Turtle_Bot wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Overall these changes don't seem thought out for those of us who primarily run group content in pugs and casual guild groups. And do little for those of not running group content at all. In the case of sorc it is actually a nerf in that scenarios.

This was directly pointed out to ZOS 1-2 months ago when these proposed changes to the class passives were originally released for feedback.

ZOS just completely ignored all of the feedback regarding these class passive changes.

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

I think we must first establish a fundamental truth: a class’s overall strength is determined by its own damage output, survivability, and group contribution combined. When a change is made under the guise of “increasing class uniqueness,” yet it substantially cuts into the core stats of that class itself, it constitutes a nerf—regardless of any side benefits attached. That is exactly what happened with the U51 swap of the Sorcerer’s critical buff (and the Templar’s as well).

1. The pen-buff cannot compensate for the loss of critical.

In the current PvE environment, Pen is one of the easiest stats to cap through gear and racial passives. A standard trial group setup can easily reach the cap, whereas Critical is always a scarce and highly valuable stat.

To “utilize” this new Pen, some proposed group compositions have outright dropped other better Mythic sets and instead required the group to use Velothi—a Mythic set whose damage formula was adjusted in the previous patch (don’t get me wrong, it’s still decent, but it’s no longer top-tier for most classes). This is essentially a net-negative trade-off: if Pen is already capped, the buff is completely wasted; if it’s not capped, you have to sacrifice other more valuable stats to fit it, and overall damage often ends up no higher—or even lower.

2. “More choices” is just a fancy wrapper for taking away choice.

Some claim that this change “increases build flexibility,” but the opposite is true:

Before, groups could freely choose which critical buff to bring (Sorc or Nightblade), and that buff applied to the class itself as well—a double benefit.

Now, the Pen-buff forcibly replaces the critical buff, forcing Sorcerers to give up their own critical, while the Pen may be completely irrelevant to the group’s needs. Players have no option to keep the old effect—how is that “flexibility”? It’s simply forcing a mature, established setup to be replaced by an inferior one.

In short, this is not adding new options; it’s removing options from some players and forcing them onto others. If the devs truly wanted to add choice, they could have made the new Pen a separate passive or an optional skill, rather than directly overwriting a core group buff.

What’s more, if this change goes live, Sorcerers will struggle to be dps for the raid team for future. The so-called “more choices” will only reduce the number of viable options.

3. The skill redundancy issue is completely ignored

If anyone believe this change is an improvement, then them cannot ignore the long-standing problem of skill overlap within the Sorcerer class. This update did not address any of the redundant skills (e.g., multiple immobilizes, multiple resource passives), but instead made a one-size-fits-all swap on a key passive. This reveals that the dev team does not truly understand the Sorcerer’s pain points. Rather than giving a trivial Pen-buff, they should have reworked Exploiter or consolidated the Dark Magic passives so that Sorcerers could keep their own critical while providing group Pen through specific actions. This is not “balance” or "more choices "—it’s lazy nerfing.

4. Player feedback was ignored.

A full month before U51 hit the PTS, the community submitted extensive objections, clearly pointing out the drawbacks of this Pen-buff. Yet these comments were completely disregarded in the final update. It shows a disregard for player experience. When a change lacks any data support (the devs have published no statistics showing Pen outperforms Critical, nor any developer commentary), and goes against the practical experience of most players, it again proves that this is merely an attempt to force class representation rates, at the expense of the Sorcerer’s core gameplay.

To sum up in one sentence: If a change forces you to re-stack an easily overcapped stat while taking away a core offensive stat that scales linearly, then it is a nerf—no matter what fancy name it’s given.

(The above arguments also apply equally to the Templar.)

Thal wrote: »

As the title said, please reconsider this change. There are a variety of other simple options which wouldn’t effectively kill the class (other than larping) for end game until the (now highly delayed) class refresh.

Effectively, there will now be zero reason for a raid group to bring a Templar. No one is pining over a way to add a minor amount of damage reduction for the group in 2026.

Simple fix: Templar retains Brutality, DK gets Armor passive. Templar has an entire class mastery dedicated to enhancing the Minor Prophecy proc for the group (Bright Harbinger). Now it makes absolutely no sense, other than the decade-long quest to make every change a nerf to Templar and a buff to DK

Another option is to just change the buff to something useful and creative. For instance, a unique +dmg done buff while in Templar’s Sacred Ground

There actually isn’t a need to remove minor brutality from one or the other class (DK/Plar).

You could very easily have both classes continue to source it. If applied by BOTH, activate a new and different buff for group. Encourages group diversity and makes achieving these buffs easier in smaller groups.