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

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

After removing some unnecessary back and forth from this thread, we would like everyone to keep posts on the subject at hand, civil, and constructive. If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding.

Jsmalls

@StaticWave

Some of your more recent comments are stretching a bit. I recognize that what you mentioned was for the "meta" playstyle but Bound Aegis has been a viable option for several patches now, I wouldn't consider it a buff for "this patch".

Running all magicka enchants? Try walking around with 24-26k health in cyrodiil (you're assuming everyone runs death dealer fete which would put you on that higher side of 26-27k). I tried 24k health recently in Open world Cryodiil, and I got bullied. And I would consider myself pretty good at positioning and defensive play. That loss of 8% health was also always active if you used Bound Aegis so from that 10% additional passive you had to reassign about 5% of that value back to your health if you wanted to stay at the same threshold as before. I generally play with the lowest health threshold possible (because I've always been pretty solid with Ward usage) and even I can't handle health values with all Magicka enchants.

I've stated in the past ~1-2 years ago that Sorcs were NOT in a good place damage wise. I'm pretty sure we compared setups stat for stat between myself and metallic monk back in those times and I was ahead in flat damage and he was ahead in crit damage but numerically nothing was an outlier from either side.

Back in those times frags were hitting for 6-8k and curses for 4-6k. This is when Sorcerers were at their WORST in my opinion. Everyone has 35k health, those values weren't doing anything.

Then we got minor berserk/force on dark conversion/deal, bound aegis 8% was active on both bars, and now we got 10% more magicka as a passive.

So it seems ZoS agreed that's Sorcs damage was NOT in a good place.

And maybe I'm bias but I think right now it's exactly where it should be. You're seeing 10k frags? Perfect. If a player is setup for damage that's where it should be. You have Merciless resolve hitting for 50% higher than that on a brawler blade. Sorcs are suppose to be competitive with Nightblades burst.

@Turtle_Bot and @StaticWave

If we lose the magicka passives we're going to be right back where we were 2 years ago. Mediocre damage and mediocre defense. Vibrant Shroud may be a viable burst heal next update, but it still doesn't synergize with low health recovery like other classes do.

Ward is very close to being well balanced. I would like to see how the HoT would play out. But once again the initial ward value is around where it needs to be (with outliers above 55k magicka). I play around a lot with what values feel comfortable open world. Go play with Dampen Magicka at a 13k value open world and let me know how it feels (this is rhetorical I can tell you it feels AWFUL).

That's where we're gonna be at with Hardened Ward with a HoT and loss of that 15% magicka "passives".

You'll be FORCED into the same cookie cutter setups to make Ward even an option. 50k magicka feels like the MINIMUM to play competitively with (outside of Rallying Cry). That would force crafty alfiq / ancient grace into every Mag Sorc setup in the game. And we don't even know what that feels like with a HoT instead of a burst heal right now.

Then damage would take a massive hit. Would be slightly higher than those values from 2 years ago. Sorcs will once again have a mediocre offense in today's meta.

I think the 10% Magicka passive did a great job in offering the ability to diversify set choices while still have the option for Ward to be viable. It's overpowered with specifics setups at moment and Overtuned with meta setups.

But toss on something other than 60k magicka and Rallying cry and you'll quickly see that its not completely out of line with current healing capabilities.

xylena_lazarow

I think I'm just going to start demanding NB buffs because I'm bad at NB.

I keep trying to cloak but I keep being revealed? Cloak should last 20 seconds and be unbreakable.

My combos keep missing? Spectral bow and Incap should both be unblockable and undodgeable.

I can't heal through being zerged? Healthy Offering doesn't heal enough. Make it bigger. And add a damage shield on top if it. I mean it's so unfair that Sorcs get a burst heal that also shields them, and my NB doesn't???

xylena_lazarow

No wait I'm still gonna die sometimes. Damage shield and burst heal attached to cloak, please.

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

The people defending the state of Sorcs in this thread is really just astounding to me.

The only counter-arguments I've seen can basically be summed up as "the numbers aren't THAT high" and "Well I can still die on my Sorc under X conditions"

Even if you could argue Hardened Ward is on equal footing with skills on tankier classes such as Warden or DK (which it is still provably better), it wouldn't change the fact it is an incredibly strong skill on class with an already incredibly insane toolkit. Streak was already an annoying skill to deal with being a Blink that also not only does damage, but also applies an un-dodgeable and unblockable stun in an area with such a misleadingly large hit-box that it will stun people by accident. Those 2 skills combined just makes fighting Sorcs the most frustrating experience in PvP on any class.

EDIT: My autocorrect changed Streak to Steak. I corrected my autocorrect.

It's interesting to me when people talk about sorc and then mention insane toolkit. Add ward change and now it's an insane toolkit when just before magsorc was considered mediocre and something you played if you just loved the class.

Sorc isn't the only one those counter arguments have been used for, just the most recent.

Idk if you're underestimating the power increase of U41 magsorc by receiving 2 simple buffs, but Sorc got ALOT more indirect buffs than what's shown on the patch notes. Here are the 2 direct buffs with the most significant impact:

- Ward change:

- Expert Summoner passive change:

In U40, if you were in a standard Rally/Wretched/Chudan/DDF build, you'd have around 38.5k max mag, 24.7k max stam, and 4816 spell damage:

In U41, you get 10% max mag AND stam, so that becomes 42k max mag and 27k max stam. The spell damage is unchanged:

A 3.5k extra max mag and 2.3k extra magstam. Sure you lost the 8% max HP, but it was only active when your shield is up anyway, so that doesn't matter. Now this was just the direct changes you could see. The indirect changes are a result of Ward getting a burst heal. You see, that burst heal is so strong that magsorc can now drop Vigor for Bound Aegis, and drop Undo for Dawnbreaker/another ulti of their choice. This is U41 magsorc when you account for the indirect changes:

By replacing Vigor and Undo with Bound Aegis and Dawnbreaker, magsorc now has 44.7k max mag and 4929 spell damage. That's an extra 6.2k max mag and 113 spell damage compared to U40 magsorc. But wait, you can also run full max mag glyphs too because Ward is THAT strong:

47.3k max mag and 24.7k max stam. An 8.8k extra max mag compared to U40 magsorc, and you still have the same amount of max stam.

2 simple changes gave magsorc 8.8k extra max mag and 113 spell damage. If you convert the max mag to spell damage, it's 10.5 magicka for every 1 spell damage, as taken from AlcastHQ website:

8.8k max mag is equivalent to 838 spell damage when using this conversion. Of course some skills will scale better with max mag, and some better with max spell damage, but that's the general conversion ratio.

U41 magsorc got ~950 extra spell damage equivalent with 2 simple changes, and their shield is also BIGGER as well. Much bigger. This is what most people conveniently forget to discuss about. It's not just Ward. It's the fact that Sorc's damage also got giga buffed as a direct and indirect result of the buffs.

Sorc's toolkit has always been insane. The class was just shadowed by other classes getting loads of buffs over the years. 2 simple changes elevated Sorc to top tier status, so that speaks a lot of volume about how strong the class already was.

EDIT: Ignore the Crystal Weapon morph. I forgot to change it to Crystal Fragment.

I think that sorc performs very well at this point and there's little doubt about that. What I'm saying is that when I think of an insane toolkit I'm thinking NB level where a lot of the skills are just more overloaded than they need to be.

As a comparison you can strip more things away from NB and have it still be highly functional. Strip things away from magsorc and you could easily cripple it.

So to me if your insane toolkit is so easily disabled by removing xyz skill or minor changes then it's not really that insane.

I definitely wouldn't say sorc needs further buffs exactly but that it certainly could use a rework that would lead to the bar space and level of choices that some other classes enjoy.

Turtle_Bot

Jsmalls wrote: »

@Turtle_Bot and @StaticWave

If we lose the magicka passives we're going to be right back where we were 2 years ago. Mediocre damage and mediocre defense. Vibrant Shroud may be a viable burst heal next update, but it still doesn't synergize with low health recovery like other classes do.

Ward is very close to being well balanced. I would like to see how the HoT would play out. But once again the initial ward value is around where it needs to be (with outliers above 55k magicka). I play around a lot with what values feel comfortable open world. Go play with Dampen Magicka at a 13k value open world and let me know how it feels (this is rhetorical I can tell you it feels AWFUL).

That's where we're gonna be at with Hardened Ward with a HoT and loss of that 15% magicka "passives".

You'll be FORCED into the same cookie cutter setups to make Ward even an option. 50k magicka feels like the MINIMUM to play competitively with (outside of Rallying Cry). That would force crafty alfiq / ancient grace into every Mag Sorc setup in the game. And we don't even know what that feels like with a HoT instead of a burst heal right now.

Then damage would take a massive hit. Would be slightly higher than those values from 2 years ago. Sorcs will once again have a mediocre offense in today's meta.

I think the 10% Magicka passive did a great job in offering the ability to diversify set choices while still have the option for Ward to be viable. It's overpowered with specifics setups at moment and Overtuned with meta setups.

But toss on something other than 60k magicka and Rallying cry and you'll quickly see that its not completely out of line with current healing capabilities.

I get your concern about the max stats, my idea of replacing the max stats on BA is not an "also" to making wards heal a HoT, it's an "instead of" making wards heal into a HoT.

1 OR the other, not both, because that would 100% put magsorc in an even worse position than it was before ward got buffed.

I am putting it forward as an idea because based on what ZOS has done so far (not making any changes to ward or even acknowledging this thread), it seems like they are set keeping ward as a burst heal, so doing this allows ZOS the option to keep it as a burst heal while reducing the ceiling that stacking max mag to 60k+ is currently achieving.

Replacing the max stats also opens up the possibility of adding other things such as breach to curse, and a few other buffs, changes or effects to other abilities (fury) that would help to buff sorc in other ways. It also allows magsorc to finally make proper use of bound armaments, a skill that is still locked to stamsorc even after everything was supposedly hybridized.
Also, who is to say that making this change to BA wouldn't come with an increase in expert summoner to 13% up from 10% to account for that 15% drop from losing the stats on BA and not needing inner light anymore (can still be ran, but not needed), and if inner light is still ran, that would be a 5% drop instead of 15% drop.

It's all hypothetical and just putting forward ideas for now anyway, since we don't know what ZOS is going to do or even if they are going to do anything at all.

xylena_lazarow

Bushido2513 wrote: »

As a comparison you can strip more things away from NB and have it still be highly functional. Strip things away from magsorc and you could easily cripple it.

NB isn't functional at all. I keep dying. Healthy Offering needs a damage shield added to be like Sorc.

Jsmalls

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

@Turtle_Bot and @StaticWave

If we lose the magicka passives we're going to be right back where we were 2 years ago. Mediocre damage and mediocre defense. Vibrant Shroud may be a viable burst heal next update, but it still doesn't synergize with low health recovery like other classes do.

Ward is very close to being well balanced. I would like to see how the HoT would play out. But once again the initial ward value is around where it needs to be (with outliers above 55k magicka). I play around a lot with what values feel comfortable open world. Go play with Dampen Magicka at a 13k value open world and let me know how it feels (this is rhetorical I can tell you it feels AWFUL).

That's where we're gonna be at with Hardened Ward with a HoT and loss of that 15% magicka "passives".

You'll be FORCED into the same cookie cutter setups to make Ward even an option. 50k magicka feels like the MINIMUM to play competitively with (outside of Rallying Cry). That would force crafty alfiq / ancient grace into every Mag Sorc setup in the game. And we don't even know what that feels like with a HoT instead of a burst heal right now.

Then damage would take a massive hit. Would be slightly higher than those values from 2 years ago. Sorcs will once again have a mediocre offense in today's meta.

I think the 10% Magicka passive did a great job in offering the ability to diversify set choices while still have the option for Ward to be viable. It's overpowered with specifics setups at moment and Overtuned with meta setups.

But toss on something other than 60k magicka and Rallying cry and you'll quickly see that its not completely out of line with current healing capabilities.

I get your concern about the max stats, my idea of replacing the max stats on BA is not an "also" to making wards heal a HoT, it's an "instead of" making wards heal into a HoT.

1 OR the other, not both, because that would 100% put magsorc in an even worse position than it was before ward got buffed.

I am putting it forward as an idea because based on what ZOS has done so far (not making any changes to ward or even acknowledging this thread), it seems like they are set keeping ward as a burst heal, so doing this allows ZOS the option to keep it as a burst heal while reducing the ceiling that stacking max mag to 60k+ is currently achieving.

Replacing the max stats also opens up the possibility of adding other things such as breach to curse, and a few other buffs, changes or effects to other abilities (fury) that would help to buff sorc in other ways. It also allows magsorc to finally make proper use of bound armaments, a skill that is still locked to stamsorc even after everything was supposedly hybridized.
Also, who is to say that making this change to BA wouldn't come with an increase in expert summoner to 13% up from 10% to account for that 15% drop from losing the stats on BA and not needing inner light anymore (can still be ran, but not needed), and if inner light is still ran, that would be a 5% drop instead of 15% drop.

It's all hypothetical and just putting forward ideas for now anyway, since we don't know what ZOS is going to do or even if they are going to do anything at all.

@Turtle_Bot

Honestly I can see this whole thing circling back to flat values instead of percentages to address outliers.

They did this to effect outliers in the past and they honestly balanced it very well (Necropotence and Race passives being a % for example)

If we changed Mage Light to a set 1.5-2k Magicka, Bound Aegis to a set 2-2.5k Magicka, and the summoner passive to a set 2.5-3k of each.

Then consider if undaunted deserves the same evaluation. Maybe 1.5-2k for that.

That might honestly fix this whole situation.

You can pull 31% more Magicka from your typical Min-Max setup. Rough estimate of that with as much Magicka as you can stack is probably 12-15k. (I'll come back and update these numbers later to verify)

On the high side of those recommendations that would be 9k which would be a 3-6k loss on outliers, and maybe a net gain for non Min-Max for magicka.

Zos should play around with those values but think it's a reasonable consideration.

Bushido2513

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

As a comparison you can strip more things away from NB and have it still be highly functional. Strip things away from magsorc and you could easily cripple it.

NB isn't functional at all. I keep dying. Healthy Offering needs a damage shield added to be like Sorc.

Make a thread, I'm sure some would agree. Also I'm not sure that with the current state of nb your changes would even make much difference. You just need to learn to alternate better between offering and cloak and run 2 or 3 swift, you're not dying then lol

xylena_lazarow

Jsmalls wrote: »

You can pull 31% more Magicka from your typical Min-Max setup.

Sorc gets 31% and NB only gets 8%??? Buff NB.

Jsmalls

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

You can pull 31% more Magicka from your typical Min-Max setup.

Sorc gets 31% and NB only gets 8%??? Buff NB.

13% of that is outside of class passives don't worry

I was gonna write a rhetorical post about everything nightblades get but it's not worth the time id be writing for hours.

StaticWave

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

The people defending the state of Sorcs in this thread is really just astounding to me.

The only counter-arguments I've seen can basically be summed up as "the numbers aren't THAT high" and "Well I can still die on my Sorc under X conditions"

Even if you could argue Hardened Ward is on equal footing with skills on tankier classes such as Warden or DK (which it is still provably better), it wouldn't change the fact it is an incredibly strong skill on class with an already incredibly insane toolkit. Streak was already an annoying skill to deal with being a Blink that also not only does damage, but also applies an un-dodgeable and unblockable stun in an area with such a misleadingly large hit-box that it will stun people by accident. Those 2 skills combined just makes fighting Sorcs the most frustrating experience in PvP on any class.

EDIT: My autocorrect changed Streak to Steak. I corrected my autocorrect.

It's interesting to me when people talk about sorc and then mention insane toolkit. Add ward change and now it's an insane toolkit when just before magsorc was considered mediocre and something you played if you just loved the class.

Sorc isn't the only one those counter arguments have been used for, just the most recent.

Idk if you're underestimating the power increase of U41 magsorc by receiving 2 simple buffs, but Sorc got ALOT more indirect buffs than what's shown on the patch notes. Here are the 2 direct buffs with the most significant impact:

- Ward change:

- Expert Summoner passive change:

In U40, if you were in a standard Rally/Wretched/Chudan/DDF build, you'd have around 38.5k max mag, 24.7k max stam, and 4816 spell damage:

In U41, you get 10% max mag AND stam, so that becomes 42k max mag and 27k max stam. The spell damage is unchanged:

A 3.5k extra max mag and 2.3k extra magstam. Sure you lost the 8% max HP, but it was only active when your shield is up anyway, so that doesn't matter. Now this was just the direct changes you could see. The indirect changes are a result of Ward getting a burst heal. You see, that burst heal is so strong that magsorc can now drop Vigor for Bound Aegis, and drop Undo for Dawnbreaker/another ulti of their choice. This is U41 magsorc when you account for the indirect changes:

By replacing Vigor and Undo with Bound Aegis and Dawnbreaker, magsorc now has 44.7k max mag and 4929 spell damage. That's an extra 6.2k max mag and 113 spell damage compared to U40 magsorc. But wait, you can also run full max mag glyphs too because Ward is THAT strong:

47.3k max mag and 24.7k max stam. An 8.8k extra max mag compared to U40 magsorc, and you still have the same amount of max stam.

2 simple changes gave magsorc 8.8k extra max mag and 113 spell damage. If you convert the max mag to spell damage, it's 10.5 magicka for every 1 spell damage, as taken from AlcastHQ website:

8.8k max mag is equivalent to 838 spell damage when using this conversion. Of course some skills will scale better with max mag, and some better with max spell damage, but that's the general conversion ratio.

U41 magsorc got ~950 extra spell damage equivalent with 2 simple changes, and their shield is also BIGGER as well. Much bigger. This is what most people conveniently forget to discuss about. It's not just Ward. It's the fact that Sorc's damage also got giga buffed as a direct and indirect result of the buffs.

Sorc's toolkit has always been insane. The class was just shadowed by other classes getting loads of buffs over the years. 2 simple changes elevated Sorc to top tier status, so that speaks a lot of volume about how strong the class already was.

EDIT: Ignore the Crystal Weapon morph. I forgot to change it to Crystal Fragment.

As a comparison you can strip more things away from NB and have it still be highly functional. Strip things away from magsorc and you could easily cripple it.

So to me if your insane toolkit is so easily disabled by removing xyz skill or minor changes then it's not really that insane.

You can’t be serious. Every class can be crippled if you remove xyz skill.

If I remove Powered Extraction then the NB loses an AoE dmg ability, Minor Courage, and Minor Cowardice. If I remove Cloak then it has no means to proc the 300 wd vamp passive, and no Major Savagery on both bars.

Sure the NB is still highly functional, but so is Sorc. If I strip away Bound Aegis then the Sorc may lose 2.5-3k mag and Dawnbreaker, but I can still slot Vigor and still be highly functional. Remove Inner Light and I can still use spell crit potions and slot Hurricane there, then get back 2k mag with Domi + Swarm.

I’m playing high MMR BGs with Vigor + 35k HP shield and I’m doing just fine. I’m not sure why ppl think it’s the end of the world when we slightly nerf its tankiness lol.

StaticWave

Jsmalls wrote: »

@StaticWave

Some of your more recent comments are stretching a bit. I recognize that what you mentioned was for the "meta" playstyle but Bound Aegis has been a viable option for several patches now, I wouldn't consider it a buff for "this patch".

Running all magicka enchants? Try walking around with 24-26k health in cyrodiil (you're assuming everyone runs death dealer fete which would put you on that higher side of 26-27k). I tried 24k health recently in Open world Cryodiil, and I got bullied. And I would consider myself pretty good at positioning and defensive play. That loss of 8% health was also always active if you used Bound Aegis so from that 10% additional passive you had to reassign about 5% of that value back to your health if you wanted to stay at the same threshold as before. I generally play with the lowest health threshold possible (because I've always been pretty solid with Ward usage) and even I can't handle health values with all Magicka enchants.

I've stated in the past ~1-2 years ago that Sorcs were NOT in a good place damage wise. I'm pretty sure we compared setups stat for stat between myself and metallic monk back in those times and I was ahead in flat damage and he was ahead in crit damage but numerically nothing was an outlier from either side.

Back in those times frags were hitting for 6-8k and curses for 4-6k. This is when Sorcerers were at their WORST in my opinion. Everyone has 35k health, those values weren't doing anything.

Then we got minor berserk/force on dark conversion/deal, bound aegis 8% was active on both bars, and now we got 10% more magicka as a passive.

So it seems ZoS agreed that's Sorcs damage was NOT in a good place.

And maybe I'm bias but I think right now it's exactly where it should be. You're seeing 10k frags? Perfect. If a player is setup for damage that's where it should be. You have Merciless resolve hitting for 50% higher than that on a brawler blade. Sorcs are suppose to be competitive with Nightblades burst.

@Turtle_Bot and @StaticWave

If we lose the magicka passives we're going to be right back where we were 2 years ago. Mediocre damage and mediocre defense. Vibrant Shroud may be a viable burst heal next update, but it still doesn't synergize with low health recovery like other classes do.

Ward is very close to being well balanced. I would like to see how the HoT would play out. But once again the initial ward value is around where it needs to be (with outliers above 55k magicka). I play around a lot with what values feel comfortable open world. Go play with Dampen Magicka at a 13k value open world and let me know how it feels (this is rhetorical I can tell you it feels AWFUL).

That's where we're gonna be at with Hardened Ward with a HoT and loss of that 15% magicka "passives".

You'll be FORCED into the same cookie cutter setups to make Ward even an option. 50k magicka feels like the MINIMUM to play competitively with (outside of Rallying Cry). That would force crafty alfiq / ancient grace into every Mag Sorc setup in the game. And we don't even know what that feels like with a HoT instead of a burst heal right now.

Then damage would take a massive hit. Would be slightly higher than those values from 2 years ago. Sorcs will once again have a mediocre offense in today's meta.

I think the 10% Magicka passive did a great job in offering the ability to diversify set choices while still have the option for Ward to be viable. It's overpowered with specifics setups at moment and Overtuned with meta setups.

But toss on something other than 60k magicka and Rallying cry and you'll quickly see that its not completely out of line with current healing capabilities.

See that’s the problem. You are running around with 24k HP build optimized for BG, not Cyrodiil. Cyrodiil is a completely different beast and you can’t get away with 24k HP.

I’m running around with 28-29k on my magsorc. Most stamina DD are running around with 30-32k HP. It’s perfectly doable and I could argue that the shield allows you to run lower HP than usual. In fact you can check these decent magsorc mains below to see what I mean:

MetallicMonk:



Malcolm:



Both run sub 30k HP and still 1vX just fine.

10k Frag is fine. 10k Frag with unmatched mobility via Streak and tankiness via Hardened Ward, while being at max range is NOT fine. What the heck am I supposed to do as a melee player? I gap close you, I still can’t kill you. I get you low, you Streak away and cast 2 shields and reset to full HP. What happened to the high risk high reward magsorc? This current version just feels like a tanky ranged brawler with stupid amounts of mobility lol.

Jsmalls

@StaticWave

I tested 24k health in cyrodiil, I don't run that, I run with 27k health and do perfectly fine.

Second half of your comment I have nothing to say, I agree they shouldn't be God Mode brawler tanks and ranged Nukes.

But just kept in mind changing those passives will effect damage as well as Ward's functionality and build diversity.

That's what I'm bringing up. That wasn't referenced in the response.

StaticWave

@Jsmalls @Bushido2513

Please watch this video and tell me why this isn’t absurd:

https://youtu.be/Eir1tNK4fx0?si=NmYCJl2Wa3iADbJZ

I follow Malcolm and have been watching his magsorc 1vX vids for a while. This is the first time I’ve seen so many of his clips in open ground with little cover. All of his past videos were done around a tower or keep where he could easily LoS.


Malcolm is literally fighting in open ground against 5 ppl that have gap closers and everytime they gap close he just roll dodges into a Streak. He has Vigor on top on Ward so he doesn’t die to ranged pressure.

I can assure you if it was a stamina char I would never be able to do that. I’d probably have to hug the nearest LoS and play around it, not Streak back and forth right in the open with 5+ ppl on me. Cmon lol

StaticWave

Jsmalls wrote: »

@StaticWave

I tested 24k health in cyrodiil, I don't run that, I run with 27k health and do perfectly fine.

Second half of your comment I have nothing to say, I agree they shouldn't be God Mode brawler tanks and ranged Nukes.

But just kept in mind changing those passives will effect damage as well as Ward's functionality and build diversity.

That's what I'm bringing up. That wasn't referenced in the response.

I would rather them just turn the burst heal into a HoT and call it a day.

xylena_lazarow

StaticWave wrote: »

I would rather them just turn the burst heal into a HoT and call it a day.

But I would still be dying on my NB. Put a HoT on Cloak.

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

The people defending the state of Sorcs in this thread is really just astounding to me.

The only counter-arguments I've seen can basically be summed up as "the numbers aren't THAT high" and "Well I can still die on my Sorc under X conditions"

Even if you could argue Hardened Ward is on equal footing with skills on tankier classes such as Warden or DK (which it is still provably better), it wouldn't change the fact it is an incredibly strong skill on class with an already incredibly insane toolkit. Streak was already an annoying skill to deal with being a Blink that also not only does damage, but also applies an un-dodgeable and unblockable stun in an area with such a misleadingly large hit-box that it will stun people by accident. Those 2 skills combined just makes fighting Sorcs the most frustrating experience in PvP on any class.

EDIT: My autocorrect changed Streak to Steak. I corrected my autocorrect.

It's interesting to me when people talk about sorc and then mention insane toolkit. Add ward change and now it's an insane toolkit when just before magsorc was considered mediocre and something you played if you just loved the class.

Sorc isn't the only one those counter arguments have been used for, just the most recent.

Idk if you're underestimating the power increase of U41 magsorc by receiving 2 simple buffs, but Sorc got ALOT more indirect buffs than what's shown on the patch notes. Here are the 2 direct buffs with the most significant impact:

- Ward change:

- Expert Summoner passive change:

In U40, if you were in a standard Rally/Wretched/Chudan/DDF build, you'd have around 38.5k max mag, 24.7k max stam, and 4816 spell damage:

In U41, you get 10% max mag AND stam, so that becomes 42k max mag and 27k max stam. The spell damage is unchanged:

A 3.5k extra max mag and 2.3k extra magstam. Sure you lost the 8% max HP, but it was only active when your shield is up anyway, so that doesn't matter. Now this was just the direct changes you could see. The indirect changes are a result of Ward getting a burst heal. You see, that burst heal is so strong that magsorc can now drop Vigor for Bound Aegis, and drop Undo for Dawnbreaker/another ulti of their choice. This is U41 magsorc when you account for the indirect changes:

By replacing Vigor and Undo with Bound Aegis and Dawnbreaker, magsorc now has 44.7k max mag and 4929 spell damage. That's an extra 6.2k max mag and 113 spell damage compared to U40 magsorc. But wait, you can also run full max mag glyphs too because Ward is THAT strong:

47.3k max mag and 24.7k max stam. An 8.8k extra max mag compared to U40 magsorc, and you still have the same amount of max stam.

2 simple changes gave magsorc 8.8k extra max mag and 113 spell damage. If you convert the max mag to spell damage, it's 10.5 magicka for every 1 spell damage, as taken from AlcastHQ website:

8.8k max mag is equivalent to 838 spell damage when using this conversion. Of course some skills will scale better with max mag, and some better with max spell damage, but that's the general conversion ratio.

U41 magsorc got ~950 extra spell damage equivalent with 2 simple changes, and their shield is also BIGGER as well. Much bigger. This is what most people conveniently forget to discuss about. It's not just Ward. It's the fact that Sorc's damage also got giga buffed as a direct and indirect result of the buffs.

Sorc's toolkit has always been insane. The class was just shadowed by other classes getting loads of buffs over the years. 2 simple changes elevated Sorc to top tier status, so that speaks a lot of volume about how strong the class already was.

EDIT: Ignore the Crystal Weapon morph. I forgot to change it to Crystal Fragment.

As a comparison you can strip more things away from NB and have it still be highly functional. Strip things away from magsorc and you could easily cripple it.

So to me if your insane toolkit is so easily disabled by removing xyz skill or minor changes then it's not really that insane.

You can’t be serious. Every class can be crippled if you remove xyz skill.

If I remove Powered Extraction then the NB loses an AoE dmg ability, Minor Courage, and Minor Cowardice. If I remove Cloak then it has no means to proc the 300 wd vamp passive, and no Major Savagery on both bars.

Sure the NB is still highly functional, but so is Sorc. If I strip away Bound Aegis then the Sorc may lose 2.5-3k mag and Dawnbreaker, but I can still slot Vigor and still be highly functional. Remove Inner Light and I can still use spell crit potions and slot Hurricane there, then get back 2k mag with Domi + Swarm.

I’m playing high MMR BGs with Vigor + 35k HP shield and I’m doing just fine. I’m not sure why ppl think it’s the end of the world when we slightly nerf its tankiness lol.

But on nb people play without cloak just fine and still hit hard. They can use weapon skills or class skills and still do great damage in combat. Sorc has to rely on weapon skills, and basically a fairly particular bar setup with only a few degrees of changes if they want to do well.

Cloak is a staple of nb but you can play just fine without it. Take off streak and you've got, well something lol.

Imagine playing this game, a nb and a sorc fight each other with both telling the other to remove one skill of the opponents choosing. Who comes out getting burned in that deal?

If we can remove one skill and it results in that much of a loss then I just wouldn't say they are even or that the skillset is then that insane.

So if you look at the total effect of the build/class/skill then I guess you could say insane. I'm just looking at the skills and their value as parts of a toolkit and I find it to be lacking unless combined in very specific ways with fairly few options.

xylena_lazarow

Bushido2513 wrote: »

If we can remove one skill

Daedric Curse, now the Sorc can't kill anyone. So uh... ?

Bushido2513

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

If we can remove one skill

Daedric Curse, now the Sorc can't kill anyone. So uh... ?

So if we're talking kill potential that's still a bit to my point. Take one skill off of either defense or offense on both sides and the NB still comes out better than sorc on either end.

xylena_lazarow

Bushido2513 wrote: »

So if we're talking kill potential that's still a bit to my point. Take one skill off of either defense or offense on both sides and the NB still comes out better than sorc on either end.

That's why Healthy Offering needs to be nerfed. Remove it, and NB still has a robust defensive toolkit with stealth and speed, just like it was conceived. Throw an overpowered burst heal in there, now you have an abomination.

Same deal with Sorc. The old school MagSorcs I fought in the first few years of this game ran either Hardened + Healing Ward + Surge, or Hardened + Harness + Surge. No unconditional spammable burst heals to be found. When I mained StamSorc to GO, I survived off Vigor + Surge + Dark Deal + hots (and hp regen before the nerf). Same deal, no burst heal spam, because on top of your hot stacks or shield stacks, you've got Streak and high damage.

Take away the burst heal from Ward, you've still got an incredibly good defensive toolkit, with a gigantic shield, powerful hots, sustain buffs, speed, Streak, and of course the burst heal everyone asked for on Vibrant Shroud.

Bushido2513

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

So if we're talking kill potential that's still a bit to my point. Take one skill off of either defense or offense on both sides and the NB still comes out better than sorc on either end.

That's why Healthy Offering needs to be nerfed. Remove it, and NB still has a robust defensive toolkit with stealth and speed, just like it was conceived. Throw an overpowered burst heal in there, now you have an abomination.

Same deal with Sorc. The old school MagSorcs I fought in the first few years of this game ran either Hardened + Healing Ward + Surge, or Hardened + Harness + Surge. No unconditional spammable burst heals to be found. When I mained StamSorc to GO, I survived off Vigor + Surge + Dark Deal + hots (and hp regen before the nerf). Same deal, no burst heal spam, because on top of your hot stacks or shield stacks, you've got Streak and high damage.

Take away the burst heal from Ward, you've still got an incredibly good defensive toolkit, with a gigantic shield, powerful hots, sustain buffs, speed, Streak, and of course the burst heal everyone asked for on Vibrant Shroud.

I believe multiple people have been ok with an across the board change to burst heals including which classes have access to them and how strong they should be for each class.

But until something like that happens I don't see ward as an issue for the intended game experience when compared to other classes in that same experience.

xylena_lazarow

Bushido2513 wrote: »

But until something like that happens I don't see ward as an issue for the intended game experience when compared to other classes in that same experience.

Sorc is intended to face tank? Class identity, everyone.

Joy_Division

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

@Bushido2513 what would you rather have on the battlefield: knife or gun

Depends on the engagement. A knife gives you a better chance at stealth kills and never runs out of ammo. A gun will reveal my position to the enemy with every use and possibly bring more enemies who will have an easier time finding me each time I use the gun. With a knife and tactics I an probably acquire one or multiple guns without revealing my location until I'm ready.

So as a sorc yes you can drop long range attacks however you can then become the target of multiple attackers yourself. Yes you have shields and a great escape utility but good attackers can work around that by using things like movement speed, high damage attacks from stealth, raw damage with cc/roots, etc.

A sorc is for me no more or less of a threat than any of the other stronger classes. I mean even if I just don't want to deal with a sorc I'll just roll dodge to get rid of a few pieces of the combo then los, heal up, etc. And yes now they can heal up like ever before but so can other classes to for me it's no worse or better than what is already commonly seen in the game. Maybe a little better but by no means a clearly identifiable case that can be proved in the way some are representing here.

Thats why you go with a team and have cover fire to defend when you take the first shot. 4 guns vs 4 knifes, well guess what happens haha

Depends on the encounter and the tactics of the opponents. If you have knives and your opponents are well armed then your first move is to not be anywhere where they can target you for a first shot.

The NB stays in stealth as they approach the one sorc that doesn't have shields up at the moment and goes for the kill. You don't say walk around out of stealth waiting for the sorc and his buddies to take aim. You also don't stay far from line of sight in case they do pull you out of stealth.

It's just basically chess, we all start out fairly evenly and the loser is going to be the first one to make a mistake. So we could do combat scenarios all day but generally speaking there are always going to be ways to work around a disadvantage and of course for the enemy to counter your workaround to your disadvantage.


This is my point about sorc and trying to measure the effect of the hardened ward change. Because of so many potential variances in combat it will come down to things that just can't be accurately measured by a simple set of CMX data or even observation by us as client side players of the game.

I've seen arguments like this all the time in military history.

It is akin to pointing out out how because there are cases when [insert new technology] does not perform as well or even worse than [insert existing technology], then [new technology] is not a superior alternative to [existing technology].

Of course knife Vs. gun is situational. The special forces soldier is going to want to use the knife to eliminate a guard in an infiltration scenario. But what army uses knives as their primary weapons system? None. And none ever have. Yeah, I liked Oberyn in GOT and thought it was a cool scene with the whole, "Longsword is a bad option in close quarters" line. But how often do we find ourselves in close quarters combat? There was a reason why rapiers, not knives, were a weapon of choice in duels and spears were the weapon of choice on basically every battlefield up until the 17th century when the historical conditions made it possibly for firearms to put a consistent wall of lead toward the enemy.

So to say that gun Vs. knife is situational is disingenuous as it is not acknowledging the crux of the issue: if you a gamer and get into a hundred fights, how many times will it take before you lose with the knife before you quit the game because the devs do not think the gun is a superior choice?

Sooooo your comment is dancing all over the place. I'm simply saying in some situations you want a knife and in others a gun. That's just simple tactics, it will depend on the engagement, your desired outcome, etc. I wasn't really talking about any specific conflict, number of enemies, terrain, etc etc. If you want to set a very specific scenario I'll be happy to tell you if I'm choosing the gun or the knife and you're very welcome to set a scenario in which the gun is the obvious choice and I'd happily agree. I think you're reading more into that response then was intended. Or perhaps I more so answered in a very open ended way and you took it where it made sense to you.

As is specific to ESO, other melee classes can definitely keep up with sorc at the moment. When you add in gvg dynamics it's even more possible to keep up with sorc. Harder to kill than before, obviously so. Are they ridiculously hard to kill at the moment, no more so than other classes depending on the player and build/setup.

No, my comment was quite singular: if the gun is going to be better in far more scenarios than the knife, an answer that claims it is situational is disingenuous.

The idea that well other classes can be just as survivable as a sorc depending on setup is missing the point many posters have made about Hardened Ward. Can I make a Templar or Necromancer that is basically impossible to kill for under 12 players? Yes, and they can do this better than a sorcerer. But they are just troll tanks. There is no versatility. They are overly narrow builds. They can't do anything else. That's not saying much.

It would be a better argument to state that some classes (DKs and Wardens) can match the overall offense + defense package that a sorcerer can achieve. (A highly skilled Nightblade can also do this, but that's more about a player exploiting unique skills. A mediocre nightblade can;t do this so I don't think the class is in the same tier.) But DKS and Wardens still have inconveniences (I won't call them weaknesses). If they want mobility, they have to build for it (and still won;t be as good as a sorcerer) and their better offensive skills require them to be closer.

A sorcerer can easily have a lot of survivability by employing one skill while also having the best mobility/escape skill in the game while also having a lot of firepower (which scales with that one skill) and does this at range. It's really easy to be strong at everything without much opportunity cost. It's an ideal package that does not have to worry about rock-paper-scissors. The devs have allowed this combination before (1.6 and years after when shield stacking was prevalent) so this is something we have seen before.

I'm not sure how GvG dynamics change the equation. ZOS's GvG meta has been incredibly stale for years and requires a specific application of synchronized PBAoE burst damage + CC to secure kills. So, yeah, Warden DPS is going to reign supreme in this specific scenario (like the knife in a stealth situation).

Bushido2513

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

But until something like that happens I don't see ward as an issue for the intended game experience when compared to other classes in that same experience.

Sorc is intended to face tank? Class identity, everyone.

Well yes the game is leaning more towards being accessible and less towards class identity. It's really more of a what you make of it situation

StaticWave

Bushido2513 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

But until something like that happens I don't see ward as an issue for the intended game experience when compared to other classes in that same experience.

Sorc is intended to face tank? Class identity, everyone.

Well yes the game is leaning more towards being accessible and less towards class identity. It's really more of a what you make of it situation

Then imo Streak should be nerfed

xylena_lazarow

StaticWave wrote: »

Then imo Streak should be nerfed

no to make Streak more accessible it should be free and have no cost

Bushido2513

Joy_Division wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

@Bushido2513 what would you rather have on the battlefield: knife or gun

Depends on the engagement. A knife gives you a better chance at stealth kills and never runs out of ammo. A gun will reveal my position to the enemy with every use and possibly bring more enemies who will have an easier time finding me each time I use the gun. With a knife and tactics I an probably acquire one or multiple guns without revealing my location until I'm ready.

So as a sorc yes you can drop long range attacks however you can then become the target of multiple attackers yourself. Yes you have shields and a great escape utility but good attackers can work around that by using things like movement speed, high damage attacks from stealth, raw damage with cc/roots, etc.

A sorc is for me no more or less of a threat than any of the other stronger classes. I mean even if I just don't want to deal with a sorc I'll just roll dodge to get rid of a few pieces of the combo then los, heal up, etc. And yes now they can heal up like ever before but so can other classes to for me it's no worse or better than what is already commonly seen in the game. Maybe a little better but by no means a clearly identifiable case that can be proved in the way some are representing here.

Thats why you go with a team and have cover fire to defend when you take the first shot. 4 guns vs 4 knifes, well guess what happens haha

Depends on the encounter and the tactics of the opponents. If you have knives and your opponents are well armed then your first move is to not be anywhere where they can target you for a first shot.

The NB stays in stealth as they approach the one sorc that doesn't have shields up at the moment and goes for the kill. You don't say walk around out of stealth waiting for the sorc and his buddies to take aim. You also don't stay far from line of sight in case they do pull you out of stealth.

It's just basically chess, we all start out fairly evenly and the loser is going to be the first one to make a mistake. So we could do combat scenarios all day but generally speaking there are always going to be ways to work around a disadvantage and of course for the enemy to counter your workaround to your disadvantage.


This is my point about sorc and trying to measure the effect of the hardened ward change. Because of so many potential variances in combat it will come down to things that just can't be accurately measured by a simple set of CMX data or even observation by us as client side players of the game.

I've seen arguments like this all the time in military history.

It is akin to pointing out out how because there are cases when [insert new technology] does not perform as well or even worse than [insert existing technology], then [new technology] is not a superior alternative to [existing technology].

Of course knife Vs. gun is situational. The special forces soldier is going to want to use the knife to eliminate a guard in an infiltration scenario. But what army uses knives as their primary weapons system? None. And none ever have. Yeah, I liked Oberyn in GOT and thought it was a cool scene with the whole, "Longsword is a bad option in close quarters" line. But how often do we find ourselves in close quarters combat? There was a reason why rapiers, not knives, were a weapon of choice in duels and spears were the weapon of choice on basically every battlefield up until the 17th century when the historical conditions made it possibly for firearms to put a consistent wall of lead toward the enemy.

So to say that gun Vs. knife is situational is disingenuous as it is not acknowledging the crux of the issue: if you a gamer and get into a hundred fights, how many times will it take before you lose with the knife before you quit the game because the devs do not think the gun is a superior choice?

Sooooo your comment is dancing all over the place. I'm simply saying in some situations you want a knife and in others a gun. That's just simple tactics, it will depend on the engagement, your desired outcome, etc. I wasn't really talking about any specific conflict, number of enemies, terrain, etc etc. If you want to set a very specific scenario I'll be happy to tell you if I'm choosing the gun or the knife and you're very welcome to set a scenario in which the gun is the obvious choice and I'd happily agree. I think you're reading more into that response then was intended. Or perhaps I more so answered in a very open ended way and you took it where it made sense to you.

As is specific to ESO, other melee classes can definitely keep up with sorc at the moment. When you add in gvg dynamics it's even more possible to keep up with sorc. Harder to kill than before, obviously so. Are they ridiculously hard to kill at the moment, no more so than other classes depending on the player and build/setup.

No, my comment was quite singular: if the gun is going to be better in far more scenarios than the knife, an answer that claims it is situational is disingenuous.

The idea that well other classes can be just as survivable as a sorc depending on setup is missing the point many posters have made about Hardened Ward. Can I make a Templar or Necromancer that is basically impossible to kill for under 12 players? Yes, and they can do this better than a sorcerer. But they are just troll tanks. There is no versatility. They are overly narrow builds. They can't do anything else. That's not saying much.

It would be a better argument to state that some classes (DKs and Wardens) can match the overall offense + defense package that a sorcerer can achieve. (A highly skilled Nightblade can also do this, but that's more about a player exploiting unique skills. A mediocre nightblade can;t do this so I don't think the class is in the same tier.) But DKS and Wardens still have inconveniences (I won't call them weaknesses). If they want mobility, they have to build for it (and still won;t be as good as a sorcerer) and their better offensive skills require them to be closer.

A sorcerer can easily have a lot of survivability by employing one skill while also having the best mobility/escape skill in the game while also having a lot of firepower (which scales with that one skill) and does this at range. It's really easy to be strong at everything without much opportunity cost. It's an ideal package that does not have to worry about rock-paper-scissors. The devs have allowed this combination before (1.6 and years after when shield stacking was prevalent) so this is something we have seen before.

I'm not sure how GvG dynamics change the equation. ZOS's GvG meta has been incredibly stale for years and requires a specific application of synchronized PBAoE burst damage + CC to secure kills. So, yeah, Warden DPS is going to reign supreme in this specific scenario (like the knife in a stealth situation).

So if the gun is best in most scenarios how does that invalidate me saying that I'd still pick the knife in some scenarios?

Anyway it doesn't matter because a sorc facing a melee class isn't a gun to a knife fight scenario.at all. We're really talking ranged vs melee and while sorc is strong at range it's definitely not at all able to somehow completely invalidate melee players just by being what it is.

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

But until something like that happens I don't see ward as an issue for the intended game experience when compared to other classes in that same experience.

Sorc is intended to face tank? Class identity, everyone.

Well yes the game is leaning more towards being accessible and less towards class identity. It's really more of a what you make of it situation

Then imo Streak should be nerfed

Why when it's so easily invalidated by any player that even halfway wants to?

Streak doesn't bother me but why do you want it nerfed? Don't like people being able to run away or just the unblockable stun?

xylena_lazarow

Bushido2513 wrote: »

So if the gun is best in most scenarios how does that invalidate me saying that I'd still pick the knife in some scenarios?

Going into an uncertain scenario, which are you choosing: gun or knife?