Hit a DPS wall I can't seem to climb over

preevious

Hi, everyone.

I'm running a magicka sorcerer and have been trying my best to be somewhat competent/not be a dead weight as a DPS.
I have been getting steadily better and better, but seem to have hit a wall.
I'm currently parsing around 35k (record is 36k) on the 6 mil dummy, around 60k on the trial dummy.

And no matter what I do/try, I end up getting lower, or do not see any increase at all.

1. I'm full CP
2. Running two pets
3. my spammable is cristal frag (both bars), since I have 5 dots skills, I proc it 2-3 times / rotation.
4. Using structured entropy as one of my dots (a little bit of self heal, so I don't bother my heal too much)
5. Mother sorrow (thinking of switching to medusa, since I landed a lightning staff .. I think it could be better for my particular build)/ necropotence / maw of the infernal (5-1-1)
6. two rings arcane, the neck is bloothirsty.
7. I'm light attack weaving, though it could be a place where there is room for improvements .. how should I train that?.

I'm thoroughly unable to land a maelstrom staff .. I did a gazillion runs, and not one lightning staff, so, I gave up on that.

Rotation is : unstable wall , lightning flood, SWAP, scamp AOE, entropy, daedric prey , heavy attack.
I (try to) weave a LA with every step. I also launch frags each time it procs, and since I have it on both bar, it proc often enough to be my main source of damage (though I occasionaly miss one).

How should I proceed to "git gud"?
What do I do wrong .. any tips? (I wish to keep a pet build, as I like those, in all MMO I play)
How can I train my weaving? Something I should know?

Any insight would be thoroughly appreciated.

Taleof2Cities

Able to share any dummy parse screenshots from Combat Metrics, @preevious?

Vevvev

Those DPS numbers you posted are similar to my own, but I have the Maelstrom staff and am a magDK.

I do know the meta is infused with spell damage glyphs over arcane when it comes to jewelry as the major Sorcery buff outperforms the max magicka boosting buffs that effect Arcane's damage scaling.

Also a patch or two ago they made pets scale with spell damage as well as max magicka in terms of damage. Think they left damage shields alone when it comes to scaling but I could be wrong...

Everest_Lionheart

I don’t do sorc, but other mags are using inferno staff for maximum DPS, it sounds like you are using lightning staves at least by your comment regarding the Medusa staff you have. Going full bloodthirsty jewelry will help but not as much as you think. Maelstrom backbar infused with the proper enchant will help a great deal.

Also I believe elemental weapons parses higher than frags on sorc, but I could be wrong since I don’t play the class myself.

Also what is your other set Necropentance? Siroria is BiS and will give you quite a bump in DPS for parsing. What you’ll run into with all of that is a challenge keeping sustain. You may need to run spell symmetry for sustain. Medusa will eliminate the need to cast barbed trap or channel accel and get you a few more spamable as a result, but I prefer to use Barbie trap to parse and channel accel on raids every 3 rotation on my Templar and DK. My Templar hits 79K for sustain I run channel focus cast every 2 rotation. My DK hits 83k and relies heavily on spell symmetry for sustain and it’s situational and cast before my most expensive skill at a certain % threshold. For me it’s below 45% I cast symmetry before eruption which makes a 5k skill essentially cost 2K. DK also relies on standard of might ultimate for sustain and expensive pots.

One more thing with Siroria. Running it on body keeps the buff up 100% of the time but it’s about 2-3K lower DPS compared to front bar with MS on the body. You have to be fast on your backbar or use a rotation that splits the backbar so that you don’t lose the Siroria stacks. Of course that requires the staff and RNG for that in harder to land than Maelstrom. When you get it though it’s all your comfort level and the speed you can get all your skills and LA’s down. If you go slower Siroria body is the way to go, Medusa or MS front bar. If you are faster Siroria front and MS body, Medusa would require you to run 5-2 setup with a Siroria front bar, it’s not ideal.

Last thing you may want to have a look at Zaan purely for parsing. You will get higher numbers, just be sure you are in range to proc it. Otherwise for raids using maw is still OK. Some bosses Zaan won’t hit like the dragons in Sunspire. You can try a domihaus set also for Sunspire, though that works well on DK but not sure it’s viable for sorc in there.

So a combination of all those things here, maelstrom, Siroria, zaan, bloodthirsty jewelry, ele weapon as spamable should help you pick up a nice chunk of DPS. If your current rotation is hitting 60k without all that you should easily push 70k with all your gear optimized and golded out.

zvavi

For 6m slot eledrain on backbar instead of frags.
Now for rotation.
Wall, lightning flood, scamp, prey, heavy attack, fire rune, heavy attack, prey.
Wall, lightning flood, scamp, rune, heavy attack, prey, rune, heavy attack.

I might be wrong though, cause they said they changed heavy attack timing. (When frags proc use).
I would still recommend getting nMA staff it is the reason lightning heavy attacks are not as weak as heavy attacks of other elements.

Eedat

I'm not a god but I can hit 87k on magsorc. First thing is if you're doing single target DPS, lightning staff is far weaker than inferno staff. I dont know what sets you have access to but I run Siroria x5, Mother's Sorrow x5, Zaan's x2, and Maelstrom Inferno staff backbar. All divines, precise frontbar, infused backbar, bloodthirsty jewelry. Fire enchant frontbar. Spell damage enchant back bar. Shadow mundus. If you dont have Zaan's then use Maw of Infernal

Dual bar pets
Front bar: Crystal Frags, Elemental Weapon, Daedric prey Ult: Meteor
Back Bar: unstable wall, Inner Light, Channeled Focus Ult: Greater Atro

Rotation is spamming Ele weapon > LA > Ele weapon > LA to get frag procs while reapplying Daedric prey after it pops and switching to backbar to LA > Unstable wall > swap when wall goes down. Weave LAs between every skill. Thats it. Obviously throw frags whenever you get a proc and use the Greater Atro ult always.

https://i.imgur.com/0OFs7wk.png

preevious

Wow, thanks for all the answers
Here's various answers

@Taleof2Cities

Yes, I'm working during the day, but I'll do a parse and send it this evening.

@Vevvev

Indeed, I'll reconstruct the medusa jewelry with infused, to give it a try. Still need to farm transmutes, though. As for the lost mag, If I use citrus filet, I won't have sustain issues.

@Everest_Lionheart

Ah, yes .. maelstrom. It still baffle me I did not get a lightning staff when I got all other weapons several times. I try to make a run fom time to time, but I'm so fed up with it.
I also looked at siroria and effectively tried zaan, but in real combat situation, they are less valuable (and zaan deals less damage, because daedric prey affect maw damage).
Question : when I parse, should I be mindfull of real combat situation, or can I "cheese" as long as I get numbers on the trial dummy? What's the position of the community, on this?

Also, I use lightning because sorc have a passive that increase lightning damage, and thus, both staves are very close to each other damage-wise. I parse less when using a flame staff .. but maybe it's a lack of experience that makes me miss more weavings. (though I COULD try to use a maelstrom inferno staff and a lightning backbar staff .. I have several infernoes -_-)

@zvavi
Ele drain, of course, I don't use it. But is it usefull on the trial dummy? But yes, It could raise my DPS on the 3 / 6 mil ones.
(also, yes, maelstrom lightning .. I want one sooo much)

@Eedat

Interresting .. you are a sorc, and yet, inferno works better for you than lightning? I must do something wrong, still.
I do have zaan, but with it, I actually parse less than with maw.
Also, it's interresting how your rotation looks simpler (less dots and skills) than mine and is still more efficient.



I believe I'm also lacking with my weaving.
But thanks for all th insigth, It gives me food for thoughts.

zvavi

I did say eledrain for the 6m, not trial. Fire and lightning are kinda the same on sorc(backbar, so it doesn't matter which you drop first) if you have no mag dk in group (maw of the infernal gives you high burning uptime for your wall), if you have mag dk, fire is stronger than lightning even if the target is not burning (which is impossible with a mag dk in group).

As I said earlier, lightning heavy attacks are stronger only because of nMA staff, without it you better run fire frontbar (nMA is pretty easy and lightning or fire staff should generally drop after around 7 runs).

CaptainVenom

Most people (myself included) can't reach a constant 35k DPS, which is kinda high already. I'd switch Mother's Sorrow to Law of Julianos...

Anyways, not trying to be crash of the party, but you should not really take DPS to a Dummy as your true DPS... they don't fight back like dungeons/trials monsters or players, so...

preevious

@zvavi

Yes, I'll try a parse with one of my many maelstrom inferno staff .. I believe one of them is actually already infused.
I made an unholy number of runs, and I have several of them. It's the lightning staff that never dropped.

@CaptainVenom

Indeed, you are right. In real combat, it's sometimes lower. But It's actually sometimes higher, thanks to the buff/debuffs provided by the tank/healer (a good tank and a good healer are a DPS's best friends !). I often see 40k+, when the bosses don't run around / stays pinned by the tank (though when there are adds, it's trickier to pinpoint. .

zvavi

took a setup similar to yours (not properly optimized at all), slotted lightning front, fire back, eledrain on back, and rune instead of degen on front, here is the conclusion (i was too lazy to swap sets too much so i was master architect mother's sorrow maw)


trial dummy was as you would expect, 78k, but i was over sustaining like idk what, no idea why would i go heavy attack on a trial dummy. tbf i wanted to create a dungeon build that doesnt depend on a healer, but i didnt get to farm all i need yet.

Eedat

preevious wrote: »

Wow, thanks for all the answers
Here's various answers

@Taleof2Cities

Yes, I'm working during the day, but I'll do a parse and send it this evening.

@Vevvev

Indeed, I'll reconstruct the medusa jewelry with infused, to give it a try. Still need to farm transmutes, though. As for the lost mag, If I use citrus filet, I won't have sustain issues.

@Everest_Lionheart

Ah, yes .. maelstrom. It still baffle me I did not get a lightning staff when I got all other weapons several times. I try to make a run fom time to time, but I'm so fed up with it.
I also looked at siroria and effectively tried zaan, but in real combat situation, they are less valuable (and zaan deals less damage, because daedric prey affect maw damage).
Question : when I parse, should I be mindfull of real combat situation, or can I "cheese" as long as I get numbers on the trial dummy? What's the position of the community, on this?

Also, I use lightning because sorc have a passive that increase lightning damage, and thus, both staves are very close to each other damage-wise. I parse less when using a flame staff .. but maybe it's a lack of experience that makes me miss more weavings. (though I COULD try to use a maelstrom inferno staff and a lightning backbar staff .. I have several infernoes -_-)

@zvavi
Ele drain, of course, I don't use it. But is it usefull on the trial dummy? But yes, It could raise my DPS on the 3 / 6 mil ones.
(also, yes, maelstrom lightning .. I want one sooo much)

@Eedat

Interresting .. you are a sorc, and yet, inferno works better for you than lightning? I must do something wrong, still.
I do have zaan, but with it, I actually parse less than with maw.
Also, it's interresting how your rotation looks simpler (less dots and skills) than mine and is still more efficient.



I believe I'm also lacking with my weaving.
But thanks for all th insigth, It gives me food for thoughts.

That's kinda the point. It's optimized for opportunity cost. Every DOT will obviously do damage but it might not be the most efficient use of your time. Essentially a lot time spent on a lot of skills would be better spent doing something else. A guy in my guild parses 105k on Magsorc with that exact same setup except he has perfected siroria and uses boundless storm, unstable wall, and traps on the back bar. You have to go full melee range for that to work though so it's kinda a parse-only cheese setup. That and his weaving is tighter than mine.

Lightning staffs are for heavy attack builds only more or less. Inferno will always outperform it in single target DPS

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Dont double bar a spammable. Lighting flood is not worth a slot for parsing. Can be worth it for pure AOE setup for trash. A Heavy attack build is going to hit a wall, probably above where you are at, but there is no reason to heavy attack if at max CP on a trial dummy. Parsing on a 6 mil is useless in terms of the numbers, so I wont really get into it.

If running two pets, you have 6 spare slots, 3 on each bar.

For back bar, that means unstable wall, Rearming Trap (you need minor force from somewhere, and my preference for the last one is boundless storm. Its not a ton of damage but its long duration and easy to manage. On a 6 mil dummy, that is where you would slot ele drain. In actual content, that is where you slot a shield or mystic orb.

For Front bar, that is a spammable (ele weapon should be your spam), Crystal frags (only cast when procs for free cast) and daedric prey.

The rotation is centered around daedric prey. If you are into music, think of a 6 count, with DP always on the 1. Each time you cast daedric prey, you cast 5 skills before casting again. You juggle Blockade, rearming trap, Volatile Familiar, and boundless stom. If all are ticking, it is ele weapon/crystal frags, until you need to reapply Daedric Prey. Cast ultimates (storm attro) on cooldown. Only cast the twilight pre-fight. Not worth casting once you get going.

This is a fairly dynamic rotation, but as dynamic rotations go, its about as easy as it gets. There are completely static versions out there, but they are going to be perhaps 5-10% behind in damage.

Light weave every skill. You should not need to heavy attack when running parse food (or with purple bi-stat food and good support).

Also, for pure damage, you want double infernos for single target. The sorc passives for shock dont outweigh the single target passive for a fire staff. If solo, or no other source of off balance, it very well might make sense to run lighting back bar. For pure trash, front bar lighting is generally preferable, but if you are dummy humping or parsing on a boss, double fire is where its at.

preevious

Thanks to all the good advice I received here, I did another parse, more mindful of my rotation, and using inferno maelstrom staff.

I did not yet change my guild setup, but with the staff, and by launching skills quicker (I think), I managed 70k (an increase of 10k, new personal best !).
Thanks, everyone. I'll keep pushing forward.

zvavi

preevious wrote: »

Thanks to all the good advice I received here, I did another parse, more mindful of my rotation, and using inferno maelstrom staff.

I did not yet change my guild setup, but with the staff, and by launching skills quicker (I think), I managed 70k (an increase of 10k, new personal best !).
Thanks, everyone. I'll keep pushing forward.

Congratulations and good luck