Has something been done about sorc yet or is PvP still unplayable

H_E · August 21

title says it all
was sorc given any realistic counterplay in pvp other than do 60k dps in pvp or is the 3k costing shield still a 20k cast with a 10k heal

like a campaign that disallows that broken class or set that prevents all damage and cc to and from sorcs

Theignson · August 21

The fix was, they introduced virtually risk free ranged stealth ganks that ping at the unsuspecting sorcs from stealth and hope their shields are down. ~30k damage in one shot (tarnished + anthemir).

There is even a version of this on sorc, with crystal weapon+HA+silver shards+tarnished +anthelmirs+ status effects all hitting at once (ie in under 1 second).

I, of course, have sampled both of these delicacies and its hard to decide which one to take. If ZOS serves us cheese, we must eat cheese!

katorga · August 21

The fix is undeath nerf. Even sorcs, drop like flies.

MarioMario · August 21

katorga wrote: »

The fix is undeath nerf. Even sorcs, drop like flies.

The sorcerers are the least impacted because when they shield below 15% health, they have a whole shield pool that benefits from undeath.

Tiphis · August 21

MarioMario wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

The fix is undeath nerf. Even sorcs, drop like flies.

The sorcerers are the least impacted because when they shield below 15% health, they have a whole shield pool that benefits from undeath.

Yeah, sorcs are still in a great spot because of this.

FriedEggSandwich · August 21

OP sounds like they want to delete the sorc class. I have 39k mag in cyrodiil, and my ward is 10k. Pls don't nerf.

I've never tried pushing max mag. How much mag do you need for a 20k ward? Be interesting to see how it scales. I hope just adding 10k more magicka doesn't double the ward size. That would be silly.

I don't know why the ward was given a heal. I don't need it because I can't drop dark conversion or healing contingency, so it doesn't save me bar space. It was fine before imo. It's not even useful in pve because crit surge. Can't understand the thinking behind the change.

MarioMario wrote: »

The sorcerers are the least impacted because when they shield below 15% health, they have a whole shield pool that benefits from undeath.

That doesn't sound intended. Or maybe it does idk.

Jsmalls · August 21

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

OP sounds like they want to delete the sorc class. I have 39k mag in cyrodiil, and my ward is 10k. Pls don't nerf.

I've never tried pushing max mag. How much mag do you need for a 20k ward? Be interesting to see how it scales. I hope just adding 10k more magicka doesn't double the ward size. That would be silly.

I don't know why the ward was given a heal. I don't need it because I can't drop dark conversion or healing contingency, so it doesn't save me bar space. It was fine before imo. It's not even useful in pve because crit surge. Can't understand the thinking behind the change.

MarioMario wrote: »

The sorcerers are the least impacted because when they shield below 15% health, they have a whole shield pool that benefits from undeath.

That doesn't sound intended. Or maybe it does idk.

It's the 55k-60k+ Magicka Setups coupled with Major and Minor Vitality (18% buff to Ward).

This will sit you around 18-19k Wards with a 6k base, 10k crit burst heal attached.

While your damage will be lacking a bit, it's still a rather stat dense setup and the tankiness / damage it offers really can't be matched by any other class.

FriedEggSandwich · August 21

Oof. I didn't know about vitality buffing wards, thanks for the insight. They're getting those buffs from other players though right? And I assume they're short duration buffs. If so, it still sounds like kind of a narrow playstyle to me. If those are self buffs then it must be from item sets, because they're not in the sorc toolkit. If sorcs can source their own major and minor vitality then the devs dropped the ball imo.

MarioMario · August 21

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

That doesn't sound intended. Or maybe it does idk.

If my memory serves me right, in patch 2.5.0 the damage shields were modified. Previously, they had a fixed resistance (18.9K?) and did not take critical damage, but now they get the character's stats.

This means phys/mag resistance, minor/major resolve, minor/major protection, minor/major evasion, undeath, armor passives etc., etc., etc.

Undeath procs when you have 15% life. When you cast a shield while under 15%, the damage reduction is also applied to it along with all the others buffs.

Jsmalls · August 21

From the scribing system they are pretty easy to access.

There is Wield soul that can be a spammable ( 10 seconds Major Vitality).

Minor Vitality you can get from several sources (vibrant shroud, ozzezan, etc).

If you're targeting to include them in your builds you don't have to go to far out of your way to do it.

Bushido2513 · August 21

H_E wrote: »

title says it all
was sorc given any realistic counterplay in pvp other than do 60k dps in pvp or is the 3k costing shield still a 20k cast with a 10k heal

like a campaign that disallows that broken class or set that prevents all damage and cc to and from sorcs

Ward still needs a balance pass. So can you outright kill an equally skilled player on sorc, no, can you but be killed by them and have decent damage on classes other than necro, yes mostly.

I have yet to see where two equally skilled players end in more than a stalemate most of the time. So while ward needs a review sorc is not totally without the same level of counterplay that would apply to pretty much all other classes.

xylena_lazarow · August 21

Hardened Ward is still grossly op compared to every other self survival tool in the game.

FriedEggSandwich · August 21

MarioMario wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

That doesn't sound intended. Or maybe it does idk.

If my memory serves me right, in patch 2.5.0 the damage shields were modified. Previously, they had a fixed resistance (18.9K?) and did not take critical damage, but now they get the character's stats.

This means phys/mag resistance, minor/major resolve, minor/major protection, minor/major evasion, undeath, armor passives etc., etc., etc.

Undeath procs when you have 15% life. When you cast a shield while under 15%, the damage reduction is also applied to it along with all the others buffs.

I remember that patch. I welcomed it as a needed buff to ward at the time lol (it was needed at the time). I also run vamp in pvp. But I didn't realise that undeath counted as a resistance. I feel like it shouldn't. Undeath applying to the ward sounds opaf tbh. Even though I've been using it.

Tinkerhorn · August 21

I would say with the nerf to undeath in isolation has actually been pretty bad contrary to popular opinion and is actually a huge boost for those at large numerical advantages. If you want to play damage now you need to be either Sorc or NB. Sorc due to mobility and ward just being way too strong. Nb for mobility and invisibility. Further NB has become even more annoying to deal with due to the 'fix' to cloak meaning you must have detect pots. Would be fine if you werent using pots to source other buffs and if NB's couldn't just run outside of the detection but we're talking about a game where someone can vanish at will in front of your face as many times as they like.
Essentially either come as a sorc or nb, come tanky enough and able to sustain block casting ready to stalemate anyone on a similar build, come tanky enough where you're a borderline troll tank, come in a group which outnumbers the other group, or come as a premade where crosshealing has you covered. Don't bother being melee.
Personally I think the game has just deteriorated constantly in quality. If you weren't happy to come back in U41, you won't be happy to cone back in U43.
Bad time to be a templar or necro and they weren't exactly doing phenomenal to begin with.

katorga · August 21

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Oof. I didn't know about vitality buffing wards, thanks for the insight. They're getting those buffs from other players though right? And I assume they're short duration buffs. If so, it still sounds like kind of a narrow playstyle to me. If those are self buffs then it must be from item sets, because they're not in the sorc toolkit. If sorcs can source their own major and minor vitality then the devs dropped the ball imo.

Major/minor vitality is easy to get; you can put major on the scribing skill. The counter debuffs are also easy to get...so it cancels out.

Not sure how many cp players run bastion to counter shields, but again cancels out bastion on a sorc.

A max mag sorc with 27-30K health melts with the undeath nerf. I think undeath was carrying the build for most players. It is the build I am least successful with on my sorc right now. TTK is so low, players are dead b4 I have enough global cooldowns to line up my burst while casting ward every couple of skills so I don't get completely wrecked in a few seconds by proc builds (I'm not nearly as good as the master sorc players, bear that in mind).

FriedEggSandwich · August 21

katorga wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Oof. I didn't know about vitality buffing wards, thanks for the insight. They're getting those buffs from other players though right? And I assume they're short duration buffs. If so, it still sounds like kind of a narrow playstyle to me. If those are self buffs then it must be from item sets, because they're not in the sorc toolkit. If sorcs can source their own major and minor vitality then the devs dropped the ball imo.

Major/minor vitality is easy to get; you can put major on the scribing skill. The counter debuffs are also easy to get...so it cancels out.

Not sure how many cp players run bastion to counter shields, but again cancels out bastion on a sorc.

A max mag sorc with 27-30K health melts with the undeath nerf. I think undeath was carrying the build for most players. It is the build I am least successful with on my sorc right now. TTK is so low, players are dead b4 I have enough global cooldowns to line up my burst while casting ward every couple of skills so I don't get completely wrecked in a few seconds by proc builds (I'm not nearly as good as the master sorc players, bear that in mind).

Yeah I completely glossed over it when scribing mine, mainly because I thought vitality was just healing recieved. I went for sorcery, to allow me to drop surge and free up a barspace. I think I'm gonna stick with that for now. Seems like a better option for me.

Allowing a player to source both the major and minor buff that synergises perfectly with a class defining skill seems contrary to the original vision of the buff system, as I understood it. I thought you were supposed to rely on group members for that kind of thing. It just sems like a lazy design choice to me, even if the counter buffs can also be sourced. "Oh just give them everything". I guess that will get worse as the scribing system expands.

I prefer more off-meta playstyles, and am a bit worried that if zos do decide to nerf, they won't go for the latest changes they made; the ward heal, or access to vitality. They'll nerf sorc in some other way to balance it out, but that will just make ward heal and vitality more compelling, reducing build diversity.

acastanza_ESO · August 21

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

OP sounds like they want to delete the sorc class. I have 39k mag in cyrodiil, and my ward is 10k. Pls don't nerf.

I've never tried pushing max mag. How much mag do you need for a 20k ward? Be interesting to see how it scales. I hope just adding 10k more magicka doesn't double the ward size. That would be silly.

I don't know why the ward was given a heal. I don't need it because I can't drop dark conversion or healing contingency, so it doesn't save me bar space. It was fine before imo. It's not even useful in pve because crit surge. Can't understand the thinking behind the change.

MarioMario wrote: »

The sorcerers are the least impacted because when they shield below 15% health, they have a whole shield pool that benefits from undeath.

That doesn't sound intended. Or maybe it does idk.

Ward was given a heal because Sorc desperately needed an actual burst heal at the time we were asking, and we were asking for years. At the time there was no other way to access a burst heal on Sorc that wasn't interruptible (like every other class has), but then we also got scribing with viable burst heals, which largely would have rectified the issue.

TechMaybeHic · August 21

I'm loving playing sorc. Just front bar my shield and keep it up whike staying offensive. Ran my templar last night and I had to run an entire back bar, roll dodge, keep hots up, purge, and block cast heal, and sprint! The nerve to require 5 buttons to live and move! And going offensive on front bar was even more cumbersome so don't even get me started!

Just make plar HTD also give a 10k shield. Backlash have major breach and go off twice for full potential amount stored, Radiant Oppression give minor berserk just being slotted, allow toppling/explosive charge to go off without a target and all good. No balancing needed

jaws343 · August 21

katorga wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Oof. I didn't know about vitality buffing wards, thanks for the insight. They're getting those buffs from other players though right? And I assume they're short duration buffs. If so, it still sounds like kind of a narrow playstyle to me. If those are self buffs then it must be from item sets, because they're not in the sorc toolkit. If sorcs can source their own major and minor vitality then the devs dropped the ball imo.

Major/minor vitality is easy to get; you can put major on the scribing skill. The counter debuffs are also easy to get...so it cancels out.

Not sure how many cp players run bastion to counter shields, but again cancels out bastion on a sorc.

A max mag sorc with 27-30K health melts with the undeath nerf. I think undeath was carrying the build for most players. It is the build I am least successful with on my sorc right now. TTK is so low, players are dead b4 I have enough global cooldowns to line up my burst while casting ward every couple of skills so I don't get completely wrecked in a few seconds by proc builds (I'm not nearly as good as the master sorc players, bear that in mind).

Hasn't hit console yet, but as a Sorc already not running undeath, I am very much looking forward to the changes. Going to drastically increase my own time to kill and pretty much change nothing about my own survivability. About time though with undeath, hitting someone under 8K health with Wrath and seeing their health barely move and then them healing to full the next second has been infuriating for years now.

Bushido2513 · August 21

Tinkerhorn wrote: »

I would say with the nerf to undeath in isolation has actually been pretty bad contrary to popular opinion and is actually a huge boost for those at large numerical advantages. If you want to play damage now you need to be either Sorc or NB. Sorc due to mobility and ward just being way too strong. Nb for mobility and invisibility. Further NB has become even more annoying to deal with due to the 'fix' to cloak meaning you must have detect pots. Would be fine if you werent using pots to source other buffs and if NB's couldn't just run outside of the detection but we're talking about a game where someone can vanish at will in front of your face as many times as they like.
Essentially either come as a sorc or nb, come tanky enough and able to sustain block casting ready to stalemate anyone on a similar build, come tanky enough where you're a borderline troll tank, come in a group which outnumbers the other group, or come as a premade where crosshealing has you covered. Don't bother being melee.
Personally I think the game has just deteriorated constantly in quality. If you weren't happy to come back in U41, you won't be happy to cone back in U43.
Bad time to be a templar or necro and they weren't exactly doing phenomenal to begin with.

This sounds challenging and potentially upsetting but also possibly fun! Change is hard but I think this one is in the right hard direction.

SeaGtGruff · August 21

I main a Sorc and I die a lot in PvP. /shrug

I imagine that any good min/maxer could find a way to elevate any class to this supposedly "unkillable" status using creative combinations of non-class skills, CP perks, gear sets, provisions, potions, etc. Just because some highly-skilled, hardcore players enjoy playing a given class in a way that you don't like, doesn't mean that everyone else also plays the class that way.

Galeriano2 · August 21

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

Oof. I didn't know about vitality buffing wards, thanks for the insight. They're getting those buffs from other players though right? And I assume they're short duration buffs. If so, it still sounds like kind of a narrow playstyle to me. If those are self buffs then it must be from item sets, because they're not in the sorc toolkit. If sorcs can source their own major and minor vitality then the devs dropped the ball imo.

You can have scribing abilities with major and minor vitality.

Aces-High-82 · August 21

Good luck killing anyone competent on a 60k mag setup. That extra mag could have went into better damage stats, cp, mundus and Sets.
Edith: better traits also

Bushido2513 · August 21

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Good luck killing anyone competent on a 60k mag setup. That extra mag could have went into better damage stats, cp, mundus and Sets.
Edith: better traits also

To be fair good luck killing a plar standing in heals, a 40k health warden or arc, a fast NB, etc. and yes all those classes can still move your health bar while being hard to kill.

At this point to kill someone you either just need to be better than them or have help. If you are equally matched it's going to either stalemate or come down to who got tired and or hit a lag spike first. This wouldn't be the worst thing except it's too easy to turtle and potentially reset the fight.

FriedEggSandwich · August 22

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

OP sounds like they want to delete the sorc class. I have 39k mag in cyrodiil, and my ward is 10k. Pls don't nerf.

I've never tried pushing max mag. How much mag do you need for a 20k ward? Be interesting to see how it scales. I hope just adding 10k more magicka doesn't double the ward size. That would be silly.

I don't know why the ward was given a heal. I don't need it because I can't drop dark conversion or healing contingency, so it doesn't save me bar space. It was fine before imo. It's not even useful in pve because crit surge. Can't understand the thinking behind the change.

MarioMario wrote: »

The sorcerers are the least impacted because when they shield below 15% health, they have a whole shield pool that benefits from undeath.

That doesn't sound intended. Or maybe it does idk.

Ward was given a heal because Sorc desperately needed an actual burst heal at the time we were asking, and we were asking for years. At the time there was no other way to access a burst heal on Sorc that wasn't interruptible (like every other class has), but then we also got scribing with viable burst heals, which largely would have rectified the issue.

This is just my opinion, so feel free to disregard. But I would argue that sorc has never desperately needed a burst heal, and the reason I think that is because it has always had a burst defence. Ward is an on-demand extension of the health pool. It's even treated as such with resistances and undeath. I don't think every class needs what every other class has. Sorc had access to heals from other skill lines, and that has always been fine for me.

Yudo · August 22

The only change was that curse ability is now blockable. May help a bit with ranged burst outside of stun combos.

Turtle_Bot · August 22

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

This is just my opinion, so feel free to disregard. But I would argue that sorc has never desperately needed a burst heal, and the reason I think that is because it has always had a burst defence. Ward is an on-demand extension of the health pool. It's even treated as such with resistances and undeath. I don't think every class needs what every other class has. Sorc had access to heals from other skill lines, and that has always been fine for me.

Depends, sorc definitely needed something (the current ward was not it, but it definitely needed something).

Scribing definitely fills the role of a burst heal for the sorcs who don't like ward, but imo sorc needed more reliable passive healing over time that doesn't rely on dealing damage, instead of just giving ward a burst heal.

FriedEggSandwich · August 22

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

This is just my opinion, so feel free to disregard. But I would argue that sorc has never desperately needed a burst heal, and the reason I think that is because it has always had a burst defence. Ward is an on-demand extension of the health pool. It's even treated as such with resistances and undeath. I don't think every class needs what every other class has. Sorc had access to heals from other skill lines, and that has always been fine for me.

Depends, sorc definitely needed something (the current ward was not it, but it definitely needed something).

Scribing definitely fills the role of a burst heal for the sorcs who don't like ward, but imo sorc needed more reliable passive healing over time that doesn't rely on dealing damage, instead of just giving ward a burst heal.

In theory I'd be up for more reliable passive healing in pvp. Surge has always just been a sorcery button for me in pvp, and it feels liberating to finally drop it. But I do like the way surge works; healing from crits feels so nice in pve, and is super reliable there. I can't think how else to give sorcs reliable passive healing in pvp though, short of buffing crit builds, which I don't particularly want. I have to build for crit in pve, and I also find it liberating to not need to build for crit in pvp.

Turtle_Bot · August 22

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Hardened Ward is still grossly op compared to every other self survival tool in the game.

Going to have to partially disagree here. It is OP compared to every other self survival tool in the game except 1.

I've been playing 1 of my NB a lot over the past 2 weeks (it's a hybrid brawler/ganker setup) so this is not coming from someone frustrated with cloak, but from someone using it themselves to extreme effectiveness to survive things that even ward doesn't survive.

Cloak is just broken on a level that even ward can't compare to, (even with my 300+ ping and no defensive set). No ability should be granting that amount of survivability (not to mention the offensive power it also enables) in 1 button press.

It helps I have thumbs and know how to press WASD, but still.

Don't get me wrong, I still agree ward needs toning down, but cloak needs a complete redesign/remake from the ground up. It is so overpowered as a mechanic, that cloak alone (assuming one knows how to press WASD) makes melee NB not only viable, but top tier (in PvP), even during the current ranged meta we are in.

Range gank blade is still stronger, safer and easier, but my point still stands, no other class in the game on a melee build comes close to current range meta except NB and it's all exclusively because of what cloak enables both offensively and defensively on its own, despite the counters (that can be easily played around with even a minute amount of skill/knowledge).

bladenick · August 22

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Hardened Ward is still grossly op compared to every other self survival tool in the game.

Going to have to partially disagree here. It is OP compared to every other self survival tool in the game except 1.

I've been playing 1 of my NB a lot over the past 2 weeks (it's a hybrid brawler/ganker setup) so this is not coming from someone frustrated with cloak, but from someone using it themselves to extreme effectiveness to survive things that even ward doesn't survive.

Cloak is just broken on a level that even ward can't compare to, (even with my 300+ ping and no defensive set). No ability should be granting that amount of survivability (not to mention the offensive power it also enables) in 1 button press.
It helps I have thumbs and know how to press WASD, but still.

Don't get me wrong, I still agree ward needs toning down, but cloak needs a complete redesign/remake from the ground up. It is so overpowered as a mechanic, that cloak alone (assuming one knows how to press WASD) makes melee NB not only viable, but top tier (in PvP), even during the current ranged meta we are in.
Range gank blade is still stronger, safer and easier, but my point still stands, no other class in the game on a melee build comes close to current range meta except NB and it's all exclusively because of what cloak enables both offensively and defensively on its own, despite the counters (that can be easily played around with even a minute amount of skill/knowledge).

Don’t understanding this, a mag sorc even could survive in 1 vs n with ward and streak, for NB with offense build get no chance to run away under chasing of sorc with detect pot, and in 1 vs n scenario, the NB get zero chance to survival under detect pot

This “incredible survivability” only be true that your opponent don’t get detect pot,

And it totally a mess for NB to get 1 vs 1 scenario with sorc and detect pot

Galeriano2 · August 22

bladenick wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Hardened Ward is still grossly op compared to every other self survival tool in the game.

Going to have to partially disagree here. It is OP compared to every other self survival tool in the game except 1.

I've been playing 1 of my NB a lot over the past 2 weeks (it's a hybrid brawler/ganker setup) so this is not coming from someone frustrated with cloak, but from someone using it themselves to extreme effectiveness to survive things that even ward doesn't survive.

Cloak is just broken on a level that even ward can't compare to, (even with my 300+ ping and no defensive set). No ability should be granting that amount of survivability (not to mention the offensive power it also enables) in 1 button press.
It helps I have thumbs and know how to press WASD, but still.

Don't get me wrong, I still agree ward needs toning down, but cloak needs a complete redesign/remake from the ground up. It is so overpowered as a mechanic, that cloak alone (assuming one knows how to press WASD) makes melee NB not only viable, but top tier (in PvP), even during the current ranged meta we are in.
Range gank blade is still stronger, safer and easier, but my point still stands, no other class in the game on a melee build comes close to current range meta except NB and it's all exclusively because of what cloak enables both offensively and defensively on its own, despite the counters (that can be easily played around with even a minute amount of skill/knowledge).

Don’t understanding this, a mag sorc even could survive in 1 vs n with ward and streak, for NB with offense build get no chance to run away under chasing of sorc with detect pot, and in 1 vs n scenario, the NB get zero chance to survival under detect pot

This “incredible survivability” only be true that your opponent don’t get detect pot,

And it totally a mess for NB to get 1 vs 1 scenario with sorc and detect pot

[snip] Class recived multiple tools to deal with detect pots. Actually class recived plenty of buffs to be viable even without cloak which many players proved few patches ago when they started to drop cloak and switch it to camo hunter which resulted with ZoS adding major savagery/prophecy to cloak so it wouldn't lag behind.

[edited for baiting]