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Magicka sorcerer PvP

Introduction

Hey guys, a lot of people have been complaining that Magicka Sorcerer is dead in PvP but I greatly disagree. While it is weaker than stamina specs, it is not as disadvantaged as Magicka DKs or NBs in PvP. This build was basically created with just random gear I had lying around but it actually turned out really well! There are 2 variants I use, one with engine guardian which isn’t as optimized is the statistics department but is just fun to use and another which has superior stats.

I’d just like to say, I’m not the best sorcerer in the world but this build has worked really well for me so far. If anyone has any suggestions or improvements please leave a comment Alright, let’s get into the build!

Core

Alright so as with most Magicka builds, I’m running all 64 points into magicka. The reason being I need my damage shields to be as strong as I can get them. The food I use is the blue magicka/max health food but if you’re having trouble managing stamina it may be better to run purple tri-food. You really want your health at about the 20k – 22k mark so you can survive in PvP. At the moment I don’t have UD passives so my health is only just over that 20k mark. And speaking of UD passives: it is important to run a 5/1/1 setup to get as much magicka as you can, therefore making your shields much stronger and increasing damage at once.

For potions, I use 2 different ones, Immovability/Health/Stamina or Health/Magicka/Stamina. Immovability potions are so helpful in outnumbered situations but are generally frowned upon in 1v1/duels so I use the tri-pots for those.

I believe the best race for a Magicka sorcerer in PvP is a High Elf, or Altmer. Other good choices are Breton or Dark Elf/Dunmer.

This build is a vampire. I went with vampire just for the recovery, I don’t actually use any of the skills.

Gear

As I mentioned in the introduction, there are 2 variants I use. I’ll start with the Engine Guardian setup.

• 5 pieces of Seducer: Chest, Hands, Feet, Waist and Staves (Lightning or Inferno front bar and Restoration back bar)
• 4 pieces of Shadow Dancer: Necklace, Rings and Legs
• 2 pieces of Engine Guardian: Head and Shoulder

First I’ll talk about the choice of destruction staff element. I personally prefer a lightning staff and many people might disagree with me but here is why I use it. Magicka, or even stamina DKs, pose a threat to magicka sorcerer due to their use of Reflective Scales. In this build I only have 2 damaging abilities, aside from ultimates, that cannot be reflected – Velocious Curse and Daedric Minefield. Now a good dragonknight isn’t going to wander into your mines freely, which requires a great deal of maneuvering and clever mine placing to get them down. And you can’t kill them just with curse. So to fix this I use lightning staff heavy attacks, which can’t be reflected, inbetween curses to keep up pressure and force them to heal which gives me a small window where their wings are down and allow a frag to hit them. On the other hand inferno staff allows you to medium attack weave which provides more damage. In the end it’s just down to personal preference.

Now for traits. Armour traits are very much personal preference and I choose them to compliment my playstyle. For example my stamina characters often run quite a bit of well fitted because I roll a lot. For my magicka sorcerer I have damage shields up 99% of the time, and as they can’t be critically hit impenetrable is not as useful as other traits. However if you have trouble keeping shields up all the time then it could be a life saver! Right now I don’t have all the traits I’d like. At the moment I have 2 infused on chest and legs, 3 divines on hands, waist and feet, and 2 reinforced on engine guardian. Because RNG in this game hates me, reinforced is the best engine guardian trait I have. Preferably I’d like to run 2 impenetrable instead of reinforced in case I get caught with my shields down, that little bit of crit resist really helps. For weapon traits, either nirnhoned or sharpened on your destruction staff and either precise, powered or defending on restoration staff. At the moment I’m running nirnhoned destruction staff and a precise restoration staff. A precise staff will give your healing ward a greater chance of healing you for more, while a powered staff will increase its healing permanently but not by much. A defending staff would give you more resistances, which on a build that relies on damage shields isn’t as useful as other traits.

Enchants are all max magicka to maximize your Magicka pool, and jewelry is all arcane for the same reason. With this setup I have the following statistics:

36.6k Magicka, 20.7k health, 10.4k Stamina (One of my enchants is max stamina, changing it to magicka will put me at ~37.5k Magicka and ~9k stamina), 2251 unbuffed spell damage, 32% Spell Critical, 1716 magicka recovery.

OK now for the second setup:

• 5 pieces of Seducer: Chest, Shoulders, Hands, Waist and Staves.
• 3 pieces of Shadow Dancer: Head, Legs, Feet.
• 3 pieces of Willpower, Necklace and Rings.

This setup has superior stats to the previous one. Trait and enchant information is the same as the previous setup. With this setup I have the following statistics:

39.5k Magicka, 20.7k health, 9.4k stamina, 2364 unbuffed spell damage, 32% Spell Critical, 1803 Magicka Recovery.

Note: I DO NOT have undaunted passives yet so max stats will be higher once they are obtained. Also mages guild is not maxed out.

Mundus Stones

There are 3 good option. I’m order of preference, they are:

1. The Atronach – Magicka Recovery
2. The Mage – Max Magicka
3. The Apprentice – Spell Damage

The Atronach is the best choice for PvP as it provides the build with so much sustain when combined with Seducer. However if you are able to sustain with lower recovery numbers, The Mage is incredible – it will increase the size of shields and buff your damage a bit. The Apprentice is a distant 3rd in this case as the spell damage it provides is not comparable to the sustain Atronach gives you or the survivability + damage combo from Mage.

Skills

Destruction Staff

• Crystal Fragments: Massive burst damage. Don’t use it immediately after it procs, instead time it with Curse for huge damage.
• Crushing Shock: Main spammable. Keeps pressure on the enemy and the interrupt is fantastic.
• Velocious Curse: Keep this up on the enemy 100% of the time. It is key to bursting down and getting a kill. Make sure to this with Crystal Fragments and Endless Fury for massive burst damage.
• Endless Fury: Execute. Apply this just before your Fragments, Curse combo as most of the time that combo will get them into execute range or close to it.
• Degeneration: Spell damage buff. Keep this up as much as possible to ensure you are getting the most damage output you can. I chose this morph over the other because the health bonus doesn’t really help me at all, and my OCD didn’t like having my health different on my bars
• [ULTIMATE] Soul Assault/Shooting Star: I’m using Soul Assault at the moment because I haven’t maxed out Mages Guild yet, but Shooting Star or Ice Comet would be a much better choice.

Restoration Staff

• Harness Magicka: Helps with sustain and gives you a pretty decent damage shield.
• Daedric Minefield: Either morph of this is fine I just prefer this one because it provides protection against melee players.
• Hardened Ward: Massive shield, your main source of survivability.
• Healing Ward: Yet another damage shield, and your main heal.
• Streak: Mobility and a stun.
• [ULTIMATE] Greater Storm Atronach/Energy Overload: I flip between the two constantly, tho in general I use overload for open world solo/small group and Atronach for duels and things. My overload bar is – Boundless Storm, Degeneration, Hardened Ward, Healing Ward, Streak. I put healing ward there because I find it a more reliable way to get out of overload than hitting the ultimate button again.

Champion Points

This is a section where I need some advice. I’m not a mathy person so I don’t know what’s the best CP allocation, so if anyone can help me there it would be much appreciated. Anyway here’s what I run with right now:

The Steed: 20 into Resistant                                           The Lady: 24 into Hardy, 24 into Elemental Defender, 9 into Thick Skinned                                                         The Lord: 100 into Bastion

The Tower: 71 into Magician                                         The Lover: 86 into Arcanist                                             The Shadow: 20 into Tumbling

The Apprenrice: 89 into Elemental Expert, 45 into Spell Erosion, 27 into Elfborn, 13 into Blessed           The Atronach: 3 into Staff Expert                                   The Ritual: -

Conclusion

Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you have any comments, suggestions or ideas please leave something below. As I said I’m not the best sorcerer in the world so please go easy on me I will be putting up screenshots of my stat window when I can. Thank you again and have a nice day