1.6.5 Sorcerer detailed balance feedback

Cyantific87

Vahrokh wrote: »

ads1 wrote: »

ZOS should just increased our spell damage passive to 4% per skill.

Unlikely. They stealth nerfed spell damage and now you hope they undo it and buff us beyond what we had on PTS?

Absolutely, I get that people want more versatility with sorcs and yeah there should be more options for Stam builds like the other classes have. Seriously though, what an easy thing for ZOS to do to increase dps without really having to do much.. would make it so that you would want as many sorc abilities on the bar as possible too.. Even more than now.

RainfeatherUK

Right ofcourse. Nerf stamina back into the stone age again and put light armor back where it was. Plus a huge hike in spell damage right?

:Rollseyes:

Crescent

All sorcerer spells, including pets, should have a morph or option to scale with stamina.

Crystal Shard and Daedric mines need to be retooled. Dark Exchange needs to be instant cast chunk of heal/stat gain with an over time portion after.

Spell costs for sorcerers need a flat out reduction. Most sorcerer spells cost around 50% more than other classes for no reason whatsoever and their effects are weaker to boot. Sorcerers also need group utility, the negate magicka nerf slaughtered what little utility they brought.

And for the love of god get rid of those awful toggle mechanics. In a game with only 5 slots in an action bar, making a spell take up slots on both bars means you're stuck with at best 1-2 slots for active skills, it's horrendous remove that stupid limitation.

Mumnoch

Crescent wrote: »

All sorcerer spells, including pets, should have a morph or option to scale with stamina.

Crystal Shard and Daedric mines need to be retooled. Dark Exchange needs to be instant cast chunk of heal/stat gain with an over time portion after.

Spell costs for sorcerers need a flat out reduction. Most sorcerer spells cost around 50% more than other classes for no reason whatsoever and their effects are weaker to boot. Sorcerers also need group utility, the negate magicka nerf slaughtered what little utility they brought.

And for the love of god get rid of those awful toggle mechanics. In a game with only 5 slots in an action bar, making a spell take up slots on both bars means you're stuck with at best 1-2 slots for active skills, it's horrendous remove that stupid limitation.

This needs to be their #1 priority.

byrom101b16_ESO

Crescent wrote: »

All sorcerer spells, including pets, should have a morph or option to scale with stamina.

Crystal Shard and Daedric mines need to be retooled. Dark Exchange needs to be instant cast chunk of heal/stat gain with an over time portion after.

Spell costs for sorcerers need a flat out reduction. Most sorcerer spells cost around 50% more than other classes for no reason whatsoever and their effects are weaker to boot. Sorcerers also need group utility, the negate magicka nerf slaughtered what little utility they brought.

And for the love of god get rid of those awful toggle mechanics. In a game with only 5 slots in an action bar, making a spell take up slots on both bars means you're stuck with at best 1-2 slots for active skills, it's horrendous remove that stupid limitation.

Interesting that Sorcerer spells are so much more expensive than any other class without comparable increase in performance, indeed often underperforming cheaper magicka abilities of other classes.

Far more interesting that in their silence on the sorry state of the Sorcerer Zenimax won't acknowledge this design bias, or indeed explain it...

... all the more needed since the nerf to class sustain 1.6 represented.

Here's your chance Zenimax - try to answer a straight question on an undeniable fact, that no-one can argue against because it's right there in the tooltips, and that you should already have the answer for, as you designed them that way!

WHY are Sorcerer magicka abilities more expensive than other classes?

gurugeorgey

Crescent wrote: »

All sorcerer spells, including pets, should have a morph or option to scale with stamina.

Crystal Shard and Daedric mines need to be retooled. Dark Exchange needs to be instant cast chunk of heal/stat gain with an over time portion after.

Spell costs for sorcerers need a flat out reduction. Most sorcerer spells cost around 50% more than other classes for no reason whatsoever and their effects are weaker to boot. Sorcerers also need group utility, the negate magicka nerf slaughtered what little utility they brought.

And for the love of god get rid of those awful toggle mechanics. In a game with only 5 slots in an action bar, making a spell take up slots on both bars means you're stuck with at best 1-2 slots for active skills, it's horrendous remove that stupid limitation.

Sounds like you want an IWIN button! Seriously, all these things are in there for a reason - it would be terribly easy to make the Sorcerer overpowered.

The question is one of adjustment, not wholesale re-tooling of the abilities.

LameoveR

Calm down. No sorc changes in 2.0.2.

cmycko

I have been a Sorcerer since day one and been VR14 for months now. While I do enjoy play my sorc (mainly the challenge), I have to admit that there have been many more nerfs than any sort of buffs for sorcs. The only way I can compete in AvA now is stacking nothing but magicka and spell damage, offering me very low health.

I don't see any strengths for sorcerers on the battlefield. Bolt Escape costs too much, Crystal Frags gets dodged 50% of the time, Velocious Curse gets purged, pets are still a joke and just increase your mana with a wasted 5-piece armor set/toggles, and now our execute hits for far less than crystal frags. List goes on with crit surge which I can't stack crit without sacrificing spell damage and magicka to be on par with others.

The fact that DKs can reflect back meteors and every other ability that hits for 20k is pure BS. Oh they nerfed it to 4 reflects? That hasn't changed much, I still see it spammed and they are still taloning and bannering, shield blocking all the way back home. Don't tell me to go sword/shield and get the reflect JUST to reflect it back and sacrifice my light attack weaving that is needed for up-to-par dps of other classes.

Lets not get started on the awful change to Light Armor. Bound Armor? 1k armor and spell resist at rank IV? Did they forget to change that? Ok, 8% more magicka...still not worth slotting. So I'm spamming Hardened Ward all day because if I don't, I'm dead.

Like I said, I enjoy the challenge of the Sorcerer, and they are decent in pvp and pve. But it's time to buff up some of these useless abilities that just are not worth slotting. Get rid of toggles and that would make me happy enough...

LameoveR

cmycko wrote: »

I don't see any strengths for sorcerers on the battlefield.

Learn to play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQDTOiU4Tb0

mook-eb16_ESO

Considering the small amount of physical resistance offered by light armour, I just wanted to suggest that the amount of physical resistance added by bound armour should be increase as it seems low at 960 especially for light armour wearers. currently I don't think it adds a lot of benefit considering it will take up a slot on each bar, it would be nice to see a higher value of physical resistance for bound armour for light armour wearers and lower for heavy armour i.e the amount it adds would be inversely proportional to your physical resistance . And of course its pointless buying other costumes with your crowns from the crown store if you use it as you cant see your costumes. some sort of transparent armour like stone flesh in Skyrim would have been better.

cmycko

LameoveR wrote: »

cmycko wrote: »

I don't see any strengths for sorcerers on the battlefield.

Learn to play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQDTOiU4Tb0

I stopped watching after about 3 minutes. Bolt escaping everywhere? LOL. Learn to play... Seriously?

Funny thing is, I play my sorc a hell of a lot better than this guy...and again, look at the reflect he needs to have on his bar just because of DKs. Lame.

LameoveR

cmycko wrote: »

I stopped watching after about 3 minutes. Bolt escaping everywhere? LOL. Learn to play... Seriously?

Funny thing is, I play my sorc a hell of a lot better than this guy...and again, look at the reflect he needs to have on his bar just because of DKs. Lame.

He is 1vs20 in this keep. Yes, bolt escape that "costs too much" is everywhere. And he manages to kill someone, not just boltescaping all the time.
If you play "a hell of a lot better than this guy" why do you even complain?

Snit

LameoveR wrote: »

He is 1vs20 in this keep

There are 20 - 30 reds on the first and second floors. I was there. I'm even in the vid (I don't die). And this is mostly about a good player kiting around with Line of Sight.

cmycko

LameoveR wrote: »

cmycko wrote: »

I stopped watching after about 3 minutes. Bolt escaping everywhere? LOL. Learn to play... Seriously?

Funny thing is, I play my sorc a hell of a lot better than this guy...and again, look at the reflect he needs to have on his bar just because of DKs. Lame.

He is 1vs20 in this keep. Yes, bolt escape that "costs too much" is everywhere. And he manages to kill someone, not just boltescaping all the time.
If you play "a hell of a lot better than this guy" why do you even complain?

Like I said I have been playing this class from the start and have countless hours on the sorc. It's a difficult class to play and there's no room for error in pvp. I am complaining on the behalf of other sorcs who jump in and don't get "easy mode" like DKs have it. And the fact that they are not getting any buffs in patches to help this. There's a lot of useless skills and too many toggles. I just avoid and adapt.

Erock25

I was going to make my own topic but they DID tell us to post here. Hopefully @zos_ginabruno or someone is still monitoring this thread.

There has been a ton of Sorc feedback on the forums since 1.6 hit and I was attempting to let everything settle before giving my overall feedback. Feel free to comment, offer your own suggestions, call me horrible names, and if you are a ZOS employee .... copy paste it into your to-do list .

The objectives I tried to fulfill in my suggested changes

• Give Magicka DPS builds more utility to a group and raid
• Give Magicka DPS builds a way to increase their damage if they are allowed to reliably stay in melee range
• Give Stamina DPS builds some synergy with their Sorcerer skills
• Give some love to the Healer and Tank Sorc
• Suggest changes that are realistic in concept and require low effort to execute

Power Surge - Duration increased to 40 seconds (to 43 seconds on Rank4). Provides yourself with Minor Prophecy (3% spell crit)

• I think Power Surge has been marginalized by Entropy, especially considering the Mage's Guild - Might of the Guild Passive. The heal component of Surge is now just an ancillary effect in my opinion because of how DOTs activate the cooldown and I believe extended duration is the easiest way to make Power Surge a valid contender to Entropy.

Critical Surge - Cost reduced by 40%. Provides yourself with Major Endurance (+20% stam regen) for 10 seconds.

• Just as Power Surge is marginalized by Entropy, I believe Critical Surge is inferior to the 2h skill Rally. Yes we can access this Major Brutality without using 2h and that is an advantage, but I still think this skill needs more oomph. Currently Critical Surge has a HUGE cost for a stamina build, and a 40% reduction seems fair. Also, Sorc do not have access to any in combat stamina regen and Major Endurance is a great fit here. It is important that this spell does not switch to a stamina morph because I feel it is important that stamina builds have access to magicka dumps that do not scale on spell power/total magicka.

Volatile Familiar - Changed back to instant cast. Increase the melee damage the pet does by 100% (it still isn't much).

• This morph is completely useless without it being instant cast. This should be the second pet (besides Twilight) go to option for a magicka Sorc.

Clannfear - Reduce cast time to 0.5 seconds and change this to a stamina morph.

• My preferred change for this ability may be impossible, but if it is possible, it would add a layer of fun and useful gameplay for a Tank Sorc. I think if you manually command this pet to attack anything (default binding is Y + left click), it should also taunt it regardless of who is on the threat table. This pet has decent HP, but it isn't going to hold up long against most enemies (especially bosses) in group PVE content so it will not be overpowered.

Daedric Prey - Increase the additional pet damage to 50% and refocus all pets to attack this target.

• I do not think using Daedric Prey and Empowered Ward to get the most out of your pets is a useful mechanic. For starters, it means a lot of your skill bar and morph choices need to be dedicated to pets. Also Hardened Ward is a MUST HAVE for any magicka Sorc who wants to PVP and it would be very helpful to be able to spec Hardened Ward instead of Empowered Ward and still get the most out of your pets.

Bound Aegis - Also provides Minor Mending buff (8% healing done increase)

• A small buff that gives Sorc a reason to be a healer.

Empowered Ward - Stamina morph of Conjured Ward that scales on health.

• I think this is important for a stamina Sorc to have a damage shield. The reason we are scaling on health here instead of stamina is so that this skill is stronger for tanks. A stamina build with a stamina scaling shield would be over the top with their ability to dodge roll, break free, block and have more mitigations than a light armor user underneath the damage shield.

Crystal Blast - Melee range stamina morph that is just like Crystal Frag (minus the knockdown) and procs on activation of any skill that cost stamina. Does slightly less dmg than a magicka build Crystal Frag but also provides the Sorc and his group Minor Brutality (increase weapon damage by 5%) for 5 seconds.

• Provides a dmg stamina morph, keeps the Crystal proc gameplay consistent between builds, while giving the Sorc a minor group buff and Dark Deal heals.

Exploitation Passive - Activating a Dark Magic ability grants Major Prophecy (10% spell crit) to a Sorcerer and his group (important it is group only so multiple Sorc would be needed to keep this running for the entire raid) for 5/10 seconds.

• Gives Sorc a strong reason to be a part of raids and groups.

Daedric Bomb (rename of Daedric Tomb) - Sorcerer places a Daedric Bomb on the ground (double the activation radius of a single mine) which takes 5 seconds to activate and when triggered, explodes for massive damage.

• The damage done here is the real question. It should be powerful because it takes coordination between the group and gives Sorc a reason to be in melee range.

Also Twilight needs to be no more than a 0.5 second cast. Considering that these pets die in some encounters and there is no reason not to reduce the cast time.

Anyways that is my list.

LameoveR

^^^^^

exiledtyrant

Erock25 wrote: »

Daedric Bomb (rename of Daedric Tomb) - Sorcerer places a Daedric Bomb on the ground (double the activation radius of a single mine) which takes 5 seconds to activate and when triggered, explodes for massive damage.

• The damage done here is the real question. It should be powerful because it takes coordination between the group and gives Sorc a reason to be in melee range.

I would actually like daedric tomb to act somewhat like the magicka detonation morph that makes the caster the center of the explosion. If it just planted a mine on the caster that pulses 3 times every two seconds it would deliver the damage more reliably and refresh the immobilize easier. Tomb is so clunky because it struggles to deliver on all 3 mines. It should most definitely be the melee option of the morph since the 5 mine morph is already great at keep away for ranged.

Jar_Ek

In the spirit of @Erock25, I have added these links to pull in some previous discussions.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/157773/sorcerer-pve-toolkit-and-design-analysis

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/157397/sorcerer-surge-discussion-all-welcome#latest

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/153309/critique-of-current-sorcerer-skill-trees#latest

Please respond in this thread.
Also I think it is interesting that the community seems to be headed in the same direction as can be seen in the first link...

xherics

My today arena last boss Sorcerer DPS with 131 CP:



@Edit: My mate @D3usEX had 15,5k for almost the same time period on his DK, only 1,8 sec difference, while I executed the fire atronach. He had 130 CP - and yes, he is a pro DK.

exiledtyrant

I find it odd that a class that is in no way encouraged to stack health has it's blood magic heal based on max hp.

Jar_Ek

@xherics Using power surge rather than entropy? Are you find it works better? Built for spell power I guess?

Mumnoch

xherics wrote: »

My today arena last boss Sorcerer DPS with 131 CP:



@Edit: My mate @D3usEX had 15,5k for almost the same time period on his DK, only 1,8 sec difference, while I executed the fire atronach. He had 130 CP - and yes, he is a pro DK.

This is about where all Sorc's are parsing. 2k less than every other DPS class. Zenimax, we're still waiting on word that you are going to adjust the Sorc's DPS up to make up the difference in PVE. New games are right around the corner and with as much screwing up as you have done in the past you this is your last chance in a lot of people's eyes.

Mumnoch

LameoveR wrote: »

cmycko wrote: »

I don't see any strengths for sorcerers on the battlefield.

Learn to play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQDTOiU4Tb0

I don't see you dominating here. I don't see you doing massive amounts of DPS. I do see you using movement abilities and LOS to survive in a PVP environment.

No one is saying Sorc's movement abilities need improving. Everyone except some DKs/NBs/Templars are saying Sorc DPS needs improving. If you are going to argue, argue the same points as everyone else. This way you don't look foolish.

Singular

LameoveR wrote: »

cmycko wrote: »

I don't see any strengths for sorcerers on the battlefield.

Learn to play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQDTOiU4Tb0

I must not know anything...but how was this good? Did he actually kill anyone or is the excellence here in merely surviving?

xherics

Jar_Ek wrote: »

@xherics Using power surge rather than entropy? Are you find it works better? Built for spell power I guess?

I decided to use power surge because of 2% more spell damage on the bar and it also selfheal a bit. In arena where from everywhere a damage is incoming I think surge is better than entropy.

If I use entropy, I need to have in on my both bars to have the health bonus, what is another 2% spell damage loss for AOE.

LameoveR

Singular wrote: »

I must not know anything...but how was this good? Did he actually kill anyone or is the excellence here in merely surviving?

He's 1v20 in enemy keep. Yes, he killed two or three and burned some ballistas.

Mumnoch wrote: »

If you are going to argue, argue the same points as everyone else. This way you don't look foolish.

It's an argument to this words

cmycko wrote: »

I don't see any strengths for sorcerers on the battlefield.

You'd better read and look before being rude.
And it's not my video.

Vahrokh

Jar_Ek wrote: »

@xherics Using power surge rather than entropy? Are you find it works better? Built for spell power I guess?

Yesterday I have done about 10.2K DPS (I have very low CPs, no crit bonus) on first Hel Ra boss, using my own build that includes power surge.

Glantir

Stop using Skills and only use Power Overload.... pure Damage ^^.....

Snit

xherics wrote: »

I decided to use power surge because of 2% more spell damage on the bar and it also selfheal a bit.

Have you compared the tooltip damage of your spells with Entropy in the slot and with Surge? Might of the Guild may raise your damage more than Expert Mage.

Snit

LameoveR wrote: »

He's 1v20 in enemy keep.

No, he isn't. I'm in that video (I didn't die). There are 20+ more reds on the second and first floors, busy taking the keep. The other AD are displaying a spectacular lack of situational awareness, focused on those downstairs. That's a gap in player skill, not class balance.

Teargrants is very good, but that was mostly him Line of Sighting folks and killing the occasional person on siege. He did nail one Templar who thinks that opening up on a full-health target with Radiant D is the path to glory (it's usually not).