Current Sorcerer Issues

Jar_Ek · October 2015

Updated to include issues and solutions from http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/221061/surge-shields-and-the-disturbing-features-of-eso#latest

Rayste · October 2015

Would like to see ZOS do something about sorcs using overload as a crutch. Some competitive dps with that slotted would be nice.

Erock25 · October 2015

Jar_Ek wrote: »

No comment @Dracane, @Erock25, @Huggalump, @Cathexis, @Xeven, @CP5, @Tankqull, @Derra ?

I won't comment on magicka issues since I haven't played one in a long time. My short list for options for what I think stam sorc needs is ....

- Most builds have a way to time their attacks so their dmg hits in a burst. DK's have dots + Ult, magicka Sorcs have Vel Curse, Magicka specs have Detonation, stam Sorcs have .... Thundering Presence? It doesn't do enough dmg with the PVP dmg reduction to justify the downsides of less total duration and shorter speed buff time. I think we should get either Endless Fury or Mage's Wrath for the delayed execute burst dmg and/or Deadric Tomb switched to Daedric Weapon which has a 4 sec delay before your next weapon attack explodes for extra dmg.

- Overload dmg should scale better with stamina. It needs to be increased by the Mighty Passive and be checked against Physical Resistance if stamina pool is greater than magicka pool. This should be true for all ultimates for all classes and skill lines.

- Empowered Ward should scale with health (20k HP/ 6k shield to 30k health / 8k shield in PVP) but still cost magicka. Might not be worth using for stam builds that are already taxing magicka with streak, boundless, and maybe surge and restraining prison, but another option for getting the daedric protection passive would be welcomed.

Dracane · October 2015

Erock25 wrote: »

Jar_Ek wrote: »

No comment @Dracane, @Erock25, @Huggalump, @Cathexis, @Xeven, @CP5, @Tankqull, @Derra ?

I won't comment on magicka issues since I haven't played one in a long time. My short list for options for what I think stam sorc needs is ....

- Most builds have a way to time their attacks so their dmg hits in a burst. DK's have dots + Ult, magicka Sorcs have Vel Curse, Magicka specs have Detonation, stam Sorcs have .... Thundering Presence? It doesn't do enough dmg with the PVP dmg reduction to justify the downsides of less total duration and shorter speed buff time. I think we should get either Endless Fury or Mage's Wrath for the delayed execute burst dmg and/or Deadric Tomb switched to Daedric Weapon which has a 4 sec delay before your next weapon attack explodes for extra dmg.

- Overload dmg should scale better with stamina. It needs to be increased by the Mighty Passive and be checked against Physical Resistance if stamina pool is greater than magicka pool. This should be true for all ultimates for all classes and skill lines.

- Empowered Ward should scale with health (20k HP/ 6k shield to 30k health / 8k shield in PVP) but still cost magicka. Might not be worth using for stam builds that are already taxing magicka with streak, boundless, and maybe surge and restraining prison, but another option for getting the daedric protection passive would be welcomed.

Daedric Prey is a useless abilitiy in its current state. As long as it doesn't get buffed to at least 100% more pet damage, it's not needed. Wouldn't mind this becoming a stamina morph instead.
Same goes to the other things you have mentioned. Mostly useless morphs that no Magicka Sorcerer would use unless he is serious.

I must say though, Stamina Sorc is pretty strong in my opinion. Neither Magicka nor stamina sorcs really have a spammable class abilitiy, which is a problem for both.

Erock25 · October 2015

Dracane wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Jar_Ek wrote: »

No comment @Dracane, @Erock25, @Huggalump, @Cathexis, @Xeven, @CP5, @Tankqull, @Derra ?

I won't comment on magicka issues since I haven't played one in a long time. My short list for options for what I think stam sorc needs is ....

- Most builds have a way to time their attacks so their dmg hits in a burst. DK's have dots + Ult, magicka Sorcs have Vel Curse, Magicka specs have Detonation, stam Sorcs have .... Thundering Presence? It doesn't do enough dmg with the PVP dmg reduction to justify the downsides of less total duration and shorter speed buff time. I think we should get either Endless Fury or Mage's Wrath for the delayed execute burst dmg and/or Deadric Tomb switched to Daedric Weapon which has a 4 sec delay before your next weapon attack explodes for extra dmg.

- Overload dmg should scale better with stamina. It needs to be increased by the Mighty Passive and be checked against Physical Resistance if stamina pool is greater than magicka pool. This should be true for all ultimates for all classes and skill lines.

- Empowered Ward should scale with health (20k HP/ 6k shield to 30k health / 8k shield in PVP) but still cost magicka. Might not be worth using for stam builds that are already taxing magicka with streak, boundless, and maybe surge and restraining prison, but another option for getting the daedric protection passive would be welcomed.

Daedric Prey is a useless abilitiy in its current state. As long as it doesn't get buffed to at least 100% more pet damage, it's not needed. Wouldn't mind this becoming a stamina morph instead.
Same goes to the other things you have mentioned. Mostly useless morphs that no Magicka Sorcerer would use unless he is serious.

I must say though, Stamina Sorc is pretty strong in my opinion. Neither Magicka nor stamina sorcs really have a spammable class abilitiy, which is a problem for both.

Ransack, Wrecking Blow, and Crushing Shock / Force Pulse are viable spam abilities. Hell, Trapping Webs is even finding a place in some builds as the go to spam. I agree that stam sorc isn't in a bad place but name another build (magicka or stamina) that has nearly 100% of its outgoing dmg coming from class neutral abilities? Thundering Presence doesn't count as it doesn't hit hard enough to justify its use in PVP over Boundless. At the moment, all of stam sorcs outgoing dmg is coming from class neutral abilities besides maybe Greater Atro. Magicka Sorc is fine with Crushing/Force Pulse spam to layer with their Vel Curse, Frags, Mage's Wrath dmg but Stam Sorc needs something else to layer with Wrecking Blow/Ransack/Flying Blade spam. The Overload change I suggest is just common sense and should be the rule for all ultimates (I know stamblades would love that) and it helps stam Sorc PVE dmg more than anything. I also like the idea of launching an Overload light attack from max range before Crit Charging in. Empowered Ward change may be 'too much' or even unneccessry but when I try to put together builds that would use this hypothetical health scaling Empowered Ward, I have to make tough sacrifices to even fit it in the build at all and IMO only the Daedric Protection passive is why it would even make the cut for me.

I know pet sorcs were using the combination of Empowered Ward and Daedric Prey to buff pets before 2.1, so not sure how the current form of Daedric Prey can be labeled useless considering it does more buffing alone than those two abilities did combined.

Dracane · October 2015

Erock25 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Jar_Ek wrote: »

No comment @Dracane, @Erock25, @Huggalump, @Cathexis, @Xeven, @CP5, @Tankqull, @Derra ?

I won't comment on magicka issues since I haven't played one in a long time. My short list for options for what I think stam sorc needs is ....

- Most builds have a way to time their attacks so their dmg hits in a burst. DK's have dots + Ult, magicka Sorcs have Vel Curse, Magicka specs have Detonation, stam Sorcs have .... Thundering Presence? It doesn't do enough dmg with the PVP dmg reduction to justify the downsides of less total duration and shorter speed buff time. I think we should get either Endless Fury or Mage's Wrath for the delayed execute burst dmg and/or Deadric Tomb switched to Daedric Weapon which has a 4 sec delay before your next weapon attack explodes for extra dmg.

- Overload dmg should scale better with stamina. It needs to be increased by the Mighty Passive and be checked against Physical Resistance if stamina pool is greater than magicka pool. This should be true for all ultimates for all classes and skill lines.

- Empowered Ward should scale with health (20k HP/ 6k shield to 30k health / 8k shield in PVP) but still cost magicka. Might not be worth using for stam builds that are already taxing magicka with streak, boundless, and maybe surge and restraining prison, but another option for getting the daedric protection passive would be welcomed.

Daedric Prey is a useless abilitiy in its current state. As long as it doesn't get buffed to at least 100% more pet damage, it's not needed. Wouldn't mind this becoming a stamina morph instead.
Same goes to the other things you have mentioned. Mostly useless morphs that no Magicka Sorcerer would use unless he is serious.

I must say though, Stamina Sorc is pretty strong in my opinion. Neither Magicka nor stamina sorcs really have a spammable class abilitiy, which is a problem for both.

Ransack, Wrecking Blow, and Crushing Shock / Force Pulse are viable spam abilities. Hell, Trapping Webs is even finding a place in some builds as the go to spam. I agree that stam sorc isn't in a bad place but name another build (magicka or stamina) that has nearly 100% of its outgoing dmg coming from class neutral abilities? Thundering Presence doesn't count as it doesn't hit hard enough to justify its use in PVP over Boundless. At the moment, all of stam sorcs outgoing dmg is coming from class neutral abilities besides maybe Greater Atro. Magicka Sorc is fine with Crushing/Force Pulse spam to layer with their Vel Curse, Frags, Mage's Wrath dmg but Stam Sorc needs something else to layer with Wrecking Blow/Ransack/Flying Blade spam. The Overload change I suggest is just common sense and should be the rule for all ultimates (I know stamblades would love that) and it helps stam Sorc PVE dmg more than anything. I also like the idea of launching an Overload light attack from max range before Crit Charging in. Empowered Ward change may be 'too much' or even unneccessry but when I try to put together builds that would use this hypothetical health scaling Empowered Ward, I have to make tough sacrifices to even fit it in the build at all and IMO only the Daedric Protection passive is why it would even make the cut for me.

I know pet sorcs were using the combination of Empowered Ward and Daedric Prey to buff pets before 2.1, so not sure how the current form of Daedric Prey can be labeled useless considering it does more buffing alone than those two abilities did combined.

Seems like we first have to make clear, what 'Spammable means' Spammable means no casttime/instant. Which is not true for wrecking blow and everything you have mentioned, has nothing to do with Sorcerer, as all of them are weapon abilities. But anyway, I get your point of course

Other classes don't necessarily need to rely on them, they have the choice. We don't.

And I can safely say, that using velocious curse and pets is more beneficial than using daedric prey and pets.

Jar_Ek · October 2015

The reason wrecking blow is sometimes considered spammable is the heavy attack weave with it and the fact it is both uninterruptible and has a built in cc. However compared to surprise attack it is in no way spamable.
On an I will update the OP to cover daedric prey better.

Erock25 · October 2015

Dracane wrote: »

Seems like we first have to make clear, what 'Spammable means' Spammable means no casttime/instant. Which is not true for wrecking blow and everything you have mentioned, has nothing to do with Sorcerer, as all of them are weapon abilities.

Other classes don't necessarily need to rely on them, they have the choice. We don't.

Spammable to me means what you can use repeatedly. Wrecking Blow's cast time hardly matters in a world where we have a global cooldown of around 1 sec. You can fit basically just as many Wrecking Blows and light attacks into a window of time (1 sec long or greater) as you could Ransack and light attacks. The cast time just makes it a bit more difficult to actually land (and makes it harder to fit bash and ultimates within the minimum ability cooldown window). I'm fine with agreeing to disagree, but I think Sorc relying on Ransack, Deep Slash, Wrecking Blow, Flying Blade, Crushing Shock / Force Pulse, and Trapping Webs for a spammable dps ability is perfectly acceptable, as long as there is complementary damage coming from class abilities such as magicka Sorc has with Curse, Frags procs, etc. Stamina Sorc does not have this complementary damage.

Dracane wrote: »

And I can safely say, that using velocious curse and pets is more beneficial than using daedric prey and pets.

Have you seen @bolterity play? He uses Daedric Prey in 2.1. Until you provide a 1vX video using pets with Vel Curse as impressive as his videos, I'm going to go right along thinking that Daedric Prey is indeed viable for a pet sorc in PVP.

Dracane · October 2015

Erock25 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Seems like we first have to make clear, what 'Spammable means' Spammable means no casttime/instant. Which is not true for wrecking blow and everything you have mentioned, has nothing to do with Sorcerer, as all of them are weapon abilities.

Other classes don't necessarily need to rely on them, they have the choice. We don't.

Spammable to me means what you can use repeatedly. Wrecking Blow's cast time hardly matters in a world where we have a global cooldown of around 1 sec. You can fit basically just as many Wrecking Blows and light attacks into a window of time (1 sec long or greater) as you could Ransack and light attacks. The cast time just makes it a bit more difficult to actually land (and makes it harder to fit bash and ultimates within the minimum ability cooldown window). I'm fine with agreeing to disagree, but I think Sorc relying on Ransack, Deep Slash, Wrecking Blow, Flying Blade, Crushing Shock / Force Pulse, and Trapping Webs for a spammable dps ability is perfectly acceptable, as long as there is complementary damage coming from class abilities such as magicka Sorc has with Curse, Frags procs, etc. Stamina Sorc does not have this complementary damage.

Dracane wrote: »

And I can safely say, that using velocious curse and pets is more beneficial than using daedric prey and pets.

Have you seen @bolterity play? He uses Daedric Prey in 2.1. Until you provide a 1vX video using pets with Vel Curse as impressive as his videos, I'm going to go right along thinking that Daedric Prey is indeed viable for a pet sorc in PVP.

I used daedric prey for a very long time.
But the damage difference is non existing. Velocious curse explodes 2 times in the time where prey explodes 1 time. The twilight, especially in pvp, is not capable to outdamage an entire velocious curse during this 6 second duration. Now we could assume, that the twilight is the reason why daedric prey is worse and I think this is right. I suggested many times to finally increase its attack speed, but nothing.

And you should not forget about the utility velocious curse offers. It is good to break cloak, daedric prey would take too long to explode. Until then, the desired target has moved through entire Cyrodiil

And @ Wrecking Blow . You're right basically, it can be considered 'spammable' because its stated casttime is no longer true after the first hit.

Erock25 · October 2015

Dracane wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Seems like we first have to make clear, what 'Spammable means' Spammable means no casttime/instant. Which is not true for wrecking blow and everything you have mentioned, has nothing to do with Sorcerer, as all of them are weapon abilities.

Other classes don't necessarily need to rely on them, they have the choice. We don't.

Spammable to me means what you can use repeatedly. Wrecking Blow's cast time hardly matters in a world where we have a global cooldown of around 1 sec. You can fit basically just as many Wrecking Blows and light attacks into a window of time (1 sec long or greater) as you could Ransack and light attacks. The cast time just makes it a bit more difficult to actually land (and makes it harder to fit bash and ultimates within the minimum ability cooldown window). I'm fine with agreeing to disagree, but I think Sorc relying on Ransack, Deep Slash, Wrecking Blow, Flying Blade, Crushing Shock / Force Pulse, and Trapping Webs for a spammable dps ability is perfectly acceptable, as long as there is complementary damage coming from class abilities such as magicka Sorc has with Curse, Frags procs, etc. Stamina Sorc does not have this complementary damage.

Dracane wrote: »

And I can safely say, that using velocious curse and pets is more beneficial than using daedric prey and pets.

Have you seen @bolterity play? He uses Daedric Prey in 2.1. Until you provide a 1vX video using pets with Vel Curse as impressive as his videos, I'm going to go right along thinking that Daedric Prey is indeed viable for a pet sorc in PVP.

I used daedric prey for a very long time.
But the damage difference is non existing. Velocious curse explodes 2 times in the time where prey explodes 1 time. The twilight, especially in pvp, is not capable to outdamage an entire velocious curse during this 6 second duration. Now we could assume, that the twilight is the reason why daedric prey is worse and I think this is right. I suggested many times to finally increase its attack speed, but nothing.

And you should not forget about the utility velocious curse offers. It is good to break cloak, daedric prey would take too long to explode. Until then, the desired target has moved through entire Cyrodiil

And @ Wrecking Blow . You're right basically, it can be considered 'spammable' because it's stated casttime is no longer true after the first hit.

You may be right with your claims of Vel Curse over Daedric Prey while using pets, as I have no experience personally using Daedric Prey, but the best pet spec pvp magicka sorc that makes videos uses Prey. Maybe with 44k+ magicka the Twilight hits hard enough that it is worth using Prey over Velocious Curse. @BOLTERITY will comment if he feels like it, but here is his latest video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FytwwRjAcLA

Cathexis · October 2015

I agree almost entirely with the direction of the suggestions in this thread.

Specifically the part about ultimates checking physical resist if wep dmg /stam is the resource pool is important for all classes.

I'd also like to add that dark exchange +morphs are VERY effective in PvE but that it does not translate well to PvP with the healing nerf. Two solutions could be:

(1) Healing as a flat percentage adjusted to the needs of PvP such that it would be sufficient in battle levelled zones but not excessive in regular zones

(2) increase overall healing value by about 2k. This would make it an very effective heal in PvE without making it overpowered, and would bring the battle level healing value more in line with effective heals for PvE.

A mild increase to stamina regen 500-1000~ would also be good

I do not think that reducing the cast time or allowing animation clipping is a superior solution as it does not directly address the issue which is pitiful PvP returns.

I have also noticed that this ability does not scale with resources or crit which may also be alternative ways to improve it.

Erock25 · October 2015

@Dracane @Jar_Ek Just a few more things on Vel Curse vs Daedric Prey. Vel Curse is 3.5 seconds compared to 6 second Daedric Prey so it isn't quite 2 Vel Curse for every Prey. If you are doing the max of one ability per second you have to round Vel Curse up to every 4 seconds (or you skip 0.5 seconds which affects the DPS comparison in different ways). Working with a 12 second time frame for simplicity sake (3 Vel Curse vs 2 Daedric Prey), using Vel Curse you get 50% more total Curse dmg compared to using Daedric Prey you get 100% more Twilight, Volatile/Clannfear, Atro dmg and an additional global cool down to use Crushing Shock / Force Pulse / Frags / Whatever. The additional global cooldown alone basically cancels out or even improves on the 50% bonus dmg from Vel Curse so the additional pet dmg is just gravy.

Of course this is all theoretical and ability usage on every cooldown is not exactly practical in PVP and it ignores the utility advantage offered by Vel Curse for messing with cloaking NBs, but from a pure max DPS view, there are more angles to consider than just the fact that 6 seconds of 100% boosted Twilight dmg does not equal an additional usage of Vel Curse.

Jar_Ek · October 2015

Can I get some views / input from @FENGRUSH @TehMagnus as to whether I have got the issues right.

Also @ZOS_GinaBruno Any chance we could have a sticky for current class issues (for all classes)

Jar_Ek · October 2015

Updated on include overload bug

dodgehopper_ESO · October 2015

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Thanks to @Jar_Ek for keeping the sorcerer discussion active and alive and thanks to @Hridh for linking my stam sorc analysis here. It is also in my signature if anyone wants to read it in it's original formatting.

Hopefully this thread will serve as the new place for all of our sorcerer discussion needs. I will try to link to a few of the older threads so we don't have to keep repeating ourselves.

There is another sorcerer solution I have thought of, although it takes the class in a completely different direction. In our other sorc threads, there is always disagreement as to whether sorcerer should be a pure magicka class or have the option to use stamina like all other classes can. I believe the arguments for a pure magicka class are lore based.

However, there is another role the sorcerer plays in the lore that has mainly been forgotten in this particualr Elder Scrolls Game: That of the Spellsword

While powerful in Oblivion and Skyrim, the spellsword has been largely forgotten in this game after being roughly kicked out of cyrodill when the softcaps were removed and attribute stacking became the meta. Hybrid builds were possible in 1.5 and there were several amazing sorcerer builds that effectively used both magicka and stamina.

Since every class has unique and powerful passives, the spellsword could return to ESO with one simple passive change.

Spellsword Passive: All sorcerer abilities now scale off your highest resource.

As is said, this is a different direction for sorcerer but it would be a quick fix for many of the classes problems without having to make additional stamina morphs for every single skill. It would be a powerful passive but every class has a few powerful passives like the DK Dragon Roar.

Here are the benefits of such a change.
Pets damage would now scale of stamina (if it was higher) giving stam sorcs a good reason to use pets.

The sorc damage shield would be available to both magicka and stamina sorcerers.

Other great sorc skills like liquid lightning could be used by stamina sorcerers.

Other classes would immediately complain of course but these are the same people that say that sorcerer should only use magicka. So we use our magicka to magically change our skills to scale off our max resource. Bam. Problem solved.

Sorcerer actually is getting a nice bonus to weapon/magic damage as long as you slot a lot of sorc abilities. You can get some pretty strong numbers because of this. I'll say this though, I think that I'd be fine with Sorc getting a Stamina morph for one of its executes (Frag/Fury) but I'd also expect the same for Templar and Oppression. I'm saying this even as someone who really just wants Blinding Flashes back.

When it comes to toggles, I don't think this game should have any toggles. If a skill is a toggle, I think it should just be a clicky with a long duration (30-60 seconds). The one reason I think toggles exist though is to create some fairness between a power like bound armor and repentance. Repentance mostly applies a passive regen unless you kill enemies, and only if you have a bar with it up. Bound armor might be a bit overpowered if it could sustain a similar passive without being in your active bar. Alternately they could allow passives on alternate bars to apply, which I'd personally love, though they'd likely have to rethink some things particularly with Sorcerers (and probably DK's) if they did this.

I don't think you need all sorcerer abilities to scale off highest resource. In fact, what I think the game really needs to do is get rid of magicka and stamina directly increasing damage output. If the developers feel this is how it should be, then I think that Health likewise needs to increase all melee (mouse) abilities power and cost reduce them as well, as well as decrease block costs, and increase the magnitude of tanking abilities with high health (shields/armor/sr/reflection). I know you're aware of my viewpoint on this matter though Yolokin as you've been writing up in a bunch of the same discussions I've been in the last month or so at least.

I've written up a couple related discussions on the matter here if anyone is interested, and the complete ideas are developed throughout:
forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/224669/should-toggles-be-changed-to-long-duration-click-abilities#latest
forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/211441/a-suggestion-towards-balance-between-health-magicka-and-stamina#latest