Breton Magicka Sorceress Build Staying Alive; Attributes and other stuff. Going Crazy!

Jigger_allard

I realize that I have rather rehashed over this build several times, but I am still totally confused by it all. Mainly because in my research ESO tells you to do one thing and some…rather a plethora of veteran players tell you to do something totally different. And, even then some veteran players differ on the Breton Magicka Sorceress setup. And, perhaps on all of the setups in the game.
For example, I totally understand that you need a lot…..or all… of your points in Attribute in Magicka thereby sacrificing Health and Stamina with zero points placed.

Secondly, it is also recommended by veteran players that you have a Light Julianos armor with one medium and one heavy piece being legs and chest. What I never understood before was that this is a monster setup when achieving CP160. In the meantime, you are using random pieces of armor that are totally ineffective for keeping a Breton Magicka Sorceress alive either out in the world or in four-person dungeons---albeit Normal or Veteran Dungeons.

Even after following every single suggestion I am still too darn soft and (1) cannot stand up to one-shot kills or (2) distribute the punishing DPS everyone expects.

For a new player or a returning player who hasn’t played since the beta testing days, it is a very, very maddening. Maddening to the point of want to quit playing.

I have also heard, “Go watch this video or go watch that video. It will explain everything.”

Yea, sure, everything that is now outdated because of ESO’s patches after patches. Even the Champion Point system has been changed. To that, I have heard from players that everything is trial and error. “You have to find out what works for you.” So, you are constantly wasting either gold or real money respecting everything. In the meantime, if you are just starting out it takes months to learn the Crafting Abilities to craft your own weapons and armor.

All I know is that I am damn tired of being squishy and dying a lot from single-shot kills. Catch my drift? Thank you.

dpencil1

@***_allard
Sorry you're still struggling. I know I've tried to offer advice in a couple other of your threads.

You're right, a lot of the info out on the Internet is outdated. The forum or in-game will be a places where you can get the most up to date advice. For general info about skills and such, UESP is always kept up to date. Fextralife is always a well maintained site as well. Alcast's site is also up to date aslo, just look at the latest patch's builds, not the older ones.

The reason most advice revolves around end-game builds is because, comparitavely, leveling is so easy, it's just assumed that you can do whatever you want there.

So with that said, if you'd feel more comfortable putting some points into health, go ahead. A build is only as good as you can utilize it. Like the 1 heavy, 1 medium, 5 light armor. That's only useful if you've ranked up in the Undaunted skill line to have the passive skill that boosts your stats by wearing different types of armor. If you don't have that, you could wear all light armor, or mix and match however you want.

If I recall, you mentioned previously that you have difficulty switching bars in combat. So lets look at the most survivable single bar setup you could have as a mSorc:
Daedric Prey - This will buff all your pet damage alot on the target you cast it on. Use a lightning staff and heavy attack that target after casting this skill on it. You and the pets will kill them fast. Then repeat on another target.
Volatile Familiar - The Familiar's Pulse ability (press his button again after summoning him to activate it) does a lot of damage. He pulses every 2 seconds and stuns all enemies around him on the last stun, so if he's not pulsing or has just stunned the enemies, use this skill again while in combat.
Empowered Ward - If you start to get hurt, hit this skill. It will give you a shield that will keep you safe for 10 seconds or until it is used up.
Twilight Matriarch - Besides helping you do damage, she can also heal you, herself, and the Familiar. Go into your healthbar settings in the game options menu and turn on friendly NPC overhead health bars so you can see when you need to heal them. They also get the shield from Empowered Ward too.
Power Surge - This is a buff skill that lasts fr 3 seconds. Cast it before a fight. It will make you hit harder and will heal you whenever you or your pets do a critical hit. This passive healing can get you back up to full while you have a shield up, without needing to use the Twilight's heal.
Ulti: Greater Storm Atronach - This other pet will also benefit from Daedric Prey. You can use him to help against stronger enemies.

All you have to do besides choosing a target to focus with Daedric Prey is heavy lightning attacks. The pets will attack whoever you do a heavy attack on, and when you unlock the destro staff passive that makes your lightning attacks do area of effect damage, it will hurt all the enemies you are fighting.

If you are going to put anything on your second bar, make sure that Volatile Familiar and Twilight Matriach are on there too, otherwise they will unsummon when you switch bars.

Give this strategy a try and see if it makes things easier for you.

Best of luck out there!

dpencil1

Also in terms of gear and CP. If you follow my advice above, you'd be best served by running 5 Julianos and 5 Necropotence.

CP should be evenly distributed between Elemental Expert, (up to 49 points), and Spell Erosion (up to 46 points). Additional points can go in Elfborn and Thaumaturge.

Use the Lover Mundus stone.

Jigger_allard

dpencil1 wrote: »

@***_allard
Sorry you're still struggling. I know I've tried to offer advice in a couple other of your threads.

You're right, a lot of the info out on the Internet is outdated. The forum or in-game will be a places where you can get the most up to date advice. For general info about skills and such, UESP is always kept up to date. Fextralife is always a well maintained site as well. Alcast's site is also up to date aslo, just look at the latest patch's builds, not the older ones.

The reason most advice revolves around end-game builds is because, comparitavely, leveling is so easy, it's just assumed that you can do whatever you want there.

So with that said, if you'd feel more comfortable putting some points into health, go ahead. A build is only as good as you can utilize it. Like the 1 heavy, 1 medium, 5 light armor. That's only useful if you've ranked up in the Undaunted skill line to have the passive skill that boosts your stats by wearing different types of armor. If you don't have that, you could wear all light armor, or mix and match however you want.

If I recall, you mentioned previously that you have difficulty switching bars in combat. So lets look at the most survivable single bar setup you could have as a mSorc:
Daedric Prey - This will buff all your pet damage alot on the target you cast it on. Use a lightning staff and heavy attack that target after casting this skill on it. You and the pets will kill them fast. Then repeat on another target.
Volatile Familiar - The Familiar's Pulse ability (press his button again after summoning him to activate it) does a lot of damage. He pulses every 2 seconds and stuns all enemies around him on the last stun, so if he's not pulsing or has just stunned the enemies, use this skill again while in combat.
Empowered Ward - If you start to get hurt, hit this skill. It will give you a shield that will keep you safe for 10 seconds or until it is used up.
Twilight Matriarch - Besides helping you do damage, she can also heal you, herself, and the Familiar. Go into your healthbar settings in the game options menu and turn on friendly NPC overhead health bars so you can see when you need to heal them. They also get the shield from Empowered Ward too.
Power Surge - This is a buff skill that lasts fr 3 seconds. Cast it before a fight. It will make you hit harder and will heal you whenever you or your pets do a critical hit. This passive healing can get you back up to full while you have a shield up, without needing to use the Twilight's heal.
Ulti: Greater Storm Atronach - This other pet will also benefit from Daedric Prey. You can use him to help against stronger enemies.

All you have to do besides choosing a target to focus with Daedric Prey is heavy lightning attacks. The pets will attack whoever you do a heavy attack on, and when you unlock the destro staff passive that makes your lightning attacks do area of effect damage, it will hurt all the enemies you are fighting.

If you are going to put anything on your second bar, make sure that Volatile Familiar and Twilight Matriach are on there too, otherwise they will unsummon when you switch bars.

Give this strategy a try and see if it makes things easier for you.

Best of luck out there!

dpencil1 wrote: »

Also in terms of gear and CP. If you follow my advice above, you'd be best served by running 5 Julianos and 5 Necropotence.

CP should be evenly distributed between Elemental Expert, (up to 49 points), and Spell Erosion (up to 46 points). Additional points can go in Elfborn and Thaumaturge.

Use the Lover Mundus stone.

Thanks.

What gets me is that I am trying to take down the ads, for example, while shucking and jiving to avoid their attacks and all while trying to avoid the red circles and the boss: And then, boom I am put down by a one-shot kill from the damn boss. Either that or I become mobbed.....overwhelmed by the ads. It is like I cannot win for freaking losing. I am not cut out to be a SUPER mobile player. And, apparently, that is what you have to be in MMORPGs. I have been typing on a keyboard, playing video games since the early 90s and my darn fingers still do not know where to go instinctively. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for me to watch the monitor, my bars and what keys to hit to roll out and things.

I have read that I should use the Theif Stone. But, I will try the Lover stone as you suggest.

Anyway, thanks for putting up with my inability to understand (and accept) the mechanics of ESO.

Hippie4927

@***_allard I know you have financial limitations but, when you can, you really need to get an xbox controller. For people like us with limited movement, the controller is so much easier. I am 68 and when I first started the game, I used the mouse and keyboard. I even bought a gaming mouse but I still was ineffective. I switched to a controller and my gaming life is so much better.

And, again, when you see me log into the game, if you PM me, I will make Julianos armor for you. I can, also, help you farm Necropotence.

dpencil1

Well, ideally, you would have Liquid Lightning and Blockade of Storms on your back bar. You'd drop those where you are standing as you fight the boss and the adds would just die from those abilities hitting them. Even still, you have the Familiar Pulse and heavy lightning attacks that will be hitting the adds. You could even choose to focus the adds down first.

Jigger_allard

Hippie4927 wrote: »

@***_allard I know you have financial limitations but, when you can, you really need to get an xbox controller. For people like us with limited movement, the controller is so much easier. I am 68 and when I first started the game, I used the mouse and keyboard. I even bought a gaming mouse but I still was ineffective. I switched to a controller and my gaming life is so much better.

And, again, when you see me log into the game, if you PM me, I will make Julianos armor for you. I can, also, help you farm Necropotence.

Thanks Hippi!

dpencil1 wrote: »

Well, ideally, you would have Liquid Lightning and Blockade of Storms on your back bar. You'd drop those where you are standing as you fight the boss and the adds would just die from those abilities hitting them. Even still, you have the Familiar Pulse and heavy lightning attacks that will be hitting the adds. You could even choose to focus the adds down first.

I have everything on the both bars that was recommended---with one exception, I have the Stone Armor from undaunted on my second bar.

It is just crazy though. Yesterday I was in Vet dungeon and only died twice. I was in another normal dungeon and died many times. Very inconsistent. The other thing is my Magicka depletes way too fast and it almost always occurs when I am being mobbed or up against a boss.

As for staffs, I do prefer the lightening of shock staffs when I can pick them up from drops. Otherwise, I am stuck with frost or flame or poison staffs.

Yesterday one of my teammates was calling out to me to use my Mage's Fury when that particular boss was down to 20%, and I had no Magicka to do it with. Anyway, thanks all for allowing me to vent.

dpencil1

There are no poison staves in this game. Just fire, lightning, and ice.

If the two dungeon experinses were with different teammates, then it's likely the first group was just carrying you more than the 2nd one was.

If you need resources, you need to heavy attack, and you should be doing it with a lightning staff. Do not change out a lightning staff for a higher level flame or ice staff. Wait until you get another lightning staff to switch it out for or get one crafted.

You're probably spamming skills to try to stay alive when overwhelmed. You should not be using the Undaunted shield. That is for stamina players.

dpencil1

If you keep Power Surge up, pop an Empowered Ward when you get mobbed and do a heavy lightning attack, then pop another Empowered Ward and do another heavy attack, you won't die and you won't run out of magicka.

Jigger_allard

dpencil1 wrote: »

If you keep Power Surge up, pop an Empowered Ward when you get mobbed and do a heavy lightning attack, then pop another Empowered Ward and do another heavy attack, you won't die and you won't run out of magicka.

Thanks, everyone, but I am done playing ESO. Nothing I do prevents me from being one-shot killed. I follow everyone's suggestion and things just seem to get worse instead of better. I am going back to playing simple single-player games like Fallout 4, Skyrim and the like. MMORPG games are not my forte. Besides, my neighbors are starting to complain about my screaming and yelling and especially the profanity that comes from my mouth.

Hippie4927

***_allard wrote: »

dpencil1 wrote: »

If you keep Power Surge up, pop an Empowered Ward when you get mobbed and do a heavy lightning attack, then pop another Empowered Ward and do another heavy attack, you won't die and you won't run out of magicka.

Thanks, everyone, but I am done playing ESO. Nothing I do prevents me from being one-shot killed. I follow everyone's suggestion and things just seem to get worse instead of better. I am going back to playing simple single-player games like Fallout 4, Skyrim and the like. MMORPG games are not my forte. Besides, my neighbors are starting to complain about my screaming and yelling and especially the profanity that comes from my mouth.

Awww! That's a shame. Maybe try playing something besides a sorc. Maybe a templar.....they have good self-heals.

AcadianPaladin

Lots of good advice. Let me just talk attributes and surviving with all 64 of your attribute points into mag.

Start doing Undaunted Daily delves as soon as you can - they will keep you in your own alliance until you are L50 then start including delves in other alliances. When you see friends on you friends list in other zones, port to them to grab the wayshrine so you'll be able to more quickly get to more delves as they're offered. Run 5 light, 1 medium and 1 heavy armor so you level up all three. What you're working toward is getting the top Undaunted passive - that gives you +6% to all three attributes if you are wearing 5/1/1. In the mean time, compensate for your lower health by using a moderate number of health enchantments on your armor (the rest being mag). Once you get that top Undaunted passive, your boost in health will mean you can drop your health enchantments and go all magic enchantments.

Eat blue mag + heath food and keep it active. Take the provisioning Gourmand perks to boost the one hour time by 20 minutes. Always adventure with your food active - it is just part of life.

Get the passive in your summoning line where having a pet boosts your own health.

Now, if you have all that going, then you should have around 18.5K health which is plenty fine for a magsorc. That is your natural health with no health attribute points, boosted by your pet passive, Undaunted passive and food.

If you're running good armor sets (like Julianos and Necropotence) you should have well over 40K magicka. Your empowered ward is scaled to your magicka and and should protect you from around 18K damage.

Jigger_allard

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Lots of good advice. Let me just talk attributes and surviving with all 64 of your attribute points into mag.

Start doing Undaunted Daily delves as soon as you can - they will keep you in your own alliance until you are L50 then start including delves in other alliances. When you see friends on you friends list in other zones, port to them to grab the wayshrine so you'll be able to more quickly get to more delves as they're offered. Run 5 light, 1 medium and 1 heavy armor so you level up all three. What you're working toward is getting the top Undaunted passive - that gives you +6% to all three attributes if you are wearing 5/1/1. In the mean time, compensate for your lower health by using a moderate number of health enchantments on your armor (the rest being mag). Once you get that top Undaunted passive, your boost in health will mean you can drop your health enchantments and go all magic enchantments.

Eat blue mag + heath food and keep it active. Take the provisioning Gourmand perks to boost the one hour time by 20 minutes. Always adventure with your food active - it is just part of life.

Get the passive in your summoning line where having a pet boosts your own health.

Now, if you have all that going, then you should have around 18.5K health which is plenty fine for a magsorc. That is your natural health with no health attribute points, boosted by your pet passive, Undaunted passive and food.

If you're running good armor sets (like Julianos and Necropotence) you should have well over 40K magicka. Your empowered ward is scaled to your magicka and and should protect you from around 18K damage.

I have been doing undaunted since I hit level 50. I have been doing both Normal and Vet dungeons. I am or was at Level CP108. However, I have little in the way of gold to purchase blue food and my Provisioning can't make them yet. As for my passives in Summoning they are maxed out. Armor, the bane of my lousy existence in ESO. I haven't reached the level to make my own. Nor, can I afford to purchase said armor from guild stores.

AverageJo3Gam3r

If you're not eating food, that's the source of your problems. You can easily power level provisioning in 20 minutes.

Jigger_allard

AverageJo3Gam3r wrote: »

If you're not eating food, that's the source of your problems. You can easily power level provisioning in 20 minutes.

How is that? Everything that I can make is still in the red.

AverageJo3Gam3r

@***_allard

Just go to a cooking station and make the highest level food/drink you can make. Do this a bunch of times until you unlock the next level of Recipe Improvement. Use a skill point to level up Recipe Improvement to the next level. Go to a chef or brewer NPC in a tavern and buy a single recipe from the level you just unlocked. Then go back to a cooking station and make a bunch of that food/drink until you unlock the next level of Recipe Improvement.

Basically, you always want to make the highest level of food/drink that is available to you because this is the most provisioning XP.

If you don't have ESO plus you might have to visit a few guild traders to buy the provisioning mats you need. It should be cheap. Most ESO plus players have thousands of mats in their bags.

WillhelmBlack

Play a Templar.