Is Dark magic a little OP?

Elyna

I've been trying to use Storm and Summoning but they both feel pretty inferior to Dark Magic. The crystal thing costs less mana and does more damage than any of the Storm Call spells. And seeing how you can give it an AOE, it makes Storm feel even more useless.
EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm trying to find out whether or not I'm using the other 2 class paths correctly.

Teloran

The most important thing I can tell you is that you will need skills from all three lines to be effective. Storm Calling in particular has very powerful utility spells like Bolt Escape, Lightning Form and ESPECIALLY Critical Surge (Surge morph). Don't bother with the pets from Daedric Summoning except the imp to level the line, but the other skills are good and the ultimate is OP for solo PvE.

Make sure you have at least one skill of each line on your bar at all times, since they will level their respective tree automatically whenever you gain experience.

In terms of pure damage, Crystal Shard will normally be your hardest hitting spell but Mages Wrath will do more damage against enemies under 20% health and is much cheaper. You will probably want to run both on your bars if you're playing a typical offensive caster. Velocious Curse (Daedric Curse morph) also does very good damage, is very efficient, and fast to cast but can only be used once every 3 seconds, meaning you need filler spells.

kapxis

Filler spells OR a stamina focus as well and utilizing left click weapon dmg/weapon skills + buffs like surge and when needed lightning form. Plus any weapon skill buffs such as momentum from 2hand line. Personally I find Crystal fragments (the insta cast morph) + mages wrath + 3secCurse to be a great combo. Starting fights off with the curse.. and if insta cast for crystal fragments proc's then use it, if not play defensive/offensive depending situation til it explodes and try again..and of course once enemies at half health(typically) use mages wrath so that when curse goes boom so does mages wrath..you can have all 3 spells hit at the exact same time for a massive burst damage situation.

Baphomet

Sorcerers are very well balanced right now in terms of end game PvP. Crystal shards is super powerful but in PvP, people will learn to counter it to some extend using blocking, defensive stance, reflective scales and eclipse so its power is warranted.

Kolache

Yep

Pyatra

It's powerful but the 2 second cast means you need to bring something else to the table when you get to PVP.

atarr3b14_ESO

It all depends on what kind of build you're going for. Don't underestimate the other skill lines though (although Daedric summoning does feel a little underpowered compared to others). Endless fury, crystal fragments, and velocious curse combo works wonders against groups. With spell cost reduction perks, you can even get endless fury to not only be free, but restore some magicka on executes. It's good to mix in some stamina abilities with these (I went with bow because it deals good damage).

And as others have said above, there are excellent utility spells in storm calling that are very useful for kiting. Also each tree has very good passives, so you'll want to make sure to level up each.

Septimus_Magna

Baphomet wrote: »

Sorcerers are very well balanced right now in terms of end game PvP. Crystal shards is super powerful but in PvP, people will learn to counter it to some extend using blocking, defensive stance, reflective scales and eclipse so its power is warranted.

There is a morph for Crystal Shards that gives it a chance to become instant cast with 50% magicka cost. When using the Foundry Tacticle Combat Add-On you get an indication when it procs and every abilities is able to trigger it. This changed my play style quite a bit because it can be very useful to use cheap abilities and wait for Crystal Shard to proc.

I don't think there are a lot of things other players can do to counter it when you use it like this because there is no warning.

Raapnaap

Daedric Summoning is not underpowered, it's strength lies primarily Velocious Curse and Twilight Matriarch, as a matter of fact anyone going deep into Daedric Summoning is going to be wanting those particular spells/morphs.

The Twilight Matriarch is a useful tool in PvP as life safer, and more notably, as exceptionally effective aggro magnet in PvE, it does the job the Clannfear fails at; Tanking mobs. Seeing as the Familiar/Clannfear is the entry level spell on Daerdric Summoning, I can easily understand why people think the entire role is underpowered.

Velocious Curse does very good damage, my standard combo is as follows:
- Cast Velocious Curse
- Do a heavy destruction staff attack
- Velocious Curse explodes exactly as the staff heavy attack hits
- Finish target with Endless Fury for additional AoE damage and Magicka back.
- Any non-standard mob will "near-instantly" (after 3.5 seconds of delayed damage in fact, after which it is dealt all at once) die to this combination unless it out-levels you by 2+ levels.
- Both Velocious Curse and Endless Fury deal AoE damage, causing extra DPS on packs of mobs.
- Because all damage is dealt after 3.5 seconds, healers (players and mobs) can be overwhelmed with the burst of damage. It kills healer mobs before they can cast their heals, shortening PvE fights significantly.

Therefore my hotbar, using a destruction staff, is as follows:
Velocious Curse, Endless Fury, Thundering Presence, Twilight Matriarch, Unstable Clannfear, Greater Storm Atronach.

I plan on replacing Unstable Clannfear with something else when I see an opportunity, it currently is my weakest spell, and I will likely swap Thundering Presence with Hardened Ward once I unlock that. Hardened Ward may in turn make the Clannfear more useful again, so who knows.

TLDR: Sorcerers don't need Dark Magic to come up with viable builds, mine uses the "underpowered" skill lines perfectly fine.

Teloran

Raapnaap wrote: »

Snip

I warn you against building too heavily around pets. They actually do very little damage at high levels and die very quickly since they do not scale. They will quickly become unviable as your other skills outpace them.

Even if they did scale, most organised groups will hate you for taking them since they don't stealth when you do, giving away your group in PvP, and they eat 'lowest health ally' heals due to their fragile nature, potentially killing your teammates. The ward is also kind of bad since it doesn't receive any of your damage mitigation.

There rest of the Daedirc Summoning skills are useful, but you'd probably be better off taking bound armor or lightning form instead if you want extra suitability.

Raapnaap

The minions are absolutely a leveling thing first and foremost. Once I reach level 50 (and 50 in Daedric Summoning), I will replace them unless by that point they have resolved the AI issues as well as the stealth/hiding issues with PvP. You might notice that my standard DPS rotation doesn't really involve them, it's simply because I use them for PvE aggro.

steinernein

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Daedric summoning has the best AoE out of all the mage line under many circumstances. Name one other AoE that stuns and is hitting for almost as much as Crystal Shards and has a shorter cast time? Oh wait, none. However, said AoE is *** for PvP unless you're in a melee group.

rhubbert_ESO

I'll show you OP:
My build http://tinyurl.com/pqjuxcc

Aevric

If you're going to go skill heavy for casting, a good idea is to level restoration staff, using the default staff attack as "filler" damage. When you can unlock Circle of Life, you'll do 10% more damage with all of your spells/skills.

Teloran

steinernein wrote: »

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Daedric summoning has the best AoE out of all the mage line under many circumstances. Name one other AoE that stuns and is hitting for almost as much as Crystal Shards and has a shorter cast time? Oh wait, none. However, said AoE is *** for PvP unless you're in a melee group.

...There isn't a non ultimate AoE that does this in any sorcerer tree. I you're talking about Daedric Curse, then it doesn't stun, does middling AoE damage, and it has a delay factor that reduces it's viability as a spammed nuke. It's still a great ability (ONLY if morphed to have a 3.5 second timer. It's terrible otherwise), especially if the delay isn't important since you're a hybrid using the odd spell in between stamina feats, but Crystal Fragments will always be a better choice as a main ranged nuke, although it may be worth using Velocious Curse on some builds since it can proc an instant Crystal Fragments.

It's AoE is probably the best out of your 2nd tier class abilities (it's the only semi spammable one we have at that point), but Lightning Splash will beat it both in raw damage and because you can actually spam it. Also, once someone actually activates Lightning Splashes synergy it becomes our highest damage ability.

This is only really relevant for lower level stuff though. Once you unlock it, Impulse from the Destruction Staff tree will become your most powerful spammable AoE.

Teloran

rhubbert_ESO wrote: »

I'll show you OP:
My build http://tinyurl.com/pqjuxcc

Daedric mines is quite difficult to land and Entropy barely tickles. I'd recommend swapping one out for Mages Fury since an execute is always good and the other one for an AoE of your choice. Otherwise it looks like a solid build.

steinernein

Teloran wrote: »

...There isn't a non ultimate AoE that does this in any sorcerer tree. I you're talking about Daedric Curse, then it doesn't stun, does middling AoE damage, and it has a delay factor that reduces it's viability as a spammed nuke. It's still a great ability (ONLY if morphed to have a 3.5 second timer. It's terrible otherwise), especially if the delay isn't important since you're a hybrid using the odd spell in between stamina feats, but Crystal Fragments will always be a better choice as a main ranged nuke, although it may be worth using Velocious Curse on some builds since it can proc an instant Crystal Fragments.

It's AoE is probably the best out of your 2nd tier class abilities (it's the only semi spammable one we have at that point), but Lightning Splash will beat it both in raw damage and because you can actually spam it. Also, once someone actually activates Lightning Splashes synergy it becomes our highest damage ability.

This is only really relevant for lower level stuff though. Once you unlock it, Impulse from the Destruction Staff tree will become your most powerful spammable AoE.

If you're too lazy to look at the options, you could just ask for the answer.

I already gave you a few clues; instant cast, high damage, stuns, and requires you to be in melee range, is in the summoning tree.

What the *** could I be talking about?

Summons an explosive familiar to attack enemies. Explodes on death, causing 20% of your Max Magica as damage and stunning affected enemies for 2 seconds. Toggle to activate. Reduces Max Magicka by 10%. Familiar deals 15% additional damage.

Does this look at all... familiar... to you? Consider the fact that it will out damage every AoE (probably) at any given level except for the lowest ones if you're gearing for magicka. The costs on it are deceptive due to the passive return + non-capped cost reductions which makes it pretty spammable.

Crystal Fragments, Dark Conversion, Unstable Familiar are hands down our most abusive abilities and two of them are questionable in PvP due to how CC immunity works (though I guess you could use Unstable Familiar as a homing missile of sorts).

And synergies generally consume the producer so you have to consider that you're taking away two GCDs to do what one person is doing with Unstable Familiar.

And obviously, yes, when you de-summon your imp it counts as death thus causing the explosion, and yes it can crit. And the max magicka reduction doesn't affect your max magicka return when it dies (just like it doesn't reduce your damage when you have it out).

Censorious

Crystal shard is OK, but not a wonderful skill. It really takes too long to cast, even in PvE.
At level 12, I've replaced it with Force Shock (Destro staff), which does almost as much damage in the same time and is not such a big chunk of magika all at once. It gives better control over the budget.

Teloran

steinernein wrote: »

snip

If you can instantly explode it, then it may not be terrible but Impulse (unmorphed) and Lightning Splash (without high DPS synergy) are still better in terms of both DPS and DPM. Even then, considering that you need to wait for it to walk up to your enemy means that you loose out on DPS. If you can't cause it to explode manually by de-spawning it (which is what I assumed) then its not reliable enough to consider.

The stun is nice for PvE trash, but won't wond anyone for more then a second in PvP who knows how to CC break and won't work on PvE bosses.

steinernein

Teloran wrote: »

steinernein wrote: »

snip

If you can instantly explode it, then it may not be terrible but Impulse (unmorphed) and Lightning Splash (without high DPS synergy) are still better in terms of both DPS and DPM. Even then, considering that you need to wait for it to walk up to your enemy means that you loose out on DPS. If you can't cause it to explode manually by de-spawning it (which is what I assumed) then its not reliable enough to consider.

The stun is nice for PvE trash, but won't wond anyone for more then a second in PvP who knows how to CC break and won't work on PvE bosses.

Why else would I mention unstable without implying that you can detonate it at will? If I couldn't then it wouldn't be worth it. Then again you haven't actually said anything useful in terms of push back.

You're asking for three global cool downs to match ONE GCD; what if you had two sorcs casting unstable familiar? Even just by myself by the time someone takes advantage of the synergy I am already up by 400~ damage. So no, it's pretty obvious that unstable familiar has the highest DPS.

And no, you really don't need to wait for it to walk up... you *** either blink into or follow up with the tank before the pull. And really, why are you even talking about AoEing bosses?

Teloran

steinernein wrote: »

You're asking for three global cool downs to match ONE GCD; what if you had two sorcs casting unstable familiar? Even just by myself by the time someone takes advantage of the synergy I am already up by 400~ damage. So no, it's pretty obvious that unstable familiar has the highest DPS.

I'm guessing you're talking about Lightning Splash here. Firstly, there isn't a global cooldown on this game, there's just animation times. The synergy is pretty much instant and the cast animation, including the ground targeting, are not that long. It is prone to lag since you need two inputs but so is the familiar cycle, especially since it takes a moment for the familiar to phase in. Even without the synergy, Lightning Splash will beat it in DPS. At VR10 the soft cap for magica is about 1800, hence you get 380 damage at the cost of 486 magica.

Lightning Slash does 432 over its duration for 364 magica and can be stacked. If you add in the synergy, then it will do 782 damage for the same cost. Even assuming that you can do two minion explosions for each splash with synergy, Lightning Splash still beasts it in DPS and blows it out of the water in DPM. It can also be done safely and reliably from range without having to worry about your familiar being killed by a stay AoE before it reaches your target.

The AoE itself is also pretty small, so I doubt you will actually get more then one or two enemies in it.

Do yourself a favour and go to Tamriel Foundry. The Entropy Rising members there were in the closed beta and hence have tested most of this stuff up to VR10. I've hear Volatile Familiar mentioned in their streams without much praise.

steinernein

Teloran wrote: »

I'm guessing you're talking about Lightning Splash here. Firstly, there isn't a global cooldown on this game, there's just animation times. The synergy is pretty much instant and the cast animation, including the ground targeting, are not that long. It is prone to lag since you need two inputs but so is the familiar cycle, especially since it takes a moment for the familiar to phase in. Even without the synergy, Lightning Splash will beat it in DPS. At VR10 the soft cap for magica is about 1800, hence you get 380 damage at the cost of 486 magica.

Lightning Slash does 432 over its duration for 364 magica and can be stacked. If you add in the synergy, then it will do 782 damage for the same cost. Even assuming that you can do two minion explosions for each splash with synergy, Lightning Splash still beasts it in DPS and blows it out of the water in DPM. It can also be done safely and reliably from range without having to worry about your familiar being killed by a stay AoE before it reaches your target.

The AoE itself is also pretty small, so I doubt you will actually get more then one or two enemies in it.

Do yourself a favour and go to Tamriel Foundry. The Entropy Rising members there were in the closed beta and hence have tested most of this stuff up to VR10. I've hear Volatile Familiar mentioned in their streams without much praise.

The animation lock is the GCD. Synergy is an animation lock and requires two people - producer and consumer.

Damage per second means you're considering how much damage output you're having per second not per 12, not per 5, not per 3 but rather per 1. Also, you're not really considering people who deliberately push into the 'second' soft cap nor are you looking at the passives that can support either subjects (be it lightning splash or summoning - 15% refund of max magicka).

At any rate, just run a sim through your addled head and here's a http://repl.it/ environment for you to do it in.

Why don't you do yourself a favor and run the numbers yourself instead of being mentally addled by having people spoon feed you nearly irrelevant information? Are you so poor in character that you have no curiosity about the matter and cannot contribute meaningfully to the discussion by adding decent push back? Every time you write back you reach farther away from the subject; you don't understand what the concept 'DPS' means, you don't really understand how animation locks affect damage, you don't really read your opponent's arguments either, nor are you intelligent/willing enough to consider what environments may support the both of them.

But then again you're the person who thinks 782 damage with exact timing in 3 seconds can beat two brain dead sorcerers putting collectively near 800 damage per second.

Teloran

steinernein wrote: »

Also, you're not really considering people who deliberately push into the 'second' soft cap nor are you looking at the passives that can support either subjects (be it lightning splash or summoning - 15% refund of max magicka).

At any rate, just run a sim through your addled head and here's a http://repl.it/ environment for you to do it in.

Why don't you do yourself a favor and run the numbers yourself instead of being mentally addled by having people spoon feed you nearly irrelevant information? Are you so poor in character that you have no curiosity about the matter and cannot contribute meaningfully to the discussion by adding decent push back? Every time you write back you reach farther away from the subject; you don't understand what the concept 'DPS' means, you don't really understand how animation locks affect damage, you don't really read your opponent's arguments either, nor are you intelligent/willing enough to consider what environments may support the both of them.

But then again you're the person who thinks 782 damage with exact timing in 3 seconds can beat two brain dead sorcerers putting collectively near 800 damage per second.

I think you're really overestimating the animation times

All those numbers are from esohead, which data mines straight from the game client. They should be pretty accurate, and I DID include the 15% max magica refund from passives (it would be 756 magica otherwise). Honestly, if you can't see that Lightning Splash has a higher sustained AoE DPS from them, I cannot help you. Have fun with your overpriced small radius AoE that spawns a meter to your left, prevents you from sneaking if pre loaded and that can soak up lowest ally heals from your party.

steinernein

Teloran wrote: »

I think you're really overestimating the animation times

All those numbers are from esohead, which data mines straight from the game client. They should be pretty accurate, and I DID include the 15% max magica refund from passives (it would be 756 magica otherwise). Honestly, if you can't see that Lightning Splash has a higher sustained AoE DPS from them, I cannot help you. Have fun with your overpriced small radius AoE that spawns a meter to your left, prevents you from sneaking if pre loaded and that can soak up lowest ally heals from your party.

No you're just mentally incapable of thinking about the issue due to the fact that you're relying on being spoonfed (or invested too much trust in a source that isn't telling you the entire story) then again you haven't responded properly to any of the arguments and you probably haven't investigated the issue thoroughly. If you think that I am overestimating it go parse it out yourself and see how much it does matter.

The imp detonation radius is the same as lightning splash unless you morph it to increase its radius in which case you lose out on some minor front loaded damage. Secondly, you don't use the imp unless you plan on detonating it immediately, so why would you bother pre-loading? It's to be treated as a slightly different PBAoE. Thirdly, you aren't even doing the calculations properly.

A character at 50 with 7/7 light armor and some 2k magicka (yes, it's slightly overcharged mostly due to food buff if we're looking for pure damage) will be tossing Lightning Flood out for ~255 mana per cast while a person who is using Volatile Imp will be throwing it out for ~267 mana per cast after refunds..

I think it is perfectly sustainable and only requires ONE person to utilize it effectively rather than wasting another person's effective GCD. Not to mention that the imp detonation can crit and has an extremely high base damage for an AoE - 400 with 2k.

But it's nice to see you change your tune from DPS to sustained DPS which doesn't even matter if you're dropping mobs due to front loaded damage then again you also have no idea how mana costs work either.

Crescent

steinernein wrote: »

Teloran wrote: »

I think you're really overestimating the animation times

All those numbers are from esohead, which data mines straight from the game client. They should be pretty accurate, and I DID include the 15% max magica refund from passives (it would be 756 magica otherwise). Honestly, if you can't see that Lightning Splash has a higher sustained AoE DPS from them, I cannot help you. Have fun with your overpriced small radius AoE that spawns a meter to your left, prevents you from sneaking if pre loaded and that can soak up lowest ally heals from your party.

No you're just mentally incapable of thinking about the issue due to the fact that you're relying on being spoonfed (or invested too much trust in a source that isn't telling you the entire story) then again you haven't responded properly to any of the arguments and you probably haven't investigated the issue thoroughly. If you think that I am overestimating it go parse it out yourself and see how much it does matter.

The imp detonation radius is the same as lightning splash unless you morph it to increase its radius in which case you lose out on some minor front loaded damage. Secondly, you don't use the imp unless you plan on detonating it immediately, so why would you bother pre-loading? It's to be treated as a slightly different PBAoE. Thirdly, you aren't even doing the calculations properly.

A character at 50 with 7/7 light armor and some 2k magicka (yes, it's slightly overcharged mostly due to food buff if we're looking for pure damage) will be tossing Lightning Flood out for ~255 mana per cast while a person who is using Volatile Imp will be throwing it out for ~267 mana per cast after refunds..

I think it is perfectly sustainable and only requires ONE person to utilize it effectively rather than wasting another person's effective GCD. Not to mention that the imp detonation can crit and has an extremely high base damage for an AoE - 400 with 2k.

But it's nice to see you change your tune from DPS to sustained DPS which doesn't even matter if you're dropping mobs due to front loaded damage then again you also have no idea how mana costs work either.

Is it really that hard to talk like a normal human being instead of littering the forums with some wall of invective? Grow up, this is some wasted data and theorycrafting when people won't care to get past your first paragraph without the raging *** factor making them decide to tune you out.

Which is a shame because the Daedric Summoning line COULD use some robust discussion that isn't cluttered with some petty, toxic forum war.

LadyChaos

Animation/land time/pet walk time, as a GCD is a factor. You cannot recast the same spell until animations for the first have finished.

I am now (2 days) running as AoE "warlock" (EQ) style sorcerer... Amazing. I get more deeps out of lightning pool than even my morphed Lvl2 Mage Fury.

I've taken crystal completely off my AoE, bar and I'm trying like crazy to keep daaedric up to get bound armor. ATM in PvE I'd rather have Deadric slotted than dark myself (lighting primary). In PvP I never have pet up for anything.

I've pushed into soft cap intentionally so I have no concerns when having pet up or magelight etc, and I can use and mund stone I like and gear mix... so yes being in the orange soft cap is worth wile for some.

I don't have pet in both hotbars tbh. I think pets hurt more than help in PvP atm, and if I switch roles to heal I don't want them eating my AoE heals anyway I'd rather have escapes and CC up. Situational choice that pet doest offer enough for me to get to role slot ATM, however I have died to it a couple times now underplaying what the little imp was doing for me for CC in a solo fight, swapped to heal and all of a sudden found my self bobbing and weaving because the little monkey is gone... I still don't use 2 roles for it though.

Aimeryan

If you use a pet at the moment it is probably better off as a delayed nuke via dying/swapping bar with volatile than as a permanent pet - two slots for a weak pet is just too much.