Small rant + Need feedback on MagSorc build

[KitKat]

Hope this is an ok place to ask such things though.
And really, before I show my stats and whatnot, I wanna say this. ESO gives me this real dumb feeling that I'm just "bad" at it. At the game and at build making overall. Despite how good(in my opinion) my current build performs in "outside world" questing + Delves + Open dungeons, even the NON-veteran Maelstrom Arena. Works like a charm, roflstomping through stuff easily and quickly.
And really, I just have this feeling about ESO in general that you have to resort to some "meta" to be good, to look through all those countless hour-long video guides of "easy builds"... Yeah, seriously? An hour long video to explain an "easy build", eh?

Anyway, enough ranting. First, the stats. Breton, vampire magSorc 235 champion points(so far). Lotsa passives too, can be more specific if needed.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1544029570
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1544029738
5-item Julianos set + 2 items Assassin's guile set(for that spell crit). And one item without a set. Full light armor. (All crafted by me, since I got all crafting maxed, still learning some of the traits though)
Main bar:
Endless Fury / Blockade of Storms / Liquid Lightning / Inner Light / Bound Aegis (Shooting Star ult)
Second bar:
Empowered Ward / Power Surge / Harness Magicka / Boundless Storm / Bound Aegis (Energy Overload ult)

I usually just buff with Power Surge and Boundless Storm when fighting regular enemies. More rarely go for Empowered Ward/Harness Magica when I do actually need shields to survive + regen some energy(if enemy has spellcasters). Inner Light and Bound Aegis - for passives, obviously. Energy Overload - for panic energy regen as well(rarely used)

Once needed buffs are up, switch to main. Blockade of Storms + Liquid Lightning, then spam light attack. Closer to 20% HP on some target - click Endless Fury. On very fat bosses/larger crowds sometimes Shooting Star(rarely used as well).

So... Yeah. Feel free to tell me how bad it is. It's not some meta-build that I googled around, but something I built myself from scratch. A lot of AOE damage for easy PvE clearing. Plus high survivability from high crit stat coupled with Power Surge, as well as shields of course. And magicka regen through Harness Magicka, when needed.

I am kinda comfortable with it, but after the addition of Psijic skill tree(just unlocked) and checking out the skills + opinions about them on the forums... Once again I get that feeling that my efforts are all worthless crap and I just need to do what 90% of people do - "meta or don't play at all".

P.s. I only play PvE. I decided not to touch PvP at all. As to what kind of PvE content - for now it's just questing, gathering skill points from shards/"main" questlines.

[Brownstone]

It depends on the dungeon. Most dungeons are so easy that their Veteran difficulty is easier than some other dungeon's normal difficulty. You can play most veteran dungeons without problems if you change your dps rotation with the "light attack only" habit :D

[Brownstone]

Monster helmets drop from the final boss and shoulders drop from undaunted chests. Believe me, the hard part is dropping the shoulder... Head is a guaranteed drop when you kill the boss but shoulder depends on your luck. Even if you drop it, then you need to drop it in a specific weight (light for you). At least we no longer grind for the right trait since we can just transmute items and transmutation stones are easy to farm. My transmutation stone capacity is at full and I have tons of Geodes in my inventory

[Brownstone]

Ilambris set drops from Crypt of Hearts I. The final bosses might be hard for unexperienced players, they don't have any mechanics but their hp is very high (around 4-5m) and their damage is high. Other than that, it's an easy fight. I think the most important job belongs to tank there. The Ilambris twins are 2 bosses and one of them is stationary, the other moves around. Tank should keep them together so damage dealers can be able to damage them both at the same time. Otherwise, the fight takes longer and gets boring :D

[ᴛᴀʟᴜ 🐦]

I saw once a magsorc in a Falkreatch normal run, he completely destroyed the mammoth, not sure what build he had, but that damage was insane. He was 340 cp i think.

[ᴛᴀʟᴜ 🐦]

I still have a key, not sure what chest to use though for a stamsorc

[KitKat]

Ok, here are the few changes I made so far:
- Cured vampirism
- Ate some food before screenshotting the stats(below) :P
- FOR NOW wearing 5-piece Julianos set + 5-piece Mother's Sorrow set + 2-piece Magnus's Gift. That 2-piece is simply due to lack of them monster set helmet/shoulder you all talking about. Will revew the sets more and decide on which stuff should I craft/farm.
- Moved Endless Fury to 2nd bar for "finishing" the 20%Hp enemies(removed Harness Magicka for that) + put Force pulse on 1st bar.
- Added one Medium armor(pants). Didn't add the Heavy armor(chest) - still have a few days till "Divines" trait will finish researching on heavy armor. Will make a replacement for my current robe into a heavy breastplate then. Thinking of spending some writ tickets on research boosters from a vendor... Worth it?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1545463415
Also, as a side-note. I do have a target dummy at my house. Previously I was doing something around barely ~8k... With the build/items mentioned in the original post.
With the changes above it's now around ~11.5k or so. But I feel like I started to run out of Magicka quite a bit faster when forcing myself on as much DPS as possible(for example on this test dummy). Simply due to Force Pulse spam. Perhaps Atronach stone will help? But I'll lose on some crit... Which is not that of a major setback anyway with how much of it I have now, really. Plus potions for Magicka regen, yes?

P.s. And as far as I just heard... They nerfed magSorc shields, no? So perhaps 2 shields are... Not overkill after all? :D Or still too much?

[Brownstone]

Nah don't spend writs for research, they're valuable in my opinion.

At this point your build is above average, you should work on your dps rotation. I don't follow a perfect rotation, just drop Liquid + Blockade and spam direct damage attacks until they need recasting, 35k dmg. I don't use pots because I don't need them yet. (I don't do trials. Once I start doing Trials I'll use the best pots available.).

Yes, Hardened Ward shield strenght will be equal to half your hp but you can halve the damage you take just by blocking. Just put your shield up and block. With Ward it takes more than 20k dmg to one-shot you and with block you can increase this to 40k. Surviving up to 40k dmg is pretty good and enough. Shields now take critical damage (there is no critical damage in pve) and they're affected by your resistances, which is kind of a buff for pve. You'll be fine with 1 shield as long as the tank is doing their job. Slot Haunting Curse instead of Harness Magicka and your damage will increase.

[Inanegrain62]

Originally posted by Tiny Tina:

Ok, here are the few changes I made so far:
- Cured vampirism
- Ate some food before screenshotting the stats(below) :P
- FOR NOW wearing 5-piece Julianos set + 5-piece Mother's Sorrow set + 2-piece Magnus's Gift. That 2-piece is simply due to lack of them monster set helmet/shoulder you all talking about. Will revew the sets more and decide on which stuff should I craft/farm.
- Moved Endless Fury to 2nd bar for "finishing" the 20%Hp enemies(removed Harness Magicka for that) + put Force pulse on 1st bar.
- Added one Medium armor(pants). Didn't add the Heavy armor(chest) - still have a few days till "Divines" trait will finish researching on heavy armor. Will make a replacement for my current robe into a heavy breastplate then. Thinking of spending some writ tickets on research boosters from a vendor... Worth it?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1545463415
Also, as a side-note. I do have a target dummy at my house. Previously I was doing something around barely ~8k... With the build/items mentioned in the original post.
With the changes above it's now around ~11.5k or so. But I feel like I started to run out of Magicka quite a bit faster when forcing myself on as much DPS as possible(for example on this test dummy). Simply due to Force Pulse spam. Perhaps Atronach stone will help? But I'll lose on some crit... Which is not that of a major setback anyway with how much of it I have now, really. Plus potions for Magicka regen, yes?

P.s. And as far as I just heard... They nerfed magSorc shields, no? So perhaps 2 shields are... Not overkill after all? :D Or still too much?

To aid for the magicka issue which I do know is an issue, run infused absorb magicka on a staff and raw element enchant on the other.

Don't forget, there's a passive for the Destro line that has you equip a destro ability to boost your damage, swapping in the ult for it will work.

I don't use boundless storm as skill bars are often crowded.

I'd run the main bar meant for solely DoT, i.e. replacing endless fury for haunting curse (It'll take time to get used to it).

The backbar would be meant for direct damage, imo, being a dps and yet relying on trying to sustain yourself isn't a good idea as all I see are abilities that depend on an ult to deal damage.

Of course, note the bars to be exchangeable, I run crushing shock for trials and crystal frag. I've been told that crushing shock lowers my dps, but I still do trials so I definitely need it to interrupt as 9k stamina and being close to a channeling enemy isn't easy to interrupt as a magsorc. The replacement for crushing would be the psijic order's imbue weapon morph.

Also, I learned to weave attacks to help my resources a little, you can throw a charged heavy attack and immediately do a force pulse, or any other magicka ability that has no cast time.

[Brownstone]

I use Crushing Shock all the time. The main reason I switched to it was for pvp but the interrupt helps a lot even in pve. Force Pulse only has %6 more damage than Crushing Shock, and that's not even a 1% decrease in your overall dps if you do the math.

I know Pulse deals aoe damage to mobs but the real fight happens against bosses in this game so it's not a mandatory thing. I think the tradeoff of dropping Pulse is worth it for the benefits from Crushing.

[KitKat]

Ok, so... I got lucky pretty quick. I got the helmet and the shoulder from monster set. But both of em are with the wrong trait. Now, I need 100 transmutation stones...

Is there any solid way of getting those OUTSIDE of PvP grinding though? With my clearly PvE build I'm getting one-shotted in Cyrodil "out of nowhere", when I don't even see the enemy. And while in BG I manage to kill one or two people (with slight adjustments to my built specifically for PvP), the number of transmutation stones is still pretty low. And chance of me winning is also low, so...

[Inanegrain62]

Originally posted by Tiny Tina:

Ok, so... I got lucky pretty quick. I got the helmet and the shoulder from monster set. But both of em are with the wrong trait. Now, I need 100 transmutation stones...

Is there any solid way of getting those OUTSIDE of PvP grinding though? With my clearly PvE build I'm getting one-shotted in Cyrodil "out of nowhere", when I don't even see the enemy. And while in BG I manage to kill one or two people (with slight adjustments to my built specifically for PvP), the number of transmutation stones is still pretty low. And chance of me winning is also low, so...

I'd honestly stick with dungeons and randoms for the transmutation stones, I recall trials being able to grant em as well, once a week for a trial and there are plenty of trials

For now, I don't know what's your dps currently at but 15k dps is at least a step in the right direction into trials. Do mention that you're new if you are joining a pug.

[KitKat]

Undaunted pledges for vet dungeons, ok... Already doing those daily. That's just a very small amount of stones, but meh. At least something. But all I see across the net is "Go PvP and you'll be swimming in transmutation stones".

Well then, ok. How about making a low-level character of *some race* and *some class* and outfit em with the best possible gear/build for that? I do have a couple of alts already... Khajiit stamblade(lvl 23), Nord dragonknight(lvl 4, just freshly created, wanted to make a tank character) and Argonian Templar(lvl 11, wanted to make a healer character). But I don't mind making specifically a character for PvP. Any advice on that? For easier transmutation stones farming.

I've been playing A LOT of Resto Shaman/Holy Priest in WoW back in the days of Classic/Burning Crusade/WotLK, so I do know a thing or two about healing... in general. Most likely different from ESO though, but... I don't mind being a full time pvp healer on BG/Cyrodil. Is it worth it here though?

[Brownstone]

You don't have to play Pvp but yeah it's a big help. I always do the daily dungeon and battleground for xp and I started transmuting random monster sets to get rid of crystals... I have 100 crystals and around 50+ geodes in my inventory...