Doing my own thing

Jedi1josh

As someone who used to play MTG, we had a phrase to describe the act of going online and just copying a deck that someone else created and had success with. We called it "Net Decking" and I'm seeing something similar going on with ESO. I rather be creative and do my own thing.

I've been told several times that my sorcerer shouldn't be wearing heavy armor. Well why not? I'm not trying to build a glass cannon, I want a steel cannon. I find plenty of heavy armor with magika boons not to mention foods with magika boosts, and set pieces that give even more magika for having multiple items of that set. Currently I have 2 Spinners rings and a spinner amulet as my accessories, and 4 pieces of Elf bane armor for even more magika. Currently I'm working on getting a 5th elf bane pieces for extra flame damage, and a 2nd soulshine armor piece for extra magika, plus hopefully 2 spinner staves, one for each bar. I may lose a fifth set piece ability by mixing spinner and soulshine sets, but I'm boosting magika like crazy. Plus I'm a dark elf so my passive abilities are all magika and flame damage related.

My skill bars both use flame destruction staff. I do this because I want to keep a similar range build on each bar but swap between AOE and Direct damage with each bar having a single heal skill. I just hope spinner flame staves are obtainable.

I use a very potent potion for my potion slot (I forget the name but it increases magika, health, and spell crit using lady smock, bugloss or water hyacinth and columbine)

Lastly I'm only CP 181 at the moment, but I've been putting all my CP into magika recovery, elemental damage, and spell resistance (since I'm a range character). Once I hit 100 on each cp ability I'll probably put any remaining cp into physical resistance, health recovery and speed.

If anyone is curious I'll add my exact skills in my bars when I get home.

huschdeguddzje

Nobody will complain if you hit desired damage values and do your job.
Just beware that you may not be wanted in tryhard trials, those meta builds are designed to work together flawlessly and get the best results possible.
The thing is no matter how hard you try, you will sacrifice damage at the cost of defense.
In a optimized group, your tank is supposed to be defensive, so the dps can do their job without worrying about taking heavy damage.

Jedi1josh

Going back and looking at everything, it may be a good idea to swap out one armor for a spinner light armor (maybe the waist piece) to get the 5th spinner ability. I'll still get my heavy armor bonuses for having 5 heavy armor.

Asardes

1) You will not be able to sustain that build, since you will lack a lot of recovery multipliers and cost reduction
2) Sorcerer does mostly Shock damage, not flame, so Elf Bane will almost be entirely wasted (would be better on DK)
3) Even with Spinner's the damage will be lack luster since you will lack 10% critical, and 4.9K penetration (most players have 10K+ resistances)

Jedi1josh

PVE

Azurya

@Jedi1josh you are right, do your own thing, have fun doing so
I went this way too, and it really makes fun
and perhaps you get a bleeding nose, so what!

Asardes

If PvE such a build will suck even more. I just assumed it's PvP because some people do indeed play heavy armor there, but I think there are few sorcerers even there that use it, and they are stamina, not magicka. In PvE DK and Templar still play in heavy armor though due to lack of mobility.

The only role that uses heavy in PvE is Tank, and that means you aren't supposed to do a lot of damage but mainly keep aggro on mobs, debuff, root/CC them and allow other players in your group to kill them effectively. A Sorcerer that plays Damage Dealer (DD) doesn't really need heavy armor because he can get high resistances from Bound Aegis and Boundless Storm and the big class shield, Hardened Ward. If I'm not mistaken I have around 20K resistance and about as much shield in light armor and those give plenty of mitigation already. I do actually have a tank build for my Sorcerer, but it requires some specialized gear and good knowledge of mechanics, so I won't recommend it for beginners.

If you just hit the gear cap, which is CP160, I'd recommend a few cheap crafted sets to complement Spinner. You can run that with Julianos and a monster set piece that gives maximum magicka or recovery or spell damage or critical. That will be pretty effective, if you wear at least 5 pieces of light armor, and fill the other slots with either 2 heavy or 1 heavy and one medium. If you do dungeons you gain the undaunted skill line and a passive called Undaunted Mettle that gives you 2% maximum health, stamina and magicka for each type of armor you equip.

butternutbutt

I totally understand the feeling of not wanting to copy one of a handful of prescribed builds. I resisted for a long time and now I'm finally coming around to the fact that to do the more demanding content, it's just a fact of life. It is frustrating that successful builds are so narrowly defined and don't allow more room for creativity and personalization, but to be honest I'm not sure if it's possible to have really challenging content if mechanics are beatable in really diverse ways. I think it's just about finely honing all the pieces of the puzzle until everything clicks, so to speak. I'd definitely be interested to hear from people who have had success with unconventional builds.

RavenSworn

Why do you worry about what others say? If you find fun in what you do... Go for it. Like you said, a few of the heavy armor sets does give magicka bonuses. If it gets the job done, it gets the job done.

BUT

Group content is group content. You basically have to work with others to get the objective done. It's the perfect example of "for the greater good". So while you might bring good dps with that setup, you might bring even better dps with a different setup that is more group friendly and for a lack of a better word, meta.

HOWEVER

If you can find like minded individuals that can work around your setup, then go for it!

Jedi1josh

I can do the zombie run in vile laboratory by myself, so it really doesn't suck

bongtokin420insd16

Ya, IMO you gotta experience the game before you skip right to Meta. If you don't have fun and see what happens, you will never really get why you end up at the meta set at the end. I'm nowhere close to that, or to even finishing the content or trying dungeons. And im having a blast. My Stamden(? is that the right name) is running a livewire set with ravager support that im trying to improve with more pieces. It may not be awesome, but it handles PVE just fine and i can move along quick without fear. Going to test it deeper in PVP soon see if it works there too. Again, i wont be super, but i think ill be able to contribute and enjoy myself.

Asardes

Jedi1josh wrote: »

I can do the zombie run in vile laboratory by myself, so it really doesn't suck

Non-instanced content is very easy in this game so you can beat mobs basically naked, with a broom and bucked. So beating a quest proves nothing. If you decide to do dungeons and trials the enemies there are very tough, and you'll need an effective build for the given role. Otherwise people will fail because of you, they will get annoyed, kick you from group and refuse to play with you in the future. I've played with plenty of people that wanted to "do their thing" in dungeons when I joined groups via tool, and some of them even cursed me for giving them suggestions about strategy and playstyle.

Jedi1josh

Asardes wrote: »

Jedi1josh wrote: »

I can do the zombie run in vile laboratory by myself, so it really doesn't suck

Non-instanced content is very easy in this game so you can beat mobs basically naked, with a broom and bucked. So beating a quest proves nothing. If you decide to do dungeons and trials the enemies there are very tough, and you'll need an effective build for the given role. Otherwise people will fail because of you, they will get annoyed, kick you from group and refuse to play with you in the future. I've played with plenty of people that wanted to "do their thing" in dungeons when I joined groups via tool, and some of them even cursed me for giving them suggestions about strategy and playstyle.

That's an aggro snob attitude

dreamfarer

Since you're setting up as a damage dealer, this one is an easy issue to resolve.

Run a damage parse. Combat Metrics, LUI Extended, whatever you want.

If you can make a heavy armor, hodge podge build get the numbers you want, then you are 100% fine.

The key is knowing what content you want to do and what numbers you need to honestly contribute to it.

Do you want to quest and do overland content? Literally whatever your DPS is, you'll be fine.

Are you running normal dungeons? 10k DPS is peachy, go to town.

For Vet mode dungeons? Try to roll in with a bit more. Maybe 15 to 20k?

Trials? Be able to go a bit harder still.

Vet Hard Mode trials? Is that really a thing you're looking for? Everyone always assumes that it is (or that your trying to be a PvP God), but honestly that sort of content is not intended for the VAST majority of the player base.

If you actually want to take part in the hardest possible content, then you need to step up and find out how to do the 35k+ DPS that's required to contribute fully, and that will mean making extremely focused build decisions and leaning hard into every class strength and cumulative build modifier that you can find, to a degree that does seriously constrain how you can design your character.

If you're fine leaving the utter end game content for either a.) later on when you've exhausted everything else, or b.) never since its a microscopic part of the game, then there is nothing stopping you from just playing and enjoying things however you want. Just don't claim to be something you're not by trying to take on a role that you're not built to handle.

Jedi1josh

RavenSworn wrote: »

Why do you worry about what others say? If you find fun in what you do... Go for it. Like you said, a few of the heavy armor sets does give magicka bonuses. If it gets the job done, it gets the job done.

BUT

Group content is group content. You basically have to work with others to get the objective done. It's the perfect example of "for the greater good". So while you might bring good dps with that setup, you might bring even better dps with a different setup that is more group friendly and for a lack of a better word, meta.

HOWEVER

If you can find like minded individuals that can work around your setup, then go for it!

I get what you're saying, I just feel that if I need to sacrifice my fun for "the greater good" then I rather play a solo game. I mean this isn't like we're trying to over throw a foreign country, it's a video game that no one will remember in twenty years.

RavenSworn

Jedi1josh wrote: »

RavenSworn wrote: »

Why do you worry about what others say? If you find fun in what you do... Go for it. Like you said, a few of the heavy armor sets does give magicka bonuses. If it gets the job done, it gets the job done.

BUT

Group content is group content. You basically have to work with others to get the objective done. It's the perfect example of "for the greater good". So while you might bring good dps with that setup, you might bring even better dps with a different setup that is more group friendly and for a lack of a better word, meta.

HOWEVER

If you can find like minded individuals that can work around your setup, then go for it!

I get what you're saying, I just feel that if I need to sacrifice my fun for "the greater good" then I rather play a solo game. I mean this isn't like we're trying to over throw a foreign country, it's a video game that no one will remember in twenty years.

No its not like overthrowing a foreign country lol but let me put it this way:

An apt analogy is something akin to playing in the Sunday league as oppose to the Premier league. You can do whatever you want in the Sunday league, because, usually you play with your friends, you can play either as a goalie or a forward or a winger. Your friends might mock your talents but no one will judge you. But if you decide to play in the premier league, you've got to play well with others in your team. Not only that, you've got to hone your trade, learn nutrition, give your best everytime you go for a match. And definitely be able to communicate your intentions with your peers. And people will judge your talents and compare.

Artemiisia

You can do your own thing, as its you and only you who play the char, nobody have any sayin over that at all.

Just remember when you choose to group up with others, they have the same choice, that they will decide if they wanna play with you in your current form.

Elsterchen

@Jedi1josh, I thought a little bit about writing at all, but since I can relate to your problem I like to give it a try. My piece of advice is: play as you like. I recomend this for everyone, not only you. If you have fun with what you do and how you do it, then just go for it. Grow a sharp tongue and a thick skin along the way, as you will surely get comments, well meant comments, but never asked for as well.

Nevertheless, whenever you do run into trouble I like to add to the cannon of most of the things said already, inform yourself and try stuff ... you may find fun stuff in there too.

Integral1900

Go for it, my beloved stam dk tank /dps has such a grab bag of skills players have asked if it’s a hybrid, the whining soon stops when the smug little beggars realise I’m out healing the healer, throwing out group buffs, taunting and debuffing the boss and still sitting at twenty k dps. Used to be a min maxer until I just got bored of it, as far as I’m concerned you do you and as long as you pull your weight then screw the meta

Magdalina

No one has a right to tell you how to play - as long as you're the only one that's affected by your choice. Issues begin once you start to engage in group content and that's where most of "nope you aren't allowed to do that" things come from. Of course anything is fine with friends who all agree to it, hell I've done some group naked runs even, it was definitely very subpar stats wise but very fun, I've also done some heavily undermanned dungeons and even trials back in the day, spending hours and days on fights full teams could've finished in minutes...but we knew what we were in for. If you end up in a vet dungeon with total randoms doing 10k dps instead of 25k you could be doing, your group may not appreciate that and one cannot blame them. A sufficient(and heavy armor alone will make your dps plummet, there is no way around that) dps difference can and will mean a difference between successful run and endless wiping.

Do you know how much dps you're doing? Test your sustained dps vs a target dummy and if you're hitting at least 15k you will be fine for most group content, if it's below I'd advise against vet dungeons. Of course if we're just talking open world here this all doesn't matter.

On a side note, while a choice is a choice, the whole heavy armor thing new players seem to go for so often is a misconception in ESO. You naturally assume that heavy armor will make you more sturdy and help you die less, and that's always a good thing, right? But in the reality of ESO heavy armor's mitigation is just not worth it in most scenarios, in PvE at least(not talking pure tanking obviously). As a magicka build you have access to the best mitigation in game - damage shields. As a sorc, you have access to whole two(and a neat armor buff on top of that). You can easily get ~18k sorc and ~15k light armor shields even at ~200 cp. This is like your whole healthbar's worth of ACTIVE mitigation as opposed to heavy armor's passive one. There're very, very, VERY few things that will kill you through an 18k shield, and most of those things mean there's a mechanic you/your group failed. Furthermore, shields are NOT affected by armor/spell resistance, meaning all of your heavy armor is going to waste if you're using damage shields. But frankly, they're just too good not to use. So if your only reasoning for heavy armor is mitigation, I'd suggest you give it some thought.

Icy_Waffles

Sure. So your own thing. Play how you want to play!

Just stay out of group dungeons and trials. That way your choices to use less than optimal gear wont effect other's runs.

25k dps seems like a good minimum for vet trials btw. Less is just not desirable.

Jedi1josh

@Magdalina can you tell me more about these buffs? Also I do run boundless storm but it takes so much magika to cast, at least the same amount I'd gain from having light armor instead.

firedrgn

I would not get hung up on the fact that a net build uses something that is available to you.

The problem with heavey armor is what u give up.

Sorc has a 30k shield which u can stack with at lease to other shields annulment and the alliance ulti.

In the end play how you want. But.

Over land you dont come close to needing heavy on a mag sorc. You can run all vet 4 man in light armor on a mag sorc.

But there are so me heavy sets that u just cant get in light.

So some niche builds i would run two heavy and the jewrely that goes with.

Good luck and in the end ha e fun and do your thing

Nestor

The Meta is a Myth

Magdalina

Jedi1josh wrote: »

@Magdalina can you tell me more about these buffs? Also I do run boundless storm but it takes so much magika to cast, at least the same amount I'd gain from having light armor instead.

That's the thing about light armor though, the sustain it gives you is amazing. Just 5 pieces light armor will give you
10% spellcost reduction(if you think that's little, think how often you use a spell - generally once every second as a dps - and think about that number again)
20% magicka recovery
10% spellcrit(not bad for dps at all, much better than the health regeneration or whatever heavy armor is giving you)
~5k spell penetration(this here is HUGE, penetration is a very important stat for a dps)
I left out spell resistance because it's rather insignificant given to what heavy armor provides, but these buffs I listed cannot be overrated for a dps.

Using light armor it's entirely possible to have 100% uptime on Boundless Storm given it lasts whole 20 seconds(not all sorcerors do that but if you're feeling squishy, that's 5k both resistances buff plus nice short movement buff plus some damage even).

On top/instead of that, shields. Hardened Ward from Daedric Summoning skill tree, morph of Conjured Ward, is extremely strong. I have an alt on EU who's wearing subpar gear and only has ~200 cp but even her Ward is about 18k. On NA my cp capped main runs around 24k Ward. The other one is Annulment from light armor(I prefer Harness Magicka morph because it gives you magicka when it absorbs spells, and pretty much any PvE fight has spells flying around like crazy so you can often spam it for free pretty much), now only useable while wearing 5+ pieces light armor. A tiny bit less strong than Hardened but still very good, and oftentimes easier to sustain. You don't normally use both in PvE(that's a PvP thing, called shield stacking) but one is plenty to survive. Shields now only last 6 seconds so you aren't expected to have 100% uptime on them but you don't need to in PvE either.

Heavy armor provides passive mitigation - meaning independently of you, any damage you take is reduced due to your resistances. Shields provide active mitigation - meaning it's up to you to get a shield up BEFORE taking a heavy hit and then you can negate that damage ENTIRELY. Resistances cap at 50% mitigation so a flat 15k hit will become(not taking other multipliers into account, the equation is a little bit more complicated with those) ~7.5k(that assuming you're at cap which is about 32k). An 18k shield will absorb 15k ENTIRELY. The only reason to use heavy armor is when you're consistently taking so much damage passive mitigation outweighs active one, which is the case for pure tanks in vet content and players in certain PvP scenarios(that and the tanky passives such as block reduction actually coming in handy there), but is (almost) never the case for a dps.

Of course some people still choose using heavy armor just for the looks(which will be less of an issue now with outfit system I imagine)/rp value and that's up to them, I'm simply for making informed choices

Asardes

To clarify how mitigation works in this game:
Each piece of armor gives a certain amount of base resistance and certain traits can increase that, for namely Nirnhoned and Reinforced. Light armor has about 50% and medium armor about 75% of the resistance of the same piece of heavy armor Also certain passives from armor skill lines give physical and/or spell resistance for each armor piece of that type worn. Additionally you can stack more spell resistance on top of that by allocating CP in Spell Shield and physical resistance trough Light/Medium/Heavy Armor Focus if you have 5 pieces of that type equipped. Also certain races and classes have passives that increase spell and/or physical resistance. Also there are some buffs called minor/major Ward/Resolve that give 1.3K/5.3K physical resistance on top of that and almost all classes have access to the major one trough active skills or class passives, and to the minor one trough group buffs - Restoration Staff: Combat Prayer. Sorcerer has access to both: Bound Aegis gives the minor ones, Boundless Storm gives the major ones.

So you can stack almost as much from CP, class and race passives as well as active skills as the mitigation given by a full suit of light armor in some cases. For CP160+ players resistance is considered against a base of 66K since they are theoretically level 66 = 50 + 16 Veteran Ranks that were later equated with 10 CP each). But the game has another limitation, namely a 50% damage mitigation cap trough resistances, which means that for PvE there's no point in stacking more than 33K resistance. And that's only the beginning, since resistance is considered last when calculating mitigation. Mitigation from CP in Ironclad, Thick Skinned, Elemental Defender and Hardy is considered first, then damage shields (ex. Brawler, Bone Shield, Hardened Ward, Harness Magicka), then mitigation given by blocking, and only then that given by resistances.

Below I've compiled together a few combos of different types of armor and the resistance they give, with the said armor skill line passives but without CP:

Resistance Physical Spell
7L 0M 0H 7501 10035
6L 0M 1H 9239 11411
5L 1M 1H 9841 11651
2L 0M 5H 15503 16227
1L 1M 5H 15847 16209
0L 0M 7H 17431 17431

So the difference between wearing 5 light 1 medium 1 heavy and wearing 2 light 5 heavy is 8K physical and 6.2K spell resistance. Assuming you are not having ward/resolve skills up, blocking, not casting a damage shield, and having no CP allocated, by considering those values against the 66K base that means you are getting only 12% more physical damage mitigation and 9.4% more spell damage mitigation by wearing the latter compared to the former. If you have shields up that difference ceases to exist, since you don't receive damage and shields have a magicka costs, and you'll have to absorb those costs to keep casting them, hence light armor will actually make you more resilient in most situations.

For example my Breton magicka Templar has 15121 physical resistance and 27491 spell resistance in 5 Light 1 Medium 1 Light, with 50 CP in Spell Shield, while sitting on Channeled Focus that gives Major Ward and Resolve. So she's got 83.3% of the possible resistance achievable in that department wearing just a piece of heavy armor. And with the light armor sustain she can spam Harness Magicka on top of that.

Check those very well documented articles about buffs and how mitigation works respectively:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/284053/buffs-and-debuffs-a-full-list-updated-for-clockwork-city/
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/279426/damage-mitigation-explanation-updated-for-morrowind-new-calculator/

Ragnarock41

Do your own thing in PvP, but I don't think you will have success with that in PvE.

HidesFromSun

Hey, good for you! Play how you want to play

Bobby_V_Rockit

I really like overland content and normal dungeons for playing how I like, but vet stuff... it’s not about you, it’s about the team and if you’re deliberately gimping yourself and ability to perform your role, I’m not really interested in partaking. That said, I dont do vet stuff for just that reason, I dont want to make other people work harder because I want to play a crippled dps.

But seriously, good for you. Its about damn time the promises of “play your way” were somewhat closer to reality than the constant “wear this and slot that or gtfo” mentality

ascan7

dreamfarer wrote: »

Do you want to quest and do overland content? Literally whatever your DPS is, you'll be fine.

Are you running normal dungeons? 10k DPS is peachy, go to town.

For Vet mode dungeons? Try to roll in with a bit more. Maybe 15 to 20k?

Trials? Be able to go a bit harder still.

Vet Hard Mode trials? Is that really a thing you're looking for? Everyone always assumes that it is (or that your trying to be a PvP God), but honestly that sort of content is not intended for the VAST majority of the player base. If you actually want to take part in the hardest possible content, then you need to step up and find out how to do the 35k+ DPS

Quoted for truth. Test you build against a dummy and see your dps

Alqu

Here are my two cents. Here is what I do:

If you are on PC/Mac, get the add-on Alphagear2. It lets you change out armor and skills with a click of a button (out of combat of course)

I run solo or with friends with a few characters that are definitely not perfectly meta or even pretty far off (e.g. stamsorc 2hand/2hand dps). Mostly these are because, like you I like a tougher dpser. Like you said 'steel cannon.'

But I can hit a key and that 2h/2h sorc becomes a dw/bow sorc. Armor switches from some with health bonuses and a mix of heavy med to all med with all divines (enhancing weapon dmg).

There are enough skill points to do that.
And the character I have that has lots of skill points tied up on crafting, is totally meta, a meta I just happened to like play style of a lot, but so she only needs one armor skill line and two weapon lines.