Faltasë wrote: »

VinnyGambini wrote: »

It's hilarious that some sorc players say that sorc passives are weak. Sorc has the most powerful passives, and becomes absolutely broken class. And sorc WW is even more broken.

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

Pure Sorc is one of the least viable specs in pvp on Live. Dark Magic is useless, Daedric Summoning is overnerfed and pets are useless, leaving only Stormcalling because of 2 good skills.

Of course the Sorc masteries need to be more powerful to make up for a horrible kit. They are right where they should be, if not even too weak for the most part. Static Reverberation is either useless or overpowered, which is easily fixed, and so is Conservation of Energy (even if its broken on Werewolf and specific HP stacking builds, which again is easy to fix) The other perks are woefully underwhelming.

Malevolent Promise thread for Necromancer.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/691609/malevolent-promise-don-t-think-i-didn-t-notice#latest

Faltasë wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

VinnyGambini wrote: »

It's hilarious that some sorc players say that sorc passives are weak. Sorc has the most powerful passives, and becomes absolutely broken class. And sorc WW is even more broken.

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

Pure Sorc is one of the least viable specs in pvp on Live. Dark Magic is useless, Daedric Summoning is overnerfed and pets are useless, leaving only Stormcalling because of 2 good skills.

Of course the Sorc masteries need to be more powerful to make up for a horrible kit. They are right where they should be, if not even too weak for the most part. Static Reverberation is either useless or overpowered, which is easily fixed, and so is Conservation of Energy (even if its broken on Werewolf and specific HP stacking builds, which again is easy to fix) The other perks are woefully underwhelming.

This is also one of the issues i feel as well, why are they making us try and test these when we dont even have the full refreshes out yet? Alot of this work feels pointless, but I guess they want more of the sentiment than actual feedback. We can't really give feedback when the refreshes are disconnected from the masteries. Honestly, all of this current data is *** useless until we get the refreshes.

And I will say it again: nerfing anything, any class or spec before DK, would be an unimaginable mockery.
No way is something in need of nerfs when DK is allowed to exist as it is. Not to say anything should be nerfed, but they already have plans to nerf Sorc and Werewolf, while DK just keeps getting improved.

ZOS you can spin the little iPad around and ask me to tip 25% on my next crown store purchase if you give me a class mastery that gives me the old Puncturing Sweep animation and old Burning Light Passive.

Faltasë wrote: »

VinnyGambini wrote: »

It's hilarious that some sorc players say that sorc passives are weak. Sorc has the most powerful passives, and becomes absolutely broken class. And sorc WW is even more broken.

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

I agree 100% here .. People get too hung up on dummy parse numbers as if that is some sort of "end all, say all" indicator of ability, it absolutely isn't. Manufacturing a high parse number or recognizing sustain while on a dummy test isn't reflective of in game combat in the least. It's night & day and when one tries to lean on these Sorc passives for in game benefit they fall short compared to what's out there.

Some feel that Sorcs Conservation passive is OP before the upcoming nerf, I say, Conservation is still too weak. Yes, I agree the Conservation passive delivers a lot of sustain, but that doesn't answer the question "what is one going to do with all of that sustain?" .. What good is high sustain if the skills I have to slot are so poorly performing?

I've said it so many times, Sorcs lack power and the passives the Devs gave here follow the same flawed logic as our class skill sets, too much redundant utility. The little power these passives do bring underperform against base class passives we can get through subclassing.

A lot of us are looking at these passives in the scope of total gameplay. Both PvE & PvP and in the scope of Subclassing. These passives don't deliver anything for Sorc that's outshines the potential we can get from Subclassing.

NxJoeyD wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

I've touched Sorc lots. It has been underbaked as a class for 12 years now, but the Mastery is undeniably strong. If you guys are referring to relatively underpowered MagSorc builds, there have been 0 metas where "stack max mag to do everything (from range)" has been balanced, either busted op or useless garbage, here's hoping the upcoming rework resolves this.

True, and I'm one of those Sorc players who understands you can't be competitive by just stacking everything into Mag and that you're going to have everything you need out of the class, whether it's PvP or PvE.

These passives are strong, IMO, on paper but not in true gameplay. These passives wont' go anywhere near making a Mag based Sorc as competitive as they would be to subclass and that's the issue I have with them.

The values are either too low or the uptime potential is too low or they deliver on redundancy we just don't need. .. A HA Sorc doesn't have a sustain issue and we have one of the best mechanical shields in the game, we don't need a passive that focuses on shields (let alone 2); especially when we're so down on power.

I hope the refresh really brings the burst power we're missing but until then I don't see these passives filling that gap between pure-sorc with these awful skills versus subclassing.

Exactly.

DK has the (awesome) "problem" where they have SO many great skills that you just want to slot them all and get severe FOMO when you are constrained by your scarce bar space.

Meanwhile, over in Sorc-Land, you could delete 75% of total Sorc skills and nobody would care - or even notice - because they are such collective dogwater that they haven't been slotted by serious players since the age of Elsweyr.

I will say, though, that when every class has as stacked skills as DK... the game will be absolutely cooking again. And it will be glorious.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

I've touched Sorc lots. It has been underbaked as a class for 12 years now, but the Mastery is undeniably strong. If you guys are referring to relatively underpowered MagSorc builds, there have been 0 metas where "stack max mag to do everything (from range)" has been balanced, either busted op or useless garbage, here's hoping the upcoming rework resolves this.

True, and I'm one of those Sorc players who understands you can't be competitive by just stacking everything into Mag and that you're going to have everything you need out of the class, whether it's PvP or PvE.

These passives are strong, IMO, on paper but not in true gameplay. These passives wont' go anywhere near making a Mag based Sorc as competitive as they would be to subclass and that's the issue I have with them.

The values are either too low or the uptime potential is too low or they deliver on redundancy we just don't need. .. A HA Sorc doesn't have a sustain issue and we have one of the best mechanical shields in the game, we don't need a passive that focuses on shields (let alone 2); especially when we're so down on power.

I hope the refresh really brings the burst power we're missing but until then I don't see these passives filling that gap between pure-sorc with these awful skills versus subclassing.

Exactly.

DK has the (awesome) "problem" where they have SO many great skills that you just want to slot them all and get severe FOMO when you are constrained by your scarce bar space.

Meanwhile, over in Sorc-Land, you could delete 75% of total Sorc skills and nobody would care - or even notice - because they are such collective dogwater that they haven't been slotted by serious players since the age of Elsweyr.

I will say, though, that when every class has as stacked skills as DK... the game will be absolutely cooking again. And it will be glorious.

This is precisely the reason I was so excited for the idea of multiclassing when it was announced– I could finally put good abilities onto my main character, because so many of sorcs skills just were not worth using.

Now, I wish they had just started with the class refreshes.

xylena wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

I've touched Sorc lots. It has been underbaked as a class for 12 years now, but the Mastery is undeniably strong. If you guys are referring to relatively underpowered MagSorc builds, there have been 0 metas where "stack max mag to do everything (from range)" has been balanced, either busted op or useless garbage, here's hoping the upcoming rework resolves this.

This is the crux of the issue and a lot of it stems from the fact there seems to be no real "Sorc Dev" on the team and hasn't been since probably Vvardenfell (or maybe even earlier) given how the Sorcerer changes have been handled over the years.
Keeping these flaws in the Sorcerers class kit has meant that the only way to make Sorcerer competitive (in any setting) is to bump the numbers up so stupidly high (see U41 ward changes, class sets and class masteries as proof) that there's no way to truly balance them.

These design fallacies ZOS has with Sorc really need to be addressed or the Sorc refresh will flop just as bad as everything else ZOS has tried with Sorc.

When doing Sorcs refresh, ZOS needs to:
Also, now that DK is giving the entire group major berserk when casting an ultimate (any ultimate) from the DK mastery as well as major heroism to the group (that also allows the caster to cast that ultimate much more frequently), on top of being a superior parse DD thanks to the abundance of cleave access DK has that Sorcerer does not have, Sorcerer needs it's own unique reason to bring it to groups since DK is taking the existing only reason to bring Sorcerers into end-game PvE group content at all (that being atro on a support for group major berserk).

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Exactly.

DK has the (awesome) "problem" where they have SO many great skills that you just want to slot them all and get severe FOMO when you are constrained by your scarce bar space.

Meanwhile, over in Sorc-Land, you could delete 75% of total Sorc skills and nobody would care - or even notice - because they are such collective dogwater that they haven't been slotted by serious players since the age of Elsweyr.

I will say, though, that when every class has as stacked skills as DK... the game will be absolutely cooking again. And it will be glorious.

Also, probably closer to 85% of sorcs abilities could be removed and nobody would notice. The only ones people would notice enough to complain about would be the pets (and only pet mains would complain), hurricane (this specific morph only) and Streak (PvP) (wow a whopping 6 out of 36 morphs of the entire kit would have people notice/complain if they got removed). Everything else is just too niche, completely redundant or just simply outclassed by better alternatives.

p.s. not counting atro anymore since it's redundant with DK mastery passive, also not counting ward anymore because U46 nerf completely killed it to the point that shield soul is a better shield than ward due to secondary effects + utility beyond just being a shield.

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Static Reverberation:

I know changes are coming for this tomorrow (Mon Apr 27), but just wanted to chime in on how I hope to see it changed because this is a great opportunity to improve the quality of life in addition to lowering the DPS ceiling.

Very powerful for execute and PvE where you are bound to widdle enemies down to 1~33% for the high 66~100% chance, but in PvP this rarely happens because you never want to be below 80% HP for longer than a second. If you do reach 30% HP, you're usually already dead, to which this Mastery and the multi hit dot pressure playstyle it needs wouldn't do anything better than a regular build using popular executes like Executioner, Radiant Oppression, Whirling Blades, or even Mage's Wrath.

Aside from a dummy parse, this Mastery is underperforming and not worth it over the Conservation of Energy or Calculated Defense in PvP, and is certainly not better than Font of Power and the permanent upfront bonus it gives 100% of the time. I really don't see why anyone would bother with a dot playstyle and this Mastery especially when Purges are so popular.

NB has a similar issue with their Mastery which doesn't do anything upfront. The hard part is getting people low, not finishing the job, at least for NB they don't need to change their playstyle because it just provides raw stats.

Core changes:

• Base chance added: 25% chance to trigger at all times.
• Execute threshold lowered: 1% improved chance starts at 50% instead of 100% missing health.

Goal:

• Can be used much earlier in a fight with the base 25%, but doesn't improve until 50% or below HP meaning it will start stronger, then be weaker for the remainder of the fight in comparison.
• Lowers DPS potential by reducing maximum chance from 100% to 75%, this keeps the RNG alive and continues to promote multi hit playstyles rather than making all builds super strong below 20% HP like the original.
• Amplifies execute identity by improving beyond 50% instead of 100% HP.

In practice:

• Stronger: 100% HP = 25% instead of 0%.
• Equal: 75% HP = 25% equal to 25%.
• Weaker: 50% HP = 25% instead of 50%.
• Weaker: 25% HP = 50% instead of 75%.
• Weaker: 1% HP = 74% instead of 99%.

As you can see above, majority of the fight it'd be weaker, but it'd be more enjoyable to engage with overall by actually doing something at all stages of a fight. This type of balance with a base bonus + improved bonus based on missing HP is what I'm trying to illustrate and should also be applied to NB's Mastery.

The cooldown could even be adjusted from 0.2s to 0.3s to continue working with Bound Armaments, but reduce it's potency with Rapid Strikes (0.2s between each hit) allowing for some space for actual Sorc spammables or Force Pulse, that don't have so many ticks in a short time span. Hopefully in the future, abilities like Crystal Weapon, Frags, and Fury are adjusted to multi hit attacks to make this Mastery more appealing. It's currently really odd to have a pure class Mastery that performs best with out of class abilities.

Additionally a % cap could be considered; Maybe it starts at 10%, gains 1% per 1% missing HP, but caps at 70% by 40% HP.... or some combination of every suggestion I've made. Many ways to improve it.

Also... with these adjustments. Remove the pet penalty, it's not necessary. Majority of us want no pet Sorc to be competitive again, but we don't want to bury pet Sorc to do it. BOTH should be viable. Remove all these barriers like Beacon of Oblivion, this Mastery, and the Class Flourish. We all hate it.

Again, this all goes for NB's Mastery too, for example:

• Increases your W/S Damage by 400 and reduces your damage taken by 4%, both are increased by an additional 800 W/S Damage and 8% damage taken based on your target's missing health.

I agree here with Static needing to apply in combat sooner than it does.

It's absolutely useless in PvP and in PvE most enemies, besides bosses, are going to go down from the range at which this passive really starts having any real application chance that it's not worth it.

I like your progressive changes to the application chance and making it available sooner.

I would take this one step further and see the passive working more like the Bloodthirsty trait whereby as the chance to apply goes up as the target health goes down, so too does the damage scale upward, and significantly upward.

This is for two reasons:

1) even on lower health targets this passive is always a "chance" apply, not a guaranteed apply and even one tick or damage application that fails to chance the passive is a 1 GCD loss on passive damage potential so when this passive does apply it needs to apply hard

2) This passive has to be at least "in-the-ballpark" of effectiveness as a like or comparable passive, in this case, Burning Light. Since BL has no target proc restriction that means that it's able to stack and apply during the entirety of combat. Players who (smartly) stack damage instances will make full advantage of BL and see it applying stacks on targets relatively quickly. Even in PvP this is a viable passive that deals damage that will regularly show up on death recaps. .. The same goes for how well DKs can apply and scale Burning.

If Static as a Mastery passive can't keep up with the potential (output wise) as other classes base passives I don't see it getting slotted.

If they applied your suggestion to make the passive have a more reasonable application chance but also gave it a progressive scale like Bloodthirsty I think they might have something.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

I've touched Sorc lots. It has been underbaked as a class for 12 years now, but the Mastery is undeniably strong. If you guys are referring to relatively underpowered MagSorc builds, there have been 0 metas where "stack max mag to do everything (from range)" has been balanced, either busted op or useless garbage, here's hoping the upcoming rework resolves this.

This is the crux of the issue and a lot of it stems from the fact there seems to be no real "Sorc Dev" on the team and hasn't been since probably Vvardenfell (or maybe even earlier) given how the Sorcerer changes have been handled over the years.

Overload 3rd bar removal (completely killed the pets as a synergistic and integrated part of the class kit), that resulted in splitting the class into 2 separate distinct and conflicting playstyles that resulted in both of them needing to outsource many key aspects of their builds to non-class skills (or other class lines post sub-classing).

The refusal to expand Sorcerers abilities to have secondary effects/buff/debuff access, etc. Stems from some outdated (launch era) notion that classes need to rely on other classes to gain access the buffs that all of the other classes have not had to live be for years now, but sorcerer still suffers under (see some of the dev notes during U38-45 patch notes for proof of this).

U41 ward changes that were insane numbers buffs, but with zero added functionality beyond flat numbers increases, the numbers had to be that big or the buff would completely flop (see the ward nerf in U46 where the line just fell off a cliff in PvP, especially with sub-classing pushing damage infinitely high on top of that nerf and the line is only used for atro in PvE).

Design of crit surge needing to deal critical strikes to "heal over time" but no sticky DoTs in the kit for consistent damage ticks or access to major Prophecy/Savagery for years (and only really stamsorc eventually got that buff on armaments), oh and pets cannot proc this ability either.

The changes to max stats, their removal from the switch of Champion Point 1 system to Champion Point 2 system, the changes to the damage formula years ago to make max stats significantly lower than stacking weapon/spell damage, the shift of scaling healing off weapon/spell damage instead of max stats, and the constant changes to Sorcerers max stats passives/effects so that they are now a janky unreliable mess spread across multiple passives and skill lines (both of which are borderline useless in a sub-classing world).

Cast times on Sorcerer abilities to balance out access to streak (Sorc needing to keep away to ensure reliable use of defensive capabilities), but then giving every class infinite baseline speed at no cost and now sub-classing for streak on top of that speed as well without any cost to their other defensive capabilities such as removal of mitigation, cast times on their healing abilities, etc.

Everything being so generic it works better for non-sorc abilities than it does for sorc abilities

Keeping these flaws in the Sorcerers class kit has meant that the only way to make Sorcerer competitive (in any setting) is to bump the numbers up so stupidly high (see U41 ward changes, class sets and class masteries as proof) that there's no way to truly balance them.

These design fallacies ZOS has with Sorc really need to be addressed or the Sorc refresh will flop just as bad as everything else ZOS has tried with Sorc.

When doing Sorcs refresh, ZOS needs to:

- delete the extremely outdated notion from their minds that Sorc needs other classes for basic buffs (resolve, brut/sorc, proph/sav) or debuffs (breach).
- delete cast times (especially hidden ones such as on fury/flood) as the "balancing" mechanics for streak now that every class sits at speed cap and has access to streak anyway (with sub-classing).
- delete the many internal conflicts inherent within sorcs design (the crit surge case and the pet v no pet resulting from overload 3rd bar removal as examples).
- stop trying to simply force big numbers through as the way to fix the classes inherent design flaws when a complete redesign from the ground up is required.
- start tying some of sorcs strengths to actual sorc abilities rather than being completely generic that better suits everything else than it does sorc abilities.
- remove the extreme redundancy from sorcs abilities (the class doesn't need like 6 sustain passives on top of 4-5 sustain based secondary effects and a sustain based class mastery, it's complete overkill).
- revert the shift of all of sorcs abilities into delayed burst for this "one big 5 stacked ability combo" that still deals less damage than just casting a single molten whip or timing MR + shulks does for DK or sub-classed builds respectively, allow the class some actual pressure abilities in its kit outside of overload to facilitate other playstyles.

Also, now that DK is giving the entire group major berserk when casting an ultimate (any ultimate) from the DK mastery as well as major heroism to the group (that also allows the caster to cast that ultimate much more frequently), on top of being a superior parse DD thanks to the abundance of cleave access DK has that Sorcerer does not have, Sorcerer needs it's own unique reason to bring it to groups since DK is taking the existing only reason to bring Sorcerers into end-game PvE group content at all (that being atro on a support for group major berserk).

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Exactly.

DK has the (awesome) "problem" where they have SO many great skills that you just want to slot them all and get severe FOMO when you are constrained by your scarce bar space.

Meanwhile, over in Sorc-Land, you could delete 75% of total Sorc skills and nobody would care - or even notice - because they are such collective dogwater that they haven't been slotted by serious players since the age of Elsweyr.

I will say, though, that when every class has as stacked skills as DK... the game will be absolutely cooking again. And it will be glorious.

Also, probably closer to 85% of sorcs abilities could be removed and nobody would notice. The only ones people would notice enough to complain about would be the pets (and only pet mains would complain), hurricane (this specific morph only) and Streak (PvP) (wow a whopping 6 out of 36 morphs of the entire kit would have people notice/complain if they got removed). Everything else is just too niche, completely redundant or just simply outclassed by better alternatives.

p.s. not counting atro anymore since it's redundant with DK mastery passive, also not counting ward anymore because U46 nerf completely killed it to the point that shield soul is a better shield than ward due to secondary effects + utility beyond just being a shield.

Spot on .. To be honest the only reason I think we see Streak to the level that we do in PvP is because someone picked up SC for the Hurricane / Lightning skill (for the Resolve) and figured there's a CC skill too so might as well. Streak has awful follow up potential for a CC ability and given it's 15m range it now falls short since everyone can slot either mobility skills that also provide CC immunities or can slot Toppling or Spear, both of which have a farther range than Streak.

I also agree that it's never just about changing numbers. One of the biggest pain points with Sorc skills is the underlying mechanics .. whether we're talking about ridiculously long and clumsy animations, to procs that don't synergize well, long cast times, or even ground based AoEs that are easily avoided and/or would confine the caster in combat.

Here's a great example: Haunting Curse vs Deep Fissure. On paper these two skills are similar, high scaling damage output that have two delayed bursts to their method of application. .. But those skills couldn't be farther apart. Deep Fissure not only scales to similar values as Curse but Curse has a clear telegraph which allows anyone who can count to 3 & 8 to heal through it. Fissure, on the other hand doesn't have a telegraph, it has an animation; that's a big difference. This helps to enable Fissure to apply at least one instance of damage as targets don't see it coming. Fissure can also apply to multiple targets whereas Curse can only be active on one target at a time. Curse does have an AoE potential but only for it's second instance. Fissure also has the benefit of following the caster and not being locked to an individual target, enabling the caster more flexibility in it's applications.

Not even looking at the major & minor debuffs Fissure brings, I'm just looking at the fundamental mechanical differences between how these two skills operate and it's easy to see why, even debuffs aside, Fissure is a much better choice than Curse. IMO for Haunting Curse to ever be viable it's not just about adjusting the numbers it about changing how the skill works to make it more competitive. And it's not just Curse, like you said, easily 85% of Sorc skills need attention.

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

I've touched Sorc lots. It has been underbaked as a class for 12 years now, but the Mastery is undeniably strong. If you guys are referring to relatively underpowered MagSorc builds, there have been 0 metas where "stack max mag to do everything (from range)" has been balanced, either busted op or useless garbage, here's hoping the upcoming rework resolves this.

This is the crux of the issue and a lot of it stems from the fact there seems to be no real "Sorc Dev" on the team and hasn't been since probably Vvardenfell (or maybe even earlier) given how the Sorcerer changes have been handled over the years.

Overload 3rd bar removal (completely killed the pets as a synergistic and integrated part of the class kit), that resulted in splitting the class into 2 separate distinct and conflicting playstyles that resulted in both of them needing to outsource many key aspects of their builds to non-class skills (or other class lines post sub-classing).

The refusal to expand Sorcerers abilities to have secondary effects/buff/debuff access, etc. Stems from some outdated (launch era) notion that classes need to rely on other classes to gain access the buffs that all of the other classes have not had to live be for years now, but sorcerer still suffers under (see some of the dev notes during U38-45 patch notes for proof of this).

U41 ward changes that were insane numbers buffs, but with zero added functionality beyond flat numbers increases, the numbers had to be that big or the buff would completely flop (see the ward nerf in U46 where the line just fell off a cliff in PvP, especially with sub-classing pushing damage infinitely high on top of that nerf and the line is only used for atro in PvE).

Design of crit surge needing to deal critical strikes to "heal over time" but no sticky DoTs in the kit for consistent damage ticks or access to major Prophecy/Savagery for years (and only really stamsorc eventually got that buff on armaments), oh and pets cannot proc this ability either.

The changes to max stats, their removal from the switch of Champion Point 1 system to Champion Point 2 system, the changes to the damage formula years ago to make max stats significantly lower than stacking weapon/spell damage, the shift of scaling healing off weapon/spell damage instead of max stats, and the constant changes to Sorcerers max stats passives/effects so that they are now a janky unreliable mess spread across multiple passives and skill lines (both of which are borderline useless in a sub-classing world).

Cast times on Sorcerer abilities to balance out access to streak (Sorc needing to keep away to ensure reliable use of defensive capabilities), but then giving every class infinite baseline speed at no cost and now sub-classing for streak on top of that speed as well without any cost to their other defensive capabilities such as removal of mitigation, cast times on their healing abilities, etc.

Everything being so generic it works better for non-sorc abilities than it does for sorc abilities

Keeping these flaws in the Sorcerers class kit has meant that the only way to make Sorcerer competitive (in any setting) is to bump the numbers up so stupidly high (see U41 ward changes, class sets and class masteries as proof) that there's no way to truly balance them.

These design fallacies ZOS has with Sorc really need to be addressed or the Sorc refresh will flop just as bad as everything else ZOS has tried with Sorc.

When doing Sorcs refresh, ZOS needs to:

- delete the extremely outdated notion from their minds that Sorc needs other classes for basic buffs (resolve, brut/sorc, proph/sav) or debuffs (breach).
- delete cast times (especially hidden ones such as on fury/flood) as the "balancing" mechanics for streak now that every class sits at speed cap and has access to streak anyway (with sub-classing).
- delete the many internal conflicts inherent within sorcs design (the crit surge case and the pet v no pet resulting from overload 3rd bar removal as examples).
- stop trying to simply force big numbers through as the way to fix the classes inherent design flaws when a complete redesign from the ground up is required.
- start tying some of sorcs strengths to actual sorc abilities rather than being completely generic that better suits everything else than it does sorc abilities.
- remove the extreme redundancy from sorcs abilities (the class doesn't need like 6 sustain passives on top of 4-5 sustain based secondary effects and a sustain based class mastery, it's complete overkill).
- revert the shift of all of sorcs abilities into delayed burst for this "one big 5 stacked ability combo" that still deals less damage than just casting a single molten whip or timing MR + shulks does for DK or sub-classed builds respectively, allow the class some actual pressure abilities in its kit outside of overload to facilitate other playstyles.

Also, now that DK is giving the entire group major berserk when casting an ultimate (any ultimate) from the DK mastery as well as major heroism to the group (that also allows the caster to cast that ultimate much more frequently), on top of being a superior parse DD thanks to the abundance of cleave access DK has that Sorcerer does not have, Sorcerer needs it's own unique reason to bring it to groups since DK is taking the existing only reason to bring Sorcerers into end-game PvE group content at all (that being atro on a support for group major berserk).

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Exactly.

DK has the (awesome) "problem" where they have SO many great skills that you just want to slot them all and get severe FOMO when you are constrained by your scarce bar space.

Meanwhile, over in Sorc-Land, you could delete 75% of total Sorc skills and nobody would care - or even notice - because they are such collective dogwater that they haven't been slotted by serious players since the age of Elsweyr.

I will say, though, that when every class has as stacked skills as DK... the game will be absolutely cooking again. And it will be glorious.

Also, probably closer to 85% of sorcs abilities could be removed and nobody would notice. The only ones people would notice enough to complain about would be the pets (and only pet mains would complain), hurricane (this specific morph only) and Streak (PvP) (wow a whopping 6 out of 36 morphs of the entire kit would have people notice/complain if they got removed). Everything else is just too niche, completely redundant or just simply outclassed by better alternatives.

p.s. not counting atro anymore since it's redundant with DK mastery passive, also not counting ward anymore because U46 nerf completely killed it to the point that shield soul is a better shield than ward due to secondary effects + utility beyond just being a shield.

Spot on .. To be honest the only reason I think we see Streak to the level that we do in PvP is because someone picked up SC for the Hurricane / Lightning skill (for the Resolve) and figured there's a CC skill too so might as well. Streak has awful follow up potential for a CC ability and given it's 15m range it now falls short since everyone can slot either mobility skills that also provide CC immunities or can slot Toppling or Spear, both of which have a farther range than Streak.

I also agree that it's never just about changing numbers. One of the biggest pain points with Sorc skills is the underlying mechanics .. whether we're talking about ridiculously long and clumsy animations, to procs that don't synergize well, long cast times, or even ground based AoEs that are easily avoided and/or would confine the caster in combat.

Here's a great example: Haunting Curse vs Deep Fissure. On paper these two skills are similar, high scaling damage output that have two delayed bursts to their method of application. .. But those skills couldn't be farther apart. Deep Fissure not only scales to similar values as Curse but Curse has a clear telegraph which allows anyone who can count to 3 & 8 to heal through it. Fissure, on the other hand doesn't have a telegraph, it has an animation; that's a big difference. This helps to enable Fissure to apply at least one instance of damage as targets don't see it coming. Fissure can also apply to multiple targets whereas Curse can only be active on one target at a time. Curse does have an AoE potential but only for it's second instance. Fissure also has the benefit of following the caster and not being locked to an individual target, enabling the caster more flexibility in it's applications.

Not even looking at the major & minor debuffs Fissure brings, I'm just looking at the fundamental mechanical differences between how these two skills operate and it's easy to see why, even debuffs aside, Fissure is a much better choice than Curse. IMO for Haunting Curse to ever be viable it's not just about adjusting the numbers it about changing how the skill works to make it more competitive. And it's not just Curse, like you said, easily 85% of Sorc skills need attention.

Shalks is to me very telegraphed, just like Curse is. The reason why Curse is bad and not much used is because it's cleansable for some reason and cleanses are too often used nowadays.

So you are better off not slotting it or being smarter and just sublcassing Warden over it as you should. This is one of the main things I adamantly expect to be fixed with the class rework; Daedric Curse being uncleansable.

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

I've touched Sorc lots. It has been underbaked as a class for 12 years now, but the Mastery is undeniably strong. If you guys are referring to relatively underpowered MagSorc builds, there have been 0 metas where "stack max mag to do everything (from range)" has been balanced, either busted op or useless garbage, here's hoping the upcoming rework resolves this.

This is the crux of the issue and a lot of it stems from the fact there seems to be no real "Sorc Dev" on the team and hasn't been since probably Vvardenfell (or maybe even earlier) given how the Sorcerer changes have been handled over the years.

Overload 3rd bar removal (completely killed the pets as a synergistic and integrated part of the class kit), that resulted in splitting the class into 2 separate distinct and conflicting playstyles that resulted in both of them needing to outsource many key aspects of their builds to non-class skills (or other class lines post sub-classing).

The refusal to expand Sorcerers abilities to have secondary effects/buff/debuff access, etc. Stems from some outdated (launch era) notion that classes need to rely on other classes to gain access the buffs that all of the other classes have not had to live be for years now, but sorcerer still suffers under (see some of the dev notes during U38-45 patch notes for proof of this).

U41 ward changes that were insane numbers buffs, but with zero added functionality beyond flat numbers increases, the numbers had to be that big or the buff would completely flop (see the ward nerf in U46 where the line just fell off a cliff in PvP, especially with sub-classing pushing damage infinitely high on top of that nerf and the line is only used for atro in PvE).

Design of crit surge needing to deal critical strikes to "heal over time" but no sticky DoTs in the kit for consistent damage ticks or access to major Prophecy/Savagery for years (and only really stamsorc eventually got that buff on armaments), oh and pets cannot proc this ability either.

The changes to max stats, their removal from the switch of Champion Point 1 system to Champion Point 2 system, the changes to the damage formula years ago to make max stats significantly lower than stacking weapon/spell damage, the shift of scaling healing off weapon/spell damage instead of max stats, and the constant changes to Sorcerers max stats passives/effects so that they are now a janky unreliable mess spread across multiple passives and skill lines (both of which are borderline useless in a sub-classing world).

Cast times on Sorcerer abilities to balance out access to streak (Sorc needing to keep away to ensure reliable use of defensive capabilities), but then giving every class infinite baseline speed at no cost and now sub-classing for streak on top of that speed as well without any cost to their other defensive capabilities such as removal of mitigation, cast times on their healing abilities, etc.

Everything being so generic it works better for non-sorc abilities than it does for sorc abilities

Keeping these flaws in the Sorcerers class kit has meant that the only way to make Sorcerer competitive (in any setting) is to bump the numbers up so stupidly high (see U41 ward changes, class sets and class masteries as proof) that there's no way to truly balance them.

These design fallacies ZOS has with Sorc really need to be addressed or the Sorc refresh will flop just as bad as everything else ZOS has tried with Sorc.

When doing Sorcs refresh, ZOS needs to:

- delete the extremely outdated notion from their minds that Sorc needs other classes for basic buffs (resolve, brut/sorc, proph/sav) or debuffs (breach).
- delete cast times (especially hidden ones such as on fury/flood) as the "balancing" mechanics for streak now that every class sits at speed cap and has access to streak anyway (with sub-classing).
- delete the many internal conflicts inherent within sorcs design (the crit surge case and the pet v no pet resulting from overload 3rd bar removal as examples).
- stop trying to simply force big numbers through as the way to fix the classes inherent design flaws when a complete redesign from the ground up is required.
- start tying some of sorcs strengths to actual sorc abilities rather than being completely generic that better suits everything else than it does sorc abilities.
- remove the extreme redundancy from sorcs abilities (the class doesn't need like 6 sustain passives on top of 4-5 sustain based secondary effects and a sustain based class mastery, it's complete overkill).
- revert the shift of all of sorcs abilities into delayed burst for this "one big 5 stacked ability combo" that still deals less damage than just casting a single molten whip or timing MR + shulks does for DK or sub-classed builds respectively, allow the class some actual pressure abilities in its kit outside of overload to facilitate other playstyles.

Also, now that DK is giving the entire group major berserk when casting an ultimate (any ultimate) from the DK mastery as well as major heroism to the group (that also allows the caster to cast that ultimate much more frequently), on top of being a superior parse DD thanks to the abundance of cleave access DK has that Sorcerer does not have, Sorcerer needs it's own unique reason to bring it to groups since DK is taking the existing only reason to bring Sorcerers into end-game PvE group content at all (that being atro on a support for group major berserk).

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Exactly.

DK has the (awesome) "problem" where they have SO many great skills that you just want to slot them all and get severe FOMO when you are constrained by your scarce bar space.

Meanwhile, over in Sorc-Land, you could delete 75% of total Sorc skills and nobody would care - or even notice - because they are such collective dogwater that they haven't been slotted by serious players since the age of Elsweyr.

I will say, though, that when every class has as stacked skills as DK... the game will be absolutely cooking again. And it will be glorious.

Also, probably closer to 85% of sorcs abilities could be removed and nobody would notice. The only ones people would notice enough to complain about would be the pets (and only pet mains would complain), hurricane (this specific morph only) and Streak (PvP) (wow a whopping 6 out of 36 morphs of the entire kit would have people notice/complain if they got removed). Everything else is just too niche, completely redundant or just simply outclassed by better alternatives.

p.s. not counting atro anymore since it's redundant with DK mastery passive, also not counting ward anymore because U46 nerf completely killed it to the point that shield soul is a better shield than ward due to secondary effects + utility beyond just being a shield.

Spot on .. To be honest the only reason I think we see Streak to the level that we do in PvP is because someone picked up SC for the Hurricane / Lightning skill (for the Resolve) and figured there's a CC skill too so might as well. Streak has awful follow up potential for a CC ability and given it's 15m range it now falls short since everyone can slot either mobility skills that also provide CC immunities or can slot Toppling or Spear, both of which have a farther range than Streak.

I also agree that it's never just about changing numbers. One of the biggest pain points with Sorc skills is the underlying mechanics .. whether we're talking about ridiculously long and clumsy animations, to procs that don't synergize well, long cast times, or even ground based AoEs that are easily avoided and/or would confine the caster in combat.

Here's a great example: Haunting Curse vs Deep Fissure. On paper these two skills are similar, high scaling damage output that have two delayed bursts to their method of application. .. But those skills couldn't be farther apart. Deep Fissure not only scales to similar values as Curse but Curse has a clear telegraph which allows anyone who can count to 3 & 8 to heal through it. Fissure, on the other hand doesn't have a telegraph, it has an animation; that's a big difference. This helps to enable Fissure to apply at least one instance of damage as targets don't see it coming. Fissure can also apply to multiple targets whereas Curse can only be active on one target at a time. Curse does have an AoE potential but only for it's second instance. Fissure also has the benefit of following the caster and not being locked to an individual target, enabling the caster more flexibility in it's applications.

Not even looking at the major & minor debuffs Fissure brings, I'm just looking at the fundamental mechanical differences between how these two skills operate and it's easy to see why, even debuffs aside, Fissure is a much better choice than Curse. IMO for Haunting Curse to ever be viable it's not just about adjusting the numbers it about changing how the skill works to make it more competitive. And it's not just Curse, like you said, easily 85% of Sorc skills need attention.

Missing 1 key point as to why Curse sucks in comparison to Fissure. It can be purged.

My god, it is so frustrating to constantly waste a GCD or your entire burst window just because a player is using one or both of the most popular skill lines in the game via Restoring Light and Animal Companions. Betty passively does it, so sometimes they didn't even intentionally mean to counter your burst. Ritual is OP af by purging 5 effects and allows allies to do the same thing the moment they see the purple glow on themselves. It's terrible.

Subclassing only highlighted this further since purges became more popular, but also because the traditional delayed burst skills you can pick up, all have debuffs attached to them, even the super crappy Power of the Light (which shares a similar issue).

Curse has a 3k tooltip, so it hits the middle of the road between Fissures 2 ticks, but can be purged, lacks major/minor Breach, and deals way less cleave as a result of the application type.

Blighted Blastbones has a 3.6k tooltip, but because it always applies a unique source of Diseased, it deals an additional roughly 400 damage for a combined 4k tooltip. 33% more than Haunting Curse... and it reduces healing via major/minor defile.

I don't even really consider the 2nd burst as a part of the skill budget anymore due to purges and the odds of me being able to line up another perfect combo in the subsequent 8.5s is highly unlikely unless it was a duel. Frankly, I'd rather cast the ability every 4s when I'm actually ready to use it so it doesn't really add anything I need outside of a DPS parse on a dummy.

Before subclassing, all I heard about BB was complaints related to the AI pathing and how it got CC'ed so much, but honestly.. since their most recent change where it jumps at the target, it's leagues better than Curse. It eats ultimates and burst abilities all the time, and even if it gets CC'ed, it rarely outright dies, it just delays my burst window for a more convenient and surprising time.

Personally, they really don't need to do much to make Curse competitive again.

• Daedric Curse
  • Moved from Daedric Summoning to Dark Magic.
  • Radius increased from 5m to 7m.
    • Haunting Curse
      • Can still be blocked, still targetted to 1 enemy at a time, but can no longer be purged.
      • Applies Major Breach and +x% Damage Taken for Monsters while active.
      • When target dies, explodes up to once instantly to nearby enemies.
    • Daedric Prey (Complete rework).
      • Curse is applied to yourself instead of your target, can still be blocked, but not dodged.
      • Applies Major Protection to yourself while active.
      • Explodes twice over 12s, but deals 30% less damage than Haunting Curse, increasing in damage done by +15% per enemy hit including the 1st up to 6 targets.
      • Just for fun, also explodes instantly when you die to nearby enemies.

Overall, I think Sorc can make a clear playstyle choice for their morphs that isn't based on Blue vs Green, but based on Ranged vs Melee for today's ESO context. To me, that was what the best part about original Mag vs Stam Sorc that got lost with hybridization, now would be a good opportunity to bring it back and make morphs more interesting.

For example; Hurricane can stay as is, but Boundless Storm also gets Minor Expedition. Major Expedition could be moved to an ability that makes more sense like a reworked Ball of Lightning (which doesn't absorb projectiles), and the aoe dot could be removed in favour of a buff to status effect chance or direct damage that works from any range. Since ESO released, Boundless Storm has been in this very weird state. Mag Sorc didn't need the aoe dot and spamming your armor buff feels super awkward, give something that really helps that playstyle we remember.

With that explanation out of the way, that's where the 2 above Curse ideas come from. Haunting Curse for ranged, Daedric Prey for melee. HC is more powerful for single target, especially in PvE where Sorc is treated as a high priority nuker, but DP is great for aoe and melee with some defense thrown in to warrant getting in close. Since DP is self cast, it solves the Fissure vs Curse problem you raised by giving you more control of where it lands. DP would behave like a more consistent, less extreme, Proxy Det, similar to DK's Incinerate, but more power with less ticks and less radius.

I think of all the abilities, most Sorc mains would agree Curse is probably the most likely to move, so having a pet themed morph no one liked to begin with wouldn't really make sense anymore. The only good part about Prey is how it focusses your pets, but that can be added to a passive or new ability like Rune Prison. The debuff of +50% damage can be moved to the core pets power with Tormentor getting a real activation worth casting.

This is all super off topic, but interesting to me nontheless. For all pets including Warden and Necro, I'd also like to see a permanent vs non permanent option built in. A simple addition like:

"If this ability is slotted on 2 bars, the activation will permanently summon the pet in addition to its on cast effects. While summoned, the pet now passively attacks."

This would basically mean you can use Bear, Tormentor, and Familiar on 1 bar, but they no longer passively attack. Necro could double bar Skele Mage for passive attacks with a rework to the activation. Matriarch and Clanfear could actually be used for support roles like Spirit Guardian without the problem of taking up 2 slots for nothing. Bear could use a rework to make the cast better, but same princible. Options.

Also, just make all pets untargettable. It's way too problematic and gives extremes of complete uselessness to overwhelmingly OP. Skele Archer does this perfectly fine, no one has ever complained about not being able to kill it, and if passive attacks were really a problem, ZOS could implement a damage buff/penalty to players or monsters like they have been doing.

GET RID OF THE CLUNKINESS.

NxJoeyD wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Static Reverberation:

I know changes are coming for this tomorrow (Mon Apr 27), but just wanted to chime in on how I hope to see it changed because this is a great opportunity to improve the quality of life in addition to lowering the DPS ceiling.

Very powerful for execute and PvE where you are bound to widdle enemies down to 1~33% for the high 66~100% chance, but in PvP this rarely happens because you never want to be below 80% HP for longer than a second. If you do reach 30% HP, you're usually already dead, to which this Mastery and the multi hit dot pressure playstyle it needs wouldn't do anything better than a regular build using popular executes like Executioner, Radiant Oppression, Whirling Blades, or even Mage's Wrath.

Aside from a dummy parse, this Mastery is underperforming and not worth it over the Conservation of Energy or Calculated Defense in PvP, and is certainly not better than Font of Power and the permanent upfront bonus it gives 100% of the time. I really don't see why anyone would bother with a dot playstyle and this Mastery especially when Purges are so popular.

NB has a similar issue with their Mastery which doesn't do anything upfront. The hard part is getting people low, not finishing the job, at least for NB they don't need to change their playstyle because it just provides raw stats.

Core changes:

• Base chance added: 25% chance to trigger at all times.
• Execute threshold lowered: 1% improved chance starts at 50% instead of 100% missing health.

Goal:

• Can be used much earlier in a fight with the base 25%, but doesn't improve until 50% or below HP meaning it will start stronger, then be weaker for the remainder of the fight in comparison.
• Lowers DPS potential by reducing maximum chance from 100% to 75%, this keeps the RNG alive and continues to promote multi hit playstyles rather than making all builds super strong below 20% HP like the original.
• Amplifies execute identity by improving beyond 50% instead of 100% HP.

In practice:

• Stronger: 100% HP = 25% instead of 0%.
• Equal: 75% HP = 25% equal to 25%.
• Weaker: 50% HP = 25% instead of 50%.
• Weaker: 25% HP = 50% instead of 75%.
• Weaker: 1% HP = 74% instead of 99%.

As you can see above, majority of the fight it'd be weaker, but it'd be more enjoyable to engage with overall by actually doing something at all stages of a fight. This type of balance with a base bonus + improved bonus based on missing HP is what I'm trying to illustrate and should also be applied to NB's Mastery.

The cooldown could even be adjusted from 0.2s to 0.3s to continue working with Bound Armaments, but reduce it's potency with Rapid Strikes (0.2s between each hit) allowing for some space for actual Sorc spammables or Force Pulse, that don't have so many ticks in a short time span. Hopefully in the future, abilities like Crystal Weapon, Frags, and Fury are adjusted to multi hit attacks to make this Mastery more appealing. It's currently really odd to have a pure class Mastery that performs best with out of class abilities.

Additionally a % cap could be considered; Maybe it starts at 10%, gains 1% per 1% missing HP, but caps at 70% by 40% HP.... or some combination of every suggestion I've made. Many ways to improve it.

Also... with these adjustments. Remove the pet penalty, it's not necessary. Majority of us want no pet Sorc to be competitive again, but we don't want to bury pet Sorc to do it. BOTH should be viable. Remove all these barriers like Beacon of Oblivion, this Mastery, and the Class Flourish. We all hate it.

Again, this all goes for NB's Mastery too, for example:

• Increases your W/S Damage by 400 and reduces your damage taken by 4%, both are increased by an additional 800 W/S Damage and 8% damage taken based on your target's missing health.

I agree here with Static needing to apply in combat sooner than it does.

It's absolutely useless in PvP and in PvE most enemies, besides bosses, are going to go down from the range at which this passive really starts having any real application chance that it's not worth it.

I like your progressive changes to the application chance and making it available sooner.

I would take this one step further and see the passive working more like the Bloodthirsty trait whereby as the chance to apply goes up as the target health goes down, so too does the damage scale upward, and significantly upward.

This is for two reasons:

1) even on lower health targets this passive is always a "chance" apply, not a guaranteed apply and even one tick or damage application that fails to chance the passive is a 1 GCD loss on passive damage potential so when this passive does apply it needs to apply hard

2) This passive has to be at least "in-the-ballpark" of effectiveness as a like or comparable passive, in this case, Burning Light. Since BL has no target proc restriction that means that it's able to stack and apply during the entirety of combat. Players who (smartly) stack damage instances will make full advantage of BL and see it applying stacks on targets relatively quickly. Even in PvP this is a viable passive that deals damage that will regularly show up on death recaps. .. The same goes for how well DKs can apply and scale Burning.

If Static as a Mastery passive can't keep up with the potential (output wise) as other classes base passives I don't see it getting slotted.

If they applied your suggestion to make the passive have a more reasonable application chance but also gave it a progressive scale like Bloodthirsty I think they might have something.

That's a great point, I'll edit that in. Plus, it's just cool and also further enforces the execute dynamic.

I would say if we're comparing it to Burning Light, I think that passive was done dirty a LONG time ago. I was pissed for a long time that Implosion was removed instead of reworking it like Burning Light, but now that Static is here as a spiritual successor which managed to keep the "death by a thousand cuts" playstyle alive, it makes BL comparitively so boring on its roughly 2.2~2.4s average. Templar doesn't need to do anything additional in terms of build choice to amplify BL beyond what it's capable of and I hope... I HOPE ZOS doesn't go that direction with the changes tomorrow because that would swing too far in the wrong direction.

Also for context, original Implosion was a 6% chance via all Shock or Physical damage to enemies below 15% HP, but it procced for a massive amount. I swear back then I had at least a 10k tooltip, it didn't work great on Mag Sorc with the typical Curse + Fury setup, but it was my bread and butter as Stam Sorc with Hurricane, Deadly Cloak, and many dots ticking on 1s. It was fun to build for, but times have changed, new one is better balanced, but if it's going to be much weaker, at least let some form of it happen from 100% HP to make it worth using. It's a shame I don't want to touch it outside of PvE.

Dracane wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

I've touched Sorc lots. It has been underbaked as a class for 12 years now, but the Mastery is undeniably strong. If you guys are referring to relatively underpowered MagSorc builds, there have been 0 metas where "stack max mag to do everything (from range)" has been balanced, either busted op or useless garbage, here's hoping the upcoming rework resolves this.

This is the crux of the issue and a lot of it stems from the fact there seems to be no real "Sorc Dev" on the team and hasn't been since probably Vvardenfell (or maybe even earlier) given how the Sorcerer changes have been handled over the years.

Overload 3rd bar removal (completely killed the pets as a synergistic and integrated part of the class kit), that resulted in splitting the class into 2 separate distinct and conflicting playstyles that resulted in both of them needing to outsource many key aspects of their builds to non-class skills (or other class lines post sub-classing).

The refusal to expand Sorcerers abilities to have secondary effects/buff/debuff access, etc. Stems from some outdated (launch era) notion that classes need to rely on other classes to gain access the buffs that all of the other classes have not had to live be for years now, but sorcerer still suffers under (see some of the dev notes during U38-45 patch notes for proof of this).

U41 ward changes that were insane numbers buffs, but with zero added functionality beyond flat numbers increases, the numbers had to be that big or the buff would completely flop (see the ward nerf in U46 where the line just fell off a cliff in PvP, especially with sub-classing pushing damage infinitely high on top of that nerf and the line is only used for atro in PvE).

Design of crit surge needing to deal critical strikes to "heal over time" but no sticky DoTs in the kit for consistent damage ticks or access to major Prophecy/Savagery for years (and only really stamsorc eventually got that buff on armaments), oh and pets cannot proc this ability either.

The changes to max stats, their removal from the switch of Champion Point 1 system to Champion Point 2 system, the changes to the damage formula years ago to make max stats significantly lower than stacking weapon/spell damage, the shift of scaling healing off weapon/spell damage instead of max stats, and the constant changes to Sorcerers max stats passives/effects so that they are now a janky unreliable mess spread across multiple passives and skill lines (both of which are borderline useless in a sub-classing world).

Cast times on Sorcerer abilities to balance out access to streak (Sorc needing to keep away to ensure reliable use of defensive capabilities), but then giving every class infinite baseline speed at no cost and now sub-classing for streak on top of that speed as well without any cost to their other defensive capabilities such as removal of mitigation, cast times on their healing abilities, etc.

Everything being so generic it works better for non-sorc abilities than it does for sorc abilities

Keeping these flaws in the Sorcerers class kit has meant that the only way to make Sorcerer competitive (in any setting) is to bump the numbers up so stupidly high (see U41 ward changes, class sets and class masteries as proof) that there's no way to truly balance them.

These design fallacies ZOS has with Sorc really need to be addressed or the Sorc refresh will flop just as bad as everything else ZOS has tried with Sorc.

When doing Sorcs refresh, ZOS needs to:

- delete the extremely outdated notion from their minds that Sorc needs other classes for basic buffs (resolve, brut/sorc, proph/sav) or debuffs (breach).
- delete cast times (especially hidden ones such as on fury/flood) as the "balancing" mechanics for streak now that every class sits at speed cap and has access to streak anyway (with sub-classing).
- delete the many internal conflicts inherent within sorcs design (the crit surge case and the pet v no pet resulting from overload 3rd bar removal as examples).
- stop trying to simply force big numbers through as the way to fix the classes inherent design flaws when a complete redesign from the ground up is required.
- start tying some of sorcs strengths to actual sorc abilities rather than being completely generic that better suits everything else than it does sorc abilities.
- remove the extreme redundancy from sorcs abilities (the class doesn't need like 6 sustain passives on top of 4-5 sustain based secondary effects and a sustain based class mastery, it's complete overkill).
- revert the shift of all of sorcs abilities into delayed burst for this "one big 5 stacked ability combo" that still deals less damage than just casting a single molten whip or timing MR + shulks does for DK or sub-classed builds respectively, allow the class some actual pressure abilities in its kit outside of overload to facilitate other playstyles.

Also, now that DK is giving the entire group major berserk when casting an ultimate (any ultimate) from the DK mastery as well as major heroism to the group (that also allows the caster to cast that ultimate much more frequently), on top of being a superior parse DD thanks to the abundance of cleave access DK has that Sorcerer does not have, Sorcerer needs it's own unique reason to bring it to groups since DK is taking the existing only reason to bring Sorcerers into end-game PvE group content at all (that being atro on a support for group major berserk).

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Exactly.

DK has the (awesome) "problem" where they have SO many great skills that you just want to slot them all and get severe FOMO when you are constrained by your scarce bar space.

Meanwhile, over in Sorc-Land, you could delete 75% of total Sorc skills and nobody would care - or even notice - because they are such collective dogwater that they haven't been slotted by serious players since the age of Elsweyr.

I will say, though, that when every class has as stacked skills as DK... the game will be absolutely cooking again. And it will be glorious.

Also, probably closer to 85% of sorcs abilities could be removed and nobody would notice. The only ones people would notice enough to complain about would be the pets (and only pet mains would complain), hurricane (this specific morph only) and Streak (PvP) (wow a whopping 6 out of 36 morphs of the entire kit would have people notice/complain if they got removed). Everything else is just too niche, completely redundant or just simply outclassed by better alternatives.

p.s. not counting atro anymore since it's redundant with DK mastery passive, also not counting ward anymore because U46 nerf completely killed it to the point that shield soul is a better shield than ward due to secondary effects + utility beyond just being a shield.

Spot on .. To be honest the only reason I think we see Streak to the level that we do in PvP is because someone picked up SC for the Hurricane / Lightning skill (for the Resolve) and figured there's a CC skill too so might as well. Streak has awful follow up potential for a CC ability and given it's 15m range it now falls short since everyone can slot either mobility skills that also provide CC immunities or can slot Toppling or Spear, both of which have a farther range than Streak.

I also agree that it's never just about changing numbers. One of the biggest pain points with Sorc skills is the underlying mechanics .. whether we're talking about ridiculously long and clumsy animations, to procs that don't synergize well, long cast times, or even ground based AoEs that are easily avoided and/or would confine the caster in combat.

Here's a great example: Haunting Curse vs Deep Fissure. On paper these two skills are similar, high scaling damage output that have two delayed bursts to their method of application. .. But those skills couldn't be farther apart. Deep Fissure not only scales to similar values as Curse but Curse has a clear telegraph which allows anyone who can count to 3 & 8 to heal through it. Fissure, on the other hand doesn't have a telegraph, it has an animation; that's a big difference. This helps to enable Fissure to apply at least one instance of damage as targets don't see it coming. Fissure can also apply to multiple targets whereas Curse can only be active on one target at a time. Curse does have an AoE potential but only for it's second instance. Fissure also has the benefit of following the caster and not being locked to an individual target, enabling the caster more flexibility in it's applications.

Not even looking at the major & minor debuffs Fissure brings, I'm just looking at the fundamental mechanical differences between how these two skills operate and it's easy to see why, even debuffs aside, Fissure is a much better choice than Curse. IMO for Haunting Curse to ever be viable it's not just about adjusting the numbers it about changing how the skill works to make it more competitive. And it's not just Curse, like you said, easily 85% of Sorc skills need attention.

Shalks is to me very telegraphed, just like Curse is. The reason why Curse is bad and not much used is because it's cleansable for some reason and cleanses are too often used nowadays.

So you are better off not slotting it or being smarter and just sublcassing Warden over it as you should. This is one of the main things I adamantly expect to be fixed with the class rework; Daedric Curse being uncleansable.

Shalks isn't a telegraph because a telegraph requires an animation to precede the actual damage application by some measurable margin. The entire point of a telegraph is to give the opponent the opportunity to counter the attack, typically with a block or dodge.

Shalks appear upon the first burst of damage, not before. This is why it's more of an animation rather than a telegraph. You can certainly mitigate the 2nd burst but players don't receive a before-apply warning for Shalks. Further, since it's not considered a "ground based" skill it doesn't activate negative AoE custom warning colors, if one has those enabled.

Basically, once you see the first Shalks, it's too late, you've already been hit with the first burst plus the debuff. Now, one could consider the basic animation to be a quasi telegraph, however, in the pace of PvP and given that the animation is quick and so similar to other skills I would argue that really isn't enough in the current state of combat.

Curse, on the other hand, carries a clear telegraph when that ward floats toward you. From that point you know that in 3 seconds a burst is going to occur and again in another 8. This enables the player to mitigate Curse in a number of ways and gives them clear lead time to do it.

MashmalloMan wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Have you even touched the Sorc with anecdotal gameplay in actual content or are you still disillusioned based ONLY on PTS parse numbers/ number statistics? Sorc is still way underbaked, Idk what kind of stuff you're seeing but Sorc passives still need alot of work.

I've touched Sorc lots. It has been underbaked as a class for 12 years now, but the Mastery is undeniably strong. If you guys are referring to relatively underpowered MagSorc builds, there have been 0 metas where "stack max mag to do everything (from range)" has been balanced, either busted op or useless garbage, here's hoping the upcoming rework resolves this.

This is the crux of the issue and a lot of it stems from the fact there seems to be no real "Sorc Dev" on the team and hasn't been since probably Vvardenfell (or maybe even earlier) given how the Sorcerer changes have been handled over the years.

Overload 3rd bar removal (completely killed the pets as a synergistic and integrated part of the class kit), that resulted in splitting the class into 2 separate distinct and conflicting playstyles that resulted in both of them needing to outsource many key aspects of their builds to non-class skills (or other class lines post sub-classing).

The refusal to expand Sorcerers abilities to have secondary effects/buff/debuff access, etc. Stems from some outdated (launch era) notion that classes need to rely on other classes to gain access the buffs that all of the other classes have not had to live be for years now, but sorcerer still suffers under (see some of the dev notes during U38-45 patch notes for proof of this).

U41 ward changes that were insane numbers buffs, but with zero added functionality beyond flat numbers increases, the numbers had to be that big or the buff would completely flop (see the ward nerf in U46 where the line just fell off a cliff in PvP, especially with sub-classing pushing damage infinitely high on top of that nerf and the line is only used for atro in PvE).

Design of crit surge needing to deal critical strikes to "heal over time" but no sticky DoTs in the kit for consistent damage ticks or access to major Prophecy/Savagery for years (and only really stamsorc eventually got that buff on armaments), oh and pets cannot proc this ability either.

The changes to max stats, their removal from the switch of Champion Point 1 system to Champion Point 2 system, the changes to the damage formula years ago to make max stats significantly lower than stacking weapon/spell damage, the shift of scaling healing off weapon/spell damage instead of max stats, and the constant changes to Sorcerers max stats passives/effects so that they are now a janky unreliable mess spread across multiple passives and skill lines (both of which are borderline useless in a sub-classing world).

Cast times on Sorcerer abilities to balance out access to streak (Sorc needing to keep away to ensure reliable use of defensive capabilities), but then giving every class infinite baseline speed at no cost and now sub-classing for streak on top of that speed as well without any cost to their other defensive capabilities such as removal of mitigation, cast times on their healing abilities, etc.

Everything being so generic it works better for non-sorc abilities than it does for sorc abilities

Keeping these flaws in the Sorcerers class kit has meant that the only way to make Sorcerer competitive (in any setting) is to bump the numbers up so stupidly high (see U41 ward changes, class sets and class masteries as proof) that there's no way to truly balance them.

These design fallacies ZOS has with Sorc really need to be addressed or the Sorc refresh will flop just as bad as everything else ZOS has tried with Sorc.

When doing Sorcs refresh, ZOS needs to:

- delete the extremely outdated notion from their minds that Sorc needs other classes for basic buffs (resolve, brut/sorc, proph/sav) or debuffs (breach).
- delete cast times (especially hidden ones such as on fury/flood) as the "balancing" mechanics for streak now that every class sits at speed cap and has access to streak anyway (with sub-classing).
- delete the many internal conflicts inherent within sorcs design (the crit surge case and the pet v no pet resulting from overload 3rd bar removal as examples).
- stop trying to simply force big numbers through as the way to fix the classes inherent design flaws when a complete redesign from the ground up is required.
- start tying some of sorcs strengths to actual sorc abilities rather than being completely generic that better suits everything else than it does sorc abilities.
- remove the extreme redundancy from sorcs abilities (the class doesn't need like 6 sustain passives on top of 4-5 sustain based secondary effects and a sustain based class mastery, it's complete overkill).
- revert the shift of all of sorcs abilities into delayed burst for this "one big 5 stacked ability combo" that still deals less damage than just casting a single molten whip or timing MR + shulks does for DK or sub-classed builds respectively, allow the class some actual pressure abilities in its kit outside of overload to facilitate other playstyles.

Also, now that DK is giving the entire group major berserk when casting an ultimate (any ultimate) from the DK mastery as well as major heroism to the group (that also allows the caster to cast that ultimate much more frequently), on top of being a superior parse DD thanks to the abundance of cleave access DK has that Sorcerer does not have, Sorcerer needs it's own unique reason to bring it to groups since DK is taking the existing only reason to bring Sorcerers into end-game PvE group content at all (that being atro on a support for group major berserk).

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Exactly.

DK has the (awesome) "problem" where they have SO many great skills that you just want to slot them all and get severe FOMO when you are constrained by your scarce bar space.

Meanwhile, over in Sorc-Land, you could delete 75% of total Sorc skills and nobody would care - or even notice - because they are such collective dogwater that they haven't been slotted by serious players since the age of Elsweyr.

I will say, though, that when every class has as stacked skills as DK... the game will be absolutely cooking again. And it will be glorious.

Also, probably closer to 85% of sorcs abilities could be removed and nobody would notice. The only ones people would notice enough to complain about would be the pets (and only pet mains would complain), hurricane (this specific morph only) and Streak (PvP) (wow a whopping 6 out of 36 morphs of the entire kit would have people notice/complain if they got removed). Everything else is just too niche, completely redundant or just simply outclassed by better alternatives.

p.s. not counting atro anymore since it's redundant with DK mastery passive, also not counting ward anymore because U46 nerf completely killed it to the point that shield soul is a better shield than ward due to secondary effects + utility beyond just being a shield.

Spot on .. To be honest the only reason I think we see Streak to the level that we do in PvP is because someone picked up SC for the Hurricane / Lightning skill (for the Resolve) and figured there's a CC skill too so might as well. Streak has awful follow up potential for a CC ability and given it's 15m range it now falls short since everyone can slot either mobility skills that also provide CC immunities or can slot Toppling or Spear, both of which have a farther range than Streak.

I also agree that it's never just about changing numbers. One of the biggest pain points with Sorc skills is the underlying mechanics .. whether we're talking about ridiculously long and clumsy animations, to procs that don't synergize well, long cast times, or even ground based AoEs that are easily avoided and/or would confine the caster in combat.

Here's a great example: Haunting Curse vs Deep Fissure. On paper these two skills are similar, high scaling damage output that have two delayed bursts to their method of application. .. But those skills couldn't be farther apart. Deep Fissure not only scales to similar values as Curse but Curse has a clear telegraph which allows anyone who can count to 3 & 8 to heal through it. Fissure, on the other hand doesn't have a telegraph, it has an animation; that's a big difference. This helps to enable Fissure to apply at least one instance of damage as targets don't see it coming. Fissure can also apply to multiple targets whereas Curse can only be active on one target at a time. Curse does have an AoE potential but only for it's second instance. Fissure also has the benefit of following the caster and not being locked to an individual target, enabling the caster more flexibility in it's applications.

Not even looking at the major & minor debuffs Fissure brings, I'm just looking at the fundamental mechanical differences between how these two skills operate and it's easy to see why, even debuffs aside, Fissure is a much better choice than Curse. IMO for Haunting Curse to ever be viable it's not just about adjusting the numbers it about changing how the skill works to make it more competitive. And it's not just Curse, like you said, easily 85% of Sorc skills need attention.

Missing 1 key point as to why Curse sucks in comparison to Fissure. It can be purged.

My god, it is so frustrating to constantly waste a GCD or your entire burst window just because a player is using one or both of the most popular skill lines in the game via Restoring Light and Animal Companions. Betty passively does it, so sometimes they didn't even intentionally mean to counter your burst. Ritual is OP af by purging 5 effects and allows allies to do the same thing the moment they see the purple glow on themselves. It's terrible.

Subclassing only highlighted this further since purges became more popular, but also because the traditional delayed burst skills you can pick up, all have debuffs attached to them, even the super crappy Power of the Light (which shares a similar issue).

Curse has a 3k tooltip, so it hits the middle of the road between Fissures 2 ticks, but can be purged, lacks major/minor Breach, and deals way less cleave as a result of the application type.

Blighted Blastbones has a 3.6k tooltip, but because it always applies a unique source of Diseased, it deals an additional roughly 400 damage for a combined 4k tooltip. 33% more than Haunting Curse... and it reduces healing via major/minor defile.

I don't even really consider the 2nd burst as a part of the skill budget anymore due to purges and the odds of me being able to line up another perfect combo in the subsequent 8.5s is highly unlikely unless it was a duel. Frankly, I'd rather cast the ability every 4s when I'm actually ready to use it so it doesn't really add anything I need outside of a DPS parse on a dummy.

Before subclassing, all I heard about BB was complaints related to the AI pathing and how it got CC'ed so much, but honestly.. since their most recent change where it jumps at the target, it's leagues better than Curse. It eats ultimates and burst abilities all the time, and even if it gets CC'ed, it rarely outright dies, it just delays my burst window for a more convenient and surprising time.

Personally, they really don't need to do much to make Curse competitive again.

• Daedric Curse
  • Moved from Daedric Summoning to Dark Magic.
  • Radius increased from 5m to 7m.
    • Haunting Curse
      • Can still be blocked, still targetted to 1 enemy at a time, but can no longer be purged.
      • Applies Major Breach and +x% Damage Taken for Monsters while active.
      • When target dies, explodes up to once instantly to nearby enemies.
    • Daedric Prey (Complete rework).
      • Curse is applied to yourself instead of your target, can still be blocked, but not dodged.
      • Applies Major Protection to yourself while active.
      • Explodes twice over 12s, but deals 30% less damage than Haunting Curse, increasing in damage done by +15% per enemy hit including the 1st up to 6 targets.
      • Just for fun, also explodes instantly when you die to nearby enemies.

Overall, I think Sorc can make a clear playstyle choice for their morphs that isn't based on Blue vs Green, but based on Ranged vs Melee for today's ESO context. To me, that was what the best part about original Mag vs Stam Sorc that got lost with hybridization, now would be a good opportunity to bring it back and make morphs more interesting.

For example; Hurricane can stay as is, but Boundless Storm also gets Minor Expedition. Major Expedition could be moved to an ability that makes more sense like a reworked Ball of Lightning (which doesn't absorb projectiles), and the aoe dot could be removed in favour of a buff to status effect chance or direct damage that works from any range. Since ESO released, Boundless Storm has been in this very weird state. Mag Sorc didn't need the aoe dot and spamming your armor buff feels super awkward, give something that really helps that playstyle we remember.

With that explanation out of the way, that's where the 2 above Curse ideas come from. Haunting Curse for ranged, Daedric Prey for melee. HC is more powerful for single target, especially in PvE where Sorc is treated as a high priority nuker, but DP is great for aoe and melee with some defense thrown in to warrant getting in close. Since DP is self cast, it solves the Fissure vs Curse problem you raised by giving you more control of where it lands. DP would behave like a more consistent, less extreme, Proxy Det, similar to DK's Incinerate, but more power with less ticks and less radius.

I think of all the abilities, most Sorc mains would agree Curse is probably the most likely to move, so having a pet themed morph no one liked to begin with wouldn't really make sense anymore. The only good part about Prey is how it focusses your pets, but that can be added to a passive or new ability like Rune Prison. The debuff of +50% damage can be moved to the core pets power with Tormentor getting a real activation worth casting.

This is all super off topic, but interesting to me nontheless. For all pets including Warden and Necro, I'd also like to see a permanent vs non permanent option built in. A simple addition like:

"If this ability is slotted on 2 bars, the activation will permanently summon the pet in addition to its on cast effects. While summoned, the pet now passively attacks."

This would basically mean you can use Bear, Tormentor, and Familiar on 1 bar, but they no longer passively attack. Necro could double bar Skele Mage for passive attacks with a rework to the activation. Matriarch and Clanfear could actually be used for support roles like Spirit Guardian without the problem of taking up 2 slots for nothing. Bear could use a rework to make the cast better, but same princible. Options.

Also, just make all pets untargettable. It's way too problematic and gives extremes of complete uselessness to overwhelmingly OP. Skele Archer does this perfectly fine, no one has ever complained about not being able to kill it, and if passive attacks were really a problem, ZOS could implement a damage buff/penalty to players or monsters like they have been doing.

GET RID OF THE CLUNKINESS.

Agreed. I've always felt that having to use Curse amounted to a double tax on Sorcs just to manage pets in any real, meaningful form, since the AI for them has always been clunky. I could see Curse (and morphs) getting moved out of Daedric and a major debuff like Breach is a great idea, either that or Minor Hindrance (reducing movement speed by 40%).

Sorcs are in need of at least:

A solid source of spammable high damage burst

A source of target movement debuff

A source of immunity to immobilizations and snares

I could see Major Breach being applied to a re-work of Shattered Spines, the damage plus major debuff and potential for soft CC would bring that morph more in line with similar skills.