[Feedback] Sorcerer 1.6.2 Magicka (detailed version)

Gyudan · February 2015

Magicka Sorcerer
I've recently passed 50 days played on sorcerer on live, so I feel confident enough in my ability to provide relatively accurate feedback on the class, at least for the magicka DPS side of things.
With the current version, the numbers don't seem to be there. Sorcerers are probably the weakest class for magicka/stamina DPS now, weakest at tanking and second weakest at healing, beating DKs in that role.

Storm Calling

Mage's Wrath (Mage's Fury)
No change apart from the numbers. It's a very good finisher now that sorcerers only have to use spell damage instead of weapon damage.
Thundering Presence (Lightning Form)
The increase of the duration was needed and it is now much better for tanking or more survivability.
Lightning Flood (Lightning Splash)
Duration increased vs Damage reduced, which is a positive change imo. It's now a good AOE for sorcerer in addition to the usual Impulse spam, especially for low health targets.
Power Surge (Surge)
It seems weaker than before. The heals are particularly low compared to the 1.5 Crit Surge. The reduction of the duration compared to the 1.5 Power Surge is not too bad. I think that this skill is not specific enough compared to Entropy from the Mages Guild, which is significantly better for single target DPS. I don't see much use for the Major Brutality buff and I think that this morph should focus only on increasing magical damage, maybe with damage increased for the ability used directly after Surge.
Power Overload (Overload)
This ultimate feels really good after the 1.6.1 patch. Before update 6 it was a completely neglected ultimate, greatly outpowered by Storm Atronach and Negate, but now it seems to be a valid choice for single target DPS on bosses or in PVP. The damage output is quite high but the cooldown between attacks and the changes to ultimate generation with update 6 keep it balanced. The AOE damage seems a bit low compared to the other options available that don't even cost ultimate.
Disintegrate (passive)
The damage is only based on character level and doesn't scale with spell damage/magicka, just like on live. I think it should scale like the other abilities of the Storm Calling line.

Dark Magic

Crystal Fragments (Crystal Shard)
I really like the 20% increase to damage in case the ability procs. It makes crystal frags very viable in a DPS rotation and balances the extra attention needed due to the random factor. It's always easier to repeat the same rotation endlessly (skill 1, skill 2, skill 2, skill 1, skill 2, skill 2, ...) and I like that the player gets rewarded for paying attention when the 35% proc chance happens.
Encase
Not tested.
Rune Prison
Not tested.
Dark Conversion (Dark Exchange)
The exchange rate seems similar to the live version of Dark Conversion, with the additional advantage of being able to move slowly while channeling, so I guess this is a buff. The ability seems a bit annoying to stop mid-channel though, since it requires a block or a weapon switch. I think that pressing the associated key a second time should stop it.
Daedric Minefield
Not tested.
Suppression Field / Absorption Field (Negate Magic)
I haven't really tested those abilities due to the lack possibilities in solo play but they seem to have been nerfed quite a lot. The buffs provided by Absorption field are pretty much useless in large group fights due to the inability to stack them with allies and potions buffs, and the dispel now only works on cast instead of the entire duration of the effect. The changes to Exploitation also make this ultimate much less valuable for soloing a pack of mobs. At least the cost has been reduced a tiny bit to make up for it but I don't plan to use negate anytime soon, unless a dispell is really necessary in a trial. The Atronach is better for AOE and Overload is better for single target roles, so at least sorcerers are no longer negate monkeys.
Blood Magic (passive)
I'm not sure if the switch from 5% to 8% is really meaningful, but at least that's one way for sorcerers to recover a little health without a restoration staff.
Exploitation (passive)
This passive used to give a flat 15% increase to crit chance when attacking enemies affeted by Dark Magic, including Negate. The new version gives a Minor Prophecy (about 3% spell crit chance) to nearby allies for 20 seconds, upon casting a dark magic spell. I like the idea of finally getting a group buff for sorcerers but this one feels quite weak, even with the global nerf to crit chances. I think that the duration should be reduced to 10 seconds or less and that it should grant a second minor buff.

Daedric Summoning
There are multiple threads detailing pet builds and I haven't tested them properly due to lack of Necropotence set on the PTS. The 2% nerf to that set along with the nerf to shields that used to scale with magicka only make this choice much less desirable now.

Greater Storm Atronach (Summon Storm Atronach)
The new synergy is a great change compared to the old one that needed to be channeled. 25% damage increase for 8 seconds on a player, but for the atronach it's a bit low, especially given the short duration. I think that the buff to the atronach's damage (not the player's) should last for the remaining duration of the ultimate. This would encourage players to activate the synergy very quickly to make the most of it. This would be another reason to rush to the atronach as soon as it's up.
It would be nice if the tooltip indicated the Atronach's damage, just like it does for the Familiar and Twilight.

Mages Guild

Inner Light (Mage's Light)
Nerfing the crit chance was a good choice. This ability was used by every single magicka user and it was too strong. Now it's still very viable but no longer mandatory. The tooltip indicates a 432500.7 seconds duration that I haven't verified for obvious reasons. Fix it maybe?
Entropy and its morphs
The Major Sorcery buff is way too strong on this ability. It's basically just as good as before with a new 20% increase in spell damage. In that current state, all magicka users (apart from pet build) with more than a handful of brain cells should use one of the 2 morphs available. Please change it to a Minor Sorcery buff, which would make much more sense.
Spell Symmetry (Equilibrium)
This ability is much less effective now and it's no longer possible to use it all the time to make up for low sustainability. Everyone was relying too much on it and this is a welcome nerf.

Light Armor

Concentration (passive)
75% chance to reduce spell resistance by 960 for 8 seconds. This is laughable compared to spell resistances attainable by players. With my tank who doesn't have any enchantment or trait specifically designed to reduce spell damage, I already have 24K spell resistance. This should be changed to a % value, much closer to the 28% (for 7 pieces) of 1.5.
On a side note, the tooltip should explain what a "full set of light armor" means.
Spell Warding (passive)
For the same reason, the 2464 spell resistance given by 7 pieces seems very low.

General unrelated remarks

Critical chance in item sets
The set bonuses have been reduced from 4% to around 1.5%. While this is an understandable design choice, it has affected many high-end item sets and especially the ones from Aetherian Archive and Sanctum Ophidia trials, which have become relatively useless now. I think that the crit chance bonus should completely disappear from the 2-3-4 pieces bonuses and maybe remain in some 5 pieces ones as a 4% increase. The removed crit bonuses should change to useful attributes, based on what's already available in the Champion System, like base stats, increased elemental damage, increased damage from heavy/light attacks or spell/armor penetration.
Update: crit back to "normal" at around 3.2% per set piece.
Potions
The major/minor buffs make offensive (spell crit, spell power, weapon crit/LOLOL) potions much less effective. They're still good to recover stats of course but in group situations the buffs that they provide are already available most of the time, if not part of the player's own skill rotation.
Example: using critical surge or entropy for a major buff to spell damage makes the spell damage potion half useless.
I think that potion buffs should be separated from the current system, allowing them to stack with major buffs, especially with the cooldown increasing from 30 to 45 seconds. On live (1.5) every time I pop a crafted potion I know that I'm doing more damage than usual for a limited amount of time, which gives a small adrenaline rush, making fights more pleasant. On the PTS, potions seem very dull in comparison.
Hirelings/Refining changes
It would be nice to get percentages associated with the "significant" increases and decreases to the drop chances. Is it 5%, 20%, 50%, 100%, LOLOL?
MAWR!
Check here if you want to read even more feedback on update 6.

Character sheet for reference:

I can add more input for Templar stamina DPS and Tank it this feedback gets enough attention. It took quite a while to write all that stuff already.

TL;DR: Still weak. Very squishy. No more negate monkey. Not everything makes sense.

Aeternus · February 2015

How does sorc dps compare with magicka templars in 1.6? I heard it is worse without using pets

Exstazik · February 2015

if 2200 spell damage with surge it's very low.You can up to 2700+

Gyudan · February 2015

Exstazik wrote: »

if 2200 spell damage with surge it's very low.You can up to 2700+

@Exstazik: pic or it didn't happen!

Aeternus wrote: »

How does sorc dps compare with magicka templars in 1.6? I heard it is worse without using pets

I haven't tested magicka templar, but with the new execute their DPS may be higher, especially on long fights.
It all comes back to Surve vs Entropy. To me it doesn't make sense that a Mages Guild ability available to all classes could be superior to a Sorcerer-only skills in every way possible.

keto3000 · February 2015

@fearturbo has been doing a lot of 1.6 testing on templar magicka, stamina builds and recently for NB. he is currently testing out sorcerer tanking build, I think. Have a look at his 1.6 PTs version of his Templar IMMORTAL (magicka) DPS. You can see his other build vids on the youtube site and Tamriel Foundry posts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-csC4jV7oSA

Derra · February 2015

Gyudan wrote: »

Exstazik wrote: »

if 2200 spell damage with surge it's very low.You can up to 2700+

@Exstazik: pic or it didn't happen!

Well you need either pvp buffs to reach that with staves or you have to use sth. else. It is possible though. Just not really beneficial apart from overload trolling.

RoyJade · February 2015

How many dps do you have ? I have tested the sorcerer with my guild yesterday, and we aren't able to have more than 8K dps, when our NB, DK and templar can reach more than 10K very easily. Only power overload give to us a decent dps of 12K.
And sorry for my bad english ^^

Gyudan · February 2015

RoyJade wrote: »

How many dps do you have ? I have tested the sorcerer with my guild yesterday, and we aren't able to have more than 8K dps, when our NB, DK and templar can reach more than 10K very easily. Only power overload give to us a decent dps of 12K.
And sorry for my bad english ^^

I don't have any emperor buffs at the moment and I'm using the Atronach boon, which is not optimal for DPS meters, but I'd say that 8K is a good number for sorcerer on single target without ultimate and without Mages Guild Buffs.

I was getting similar DPS with the following skills:
- Crystal Fragments (only used when proc)
- Velocious Curse (up as much as possible)
- Crushing Shock (when Crystal Frags doesn't proc)
- Power Surge up all the time
- Bound Aegis toggled on
- Thundering presence started before the fight (about 400 DPS increase)

Powerload can do 12K but I'm not sure of how long it can last, with about 22 ultimate cost per light attack.

RoyJade · February 2015

8K, same as my guildmates and me. It's poor compared to the 13K dps some NB have (and other classes too).
Thanks for your answer.

Derra · February 2015

Where can i test DPS ._.? I´ve only pvped so far.

Fayaburn · February 2015

Gyudan wrote: »

Magicka Sorcerer
I've recently passed 50 days played on sorcerer on live, so I feel confident enough in my ability to provide relatively accurate feedback on the class, at least for the magicka DPS side of things.
Overall I'm pleasantly surprised with the changes to my favorite class, so good job @ZOS for once! The DPS numbers are probably still a bit low compared to other classes and stamina builds. See the comments on Surge/Entropy for suggestions.

I will try to provide same kind of feedback. I main a breton Sorcerer since beta, I mostly do PvE and completed all endgame content on live. I also was Emperor when I spent some time in PvP so I was there for enough time to have a least a rough idea of how the sorc was performing there.
The feedback will be from a magicka sorcerer as well.

Gyudan wrote: »

Storm Calling
Mage's Wrath (Mage's Fury)
No change apart from the numbers. It's a very good finisher now that sorcerers only have to use spell damage instead of weapon damage.

Ditto. Good finisher. I would go for very good if it started at 25%.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Thundering Presence (Lightning Form)
The increase of the duration was needed and it is now much better for tanking or more survivability.

Nothing to add here about the spell alone. For PvP, the buff will be mainly used by stamina sorcs as magicka ones will need to play with shields to survive and shields do not benefit from armor/sr.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Lightning Flood (Lightning Splash)
Duration increased vs Damage reduced, which is a positive change imo. It's now a good AOE for sorcerer in addition to the usual Impulse spam, especially for low health targets.

Decent AOE, cannot be used alone as it is a DoT. Main issue is that it is a ground area. As soon as fight moves a bit, need to recast etc... A nice modification would be to make it a target based AOE (same as Lightning or Poison AOE we suffer from in Sanctum).

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Power Surge (Surge)
It seems weaker than before. The heals are particularly low compared to the 1.5 Crit Surge. The reduction of the duration compared to the 1.5 Power Surge is not too bad. I think that this skill is not specific enough compared to Entropy from the Mages Guild, which is significantly better for single target DPS. I don't see much use for the Major Brutality buff and I think that this morph should focus only on increasing magical damage, maybe with damage increased for the ability used directly after Surge.

For magicka sorcerers, absolutely no reason to use this over Entropy. Used to be a mandatory skill, became useless.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Power Overload (Overload)
This ultimate feels really good after the 1.6.1 patch. Before update 6 it was a completely neglected ultimate, greatly outpowered by Storm Atronach and Negate, but now it seems to be a valid choice for single target DPS on bosses or in PVP. The damage output is quite high but the cooldown between attacks and the changes to ultimate generation with update 6 keep it balanced. The AOE damage seems a bit low compared to the other options available that don't even cost ultimate.

AOE damage is garbage and always has been (only used while leveling pre-impulse). Light attacks provide good burst, however as you said the GCD is a bit too long.
Proposed change : reduce GCD but make that Overload attacks do not provide Ult-gain buff.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Disintegrate (passive)
The damage is only based on character level and doesn't scale with spell damage/magicka, just like on live. I think it should scale like the other abilities of the Storm Calling line.

This passive is good on paper. But I find it underwhelming in practice. Even when trying to maximise proc chance with multiple lightning damage sources it is lacking a bit. Imho it should be a core mechanic of the sorc's execute phase instead of just a nice suprise when you get some luck on RNG.

Gyudan wrote: »

Dark Magic
Crystal Fragments (Crystal Shard)
I really like the 20% increase to damage in case the ability procs. It makes crystal frags very viable in a DPS rotation and balances the extra attention needed due to the random factor. It's always easier to repeat the same rotation endlessly (skill 1, skill 2, skill 2, skill 1, skill 2, skill 2, ...) and I like that the player gets rewarded for paying attention when the 35% proc chance happens.

Ditto. Fragment finally makes it into our rotation. Was about time.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Encase
Not tested.

Good modifications from ZOS. The skill is fine now.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Rune Prison
Not tested.

Still not worth a skill slot. The cast time needs to be removed. However, I find every class mezz lacking in this game.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Dark Conversion (Dark Exchange)
The exchange rate seems similar to the live version of Dark Conversion, with the additional advantage of being able to move slowly while channeling, so I guess this is a buff. The ability seems a bit annoying to stop mid-channel though, since it requires a block or a weapon switch. I think that pressing the associated key a second time should stop it.

Supposed to be our resource management tool. However the chanel still makes it weak. Can be used by sorc healers (if any remain with 1.6) when running not so hard content (type of content that does not need skills to manage resources

). I can't see any decent magicka DPS build include it.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Daedric Minefield
Not tested.

Used mostly for area denial in PvP.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Suppression Field / Absorption Field (Negate Magic)
I haven't really tested those abilities due to the lack possibilities in solo play but they seem to have been nerfed quite a lot. The buffs provided by Absorption field are pretty much useless in large group fights due to the inability to stack them with allies and potions buffs, and the dispel now only works on cast instead of the entire duration of the effect. The changes to Exploitation also make this ultimate much less valuable for soloing a pack of mobs. At least the cost has been reduced a tiny bit to make up for it but I don't plan to use negate anytime soon, unless a dispell is really necessary in a trial. The Atronach is better for AOE and Overload is better for single target roles, so at least sorcerers are no longer negate monkeys.

1.6.1 modifications combined with a lesser damage mitigation compared to other classes ultimates seriously decreased Negate interest.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Blood Magic (passive)
I'm not sure if the switch from 5% to 8% is really meaningful, but at least that's one way for sorcerers to recover a little health without a restoration staff.

The buff comes less from the %age increase than from the fact that we now use Fragment in our rotation. It is now a nice passive.

Gyudan wrote: »

[*]Exploitation (passive)
This passive used to give a flat 15% increase to crit chance when attacking enemies affeted by Dark Magic, including Negate. The new version gives a Minor Prophecy (about 3% spell crit chance) to nearby allies for 20 seconds, upon casting a dark magic spell. I like the idea of finally getting a group buff for sorcerers but this one feels quite weak, even with the global nerf to crit chances. I think that the duration should be reduced to 10 seconds or less and that it should grant a second minor buff.

3% is a bit low but it is a consequence of buff consolidation. I would rather grant the sorcerer alone the Major Prophecy buff allowing him to get rid of inner light (as we currently have huge skill slots management issue with toggles).

Gyudan wrote: »

Daedric Summoning
[...]

Here is my feedback concerning the skill line on 1.6.1.
The pets were useless on live, really needed to be looked at. That is done now.
The modifications made the pets become viable with huge constraints. Notice I said viable, not good.

The feedback is provided after using a summoning build (35k magicka, ward and curse buffs on).

Familiar/Clanfear :
I once used Volatile familiar for AOE/CC purpose. This is not possible anymore due to the bugs that gimp it (many threads about it).
Clanfear is only useful for taunting purpose when soloing. DPS is crap.

Twilight :
As ZOS wants sorcerers to be summoners and does not let us the choice, the restoring Twilight will be the pet in our DPS bars. Mediocre DPS considering all the downsides of a pet build. Buff to magicka regen is nice.

Curse :
The duration is a bit too low when used in order to boost pet damage, the buff is too low as well.

Bound armor :
Honnestly, the resistance boost are really *** when considering the skill is a toggle. Will only be slotted for the pool increase.

Ward :
Has always been a nice sorc skill. It still is with update 6. Many people consider the shield value is too hight, but as it is the only way for a sorc to survive now that surge has a cooldown, it is needed. Way too much whine on the forums, a nerf is incoming and it is not necessary.

Passives :
That health regen passive...

Overall feedback for Sorc's magicka build :

Some nice changes have been made by ZOS for the class. We are moving in the good direction. However, the fact that ZOS wants to force us to use pets has two very hard to swallow downsides :

First, not every magicka sorc wants to use pets. They should be able to play pure caster without gimping themselves.

Second downside comes with the constraints in order to make a pet build work. Those are HUUUUUUGE. As the pets only scale on max magicka, this forces sorcerers to build around it. That means that we are stuck with 5 pieces of V12 Sturdy armor pieces... at least make Necropotence set a craftable one if you force us to wear it.

Next constraint concerns the skill bars. You can either go for absolute max magicka with 3 toggles (aegis, twilight, inner light) and get only 2 slots remaining on each bar... now enjoy your flexibility and gameplay.
Or you can drop Aegis to gain 2 more slots but will probably use it to slot Ward and Curse to boost pet damage and will get a very complicated rotation requiring weapon swap every 5 to 10 sec in average. And when we're at it, why was weapon swap lock needed for each GCD? Did anyone ever complained that weapon switch was overpowered? I don't seem to understand the logic behind this change.

Those toggles are an aberation in a game with only 10 slots available and pet build will remain kind of gimped if ZOS does not take a serious look at the matter.

When you take all those constraints and factor in the still remotely viable DPS of the pets even when buffed, we are far from the exciting new pets ZOS were talking about in ESO Live which needed to be tuned down a bit.

Gyudan · February 2015

@Fayaburn: great addition, thanks!

Derra wrote: »

Where can i test DPS ._.? I´ve only pvped so far.

World bosses in VR10 zones seem decent for fights lasting ~20 seconds but that's not enough to determine sustained DPS.
Varlariel (3rd boss AA) could be a good DPS meter, but it requires gathering 12 players to test it.

Snit · February 2015

Fayaburn wrote: »

First, not every magicka sorc wants to use pets. They should be able to play pure caster without gimping themselves.

Next constraint concerns the skill bars. You can either go for absolute max magicka with 3 toggles (aegis, twilight, inner light) and get only 2 slots remaining on each bar... now enjoy your flexibility and gameplay.

I agree with your entire post, but I wanted to emphasize these two points:

- Summoners should be viable, but sorcs should not be shoehorned into being summoners
- Sorcs rely too heavily on toggles. If the best builds have only two active skill slots per bar, gameplay is less flexible, less complex and whole lot less fun

Between this and the inevitable "people are complaining about PvP, so we better nerf sorcs again" incoming shield nerf, I'm having difficulty staying optimistic about 1.6. That's a shame, because I really like a lot of what this patch does (Justice System, Champion Points).

Fayaburn · February 2015

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ @ZOS_GinaBruno‌

Please take a serious look at this thread as it contains some in depth feedback about the PvE Magicka Sorcerers in 1.6.x version.

Dracane · February 2015

Exstazik wrote: »

if 2200 spell damage with surge it's very low.You can up to 2700+

How ? O.o
And back to topic: Lightning splash is not good, mage's fury is not usefull with only 20% limit. I think, you should be doing more testing. I can't believe, you're calling pretty much ALL the Sorc abilities 'Good' the oposite is the case.

Gyudan · February 2015

Feedback gathered in 1 picture: