Please help a little with my vMA run? (pet magsorc)

Xodarap777 · June 2018

Hey all - I know there are guides; I've read them. I'm hoping for a little more specific assistance.

I'm new to CP160. I'm a pet sorc (solid on that) with necro x5, julianos x5, x2 gold destro staves of wisdom (1400 magicka) lightning w/sharpened and the spell dmg proc, all divines/gold armor with mundus=mage (for magicka/pets). My mag/health with drink (bloody) is ~17k/45k; my crit is ~30%; I use the potion with about 90% uptime of spell damage...

My back bar is lightning flood, hardened ward (18k+self-bonus), blockade, pet, pet, atronach
My front bar is crystal, drain, pulse, pet, pet, meteor

I run Julianos x5 heavy with all of the heavy bonuses for extra survival, armor, hp, etc. (still only 17k, but wow the heavy survival difference is amazing for me!); I get enough +mag from Breton.

Anyway, I really enjoy vMA for fun, and the first few rounds are easy breezy. It isn't until the troll final round of the ice level that I get into trouble. I can't seem to hold >10k DPS on him, and that means that I spend the second half of the fight trying to survive the frozen water by spamming jump/dodge/hardened. I make it, but it's no fun and I know I'm failing the DPS check.

Then I'm okay again until the Screaming Orc. I can't beat this guy. Either I wander into a 30k-damage explosion (my fault, obviously), or he screams me to death while I'm trying to kite out. Again, I find myself running around so much that I can't break 10k damage on him, which is too slow to survive the fight.

Why am I only doing 10k damage? This isn't like the dummies - I'm running and jumping and spamming hardened ward so much that I barely have time to keep up my back-bar DoTs, which end up providing 90% of the non-pet damage (T.G. for those pets keeping something going). In fact, I end up frozen on the back bar bc it has the ward I always need and both dots. I pop over to front for rare drain+pulse-pulse, then back to ward.

Why does my damage suck? And what else am I doing (horribly) wrong? I'm generally good with these kinds of games, but I'm missing something huge, here.

Thank you so much in advance!

gnarlyvandal · June 2018

its quite hard at cp160, if I’m remembering correctly I got my first clear around cp 270 after a few weeks of frustration. That’s not to say it isn’t doable.. just difficult.

Biggest piece of advice I could give in retrospect, is to learn the spawn locations and keep an eye out for the ‘important’ enemies; like the troll on the ice round, you can’t beat the boss of that round if it destroys a single platform (at least I can’t).
I usually look for which platform the troll is running to and try to get my aoe’s (blockade and liquid lightning) on the platform before it gets there and just heavy attack with a lightning staff. Usually drops the bugger.

If I was you I’d swap your shield to the front bar and ele drain to the back bar, just easier to keep the shield up imo. If you’re still having trouble, it’s ok to drop ele drain and slot another shield backbar.

Dots and heavy attack is liiffee for vMA so you can keep your magicka healthy

If you keep having trouble post a vid and I’m sure ppl could help out

I know youve said you’ve looked at guides, just in case check out joy divisions guide on this forum, it helped me tremendously for my first clear

hellothere · June 2018

If you find your pets are your main damage source I wouldn’t use julianos rather something like shaklevreaker, at least for vma

MarleyRain · June 2018

Just a thought but I think part of the problem is that you're wearing heavy instead of 5 light and the passives you get from that. I still wear one of my peices heavy usually chest. I also run harness magicka as my shield from this line. And what really helps me is to have a monster helmet that does extra damage like infernal guardian which procs when you shield or illambris (skoria but that's the hardest to get). These can help damage stuff as you're surviving. Besides that maybe you're jewelry glyphs could be spell damage for extra dps. Just some thoughts, as I am also doing vma as a sorc.

CompM4s · June 2018

You definetely want 5x light for spell penetration. Your survivability comes from the damage shield.

Get some more cp and put around 75 points into bastion soon as possible.

Joy_Division · June 2018

You don't have your execute slotted so burning down the Ice giant is going to be hard.

Make sure the last ice flow you fight on is the one with the power and defense sigil so you can ignore adds and get an extra damage boost.

Merlin13KAGL · June 2018

The Spell Pen and Spell Crit from LA passives will make a huge difference in your DPS. Rely on shielding and distance to help with survivability, vs Heavy Armor. You can also keep up Boundless Storm for another 5k resists

Haquor · June 2018

Yeah 5-1-1 all the way. Your defense is surge and ward. But your ability to burn *** down and regen will be way more efficient with 5 light.

EldritchPenguin · June 2018

Haquor wrote: »

Yeah 5-1-1 all the way. Your defense is surge and ward. But your ability to burn *** down and regen will be way more efficient with 5 light.

^^This.

In addition to that, always remember to shield BEFORE you take damage, not when you start taking damage. It is always, always, ALWAYS better to block damage with your shield than it is to take damage and heal it up with Surge. In fact, I personally prefer the duration morph of Ward so that you can keep it up more often, but most people suggest Hardened Ward for the extra durability (which I think is overkill, since Empowered Ward is about as strong as Harness Magicka anyway).

Banana · June 2018

https://alcasthq.com/eso-magicka-sorcerer-pet-build-pve/

Undefwun · June 2018

this vid helped me... Pet Sorc, one bar, no swapping, 1 hour, 1 death.

I still used my own 2 bar setup, but he talks through the fights very calmy...

https://youtu.be/cafavdcH7po