Magicka sorcerer : bound aegis VS mage's wrath

preevious

Hey, there.

Like everyone, U35 came for me with it's bag full of nerfs.
I didn"t really parse on the trial dummy (I was around 90-92k, U34), because it has been unbuffed even more.

I went from 40k unbuffed to 35k. (34.6 on average, really)

I'm trying to reclaim what was lost, and aside from the obvious (use procs set like pillars) I'm trying to find if my skill set is optimal.

On my front bar (the one involved with the question); I have :

2 pets (of course !)
Daedric prey (easier to cast it from front bar, since I try to have a maximum uptime with it)
Crystal fragments (I use it as a spammable. In PVE, it's very doable, and yield good results)
Bound Aegis (for the max magicka passive wich increase the damage of everything)

nb : I don't use psijick's elemental weapon because I don't quite like the skill, and also because any miss in weaving is very penalized. (I'm approx at 0.8 LA/s)

My question is : is bound aegis a good choice? Would I be better off slotting mage's wrath to increase the damage on those last 20% of boss's health?.

Thanks !

thorwyn

I have not touched Bound Aegis after U35, I use Mages Wrath instead. If you don't like it, I'd recommend slotting Barbed Trap on the front bar for the Fighters Guild passive.

preevious

Mage's wrath is fine by me. I'll try that, thanks !

Elendir2am

I know only one place, where Bound Aegis deserve is place on bar, vAS+2. Bound Aegis is used there instead one pet.

Mages Wrath has its place on bar in boss fights as execute skill and it is powerful in fight with elite trash. It can take some time to learn best timing in trash fight.

Quethrosar

so mages wrath... why do you spam it below 20%? i only notice any difference if the health moves from above 20 to below 20%, hitting at 10% doesn't trigger anything that i am aware of.

Chilly-McFreeze

Quethrosar wrote: »

so mages wrath... why do you spam it below 20%? i only notice any difference if the health moves from above 20 to below 20%, hitting at 10% doesn't trigger anything that i am aware of.

Unless you are encountering a bug, casting Wrath below the threshold should trigger the bigger damage part immediately with the standard hit, so no delayed second hit. Like an ordinary execute.

Quethrosar

can you define execute? i heard this about fights but don't understand how the term applies. has something to do with phases, but i don't know what phases are. to me it's just burn the crap down.

Elendir2am

Quethrosar wrote: »

can you define execute? i heard this about fights but don't understand how the term applies. has something to do with phases, but i don't know what phases are. to me it's just burn the crap down.

Execute skills are skills, which do more damage against low health enemies.
Such skills has normaly lower damage, than best spammable, but when health get under someone threshold, it became stronger than spammable.

Variuos executive skills works diferently and skill desciribtions need to be read to determine, where treashold is.
Difference is in health (%), when execution start to affect damage. Another difference is, that some do flat more damage after crossing (Mages Wrath for example) when other do more damage in depends on how much under threshold health is.

Quethrosar

oh so you mean execute as in executioner.
i would have called them finishing skills to make more sense of their place in the timeline.4

Molydeus

Did Bound Aegis get changed in U35? Why are people saying not to use it?

preevious

Indeed, mage wrath at the last 20% more than compensate for the lost dps due to the lowered max magicka.
Thanks !

haelgaan

front bar, i go with barbed trap with frags and prey.

i tried wrath front bar, with trap on backbar instead of carve. did better dropping wrath, putting trap on front (nice boost to all front bar damage from f. guild passive), and putting carve back on my backbar.

Chilly-McFreeze

haelgaan wrote: »

front bar, i go with barbed trap with frags and prey.

i tried wrath front bar, with trap on backbar instead of carve. did better dropping wrath, putting trap on front (nice boost to all front bar damage from f. guild passive), and putting carve back on my backbar.

Do you refer to the 1% difference in spell/ weapon dmg from Slayer in comparison to Expert Mage? I was away for a while, maybe I am missing something.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Mages wrath is better damage this patch as far as I know. Best parses I am seeing this patch are running Mages Wrath. Historically, Mages Wrath has been the weakest of all the class executes in PVE, and there were legitimate reasons not to run it, especially when not on a target dummy where you might need a shield or heal. But for straight single target damage, it merits a slot.

If you really want to increase your damage, be sure your Prey uptime is optimal. It is much more important that you are near perfect with it.

Lastly, the elephant in the room on everything you posted is the .8 LA/sec. That needs work. Its not bad, but that is the biggest area where you can see improvements. Its not the # of LAs, its the pace of your skill casts that is likely holding you back. Get that up into the .95 range and you just increased you DPS by 20%.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

haelgaan wrote: »

front bar, i go with barbed trap with frags and prey.

i tried wrath front bar, with trap on backbar instead of carve. did better dropping wrath, putting trap on front (nice boost to all front bar damage from f. guild passive), and putting carve back on my backbar.

Might work better for you, but I don't think its what you should be doing if trying to min/max. Fighters guild passives aside, Trap is a classic back bar skill. The duration is too long to take up front bar space. Sorc bars are really cramped. Assuming 2 pets, and frags as a spammable, you only have one slot at most on your front bar, which I think should either be your execute, or a more traditional spammable like ele weapon, and then only use frag on the proc. Back barring prey at only 6 seconds is a really bad idea. Its even more important this patch that your Prey uptime is optimal.

Meta sorc Bars this patch are something like:

Frags, Wrath, Prey, Pet, Pet, Storm Attro
Stampede (or blockade if double staff), Hurricane/boundless, Trap, Pet, Pet, Overload (for burst at beginning of fight).

Truthfully dont think the question is Mages Wrath vs Bound Aegis, I think its Wrath vs Ele Weapon. If you like frags as a spammable, then Mages Wrath is certainly the answer.

preevious

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Mages wrath is better damage this patch as far as I know. Best parses I am seeing this patch are running Mages Wrath. Historically, Mages Wrath has been the weakest of all the class executes in PVE, and there were legitimate reasons not to run it, especially when not on a target dummy where you might need a shield or heal. But for straight single target damage, it merits a slot.

If you really want to increase your damage, be sure your Prey uptime is optimal. It is much more important that you are near perfect with it.

Lastly, the elephant in the room on everything you posted is the .8 LA/sec. That needs work. Its not bad, but that is the biggest area where you can see improvements. Its not the # of LAs, its the pace of your skill casts that is likely holding you back. Get that up into the .95 range and you just increased you DPS by 20%.

Thanks, Oreyn.

It's not the first time you give me advice on the forums, and each time I improved.

So, yes, I noticed that I'm better off using wrath instead of aegis, so, that's that.

My update on prey is 80% I could probably do better by increasing my pace, because, as you said, I could attack more.
On a 84s fight, I apparently use 72 skills. Meaning one skill each 0.85s. That's indeed what need work.
I used to be on the north side of 0.9, but I took a break and my muscle memory faded a bit.

Anyyway, thanks a lot

Oreyn_Bearclaw

preevious wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Mages wrath is better damage this patch as far as I know. Best parses I am seeing this patch are running Mages Wrath. Historically, Mages Wrath has been the weakest of all the class executes in PVE, and there were legitimate reasons not to run it, especially when not on a target dummy where you might need a shield or heal. But for straight single target damage, it merits a slot.

If you really want to increase your damage, be sure your Prey uptime is optimal. It is much more important that you are near perfect with it.

Lastly, the elephant in the room on everything you posted is the .8 LA/sec. That needs work. Its not bad, but that is the biggest area where you can see improvements. Its not the # of LAs, its the pace of your skill casts that is likely holding you back. Get that up into the .95 range and you just increased you DPS by 20%.

Thanks, Oreyn.

It's not the first time you give me advice on the forums, and each time I improved.

So, yes, I noticed that I'm better off using wrath instead of aegis, so, that's that.

My update on prey is 80% I could probably do better by increasing my pace, because, as you said, I could attack more.
On a 84s fight, I apparently use 72 skills. Meaning one skill each 0.85s. That's indeed what need work.
I used to be on the north side of 0.9, but I took a break and my muscle memory faded a bit.

Anyyway, thanks a lot

Yeah, a lot of people look at LA/sec, but I think skills/second is actually a better metric. Of course, if you dont miss LA weaves, then they are really the same number. Again, 0.85 is really not bad, but think about it, get that to 0.95 and that's almost 8 more casts in your example. That's 11% more skills AKA, more damage.

Pace is more important than missing a handful of LAs here and there. And I feel you. When I take a break from parsing, my first handful are also in the 0.8s range. Takes me some time to knock the rust off and get it above 9. Also, the better you know the rotation, the easier it is to have good pace.

One issue with sorc, is that with frags as your spammable, you always lose pace if you hard cast frags then have to bar swap. Not an issue with a frag proc, just the channeled hard cast (why I personally like ele weapon as a spammable).

ALWAYS try to bar swap off of another skill whenever possible. You dont ever want to cast prey early, because then you miss the explosion, but there are times when i think it technically makes sense to recast something like familiar a few seconds early if you need to swap bars or perhaps, go to your back bar a second or two early if a frag proc comes up that you can swap off of.

Once you hit execute, that problem goes away. Wrath becomes your spammable and you only cast frags when it insta procs.

Easiest way to play sorc IMO is to just count to 6. Prey is always on the one. Only exception is if a frag procs on the one, then you should cast frags and delay prey for one cast (but not more than one). A Frag proc is your highest priority, Prey is second.

haelgaan

i get what y'all are saying - my bias against wrath is probably salted from prior patches. i only tried it one round post-35, didnj't like it, and didn't try to optimize it. hitting almost 110k without it is good enough for me