Magsorc aoe damage/skills not great?

Wilkesy91 · September 2023

Hello, so iv come from a magblade (ps5) to mag sorc on the pc now. Just wondering which aoe skills are the best to clear trash ads in open world and dungeons ect… I feel like it’s a slow process with the mag sorc with there not been many options for aoe skills compared to the mag blade.

By all means I might switch back to the magblade on pc because of the damage, skills and sustainability. Are there any other mage builds/classes that are great at melting mobs with aoe damage with having more options with skills but can sustain at the same time.

Turtle_Bot · September 2023

if you want AoE go DK, arcanist or templar.

sorc and NB have very little AoE in their class kits and sorcs best AoE (the heavy attack build) got the AoE part deleted last patch.

AcadianPaladin · September 2023

@Turtle_Bot is right. Magsorc was great but after U39's change to lightning staves not so much. My magsorc was successfully all about AoE and loved it - not anymore. Nothing particularly fun or unique about her now. I absolutely hate that change to the lightning staff that went from helping all her damage to only helping her HA.

Zodiarkslayer · September 2023

StamSorc has a lot of AoE.
Granted, it's mainly through weapon abilities, but that is the state of the Class.

mocap · September 2023

Familiar AoE
Curse AoE
Mines AoE
Storm/Hurricane AoE
Liquid Lightning AoE
Streak AoE
Suppression Field AoE
Charged Atronach AoE

Yeah, magsorc definitely have very little AoE skills. Need way more.

ZhuJiuyin · September 2023

Crystal Shard Single Target
Daedric Mines Single Target
Daedric Curse single target (explosion splash is low Area damage)
2 pets single target (Volatile Familiar's skill is low Area damage)
Bound Armaments Single Target
Mages' Wrath single target (for targets with 20% health, the effect is Area)
Lightning Form Area
Lightning Splash Area
Bolt Escape Area

statistics
7 Single Target: 3 Area

Unless the Area effect of the additional effect of the skill is also included, then:
7 single targets: 6 Area (including at least 2 low-damage AOE)

On ESO LOG, Sorc almost only uses Volatile Familiar's skill, Daedric Curse, and Lightning Form (and its transformation) as AOE means. In terms of DPS proportion, Sorc's AOE with the highest proportion is Wall of Elements (and its transformation).

Then let's look at other Classes in ESO LOG , Arcanists have The Languid Eye, Fatecarver, Abyssal Impact, The Imperfect Ring, 4 AOE from their own class, plus Wall of Elements is 5.

DK has Dragonknight Standard, Engulfing Flames, Flames of Oblivion, Burning Talons, Eruption, Engulfing Flames and many other common AOE in PVE.

Templar has Puncturing Sweep, Ritual of Retribution, Solar Barrage, Blazing Spear, at least 4 AOE from their own class.

Among the above-mentioned AOE, most of them are not like Curse, except for the main target, which only causes slight AOE damage, and it does not take time to grow like Hurricane.

So, yes. Sorc needs more practical AOE skills

mocap · September 2023

Sorc, DK and Templar have more or less same level of AoE. The rest is your own personal antipathy toward sorcs.
Also Prison, almost same as Talons since you mentioned that skill.

Sorc have:
2 AoE that are running with you
AoE execute (short radius, very powerful in the right hands)
1 classic ground AoE
Short radius burst AoE damage (Hunting Curse)
2 ults with AoE

What else do you need? Armageddon spell?

ZhuJiuyin · September 2023

mocap wrote: »

Sorc, DK and Templar have more or less same level of AoE. .

Is this some kind of hidden joke?
However, I believe that most people can simply move their fingers and get statistical data from ESO LOG.

Curse only deals half the AOE damage
Sorc does not use Daedric Tomb and Suppression Field in actual combat, and rarely uses Lightning Splash and Mages' Fury.
Hurricane needs time to grow
Summon Volatile Familiar's damage is probably only 5% of total DPS

Most of Sorc's AOE skills are impractical and require buffs to reach a reasonable level

mocap · September 2023

No one is talking about trifecta trials. Original post was:

Just wondering which aoe skills are the best to clear trash ads in open world and dungeons

for overland and dungeons sorcs AoE is more than enough. Especially since it gives a lot of burst damage, which is way more desire for low hp targets (i mean 32-64k).

- Liquid gives synergy proc.
- Storm/Hurricane gives aoe dot, Major Resolve and Expedition (3 stuff in 1 skill)
- Prey gives additional damage to pets (if nothing changed)
- any sorc skill give +2% wpd/spd
- Negate used in some dungeons and trials, don't know for sure though

To OP: best aoe for overland ads is Pulsar and Dark Convergence set.

mocap · September 2023

What sorc really lacks is single target dots. Sorc has 0 of them.

Galeriano · September 2023

mocap wrote: »

Familiar AoE
Curse AoE
Mines AoE
Storm/Hurricane AoE
Liquid Lightning AoE
Streak AoE
Suppression Field AoE
Charged Atronach AoE

Yeah, magsorc definitely have very little AoE skills. Need way more.

Ask Yourself how many of these skills are actually commonly utilised as AoE dmg abilities.

Familiar AoE - mediocre, only decent on target that have deadric prey applied but that is single target ability
Curse AoE - mediocre, curse exploding only once per 3,5 or 6 seconds makes it unreliable and low DPS
Mines AoE - it's not even true AoE, it's just few single target traps lying on the ground having a cooldown per target
Storm/Hurricane AoE - decent but forces the user to be full meele otherwise it's just mediocre or useless AoE
Liquid lightning - actually decent AoE
Streak AoE - mediocre or useless considering that ramping cost and teleportation of streak makes it unreliable as AoE dmg ability
Suppression field AoE - ok value but there are just better AoE dmg ultimates and You can only use one ultimate at a time
Charged atronach - actually decent AoE although long duration makes it weak for quicker fights since large portion of the DPS will be wasted so it's better to just use more DPS dense ultimate like destro ulti

Problem with sorc's AoE dmg is that most of them are added as secondary effects just to fill the gap and they don't truly serve the purpose of being AoE dmg abilities so while we can nitpick how many skills on sorc kit have some AoE dmg component realistically sorc kit have barely any usefull AoE dmg abilities.

katorga · September 2023

The class, and NB for that matter, is no comparison to something like Necro, where every single skill is AOE, or Arcanist where its primary dps abilities are all AOE. It is what it is, Sorc and NB are single target dps classes.

Turtle_Bot · September 2023

mocap wrote: »

Familiar AoE
Curse AoE
Mines AoE
Storm/Hurricane AoE
Liquid Lightning AoE
Streak AoE
Suppression Field AoE
Charged Atronach AoE

Yeah, magsorc definitely have very little AoE skills. Need way more.

Only 2 of those abilities mentioned here are worth running. Atro + hurricane (boundless storm is a horrible DoT ability, no sorc wanting to do decent damage runs it over hurricane).

To repeat what has been said already:

- Curse is ST for its main damage and its AoE is miniscule damage (1 DoT tick) and only hits on the 3.5 seconds and 12 seconds. Curse AoE damage is 1/4 that of hurricane, 1/2 that of liquid lightning
- Mines have not been a thing since the direct gutting the skill got in U35. It is atrociously expensive to cast, the mines themselves do ST damage and have a cooldown on hitting the same target.
- Boundless is horrible, its a 5m AoE (still only 5m even after the melee range got increased to 7m) generic DoT that's not worth running over hurricane. Hurricane is decent, but it forces a ranged class into melee and takes time to ramp into its true damage.
- Liquid lightning, is ok damage, if you include the synergy, but that is not usable when solo, not to mention the ability has a hidden cast time thanks to the animation on its cast.
- Streak is a gap creation/CC tool, its not designed to be an AoE dps ability and thanks to the ramping cost will never be possible to make it into one.
- Suppression field, this is a CC first and foremost, dps secondary which was only added to it because it was never being used (it still isn't worth running when atro exists).
- Atro is the only reliably strong AoE from your list. but the atro is mainly used for the group major berserk synergy over actual damage since weapon abilities such as DW ulti, destro ulti, meteor and DB are just better outside of the group major berserk.

So when it comes to usable AoE sorc does not have much, the key here being usable. As such, sorc relies entirely on weapon abilities to fulfil the AoE requirements the content design demands.

Its why the HA build was so popular on sorcerer. It finally gave sorcerer the cleave to match the other classes, but that got nerfed too.

As for sorc skills giving 2% damage, you do realise the globally available FG skills (including dawn breaker that also gives +300 weapon/spell damage) give 3% right?

Please don't mention prison, that skill is so horrendously bad, nobody runs it, even on support or fun builds.

Mages wrath has the lowest start point for execute scaling of ANY execute in the game at 20% threshold and above that threshold the damage it deals is purely ST and is barely more than a single DoT tick. it is a horrible ability for 80% of a fight and only becomes viable and AoE for the final 20% of the fight.

Pets are ST with only scamps secondary ability being AoE and its mediocre at that.

So no, sorc does not have plenty of AoE, and is definitely not "on par with the AoE available on DK and plar" which are leagues ahead of sorc in that.

Turtle_Bot · September 2023

katorga wrote: »

The class, and NB for that matter, is no comparison to something like Necro, where every single skill is AOE, or Arcanist where its primary dps abilities are all AOE. It is what it is, Sorc and NB are single target dps classes.

I wouldn't mind it so much if sorc and NB were leagues ahead of the other classes for single target dps and more content was designed around single target, zero adds dps, but considering the other classes are practically on par for single target dps and content is designed around having that cleave to clear out the adds while keeping dps on the boss, being forced into ST dps just doesn't work.

Turtle_Bot · September 2023

Galeriano wrote: »

mocap wrote: »

Familiar AoE
Curse AoE
Mines AoE
Storm/Hurricane AoE
Liquid Lightning AoE
Streak AoE
Suppression Field AoE
Charged Atronach AoE

Yeah, magsorc definitely have very little AoE skills. Need way more.

Problem with sorc's AoE dmg is that most of them are added as secondary effects just to fill the gap and they don't truly serve the purpose of being AoE dmg abilities so while we can nitpick how many skills on sorc kit have some AoE dmg component realistically sorc kit have barely any usefull AoE dmg abilities.

This, it's like the encounters team is designing content and the combat team is last minute panicking trying to tack on secondary AoE on the single target classes because all of the content was designed with AoE as a key component of the fight.

It would help a lot if they brought back the AoE frags sorc used to have. That allowed it to keep up better with the other classes for cleave, but that was deleted for crystal weapon (another delayed damage single target ability...)

SandandStars · September 2023

Did someone say Liquid Lightning?

😁

SandandStars · September 2023

😂

Quethrosar · September 2023

sorc aoe sucks based on class skills. the radius is too small and the damage is far to low to be useful in groups of mobs with 500k hp.
arcs just cut them down

mocap · September 2023

Yeah, overland mobs definitely have 500k hp.

Hotdog_23 · September 2023

U39 changes to lightning staff really hurt Sorcs. In my opinion that should have not gutted it completely but instead left at least 25% of the damage to help with AOE’s on the early ticks.

Plus, always thought Templars backlash and its morphs should have a small AOE effect to it and not only be solo.

Stay safe

Trejgon · September 2023

between hurricane, flood and elemental blockade, I would expect OP to have no issue with clearing overworld (and even non-vet dungeons) without much issue, unless "magsorc" OP is using is oakensorc which is a very specific build of magsorc, and if nobody bothered to update it after the cleave nerf then I dunno what to tell you....

Quethrosar · September 2023

mocap wrote: »

Yeah, overland mobs definitely have 500k hp.

i am talking about trials and vet stuff. I should be able burn them much faster like they do not exist. like a level 20 wizard.

Pelanora · September 2023

Just get a bow.

mocap · October 2023

I see only L2P issue here with sorc AoE skills. Learn how to use them. Yes, they maybe not good in trifecta trials, but in any other content they are more than ok.