Update 6 - the last nail in the coffin for sorcerer DPS/Healer in PVE

DezIsDead

The funniest thing I read in this thread is the comment about a sorc spamming bolt escape 10 times to pull people out of stealth, with the bolt escape change, you can't spam it 10 times lol I'm soft capped on magicka and I get maybe 7 bolt escapes before I'm completely out of magicka. Secondly your going to complain about one of the few class skills sorcs have that actually make sense? What's the role of a sorc? To stay out of melee range and deal high damage, because their supposed to be squishy(which we are). The problem here is people made that sorcs have the ability to play part of the archetypical role their designed for. Where we're lacking is the DPS part. So how about everyone complaining about one of the 2 useful skills sorcs have stop and roll a sorc, get to vr 14 and tell me how awesome the class is. It needs redesigned. Oh and by no means am I saying sorcs suck, with the right player sorcs are still good classes, the problem is they don't fit their role AT ALL like the other classes. Sorry for reviving this thread, just really annoyed by some of the ridiculous comments.

Dymence

Aeratus wrote: »

seanvwolf wrote: »

Crescent wrote: »

Hell, all sorcerer class skills cost way too much magicka, daedric mines and restraining prison are major offenders, but so are the pets when they die and you have to resummon even with the rebate passive returning magicka.

Sorcerer class skills are really, really bad outside bolt escape/lightning form/mage's fury/crit surge (which is still a worse igneous weapons). But since sorcerers have been using only those and the rest staves, pvpers have made sure to whine loudly enough so that the sorcerer class skills and trait lines will never be fixed.

I have never depended on mage's fury, lightning form or bolt escape as a dw sorc. I can solo most world bosses just fine and that's enough for me until I get my teeth into trials. Trials build will likely go skirt and stick, but I don't want to solo that way, and I don't have to. Don't forget that crit surge heals you on crits and since I'm currently sitting on 71% crit chance, that gives my sorc more effective hit points than a heal spamming templar.

No, don't go stick and dress. Dual wield is likely to be better in terms of dps for a sorc.

Except it's not.

kkravaritieb17_ESO

Crushing shock build is boring but it gives an acceptable amount of dps (not the ideal ofc).

DezIsDead

Bumping this because I still think it's relevant, not starting a new thread, and I want some ZOS input. In other news I have now rolled a Templar.....

SteveCampsOut

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Leeric

Sorcerer dont fit their role at all. Zos nerfed both staffs and the majority of the sorcerers skills. DKs received less nerfs and are still on top of the dps/tank role. I don't understand why the sorcerer got so much attention when they weren't even the best at tanking/healing or dps. Pretty sad that the class that gets played the least gets nerfed the most because of other players not wanting to play against said class. There will be more nerfs and changes to sorcerer and soon no one will be playing them. Which seems to me is exactly what ZOS wanted.

Messy1

Only make spell crafting available to sorcerers . . . a class specific crafting skill! Am I right?
But seriously, Sorcerers should get buffs and bonuses in spell crafting BECAUSE the class is predicated on sorcerers being masters of the arcane arts namely magic!

Messy1

More commentary related to my previous post . . .

First questions for the developers:
Why are DKs master of fire? The class seems poorly thought out from the concept. They should have been more combat based with a few magic tricks.
Why are sorcerers limited to dark magic and lightning skills?
Okay I guess I don't really care which class is ultimately more powerful in magicka abilities I mean if you switched the names DK and Sorc and did a little paint job on the skill names you would still have the same imbalance.

Doesn't it come down to the fact that sorcs just need a few buffs and extra abilities? Personally to make it up I think that sorcs should get a small bonus when they use enchanting skill line, mages guild, soul magic, and the upcoming spellcrafting I.e fireball from a sorc should beat a fireball from a DK!

Sublime

Just for those who don't know it yet.

In one of the updates to come (1.6 or 1.7, rather 1.6) class skills are going to be revised (those which need revision), which means that this topic might not be on the top of ZOS' to-do list, simply because it might as well get fixed with one of the future updates.

Gyudan

Here's a list of passive abilities of each class affecting non-class abilities.

Included:
- Passives that affect raw stats without any requirement
- Passives that affect raw stats and require 1 single class ability in a specific line to be slotted

Not included:
- Passives that affect only class abilities
- Passives that affect only ultimates
- Passives that scale based on how many abilities of a class line are slotted

Sorcerer
- Unholy knowledge: Reduces Magicka and Stamina costs
- Daedric Protection: Increases Health recovery (requires 1 Daedric Summoning ability slotted)
- Capacitor: Increases Magicka recovery

Nightblade
- Master Assassin: Increases Weapon and Spell damage while stealthed, increased stun duration from sneak attack
- Hemorrhage: Increases bonus Critical strike damage (requires 1 assassination ability slotted)
- Refreshing Shadows: Increases stamina regeneration
- Catalyst: Increases Potion effectiveness
- Magicka Flood: Increases Max Magicka (requires 1 Siphoning ability slotted)

Dragonknight
- Kindling: Increases the damage of the burning effect of fire abilities
- World in Flame: Increases the damage of fire AOE abilities
- Iron Skin: Block additional damage
- Scaled Armor: Increases spell resistance

Templar
- Spear Wall: Increases block amount vs melee attacks (requires 1 Aedric Spear ability slotted)
- Balanced Warrior: Increases Weapon damage and Spell resistance
- Restoring Spirit: Reduces Magicka, Stamina and Ultimate costs
- Master Ritualist: Increases Resurrection speed, affected allies resurrect with more health, chance to get a soul gem upon successful resurrect


Analysis
Unbalanced again!
Sorcerers only have 3 passives affecting non-class abilities and one of them boosts health recovery (useless!). All other classes have 4 or 5.



edit:

Sublime wrote: »

Just for those who don't know it yet.

In one of the updates to come (1.6 or 1.7, rather 1.6) class skills are going to be revised (those which need revision), which means that this topic might not be on the top of ZOS' to-do list, simply because it might as well get fixed with one of the future updates.

If you had read the title of the thread or the content of the first post, you'd have seen that this topic was created following informations about update 6 (=1.6) that could make sorcerers even less competitive. Yes, class skills are going to be revised but I just hope that it's done properly.

Just like DezIsDead I'm also rerolling templar, just a few vet levels away from VR14. This is sadly the only way I could be as useful as other players for endgame content at the moment.

Sublime

I'm sorry if I didn't express myself clearly, but did not want to state that 1.6 is going certainly going to fix all issues but because I wanted to indicate that it is unlikely to get a dev response before the class skill changes get implemented. (different motivation to post)

Some players requested a dev response so I thought I it might be helpful for them to know that the dev's are not necessarily ignoring the post but just waiting for the update to go on PTS.

Apart from that, very nice compilation @Gyudan‌

Gandogal

I didnt read through the whole threat and maybe this issue has been discussed before.

i think, that the main disadvanatges sorceres have at the current time is the lack of a damage ultimate:

Sorceres do have a great amount of base damage, which is clearly higher than nightblades base damage (at magicka build) for example. the point is, that NBs and DKs ultimates deal a whole lot of damage even on single target. only with theyr ultimates they are able to outshine sorc. damage. and the scaling of these ultimates is a joke.

1) these ultimates bring NBs and DKs in advantage even in single target dps. but they are AE spells, making sorc even less usefull when AE damage is possible / necessary;

2) those ultimates not only deal damage, they also give other benefits to the group (like NBs damage evade);

3) those ultimates do damage over time which makes the new 2-item set bonuses even more viable on those characters. if u take the NB ultimate for example, the meteor will trigger 1,4 times on an average per NB ultimate on a single target, but once again: it is an AE ability. so the proc chance multiplies straight propotional with more mobs around. with this item sets, massing dots will give u 2 benefits: (1) maximizing ultimate gain and (2) maximizing proc chance of the helmet. this playing style is not available to sorcerers effectively.

4) ultimate is gained thought critical hits, so all classes that have access to spells that have alot of ticks in damage or healing can gain alot ultimate. not only NB and DK ultimate are much better than sorcerer onces, these classes also have more DOT skills that even pushed their ultimates more.

So the main issue for me is not the question with which value the spells scale, but the lack of a good damage ultimate for sorcerers.

yes, negate is cool and helps alot in some criticall situations. but on the long run each encounter can be overcome without the help of negate. and at this stage, damage is what counts.

in a nutshell: to make sorceres more competative,

a) give them a better AOE-ultimate (for exmaple rework overload so that it is a "shoot and forget-" and not a channeling abilty);
b) lower ultimate gain for other classes so that the base damage is given higher priority over pure ultimate spamming;
c) lower number of procs / dots for other classes (eg. by making veil of blades tick every second with double damage instead every half a second).

Dracane

Gandogal wrote: »

I didnt read through the whole threat and maybe this issue has been discussed before.

i think, that the main disadvanatges sorceres have at the current time is the lack of a damage ultimate:

Sorceres do have a great amount of base damage, which is clearly higher than nightblades base damage (at magicka build) for example. the point is, that NBs and DKs ultimates deal a whole lot of damage even on single target. only with theyr ultimates they are able to outshine sorc. damage. and the scaling of these ultimates is a joke.

1) these ultimates bring NBs and DKs in advantage even in single target dps. but they are AE spells, making sorc even less usefull when AE damage is possible / necessary;

2) those ultimates not only deal damage, they also give other benefits to the group (like NBs damage evade);

3) those ultimates do damage over time which makes the new 2-item set bonuses even more viable on those characters. if u take the NB ultimate for example, the meteor will trigger 1,4 times on an average per NB ultimate on a single target, but once again: it is an AE ability. so the proc chance multiplies straight propotional with more mobs around. with this item sets, massing dots will give u 2 benefits: (1) maximizing ultimate gain and (2) maximizing proc chance of the helmet. this playing style is not available to sorcerers effectively.

4) ultimate is gained thought critical hits, so all classes that have access to spells that have alot of ticks in damage or healing can gain alot ultimate. not only NB and DK ultimate are much better than sorcerer onces, these classes also have more DOT skills that even pushed their ultimates more.

So the main issue for me is not the question with which value the spells scale, but the lack of a good damage ultimate for sorcerers.

yes, negate is cool and helps alot in some criticall situations. but on the long run each encounter can be overcome without the help of negate. and at this stage, damage is what counts.

in a nutshell: to make sorceres more competative,

a) give them a better AOE-ultimate (for exmaple rework overload so that it is a "shoot and forget-" and not a channeling abilty);
b) lower ultimate gain for other classes so that the base damage is given higher priority over pure ultimate spamming;
c) lower number of procs / dots for other classes (eg. by making veil of blades tick every second with double damage instead every half a second).

I agree. I would simply delete overload and replace it with 'Disintegration Field' An AoE Ultimate, that has reasonable cost and deals nice damage to enemies and has a chance to disintegrate.

But this will not happen. The only hope is, that they will improve the Atronach and overload somehow. They've mentioned, that they will improve the Atronach synergy. This doesn't satisfy me, since nobody will activate it, when I'm in a 1v1 or on my own and I would like to be independent and don't always rely on other players to be succesfull.

glak

On esoteric live, was said that the atronach synergy is no longer a channel.

TehMagnus

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone. While we aren’t quite ready to discuss all the changes and improvements going into Update 6, we can tell you that many of these changes will specifically address the concerns brought up in this thread. Our primary goal is that regardless of your class and build, you can feel like you can be competitive in the archetype you want to play as.

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌, as much as I bleieve champion system will make more builds viable and open up further specialisations, please remember that if everybody is at the same level games become boring, if there os no room to improve, no challenge: games become boring, and the linearisation of ult regenerarion is just an easy way out to fix ult regen issues that will only cause everybody to be at the same level regardless of their skill which sucks since there is no need to learn how to play to perform, no need to look for new techniques and tactics. Oversimplification and dumbing games down is never a good solution...

Eldarth

Wow. Amazing number of replies on something that hasn't even been put on the test server yet -- something that is a major change to ALL classes and balance that isn't even complete yet and *somehow* people are upset?

AshySamurai

Eldarth wrote: »

Wow. Amazing number of replies on something that hasn't even been put on the test server yet -- something that is a major change to ALL classes and balance that isn't even complete yet and *somehow* people are upset?

People don't need to test it to start whine about it.

Gyudan

@Eldarth: thread started 45 days ago

Regarding the upcoming changes on staves and surge:
- Destro and resto staff abilities will scale based on magicka, spell dmg and spell crit
- Light and Heavy attacks will also scale based on magicka, spell dmg and spell crit
- Critical Surge will stay unchanged
- Power Surge will change to increase both spell and weapon damage

I think that the new version of power surge, as it has been presented, will be quite useless, as it mainly aims to please sorcerers who want to buff both stamina weapon skills and class skills. Buffing both means that the duration will not be as long as the old power surge (30 seconds) and that the bonuses themselves won't be sky-high, otherwise the skill would be too OP for stamina sorcerers.
The increase in weapon damage is completely useless for staff users. I fear that sorcerers have indeed taken a big fat nerf with that change, but PTS testing will confirm or infirm this theory.

Nightreaver

Gyudan wrote: »

@Eldarth: thread started 45 days ago

Regarding the upcoming changes on staves and surge:
- Destro and resto staff abilities will scale based on magicka, spell dmg and spell crit
- Light and Heavy attacks will also scale based on magicka, spell dmg and spell crit
- Critical Surge will stay unchanged
- Power Surge will change to increase both spell and weapon damage

I think that the new version of power surge, as it has been presented, will be quite useless, as it mainly aims to please sorcerers who want to buff both stamina weapon skills and class skills. Buffing both means that the duration will not be as long as the old power surge (30 seconds) and that the bonuses themselves won't be sky-high, otherwise the skill would be too OP for stamina sorcerers.
The increase in weapon damage is completely useless for staff users. I fear that sorcerers have indeed taken a big fat nerf with that change, but PTS testing will confirm or infirm this theory.

Few comments:
1) Not sure that even a Stamina build would find Power Surge useful since anyone that specs for Stamina will most likely have insufficient Magicka to make any Magicka based damage abilities useful in comparison to their Stamina based damage abilities.

2) So if only Weapon damage is useful to Stamina builds and only Spell damage is useful to Magicka builds then I would expect the extended duration of Power Surge to remain intact and the damage bonus to remain the same.

3) If that is not the case then there would be no reason for a Stamina build to choose Power Surge in which case Stamina builds would choose the option that provides both a damage buff + Crit Heals while Magicka builds would need to choose between one OR the other.

Digiman

yodased wrote: »

They aren't THAT incompetent

Just wondering that is the same opinion you still have given the current time?

seanvwolf

Overload should actually be an overload... A toggleable ult based Lightning Form, keep the heavy and light strike, as well as having x number of additional targets struck as the lightning jumps from mob to mob... Charge ult when using or struck by magic damage. Easy.

ZoM_Head

I never played a sorc, but i do know that they lack any effective DOT for starters.

In terms of them being glass canons, it makes sense. They are designed to be ranged dps, and when things get hary, they can streak away and have 2 summoned pets + 1 atronach that can take aggro off them.

DKs are the only class that have no ranged abilities at all. They are "in the thick of battle" and need a ton of survivability (which they have) to keep them going.

Now, i will admit playing a DK DPS or a DK tank is far too easy. Certain "standard" builds make them hit 1.5K+ dps in Sanctum bosses, which really is very OP if you ask me.

In my opinion, it is not just the DK class getting tons of DPS, but especially when combined with Dark Elfs to get that extra fire damage and flame resistance.

The nerf to reflective scales is fair in my opinion as well (standing spaming 1 abilities forever and reflecting spells and arrows is just stupid).

I still believe Templars (my fav class) will be the next "Big thing", since they will be the only class that can tank, heal and in update 6 DPS (mind you sun dmg is fire dmg as well). With that said, get ready for "Zenimax, Templars DPS is too OP" to start flooding the forums.

Back on topic, you sorcs need a nice DOT indeed, lets just see how update 6 + champ system makes of the game. Those of you going "Max damage" putting everything into stamina/magicka could get seriously high DPS indeed, but also really make you squishier than before....or not.

Cody

the good: it cuts down on crushing shock spam:D

The bad: has the potential to screw over magicka builds

the hilarious: It will be time for stamina builds to shine:D!!!!!!!!!

Nightreaver

@Cody‌

Well hate to take the joy out of your post but the latest consideration from the Devs regarding Surge is to make Crit Healing the base ability for Surge and then have one morph add weapon damage and the other add spell damage.

The good: best solution with a base ability that is beneficial to both builds while favoring neither. One morph that adds Weapon damage for Stamina builds and one morph for spell damage for Magicka builds.

The bad: Hmmm, guess there really wouldn't be any with this solution.

the hilarious: It will be time for Sorcerer builds to shine !!!!!!!

Cody

Nightreaver wrote: »

@Cody‌

Well hate to take the joy out of your post but the latest consideration from the Devs regarding Surge is to make Crit Healing the base ability for Surge and then have one morph add weapon damage and the other add spell damage.

The good: best solution with a base ability that is beneficial to both builds while favoring neither. One morph that adds Weapon damage for Stamina builds and one morph for spell damage for Magicka builds.

The bad: Hmmm, guess there really wouldn't be any with this solution.

the hilarious: It will be time for Sorcerer builds to shine !!!!!!!

How do I say it... "touché"? something like that? Yes I am an uncultured simpleton, I know, I know, go ahead and laugh:D

Cody

its a good thing they may be considering a stamina morph and a magicka morph. balance is always nice

Brittany_Joy

Thanks for adding those pictures in with your post. Now I fully understand the hardships that sorcerers will soon have to endure.

Nightreaver

@Cody‌
Sorry if that came of as insulting, that wasn't intention. I guess I got carried away with the thought of a change to Sorcerers that Sorcerers would actually like. But to be honest, based on past history, I'm not real optimistic the change to Surge will happen.

When players said they wanted Atronach to have one morph with taunt and one without, ZOS responded by removing taunt from both.

When ZOS first proposed a Provisioning revamp they asked players what they thought about food and drinks stacking and the other changes they were making. Players said they wanted drinks and food to stack but not to make a bunch of other changes to Provisioning, ZOS responded by making a bunch of other changes to Provisioning but food and drinks would remain unstackable.

Now they are suggesting a change to Surge that would make perfect sense and players would want so I can't help but feel like we are being teased and taunted.