AOE?

Valkerian · May 2014

Plain and simple, I'm running heal sorc. Usually great for dundgeons. However getting harder in higher vet area's to solo. I'm looking for a good dps build, preferably with good aoe damage as i get mobbed a lot. lol. Any suggestions?

Aimeryan · May 2014

Here is what I use:

AoE - Destruction Staff
Crit Surge (Surge - Storm Calling), Pulsar (Impulse - Destruction Staff), Inner Light (Mage Light - Mage Guild) - keeps you healed and does lots of damage in aoe around you. Thundering Presence (Lightning Form - Storm Calling) if you need to be more tanky (and the aoe isn't bad on it too).

Liquid Lightning (Lightning Splash - Storm Calling) can be included, if the enemies stay together, but it is sort of extraneous. Restraining Prison (Encase - Dark Magic) would be awesome to keep enemies together, but it costs a lot of magicka for just this purpose.

Single-Target - Optional Weapon
There is only really Velocious Curse (Daedric Curse - Daedric Summoning), Crystal Fragments (Crystal something - Dark Magic), and Endless Fury (Mage Fury? - Dark Magic) here - at least from the class skills. The curse gives nice damage for the cast-time-cost (merely a moment of animation) and magicka-cost, as well as giving you chances at instant crystals, while the fury is an execute with a nice bit of mana return if the target dies to it. The crystal is the only single-target class skill that is spammable, so it is sort of needed. There are some alternatives outside of class skills - silver bolts, etc., but I am not sure how viable they are (and may not be magicka skills, so not really viable for this build as a spam skill).

Crit Surge will help with weapon damage; you'll need to throw attacks in between anyway, not just because of animation cancelling, but also because constant spamming of crystals drains magicka a fair bit faster than you can refill it. A ranged weapon is preferred; the Restoration Staff is a good choice for the Circle of Life passive, for the heavy-attack magicka restoration, and for the heal skills (Rapid Regeneration being quite ideal).

Misc.
Five pieces of Light Armour are sort of needed (for the spell crit and magicka stuff); the additional two pieces are optional, but Light Armor seems best (magicka stuff). With Thundering Presence you will be Armour soft-capped (by quite a bit), while Resistances are of course very high with Light Armour even before Thundering Presence.

Crit Potions (with magicka restoration) are ideal. Level points should go into magicka and health, in about equal measure.

Halrloprillalar · May 2014

spellpower potions imo, especially if you are already using all the light armor passives, magelight crit morph and a crit or spell pen trait on the weapon.

I've never really thought about using resto staff for dps, but the more I think about it the more sense it makes (with the passive)... except I think the passive only affects staff damage, not all damage? correct me if I'm wrong here. The magika return on heavy attack is really nice though if you have a long-range cc or someone tanking the mob... the damage itself is terrible though.

I see a lot of people using pulsar, and while I see how it's nice aoe while solo grinding (esp. with surge), its magika cost/damage is lower than lightning splash/flood (btw the flood morph is better since you get to hit more mobs rather than that measly increase through the other morph for just the first tick). Flood also has synergy which is obviously amazing when there are other people AND it doesn't require you to be in the middle of the mobs, potentially in harm's way. With the light armor and storm calling passives this becomes on par or cheaper (haven't checked exact numbers) than the cost of pulsar, with less risk and higher damage potential through synergy. Currently my aoe spellbar contains: crystal shards (instant cast morph), mage's fury (magika return morph), restraining prison (the dark magic root with the snare morph), lightning flood (bigger aoe morph), and mage's light (for more spellcrit). Works extremely well for packs of whites.
For single/few target soloing I have the same crystal shards/mage's fury and magelight but also daedric curse (faster duration morph) and the destro touch from fire staff (stun morph) - the only reason I currently have a fire staff, may be changing it soon.

TL;DR: use lightning flood, especially in groups or if you are squishy + dark prison root for aoe, crystal shard+fury+daedric curse +some kind of cc or heal for single target.

EDIT: make sure you have heals, escape (teleport, either morph) and dark exchange (single most OP skill in the game, esp. with the armor/resist morph) on your secondary weapon bar.

Aimeryan · May 2014

Circle of Life is all damage, while Restoration staff is equipped.

Lightning Flood - the increased radius often wont help against enemies that move away (they move too far), and wont help against enemies that don't (for obvious reasons). Still, each to their own - I can see times it could be better, but similarly I see times Liquid Lightning could be better.

Regardless, it is often extraneous - maybe it saves me a Pulsar cast, but it is far more fiddly to use. Also, bar slots are limited. I did use it until I got to Impulse though - it is certainly not bad.

I use Overload (Ultimate - Storm Calling), which provides a third bar. I use this for the teleport and dark exchange, if I need them. I consider them more useful in PvP though, than PvE.

P.S. I use the curse for single target, as mentioned. Also, you can do spell power + spell crit + magicka restore all in one potion (try Cornflower + Lady's Smock + Water Hycinth).