3824

Do you guys typically go to "newbie island’?

With my last character I played a faction I had never been to before so of course I had no idea what I was doing. Plus I just sort of ran 'round doing whatever I felt like. So I’m sure my leveling experience was anti-optimal

3825

When you start doing the stamina morph of lightning form, and the extended volley + steel tornado…then you will know of the AOEEEEEEEE!!!oneoneone. Sta sorc AOE is REDONKULOUS.

I actually started a 2nd stamina sorc today, because I wanted to do a 2h + bow orc. Main is duel wield + bow imperial.

Eh, once you get the skill that makes crits heal you, that + all the AOE is just laughably overpowered. Fun times.

3826

Literally doesn’t matter anymore, you can go anywhere, do anything, everything scales to your level. Do whatever you are enjoying. The main story quest line is good to do some of, as it rewards you with skillpoints, which are pretty valuable, especially early on. Other than that, you can’t really go wrong. Both the mage and fighter guild quest lines are good to pick up and get working on as well. You can level to 50 doing nothing but those main quest lines if you like.

3827

I have no Imperial pack, so one Redguard Stamsorc will be on the way tonight. I also found a nifty pic of my ‘ideal’ looking Breton Templar that I’m going to shamelessly steal, so maybe I can stop spazzing and actually play past level 10. Like RichVR, I have a fleet of low level guys - not getting the Imperial race cause that would just make a real mess of things.

3828

As a side note, I’m going to highly recommend the combo of bow + duel wield for stamina sorcs. Use the tank pet morphed to heal you from pet summon line (only skill in that line), poison arrow, volley, steel tornado, crit surge, stamina morph of lightning form are the main skills to go after. You can get the pet morphed to heal you very early on, so not only does it make a great tank for tougher fights, but it’s a fairly spamable heal until you get crit surge and or dark bargain.

You can play this class more or less as a ranger with a pet for the first 15 levels = ezmode.

3829

I know you can go anywhere and do whatever you want with respect to questing. I was just curious if people went to the island. It does have three sky shards on it! Or is it six?

3830

Can’t remember how many it has…I know it’s at least 3. I usually do the 3, get to about level 5, and then head to main city and start doing main quests, fighters and mages guild, and start doing some dolemens/delves.

3831

My main is an imperial stamina sorc. He’s goofily overpowered. Soloing world bosses is trivial, and he does giant piles of damage in the four-man PvE content. I really like this combination :)

3832

Shhhh! Do you hear that fluttering sound? That’s the Nerf Bat. He is searching for a victim!

3833

Oh yah, it is without question very ‘meta’ right now. Probably due for a nerf at some point, but it’s fun for now :p

There’s a PVP take/build on it.

3834

My son created my Redguard sorc, and he’s pretty much pure awesome. And that’s just the character screen.

Also, I do the island cause I’m a noob and didn’t know better than to leave. However, I’ve done the quest line for the breton race a few times now, so I might wayshrine to a different alliance island for variety.

3835

I made a Redguard stamina sorcerer and chose a faction I’ve never done before by accidents once again I’m doing a bunch of strange quests. The guy is pretty strong for sure… it does seem like I’m breezing through things with my Clannfear to tank and my poison arrow.

3836

It is the gravy train. The great thing is, pet health scales with your level, so they remain useful throughout leveling. I’ve actually soloed 4 mans with the Clannfear, in crap gear, and before I had really any CP. Fun stuff.

The other funny thing, that no one seems to talk about, is Dark Bargain, if you keep it morphed to give you mana back instead of stamina. You can use the pet heal, then use dark bargain (which also heals you), and you’ll be full mana again…you can do this literally indefinitely. I’m not sure if no one got onto it, because people just auto take the stamina morph, but it’s a pretty neat trick. It makes you immortal unless you get stunned.

3837

So, the reason to go Sorceror is not to use the sorceror damage skills, right? Since they mostly base of off magicka, I assume as you mention that you use bows, two-handers, that are stamina based, correct?

Do you also wear leather armor then? Or do you use magicka for anything at all?

Thanks!

3838

Yes, you’ll be relying on the weapon skills (bow, 2h, dual wield) to do damage. In early levels you can use sorc damage skills if you want, since the level system gives you similar amounts of magicka and stamina (skills that cost stamina cause damage based on your max stamina and weapon damage, skills that cost magicka cause damage based on your max magicka and spell damage.) That becomes increasingly sub-optimal as time goes on, and ultimately only about half of a sorc’s class skills/passives are applicable for stamina, but they’re potent ones.

3839

You actually do use a fair number of Magicka skills but I think your main damage dealing and/or spam skills are Stamina.

As far as leveling all this goes, don’t forget that your skill trees level only when there is a skill from the appropriate tree on your quickbar. And as a video I watched told me, levels are everything (actually it was a video linked above, one of the ‘newbie tips’). So if you don’t put a spell from, say, Dark Magic on your quickslot, Dark Magic will not level (or I guess it levels ultra slowly).

So for 1-10 here’s what I’m doing:

Twin Slashes (Dual Wield)
Poison Arrow (Bow)
Crystal Shard (Dark Magic)
Unstable Familiar (Daedric Summoning)
Mage’s Fury (Storm Calling)

I started with Bow and just shooting with left click; when it got to level 2 I unlocked the skill, put it on my quickbar, switched to two grungy sword I had picked up, and did the same until I could unlock Twin Slashes. Then I switched back to bow for some distance killing.

Since you can only wield one weapon type below level 15, I don’t use the Dual Wield skill, but the skill line is leveling because the skill is on my quickbar.

At this level I cast Crystal Shard, sic my Clannfear (‘Y’ key), then Fury, then alternate Poison Arrow and light attacks, throwing in a Fury when I feel like it. The Clannfear keeps the mob’s attention. It’s easy to kill packs of 2 this way, and I’ve pulled as many as 5 through reckless retreating but if you keep moving it’s pretty easy to win out.

As for armor, you probably guessed it but you only gain skills in a particular armor line if you wear armor of the specific type. So for this build most people recommend one piece of light armor, one piece of heavy armor, and the rest medium. But tell the truth, I usually just put on whatever I find (as long as I have at least one of each type equipped) since I rarely get hit.

I’m keeping an eye on this guide as I go.

Edit to say I have seen someone talk about leveling with 2H and Mage skills (root them with the Mage skill, then use the first 2H skill with the damage shield). That seemed pretty solid too.

3840

Keeping skills on your bar that you are not using is a good idea, you don’t really need that much early on. Once you get to 12 and unlock an ult, you can use that for one of your leveling skills, and use 2 bow skills (poison and volley).

Level 1-15 use bow with poison arrow, and clannfear morphed for the heal. That will pretty easily and quickly get you to 15.

Your primary damage dealing is going to come from the bow and duel wield skills, but there are quite a few good sorcerer skills that have stamina morphs, or are still good as magic morphs. The big ones are:

Dark Exchange – 1s cast to spend stamina and gain health and magicka (you can move at normal speed while casting).

Unstable Clannfear (4) – Pet does 15% more damage, can charge and tail swipe. Upon death or unsummoning he heals you for 35% of max health.

Lightning Form – Applies Major Resolve and Major Ward buffs (increased armor and resist) for 15s. Deals damage to nearby mobs every second. Morphed into: Hurricane (S) (4) – 15s duration, and now uses Stamina, radius grows in size (up to 9m) and damage (up to 225%).

Surge – Applies major Brutality buff (increase weapon damage by 20%). Also heals on critical hits. Morphed into: Critical Surge (4) – Critical strikes heal you for more (50% instead of 40%). While this skill is still no longer king of AoE healing, thanks to the reduced cool down on its effect and the removal of silly DoTs causing it, the ability is an effective heal alongside the excellent buff.

Those are the main sorc skills to focus on, and fill in the passives that seem to make sense. Bow/Duel wield skills to shoot for are:

Poison arrow

Volley

Flurry – 5 rapid attacks doing higher damage on final hit. Channeled Ability. This can be morphed to heal you on the last hit. Can be useful early on before you have crit surge. One of the reasons to take duel wield for leveling.
.
Hidden Blade – Throws a dagger dealing damage and snares and applies Major Brutality for 20s (20% increase to weapon damage) You don’t really need this, as you have crit surge providing you major brutality. I only use it on my melee bar, because sometimes I’m lazy and don’t bar swap, and just do hurricane, hidden blade, and steel tornado. This works just fine for trash packs. Not essential though.

Whirlwind – 360 degree AoE attack, increased damage against low health targets. Morphed to: Steel Tornado (4) – Increases radius. Great morph, your radius is now 11m, if there are mobs on your screen they are getting hit, those pesky bowmen and casters that spread out when you engage are not safe from you.

You can fiddle around with other stuff, as that’s most of the fun of the game, this is just what has worked out well for me. 2h is certainly viable as well, but duel wield IMO is better for leveling. You get heals and great AOE with duel wield. 2h is more of a PvP thing.

The combination of hurricane, volley, and steel tornado, while you have crit surge going, is what makes this so ridiculous for PVE. Start your hurricane, plop down a volley, and then spin to win while you’re getting healed. You can just plow through stuff like delves etc.

3841

Thanks for the writeup.

I was thinking… is there value in leveling multiple toons of the same class to 50? I mean, I do (or I used to) enjoy the PVE experience, but if I have a level 50 sorc is there any reason to level another sorc? Why not swap my existing guy over to this build? I was playing my own build back then so I probably will have to replace all his gear but other than that (and possibly leveling some of the skill lines up, no idea what shape I’m in there) it seems workable.

3842

Great stuff here. Thanks all.

3843

Only if you want to min/max the racial passives for your character, which you might want to do if you’re into PvP or hardcore PvE (trials, etc.) And even then it’s not really necessary.