Solo Sorc Build Suggestions? (Vateshran Hollows vet)

MissDismal · March 2021

I don't make forum posts often... it makes me anxious. But I'm at my wit's end trying to clear this arena and I could really use some help from any of you who've cleared it on vet.

I've been trying to clear the last boss for two-three weeks now and I spend at the very least 2 hours trying to clear it every single day and I've made little to no progress. Always, without fail, I end up either wiping to the chained ghosts, or I'll wipe inside the red portal with the Dremora and Flameshapers (it's usually the latter).

I've since revamped my Sorc's build, but initially, I was following Alcast's Solo One-Bar Pet Sorc Build but the damage output was laughable, with my Sorc barely being able to deal out 10k dps. Not enough to clear the DPS check + every time I'd enter a portal, the Lich boss would heal to full health because I'd spend at least 5 minutes trying to kill the minibosses. I did try using the "streak" method like Alcast to just teleport myself through the ghosts, which seemed to work, but I would still always end up wiping within the red portal. My pets would also die every 10 seconds in that portal for some reason, so I'd spend more time trying to resurrect my pets over damaging the miniboss, and then I'd get swarmed with adds and wipe.

I've talked to some of my guildies, and one of them recommended a few different gear sets on which I've based my new build from, and yet I'm still not making much progress. Killing one of the ghosts has been made a little easier since now I'm able to deal about 15k-17k dps (though for some reason there will be times when I can kill a ghost and other times that I can't and I'll end up wiping- it's weird). When I am able to clear the DPS check, I ALWAYS, without fail, end up wiping in the red portal. Doesn't matter if I'm interrupting the Flameshapers or not- for some reason I take so much damage in there I can't keep up with healing myself. My pets are also constantly dead and I have to resurrect them.

Here is the build I'm currently running based on what my guildie recommended. Any recommended tweaks/changes would be appreciated! At this point, I really just want to clear it on my Sorc, since I've spent so much time, energy, and resources trying to get the right gear with the right traits, enchants, etc. It would feel like a waste to attempt to do this on a different toon. Thanks all for your time.

Race: Dunmer

Body: 5pc Law of Julianos (Divines + Max Magicka enchants) 4x light 1x heavy / 1pc heavy Swarm Mother's head (Divines + Max Magicka enchant)

Jewelry: 1x Mother's Sorrow ring/neck (Arcane + Spell Damage enchants) 1x Pale Order ring (Bloodthirsty + Spell Damage enchant)

Weapons: x2 Mother's Sorrow lightning staffs (Precise/Infused + Charged Weapon enchants)

Mundus: The Atronach (for sustain)

Champion Points:

GREEN

50 Steed’s Blessing (Slot)

50 Gilded Fingers

10 Fortune’s Favor

60 Wanderer

50 Steadfast Enchantment

30 Rationer (Slot)

50 Breakfall

BLUE

40 Precision

10 Piercing

50 Biting Aura (Slot)

50 Fighting Finesse (Slot)

50 Thaumaturge (Slot)

40 Eldritch Insight

20 Quick Recovery

40 Preparation

RED

50 Boundless Vitality (Slot)

50 Rejuvenation (Slot)

10 Sprinter

32 Hasty

30 Hero’s Vigor

50 Siphoning Spells (Slot)

10 Shield Master

50 Bastion (Slot)

15 Tumbling

And finally here's just a look at my character's attributes:

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Xuhora · March 2021

i appreciate the fact that you are trying that hard and instead of calling for the nerfhammer you seek advice, thumbs up for that really!

first two things that come to my mind: it would help us to help you if you could tell us your skillbars? because i was thinking, did he/she use eledrain or not? because besides giving a fair ammount of sustain, it also boosts your dmg output. i allways run it on my magicka builds. the other thing is: do you have acess to a vMA staff (lightning or fire) for the backbar? that would help your dmg even further and is worth slotting instead of the 5 piece bonus from MS

edit: to further explain what that would mean for your build. slotting eledrain gives sustain, so you can drop atronarch as mundus, which gives dmg again. the vMA backbar you would enchant with a spell dmg enchant, while on the frontbar you should aim for a fire enchant (double enchanting spell dmg does nothing for you, since the buffs dont stack)

jaws343 · March 2021

If the red portal is giving you issues, it is probably the rotating flame mechanic of the mini-boss. You need to stay outside of the range of the spinning flames that circle the boss. And put AOEs on the boss to keep the Pale Order healing going.

Not sure on your build, but if the mini boss is giving you trouble you should have a destro ult ready to go when you enter the portal to burn the boss as quickly as you can. Ele Drain helps too. As does Crit Surge for healing.

Vermintide · March 2021

Damage is important in these solo trials, you need to have the power to burn down enemies quickly or else all the sustain and defence in the world won't help you.

I would say you can manage without the Atronach mundus and put it into something more helpful for damage. You're running full divines, so ideally you want that bonus affecting a damage-oriented mundus like Thief or Apprentice- You can get the sustain elsewhere. Food like Witchmother plus a skill like elemental drain should give all you need. On my magblade even Witchmother is unnecessary, max mag/health food seems to help me out more, the fights are rarely long enough for me to start running dry unless I screw up.

Your max magicka stat is also looking a little on the low side, I'm not the most familiar with how sorc works but on both my magblade and magcro I'm at a healthy 40k-ish mag, after food. More mag = more damage, as well as bigger shields, so it's both an offensive and defensive resource. Both my chars slot Inner Light (5% free magicka) but I'm not sure if that's the way to go on Sorc, so YMMV.

You're using basically the same gear as me, so that shouldn't be an issue. My magblade has Juli/Medusa/Zaan with flame staffs, my magcro has Juli/Sorrow/Iceheart with ice staffs (yup, ice. Screw the meta, that projectile shield is really handy). One thing you might be missing- You want infused + increase damage glyph on backbar, and precise with status effect glyph on the front bar. Oh and you'll also probably find full 7 pieces light works better than mixed now, with the changed passives.

Last thing is probably pots. Spell power pots are expensive, but if you grind in PVP for a couple hours, you'll have the AP to buy plenty of the Alliance spell potions, which are exactly the same thing. They give your sorcery, prophecy, and intellect all in one, which is a very powerful set of buffs, and getting it from potions usually saves you one or two bar slots. They're basically essential for vet runs.

Arbit · March 2021

If you haven’t been collecting the arena orb buffs I’d highly recommend doing so. They give you more magicka and health. The larger magicka pool will add to your damage as well as help with your sustain. I was struggling like mad not collecting the stamina buffs on my stam toon, but once I did my damage skyrocketed and I plowed though mobs.

MissDismal · March 2021

Xuhora wrote: »

i appreciate the fact that you are trying that hard and instead of calling for the nerfhammer you seek advice, thumbs up for that really!

first two things that come to my mind: it would help us to help you if you could tell us your skillbars? because i was thinking, did he/she use eledrain or not? because besides giving a fair ammount of sustain, it also boosts your dmg output. i allways run it on my magicka builds. the other thing is: do you have acess to a vMA staff (lightning or fire) for the backbar? that would help your dmg even further and is worth slotting instead of the 5 piece bonus from MS

edit: to further explain what that would mean for your build. slotting eledrain gives sustain, so you can drop atronarch as mundus, which gives dmg again. the vMA backbar you would enchant with a spell dmg enchant, while on the frontbar you should aim for a fire enchant (double enchanting spell dmg does nothing for you, since the buffs dont stack)

Oh yeah, I hate when players seek a nerf for content just because it's hard. I know VH is supposed to be hard, which is why it would mean a lot to me to be able to clear it.

And oh yeah, I apologize for not including my skills! It was late and I was tired while making this post.

My skills now are:

FB: Hardened Ward, Crystal Fragments, Critical Surge, Volatile Familiar, Twilight Matriarch, Storm Atro Ult
BB: Unstable Wall, Mage's Wrath (for execute), Boundless Storm, both pets, Destro Staff Ult

Originally I was using Ele Drain since I was following Alcast's One Bar Build but at the time I didn't think it was helping much.. I will put it back on though and see what it does for me with this new gear I have on. The hardened ward makes me feel a little more secure with a shield if I'm not able to heal myself very quickly w/ pale order + with my cp setup it makes my damage shield more proficient.

To answer your other question- I don't have a vMA staff. I still have yet to attempt to clear that arena on vet. But if I need to, I'll grind for the normal staff if it doesn't make too much of a difference.

I will try changing my Mundus as it's been suggested- I'm just a bit worried about my sustain, but as you said, if I'm using Ele Drain it should work out- or at least I hope.

jaws343 · March 2021

MissDismal wrote: »

Xuhora wrote: »

i appreciate the fact that you are trying that hard and instead of calling for the nerfhammer you seek advice, thumbs up for that really!

first two things that come to my mind: it would help us to help you if you could tell us your skillbars? because i was thinking, did he/she use eledrain or not? because besides giving a fair ammount of sustain, it also boosts your dmg output. i allways run it on my magicka builds. the other thing is: do you have acess to a vMA staff (lightning or fire) for the backbar? that would help your dmg even further and is worth slotting instead of the 5 piece bonus from MS

edit: to further explain what that would mean for your build. slotting eledrain gives sustain, so you can drop atronarch as mundus, which gives dmg again. the vMA backbar you would enchant with a spell dmg enchant, while on the frontbar you should aim for a fire enchant (double enchanting spell dmg does nothing for you, since the buffs dont stack)

Oh yeah, I hate when players seek a nerf for content just because it's hard. I know VH is supposed to be hard, which is why it would mean a lot to me to be able to clear it.

And oh yeah, I apologize for not including my skills! It was late and I was tired while making this post.

My skills now are:

FB: Hardened Ward, Crystal Fragments, Critical Surge, Volatile Familiar, Twilight Matriarch, Storm Atro Ult
BB: Unstable Wall, Mage's Wrath (for execute), Boundless Storm, both pets, Destro Staff Ult

Originally I was using Ele Drain since I was following Alcast's One Bar Build but at the time I didn't think it was helping much.. I will put it back on though and see what it does for me with this new gear I have on. The hardened ward makes me feel a little more secure with a shield if I'm not able to heal myself very quickly w/ pale order + with my cp setup it makes my damage shield more proficient.

To answer your other question- I don't have a vMA staff. I still have yet to attempt to clear that arena on vet. But if I need to, I'll grind for the normal staff if it doesn't make too much of a difference.

I will try changing my Mundus as it's been suggested- I'm just a bit worried about my sustain, but as you said, if I'm using Ele Drain it should work out- or at least I hope.

I don't run pets, but here is my bar set up for VH for comparison:

FB: Hardened Ward, Frags, Crushing Shock, Ele drain (Inner light flex), Curse, Meteor
BB: Harness Mag, Boundless, Crit Surge, Orbs, Wall of Elements, Destro Ult

I personally find that running the execute is not as helpful has having Ele drain or more resources. Both provide more damage overall than the situational Mage's Wrath.

I also find that having a shield on each bar really helps a lot for high damage areas. I don't have to worry about performing a bar swap to hit a shield to save myself. And I slot them both in the same bar spot so it is always the same action to hit my shield no matter what bar I am on.

If you want to continue running Mage's Wrath, I highly recommend putting it on the same bar as your shield. You can't really use it effectively to spam on low health enemies if you are constantly bar swapping to hit your shield to save yourself. What you can do with it on the shield bar is rotate Wrath and shield and light attacks as needed.

Arbit · March 2021

If you can for the red stage, save an ulti before going in and ulti the mage and the warrior down before he has a chance to do his 3 pronged fire spin. Hopefully it’s enough to take out the mage for the time being and you can finish off the warrior fairly easily. I wish I could add more to the discussion but I’m entirely stam based and a necro.

MissDismal · March 2021

Arbit wrote: »

If you can for the red stage, save an ulti before going in and ulti the mage and the warrior down before he has a chance to do his 3 pronged fire spin. Hopefully it’s enough to take out the mage for the time being and you can finish off the warrior fairly easily. I wish I could add more to the discussion but I’m entirely stam based and a necro.

Ah yes, I wanted to say that I had been making sure to collect the red and blue remnants for health and magicka- unfortunately, I did miss a magicka remnant somehow, but in the arena my magicka sits at around 40k.

In the red portal I usually make sure to shield up and put distance between myself and the miniboss- it works well enough until eventually, I get too many adds on me since I couldn't deal damage quick enough. Also, I'm just now realizing my pets are probably dying to the fire spin he does since they will continuously attack him.

Perhaps instead of trying to resurrect them I should just focus on shielding myself and laying down AoEs on the boss... Im just worried about healing myself in case my aoes dont heal me enough for the damage I take in there. The twilight matriarch is what I usually use to keep my health up inside that portal.

Minyassa · March 2021

Yikes. That's the build I've got and was about to try it with Vateshran.

Xuhora · March 2021

MissDismal wrote: »

Xuhora wrote: »

i appreciate the fact that you are trying that hard and instead of calling for the nerfhammer you seek advice, thumbs up for that really!

first two things that come to my mind: it would help us to help you if you could tell us your skillbars? because i was thinking, did he/she use eledrain or not? because besides giving a fair ammount of sustain, it also boosts your dmg output. i allways run it on my magicka builds. the other thing is: do you have acess to a vMA staff (lightning or fire) for the backbar? that would help your dmg even further and is worth slotting instead of the 5 piece bonus from MS

edit: to further explain what that would mean for your build. slotting eledrain gives sustain, so you can drop atronarch as mundus, which gives dmg again. the vMA backbar you would enchant with a spell dmg enchant, while on the frontbar you should aim for a fire enchant (double enchanting spell dmg does nothing for you, since the buffs dont stack)

Oh yeah, I hate when players seek a nerf for content just because it's hard. I know VH is supposed to be hard, which is why it would mean a lot to me to be able to clear it.

And oh yeah, I apologize for not including my skills! It was late and I was tired while making this post.

My skills now are:

FB: Hardened Ward, Crystal Fragments, Critical Surge, Volatile Familiar, Twilight Matriarch, Storm Atro Ult
BB: Unstable Wall, Mage's Wrath (for execute), Boundless Storm, both pets, Destro Staff Ult

Originally I was using Ele Drain since I was following Alcast's One Bar Build but at the time I didn't think it was helping much.. I will put it back on though and see what it does for me with this new gear I have on. The hardened ward makes me feel a little more secure with a shield if I'm not able to heal myself very quickly w/ pale order + with my cp setup it makes my damage shield more proficient.

To answer your other question- I don't have a vMA staff. I still have yet to attempt to clear that arena on vet. But if I need to, I'll grind for the normal staff if it doesn't make too much of a difference.

I will try changing my Mundus as it's been suggested- I'm just a bit worried about my sustain, but as you said, if I'm using Ele Drain it should work out- or at least I hope.

yeah, eledrain should be back on the bar it helps alot. but you dont have to eledrain everything, just keep it on the high value targets.
another adjustment i would do is swap out wrath for channeled acceleration, a very important buff for a long duration and s speedboost for a short duration. you just have to get used to the casttime, as it can mean your demise if you cast it at the wrong time.
other than that i would say you are good to go and you will succeed in your task!

edit: oh and the normal vMA staff is by far worth it, i cannot be bothered to farm it a gain and i do endgame content regularly with a normal vMA staff, the penetration is really not needed on the backbar.

phwaap · March 2021

Alcast's VH sorc build is pretty good. I've done vVH a lot lately with a variant of it:

BB: crit surge, unstable wall, boundless, streak, volatile, atro
FB: consuming trap, hardened ward, crushing shock, crystal frags, volatile, shooting star

Don't think ele drain is super useful here. Consuming is better for sustain. Crushing shock just keeps everything interrupted and procs frags sometimes every other cast. Super useful for the fire spinners, etc.

Why bother to spend so much resources on the dps check? just streak through and continue hitting the targets that matter.

DonGodJoe · April 2021

I was not fan of Pale order ring, like why would i if i have surge, no pets either.

-zaan
-false god/mother sorrow
-medusa
-vMA fire staff/vMA shock staff

More like the abilities were the key, mystic orb was a huge help especially at final boss with streak slotted to just skip the dps check, crushing shock (as someone mentioned above) to keep interrupt in situation.

I'll disagree with the fact of ele drain is not useful (but personal choice)

FB: dae. curse, crys. fragment, crushing shock, inner light, bound aegis (swapped for streak at final) + shooting star
BB: ele. drain, surge, wall of elements, boundles storm (just personal flex for more defense and aoe), mystic orb + ele. rage

Food was max health+ max magicka and with the amount of orbs and max. health+magicka buffs you can collect i was sitting at nice stats, shock staff helped with sustain (when i was wearing MS instead of FD)

yyiri · April 2021

I clear vVH fairly often - the last boss can be tricky.

Deaths mostly come from:
- Flameshaper (they must be interrupted)
- Guardian mobs that hit for 10k per swipe (aggro if damaged)

The boss itself is not a problem. I highly recommend streaking through the ghost chains.

The flameshaper follows you through portals, so sometimes if you kill a portal boss with it alive and port out, you get insta gibbed when you re-enter the ring.

Personally, I don't use pets and run:
Inferno: ele drain/crushing shock/crys frags/hardened ward/mage's light
Lightning: wall of elements/mystic orb/boundless/critical surge/streak

Skull food for more stats with Atro mundus. Mother's sorrow/False God's/Pale/Swarm/Maelstrom backbar

Hope this helps