Category Archives: Combat

Magicka Sorcerer – Abilities and Skill Lines [Part 4]

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You know your rotation, you’re weaving, have the basics down and you even have some pretty decent gear – but what else should you be leveling and why are you using these abilities? Let’s find out!

I’ll go through each section of abilities and split everything into a few categories. Must have, good and icing on the cake. Obviously focus on using skill points on the must have abilities and passives first, and as you get spare skill points – add some icing on the cake. The order things are listed within their category isn’t important – I mostly just went through them in the order they are in the game.

Class Abilities

Class abilities are definitely important to unlock and use! Which ones should you focus on early, and what passives are actually important?

Dark Magic

Dark Magic is a bit of an odd skill line. You don’t want many of the active skills, but the passives are great so you definitely want to level it up all the way!

Must Have

Crystal Shard > Crystal Fragments – This is a bread and butter skill of magicka sorcs. For beginners it may be best to avoid this skill as it messes up an otherwise static rotation, but it holds a big punch and allows the passives of this skill line to get unlocked and levelled. 

Unholy Knowledge – This passive directly helps with sustain, and does not require a skill from the skill line to be slotted.

Good to Have

Blood Magic – This passive only comes into use when using one of the abilities in this skill line. If you are using Crystal Fragments you definitely want this skill, but if you’re not – you can pass it over for now.

Exploitation – This passive does require you use a skill from this skill line, but it’s great as it’s the only source of Minor Prophecy other than poisons – which are generally not used in PvE. This not only gives you the Minor Prophecy buff – it also gives it to your allies!

Icing on the Cake

Persistance – This allows an ability to cost less after blocking. In group content you don’t do a ton of blocking so it’s an okay passive for DPS.

Daedric Summoning

This skill line is obviously focused on pet sorcs. My recommendations here are from a non-pet sorc point of view.

Must have

Daedric Curse > Haunting Curse – This is a must have skill for magicka DPS sorcerers in ESO! It’s a bit of an odd skill, containing both single target and AoE damage. It’s also not a DoT – but it takes time for the damage to be fully done. 

Bound Armor > Bound Aegis – This skill is an active skill – but you use it only for it’s passives. This will give you both your minor resistance buffs, ensure the Daedric Protection passive is active and give you 8% extra magicka! Since a lot of your damage scales from how much magicka you have, this is a big buff that shouldn’t be ignored!

Daedric Protection – This passive increases your recovery (by 20%!!) while an active ability from this skill line is slotted. It’s definitely a huge help in sustain!

Good to Have

Conjured Ward – This is a class shield that is a fantastic option to have. You have choose a morph that allows for a larger shield that the light armor skill version, or one that helps with sustain! 

Power Stone – This passive decreases the cost of your ultimate by 15%! That applies to any ultimate, not just sorcerer ones.

Storm Calling

This is where most of the lightning comes from in the Elder Scrolls Online Sorcerer class! We’ll make use of quite a lot of these abilities!

Must Have

Mage’s Fury – This is your execute! Although some builds do offer rotations without your class execute, this skill is important to unlock and level so you have it available if you do need it! One morph does more damage which is normally preferred, but if you tend to do overland content where there are lots of groups of mobs – the recovery morph is decent as well.

Lightning Splash > Liquid Lightning – This is one of your bread and butter skills – this being a DoT (damage over time!).  You want the Liquid Lightning morph so it matches up nicely with your wall of elements DoT, and gives more room for other skills while it runs. 

Capacitor – This passive increase recovery. I know it seems odd we have so many things to help with sustain, but I promise you – you will appreciate all of them!

Implosion – This is like a built in passive execute! As you will always be using Liquid Lightning – this passive always has a good chance to proc on low health mobs!

Expert Mage – This increases your spell damage by 2% for each sorcerer class ability slotted – not just the ones from the storm calling skill line. After all those recovery passives – we want to do great damage too!

Good to Have

Surge > Power Surge – This is a great skill to use during normal dungeon or out in the overland where you do not want to use expensive crafted potions – but still want the benefits of the Major Sorcery buff. This also has a heal that is good enough to be my only heal in VMA! Having a constant small heal up can be a huge help – especially when venturing solo!

Energized – This passive becomes more important if you use a lightning staff. This increases the damage you do with any shock abilities! 

Icing on the Cake

Lightning Form > Boundless Storm – This ability is great for shock themed builds, gives you both major resistance buffs and gives a short speed buff! This is a very fun and useful skill to use when you are venturing solo, as it does damage to enemies all around you and makes you a bit tougher to kill!

Weapon

The only weapon you will be using is destruction staves.

Destruction Staff

All this applies whether you use 2 inferno staves, or 1 inferno and 1 lightning staff.

Must Have

Force Shock > Crushing Shock – I can’t stress enough how much more utility Crushing Shock has than Force Pulse. So many times (especially in trials) it’s extremely useful for DPS to have a ranged interrupt – and what better than it to be your spammable! This ability hits enemies 3 times with one click of the button!

Wall of Elements > Elemental Blockade – This is a bread and butter skill for all magicka DPS in ESO – whether you are a sorcerer or not. You do want the longer lasting morph to simplify your rotation and allow other skills to be used while this runs. 

Penetrating Magic – This passive is like a secret boost to your spell penetration – but only works with your destruction staff abilities. 

Elemental Force – This increases the chance of you applying very useful secondary effects such as burning – which add more free damage!

Ancient Knowledge – This is the reason it’s important your spammable/front bar is an inferno staff! This passive makes whatever staff is currently equipped the one that makes a change. While on your lightning staff back bar – your AoE’s (like elemental blockade) are doing more damage, but once you swap to the front (fire) bar – elemental blockade is no longer doing extra damage – but crushing shock is!

Good to Have

Weakness to the Elements > Elemental Drain – You honestly won’t really use this in battle, but it’s an important skill to have unlocked if you like to practice your rotation or test your dps on a target dummy while solo.

Tri Focus – This makes your fire heavy attacks do more damage, and adds that cool splash damage to lightning staff heavy attacks!

Destruction Expert – Remember how I keep saying sustain? Yes, this is another passive to help it.

Armor

Light Armor

You’re wearing 5 pieces of light armor, so pretty much everything is important – but I’ll still let you know what is most important!

Must Have

Annulment > Harness Magicka – This shield is available to anyone wearing at least 5 pieces of light armor, but is incredibly useful. I prefer to take harness magicka here with helps with sustain, and when I need a shield where there is no incoming magicka damage – I used hardened ward for a larger shield! This allows a large shield and a sustain shield being available to you without respeccing any skills.

Evocation – Sustain sustain sustain.

Prodigy – This increases your spell critical rating, which means your spell will crit more often!

Concentration – Increases your spell penetration! Especially important when playing solo!

Nice to Have

Spell Warding- This allows you to be slightly more resilient again magicka attacks.

Icing on the Cake

Grace – This is probably more useful in PvP, but snare reduction and cheaper sprint is nice to have!

Medium Armor

You’re wearing one piece of it, so might as well take advantage! There are no must have’s in this section though!

Good to Have

Athletics – The main reason I list this as good to have is the reduction in roll dodge cost. As a magicka DPS character, you have not invested anything into stamina – so the amount you can roll dodge is pretty limited.

Icing on the Cake

Wind Walker – This is definitely an ‘icing on the cake’ type of passive. Normally percentage bonuses are amazing – but due to our limited stamina recovery this doesn’t do anything huge – but could make a difference in you being able to do that live saving roll dodge or block!

Improved Sneak – There is exactly 1 dungeon in the entire game that this will prove useful in a combat type situation, but it’s nice to have for completing some of the sneakier DLC and quests.

Heavy Armor

Oddly, the heavy armor skill line has a few passives that will definitely help you out – even though you are only wearing one piece of it!

Must Have

Juggernaut – If you get any odd passive – make it this one. This passive increases your max health by 2% per piece of heavy armor warn, that means for you – 2%. This sound small, but when we want enough health to survive but don’t want to give up glyphs that would otherwise be magicka – this passive can make that difference!

Constitution – I struggled with whether this should be must have or good to have. It’s not as important as Juggernaut, but is definitely more inmportant than resolve! Health recovery isn’t something we put into anywheres else, and it can take us off the edge of death while we resurrect our healer, plus has a small sustain bonus built in!

Icing on the Cake

Resolve – This passive makes us a bit less squishy! 

Guild

Fighters Guild

Don’t worry about focusing on levelling this skill line up, just unlock the skill line by joining the fighters guild – and this skill line will level up naturally as you play!

Good to Have

Banish the Wicked – Every time you kill an undead – you gain some ultimate! There is a lot of undead in this game, especially in dungeons so it really helps build ultimate up faster!

Mages Guild

Must Have

Meteor – I’ll let you pick the morph you choose, but this is often put on a bar to benefit from the mages guild passives rather than to be used. The ultimate definitely it useful though!

Inner Light – This not only makes sure you benefit from Mage’s Guild passives, but also increase your magicka by 5%!

Magicka Controller – This passive is active on any bar you have a mages guild ability slotted. This increases your max magicka by 2% and increase your magicka regeneration by 2% Definitely a big help!

Icing on the Cake

Mage Adept – As per my 30 second testing on the PTS – this passive does not actually change the cost of meteor and it’s morphs. You may actually wonder why I bring it up at all. At some point – you will accidentally press that inner light button and swear to yourself for how much magicka it just consumed. At least acccidentally pressing it now won’t consume at much. 

Undaunted

You level up undaunted by completing group dungeons and group dungeon achievements! You also can level it up by going pledges and daily undaunted quests!

Must Have

Undaunted Mettle – This passive is practically the entire reason we are wearing 5-1-1 armor weights. It helps all of your stats, just grind it out and get it.

Nice to Have

Undaunted Command – Once you play at a higher level, you’re going to be hoping to be seeing orb or shard synergies to synergize on cooldown to help you sustain. This will help those synergies help your sustain even more!

Racial Skills

If they say something about magicka, or spell something – get it. It’s important. 

Crafting

It’s surprising that you’ll appreciate leveling crafts on your main DPS character as well. I didn’t split the crafts up since there are so few skills though.

Must Have

Alchemy – Medicinal Use – This makes your potion effects last longer. On a standard Spell Power potion that is crafted – the effects of the potion will actually outlast the cooldown – therefore allowing 100% uptime! 

Nice to Have

Provisioning – Gourmand/Connoisseur – Which one of these passives is more important to you depends on if you use a food or drink. It’s nice to be able to have your buff food/drink last longer!

Why would I…

Here’s some skills that you are super confused as to why I suggest you level them – but they might actually come in handy some day and you will be glad you leveled them up! These are definitely not as important as what’s listed above.

Alliance War – Purge > Efficient Purge – A few different dungeons and trials have effects that you want to purge (or in some cases – absolutely must) and it’s great for some DPS to have it on their bar too!

Fighters Guild – Silver Bolts > Silver Leash – In a very very limited set of cases, it’s handy for DPS to be able to pull adds in because the tank just can’t. Your group will thank you.

Video

Magicka Sorcerer DPS School Part 4 - Skills - Elder Scrolls Online PvE Guide

Are there any skills or passives you feel deserved to be on this list but wasn’t? Let me know in the comments below!

Magicka Sorcerer – What to Wear – Gear [Part 3]

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You’ve got a sorc and have been practicing a rotation.. but what are you wearing? In this guide I’ll cover not only specific sets for Magicka Sorcerer DPS in Elder Scrolls Online, but basic gear guides for any DPS in ESO.

I will be covering some basic gear tips and explanations before we talk about any sets at all. If videos are your preferrred content delivery method, check out this guide in .

If you haven’t read/watched part 1 or part 2 yet, I really suggest going through those first!

Weapons

For a magicka sorcerer you will be using two destruction staves. Your front bar will be an inferno staff, but your back back you can use inferno or lightning staff. Although a back bar inferno staff will be technically higher DPS – lightning staves help with off-balance in a non-optomized groups or solo situations – also the splash damage of the channeled heavy attack is nice.

Your “front bar” is whatever bar your spammable is on.

Armor Weight

Armor weight does matter in ESO. You want to wear 5-1-1, this means 5 pieces of light armor, 1 piece of medium armor and 1 piece of heavy armor. You may be confused as to why, so don’t worry – I will explain!

You require 5 pieces of light armor so that you get to receive benefit from all the light armor passives which are magicka based.

You want to wear at least one of each armor type to take advantage of the Undaunted Mettle passive in the Undaunted skill line. This also allows you to take some other armor passives such as Heavy armor’s Juggernaut passive that increases your max health by 2%.

Though it would make a huge different for which armor pieces are different weights, there is a difference and you can use this to your advantage to gain a bit or armor rating. I’ll list out how much armor each piece at epic quality has. Light/Medium/Heavy

  • Chest – 1348 / 1964 / 2676
  • Head/Shoulder/Legs/Feet – 1179 / 1760 / 2341
  • Hands – 775 / 1006 / 1338
  • Waist – 505 / 754 / 1003

As you can see, it is most beneficial for your single heavy armor item to be chest, and you single medium armor item be head/shoulder/legs/feet. Unfortunately that is only possible if you are using a crafted set. Otherwise you generally use shoulder/helm because that is your monster set – and it doesn’t matter which of those two slots is medium or heavy.

Traits

Armor

This is pretty simple for magicka DPS. Here are your options

  • All armor divines trait
  • “Big” pieces infused, small pieces divines.

But what are big and small? This is like the armor ratings – but the same pieces aren’t big and small.

Big (possibly infused) – Head, Chest, Legs
Small (always divines) – Shoulder, Hands, Waist, Feet.

Jewelry

Jewelry traits are still up in the air mostly. A lot of guides recommend all or at least some bloodthirsty. That isn’t bad and you can go ahead – but it isn’t exactly necessary. Arcane is still a great trait for magicka DPS.

Weapons

It is best to have infused on both of your staves. If you play solo rather than in groups – using the sharpened trait is a great option.

Enchants

Armor

This one is really simple – all magicka enchant on armor!

I really recommend a minimum of 170000 health with food active on DPS characters, but I prefer to use attributes to get to this number rather than enchants. This allows you to swap out gear for different scenarios without worrying if you still have the right amount of health enchants on.

Jewelry

Often many guides will tell you to use all spell damage enchants. Is that best? Sure. Will you be able to sustain it? Probably not. You will want to use a mix of magicka regeneration and spell damage on your jewelry depending on your CP level and comfort level with sustain. I personally like to run 2 spell damage enchants and 1 magicka regen enchant as a max CP player. 

Weapons

This has been up in the air over the last few patches, but likely any of these options will still be good.

Absorb Magicka on your back bar. This will be a big big help with your sustain. 

Flame or Shock enchant on your front bar. Shock if you are a solo player, fire if you tend to play in groups.

Those who are really brave can use shock on one staff, and lightning on the other. If you still have a weapon damage enchant on your staves from past patches, that isn’t terrible and is fine too.

Gear Setup

There is a few different setups for magicka sorcerer

  • Two full 5 piece armor sets and “fancy” staves (VMA, asylum etc.)
  • A monster set, one full time 5 piece set, one front bar only 5 pc set, and VMA staff.
  • A monster set, two full 5 piece armor sets.

Gear Quality

You don’t need all your gear to be legendary. It will not make much of a difference other than making you go broke. Don’t do it! If you’re playing at a higher level you will want to make your weapons gold, but the gear is not necessary. The quality of your weapons is far more important than the quality of your armor or jewelry. Not high level yet? Go ahead and use blue armor and purple weapons! Weapon quality makes a decent different – armor quality doesn’t.

Gear Sets

Finally! I’m actually going to talk about specific sets you can wear as a magicka sorcerer! 

Leveling

I consider leveling to be anything below CP160. So I consider level 1-50 along with champion point 10-150 as the leveling experience. Don’t rush this, this is when you’ll be leveling up different skill lines, abilities and getting to know your class! So what gear do I recommend?

  • 5 pieces Seducer (crafted)
  • rest whatever light armor set happens to drop in the zone you are in

Levelling doesn’t take a ton of time, so spend it enjoying the game instead of focusing on gear. Seducer is a crafted set that requires only 3 traits researched to make. I recommend making both weapons, heavy chest, one medium piece (head,should,legs,feet), and one light armor piece in seducer. Although you won’t take advantage of things like the undaunted mettle passive as you level, this will help you level those other armor skill lines. Making a new set ever 10-15 levels would be a good idea – and no need to make it any better than green or blue quality.

There is a light armor set that drops in each zone. Just use whatever you have from the zone. Using what you find will allow you to keep your armor a bit closer to your level and just offer convenience. Dolmens are how you get jewelry so don’t pass those by!

While you are leveling you will likely want to focus more on sustain than on damage. If you’re having trouble sustaining just go ahead and make some absorb magicka glyphs for both weapons – and leave the jewelry you pick up as is. It will generally be magicka cost reduction enchants by default on jewelry.

CP160

So you made it to CP160 and are looking to get into the BIS (best in slot) gear instantly! Settle down! You may be max gear level, but you still have a ways to go. You’ve got some CP to get, probably some passives to unlock and even level up some more skills.  So what do I suggest? Make some Julianos!

To get you started – head out to Orsinium to make yourself a full julianos set. Julianos is a solid set that is always a great option for any magicka DPS characters – and it’s crafted! This set is definitely about damage  and not sustain.

Once you have crafted that Julianos set, go ahead and run the group dungeon Veteran Crypt of Hearts 1 over and over. Why? Well a couple reasons. As a lower CP player you are still missing some raw stats (these come with CP until CP300) and are missing some sustain without many champion points. Lich is a solid set that is great for sustain, that is in one of the simpler group dungeons – that has the bonus of a solid monster helm drop at the end. Lich also drops in Crypt of Hearts 2 dungeon – but then you don’t have a chance at the Ilambris monster helm, and it’s a bit more challenging.

To acquire the shoulder piece of Ilambris you will need to do some undaunted pledges and open up Gilirions chest!

Best case scenario: at CP160 make yourself a Julianos set. Make both weapons (CP160), make head/shoulder medium or heavy CP150, and make another light piece. This means when you get a Ilambris helm and shoulder you didn’t waste many materials, and then after can craft other julianos piece at CP160 to match you mosnter set keeping you at 5-1-1. This also stops you from having to get a medium helm – since you can just craft a julianos piece and use whatever helm you got.

For the start of this farming, wearing the pieces is more important than the traits. Wear whatever lich you first pick up to give you the bonuses from the set while you continue to farm the dungeon to get it in better traits. The 5pc bonus is more important than it being divines.

Use this gear setup until you feel more comfortable with sustain. 

Dungeon Gear

Burning Spellweave (BSW) and Netch’s Touch are both dungeon sets that can come from group dungeons. Burning Spellweave was BIS not long ago, though I never cared for it much on a Sorc since we do a lot of shock damage, but it’s definitely still a solid set. Netch’s Touch is a decent set that is awesome to use if you want a themed lightning sorcerer! Both of these are base game dungeons – no DLC or chapters required!

BSW – City of Ash
Netch’s Touch – Darkshade Caverns

Overland Gear

Only one of these overland sets is really an option for you. If you are a magicka sorc DPS who does not use pets (who this guide is intended for) you will love Mother’s Sorrow. If you are a pet sorc – use necropotence.

Mother’s Sorrow (MS) is an amazing set that has the bonus of being an overland set. You do not need to do any instanced group content to get this set. You can farm it yourself in Deshann (base game zone!), or buy it from other players.

Necropotence is pretty much a given for all pet sorcs! You can find this set in Rivenspire (base game zone!) or buy it from other players.

Trial Gear

Infallible Aether comes from the 3 (base game) Craglorn trials, which you can often find PUGs (pick up groups) looking for more in that zone that you can join. If you are struggling with sustain on your magicka sorcerer you may find yourself using a lot of heavy attacks, or maybe it’s just part of your rotation. If so, this is a great set that will not only benefit you – but everyone around you! This set means the enemy you applied it to take 8% more damage from everyone! This used to be a standard healer set, but with other great options for healers now you generally won’t have to worry about a healer also wearing it.

Crafted Gear

Julianos also fits in this category as an amazing crafted set option for magsorc gear, but I didn’t include it here as I covered it earlier.  Mechanical Acuity is not best in slot by any means, but I wanted to include it because I figure you may already have a set from when it was previously BIS. I’m  a big believer in using what you already have. If you don’t have a set of mechanical acuity already, I don’t really think it’s worth making, but if you have it – it’s worth using! I use this on my magsorc currently. If you do use mechanical acuity you must be using crushing shock (or force pulse) as your spammable. This is because that ability counts as 3 direct damage hits and therefore gives this set a much better chance at proccing. 

Weapons

The asylum staff speaks to a crushing shock sorcerer very well. Master staff is okay, and more is just “I want to use it because I earned it dammit!” rather than it actually being great – but great DPS can be achieved with it too! Both of these staves require you use a specific skill for them to be of any use though!

The Asylum staff is great and something I use on my sorcerer! This staff can be found from the Asylum Sanctorium trial in the Clockwork City DLC. You are not required to do the veteran version to gain the non-perfect staff as I have shown. You must use crushing shock (or force pulse) as your spammable if you are using this staff. I really love it as it’s a simple staff to get (the trial is very short), and it’s jsut fun! 

The Master Staff comes from Veteran Dragonstar Arena that is in Craglorn – a base game zone. This staff isn’t best in slot by any means, but allows for a simpler dot based rotation with sustain help!

Best in Slot (BIS)

This is maybe why you came here, but also why I wanted you to learn all those basics first! Best in Slot gear is only the best if you are using it to it’s fullest abilities. Both Siroria and Spell strategist rely on you constantly weaving properly – as it’s the light attacks that generally proc the set bonuses. Zaan comes from a difficult DLC dungeon – and also requires you stay quite close to your enemy – which is a bit off as a ranged magicka character. If you go this route, you’ll want spell strategist to only be front barred – so you can use both a monster set and VMA staff.

If you have a VMA staff – use it. It will be a considerable DPS increase. 

  • Sirora – Cloudrest trial (Summerset chapter)
  • Spell Strategist – Rewards for the Worthy (PvP), Guild Stores/Other players
  • Zaan – Vet Scalecaller dungeon (DLC)
  • Maelstrom Staff – Veteran Maelstrom Arena (Orsinium DLC)

Current Bizz Gear

My magplar is currently my main, so she is holding on to all the BIS gear I have so this is currently what my magicka sorcerer is wearing! She still pulls 30k+ DPS even though I don’t play her as much as I used to. This is a mix of gear I already owned from when I did play her as my main, and just spare gear I found as I farmed gear for my magplar. Both weapons I use are gold, but still have the “old” best in slot enchants on them. Don’t get too hung up on your gear, and just go play!

Video

Magicka Sorcerer DPS School Part 3 - Gear - Elder Scrolls Online PvE Guide

Magicka Sorcerer – The Basics [Part 1]

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Welcome to Part 1 of Sorc School! This is the first “ESO School” I am doing, so if you have any comments or suggestions as it goes on – please feel free to leave them on my posts, in my discord or on the videos of it!

This series will be dedicated to no-pet magicka sorcerer DPS in Elder Scrolls Online! Let’s dive right in!

What it means to be a no-pet magsorc!

To me, a no-pet magsorc is an easy class to learn due to it’s possibly very limited skill usage, but definitely has a steep learning curve once you get close to the top of the DPS pile. MagSorc’s are very aggressive in their style, but fortunately can stay a safe distance away from bosses and their cleave. In their top PvE form they don’t feel like they move very fast, but their rotation does! Magicka Sorcerors are very elemental – and very much so a mage.

What race do I use?

Do you already have a sorcerer in ESO you would like to follow this course with and learn magicka DPS? Then that one! Or whatever one you like! If you’d like your racial passives to help a bit, here’s is my personal preference of races from best to the rest. It is not necessary to have the first in the list – having one I care to even list will help out more than ones I don’t, but honestly, if you’re learning from me – you probably don’t really care about that 0.0003% difference once you get to high levels.

High Elf (Altmer)
Dark Elf (Dunmer)
Breton
Argonian
The Rest

What to level!

So you would like to follow along with this course and don’t know where to start? Well, if you are just now creating a magicka sorcerer in ESO – be sure to level these skill lines up as a priority! If you already have a magsorc, be sure these are already leveled!

Must Haves
Dark Magic Skill Line – Fully – All Passives
Daedric Summoning Skill Line – Fully
Storm Calling Skill Line –   Fully – All Passives
Destruction Staff Skill Line – Fully – All Passives
Light Armor Skill Line
Mages Guild (Up to Inner Light)
Racial Passives

Great to Have
Mages Guild – Up to Meteor (ultimate)
Heavy Armor – Up to Juggernaut passive
Vampire
Undaunted Passives (all)
Alchemy Medicinal Use Passive

Nice to Have
Medium armor passives
Provisioning  – Connoisseur passive

If you are choosing a route using any psijic skills, all psijic passives fall under must/great to have. For these lessons I will not be including these in my examples.

What to wear?

This list is huge because I wanted to give you lots of options so you could pick something that you can actually get your hands on! Definitely don’t need it all!
Super Awesome
Siroria – Cloudrest Trial (Summerset)
Julianos – Crafted (Orsinium)
Mechanical Acuity – Crafted (Clockwork City)

Awesome
Infalliable Aether – Craglorn Trials
Burning Spellweave (I’m not actually a fan of this on Sorc) – City of Ash Dungeons
Mother’s Sorrow – Deshaan Overland

Great
Necropotence – Rivenspire Overland
Netch’s Touch – Darkshade Caverns Dungeon
Destruction Mastery – Dragonstar Arena

Must be built around
Scathing Mage – Imperial City Prison Dungeon (Imperial City)
Spider Cultist – Fungal Grotto Dungeon

Good
Spinner’s Garment – Malabol Tor Overland
Way of Martial Knowledge – Craglorn Overland
Moondancer – Maw of Lorkhaj Trial (Thieves Guild)
Literally any set with magicka bonuses

Levelling/Low CP
Seducer – Crafted
Lich – Crypt of Hearts Dungeon

Monster Sets
Ilambris – Crypt of Hearts 1
Skoria – City of Ash 2
Slimecraw (Solo Play) – Wayrest Sewers 1

Fancy
VMA Staff (Veteran Maelstrom Arena destruction staff) (Lightning)
Asylum Destruction Staff (Fire)
Master Destruction Staff (Fire or Lightning)

It’s the little things…

Mundus:
Apprentice
Thief
Lover – solo play only

Food:
Witchmother’s Potent Brew.
Clockwork Citrus Fillet for the disgustingly rich
Blue magicka/health food while levelling – or if you can somehow sustain?

Potions
Dropped magicka pots when practicing rotation or questing
Spellcrit Potions (Cornflower, Ladys Smock, Water Hyacinth or Namira’s Rot) on test parses and difficult content

What to Help?

If you’re on PC, these are some key addons I use to help me on my magsorc!

Action Duration Reminder – AWESOME addon to help me make sure I keep my dots up! must have
Can I Horn? – Tells me when warhorn is active so I can time ultimates or just ensure I’m getting every bit of DPS out.
Champion Point Respec – “Profiles” of different champion points for general use and each different trial.
Combat Metrics – Tells me my DPS, uptimes and a whole lot more! must have
Crafted Potions – Colors crafted potions in my inventory so I make sure I’m using the ones I want!
Dressing Room – Helps me switch between different gear and skill setups quickly!
Dryzler’s Better Rezzing – Points on downed teammates and also let’s me know if they are being resurrected yet or not.
Kyoma’s Repair ‘n Recharge – Keeps all my gear is top shape!
Light Attack Helper – HUGE for helping you know if you are weaving properly! must have
Raidificator – Keeps track of all my raid scores
RaidNotifier – Helper addon for trials and arenas.
S’rendarr – Gives me a louder noise when crystal frags procs. (I don’t use it for anything else)
Show Global Cooldown – Helps you learn about the GCD and how often to press buttons. must have

That’s all! Now that you have an idea of what to use, head out and level your sorc up! Try all the different skills, practice weaving and just learn the class. Our next lesson will be focused on finger pressing – your rotation!

Magicka Sorcerer 101 – ESO School

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Magicka Sorcerer 101 is going to be my first ESO Class School! What the heck is this?!?

I’ll be going through the basics of the class as I know it. I may not be the best player, I don’t know everything there is to know –   but I will help give you tips and tricks that helped me to get where I am with the class!

At the time of this writing, I am able to pull 35k+ DPS on my Sorc on both self buffed 6 million dummy parses, as well as in live content (veteran dungeons and trials). This gives you an idea of where YOU can be – with some effort, and a whole bunch of practice!

I’ll break each school down into sections – both video and written! Here is what you can expect!

But Bizz, whatcha gonna teach me?

Magicka Sorcerer – The Basics [Part 1]

This video and written guide will be a general overview of how I treat the class, what I view the class as, my thoughts on the pros and cons, general gear and skill line choices. The is a very general overview but will give you a good idea of what to start levelling up skill-wise, or farming for gear-wise as we go through the course!

 

Finger Pressing – Rotation [Part 2]

I will give you some varying rotations to try out! Many of these will be simple static rotations – not meant to get you to be the very best, but something simple you can work on the basics with and later evolve into something more dynamic. I will mention what rotations are preferred depending on your gear choices as well!

 

Look at Me! – Gear [Part 3]

You want to look good, but you also want to be deadly! I will cover a whole bunch of gear that will work for this class! I’ll cover the very top meta sets right down to what I personally recommend for levelling and low CP players!

 

Level UP! – Skill Lines and Skills [Part 4]

This will be a short and sweet guide showing skills and passives you will want! I’ll be sure to order these from “you absolutely super duper MUST have these!” to “well, if you have the skill points – these are icing on the cake”.

 

HOMEWORK! [Part 5]

This video and guide will be focused on people who are following the school series live and working on their magicka sorc! At this point I will share when I will be having my live Sorc School livestream, and it will be available to sign up for! Those who have previously signed up ESO Raid Planner as well as VIP Bizzygoats will have already been given the opportunity to sign up first. Limited seats will be available!

 

Sorc School [Part 6] – Livestream

This livestream will be showing off rotations and gear choices while watching others practice and give tips. I’ll be answering questions live and working with those attending to help improve their sorc skills and give them insight on where they should focus their practice! At the end – the attendee with the highest DPS will receive a special gift from me!

 

Keep an eye on my blog here on the website, my , my discord, and my guild on ESO Raid Planner for more info!

How to Make a Target Skeleton in ESO

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Here’s a quick video showing you what you need, and what you need to do, in order to make a target skeleton (target dummy) in Elder Scrolls Online! Target skeletons are how you can test your DPS within the ESO game without any addons!

Target Skeleton Crafting Guide - How to get a target skeleton in ESO

Skills and Rotation

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SKILLS AND ROTATION

What exactly is a ‘rotation’?

There’s a bit of mystery surrounding DPS rotations and animation cancelling but I promise you, it’s not some sort of black magic. A DPS rotation is built from the following elements; buffs, DoTs (damage over time abilities) and what I call a ‘spammable’, something relatively cheap that deals damage right away. And the rotation itself is the most efficient way of keeping as many of those damage abilities going at the same time as you can. Sustain is also important but I’ll get to that.

Let’s use Magsorc as an example because the rotation doesn’t have too many surprises.

Buffs

  • Power Surge (grants us a spell damage buff)

DoTs

  • Liquid Lightning (does lightning damage at the targeted area for 10 seconds)
  • Elemental Blockade (does elemental damage, based on the staff used, on the ground in front of us for 8 seconds)
  • Haunting Curse (does damage after 3.5 seconds and more damage after another 8.5 seconds)

Spammable

  • Force Pulse (does flame, lightning and frost damage instantly)

I think the best way to describe this is with a timeline so show what we’re actually trying to achieve here. The diagram below shows the sequence and duration of each ability, where ‘X’ is when you cast.

Essentially what you’re doing is just casting each of your abilities, one after the other, and then using your spammable until you need to start over. Mag sorc is such a straightforward rotation because your abilities are mostly within a 8-10 second range so it’s pretty easy to maximise uptime without overlap.

You can see in the diagram how each ability is cast in turn. The darker areas are where there’s overlap and obviously the white space is where that ability is not active. The only unusual part of this rotation is haunting curse which is on a 12 second timer. We can’t recast it the second time around because we’ll miss out on the second round of damage at 12 seconds, so we cast it every other time through the rotation – everything else is done in sequence. Note that the second time through we cast an extra Force Pulse, because we’re not casting Haunting Curse this time.

Also note I’ve specifically allowed for heavy attacks. The time taken depends on the weapon but for a lightning staff it’s 2 seconds. If you’ve run out of magicka to cast your DoTs it’s too late to do a heavy attack so plan for them in your rotation.

Don’t forget that you should be doing a light attack before each of these abilities (more on that below) but this should illustrate the idea of a rotation. Keep your dots going all the time, and use instant damage abilities or heavy attacks in the gaps.

Some builds will have an execute which deals more damage when the enemy is below a certain health percentage. If you have one of these you want to use this instead of your spammable ability after the enemy has reached that health percentage. Don’t use it earlier as it’s not dealing enough damage to be worth casting. So in this example, you’d start casting Mage’s Wrath instead of Force Pulse once the enemy is below 20% health, but the rest of the rotation remains the same.

Every DPS rotation works this way, though the abilities and timing is different. But you’re trying to get as close to 100% uptime on your DoTs are you can, filling any leftover time with your spammable.

tl;dr Keep your DoTs running all the time and only spam if everything else is active. If you cast abilities willy-nilly, or just spam one ability while your DoTs run out, your dps will suffer.

ANIMATION CANCELLING

I thought that was a bug…

People seem to get upset or confused about animation cancelling, but it’s not really wizardry and, regardless of how you feel about it, it’s been embraced as a part of the mechanics for dps. This is evident in things like the Maelstrom staffs, which boost the damage of your light and heavy attacks and the Hawkeye passive under the Bow skill line, which boosts the damage of your Bow abilities when you use light and heavy attacks. There’s also numerous set bonuses that proc on light and/or heavy attacks.

The two most important aspects of animation cancelling for DPS are light-weaving and swap cancelling.

Light weaving is simply using a light attack before every ability. It sounds trivial, but it actually adds a significant amount to your dps. This is because the game will prioritise the ability over the light attack. When you do this quickly, you do the damage for the light attack AND the ability in the same moment. It’s more damage in the same time. And it’s free. And it generates ultimate. And if you’re using a bow or a maelstrom staff or a proc set it’s an even bigger benefit. And if you’re a nightblade it returns resources. Have I convinced you to light weave yet?

It takes a bit of getting used to, but eventually it becomes automatic. The timing for it does depend on your ping – I suggest just practising with one ability and seeing how fast you can get it before the light attack stops registering. Experiment for just 5 minutes and you’ll see what I mean.

Swap cancelling is the same idea, except it cancels the animation for your ability, instead of your light attack. If you cast an ability and swap bars immediately, the ability will still fire but the animation won’t play. This can save you a LOT of time, especially in rotations where there’s a lot of bar swapping, or abilities with long animations (despite their instant cast time).

So putting the two together, when you do your rotation you want to light attack before each ability and then as soon as you use the last ability on your bar you swap immediately. In the case of the above rotation this is poison injection.

The only abilities you do not want to swap cancel are abilities with a cast time as this will fail either the ability or the swap. Try to arrange your rotation so you’re swapping an appropriate ability.

tl;dr use a light attack before every ability and bar swap as soon as you cast the last ability on that bar.

 

SUSTAIN

Why am I constantly running out of stamina?

When you start doing what I’ve described above, you’ll find yourself running out of your primary resource because you’re using abilities constantly. So you need to learn how to sustain. As a general rule, if you’re starting to run low, use a heavy attack instead of your spammable. Avoid heavy attacking between your DoTs as it will get your timing out of sync and you’ll start to get downtime, and whatever you do make sure you have enough magicka or stamina to cast your dots. So you need to start heavy attacking before you run out. You might wish to do one heavy and one spammable in every cycle, or all spammable one cycle and all heavy attack in the other. More spammables means more damage, but it ends up being a loss if you can’t keep your DoTs going. Ultimately it’s up to you to find the balance point. And don’t forget your potions. Not only does a potion restore your resources immediately, it also boosts your regen.

 

BUFFS

I really don’t want to talk to specific skills here, but it’s important to note that every dps build needs a source of their respective damage and critical buffs. For stamina this is Major Brutality and Major Savagery, for magicka it’s Major Sorcery and Major Prophecy. These will give you an additional 20% damage and 10% critical chance which make a noticeable difference to your dps. The most typical source is from potions but I don’t recommend burning through expensive potions while you’re still learning. There are some abilities that gives those buffs so you may be able to use those to start with, otherwise just get your dps into the 20-25k range and then do a test with pots. You can craft potions that restore your primary resource, boost your regen, and give damage and critical. With 3 skill points in the ‘Medicinal Use’ passive (under the Alchemy skill line) your potions will last 47 seconds and you can drink one every 45 seconds meaning you’ll get 100% uptime on those buffs.

 

ROTATION, ROTATION, ROTATION

This is the part where I just have ‘git gud’, isn’t it?

You’ve probably picked up on it by now, but chances are what you really need to do is simply practise. This is for two main reasons.

First of all, you just need to get better. If your numbers are low, you need to make the most of your abilities by practising keeping them up all the time, as well as maintaining your buffs and getting those light and heavy attacks in.

The second is because a boss fight is way harder than a target skeleton. You need your rotation to be muscle memory so that when the proverbial hits the fan you can maintain your rotation without having to actively concentrate on it, and instead dedicate your concentration to whatever mechanics are happening at that point in time. Many boss fights, particularly in vet trials, require both high DPS and precision timing in terms of group movement. You don’t want to be doing low DPS because you can’t keep your DoTs on the boss whilst running to a safe location or doing zero DPS because you’re dead on the ground because you were spamming your execute and didn’t run to a safe location. It’s a balancing act, but endgame content will require you to do both, and do them well.

The best place to start if you’re new to rotations is to find a build and literally just go through every skill on your bar, with a light attack before each. (light attack) One, (light attack) two, (light attack) three, (light attack) four, (light attack) five, swap. Repeat. Of course, skip toggles like Bound Armour or passive abilities like Inner Light. That is really the core of your rotation and you’ll be surprised at how much damage that alone will do. Once you’ve got the hang of that try to be a bit smarter about it and match those timers better. Have a look at how long each skill lasts and figure out which ones you should be casting together etc. As I said before, don’t bother using expensive potions until you’re around to 20-25k dps mark as you’re just wasting money. Stick with trash pots. Also don’t forget to use your ultimate as soon as it’s ready.

Once you’ve got a feel for it, you need to start finding ways to improve. Practise with purpose. Don’t just do the same thing over and over expecting your numbers to go up. Try to get 100% uptime on your buffs, or make sure you don’t run out of resources, or ensure you land a light attack before every ability. Always be working on something.

And when I say practise, I mean get yourself a target skeleton (the standard ones, with 3 mill health) or find a friend who has one in their house. It’s the best simulation of a boss fight you’ll find, without finding an actual boss that might try to kill you. Hitting two things with your AOE will double your dps and trash mobs often die far too quick and have much lower resistances. Proc sets with a % chance, Ultimates and execute damage will all be more consistent the longer the fight lasts which is why you need something with a decent amount of health to learn on. When people quote dps numbers like 15k, 30k etc. they’re talking about single target in a sustained fight.

 

ADDONS

I won’t go into too much detail here, but there are some really useful addons that will help you understand your dps and rotation. If you’re on console, my sympathies. You’re a bit more limited in terms of tracking the details of your rotation.

Combat Metrics will give you a dps bar so you can see how much damage you’re doing during a fight, as well as the % of the group dps. It also has a fight summary that you can keybind which will show you a lot more detail about your dps. Uptime on buffs, percentage and dps from particular skills, how often skills are critically hitting etc. This is where you want to go once you’re familiar with the basic rotation and are looking for ways to improve. It’s also where you want to compare particular skills if you’re changing your build.
PS. Bizz has a great Addon Spotlight video for Combat Metrics that you should check out if you’re unfamiliar with it!

Buff Timers or Srendarr will give you timers on screen for your buffs and ground abilities etc. which is really useful for making sure you cast those abilities right as they’re about to run out. Eventually the timing becomes muscle-memory, but when you’re learning it’s really useful.

Constellations will interpret your Combat Metrics data and suggest the best allocation for your Champion Points based on the amount of damage each of your skills are doing. It’s not super intuitive; you need to remember to click that ‘Import’ button and make sure you set the right physical/spell penetration but it’s a really solid start if you’re unsure what to do with your CP.

 

And if you skipped straight to the rotation, make sure you review your Character Stats and your Gear to ensure you’re ticking the right boxes there too.