Bolt Escape is Useless and Sorc Survivability

NordJitsu

Bolt Escape is now useless. You've completely broken the ability.

So congratulations on listening to a bunch of whiney people on the internet and destroying a class defining ability.

There's ways you could kinda fix this. You could immediately remove the 50% increase in cost on subsequent casts. You could remove the 4 sec magicka regen debuff. Keeping both active is just ridiculous and just ensures no intelligent player will ever use this ability.

Really what you should do is remove both the 4 sec magicka regen debuff and the 4 sec subsequent cast penalty. The ability was perfectly balanced already. The utility you got was commensurate with the cost of the skill and there were plenty of ways to get the same thing from other sources. There were plenty of counters to the ability as well. Not to mention you've promised that this game would have no cool downs and this ability now has TWO cool downs.

But I'm learning that you guys don't really care about balance, truth, ect. You don't know how to differentiate the good feedback from the bad. The only way to get things done is to have a lot of ignorant/misinformed people complain really loudly on the internet. God forbid you listened to people who Beta tested your game, who spent hours doing actually testing (not just playing and whining.)

You seem to have kinda sorta thought about it. You changed "Dark Deal" so that you could move while channeling it. This seems like an attempt to make up for the survivability hit that you gave to the sorcs. Problem is you move really slowly while channeling Dark Deal, so you might as well be stationary. You also removed the armor and spell resistance buff and kept it interruptable, so you're still a sitting duck.

I'd recommend a mix of the following changes:

-Increase movement speed while channeling Dark Deal
-Make Dark Deal uninterruptable
-Give the caster increased armor and spell resistance while channeling Dark Exchange (both morphs)

But hey, unless I get 50 people to complain about it on Reddit and the general forums (preferably without them making a single intelligent point about why the changes would be good) then you probably won't listen.

Devlinne

Do you play pvp alot bro? If u do. I can understand why u are fighting so vehemently for nothing to change.

I'm sure u feel it's fun to bolt into a group, stun a few, blast and aoe, or drop an ultimate, and BOLT OUT no probs. Be that guy to escape unscathed when a keep falls, like 20 ppl looking at you...chasing you, while you're grinning or probably laughing at them while u just DISAPPEAR into the sunset?
But unfortunately, like many things in life. the people on the recieving end....they don't find it that fun.

Do i need to link u videos? Theres a few RIGHT NOW on general discussion. U see pal.....Words is words....but when u have VIDEO PROOF too.....Thats all she wrote.
I myself have seen with my own eyes, a sorc come into cheydinal(vr12) wipe out 5 random players(all vr++ 1 was a vr12 nb) just by teleing in, nuke, tele out out out out, recover, tele in again rinse and repeat.

So OK u would say those 5 ppl are probably scrubs who should learn to play their class better. Fine.

Then theres "legends" like Sabre Ali. SOLO 5 ppl no sweat. Bolts INTO A CURRENTLY SIEGE IN PROGRESS KEEP SOLO, kills a few ppl, bolts out. You know HOW MANY PPL are on a flag during siege? So ok ALL 20+ of them are scrubs and should learn to play the game better?

So where does the number end bro? 1thousand scrubs who dunno how to play their class??? 5 thousand? 1 million?

Sorry. Whether you like it or not. Enough ppl have been on the recieving end of this BS skill for far too long. Videos show it, ppl speak it. Hell bro, touch your heart...YOU KNOW IT too.

Lets just let the devs balance the game so EVERYONE can enjoy it k? Not just 2 classes. EVERYONE.

NordJitsu

@Devlinne‌

I'm not your bro and literally nothing you just said was related in any way to balance. You gave a bunch of random anecdotes that may or not be true and made zero arguments to connect those anecdotes to the point you were trying to make.

The fact that ZOS is listening to people like you is what has made me lose faith in this game.

Devlinne

No worries. I just read the other thread , where u said "the vast majority of the community does not know ..."
Forget i said anything. When a person THINKS he is smarter than everyone else........ I always leave that guy alone. Go ahead with you're crusade. Good luck. we'll see what happens

autoexec

While I agree that something needed to be done, both the mana regen and mana cost are extreme.. Don't forget this is a tier 5 skill for sorc.. it should be strong. It should not be broken to the point where i can bolt 20 times in a row but now, with all their bandaids, it makes no sense to really slot that skill be it either PVP or PVE.

xDonMega

Another ham-fisted nerf brought on by scrubs..

LameoveR

"Bolt Escape fixes has ruined my dreams to become a Legendary 1-button PVP-killa :`("

Pangnirtung

NordJitsu wrote: »

Bolt Escape is now useless. You've completely broken the ability.

So congratulations on listening to a bunch of whiney people on the internet and destroying a class defining ability.

Kinda sounds like whining to me.

ZiRM

They keep putting nails in the coffin of ESO.

TheWired

Right now, bolt escape does exactly what it's supposed to do.
It gives you a chance to escape instead of giving you the ability to bolt through Cyrodiil from West to East without stopping. Also, you now have a reason to purchase a horse (great opportunity!)

The hammer might be a bit hard for you guys, but it was long overdue.
So stop QQing and take it like a man. And that's coming from a guy playing NB.

xDonMega

In the past several weeks in AvA...

I have yet to see one person do any of the things people claim about bolt escape.

Are we playing different games?

Fshober28b14_ESO

Devlinne wrote: »

Do you play pvp alot bro? If u do. I can understand why u are fighting so vehemently for nothing to change.

I'm sure u feel it's fun to bolt into a group, stun a few, blast and aoe, or drop an ultimate, and BOLT OUT no probs. Be that guy to escape unscathed when a keep falls, like 20 ppl looking at you...chasing you, while you're grinning or probably laughing at them while u just DISAPPEAR into the sunset?
But unfortunately, like many things in life. the people on the recieving end....they don't find it that fun.

Do i need to link u videos? Theres a few RIGHT NOW on general discussion. U see pal.....Words is words....but when u have VIDEO PROOF too.....Thats all she wrote.
I myself have seen with my own eyes, a sorc come into cheydinal(vr12) wipe out 5 random players(all vr++ 1 was a vr12 nb) just by teleing in, nuke, tele out out out out, recover, tele in again rinse and repeat.

So OK u would say those 5 ppl are probably scrubs who should learn to play their class better. Fine.

Then theres "legends" like Sabre Ali. SOLO 5 ppl no sweat. Bolts INTO A CURRENTLY SIEGE IN PROGRESS KEEP SOLO, kills a few ppl, bolts out. You know HOW MANY PPL are on a flag during siege? So ok ALL 20+ of them are scrubs and should learn to play the game better?

So where does the number end bro? 1thousand scrubs who dunno how to play their class??? 5 thousand? 1 million?

Sorry. Whether you like it or not. Enough ppl have been on the recieving end of this BS skill for far too long. Videos show it, ppl speak it. Hell bro, touch your heart...YOU KNOW IT too.

Lets just let the devs balance the game so EVERYONE can enjoy it k? Not just 2 classes. EVERYONE.

A-EFFING-MEN! ! !...Thank you for your reply to the OP, could not have said it better....you said it all, and I am sure we ALL expected heavy backlash like this once they got the skill brought in line properly.

A TRUE Pro-PvP'r/Player in general will embrace meaningful balancing changes and can ADAPT and use their skills skillfully and still be highly SUCCESSFUL without heavily relying on something like this that was clearly out of line with other class abilities.

I use the Destro Staff, was not 100% thrilled with last patches change to Pulse, however...I saw why it needed to be done, and I didn't disagree with its change. I adapted and just readjusted myself from what I had been used to and it's fine now .... the change makes being skillful meaningful...rather than a mindless crutch-lean on spamming 1 or 2 skills only mindlessly.

I LOOK FORWARD TO MANY MORE MEANINGFUL BALANCE CHANGES FROM ZOS UNTIL WE HIT THAT SWEET SPOT.
THANK YOU ZOS TEAM!

Xnemesis

Having the ability cost 300 is not an issue and having that price jump to 450 for any subsequent use is very minor as well. If you feel the need to use it over and over and over use a magika pot you will be fine

Fshober28b14_ESO

LameoveR wrote: »

"Bolt Escape fixes has ruined my dreams to become a Legendary 1-button PVP-killa :`("

lol....um, you do know there are a plethora of other amazing skills and combos that can even trump that unbalanced cookie cutter bolt build right? if not, hit that bad boy 'K' bind and start learning other methods, and bolt isn't useless fyi...it now requires more meaningful and thoughtful and skillful and strategic use of skills than before...so yeah.....wipe the tears, your dream is not over.

Stamden

Even with the Nerf, it's still by far the best PvP ability in the game. You have no idea what it's like to fight someone when they will always get away 100% of the time. I don't even engage Sorcs in a 1v1 because there is no point.

Also you can still Bolt 7-8 times before you run out of mana, and 10 if you pot. Anything more then 4 Bolt Escapes away and you are pretty much past the point of no return for a non-Sorc to ever catch up.

Weberda

I don't even have Bolt slotted anymore in PvE. I got tired of plastering myself against a tree.

DuelWieldingCheesyPoofs

Stop moaning i play sorc and i think the chance is fine i still use it and its still fantastic! You can use it just dnt spam it and that's the way it should be it was ridiculously fun but still OP get over it srsly

Lord_Draevan

I don't see how increasing the cost 50% if you use it again in less than 4 seconds "completely breaks the ability". You can still use it, hell, you can even use it several times in a row, I've seen Sorcs doing it today. How does this change make it useless?

jonal11_ESO

This is dumb, some fighter chases after a mage with bolt escape and cries nerf. It's not your job to chase down the Sorc, it's other Sorcs with bolt escape as well.

I chase down plenty of Sorcs for my team. Because that is what PvP is a TEAM game. But thanks, you just got your own team nerfed too. Now you will cry as all the sorcs instead of bolt escaping instead stay put and AoE all of you down. Incomming crying about mages standing still and AoEing everyone to death!

Bler

What ZOS should do is just take out all offensive capabilities of bolt escape and it's morphs and make it a purely defensive maneuver that should only be used when you need to ESCAPE or to chase down another mage using it.

Stamden

jonal11_ESO wrote: »

This is dumb, some fighter chases after a mage with bolt escape and cries nerf. It's not your job to chase down the Sorc, it's other Sorcs with bolt escape as well.

That is the worst logic I have ever heard in my life. I am not even going to explain why that is so terrible.

NordJitsu

@Fshober28b14_ESO‌

I stopped using Bolt Escape in my group PvP build a while ago. Fact of the matter is even before the two ham-handed nerfs it wasn't that great of an ability. Depending on your build, there are a dozen other skills you could slot there that would be better.

The reason I'm upset about this change is because it shows me that ZOS literally has no idea what the **** they are doing. They're just going to listen to whoever whines the loudest.

Its a bad precedent for the game. I already know tons of people who've quit because of moronic skill changes that they've made. Hell I'm probably going to quit as well.

What you don't understand is that people like yourself are bad for the game. You ruin it. You cry for nerfs, the devs listen, each time the nerf bat comes down more and more people quit. Then suddenly they have an empty game and you quit as well.

But you won't listen to me. You'll keep on doing what you do to every MMO that doesn't have developers with enough back bone to ignore you.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ and @ZOS_GinaBruno‌

You might want to pass on to Matt Firor that actions speak louder than words. In the recent "Road Ahead" he talked about not making drastic changes to class abilities but doing things incrementally and in small doses.

This was not an incremental change like the changes to Impluse, Dark Talons, ect. This change has redefined what the ability is. You didn't slightly increase the cost or slightly decrease the distance traveled.

This ability now has TWO cool downs in a "no cool down" game. You "nerfed it into Oblivion," exactly what Firor said you wouldn't be doing.

Nijjion

It's kinda hard to take someone seriously when they have no prior experience to RvR even MMOs.

You have been told and it's been proven in other games that classes with superior mobility have big advantages in RvR games. The game should be equal. You're lucky that the nerf isn't incremental increase of 50% and just increases the cost once... it should be incremental as you really shouldn't be able to cast it more than 4 times.

Casting the ability 12+ times and then being able to get all your magicka back in like 2 seconds to cast it another 12 times to get insane mobility in a RvR game isn't balanced... it's far from it. You can't really make the excuse that DK can just tank damage as that's been nerfed now with ult gain and standard nerf... which were kinda big nerfs for DK...

It's not really that big of a nerf, instead of casting it 12times you will be able to cast it 7 times... 3-4 will get you out of most fights where people cant catch up.

If you need to cry here's something for you.

NordJitsu

@Nijjion‌

I've played a ton of PvP games buddy, I just don't feel the need to list them in my sig. If you're referring to the fact that I haven't played DAoC, then....ok? Doesn't matter much. I've been playing this game a hell of a lot longer than you.

DKs can still tank. They've hardly nerfed the class at all. Its still leaps and bounds above all 3 other classes in terms of survivability.

Keep flamming me though. I'd report you if I thought ZOS would ever bother to moderate their forums. But they care about this forum and its rules about as much as they care about balance in their game, which is to say: NOT AT ALL.

xDonMega

This is nothing but the same old whine as when Skalds and Minstrels would SoS away from fights in DAOC.

Nijjion

Dude instead of being able to cast it 12 times on a full magicka bar you can cast it 7 times that's still far more than you need to get away from most fights.

Be happy with that you got of lightly imo. It could of stacked the debuff.

Lord_Draevan

ZOS never moderates their forums.
If you click the developper tracker, you see they close 1-2 threads per day due to "I quit", and they edit/post warnings for a dozen or so per day due to naming and shaming/flaming posts.

Just because they don't ban/edit the posts for someone who disagrees with you doesn't mean they "don't moderate their forums".

xDonMega

Does the VR12 DK understand that you probably won't have a full magic bar when your in the middle of combat and need BE the most?

Nijjion

xDonMega wrote: »

This is nothing but the same old whine as when Skalds and Minstrels would SoS away from fights in DAOC.

At least SoS had a CD... so you actually had to think when to use it.

NordJitsu

@Nijjion‌

Its got nothing to do with the nerf to the ability itself. This ability is no longer part of my main build, just my roaming build.

The problem is that I've lost confidence in ZOS. I don't think they know what they're doing any more. They're barely touching Templars, who are MECHANICALLY weak while they're giving massive buffs to NBs, who are weak only because their abilities were bugged.

Templar class skills need more love than any other skills in the game. Undaunted skills need to be buffed. Most melee stamina skills need to be buffed. These things aren't being touched.

I expect Volcanic Rune and Soul Assault to get nerfed next, because that's the new thing people are crying about. And that's really all that matters: how many people are crying?

ZOS could give a damn about creating any actual balance in their game. They're just forum fire fighters putting out the biggest flames or nannies coddling all the butt-hurt bads who cry because they lost in PvP.

This ability was FINE. If they wanted people to use it to run away less, then they should have buffed the damage of the Streak morph and made it cheaper than Ball of Lightning. Or they should have increased the range of gap closers and pulls to make counter play easier. Or they could have made it so that using Bolt Escape would remove CC immunity from any source (my own suggestion to them.) That way it would have been easier for people to stun, knock down, pull, ect. against someone using BE to run away.

But they'd have had to be thoughtful to do that. Instead they add a second cool down to an ability that has been nerfed 3 times since May (4 times since early Beta.) Their philosophy on "balance" is crap.

They say they want to do thing incrementally, but that apparently only applies to changes to DKs.

NordJitsu

@Nijjion‌

"At least SoS had had a CD"....

This game was sold on no cool downs. They literally promised that they would never add a cool down.

They've broken that promise countless times now and now twice on this ability alone.

Your statement shows that you expect this game to be like every other WoW-clone MMO. It isn't.