Thoughts on possible Bolt Escape changes

zgrssd

A lot of people say Sorcerers bolts escape is annoying in PvP. I don't have any opionion on that mater as I usually avoid PvP and have not skilled far enough to use it. But I can see how it could be the problem many describe.

The most often said things are this:
- In PvP sorcerers have a "leave combat reliably" card. Thus they can deny anyone a kill, asuming they have enough mana left to use it 1-2 times.
It is near impossible to stop them from using it in most cases. There is the whole "stops mana regen for 4 seconds part" but that does not prevent reuse if you have enough mana banked. It is not that expensive - only 200 mana. And in addition to the move you also stun your enemy (giving you even more time to get away).
- On the other hand, they need it in order to use Dark Exchange effectively. It is the only long channeled class-selfheal and you have to use Bolt Escape once to avoid getting nuked (in PvE and PvP) when using it.
- Many people say medium armor/stamina builds are not really competitive lategame/PvP. Again I cannot comment on that, just interesting one of my later thoughts

Some things I think just from observation and thought:
- out of combat it is a very usefull travel skill. Together with Boundless Form Morph sorcerers have the biggest host of travel skills. This makes Sorc very interesting for people who lack the Imperial Edition (and thus access to cheap horse) or want to avoid the "mount horse animation"/horse related bugs. Unlike horses those skills can also be used in combat.
- It might be countered by several Weapon and class Abilities that either Charge & CC/knockdown or Knockdown/CC at range. Including Stampede (2 H), Shielded Assault (Shield), Hidden Blade, Scatter Shoot and Silver bolts vs Vampire/WW players. But I am not sure it is possible to use them in time to catch up, especially with a normal amount of server lag and the stun in the room. And there is the whole "Medium not fully viable" thing others have noted.

Some ideas:
1. Increase mana cost for repetitive casts in short time. This one was metioned by somebody else.
Everytime it is used in combat, a stacking debuff is applied. For each stack of the debuff, mana cost is doubeled. That would make repetitive casting to escape combat harder, but not impossible if you actually saved your mana for it. If limited to "in combat" it would also not interfere with using it as travel skill.

2. Increase the mana regen stoptime for repeated use in combat. Same appraoch as above, but instead of increasing cost it means that if you go out of combat with it you are unable to regenerate mana (and thus stay out of combat) for some time.

3. Stacking reduction of max mana. The problem with "non mana regen" is that it might be avoidable. You can drink a potion. You might have a weapon of mana steal. So how about just capping max magica instead? Each time you use it in combat you get a stacking debuff that reduces max mana by 10-20%. Use it too often and you might end up with nothing.

4. KISS - extra Cooldown/lockout time when used in combat. So far my ideas are rather complex (never a good idea for something that has to run on the Server side of a MMO) plus they might not even prevent re-use. So let's just copy from Champions Online. If you use the Teleport travel power in combat it has
- Less duration/range.
- you have a forced cooldown afterwards, much longer then the normal cooldown.
- you also get the cooldown if you enter combat shortly after leaving teleport
The big downside is that there are not many "lockouts" like this in the game right now (that I am aware off). The combat system and UI is propably not designed to allow easy implementation of this.


None of my ideas seems that ideal to solve the issue, while maintaining it's useability in a combo with Dark Exchange and it's ability to travel the land faster.
I hope you got some better ideas.

Erock25

zgrssd wrote: »

I don't have any opionion on that mater as I usually avoid PvP and have not skilled far enough to use it.

Certainly had a lot of opinions for someone who avoids PVP and has never used it.

I'm a bit interested in your 200 magicka cost .... what level are you? Magicka costs go up as you level. I only ask because you said you did not have enough skill to put a point into it yet and since storm calling skills are so nice, I'm going to assume you are low level.

I think Bolt Escape should not be nerfed at all. If it has to be nerfed, only the Ball of Lightning morph with its immunity to spell projectiles should be hit. It is only with this immunity that people rage because they are throwing their ranged dps/CCs at the sorc and he keep on moving without a loss of HP. I personally use Streak because I use it in PVE as well and can name many many times where I've died from ranged dmg or CC's while trying to bolt escape for my life.

The main reason it should not be nerfed is because it is freakin cool. I love getting around PVE and PVP zones with it. It is a fun and awesome ability that doesn't give you ANY extra killing power and only serves as a utility/escape tool. It is a beautiful and unique flower and I'll be pissed if I can't use it as I currently do.

I swear, half of these nerf bolt escape posts are people jealous of my parkour skills through PVE zones.

Emperor

I am not a sorc and I agree that they should be able to keep their bolt escape skill, but I also agree that it needs modified. I'm curious to why people only complain about bolt escape though because NB have a skill that allows them to escape from combat extremely easy also.

How should bolt escape be modified? Well... I'm not sure. I think the fairest/simplest way to do it would just be to increase mana cost. This would make it so sorcs couldn't just come in, DPS everyone, and then zip away easily. They would have to save magicka for escaping.

zgrssd

Erock25 wrote: »

zgrssd wrote: »

I don't have any opionion on that mater as I usually avoid PvP and have not skilled far enough to use it.

Certainly had a lot of opinions for someone who avoids PVP and has never used it.

I'm a bit interested in your 200 magicka cost .... what level are you? Magicka costs go up as you level. I only ask because you said you did not have enough skill to put a point into it yet and since storm calling skills are so nice, I'm going to assume you are low level.

Not opinions. Only repeating what others said in a calm and orderly fashion, so we can finally get a decent discussion on it started. Most of those things were stated during the heated discussions of "Nerf X/don't nerf X" threads. And we cannot get anywhere with those.

Thanks for pointing out that msitake with the mana costs. Now tha you mentioned it, ti does match how often I can cast each skill.

Erock25 wrote: »

The main reason it should not be nerfed is because it is freakin cool. I love getting around PVE and PVP zones with it. It is a fun and awesome ability that doesn't give you ANY extra killing power and only serves as a utility/escape tool. It is a beautiful and unique flower and I'll be pissed if I can't use it as I currently do.

Coolness is unfortunately not a argument to keep a skill as it is.
What most people complain about is that it makes the run part of "hit and run" too easy. And it's ability of denying kills.

Thor

Erock25 wrote: »

I swear, half of these nerf bolt escape posts are people jealous of my parkour skills through PVE zones.

Having some chance of catastrophic malfunction in Cyrodiil is OK, then?

Evergnar

Meh, I just get on my horse and chase em. It's actually fun and becomes an exciting chase. It brings some tactics into play as well because you have to decide how far you'll go to get them (or if you think you can even catch them).

andreas.rudroffb16_ESO

Erock25 wrote: »

If it has to be nerfed, only the Ball of Lightning morph with its immunity to spell projectiles should be hit. It is only with this immunity that people rage because they are throwing their ranged dps/CCs at the sorc and he keep on moving without a loss of HP. .

FYI , the "Ball" is just a useless and irritating piece of "wannabe"

the projectile absorb works for 1-2 Minutes after login, then stops working and you have to relog to fix that......

zgrssd

Emperor wrote: »

I am not a sorc and I agree that they should be able to keep their bolt escape skill, but I also agree that it needs modified. I'm curious to why people only complain about bolt escape though because NB have a skill that allows them to escape from combat extremely easy also.

I think Erock might have provided an answer to that, wich brings us closer to the truth.

Erock25 wrote: »

If it has to be nerfed, only the Ball of Lightning morph with its immunity to spell projectiles should be hit. It is only with this immunity that people rage because they are throwing their ranged dps/CCs at the sorc and he keep on moving without a loss of HP. I personally use Streak because I use it in PVE as well and can name many many times where I've died from ranged dmg or CC's while trying to bolt escape for my life.

There is a good chance that this is where the real issues lies.
With all those saying Stamian builds are not viable, not many will have any ranged stamina skill avalible.

The latest nerf of Siphon Spirit might help solve this issue indirectly. It makes the healing staff as off-weapon for Ulti generation less viable, wich in turn could make mana/light armor builds less viable, wich also means more peopel will get stamina counters to escape skills.

andreas.rudroffb16_ESO wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

If it has to be nerfed, only the Ball of Lightning morph with its immunity to spell projectiles should be hit. It is only with this immunity that people rage because they are throwing their ranged dps/CCs at the sorc and he keep on moving without a loss of HP. .

FYI , the "Ball" is just a useless and irritating piece of "wannabe"

the projectile absorb works for 1-2 Minutes after login, then stops working and you have to relog to fix that......

One good reason they are not fixing that is because so many people are complaining about Lightning Ball as it works now. While it is a bug, fixing it right now could make the whole thing less balanced.

zeuseason

Increase cost. Done.

Baphomet

FYI , the "Ball" is just a useless and irritating piece of "wannabe"

What you talkin' 'bout, man? That ball is one of the most effective mechanism in the game. If a sorcerer flashes in front of his group, they pretty much all gain invulnerability to ranged attacks from 4-5 seconds - and if that ain't stupid, I ain't seen stupid before.

chris.m.tannehill_ESO

STOP WITH THE LAME BOLT ESCAPE POSTS!

IT IS SO EASY TO COUNTER!

TRY DIFFERENT ABILITIES, THEY CREATED WAYS TO COUNTERACT IT IF YOU WOULD ONLY TRY!

/endcaps

Seriously enough of these crybaby posts already, regardless of your solutions, Sorcs are the only class in a good place. Even with this spell. My NB/DK can catch a Sorc with one hand tied behind me back. Quit crying for nerfs, and try to think outside the box. For once.

Zenimax please ignore these.

Halrloprillalar

Mild cost increase will be enough to fix the spammability.

Otherwise the skill is fine.
If you want to close gaps, use a gap closer. I'm tired of these threads.

zgrssd

chris.m.tannehill_ESO wrote: »

STOP WITH THE LAME BOLT ESCAPE POSTS!

IT IS SO EASY TO COUNTER!

TRY DIFFERENT ABILITIES, THEY CREATED WAYS TO COUNTERACT IT IF YOU WOULD ONLY TRY!

/endcaps

Seriously enough of these crybaby posts already, regardless of your solutions, Sorcs are the only class in a good place. Even with this spell. My NB/DK can catch a Sorc with one hand tied behind me back. Quit crying for nerfs, and try to think outside the box. For once.

Zenimax please ignore these.

If you had actually read my post, you noticed that I am totally impartial in this discussion. In fact you are the first to invest any effort on off topic remarks. Or use caps. Or make demands of Zenimax.

While I agree that "Resistance to Spell Projectiles" is easily countered by using Stamina skills, currently Stamina skills are said to be not-viable lategame/PvP. And I have little data saying otherwise.
It sounds like making Stamina Skills more viable overall might be able to solve the issues people have with Bolt Escape (and the Spell Immunity Morph) too.

Baphomet wrote: »

FYI , the "Ball" is just a useless and irritating piece of "wannabe"

What you talkin' 'bout, man? That ball is one of the most effective mechanism in the game. If a sorcerer flashes in front of his group, they pretty much all gain invulnerability to ranged attacks from 4-5 seconds - and if that ain't stupid, I ain't seen stupid before.

He was talking about it bugging out after a few minutes/uses.

But yes, while it works it offers some very interesting options.