Survivability & Solo potential comparison

hauwlynb16_ESO

In all those debates seen since launch, it seems like the rumor spread that survivability and soloing tough content was a DK's exclusivity. I brought some footage to dispel some of those misconceptions. Those 3 videos are players soloing Hircine's haunt with 3 different classes. All of those were done pre 1.1.3 patch.

Let's start with the Nightblade.

Build

You can see he uses a decent strategy. Siphoning Attacks lets him have infinite magicka to cast and stamina to block, Inner light ensures a bit more damage and ult generation, and his strategy uses Quick Siphon. His class having basically infinite magicka means he does not need the Siphon spirit morph. He spends the fight blocking, and when he makes a few mistakes he almost dies but manages to survive. He has to work a decent amount to pull that off, but this is something a lot of people could imitate still.

Here is the DK.

Build

His first bar is only used to give him an early advantage, he never swaps back to it. Note his reliance on Battle Roar(gets ressources from dropping ults) to keep his magicka up and how he starts being starved as the fight goes on. His strategy is a bit less researched and complex, and he has a bit of an easier time than the nightblade, despite having to use a potion. This strategy cannot work anymore since 1.1.3 hit, though. He barely has any ressource left at the end, and both standard being nerfed and ult generation being lowered means that(ever so slightly, this one doesn't use much crit), executed this way, it wouldn't work anymore post-1.1.3, and even less with an incoming burning talons nerf. Still, with a better strategy, and one that would require decent execution like the Nightblade, this is still possible for a DK to pull off.

And now, here is a Sorcerer doing it.

Build

His survival depends on Critical Surge, so he also has inner light to ensure more crits, he spams elemental ring as it's an easy to use surrounding AoE, really handy for those situations, and he uses a fully charged energy overload as his magicka sustain, all the while keeping AoE damage to ensure his survival, he finishes with half his ult reserve left, meaning he could have gone for twice as long. The other 2 skills are optional, but offer some survivability and damage to make it easy enough. He has by far the easiest time with it, he can even hit the wrong key for several seconds and go back up to full the moment he realizes his mistake, and here's by far the most impressing feat: unlike the other two, he doesn't block. You can cast while blocking, but it seems this one doesn't know that, or doesn't care given he doesn't need to care. Blocking is mandatory for any other class than a sorc to survive those tough fights. This sorcerer doesn't need to block, doesn't need to use animation clipping, he just needs to make sure he doesn't forget to keep critical surge up, and spam aoe.

We can conclude a number of things from that:

1)DK survival is overrated: You speak of keeping the nerfs going on DK's survivability in the latest "the road ahead" article. The current nerfs, and the incoming burning talons nerf are justified, you now managed to give a survival DK build the same survivability as a survival NB build.

2)NB survival is underrated: A lot of nightblades think they're playing a class that is inherently a glass cannon and refuse to acknowledge that it comes from their builds, not their class.

3)Sorcs are the masters of survival, and as a bonus achieve it through optimizing their DPS: This has always been true(at least since the werewolf nerf), but whoever knew was content with not letting anyone know. You could argue that it's RNG based, but with the amount of crit someone can get, the variance isn't that big, and the overall tuning makes it so that you'd need to be in an extremely rare streak of bad luck for it to not keep your health up almost constantly when spamming AoE.

4)Temps are currently drowning in their tears: While the absence of a templar version might be relevant, it might also be that nobody yet has put that up and that few people know how to optimize templar survival. It might also mean this is way harder to pull off for templars.

The biggest problem is critical surge. It gives survival through damage. Those skills that help you perform a task better by doing your best at another task have always been a dangerous design and often bring broken results if not tuned specifically for the best case scenario. Damage to Survival especially is the most dangerous of such "bridge skills", because survival only needs to be "sufficient to stay alive", while damage growing more and more is always better. Something needs to be done, and the RNG part of the skill is clearly not any close to achieving balance with this skill.

Note that this thread isn't about the DPS those 3 classes can pull, this is exclusively about their survivability. Please keep that on topic. Saying "X class can afford to be better at survival because it sucks at Y" is also out.

GTech_1

I have a Sorcerer on the Live client, and I can tell you with 100% certainty that Critical Surge is Absolutely broken.

Breakdown:
20% crit from Inner Light
10% crit from 5 piece light armor
6% or so crit from Precise trait on the weapon (Epic weapon)

---

36% constant crit
+10% bonus crit on a heavy weapon attack (destro staff tree)

---

46% temp crit w/ fire staff heavy attack (unknown duration, tool tip doesn't say)

Here's how combat goes:
Inner Light up, always (20% crit)
Critical Surge (jacks weapon damage through the roof and heals you for 65% (!!) of the damage caused by *every* crit)
Lead in with a Heavy Attack from the Fire staff on the "healer target" while running into the pack of 3 - 4 mobs
Thundering Presence (Over charges even light Light armor & Spell resist AND deals lightning damage to the targets ... WTH? Seriously, who *wouldn't* use this??)
Hold right mouse button to continually block
Elemental Ring Spam with the occasional interrupt

Loot

P.S. Your health will almost ALWAYS be maxed @ 100%, as long as you watch for the telegraphs.

P.P.S. ... this only uses 4 slots on the bar ... you can throw in Lightning Splash for even More AoE horsepower, or use Force Pulse / Crushing Shock from the destro tree for a single target attack.

P.P.P.S. You could also use Lightning Splash instead of Ele Ring and swap this whole setup to do this with a Resto staff (!!) since the rest of the abilities are class / guild abilities, and throw Siphon Spirit or Mutagen into the mix.

Conclusion: Critical Surge needs a Solid nerf to the healing component (like drop it to 1/2 as much or change it entirely) AND Thundering Presence (and all of the Lightning Form abilities) need a nerf. There is NO benefit to using any armor other than light if you can Cap light armor, spell resist AND do damage with a single button press.