Saving the Sorcs heal rotation!!!

Duke_Falcon · January 2023

Sorc's need more balanced healing. Here's my latest thought on Sorc. Make Hardened Ward be a damage shield with a Heal Over Time after applying the Damage Shield and make it scale exactly the same as Arctic Blast. Arctic Blast is a burst heal with a hot afterwards. Simply make Hardened Ward be a Damage Shield of the same Shield strength as Artic's burst heal, followed by a hot of the same strength. Change it so its not just scaled off Max Mag. Scale it like Arctic, either resource included with Weapon or Spell damage. I believe this would put Sorc on an even standing with other classes then.

OBJnoob · January 2023

Arctic blast doesn't have a HoT it has a DoT. Polar winds has a HoT, but it scales off max HP. I don't think this is what you're after.

But still, I understand you, and I think this is a pretty good idea.

StaticWave · February 2023

The problem with giving a HoT to shields is the trade-off gets removed. Shields are better against burst damage because it prevents your actual HP from taking damage. If your actual HP is 20k and you have a total shield value of 20k, a 20k burst will not dent your HP. The trade-off is it you don't regain health if your actual HP gets hit.

Heals work in the opposite way. They're better at bringing you out of execute range and can refill your actual HP bar, but they don't do anything against burst as they don't prevent your actual HP from taking damage. If your actual HP is 20k and you can crit heal for 20k, but if you take a 20k burst damage you will die before you can use your burst heal.

By giving a HoT to shields, you're removing the trade-off. It's equivalent to someone casting a burst heal and getting a small shield on top of it. It would be too strong of a buff.

I think reducing the cost is a better option.

Ecgberht_confused · February 2023

It would be great if we had a healing that scaled with damage stats like other classes. Dark exchange? Flat amount (also the cast time makes it useless in pvp) Crit surge? Flat amount. Blood magic passive? Scales with HP. Just give us literally half of what NB has for healing and I'd be happy with that. Imagine if crit surge or blood magic were half as good as swallow soul, or if a dark exchange morph was an instant cast heal (without resources return) that scales with damage with even half the tooltip of healthy offering. Doesn't sound like much to ask for, but would improve our survivability substantially.

People will say you can't have shields and heal at the same time. Fine but can you give us a choice? Shields forces us to build into max mag rather than damage. No other class is forced into such a situation. Shields also are very different from healing and are much more expensive, so you can't keep a 100% uptime for any reasonably long fight. And if you're caught with the shield down, that's it you're dead as you can't heal even if you manage to run away. Make one moph of ward just a heal, but make it a proper heal that's not a flat amount or scales with hp. We really should be given a choice over our playstyle

tnanever · February 2023

StaticWave wrote: »

The problem with giving a HoT to shields is the trade-off gets removed. Shields are better against burst damage because it prevents your actual HP from taking damage. If your actual HP is 20k and you have a total shield value of 20k, a 20k burst will not dent your HP. The trade-off is it you don't regain health if your actual HP gets hit.

Heals work in the opposite way. They're better at bringing you out of execute range and can refill your actual HP bar, but they don't do anything against burst as they don't prevent your actual HP from taking damage. If your actual HP is 20k and you can crit heal for 20k, but if you take a 20k burst damage you will die before you can use your burst heal.

By giving a HoT to shields, you're removing the trade-off. It's equivalent to someone casting a burst heal and getting a small shield on top of it. It would be too strong of a buff.

I think reducing the cost is a better option.

The problem is also magnitude. Heals are actually useful while fighting, but shields are weak and useless. It's not balanced when you have to spam shields and go pure defensive until you run out of resources just to die a little later. That's bad design.

What you stated would make more sense if shields were immune to crit (since they can't crit in the first place), and lasted a few seconds longer, and had something like a 30% base increase.

Duke_Falcon · February 2023

StaticWave wrote: »

The problem with giving a HoT to shields is the trade-off gets removed. Shields are better against burst damage because it prevents your actual HP from taking damage. If your actual HP is 20k and you have a total shield value of 20k, a 20k burst will not dent your HP. The trade-off is it you don't regain health if your actual HP gets hit.

Heals work in the opposite way. They're better at bringing you out of execute range and can refill your actual HP bar, but they don't do anything against burst as they don't prevent your actual HP from taking damage. If your actual HP is 20k and you can crit heal for 20k, but if you take a 20k burst damage you will die before you can use your burst heal.

By giving a HoT to shields, you're removing the trade-off. It's equivalent to someone casting a burst heal and getting a small shield on top of it. It would be too strong of a buff.

I think reducing the cost is a better option.

I agree with everything you just said, I'm just not sure reducing the cost is the better option, but it maybe.

Duke_Falcon · February 2023

Ecgberht_confused wrote: »

It would be great if we had a healing that scaled with damage stats like other classes. Dark exchange? Flat amount (also the cast time makes it useless in pvp) Crit surge? Flat amount. Blood magic passive? Scales with HP. Just give us literally half of what NB has for healing and I'd be happy with that. Imagine if crit surge or blood magic were half as good as swallow soul, or if a dark exchange morph was an instant cast heal (without resources return) that scales with damage with even half the tooltip of healthy offering. Doesn't sound like much to ask for, but would improve our survivability substantially.

People will say you can't have shields and heal at the same time. Fine but can you give us a choice? Shields forces us to build into max mag rather than damage. No other class is forced into such a situation. Shields also are very different from healing and are much more expensive, so you can't keep a 100% uptime for any reasonably long fight. And if you're caught with the shield down, that's it you're dead as you can't heal even if you manage to run away. Make one moph of ward just a heal, but make it a proper heal that's not a flat amount or scales with hp. We really should be given a choice over our playstyle

In my mind Sheilds are more like a random variable Heal Over Time. They increase your base HP but gradually get chewed away at over time based on what ever the random incoming damage might be. So if you had a stam toon with higher hp running Vigor it'd be kind of the same thing, that being said a Stam toon with higher Hp running vigor is way better than a damage shield on a lower health mag toon atm.

StaticWave · February 2023

tnanever wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The problem with giving a HoT to shields is the trade-off gets removed. Shields are better against burst damage because it prevents your actual HP from taking damage. If your actual HP is 20k and you have a total shield value of 20k, a 20k burst will not dent your HP. The trade-off is it you don't regain health if your actual HP gets hit.

Heals work in the opposite way. They're better at bringing you out of execute range and can refill your actual HP bar, but they don't do anything against burst as they don't prevent your actual HP from taking damage. If your actual HP is 20k and you can crit heal for 20k, but if you take a 20k burst damage you will die before you can use your burst heal.

By giving a HoT to shields, you're removing the trade-off. It's equivalent to someone casting a burst heal and getting a small shield on top of it. It would be too strong of a buff.

I think reducing the cost is a better option.

The problem is also magnitude. Heals are actually useful while fighting, but shields are weak and useless. It's not balanced when you have to spam shields and go pure defensive until you run out of resources just to die a little later. That's bad design.

What you stated would make more sense if shields were immune to crit (since they can't crit in the first place), and lasted a few seconds longer, and had something like a 30% base increase.

Well heals are useful until you take a fat burst that exceeds your max HP. That’s why most GvG fights end when one team takes a fat burst that goes through several layers of HoT spamming.

You actually don’t need to spam shield. Most shield users choose to do that instead of rolling/blocking incoming damage. A player using 1 shield + 2 HoTs and actively blocking/dodging will increase his survivability much more than someone who relies on stacking 2 shields and never using HoTs and blocking/dodging.

When I use a shield, I think of it as a temporary amount of HP over my actual HP. That keeps me from using it as main defense, but rather a secondary defense. My main form of defense should always be using HoTs + blocking/dodging. The shield is there to eat DoTs while I’m healing up to full, or to prevent taking a burst combo greater than my max HP.

StaticWave · February 2023

Basically, only use shields when you are going to take a big burst or when you’re trying to heal back up to full. That means slotting 2 HoTs + 1 shield instead of 3 shields, but it basically fixes the weakness of a shield only build.

With hybridization, it’s very easy to do that on a magsorc. Slot Vigor, Hardened Ward, Crit Surge, and you’re pretty much set.

Duke_Falcon · February 2023

StaticWave wrote: »

Basically, only use shields when you are going to take a big burst or when you’re trying to heal back up to full. That means slotting 2 HoTs + 1 shield instead of 3 shields, but it basically fixes the weakness of a shield only build.

With hybridization, it’s very easy to do that on a magsorc. Slot Vigor, Hardened Ward, Crit Surge, and you’re pretty much set.

I'm working really hard to make this very thing your saying work, but I'm not finding a way. I'm curious what build you'd recommend? Imagine fighting a DK and your heal rotation to get you back to full HP is an 8k Ward and a 5 Second 2k hot. That's just not going to happen. Thats 18k HP over 5 seconds and the DK Leap tooltips are over 20K. You literally stand no chance, crit surge procs or not.

I still like the idea of a Ward w/ a hot to fill your missing Health Bar back up, by the time your HP would get to full your Ward would be gone, and still you'd probably need a Vigor/Structured Entropy to go with it, like the way a Warden Arctic Blast, Living Trellis and Vigor works.

Duke_Falcon · February 2023

If I run a hybrid Sorc using... Rallying Cry, Ancient Dragon Guard, Markyn, w/ 1pc Magma, or... Rallying, Willpower, Markyn, Magma w/ 1pc Trainee, and use Vigor, Dark Conversion, Assault Cleanse (which is super expensive) and Sturctured Entropy, I can just barely stay alive fighting a DK. But I'm really stuck on a 4 skill heal rotation to try and over come a 3 skill dps rotation of the DK. Its way easier for the DK to pressure a Sorc. Then the Sorcs dps rotation is 4 skills compared to a DK needing like 2 skills to heal thru pretty much anything. I'm gonna keep at it and see if I can make it work somehow, but it just seems unbalanced.

You know what will balance it... give DK Major Berserk. lol That'll fix it. X-P lol

Duke_Falcon · February 2023

Maybe make the Blood Magic passive proc off any magic damage, that might make Sorc life work.

gariondavey · February 2023

Duke_Falcon wrote: »

If I run a hybrid Sorc using... Rallying Cry, Ancient Dragon Guard, Markyn, w/ 1pc Magma, or... Rallying, Willpower, Markyn, Magma w/ 1pc Trainee, and use Vigor, Dark Conversion, Assault Cleanse (which is super expensive) and Sturctured Entropy, I can just barely stay alive fighting a DK. But I'm really stuck on a 4 skill heal rotation to try and over come a 3 skill dps rotation of the DK. Its way easier for the DK to pressure a Sorc. Then the Sorcs dps rotation is 4 skills compared to a DK needing like 2 skills to heal thru pretty much anything. I'm gonna keep at it and see if I can make it work somehow, but it just seems unbalanced.

You know what will balance it... give DK Major Berserk. lol That'll fix it. X-P lol

Try more stat dense set up
WV back bar rc front bar, chudan 2x, ddf.
You'll have like 30k hp 40k+ mag, 25k stam
Drop the cleanse skill, that's just brutal.
Use crit surge

Duke_Falcon · February 2023

Try more stat dense set up
WV back bar rc front bar, chudan 2x, ddf.
You'll have like 30k hp 40k+ mag, 25k stam
Drop the cleanse skill, that's just brutal.
Use crit surge[/quote]

Thanks, I'll keep working on it.

Caribou77 · February 2023

can crit surge actually work as a source of significant healing in pvp? i’m genuinely curious.

i have had very little success using shields on my magsorc in pvp. granted, magsorc is not my main, but my experience has lead me to build in a bit of resistance (armor) and use streak rather than rely on shields. my magsorc health sits around 30k.

streak and nuke and hope you dont get cc’d with lag…. magsorc is hard for me.

AdamLAD · February 2023

Mag sorc is hard for anyone in this current meta Caribou77. And even if someone says it's not hard. I can guarantee its HARDER than what it was, by some margine

Luede · February 2023

Caribou77 wrote: »

can crit surge actually work as a source of significant healing in pvp? i’m genuinely curious.

i have had very little success using shields on my magsorc in pvp. granted, magsorc is not my main, but my experience has lead me to build in a bit of resistance (armor) and use streak rather than rely on shields. my magsorc health sits around 30k.

streak and nuke and hope you dont get cc’d with lag…. magsorc is hard for me.

Crit Surge already has a very decent share of your total healing and it helps a lot, the problem is that it only heals when you are offensive, which means you might have to start healing a bit later. but when you need to heal, the skill is completely useless because you don't do any damage at that point. So you need another heal besides crit surge. if you use 2 shields, you would have to take another slot with heal besides crit surge.

crit surge is better suited if you play without shields, because otherwise you have to occupy too many slots.

Brrrofski · February 2023

Duke_Falcon wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Basically, only use shields when you are going to take a big burst or when you’re trying to heal back up to full. That means slotting 2 HoTs + 1 shield instead of 3 shields, but it basically fixes the weakness of a shield only build.

With hybridization, it’s very easy to do that on a magsorc. Slot Vigor, Hardened Ward, Crit Surge, and you’re pretty much set.

I'm working really hard to make this very thing your saying work, but I'm not finding a way. I'm curious what build you'd recommend? Imagine fighting a DK and your heal rotation to get you back to full HP is an 8k Ward and a 5 Second 2k hot. That's just not going to happen. Thats 18k HP over 5 seconds and the DK Leap tooltips are over 20K. You literally stand no chance, crit surge procs or not.

I still like the idea of a Ward w/ a hot to fill your missing Health Bar back up, by the time your HP would get to full your Ward would be gone, and still you'd probably need a Vigor/Structured Entropy to go with it, like the way a Warden Arctic Blast, Living Trellis and Vigor works.

This is the problem.

To heal for 5k, you have to shield, hit vigor, wait for 4 seconds while casting a shield everytime it goes.

On other classes, you press a burst heal and get an 8k plus heal instantly.

There's no comparison.

StaticWave · February 2023

Duke_Falcon wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Basically, only use shields when you are going to take a big burst or when you’re trying to heal back up to full. That means slotting 2 HoTs + 1 shield instead of 3 shields, but it basically fixes the weakness of a shield only build.

With hybridization, it’s very easy to do that on a magsorc. Slot Vigor, Hardened Ward, Crit Surge, and you’re pretty much set.

I'm working really hard to make this very thing your saying work, but I'm not finding a way. I'm curious what build you'd recommend? Imagine fighting a DK and your heal rotation to get you back to full HP is an 8k Ward and a 5 Second 2k hot. That's just not going to happen. Thats 18k HP over 5 seconds and the DK Leap tooltips are over 20K. You literally stand no chance, crit surge procs or not.

I still like the idea of a Ward w/ a hot to fill your missing Health Bar back up, by the time your HP would get to full your Ward would be gone, and still you'd probably need a Vigor/Structured Entropy to go with it, like the way a Warden Arctic Blast, Living Trellis and Vigor works.

I know a very good magsorc (one of the best on PC NA) who runs Wretched Vitality + Rallying Cry + Chudan + DDF. He has Vigor, Surge, and Hardened for defense. His damage is very competitive and his survivability is also there.

He mentioned that his shield still gets taken down easily, but he also kites a lot and uses heals to keep himself out of execute range. That's basically what you would do if you slot HoTs. The shield itself is only about 10-11k, enough to eat 50-60% of a burst combo, so you will need to use dodge roll/blocking to help with that. The HoTs though will help you refill HP much faster compared to a standard shield stacking build. Basically, you would play like a stamsorc with shields.

I'm still against the idea of a Ward with HoTs because then people can stack Hardened + Dampen + Healing Ward and have 2 HoTs + 20k total shields. That's too strong. No burst build is going to get through that.

LittlePinkDot · February 2023

Anybody else notice that the sorc companion Ember has a burst heal?

Turtle_Bot · February 2023

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

Anybody else notice that the sorc companion Ember has a burst heal?

The NPC "sorcs" also still have the stun on frags, and many of the other old sorc mechanics that have been removed over the years.

Duke_Falcon · March 2023

I know a very good magsorc (one of the best on PC NA) who runs Wretched Vitality + Rallying Cry + Chudan + DDF. He has Vigor, Surge, and Hardened for defense. His damage is very competitive and his survivability is also there.

He mentioned that his shield still gets taken down easily, but he also kites a lot and uses heals to keep himself out of execute range. That's basically what you would do if you slot HoTs. The shield itself is only about 10-11k,

His shield is not 10-11k with those sets. Maybe 9k max realistically somewhere between 6-8k, there a lot of things you can do to increase your max mag, but you have to give something else up, and giving those things up only makes your build even less viable. I've been experimenting with Sorc in Cyrodil for so long I have 4 stars one and another 1 star on a different one. I know those sets are not giving him a 10k damage shield. Maybe after the next patch, but not atm.

Duke_Falcon · March 2023

As far as Caribou77's question about where Crit Surge is a viable heal or not. I don't really find that its enough. I usually run Structured Entropy to keep a dot up 100% of the time so that it can crit to help capitalize on using Crit Surge passive healing. I don't find that its enough.

I'm actually taking a break from the game for a bit till the next patch drops where shields will scale off of HP, because as is Sorcs can't really measure up at all. I've got 5 star Warden and a 5 Star Necro, I actually have 3 Wardens I pvp on, and 2 Necros, I'm not sure how many stars they all have. I got a couple stars on a Templar. The only classes I haven't really Mastered are the Nightblade and the DK, and I have no desire to jump on the carry class of a DK atm, they are to ridiculously OP atm. I might do Nightblade someday, but cloak really turns me off when people use it to just run away. So for now Sorc is the next class I'll be spending time on, and off course Arcanist when it comes out.

Luede · March 2023

crit surge is not a healing spell at all, it just has a passive effect that reduces your required healing in an offensive scenario.

yes, certainly useful, but when you need healing, this passive effect provides exactly 0 healing.

Duke_Falcon · April 2023

I'm playing the new Sorc with the Max Health dps build, and its still a little underwhelming I think. Here is my experience and my thoughts. I'm finding it especially hard to have a good combination of skills for healing and killing. If Twilight was on one bar only I think that would help.

First Skill Set up....

Boundless Storm, Twilight, Mages Wrath, Streak, Crushing Shock, Power Overload
Crit Surge, Hardened Ward, Dark Conversion, Twilight, Haunting Curse, Temporal Guard
(while I can stay alive really well, it pretty hard to kill any experienced player, if I could put Twilight on one bar that would probably help, so I could run Elemental Susceptibility)

Boundless Storm, Hardened Ward, Mages Wrath, Streak, Crushing Shock, Dawnbreaker
Crit Surge, Dark Conversion, Vigor, Structured Entopy, Haunting Curse, Power Overload
(This set up is Okay at Killing, but not great, and Okay at Healing but not great.)

I think Sorc is still easily out shined by Dragon Knight, Nightblade, & Warden. Templars are a bit tough to deal with too. Necro seems to struggle a bit this patch too.

If Sorc had a Elemental Susceptibility and Structured Entropy skill in one, that'd be pretty useful to clear up bar space, help with the heals and dps.