Playing a pure sorc in a subclass assasination crit meta

aLi3nZ · February 11

Who else is keeping pure? Whatever class you are playing. I really tried to like playing assasination, storm calling arcanist but I just don’t enjoy using those skills. But yes my penetration, critical chance, critical damage and spell damage all go up if I subclasss to those skill lines. But I just can’t do it. The skills are not fun for me.

Sure spec bow hits hard but it takes much longer to proc then crystal frags. Besides crystal frags almost hits just as hard anyway. The only thing missing is the spell critical buff from spec bow. It would help if Zos could add that to frags to make sorc dark magic more competitive. I also love the defensive rune stun lock under dark magic. Underrated.

Giving up hardened ward is a tough ask so that deadric skill line stays for now. Although I had some success using ulfrucs contingency in place of ward. What are other people using in its place when playing magika build? Or should I just run vigor and call it a day?

I compared my stats between pure sorc and subclassed herald of the tomb, assasination and storm calling and In the end I lose out on critical damage buff and around 30% of crit chance from assassination skill lines. As well as an around 4000 penetration and a spell damage buff of 300 from herald of the tomb arcanist skill line. That is massive so I 100% understand why everyone flocked to those skill lines. But so be it.

I am running master staff for 703 spell damage, clever alchemist for health and spell damage, gaze of sythis mythic for defence, crafty for max mag to get me to 50k+. Spell crit and penetration is low as I can’t fit mage light but at least my main spammable is shocking soul with major breach built in.

Screen cap is self buffs only. This build has great sustain and is tanky. Due to heavy head, chest, feet pieces. Medium shoulders. Light belt and hands. This is for no cp PvP play.

MincMincMinc · February 11

Crystal frags and spec bow are not even a close call sadly. IMO the 5s merciless is about equal to the 33% chance to get a proc and then line up an actual combo. Sometimes I would even say it takes longer to do the crystal frags combo.

After the 33% crystal frags has a 1.49 dmg per WD coefficient
Merciless has a guaranteed every 5s 2.15 coefficient (roughly 44% more damage! and on a guaranteed and STACKABLE buff)

Merciless triggers
+ major/minor crit buffs
+10% crit damage
+2.5% critchance
+6.6% critchance when flanking

Dark magic
+ minor crit buff
+ 6% cost reduction (in a meta where zos has doubled regen sources trivializing the need for sustain)
+ 18% cost reduction after blocking
+ 1k heal

Its just so hard to justify dark magic by comparison. Honestly dark magic is mostly fine. I would probably swap the 6% sustain buff for one of the stormcalling damage buffs if anything. Again the only other primary skill used in darkmagic is dark converge or the for some reason lesser version darkdeal......but in today's meta zos doubled regen so people would hybridize so sustain tools are kinda unnecessary.

EDIT: I am not even gonna bother comparing whether you should run daedric or not. It was the quickest dropped skill line for animal. Hardened is useless now and curse is just a worse version of deep fissure in every aspect.

aLi3nZ · February 11

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Crystal frags and spec bow are not even a close call sadly. IMO the 5s merciless is about equal to the 33% chance to get a proc and then line up an actual combo. Sometimes I would even say it takes longer to do the crystal frags combo.

After the 33% crystal frags has a 1.49 dmg per WD coefficient
Merciless has a guaranteed every 5s 2.15 coefficient (roughly 44% more damage! and on a guaranteed and STACKABLE buff)

Merciless triggers
+ major/minor crit buffs
+10% crit damage
+2.5% critchance
+6.6% critchance when flanking

Dark magic
+ minor crit buff
+ 6% cost reduction (in a meta where zos has doubled regen sources trivializing the need for sustain)
+ 18% cost reduction after blocking
+ 1k heal

Its just so hard to justify dark magic by comparison. Honestly dark magic is mostly fine. I would probably swap the 6% sustain buff for one of the stormcalling damage buffs if anything. Again the only other primary skill used in darkmagic is dark converge or the for some reason lesser version darkdeal......but in today's meta zos doubled regen so people would hybridize so sustain tools are kinda unnecessary.

EDIT: I am not even gonna bother comparing whether you should run daedric or not. It was the quickest dropped skill line for animal. Hardened is useless now and curse is just a worse version of deep fissure in every aspect.

Thanks for the feedback and info there. I just wonder what would be good to replace hardened ward with?

AcadianPaladin · February 11

When subclassing went live, first thing I did was give my sorc Animal Companions so I could finally be rid of annoying Flappie and ugly Purple Monkey and have a Bear! WooHoo!

albertberku · February 11

Well i have always been a max magicka magsorc main and i can tell you confidently that it is not possible to play it currently. The main problem is that with the introduction of subclassing meta has become 40k hp and high damage/crit builds. That build has just enough hp to not get oneshotted and enough crit and damage to heal to the full health when under pressure. Since you can also heal through block makes it even more meta. So this playstyle got a huge boost, when shields didnt change a bit. Biggest shield you will get is 14 - 15k and currently bursts are easily 30k+. Shields are getting melted.

And you used to be able to overrun anyone that are not playing magsorc. Currently having high mov speed and 3 streaks + spam projectiles + 3 streaks + ... playstyle can easily keep up with you. In an offensive way though pure magsorc is still in a good spot mainly due to the added burst from Daedric Summoning line.

So in conclusion, open world is really hard for max magicka magsorc. My current build is more a meme build. I am running max magicka with Esometric Greaves, Storm Calling + Curative Runeforms + Shadow with Vamp lvl 4 and Elemental Explosion as main spammable, where i just annoy groups and sweaties just by not dying to them with my 25k hp and running away until i can mount again. It is a lot of fun Cyrodiil and it kinda resembles the same old magsorc gameplay, but with the recent updates ESO PvP is nothing to be taken serious atm sadly. And i am maybe online once or twice for couple hours every month. I used to play 3-4 times a week, not anymore.

aLi3nZ · February 11

albertberku wrote: »

Well i have always been a max magicka magsorc main and i can tell you confidently that it is not possible to play it currently. The main problem is that with the introduction of subclassing meta has become 40k hp and high damage/crit builds. That build has just enough hp to not get oneshotted and enough crit and damage to heal to the full health when under pressure. Since you can also heal through block makes it even more meta. So this playstyle got a huge boost, when shields didnt change a bit. Biggest shield you will get is 14 - 15k and currently bursts are easily 30k+. Shields are getting melted.

And you used to be able to overrun anyone that are not playing magsorc. Currently having high mov speed and 3 streaks + spam projectiles + 3 streaks + ... playstyle can easily keep up with you. In an offensive way though pure magsorc is still in a good spot mainly due to the added burst from Daedric Summoning line.

So in conclusion, open world is really hard for max magicka magsorc. My current build is more a meme build. I am running max magicka with Esometric Greaves, Storm Calling + Curative Runeforms + Shadow with Vamp lvl 4 and Elemental Explosion as main spammable, where i just annoy groups and sweaties just by not dying to them with my 25k hp and running away until i can mount again. It is a lot of fun Cyrodiil and it kinda resembles the same old magsorc gameplay, but with the recent updates ESO PvP is nothing to be taken serious atm sadly. And i am maybe online once or twice for couple hours every month. I used to play 3-4 times a week, not anymore.

Interesting build - that mythic is interesting - never heard of it. How can you run it in cyrodil without running out of stamina?

aLi3nZ · February 11

I am going to try out animal companions and give shadow a go as well.

BlackLabel · February 12

At first glance your stats are solid, and then we get to the penetration, crit, and health. These are waaay too low for today’s cyrodiil. You need to be aiming for 12k minimum penetration with major breach included, and 40%+ crit. ~30k health. You have such high damage, but none of it penetrating…

I have been having a ton of success running daedric, storm calling, and assassin. Play it just like OG sorc. Make sure you have 2500+ magicka regen (due to no dark deal). Run hardened or regen ward front bar, dampen magic (5light armor) and healing ward shields on back bar.
The 5 light armor will give you the pen, crit, and sustain, you will have the tankyness from rotating the 3 shields. And then line up your burst just as you would with Og sorc, but with merciless instead of frags.
Your weapon damage is too high as well, and you’re sacrificing other stats for it. Aim for ~4500W/SD when buffed within your burst window. 40-45k max magicka should do.

Rally, wretched, chudan, 1 trainee, and DDF. Will give you the max stats, sustain, extra armor, w/sd, and health. You need access to at least +45% movement speed (minor and major expedition). This will allow you to disengage and give you maneuverability when fighting. Using race against time on the back bar is a must. Get the minor expedition through hurricane, or 2 swift jewelry.

Also why is your health regen so high? May be also leeching from other stats that could be improved upon.

Last and most important. You should dictate your fighting terms at all times. You are not running meta, so don’t think you can do what they do. Pick and choose who you fight and where. I follow these rules at all times.

1) never fight open field. You should always have an obstacle streaking distance away to be able to kite when you get bursted and/or need to recover.
2) I avoid fighting anyone I see running hurricane and a netch (which is unfortunately 70% of cyro). They simply are running an OP broken Meta setup and can tank 5+ players and still have max sustain + burst. Don’t even bother unless they are sitting below 30K max health. Then you may have a chance if you catch em with a perfect burst.

If you DM me I do have a couple solid builds I can throw your way if you’re interested. And can tweak as needed to your play style.

Aces-High-82 · February 12

aLi3nZ wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Crystal frags and spec bow are not even a close call sadly. IMO the 5s merciless is about equal to the 33% chance to get a proc and then line up an actual combo. Sometimes I would even say it takes longer to do the crystal frags combo.

After the 33% crystal frags has a 1.49 dmg per WD coefficient
Merciless has a guaranteed every 5s 2.15 coefficient (roughly 44% more damage! and on a guaranteed and STACKABLE buff)

Merciless triggers
+ major/minor crit buffs
+10% crit damage
+2.5% critchance
+6.6% critchance when flanking

Dark magic
+ minor crit buff
+ 6% cost reduction (in a meta where zos has doubled regen sources trivializing the need for sustain)
+ 18% cost reduction after blocking
+ 1k heal

Its just so hard to justify dark magic by comparison. Honestly dark magic is mostly fine. I would probably swap the 6% sustain buff for one of the stormcalling damage buffs if anything. Again the only other primary skill used in darkmagic is dark converge or the for some reason lesser version darkdeal......but in today's meta zos doubled regen so people would hybridize so sustain tools are kinda unnecessary.uu

EDIT: I am not even gonna bother comparing whether you should run daedric or not. It was the quickest dropped skill line for animal. Hardened is useless now and curse is just a worse version of deep fissure in every aspect.

Thanks for the feedback and info there. I just wonder what would be good to replace hardened ward with?

You can run Magsorc but instead stacking Mag you do spell damage. You run healing soul and vigor like almost anybody else.

MincMincMinc · February 12

Another problem magsorc faces is just that max stats are not the way to build damage anymore. Zos has continued to push only % sources so heavily that those sources have power crept in efficiency compared to max stat sets while also growing in the number of available sources. Its at the point where your entire build should hinge on % sources as much as possible. Example being how healing soul major vitality equates to roughly 1k wd worth of healing tooltip on vigor...... so arguably building sustain to keep pumping the uptime of healing soul does more for you than trying to get an out of date stat like WD or max stat.

You can say that "max stat works for damage and your shield(heal) too. Sure but very inefficiently, not to mention you have heals that dont scale on your wd/mag stats like critsurge or other passives like blood magic......but the power crept % sources do.

If you do some testing on meta build setups to top it off you will find how inefficient max stats are too. For instance the stam, wd, and pen mundus all follow the standard set bonus proportions. If you swap between them in testing you will find that the max stam mundus does about 33% less damage than the WD mundus. You will find that the pen does roughly 50% more than the WD mundus..........People always quote that 1wd=10.5mag however this is not correct because this conversion is for POST BUFF stats and not 5 piece bonus prebuff stats. In reality prebuff it is more like 1wd=12.5mag if you want to compare 5 piece bonus value wise. So if a 1 piece WD bonus = 129 then a 1096 mag bonus will feel like 88wd by comparison PLUS the benefit of having larger pools to sustain with. So you are losing basically 41wd per line for the sake of capacity sustain and shield scaling.

albertberku · February 12

aLi3nZ wrote: »

that mythic is interesting - never heard of it. How can you run it in cyrodil without running out of stamina?

You would think it is impossible to sustain it but in real world fights you actually dont get hit that many times if you are not constantly getting hit something like jabs etc. Around 2.2k stam regen is enough to sustain it, i am running wretched vitality backbar and tristat pots. All three skill lines i mentioned have regen passives as well. But as i said it is a meme build so dont really expect real fights with that kind of build. But i feel like Esometric Greaves is essential for my MagSorc, since currently a standard death recap looks like this: Subt. Assault - 8k, Sliver Assault - 10k, Dawnbreaker - 10k, Merciless Resolve - 10k, Overload - 6k. And this is with Esometric Greaves on. With Magsorc and shield build, you barely survive that kind of standard burst (that can also come from someone else coming behind without you noticing) if you are fully shielded and have 50% dmg reduction of Esometric Greaves.

Best part of max magicka magsorc with Esometric Greaves is just chilling near a wannabe sweaty while they are going crazy trying to kill you and you just spam 13k shield on top of your 25k hp doing nothing else. Or laughing at failed gank attempts. They just look at 25k hp and getting more and more frustrated about how they cant burst it down, while you are just standing near them. Some better players can still burst combined 40k hp regardless damage reduction though, that is how broken current bursts are.

As i said this build and mythic is just good at trolling and it is a lot of fun tbh, but dont expect any real fights with them. But it keeps me alive in Cyrodiil as max magicka sorcerer, which is not an easy task nowadays.

aLi3nZ · February 13

BlackLabel wrote: »

At first glance your stats are solid, and then we get to the penetration, crit, and health. These are waaay too low for today’s cyrodiil. You need to be aiming for 12k minimum penetration with major breach included, and 40%+ crit. ~30k health. You have such high damage, but none of it penetrating…

I have been having a ton of success running daedric, storm calling, and assassin. Play it just like OG sorc. Make sure you have 2500+ magicka regen (due to no dark deal). Run hardened or regen ward front bar, dampen magic (5light armor) and healing ward shields on back bar.
The 5 light armor will give you the pen, crit, and sustain, you will have the tankyness from rotating the 3 shields. And then line up your burst just as you would with Og sorc, but with merciless instead of frags.
Your weapon damage is too high as well, and you’re sacrificing other stats for it. Aim for ~4500W/SD when buffed within your burst window. 40-45k max magicka should do.

Rally, wretched, chudan, 1 trainee, and DDF. Will give you the max stats, sustain, extra armor, w/sd, and health. You need access to at least +45% movement speed (minor and major expedition). This will allow you to disengage and give you maneuverability when fighting. Using race against time on the back bar is a must. Get the minor expedition through hurricane, or 2 swift jewelry.

Also why is your health regen so high? May be also leeching from other stats that could be improved upon.

Last and most important. You should dictate your fighting terms at all times. You are not running meta, so don’t think you can do what they do. Pick and choose who you fight and where. I follow these rules at all times.

1) never fight open field. You should always have an obstacle streaking distance away to be able to kite when you get bursted and/or need to recover.
2) I avoid fighting anyone I see running hurricane and a netch (which is unfortunately 70% of cyro). They simply are running an OP broken Meta setup and can tank 5+ players and still have max sustain + burst. Don't even bother unless they are sitting below 30K max health. Then you may have a chance if you catch em with a perfect burst.

If you DM me I do have a couple solid builds I can throw your way if you’re interested. And can tweak as needed to your play style.

Hey There, I will DM you as well. But thanks for this info.

I experimented more and found I didn't like shadow and animal companion skill lines and I am currently trying a different build that I havent seen around much and is a lot of fun to play for me. I already used some of your advice.

This is my current stats:

Above 4500 SD
Above 40k Magika
50+ Crit Chance
Using 2 Trainee
Mag Regen Is plenty
I have Minor and Major Expedition for Kiting along with Bolt Escape which works well for getting away from multiple players

Now the reason this is fresh and fun to play for me is because I have managed to put together a build where I am using both Crystal Frags and Merciless Resolve on my front bar. With Heals primarily coming from Ulfrics Contingency and crit surge.

Assassin, Dark Magic and Storm Calling.

And its tanky AF. I am wearing Light Shoulders, belt, Hands, Feet, Heavy Head Mythic and Heavy Chest, Medium Legs for Undaunted passives.

2x Trainee
5x Clever Alchamist back bar
5x Aetherial Ascension
1x Monster Shoulders, currently with Mag regen
1x GaZe of sythis mythic

BlackLabel · February 13

^^ This looks like a pretty fun build. I haven’t thought about running Frags and merciless together. burst sounds insane.

My favorite build that I have been running for
~6 six months now is a max speed cap sorcerer with high burst and triple shield stacks. I’m at 200% speed cap without needing to sprint so I can fire off skills while being the fastest in cyro by far. Being able to shield stack and jump in and out with times burst has been a blast. Mobility is the defense since one can’t even target me… And it’s a unique build that no one else is running.

aLi3nZ · February 13

BlackLabel wrote: »

^^ This looks like a pretty fun build. I haven’t thought about running Frags and merciless together. burst sounds insane.

My favorite build that I have been running for
~6 six months now is a max speed cap sorcerer with high burst and triple shield stacks. I’m at 200% speed cap without needing to sprint so I can fire off skills while being the fastest in cyro by far. Being able to shield stack and jump in and out with times burst has been a blast. Mobility is the defense since one can’t even target me… And it’s a unique build that no one else is running.

that sounds super fun. What sets are you wearing and what skills on your bsr

Overamera · February 13

Tbh pure max magicka sorcerer died out when hybrid came out. Crit damage became too powerful and even more powerful now, pure magsorcs are just flies to anyone with high crit damage.

albertberku · February 13

BlackLabel wrote: »

My favorite build that I have been running for
~6 six months now is a max speed cap sorcerer with high burst and triple shield stacks. I’m at 200% speed cap without needing to sprint so I can fire off skills while being the fastest in cyro by far. Being able to shield stack and jump in and out with times burst has been a blast. Mobility is the defense since one can’t even target me… And it’s a unique build that no one else is running.

I used to run a very similar build. The main problem with that kind of build is that you are not going to overrun mounted players. And usually if i am getting chased by a group of sweaties they take turns some of them waiting behind to be mounted again and directly come riding at me while others chasing me with projectiles. But this is of course not happening very often since coordinated sweaty groups are not that many. But i like being alive as much as possible.

For that reason i added Shadow and Vamp lvl 4 on top of that kind of playstyle to be able to vanish while having some distance directly when i see the chase is going to happen by that kind of group. Because only chance against them is to vanish as soon as possible when you made some distance in the beginning, right before their mounted friends start to come at your direction. And for this Shadow only is not enough, since Cloak doesnt let you go very far away, but vamp lvl 4 invisibility does. You have to keep a distance more than the distance of detect pot all the time while running away while simply diverting so that they wont know anymore which direction to go. If you dont use any invisibility at all they are going to keep up with you regardless how fast you are due to the fact that their friends can mount but you cant.

Now we could argue that this could also happen before subclassing, but the difference is that now shield magsorc playstyle lost so many competitive power against other builds, before it was much easier to kite or even fight against a single player briefly when you were getting chased by a decent group. But now even brief 1v1s during chasing may cause some proper ressource lost or damage when engaged, and it is more than enough for their friends to join. Also when considering these kind of groups always run the most meta build in every patch and the fact that this patch meta is god level.

BlackLabel · February 13

albertberku wrote: »

BlackLabel wrote: »

My favorite build that I have been running for
~6 six months now is a max speed cap sorcerer with high burst and triple shield stacks. I’m at 200% speed cap without needing to sprint so I can fire off skills while being the fastest in cyro by far. Being able to shield stack and jump in and out with times burst has been a blast. Mobility is the defense since one can’t even target me… And it’s a unique build that no one else is running.

I used to run a very similar build. The main problem with that kind of build is that you are not going to overrun mounted players. And usually if i am getting chased by a group of sweaties they take turns some of them waiting behind to be mounted again and directly come riding at me while others chasing me with projectiles. But this is of course not happening very often since coordinated sweaty groups are not that many. But i like being alive as much as possible.

For that reason i added Shadow and Vamp lvl 4 on top of that kind of playstyle to be able to vanish while having some distance directly when i see the chase is going to happen by that kind of group. Because only chance against them is to vanish as soon as possible when you made some distance in the beginning, right before their mounted friends start to come at your direction. And for this Shadow only is not enough, since Cloak doesnt let you go very far away, but vamp lvl 4 invisibility does. You have to keep a distance more than the distance of detect pot all the time while running away while simply diverting so that they wont know anymore which direction to go. If you dont use any invisibility at all they are going to keep up with you regardless how fast you are due to the fact that their friends can mount but you cant.

Now we could argue that this could also happen before subclassing, but the difference is that now shield magsorc playstyle lost so many competitive power against other builds, before it was much easier to kite or even fight against a single player briefly when you were getting chased by a decent group. But now even brief 1v1s during chasing may cause some proper ressource lost or damage when engaged, and it is more than enough for their friends to join. Also when considering these kind of groups always run the most meta build in every patch and the fact that this patch meta is god level.

that's when you hit them with the ol jump down a cliff, keep wall, etc. and count to 3.5 seconds then use the undo ultimate. it's rare people ever catch up to me solo or small group, and if they do, I have a contingency plan. They can look up and watch their slow friend who didn't jump down get nuked in a 1v1 and then I vanish.

albertberku · February 13

Well the people i am dealing with they actually wait 3.5 seconds without jumping from any cliff for this exact same reason. I love the shade skill for that reason, it is the same easy escape with a generous 20 seconds availability. Nevertheless i am not going to nuke them on 1v1 on pure magsorc, certainly not in seconds so that i can vanish afterwards. They usually have Null Arca + 3 damage skill lines + 40k hp builds, some of them break LoS constantly with their blastbones if they have that skill line slotted. But all is probably because i am trolling same sweaty groups again and again, not really normal random gameplay xD