Why are sorcerers good for solo

lazywhiteseal

now im not saying its the best so please dont tell me how your main class is better and what not.
i see in many videos and guides for dungeons and arena. most of the recommend sorcerer if they want to solo. at first i thought it was because they have pets, but warden has a permanent pet and necro have temp pets.
i dont have a sorcerer so i dont know the reason to this.
are they more efficient in some way?
what makes them more superior to other classes when it comes to soloing dungeons and arena

Tsukiino

Sorcerers have a good balance between single target damage & AoE damage.

They also have the greatest self heal in the game -> Surge

Practically allowing you to heal every 1 second, and I'm pretty sure the heal itself can crit also.

Viewsfrom6ix

1. Crit Surge - insanely powerful heal when you deal crit damage.
2. Perma pets - they can take aggro and tank hits
3. Hardened ward - really strong shield for panic moments.

lazywhiteseal

yes but most classes if not all have self heal and defense boost abilities right?

i guess its the good balance of defense and offense skill then?

ssewallb14_ESO

Sorc's defensive kit is extremely easy to manage compared to other classes. Crit surge is a 3k hps heal that lasts for 32 seconds and also gives you your damage buff, so it can be cast on cooldown while losing minimal damage, rather than being cast reactively. Also hardended ward is a huge shield with a comparatively low cost, allowing it to be "spammed" through some mechanics, making them more forgiving.

Athan1

Plus the electric dash (idk what it's called), it's a great mobility skill.

Sylvermynx

When your only connection besides dial up is satellite.... pet classes is what keep you alive, playing - and paying.

Luckylancer

For PvE: surge. OP passive heal

For PvP: mag sorcs are very fast, they are the best solo mag class for pvp

kargen27

I don't play a sorcerer much but a friend says the rotation is much simpler than other classes.

spartaxoxo

While many classes have self heals that even will dish out more healing than crit surge, those heals tend to have to be cast reactively. You take damage and then you heal. Critical Surge is a passive heal. It's terrible as an on-demand heal, but it's basically always running since any rotation will ensure it doesn't run out. While it's up you're self healing most of the time. Which means your health is usually topped off when encountering trash damage, making you less susceptible to being burst down.

Your pets actually don't really take aggro that often, that's not a real reason to run them. People greatly overvalue these for sorc soloing, lots or sorcs don't even like running them. They are mostly just damage skills. The Twilight Matriarch has a burst heal if you need it, but you probably will not. I'm much more likely to use it's heal to help a teammate in group than myself trying to solo something. It's nice if I need it but it's unnecessary most of the time.

That's because of the other skill that makes soloing easier. Hardened ward. This is a damage shield that you can use if you're expecting to take more damage than crit surge can handle alone. It prevents your health from being hit until it's depleted, allowing you to use it as a way to get your health back up through crit surge heals.

Finally there's two more skills that can greatly aide a sorc in soloing...


Now some stuff hits too hard for a fairly low but constant heal and a damage shield to handle. During those times, you may have to lose some damage to increase your tankiness. With a sorc, the skills that increase your resistances (bound armor and boundless storm) also either do damage or buff damage. Which means that you don't have to give up as much damage to increase your survivability during encounters where you're simply too squishy to rely on a self heal and damage shield as some other classes.

FrancisCrawford

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

Sorc's defensive kit is extremely easy to manage compared to other classes. Crit surge is a 3k hps heal that lasts for 32 seconds and also gives you your damage buff, so it can be cast on cooldown while losing minimal damage, rather than being cast reactively. Also hardended ward is a huge shield with a comparatively low cost, allowing it to be "spammed" through some mechanics, making them more forgiving.

If you don't have pets out and aren't wearing 5 light armor, Hardened Ward is a whole lot like Dampen Magicka.

That said, Critical Surge is great again, and the Twilight Matriarch is still a good emergency heal if you don't mind what is now the damage loss of using it.

FrancisCrawford

Pets are also good for finding enemies you haven't seen yet. The best at that, because he's huge and a meleer, is the proc from Maw of the Infernal, but sorcerer pets are pretty good at it too.

CrashTest

Fat shields and excellent self heals.

Anyron

PvP : mobility and negate, easy gameplay especially as petsorc
Shield isnt that good like it used to be, especially in nocp and you are forced to use max mag build instead of spell dmg because shields scales only from max mag.
But it still best mag class , mostly because of high mobility which is better against fast stamina builds

Kwoung

lazywhiteseal wrote: »

yes but most classes if not all have self heal and defense boost abilities right?

i guess its the good balance of defense and offense skill then?

They are very easy to play, simple rotation and Crit Surge is very nice. yes all classes have access to a heal of some sort or another, but Crit Surge is a 30 second buff that not only gives you Major Sorcery... causing critical damage heals you for 3300, and can proc every one second, which with numerous dots down and most sorc builds being very high crit chances, you are healing every 1 second. So the major difference is, you cast 1 buff every 30 seconds and heal constantly, so no need to break your rotation to cast a heal because you are in trouble. And they also have very high single target & AOE damage.

Anyron

Kwoung wrote: »

lazywhiteseal wrote: »

yes but most classes if not all have self heal and defense boost abilities right?

i guess its the good balance of defense and offense skill then?

They are very easy to play, simple rotation and Crit Surge is very nice. yes all classes have access to a heal of some sort or another, but Crit Surge is a 30 second buff that not only gives you Major Sorcery... causing critical damage heals you for 3300, and can proc every one second, which with numerous dots down and most sorc builds being very high crit chances, you are healing every 1 second. So the major difference is, you cast 1 buff every 30 seconds and heal constantly, so no need to break your rotation to cast a heal because you are in trouble. And they also have very high single target & AOE damage.

Very high aoe dmg? Example please
I didnt know sorcs have good aoe exept unstable familiar..
Lightning flood isnt really good
Destro staff skills + ultimate can use everyone
But this is from PvP player perspective so maybe pve is different

Kwoung

Anyron wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

lazywhiteseal wrote: »

yes but most classes if not all have self heal and defense boost abilities right?

i guess its the good balance of defense and offense skill then?

They are very easy to play, simple rotation and Crit Surge is very nice. yes all classes have access to a heal of some sort or another, but Crit Surge is a 30 second buff that not only gives you Major Sorcery... causing critical damage heals you for 3300, and can proc every one second, which with numerous dots down and most sorc builds being very high crit chances, you are healing every 1 second. So the major difference is, you cast 1 buff every 30 seconds and heal constantly, so no need to break your rotation to cast a heal because you are in trouble. And they also have very high single target & AOE damage.

Very high aoe dmg? Example please
I didnt know sorcs have good aoe exept unstable familiar..
Lightning flood isnt really good
Destro staff skills + ultimate can use everyone
But this is from PvP player perspective so maybe pve is different

I was assuming this was a PVE thread and yes, sorcs have access to numerous decent AOE skills, especially if you have a 65%+ crit chance as most do. I don't use pets, as they bug me, but I can melt masses of adds in pretty short order when slotted for AE. Not a sorc skill, but a Blackrose staff and Pulsar work very well with sorc builds, Daedric Mines are amazing if placed right (30k+ damage spammable if you have the magicka), Lightning Storm, Lightning Flood (decent synergy too), Wall of Elements (not sorc but we all use it)... None are great on their own, but you can have a lot of stuff going on at once and the damage adds up when you have them all going.

Also, I did say very high, not amazing or better than all other classes, which sorcs aren't. But for all around adventuring, they are one of the best and easiest to play with a nice toolkit, and it doesn't take all day to kill mobs, you generally melt them pretty quick.

Anyron

Kwoung wrote: »

Anyron wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

lazywhiteseal wrote: »

yes but most classes if not all have self heal and defense boost abilities right?

i guess its the good balance of defense and offense skill then?

They are very easy to play, simple rotation and Crit Surge is very nice. yes all classes have access to a heal of some sort or another, but Crit Surge is a 30 second buff that not only gives you Major Sorcery... causing critical damage heals you for 3300, and can proc every one second, which with numerous dots down and most sorc builds being very high crit chances, you are healing every 1 second. So the major difference is, you cast 1 buff every 30 seconds and heal constantly, so no need to break your rotation to cast a heal because you are in trouble. And they also have very high single target & AOE damage.

Very high aoe dmg? Example please
I didnt know sorcs have good aoe exept unstable familiar..
Lightning flood isnt really good
Destro staff skills + ultimate can use everyone
But this is from PvP player perspective so maybe pve is different

I was assuming this was a PVE thread and yes, sorcs have access to numerous decent AOE skills, especially if you have a 65%+ crit chance as most do. I don't use pets, as they bug me, but I can melt masses of adds in pretty short order when slotted for AE. Not a sorc skill, but a Blackrose staff and Pulsar work very well with sorc builds, Daedric Mines are amazing if placed right (30k+ damage spammable if you have the magicka), Lightning Storm, Lightning Flood (decent synergy too), Wall of Elements (not sorc but we all use it)... None are great on their own, but you can have a lot of stuff going on at once and the damage adds up when you have them all going.

Also, I did say very high, not amazing or better than all other classes, which sorcs aren't. But for all around adventuring, they are one of the best and easiest to play with a nice toolkit, and it doesn't take all day to kill mobs, you generally melt them pretty quick.

I just asked because i didnt know.. I also have to admit im quite good in PvP but everytime i went pve i was total noob (overland is easy for everyone) i just saw mag sorcerer really weak compared to others even when i was able to solo kill all nondlc worldbosses

LashanW

Kwoung wrote: »

Also, I did say very high, not amazing or better than all other classes, which sorcs aren't. But for all around adventuring, they are one of the best and easiest to play with a nice toolkit, and it doesn't take all day to kill mobs, you generally melt them pretty quick.

MagSorc usually has the least AoE capabilities compared to other classes. Easily noticeable when doing trash fights in trials. Luckily magsorcs generally have the highest single target dps compared to other classes (boss dps). Talking in a PvE perspective since that's what OP mentioned.

Magsorcs have pretty good dps and very high survivability for little effort.

Survivability,

• Crit Surge (automatic, cast once every 33 seconds) - 4k+ heals per second on the average while you are on the offensive (with a standard build)
• Matriach Pet (activated heal) - High burst heal for 2 allies (including yourself). Ability is also available on both skill bars.
• Dark Exchange (activated heal) - High self burst heal with 1 second cast time that also restores quite a bit of either stamina or magicka depending on morph
• Double damage shields - Light armor shield + class shield (lasts considerably longer than other damage shields).
• Bolt Escape - Pretty much the best escape skill in the game

Pets are mainly just damage skills that simplifies your dps rotation.

lazywhiteseal wrote: »

are they more efficient in some way?
what makes them more superior to other classes when it comes to soloing dungeons and arena

Basically survivability on magsorcs requires very little effort compared to most classes. For most cases just having crit surge active is enough. However for soloing content, any class can easily do them now thanks to the ring of the pale order. This mythic item is basically a simpler version of crit surge for all classes (and more accessible since crits are not required and stronger since the item has no cooldown and always active). Most guides you saw might've been made before the introduction of ring of the pale order.

heng14rwb17_ESO

GO PET SORC OR GO CRY !

markulrich1966

they were great, as they had one of the strongest AOE attacks (crystal blast).
Since that was replaced with a completely different stamina skill, they lost a lot as solo class.

Crit surge heals, but so do puncturing strikes from templars. I meanwhile prefer magplars for solo content.
And blood thirst for dual wield toons.

One nice effect of sorcerers still are the pets, I use 1 (clannfear), as it aggros enemies, so they will focus to hit the pet instead of me.
This is great especially for low to mid cp levels, at cp810 many swap the pet for skills instead to get more damage (they now have more protection from the high cp, so no longer rely on a pet).


The nerfs (beside crystal blast there were others) have positive and negative effects for me.

On the positive side, I now play other classes too more often, as the advantage of sorcerers is no longer that strong.
On the other hand, I meanwhile skip a lot of content, like soloing daily worldbosses (xbox EU has low pop so often requires to solo them).
With the nerfs to sorcerers it still is possible to solo many WB, but takes too long.

LalMirchi

In the beginning of my run Pet Sorcerers were the easiest to play but as I got to know the game other classes became more interesting.

Juhasow

lazywhiteseal wrote: »

yes but most classes if not all have self heal and defense boost abilities right?

i guess its the good balance of defense and offense skill then?

Not all self heals are equall. What makes sorc's surge strong and unique is a fact that heal procs passively from doing dmg and ability itself lasts over 30 seconds. That being said ever since Ring of the Pale Order was added to the game every class can keep similarly reliable healing and that item opened everyone way to solo HM dungeons.

BisDasBlutGefriert

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Pets are also good for finding enemies you haven't seen yet. The best at that, because he's huge and a meleer, is the proc from Maw of the Infernal, but sorcerer pets are pretty good at it too.

That's like my unfathomable darkness crows. I'll sneak up behind some one, brutally stab them, then my crows will go off. Sneaking up to the next guy, I get caught cause the darn crows circling around me whacked two mudcrabs haha!

Ended up moving that set to my back bar with defiler. Two procs on back bar, and extra weapon damage on front bar.

Chrysa1is

Because enemies have less Spell Resistance than Physical Resistance.

Picking Sorc is like selecting Easy Mode for a game.

Banana

Can play at range. Excellent heals, shields and if you run a dirty pet. They can sometimes hold some aggro.

Prof_Bawbag

Tsukiino wrote: »

Sorcerers have a good balance between single target damage & AoE damage.

They also have the greatest self heal in the game -> Surge

Practically allowing you to heal every 1 second, and I'm pretty sure the heal itself can crit also.

Dunno. "Best" is most certainly subjective in this case. Jabs on a temp not only heals you fast, it damages things and if built correct, melts 99% of the npc's in game. It's also a one button build for 99% of the game if you so wish it to be.

GreenhaloX

Any class is good for soloing, really. I have all kinds of build variations of all classes and been soloing with all toons for years just knocking out world bosses and even dragons and harrowstorms while there is only just another player. Of course, the other player is always dying; good distraction to keep the dragon off of me. Ha ha. The Ring of the Wild Hunt just makes it even easier with the speed buff. I do prefer Wild Hunt over Pale or Malacath band. Change Hunt to Bloodthirsty, and you're just good to go. Class as NB and Templar already have sufficient self-healing, and magsorc already have good shield for soloing.

mocap

awesome skills like Surge, Crystal Weapon, Dark DealConversion, Bound Armaments and ofcuz Hurricane, makes Sorcs, especially stamina ones, a bit unique among all other classes, except invisible Nightblades.

BXR_Lonestar

Sorcs are good for solo because they have mostly-permanent pets which help take a lot of heat off of you and allows you to solo content that other characters would have a hard time with. The matriarch pet is part of your offense but it also gives you access to a strong heal. And they do a good mix of single target and area of effect damage.

Magplars are also great characters for similar reasons. Good mix of self-sufficiency in terms of healing capability, good mix of single target abilities and AoE damage.

QuebraRegra

LOL, because EZ mode... in either STAM or MAG. Just look at the passives... some silly stuff in there.

That said, no more nerfs for PVE!