xylena_lazarow wrote: »

They're not that great in PvP either where you mostly see them spammed from zergs for cheap kill steals. Players rarely spend much time between 20% and 0, and Sorcs don't even need an execute to pull off lethal combos.

Yeah this was the general vibe I've gotten from my limited PVP experience. You need really big burst instances to get kills, so Mage's isn't gonna hit anything in duels. Just use it to meme while defending walls or something. I just don't know enough to provide insights on that side, so limited the scope to what it needs in PVE.

Indeed. The fact that Sorcs can't even use their own execute in PvE is beyond nonsensical.

I was (and still am) a strong advocate for the freedom hybridization provides. I remember being super excited as a stam sorc to get an in class execute only to find out Fury is absolutely terrible due to it's gigantic delay, making it feel sluggish and easy to avoid in melee range. Every now and then I try it again, just to go back to Executioner or Whirling Blades.

Basically, any player that even gets close to 20% HP immediately starts to dodge roll, block, and/or spam heal. The only decent way to use Fury was ranged builds where the distance from your target made the built in delay proportional, so it didn't feel awful to use. Setting it up with the old powerful, but highly telegraphed Haunting Curse - Fury - Meteor - Streak combo felt rewarding, but rarely 100-0 players after the constant balance changes over the years.

Even for ranged builds, I prefer to slot another damage skill like Bound Armaments or Crystal Weapon for sustained damage instead. With this patch, that old combo is no more so I struggle to think of a place anyone decent would use this ability outside of spamming it from a zerg to steal kills which it's always been great at. Those players won't notice the 4-2s nerf.

I've been suggesting for years to update 1 of the 2 morphs into a more traditional execute without the window simply because the morphs felt way too similar and they're balanced with a weaker tooltip because of PVP. At this point it feels necessary and a no brainer for Endless Fury (seeing as that is the more sustainable 1 you're meant to spam). Just for funnsies, this is what I'd do:

Live Endless Fury: Call down lightning to strike an enemy, dealing 871 Shock Damage. If the enemy falls to or below 20% Health within 2 seconds of being struck, an explosion deals an additional 3195 Shock Damage to them and 696 Shock Damage to other enemies nearby. If any enemy is killed within 5 seconds of being hit with this ability, you restore 4860 Magicka.

Theoretical Endless Fury: Call down lightning to strike an enemy, dealing 871 Shock Damage to them and enemies nearby. If the enemy is below 33% Health, deal an additional 3642 Shock Damage. If any enemy is killed within 2 seconds of being hit with this ability, you restore 2200 Magicka and Stamina.

• Execute threshold increased from 20% to 33%, 2s window removed.
• Execute damage increased by +14%, raises the total damage by 11%. In comparison to a skill like impale, this makes it 11% weaker instead of 22%.
• Damage to nearby enemies active all the time instead of only in execute. Small increase from 696 to 871, simplifies server calculations and naturally matches half the value of AOE spammable standards (1742 from Steel Tornado, etc). Wrath still has considerably higher AOE damage, but only in execute.
• 4860 Magicka return changed to 2200 Magicka and Stamina.
• Resource return window reduced from 5s to 2s to better match the new identity of the skill, expectation is to cast when necessary rather than used in a delayed burst combo.

I'd also buff Impale to 350% and scale from 33%, making it slightly stronger than Endless Fury in single target, but provides less utility and no AOE.

MashmalloMan wrote: »

I was (and still am) a strong advocate for the freedom hybridization provides. I remember being super excited as a stam sorc to get an in class execute only to find out Fury is absolutely terrible due to it's gigantic delay, making it feel sluggish and easy to avoid in melee range. Every now and then I try it again, just to go back to Executioner or Whirling Blades.

Basically, any player that even gets close to 20% HP immediately starts to dodge roll, block, and/or spam heal. The only decent way to use Fury was ranged builds where the distance from your target made the built in delay proportional, so it didn't feel awful to use. Setting it up with the old powerful, but highly telegraphed Haunting Curse - Fury - Meteor - Streak combo felt rewarding, but rarely 100-0 players after the constant balance changes over the years.

Even for ranged builds, I prefer to slot another damage skill like Bound Armaments or Crystal Weapon for sustained damage instead. With this patch, that old combo is no more so I struggle to think of a place anyone decent would use this ability outside of spamming it from a zerg to steal kills which it's always been great at. Those players won't notice the 4-2s nerf.

I've been suggesting for years to update 1 of the 2 morphs into a more traditional execute without the window simply because the morphs felt way too similar and they're balanced with a weaker tooltip because of PVP. At this point it feels necessary and a no brainer for Endless Fury (seeing as that is the more sustainable 1 you're meant to spam). Just for funnsies, this is what I'd do:

Live Endless Fury: Call down lightning to strike an enemy, dealing 871 Shock Damage. If the enemy falls to or below 20% Health within 2 seconds of being struck, an explosion deals an additional 3195 Shock Damage to them and 696 Shock Damage to other enemies nearby. If any enemy is killed within 5 seconds of being hit with this ability, you restore 4860 Magicka.

Theoretical Endless Fury: Call down lightning to strike an enemy, dealing 871 Shock Damage to them and enemies nearby. If the enemy is below 33% Health, deal an additional 3642 Shock Damage. If any enemy is killed within 2 seconds of being hit with this ability, you restore 2200 Magicka and Stamina.

• Execute threshold increased from 20% to 33%, 2s window removed.
• Execute damage increased by +14%, raises the total damage by 11%. In comparison to a skill like impale, this makes it 11% weaker instead of 22%.
• Damage to nearby enemies active all the time instead of only in execute. Small increase from 696 to 871, simplifies server calculations and naturally matches half the value of AOE spammable standards (1742 from Steel Tornado, etc). Wrath still has considerably higher AOE damage, but only in execute.
• 4860 Magicka return changed to 2200 Magicka and Stamina.
• Resource return window reduced from 5s to 2s to better match the new identity of the skill, expectation is to cast when necessary rather than used in a delayed burst combo.

I'd also buff Impale to 350% and scale from 33%, making it slightly stronger than Endless Fury in single target, but provides less utility and no AOE.

Not to mention that sorc’s intended “delayed burst” gameplay has long become power crept making sorc no longer a burst class. A 30k+ health target won’t even drop low enough to trigger mage’s fury’s execute, and even if does trigger it will deal measly 2-4k damage to an average build.

But the funny part is that zos still continue to mention the “delayed burst” and mage’s fury especially as some kind of op playstyle although it’s years obsolete.