I only use empowered ward, can't see why you'd need more than one.

ATEK302 wrote: »

I'm a lvl 29 magika sorc.

While questing and pulling mobs this is usually my cycle.

Dmg morph of encase, surge, liquid lightning, lightning blockade, voletile familiar pulse, spam heavy.

I have like 4 of them now. Say I'm in a solo boss fight. How do I keep them all up and maintain a somewhat decent cycle?

My first piece of advice, since you're level 29: stop using repetitive attacks. Every boss has a specific attack pattern, and knowing when and how to defend against them is important. Half of those spells are negated by immune or non-moving bosses.

You should only spam heavy if you're low on magicka, because heavies take about 4 seconds to render. Lightning is unique in that it procs its heavy instantly, but doesn't allow you to break for 4 seconds. Use light attacks instead, and this allows you to cast more spells between shots (weaving).

My second piece of advice is to bar Destructive Touch/Clench, either on lightning (stun) or inferno (knock back). I put mine on inferno because that extra space can be very helpful. Then, cast any AoE slightly before them, as they get up, they'll run right through it, taking damage.

You can also test knock back/stun on bosses. Only a handful are immune, and these seconds can easily turn a battle in your favor with AoE.

Encase should be used mid-late stage battles, because it has a cooldown of 6 seconds. Using it too early can be detrimental for CC, and you'll want CC if mage/wildling/shamans/etc cast mobs during a fight.

My third piece of advice is don't use any wards in PvE, because they take precious magicka and do little in return when dealing with PvE mobs. Most wards only deflect a portion of damage over time, which won't help you squat if you're being pummeled by mobs (as I'm sure you've already figured out).

Use Annulment against spell casters (though some are immune) and Entropy if you're having issues maintaining health.

But call it a hunch once you stop mashing the same spell attacks over and over, things will get better.

Also any trick to morphing conjured ward into hardened ward? Like to speed it up? I know some abilities require certain game play to morph.

The fastest way to level up spells at an early level is to stick to playing one-bar, then putting the other spells on the back bar. BEFORE you turn in a quest, swap bars so all the exp goes to the spells you want to level. Just don't forget to swap back. This works for weapons, too, so if you're looking to use a bow as an alt, you can put the bow on the backbar and this will level it quickly as well.

Hopefully, you've done the 2 year anniversary quest and are remembering to eat a slice of cake every two hours. This adds 100% more exp and those skills will rank quickly. If you're not subbing, consider a 1 month subscription to get the additional 10%.

CAUTION: If you've not played the game before and this is your first character, leveling up too fast can be a problem because you won't have enough skyshards to morph. Take your time if this is your first character and go online to ensure you're getting every skyshard an area has to offer, even if they're in group dungeons (use invisibility potions if you can't group if your only priority is the skyshard).

Hope this helps.

Violynne wrote: »

ATEK302 wrote: »

I'm a lvl 29 magika sorc.

While questing and pulling mobs this is usually my cycle.

Dmg morph of encase, surge, liquid lightning, lightning blockade, voletile familiar pulse, spam heavy.

I have like 4 of them now. Say I'm in a solo boss fight. How do I keep them all up and maintain a somewhat decent cycle?

My first piece of advice, since you're level 29: stop using repetitive attacks. Every boss has a specific attack pattern, and knowing when and how to defend against them is important. Half of those spells are negated by immune or non-moving bosses.

You should only spam heavy if you're low on magicka, because heavies take about 4 seconds to render. Lightning is unique in that it procs its heavy instantly, but doesn't allow you to break for 4 seconds. Use light attacks instead, and this allows you to cast more spells between shots (weaving).

My second piece of advice is to bar Destructive Touch/Clench, either on lightning (stun) or inferno (knock back). I put mine on inferno because that extra space can be very helpful. Then, cast any AoE slightly before them, as they get up, they'll run right through it, taking damage.

My third piece of advice is don't use any wards in PvE, because they take precious magicka and do little in return when dealing with PvE mobs. Most wards only deflect a portion of damage over time, which won't help you squat if you're being pummeled by mobs (as I'm sure you've already figured out).

Use Annulment against spell casters (though some are immune) and Entropy if you're having issues maintaining health.

But call it a hunch once you stop mashing the same spell attacks over and over, things will get better.

*blinks* What? Is this a troll post?

OP, you'll most certainly want to spam lightning heavy against multiple mobs for that splash damage from the first passive(which you should have unlocked by now). You drop liquid, wall of ele, pet pulse if you have it, then spam lightning heavy basically.

Single target heavy attack builds are also a thing but it's more of a dk thing. For single target you'll generally want a fire staff.

You also most certainly want to use repetitive attacks, it's called a rotation. No monster in the game is immune to damage with exception of certain boss monsters on certain phases. Encase is something only useful against trash but I assume you already figured that out. It's also generally not something used in group play because mobs' grouping is tank's job but on your own it can sure come in handy.

Your rotation sounds pretty good actually, might want to add crystal fragments there though(first Dark Magic skill) and use it on proc, it's really good. Also the execute, Mage's Fury or whichever morph of it, first skill in Storm calling. Typical sorc is something like drop dots(liquid, wall of ele, pet pulse, curse)->weave force shock with light attacks+frags on proc->rinse and repeat(keep in mind curse is on ~13 second timer instead of 8-10 seconds), in execute stage(<=20%) drop dots and spam your execute.

It's great that you've discovered power of the wards already, but you don't need all of them at once Especially considering they only last 6 seconds now, spamming them is a waste of magicka and damage in most situations. Generally most open world stuff should die before you even need a shield at all; for when you do need a shield, one should be plenty. They scale with your max magicka so invest into that. For example, my magsorc has like 25k damage shield from Hardened but she is cp 600 and whatnot, you'll have less but still more than enough. I think my level 46 baby sorc on eu is on like 8-10k shield with no cp.

One little trick to maybe help you with skill placement - Overoad ultimate is in fact a toggle which opens up a third bar. You can slot any skills except for weapon skills there and this bar can be different from your other 2 bars. To design it, just use Overload but don't use light or heavy attacks or anything, it can stay on forever that way, then place the skills you want on that bar. You'll definitely want your pet there because otherwise he'll get desummoned every time you use it but that aside it's open to improvisation. You could maybe place Encase and Surge(it's a great skill, most definitely better than Entropy in every aspect) there for example, also maybe Streak(Bolt Escape morph for when you unlock it) for avoiding unwanted encounters

General sorc bar is something like crystal frags-crushing shock/force pulse(either morph, I prefer first for utility)-curse-pet-inner light(from Mages' guild skill tree, for moar magicka and crit bonuses). Second bar execute-liquid-wall of ele-pet-inner light/shield/surge/whatever but that's more of group play dps. Easy adaption would be replacing inner light on first bar with a shield if you're struggling and using Overload bar for Surge and stuff, for example. It's not that important for open world content though, feel free to change anything in there for your liking

Just to make it absolutely clear on shields again - you don't need to have a shield up 100% of the time(with exceptions of some very specific fights and PvP), it shouldn't be part of rotation but rather an "OH SH**" button to use right before a heavy attack comes/when damage becomes too overwhelming.

Good luck!

Thank you for the info! Great stuff.

I don't need inner light on both bars do i? I read they fixed a bug concerning that.

@Magdalina posted here some rly good advices. I can add just few things. Mag sorc in current state can solo most of version I of vet dungs, so aming in just casual PvE will gimp you. Shields are not necesarry when fighting trash mobs, surge and dots will keep you at 100% hp most of the time, but when fighting bosses these are a must. 25k shield casted before boss winds up his blow makes sure you will survive this blow, yes you can streak out of it but there is a lot of unavoidable dmg in dungs, youll need shields.

Note that my dung and in general pve setup is mostly focused on being able to solo anything, its not a trial dps setup.

Gear:
Infernal guardian/Valkyn Skoria.
Necropotence.
Lich - For sustain.
Main bar: Sharpen Necropotence lightning staff.
Back bar resto lich staff (you need fifth set effect only when below 33% of your max magica, this way you can have 2+5+5 setup with staves)

Skills. Main bar: Liquid lightning, Elemental blockade, Volatile Familiar, Hardened ward, Inner light, Overload.
Backbar. Power surge, Thundering presence, Volatile Famiar, Healing ward / Dark deal (yes this morph, you wont need more magica, but sometimes you will have to roll or break free a lot and more stamina is always handy - with dark deal on bar, you can use even sword and board or other destro staff instead of resto staff), Streak.
Spell wall/Destro ult/Shooting star/Greater storm attronach.

Trust me, for PvE its real beast mode.

ATEK302 wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

@Magdalina posted here some rly good advices. I can add just few things. Mag sorc in current state can solo most of version I of vet dungs, so aming in just casual PvE will gimp you. Shields are not necesarry when fighting trash mobs, surge and dots will keep you at 100% hp most of the time, but when fighting bosses these are a must. 25k shield casted before boss winds up his blow makes sure you will survive this blow, yes you can streak out of it but there is a lot of unavoidable dmg in dungs, youll need shields.

Note that my dung and in general pve setup is mostly focused on being able to solo anything, its not a trial dps setup.

Gear:
Infernal guardian/Valkyn Skoria.
Necropotence.
Lich - For sustain.
Main bar: Sharpen Necropotence lightning staff.
Back bar resto lich staff (you need fifth set effect only when below 33% of your max magica, this way you can have 2+5+5 setup with staves)

Skills. Main bar: Liquid lightning, Elemental blockade, Volatile Familiar, Hardened ward, Inner light, Overload.
Backbar. Power surge, Thundering presence, Volatile Famiar, Healing ward / Dark deal (yes this morph, you wont need more magica, but sometimes you will have to roll or break free a lot and more stamina is always handy - with dark deal on bar, you can use even sword and board or other destro staff instead of resto staff), Streak.
Spell wall/Destro ult/Shooting star/Greater storm attronach.

Trust me, for PvE its real beast mode.

I don't have any end game sets like your mentioning. I've chose not to lvl resto, for now. I run dual destro.

I swear I watched a alcast vid, that said inner light didn't have to be double barred anymore.

What is thundering presence?

What they meant by double bar is probably that before you used to have to toggle magelight on, kind of like you do with a pet now. That'd mean that every time you switch bar to one without inner light and then back you'd have to toggle it back on in order to get the bonuses. That is no longer the case. However, in order to get Inner light's buffs on BOTH bars you still need to have Inner light on BOTH bars.

@Mayrael 's build would be more of something for soloing. Far as sets go, Julianos and Seducer are really good crafted sets for a magicka build, Julianos is even good enough for endgame.