I get that people feel that there's excessive hate for Pet Sorcs but if we set feelings aside for a moment and look at what the real complaints are with Sorc pets it's not the lore or identity aspect it's the fundamental mechanics.

So much has changed since ESO launched. Much has changed behind the nature of combat and how effective combat carries out in game. Whether any of us like that or not that's a real truth. That said, any and every class skill sets should seek to perform within the context for the current combat environment.

I agree that having to double slot pets is unfair, I also beleive that having to multi-cast Prey to redirect and control Sorc pets amounts to a "double tax" on Sorcs that isn't really fair given how little damage those pets do.

The reason players hate on pets is because they severely under-perform in the context of what most all other skills in the game deliver. I get people like playing pets but it's pretty factually demonstrated that Sorc pets have a low slot rate. They don't consistently top Logs and they're not a mainstay in PvP, and it's no wonder why.

When Sorcs as a class are notoriously short on raw burst damage, having to carry around a skill line that features skills and passives dedicated toward underperforming pets causes pain points.

If one is going to ask to keep pets or see pets get more love from players then they need to admit that pets are lacking and advocate for the actual full rebuild that they need. Not just bumping up values, not just enabling a one slot summon, but an actual rebuild of the mechanics that sees them delivering on power output or major buff potential that skills in other classes bring.

As it stands now they're little more than body blocks that deal pin prick damage and are incredibly easily mitigated.

It's hard to make a case for Sorc pet lore when Sorcs are more often having to rely on World & Weapon skill lines to fill a build out rather than being able to truly rely on their own Class, or being confined to a primarily HA playstyle .. There's very little build variety in either of those whereas other Classes can go ham build crafting.

Do things like Fire Orb in Infinite Archive still count as pets for the purposes of these anti-pet sets?

Celas_Dranacea wrote: »

The more I think about it, I think the dissonance that I’m feeling is that there already exists a case where another class can exceed the movement speed cap without having to gap close onto a targeted enemy.(sorc w streak).

Any player with a gap closer can generally stay on on a streaking sorc for a little bit of time before resources run out, that is not unique to werewolf.

But in a pure foot race without the use of a gap closer requiring a target, no other build would come close to a max speed + streak build.

So when I think about that case, I think that there reasonably might be other cases where there would be justifiable similar treatment, and I think werewolf is such a case.

If ZOS has factored this into the sorc / stormcalling “power budget” and has conscious reasoning behind this then I accept it. But if not, then I’m just highlighting this balance difference.

Players have been complaining about Sorcerer/Streak since the beginning without understanding the reason Sorcerer is so dependent on that ability or the aspect of needing to out-speed the other classes in PvP.

Keeping distance has been Sorcerers entire defensive design and balance since the games beginning, it's why:
- the pets (matriarch especially) have a long cast time to summon them, can be killed and take 2 bar slots
- dark exchange has a cast time and gives so much sustain
- the class has shields instead of heals as it's main form of "healing" and "blocking"

Unfortunately most ESO players don't care about these balancing aspects to Sorcerer, they only see Streak and just default to complaining about the entire class being OP when the entire class was designed around streak and is actually extremely underpowered (both offensively and defensively) when the ability to keep distance is removed from the equation (which is also why CC and gap closers have always been hard counters to sorcerer because it removes the capability to create that needed distance).

Dracane wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

My initial impression was that the class masteries are too weak, then I doubted a bit when some started saying they are broken, but I am also back to thinking they are not enough. There was a wow effect for a few day, yet when considering everything and leaving aside unintended interactions, none of the masteries are good enough to seriously compete with subclassing at least as far as pvp is concerned.

And it seems I am far from alone in my thinking.

You're not wrong. I didn't test every class, I figured there were enough mains to cover them all .. but when I looked at Sorc I saw the same thing you are.

People sometimes forget that there's an opportunity cost for choices we make in game. It's one thing to say X or Y Class Mastery passive is "good", in a vacuum .. but when one looks at those passives versus Subclassing that's where things fall short. There's no Class Mastery passive that I'm seeing that's going to present a sweeter opportunity than being able to slot a Merciless Resolve or Fatecarver or Shalks or Surprise Attack.

These Mastery passives, from what I understand, are supposed to be a partial class enhancement to hold us over whilst the Devs work on the class refreshes; then seeing the Mastery passives adjusted as each class is re-worked for balance.

These current Mastery passives aren't delivering the type of power or flexibility that Subclassing does, full stop.

It doesn't matter whether it's PvE or PvP, Subclassing just delivers too much and if the only restrictions Subclassed builds have are these weak passives it's going to be a hard sell convincing people to stick with a pure base class build versus subbing.

I don't doubt some people are seeing an increase in power by using the Class Mastery passives now than the power they were seeing before, BUT, that doesn't mean that the power they were outputting before the Mastery passives was anywhere near on par with the potential of what's out there; either for PvP or PvE.

Thank you. You said this all well.
The strongest of the class masteries is not universally strong enough to replace the things subclassing does. And they don't necessarily have to at this moment in time. As long as it's not griefing to play pure Templar, Sorc etc. until their reworks, then I am also glad.

I just say this because I hope ZoS do not nerf any of them so soon only because there was some hype around them for a few days. The next update could genuinly be one of the most exciting ESO patches in recent memory. That is if things don't release butchered and balanced to death.

It's so boring how everything Sorc gets are fix values, because they are afraid to give them anything that scales. Surge > fix heal value unaffected by stats. Dark Deal the same, and the previous iteration of Conservation of Energy too was a fix value.
It's tiresome when nothing scales.

Agreed .. I don't believe these passives should take any class into "near-meta" territory but they should seek to deliver class-only elevations to either power or utility, whatever the class is missing. This way these pure class options have a greater potential to be competitive with subclassed builds.

Sorc IMO has always been a tricky class for the Devs. To start, the class has two widely disparagingly play style paths between pet-based and non-pet-based. This is further compounded by mechanics. The fundamental mechanics behind how Sorc skills execute their functions are so poorly optimized that it's almost laughable; this includes excessively long animations or even the AI behind how Sorc pets behave, to even the method of requiring opponents to stand-in-stupid easy to avoid skills that yield no results. It's not always about numbers it's also about method and function.

Sorcs biggest deficiency is raw power and, IMO, that's what these passives need to bring but the values they give are just too low, especially in the context of our poor skills. ... What's a 20% temporary increase in damage if I can run a persistent 17% AND have access to Subbed skills? .. Or equip Beacon of Oblivion and cop a 15% bonus to damage PLUS whatever else from Subclassed passives AND have access to better skills? For Sorcs this is really a no brainer, these passives just don't deliver.

It sounds like the other classes are in the same boat with these passives based on what others are posting. I don't think these passives is really going to encourage anyone to go with a base class unless these passives are tweaked to hit HARD. .. And that shouldn't be an issue because the values and scope of them can always be adjusted down during the class refreshes anyway.