PvE Pet MagSorc "NecroAcuity" Build

dpencil1

When Clockwork City was first released, I wasn't impressed by the new crafted set "Mechanical Acuity" from just looking at the set bonuses, but after listening to some discussion about certain cases in which it is strong (such as low-crit builds like Pet magSorcs), I decided to hop on the PTS and try it out before committing to crafting the set on Live. This is what I was getting:

(Parses on 3 Mil Dummy, solo)

Best Parse:
Buffs and Top of DPS page


Debuffs and Bottom of DPS page


Other Parses using identical rotation/build:
41196
41965
41429
41463

Avg. = 41630 dps

Gear Setup:
5 Necropotence (3 jewelry, 2 body)
5 Mechanical Acuity (4 body (chest heavy), 1 Infused lightning staff w/ Shock enchant)
1 vMA Infused lightning staff w/Fire enchant
1 Domihaus shoulder (med)

CP Setup:
40 Elfborn
49 Elemental Expert
46 Spell Erosion
20 Master at Arms
75 Thaumaturge

Skill Setup:
1: Endless Fury, Inner Light, Volatile Familiar, Twilight Matriarch, Daedric Prey, Thunderous Rage
2: Liquid Lightning, Blockade of Storms, Volatile Familiar, Twilight Matriach, Empowered Ward (Elemental Susceptibility for parse), Shooting Star

Rotation: (Light Attacks before every skill after the first bar swap)
Ele Susceptibility, Potion, Familiar, Destro Ulti, Prey
Bar Swap
[Liquid Lightning, Blockade. Familiar
Bar Swap
Prey, 2 Heavy Attacks (just hold down LB)
Bar Swap] - repeat bracketed area
Shooting Star and Potion refresh when they become available
Endless Fury spam at 20%

There is a more complex rotation that seeks to keep Prey up 100%, but I've found I get identical results with it, and this rotation is much simpler.

Explanation:
Acuity has an 18 second cool-down, which actually fits our rotation perfectly. Every other rotation, you will activate the buff when doing the 2 heavy attacks, just after you've refreshed all your dots, so you maximize the amount of damage being amplified. In the last few seconds of the parse, I only spam Endless Fury, even if the dots fall off. There is a great spike of dps at the end as you're practically guaranteed 5 crit Endless Furies, plus whatever Implosions proc during that time. You also get a boost during each of the ultimate ability casts as a lot of their duration falls during the Acuity uptime. On my best parse, I spiked to 63k dps 10 seconds into the fight. Using Elemental Susceptibility works well because you don't need to reapply it during the fight and this build has infinite sustain anyway, so Magickasteal is unnecessary. On the 6 mil dummy, I did one parse and got 38.6k, so there's obviously some tapering off that occurs over long duration fights. Nevertheless, I very much like this build and wanted to share it in case others want to try it as well.

Thanks for reading!

firedrgn

Interesting thanks for sharing.

Masel

Sounds like an interesting build. I'd like to see trial parses to see how it performs there.

Also, as you might know I published a few buildguides as well, and I noticed that in order to make people understand rotations, you need to make it visual, so either post a video or an image with a rotation steps and your bars.

Just text and dps parses isn't going to help many people here...

Ipslor

Masel92 wrote: »

Sounds like an interesting build. I'd like to see trial parses to see how it performs there.

Also, as you might know I published a few buildguides as well, and I noticed that in order to make people understand rotations, you need to make it visual, so either post a video or an image with a rotation steps and your bars.

Just text and dps parses isn't going to help many people here...

This is totally wrong. I rather prefer well-structured text that takes 5 minutes to read and understand than 1-hour video.

WrathOfInnos

Acuity is finally starting to catch on! I've found that it is BIS for any build that has less than 50% crit chance from other sources. At >50% Mother's Sorrow becomes better than Acuity due to the nature of its proc. It seems fairly balanced in this sense, hopefully it won't get nerfed.

@dpencil1 Have you tried 5 acuity (with front bar staff), 4 Moondancer, 2 maw of the infernal? I've been seeing better numbers out of this gear than from Necropotence, for any rotation with 2 heavy attacks to proc the Daedroth sufficiently.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Kind of interesting where we are at with pet sorcs. I have seen a few combos of gear that all seem to land you in the low 40's. This one seems to have perhaps the simplest rotation, so props on that. Other than the second pet, its very similar to what sorcs where running about a year ago. 4 dots, 2 heavy attacks and repeat. I remember when that would get you 60K plus on first VMOL boss with that. Haha.

Its funny because ZOS has basically made it impossible for Pet sorcs to function on Hardmodes of certain trials, but they are perhaps the simplest way for people to pull 40K DPS on a dummy (and feel really good about it). I wonder if that's on purpose or an accident. "Here is a super easy DPS build to learn end game, but if you want to be 'competitive', it wont work."

Edit: Also, that was in no way meant to be an attack on this build. I actually want to give it a go.

WrathOfInnos

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kind of interesting where we are at with pet sorcs. I have seen a few combos of gear that all seem to land you in the low 40's. This one seems to have perhaps the simplest rotation, so props on that. Other than the second pet, its very similar to what sorcs where running about a year ago. 4 dots, 2 heavy attacks and repeat. I remember when that would get you 60K plus on first VMOL boss with that. Haha.

Its funny because ZOS has basically made it impossible for Pet sorcs to function on Hardmodes of certain trials, but they are perhaps the simplest way for people to pull 40K DPS on a dummy (and feel really good about it). I wonder if that's on purpose or an accident. "Here is a super easy DPS build to learn end game, but if you want to be 'competitive', it wont work."

@Oreyn_Bearclaw Well said. That is the biggest thing that bothers me about pet builds. Warden suffers from the same thing, the bear is great until a fight where it is useless. I hope this is not by design, and since they recently made some trials more pet-friendly there is hope.

Until then I'm going to keep trying to get a Perfected Asylum Staff, since AFAIK this is the only way to get a petless sorc to break 40k (solo skeleton parse).

SaintSubwayy

Well the set isnt that bad, however since it only has a max uptime of approx 35% which is very, very low for PVE Uptimes.
However it enables huge burst potential when starting a fight, and if the fights are not longer then 15secs, its amazing.
When fighting bosses for 10-15min like in vAS Endboss, then it might be outperformed by Julianos and Mothers Sorrow.

WrathOfInnos

The theoretical max uptime is only 28%. In practice it's usually more like 26-27% if on both bars, and around 25% if only on front bar.

If crit chance is base 42%, then the proc adds 58% crit chance. Even at only 25% uptime, acuity gives on average 14.5% crit chance over a long fight. This sounds incredible, but is really only slightly better than other sets because one of the bonuses is a useless weapon damage (for mag characters, stam will typically not use acuity because daggers put them over 50% crit).

The burst potential is fun though, a proc on the 3rd boss (spider) in vHoF every time shields are down can help a lot. Another example is the back room runners in vMoL, where I am often only back on Rakkhat for long enough to put out some burst and drop and ulti before running again (I think the assassin cats in the back also fear the acuity proc , but it's not guaranteed on a ~3 second fight).

Masel

Ipslor wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

Sounds like an interesting build. I'd like to see trial parses to see how it performs there.

Also, as you might know I published a few buildguides as well, and I noticed that in order to make people understand rotations, you need to make it visual, so either post a video or an image with a rotation steps and your bars.

Just text and dps parses isn't going to help many people here...

This is totally wrong. I rather prefer well-structured text that takes 5 minutes to read and understand than 1-hour video.

I was talking about a rotation-video. I don't like buildvideos as a whole myself. My guides are all written with videos for rotation and vMA only.

dpencil1

@WrathOfInnos
I tried the 5 Acuity/4 Moondancer/2 Maw setup but I found it much worse. I was sitting at about 10k less max magicka and my dps was definitely lower, more like the 35-38k range.

@Masel92
I appreciate the suggestion. I'm not very experienced with recording and posting game videos, but I may look into it a bit.

@SaintSubwayy
You may be right, but even in AS, there is an ebb and flow to long fights, avoiding all the red or performing mechanics takes time, so it's important that when you can focus the boss you maximize your damage. More often than not, Acuity will be ready again by the time you need it. It certainly could use more testing in these kinds of environments.

Vahrokh

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kind of interesting where we are at with pet sorcs. I have seen a few combos of gear that all seem to land you in the low 40's. This one seems to have perhaps the simplest rotation, so props on that. Other than the second pet, its very similar to what sorcs where running about a year ago. 4 dots, 2 heavy attacks and repeat. I remember when that would get you 60K plus on first VMOL boss with that. Haha.

Its funny because ZOS has basically made it impossible for Pet sorcs to function on Hardmodes of certain trials

Could you please tell me which trials and why?
Until recently I thought HM vAA was one of them, then I have found out Matron works. Didn't dare the familiar though.

WrathOfInnos

Vahrokh wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kind of interesting where we are at with pet sorcs. I have seen a few combos of gear that all seem to land you in the low 40's. This one seems to have perhaps the simplest rotation, so props on that. Other than the second pet, its very similar to what sorcs where running about a year ago. 4 dots, 2 heavy attacks and repeat. I remember when that would get you 60K plus on first VMOL boss with that. Haha.

Its funny because ZOS has basically made it impossible for Pet sorcs to function on Hardmodes of certain trials

Could you please tell me which trials and why?
Until recently I thought HM vAA was one of them, then I have found out Matron works. Didn't dare the familiar though.

vSO HM will kill pets with every world shaper, hardly time to resummon before they will die again.

As you mentioned vAA has some problems due to chain lightning. Even the Twilight can get you killed because it can still serve as a target if two DPS or a healer cross paths when moving around to pop mines. Some strats do allow pets by controlling the direction Mage is facing, but there are still risks.

Zer0oo

Vahrokh wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kind of interesting where we are at with pet sorcs. I have seen a few combos of gear that all seem to land you in the low 40's. This one seems to have perhaps the simplest rotation, so props on that. Other than the second pet, its very similar to what sorcs where running about a year ago. 4 dots, 2 heavy attacks and repeat. I remember when that would get you 60K plus on first VMOL boss with that. Haha.

Its funny because ZOS has basically made it impossible for Pet sorcs to function on Hardmodes of certain trials

Could you please tell me which trials and why?
Until recently I thought HM vAA was one of them, then I have found out Matron works. Didn't dare the familiar though.

vAA: they can connect chain lightning but they will never targeted first by the mage
vAS: the storm of heaven also affects the sorc pets which can kill the pets or can kill other players
vSO: world shaper will kill the pets
vHR: not sure but the used to get the star shower at the execute phase but i think they changed it, but i think they still die when someone breaks free per synergy (e.g tank)
vMoL: they work very well in there on all bosses but i think you still have to re-summon the pet at the first boss or it will bug out and not attack
vHoF: the pet is kinda tricky(but still ok to use) on the 4th boss since drain shots/traps will cc it for the whole duration and the lightning ring on the middle boss will kill pets really fast if you don't watch out. The last boss you only need to watch out that your pet does not attack the main boss when you have to kill the little spheres on the sides.

Vahrokh

On vAA I have not been chain ligthed by Matriarch, she stays next to me all the time. I do dispose of familiar. Melees have an hard time in there as is.
vAS: have not noticed particular issues by myself, I'll look better the next time.
vSO: for some reason my guild is not keen doing SO very much (hm even less so), so I don't know.
vHR: did not notice pet deaths, maybe I've been lucky.
vMoL: I don't recall if it's there or some other trial, but familiar indeed tends to get stuck when bosses teleport or do something that confuse their "AI". I think it happens on some regular 4 men too.
vHoF: did not notice pet dying, but maybe it's just out of custom for me to resummon in "auto pilot mode". So, maybe, I just don't recall myself resummoning it

Waffennacht

@dpencil1 any particular reason a pet build? Is the set just better when paired with pets?

What's your opinion of this kind of set up on a different class or without pets?

dpencil1

@Waffennacht
It's just the usual build I play. Previously, I was using 2 Maw/5 Necro/4 Spinner (no trials staff on Live).

Like Wrath mentioned, the value of Acuity goes up as your normal crit chance goes down, so it pairs really well with Necropotence. It's also a set that can work well with its 5th piece on a weapon, so the proc is controllable. I imagine it would work well for anyone who could set up a number of dots on their back bar and then switch to their front to have everything ticking together for 5 seconds. It's all about maximizing the total base damage during that window.

Croblasta

@dpencil1
Could you drop Inner Light for a different skill, since that provides a crit bonus?

dpencil1

@Croblasta
Sure. You could put Shock Clench there and insert it at the end of your second heavy attack. Imo you get the same dps either way, and having Inner Light means you always have Major Prophesy on your front bar even if you don't have a potion up. Not sure if you drink potions off cooldown for trash. I sure don't!

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Zer0oo wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kind of interesting where we are at with pet sorcs. I have seen a few combos of gear that all seem to land you in the low 40's. This one seems to have perhaps the simplest rotation, so props on that. Other than the second pet, its very similar to what sorcs where running about a year ago. 4 dots, 2 heavy attacks and repeat. I remember when that would get you 60K plus on first VMOL boss with that. Haha.

Its funny because ZOS has basically made it impossible for Pet sorcs to function on Hardmodes of certain trials

Could you please tell me which trials and why?
Until recently I thought HM vAA was one of them, then I have found out Matron works. Didn't dare the familiar though.

vAA: they can connect chain lightning but they will never targeted first by the mage
vAS: the storm of heaven also affects the sorc pets which can kill the pets or can kill other players
vSO: world shaper will kill the pets
vHR: not sure but the used to get the star shower at the execute phase but i think they changed it, but i think they still die when someone breaks free per synergy (e.g tank)
vMoL: they work very well in there on all bosses but i think you still have to re-summon the pet at the first boss or it will bug out and not attack
vHoF: the pet is kinda tricky(but still ok to use) on the 4th boss since drain shots/traps will cc it for the whole duration and the lightning ring on the middle boss will kill pets really fast if you don't watch out. The last boss you only need to watch out that your pet does not attack the main boss when you have to kill the little spheres on the sides.

Pretty much this. The only trial I can run start to finish without a pet dying is VMOL, and that was only the case recently since they fixed the twin fight. Also as stated, you still have to re summon them through each doorway if you want to be safe.

VAA and VAS are the two trials where the existence of a pet can actually cause harm to your group. Most of the rest of the fights come down to a question of how often will they die and is it it worth your effort to keep them up. I ran pet builds for about a year. Mostly, it comes down to an annoyance factor, but on some fights its still a deal breaker. There is hope as I believe the have fixed most of the issues in VMOL and VHRC (and I think VSO). VAA and VAS still need work. VHOF, a pet really only causes issue on boss 4. Not going to wipe your group, but I am not sure its worth running a pet as you will resummon them about every 3rd or 4th rotation. When I was running VHOF a lot, I would drop my pet for that fight.

Furcula

Your numbers are inflated as you are definitely over penetrating aka cheesing the parse with the lover mundus and having 46 points in spell erosion. Although that's fine for use in a solo setting, you are over penetrating in any trial settings and getting bigger parse numbers than you should be.

Try the parse again with at most 35 points in spell erosion and the apprentice mundus on a 6m dummy, it will give a much better representation as to how good your build is.

dpencil1

@Furcula
There's nothing wrong with setting up a character to maximize penetration in a solo parse. When I'm in a trials group, I redistribute points out of Erosion to compensate for whatever the tanks are using (which can vary). This amount of penetration is preferable for PUGing or soloing vet dungeons, vMA, overland, etc.

You're sort of claiming I'm trying to compare apples and oranges, or in this case a solo dummy setup to a true-to-life trials setup. I haven't really made that claim, though. You want to compare oranges to orages, go ahead. Comparing apples to apples is also fine. It's not like I'm trying to hide the fact this setup is built for maximum solo penetration.

The point of this thread was to show that NecroAcuity is a viable build. Yes it has issues with diminishing effectiveness in long fights and various trials scenarios where pets in general are problematic, but those issues are not deal breakers for me as they might be for some. I just enjoy the build and the unique mechanics of its playstyle, and wanted to share it.

Furcula

@dpencil1

Refer to my last sentence. Most parses are done with trial setting in mind, thus, having too much pen will over inflate how effective Acuity actually is. That's why I asked for a parse with trial settings.

On the other hand, you could also do a parse with Necro/MD with your lover mundus + extra spell erosion for comparison.

42k dps, although seems high, is some what arbitrary without the proper comparisons. I'm all for using non-meta sets and trying out new things. But not having a fair comparison to something people already know doesn't bring nearly as much value as it could.

Ftiryaki13

I know it is a dumb question but may I ask the name of the addon of the above screenshots which shows the details of the dps results?

WrathOfInnos

@Ftiryaki13 Combat metrics

WrathOfInnos

@Furcula I have to disagree about the Lover stone. In my guild, I prefer when Magicka DPS use Lover stone for a dummy parses. Lover gives around 4000 pen, depending how many pieces are divines. This simulates the effect of Torugs Infused Crusher (2741) and Power of the Light (1320). Things are a little more complicated for stamina with the support sets, but Lover still works well on a dummy.

For trials everyone switches to Warrior or Apprentice, getting about 300 weapon or spell damage they did not have during their dummy parse (think of it like an extra SPC). This ensures that any optimization that was done with gear or CPs was done with penetration similar to what is provided in trials. In my experience, recommending Apprentice for parses results in people putting too many points in spell erosion, which is wasted in trials, or possibly even thinking the Spinner set is BIS.

I consider lover to be an effective way to prevent other methods of "cheesing" parses, and Mundus Stones are easy and free to swap for trials (unlike gear sets and CP's).

IMO Magicka DPS should have 34 points in spell erosion, since this is the point where Destruction skills will be fully penetrating (w Maj + min breach and inf Torugs crusher). Beyond this the diminishing returns are significant since many of your skills see no additional benefit.

TLDR: Lover allows people to optimize builds on a dummy in the same way they would be optimized in trials, just make sure everyone switches to Apprentice or Warriro for trials.

Furcula

@WrathOfInnos I would probably argue the opposite. Max of 34 points into spell erosion should be standard along with the use of Apprentice. Ele drain is usually applied when people are doing parses so that will take into the constant major breech into consideration. Anything extra like torugs, alkosh etc will not always have 100% uptime and thus are icing on the cake.

Any parse people post should be made sure they aren't cheesing it with overpenetrating. Using trial gear etc. That should be basic requirement when guild ask for a parse imo. Also it's important that they can sustain the damage on a 6m dummy since damage is usually at least 3k higher on a 3m compared to 6m.

35k for mag and 40k for stam on a 6m should be some basic requirements for any guild hoping to do harder vet trials using trial setup.

WrathOfInnos

@Furcula I definitely agree that parses should be done in trial gear and with a trial DPS rotation. I also require Magicka DPS to use their own ele drain (to ensure they have a place for a shield) and stamina to use blade cloak, but I know different guilds vary on these.

I also agree that 35k and 40k are good goals for competitive vet trials (although completing non-HM can be done with much less). I believe the 3k loss you describe comes largely from ulti use on a 3mil dummy. Magicka users can drop 2 storms in a span of about 80s (start and end with one). Over a long fight the DPS from storm will be about half of this, dropping a parse by roughly 2k. Any additional losses are likely from sustain as you said. Although anything that can sustain a 3mil dummy should be fine in a trial when worm and orbs are added.

I'm definitely not sold on Apprentice for DPS tests though. All this does is make it so the guy with 60 points in spell erosion appears better than the guy with an appropriate 34 points. I have no desire to check CP distributions of new guildies, but it's easy to see which Mundus is being used.

Everyone still gets a benefit in trials relative to the baseline (either more pen or more spell damage), the only thing up for debate is what the baseline should be. Personally, I see more dummy parses posted with the Lover stone, and consider that a better simulation of trials performance. Not that there is inherently anything wrong with an apprentice dummy parse baseline, but I think it is less common. We can agree that comparing apples and oranges is ineffective.

Now for a live trial parse, if I see Lover stone that is a problem. My tanks keep very close to 100% Torugs Crusher uptime and my healers always have Power of the Light active (we don't have a Stamplar at the moment). So anyone not using apprentice or warrior is basically taking a large DPS loss because they do not trust the support roles.

Edit: Another pet peeve of mine is sustain food with 7 light or 7 medium armor on a dummy parse that leaves health way too low for trials (like 14k). That's what I call cheese.

Furcula

@WrathOfInnos Yeah, definitely depends on how strict the guilds are in terms of accepting new people. Some will definitely ask for CP, equipment and a combat metric parse. As long as you have the same baseline, then everything is fine and dandy. Although I do have to say, if they are using the lover mundus, the dps requirement should be higher since they get that extra penetration

SupremeRissole

Its interesting to hear people's views on what the standard is, as a community there needs to be a standard across servers. Personally I have never used lover. I always run apprentice with 34 points in erosion and I can hit 36k solo buffed. Now although this isnt the best and as far as my core goes it's low, my raid parses are 2-4k higher than everyone else. (I actually forgot to remove some points out of erosion for the raid parse so that could possibly go higher).
So maybe if there becomes a standard dps test that along with using ele drain instead of shield, raid rotation and gear, you also include a standard penetration amount, being 18.2k -major breech and infused torugs crusher?

WrathOfInnos

Thanks for some of the ideas in this guide! You definitely helped me improve my pet sorc DPS.

I'm actually getting almost exactly the same results by accompanying Acuity with 5 Necro + 1 Kena or with 2 Maw + 4 Moondancer. Average is about 42-43k solo dummy parse with either setup.

But who likes average, here are the peaks (44.6k with either gear option)

With Maw of the Infernal



With Necropotence



The only thing I changed from your bars was adding shock clench instead of inner light. Working an extra skill into the rotation does not add any length (still 9s), since a skill can be used instantly between the 2 consecutive heavy attacks.

I also prefer a spell damage back bar, but this doesn't seem to make much difference from a fire glyph (maybe more AoE). Therefore I like to minimize time spent on backbar and swap to front before activating the familiar. So I'm only on back bar for 2s to cast wall and liquid lightning.