1.6.5 Sorcerer detailed balance feedback

posthumecaver

Feynn wrote: »

posthumecaver wrote: »

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

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

Thx for the answer, that was what I was afraid of it.

Can anybody explain to a noob why they felt it is so necessary to nerf (change) sorcerer this way. Were the Sorcerer's OP before those changes?

And what I don't understand, when you tell me Sorcerer I think about magic and think about Magicka should be our main mechanic and why now we have Stamina as our main resources?

Now only viable build lies being minion masters? I hate minion masters, for the love of god I would not play such a build. Spawn somethings and they will do the work for you.

Derra

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

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.

Edit: Also they used it back then because it actually worked when you used it. I guess thats just to hard to understand for some people.

Are you kidding me? If you could somehow make it work reliably it would be the best aoe in the game simply for the utility it provides. Also there are no higher dmg builds. If you manage to spam it somehow it is the highest aoe dmg from a single attack in the game and it stuns every time.
People moved to "higher" dmg builds because:
1. It bugs out - not reliable in Cyrodiil.
2. It does not build ultimate since 1.4.x for whatever reason (design decision)

I see people using it in duels or when they do cyrodiil pve quests. I´ve yet to come across one player trying to use it in a keepfight. But maybe thats because that poor idiot will be dead on the ground withing the first 2 seconds of the fight...

But let me ask you a question? What are you trying to accomplish? You´ve got multiple people telling you the skill is not that great in practice - people that actually play the class and tried using the "uber"-skill you´re describing.
Yet you come here again and again telling ppl you know better about a class you don´t play. Nothing constructive is coming from you.

We should maybe make a poll if dks want to trade dragon blood for the new uber sorc heal and see how that turns out. I would take gdb over the pet any second of the day.

Lied

Derra wrote: »

Yet you come here again and again telling ppl you know better about a class you don´t play. Nothing constructive is coming from you.

There's a grand total of 4 classes in this game with more abilities from shared trees than each class. Are you playing the "you don't know what it's like" card because he's not one of the 'signature sorcs' saying "don't panic", or simply because he's disagreeing with the angry mob?

I get the disagreement part, but I'm not sure how much more constructive he could be than to bother to take the time to upload videos demonstrating his point. Unless your definition of constructive is an angry post that gets a lot of 'agrees' from other angry posters.

@Gil.Galad - sorry for adding more garbage to a good thread

Tankqull

Gil.Galad 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"

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).

there is one(at least till 1.6) its called DK.

Soulac

Nb here, I'd take any heal if you Sorcs don't want it :P

Derra

Lied wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yet you come here again and again telling ppl you know better about a class you don´t play. Nothing constructive is coming from you.

There's a grand total of 4 classes in this game with more abilities from shared trees than each class. Are you playing the "you don't know what it's like" card because he's not one of the 'signature sorcs' saying "don't panic", or simply because he's disagreeing with the angry mob?

I get the disagreement part, but I'm not sure how much more constructive he could be than to bother to take the time to upload videos demonstrating his point. Unless your definition of constructive is an angry post that gets a lot of 'agrees' from other angry posters.

@Gil.Galad - sorry for adding more garbage to a good thread

The problem is that he claims there is no problem yet is only testing "laboratory environment and use" which leads him to the conclusion that the skill is working fine in the "real" world and he is dismissing everyone pointing out the problems the skill has in that environment.
It´s like someone playing fifa 2015 telling a rl soccer player what he has to do. It simply does not work that way.

Edit: Just as an example:

Imagine the horrors if one came along in a NB discussion thread claiming cloak is fine posting a video of him cloaking around craglorn welwas to prove his point. That would be and argument of the same quality @Lied.

Hope that could make it a little clearer why i´m sometimes upset with this other fella.

Lied

Derra wrote: »

Lied wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yet you come here again and again telling ppl you know better about a class you don´t play. Nothing constructive is coming from you.

There's a grand total of 4 classes in this game with more abilities from shared trees than each class. Are you playing the "you don't know what it's like" card because he's not one of the 'signature sorcs' saying "don't panic", or simply because he's disagreeing with the angry mob?

I get the disagreement part, but I'm not sure how much more constructive he could be than to bother to take the time to upload videos demonstrating his point. Unless your definition of constructive is an angry post that gets a lot of 'agrees' from other angry posters.

@Gil.Galad - sorry for adding more garbage to a good thread

The problem is that he claims there is no problem yet is only testing "laboratory environment and use" which leads him to the conclusion that the skill is working fine in the "real" world and he is dismissing everyone pointing out the problems the skill has in that environment.
It´s like someone playing fifa 2015 telling a rl soccer player what he has to do. It simply does not work that way.

ESO stuff aside, what is more constructive? <opinions/assertions with video and rational discussion>, or "nu uh, you don't know what you're talking about. go away."?

Gil actually got a ZOS response, (not that this thread is choc full of an equal level of counter-analysis), but doesn't that kinda illustrate the difference between feedback that gets taken seriously and easily discarded ranting?

Derra

Lied wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Lied wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yet you come here again and again telling ppl you know better about a class you don´t play. Nothing constructive is coming from you.

There's a grand total of 4 classes in this game with more abilities from shared trees than each class. Are you playing the "you don't know what it's like" card because he's not one of the 'signature sorcs' saying "don't panic", or simply because he's disagreeing with the angry mob?

I get the disagreement part, but I'm not sure how much more constructive he could be than to bother to take the time to upload videos demonstrating his point. Unless your definition of constructive is an angry post that gets a lot of 'agrees' from other angry posters.

@Gil.Galad - sorry for adding more garbage to a good thread

The problem is that he claims there is no problem yet is only testing "laboratory environment and use" which leads him to the conclusion that the skill is working fine in the "real" world and he is dismissing everyone pointing out the problems the skill has in that environment.
It´s like someone playing fifa 2015 telling a rl soccer player what he has to do. It simply does not work that way.

ESO stuff aside, what is more constructive? <opinions/assertions with video and rational discussion>, or "nu uh, you don't know what you're talking about. go away."?

Gil actually got a ZOS response, (not that this thread is choc full of an equal level of counter-analysis), but doesn't that kinda illustrate the difference between feedback that gets taken seriously and easily discarded ranting?

Imagine the horrors if one came along in a NB discussion thread claiming cloak is fine posting a video of him cloaking around craglorn welwas to prove his point. That would be and argument of the same quality @Lied.

Hope that could make it a little clearer why i´m sometimes upset with this other fella.

I´ll just quote my edit here.

The point is: There is no rational discussion. There can´t be any if he is dismissing everyone telling him that the skill is not working fine in live cyrodiil - where he obviously can´t test bc he´s not playing a sorc. He is a DK telling sorcs to get their **** together because of patchnotes, skill descriptions and a few hours of testing.

Lied

Derra wrote: »

Imagine the horrors if one came along in a NB discussion thread claiming cloak is fine posting a video of him cloaking around craglorn welwas to prove his point. That would be and argument of the same quality @Lied.

I'd imagine this would be more effectively dismissed when people started replying with videos of cloak malfunctioning accompanied by explanations rather than simply stating, "you don't play a NB, it doesn't work that way IRL".

Derra

Lied wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Imagine the horrors if one came along in a NB discussion thread claiming cloak is fine posting a video of him cloaking around craglorn welwas to prove his point. That would be and argument of the same quality @Lied.

I'd imagine this would be more effectively dismissed when people started replying with videos of cloak malfunctioning accompanied by explanations rather than simply stating, "you don't play a NB, it doesn't work that way IRL".

There are dozens of videos of volatile familar malfunctioning. He even knows the bug. Its been in the game since 1.4. The clannfear will use the same mechanic.

Here searched one for you. Not mine. Are you happy now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T7DFGkso_g


The problem i´m having is that he is telling ppl that this is a non issue that can be countered by delayed button pressing - when in cyrodiil you frequently have 500+ ping. Having to be extra careful with this delay (bc when it bugs out you have to wait about 1.5s before you can attempt again) is just not practical especially on an in combat heal.

Fayaburn

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is a great post, and is the exact type of feedback that we'd like to see moving forward. Gil.Galad doesn't necessarily agree with some of the changes to the Sorcerer, and that's ok, but he explains his reasoning and provides suggestions after some testing on the PTS.

We've passed this along to the gameplay team, and will work on getting some answers for you all.

Lied wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Imagine the horrors if one came along in a NB discussion thread claiming cloak is fine posting a video of him cloaking around craglorn welwas to prove his point. That would be and argument of the same quality @Lied.

I'd imagine this would be more effectively dismissed when people started replying with videos of cloak malfunctioning accompanied by explanations rather than simply stating, "you don't play a NB, it doesn't work that way IRL".

I cannot post a video of the exact issue discussed here as I am not on my computer at the moment. However, here is a video of a bug with the familiar summoning mechanism that has been ingame for multiple months. It illustrates the fact that the summoning process is not bug-proof at the moment.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HC8PqcyHOyw&t=0m56s

Lied

Derra wrote: »

Here searched one for you. Not mine. Are you happy now?

It would be better to a have a video where it looks like you're doing it the right way on your screen but you're getting an undesired result... but hell, this is better than nothing.

Derra wrote: »

Here searched one for you. Not mine. Are you happy now?
The problem i´m having is that he is telling ppl that this is a non issue that can be countered by delayed button pressing - when in cyrodiil you frequently have 500+ ping. Having to be extra careful with this delay (bc when it bugs out you have to wait about 1.5s before you can attempt again) is just not practical especially on an in combat heal.

Don't a lot of mechanics screw up when you have a 500+ latency? Didn't get a heal in time/executed unexpectedly because your health bar didn't show it was moving. Didn't reflect a projectile that you didn't even see coming for you. Didn't get a chance to dodge an attack you didn't even see happening. Is there anything that really works just fine with 500+ latency?

Derra

The point is pretty much that there is the possibility that the skill will bug out bc you pressed the release button 0.1s to fast. It will not happen every time but it is 100% reproduceable.
Saying the skills functionality is not severely impaired bc you just have to wait long enough (which is a sick joke itself in pvp) to press it again is simply dumb: "You can´t press the button the way you want bc then the skill will bug."

http://youtu.be/HC8PqcyHOyw

skip to 1min

Here is another vid. It is 100% reproducable and pretty much restricts the way you press the button of the skill. If you mess this up due to lag it will leave you about 1.5s vulnerable.

Why am i even arguing its obvious you´ve made your decision. It´s like talking to anti vaxxers.

Fayaburn

Lied wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Here searched one for you. Not mine. Are you happy now?

It would be better to a have a video where it looks like you're doing it the right way on your screen but you're getting an undesired result... but hell, this is better than nothing.

Derra wrote: »

Here searched one for you. Not mine. Are you happy now?
The problem i´m having is that he is telling ppl that this is a non issue that can be countered by delayed button pressing - when in cyrodiil you frequently have 500+ ping. Having to be extra careful with this delay (bc when it bugs out you have to wait about 1.5s before you can attempt again) is just not practical especially on an in combat heal.

Don't a lot of mechanics screw up when you have a 500+ latency? Didn't get a heal in time/executed unexpectedly because your health bar didn't show it was moving. Didn't reflect a projectile that you didn't even see coming for you. Didn't get a chance to dodge an attack you didn't even see happening. Is there anything that really works just fine with 500+ latency?

Please take a look at the video I linked. Ping is around 90 and there is no lag involved, however the summoning still fails.

Derra

What people don´t get is posting a video of the skill failing 100% is the same as posting a video of the skill working 100%. Both is reproduceable with the 2 mins of effort it takes to make a sorc on pts. It has no significance...

It has nothing to do with its real use where the probability of it failing (and you dying bc of that - even if its only 20% of the times you use it and you can blame it on yourself bc you pressed the button to fast - lol) will simply make the skill undesireable.

Edit: I don´t get what is so hard to understand about that. I simply don´t get it.

Derra

Lied wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Here searched one for you. Not mine. Are you happy now?

It would be better to a have a video where it looks like you're doing it the right way on your screen but you're getting an undesired result... but hell, this is better than nothing.

What is the "right" way?

Iselin

It's like every MMO that has ever been. There comes a time after the game matures a bit when they start obsessively balancing for fully-geared end game content and just screw-up the whole rest of the game for a class.

The sorc problems we are talking about are not going to be fixed by talking to focus groups of VR14 fully geared sorcs running trials. The problems are about doing the solo content that has been designed for Caldwell Silver and gold where general difficulty is reflected by having larger and larger aggro-linked groups. It's a VR1 - VR10 problem which is basically, where the problem always has been.

A class needs to have the ability to go through that content efficiently with good AOE and self healing off that AOE not because we just want to grind but because that's the way the game forces us to play in that level range.

We used to do that with critical surge and destro staff skills because even before this nerf, unlike other classes, our class always has been AOE-weak... in an AOE-heavy game... so we relied on damage from outside our class skills for the DPS part but at least we could self-heal with a class skill... that option is gone at the same time that cloth armor has also been nerfed to make things worse...and no, pet builds are not the answer since all that does is force an awkward single target approach to dealing with packs of 5 or 6.

It's almost as if sorcs have been balanced for a Caldwell silver and gold that doesn't exist where instead of packs, the challenge is harder single enemies or duos.

Jahosefat

Lied wrote: »

Is there anything that really works just fine with 500+ latency?

Magicka Shields and holding block Some abilities/mechanics are affected much worse than others. I don't dare touch bolt escape when it gets like that, but I can spam hardened ward all day (and it works) with bad latency.

Lied

Derra wrote: »

What people don´t get is posting a video of the skill failing 100% is the same as posting a video of the skill working 100%. Both is reproduceable with the 2 mins of effort it takes to make a sorc on pts. It has no significance...

It has nothing to do with its real use where the probability of it failing (and you dying bc of that - even if its only 20% of the times you use it and you can blame it on yourself bc you pressed the button to fast - lol) will simply make the skill undesireable.

Edit: I don´t get what is so hard to understand about that. I simply don´t get it.

Personally, I'm not going to complain if the skill gets a GCD that prevents an unsummon before a sacrifice. Y'all want the change, more power to you. Saying it's useless because you can't always time it properly? I'm sorry, I'm just not overly sympathetic here. There are lots of timing mechanics that screw up because of lag. Do you have much luck with light weaving/animation cancelling in heavy lag?

OK, so this is more about clutch time survival. If you try to dodge a second time because you mashed the keyboard too quickly in lag, how well does that work?

Lied

Jahosefat wrote: »

Lied wrote: »

Is there anything that really works just fine with 500+ latency?

Magicka Shields and holding block Some abilities/mechanics are affected much worse than others. I don't dare touch bolt escape when it gets like that, but I can spam hardened ward all day (and it works) with bad latency.

But you do still bother to have bolt escape on your bar, right? Yes your shields will still get applied, but have you never burned mana reapplying what was already applied in lag? I love watching my blazing shield animation run a second time with a full shield.

Ezareth

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

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

Powerful heals on a sorc in general are rather weak, especially in 1.6 as we are being *forced* to rely on damage shields and are penalized for trying to rely on any armor or defensive stats in general since none of them are applied to damage shields. If you're taking much damage to health then you're usually dead already since the only way to build efficiently is to stack magicka and ignore health. Dot based heals like entropy, and Crystal fragment spam healing, coupled with the occasional tri-stat pot are more than sufficient heals for topping you off. Even a full health, bursting a sorc to dead once you're through is shields is exceedingly easy in 1.6. Heals are the least useful for sorcs, for all of these reasons. (But not useless)

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

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.

Our mobility has already been nerfed to hell. I spent my entire mana bar casting *9* bolt escapes using a fresh full legendary template character with full light armor in 1.6.4. Every other class can keep pace with me *while doing damage* as I get nothing but a drain my mana bar.

Who says not having a self-heal is why we have bolt escape?

I don't think you really understand how horribly light was nerfed in 1.6

c0rp

Hoping to see some word from ZoS today concerning sorc.

@zos_GinaBruno : I would also like to know why if a sorc puts streak and encase on their bar why they are being penalized for getting crystal fragment procs (ie..they dont proc CF)? No one is going to hard cast it, and with those two abilities on your bar you cast CF even less.....why?

cschwingeb14_ESO

For some reason the devs hate streak. Nerfed in 1.6 (changed to 1.5s stun, cost increased 10-15%), and separately stealth nerfed to not procs CF. Maybe they hate it because it's tough to play against when melee, and they are actively trying to promote melee gameplay. Who knows.

What I can't understand is why they keep Encase so bad (and bugged, the animation does not match the narrow actual effect) while allowing Talons to be so good.

Glantir

Would be nice if they give us some informations of there further plans with the sorc class...

Dont want to wait for 1.7 .....

Sphinx2318

If ZOS took even half of your suggestions and implemented them, everyone in ESO would be a sorc and no other class. PVP would insta die.

Snit

c0rp wrote: »

@zos_GinaBruno : I would also like to know why if a sorc puts streak and encase on their bar why they are being penalized for getting crystal fragment procs (ie..they dont proc CF)

I suspect it's a bug. In 1.6.1 - 1.6.3, Encase would proc CF, but only if you actually hit a target. Streak and Bolt Escape, however, never proc it.

I have not been in 1.6.4 yet to re-test, but there was nothing in the patch notes to indicate a change.

I'd be very confused if this was a deliberate nerf.

daemonios

Iselin wrote: »

It's like every MMO that has ever been. There comes a time after the game matures a bit when they start obsessively balancing for fully-geared end game content and just screw-up the whole rest of the game for a class.

The sorc problems we are talking about are not going to be fixed by talking to focus groups of VR14 fully geared sorcs running trials. The problems are about doing the solo content that has been designed for Caldwell Silver and gold where general difficulty is reflected by having larger and larger aggro-linked groups. It's a VR1 - VR10 problem which is basically, where the problem always has been.

A class needs to have the ability to go through that content efficiently with good AOE and self healing off that AOE not because we just want to grind but because that's the way the game forces us to play in that level range.

We used to do that with critical surge and destro staff skills because even before this nerf, unlike other classes, our class always has been AOE-weak... in an AOE-heavy game... so we relied on damage from outside our class skills for the DPS part but at least we could self-heal with a class skill... that option is gone at the same time that cloth armor has also been nerfed to make things worse...and no, pet builds are not the answer since all that does is force an awkward single target approach to dealing with packs of 5 or 6.

It's almost as if sorcs have been balanced for a Caldwell silver and gold that doesn't exist where instead of packs, the challenge is harder single enemies or duos.

So. Much. Disagree.

Solo content can be cleared easily with an under-specced, non-optimized build. Since you're not running for highest DPS, you can take your time and evade groups or CC them or just run in and burn them down fast. I did VR content on my sorc before it was nerfed. It certainly was a shocker, and I died a lot, but I did learn the importance of blocking and dodging and bolting away. After the nerf, I don't really see what the problem could be with solo content unless - yes, I'm gonna say it - it's a Learn To Play issue.

My sole concern is that sorcerers are largely absent from trial groups due to their poor performance and low utility. Of course the best players can *approach* other classes, but for the majority it's a pain and a struggle to even reach 1000 DPS. I don't want to be the next DK (i.e. the jacks of all trades and masters of all). I just want to have fun on my sorcerer.

Asha_Veor

When the game first launched, I was so pshyced to play a sorcerer. The first 40 levels went pretty well, I had enough dps with crystal shard and mages fury to take down the single player content, and i had my pets to distract the enemy and keep me alive long enough to clear the groups.

As I went through the 45's and into 50, Things became harder and harder to survive and solo. I soon became unhappy about this because I would see every other class soloing the content.

After hitting Vet levels, going anywhere solo was practically a joke. My clanfear died within a few hits of the fight, I could only take 2 shots from trash mobs before I followed it. And of course, the only dungeon groups I could run with were Friends/Guildies, and even then I was delegated the role of 2'nd healer/Off Dps ... and I was forced (by game mechanics and sheer Dps/hps) to do something that i absolutely hate, Using a cookie cutter build and skills on my bar that i didn't like but were the only effective option. Hell I even ended up using bolt escape to kite just about everything (too bad this killed my dps, burst, ect, and drained my bar like mad)

I was a sorcerer! A bloody Mage! and here were DK's and NB's who picked up a destro staff, and could out do anything i could do, while staying alive.

Craglorn came out, And I could not even take on a Single trash mob without biting the dust. My desire to play hit the dirt along with my sorc. I left the game, Letting my original 6m subscription lapse.

I came back to the game a few weeks ago, I was somewhat pleased, Some minor alterations had made it so that i could quest in the old vet zones solo. And I could kill off a trash pack in Craglorn solo, so long as i played it smart, and avoided the wasps.

I was still somewhat frustrated, and so i went and started a Templar alt (I hate alts, just fyi, all i use them for is mule space most of the time) .... And here i am, a lvl 44 Templar ... who can solo world bosses, anchors, dungeons at her level or even above it... something i would never even attempt on my sorc. Why? because the self heals on a sorc, are a complete joke when compared to other classes. And the DPS? barely on par and that was only during burst.



And now ... ZoS is making the burst shorter, and making her less survivable (No a channel heal does not count, the other classes have insta heals and heal on damage). And the 'buff' to its spell damage, doesn't even bring it in line with the other classes dps ... Gee this makes me want to play my sorc so much ... OH wait I have a Templar now who can FACE TANK/DPS WORLD BOSSES HIGHER THAN HER LEVEL AS IF IT WAS NOTHING ...

So why should I bother playing my sorc? Oh right, I can dump all my crafting on her for Mule space. ^_^


Say, wasn't this the elder scrolls universe? You know, the one where restoration was a class of magic? Gee ... wonder why the mage is such a shiz at an entire school of magic. Must have really poor teachers, right? I mean the warriors and assassins have got restoration down to an art, such that they can take half the damage while regening all their health, or just slice into their enemies and absorb health each time... man why do they get the good teachers?

Someone should report this lack of training, I mean really, how can you call them a mage? When a warrior or an assassin have better self heals then them?

Jahosefat

Lied wrote: »

Jahosefat wrote: »

Lied wrote: »

Is there anything that really works just fine with 500+ latency?

Magicka Shields and holding block Some abilities/mechanics are affected much worse than others. I don't dare touch bolt escape when it gets like that, but I can spam hardened ward all day (and it works) with bad latency.

But you do still bother to have bolt escape on your bar, right? Yes your shields will still get applied, but have you never burned mana reapplying what was already applied in lag? I love watching my blazing shield animation run a second time with a full shield.

To get any decent of damage out of the mag sorc you have to dump an incredible amount of resources into mag (like ~30K). Early on with 70CP you can really only achieve this by going with 62 attribute points in mag. You are going to have no stam management though, but with set bonuses like "way of the arena" you can make the stam work. With this sort of set-up you have: 1.) high damage 2.) big mag shields 3.) low health. So the 35% max health heal is well.... small. Rapid Regen does ~100% max health heal over 16 seconds for very low mag cost (and it always works with 1 push of a button! and heals friends). So no, if I go with a mag build I wont put the 35% max health clunky heal on my bar, I'll just cast rapid regen and be better off for it. This is only going to be good if you go heavy armor block tank with really high max health, otherwise rapid regen/healing ward are still king.

GilGalad

Sphinx2318 wrote: »

If ZOS took even half of your suggestions and implemented them, everyone in ESO would be a sorc and no other class. PVP would insta die.

At the moment we have this situation:

daemonios wrote: »

Weekly AA: 44% DK, 21% NB, 20% Templars, 15% Sorcs; 2 full teams had no sorcs.
Sanctum: 41% DK, 24% NB, 22% Templars, 13% Sorcs; 1 full team had no sorcs.
DSA Vet: 43% DK, 23% NB, 21% Templars, 12% Sorcs; 9 full teams had no sorcs.

Group content is dominated by one class, so is PVP. DKs will always be the best and most useful tanks thanks to their chains, self healing and resource management.
I have the bad feeling that you are one of them, who is affraid of not being able to kill whole zergs alone anymore.

Even if the sorc will dominate some situations for some month this would actually don't be too bad. They were in a bad place for a long time now and if nothing changes before update 6 goes live many of them will get huge problems to keep up.