Feedback on Sorcerer Ability Changes and how to make Stamina Sorcerers viable

Birdovic

So there has been discussions on this topic a looong time now.
I think the way ZOS tried changing Abilities is a nice start, but well. Its just a start and definetly needs tweaking.

What most people dont keep in mind when making suggestions is the impact on "normal" magicka sorcerers.
A stamina sorcerer is a great Idea and here I make this thread to suggest changes that benefit Stamina Sorcerers WITHOUT destroying essential skills and therefore playstyles that magicka sorcerers are used to, even added some improvements for Magicka Sorcerers at the same time. Tell me what you think, suggestions, feedback, etc.

Active Abilities


Chrystal Blast:
I have never seen this Ability to be efficently used so far.
Its time to replace it with something useful.
- Costs Stamina
- Scales on Stamina and Weapon Damage
- Smaller Range (22m instead 28m)
- 1 Sec Cast Time: Knocks 1 enemy down for 2 sec and deals DoT (Magicka/Bleed)
- Up to 4 close Enemies get hit for 50% less and are snared by 25% for 4 Seconds

Empowered Ward:
The Idea of adding a Minor Mending buff sounds good!
But Minor is simply not enough to be useful.
As we know Magicka Sorcerers have not much use in such skills, since there is not much of selfheals availaible to support this. So why not change Minor Mending in Major Mending instead, providing a buff and making Sorc Healers finally worth a thought? Hardened Ward will easily outplay this skill in its current (PTS) state because its a musthave to slot to replace low health (and even currently on Live to avoid getting 1-2 shot). While Empowered ward isnt that effective for Magicka Sorcerers who rely too much on a big shield to defend themselves and start to panic when their little health is scratched, there is a way to make it interesting atleast to Stamina Sorcerers to simply improve their own heals or finally making Sorcerer Healers a real thing:

- Costs Magicka (incl. 8,5% Cost reduction as on PTS)
- Shield Scales on Health
- Replacing Minor Mending with Major Mending
- Major Mending lasts atleast 12 seconds, even when Shield is depleted


Why these Changes?
This Morph supports plaiyng a Stamina Sorcerer who relies on selfheals instead of shields. The Shield it provides is okay for a little protection and doesnt take over as "Main Defense" as Hardened Ward does for Magicka based Sorcerers. Currently, using Empowered ward with 30.5k Magicka provides about 5450 shield. Scaling on Health should provide like 70% of that, resulting in a shield with around 3800 points, which is totally fine as this Ability is basically about the Major Mending effect and the shield is a nice little bonus. With scaling on Health this ability makes Sorcerer Healers a considerable build due to 30% better Heals, supporting them in their healer role. Like this it will even be interesting in AvA when people most likely will use Vigor all the time or in Group Dungeons to increase the given heals.

Thundering Presence:
Good Idea to let it scale on Stamina, but well, thats it.
This Morph should provide the so needed Mobility of Stamina Sorcerers, since using Bolt Escape is out of question(high cost).
- Scale on Stamina and Weapon Damage
- Major Spellresistance/Armor Buffs
- Add Major Expedition for 10 Seconds (40% faster)
- Shock AoE procs every 2sec instead each sec

Boundless Storm:
- Scale on Magicka and Spellpower
- Major Spellresistance/Armor Buffs
- Add Major Expedition for 6 Seconds (40% faster)
- Has Shock AoE as usual with proc each sec

Surge :
Great move to reduce ability cost and increase duration, thanks for that!
But still this ability remains in the shadows, being outplayed by Entropy easily.
To make it a more important decision and not just ignore Surge at all as usual, here some suggestions:

Power Surge:
- Costs Magicka
- Gives Major Sorcery (20% Spelldmg increase)
- Healing doesnt proc on Dots
- Cooldown between procs increased to 200 milliseconds
- Heal on crit Hit increased to 70% of dealt damage
- Decrease Duration by 6 seconds

Why these Changes?
Even if 70% of dealt damage as healing sounds like a lot, it is not because
1) Damage is now reduced to 50% on PvP (-> 50% less heal therefore)
2) Doesnt proc on Dots and has bigger cooldown between procs
3) Magicka Sorcerers Spellcrit usually is lower than Weaponcrit of Stamina Users (less procs)
= Not giving Major Brutality and decreasing the Duration by 6 seconds discourages Stamina Players to use this morph (to get 60% heals) or makes them think twice if they really want to sacrifice so much for it, not to mention the long cooldown between procs. For PvE, this skill remains interesting because Sorcerers tend to go for high spelldamage and a specific amount of health (not very high but higher than on PvP), where the heals will be useful to support the healer

Critical Surge:
- Costs Stamina instead
- Gives Major Brutality (20% Weapondmg increase)
- Healing does proc on Dots
- Cooldown between procs decreased to 50 milliseconds
- Heal on crit Hit decreased to 45% of dealt damage
- 1% of Max Magicka returned with every Crit Hit

Why these Changes?
1) The Healing from Procs may be just 45% but in exchange triggers from Dots and has smaller cooldown, granting many small heals over a long Duration when used wisely (33 Sec)
2) This Morph makes it easier for Stamina Sorcerers to play without relying on Momentum and therefore always equipping a 2H Sword, no matter what. This change makes Dualwielding and Bows more interesting to use again.
3) Since Stamina Sorcerers focus on Stamina (obvious) they will run out of Magicka after some time, so the 1% Max Magicka return delays and helps with this issue a little

Dark Deal
Finally we are not forced to stand in 1 place / move slow as hell while channeling this Ability, I like it.
But what bothers me is the cast time and this small timeframe after using it (maybe 0,3- 0,5sec) where I cant use skills or even change skillbar, this takes away alot of flexibility during fights. Only thing that works instantly afterwards is Dark Deal itself. Thats especially a problem because we cant block while we use it. As the Morph stands now, the cast time is too long to be useful in pvp and most likely in pve, too. We lose more health while using it, than we recover.
- Change cast time to 0,5 seconds
- Let the skill be used more fluently(no useless idle time after usage)
- Atleast 10% more recovered Stamina/Health per use
- (optional: Add possibility of crit recover Stamina/Health but less health/stamina recovered?)

Bound Armor:

Bound Armaments:
This needs some changes, especially because its a toggle ability. The Minor Buff of Armor is not even worth mentioning(oops). 8% More Stamina, nice!. The idea to increase heavy Attack damage is okay, but mainly for Magicka Sorcerers (Destro Shock Staff / Resto Staff).
Better:
- Costs Stamina
- Increase Heavy Attack Damage by 11%
- Increase Light Attack Damage by 5%
- Increase Health Regeneration by 20%
- Increase Max Stamina by 8%
- Minor Resolve

Bound Aegis:
The only reason people ever slot this Ability is because of 8% Max Magicka.
Better:
- Costs Magicka
- Increase Heavy Attack Damage by 11%
- Increase Light Attack Damage by 5%
- Increase Max Magicka by 10%
- Minor Resolve
- Minor Ward

Passive Abilities

Daedric Protection:
Currently:
"Increases Health Recovery by 10%/ 20% when a Daedric Summoning Ability is slotted"
Better:
"Increases Health Recovery by 10%/ 20% and Stamina Regeneration by 5%/ 10% when a Daedric Summoning Ability is slotted.

Blood Magic:
Currently:
"Hitting an Enemy with a Dark Magic Ability heals you for 4%/ 8% Max Health"
Better:
"Every Enemy hit with Dark Magic abilities heals you for 2%/ 4% Max Health"
(This makes using Encase and its Morphs way more useful, just like the Chrystal Blast with my changes (mentioned on Top))

Exploitation:
Currently:
"Activating a Dark Magic Ability grants Minor Prophecy to nearby Allies, increasing Spell Ciritcal by 3% for 20 seconds"
Better:
"Increases Weapon Critical Hit Chance by 4%/ 8%. Activating a Dark Magic Ability grants Minor Prophecy to nearby Allies, increasing Spell Critcal by 3% for 10/ 20 seconds."

Energized
Currently:
"Increases Damage of Storm Calling Abilities by 3% / 5%

Better:
"Increases Damage of Storm Calling Abilities by 3% / 5%. Grants a 4%/ 8% Chance to gain Minor Expedition for 6 Seconds when activating a Storm Calling Ability."

Expert Mage:
Currently:
"Increases Spell Power by 1%/ 2% for each Sorcerer Ability slotted"
Better:
"Increases Spell Power by 1%/ 2% and Weapon Power by 2%/ 4% for each Sorcerer Ability slotted"

Edit:
- Added "Energize" Passive
- Updated "Expert Mage" Passive
- Updated "Exploitation" Passive
- Updated "Daedric Protection" Passive
- Updated "Bound Armor" Active (Morphs)
- Updated "Surge" Active (Morphs)

Bfish22090

/lurk

Amoureros

Critical Surge:
- Costs Stamina instead
- Gives Major Brutality (20% Weapondmg increase)
- Healing does proc on Dots
- Cooldown between procs increased to 100 milliseconds
- Heal on crit Hit decreased to 35% of dealt damage
- 1% of Max Magicka returned with every Crit Hit

You are killing Stamina Sorcerer with this. 35% is ridiculous. gotta be back to 100%

But other changes looks great.

asteldian

I disagree with Empowered Ward - my change would be a decrease to 10s and grant major mending, that way Sorcs become decently powerful healers like a DK can be. Afterall, the change made was obviously to try give Sorcs a boost to play group healer, but minor mending isn't enough.

Dracane

andypappb16_ESO wrote: »

Bound Aegis:
The only reason people ever slot this Ability is because of 8% Max Magicka.
Better:
- Costs Magicka
- Increase Heavy Attack Damage by 11%
- Increase Max Magicka by 10%
- Minor Resolve
- Minor Ward

Yes yes yes please *-* the good suggestion here.
I would rather have it increasing Magicka regeneration too though instead of heavy attack damage. So that Sorcerer finally is on par with Nightblade

And the Magicka increase is needed. Right now, Magelight is much better. I rather have 7% more Magicka and 2% more regen AND 10% more crit instead of 1% more Magicka. In most cases, there is not enough space to have both on your bars.

Considering Nightblades only have to slot 1 ultimate to have 8% more Magicka and don't even have to waste valueable skill slots, 10% Magicka isn't even enough for an ability that costs 2 skill slots and is totally useless besides having it on your bar. Nightblades can fill these slots with abilities, that are also usefull instead of being there to give you Magicka only.

Birdovic

asteldian wrote: »

I disagree with Empowered Ward - my change would be a decrease to 10s and grant major mending, that way Sorcs become decently powerful healers like a DK can be. Afterall, the change made was obviously to try give Sorcs a boost to play group healer, but minor mending isn't enough.

@asteldian
Thinking so long about suggesting changes to work with all other skills in a seamless way....
and now you show up and show me the easiest adjustment to make my idea perfect!
Thanks for that, will edit my post in a minute!

@Dracane
Well, its a toggle but still we have to be careful to not overpower it

By adding Magicka Regen and Spellcrit, too, people will just slot it for exactly that. Everyone.^^.
This is like the easy decision between current Entropy and Surge situation. Surge is ignored and Entropy chosen without a second thought! With your suggestion, Magelight will be the ignored one instead^^
What I try to achieve with this Morphs' Changes is to allow alternative playstyles, this morph especially is aimed at synergizing with heavy attack based Sets.
But thanks for your feedback, happy you like my list )


If we continue improving this list, we hopefully will be able to play our beloved Sorcerers in different ways (than the usual MagesWrath/Curse/Entropy/Frag/ Combo)

mwd419_ESO

Your ideas for critical surge are bad. 35% is way too low.

And I like that it costs magicka. Otherwise I just have a bar of useless blue junk I never touch.

Birdovic

mwd419_ESO wrote: »

Your ideas for critical surge are bad. 35% is way too low.

And I like that it costs magicka. Otherwise I just have a bar of useless blue junk I never touch.

@mwd419_ESO
Well you can chose the other morph then, its costing magicka and heals you for a way bigger amount of health
Dont forget this thread is aiming at adding and improving Stamina Sorcerers possible playstyles.

For the 35% heals on critical surge:
Well yea, I wasnt sure on this number, too since I tested alot on PTS and its 50% reduction rule.
The Surge we currently have does return 60% of dealt dmg, I ended up getting back around 1500-2000 per crit hit.
I think lowering the returned health(to 35%) and have longer duration + dots count in return is a nice way to not overpower it, yet still make it useful, imagine throwing caltrops and/or liquid Lighting into the crowd, using steeltornado and even bats at the same time... the dot will proc nonstop with this. To not overpower the critical surge we have to be careful, I think 35% could still be too much. But this needs lots of testing to tell for sure.

Anyway, as alternative I had maybe 30% and 40% in mind, too.

mwd419_ESO

andypappb16_ESO wrote: »

mwd419_ESO wrote: »

Your ideas for critical surge are bad. 35% is way too low.

And I like that it costs magicka. Otherwise I just have a bar of useless blue junk I never touch.

@mwd419_ESO
Well you can chose the other morph then, its costing magicka and heals you for a way bigger amount of health
Dont forget this thread is aiming at adding and improving Stamina Sorcerers possible playstyles.

For the 35% heals on critical surge:
Well yea, I wasnt sure on this number, too since I tested alot on PTS and its 50% reduction rule.
The Surge we currently have does return 60% of dealt dmg, I ended up getting back around 1500-2000 per crit hit.
I think lowering the returned health(to 35%) and have longer duration + dots count in return is a nice way to not overpower it, yet still make it useful, imagine throwing caltrops and/or liquid Lighting into the crowd, using steeltornado and even bats at the same time... the dot will proc nonstop with this. To not overpower the critical surge we have to be careful, I think 35% could still be too much. But this needs lots of testing to tell for sure.

Anyway, as alternative I had maybe 30% and 40% in mind, too.

Are you serious? Making critical surge cost stamina doesn't help stamina sorcs, lol. As long as its our only skill that costs magicka on our bars(especially after the patch), we will ALWAYS have enough magicka to cast it when we need it. Instead, you'd rather it take our DPS resource instead of one that's otherwise useless?

Lol.

SturgeHammer

Honestly, I don't care a whole lot about buffs. My biggest issue is that Stam Sorc is NERFED in the pending IC update. Our nerfing is simply collateral damage from heavy handed nerfs of other builds. All I truly desire is for the Stam Sorc status quo to be maintained.

So @ZOS_GinaBruno, for our piece of mind, could we please get an update as to what the specifically the plans for Stamina Sorcerers are that Eric mentioned are coming in the PTS patches?

Birdovic

mwd419_ESO wrote: »

Are you serious? Making critical surge cost stamina doesn't help stamina sorcs, lol. As long as its our only skill that costs magicka on our bars(especially after the patch), we will ALWAYS have enough magicka to cast it when we need it. Instead, you'd rather it take our DPS resource instead of one that's otherwise useless?

Lol.

I think I misunderstood you sorry, and relax
Well I got your point and its true, there is mostly nothing wrong with it to cost magicka, since it doesnt scale on Magicka/Spellpower in any way.

But dont forget there are other abilities to make good use of, I wouldnt really call me a Stamina Sorcerer if I only used Critical Surge and rest(Armor/Weapon/Abilities) is stamina based.
Thinking about the great Defensive Rune or Liquid Lightning as mentioned before, Or (improved!) Dark Exchange which heals your Health and Stamina, the Critical Surge in return helps you get back the lost Magicka, you basically can swap around your ressources.
Also having some Magicka left sure is interesting to those, who decide to play as Vampire due to Abilities costing Magicka. As I said, these ideas are meant to add new, viable Playstyles. Just using the Magicka for 1 skill is not much of a change.
On the other hand, when we keep in mind how the magicka abilities cost more than stamina ones and especially when focusing on a Stamina Build (no reduction from Light Armour passives, no magicka cost reduction glyphs, no CP invested in magicka regen etc.) those get even more expensive (Thinking about 4.5k-5.5k magicka cost of Daedric Minefield, Pets, Encase)

Tell me what you think

Emma_Overload

I disagree with the OP about Crystal Blast. It's a great spell, and I've used it to solo all but two of the normal instanced dungeons, every Craglorn delve that is physically possible to solo and even made it all the way to final boss of Veteran Elden Hollow, killing everything in my way:




I want Stamina Sorcs to be viable as much as anyone, but hijacking Crystal Blast is not the way to do it. Stamina builds ALREADY have the best single target and AOE weapon attacks in the game: Wrecking Blow and Brawler, Rapid Strikes and Steel Tornado, Focused Aim and Bombard, etc.

Do you REALLY want Stamina Sorcs to be viable? Then here's what we need, in order of importance:

1) Stamina morph of Conjured Ward that scales off STAMINA, not health or magicka.

2) Stamina morphs of utility spells like Encase and Bolt Escape.

3) Stamina morphs of summoned pets.

Lack of a full strength, spammable Ward is BY FAR the biggest thing holding Stamina Sorcs back, so that's the first thing that needs a morph.

Erock25

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

I disagree with the OP about Crystal Blast. It's a great spell, and I've used it to solo all but two of the normal instanced dungeons, every Craglorn delve that is physically possible to solo and even made it all the way to final boss of Veteran Elden Hollow, killing everything in my way:




I want Stamina Sorcs to be viable as much as anyone, but hijacking Crystal Blast is not the way to do it. Stamina builds ALREADY have the best single target and AOE weapon attacks in the game: Wrecking Blow and Brawler, Rapid Strikes and Steel Tornado, Focused Aim and Bombard, etc.

Do you REALLY want Stamina Sorcs to be viable? Then here's what we need, in order of importance:

1) Stamina morph of Conjured Ward that scales off STAMINA, not health or magicka.

2) Stamina morphs of utility spells like Encase and Bolt Escape.

3) Stamina morphs of summoned pets.

Lack of a full strength, spammable Ward is BY FAR the biggest thing holding Stamina Sorcs back, so that's the first thing that needs a morph.

Hijacking a spell that is least used morph by magicka sorcs is actually a great way to give the stam sorc some stam based class damage. I'm sorry that you like Crystal Blast, but you have to admit you are in a very tiny minority as far as that morph is concerned.

Birdovic

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

I want Stamina Sorcs to be viable as much as anyone, but hijacking Crystal Blast is not the way to do it. Stamina builds ALREADY have the best single target and AOE weapon attacks in the game: Wrecking Blow and Brawler, Rapid Strikes and Steel Tornado, Focused Aim and Bombard, etc.

Do you REALLY want Stamina Sorcs to be viable? Then here's what we need, in order of importance:

1) Stamina morph of Conjured Ward that scales off STAMINA, not health or magicka.

2) Stamina morphs of utility spells like Encase and Bolt Escape.

3) Stamina morphs of summoned pets.

Lack of a full strength, spammable Ward is BY FAR the biggest thing holding Stamina Sorcs back, so that's the first thing that needs a morph.

Well nice, first time I see someone putting Chrystal Blast to good use.
And I cant agree on
1) Because I suggested some more ways to heal yourself to NOT have to rely on Shielding anymore and because having a shield this strong combined with Momentum/Vigor is just crazy.
Ways to stay alive as mentioned:
- Crit Surge (which gives way bigger heals now)
- Empowered Wards Major Mending(30% better heals)
- Blood Magic Passive Change (which benefits you with heals, too by using Chrystal Blast)
- Bound Armaments 20% Health Recovery Bonus, which can be combined with Daedric Protection Passive(another 20% Health Rec). This leads to a health regen we cant call useless anymore
2) A Stamina Morph of Encase doesnt sound like a bad idea, what did you have in mind?
3)I think the morphs are interesting already. The only ones I'd change are maybe
- Unstable Clannfear to scale on stamina (Magicka Sorcerers dont care for the heal too much)
- Twilight Matriarch to scale on Stamina, too for the obvious, same reason as for unstable Clannfear

Erock25

I will address your changes one by one.

Crystal Blast - I wouldn't say no to your proposal but I think turning Crystal Blast into a stamina and melee version of Crystal Frag is the more elegant solution. They don't want to give sorc a spammable dps ability, and the proc mechanic of Crystal Frag is perfect for that. Also, because Wrecking Blow has a 1 second cast time, we could land Wrecking Blow plus a Heavy Attack and a procced Crystal Blast and have all the damage hit in the span of 0.2 or so seconds. Very good burst and it is what is missing from the Sorc stamina repertoire.

Empowered Ward - Yes yes yes. It is actually very close to what I suggested myself. PVE or even group PVP healing sorc can still use this ability if it is scaling on health and costing magicka. It also greatly helps Sorc tanks.

Thundering Presence - I think 10 seconds may be a little much. 6 seconds is very good still. Regardless, Thundering Presence needs Major Expedition or Stam Sorcs will still use Boundless. Another big negative of Thundering on PTS is that it hits for such paltry damage in PVP that the fact it scales on stamina/weapon dmg is useless. I'd rather they increase the time between procs to 2 or even 4 seconds if they significantly increased the damage it does per proc.

Critical Surge (and Power Surge) - They need to reduce the internal heal cool down as low as it goes and allow this to proc on dots. The healing is weak compared to other options and this skill really needs a significant buff. As long as there is any cooldown at all, you will not mass heal yourself with AOE, so dots must work with this.

Dark Deal - It certainly needs improvements, especially with the reduction in healing in PVP.

Bound Armaments - I much prefer Heavy Attack damage over Light Attack damage. In fact, I think they must increase the Heavy Attack damage to +20% instead of the current +11%. A toggle is very expensive slot wise to use and it must be damn worth it. Health regeneration is meh but I wouldn't say no to it.

Bound Aegis - Works for me

Daedric Protection - They already announce that Daedric Protection is switching to 20% Health Recovery and 10% Stam Recovery with a Daedric Summoning ability slotted and I prefer that over 6% weapon crit. Requiring 2 Daedric Summoning abilities to be slotted is too much to ask.

Blood Magic - I see no reason to change this. The heals are already very low against a single opponent and I don't want them even lower.

Exploitation - Adding weapon crit to it is much better change in my opinion.

Expert Mage - Because Stamina Sorc must rely on weapon and non class abilities more heavily than magicka sorc (even with the proposed changes) I think it is important to increase Weapon Power by at least 4% per sorc ability slotted. Prior to 1.6, Sorc could reach higher weapon damage than any other class because of Surge.

Emma_Overload

Erock25 wrote: »

I will address your changes one by one.

Crystal Blast - I wouldn't say no to your proposal but I think turning Crystal Blast into a stamina and melee version of Crystal Frag is the more elegant solution. They don't want to give sorc a spammable dps ability, and the proc mechanic of Crystal Frag is perfect for that. Also, because Wrecking Blow has a 1 second cast time, we could land Wrecking Blow plus a Heavy Attack and a procced Crystal Blast and have all the damage hit in the span of 0.2 or so seconds. Very good burst and it is what is missing from the Sorc stamina repertoire.

Empowered Ward - Yes yes yes. It is actually very close to what I suggested myself. PVE or even group PVP healing sorc can still use this ability if it is scaling on health and costing magicka. It also greatly helps Sorc tanks.

Thundering Presence - I think 10 seconds may be a little much. 6 seconds is very good still. Regardless, Thundering Presence needs Major Expedition or Stam Sorcs will still use Boundless. Another big negative of Thundering on PTS is that it hits for such paltry damage in PVP that the fact it scales on stamina/weapon dmg is useless. I'd rather they increase the time between procs to 2 or even 4 seconds if they significantly increased the damage it does per proc.

Critical Surge (and Power Surge) - They need to reduce the internal heal cool down as low as it goes and allow this to proc on dots. The healing is weak compared to other options and this skill really needs a significant buff. As long as there is any cooldown at all, you will not mass heal yourself with AOE, so dots must work with this.

Dark Deal - It certainly needs improvements, especially with the reduction in healing in PVP.

Bound Armaments - I much prefer Heavy Attack damage over Light Attack damage. In fact, I think they must increase the Heavy Attack damage to +20% instead of the current +11%. A toggle is very expensive slot wise to use and it must be damn worth it. Health regeneration is meh but I wouldn't say no to it.

Bound Aegis - Works for me

Daedric Protection - They already announce that Daedric Protection is switching to 20% Health Recovery and 10% Stam Recovery with a Daedric Summoning ability slotted and I prefer that over 6% weapon crit. Requiring 2 Daedric Summoning abilities to be slotted is too much to ask.

Blood Magic - I see no reason to change this. The heals are already very low against a single opponent and I don't want them even lower.

Exploitation - Adding weapon crit to it is much better change in my opinion.

Expert Mage - Because Stamina Sorc must rely on weapon and non class abilities more heavily than magicka sorc (even with the proposed changes) I think it is important to increase Weapon Power by at least 4% per sorc ability slotted. Prior to 1.6, Sorc could reach higher weapon damage than any other class because of Surge.

If they got rid of the cooldown on Critical Surge heals, it's true that you wouldn't need a massive Ward anymore. A Dual Wield Sorc with high weapon crit would be VERY viable in that scenario, depending on Steel Tornado to hit as many targets as possible. I would love to go back to 7/7 Medium Armor and Dual Daggers!

I wouldn't cry too much over losing Crystal Blast IF they gave us other stuff to make Stamina Sorcs viable, like improved healing and shielding. What I'm afraid of is that ZOS will just give Crystal Shard a stamina morph and call it a day. It won't be enough to make Stamina Sorcs as survivable as their Magicka counterparts.

Waylander

Some good suggestions for zos to play with.

I would like Surge to give us both the major and minor brutality buffs to make it possibly worth slotting over rally. Crit healing should be worked out to be on par with like skills from DK and NB (deep breath and sap essence) taking into account sorcs need to crit to access their heal.

I like the empowered ward suggestion to make it add major mending and scale from health. Makes stamina sorcs have less healing worries and a decent small shield to counter abilities such as radiant destruction which we can't purge or cloak. Should make fighting magica sorcs a little easier (currently the hardest match-up on a stamina sorc imho). Also appeals to healer sorcs to make them on par with dk healers (which are very effective).

I am not worried about stamina burst, there is plenty of burst without the need for a frags like proc to make stamina sorcs OP IMHO. Wrecking blow into wrecking blow or crit charge and execute already kills most players. For mine, they can leave frags and crystal blast alone.

I would like one of the deadric mines morphs to be stamina friendly. It's a great ability that is prohibitively expensive for stamina sorcs.

Pets could scale off stamina or magica or alternatively make a magica and stamina friendly morph for each (twilight can restore magica or stamina etc).

Encase - would be nice to see a morph that was stamina sorc tank friendly, but might be asking a bit too much.

Cathexis

I like the changes proposed here a lot, however I have some gripes about a few things.

(1) Bound armaments needs to be flat damage, at least for both light and heavy (prefer all skills). Damage stacking heavy attacks on bows actually does work well if you do it correctly and it would suck to lose that.

(2) Heal sustainability isn't enough for stamina sorcerers, we need real sustained damage mediation whether that's through skills that provide shields, sword and board benefits, damage mitigation, attack reflection or absorption, and/or real mobility like other classes and magicka sorcerers

(3) Major expiration, by itself, will always be a poor man's substitute for real mobility skills. Bolt is the essence of the class and if we can't get real damage mitigation through previously mentioned facets we need a bolt equivalent.

Birdovic

Hey everyone, thanks for your feedback!

Erock25 wrote: »

I will address your changes one by one.

Thundering Presence - I think 10 seconds may be a little much. 6 seconds is very good still. Regardless, Thundering Presence needs Major Expedition or Stam Sorcs will still use Boundless. Another big negative of Thundering on PTS is that it hits for such paltry damage in PVP that the fact it scales on stamina/weapon dmg is useless. I'd rather they increase the time between procs to 2 or even 4 seconds if they significantly increased the damage it does per proc.

Bound Armaments - I much prefer Heavy Attack damage over Light Attack damage. In fact, I think they must increase the Heavy Attack damage to +20% instead of the current +11%. A toggle is very expensive slot wise to use and it must be damn worth it. Health regeneration is meh but I wouldn't say no to it.

Daedric Protection - They already announce that Daedric Protection is switching to 20% Health Recovery and 10% Stam Recovery with a Daedric Summoning ability slotted and I prefer that over 6% weapon crit. Requiring 2 Daedric Summoning abilities to be slotted is too much to ask.

Blood Magic - I see no reason to change this. The heals are already very low against a single opponent and I don't want them even lower.

Expert Mage - Because Stamina Sorc must rely on weapon and non class abilities more heavily than magicka sorc (even with the proposed changes) I think it is important to increase Weapon Power by at least 4% per sorc ability slotted. Prior to 1.6, Sorc could reach higher weapon damage than any other class because of Surge.

Thundering Presence:
I made Thundering Presence' Major Expedition last 10 seconds because there is not really any other Mobility/Escape mechanic otherwise, except for Streak...but using that 2 or more times is just hella expensive and wont get you far. I think its more interesting when you think about using a bow and combine it with Minor Expedition, as mentioned in my (updated!) List on top. This would result in a Major Expedition+Minor Expedition+ Hasty Retreat 15% Bonus for a short time (include the dodge roll you need to activate here)


Bound Armaments:
Added the 20% Health Regen to open up opportunities for Tanks mainly (especially because Stam Regen on block is gone)
the main reason for Dps to slot should remain the Max Stamina increase and the added light damage of course,
Light Damage because I think Stamina Sorc needs to be more flexible and doesnt have time standing next to an enemy charging heavy attacks (thats why the Magicka equivalent has a heavy attack increase added instead, for "channel heavy hits" like Shock Destro Staff/ Resto Staff). Lets not forget the new Light Attack based Imperial City sets, they atleast dont feel completely wasted like this.

Daedric Protection:
Ah I guess I missed the 10% Stamina Regeneration, thanks, thats great information.
Actually I didnt want to add it in first place since it would benefit Magicka Sorc which have enough mobility in my opinion as they are now, and stamina should remain a weakness due to that(We want to keep it balanced right^^)
I think adding a second effect for 2+ Daedric Summoning abilities slotted is a nice first thought, but since we talk about Stamina Sorcerer who probably uses more Weapon Abilities, maybe you're right here. Will be updated.

Blood Magic:
The reason I lowered this is very simple!
Imagine you have 30k Health and use Encase: You hit lets say 5 people at once, but only get back a 8% max health heal ONCE, thats 2400 Health recovered.
So instead I lowered the healed amount and made it possible to proc the heal on ALL 5 people at ONCE, not just 1 at a time, resulting in 5* 4% max health heals = 5*1200 Health .Since you cant spam it (no effect on people already rooted via Encase) and its moderate cost, this gives some more utility to Encase as a healing possibiilty, aswell as to the changed Chrystal Blast (it hits up to 5 people aswell!) This change is meant to support all the new healing possibilities I mentioned before, so even being a lower percentage, this passive gives you back more than before!

Expert Mage:
I agree with you, for the same reason as for Daedric Protection.
Most likely there will be more Weapon Abilities be slotted, so the Weapon Power increase should be bigger in return, 4% sounds good. Will be updated.

Waylander wrote: »

Some good suggestions for zos to play with.

Encase - would be nice to see a morph that was stamina sorc tank friendly, but might be asking a bit too much.

Dont worry, it is! Since you dont care for Damage too much as you are tanking, you can use it from time to time for healing yourself. Thinking about stamina regeneration to be gone and Encase costing magicka is supporting you here even more.
Also slotting Chrystal Frag is interesting here, if you recast any Magicka based Ability now and then (lets think about my Empowered Ward suggestion, increasing your heals by 30%), you can insta proc it from time to time, deal damage and heal yourself(if slotting encase isnt worth it in a boss fight with no other mobs around)

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

If they got rid of the cooldown on Critical Surge heals, it's true that you wouldn't need a massive Ward anymore. A Dual Wield Sorc with high weapon crit would be VERY viable in that scenario, depending on Steel Tornado to hit as many targets as possible. I would love to go back to 7/7 Medium Armor and Dual Daggers!

I wouldn't cry too much over losing Crystal Blast IF they gave us other stuff to make Stamina Sorcs viable, like improved healing and shielding. What I'm afraid of is that ZOS will just give Crystal Shard a stamina morph and call it a day. It won't be enough to make Stamina Sorcs as survivable as their Magicka counterparts.

Hey there,
the changes I suggested are also meant to support a more bow or dualwield oriented Alternative, for DualWield having the possiblity to have lots of heals trough its highe crit chance (even more because of Dagger passives) and proc the effect often enough, to make the small 35% crit heals meaningful without overpowering them.

Concerning Chrystal Blast, that was EXACTLY my thought on making suggestions for the Chrystal Blast Morph.
I wanted to add something unique (a damaging ranged AoE Snare) so they dont just make it a boring stamina based Chrystal Frag.

Cathexis wrote: »

I like the changes proposed here a lot, however I have some gripes about a few things.

(1) Bound armaments needs to be flat damage, at least for both light and heavy (prefer all skills). Damage stacking heavy attacks on bows actually does work well if you do it correctly and it would suck to lose that.

(2) Heal sustainability isn't enough for stamina sorcerers, we need real sustained damage mediation whether that's through skills that provide shields, sword and board benefits, damage mitigation, attack reflection or absorption, and/or real mobility like other classes and magicka sorcerers

(3) Major expiration, by itself, will always be a poor man's substitute for real mobility skills. Bolt is the essence of the class and if we can't get real damage mitigation through previously mentioned facets we need a bolt equivalent.

1) Good Idea to have that on both
2) Well there is the possibility of getting creative at your build. As you m entioned, you can use S/B Defensive Stance to reflect or Absorb Magic to absorb^^ and the other skills, too since its all stamina based, so its not mainly about many small / few good heals.
3) The thing is, relying on Bolt Escape is something I wanted to avoid, same goes for Stamina Based Hardened Ward version aswell as Stamina Based Chrystal Frag. You see where this is going I hope^^ (right, all the same, just with other attribute to scale from -> boring and not big of a gameplay change/enhancement)

Zlater

You know I heard of some sweet changes in he last eso live about stam sorcerers coming in 1.7.2

I met a player who was testing the new stamina sorcerer on the pts just before, Interestingly he actually found that his sorcerer was doing more damage than his stam DK in Aoe and just below stam DK's in single target. The only issue is staying alive for long enough to deal those numbers :S

Birdovic

Zlater wrote: »

You know I heard of some sweet changes in he last eso live about stam sorcerers coming in 1.7.2

I met a player who was testing the new stamina sorcerer on the pts just before, Interestingly he actually found that his sorcerer was doing more damage than his stam DK in Aoe and just below stam DK's in single target. The only issue is staying alive for long enough to deal those numbers :S

Hey, maybe you want to remind me what sweet changes they talked about^^

And yea I 100% agree on that!
The damage is definetly okay as it is now. From testing I experienced exactly the same issue as the player you met: Staying alive.
I had to rely way too much on Vigor/Momentum combo and even that wasnt enough quite some times.
Thats basically why I added / changed Abilities as explained above. Maybe you'd like to test and give me some feedback?
Been asking people for their opinions all the time there

Birdovic

If they got rid of the cooldown on Critical Surge heals, it's true that you wouldn't need a massive Ward anymore. A Dual Wield Sorc with high weapon crit would be VERY viable in that scenario, depending on Steel Tornado to hit as many targets as possible. I would love to go back to 7/7 Medium Armor and Dual Daggers!

@Emma_Eunjung

I did some testing on Crit Surge and indeed its a little low. I adjusted the value to 45% (from 35%)
and halved the cooldown to 50 (from 100milliseconds)

Emma_Overload

andypappb16_ESO wrote: »

If they got rid of the cooldown on Critical Surge heals, it's true that you wouldn't need a massive Ward anymore. A Dual Wield Sorc with high weapon crit would be VERY viable in that scenario, depending on Steel Tornado to hit as many targets as possible. I would love to go back to 7/7 Medium Armor and Dual Daggers!

@Emma_Eunjung

I did some testing on Crit Surge and indeed its a little low. I adjusted the value to 45% (from 35%)
and halved the cooldown to 50 (from 100milliseconds)

You could take the cooldown all the way down to 1 ms, but it still wouldn't solve the problem: ESO records AOE damage as happening simultaneously to every target, so any kind of cooldown will dramatically reduce your crit heals. Even with a 1 ms cooldown, you're only going to get as much healing from ten targets as you would from one target.

This is why Magicka Sorcs don't build for crit anymore. There is hardly any statistical difference in Surge heals between 40% crit and 70% when you are fighting a bunch of mobs, because you can only crit heal off of ONE of them at a time. It is better now to build for a high magicka pool so your Ward is as big as possible.

Getting rid of the Surge cooldown wouldn't affect single target combat at all, but it would make AOE combat against large groups of mobs MUCH, MUCH easier to survive.

Birdovic

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

You could take the cooldown all the way down to 1 ms, but it still wouldn't solve the problem: ESO records AOE damage as happening simultaneously to every target, so any kind of cooldown will dramatically reduce your crit heals. Even with a 1 ms cooldown, you're only going to get as much healing from ten targets as you would from one target.

This is why Magicka Sorcs don't build for crit anymore. There is hardly any statistical difference in Surge heals between 40% crit and 70% when you are fighting a bunch of mobs, because you can only crit heal off of ONE of them at a time. It is better now to build for a high magicka pool so your Ward is as big as possible.

Getting rid of the Surge cooldown wouldn't affect single target combat at all, but it would make AOE combat against large groups of mobs MUCH, MUCH easier to survive.

Exactly, I know. If I removed the cooldown completely or adjusted it to "1 dot per 1ms" that would be way too much.
Sure we can do that, but in exchange have to lower the received crit heal to something hilarious like 10% or something.
Lets take caltrops thrown into a 50 man blob as example:
You got 60% crit chance and you crit every 50ms and get 45% crit heals, constantly (Amount of people is the reason). Sure, there will be too many dots to proc with 50ms cooldown between them and you wont get healed with all or 10x at once but it will be constant heals and still be fast enough to heal yourself, not even including other heals you can have activated simultaneously at the same time (Momentum, Vigor).
This skill suggestion is not a try to bring back overpowered AoE Elemental Ring spamming Vampire Sorcerers who can jump into crowds of 50 people, kill half of them and leave unharmed,. but with your idea of removing the cooldown, it will.

Concerning the 70% health crit Magicka Morph:
This skill as you can see with the long cooldown is obviously not meant to fight groups of mobs, its more of for small scale PvP battles or Boss Fights. Of course we can remove the Cooldown here, but Stamina Sorc will ignore Critical Surge (with its changes) to instead get a 70% heal on each dot and no cooldowns. That is exactly the reason I added only 1 Major Buff per morph and added the longer cooldown on Powersurge, to discourage its use and achieve smaller, but reliable heals as stam sorc alternative.

Removing the cooldown on the magicka morph (the 70% heal one) can be achieved by adding a small rule, like

"Heals only activate on critical Magicka Hits"
or
"Magicka Critical Hits heal for 70% of caused damage, Stamina critical Hits heal for 30% instead"

Cathexis

andypappb16_ESO wrote: »

Hey everyone, thanks for your feedback!

Erock25 wrote: »

I will address your changes one by one.

Thundering Presence - I think 10 seconds may be a little much. 6 seconds is very good still. Regardless, Thundering Presence needs Major Expedition or Stam Sorcs will still use Boundless. Another big negative of Thundering on PTS is that it hits for such paltry damage in PVP that the fact it scales on stamina/weapon dmg is useless. I'd rather they increase the time between procs to 2 or even 4 seconds if they significantly increased the damage it does per proc.

Bound Armaments - I much prefer Heavy Attack damage over Light Attack damage. In fact, I think they must increase the Heavy Attack damage to +20% instead of the current +11%. A toggle is very expensive slot wise to use and it must be damn worth it. Health regeneration is meh but I wouldn't say no to it.

Daedric Protection - They already announce that Daedric Protection is switching to 20% Health Recovery and 10% Stam Recovery with a Daedric Summoning ability slotted and I prefer that over 6% weapon crit. Requiring 2 Daedric Summoning abilities to be slotted is too much to ask.

Blood Magic - I see no reason to change this. The heals are already very low against a single opponent and I don't want them even lower.

Expert Mage - Because Stamina Sorc must rely on weapon and non class abilities more heavily than magicka sorc (even with the proposed changes) I think it is important to increase Weapon Power by at least 4% per sorc ability slotted. Prior to 1.6, Sorc could reach higher weapon damage than any other class because of Surge.

Thundering Presence:
I made Thundering Presence' Major Expedition last 10 seconds because there is not really any other Mobility/Escape mechanic otherwise, except for Streak...but using that 2 or more times is just hella expensive and wont get you far. I think its more interesting when you think about using a bow and combine it with Minor Expedition, as mentioned in my (updated!) List on top. This would result in a Major Expedition+Minor Expedition+ Hasty Retreat 15% Bonus for a short time (include the dodge roll you need to activate here)


Bound Armaments:
Added the 20% Health Regen to open up opportunities for Tanks mainly (especially because Stam Regen on block is gone)
the main reason for Dps to slot should remain the Max Stamina increase and the added light damage of course,
Light Damage because I think Stamina Sorc needs to be more flexible and doesnt have time standing next to an enemy charging heavy attacks (thats why the Magicka equivalent has a heavy attack increase added instead, for "channel heavy hits" like Shock Destro Staff/ Resto Staff). Lets not forget the new Light Attack based Imperial City sets, they atleast dont feel completely wasted like this.

Daedric Protection:
Ah I guess I missed the 10% Stamina Regeneration, thanks, thats great information.
Actually I didnt want to add it in first place since it would benefit Magicka Sorc which have enough mobility in my opinion as they are now, and stamina should remain a weakness due to that(We want to keep it balanced right^^)
I think adding a second effect for 2+ Daedric Summoning abilities slotted is a nice first thought, but since we talk about Stamina Sorcerer who probably uses more Weapon Abilities, maybe you're right here. Will be updated.

Blood Magic:
The reason I lowered this is very simple!
Imagine you have 30k Health and use Encase: You hit lets say 5 people at once, but only get back a 8% max health heal ONCE, thats 2400 Health recovered.
So instead I lowered the healed amount and made it possible to proc the heal on ALL 5 people at ONCE, not just 1 at a time, resulting in 5* 4% max health heals = 5*1200 Health .Since you cant spam it (no effect on people already rooted via Encase) and its moderate cost, this gives some more utility to Encase as a healing possibiilty, aswell as to the changed Chrystal Blast (it hits up to 5 people aswell!) This change is meant to support all the new healing possibilities I mentioned before, so even being a lower percentage, this passive gives you back more than before!

Expert Mage:
I agree with you, for the same reason as for Daedric Protection.
Most likely there will be more Weapon Abilities be slotted, so the Weapon Power increase should be bigger in return, 4% sounds good. Will be updated.

Waylander wrote: »

Some good suggestions for zos to play with.

Encase - would be nice to see a morph that was stamina sorc tank friendly, but might be asking a bit too much.

Dont worry, it is! Since you dont care for Damage too much as you are tanking, you can use it from time to time for healing yourself. Thinking about stamina regeneration to be gone and Encase costing magicka is supporting you here even more.
Also slotting Chrystal Frag is interesting here, if you recast any Magicka based Ability now and then (lets think about my Empowered Ward suggestion, increasing your heals by 30%), you can insta proc it from time to time, deal damage and heal yourself(if slotting encase isnt worth it in a boss fight with no other mobs around)

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

If they got rid of the cooldown on Critical Surge heals, it's true that you wouldn't need a massive Ward anymore. A Dual Wield Sorc with high weapon crit would be VERY viable in that scenario, depending on Steel Tornado to hit as many targets as possible. I would love to go back to 7/7 Medium Armor and Dual Daggers!

I wouldn't cry too much over losing Crystal Blast IF they gave us other stuff to make Stamina Sorcs viable, like improved healing and shielding. What I'm afraid of is that ZOS will just give Crystal Shard a stamina morph and call it a day. It won't be enough to make Stamina Sorcs as survivable as their Magicka counterparts.

Hey there,
the changes I suggested are also meant to support a more bow or dualwield oriented Alternative, for DualWield having the possiblity to have lots of heals trough its highe crit chance (even more because of Dagger passives) and proc the effect often enough, to make the small 35% crit heals meaningful without overpowering them.

Concerning Chrystal Blast, that was EXACTLY my thought on making suggestions for the Chrystal Blast Morph.
I wanted to add something unique (a damaging ranged AoE Snare) so they dont just make it a boring stamina based Chrystal Frag.

Cathexis wrote: »

I like the changes proposed here a lot, however I have some gripes about a few things.

(1) Bound armaments needs to be flat damage, at least for both light and heavy (prefer all skills). Damage stacking heavy attacks on bows actually does work well if you do it correctly and it would suck to lose that.

(2) Heal sustainability isn't enough for stamina sorcerers, we need real sustained damage mediation whether that's through skills that provide shields, sword and board benefits, damage mitigation, attack reflection or absorption, and/or real mobility like other classes and magicka sorcerers

(3) Major expiration, by itself, will always be a poor man's substitute for real mobility skills. Bolt is the essence of the class and if we can't get real damage mitigation through previously mentioned facets we need a bolt equivalent.

1) Good Idea to have that on both
2) Well there is the possibility of getting creative at your build. As you m entioned, you can use S/B Defensive Stance to reflect or Absorb Magic to absorb^^ and the other skills, too since its all stamina based, so its not mainly about many small / few good heals.
3) The thing is, relying on Bolt Escape is something I wanted to avoid, same goes for Stamina Based Hardened Ward version aswell as Stamina Based Chrystal Frag. You see where this is going I hope^^ (right, all the same, just with other attribute to scale from -> boring and not big of a gameplay change/enhancement)

Its nice to want to avoid bolt and ward reliance, but the problem is that in doing that it takes far too many skills on your skill bar (currently I run sword and board with 4 defensive abilities on my flip). It's also not very effective because all of those are either passive buffs or only protect against spells (bol, defensive stance). To add to the problem bol is going to take a huge nerf. What we need is a spell that gives a tactical defensive advantage, sustained damage mitigation, and eliminates the need for an entire bar of defensive abilities (or opting for glass cannon mode).

Emma_Overload

Cathexis wrote: »

andypappb16_ESO wrote: »

Hey everyone, thanks for your feedback!

Erock25 wrote: »

I will address your changes one by one.

Thundering Presence - I think 10 seconds may be a little much. 6 seconds is very good still. Regardless, Thundering Presence needs Major Expedition or Stam Sorcs will still use Boundless. Another big negative of Thundering on PTS is that it hits for such paltry damage in PVP that the fact it scales on stamina/weapon dmg is useless. I'd rather they increase the time between procs to 2 or even 4 seconds if they significantly increased the damage it does per proc.

Bound Armaments - I much prefer Heavy Attack damage over Light Attack damage. In fact, I think they must increase the Heavy Attack damage to +20% instead of the current +11%. A toggle is very expensive slot wise to use and it must be damn worth it. Health regeneration is meh but I wouldn't say no to it.

Daedric Protection - They already announce that Daedric Protection is switching to 20% Health Recovery and 10% Stam Recovery with a Daedric Summoning ability slotted and I prefer that over 6% weapon crit. Requiring 2 Daedric Summoning abilities to be slotted is too much to ask.

Blood Magic - I see no reason to change this. The heals are already very low against a single opponent and I don't want them even lower.

Expert Mage - Because Stamina Sorc must rely on weapon and non class abilities more heavily than magicka sorc (even with the proposed changes) I think it is important to increase Weapon Power by at least 4% per sorc ability slotted. Prior to 1.6, Sorc could reach higher weapon damage than any other class because of Surge.

Thundering Presence:
I made Thundering Presence' Major Expedition last 10 seconds because there is not really any other Mobility/Escape mechanic otherwise, except for Streak...but using that 2 or more times is just hella expensive and wont get you far. I think its more interesting when you think about using a bow and combine it with Minor Expedition, as mentioned in my (updated!) List on top. This would result in a Major Expedition+Minor Expedition+ Hasty Retreat 15% Bonus for a short time (include the dodge roll you need to activate here)


Bound Armaments:
Added the 20% Health Regen to open up opportunities for Tanks mainly (especially because Stam Regen on block is gone)
the main reason for Dps to slot should remain the Max Stamina increase and the added light damage of course,
Light Damage because I think Stamina Sorc needs to be more flexible and doesnt have time standing next to an enemy charging heavy attacks (thats why the Magicka equivalent has a heavy attack increase added instead, for "channel heavy hits" like Shock Destro Staff/ Resto Staff). Lets not forget the new Light Attack based Imperial City sets, they atleast dont feel completely wasted like this.

Daedric Protection:
Ah I guess I missed the 10% Stamina Regeneration, thanks, thats great information.
Actually I didnt want to add it in first place since it would benefit Magicka Sorc which have enough mobility in my opinion as they are now, and stamina should remain a weakness due to that(We want to keep it balanced right^^)
I think adding a second effect for 2+ Daedric Summoning abilities slotted is a nice first thought, but since we talk about Stamina Sorcerer who probably uses more Weapon Abilities, maybe you're right here. Will be updated.

Blood Magic:
The reason I lowered this is very simple!
Imagine you have 30k Health and use Encase: You hit lets say 5 people at once, but only get back a 8% max health heal ONCE, thats 2400 Health recovered.
So instead I lowered the healed amount and made it possible to proc the heal on ALL 5 people at ONCE, not just 1 at a time, resulting in 5* 4% max health heals = 5*1200 Health .Since you cant spam it (no effect on people already rooted via Encase) and its moderate cost, this gives some more utility to Encase as a healing possibiilty, aswell as to the changed Chrystal Blast (it hits up to 5 people aswell!) This change is meant to support all the new healing possibilities I mentioned before, so even being a lower percentage, this passive gives you back more than before!

Expert Mage:
I agree with you, for the same reason as for Daedric Protection.
Most likely there will be more Weapon Abilities be slotted, so the Weapon Power increase should be bigger in return, 4% sounds good. Will be updated.

Waylander wrote: »

Some good suggestions for zos to play with.

Encase - would be nice to see a morph that was stamina sorc tank friendly, but might be asking a bit too much.

Dont worry, it is! Since you dont care for Damage too much as you are tanking, you can use it from time to time for healing yourself. Thinking about stamina regeneration to be gone and Encase costing magicka is supporting you here even more.
Also slotting Chrystal Frag is interesting here, if you recast any Magicka based Ability now and then (lets think about my Empowered Ward suggestion, increasing your heals by 30%), you can insta proc it from time to time, deal damage and heal yourself(if slotting encase isnt worth it in a boss fight with no other mobs around)

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

If they got rid of the cooldown on Critical Surge heals, it's true that you wouldn't need a massive Ward anymore. A Dual Wield Sorc with high weapon crit would be VERY viable in that scenario, depending on Steel Tornado to hit as many targets as possible. I would love to go back to 7/7 Medium Armor and Dual Daggers!

I wouldn't cry too much over losing Crystal Blast IF they gave us other stuff to make Stamina Sorcs viable, like improved healing and shielding. What I'm afraid of is that ZOS will just give Crystal Shard a stamina morph and call it a day. It won't be enough to make Stamina Sorcs as survivable as their Magicka counterparts.

Hey there,
the changes I suggested are also meant to support a more bow or dualwield oriented Alternative, for DualWield having the possiblity to have lots of heals trough its highe crit chance (even more because of Dagger passives) and proc the effect often enough, to make the small 35% crit heals meaningful without overpowering them.

Concerning Chrystal Blast, that was EXACTLY my thought on making suggestions for the Chrystal Blast Morph.
I wanted to add something unique (a damaging ranged AoE Snare) so they dont just make it a boring stamina based Chrystal Frag.

Cathexis wrote: »

I like the changes proposed here a lot, however I have some gripes about a few things.

(1) Bound armaments needs to be flat damage, at least for both light and heavy (prefer all skills). Damage stacking heavy attacks on bows actually does work well if you do it correctly and it would suck to lose that.

(2) Heal sustainability isn't enough for stamina sorcerers, we need real sustained damage mediation whether that's through skills that provide shields, sword and board benefits, damage mitigation, attack reflection or absorption, and/or real mobility like other classes and magicka sorcerers

(3) Major expiration, by itself, will always be a poor man's substitute for real mobility skills. Bolt is the essence of the class and if we can't get real damage mitigation through previously mentioned facets we need a bolt equivalent.

1) Good Idea to have that on both
2) Well there is the possibility of getting creative at your build. As you m entioned, you can use S/B Defensive Stance to reflect or Absorb Magic to absorb^^ and the other skills, too since its all stamina based, so its not mainly about many small / few good heals.
3) The thing is, relying on Bolt Escape is something I wanted to avoid, same goes for Stamina Based Hardened Ward version aswell as Stamina Based Chrystal Frag. You see where this is going I hope^^ (right, all the same, just with other attribute to scale from -> boring and not big of a gameplay change/enhancement)

Its nice to want to avoid bolt and ward reliance, but the problem is that in doing that it takes far too many skills on your skill bar (currently I run sword and board with 4 defensive abilities on my flip). It's also not very effective because all of those are either passive buffs or only protect against spells (bol, defensive stance). To add to the problem bol is going to take a huge nerf. What we need is a spell that gives a tactical defensive advantage, sustained damage mitigation, and eliminates the need for an entire bar of defensive abilities (or opting for glass cannon mode).

This is true. I've tried using BoL on the PTS, and it's just horrible. You have no idea how much damage those orbs were soaking up until you don't have them anymore. The orbs need to last at least 4 seconds to be truly useful.

Jar_Ek

@andypappb16_ESO Just a few comments on your suggestions:

Crystal Blast:
I am ok with the idea of a stamina morph for Crystal Blast. However I think adding a DoT is not such a great idea – esp. given the prevalence of shields in PvP, DoTs in general, (and the issues with Surge).
Also why does your variant of blast snare secondary targets but not the primary? Maybe it should snare all affected.

My preference would be to reduce the range to an extended melee range (10 to 15m), and to reduce the cast time or provide a mechanism to make it instant – to make it a usable stamina melee option.

Empowered Ward
What does the shield from healing ward effect scale off? Does it include your healing output bonus? If so this could have some serious ramifications for PvP (and shield stacking) – otherwise I am inclined to agree that it would support healer builds and tank builds (not necessarily stamina builds)… although without testing I could not say if it over-powers them.

Thundering Presence
I think this could simply be a stamina version of boundless storm without changes. The DoT damage interval should not be changed as it reduces the chances of activating Disintegration and various set bonuses. Having said that, the damage of the DoT is so poor compared to what we hoped that unless it does provide a mobility buff no-one will use it.

Power Surge and Critical Surge
Sorry but here I disagree completely.
Having a heal with 250ms cool down that doesn’t proc on DoTs but has a better heal ratio essentially moves the current critical surge into the magicka sorcerers bag of tricks with a spell power buff. Add that to the fact that your new critical surge is worse than live as the heal ratio is low (about ½) and it still won’t trigger off multiple simultaneous hits. The problem being that as you are in melee for most stamina builds, you’ll be dead before you gain any heals worth mentioning in any challenging content where you need the heals if you rely on DoT heals.

I believe all versions should do the following:
Heal activation from all damaging abilities (direct damage, DoTs, etc) and on shield hits
Heal cool-down at 100ms (or lower if that still prevents simultaneous heals from AoE skills)
Healing is provided at the end of a cool-down cycle (100ms) and the best single heal value is taken for that cycle (which should be easy to do).
Healing percent: 50%.

Critical Surge provides a Weapon Power buff and a major Endurance buff.
Power Surge provides a Spell Power buff and a major Intellect buff.

This way Critical Surge is useful for stamina builds providing much needed stamina regeneration and decent (but not OP healing); and Power Surge supports magicka builds in a different way to Entropy. Both morphs could use magicka as a resource as long as the cost wasn’t too high or Critical Surge could use stamina.

Dark Deal
Agreed

Bound Armour
Okay I think we all agree these abilities are lacklustre. My “fix” would be to give the base Armour a minor resolve (armour), ward (spell resist), and a max health (8%) buff. Then armaments could provide a berserk buff (8% damage) and aegis provide a minor protection buff (8% mitigation)buff. Neither would provide a bonus to max magicka or stamina (and hence either would be viable for either stamina or magicka builds) – and both would be viable choices for DPS or Tanks / survivability.

Passives
Daedric Protection
This is being changed to add a stamina recovery element which should make this generally useful. Please do not tie its use to 2+ actives from a tree that has few useful stamina abilities in it!

Blood Magic
I understand the idea, but think a better implementation would be a base 7% max health heal with a +2% bonus per additional target hit, up to 4 additional targets (15%).

Exploitation
Again I understand the idea. My personal preference is to either add weapon critical to the passive (unlikely to occur), or to apply a maim or defile debuff to all targets hit for 5/10s.

Expert Mage
Agreed


I would also add the following:

1. Make all pets scale off stamina or magicka, rather than just magicka.
2. Change the shape of one of the Encase morphs to be ground targetable and circular
3. Make daedric mines stealthed and make one morph stamina based
4. Make Power Overload restore stamina (but do the same damage as Power Overload).

Also see: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/197466/stamina-sorcerer-changes-a-plea#latest

TBois

As far as crit surge I am still for removing the cooldown but limiting the number of targets you can get heals from to 6 or 3. That is what they did with sap essence, and it is now usuable within what the skill was designed for but not OP

Emma_Overload

sixuponthelot wrote: »

As far as crit surge I am still for removing the cooldown but limiting the number of targets you can get heals from to 6 or 3. That is what they did with sap essence, and it is now usuable within what the skill was designed for but not OP

I think 8 would be the best number if you had to have a limit, because that's pretty much the max number of mobs you have to deal with anywhere in the PvE side of the game. This would allow sufficient healing for PvE, while making hard to "Surge-tank" 20 guys in PvP.

TBois

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

sixuponthelot wrote: »

As far as crit surge I am still for removing the cooldown but limiting the number of targets you can get heals from to 6 or 3. That is what they did with sap essence, and it is now usuable within what the skill was designed for but not OP

I think 8 would be the best number if you had to have a limit, because that's pretty much the max number of mobs you have to deal with anywhere in the PvE side of the game. This would allow sufficient healing for PvE, while making hard to "Surge-tank" 20 guys in PvP.

Yeah I'm coming at it from a PVP point of view, but with the reduced healing in cyrodiil 8 might be a good number. I really miss my surge-tank, 5 pc hist bark + 2 pc bloodspawn + 3pc potentates: lightning form + healing bats (double the healing) + doing the carlton

Huggalump

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

I disagree with the OP about Crystal Blast. It's a great spell, and I've used it to solo all but two of the normal instanced dungeons, every Craglorn delve that is physically possible to solo and even made it all the way to final boss of Veteran Elden Hollow, killing everything in my way:




I want Stamina Sorcs to be viable as much as anyone, but hijacking Crystal Blast is not the way to do it. Stamina builds ALREADY have the best single target and AOE weapon attacks in the game: Wrecking Blow and Brawler, Rapid Strikes and Steel Tornado, Focused Aim and Bombard, etc.

Do you REALLY want Stamina Sorcs to be viable? Then here's what we need, in order of importance:

1) Stamina morph of Conjured Ward that scales off STAMINA, not health or magicka.

2) Stamina morphs of utility spells like Encase and Bolt Escape.

3) Stamina morphs of summoned pets.

Lack of a full strength, spammable Ward is BY FAR the biggest thing holding Stamina Sorcs back, so that's the first thing that needs a morph.

that would be amaaaaazing