Elder Scrolls Online - Flexible PvE Magicka Sorcerer Build (Update 28)

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This article details options for our Beginner Magicka Sorcerer Class PvE build. It was adjusted for Update 28 but is still relevant for Update 30.

Objective: We began with an easy-to-play build that aimed at low skill points, high survivability, and not a lot of button mashing. In this article, we will consider various options you can try once you are more comfortable with the Beginner build. Ideally you have good gear, invested Skill Points and Champion Points into Passives, and can already comfortably solo a basic world boss that just has one big attack you can block or move away from (even if it takes you several minutes to defeat the boss).

Working on your gear and Skills and Champion Points can get you through easy dungeons like Fungal Grotto I and Spindleclutch I solo without changing the skill loadout, so what we're going to discuss is optional.

Addons like Dressing Room can help you manage your various skill loadouts. We summarize the Core Build, then consider:
  • Light Tanking / More Defense
  • Replacing Static Area of Effects
  • Single Target Focus
Core Build

Bar 1 - Precise Restoration Staff with Glyph of Absorb Health and Essence Drain passive
Bar 2 - Precise Lightning Staff with Glyph of Hardening
Rotation
  • Critical Surge
  • Soul Splitting Trap
  • Lightning Flood
  • Unstable Wall of Elements
  • Low on Magicka? Heavy Attack.
  • Enemies are low on Health? Endless Fury.
  • Effects expired? Start them again. The Action Duration Reminder Addon is very useful for this.
  • Otherwise Heavy Attack or Light Attack or Endless Fury until it is time to refresh your damage over time effects.
Gear: Iceheart Monster Set, and two sets from Mad Tinkerer, Mother's Sorrow, Law of Julianos, and Combat Physician, aiming for high Spell Critical after factoring in Traits, Mundus Stone, and Light Armor Prodigy passive. Medusa is also an interesting option if you can get it for jewelry and weapons because it is a Heavy Armor set, and Magicka gets benefits from Light Armor skill passives.

Option: Light Tanking / More Defense
If you are feeling good about your survivability and especially if you are geared up and have invested skill points into useful Passive Skills, you can try your hand at tanking easier dungeons. There isn't enough Health on the build to be a "real tank" and do very hard tanking content like Mighty Chudan in Ruins of Mazzatun, but you should be able to handle a lot of normal non-DLC dungeons.
  • Change the Lightning Staff to an Ice Staff.
  • Change Endless Fury to one of two skills:
    • Destruction Staff > Destructive Touch > Destructive Clench.
      • This is better if you are alone or if the taunt target can be immobilized.
      • As you need to use an Ice Staff for Destructive Clench to taunt, you will also get extra shielding when you use Wall of Elements.
    • Undaunted > Inner Fire > Inner Rage. This is better if you are in a group.
      • It has longer range than Destructive Clench, and does not lock you into using an Ice Staff, so you can have the area of effect from a Lightning Staff Tri-Focus heavy attack when you need it.
      • Most of the time you are going to hold a boss enemy who is likely to be immune to the immobilization from Destructive Clench anyway.
    • (In Update 28, Ice Staff taunt was moved from Tri-Focus to Destructive Clench, so to taunt we will need a specific skill morph instead of just making a Heavy Attack with the Ice Staff.)
  • Rotation is basically unchanged but you will need to conserve Magicka to periodically taunt the boss. A pretty easy way to remember is to taunt whenever you refresh your damage-over-time skills as the taunt has a duration longer than those skills, so there should be no gap in taunt coverage.
If you don't want to tank at all and just want more defense, switching to an Ice Staff loses us the area of effect from Lightning Staff heavy attack, and we also lose some damage from Wall of Frost, but we gain some shielding.

Defensive Skill Options
We want to keep some area of effect and damage over time up to help proc Critical Surge so it is not recommended to swap all attacks out for defenses, but here are some options:

Change Healing Ward to Conjured Ward > Hardened Ward (or also have Hardened Ward)
  • When other friendly players or neutral NPCs are nearby, Healing Ward might be cast on them instead if their health is lower and this can happen several times while you are trying to cast it on yourself. When you are tanking, you might want to guarantee the shield is put on you.
  • A switch to Hardened Ward means you won't have the additional healing from Healing Ward, so it's more of a preemptive cast and the shield is stronger.
  • In general we recommend Healing Ward for overall superior utility. If the team is in trouble you can just hang back and heal more while using Heavy Attacks to recover your magicka. If you really feel you need even more shielding, you could drop one attack power to have both Wards.
Lightning Form > Boundless Storm
  • A mix of melee-range area damage and defense. It lasts quite a long time so it is recommended as a replacement for Soul Splitting Trap on Bar 1, cast right after Critical Surge as you enter combat.
Undo > Precognition
  • Precognition is recommended but not critical. However, it's a long haul to getting it unlocked and some Summerset quests need to be done. You can jump to do Summerset, but if you want to do quests in the "proper quest order", it is quite far away. If you do get this Psijic Order Precognition ultimate, it is interesting for two reasons:
    • It can get you out of many crowd-control effects that normally require someone else to intervene.
    • It qualifies you for the additional shielding from the Concentrated Barrier passive.
  • Recommended to replace the Ultimate in Set 2 as you are likely to be blocking with the Ice Staff, so you'd get additional shielding when you do.
Option: Replacing Static Area of Effects
There are times when static area of effects are hard to apply because the enemy keeps moving out of the area for whatever reason (e.g., other players keep kiting the enemy around) and you don't get as much benefit from the damage over time from Lightning Flood or Unstable Wall of Elements in such cases. Or, you may have to keep mobile to avoid enemy effects and that causes them to follow and move out of your areas.
In the general case of PvE solo adventuring the Core Build will be fine but at times you may want to adapt to specific situations, especially when you are not expecting only a couple of enemies at a time. Overall however it is not recommended to have no area of effect skills at all. (But in the worst case, the Lightning Staff Heavy Attack with the Tri-Focus passive gives you an area effect attack.)

Mages Guild > Entropy > Structured Entropy
Structured Entropy attaches to a single target and gives you reliable, continuous healing that can still activate your Critical Surge.

Sorcerer > Dark Summoning > Daedric Curse > Haunting Curse
Haunting Curse is basically a bomb that sticks to one target so it's good against targets that don't like to stand still inside your Lightning Flood or Unstable Wall of Elements. And when they are near other enemies, the blast will hit them too. If the target dies the Curse is not removed and will still explode, but you have to decide if it's in a useful place and possibly re-cast it early to plant it elsewhere.
Detonation is a similar skill that is much more powerful when there are a lot of enemies (at least four) because damage increases drastically with each enemy in the radius. Also, the damage is more consistent against all enemies instead of mainly concentrated on the target. However, there is a casting time and you will have to decide how frequently you might be interrupted.
Whichever you try, you can only place one bomb at a time -- re-casting it before a bomb explodes just starts the timer all over again.

Destruction Staff > Destructive Touch > Destructive Reach
Another attack that attaches to a single target, has good range, and also applies a damage over time.

Sorcerer > Dark Magic > Daedric Mines
Mines are very tricky to use well (and expensive in Magicka). They are best when the enemy density around you is guaranteed to be very high -- and there are actually not that many situations where this occurs. Some Trials may feature this in certain phases, as well as some Public Dungeons where there are a lot of melee enemies that will rush you.
Obviously the Mines will be static once placed, but when an enemy triggers it with their running around they will receive a burst of damage greater than sitting in other types of area of effects for several seconds.
The Daedric Minefield morph is also interesting for its delayed arming: Combined with the higher density, you can let the enemy swarm you while it is arming. When a mine explodes, it will damage all valid targets standing on it, not just the first target that triggered it.
Because it is in the Dark Magic skill tree, it benefits from the Exploitation passive and Minor Prophecy will stack with Major Prophecy.

Assault > Magicka Detonation > Proximity Detonation
A variant on using Mines is the morph of Detonation that makes you the the bomb. If you know you will be swarmed the damage bonus of 25% per enemy in the radius makes this an interesting option, especially when adventuring solo and the enemy will all be focussed on you.. If you won't be interrupted, the regular version will work better because they are all going to clump around you anyway so it doesn't matter which target you plant the bomb on and you can cast it more frequently as it detonates faster.

Option: Single Target Focus
When you know you will face exactly one enemy, especially in a fight that involves a lot of movement and they won't stand in a static area of effect, you can try swapping out some skills to single target plus a strong spammable.

Bar 1 - Precise Restoration Staff with Glyph of Absorb Health and Essence Drain passive
Bar 2 - Precise Lightning Staff with Glyph of Hardening
As usual we open with Critical Surge to set up our continuous healing, although we won't get to proc it until we get Structured Entropy going.
Elemental Drain reduces their Spell Resistance and also refunds us some Magicka every second to help keep up a continuous barrage of spells without having to stop to make a Heavy Attack to recover resources. But watch your Magicka in case you need an emergency Healing Ward.
Structured Entropy continuously procs the Minor Magickasteal from Elemental Drain, helps to trigger the healing from Critical Surge, and gives us guaranteed healing every second. The other morph of Weakness to Elements does not have Minor Magickasteal but is more convenient for not really needing to be refreshed at all.
Once these are set up, use Crystal Fragments until you need to refresh Haunting Curse and Structured Entropy again. The Blood Magic passive further adds healing and Minor Prophecy from the Exploitation passive stacks with Major Prophecy from Inner Light.

Although this setup can seem very strong in damage output, your area of effect damage is limited to Haunting Curse, your Lightning Staff, and Summon Charged Atronach. When there are many or frequent adds, you may find this inconvenient and irritating, so choose this loadout carefully.

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