Sorcerer with heavy armour?

ShaunW50 · April 2014

So I'm level 37 now and I was wondering. The light armour skill line increases your magicka when you wear light armour, but is it worth it. If I wear heavy armour will I notice a difference in my magicka by a huge amount?

Sorpaijen_ESO · April 2014

I think the first tier of one of the passives is like 1% cost reduction in spells per piece of Light Armor... not sure if you can purchase MORE tiers of that passive, but I think you CAN. Even if you can't, wearing 5 pieces of Light Armor would give you a 5% cost reduction.

Another Light Armor passive gives you magicka regen (I think 2% per piece)... for a 10% regen boost at base skill rank.

In short, wearing Light Armor WILL give you more magicka... but whether it's a "huge" amount remains to be seen.

I have read that with the Armor Caps, though, Heavy Armor ends up "wasting" some armor value... so you might be able to get ~close enough~ to the soft armor cap with Light Armor and just a few pieces of Heavy.

flintstone · April 2014

I'm level 38 sorcerer and I am heavy armor.....works great for me. My points are spread around at about 11-12 each magic, health, stamina and regin rate is high in each. I prefer my bow and my bar is split between magic/stamina skills.

bantad87 · April 2014

If you want to be a dps caster, you absolutely MUST wear light armor. The spell cost reduction adds up to 21%, the magicka regen is either 21 or 28% (cant remember); additionally, you gain spell resist penetration (I believe its 42%), which is absolutely huge. You should only wear heavy armor if you plan to tank.

Mataata · April 2014

It work surprisingly well. My last beta character was a heavy armor sorc and I rather enjoyed it. I'd recommend using the Stormcalling skill tree with it if you plan to use melee as well.

dkrleza · April 2014

If you want to be a proper Battlemage, then you need to consider switching between range and melee. You start with range spells and when you spend your magicka, you leap to your opponent and start melee. Idea is to switch between range and melee all the time. Or at least to be ready to fight both styles.

This way you can wear both, heavy with stamina regen and light with magicka regen.

And yes, stormcalling is good for this combination.

zgrssd · April 2014

ShaunW50 wrote: »

So I'm level 37 now and I was wondering. The light armour skill line increases your magicka when you wear light armour, but is it worth it. If I wear heavy armour will I notice a difference in my magicka by a huge amount?

Class does not imply role. Every class can play every role - there might be better synergy between some classes & roles as there is with some roles & races, but you can as easily make a Tank Sorc as a Dragonknight Healer.

The basic rules are:
If you go heavy on class, mages guild, undaunted or Destro/Resto Staff tree, Light armor is your goal (you need magicka).
If you go on any other weapon and fighter guild skills or use stealth*, Medium armor should be your goal (Stamina Cost, low dodge cost, good stealth).
Shield is what you need for Tank. In theory heavy armor is what the tank needs too, but right now it is rather easy to run into the softcaps. Of course if you hit the softcap with passives alone, it means you don't need any active ability to boost armor (one more slot free) and don't need to invest traits/setbonus into improoved armor (traits can be other usefull stuff). Tanks also need mediocre amounts of stamina for blocking and interrupting.

*if you want to use stealth heavy, use Nightblade Shadow tree. The first 2 are very important.

Aside from those basics, you can build whatever you want. I heard that it is very common to mix armors late game (5 of your primary line for the one set passive) as the softcap would waste most of that armor anyway.

poodlemasterb16_ESO · April 2014

I'm running 5 light and 2 heavy on my Altmer Witch and 4 light and 3 heavy on my 2 more tanky Sorcs.

Works well. You can put points into both and go full either anytime you want.

huntgod_ESO · May 2014

Mix it up, wear 5light and 2 heavy (i use BP - max ac and boots), you get the majority of the benefit of light and still get some protection from heavy.

I only wear that for tanking though, with my shield, I will swap back to light when not tanking.