OBJnoob wrote: »

You'll enjoy stamsorc I think, I always did. I play lots of characters but stamsorc is my answer whenever someone asks what's the most fun.

The way hybridization works, yes you can use curse. And I'd use streak if I were you. I'd find myself some "stamina" weapons but continue stacking spell damage and spell crit so that you can benefit from the minor prophecy passive. Sounds weird but trust me it doesn't matter as far as what skills you want to use.

I've always found bow is great for stamsorcs bow roll dodge + hurricane + streak = moving really fast with minimal effort. You can even use bow/bow, it's pretty fun and viable too. Nothing wrong with dual wield either.

Downsides which you already know cuz you play a magsorcs... Difficult to get penetration because no class major breach. Difficult to heal because pets suck and crit surge, well, is iffy.

I recommend you be fast and hit hard. Pretend you're a nightblade but instead of invisible you're fast. A lightning blade if you will

Actually my magsorc is my crafter. She was my first pve character when I knew nothing about the game. I didnt like mag sorc at all at the time.

I play stamblade and mageblade. I use cloak to get away.
But without it my natural inclination is to tank. I feel much more comfortable blocking than roll dodging. My reaction speed is pretty slow. I like having time to think. Which cloak has always provided me. It's a crutch. I need to be able to take hits if I can't be invisible because I'm just not inherently fast.

It's possible heavy armour with a back bar of 1h/shield might suit me better rather than bow. But I won't know until I try.

OBJnoob wrote: »

Nothing wrong with shield everybody needs a backbar. I think... Well. If you're going to wear a lot of heavy you might hurt for crit chance which hurts your healing. Crit surge needs crit chance, dark deal is interruptible, pets can be killed-- stamsorc hurts for healing in my opinion. I might go with a resto staff instead of a shield if I were you. Especially since you don't want to use a 2h so you won't have rally either.

Isn't vigor and potions enough for healing?
And dagger in offhand on my DW bar.

I was thinking of using on front bar, quick cloak, haunting curse, flying blade and whirling blades, Camo hunter, Dawn Breaker of smiting.

Back bar is crit surge, hurricane, dark deal, vigor. And a flex spot that I'm thinking could be razor caltrops or streak.

So there isn't even a weapon skill I'm going to use on the back bar except perhaps an ultimate. Shield wall seemed interesting. And of course the protection of a shield when blocking.
I could also use a shield and 1hander of potentiates set for 3% reduced damage from players.

Going for sets with weapon and spell damage rather than stam and magicka.
Clever alchemist and Red Eagle's Fury.
That way haunting curse should still pack a punch. It synergizes with Altmer racial passive.

Do I need to wear heavy armour to make use of shield blocking is the question.

Check out @Dekrypted on YouTube.
@StaticWave is also experienced

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Vizir wrote: »

For a DW/bow playstyle you could go something like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEjZBkp2_gg

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

Nothing wrong with shield everybody needs a backbar. I think... Well. If you're going to wear a lot of heavy you might hurt for crit chance which hurts your healing. Crit surge needs crit chance, dark deal is interruptible, pets can be killed-- stamsorc hurts for healing in my opinion. I might go with a resto staff instead of a shield if I were you. Especially since you don't want to use a 2h so you won't have rally either.

Isn't vigor and potions enough for healing?
And dagger in offhand on my DW bar.

I was thinking of using on front bar, quick cloak, haunting curse, flying blade and whirling blades, Camo hunter, Dawn Breaker of smiting.

Back bar is crit surge, hurricane, dark deal, vigor. And a flex spot that I'm thinking could be razor caltrops or streak.

So there isn't even a weapon skill I'm going to use on the back bar except perhaps an ultimate. Shield wall seemed interesting. And of course the protection of a shield when blocking.
I could also use a shield and 1hander of potentiates set for 3% reduced damage from players.

Going for sets with weapon and spell damage rather than stam and magicka.
Clever alchemist and Red Eagle's Fury.
That way haunting curse should still pack a punch. It synergizes with Altmer racial passive.

Do I need to wear heavy armour to make use of shield blocking is the question.

You would probably end up being a bit squishy with only vigor and dark deal and no defensive set. Flying Blade is a poor spammable and you'd be better off going crushing weapon, which also gives major breach. Your flex spot really aught to be streak for the overall defensive options it provides along with being your sole cc beside dawnbreaker. Also in this pretty heavy soft cc meta with magdens using unstable wall immobs and magdks using talons not having a snare removal can be painful, granted less so with streak.

I agree with OBJnoob in that BB resto is very nice on a stamsorc. Personally I run FB 2H with DSwing, Crystal Weapon, Executioner, Haunting Curse, Forward Momentum, dawnbreaker. Then BB Rapid regen, vigor, dark deal, Streak, Hurricane, Negate (or Resto Ult). Resto heavies give alot of mag back which we can use to either streak away or dark deal to turn the mag into stam. Layering rapid regen and vigor coupled with me wearing pariah gives me quite alot of survivability. I know you don't want to go 2H but you can play around with other combos.

If I had to use 2H I wouldn't even waste my time making a stam sorc at all. Just leave her as a crafter.
And I refuse to use dizzying swing on any character. It's slow and clunky. I prefer class skills like surprise attack on my NB.
Or swallow soul on my mageblade.
My stam Necro uses bow front bar with silver shards as a spammable.

Heck I might as well use silver shards on a stam sorc rather than dizzying swing. I just liked the gap closer of flying blade.
I wanted to use bloodthirsty jewelry to get Whirling blades to hit harder below 90% health.
Haunting curse->flyingblade/shards->Whirling blades spin to win.

Literally every stam character I have has 2H for rally/forward momentum backbar for major brutality. I'm so sick of it. Forget about that. Only brawler skill for PVE is fun.

Stamsorc is fun, but I don't think it's the right class for a tanky character. At least that is not why I pick up my stamsorc. Speed and Streak are IMO the main reasons to play the class. You make yourself difficult to kill by being hard to hit, not by being tanky. Using Streak can be forgiving in terms of your strategy and battlefield awareness. You can blunder into situations and get away with it, e.g. you can frequently disengage just as easily. That's a particular type of forgiving, but I wouldn't say it's forgiving in terms of your reflexes. For lower APM, a plain tanky, blocking character may be better.

I always find myself settling on a bow back bar, which fits in with the fast playstyle, e.g. to get the Major Expedition from dodge rolling, stacking with the Minor Expedition from Hurricane. Dodge rolling and Streak both have fatigue attached to them. If you want to practice damage avoidance, like on your nightblade, you need to alternate between the two approaches.

For snare removal I use Snow Treaders. While this prevents sprinting in combat, I find stamsorc the one class where this mythic is viable and fun, e.g. due to the class' natural speed and Streak. It's a big middle finger to Bombard spammers and the like. I could be wrong, but I think it may even inhibit the Dark Convergence pull. That said, Snow Treaders are optional. You could totally try going for the opposite approach, e.g. Sea Serpent's Coil for maxium damage.

Coming from any other class, you may find stamsorc healing weird, inconsistent and a problem. Healing from Vigor and Dark Deal alone? Like OBJnoob said, that's very marginal. It will force you to be fast and to sink resources into Streak and dodge rolling more than you would like. Dark Deal has a cast time. It only heals you by the end. It can be interrupted, not healing you at all. A smart opponent, or the designated newbie spammer in an organised group, can spam you with Crusing Shock or Venom Arrow, interrupting you and inhibiting further dark deals for something like 3 seconds. Believe me, this feels quite different than a regular burst heal in PvP. The Clannfear and the Twilight, meanwhile, can be killed and require two bar slots. Crit Surge - so powerful in solo PvE - is very inconsistent in PvP and, like every heal, just naturally weaker. It's perhaps better than Siphoning Attacks as a heal and easier to keep up passively in melee distance if you have lots of stuff going - notably Hurricane and, say, Caltrops - however when you're streaking away, Crit Surge usually does diddly squat and that is often when you would need it most. Moreover, if you get attacked from range in the first place, that tends to be more of a problem on stamsorc than on other classes. Yes, you can Streak and roll, but you lack a reliable burst heal that supports the ability to block or roll while doing it, unless you run a pet. Remember: You can't roll while dark dealing either.

I use a Blackrose bow back bar, Crit Surge, Vigor and Dark Deal. Draining Shot can miss and is another heal that won't save you when trying to disengage with Streak, however it allows you to stay on attack more often without having to streak. I also use a Master's 2H front bar, e.g. Brawler. The Brawler shield is another defensive measure that makes me tanky while attacking. I'll be honest, this is a 1vX / low MMR BG build not terribly effective against good players (but works well for what it is). I know you don't want 2H, but I needed to mention the Brawler shield for you to get an idea of what feels comfortable to play, just so you don't underspec your healing. It all adds up.

Heavy armor would increase healing, but doesn't necessarily increase your blocking potential over medium. It's medium that has the block cost reduction, not heavy. Decreasing block cost is IMO more important than increasing block damage mitigation in PvP. Yes, heavy armor has the Constitution passive. It returns stamina while blocking and competes with medium's block cost reduction that way. However you are a stamsorc, dammit . You can't block while dark dealing. Your burst heal drops your block. This isn't your playstyle unless you use the Clannfear / Twilight. IMO, you want to block, play a DK. It can be a high damage medium armor DK with Cinder Storm spam on the back bar. The main reasons to use heavy armor these days are the resistances and healing, not the blocking nor the Constitution passive when you use Cinder Storm.

While I like the bow, resto back bar is something to consider, or ice staff. Ice staff gives you the block mitigation you may occasionally use, but also gives you Elemental Susceptability and a full strength back bar enchant. You might optionally consider a Vateshran ice staff.

Finally, if you want to make a forgiving, tanky stamsorc, there is one approach perhaps worth mentioning. It won't do a lot for your damage, but nonetheless stamsorc has some interesting synergies that IMO still make this approach borderline viable. It's building for health regen:

• Gaze of Sithis
• Eternal Vigor
• Strategic Reserve CP
• Gold food
• Summoning skill slotted (+20%)
• Potion that includes health (+30%)
• 1x Endurace jewelry and 2x Endurance back bar
• Wear some heavy armor

To the best of my recollection this will give you up to about 4K, maybe 4.5K health regen in PvP (8K+ in PvE), depending on your health level and exactly how you build. If you look at this list, you'll find that none of these things individually are big sacrifices on a stamsorc. Not being able to block is by far the biggest one, especially if you do so instinctively. Meteors will be painful, but otherwise you are on a mobility / dodge rolling class. Eternal Vigor is a good stamsorc set to support Streak and Dark Deal. Strategic Reserve can be kept high by using Overload and not blowing your ultimate all at once. Gold food is merely expensive. Sithis and Endurance only take 4 skill slots. Sustain is covered. You still have 5 slots left to "go wild" on a front bar damage set.

I'll be honest, I tried the above in the past. Combining this type of build with decent health can make you frustrating for nightblades to kill 1v1, even when you are slow and don't block (you can't) / defend properly. In general, though, it's lacklustre. You still lack a reliable burst heal and you can't block. The latter made me move away from Sithis, while the addition of Draining Shot to my build made me forget about Strategic Reserve and expensive food to eke out health regen.

Vizir wrote: »

Flying Blade is a poor spammable and you'd be better off going crushing weapon, which also gives major breach.

While I agree on the breach, there is one edge case where Flying Blade is interesting and that is using the associated weapon set - I forget which arena / trial it comes from - that adds +250% damage for shooting people in the back. I tried that once. I wasn't particularty satisfied, too situational, but I had a few good kills with it. In general I think people use the Rending Slashes and Blade Cloak weapons more.

Alternatively, you could also just play a ranged stamsorc. Most magsorc mains I know did pretty well when they went this route because a ranged stamsorc's offense is very similar to magsorc (with the only difference being Crystal Weapon instead of Crystal Frag), but its defense and mobility are slightly better. A ranged sorc build I used to run look like this:

1)


2)

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Some of my above is rooted in the past, such as building into health regen. I wanted to mention it for it's surprising, if marginal, viability. However thinking more about the present, you can slap Rallying Cry + Mara on almost anything and I'm sure that goes for stamsorc. Mara would fill in some healing and purging. Round it out with Engine Guardian and possibly single bar those sets, making room for a mythic plus 1x Trainee, and you have a build.

Why trainee?

Because you have room for it.

There are 7 body armor slots, 3 jewelry slots and - since weapons always count as 2 slots, regardless of type - 4 weapon slots. Total: 14. If you wear Rallying Cry front bar, Mara back bar (or vice versa), then 4 slots remain. 2 of those are taken up by a monster set (Engine Guardian) and one by a mythic. That leaves one final slot to spare. There are very few non-mythic, non-monster armor sets that give you something for a single piece. Basically only Trainee and Druid's Braid. Of those two, Trainee is better, as it's single item bous (health) is slightly higher. Filling out the last slot with 1x Trainee is common in PvP builds. More health is a good thing to have.

That said, Mara is more effective double-barred. The above was just an example of how you might build. However, if you double-bar Mara, you can either fit a mythic + 1x single piece (most likely 1x Magma Incarnate for stam+mag regen), or a full monster set, but not both. You'll also end up with more heavy armor, which might suit you, but I would not personally go that way on stamsorc. I just prefer medium in general, though. For the sake of the argument, you could wear:

Head, Shoulder: Engine Guardian, medium
Belt, Hands, 1x jewelry: Rallying Cry, light
Chest, Legs, Feet, 2x jewelry: Mara's Balm, heavy
Front bar weapon: Dragonstar dual-wield (Stinging Slashes) or Blackrose dual-wield (Spectral Cloak)
Back bar weapon: Rallying Cry

This would be one of the most meta setups I can think of for CP PVP and BGs. It's defensive, but sorc tends to have decent damage anyway. I can't think of anything better than Engine Guardian, if you're going to wear something like this. Stamsorc needs both lines of sustain, stamina and magicka. You'll need Bear Haunch or Jewels of Misrule too. Also the Engine Guardian works defensively as a decoy taking accidental fire or ending up the primary target of templar Jabs. It causes you to take less damage.

The other obvious meta setup I can think of would be (assuming you don't want to try arena weapons):

Front bar weapon, 2x jewelry, 1x body piece (Sash if light, Chest if heavy): Your pick of Rallying Cry, Way of Fire, or one of the many poison sets or damage sets in the game.

Back Bar weapon, 3x medium body pieces, or maybe 1x heavy, 2x medium: Wretched Vitality.

Monster set of choice, most likely medium: Your pick of Balorgh, Bloodspawn, Engine Guardian, Magma Incarnate, Devyric, Kjalnar, Zaan, Maw of the Infernal, Selene, Zoal, Scourge Harvester.

1x jewelry or body piece: Your pick of Sea Serpent, Markyn, Death Dealer's, Wild Hunt, Snow Treaders, Malacath.

1x remaining body piece or jewelry: 1x Trainee.