Magic Sorc help (Julianos & Seducer)

happyhughes2001 · February 2017

Hi there, first time poster. Just about to hit CP160.

Read a lot of posts so just want to summarise here and get people's opinions?

I'm a magic sorcerer high elf.

Going to craft 5 piece Julianos with divines all light. Going to craft the rest of armour and 2 desto staffs seducer. Staffs will be sharp and gold. Armour can be kept at cp150 as not much difference to CP160?

I have read some posts saying to craft chest piece as heavy and shoulders medium to get use of some of the passive in those lines?

Can I have some rotation examples please? I use force pulse and liquid lightning until crystal frag pracs. I also have the twighlight tormentor summon active and I have inner light on my bar too. I don't currently bar swap that much but have read I should be?

Any help or advice would be appreciated. I have read about monster sets and keys and VMA but don't know what they mean.

Thank you

Horowonnoe · February 2017

Are you on PC NA? If yes, message me in game, i can show you some things : ) @ name same as here.

happyhughes2001 · February 2017

Thanks for reply, should have said sorry I'm on Xbox European server.

X3ina · February 2017

Replace seducer with torugs pact (crafted, 2 piece spell damage, 3 piece max health)

Rotation: power surge -> HA -> wall of elements -> LA -> liquid (bar swap cancel) -> LA -> force pulse (rotate force pulse with "Light attacks", reapply your dots before they run out, drop ulti when its ready (shooting is good for single target stationary fights/ elemental is good against multiple targets with high movement)

Not writing curse because he said he just got cp 160, period

Edit, missed the frags completely ... use only when procs.

Horowonnoe · February 2017

I guess here are some pointers for you starting out, first off, 160 gear is much better, because you won't want to spend gold upgrading subpar gear. And that will matter a lot as you progress. So, whenever you can afford, do make yourself cp160 gear. Invest in the future.

Julianos isn't the strongest set anymore, so you can probably leave that out for now. Instead you could start focusing on getting yourself better gear, which is dropped not crafted at the moment. For a magsorc, you can find several great builds on tamriel foundry. They explain in depth what sets/skills are best for different situations. But generally, you could start collecting burning spellweave set (BSW) which drops in City of Ash, scathing mage set (imperial city prison). Also willpower set is good, until you start doing trials and gain access to some of those sets such as moondancer/infallible aether/etc. That should set you up with a decent start.

Monster sets - you get those from doing dungeons and the accompanying shoulder piece from doing pledges. For a magsorc, you would want to use Ilambris monster helm set.

VMA means veteran maelstrom arena. Weapons from there are BIS (best in slot) for a lot of builds.

Hope this helps even a little bit.

Izaki · February 2017

Rotation for starting out:
Liquid Lightining > Fire Blockade > Bar Swap > Force Pulse/Frags x6 > repeat.

Rotation when you're more comfortable and higher CP:
Liquid Lightining > Fire Blockade > Bar Swap > Curse > Force Pulse/Frags x3 > Haunting Curse > Force Pulse/Frags > repeat.

This should get you off to a good start

Remember to light attack in between every skill except bar swaps. Rotation gets a little more complex at max level, where you prioritize Frags over Curse and some other stuff. Plus Curse is changing in Homestead so the rotation changes even more. Just focus on the 2 I mentioned above to start out

happyhughes2001 · February 2017

Thanks for replies.

Does force pulse/frags mean cast force pulse until frags is instant cast? I was told to never hard cast crystal frags before?

When you say bar swap what skills should I have on both bars?

Also no one has mentioned my twighlight tormentor? Should I get rid of him?

With dropped sets if they don't drop with divines can you replace trait or do you keep going until you get drop that you want?

The two places mentioned above city of ash and imperial prison are they solo places or group places?

Thanks again for all the info. Sorry if there stupid questions.

Thanks

X3ina · February 2017

1.Force pulse until u get frags proc (true)
2.Bound Aegis and in some places inner light
3.Replace her with bound aegis xD
4.Replace when u get divines
5.Group dungeons, you need 3 more players to get the highest drop chance of desired items. But can be soloed (coa) or duoed if you don't have enough people.

Nestor · February 2017

These are not dumb questions.

First, my standard disclaimer:

If your trying to get the end all be all of ultimate DPS so you can get to the top 10% of the trail leaderboards or 1vX PvP, that is one thing. Or, are you just trying to have fun playing the game? Also, your CP160, your not going to get on the leaderboards or have much success at 1vX PvP for another 440 Champ Points, so you might be trying to put the cart before the horse.

Now, on to your thread:

Whoever said Julianos is not the best gear is just not right. I have yet to find a base 5 piece set that does more for my casters. Maybe there are some situations or set combos with Proc combos that might eek out a little more DPS, but for a set that is easy to get and available, there is nothing better. Any differences are down to 1 or 2%, not going to make a difference no matter what anyone tells you.

Get the Juliano, then play around with dropped sets until find something that fits your playstyle.

CP150 Purple Armor is fine for most PvE content. What you do want is CP160 Gold Weapons. Those make a real difference. the difference between CP150 Purple and CP160 Gold is depressingly small. If you have the mats go for it, but I would not waste my gold tempers on a set for a CP160 character.

Frags, if you want to use it, can be insta cast if you use enough other magic skills first. I find I have just as much fun with other rotations that don't use Frags.

Bar Swapping is typically loading up one bar with support skills, then another bar for damage skills. There are many ways to do this. Me, I do a single target bar and an AoE bar. There are many ways to handle this, find one that works for you.

Stop Worrying About Divines If you follow my advice about getting 5 Piece Julianos, then you have all the Divines you need. The 5 piece dropped set can only come in 2 pieces of Divines, and that means another 180 Magic or 1.8% Crits at max improvement, it does not matter. Oh, save your shoulder and head for Monster sets you can get from dungeons. Molag Kena is good, but there are others too, just Molag is easier to get than most.

Also a lot set items are from Veteran Dungeons or Trials where you practically need the set items your going to get to run the content that drops the set items. People running Vet Dungeons are not going to want to pug with a CP160 in most cases, so it will be real hard for you to get the sets mentioned like from Vet City of Ash or Vet Imperial Prison.

Sorry, I deflated all the Min/Max points in this thread, but they overkill for the stuff you are going to do for the next 400 or so Champ Points

superleeds19 · February 2017

Nestor is right, Julianos is still really good. Spell weave SOMETIMES does a bit more damage but nothing major.

Ilamabris monster set is brilliant for sorcs in pve. Head is achieved by completing vet crypt of hearts 1, shoulder is from gold undaunted keys.

You could run torugs or seducer with it that while you do dungeons/ dark anchors to get drop sets. I always find it best to do the dungeons on normal. You get blue gear but it's much much quicker to complete unless you have a really good group. You can simply upgrade to purple then

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2017

I like where your head is at when crafting (julianos/seducer) as its hard to beat from that standpoint. It is not the worst idea to look at the more meta build and craft so it becomes easier to upgrade. It's always impossible to know for sure, but its nice to avoid any duplicate crafting down the road.

Lets start with the meta build.

5 Burning Spell Weave (must be all light) in chest, legs, boots, belt, gloves.

Monster set head and shoulders (typically llambris) and you want one medium and one heavy to give 5/1/1 for undaunted. It doesnt matter which is which as head and shoulders have the same armor rating.

Jewelry will want to be Moondancer/Aether. The difference between these two is very small, run whatever you get first.

Weapons you want in Sharp as first priority, but in a perfect world one bar is a VMA staff and the other matches your jewelry set. Keep in mind, this is by far the hardest part of the grind.

When Crafting
You want to craft in a way that makes this easy to upgrade. As you wont magically get all your gear at the same time. The Monster set is probably easiest to get, followed by the jewelry, then BSW in perfect traits, and in last place by a long shot is the weapons.

Therefore, I think it makes a lot of sense to craft your head and shoulders in the set you will most likely replace first (i.e. Seducer). It also makes sense to make them your medium and heavy pieces, but you will get slighly more resist if you make your chest heavy and legs in medium (best way to max resist). This one is up to you. If you make your chest heavy, you might need to replace it at some point.

As for jewelry, you will start with willpower. This is pretty straight forward to upgrade, so not a lot of thought here.

As for your Chest, Legs, belt, shoes, gloves. This will end up being light armor most likely at some point, so there is certainly an argument to make these all the same set (julianos) in light. That way, when you get your BSW set, you just swap it in.

Another and perhaps better move is to actually craft your weapons in julianos and one of your lower armor pieces (like your belt) as seducer. It comes to the same thing, but this way if you get your aether jewelry, monster helm, and one aether armor piece (non of which is bad to get) you can swap it in. 4 Aether/moondancer, 5 Julianos 2 Monster is a very strong setup. If you get your BSW first, well you will have a dead set on your staffs anyway, so it doesnt matter what they are as long as its sharp. It would be frustrating to make the weapons in Seducer, and then have to recraft them later in Julianos.

The whole point is to not have to craft things twice.

Edit: as for quality and CP level, i would not waste your time with 150 gear. Spend a few hours farming and make it 160. Mats are pretty cheap these days. Purple armor is fine, but gold weapons are quite a big change. Again, for the love of all that is holy, make your staffs in sharp. I would not hesitate at all to make a julianos fire and lighting in sharp and gold 160.

If you want to see what is likely the new sorc meta, well, here you go. Yolo is as good as they come. I took this into VMOL for the first time last night and hit 47k on the first boss, which was my first fight with this rotation. It definitely gets my stamp of approval.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vH7qg2HPE8

happyhughes2001 · February 2017

Thanks again for all the advice!!!

Made a huge mistake last night- I only made 2 Julianos gold staffs to only realise that in my eagerness I did not select the set option and just made normal ones!!! 16 gold resins down the drain!!!!!

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2017

happyhughes2001 wrote: »

Thanks again for all the advice!!!

Made a huge mistake last night- I only made 2 Julianos gold staffs to only realise that in my eagerness I did not select the set option and just made normal ones!!! 16 gold resins down the drain!!!!!

Ouch... You could just hold on to them and get your BSW farm on. Mostly likely you will end up with dead spots on weapons anyway unless you get really lucky with VMA and Aether/moondancer drops.

5 BSW, 2 Llambris, 3 willpower with dead staffs is perfectly viable.

Uriel_Nocturne · February 2017

Like others have said, Julianos is a perfectly fine Set still.

Sorry to hear about those Gold mats, that sucks.

I run 5x Julianos 4(3)x Seducer On all my Magicka characters (4x for my dual-wielding Templar, 3x for my Sorc that uses a Destro Staff). It even works well with Templars, not just Sorcs (if you were curious).

Sorcerer:
I do Weapon, Head, Shoulders, Chest, Gloves as Julianos (Sharpened for the Weapon Trait, Divines for Armor).
I do Belt, Legs, Boots as Seducer (still Divines Trait).

Templar:
I do 2x Weapon, Head, Shoulders, Chest as Julianos (Sharpened Weapons, Divines Armor)
Gloves, Belt, Legs, Boots as Seducer (Divines Armor)

For Jewelry on both Sorcs and Templar: I use the Destruction Mastery Set (can be farmed fairly successfully from the Dragonstar Arena) 1x Necklace, 2x Ring

I find that this equipment really works well for the Skill rotation I have with both of those Classes, and I've never had any problem solo'ing all the way up to the Public Dungeons and the Champions that are within them. I even solo'd the Normal Dragonstar Arena with my Templar with this equipment.

Also note: All of my equipment is improved to Gold, but as others have said; as long as your Weapons are Gold CP160, the rest of your gear can be Purple C160 and you'll still do just fine.

bryanhaas · February 2017

On my mag sorc I run TBS, Aether and Llambris. Obviously you don't have access to Aether yet. I would recommend replace aether with willpower. my bars and rotations are bound aegis on all bars, hardened ward on main, struct entropy (or mage light) force pulse, frags and meteor. Back bar aegis, trap beast, ele blockade, curse, liquid lightning and overload. On overload bar aegis, hardened ward, power surge, mage light endless fury.

lightning staff front inferno back.

Rotation is trap beast, ele blockade, curse, force pulse, LA repeat 3x toss frag when ready, curse then repeat last step, then start over. Overload bar is there for execute, make sure to use entropy or mages light before dropping a meteor for the damage boost.

happyhughes2001 · February 2017

Thanks for all the replies.

I have started my Julianos CP160 set - weapons, chest, feet, legs, sash.

Inferno is gold and sharp

Lightning is purple and sharp ( as my last post suggests I messed up by not selecting set weapon when creating so waiting for more gold resin)

Seducer CP160 - light armour - hands, medium armour shoulders and heavy armour helm.

Does anybody risk not going 100% improvement when upgrading to gold? I haven't but was just wondering.

I have been practising rotations and I think I am getting better. I am on xbox so don't think I can test DPS?

I still mess up when switching bars sometimes!!!

Which dungeons in your opinions are the easiest to start with? I'm thinking I could specify them in activity finder.

One more thing - class points. How much should be in magic and how much in health?

Thanks again for all the help.

Nestor · February 2017

happyhughes2001 wrote: »

Does anybody risk not going 100% improvement when upgrading to gold? I haven't but was just wondering.

My standard mantra is, if you don't have 100% chance to succeed, you have a 100% chance to fail.

I posted that once in a thread and someone came on and went to great lengths to explain how he did this about 20 times on the PTS and got one to succeed, so I was wrong. But they were really proving my point. Since you lose the item, all those mats, the style mat (if it was rare, this matters) the trait gem, the green tempers, the blue tempers the purple tempers and then whatever gold tempers you sacrificed in gambling on this, the risk is not worth it.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2017

happyhughes2001 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies.

I have started my Julianos CP160 set - weapons, chest, feet, legs, sash.

Inferno is gold and sharp

Lightning is purple and sharp ( as my last post suggests I messed up by not selecting set weapon when creating so waiting for more gold resin)

Seducer CP160 - light armour - hands, medium armour shoulders and heavy armour helm.

Does anybody risk not going 100% improvement when upgrading to gold? I haven't but was just wondering.

I have been practising rotations and I think I am getting better. I am on xbox so don't think I can test DPS?

I still mess up when switching bars sometimes!!!

Which dungeons in your opinions are the easiest to start with? I'm thinking I could specify them in activity finder.

One more thing - class points. How much should be in magic and how much in health?

Thanks again for all the help.

I would not hesitate to gold out your weapons and Julianos armor. Never upgrade without 100% chance. It's a horrible idea. You will end up spending more than 8 mats to get what you want. Remember if you try to upgrade and fail, you lose the item and the gold mats.

Also, big fan of how you are building. It will make upgrading easier. I would probably not make the seducer gold, as you will want to replace that with a monster set sooner rather than later. Nothing wrong with gold enchants though. They are pretty cheap. Its the poor mans way to upgrade gear. The enchant value is the same whether the item is gold or purple.

As for attributes, definitely dont put anything into stamina. If you dont have undaunted, your health is going to be too low to learn with. I would get blue + health magic food, enchant all your gear with magic, and then reset your attributes (edit: also make sure you spend your passives, CP, and setup your bars as all can effect stats). Add enough health (a few at a time) to get to about 18-19K health and then dump the rest into magic. Then as you get more comfortable, you can scale it back. I run no points into health on any DPS toon. A maxed out sorc (CP and Undaunted) will have about 17k health. Perfectly doable, but not for everyone.

As for dungeons, I would run normal ones first before you tackle vet. Most vet dungeons are pretty similar but there are a few outliers that tend to cause issues. I would avoid vet DLC dungeons (ICP WGT COS ROM) until you are very comfortable. Vet COA 2 and Darkshade 2 also tend to be roadblocks for a lot of pug groups. Both have fights that can get very overwhelming if the DPS is low. Of the #2 dungeons, Wayrest and EH are probably the easiest with Spindle 2, FG2, BC 2 and COH 2 (easiest to hardest) perhaps a little tougher. Most of the #1 vet dungeons or the recently scaled ones without a number are pretty straight forward. A few of the last bosses on HM have some funny mechanics, but otherwise they arent bad. Generally, big red circles around a boss are a one shot on hard mode.

Trihugger · February 2017

The thread is TL;DR with some stuff that's brilliant and spot on and some drivel that resembles folks that say "I wanna play however I want" but still queue for veteran dungeons doing <10k dps. Please don't be one of them.

Starting out this is how I'd do it as it provides the clearest and simplest "upgrade" path so you're wasting minimal mats and CAN actually drop pieces when things you do want come along.

5 set Julianos - No Head/Shoulders

3 set Torug/Seducer - Weapon/Head/Shoulders. Head and Shoulders would be Medium and Heavy for the undaunted passive. If you don't have the passive, but have the Medium and Heavy skill lines already leveled up I'd make them CP 150 and light as the extra light armor pieces will provide some help with mana problems (And you're going to have them).

3 set Willpower Jewelry. Starting out you can find the Healthy traited pieces relatively cheap and then upgrade to Arcane as you either get them from your daily random or just farm enough gold to outright buy them. Extra health is a high selling point as you lack CP's that make you less squish so it is definitely not "wasted" to start with this route.

The only things in the above list that I would upgrade to gold would be the weapons as you will pretty much have orphaned gold weapons until you start farming trials (if you start farming trials).

Proceeding forward before trials you will want to replace your 3 set Torug/Seducer with Ilambris' helmet and shoulders. This will be miserable. ~200 keys to have a 50% chance of your desired shoulder (correct trait and armor type) is pretty much case and point of how hateful those chests are. The helmet is comparatively easy to get as Crypt of Hearts 1 is quick and fairly stupid proof.

At the same time you'll want to farm City of Ash 1 for burning spellweave. Others have pointed out it's not significantly better than Julianos, but it is indeed better. CoA1 is very easily soloable on normal and odds are good other people will be farming for this set as it is pretty much the BiS for any magicka caster so find a posse and have at it.

And during all this fun and adventure you'll be racking up a fair amount of gold from selling ornate drops plus getting chances at Arcane Willpower jewelry from your daily dungeon random to upgrade. You will know best yourself how much HP you need. Ask yourself are you dying all the time and nobody else is? You need more HP. If you've got 3 Healthy jewelry pieces and you're still dead all the time you've got further issues to consider =P.

Past this is the misery of farming trials and working towards HM veteran gold jewelry drops. That's a long ways away for you and not something worth considering right now.

As a quick aside, keep in mind the YOLO Sorc guide/build is designed for trials and shines beautifully therein. However, I don't know many people that use expensive potions for 4-man dungeons. Furthermore the build assumes a certain level of debuff support from healers. Most healers are derps and do not run any form of the Magicka Steal debuff so you'll likely be slotting elemental drain as well lest you enjoy heavy attacking for magicka; I know I sure don't.

Good luck!

Stopnaggin · February 2017

happyhughes2001 wrote: »

Thanks again for all the advice!!!

Made a huge mistake last night- I only made 2 Julianos gold staffs to only realise that in my eagerness I did not select the set option and just made normal ones!!! 16 gold resins down the drain!!!!!

Lol it happens to aLL of us at some point.

Stopnaggin · February 2017

happyhughes2001 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies.

I have started my Julianos CP160 set - weapons, chest, feet, legs, sash.

Inferno is gold and sharp

Lightning is purple and sharp ( as my last post suggests I messed up by not selecting set weapon when creating so waiting for more gold resin)

Seducer CP160 - light armour - hands, medium armour shoulders and heavy armour helm.

Does anybody risk not going 100% improvement when upgrading to gold? I haven't but was just wondering.

I have been practising rotations and I think I am getting better. I am on xbox so don't think I can test DPS?

I still mess up when switching bars sometimes!!!

Which dungeons in your opinions are the easiest to start with? I'm thinking I could specify them in activity finder.

One more thing - class points. How much should be in magic and how much in health?

Thanks again for all the help.

Another side note for xbox, save some money and get the xbox elite controller, it has paddles underneath that make bar swapping a piece of cake. Takes a minute to get used to it but has definitely made a huge difference in my performance.

happyhughes2001 · February 2017

Thanks again for all the great advice.

Did my first city of ash and got 1 piece of burning spellweave but it didn't have divines.

I had loads of medium armour drop...

I'm an Xbox elite controller and some bar swapping ability away from becoming a glass cannon!!!

I would currently say I'm a glass water pistol!!!!

Thanks

bryanhaas · February 2017

happyhughes2001 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies.

I have started my Julianos CP160 set - weapons, chest, feet, legs, sash.

Inferno is gold and sharp

Lightning is purple and sharp ( as my last post suggests I messed up by not selecting set weapon when creating so waiting for more gold resin)

Seducer CP160 - light armour - hands, medium armour shoulders and heavy armour helm.

Does anybody risk not going 100% improvement when upgrading to gold? I haven't but was just wondering.

I have been practising rotations and I think I am getting better. I am on xbox so don't think I can test DPS?

I still mess up when switching bars sometimes!!!

Which dungeons in your opinions are the easiest to start with? I'm thinking I could specify them in activity finder.

One more thing - class points. How much should be in magic and how much in health?

Thanks again for all the help.

Do you have your controller configured for bar swap on L3 (left thumbstick)? Makes barswapping much cleaner, how ESO still does not have an option to remap the controller in game for custom assignments simply boggles the mind.