Sorcerer/Archer, plausible?

Kichu

Hey there! So I'm curious if anyone else has tried this. I'm sort of aiming for the idea of having the little daedric buddies I spawn to take most of the front damage. Most of the time when I attack something, it runs passed my little buddy and goes straight for me. But! Sometimes it does go after my clannfear, leaving me open to beat the crud out of them.

I've been messing around, trying to find a way to make it always attack my clannfear first, but I haven't come up with anything consistent. So I was wanting to hear some random stranger opinions.

Have you tried this build?
Does it work?
Has any sorcerer in general been able to figure out how to make baddies attack their buddy first?

I'm only level 7, not too far in. I'm not too worried about messing with the other class skills atm, I'll figure those out as I go along. I just mostly want to know if my little pet-tank idea will work or not. I don't want to be 10 hours into this char and realize it's a failure </3

Thanks guys! Happy questing!

Erock25

Pets are bad. You will be doing yourself a huge favor if you just ignore pets completely. Sure, people use them and get by and they might even help in lower level content, but the fact that you can not control them makes them utterly useless in Vet content. There is no way to guarantee that your pet gets aggro.

As far as an archer/sorc goes, I like mine very much. In group dungeons, I tend to run Restoration/ Destruction staff but for solo PVE I am usually Bow/Destruction staff which is single target/aoe. Works great and I can basically kite a mob forever as long as it can be CC'd.

Kichu

Ahh Yea that's something I noticed too. They do very minimal damage, so unless they draw aggro they are just magicka leeches. I'm probably going to have to respec this lady. I haven't even thought about what I'd use as secondary. The Bow/Destruction sounds like a very interesting combo. Nothing to lose but my time, so might as well try it out.

Thank you much!

LadyChaos

I have dusted off the pets for situational dungeon duo fights with the husband. I'm really not a "pet" person in MMOs tbh so take it with grain of salt. I played pets in betas because it seemed like that was the strong line on paper, and pet = solo in about every MMO.

IDK if they beefed up pets HP but the monkey seems to be holding aggro and staying up (I have heal twilight), templar husband and a resto staff for my second bar... I haven't even upgraded the monkey yet because the clanfear was weak IMO in beta, I didn't bother in live... but I was surprised that the monkey had > 2k HP (VR1), held aggro and died seldom for the named fights I used it for. I still have no use for it with my playstyle except for when all else fails type situation, but I understand why "pet" people really love their pets, I just see them as situational.

Iceman_mat

Hey Kichu,

So I too have been experimenting with this type of play style as since I work nights (night shift) I am often playing alone. The build I am describing I have used and am currently using as of Level 29. If you wanna add the "Damn playa" comment I have also used this model without (seriously) adding any of my ability points. (yea I have 29 ability points :P)

Anyways, Basically you wanna make a "Bow Mage in heavy armor". You basically use a Bow, Sorc abilities and heavy armor as a base.

As a starter you are basically just shooting a bow, using your 1st sorc dark magic skill and wearing heavy. As you progress in level I have found (personally though it is able to be modified) that you want to spec into the Sorc's dark magic cc skills / bow slowing skills (I think is scatter shot) as well as wear all the different armors (to raise other armor levels, light / med / heavy) and put maybe 1 skill point in each of the armors bonus (+regen / magic / stam / etc) so that you get bonus off of them as well.

When you start hitting around lvl 10ish+ you do actually want to put 1 - 2 points into the summoning skill tree (1 for the familiar, 2 for upgraded clanfair) as later on if you read the summoning skill tree having the summon increases movement speed (I think at lvl 30ish dark summoner). The summon also helps with 3 pack mobs later on.

Basically following this gives you the following:

- Ranged attack (bow)
- An assist tank (summon)
- CC capability (spells)
- Armor buffs (depending on armor picked)

You do have disadvantages as not being able to take many hits and your dmg output is lower then say a spell nuker or full out bow however you are more versatile.

To get your summon to assist you basically cast the summon, attack mob group and then focus on 1 of them coming at you whilst dogging the 2nd (out of 3). What should happen is your summon picks up the 3rd mob, you will be able to handle 1 of the ones coming at you (spells + what not) and hopefully the summon pulls the 2nd mob off of you. If he doesn't though you have cc to keep that mob in place whilst you deal with them accordingly.

The rule of thumb as you spec is to try and pick skills that help your class / stats that don't NEED to be slotted (e.g Unholy knowledge - Reduce the cost of all abilities) so that they help all of your skills in general as well as spells should have a malfunction (e.g My Dark magic encase after cc'ing you will then slow you afterwards)

A bit of a long post and this build doesn't have to be followed to the letter but I hope it helps and gives you an idea of what you were looking for.

-Cheers

Chryos

The only thing I can add is most do not like pets in end game content in every MMO I have ever played. However, play the game for yourself, and not others. It's your character that youll be playing everyday.

SeñorCinco

My character is a summoner dual wield DPS. He has a Volatile Familiar and Twilight Matriarch. His norm is to lead with a shard. That drops the enemy and gives the two summoned Daedra a chance to get in a couple of hits. 99% of the time thai is enough to draw aggro and 75% of that time they target the matriarch as she will heal you.

Not sure what others have against them. This guy walks through most enemies two at a time that are 3 levels his senior. Now three at a time is quite a challenge if they take out your Matriarch.

Sakiri

I roll bow and twilight just fine. She does decent damage, and I dont expect her to tank. Thats my hope, it hits me so I can kite it to death.

Censorious

I play clothie sorcerer and use a bow/resto staff. Pretty well a glass-cannon, I use positioning and movement to mitigate damage. I have been using this build since about level 20. I'm now VR1.
I use the Volatile Familiar as a tank when in PvE (PvP I switch to Bolt Escape).

When you attack a mob, the pet will always wait for your opening move. It will then move to intercept the mob and taunt it. Usually the mob switches attention to the pet. It's very rare that it doesn't.
The VR has a huge capacity to absorb damage but does little damage itself. It's a very effective tank
However, if you over-aggro the mob you can draw it back to yourself so the trick is to let the pet tank while using a fairly light attack to nibble the mob down. (That's assuming the mob is not trivial - in which case I just kill it).

If there are two or more mobs, the pet will constantly switch attention to your current target. So you have to be careful not to have it running between widely spaced mobs.

I wish we had better pet control in the game of course, but right now it's adequate except for it's habit of instantly breaking any light CC you use.

Kichu

At the moment, I'm still kinda messing around with her in my free time. I've just scattered her points about and I'm trying different things to see how they work out. But of course, I won't really know how well things are going to work until I have more time invested in her... And if I end up hating it I'll have lots of wasted time... good thing I have nothing better to do, amiright? ...ahem...

Thank you guys for all of your input! I'll def try some of these out. The Bow/Resto sounds quite interesting.

I still can't get the pets to draw aggro, but then again, I'm so low level I can 2hit people if I use the right abilities. I probably don't give them much of a chance to draw aggro.

Reticent_Prophet

I have a sorcerer archer build as well. I love it. When starting out, I had the same idea as you with using summoning to take the damage. I've only used the clannifer, but it seems to work good when attacking groups because at least one of the enemies will attack it and it frees you up a little. That being said, it really depends on the area your in. You have a lot of options on keeping them from even hitting you. I change up my hotbar a lot depending on the group im fighting. My normal set up to move quickly and have instant attacks, poison arrow and daedric curse for bigger longer lasting damage. lighting form (Huge armor bonus and makes you move much faster), surge (increases attack power), mages fury (finishes off low health targets). To attack bigger groups in confined areas, I swap out daedric curse and lightning form for encase (to hold them in place) and Volly ( to set them ablaze). You also have arrow spray and scattershot to put some distance between you and the enemy, so theres a lot of possible combinations and its hard to go wrong.

AzureButterfly

I personally find pets to be more of a help than a hindrance. I'm 5 Medium, 3 Light armor most of the time, and I've about 30 points into Magicka. My Clanfear is an absolute beast, easily tanking numerous vet ranked enemies. I think putting points into Magicka also increases his health.

I usually run Resto/Destro staves, but I've started to use Bow more in PvP. I usually start off with a sneak attack, cast Crystal Shards followed by Boundless Storm (for the armor and DoT when they reach me) and just finish them off with heavy attacks. Using Resto Staff in the second slot seems to work the best.

nopressure

So im also have sorcerer\bow with clanfear and im lvl 28. Main idea is keep enemy at distance, control him and fight him from distance. How i fight in PVE?
1) Bow attack from stealth
2) Poison arrow (stamina based, quick, can stun if interrupt spellcast), can spam it 2 or 3 times
3) Then lighting bolt ( magicka based, pretty quick, explode at low health), can spam it 2 or 3 times

If enemy gets close to me i use bow's magnum shot what knock him back and give me time to safely attack him

If 2 or 3 enemies gets close to me i use sorcerers cc ability (cant remember name) which stops enemies for pretty long time, so i can back up and safely attack

Stamina pool allows me do some extra 2 dodges at least, magicka pool gives me extra cc and lightning damage.

In last fifth slot i have clanfear for company and he tank some enemy time to time.

In PvP is different story. People are smarter than mobs and can get close to me and exploit my close combat disadvantage. But i started to develop healing staff as second weapon and play supportive role at battlefield and stand behind tanks, so far looks good.

Definitly this isnt strongest build but i enjoy it a lot and i will make it stronger.

Sorry about my pretty bad english, hope that my story is helpful.

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO

Run sorc archer with healing surge the armor spell and your bow then troll about it when you heal from attacking and keep mobs constantly standing still... Bow has so much critical chance bonus and if you run medium armor with that youl effectively end up doing critical quite often while gaining health on near every blows... fun fun

ErilAq

I run a sorc archer and I do great. I do have to say avoid pets, magnum shot and crystal shards give you a ton of kiting ability. I slot Velocious curse and storm atronarch as the only daedric summoning abilities, since Velocious is a good amount of dps and makes it easy to trigger the insta cast crystal shards. for bow abilities I tend to just run with snipe and magnum shot, and switch in venom arrow when I need an interrupt. Overall I can get some serious single target dps output, and kiting is easy when you use both stam and magica to kite (keeps you from going completely resource dry)

Otani126

Erock25 wrote: »

Pets are bad. You will be doing yourself a huge favor if you just ignore pets completely. Sure, people use them and get by and they might even help in lower level content, but the fact that you can not control them makes them utterly useless in Vet content. There is no way to guarantee that your pet gets aggro.

As far as an archer/sorc goes, I like mine very much. In group dungeons, I tend to run Restoration/ Destruction staff but for solo PVE I am usually Bow/Destruction staff which is single target/aoe. Works great and I can basically kite a mob forever as long as it can be CC'd.

Pets are NOT bad ! I am a full cloth using, staff wielding sorc, and the pets have saved my ass any number of times ! They get agro a lot. If you have a grp pull, your pets will auto attack something. The thing to do is ignore the one the pets are going after ! They will have full agro while you take out one of the others ! Just don't AoE, and they will hold agro fine ! If the pet dies, so what? summon another one ! To say the pets are bad is not to understand how to use them.

RustyBlades

Magic does help mage abilities as stamina helps weapon/night blade abilities, and health just helps you breath. Anyways, I am running a lvl 17 heavy armor 2h summoner and the pet seems to do a decent job. There are visual bugs as the pet sometimes looks like it is debating on whether he can eat grass or attack. I view the pet as a DOT vs a mule. He does damage, occasionally draws agro, and blocks enemies.

I will say that sometimes he feels out and out bugged as he is no where to be seen and is just following me around like a mud crab pet.

As for bows, I have an actual nb bow with assassin skills but isn't up to the task of dps or tank. The mix is more of a DOT/AOE cc deal. The build doesn't have a huge burst damage to take out anything or enough hp to do more than run. I couldn't imagine doing bow with a sorc unless you focus on stun/interrupt abilities.

huntgod_ESO

The pet makes you lazy, I have no trouble managing it and it makes most fights trivial. Whether you use bow, DW, or swd/bd, your damage is going be mainly from spells and once you have exchange, you stamina is much better spent healing you and replenishing magicka.

I ran with bound armor for awhile in lieu of a pet and though that was workable, it was just so much easier with a pet and it makes a hug difference in boss fights when running solo.

I do recommend going with the upgraded clanfear that has more HP, they make really solid tanks, I ran the flyer for awhile, but ended up going back to the clanfear.