Need more Skills for No Pet Sorcerer Builds

SilverBride · August 2023

I have never enjoyed using Pets on my Sorcerer, especially the in your face flappy. I did recently roll a second Sorcerer that does use Pets to PvP with, but due to circumstances tweaked her for just PvE. The problem is she is better at DPS than my No Pet Sorcerer.

I would love if there were more skill options for No Pet Sorcerers so they could be on par with the Pet builds. I've tried different suggestions but they just don't come close.

Please give Sorcerers more skill options for No Pet builds.

SandandStars · August 2023

I agree with you 100% @SilverBride, however, I’m afraid the issue is a dead horse.

I’ve read dozens of clear, cogent, detailed requests for exactly this over the past 2-3 years, and ZOS isn’t interested. Their vision of Sorc, Magsorc anyways, is the PetSorc.

I don’t like it either, but I don’t see them budging.

SilverBride · August 2023

It's a shame that my oldest character, a Sorcerer that I created shortly after ESO launched, can't reach the DPS needed to run Veteran dungeons and feel like she is pulling her weight.

I'd be happy if some of the Skill Morphs had effects for both Pets and No Pet builds. Not even completely new skills but more options with the Morphs.

AcadianPaladin · August 2023

@Silverbride, I share your pain. Only in my case I won't use pets because flappy is too obtrusive and the purple monkey is just too ugly. Reskinning and resizing pets, and making the clannfear a decent pet would likely make me reconsider pets.

As things are, the best my solo PvE magsorc can do is by running Oakensoul and slotting Vigor, Bound Aegis, Caltrops, Wall, Lightning Flood. I expect you've probably tried all skill combos though and it sounds like your goal is more for group work.

SilverBride · August 2023

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I expect you've probably tried all skill combos though and it sounds like your goal is more for group work.

It is. I played solo exclusively for a very long time but a few months ago started doing normal and veteran dungeons, and now arenas. I went back and regeared all my characters, and farmed monster sets and tweaked their builds so I could pull my weight in these activities. Most of my characters are doing fine but I'm just not happy with my No Pet Sorcerer's performance in group situations.

Turtle_Bot · August 2023

Welcome to the club.

This has been a very common complaint by sorcerer mains ever since ZOS decided to completely kill off the no-pet sorc playstyle about 5-6 years ago and put all of sorcs power budget into the pets and deadric prey.

Stamina Sorcerer was the last remnant of this no-pet playstyle (well it was the closest thing the class had) up until U35 forced all sorcs into running pets because ZOS decided to completely gut everything in the class kit that wasn't a pet or deadric prey.

I also wouldn't be getting your hopes up for a fix/rework to this playstyle anytime soon. It's a dead spec and there's no plans or even hints of possibilities from the devs that they have any intention at all of bringing it back as an even semi-viable playstyle.
The proof in this is mentioned back in the teams responses to the countless sorc feedback threads from the U36 PTS when that patch went live, where we got the response from the team that "The team thinks that sorcerer is just fine as is and doesn't need any further changes".

Which the team stuck to this right up until the data for U35/36 came in and proved what we all had said all along, that sorc was dead after its overnerf in U35 and no-one was playing it at all so they gave it some small buffs in U37 (biggest one was again to pets and this was a QoL change that was something they should have fixed years ago instead of just then).

All no-pet sorc got was a slightly bigger shield that (from a PvP perspective) helped it for all of about 3-4 days before everyone realised that despite the slightly bigger shields, it was the exact same sorc under those shields that has no healing and minimal defensive options outside of running away so everyone that tried out sorc went straight back to their DKs, NBs and Wardens (for PvP) or DKs, plars and cros (for PvE) with 2 exceptions
1. A single Sorc being brought into groups purely as a support dps for the atro group major berserk buff which was still debated if the group could carry sorcs lack of cleave and if the group major berserk was worth it. OR
2. As a pet summoning HA build for more casual runs where the goal is just completion of content/farming rather than score/record pushing.

starlizard70ub17_ESO · August 2023

You can do a non pet sorcerer but you need to use other skill lines like Psijic Order, vampirism, etc to make up for the pets. It's fun to play but takes a bit of effort to get all the skills up and running.

SilverBride · August 2023

My Sorcerer was a Vampire for many years but I got tired of maintaining it and cured. She does have the Psijic skill line but has never used any of the skills. I really don't want to be a Vampire again but would be interested to see the build that uses these. But ideally I want to be a Sorcerer that actually uses Sorcerer skills.

thorwyn · August 2023

Assuming you are not playing one bar, you can just repace the pets with Bound Aegis or Bound Armament and Inner Light and another DOT and utility spell of your choice on the bb. The overall damage loss should be in the range of 10-15% which is a lot, but not dramatical. I posted a parse in some other thread a while ago, leaving the pet slots empty, just to prove that it's still perfectly possible to do pretty good damage without pets.