Getting into PvP witch sorc

Datolite

Just wanted the community's take on my build for PvP, which I have put together thanks to the posters in this forum and some research. This is what I have so far, though I have been considering changing to DW so I can do a full monster set instead. Any thoughts?

5 Shacklebreaker
5 Necropotence
1 mag monster piece
Infused on big, well-fitted/impen on small?

Mage mundus
Witchmothers potent brew
Essence of Immovability
(Immovability, Spell-Crit, Magicka)

Lightning staff:
Frags
Curse
Fury
Inner light
Twilight Matriarch
METEOR

Resto staff:
Streak
Frag/Dark exchange?
Harness
Hardened Ward
Twilight Matriarch
RESTO ULT

Biro123

I've ran very similar setups. Its solid, but I tend to use DW with it though, cos holding the left mouse button for anything longer than a light tap treats it as a heavy attack and sends the pet off to attack, which is a pain.
Or 2-hander since you can't really benefit from the extra gear slot only on one bar with those sets. 2 handers are generally cheaper and unlock their twin blade and blunt passive much earlier.

In terms of skills, I see no benefit in using destro if you have no destroyed skills slotted. And flame is better for the single target DMG bonus.

I tend to put curse on the back bar with an infused resto using the won/spell DMG enchant.. Start your burst rotation with LA/curse on back bar then wpn-swap. You need the LA to give ulti-gen and proc your glyph.
And if you put hardened on the front, it benefits from inner light.

Shouldn't need dark exchange. If you do go DW or 2-hander, keep frags for more procs.

Its not the meta build but it IS competitive and fun. What it lacks is mobility and cc.

Oh, and I much prefer bol to streak.

Lord-Otto

You have no CC other than Streak. This will make killing much, MUCH more difficult (Frag got the CC removed).
You can slot Rune Cage/Defensive Rune or Destructive Reach (preferred, as it also serves for your spammable) to get a proper CC. I would drop Inner Light for it. In duels or small scale, you could drop Fury instead.

You want Dark Conversion on your back, not Frags. It's why people use Shacklebreaker or Amberplasm. It's our sustain tool.

Pets are... iffy in open world Cyrodiil. They are typically slow, brainless and squishy. Not something I'd recommend for every situation. They seem to work in special scenarios, which you gotta find out and focus on.

You could run DW with a monster set, but DW pet sorcs are so extremely specialized, I doubt you're gonna have a good time.
A slight variation I should recommend here would be the Necropotence-Lich-Shadowrend combo. It's a really solid pet build with less drawbacks. You might wanna test it out at some point, see if you like it.

Datolite

Lord-Otto wrote: »

You have no CC other than Streak. This will make killing much, MUCH more difficult (Frag got the CC removed).
You can slot Rune Cage/Defensive Rune or Destructive Reach (preferred, as it also serves for your spammable) to get a proper CC. I would drop Inner Light for it. In duels or small scale, you could drop Fury instead.

You want Dark Conversion on your back, not Frags. It's why people use Shacklebreaker or Amberplasm. It's our sustain tool.

Pets are... iffy in open world Cyrodiil. They are typically slow, brainless and squishy. Not something I'd recommend for every situation. They seem to work in special scenarios, which you gotta find out and focus on.

You could run DW with a monster set, but DW pet sorcs are so extremely specialized, I doubt you're gonna have a good time.
A slight variation I should recommend here would be the Necropotence-Lich-Shadowrend combo. It's a really solid pet build with less drawbacks. You might wanna test it out at some point, see if you like it.

Okay let's say I want to avoid using pets. What should I replace Necropotence with?

Then I could run Surge for major sorc and keep dark excjange for heals instead of twilight. Major prophecy from potion and my two shields on back bar.

Biro123

Avoiding pets would be a completely different setup, approach and play style.
The first (with pets) focusses on high Max mag.. Huge shields and huge burst heals letting you stay up-front, while you burst hard and often, killing potatoes quickly and keeping others on the defence. But there are hard counters and you lack mobility to escape when overwhelmed.

Another setup I like at the mo focusses on more mobility, resists and a good combination of buffs. With burst and sustain. It still lacks a hard cc as of the last patch, but it does well.

Spinners, lich, bloodspawn destroyed/resto. Atro mundus, tri-stat food.

Its the skills that ate important. For your heals, surge and combat prayer are enough for most situations. good resto ult uptime is there when more pressured.
You can survive shields dropping with boundless storm, bloodspawn and buffs from combat prayer.
Combat prayer and resto ult also buffs your offence..
I drop wrath but use force pulse/frags/curse/frequent meteors offensively.

Highly mobile with boundless and streak.

Datolite

Thanks for the tips! So taking that into consideration.... here is my new draft build:

5 Shacklebreaker
5 Spinners
2 monster maybe bloodspawn
Infused on big, well-fitted/impen on small

Mage mundus
Witchmothers potent brew
Essence of Immovability
(Immovability, Spell-Crit, Magicka)

2H Sword/DW:
Frags
Rune Cage
Fury
Curse
Streak
METEOR

Resto staff:
Surge
Boundless Storm
Harness
Hardened Ward
Dark Conversion
RESTO ULT

Any thoughts?

GrigorijMalahevich

Your stamina regen will be not enough to sustain any normal fight for more than 60 seconds due to immovability potion having immovability, spell crit and magicka - you already have inner light, why bother with spell crit? And without any source of stamina regen you will stop to exist againt magdk or any nightblade in less than 60 seconds.

you don't have surge (and no major sorcery source) no idea what glyphs on jewellery you run, but if any of them is spell damage then you need surge.
you don't have spammables on main bar to proc your frags (fury is a spammable in zerg surfing and then you don't need your frags)
you have a lot of magicka on main bar, but your shields are on back bar... swap curse on back bar and put hardened on main - minimum.
You run lightning staff main bar, but you have only one skill that does AOE damage (which is buffed by lightning staff) and one Ultimate... For Zergsurfing that is ok, for solo play or small scale that will be useless. If you don't want to swap lightning staff then I would choose destro ult if I was you.


Resto staff:
Streak
Frag/Dark exchange?
POWER SURGE - that is not even a question.

if you don't run master inferno staff then you can run lich on back bar and have a proper monster set. Because you have matriarch for heals, you can use 5 necro body, master inferno staff, 3 lich jewellery and lich sword and board on back bar, still have space for proper monster 2piece set and use s&b ult on back bar.

You will have stats similiar to this:


without surge, without berserk proc from back bar infused, without shadowrend proc...

Totally 49k magicka, 24k health, 16.5k stam, 2400 sd and you can see proced recovery from Lich which is a massive overkill, but I run only hardened ward

Good luck.

NordSwordnBoard

Consider the versatility of putting a bunch of long time buffs and skills like mines and defensive rune on your overload bar.

Stuff you want but doesn't quite justify its place on the other two bars.

Datolite

Valera Progib wrote: »

you have a lot of magicka on main bar, but your shields are on back bar... swap curse on back bar and put hardened on main - minimum.

Why do I want to swap these? Legit wondering.

GrigorijMalahevich

datoliteb16_ESO wrote: »

Valera Progib wrote: »

you have a lot of magicka on main bar, but your shields are on back bar... swap curse on back bar and put hardened on main - minimum.

Why do I want to swap these? Legit wondering.

Because your hardened ward will be much stronger on main bar with inner light and meteor and curse needs to be reapplied every 13-14 seconds and you can proc your frags with hardened ward on main bar...

Furthermore if you are experienced PvP player and use two wards - you always want to put them on different bars under same hot key (I use 4 for hardened ward on main bar and 4 for healing ward on back bar) so if you are under massive pressure and you bar swap lag it will not matter if you pressed ward on a wrong bar...

Datolite

Great answer. Thank you.

Biro123

datoliteb16_ESO wrote: »

Thanks for the tips! So taking that into consideration.... here is my new draft build:

5 Shacklebreaker
5 Spinners
2 monster maybe bloodspawn
Infused on big, well-fitted/impen on small

Mage mundus
Witchmothers potent brew
Essence of Immovability
(Immovability, Spell-Crit, Magicka)

2H Sword/DW:
Frags
Rune Cage
Fury
Curse
Streak
METEOR

Resto staff:
Surge
Boundless Storm
Harness
Hardened Ward
Dark Conversion
RESTO ULT

Any thoughts?

DW without inner light loses too much burst IMHO.
Also, for this setup to work you would need 2 spinners swords. Expensive.

Trust me, for a DW setup with shacklebreaker and witchmothers brew, you have enough sustain to not need dark conversion (and don't really have the stam to power it). It takes too long to cast and is too interruptable to use as your main heal. Seriously, look at combat prayer and the buffs it provides (I'm not a fan of healing ward)

VirtualElizabeth

@Valera Progib How do you get your stam pool that high? I might have missed that somewhere. Is it shacklebreaker?

Datolite

By the way, is Julianos still a viable set for magsorc in PvP? Paired with spinners and some survivability skills, for example?

Malamar1229

OP what're you settle on make sure you don't waste precious slots overlapping buffs. For instance on your original build you had inner light on your offensive and "spell crit" in your potion. Both grant major prophecy so one of those should be replaced.

Datolite

Malamar1229 wrote: »

OP what're you settle on make sure you don't waste precious slots overlapping buffs. For instance on your original build you had inner light on your offensive and "spell crit" in your potion. Both grant major prophecy so one of those should be replaced.

Yes I realized that, I removed Inner Light and kept the potion. Now I have room for ward on my front bar as well as all my damage spells (I know I should put curse on back bar but I have huge issues when it comes to swapping in lag and this messes up my rotation).

Maulkin

Biro123 wrote: »

datoliteb16_ESO wrote: »

Thanks for the tips! So taking that into consideration.... here is my new draft build:

5 Shacklebreaker
5 Spinners
2 monster maybe bloodspawn
Infused on big, well-fitted/impen on small

Mage mundus
Witchmothers potent brew
Essence of Immovability
(Immovability, Spell-Crit, Magicka)

2H Sword/DW:
Frags
Rune Cage
Fury
Curse
Streak
METEOR

Resto staff:
Surge
Boundless Storm
Harness
Hardened Ward
Dark Conversion
RESTO ULT

Any thoughts?

DW without inner light loses too much burst IMHO.
Also, for this setup to work you would need 2 spinners swords. Expensive.

Trust me, for a DW setup with shacklebreaker and witchmothers brew, you have enough sustain to not need dark conversion (and don't really have the stam to power it). It takes too long to cast and is too interruptable to use as your main heal. Seriously, look at combat prayer and the buffs it provides (I'm not a fan of healing ward)

I don't mean to be too harsh, but I always look suspiciously at Sorcs who advise the use of Combat Prayer over Healing Ward.

There's a very good reason why no top-tier PvP build uses it. Not Mageblades, not MagDKs, not Magdens, nobody runs the skill outside of PvE healers. Let alone Sorcs who put 60+ on Bastion and Healing Ward becomes massive. The only scenario where you really need a direct heal is to counter shield breaker spam, and you'd be far better off slotting Rapid Regen for that scenario. And good luck saving a friend if you're not directly facing him or if he's standing 2m meters above or below you.

And yes, every flipping sorc that knows what they're doing is using Dark Conversion outside of duels. Streak 2-3 times to find LOS protection, get your health and magicka up and you're ready to go again. You'll have plenty of stam sustain with Shackle and some tri-glyphs if you're using tripots.

Datolite

Maulkin wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

datoliteb16_ESO wrote: »

Thanks for the tips! So taking that into consideration.... here is my new draft build:

5 Shacklebreaker
5 Spinners
2 monster maybe bloodspawn
Infused on big, well-fitted/impen on small

Mage mundus
Witchmothers potent brew
Essence of Immovability
(Immovability, Spell-Crit, Magicka)

2H Sword/DW:
Frags
Rune Cage
Fury
Curse
Streak
METEOR

Resto staff:
Surge
Boundless Storm
Harness
Hardened Ward
Dark Conversion
RESTO ULT

Any thoughts?

DW without inner light loses too much burst IMHO.
Also, for this setup to work you would need 2 spinners swords. Expensive.

Trust me, for a DW setup with shacklebreaker and witchmothers brew, you have enough sustain to not need dark conversion (and don't really have the stam to power it). It takes too long to cast and is too interruptable to use as your main heal. Seriously, look at combat prayer and the buffs it provides (I'm not a fan of healing ward)

I don't mean to be too harsh, but I always look suspiciously at Sorcs who advise the use of Combat Prayer over Healing Ward.

There's a very good reason why no top-tier PvP build uses it. Not Mageblades, not MagDKs, not Magdens, nobody runs the skill outside of PvE healers. Let alone Sorcs who put 60+ on Bastion and Healing Ward becomes massive. The only scenario where you really need a direct heal is to counter shield breaker spam, and you'd be far better off slotting Rapid Regen for that scenario. And good luck saving a friend if you're not directly facing him or if he's standing 2m meters above or below you.

And yes, every flipping sorc that knows what they're doing is using Dark Conversion outside of duels. Streak 2-3 times to find LOS protection, get your health and magicka up and you're ready to go again. You'll have plenty of stam sustain with Shackle and some tri-glyphs if you're using tripots.

Would slotting Healing Ward on your resto bar remove the need for Harness?

Maulkin

datoliteb16_ESO wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

datoliteb16_ESO wrote: »

Thanks for the tips! So taking that into consideration.... here is my new draft build:

5 Shacklebreaker
5 Spinners
2 monster maybe bloodspawn
Infused on big, well-fitted/impen on small

Mage mundus
Witchmothers potent brew
Essence of Immovability
(Immovability, Spell-Crit, Magicka)

2H Sword/DW:
Frags
Rune Cage
Fury
Curse
Streak
METEOR

Resto staff:
Surge
Boundless Storm
Harness
Hardened Ward
Dark Conversion
RESTO ULT

Any thoughts?

DW without inner light loses too much burst IMHO.
Also, for this setup to work you would need 2 spinners swords. Expensive.

Trust me, for a DW setup with shacklebreaker and witchmothers brew, you have enough sustain to not need dark conversion (and don't really have the stam to power it). It takes too long to cast and is too interruptable to use as your main heal. Seriously, look at combat prayer and the buffs it provides (I'm not a fan of healing ward)

I don't mean to be too harsh, but I always look suspiciously at Sorcs who advise the use of Combat Prayer over Healing Ward.

There's a very good reason why no top-tier PvP build uses it. Not Mageblades, not MagDKs, not Magdens, nobody runs the skill outside of PvE healers. Let alone Sorcs who put 60+ on Bastion and Healing Ward becomes massive. The only scenario where you really need a direct heal is to counter shield breaker spam, and you'd be far better off slotting Rapid Regen for that scenario. And good luck saving a friend if you're not directly facing him or if he's standing 2m meters above or below you.

And yes, every flipping sorc that knows what they're doing is using Dark Conversion outside of duels. Streak 2-3 times to find LOS protection, get your health and magicka up and you're ready to go again. You'll have plenty of stam sustain with Shackle and some tri-glyphs if you're using tripots.

Would slotting Healing Ward on your resto bar remove the need for Harness?

Depends how you intend to play your Sorc really.

It's definitely playable without Harness, my BG build is without it since I use Boundless Storm for mobility instead. However, if you go up against another magicka build you're at a distinct disadvantage since Harness feeds soooo much Magicka when used against them. Templar Sweeps/Vampire's Bane, MagDK DoTs and Sorc/NB light attack weaving... they just become free magicka for you. Basically I think a Sorc without Harness is not the best in 1v1s (there are duel specs that can manage without Harness but they use Ele Drain for sustain instead), so your role is slightly altered.

If your playstyle is moving across the battlefield and picking off targets to blow up, then you won't have a problem without Harness. If you'd like to hold ground (like flags and so on) and tank with your shields, or want to be able to fight 1v1s against a wider range of opponents, then you're gonna need Harness.

EDIT: In other words the meta for the Triple-H shield stack is far from dead. It's still the most useful of selection skills.

Datolite

That's crazy, 3 shield meta. It's as bad as the permablockers... except you can keep doing damage while shields are up. N wonder people say magsorc is broken.

Maulkin

datoliteb16_ESO wrote: »

That's crazy, 3 shield meta. It's as bad as the permablockers... except you can keep doing damage while shields are up. N wonder people say magsorc is broken.

Well, no it's not. A tank build can survive 2-3 people (of decent skill) spanking it for quite a long time, especially one with high ulti sustain like a stam warden or a strong heal spammer like magplar. A Sorc being battered by 2-3 players will need LOS much much sooner. Stam builds don't feed you magicka via Harness and being pressured by more than two of them would end in your demise quicker. Also there's a complete counter build with Shield Breaker. These are not problems that tank builds have.

But play your Sorc and you'll find these out.

Datolite

That's fair. I'm thinking about Streak though, and how easy it is for a sorc to LoS with it. Either way, both are kinda cheesy I guess.

Biro123

Maulkin wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

datoliteb16_ESO wrote: »

Thanks for the tips! So taking that into consideration.... here is my new draft build:

5 Shacklebreaker
5 Spinners
2 monster maybe bloodspawn
Infused on big, well-fitted/impen on small

Mage mundus
Witchmothers potent brew
Essence of Immovability
(Immovability, Spell-Crit, Magicka)

2H Sword/DW:
Frags
Rune Cage
Fury
Curse
Streak
METEOR

Resto staff:
Surge
Boundless Storm
Harness
Hardened Ward
Dark Conversion
RESTO ULT

Any thoughts?

DW without inner light loses too much burst IMHO.
Also, for this setup to work you would need 2 spinners swords. Expensive.

Trust me, for a DW setup with shacklebreaker and witchmothers brew, you have enough sustain to not need dark conversion (and don't really have the stam to power it). It takes too long to cast and is too interruptable to use as your main heal. Seriously, look at combat prayer and the buffs it provides (I'm not a fan of healing ward)

I don't mean to be too harsh, but I always look suspiciously at Sorcs who advise the use of Combat Prayer over Healing Ward.

There's a very good reason why no top-tier PvP build uses it. Not Mageblades, not MagDKs, not Magdens, nobody runs the skill outside of PvE healers. Let alone Sorcs who put 60+ on Bastion and Healing Ward becomes massive. The only scenario where you really need a direct heal is to counter shield breaker spam, and you'd be far better off slotting Rapid Regen for that scenario. And good luck saving a friend if you're not directly facing him or if he's standing 2m meters above or below you.

And yes, every flipping sorc that knows what they're doing is using Dark Conversion outside of duels. Streak 2-3 times to find LOS protection, get your health and magicka up and you're ready to go again. You'll have plenty of stam sustain with Shackle and some tri-glyphs if you're using tripots.

If you think...

Maulkin

Biro123 wrote: »

If you think...

Very cryptic and intelligent mate. I'm definitely convinced now.

Biro123

Alright..

As far as the build goes, you get 3 tiers of healing.. Surge, combat prayer and resto ult.

You also get 13k of resist buffs.

So what gets through your shields is either marginal (dealt with by surge), letting you stay on the offence. Or a big burst, meaning that once you re-shield, you are instantly taken out of execute range with a single combat prayer (and rebuffed) - and put back into a safe zone with just one more cast (surge can do the rest).
Or if under heavy sustained pressure, you have VERY good uptime on resto ult which usually gives enough leeway (along with your decent resists and multiple offensive buffs) to either take down one of the attackers or to los/escape.
I've also used combat prayer to keep groups of friendlies alive in destro ults/choke points etc. (While also buffing them)

But healing ward... Doesn't get you out of execute range for another 6 seconds. Can lose all your health to shieldbreaker in that 6 seconds, can heal for nothing if its shield gets taken down, and can all too often cast on another player instead.

My take on dark conversion.. Its great when you can drop behind friendlies to use it. But what is the benefit? Spell-dmg - because you sacrifice recov for spell-dmg, making up for it with dark-exchange. If you didn't make this sacrifice, you wouldn't need dark exch and can free-up a skill-slot.
So to get the benefit, you are leaving a hole in your build (recov).. A huge weakness when constantly interrupted by, say, force pulse spam, will leave you in a bit of a pickle.
I mean yeah, you could streak a few times combined with boundless/sprint to get to a safe place to use it, but its never a guaranteed escape (esp. With multiple enemies), and the resources you have to burn to do that - both stam and mag??
Makes it all not worth the slot space it takes IMHO.