Is Magicka Sorcerer Bad in PvP ?

AdamLAD

Is Magicka Sorcerer Bad In PvP ? Because as a 5 year Main its lacking in many areas. Id like the rest of the communities opinion. As my fellow veteran Sorcerers also think its Trash

xylena_lazarow

The old styles of stamsorc and magsorc have both fallen out of favor. Offensively, it's due to the high power of ranged Crystal Weapon burst backed up by DoT pressure from proc sets. Defensively, shield stacking has gradually become less effective than the usual tools of roll dodge, LoS, and healing. The Sorc class is overall much more competitive than it's been in years, albeit over a narrower range of builds and playstyles, though Destro setups do still have some advantages over the more popular Bow builds.

SkaraMinoc

Its Not Bad But It Definitely Needs A Buff (Explain in what areas)

Matriarch is outdated and needs modernization. It's extremely difficult to keep alive in PvP. You can spam the best heals in the game and it will still die. Want to resummon it? Good luck with the interrupt. In any given battleground, the Twilight Matriarch pet will die anywhere from 5 to 20 times. (not joking)

Increase Matriarch mitigation

Every class can delete the Twilight Matriarch in a single global cooldown. Nightblades kill the pet with 1 opener from stealth. Sorc Curse + Crystal Weapon will kill it. There's nothing you can do. I wouldn't be surprised if the Matriarch had 9100 resist just like normal NPCs.

Increase Matriarch healing received

Healing is reduced by 50% on Matriarch. That means your big 10-12k burst heal only lands for 5-6k on the Matriarch.

You can go 50k max magicka and your Hardened Ward will protect your Matriarch with a 12k shield. But you would never use Matriarch in a max magicka build because the healing power isn't enough to keep you or your group alive. Additionally, you can't rely on spamming shields to stay alive as a healer while simultaneously healing your group.

Reduce Summon Twilight Matriarch cast time from 1.5 seconds to 1 second

At this point, it's second nature for players to 1) kill the bird pet, and 2) interrupt the summon. The cast time really needs to be reduced because 1.5 seconds is an eternity in PvP.

fred4

How about: Everything is hybrid now, so magsorc doesn't exist.

Tsunahmie

Yes (Explain why)

It's kinda bad now.
Bird heal just sucks and needs to be either 1 bar (make warden bear the same) or up the birds capabilities...more HP or more heal or untargetable.

Spammable:
Magsorc still lacks an in-class spammable.
Crushing shock is decent but there are unused skills/morphs in the sorc skill line that could be changed to become a true spammable and make use of class passives (this is a big change)

Kit:
Kit in general is okay but is definitely lacking in defensive capabilities right now. Making shields scale with weapon/spell dmge would be good as it would reflect all the other recent changes ZOS has made to stats.

Dmge wise... definitely requires a lot more skill presses for combos/burst to be used compared to other classes which is okay however this ties into kit:

Crystal frags....sucks?
Nice dmge on procc but it currently has no space on my bar for a multitude of reasons:

1:
It's not a spammable, no matter what ZOS thinks. A 0.8second cast time makes the caster extremely vulnerable in PvP and even dark conversion is usually cast in LoS for that reason. Trying to use a casted spammable in your enemies face, even from range is just asking for an interrupt.

2:
Crystal frags procc chance has been lowered to the point that even a few % less makes it less reliable than before, and noticeably so when you're trying to line up a burst window.

3:
Crystal weapons is just better. It plays into the magsorcs playstyle of light attacks from range better. (I'm not sure, does it affect Power overload?please let me know as I can't test it myself rn!)
Additionally, with magsorcs extreme barspace issues, there's no room for major breach, so reducing the targets armour is extremely nice.
Additionally Crystal weapons doesn't need to be cast all the time and is nice and RELIABLE.

So... there's definitely a few changes I would like to see for magsorc specifically, cause healing isn't the best and our 1 burst heal takes up 2 barspaces and is killable in a few hits by anyone.
With shields being pretty crap rn due to hybridisation changes, Sorc in general doesn't have the best healing as before due to not really being able to cast a shield ans heal up with a HoT so well.

Additionally, with Oakensoul gankers all over the place...I don't feel able to run around with any other mythic than Sea Serpents Coil. This kinda ties you into running spelldmge anyway so shields are an absolute no-no

So, for the reasons specified, I would say Magsorc is a solid bottom-tier class right now, but could easily be up there again with a few changes.

SkaraMinoc

Its Not Bad But It Definitely Needs A Buff (Explain in what areas)

Tsunahmie wrote: »

3:
Crystal weapons is just better. It plays into the magsorcs playstyle of light attacks from range better. (I'm not sure, does it affect Power overload?please let me know as I can't test it myself rn!)

Yes, Crystal Weapon procs on Overload and it's strong if you can actually land it during your burst window. The problem is Curse is extremely telegraphed. It's gotten to the point where most players will block/dodge/los your entire combo.

Akinos

Its Not Bad But It Definitely Needs A Buff (Explain in what areas)

The damage is there for mag sorc, just needs better regen and defense passives/skills imo. I can play any other mag class without 2500+ regen except for mag sorc.

Tsunahmie

Yes (Explain why)

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Tsunahmie wrote: »

3:
Crystal weapons is just better. It plays into the magsorcs playstyle of light attacks from range better. (I'm not sure, does it affect Power overload?please let me know as I can't test it myself rn!)

Yes, Crystal Weapon procs on Overload and it's strong if you can actually land it during your burst window. The problem is Curse is extremely telegraphed. It's gotten to the point where most players will block/dodge/los your entire combo.

Thanks for the reply and info!
Yeah, it seems like 75% of my skills get dodged atm, something definitely needs to be done in that regard as well

Emmagoldman

Yes (Explain why)

fred4 wrote: »

How about: Everything is hybrid now, so magsorc doesn't exist.

But being "hybrid" doesn't mean equal play, build or styles in the slightest. Your dmg is based upon your higher pool, and your highest pool will determine what abilities you use for dmg, defense and utility.

If you are playing on a stamsorc, you are not going to try and survive by throwing up shields and if your a magsorc, you are not going to survive by dodge rolling and blocking while using dizzy swing and execute with a small stam pool. So obviously when they same mag sorc, they are thinking of pushing a 36-50k mag pool and what would be viable.

acastanza_ESO

Yes (Explain why)

Its trash and needs serious help.
See: literally any of my many previous posts on the subject.

fred4

Emmagoldman wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

How about: Everything is hybrid now, so magsorc doesn't exist.

But being "hybrid" doesn't mean equal play, build or styles in the slightest. Your dmg is based upon your higher pool, and your highest pool will determine what abilities you use for dmg, defense and utility.

If you are playing on a stamsorc, you are not going to try and survive by throwing up shields and if your a magsorc, you are not going to survive by dodge rolling and blocking while using dizzy swing and execute with a small stam pool. So obviously when they same mag sorc, they are thinking of pushing a 36-50k mag pool and what would be viable.

Equating magsorc with a 40K+ mag pool is IMO behind the times. Malcolm was using non-shielding magsorcs before this patch. I'm not saying that's the only option, but shields have evidently become so weak that dodge rolling is one of the alternatives he switched to. As a magblade main, I've been using good stam sustain as my main defense since forever.

I'll say that stamsorc doesn't exist either anymore. Curse and Fury/Wrath have become stamsorc staples. Stamsorc has always leaned on Streak and benefited from double sustain sets, such as Eternal Vigor or Engine Guardian. If you have to put a label on it, the distinguising factors are probably whether they use Crystal Weapon or Crystal Frags, whether they're using bow or destro, whether they use Dark Deal or Dark Conversion, what their spammable is, and which resource they've invested more sustain in. Anything but their max stat pool, unless they're clearly stacking magicka and are using shields.

AdamLAD

Yes (Explain why)

Sorcerer Needs some hefty defence buffs, Id much rather them increase the cost of streak significantly but give us way better defence. We cannot just stand and sit in a fight like other classes. Block, dodgerolling and healing is all better than sheilds and guess what, they all cost less. Frags needs to be undodgeable or stun again. Both ? (might be op). The only thing we have going for us is ranged ability and streak. Everything else is subpar compared to every other class. Healing is terrible, sustain is terrible, damage is terrible, defence is extremely terrible. From what this class used to be, its atrocious now. I see more magblades 1vXing than Mag Sorcs currently. I just don't want zenimax to do a Dk treatment and buff it ridiculously, thats not what is needed. In the last 2 years nothing has really been done to magicka sorcerer but other classes have been altered and now there up with the times. We have just been left. Hybridisation cannot be utilised well at all on this class either. We are pushed into one direction and one direction only, whilst other classes have a HUGE array of options to play with in terms of sets and abilitys. Our skill set needs to be buffed to suit the new climate of PvP.

xDeusEJRx

Yes (Explain why)

Outside of Oakensorc or proc cheese playstyles, it's hurting badly.

Too many updates hurt mag sorc insanely and ruined options for sorcerer

1. Shields getting nerfed back in murkmire and never being revisited since
2. Passive health regen passive getting nerfed early 2021 due to the high health regen meta going on at the time
3. Healing off crit surge being severely gutted when crit damage was lowered due to passives going away in Cp 1.0 > 2.0 switch
4. Power creep in this game has increased substantially since 2021 CP switch and damage has literally increased so much to the point where sorc shield playstyle can't hold up very well. Damage has just gotten too much and shields are too weak to keep up to be at a competitive level. It's either you have strong shields with no damage or you have damage but no defense
5. If you want to avoid shield playstyle, sorc class is lacking proper defense, ball of lightning nerf is really bad currently. I honestly liked to use ball on mag sorc because having those defenses with shields were pretty great but ball is VERY bad in pvp right now. Absorbing 1 projectile per second is stupid when most encounters are usually 12 on 1 anyways. Re-buff ball.
6. Lack of in-class heal options, matriarch and dark exchange are main sources of in-class healing and matriarch is easy to take away from a sorc just by killing the pet. And dark exchange can be interrupted....

Sorcerer only really does well with proc cheese or brokensoul. But procs and brokensoul works on literally any build no matter what skill level you are.

Jaimeh

No (Explain why)

Most sorcs in Cyro now only bunny hop and crystal weapon light attack, and why not with each attack hitting for 7k+....

divnyi

No (Explain why)

Critical Surge heals almost like Resolving Vigor if you proc it each sec. Which comes down only to question of how much sources of dmg per second you apply, to have higher chances. And oh fun, magsorc is actually best at amount of dmg sources/sec due to force shocks counts as 3 sources, so 4 just from your attacks, +1 from boundless, +from status effects.

Then you have blood magic passive, which equals to 1600/s if you do crystal weapons rotation. Defensively, that's whole lot of ticks on daedric mines.

So HoT selfhealing is actually there, if you are on offensive or at least offensive-defense.

Shields are the second highest burst healing after werewolf if you stack magica. If you don't, well, yes, susvivability is much more of an issue, matriarch problematics are described above. Though matricarch is in fact the most broken heal when it's on.

Then, nothing forbids using healing staff.

Why I think sorc is still good?

Because it will always be good. It has the best utility on skills - best execute, best movement skill, very strong burst damage options, best ultis, best damage passives. And right now, crystal weapon, which makes it absolute best ranged damage class.

AdamLAD

Yes (Explain why)

divnyi wrote: »

Critical Surge heals almost like Resolving Vigor if you proc it each sec. Which comes down only to question of how much sources of dmg per second you apply, to have higher chances. And oh fun, magsorc is actually best at amount of dmg sources/sec due to force shocks counts as 3 sources, so 4 just from your attacks, +1 from boundless, +from status effects.

Then you have blood magic passive, which equals to 1600/s if you do crystal weapons rotation. Defensively, that's whole lot of ticks on daedric mines.

So HoT selfhealing is actually there, if you are on offensive or at least offensive-defense.

Shields are the second highest burst healing after werewolf if you stack magica. If you don't, well, yes, susvivability is much more of an issue, matriarch problematics are described above. Though matricarch is in fact the most broken heal when it's on.

Then, nothing forbids using healing staff.

Why I think sorc is still good?

Because it will always be good. It has the best utility on skills - best execute, best movement skill, very strong burst damage options, best ultis, best damage passives. And right now, crystal weapon, which makes it absolute best ranged damage class.

You have absolutely no idea what you're even talking about. "Makes it absolute best ranged class". Well OBVIOUSLY we are the ONLY one. "Shields are the 2nd best burst Heal" it's literally not even a heal. What about breath of life or coag on dk ? Critical Surge requires you to Critically hit a target. Vigour you press a button and it works. Force Shock is the best amount of damage sources ? Eveyone can use it, its not limited to a sorcerer. But i don't see everyone use it. Do you know why ? Yup you guessed it, everything is better than it. Best execution? Id rather have a Dk whip hit my target than my execute, Vampire makes Endless redundant, and 2H ult scales way higher and so does spin to win. Simply because it starts at 50% HP and gets stronger. Endless is a flat value. Clearly uneducated on the subject. Next.

NordSwordnBoard

Its Not Bad But It Definitely Needs A Buff (Explain in what areas)

My survivability would increase if streak worked when I press it. Dark deal heal could be better, I think ball of light nerf played a part in this. I've lived with weapon or other spammables it's fine we don't need one at the risk of homogenization of the class. Only run attro for pet so can't speak to them.

Really would hate to see sorc get too much then lose more than what we've got right now. Overload cheese in past updates hurt all of us in the long run.

divnyi

No (Explain why)

AdamLAD wrote: »

"Shields are the 2nd best burst Heal" it's literally not even a heal.

Yes, it's better.

AdamLAD wrote: »

What about breath of life or coag on dk ?

It crits for less than guaranteed shield amount given.

AdamLAD wrote: »

Vigour you press a button and it works.

Fun fact: you can still use vigor if you want.

AdamLAD wrote: »

Id rather have a Dk whip hit my target than my execute

Bound Armaments

AdamLAD wrote: »

2H ult scales way higher and so does spin to win.

Require exact timing instead of easy precast, as well as possible cast on low hp.

MetallicMonk

Yes (Explain why)

^ The poster above me has stated publicly that corrosive armor is the LEAST used and worst DK ultimate so take what they say with a grain of salt.

Tsunahmie

Yes (Explain why)

divnyi wrote: »

Critical Surge heals almost like Resolving Vigor if you proc it each sec. Which comes down only to question of how much sources of dmg per second you apply, to have higher chances. And oh fun, magsorc is actually best at amount of dmg sources/sec due to force shocks counts as 3 sources, so 4 just from your attacks, +1 from boundless, +from status effects.

Then you have blood magic passive, which equals to 1600/s if you do crystal weapons rotation. Defensively, that's whole lot of ticks on daedric mines.

So HoT selfhealing is actually there, if you are on offensive or at least offensive-defense.

Shields are the second highest burst healing after werewolf if you stack magica. If you don't, well, yes, susvivability is much more of an issue, matriarch problematics are described above. Though matricarch is in fact the most broken heal when it's on.

Then, nothing forbids using healing staff.

Why I think sorc is still good?

Because it will always be good. It has the best utility on skills - best execute, best movement skill, very strong burst damage options, best ultis, best damage passives. And right now, crystal weapon, which makes it absolute best ranged damage class.

This guy has obviously never played sorc in his life before commenting.

AdamLAD

Yes (Explain why)

divnyi wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

"Shields are the 2nd best burst Heal" it's literally not even a heal.

Yes, it's better.

AdamLAD wrote: »

What about breath of life or coag on dk ?

It crits for less than guaranteed shield amount given.

AdamLAD wrote: »

Vigour you press a button and it works.

Fun fact: you can still use vigor if you want.

AdamLAD wrote: »

Id rather have a Dk whip hit my target than my execute

Bound Armaments

AdamLAD wrote: »

2H ult scales way higher and so does spin to win.

Require exact timing instead of easy precast, as well as possible cast on low hp.

You must really hate sorcerers, or your very uneducated on this matter. If its so easy, go right ahead and play one. Everything is amazing on a sorcerer ? Go ahead, by all means, show me your biggest 1vX on one. Id love to see it.

divnyi

No (Explain why)

AdamLAD wrote: »

Go ahead, by all means, show me your biggest 1vX on one.

Ah, 1vX as the measurement of success again *facepalms*

AdamLAD

Yes (Explain why)

divnyi wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

Go ahead, by all means, show me your biggest 1vX on one.

Ah, 1vX as the measurement of success again *facepalms*

This tells me everything I need to know. Which server do you play on ? Hopefully its xbox eu

Tsunahmie

Yes (Explain why)

divnyi wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

Go ahead, by all means, show me your biggest 1vX on one.

Ah, 1vX as the measurement of success again *facepalms*

Even group play sadly.
Ask around if people would rather have a stamsorc or a magsorc in their smallscale group
Outside of being a negate bot sorc doesn't offer much apart from an unblockable stun and this is something both mag and stamsorc can provide woth no problems.
The difference being that a stam/hybrid sorc will have better AoE dmge (bow) and better burst (melee with balorgh dawnbreaker ultidump)

So even then, your snorting at 1vX doesn't really hold any value

divnyi

No (Explain why)

Tsunahmie wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

Go ahead, by all means, show me your biggest 1vX on one.

Ah, 1vX as the measurement of success again *facepalms*

Even group play sadly.
Ask around if people would rather have a stamsorc or a magsorc in their smallscale group

Your measurement of quality is skewed by cyro and it's zergs. For you, it's either 1vX or 4vX, because you never get fair fights with equal amount of players. And even when you do, it's generally like 20v20 waves with DCs flying around, so only AoE ulti dumps matter, and then you just LoS and stack all heals.

Luckily, not all PvP is as trashy as cyro.

https://youtu.be/M8j7uK3Uk78

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbkOY4Mtic0

I've checked how my sorc fares today, recorded some games. Doesn't feel bad at all.

Urzigurumash

Its Not Bad But It Definitely Needs A Buff (Explain in what areas)

.

MetallicMonk

Yes (Explain why)

divnyi wrote: »

Tsunahmie wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

Go ahead, by all means, show me your biggest 1vX on one.

Ah, 1vX as the measurement of success again *facepalms*

Even group play sadly.
Ask around if people would rather have a stamsorc or a magsorc in their smallscale group

Your measurement of quality is skewed by cyro and it's zergs. For you, it's either 1vX or 4vX, because you never get fair fights with equal amount of players. And even when you do, it's generally like 20v20 waves with DCs flying around, so only AoE ulti dumps matter, and then you just LoS and stack all heals.

Luckily, not all PvP is as trashy as cyro.

https://youtu.be/M8j7uK3Uk78

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbkOY4Mtic0

I've checked how my sorc fares today, recorded some games. Doesn't feel bad at all.

You basically just did the PvP equivalent of queueing for a random normal dungeon, posting it, then saying hey this class is fine.

Tsunahmie

Yes (Explain why)

divnyi wrote: »

Tsunahmie wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

Go ahead, by all means, show me your biggest 1vX on one.

Ah, 1vX as the measurement of success again *facepalms*

Even group play sadly.
Ask around if people would rather have a stamsorc or a magsorc in their smallscale group

Your measurement of quality is skewed by cyro and it's zergs. For you, it's either 1vX or 4vX, because you never get fair fights with equal amount of players. And even when you do, it's generally like 20v20 waves with DCs flying around, so only AoE ulti dumps matter, and then you just LoS and stack all heals.

Luckily, not all PvP is as trashy as cyro.

https://youtu.be/M8j7uK3Uk78

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbkOY4Mtic0

I've checked how my sorc fares today, recorded some games. Doesn't feel bad at all.

I would like everyone to know what build you are using. You literally have 0 dmge and do nothing on this build. Your first clip highlights this clear as day.
In clip two I stopped watching after you killed 2 people who couldn't be bothered to self heal. That's the level of BG you were in.
Clip three is your group sticking together and killing 2s and 3s of the other group. I watched your damage numbers closely and it is very fair to say that you're not contributing as much as you think you are. Those numbers are low.

As we have already discussed in another thread, your build is BG viable, but barely. It seems like you're relying on surviving long enough for your team to bale you out if you stray from them.
The other things I noticed are kinda KekW:
The templar fight in clip three...1 streak and they would have stopped blockcasting immediately. Something to think about. It's literally the best grouptool a sorc brings to PVP outside of negate.
You're not even providing that.

Brrrofski

Its Not Bad But It Definitely Needs A Buff (Explain in what areas)

Imagine posting a BG and using it to show the class. When 90% of every BG is pve players getting xp and no clue what they're doing.

Also, you called sorc execute the best, but you're not using it?

I don't think magsorc is trash. I still think the burst can be very good, albeit it a bit predictable. I've been using dawnbreaker for a while now. Bit less predictable than lining up burst and hitting meteor.

It has good mobility too. But defensively, it leaves a lot to be desired. Especially healing.

Luede

Yes (Explain why)

fred4 wrote: »

How about: Everything is hybrid now, so magsorc doesn't exist.

not quite fitting, since your hybrid version is a Stam sorc

olsborg

Its Not Bad But It Definitely Needs A Buff (Explain in what areas)

wards and shields (damage shields) are just not that good anymore, they are ok , but the real winners is HoTs or good burst heals, magsorc (and stamsorc) need better selfhealing...however stamsorc first need a little nerf because crystal weapon is currently overtuned.