Gear Review
It seems the most logical conclusion at this current time that a pure heavy attack damage setup for pretty much all classes ends up in a medium armor setup with Storm Master and the heavy armor set Sergeant's Mail in the form of jewelry and weapon.
It also helps that the main item sets are very easily farmable by players of any level!
With Oakensoul as a Mythic item that restricts other Mythics from being used and also restricting the usage of a second skill bar, we don't have too many options in terms of set availability and also makes us resort to a 1x bonus set such as Slimecraw's 1x Critical Chance bonus.
After some testing on both the raid dummies and in content (also based on previous testing with a different iteration of Oakensoul), it doesn't seem the Berserker enchant (Weapon/Spell Damage increase) will outperform either Poison or Flame Damage enchantments on the Lightning Staff.
Jewelry enchantments can be Weapon Damage glyphs if you have a Dragonknight in your group that can provide the Minor Brutality buff. Other than that, it can be either Weapon or Spell Damage.
An alternative body setup can be 5x Noble Duelist's Silk or 5x Order's Wrath instead of Storm Master for solo instances/arenas or 4 man content!
Skills Review
Depending on content for survivability, you should definitely consider swapping in Hardened Ward or Critical Surge in place of Hurricane or Barbed Trap if need be. You can still go with Haunting Curse instead of Daedric Prey if you're going to use Pets (highly recommend Pets as their passive damage is significant) and get similar numbers!
Power Overload Rotation
Your Power Overload rotation should yield much higher numbers at least on a stationary target than using Storm Atronach. In terms of numbers and burst nature, the Power Overload casts perform astronomically better than Greater Storm Atronach in every aspect. Power Overload's heavy attack is also Area-of-Effect so you can use the ultimate on mobs as well!
This rotation for Sorcerer requires some thought about Off Balance timing in conjunction with your Power Overload.
For your single target opening burst damage rotation it should be prebuffing the following skills:
- Twilight Tormentor
- Volatile Familiar
- Hurricane
Walk up to your target as you cast Daedric Prey then heavy attack weave into a Barbed Trap and without heavy attacking, immediately toggle on Power Overload to take advantage of the Off Balance.
Toggle off Power Overload once Off Balance is up on target then resume resetting your skills when need be until the next Off Balance timeframe pops up on target for yet another Power Overload heavy attack until the end of the Off Balance duration. It is important to not cast anything else during the Power Overload heavy attack.
Storm Atronach Rotation
While the Storm Atronach may be a lower damage ceiling it is definitely easier to maintain the DPS rotation. This rotation for Sorcerer is quite straightforward and requires not too much thinking about Off Balance timing.
For your prebuff rotation, cast the following skills in order:
- Twilight Tormentor
- Volatile Familiar
- Hurricane
- Storm Atronach (away from target)
Immediately start heavy attacking then cast Daedric Prey after the heavy attack. Heavy attack weave into a Barbed Trap then heavy attack weave every skill from thereon.
Once you realize that you can press the input for a skill before a heavy attack ends so that your character queues up that skill instead of you pressing the input in timing with a typical light attack rotation which is usually a big obstacle for a lot of newer players.
Overall, Sorcerer heavy attack build has the highest damage ceiling out of all heavy attack classes and specs so have fun with it and see how far you can push!
Craft
Warfare
Fitness
Champion Points Review
Just as Hardened Ward is a flex survival skill, Bastion which amplifies the effect of Hardened Ward is also a flex Champion Point slottable so you can go with Expert Evasion or other slottables from the Fitness tree if need be.
Fighting Finesse should push your Critical Damage in Trials content (provided buffs like Elemental Catalyst are present) to the critical damage cap. For dummies and 4 man content, Backstabber will be fine.
Deadly Aim, Weapons Expert and Exploiter are basically essential to increasing your damage ceiling due to the nature of heavy attacks and the Sorcerer rotation.
Combat Metrics
ESOLogs
Click here for the vAS Hard Mode logs.
Introduction
This build was used for several successful Immortal Redeemer trifecta runs in Veteran Asylum Sanctorium Hard Mode (12-man Trial). However it can also be used in other content whether that be dungeons or solo arenas with great effect!
Recommended race: Altmer (High Elf) or Dunmer (Dark Elf); for solo or 4-man content you can go Khajiit.
If you want to go with 64 points into Stamina instead with a different race like Orc or still even with Dunmer you can, at that point it just depends on the usage of your resource more so than the damage of your resource such as casting utility skills based on Stamina or performing Roll Dodges and more Blocks.
Recommended food will be a bi-stat Health and Magicka food. For parsing or for fights where you don't need that extra health, you can use purely single-stat Max Magicka food!
Recommended Mundus will be The Thief (for group content like Trials) or The Lover (for solo content and overland).
Potions can be your basic tri-stat restoration potions, however if you'd like to invest further into the build, you could go with Resistance Potions that restore 9206 Health immediately & gives Major Fortitude (30% Health Recovery), grants a unique 5280 Spell and Physical Resistances!
You should have almost 25,000 resistances, making you basically a tank with around 30,000 Health (includes Minor Toughness if in group with a Warden).
The potion can be made using the following reagents: Mudcrab Chitin, Mountain Flower, Bugloss