Easy Sorc - Magicka Sorcerer PVE Build
Written guide updated for updated for The Scribes of Fate DLC: Q1 2023
EASY MODE!
That’s right, the easiest to use Sorcerer build in the game built with quite possibly the highest AOE available, with solid sustain and survival.
This is built for players of ALL skill levels from a brand new player all the way up to the very experienced players.
So long as you maintain your rotation you will have constant DPS and incredible sustain.
Due to how the heavy attack is applied and all the skills and sets (Champion Points also) to benefit this, every time you apply your normal damage (heavy attack) you actually GAIN resources. Unless you are having to shield a LOT it is almost impossible to run out of magic. So long as you are paying attention to mechanics and taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves (such as off-balance).
This has high single target with INCREDIBLE AOE. Just make sure you ALWAYS have Wall of Elements (Unstable Wall of Elements) active. Don’t heavy attack without it and make sure your buffs are up!
This build also takes full advantage of, and almost FORCES, off-balance! The way off-balance works is it scales incredibly high on heavy attacks (70% increase)! So the more off-balance, the higher the heavy attacks, the higher your single target and the crazier your AOE (splash damage from your heavies scales off of your single target heavy attack damage!). in the Lost Depths DLC Empower was also altered to allow for the buff to encourage MORE heavy attack damage. Before it was buffing light attacks and heavy attacks by 40%, now it buffs ONLY heavy attacks by 80%, meaning the splash damage from our heavy attacks are HUGE!
Although the cooldown for off-balance is 15 seconds and the uptime is 7 seconds (update in Scalebreaker) it is actually PER TARGET! So if one target in AOE is immune now, you can switch to another for more damage and splash and then switch again and so on and so forth. A little bit of tactical play to utilize it in stack-ups of trash. It is incredibly effective! Not to mention multiple off-balanced targets staggering, allows for a higher uptime for you potentially on your recovery/sustain.
Due to your massive sustain, your survival goes up because you have the freedom to use shields whenever you need to without fear of running low on resources.
Also due to your hurricane being a resist buff too, you are more tanky and it also makes you very fast for a short period of time in case you need to get in and out of mechanics quickly.
With this NEW adapted variation to the build (lost depths update), we now have more heavy attack damage than ever before, can utilize different sets to boost that, and have HUGE aoe compared to previous additions. We still maintain the same single target damage but AOE was boosted a lot!
The gear is still simple as ever with it being all available on normal, apart from the monster helmet so easy to get started and accessible to all.
This update has made GREAT things happen for the Easy Sorc and for those already using it, so far this is already a mind-blowing experience when all along they assumed their beloved build was destroyed. It clearly is not! It has gone BACK to it’s roots, where no complex rotations, specially aimed skills, or PETS are required! Dot the target and heavy attack it #winning!
A few points:-
HIGH sustain!
Good single target damage.
INCREDIBLE AOE damage! (if applied correctly) with the ability to get IN the face of the enemy!
Tanky resists and hps
Self heals from damage every second IF you slot crit surge!
Damage is applied EASILY with a heavy attack and dots!
New player-friendly!
With practice, you can SOLO pretty much anything!
Easy Maelstrom farming! (you can farm the weapons on NORMAL!)
ALL GEAR (excluding monster helm) can be farmed on NORMAL difficulty due to us having the freedom to upgrade ANY armor and ANY jewelry/weapons we get!
The trial gear is much easier to get on NORMAL! Pugs run normal all the time! Join pickup trials, or shout out in local and host your own! We can simply UPGRADE the blue stuff to whatever we want…get to local zone chat, let people know you are doing it, and tell them what roles you need to complete it. You can build a pickup trial from randomers in NO time and normal is a breeze in comparison to the scary veteran difficulty stuff. Get stuck in!
Don’t forget, we are now using a new trait called bloodthirsty on our jewelry which gives us an ADDITIONAL 350 spell damage scaling up TO that vs the target (not shown in your raw stats) from 90% health of the target health and below. So the lower the health of the targets the more damage you do, this was a huge buff in comparison to the 25% and below only damage, like it was before, our damage is MUCH more consistent.
All of the above stack perfectly with our setup where we have high/decent crit chance, lots of lightning damage which is boosted by sorc passives…Quite possibly the easiest build in the game where if you apply your rotations properly…EVERYTHING else is passive and done for you! Now, go bunch up some enemies and enjoy!
Final note – Sorcerers excel with lightning damage! just like a Dragon knight does with fire…LIGHTNING ALL THE WAY! BUT! There are choices vs the situation (explained in detail in the video) where you MAY want to swap out, but that is only on ONE very important condition!…
IF and ONLY IF your group can GUARANTEE 100% or close to 100% uptime on off-balance procs/cooldowns, then you can go with flame (if you have a mag DK too to boost it). IF that situation arises, you can swap (the dummy is a demonstration of this because it HAS off-balance already on cooldown) if you do NOT have this covered by someone else, YOU are the one bringing it!
HAVE FUN!
Fashion First!

As demonstrated in the video, our fabulous setup and dress choice for this character is as follows:
Head: Mona Kena
Chest: Annihilarch’s Chosen Jack Medium
Shoulders: Annihilarch’s Chosen Pauldrons Heavy
Legs: Trinimac Breeches Light
Hands: Dro-M’athra Gloves Light
Belt: Dro-M’athra Girdle Heavy
Feet: Dro-M’athra Shoes Light
Staff: Spellscar Lithoarms Staff
Back Staff: Abnur Tharn’s Staff
The colors are black all around. Legates Black technically but any will do.
Skills
Destruction Staff
1) Bound Aegis
2) Barbed Trap
3) Hurricane
4) Inner Light
5) Mage’s Wrath
Ultimate – Flawless Dawnbreaker
Destruction Staff
1) Bound Aegis
2) Unstable Wall Of Elements
3) Hardened Ward
4) Critical Surge
5) Scalding Rune
Ultimate – Shooting Star
Champion Points 2.0
The NEW Champion Points 2.0 introduced in the Q1 2021 DLC: Flames Of Ambition is quite possibly the BIGGEST change/addition to The Elder Scrolls Online since One Tamriel! And these were further altered in the Blackwood Chapter, giving us a lower base for capping out some of the essentials and also adding some more slotables!
Before it was a case of “I have limited points as a CP, so HOW should I spend them”? Now that is NOT the case as SUCH! Now, it is a case of, buy ALL the things, but which SLOTABLES should you take?
Everything before was a passive bonus with huge diminished returns, awkward calculations, and was messy to all players for the most part. The new system underlines NO diminished returns, no majorly confusing passives, and the ability to buy EVERY single passive available for tanking, DPS, and healing on the SAME character with enough points to spare for buying slotables. Being able to slot 4x special slotables from each tree when there are an abundance of them means you are only limited by your CHOICES, not by your CP.
Buy all the passives, CHOOSE which slotables to take vs the situation, and the rest of the points are spare. Or are they? Well here is the crunch…Once you go over 1800ish (depending on slotable choices, some are more expensive in the Craft tree) you basically have every single passive available PLUS 4 slotables per tree…
If you JUST wanted to focus on combat alone (all red and blue passives and 4 slotables for each one) you only actually need around 1600cp to be completely maxed in those areas. And if you wanted to go FULL glass cannon, only really focusing on one damage type you can achieve your max potential for that as low as 900 or so! You won’t have any resistances or healing bonuses from the Warfare (blue) tree doing this, but you can at least cap out the hard-hitting stuff, right? And this is considering slotables too so there is no harm in actually deliberately specing for a couple of damage resistance slotables instead even at THIS stage.
For tanking it is even easier! Push for your slotables and stack your resistance passives and it is game over! The rest are just a bonus!
So what’s next? Well, if you have higher champion points you can buy more slotables and switch stuff per situation as and when needed. If you don’t, then if you want to swap it will cost you gold for respecing. So in a nutshell, 1650-1800 (depending on build) is you’re pretty much done! Anything else is convenient due to not needing to spend gold swapping things you already have access to! How cool is that?
SLOTABLES!
No matter what, THESE are the most important parts of the Champion Points 2.0 system. So this is your main FIRST goal when pushing for the build. You need to slot these even if they are not max level. However, there are swap-outs for situations as explained in the video.
BLUE (Warfare) are important for resistance, heals, and damage. Red (Fitness) are important for resources, health, and Crowd Control counters. Green (Craft) are literally quality of life! (aka your choice so not THAT important for combat).
It doesn’t matter what level you are at anymore, you can play ALL content regardless of your champion points level because during Flames of Ambition all players/characters had their base stats improved to make everyone somewhat more balanced at lower levels.
However, as mentioned above, the slotables are your main goal. Unlock the prerequisite passives to unlock access to your slotables if there are any…fill them up, and then just grab the remaining passives as you go.
300, 600, 900 champion points are not really important as checkpoints anymore for optimization. Just fill as you go, because ALL characters can have ALL passives with NO negative effects unlike before!
What should I aim for with this build?
- Wrathful Strikes
- Fighting Finesse
- Deadly Aim
- Weapon’s Expert
- Rationer
- Liquid Efficiency
- Treasure Hunter
- Steed’s Blessing
These really are up to you but these are most useful IN content for loot and movement if not in combat.
What you do with this tree is NOT make or break for mechanics or combat in general just quality of life.
- Boundless Vitality
- Rejuvenation
- Fortified
- Siphoning Spells
You could swap Rejuvenation for Bloody Renewal for extra stam.
The video below explains how the changes work in more detail. Of course, over time, additions will be and have already been made to the system but the main BASE of it is the same.
Rotation
Make sure buffs are on before you start then the rotation goes as follows.
Light Attack, Lightning Flood/Scalding Rune, Light Attack, Unstable Wall Of Elements, weapon swap
Light Attack, Heavy Attack,x3, Barbed Trap, weapon swap
Rinse repeat!
Execute Rotation
Your execute (below 20%) will be solid during your front rotation, so just keep your back bar buff and redot, fast and clean!
Basically keep the back bar rotation the same but your front one should be light attack + Mage’s Wrath 6-7 times, then bar swap and start again.
Be sure to heavy attack if you start running low or the target goes off balance to close the gap with heavy attack damage and resource management.
Be sure to apply hurricane and crit surge as explained in the video. The is no need for a specific rotation for those, simply have ability timers on and activate them when the are over
Poisons, Potions, & Food
You can use Tristat pots for a combination of the above and some health back OR if you are really fancy and going for the squishier mode as mentioned in the video…you can make spell pots.
Food is very simple, the highest level food you can consume with 2 stats only, MAX health and MAX magicka. There are 3 variations of recipes but all are the same in the stats they give so your choice of which one you use.
Tri-pots:
Columbine + Mountain Flower + Bugloss + Lorkans Tears
Spell pots:
Lady Smock + Water Hyacinth + Cornflower + Lorkhan’s Tears
Food:
Minstral Banana-Bunny Hash – Small game(1) + Bananas(2) + Seasoning(3)
Melon-Baked Parmesan Pork – White Meat(1) + Melon(2) + Cheese(3)
Solitude Salmon-Millet Soup – Fish(1) + Tomato(2) + Millet(3)
If you would like to make your own potions, I now have a fully functioning potion maker on the website. Here you can TEST any combination of potion or poison you like and check the outcome without having to know the combinations in-game! Check here for the App, working on Android and IOS – Potion Maker
Gear Setup
Below is a chart showing the overall gear set-up, noting the optimal set requirements in terms of weight, enchants, and of course, traits!
Note you can use a crafted staff on the back bar if you don’t have a Maelstrom weapon,
We are using the Thief mundus stone alongside 64 points into Magicka We are a High Elf but other races are also usable. Dark Elf, Khajiit or Breton are great substitutes.
Easy Sorc Setup
Slot | Gear Set | Weight | Trait | Enchantment |
---|---|---|---|---|
Head | Maw Of The Infernal / Zaan | Medium | Divines | Magicka |
Shoulders | Maw Of The Infernal / Zaan | Medium | Divines | Magicka |
Chest | Infallible Mage | Light | Divines | Magicka |
Waist | Infallible Mage | Light | Divines | Magicka |
Hands | Infallible Mage | Light | Divines | Magicka |
Legs | Infallible Mage | Light | Divines | Magicka |
Feet | Infallible Mage | Light | Divines | Magicka |
Ring 1 | Sergeant’s Mail | Jewelry | Bloodthirsty | Spell Damage |
Ring 2 | Sergeant’s Mail | Jewelry | Bloodthirsty | Spell Damage |
Necklace | Sergeant’s Mail | Jewelry | Bloodthirsty | Spell Damage |
Weapon 1 | Sergeant’s Mail | Lightning Staff | Precise | Weapon / Spell Dmg |
Weapon 2 | Maelstrom | Lightning / Fire Staff | Infused | Shock / Fire |
Easy Sorc Alternative Setup
Slot | Gear Set | Weight | Trait | Enchantment |
---|---|---|---|---|
Head | Maw Of The Infernal / Zaan | Light | Divines | Magicka |
Shoulders | Maw Of The Infernal / Zaan | Light | Divines | Magicka |
Chest | Arms Of Relequen / Azureblight Reaper | Medium | Divines | Magicka |
Waist | Arms Of Relequen / Azureblight Reaper | Medium | Divines | Magicka |
Hands | Arms Of Relequen / Azureblight Reaper | Medium | Divines | Magicka |
Legs | Arms Of Relequen / Azureblight Reaper | Medium | Divines | Magicka |
Feet | Arms Of Relequen / Azureblight Reaper | Medium | Divines | Magicka |
Ring 1 | Sergeant’s Mail | Jewelry | Bloodthirsty | Spell Damage |
Ring 2 | Sergeant’s Mail | Jewelry | Bloodthirsty | Spell Damage |
Necklace | Sergeant’s Mail | Jewelry | Bloodthirsty | Spell Damage |
Weapon 1 | Sergeant’s Mail | Lightning Staff | Precise | Weapon / Spell Dmg |
Weapon 2 | Maelstrom | Lightning / Fire Staff | Infused | Shock / Fire |
Gear Locations
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