Definitely get a restoration staff back bar or sword and shield, and then get all their passives.

Don't go all 100% light armor as it'll make you super weak to physical damage, and then try and hit around 27-30k health, decent 20k+ resistances, and make sure you have all the passives unlocked ranging from the Undaunted ones all the way to the class ones that will have some marginal boost to your build.

Next make sure you have reliable healing in the form of around 2 heal over time abilities and a burst heal you can spam for quick injections of HP. As a Sorc this most definitely will include Critical Surge since it's healing with a high critical chance is not to be overlooked.

I'd give more advise but I'm not a good Sorc player so just laid down the basics.

Orc is a good class for stamsorc but not magsorc (You should definitely change that ASAP). Take a look at the class passives and you'll see why. My mag sorc is a high elf for best damage.

If you're a very good offensive player you can go with 2 offensive sets. Then for the 11th and 12th pieces go with maybe Gaze of Sithis (armor and max health) and a 1-piece monster set that provides offensive pen bonus.

Gaze is heavy armor. You'll probably want all your big pieces heavy and reinforced for the armor. Then either 1 medium and 3 light (for undaunted max bonus from passive) or 4 light. Probably impen on light pieces. If you're playing CP and using a light offensive set you may need to go 5 light and 1 med/hvy or both heavy.

Back bar resto staff defending or powered with probably a spell damage glyph and front fire staff sharpened with your favorite glyph.

Or you could keep orc and go stamsorc instead with a heavy/medium armor combo (1-piece light if trying to get max undaunted passive buff). Heavy still reinforced and medium still impen.

Make sure you're always using a good food and use the best tri-pots.

Many players are going with Vampire level 3 to get up to 30% damage mitigation but beware of regular skill cost increases. You need to make sure you have enough sustain too for longer fights and large scale fights like at keeps.

If you do go with 1 defensive set like Pariah you may live a bit longer in large scale fights but you won't hit for nearly as hard. So you have to choose like with everything build related. Gold out all gear if you can afford it, especially weapons. If you have to leave jewelry purple it's not a huge loss.

Sets to choose will vary depending on CP or no CP. I play no CP so gear choices are limited. For mag sorc Spinner's is a great set probably for both front barred. Grace of the Ancients 3-piece, Gaze of Sithis, and a couple pieces of Trainee is a good setup for no CP. I'm not very familiar with BIS gear for CP PVP so I'll let others comment on that.

And yes health to close to 30K or good players will burst you with their fancy combos really easily. You may find you need to do something like 40 mag and 24 health or a slight alteration of that.

I would try to avoid percentage based mitigation. The big chunks matter.
Armor, dodgeroll, los, block, mistform. Maximize those, forget about the rest. It´s simple math.

edit: undeath and corrosive could be added. But anything below 30% is not interresting imho

If he wants to max out his damage go DW both maces with t

Kaysha wrote: »

I would try to avoid percentage based mitigation. The big chunks matter.
Armor, dodgeroll, los, block, mistform. Maximize those, forget about the rest. It´s simple math.

edit: undeath and corrosive could be added. But anything below 30% is not interresting imho

Mist form is a % based mitigation. But when you are in mist form and have under 30% health your basically getting almost zero damage in. If you have major protection, minor protection and 10% less damage from players with swift on you basically see ticks of damage hitting you for 1 even Radiant Glory hits like a wet noodle with that much damage mitigation.

Vevvev wrote: »

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

If he wants to max out his damage go DW both maces with t

Kaysha wrote: »

I would try to avoid percentage based mitigation. The big chunks matter.
Armor, dodgeroll, los, block, mistform. Maximize those, forget about the rest. It´s simple math.

edit: undeath and corrosive could be added. But anything below 30% is not interresting imho

Mist form is a % based mitigation. But when you are in mist form and have under 30% health your basically getting almost zero damage in. If you have major protection, minor protection and 10% less damage from players with swift on you basically see ticks of damage hitting you for 1 even Radiant Glory hits like a wet noodle with that much damage mitigation.

Not necessarily..... to really depends on the build, armor stacking, etc. Honestly, Mistform is so insanely high in it's mitigation Undeath barely even registers when you take into account the 10% base mitigation, 55% battle spirit, and armor resistances in. Reason being is the diminishing returns of multiple sources of damage mitigation make the smaller sources far less relevant than the larger ones.

Like just taking Mistform in a PvP zone with 20% armor it's 67.6% mitigation without Mistform, and with Mistform it's 91.9% mitigation. If the target was at 30% HP with Undeath it'll become 74.404% mitigation without Mistform and 93.601% mitigation with Mistform. Undeath with Mistform at such low HP numbers is barely even a 2%.

My templar with mist, swift, undeath, and major protection was taking near zero damage from a dawn breaker. But that build also has around 38K resistance when I'm at around 30% health.

Ulvich wrote: »

So here’s my dilemma... As some may know I returned to ESO a couple of months ago after a 6 year hiatus. During this time I have noticed that PvP is nowhere what it once was. It seems no matter what build and/or gear I use I still get totally annihilated in duels. It’s so bad that in some cases I don’t even have a chance to apply my first attack.
I know there is a difference in PvP and PvE gear and builds which is why I am here. I am looking for that build. The character in question here is an Orc Sorcerer (magicka) running light armor and a destruction staff, and it’s current level is 417.
Any help would be highly appreciated.
- Thanks

That's too little information. Are you running 2 shields and a heal? Also: Are you dueling in Bergama / Alik'r Desert? That's where the "professionals" go. If you get annihilated there, I wouldn't worry at CP417.

PvP magsorc is fairly hackneyed. I usually direct people to Malcolm on YouTube. Lookup his most recent build and gameplay guides, likely 2 separate videos. He tends to cover multiple options.

A friend of mine had the exact same question last week. He'd even watched Malcolm before. He had noted how Malcolm had talked about Harness Magicka and Hardened Ward and the order you cast those shields in to maximise the magicka return. Did he actually follow that advice? Nope. He had no heal. He had only one shield. I think he simply wasn't ready to get serious until last week, but to me that was puzzling all the same.

Let's lay out some general things. You're a magsorc. The standard playstyle is to shield up using two shields, Harness Magicka and Hardened Ward (NOT Extended Ward or whatever), then blow your target to bits in the next 4 seconds with stacked burst skills, hoping your 2 shields will hold and give you enough time for that. The burst consists of Haunting Curse and other things that, ideally, all go off together when the Curse explodes. These include things like Mage's Wrath / Fury, Crystal Frags, a slow projectile that has a travel time, perhaps Meteor from the Mage's Guild. You may also want to Streak people when the Curse explodes. I'm not an expert on the exact combos you run, for that you'll have to consult Malcolm, but that's sorc in a nutshell.

You can build tanky in various ways. Gaze of Sithis. Maybe even something like Pariah. Maybe heavy armor. I don't recommend the latter options, if you want to kill someone. I believe in light armor. Go light armor and learn how to play until shielding becomes second nature. More specifically, you want to sit at 45K+ magicka in CP. More, if you can. 50K. 55K. Shields scale with magicka. Shields that are sufficiently large feel a whole lot better than ones that are too small. Falling under 45K magicka is not recommended in my book. This is why I'd personally run Death Dealer's Fete over Sithis. Just a better set for magsorc, IMO. Combine that with sets like Crafty Alfiq, Ancient Grace, Necropotence (if you have pet(s)), monster piece(s) that give you mag and stam. Don't shoot for spell damage. Stack magicka and use all magicka recovery enchants on jewelry. Get extra magicka from CP where you can. That would be my advice. I don't currently play sorc myself, but I play a magden with a single shield. High magicka works.

As a sorc, I'd start out with 2 shields. The only problem you may have is magicka sustain. I tend to use the Atronach mundus over the Mage mundus (it's good value) and Witchmother's Potent Brew instead of, say, Sugar Skulls. Gear traits: Impen or Well Fitted or a mixture of those. Front bar weapon enchant: Flame. Back bar: Increase weapon / spell damage.

You also need a heal. This has a big impact on your build. Pet or no pet? Resto staff or pet? Twilight Matriarch or Rapid Regen or Healing Ward? "Heals" like Structured Entropy, Crit Surge or Dark Conversion are not heals. Entropy is too weak. Crit Surge is IMO better for stamsorc, who is more in the thick of things rather than kiting (thus proccing Crit Surge from Hurricane, if nothing else). Either way, Crit Surge alone is not enough. Dark Deal / Dark Conversion can be intrerrupted, is not instant, and is not all that strong as a heal. You need a dedicated heal instead of or as well as these other options.

Your selection of the heal has a profound effect. Next patch you may use Vigor, so you don't need to double slot a pet or choose a resto staff back bar. Until then, those are your options. On classes where I have a choice, I prefer a 1H + Shield back bar. I think it's superior to resto. It makes you feel tankier and the 1H+S ultimate is great. That said, the sorc Atro ultimate is also good on the back bar (or Negate in group play) while the Twilight is a big compromise, due to double slotting it and due to the fact that it can be killed. Waiting for next patch / Vigor may be a good idea, albeit that costs stamina, so I'm not sure.

Streak / Ball of Lightning is a must. Streak can be used offensively. Ball of Lightning is more for pure defense. I much prefer Streak. Ball of Lightning was recently nerfed.

A spammable (Crushing Shock / Force Pulse / Elemental Weapon) is a must, as is Crystal Fragments and Haunting Curse, unless you're running some Daedric Prey / pet / heavy attack build.

Lightning Form is also pretty much a must. The armor skill just is, on any class, in my book. Crit Surge and Dark Conversion / Dark Deal are things to consider. Stam sustain is something to consider. I personally play most of my mag builds with high stam sustain. Anything from 1K to 1.5K effective sustain, when you include skills (Bull Netch / Restoring Focus) that return stamina on those other classes. Magsorc, however, is in the unique position of being able to stack shields and streak, which means you get away with less stam sustain for break free and dodge roll. This is something I can't make a call on, because I currently don't play the class. I've known sorcs to wear Amber Plasm in the past, but that specific set is kind of dead. The current meta set for double sustain is Wretched Vitality on the back bar or good old Engine Guardian. IMO you can't get away from building for high magicka, though. I therefore think Wretched Vitality would compromise your magsorc too much (also not sure how to proc it). One of the ways to gain a little stam sustain that synergises with magsorc is being a high elf. I personally prefer actual sustain rather than the bigger pool from something like Sugar Skulls, as long as stamina sits at a minimum of 15K in combat. Like I said: Wear Death Dealer's Fete.

following that logic, I would aim for 33k or more amor. your opponent will have 10k-20k piercing. don´t forget that.
as fred4 wrote, you will need big stat pools for your shields, which will also be limited by your health.

defensiv order:
armor (also reduces damage on shields)
magika (shields, healing, dmg)
health (shields)

that leaves you with pretty obvious gear joices.
for example: backbar armor master with resto, frontbar spinner with firestaff, jewels willpower/grace, head of joice (gaze will buff your shields pretty strong), 5light, 1medium, 1 heavy
frontbar hardened ward, backbar dampen magic
the needed skills have been explained by fred4