Sorcerers were over nerfed... again

Hypertionb14_ESO

wrecking blow stam builds should be doing at least 10-20% better dps than a magicka sorc, simply because of the ranged vs melee risks vs reward.

its safer to ranged attack but weaker, and dangerous to melee but stronger.


since we dont really have a burst vs dot system, and stack both, this basically needs to be the line differance.

crystal blast as stam makes almost no sense...

Vis

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

wrecking blow stam builds should be doing at least 10-20% better dps than a magicka sorc, simply because of the ranged vs melee risks vs reward.

its safer to ranged attack but weaker, and dangerous to melee but stronger.

That would fit in most MMOs. However, that is not the case in ESO. The plethora or reflects/absorbs make ranged dps a liability. Furthermore, with increase medium armor mitigations, an amazing new HoT, gap closers galore, lower skill costs, and tons more utility skills with melee range ... melee dps is not that much of a liability anymore.

Make more ranged skills non reflectable and I will come back to your point of view.

MADshadowman

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

wrecking blow stam builds should be doing at least 10-20% better dps than a magicka sorc, simply because of the ranged vs melee risks vs reward.

its safer to ranged attack but weaker, and dangerous to melee but stronger.


since we dont really have a burst vs dot system, and stack both, this basically needs to be the line differance.

crystal blast as stam makes almost no sense...

Oh yeah, right. there was this super weak high range ability. What was it's name again? Snipe or something? Or Jesus Beam? Or meteor? Or soul assault? Aww man, can't remember.

Snit

Making skills useful to stamina sorcs does not require making them use stamina. Stam sorcs make excellent use of utility and buff spells based on magicka. The ones that must scale with max stamina are damage abilities and absorb shields.

If stamina sorcs don't get an absorb shield, they need a good, stamina-based heal. Hardened Ward is now the magicka sorc's primary 'heal,' and it's good. Stamina sorcs need something similar.

Hypertionb14_ESO

MADshadowman wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

wrecking blow stam builds should be doing at least 10-20% better dps than a magicka sorc, simply because of the ranged vs melee risks vs reward.

its safer to ranged attack but weaker, and dangerous to melee but stronger.


since we dont really have a burst vs dot system, and stack both, this basically needs to be the line differance.

crystal blast as stam makes almost no sense...

Oh yeah, right. there was this super weak high range ability. What was it's name again? Snipe or something? Or Jesus Beam? Or meteor? Or soul assault? Aww man, can't remember.

and thats why ranged has been so dominant in this game and why untill now everyone just laughed at any attempt to play as melee. there was no compairable benefit for the extra risk.

wrecking blow is a bit much since its bonus now affects itself, but as long as the builds that use it can only manage 10-20% or so better than a similar ranged build, its got the right reward for the risk.

Vahrokh

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

wrecking blow stam builds should be doing at least 10-20% better dps than a magicka sorc, simply because of the ranged vs melee risks vs reward.

its safer to ranged attack but weaker, and dangerous to melee but stronger.


since we dont really have a burst vs dot system, and stack both, this basically needs to be the line differance.

crystal blast as stam makes almost no sense...

Oh yeah, right. there was this super weak high range ability. What was it's name again? Snipe or something? Or Jesus Beam? Or meteor? Or soul assault? Aww man, can't remember.

and thats why ranged has been so dominant in this game and why untill now everyone just laughed at any attempt to play as melee. there was no compairable benefit for the extra risk.

wrecking blow is a bit much since its bonus now affects itself, but as long as the builds that use it can only manage 10-20% or so better than a similar ranged build, its got the right reward for the risk.

Do you even play the game?
We are doing the "new" trials and happily dying ranged and melee alike.

ESO <> WoW.

There's no 1 button happy bunny spamming in here, random "red circles" pop in every corner not just around the boss. Adds do room wide damage.
Actually, after 2 dodge rolls I can't do any more and I will eat the next damage, whereas stamina people can roll the whole encounter.

Mage add at last AA boss hits everybody. Unckecked axes hit everybody not just melee.
Mages in HR do splash fire damage to everybody.
Manticora in Sanctum does poison to everybody, AoE "vulcans" on everybody. The poison phase affects everybody. Other bosses require everybody to stack on top of each other, have fun with melee "disparity".

Verdwhisper

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We do still have plans to make stamina-based Sorcerer builds more competitive. That said, it’s going to take some time to make comprehensive changes that are balanced, fully tested (both internally and on the PTS), and also include appropriate visual effects. We’re currently keeping an eye on data since Update 6 was published, and have some ideas on what we’d like to pursue. What would you all like to see to make stamina Sorcs a more viable build to use?

Stamina sorcs in terms of dps in pve is comparable (a little bit behind) to other classes because the only sorc skill u need is bound armor. However, sorcs stamina management is the worst among all classes. Dark deal is not a real option because it will cause significant dps loss. The only passive which is related to stamina sorcs is 5% stamina reduce cost, imo, this is not enough, even if u raise it to 8%, it would still be inferior to stamina regen because it only reduces skill cost not dodge roll or block, which is really crucial for survival. When it comes to pvp, stamina sorcs in lack of resource management becoming more obvious, DKs has their skill and passive synergy while NB and templars have significant more stamina regen. That's just one thing, if we look at sorc skills to fit in a stamina sorc skill bar, u can hardly find anything useful, maybe lightning form and teleport but you will be out of mana within 3 teleports. Stamina sorcs dont have much survivablity and heal options. Dk and templars can heal themselves and can use shield (scale to hp), sorc shield is useless to stamina sorc because it scales to magicka. Nb can go invisible and they can dodge roll better because 30% more stamina regen(compare this to 5% reduce skill cost, I think this should be reconsidered).Teleport is not an option because u cannot spam it and not mention gap closers are superior to teleport when it comes to chasing because of longer range and less cost. With the huge amount of magicka cost and 1.3s cast time and also 5s rebate cd, clannfear would not be used by even most of magicka sorcs. Rebate cd is ok, but imo, cast time is not necessary and the cost of summoning clannfear can be reduced so it can be reached by both magicka and stamina sorcs. Dark deal healing is also not an option, u need to out range components to use it, so teleport, and u r out of magicka to use it. So, imo, give sorcs more stamina regen passives and make clannfear heal viable but not spammable, although other healing skills are spammable. Also, give sorcs some stamina offensive skills might be a good idea (like stamina crystal). Btw, hybrid builds in pvp after 1.6 would not be great unless you have like 180 cps to spent. In terms of magicka sorcs, in pve, their skills cost too much and liquid lightning should be a target skill in stead of ground aoe imo. In pvp, magicka sorcs are doing fine, I know ppl complaining about shield stacking, i would suggest making sorc ward scale to hp, make clannfear cast instant, reduce its cost, keep rebate cd, liquid lightning a instant cast target skill, increase stamina and magicka reduce cost to about 10 to 15% or give sorcs more magicka and stamina regen. Just my 2 cents. It will be highly appreciated if u can read all these words. Thanks.

bloodenragedb14_ESO

do some of you even know what the term 'sorcerer' typically means......thats right, magicka. gods, it makes so little sense to pick a a clearly magicka based class and cry and whine that you cant make a stamina build with it. Please ZOS, whatever you do, dont destroy the class. if you have to, add a third morph to the existing ones, but dont destory the class to cater to the minority.

Psychobunni

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We do still have plans to make stamina-based Sorcerer builds more competitive. That said, it’s going to take some time to make comprehensive changes that are balanced, fully tested (both internally and on the PTS), and also include appropriate visual effects. We’re currently keeping an eye on data since Update 6 was published, and have some ideas on what we’d like to pursue. What would you all like to see to make stamina Sorcs a more viable build to use?

The more I thought abt this comment....and all the complaints being magicka based....it's not fair mods get to troll and players don't

Reykice

bloodenragedb14_ESO wrote: »

do some of you even know what the term 'sorcerer' typically means......thats right, magicka. gods, it makes so little sense to pick a a clearly magicka based class and cry and whine that you cant make a stamina build with it. Please ZOS, whatever you do, dont destroy the class. if you have to, add a third morph to the existing ones, but dont destory the class to cater to the minority.

Let`s not be mean... they can balance the stamina sorcs while doing other things, one doesn`t negate the other...

bloodenragedb14_ESO

i wasnt attempting to be mean. i was merely trying to state my frustration with people who choose apple juice, but complain it doesnt taste like orange juice

Edit: Then complaining/praying to the gods to make apple juice taste like orange juice, completely ignoring the fact that some of their fellow humans like apple juice.

seriously, go drink orange juice, let us apple lovers have apple juice

Nightreaver

Erock25 wrote: »

I don't getwhat is so hard for people to understand about the fact that magicka sorc (pets or no pets) are doing more DPS than any other class in a magicka spec (possibly besides DK who need to be in melee range to do their magicka DPS).

It is literally blowing my mind that they are STILL COMPLAINING after we went from 3rd place magicka DPS and just spamming one Destro staff ability to the number 1 ranged DPS in game that uses a nice mix of all of our class abilities and is 100 times more fun to play than Crushing Shock spammer we were before.

I just don't get it.

Then let me try and help you understand.
When I look for a class to fill a role whether it is Tank, Healer or DPS I want the class that can best fill that role. I don't care if it's Stamina or Magicka or Ranged or Melee or what color armor the person has or if it's male or female.

The only comparison I have seen shows Sorcerers 12.5% behind in DPS. We were 3rd place DPS in 1.5 and from all evidence remain in 3rd place DPS in 1.6 behind one class that excels in Tanking and a second that excels in Healing. And now ZOS coming here and telling us they have no interest in even looking at Magicka DPS for Sorcerers. What is so hard to understand about our frustration?

I want and expect Sorcerers to fill the role of DPS as well as anyone else. I would rather do less DPS if it meant we were balanced than more DPS yet remain behind the classes. It really is as simple as that.
But currently I see no evidence of that.

I like my Sorcerer. I prefer it over the 1.5 version. But not enough that I feel I should be content with being behind other classes in every role. And at this point not even enough to continue my sub.

Vahrokh

Nightreaver wrote: »

The only comparison I have seen shows Sorcerers 12.5% behind in DPS. We were 3rd place DPS in 1.5 and from all evidence remain in 3rd place DPS in 1.6 behind one class that excels in Tanking and a second that excels in Healing. And now ZOS coming here and telling us they have no interest in even looking at Magicka DPS for Sorcerers. What is so hard to understand about our frustration?

I want and expect Sorcerers to fill the role of DPS as well as anyone else. It really is as simple as that.
But currently I see no evidence of that.

I like my Sorcerer. I prefer it over the 1.5 version. But not enough that I feel I should be content with being behind other classes in every role. And at this point not even enough to continue my sub.

My "on the field", "real life" (no fake low level NPCs a la mammoths) measurements, taken across different magicka builds, spell sets and gear setups show much, much worse than 12.5% behind in DPS. Maybe it's stamina sorcs who do 12.5% worse. Magicka sorcs do A LOT worse, with or without pet. I'd say 25-30% worse except for few bosses where it's 20-25% worse.

Also, I have to dutifully note how, despite a lot of improvements in the graphics, the gameplay is still utterly unresponsive for whoever got some decent "twitching" skills.
I can flip hotkey bars in most games with a similar mechanics so fast, that when I try with ESO it ALWAYS gets stuck.
Playing ESO unresponsiveness is a lot of pain, if I play "fluent" as I do in the other games, I get to cast the wrong spells, because I switch to hotbar 2, cast a spell, get back to hotbar 1 and... the game stays stuck in hotbar 2, it can't keep up.
I have enabled the latency meter and it's showing my connection to the game is very fast.

daemonios

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

wrecking blow stam builds should be doing at least 10-20% better dps than a magicka sorc, simply because of the ranged vs melee risks vs reward.

its safer to ranged attack but weaker, and dangerous to melee but stronger.


since we dont really have a burst vs dot system, and stack both, this basically needs to be the line differance.

crystal blast as stam makes almost no sense...

Can you seriously not see what's wrong with this reasoning? I can accept melee skills hit harder than ranged skills. But that's only if at the end of the day the AVERAGE DPS IS THE SAME FOR BOTH. Otherwise, why not make melee-only groups for DPS, with the odd ranged skills for backup when you really can't go up close and personal?

The truth is most boss mechanics (and I'm talking about bosses/minibosses here, trash mobs are negligible) affect melee and ranged players alike, with the difference that ranged players have much less survivability. So we deal less damage AND die more - how is that balanced? And if you're talking about tanks, I'm sorry, I see no reason why the tank should be one of the top DPS in a group - his job is to taunt the boss, turn him away from the party where needed, CC the adds, etc.

TL;DR: Can we please stop with this risk vs. reward nonsense when speaking about class balance?

Hypertionb14_ESO

no offense but if you have to constantly dodge roll the popcorn from manticora or the wisp rain from mother, you really need to rethink your defensive ability.

melee does have greater risks, it always has..

you cant have too many melee players attacking the manticora as it focuses the popcorn where it can easily hit several, but ranged people in the groups can spread out so only one person has to really worry about it.

same with the mage, if you have too much melee, they get hit by chainlightning, but spread out ranged attacks dont have to worry about that..


this is why you only ever say maybe 1 melee in the first fight in scantum with others maybe switching over for the serpant, and at best 3 melee on the mage.

to a degree, melee has to stack close in putting several at risk of getting hit by one "little aoe circle" because of limited range.

there is risks to melee that ranged doesnt have to worry about, and there always has been.

its not limited to stamina builds either... i assume you dont also have a DK or you would have noticed that by now.

ANY BUILD in melee range has to worry much more about their footing due to mechanics of MANY bosses in Trials, and Vet Dungeons, and Both versions of DSA.

if you cant see this, i have to ask what game YOU were playing for the past 11 months that i wasnt. because for the longest time, the only melee ranged fighters you would see were Magic Based Dragon Knights

i know many players who eventually rolled a DK for better DPS who found that it was much harder to keep alive due to the range differance, but they learned how to manage that.

(most boss mechanics affect ranged and melee alike) and some mechanics punish melee characters.. so it seems to me that if you factor in both the ones that hit players reguardless of where they are and the ones that noticeable endangers closer ranged players more then melee ranged players are still getting the short end of the stick in terms of safety.

yes, sorcerers overall have always had issues keeping up with other classes in terms of DPS overall, but if oyu dont pay attention to ALL the factors, you will never get true balance not between the classes, but all dps builds in general.

NordJitsu

Community Magicka Sorcs are utterly worthless. As a result, we all have to roll Stamina Sorcs. While this is stronger than the Magicka Sorc, we're still weak relative to the other classes.

ZOS Don't worry!! We have plans to buff the Stamina Sorc!!!

Community But aren't you missing the larger problem that the entire class is shoe-horned into stamina because what would seem like the most natural build for a Sorcerer, using magic, is worthless?

ZOS STAMINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vis

NordJitsu wrote: »

Community Magicka Sorcs are utterly worthless. As a result, we all have to roll Stamina Sorcs. While this is stronger than the Magicka Sorc, we're still weak relative to the other classes.

ZOS Don't worry!! We have plans to buff the Stamina Sorc!!!

Community But aren't you missing the larger problem that the entire class is shoe-horned into stamina because what would seem like the most natural build for a Sorcerer, using magic, is worthless?

ZOS STAMINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You nailed it!

Hypertionb14_ESO

Vis wrote: »

NordJitsu wrote: »

Community Magicka Sorcs are utterly worthless. As a result, we all have to roll Stamina Sorcs. While this is stronger than the Magicka Sorc, we're still weak relative to the other classes.

ZOS Don't worry!! We have plans to buff the Stamina Sorc!!!

Community But aren't you missing the larger problem that the entire class is shoe-horned into stamina because what would seem like the most natural build for a Sorcerer, using magic, is worthless?

ZOS STAMINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You nailed it!

agreed

Irista

Vahrokh wrote: »

So...
we are doing trials. We are trying all sorts of magicka sorc builds, pet-less, with matriarch, with or without focus on AoE abilities and curses posted on some threads.

Result:

PATHETIC.

There's no way to get within 75% or 80% of any other DPS specced class. Actually the pets aggro bosses "just because" and other inconveniences.


ZOS could you please tell us WHY should anyone keep playing a sorc in PvE?

Thank you for bringing this up. I have mentioned this in a few forum threads before the patch was released to live and people have looked over it. The stupid pets TAUNT bosses. Yay.

Currently I'm still a magicka sorc. I'm not changing, screw it. and I REFUSE to use pets. I should not be forced into using pets. I'm a PVEr. That is my focus. Everyone is giving us information/testing/crying based on PvP. We are saying PvE magicka sorcs are broken, broken, broken.

However, my GM is a sorc as well. Rolled it to be a magicka caster, but after the patch went stam build. He uses a 2hander and wrecks it.

Basically my job? Put down lightning puddle.. yay for synergies.. Use pulsar to lower mob health.. yay, again... Keep weakness of elements up on the boss to benefit the other DPS. Curse.. yawn.. spam force pulse.. cross my fingers for an unreliable cyrstal fragment proc.

Don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but CF proc is bad. I can sit there for at least 10-20s and not get a single proc. Other times.. heavy attack, force pulse -> CF proc and this will hit over and over like.. 5 times in a row.

Currently I'm stacking spell power because that's all I have to work with. I HAVE to run 2 pieces of heavy, if I don't my healer will have an actual heart attack. Crit surge is bad. So I pick up power surge.. yay more spell power.. but of course it's the most expensive spell ever.

Yes I manage my mana. To the best of my ability. I weave in heavy attacks, I have the good mana pots and chug them on CD. But I still don't even come close to my stamina based sorc friend.

.. I have no more words except.. /facepalm

Fix it ZOS. Please.

Edit: Also, another HUGE issue with magicka sorcs... nearly most of our skills are useless for PvE. We have to go into the destruction staff and mages guild skill lines to pick up stuff to use. I don't know how the community feels, but to me this screams that sorcs are broken. Especially when creating a character, the summary for sorcs says we use SPELLS for lightning, etc.. dark MAGIC.. I think my point is made.

o_0

I would love some input from ZOS on their plans to make Sorc viable for trials. For example, it would be nice to see a fair share of Sorc on the leaderboards.

I wonder if 9 Sorc that are on the weekly leaderboard are stamina or magicka.

Erock25

Nightreaver wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

I don't getwhat is so hard for people to understand about the fact that magicka sorc (pets or no pets) are doing more DPS than any other class in a magicka spec (possibly besides DK who need to be in melee range to do their magicka DPS).

It is literally blowing my mind that they are STILL COMPLAINING after we went from 3rd place magicka DPS and just spamming one Destro staff ability to the number 1 ranged DPS in game that uses a nice mix of all of our class abilities and is 100 times more fun to play than Crushing Shock spammer we were before.

I just don't get it.

Then let me try and help you understand.
When I look for a class to fill a role whether it is Tank, Healer or DPS I want the class that can best fill that role. I don't care if it's Stamina or Magicka or Ranged or Melee or what color armor the person has or if it's male or female.

The only comparison I have seen shows Sorcerers 12.5% behind in DPS. We were 3rd place DPS in 1.5 and from all evidence remain in 3rd place DPS in 1.6 behind one class that excels in Tanking and a second that excels in Healing. And now ZOS coming here and telling us they have no interest in even looking at Magicka DPS for Sorcerers. What is so hard to understand about our frustration?

I want and expect Sorcerers to fill the role of DPS as well as anyone else. I would rather do less DPS if it meant we were balanced than more DPS yet remain behind the classes. It really is as simple as that.
But currently I see no evidence of that.

I like my Sorcerer. I prefer it over the 1.5 version. But not enough that I feel I should be content with being behind other classes in every role. And at this point not even enough to continue my sub.

@Nightreaver

All of these DPS test videos that you are taking your numbers from are where the player literally stands in one spot and spams their best abilities. Many high end fights in this game, whether they are from trials or vet dungeons, requires you to change targets, move around, not bunch up, or the boss itself moves around and every single time the ranged player will be able to begin their DPS rotations again at a faster rate.

I'm also a firm believer that in PVE, magicka Sorcs were totally broken before 1.6. It is disgusting to design a class where the best you can do is keep Power Surge running and spam Crushing Shock. 1.6 has done a wonderful job with magicka Sorc because now instead of being basically ZERO builds that utilize class abilities, we now have two. You have the Pet and non-Pet spec and yes, they do both use Force Pulse as filler, but you gain great benefit from actually using your class abilities on top of it. Playing a non-Pet spec Sorc in group PVE is now actually fun and requires you to manage your timers way better.

In my opinion, you have to look at a huge overhaul like this in a overall viewpoint ... kinda like a toolbox. In 1.5, the magicka group PVE Sorc toolbox was empty besides Surge. In 1.6, the magicka group PVE Sorc toolbox is full to the brim with useful abilities. Crystal Frags, Liquid Lightning, either Curse morph. As long as we have the tools, I think the DPS numbers can be tweaked. I believe if ZOS notices that 66% of all people in trials are standing there spamming Wrecking Blow endlessly, they will change that. I believe if ZOS notices that Sorc continue to do less DPS than other classes, it is as easy as changing Expert Mage to 3% spell power per Sorc skill or scale the pets damage up slightly more or up the damage on Curse or even increase the Thundering Presence damage to a point where Sorc can do a significant amount of bonus damage in melee range. It is all little tweaks that can be easily managed. The only two things broken about magicka Sorc in my opinion is the way Mines work with bosses (there should be no reduced damage or whatever the hell mechanic they introduced.... reward us for having good placement or a tank that works well with our skills) and that Entropy is a better option than Power Surge.

So while the magicka Sorc has a full toolbox, the stamina Sorc has an empty one. Every other class got all these nice toys to play with while the Sorc only got Bound Armaments - a toggle - taking up two slots and providing no active mechanic to make the class more interesting. Below are all the changes in 1.6 that affect the different classes while using a stamina spec. Please remember this doesn't even list things that were already in place, like DK getting stam regen from their heal, or NB getting passive increased stam regen options, or Templar having Repentance.

DK changes that affect stamina builds

Searing Strike

Unstable Flames (morph): This ability now scales off Stamina and Attack Power and costs Stamina. Damage is mitigated by your target’s melee defense statistics.

Fiery Breath

Burning Breath (morph): This ability will now scale off of stamina and weapon power, and is mitigated by your target’s melee defense statistics. This ability now applies the Major Fracture debuff to your target.

Inferno

Flames of Oblivion (morph): This ability now provides the same effect as Inferno, as well as providing the Major Savagery (that is weapon crit) buff while active.

Molten Weapons

This ability will no longer buff allies. Instead, activating Molten Weapons will increase your heavy attack damage by 40% for 7 seconds. The duration increases with each additional rank.

Igneous Weapons (morph): Using a heavy attack while this ability is active will increase its duration by one second.

Molten Armaments (morph): This ability now increases the extra damage against low health targets.

Slightly reduced the cost of Molten Weapons and its morphs.

Earthen Heart

Mountain’s Blessing: This passive now also grants all allies within 30 meters the buff Minor Brutality for 10 seconds at Rank I, or 20 seconds at Rank II.

NB changes that affect stamina builds

Assassins Blade

Killer’s Blade (morph): This is now a stamina-based ability. The heal from this ability will now be applied if your target dies within 2 seconds of the ability being used, regardless of who killed the target.

Teleport Strike

Ambush: This ability now uses stamina instead of magicka, and applies the Minor Berserk buff on the next attack.

Mark Target

This ability now grants the Major Breach and Major Fracture buffs.
Removed the penalty from this ability.
This ability can now be cast on any target.
Reduced the cost of this ability by approximately 50%, and reduced the duration to 20 seconds.
Piercing Mark (morph): The duration of this ability now scales with ability ranks up to a maximum of 30 seconds.
Reaper’s Mark (morph): This ability now grants the Major Berserk buff for 8 seconds after the target is killed.

Veiled Strike

Surprise Attack (morph): This morph is now a stamina-based ability, now applies the Major Fracture debuff, and will no longer reduce your target’s armor if they dodge the initial attack.

Drain Power

The damage caused by Drain Power no longer scales with the number of targets hit. Instead, you will receive a Major Brutality buff when damaging at least one target.
Power Extraction (morph): This ability now scales off weapon damage and stamina instead of magicka and spell damage. The damage has also been increased by 10%.

Templar changes that affect stamina builds

Puncturing Strikes

Biting Jabs (morph): This ability now scales off stamina and weapon power, and now also provides the Major Savagery buff.

Piercing Javelin

Binding Javelin (morph): This ability now scales off stamina and weapon power.

Backlash

Power of Light (morph): This ability now applies the Minor Fracture debuff to your target, and the damage caps are derived from your maximum stamina.

Aedric Spear

Burning Light: The damage from this passive is now derived from your highest stats (stamina or magicka based).

Aedric Spear

Balance Warrior: Increased the weapon damage from this passive to 3% at Rank I, and 6% at Rank II.

Sorc changes that affect stamina builds

Bound Armor

Bound Armaments (morph): This ability now costs Stamina instead of Magicka, gives you a bonus to stamina instead of magicka, and increases the damage done by heavy attacks.

Dark Exchange

Dark Deal (morph): This ability now converts magicka into health and stamina.

I list Dark Deal there but in reality, it is a non-factor in any of the content that counts. Full heavy attacks will always be better at managing stamina than stopping all of your DPS and channeling. Literally the only things that a stamina Sorc uses from his Sorc abilities/passives is 5% stamina cost reduction and 8% bonus stamina and 11% bonus heavy attack damage from Bound Armaments. You could take away all three class skill lines and a stamina Sorc would play the exact same way and just be missing out on a bit of damage. We need a stamina attack (only class to not get one while DK got 2, NB got 4, and Temp got 3). We need in combat (aka no Dark Deal) stamina regen. We need some buffs or passives that help stamina builds. I think ZOS realizes this and that is why they will specifically address stamina builds (and I hope healer builds and tanks as well).

Vahrokh

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

yes, sorcerers overall have always had issues keeping up with other classes in terms of DPS overall, but if oyu dont pay attention to ALL the factors, you will never get true balance not between the classes, but all dps builds in general.

Come on! Even a moron can play ESO, Manticora is perhaps the one boss fight that other MMOs would call "decent difficulty", there are several 4 men bosses way harder to deal with than trials.

ESO difficulty bar is low enough, and content so quick to fully complete, that outside of Hodor and an handful other guilds, trial leaders call people due to class "worthyness", not for their mythological personal player skills.

That is, if even playing a melee was actually harder (it is not, before respeccing for ranged DPS I was a tank and then melee DPS - I am one of the fools who believed in TES lore and to have found a game where a Battlemage was possible...), it's not hard enough to justify large classes differences.
That is, a trial leader who is not an utter idiot, SHALL keep sorcs out as much as possible, they are just a worthless DRAIN on a group success.
If before patch 1.6 sorcs were desired because of easy, quick and effective negate PERIOD, now they come with:

- annoying pets that aggro the boss and start the encounter... because.
- a negate that takes eons to take back up again and is not the negate of old anyway.
- utterly lackluster DPS exactly now that bosses has an health boost.
- lack of synergy with anyone else including between themselves.
- low health => they are the first to die to a sneeze, even sacrificing (even more!) DPS to go all out health build.
- mana regen (what's it now?) and mana costs. Spending longer chugging potions and dark exchanging than any other class.

Result: yesterday the only time we needed a negate was at last boss, once. 1 sorc "required" (best guilds do completely without of course, as posted in score boards since weeks ago) and only to press 1 button, once.

YEAH! That 1 button motivates a guy to grind to VR14 and then CP!

Vahrokh

Erock25 wrote: »

I believe if ZOS notices that Sorc continue to do less DPS than other classes, it is as easy as changing Expert Mage to 3% spell power per Sorc skill or scale the pets damage up slightly more or up the damage on Curse or even increase the Thundering Presence damage to a point where Sorc can do a significant amount of bonus damage in melee range. It is all little tweaks that can be easily managed. The only two things broken about magicka Sorc in my opinion is the way Mines work with bosses (there should be no reduced damage or whatever the hell mechanic they introduced.... reward us for having good placement or a tank that works well with our skills) and that Entropy is a better option than Power Surge.

I believe they had just 7 months to notice Sorcs continued to do less DPS than other classes and... put them under the rug and forgot about it.

Proof: you are playing the proof. Reality could smack them on the head like a 300 gigaton meteor and they'd still be stuck at tweaking Matriarch for 2.95% more DPS in exchange for [enter here endless trade offs and downsides for this AWESOME buff].

Erock25

Vahrokh wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

I believe if ZOS notices that Sorc continue to do less DPS than other classes, it is as easy as changing Expert Mage to 3% spell power per Sorc skill or scale the pets damage up slightly more or up the damage on Curse or even increase the Thundering Presence damage to a point where Sorc can do a significant amount of bonus damage in melee range. It is all little tweaks that can be easily managed. The only two things broken about magicka Sorc in my opinion is the way Mines work with bosses (there should be no reduced damage or whatever the hell mechanic they introduced.... reward us for having good placement or a tank that works well with our skills) and that Entropy is a better option than Power Surge.

I believe they had just 7 months to notice Sorcs continued to do less DPS than other classes and... put them under the rug and forgot about it.

Proof: you are playing the proof. Reality could smack them on the head like a 300 gigaton meteor and they'd still be stuck at tweaking Matriarch for 2.95% more DPS in exchange for [enter here endless trade offs and downsides for this AWESOME buff].

The problem before was that they couldn't increase Crushing Shock damage because it would increase other classes DPS as well and they couldn't increase Sorc skill damage because it scaled on Spell Power while Crushing Shock scaled on Weapon Power so you would always gain more damage by stacking Weapon Power. Now with all spell caster things scaling on Spell Power, with Crystal Frag instant cast truly being instant and not ruining our rotation, with Vel Curse worth using over another Force Pulse, and ofc with Liquid Lightning being the best damage per cast ability in the game, it will be incredibly easy to do very small tweaks. There was no easy answer before.

Vahrokh

Erock25 wrote: »

The problem before was that they couldn't increase Crushing Shock damage because it would increase other classes DPS as well and they couldn't increase Sorc skill damage because it scaled on Spell Power while Crushing Shock scaled on Weapon Power so you would always gain more damage by stacking Weapon Power. Now with all spell caster things scaling on Spell Power, with Crystal Frag instant cast truly being instant and not ruining our rotation, with Vel Curse worth using over another Force Pulse, and ofc with Liquid Lightning being the best damage per cast ability in the game, it will be incredibly easy to do very small tweaks. There was no easy answer before.

If they truly wanted to do something, they would just have added / tweaked 1-2 sorc class passives to selectively inflate the benefits they could not place on general abilities.

Would have it been optimal? No. Would it have saved us pain for 7 months? YES.
And now? Let's see those quick rolling in sorc buffs, I already imagine ZoS stopping Tamriel Unlimited delivery date and moving Consoles development because of this unsurpassable sorcs issues fixing. *rolls eyes*

Vis

@ZOS_GinaBruno Significantly lowering the cost of bolt escape (or removing its penalty) would take minimal time to implement and would garnish a lot of good will from sorcs while we wait for balance fixes.

We could really use a bone in the near to immediate future. We understand the devs are stressed and tired, but this small change would take a lot of pressure off of them. Thank you for considering it.

o_0

Vis wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno Significantly lowering the cost of bolt escape (or removing its penalty) would take minimal time to implement and would garnish a lot of good will from sorcs while we wait for balance fixes.

We could really use a bone in the near to immediate future. We understand the devs are stressed and tired, but this small change would take a lot of pressure off of them. Thank you for considering it.

I can see this being beneficial for stamina Sorc. As for magicka, i have no complaints with bolt escape, can use it over 20 times before out of magicka.

What I would like to see are options to bring Sorc on par for PvE. Thus ending the "your a sorc? sorry no trial for you, we're looking for 16k+ dps"

Vis

o_0 wrote: »

Vis wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno Significantly lowering the cost of bolt escape (or removing its penalty) would take minimal time to implement and would garnish a lot of good will from sorcs while we wait for balance fixes.

We could really use a bone in the near to immediate future. We understand the devs are stressed and tired, but this small change would take a lot of pressure off of them. Thank you for considering it.

I can see this being beneficial for stamina Sorc. As for magicka, i have no complaints with bolt escape, can use it over 20 times before out of magicka.

What I would like to see are options to bring Sorc on par for PvE. Thus ending the "your a sorc? sorry no trial for you, we're looking for 16k+ dps"

You are right, it would not be a huge use for trials. I was thinking more about the pvp issue where gap closer spam and wrecking nuke have hurt both magicka and stamina sorcs significantly. Which is another reason I call it a start and not the final solution.

Spangla

Reykice wrote: »

You added a heal to the familiar to try and compensate for the Surge nerfs... that pretty much wrecked some build. Cool.

Then you add a cast time to the TANK PET and change the related Rebate passive to be worthless?

In the end its another big nerf... replacing the buff we initially got.

All of this on top of the already many other nerfs Sorcerers and pretty much every class got in 1.6 to try and make the champion system more appealing, to make grind more appealing...

What is the point for Sorcerers and magicka builds.... stamina ones can spam one skill all day every day and do a lot more damage and a lot more dps. They now have stamina healing spells, 3 times more mitigation.... unlimited ways to get to a target and unlike the Sorcerer teleport, their charge ability has no increased cost if used often.

You also nerfed Surge twice, first you add a cooldown then you remove the passive giving us 10% cost reduction... Surge is one of the most expensive spells in the game, more expensive than any spell NB`s, Dk`s and Templars have. Same for the pets, they cost a lot more than any other heal... a lot more.

So sadly there is so little to look forward to in 1.6 except maybe some more grind... to get back to the power level we were before 1.6...

Is this what you wanted, to nerf every class so bad they need to grind(and thus play) for a year to gain the power back? Are you even aware about any of this, do you play your game?

Just genuinely Lol'd the whole way through this post.

Sorc in pvp own in this patch you know nothing

Reykice

Erock25 wrote: »

Nightreaver wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

I don't getwhat is so hard for people to understand about the fact that magicka sorc (pets or no pets) are doing more DPS than any other class in a magicka spec (possibly besides DK who need to be in melee range to do their magicka DPS).

It is literally blowing my mind that they are STILL COMPLAINING after we went from 3rd place magicka DPS and just spamming one Destro staff ability to the number 1 ranged DPS in game that uses a nice mix of all of our class abilities and is 100 times more fun to play than Crushing Shock spammer we were before.

I just don't get it.

Then let me try and help you understand.
When I look for a class to fill a role whether it is Tank, Healer or DPS I want the class that can best fill that role. I don't care if it's Stamina or Magicka or Ranged or Melee or what color armor the person has or if it's male or female.

The only comparison I have seen shows Sorcerers 12.5% behind in DPS. We were 3rd place DPS in 1.5 and from all evidence remain in 3rd place DPS in 1.6 behind one class that excels in Tanking and a second that excels in Healing. And now ZOS coming here and telling us they have no interest in even looking at Magicka DPS for Sorcerers. What is so hard to understand about our frustration?

I want and expect Sorcerers to fill the role of DPS as well as anyone else. I would rather do less DPS if it meant we were balanced than more DPS yet remain behind the classes. It really is as simple as that.
But currently I see no evidence of that.

I like my Sorcerer. I prefer it over the 1.5 version. But not enough that I feel I should be content with being behind other classes in every role. And at this point not even enough to continue my sub.

@Nightreaver

All of these DPS test videos that you are taking your numbers from are where the player literally stands in one spot and spams their best abilities. Many high end fights in this game, whether they are from trials or vet dungeons, requires you to change targets, move around, not bunch up, or the boss itself moves around and every single time the ranged player will be able to begin their DPS rotations again at a faster rate.

I'm also a firm believer that in PVE, magicka Sorcs were totally broken before 1.6. It is disgusting to design a class where the best you can do is keep Power Surge running and spam Crushing Shock. 1.6 has done a wonderful job with magicka Sorc because now instead of being basically ZERO builds that utilize class abilities, we now have two. You have the Pet and non-Pet spec and yes, they do both use Force Pulse as filler, but you gain great benefit from actually using your class abilities on top of it. Playing a non-Pet spec Sorc in group PVE is now actually fun and requires you to manage your timers way better.

In my opinion, you have to look at a huge overhaul like this in a overall viewpoint ... kinda like a toolbox. In 1.5, the magicka group PVE Sorc toolbox was empty besides Surge. In 1.6, the magicka group PVE Sorc toolbox is full to the brim with useful abilities. Crystal Frags, Liquid Lightning, either Curse morph. As long as we have the tools, I think the DPS numbers can be tweaked. I believe if ZOS notices that 66% of all people in trials are standing there spamming Wrecking Blow endlessly, they will change that. I believe if ZOS notices that Sorc continue to do less DPS than other classes, it is as easy as changing Expert Mage to 3% spell power per Sorc skill or scale the pets damage up slightly more or up the damage on Curse or even increase the Thundering Presence damage to a point where Sorc can do a significant amount of bonus damage in melee range. It is all little tweaks that can be easily managed. The only two things broken about magicka Sorc in my opinion is the way Mines work with bosses (there should be no reduced damage or whatever the hell mechanic they introduced.... reward us for having good placement or a tank that works well with our skills) and that Entropy is a better option than Power Surge.

So while the magicka Sorc has a full toolbox, the stamina Sorc has an empty one. Every other class got all these nice toys to play with while the Sorc only got Bound Armaments - a toggle - taking up two slots and providing no active mechanic to make the class more interesting. Below are all the changes in 1.6 that affect the different classes while using a stamina spec. Please remember this doesn't even list things that were already in place, like DK getting stam regen from their heal, or NB getting passive increased stam regen options, or Templar having Repentance.

DK changes that affect stamina builds

Searing Strike

Unstable Flames (morph): This ability now scales off Stamina and Attack Power and costs Stamina. Damage is mitigated by your target’s melee defense statistics.

Fiery Breath

Burning Breath (morph): This ability will now scale off of stamina and weapon power, and is mitigated by your target’s melee defense statistics. This ability now applies the Major Fracture debuff to your target.

Inferno

Flames of Oblivion (morph): This ability now provides the same effect as Inferno, as well as providing the Major Savagery (that is weapon crit) buff while active.

Molten Weapons

This ability will no longer buff allies. Instead, activating Molten Weapons will increase your heavy attack damage by 40% for 7 seconds. The duration increases with each additional rank.

Igneous Weapons (morph): Using a heavy attack while this ability is active will increase its duration by one second.

Molten Armaments (morph): This ability now increases the extra damage against low health targets.

Slightly reduced the cost of Molten Weapons and its morphs.

Earthen Heart

Mountain’s Blessing: This passive now also grants all allies within 30 meters the buff Minor Brutality for 10 seconds at Rank I, or 20 seconds at Rank II.

NB changes that affect stamina builds

Assassins Blade

Killer’s Blade (morph): This is now a stamina-based ability. The heal from this ability will now be applied if your target dies within 2 seconds of the ability being used, regardless of who killed the target.

Teleport Strike

Ambush: This ability now uses stamina instead of magicka, and applies the Minor Berserk buff on the next attack.

Mark Target

This ability now grants the Major Breach and Major Fracture buffs.
Removed the penalty from this ability.
This ability can now be cast on any target.
Reduced the cost of this ability by approximately 50%, and reduced the duration to 20 seconds.
Piercing Mark (morph): The duration of this ability now scales with ability ranks up to a maximum of 30 seconds.
Reaper’s Mark (morph): This ability now grants the Major Berserk buff for 8 seconds after the target is killed.

Veiled Strike

Surprise Attack (morph): This morph is now a stamina-based ability, now applies the Major Fracture debuff, and will no longer reduce your target’s armor if they dodge the initial attack.

Drain Power

The damage caused by Drain Power no longer scales with the number of targets hit. Instead, you will receive a Major Brutality buff when damaging at least one target.
Power Extraction (morph): This ability now scales off weapon damage and stamina instead of magicka and spell damage. The damage has also been increased by 10%.

Templar changes that affect stamina builds

Puncturing Strikes

Biting Jabs (morph): This ability now scales off stamina and weapon power, and now also provides the Major Savagery buff.

Piercing Javelin

Binding Javelin (morph): This ability now scales off stamina and weapon power.

Backlash

Power of Light (morph): This ability now applies the Minor Fracture debuff to your target, and the damage caps are derived from your maximum stamina.

Aedric Spear

Burning Light: The damage from this passive is now derived from your highest stats (stamina or magicka based).

Aedric Spear

Balance Warrior: Increased the weapon damage from this passive to 3% at Rank I, and 6% at Rank II.

Sorc changes that affect stamina builds

Bound Armor

Bound Armaments (morph): This ability now costs Stamina instead of Magicka, gives you a bonus to stamina instead of magicka, and increases the damage done by heavy attacks.

Dark Exchange

Dark Deal (morph): This ability now converts magicka into health and stamina.

I list Dark Deal there but in reality, it is a non-factor in any of the content that counts. Full heavy attacks will always be better at managing stamina than stopping all of your DPS and channeling. Literally the only things that a stamina Sorc uses from his Sorc abilities/passives is 5% stamina cost reduction and 8% bonus stamina and 11% bonus heavy attack damage from Bound Armaments. You could take away all three class skill lines and a stamina Sorc would play the exact same way and just be missing out on a bit of damage. We need a stamina attack (only class to not get one while DK got 2, NB got 4, and Temp got 3). We need in combat (aka no Dark Deal) stamina regen. We need some buffs or passives that help stamina builds. I think ZOS realizes this and that is why they will specifically address stamina builds (and I hope healer builds and tanks as well).

I agree with your stamina sorcs need something for stamina... we`ll see what they come up with.


Maybe change some passives to keep their original bonus and say "if the user is wearing 5 pieces of medium or heavy armor, it also does this:"