Getting anyone to agree on anything on the internet is nok likely to happen I'm afraid

by my nb testing seems the funnel health build at least has took a big hit to dps approx 400 dps loss from live with the same gear and rotation. while my stamina build seems really powerful even though i have not fully finished it.

My own experience suggests that my stamina NB will struggle to maintain the stamina pool and hit as hard as it does now. There is no single reason for this more a concatenation of small tweaks that add up to a larger effect.... increased dodge/block/sneak costs... lesser armour and accessory effects... increased drain on stamina pool from abilities that now use it instead of magicka... longer potion cool downs and reduced effectiveness of various forms of stamina regen.

Coupled with this my crit rating is roughly halved and this in turn reduces overall DPS.

My feeling is that some of this can be mitigated with tweaks to the build but other parts are just too many hits from too many places for the particular flavour build I have been using.

Overall my impression is that players at the VR14 end have had their overall impact reduced and there are some interesting threads from well known players and large guilds that cover that far better than I can.

The justice system actually looks like it could be fun but also risks being too intrusive in places. One thing that felt wrong to me was that guards in the Dominon seemed very upset about that pocket I picked in the Pact - seems to be their should be a regional factor to the system but that may be a coding complication they don't need.

The Champion system seemed... meh. Each individual point seems to have little impact and unless you have quests remaining then gaining one is painfully slow by just 'playing' on a character that is already at VR14, on live I am forcing myself to level a few alts to 50 simply so I can play through Cadwell's Silver/Gold again - I like quests so I will cope but those who felt it was a grind the first time round are going to hate it when they realise they now have to grind for the equivalent of 1,440 VR levels. Or around 144 runs through Silver/Gold quest content.

The passives range from the interesting to the powerful to the 'whatever'. I think they could do with a serious rethink before going live. I also feel they could use more passives on each tree to keep motivation going past 1,080 CP (assuming any of us live long enough to reach that many points in the first place) - having something outrageously useful at 400 stars completed in a tree would fun.

Finally on CP I feel they should not force us to spread them - if I, as a stamina build, wish to focus all my efforts on those abilities then I should be able to do so and take the hit to health and magicka if I choose. Nor should I be forced to take passives I do not want as a result of going down a tree I am not really interested in following. They have made some effort to bring useful passives to each area but of the 6 I ended up with on the PTS I actually wanted 3 or 4 whereas 2 were just the least tedious in the other areas.

I LOVED my panther senche and I may well play briefly with some of the costumes as well. The only issue I had with the crown store was the repair kit their is more powerful than what can be obtained in the game and that feels like the thin end of the wedge. Oh... and... Shadowmere horse please... and DB/MT outfits.

From my reading here I think a good number of my impressions are shared by a fair number of people and thus I hope that if ZOS are paying attention they can and will look at some of the issues before getting anywhere near live.

If I had to pick a few:

- Consider reversing the comparative reductions in various pools, items and buffs so players do not feel they are being artificially gimped.
- Consider more free allocation in how CP are spent across trees. And reconsider some of the passives.
- Give me Catalyst back!
- I appreciate the intention of the minor/major buff approach but you have replaced a lot of 25%,30%, 40% even 60% buffs with flat 20% ones - this hurts a lot of builds especially if they have lost several of these effects that were being combined.

Understood, this was more of an attempt to get a feel for the new class balance and whether or not people are liking or hating the changes.

jkloza wrote: »

I'm specifically interested in nb vs sorc as dps or healers

Sorcs bring little to the table for healing. Other than the now-nerfed Negate Magic, sorcs have no group healing or damage mitigation skills. Prior to 1.6, Power Surge gave sorcs an advantage in maximizing Resto Staff heals. Every class can now do that with a Mage Guild skill.

That is not to say that sorcs cannot heal adequately. Resto Staves suffice, and sorc resource management remains pretty good. But if you're planning to heal as your primary role, every other class would be a better choice.

I don't know, is your list from pvp or a pve standpoint?

jkloza wrote: »

I don't know, is your list from pvp or a pve standpoint?

I think it's from the "I-haven't-tested-everything-but-I-want-to-QQ-about-NB" standpoint.

Digiman wrote: »

Playing as a sorcerer I feel light armor is weak, we are being pigeon holded into shield stacking with pets in PvP, and ZoS can't seem to give proper balancing, always attempting to buff one thing half heartily only to nerf 3 others.

From PTS testing I found that its now pointless to put points in health when compared to putting them in magicka as survivability depends completely on my magicka and since my damage depends on that too you can see why many have bit the bullet and gone walnut builds.

We were hoping ZoS would listen and help surge become an ability we could depend on to give us some health from the damage we deal. That's been neutered.

But really its to early in the PTS to say how things are set for live.

Suffice to say, damage is running rampant, shields have exposed a huge problem in ZoS oversight to armor changes and people are worried about builds and armor sets when changes go live.

I hope sorcerers aren't forced to rely on pets in pvp, the servers won't handle 200 pets running around.

Digiman wrote: »

...walnut builds

I love this term

I also agree with your whole post. At least for sorcs, the gutting of critical surge and light armor mitigation basically requires you to go all-in on shields and magicka in situations where you'll be taking damage. In situations where you're just there to pew pew, the buffs to pets are going to emphasize three-toggle builds, which are just boring to play.

For sorcs, this patch does not encourage build diversity. It simply forces us to change from the current, small set of top-end builds to this new duo.

The crit surge cooldown needs to go. Light armor needs to be unscrewed at least a little. And at least one of those must-have toggles should be changed to a one-slot, 10 minute buff.

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

I think I speak for us all in that I don't speak for all of us.

The general consensus is that there currently is no general consensus.

It's all over the board right now.

I think we can all agree/disagree on this.

snipeopsub17_ESO wrote: »

I hope sorcerers aren't forced to rely on pets in pvp, the servers won't handle 200 pets running around.

@snipeopsub17_ESO , right. If they had to remove torchbugs and deer from Cyro to help with lag (passive entities), imagine what 3 familars/sorc will do!

Maybe we need to get the whole player base to create a Sorcerer with Pets, all go in PVP at level 10 with pets out and crash the server so they get an inkling that pets MAY NOT be the best way to force Sorcerers to go.... It may be the only way for them to see that forcing Sorcerers to use Pets does not equal "Play as you Want!".....

Actually like the new feel of things. I have a v14 templar, dk, and sorc on live and therefore have spent a longtime testing them all. Templar is definitely very strong now, and my fears of my dk being nerfed have subsided. My sorc is a love hate relationship at the moment. He can do some cool things, but may be the easiest class to build against in the game since his bread and butter is reflective.