1.6.5 Sorcerer detailed balance feedback

Jujujitsu · February 2015

@ZOS_GinaBruno Thank you for the response ... like many others here I appreciate that you were put in a tough spot and are only the messenger of this bittersweet news.

Sumpfheini · February 2015

I think to adress the sorc issues ZOS should reflect about the TES spells and abilities again. For example I don't want just a heal, I think restoration school is covered by templars. Give us some love by providing some more uniqueness. We are a mix of destruction and conjuration. What about some Illusion type abilities? Something to redirect damage to a clone, it gives us much needed survivability in a unique lore-friendly way. A calm spell to reduce the damage we take from an enemy? Tank Sorcs would finally offer something.

Voltos · February 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

Thank you, @ZOS_GinaBruno, for continuing to provide information from the development team to the community regarding the state of Sorcerers. I, for one, find this very encouraging, and am excited by the direction outlined here. Even though I was hoping to see more changes for Sorcerers when 1.6 goes live, the general feeling is a positive one.

Feynn · February 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer.

Thank you for your answer @ZOS_GinaBruno. Perhaps it's not what most of us were hoping for, but at least it's a step in the right direction. Based on that quoted sentence, however, I need to ask: what are your plans for magicka DPS?

Many forum users have clearly shown that Sorcerers are underpowered as magicka DPS compared to other classes, and forum polls have shown that the majority of Sorcerer players want their characters to focus on magicka DPS. This is the role most Sorcerers want to fill. This is what is commonly associated with the idea of a Sorcerer: wizards in flowing robes raining spells on their enemis.

So I hope that your plans to make the Sorcerer "more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer" do not exclude also some plans to make the class more effective in magicka DPS. After all, I doubt you have plans to make the Sorcerer the most effective class as stamina DPS, tank, or healing. So you should at least try to make the Sorcerer shine in what most players really identify Sorcerers with: magicka DPS. Thank you.

samiz1 · February 2015

Thank you for your answer @ZOS_GinaBruno. Perhaps it's not what most of us were hoping for, but at least it's a step in the right direction. Based on that quoted sentence, however, I need to ask: what are your plans for magicka DPS?

Many forum users have clearly shown that Sorcerers are underpowered as magicka DPS compared to other classes, and forum polls have shown that the majority of Sorcerer players want their characters to focus on magicka DPS. This is the role most Sorcerers want to fill. This is what is commonly associated with the idea of a Sorcerer: wizards in flowing robes raining spells on their enemis.

So I hope that your plans to make the Sorcerer "more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer" do not exclude also some plans to make the class more effective in magicka DPS. After all, I doubt you have plans to make the Sorcerer the most effective class as stamina DPS, tank, or healing. So you should at least try to make the Sorcerer shine in what most players really identify Sorcerers with: magicka DPS. Thank you.

PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT

AssaultLemming · February 2015

Pretty disappointing, although reducing the number of toggles would have an effect on sorc magicka dps if done right.

Personally I still think a buff to the standard damage of mages wrath to put it in line with or slightly higher than crushing shock is the easiest fix.

Gandogal · February 2015

Lovely @ZOS_GinaBruno
What a fantastic read. If only it could not be summarized with 'we wont change nothing for now'

AshTal · February 2015

It's already been said but wanted to say it again. In PvP as a DPS class the Sorc is under performing. I hit everything I had and barely got a knight blade down 40% of his health before he killed me. The pet changes are worthless. Against dragon knights we are even worse with crystal fragment being so easy to reflect it hits us more than them. Sorcs need some major improvements.

GilGalad · February 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

First of all thank you for your answer. I can totally understand your point of being afraid of doing drastic changes but you have to face the question, why haven't you done them in the last weeks?
After update 6 there will be no major update for month, there is the console launch, crownstore and then maybe in june the imperial city. You missed the chance to bring the sorc in line with the other classes, even with all the detailed feedback and thats really disappointing. You even managed to make them worse compared to other classes when it comes to healing. What shall the sorcs do meanwhile, as the worst tanks, worst healers and a bit behind other classes when it comes to DPS, additionally with huge problems when it comes to survivability?

@ZOS_GinaBruno maybe it is to late to make drastic changes, but may I ask you for a tiny change, that could help sorceres a lot?
Don't let the surge cooldown make it to live. You can still watch the selfheal provided by it and adjust the percentage of the damage that is provided as heal. The cooldown is just wrong and leads to effects like less healing when using any DOTs. No other comparable ability has it. We had no cooldown for the last year and the healing was a bit better then the ones from other classes but reducing the factor from 65% to 40% (power surge morph) plus adding a cooldown is just too much. Basically this is not a change I'm asking for, I'm just asking for NOT changing one thing.

I'm still looking forward to update 6, since there are a lot of cool things coming like the justice system, new mounts, pets, etc. You often showed that you have great ideas to improve the game so I'm sure you will find a way to balance all classes. Until then I have a tip for all the sorcs out there: The combination of rapid maneuver/immovable and streak makes it pretty easy to get away from guards. No one will ever catch you. Happy stealing!

Finally I will thank all of you again for providing a lot of feedback here and keeping the thread on top. I hope that I could encourage others to provide feedback in a constructive way, instead of just flaming and insulting.

Thanks for reading,

Gil

P.S.: I have to apologize to you @Gil for all the people who linked you instead of me. Thanks to the "." in my name I can't be linked by using @...

nikolaj.lemcheb16_ESO · February 2015

It is a bit funny to read the response, because even though sorc were already hurting as a class before 1.6 they have nerfed core elements of the class badly in 1.6 and then they say "lets wait and see".

Someone who hated getting negated or see sorcs flee from battle has influenced them while they have ignored that everything else about the class were weak.

At least they should undo the surge timer, negate nerf and lightning cost nerf before things go live and THEN take a look at the class.

Kragorn · February 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

I know you're simply passing this on so my comment is directed to Eric (who I assume is the author) ...

... the total lack of any meaningful comments and the woefully inadequate response is an insult to Gil.Galad and the many others who have posted copious critiques of your changes and clearly shows the only 'feedback' you're interested in is that from PVPers as you clearly demonstrated in the 'Live' segment.

pppontus · February 2015

byrom101b16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

First of all - thank you for getting back to us. You're just the messenger and so I will clarify now that the rest of this post is directed at the decision makers behind you who have put you front and centre to answer the awkward questions they make the final decisions on.

I find nothing substantive in your post about magicka Sorcs whatsoever. Are you only listening to pppontus? Do the 99% of the rest of us, including Gil.Galad who have suffered the Sorc. as is and will be, and those of us who have laid out in great detail what the problems are, mean nothing to you on this particular issue?

You are tweaking peripheral issues at best, and if you had been keeping an eye as you say on magicka Sorcerers performance in the 6 months prior, you'd see that they are woefully underperforming.

Your promises on stamina Sorcerers are unspecific and speak of a 'future update'. When, who knows?

But nothing EVER for magicka Sorcs?

If you think the nerfs you are introducing in 1.6 do anything but make this worse, you are kidding yourselves. Gil.Galad has in each and every case come up with better solutions that your entire team have managed in how long?

But then that would suppose you have been looking at it with any rigour (outside of catering to a few noisy complainants in PvP) which I am having serious doubts about...

In any case, it appears that this thread and many others may as well not have been posted.

Is there any point playing anything but a DK or Templar healer in your game any more?

Having spent so much time on my Sorc. and having believed your manifesto about 'play the way you want to play', even defended your less palatable MMO/TES hybridisation decisions against a load of complaints from my friends, you have, ultimately make me look like a complete fool.

It is fair to say that I am utterly disappointed... it is perfectly clear to me that as you are up against a self-imposed console deadline and having missed the elephant in the room, you are brushing us off with what you hope will be sufficient placation.

Why don't you record another video calling Sorc. players complainers and subsequently doing nothing about it? I for one really appreciate having my judgement and forthright efforts to point out the very real problems utterly disregarded and belittled by your game designers.

Thanks...

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Magicka Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

The class however seem to lack a lot when it comes to other roles, at least those have been the only really constructive complaints I've seen

olsborg · February 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

Thank you Gina.

I do think I speak for the majority of the sorc population when I say, we do need an instant cast nuke spell. Currently most of our dps spells/abilities are ground based, has a cast time or a procc time, or some other procc mechanic. This is slightly frustrating in pvp as everything we do can be anticipated with great ease.
Thanks.

florian.billeb16_ESO · February 2015

pppontus wrote: »

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Magicka Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

The class however seem to lack a lot when it comes to other roles, at least those have been the only really constructive complaints I've seen

Not nerfed ???

Sorcerer Magicka in 1.6. will become the worst healer... it's a huge nerf...
Negate has changed and negate is useless (the change was needed but now it's too much)
Stamina sorcerer is useless, because of the nerf of critical surge...

and you pretend that sorcerer is not nerfed ?

now, I am ok, to tell that sorcerer magicka is bether than in 1.5. but in 1.5. sorcerer magicka was not really good for DPS.

So a little more balancing, but in this balance, sorcerer lost stamina competition and healing competition.

Not everything is good.

If I try to resume.
Now sorcerer magicka has the same DPS as other class, probably less than stamina build but bether than magicka build for other class.
but, now sorcerers are whe worst healer, and maybe the worst tank, and stamina sorcerer are the worst stamina class...

So at the end, I just say I am not happy and very disappointing with the all changes.

So when you say that sorcerers are not nerfed that just not truth (healing for example or stamina) and when you say sorcerers are very good now... i can't understand

Sorcerers have waited 6 month to have a little more DPS, good, but now i don't want again 6 month to be competitif for healing or playing a stamina build. !!!

Kragorn · February 2015

pppontus wrote: »

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out.

If a class is only viable for a handful of the best players in hard-to-get gear there's something wrong with the class.

Fayaburn · February 2015

pppontus wrote: »

byrom101b16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

First of all - thank you for getting back to us. You're just the messenger and so I will clarify now that the rest of this post is directed at the decision makers behind you who have put you front and centre to answer the awkward questions they make the final decisions on.

I find nothing substantive in your post about magicka Sorcs whatsoever. Are you only listening to pppontus? Do the 99% of the rest of us, including Gil.Galad who have suffered the Sorc. as is and will be, and those of us who have laid out in great detail what the problems are, mean nothing to you on this particular issue?

You are tweaking peripheral issues at best, and if you had been keeping an eye as you say on magicka Sorcerers performance in the 6 months prior, you'd see that they are woefully underperforming.

Your promises on stamina Sorcerers are unspecific and speak of a 'future update'. When, who knows?

But nothing EVER for magicka Sorcs?

If you think the nerfs you are introducing in 1.6 do anything but make this worse, you are kidding yourselves. Gil.Galad has in each and every case come up with better solutions that your entire team have managed in how long?

But then that would suppose you have been looking at it with any rigour (outside of catering to a few noisy complainants in PvP) which I am having serious doubts about...

In any case, it appears that this thread and many others may as well not have been posted.

Is there any point playing anything but a DK or Templar healer in your game any more?

Having spent so much time on my Sorc. and having believed your manifesto about 'play the way you want to play', even defended your less palatable MMO/TES hybridisation decisions against a load of complaints from my friends, you have, ultimately make me look like a complete fool.

It is fair to say that I am utterly disappointed... it is perfectly clear to me that as you are up against a self-imposed console deadline and having missed the elephant in the room, you are brushing us off with what you hope will be sufficient placation.

Why don't you record another video calling Sorc. players complainers and subsequently doing nothing about it? I for one really appreciate having my judgement and forthright efforts to point out the very real problems utterly disregarded and belittled by your game designers.

Thanks...

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Magicka Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

This is where I drop the debate with you. I really tried to give as much credit to your post as I could even if not agreeing with your statements most of the time. However, your posts are more and more full of self-sufficience and clearly hold your opinion as the only one that matters in this game. Too bad.

Also, please keep ignoring the fact that many of our class spells are barely situational if not completely useless.

posthumecaver · February 2015

Boomer, I select the Sorcerer to be first class the level 50, it seems I made the wrong choice, if it is going to suck next 6 months.

I hope when I try to join group for dungeons people will not start telling sorc sucks as healer, we don't want you in the group, sorc sucks at tanking we don't want you in the group and worst of all sorc sucks in DPS we don't want you in the group.

Which happens a lot in the other games (Necromancer I am looking to you).

GilGalad · February 2015

pppontus wrote: »

byrom101b16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

First of all - thank you for getting back to us. You're just the messenger and so I will clarify now that the rest of this post is directed at the decision makers behind you who have put you front and centre to answer the awkward questions they make the final decisions on.

I find nothing substantive in your post about magicka Sorcs whatsoever. Are you only listening to pppontus? Do the 99% of the rest of us, including Gil.Galad who have suffered the Sorc. as is and will be, and those of us who have laid out in great detail what the problems are, mean nothing to you on this particular issue?

You are tweaking peripheral issues at best, and if you had been keeping an eye as you say on magicka Sorcerers performance in the 6 months prior, you'd see that they are woefully underperforming.

Your promises on stamina Sorcerers are unspecific and speak of a 'future update'. When, who knows?

But nothing EVER for magicka Sorcs?

If you think the nerfs you are introducing in 1.6 do anything but make this worse, you are kidding yourselves. Gil.Galad has in each and every case come up with better solutions that your entire team have managed in how long?

But then that would suppose you have been looking at it with any rigour (outside of catering to a few noisy complainants in PvP) which I am having serious doubts about...

In any case, it appears that this thread and many others may as well not have been posted.

Is there any point playing anything but a DK or Templar healer in your game any more?

Having spent so much time on my Sorc. and having believed your manifesto about 'play the way you want to play', even defended your less palatable MMO/TES hybridisation decisions against a load of complaints from my friends, you have, ultimately make me look like a complete fool.

It is fair to say that I am utterly disappointed... it is perfectly clear to me that as you are up against a self-imposed console deadline and having missed the elephant in the room, you are brushing us off with what you hope will be sufficient placation.

Why don't you record another video calling Sorc. players complainers and subsequently doing nothing about it? I for one really appreciate having my judgement and forthright efforts to point out the very real problems utterly disregarded and belittled by your game designers.

Thanks...

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

So a guild that makes raids with more than 50% DKs and no Sorcs at all has found out that Sorcs are fine. You just made my day!
You also dont have to care about sorcs - your best trial times are with your NB. I also havent found your sorc in the vet DSA top 100. I don't have the time to raid every week, I'm just helping out from time to time and I only finished vet DSA once (96 min), but i feel qualified enough to comment on your findings:
1. In trials no one cares about survivability. You can blame your healers when you die.
2. In trials a sorc will never be a healer or tank, since templars and DKs are way better for that and you are optimizing your group wherever you can.
3. Pure trial guilds don't care about how sorcs perform outside trials, doing quests, solo stuff, so all the things you need to get xp for champion points. Hodor people have their DKs for that.
4. Tell me some situations where you would prefer your sorc over any other class (you obviosly don't do it on live, so what has changed that you will do it after update 6)?

So yeah maybe Sorcs are fine for trials as DPS, but for nothing else. For a big part of the community this game is not only about trials, but dungeons quests and pvp. Not everyone wants to be limited to only one role, the magicka DPS. So please stop behaving like everyone else is a noob and start thinking outside of your trials box.

daemonios · February 2015

So, this is already happening:

rogue_gamer32b14_ESO wrote: »

My guild has announced unless something changes, we will not be running any Sorcerer Magicka builds for Trials and end game content. Pets are not viable for endgame pve content and currently neither is any other magicka based Sorcerer build.

@ZOS_GinaBruno if this attitude, whether right or wrong, becomes the norm (as it has in 1.5), it's on you (ZOS/devs, not you personally). You've had 1 month of constant feedback from this class.

Morvul · February 2015

@pppontus is right insofar, as Sorcerer seems to be in a good place when doing magicka based ranged DPS.
Looking at the numbers generated by the various theorycrafters, no other class can match Sorcerer magicka DPS when comitting to a 100% pure ranged build in 1.6.4.
However, every other class benefits from going into melee, sorcerers don't. Therefore, in most fights, all other classes have higher DPS potential then sorcerers.

And magicka ranged DPS is the only thing sorcerers are good at:
- sorcs are not good at magicka melee DPS (no benefit to go melee at all, since mines do only single hits now)
- sorcs do not support stamina builds, be they ranged or melee. sure, they CAN take a 2hander and use it - but every other class does so better
- sorcs are the worst healers (admittetly, DKs do not beat them by much)
- sorcs are pretty much the worst tanks (not sure if sorcs or nightblade are at the very bottom - probably NB is slightly worse off)
- sorcs bring basically no group utility what so ever. No real buffs, no good CC, no group healing. Yes, there is negate... but since the nerf it pales in comparison to other support-oriented ultimates

byrom101b16_ESO · February 2015

Gil.Galad wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

byrom101b16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

First of all - thank you for getting back to us. You're just the messenger and so I will clarify now that the rest of this post is directed at the decision makers behind you who have put you front and centre to answer the awkward questions they make the final decisions on.

I find nothing substantive in your post about magicka Sorcs whatsoever. Are you only listening to pppontus? Do the 99% of the rest of us, including Gil.Galad who have suffered the Sorc. as is and will be, and those of us who have laid out in great detail what the problems are, mean nothing to you on this particular issue?

You are tweaking peripheral issues at best, and if you had been keeping an eye as you say on magicka Sorcerers performance in the 6 months prior, you'd see that they are woefully underperforming.

Your promises on stamina Sorcerers are unspecific and speak of a 'future update'. When, who knows?

But nothing EVER for magicka Sorcs?

If you think the nerfs you are introducing in 1.6 do anything but make this worse, you are kidding yourselves. Gil.Galad has in each and every case come up with better solutions that your entire team have managed in how long?

But then that would suppose you have been looking at it with any rigour (outside of catering to a few noisy complainants in PvP) which I am having serious doubts about...

In any case, it appears that this thread and many others may as well not have been posted.

Is there any point playing anything but a DK or Templar healer in your game any more?

Having spent so much time on my Sorc. and having believed your manifesto about 'play the way you want to play', even defended your less palatable MMO/TES hybridisation decisions against a load of complaints from my friends, you have, ultimately make me look like a complete fool.

It is fair to say that I am utterly disappointed... it is perfectly clear to me that as you are up against a self-imposed console deadline and having missed the elephant in the room, you are brushing us off with what you hope will be sufficient placation.

Why don't you record another video calling Sorc. players complainers and subsequently doing nothing about it? I for one really appreciate having my judgement and forthright efforts to point out the very real problems utterly disregarded and belittled by your game designers.

Thanks...

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

So a guild that makes raids with more than 50% DKs and no Sorcs at all has found out that Sorcs are fine. You just made my day!
You also dont have to care about sorcs - your best trial times are with your NB. I also havent found your sorc in the vet DSA top 100. I don't have the time to raid every week, I'm just helping out from time to time and I only finished vet DSA once (96 min), but i feel qualified enough to comment on your findings:
1. In trials no one cares about survivability. You have you can blame your healers when you die.
2. In trials a sorc will never be a healer or tank, since templars and DKs are way better for that and you are optimizing your group wherever you can.
3. Pure trial guilds don't care about how sorcs perform outside trials, doing quests, solo stuff, so all the things you need to get xp for champion points. Hodor people have their DKs for that.
4. Tell me some situation where you would prefer your sorc over any other class (you obviosly don't do it on live, so what has changed that you will do it after update 6)?

So yeah maybe Sorcs are fine for trials as DPS, but for nothing else. For a big part of the community this game is not only about trials, but dungeons quests and pvp. Not everyone wants to be limited to only one role, the magicka DPS. So please stop behaving like everyone else is a noob and start thinking outside of your trials box.

As usual Gil.Galad, a thoughtful and useful response to the usual misleading verbage.

Pppontus would have us beleive that his quoted exceptions prove the rule.

Personally I'd like to see a detailed analysis and breakdown of the issues from the Dev's or their de facto flag bearers explaining how one acheives the claimed DPS in any situation except where Sorcs are being healed in a raid against a suitably compliant and stationary boss, whilst buffed and the boss is debuffed to add to the numbers.

I used all the same skills as pppontus does in his video, soloing world bosses in upper Craglorn (one's I can kill with ease on live) and kept on dying. I got a few successes, but these relied on more than the average procs from my Valkyn set.

These were failures painfully underlined by a DK friend of mine on the Scorpion boss near DSA spamming one skill and blocking. He never went below 90% health. It was a farcical cakewalk by comparison. On live I kill this boss and it's adds without an issue.

So what to do?

Dark Exhange? It's nearly as useless as it is in live for all the reasons everyone knows. Most Sorcs don't use it, ever...

Spell Symmetry? Might as well bend over...

Surge? Against single target and proccing randomly off DoTs means this is a lottery, and according to pppontus shouldn't be on your bar anyway...

Hardened Ward & Storm (of either persuasion) - yeah - that's two slots taken, one for your pet. Just what is your 'rotation' now?

With Spell Power Potions (with increased duration due to maxed Alchemy passive) Entropy, Liquid Lightning, Boundless Storm, Crystal Frags, Force Pulse weaving with Light Attacks from staff, and Twilight, soloing is still much harder than in 1.5.

AOE pulls are a little easier to be sure, but we haven't been talking about that have we?

Pppontus - I would conclude that actually, it's you who can't figure out the truth of the matter. You think that cocooned in buffs, heals from others and sheilded from aggro, that barely adequate dps in a trial on a magicka Sorc makes the whole class fine. You haven't answered any other issues raised, nor acknowledged that your top of the pyramid gear isn't close to being the norm.

Apart from demonstrating your own skill, nothing you have to say about the Sorcerer is credible from the point of view of as you put it "everyone" else. Not until you acknowledge the state of the class outside of a narrow definition of DPS output when compared to classes with vastly more survivability, ease of play and which are ten times more forgiving of mistakes and mixed wiith the innexplicable Light Armour meganerf, makes the non-low pet magicka Sorc. a relic are your posts going to be credible to anyone but, as you put it "the few".

Either analyse the class with an unbias eye with similar analytical rigour as Gil.Galad has shown, or stop repeatedly stating everything is fine. You haven't backed up what you say so far, and have no sound basis for criticising or denying the observations and conclusions made by the OP.

If this were a formalised debate, you'd lose hands down because of lack of credible evidence.

Personally I'd like too see you or someone like you post two videos - one of their Sorc solo against a suitable target, and then their DK against the same one. We could then more clearly see the vast gulf between the two.

The fact is, DKs and Templars post 1.6 will dominate - massively.

They, (and especially tyhe DK as it has always been) are the poster boy all-rounders who leave the rest in the dirt and the same skill necessary to make a magicka Sorc run, allows either of these two classes to fly.

So - are you prepared to back up your statements with demonstrable facts we can all see and rigorous, unbias comparative analysis, or are you going to keep acting for all the world as if you work for the PR department at Zenimax?

In short - make it clear to the vast majority of Sorc players who don't exist in your bubble... and why your opinion and the 'few' should somehow dictate how 1000's of players are forced to experience their class nerfed into irrelevance in PvE.

Fayaburn · February 2015

Morvul wrote: »

@pppontus is right insofar, as Sorcerer seems to be in a good place when doing magicka based ranged DPS.

And this alone discards any modifications that might be needed by magicka sorcerers?

byrom101b16_ESO · February 2015

Morvul wrote: »

@pppontus is right insofar, as Sorcerer seems to be in a good place when doing magicka based ranged DPS.
Looking at the numbers generated by the various theorycrafters, no other class can match Sorcerer magicka DPS when comitting to a 100% pure ranged build in 1.6.4.
However, every other class benefits from going into melee, sorcerers don't. Therefore, in most fights, all other classes have higher DPS potential then sorcerers.

And magicka ranged DPS is the only thing sorcerers are good at:
- sorcs are not good at magicka melee DPS (no benefit to go melee at all, since mines do only single hits now)
- sorcs do not support stamina builds, be they ranged or melee. sure, they CAN take a 2hander and use it - but every other class does so better
- sorcs are the worst healers (admittetly, DKs do not beat them by much)
- sorcs are pretty much the worst tanks (not sure if sorcs or nightblade are at the very bottom - probably NB is slightly worse off)
- sorcs bring basically no group utility what so ever. No real buffs, no good CC, no group healing. Yes, there is negate... but since the nerf it pales in comparison to other support-oriented ultimates

Yes Morvul - as long as the target doesn't attack you, remains stationary and doesn't reflect all of your projectiles, you can begin to approach the dps of other classes who can mix it up as they wish, who are vastly more survivable, have far more useful utility solo and in groups and who are easier to play in all circumstances except a trial, and in some cases even then.

Naturally this makes the Sorc fine...

Jar_Ek · February 2015

@ZOS_GinaBruno Thanks for providing a response. I, like many sorcerers, are somewhat disappointed that no changes will be forthcomming prior to 1.6 going live. However, I hope that changes will come in the short term. There have been a plethora of ideas and suggestions that you could consider, but if I had one request it would be to modify Surge prior to it going live. This would be to at least remove or drastically reduce the CD for the heal proc at least for melee range (could modify the critical surge morph). Failing to do something is likely to upset a significant proportion of the sorcerer players when this goes live.

pppontus · February 2015

florian.billeb16_ESO wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Magicka Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

The class however seem to lack a lot when it comes to other roles, at least those have been the only really constructive complaints I've seen

Not nerfed ???

Sorcerer Magicka in 1.6. will become the worst healer... it's a huge nerf...
Negate has changed and negate is useless (the change was needed but now it's too much)
Stamina sorcerer is useless, because of the nerf of critical surge...

and you pretend that sorcerer is not nerfed ?

now, I am ok, to tell that sorcerer magicka is bether than in 1.5. but in 1.5. sorcerer magicka was not really good for DPS.

So a little more balancing, but in this balance, sorcerer lost stamina competition and healing competition.

Not everything is good.

If I try to resume.
Now sorcerer magicka has the same DPS as other class, probably less than stamina build but bether than magicka build for other class.
but, now sorcerers are whe worst healer, and maybe the worst tank, and stamina sorcerer are the worst stamina class...

So at the end, I just say I am not happy and very disappointing with the all changes.

So when you say that sorcerers are not nerfed that just not truth (healing for example or stamina) and when you say sorcerers are very good now... i can't understand

Sorcerers have waited 6 month to have a little more DPS, good, but now i don't want again 6 month to be competitif for healing or playing a stamina build. !!!

My post says Magicka Sorcerers. I agree with ZOS that healer, tank and Stamina Sorcs need to be looked at.

Kragorn wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out.

If a class is only viable for a handful of the best players in hard-to-get gear there's something wrong with the class.

What gear are you having a hard time getting (from my post) and I'll suggest you something easier to get that will do almost as good?

Fayaburn wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

byrom101b16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

First of all - thank you for getting back to us. You're just the messenger and so I will clarify now that the rest of this post is directed at the decision makers behind you who have put you front and centre to answer the awkward questions they make the final decisions on.

I find nothing substantive in your post about magicka Sorcs whatsoever. Are you only listening to pppontus? Do the 99% of the rest of us, including Gil.Galad who have suffered the Sorc. as is and will be, and those of us who have laid out in great detail what the problems are, mean nothing to you on this particular issue?

You are tweaking peripheral issues at best, and if you had been keeping an eye as you say on magicka Sorcerers performance in the 6 months prior, you'd see that they are woefully underperforming.

Your promises on stamina Sorcerers are unspecific and speak of a 'future update'. When, who knows?

But nothing EVER for magicka Sorcs?

If you think the nerfs you are introducing in 1.6 do anything but make this worse, you are kidding yourselves. Gil.Galad has in each and every case come up with better solutions that your entire team have managed in how long?

But then that would suppose you have been looking at it with any rigour (outside of catering to a few noisy complainants in PvP) which I am having serious doubts about...

In any case, it appears that this thread and many others may as well not have been posted.

Is there any point playing anything but a DK or Templar healer in your game any more?

Having spent so much time on my Sorc. and having believed your manifesto about 'play the way you want to play', even defended your less palatable MMO/TES hybridisation decisions against a load of complaints from my friends, you have, ultimately make me look like a complete fool.

It is fair to say that I am utterly disappointed... it is perfectly clear to me that as you are up against a self-imposed console deadline and having missed the elephant in the room, you are brushing us off with what you hope will be sufficient placation.

Why don't you record another video calling Sorc. players complainers and subsequently doing nothing about it? I for one really appreciate having my judgement and forthright efforts to point out the very real problems utterly disregarded and belittled by your game designers.

Thanks...

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Magicka Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

This is where I drop the debate with you. I really tried to give as much credit to your post as I could even if not agreeing with your statements most of the time. However, your posts are more and more full of self-sufficience and clearly hold your opinion as the only one that matters in this game. Too bad.

Also, please keep ignoring the fact that many of our class spells are barely situational if not completely useless.

I saw your build now use the same gear setup as me. Good work on that.

I don't care what people think, I make my statements out of what I think is best for the game and for ZOS as they could get terribly confused by reading all the QQ and then looking at the skills being like "but.. wtf, they have the best dot, a skill that procs for insane damage.. how are they not getting this to work?".

So I show them that it does work, people just really don't want to listen because they are stuck in the mindset of Sorcs = bad.

And as far as holding your own opinion as the only one.. are you seeing something I'm not? Isn't that exactly what every single person that has posted in this thread ever does? And apparently ZOS seems to have just about the same idea.

Gil.Galad wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

byrom101b16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

First of all - thank you for getting back to us. You're just the messenger and so I will clarify now that the rest of this post is directed at the decision makers behind you who have put you front and centre to answer the awkward questions they make the final decisions on.

I find nothing substantive in your post about magicka Sorcs whatsoever. Are you only listening to pppontus? Do the 99% of the rest of us, including Gil.Galad who have suffered the Sorc. as is and will be, and those of us who have laid out in great detail what the problems are, mean nothing to you on this particular issue?

You are tweaking peripheral issues at best, and if you had been keeping an eye as you say on magicka Sorcerers performance in the 6 months prior, you'd see that they are woefully underperforming.

Your promises on stamina Sorcerers are unspecific and speak of a 'future update'. When, who knows?

But nothing EVER for magicka Sorcs?

If you think the nerfs you are introducing in 1.6 do anything but make this worse, you are kidding yourselves. Gil.Galad has in each and every case come up with better solutions that your entire team have managed in how long?

But then that would suppose you have been looking at it with any rigour (outside of catering to a few noisy complainants in PvP) which I am having serious doubts about...

In any case, it appears that this thread and many others may as well not have been posted.

Is there any point playing anything but a DK or Templar healer in your game any more?

Having spent so much time on my Sorc. and having believed your manifesto about 'play the way you want to play', even defended your less palatable MMO/TES hybridisation decisions against a load of complaints from my friends, you have, ultimately make me look like a complete fool.

It is fair to say that I am utterly disappointed... it is perfectly clear to me that as you are up against a self-imposed console deadline and having missed the elephant in the room, you are brushing us off with what you hope will be sufficient placation.

Why don't you record another video calling Sorc. players complainers and subsequently doing nothing about it? I for one really appreciate having my judgement and forthright efforts to point out the very real problems utterly disregarded and belittled by your game designers.

Thanks...

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

So a guild that makes raids with more than 50% DKs and no Sorcs at all has found out that Sorcs are fine. You just made my day!
You also dont have to care about sorcs - your best trial times are with your NB. I also havent found your sorc in the vet DSA top 100. I don't have the time to raid every week, I'm just helping out from time to time and I only finished vet DSA once (96 min), but i feel qualified enough to comment on your findings:
1. In trials no one cares about survivability. You have you can blame your healers when you die.
2. In trials a sorc will never be a healer or tank, since templars and DKs are way better for that and you are optimizing your group wherever you can.
3. Pure trial guilds don't care about how sorcs perform outside trials, doing quests, solo stuff, so all the things you need to get xp for champion points. Hodor people have their DKs for that.
4. Tell me some situation where you would prefer your sorc over any other class (you obviosly don't do it on live, so what has changed that you will do it after update 6)?

So yeah maybe Sorcs are fine for trials as DPS, but for nothing else. For a big part of the community this game is not only about trials, but dungeons quests and pvp. Not everyone wants to be limited to only one role, the magicka DPS. So please stop behaving like everyone else is a noob and start thinking outside of your trials box.

Have we ever had more than 50% DKs? I really don't think so. Does it matter which character has my best trial times? We still have 2 sorcs in our 8 minute AA, does it matter that me personally didn't play my Sorc then? If you want to know, the reason (one of) my NBs have most of my top times is because it's my newest character thus the one I've played most lately because it just hit VR14 like a month or two ago. New toys, y'know.

1. Yes, beside the point? I don't run any survivability on my Sorc on live anyway (power surge is better than crit surge).
2. I agree, and thus I also agreed with Gina's post that they need to look at those roles for the Sorc. I clearly said "Magicka Sorc" meaning Magicka DPS.
3. Yes, Hodor will always only take the absolute best of the best classes and if Sorc got boosted I'm sure they would all insta-reroll. Does that matter to the rest of the 99%? We've got top 10 spots and have never asked anyone to reroll to anything. If you play for #1 you always need FOTM.
4. I am actually playing my Sorc almost all the time in AA and HR now. In SO I most often tank so there it's my Templar (also my Templar naturally has my best time in SO because of that). I also would say I go 50/50 between Sorc or Stam NB for VDSA. Yesterday I took my Sorc in all 3 runs we did, because it's so much fun to play and I had the most DPS of the entire group in almost every single fight. Granted it wasn't our "core" group but still. Beat DKs and Stam NBs by 100-200 dps, and the rest by far more. That's also one of the main reasons I am so focused on my Sorcerer now, I love nothing more than beating people who say Sorcerers suck.. on a Sorcerer. I like being the perceived underdog

Anyway, I can't see how the class wouldn't function for questing or dungeons.. honestly, everything works for questing and dungeons atm so not sure how you will explain not being viable there..

daemonios wrote: »

So, this is already happening:

rogue_gamer32b14_ESO wrote: »

My guild has announced unless something changes, we will not be running any Sorcerer Magicka builds for Trials and end game content. Pets are not viable for endgame pve content and currently neither is any other magicka based Sorcerer build.

@ZOS_GinaBruno if this attitude, whether right or wrong, becomes the norm (as it has in 1.5), it's on you (ZOS/devs, not you personally). You've had 1 month of constant feedback from this class.

Attitudes are created by the community and not by the developers or by any connection to reality. Of course people are going to reject things because they believe they are bad, because Hodor doesn't take Sorcs or whatever. I think you're in my guild even.. well, for us, if you do 1K+ on a Sorc which is fairly easy then you have a chance at the top 10 and we don't care enough about #1 to only use FOTM. If people want FOTM, be prepared to reroll every patch.

byrom101b16_ESO wrote: »

Gil.Galad wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

byrom101b16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

First of all - thank you for getting back to us. You're just the messenger and so I will clarify now that the rest of this post is directed at the decision makers behind you who have put you front and centre to answer the awkward questions they make the final decisions on.

I find nothing substantive in your post about magicka Sorcs whatsoever. Are you only listening to pppontus? Do the 99% of the rest of us, including Gil.Galad who have suffered the Sorc. as is and will be, and those of us who have laid out in great detail what the problems are, mean nothing to you on this particular issue?

You are tweaking peripheral issues at best, and if you had been keeping an eye as you say on magicka Sorcerers performance in the 6 months prior, you'd see that they are woefully underperforming.

Your promises on stamina Sorcerers are unspecific and speak of a 'future update'. When, who knows?

But nothing EVER for magicka Sorcs?

If you think the nerfs you are introducing in 1.6 do anything but make this worse, you are kidding yourselves. Gil.Galad has in each and every case come up with better solutions that your entire team have managed in how long?

But then that would suppose you have been looking at it with any rigour (outside of catering to a few noisy complainants in PvP) which I am having serious doubts about...

In any case, it appears that this thread and many others may as well not have been posted.

Is there any point playing anything but a DK or Templar healer in your game any more?

Having spent so much time on my Sorc. and having believed your manifesto about 'play the way you want to play', even defended your less palatable MMO/TES hybridisation decisions against a load of complaints from my friends, you have, ultimately make me look like a complete fool.

It is fair to say that I am utterly disappointed... it is perfectly clear to me that as you are up against a self-imposed console deadline and having missed the elephant in the room, you are brushing us off with what you hope will be sufficient placation.

Why don't you record another video calling Sorc. players complainers and subsequently doing nothing about it? I for one really appreciate having my judgement and forthright efforts to point out the very real problems utterly disregarded and belittled by your game designers.

Thanks...

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

So a guild that makes raids with more than 50% DKs and no Sorcs at all has found out that Sorcs are fine. You just made my day!
You also dont have to care about sorcs - your best trial times are with your NB. I also havent found your sorc in the vet DSA top 100. I don't have the time to raid every week, I'm just helping out from time to time and I only finished vet DSA once (96 min), but i feel qualified enough to comment on your findings:
1. In trials no one cares about survivability. You have you can blame your healers when you die.
2. In trials a sorc will never be a healer or tank, since templars and DKs are way better for that and you are optimizing your group wherever you can.
3. Pure trial guilds don't care about how sorcs perform outside trials, doing quests, solo stuff, so all the things you need to get xp for champion points. Hodor people have their DKs for that.
4. Tell me some situation where you would prefer your sorc over any other class (you obviosly don't do it on live, so what has changed that you will do it after update 6)?

So yeah maybe Sorcs are fine for trials as DPS, but for nothing else. For a big part of the community this game is not only about trials, but dungeons quests and pvp. Not everyone wants to be limited to only one role, the magicka DPS. So please stop behaving like everyone else is a noob and start thinking outside of your trials box.

As usual Gil.Galad, a thoughtful and useful response to the usual misleading verbage.

Pppontus would have us beleive that his quoted exceptions prove the rule.

Personally I'd like to see a detailed analysis and breakdown of the issues from the Dev's or their de facto flag bearers explaining how one acheives the claimed DPS in any situation except where Sorcs are being healed in a raid against a suitably compliant and stationary boss, whilst buffed and the boss is debuffed to add to the numbers.

I used all the same skills as pppontus does in his video, soloing world bosses in upper Craglorn (one's I can kill with ease on live) and kept on dying. I got a few successes, but these relied on more than the average procs from my Valkyn set.

These were failures painfully underlined by a DK friend of mine on the Scorpion boss near DSA spamming one skill and blocking. He never went below 90% health. It was a farcical cakewalk by comparison. On live I kill this boss and it's adds without an issue.

So what to do?

Dark Exhange? It's nearly as useless as it is in live for all the reasons everyone knows. Most Sorcs don't use it, ever...

Spell Symmetry? Might as well bend over...

Surge? Against single target and proccing randomly off DoTs means this is a lottery, and according to pppontus shouldn't be on your bar anyway...

Hardened Ward & Storm (of either persuasion) - yeah - that's two slots taken, one for your pet. Just what is your 'rotation' now?

With Spell Power Potions (with increased duration due to maxed Alchemy passive) Entropy, Liquid Lightning, Boundless Storm, Crystal Frags, Force Pulse weaving with Light Attacks from staff, and Twilight, soloing is still much harder than in 1.5.

AOE pulls are a little easier to be sure, but we haven't been talking about that have we?

Pppontus - I would conclude that actually, it's you who can't figure out the truth of the matter. You think that cocooned in buffs, heals from others and sheilded from aggro, that barely adequate dps in a trial on a magicka Sorc makes the whole class fine. You haven't answered any other issues raised, nor acknowledged that your top of the pyramid gear isn't close to being the norm.

Apart from demonstrating your own skill, nothing you have to say about the Sorcerer is credible from the point of view of as you put it "everyone" else. Not until you acknowledge the state of the class outside of a narrow definition of DPS output when compared to classes with vastly more survivability, ease of play and which are ten times more forgiving of mistakes and mixed wiith the innexplicable Light Armour meganerf, makes the non-low pet magicka Sorc. a relic are your posts going to be credible to anyone but, as you put it "the few".

Either analyse the class with an unbias eye with similar analytical rigour as Gil.Galad has shown, or stop repeatedly stating everything is fine. You haven't backed up what you say so far, and have no sound basis for criticising or denying the observations and conclusions made by the OP.

If this were a formalised debate, you'd lose hands down because of lack of credible evidence.

Personally I'd like too see you or someone like you post two videos - one of their Sorc solo against a suitable target, and then their DK against the same one. We could then more clearly see the vast gulf between the two.

The fact is, DKs and Templars post 1.6 will dominate - massively.

They, (and especially tyhe DK as it has always been) are the poster boy all-rounders who leave the rest in the dirt and the same skill necessary to make a magicka Sorc run, allows either of these two classes to fly.

So - are you prepared to back up your statements with demonstrable facts we can all see and rigorous, unbias comparative analysis, or are you going to keep acting for all the world as if you work for the PR department at Zenimax?

In short - make it clear to the vast majority of Sorc players who don't exist in your bubble... and why your opinion and the 'few' should somehow dictate how 1000's of players are forced to experience their class nerfed into irrelevance in PvE.

My build is clearly only meant to be used in group play, I can easily modify it for soloing though. It's as easy as putting some defence on the bar. I mean I have played my Sorc in other circumstances as well on the PTS.. tried soloing different trash etc. and found it too feel very nice. I however don't do any scientific type tests on that because it isn't my area. I'm commenting in this thread because almost all feedback is related to Sorc DPS which is good. Or Surge, which if left in it's previous state made gameplay braindead as you didn't have to defend yourself against anything. If people have other complaints that the Magicka Sorc is UP, I honestly haven't seen them.

If you want me to do a comparison, I'll do a video comparison. I will have to swap out rings of cyro as I gave them to a guildie after the last copy but I'll use the same gear on both anyway.

Reykice · February 2015

The Sorcerers are the best ranged dps. With careful build planning they can heal 2k-3.5k hit points per second via Power Surge... the only problem is the cooldown making builds with dots less effective.

Pets can also enable the Sorcerer to solo better than any other class. The solo build for sorcerer is also a very high dps build...

I was able to use the VR14 template and 70-200 CP to solo the group delves in craglorn easily.(no deaths)

You can do it with 0 CP as long as you have the hp to survive the odd 14k hit from the archers. My test build only had 12k hp with 0 CP so i died once when soloing the group delve with 0 cp.

If you think the sorc is bad at survivability, try other classes... be amazed.

As for PvP, i don`t think they should balance for PvP all that much but even there you can see youtube tests between the good pvp players and the Sorcerer can hold its own winning most duels.

There are issues remaining for the stamina sorcs... BUT keep in mind that even with the surge CD they survive better compared to other classes. If they would remove the dot on the lightning form they would survive a lot better...

Fayaburn · February 2015

pppontus wrote: »

Fayaburn wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

byrom101b16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

First of all - thank you for getting back to us. You're just the messenger and so I will clarify now that the rest of this post is directed at the decision makers behind you who have put you front and centre to answer the awkward questions they make the final decisions on.

I find nothing substantive in your post about magicka Sorcs whatsoever. Are you only listening to pppontus? Do the 99% of the rest of us, including Gil.Galad who have suffered the Sorc. as is and will be, and those of us who have laid out in great detail what the problems are, mean nothing to you on this particular issue?

You are tweaking peripheral issues at best, and if you had been keeping an eye as you say on magicka Sorcerers performance in the 6 months prior, you'd see that they are woefully underperforming.

Your promises on stamina Sorcerers are unspecific and speak of a 'future update'. When, who knows?

But nothing EVER for magicka Sorcs?

If you think the nerfs you are introducing in 1.6 do anything but make this worse, you are kidding yourselves. Gil.Galad has in each and every case come up with better solutions that your entire team have managed in how long?

But then that would suppose you have been looking at it with any rigour (outside of catering to a few noisy complainants in PvP) which I am having serious doubts about...

In any case, it appears that this thread and many others may as well not have been posted.

Is there any point playing anything but a DK or Templar healer in your game any more?

Having spent so much time on my Sorc. and having believed your manifesto about 'play the way you want to play', even defended your less palatable MMO/TES hybridisation decisions against a load of complaints from my friends, you have, ultimately make me look like a complete fool.

It is fair to say that I am utterly disappointed... it is perfectly clear to me that as you are up against a self-imposed console deadline and having missed the elephant in the room, you are brushing us off with what you hope will be sufficient placation.

Why don't you record another video calling Sorc. players complainers and subsequently doing nothing about it? I for one really appreciate having my judgement and forthright efforts to point out the very real problems utterly disregarded and belittled by your game designers.

Thanks...

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Magicka Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

This is where I drop the debate with you. I really tried to give as much credit to your post as I could even if not agreeing with your statements most of the time. However, your posts are more and more full of self-sufficience and clearly hold your opinion as the only one that matters in this game. Too bad.

Also, please keep ignoring the fact that many of our class spells are barely situational if not completely useless.

I saw your build now use the same gear setup as me. Good work on that.

I don't care what people think, I make my statements out of what I think is best for the game and for ZOS as they could get terribly confused by reading all the QQ and then looking at the skills being like "but.. wtf, they have the best dot, a skill that procs for insane damage.. how are they not getting this to work?".

So I show them that it does work, people just really don't want to listen because they are stuck in the mindset of Sorcs = bad.

And as far as holding your own opinion as the only one.. are you seeing something I'm not? Isn't that exactly what every single person that has posted in this thread ever does? And apparently ZOS seems to have just about the same idea.

There is a way to make statements and express opinion. Your post imo was not using the appropriate way to provide opinion.

pppontus wrote: »

If people have other complaints that the Magicka Sorc is UP, I honestly haven't seen them.

I am sincerely starting to think that you are purposely chosing to not see them. Do you honnestly have only seen post complaining about the DPS of magicka sorcerer in this forum section?

I will quote myself here :

Fayaburn wrote: »

The most outstanding issues are the presence of almost completely useless skills in their current state (Rune prison, Dark exchange, Bound armor), along with other very situationnal skills (Daedric mines, Encase). The class also suffers from the number of toggle skills which are kind of a handicap when you take into account the scarcity of our skill bars. Our ultimates are imho lacking a bit as well (Overload situational, Negate nerfed too hard, Atronach damage too low considering it is Single target damage). To finish, we also suffer from having some of our class defining skills being sadly just ersatz of common skills (Surge vs Entropy/Rally, Dark exchange vs Spell symetry, Negate vs Circle of protection).

The gamedesign team also needs to rework our passives a bit as even if most of them seem interesting on paper, in practice, they synergize really badly with our skills and playstyle in general.

Fayaburn · February 2015

Double post...

Voltos · February 2015

Gil.Galad wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno maybe it is to late to make drastic changes, but may I ask you for a tiny change, that could help sorceres a lot?
Don't let the surge cooldown make it to live. You can still watch the selfheal provided by it and adjust the percentage of the damage that is provided as heal. The cooldown is just wrong and leads to effects like less healing when using any DOTs. No other comparable ability has it. We had no cooldown for the last year and the healing was a bit better then the ones from other classes but reducing the factor from 65% to 40% (power surge morph) plus adding a cooldown is just too much. Basically this is not a change I'm asking for, I'm just asking for NOT changing one thing.

@ZOS_GinaBruno. This! PLEASE!!!

pppontus · February 2015

Fayaburn wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

Fayaburn wrote: »

pppontus wrote: »

byrom101b16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys, thanks for your patience. We do have a status to share regarding Sorcerers as they currently stand.

First, there is one outstanding issue with Crystal Fragments not proccing when you cast Bolt Escape; we are aiming to fix this by time Update 6 is live. While we aren’t planning to implement any additional changes before Update 6 goes live, we will be keeping a very close eye on how Sorcerers – and all classes – perform in a Live environment, and will make tweaks as necessary. With Update 6 just around the corner, we don’t want to make any drastic changes that could affect gameplay in a negative way.

That said, we do have plans to make the Sorcerer more effective as a stamina DPS, tank, and healer. The first change we already made towards that direction is allowing the Clannfear to heal the caster based on their maximum health when the Clannfear is killed or dismissed. In a future update, we will be looking at giving the Sorcerer unique ways to fulfill the healer role, or deal damage with stamina-based abilities. Some specific issues we will also be evaluating are the number of toggled abilities on the class, Surge healing cooldown, and tweaks to make Dark Exchange more useful.

Please continue to report any issues you may come across, and thank you for all your support and feedback!

First of all - thank you for getting back to us. You're just the messenger and so I will clarify now that the rest of this post is directed at the decision makers behind you who have put you front and centre to answer the awkward questions they make the final decisions on.

I find nothing substantive in your post about magicka Sorcs whatsoever. Are you only listening to pppontus? Do the 99% of the rest of us, including Gil.Galad who have suffered the Sorc. as is and will be, and those of us who have laid out in great detail what the problems are, mean nothing to you on this particular issue?

You are tweaking peripheral issues at best, and if you had been keeping an eye as you say on magicka Sorcerers performance in the 6 months prior, you'd see that they are woefully underperforming.

Your promises on stamina Sorcerers are unspecific and speak of a 'future update'. When, who knows?

But nothing EVER for magicka Sorcs?

If you think the nerfs you are introducing in 1.6 do anything but make this worse, you are kidding yourselves. Gil.Galad has in each and every case come up with better solutions that your entire team have managed in how long?

But then that would suppose you have been looking at it with any rigour (outside of catering to a few noisy complainants in PvP) which I am having serious doubts about...

In any case, it appears that this thread and many others may as well not have been posted.

Is there any point playing anything but a DK or Templar healer in your game any more?

Having spent so much time on my Sorc. and having believed your manifesto about 'play the way you want to play', even defended your less palatable MMO/TES hybridisation decisions against a load of complaints from my friends, you have, ultimately make me look like a complete fool.

It is fair to say that I am utterly disappointed... it is perfectly clear to me that as you are up against a self-imposed console deadline and having missed the elephant in the room, you are brushing us off with what you hope will be sufficient placation.

Why don't you record another video calling Sorc. players complainers and subsequently doing nothing about it? I for one really appreciate having my judgement and forthright efforts to point out the very real problems utterly disregarded and belittled by your game designers.

Thanks...

Maybe you should listen to the players that can figure stuff out. Both me and a few of the hodor people have already figured out that Magicka Sorcs are:

1. Not nerfed
2. Very good right now

Just because everyone can't seem to figure it out, doesn't mean it isn't true. Obviously Zenimax knows this (thankfully) and won't completely destroy game balance by further buffs.

This is where I drop the debate with you. I really tried to give as much credit to your post as I could even if not agreeing with your statements most of the time. However, your posts are more and more full of self-sufficience and clearly hold your opinion as the only one that matters in this game. Too bad.

Also, please keep ignoring the fact that many of our class spells are barely situational if not completely useless.

I saw your build now use the same gear setup as me. Good work on that.

I don't care what people think, I make my statements out of what I think is best for the game and for ZOS as they could get terribly confused by reading all the QQ and then looking at the skills being like "but.. wtf, they have the best dot, a skill that procs for insane damage.. how are they not getting this to work?".

So I show them that it does work, people just really don't want to listen because they are stuck in the mindset of Sorcs = bad.

And as far as holding your own opinion as the only one.. are you seeing something I'm not? Isn't that exactly what every single person that has posted in this thread ever does? And apparently ZOS seems to have just about the same idea.

There is a way to make statements and express opinion. Your post imo was not using the appropriate way to provide opinion.

pppontus wrote: »

If people have other complaints that the Magicka Sorc is UP, I honestly haven't seen them.

I am sincerely starting to think that you are purposely chosing to not see them. Do you honnestly have only seen post complaining about the DPS of magicka sorcerer in this forum section?

I will quote myself here :

Fayaburn wrote: »

The most outstanding issues are the presence of almost completely useless skills in their current state (Rune prison, Dark exchange, Bound armor), along with other very situationnal skills (Daedric mines, Encase). The class also suffers from the number of toggle skills which are kind of a handicap when you take into account the scarcity of our skill bars. Our ultimates are imho lacking a bit as well (Overload situational, Negate nerfed too hard, Atronach damage too low considering it is Single target damage). To finish, we also suffer from having some of our class defining skills being sadly just ersatz of common skills (Surge vs Entropy/Rally, Dark exchange vs Spell symetry, Negate vs Circle of protection).

The gamedesign team also needs to rework our passives a bit as even if most of them seem interesting on paper, in practice, they synergize really badly with our skills and playstyle in general.

OK, well with useless skills I get what you're saying however really I don't agree. Area denial from mines is massive in PVP, shattering prison and dark exchange are both good in PVP as well.. Bound Armor is an option for certain builds which I personally don't like but .. yeah. RE: Ultimates I can agree Sorcs lack a good AOE class ultimate, now of course they can use Meteor though. At least I will.

Anyway for the person above who was talking about Solo PvE Questing/Dungeons, I made a quick comparison on the PTS just now between DK and Sorc. Both exact same gear, food, 70 CP distributed in the same stars, all passives in armor, class and racial then I just threw on a set up that I figured would work for soloing this world boss in upper crag. I had some resource issues as all my gear is maximized for DPS but since it's the same on both it should give you an idea:

http://youtu.be/g7LN7SqVf1M