It is strange logic to think that strengthening non-pet sorc will further strengthen pet sorc.
First, as others have said, pet sorcs are limited in the number of skill slots they can have, which leaves them with limited options to fill the few remaining slots, and forces them to rely on potions for necessary buffs. After U46 Daedric Prey was weakened, pet sorc can only rely on sorc pets, which means that if you want to maximize Daedric Prey, you can only use sorc pets that cost a total of 4 grids.

In contrast, non-pet sorcs, that is, the rest of the Sorc skill line, are rarely used and only have prominent effects in specific environments. Just buff those skills and make sure they don't benefit your pet. For example:
1. Negate. I always think this is one of the two most regrettable skills in Dark Magic. Since Negate lacks sufficient damage and team gain, Negate cannot be used in PVE and it is difficult to see him in PVP. Since Negate will compete with Atronach for Ultimate, redesigning Negate to make its damage comparable to Atronach after the Daedric Prey buff (even more Negates should cost more Ultimate points), and providing a rarer debuff such as Major Brittle, will give non-pet sorcs a reason not to use Atronach.

2. Shattering Spines is also one of the two most regrettable skills in Dark Magic. The problem with Shattering Spines is also the lack of sufficient damage, so it cannot be used in PVE and it is difficult to see it in PVP. The Shattering Spines are a good idea, but I think maybe we could remove the Major Maim and give it a 10 second dot damage effect, like DK's Burning Talons. And because Shattering Spines consume a lot of Magicka, it will make the most popular stam pet sorc currently have to decide whether to change to a Magicka pet sorc for more aoe. Magicka pet sorcs are relatively weak, so they don't get a crazy power boost, and non-pet sorcs can benefit from it, while also giving the sorc more area damage.

3. Lightning Splash, should change Lightning Splash to the same level as Spear Shards, increase damage, and allow own synergy. It may slightly enhance pet sorcs, but for the same reason as enhancing Shattering Spines, since Lightning Splash consumes a lot of Magicka, it will be difficult for most mainstream stam pet sorcs to use, but it can enhance Magicka pet sorcs and non-pet sorcs.

4. Exploitation. Compared with NB's Hemorrhage, Exploitation is weaker. But only a slight buff is needed to strengthen Exploitation and avoid overdoing it. For example, adding "Increases the damage caused by your Dark Magic by 4%/8%" can avoid strengthening the pet sorc and interact with the Negate and Shattering Spines mentioned above. As a balance, Crystal's damage may need to be reduced by 8%, but due to the new passive, Crystal's overall damage will remain the same.

5. Power Surge. To be honest, I hardly see anyone using this skill in PVE and PVP. This skill is definitely one of those that needs a rework, but it only needs to be given enough conditions to avoid the pet sorc being enhanced. For example: Gain Major Brutality and Major Sorcery for 30 seconds. Every time you deal critical damage with an area attack, you deal additional electrical damage to that target. This effect occurs every 3 seconds (similar to Scholarship in Arc). Since pets usually deal single-target damage, pet sorcs will not be overly empowered, while non-pet sorcs can benefit from the aforementioned reworks of range abilities such as Negate, Shattering Spines, and Lightning Splash.

6.Unholy Knowledge: Unholy Knowledge can be moved to Persistence and merged with it, and a new passive ability be added to 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. This could result in a pet sorc buff, but would just require resetting Daedric Prey from 50% in U46 to 45% pet buff in U45, or even go a bit bolder and increase the damage taken by the target to 5/10% and reduce Daedric Prey from 50% to 35%, but allowing the buff to all pet types. This still doesn't overpower pet sorcs, and still helps non-sorc pets, promoting the use of subclassing, while giving non-pet sorcs and those who wish to pure class a reason to continue using the Dark Magic skill line.

Even though it's currently ahead of non-pet sorc, pet sorc isn't desired as a parse DD in trials either. Meanwhile the most commonly used parse DD by far, arc, got a buff to its main damage source at base before we even look at subclassing, so it's weird to think that pet sorc balancing would be seen as the issue.

Then in PvP sorcs generally don't run pets...

I think they just had a vision of the class where it should be played with pets and that's all there is to it.

Dino-Jr wrote: »

A part of me is starting to think they should take the word Summoning out of the skill lines name and call it Daedric Sorcery. Only two of the skills in the line actually have pets so it seems odd to begin with that there is so much focus on structuring passives around those.

Word summoning in the skill name can stay - as far as franchise goes you can summon more than just minions via conjuration magic, and within the skill line up only one skill (daedric curse and it's morphs) do not really summon anything - bound armor and it's morphs summon gear, conjured ward summons a shield.

CaptainRele wrote: »

no sorc tank has used clannfear since hardened ward + shroud got buffed.

To be fair I only ever used clanfear because I hate dem scamps. In mainline games I'd only ever summon those out of necessity if I literally cannot summon anything else to handle the situation. Matriarch has way to short leach and would often clip just the wing into my prefered camera setting which I also found mildly annoying.

I don't think ZOS has any resource to redo a skill, I prefer a simple solution, deactivate the pet when you switch bar rather than kill the pet.
I think it only takes some time to reduce the pet damage to 0 and deactivate the animation when swapping bar, like a hot fix level of work.

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

Am I correct in saying that part of the issue ZOS has with buffing non-pet sorcs is that they don’t want to buff pet sorcs by extension? Like, making Lightning Flood stronger for a non pet Sorc also buffs it for pet sorcs, and that’s too strong or something (or that’s the logic)?

If so, couldn’t we just make one morph of the pets non-permanent? It wouldn’t have to be double barred, but it wouldn’t work just for slotting it. They could even have passives like some of Necromancer’s skills to give non-pet sorcs buffs that pet sorcs couldn’t get to compensate for the changes to Daedric Summoning passives. They could be like NB Dark Shade or Necro Skele Archer

With the game having sets (and in some cases Arcanist skills) with conditions long as a short story, it seems it wouldn't be too much of a reach to add pet/no pet conditions on sorc skills. Just look at the Sorc set from IA i.e.