my sorc and did really well with it! I even finished vMA in a single sitting!

One question though. Where do you get fire damage to proc Ilambris?

Horowonnoe

bhagwad wrote: »

Thanks for this. I used this build immediately after I leveled up my sorc and did really well with it! I even finished vMA in a single sitting!

One question though. Where do you get fire damage to proc Ilambris?

You can enchant your front shock staff with a fire enchant instead of lightning to proc ilambris.

Horowonnoe

And i am glad it helped, @bhagwad

bhagwad

Horowonnoe wrote: »

bhagwad wrote: »

Thanks for this. I used this build immediately after I leveled up my sorc and did really well with it! I even finished vMA in a single sitting!

One question though. Where do you get fire damage to proc Ilambris?

You can enchant your front shock staff with a fire enchant instead of lightning to proc ilambris.

Hmmm. Do you feel that's it's enough fire damage to proc Ilambris reliably? Because the trade off is the loss of off balance, and given the amount of heavy attacks in the build, I'm worried that we might not get enough compensation!

Your Iceheart suggestion was fantastic btw