1.6.5 Sorcerer detailed balance feedback

Jahosefat

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.

You spam slowly You may think that you are "spamming" with no delay between, but you are in fact allowing it to summon before desummoning (if you really spam it (faster than what you are doing) then yes you do cause it to fail from desummoning before he appears). The delay that is required also changes with latency; a little bit of lag and you need to wait a little longer. Maybe in PVE where nothing is a surprise and you always know what is coming next this could be a very reliable heal, but in PVP with fast paced unpredictable action with latency spikes it is going to be very clunky sometimes.

madangrypally

People always joke about a pocket healer so why not make it an actual pocket healer.

Player summons a small imp that is small enough to fit into pocket.

This imp has 2 attacks.
1: Long Range single target attack.
2: Small Range AoE attack centered around the Sorcerer.

The imp also comes with a sacrificial heal. If unsummoned/killed heals player for 30% of max magicka/stamina/health whichever is higher. If player falls below 25% health imp sacrifices himself and heals player for the 30% of max magicka/stamina/health whichever is higher.

In other words a pocket healer literally. Make it give the graphics of a small daedric looking fairy pocking his/her head out of the players pocket.

The above was in part jest.

Gandogal

Snit wrote: »

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?

Feynn wrote: »

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.

Fair enough. However, I wanted to talk about endgame PVE content and the maximum possible damage you could get. (I think this also was the context). When you compare sorcerers damage to the damage of other classes, you also quote the highest numbers around and not the damage a random just-turned-v14 character did you met for the latest daily.

Before 1.6, none of the undaunted sets could give sorcerers a significant damage increase. (Im leaving out ppontus' web-dot and aether set-setup since it exploited that both the helm-set and aeter set would trigger from medium attacks instead of fully charged heavy attacks, although stated otherwise in the descritpion. Also, this didnt help for AE damage).

At the same time, it gave a good DPS boost to DKs and NBs, which had alot of dots available (and in their current rotation) already.

What Im trying to say: We were not able to get any benefit from those helm sets to further increase our DPS, while other classes were. This has not only been fixed, but since we now have some excellent dots which do huge damage and are easy to include in a rotation bcs of their long duration, we may actually got out with a advantage here.

10sec AE dot which ticks 2 times per second and also does lightning damage which may trigger desintegrate in execute phase = wow!

Feynn wrote: »

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?

Who cares which skill line it comes from?

In 1.5 sorc did not have a single good AE ultimate. Now we have acces to one. Sure, other classes can use it as well, but if u want to play a sorc (for whatever reasons) you no longer have the disadvantage of not having a good AE ultimate. And good AE ultimates were a huge point why DKs (and magicka NBs) were prefered over sorcerers.

By upgrading this ability and having it scale with the same stats we are now using, the disadvantage is now gone or at least reduced.

Feynn wrote: »

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".

If (a) you dont overwrite the dots before their full damage is done and (b) you dont loose dps due to a more complex rotation, using skills that deal more damage per cast is equal to more dps.

Feynn

@Gandogal helm-sets are not going to be the salvation of the Sorcerer class. Thank you for pointing out that now they might not be as bad for Sorcerers as they used to be, perhaps, but they are still not the answer.

As for Meteor, it does in fact matter which skill line it comes from. Unless it synergizes particularly well with Sorcerer abilities/passives, and/or unless it is so OP as to be better than any ultimates of any other classes, the fact that Meteor is a good ultimate has nothing to do with Sorcerers. Other classes will still use their own better ultimates, leaving Sorcerers with Meteor. Which, incidentally, means that Sorcerers will also lose a 2% bonus in spell power from Expert Mage. Just like we lose a further 2% by going with Entropy, which at the moment is better than Surge.

As for the dot from Lightning Splash, what kind of "complex rotation" do you have in mind? Considering that apparently the way to go for magicka-based DPS Sorcerers is pet toggles, three slots on any of your bars will be taken up by toggles (two pets and a magelight). That will leave just two more slots per bar. What are you going to use? Well, you need Daedric Prey and Empowered Ward if you are going to use pets, that's a no-brainer. You will probably also want Entropy, otherwise you'll be at a disadvantage compared to other classes. And what about Crystal Fragments? So, where do you place your Lightning Splash? Of course you may find different and more effective builds, sure, but considering that each toggle takes up two skill slots instead of one, it becomes a bit difficult to find "complex rotations" in which you can fit a 10 sec dot.

kelly.medleyb14_ESO

Exstazik wrote: »

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

Which ones zos and which is the sorc?

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.

But you only did it for 2:20 it bugs out at 2:21 you have to make another video now.

XEVENEX

Snit wrote: »

I do hope they fix the bug so Streak procs Crystal Fragments again.

This is clearly a nerf IMO my friend. Look at the wording of the tooltips between live and PTS. Someone up at ZOS thinks shard procs on streak/encase is op. The silence on the issue is also very telling.

Gil.Galad wrote: »

To answer your question: I saw it and I don't want this to make it to live. Thats not the kind of buff Sorcs need. And it doesn't help the group.

@ZOS_GinaBruno is this mechanic intended? A free 35% heal that gives magicka back?

Edit: Added a video and feedback on this mechanic in the OP.

Woah woah woah there chief. Speak for yourself. You haven't said anything that hasn't already been said, it just so happened that your thread was around when they decided to finally make an effort to communicate. Your video is cute and all, but I don't see anything wrong with this skill besides maybe the cost. The self heal allows us to drop resto staff in solo/pvp situations VASTLY improving our build options.

Xsorus

Exstazik wrote: »

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...

You realize it was just a test character to show how casting works right?

Erock25 wrote: »

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.

Again, the only way to make it screw up and not work is by double tapping the key really fast, if you tap it once..and then wait half a second and tap it again you'll get the heal with ease.

Derra wrote: »

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.

They're not using it because they have better damage options. When it was double hitting for 600+ damage a pop every sorc I came across was using that ability. i still see some people running the build with it but they've mostly swapped to higher damage builds. Anyway a massive Heal that cost no mana and you can spam virtually forever is in no way a million times inferior to GDB because someones keyboard keys get stuck.

Gandogal

@Feynn
since u r missing so many of my points and interpret things in different ways (eg. im talking about dots and u presume i want to use 2 pets) i dont even bother to answer.

eta: ..or the point with the DPS...lol!

Xsorus

Jahosefat wrote: »

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.

You spam slowly You may think that you are "spamming" with no delay between, but you are in fact allowing it to summon before desummoning (if you really spam it (faster than what you are doing) then yes you do cause it to fail from desummoning before he appears). The delay that is required also changes with latency; a little bit of lag and you need to wait a little longer. Maybe in PVE where nothing is a surprise and you always know what is coming next this could be a very reliable heal, but in PVP with fast paced unpredictable action with latency spikes it is going to be very clunky sometimes.

Again i'm spamming it, I'm just not double tapping the button which is what causes it to bug out. If you want to prove that it doesn't work in a laggy situation or PvP....Anyone of you could easily make a video of you fighting and post it. Just remember we can see you key presses in the video so if you're double tapping..We're going to see it. Hopefully they put up another character copy next week before live and i'll post a Sorc video of me pvping with it.

*edit*

In fact, I work tonight...but i'm going to go ahead and make a video using a template character tomorrow or Tuesday pvping and using this ability.

Vis

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.

You can stop now. They've already removed the LOL option from the forums

We are not the best in Pve. Over 4 minute intervals, my DK can out dps my sorc in aoe by over 35‰ and out single target (with dots and if my sorc does not use pets) by more than 15%.

As for pvp, I cannot depend on more than half my dps skills because of reflects and absorbs.

Xsorus

Vis wrote: »

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&quot;

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.

You can stop now. They've already removed the LOL option from the forums

We are not the best in Pve. Over 4 minute intervals, my DK can out dps my sorc in aoe by over 35‰ and out single target (with dots and if my sorc does not use pets) by more than 15%.

As for pvp, I cannot depend on more than half my dps skills because of reflects and absorbs.

Ok, I can understand reflects...if you're like one of the two sorcs who isn't running 1hd/shield.....but absorbs? you talking Absorb Shields or the 1hd/shield Absorb?

GilGalad

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Vis wrote: »

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&quot;

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.

You can stop now. They've already removed the LOL option from the forums

We are not the best in Pve. Over 4 minute intervals, my DK can out dps my sorc in aoe by over 35‰ and out single target (with dots and if my sorc does not use pets) by more than 15%.

As for pvp, I cannot depend on more than half my dps skills because of reflects and absorbs.

Ok, I can understand reflects...if you're like one of the two sorcs who isn't running 1hd/shield.....but absorbs? you talking Absorb Shields or the 1hd/shield Absorb?

I guess he is talking about the bolt escape morph that absorbs spell projectiles for 4 seconds. Reflects are also a problem for sorcs running a destro staff and crushing shock.
I would like to end the discussion about PVP at this point. Sorcs in PVP are fine and have some good options to counter most of the builds. You should never forget that there is no perfect build for PVP that counters every class and build.

The sorcs main problem is the bad survivabilty and lack of utility in PVE compared to other classes, combined with the fact that we dont deal significantly more dmg to make up for it (in fact sorcs will still be behind other classes in terms of DPS).

Erock25

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Exstazik wrote: »

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...

You realize it was just a test character to show how casting works right?

Erock25 wrote: »

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.

Again, the only way to make it screw up and not work is by double tapping the key really fast, if you tap it once..and then wait half a second and tap it again you'll get the heal with ease.

Derra wrote: »

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.

They're not using it because they have better damage options. When it was double hitting for 600+ damage a pop every sorc I came across was using that ability. i still see some people running the build with it but they've mostly swapped to higher damage builds. Anyway a massive Heal that cost no mana and you can spam virtually forever is in no way a million times inferior to GDB because someones keyboard keys get stuck.

The slow summon of volatile familiar and clannfear came about BECAUSE of the double hitting volatile familiar. That was their fix to the problem. So no, those people using volatile familiar while it was bugged were not seeing this issue. Listen XSO, I've seen you posting on the PTS forums these past few weeks always talking bad about Sorc. I do not doubt you are going to make a video and be able to cherry pick the ideal situations where you don't get a delayed summon. I know you are aware of what the actual live servers are like however, and this clannfear heal will be totally useless in most situations because of the lag. It is clunky as hell.

Ezareth

ToRelax wrote: »

Digiman wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

GreyRanger wrote: »

I hope this does not turn into the answer to a Sorcerer self heal. I dislike the pet mechanic.

Devs, please make Dark Exchange a useful self heal.

I just can't fall in love with the stamina cost of it. Stamina is too valueable for a mage, we can't allow to sacrifise it.
Dark Exchange is a very fair trade. Because the restored value/cost depends on your ressource pool. This can also be bad though.

If Dark deal wouldn't cost over 6000 Magicka a seconds, it would be a cool self heal and would also compensate our biggest weakness: Stamina. But as it stands now, Dark Exchange is just a self kill.

I actually disagree, being a full magicka sorcerer I only find stamina useful for breaking out and dodging. Because of this my stamina bar is actually usually full. The change to dark exchange to also stop during channeling by pressing the button again is also very nice.

However I would say it is still a poor substitute for self healing, we need an actually way to heal through damage and the CD idea for Surge just isn't working.

We aren't wearing plate and there is no stamina morph for streak so I really doubt that there would be much of difference from the healing we would get from 40% of the damage if I attacks critically hit.

It wasn't OP then and it won't be OP now, especially when we have entropy is much better and provides better bonuses for using it.

If my stamina bar is full I will block or dodge a bit more for some seconds, not Bolt Escape some times and use Dark Exchange

The thing is that if you are not running away from a fight, you willbe able to build up your other resources again just by using dodging and blocking more. If you channel Dark Exchange, you make yourself an easy target while letting the enemy regenerate as well, as you can not do anything else during that period.
Really, if your stamina bar is mostly full, it's probably the enemies fighting bad, that just shouldn't be the assumption if you are trying to balance things (of course it seems to be quite often in this game, see DK nerfs, Surge nerf, Streak nerfs, NB nerfs, AoE caps...).

Dark Exchange when coupled with Tri-stat potions and a very limited stamina pool will give you an insane amount of mana (as well as health when needed) with very little cost in actual stamina. The cost of Dark Exchange is percentage based, the more stamina you have, the more it costs, so by minimizing your stamina and relying on tri-stats when you need extra stamina you can continually "rebalance" your health and magicka with dark exchange.

That said I'd never suggest taking with talent without ball of lightning as your bolt escape morph due to the threat of crushing shock but it is really an amazing, if somewhat limited in use ability.

Ezareth

Gil.Galad wrote: »

I guess he is talking about the bolt escape morph that absorbs spell projectiles for 4 seconds. Reflects are also a problem for sorcs running a destro staff and crushing shock.
I would like to end the discussion about PVP at this point. Sorcs in PVP are fine and have some good options to counter most of the builds. You should never forget that there is no perfect build for PVP that counters every class and build.

The sorcs main problem is the bad survivabilty and lack of utility in PVE compared to other classes, combined with the fact that we dont deal significantly more dmg to make up for it (in fact sorcs will still be behind other classes in terms of DPS).

Many of us here disagree with that.

Sorcs are *not* fine in PvP. I'm not going to talk about how Sorcs are in PvE because I have no experience (or desire to play) with that, but in PvP sorcs have been steadily getting weaker and weaker with each successive patch and 1.6-1.6.4 is no exception. We're significantly weaker than we are on live and we're not the most powerful class on live either.

Xsorus

Erock25 wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Exstazik wrote: »

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...

You realize it was just a test character to show how casting works right?

Erock25 wrote: »

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.

Again, the only way to make it screw up and not work is by double tapping the key really fast, if you tap it once..and then wait half a second and tap it again you'll get the heal with ease.

Derra wrote: »

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.

They're not using it because they have better damage options. When it was double hitting for 600+ damage a pop every sorc I came across was using that ability. i still see some people running the build with it but they've mostly swapped to higher damage builds. Anyway a massive Heal that cost no mana and you can spam virtually forever is in no way a million times inferior to GDB because someones keyboard keys get stuck.

The slow summon of volatile familiar and clannfear came about BECAUSE of the double hitting volatile familiar. That was their fix to the problem. So no, those people using volatile familiar while it was bugged were not seeing this issue. Listen XSO, I've seen you posting on the PTS forums these past few weeks always talking bad about Sorc. I do not doubt you are going to make a video and be able to cherry pick the ideal situations where you don't get a delayed summon. I know you are aware of what the actual live servers are like however, and this clannfear heal will be totally useless in most situations because of the lag. It is clunky as hell.

I guarantee that your clunky heal will be used in every sorc build after that patch, I mean the first half of this thread talks about how overpowered it is, the first post I quoted in this thread was a guy talking about how great it is Sorcs will admit the heal is overpowered and dks would never admit it, followed by every sorc posting after I commented on how dks get that heal because we don't have bolt escape talking about how your new heal is fine and it's broken and crap and none of you will ever use it. Meanwhile everyone else realizes a bloody huge heal with zero mana cost is actually quite op

Feynn

@Gandogal I am sorry if I misunderstood any of your points. Indeed, you mentioned nothing about pets. The only reason why I mentioned pets myself is because they seem to be the only way to go for magicka-based DPS Sorcs. But nevermind. You mentioned some "complex rotations" that would enable you to achieve a very high DPS with some long running dots (I imagine you are referring to Lightning Splash) and apparently without using pets. So, can I please ask you to provide the details of these rotations? What skills are you using in the PTS to attain a high magicka-based DPS without pets?

It's an honest question. There are many like me out there who are afraid of the changes that 1.6 will bring to our class, compared to the other classes. You seem to be rather more confident and optimistic, so you could please provide some details that may reassure us all? Thank you.

Vis

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Vis wrote: »

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&quot;

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.

You can stop now. They've already removed the LOL option from the forums

We are not the best in Pve. Over 4 minute intervals, my DK can out dps my sorc in aoe by over 35‰ and out single target (with dots and if my sorc does not use pets) by more than 15%.

As for pvp, I cannot depend on more than half my dps skills because of reflects and absorbs.

Ok, I can understand reflects...if you're like one of the two sorcs who isn't running 1hd/shield.....but absorbs? you talking Absorb Shields or the 1hd/shield Absorb?

@xsorusb14_ESO Ball of Lightening and the absorb versions of reflects.

Xsorus

Vis wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Vis wrote: »

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&quot;

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.

You can stop now. They've already removed the LOL option from the forums

We are not the best in Pve. Over 4 minute intervals, my DK can out dps my sorc in aoe by over 35‰ and out single target (with dots and if my sorc does not use pets) by more than 15%.

As for pvp, I cannot depend on more than half my dps skills because of reflects and absorbs.

Ok, I can understand reflects...if you're like one of the two sorcs who isn't running 1hd/shield.....but absorbs? you talking Absorb Shields or the 1hd/shield Absorb?

@xsorusb14_ESO Ball of Lightening and the absorb versions of reflects.

Yea someone mentioned that, it screws nbs the same

Aeternus

Question- does the self heal activate when the clannfear dies as well, or do you have to spam it and pray you win the lag lottery to get the desummon before its one-shotted by an AoE in pvp ?

Vis

Disclaimer: I am not asking for nerfs to other classes, just buffs for sorcs.

And I disagree with those who claim sorcs are fine in pvp. With one skill a person can shutdown most sorc dps.

What are magicka pvp sorcs left do against scale/eclipse/bol spam? Curse hits alright, but that is only 2.5k dps. Can't use any light attacks or heavy. Can't use overload unless you can stay next to them. Can't use the new pvp bomb because of its cast time. Do you suggest tickling them to death with ground aoes? Should we spam fury at 1k a hit? Have you ever seen a non baddie die to entropy? Even with curse it cuts our dps below 5k. Melee weapons are pillows of you are magicka build. With stamina costs of blocking and cc up, stretching out fights with a 1h is no longer possible. And all the while the other side does not lose any dps.

And here is the catch, all those listed skills are already given musts for those classes. My templar always has eclipse on his bar because it's good against all classes. My pure stamina dk can use scales over ten times in a fight. I find myself using it even against stamina attackers, purely out of habit and security. My sorc uses bolt all the time, why would I not have bol up against a magicka player? If these were high cost rare skills, we would not be discussing it.

You named this thread sorcerer feedback, you did not specify it was only for Pve. Every sorc has the right to share their concerns about pvp too.

Erock25

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Exstazik wrote: »

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...

You realize it was just a test character to show how casting works right?

Erock25 wrote: »

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.

Again, the only way to make it screw up and not work is by double tapping the key really fast, if you tap it once..and then wait half a second and tap it again you'll get the heal with ease.

Derra wrote: »

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.

They're not using it because they have better damage options. When it was double hitting for 600+ damage a pop every sorc I came across was using that ability. i still see some people running the build with it but they've mostly swapped to higher damage builds. Anyway a massive Heal that cost no mana and you can spam virtually forever is in no way a million times inferior to GDB because someones keyboard keys get stuck.

The slow summon of volatile familiar and clannfear came about BECAUSE of the double hitting volatile familiar. That was their fix to the problem. So no, those people using volatile familiar while it was bugged were not seeing this issue. Listen XSO, I've seen you posting on the PTS forums these past few weeks always talking bad about Sorc. I do not doubt you are going to make a video and be able to cherry pick the ideal situations where you don't get a delayed summon. I know you are aware of what the actual live servers are like however, and this clannfear heal will be totally useless in most situations because of the lag. It is clunky as hell.

I guarantee that your clunky heal will be used in every sorc build after that patch, I mean the first half of this thread talks about how overpowered it is, the first post I quoted in this thread was a guy talking about how great it is Sorcs will admit the heal is overpowered and dks would never admit it, followed by every sorc posting after I commented on how dks get that heal because we don't have bolt escape talking about how your new heal is fine and it's broken and crap and none of you will ever use it. Meanwhile everyone else realizes a bloody huge heal with zero mana cost is actually quite op

Yeah and I was the guy the post you quoted was talking about .... and that was my impression before using it. Since then, I have been actually testing it with many different builds with different levels of CPs. It will eventually become OP with the CP system, but in the next 6 months - 1 year, only the people who grind the most CPs will be able to use it effectively and those people will need to invest heavily in magicka. At the same time you have to remember that ALL classes with lots of CP are becoming overpowered. Sustain gets so high that I think a truly instant GDB will still be a way better alternative.

Xsorus

Erock25 wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Exstazik wrote: »

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...

You realize it was just a test character to show how casting works right?

Erock25 wrote: »

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.

Again, the only way to make it screw up and not work is by double tapping the key really fast, if you tap it once..and then wait half a second and tap it again you'll get the heal with ease.

Derra wrote: »

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.

They're not using it because they have better damage options. When it was double hitting for 600+ damage a pop every sorc I came across was using that ability. i still see some people running the build with it but they've mostly swapped to higher damage builds. Anyway a massive Heal that cost no mana and you can spam virtually forever is in no way a million times inferior to GDB because someones keyboard keys get stuck.

The slow summon of volatile familiar and clannfear came about BECAUSE of the double hitting volatile familiar. That was their fix to the problem. So no, those people using volatile familiar while it was bugged were not seeing this issue. Listen XSO, I've seen you posting on the PTS forums these past few weeks always talking bad about Sorc. I do not doubt you are going to make a video and be able to cherry pick the ideal situations where you don't get a delayed summon. I know you are aware of what the actual live servers are like however, and this clannfear heal will be totally useless in most situations because of the lag. It is clunky as hell.

I guarantee that your clunky heal will be used in every sorc build after that patch, I mean the first half of this thread talks about how overpowered it is, the first post I quoted in this thread was a guy talking about how great it is Sorcs will admit the heal is overpowered and dks would never admit it, followed by every sorc posting after I commented on how dks get that heal because we don't have bolt escape talking about how your new heal is fine and it's broken and crap and none of you will ever use it. Meanwhile everyone else realizes a bloody huge heal with zero mana cost is actually quite op

Yeah and I was the guy the post you quoted was talking about .... and that was my impression before using it. Since then, I have been actually testing it with many different builds with different levels of CPs. It will eventually become OP with the CP system, but in the next 6 months - 1 year, only the people who grind the most CPs will be able to use it effectively and those people will need to invest heavily in magicka. At the same time you have to remember that ALL classes with lots of CP are becoming overpowered. Sustain gets so high that I think a truly instant GDB will still be a way better alternative.

You only need around 30k magicka to make it cost nothing. That is not hard to get. If you want that heal you need to lose the mana cost return and nerf your mobility some more as you not having a heal is why you had that teleport in the first place.. Unless you wanna start throwing out escape options for Templars and dks, and a good heal for nightblades.

Yusuf

Vis wrote: »

Disclaimer: I am not asking for nerfs to other classes, just buffs for sorcs.

And I disagree with those who claim sorcs are fine in pvp. With one skill a person can shutdown most sorc dps.

What are magicka pvp sorcs left do against scale/eclipse/bol spam? Curse hits alright, but that is only 2.5k dps. Can't use any light attacks or heavy. Can't use overload unless you can stay next to them. Can't use the new pvp bomb because of its cast time. Do you suggest tickling them to death with ground aoes? Should we spam fury at 1k a hit? Have you ever seen a non baddie die to entropy? Even with curse it cuts our dps below 5k. Melee weapons are pillows of you are magicka build. With stamina costs of blocking and cc up, stretching out fights with a 1h is no longer possible. And all the while the other side does not lose any dps.

And here is the catch, all those listed skills are already given musts for those classes. My templar always has eclipse on his bar because it's good against all classes. My pure stamina dk can use scales over ten times in a fight. I find myself using it even against stamina attackers, purely out of habit and security. My sorc uses bolt all the time, why would I not have bol up against a magicka player? If these were high cost rare skills, we would not be discussing it.

You named this thread sorcerer feedback, you did not specify it was only for Pve. Every sorc has the right to share their concerns about pvp too.

I believe a reason to first focus on a viable sorcerer dps in PVE is, if you get the right NUMBERS in pve first you can work from from there and add additional effects and/or tweaks to make it balanced and viable in pvp too.

However, if you START by balancing it around PVP you will have negate nerfed like it is now (before it was too strong, now its too weak). The pvp-crowd will always be crying the loudest for balancing but honestly, most of the time it isn't true. I have people telling me sorcerers are STILL overpowered because of the mere EXISTENCE of bolt escape (crazy, i know).

However if you test it in a safe environment where you don't have 20 baddies (as in very bad players who'd call anything that kills them OP) and bring up numbers that are on par with the other classes and provide just as much utility as them you can go on your merry way and build something for pvp from that.

Because honestly if someone's build can't kill an npc-guard it sure as hell can't kill a good player.

Erock25

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Exstazik wrote: »

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...

You realize it was just a test character to show how casting works right?

Erock25 wrote: »

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.

Again, the only way to make it screw up and not work is by double tapping the key really fast, if you tap it once..and then wait half a second and tap it again you'll get the heal with ease.

Derra wrote: »

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.

They're not using it because they have better damage options. When it was double hitting for 600+ damage a pop every sorc I came across was using that ability. i still see some people running the build with it but they've mostly swapped to higher damage builds. Anyway a massive Heal that cost no mana and you can spam virtually forever is in no way a million times inferior to GDB because someones keyboard keys get stuck.

The slow summon of volatile familiar and clannfear came about BECAUSE of the double hitting volatile familiar. That was their fix to the problem. So no, those people using volatile familiar while it was bugged were not seeing this issue. Listen XSO, I've seen you posting on the PTS forums these past few weeks always talking bad about Sorc. I do not doubt you are going to make a video and be able to cherry pick the ideal situations where you don't get a delayed summon. I know you are aware of what the actual live servers are like however, and this clannfear heal will be totally useless in most situations because of the lag. It is clunky as hell.

I guarantee that your clunky heal will be used in every sorc build after that patch, I mean the first half of this thread talks about how overpowered it is, the first post I quoted in this thread was a guy talking about how great it is Sorcs will admit the heal is overpowered and dks would never admit it, followed by every sorc posting after I commented on how dks get that heal because we don't have bolt escape talking about how your new heal is fine and it's broken and crap and none of you will ever use it. Meanwhile everyone else realizes a bloody huge heal with zero mana cost is actually quite op

Yeah and I was the guy the post you quoted was talking about .... and that was my impression before using it. Since then, I have been actually testing it with many different builds with different levels of CPs. It will eventually become OP with the CP system, but in the next 6 months - 1 year, only the people who grind the most CPs will be able to use it effectively and those people will need to invest heavily in magicka. At the same time you have to remember that ALL classes with lots of CP are becoming overpowered. Sustain gets so high that I think a truly instant GDB will still be a way better alternative.

You only need around 30k magicka to make it cost nothing. That is not hard to get. If you want that heal you need to lose the mana cost return and nerf your mobility some more as you not having a heal is why you had that teleport in the first place.. Unless you wanna start throwing out escape options for Templars and dks, and a good heal for nightblades.

I haven't decided yet what HP I want to reach in Cyrodiill yet as I found testing was kinda pointless with people running around with 3600 CP. I'm guessing even as a spell casting Sorc relying on Clannfear heal and Hardened Ward, I'm going to shoot for around 22k, so 17k outside of Cyrodiil. My 70CP Altmer Sorc I'm messing around with right now with template gear and the best cost reduction build has 24.5k magicka and 17k HP. At this point I do have a 6000 HP heal (that is not quite instant) that costs nothing if you include my magicka regen per second. The Cyrodiil HP bonus doesn't increase Clannfear heal so it is still 6000 even in Cyrodiil. At the same time, I'm not sure how hard melee people are going to be hitting with 70CP. 2h is doing crazy damage and I may prefer way more than 22k (17k out of cyrodiil) HP in pvp. That 70CP Sorc only has a 7.5k shield in PVP with all factors included, and that may not hold up well (even with a 6k not quite instant heal) against a crit charge and wrecking blow so then you're reaching territory where you you're lowering your shields even further while increasing your heal and making it less sustainable.

I do not think Clannfear will become ridiculously powerful until people start reaching 600+ CP levels, and at that point all classes (if built for it .... and not a NB depending on whether you include Healing Ward or not) can cast practically endless powerful spammed heals. I think the real issue is how powerful high CP characters are in general. They need to tone it down a bit because it's like a V1 going up against a V60.

Gandogal

@Feynn that was a general remark regarding the issue about DPS. u questioned that using dots with higher damage per cast than an instant cast spell would lead to more dps. i tried to figure out in which scenario this could happen and only came to two issues:

a) u overwrite the dots before they are through, or
b) since you would be using more spells when using dots than just spamming crushig shock (or force pulse) since u will have to wait for one dot to be thropught and have to fill the time in between, this might lead to a more complex rotation than just using one spell.

theoretically it might lead to increased dps using a combination of dots like liquid lightning, storm form, destructive touch (enlarged by master weapon) and fire ring, especially with valkyn set. but im not sure it will myself. beside the issue of having to handle a lot of timers and skills, u would also have to do alot of weapon switching, placing AE circles etc. also, when using two bars (with just CF on one of them) u would get lesser CF procs.

so it might be that be pure spamming of one skill to trigger CF is still superior.

however, my original post listed a number of improvement to our class. the valky/dot issue was only one of them and mainly adressed AE damage.

Xsorus

Erock25 wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Exstazik wrote: »

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...

You realize it was just a test character to show how casting works right?

Erock25 wrote: »

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.

Again, the only way to make it screw up and not work is by double tapping the key really fast, if you tap it once..and then wait half a second and tap it again you'll get the heal with ease.

Derra wrote: »

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.

They're not using it because they have better damage options. When it was double hitting for 600+ damage a pop every sorc I came across was using that ability. i still see some people running the build with it but they've mostly swapped to higher damage builds. Anyway a massive Heal that cost no mana and you can spam virtually forever is in no way a million times inferior to GDB because someones keyboard keys get stuck.

The slow summon of volatile familiar and clannfear came about BECAUSE of the double hitting volatile familiar. That was their fix to the problem. So no, those people using volatile familiar while it was bugged were not seeing this issue. Listen XSO, I've seen you posting on the PTS forums these past few weeks always talking bad about Sorc. I do not doubt you are going to make a video and be able to cherry pick the ideal situations where you don't get a delayed summon. I know you are aware of what the actual live servers are like however, and this clannfear heal will be totally useless in most situations because of the lag. It is clunky as hell.

I guarantee that your clunky heal will be used in every sorc build after that patch, I mean the first half of this thread talks about how overpowered it is, the first post I quoted in this thread was a guy talking about how great it is Sorcs will admit the heal is overpowered and dks would never admit it, followed by every sorc posting after I commented on how dks get that heal because we don't have bolt escape talking about how your new heal is fine and it's broken and crap and none of you will ever use it. Meanwhile everyone else realizes a bloody huge heal with zero mana cost is actually quite op

Yeah and I was the guy the post you quoted was talking about .... and that was my impression before using it. Since then, I have been actually testing it with many different builds with different levels of CPs. It will eventually become OP with the CP system, but in the next 6 months - 1 year, only the people who grind the most CPs will be able to use it effectively and those people will need to invest heavily in magicka. At the same time you have to remember that ALL classes with lots of CP are becoming overpowered. Sustain gets so high that I think a truly instant GDB will still be a way better alternative.

You only need around 30k magicka to make it cost nothing. That is not hard to get. If you want that heal you need to lose the mana cost return and nerf your mobility some more as you not having a heal is why you had that teleport in the first place.. Unless you wanna start throwing out escape options for Templars and dks, and a good heal for nightblades.

I haven't decided yet what HP I want to reach in Cyrodiill yet as I found testing was kinda pointless with people running around with 3600 CP. I'm guessing even as a spell casting Sorc relying on Clannfear heal and Hardened Ward, I'm going to shoot for around 22k, so 17k outside of Cyrodiil. My 70CP Altmer Sorc I'm messing around with right now with template gear and the best cost reduction build has 24.5k magicka and 17k HP. At this point I do have a 6000 HP heal (that is not quite instant) that costs nothing if you include my magicka regen per second. The Cyrodiil HP bonus doesn't increase Clannfear heal so it is still 6000 even in Cyrodiil. At the same time, I'm not sure how hard melee people are going to be hitting with 70CP. 2h is doing crazy damage and I may prefer way more than 22k (17k out of cyrodiil) HP in pvp. That 70CP Sorc only has a 7.5k shield in PVP with all factors included, and that may not hold up well (even with a 6k not quite instant heal) against a crit charge and wrecking blow so then you're reaching territory where you you're lowering your shields even further while increasing your heal and making it less sustainable.

I do not think Clannfear will become ridiculously powerful until people start reaching 600+ CP levels, and at that point all classes (if built for it .... and not a NB depending on whether you include Healing Ward or not) can cast practically endless powerful spammed heals. I think the real issue is how powerful high CP characters are in general. They need to tone it down a bit because it's like a V1 going up against a V60.

Cp in general will unbalance things over time, I can do 3500 health regen builds for example, and wood elf nightblade can get close to 5000 stamina regen if built right.

Vis

Yusuf wrote: »

Vis wrote: »

Disclaimer: I am not asking for nerfs to other classes, just buffs for sorcs.

And I disagree with those who claim sorcs are fine in pvp. With one skill a person can shutdown most sorc dps.

What are magicka pvp sorcs left do against scale/eclipse/bol spam? Curse hits alright, but that is only 2.5k dps. Can't use any light attacks or heavy. Can't use overload unless you can stay next to them. Can't use the new pvp bomb because of its cast time. Do you suggest tickling them to death with ground aoes? Should we spam fury at 1k a hit? Have you ever seen a non baddie die to entropy? Even with curse it cuts our dps below 5k. Melee weapons are pillows of you are magicka build. With stamina costs of blocking and cc up, stretching out fights with a 1h is no longer possible. And all the while the other side does not lose any dps.

And here is the catch, all those listed skills are already given musts for those classes. My templar always has eclipse on his bar because it's good against all classes. My pure stamina dk can use scales over ten times in a fight. I find myself using it even against stamina attackers, purely out of habit and security. My sorc uses bolt all the time, why would I not have bol up against a magicka player? If these were high cost rare skills, we would not be discussing it.

You named this thread sorcerer feedback, you did not specify it was only for Pve. Every sorc has the right to share their concerns about pvp too.

I believe a reason to first focus on a viable sorcerer dps in PVE is, if you get the right NUMBERS in pve first you can work from from there and add additional effects and/or tweaks to make it balanced and viable in pvp too.

There is a degree of truth to that. Pve is good for measuring class balance via resulting numbers. For instance, my dps/hps vs your dps/hps. Pve tells you the what in balance. However, it does not tell you the how. That is, pve does not take into account how you got the results you did. It does not take into account the mechanics. Pvp, tells you more of the hows and whys.

For instance, a magicka dk and and a magicka sorc, both spamming crushing shock, may look nearly equal on paper. But once you add in scales, the fight is not even close. This is where pvp sheds light on elements of class balance that pve cannot. Pve assumes sorcs are in a vacuum, and that is one of the reasons we have been so harshly and unjustly nerfed over the last year.

The only way to get true balance, is to look at pve and pvp concurrently. Many of us are pure pvp'ers and as such, both sets of opinions must be respected.

ToRelax

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Exstazik wrote: »

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...

You realize it was just a test character to show how casting works right?

Erock25 wrote: »

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.

Again, the only way to make it screw up and not work is by double tapping the key really fast, if you tap it once..and then wait half a second and tap it again you'll get the heal with ease.

Derra wrote: »

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.

They're not using it because they have better damage options. When it was double hitting for 600+ damage a pop every sorc I came across was using that ability. i still see some people running the build with it but they've mostly swapped to higher damage builds. Anyway a massive Heal that cost no mana and you can spam virtually forever is in no way a million times inferior to GDB because someones keyboard keys get stuck.

The slow summon of volatile familiar and clannfear came about BECAUSE of the double hitting volatile familiar. That was their fix to the problem. So no, those people using volatile familiar while it was bugged were not seeing this issue. Listen XSO, I've seen you posting on the PTS forums these past few weeks always talking bad about Sorc. I do not doubt you are going to make a video and be able to cherry pick the ideal situations where you don't get a delayed summon. I know you are aware of what the actual live servers are like however, and this clannfear heal will be totally useless in most situations because of the lag. It is clunky as hell.

I guarantee that your clunky heal will be used in every sorc build after that patch, I mean the first half of this thread talks about how overpowered it is, the first post I quoted in this thread was a guy talking about how great it is Sorcs will admit the heal is overpowered and dks would never admit it, followed by every sorc posting after I commented on how dks get that heal because we don't have bolt escape talking about how your new heal is fine and it's broken and crap and none of you will ever use it. Meanwhile everyone else realizes a bloody huge heal with zero mana cost is actually quite op

I won't use it, it takes a lot of CP to make it good (while still not reliable if you don't keep the Clannfear up) and just resto gets better with more CP, too. Actually, Healing Ward is scaling pretty crazy with many CP.

xherics

Guys, I promised, that I will make constructive posts only, but I need to post this video, what I just found.

Just for fun, no attack, nothing else, just fun - rage video LOL

I hope, I do not break any rules of the forum, if so, MOD please just remove the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTOnKcHB2GM