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U50 Feedback Thread for Class Mastery
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NxJoeyD✭✭✭✭And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.
Not merely a handful of people. The overwhelming majority echo similar sentiments. The addressing post the devs did last week has half the comments saying such things.
Personally I am not too bothered having to use external skills, this is not my primary issue, because such has been the reality for Sorc since day 1, and realistically you can only use so many skills at a time anyways.
Still it's true that there is an overwhelming amount of useless skills/morphs. Some other class skillines share this same problem.
What bothers me much more is how mostly undertuned the Sorc masteries are. I don't generally find it useful to compare masteries across classes, but in the case of Font of Power, it helps to show how underpowered it is. Templar might only get 600 spell damage, but alas, they also have an additional 16% spell damage bonus from passives (roughly the value Font of Power grants for average builds by the way) which lets those 600 damage baloon up to nearly 820 spell damage with Major Sorcery. In pvp this becomes 880 spell damage with keep/flag buffs. Warden can baloon up to over 2300 spell damage with external % damage sources.
And all this goes for Nightblade and Arcanist too. They get base damage, which is far superior to a % modifier like Font of Power, because they benefit from modifiers that make them even stronger. Font of Power is one of the worst of all the spell damage talents offered through masteries when you really think about it, particularly when considering that it's tied to the worst damage stats in the game (magicka and stamina.) And this doubly nerfs Font of Power, because in order to raise its bonus, you have to actively forgo the stat you seek to increase with it (spell damage) in favor of magicka. Make it make sense.
It is a really bad paradox that could have easily been bettered by not making the conversion rate as harsh as it is. 1750 is ridiculous. The original 1500 was a more than reasonable equation.
Sorcerer has a source of flat spell damage and font of power is a % multiplier. Templar doesnt have one and so they get flat spell damage. Also with Font of power you also have to take into account the fact that you are likely building max magicka which also contributes to damage.
Both pale in comparison to warden of course but I don't think Templar is a good example as bright harbinger is really not that great.
@Firstmep True, Templar doesn't but we also have to consider that Sorcs pay a penalty in terms of W/S damage for each Sorc skill they do not slot. On a class that relies heavily on skills that are outside of the class this by-proxy penalty impacts the potential for Sorcs. Plus, it also means piece-mealing together skills from outside of the class that don't generally have a good synergy like in-class skills do. This is one reason why having to go outside of the class disproportionately is bothersome.
So having a more significant access to a W/S damage buff helps to elevate the class while still recognizing that most Sorcs are going to run skills that don't optimize with the class.
@Dracane I agree with you that the Masteries are under-tuned. I think the one thing that's important to remember here is that the benchmark or goal in this case is the high end of the meta in terms of power. And people also have to remember that power isn't always delivered by numbers or tool tips or parses but by mechanics. Two skills that have the same tool tip values but behave very differently are going to have very different results so, in truth, scaling should consider that but we all know it doesn't.
In our case, if we're going to run Pure-Sorc for the purposes of equipping the Masteries then it means in order to get he most out of them we're going to have to slot skills that we otherwise wouldn't pick with subclassing being available. In my case, I would be giving up roughly 850 W/S, plus significant armor, plus significant Pen, plus persistent passive damage; all in base passives from Subclassing, just to slot 2 Sorc Mastery passives. That's A LOT to give up, so yeah, I expect the Mastery passives to be equal, at least, to what I'm giving up for it to make sense. And that goes for all of us.
Guys its fine you can stop pushing agenda, they made no changes the last week. We are all going to use and abuse pure class sorc and dk next patch
You mean abusing the Blood Magic heal. That's all there is to abuse. The rest of the masteries are either useless or underpowered compared to what subclassing offers.
The blood magic heal is solid for passive healing but people forget how much power the subclassed meta delivers in PvP. That Blood Magic heal doesn’t mitigate a hard hitting crit build that can burst hit you with 3 to 4 instances of high damage at once.
Plus, pure-Sorcs aren’t inherently a crit class so subclassed meta builds can achieve persistent crit HoT ticks that deliver more healing per second, on average, than what Blood Magic will deliver for Sorcs.
I don’t know why people think these Sorc passive numbers are something crazy strong, it’s like they’ve never seen hard hitting meta build damage & healing numbers in PvP before.Edited by NxJoeyD on 12 May 2026 07:531 -
Dracane✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.
Not merely a handful of people. The overwhelming majority echo similar sentiments. The addressing post the devs did last week has half the comments saying such things.
Personally I am not too bothered having to use external skills, this is not my primary issue, because such has been the reality for Sorc since day 1, and realistically you can only use so many skills at a time anyways.
Still it's true that there is an overwhelming amount of useless skills/morphs. Some other class skillines share this same problem.
What bothers me much more is how mostly undertuned the Sorc masteries are. I don't generally find it useful to compare masteries across classes, but in the case of Font of Power, it helps to show how underpowered it is. Templar might only get 600 spell damage, but alas, they also have an additional 16% spell damage bonus from passives (roughly the value Font of Power grants for average builds by the way) which lets those 600 damage baloon up to nearly 820 spell damage with Major Sorcery. In pvp this becomes 880 spell damage with keep/flag buffs. Warden can baloon up to over 2300 spell damage with external % damage sources.
And all this goes for Nightblade and Arcanist too. They get base damage, which is far superior to a % modifier like Font of Power, because they benefit from modifiers that make them even stronger. Font of Power is one of the worst of all the spell damage talents offered through masteries when you really think about it, particularly when considering that it's tied to the worst damage stats in the game (magicka and stamina.) And this doubly nerfs Font of Power, because in order to raise its bonus, you have to actively forgo the stat you seek to increase with it (spell damage) in favor of magicka. Make it make sense.
It is a really bad paradox that could have easily been bettered by not making the conversion rate as harsh as it is. 1750 is ridiculous. The original 1500 was a more than reasonable equation.
Sorcerer has a source of flat spell damage and font of power is a % multiplier. Templar doesnt have one and so they get flat spell damage. Also with Font of power you also have to take into account the fact that you are likely building max magicka which also contributes to damage.
Both pale in comparison to warden of course but I don't think Templar is a good example as bright harbinger is really not that great.
@Firstmep True, Templar doesn't but we also have to consider that Sorcs pay a penalty in terms of W/S damage for each Sorc skill they do not slot. On a class that relies heavily on skills that are outside of the class this by-proxy penalty impacts the potential for Sorcs. Plus, it also means piece-mealing together skills from outside of the class that don't generally have a good synergy like in-class skills do. This is one reason why having to go outside of the class disproportionately is bothersome.
So having a more significant access to a W/S damage buff helps to elevate the class while still recognizing that most Sorcs are going to run skills that don't optimize with the class.
@Dracane I agree with you that the Masteries are under-tuned. I think the one thing that's important to remember here is that the benchmark or goal in this case is the high end of the meta in terms of power. And people also have to remember that power isn't always delivered by numbers or tool tips or parses but by mechanics. Two skills that have the same tool tip values but behave very differently are going to have very different results so, in truth, scaling should consider that but we all know it doesn't.
In our case, if we're going to run Pure-Sorc for the purposes of equipping the Masteries then it means in order to get he most out of them we're going to have to slot skills that we otherwise wouldn't pick with subclassing being available. In my case, I would be giving up roughly 850 W/S, plus significant armor, plus significant Pen, plus persistent passive damage; all in base passives from Subclassing, just to slot 2 Sorc Mastery passives. That's A LOT to give up, so yeah, I expect the Mastery passives to be equal, at least, to what I'm giving up for it to make sense. And that goes for all of us.
Guys its fine you can stop pushing agenda, they made no changes the last week. We are all going to use and abuse pure class sorc and dk next patch
You mean abusing the Blood Magic heal. That's all there is to abuse. The rest of the masteries are either useless or underpowered compared to what subclassing offers.
The blood magic heal is solid for passive healing but people forget how much power the subclassed meta delivers in PvP. That Blood Magic heal doesn’t mitigate a hard hitting crit build that can burst hit you with 3 to 4 instances of high damage at once.
Plus, pure-Sorcs aren’t inherently a crit class so subclassed meta builds can achieve persistent crit HoT ticks that deliver more healing per second, on average, than what Blood Magic will deliver for Sorcs.
I don’t know why people think these Sorc passive numbers are something crazy strong, it’s like they’ve never seen hard hitting meta build damage & healing numbers in PvP before.
For a stam build with vigor, surge, and maybe more, it is overwhelming healing. For a traditional ward Sorc without Vigor, it is their only healing. And still some slot Vigor on top.
It really depends from case to case. Some builds will abuse it and others will merely become viable through it.Auri-El is my lord,
Trinimac my ward,
and Magnus my mind.1 -
NxJoeyD✭✭✭✭And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.
Not merely a handful of people. The overwhelming majority echo similar sentiments. The addressing post the devs did last week has half the comments saying such things.
Personally I am not too bothered having to use external skills, this is not my primary issue, because such has been the reality for Sorc since day 1, and realistically you can only use so many skills at a time anyways.
Still it's true that there is an overwhelming amount of useless skills/morphs. Some other class skillines share this same problem.
What bothers me much more is how mostly undertuned the Sorc masteries are. I don't generally find it useful to compare masteries across classes, but in the case of Font of Power, it helps to show how underpowered it is. Templar might only get 600 spell damage, but alas, they also have an additional 16% spell damage bonus from passives (roughly the value Font of Power grants for average builds by the way) which lets those 600 damage baloon up to nearly 820 spell damage with Major Sorcery. In pvp this becomes 880 spell damage with keep/flag buffs. Warden can baloon up to over 2300 spell damage with external % damage sources.
And all this goes for Nightblade and Arcanist too. They get base damage, which is far superior to a % modifier like Font of Power, because they benefit from modifiers that make them even stronger. Font of Power is one of the worst of all the spell damage talents offered through masteries when you really think about it, particularly when considering that it's tied to the worst damage stats in the game (magicka and stamina.) And this doubly nerfs Font of Power, because in order to raise its bonus, you have to actively forgo the stat you seek to increase with it (spell damage) in favor of magicka. Make it make sense.
It is a really bad paradox that could have easily been bettered by not making the conversion rate as harsh as it is. 1750 is ridiculous. The original 1500 was a more than reasonable equation.
Sorcerer has a source of flat spell damage and font of power is a % multiplier. Templar doesnt have one and so they get flat spell damage. Also with Font of power you also have to take into account the fact that you are likely building max magicka which also contributes to damage.
Both pale in comparison to warden of course but I don't think Templar is a good example as bright harbinger is really not that great.
@Firstmep True, Templar doesn't but we also have to consider that Sorcs pay a penalty in terms of W/S damage for each Sorc skill they do not slot. On a class that relies heavily on skills that are outside of the class this by-proxy penalty impacts the potential for Sorcs. Plus, it also means piece-mealing together skills from outside of the class that don't generally have a good synergy like in-class skills do. This is one reason why having to go outside of the class disproportionately is bothersome.
So having a more significant access to a W/S damage buff helps to elevate the class while still recognizing that most Sorcs are going to run skills that don't optimize with the class.
@Dracane I agree with you that the Masteries are under-tuned. I think the one thing that's important to remember here is that the benchmark or goal in this case is the high end of the meta in terms of power. And people also have to remember that power isn't always delivered by numbers or tool tips or parses but by mechanics. Two skills that have the same tool tip values but behave very differently are going to have very different results so, in truth, scaling should consider that but we all know it doesn't.
In our case, if we're going to run Pure-Sorc for the purposes of equipping the Masteries then it means in order to get he most out of them we're going to have to slot skills that we otherwise wouldn't pick with subclassing being available. In my case, I would be giving up roughly 850 W/S, plus significant armor, plus significant Pen, plus persistent passive damage; all in base passives from Subclassing, just to slot 2 Sorc Mastery passives. That's A LOT to give up, so yeah, I expect the Mastery passives to be equal, at least, to what I'm giving up for it to make sense. And that goes for all of us.
Guys its fine you can stop pushing agenda, they made no changes the last week. We are all going to use and abuse pure class sorc and dk next patch
You mean abusing the Blood Magic heal. That's all there is to abuse. The rest of the masteries are either useless or underpowered compared to what subclassing offers.
The blood magic heal is solid for passive healing but people forget how much power the subclassed meta delivers in PvP. That Blood Magic heal doesn’t mitigate a hard hitting crit build that can burst hit you with 3 to 4 instances of high damage at once.
Plus, pure-Sorcs aren’t inherently a crit class so subclassed meta builds can achieve persistent crit HoT ticks that deliver more healing per second, on average, than what Blood Magic will deliver for Sorcs.
I don’t know why people think these Sorc passive numbers are something crazy strong, it’s like they’ve never seen hard hitting meta build damage & healing numbers in PvP before.
For a stam build with vigor, surge, and maybe more, it is overwhelming healing. For a traditional ward Sorc without Vigor, it is their only healing. And still some slot Vigor on top.
It really depends from case to case. Some builds will abuse it and others will merely become viable through it.
Even then, if we’re talking incoming damage at meta level values then a burst heal is necessary whether one has the Blood Magic passive, Vigor, or both.
A player is going to need that burst heal and since Sorc isn’t considered a crit class itself then the Sorcs heals are, on average, going to be at their Battle Spirit adjusted amounts.
Compare that to meta builds who can burst from execute range to full health in one cast then it’s pretty clear that Blood Magic isn’t overtuned.
Plus, Blood Magic (basically) has a scale factor that’s roughly 10% of the players max health, and is affected by Battle Spirit. The target health for most in PvP is around 30k which sees a BS adjusted heal-per-cast of around 1,350. While that’s good, especially when combined with other healing, it’s far from OP, because again, meta builds are able to achieve way more than that through HoT ticks that persistently crit and the additional BS heal reduction doesn’t kick in until 8 stacks so most meta builds aren’t impacted by that.
Blood Magic won’t take Sorcs to meta level healing, and that’s fine; but it will give Sorcs a more realistic opportunity to mitigate damage in a more equitable way that meta builds can.
Edited by NxJoeyD on 12 May 2026 10:572 -
Dracane✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.
Not merely a handful of people. The overwhelming majority echo similar sentiments. The addressing post the devs did last week has half the comments saying such things.
Personally I am not too bothered having to use external skills, this is not my primary issue, because such has been the reality for Sorc since day 1, and realistically you can only use so many skills at a time anyways.
Still it's true that there is an overwhelming amount of useless skills/morphs. Some other class skillines share this same problem.
What bothers me much more is how mostly undertuned the Sorc masteries are. I don't generally find it useful to compare masteries across classes, but in the case of Font of Power, it helps to show how underpowered it is. Templar might only get 600 spell damage, but alas, they also have an additional 16% spell damage bonus from passives (roughly the value Font of Power grants for average builds by the way) which lets those 600 damage baloon up to nearly 820 spell damage with Major Sorcery. In pvp this becomes 880 spell damage with keep/flag buffs. Warden can baloon up to over 2300 spell damage with external % damage sources.
And all this goes for Nightblade and Arcanist too. They get base damage, which is far superior to a % modifier like Font of Power, because they benefit from modifiers that make them even stronger. Font of Power is one of the worst of all the spell damage talents offered through masteries when you really think about it, particularly when considering that it's tied to the worst damage stats in the game (magicka and stamina.) And this doubly nerfs Font of Power, because in order to raise its bonus, you have to actively forgo the stat you seek to increase with it (spell damage) in favor of magicka. Make it make sense.
It is a really bad paradox that could have easily been bettered by not making the conversion rate as harsh as it is. 1750 is ridiculous. The original 1500 was a more than reasonable equation.
Sorcerer has a source of flat spell damage and font of power is a % multiplier. Templar doesnt have one and so they get flat spell damage. Also with Font of power you also have to take into account the fact that you are likely building max magicka which also contributes to damage.
Both pale in comparison to warden of course but I don't think Templar is a good example as bright harbinger is really not that great.
@Firstmep True, Templar doesn't but we also have to consider that Sorcs pay a penalty in terms of W/S damage for each Sorc skill they do not slot. On a class that relies heavily on skills that are outside of the class this by-proxy penalty impacts the potential for Sorcs. Plus, it also means piece-mealing together skills from outside of the class that don't generally have a good synergy like in-class skills do. This is one reason why having to go outside of the class disproportionately is bothersome.
So having a more significant access to a W/S damage buff helps to elevate the class while still recognizing that most Sorcs are going to run skills that don't optimize with the class.
@Dracane I agree with you that the Masteries are under-tuned. I think the one thing that's important to remember here is that the benchmark or goal in this case is the high end of the meta in terms of power. And people also have to remember that power isn't always delivered by numbers or tool tips or parses but by mechanics. Two skills that have the same tool tip values but behave very differently are going to have very different results so, in truth, scaling should consider that but we all know it doesn't.
In our case, if we're going to run Pure-Sorc for the purposes of equipping the Masteries then it means in order to get he most out of them we're going to have to slot skills that we otherwise wouldn't pick with subclassing being available. In my case, I would be giving up roughly 850 W/S, plus significant armor, plus significant Pen, plus persistent passive damage; all in base passives from Subclassing, just to slot 2 Sorc Mastery passives. That's A LOT to give up, so yeah, I expect the Mastery passives to be equal, at least, to what I'm giving up for it to make sense. And that goes for all of us.
Guys its fine you can stop pushing agenda, they made no changes the last week. We are all going to use and abuse pure class sorc and dk next patch
You mean abusing the Blood Magic heal. That's all there is to abuse. The rest of the masteries are either useless or underpowered compared to what subclassing offers.
The blood magic heal is solid for passive healing but people forget how much power the subclassed meta delivers in PvP. That Blood Magic heal doesn’t mitigate a hard hitting crit build that can burst hit you with 3 to 4 instances of high damage at once.
Plus, pure-Sorcs aren’t inherently a crit class so subclassed meta builds can achieve persistent crit HoT ticks that deliver more healing per second, on average, than what Blood Magic will deliver for Sorcs.
I don’t know why people think these Sorc passive numbers are something crazy strong, it’s like they’ve never seen hard hitting meta build damage & healing numbers in PvP before.
For a stam build with vigor, surge, and maybe more, it is overwhelming healing. For a traditional ward Sorc without Vigor, it is their only healing. And still some slot Vigor on top.
It really depends from case to case. Some builds will abuse it and others will merely become viable through it.
Even then, if we’re talking incoming damage at meta level values then a burst heal is necessary whether one has the Blood Magic passive, Vigor, or both.
A player is going to need that burst heal and since Sorc isn’t considered a crit class itself then the Sorcs heals are, on average, going to be at their Battle Spirit adjusted amounts.
Compare that to meta builds who can burst from execute range to full health in one cast then it’s pretty clear that Blood Magic isn’t overtuned.
Plus, Blood Magic (basically) has a scale factor that’s roughly 10% of the players max health, and is affected by Battle Spirit. The target health for most in PvP is around 30k which sees a BS adjusted heal-per-cast of around 1,350. While that’s good, especially when combined with other healing, it’s far from OP, because again, meta builds are able to achieve way more than that through HoT ticks that persistently crit and the additional BS heal reduction doesn’t kick in until 8 stacks so most meta builds aren’t impacted by that.
Blood Magic won’t take Sorcs to meta level healing, and that’s fine; but it will give Sorcs a more realistic opportunity to mitigate damage in a more equitable way that meta builds can.
By itself, 1350 healing per second will not keep you alive. But you can stack so much healing per second that it becomes insurmountable. Unless you get outright 1 shot, you will be nearly unkillable. When I throw Crystal Weapons + Overload into Crystal Fragments, you can restore so much HP just between these 2 things hitting that you will not die. When I tested this it was against a Warden, but it shows that having a lot of healing per second is also burst mitigating since you can not physicially be hit by everything at once. (Except for Pulse gankers)
In itself there is nothing abusive about Blood Magic or Conservation of Energy by extension, yet most Sorcs run Vigor + Surge + Healing Soul, which is already overpowered in my opinion. Add this on top and it's truly abusive, particularly because those builds do not settle on a reasonable 30k HP. They reach for 35k all the way up to 40k and stack a lot of crit damage.
A serious look needs to be had at crit damage sources also increasing critical healing. This has to be removed. Stacking crit damage offers too much survivability on top.
The worst offenders:
- Medium armour granting 2% crit damage and 2% crit healing per piece. Light armour is meant to be the healing armour, yet medium armour offers much more healing through crits and of course raw base damage.
- Order's Wrath
- Shadow Mundus
- Fighting Finesse CP
- Khajiit (sorry, but it has to be said. Highest damage and highest survivability race in pvp. Though the other points take priority before nerfing an actual race)Edited by Dracane on 12 May 2026 11:21Auri-El is my lord,
Trinimac my ward,
and Magnus my mind.1 -
hoangdz✭✭✭✭And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.
Not merely a handful of people. The overwhelming majority echo similar sentiments. The addressing post the devs did last week has half the comments saying such things.
Personally I am not too bothered having to use external skills, this is not my primary issue, because such has been the reality for Sorc since day 1, and realistically you can only use so many skills at a time anyways.
Still it's true that there is an overwhelming amount of useless skills/morphs. Some other class skillines share this same problem.
What bothers me much more is how mostly undertuned the Sorc masteries are. I don't generally find it useful to compare masteries across classes, but in the case of Font of Power, it helps to show how underpowered it is. Templar might only get 600 spell damage, but alas, they also have an additional 16% spell damage bonus from passives (roughly the value Font of Power grants for average builds by the way) which lets those 600 damage baloon up to nearly 820 spell damage with Major Sorcery. In pvp this becomes 880 spell damage with keep/flag buffs. Warden can baloon up to over 2300 spell damage with external % damage sources.
And all this goes for Nightblade and Arcanist too. They get base damage, which is far superior to a % modifier like Font of Power, because they benefit from modifiers that make them even stronger. Font of Power is one of the worst of all the spell damage talents offered through masteries when you really think about it, particularly when considering that it's tied to the worst damage stats in the game (magicka and stamina.) And this doubly nerfs Font of Power, because in order to raise its bonus, you have to actively forgo the stat you seek to increase with it (spell damage) in favor of magicka. Make it make sense.
It is a really bad paradox that could have easily been bettered by not making the conversion rate as harsh as it is. 1750 is ridiculous. The original 1500 was a more than reasonable equation.
Sorcerer has a source of flat spell damage and font of power is a % multiplier. Templar doesnt have one and so they get flat spell damage. Also with Font of power you also have to take into account the fact that you are likely building max magicka which also contributes to damage.
Both pale in comparison to warden of course but I don't think Templar is a good example as bright harbinger is really not that great.
@Firstmep True, Templar doesn't but we also have to consider that Sorcs pay a penalty in terms of W/S damage for each Sorc skill they do not slot. On a class that relies heavily on skills that are outside of the class this by-proxy penalty impacts the potential for Sorcs. Plus, it also means piece-mealing together skills from outside of the class that don't generally have a good synergy like in-class skills do. This is one reason why having to go outside of the class disproportionately is bothersome.
So having a more significant access to a W/S damage buff helps to elevate the class while still recognizing that most Sorcs are going to run skills that don't optimize with the class.
@Dracane I agree with you that the Masteries are under-tuned. I think the one thing that's important to remember here is that the benchmark or goal in this case is the high end of the meta in terms of power. And people also have to remember that power isn't always delivered by numbers or tool tips or parses but by mechanics. Two skills that have the same tool tip values but behave very differently are going to have very different results so, in truth, scaling should consider that but we all know it doesn't.
In our case, if we're going to run Pure-Sorc for the purposes of equipping the Masteries then it means in order to get he most out of them we're going to have to slot skills that we otherwise wouldn't pick with subclassing being available. In my case, I would be giving up roughly 850 W/S, plus significant armor, plus significant Pen, plus persistent passive damage; all in base passives from Subclassing, just to slot 2 Sorc Mastery passives. That's A LOT to give up, so yeah, I expect the Mastery passives to be equal, at least, to what I'm giving up for it to make sense. And that goes for all of us.
Guys its fine you can stop pushing agenda, they made no changes the last week. We are all going to use and abuse pure class sorc and dk next patch
You mean abusing the Blood Magic heal. That's all there is to abuse. The rest of the masteries are either useless or underpowered compared to what subclassing offers.
The blood magic heal is solid for passive healing but people forget how much power the subclassed meta delivers in PvP. That Blood Magic heal doesn’t mitigate a hard hitting crit build that can burst hit you with 3 to 4 instances of high damage at once.
Plus, pure-Sorcs aren’t inherently a crit class so subclassed meta builds can achieve persistent crit HoT ticks that deliver more healing per second, on average, than what Blood Magic will deliver for Sorcs.
I don’t know why people think these Sorc passive numbers are something crazy strong, it’s like they’ve never seen hard hitting meta build damage & healing numbers in PvP before.
Conservation of Energy is the most busted passive in the game, easily worth 2 full skill lines, and I am willing to bet 1 million gold on that statement.Edited by hoangdz on 12 May 2026 12:200 -
Dracane✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.
Not merely a handful of people. The overwhelming majority echo similar sentiments. The addressing post the devs did last week has half the comments saying such things.
Personally I am not too bothered having to use external skills, this is not my primary issue, because such has been the reality for Sorc since day 1, and realistically you can only use so many skills at a time anyways.
Still it's true that there is an overwhelming amount of useless skills/morphs. Some other class skillines share this same problem.
What bothers me much more is how mostly undertuned the Sorc masteries are. I don't generally find it useful to compare masteries across classes, but in the case of Font of Power, it helps to show how underpowered it is. Templar might only get 600 spell damage, but alas, they also have an additional 16% spell damage bonus from passives (roughly the value Font of Power grants for average builds by the way) which lets those 600 damage baloon up to nearly 820 spell damage with Major Sorcery. In pvp this becomes 880 spell damage with keep/flag buffs. Warden can baloon up to over 2300 spell damage with external % damage sources.
And all this goes for Nightblade and Arcanist too. They get base damage, which is far superior to a % modifier like Font of Power, because they benefit from modifiers that make them even stronger. Font of Power is one of the worst of all the spell damage talents offered through masteries when you really think about it, particularly when considering that it's tied to the worst damage stats in the game (magicka and stamina.) And this doubly nerfs Font of Power, because in order to raise its bonus, you have to actively forgo the stat you seek to increase with it (spell damage) in favor of magicka. Make it make sense.
It is a really bad paradox that could have easily been bettered by not making the conversion rate as harsh as it is. 1750 is ridiculous. The original 1500 was a more than reasonable equation.
Sorcerer has a source of flat spell damage and font of power is a % multiplier. Templar doesnt have one and so they get flat spell damage. Also with Font of power you also have to take into account the fact that you are likely building max magicka which also contributes to damage.
Both pale in comparison to warden of course but I don't think Templar is a good example as bright harbinger is really not that great.
@Firstmep True, Templar doesn't but we also have to consider that Sorcs pay a penalty in terms of W/S damage for each Sorc skill they do not slot. On a class that relies heavily on skills that are outside of the class this by-proxy penalty impacts the potential for Sorcs. Plus, it also means piece-mealing together skills from outside of the class that don't generally have a good synergy like in-class skills do. This is one reason why having to go outside of the class disproportionately is bothersome.
So having a more significant access to a W/S damage buff helps to elevate the class while still recognizing that most Sorcs are going to run skills that don't optimize with the class.
@Dracane I agree with you that the Masteries are under-tuned. I think the one thing that's important to remember here is that the benchmark or goal in this case is the high end of the meta in terms of power. And people also have to remember that power isn't always delivered by numbers or tool tips or parses but by mechanics. Two skills that have the same tool tip values but behave very differently are going to have very different results so, in truth, scaling should consider that but we all know it doesn't.
In our case, if we're going to run Pure-Sorc for the purposes of equipping the Masteries then it means in order to get he most out of them we're going to have to slot skills that we otherwise wouldn't pick with subclassing being available. In my case, I would be giving up roughly 850 W/S, plus significant armor, plus significant Pen, plus persistent passive damage; all in base passives from Subclassing, just to slot 2 Sorc Mastery passives. That's A LOT to give up, so yeah, I expect the Mastery passives to be equal, at least, to what I'm giving up for it to make sense. And that goes for all of us.
Guys its fine you can stop pushing agenda, they made no changes the last week. We are all going to use and abuse pure class sorc and dk next patch
You mean abusing the Blood Magic heal. That's all there is to abuse. The rest of the masteries are either useless or underpowered compared to what subclassing offers.
The blood magic heal is solid for passive healing but people forget how much power the subclassed meta delivers in PvP. That Blood Magic heal doesn’t mitigate a hard hitting crit build that can burst hit you with 3 to 4 instances of high damage at once.
Plus, pure-Sorcs aren’t inherently a crit class so subclassed meta builds can achieve persistent crit HoT ticks that deliver more healing per second, on average, than what Blood Magic will deliver for Sorcs.
I don’t know why people think these Sorc passive numbers are something crazy strong, it’s like they’ve never seen hard hitting meta build damage & healing numbers in PvP before.
Conservation of Energy is the most busted passive in the game, easily worth 2 full skill lines, and I am willing to bet 1 million gold on that statement.
1 million gold is merely 500 crowns on EU. If it barely buys me a crown crate, is it truly worth betting on?Auri-El is my lord,
Trinimac my ward,
and Magnus my mind.0 -
hoangdz✭✭✭✭Yes, they do, to an extent. They show an individual's mechanics.
Yes and no. Not all mechanics are visual. Self buffs are often invisible to the opponent so seeing a one sided clip doesn't give us full context unless the full build kit of the opponent is known. Further, we don't always know the skill factor of the opponent. CP level isn't necessarily reflective of skill so clips leave out a lot of material context.That is false. Storm Calling is an extremely overloaded skill line that is currently used by any builds needing damage + utility + defense. Individually, Hurricane, Crit Surge, Streak, and Overload are all very strong abilities.
Not even close. Storm Calling is the most beneficial skill line for Sorcs but far from overloaded.
Overload: It's an Ult and while I do think it's the best skill in the entire Sorc kit it's not a single burst and doesn't provide any significant buff or debuff component. Further, it synergizes more with ranged DPS which are Mag based builds and the weaker of the paths for Sorcs. A Stam Sorc could run Overload but it wouldn't be optimal for them.
Mages Wrath/Fury: The nerf to 2 seconds cut the legs off this skill and made it nearly useless. The animation time is WAY too slow, excessively slow which makes the skill easily and completely avoidable. This is the weakest of the execute skills because it's so slow. Example of a stronger skill: Impale, is actually scaleable to higher values rather than being fixed and performs it's function quickly.
Light Form / Hurricane: This skill is really only good for Resolve and anyone will tell you that's the main reason anyone slots the skill. The DPS on either morph is too low to write home about. Those numbers are not "powerful" and are insanely easy to mitigate through in PvP. Now, IMO, if there's a player that needs a source of Resolve there's better sources than Hurricane, the same goes for Expedition. If one is in need of Resolve Earthen Heart can not only provide access to that buff via Shatterspike but also offers Major Brutality & Sorcery (plus passive damage) through Molten as well as access to Fossilize. So while Storm Calling has access to Resolve and a Stun skill, Earthen Heart has access to those but with mechanics that deliver more damage and utility than Storm Calling. Example of a stronger skill: Shatterspike Mantle, provides resolve, does more damage, also provides 100 W/S damage and also synergizes with Landslide for additional damage.
Lightning Splash: The DPS factor on this skill is low, just really low. The only power prospect comes from the synergy but the problem with that is that the synergy only affects the immediate area around the individual proccing the synergy, NOT the entire AoE. This is incredibly limiting and goes to mechanics. If the synergy damage affected the entire skills AoE then there'd be a better use case. As it is, any ground based AoE DoT is going to be limited, in both PvE and PvP but especially in PvP because nobody experienced is going to "stand in the stupid". When you have a class like Sorc where a good number of their abilities requires the target to "stand in stupid" in order to deal damage then that class is going to under perform because nobody is going to do that. Example of a stronger skill: Fulminating Rune, the skill deals and equitable DPS over a longer duration plus provides a smaller AoE burst as well as the opportunity for 3x synergies, all dealing the same high burst of damage.
Crit Surge: Again, this is another weak skill. The reason it's weak is because, in the scope of "pure Sorc" the Sorcerer class isn't an inherent "crit" class like, Nightblade, for example. The only Crit passive Sorc has is Exploitation which only provides Minor Prophecy and even that requires a Dark Magic cast to proc. This means that Sorcs, as a pure-class, don't have the crit based kit to see Crit Surge proccing with any consistency unless the Sorc equips literally nothing but crit based gear and even then. But what really makes Crit Surge fall short is that the heal is a fixed based value and doesn't scale. Regardless of your health pool, Mag pool, Stam pool, or W/S damage it's the same fixed value at rank IV no matter what. Even though the skill "can" proc up to once per second, doing so on a Pure-Sorc means putting so many "eggs into one basket" to increase crit chance that the build is going to be very vulnerable and the amount of the heal isn't enough to really offset that; especially with Battle Spirit active. Example of a Stronger skill: Blue/Bull Netch, provides Major B/S and also removes one negative effect for free every 5 seconds it's active or provides a flat 5% damage buff. That's a lot more deliverables than Crit Surge. *Runner Up: Igneous Weapons, Provides Major B/S, deals additional damage with each attack which doesn't require a crit to proc so not only does the caster receive the major buffs but they also get consistent passive damage.
Streak: This is probably the second best skill but, again, it's lost value prospect because of subclassing and all of the enhanced mobility that everyone has access to. Streak only has a range of 15m whereas other gap closing skills like Toppling Charge can reach 22m. Given the high degree of immunity that's available in PvP, plus the increase in mobility it means that Sorcs cannot use Streak to create a gap to refocus a fight. Just about any opponent is going to be able to immediately keep up and close gap with any number of available skills. Further, Streak carries a multi use penalty which other like-skill don't have putting Sorc at even more of a disadvantage. When we talk about using Streak as an offensive skill it falls shorter still. A Sorc using streak to stun has to turn around in order to follow up. Even with 3rd party camera speed add-ons this still sees the opponent breaking free before any real follow up can occur. Example of a stronger skill: Aurora Javelin, Deals more damage, is also unblockable, and has great follow up potential. Streak is also plagued with the "Streak bug" whereby at random times the skill will execute twice even when only procc'd once. This has been a known bug for ages and it occurs often.
Storm calling has very real limitations and those examples aren't the only ones in the game that are stronger because I chose skills that were directly similar in function to the Storm Calling skills, I didn't even take into account the opportunity cost of slotting the even stronger skill that exist in the game.Dark Magic and Summoning are slightly less meta for PvP, as the skills are currently either lacking in active effects or misplaced, but that doesn't mean they are inherently weak. When you compare these 2 lines to the meta ones, you're obviously going to see the drawbacks. This isn't the case at all when you compare them to even less useful skill lines like Shadow, Siphoning, Living Death, etc. Dark Magic and Summoning are clearly better in that regard.
Personally, I think Dark Magic and Summoning hover around A-/A tier.
I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks Dark Magic is an A tier skill line. Again, these aren't widely chosen skills. We don't see subclassed builds choosing Dark Magic, and why do we think that is? If they're A-Tier doesn't it stand to reason that we'd see more instances of them in PvP or in ESO logs?
Negate: For PvP this is too niche to even consider. Any ranged player can simply attack from outside of the AoE and any melee player can simply lean on light and heavy attacks to still deal major damage within the AoE. We don't hardly ever see this skill in PvP and for good reason.
Fragments: This goes without saying, the cast time. The cast time on Frags make it significantly weaker than every other class spammable in the game, especially when you consider that every other class spammable scales to equal or higher damage than Frags. Most players that slot Frags lean on world / weapon skills as a spam and only toss Frags on the bonus proc which still sees this as weaker because all of the other class spammables are readily useful. Example of a stronger skill: Goes without saying Surprise Attack / Concealed Weapon, either morph deals as much or more damage than Frags, is insta-cast, as well as delivers a buff or a guaranteed crit every 3 seconds which is more frequent than the bonus proc of Frags. Even Wardens Cliff Racer is a stronger skill providing a slightly lower initial hit but provides a 400 W/S damage buff seeing the subsequent attacks dealing significantly more damage than Frags plus enhancing all of the casters attacks.
*Crystal Weapon: This is also weak due to it's limited 6 second duration and significantly reduced 2nd attack buff. This sees the skill having to be recast far too often to keep uptime. Example of a stronger skill: Crushing Weapon, despite a 2 second duration the skill only buffs one attack, however, by more damage than Crystal Weapon and also apples Major Breach to the target. **Runner Up: Inspired Scholarship. Math-wise the max potential of Insp. Scholar comes out to about 9k to 10k less (in total) over the course of 30 seconds than Crystal Weapon, however, since Insp. Scholar is active for the full 30 seconds the caster is FAR more likely to realize every 3 second buff of Insp Scholar whereas in real combat the it's not realistic that the player is going to be able to hit every 6 second re-cast of Crystal Weapon. It's a case of "tortoise & the hare" although Crystal Weapon has a higher potential, in the real world Insp. Scholar often comes out ahead due to better mechanics.
Shattered Spines: This skill is seriously weak. Not only are there so many sources of immunity to immobilizations but here's the real killer, Spines only deals damage to enemies that were "encased". So if the player casts on anyone, PvE or PvP that has immunity they receive no damage. Example of a stronger skill: Tentacular Dread, is equally an immobility skill but scales to more damage than Spines and provides a full damage buff to targets hit by the skill, whether they were immobilized or not so even if the target was immune the player still had the opportunity to deal damage as well as receives the damage increase to them.
Vibrant Shroud: This one I'm mostly ok with. It's essentially the non-pet self heal and works fine. The heal factor is strong and the debuff to enemies in range is ok. I, personally, would like to see a better buff then Minor Vitality given that Ward has a health based hard cap but it doesn't kill the skill. Healing Contingency is still a stronger skill in this case because it delivers a stronger burst heal than Vibrant Shroud, plus you also get the Affix & Signature benefits as well as the Mages Guild passives; so even though Vibrant isn't bad, per se, it still falls short of scribing in terms of best to slot. Stronger buffs on Vibrant would make it a better prospect to consider.
Rune Prison: Again, weak. The weakness here comes down to the details in the mechanics. For Defensive Rune the delay in the stun makes the skill to clumsy. That delay opens the door for attackers to launch a status effect or CC of their own, thereby negating your stun on them. The pace of combat in ESO is quick and effective skills also need to be quick, not carrying delays for no real reason. The big downfall for Rune Cage is that it only deals damage IF the full duration of the stun completes so if the target breaks free they take no damage, that's a HUGE reason not to slot this skill. Given the mechanics of crowd control and subclassing anyone slotting a CC ability needs one that has a reliable damage component, this way, even if the target is immune the caster at least can rely on the damage. Example of a stronger skill: Take your pic, Aurora or Binding Javelin, Shattering Rocks all are ublockable stuns with better overall mechanics and damage components. *Runner up: Colorless Pool, this Fear + Stun CC cannot be blocked and while it doesn't deal damage it does apply two debuffs to the target and "Fear" has a known break free bug making the potential for the full 4 second stun likely.
Dark Exchange: This is a viable sustain for Stam Sorcs but not for Mag Sorcs, especially in PvP. A Mag Sorc cannot lean on sacrificing Stam for Mag in PvP and hope to survive, that's suicide. So this is a very very one sided sustain skill. Even with that the one second cast time is unnecessary.
Daedric Mines: Absolutely useless. Here is yet another effort at a crowd control skill that seemingly tries to tempt with damage scaling. The problem is that the first morph of this skill has such a significant animation time that it's 100% avoidable and requires the player to stand in stupid, which nobody would do. The second morph of this skill has a ridiculous cost and essentially confines the Sorc to the spot their standing in. Again, requires a target to stand in stupid but even a melee player wouldn't do this as melee range is farther than the area around the Sorc so they can attack and land damage from outside of the ground runes. Plus, those runes take 3 seconds to arm giving anyone who might be in range plenty of time to get out. These never work, especially in PvP.
This is not an A-Tier skill tree, and again, I provided skills that are similar in function as comparison but that still doesn't take into account the overall stronger skills out there one could sublcass in-lieu of any of these.That "exception" created a dominant class for nearly a year. In fact, Sorc only got 2 changes during that PTS cycle (Ward heal buff and 10% extra max mag), yet it was able to completely outshine everything else in the game. That goes to show how very minor buffs can inadvertently elevate a class to a much higher status.
I wouldn't say created a "dominant class", more like a difficult to kill class and while that has a benefit, being difficult to kill doesn't make the class effective at damage dealing. At that time, yes, Ward was strong but that was also pre-subclassing. In the post-subclassing game state everything is different and what was strong before, isn't necessarily strong now.
When Ward was strong nobody could subclass which meant breaking such a strong shield took more effort. The power creep subclassing brought enabled those builds to one shot even a strong Ward easily.No, this is completely false. Storm Calling is so loaded that it's hard to find anything else matching it in terms of raw damage and utility.
See above, I found a skill to match and beat every Storm Calling skill in terms of both damage & utility, and gave specifics, exactly how and why those skills out perform, not just because I think so.Storm Caling is an S tier skill line
I'd say it's far from it. I'd give Storm Calling a "B" tier skill line and that's due to the specific examples listed above of other skill that deliver either more power, more passive benefit, or both. Again, not just because I think so but because there are measurable ways that Sorc skills don't deliver in the powerful ways many other class skills do.If Sorc skills are so strong why does seemingly nobody want them?
Storm Calling
Storm Calling isn't a first round draft pick for subclassing. I don't know where that's coming from. If we look at any number of broad sourced feedbacks that are recent we see Storm Calling falling since the DK refresh. Storm Calling used to be around the #4 choice for subclassed builds before the DK refresh now I'd say it's a sold #5, Hack the Minotaur whilst not a gospel for ESO is a common community reference rates Storm Calling as 7th.I also hope you know that next patch, both stam and magsorc are going to be pretty meta. On PTS, my stamsorc can survive up to 8k DPS in an openworld build before having to make dedicated adjustments to survivability, while having stats rivaling or even beating subclassed builds (31k HP, 30k resists back bar, 3k crit resist, 33k stam, 6.9k WD, ~154% crit damage, 50% crit chance, max pen). The only people I'm dying to are good WWs and DKs running pure cheese duel builds. Everyone else has not been an issue whatsoever (including the status effect builds with Signet).
I don't know about "meta" for Sorc, at least not for Mag Sorc running Pure Sorc and slotting Sorc skills. In order for Sorc skills to be "meta" they have to be faster and we need real sources of spammable burst, which we don't have. Many of the Sorcs out here being effective are doing so on the backs of world & weapon skills as their primaries. Any class can lean on Whirling Blades, Rapid Strikes, Vigor, Thrive, Dawnbreaker, Crushing Shock, Wall, Comet, etc .. none of those kills speak to Sorcs, themselves, being strong and just about every Sorc out there leans on one or more of those skills because our class just doesn't bring the power.
When we're in PvP and meta builds are spamming it's skills like Surprise, Deep Fissure, Merciless (to a degree), Toppling Charge, Northern Storm, Incap Strike, Flame Lash, Take Flight .. They're also running Netch and/or Falcon's, especially if they're slotting Fissure. .. Runner up skills are Blastbones, especially on meta bombers that are running Colossus + Vicious Death + RoA (yes that's still a thing). .. Way down past all of that is a sprinkling of Sorc skills that get chosen but sorc skills are not part of the meta at all. The meta is crit and Sorc doesn't deliver crit. The meta is also strong burst and Sorc doesn't bring that either, not like any of those skill I just mentioned.
I think Sorc will be stronger if and only if our passives don't get nerfed. My Mag Sorc can keep pace with the meta builds, I won't go so far as to say it's meta power because it's not, no Sorc is unless they're subclassed into it, which I'm not. I've got nearly 29k health, 28K resist, 3k Crit resist, my W/S damage will peak at 7.3k (I'm built for strong base damage), 35k Mag, 18.8k pen. I'm similar to you but Mag rather than Stam and I'll tell you I had to get creative to deal the kind of burst damage that I do and stack the number of damage instances I do and what I run is very much non-typical and a good chunk of my power isn't coming from the Sorc skill lines.
As for the status effect + signet, I agree with you 100%. I hear people complaining about that in PvP but, IMO, it's a non issue because what it takes to build Signet into dealing meaningful status effect damage is so restrictive it leaves those builds exposed to a good number of attacks and any experienced player will be able to counter that.
Dude idk what to tell you. My magsorc on PTS is doing 4.5k+ DPS consistently.
Also, why can't we stay in the middle? There's you who think the class is insanely weak compared to everything else and want it buffed to the moon, then there's Vinny who thinks Sorc is extremely overpowered and should be nerfed. Please guys, it's not that radical lol.
Who said anything about "buffed to the moon"? All I'm saying is not to nerf the passives. I never said anything about buffing the skills, just that the skills are weak. And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.
My MagSorc delivers too, but relies WAY too heavily outside of the class to do so, as is the case with just about every Sorc. Once Sorc gets their class refresh we can talk about where the skills need to be, but for now the Mastery passives need to be strong to make Sorc competitive versus the highest tier of meta.
What do you mean relies way too heavily outside of the class? My magsorc is using this bar setup:
With Chudan:
Without Chudan:
There are only 3 non-class skills, 2 of which are healing abilities and the other one is an ultimate. I have literally infinite mag sustain with 35k max mag from Conservation of Energy passive. Dark Deal is there for the occasional stam sustain and/or allowing for the use of DDF mythic, but even then it's not really needed with Conservation. I have a crap ton of damage (6.7k spell damage, 43% crit chance, 130%+ crit damage, and 15k+ pen). I've killed subclassed builds easily on PTS.
Sure you guys never said "buffed to the moon", but you guys are souding like magsorc is bottom tier when it's not even the case. On the PTS, it's never been in a better state than ever.Edited by hoangdz on 12 May 2026 12:310 -
NxJoeyD✭✭✭✭And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.
Not merely a handful of people. The overwhelming majority echo similar sentiments. The addressing post the devs did last week has half the comments saying such things.
Personally I am not too bothered having to use external skills, this is not my primary issue, because such has been the reality for Sorc since day 1, and realistically you can only use so many skills at a time anyways.
Still it's true that there is an overwhelming amount of useless skills/morphs. Some other class skillines share this same problem.
What bothers me much more is how mostly undertuned the Sorc masteries are. I don't generally find it useful to compare masteries across classes, but in the case of Font of Power, it helps to show how underpowered it is. Templar might only get 600 spell damage, but alas, they also have an additional 16% spell damage bonus from passives (roughly the value Font of Power grants for average builds by the way) which lets those 600 damage baloon up to nearly 820 spell damage with Major Sorcery. In pvp this becomes 880 spell damage with keep/flag buffs. Warden can baloon up to over 2300 spell damage with external % damage sources.
And all this goes for Nightblade and Arcanist too. They get base damage, which is far superior to a % modifier like Font of Power, because they benefit from modifiers that make them even stronger. Font of Power is one of the worst of all the spell damage talents offered through masteries when you really think about it, particularly when considering that it's tied to the worst damage stats in the game (magicka and stamina.) And this doubly nerfs Font of Power, because in order to raise its bonus, you have to actively forgo the stat you seek to increase with it (spell damage) in favor of magicka. Make it make sense.
It is a really bad paradox that could have easily been bettered by not making the conversion rate as harsh as it is. 1750 is ridiculous. The original 1500 was a more than reasonable equation.
Sorcerer has a source of flat spell damage and font of power is a % multiplier. Templar doesnt have one and so they get flat spell damage. Also with Font of power you also have to take into account the fact that you are likely building max magicka which also contributes to damage.
Both pale in comparison to warden of course but I don't think Templar is a good example as bright harbinger is really not that great.
@Firstmep True, Templar doesn't but we also have to consider that Sorcs pay a penalty in terms of W/S damage for each Sorc skill they do not slot. On a class that relies heavily on skills that are outside of the class this by-proxy penalty impacts the potential for Sorcs. Plus, it also means piece-mealing together skills from outside of the class that don't generally have a good synergy like in-class skills do. This is one reason why having to go outside of the class disproportionately is bothersome.
So having a more significant access to a W/S damage buff helps to elevate the class while still recognizing that most Sorcs are going to run skills that don't optimize with the class.
@Dracane I agree with you that the Masteries are under-tuned. I think the one thing that's important to remember here is that the benchmark or goal in this case is the high end of the meta in terms of power. And people also have to remember that power isn't always delivered by numbers or tool tips or parses but by mechanics. Two skills that have the same tool tip values but behave very differently are going to have very different results so, in truth, scaling should consider that but we all know it doesn't.
In our case, if we're going to run Pure-Sorc for the purposes of equipping the Masteries then it means in order to get he most out of them we're going to have to slot skills that we otherwise wouldn't pick with subclassing being available. In my case, I would be giving up roughly 850 W/S, plus significant armor, plus significant Pen, plus persistent passive damage; all in base passives from Subclassing, just to slot 2 Sorc Mastery passives. That's A LOT to give up, so yeah, I expect the Mastery passives to be equal, at least, to what I'm giving up for it to make sense. And that goes for all of us.
Guys its fine you can stop pushing agenda, they made no changes the last week. We are all going to use and abuse pure class sorc and dk next patch
You mean abusing the Blood Magic heal. That's all there is to abuse. The rest of the masteries are either useless or underpowered compared to what subclassing offers.
The blood magic heal is solid for passive healing but people forget how much power the subclassed meta delivers in PvP. That Blood Magic heal doesn’t mitigate a hard hitting crit build that can burst hit you with 3 to 4 instances of high damage at once.
Plus, pure-Sorcs aren’t inherently a crit class so subclassed meta builds can achieve persistent crit HoT ticks that deliver more healing per second, on average, than what Blood Magic will deliver for Sorcs.
I don’t know why people think these Sorc passive numbers are something crazy strong, it’s like they’ve never seen hard hitting meta build damage & healing numbers in PvP before.
For a stam build with vigor, surge, and maybe more, it is overwhelming healing. For a traditional ward Sorc without Vigor, it is their only healing. And still some slot Vigor on top.
It really depends from case to case. Some builds will abuse it and others will merely become viable through it.
Even then, if we’re talking incoming damage at meta level values then a burst heal is necessary whether one has the Blood Magic passive, Vigor, or both.
A player is going to need that burst heal and since Sorc isn’t considered a crit class itself then the Sorcs heals are, on average, going to be at their Battle Spirit adjusted amounts.
Compare that to meta builds who can burst from execute range to full health in one cast then it’s pretty clear that Blood Magic isn’t overtuned.
Plus, Blood Magic (basically) has a scale factor that’s roughly 10% of the players max health, and is affected by Battle Spirit. The target health for most in PvP is around 30k which sees a BS adjusted heal-per-cast of around 1,350. While that’s good, especially when combined with other healing, it’s far from OP, because again, meta builds are able to achieve way more than that through HoT ticks that persistently crit and the additional BS heal reduction doesn’t kick in until 8 stacks so most meta builds aren’t impacted by that.
Blood Magic won’t take Sorcs to meta level healing, and that’s fine; but it will give Sorcs a more realistic opportunity to mitigate damage in a more equitable way that meta builds can.
By itself, 1350 healing per second will not keep you alive. But you can stack so much healing per second that it becomes insurmountable. Unless you get outright 1 shot, you will be nearly unkillable. When I throw Crystal Weapons + Overload into Crystal Fragments, you can restore so much HP just between these 2 things hitting that you will not die. When I tested this it was against a Warden, but it shows that having a lot of healing per second is also burst mitigating since you can not physicially be hit by everything at once. (Except for Pulse gankers)
In itself there is nothing abusive about Blood Magic or Conservation of Energy by extension, yet most Sorcs run Vigor + Surge + Healing Soul, which is already overpowered in my opinion. Add this on top and it's truly abusive, particularly because those builds do not settle on a reasonable 30k HP. They reach for 35k all the way up to 40k and stack a lot of crit damage.
A serious look needs to be had at crit damage sources also increasing critical healing. This has to be removed. Stacking crit damage offers too much survivability on top.
The worst offenders:
- Medium armour granting 2% crit damage and 2% crit healing per piece. Light armour is meant to be the healing armour, yet medium armour offers much more healing through crits and of course raw base damage.
- Order's Wrath
- Shadow Mundus
- Fighting Finesse CP
- Khajiit (sorry, but it has to be said. Highest damage and highest survivability race in pvp. Though the other points take priority before nerfing an actual race)
I agree and they did adjust BS to “try” and curb that but the problem is that it doesn’t really start to kick in until the player has 8 stack of healing on them and since DoTs aren’t stacks that’s not likely to impede them.
The issue with crit is that players can scale damage and healing with similar sub stats which will allow them to both act as a DD & self healer all in one, which is completely predicated on crit chance and scaling; which, essentially, bypasses the concept of resource allocation allowing players to combo too much functionality.
7 pieces of Impen simply aren’t enough. 3k crit reist can still see you having to tank 20k Mercis after resistances with BS.
It’s clear the devs love the idea of excessive crit given the changes to Rallying Cry & Impreg sets, really limiting variety when it comes to crit resistance. The game needs to see the value of Impen increased.2 -
Dracane✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Yes, they do, to an extent. They show an individual's mechanics.
Yes and no. Not all mechanics are visual. Self buffs are often invisible to the opponent so seeing a one sided clip doesn't give us full context unless the full build kit of the opponent is known. Further, we don't always know the skill factor of the opponent. CP level isn't necessarily reflective of skill so clips leave out a lot of material context.That is false. Storm Calling is an extremely overloaded skill line that is currently used by any builds needing damage + utility + defense. Individually, Hurricane, Crit Surge, Streak, and Overload are all very strong abilities.
Not even close. Storm Calling is the most beneficial skill line for Sorcs but far from overloaded.
Overload: It's an Ult and while I do think it's the best skill in the entire Sorc kit it's not a single burst and doesn't provide any significant buff or debuff component. Further, it synergizes more with ranged DPS which are Mag based builds and the weaker of the paths for Sorcs. A Stam Sorc could run Overload but it wouldn't be optimal for them.
Mages Wrath/Fury: The nerf to 2 seconds cut the legs off this skill and made it nearly useless. The animation time is WAY too slow, excessively slow which makes the skill easily and completely avoidable. This is the weakest of the execute skills because it's so slow. Example of a stronger skill: Impale, is actually scaleable to higher values rather than being fixed and performs it's function quickly.
Light Form / Hurricane: This skill is really only good for Resolve and anyone will tell you that's the main reason anyone slots the skill. The DPS on either morph is too low to write home about. Those numbers are not "powerful" and are insanely easy to mitigate through in PvP. Now, IMO, if there's a player that needs a source of Resolve there's better sources than Hurricane, the same goes for Expedition. If one is in need of Resolve Earthen Heart can not only provide access to that buff via Shatterspike but also offers Major Brutality & Sorcery (plus passive damage) through Molten as well as access to Fossilize. So while Storm Calling has access to Resolve and a Stun skill, Earthen Heart has access to those but with mechanics that deliver more damage and utility than Storm Calling. Example of a stronger skill: Shatterspike Mantle, provides resolve, does more damage, also provides 100 W/S damage and also synergizes with Landslide for additional damage.
Lightning Splash: The DPS factor on this skill is low, just really low. The only power prospect comes from the synergy but the problem with that is that the synergy only affects the immediate area around the individual proccing the synergy, NOT the entire AoE. This is incredibly limiting and goes to mechanics. If the synergy damage affected the entire skills AoE then there'd be a better use case. As it is, any ground based AoE DoT is going to be limited, in both PvE and PvP but especially in PvP because nobody experienced is going to "stand in the stupid". When you have a class like Sorc where a good number of their abilities requires the target to "stand in stupid" in order to deal damage then that class is going to under perform because nobody is going to do that. Example of a stronger skill: Fulminating Rune, the skill deals and equitable DPS over a longer duration plus provides a smaller AoE burst as well as the opportunity for 3x synergies, all dealing the same high burst of damage.
Crit Surge: Again, this is another weak skill. The reason it's weak is because, in the scope of "pure Sorc" the Sorcerer class isn't an inherent "crit" class like, Nightblade, for example. The only Crit passive Sorc has is Exploitation which only provides Minor Prophecy and even that requires a Dark Magic cast to proc. This means that Sorcs, as a pure-class, don't have the crit based kit to see Crit Surge proccing with any consistency unless the Sorc equips literally nothing but crit based gear and even then. But what really makes Crit Surge fall short is that the heal is a fixed based value and doesn't scale. Regardless of your health pool, Mag pool, Stam pool, or W/S damage it's the same fixed value at rank IV no matter what. Even though the skill "can" proc up to once per second, doing so on a Pure-Sorc means putting so many "eggs into one basket" to increase crit chance that the build is going to be very vulnerable and the amount of the heal isn't enough to really offset that; especially with Battle Spirit active. Example of a Stronger skill: Blue/Bull Netch, provides Major B/S and also removes one negative effect for free every 5 seconds it's active or provides a flat 5% damage buff. That's a lot more deliverables than Crit Surge. *Runner Up: Igneous Weapons, Provides Major B/S, deals additional damage with each attack which doesn't require a crit to proc so not only does the caster receive the major buffs but they also get consistent passive damage.
Streak: This is probably the second best skill but, again, it's lost value prospect because of subclassing and all of the enhanced mobility that everyone has access to. Streak only has a range of 15m whereas other gap closing skills like Toppling Charge can reach 22m. Given the high degree of immunity that's available in PvP, plus the increase in mobility it means that Sorcs cannot use Streak to create a gap to refocus a fight. Just about any opponent is going to be able to immediately keep up and close gap with any number of available skills. Further, Streak carries a multi use penalty which other like-skill don't have putting Sorc at even more of a disadvantage. When we talk about using Streak as an offensive skill it falls shorter still. A Sorc using streak to stun has to turn around in order to follow up. Even with 3rd party camera speed add-ons this still sees the opponent breaking free before any real follow up can occur. Example of a stronger skill: Aurora Javelin, Deals more damage, is also unblockable, and has great follow up potential. Streak is also plagued with the "Streak bug" whereby at random times the skill will execute twice even when only procc'd once. This has been a known bug for ages and it occurs often.
Storm calling has very real limitations and those examples aren't the only ones in the game that are stronger because I chose skills that were directly similar in function to the Storm Calling skills, I didn't even take into account the opportunity cost of slotting the even stronger skill that exist in the game.Dark Magic and Summoning are slightly less meta for PvP, as the skills are currently either lacking in active effects or misplaced, but that doesn't mean they are inherently weak. When you compare these 2 lines to the meta ones, you're obviously going to see the drawbacks. This isn't the case at all when you compare them to even less useful skill lines like Shadow, Siphoning, Living Death, etc. Dark Magic and Summoning are clearly better in that regard.
Personally, I think Dark Magic and Summoning hover around A-/A tier.
I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks Dark Magic is an A tier skill line. Again, these aren't widely chosen skills. We don't see subclassed builds choosing Dark Magic, and why do we think that is? If they're A-Tier doesn't it stand to reason that we'd see more instances of them in PvP or in ESO logs?
Negate: For PvP this is too niche to even consider. Any ranged player can simply attack from outside of the AoE and any melee player can simply lean on light and heavy attacks to still deal major damage within the AoE. We don't hardly ever see this skill in PvP and for good reason.
Fragments: This goes without saying, the cast time. The cast time on Frags make it significantly weaker than every other class spammable in the game, especially when you consider that every other class spammable scales to equal or higher damage than Frags. Most players that slot Frags lean on world / weapon skills as a spam and only toss Frags on the bonus proc which still sees this as weaker because all of the other class spammables are readily useful. Example of a stronger skill: Goes without saying Surprise Attack / Concealed Weapon, either morph deals as much or more damage than Frags, is insta-cast, as well as delivers a buff or a guaranteed crit every 3 seconds which is more frequent than the bonus proc of Frags. Even Wardens Cliff Racer is a stronger skill providing a slightly lower initial hit but provides a 400 W/S damage buff seeing the subsequent attacks dealing significantly more damage than Frags plus enhancing all of the casters attacks.
*Crystal Weapon: This is also weak due to it's limited 6 second duration and significantly reduced 2nd attack buff. This sees the skill having to be recast far too often to keep uptime. Example of a stronger skill: Crushing Weapon, despite a 2 second duration the skill only buffs one attack, however, by more damage than Crystal Weapon and also apples Major Breach to the target. **Runner Up: Inspired Scholarship. Math-wise the max potential of Insp. Scholar comes out to about 9k to 10k less (in total) over the course of 30 seconds than Crystal Weapon, however, since Insp. Scholar is active for the full 30 seconds the caster is FAR more likely to realize every 3 second buff of Insp Scholar whereas in real combat the it's not realistic that the player is going to be able to hit every 6 second re-cast of Crystal Weapon. It's a case of "tortoise & the hare" although Crystal Weapon has a higher potential, in the real world Insp. Scholar often comes out ahead due to better mechanics.
Shattered Spines: This skill is seriously weak. Not only are there so many sources of immunity to immobilizations but here's the real killer, Spines only deals damage to enemies that were "encased". So if the player casts on anyone, PvE or PvP that has immunity they receive no damage. Example of a stronger skill: Tentacular Dread, is equally an immobility skill but scales to more damage than Spines and provides a full damage buff to targets hit by the skill, whether they were immobilized or not so even if the target was immune the player still had the opportunity to deal damage as well as receives the damage increase to them.
Vibrant Shroud: This one I'm mostly ok with. It's essentially the non-pet self heal and works fine. The heal factor is strong and the debuff to enemies in range is ok. I, personally, would like to see a better buff then Minor Vitality given that Ward has a health based hard cap but it doesn't kill the skill. Healing Contingency is still a stronger skill in this case because it delivers a stronger burst heal than Vibrant Shroud, plus you also get the Affix & Signature benefits as well as the Mages Guild passives; so even though Vibrant isn't bad, per se, it still falls short of scribing in terms of best to slot. Stronger buffs on Vibrant would make it a better prospect to consider.
Rune Prison: Again, weak. The weakness here comes down to the details in the mechanics. For Defensive Rune the delay in the stun makes the skill to clumsy. That delay opens the door for attackers to launch a status effect or CC of their own, thereby negating your stun on them. The pace of combat in ESO is quick and effective skills also need to be quick, not carrying delays for no real reason. The big downfall for Rune Cage is that it only deals damage IF the full duration of the stun completes so if the target breaks free they take no damage, that's a HUGE reason not to slot this skill. Given the mechanics of crowd control and subclassing anyone slotting a CC ability needs one that has a reliable damage component, this way, even if the target is immune the caster at least can rely on the damage. Example of a stronger skill: Take your pic, Aurora or Binding Javelin, Shattering Rocks all are ublockable stuns with better overall mechanics and damage components. *Runner up: Colorless Pool, this Fear + Stun CC cannot be blocked and while it doesn't deal damage it does apply two debuffs to the target and "Fear" has a known break free bug making the potential for the full 4 second stun likely.
Dark Exchange: This is a viable sustain for Stam Sorcs but not for Mag Sorcs, especially in PvP. A Mag Sorc cannot lean on sacrificing Stam for Mag in PvP and hope to survive, that's suicide. So this is a very very one sided sustain skill. Even with that the one second cast time is unnecessary.
Daedric Mines: Absolutely useless. Here is yet another effort at a crowd control skill that seemingly tries to tempt with damage scaling. The problem is that the first morph of this skill has such a significant animation time that it's 100% avoidable and requires the player to stand in stupid, which nobody would do. The second morph of this skill has a ridiculous cost and essentially confines the Sorc to the spot their standing in. Again, requires a target to stand in stupid but even a melee player wouldn't do this as melee range is farther than the area around the Sorc so they can attack and land damage from outside of the ground runes. Plus, those runes take 3 seconds to arm giving anyone who might be in range plenty of time to get out. These never work, especially in PvP.
This is not an A-Tier skill tree, and again, I provided skills that are similar in function as comparison but that still doesn't take into account the overall stronger skills out there one could sublcass in-lieu of any of these.That "exception" created a dominant class for nearly a year. In fact, Sorc only got 2 changes during that PTS cycle (Ward heal buff and 10% extra max mag), yet it was able to completely outshine everything else in the game. That goes to show how very minor buffs can inadvertently elevate a class to a much higher status.
I wouldn't say created a "dominant class", more like a difficult to kill class and while that has a benefit, being difficult to kill doesn't make the class effective at damage dealing. At that time, yes, Ward was strong but that was also pre-subclassing. In the post-subclassing game state everything is different and what was strong before, isn't necessarily strong now.
When Ward was strong nobody could subclass which meant breaking such a strong shield took more effort. The power creep subclassing brought enabled those builds to one shot even a strong Ward easily.No, this is completely false. Storm Calling is so loaded that it's hard to find anything else matching it in terms of raw damage and utility.
See above, I found a skill to match and beat every Storm Calling skill in terms of both damage & utility, and gave specifics, exactly how and why those skills out perform, not just because I think so.Storm Caling is an S tier skill line
I'd say it's far from it. I'd give Storm Calling a "B" tier skill line and that's due to the specific examples listed above of other skill that deliver either more power, more passive benefit, or both. Again, not just because I think so but because there are measurable ways that Sorc skills don't deliver in the powerful ways many other class skills do.If Sorc skills are so strong why does seemingly nobody want them?
Storm Calling
Storm Calling isn't a first round draft pick for subclassing. I don't know where that's coming from. If we look at any number of broad sourced feedbacks that are recent we see Storm Calling falling since the DK refresh. Storm Calling used to be around the #4 choice for subclassed builds before the DK refresh now I'd say it's a sold #5, Hack the Minotaur whilst not a gospel for ESO is a common community reference rates Storm Calling as 7th.I also hope you know that next patch, both stam and magsorc are going to be pretty meta. On PTS, my stamsorc can survive up to 8k DPS in an openworld build before having to make dedicated adjustments to survivability, while having stats rivaling or even beating subclassed builds (31k HP, 30k resists back bar, 3k crit resist, 33k stam, 6.9k WD, ~154% crit damage, 50% crit chance, max pen). The only people I'm dying to are good WWs and DKs running pure cheese duel builds. Everyone else has not been an issue whatsoever (including the status effect builds with Signet).
I don't know about "meta" for Sorc, at least not for Mag Sorc running Pure Sorc and slotting Sorc skills. In order for Sorc skills to be "meta" they have to be faster and we need real sources of spammable burst, which we don't have. Many of the Sorcs out here being effective are doing so on the backs of world & weapon skills as their primaries. Any class can lean on Whirling Blades, Rapid Strikes, Vigor, Thrive, Dawnbreaker, Crushing Shock, Wall, Comet, etc .. none of those kills speak to Sorcs, themselves, being strong and just about every Sorc out there leans on one or more of those skills because our class just doesn't bring the power.
When we're in PvP and meta builds are spamming it's skills like Surprise, Deep Fissure, Merciless (to a degree), Toppling Charge, Northern Storm, Incap Strike, Flame Lash, Take Flight .. They're also running Netch and/or Falcon's, especially if they're slotting Fissure. .. Runner up skills are Blastbones, especially on meta bombers that are running Colossus + Vicious Death + RoA (yes that's still a thing). .. Way down past all of that is a sprinkling of Sorc skills that get chosen but sorc skills are not part of the meta at all. The meta is crit and Sorc doesn't deliver crit. The meta is also strong burst and Sorc doesn't bring that either, not like any of those skill I just mentioned.
I think Sorc will be stronger if and only if our passives don't get nerfed. My Mag Sorc can keep pace with the meta builds, I won't go so far as to say it's meta power because it's not, no Sorc is unless they're subclassed into it, which I'm not. I've got nearly 29k health, 28K resist, 3k Crit resist, my W/S damage will peak at 7.3k (I'm built for strong base damage), 35k Mag, 18.8k pen. I'm similar to you but Mag rather than Stam and I'll tell you I had to get creative to deal the kind of burst damage that I do and stack the number of damage instances I do and what I run is very much non-typical and a good chunk of my power isn't coming from the Sorc skill lines.
As for the status effect + signet, I agree with you 100%. I hear people complaining about that in PvP but, IMO, it's a non issue because what it takes to build Signet into dealing meaningful status effect damage is so restrictive it leaves those builds exposed to a good number of attacks and any experienced player will be able to counter that.
Dude idk what to tell you. My magsorc on PTS is doing 4.5k+ DPS consistently.
Also, why can't we stay in the middle? There's you who think the class is insanely weak compared to everything else and want it buffed to the moon, then there's Vinny who thinks Sorc is extremely overpowered and should be nerfed. Please guys, it's not that radical lol.
Who said anything about "buffed to the moon"? All I'm saying is not to nerf the passives. I never said anything about buffing the skills, just that the skills are weak. And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.
My MagSorc delivers too, but relies WAY too heavily outside of the class to do so, as is the case with just about every Sorc. Once Sorc gets their class refresh we can talk about where the skills need to be, but for now the Mastery passives need to be strong to make Sorc competitive versus the highest tier of meta.
What do you mean relies way too heavily outside of the class? My magsorc is using this bar setup:
With Chudan:
Without Chudan:
There are only 3 non-class skills, 2 of which are healing abilities and the other one is an ultimate. I have literally infinite mag sustain with 35k max mag from Conservation of Energy passive. Dark Deal is there for the occasional stam sustain and/or allowing for the use of DDF mythic, but even then it's not really needed with Conservation. I have a crap ton of damage (6.7k spell damage, 43% crit chance, 130%+ crit damage, and 15k+ pen). I've killed subclassed builds easily on PTS.
Sure you guys never said "buffed to the moon", but you guys are souding like magsorc is bottom tier when it's not even the case. On the PTS, it's never been in a better state than ever.
I would say MagSorc very loosely here. Sure, the magicka stat is higher than stamina, but I also see here no wards that have been the trademark of MagSorc ever since. I'd call this a hybrid that heavily leans into the typical stamina playstyle which indeed is far from being mediocre. That is already the case on Live, and it's still a downgrade from a more melee oriented StamSorc..Auri-El is my lord,
Trinimac my ward,
and Magnus my mind.0 -
NxJoeyD✭✭✭✭Yes, they do, to an extent. They show an individual's mechanics.
Yes and no. Not all mechanics are visual. Self buffs are often invisible to the opponent so seeing a one sided clip doesn't give us full context unless the full build kit of the opponent is known. Further, we don't always know the skill factor of the opponent. CP level isn't necessarily reflective of skill so clips leave out a lot of material context.That is false. Storm Calling is an extremely overloaded skill line that is currently used by any builds needing damage + utility + defense. Individually, Hurricane, Crit Surge, Streak, and Overload are all very strong abilities.
Not even close. Storm Calling is the most beneficial skill line for Sorcs but far from overloaded.
Overload: It's an Ult and while I do think it's the best skill in the entire Sorc kit it's not a single burst and doesn't provide any significant buff or debuff component. Further, it synergizes more with ranged DPS which are Mag based builds and the weaker of the paths for Sorcs. A Stam Sorc could run Overload but it wouldn't be optimal for them.
Mages Wrath/Fury: The nerf to 2 seconds cut the legs off this skill and made it nearly useless. The animation time is WAY too slow, excessively slow which makes the skill easily and completely avoidable. This is the weakest of the execute skills because it's so slow. Example of a stronger skill: Impale, is actually scaleable to higher values rather than being fixed and performs it's function quickly.
Light Form / Hurricane: This skill is really only good for Resolve and anyone will tell you that's the main reason anyone slots the skill. The DPS on either morph is too low to write home about. Those numbers are not "powerful" and are insanely easy to mitigate through in PvP. Now, IMO, if there's a player that needs a source of Resolve there's better sources than Hurricane, the same goes for Expedition. If one is in need of Resolve Earthen Heart can not only provide access to that buff via Shatterspike but also offers Major Brutality & Sorcery (plus passive damage) through Molten as well as access to Fossilize. So while Storm Calling has access to Resolve and a Stun skill, Earthen Heart has access to those but with mechanics that deliver more damage and utility than Storm Calling. Example of a stronger skill: Shatterspike Mantle, provides resolve, does more damage, also provides 100 W/S damage and also synergizes with Landslide for additional damage.
Lightning Splash: The DPS factor on this skill is low, just really low. The only power prospect comes from the synergy but the problem with that is that the synergy only affects the immediate area around the individual proccing the synergy, NOT the entire AoE. This is incredibly limiting and goes to mechanics. If the synergy damage affected the entire skills AoE then there'd be a better use case. As it is, any ground based AoE DoT is going to be limited, in both PvE and PvP but especially in PvP because nobody experienced is going to "stand in the stupid". When you have a class like Sorc where a good number of their abilities requires the target to "stand in stupid" in order to deal damage then that class is going to under perform because nobody is going to do that. Example of a stronger skill: Fulminating Rune, the skill deals and equitable DPS over a longer duration plus provides a smaller AoE burst as well as the opportunity for 3x synergies, all dealing the same high burst of damage.
Crit Surge: Again, this is another weak skill. The reason it's weak is because, in the scope of "pure Sorc" the Sorcerer class isn't an inherent "crit" class like, Nightblade, for example. The only Crit passive Sorc has is Exploitation which only provides Minor Prophecy and even that requires a Dark Magic cast to proc. This means that Sorcs, as a pure-class, don't have the crit based kit to see Crit Surge proccing with any consistency unless the Sorc equips literally nothing but crit based gear and even then. But what really makes Crit Surge fall short is that the heal is a fixed based value and doesn't scale. Regardless of your health pool, Mag pool, Stam pool, or W/S damage it's the same fixed value at rank IV no matter what. Even though the skill "can" proc up to once per second, doing so on a Pure-Sorc means putting so many "eggs into one basket" to increase crit chance that the build is going to be very vulnerable and the amount of the heal isn't enough to really offset that; especially with Battle Spirit active. Example of a Stronger skill: Blue/Bull Netch, provides Major B/S and also removes one negative effect for free every 5 seconds it's active or provides a flat 5% damage buff. That's a lot more deliverables than Crit Surge. *Runner Up: Igneous Weapons, Provides Major B/S, deals additional damage with each attack which doesn't require a crit to proc so not only does the caster receive the major buffs but they also get consistent passive damage.
Streak: This is probably the second best skill but, again, it's lost value prospect because of subclassing and all of the enhanced mobility that everyone has access to. Streak only has a range of 15m whereas other gap closing skills like Toppling Charge can reach 22m. Given the high degree of immunity that's available in PvP, plus the increase in mobility it means that Sorcs cannot use Streak to create a gap to refocus a fight. Just about any opponent is going to be able to immediately keep up and close gap with any number of available skills. Further, Streak carries a multi use penalty which other like-skill don't have putting Sorc at even more of a disadvantage. When we talk about using Streak as an offensive skill it falls shorter still. A Sorc using streak to stun has to turn around in order to follow up. Even with 3rd party camera speed add-ons this still sees the opponent breaking free before any real follow up can occur. Example of a stronger skill: Aurora Javelin, Deals more damage, is also unblockable, and has great follow up potential. Streak is also plagued with the "Streak bug" whereby at random times the skill will execute twice even when only procc'd once. This has been a known bug for ages and it occurs often.
Storm calling has very real limitations and those examples aren't the only ones in the game that are stronger because I chose skills that were directly similar in function to the Storm Calling skills, I didn't even take into account the opportunity cost of slotting the even stronger skill that exist in the game.Dark Magic and Summoning are slightly less meta for PvP, as the skills are currently either lacking in active effects or misplaced, but that doesn't mean they are inherently weak. When you compare these 2 lines to the meta ones, you're obviously going to see the drawbacks. This isn't the case at all when you compare them to even less useful skill lines like Shadow, Siphoning, Living Death, etc. Dark Magic and Summoning are clearly better in that regard.
Personally, I think Dark Magic and Summoning hover around A-/A tier.
I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks Dark Magic is an A tier skill line. Again, these aren't widely chosen skills. We don't see subclassed builds choosing Dark Magic, and why do we think that is? If they're A-Tier doesn't it stand to reason that we'd see more instances of them in PvP or in ESO logs?
Negate: For PvP this is too niche to even consider. Any ranged player can simply attack from outside of the AoE and any melee player can simply lean on light and heavy attacks to still deal major damage within the AoE. We don't hardly ever see this skill in PvP and for good reason.
Fragments: This goes without saying, the cast time. The cast time on Frags make it significantly weaker than every other class spammable in the game, especially when you consider that every other class spammable scales to equal or higher damage than Frags. Most players that slot Frags lean on world / weapon skills as a spam and only toss Frags on the bonus proc which still sees this as weaker because all of the other class spammables are readily useful. Example of a stronger skill: Goes without saying Surprise Attack / Concealed Weapon, either morph deals as much or more damage than Frags, is insta-cast, as well as delivers a buff or a guaranteed crit every 3 seconds which is more frequent than the bonus proc of Frags. Even Wardens Cliff Racer is a stronger skill providing a slightly lower initial hit but provides a 400 W/S damage buff seeing the subsequent attacks dealing significantly more damage than Frags plus enhancing all of the casters attacks.
*Crystal Weapon: This is also weak due to it's limited 6 second duration and significantly reduced 2nd attack buff. This sees the skill having to be recast far too often to keep uptime. Example of a stronger skill: Crushing Weapon, despite a 2 second duration the skill only buffs one attack, however, by more damage than Crystal Weapon and also apples Major Breach to the target. **Runner Up: Inspired Scholarship. Math-wise the max potential of Insp. Scholar comes out to about 9k to 10k less (in total) over the course of 30 seconds than Crystal Weapon, however, since Insp. Scholar is active for the full 30 seconds the caster is FAR more likely to realize every 3 second buff of Insp Scholar whereas in real combat the it's not realistic that the player is going to be able to hit every 6 second re-cast of Crystal Weapon. It's a case of "tortoise & the hare" although Crystal Weapon has a higher potential, in the real world Insp. Scholar often comes out ahead due to better mechanics.
Shattered Spines: This skill is seriously weak. Not only are there so many sources of immunity to immobilizations but here's the real killer, Spines only deals damage to enemies that were "encased". So if the player casts on anyone, PvE or PvP that has immunity they receive no damage. Example of a stronger skill: Tentacular Dread, is equally an immobility skill but scales to more damage than Spines and provides a full damage buff to targets hit by the skill, whether they were immobilized or not so even if the target was immune the player still had the opportunity to deal damage as well as receives the damage increase to them.
Vibrant Shroud: This one I'm mostly ok with. It's essentially the non-pet self heal and works fine. The heal factor is strong and the debuff to enemies in range is ok. I, personally, would like to see a better buff then Minor Vitality given that Ward has a health based hard cap but it doesn't kill the skill. Healing Contingency is still a stronger skill in this case because it delivers a stronger burst heal than Vibrant Shroud, plus you also get the Affix & Signature benefits as well as the Mages Guild passives; so even though Vibrant isn't bad, per se, it still falls short of scribing in terms of best to slot. Stronger buffs on Vibrant would make it a better prospect to consider.
Rune Prison: Again, weak. The weakness here comes down to the details in the mechanics. For Defensive Rune the delay in the stun makes the skill to clumsy. That delay opens the door for attackers to launch a status effect or CC of their own, thereby negating your stun on them. The pace of combat in ESO is quick and effective skills also need to be quick, not carrying delays for no real reason. The big downfall for Rune Cage is that it only deals damage IF the full duration of the stun completes so if the target breaks free they take no damage, that's a HUGE reason not to slot this skill. Given the mechanics of crowd control and subclassing anyone slotting a CC ability needs one that has a reliable damage component, this way, even if the target is immune the caster at least can rely on the damage. Example of a stronger skill: Take your pic, Aurora or Binding Javelin, Shattering Rocks all are ublockable stuns with better overall mechanics and damage components. *Runner up: Colorless Pool, this Fear + Stun CC cannot be blocked and while it doesn't deal damage it does apply two debuffs to the target and "Fear" has a known break free bug making the potential for the full 4 second stun likely.
Dark Exchange: This is a viable sustain for Stam Sorcs but not for Mag Sorcs, especially in PvP. A Mag Sorc cannot lean on sacrificing Stam for Mag in PvP and hope to survive, that's suicide. So this is a very very one sided sustain skill. Even with that the one second cast time is unnecessary.
Daedric Mines: Absolutely useless. Here is yet another effort at a crowd control skill that seemingly tries to tempt with damage scaling. The problem is that the first morph of this skill has such a significant animation time that it's 100% avoidable and requires the player to stand in stupid, which nobody would do. The second morph of this skill has a ridiculous cost and essentially confines the Sorc to the spot their standing in. Again, requires a target to stand in stupid but even a melee player wouldn't do this as melee range is farther than the area around the Sorc so they can attack and land damage from outside of the ground runes. Plus, those runes take 3 seconds to arm giving anyone who might be in range plenty of time to get out. These never work, especially in PvP.
This is not an A-Tier skill tree, and again, I provided skills that are similar in function as comparison but that still doesn't take into account the overall stronger skills out there one could sublcass in-lieu of any of these.That "exception" created a dominant class for nearly a year. In fact, Sorc only got 2 changes during that PTS cycle (Ward heal buff and 10% extra max mag), yet it was able to completely outshine everything else in the game. That goes to show how very minor buffs can inadvertently elevate a class to a much higher status.
I wouldn't say created a "dominant class", more like a difficult to kill class and while that has a benefit, being difficult to kill doesn't make the class effective at damage dealing. At that time, yes, Ward was strong but that was also pre-subclassing. In the post-subclassing game state everything is different and what was strong before, isn't necessarily strong now.
When Ward was strong nobody could subclass which meant breaking such a strong shield took more effort. The power creep subclassing brought enabled those builds to one shot even a strong Ward easily.No, this is completely false. Storm Calling is so loaded that it's hard to find anything else matching it in terms of raw damage and utility.
See above, I found a skill to match and beat every Storm Calling skill in terms of both damage & utility, and gave specifics, exactly how and why those skills out perform, not just because I think so.Storm Caling is an S tier skill line
I'd say it's far from it. I'd give Storm Calling a "B" tier skill line and that's due to the specific examples listed above of other skill that deliver either more power, more passive benefit, or both. Again, not just because I think so but because there are measurable ways that Sorc skills don't deliver in the powerful ways many other class skills do.If Sorc skills are so strong why does seemingly nobody want them?
Storm Calling
Storm Calling isn't a first round draft pick for subclassing. I don't know where that's coming from. If we look at any number of broad sourced feedbacks that are recent we see Storm Calling falling since the DK refresh. Storm Calling used to be around the #4 choice for subclassed builds before the DK refresh now I'd say it's a sold #5, Hack the Minotaur whilst not a gospel for ESO is a common community reference rates Storm Calling as 7th.I also hope you know that next patch, both stam and magsorc are going to be pretty meta. On PTS, my stamsorc can survive up to 8k DPS in an openworld build before having to make dedicated adjustments to survivability, while having stats rivaling or even beating subclassed builds (31k HP, 30k resists back bar, 3k crit resist, 33k stam, 6.9k WD, ~154% crit damage, 50% crit chance, max pen). The only people I'm dying to are good WWs and DKs running pure cheese duel builds. Everyone else has not been an issue whatsoever (including the status effect builds with Signet).
I don't know about "meta" for Sorc, at least not for Mag Sorc running Pure Sorc and slotting Sorc skills. In order for Sorc skills to be "meta" they have to be faster and we need real sources of spammable burst, which we don't have. Many of the Sorcs out here being effective are doing so on the backs of world & weapon skills as their primaries. Any class can lean on Whirling Blades, Rapid Strikes, Vigor, Thrive, Dawnbreaker, Crushing Shock, Wall, Comet, etc .. none of those kills speak to Sorcs, themselves, being strong and just about every Sorc out there leans on one or more of those skills because our class just doesn't bring the power.
When we're in PvP and meta builds are spamming it's skills like Surprise, Deep Fissure, Merciless (to a degree), Toppling Charge, Northern Storm, Incap Strike, Flame Lash, Take Flight .. They're also running Netch and/or Falcon's, especially if they're slotting Fissure. .. Runner up skills are Blastbones, especially on meta bombers that are running Colossus + Vicious Death + RoA (yes that's still a thing). .. Way down past all of that is a sprinkling of Sorc skills that get chosen but sorc skills are not part of the meta at all. The meta is crit and Sorc doesn't deliver crit. The meta is also strong burst and Sorc doesn't bring that either, not like any of those skill I just mentioned.
I think Sorc will be stronger if and only if our passives don't get nerfed. My Mag Sorc can keep pace with the meta builds, I won't go so far as to say it's meta power because it's not, no Sorc is unless they're subclassed into it, which I'm not. I've got nearly 29k health, 28K resist, 3k Crit resist, my W/S damage will peak at 7.3k (I'm built for strong base damage), 35k Mag, 18.8k pen. I'm similar to you but Mag rather than Stam and I'll tell you I had to get creative to deal the kind of burst damage that I do and stack the number of damage instances I do and what I run is very much non-typical and a good chunk of my power isn't coming from the Sorc skill lines.
As for the status effect + signet, I agree with you 100%. I hear people complaining about that in PvP but, IMO, it's a non issue because what it takes to build Signet into dealing meaningful status effect damage is so restrictive it leaves those builds exposed to a good number of attacks and any experienced player will be able to counter that.
Dude idk what to tell you. My magsorc on PTS is doing 4.5k+ DPS consistently.
Also, why can't we stay in the middle? There's you who think the class is insanely weak compared to everything else and want it buffed to the moon, then there's Vinny who thinks Sorc is extremely overpowered and should be nerfed. Please guys, it's not that radical lol.
Who said anything about "buffed to the moon"? All I'm saying is not to nerf the passives. I never said anything about buffing the skills, just that the skills are weak. And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.
My MagSorc delivers too, but relies WAY too heavily outside of the class to do so, as is the case with just about every Sorc. Once Sorc gets their class refresh we can talk about where the skills need to be, but for now the Mastery passives need to be strong to make Sorc competitive versus the highest tier of meta.
What do you mean relies way too heavily outside of the class? My magsorc is using this bar setup:
With Chudan:
Without Chudan:
There are only 3 non-class skills, 2 of which are healing abilities and the other one is an ultimate. I have literally infinite mag sustain with 35k max mag from Conservation of Energy passive. Dark Deal is there for the occasional stam sustain and/or allowing for the use of DDF mythic, but even then it's not really needed with Conservation. I have a crap ton of damage (6.7k spell damage, 43% crit chance, 130%+ crit damage, and 15k+ pen). I've killed subclassed builds easily on PTS.
Sure you guys never said "buffed to the moon", but you guys are souding like magsorc is bottom tier when it's not even the case. On the PTS, it's never been in a better state than ever.
I have no idea whom or what subclassed builds you’re killing with that MagSorc load out but I can say that against top MMR ranked players on XB NA, that build wouldn’t get very far.
It’s not just about “killing a subclassed builds” it’s being competitive with not just the meta (which is subclassed) but top MMR ranked experienced players using that meta.
I’m sorry but those skills are so much easier to mitigate than other classes. Curse can be cleansed, Frags and BA are both SO ungodly slow that it would take the likes of a Hellen Keller to not block them.
Those skills also scream heavy attack main to me, which is sadly what Mag Sorc has been cornered into. No Mag Sorc would slot BA that isn’t leaning on HA as their main attack.
Your Mag Sorc & mine are similar stat-wise. I’ve got more total pen and a bit more W/S but I also deal multiple instances of heavy burst per cast. I only apply 2 DoTs, both are passive and one is un-cleansable and the other ticks per second and is passively applied persistently with an over time value equivalent to Curse, but doesn’t take up a skill slot.
If we had skills that didn’t take nearly a full second to cast or a whopping 1.3 seconds to execute or were readily cleansable we’d have a much more viable skillset.Edited by NxJoeyD on 12 May 2026 13:200 -
acanca✭✭✭I'm starting to feel like this is just a case of people going off meta and then expecting their build to be good.
I also had a very fun trap pull sorc back in 2024-25 where i put a lot of stuff like barbed wire/deadric mines/volcanic rune etc on the ground and then pulled people into it with leashing soul. Why cant this playstyle compete with the best players in the server zos, clearly sorc needs buffs. Its not that i need to adapt my playstyle or learn to play better0