Need your help/advice

Flashhie

Hi guys, just need some help/advice from you.

I reached LVL 50 with my first character, quit a accomplish right;)
Would love to get some help with my build and get the most out of it.

Let me tell you more about my character;

RACE: High Elf
CLASS : Sorcerer

ATTRIBUTES:
MAGICKA: 22
HEALTH: 21
STAMINA: 21

ABILITY BAR 1
SUMMON VOLATILE FAMILIAR IV
DARK CONVERSION IV
CRYSTAL FRAGMENTS IV
BLOCKADE OF FIRE IV
FLAME REACH IV

Using a DESTRUCTION STAFF

ABILITY BAR 2
SUMMON VOLATILE FAMILIAR IV
LIQUID LIGHTNING III
ANNULMENT IV
INNER LIGHT II
RENDING SLASHES III

Using one ONE-HANDED MELEE


Still got skill points that I can use and now got some CHAMPIONS POINT

Looking forward to hear from you guys with tips/tricks/help etc
Clothing/gear tips are welcome as well

Don’t judge this newby;)

kadar

You don't want to be using a Destro staff and a 1H weapon/Dual wield ability.

The reason for this is that Magic, elemental, and destro staff abilities scale with maximum magicka and spell damage, whereas Physical, poison, disease, and non-staff weapons scale with maximum stamina and weapon damage.

^This is why people choose to be either a Magicka or STamina Sorc, for example. It allows you to focus on a specialty you could say. Put another way, you can do mediocre damage using both of your resource pools, or you can do super good damage with 1.

I hope that's not too confusing...

It looks like you're mostly using Magicka abilities and you're a magicka race, so step 1 would be drop Duel Wield and pick up, another destro staff, a resto staff, or 1h/shield (for defense).

Flashhie

Thnx fot this answer so far

I would go for one super good damage;)
The dual wield is something that stayed from the beginning.

So loose the dual wield and get a resto staff

Any recomedings about the abbilities?
Do i need to change the attributes?

nihirisutou

Flashhie wrote: »

Thnx fot this answer so far

I would go for one super good damage;)
The dual wield is something that stayed from the beginning.

So loose the dual wield and get a resto staff

Any recomedings about the abbilities?
Do i need to change the attributes?

Yes, put all attribute points in Magicka. You can put health glyphs on armour pieces later on if you feel you're short on health. — Use food / drinks, especially Witch mother's potent brew to buff you're max Magicka / Health and Mag recovery for 2 hours. Any guild store will sell it for usually respectable prices. 1500-2500g for 5 is acceptable to me.

For skills, you're using common skills which work. You could look at Alcast's website. Look at either Mag Sorc - or Pet Sorc.

To get a general idea of which skills are used. In any case his gear sets / skills / rotations are aimed at trials/dungeons or specific pvp roles.

But there's room for preferred skills. I wouldn't use magelight on a character to enjoy quests with for instance.

Flashhie

Awesome feedback from you guys.

i found a build what looks good for now so will work to that and gonna tweak it to my own preferences.
For who is interested this is the build i am going to ocus on for now: https://alcasthq.com/eso-magicka-sorcerer-pet-build-pve/

(is it allowed to put a link on here? )

1st stap for now is to get my attribute point sorted out
2nd wil be abbilities and gear

Any other hints tip are always welcome, really appriciate your help and feedback

Sparr0w

Flashhie wrote: »

Awesome feedback from you guys.

i found a build what looks good for now so will work to that and gonna tweak it to my own preferences.
For who is interested this is the build i am going to ocus on for now: https://alcasthq.com/eso-magicka-sorcerer-pet-build-pve/

(is it allowed to put a link on here? )

1st stap for now is to get my attribute point sorted out
2nd wil be abbilities and gear

Any other hints tip are always welcome, really appriciate your help and feedback

@Flashhie

Alcast is great for PvE and information but focuses more on end game so you may want to slot a skill or two for self healing (although shields & pets make survivability pretty easy)

Until you hit CP160 I'd ask someone to make you a crafted set with training as you don't want for farm gear now then have to re-farm it at CP160 (gear cap). Julianos is probably the best crafted set for magic currently.

If you're on Xbox EU and need anything send me a message

Flashhie

@Sparr0w

Thnx!
Just trying this out but think i will do a self healing indeed, i'm surviving but not to my full satisfaction

I'm on PS4 EU but know to find you on here;) THNX!!

Asardes

1) Never split your attributes, focus on one and only put like 10-15 points in health whilst you are low CP and you feel you die too easily. If you a High Elf you should pick magicka, because you have a bonus to both your magicka pool, your recovery, as well as damage done with elemental abilities, including lightning - sorcerer abilities are mostly lightning based.

2) Abilities that consume magicka do magic or elemental damage and scale off your maximum magicka and spell damage stats, abilities that consume stamina do physical, poison or disease damage and they scale off your maximum stamina and weapon damage stats. It's a very bad idea mixing those, since your damage output will be low in one of them. Pets and shields are an exception, since they only scale on your maximum magicka, whilst utlimate abilities scale off your highest stat, but when you start adding CP they will be boosted accordingly (ex. Greater Storm Atronach will benefit from CP in Elemental Expert, but not Mighty) so it's better to stick with abilities that do magic or elemental damage if most of your attributes are in magicka and CP is distributed accordingly.

3) Always slot & cast skills that give you major & minor buffs as well as self heals. One glaring omission from your bar is Power Surge, that gives you both Major Sorcery (+20% spell damage) and self heals on critical hits. Slotting Annulment for shield is OK, but your Hardened Ward class ability is better, since it also gives your pet a shield. As I said, if you want to use a pet, you should invest in boosting your maximum magicka, so you should have as many abilities that add that on both bars or at least the one you are casting the familiar pulse from. Flame staff doesn't really help you since most of your abilities are AoE, hence they benefit from the boost given by lightning staff, and also you have a class bonus for lightning based attacks. Also if you play pets Daedric Prey ability is a must, since it greatly boosts the damage done by them on the marked target. Don't use Flame Reach in PvE since it will throw mobs away from your ground based DoTs which are your highest damaging abilities.

Your bar setup should look something like this:
Front: Daedric Prey | Hardened Ward | Volatile Familiar | Inner Light | Bound Aegis || Thunderous Rage
Back: Lightning Blockade | Liquid Lightning | Volatile Familiar | Power Surge | Bound Aegis || Greater Storm Atronach (or Ice Comet)

Keep Power Surge up all the time, refresh Liquid Lightning and Lightning Blockade from your back bar, swap bars, cast Daedric Prey, do a heavy attack then Familiar, repeat. Power Surge can be cast every 3rd rotation. When the ultimate is full, use it - Thunderous Rage when you have multiple enemies, Storm Atronach or Ice Comet if you have only one. In order to boost your damage you can do light attacks with the skills on the back bar - pinch the attack right before you press the skill button, and heavy attacks with the ones on your front bar - hold attack down and press the skill button halfway through the animation. Staff heavy attacks will also restore a good deal of magicka, allowing you to keep your buffs up and cast skills. When taking damage cast Hardened Ward to keep you and your pet safe.

You can always reset your skills and attributes at the shrine in one of the capital cities (Elden Root, Mournhold or Wayrest) - the icon looks somewhat like an hourglass with a hole in the middle on the map. Reset cost is 50 per point.

Gear is not that important when you are low level, but when you hit CP160 you can have gear crafted and farm dropped one. One of the best sets for pet sorcerer is Necropotence (overland set in Rivenspire). You can combo that with a crafted set like Julianos or Mechanical Acuity and a monster head that gives you maximum magicka or recovery, or spell damage or critical and make a reasonably effective setup. You can also go 4 pieces and full 2 p monster set - Ilambris is by far the best, but the sets that are best as 4p are usually trial sets. I recommend waiting a bit and getting used to your setup, getting higher DPS before you venture in dungeons and even normal trials. Also, as I said, farming before CP160 is pointless.

Flashhie

@Asardes

WOW, thnx for such a detailed explanation, really helpfull what you guys come with.
Will do an update about my bar setup as soon as i am a bit used to it.

Violynne

Flashhie wrote: »

WOW, thnx for such a detailed explanation, really helpfull what you guys come with.
Will do an update about my bar setup as soon as i am a bit used to it.

I'll add a bit more help for your upcoming changes, but you'll also want to wear 1 piece medium and 1 piece heavy as well. If you intend to do Undaunted, the passive Undaunted Mettle will grant you 6% to health, magicka, and stamina because you're wearing 1 piece of each.

Lightning staff is used often because the heavy attack is instant and applied as DoT. Ice/Flame require a charge before unleashing the damage.

If questing solo, I recommend the restoration staff on the back bar to get it to level 50 quickly. Before you turn in any quests, make sure to swap to restoration so it gets the most exp. Once at level 50, remove it and replace it with another lightning.

Restoration is helpful if you find yourself with low health often, but this actually will correct itself once you learn the rotation of your skills. Restoration helps if you wish to role a healer in group events but I don't recommend it as players find themselves using it as a crutch.

Staying away from mobs/bosses is key. You want to deal damage as far away as you can which is why AoE is your best friend in attacking. If things get tight, dodge roll away.

One "skill" you'll want to practice so it's second nature is Animation Cancelling (AC), which allows damage to be applied without having to wait for the entire animation to play out.

The two easiest ways to AC are weapon swapping (which is why I don't recommend resto in solo) and blocking. Weapon swapping is the best because you'll quickly use skills/heavy attack.

Always heavy attack whenever possible as this helps retain your magicka pool. There are plenty of videos which show how to rotate skills and heavy attacks. In combination with AC, you'll be taking down bosses in no time.

Oh, and one more thing before departing: Food/drink and potions are a *must*. Food can boost the pools and drinks restore recovery (but they do not stack, so pick one based on your play style). 3 potions should be crafted: health + magicka restoration, invisibility, and spell damage. Set them and memorize where they are so you can easily access them during a battle.

With a little practice, you'll be all set.

Asardes

You don't need resto on Sorcerer in PvE. Power Surge and shields are more than enough to keep you alive. Those are really easy to keep up since they have clear visual indicators. Since OP has hit level 50 he has most likely fully unlocked all his class lines and at least a weapon line.

Until you gain more CP you can use a sustain drink instead of blue health + magicka food. So either Ozorga's Red Frothgar or Whichmother's Potent Brew. Most of those are pretty common and can be bought cheaply or crafted for you by players knowing the recipes. Another advantage they have is that they scale to your level, so you can buy a stack and use at any level, even at CP160+ or just created alts fresh out of the tutorial.

TamrielSaviour215

First, I would acknowledge that you at least picked the right race for the class. You don't have to do this but to get the most out of the sorc, you made the right call. I also would agree that you need to dump everything into magicka. All of it. You can enchant your gear for health. You dont really need any stamina whatsoever. I have a high elf sorc and she hits harder than any of my other characters. It has been a while since I used her though so when I get home I will let you know the bar set up. But I believe I use crystal fragments in succession with something else. When you use they other skill it gives you high chance that your next attack is a critical. I always follow it up with crystal frags and when it connects for a crit GOOD NIGHT.
I know I use lightning staff on the front bar and I believe I have an inferno staff on the back. Might be running resto at the moment. Experiment with different staff abilities and def look into Alcast or Deltia for sorc builds. Even if they are end game set ups, you will get to see skills compliment others and you know what you need to work towards.

Sparr0w

Adding to the above - If you look towards Alcast/Deltia/Gilliam's setups & also Maelstrom or PVP setups you'll find skills that cater more towards survival than max DPS - nice to do if you're not always in optimised groups

Flashhie

@Violynne thank you so mch for your input and your insight to this

@Asardes Thank you for your addition to your well told explenation

@TamrielSaviour215 Thank you so much for your insight, looking forward to hear from you what you use on your bar(s)

Flashhie

Sparr0w wrote: »

Adding to the above - If you look towards Alcast/Deltia/Gilliam's setups & also Maelstrom or PVP setups you'll find skills that cater more towards survival than max DPS - nice to do if you're not always in optimised groups

@Sparr0w Very helpfull addition, thnx!

Asardes

Crystal fragments is good in PvP and if you play non pet PvE build with Force Pulse as spammable. It only raises your spell critical by 3% and in a trial group it suffices for just one sorcerer to use it so others get the buff as well. On pet sorc you don't have a lot of space on your bar with so many toggles and you don't have a cheap spammable to activate it often. All your skills are DoTs.

TamrielSaviour215

@Flashhie

So I looked over my build a little bit last night. Based on what I had going on and what other people have suggested I will say this is a good idea....

You should run a lightning staff until you get to lvl 15 and then put a resto staff on the back bar. If you are not haing any survivability issues, put a flame staff on the back bar. But I would suggest something like this for your front bar:

Lightning Staff -
Force Shock
Wall of Elements
Crystal Shards (this sucks until you morph it to Crystal Frags)
Mages Fury
Liquid Splash (Morph to Liquid Lightning)

The cool thing about Crystal Frags is that if you cast a magicka ability before, it has a 35% chance to make your next move (which should be crystal frags) instant, meaning there is no cast time. I think it also has some other benefits but I can't remember. If you set your bar up like this, you can learn the rotation meaning what order you should cast things in and when. Obviously, there are a ton of other skills that you can use, but this is my current setup on the lightning staff.

Once you get a resto Staff make sure you have Grand Healing, Regeneration, and Blessing of Protection if need be. You can see situationally which of these work best for you. Also a piece of advice. See how long you can go without using the resto staff to test your survivability. If you spoil yourself with the resto staff and then decide you want to destruction staffs, you might find yourself dying more frequently. Learn to survive and use the resto staff as a last resort. OR you could just run the resto staff as your back bar (Which is what I do).

You dont need to worry about sets or anything until you get to higher levels as you're going to be outleveling your gear quickly early. But if you can, focus enchantments on health and magicka related buffs.

Flashhie

@Asardes & @TamrielSaviour215

thnx for your explenations guys.
I will try to let you guys know what i'm running with on my bars at this moment.

Have to be honest, have to get used to this setup but think thats a matter of getting the hang of the rotations.

Flashhie

Ok guys here is a little update for this moment.
Still trying to see what works for my at this stage

Some abilities are still levling.
What are the opinions about DARK CONVERSION?

@TamrielSaviour215 i like the Crystal Shards, but dont see where to put it at the moment.

CHAMPION 64

ATTRIBUTES:
MAGICKA: 49
HEALTH: 15
STAMINA: 0

ABILITY BAR 1
EMPOWERD WARD II
DEADRIC PREY III
DARK CONVERSION IV (tried surge here but died to much)
BOUND ARMOR III
SUMMON VOLATILE FAMILIAR IV
THUNDER STORM II

Using a LIGHTNING STAFF (shock)

ABILITY BAR 2
BLOCKADE OF FROST IV
LIQUID LIGHTNING III
DARK CONVERSION IV (tried surge here but died to much)
BOUND ARMOR III
SUMMON VOLATILE FAMILIAR IV
GREATER STORM ATRONACH I

Using a FROST STAFF (want to replace this for a lightning as well)

Anotherone773

Dont use a frost staff unless your tanking for a group. You can use double lightning or fire on back bar. I, personally, love shards. Does great damage and the heal with the morph is great for solo work.

Dont depend to much on other peoples builds especially alcast. Its great for a general direction, but his builds are set up to run endgame content as part of a group. So its expected you have dedicated tanks, heals, and of course a laundry lists of buffs.

Solo play is a bit different so you will need different things. Nor do you need a long rotation. Do what works for you and fits your playstyle.

TamrielSaviour215

Flashhie wrote: »

@TamrielSaviour215 i like the Crystal Shards, but dont see where to put it at the moment.

CHAMPION 64

ATTRIBUTES:
MAGICKA: 49
HEALTH: 15
STAMINA: 0

ABILITY BAR 1
EMPOWERD WARD II
DEADRIC PREY III
DARK CONVERSION IV (tried surge here but died to much)
BOUND ARMOR III
SUMMON VOLATILE FAMILIAR IV
THUNDER STORM II

Using a LIGHTNING STAFF (shock)

ABILITY BAR 2
BLOCKADE OF FROST IV
LIQUID LIGHTNING III
DARK CONVERSION IV (tried surge here but died to much)
BOUND ARMOR III
SUMMON VOLATILE FAMILIAR IV
GREATER STORM ATRONACH I

Using a FROST STAFF (want to replace this for a lightning as well)

I would personally get rid of Bound Armor for Crystal Shards. I would also get Mages Fury on that bar too. I don't use the familiars or summoning too much but if thats your thing go for it. Dark conversion is a preference, I dont use that either so maybe put mages fury on there for that. If you still die too much use the resto on the back bar. If you are in a group like dungeons, you can run lightning/lightning or lightning/fire as the healer should keep you alive.

Asardes

Bound Aegis is good because it adds 8% extra magicka, and pet damage scales exclusively on your maximum magicka. Also Inner light adds 7% after the skill line passives are considered. So that's a total of 15% maximum magicka multipliers. Add 10% from racial passive, 6% from undaunted after you level it and up to 20% from CP, when you reach 300, which is not that difficult, and you're looking at a massive 51% multiplier to that. As I stated above, the best option is to run double lightning, because most of your skills are AoE and as long as you have a Destruction Staff skill slotted, they will be boosted by 8%. Hence Elemental Rage on the front bar, and Elemental Blockade on the back bar. One added benefit of having high maximum magicka is having very big shield, since, just as pets, they scale off your maximum magicka only.

Crystal Fragments is indeed good, but as I explained it only makes sense on a build that has a "spammable" skill that is cheap, can be cast multiple times in short order and it's cheap to cast. Pet sorcerers don't have that, since all they rely exclusively on DoT (damage over time) abilities which are cast once and do damage for 8-10s, until they are refreshed in the rotation. Pets have to be present on both bars, and so does Bound Aegis so that leaves very little room to have a spammable skill, in this case Force Pulse, and Crystals themselves. Also you must be aware when crystals are active and cast them at once, so you must have some experience playing sorcerer. In effect your rotation has to be a dynamic one to take full advantage of them. That is pretty daunting for a new player. But If you want, you can indeed drop both the pet and play without even Bound Aegis. Such a bar setup would look something like this:

Mages Wrath | Force Pulse | Crystal Fragment | Hardened Ward | Inner Light || Ice Comet or Greater Storm Atronach
Lightning Blockade | Liquid Lightning | Shock Clench | Haunting Curse | Power Surge || Thunderous Rage

Note that you in fact have twice as many DoTs to keep track of, a spammable, and a proc chance skill and an execute to manage, in addition to reduced shield strength and smaller resource pool. Also the rotation must be much tighter to manage them all, meaning you will be only able to do one heavy attack at most on front bar, and be forced to go for more recovery, and lower HP and magicka pool from Whichmother's Potent Brew. Your front bar skills are in this case mostly single target, as opposed to AoE, so you will benefit from using a flame staff there, albeit the ticks from your AoE back bar DoTs such as Lightning Blockade, Liquid Lightning and Thunderous Rage will be weaker once you swap bars. Due to more complicated rotation, reduced AoE damage, lower sustain, HP and having the aggro only on you at all times, instead of splitting it with a pet, this can work well in groups with a tank and full support (elemental drain, orbs/shards) but for solo is rather weak. You can slot Elemental Drain yourself instead of Clench, but the rest of the problems remain.

You can go for a somewhat simpler setup, also using lightning staves on both bars, and retaining Bound Aegis, with a simpler rotation. That's what I've been using for a while

Mages Wrath | Force Pulse | Hardened Ward | Inner Light | Bound Aegis || Ice Comet or Greater Storm Atronach
Lightning Blockade | Liquid Lightning | Haunting Curse | Power Surge | Bound Aegis || Thunderous Rage

You only have 3 DoTs to keep up, just like the pet build, you have a bit more magicka due to Bound Aegis, and the rotation allows for 2 heavy attacks. On front bar you just do 3 Force Pulse and 2 Heavy Attacks in between and that's it, refreshing the DoTs on back bar with light attacks in between. In groups this can accommodate Crystal Fragments as well, since you get more support & healing so you can drop Power Surge.

Mages Wrath | Force Pulse | Crystal Ftagments | Inner Light | Bound Aegis || Ice Comet or Greater Storm Atronach
Lightning Blockade | Liquid Lightning | Haunting Curse | Hardened Ward | Bound Aegis || Thunderous Rage

Assuming someone puts Elemental Drain for you and supports you, you can also drop one heavy attack from rotation and squeeze in that crystal frag proc without having the back bar DoTs drop off.

Asardes

Running a restoration staff on Sorcerer is only necessary in PvP, solely for Healing Ward, and maybe Light's Champion skills due to a number of factors:
- Healing is halved by Battle Spirit and hence your surge heals will be only half what they are in PvE, and in some situations you will take damage, but not be able to hit other players to heal yourself from it, for example during sieges. Additionally you may be also defiled by various player skills (ex. Incapacitating Strike) and poisons, decreasing that even further. So those extra heals will be necessary to stay alive.
- Shields are also halved, meaning you would often need to stack two or more to reach the same value you have in PvE, hence the many mention of "shield stacking sorcs" on the PvP forums. Usually is Hardened Ward (class skill) and Healing Ward (restoration staff skill) that will be stacked.
- In PvP ground placed DoTs are not that important since players will move out of them, so having a destruction staff on back bar for blockade doesn't make sense, the healing staff being more advantageous for the motifs stated above. But in PvE Elemental Blockade is one of your most important skills, by doing a large chunk of your DPS by itself, and enabling even more damage to be done, by providing off-balance to enemies. Also Destruction Staff passives are necessary to increase damage.

Flashhie

@Anotherone773
Thnx for your input!
Its all about playing style and the best fit. Maybe i end up with something less powerfull but good enough to play with.
Love this conversation to see what could be best and if it suits for me.

Again ty for your input, appriciate that!!!

@TamrielSaviour215
Doing some testing with some diffrent variations at the moment. see what suits me. Will let you know for sure;)

@Asardes
Thank you so much of giving your full insights on this.
For this character i would love the pet so will focus on that, but now have some input as well for if i go without the pet.

Wil let you, and all others, know what is will going to use on the bars. As i sayed above, doing some testing now.
Some things i have to get used to i guess and some will just wont fit my playing style.

Really amazed about all the input you guys giving, really appriciate it and always nice to hear from you guys.

Flashhie

Ok guys here is a little update about the ability bars i'm using at this moment.
For now it works fine so i'm content with it.

ATTRIBUTES:
MAGICKA: 49
HEALTH: 15
STAMINA: 0

ABILITY BAR 1
EMPOWERD WARD II
DEADRIC PREY III
ENDLESS FURY III
POWER SURGE II
SUMMON VOLATILE FAMILIAR IV
THUNDER STORM II

Using a LIGHTNING STAFF (shock)

ABILITY BAR 2
BLOCKADE OF FROST IV
LIQUID LIGHTNING III
BOUND AEGIS I
POWER SURGE II
SUMMON VOLATILE FAMILIAR IV
GREATER STORM ATRONACH II

Using a LIGHTNING STAFF (shock)