i would say your dps problem would be the sets you are running. for your build 5 piece Set of the sun, along with 2 pieces of torug and 2 pieces of stygian

BTW: is vampire just a lost cause now, since in the new update, you have to have a skill on the bar to use it?

tactica wrote: »

BTW: is vampire just a lost cause now, since in the new update, you have to have a skill on the bar to use it?

for a pvp build vampire can be very useful still. For PVE(trials) i think it's lost it's utility

PvP only, that's a bit disheartening. That's not where I see myself spending a lot of time. I much prefer the end game and PvE side of things.

Hmm... I'll look into the crackwood cave. I'm not familiar with it, but sounds like I just need to get to vr12+.

Bummer, but understood.

@Cuyler

Very interesting, thank you.

I was running the Magnus already x4 piece + seducer x4 (with staves) and Infused on mains divines on smalls, but I was running one health and 2 magicka enchants cause I was worried about the health situation...

Anyway, my current build was was yielding me:
+ 3 magicka Recovery
+ 2 Max magicka
+1 Spell damage

Going to Magnus and Tourg Pact of 4x with each (including staves), I'll go to a:
+ 1 magicka recovery
+ 1 max magicka
+ 2 spell damage
+ 1 Health
+ 1 Weapon Damage

** I see the value of infused to push the magicka enchant on the 3 main pieces... and running all magicka here... Doing so, I'll push the magicka pool. Interestingly, I'm going to lose some magicka recovery but gain '+weapon damage' and '+health' here. I'm going to trade magicka pool for '+spell damage' too...

I'm not sure which is better in the end. I don't know the calculus behind it, just read that both are a factor.

I'm willing to give it a shot. My sorc can craft anything I need here up to 7/8 traits on staves and light armor, and enchant away... so... options a plenty.

@Cuyler Okay NP, I follow then:

x5 Magnus Gift & x3 Torug Pact yields:
+2 Spell Damage (both sets)
+1 Max Magicka (Magnus)
+1 Magicka Recovery (Magnus)
+1 Health (Torug Pact)
+1 8% chance to negate the cost of a spell (Magnus)

That compares to my current x4 Magnus & x4 Seducer as follows:
+2 Max magicka (both)
+1 Spell damage (Magnus)
+3 Magicka Recovery (2 from Seducer, 1 from Magnus)

I'll put it to test tonight. I'm not sure if I can bring myself to cure vamp just yet... but... I think its coming.

Thank you for taking the time.

Sounds like you are trying to run the DK laceration build from Deltia's Gaming at a lower than max level. Going to be hard to do and sounds like the previous posters are steering you in the right direction. When you get to v12 and then v14 you want to pick up a few items also. All items listed below are either crafted or purchased from a guild store so no farming involved unless you want to so save your gold. This will also be good enough to start farming v16 dungeons for the monster set you want, along with the 2 new IC dungeons:

Boots - martial Knowledge - Light armor
Legs - martial Knowledge - Light armor
Gloves - Martial Knowledge - Light armor
Belt - Martial Knowledge - Light armor
Head - Adroitness - light armor
Chest - torug's Pact - heavy armor - infused trait crafted at v12 then again at v14
Shoulder - Torug's Pact - Medium armor - divines trait same as chest piece
All armor with magicka enchants

necklace - Adroitness - arcane trait
Band of Cyrodil's Light x2 - Arcane on both v14 items
I ran enchants for spell damage on the rings and magicka recovery on the neck

Both fire staves would also be Torug's Pact, nirnhoned if you can get it, sharpened otherwise would also be good, may be some others, but I prefer nirn. Fire enchant on both also. Craft them at v12 then again at v14.

If you stay vampire, put all red line points into elemental defender first to negate the effect. If you get rid of it then put the points into physical resistance and spell resistance. You will find you will take less damage that way against everything other than just a few types of damage. Green line I split between magicka recovery and reduce cost of magicka skills. Blue line I put 5 pints into Spell erosion and 5 points into spell critical damage. The rest into additional fire damage.

Take the Atronach mundus stone for more spell recovery. When you run a long boss fight you will understand why.

Run blue food for health and magicka. Do not run the tri food for all three stats, you will lose out on max health and magicka while stamina which does little for you in pve other than rolling and blocking. With good tanks and heals that is not an issue once you know the fight mechanics.

With food running, put character attribute points into health till you get to about 20k. Then dump all the rest into magicka. I also noticed you were running structured entropy. Use spell power pots for boss fights to get that 20% damage buff and use regular magicka pots against trash mobs. Spell power pots are more expensive and harder to craft so save them for the boss not garbage.

Skills:
bar 1
Lava whip - bread and butter right here
Burning embers
engulfing flame
sea of flames or inner light - your preference
Scalding rune or burning talons works also
Standard of might

bar 2
Eruption
elemental blockade
fire ring
sea of flames or inner light - your preference but match bar one so you do not have to toggle it back on
elemental drain - always helps getting magicka back - burning talons for the trash mobs but change it for bosses
shooting star

Dot up the target and spam lava whip is essentially it. Just reapply dots when they fade off. Bar 2 is more for boss adds and trash pulls. This can get a lot more complex but lets keep it simple. Remember the dots do a lot of damage so keep them up at all times.

*VERY IMPORTANT*
This is more for group stuff with a tank and healer. Change some of the melee stuff out for more ranged if needed. Also solo may change for more survivability with green dragons blood and hardened armor. Things would change more for pvp also. But in a dungeon your job is to do damage and stay out of red. The occasional block or roll dodge is all you need and just keep moving. If you have to block several attacks and roll dodge 3-4 times in a row... you are dead.

The grind and expense of gear at v16 is insane. So something like this will get you to v16 and survive in dungeons till you get new gear. You may ask why a medium shoulders and heavy chest... look at the undaunted passives. Extra magicka, health and stam for each type of armor equipped... You already have 5 light so might as well grab that little extra bit.

@krees28b14_ESO ,

Thank you for the detailed feedback. True, I was definitely inspired by Deltia's laceration build and trying to shoe horn something similar into a magicka v6 build. So far, its been a blast and was going great, but around vr4-vr5 I ran into stumbling blocks. Gear seemed to not hold up and felt far too squishy. Insult to injury was the 1.7 / Imperial city update in the works. It felt like I was spending way to much time trying to figure out how to stay alive and not near enough time plowing through mobs. Anything fire on boss related was a questionable fight and just didn't feel like I was putting out the damage I used to. So, started tinkering and that kept feeling like I was moving further away from where I needed to be. In comparison... playing a soon to be vr1 NB stamina khajit... or my VR7 HE sorc... I just seem to blaze away still with AOE mobs or bosses or dungeons... and thus, the original post.

Your comments are much appreciated. I acquired a Martial Knowledge vr12 set some time ago and have been sitting on it. Figured it will work for hand me down between sorc and DK... (not necessarily in that order). Adroitness and Cyrodil's light are quite a ways out of my reach right now. I'll keep them in mind. I've got 12 more days to learn my fire nirnhoned staff... so, will have it.

My entire group has ignored Alchemy... I think we have all other crafts covered... In fact *I* have all other crafts covered on one of my toons, so I've committed to working on alchemy with one of my toons. Soon, I'll have some better potions to work with.

Cheers again,

For leveling, as others have said at your level, pick up the destro staff and have one bar for you single target skills and the off bar being your AoE bar. This is what I did until I hit vr14 on console and started figuring out decent setups.

Armor wise, level up all if they aren't maxed already; use 1 heavy chest for the big armor boost, maybe pants for good measure, and then 5 light. Try maybe:

2pc torugs (chest and staff)
5pc magnus
All your warlock jewelry.

Leveling will be easy once you have a decent build going and can efficiently complete the missions or grind.

tactica wrote: »

Largest revelation to date: with both Inner Light & Sea of Flames on bar, activating Inner Light 1st before Sea of flames yields a +10% MORE buff than when activating Sea of Flames first then Inner light. Wonder if that's a bug or working as designed. I'll craft a second thread and ask. I hate to dual post, but I'd like more visibility to that specific question.

@tactica This is a known bug with the UI. The UI will increase by 20% crit, but in reality it's only 10% either way.

tactica wrote: »

Still running Mage Mundus for time being... (Autronarch is understood and may happen)

Stick with the apprentice mundus, trust me.

tactica wrote: »

Comparing to the starting values, I've of course eliminated the very slow health regen and improved that significantly. I've seen near flat but very slight increase in Max Magicka. Max Health has seen a near 2K boost on both bars.Spell damage and Spell criticals has also seen huge improvements. Where I have taken the big hit is going from 1211 to 865 magicka recovery, a near 30% loss, but the armor may save me a spell cost and I'm spiking damage more often.

Don't worry about regen in PvE most fights are over before it comes into play and if you do have trouble use two cost reduction glyphs on jewelry instead (better bang for the buck). Level up weakness to elements (destro skill) and morph to elemental drain and use it when your group is too low on dps and fights last longer requiring some magicka regen support. You're dps...stick to damage. Please don't take this the wrong way but you're sustain issues are more about how you're executing your rotation and not your regen. Make sure your medium attack weaving nearly every other skill. (aka. work on the rotation, it has more of effect than any gear change).

Glad to see your making gains, has the increase to your HP pool helped at all? can you pull attributes out of health to boost magicka without feeling like a corpse?

And....I see your leveling dawnbreaker? You may want to try using your normal bars for clearing content then when you're just about to turn in the quest....put the skills you want to level on your bar. Turn in the quest and watch your skills xp increase. then go back to your bar for killing stuff.

"tactica wrote: »

My entire group has ignored Alchemy... I think we have all other crafts covered... In fact *I* have all other crafts covered on one of my toons, so I've committed to working on alchemy with one of my toons. Soon, I'll have some better potions to work with.

Finally, if you have some gold you can level alchemy to max in about 40 minutes. Find cheap water at each level (only need ~40-50 of each) and buy up all the cheap mushroom reagents or water hyacinth. These are all cheap ingredients because they make the "ravaging potions" that no one uses because we can't poison our weapons yet. for ~10k gold you can be done leveling alchemy like yesterday.

Happy Hunting!

Cuyler wrote: »

tactica wrote: »

Still running Mage Mundus for time being... (Autronarch is understood and may happen)

Stick with the apprentice mundus, trust me.

Wait... Apprentice, or Autronarch? Now you have me confused.

Cuyler wrote: »

Glad to see your making gains, has the increase to your HP pool helped at all? can you pull attributes out of health to boost magicka without feeling like a corpse?

Good observation. I hadn't considered it. I was previously investing fairly heavy there due to Vamp... so, that's left over. I would expect I could indeed pull some points out now. I'll take a look at that tonight. Good catch.

Cuyler wrote: »

And....I see your leveling dawnbreaker? You may want to try using your normal bars for clearing content then when you're just about to turn in the quest....put the skills you want to level on your bar. Turn in the quest and watch your skills xp increase. then go back to your bar for killing stuff.

Hmm, never really considered doing that. Heh, some really good advice there. I'll be putting that to practice in short order. Another great tip!

Cuyler wrote: »

Finally, if you have some gold you can level alchemy to max in about 40 minutes. Find cheap water at each level (only need ~40-50 of each) and buy up all the cheap mushroom reagents or water hyacinth. These are all cheap ingredients because they make the "ravaging potions" that no one uses because we can't poison our weapons yet. for ~10k gold you can be done leveling alchemy like yesterday.

Sweet. Will do.

Excellent advice!

hardcore_gmr wrote: »

sounds like @Cuyler and others have pointed you in the right direction (good advice there btw) and I would only add is that I think you have too many points into health. Especially considering VR 5 food, you could easily drop a few points there to pick up some extra DPS. Secondly I would like to point out (and this is something that I struggled with on my own magic DK) is the reliance on a staff for DPS. Because most of the ardent flame skills are melee range the staff is seen often as a great way to pick up some range, but i find it to be a unnecessary crutch that keeps you poking away from the outside when you could be in there causing some major damage with two swords in dual wield. This maybe a playstyle suggestion and may not be where you want to go but two swords gives greater spell power than every staff except the master staff. I usually do duel wield on primary dps bar and resto staff on defensive bar.

@hardcore_gmr thanks for the response and feedback. I think you and @Cuyler are on the same page about the dropping some health attribute points and pumping up Magicka. It's a good catch, as I told him before you. I only recently dropped vamp and was bolstering because of it.

Perhaps both an attribute point change and Mundus change are now in order. Seems Autronarch (magicka regen) is the leading theory here. The number seems so insignificant, but heard it from more than one now... and if I'm offsetting it by bolstering more attributes into magicka, then maybe net win. Probably just need to try switching mundus first and see what happens.

BTW - I don't *know* for sure what *Mundus Stones* details are. I'm assuming these are still correct from Dec 2014 thread:

The Apprentice - Ignore 250 of targets' spell resistance.
The Atronach - Increases magicka regeneration by 17.
The Lady - Increases armor by 100.
The Lord - Increases max health by 100.
The Lover - Increases spell resistance by 100.
The Mage - Increases max magicka by 100.
The Ritual - Increases all healing done by 5%.
The Shadow - Increases the effectiveness of critical hits by 5%.
The Serpent - Increases health regeneration by 17.
The Steed - *Increases movement speed by 5%*
The Thief - Increases weapon critical and spell critical by 5%.
The Tower - Increases max stamina by 100.
Warrior - Increases weapon damage by 12.

-- source: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/143351/mundus-stones-detalied-stats

tactica wrote: »

hardcore_gmr wrote: »

sounds like @Cuyler and others have pointed you in the right direction (good advice there btw) and I would only add is that I think you have too many points into health. Especially considering VR 5 food, you could easily drop a few points there to pick up some extra DPS. Secondly I would like to point out (and this is something that I struggled with on my own magic DK) is the reliance on a staff for DPS. Because most of the ardent flame skills are melee range the staff is seen often as a great way to pick up some range, but i find it to be a unnecessary crutch that keeps you poking away from the outside when you could be in there causing some major damage with two swords in dual wield. This maybe a playstyle suggestion and may not be where you want to go but two swords gives greater spell power than every staff except the master staff. I usually do duel wield on primary dps bar and resto staff on defensive bar.

@hardcore_gmr thanks for the response and feedback. I think you and @Cuyler are on the same page about the dropping some health attribute points and pumping up Magicka. It's a good catch, as I told him before you. I only recently dropped vamp and was bolstering because of it.

Perhaps both an attribute point change and Mundus change are now in order. Seems Autronarch (magicka regen) is the leading theory here. The number seems so insignificant, but heard it from more than one now... and if I'm offsetting it by bolstering more attributes into magicka, then maybe net win. Probably just need to try switching mundus first and see what happens.

BTW - I don't *know* for sure what *Mundus Stones* details are. I'm assuming these are still correct from Dec 2014 thread:

The Apprentice - Ignore 250 of targets' spell resistance.
The Atronach - Increases magicka regeneration by 17.
The Lady - Increases armor by 100.
The Lord - Increases max health by 100.
The Lover - Increases spell resistance by 100.
The Mage - Increases max magicka by 100.
The Ritual - Increases all healing done by 5%.
The Shadow - Increases the effectiveness of critical hits by 5%.
The Serpent - Increases health regeneration by 17.
The Steed - *Increases movement speed by 5%*
The Thief - Increases weapon critical and spell critical by 5%.
The Tower - Increases max stamina by 100.
Warrior - Increases weapon damage by 12.

-- source: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/143351/mundus-stones-detalied-stats

Those are the 1.5 mundus values. They are different in 1.6 (console) and changed again in 1.7. Console IC patch is Wednesday the 16th so I'd look there.

@hardcore_gmr Okay, makes more sense. I couldn't match the mudus with the info found. I'll look for 1.7 info. I'll go check out the patch notes and start there.

@Cuyler understood. I follow completely. I'm really not running out of magicka.... ever. If anything, may have too much in some fights. However, I thought it was you (maybe another, who recomended Autronarch for long fights / boss fights in late game PVE... maybe I have replies mixed up in my head from different posters)

Anyway, I've got the weaving down (light for ulti regen, heavy for resource regen) - no problem. I'm running Mage Mundus right now, as it seemed like best of two worlds. Specifically for the increased pool i.e. more damage from what I understand to be the equation used for damage calc... That said, I didn't realize Apprentice was Spell Damage though. I will try that next. Thanks for another good tip.

Cheers guys,

Was lucky to be invited to a group for Spindleclutch Vet last night. It was a vr5, two vr14s and I didn't know it but they were looking for a healer. They asked me if I wanted to go, and though I didn't have a healer, I was happy to bring my VR7 DK. So - we rolled it as 3 DPS and a Tank/DPS.

I was quite pleased with how my build performed.

Now, here's looking at IC content drop and hoping it holds up today!

Thanks for all the help fellas.