Hardened Ward heal making it to live is a mistake and needs to be changed

StaticWave · April 15

Was dueling a Dizzy magsorc ealier. I was on HP Sorc. Here was the CMX result:

My DPS:

His DPS:

My healing:

I asked how long he's played the class and this was his response:

I assume he was a good player on Templar, but the fact that he only played Sorc for 2 days, and could still compete with a 5 year Sorc main is dumb. There is zero learning curve on Sorc this patch. I could tell he was new to the class because his defensive rotation was rather long, but he had good shield uptime at least. However, if he had played Sorc last patch, he would have died much sooner with Ward not having a burst heal.

Also, the fact that I had to combine Surge + Vigor + Blood Magic + Ward with decent crit resist and armor to tank 4.4k DPS, while he did it in a FULL damage build with only Ward + Crit Surge and occasional Blood Magic heal is absurd.

Jsmalls · April 15

@StaticWave

Still in agreeance that Ward is Overtuned but....

Id put money on the fact that he was running Rally Cry, Wretched, and DDF (one of those could potentially be swapped out for Crafty) and is playing arguably the BEST dueling setup in the game right now. These two sets bring the skill floor way up (with their casual proc condition and potential 100% uptime), and DDF gives more health to make up for mistakes made. Having over 30k health AND a 13k+ ward is very strong.

Id love to see the same player in a duel without these two sets on the same class and see how it would turn out. You've stated multiple times that your setups are very crit damage oriented. And this guy probably has well over 3000 crit resist negating most if not all of your bonus crit damage.

That also being said this setup falls off in Open World PvP. Where I literally see NO ONE running a 2-Hander Sorc.

I'm not saying it's right by any means, but Sorcs are the new DKs of dueling. A couple patches ago dueling a DK was useless, now dueling a Sorc is useless. Things is DK was never "nerfed". Things just got buffed above and beyond them.

StaticWave · April 15

Jsmalls wrote: »

@StaticWave

Still in agreeance that Ward is Overtuned but....

Id put money on the fact that he was running Rally Cry, Wretched, and DDF (one of those could potentially be swapped out for Crafty) and is playing arguably the BEST dueling setup in the game right now. These two sets bring the skill floor way up (with their casual proc condition and potential 100% uptime), and DDF gives more health to make up for mistakes made. Having over 30k health AND a 13k+ ward is very strong.

Id love to see the same player in a duel without these two sets on the same class and see how it would turn out. You've stated multiple times that your setups are very crit damage oriented. And this guy probably has well over 3000 crit resist negating most if not all of your bonus crit damage.

That also being said this setup falls off in Open World PvP. Where I literally see NO ONE running a 2-Hander Sorc.

I'm not saying it's right by any means, but Sorcs are the new DKs of dueling. A couple patches ago dueling a DK was useless, now dueling a Sorc is useless. Things is DK was never "nerfed". Things just got buffed above and beyond them.

I’ve seen a few on Dizzy magsorcs in Cyrodiil. I definitely saw Grahamster, Kog83, and the guy in my previous comment. I reckon there might be more but I’m not sure. It’s easier to play ranged Sorc for an average player tbh.

Jsmalls · April 15

Id argue Range Sorc is more effective in an Open World scenario. 2-Hander Dizzy Sorc may have a higher damage potential, but Dizzying swing is extremely hard to use when LoS or multiple targets are involved. And also requires you being in melee range when the rest of your kit has range potential.

Id also put money on the fact that you put a Dizzying Swing Sorc and myself in a group and capture damage done in a 10 minute Open World fight that I would completely out pace them.

So while I 100% agree it's easier to play Range Sorc id also say Range Sorc has significantly higher potential open world.

Jsmalls · April 15

Sorcerer
Dark Magic
Blood Magic: This passive now activates when you cast a Dark Magic ability with a cost, rather than when you hit an enemy with a directly applied Dark Magic ability. This was done to make the passive more reliable and easy to understand.

Guess I was wrong. Guess they also nerfed Crystal weapon healing. Shame. Guess dark conversion/deal with have a larger burst heal though...

jaws343 · April 15

Jsmalls wrote: »

Sorcerer
Dark Magic
Blood Magic: This passive now activates when you cast a Dark Magic ability with a cost, rather than when you hit an enemy with a directly applied Dark Magic ability. This was done to make the passive more reliable and easy to understand.

Guess I was wrong. Guess they also nerfed Crystal weapon healing. Shame. Guess dark conversion/deal with have a larger burst heal though...

I guess I am either reading it wrong or misunderstanding, but this sounds like a direct buff to Blood Magic. Pretty much every skill cast from the skill line will heal you now, rather than rely on hitting a target. Since every skill in the skill line has a cost associated with it.

TechMaybeHic · April 15

Sorcs apparently still needed more healing

Jsmalls · April 15

jaws343 wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

Sorcerer
Dark Magic
Blood Magic: This passive now activates when you cast a Dark Magic ability with a cost, rather than when you hit an enemy with a directly applied Dark Magic ability. This was done to make the passive more reliable and easy to understand.

Guess I was wrong. Guess they also nerfed Crystal weapon healing. Shame. Guess dark conversion/deal with have a larger burst heal though...

I guess I am either reading it wrong or misunderstanding, but this sounds like a direct buff to Blood Magic. Pretty much every skill cast from the skill line will heal you now, rather than rely on hitting a target. Since every skill in the skill line has a cost associated with it.

Previously you'd get two ticks of healing from Blood Magic from Crystal Weapons and it would come in the middle of combat (if the ability hit which considering you had 5 seconds to hit two light attacks it generally would). Now you'll only see one heal in the "buff" stage.

This honestly is a "buff" for Mag Sorc because frag is an ability frequently dodged and this will make it so that doesn't matter. Hard casting frags kind of also got more appealing.

But it's a Stam Sorc nerf.

Dark conversion is going to be giving some juicy heals now though.

jaws343 · April 15

Jsmalls wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

Sorcerer
Dark Magic
Blood Magic: This passive now activates when you cast a Dark Magic ability with a cost, rather than when you hit an enemy with a directly applied Dark Magic ability. This was done to make the passive more reliable and easy to understand.

Guess I was wrong. Guess they also nerfed Crystal weapon healing. Shame. Guess dark conversion/deal with have a larger burst heal though...

I guess I am either reading it wrong or misunderstanding, but this sounds like a direct buff to Blood Magic. Pretty much every skill cast from the skill line will heal you now, rather than rely on hitting a target. Since every skill in the skill line has a cost associated with it.

Previously you'd get two ticks of healing from Blood Magic from Crystal Weapons and it would come in the middle of combat (if the ability hit which considering you had 5 seconds to hit two light attacks it generally would). Now you'll only see one heal in the "buff" stage.

This honestly is a "buff" for Mag Sorc because frag is an ability frequently dodged and this will make it so that doesn't matter. Hard casting frags kind of also got more appealing.

But it's a Stam Sorc nerf.

Dark conversion is going to be giving some juicy heals now though.

Ah, I see. Didn't realize that it ticked twice for that.

But yeah, the heal on frag cast is very enticing. Especially from a PVE perspective. But in PVP, it might make the chance of being interrupted worth the risk a little bit more.

Jsmalls · April 15

What I actually didn't consider is this makes the encase heal more enticing.... Will need to look into that more.

jaws343 · April 15

Jsmalls wrote: »

What I actually didn't consider is this makes the encase heal more enticing.... Will need to look into that more.

Takes my 9K tooltip encase heal, and with the changes would add another 3500 healing on top. So 12,500 heal on activating it. Yeah, pretty strong, and that 9K can still crit.

Priyasekarssk · April 15

Is this post a joke or troll ?
I cannot take serious of this post. If tool tip matches with NB healthy offering and other similar class heals what's the problem here. Skill. NB has shadow image also passive speed boost. With vampire everyone can teleport skills. 2 hander gap closers. Finally mage sorc has some potential in duel. Just bring every class heal on board . Healthy offering, coagulating blood, arcanist shield stack, templar heals, warden polar heals. Crybabies always cry when something good happen to balance the game calling everyone biased.

Also Post owner is so biased he didnt even take from cyrodil. Intentionally and biased conveniently taken screen shot and fight from PVE zone. Shield is half strength. I never gone past beyond 7k shield in an optimal build in cyrodil. Also heal is inline with other classes have in cyrodil. ZOS just taken installing healing out of pet.

Its no way near game breaking that ESO ever faced.

xylena_lazarow · April 16

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

I never gone past beyond 7k shield in an optimal build in cyrodil.

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

Is this post a joke or troll?

...
Anyway, 10.0 no change to Ward, Sorc healing further buffed, and PTS templates leaked onto live. What a start.

StaticWave · April 16

Jsmalls wrote: »

Sorcerer
Dark Magic
Blood Magic: This passive now activates when you cast a Dark Magic ability with a cost, rather than when you hit an enemy with a directly applied Dark Magic ability. This was done to make the passive more reliable and easy to understand.

Guess I was wrong. Guess they also nerfed Crystal weapon healing. Shame. Guess dark conversion/deal with have a larger burst heal though...

yea and on my max HP build, Blood Magic crits for 4k. Imagine getting a 12k heal from casting Dark Deal, while under a 12k shield with an also 7k burst heal Ward lol. Balanced

StaticWave · April 16

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

Is this post a joke or troll ?
I cannot take serious of this post. If tool tip matches with NB healthy offering and other similar class heals what's the problem here. Skill. NB has shadow image also passive speed boost. With vampire everyone can teleport skills. 2 hander gap closers. Finally mage sorc has some potential in duel. Just bring every class heal on board . Healthy offering, coagulating blood, arcanist shield stack, templar heals, warden polar heals. Crybabies always cry when something good happen to balance the game calling everyone biased.

Also Post owner is so biased he didnt even take from cyrodil. Intentionally and biased conveniently taken screen shot and fight from PVE zone. Shield is half strength. I never gone past beyond 7k shield in an optimal build in cyrodil. Also heal is inline with other classes have in cyrodil. ZOS just taken installing healing out of pet.

Its no way near game breaking that ESO ever faced.

Let's 1v1. I can't really be bothered arguing with you lol

Bushido2513 · April 16

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

I never gone past beyond 7k shield in an optimal build in cyrodil.

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

Is this post a joke or troll?

...
Anyway, 10.0 no change to Ward, Sorc healing further buffed, and PTS templates leaked onto live. What a start.

So now I wonder does this thread continue to get bumped through this next patch cycle while ZOS clearly continues to do whatever they had planned mostly regardless of the feedback?

I was thinking there might actually be a change and who knows there still might but clearly they are focused on their next endeavor so that would lead me to think they are mostly just going to leave things as is.

StaticWave · April 16

Bushido2513 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

I never gone past beyond 7k shield in an optimal build in cyrodil.

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

Is this post a joke or troll?

...
Anyway, 10.0 no change to Ward, Sorc healing further buffed, and PTS templates leaked onto live. What a start.

So now I wonder does this thread continue to get bumped through this next patch cycle while ZOS clearly continues to do whatever they had planned mostly regardless of the feedback?

I was thinking there might actually be a change and who knows there still might but clearly they are focused on their next endeavor so that would lead me to think they are mostly just going to leave things as is.

Are you sure they even read the thread or are interested lol

StaticWave · April 16

@Jsmalls @xylena_lazarow @Turtle_Bot

That Blood Magic change is actually pretty balanced and could allow you to use Dark Conversion/Dark Deal as a "burst heal". Consider this tooltip for Blood Magic with 30k HP:

And then look at Dark Conversion and Dark Deal:

With the new change, activating Dark Conversion will give you a combined 13k burst heal tooltip, and activating Dark Deal will give 11k.

But wait, that's not the only thing. Vibrant Shroud is also a Dark Magic ability too! So now you have this tooltip on Encase in a damage build:

That's a total of 13.5k burst heal at 30k HP if we use Encase, not to mention Major Maim and Minor Vitality.

I think it's fair that Ward receives a fat nerf right now with how much healing ZOS gave us by changing 1 passive.

TechMaybeHic · April 16

I'd argue recently that perhaps if they are paying attention to any threads, they should more pay attention to their work.

StaticWave · April 16

jaws343 wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

What I actually didn't consider is this makes the encase heal more enticing.... Will need to look into that more.

Takes my 9K tooltip encase heal, and with the changes would add another 3500 healing on top. So 12,500 heal on activating it. Yeah, pretty strong, and that 9K can still crit.

I have a 10.1k tooltip for Encase and 4k tooltip for Blood Magic. That puts it at 14.1k, just 1k less than Healthy Offering, but it is full AoE and applies Major Maim and Minor Vitality. The cost is not that much of a concern considering Warden's Artic Blast costs similar. Sorc just got a massive buff with this single passive rework.

Ren_TheRedFox · April 16

@StaticWave Vibrant Shroud can replace the matriarch now completely since that extra 3k was the difference between those both two .... time for a HoT sorc era peops

StaticWave · April 16

Ren_TheRedFox wrote: »

@StaticWave Vibrant Shroud can replace the matriarch now completely since that extra 3k was the difference between those both two .... time for a HoT sorc era peops

Right? Sorc just got massively buffed in the healing department lol

HowlKimchi · April 16

everyone gets an honor the dead!

Turtle_Bot · April 16

StaticWave wrote: »

@Jsmalls @xylena_lazarow @Turtle_Bot

That Blood Magic change is actually pretty balanced and could allow you to use Dark Conversion/Dark Deal as a "burst heal". Consider this tooltip for Blood Magic with 30k HP:

And then look at Dark Conversion and Dark Deal:

With the new change, activating Dark Conversion will give you a combined 13k burst heal tooltip, and activating Dark Deal will give 11k.

But wait, that's not the only thing. Vibrant Shroud is also a Dark Magic ability too! So now you have this tooltip on Encase in a damage build:

That's a total of 13.5k burst heal at 30k HP if we use Encase, not to mention Major Maim and Minor Vitality.

I think it's fair that Ward receives a fat nerf right now with how much healing ZOS gave us by changing 1 passive.

The first thing I thought seeing this change to the blood magic passive was, yeah, wards burst heal should be a HoT now so the ability is a fully proactive defensive ability like other classes HoTs instead of it's current mixed proactive/reactive defensive ability. Making the heal into a HoT now with this change to the blood magic passive would allow the "new" vibrant shroud ability (and to an extent dark exchange/morphs) to function as the class's "burst heal" as I'm sure was originally intended with the changes made in U41.

I still don't think that ward should be "fat nerfed" (as in gutted) outside of potentially adjusting the scaling to raise the floor for more balanced builds while lowering the ceiling on dedicated max mag stacking builds (as was brought up earlier by Xylena).

This change to blood magic (ignoring the unintended power level of max mag stacking and ward) is definitely something that was a good (and balanced) change and is one very good step towards addressing one of the main pain points that the majority of sorcs have been asking to be addressed (tidying up/updating of the class passives, making them more reliable, usable and/or synergistic to the classes overall kit, not just the pets).

Seeing this change to the blood magic passive, I am actually kind of hopeful now that ZOS is actually listening and at least trying to have sorc changes move in the direction that is being asked for by sorc mains.

Some adjustments are still missing, and some have unintended interactions, but from what it seems the intentions behind the changes this year so far, they appear to be trying to get things moving in the right direction for the class and for no-pet sorcs in particular.
- Vibrant shroud (a burst heal not tied to pets/cast time).
- blood magic and expert summoner changes (tidying up/update of class passives).
- Improving lightning splash AoE (although this missed the mark, they are at least aware of how bad this ability is)
- Tying many of these changes to not having pets active (address no-pet sorc while trying not to over buff pet sorc)
- Shattering Spines (giving sorc some reliable/spammable AoE/CC that works for PvE and is not streak)
- Ward (trying to give ward some sort of utility that has proven an effective way to buff wards without absurd size changes)

So far on the list of pain points raised for sorc in U36 last year, we have the following outcomes:

Burst heal not tied to pets - Addressed in full with the addition of Vibrant Shroud and this change to blood magic passive. I doubt ward was intended to address this issue despite it turning out that way.
More reliable healing over time - Mostly addressed thanks to the blood magic passive change.
Tidying up of class passives - In progress.
Buffing no-pet sorc in PvE - in progress.
Lack of Cleave - mostly addressed thanks to Spines rework.
Bar space - Still not much progress here.

To finish addressing the pain points raised back then, changes that aim to do the following should be looked into:

Burst heal not tied to pets
- Nothing required.
More reliable healing over time:
- Make ward burst heal into a HoT that scales off damage instead of max stats.
Tidying up of class passives:
- Add mag recovery to daedric protection.
- Change capacitor to buff proc chance and/or damage of concussed status effect.
Buffing no-pet sorc in PvE:
- Lightning Splash/morphs need actual DPS buffs including increased damage of the DoT portion and a debuff that boosts shock damage taken, except from pets (can reduce/remove damage of synergy to do this)
- Have 1 morph of negate be a true PvE DPS ability on par with atro, but for no-pet sorcs specifically.
- Revert Prey bonus pet damage taken debuff from 45% down to 20% or 25%.
Lack of Cleave:
- Addressed by changes made to Lightning Splash/Lightning Form above/below respectively.
Bar space:
- Major prophecy/savagery instead of max stats on bound armor/morphs (frees up slot taken by inner light/camo hunter, also hybridizes this ability into Support/DPS instead of mag/stam).
- Major breach on haunting curse (frees up bar slot taken by ele sus).
- Lightning form/morphs tick rate reverted to 1 second and base radius increased to 7m to match the new melee attack range (makes both morphs worth slotting to free up the monster set).

Since it will inevitably be brought up by the anti-sorc brigade on the forums, here is the TL//DR of the nerfs/buffs brought about with the changes made above:

Nerfs:

-15% max mag (-8% from BA, -5% from inner light, -2% from MG passive)
-2% mag recovery (from MG passive)
prey bonus pet damage halved (since lightning splash/lightning form are now actually good abilities)
ward burst heal is now a HoT (no more burst heal under the shield)
ward heal over time scales off damage instead of max stats (cannot have both a big HoT and a big shield at the same time because building for raw damage takes away from max stats and building for max stats takes away from raw damage)

In other words, lower damage, smaller wards, pets kept in line with other classes.
Buffs:

Lightning Splash is a good ability for PvE no pet sorc.
Lightning form is worth running again as a reliable DoT (mostly buffs PvE, but has a small buff for PvP via slightly more frequent crit surge procs).
Bound armaments are usable for all sorcs and the class that wants max crit chance finally has the named buff for that in the class kit.
Haunting curse has utility for no-pet solo sorcs on par with prey in PvE and frees sorcs weapon choice from destro to get breach in PvP.
1 morph of negate is actually viable for PvE no-pet sorc.
Sorc gets to potentially build around/benefit from concussed like DK does burning and warden does chilled (more build diversity/viable theme builds is always good).

In other words, no-pet builds brought up to other classes/pet builds for PvE, some additional utility in PvP, better/more viable build diversity that's not just pets or weapon abilities/procs.

Some nice things to have would be 1 morph each of overload and fury to be more traditional "options" for a "cheap burst ulti"/"execute" respectively to give unique choices from the morphs of those 2 abilities instead of "both morphs are the same ability", but these aren't addressing actual pain points raised for the class and would be more something cool to try and help create some additional build diversity for the class once the pain points for the class were all addressed.

Edit:

I'd also like to see 1 morph of dark exchange become purely a sustain/buff ability instead of the hybrid heal/sustain ability that it currently is.
Something like:

Dark Exchange
- This ability now restores magicka or stamina (whichever max is higher). This applies to both the burst restore and the restore over time. This abilities cost is based on the lower of max magicka or stamina.
  - Dark Conversion:
  - Dark Deal:
    - Removed the Cast time of this ability. This ability no longer has an upfront heal or stamina restore. Instead this ability now grants Minor Berserk, Minor Force, 1314 spell critical rating and 180 bonus health, magicka and stamina recovery for 30 seconds.
We have decided to split this ability into 2 different directions to better equal stamina and magicka builds and give more flexibility in the players choices in which direction they wish to go with this ability.
Dark conversion will remain as the existing healing + sustain option with a 1 second cast time that sorcerers are already used to, but will now restore whichever max resource is highest and cost whichever max resource is lowest. It will now also grant a small regen bonus over its duration to whichever max resource is lower.
Dark deal will now focus on buffing the sorcerer for a longer duration but in exchange this morph will no longer heal or have an upfront resource restore. To account for the removal of the heal and upfront sustain, the cast time has also been removed from this morph.
We hope that by differentiating these morphs in this way it will allow players to choose if they want to keep the burst heal + sustain combination in 1 bar slot or remove the awkwardness of the cast time and gain additional buffs, but to heal themselves will require using an additional bar slot.

DustyWarehouse · April 16

ZOS say they read the forums and listen to feedback. This has been the most popular thread in the category since it was posted just after Update 41 and I've seen no acknowledgement of it from ZOS.

I was quietly hoping for something in yesterday's PTS notes to address the imbalance but instead we see sorc got a buff.

I can only assume the combat team were viweing the ward changes through a PvE lens. Anyone who spends any amount of time in PvP can see how strong it has made sorc.

If ZOS still flatly refuse to balance PvE and PvP separately, at least do something in battle spirit.

Bushido2513 · April 16

DustyWarehouse wrote: »

ZOS say they read the forums and listen to feedback. This has been the most popular thread in the category since it was posted just after Update 41 and I've seen no acknowledgement of it from ZOS.

I was quietly hoping for something in yesterday's PTS notes to address the imbalance but instead we see sorc got a buff.

I can only assume the combat team were viweing the ward changes through a PvE lens. Anyone who spends any amount of time in PvP can see how strong it has made sorc.

If ZOS still flatly refuse to balance PvE and PvP separately, at least do something in battle spirit.

It's more like you're taking a trip with ZOS and you are the passenger. You can't change the destination they were already heading to no matter how much you complain and the radio keeps switching to a genre at least one person in the car likes while the others don't, leading you to have to wait for your song to come up and just mostly accept and or complain but not really have a say.

DustyWarehouse · April 16

Bushido2513 wrote: »

It's more like you're taking a trip with ZOS and you are the passenger. You can't change the destination they were already heading to no matter how much you complain and the radio keeps switching to a genre at least one person in the car likes while the others don't, leading you to have to wait for your song to come up and just mostly accept and or complain but not really have a say.

This is a great analolgy. I would add that the GPS is broken and the driver is quite flustered.

Durham · April 18

24 pages tells me there are issues!

Bushido2513 · April 18

Durham wrote: »

24 pages tells me there are issues!

Actually there's more to it than number of pages when you take into account that there are people that feel more or less passionate about it one way or the other.

Also with what I'm seeing from scribing I think it's about to not be a big deal at all 😂

RomanRex · April 18

Clearly the obsessive posting here doesn’t add up with what devs are seeing on the back end or we would have seen a change to Hardened Ward right out of the gate on PTS.

From what I have read, new scribing will allow people to destroy shields with ease making this change (burst heal) to Hardened Ward more important that ever. Very glad it hasn’t been touched for now.