I got a Stamsorc to 50 and I'm trying to figure out... everything... help?

EramTheLiar

So now that Greymoor is out I figure I needed to create a new character to go through Elsweyr before upgrading. I'd created my main character, a Magicka Templar, long before weaving was ever a thing so I'd never really learned to do it (because if you're not trying to impress anyone you can play a Templar relying on jab jab jab jab jab jab jab jab jab jab jab jab blazing spear jab jab jab jab jab jab jab jab jab jab and also it's closer is cool with a staff because it looks like your STAFF TURNS INTO A BOLT OF LIGHTNING AND IT CARRIES YOU THROUGH THE AIR). So I figured the Elsweyr character would be the character where I learned to weave, and also to actually use both bars for crying out loud.

I created a Stamina Sorcerer, which I consider a lot of fun. And I'm sort of getting the hang of weaving, though by "getting the hang of weaving" I mean "I'm really, awfully bad at it" but I am making progress. And I'm slowly coming to terms with switching between bars, though I still have terribly awkward moments where I think I've switched to the other bar and I fire off a spell that isn't what I thought it was, and I spend seconds trying to figure out where everything is while my Clanfear desperately tries to hold aggro while I get my act together.

But in the process of trying to learn all this stuff... I have questions!

The questions are, in no particular order:



First Question:

I find that when I try to weave light attack/spell/light attack/spell that I always jump the gun. Either I try to fire my spell too soon after my light attack, or I try a light attack too close to the spell I just cast. Bound armaments has actually helped with this a bit, because each time I do a light attack it causes a little ghost knife to appear over my head, up to four, but I've found my dps goes down when I use it. Probably because I'm terrible at this. But I was wondering if there was a mod out there that did something similar? I have light attack helper, but it either doesn't do what I want or I don't understand what I'm looking at.



Second Question:

I know the traditional stamsorc uses either dual wield or 2h on the front bar and bow on the back bar. I don't really seem to get a lot of utility out of the bow, though. I'm using critical surge, and that means that when I crit I heal once per second, which means that my best bet (as far as I can tell) is to get in as many hits as I can in a second. So... deadly cloak and either whirling blades or rapid strikes seems to be my best bet. That means my front bar is pretty full, with the clanfear, deadly cloak, whirling blades and rapid strikes, and finally bound armaments for the damage boost and occasional ghost dagger action. This means my back bar is the clanfear, hurricane, critical surge, and... two other things that I guess could be bow-related, but I'd really like to have dark deal slotted for sustain, which leaves... endless hail, I guess. That's the problem. My combat is so DW heavy that I haven't really advanced my bow line all that much. And I'm almost never in a situation where I think "oh, i should us the bow for this!"

So the question is, what am I doing wrong with the bow? It seems like as soon as I enter melee, the only time I switch to the back is when hurricane or critical surge gives out, or if I need to quickly restore stamina with dark deal. Or if one of the Elsweyr dragons takes off into the sky, making knife-work impractical. How do I best work the bow into my rotation in order to increase my overall damage output?

I guess a follow-up question to that is, if the bow doesn't necessarily contribute much other than being "the situational ranged attack" should I just swap it out with another set of knifes and train up hidden blade and morph it into the closer? Or heck, I just put a staff back there for aesthetic purposes ("Sorcerer") and replace the attack with bolt escape because MAGIC.



Third Question:

How the heck do you reliably measure dps in this game? I was super impressed when the Bandit UI dps tools reported I'd averaged 34K DPS in one fight (I know 34K isn't particularly high -- please reread the part where I talk about being really bad at this game ) but then I realized that it was reporting that because every time I use an AOE when fighting a group my DPS goes up--because I'm doing damage to multiple people at the same time. This seems like a really unreliable way to track damage output. If the secret to doing 80K DPS is really nothing more impressive than "wade into the thick of things and spam your AOEs while using a really, really good set of armor and weapons" I'm going to be disappointed.



Anyway, thanks in advance to those of you who know how these things work for helping me out, who doesn't really have a clue.

EramTheLiar

aaaaa typos. I thought there was an edit function! Maybe I have to wait a little first.

Major_Lag

EramTheLiar wrote: »

aaaaa typos. I thought there was an edit function! Maybe I have to wait a little first.

There is, but it is accessed in a different place for the 1st post of a thread than for all subsequent ones. Poor design, meh.

The bow on backbar is to apply the bow AoE DoT and possibly a poison DoT as well.
DoTs count towards the Crit Surge crits, so you naturally want to be stacking them whenever you can for more healing ticks from Surge.

To measure DPS you can use the training dummies, they have a built-in DPS meter functionality (no addons needed) - or use something like the Combat Metrics addon, which gives you a detailed breakdown of your damage sources and DPS.

(edit: spelling)

Athyrium93

I can't help with sorc specific questions but I can help with the dps and light attack weaving.... But it's boring and takes a lot of time and effort for small gains (they do add up)

So step one is find a target dummy, most guilds have one, so that part isn't to hard (or buy one with writ vochers or crowns) and then kill it... And kill it again.... And again... After a few times you will see where your stuggling, whether its sustain, or damage, or rotation or all of the above.

The target dummy will spit out your dps number each time you kill it, but addons like combat metrics will give you more detailed info. (I'm assuming your on pc since you mentioned light attack helper, if I'm wrong ignore that part)

Now for the light attack and bar swapping stuff, start by doing LA, spammable, LA, spammable and keep doing it until you feel comfortable with the timing, light attack helper has a setting where it will show the number of light attacks instead of the time between light attacks, it's useful while learning because you can see each time a light attack hits. Start slow and slowly increase the speed.

Once your comfortable with that (or just sick of it) start swapping to your back bar and dropping a DoT like endless hail or hurricane (or both) then swap back to the front bar for the LA, Spammable, LA, Spammable until your DoTs run out then swap and reapply them.

If your on PC using a gamming mouse with a couple extra buttons can make it easier because you can keybind the bar swap to the extra mouse button (mine has 2 extra buttons, I have one as swap to weapon one and the other as swap to weapon 2 so I always know which one I'm on.)

Also look up some build guides from Alcast or Liko or Dottz or whoever, you don't need to follow them exactly, but it's a good starting point, especially for CP, mundus stones, food buffs, potions, and an idea of gear.

Golding weapons also really helps as do enchantments (if your tight on gold or just in the process of still picking gear purple enchants that are CP160 are almost as good as gold.

Once you get to 20k dps on the target dummy (3 or 6 mil) you are pretty much good to do any but the hardest DLC vet dungeons and good to go for normal trials.

It will take time though, and the dps increases will be a few hundred at a time, not thousands. So basically patience and practice just like real life lol.

Hope that helps and hopefully a sorc main can answer the rest of your questions! Good Luck!

Joxer61

https://xynodegaming.com/cleave/

this one is quite fun!

Wandering_Immigrant

They best way to level your back bar is to swap to it whenever you get to completion dialog in a quest, or when you turn in dailies, do crafting writs, anything like that. I'll even keep it set as my active bar on leveling characters when running through new areas for the xp you get for discovering things.

EramTheLiar

Thanks all! Looks like I'm gonna have to invest in a combat dummy, for starters. And learn to love the bow.

Major_Lag

EramTheLiar wrote: »

Thanks all! Looks like I'm gonna have to invest in a combat dummy, for starters. And learn to love the bow.

A nice entry-level dummy is the Precursor dummy, obtainable for free from completing a "scavenger hunt" type quest in Clockwork City.

The Precursor has very low HP for a training dummy (about 300k?) so it can't be used to check if you have enough sustain, and it "dies" quite rapidly when assaulted with a competent rotation, but it can be used to practice LA weaving and experiment with the basics.

Athyrium93

EramTheLiar wrote: »

Thanks all! Looks like I'm gonna have to invest in a combat dummy, for starters. And learn to love the bow.

You can also join a guild and use their's or just ask in zone chat if someone has one you can practice on. If none of the above work and you're on PCNA I've got mine parked in my primary residence, and you can use it. Or download the PTS and "buy" one on there to practice on for free