Magsorc Theorycrafting

Susurrus

I'm starting to theorycraft for Update 33 for my magsorc toon. Hoping to get some feedback and ideas.

Notes for parsing:
- On stamsorcs, bound armaments and hurricane are really quite good, would be nice to add to magsorc.
- I love c-frag spam for the dps, sustain, minor crit uptime and bar space (I might be in the minority), and think we could probably drop the scamp as bound armaments out-dpses it with this update. However, see below...
- I end up with a problem of attaining both major crit and major dmg buffs. Historically, you only needed one set and could attain this through potions easily. Now one could benefit from both, but the addition would cost 2 bar spots. However, this change would allow us to run the expensive, but powerful, heroism potions.
- On preliminary testing, parse food becomes unnecessary - even problematic if running Bahsei. New food might be an option.

The trials and dungeon options abound, and are too numerous for me to speculate on at the moment, but I do like the options that become available, such as dual wield for trash AoE setups.

I am curious as to peoples opinion. What do you think will happen for this class in Update 33?

Susurrus

Addition:
- It would be nice if c-frags procc'd off of all skills rather than just magicka ones.

Tannus15

ditch scamp for single target
hurricane is nice, but it's not amazing.
major savagery isn't important from my testing, ymmv. major brutality doesn't do anything since it'll use your max spell damage anyway.

sustain with bound armaments is amazing. this parse was 5pc medium and i still had no issue sustaining, keeping bahsei low would be difficult without changing foods.

MashmalloMan

1. Yes. Very good. Hurricane/Boundless Storm have recently started to crop up on some builds I've seen. It will only gain popularity. BA may be hard to fit, but It's about 60% stronger than a spammable while also increasing your light attack damage by 10%. Makes your magicka sustain easier.
2. If you drop scamp then you'd probably want to drop Daedric Prey too.. Doesn't seem worth it with only 1 pet?
3. I'm confused by this point, it seems like you're implying you need both Major Savagery AND Prophecy and same for Damage buffs. You don't because the skills will scale based on your higher crit, damage and resources.. so you can continue to do everything exactly the same way as before. Eg.. pots for Damage/Crit or Camo Hunter/Inner Light + Surge.
4. Yerp, there is a few. Mag + Stam Regen and Mag + Stam Regen may see some popularity.. also just Stam or just Mag if you're able to sustain them.

I was thinking of:

Front - Pet, Pet, Curse, Bound Armaments, Frags - Ult
Back - Pet, Pet, Wall, Hurricane, Barbed Trap/Orbs - Ult

Tannus15

here is another build i tried out with max mag, stam regen food

i swapped out crystal frags for crystal weapons and added mages fury for execute
with a stam spammable i was using dark deal to sustain until execute.

MashmalloMan

Susurrus wrote: »

Addition:
- It would be nice if c-frags procc'd off of all skills rather than just magicka ones.

Yes, we've mentioned that in the feedback thread. Fingers crossed. Would be interesting to play around with.

axi

Stolen from one discord. Magsorc with dw+2h using 3 stamina based weapon abilities. it's happening boys and girls hybrydization is hitting harder then ever before.

Susurrus

Tannus,

That's amazing, thanks for sharing! All of you are posting so fast I can't keep up.

A few thoughts/questions:
- Daggers might still be superior if min/maxing no?
- Similarly, flawless dawnbreaker front bar for the slight spell power increase (1%, yes really min maxing)
- Dropping hurricane for orbs might be more dps?
- If you were a frag spammer like me, what would you put on instead of ele weapon? Mages wrath?

Also, that weaving average with that ping... sexy my friend. Mark me impressed. That's a good 5k total dps over my best parse so far on live.

Axi, that build sure is impressive. Not sure I want to go melee yet, but nice to see that hybrid options are really good.

Tannus15

sorcs are significantly stronger using stam and mag skills. my "pure mag" parse is 104k

Tannus15

Susurrus wrote: »

Tannus,

That's amazing, thanks for sharing!

A few thoughts/questions:
- Daggers might still be superior if min/maxing no?
- Similarly, flawless dawnbreaker front bar for the slight spell power increase (1%, yes really min maxing)
- Dropping hurricane for orbs might be more dps?
- If you were a frag spammer like me, what would you put on instead of ele weapon? Mages wrath?

Also, that weaving average with that ping... sexy my friend. Mark me impressed. That's a good 5k total dps over my best parse so far on live.

daggers are technically better, but i'm worse with them so i'll just stick to my inferno staff.
i like atro on the front because it's easier to use and i know when it's ready. basically i'm lazy and it's only 1% more spell damage.
orbs is good idea, i should try that since the sustain is so easy. i should be ok up to about 1550 drain i think.
depends what you have on the front bar. if it's dw you could run deadly cloak. for inferno i'd run mages wrath, though in my experience mages wrath is about even with inner light. it's such a weak execute.

Susurrus

MashmalloMan wrote: »

1. Yes. Very good. Hurricane/Boundless Storm have recently started to crop up on some builds I've seen. It will only gain popularity. BA may be hard to fit, but It's about 60% stronger than a spammable while also increasing your light attack damage by 10%. Makes your magicka sustain easier.
2. If you drop scamp then you'd probably want to drop Daedric Prey too.. Doesn't seem worth it with only 1 pet?
3. I'm confused by this point, it seems like you're implying you need both Major Savagery AND Prophecy and same for Damage buffs. You don't because the skills will scale based on your higher crit, damage and resources.. so you can continue to do everything exactly the same way as before. Eg.. pots for Damage/Crit or Camo Hunter/Inner Light + Surge.
4. Yerp, there is a few. Mag + Stam Regen and Mag + Stam Regen may see some popularity.. also just Stam or just Mag if you're able to sustain them.

I was thinking of:

Front - Pet, Pet, Curse, Bound Armaments, Frags - Ult
Back - Pet, Pet, Wall, Hurricane, Barbed Trap/Orbs - Ult

I like your thinking there MashmalloMan. What you are saying about savagery and prophecy makes sense combined with Tannus' thoughts on the matter. I still wouldn't drop curse, because the added bonus applies to the atronach ulti as well.

I think I'll try your setup. I'll admit, part of me wanted to get rid of the shock monkey because I don't like pets all that much...

Susurrus

Tannus15 wrote: »

Susurrus wrote: »

Tannus,

...it's such a weak execute.

Yeah, it's trash sadly.

Jeirno

Dropping scamp is a bad idea, you cast it less often than armaments which means you have more time to cast spammables.

I went for

Bahsei, Kinras, Kilt, 1piece Slime, vMA 2hander backbar

Frags-Scamp-Mages Wrath-Trap-Bird - Dawnbreaker
Stampede-Carve-Hurricane-scamp-bird - Atronach ulti

Yes dropping prey sounds kinda weird but prey gets really weird and annoying to keep good uptimes on with carve being the highest priority skill to keep up and not let it drop so you can keep all the 3 stacks.

Result, 122k DPS

Glantir

On the preview stream they said that maybe potions will also give both buffs like Prophecy/Savagry in the future. But i hope they will do it with this patch or maybe skills also use the higher crit rate...

If i look on the parse screenshots it hurts a bit to see the crit rate for Bound Armaments/Hurricane on Magsorc

MashmalloMan

Jeirno wrote: »

Dropping scamp is a bad idea, you cast it less often than armaments which means you have more time to cast spammables.

I went for

Bahsei, Kinras, Kilt, 1piece Slime, vMA 2hander backbar

Frags-Scamp-Mages Wrath-Trap-Bird - Dawnbreaker
Stampede-Carve-Hurricane-scamp-bird - Atronach ulti

Yes dropping prey sounds kinda weird but prey gets really weird and annoying to keep good uptimes on with carve being the highest priority skill to keep up and not let it drop so you can keep all the 3 stacks.

Result, 122k DPS

Thats a good point, Prey is very awkward in a rotation. I prefer more static rotations with a little bit dynamic.. to make Prey work you need to do a lot of swapping or dropping off of duration on your 10 second dots. It never lines up well. The damage is alright, but often times it's not worth casting because the target will die before the 6 seconds..

So if you can't get the damage and you're not great at keeping up the debuff for your pets.. I imagine at least 80% uptime, then the multitude of other skills is probably better.

MashmalloMan

Glantir wrote: »

On the preview stream they said that maybe potions will also give both buffs like Prophecy/Savagry in the future. But i hope they will do it with this patch or maybe skills also use the higher crit rate...

If i look on the parse screenshots it hurts a bit to see the crit rate for Bound Armaments/Hurricane on Magsorc

They won't do it this patch because they need to solidify how those options will behave as they're most likely going to change when crit and damage become 1 stat instead of 2. Potions may stay the same with the main choice being if it gives stamina or magicka.. but what about Class minor buffs, Poisons, Mundus Stones, Jewelry Enchants? They will be redesigned in some shape or form.

Susurrus

Jeirno wrote: »

Dropping scamp is a bad idea, you cast it less often than armaments which means you have more time to cast spammables.

I went for

Bahsei, Kinras, Kilt, 1piece Slime, vMA 2hander backbar

Frags-Scamp-Mages Wrath-Trap-Bird - Dawnbreaker
Stampede-Carve-Hurricane-scamp-bird - Atronach ulti

Yes dropping prey sounds kinda weird but prey gets really weird and annoying to keep good uptimes on with carve being the highest priority skill to keep up and not let it drop so you can keep all the 3 stacks.

Result, 122k DPS

I might drop wrath just because it's so terrible. If you can fit armaments in your rotation I think it might increase dps.

Also, Relequen's is really strong now on a magsorc it seems... did you try it?

Tannus15

i run prey as much for the fact it targets your pets as for the damage. it's super useful to be able to retarget with it, especially when the atro is up.

scamp is less dps than armaments, though you lose some spammable dps and you get less frags though you do gain some light attack damage as well.
in addition if you're running armaments you might have issues keeping your mag low with bahsei.

MashmalloMan

Tannus15 wrote: »

i run prey as much for the fact it targets your pets as for the damage. it's super useful to be able to retarget with it, especially when the atro is up.

scamp is less dps than armaments, though you lose some spammable dps and you get less frags though you do gain some light attack damage as well.
in addition if you're running armaments you might have issues keeping your mag low with bahsei.

Thats true, but there is a key to do it. Easier on keyboard/mouse if you can. Seems to be an even trade between the few skill paths.

Susurrus

Tannus15 wrote: »

i run prey as much for the fact it targets your pets as for the damage. it's super useful to be able to retarget with it, especially when the atro is up.

scamp is less dps than armaments, though you lose some spammable dps and you get less frags though you do gain some light attack damage as well.
in addition if you're running armaments you might have issues keeping your mag low with bahsei.

I've been keeping both scamp and armaments and have noticed the loss in spammable dps. If they make frags proc on all skills it might improve however.

I have been able to avoid mag issues for bahsei by running bistat food. Sustain is just fine and the health could be nice in trials.

However, even with these changes, I'm still getting around 110k dps which is about what I get on live despite excellent weave delays and la ratios. I guess I was expecting a dps increase. I will have to experiment with DW setups since these seem to get up to 120k dps or so. Maybe bow setups as well. I'd like to keep things ranged if possible since I think its more versatile.

Glantir

Susurrus wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

i run prey as much for the fact it targets your pets as for the damage. it's super useful to be able to retarget with it, especially when the atro is up.

scamp is less dps than armaments, though you lose some spammable dps and you get less frags though you do gain some light attack damage as well.
in addition if you're running armaments you might have issues keeping your mag low with bahsei.

I've been keeping both scamp and armaments and have noticed the loss in spammable dps. If they make frags proc on all skills it might improve however.

I have been able to avoid mag issues for bahsei by running bistat food. Sustain is just fine and the health could be nice in trials.

However, even with these changes, I'm still getting around 110k dps which is about what I get on live despite excellent weave delays and la ratios. I guess I was expecting a dps increase. I will have to experiment with DW setups since these seem to get up to 120k dps or so. Maybe bow setups as well. I'd like to keep things ranged if possible since I think its more versatile.

I think if you are a frag spamer BA will be an dps increase, my best parse was about 102/104k (live Server) and Wrath only did about 4k dps. I am sure that BA will perform better than that ^^…

Would be nice to know how the sustain is with DW, BA, Hurricane and Bistat food.

Faulgor

Do we have a verdict on Storm-Cursed's Revenge yet? Is it thumbs up or down for shock Sorcerers?

Susurrus

Faulgor wrote: »

Do we have a verdict on Storm-Cursed's Revenge yet? Is it thumbs up or down for shock Sorcerers?

Thumbs down if you're pushing parsing. Mostly because the set's 2, 3 and 4 piece bonuses are lousy. Might have a role in AoE setups - haven't experimented with that yet.

Tannus15

Susurrus wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

i run prey as much for the fact it targets your pets as for the damage. it's super useful to be able to retarget with it, especially when the atro is up.

scamp is less dps than armaments, though you lose some spammable dps and you get less frags though you do gain some light attack damage as well.
in addition if you're running armaments you might have issues keeping your mag low with bahsei.

I've been keeping both scamp and armaments and have noticed the loss in spammable dps. If they make frags proc on all skills it might improve however.

I have been able to avoid mag issues for bahsei by running bistat food. Sustain is just fine and the health could be nice in trials.

However, even with these changes, I'm still getting around 110k dps which is about what I get on live despite excellent weave delays and la ratios. I guess I was expecting a dps increase. I will have to experiment with DW setups since these seem to get up to 120k dps or so. Maybe bow setups as well. I'd like to keep things ranged if possible since I think its more versatile.

the really big numbers are from 2h back bar and carve stacking. it's very strong

Susurrus

Tannus15 wrote: »

the really big numbers are from 2h back bar and carve stacking. it's very strong

Did you try a bow backbar? Curious how it compares.

Tannus15

Susurrus wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

the really big numbers are from 2h back bar and carve stacking. it's very strong

Did you try a bow backbar? Curious how it compares.

yup, though my skills aren't fully levelled with it and i can't be bothered making a template character to try it atm.



volley is a ground target aoe so it's janky to use compared to wall. i really wish ZoS would do something to make ground target skills smoother

Faulgor

Susurrus wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Do we have a verdict on Storm-Cursed's Revenge yet? Is it thumbs up or down for shock Sorcerers?

Thumbs down if you're pushing parsing. Mostly because the set's 2, 3 and 4 piece bonuses are lousy. Might have a role in AoE setups - haven't experimented with that yet.

Yeah I was mostly considering it for solo dungeon runs and arenas, where the cleave damage and the extra pen might be helpful. I don't think there's a reasonable application for it in single-target fights, by design it needs multiple targets.

Combining it with Dark Convergence could be funny, but that's almost too much procville for my tastes.

Jeirno

Susurrus wrote: »

Jeirno wrote: »

Dropping scamp is a bad idea, you cast it less often than armaments which means you have more time to cast spammables.

I went for

Bahsei, Kinras, Kilt, 1piece Slime, vMA 2hander backbar

Frags-Scamp-Mages Wrath-Trap-Bird - Dawnbreaker
Stampede-Carve-Hurricane-scamp-bird - Atronach ulti

Yes dropping prey sounds kinda weird but prey gets really weird and annoying to keep good uptimes on with carve being the highest priority skill to keep up and not let it drop so you can keep all the 3 stacks.

Result, 122k DPS

I might drop wrath just because it's so terrible. If you can fit armaments in your rotation I think it might increase dps.

Also, Relequen's is really strong now on a magsorc it seems... did you try it?

I tried more of a "Stamsorc" with 5 piece Relequen, 2 piece Tzogvin on jewels for the crit, kilt, 2 light armor piece Stormfiist, vMA 2h backbar and vatesharan 2DW daggers front bar

Shrouded Daggers-Scamp-Armaments-Trap-Bird - Dawnbreaker
Stampede-Carve-Hurricane-scamp-bird - Atronach ulti

- 127k dps


Also, wrath ain't terrible.

Susurrus

Jeirno wrote: »

I tried more of a "Stamsorc" with 5 piece Relequen, 2 piece Tzogvin on jewels for the crit, kilt, 2 light armor piece Stormfiist, vMA 2h backbar and vatesharan 2DW daggers front bar

Shrouded Daggers-Scamp-Armaments-Trap-Bird - Dawnbreaker
Stampede-Carve-Hurricane-scamp-bird - Atronach ulti

- 127k dps


Also, wrath ain't terrible.

Straight up stamsorc really. Glad the dps is good, just hope I don't have to switch for my trial progs... Magicka is more my thing. Guess I better level up 2h...

Susurrus

So... magsorc dead?

Tannus15

nah, magsorc is very strong.

if you want to run melee, 2h backbar is OP, regardless of stamsorc or magsorc.

if you want to run a ranged build then you'll want a staff build. also, you should probably stop thinking about it "magsorc" and "stamsorc" and start thinking about things as melee vs ranged.