Hybrid Sorcerer Opinion

Shruen

Have been playing a hybrid sorcerer for a bit, and understand it will never be as strong as a min/max. The question is would the build be viable in dungeons / trials. Here is a link to show the entire build. Thanks in advance for the feedback.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=93616

TheStealthDude

Certainly should in normal. For vet dungeons, it would depend on how much DPS you can pull with this.

Some thoughts:

1) I think you are leaving a lot on the table by running dual wield on both bars. Perhaps consider Destro Staff or Bow on the back bar. This would let you replace Shattering Prison with a better damage ability from that weapon.

2) Currently, I dont think you have enough magicka abilities to proc crystal frags often enough to make it worthwhile. A destro staff in the back bar might help.

3) I would replace the Crusher enchant on your weapons, as this debuff is applied by the tank, generally.

4) If you are on PC, consiser using an addon to have 2 different build setups: 1 for AoE, and 1 for Boss Fights. Have Whirling Blades on your front bar in place of Mages Wrath for the AoE build and Mages Wrath for the Boss build. Switch quickly using addons between fights as needed.

5) I am not really a fan of Spriggans for a hybrid build, but I see what you are going for here. For a non-Pelinals Hybrid, my favorite setup is Shacklebreaker + Mechanical Accuity.

At the end of the day, though, if you can pull the DPS needed, then the build is viable. In my opinion, if you can pull 20k+ DPS on a dummy with this build and no outside buffs/help, then tbe build should be viable for most vet dungeons.

Shruen

Thanks for the information. Will look into the suggestions. Might be a bit reluctant to drop dw on both bars and use bows, but will consider the option. Just not a fan of using the bow or destro staff.

Taleof2Cities

Shruen wrote: »

Might be a bit reluctant to drop dw on both bars and use bows, but will consider the option. Just not a fan of using the bow or destro staff.

Right there is the dilemma isn't it ... ?

You want to put together the most viable hybrid build ... but then you gimp yourself by excluding whole weapon lines.

Shruen

Not excluding it just not favorite. However, comparing the two would prefer bow over destro. Have actually been sitting here reviewing mixing bow in and looking at the suggestions that were offered by the other person.

Shruen

TheStealthDude wrote: »

5) I am not really a fan of Spriggans for a hybrid build, but I see what you are going for here. For a non-Pelinals Hybrid, my favorite setup is Shacklebreaker + Mechanical Accuity.

Do you think mechanical would be better than spriggans for the build being attempted?

TheStealthDude

Shruen wrote: »

TheStealthDude wrote: »

5) I am not really a fan of Spriggans for a hybrid build, but I see what you are going for here. For a non-Pelinals Hybrid, my favorite setup is Shacklebreaker + Mechanical Accuity.

Do you think mechanical would be better than spriggans for the build being attempted?

I cant say I have ever tried a 5L Shacklebreaker + Spriggans for a hybrid, but my gut feeling is that Mechanical Acuity is probably better than Spriggans for your hybrid build, as you likely get more out of it (presuming you use a good mix of magicka and stamina damage abilities, which may not be the case here) than you would with Spriggans. Your build, though, leans on the stamina side very heavily for damage, which makes it difficult to tell. I am also not sure how much you are willing to change for either your gear or your abilities.

If you want the best gear setup for a hybrid PvE build, its probably 5pc Pelinals + 5pc Mechanical Acuity OR 5pc of a set that gives a lot of weapon damage. Monster set of your choice or 2 monster set pieces that give weapon damage bonuses. 5pc medium armor, stack weapon damage enchants. For a Sorcerer, I would go with Acuity over a 5pc weapon damage set.

Note: Pelinals is usually the best Hybrid set because of jewelry enchants and traits. Since you can only have weapon damage OR spell damage, Pelinals helps make sure you are getting full value for jewelry enchants instead of splitting them between 2 stats. If it werent for the lack of hybrid Jewelry enchants, Pelinals wouldnt be as good/necessary for hybrids.

However, I do think that 5pc Shacklebreaker + 5pc Mechanical Acuity (and your choice of monster sets/pieces) is a viable setup for hybrids in general (I have tried this setup on multiple characters and like it) and Sorcerer in particular, since Power surge helps boost bost damage stats.
I dont think Shacklebreaker is too much of a drop off from Pelinals in this regard, but perhaps someone has done the testing and can tell use how they compare. Mechanical acuity is used to boost your low crit chance. The lower your crit rate, the better the 5pc bonus of Mechanical Acuity becomes, which is why its useful for Hybrids (who have naturally lower crit rates).

As far as your weapons go, you can certainly stick with dual wield, but you should really attempt to have a different weapon on your other bar so that you can add some more DPS abilities, which you really need in your build, in my opinion. It could be 2H if you want and you could add Cleave to your build for another DoT. You can use Destro Staff and add Wall of Elements as well. However, I think Bow is the best option as you can add 2 DoTs to your build: Endless Hail and Poison Injection. If you dont want to do this, test your DPS out in a target dummy to see if your build is fine as is. You should be ok for any normal content, but you should be hitting 20k DPS on a 3mil dummy for vet dungeons, maybe 25k for some of the harder ones.

Another thought: I also think you really should have a magicka spammable if you intend to use Crystal Frags. Consider the ability from the Psijic Order skill line: Elemental Weapon. Force Pulse is your other choice, if you were to switch to Destro Staff.

Sorry, thats a big wall of text. Hopefully you find some of this helpful. If you are trying to figure out if your build is a viable DPS setup, I highly suggest finding out what your DPS is. I cant stress that enough. Once you find that out, you should have an idea of how drastic the changes are that you need to make, if any, to perform well in the content you aspire to.

Shruen

Thank you greatly for the feedback. This is very insightful. Going to sit down and play around with it this week to see what can be adjusted to make a better fit. Endless hail and Poison Injection were the exact two abilities that were being looked at last night in regards to this build.

The original reason for sprig was that everyone stated penetration is more important and to get it as close to 14k as possible. From what I am seeing here, you are stating that shackle and mech is better than focusing on getting that penetration up. Going to try a few different setups and test numbers to see how it comes out.

TheStealthDude

Shruen wrote: »

Thank you greatly for the feedback. This is very insightful. Going to sit down and play around with it this week to see what can be adjusted to make a better fit. Endless hail and Poison Injection were the exact two abilities that were being looked at last night in regards to this build.

The original reason for sprig was that everyone stated penetration is more important and to get it as close to 14k as possible. From what I am seeing here, you are stating that shackle and mech is better than focusing on getting that penetration up. Going to try a few different setups and test numbers to see how it comes out.

Ya penetration is certainly a good way to get damage up, but for hybrid builds you will often see that using a set to boost just one side of your damage (in this case, your stamina skills) may end up being a DPS loss. However, you do lean very heavy on stamina for damage, so maybe it works out well! Looking forward to hearing how it works for you!

Shruen

Okay, so 5 mechanical and 5 shackle. Do not have slimecraw yet as it requires doing veteran which cannot do currently with setup. Also keep in mind weapons are not nirnhoned yet as that trait is currently being researched. Only got 6100 dps. Put in light attack weaving and got to 7300 dps with no other changes. Do you think the bow will make enough difference in the dps? The plan is to start leveling that later today and unlock the abilities necessary for the changes discussed, and then retest.

DocFrost72

6-7k dps is a rotation issue, regardless of hybrid or not. Could you post a video of you smacking the dummy around a bit? I had an *OLD* video where I got 15k on an hybrid sorc, and even managed to get 21 on a hybridplar. You can totally trash every normal and most (if not all) vet dungeons. Should be good for normal trials too.

If you post a video, tag me please and I'll do my best to help

TheStealthDude

Shruen wrote: »

Okay, so 5 mechanical and 5 shackle. Do not have slimecraw yet as it requires doing veteran which cannot do currently with setup. Also keep in mind weapons are not nirnhoned yet as that trait is currently being researched. Only got 6100 dps. Put in light attack weaving and got to 7300 dps with no other changes. Do you think the bow will make enough difference in the dps? The plan is to start leveling that later today and unlock the abilities necessary for the changes discussed, and then retest.

How are you doing on your DoT uptimes? You should be trying to keep these abilities active 90%+ (preferably 100%) of the fight. You probably need another DoT ability or two in your build as well, either from weapon skills or elsewhere.

When you are light attack weaving, you are canceling the light attack animation with a casted skill, correct? Click/press your light attack button and then immediately cast your ability. Doing this correctly should result in your light attack animation being replaced with the skill animation but the damage still coming through. The goal with this is to do both a light attack and an ability within the 1 second global cooldown.

Try to focus on doing well at the above points. If you are confident you are doing well with those, the certainly consider making big changes to the build, but I am pretty sure you can get more DPS out of this build in its current state then you have achieved so far.

Also, not having slimecraw or another monster set in there probably hurts. Make sure you are replacing with 2pcs of another set, though that wont be anywhere near as good.

StytchFingal

You might consider going with Spinner jewels and weapons, and your 5 Spriggan on the body. That way you would get some of the Spell Penetration back that you lose by not using 5 light armor. You could also mix your monster sets: say 1 Slimecraw, 1 Iceheart: and make your dual wield weapons precise to give you decent crit for both damage types. Doing that should allow you to put less CP in both Spell Erosion and Piercing.

Also, you have weapon/spell damage enchants on each bar. One of those is wasted, as the procs will be canceling each other out. I would recommend making the bow Infused and keeping the damage enchant there; endless hail ticks should keep it proccing on cooldown. For the dual wield weapons, you might want to consider going with a lightning enchant (because of sorc bonus for lightning damage), and an Absorb Stamina enchant to help with your stam sustain as well as adding some decent damage.

Another thing to consider is changing Whirling Blades to Steel Tornado and replacing Bloodthirst with Shrouded Daggers for AoE situations and using Crushing Weapon in that slot for single target fights.

This build could be a lot of fun, and is certainly capable of doing vet Wayrest I for a Slimecraw head.

WrathOfInnos

You should try Hurricane instead of Boundless Storm, it does significantly more damage and has a larger area.

Also I would recommend dropping Scalding Rune, it is a weak skill even on pure Magicka builds. You could replace it with Rearming Trap, which functions similarly, and also gives Minor Force increasing your Crit damage with both Stamina and Magicka skills. Trap also synergizes well with Acuity, since you’ll have higher crit chance from that set.

A Maelstrom bow would add a lot of damage to your endless hail. You could run Acuity dual wield on front bar only.

I’m not sure Shacklebreaker is your best option, but idk what would perform better. Maybe try Torugs Pact if you’re running 3 infused weapon enchants. Relequen is also a good option for single target damage, even on a hybrid.

All that being said, this is kinda turning into just a stam Sorc build with liquid lightning instead of caltrops, and a Magicka execute on front bar where something like Blade Cloak could be used more effectively.

Shruen

Thanks for all of the information everyone. Going to work on it tonight and tomorrow. Will give more updated information after some further testing.

usmcjdking

Hybrid used to be in a position where it could abuse a litany of multiplicative buffs due to the sheer utility of being a hybrid to maintain viable DPS. ZOS has spent the last two years stripping away almost all of these interactions in an effort to balance "end game DPS" which has in turn significantly crippled the hybrid's capability to function.

Whilst it's not dead, it's in the same boat as....say a stamblade tank. Everything you do is doo-doo compared to some other class/build.

Shruen

StytchFingal wrote: »

Another thing to consider is changing Whirling Blades to Steel Tornado and replacing Bloodthirst with Shrouded Daggers for AoE situations and using Crushing Weapon in that slot for single target fights.

Which do you think would be better between shrouded daggers and haunting curse? Also, been working on the rotation based on the recommendation of someone else. Learned I wasn't doing the light weaving just right, and have actually increased speed quite a bit on it. Going to need to farm some more gold to keep changing things around until satisfied, or go farm more skill points.

Working on two different designs that will be tested when points and funds increase. The only real difference between them is the gear and type of gear. Assuming rotation is the same, which build do you think will be more beneficial for pursuing?

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=93616
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=103027

StytchFingal

Shruen wrote: »

StytchFingal wrote: »

Another thing to consider is changing Whirling Blades to Steel Tornado and replacing Bloodthirst with Shrouded Daggers for AoE situations and using Crushing Weapon in that slot for single target fights.

Which do you think would be better between shrouded daggers and haunting curse? Also, been working on the rotation based on the recommendation of someone else. Learned I wasn't doing the light weaving just right, and have actually increased speed quite a bit on it. Going to need to farm some more gold to keep changing things around until satisfied, or go farm more skill points.

Working on two different designs that will be tested when points and funds increase. The only real difference between them is the gear and type of gear. Assuming rotation is the same, which build do you think will be more beneficial for pursuing?

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=93616
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=103027

I don't think there would be a big difference in overall damage between Shrouded and Curse. Shrouded would simplify your rotation more; Curse would be truer to the hybrid intent. Of course you could use both, with Shrouded being your spammable in place of Bloodthirst. I would likely choose that last option.

As far as the setups go, I would lean more to going with medium Shackle plus the Spriggan to get that weapon damage passive and then spend CP in Spell Erosion for spell pen. Don't forget that a 5 med, 1 heavy, 1 light setup will benefit your max stats once the undaunted mettle passive is open.

Using a tri-stat food or drink rather than Jewels of Misrule will increase your max stats as well. If you have the Clockwork DLC, the Springloaded Infusion recipe can be gotten very quickly through one of the quests there. The decrease in your recovery stats by going that route could be mitigated by adding a heavy attack or two to your rotation on the dual wield bar.

Jim_Pipp

Hi. Just wanted to suggest an alternative gear set-up that I think will buff your stats and so also markedly increase your dps.

The ideal would be an argonian for the potion passive, with infused jewellery to reduce the cooldown on drinking a potion you will get lots of resources back every 21 seconds, and by alternating potions (trash pot stamina and magicka are ok of you are on a budget) you will have 100% uptime on the extra resource Regen buffs!

If you are argonian then wear 5 pieces of the clever alchemist set, this hugely buffs weapon and spell damage for 15 seconds, but you activate it every 21! This gives it much more up-time than mechanical acuity and much larger boosts than pelenials aptitude.

For the second set wear twice born star - this set is usually outclassed, but on a hybrid it is twice as powerful as you can increase weapon AND spell penetration AND weapon AND spell critical. Obviously all armor traits should be divine to max those 4 buffs. Make the jewellery for the twice born star set as it doesn't matter what quality it is.

And there you go, a hybrid with relatively good crit, penetration and damage, with incredible sustain. As a bonus you only need the 5 piece of clever alchemist on one weapon bar, so you can have an ability altering weapon or random two-piece on your other bar. Nifty.

TheStealthDude

Jim_Pipp wrote: »

Hi. Just wanted to suggest an alternative gear set-up that I think will buff your stats and so also markedly increase your dps.

The ideal would be an argonian for the potion passive, with infused jewellery to reduce the cooldown on drinking a potion you will get lots of resources back every 21 seconds, and by alternating potions (trash pot stamina and magicka are ok of you are on a budget) you will have 100% uptime on the extra resource Regen buffs!

If you are argonian then wear 5 pieces of the clever alchemist set, this hugely buffs weapon and spell damage for 15 seconds, but you activate it every 21! This gives it much more up-time than mechanical acuity and much larger boosts than pelenials aptitude.

For the second set wear twice born star - this set is usually outclassed, but on a hybrid it is twice as powerful as you can increase weapon AND spell penetration AND weapon AND spell critical. Obviously all armor traits should be divine to max those 4 buffs. Make the jewellery for the twice born star set as it doesn't matter what quality it is.

And there you go, a hybrid with relatively good crit, penetration and damage, with incredible sustain. As a bonus you only need the 5 piece of clever alchemist on one weapon bar, so you can have an ability altering weapon or random two-piece on your other bar. Nifty.

Clever Alchemist is certainly a good idea as well, however I will contend that Mechanical Acuity is an objectively better set than Twice Born Star (with the Thief mundus as the extra mundus) on a hybrid build like this.

Lets ignore the 2-4 pc bonuses at first. Essentially this comes down to a comparison of "effective crit rate" between Mechanical Acuity and The Thief mundus stone. "Effective Crit Rate", as I call it, is defined as average crit rate over the course of a fight and is really only a needed definition due to Mechanical Acuity. When looking at the TBS setup, your effective crit rate is essentially your crit rate before the Thief + the bonus from the Thief. The Thief provides 7% crit rate, with a max of 10.68% when using full legendary divines traits.

Looking at the at the OP's build above shows us that he has a base crit rate of 30.2% for weapon crit and 22.8% for spell crit. With the Thief, that comes to 37.2%/29.8% before divines, with a max of 40.88%/33.48%. Lets just assume max legendary divines for the sake of the argument. So 40.88%/33.48% is the effective crit rate that Mechanical Acuity has to beat.

Lets first look at the most ideal situation for Mechanical Acuity: Theoretical max uptime of 5s every 18s. With base crit of 30.2%/22.8%, a max uptime of MA will result in effective rates of 49.59%/44.24%. This is almost twice as good as the Thief with max divines. However, theoretical max uptime probably isnt likely.

So what if we adjusted for a more reasonable uptime of 5s every 25s? This adjustment presumes it takes another 7 seconds after cooldown to proc again, which is a fair (probably conservative) estimate, for a 15% proc rate on direct damage. Even if you only light attacked every GCD, you would almost certainly proc MA within 7 seconds. Add in abilities, many of which have direct damage, and you should do even better, but lets look at the percentages for this ratio. If MA is up for 5s every 25s, you get effective crit rates of 44.16%/38.24%. These are STILL better than what you get with the Thief mundus. In fact, we would have to have an MA uptime of 5 seconds every 32 seconds before we started seeing the Thief become better (and that would only be for the weapon crit).

The gap between MA and TBS + Thief narrows as your base crit increases, however. The exact point where your DPS with TBS + Thief beats MA is hard to calculate, though, due to the weapon/spell damage bonus on MA. Ignoring that, though. The crit bonus with Thief (with max divines) becomes better at around ~64% base crit for theoretical max uptime and at ~47% base crit for our adjusted uptime of 5 seconds every 25 seconds.

Finally, we can look at the 2-4pc bonuses. Both sets have Max Stam and Max Magicka bonusrs, so the only difference is TBS with the max health bonus and MA with the Weapom Damage & Spell Damage bonuses. Clearly, MA wins here for the 2-4pc bonuses for a DPS character.

Edit:

For anyone curious, here is my calculation for effective crit rate with Mechanical Acuity:

X = Time without Mechanical Acuity, in seconds
Y = Time with Mechanical Acuity up, in seconds
Z = Total time in combat.

Effective Crit Rate = ((Base Crit Rate)*(X/Z))+(1*(Y/Z))

Let me know if you find a problem with my formula. I am certainly capable of mistakes.

usmcjdking

Mech is better than TBS on Hybrid builds in the event that you use Thief, but hybrids have such little damage that CHC isn't very valuable outside of the double crit potions. Lover + Warrior is far more valuable.

Anyways. Stormfist, Master's Dagger, Maelstrom LStaff, Agil, Med Pelinals w/ Warrior Mundus was the highest DPS I was capable of producing - currently sits at around 28k on dummy.

Peli - TBS - Master's DW, Maelstrom LStaff w/ Warrior/Lover come in a very close 2nd. You can ditch Maelstrom + Masters for Peli weapons and Stormfist for a much simpler build to put together. Should net you respectable numbers.

Shruen

Thanks for all of the additional information everyone. Going to keep working more into this. Will get a few weeks free coming up as just passed ICND1 and work is dying down for the holidays.

Faulgor

What do people think about Torug's Pact? The 2-4 bonuses aren't very good, but it provides a significant boost to enchantments, which deal damage irrespective of your stats - except for crits and penetration. You'd also have a lot of flexibility, e.g. by chosing absorb attribute enchantments.

Iselin

Any reason you're not using Pelinal's for your hybrid?

TheStealthDude

usmcjdking wrote: »

Mech is better than TBS on Hybrid builds in the event that you use Thief, but hybrids have such little damage that CHC isn't very valuable outside of the double crit potions. Lover + Warrior is far more valuable.

Anyways. Stormfist, Master's Dagger, Maelstrom LStaff, Agil, Med Pelinals w/ Warrior Mundus was the highest DPS I was capable of producing - currently sits at around 28k on dummy.

Peli - TBS - Master's DW, Maelstrom LStaff w/ Warrior/Lover come in a very close 2nd. You can ditch Maelstrom + Masters for Peli weapons and Stormfist for a much simpler build to put together. Should net you respectable numbers.

Just curious, but have you tried a Bow + Staff setup before? I am working on a Hybrid DK build that utilizes that weapon combo and am wondering how it might compare to your DW + Destro Staff setup.

Shruen

Iselin wrote: »

Any reason you're not using Pelinal's for your hybrid?

Have been attempting to keep mag and sta even, so haven't really considered Pelinal's. Know of a good set combination using that one that would work better? If so, can test it out and see how it feels compared to the current config.

Shruen

Been playing around with a few different configurations to see what to try next. What are the thoughts on this setup?

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=93616

TheStealthDude

Shruen wrote: »

Iselin wrote: »

Any reason you're not using Pelinal's for your hybrid?

Have been attempting to keep mag and sta even, so haven't really considered Pelinal's. Know of a good set combination using that one that would work better? If so, can test it out and see how it feels compared to the current config.

You can always just adjust your attributes to compensate for any inequities in your resources that arise from gear. Pelinals is currently the best choice for Hybrids, almost entirely due to how jewelry enchants and traits work. The addition of the infused trait helped Pelinals builds out a bit. Look at @usmcjdking 's comments above for advice on what to pair it with. He has a ton of experience with hybrids and has been pretty vocal on the forums about them over the past few years.

Shruen wrote: »

Been playing around with a few different configurations to see what to try next. What are the thoughts on this setup?

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=93616

If you are going to use Twice Born Star + The Thief mundus stone, you might as well use Mechanical Acuity instead. Look at my comment above with the math comparing the two.

However, Twice Born Star + The Warrior paired with Pelinals is a great combination to use, as @usmcjdking noted above.

usmcjdking

TheStealthDude wrote: »

usmcjdking wrote: »

Mech is better than TBS on Hybrid builds in the event that you use Thief, but hybrids have such little damage that CHC isn't very valuable outside of the double crit potions. Lover + Warrior is far more valuable.

Anyways. Stormfist, Master's Dagger, Maelstrom LStaff, Agil, Med Pelinals w/ Warrior Mundus was the highest DPS I was capable of producing - currently sits at around 28k on dummy.

Peli - TBS - Master's DW, Maelstrom LStaff w/ Warrior/Lover come in a very close 2nd. You can ditch Maelstrom + Masters for Peli weapons and Stormfist for a much simpler build to put together. Should net you respectable numbers.

Just curious, but have you tried a Bow + Staff setup before? I am working on a Hybrid DK build that utilizes that weapon combo and am wondering how it might compare to your DW + Destro Staff setup.

Yes. Staff + Bow typically on mag primaries. Will work fine - did it with my hybrid magplar.

Shruen

Thanks everyone for the assistance. Got enough information to play around with. Will have to wait until research is done to make some of the sets such as Pelinal's and TBS, so there will be a delay before more tests can be accomplished.