Focus less on spell damage and more on max magicka. Run sets which compliment this.

Max Magicka is more important as it directly increases damage shield strength, gives larger resource pool AND adds damage.

My sorc's max magicka is currently sitting at about 44,400 and the Crystal Frag tooltip, with Major Sorcery activated, is doing about 16k (non-crit, non-proc). This is without the second undaunted passive. Health bar is also blue inside Cyrodiil, let alone outside. Sitting at about 1.5k Recovery also.

Max Magicka --> Magicka Recovery --> Spell Damage

Importance in that order.

Run Max Health/Max Mag food. Level up Mages Guild tree and utilise skills from that bar (slotting them increases Max Mag and Recovery).

Other than that just upgrade weaps to gold and play a build you feel comfortable with. Also run max mag glyphs on EVERY item. Max Health glyphs are redundant. I'm sitting at about 18k health outside of cyrodiil but have about 53k+ worth of shields on, which allows my Sorc to tank even a boss hit.

I would personally drop the Wrothgar food and run Max Health/Max Magicka. Drop a spell damage glyph off one jewellery piece and run recovery. You can then hit 2.1k SP unbuffed, 1.5k Recovery and, if you get Undaunted passives and rework some skills to include Mage Guild skills, 40k+ Max Magicka.

Swap out Hardened Ward to your back bar in place of Rune Prison, and put Inner Light on your front bar (at level 4 it gives +5% max magicka and +10% spell crit). If you get used to swapping over to shield you'll be fine for survivability, and you'll notice a drastic increase in damage.

Keep in mind that every 1,000 Max Magicka is supposed to be about 100 Spell Damage. So you're sacrificing some recovery for, in essence, +700 (or more) Spell Damage. Your DPS will thank you for it.

As for myself, I actually run a completely different setup gear-wise, with the only similarities being Willpower.

My stats are as follows (I will write them as inside Cyrodiil, with no scroll buffs whatsoever, only food buff on - the most recent I can recall):

• 2.1k Spell Damage
• 1,550 Magicka Recovery
• 44,400 Max Magicka
• 23,500 Max Health
• 42% Spell Critical

Once I actually get off my ass and do some more dungeon achievements, and get myself up to Undaunted 9, my Max Magicka will be roughly 46,000 (perhaps more).

I don't run Atronach mundus stone, FYI.

Either way, each player will run a setup they prefer. You should still focus on Max Magicka based sets over Spell Power based sets if you want to truly reap the benefits of a Magicka Sorcerer. A minimum of 1.5k recovery is necessary if you want to have good sustain. If you want to run it in PVP, your benchmark for a "Blue health bar" is a minimum of 40k Max Magicka. Even with 40k Max Magicka, your health bar might not be entirely blue (depending on your health).

If you upgrade your weapon to gold quality, expect to gain +200 Spell Damage as well. Keep this in mind when you reflect on your stats.

You guys are awesome, thanks for the advice! I actually might even just hang up the sorc for a bit once DB drops. I have a StamBlade and StamDK that my guild have stated "will destroy." So I might just use those guys lol.
But I would try switching gear and everything till you figure out what works. And just bring the gear to purple or even blue. The changes in numbers are quite minimal, so don't waste your gold mats till you are 110% sure.

I personally do not feel that this "nerf" to shields is a "nerf" at all. It'll only effect you in the PVE domain.

Quite frankly I spend about 70% of my time during a PVP fight on my back bar anyway. If an enemy cannot bust my shields down in 5-6 seconds they're not going to be killing me in the first place. I'm used to swapping over every 5 secs to re-apply shields.

Keep in mind that if you run things like Crushing Shock (you'd ideally want this over Force Pulse because it interrupts - the damage boost from Force Pulse isn't enough to warrant dropping the interrupt, which makes things like Dark Flare and Radiant Destruction etc. redundant). Due to CS, Velocious Curse etc. you'll constantly have a Crystal Frag proc up which provides you with large burst and a stun. You take that opportunity to quickly swap over, pop 2 shields up, swap back and continue.

If you're worried about CC and not being able to break it before shields drop then run CC immunity pots. The Alliance ones from siege merchants give 8.1 seconds worth, and the ones you can make via Alchemy give 15 seconds worth. You pop one of these pots if you see a WB incoming etc. and you continue.

Inner light is great on the bar not only due to the increased damage and shields, but if you're up against Nightblades you can pop Inner Light on every now and them to keep them out of cloak, which makes them go down like a sack of s***.

My bars go as follows:

DPS Bar (Lightning Destro Staff):
Crushing Shock
Crystal Frag
Structured Entropy
Inner Light
Velocious Curse

Back Bar (Resto Staff):
Streak
Daedric Minefield
Hardened Ward
Harness Magicka
Healing Ward

I recommend using Hardened Ward before popping Healing Ward if you need a heal, as that means your Hardened Ward will come off first and therefore you'll benefit from more healing off Healing Ward.

I also recommend checking out Seducer's Set. It's a 3-trait set which provides Max Magicka, Magicka Recovery and a solid 8% Reduction of cost. This helps you push up your recovery without relying on mundus stone, which in turn allows you to use The Mage mundus stone for more max magicka.

Infused on your main 3 pieces (chest/legs/hat) and Divines on the rest (all max magicka glyphs).

Prioritisation of upgrade to gold:

1. Destro Staff
2. Small armour pieces
3. Large armour pieces

In my opinion you benefit more from the +1% from Divines than you do from the +3% from Infused from Purple to Gold. Someone may want to clarify this, I may be wrong.

Also you mentioned Mage's Wrath. If you want to run that then drop Inner Light, but your shields etc. will suffer. MW will give more damage, but Endless Fury (the other morph) provides you with Magicka back on a kill so it's decent for extra sustain. The thing with this is that if you run a Lightning Staff (with a Lightning Enchant), you have a decent chance of proc'ing "Disintegrate" passive, which in itself is similar to an execute, by weaving in light and heavy attacks. Also heavy attacks are good against reflect spammers as it is a channel just like Resto staff.


Best of luck with it though.

Edit: A tip for handling the duration "nerf" of shields. Streak away to create space, and immediately pop Daedric Minefield down every time. This means that even if your shields DO drop, if someone charges you they get hit hard and rooted which gives you time to react and may make them pause to heal/re-buff. This gives vital time to re-apply shields and recommence the damage. Just get into the habit of consistently sitting in your Minefield. Particularly against melee enemies. You will not they will charge in a lot, but keep re-summoning the minefield and kiting them around it whilst attacking, you'll notice that it'll give you decent time to keep your shields up. Plus if you get used to the speed of doing it you can swap over, apply Hardened Ward, then swap back to damage in about 1-1.5 seconds. No time at all, really.

Also ensure you keep constant aggression up using heavy/light attacks and crushing shock. These are very hard to avoid and even if it doesn't do a hugeeee chunk of damage compared to frags etc. if you keep the pressure on they will play cautiously and the damage starts adding up. Plus it's a great way to build ultimate. If you are really in trouble pop your Storm Atronach down and sit on/just behind it with a daedric minefield around you. This makes you VERY difficult to target and gives you time to buff and keep the pressure on, perhaps even land a kill.

Thanks everyone for your help- it's appreciated!