Sorc class set "Beacon of Oblivion" now just a subclass set

Yudo · April 19

From the latest patch notes https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/676209/pts-patch-notes-v11-0-0

"Daedric Summoning
General Skill Line: We’re removing the separation of a pet vs no pet build in this skill line now that sub-classing is here. Those who do not wish to interact with the pet gameplay can now replace this skill line as a whole. Many abilities in this skill line have been adjusted with this in mind."

There are ongoing discussions on this topic but I want to draw attention to the class set Beacon of Oblivion.
This set falls apart and will be used to buff subclasses rather than the class itself for non-pet builds. Major contradiction.

Please allow for non-pet sorcs to utilise their own skill lines, and keep relevancy for class set to their own class.

IncultaWolf · April 19

This set is meta for werewolf DPS, parses higher than pillar of nirn, plus you get some health and armor lines. But yes I will agree the sorcerer class sets have been very underwhelming. I'm curious what they have planned for the dark magic skill line when they release the 3'rd round of class sets later this year.

Wereswan · April 19

Yudo wrote: »

From the latest patch notes https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/676209/pts-patch-notes-v11-0-0

"Daedric Summoning
General Skill Line: We’re removing the separation of a pet vs no pet build in this skill line now that sub-classing is here. Those who do not wish to interact with the pet gameplay can now replace this skill line as a whole. Many abilities in this skill line have been adjusted with this in mind."

There are ongoing discussions on this topic but I want to draw attention to the class set Beacon of Oblivion.
This set falls apart and will be used to buff subclasses rather than the class itself for non-pet builds. Major contradiction.

Please allow for non-pet sorcs to utilise their own skill lines, and keep relevancy for class set to their own class.

I'm seeing that less as a "contradiction" than as an indication of ZOS leaning into this.

Trejgon · April 19

Wereswan wrote: »

Yudo wrote: »

From the latest patch notes https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/676209/pts-patch-notes-v11-0-0

"Daedric Summoning
General Skill Line: We’re removing the separation of a pet vs no pet build in this skill line now that sub-classing is here. Those who do not wish to interact with the pet gameplay can now replace this skill line as a whole. Many abilities in this skill line have been adjusted with this in mind."

There are ongoing discussions on this topic but I want to draw attention to the class set Beacon of Oblivion.
This set falls apart and will be used to buff subclasses rather than the class itself for non-pet builds. Major contradiction.

Please allow for non-pet sorcs to utilise their own skill lines, and keep relevancy for class set to their own class.

I'm seeing that less as a "contradiction" than as an indication of ZOS leaning into this.

Well it is more of the set was duplicating feature from the base class skill, but zos is trying to walk back on said feature in the first place. That being said, class sets were stated to still be only usable based on actuall class you are using, so this set is in conflict with the idea of what zos tries to sell daedric summoning as.

Funny side tangent: tje "many abilities" that have been adjusted with this shift in mind, is one active and what, one? two? passives...

Yudo · April 20

Trejgon wrote: »

Funny side tangent: tje "many abilities" that have been adjusted with this shift in mind, is one active and what, one? two? passives...

Can you quantify a few changes when the class only has 3 skill lines with each 5 active skills, one ulti and 4 passives skills?

1/3 skill lines only work with pets, and with Deadric Summoning:
3/4 passives only work with pets,
4/6 skills do not benefit from passives without pets,
and now 1/2 class sets do not benefit the class without pets, rather will benefit what ever subclass you choose.

Beacon of oblivion is now a zero effort Ansuul set for buffing multiclassing on a sorcerer rather than any sorc mechanic.
I can appreciate this is the direction they want to go, but its at cost of destroying class set concept, destroying non-pet sorcs playstyle and identity built over many years.

Even so, then this set should also be adjusted with the new changes in mind, though I strongly believe non-pet sorc playstyle should be preserved.

Ezhh · April 20

Maybe the set would be an issue if sorc had at least one desirable skill line for end-game, and then people could use sorc as a base to make a build and get a set with +15% damage. I'm not seeing a skill line on the class that buffs arc beam enough for that to happen.

madmufffin · April 20

The set isn't useful because all of the skill lines that you have to run to enable it suck

Trejgon · April 20

Yudo wrote: »

Trejgon wrote: »

Funny side tangent: tje "many abilities" that have been adjusted with this shift in mind, is one active and what, one? two? passives...

Can you quantify a few changes when the class only has 3 skill lines with each 5 active skills, one ulti and 4 passives skills?

The "many abilities" comment from the patch notes was placed in a position implying it was speaking about daedric summoning skill line specifically, not class as a whole. From the changes to this line, only one active ability and one or two passives were altered with mindset of daedric summoning being pet class to be removed if you want no-pet sorc in mind. Second ability altered was to make it play more nicely with dark magic stam semi-spammable, and third was changed to pre-emptively reign in the "lets do all the pets build" attempts.

Can you quantify that? yes. It is not "many" as opposed to commentary claim.

Yudo wrote: »

1/3 skill lines only work with pets, and with Deadric Summoning:
3/4 passives only work with pets,
4/6 skills do not benefit from passives without pets,
and now 1/2 class sets do not benefit the class without pets, rather will benefit what ever subclass you choose.

The point being that ZOS claims they have altered "many abilities" to get there, and even with those very few changes they did, in terms of active abilities, half of the daedric summoning are tools which do not really care about pets, which if you wanted to use, will come with dead weight passives now. Which I think we both agree on not being good situation to have skill line in.

Yudo wrote: »

Beacon of oblivion is now a zero effort Ansuul set for buffing multiclassing on a sorcerer rather than any sorc mechanic.
I can appreciate this is the direction they want to go, but its at cost of destroying class set concept, destroying non-pet sorcs playstyle and identity built over many years.

yeah, beacon of oblivion set lands in an awkward situation with this change of direction.

Yudo wrote: »

Even so, then this set should also be adjusted with the new changes in mind, though I strongly believe non-pet sorc playstyle should be preserved.

Personally I think there are two decent ways about it - either revert the nerfs and continue having daedric summoning as semi-pet skill line, that supports no-pet playstyle, or go full on it and actually overhaul the line - and the set that was meant to boost it - to properly reflect it is not the pet line. Which would mean that after all the changes, every skill should be either a pet, or directly interact with pets on all morphs, and set should then meaningfully interact with pets as well.
I'd also go another step further, and revisit the class script for sorcerer.

Turtle_Bot · April 21

Trejgon wrote: »

I'd also go another step further, and revisit the class script for sorcerer.

The Sorcerer class script is (imo) one of the few times ZOS got something right for Sorcerer.

The effect for non-pet sorcs provides some small cleave and a bonus damage instance (that damage instance is essentially an additional chance to proc crit surge, the class HoT) that non-pet sorcs are really lacking since ZOS removed the old Crystal Blast morph of Crystal Shards. It also leans into Sorcs Lightning sub-theme that has seemingly been largely ignored/forgotten about.

The effect for pet sorcs provides some nice consistent healing over time to pair with ward and/or matriarch/clanfear burst heals, making pet-sorcs less reliant on finding room for crit surge in an already crowded bar layout to fill this function that is typically lacking from pet builds that don't use scribing.

I honestly wish all the class scripts had been as well thought out as the Sorc one, as outside of Arc (for PvE) and Warden (for PvP) most of the class scripts are rarely, if ever, used.

The sorc class script is also why I am left so baffled by the current proposed changes made to Sorc for U46 (and the existing Sorc class sets) that just feel not thought out at all. It feels like there is a completely different team working on the U46 changes to Sorc to the one that worked on the Sorc class script for scribing.

NxJoeyD · September 23

The Beacon of Oblivion set is pretty solid in the current state from a PvE perspective.

If you’re a non pet Sorc the damage increase is significant and makes the set worthwhile for a Sorc base in PvE content.

If you are a pet base Sorc then the benefits here do support that play style, albeit, there may be other best in class gear sets, which, makes sense when one considers the passive benefits running pets provides.

That just leaves PvP .. and, well, this set is basically garbage in PvP. The Battle Spirit reduction to the non-pet damage buff makes this set weaker than even the Shield Breaker set which isn’t even class specific. If the value was reduced to 10% I think we could make a fair case for it.

As for buffing subclasses, I don’t think there’s much worry about that. For starters one has to be a base Sorc for it to be equipped and Sorcs take an higher penalty to subclass as they lose damage for each non Sorc skill they slot. For PvE I could see someone using this set whether they equip pets or not, although I think there’s more of a benefit case without pets.

As for PvP, I can’t imagine any Sorc, subclassed or not, would run this in any PvP.

Radiate77 · September 23

Why is the Daedric Summoning set most useful when not Daedric Summoning?

NxJoeyD · September 23

Radiate77 wrote: »

Why is the Daedric Summoning set most useful when not Daedric Summoning?

Why the Devs made it this way, no idea.

I’m personally glad they did because Monolith is even worse of a set, so if a Sorc is going to consider either class set, at least Beacon has some use case potential.

Radiate77 · 2:50AM

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Why is the Daedric Summoning set most useful when not Daedric Summoning?

Why the Devs made it this way, no idea.

I’m personally glad they did because Monolith is even worse of a set, so if a Sorc is going to consider either class set, at least Beacon has some use case potential.

I wonder how questions like the one I just asked are not considered when designing ESO.

ZhuJiuyin · 3:03AM

NxJoeyD wrote: »

The Beacon of Oblivion set is pretty solid in the current state from a PvE perspective.

The Beacon of Oblivion set is pretty weak, even from a PvE perspective.

No pet-less sorc DPS player would choose this set, as two of the 2-4 bonuses are defensive stats. No pet-based sorc player would choose this set, as we don't need the slight max HP and armor bonuses, and gaining them doesn't increase our DPS.

Even if this set is claimed to be for the base game, Corpseburster and Pyrebrand are clearly superior and more versatile designs, not to mention that Corpseburster is widely used even in the end-game (see Eso logs).

Beacon of Oblivion and Monolith of Storms exist solely to taunt sorcs. The former makes a Daedric Summoning set only gain damage when no pet is available, while the latter not only has a "take damage once" restriction, preventing most sorc players from using it simultaneously (other class sets like Corpseburster don't have this restriction), but its animations are completely irrelevant to Monoliths.

NxJoeyD · 3:50AM

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

The Beacon of Oblivion set is pretty solid in the current state from a PvE perspective.

The Beacon of Oblivion set is pretty weak, even from a PvE perspective.

No pet-less sorc DPS player would choose this set, as two of the 2-4 bonuses are defensive stats. No pet-based sorc player would choose this set, as we don't need the slight max HP and armor bonuses, and gaining them doesn't increase our DPS.

Even if this set is claimed to be for the base game, Corpseburster and Pyrebrand are clearly superior and more versatile designs, not to mention that Corpseburster is widely used even in the end-game (see Eso logs).

Beacon of Oblivion and Monolith of Storms exist solely to taunt sorcs. The former makes a Daedric Summoning set only gain damage when no pet is available, while the latter not only has a "take damage once" restriction, preventing most sorc players from using it simultaneously (other class sets like Corpseburster don't have this restriction), but its animations are completely irrelevant to Monoliths.

I have to disagree here. I won’t go so far as to say BoE is best gear to slot for PvE but it’s certainly viable.

I run BoE on my PvE Sorc because the base damage increase is more than I’m getting from any other single source and it’s persistent, it’s not proc based or timed.

Sets like Pyrebrand & Corpsebuster might be “better” for their respective class but Sorcs can’t equip them; so that’s moot.

Sure, two of the sets benefits are defensive but that’s not build breaking. Any DD is going to have some concept of durability and that’s because it allows for some leeway for your healer.

When we’re in more challenging PvE content and the team has to adapt on the fly because a particular thing didn’t go exactly as planned you want that buffer built in, otherwise the squad could wipe a lot more frequently if every stat is pushed to their limit.

A DD that builds well into base damage is going to get a significant bump to damage with an “always active” 15% increase.

I tend to measure DD effectiveness in “time to kill” on world bosses (solo) rather than dummy parses. This is because it’s more reflective of in combat use. Dummies stand there and don’t take into account rotations & mechanical mitigations that all affect damage output. Wearing BoE against 3 different world bosses that I use as my test base my time to kill is reduced anywhere from 31% to 33% depending.

No other asset in the game is going to give you a straight 15% increase to damage that’s persistent.

Again; I do say that only non-pet Sorcs in PvE really benefit at all from this set and even then, no, it won’t be for every Sorc build but it’s at least viable in some cases.

MashmalloMan · 4:58AM

@NxJoeyD testing a % damage done set in a solo environment should appear stronger because it's not being diluted by diminishing returns found from stacking group damage done debuff/buffs you wouldn't have access to.

On the other hand, using a crit set combo like Advancing Yokeda and Sliver of Null Arca in solo possibly wouldn't appear as strong comparatively because you don't have max 125% Crit Damage, nor are you getting any use from minor slayer on a world boss, you're getting much less value there.

This is why the trial dummy is useful because it takes these 2 factors into account.

That said, it's a decent solo or small group set, but it should fall off for trials unless you really value that 1.2k health and 1.5k armor, but I'd argue a good group shouldn't have their DDs prioritize these stats over DPS ones. If things go wrong like you said, maybe you don't run in an optimized group or pug most of the time, then that wiggle room could be useful and maybe the set comes ahead.

You could say it increases your healing done, but so does Crit Chance or Weapon/Spell Damage. In the case of Crit Surge for example, taking Beacon over Advancing Yokeda is a loss of -20% Crit chance. That is massive.

About the pet side of the set, it's completely useless. A damage dealing pet Sorc does not need armor and health in any competitive capacity, full stop. A tank wouldn't want this either, it's just a worse version of Fortified Brass which no one has used for 8 or 9 years.

Above all else, this set is just poorly implemented from a design standpoint. It's dead in PvP and punishes you for using pets instead of rewarding you. No pet Sorc has the Storm Calling and Dark Magic skill lines for potential damage dealing sets, it's almost like they knew the Storm Calling set was so bad, they chose to throw us a bone with Beacon.

If they wanted to make a Daedric Summoning set for tank/damage dealing, they could of easily made a summoned pet like Maw which scales it's damage based on your w/s damage which applies a debuff with a duration that scales based on your Max HP. What they ended up making is so unbelievably bland, it completely defeats the fun factor of class specific set potential.

NxJoeyD · 2:29PM

MashmalloMan wrote: »

@NxJoeyD testing a % damage done set in a solo environment should appear stronger because it's not being diluted by diminishing returns found from stacking group damage done debuff/buffs you wouldn't have access to.

On the other hand, using a crit set combo like Advancing Yokeda and Sliver of Null Arca in solo possibly wouldn't appear as strong comparatively because you don't have max 125% Crit Damage, nor are you getting any use from minor slayer on a world boss, you're getting much less value there.

This is why the trial dummy is useful because it takes these 2 factors into account.

That said, it's a decent solo or small group set, but it should fall off for trials unless you really value that 1.2k health and 1.5k armor, but I'd argue a good group shouldn't have their DDs prioritize these stats over DPS ones. If things go wrong like you said, maybe you don't run in an optimized group or pug most of the time, then that wiggle room could be useful and maybe the set comes ahead.

You could say it increases your healing done, but so does Crit Chance or Weapon/Spell Damage. In the case of Crit Surge for example, taking Beacon over Advancing Yokeda is a loss of -20% Crit chance. That is massive.

About the pet side of the set, it's completely useless. A damage dealing pet Sorc does not need armor and health in any competitive capacity, full stop. A tank wouldn't want this either, it's just a worse version of Fortified Brass which no one has used for 8 or 9 years.

Above all else, this set is just poorly implemented from a design standpoint. It's dead in PvP and punishes you for using pets instead of rewarding you. No pet Sorc has the Storm Calling and Dark Magic skill lines for potential damage dealing sets, it's almost like they knew the Storm Calling set was so bad, they chose to throw us a bone with Beacon.

If they wanted to make a Daedric Summoning set for tank/damage dealing, they could of easily made a summoned pet like Maw which scales it's damage based on your w/s damage which applies a debuff with a duration that scales based on your Max HP. What they ended up making is so unbelievably bland, it completely defeats the fun factor of class specific set potential.

True, though I could use a public dungeon boss to test with Aegis & Empower to get a more direct, individual baseline with those buffs included.

Even in trials one can go in with a group that, while they do coordinate, may not be a group of familiar’s so you don’t always know what’s being brought to the table. Unless I’m pre-gaming with a known group and I know ahead of time what we’re working with, Beacon is a nice middle ground set that gives a solid power bump.

In Vet dungeons, I can’t tell you how many times we didn’t wipe because I had enough balance of primary damage but “some” durability to manage the mechanics and get my tank back up. On a handful of occasions I had to finish the fight because we were on final phase and the mechanics wouldn’t allow for a pickup but I had enough power to get the boss down quickly enough.

Yokeda & Arca will throw your crit up but it also funnels Sorcs into such a linear play style IMO, the “heavy attack crit one trick pony” so to speak. Sure a Sorc has access to more DoTs now with subclassing but pre subclassing that’s really was the backbone of a strong crit build and that just felt incredibly flat.

Beacon enables a good bit of power but more importantly flexibility and that’s something you don’t get out of some sets Sorcs traditionally use in PvE. Again, not saying it’s the best set a Sorc could run, I never said that, but for a non pet Sorc in PvE it’s got a use case.