1.6.5 Sorcerer detailed balance feedback

Tankqull · February 2015

mines are "great" in certain situations.
the problem i have is that they don´t trigger in 80% of the time when some charges through them at all, or not properly in additional 15% the opponent has the animation for beeing rooted but is running around uneffected...

Wolfchild07 · February 2015

Yup, what Madangrypally said. Daedric Minefield is SO much more useful than Volcanic Rune.

And no, they don't just die from one Minefield if they're any of the enemies I mentioned in a previous post, even from the 1,000 or so damage of all 5 mines.

Seraphyel · February 2015

Dracane wrote: »

Seraphyel wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

posthumecaver wrote: »

Does the hotbar of overload is also gone?

It's still there. But you can only use class skills and guild skills on it. No weapon skills anymore.

Still one bar more than everyone else got.

But not a pure bar ^^ it's limited

Pure bar or not, still more than others got.

Wolfchild07 wrote: »

Do NOT replace Daedric Mines, they work fine. Learn how to use them.

For ranged Sorcs the Mines are actually quite awful. And remember, there is something like PvE. It's like the Lightning Splash discussion - for PvE good, for PvP quite bad - with Mines it's exactly the opposite.

Wolfchild07 · February 2015

I DO use them for PvE, and I never PvP. They work fine, you can use them defensively if you want. They're also useful for melee. Charge in, lay mines, Streak out.

Seraphyel · February 2015

Wolfchild07 wrote: »

Do NOT replace Daedric Mines, they work fine. Learn how to use them.

For

Wolfchild07 wrote: »

I DO use them for PvE, and I never PvP. They work fine, you can use them defensively if you want. They're also useful for melee. Charge in, lay mines, Streak out.

Are they useful in dungeons? Trials? Mostly not. Their cost is too high and their damage to hard to trigger on bossfights.

cozmon3c_ESO · February 2015

daedric mines barely hurt anybody, if anything they need to increase there damage, people need to realize it was a mistake to run over them, not tickle them. just tested them on the pts, weak sauce.

Wolfchild07 · February 2015

They don't work in trials or PvP so they should be changed? Yeah, ok, every ability that doesn't work in those situations should be changed. No, there are enough other abilities to choose from.

Dracane · February 2015

madangrypally wrote: »

Daedric Mines:
Cost: 4436 Magicka
Damage: 3982 Magic Damage per mine and 1.5 second root. 11946 if all 3 mines go off.
Duration: 36 seconds.
Activates after 3 seconds.
Other benefits: Each explosion heals 8% of players max health. (if all three goes off that's 24% max health heal)
Gives players and allies Minor Prophecy for 20 seconds.

Would be cool if it would. But the Blood Magic passive has a cooldown of 0,5 seconds to 1 second. If someone rolls through 3 of them in 1 roll dodge, you only receive 8% heal.

Feynn · February 2015

posthumecaver wrote: »

mybuild
So can anybody tell me do I have to change my build completely or it is still going to be viable?

@posthumecaver , as far as I understand your build (which is very similar to mine) is no longer going to be viable in 1.6. Particularly, if you are depending on Critical Surge for self-healing (like pretty much every Sorcerer out there) you will be greatly disappointed by the way it has been nerfed. Crushing Shock has also been nerfed. I think we will probably need to re-learn how to play the game.

Seraphyel · February 2015

Wolfchild07 wrote: »

They don't work in trials or PvP so they should be changed? Yeah, ok, every ability that doesn't work in those situations should be changed. No, there are enough other abilities to choose from.

They just could add a morph that makes them useful for PvE, yes. I don't know why we got an ability like that as the supposed range class we are.

Xsorus · February 2015

cozmon3c_ESO wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Reykice wrote: »

Snit wrote: »

We need to know if the new Unstable Clannfear behavior is intended. It's a powerful self-heal. But chain summoning a pet (for a 35% heal each cycle) seems odd enough that I wonder if it's meant to act that way.

If it is intended to act that way, it's time we sorcs stopped talking about our poor class self-heal. 1.6 Unstable Clannfear is basically a slightly clunkier premorph Dragon Blood.

Notice how it takes double the time to cast as you must summon and unsummon it?

Notice the magicka cost making it so veeeeeery expensive?

Unless you use the 3600 champion points that you will only get 3+ years from now, you will run out of magicka... not to mention that 35% of your hp will be gone in less time that it takes to cast that spell, a normal VR 13 archer does up to 14k damage.

That is more or less intended to be the "oh you tank pet died, here get some hp back" kind of deal... that can also be used in emergencies but the magicka cost is high and the double cast makes it not very practical.

Don`t know about you but even with 20k hp and full 3600 champ points for mitigation and so on... i get 2 shotted by PVE NPC`s... archers are usually a pain in the ass. And as a bonus, the one spell that increases mitigation, the lightning form.... does small amounts of damage to everyone around you and makes Critical Surge proc on useless small heals thus denying your bigger spells from healing you. Yey!

I think light armor users will be really sad to see that they now get 2shotted by PVE npc`s and even with both Bound Armor AND Lightning Form on you are still below the armor rating a normal medium armor user has. Now imagine if he also uses those spells.... he can actually tank something while you will die. :-)

Anyway, with hits doing 3k up to 14k from normal NPC`s, the only way to "survive" the hits is to let the pet take them for you - its intended role. If you are the target, spamming a ward will help more as you have no mitigation in light armor anyway, so you might as well use the wards that offer more protection per cast for a lot less magicka.

I'm fairly certain my clannfear was like a 6k magicka cost. With 28k magicka, the Rebate passive will give me 4200 magicka back. Add a few more CP into the mix and your magicka costs go down and magicka pool goes up. No matter how you try to spin it, this clannfear heal is broken OP.

Look how sorcs will point this out, but a DK would never ever say this about there Dragons Blood, lol. Sorcs just want to have fun, and be balanced.

Well you'd probably have to do something like give us a better escape option then you have with bolt escape, since ya know they just gave you a better heal them dks... While letting you keep your mobility options for escape

daemonios · February 2015

Wolfchild07 wrote: »

They don't work in trials or PvP so they should be changed? Yeah, ok, every ability that doesn't work in those situations should be changed. No, there are enough other abilities to choose from.

I can't disagree more with you. If a skill is basically not being used in end-game content, it SHOULD be changed. What's the use of skills that sit on the skill lines and aren't used by anyone?

Derra · February 2015

cozmon3c_ESO wrote: »

daedric mines barely hurt anybody, if anything they need to increase there damage, people need to realize it was a mistake to run over them, not tickle them. just tested them on the pts, weak sauce.

Mines do absurd amounts of dmg when ppl don´t have points spent into the champion dmg reductions (3k+ through block). The problem all magica builds encounter are absurdly high mitigations against maxed passives - this is not a mine exclusive problem though.

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

cozmon3c_ESO wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Reykice wrote: »

Snit wrote: »

We need to know if the new Unstable Clannfear behavior is intended. It's a powerful self-heal. But chain summoning a pet (for a 35% heal each cycle) seems odd enough that I wonder if it's meant to act that way.

If it is intended to act that way, it's time we sorcs stopped talking about our poor class self-heal. 1.6 Unstable Clannfear is basically a slightly clunkier premorph Dragon Blood.

Notice how it takes double the time to cast as you must summon and unsummon it?

Notice the magicka cost making it so veeeeeery expensive?

Unless you use the 3600 champion points that you will only get 3+ years from now, you will run out of magicka... not to mention that 35% of your hp will be gone in less time that it takes to cast that spell, a normal VR 13 archer does up to 14k damage.

That is more or less intended to be the "oh you tank pet died, here get some hp back" kind of deal... that can also be used in emergencies but the magicka cost is high and the double cast makes it not very practical.

Don`t know about you but even with 20k hp and full 3600 champ points for mitigation and so on... i get 2 shotted by PVE NPC`s... archers are usually a pain in the ass. And as a bonus, the one spell that increases mitigation, the lightning form.... does small amounts of damage to everyone around you and makes Critical Surge proc on useless small heals thus denying your bigger spells from healing you. Yey!

I think light armor users will be really sad to see that they now get 2shotted by PVE npc`s and even with both Bound Armor AND Lightning Form on you are still below the armor rating a normal medium armor user has. Now imagine if he also uses those spells.... he can actually tank something while you will die. :-)

Anyway, with hits doing 3k up to 14k from normal NPC`s, the only way to "survive" the hits is to let the pet take them for you - its intended role. If you are the target, spamming a ward will help more as you have no mitigation in light armor anyway, so you might as well use the wards that offer more protection per cast for a lot less magicka.

I'm fairly certain my clannfear was like a 6k magicka cost. With 28k magicka, the Rebate passive will give me 4200 magicka back. Add a few more CP into the mix and your magicka costs go down and magicka pool goes up. No matter how you try to spin it, this clannfear heal is broken OP.

Look how sorcs will point this out, but a DK would never ever say this about there Dragons Blood, lol. Sorcs just want to have fun, and be balanced.

Well you'd probably have to do something like give us a better escape option then you have with bolt escape, since ya know they just gave you a better heal them dks... While letting you keep your mobility options for escape

I´d hardly call a heal that bugs out 90% of the time when you really need it better than gdb.
But that can happen when you don´t have any experience with things you express your opinion about - we understand (It looks better on paper admittedly).

Derra · February 2015

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

QUOTE REMOVED

Just try to use the skill one time ingame in an actual pressure situation before you come here expressing your opinion about it.
Ofc you get ppl. like me boasting about how *** the skill is - why is that? Bc you come here only ever having looked at numbers with no idea what issues the skill has since months (that being that if you summon resummon without the animation finishing the pet won´t summon you loose mana nothing happens - this also triggers a cooldown of about 1.5s you have to wait before you can attempt a successful cast again - perfect mechanic for an emergency in combat heal if you ask me).

[Moderator Note: Quote has been edited as the comment has been removed.]

kelly.medleyb14_ESO · February 2015

Gil.Galad wrote: »

Hello,

I know there are allready many threads about sorcerers in the forums and I read almost all, but I think many of them ignore facts or don't make good comparisons or dont make realistic suggestions. First of all I will make clear that this post is about PVE balance, the sorcs in PVP are fine if you know how to play them. I played a sorc since the beta, I'm playing some pvp (rank 19) in organised groups or solo and do a lot of dungeons and raids (AA and HR hardmode clear, SO clear). Some of the arguments are similar to other threads and I wont quote them all, just see this here as a summary with some additional feedback.

The big questions is what ZOS wants the Sorcerer to be? What roles should it fill out? @ZOS_GinaBruno‌ can you answer this?

In my opinion there is a good space for the sorcere as a ranged magicka caster, supporting the group with magicka and providing magicka based debuffs like spellpenetration. And if you take a close look at it we aren't so far away as you will see in the suggestions section.

This text will be longer so i will make some structure using the spoiler function. Just click on the headlines you are interested in.

Situation in 1.5 compared to 1.6.3 concerning raid and dungeon groups
Situation in 1.5

Tank: Dragonknight (DK) > Templar (T) > Nightblade (NB) >= Sorcerer (S)
Healer: T >> S > NB >= DK
DPS: DK > NB > S > T

Does this look like "play what you want and play how you want"?
While DKs and Temps have at least one role where they are way better than other classes, NB and specially sorcs had no role where they are the best, but NBs are still able to deal 1.300 DPS while a sorc can hardly get up to 1.000-1.100 DPS. This is reflected in the trial leaderbords: The fastest teams dont even have one single sorc. The sorcs are completely underrepresented as shown in this thread: Magicka Sorcerers and end-game PvE

And this is why: Sorcs dont deal enough dmg and they are only used as heal support and negate monkey. Thanks to surge they had the highest weapon damage in 1.5 so there healing done with the restoration staff was extremely good. The negate was usefull in many situations when you face a lot of magic aoe dmg.

What will change with 1.6?

Restoration staff abilities scale of spelldmg, the spelldmg buff is available for every class (Mages guild -> Entropy). Since the mage doesnt have healing abilites the expert mage passive wont give him a huge bonus while healing (example: you only do aoe heals with healing springs, you will need magelight, -> 8% more spelldmg -> about 4% more healing done). Compared to DKs or NBs who have some nice synergies while healing (syphoning abilities, DKs dmg shield) sorcs wont be the 2nd best healers anymore.

Changes to negate magic:
It only negates magic effects when its casted, spell resistance removed (1.5 suppresion field), minor dmg reduction added (doesn't stack with the circle of protection (fighters guild)), spellpenetration added. Compared to other defensive ultimates that provide a 30% dmg reduction for the players (NB: vail of blades) or reduce the boss dmg (Templar: solar prison), the 8% are a joke and can be provided by a NON ultimate ability. The negate doesnt do any dmg itself while the vail or nova deal dmg, so the spellpenetration could be somehow equal to it but.
The absorption field is not a good option too since all the buffs can be obtained without ultimates (radiant aura (templar), potions, rapid manouver).

So what can a sorc do for the group in 1.6?
- exploitation passive giving 3% spellcrit to the group
- restoring twilight increasing the magicka recovery by 10% (if it survives and doesnt trigger boss mechanics like the chain lightning from the mage in AA)
- Attronach synergy increasing the dmg of one player by 25% for 8 sec every 60 sec (attronach cooldown)
- Less DPS then NBs and DKs
- Less survivability then all other classes (see below)

thats it. Compared to templars and nightblades with their defensive ultimates and support abilities there is no space for sorcs. Maybe for one with a twilight and any dark magic ability. But the dmg increase for the group DPS from the 3% crit will be equal to the loss of having one NB or DK dps less in group.
Survivability compared to other classes
I will make this one short and add some videos. The sorc doesn't have a good selfheal, only protection is the hardened ward and the thundering presence. So i made a video in spellscar against a whole buch of mobs on time with my vet14 sorcerer and one time with my vet14 templar. The gear used is pretty equal, both have 90 CPs spend so i can have the 12% crit passive from the apprentice and get some more surge heals. While my sorc has to use the negate magic in order to survive, i can easily do it on my templar without ultimate. My sorc reaches a higher aoe dps but gets significantly lower selfheal and hardly survives by using his full arsenal of defensive abilities (hardened ward, thundering presence, power surge, suppresion field). A templar needs two skills: Blazing shield, puncturing sweep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrLldWE5ugc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSEDX6igKWo

The my heals per second provided by surge where arround 1000 hps for the whole fight, while the templars pucturing sweep provides 2500 hps. If i had used the solar prison ultimate the templars dps would have been better than the sorcs.

Just to show the unbalance i made two more videos. One with my templar without ultimates and without CP spend. And one with pucturing sweep only to show how much HPS a templar can get while dealing dmg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY7LOQxCR4U

Puncturing Sweep only
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wMkNr4Wv9I"

I could do this with every other class. The DKs have inhale, the NBs sap essence (the also heal the group) so even in terms of survivability sorcs are in the last place now.
Suggestions and ability feedback
As i mentioned before the developer team is on a good way, but i would like to make some suggestions and give some detailed feedback on abilites.

Passives:
- Expert Mage:
I like the idea behind this change to give the sorcerer the chance to reach the highest spelldmg of all classes, so they are more powerful with destruction and restoration staffs then other classes. The problem is that these 2% arent enough since they compete agains the mages guild passive (2% max magicka, 2% magicka reg) per ability slottet. In terms of dmg the 2% more spelldmg are only better if your max magicka is lower than you spelldmg times 10 (max magicka < spelldmg*10). This will rarely happen, specially when you get more CPs. So this passive gives about 6% more spelldmg in most of the cases (since the sorc always needs a destruction staff ability). So it gives about 3% more dmg/healing. Nice to have but not world changing.
Rising it to 1%/3% would actually make it better than the mages guild passive.

I'm not complaining about the loss of the 10% magicka reduction, because magicka management becomes a lot easier with the CP system. At this point it only hurts stamina sorcs, which is kind of sad but as I mentioned I see the sorc as a magicka caster.

- Daedric Protection
This passive is pretty useless and could be replaced by a better one. The sorcerer has no ability or passive that supports its healing ability. Why not change Daedric Protection to:
"Increses the healing done by (3%/5%) while having a deadric summoning ability slotted"

This could bring the sorc in line with the other classes in terms of healing.

Active abilities:

- Negate Magic
the negate has to come on one lvl with the other defensive ultimates. Since it only negates magic effects on impact and not during the whole duration, which was extremely strong and maybe too strong. The absorption field is a pretty useless morph since the major buffs can be obtained by other non ultimate abilities (radiant aura, potions, rapid manouver).
For the suppresion field there is a simple solution:
Increase the dmg reduction to 30% (major buff) like the vail of blades and keep the spellpenetration buff and the rest.

- Cristal Fragments
I like the changes here with the extra dmg when it procs. The problem is that the sorcerer doesnt have an instant cast skill to spam in order to proc crystal fragments. The only option here is crushing shock / force shock. And it should proc on all skills including streak and encase.
Increasing the proc chance (maybe arround 50%) could be a way to bring the sorcs dps in line with other classes.

- Encase
The spell is fine, and i also like the morphs, but i would make one suggestion: Make it a groud target like lightning flood, with a circle area (6-8m radius). That would be really cool and give the sorcerer a ranged unique root and not a bad copy of the DKs talons.

- Lightning Flood
I really like the increased duration. Whoever says it doesnt hurt should do some maths. Even the 6 sec morph is an extremely good (aoe) DOT. The 10 sec morph is the best non ultimate DOT in the game, ticking every 0.5 sec with 800 dmg for 10 sec (15.000 dmg) on my vet 14 altmer sorc with 90 CP set. In combination with the valkyn skoria set this is awesome. Additionally it has 28m range and it provides a synergy.
But there are two downsides:
Placing it feels somehow unresponsive, since its a ground effect and the animation is pretty slow.
The radius is pretty small, so when the boss moves its hard to use.

- Bound Armor
Lets make it short. The minor armor buff is like nothing. Only the 8% magicka/stamina depending on the morph is worth slotting it, but does it have to be a toggle and waste 2 slots on my bar?

- Pets in general
The fact that they are toggles is a real problem, because they take too much space on both bars and you have almost no options when you try to play them effectively (magelight, deadric prey, empowering ward, entropy/surge, filler (cristal shards/force shock)). No Place for AOE or execute, so its no good build for most of the dungeons and trials. Additionally the pets take heals, that are aimed at players and trigger boss mechanics like the lightning chain in AA.

Im not a fan of pets in endgame content and the sorcerers should not have to depend on them to be able to compete in terms of dps.

- Surge
I have i huge problem with this ability and how it performs in 1.6. and here is why:
The unmorphed version gives weapon damage. That was fine before 1.6 because the sorcerer could buff the dmg of destruction staffs and the healing with the resto staffs like no other class. In 1.6 they scale with spelldmg, like all sorcerer abilities. So why doesnt the base version give spelldmg and only one morph give weapon dmg?
There is no need for a morph that gives spell and weapon dmg since hybrid builds cant compete with specialized builds since the removal of softcaps.
The biggest problem is the change to the healing it does. Every class has a spell that does dmg and heals the caster (T: Puncturing Sweep, DK: Inhale, NB: sap essence), and the healing is increased based on the enemies hit. The sorcerer used to have crit surge, that was working somehow similar. Now they implemented a cooldown for the heal, so even if you hit multiple targets you only get one heal every 0,25 sec. If you are unlucky there will be a dot criting and your high dmg ability (meteor, impulse) cant give you a heal thx to the cooldown. The other classes dont have this cooldown, why?
The videos above (under survivability) show the imbalance between the selfheals from sorcs and temps. I dont have a NB or DK but its enough to show that one class is able to do it. I dont want you to nerf all other classes. Just bring the sorcerer back on their lvl with a change like this:
Remove the cooldown of surge, limit the crit heals to 6 targets (puncturing sweep doesnt even have a limit, see video above) and adjust the heals with the % factor (used to be 65%, got reduced to 40% in 1.6). I agree when people say critsurge was too strong, but at the moment its not worth its slot on the bar.

- Surge vs. Entropy
Its not only the cooldown that made surge redundant, but the buff to entropy. Entropy provides the same spelldmg buff and also some heals, that can be higher than the surge heals when casted on multiple targets.
Additional Entropy effects:
- it deals dmg over time
- if morphed it gives 8% more max health in addition to the 2% magicka and 2% magicka reg from the mages guild passives
- the next spell deals 20% more dmg (if you have a cristal fragments proc thats almost 2k more dmg)
- it cost 1/3 of surge

So when it comes to single target dmg entropy will allways be superior. Without the cooldown removed surge wont be in any sorcerer build anymore. It used to be the most favorite ability of many sorcs and it used to be unique.

- Dark Exchange
As a channeled ability its absolutely useless in fights. In PVE you loose to much dps/healing when you cant cast for 4 seconds, in PVP its like praying to the eight (Edit: no offense here, Tiber Septim/Talos is born after ESO) just before you are dead.
If you want to make it useful make it a toggle, but you should be able to perform spells while its active. It will drain your stamina until its gone or you turn it of. This wont unbalance pvp since you are dead when you run out of stamina (no dodging blocking or CC break).

- Deadric Mines
This is the only ability that might be even worse then dark exchange. Its costs are extremely high, its not a ground target like the flame rune from the mages guild but a player cast. The cooldown against bosses makes it useless in terms of single target dps. I dont know if ppl use it against players but in most of the situations the flame rune will be dealing more dmg and it stuns (morph) instead of the immobilize.

Every other class got a new ability with 1.6. The sorcerer didnt get one, while there would be so many options and a real need for a unique instant cast ability that does moderate dmg. There are some ideas in the forums, but I want to share my own ones:

Replace Deadric Dines
Insert an ability like a dark magic ball, maybe a fire ball (dark fire ball) that
- has 28m range
- is instant castable
- deals a bit more dmg than force shock
- maybe a little aoe dmg like the curse when its a fire ball
Morphs:
- 1 morph that reduces the targets spellresistance (minor debuff)
- 1 morph that restores magicka over time to the group like the NB are able to heal the group a bit

An ability like this would solve several sorc problems: They could have an own "filler" for some rotations and dont rely on the destro staff/force shock anymore. We could provide some unique support to the group (magicka recovery, a debuff no one else provides).

You are the developers. Be creative and give us something we can play with and support the group. Give raidgroups a reason to take some sorcs with them.

Finally I want to say it took me a lot of time doing the tests and writing this down to provide some feedback. I would appreciate it if i could get a response from @ZOS_GinaBruno‌ or anyone else at ZOS that this feedback is read and gets discussed.

Thanks everyone for reading

Edit (20.02.2015, 11:01 am CET)
First i want to thank all of you for your kind replys, specially for the additional feedback. I hope the discussion stays as constructive as it is at the moment. When i find the time i will update the first post here and sum up some of the ideas provided by the comments.
- edited the passives section (expert mage was discussed two times in there)
- Edited some spelling

I want to keep the additional feedback seperate, so you see the new ideas from the comments and who suggested them.

Stamina Sorcerers would like to have some more options, maybe a Cristal Shards morph based on stamina or adding weapon dmg to the Expert Mage passive.

Some feedback was about Sorcs as healers (@Seraphyel, @Nihil, @Ramasee ). My suggestion was to change the Deadric Portection passive, but some of the comments came up with a better idea: Adding the minor meding buff to some skill like surge, bound armor or twilight matriarch (see below in detail).

Surge
- Remove the cooldown (argumentation see above). There is no reason atm to keep it since no similar ability has it.

- Add some sort of dmg buff (e.g. extra shock or elemental dmg) to make up for the high cost
or
- Add minor (or major) mending buff (8% or 30% more healing done), depending on what is balanced better. My feeling is that a major buff would be too strong.

Twilight Matriarch (Sommon Twilight morph)
- Remove the heal when player's health falls below 35%
- Add minor mending buff (8% more healing done) for the player
I really like this idea of having a pet that supports my healing power. The sorcerer could be able to provide sustained heals for a group while using the restoration staff.

Deadric Protection
Let it increase the healing done or make the health regen bonus a group bonus.

Deadric Mines
Some people (@pppontus, @Nihil) find this skill useful and wish some minor tweaks instead of removing it, giving the sorcerer a high dps melee range ability. The boss immunity could get changed, so that the 2nd and 3rd mine deal less dmg instead of 0 dmg.

Negate Magic
Add minor force buff to increase the crit dmg (@Nihil)

Edit (20.02.2015, 18:33 CET)
After some more testing, specially the selfheal using the Clannfear I created a "tank" build. With more then 30k Magicka you get more magicka back than the Clannfear costs plus it heals you for 35%. To show the power of this combination I made a video (the fight starts at 50% and stays basically the same):

http://youtu.be/AlznkZJOFX0

I accidently stopped the recoding to early, so here is the gear and setup:

http://youtu.be/OtwqwYBBa0U

I don't like this mechanic, it feels like an exploid to have a 35% selfheal basically for free (you even get a little more magicka back than you spend). I dont want this to be ingame, its not balanced at all. Sorcs need some kind of selfheal, but to have a free selfheal is too much. We are not that bad.
My suggestion to solve this problem: Change rabate passive so that it only gives magicka back when the Clannfear dies, not when you call him back. So you would have to pay 4.5k-6.5k magicka for a 35% heal. That should be somehow balanced compared to the DKs dragonblood or the Templars Breath of Life.

I had to stop and reply when you claimed Sorcs are bad dps in pve. We are the best. It's about burst and aoe dps most of the time and that's what sorcs to best, not to mention we are hands down the best in AvA.

daemonios · February 2015

kelly.medleyb14_ESO wrote: »

Gil.Galad wrote: »

Hello,

I know there are allready many threads about sorcerers in the forums and I read almost all, but I think many of them ignore facts or don't make good comparisons or dont make realistic suggestions. First of all I will make clear that this post is about PVE balance, the sorcs in PVP are fine if you know how to play them. I played a sorc since the beta, I'm playing some pvp (rank 19) in organised groups or solo and do a lot of dungeons and raids (AA and HR hardmode clear, SO clear). Some of the arguments are similar to other threads and I wont quote them all, just see this here as a summary with some additional feedback.

The big questions is what ZOS wants the Sorcerer to be? What roles should it fill out? @ZOS_GinaBruno‌ can you answer this?

In my opinion there is a good space for the sorcere as a ranged magicka caster, supporting the group with magicka and providing magicka based debuffs like spellpenetration. And if you take a close look at it we aren't so far away as you will see in the suggestions section.

This text will be longer so i will make some structure using the spoiler function. Just click on the headlines you are interested in.

Situation in 1.5 compared to 1.6.3 concerning raid and dungeon groups
Situation in 1.5

Tank: Dragonknight (DK) > Templar (T) > Nightblade (NB) >= Sorcerer (S)
Healer: T >> S > NB >= DK
DPS: DK > NB > S > T

Does this look like "play what you want and play how you want"?
While DKs and Temps have at least one role where they are way better than other classes, NB and specially sorcs had no role where they are the best, but NBs are still able to deal 1.300 DPS while a sorc can hardly get up to 1.000-1.100 DPS. This is reflected in the trial leaderbords: The fastest teams dont even have one single sorc. The sorcs are completely underrepresented as shown in this thread: Magicka Sorcerers and end-game PvE

And this is why: Sorcs dont deal enough dmg and they are only used as heal support and negate monkey. Thanks to surge they had the highest weapon damage in 1.5 so there healing done with the restoration staff was extremely good. The negate was usefull in many situations when you face a lot of magic aoe dmg.

What will change with 1.6?

Restoration staff abilities scale of spelldmg, the spelldmg buff is available for every class (Mages guild -> Entropy). Since the mage doesnt have healing abilites the expert mage passive wont give him a huge bonus while healing (example: you only do aoe heals with healing springs, you will need magelight, -> 8% more spelldmg -> about 4% more healing done). Compared to DKs or NBs who have some nice synergies while healing (syphoning abilities, DKs dmg shield) sorcs wont be the 2nd best healers anymore.

Changes to negate magic:
It only negates magic effects when its casted, spell resistance removed (1.5 suppresion field), minor dmg reduction added (doesn't stack with the circle of protection (fighters guild)), spellpenetration added. Compared to other defensive ultimates that provide a 30% dmg reduction for the players (NB: vail of blades) or reduce the boss dmg (Templar: solar prison), the 8% are a joke and can be provided by a NON ultimate ability. The negate doesnt do any dmg itself while the vail or nova deal dmg, so the spellpenetration could be somehow equal to it but.
The absorption field is not a good option too since all the buffs can be obtained without ultimates (radiant aura (templar), potions, rapid manouver).

So what can a sorc do for the group in 1.6?
- exploitation passive giving 3% spellcrit to the group
- restoring twilight increasing the magicka recovery by 10% (if it survives and doesnt trigger boss mechanics like the chain lightning from the mage in AA)
- Attronach synergy increasing the dmg of one player by 25% for 8 sec every 60 sec (attronach cooldown)
- Less DPS then NBs and DKs
- Less survivability then all other classes (see below)

thats it. Compared to templars and nightblades with their defensive ultimates and support abilities there is no space for sorcs. Maybe for one with a twilight and any dark magic ability. But the dmg increase for the group DPS from the 3% crit will be equal to the loss of having one NB or DK dps less in group.
Survivability compared to other classes
I will make this one short and add some videos. The sorc doesn't have a good selfheal, only protection is the hardened ward and the thundering presence. So i made a video in spellscar against a whole buch of mobs on time with my vet14 sorcerer and one time with my vet14 templar. The gear used is pretty equal, both have 90 CPs spend so i can have the 12% crit passive from the apprentice and get some more surge heals. While my sorc has to use the negate magic in order to survive, i can easily do it on my templar without ultimate. My sorc reaches a higher aoe dps but gets significantly lower selfheal and hardly survives by using his full arsenal of defensive abilities (hardened ward, thundering presence, power surge, suppresion field). A templar needs two skills: Blazing shield, puncturing sweep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrLldWE5ugc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSEDX6igKWo

The my heals per second provided by surge where arround 1000 hps for the whole fight, while the templars pucturing sweep provides 2500 hps. If i had used the solar prison ultimate the templars dps would have been better than the sorcs.

Just to show the unbalance i made two more videos. One with my templar without ultimates and without CP spend. And one with pucturing sweep only to show how much HPS a templar can get while dealing dmg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY7LOQxCR4U

Puncturing Sweep only
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wMkNr4Wv9I"

I could do this with every other class. The DKs have inhale, the NBs sap essence (the also heal the group) so even in terms of survivability sorcs are in the last place now.
Suggestions and ability feedback
As i mentioned before the developer team is on a good way, but i would like to make some suggestions and give some detailed feedback on abilites.

Passives:
- Expert Mage:
I like the idea behind this change to give the sorcerer the chance to reach the highest spelldmg of all classes, so they are more powerful with destruction and restoration staffs then other classes. The problem is that these 2% arent enough since they compete agains the mages guild passive (2% max magicka, 2% magicka reg) per ability slottet. In terms of dmg the 2% more spelldmg are only better if your max magicka is lower than you spelldmg times 10 (max magicka < spelldmg*10). This will rarely happen, specially when you get more CPs. So this passive gives about 6% more spelldmg in most of the cases (since the sorc always needs a destruction staff ability). So it gives about 3% more dmg/healing. Nice to have but not world changing.
Rising it to 1%/3% would actually make it better than the mages guild passive.

I'm not complaining about the loss of the 10% magicka reduction, because magicka management becomes a lot easier with the CP system. At this point it only hurts stamina sorcs, which is kind of sad but as I mentioned I see the sorc as a magicka caster.

- Daedric Protection
This passive is pretty useless and could be replaced by a better one. The sorcerer has no ability or passive that supports its healing ability. Why not change Daedric Protection to:
"Increses the healing done by (3%/5%) while having a deadric summoning ability slotted"

This could bring the sorc in line with the other classes in terms of healing.

Active abilities:

- Negate Magic
the negate has to come on one lvl with the other defensive ultimates. Since it only negates magic effects on impact and not during the whole duration, which was extremely strong and maybe too strong. The absorption field is a pretty useless morph since the major buffs can be obtained by other non ultimate abilities (radiant aura, potions, rapid manouver).
For the suppresion field there is a simple solution:
Increase the dmg reduction to 30% (major buff) like the vail of blades and keep the spellpenetration buff and the rest.

- Cristal Fragments
I like the changes here with the extra dmg when it procs. The problem is that the sorcerer doesnt have an instant cast skill to spam in order to proc crystal fragments. The only option here is crushing shock / force shock. And it should proc on all skills including streak and encase.
Increasing the proc chance (maybe arround 50%) could be a way to bring the sorcs dps in line with other classes.

- Encase
The spell is fine, and i also like the morphs, but i would make one suggestion: Make it a groud target like lightning flood, with a circle area (6-8m radius). That would be really cool and give the sorcerer a ranged unique root and not a bad copy of the DKs talons.

- Lightning Flood
I really like the increased duration. Whoever says it doesnt hurt should do some maths. Even the 6 sec morph is an extremely good (aoe) DOT. The 10 sec morph is the best non ultimate DOT in the game, ticking every 0.5 sec with 800 dmg for 10 sec (15.000 dmg) on my vet 14 altmer sorc with 90 CP set. In combination with the valkyn skoria set this is awesome. Additionally it has 28m range and it provides a synergy.
But there are two downsides:
Placing it feels somehow unresponsive, since its a ground effect and the animation is pretty slow.
The radius is pretty small, so when the boss moves its hard to use.

- Bound Armor
Lets make it short. The minor armor buff is like nothing. Only the 8% magicka/stamina depending on the morph is worth slotting it, but does it have to be a toggle and waste 2 slots on my bar?

- Pets in general
The fact that they are toggles is a real problem, because they take too much space on both bars and you have almost no options when you try to play them effectively (magelight, deadric prey, empowering ward, entropy/surge, filler (cristal shards/force shock)). No Place for AOE or execute, so its no good build for most of the dungeons and trials. Additionally the pets take heals, that are aimed at players and trigger boss mechanics like the lightning chain in AA.

Im not a fan of pets in endgame content and the sorcerers should not have to depend on them to be able to compete in terms of dps.

- Surge
I have i huge problem with this ability and how it performs in 1.6. and here is why:
The unmorphed version gives weapon damage. That was fine before 1.6 because the sorcerer could buff the dmg of destruction staffs and the healing with the resto staffs like no other class. In 1.6 they scale with spelldmg, like all sorcerer abilities. So why doesnt the base version give spelldmg and only one morph give weapon dmg?
There is no need for a morph that gives spell and weapon dmg since hybrid builds cant compete with specialized builds since the removal of softcaps.
The biggest problem is the change to the healing it does. Every class has a spell that does dmg and heals the caster (T: Puncturing Sweep, DK: Inhale, NB: sap essence), and the healing is increased based on the enemies hit. The sorcerer used to have crit surge, that was working somehow similar. Now they implemented a cooldown for the heal, so even if you hit multiple targets you only get one heal every 0,25 sec. If you are unlucky there will be a dot criting and your high dmg ability (meteor, impulse) cant give you a heal thx to the cooldown. The other classes dont have this cooldown, why?
The videos above (under survivability) show the imbalance between the selfheals from sorcs and temps. I dont have a NB or DK but its enough to show that one class is able to do it. I dont want you to nerf all other classes. Just bring the sorcerer back on their lvl with a change like this:
Remove the cooldown of surge, limit the crit heals to 6 targets (puncturing sweep doesnt even have a limit, see video above) and adjust the heals with the % factor (used to be 65%, got reduced to 40% in 1.6). I agree when people say critsurge was too strong, but at the moment its not worth its slot on the bar.

- Surge vs. Entropy
Its not only the cooldown that made surge redundant, but the buff to entropy. Entropy provides the same spelldmg buff and also some heals, that can be higher than the surge heals when casted on multiple targets.
Additional Entropy effects:
- it deals dmg over time
- if morphed it gives 8% more max health in addition to the 2% magicka and 2% magicka reg from the mages guild passives
- the next spell deals 20% more dmg (if you have a cristal fragments proc thats almost 2k more dmg)
- it cost 1/3 of surge

So when it comes to single target dmg entropy will allways be superior. Without the cooldown removed surge wont be in any sorcerer build anymore. It used to be the most favorite ability of many sorcs and it used to be unique.

- Dark Exchange
As a channeled ability its absolutely useless in fights. In PVE you loose to much dps/healing when you cant cast for 4 seconds, in PVP its like praying to the eight (Edit: no offense here, Tiber Septim/Talos is born after ESO) just before you are dead.
If you want to make it useful make it a toggle, but you should be able to perform spells while its active. It will drain your stamina until its gone or you turn it of. This wont unbalance pvp since you are dead when you run out of stamina (no dodging blocking or CC break).

- Deadric Mines
This is the only ability that might be even worse then dark exchange. Its costs are extremely high, its not a ground target like the flame rune from the mages guild but a player cast. The cooldown against bosses makes it useless in terms of single target dps. I dont know if ppl use it against players but in most of the situations the flame rune will be dealing more dmg and it stuns (morph) instead of the immobilize.

Every other class got a new ability with 1.6. The sorcerer didnt get one, while there would be so many options and a real need for a unique instant cast ability that does moderate dmg. There are some ideas in the forums, but I want to share my own ones:

Replace Deadric Dines
Insert an ability like a dark magic ball, maybe a fire ball (dark fire ball) that
- has 28m range
- is instant castable
- deals a bit more dmg than force shock
- maybe a little aoe dmg like the curse when its a fire ball
Morphs:
- 1 morph that reduces the targets spellresistance (minor debuff)
- 1 morph that restores magicka over time to the group like the NB are able to heal the group a bit

An ability like this would solve several sorc problems: They could have an own "filler" for some rotations and dont rely on the destro staff/force shock anymore. We could provide some unique support to the group (magicka recovery, a debuff no one else provides).

You are the developers. Be creative and give us something we can play with and support the group. Give raidgroups a reason to take some sorcs with them.

Finally I want to say it took me a lot of time doing the tests and writing this down to provide some feedback. I would appreciate it if i could get a response from @ZOS_GinaBruno‌ or anyone else at ZOS that this feedback is read and gets discussed.

Thanks everyone for reading

Edit (20.02.2015, 11:01 am CET)
First i want to thank all of you for your kind replys, specially for the additional feedback. I hope the discussion stays as constructive as it is at the moment. When i find the time i will update the first post here and sum up some of the ideas provided by the comments.
- edited the passives section (expert mage was discussed two times in there)
- Edited some spelling

I want to keep the additional feedback seperate, so you see the new ideas from the comments and who suggested them.

Stamina Sorcerers would like to have some more options, maybe a Cristal Shards morph based on stamina or adding weapon dmg to the Expert Mage passive.

Some feedback was about Sorcs as healers (@Seraphyel, @Nihil, @Ramasee ). My suggestion was to change the Deadric Portection passive, but some of the comments came up with a better idea: Adding the minor meding buff to some skill like surge, bound armor or twilight matriarch (see below in detail).

Surge
- Remove the cooldown (argumentation see above). There is no reason atm to keep it since no similar ability has it.

- Add some sort of dmg buff (e.g. extra shock or elemental dmg) to make up for the high cost
or
- Add minor (or major) mending buff (8% or 30% more healing done), depending on what is balanced better. My feeling is that a major buff would be too strong.

Twilight Matriarch (Sommon Twilight morph)
- Remove the heal when player's health falls below 35%
- Add minor mending buff (8% more healing done) for the player
I really like this idea of having a pet that supports my healing power. The sorcerer could be able to provide sustained heals for a group while using the restoration staff.

Deadric Protection
Let it increase the healing done or make the health regen bonus a group bonus.

Deadric Mines
Some people (@pppontus, @Nihil) find this skill useful and wish some minor tweaks instead of removing it, giving the sorcerer a high dps melee range ability. The boss immunity could get changed, so that the 2nd and 3rd mine deal less dmg instead of 0 dmg.

Negate Magic
Add minor force buff to increase the crit dmg (@Nihil)

Edit (20.02.2015, 18:33 CET)
After some more testing, specially the selfheal using the Clannfear I created a "tank" build. With more then 30k Magicka you get more magicka back than the Clannfear costs plus it heals you for 35%. To show the power of this combination I made a video (the fight starts at 50% and stays basically the same):

http://youtu.be/AlznkZJOFX0

I accidently stopped the recoding to early, so here is the gear and setup:

http://youtu.be/OtwqwYBBa0U

I don't like this mechanic, it feels like an exploid to have a 35% selfheal basically for free (you even get a little more magicka back than you spend). I dont want this to be ingame, its not balanced at all. Sorcs need some kind of selfheal, but to have a free selfheal is too much. We are not that bad.
My suggestion to solve this problem: Change rabate passive so that it only gives magicka back when the Clannfear dies, not when you call him back. So you would have to pay 4.5k-6.5k magicka for a 35% heal. That should be somehow balanced compared to the DKs dragonblood or the Templars Breath of Life.

I had to stop and reply when you claimed Sorcs are bad dps in pve. We are the best. It's about burst and aoe dps most of the time and that's what sorcs to best, not to mention we are hands down the best in AvA.

What kind of PvE content do you play? Public dungeons?

Sorcerers are undoubtedly the worst DPS class for end-game PvE. Bosses are where it's at, not trash mobs. It's about sustainable DPS, not burst damage. AoE damage is mostly useless for bosses, and even if it were any good, magicka DKs can out-DPS Sorcs in AoE damage with their hands tied behind their backs.

If you still have any doubts, check out the trials leaderboards and count the number of Sorcs in groups vs. any other class. I've done it myself and posted here. If Sorcs were the best class for PvE, I'd think the best times would be taken by Sorc-full parties, yet Sorcs often don't even make it into many groups.

I'm really curious about what you're trying to say, so could you please explain your position?

Gandogal · February 2015

daemonios wrote: »

If you still have any doubts, check out the trials leaderboards and count the number of Sorcs in groups vs. any other class. I've done it myself and posted here. If Sorcs were the best class for PvE, I'd think the best times would be taken by Sorc-full parties, yet Sorcs often don't even make it into many groups.

I'm really curious about what you're trying to say, so could you please explain your position?

This is the PTS discussion. No one is talking about live. Taking live trial-ranking doenst include the lot of changes thas has been done in the PTS so far.

I think sorc may be very good for AE after the patch. Especially since lightning form and liquid lightning both are running very long and can proc helm-set damage very often while u are able to perform your usual destro staff rotation. (liquid lightning = 2 ticks per second, lightning form = 1 per second; fire ring with burning and dot = 2 ticks per second - thats alone 5x 4% = 20% proc chance for valkyn set per each mob. with 5 mobs around that means 1 proc of valkyn each second! you may also go for the lich anchors instead

Also, we finnaly have access to a good AE ultimate (meteor) - which again provides a dot.

As for single target: A lot has change in favor of sorcerers:

same stats enhance destruction staff and class skill damage
crystal fragment now can be implemented in rotation
some long running dots that do more damage per execution than a single crushing shock
pets (some people MAY actually like the chance of adding at least one for some single DPS bosses)
a lot of lightning dots, which may proc massive desintegrate in execute phase
and last but not least: ulti gain has been nerfed = damage ulties from DK and NB wont put them that much ahead in damage anymore.

Im looking forward very much to see it go live.

daemonios · February 2015

Gandogal wrote: »

daemonios wrote: »

If you still have any doubts, check out the trials leaderboards and count the number of Sorcs in groups vs. any other class. I've done it myself and posted here. If Sorcs were the best class for PvE, I'd think the best times would be taken by Sorc-full parties, yet Sorcs often don't even make it into many groups.

I'm really curious about what you're trying to say, so could you please explain your position?

This is the PTS discussion. No one is talking about live. Taking live trial-ranking doenst include the lot of changes thas has been done in the PTS so far.

I think sorc may be very good for AE after the patch. Especially since lightning form and liquid lightning both are running very long and can proc helm-set damage very often while u are able to perform your usual destro staff rotation. (liquid lightning = 2 ticks per second, lightning form = 1 per second; fire ring with burning and dot = 2 ticks per second - thats alone 5x 4% = 20% proc chance for valkyn set per each mob. with 5 mobs around that means 1 proc of valkyn each second! you may also go for the lich anchors instead

Also, we finnaly have access to a good AE ultimate (meteor) - which again provides a dot.

As for single target: A lot has change in favor of sorcerers:
same stats enhance destruction staff and class skill damage

crystal fragment now can be implemented in rotation

some long running dots that do more damage per execution than a single crushing shock

pets (some people MAY actually like the chance of adding at least one for some single DPS bosses)

a lot of lightning dots, which may proc massive desintegrate in execute phase

and last but not least: ulti gain has been nerfed = damage ulties from DK and NB wont put them that much ahead in damage anymore.

Im looking forward very much to see it go live.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to confuse PTS and Live. What I mean is that the current situation in Live is the baseline they have to go from in 1.6. And the situation in Live in pretty disastrous for Sorcerers in end-game PvE.

That said, I agree 6.1.3 improved the class situation a little. People have been posting builds showing sustaned 12k+ DPS. However, it's still true that Sorcs have lost one of their few utility skills (Negate), which on Live has been demonstrated not to be absolutely needed for any trial.

I'm also still unconvinced that 12k+ sustained DPS will get Sorcs into trials, as I've seen people claiming 20k+ DPS on other classes. Even if Sorc DPS is a bit better now, it won't help one bit if any other class can out-DPS us as in Live. That said, I have no clue whether the numbers for other classes are real, since the only videos/FTC screenshots I've seen are from Sorcs. Maybe we're in a good place, maybe we're not.

GilGalad · February 2015

Gandogal wrote: »

daemonios wrote: »

If you still have any doubts, check out the trials leaderboards and count the number of Sorcs in groups vs. any other class. I've done it myself and posted here. If Sorcs were the best class for PvE, I'd think the best times would be taken by Sorc-full parties, yet Sorcs often don't even make it into many groups.

I'm really curious about what you're trying to say, so could you please explain your position?

This is the PTS discussion. No one is talking about live. Taking live trial-ranking doenst include the lot of changes thas has been done in the PTS so far.

I think sorc may be very good for AE after the patch. Especially since lightning form and liquid lightning both are running very long and can proc helm-set damage very often while u are able to perform your usual destro staff rotation. (liquid lightning = 2 ticks per second, lightning form = 1 per second; fire ring with burning and dot = 2 ticks per second - thats alone 5x 4% = 20% proc chance for valkyn set per each mob. with 5 mobs around that means 1 proc of valkyn each second! you may also go for the lich anchors instead

Also, we finnaly have access to a good AE ultimate (meteor) - which again provides a dot.

As for single target: A lot has change in favor of sorcerers:
same stats enhance destruction staff and class skill damage

crystal fragment now can be implemented in rotation

some long running dots that do more damage per execution than a single crushing shock

pets (some people MAY actually like the chance of adding at least one for some single DPS bosses)

a lot of lightning dots, which may proc massive desintegrate in execute phase

and last but not least: ulti gain has been nerfed = damage ulties from DK and NB wont put them that much ahead in damage anymore.

Im looking forward very much to see it go live.

It's not only about pure DPS but survivabilty and utility. In order to compensate for the lack of utility a sorc has to outperform every class no matter if it's a stamina or magicka build. I saw stamina DKs getting constant 15-16k DPS (blood spawn, 90 cp). Did any sorc get these values in a longer fight?
survivability might not be a huge problem in trials, but in 4 player content you always have to rely on your healer, so the healer can deal less dmg. And never forget: a dead sorc deals 0 dmg.

Dymence · February 2015

kelly.medleyb14_ESO wrote: »

Gil.Galad wrote: »

Hello,

I know there are allready many threads about sorcerers in the forums and I read almost all, but I think many of them ignore facts or don't make good comparisons or dont make realistic suggestions. First of all I will make clear that this post is about PVE balance, the sorcs in PVP are fine if you know how to play them. I played a sorc since the beta, I'm playing some pvp (rank 19) in organised groups or solo and do a lot of dungeons and raids (AA and HR hardmode clear, SO clear). Some of the arguments are similar to other threads and I wont quote them all, just see this here as a summary with some additional feedback.

The big questions is what ZOS wants the Sorcerer to be? What roles should it fill out? @ZOS_GinaBruno‌ can you answer this?

In my opinion there is a good space for the sorcere as a ranged magicka caster, supporting the group with magicka and providing magicka based debuffs like spellpenetration. And if you take a close look at it we aren't so far away as you will see in the suggestions section.

This text will be longer so i will make some structure using the spoiler function. Just click on the headlines you are interested in.

Situation in 1.5 compared to 1.6.3 concerning raid and dungeon groups
Situation in 1.5

Tank: Dragonknight (DK) > Templar (T) > Nightblade (NB) >= Sorcerer (S)
Healer: T >> S > NB >= DK
DPS: DK > NB > S > T

Does this look like "play what you want and play how you want"?
While DKs and Temps have at least one role where they are way better than other classes, NB and specially sorcs had no role where they are the best, but NBs are still able to deal 1.300 DPS while a sorc can hardly get up to 1.000-1.100 DPS. This is reflected in the trial leaderbords: The fastest teams dont even have one single sorc. The sorcs are completely underrepresented as shown in this thread: Magicka Sorcerers and end-game PvE

And this is why: Sorcs dont deal enough dmg and they are only used as heal support and negate monkey. Thanks to surge they had the highest weapon damage in 1.5 so there healing done with the restoration staff was extremely good. The negate was usefull in many situations when you face a lot of magic aoe dmg.

What will change with 1.6?

Restoration staff abilities scale of spelldmg, the spelldmg buff is available for every class (Mages guild -> Entropy). Since the mage doesnt have healing abilites the expert mage passive wont give him a huge bonus while healing (example: you only do aoe heals with healing springs, you will need magelight, -> 8% more spelldmg -> about 4% more healing done). Compared to DKs or NBs who have some nice synergies while healing (syphoning abilities, DKs dmg shield) sorcs wont be the 2nd best healers anymore.

Changes to negate magic:
It only negates magic effects when its casted, spell resistance removed (1.5 suppresion field), minor dmg reduction added (doesn't stack with the circle of protection (fighters guild)), spellpenetration added. Compared to other defensive ultimates that provide a 30% dmg reduction for the players (NB: vail of blades) or reduce the boss dmg (Templar: solar prison), the 8% are a joke and can be provided by a NON ultimate ability. The negate doesnt do any dmg itself while the vail or nova deal dmg, so the spellpenetration could be somehow equal to it but.
The absorption field is not a good option too since all the buffs can be obtained without ultimates (radiant aura (templar), potions, rapid manouver).

So what can a sorc do for the group in 1.6?
- exploitation passive giving 3% spellcrit to the group
- restoring twilight increasing the magicka recovery by 10% (if it survives and doesnt trigger boss mechanics like the chain lightning from the mage in AA)
- Attronach synergy increasing the dmg of one player by 25% for 8 sec every 60 sec (attronach cooldown)
- Less DPS then NBs and DKs
- Less survivability then all other classes (see below)

thats it. Compared to templars and nightblades with their defensive ultimates and support abilities there is no space for sorcs. Maybe for one with a twilight and any dark magic ability. But the dmg increase for the group DPS from the 3% crit will be equal to the loss of having one NB or DK dps less in group.
Survivability compared to other classes
I will make this one short and add some videos. The sorc doesn't have a good selfheal, only protection is the hardened ward and the thundering presence. So i made a video in spellscar against a whole buch of mobs on time with my vet14 sorcerer and one time with my vet14 templar. The gear used is pretty equal, both have 90 CPs spend so i can have the 12% crit passive from the apprentice and get some more surge heals. While my sorc has to use the negate magic in order to survive, i can easily do it on my templar without ultimate. My sorc reaches a higher aoe dps but gets significantly lower selfheal and hardly survives by using his full arsenal of defensive abilities (hardened ward, thundering presence, power surge, suppresion field). A templar needs two skills: Blazing shield, puncturing sweep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrLldWE5ugc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSEDX6igKWo

The my heals per second provided by surge where arround 1000 hps for the whole fight, while the templars pucturing sweep provides 2500 hps. If i had used the solar prison ultimate the templars dps would have been better than the sorcs.

Just to show the unbalance i made two more videos. One with my templar without ultimates and without CP spend. And one with pucturing sweep only to show how much HPS a templar can get while dealing dmg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY7LOQxCR4U

Puncturing Sweep only
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wMkNr4Wv9I"

I could do this with every other class. The DKs have inhale, the NBs sap essence (the also heal the group) so even in terms of survivability sorcs are in the last place now.
Suggestions and ability feedback
As i mentioned before the developer team is on a good way, but i would like to make some suggestions and give some detailed feedback on abilites.

Passives:
- Expert Mage:
I like the idea behind this change to give the sorcerer the chance to reach the highest spelldmg of all classes, so they are more powerful with destruction and restoration staffs then other classes. The problem is that these 2% arent enough since they compete agains the mages guild passive (2% max magicka, 2% magicka reg) per ability slottet. In terms of dmg the 2% more spelldmg are only better if your max magicka is lower than you spelldmg times 10 (max magicka < spelldmg*10). This will rarely happen, specially when you get more CPs. So this passive gives about 6% more spelldmg in most of the cases (since the sorc always needs a destruction staff ability). So it gives about 3% more dmg/healing. Nice to have but not world changing.
Rising it to 1%/3% would actually make it better than the mages guild passive.

I'm not complaining about the loss of the 10% magicka reduction, because magicka management becomes a lot easier with the CP system. At this point it only hurts stamina sorcs, which is kind of sad but as I mentioned I see the sorc as a magicka caster.

- Daedric Protection
This passive is pretty useless and could be replaced by a better one. The sorcerer has no ability or passive that supports its healing ability. Why not change Daedric Protection to:
"Increses the healing done by (3%/5%) while having a deadric summoning ability slotted"

This could bring the sorc in line with the other classes in terms of healing.

Active abilities:

- Negate Magic
the negate has to come on one lvl with the other defensive ultimates. Since it only negates magic effects on impact and not during the whole duration, which was extremely strong and maybe too strong. The absorption field is a pretty useless morph since the major buffs can be obtained by other non ultimate abilities (radiant aura, potions, rapid manouver).
For the suppresion field there is a simple solution:
Increase the dmg reduction to 30% (major buff) like the vail of blades and keep the spellpenetration buff and the rest.

- Cristal Fragments
I like the changes here with the extra dmg when it procs. The problem is that the sorcerer doesnt have an instant cast skill to spam in order to proc crystal fragments. The only option here is crushing shock / force shock. And it should proc on all skills including streak and encase.
Increasing the proc chance (maybe arround 50%) could be a way to bring the sorcs dps in line with other classes.

- Encase
The spell is fine, and i also like the morphs, but i would make one suggestion: Make it a groud target like lightning flood, with a circle area (6-8m radius). That would be really cool and give the sorcerer a ranged unique root and not a bad copy of the DKs talons.

- Lightning Flood
I really like the increased duration. Whoever says it doesnt hurt should do some maths. Even the 6 sec morph is an extremely good (aoe) DOT. The 10 sec morph is the best non ultimate DOT in the game, ticking every 0.5 sec with 800 dmg for 10 sec (15.000 dmg) on my vet 14 altmer sorc with 90 CP set. In combination with the valkyn skoria set this is awesome. Additionally it has 28m range and it provides a synergy.
But there are two downsides:
Placing it feels somehow unresponsive, since its a ground effect and the animation is pretty slow.
The radius is pretty small, so when the boss moves its hard to use.

- Bound Armor
Lets make it short. The minor armor buff is like nothing. Only the 8% magicka/stamina depending on the morph is worth slotting it, but does it have to be a toggle and waste 2 slots on my bar?

- Pets in general
The fact that they are toggles is a real problem, because they take too much space on both bars and you have almost no options when you try to play them effectively (magelight, deadric prey, empowering ward, entropy/surge, filler (cristal shards/force shock)). No Place for AOE or execute, so its no good build for most of the dungeons and trials. Additionally the pets take heals, that are aimed at players and trigger boss mechanics like the lightning chain in AA.

Im not a fan of pets in endgame content and the sorcerers should not have to depend on them to be able to compete in terms of dps.

- Surge
I have i huge problem with this ability and how it performs in 1.6. and here is why:
The unmorphed version gives weapon damage. That was fine before 1.6 because the sorcerer could buff the dmg of destruction staffs and the healing with the resto staffs like no other class. In 1.6 they scale with spelldmg, like all sorcerer abilities. So why doesnt the base version give spelldmg and only one morph give weapon dmg?
There is no need for a morph that gives spell and weapon dmg since hybrid builds cant compete with specialized builds since the removal of softcaps.
The biggest problem is the change to the healing it does. Every class has a spell that does dmg and heals the caster (T: Puncturing Sweep, DK: Inhale, NB: sap essence), and the healing is increased based on the enemies hit. The sorcerer used to have crit surge, that was working somehow similar. Now they implemented a cooldown for the heal, so even if you hit multiple targets you only get one heal every 0,25 sec. If you are unlucky there will be a dot criting and your high dmg ability (meteor, impulse) cant give you a heal thx to the cooldown. The other classes dont have this cooldown, why?
The videos above (under survivability) show the imbalance between the selfheals from sorcs and temps. I dont have a NB or DK but its enough to show that one class is able to do it. I dont want you to nerf all other classes. Just bring the sorcerer back on their lvl with a change like this:
Remove the cooldown of surge, limit the crit heals to 6 targets (puncturing sweep doesnt even have a limit, see video above) and adjust the heals with the % factor (used to be 65%, got reduced to 40% in 1.6). I agree when people say critsurge was too strong, but at the moment its not worth its slot on the bar.

- Surge vs. Entropy
Its not only the cooldown that made surge redundant, but the buff to entropy. Entropy provides the same spelldmg buff and also some heals, that can be higher than the surge heals when casted on multiple targets.
Additional Entropy effects:
- it deals dmg over time
- if morphed it gives 8% more max health in addition to the 2% magicka and 2% magicka reg from the mages guild passives
- the next spell deals 20% more dmg (if you have a cristal fragments proc thats almost 2k more dmg)
- it cost 1/3 of surge

So when it comes to single target dmg entropy will allways be superior. Without the cooldown removed surge wont be in any sorcerer build anymore. It used to be the most favorite ability of many sorcs and it used to be unique.

- Dark Exchange
As a channeled ability its absolutely useless in fights. In PVE you loose to much dps/healing when you cant cast for 4 seconds, in PVP its like praying to the eight (Edit: no offense here, Tiber Septim/Talos is born after ESO) just before you are dead.
If you want to make it useful make it a toggle, but you should be able to perform spells while its active. It will drain your stamina until its gone or you turn it of. This wont unbalance pvp since you are dead when you run out of stamina (no dodging blocking or CC break).

- Deadric Mines
This is the only ability that might be even worse then dark exchange. Its costs are extremely high, its not a ground target like the flame rune from the mages guild but a player cast. The cooldown against bosses makes it useless in terms of single target dps. I dont know if ppl use it against players but in most of the situations the flame rune will be dealing more dmg and it stuns (morph) instead of the immobilize.

Every other class got a new ability with 1.6. The sorcerer didnt get one, while there would be so many options and a real need for a unique instant cast ability that does moderate dmg. There are some ideas in the forums, but I want to share my own ones:

Replace Deadric Dines
Insert an ability like a dark magic ball, maybe a fire ball (dark fire ball) that
- has 28m range
- is instant castable
- deals a bit more dmg than force shock
- maybe a little aoe dmg like the curse when its a fire ball
Morphs:
- 1 morph that reduces the targets spellresistance (minor debuff)
- 1 morph that restores magicka over time to the group like the NB are able to heal the group a bit

An ability like this would solve several sorc problems: They could have an own "filler" for some rotations and dont rely on the destro staff/force shock anymore. We could provide some unique support to the group (magicka recovery, a debuff no one else provides).

You are the developers. Be creative and give us something we can play with and support the group. Give raidgroups a reason to take some sorcs with them.

Finally I want to say it took me a lot of time doing the tests and writing this down to provide some feedback. I would appreciate it if i could get a response from @ZOS_GinaBruno‌ or anyone else at ZOS that this feedback is read and gets discussed.

Thanks everyone for reading

Edit (20.02.2015, 11:01 am CET)
First i want to thank all of you for your kind replys, specially for the additional feedback. I hope the discussion stays as constructive as it is at the moment. When i find the time i will update the first post here and sum up some of the ideas provided by the comments.
- edited the passives section (expert mage was discussed two times in there)
- Edited some spelling

I want to keep the additional feedback seperate, so you see the new ideas from the comments and who suggested them.

Stamina Sorcerers would like to have some more options, maybe a Cristal Shards morph based on stamina or adding weapon dmg to the Expert Mage passive.

Some feedback was about Sorcs as healers (@Seraphyel, @Nihil, @Ramasee ). My suggestion was to change the Deadric Portection passive, but some of the comments came up with a better idea: Adding the minor meding buff to some skill like surge, bound armor or twilight matriarch (see below in detail).

Surge
- Remove the cooldown (argumentation see above). There is no reason atm to keep it since no similar ability has it.

- Add some sort of dmg buff (e.g. extra shock or elemental dmg) to make up for the high cost
or
- Add minor (or major) mending buff (8% or 30% more healing done), depending on what is balanced better. My feeling is that a major buff would be too strong.

Twilight Matriarch (Sommon Twilight morph)
- Remove the heal when player's health falls below 35%
- Add minor mending buff (8% more healing done) for the player
I really like this idea of having a pet that supports my healing power. The sorcerer could be able to provide sustained heals for a group while using the restoration staff.

Deadric Protection
Let it increase the healing done or make the health regen bonus a group bonus.

Deadric Mines
Some people (@pppontus, @Nihil) find this skill useful and wish some minor tweaks instead of removing it, giving the sorcerer a high dps melee range ability. The boss immunity could get changed, so that the 2nd and 3rd mine deal less dmg instead of 0 dmg.

Negate Magic
Add minor force buff to increase the crit dmg (@Nihil)

Edit (20.02.2015, 18:33 CET)
After some more testing, specially the selfheal using the Clannfear I created a "tank" build. With more then 30k Magicka you get more magicka back than the Clannfear costs plus it heals you for 35%. To show the power of this combination I made a video (the fight starts at 50% and stays basically the same):

http://youtu.be/AlznkZJOFX0

I accidently stopped the recoding to early, so here is the gear and setup:

http://youtu.be/OtwqwYBBa0U

I don't like this mechanic, it feels like an exploid to have a 35% selfheal basically for free (you even get a little more magicka back than you spend). I dont want this to be ingame, its not balanced at all. Sorcs need some kind of selfheal, but to have a free selfheal is too much. We are not that bad.
My suggestion to solve this problem: Change rabate passive so that it only gives magicka back when the Clannfear dies, not when you call him back. So you would have to pay 4.5k-6.5k magicka for a 35% heal. That should be somehow balanced compared to the DKs dragonblood or the Templars Breath of Life.

I had to stop and reply when you claimed Sorcs are bad dps in pve. We are the best. It's about burst and aoe dps most of the time and that's what sorcs to best, not to mention we are hands down the best in AvA.

Tell me, exactly how much endgame PVE have you played?

GilGalad · February 2015

kelly.medleyb14_ESO wrote: »

I had to stop and reply when you claimed Sorcs are bad dps in pve. We are the best. It's about burst and aoe dps most of the time and that's what sorcs to best, not to mention we are hands down the best in AvA.

I had to stop and reply when you said you had to stop and reply before reading the whole post.
Read all of it, it's not only about DPS.
As long as you don't come up with good arguments and facts I can't take you serious.

Exstazik · February 2015

Sorc vs ZOS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w0Z1E6T5eg

Xsorus · February 2015

Derra wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

QUOTE REMOVED

Just try to use the skill one time ingame in an actual pressure situation before you come here expressing your opinion about it.
Ofc you get ppl. like me boasting about how *** the skill is - why is that? Bc you come here only ever having looked at numbers with no idea what issues the skill has since months (that being that if you summon resummon without the animation finishing the pet won´t summon you loose mana nothing happens - this also triggers a cooldown of about 1.5s you have to wait before you can attempt a successful cast again - perfect mechanic for an emergency in combat heal if you ask me).

[Moderator Note: Quote has been edited as the comment has been removed.]

Only I have actually used it, and I know that unless you double tap it incredibly fast it won't cause that problem. If you like I can make a video of me just spamming away on PTS for ya.

I can even reproduce the problem you're talking about, and its 100% avoidable...If its failing 90% of the time for you, You probably have a stuck key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAKwvuAfu3w

Here made a video for ya

If you don't have mechanical keys on your keyboard (Or in my case I use a Razer orbweaver) you really should get them, they'll stop that fat fingering of that pet if you're failing it 90% of the time.

AshTal · February 2015

Well done to the original post - lot of work went into it.

Hopefully the Dev team will take some notice. On PTS I seem to have lost a lot of things that made my light armour wearing, resto staff using Sorc.

Went into the PvP and it was a painful experience. My pets are (and always have been) worthless. They die easily, they run off randomly and they just die without doing anything. I don't have the time to pet control them all the time in the middle of PvP.

My damage does not stack up to players of other classes. I am under damaging Night blades and Dragon knights. No idea about Templars they seem to hang back and heal so hard to get an idea.

Lastly I am so squishy since the change to armour. Seems like the heavy armour user is now far better than light armour. It seems so over powered it makes me think levelling heavy armour is the way to go and just scrap the light armour. Even though what I want is to have a robe wearing staff using pet summoning sorc - what I should play is a heavy armour, sword wielding dragon knight if I don't want to just be cannon fodder in PvP.

Xsorus · February 2015

AshTal wrote: »

Well done to the original post - lot of work went into it.

Hopefully the Dev team will take some notice. On PTS I seem to have lost a lot of things that made my light armour wearing, resto staff using Sorc.

Went into the PvP and it was a painful experience. My pets are (and always have been) worthless. They die easily, they run off randomly and they just die without doing anything. I don't have the time to pet control them all the time in the middle of PvP.

My damage does not stack up to players of other classes. I am under damaging Night blades and Dragon knights. No idea about Templars they seem to hang back and heal so hard to get an idea.

Lastly I am so squishy since the change to armour. Seems like the heavy armour user is now far better than light armour. It seems so over powered it makes me think levelling heavy armour is the way to go and just scrap the light armour. Even though what I want is to have a robe wearing staff using pet summoning sorc - what I should play is a heavy armour, sword wielding dragon knight if I don't want to just be cannon fodder in PvP.

Heavy is very very reliant on a lot of CP points to make it good in PvP....Otherwise you run out of resources incredibly fast in comparison to the other 2 in PvP.

Exstazik · February 2015

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

QUOTE REMOVED

Just try to use the skill one time ingame in an actual pressure situation before you come here expressing your opinion about it.
Ofc you get ppl. like me boasting about how *** the skill is - why is that? Bc you come here only ever having looked at numbers with no idea what issues the skill has since months (that being that if you summon resummon without the animation finishing the pet won´t summon you loose mana nothing happens - this also triggers a cooldown of about 1.5s you have to wait before you can attempt a successful cast again - perfect mechanic for an emergency in combat heal if you ask me).

[Moderator Note: Quote has been edited as the comment has been removed.]

Only I have actually used it, and I know that unless you double tap it incredibly fast it won't cause that problem. If you like I can make a video of me just spamming away on PTS for ya.

I can even reproduce the problem you're talking about, and its 100% avoidable...If its failing 90% of the time for you, You probably have a stuck key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAKwvuAfu3w

Here made a video for ya

If you don't have mechanical keys on your keyboard (Or in my case I use a Razer orbweaver) you really should get them, they'll stop that fat fingering of that pet if you're failing it 90% of the time.

13k hp.....sorry but you will be oneshoted by dungeon boss or 1 snipe/uppercut/cf/etc...

Erock25 · February 2015

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

QUOTE REMOVED

Just try to use the skill one time ingame in an actual pressure situation before you come here expressing your opinion about it.
Ofc you get ppl. like me boasting about how *** the skill is - why is that? Bc you come here only ever having looked at numbers with no idea what issues the skill has since months (that being that if you summon resummon without the animation finishing the pet won´t summon you loose mana nothing happens - this also triggers a cooldown of about 1.5s you have to wait before you can attempt a successful cast again - perfect mechanic for an emergency in combat heal if you ask me).

[Moderator Note: Quote has been edited as the comment has been removed.]

Only I have actually used it, and I know that unless you double tap it incredibly fast it won't cause that problem. If you like I can make a video of me just spamming away on PTS for ya.

I can even reproduce the problem you're talking about, and its 100% avoidable...If its failing 90% of the time for you, You probably have a stuck key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAKwvuAfu3w

Here made a video for ya

If you don't have mechanical keys on your keyboard (Or in my case I use a Razer orbweaver) you really should get them, they'll stop that fat fingering of that pet if you're failing it 90% of the time.

Sitting there casting it over and over again is a lot different than fighting a pack of mobs and a Court Illusionist is about to blow you up and you have to get that heal in ASAP. It is a fact that you can't just spam the button to get it to heal. You spam that button and you are desummoning it before it even appears.

Snit · February 2015

Gandogal wrote: »

with 5 mobs around that means 1 proc of valkyn each second! you may also go for the lich anchors instead

You make some good points, but I'd question this one. If you balance sorcs around the assumption that they have the CoA/ CoH helm, you're probably leaving 90% of the playerbase behind. Certainly, top guilds can help their trials members farm them. But they'll always be rare among the total population. Is that OK?

Derra · February 2015

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

QUOTE REMOVED

Just try to use the skill one time ingame in an actual pressure situation before you come here expressing your opinion about it.
Ofc you get ppl. like me boasting about how *** the skill is - why is that? Bc you come here only ever having looked at numbers with no idea what issues the skill has since months (that being that if you summon resummon without the animation finishing the pet won´t summon you loose mana nothing happens - this also triggers a cooldown of about 1.5s you have to wait before you can attempt a successful cast again - perfect mechanic for an emergency in combat heal if you ask me).

[Moderator Note: Quote has been edited as the comment has been removed.]

Only I have actually used it, and I know that unless you double tap it incredibly fast it won't cause that problem. If you like I can make a video of me just spamming away on PTS for ya.

I can even reproduce the problem you're talking about, and its 100% avoidable...If its failing 90% of the time for you, You probably have a stuck key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAKwvuAfu3w

Here made a video for ya

If you don't have mechanical keys on your keyboard (Or in my case I use a Razer orbweaver) you really should get them, they'll stop that fat fingering of that pet if you're failing it 90% of the time.

Yeah and like i said. Try it within an actual pressure situation where you first need to summon the pet and then desummon in cyrodiil (best on live with serverlag) - this is where it is a million times inferior to gdb.

Why do you think no sorc is using volatile familar as a spammable instant aoe dmg + stun - I will help you: Because the skill is simply not reliable and will fail in actual combat use 30 to 50% of the time (i´ve tried to make it work and it´s not due to bad hardware thanks for your concern).
The clannfear using the exact same mechanic will suffer the exact same issues. It will be fine in duels or small scale (except for when the whole zone is lagging) and will fail miserably when it is needed the most.

Feynn · February 2015

Gandogal wrote: »

I think sorc may be very good for AE after the patch. Especially since lightning form and liquid lightning both are running very long and can proc helm-set damage very often while u are able to perform your usual destro staff rotation. (liquid lightning = 2 ticks per second, lightning form = 1 per second; fire ring with burning and dot = 2 ticks per second - thats alone 5x 4% = 20% proc chance for valkyn set per each mob. with 5 mobs around that means 1 proc of valkyn each second! you may also go for the lich anchors instead

Wonderful! Then I look forward to Sorcerers being provided a Valkyn set of their choice for each level up. Or are you saying that in order to be competitive compared to other classes Sorcerers need to spend ages farming dungeons to get just the right set, in the right armor type, for the right veteran rank? Ah, and Fire Ring is not a Sorcerer skill, so other classes can use its dot ticks to proc helm-set damage too.

Gandogal wrote: »

Also, we finnaly have access to a good AE ultimate (meteor) - which again provides a dot.

And once again, Meteor is not a Sorcerer skill - it's available to anyone. What you are saying implies that for Sorcerers, the best thing to do is give up on their class skills and see what else they can get out there (whereas other classes keep using their very effective class abilities). Not to mention the fact that, by choosing anything else over your class abilities, you also lose 2% spell power from Expert Mage. And if you are talking about Meteor's dot, that doesn't even synergize with Sorcerer skills - you are talking about synergies between Meteor and helm-sets! So how is this even about Sorcerers? [/quote]

Gandogal wrote: »

[*] some long running dots that do more damage per execution than a single crushing shock

If "per execution" you mean for each time you cast the spell, well then I would dearly hope so. Dots are always supposed to do more overall damage than instant damage, or to cost significantly less. Otherwise why would you even consider using them? But you should remember that DPS stands for "damage per second", not "damage per spell".