No Minor Force on Dark Deal = Major Stam Sorc Nerf in PvP

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · July 21

Minor Force was removed from Dark Deal entirely.

Stam Sorcs generally don't use Race Against Time in PvP because they already have Streak + Major Expedition from Quick Cloak and Minor Expedition from Hurricane. Stam Sorcs are also typically in 3 to 5 medium for dodge rolls and use Celerity which further removes the need for Race Against Time. The snare and immobilization immunity just isn't needed.

With subclassing, many players no longer use Dark Deal and instead use Animal Companions and Restoring Light for sustain. But some players still use Dark Deal. Now that Minor Force was removed, those players must slot an additional ability or face a -10% crit damage penalty compared to everyone else in PvP. This is a pretty big nerf.

June 2023: PC/Mac Patch Notes v9.0.5

@ZOS_Kevin Is the Dev Team backtracking on Minor Force. If so, why?
Or was this change supposed to be reverted on PTS and was missed on accident?

MincMincMinc · July 21

TBF stamsorcs dont run daedric or dark magic because the lines don't provide anything. Unless the lines are strong on their own, nobody ever will use them so long as subclassing exists.

Sustain is far too high in the game ever since major/minor sustain buffs got changed, and when the mundus regens were made higher, and jewelry damage glyphs got bonus regen, etc. Even if zos tensioned the regen stats again then you are fighting whether to run animal or dark magic, which shouldnt need explanation at this point.

acastanza_ESO · July 21

The wild part is this in combination with this line from the patch notes today:

If you KNOW that Dark Magic isn't a desirable skill line, then WHY are you giving it ANY nerfs at all?! Just insane.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · July 21

MincMincMinc wrote: »

TBF stamsorcs dont run daedric or dark magic because the lines don't provide anything. Unless the lines are strong on their own, nobody ever will use them so long as subclassing exists.

Sustain is far too high in the game ever since major/minor sustain buffs got changed, and when the mundus regens were made higher, and jewelry damage glyphs got bonus regen, etc. Even if zos tensioned the regen stats again then you are fighting whether to run animal or dark magic, which shouldnt need explanation at this point.

I agree with you on the wording that "Stam Sorcs generally do this" is probably not accurate now. I've updated the original post to indicate that. But I think we need to acknowledge that there is not a single standard way to build anymore. For your average PvPer, the Dark Magic skill line is probably not optimal. But there are many options now and some off-meta builds still use Dark Deal that perform just as well, if not better than some meta builds.

MashmalloMan · July 21

I wrote this in the feedback thread to you, but I'd prefer to discuss it here.

The origianl design, the 10s vs 20s thing was fairly balanced when it also gave Minor Force, but for seemingly no reason at all it's been removed from the class entirely so I'm not sure the morphs are all that close anymore.

From a recovery perspective:

DD gives 3600 + 2400 over 10s or 240/s
DE gives 4500 + 3600 over 20s or 360/2s, average of 180/s

Assuming you use them when they expire:

DD = 6000/10s = 600/s = 1200 recovery
DE = 8100/20s = 405/s = 810 recovery

Assuming you use them every 10s:

DD = 6000 total, 600/s, worth 1200 recovery.
DE = 6300 total, 630/s, worth 1260 recovery.

Assuming you spam them every 1s:

DD = 3600 + 240 = 3840
DE = 4500

DE is mostly ahead, but costs 3200 Stamina vs DD's 2700 Magicka. Normally Stamina skills cost -15% less considering they pull from your core combat resource pool, so it's definitely something to consider because DE is much riskier to spam, but rewards more upfront and less over the 20s.

DD by comparison is 15% less than DE, as if it's a Stamina skill, making it much easier to spam consistently with lower risk. It also allows the player to recover Stamina through core combat abilities like block/sprint, where as DE is just more generic Magicka Recovery.

The 20s buff to Minor Berserk just makes it easier to manage, a quality of life change because historically 10s buff management is extremely annoying to deal with on a utility skill. It doesn't mean the resources need to match that length, it just means we no longer have to spam it every 10s to keep it up even when we don't actually need the sustain.

All this to say, I don't want them to be the same at 20s personally, I think the idea of Dark Deal being shorter for quicker recovery, less bursty, and more reliable makes the morph decisions unique. I find Rune Focus and Betty morphs quite boring and uninspired.. however, the fact that Minor Force was removed is the biggest oversight here. Why on earth was it not placed back on to the ability?

They should do one of the following:

Add back Minor Force for 20s to DD.
Buff up DD's resource/heal over 10s to be higher than DE, not equal.
Add a 10s hot to DD, eg. 6000 over 10s or 600/s.
Boringly copy/paste mechanics from DE to DD, 20s, higher value, etc, then add Minor Force to the base skill and all morphs.

If they don't add Minor Force back to DD, it has to move to another damage skill in the kit like Mage's Fury or Bound Armaments for slotting. Frankly it kinda sucked on DD and not every build could use it, so I'd prefer it on a damage skill, but deleting it entirely is really frustrating. 1 step forward, 2 steps back, all the while pretending like they've listened to feedback and reverted a bad change to Lightning Form.

s3dulo · July 21

Make dark deal instant cast. It's the only burst heal a sorc has and it's the only class that has to endure a cast time on it's burst heal. Removing that cast time would go a long way to helping this abysmal skill line.

s3dulo · July 21

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

The wild part is this in combination with this line from the patch notes today:

If you KNOW that Dark Magic isn't a desirable skill line, then WHY are you giving it ANY nerfs at all?! Just insane.

Couldn't agree more. Sorc needs multiple significant buffs to it's skill line. Streak, Major resolve on lightning form, and 5% buff to physical damage are the only reasons sorc gets any play in PVP at all.

MashmalloMan · July 21

s3dulo wrote: »

Make dark deal instant cast. It's the only burst heal a sorc has and it's the only class that has to endure a cast time on it's burst heal. Removing that cast time would go a long way to helping this abysmal skill line.

Yeah it doesn't make a whole lot of sense anymore with subclassing. If you asked me previously, my suggestion would of been:

Make it a cast time of 0.8s instead of 1s.
Allow it to be instantly cast when blocking, but you don't get the burst heal for doing it this way. Blood Magic would still proc.
Add a low level hot for the 10-20s duration no matter how you cast it.

This was intended to allow tanks to better utilize the skills as they're typically meant for tanks, yet force the player to drop block, as well, we needed some type of hot aside from Surge. A low level one that helps keep you topped up on the defensive in conjunction with Ward before it could burst heal, but then that was removed anyway.

Now that subclassing is here, Betty and Rune Focus have taken center stage. Siphoning Attacks was reworked, and although it's in a mixed bag of a line that isn't super popular, it provides both resources and a minor version of Surge, effectively a joint combo of DD and Surge in 1, all while being instant cast and active 24/7.

So yeah, just remove the cast time already. It's not like it will justify picking the line in the 1st place over Animal Companions.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · July 21

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Make it a cast time of 0.8s instead of 1s.

I don't want to get too off topic but I agree with this. When light attack weaving Dark Deal, the 1s cast time slows your DPS but 0.8s would solve that. You cannot light attack on 1 second intervals with a 1 second cast time. Trust me, go try it. The combat system won't let you.

0 Light Attack
1.1 Dark Deal
2.1 Light Attack
2.2 Dark Deal
3.2 Light Attack
3.3 Dark Deal

etc ... you lose 0.1 second every cast

This is very noticeable with Relequen stacks because you cannot stop light attacking.

YandereGirlfriend · July 21

Yes, 0.8 seconds is reasonable whereas 1.0 is quite spiteful.

IIRC it is the only cast time ability in the game with a duration longer than 0.8 seconds.