El_Borracho wrote: »

PVE or PVP? For PVE, Necro is still best for Pet Sorcs. Mother's Sorrow is the set used across the board for both Pet Sorcs and MagSorcs. War Maiden is fine if you are just running overland. Since you looked at Alcast, you saw that False Gods is the new meta set, and has been since Elsweyr came out. The heavy attack builds seem to be gaining popularity again. For that I run Elegance + IA. I know Undaunted Infiltrator is the preferred jewelry/weapons setup but I got tired of farming Arx. And Elegance works just fine.

Ilambris is still good. Zaan and Skoria are probably better, depending on content.

I haven't run a non-pet build since the new patch came out (on console) so I can't speak as to the new skills.

Soryy for misspelling, I'm playing PetSorc too. Whats your skill bars?

There are 3 main setups that are considered best for Magicka Sorcerer, these work for single pet or no-pet.

1. Stationary fight, single target or AoE: Siroria + Mother’s Sorrow
2. Mobile AoE fights: Mother’s Sorrow + False Gods
3. Mobile Single Target Fights: Spell Strategist + False Gods

1 is very difficult to sustain, and will require some combination of Breton, recovery food, Grundwulf and/or Absorb Magicka, as well as the obvious Orbs/Shards and Minor Magickasteal. A lot of Sorcerers don’t really bother setting up 3, since 2 isn’t far behind it and is more versatile.

Also you should still use Lightning Flood for AoE, but not on bosses. Other AoE skills are Mystic Orb and Unstable Wall, with Shock Ring as a spammable.

Also, if you want a build based on elemental damage you can check out Elemental Succession and Netch's Touch if you're using all shock damage. I haven't tried it myself but it looks interesting on paper.
I'm not a fan of Siroria because of how it works. I think it's best for stationary players and I move around the whole time (quickly using Boundless Storm)
There are other sets for fire damage also like Burning Spellweave, but if I remember correctly you'd want to go Dragon Knight for a player focusing on fire damage

cal50 wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

PVE or PVP? For PVE, Necro is still best for Pet Sorcs. Mother's Sorrow is the set used across the board for both Pet Sorcs and MagSorcs. War Maiden is fine if you are just running overland. Since you looked at Alcast, you saw that False Gods is the new meta set, and has been since Elsweyr came out. The heavy attack builds seem to be gaining popularity again. For that I run Elegance + IA. I know Undaunted Infiltrator is the preferred jewelry/weapons setup but I got tired of farming Arx. And Elegance works just fine.

Ilambris is still good. Zaan and Skoria are probably better, depending on content.

I haven't run a non-pet build since the new patch came out (on console) so I can't speak as to the new skills.

Soryy for misspelling, I'm playing PetSorc too. Whats your skill bars?

I run the base setup in Alcast with degeneration, prey and volatile familiar on the front bar; unstable wall, lightning flood, and volatile on the back bar. But I like using twilight matriarch on both bars instead of the tormentor. The healing is outstanding.
Will also swap out crystal frags for daedric tomb, bound aegis, or scalding rune depending on content. As for empowered ward, I'll go back and forth with that and hardened. That one seems to change most often with these patches.

The main reason is my Petsorc is what I use in vet pugs and to run vDSA and vMA. Its kind of an island/self-sufficient character that I don't have to rely on others for shields or heals. Really good when you get one of those vHRC pugs that love to run around every time a boss appears instead of not acting like fools.

EDIT: Forgot about Iceheart (just saw @thesoundofwolf post). Great solo/shielding set. Will not pump out the damage of Zaan or Skoria, but its hard to die with Icehart on, and the damage is okay

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

thesoundofwolf wrote: »

Mothers Sorrow is just so strong however, it'd be a hard pass to not have it plus some other set, depending on the content and fights you are doing.

I think calling Mother’s Sorrow strong is an exaggeration. It’s more that Magicka builds struggle to build their % crit chance. There is no staff variant that mirrors daggers (10% crit), the Thief Mundus is underpowered compared to Shadow (which makes crit even more important). When it comes to sets, we would be much better off wearing a Magicka version of Tzogvins, or Magicka Advancing Yokeda, or Magicka Dragonguard Elite. However none of these exist, so we’re stuck with a disappointing meta of Magicka Leviathan (Sorrow) and Magicka Vicious Ophidian (False Gods). Sorry for the slight rant, just felt the need to point out that Sorrow is not particularly good, it’s just that Magicka sets are universally pretty bad.

I cry because this is so true.

Thanks for your opinion p00tx but you're 100% WRONG. There is no better set for my build and play style than IA.
I use it only for the huge buff to heavy attack damage. We're not talking about your build here or anyone else. For someone who's heavy attacking they'd be incredibly stupid to NOT use IA. I doubt in many RAID groups you'd get a warden healer providing that buff more than half the time in reality, and all the other times when a mag sorc is solo or in PUGs they would need the buff.

(2 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical
(3 items) Gain Minor Slayer at all times, increasing your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 5%.
(4 items) Adds 129 Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical, Your Heavy Attacks deal an additional 903 damage. Enemies you damage with fully-charged Heavy Attacks are afflicted with Minor Vulnerability for 10 seconds, increasing their damage taken by 8%.

Look at all that this set does, in ADDITION to the huge heavy attack buff. The other perks by themselves are pretty much worth it without the HA buff that you can't beat with any other set. This set is best, period, for any mag. sorc who wants to heavy attack a lot. Xynode uses it and he doesn't even heavy attack that much. Sheesh. Stop spreading your bad information. We're not talking about light attack weavers here who use other skills. This is for heavy attacking mag sorc!
And as far as a wasted skill, even if that were true part of the time, show me some other set that would be better in the above scenario. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

malistorr wrote: »

Thanks for your opinion p00tx but you're 100% WRONG. There is no better set for my build and play style than IA.
I use it only for the huge buff to heavy attack damage. We're not talking about your build here or anyone else. For someone who's heavy attacking they'd be incredibly stupid to NOT use IA. I doubt in many RAID groupd you'd get a warden healer providing that buff more than half the time in reality, and all the other times when a mag sorc is solo or in PUGs they would need the buff.

(2 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical
(3 items) Gain Minor Slayer at all times, increasing your damage done to Dungeon, Trial, and Arena Monsters by 5%.
(4 items) Adds 129 Spell Damage
(5 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical, Your Heavy Attacks deal an additional 903 damage. Enemies you damage with fully-charged Heavy Attacks are afflicted with Minor Vulnerability for 10 seconds, increasing their damage taken by 8%.

Look at all that this set does, in ADDITION to the huge heavy attack buff. The other perks by themselves are pretty much worth it without the HA buff that you can't beat with any other set. This set is best, period, for any mag. sorc who wants to heavy attack a lot. Xynode uses it and he doesn't even heavy attack that much. Sheesh. Stop spreading your bad information. We're not talking about light attack weavers here who use other skills. This is for heavy attacking mag sorc!
And as far as a wasted skill, even if that were true part of the time, show me some other set that would be better in the above scenario. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

Are you being serious right now, or is there a hidden camera somewhere?

@malistorr you do know that you need to have a fully charged lightning attack to apply the minor vulnerability and that extra 903 damage is only with that last tick of a lightning staff, the "lightning pulse" part, as far as I know, only the vMA staffs extra damage is added to each tick.

malistorr wrote: »

What set is better for a heavy attacking mag sorc? Go ahead and answer instead of wasting space. Then I'll prove you wrong and we can all move on. I'm ready when you are.

Xynode is a SUPER SUPER SUPER casual at best player. His information misses a lot of very important stuff. Basically every other magicka trial set is going to perform better than IA on a dps.... ALL of them. Not to mention in todays game, a heavy attack build is a large dps LOSS.

NO DPS SHOULD EVER BE WEARING INFALLIBLE AETHER. Get out here with that crazy talk.
In todays game, even HEALERS don't need to wear it anymore (long as there is a warden healer present).

So in conclusion, PUT IA IN YOUR HOUSE COFFER AND MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIFE.

If you're still having doubts, watch this video below:

The Death of Infallible Aether

For OP, you mention pet sorc. As far as I know pet damage scales off max magicka so Necro and Crafty Alfiq I think give the most max magicka of all sets. And each 10.5 max magicka = 1 spell damage I believe so it should help you improve just about any skill and/or LA/HA.
IMO gear is best decided upon based on what skills you're going to use/how you play. So basically figure out your play style/skills you want to use and pick the gear to best complement that.
I heavy attack mostly so I have 3 sets/items that buff heavy attacks. If you're going to go for max pet damage you'd want the sets above probably or maybe Necro with PFG if you're going to use a lot of skills that use a lot of magicka and you have sustain problems and don't want to heavy attack or use 1 of the other many sustain cures available.
You did mention AOE. So for me:
1. Heavy attack with passives affects many targets grouped together so basically big AOE
2. Grothdar or Iceheart = AOE
3. Boundless Storm = AOE
4. Lightning Flood = AOE
5. Elemental Rage = basically huge AOE
6. Elemental Blockade = AOE
Lightning in general is better AOE and fire is better single-target. So many people use a lightning staff 1-bar with those skills and fire staff 2nd-bar with those skills when they want to do single-target.
Essential skill = Crit. Surge for Major Sorcery and awesome self-heal
There are probably other AOE skills that are good too, this is just 1-way to play. And it won't get you the best results on a single target dummy. So of course many people will criticize the build.
And of course you'll slot your pet(s) if that's how you want to play.

malistorr wrote: »

For OP, you mention pet sorc. As far as I know pet damage scales off max magicka so Necro and Crafty Alfiq I think give the most max magicka of all sets. And each 10.5 max magicka = 1 spell damage I believe so it should help you improve just about any skill and/or LA/HA.
IMO gear is best decided upon based on what skills you're going to use/how you play. So basically figure out your play style/skills you want to use and pick the gear to best complement that.
I heavy attack mostly so I have 3 sets/items that buff heavy attacks. If you're going to go for max pet damage you'd want the sets above probably or maybe Necro with PFG if you're going to use a lot of skills that use a lot of magicka and you have sustain problems and don't want to heavy attack or use 1 of the other many sustain cures available.
You did mention AOE. So for me:
1. Heavy attack with passives affects many targets grouped together so basically big AOE
2. Grothdar or Iceheart = AOE
3. Boundless Storm = AOE
4. Lightning Flood = AOE
5. Elemental Rage = basically huge AOE
6. Elemental Blockade = AOE
Lightning in general is better AOE and fire is better single-target. So many people use a lightning staff 1-bar with those skills and fire staff 2nd-bar with those skills when they want to do single-target.
Essential skill = Crit. Surge for Major Sorcery and awesome self-heal
There are probably other AOE skills that are good too, this is just 1-way to play. And it won't get you the best results on a single target dummy. So of course many people will criticize the build.
And of course you'll slot your pet(s) if that's how you want to play.

Sorry, but I tested on the 6m dummy the difference between Infallible and Mother’s sorry. I put a rubber band on the heavy attack button so timing wasnt an issue. IA consistently did about 800 more DPS than Mother’s sorrow, less than the bonus in the tooltip. This also assumes your ONLY using heavy attacks, so if you use any other skill, mother’s sorrow will beat it. Also, 800 dps is nothing when you’re talking 30-50k dps

Testing heavy attack damage on single target is a worthless waste of time as it will show you a fraction of real damage you'll do in RAID. Dummies are just for kids to show off on youtube how fast they can press buttons. We're all very impressed.

im using off meta Necro + Crafty to rise magicka pool to 59k (63k with War horn). Up to almost 70k with two separate monster sets and Bound Aegis, but it seems it doesn't worth it at this point.
37k parse on 3kk dummy with heavy attack rotation (no spam skills) and Matriarch (not Tormentor). Double lightning staffs.
pros:
- almost all damage is AoE
- infinite sustain without even a single "magicka regen" bonus. Breton race though
- super cheap and easy to get gear (guild store)
cons:
- pets can annoy some players

This build can be (theoreticaly) converted to meta spam rotation with that Bright Throat and Witchmother brew.

mocap wrote: »

im using off meta Necro + Crafty to rise magicka pool to 59k (63k with War horn). Up to almost 70k with two separate monster sets and Bound Aegis, but it seems it doesn't worth it at this point.
37k parse on 3kk dummy with heavy attack rotation (no spam skills) and Matriarch (not Tormentor). Double lightning staffs.
pros:
- almost all damage is AoE
- infinite sustain without even a single "magicka regen" bonus. Breton race though
- super cheap and easy to get gear (guild store)
cons:
- pets can annoy some players

This build can be (theoreticaly) converted to meta spam rotation with that Bright Throat and Witchmother brew.

What rotation? That is substantially more damage than I do and I struggle with LA weaving. Here to learn!