Ok... IC is a hybrid area and needs to be treated as such. If you go in with a PvE setup you'll get hammered by other players... equally you need to do some damage!

This is what has worked very very well for me so far:

Bar1 (Destro Staff)

Crushing shock
Velocious Curse
Frags
Hardened Ward
Ball of lightning
ULTI: Barrier

Bar2 (Dual wield swords)

Daedric Mines
Restraining Prison
Surge
Harness Magicka
Ball of Lightning
ULTI: Overload

The thinking behind this is that bar1 is your primary damage bar. Crushing shock is good for the interupt, Curse does a (little) aoe and can't be reflected..... Frags are Frags!

I keep Hardened ward on the main bar so I can recast easily... if you have to bar swap then this will regularly get you killed!

Bolt Escape on both bars so you can always get away (Keep it on the same button on each bar so you always know where it is)

Harness Magicka is on the same button on bar 2 as hardened ward so I always know I'll get a shield from the button even if lag /glitch causes the bar to not swap.

Surge for a long spell power buff... .AND a heal under the shield.

Daedric mines are CRAZY strong in IC!!!! Both against NPC's due to their high damage, and especially enemy players. You're often fighting in confined spaces and these control the area for you. Drop them behind as you run and they'll stun your pursuers & help you get away.

Restraining prison combined with mines is almost an 'I win' button. The root and snare from this morph is again VERY strong, then if they get out then they hit a mine & take damage. Its also good to keep people in an NPC's range and taking damage... and if they want to get out they have to either roll or bolt... both of which take a LOT of resources now.

I use Overload for damage on NPC bosses and also for killing sitting ducks who are sat in my encase/snare.

Barrier is there primarily for the magicka regen passive, but can be handy in group situations too.

I will share my setup that works well for me, but you might not like it.

Bar 1 (nirnhoned fire staff):
Velocious Curse
Mages Wrath
Crystal Frags
Power Surge
Streak
Ult: Greater Storm Atronach

Bar2 (precise resto staff):
Healing Ward
Rapid Regen
Deadric Minefield
Boundless Storm
Hardened Ward
Uli: Energy Overload (for boss fights and utility bar only, mainly for groups - don't use it to attack players)

Bar 3 (overload bar):
Dark Exchange
Efficient Purge
Crystal Fragments
Retreating Maneuver
Hardened Ward

The idea is that my bar 1 is all sorc skills granting me 12% more spell damage via expert mage passive. It's also mostly single target, the only AoE is streak and I use this offensively as part of my rotation. Bar 2 is my recovery bar which probably speaks for itself, I have another aoe (sort of) on this bar in the form of mines. The setup works but it can be hard work. I fight groups of mobs like I would fight groups of players, albeit very predictable players.

So for a group of mobs I buff-up, streak once into them, drop mines, streak again to distance myself a bit, target the biggest threat (usually the un-cc'able ones), then medium attack (MA) cancelled by curse, MA cancelled with frags if proc'd, MA cancelled by wrath, MA cancelled with streak, MA cancelled by frags if proc'd, MA cancelled by curse, MA cancelled by power surge etc. I stop to re-buff, streak out of danger or be defensive, ie shield up. I only use hardened ward when losing hp, and only use healing ward when low hp. I try to keep rapid regen, boundless storm and power surge active at all times. I also try to refresh curse as soon as I can after it explodes. I try to use mines as little as poss cos they cost so much, but they are very useful when you're swamped. Atronach is handy for larger numbers of mobs but I like to save it for player fights where I'm outnumbered.

Essentially I use mages wrath like most people use crushing shock, as a dps filler, aswel as an execute. This isn't because it has sick dps or anything. I learned to live without crushing shock back when the spam was considered a scrub tactic. I use crushing shock on my pure pve setup, for the interrupts, but I've never liked using it on players. I personally hate being spammed by it, I think it's the sound, not saying it's a scrub tactic or anything cos it's weaker than it used to be. Mages wrath also procs frags and disintegration. It does about 2/3 the damage of crushing shock, and has no dot but it also costs ~200mp less, which helps if you need to spam it for a frag proc.

These aren't my main reasons for using it in my rotation though; if the targets hp drops below 20% within 4 seconds of using it the execute procs, so you can use it as an execute upto 4secs before getting your opponent into execute range (20% hp). This can be mega handy if you have a curse on them but quickly have to switch to your back bar, the curse will take them below 20% hp when it pops and boom! - execute done for you cos you used wrath 3.8 secs earlier. Same with any damage really, including damage from other players; you use wrath and within 4 secs friendly players take that enemy down below 20% hp, you get the picture. Mages Wrath 4lyf

I live without crushing shock by fighting npc mages close up so I can bash them to interrupt, this can also buy you time as they tend to walk backwards a bit if you stand in front of them. I don't do the same with players though, I just don't bother interrupting players unless I find myself close enough to do so. Frags and streak also work as interrupts

I use power surge instead of degeneration/entropy for the heals on crit and the major brutality + sorcery (it's also a sorc skill adding 2% spell damage). As I understand it the light/medium/heavy attacks from destro staff scale off weapon damage, someone please correct me if I'm wrong. This means that if you weave medium attacks with everything you do more damage with major brutality.

If I'm forced to fight groups of players then I go in hard with mines, atronach, streak and then take a look to see if anyone is low enough hp to execute, and just hope they don't know what they're doing.

I think I've explained everything. Gear is basic v14 spell damage gear; 4x MK, 3x arch mage, 2x cyro light with 2x v16 torugs (1 piece heavy armour, 6 light). Aside from the lack of crushing shock I don't believe my setup is much different from any other single-target sorc. The reason I mostly single-target is because it's still pvp at the end of the day and I want to be able to win 1v1s. Mobs can be out-played much easier than players.

Flaminir wrote: »

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wolverine4545 wrote: »

Thanks guys, I will look into these. I really appreciate it!

Any reason for Dual Wield?

Well since I wrote this I have actually changed to a two handed greatsword!

But both have the same reason... they increase your damage! Which I know sounds strange....

Dual wield increases your spell damage... there is also a passive (Twin blade & blunt) which increases spell power but doesn't tell you this on the tooltip.

Interestingly its just come to l light that the 2 handed greatsword actually increases damage even further.... theres a passive called 'Heavy Weapons' that adds about another 6% damage.... AND a greatsword provides a higher spell power rating than a staff on its own, even without this passive. (ZoS says this is intended.... no idea why!)

Sooo... have a greatsword... then slot sorc skills.... they will all be much much stronger than with a staff!

That's why I use this on my back bar with overload.... Overload is our hardest hitting skill... so put it on the bar with the highest damage/stats, which in my case is my two hander back bar.

Wow, so odd, but thanks for the Info!!