Need help beefing up stamsorc.

Minyassa · May 2018

I'm frustrated nearly to tears here. I've followed so much advice, I've had people build me armor, I've learned an entire rotation of new skills, and I still can't !@#$!#$@$ solo the Craglorn delves. I know it should not matter that they are group delves, I've SEEN people solo them and I get told all the time that a good enough player can solo anything and I'm !@#$#@!% *trying* but for fracks sake what the hell am I doing wrong??!

Here's what I've got. Mechanical acuity, 5 pieces. Kra'gh helmet, still don't have the shoulders, RNG hates me so I just have a stam shoulder placeholder. Nirnhoned dagger right, Infused left, mech acuity nirnhoned bow. Spriggan necklace, 2 rings of agility (robust).

Front bar I'm running deadly cloak, trap, blood craze, bloodthirst, hurricane, flawless dawnbreaker. Back bar crit surge, hurricane, poison injection, endless hail, bombard (caltrops is not happening, I will not go into Cyrodiil alone and there are never any zergs when I'm on), & ballista.

574 CP, have put it into all the areas I'm supposed to for stam sustain and damage reduction and all that good crap.

I'm at my wit's end here. I thought I was doing well when I started getting through public dungeons just fine but this mess with delves is getting me beside myself. Every time I do my best to L2P as people tell me I'm still never good enough. It's getting very depressing.

Vapirko · May 2018

Okay here’s what your do. 5 hundings rage and 5 spriggans together. Obviously you’ll be running spriggans jewlery (blue is fine) then two spriggans divine body pieces (all armor should be divine). That makes hundings rage for three body pieces, 1 nirnhoned dagger main hand and 1 infused axe off hand. Poison and disease enchant. Infused bow backbar with wpn damage enchant. Monster set just use what you have, you could even go bloodspawn two piece I’d youfeel like you need some extra tankiness. Otherwise got 5 medium and 2 heavy (chest and head or chest and legs I’d need be). Front bar you run shrouded daggers, the healing morph of rending slashes, blade cloak, hurricane and bound armamandts in whatever order you like. Use flawless dawnbreaker for your ult. Back bar run endlesss hail, caltrops, poison injection crit surge and bound armor again and whatever ult you want. If you need more heals than crt surge use resolving vigor maybe in place of caltrops or something. For cp damage your gong most thaumaturge, critical strikes and mighty and penetration. Stacked in that order. If you need help healing still you can put 19 into the healing stars in blue and red trees. Put points in the green tree into break free, dodge rolling and make sure you have 14% into regen and some into heavy attack regen. For red star put a decent amount into direct damage reduction, damage of time reduction and then hardy and elemental defender. Sorry I don’t know all the star names off hand. Oh and go with warrior Mundus and all wpn damage glyphs on your jewelry. Run dubious Comoran throne. If you need more regen use the serpent Mundus or a recovery jewlery Glyph. Keep crit surge and hurricane going always. That and vigor should be plenty of healing and then you jsut focus on your damage rotation. You will need vigor though. You don’t have to have caltrops for solo stuff but you do need vigor and you just go to cyro. Jsut tough it out. Fix walls, go to every fight you can find and die or zerg. Whatever.

danno8 · May 2018

@Vapirko gives sound advice here.

Use Bound Armaments on both bars, it will increase your stamina by roughly 3000, increasing your damage, and heavy attack damage, and stamina recovery and health recovery by 20% each and gives you minor armour buffs. Drop Bombard and Trap for it.

Ideally you would have Caltrops as it is a huge AoE. Between Hail, Caltrops and Hurricane your AoE as StamSorc is very strong, and you should also use Shrouded Daggers instead of Bloodthirst, as it is a very strong ranged AoE that does nearly the same damage as Bloodthirst single target.

You should really try to flesh out a full 5-5-2 setup for you DW bar, since it sounds like you only have a 5-2-1 right now for set bonuses. You are missing out on 4 set bonuses. That's a lot of lost damage.

edit: I forgot, if you don't want to go into Cyrodiil to get caltrops you can also go into Battlegrounds. They reward you with AP win or lose and to get Caltrops you only need 145,000 cumulated AP earned. Cyrodiil is faster though, assuming you can find a small group to run with.

Haquor · May 2018

6 medium 1 heavy chest

5x spriggans- 3jewellery with weapon damage enchants and 2 body with stamina enchants.

5x hundings rage- 3 body with stamina, nirn dagger with poison enchant, precise axe with wpn power enchant nirn bow with wpn power enchant.

2x stormfist head and shoulders

Front bar: steel tornado/blood craze, shrouded daggers, deadly cloak, resolving vigor, bound armaments, dawnbreaker

Backbar: endless hail, poison injection, hurricane, crit surge, Bound armaments, ballista

Keep hurricane, deadly cloak, endless hail running at all times. Blood craze and poison injection and Shrouded daggers and heavies on priority target. steel tornado for trash.

DeadlyRecluse · May 2018

I find that moving the "Posterior Dimensions" slider all the way to the right gives me a nice beefy stamsorc.

lardvader · May 2018

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

I find that moving the "Posterior Dimensions" slider all the way to the right gives me a nice beefy stamsorc.

GreenhaloX · May 2018

What is your skill rotations? I see you're using DW, but no stating of usage of Shrouded Dagger. That some huge damage you're missing out on if you're not slotting it. Slot it. It damages up to 3 targets with more damages to the second and third. Also, do you have Razor Caltrops or Resolving Vigor? If not, go into PvP and get those. You're missing out on brutal DoTs and added direct damage from the Caltops and the best stam-base heal in the game. With Resolving Vigor, you can keep the morph of Rapid Strikes for more dps, or if you're using the slash, you should use the Rending Slashes instead. Spriggins and MA are fine. I have 4 stamsorcs; a 2h/bow, DW/bow and 2 x 2h/S&B (one is purely dd/dps and the other a hybrid dps/tank.) I use MA and Sword Swinger for the dps 2h/S&B, Shacklebreaker and Sword Singer on the 2h/bow, Axiom Innate and Sword Dancers on the DW/bow and Shacklebreaker/Sword Singer on the hybrid tank.

It is all about variety. I use increase stam-base monster set, as a Selene one-piece on the 2h. I like to have 2 x 5-piece sets with the 2h/bow and 2h/S&B. For the DW/bow, I use the 2-piece Velidreth. Well, for my hybrid tank, I use a one-piece Domihaus for the extra stam and mag. This is all to give you extra ideas and hopefully not confuse you.

For you with DW/bow, if it's your preference for the Kragh, fine, but you can fair better with the extra stam and damage proc with Selene, or Velidreth, o even Grothdarr. Kragh isn't bad, I just prefer more stam over penetration. You already got fine pen from the Spriggins and added CPs into Piercing. You should be all right with MA and Spriggins. It's looks to be your skillsets that can be improved. The Bloodthirst and Bloodcraze are more healing base, so you're missing out on dps with those. As I said, with Vigor, you can use the dps morphs of those.

To give you a better look and ideas, here are my skillsets and rotations for my DW/bow stamsorcs. I have no issue soloing much of anything in PvE land (well, aside from trials, ha ha.) Granted I am maxed CP, but I have been soloing things from anything Craglorn, world bosses, dungeons since I was v16 and the 501 CP. Anyways, here is my stuff:

Front bar DW:

Rapid Strikes / Hurricane / Shrouded Daggers / Razor Caltrops / Resolving Vigor / Ult: Flawless Dawnbreaker (just for the extra 5% weapon damage increase)

Back bar bow:

Venom Arrow (or you can use Poison Injection) / Power Surge / Liquid Lightning (yes, this is good extra and added DoTs and damage even for a stam) / Endless Hail / Empowered Ward (or you can use Hardened Ward / Ult: Ice Comet

So for Caglorn delves where there are like 5, 6 or more in a mob, here's mob melting rotations (at times, almost instantly.)

First, I pop Hurricane (just because I love Hurricane, but really don't need it against normal mobs or adds), hit Endless Hail, drop Liquid Lightning, switch bar and drop Caltrops and then Shrouded Daggers. Some or many are already melted by now and I don't even have to use Rapid Strikes; otherwise a couple whacks are only needed. This pretty much clears any adds/mobs from anywhere. Of course, you're going to get more damage and juice with the Liquid L with a magsorc, the supplemental DoTs and damage of it for my stamsorc compounded with the Endless Hail and Razor Caltrops, it is just brutally awesome. Ha ha

Anyways, for bosses; Craglorn delve bosses, portal, world bosses and any other world bosses in PvE-land, it's pretty much this rotations:

Power Surge first, then, Hurricane, followed by Endless Hail and Liguid L almost simultaneously, then Venom Arrow. Switch bar and drop Caltrops, followed by Shrouded Daggers and then drop Ice Comet (if have it); otherwise, it is on with a couple to few rounds of Rapid Strikes. Of course, you're likely to need to pop Vigor and/or Ward strategically. That's it. Time it right and press repeat on the rotations, and by the time you realize, the boss is nearly dead.

Again, I think it's your skillset you need to switch up on. Switch to Rapid Strikes, get Caltrop and Vigor. Liquid L is nice to slot, but it's preference as you don't really need it, but good extra DoTs and damages if you do. For DW, Shrouded Dagger is a must. I would love to have Deadly Cloak, but slot-limited, I prefer to slot the Liquid L with this stamsorc.

Oh, by the way, the enchant of my DW; sword gets the increase weapon dam, and the other axe gets crushing. I use the axe for the bleeding chance passive over the precise of dagger. My bow gets the poison enchant. Ok, hope this spin some new ideas on you.

Lynx7386 · May 2018

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

I find that moving the "Posterior Dimensions" slider all the way to the right gives me a nice beefy stamsorc.

Swiggity swooty dat khajiiti booty =p

@op: try getting some normal sanctum ophidia trial runs done so you can get a set of vicious serpent armor. That set is super powerful in vma as it restores stamina on every kill and gives you pretty much 100% uptime major expedition

Minyassa · May 2018

Does anyone have any hope to offer me that there's another way around this than having to get PvP skills? Anyone? Am I really, genuinely just totally screwed there?

Aurielle · May 2018

Minyassa wrote: »

Does anyone have any hope to offer me that there's another way around this than having to get PvP skills? Anyone? Am I really, genuinely just totally screwed there?

Not screwed, but you ARE gimping yourself unnecessarily. Caltrops is a must-have for any stamina DPS, and Vigor helps tremendously — especially if you’re feeling squishy. If you absolutely do not want to put in the minimal amount of effort required to get those two skills, then you could try using the Troll King monster set with Crit Surge/Dark Deal. Your current bar setup is best-suited to dungeons/trials where you have a dedicated healer.

You don’t need to go to Cyrodiil for AP, BTW. Battlegrounds are quick, and you get AP even if your team loses.

Lynx7386 · May 2018

Minyassa wrote: »

Does anyone have any hope to offer me that there's another way around this than having to get PvP skills? Anyone? Am I really, genuinely just totally screwed there?

Just suffer through a few battlegrounds. Since dragon bones fix, you still get like 7-8k AP even if you lose a match, so it should only take like 5-10 rounds to get vigor and caltrops

Colecovision · May 2018

Are you sticking in the fight for a while and not doing any damage or are you getting killed before you even get into the fights? If you're dead before you can learn mechanics and prioritize targets, then get tanky.

I main solo stamblade which definitely has some differences, but I think a lot of what I do would help you here. Solo is about survival first and foremost. You can't out dps everything. Sometimes you need to slug it out. I suggest running with 18k - 20k health.

Do you have mighty chudan, pirate skeleton or lord warden shoulders? Each has a one piece resistance bonus. I run a chudan helmet with pirate shoulders and a heavy hunding chest. The huge bonus to resistance allows me to run 2 damage sets and be tanky at the same time. It might be overkill for stam sorc, but if you are getting killed quickly, you may need it to learn whats going on. Medium fort brass was awesome for me before I had that monster gear. You need to go full damage with the monster set if you use fort brass. Sellstrix is a nice one for solo and not that tough to get. Kr'aghs works too. Regardless, figure out how to survive a bit, then scale back the tanky for more damage when it makes sense.

Briarheart is a nice damage set with a little heal, and the jewelry comes in both healthy and robust. If you need to stick with agility, then the healthy jewelry is almost free. Mix it up for the situation. When I was using agility, I had stam regen enchantments and weapon damage enchantment ready to go.

The dw ultimate rend is a big heal and nice damage at the same time. For longer boss fights you can rotate it with a potion and dark deal since you aren't getting vigor. The potion should give a health and stam burst with a regen bonus for 47 seconds with a 45 second cool down. I use the one that adds a crit bonus as well. (If you stick with MA, definitely don't add crit to the healing mix.) If you space out the 3 heals, it's not that long before you can do the next one. The medium armor active skill shuffle is a good survival tool as well.

GL

KingYogi415 · May 2018

Go beat VMA, then you will be solid!

danno8 · May 2018

Minyassa wrote: »

Does anyone have any hope to offer me that there's another way around this than having to get PvP skills? Anyone? Am I really, genuinely just totally screwed there?

If you follow the advice of myself and others for your gear, you can leave out Caltrops and instead use Liquid Lightning, or a defensive skill. You don't need Vigor on Stamsorc, I rarely slot it since you get 3000 HPS from Surge alone.

You will lose at least 1000 AoE DPS without Caltrops, as it is around 2000+ dps compared to LL 1000 dps. But I don't see Craglorn delves being too hard without it.

fred4 · May 2018

Having skimmed the answers, is everyone but Colecovision talking about DPS? Why? That's crazy! There isn't much of a DPS check for soloing Craglorn delves. I do them with my PvP build.

You don't say why you fail. Am I correct in assuming that you die? Do you have trouble sustaining? Do you run out of stamina or health first?

I think you've fallen into a trap by taking direction from end-game DPS builds. Those are group builds, where you are healed by a healer! Your skill selection and gear looks awfully RAID inspired. The reason that worked for you, so far, is that overland mobs are near-zero challenge regardless of your build.

You want to solo stuff, you need healing and sustain. Crit Surge is not enough. Bloodthirst and Blood Craze are OK, but single target, so not for AOE situations. At the very least, you should be using Dark Deal for healing and sustain, but again that's probably not the thing to cast when you're in the middle of a mob in Skyreach. You might consider using Streak + Dark Deal, which is how PvPers use that skill.

The skill you really need is Vigor. Failing that, you need to switch one of your weapons to 2H, so you get Rally. Brawler, from the 2H line, is also an excellent soloing skill for mid-level content, as it gives you a damage shield proportional to the enemies hit. Just heavy attack weave it, so you can sustain it. For more damage, but less defense than Brawler, use Reverse Slice. It's insane AOE damage for an execute. I would even say it's better than Steel Tornado on tightly packed mobs.

Colecovision mentions Rend, and that's very good, but an Ultimate. You may get very high uptime on Rend, with Fighter's Guild passives, in places like Skyreach, but it's still an Ultimate that's not always available.

Going tankier is an option, but at the end of the day, your healing must come from somewhere. The best healing set for Craglorn Delves is probably Bahraha's Curse. It will negate a lot of the AOE damage and provide insane amounts of healing in places like Skyreach. That said, you do need to defend (block) or heal some times, when it isn't procced. Bahraha is available in all weights (I'm sure) and jewelry traits (I think).

Troll King is also always an option, esp. if you happen to be that favorite stamsorc race: Orc. Forget other healing monster sets. They have random procs. Troll King is a reliable proc, when you most need it, that's what makes it great.

Good luck!

Chilly-McFreeze · May 2018

danno8 wrote: »

Minyassa wrote: »

Does anyone have any hope to offer me that there's another way around this than having to get PvP skills? Anyone? Am I really, genuinely just totally screwed there?

If you follow the advice of myself and others for your gear, you can leave out Caltrops and instead use Liquid Lightning, or a defensive skill. You don't need Vigor on Stamsorc, I rarely slot it since you get 3000 HPS from Surge alone.

You will lose at least 1000 AoE DPS without Caltrops, as it is around 2000+ dps compared to LL 1000 dps. But I don't see Craglorn delves being too hard without it.

You can use what?

fred4 · May 2018

danno8 wrote: »

You don't need Vigor on Stamsorc, I rarely slot it since you get 3000 HPS from Surge alone.

Since the two of us will likely confuse the OP with conflicting advice, let me say that I don't play stamsorc. 3K HPS is decent, so I can see how that works for you.

To the OP: I am suggesting there is an alternative route. Many of the people here are advocating high DPS (and high crit). The reason that works for them is that they are very good at their rotations, and able to steamroll through content like Craglorn. They kill stuff so fast, they don't need to heal and/or kill so fast they generate a lot of healing from Crit Surge.

That is not my playstyle. I am primarily a PvPer, so I run balanced builds that include more defense and healing. Of course, I modify these a bit for PvE, but I am never the outright DD that many people, here, seem to be. Since you struggle, perhaps my playstyle will suit you better.

Minyassa · May 2018

Thank you all for all this input! It is a little confusing to dig through but I have picked out a few things that I was able to do right away; I have 5 Spriggans now, I changed my left hand weapon to an Infused axe, and I picked up Shrouded Dagger to try (I leveled it from base to morph while grinding easy slayer achievements). Until I get a full monster set I just replaced my shoulder with another Mechanical Acuity to make sure I have a full set when I go to my backbar, for until Summerset fixes that two-handed gap there. I had tried Hunding's Rage before and MA just seems to save my bacon a lot more.

I think I'm going to try for Selene's Web set, and I am going to talk to some friends about helping me find a zerg to do the resto staff heal thing for a few hours and get that motherhumping Caltrops already even though I would literally rather get four root canals.

Some of you asked how I was failing and I did neglect to mention that. I was getting through the group trash mobs okay, it was the delve bosses that were killing me. I'd get them about halfway dead and then they'd spawn some horrible pile of adds or some awful explosion all over me and it was just too much all at once and overwhelmed me. I did have crap for AoE...hail takes FOREVER to use, I kind of hate it even if it's a staple. Bombard is so much quicker but eats through my stamina if I weave light attacks, and takes too long to spam if I weave heavies. I'll have to see what Shrouded Dagger does for me.

This will be an ongoing evolution since it's going to take quite some time to get some of these things, but I really appreciate the ideas and suggestions and especially the mechanical explanations. Being told I need to do something is great, being told WHY I need to do something is even better, and you've all been great about that.

UncannyLinderman · May 2018

Minyassa wrote: »

Does anyone have any hope to offer me that there's another way around this than having to get PvP skills? Anyone? Am I really, genuinely just totally screwed there?

It doesn't take long in battlegrounds. And since most of those are objective based, you can even at times avoid the other players and aim for the objectives opposite the fighting. You'll still increase your skill lines, and in my experience it seems to go pretty quickly. You'll certainly be able to get Vigor relatively quickly. I don't think it took terribly long to get Caltrops last time I got it. I'm not a big PvP fan and I tend to get destroyed in Cyrodiil, yet in Battlegrounds I often do very well and have commonly led my team to victory as well as being the score leader, despite dying more times than killing because of the objectives (I don't do so hot in straight deathmatch most of the time though).
The rewards are worth the minimal effort required.

TheNorthernDragon · May 2018

@Minyassa, I'm a stam dk, not a stamsorc, but I would like to share some of my relevant experience. I too needed Caltrops and Vigor to improve my build, but I adamantly resisted going into PVP to get it. Finally, after over two years of swearing that "I hate PVP! I'll NEVER go into Cyrodiil!!", some guildies took by the hand and led me through the zone. I discovered that it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined, and with the help of some of my friends in the guild and my growing confidence in my own abilities, I quickly gained enough experience in 2-3 months of occasional PVP play to get Caltrops and Vigor....and I kept going!

Now I've gained enough experience playing PVP to have picked up sufficient additional skyshards for more skill points, racked up enough AP to buy most anything I want for my builds or my houses from the golden and luxury vendors and pay in AP points, not gold, saving my gold for other purposes, and discovered that yes, I do enjoy PVP! It's given me another, equally challenging aspect of ESO to enjoy, and I've learned much more about how to play my character better in both PVP and PVE. And I now have Caltrop and Vigor for trial runs, making our healers - and myself! - much happier. At this point, I probably play PVP a lot more than PVE, as it seems easier to get a group together during the irregular times in my schedule that I have for ESO.

So, the TL;DR version is: try it, you might like it!

Aurielle · May 2018

TheNorthernDragon wrote: »

@Minyassa, I'm a stam dk, not a stamsorc, but I would like to share some of my relevant experience. I too needed Caltrops and Vigor to improve my build, but I adamantly resisted going into PVP to get it. Finally, after over two years of swearing that "I hate PVP! I'll NEVER go into Cyrodiil!!", some guildies took by the hand and led me through the zone. I discovered that it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined, and with the help of some of my friends in the guild and my growing confidence in my own abilities, I quickly gained enough experience in 2-3 months of occasional PVP play to get Caltrops and Vigor....and I kept going!

Now I've gained enough experience playing PVP to have picked up sufficient additional skyshards for more skill points, racked up enough AP to buy most anything I want for my builds or my houses from the golden and luxury vendors and pay in AP points, not gold, saving my gold for other purposes, and discovered that yes, I do enjoy PVP! It's given me another, equally challenging aspect of ESO to enjoy, and I've learned much more about how to play my character better in both PVP and PVE. And I now have Caltrop and Vigor for trial runs, making our healers - and myself! - much happier. At this point, I probably play PVP a lot more than PVE, as it seems easier to get a group together during the irregular times in my schedule that I have for ESO.

So, the TL;DR version is: try it, you might like it!

Great post! I, too, was afraid of PVP at one point in time while playing another MMO. When the PVE content in that game got stale, I decided, very tentatively, to try PVP. I figured I would hate it, but IT WAS SO MUCH FUN, and the developers got another year out of me before other game issues forced me to quit.

Cyrodiil is tons of fun, especially with a well-coordinated group. Siege warfare! Stealing Elder Scrolls! Outwitting the enemy with carefully-planned strategies! What’s not to love? Battlegrounds are very fun too, and will be even more enjoyable when changes are made to prevent premade groups from utterly destroying non-premade groups.

Just go into it with an open mind, OP, and don’t worry too much about dying.

You WILL die, but that’s okay; most people are very good about rezzing their fallen alliance mates, even if they’re not in the same group. And if you utterly loathe it, well, it doesn’t take very long to get Caltrops and Vigor.

Minyassa · May 2018

It's not dying I'm worried about, and while I feel like I'm risking being targeted for griefing by posting this I will risk it anyway because I know other people who have exactly the same reason for hating/avoiding PvP, and it's this: bullying and abusive behavior, especially teabagging. I've "overheard" zone chat while I was there in hiding to fish, I've seen what people are like to each other there. I read the forums and see how utterly hateful it gets, and that this is not only accepted but encouraged and celebrated. And I absolutely refuse to expose myself to a situation in which someone might just randomly decide to perform a simulation of a sexual domination on me. It's gross, it's disrespectful, and it's actually just too damn reminiscent of real-life abuse. Given the overwhelming support that teabagging gets whenever it's mentioned in the forums, I believe that it's an absolute given that someone is going to try that no matter how low-profile I try to stay, no matter how respectful I try to be, no matter what I do right. If not for the well-demonstrated toxicity I'd be all over PvP because I *love* friendly contests with people, like chess and Scrabble and other skill-based games.

Aurielle · May 2018

Minyassa wrote: »

It's not dying I'm worried about, and while I feel like I'm risking being targeted for griefing by posting this I will risk it anyway because I know other people who have exactly the same reason for hating/avoiding PvP, and it's this: bullying and abusive behavior, especially teabagging. I've "overheard" zone chat while I was there in hiding to fish, I've seen what people are like to each other there. I read the forums and see how utterly hateful it gets, and that this is not only accepted but encouraged and celebrated. And I absolutely refuse to expose myself to a situation in which someone might just randomly decide to perform a simulation of a sexual domination on me. It's gross, it's disrespectful, and it's actually just too damn reminiscent of real-life abuse. Given the overwhelming support that teabagging gets whenever it's mentioned in the forums, I believe that it's an absolute given that someone is going to try that no matter how low-profile I try to stay, no matter how respectful I try to be, no matter what I do right. If not for the well-demonstrated toxicity I'd be all over PvP because I *love* friendly contests with people, like chess and Scrabble and other skill-based games.

Zone chat is toxic everywhere: not just Cyrodiil. Someone was recently making pedophiliac jokes in the EP starter zone, for instance. Just par for the course in an MMO. You can ignore those players, as they’re just there to troll from the comfort of their Alliance safe zones and aren’t actually PVPing.

Also, teabagging is actually quite rare. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been teabagged over the last few months.

The idea that PVP is disrespectful is a common misperception. Some of the nicest people I know are in Cyrodiil 24/7. Very few group leaders (outside of “elite squad” hotshot types — who wouldn’t be accepting anyone they don’t know into their groups anyway) care if you’re new, or if you screw up. Most are just happy for an extra body to fire off ballistas or heal the group.

I understand your hesitation, as I felt the same way once upon a time. It may very well end up being a MUCH better experience than you think it is, though.

It was for me.

Vapirko · May 2018

fred4 wrote: »

Having skimmed the answers, is everyone but Colecovision talking about DPS? Why? That's crazy! There isn't much of a DPS check for soloing Craglorn delves. I do them with my PvP build.

You don't say why you fail. Am I correct in assuming that you die? Do you have trouble sustaining? Do you run out of stamina or health first?

I think you've fallen into a trap by taking direction from end-game DPS builds. Those are group builds, where you are healed by a healer! Your skill selection and gear looks awfully RAID inspired. The reason that worked for you, so far, is that overland mobs are near-zero challenge regardless of your build.

You want to solo stuff, you need healing and sustain. Crit Surge is not enough. Bloodthirst and Blood Craze are OK, but single target, so not for AOE situations. At the very least, you should be using Dark Deal for healing and sustain, but again that's probably not the thing to cast when you're in the middle of a mob in Skyreach. You might consider using Streak + Dark Deal, which is how PvPers use that skill.

The skill you really need is Vigor. Failing that, you need to switch one of your weapons to 2H, so you get Rally. Brawler, from the 2H line, is also an excellent soloing skill for mid-level content, as it gives you a damage shield proportional to the enemies hit. Just heavy attack weave it, so you can sustain it. For more damage, but less defense than Brawler, use Reverse Slice. It's insane AOE damage for an execute. I would even say it's better than Steel Tornado on tightly packed mobs.

Colecovision mentions Rend, and that's very good, but an Ultimate. You may get very high uptime on Rend, with Fighter's Guild passives, in places like Skyreach, but it's still an Ultimate that's not always available.

Going tankier is an option, but at the end of the day, your healing must come from somewhere. The best healing set for Craglorn Delves is probably Bahraha's Curse. It will negate a lot of the AOE damage and provide insane amounts of healing in places like Skyreach. That said, you do need to defend (block) or heal some times, when it isn't procced. Bahraha is available in all weights (I'm sure) and jewelry traits (I think).

Troll King is also always an option, esp. if you happen to be that favorite stamsorc race: Orc. Forget other healing monster sets. They have random procs. Troll King is a reliable proc, when you most need it, that's what makes it great.

Good luck!

This is not correct. Vigor + crit surge/hurricane and blood craze is enough for vMA and it’s enough for Craglorn delves. With a healer in a group you shouldn’t need vigor or the blood craze morph. If your learn your rotation, how to dodge roll and understand stacking dots and hots you’ll be fine and you can focus on killing enemies instead of running around spamming dark deal.

Vapirko · May 2018

fred4 wrote: »

Having skimmed the answers, is everyone but Colecovision talking about DPS? Why? That's crazy! There isn't much of a DPS check for soloing Craglorn delves. I do them with my PvP build.

You don't say why you fail. Am I correct in assuming that you die? Do you have trouble sustaining? Do you run out of stamina or health first?

I think you've fallen into a trap by taking direction from end-game DPS builds. Those are group builds, where you are healed by a healer! Your skill selection and gear looks awfully RAID inspired. The reason that worked for you, so far, is that overland mobs are near-zero challenge regardless of your build.

You want to solo stuff, you need healing and sustain. Crit Surge is not enough. Bloodthirst and Blood Craze are OK, but single target, so not for AOE situations. At the very least, you should be using Dark Deal for healing and sustain, but again that's probably not the thing to cast when you're in the middle of a mob in Skyreach. You might consider using Streak + Dark Deal, which is how PvPers use that skill.

The skill you really need is Vigor. Failing that, you need to switch one of your weapons to 2H, so you get Rally. Brawler, from the 2H line, is also an excellent soloing skill for mid-level content, as it gives you a damage shield proportional to the enemies hit. Just heavy attack weave it, so you can sustain it. For more damage, but less defense than Brawler, use Reverse Slice. It's insane AOE damage for an execute. I would even say it's better than Steel Tornado on tightly packed mobs.

Colecovision mentions Rend, and that's very good, but an Ultimate. You may get very high uptime on Rend, with Fighter's Guild passives, in places like Skyreach, but it's still an Ultimate that's not always available.

Going tankier is an option, but at the end of the day, your healing must come from somewhere. The best healing set for Craglorn Delves is probably Bahraha's Curse. It will negate a lot of the AOE damage and provide insane amounts of healing in places like Skyreach. That said, you do need to defend (block) or heal some times, when it isn't procced. Bahraha is available in all weights (I'm sure) and jewelry traits (I think).

Troll King is also always an option, esp. if you happen to be that favorite stamsorc race: Orc. Forget other healing monster sets. They have random procs. Troll King is a reliable proc, when you most need it, that's what makes it great.

Good luck!

This is not entirely correct. Vigor + crit surge/hurricane and blood craze is enough for vMA and it’s enough for Craglorn delves. With a healer in a group you shouldn’t need vigor or the blood craze morph. If your learn your rotation, how to dodge roll and understand stacking dots and hots you’ll be fine and you can focus on killing enemies instead of running around spamming dark deal.

TheNorthernDragon · May 2018

@Minyassa, I'm a stam dk, not a stamsorc, but I would like to share some of my relevant experience. I too needed Caltrops and Vigor to improve my build, but I adamantly resisted going into PVP to get it. Finally, after over two years of swearing that "I hate PVP! I'll NEVER go into Cyrodiil!!", some guildies took by the hand and led me through the zone. I discovered that it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined, and with the help of some of my friends in the guild and my growing confidence in my own abilities, I quickly gained enough experience in 2-3 months of occasional PVP play to get Caltrops and Vigor....and I kept going!

Now I've gained enough experience playing PVP to have picked up sufficient additional skyshards for more skill points, racked up enough AP to buy most anything I want for my builds or my houses from the golden and luxury vendors and pay in AP points, not gold, saving my gold for other purposes, and discovered that yes, I do enjoy PVP! It's given me another, equally challenging aspect of ESO to enjoy, and I've learned much more about how to play my character better in both PVP and PVE. And I now have Caltrop and Vigor for trial runs, making our healers - and myself! - much happier. At this point, I probably play PVP a lot more than PVE, as it seems easier to get a group together during the irregular times in my schedule that I have for ESO.

So, the TL;DR version is: try it, you might like it!

danno8 · May 2018

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

Minyassa wrote: »

Does anyone have any hope to offer me that there's another way around this than having to get PvP skills? Anyone? Am I really, genuinely just totally screwed there?

If you follow the advice of myself and others for your gear, you can leave out Caltrops and instead use Liquid Lightning, or a defensive skill. You don't need Vigor on Stamsorc, I rarely slot it since you get 3000 HPS from Surge alone.

You will lose at least 1000 AoE DPS without Caltrops, as it is around 2000+ dps compared to LL 1000 dps. But I don't see Craglorn delves being too hard without it.

You can use what?

Lol, LL isn't exactly what I would normally recommend, but if you are a DW+Bow Stamsorc without Caltrops what else do you have? Steel Tornado maybe, but I find it just eats up tonnes of Stamina.

At least LL can still use Implosion and will give you an extra 2% Weapon damage from Expert Mage.

GreenhaloX · May 2018

Resolving Vigor gives 12-13k hp, ok, over 5 sec. Dark Deal gives 8-9k, ok, you also get bout 4k stam, not bad. Vigor still better for healing stam and quicker. For soloing stam toons, Vigor is just a must. Caltrops is nice to have, but not a must have. Just get it, though.

Still, l understand about those not wanting to do PvP, for whatever reason. Mine is l still can't stand the repetitiveness of going from keeps, resources to keeps and resources over and over again. That's pretty much it. Otherwise, l kill others well as much as die well. That's what rezzing at keep is for.

Ok, you can do without Vigor or Caltrops. You can still solo and get through any PvE contents without those, even trials and dungeons. However, it's just funner or more satisfying to have those. So, you can still get away with using Dark Deal for the heal and still use Liquid L, Endless Hail and Rending Slash for the DoTs and AoE. Still, slot Shrouded Dagger for added brutal damages. I use Power Surge to up my Liquid L as well as the stam skillset.

Even for soloing without Vigor, you don't really need Bloodcraze or Bloodthirst. As a soloist, l much prefer the Rapid Strikes and Rending for higher and more dps. With Selene or Velidreth 2-piece, or even Grothdarr, and rotations/combo of the likes of Endless Hail, Liquid L, Shrouded Daggers, Poison Injection or Venom Arrow and Rapid Strikes, you can still do fine against those delve bosses or other world bosses sololy. On my 2h, the Brawler adds on bleed DoTs and direct damages, plus heal from Rally. The Dizzying Swing packs a hell of a punch as well. Yeah, add that within the rotations.

Also, as a soloist, l prefer heavy armor and its passives over the med armor. Better survivability and resistances with HA. Believe me, l still throw out good brutal damages. I still slot Hardened Ward. So, that's extra protection with the HA. Unless, l have to solo the DLC world bosses, l rarely buff up with food going through any other delves, dungeons or bosses. Give HA a try. You'll have better survivability. With Flawless D and sorc passive of extra weapon dam with each sorc skill, you're still doing brutal damages. Believe me, you will mitigate much more incoming damages with HA and Hardened or Empowered Ward than MA with Shuffle. Tried it and tested it myself. You should give it a test and see for yourself. Well, with HA or MA build, for DW, you must slot Shrouded Dagger at the least, and with 2h, you must or should slot Brawler, at the very least

Btw, if you can, put CPs into Thick-skin and the other red constellations. I have bout 9% into Thick, 12% on both Hardy and Elemental, 10% on the DoT one, 9% into Bastion and yes, 2067 on each HA focus and Spell Resist. Granted, l'm maxed CP, but l can't recall the last time l died in PvE, even, without food buff and soloing.

AcadianPaladin · May 2018

I run a bow/bow stamsorc. Survivability and dps are not the problem - stamina sustain is the challenge in my case. Heavy attacks on bow/bow are suicidal.

Most of my surviability comes from Surge+ Hurricane+ high (over 50% is fine) crit%. Most of my damage comes from caltrops + volley/endless hail. Though I can run either Dark Deal or Vigor, I run the former. On my sustain-challenged bow/bow build, healing using magic and getting stam back makes the sustain difference.

Regarding Cyrodiil, I understand your apprehension. I was fortunate enough that two big sessions did most of what I needed to get caltrops & vigor. I paid attention to zone chat, joined a group, stacked on the crown, hid behind melee players and ran/sniped alot. Bottom line is whenever I got in a 1v1 I lost 100% of the time. As a support sniper/archer, however, (even my light attacks hit for 7K) I actually ended up with more kills than deaths. The main thing is that in both groups I hooked up with, I explained I was a scared bow/bowgirl looking to get caltrops & vigor. My group leaders were very kind, patient and supportive. Though PvP is very much not for me, the Cyrodiil journey to get those assault skills was interesting and not as bad as I thought it would be.

fred4 · May 2018

Minyassa wrote: »

It's not dying I'm worried about, and while I feel like I'm risking being targeted for griefing by posting this I will risk it anyway because I know other people who have exactly the same reason for hating/avoiding PvP, and it's this: bullying and abusive behavior, especially teabagging. I've "overheard" zone chat while I was there in hiding to fish, I've seen what people are like to each other there. I read the forums and see how utterly hateful it gets, and that this is not only accepted but encouraged and celebrated. And I absolutely refuse to expose myself to a situation in which someone might just randomly decide to perform a simulation of a sexual domination on me. It's gross, it's disrespectful, and it's actually just too damn reminiscent of real-life abuse. Given the overwhelming support that teabagging gets whenever it's mentioned in the forums, I believe that it's an absolute given that someone is going to try that no matter how low-profile I try to stay, no matter how respectful I try to be, no matter what I do right. If not for the well-demonstrated toxicity I'd be all over PvP because I *love* friendly contests with people, like chess and Scrabble and other skill-based games.

I am mostly a PvPer, and for what it's worth I'm totally with you on teabagging. In one extreme case 3 people enacted a gang <rhymes with cape> on my fallen and powerless girl character, 2 of them teabagging, one of them performing the pushups emote on top of her. This left no doubt as to what it represented and left me quite disturbed for the rest of the day.

I don't find PvE better when it comes to occasional toxicity though. Granted it's not usually of a sexual nature, but it's the snobbery and elitism I can't stand. People who abuse me verbally go on the Ignore list. People who do the above go there as well.

Minyassa · May 2018

fred4 wrote: »

Minyassa wrote: »

It's not dying I'm worried about, and while I feel like I'm risking being targeted for griefing by posting this I will risk it anyway because I know other people who have exactly the same reason for hating/avoiding PvP, and it's this: bullying and abusive behavior, especially teabagging. I've "overheard" zone chat while I was there in hiding to fish, I've seen what people are like to each other there. I read the forums and see how utterly hateful it gets, and that this is not only accepted but encouraged and celebrated. And I absolutely refuse to expose myself to a situation in which someone might just randomly decide to perform a simulation of a sexual domination on me. It's gross, it's disrespectful, and it's actually just too damn reminiscent of real-life abuse. Given the overwhelming support that teabagging gets whenever it's mentioned in the forums, I believe that it's an absolute given that someone is going to try that no matter how low-profile I try to stay, no matter how respectful I try to be, no matter what I do right. If not for the well-demonstrated toxicity I'd be all over PvP because I *love* friendly contests with people, like chess and Scrabble and other skill-based games.

I am mostly a PvPer, and for what it's worth I'm totally with you on teabagging. In one extreme case 3 people enacted a gang <rhymes with cape> on my fallen and powerless girl character, 2 of them teabagging, one of them performing the pushups emote on top of her. This left no doubt as to what it represented and left me quite disturbed for the rest of the day.

I don't find PvE better when it comes to occasional toxicity though. Granted it's not usually of a sexual nature, but it's the snobbery and elitism I can't stand. People who abuse me verbally go on the Ignore list. People who do the above go there as well.

Yeah, it's not better as far as toxicity, definitely, especially with people getting super happy with the vote kicks if they don't like the color of your toon's hip flaps or whatever. But no one can simulate sexually dominating me in PvE, ever, it's just not a thing they have the opportunity to do (unless someone is truly psycho enough to decide to get killed for it during a boss fight in a vet dungeon, and that's a whole other set of problems unique to that individual). But in PvP I am well informed that it is not only a thing, but it's a thing people LOVE, and will do at every possible opportunity, and I am expected to suck it up and take it. So...no. The only way to prevent them from doing that is to not play with them, or to miraculously find a PvP bodyguard who can immediately destroy anyone who even comes close to that, and miracles ain't gonna happen either.