Sorc 1.6 Discussion

sabresandiego_ESO

Here is a good pvp pet build.

resto bar:
pet
pet
empowered ward
harness magicka
rapid regen

Destro bar:
pet
pet
daedric curse pet morph
force shock or endless fury or crystal frag or destructive touch for final skills

this type of build does insane dps in light armor with maxed out magicka and has great survivability due to shield stacking and hots.

Erock25

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

Here is a good pvp pet build.

resto bar:
pet
pet
empowered ward
harness magicka
rapid regen

Destro bar:
pet
pet
daedric curse pet morph
force shock or endless fury or crystal frag or destructive touch for final skills

this type of build does insane dps in light armor with maxed out magicka and has great survivability due to shield stacking and hots.

Maybe a winged twilight would work in a dueling build, but no pet has been or ever will be worth using in PVP as long as the volatile familiar is broken.... WHICH IT HAS BEEN FOR LIKE FIVE [SNIP] MONTHS BUT ZOS DON'T CARE.

Emma_Overload

angelyn wrote: »

painsworth01 wrote: »

Maybe i'm missing something about this "powerful pet build", but my low level vet sorc still does much more damage without a pet. i finally loaded both pets simultaneously and stood back to see how much damage they could do. Not much.

Perhaps ZOS could tell us what build they were using when they said that pet sorcerers had high DPS. I'm willing to try anything!

I experimented all last night on the PTS, and I found that the Twilight increased the DPS of Crushing Shock + Light Attack weaving by about 12%, all other things being equal. To put that in perspective, it's about the same difference as having Flawless Dawnbreaker on your bar now.

BTW, the Clannfear is good for tanking mobs, but it doesn't do jack for single target DPS.

Lobharvey

I have to agree with a lot of folks, specs were severely nerfed, and my same crit surge build that I use on live is completely unplayable in PTS. The best way to address everyone's concerns is to make the crit surge heal standard on both morphs and combine pets with one button. I do understand the concern with the exploitability of crit surge healing in PvP with the AOE changes. Many have suggested limiting this to 6. These changes would immediately help to level the playing field with the other classes, and alleviate the justifiable concerns of the majority magic based sorcerers. ZOS, please be receptive to everyone's feedback, sure there may be some baseless complaints, but there's an overwhelming amount of disappointed players now that are trying to tell you something pretty important. On a positive note though, the Justice System is awesome!!

xherics

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

Here is a good pvp pet build.

resto bar:
pet
pet
empowered ward
harness magicka
rapid regen

Destro bar:
pet
pet
daedric curse pet morph
force shock or endless fury or crystal frag or destructive touch for final skills

this type of build does insane dps in light armor with maxed out magicka and has great survivability due to shield stacking and hots.

Maybe this is good for PvP, but tell me, who will take you with this *** into a trials or DSA? Nobody. Why? Bcs this build is not DPS, just a grandmothers pet build, do not mention, that pets die faster than the caster can recast them - especially in DSA where *** of mobs coming in each round... And do not mention, that the pets are still bugged and there is no option to command them to attack the specified target, they are running like a chickens..

The biggest problem is, that ZOS forces us to use this *** in everywhere, PvE - PvP as well...

Kuolo

I had to register to these forums just because of this. I'm concerned for my DW sorc. Haven't tested it, but it seems the PVE content is done for me (solo wise).

I admit it's been easy. I soloed to VR14 without any hickups. But still my DPS haven't been amazing. My friend's vampire destro / resto sorc was hands down better.

While we both relied on critical surge, I did like it in PVP, since I buffed my weapon damage as high as possible and with the CC abilities and class ranged damage, it has been fun to play support / melee DD. Although I just don't get it that not being a vampire feels like a nerf; I need to get Night's silence set to even keep up with my friends, while they can get whatever set combo they want.

When the flurry's rapid strike morph change came, it was even better. Very nice damage. And the crit surge didn't bother me because all of the hits could crit.

But now, I think it's nerfed. It does nice damage, but it does it over time. With critical surge timer it's likely the crit that heals will be one of the 100 damage hits instead of the last hit. And the impenetrable change just will make it worse.

Same goes for the dots of course.

ZOS, Could you please consider 1 dot / 1 rapid strikes to be consired as one attack by the critical surge? I don't think the game breaks if it's so.


edit. Now that I think of it, it could be impossible to implement. More viable suggestion would be that the timer wouldn't effect the damage over time abilities crits.

edit. edit.

It might also make the Axe bleeds better and more attractive with the ability to crit.



And now that you added a dot effect on the dawnbreaker (which I use to up my damage) it still has the passive? But I can't use it now, because it will kill my self heals?

I find this surge deal very uncanny. It's not only been nerfed, but it also seems to nerf other abilitied as well. It's like you just can't do dot damage or you die.

lostavalon

@xherics, b4 jumping the gun read the top of it, he said PVP not PvE
we all no by now that pets are rather useless for the vet content!

xherics

lostavalon wrote: »

@xherics, b4 jumping the gun read the top of it, he said PVP not PvE
we all no by now that pets are rather useless for the vet content!

hi, already edited it

Derra

Gorthax wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Snit wrote: »

Sabre does make one point with which I agree, having given it some thought: Perhaps we should stop thinking of Critical Surge as our class heal, and give that label to Hardened Ward. Hardened Ward is still pretty solid.

Hardened ward and the resulting shield stacking is frownend upon by most of the community. However its the way to play for a sorc atleast in pvp. Not much other choices left.
15000 points dmg shield is nice though. Have not seen a heal that high

15k damage shield? Enlighten me, mine is only 8k @Derra‌

@Gorthax @XEVENEX sry i went to bed. Here you go:

I get about 9.3k base shield (who the hell thought it was smart to level skills? i won´t test anything this way) with the crap gear without any max magica (1 bonus actually) on the pts right now @ 28500 magica (bufffood providing about 2.9k magica equal about 1100 shieldstrengh). Other stats in Cyro are 21k health 13k stam.
If it scales linear i will reach about 35k to 37k magica with my "live" equipment. This will equal about 11 to 12k base shield strengh + 33%.

Gyudan

Just a suggestion:
Make the pets auto-attack the enemy cursed with Daedric Prey first.

This would be very helpful in group fights.

Derra

The command pet button is working fine for me? Where are you having issues?

Nightreaver

tunepunk
If you can't survive without Old Crit surge you're playing wrong.

Actually I can survive just fine. I can solo upper Craglorn groups on PTS with and without pets and without Crit Surge but that isn't the issue.
The question I have is why is it acceptable for Stamina builds to get both a damage + Heal option while Magicka builds must choose between one or the other? Why have a base ability that is completely worthless for Magicka builds and yet require Magicka builds to assign points to it and spend time leveling it just to reach a morph they can use?
And if the solution is to just not get hit then why is there healing in the game? Why does any class need healing if all anyone needs to do is not take damage?

@Robbmrp
You can still get a fairly good idea regarding the time even without a timestamp and it does appear to be just over a sec between heals. The problem I see is with these DOTs that do less damage than a paper cut but can proc the heal. So instead of getting a small heal from the DOT in addition to your regular heal you get that small heal INSTEAD of your regular heal.

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

Here is a good pvp pet build.

resto bar:
pet
pet
empowered ward
harness magicka
rapid regen

Just in case you or someone else wasn't aware, Regeneration and its morphs no longer work on pets. They were stealth nerfed in 1.5 If you're just using it for yourself then fine.

xherics wrote: »

And do not mention, that the pets are still bugged and there is no option to command them to attack the specified target, they are running like a chickens..

As @Derra noted, the pet attack and pet back off commands have been in game for some time now.

ItsRejectz

To the people who are saying just give up on sorc and that it won't ever get fixed... Be patient! Look at nightblades. 10 months ago you had people asking for people to run dungeons but then add "no nightmares" ...As they were broken to hell and under powered, now look at them.

I have every ounce of faith that one day sorcs will get the love they need from the devs

xherics

Nightreaver wrote: »

As @Derra noted, the pet attack and pet back off commands have been in game for some time now.

I know, but my pets never went properly for the given target, after few second they moved on without any of my commands... But still, why should a sorc have - forced to have - grandmas pet farm?

Fruity_Ninja

Nightreaver wrote: »

Why have a base ability that is completely worthless for Magicka builds and yet require Magicka builds to assign points to it and spend time leveling it just to reach a morph they can use?

The funny thing here is that on a lot of other skills within the game, the base skill seems to have been changed so that stam/mag get the same core benefit of the skill. The morph then becomes the differentiatior for a stam or mag build respectively. You can even see this through the standardisation of the Buffs/Debuffs across the board for all classes to get the same benefit from whichever Minor or Major buff they cast. Surge seems to buck this trend for some reason and it just isn't logical.

olsborg

Derra wrote: »

Something to share:
Curse is now blockable. Fine by me. Edit: By request of @mike.gaziotisb16_ESO it will still apply against a blocking opponent but the dmg will be mitigated by block.

However it is completely broken with purge:
If the cursed enemy purges and you reapply curse it will run out 50% faster and nothing will happen.
Purge makes you virtually immune to daedric curse dmg apart from its other benefits.
This also works if you purge preemptively and have the 4s 50% duration on hostile effects on you.

This is another buff to permblocking, and blocking in general, as if it needed it. Curse was one of the few spells that could be used on a permblocker to try and grind them down. It seems that with every patch zos releases they make the game mechanics just worse. Not to mention it makes perfect sense to be able to block a curse on yourself, even if it explodes behind your shield, lol.

If 1.6 sees live as it is now, im not keeping a sub after march.

silentgecko

Forget about Surge. Use Entropy and later Degeneration. It gives the same Major Buff then Surge.
And gives you a little bit Healing:

Entropy
Entropy now grants you the Major Sorcery buff for 20 seconds when cast.
Increased the damage over time component of this ability by 20%.

Degeneration ist the pick now for us mages.

Also Degeneration gives you the Chance to heal you for 100% of your Weapon Damage. No Cooldown.

Other Funny Thing:
You can cancel now the Animation of Crystal Frags with Light Attacks after the cast tooks 1sek. The Animation still takes longer than 1 sek, but after the 1sek Spelltime, you can cancel this "further animation" e.g. with a light attack (Animation cancelling). And this looks quite funny

olsborg

I find that the most players that whine about my hardened ward (and healing ward) are lethal spamming archers...."why wont you dieeee" and then soon after the archer is dead and starts a whine thread on forum.

80%(speculation on account of my own observation) of archers arent pvping, they are standing outside of combat spamming their one ability(lethal) killstealing behind their meatshields.

Derra

olsborg wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Something to share:
Curse is now blockable. Fine by me. Edit: By request of @mike.gaziotisb16_ESO it will still apply against a blocking opponent but the dmg will be mitigated by block.

However it is completely broken with purge:
If the cursed enemy purges and you reapply curse it will run out 50% faster and nothing will happen.
Purge makes you virtually immune to daedric curse dmg apart from its other benefits.
This also works if you purge preemptively and have the 4s 50% duration on hostile effects on you.

This is another buff to permblocking, and blocking in general, as if it needed it. Curse was one of the few spells that could be used on a permblocker to try and grind them down. It seems that with every patch zos releases they make the game mechanics just worse. Not to mention it makes perfect sense to be able to block a curse on yourself, even if it explodes behind your shield, lol.

If 1.6 sees live as it is now, im not keeping a sub after march.

Actually with really fast light attacks to drain stamina it is fine for pvp.

The purge issue is far more concerning as purge will be a must have (reduced cost on the heal morph anyone?) on every class.

The_Sadist

I'm still hoping they change critical surge to how it currently is otherwise my Sorc is easily replaced in most instances by a stronger DPS class. That being said, apparently trash is crazy hard now, so yay for negate... Which we'll get up once a dungeon run (hyperbole, don't cut me).

I don't like the changes at all. Making pet builds viable is awesome, changing spells which I actively use.. not so awesome. Ah well, let's see if they actually listen to all the Sorcerer outrage.

NotSo

@xherics wrote:

... And do not mention, that the pets are still bugged and there is no option to command them to attack the specified target, they are running like a chickens..

There was a command pet hotkey added in 1.5 if you hold down and left click on a target all active pets will attack. Hold down and right click will return pets to you and they will not attack until commanded to. I believe the default key is "T" but I bound it to my mouse so I can engage it kind of like using bash.

I don't use twilight or clanfear, the commands still apply to storm atronachs though, in craglorn I can just barely get 3 greaters active as once (In live), by spamming Carve (Cleave).

OtarTheMad

Well I am not going to give up on my Sorc in terms of deleting the character or anything too drastic. I am just going to shelf him for a while and focus on leveling my lowbie NB. Maybe by the time I get him to max level I can play my Sorc the way I like without feeling like I'm screwed because no self-heal.

Before I shelf it though I guess I will try out the build that ZOS is wanting Sorc to be which is support. I will throw Twilight on my bar for the heal, maybe Clannfear. Also more dark magic skill line and Harness Magicka. Maybe also Elemental Drain and stuff like that... might be okay.

ub17_ESO

I absolutely agree that the changes to surge and it's morphs are awful. Just facepalm bad for all specs save perhaps some niche hybrids.

I'm Surprised that no one mentioned the nerf to the dark magic passive "exploitation" for stam sorcs. Previously this passive gave a bonus 15% crit to enemies effected by dark magic. This bonus is now only to spell crit. Please ZOS what is the reason for this change?

Love the champion system, hate what 1.6 did to my sorc...

Iselin

Anyone testing an Overload based AOE build to cope with the groups of 5 or 6 normals or normals + 1 strong that are so common when solo questing in the VR levels?

Or... any other strategy for a destro sorc for dealing with those same groups?

As I see it, that was the most serious nerf to Sorcs - not VR14 PVP, nor VR14 group challenges but the builds needed to get to VR14 in the first place since those packs of mobs are everywhere when solo questing in the higher levels.

That was the one and only reason I built my Inner Light + Immovable + Critical Surge + Elemental Ring AOE build in the first place, to deal with those packs.

So what's our alternative now since Liquid Lightning + one cast of an Encase morph just doesn't do it when the mobs become immune to CC after the first Encase and are not even down to half health when they swarm you?

I'm asking seriously not just bitching about the nerfs - how do we realistically cope with those groups without just asking for help to do the content everyone else can solo?

ToRelax

@Iselin‌

Overload is eating up way to much ult to use it efficiently now.

I am using Shooting Star along with Volatile Familiar (wich is still bugged) and Hardened Ward.

Not an excuse for the very poorly designed Surge though.

Iselin

ToRelax wrote: »

@Iselin‌

Overload is eating up way to much ult to use it efficiently now.

I am using Shooting Star along with Volatile Familiar (wich is still bugged) and Hardened Ward.

Not an excuse for the very poorly designed Surge though.

Doesn't the need to rely on an Ultimate that uses all ultimate resource on activation as opposed to Overload that can use your whole Ultimate resource over time to be available longer make that strategy iffy when you need to deal with a series of groups (such as in VR solo delves)?

Or does it generate enough ultimate itself to be available again for the next group?

I've used both Ice Comet and Shooting Star in PVP but I really have no experience PVEing with it.

Holycannoli

silentgecko wrote: »

Forget about Surge. Use Entropy and later Degeneration. It gives the same Major Buff then Surge.
And gives you a little bit Healing:

Entropy
Entropy now grants you the Major Sorcery buff for 20 seconds when cast.
Increased the damage over time component of this ability by 20%.

Degeneration ist the pick now for us mages.

Also Degeneration gives you the Chance to heal you for 100% of your Weapon Damage. No Cooldown.

I've been thinking about Degeneration vs Structured Entropy in 1.6. Won't +8% health be of even greater benefit with no caps? A 15% chance for a light or heavy attack to heal you isn't that great, in my experience at least (but I do wonder about combining it with Overload which I haven't tried yet). Extra health just from having it slotted is always useful though, and it seems people have less overall health in 1.6 so adding all you can might be important.

1.6 is taking forever and a day to download so I haven't tried them yet.

Exstazik

If you do some math :Surge buff on Pts was nerfed ~on 25%.(because on PTS buff not scaled from the magicka pool)

pppontus

I don't get the whole "sorc sucks now because SURGE". Congrats, there are now more skills to use that are actually useful, isn't that what we wanted all along? All things considered I feel sorcs are in a pretty good spot on the PTS now. You can now use more than 2 skills to DPS.

All classes have lost some AOE survivability, if Crit Surge stayed the way it is it would be so ridiculously OP.

Some of the suggestions like giving 20% spell damage AND increase all damage done by 25% AND HEAL FOR 65% with no cooldown?!!

Honestly, what the *** ***...

With the stupid templates frags hit harder than snipe and with a shorter cast time. When we have some accurate numbers to go on, then complain if the DPS is not on par.

I recommend more time testing builds, less time worrying about surge. I've always preferred Power Surge anyway. You can solo without constant 6x300 healing crit surge, in case that wasn't obvious

XEVENEX

I don't want to jump the gun or anything, but Sorc feels REALLY good right now in PvP on PTS. Last night I was ward tanking 3-4 people and facerolling every class without discrimination. Combat also feels much faster paced.