Turtle_Bot wrote: »YandereGirlfriend 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.
Dark Magic isn't useless. It's actually the best sustain skill line in the game, which means you can drop a lot of sustain from other sources and spec into full damage/defense. I'd have to explain in depth as to why it is the case, so if you're ever interested feel free to add me on discord. My discord @name is static.wave
The problem is that Sorc's passives and skills haven't been unpdated over the years. This is not a difficult fix, but I can guarantee you that if ZOS gives even a few decent addition of Major/Minor buffs, Sorc is going to be top tier in a heartbeat.
I mean, it has Dark Deal and the Block passive.
The Block passive is probably one of my favorites in the whole game but it goes back to the actual skills in the line, the overwhelming majority of which are hot garbage on both morphs and have no future (hopefully) in the game after the rework.
The Blood Magic heal without the Mastery is completely dead because there simply are not any DM skills that you would ever be casting with any sort of regularity to proc the passive on a consistent basis.
I agree that you could staple some Crit Dam to Exploitation and make it a cheap clone of the NB passive and that would help a tiny bit. But like... every skill not named Dark Deal in that line is basically un-slottable. Which is the crux of the issue with Sorc overall.
That block passive is one of my least liked passives in the game (probably a playstyle/role difference).
To me, a sorcerer (at least how the current active skills are designed) is using dodge rolls, shields and mobility to mitigate damage (especially with cast times on frags/dark deal/pets), not sitting there holding block and face tanking damage like a DK does, so it always puzzled me why that passive only works on block instead of including shields, mobility and dodge rolls as well. Even more so because shields don't get block mitigation (at all), so using a shield then holding block is generally a waste of resources/GCDs (outside of some specific PvE encounters that require that much temporary bonus health + the mitigation from block).
Turtle_Bot wrote: »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.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.
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.
Turtle_Bot wrote: »YandereGirlfriend 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.
Dark Magic isn't useless. It's actually the best sustain skill line in the game, which means you can drop a lot of sustain from other sources and spec into full damage/defense. I'd have to explain in depth as to why it is the case, so if you're ever interested feel free to add me on discord. My discord @name is static.wave
The problem is that Sorc's passives and skills haven't been unpdated over the years. This is not a difficult fix, but I can guarantee you that if ZOS gives even a few decent addition of Major/Minor buffs, Sorc is going to be top tier in a heartbeat.
I mean, it has Dark Deal and the Block passive.
The Block passive is probably one of my favorites in the whole game but it goes back to the actual skills in the line, the overwhelming majority of which are hot garbage on both morphs and have no future (hopefully) in the game after the rework.
The Blood Magic heal without the Mastery is completely dead because there simply are not any DM skills that you would ever be casting with any sort of regularity to proc the passive on a consistent basis.
I agree that you could staple some Crit Dam to Exploitation and make it a cheap clone of the NB passive and that would help a tiny bit. But like... every skill not named Dark Deal in that line is basically un-slottable. Which is the crux of the issue with Sorc overall.
That block passive is one of my least liked passives in the game (probably a playstyle/role difference).
To me, a sorcerer (at least how the current active skills are designed) is using dodge rolls, shields and mobility to mitigate damage (especially with cast times on frags/dark deal/pets), not sitting there holding block and face tanking damage like a DK does, so it always puzzled me why that passive only works on block instead of including shields, mobility and dodge rolls as well. Even more so because shields don't get block mitigation (at all), so using a shield then holding block is generally a waste of resources/GCDs (outside of some specific PvE encounters that require that much temporary bonus health + the mitigation from block).
Turtle_Bot wrote: »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.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.
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.
I can see the blueish circle appearing at the ground below the Warden that nicely closes and tells me when it's about to pop. To me, this, coupled with the obvious animation and sound of it being cast is very telegraphed. Now the 2nd activation of it can definitely surprise, because all I have is the closing circle to go by.
EDIT: No, sorry. Just looked at it on the PTS. The first instance is very telegraphed via the closing circle on the ground. The 2nd proc of it actually has no visual clue at all. So this would surprise me indeed. Not telegraphed.
YandereGirlfriend 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.
Dark Magic isn't useless. It's actually the best sustain skill line in the game, which means you can drop a lot of sustain from other sources and spec into full damage/defense. I'd have to explain in depth as to why it is the case, so if you're ever interested feel free to add me on discord. My discord @name is static.wave
The problem is that Sorc's passives and skills haven't been unpdated over the years. This is not a difficult fix, but I can guarantee you that if ZOS gives even a few decent addition of Major/Minor buffs, Sorc is going to be top tier in a heartbeat.
I mean, it has Dark Deal and the Block passive.
The Block passive is probably one of my favorites in the whole game but it goes back to the actual skills in the line, the overwhelming majority of which are hot garbage on both morphs and have no future (hopefully) in the game after the rework.
The Blood Magic heal without the Mastery is completely dead because there simply are not any DM skills that you would ever be casting with any sort of regularity to proc the passive on a consistent basis.
I agree that you could staple some Crit Dam to Exploitation and make it a cheap clone of the NB passive and that would help a tiny bit. But like... every skill not named Dark Deal in that line is basically un-slottable. Which is the crux of the issue with Sorc overall.
Turtle_Bot wrote: »The thing is that while it's true that dark magic is a strong sustain line, there's just very minimal need for a dedicated sustain line in the current game with how free sustain has become.
Inhale (core of flame) post DK refresh completely overshadows the entire DM line with just a single skill, but even before the DK refresh, animal companions + bear haunch provided more sustain than DM provided and was completely passive, but also came with so much more for a build beyond just 1 active ability (that has a cast time) and a couple of passives, it comes with delayed burst, breach, speed, snare immunity, mitigation, unique damage, crit damage, cleanse, and more, so there just isn't a need to give up an entire skill line for sustain when it was so free already.
If somehow the sustain from AC + BH wasn't enough, swapping 1 jewelry glyph from damage to recovery was definitely more than enough as well with much less loss of damage that is than swapping an entire line for DM.

More specifically about the sustain part, let's say your main resource is stamina. A build without Dark Magic needs to use Orzoga sustain food and Sustained by Suffering CP for the extra 150 stam regen, along with whatever recovery ability that skill line has (normally Netch or Rune Focus). With Dark Magic, you can use Bewitched Sugar Skulls or a bi-stat food, which offer between 4.3k and 4.9k max stam. Most skills have a conversion ratio of 10.5 mag/stam = 1 wd/sd, meaning that by switching to a max attribute stat food you are essentially gaining an equivalent of 409 to 471 wd before modifiers. If you add the 6% max stam/mag from Undaunted and 10% from Blood Magic, you're gaining an extra 16% on top of that 4.3k - 4.9k stam, yielding a final converted value of 475 - 547 wd. This value does not appear on the passive descriptions, but requires knowledge in theorycrafting.
More specifically about the sustain part, let's say your main resource is stamina. A build without Dark Magic needs to use Orzoga sustain food and Sustained by Suffering CP for the extra 150 stam regen, along with whatever recovery ability that skill line has (normally Netch or Rune Focus). With Dark Magic, you can use Bewitched Sugar Skulls or a bi-stat food, which offer between 4.3k and 4.9k max stam. Most skills have a conversion ratio of 10.5 mag/stam = 1 wd/sd, meaning that by switching to a max attribute stat food you are essentially gaining an equivalent of 409 to 471 wd before modifiers. If you add the 6% max stam/mag from Undaunted and 10% from Blood Magic, you're gaining an extra 16% on top of that 4.3k - 4.9k stam, yielding a final converted value of 475 - 547 wd. This value does not appear on the passive descriptions, but requires knowledge in theorycrafting.
Yes and no.
This, in part, assumes a Stam Sorc .. but moreover this also assumes that the Sorc is at full health, otherwise, Blood Magic is providing the passive heal, not the increase to resource pool for the by proxy damage scaling.
In combat, a Sorc is going to be realizing the heal component of Blood Magic the vast majority of the time so I don't see this passive a meaningful source of a damage buff.
If we're talking about PvP then it's common knowledge that Stam based builds have light years worth of advantages over Mag based builds, but, since Sorc isn't inherently a Stam based class I don't think we're ready to just say that the damage shortfall with Sorc has been solved with these passives.
And now the Sorc passives will get nerfed, ensuring MagSorc remains light years behind, while StamSorc will still be able to abuse it just enough to be an annoyance.
StamSorc should have never happened.
More specifically about the sustain part, let's say your main resource is stamina. A build without Dark Magic needs to use Orzoga sustain food and Sustained by Suffering CP for the extra 150 stam regen, along with whatever recovery ability that skill line has (normally Netch or Rune Focus). With Dark Magic, you can use Bewitched Sugar Skulls or a bi-stat food, which offer between 4.3k and 4.9k max stam. Most skills have a conversion ratio of 10.5 mag/stam = 1 wd/sd, meaning that by switching to a max attribute stat food you are essentially gaining an equivalent of 409 to 471 wd before modifiers. If you add the 6% max stam/mag from Undaunted and 10% from Blood Magic, you're gaining an extra 16% on top of that 4.3k - 4.9k stam, yielding a final converted value of 475 - 547 wd. This value does not appear on the passive descriptions, but requires knowledge in theorycrafting.
Yes and no.
This, in part, assumes a Stam Sorc .. but moreover this also assumes that the Sorc is at full health, otherwise, Blood Magic is providing the passive heal, not the increase to resource pool for the by proxy damage scaling.
In combat, a Sorc is going to be realizing the heal component of Blood Magic the vast majority of the time so I don't see this passive a meaningful source of a damage buff.
If we're talking about PvP then it's common knowledge that Stam based builds have light years worth of advantages over Mag based builds, but, since Sorc isn't inherently a Stam based class I don't think we're ready to just say that the damage shortfall with Sorc has been solved with these passives.

Same reason they won't let me have god mode.AliceIbanez wrote: »From what I understand, we can only choose 2 talents. Why such a restriction?
Honestly, these are all easy changes that should have happened, but for god knows whatever reason, ZOS loves to make it painfully annoying to play these micromanagement games.
Turtle_Bot wrote: »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.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.
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.
Turtle_Bot wrote: »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.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.
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.
I've never experienced the 3-bar build of sorc, but honestly I would be really curious to try it on the refresh. How did it perform, and why was it removed?
Velocious_Curse wrote: »Listen. I'm not a nightblade guy. But the first iteration of the mastery passives were already behind the rest in regards to pvp.
Today's changes set them back even further.
For above and beyond, 5% crit damage with battle spirit isnt worth it imo. Just make it 25% for pve and 12% for pvp.
For eye of exploitation, just make it 1750 and 12% with battle spirit.
ArctosCethlenn wrote: »Velocious_Curse wrote: »Listen. I'm not a nightblade guy. But the first iteration of the mastery passives were already behind the rest in regards to pvp.
Today's changes set them back even further.
For above and beyond, 5% crit damage with battle spirit isnt worth it imo. Just make it 25% for pve and 12% for pvp.
For eye of exploitation, just make it 1750 and 12% with battle spirit.
It's kinda a joke, why are nightblade and plar damage masteries getting significant extra nerfs in pvp, but not sorc or dk?
More specifically about the sustain part, let's say your main resource is stamina. A build without Dark Magic needs to use Orzoga sustain food and Sustained by Suffering CP for the extra 150 stam regen, along with whatever recovery ability that skill line has (normally Netch or Rune Focus). With Dark Magic, you can use Bewitched Sugar Skulls or a bi-stat food, which offer between 4.3k and 4.9k max stam. Most skills have a conversion ratio of 10.5 mag/stam = 1 wd/sd, meaning that by switching to a max attribute stat food you are essentially gaining an equivalent of 409 to 471 wd before modifiers. If you add the 6% max stam/mag from Undaunted and 10% from Blood Magic, you're gaining an extra 16% on top of that 4.3k - 4.9k stam, yielding a final converted value of 475 - 547 wd. This value does not appear on the passive descriptions, but requires knowledge in theorycrafting.
Yes and no.
This, in part, assumes a Stam Sorc .. but moreover this also assumes that the Sorc is at full health, otherwise, Blood Magic is providing the passive heal, not the increase to resource pool for the by proxy damage scaling.
In combat, a Sorc is going to be realizing the heal component of Blood Magic the vast majority of the time so I don't see this passive a meaningful source of a damage buff.
If we're talking about PvP then it's common knowledge that Stam based builds have light years worth of advantages over Mag based builds, but, since Sorc isn't inherently a Stam based class I don't think we're ready to just say that the damage shortfall with Sorc has been solved with these passives.
And now the Sorc passives will get nerfed, ensuring MagSorc remains light years behind, while StamSorc will still be able to abuse it just enough to be an annoyance.
StamSorc should have never happened.
AliceIbanez wrote: »Hello Zenimax Online Studios.
From what I understand, we can only choose 2 talents.
Why such a restriction?
MagSorc players bitter their class isn't SSS Tier take it out on StamSorcs, like always.MashmalloMan wrote: »Uh [snip]? I feel personally attacked.
They nerfed the Pyre/Wildfire interaction to effectively 1 stack only. Should be good enough.Militan1404 wrote: »And why aint DK still adjusted?
They nerfed the Pyre/Wildfire interaction to effectively 1 stack only. Should be good enough.Militan1404 wrote: »And why aint DK still adjusted?
The reworked classes are the new standard. New WW is on par with New DK in PvP. Sorc was buffed in PvP by a lot. Yes it sucks to wait for the others but it seems like it will be worth it.Militan1404 wrote: »Might have missed something but dk was already the strongest class before the pyrebrand buff.