Sorc Balance

ZhuJiuyin

The changes to Daedric Prey in U46 are not only unhelpful to PVE Sorc (pet & non-pet), but also unfavorable for those who are interested in pets to subclass, because Daedric Prey loses the buff for other pets.
Furthermore, the changes to Daedric Prey are the exact opposite of the v11.0.0 developer notes, which state that "Many abilities were originally designed to be "outliers", to enable a class to stand toe to toe with others in certain aspects." & "This patch focuses on trying to bring into line many of those abilities, while also reinforcing the core themes of a skill line."
Obviously, the changes to Daedric Prey do not help "reinforcing the core themes of a skill line" since it loses the buffs to other pets, and the 50% buff to sorc pets makes them even more of an "outlier".
This of course includes preventing the pan-pet combination from being too powerful, and also preventing pure Sorc from being too powerful. But this is not only contrary to the expectations of U46 developers, but also not conducive to Subclassing, because Daedric Summoning loses its iconic benefits to various pets, and because Sorc pets need to occupy 2 bars, it also makes Daedric Summoning unattractive and not conducive to Subclassing.

The recent change to Lightning Splash and BA damage recovery are all good, but it still does not solve the core problem of Sorc, which is the pet & non-pet divide in PVE. Strengthening one may cause the other to become too powerful. But now that we have Subclassing, maybe we can try another approach, which is to nerf Daedric Prey and allow it to enhance all types of pets, and the dps lost by pure Sorc can be distributed to Dark Magic and Storm Calling.
For example, nerf Daedric Prey to 30% and allow it to benefit all pets. Also increase Suppression Field's damage by 20% (or more, to make it competitive with Atronach), add 10s or 20s dots to Shattering Spines or Daedric Tomb or Endless Fury so they can weave better and do enough damage, add damage bonus to channeled and caster skills to Unholy Knowledge, allow Boundless Storm to have a higher chance to cause Concussed, etc.
In this way, those who like pets can build their pet park through Subclassing and Daedric Prey, while those who like non-pets can make better use of Dark Magic and Storm Calling.

Zyaneth_Bal

Even if curse buffed all pets with it’s current value zoo builds would not overperform.

ZhuJiuyin

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

Even if curse buffed all pets with it’s current value zoo builds would not overperform.

I suggest that we should be cautious. After all, before the patch notes of U46 came out, everyone expected Daedric Prey to make the pet construction powerful because the damage of Blighted Blastbones and Skeletal Archer was not low.
But making Blighted Blastbones 50% stronger doesn't seem like a good idea. According to the data from my tests on PTS, I think the combination of Daedric Summoning + Storm Calling (Energized can enhance Skeletal Archer and Mystic Siphon) + Grave Lord is very interesting, but the slots are obviously insufficient (due to the well-known sorc pets that waste a lot of slots), so it lags behind by about 10% dps. If Daedric Prey can increase the damage of Blighted Blastbones, Skeletal Archer and Maw of the Infernal by 30%(~35%), I think it can just make the pet build on the same level as other constructions.

BretonMage

Please, no. I don't want to be forced to multiclass and keep a zoo to keep up. 2 pets is already plenty for me, thanks.

Anyway, requiring more pets would leave us no room on our bars for any other skills, and one-bar petsorcs would be nerfed into oblivion.

ZhuJiuyin

BretonMage wrote: »

Please, no. I don't want to be forced to multiclass and keep a zoo to keep up. 2 pets is already plenty for me, thanks.

Anyway, requiring more pets would leave us no room on our bars for any other skills, and one-bar petsorcs would be nerfed into oblivion.

I think you may have misunderstood me (or maybe I didn't express myself clearly enough?)
My suggestion is to make pet & non-pet & pure sorc all viable, and free up the power that was originally over-concentrated in Daedric Summoning and distribute it to other sorc lines.
This way, even a pure sorc pet build can benefit from it. The original power is not lost, but is only distributed to other sorc lines.

BretonMage

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

BretonMage wrote: »

Please, no. I don't want to be forced to multiclass and keep a zoo to keep up. 2 pets is already plenty for me, thanks.

Anyway, requiring more pets would leave us no room on our bars for any other skills, and one-bar petsorcs would be nerfed into oblivion.

I think you may have misunderstood me (or maybe I didn't express myself clearly enough?)
My suggestion is to make pet & non-pet & pure sorc all viable, and free up the power that was originally over-concentrated in Daedric Summoning and distribute it to other sorc lines.
This way, even a pure sorc pet build can benefit from it. The original power is not lost, but is only distributed to other sorc lines.

If you reduce Daedric Prey buff while extending it to other class pets, you are essentially forcing petsorcs to take on other pets. Petsorcs are not OP at all on live, there's no need to nerf Daedric Prey. I don't even mind losing Maw, as admittedly it's visually distracting.

I have been supportive of all your other posts about buffing Storm Calling and Dark Magic, though, those skill lines have been in dire need of care for a while now.

ZhuJiuyin

BretonMage wrote: »

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

I think you may have misunderstood me (or maybe I didn't express myself clearly enough?)
My suggestion is to make pet & non-pet & pure sorc all viable, and free up the power that was originally over-concentrated in Daedric Summoning and distribute it to other sorc lines.
This way, even a pure sorc pet build can benefit from it. The original power is not lost, but is only distributed to other sorc lines.

If you reduce Daedric Prey buff while extending it to other class pets, you are essentially forcing petsorcs to take on other pets. Petsorcs are not OP at all on live, there's no need to nerf Daedric Prey. I don't even mind losing Maw, as admittedly it's visually distracting.

I have been supportive of all your other posts about buffing Storm Calling and Dark Magic, though, those skill lines have been in dire need of care for a while now.

But even if the Daedric Prey buff is reduced, it will not force the pet sorc to use pets of other classes. Because what I mean is that the reduced part will be distributed to other sorc skill lines. This way, even without subclassing, pet sorcs still retain their original power, and those who wish to have other class pets will need to exchange at least one (already buffed) skill line, so these pan-pet builds must more carefully weigh the consequences of exchanging Storm Calling or Dark magic, as these two lines have become more powerful and more valuable, and reducing the Daedric Prey buff will also ensure that pan-pet builds do not become too powerful.
What I am worried about is that if Daedric Prey maintains a 45% (or 50% in U46) buff for all pets, the pan-pet build after subclassing will be too strong, but if Daedric Prey is only effective for sorc pets, the subclassing value of Daedric Summoning will be greatly damaged.
Ultimately, the problem is that the Sorc's skill lines are too interconnected, and each skill line is of insufficient value on its own, so they must be combined to be effective, which means that swapping any skill line will affect the Sorc as a whole.

necro_the_crafter

easy changes to at least help sorcs in some way:

Move armaments/armor to dark magic, preferably swap with mines;
Increase boundless and hurricane initial radius to 7m, add inital tick of direct damage;
Icrease upfront damage of mages wrath and endless fury;
Increase chanse to proc concossion with lightning splash and morphs;
add unique interaction with concossion through passives, every other elemental skill line have it except for storm calling;

And then sorc still needs more to make each line independant enough on their own for subclassing.
As I dont really care about pet DPS setups, I would like to see daedric summoning become a full blown healing/ utility line, while dark magic made into DPS one. And storm calling just need a bit of buffs across the actives and passives, to bring it up in power with the other elemental lines like winters embrace or ardent flame.

ZhuJiuyin

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

easy changes to at least help sorcs in some way:

Move armaments/armor to dark magic, preferably swap with mines;
Increase boundless and hurricane initial radius to 7m, add inital tick of direct damage;
Icrease upfront damage of mages wrath and endless fury;
Increase chanse to proc concossion with lightning splash and morphs;
add unique interaction with concossion through passives, every other elemental skill line have it except for storm calling;

And then sorc still needs more to make each line independant enough on their own for subclassing.
As I dont really care about pet DPS setups, I would like to see daedric summoning become a full blown healing/ utility line, while dark magic made into DPS one. And storm calling just need a bit of buffs across the actives and passives, to bring it up in power with the other elemental lines like winters embrace or ardent flame.

Your suggestion is also the suggestion of most sorc players including me. Improving Dark Magic and Storm Calling is a higher priority. I also believe that many people prefer non-pet build (including me), but it is a bit unfair not to consider pet build, and "Those who do not wish to interact with the pet gameplay can now replace this skill line as a whole." seems to indicate that the developers have a special liking for pet build.
Additionally, pet-builds consume so much of Sorc's damage budget that it would be difficult to fully overhaul Sorc without considering all three skill lines at the same time. Because as I said before, the Sorc's skill lines are too interconnected, which makes each skill line insufficient on its own, and can only be effective when combined, which means that changing (or swapping) any skill line will affect the entire wizard (pet & non-pet).

AtriaKhorist

Frankly - just bake the Daedric Prey bonus into the actual pets and give it some other bonus. Requiring a specific other skill to make pets viable in the first place after they already take double slots is ridiculous.

Skills should be valuable on their own, not only in combination with others.

Malyore

Could they make it where curse has diminishing returns the more pets you have active? Would that work better?

necro_the_crafter

I like how new subclassing npc speaks about sorcs:

Surely a single spell in sorcs kit that has curse in its name is Dark Magic skill...

ZhuJiuyin

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

I like how new subclassing npc speaks about sorcs:

Surely a single spell in sorcs kit that has curse in its name is Dark Magic skill...

Yes, another example where the skill line doesn't match the legendary setting.

The inability of each skill to be independent has always been Sorc's biggest problem, and this is also a problem with the old class. In the past, this problem (not even a problem) was not a big concern because each class operated independently, but it has become a clear problem in today's subclassing, and Sorc has more severe symptoms than other classes due to its overly intertwined skill lines. Even pet sorcs will suffer serious dps losses if they are separated from Energized.

Hopefully we'll see more combat balancing next week, buffing Storm Callingm and Dark Magic, otherwise subclassing may be the death knell for sorc.

danko355

I hate the idea of moving Curse to Dark magic. Right now Dark magic seems completely useless, and it won’t be much better with added Curse. On the other hand, Summoning seems fine even for non-pet sorc, having curse, shield and bound aegis. Moving curse to the Dark magic in exchange for complete trash skill (mines) will further degrade the Summoning tree. Right now sorc at least has 2 mostly decent trees, without Curse Summoning will be very mediocre.

ZhuJiuyin

I agree that a better approach would be to redesign the other Dark magic abilities besides Crystal Shard and Exploitation.
Dark Magic is severely limited for no reason, and it should be an important dps line for non-pet sorc. If the developers think non-pet sorc should be swapped for Daedric Summoning, then Dark Magic should be given more damage capabilities, otherwise non-pet sorc will still be weak and will become weaker due to subclassing.

Maggusemm

one requirement for a sensible gameplay would be that crystal fragments can outperform the shield beam in damage by some percent

Zyaneth_Bal

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

I agree that a better approach would be to redesign the other Dark magic abilities besides Crystal Shard and Exploitation.
Dark Magic is severely limited for no reason, and it should be an important dps line for non-pet sorc. If the developers think non-pet sorc should be swapped for Daedric Summoning, then Dark Magic should be given more damage capabilities, otherwise non-pet sorc will still be weak and will become weaker due to subclassing.

Tbh crystal shards is the only damage skill in dark magic, making it supposedly a tank/support skill line. So it would make sense to move crystal shards to storm calling and make it deal shock damage.
But all of sorc skill lines are a mix of skills of different roles and purposes, so if all trees aren’t sorted out in order it would at least make sense to add more damage to underwhelming dark magic passive like blood magic that performs very poorly with crystal fragments and any other dark magic skill other than crystal weapon and exploitations which is essentially a much weaker version or nb’s hemorrhage with no other active or passive skills in the line making up for that weakness. Some active skills could use a change too, like rune prison which is simply too bad to be used and mines that are too weak and difficult to use especially for their cost.

From subclassing point of view dark magic is one of the weakest and least desirable skill lines out of all.
But in fact so is daedric summoning, if anything it requires buffs and changes too. Pets simply don’t give enough to justify taking up 2 skill slots, then you have to slot daedric prey too because it literally contains half of pets’ damage making them absolutely dependent on it. Curse needs to be buffed to make it a desirable damage and burst option by itself. Unlike other similar skills like fissure, blastbones, grim focus it doesn’t have a single additional effect besides plainly dealing damage. Not only that but it’s damage is inferior too being only slightly higher than that of a spammable.

Thoriorz

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

Even if curse buffed all pets with it’s current value zoo builds would not overperform.

Exactly, that's why I don't understand why the devs are worried about Daedric Prey...

There are (and will be in Live for sure) builds that do parsing over 150k, It's all ok, but my bear from Animal Companion line can't get buff from Daedric Prey because it would probably be too OP...

ZhuJiuyin

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

all of sorc skill lines are a mix of skills of different roles and purposes,
From subclassing point of view dark magic is one of the weakest and least desirable skill lines out of all.
But in fact so is daedric summoning, if anything it requires buffs and changes too.

That's why I hope we can make to even out the damage budget of each Sorc line, shifting too much from Daedric Summoning to Dark Magic (with Storm Calling, but that line is currently passively good and just needs a little bit of tweaking), and opening up the Daedric Summoning buff to all pets.
What makes more sense is what I've mentioned elsewhere, let us to make good use of the skill morph, eliminate some useless/less used morphs and rework them, so that each skill line of sorc is damage + defense/damage + heal.
And to be honest, Sorc has too many duplicate morphs, or weaker passive abilities compared to other classes, such as Hardened Ward and Regenerative Ward, Mages' Wrath and Endless Fury, Shattering Spines and Cephaliarch's Flail (also causes area immobilized, damage, heal) and Burning Talons (also causes area immobilized, damage), Exploitation and Hemorrhage, etc.

Improved Example: Dark Magic
Negate Magic: one of the two Morphs focuses on damage and the other focuses on healing (but the damage of Suppression Field needs to be greatly increased, otherwise the current damage is still not suitable for the ultimate)

Crystal Shard: both of its current variants are iconic and don't need much change.

Encase: the same two Morphs, one focused on damage, one focused on treatment, Vibrant Shroud is fine, but the damage of Shattering Spines is insufficient. Major Maim should be removed and given a 10-second dot to facilitate weaving.

Rune Prison: Neither is great, but Rune Cage is a ranged control ability in PVP and doesn't need to be adjusted for now, while Defensive Rune can be reworked into an ability suitable for tanks.
Dark Exchange, no changes are needed for now.
Daedric Mines, same problem as Encase, Daedric Refuge is ok, but Daedric Tomb is terrible and needs to be reworked.

Passive Abilities:
Unholy Knowledge：it can cost reduction 6% , but seems a bit weak compared to Templar Dawn's Wrath's Restoring Spirit, which also reduces the ultimate cost by 5%. Should give Unholy Knowledge a buff applicable to damage. Example: Increases the damage of a Sorc class ability by 5%(reward pure class) or After using a channeled and cast-timed skill, increases the damage done by 5%.
There's nothing wrong with Blood Magic, but it would be nice to be able to apply the healing to allies as well
Persistence is the same as Unholy Knowledge, it's too cheap. Should give a buff appropriate for heal or tank.
Exploitation is in a similar situation to Unholy Knowledge, being too mediocre when compared to other passive abilities of the same type. Compared with NB's Hemorrhage, the latter also has an additional Critical Damage by 10%. Exploitation should be given a damage buff, such as increasing Sorc's Critical by 5%, or increasing direct damage by 5%.


As long as skill morph is improved, it can not only meet people's needs to play dark mage, shork mage or pet summoning, but also improve the theme and independence of the three skill lines of Sorc, and ensure that they are attractive enough in subclassing to make people choose them.

BretonMage

I love how non-petsorcs are looking to carve up the Daedric Summoning line to benefit non-petsorcs. It's very easy to offer to sacrifice skill lines that one doesn't use, but please understand that there are petsorcs in the community who would not appreciate seeing their pets get nerfed.

Not everyone wants to subclass into a zoo build, and even if you buff the other sorc lines, there are one-bar petsorcs who may not benefit from Dark Magic/Storm Calling buffs, and would just see a straight nerf.

The Daedric Summoning line is fine as it is for pet builds, it doesn't need to be made more appealing for zoo builds. If Daedric Prey buffs daedric pets by 50%, it's perfectly logical and perfectly appealing by itself.

I continue to stress that pure classes should not be sacrificed on the altar of subclassing.

AtriaKhorist

The Daedric Summoning line is very much not fine. Not even for petsorcs or anyone subclassing into it with the plan to use pets. You need 3 (1 Pet) or 5 (2 pets) slots reserved for pets just to start with - the pets and Curse. That by itself is already poor design and even at that investment they're still pretty middling.

Nobody is calling to nerf pets, people are calling to make them worthwhile by themselves, to let every skill line stand on its own legs - Daedric Summoning included.

Right now it does not.

BretonMage

AtriaKhorist wrote: »

The Daedric Summoning line is very much not fine. Not even for petsorcs or anyone subclassing into it with the plan to use pets. You need 3 (1 Pet) or 5 (2 pets) slots reserved for pets just to start with - the pets and Curse. That by itself is already poor design and even at that investment they're still pretty middling.

Nobody is calling to nerf pets, people are calling to make them worthwhile by themselves, to let every skill line stand on its own legs - Daedric Summoning included.

Right now it does not.

OP is asking for a nerf to Daedric Prey buff to sorc pets, in order to extend the buff to non-sorc pets.

When I say it's fine, I meant that it does not need a nerf. I will happily take a buff, though, and I believe that with subclassing around the corner, it will need a buff. I am also neutral on the way Daedric Prey works atm. Yes, it's an extra slot that could go to another skill, but I find it works well to direct pets to a target I'm not attacking.

I would not mind having base sorc pet damage boosted by a large amount to remove the need for Daedric Prey.

AtriaKhorist

You really need to read the full convo, then.

ZhuJiuyin

BretonMage wrote: »

I would not mind having base sorc pet damage boosted by a large amount to remove the need for Daedric Prey.

Yes, Daedric Prey definitely needs a nerf to avoid the skill becoming what the developers call an "outliers", but where the lost dps should be allocated is the question, and I personally have no objection to buffing the raw damage of the sorc pet to make up for the damage loss caused by the nerf of Daedric Prey. But it is also necessary to strengthen the obviously weak skill lines like Dark Magic, otherwise the line will die completely in the subclassing.
As I said before, "the problem is that the Sorc's skill lines are too interconnected, and each skill line is of insufficient value on its own, so they must be combined to be effective, which means that swapping any skill line will affect the Sorc as a whole."
The biggest reason for this problem is that Daedric Prey overpowers the pet, causing Dark Magic and Storm Calling to be too weak, and making the 2 bar limit on the sorc's pet meaningless, because without Daedric Prey, the sorc pet is very weak.

BretonMage

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

But it is also necessary to strengthen the obviously weak skill lines like Dark Magic, otherwise the line will die completely in the subclassing.

I think this is the main problem here, and we should honestly just focus on this. We don't need to conflate the weakness of Dark Magic and Storm Calling with the effectiveness of Daedric Summoning, especially since the class isn't even that competitive at the moment. In fact if you lament the interconnectedness of the skill lines, then bringing the Dark Magic and Storm Calling lines up to date will resolve that issue without needing to touch Daedric Summoning.

AtriaKhorist wrote: »

You really need to read the full convo, then.

I did.

supabicboi

[snip]

please find a reference when zos has moved around skills between skill lines in the past.

first, for any of these change wishes to come true, having precedence would be a good indicator that zos might actually implement a skill swap between skill lines.

if it has happened before, whichever class it might be, then there 'might' be a chance for a skill swap between skill lines.

if it has never happened before, then keep dreaming. doesnt even matter how constructive your imagined builds are, zos will not, bat an eye.

[snip]
[edited for bashing]

Turtle_Bot

supabicboi wrote: »

please find a reference when zos has moved around skills between skill lines in the past.

They moved NB skills around recently (U43), swapping veiled strike and morphs (used to be in the shadow line) with blur and morphs (used to be in the assassination line). They did this to:

We're going through and cleaning up some large inconsistencies with the Nightblade class by reorganizing some abilities that felt out of place, both thematically from their skill line as well as balance-wise.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/664131/pc-mac-patch-notes-v10-1-5-update-43#latest




This is why sorcs have been asking for this to be done for some of sorcs skills that could/should be swapped around since they feel out of place/inconsistent and to fit better (and I quote ZOS own dev comments here) "both thematically from their skill line as well as balance-wise".

supabicboi

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

supabicboi wrote: »

please find a reference when zos has moved around skills between skill lines in the past.

They moved NB skills around recently (U43), swapping veiled strike and morphs (used to be in the shadow line) with blur and morphs (used to be in the assassination line). They did this to:

We're going through and cleaning up some large inconsistencies with the Nightblade class by reorganizing some abilities that felt out of place, both thematically from their skill line as well as balance-wise.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/664131/pc-mac-patch-notes-v10-1-5-update-43#latest




This is why sorcs have been asking for this to be done for some of sorcs skills that could/should be swapped around since they feel out of place/inconsistent and to fit better (and I quote ZOS own dev comments here) "both thematically from their skill line as well as balance-wise".

this is a good example and thanks for providing that reference, there might.. be hope of some kind of change then.. I believe another major issue here, is the agreed definition on the thematic of Dark Magic and Deadric Summoning. ZOS may still be stubborn on thinking Curse belongs in the daedric summoning line. hope they do redefine what the sorc skill lines mean thematically, or else we wont be seeing changes just cuz it makes a lot more sense combat wise.

tbh the land mines, albeit useless, feels way more like a summon.

Stx

The way the Sorc trees are now, the easiest thing to do I believe would be to make Storm calling and Daedric summoning both ‘dps’ focused trees and dark magic a ‘tank’ focused tree. I don’t think Sorcs have enough healing abilities or passives to warrant a dedicated healing tree.

Crystal Frags/weapon would definitely need to be moved from dark magic to one of the other two lines, probably Daedric summoning. And move ward to dark magic. After that I think some buffs to a number of passives and abilities would be warranted to let them compete with other dps / tank lines, but I’m not sure.

ZhuJiuyin

Stx wrote: »

The way the Sorc trees are now, the easiest thing to do I believe would be to make Storm calling and Daedric summoning both ‘dps’ focused trees and dark magic a ‘tank’ focused tree. I don’t think Sorcs have enough healing abilities or passives to warrant a dedicated healing tree.

Crystal Frags/weapon would definitely need to be moved from dark magic to one of the other two lines, probably Daedric summoning. And move ward to dark magic. After that I think some buffs to a number of passives and abilities would be warranted to let them compete with other dps / tank lines, but I’m not sure.

But Dark Magic doesn't have many tank skills, but Daedric Summoning has Clannfear, Ward, and Bound Aegis, which are common in PVE tanks.
Ultimately, the biggest problem with the three Sorc lines is the over-strengthening of pet builds in the past, which resulted in too many abilities being assigned to Daedric Summoning.
The only way this would work without breaking the player's ability to play as a shock mage, summoning mage, or dark mage is to have all three Sorc lines have morphs that match damage+tanking or damage+healing, like Encase, with one morph focusing on damage and the other focusing on healing (or tanking).

MashmalloMan

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

I like how new subclassing npc speaks about sorcs:

Surely a single spell in sorcs kit that has curse in its name is Dark Magic skill...

With quotes like this, I'm convinced ZOS is just trolling us at this point, knowing they want to move skills around, but ran out of time for this update... or something else lame like that. Here's more fuel to that fire pairing BA with Dark Magic:

Bound Armaments week 1 dev comment:

This ability now stacks up to 8 times, up from 4, so that it is less punishing and has a flexible fit into the Crystal Weapon rotation. Activating the ability will still only shoot up to 4 of the bound daggers at a time. Reduced the damage per bound dagger by 10%.

And yes I know I'm reading into things, but with how things are going, whether they meant it or not, it's increasingly obvious that even they subconsciously think Dark Magic and Daedric Summoning are too mixed up.

Insert quote about giving up Daedric Summoning if you don't like pets...