Low magsorc dps, unable to improve

glennsfono · March 2018

As the title says, I cannot get into this magical 30-40k dps range on my magsorc. I have copied exactly (minus a vma staff) literally dozens of builds, practiced rotations and animation canceling until my fingers bled, and yet I simply cannot break 22k dps. The build I am most recently trying to mimic, yet another video of a person on a training dummy doing 40k dps, is 5 necro, 2 ilambris, 4 infallible aether. He does 40k, I do 22k.

glennsfono · March 2018

EDIT: I'm unable to edit the OP, but I'm putting this info here to consolidate. Also, I made a video of my rotation and suckage. Link to follow.

Front bar: volatile familiar, inner light, hardened ward (or twilight tormentor), liquid lightning, blockade. ultimate: mage guild
Back bar: volatile familiar, power surge, daedric prey, inner light, ele drain (also substituting for twilight tormentor on similar attempt) ultimate: mage guild (have tried the destro staff ulti and the daedric summong ulti)

For champion points, anywhere from 40-70 in all the relevant ones. I know that's vague, but god damn what HAVEN'T I tried for CP variations? Cause that's a shorter list. I've tried more points into staff master than master-at-arms, I've tried more points into thaumaturge than either, I've tried more into master-at-arms than thaum and only 20 ish into staff master. Jesus lol. It's also worth noting that my dps has not increased a single point from when I got frustrated and gave up at cp530 ish. Now that I'm 720, all points go into the relevant and generic sorc items. 30-40 into spell pen, along with the lover mundus.

Then I tried the thief mundus, bringing my crit into the 57% range instead of the lover, no dps increase. I tried the apprentice for more spell damage, bringing me to about 2500, no dps increase. I tried the mage, bringing my total magicka to about 52k at that time, but no more dps.

I'm sitting on 46.5k magicka, with this current build of divines 5 necro, 4 infallible aether (3 of which are jewelry), and 2 piece ilambris.

So, 46.5k magicka, 2100 spell damage, 35% crit, and I think 1900 weapon damage.

I've had MUCH higher in different areas, yet the result is invariably the same: 20-22k dps.

Some rotations do work with some people, and not others, but I have put A LOT of time and practice into the current rotation I'm on and am comfortable with it. The guy whose video I'm following is sitting on 40k dps with no spell power pots and dual pet (still 22k dps for me, with or without the second pet). The only item he's using that I'm not is the vMA staff, which definitely isn't 20k more damage.

https://youtu.be/VU_IugOJ0Hk

Anotherone773 · March 2018

You are going to have to give a lot more info if you want others to help. Stats, gear, skills, CP allocation, mundus, rotation...the usual.

Edit: I should add doing someone elses rotation isnt always the best idea. Many rotations look good on paper and some people can do them well. But if you cant do them well, it will actually hurt your dps not increase it.

Waffennacht · March 2018

It's hard to know what's going on in a video.

For example, we do not (you may) know if the person in the video is getting buffs. Such as war horn, ele drain, combat prayer.

For me, without vMA staff, I've reached 26/28k

Used: necro + acuity + maw iirc on a pet build

So you're doing well imo. A perfect rotation probably wouldn't raise your dps too much more. I think gear and group buffs will make the difference

Galendior · March 2018

Maelstrom staff is quite a bit of lost damage, but you should still be able to get above 30k.
Unfortunately you didn't give us much information to work with except the amount of dps you do.

Is your dummy debuffed (elemental drain)?
Are you using spell power potions?
Did you already get all necessary passives (including alchemy, undaunted etc.)?

If you are playing on PC: Addons like combat metrics allow for a better analysis of your rotation and a picture of your stats/gear/cp etc. from superstar addon would help finding issues too.

glennsfono · March 2018

Also, I use any/all relevant addons to help calculate my dps and my suckage, especially combat metrics. It shows exactly how much dps of each ability I do. This is wildly unhelpful, as I already know my dps is low. The addon telling me that the numbers suck doesn't help me figure out why some people are magical and I'm just not lol

Rolling spell power pots and ele drain, I only hit 23.5k. So I don't really bother with the costly stuff given that the return is incredibly low and not worth it.

It's clearly not my rotation, it's simply that the abilities and attacks I am doing do FAR less damage than everyone else's. Even in the video I'm follow, the guy's damage ticks are hitting for an average of 9-12k per, but mine are only about 4-5k per. How is it that my stats are incredibly close to his, yet my abilities are half worth? This is the frustrating and confusing part. Near as I can tell, I'm doing literally nothing wrong. Yet somehow, I deal 50% of the damage as a normal sorc running the same build and same cp, same everything practically.

FrancisCrawford · March 2018

Have you checked the logs for your uptimes, your basic attacks/second, etc.?

I have lousy parses, but if Combat Metrics is to be believed I also am not firing skills and basic attacks as quickly and reliably as I should be.

Xuhora · March 2018

i could clearly see how the videoguy uses spell power pots... having them up all the time during the find with the alchemist passive is a huge boost to DPS since you gain crit, spellpower AND regen ontop.
doing parses on a dummy without the spell power potions is something i cant do either, because im going out of ressources pretty darn quick.
you should try it, your DPS will improve by alot

edited it so i dont sound like the biggest fish in the pond due to bad phrasing

glennsfono · March 2018

Xuhora wrote: »

i could clearly see how the videoguy uses spell power pots... having them up all the time during the find with the alchemist passive is a huge boost to DPS since you gain crit, spellpower AND regen ontop.
doing parses on a dummy without the spell power potions is something i cant do either, because im going out of ressources pretty darn quick.
you should try it, your DPS will improve by alot

edited it so i dont sound like the biggest fish in the pond due to bad phrasing

I did a video where I use pots and posted the link above. Even with them, I think I ended with like 23k dps.

WuffyCerulei · March 2018

Your gear looks alright, but for your bars, they're a bit wonky.

What you should run:
Front bar: Daedric Prey, Destructive Clench, Volatile Familiar, Bound Aegis, Inner Light OR Mage's Wrath, Greater Storm Atronach
Back Bar: Liquid Lightning, Elemental Blockade, Familiar, Bound Aegis, Hardened Ward, Elemental Rage

I noticed 1 big thing: you do not have a destruction skill slotted on your front bar. You NEED one to boost the damage of your aoes.

You could switch Necropotence with Mechanical Acuity, which is crafted. MA is pretty strong. Necropotence+IA/MA/Julianos and 1 Domihaus or Kena are also good combos.

For your Major Sorcery buff, use spell power potions. These require Cornflower, Lady's Smock, and Water Hyacinth/Namira's Rot. Make sure you have your alchemy passives leveled and bought with skill points.

A vMA staff would increase you dps a bit (I know you stated you don't have one).

Here's a decent rotation: (LA for Light Attack, HA for Heavy Attack, BS for Barswap)

Ele drain>potion>Elemental Rage>LA>Liquid Lightning>LA>Element Blockade>LA>Familiar>BS>Deadric Curse>LA>Destructive Clench>HA>BS>Repeat (Use Atronach when available after)

Septimus_Magna · March 2018

You could also use Action Duration Timer, its a really useful add-on to track the duration of your skills.
It looks like you're overcasting some skills which will cause a serious dps loss.
Especially Curse and the Scamp should never be recast before running out.
Liquid and Blockade shouldnt be cast 2 seconds early because in that time you could've done another heavy attack.

Another important thing is spell power pots, if you dont use Power Surge you can slot Inner Light which increases the dmg of the skills on your bar.

On my sorc Im running the easiest rotation in the game, my gear is half gold/purple and I easily pull 30k single target with Apprentice mundus. Gear is 5x necro, 4x infallible and 2x ilambris.

Skills:
Bar 1 (infused lighting, fire enchant)
liquid, blockade, inner light, bound aegis, scamp - storm atronach

Bar 2 (nirn lightning, spell dmg enchant)
scamp, curse, hardened ward (ele drain for dps parse), inner light, bound aegis - elemental rage

Rotation:
LA > liquid > LA > blockade > bar swap
LA > scamp > LA > Curse > 2x HA > barswap
restart

Spell power pots on CD
Cast Storm Atronach for single target or moving targets, Elemental Rage for multiple enemies or burst situations.

If you have to shield (in real fights) you can skip one HA and still maintain the rotation.
You can run two pets with this build, just replace bound aegis and cast LA>Twilight>HA instead of 2x HA.
In fights where you have to shield often I found it harder to sustain and maintain the rotation with two pets.
For stuff like vMA two pets are great so I do run them there.

I use blue health/mag food for dungeons/trials and witchmothers for vMA.
Sustain is really not an issue with two heavy attacks in the rotation.

WuffyCerulei · March 2018

^ Septimus's rotation will also work.

Vahrokh · March 2018

I feel for you.

The hard truth is that PvE sorcs have been hit hard by a number of nerfs and now just do worse than others anyway.

Of course, when I have posted the #49856th thread about it, I got some good feedback but also tons of flames, from those who are playing FOTM and want to keep their advantage at all costs.
We are now the "middle tier" DPS class that unlike the other middle tier classes cannot really turn into the best tank or healer with a respec.

Anyway here are some suggestions:

1) Check your mundus stone. Most of the time you do parses with The Lover, but not always. I've found a limited amount of builds that do the same DPS with Apprentice.

2) Top DPS is not achieved with Power Surge. You really need to slot clench or the finisher etc. and use potions. That's another 2-3k DPS you get.

3) What nobody tells you is that 35-40k is very hard to achieve on sorcs. Your rotation has to be smooth as silk and you must not have any lag, delay, too quick or too slow weaving. Doing it with front lightning staff on front bar is even harder, because these staves are bugged to hell and tend to "stick" in the middle of a cast. The "40k club" you see on Youtube and on these forums, are perhaps 1% of the playerbase and they love to downplay the efforts and practice needed to "get there".

4) What I see you are missing a lot in your video, is Pet AoE and Daedric Prey uptime. When you drop one of them, you lose an huge amount of damage. By huge I mean, you easily lose 5k+.

5) Last but not least: I know this might sound impossible, but once you take the above suggestions into account, using a "lazy/cheap" Power Surge Heavy Attack Build, you should achieve 25k self buffed, without vMA staff, without pots, without any food. You don't get there even using food and potions, so you have room to improve.

6) Did I mention, "keep up Pet AoE and Daedric Prey"? Yes I did. And I repeat it again. On a decent platform you could use the Combat Metrics addon and check you have Pet uptime close to 100% and Daedric Prey uptime > 85%. You'll see how hard it that. Just bringing Daedric Prey from 85% to 88% is a chore. It's a slow, painful process, don't get fooled by those who tell you that 40k is "normal" or "quick and easy". It's not.

glennsfono · March 2018

Ah, hmmm. Definitely a lot to take in guys, thank you for the replies and builds. One question though. One of you is saying to never let prey or volatile familiar proc drop, and one of you guys is saying I cast them too often. I try to keep them both up as much as possible currently.

Septimus_Magna · March 2018

glennsfono wrote: »

Ah, hmmm. Definitely a lot to take in guys, thank you for the replies and builds. One question though. One of you is saying to never let prey or volatile familiar proc drop, and one of you guys is saying I cast them too often. I try to keep them both up as much as possible currently.

You need to realize how these skills work in order to decide how you supposed to use them.

Daedric Prey
Curse an enemy with a destruction rune, dealing [x] Magic Damage to the target and [y] Magic Damage to all other nearby enemies after 6 seconds.
While the curse is active, your pets deal an additional 55% damage to the target except the Storm Atronach which only deals an additional 40% damage.

If you cast this too early you just refresh the 6s duration to buff pet dmg.
Casting before the explosion means you deal no dmg with Curse itself.

Volatile Familiar
Once summoned, you can activate the familiar's special ability, causing the familiar to pulse for [y] Shock Damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to enemies near him. The final pulse will stun all enemies hit for 3 seconds.

If you cast this too early the final pulse will not go off, so you'll miss dmg and the stun.
Casting before the final stun means you deal 25% less dmg.

glennsfono · March 2018

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Volatile Familiar
Once summoned, you can activate the familiar's special ability, causing the familiar to pulse for [y] Shock Damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to enemies near him. The final pulse will stun all enemies hit for 3 seconds.

If you cast this too early the final pulse will not go off, so you'll miss dmg and the stun.
Casting before the final stun means you deal 25% less dmg.

While that does make sense, are you really "losing" that last tick of his damage if you're simply always keeping it up? By the way it reads, you'd only miss the stun effect. Because recasting it will reset its aoe pulse counter.

I agree about daedric prey though, and will need to wait for it to end before recasting.

FrancisCrawford · March 2018

I'm having trouble seeing Daedric Prey uptime in Combat Metrics. Everything else seems to be there. Am I just overlooking it, or is there some setting or funny name or other trick one needs to know?

Or -- which I doubt -- does one have to infer it from the damage listing?

Vahrokh wrote: »

6) Did I mention, "keep up Pet AoE and Daedric Prey"? Yes I did. And I repeat it again. On a decent platform you could use the Combat Metrics addon and check you have Pet uptime close to 100% and Daedric Prey uptime > 85%. You'll see how hard it that. Just bringing Daedric Prey from 85% to 88% is a chore. It's a slow, painful process, don't get fooled by those who tell you that 40k is "normal" or "quick and easy". It's not.

Vahrokh · March 2018

glennsfono wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Volatile Familiar
Once summoned, you can activate the familiar's special ability, causing the familiar to pulse for [y] Shock Damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to enemies near him. The final pulse will stun all enemies hit for 3 seconds.

If you cast this too early the final pulse will not go off, so you'll miss dmg and the stun.
Casting before the final stun means you deal 25% less dmg.

While that does make sense, are you really "losing" that last tick of his damage if you're simply always keeping it up? By the way it reads, you'd only miss the stun effect. Because recasting it will reset its aoe pulse counter.

I agree about daedric prey though, and will need to wait for it to end before recasting.

Overcasting leads to an increase of magicka usage with no benefit (in cause of Daedric Prey, it's actually negative). Sorcs have the most expensive spells with the least regen, therefore even "just" overcasting leads to a drop of DPS. In fact, the guy has to heavy attack more and it's very hard to keep DPS up with unneded heavy attacks.

Vahrokh · March 2018

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I'm having trouble seeing Daedric Prey uptime in Combat Metrics. Everything else seems to be there. Am I just overlooking it, or is there some setting or funny name or other trick one needs to know?

Or -- which I doubt -- does one have to infer it from the damage listing?

Vahrokh wrote: »

6) Did I mention, "keep up Pet AoE and Daedric Prey"? Yes I did. And I repeat it again. On a decent platform you could use the Combat Metrics addon and check you have Pet uptime close to 100% and Daedric Prey uptime > 85%. You'll see how hard it that. Just bringing Daedric Prey from 85% to 88% is a chore. It's a slow, painful process, don't get fooled by those who tell you that 40k is "normal" or "quick and easy". It's not.

If you want to truly analyse your DPS you have to install Combat Metrics. It shows Daedric Prey uptime.

R_K · March 2018

What @WuffyCerulei said (regarding having a Destruction Staff skill on each bar for passive bonuses).

Also, your rotation seems pretty okay; but, for the heavy attack approach, I would at least recommend doing two heavies per rotation rather than the 1-2 you did in the video.

I feel like it's better to let the final tick of your DOTs play out rather than to recast DOTs prematurely. I think that the game's designers calculated and configured DOT skills to be effective only when their full duration is run through. Generally, that total amount is intended to be effective compared to whatever your class' reasonable spammable option is (in this case, heavy attacks). If the total amount of the DOTs damage doesn't happen, it likely wasn't worth casting it in the first place -- you would have done more damage with your spammable. (Exceptions being AOE DOTs ticking on many enemies; but I still follow this rule.)

Also, for this reason, I think you're generally better off doing nothing but applying 1 primary DOT (i.e. Blockade) and executing at the very tail end of parse (specifically, from the point at which none of your applied DOTs would last their full duration); and don't even bother with blockade if the target will die with 3-4 executes. This little bit can actually make a noticeable difference.

Also, also, light weave every single skill. This does make a tremendous difference. Light attacks are generally at the top of peoples' parses in terms of most damaging attacks.

Arkray · March 2018

I tried the double heavy attack rotation posted in this thread a while ago but for some reason I was getting less DPS than with a single heavy attack, I guessed it was because with double heavy you get less uptime on curse.

Currently I'm using a modified version of Alcast's single pet rotation, but I use the healing matriarch instead of bound armor and just let it attack. My rotation is:

Blockade > LA > Liquid > Bar swap
LA > Scamp > LA > Curse > Heavy Attack > Bar swap

I usually use blockade before liquid because liquid seems to have a longer animation and the bar swap cancels it, and since i'm reaplying both of them before they expire the uptime is the same. The curse is reaplied as soon as the previous one explodes with this rotation and I don't really have sustain issues with elemental drain up.

I'm using 5 necropotence, 5 Acuity (Frontbar), 1 Ilambris (no luck with domihaus

) and vma lightning staff.

It might not be the best but I managed to pull 35k with it already with low 600's cp and no alchemy passives so I guess it still has room to improve, the DPS matriarch should add a few more DPS but I prefer the utility of the healing one.

Edit: The mage seemed to add sightly more dps than the apprentice to me on my build, the difference is minimal though, but I think that when you use two pets the mage pulls sightly ahead because the apprentice doesn't buff the pets.

Septimus_Magna · March 2018

glennsfono wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Volatile Familiar
Once summoned, you can activate the familiar's special ability, causing the familiar to pulse for [y] Shock Damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to enemies near him. The final pulse will stun all enemies hit for 3 seconds.

If you cast this too early the final pulse will not go off, so you'll miss dmg and the stun.
Casting before the final stun means you deal 25% less dmg.

While that does make sense, are you really "losing" that last tick of his damage if you're simply always keeping it up? By the way it reads, you'd only miss the stun effect. Because recasting it will reset its aoe pulse counter.

I agree about daedric prey though, and will need to wait for it to end before recasting.

Yes, because the final pulse stuns and deals dmg.

The pulse dmg pattern looks like this: dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - final dmg

Ideally you want to recast right after the final dmg tick so the pulse dmg pattern looks like this:
dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - final dmg - recast - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - final dmg

The time between final dmg and recast determines dps of this skill because dps=dmg/time.
Less time with equal dmg gives higher dps.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · March 2018

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

glennsfono wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Volatile Familiar
Once summoned, you can activate the familiar's special ability, causing the familiar to pulse for [y] Shock Damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to enemies near him. The final pulse will stun all enemies hit for 3 seconds.

If you cast this too early the final pulse will not go off, so you'll miss dmg and the stun.
Casting before the final stun means you deal 25% less dmg.

While that does make sense, are you really "losing" that last tick of his damage if you're simply always keeping it up? By the way it reads, you'd only miss the stun effect. Because recasting it will reset its aoe pulse counter.

I agree about daedric prey though, and will need to wait for it to end before recasting.

Yes, because the final pulse stuns and deals dmg.

The pulse dmg pattern looks like this: dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - final dmg

Ideally you want to recast right after the final dmg tick so the pulse dmg pattern looks like this:
dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - final dmg - recast - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - final dmg

The time between final dmg and recast determines dps of this skill because dps=dmg/time.
Less time with equal dmg gives higher dps.

You are correct if you add damage per magic cost to your calculation, other wise you would get the same dps if you cast the skill immediately over and over. The last tick does not get more damage just because of the stun, in fact it could be detrimental to dps, in that the stun stops the tank from from stacking properly.

MakeMeUhSamich · March 2018

OP, I feel your frustration. It took me awhile to get my DPS where I wanted it. From watching your video, it seems your rotation is the biggest issue. CP can make a big difference, too. Your gear is fine.

I play a non-pet MagSorc, but wanted to link a few build/skill options for you to consider. These would easily be adaptable if you’re set on keeping the pet. Gear/CP/Skills etc. are at the end of the videos.

Easy/Tanky 25k+:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/400622/no-pet-magsorc-easy-tanky-beginner-solo-non-trial-gear-pve-build-25k-dps-dragon-bones-patch#latest

Simple/Better Gear 30k+:
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/MakeMeUhSamich/video/45881392

Best Gear 37k+:
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/MakeMeUhSamich/video/46345997

All the best,
~Samich

Septimus_Magna · March 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

glennsfono wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Volatile Familiar
Once summoned, you can activate the familiar's special ability, causing the familiar to pulse for [y] Shock Damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds to enemies near him. The final pulse will stun all enemies hit for 3 seconds.

If you cast this too early the final pulse will not go off, so you'll miss dmg and the stun.
Casting before the final stun means you deal 25% less dmg.

While that does make sense, are you really "losing" that last tick of his damage if you're simply always keeping it up? By the way it reads, you'd only miss the stun effect. Because recasting it will reset its aoe pulse counter.

I agree about daedric prey though, and will need to wait for it to end before recasting.

Yes, because the final pulse stuns and deals dmg.

The pulse dmg pattern looks like this: dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - final dmg

Ideally you want to recast right after the final dmg tick so the pulse dmg pattern looks like this:
dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - final dmg - recast - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - dmg - 2s - final dmg

The time between final dmg and recast determines dps of this skill because dps=dmg/time.
Less time with equal dmg gives higher dps.

You are correct if you add damage per magic cost to your calculation, other wise you would get the same dps if you cast the skill immediately over and over. The last tick does not get more damage just because of the stun, in fact it could be detrimental to dps, in that the stun stops the tank from from stacking properly.

It does matter dps-wise, if you cast something early you could have been doing another attack so you loose dmg.

Galendior · March 2018

glennsfono wrote: »

Some rotations do work with some people, and not others, but I have put A LOT of time and practice into the current rotation I'm on and am comfortable with it. The guy whose video I'm following is sitting on 40k dps with no spell power pots and dual pet (still 22k dps for me, with or without the second pet). The only item he's using that I'm not is the vMA staff, which definitely isn't 20k more damage.

I doubt that there is someone sitting at 40k+ dps without spell power pots. Even if there is: Why make life more difficult than necessary? You don't have to use those pots for "normal" content, but a bit of gold spent for more damage and sustain in vet trials or for harder dlc bosses is well worth it.

Of course vMA staff isn't 20k dps, but it makes a notable difference, just keep that in mind.

glennsfono wrote: »

Also, I use any/all relevant addons to help calculate my dps and my suckage, especially combat metrics. It shows exactly how much dps of each ability I do. This is wildly unhelpful, as I already know my dps is low. The addon telling me that the numbers suck doesn't help me figure out why some people are magical and I'm just not lol

Rolling spell power pots and ele drain, I only hit 23.5k. So I don't really bother with the costly stuff given that the return is incredibly low and not worth it.

Combat metrics doesn't offer every information i would like to have, but it offers a lot more than you described. Of course showing you what the important dps skills are is a good start, but a combat metrics analysis doesn't end there:
- It shows the uptime of the buffs you had on you.
- It shows the uptime of debuffs on the dummy/boss.
- You can calculate the uptime of your most important skills (amount*intervall of ticks/fight duration), which is probably one of the most important points.
- You can also try to check how often you overcast daedric prey (uptime of the debuff, fight duration and amount of damage ticks, you get the idea).

The only thing combat metrics doesn't seem to show is how often the ability is cast, making it difficult to know how much damage is lost there by refreshing too early.

I assure you spell power pots and ele drain should increase your dps way more than that. Your rotation on that try was probably slightly worse, making you think it is a smaller difference than it really is.

glennsfono wrote: »

It's clearly not my rotation, it's simply that the abilities and attacks I am doing do FAR less damage than everyone else's. Even in the video I'm follow, the guy's damage ticks are hitting for an average of 9-12k per, but mine are only about 4-5k per. How is it that my stats are incredibly close to his, yet my abilities are half worth? This is the frustrating and confusing part. Near as I can tell, I'm doing literally nothing wrong. Yet somehow, I deal 50% of the damage as a normal sorc running the same build and same cp, same everything practically.

Please don't consider 40k+ sorcs "normal". They are at the very top end of the possible spectrum and clearly not your average sorc.
Same setup and same stats will produce the same numbers, you might compare single target hits (like daedric explosion) or crits with your average dotticks, which are naturally lower. I decided to check a parse from alcast and his blockade had an average dmg of 4.3k, liquid lightning had an average of 5.4k (and he had a 40k+ parse too). Average ticks of 9-12k aren't possible with those skills.

To give you some specific tips on your rotation video (i'm sure others pointed it out already, sorry for repeating):
- In the first ~70 seconds you casted daedric prey 13 or 14 times. But it only procced a total of 4 times. You often refreshed it with half a second remaining until the damage. Don't aim for a 100% uptime at the cost of the damage explosion.
- You need a destruction staff ability on both bars, best put destro ulti on frontbar and keep blockade on backbar.
- In the current patch you might want to switch out meteor for storm atronarch. Combined with daedric prey it should be the strongest single target ultimate and in groups it offers a very strong synergy for another dd to use.
- Get rid of crit surge when using pots/going for max damage, another 3-4 global cooldowns wasted on recasting during the fight. In case of a parse you can use ele drain there instead, less resistances, better sustain.
- It seems like you missed a few LA here and there and did one where you generally wouldn't (e.g. before heavy attacks). Might be down to lag or something, but still a bit of lost dps. This might also be the reason why the timing on some skills like prey was a bit off the mark.
- Other one time mistakes cost you some dps too (like refreshing pet 3 seconds early or refreshing backbar dots a bit late)

I think your rotation isn't all that bad, but the amount of things add up to cost you quite a bit of dps.

glennsfono · March 2018

Thanks again everyone for all the replies. It looks like the two biggest things I need to work on are timing with the recasting of abilities, and reorganizing my bars.

In the video, I was using my phone as a hotspot due to being mobile and on my laptop. But, that being said, I wasn't experiencing enough lag to prevent my attacks from going through.

Is my weaving at least adequate enough for us to say that it's for now the least of my concerns? For the vast majority of my rotation, in the video is no exception, I LA after pretty much every ability.

So my focus going forward should be to order my bars differently and to improve the times I recast things? Thanks again all

s7732425ub17_ESO · March 2018

THANK YOU FOR POSTING A VIDEO!!

I'm not going to sugar-coat this because you really seem to want to get better. Quite frankly, your rotation is absolute garbage. It's really bad. You are mainly reapplying all of your stuff way too quickly. You need to extend your rotation. Add in another 2 heavy attacks at least, or add in a heavy attack and shock clench. You should not reapply your DOTs before your elemental blockade has expired!!

You also start your parse terribly. It needs to always be this exact order: power surge, [elemental drain], Destro Ult OR Storm Atro Ult. Don't start light attack weaving until after you do this. If you are doing this correctly, the start of your parse should have really high DPS, and then it will slowly lower over time.

You can keep Power Surge on your bar for your parse (actually, you can use it for all content!). It's a great way to reduce potion cost. I use it for all of my Sorc parses, and I can parse 30k-35k with absolutely no issues. If you do the math, you will see that Power Surge only lowers your DPS by 500 at the most as compared to using potions. But you are trying to go from 22k to 35k, so this loss is completely insignificant for you.

Runefang · March 2018

What the other guys said. Don't reacts early, this is especially true of daedric prey since damage doesn't happen until the end.

Remember that high dps is always the result of a lot of little things that need to be done right.

This is particularly true of parsing, watch videos of how a parse gets done and you'll notice a few of these things that they do:
1. Buff/debuff before attacking.
2. Drink a pot, like 20 seconds before you start so you maximise your regen.
3. Drop a storm atro off to the side so it doesn't start the fight. You need to start asap once you do this.
4. Activate your pet ability so its active when you engage.
5. Now Blockade, but don't LA first since it'll result in a small dps loss starting that way.

One piece of advice is use elemental susceptibility instead of drain. With a heavy attack in your rotation you should sustain just fine without it. Gives you one less thing to track.

LiquidPony · March 2018

I'm sure I'm repeating some stuff others have said, but these are the things I noticed when watching your parse video:

You don't have a destruction staff ability on your front bar, so you're not benefiting from Ancient Knowledge on your front bar.

You're overcasting Daedric Prey. Half the time you cast it you're not getting the explosion proc.

Spell Power pots.

Elemental Drain (or Elemental Susceptibility).

You're not using Mage's Wrath.

Most people don't parse with a shield on their bar. Slot Inner Light in that spot for parses.

Drop your first ultimate right off the bat. No reason to wait so long.

You bar swap immediately after Light Attacks/Heavy Attacks pretty frequently. Generally you don't want to do this. Bar swap out of skills to cancel the animations (although sometimes you might have to swap out of a heavy attack due to Prey timing).

You almost never hit a light attack after bar swapping. And I notice that in one of your comments you say you "LA after pretty much every ability," but that's backwards. You want to LA *before* every ability. The goal is to cancel the LA animation with an ability animation.

The consecutive lights/heavies aren't ideal. Generally you want to cancel your lights/heavies with skills.

Here's a video from last patch. The DPS in the current patch will be somewhat lower because of the off-balance changes, but I still hit well over 35k with it using The Apprentice and ~30 points in Spell Erosion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPMzWQhefaQ&lc=z23ue1dpboidurc1uacdp433w15tln2zbhzq3fqdbhdw03c010c

FrancisCrawford · March 2018

Vahrokh wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

I'm having trouble seeing Daedric Prey uptime in Combat Metrics. Everything else seems to be there. Am I just overlooking it, or is there some setting or funny name or other trick one needs to know?

Or -- which I doubt -- does one have to infer it from the damage listing?

Vahrokh wrote: »

6) Did I mention, "keep up Pet AoE and Daedric Prey"? Yes I did. And I repeat it again. On a decent platform you could use the Combat Metrics addon and check you have Pet uptime close to 100% and Daedric Prey uptime > 85%. You'll see how hard it that. Just bringing Daedric Prey from 85% to 88% is a chore. It's a slow, painful process, don't get fooled by those who tell you that 40k is "normal" or "quick and easy". It's not.

If you want to truly analyse your DPS you have to install Combat Metrics. It shows Daedric Prey uptime.

As previously noted, I've been using Combat Metrics all along.

My error turned out to be really basic -- I didn't realize there was a toggle between showing buffs/debuffs on me and debuffs on the target.