Sword/Board stam sorc, best skills to use?

Teflondon75 · February 2016

Basically just that, I'm curious what skills seem to work best for SnB on my stam sorc. I know some people use it, have you found it fun but ultimately not as good as 2hand? I know anything works :P But is it a terrible idea to run SnB/DW? Am I pretty much stuck on SnB/2hand buff bar? I have vigor and I know some use that and not rally. I'm likely to be vet16 in a week - 10 days, looking for jewelry sets now. Do people run full agility sets for this setup? or some endurance or health/agility pieces etc? I can make 9 trait so hundings/Morkuldin 4 piece is possible especially if I can run SnB/DW. I also have a full vet16 Briar set, 5 hundings/5 briar, not sure this is worth it with a SnB build? Anyhow, lot of questions haha. Any advice most welcome!

Alucardo · February 2016

I use S+B on my stam sorc, and I freaking love it. I added skills to try and counter as many different playstyles as possible (PVP).

1st bar (Bow):
Magnum shot - use this to gain distance, usually from wrecking blow spammers. Can be used in nice combos which I'll get to in a bit. Also useful for kicking people off towers.

Arrow Barrage - This is great while grinding. Throw down barrage over a group, then use bombard to root them in place. if you have caltrops, replace this with that, but it's an OK alternative.

Bombard - Damages, roots, snares and AOE. Beautiful skill. Great for uncovering nightblades.. they literally hate this skill.

Boundless Storm - Boosts resistances and gives major expedition. I don't use thundering because it's too much of a stamina hog, and I like having magicka sinks.

Focused Aim - Heavy hitting ranged ability. Gives the target minor fracture, which is amplified by major fracture when using ransack. Does a ton of damage and scales off Mighty

Ultimate - Greater Storm Atronach - To make use of the stamina/health regen passive, and this beast isn't bad at all against perma blockers and keeping your opponents under pressure.

2nd bar (S+B)

Invasion - Gap closer and stun. 'Nuff said

Defensive Posture - Reflects magicka projectiles back at the caster and stuns them at the same time. Always keep this bad boy up. It's cheap anyway

Ransack - Our main damage ability. With light attack, ransack, bash weaving this thing hits like a truck. This morph will give you minor resolve, which stacks with boundless (major resolve)

Resolving Vigor - Best stam HoT in the game

Crit Surge - The great thing about stam sorc is we don't rely on weapon skills for major brutality, meaning we can get away with setups like Bow and S+B. This skill will also heal you on crits. Keep it up always

Ultimate - Werewolf - For the stamina regen to make up for the lack of daedric summoning on this bar, and it can work well in situations anyway if you want to claw some faces off. Don't forget to cast boundless, surge and def posture before going beast mode.
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I mentioned earlier with magnum shot about a powerful combo with the bow, which I'll briefly explain here.

Cast focused aim, charge heavy attack while it's travelling, release then immediately hit magnum shot. You can pull all of this off in just over a second. It hits like a truck and throws the enemy back, allowing you to keep ranging, or invasion in for your ransack combos.

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Arrow barrage is very situational, so feel free to swap it out for whatever you feel you need. I like it as a replacement for caltrops, but Shuffle (medium armour ability) might be a good option too, which gives you major evasion and removes snares. Definite;y not to be overlooked.

Steel_Brightblade · February 2016

I like this idea, I normally use dw and either bow or 2 hander but for pvp I've found dual wield a bit meh, occasionally I've got lucky and killed 2 or 3 others at once with it but its rare. Awesome for pve though. The skill list you have for snb make a lot of sense, think ill stat raising my shield skills:)

Ashamray · February 2016

Reverb bash reverb bash reverb bah reverb bah rwrwrwrwrrr!

Jar_Ek · February 2016

If you are talking tanking in pve, you can do most content as a stamina sorcerer with snb. Keep boundless up, use pierce armour, deep slash, shielded assault for mobility, and absorb magic. Bound armaments or Clannfear (off tank + heal) for regeneration. Shuffle, caltrops/bombard for aoe aggro and cc, Dark deal for stamina regeneration if you get / make space. Though some fights call for off bar 2h or a 2nd snb. Ultimates are usually ww for regen or warhorn (occasionally overload for a extra bar).

The only issue you may have is you have limited emergency options (no emergency ultimate) and limited self heals - can slot vigour if you like... but it's unlikely to save you when the boss is whopping you.
The advantage is superior mobility, to the point where you rarely need to dodge roll, esp. if you add in bolt escape or streak.

Anyway a few ideas to throw in.

Faulgor · February 2016

Basically what Alucardo said.

I'm running bow/S+B on what I call my Witchhunter build, which is really fun in IC sewers, but I get blown up by almost anyone in PvP. But I suck in PvP with any build, so that' probably beside the point.

I'm using 3/4 pc Nightmother, 5 pc Twice Born Star with Thief/Shadow and 3 pc Agility. Hundings/Briarheart is not a bad choice either - I first wanted to use Briarheart, but somehow lacked a necklace I thought I had.

Best advice I can give is not to neglect your recoveries. Below 1500 stam rec is rough

Ahzek · February 2016

@Alucardo While this is entirely different from what i would run (since my build goals are entirely different), I would have one simple improvement to your setup.
Switch the positions of Boundless storm and crit surge. Since ransack is your main damage, you will most likely be on your s+b bar most of the time. Boundless storm has quite a bit less duration than surge, especially the speed buff, which you will want to keep up in some situations. Having that on your main bar will save you from quite a few weapon swaps every longer duration fight, which will in turn result in better performance. Additionally you already have a source of major expedition on your bow bar with hasty retreat.

Steel_Brightblade · February 2016

My recoveries are only about 900, in briar heart and hundings and sewers everything dies long before I get down to half stamina, in rare occasions when I do run out there's always overload to full the gap while it regens. This is pve in sewers with steel tornado spam which I assume is no hungrier than snb skills.

Alucardo · February 2016

Ahzek wrote: »

@Alucardo While this is entirely different from what i would run (since my build goals are entirely different), I would have one simple improvement to your setup.
Switch the positions of Boundless storm and crit surge. Since ransack is your main damage, you will most likely be on your s+b bar most of the time. Boundless storm has quite a bit less duration than surge, especially the speed buff, which you will want to keep up in some situations. Having that on your main bar will save you from quite a few weapon swaps every longer duration fight, which will in turn result in better performance. Additionally you already have a source of major expedition on your bow bar with hasty retreat.

I did think about this actually, but I'm a bit weird and like to keep my bars similar even on different characters. My vigor is always on the fourth slot on the second bar for example. Yeah, I know.. it's stupid to build my bars like that, but I get confused easily.

Teflondon75 · February 2016

Hey thanks for the replies all, this is great! Yeah I ran the whole 2hand/bow bit in BWB from 10-50 so wanted to switch it up. I like the look of SnB as well!

Alucardo wrote: »

I use S+B on my stam sorc, and I freaking love it. I added skills to try and counter as many different playstyles as possible (PVP).

I'm curious, what sets do you guys run in pvp? Full med? 1/1/5, 2/5? Thanks!

D0ntevenL1ft · February 2016

Love seeing a few more stam sorcs out there! Such a fun class and can get real creative since we don't have to rely on 2h for major brutality.

SmalltalkJava · February 2016

Stam sorc is pretty fun so far.

Steel_Brightblade · February 2016

Of all my characters I enjoyplaying with my Stam sorc the most. At the moment I run 6 medium 1 heavy since my molog kena shoulders are heavy. Started using shield in some guild pledges last night, got the skill to 25 and its working great, puncturing strike is hitting for 7K and I still haven't morphed it or added the damage passives (skill point hunting).

neville_bart0s · February 2016

for PVP id be running bow as my back bar with magnum shot, vigor, shuffle, poison injection, boundless storm. front bar id have invasion, ransack, streak, surge and either defensive posture, caltrops or if you want to be an ass throw on camo hunter and do some bash ganking

all medium, 5 hundings 4 morkuldin 3 agility or endurance.

Alucardo · February 2016

Teflondon75 wrote: »

I'm curious, what sets do you guys run in pvp? Full med? 1/1/5, 2/5? Thanks!

Full medium - those passives are too good to pass up.

I would run 5 hundings, 4 morkuldin, but my traits are only at 6, so I use 5 hundings and 4 Nights silence (for max stam and stam regen, weapon crit) and 3 agility

Alucardo · February 2016

My ideal set would be something like

1 Blood spawn
4 Shield Breaker
4 Morkuldin
3 Agility

Maybe once the monster pieces are purchasable in PVP I'll be able to get the blood spawn

Steel_Brightblade · February 2016

Picked up bloodspawn helm on yesterdays gold pledge, typically I have no intention of using it as I'm really happy with my briarheart, hundings, kena set up, may be worth bearing in mind I primarily pve with just a touch of pvp on the side.

Alucardo · February 2016

Steel_Brightblade wrote: »

Picked up bloodspawn helm on yesterdays gold pledge, typically I have no intention of using it as I'm really happy with my briarheart, hundings, kena set up, may be worth bearing in mind I primarily pve with just a touch of pvp on the side.

Briarheart would be sexy as hell for a stam sorc in PVE I'd imagine. Wouldn't mind trying it, but my chances of getting the full set are VERY slim. I managed to drop the necklace in IC, but it was arcane xD

Steel_Brightblade · February 2016

I have one or 2 pieces that are less than ideal but ill upgrade them when I get the rest, got all mine doing the daily delves in wrothgar, though I have 4 characters that do them each day.

Teflondon75 · February 2016

I got my briars from chest popping, can't wait to try it out

Steel_Brightblade · February 2016

Nice I only managed to Gerry one peeve from chests and it was a rank 15 well fitted jack. I also only got 2 treasure maps put of 100s of chests:(

Toast_STS · February 2016

Don't forget block! Most times you can just block cast ransack to take out noob wrecking blow spammers.

Autolycus · February 2016

@Alucardo Thanks for providing such a detailed post and explanation as to why you use each skill. I found this to be quite thorough and insightful, and I agree with just about every one of your points here. One addition I would suggest is Flawless Dawnbreaker, which passively gives weapon damage (I think it's 12%, but forget off-hand) which can be very useful in PvP, where high damage is highly beneficial.