Stamina Sorcerer Feedback Thread: Patch 2.4.3 Update - Crit surge now affected by Battle Spirit

Ajax_22

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

Dark Exchange
This change had good intentions, but it misses the mark. While the amount healed was one of the complaints with this ability. The biggest roadblock to having this skill used in endgame content is the cast time. The cast time on this ability has to go; as long as it stays this skill will remain unused by endgame players. In addition to making it instant cast, I would like to see the increased healing reduced to 50% (instead of 100%), and have the heal scale up on the opposite resource used to cast it. (ex The heal from Dark Deal would cost magic, and return stam, but scale on your max stam and weapon damage.)

There's another thing they could do (while maintaining the skills' uniqueness & the overall design) - and that is making it uninterruptable (but CC should still work). That would make it viable outside the very niche bow kiting builds

Removing the cast time doesn't change the uniqueness or design. The skill is unique because it heals you and gives you resources from the opposite pool. Making it an instant cast ability that scales wouldn't change that. This skill will never be used in place of skills such as Rally/Vigor or Healing Ward/Healing Springs unless it's instant cast.

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

Surge
This is the perfect example of a well intended buff gone very wrong. This is exactly how this skill worked back in 1.5 and it was changed because no one used it. Not only is this a a nerf to HPS and burst healing in PvE and PvP, for Magic and Stam Sorcs, but it also changes the core function of the heal. Surge was a unique heal because it provided you with opportunities to gain great burst healing while maintaining pressure on your target. With this change Surge no longer serves that function, and has now become an unreliable Rally without the on demand burst heal. There is no situation where using this would be better than using Rally.

@Wrobel when you told us you were going to return DoTs to Surge the general expectation was that the internal cooldown, and core functionality of the skill was going to stay the same. DoTs are already balanced due to the fact they have lower damage, most tick once a second, and there a ways to remove DoTs from yourself and allies. If you really feel that just adding DoTs to the base skill would make it to powerful then change the amount DoTs can heal heal for. Do not change the internal cooldown or the healing received from direct damage. We did not expect you to make this a worse version of 1.5's completely unused Surge.

With the addition of DoTs to Surge, the change to Flurry, and Silver Leash becoming a gap closer, I was really looking forward to running a Dual Wield and Bow build. However, this change will once again ensure we are chained to the Two Hand skill line if we want to retain a small semblance of our current survivability, in PvP.

Have you actually tested this on PTS? The heal is really strong considering it procs pretty much every second once you have DoTs etc going on. In terms of strength, it is on the same level as Vigor - only it lasts 33 seconds rather than 5, and gives you Major Brutality as well.

By no means is it a bad skill, or worse than before for builds like DW/Bow (pretty much every Rapid Strikes/Bloodthirst should proc it).

I haven't tested it on the PTS, but I have run the numbers for the max HPS this new Crit Surge can give you. Assuming that Crit Surge procs every second, and without chaining up my champion points to put points into Blessed or Quick Recovery. The maximum HPS I can receive from Crit Surge would be 3,900. This is on top of losing the significant burst heal potential Crit Surge currently has. That is significantly less than what I achieve on average using the current Surge. Since Crit Surge won't be procing every second Rally is going to be far more reliable, and has a burst heal option.

Cathexis

Tyrannitar wrote: »

Cathexis wrote: »

I really think they are making surge far too complicated.

Keep it Crit = 40/60% damage return as health, allow it to work with dots, proc every .5 or 1s, and add a rally style HoT...

Allows healing through shields, healing with flurry, large heal procs from crit rush, and works with crit and non crit builds.

You realize that you just described a nerf from what's on live right now, right?

Currently, the cooldown is .1 second.

If they let the current surge become compatible with those other skills, that'd be a buff.

Alright so then put it on a .1s cooldown. Still not rocket surgury.

luxfreak

Ajax_22 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

Dark Exchange
This change had good intentions, but it misses the mark. While the amount healed was one of the complaints with this ability. The biggest roadblock to having this skill used in endgame content is the cast time. The cast time on this ability has to go; as long as it stays this skill will remain unused by endgame players. In addition to making it instant cast, I would like to see the increased healing reduced to 50% (instead of 100%), and have the heal scale up on the opposite resource used to cast it. (ex The heal from Dark Deal would cost magic, and return stam, but scale on your max stam and weapon damage.)

There's another thing they could do (while maintaining the skills' uniqueness & the overall design) - and that is making it uninterruptable (but CC should still work). That would make it viable outside the very niche bow kiting builds

Removing the cast time doesn't change the uniqueness or design. The skill is unique because it heals you and gives you resources from the opposite pool. Making it an instant cast ability that scales wouldn't change that. This skill will never be used in place of skills such as Rally/Vigor or Healing Ward/Healing Springs unless it's instant cast.

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

Surge
This is the perfect example of a well intended buff gone very wrong. This is exactly how this skill worked back in 1.5 and it was changed because no one used it. Not only is this a a nerf to HPS and burst healing in PvE and PvP, for Magic and Stam Sorcs, but it also changes the core function of the heal. Surge was a unique heal because it provided you with opportunities to gain great burst healing while maintaining pressure on your target. With this change Surge no longer serves that function, and has now become an unreliable Rally without the on demand burst heal. There is no situation where using this would be better than using Rally.

@Wrobel when you told us you were going to return DoTs to Surge the general expectation was that the internal cooldown, and core functionality of the skill was going to stay the same. DoTs are already balanced due to the fact they have lower damage, most tick once a second, and there a ways to remove DoTs from yourself and allies. If you really feel that just adding DoTs to the base skill would make it to powerful then change the amount DoTs can heal heal for. Do not change the internal cooldown or the healing received from direct damage. We did not expect you to make this a worse version of 1.5's completely unused Surge.

With the addition of DoTs to Surge, the change to Flurry, and Silver Leash becoming a gap closer, I was really looking forward to running a Dual Wield and Bow build. However, this change will once again ensure we are chained to the Two Hand skill line if we want to retain a small semblance of our current survivability, in PvP.

Have you actually tested this on PTS? The heal is really strong considering it procs pretty much every second once you have DoTs etc going on. In terms of strength, it is on the same level as Vigor - only it lasts 33 seconds rather than 5, and gives you Major Brutality as well.

By no means is it a bad skill, or worse than before for builds like DW/Bow (pretty much every Rapid Strikes/Bloodthirst should proc it).

I haven't tested it on the PTS, but I have run the numbers for the max HPS this new Crit Surge can give you. Assuming that Crit Surge procs every second, and without chaining up my champion points to put points into Blessed or Quick Recovery. The maximum HPS I can receive from Crit Surge would be 3,900. This is on top of losing the significant burst heal potential Crit Surge currently has. That is significantly less than what I achieve on average using the current Surge. Since Crit Surge won't be procing every second Rally is going to be far more reliable, and has a burst heal option.

Hey, what do you think, what is better: a 100% reliable 1.5k/2 hps Heal, or a 4/4.5k HPs still quite reliable Heal?
As far as i remeber, rally can crit, and so can surge now.
So having a skill that heals you around 2-3 times more but is a little bit less reliable is bad for you, just because the weaker HoT can crit you full when you are lucky enought to get a long cast time befor recasting it?
I like the new Surge, even if it gives you less heal overall for some builds. Its quite reliable when using 2-3 DoTs, or an aoe DoT on multiple targets.

And for Flurry Builds its from 0 to something what is not bad in my eyes

luxfreak

Cathexis wrote: »

Tyrannitar wrote: »

Cathexis wrote: »

I really think they are making surge far too complicated.

Keep it Crit = 40/60% damage return as health, allow it to work with dots, proc every .5 or 1s, and add a rally style HoT...

Allows healing through shields, healing with flurry, large heal procs from crit rush, and works with crit and non crit builds.

You realize that you just described a nerf from what's on live right now, right?

Currently, the cooldown is .1 second.

If they let the current surge become compatible with those other skills, that'd be a buff.

Alright so then put it on a .1s cooldown. Still not rocket surgury.

But the (unreal) possibility of Healing for 30k in one second, realisical >10k HPS with Caltrops/Injection or Barrage(PVE or PVP) and Hurricane, and then the use of Flurry.

Ajax_22

luxfreak wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

Dark Exchange
This change had good intentions, but it misses the mark. While the amount healed was one of the complaints with this ability. The biggest roadblock to having this skill used in endgame content is the cast time. The cast time on this ability has to go; as long as it stays this skill will remain unused by endgame players. In addition to making it instant cast, I would like to see the increased healing reduced to 50% (instead of 100%), and have the heal scale up on the opposite resource used to cast it. (ex The heal from Dark Deal would cost magic, and return stam, but scale on your max stam and weapon damage.)

There's another thing they could do (while maintaining the skills' uniqueness & the overall design) - and that is making it uninterruptable (but CC should still work). That would make it viable outside the very niche bow kiting builds

Removing the cast time doesn't change the uniqueness or design. The skill is unique because it heals you and gives you resources from the opposite pool. Making it an instant cast ability that scales wouldn't change that. This skill will never be used in place of skills such as Rally/Vigor or Healing Ward/Healing Springs unless it's instant cast.

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

Surge
This is the perfect example of a well intended buff gone very wrong. This is exactly how this skill worked back in 1.5 and it was changed because no one used it. Not only is this a a nerf to HPS and burst healing in PvE and PvP, for Magic and Stam Sorcs, but it also changes the core function of the heal. Surge was a unique heal because it provided you with opportunities to gain great burst healing while maintaining pressure on your target. With this change Surge no longer serves that function, and has now become an unreliable Rally without the on demand burst heal. There is no situation where using this would be better than using Rally.

@Wrobel when you told us you were going to return DoTs to Surge the general expectation was that the internal cooldown, and core functionality of the skill was going to stay the same. DoTs are already balanced due to the fact they have lower damage, most tick once a second, and there a ways to remove DoTs from yourself and allies. If you really feel that just adding DoTs to the base skill would make it to powerful then change the amount DoTs can heal heal for. Do not change the internal cooldown or the healing received from direct damage. We did not expect you to make this a worse version of 1.5's completely unused Surge.

With the addition of DoTs to Surge, the change to Flurry, and Silver Leash becoming a gap closer, I was really looking forward to running a Dual Wield and Bow build. However, this change will once again ensure we are chained to the Two Hand skill line if we want to retain a small semblance of our current survivability, in PvP.

Have you actually tested this on PTS? The heal is really strong considering it procs pretty much every second once you have DoTs etc going on. In terms of strength, it is on the same level as Vigor - only it lasts 33 seconds rather than 5, and gives you Major Brutality as well.

By no means is it a bad skill, or worse than before for builds like DW/Bow (pretty much every Rapid Strikes/Bloodthirst should proc it).

I haven't tested it on the PTS, but I have run the numbers for the max HPS this new Crit Surge can give you. Assuming that Crit Surge procs every second, and without chaining up my champion points to put points into Blessed or Quick Recovery. The maximum HPS I can receive from Crit Surge would be 3,900. This is on top of losing the significant burst heal potential Crit Surge currently has. That is significantly less than what I achieve on average using the current Surge. Since Crit Surge won't be procing every second Rally is going to be far more reliable, and has a burst heal option.

Hey, what do you think, what is better: a 100% reliable 1.5k/2 hps Heal, or a 4/4.5k HPs still quite reliable Heal?
As far as i remeber, rally can crit, and so can surge now.
So having a skill that heals you around 2-3 times more but is a little bit less reliable is bad for you, just because the weaker HoT can crit you full when you are lucky enought to get a long cast time befor recasting it?
I like the new Surge, even if it gives you less heal overall for some builds. Its quite reliable when using 2-3 DoTs, or an aoe DoT on multiple targets.

And for Flurry Builds its from 0 to something what is not bad in my eyes

What do I think is better? The 2K HPS heal that I can activate on demand to get a huge burst heal. Crits were calculated in that 3,900. I didn't use Crit Surge for a reliable heal. I have Vigor for that. Crit Surge could still provide that reliable heal for DoT builds if they added DoT heals to the current skill without a flat heal.

I'm not going to sit here with rose colored glass about an overall HPS and Burst heal nerf to one of our few class defining skills. This new form of Crit Surge was already tried back in 1.5 and it was changed because it was bad. I want Crit Surge be usable by all builds and retain it's current identity.

Adding DoTs to the Crit Surge we have on live at a reduced healing percentage would allow all builds to use it effectively. This would also allow the skill to change from a simi reliable HoT to a burst healing tool depending on whether you run a DoT or direct damage build.

DDragon

While this one likes the changes, khajiit wonders are there any chances of getting ability modifications (such as bound armanents) in this PTS so stamina sorcs will have direct damage.

Anyone know? Have ZoS ever modified severly an ability 2 weeks before live?

cschwingeb14_ESO

We have almost 3 weeks.

I really don't see the issue with just adding DoTs back in to the "live"surge.... Other than the fact that axes might actually get used by stam sorcs. Even the new flurry is not an issue. So what if every tick triggers surge. All of wrecking blow triggers surge too.

Bat swarm/liquid lightning ticks in a zerg is covered by the cooldown, and the fact that each tick is small.

People will not be generating massive heals from stacked DoTs, because the stronger the DoT, the shorter it's duration. Even if you layer barrage, poison injection and blood craze, you are still limited by DoT duration and ability slots.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

I really wish that we could focus on something else other than surge. If Stamina Sorcs are supposed to depend on surge for heals then we are toast. It just isn't there yet. I was hoping they would address some of the other areas stam sorcs lack as a class like an armor debuff, ways to return stamina, and, of course, direct class stam damage. Now we are going to spend the rest of our remaining time talking about surge while other issues are outstanding.

TBois

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

I really wish that we could focus on something else other than surge. If Stamina Sorcs are supposed to depend on surge for heals then we are toast. It just isn't there yet. I was hoping they would address some of the other areas stam sorcs lack as a class like an armor debuff, ways to return stamina, and, of course, direct class stam damage. Now we are going to spend the rest of our remaining time talking about surge while other issues are outstanding.

I only use 3 sorc skills. Streak, lightning form and surge. I won't use bound armor or a pet unless they get rid of the toggle aspect. I won't use dark deal unless they change it up drastically (get rid of cast time). Doesn't seem like they are thinking of touching streak again but it could use a cost reduction for Stam sorcs. Hurricane is good with minor expedition cause it can stack with major. So what is there to talk about? ... Surge and maybe more Stam based ultimate (but dawnbreaker will be nice).

TBois

I guess we can talk passives though

Edit: it seems like ZOS wants Stam sorcs to be weapon based, high weapon power, high mobility, and passive heals. So I doubt we will get much in direct damage or other buffs. I'm jaded though, so not very optimistic

PainfulFAFA

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

I really wish that we could focus on something else other than surge. If Stamina Sorcs are supposed to depend on surge for heals then we are toast. It just isn't there yet. I was hoping they would address some of the other areas stam sorcs lack as a class like an armor debuff, ways to return stamina, and, of course, direct class stam damage. Now we are going to spend the rest of our remaining time talking about surge while other issues are outstanding.

Agreed. The changes were awesome but they dont make stam sorcs complete just yet. Surge changes weren't that big of a deal and people comparing them to pre 1.6 need to stop because surge heals back in the day depended on damage dealt. If the tick from a DoT was weak, then u got weak heals and the surge heal would be wasted. Its not the same as what we have today. /end discussion

Daedric Summoning
They need to look back at the Daedric Summoning passives and change them because the only good passives ANY sorc playstyle truly uses from that tree are Power Stone (reduce ult cost) and Daedric Protection (hp/stam regen). The other 3 passives are OBSOLETE. Pets arent useful at all and Bound Armaments is still lacking because they are toggles. Toggle abilities need to mean something to the user because they are giving up 2 bar slots and getting nothing good in return.

Dark Magic
Dark conversion has been tweaked many many times and it still isnt good enough tho. I think they should just remake this ability into a buff or even a debuff. Perhaps they can change it to a purge, removing 1-2 harmful effects at the cost of that cast time.

Storm Calling
Only thing i would like to see changed here is Overload. One morph gives Magicka back per hit, the other gives more range.
Personally, i found Energy Overload (magicka returns) more useful even as stam sorc. I'd like to see Power Overload changed on the other hand. Maybe that morph could grant physical dmg with OL heavy attacks or something.

Overall, i feel like stam sorcs need something else, something that helps damage wise. A debuff ability or perhaps something useful with toggle abilities like Bound Armaments other than a minor buff and 8% max stam. i really liked the idea of summoning a sword or something (like the Morkuldin set).

Yolokin_Swagonborn

TBois wrote: »

I guess we can talk passives though

Edit: it seems like ZOS wants Stam sorcs to be weapon based, high weapon power, high mobility, and passive heals. So I doubt we will get much in direct damage or other buffs. I'm jaded though, so not very optimistic

I think that's the problem. I don't want to be just a weapon skills buff class. If that's what ZOS wants for stam sorc, then we are at an impasse. Even if that was what ZOS wanted, we aren't even the best weapon damage buff class. Take surprise attack away from NBs and they still have more weapon damage buffs, sustain, and mitigation than stam sorc. I don't see a clear stam sorc Identity yet.

Graphic shamelessly Borrowed fromJules's thread. Notice how all other classes have at least 3 stamina based skills that do damage. Sorcerer has 1. NB has 5 plus relentless focus, which is probably the best "weapon skills buff" in the game.

It wouldn't be as bad if stam sorc had more sustain, mobility and mitigation. But we lost major expedition, streak is way too expensive to effectively use as mitigation, and we have no combat use-able resource sustain. NBs get 15% regen to ALL resources just for being NBs without having to slot anything. That's like a free willows path set.

How are we supposed to compete with that when it takes us two slots to slot the only Daedric summoning skill worth slotting to get 20% stam regen? Skill slots we desperately need for weapon skills because we have no stamina class DPS.

Two things that could at least bandaid fix this to make it playable.

• Bound armaments gets magelight treatment and passively grants 8% stam (and basic attack buff) while slotted and give minor ward when activated. Even if you stop reading here its miles better than it is now. To do the extra mile, activating the ability costs magicka and summons a Morkuldin-like Sword for X seconds. Once summoned, costs stam to swing (pull it out of the air and swing it) but can use other weapon skills in rotation. It disappears when cast time is us and you can recast it. Thanks to @PainfulFAFA for helping me evolve this idea. This screams sorc so hard it needs to be in the game already.
• Other morph of atronarc becomes air atronarc does physical damage and scales on stam.

Yes, I'm asking for active skills, about 20 days before the release of the new DLC. Yes that's unfortunately unreasonable but I think we need to get to the point where we can agree to disagree with Wrobel. We want more active stam skills, if he doesn't want us to have any, i would like to know for certain (instead of just speculating) so I can give up and pick another class that has active skills.


TL:DR; If stam sorc is supposed to be only a weapon buff class, then it has a long way to go still. If not, then we would like more active skills please.

If neither of these things are achieved, then stam sorc just stays in mediocrity for another patch cycle.

TBois

Yeah that active bound armor would be really nice! I hope they are considering changing up something else before the patch. It may cure my pessimism about how they have handled the changes to combat throughout the game.

Erock25

I hope devs are still reading this thread even though we are 15 pages deep. I have to admit I like the changes so far, but there are still a few more changes that I really think will round the possible builds out.

Bound Armaments (and Aegis) should really be given the Magelight treatment with the 8% stam and Minor Resolve active while slotted. There are many options for the active effect such as Empower (+20% dmg next hit), Minor Berserk (+8% dmg, 5s), Minor Force (+15% crit dmg, 10 seconds), +40% heavy attack damage for 6 seconds, or even something more interesting like others have suggested where it summons some sort of daedric weapon. The bottom line is we need to be able to equip this skill on only a single bar. @Wrobel , I know your main objective should be building a fun and balanced game, and you know that Bound Armaments/Aegis toggles are the exact opposite of fun, and the proposed changes can be accomplished in a balanced way.

A physical CP scaling class ultimate. I really want to picture an Atro morph here (i.imgur.com/1O28VHs.jpg), but I just don't see a melee ultimate pet working (unless it is absolutely useless for PVP) and I also don't see ZOS putting in a ranged physical dmg summon either. It might work out in PVP if it had really high health and was CC immune, but I don't think ZOS will do that. Therefore Power Overload should change to a physical dmg CP scaling ultimate and restore stamina. I know magicka PVE sorcs hate relying on Overload for PVE DPS, but it opens up a lot of options for a stamina sorc with the extra bar, a ranged attack without a bow, and Overload use is awesome for dealing with low regen.

Do these two things and stam sorc is in a good place with some options.

Morvane

Grao wrote: »

Wrobel wrote: »

Some great feedback in here. We're looking at addressing the following issues:

• Lack of Sorcerer passives that are effective with stamina builds
• Critical Surge doesn't proc with Flurry or DoT based builds
• Stamina sorcerer doesn't feel unique from other stamina classes

It is just really sad that our class uniqueness resides with pets almost no one cares to use as their DPS is horrible, their survivability is deplorable and the control you give us over them is nearly nonexistent.

I applaud

Mettaricana

Morvane wrote: »

Grao wrote: »

Wrobel wrote: »

Some great feedback in here. We're looking at addressing the following issues:

• Lack of Sorcerer passives that are effective with stamina builds
• Critical Surge doesn't proc with Flurry or DoT based builds
• Stamina sorcerer doesn't feel unique from other stamina classes

It is just really sad that our class uniqueness resides with pets almost no one cares to use as their DPS is horrible, their survivability is deplorable and the control you give us over them is nearly nonexistent.

I applaud

Try being on console if you arent already we don't even have that button to send them to a target lol

But I agree 10% use pets rest don't small voice seems to win over us as a majority pets are jokee they need to go.

Sarousse

@Wrobel

Are there more changes on the way for stam sorcs before the 31h may or are you done with it ?

Thanks.

Derra

Pets should simply be mages guild abilities accessible to everyone and the deadric summoning line completely reworked.

But hey - zos won´t even work on dark exchange other than adjusting values.

Jar_Ek

The surge change for stamina sorcerers simply pushes us to run DoT builds if we want healing. I have done some testing and it seems to work if you can keep them up But ultimately it forces a specific style of play as much or maybe more than the old surge did. And it loses all burst heal capability which is dangerous.
Also I haven't tried vmsa so I simply don't know if the heals are enough to enable us to survive, but without a gap closer I think it will be hard work.

PainfulFAFA

Sarousse wrote: »

@Wrobel

Are there more changes on the way for stam sorcs before the 31h may or are you done with it ?

Thanks.

i would like to know too

luxfreak

Jar_Ek wrote: »

The surge change for stamina sorcerers simply pushes us to run DoT builds if we want healing. I have done some testing and it seems to work if you can keep them up But ultimately it forces a specific style of play as much or maybe more than the old surge did. And it loses all burst heal capability which is dangerous.
Also I haven't tried vmsa so I simply don't know if the heals are enough to enable us to survive, but without a gap closer I think it will be hard work.

IF we struggle from a sudden loss of much hp, we can always press bone shield, or dodge 1-2 times, waiting for our HP to come back.
I dont realy see me forces to play DW, my Bow Bar with Caltrops, Volley or Injection(PVE/PVP) + Hurricane will give me enough Dots to have it proc on little waste. I can still go and play a sword/board Setup.
The only thing thats probably gets a LOT weaker is the 2h weapon with Uppercut.
For the missing Gap Closer can you always take silver leash now(yes i know its ugly). And as we are still sorcs, we can always Streak to where we wanna be.

Birdovic

And me, too.

Also,the sad thing about Bound Armaments is, everyone really WANTS to use it really, but it just not worth it and not fun at all.

We have to think so much about which abilities to put on our Ability bars, Bound Armaments is simply no option. We have to give up 2 slots to have passive buffs running in the background.

The problem is:

1) the buffs are definitely not making up for lost slots, which we desperately need for other, must-have Abilities.
2) Bound Armament is NO fun to use.
It's equipped and it does nothing cool (except buffs in the background)

DDuke

Ajax_22 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

Dark Exchange
This change had good intentions, but it misses the mark. While the amount healed was one of the complaints with this ability. The biggest roadblock to having this skill used in endgame content is the cast time. The cast time on this ability has to go; as long as it stays this skill will remain unused by endgame players. In addition to making it instant cast, I would like to see the increased healing reduced to 50% (instead of 100%), and have the heal scale up on the opposite resource used to cast it. (ex The heal from Dark Deal would cost magic, and return stam, but scale on your max stam and weapon damage.)

There's another thing they could do (while maintaining the skills' uniqueness & the overall design) - and that is making it uninterruptable (but CC should still work). That would make it viable outside the very niche bow kiting builds

Removing the cast time doesn't change the uniqueness or design. The skill is unique because it heals you and gives you resources from the opposite pool. Making it an instant cast ability that scales wouldn't change that. This skill will never be used in place of skills such as Rally/Vigor or Healing Ward/Healing Springs unless it's instant cast.

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

Surge
This is the perfect example of a well intended buff gone very wrong. This is exactly how this skill worked back in 1.5 and it was changed because no one used it. Not only is this a a nerf to HPS and burst healing in PvE and PvP, for Magic and Stam Sorcs, but it also changes the core function of the heal. Surge was a unique heal because it provided you with opportunities to gain great burst healing while maintaining pressure on your target. With this change Surge no longer serves that function, and has now become an unreliable Rally without the on demand burst heal. There is no situation where using this would be better than using Rally.

@Wrobel when you told us you were going to return DoTs to Surge the general expectation was that the internal cooldown, and core functionality of the skill was going to stay the same. DoTs are already balanced due to the fact they have lower damage, most tick once a second, and there a ways to remove DoTs from yourself and allies. If you really feel that just adding DoTs to the base skill would make it to powerful then change the amount DoTs can heal heal for. Do not change the internal cooldown or the healing received from direct damage. We did not expect you to make this a worse version of 1.5's completely unused Surge.

With the addition of DoTs to Surge, the change to Flurry, and Silver Leash becoming a gap closer, I was really looking forward to running a Dual Wield and Bow build. However, this change will once again ensure we are chained to the Two Hand skill line if we want to retain a small semblance of our current survivability, in PvP.

Have you actually tested this on PTS? The heal is really strong considering it procs pretty much every second once you have DoTs etc going on. In terms of strength, it is on the same level as Vigor - only it lasts 33 seconds rather than 5, and gives you Major Brutality as well.

By no means is it a bad skill, or worse than before for builds like DW/Bow (pretty much every Rapid Strikes/Bloodthirst should proc it).

I haven't tested it on the PTS, but I have run the numbers for the max HPS this new Crit Surge can give you. Assuming that Crit Surge procs every second, and without chaining up my champion points to put points into Blessed or Quick Recovery. The maximum HPS I can receive from Crit Surge would be 3,900. This is on top of losing the significant burst heal potential Crit Surge currently has. That is significantly less than what I achieve on average using the current Surge. Since Crit Surge won't be procing every second Rally is going to be far more reliable, and has a burst heal option.

Uhm no, Rally won't be a better heal than Crit Surge after this patch. You can only get a decent heal with it every 14-15 seconds.

Go test Crit Surge on PTS before judging - doesn't it mean anything to you that it heals for as much (or more) than Vigor every second - while lasting 33 seconds instead of 5?

I found the skill absolutely amazing in PTS (and yes, it's proccing every second with lots of bleed DoTs on target, Hurricane, Bloodthirst etc).

Mettaricana

I can't get on pts but what's the deal with new flurry? Since wrecking blow got changed for either knock down or empower I'm debating going to dw for my stam skrc and piling on those wep dmg enchants.

luxfreak

Mettaricana wrote: »

I can't get on pts but what's the deal with new flurry? Since wrecking blow got changed for either knock down or empower I'm debating going to dw for my stam skrc and piling on those wep dmg enchants.

Its not realy the Flurry that got changed.
Flurry only hits less hard, hits one time less. but has around half the duration.
The Main Point here is that Flurry is a DoT, and so did not proc Surge.
Now Flurry can proc the flat healn from Surge and with the increased hit/time ratio, it will be the damage to proc the new Surge most of the time.

The real reason to play flurry is that flurry is realy strong with the MSA weapons + at least one single target DoT

Jar_Ek

luxfreak wrote: »

Jar_Ek wrote: »

The surge change for stamina sorcerers simply pushes us to run DoT builds if we want healing. I have done some testing and it seems to work if you can keep them up But ultimately it forces a specific style of play as much or maybe more than the old surge did. And it loses all burst heal capability which is dangerous.
Also I haven't tried vmsa so I simply don't know if the heals are enough to enable us to survive, but without a gap closer I think it will be hard work.

IF we struggle from a sudden loss of much hp, we can always press bone shield, or dodge 1-2 times, waiting for our HP to come back.
I dont realy see me forces to play DW, my Bow Bar with Caltrops, Volley or Injection(PVE/PVP) + Hurricane will give me enough Dots to have it proc on little waste. I can still go and play a sword/board Setup.
The only thing thats probably gets a LOT weaker is the 2h weapon with Uppercut.
For the missing Gap Closer can you always take silver leash now(yes i know its ugly). And as we are still sorcs, we can always Streak to where we wanna be.

I never mentioned dw and the build you suggest is a DoT build. My point still stands that the weapons with DoTs are not those with gap closers and Streak is a terrible gap closer for all kinds of reasons. You may also have failed to notice that I never said having to run a DoT build (with a shield for emergency) was a bad thing.

Grao

Going to post this here as well 'case who knows, Maybe @Wrobel is reading this thread.

I do believe Stamina Build's direct damage should be mostly coming from their Weapon Skills. The Class Skills and Passives should exist to provide utility and strengthen the Weapon builds making them unique for each class. That is not to say I don't think Stamina Sorcerers shouldn't have Damage Class Skills, I simply think your most used Damage Skills should come from your chosen Weapon Line.

Grao wrote: »

Alright, this took a little while to type down, but here it goes. Sorcerers as I think they should / could be.

Dark Magic

Negate Magic: [As in Live]

• Suppression Field: [As in the PTS] Create a globe of magic suppression, dispelling enemy placed effects instantly.
  Enemy players will be silenced rather than stunned.
  Heals you and your allies standing within the area of effect by X.
• Absorption Field: [As in the PTS] Create a globe of magic suppression, dispelling enemy placed effects instantly.
  Enemy players will be silenced rather than stunned.
  Deals X Magic Damage to enemies standing within the area of effect.

Dark Exchange: Drains an enemy's strength causing X Magic Damage and Healing the caster by Y% of the Damage Caused. (Ranged, instant cast, 3000 – 3500 Magicka cost)

• Dark Slash: [Replacing Dark Deal] Drains an enemy's strength causing X Magic Damage and Healing the caster by Y% of the Damage Caused.
  Causes Z additional Magic Damage (Melee, instant cast, 3000 – 3500 Magicka cost)
• Dark Conversion: Drains an enemy's strength causing X Magic Damage and Healing the caster by Y% of the Damage Caused.
  Additionally regains Z% of the Damage caused as Magicka (Increased Range, instant cast, 3000 – 3500 Magicka cost)

Argument: This skill can be balanced to increase Sorcerer Magicka DPS just enough to be in the same level as the other Magicka Builds and Classes. It would replace Force Pulse in our rotation and its numbers could played with to fix the class's sustain issues while also creating diversity by stimulating the creation of a Melee DPS Magicka Sorcerer. At the same time it preserves some of the original essence of Dark Exchange.

Encase:[As in Live]

• Shattering Prison: [As in Live]
• Restraining Prison: [As in Live]

Rune Prison: [As in Live]

• Rune Cage: [As in Live]
• Defensive Rune: [As in Live]

Crystal Shard: [As in Live]

• Crystal Blade: [Replacing Crystal Blast] Conjure a dark crystal blade and toss it at an enemy, dealing X Physical Damage and stunning them for 2 seconds.
  Casting any other Stamina ability has a 35% chance of causing your next Crystal Blade to be instant, cause the target to bleed for Y seconds, and cost 50% less Stamina.
• Crystal Fragments: [As in Live]

Daedric Curse: [Swap with Daedric Mines – As in Live]

• Daedric Prey: [As in Live]
• Velocious Curse: Curses an enemy with a destructive rune dealing X Magic Damage every second and Y Magic Damage to all other nearby enemies after 3.5 seconds.
  Has shorter duration and is converted into a true DoT.

Argument: This ability should be swapped with Daedric Mines for a few reasons, the first being both skills are daedric in nature, but Daedric Curse doesn't summon anything and is not affected in anyway by the passives in the Daedric Summoning Tree. Meanwhile curses are considered Dark Magic and Daedric Mines actually does summon something, not to mention certain passives in Summoning Tree could be tinkered to affect that skill positively.

Unholy Knowledge: [As in Live]

Blood Magic: [As in Live ]

Persistence: [As in Live]

Exploitation: [As in Live]

Daedric Summoning

Argument: Allow all Magicka Scaling Pets to gain extra damage from Spell Power and Stamina Pets to gain extra damage from Weapon Power as well. That or simply increase their damage slightly.

Summon Storm Atronach: [As in Live]

• Greater Storm Atronach: Summon a storm atronach at the target location. The atronach's arrival deals X Shock Damage and stuns nearby enemies for 3 seconds. The atronach cannot move but attacks the nearest enemy.
  An ally can activate Lightning Barrier, granting a energy shield to all allies in range and the atronach absorbing Y damage for 8 seconds. Atronach has increased duration, health and damage.
  Upon Synergy activation, grants all allies in range a energy shield (similar to barrier).
• Summon Empowering Atronach: Summon a storm atronach at the target location. The atronach's arrival deals X Shock Damage and stuns nearby enemies for 3 seconds. The atronach cannot move but attacks the nearest enemy.
  An ally can activate Charged Lightning, giving both the ally, the Atronach's caster and the atronach Major Berserk, increasing their damage by 25% for 8 seconds.
  Caster of the Atronach is also granted Major Berserk upon the activation of the Atronach's Synergy. Additionally, the Atronach has a powerful area effect attack.

Argument: One of the things Sorcerers currently lack is useful utility for a raid or dungeon group. Granting Minor Prophecy is simply not enough and I believe Zenimax recognizes such as true as they are buffing Negate. This changes would grant the Atronach more power and interesting utility, the first morph would sacrifice damage to shield the raid and the second morph would empower not only the ally who activated the synergy, but also the sorcerer, helping the sorcerer DPS.

Unstable Familiar: [As in the PTS]*

• Summon Unstable Clannfear: Command the powers of Oblivion to send a clannfear to fight at your side. The clannfear's attacks deal X Physical Damage plus an additional 15%.
  Once summoned you can activate the clannfear's special ability, tail swiping nearby enemies and taunting the primary target for Y seconds.
  The clannfear remains until killed or unsummoned. (Stamina Based)
• Summon Volatile Familiar: [As in PTS]*

Bound Armor: Protect yourself with the power of Oblivion, creating a suit of Daedric mail that grants Minor Resolve and Minor Ward, increasing your Armor and Spell Resistance by X.

• Bound Armaments: Protect yourself with the power of Oblivion, creating a suit of Daedric mail that grants Minor Resolve and Minor Ward, increasing your Armor and Spell Resistance by X.
  The armor also increases your Max Stamina by 5%.
  Once summoned you can activate the armament's special ability, granting Minor Berserk, increasing all damage done by 8% for 5 seconds.
• Bound Aegis: Protect yourself with the power of Oblivion, creating a suit of Daedric mail that grants Minor Resolve and Minor Ward, increasing your Armor and Spell Resistance by X.
  The armor also increases your Max Health by 5%.
  Once summoned you can activate the armor's special ability, healing you for 35% of your Maximum Health

Argument: Again, in an effort to diversify builds this skills would support both Stamina and Tanking sorcerers greatly. The self heal removed from Clannfear coupled with the 5% Health increase would make this a useful toggle for Tanks while Minor Berserk would make Bound Armaments tempting not just for Stamina Sorcerers but also for Magicka Sorcerers. The 5% Stamina increase would be very useful for Stam DPS, but would also be tempting for tanks needing additional resources for blocking, etc.

Summon Winged Twilight: [As in PTS]*

• Summon Twilight Tormentor: [As in PTS]*
• Summon Twilight Matriarch: [As in PTS]*

Daedric Mines: [As in Live]

• Daedric Tomb: [As in Live]
• Daedric Minefield: [As in Live]

Conjured Ward: Conjures globes of Daedric energy for protection granting you a damage shield that absorbs X damage for 6 seconds and healing your pets for Y.

• Hardened Ward: Conjures globes of Daedric energy for protection granting you a damage shield that absorbs X damage for 6 seconds and healing your pets for Y.
  While the ward is active, your summoned creatures are immune to damage.
  Your damage shield absorbs 30% more damage.
• Empowered Ward: Conjures globes of Daedric energy for protection granting you a damage shield that absorbs X damage for 6 seconds and healing your pets for Y.
  While the ward is active, your summoned creatures are immune to damage.
  This skill also grants Minor Intellect to you and nearby allies, increasing your Magicka Recovery by 10% for 20 seconds and has reduced cost.

Argument: With the changes proposed above and the considerable nerf to all shields in the game this skill needs a few changes to remain viable, not to mention pets need better protection, specially as Sorcerers will no longer be able to maintain their Wards up 100% of the time. The idea here is to use your ward when your pet is going low on health or when you know it and your self are about to get hit with a massive amount of damage. The choice for the sorcerer would then be between having a larger shield or having their shield cost less and provide some minor utility for their allies.

Rebate: When one of your summoned creatures or mines is killed or triggered, you are restored X Magicka.

Power Stone: [As in Live]

Daedric Protection: [As in Live]

Expert Summoner: Grants you 4/8% more maximum magicka whenever you have a Daedric Summoning pet active.

Argument: Not only would this increase sorcerer DPS by increasing the Magicka pool, it would also increase the pet's DPS and thus make them more attractive. This would also help Tank builds that utilize the Clannfear as part of their build.

Storm Calling

Overload: Charge your fists with the power of the storm. Light attacks become lightning bolts, dealing X Shock Damage and 5% additional damage.
Attacks deplete Ultimate until you run out or the ability is toggled off.

• Power Overload: Charge your fists with the power of the storm. Light attacks become lightning bolts, dealing X Shock Damage and 10% additional damage.
  Attacks deplete Ultimate until you run out or the ability is toggled off.
• Energy Overload: Charge your fists with the power of the storm. Light attacks become lightning bolts, dealing X Shock Damage and 5% additional damage.
  Attacks deplete Ultimate until you run out or the ability is toggled off and restore X Magicka and / or Stamina.

Argument: First of all, this ultimate is, in my opinion, the best sorcerer ultimate, not only because its potential burst damage but also because it unlocks a third bar. For a class with quite a few toggles, that is quite a useful feature.
That is not to say it doesn't need a few small changes. Nerfs to its damage have made prolonged use of this ultimate less advantageous, so it could use a slight increase in its power. More importantly though, this is a ultimate plagued by bugs, the most annoying one being getting 'stuck' in heavy attack mode. As its heavy attack isn't powerful enough to be used, I propose simply disabling it as it is not truly a feature for the ultimate, but a problem. Power overload should be about making the ultimate more powerful, not about range and energy overload should return the resource that is actually useful to the sorcerer using the ability or simply return both resources.

Mage's Fury: [As in Live]

• Mage's Wrath: [As in Live]*
• Endless Fury: Call down lightning to strike an enemy for X Shock Damage.
  If target enemy's health falls below 20% within 4 seconds, an explosion deals an additional Y Shock Damage to the target and Z Shock Damage to other enemies nearby.
  Applies a lighting charge that increases the damage of the next cast of Endless Fury by 10% stacking up to 3 times.

Argument: I think no one will argue that Endless Fury feels lackluster when compared to Mage's Wrath. The use of the skill doesn't feel endless at all as its special trait only activates when you kill your enemy and at least in PvE that usually mean the fight is over and you don't need the very small amount of Magicka it returns. This change would encourage spamming this ability and would be an interesting boost for extra damage against enemies that won't die to just one or two explosions. I also believe Mage's Wrath AoE 'Explosion' could use buffs.

Lightning Form: [As in Live]

• Hurricane: [Replacing Thundering Presence] Manifest yourself as lightning to gain Major Resolve and Major Ward, increasing Armor and Spell Resistance by X for 20 seconds.
  While active, nearby enemies will take Y Physical Damage each second. The size and damage of the periodic effect increases the longer it is active, going up to 225% more damage and up to 9 meters in size.
  Grants the Minor Expedition buff at all times while it is active.
• Boundless Storm: [As in Live]*

Argument: The new Stamina morph for this ability seems great, but it does make the Magicka morph feeling very lackluster. Its cost is higher, its damage is weaker and the duration of its speed buff is considerably shorter, even if the buff is more powerful. Yes, the duration is longer which justify the higher cost, but the damage of the Magicka morph for this ability could use some small buff and its range could see a small increase.

Lightning Splash: [As in Live]

• Liquid Lightning: [As in Live]*
• Lightning Flood: [As in Live]

Argument: This is a good skill, but Liquid Lightning can be tricky to target. I would gladly see that morph lose its AoE aspect and become a more traditional, single target, powerful DoT. It is not a necessary change though.

Surge: [As in the PTS]*

• Power Surge: [As in the PTS]*
• Critical Surge: [As in the PTS]*

Argument: I heavily dislike some of the changes this skill suffered this last patch, but I believe Zenimax is still working the numbers. Besides, I believe other changes proposed above would take care of the sustain issues the changes to Surge's internal cooldown and heals would cause.

Bolt Escape: [As in Live]*

• Streak: [As in Live]*
• Ball of lightning: [As in Live]*

Argument: I will admit this is not a skill a use a lot as my enjoyment in PvP tends to fizzle out after fighting the considerable lag of Cyrodill for about an hour. I do believe the stacking cost increase intended to punish repetitive uses of the skill should be balanced out by a damage increase for each repetitive use. The idea is to keep sorcerers from spamming the ability to run away when they are in trouble, but if the sorcerer is using this ability aggressively, that should be rewarded.

Capacitor: [As in Live]

Energized: [As in the PTS]*

Argument: This is a good passive and the change to it adding Physical Damage is a step on the right direction. I'd love to see that damage buff extended to Magic Damage as well or to all Elemental Damage instead of just Shock Damage. Again, with the changes proposed above this may not be needed.

Implosion: [As in the PTS]

Expert Mage: [As in Live]

Ajax_22

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

Dark Exchange
This change had good intentions, but it misses the mark. While the amount healed was one of the complaints with this ability. The biggest roadblock to having this skill used in endgame content is the cast time. The cast time on this ability has to go; as long as it stays this skill will remain unused by endgame players. In addition to making it instant cast, I would like to see the increased healing reduced to 50% (instead of 100%), and have the heal scale up on the opposite resource used to cast it. (ex The heal from Dark Deal would cost magic, and return stam, but scale on your max stam and weapon damage.)

There's another thing they could do (while maintaining the skills' uniqueness & the overall design) - and that is making it uninterruptable (but CC should still work). That would make it viable outside the very niche bow kiting builds

Removing the cast time doesn't change the uniqueness or design. The skill is unique because it heals you and gives you resources from the opposite pool. Making it an instant cast ability that scales wouldn't change that. This skill will never be used in place of skills such as Rally/Vigor or Healing Ward/Healing Springs unless it's instant cast.

DDuke wrote: »

Ajax_22 wrote: »

Surge
This is the perfect example of a well intended buff gone very wrong. This is exactly how this skill worked back in 1.5 and it was changed because no one used it. Not only is this a a nerf to HPS and burst healing in PvE and PvP, for Magic and Stam Sorcs, but it also changes the core function of the heal. Surge was a unique heal because it provided you with opportunities to gain great burst healing while maintaining pressure on your target. With this change Surge no longer serves that function, and has now become an unreliable Rally without the on demand burst heal. There is no situation where using this would be better than using Rally.

@Wrobel when you told us you were going to return DoTs to Surge the general expectation was that the internal cooldown, and core functionality of the skill was going to stay the same. DoTs are already balanced due to the fact they have lower damage, most tick once a second, and there a ways to remove DoTs from yourself and allies. If you really feel that just adding DoTs to the base skill would make it to powerful then change the amount DoTs can heal heal for. Do not change the internal cooldown or the healing received from direct damage. We did not expect you to make this a worse version of 1.5's completely unused Surge.

With the addition of DoTs to Surge, the change to Flurry, and Silver Leash becoming a gap closer, I was really looking forward to running a Dual Wield and Bow build. However, this change will once again ensure we are chained to the Two Hand skill line if we want to retain a small semblance of our current survivability, in PvP.

Have you actually tested this on PTS? The heal is really strong considering it procs pretty much every second once you have DoTs etc going on. In terms of strength, it is on the same level as Vigor - only it lasts 33 seconds rather than 5, and gives you Major Brutality as well.

By no means is it a bad skill, or worse than before for builds like DW/Bow (pretty much every Rapid Strikes/Bloodthirst should proc it).

I haven't tested it on the PTS, but I have run the numbers for the max HPS this new Crit Surge can give you. Assuming that Crit Surge procs every second, and without chaining up my champion points to put points into Blessed or Quick Recovery. The maximum HPS I can receive from Crit Surge would be 3,900. This is on top of losing the significant burst heal potential Crit Surge currently has. That is significantly less than what I achieve on average using the current Surge. Since Crit Surge won't be procing every second Rally is going to be far more reliable, and has a burst heal option.

Go test Crit Surge on PTS before judging - doesn't it mean anything to you that it heals for as much (or more) than Vigor every second - while lasting 33 seconds instead of 5?

No it doesn't. If i want A HoT I use Vigor. What does mean something to me is that this new Surge is an HPS loss over the current one, and most importantly it removes the burst healing. In this meta burst healing is far to important to give up for a simi reliable Rally that heals for slightly more.

Cathexis

Erock25 wrote: »

but I just don't see a melee ultimate pet working (unless it is absolutely useless for PVP)

I'm curious if this is typo, I can't see why anything should be entirely useless for pvp, or how that would somehow make something balanced. Storc has serious pvp problems....

Erock25

Cathexis wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

but I just don't see a melee ultimate pet working (unless it is absolutely useless for PVP)

I'm curious if this is typo, I can't see why anything should be entirely useless for pvp, or how that would somehow make something balanced. Storc has serious pvp problems....

I'm saying it would be useless in PvP and that would be bad. They'd have to make it cc immune to be useful and I don't see that happening.