I've had a lot of success with IG.

Thing destroys far away archers etc which is perfect for solo.

In group you probably need to focus for max damage and can't have a few fling off on adds.

I hear Maw is one of the BiS now

Maw has 3 attacks, 2 are claw hits that are basically identical, attacking once every 2 seconds. The third is his fire breath which hits 5 times every 0.5 seconds. This attack is conal as well, while the others are single target. During the 15 second uptime, he will use his fire breath at least once, sometimes twice if you're lucky. It is possible for him to spawn back in immediately after being desummoned, but over the course of a 90 second single target fight (like a 3mil dummy parse) you are most likely to get him to proc 2-3 times. Really bad luck, you'd get 1. Really good luck, you'd get 4. When parsing around 40k, Maw usually does between 2500-3000 dps when adding up all his attacks (better Daedric Prey time means better damage from Maw). The max dps I have ever gotten with him on a parse was 4200 dps, which is insane for a monster set (Ilambris usually does about 1200-1500 dps all together).

So if you're mainly interested in single target damage and don't mind some volatility in his uptime, Maw is a great choice. Infernal Guardian is only really going to be benefitial when you actually need to be using your shields. If you are in a group with healers keeping you topped off, the cost of magicka and global cool down for you to keep procing it is not worth it imo.

Vaoh wrote: »

dpencil1 wrote: »

Maw has 3 attacks, 2 are claw hits that are basically identical, attacking once every 2 seconds. The third is his fire breath which hits 5 times every 0.5 seconds. This attack is conal as well, while the others are single target. During the 15 second uptime, he will use his fire breath at least once, sometimes twice if you're lucky. It is possible for him to spawn back in immediately after being desummoned, but over the course of a 90 second single target fight (like a 3mil dummy parse) you are most likely to get him to proc 2-3 times. Really bad luck, you'd get 1. Really good luck, you'd get 4. When parsing around 40k, Maw usually does between 2500-3000 dps when adding up all his attacks (better Daedric Prey time means better damage from Maw). The max dps I have ever gotten with him on a parse was 4200 dps, which is insane for a monster set (Ilambris usually does about 1200-1500 dps all together).

So if you're mainly interested in single target damage and don't mind some volatility in his uptime, Maw is a great choice. Infernal Guardian is only really going to be benefitial when you actually need to be using your shields. If you are in a group with healers keeping you topped off, the cost of magicka and global cool down for you to keep procing it is not worth it imo.

Is that 4.2K DPS after Maw was fixed? (it could crit before)

You can still see those numbers if you're lucky. Also, a heavy attack lightning build favors Maw as the proc chance is very high. If you keep up prey a lot you can get a solid 2.5-3k, that's where you will end on a centurion...

@Izaki
I appreciate that, and a Sorc should have an alternate set available on hand for those situations, but ideally ZOS needs to treat these instances like the bugs they are and deal with them. There shouldn't be any barriers to using pets in a competitive raid, and if there are, they are ZOS's fault.

Also, for most of the rest of the game they are just fine.

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

If you are are talking vet trials, IG is not a good DPS set. There is no way you should be casting damage shields on cooldown. Dont get me wrong, damage shields are important, but if you are casting one every 6 seconds, your DPS and sustain is going to be really bad.

Also, in practice, I get more than 1462 DPS from ilambris. I think you have 4 viable options for end game DPS. The first and most obvious is Ilambris. It is still the best damage set for most builds on a mSorc. The second is Maw. I dont love the way this works. The last thing we need is another pet running around, but on certain fights, it's perfectly viable. It was Broken OP there for a minute, but that has been fixed as far as I know. The last two are nerienth and Skoria. They do not do quite as much DPS as ilambris, but if you are a non-pet sorc running witchmothers, then your health needs a little help from somewhere. Nerienth and Skoria work great for that.

running a non pet sorc. my trials guild requires 18k health for vhof progression.

whats better?
llambris + like 6 attribute points in health?
nerenith + 64 magicka?

is there a difference?

Izaki wrote: »

dpencil1 wrote: »

Maw has 3 attacks, 2 are claw hits that are basically identical, attacking once every 2 seconds. The third is his fire breath which hits 5 times every 0.5 seconds. This attack is conal as well, while the others are single target. During the 15 second uptime, he will use his fire breath at least once, sometimes twice if you're lucky. It is possible for him to spawn back in immediately after being desummoned, but over the course of a 90 second single target fight (like a 3mil dummy parse) you are most likely to get him to proc 2-3 times. Really bad luck, you'd get 1. Really good luck, you'd get 4. When parsing around 40k, Maw usually does between 2500-3000 dps when adding up all his attacks (better Daedric Prey time means better damage from Maw). The max dps I have ever gotten with him on a parse was 4200 dps, which is insane for a monster set (Ilambris usually does about 1200-1500 dps all together).

So if you're mainly interested in single target damage and don't mind some volatility in his uptime, Maw is a great choice. Infernal Guardian is only really going to be benefitial when you actually need to be using your shields. If you are in a group with healers keeping you topped off, the cost of magicka and global cool down for you to keep procing it is not worth it imo.

Starfall: everyone is positioned perfectly, then a bloody Croc comes from some plane of Oblivion and barges in the middle of the perfect stack killing a few people in the process. GG that score run. I kinda blame the Sorc more than the monster set itself, but still whenever anyone mentions that set, I just think of that moment. And the worst part is that you can't take the set off while in combat, so we absolutely rekt our vitality.

Pets in general are annoying (and very ugly). But this set was just lethal.

Agreed...

Also, on the dps front of maw vs illambris- (i won't even compare IG set because its not worth it unless you're in vma)
I did multiple parses with the exact same gear/rotation... only switch monster sets.

Illambris was consistently 1k more dps than maw... It's better in pretty much every way unless you just like having an army of pets. To each their own.
Illambris has the advantage of proc'ing lightning and fire while maw just spawns at the same chance no matter what type of damage.