Sorc Rework Ideas

madmufffin · April 17

I know it's already been mentioned several times, but since the state of Sorc is so dire at the moment, I feel that there really can't be enough threads on the topic. Sorc's offensive ability has always been a strange mix of reliance on its pet skills + the raw power of crystal frags + some love from storm calling either via just the passives in PVE or the ultimate in PVP. With subclassing now our reality, it is important for skill lines offer functionality in some capacity on their own and Sorc quite frankly does not have one that does so at the moment. In a vaccum, the Sorc's main offensive line of daedric summoning is just weak. It allows for low engagement gameplay but is not remotely comparable to the dps lines of other classes. Dark magic, which has Sorc's highest damage skill, is weighed down by an overabundance of utility skills that thematically don't really fit with the premise of the skill line. Lastly you have storm calling, which while having some solid passives, is overall quite underwhelming and lacks parity with other elemental themed skill lines. If it weren't for the existence of Storm Atro and Streak, I genuinely don't see how Sorc would have a place anywhere in this game with the implementation of subclassing. As such, I have a few ideas from both myself and others that have discussed this topic already.

Dark Magic (Becomes Sorc's DPS line with the added power of Daedric Curse)

Add conjure ward
- Has nothing to do with summoning and is literally the same verbiage as crystal frags revolving around conjuration via magic
- Thematically fits in with the magic based utility of class line

Add daedric curse
- Just like conjure ward, it has nothing to do with daedric summoning aside from the forced addition of daedric in its name and is just a magical debuff on the enemy
- Remove the pet component from daedric prey and make it provide some buff (like major savagery and prophecy since the class lacks that buff in its class kit)

Daedric Summoning (Becomes Sorc's tank line with the powerful pet based passives, Bound Aegis, and Vibrant Shroud)

Add daedric mines
- You're summoning daedric bombs
- Thematically fits in well with the skill line and increases utility

Add encase
- You're summoning daedric shards from the ground
- Thematically fits in well with the skill line and increases utility

Summon Untable Familiar
- Buff tooltip values to accommodate for the loss of Daedric Prey

Summon Winged Twilight
- Buff tooltip values to accommodate for the loss of Daedric Prey
- Rework the active effect so it's actually worth casting outside of the one time you use it at the start of combat

Storm Calling (Becomes Sorc's utility line with the unique buffs from Lightning Form, Surge, and Streak)

Mage's Fury
- Make endless fury be a straight single instance of damage that scales from 33% instead of having a delayed damage instance that scales from 25%
- Leave the other morph as doing more aoe damage

Boundless Storm
- Up the tooltip or give it an increased concussed chance or something because it just feels so much worse to use than Hurricane

Lightning Splash
- Buff the damage since the tooltip is meh
- Make the synergy effect more valuable
- Fix its horrific casting animation that doesn't work half the time

Energized (Passive)
- Make this increase damage by 10% so it's comparable to the similar buffs provided by Warden and Dragonknight (and even Cro)
- Make concussed enemies take more damage from you
- Could realistically get rid of the phys damage buff since it really don't resonate with the Sorc kit aside form Hurricane

Other
- Remove the health and armor lines from Beacon of Oblivion and replace them with crit chance/spell damage so the set actually sees use in PVE, since I highly doubt anyone is farming IA for hours and wearing it in PVP for 5% damage.

I know the odds of anything on the forums being implemented this PTS cycle are exceptionally low, but please at least try to do something or one of the main classes that has been a staple of the game for years is just going to fall of the face of the earth. Shout out to @Turtle_Bot for several of these ideas and gettin the ball rollin on the thought process. My perspective is largely from that of a PVE player, so I apologize if I have overlooked any detrimental impacts this could have on any PVP functions.

SilverIce58 · April 17

I would also like to add a change for Negate. Turn one morph into both a damage and healing ult with an increase to the damage, and the other into a suppression where it deals some damage and debuffs all enemies inside of it with Major Brittle (bc Nunatak is the only source right now) and it could even be where you cast it so it gets placed on someone instead of a target location.

IncultaWolf · April 17

Sorc players on the forums are acting like necromancers now LOL

madmufffin · April 17

SilverIce58 wrote: »

I would also like to add a change for Negate. Turn one morph into both a damage and healing ult with an increase to the damage, and the other into a suppression where it deals some damage and debuffs all enemies inside of it with Major Brittle (bc Nunatak is the only source right now) and it could even be where you cast it so it gets placed on someone instead of a target location.

There's a lot of things they could do with negate, but I just don't know of a functional route for it since it's pretty much exclusive to PVP.

madmufffin · April 17

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Sorc players on the forums are acting like necromancers now LOL

Well I'm not a sorc player, but I think it's a cool class and the only source of lightning theme in the game. In PVE at least Necro has never been outright unusable like Sorc is about to be

SilverIce58 · April 17

madmufffin wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

I would also like to add a change for Negate. Turn one morph into both a damage and healing ult with an increase to the damage, and the other into a suppression where it deals some damage and debuffs all enemies inside of it with Major Brittle (bc Nunatak is the only source right now) and it could even be where you cast it so it gets placed on someone instead of a target location.

There's a lot of things they could do with negate, but I just don't know of a functional route for it since it's pretty much exclusive to PVP.

They need to do something with it. I know pvpers use it, but im sure even they would agree it could use a change. Especially since it hasn't been updated for years. This is a perfect time for changes since they're changing Daedric Summoning so much.

madmufffin · April 17

SilverIce58 wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

I would also like to add a change for Negate. Turn one morph into both a damage and healing ult with an increase to the damage, and the other into a suppression where it deals some damage and debuffs all enemies inside of it with Major Brittle (bc Nunatak is the only source right now) and it could even be where you cast it so it gets placed on someone instead of a target location.

There's a lot of things they could do with negate, but I just don't know of a functional route for it since it's pretty much exclusive to PVP.

They need to do something with it. I know pvpers use it, but im sure even they would agree it could use a change. Especially since it hasn't been updated for years. This is a perfect time for changes since they're changing Daedric Summoning so much.

Even Veil of Blades is functionally strong in PVE, so they definitely need to do something to make Negate actually useful outside of ball groups

Malyore · April 17

madmufffin wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

I would also like to add a change for Negate. Turn one morph into both a damage and healing ult with an increase to the damage, and the other into a suppression where it deals some damage and debuffs all enemies inside of it with Major Brittle (bc Nunatak is the only source right now) and it could even be where you cast it so it gets placed on someone instead of a target location.

There's a lot of things they could do with negate, but I just don't know of a functional route for it since it's pretty much exclusive to PVP.

They could make it actually negate magic abilities from PvE enemies that don't get stunned.

madmufffin · April 17

Malyore wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

I would also like to add a change for Negate. Turn one morph into both a damage and healing ult with an increase to the damage, and the other into a suppression where it deals some damage and debuffs all enemies inside of it with Major Brittle (bc Nunatak is the only source right now) and it could even be where you cast it so it gets placed on someone instead of a target location.

There's a lot of things they could do with negate, but I just don't know of a functional route for it since it's pretty much exclusive to PVP.

They could make it actually negate magic abilities from PvE enemies that don't get stunned.

That would be pretty broken. I feel like the damage morph just needs to do a respectable amount of dps for an ult. Make one version juice dps and healing done and have the other one be the silence.

Turtle_Bot · April 18

madmufffin wrote: »

Mage's Fury
- Make endless fury be a straight single instance of damage that scales from 33% instead of having a delayed damage instance that scales from 25%
- Leave the other morph as doing more aoe damage

Just a heads up, Mages Fury only starts proccing from 20% health, not 25%. That's a big part of why this ability is so terrible for PvE, and in PvP it's so bad outside of specifically just kill stealing in low MMR BGs for big KDA numbers.

On to the proposed changes by OP:

Dark Magic:

Ward I think could probably stay in Daedric Summoning since it does shield the pets as well.

Curse should be in Dark magic and be the "delayed burst" ability, providing some sort of buff or debuff. Rework Daedric prey into a stamina version (maybe even just make bound armaments the alternate morph of haunting curse?) that way there's something for both stamina and magicka sorcerers

Some added changes of my own:

Dark exchange have 1 morph be similar to its current cast time, the other morph becomes an instant self heal (similar to honor the dead) with sustain over time (say +120-160 recovery for 20 seconds) instead of burst sustain. this will be non-pet sorcs self heal with shroud (encase morph) being non-pet sorcs group heal

Defensive Rune when activated reduces damage taken by 5-8% for 30 seconds and when the rune triggers, taunts the enemy that triggered the rune and your next health, stamina or magicka ability costs 18% less. This is for tanksorcs who when choosing to give up pets will lose aegis.

For negate, the solution (imo) is actually very simple. Leave 1 morph as the "PvP" morph where it silences enemies and deals low damage (and/or healing), then change the other morph to be a "PvE" morph, remove the stun/silence, increase the damage by a lot, provide a unique group wide buff/debuff. The precedence for this is DK's Standard ultimate, where the morph shifting standard is designed for PvP since it can be moved around to stick on highly mobile enemies, where the other morph is designed for PvE since it has stronger damage and grants a strong DPS buff to allies within its AoE.

I'd change the persistence passive to increase max health, mag and stam by 5% (what expert summoner is going to be changed to in U46) and move the current persistence passive into the defensive rune morph of rune prison

Daedric Summoning

Daedric mines definitely fits better with daedric summoning than it does with dark magic. so this is an easy swap for curse.

encase leave it in dark magic since it will be non-pet sorcs group heal and without the blood magic passive the shroud morph is just a worse blessings of restoration.

Pets (bird and scamp) agree these could use some inherent power given back, increase their base damage by 25%. Tormentor in particular could use a better secondary active as well. maybe grant a named buff and increase its scaling to work down to 25% health instead of stopping at 60%.

Some added changes of my own:

Armaments is now the other morph of curse, so this morph can be made into something else, maybe major brutality/sorcery and minor prophecy/savagery while slotted on either bar (keeping the offense/defense split of this abilities morphs). Have aegis grant +5% health and armaments grant 5% mag/stam to add into those offense/defense roles the different morphs fill.

Expert summoner now grants the bonus pet damage, granting 12/25% increased damage to summons, and reduce the "summon time" by 16/33% (being an "expert summoner" and all that, also since it's only 25%, not 50%, it can now work with other class's pet skills and pets from sets and the sorc pets will remain similar in strength due to the increase to their base damage, so no nerf there).

Storm Calling

Mages Fury, agreed, 1 morph should be a regular scaling execute to give the option to players.

Lightning form (and morphs) really just needs its base radius increased to 7m. Hurricane feels better to use because boundless cannot hit melee enemies anymore while hurricane still can after the initial increase 2 seconds into its duration.

Lightning splash, agree with all of this, this would be a good place to have a secondary buff/debuff that increases shock damage done/taken to bring shock damage overall up to the same level as flame and frost.

energized can remain as 5% with the change to lightning splash to increase shock damage done/taken, but a nice update would be for energized to also buff concussed (the shock damage status effect) in some way.

madmufffin · April 18

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Mage's Fury
- Make endless fury be a straight single instance of damage that scales from 33% instead of having a delayed damage instance that scales from 25%
- Leave the other morph as doing more aoe damage

Just a heads up, Mages Fury only starts proccing from 20% health, not 25%. That's a big part of why this ability is so terrible for PvE, and in PvP it's so bad outside of specifically just kill stealing in low MMR BGs for big KDA numbers.

On to the proposed changes by OP:

Dark Magic:
Ward I think could probably stay in Daedric Summoning since it does shield the pets as well.

Curse should be in Dark magic and be the "delayed burst" ability, providing some sort of buff or debuff. Rework Daedric prey into a stamina version (maybe even just make bound armaments the alternate morph of haunting curse?) that way there's something for both stamina and magicka sorcerers

Some added changes of my own:
Dark exchange have 1 morph be similar to its current cast time, the other morph becomes an instant self heal (similar to honor the dead) with sustain over time (say +120-160 recovery for 20 seconds) instead of burst sustain. this will be non-pet sorcs self heal with shroud (encase morph) being non-pet sorcs group heal

Defensive Rune when activated reduces damage taken by 5-8% for 30 seconds and when the rune triggers, taunts the enemy that triggered the rune and your next health, stamina or magicka ability costs 18% less. This is for tanksorcs who when choosing to give up pets will lose aegis.

For negate, the solution (imo) is actually very simple. Leave 1 morph as the "PvP" morph where it silences enemies and deals low damage (and/or healing), then change the other morph to be a "PvE" morph, remove the stun/silence, increase the damage by a lot, provide a unique group wide buff/debuff. The precedence for this is DK's Standard ultimate, where the morph shifting standard is designed for PvP since it can be moved around to stick on highly mobile enemies, where the other morph is designed for PvE since it has stronger damage and grants a strong DPS buff to allies within its AoE.

I'd change the persistence passive to increase max health, mag and stam by 5% (what expert summoner is going to be changed to in U46) and move the current persistence passive into the defensive rune morph of rune prison

Daedric Summoning
Daedric mines definitely fits better with daedric summoning than it does with dark magic. so this is an easy swap for curse.

encase leave it in dark magic since it will be non-pet sorcs group heal and without the blood magic passive the shroud morph is just a worse blessings of restoration.

Pets (bird and scamp) agree these could use some inherent power given back, increase their base damage by 25%. Tormentor in particular could use a better secondary active as well. maybe grant a named buff and increase its scaling to work down to 25% health instead of stopping at 60%.

Some added changes of my own:
Armaments is now the other morph of curse, so this morph can be made into something else, maybe major brutality/sorcery and minor prophecy/savagery while slotted on either bar (keeping the offense/defense split of this abilities morphs). Have aegis grant +5% health and armaments grant 5% mag/stam to add into those offense/defense roles the different morphs fill.

Expert summoner now grants the bonus pet damage, granting 12/25% increased damage to summons, and reduce the "summon time" by 16/33% (being an "expert summoner" and all that, also since it's only 25%, not 50%, it can now work with other class's pet skills and pets from sets and the sorc pets will remain similar in strength due to the increase to their base damage, so no nerf there).

Storm Calling
Mages Fury, agreed, 1 morph should be a regular scaling execute to give the option to players.

Lightning form (and morphs) really just needs its base radius increased to 7m. Hurricane feels better to use because boundless cannot hit melee enemies anymore while hurricane still can after the initial increase 2 seconds into its duration.

Lightning splash, agree with all of this, this would be a good place to have a secondary buff/debuff that increases shock damage done/taken to bring shock damage overall up to the same level as flame and frost.

energized can remain as 5% with the change to lightning splash to increase shock damage done/taken, but a nice update would be for energized to also buff concussed (the shock damage status effect) in some way.

Ahhh you right. I forgot mage's is especially bad on that front. Negate being like standard does seem like the best way to go where you just deal % more damage while in it and it does damage over time. Bound armaments is a straight up summoning of weapons like the conjured weapons in Skyrim, so it would be pretty hard to take out of the line imo. As to shroud, with it applying major maim and given aoe vitality, it's absurdly strong for PVE content even with a lower flat heal value. Even with the buff to lightning splash, I still think it would be justifiable to increase the damage of energized simply because there are so few sources of shock in the game with all but like 3 coming from scribing which aren't particularly strong tooltips.

ESO_Nightingale · April 18

One thing i love about subclassing is that i can actively envision using more skill lines and so it means i have a stake in the discussion about them. I always liked the idea of a shock mage build but like a frost dps build its not really there yet.

madmufffin · April 18

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

One thing i love about subclassing is that i can actively envision using more skill lines and so it means i have a stake in the discussion about them. I always liked the idea of a shock mage build but like a frost dps build its not really there yet.

Yeah I never really contemplate things about Sorc since the only time I ever play it is to be a 2 pet MK bot, but now I see these little things about the classes that could be cool for a build if they just were actually usable as a standalone skill line

necro_the_crafter · April 18

Imagine how badly they have to screw up the class so people will come to forums with complete redisign ideas...

Threse is definatly some skills that should be swapped between skilllines. Bound armaments and curse should be swaped with shroud and mines IMO, making dark magic more of the dps line and daedric summoning more of a tanking-support line.

also for sublassing -
Make daedric prey buff all pets, or make gls, grim focus, solar barrage and whip buffs applied only to its respective skillines.

BretonMage · April 18

At the very least, they should give us back our Ward heal, which is really useful when soloing - even with pets, because pets can die, and it's an insanely long time to resummon them, during which you can be interrupted.

And yes, buff Lightning Splash and its morphs, which was overdue anyway. Lightning mages are usually fun to play in ES, not sure why this has become so lacklustre in ESO.

madmufffin · April 18

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

Imagine how badly they have to screw up the class so people will come to forums with complete redisign ideas...

Threse is definatly some skills that should be swapped between skilllines. Bound armaments and curse should be swaped with shroud and mines IMO, making dark magic more of the dps line and daedric summoning more of a tanking-support line.

also for sublassing -
Make daedric prey buff all pets, or make gls, grim focus, solar barrage and whip buffs applied only to its respective skillines.

Bound armaments/aegis objectively is a daedric summoning skill through and through, so while it would be nice to see it in the dps line it thematically belongs where it is. Curse and ward on the otherhand make no sense where they are.

madmufffin · April 18

BretonMage wrote: »

At the very least, they should give us back our Ward heal, which is really useful when soloing - even with pets, because pets can die, and it's an insanely long time to resummon them, during which you can be interrupted.

And yes, buff Lightning Splash and its morphs, which was overdue anyway. Lightning mages are usually fun to play in ES, not sure why this has become so lacklustre in ESO.

It seems like a very weird and needless change to make and was probably only done because of PVP.

madmufffin · April 18

Just ran Beacon of Oblivion on a full NB/Cro bar setup and it was so bad

Sorc passives just add nothing and the actives are extremely underwhelming

ZhuJiuyin · April 18

madmufffin wrote: »

Dark Magic (Becomes Sorc's DPS line with the added power of Daedric Curse)

Add conjure ward
- Has nothing to do with summoning and is literally the same verbiage as crystal frags revolving around conjuration via magic
- Thematically fits in with the magic based utility of class line

Add daedric curse
- Just like conjure ward, it has nothing to do with daedric summoning aside from the forced addition of daedric in its name and is just a magical debuff on the enemy
- Remove the pet component from daedric prey and make it provide some buff (like major savagery and prophecy since the class lacks that buff in its class kit)

Daedric Summoning (Becomes Sorc's tank line with the powerful pet based passives, Bound Aegis, and Vibrant Shroud)

Add daedric mines
- You're summoning daedric bombs
- Thematically fits in well with the skill line and increases utility

Add encase
- You're summoning daedric shards from the ground
- Thematically fits in well with the skill line and increases utility

Summon Untable Familiar
- Buff tooltip values to accommodate for the loss of Daedric Prey

Summon Winged Twilight
- Buff tooltip values to accommodate for the loss of Daedric Prey
- Rework the active effect so it's actually worth casting outside of the one time you use it at the start of combat

Storm Calling (Becomes Sorc's utility line with the unique buffs from Lightning Form, Surge, and Streak)

Mage's Fury
- Make endless fury be a straight single instance of damage that scales from 33% instead of having a delayed damage instance that scales from 25%
- Leave the other morph as doing more aoe damage

Boundless Storm
- Up the tooltip or give it an increased concussed chance or something because it just feels so much worse to use than Hurricane

Lightning Splash
- Buff the damage since the tooltip is meh
- Make the synergy effect more valuable
- Fix its horrific casting animation that doesn't work half the time

Energized (Passive)
- Make this increase damage by 10% so it's comparable to the similar buffs provided by Warden and Dragonknight (and even Cro)
- Make concussed enemies take more damage from you
- Could realistically get rid of the phys damage buff since it really don't resonate with the Sorc kit aside form Hurricane

Other
- Remove the health and armor lines from Beacon of Oblivion and replace them with crit chance/spell damage so the set actually sees use in PVE, since I highly doubt anyone is farming IA for hours and wearing it in PVP for 5% damage.

Good suggestion, but I'd like to add that just tweaking Dark Magic's active abilities isn't enough, as the lack of enough passive buffs will still make the Dark Magic line unattractive.

Considering the 3 skill lines of the other 3 old classes
NB: Assassination provides 3 easy-to-get Critical and Critical Damage, and Grim Focus from U46; Shadow provides 15% Health, Stamina, and Magicka, Max Health by 3% for each Shadow ability, Major Resolve (these may be mainly helpful for tanks and PVP, but still help pve dps to a small extent, and Shade and Twisting Path are both qualified pve area damage skills, inserting them and getting 6% Max Health and Major Resolve is not bad and easy to get); Siphoning provides the ultimate and maximum magic&stama (U46)

Templar: Aedric Spear provides easy access to Critical Damage, Minor Protection, extra Burning Light damage, Weapon and Spell Damage by 6% and Physical and Spell Resistance by 1320; Dawn's Wrath provides Ultimate, Minor Sorcery, Reduces the Health, Magicka, Stamina, and Ultimate costs, and a buff of class abilities to Solar Barrage; Restoring Light is strictly an almost pure support and healing line, but it still provides resurrection speed and the synergy granted by Ritual of Retribution, while it can also clear debuffs and heal allies.

DK: Ardent Flame's Engulfing Flames provides an extra 6% Flame damage, and the easy-to-obtain Major Prophecy and Savagery provided by Flames of Oblivion, in addition to the passive Increases Burning and Poisoned status effects, Increases Flame and Poison attacks, and U46's latest Warmth; Draconic Power provides free Scaled Armor and Iron Skin without insertion, and Burning Talons is one of the top dots in the game; Earthen Heart provides Stone Giant, Battle Roar, Mountain's Blessing (extra ultimate points and Minor Brutality)

We can see that the other three old classes not only provide more versatile active and passive abilities, but are also easy to obtain. In comparison, Dark Magic's active and passive abilities are extremely unattractive, so it is not enough to just adjust the active skills, but it is also necessary to buff Dark Magic's passive abilities. As I mentioned elsewhere before, my suggestion is to adjust Unholy Knowledge. It should be moved to Persistence and merged with it, and a new passive ability should be added to New Unholy Knowledge: When you deal damage with a Sorc class skill, increase the damage your target takes by 3/6% for 10 seconds. This effect will be triggered every 10 seconds.

madmufffin · April 18

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Dark Magic (Becomes Sorc's DPS line with the added power of Daedric Curse)

Add conjure ward
- Has nothing to do with summoning and is literally the same verbiage as crystal frags revolving around conjuration via magic
- Thematically fits in with the magic based utility of class line

Add daedric curse
- Just like conjure ward, it has nothing to do with daedric summoning aside from the forced addition of daedric in its name and is just a magical debuff on the enemy
- Remove the pet component from daedric prey and make it provide some buff (like major savagery and prophecy since the class lacks that buff in its class kit)

Daedric Summoning (Becomes Sorc's tank line with the powerful pet based passives, Bound Aegis, and Vibrant Shroud)

Add daedric mines
- You're summoning daedric bombs
- Thematically fits in well with the skill line and increases utility

Add encase
- You're summoning daedric shards from the ground
- Thematically fits in well with the skill line and increases utility

Summon Untable Familiar
- Buff tooltip values to accommodate for the loss of Daedric Prey

Summon Winged Twilight
- Buff tooltip values to accommodate for the loss of Daedric Prey
- Rework the active effect so it's actually worth casting outside of the one time you use it at the start of combat

Storm Calling (Becomes Sorc's utility line with the unique buffs from Lightning Form, Surge, and Streak)

Mage's Fury
- Make endless fury be a straight single instance of damage that scales from 33% instead of having a delayed damage instance that scales from 25%
- Leave the other morph as doing more aoe damage

Boundless Storm
- Up the tooltip or give it an increased concussed chance or something because it just feels so much worse to use than Hurricane

Lightning Splash
- Buff the damage since the tooltip is meh
- Make the synergy effect more valuable
- Fix its horrific casting animation that doesn't work half the time

Energized (Passive)
- Make this increase damage by 10% so it's comparable to the similar buffs provided by Warden and Dragonknight (and even Cro)
- Make concussed enemies take more damage from you
- Could realistically get rid of the phys damage buff since it really don't resonate with the Sorc kit aside form Hurricane

Other
- Remove the health and armor lines from Beacon of Oblivion and replace them with crit chance/spell damage so the set actually sees use in PVE, since I highly doubt anyone is farming IA for hours and wearing it in PVP for 5% damage.

Good suggestion, but I'd like to add that just tweaking Dark Magic's active abilities isn't enough, as the lack of enough passive buffs will still make the Dark Magic line unattractive.

Considering the 3 skill lines of the other 3 old classes
NB: Assassination provides 3 easy-to-get Critical and Critical Damage, and Grim Focus from U46; Shadow provides 15% Health, Stamina, and Magicka, Max Health by 3% for each Shadow ability, Major Resolve (these may be mainly helpful for tanks and PVP, but still help pve dps to a small extent, and Shade and Twisting Path are both qualified pve area damage skills, inserting them and getting 6% Max Health and Major Resolve is not bad and easy to get); Siphoning provides the ultimate and maximum magic&stama (U46)

Templar: Aedric Spear provides easy access to Critical Damage, Minor Protection, extra Burning Light damage, Weapon and Spell Damage by 6% and Physical and Spell Resistance by 1320; Dawn's Wrath provides Ultimate, Minor Sorcery, Reduces the Health, Magicka, Stamina, and Ultimate costs, and a buff of class abilities to Solar Barrage; Restoring Light is strictly an almost pure support and healing line, but it still provides resurrection speed and the synergy granted by Ritual of Retribution, while it can also clear debuffs and heal allies.

DK: Ardent Flame's Engulfing Flames provides an extra 6% Flame damage, and the easy-to-obtain Major Prophecy and Savagery provided by Flames of Oblivion, in addition to the passive Increases Burning and Poisoned status effects, Increases Flame and Poison attacks, and U46's latest Warmth; Draconic Power provides free Scaled Armor and Iron Skin without insertion, and Burning Talons is one of the top dots in the game; Earthen Heart provides Stone Giant, Battle Roar, Mountain's Blessing (extra ultimate points and Minor Brutality)

We can see that the other three old classes not only provide more versatile active and passive abilities, but are also easy to obtain. In comparison, Dark Magic's active and passive abilities are extremely unattractive, so it is not enough to just adjust the active skills, but it is also necessary to buff Dark Magic's passive abilities. As I mentioned elsewhere before, my suggestion is to adjust Unholy Knowledge. It should be moved to Persistence and merged with it, and a new passive ability should be added to New Unholy Knowledge: When you deal damage with a Sorc class skill, increase the damage your target takes by 3/6% for 10 seconds. This effect will be triggered every 10 seconds.

Juiced up passives would be nice for sure, but I can't go far enough to try and think of all the implications of changing those so just left it with things readily available for my brain

Zyaneth_Bal · April 18

Here’s what someone suggested:

- Buff Mage's Fury
- Buff Lightning Splash
- Buff Negate Magic
- Move Daedric Curse to Dark Magic. It has nothing to do with Summoning. Transfer lost pet power to the actual pets instead where it always belonged and give the morph a new effect instead. Also offers more flexibility of skills that way rather than mandating Daedric Prey for all pet sorcs and making Haunting Curse useless.
- Move Conjured Ward to Dark Magic and rename it Dark Ward. It has nothing to do with Summoning and non-pet definitely needs it more.
- Move Daedric Mines to Daedric Summoning where it does belong.
- Move Rune Prison to Daedric Summoning. Could go on either Skill Line depending on fluffing tbh, but one needs to replace the other, and Dark Magic already has a root option via Encase.

I'd love to have Bound Armour in Dark Magic tbh, but in all fairness, thematically it belongs in Daedric Summoning. Curse does not.
———
Imo even moving abilities would already help somewhat because then sorc might be able to benefit from subclassing more.

To add, rune prison definitely requires some sort of buff or change, as well as daedric mines as they are both greatly underpowered and simply redundant.
And of course passives need to be buffed as well. Just comparing any of the sorcerer trees’ passives to those of lines like assassination or animal companions make it obvious.

Zyaneth_Bal · April 18

Additionally the recent nerfs to daedric summoning were absolutely unnecessary in the light of subclassing

VaxtinTheWolf · April 18

BretonMage wrote: »

At the very least, they should give us back our Ward heal, which is really useful when soloing - even with pets, because pets can die, and it's an insanely long time to resummon them, during which you can be interrupted.

They want you to Subclass Templar for Lightweaver. Abuse that 2 seconds of Auto-block when summoning your companions, or using Dark deal.

necro_the_crafter · April 18

madmufffin wrote: »

Bound armaments/aegis objectively is a daedric summoning skill through and through, so while it would be nice to see it in the dps line it thematically belongs where it is. Curse and ward on the otherhand make no sense where they are.

I mean yeah, but it fits more into dps line. Make it bound crystals, and crystal armor, change its apperance to crystals and you have a dark magic skill that fits both gameplaywise and thematicly.

I've seen a few "daedric mines have daedric in its name so it should be in summoning skilline", but its looks and animations all about dark crystals you see in another dark magic skills, so thematicly mines fit skillline that they are in. Curse also have a morph where it literaly says "daedric prey".

But thats a valid point, if any individual skill swaps between skillines are about to happen, ZoS better also make them to fit thematicly and visually to resonate with skilline they are ported to.

madmufffin · April 18

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

Here’s what someone suggested:

- Buff Mage's Fury
- Buff Lightning Splash
- Buff Negate Magic
- Move Daedric Curse to Dark Magic. It has nothing to do with Summoning. Transfer lost pet power to the actual pets instead where it always belonged and give the morph a new effect instead. Also offers more flexibility of skills that way rather than mandating Daedric Prey for all pet sorcs and making Haunting Curse useless.
- Move Conjured Ward to Dark Magic and rename it Dark Ward. It has nothing to do with Summoning and non-pet definitely needs it more.
- Move Daedric Mines to Daedric Summoning where it does belong.
- Move Rune Prison to Daedric Summoning. Could go on either Skill Line depending on fluffing tbh, but one needs to replace the other, and Dark Magic already has a root option via Encase.

I'd love to have Bound Armour in Dark Magic tbh, but in all fairness, thematically it belongs in Daedric Summoning. Curse does not.
———
Imo even moving abilities would already help somewhat because then sorc might be able to benefit from subclassing more.

To add, rune prison definitely requires some sort of buff or change, as well as daedric mines as they are both greatly underpowered and simply redundant.
And of course passives need to be buffed as well. Just comparing any of the sorcerer trees’ passives to those of lines like assassination or animal companions make it obvious.

Yeah I saw a couple of posts in a similar vein under threads and made it into its on Discussion so I could keep track of things and hopefully promote discussion around the changes instead of just whining about the ward changes

madmufffin · April 18

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Bound armaments/aegis objectively is a daedric summoning skill through and through, so while it would be nice to see it in the dps line it thematically belongs where it is. Curse and ward on the otherhand make no sense where they are.

I mean yeah, but it fits more into dps line. Make it bound crystals, and crystal armor, change its apperance to crystals and you have a dark magic skill that fits both gameplaywise and thematicly.

I've seen a few "daedric mines have daedric in its name so it should be in summoning skilline", but its looks and animations all about dark crystals you see in another dark magic skills, so thematicly mines fit skillline that they are in. Curse also have a morph where it literaly says "daedric prey".

But thats a valid point, if any individual skill swaps between skillines are about to happen, ZoS better also make them to fit thematicly and visually to resonate with skilline they are ported to.

Yeah they definitely could just rework the animations and whatnot, but I'm pretty sure the art team is booked out hella far and if we have to wait for that, then we'll never get the changes. Just got try to make things work thematically as they are now.

StarOfElyon · April 18

madmufffin wrote: »

BretonMage wrote: »

At the very least, they should give us back our Ward heal, which is really useful when soloing - even with pets, because pets can die, and it's an insanely long time to resummon them, during which you can be interrupted.

And yes, buff Lightning Splash and its morphs, which was overdue anyway. Lightning mages are usually fun to play in ES, not sure why this has become so lacklustre in ESO.

It seems like a very weird and needless change to make and was probably only done because of PVP.

Can't blame pvp when they gave night blades the ability to chamber TWO merciless resolves.

madmufffin · April 18

StarOfElyon wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

BretonMage wrote: »

At the very least, they should give us back our Ward heal, which is really useful when soloing - even with pets, because pets can die, and it's an insanely long time to resummon them, during which you can be interrupted.

And yes, buff Lightning Splash and its morphs, which was overdue anyway. Lightning mages are usually fun to play in ES, not sure why this has become so lacklustre in ESO.

It seems like a very weird and needless change to make and was probably only done because of PVP.

Can't blame pvp when they gave night blades the ability to chamber TWO merciless resolves.

Yeah but imagine if they had two resolves and a ward that heals lol

Joy_Division · April 18

The changes on PTS would be much easier to swallow if the other two line wasn't filled with no many boring or weak options. Or, easily enough, not take stuff we petless sorcs were using from our class!

Mage's Fury has been bad for PvE DPS has been the worst execute in the game every since it was made dodgeable. Yet, we're reading these patch notes as if was this amazing ability. LOL, no, it isn;t and hasn't been. I have an entire ability in Enacse that just immobilizes enemies. Whoop-dee do. If I wanted to do that and actually have fun, I'd play a Dragonknight which immobilizes, does damage, debuffs, and offers a excellent synergy. Then I have an ability that stuns ... and does nothing else. OK, if I want a stun that badly, I will scribe one and choose two other effects that round out my build. Daedric Mines is now this weird delayed shield (not even very big) or this really expensive AOE that's not even an AOE because a target can only be damaged by one mine. There's just a lot of dead weight here

I didn't use pets, but I sure found Curse, a shield that scales of magicka, and a passive that raises my magicka to be incredibly convenient for someone who just wants to be a "wizard." Now I've got to totally lose that a key passive because ZOS incorrectly thinks I don;t want to use that line?

madmufffin · April 18

Joy_Division wrote: »

The changes on PTS would be much easier to swallow if the other two line wasn't filled with no many boring or weak options. Or, easily enough, not take stuff we petless sorcs were using from our class!

Mage's Fury has been bad for PvE DPS has been the worst execute in the game every since it was made dodgeable. Yet, we're reading these patch notes as if was this amazing ability. LOL, no, it isn;t and hasn't been. I have an entire ability in Enacse that just immobilizes enemies. Whoop-dee do. If I wanted to do that and actually have fun, I'd play a Dragonknight which immobilizes, does damage, debuffs, and offers a excellent synergy. Then I have an ability that stuns ... and does nothing else. OK, if I want a stun that badly, I will scribe one and choose two other effects that round out my build. Daedric Mines is now this weird delayed shield (not even very big) or this really expensive AOE that's not even an AOE because a target can only be damaged by one mine. There's just a lot of dead weight here

I didn't use pets, but I sure found Curse, a shield that scales of magicka, and a passive that raises my magicka to be incredibly convenient for someone who just wants to be a "wizard." Now I've got to totally lose that a key passive because ZOS incorrectly thinks I don;t want to use that line?

Well we're very unlikely to get any type of rework, so time for Sorcs to just get stuffed into a locker for 3 months.

Turtle_Bot · April 19

madmufffin wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

The changes on PTS would be much easier to swallow if the other two line wasn't filled with no many boring or weak options. Or, easily enough, not take stuff we petless sorcs were using from our class!

Mage's Fury has been bad for PvE DPS has been the worst execute in the game every since it was made dodgeable. Yet, we're reading these patch notes as if was this amazing ability. LOL, no, it isn;t and hasn't been. I have an entire ability in Enacse that just immobilizes enemies. Whoop-dee do. If I wanted to do that and actually have fun, I'd play a Dragonknight which immobilizes, does damage, debuffs, and offers a excellent synergy. Then I have an ability that stuns ... and does nothing else. OK, if I want a stun that badly, I will scribe one and choose two other effects that round out my build. Daedric Mines is now this weird delayed shield (not even very big) or this really expensive AOE that's not even an AOE because a target can only be damaged by one mine. There's just a lot of dead weight here

I didn't use pets, but I sure found Curse, a shield that scales of magicka, and a passive that raises my magicka to be incredibly convenient for someone who just wants to be a "wizard." Now I've got to totally lose that a key passive because ZOS incorrectly thinks I don;t want to use that line?

Well we're very unlikely to get any type of rework, so time for Sorcs to just get stuffed into a locker for 3 months.

Knowing (and seeing) how ZOS treats Sorcs that aren't using the pets, it's more likely we're going to have to stuff our magsorcs into the locker (see crafting bench) for the next 5+ years, or until ZOS releases a broken new proc set (for stamsorcs) so probably a year or so...

I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but history (so far) is showing this will be what will happen.