ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build

This guide explains how to use the best Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) Magicka Sorcerer PvE build, skills, gear, champion points, and more!

This build has been updated for the Update 42 patch of the Elder Scrolls Online.

Why Should You Play the ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build?

The ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE build allows players to complete group content with a well-rounded class. The ESO Magicka Sorcerer PVE build shines in single target and has great sustain. While not as strong as its Stamina counterpart for Update 42, the Magicka Sorcerer is a great starting point if you like playing spell casters. The Magsorc has a simple rotation with some massive class utility that feels very strong this patch.

ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build Playstyle

Use the following rotation as the starter point. After, apply your buffs and cast the DoT skills on cooldown for the best, highest DPS. The Damage over Time skills (DoTs) do more damage than your main spammable. Thus, they need to be cast less often and are easier to maintain, for example, The Degeneration from Mages Guild or the Barb Trap from Fighters Guild. Maintain DoTs and use your spammable skill as filler until you reapply the DoTS.

Healing and Resources

Use the healing skill when your health drops below 50% or the shield skill when you anticipate damage. Also, always use the suggested food and potions as they significantly increase your damage, survivability, and resource sustain.

If you run out of resources, do a heavy attack and return to your rotation. Remember that a heavy attack on off-balance enemies will return double the resources.

ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE Features and Mechanics

Below are some of the features found using the ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build in the Elder Scrolls Online:

• Class – Sorcerer
• Weapon One – Dual Wield
• Weapon Two – Flame Staff
• Armor Types – 6 Medium, 1 Light
• Race – Dark Elf
• Mythic: Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet
• Attributes – 64 Magicka
• Mundus Stone – Thief
• Best Grimoires: Ulfsild’s Contingency, Traveling Knife, Soul Burst

Skills

Front Bar – Dual Wield

Front Bar Weapon Style Choices:

1. Dual Wield
2. Flame Staff
3. Lighting Staff

Crystal Fragments (Morph of Crystal Shard | Skill Line : Dark Magic) – This is your main spammable which you can recast instantly when proc’d.

Bound Armaments (Morph of Bound Armor | Skill Line : Daedric Summoning) – Stamina morph where Light and Heavy attacks summon Bound weapons that can be used to attack your current target.

Daedric Prey (Morph of Daedric Curse | Skill Line : Daedric Summoning) – Always keep this on target for huge damage increase

Summon Volatile Familiar (Morph of Summon Unstable Familiar | Skill Line : Daedric Summoning) – Huge damage and boost to single target and AoE damage.

Summon Twilight Matriarch (Morph of Summon Winged Twilight | Skill Line : Daedric Summoning) – Great self and group heal.

Flawless Dawnbreaker (Morph of Dawnbreaker | Skill Line : Fighters Guild) – The performance of DB (Dawnbreaker) is very good now that it grants massive spell damage boost of 300 for 20 seconds. Not to mention added spell damage from slayer passive. This is a great ultimate to use on front bar that’s low cost.

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Back Bar – Inferno Staff

Back bar options:

1. Inferno Staff
2. Lighting Staff
3. Two Handed

Blockade of Fire (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – AoE deals magic damage plus additional effect depending on type of staff

Hurricane (Morph of Lightning Form | Skill Line : Storm Calling) – Massive AoE damage and single target if playing in melee.

Lightning Flood (Morph of Lightning Splash | Skill Line : Storm Calling) – AoE that causes Lightning damage. Ally can activate synergy for additional damage.

Summon Volatile Familiar (Morph of Summon Unstable Familiar | Skill Line : Daedric Summoning) – Double bar so summon stays up.

Summon Twilight Matriarch (Morph of Summon Winged Twilight | Skill Line : Daedric Summoning) – Double bar so summon stays up.

Summon Charged Atronach (Morph of Summon Storm Atronach | Skill Line : Daedric Summoning) – Strongest single target ulimate for Sorc.

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Scribing Skills – ESO PvE Magicka Sorcerer Build

The best grimoires for a Magicka Sorcerer PvE build are Ulfsild’s Contingency, Traveling Knife, and Soul Burst. Contingency gives you a large radius burst of damage as well as a long DoT. Setting Contingency up with shock damage modifiers gives you the greatest dps increase for aoe fights, but this skill isn’t really worth using in more single target encounters. Traveling Knife is another great grimoire for the Sorcerer that does great damage, and Soul Burst is your go-to aoe grimoire for no-pet trash builds. Below are the suggested combination of Grimoires, focus, signature, and affix scripts:

• Ulfsild’s Contingency: Shock Damage (Focus Script), Lingering Torment (Signature Script), Minor Vulnerability (Affix Script)
• Traveling Knife: Bloody (Focus Script), Warrior’s Opportunity (Signature Script), Major Savagery/Prophecy (Affix Script)
• Soul Burst: Shocking Burst (Focus Script), Class Mastery (Signature Script), Minor Breach (Affix Script)

The Scribing System utilizes one of 11 new skills from the Gold Road Chapter called Grimoires. With Grimoires, you can customize spells via Scripts. The scribing feature requires the purchase of the Gold Road Chapter (sponsored link). If you wish to know more about Scribing, check out our full guide here.

Rotation and Parse

Like the Nightblade, the Stamina Sorcerer outperforms its magicka counterpart in this patch, but the gap is much closer with the Magicka Sorcerer. Like most patches, we’re Frag-spamming. There were some changes to Lightning Flood this patch, making the aoe significantly larger. While the damage on Lightning Flood is still worse than other options, it should sustain well, and you offer the group the hard-hitting Conduit synergy. It doesn’t boost your damage, but it’s a cool ability much closer to other options in this patch, and it offers some group utility.

This build also chooses to run both Aegis Caller and Whorl of the Depths because Sorcerer’s cleave is not as strong as other classes. This is part of why Stamina Sorcerer is outperforming in current content, as you can sustain Whirling Blades. With this setup, you have two aoe proc sets that should give you a bit more cleave, though not having an aoe spammable will hurt your overall damage.

We also switched the bird morph to Twilight Matriarch to give the kit a group heals. In trials this isn’t necessary, but this heal is powerful in dungeons when you see group members start to take heavy damage. Since Tormentor is slightly more damaged, we opted for Matriarch in this build. The only difference with Twilight Tormentor is you’ll want to pre-buff Tormentor, but because of the damage scaling, you won’t cast the tormentor ability if you’re using that morph other than before the fight starts.

Rotation Explained

You’ll always want to have your pets summoned; then pre-buff with Volatile Familiar>Hurricane. Then you’ll engage with Daedric Prey>Bar Swap>Elemental Blockade>Atronach>Bar Swap>Crystal Fragments>Bound Armaments>Crystal Frags until Daedric Prey explodes, then you’ll reapply as needed. While Sorcerer has an effortless rotation, it does help newer players learn skill priority. In general, you always want to use your empowered Crystal Fragments when it procs, indicated by the icon changing on the skill. It hits much harder and costs less, but it procs when you spend resources on another skill. Casting anything else instead of your Frag proc eliminates your chance to gain an additional Frag prog, lowering your dps.

After that, you should always reapply Daedric Prey as it explodes. Daedric Prey explodes twice in six seconds, but you lose out of that second pop if you reapply the skill early. This means that for every six casts, you’ll want to apply Daedric Prey just as your previous cast expires on your target. You’ll also see a Bound Armaments proc every four light attacks. While not as important as a Frag proc or Daedric Prey, this will do more damage at four stacks than a regular Crystal Fragments cast, so you’ll cast this skill at that time. Beyond this, ensure you only cast your Volatile Familiar while on the front bar, since you’ll gain another chance to proc Crystal Fragments.

Gear Sets Explained

Other changes you could potentially make to this build is to run a Whorl of the Depths inferno staff on your back bar, then swap your daggers to one Whorl dagger and one Aegis Caller dagger, allowing you to run the Maw of the Infernal monster set. Maw is incredibly strong on Sorcerer as your pet damage increases with Daedric Prey, giving you an additional chance to procure the Burning status effect. This setup is slightly more difficult, however, as you have to process your Whorl of the Depths on your back bar instead of naturally casting it as soon as it’s off cooldown on your front bar. If you want to manage the cooldown of Depths, you can go with that setup.

Passives Skills

Consider taking all of the passives in the below skill trees to increase your ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build performance without slotting any skills:

• Daedric Summoning (class skill line)
• Dark Magic (class skill line)
• Storm Calling (class skill line)
• Dual Wield (weapon skill line)
• Destruction staff (weapon skill line)
• Light Armor
• Medium Armor
• Undaunted
• Fighters Guild
• Racial
• Alliance War Support
• Alliance War Assault
• Crafting, Alchemy Medicinal Use

Gear – Best in Slot

Use the below gear setup for optimal damage with the ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build:

Slot	Type	Set	Trait	Glyph
Head	Medium	Aegis Caller	Divines	Magicka
Shoulders	Medium	Slimecraw	Divines	Magicka
Chest	Medium	Aegis Caller	Divines	Magicka
Legs	Medium	Aegis Caller	Divines	Magicka
Gloves	Medium	Aegis Caller	Divines	Magicka
Boots	Medium	Aegis Caller	Divines	Magicka
Belt	Light	Perfect Whorl of the Depths	Divines	Magicka
Weapon One	Dagger	Perfect Whorl of the Depths	Charged	Fire
Secondary	Dagger	Perfect Whorl of the Depths	Charged	Poison
Weapon Two	Flame Staff	Perfected Crushing Wall	Infused	Weapon Damage
Necklace	Mythic	Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet	Bloodthirsty	Weapon/Spell Damage
Ring 1		Perfect Whorl of the Depths	Bloodthirsty	Weapon/Spell Damage
Ring 2		Perfect Whorl of the Depths	Bloodthirsty	Weapon/Spell Damage

Magicka and stamina builds will run similar gear setups, including medium armor. Medium is more robust in trials due to the passive bonuses. If you don’t play with a coordinated trials team, you can swap to Light. However, it will suffer overall damage loss.

Monster Helms and Mythic

Velothi Ur-Mages Amulet: Mythic item requiring the Antiquies system and Necrom Chapter. Requires five leads; find them here. Extreme passive damage in the current meta.

Slimecraw: Obtained in Wayrest Sewers I Veteran dungeon and Maj Undaunted Vendor. Gives us the highest critical chance for a one-piece item.

FLEX OPTIONS

1. Harpooner’s Wading Kilt Set = Great mythic if avoiding damage and can keep the stacks up.
2. Mora’s Whisper = This provides up to 10% critical chance but requires collections of Mages Guild Books on your specific character.
3. Death Dealer’s Fete = Is a great option because it boosts max stats with zero downsides.

Gear Sets

Aegis Caller: Dungeon set that drops in Unhallowed Grave, Harrowstorm DLC. Passive Bleed damage and good bonuses for martial melee build.

Perfect Whorl of the Depths: Trial set found in Dreadsail Reef, High Isle chapter. Creates AoE on Light Attack once every 18 seconds.

Perfected Crushing Wall: From Veteran Maelstrom Arena in Orsinium. Increase your overall DPS due to the ability of the wall of elements and more damage.

FLEX OPTIONS

1. Pillar of Nirn: Obtained in Falkreath Hold dungeon, Horns of the Reach DLC.
2. Perfected Ansuul’s Torment: It is the best overall damage-dealing set that comes in medium armor.
3. Kinra’s Wrath = Dungeon set that drops in Black Drake Villa, Flames of Ambition DLC.
4. Perfected Arms of Relequen = the bust pure damage set in the game.
5. Perfected Coral Riptide = god tier damage if you run low stamina (dodge roll a bit before pull)
6. Order’s Wrath = great craftable option though watch for too much critical damage (125% cap)
7. Leviathan = easy base game dungeon set with high critical

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Gear – Beginner

This gear chart below is great for beginners Elder Scrolls Online players who do not have access to trials gear:

Slot	Type	Set	Trait	Glyph
Head	light	Withered Hand	Divines	Magicka
Shoulders	light	Withered Hand	Divines	Magicka
Chest	light	Mother’s Sorrow	Divines	Magicka
Legs	light	Mother’s Sorrow	Divines	Magicka
Gloves	light	Mother’s Sorrow	Divines	Magicka
Boots	light	Mother’s Sorrow	Divines	Magicka
Belt	light	Mother’s Sorrow	Divines	Magicka
Weapon One	Inferno Staff	Willpower	Precise or Sharpened	Flame
Weapon Two	Inferno Staff	Willpower	Infused	Weapon Damage
Necklace		Withered Hand	Arcane	Magicka Recovery
Ring 1		Withered Hand	Arcane	Spell Power
Ring 2		Withered Hand	Arcane	Spell Power

• Withered Hand: obtained in Alik’r Desert overland  or from guild traders (delves, dolmans, world bosses, chest). WHY? If you’re new player, low champion points and lack trials gear, this gives great sustain and healing when killing mobs and is ideal for a newer player.
• Mother’s Sorrow: obtained in overland zone Deshaan or from guild traders (delves, dolmans, world bosses, chest). WHY? easy to obtain and works well at every stage of the game including end game trials!
• Willpower: obtained in Imperial City keys or dungeon finder rewards or on guild traders. Great two piece bonus.

Race

The best racial choice for the ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build is below:

1. Dark Elf: Gain max magicka, stamina, and weapon and spell damage. The flame resistance is also helpful and considered the strongest overall PVE DPS race.
2. Khajiit: This race gets recovery, max stats, and critical damage and healing. Consider the Khajiit a great option if you aren’t over the critical cap of 125%.
3. High Elf: Gain resource sustain passive, max magicka, and weapon and spell damage. The downside of High Elf is a lack of stamina or flame resistance.

Attributes

The best choice for slotting Attribute points is 64 magicka, which increases damage, healing, and shields.

Mundus Stone

The Thief is the best Mundus Stone for PvE Builds because it gives Increases Weapon and Spell Critical Strike a chance.

Champion Points – ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build

Craft	Warfare	Fitness
Treasure Hunter	Fighting Finesse	Siphoning Spells
Liquid Efficiency	Deadly Aim	Boundless Vitality
Rationer	Master-at-Arms	Rejuvenation
Steed’s Blessing	Wrathful Strikes	Fortified

Warfare Constellation Champion Points

Below is a step-by-step method for slotting your champion points in the Warfare tree (blue).  We have used the minimum possible to reach 4 slottable selections all maxed out.  If you have more CP, consider taking more in the passives for optimal performance.

Below are recommended Warfare Champion Point selections for the Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build:

1. Precision 10
2. Wrathful strikes (slottable) 50
3. Fighting Finesse (slottable) 50
4. Extended might – sub constellation – piercing 10
5. Masters at arms (slottable) 50
6. Deadly  aim (slottable) 50

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 220 CP (660 total required). The next step is to max out passives that do not require a slottable but increase performance.

1. Precision 10
2. Piercing 10
3. Tireless discipline 20
4. Eldritch insight 20
5. Blessed 20
6. Quick recovery 20
7. Flawless ritual 40
8. War mage 30
9. Battle mastery 40
10. Mighty 30
11. Elemental aegis 20
12. Hardy 20
13. Preparation 20

This would max out the Warfare tree with all active and passive champion points at 520 spent 1,560 total spent.

Fitness Constellation Champion Points

Below are recommended Fitness Champion Point selections for the Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build:

1. Fortified (slottable) 50
2. Boundless vitality (slottable) 50
3. Rejuvenation (slottable) 50
4. Sprinter 10
5. Winder chaser – sub constellation – hasty 8
6. Hero’s Vigor 10
7. Siphoning spells (slottable) 50

This would be the minimum setup, spending 228 CP  (684 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance. 

1. Hero’s Vigor 10
2. Tumbling 30
3. Sprinter 10
4. Defiance 20
5. Hasty 8
6. Tireless guardian 20
7. Fortification 30
8. Nimble 6
9. Mystic tenacity 50
10. Tempered soul 50
11. Piercing gaze 30
12. Savage defense  30
13. Bashing brutality 20

This would max out the fitness tree with all active passive champion points at 542 cp spent and 1,626 total spent.

Craft Constellation Champion Points

Below are recommended Craft Champion Point selections for the Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build:

1. Steed’s blessing (slottable) – 50
2. Breakfall 10
3. Wanderer 15
4. Steadfast 10
5. Treasure hunter (slottable) 50
6. Rationer 10
7. Liquid efficiency (slottable) 75
8. Angler’s Instinicts 25
9. Reel technique (slottable) 25

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 370CP (1110 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance.

1. Steadfast enchantment 40cp
2. Breakfall 40 cp
3. Wanderer 60
4. Fortunes favor 10
5. Rationer 10
6. Friends in low places 25
7. Out of sight 30
8. Fleet of Phantom 40
9. Soul’s reservoir 33
10. Gilded fingers 50
11. Fortunes favor 40
12. Inspiration boost 45
13. Infamous 30

This would max out the crafting tree with all active passive champion points at 823 cp spent 2,469 total spent.

Consumables

The best consumables for the Magicka Sorcerer PvE build are Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash and Spell Power Potions. Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash gives a massive amount of health and magicka, stats that give you both the most survivability and damage of any other consumable. If you struggle with magicka sustain, you could switch to Clockwork Citrus Filet or Witchmother’s Potent Brew as a cheaper option. These both give up some magicka and health for magicka sustain.

For your potions, your build doesn’t source your major weapon/spell damage and crit buffs, so you need to bring those buffs on your potions. We have spell power potions here because as a Sorcerer, you will always bring Minor Prophecy to the group, and your critical chance scales off of whichever is higher, your weapon or spell crit. In a group, Nightblades provide the group with Minor Savagery, so if you have a Nightblade in group, you could run either Weapon Power Potions or Spell Power Potions. If you do end up running Traveling Knife with Major Savagery and Prophecy as an Affix, you can run tri-pots.

Build Summary – ESO Magicka Sorcerer PvE Build

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