Replies: 26
And now for something a little different…
Intro:
This build is the result of trying to synergize every aspect of my character (khajit sorc) while also hating wrecking blow with a passion.
This build offers acceptable damage, but great crowd control, sustain, and mobility. It’s an extremely fun build and, honestly, the first build that I enjoyed combat with.
I’ll go through all the standard stuff like champion points and gear, but keep in mind that it’s really not important for this build. Beyond a certain level of necessary stats, the important thing is how you play this build. The gear and champ points are all flexible. I found what works for me. Test around and find what works for you.
This is my first full build write up, and at the top of this thread is my first build video along with my first pvp video. A lot of firsts! Let me know what you think, what you like, what you don’t like, etc. And if you try the build out, please post reactions! I’ll be checking this thread often.
Purpose:
I’ve been using it in solo IC grinding and solo pvp, but its utility also makes it very strong in group pvp.
In groups, you are in the back picking off squishies and dumping damage into the front line. When the tides change, you are excellent at catching runners.
In solo play, your range allows you to dictate where the fight happens, and you have all the tools you need to keep people off you and drain your enemies stamina.
Esohead link:
Abilities:
Here are what my bars look like. I’ll note the reasoning for each ability and state whether I think it’s flexible or necessary to the build
Bar 1: Bow
Magnum Shot – Necessary – Keeps people off you. Burns stamina in CC break. Knock self away from CC immune. Decent instant damage when used with attacks
Poison Injection – Flexible – I’m saying it’s flexible, but it’s still really damn good. It’s our pseduo execute.
Focused Aim – Critical – Main damage. I was running Lethal Arrow for a long time, but Focused Aim is more efficient with champion points.
Bombard – Necessary – Root + slow. This ability is so damn good.
Streak – Flexible – I ran without it for a while, but found I wasted too much stam on dodge roll. Flexible, but I’m gonna keep it.
Ult: Storm Atro – Necessary? – Mainly for stam regen, tho it’s fun to stand behind your atro and mess up people’s targetting.
Bar 2: Sword and Board
Boundless Storm – Flexible – Magic morph because we don’t care about the damage. Quality of life ability that we could possibly do without.
Vigor – Flexbile? – This is the least flexible of the flexible abilities. It’s our only hp regen when we’re running line of sight.
Defensive Stance (reflect) – Necessary – This is what brings the build together. Without this, magicka builds have a massive advantage over you.
Shuffle – Flexible – Feels good to keep range, and then still be dodging stuff once someone finally gets onto you. But it’s flexible.
Critical Surge – Necessary – Everything about my character revolves around this one ability.
Ult: Ice Comet – Flexible – Use whatever ult you like. Ice Comet fits my playstyle
Race:
Khajiit. I honestly think Khajiit is the best race for this build because you need a high crit.
However, any stamina focused race will work. Hell, you could even pull it off on magicka focused races because you do use your magicka a lot for mobility.
But I believe the best results are on the Khajiit. We finally found something we’re good at, brothers.
Stats:
Nothing revolutionary here. Standard stam stuff. You want health around 20k and stam regen around 2,000. You could potentially go with less stam regen, but I wouldn’t want to risk it. After that, dump all attribute points into stamina, enchants into weapon damage, and keep your crit above 60%.
To get this, I have 20 points into HP because life as a Khajiit is a struggle… all other points into stamina.
I use The Serpent mundus stone because I find it’s the best way to get me to these stats. But you can use whatever mix of mundus+enchants you’d like to get you to the necessary stats.
Buffed with Critical Surge, my weapon damage is around 3,300. I get this through fully upgraded bow, gear sets, and jewelry enchants. The build already doesn’t have the highest damage, so if you’re running with much less than 3k weapon damage, I imagine you’re going to have a hard time. But again, try it out and see what works for you.
Also, I run drink, not food
Gear:
I’m running 7 medium. 5 hundings/3 night mothers. My shield is also night mothers, so I’m 4 night mother’s on my secondary bar… but it doesn’t matter because I have no attacks on my second bar haha. Reasoning for this gear is that you need high crit for Critical Surge sustain. If you’re not critting, you’re dying.
Jewelry – 3 piece agility. I have one healthy because Khajit’s have low health. Use what works for you. You want ~20k hp in pvp.
Enchants – All stam on the gear. +weapon damage on the bow. Put whatever you’d like on the 1h, we don’t attack with it. Balance between weapon damage or stamin regen/reduction on the jewelry to keep your weapon damage as high as possible while staying roughly around 2000 stam regen.
Traits – Divines on all armor, except large pieces (helm, chest, legs) which have infused. Precise on the bow because if you’re not critting, you’re dying.
ALTERNATES: As I said before, this is what works for me, but this build isn’t made of gear. Test it and tweak according to what works for you. For example, I’m sure the Briarheart set would be great for this build. But I don’t have it. Also, I would love to test some of the bow focused sets, but I’ve never gotten it all together. The Shield Breaker set would also be fantastic because this build mostly struggles against magicka users with large shields.
Champion Points:
Really basic here.
In the green trees, get the stam reduction/regen points. Also I have about 14ish points in Tumbling.
In the blue tree, get the +physical damage, +crit damage, and +armor pen stats.
In the red tree, get 30 in The Steed (I do 10,10,10 in medium armor, spell resistance, crit resistance) then start dumping points into Elemental Defender and Hardy in The Lady tree.
Listen, I’m not at all a champion points expert. I basically follow what the big name ESO dudes do and also just put points in what feels right. The choices for this build are pretty easy. Just remember that the more points you put into a node, the less valuable they become. So with the stamina passives, for example, split points between Stam reduction and Stam regeneration.
NOTE: Champion points are the main reason I use Focused Aim instead of Lethal Arrow. Actually, I hate Focused Aim. I hate the giant light beam it puts over my target. I love the heal debuff of Lethal Arrow… however, if you got Lethal Arrow, you HAVE to split points between Mighty (phsyical damage) and Thaumaturge (poison damage) because Magnum Shot, Bombard, and heavy/light attacks are still physical and you use those a lot. I can’t justify the split, so I recently changed to Focused Aim.
Playstyle:
Control –
Here is why we’re using this build. It plays unlike anything else in the game :). It seems like everyone is focused on mindlessly dumping as much damage in as little time as possible. This build counters that. You will frustrate melee users attempts to catch you and you will reflect what magic users are throwing at you. This build excels at control.
That is your philosophy when playing this build, and you’ll see it reflected in the videos of my play below. First and foremost, I am fighting for control. Once I have control, THEN I unload my burst rotation.
Even if someone is vastly more powerful than you, you almost always have the option of playing defensive and draining his stamina through CC/roots until he has no choice to eat your snipes forever.
Rotation –
This build uses light and heavy attacks. You are not simply sitting there spamming the Snipe button, and that’s one of the reasons the build is so fun. You MUST know how to animation cancel to make this build work. If you can’t, you will not be putting in enough damage to make kills. Personally, I like animation cancelling. I think it adds a level of skill to the game so you constantly feel yourself improving. I’m aware that a lot of people consider animation cancelling to be cheesy… but it is part of the game now, so let’s work with it.
When you’re not being focused: (Snipe+heavy attack weaving) Start snipe. As soon as you hit snipe, start holding the mouse trigger to charge a heavy attack. Heavy attack charges during the snipe animation. Once snipe animation finishes, release the mouse button. Snipe and the heavy attack will land roughly at the same time. Continue doing this. Be sure to keep poison injection up. This is your highest dps.
When you ARE being focused: (Snipe+heavy attack+one more ability) The above snipe rotation is no longer realistic. You can’t spam snipes when you’re being focused. Now, as described before, you have to fight for control. Once you have control, hit them with the rotation. It’s just like the above rotation, except the final ability will cancel the end animation of your heavy attack. It’s less dps because it takes longer to get into the next snipe. The trade off is that it allows you a heavier burst and then lets you reposition. The “one more ability” is poison injection if you’re at distance, magnum shot (more dmg) if you’re close, or bombard if you want to root someone.
Magnum Shot Rotation: (Magnum shot+charge heavy attack while flying back+magnum shot+ charge heavy+ repeat) This is your lowest damage rotation, but it’s a quick burst and there are sometimes when it’s your best option when a melee won’t get out of your face.
That’s everything. At least, I think that’s everything. This is my first time writing up a build like this, so please let me know if there’s anything else you’re wondering about. I’ll be checking this thread often and I’m very open to questions or criticism or new ideas. Thanks, and be sure to check out the videos I threw together below so you can see the build in action.
-
This topic was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by
Huggalump.
