Sorcerers are the most linear class.

Deathbyflame

First and foremost this discussion is not about the performance of the sorc class because its quite good dps if u agree to be a c-frag dispenser and if u like that good for u but i do not think that everyone does. sorcs essentially have two viable builds magicka being a c-frag dispenser and shield stacking glass canon build and stamina using mostly weapon abilities. Now why is it in a game that prides itself on play how u want u cant play how u want. U cant be an efficient melee magicka sorc and really cant be a great melee stamina sorc when every other class can fill these roles and be a caster. Every time this topic comes up, people think its ridiculous that a person with a class name sorcerer wants to be melee. But people do not think it is stupid when a templar wants to be a ranged caster! I mean they are templars not ranged casters when u think templar u think paladin. But when i think of a sorcerer and i know i'm the minority here but i don't just think of ranged magic damage i think alteration, illusion, conjuration like how u could be an efficient battle mage in skyrim and u could imbue your weapons with special powers to make them stronger. And stronger does not just have to be more dmg, it could mean attack speed or even lowering your opponents defenses.

Now to my main problem whenever this topic comes up anywhere else, people say "well if u pick sorc than u should expect to be a ranged caster." If i wanted to pick a class and play the way im told id play WOW. And also take dragonknight for example. well when i hear dragon knight i think of heavy armor and 2h or s&b. But wait, dks can be strong and efficient magicka casters and melee. But their DragonKnights? How does that make any sense they have Knight in the name they should not be able to be casters! See my point! Its ridiculous that the sorc class is the only class judged FOR ITS NAME! sorcerers and mages are two different things imo. It goes completely against what this game is based on, play how u want!

In closing, this discussion is not about sorcerers DPS although their dps is very rng based (but thats a topic for another time. I just do not think it is fair that ZOS and the whole eso community can say that the sorcerers have to be ranged caster because of their NAME, even though the other classes can also be ranged casters and much more. Either make all the classes be able to fill the roles or make every class fill one role because that Sorcerers are gimmicked this way. your move ZOS

Zanen

"Play how you want" has done the competitive game far more harm than good.

The truth is, 90+% of the time the way people want to play is bad.

PVE is all scaled for bad.

ZOS has thus far been unable to even address all the bugs that need fixing before a proper balance pass can be made to get one build for each class into a reasonable state, let alone all possible builds. Many bugs, exploits, and so on are still with us from PC beta.

Remarkably, class balance overall isn't too terrible at the moment, because there's so much stuff broken everybody benefits and suffers more or less equally, so long as you play to your class' particular strengths.

Sorcs are not as alone as you seem to think, every class/race combination that's decent pushes you into a very narrow build if you want to maximize your effectiveness.

Since everything works fine in solo PVE, there are such deep time sinks getting a character leveled up to the point where all this becomes apparent, and there's so little to do at that point anyway the game does pretty well regardless. There is so much to love in this game it's just a huge shame they haven't shown any interest in fixing these sorts of issues.

Cathexis

@Zanen

Zanen wrote: »

"Play how you want" has done the competitive game far more harm than good.

If you honestly believe that you are contributing to the destruction of the game.
The whole series is predicated on the idea that you can successfully play with any build.

if you were around in early stages of the game, well pre-1.6, build viability was far far better than post 1.6

I used to have 5-10 builds for my sorc that I could use interchangeably.

Now I basically have 1.

Zanen

Maybe, maybe not.

Pre 1.6 everybody ran magicka because stamina was complete crap for everything but tanking.

At launch hybrid viability might have been better but balance? Did you play a LA DK at launch? You might be the only one who didn't.

You can check I was one of the people early on telling folks they really didn't want diminishing returns removed.

Anyway I'm not saying there shouldn't be a wide variety of builds that are competitive I'm saying until they manage to fix all the long standing issues that need to be addressed before they can even make a legitimate balance pass it's sort of pointless to talk about balance.

Yes there should be a good stamina build for sorc but anything they do now without fixing stuff like penetration and health desync, and resistances and gap closers and mist form and hard/soft CC and on and on and on just creates new stuff that needs to be rebalanced when/if they ever do.

Egg_Death

It is my understanding that sorcerers are still the best for ranged spellcasting, so why would you expect to match the other classes in their respective strong areas? I also recall hearing that sorcerers got a nerf at some point, so perhaps an overreaction? Also, has every possible build been explored already? I also wonder if enough metrics are being used to determine what the "best" builds are for each class. Do these non-sorcerer spellcaster builds suffer from any drawbacks that are not being brought up? The usual metrics don't tell you everything. I'd find it hard to believe you could match the passive buffs on magicka regen of a sorcerer with any of the other classes, for example. Numbers also find it hard to represent tactics.

It makes sense to have a wide variety of builds available, but I think that as long as you're crunching numbers there will always be one clear winner.

Deathbyflame

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DUIm-vu-cw Check out this amazing templar spell caster build almost as good or better than a c-frag dispensing sorcerer and can also be used in melee range.

Flameheart

Zanen wrote: »

"Play how you want" has done the competitive game far more harm than good.

The truth is, 90+% of the time the way people want to play is bad.

PVE is all scaled for bad.

ZOS has thus far been unable to even address all the bugs that need fixing before a proper balance pass can be made to get one build for each class into a reasonable state, let alone all possible builds. Many bugs, exploits, and so on are still with us from PC beta.

Remarkably, class balance overall isn't too terrible at the moment, because there's so much stuff broken everybody benefits and suffers more or less equally, so long as you play to your class' particular strengths.

Sorcs are not as alone as you seem to think, every class/race combination that's decent pushes you into a very narrow build if you want to maximize your effectiveness.

Since everything works fine in solo PVE, there are such deep time sinks getting a character leveled up to the point where all this becomes apparent, and there's so little to do at that point anyway the game does pretty well regardless. There is so much to love in this game it's just a huge shame they haven't shown any interest in fixing these sorts of issues.

I have to agree, but I have to agree to the TO too, that a game that allows - at least in theory - full freedom in role, magicka/stamina based builds, should make it possible that all builds are viable and competitve in PvP/PvE. In addition I want to ask, if I am the only one who might realize the impossibility of that claim, while balancing class/role/build vs. class/role/build for every inch of this game and while serious bugs are still existent in this game ?

On the other hand, if anybody wants to play an exotic build and he wants to group and play instances, it's up to him (and only him) to make that build viable and competitive in groups. Bosses do not care for your exotic build, they just care for the damage you deal and the damage you take, or the mitigation you provide and the aggro you cause, or the healing you are able to put out.

I have no issue at all with stamina sorcerer tanks or else as long as it works. For the case something does not work, blaming Zenimax but keeping the build as a burden for other players due to changing nothing, isn't enough.

For luck this game is of such mediocre difficulty lvl right now, that the later won't be needed that often anyways.

ADarklore

My thought is that there are too many players who want every ability to be the exact same damage output and will complain when it isn't. You can design any type of build you want, but ultimately you must try to offset your lower damage choices with other ones. I don't believe every damage ability should do the exact same amount of damage just so you can't pick what you want and expect to do the same damage. This game offers options, but some options are less optimal and some can be downright detrimental. This is where research and skill come into play... and sometimes if you want to be on par with the best, then you need to bite the bullet and utilize abilities that they are using, because they have crunched the numbers and know what works (thank you @Deltia ). As for myself, I take the ideas I find through research and run them through my own play-style and see how effective I am with it. I've mixed and matched ideas and found a couple different loadouts I enjoy using, and these even include a pet, because I like pets... but I also have a different loadout for group content that drops the pet- because group instances and pets don't play well together. But in every other aspect of the game, I use my Clannfear, he's my tank, but I don't have a 'pet-focused' loadout. I took the one thing I must have, a pet, and then added abilities which complimented that type of ranged style utilizing a single tank pet and my loadouts definitely work well enough for me.

Dracane

The only reason why all Sorcerer will look at you like a villain, when you come up with this topic, is because to make stamina Sorcs better, you will have to take something from Magicka Sorcs. So far, ZoS did a great job at making stamina Sorcs better, without taking anything from Magicka Sorcerers and also the next step (stamina Lightning form) will not harm us. And also, because buffing Stamina Sorcerers, steels possible buffs from Magicka Sorcs and in my opinion, Magicka Sorcs have higher priority.

I think, a Sorcerer is a Mage and it's just natural, that a Sorcerer is not the best warrior and a Dragon Knight not the best ranged caster. I've played all Elder Scrolls games and I know, that a mage is not necessarily a cloth wearing staff wielder. But please don't expect a stamina Sorc to be on par with other stamina classes. In my opinion, Sorcerer already has some nice tools for stamina (Dark deal and bound aegis)

NotSo

Nobody is talking about skills having more than 2 morphs to solve this problem, change the damn game already.

Dracane

NotSo wrote: »

Nobody is talking about skills having more than 2 morphs to solve this problem, change the damn game already.

How ?

ADarklore

Here is a question regarding that 'Stamina Lightning Form'... how does the stats scale? Does it have anything to do with scaling to Stamina vs Magicka or is it just based upon your armor/resistance stats? I don't know about other Sorc players, but I tend to always have a pool of Stamina that isn't being used, so having a Sorc ability that can make use of my lower Stamina pool- as long as it doesn't scale off of it- wouldn't be a bad thing as it would save Magicka for other Sorc abilities.

Armann

Dracane wrote: »

I think, a Sorcerer is a Mage and it's just natural, that a Sorcerer is not the best warrior and a Dragon Knight not the best ranged caster. I've played all Elder Scrolls games and I know, that a mage is not necessarily a cloth wearing staff wielder. But please don't expect a stamina Sorc to be on par with other stamina classes. In my opinion, Sorcerer already has some nice tools for stamina (Dark deal and bound aegis)

Of course, but if they cannot make stamina sorcerers competitive with the other classes they should not attempt to make changes at all. You do not aim for mediocrity.

ADarklore

Armann wrote: »

Of course, but if they cannot make stamina sorcerers competitive with the other classes they should not attempt to make changes at all. You do not aim for mediocrity.

I think they aimed for options, not trying to make them competitive. Obviously from their data, they can see how many people use certain abilities... so they probably took a look and found something they could toss stamina Sorcs a bone with. Clearly one of those Lightning Form morphs were heavily underused, so they figured they could just turn it into a stamina version to give stamina Sorcs an additional ability.

Dracane

ADarklore wrote: »

Here is a question regarding that 'Stamina Lightning Form'... how does the stats scale? Does it have anything to do with scaling to Stamina vs Magicka or is it just based upon your armor/resistance stats? I don't know about other Sorc players, but I tend to always have a pool of Stamina that isn't being used, so having a Sorc ability that can make use of my lower Stamina pool- as long as it doesn't scale off of it- wouldn't be a bad thing as it would save Magicka for other Sorc abilities.

It will scale with stamina only. They claim, it's going to be a 'High (yes, HIGH) damage ability' So uhm, you call 500 damage per second high damage ? So it could be, that the stamina version of lightning form will receive a huge damage buff.

Dracane

ADarklore wrote: »

Armann wrote: »

Of course, but if they cannot make stamina sorcerers competitive with the other classes they should not attempt to make changes at all. You do not aim for mediocrity.

I think they aimed for options, not trying to make them competitive. Obviously from their data, they can see how many people use certain abilities... so they probably took a look and found something they could toss stamina Sorcs a bone with. Clearly one of those Lightning Form morphs were heavily underused, so they figured they could just turn it into a stamina version to give stamina Sorcs an additional ability.

And that's perfectly valid. That's what they did with some other Sorc abilities. My problem is, that they sometimes don't seem to test numbers. For example the Daedric prayer morph for daedric curse, deals less damage with pets, than the normal daedric curse with pets ( i also made a thread about this) Also bound armor in my opinion, should give us 10% more Magicka, because Magelight grants 7% more Magicka, +10% spell crit.

Sorc buffs are always cute and nice in the first moment. But in the end, useless buffs.

ADarklore

Dracane wrote: »

And that's perfectly valid. That's what they did with some other Sorc abilities. My problem is, that they sometimes don't seem to test numbers. For example the Daedric prayer morph for daedric curse, deals less damage with pets, than the normal daedric curse with pets ( i also made a thread about this) Also bound armor in my opinion, should give us 10% more Magicka, because Magelight grants 7% more Magicka, +10% spell crit.

Sorc buffs are always cute and nice in the first moment. But in the end, useless buffs.

Didn't know that about the Daedric Curse... good thing you mentioned it as I was planning to use the Daedric Prey morph.

Also, I thought Magelight->Inner Light only grants 2% Magicka. Because Magelight alone reduces Magicka 5%, then Inner Light, instead of reducing, increases it 2%. Or is this another one of those, "tool-tips don't match the actual ability"?

Dracane

ADarklore wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

And that's perfectly valid. That's what they did with some other Sorc abilities. My problem is, that they sometimes don't seem to test numbers. For example the Daedric prayer morph for daedric curse, deals less damage with pets, than the normal daedric curse with pets ( i also made a thread about this) Also bound armor in my opinion, should give us 10% more Magicka, because Magelight grants 7% more Magicka, +10% spell crit.

Sorc buffs are always cute and nice in the first moment. But in the end, useless buffs.

Didn't know that about the Daedric Curse... good thing you mentioned it as I was planning to use the Daedric Prey morph.

Also, I thought Magelight->Inner Light only grants 2% Magicka. Because Magelight alone reduces Magicka 5%, then Inner Light, instead of reducing, increases it 2%. Or is this another one of those, "tool-tips don't match the actual ability"?

Aw cute we're living in 1.6 my friend. Nothing reduces Magicka anymore. Inner light adds 5% Magicka and 2% more if you have the passives.

ADarklore

Dracane wrote: »

Aw cute we're living in 1.6 my friend. Nothing reduces Magicka anymore. Inner light adds 5% Magicka and 2% more if you have the passives.

I've only been playing since mid-May, so pre-1.6 was before my time. So many of these external sites need to update their information then to the 1.6 era, it's tough to know what is accurate and what isn't anymore, especially for someone new coming in.

Dracane

ADarklore wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Aw cute we're living in 1.6 my friend. Nothing reduces Magicka anymore. Inner light adds 5% Magicka and 2% more if you have the passives.

I've only been playing since mid-May, so pre-1.6 was before my time. So many of these external sites need to update their information then to the 1.6 era, it's tough to know what is accurate and what isn't anymore, especially for someone new coming in.

One of my favorite remnants is this

Altmer, Gift of Magnus: I 4% max Magicka II 8% more Magicka III 12% more Magicka

Altmer was so beautiful and lore friendly. Now it's just insulting and outrageous, impure humans (bretons) having the same amount of Magicka as we. Pffff, ZoS !