My PTS sorcerer experience in Maelstrom Arena: Surge & Shields

Lucky28

CP5 wrote: »

One thing I feel I should mention, Wrobel mentioned something along the lines that they felt sorcerer's could go on the offense and defense at the same time, hence the shield nerf, but does anyone else find it funny that surge and blood magic both require you to be on the attack to get healed? Aside from those you have exchange and the pet heals, neither I've seen praised for their ability to keep you alive, so the class on a whole was designed around the idea that you stay alive while attacking rather than falling back to recover. Any opinion on that?

that was part of the sorcs "uniqueness" you know what Wrobel "values"

the changes to shield duration and poisons does nothing but promote zerging by getting rid of what was once a solo class. really wish the devs would put more thought into the changes they toss into the game at some random whim.

and actually understand how people play each class. then maybe Wrobel can talk about uniqueness. but it's clear he doesn't understand the classes and why people play them, troubling for the lead combat designer. which is why i lost faith in this game.

Grao

CP5 wrote: »

One thing I feel I should mention, Wrobel mentioned something along the lines that they felt sorcerer's could go on the offense and defense at the same time, hence the shield nerf, but does anyone else find it funny that surge and blood magic both require you to be on the attack to get healed? Aside from those you have exchange and the pet heals, neither I've seen praised for their ability to keep you alive, so the class on a whole was designed around the idea that you stay alive while attacking rather than falling back to recover. Any opinion on that?

I think what @Wrobel meant is that sorcerers can be very offensive while being defensive by casting shields on them selves. I don't quite see how that is different from, for instance a DK that can be heavily offensive and when in trouble pop their instant heal and be well again, alas...

I do understand the nerfs to Ward and even the changes to Surge, what I don't understand is how they can so heavily nerf a class that was already having viability issues and then not buff them at all (with the exception of the stamina sorcerer buff). This class needs buffs in different areas and we are not getting those, it is really frustrating...

CP5

Grao wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

One thing I feel I should mention, Wrobel mentioned something along the lines that they felt sorcerer's could go on the offense and defense at the same time, hence the shield nerf, but does anyone else find it funny that surge and blood magic both require you to be on the attack to get healed? Aside from those you have exchange and the pet heals, neither I've seen praised for their ability to keep you alive, so the class on a whole was designed around the idea that you stay alive while attacking rather than falling back to recover. Any opinion on that?

I think what @Wrobel meant is that sorcerers can be very offensive while being defensive by casting shields on them selves. I don't quite see how that is different from, for instance a DK that can be heavily offensive and when in trouble pop their instant heal and be well again, alas...

I do understand the nerfs to Ward and even the changes to Surge, what I don't understand is how they can so heavily nerf a class that was already having viability issues and then not buff them at all (with the exception of the stamina sorcerer buff). This class needs buffs in different areas and we are not getting those, it is really frustrating...

Seems they are content with the buffs they have given pets over the past 2 updates, and as welcome as those are even the pets aren't pulling the weight.

Saturn

code65536 wrote: »

Text.

I think most people will realise that the more damage output they have, the easier the arena becomes. The new surge morph conforms quite well to that idea, but even if you aren't killing everything super quickly, you will still get a consistent heal out of it over its 30s lifespan. The fact that you aren't running blockade and then saying it would be good with blockade, is kind of silly. You know what you need to do to get the best use out of the surge, yet don't do it. Just seems odd.

Regardless of the speed at which you kill things, I think the new surge is still better. I'll take consistent heal over once-in-a-while burst heal, because the consistency is more akin to using a resto staff, which would be the alternative if your class had no heals.

I actually didn't even know you had a sorcerer. I've played with you quite a lot, but you are usually on a nightblade or dragonknight.

Lucky28

Saturn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Text.

I think most people will realise that the more damage output they have, the easier the arena becomes. The new surge morph conforms quite well to that idea, but even if you aren't killing everything super quickly, you will still get a consistent heal out of it over its 30s lifespan. The fact that you aren't running blockade and then saying it would be good with blockade, is kind of silly. You know what you need to do to get the best use out of the surge, yet don't do it. Just seems odd.

Regardless of the speed at which you kill things, I think the new surge is still better. I'll take consistent heal over once-in-a-while burst heal, because the consistency is more akin to using a resto staff, which would be the alternative if your class had no heals.

I actually didn't even know you had a sorcerer. I've played with you quite a lot, but you are usually on a nightblade or dragonknight.

it's not a once in a while heal if you build for it. it's a consistent heal with a high crit build. which is why it sucks they changed it and why the new change is boring. it requires no thought for how you build your character.

Ep1kMalware

I don't like sorcs ( least favorite class in the game), but the NERF to shields was pointless at best. If you want to fix shield spamming in pvp just remove the crit immunity. I do think you should get your 20 seconds back.

On the other hand I can't understand your complaining.myou've got good distance dps, and ultimate worth using, a shield (I would have loved boneshied, just be glad you get one, srsly).

Try doing vmsa on stam character, even with the duration being 6 seconds. Going through as a sorc is so easy mode these complaints just make me head shake. Stage 9 round 6 is HELL' when you have to move in circles around the guards and pray ghosts don't clutter you while avoiding fireballs from the lava and keeping an eye out on the boss at the same time.

Round 7, you know what? I'd trade my right arm for good distance dps on that boss, and a functioning harness magica.
Round 5 boss isn't much better, if he's in a bad mood hell 1 shots if I crit Rush to a troll.

Tl;dr

Shield nerf was pointless, but this does sound like whine thread.

Lucky28

Ep1kMalware wrote: »

I don't like sorcs ( least favorite class in the game), but the NERF to shields was pointless at best. If you want to fix shield spamming in pvp just remove the crit immunity. I do think you should get your 20 seconds back.

On the other hand I can't understand your complaining.myou've got good distance dps, and ultimate worth using, a shield (I would have loved boneshied, just be glad you get one, srsly).

Try doing vmsa on stam character, even with the duration being 6 seconds. Going through as a sorc is so easy mode these complaints just make me head shake. Stage 9 round 6 is HELL' when you have to move in circles around the guards and pray ghosts don't clutter you while avoiding fireballs from the lava and keeping an eye out on the boss at the same time.

Round 7, you know what? I'd trade my right arm for good distance dps on that boss, and a functioning harness magica.
Round 5 boss isn't much better, if he's in a bad mood hell 1 shots if I crit Rush to a troll.

Tl;dr

Shield nerf was pointless, but this does sound like whine thread.

shield duration is one part. this thread however, is more about surge.

At any rate with these changes Sorc is now the hardest class to do VMA on.

Ep1kMalware

Lucky28 wrote: »

Ep1kMalware wrote: »

I don't like sorcs ( least favorite class in the game), but the NERF to shields was pointless at best. If you want to fix shield spamming in pvp just remove the crit immunity. I do think you should get your 20 seconds back.

On the other hand I can't understand your complaining.myou've got good distance dps, and ultimate worth using, a shield (I would have loved boneshied, just be glad you get one, srsly).

Try doing vmsa on stam character, even with the duration being 6 seconds. Going through as a sorc is so easy mode these complaints just make me head shake. Stage 9 round 6 is HELL' when you have to move in circles around the guards and pray ghosts don't clutter you while avoiding fireballs from the lava and keeping an eye out on the boss at the same time.

Round 7, you know what? I'd trade my right arm for good distance dps on that boss, and a functioning harness magica.
Round 5 boss isn't much better, if he's in a bad mood hell 1 shots if I crit Rush to a troll.

Tl;dr

Shield nerf was pointless, but this does sound like whine thread.

shield duration is one part. this thread however, is more about surge.

At any rate with these changes Sorc is now the hardest class to do VMA on.

No it's way easier than stam, and it IS about the shield. I'll explain. OP complains about 1 shot damage and weak heals from surge. Think is, on my stam character I run 20k heal (it's barely enough). I have to generate some *** healing in case I fumble a dodge roll or eat weak rng, even that won't save me. Compared to OP, that is MY shield, aka my health bar. Op can simply recast, and still have a health bar to buffer extra damage. I get vigor, which I also must cast every 5 seconds. Sorcs still get it very easy. I can understand their frustration, but from the perspective of doing this as a stam character where most of my class skills have already been nerfed into the ground, my primary sustain skill took WEEKS to grind, with no skills to prevent damage, just CP. it's so hard to see this beyond a l2p issue. I'm not saying op is a bad player, just that it sounds like op is suffering from culture shock having to deal with similar issues as non magica builds.

Witar

Grao wrote: »

DK that can be heavily offensive

MagDk have no instaheal exept healing staff skill line. GDB is garbage - 15% of missing health in pvp is way too small.
On top of that dks have no burst exept proxy and meteor combination. Extremely offensive indeed.

code65536

Saturn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Text.

I think most people will realise that the more damage output they have, the easier the arena becomes. The new surge morph conforms quite well to that idea, but even if you aren't killing everything super quickly, you will still get a consistent heal out of it over its 30s lifespan. The fact that you aren't running blockade and then saying it would be good with blockade, is kind of silly. You know what you need to do to get the best use out of the surge, yet don't do it. Just seems odd.

Regardless of the speed at which you kill things, I think the new surge is still better. I'll take consistent heal over once-in-a-while burst heal, because the consistency is more akin to using a resto staff, which would be the alternative if your class had no heals.

I actually didn't even know you had a sorcerer. I've played with you quite a lot, but you are usually on a nightblade or dragonknight.

My point is that the nerf to Surge (and, yes, it's a nerf because I'm getting less HPS) is not something that you'll really feel if you are killing things so fast that they don't get a chance to really damage you. And I've already said why I don't run blockade: it means moving my ward to the back bar, requiring better reflexes and faster reaction (things that I'm not good at in general). It also means having to do more bar swaps in a game where barswapping is server-side and sometimes laggy.

Anyway, the old Surge wasn't that inconsistent, esp. since Force Shock has three separate hits. The only downtime was when you're not DPSing due to executing mechanics, repositioning, etc. What it did offer was overall higher HPS because you did have those bursts to bring you back up to full.

At the end of the day, in the context of vMA (which is really the only context, at least on the PvE side, where Surge really matters--in group PvE, you have a healer to keep you alive, and outside of vMA, all the other solo content is a joke), the Surge change won't really affect the people at the top levels of play while adversely impacting everyone else. And, frankly, there are a lot more "everyone else". If people who are decent-but-not-elite like Joy (who has Flawless) or me (5-death vMA is the best my sorc's done) find that it's harder (though I admit my testing was limited and was also subject to the limitations of a template, which is why I'll try again on Monday after the character copy), then imagine what it'd be like for people who are still learning the arena or trying to get their first clears.

(And yes, I have a VR16 of every class. I got my sorc and Templar up during Cake Week, so they're fairly new.)

Saturn

Lucky28 wrote: »

Ep1kMalware wrote: »

I don't like sorcs ( least favorite class in the game), but the NERF to shields was pointless at best. If you want to fix shield spamming in pvp just remove the crit immunity. I do think you should get your 20 seconds back.

On the other hand I can't understand your complaining.myou've got good distance dps, and ultimate worth using, a shield (I would have loved boneshied, just be glad you get one, srsly).

Try doing vmsa on stam character, even with the duration being 6 seconds. Going through as a sorc is so easy mode these complaints just make me head shake. Stage 9 round 6 is HELL' when you have to move in circles around the guards and pray ghosts don't clutter you while avoiding fireballs from the lava and keeping an eye out on the boss at the same time.

Round 7, you know what? I'd trade my right arm for good distance dps on that boss, and a functioning harness magica.
Round 5 boss isn't much better, if he's in a bad mood hell 1 shots if I crit Rush to a troll.

Tl;dr

Shield nerf was pointless, but this does sound like whine thread.

shield duration is one part. this thread however, is more about surge.

At any rate with these changes Sorc is now the hardest class to do VMA on.

That. Is. Very. Incorrect.

Derra

Saturn wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

zeroIndex wrote: »

After reading this post, along with many others, I have to say I wasn't thrilled about the update. So I decided to gear up and hop into vMSA on the pts.

I used the same gear I have on live and I used the same skills I use on live, other than empowered ward. I finished the arena in just over an hour.

My honest thoughts:

My score was a little lower due to not being used to the changes, lack of addons and only having 300 champion points. By changes I mean, no more precast of shields and no more burst overload / frag heals. I found that the precast was not needed due to the heals that surge would provide at the time the enemies spawn. Everything else was pretty much the same. I did notice that I was using more magicka than my normal run on live but I feel this could be prevented after a little time spent dealing with the slight change to a rotation. It would just mean breaking some habits. Some rounds were harder but some rounds were easier due to the new surge. The new surge is not bad.

I took the time to run the arena on pts. I suggest other sorcs who are nervous about the changes should do the same. The changes are not as bleak as they sound.

Im adding some pictures as proof. The picture with the leader board was taken just moments ago.

@zeroIndex

I tried it out as well and found that it was a better heal since it's more consistent and triggers off ground AoE. Sure you don't get the Overload mega heals, but I prefer this version more. As for the shields, it's not like they last long enough for the time duration to really be an issue, except for those of us that precast shields.
I think this is once again a case of people reading patch notes and not testing them out, but instead immediately jumping to conclusions. It's the same with the tank changes, which benefits more people than it hurts.
I kind of wish everyone would take the time to properly test things out instead of giving up before even trying and making threads like these. Some of the posts here sound like people didn't even test out the surge.

PTS build ran a skill I didn't want to use to proc more heals. Live build made zero accommodations. Live is still better. Noticeably. I didn't just read the patch notes and jump to conclusions. In the OP I said:

"We often say ZoS doesn't listen to our feedback. Accuse them of ignoring us. Claim they don't play their game.

Maybe they think, perhaps with some justification, that since we rarely actually play the PTS, they want to see how the DB changes perform in gameplay situations as opposed to the theorycrafting and mathematical formulas we throw at them. So I hopped into Vet Maelstrom Arena to play in a competitive setting with the new Sorcerer changes."

I didn't just give up. It was tested, results were documented and are 100% consistent demonstrating that Surge gives less healing all around as well as not offering any burst. If people have the arena memorized and are very good sorcerers, they are still going to be able to beat the arena. I did not say otherwise. My contention was that PTS version of Surge was nerf and when coupled with the nerf to Hardened Ward amounted to a net-nerf to the other three classes, something I find highly questionable as in my estimation sorcs are not indisputably better. Maybe you find the new surge convenient because you can DoT up spawn positions you have memorized in vMA, but some sorcerers play content where the are no spawns to DoT up and the absence of the burst option and the imposition of a 1 second cooldown make adapting to the new version awkward and not fun.

I wasn't really refering to the OP, but more so other comments on this thread that seemingly give up without trying it out for themselves. People are just completely agreeing with your point of view, but don't bother give it a test of their own. I don't think there's anything wrong with advocating someone else's perspective of something, but one has to test for oneself to have an honest opinion. It just sort of reminds of whenever people see patch notes they doom something because on paper it sounds like it is bad, but they don't truly know if it is until they try for themselves. Just like the tank changes.

I agree with the two posts @zeroIndex has made. He's a person whose opinion I trust since he has been playing it since launch and has always been one of the best sorcerers on my server. What he is describing is pretty much the exact same results I have seen. Some rounds on specific stages are harder due to lack of burst heal from Overload crits, but the consistent heal helps a lot more with most of the fights, so it ends up feeling easier with the new surge honestly. Sure it won't be better for everyone, but if you are running ground aoes it is better than on Live. You need to run a resto staff like a lot of people are saying here.

Also, your "heals per second" post (that i didn't include in the quote because it was too long) is pretty misleading. It is just like how some healers can get 80k heals per second, because all they do is spam breath of life with high crit, even though people only require 2k heals, but are getting 30k, which inflates number immensely (same thing happens with dps, where you end up on dps tests doing more overall damage than the target has health, this happens quite often on Bloodspawn for example).
The big crit heals with overload and frags on live are pretty much just like that. They'll heal you for a sh*t ton, but you don't really need all that health most of the time. So I don't trust your point of view purely based on those numbers.

You know what issue i have with his stance on the matter?

He never ran the arena for a competetive score (or he isn´t as good as you make him out to be). For that reason he can only comment on running the arena for the sake of completion not for running it for a good score.

For the sake of completing sorcs will be fine (atleast those who already know what to do) although they´re the most strenuous out of all magica specs on pts now. I know bc i´ve tried on pts and i ran the arena semi competetive before thieves guild release (1 run after TG for current scores).
Also sorc (maybe DK) is the only class with resto staff requirement on pts after the DB changes. Templar and NB are entirely fine without running resto currently on live and it gets easier with the harness/dampen change.

For score runs to remain interesting leaderboards have to be reset for sorcerers.

Saturn

Derra wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

zeroIndex wrote: »

After reading this post, along with many others, I have to say I wasn't thrilled about the update. So I decided to gear up and hop into vMSA on the pts.

I used the same gear I have on live and I used the same skills I use on live, other than empowered ward. I finished the arena in just over an hour.

My honest thoughts:

My score was a little lower due to not being used to the changes, lack of addons and only having 300 champion points. By changes I mean, no more precast of shields and no more burst overload / frag heals. I found that the precast was not needed due to the heals that surge would provide at the time the enemies spawn. Everything else was pretty much the same. I did notice that I was using more magicka than my normal run on live but I feel this could be prevented after a little time spent dealing with the slight change to a rotation. It would just mean breaking some habits. Some rounds were harder but some rounds were easier due to the new surge. The new surge is not bad.

I took the time to run the arena on pts. I suggest other sorcs who are nervous about the changes should do the same. The changes are not as bleak as they sound.

Im adding some pictures as proof. The picture with the leader board was taken just moments ago.

@zeroIndex

I tried it out as well and found that it was a better heal since it's more consistent and triggers off ground AoE. Sure you don't get the Overload mega heals, but I prefer this version more. As for the shields, it's not like they last long enough for the time duration to really be an issue, except for those of us that precast shields.
I think this is once again a case of people reading patch notes and not testing them out, but instead immediately jumping to conclusions. It's the same with the tank changes, which benefits more people than it hurts.
I kind of wish everyone would take the time to properly test things out instead of giving up before even trying and making threads like these. Some of the posts here sound like people didn't even test out the surge.

PTS build ran a skill I didn't want to use to proc more heals. Live build made zero accommodations. Live is still better. Noticeably. I didn't just read the patch notes and jump to conclusions. In the OP I said:

"We often say ZoS doesn't listen to our feedback. Accuse them of ignoring us. Claim they don't play their game.

Maybe they think, perhaps with some justification, that since we rarely actually play the PTS, they want to see how the DB changes perform in gameplay situations as opposed to the theorycrafting and mathematical formulas we throw at them. So I hopped into Vet Maelstrom Arena to play in a competitive setting with the new Sorcerer changes."

I didn't just give up. It was tested, results were documented and are 100% consistent demonstrating that Surge gives less healing all around as well as not offering any burst. If people have the arena memorized and are very good sorcerers, they are still going to be able to beat the arena. I did not say otherwise. My contention was that PTS version of Surge was nerf and when coupled with the nerf to Hardened Ward amounted to a net-nerf to the other three classes, something I find highly questionable as in my estimation sorcs are not indisputably better. Maybe you find the new surge convenient because you can DoT up spawn positions you have memorized in vMA, but some sorcerers play content where the are no spawns to DoT up and the absence of the burst option and the imposition of a 1 second cooldown make adapting to the new version awkward and not fun.

I wasn't really refering to the OP, but more so other comments on this thread that seemingly give up without trying it out for themselves. People are just completely agreeing with your point of view, but don't bother give it a test of their own. I don't think there's anything wrong with advocating someone else's perspective of something, but one has to test for oneself to have an honest opinion. It just sort of reminds of whenever people see patch notes they doom something because on paper it sounds like it is bad, but they don't truly know if it is until they try for themselves. Just like the tank changes.

I agree with the two posts @zeroIndex has made. He's a person whose opinion I trust since he has been playing it since launch and has always been one of the best sorcerers on my server. What he is describing is pretty much the exact same results I have seen. Some rounds on specific stages are harder due to lack of burst heal from Overload crits, but the consistent heal helps a lot more with most of the fights, so it ends up feeling easier with the new surge honestly. Sure it won't be better for everyone, but if you are running ground aoes it is better than on Live. You need to run a resto staff like a lot of people are saying here.

Also, your "heals per second" post (that i didn't include in the quote because it was too long) is pretty misleading. It is just like how some healers can get 80k heals per second, because all they do is spam breath of life with high crit, even though people only require 2k heals, but are getting 30k, which inflates number immensely (same thing happens with dps, where you end up on dps tests doing more overall damage than the target has health, this happens quite often on Bloodspawn for example).
The big crit heals with overload and frags on live are pretty much just like that. They'll heal you for a sh*t ton, but you don't really need all that health most of the time. So I don't trust your point of view purely based on those numbers.

You know what issue i have with his stance on the matter?

He never ran the arena for a competetive score (or he isn´t as good as you make him out to be). For that reason he can only comment on running the arena for the sake of completion not for running it for a good score.

For the sake of completing sorcs will be fine (atleast those who already know what to do) although they´re the most strenuous out of all magica specs on pts now. I know bc i´ve tried on pts and i ran the arena semi competetive before thieves guild release (1 run after TG for current scores).
Also sorc (maybe DK) is the only class with resto staff requirement on pts after the DB changes. Templar and NB are entirely fine without running resto currently on live and it gets easier with the harness/dampen change.

For score runs to remain interesting leaderboards have to be reset for sorcerers.

@zeroIndex is currently the nr.1 DC Sorcerer on the vMSA leaderboard for the PC NA megaserver.

I don't think a scoreboard reset is necessary to be honest, and you can still complete it without a resto staff for a good score, plus if they had to reset it every time there was a skill change, it would have to be reset all the time, which is just silly.They will at one point increase CP as well and even before then I bet you we will still see the score board go beyond 570k as people finetune their run strategies more and more.

code65536

Saturn wrote: »

if they had to reset it every time there was a skill change, it would have to be reset all the time, which is just silly.

Nah, just once per quarter. Besides, that already is the status quo: They did a reset with IC, Orsinium, and TG. With the changes being made--not just to sorcs, but also to all the stamina builds, they should do a leaderboard wipe. And given their past track record, I fully expect them to do that.

Minalan

Saturn wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

Ep1kMalware wrote: »

I don't like sorcs ( least favorite class in the game), but the NERF to shields was pointless at best. If you want to fix shield spamming in pvp just remove the crit immunity. I do think you should get your 20 seconds back.

On the other hand I can't understand your complaining.myou've got good distance dps, and ultimate worth using, a shield (I would have loved boneshied, just be glad you get one, srsly).

Try doing vmsa on stam character, even with the duration being 6 seconds. Going through as a sorc is so easy mode these complaints just make me head shake. Stage 9 round 6 is HELL' when you have to move in circles around the guards and pray ghosts don't clutter you while avoiding fireballs from the lava and keeping an eye out on the boss at the same time.

Round 7, you know what? I'd trade my right arm for good distance dps on that boss, and a functioning harness magica.
Round 5 boss isn't much better, if he's in a bad mood hell 1 shots if I crit Rush to a troll.

Tl;dr

Shield nerf was pointless, but this does sound like whine thread.

shield duration is one part. this thread however, is more about surge.

At any rate with these changes Sorc is now the hardest class to do VMA on.

That. Is. Very. Incorrect.

Have any of you tried the empowered morph in VMA? Or is everyone frustrating themselves with the six second PVP shield?

Empowered ward is a full ten seconds, and with decent max Magicka and 60+ bastion, it's 15-16K in PVE and grants another 10% Magicka regen.

Saturn

Minalan wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

Ep1kMalware wrote: »

I don't like sorcs ( least favorite class in the game), but the NERF to shields was pointless at best. If you want to fix shield spamming in pvp just remove the crit immunity. I do think you should get your 20 seconds back.

On the other hand I can't understand your complaining.myou've got good distance dps, and ultimate worth using, a shield (I would have loved boneshied, just be glad you get one, srsly).

Try doing vmsa on stam character, even with the duration being 6 seconds. Going through as a sorc is so easy mode these complaints just make me head shake. Stage 9 round 6 is HELL' when you have to move in circles around the guards and pray ghosts don't clutter you while avoiding fireballs from the lava and keeping an eye out on the boss at the same time.

Round 7, you know what? I'd trade my right arm for good distance dps on that boss, and a functioning harness magica.
Round 5 boss isn't much better, if he's in a bad mood hell 1 shots if I crit Rush to a troll.

Tl;dr

Shield nerf was pointless, but this does sound like whine thread.

shield duration is one part. this thread however, is more about surge.

At any rate with these changes Sorc is now the hardest class to do VMA on.

That. Is. Very. Incorrect.

Have any of you tried the empowered morph in VMA? Or is everyone frustrating themselves with the six second PVP shield?

Empowered ward is a full ten seconds, and with decent max Magicka and 60+ bastion, it's 15-16K in PVE and grants another 10% Magicka regen.

I think you replied to wrong person ;p

Saturn

code65536 wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

if they had to reset it every time there was a skill change, it would have to be reset all the time, which is just silly.

Nah, just once per quarter. Besides, that already is the status quo: They did a reset with IC, Orsinium, and TG. With the changes being made--not just to sorcs, but also to all the stamina builds, they should do a leaderboard wipe. And given their past track record, I fully expect them to do that.

You are only considering recent updates, they didn't reset trials leaderboards in the past until Update 6. I'm sure they would probably reset it, but my point was just that it isn't honestly necessary (in terms of sorcerers) since the changes are quite easily overcome by changing your playstyle a bit. Though obviously, this whole thread is about never changing I suppose ;p

cosmic_niklas_93b16_ESO

Saturn wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

if they had to reset it every time there was a skill change, it would have to be reset all the time, which is just silly.

Nah, just once per quarter. Besides, that already is the status quo: They did a reset with IC, Orsinium, and TG. With the changes being made--not just to sorcs, but also to all the stamina builds, they should do a leaderboard wipe. And given their past track record, I fully expect them to do that.

You are only considering recent updates, they didn't reset trials leaderboards in the past until Update 6. I'm sure they would probably reset it, but my point was just that it isn't honestly necessary (in terms of sorcerers) since the changes are quite easily overcome by changing your playstyle a bit. Though obviously, this whole thread is about never changing I suppose ;p

It's one thing about changing, curbstomping and then burning an entire class is another thing.

Derra

Saturn wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

zeroIndex wrote: »

After reading this post, along with many others, I have to say I wasn't thrilled about the update. So I decided to gear up and hop into vMSA on the pts.

I used the same gear I have on live and I used the same skills I use on live, other than empowered ward. I finished the arena in just over an hour.

My honest thoughts:

My score was a little lower due to not being used to the changes, lack of addons and only having 300 champion points. By changes I mean, no more precast of shields and no more burst overload / frag heals. I found that the precast was not needed due to the heals that surge would provide at the time the enemies spawn. Everything else was pretty much the same. I did notice that I was using more magicka than my normal run on live but I feel this could be prevented after a little time spent dealing with the slight change to a rotation. It would just mean breaking some habits. Some rounds were harder but some rounds were easier due to the new surge. The new surge is not bad.

I took the time to run the arena on pts. I suggest other sorcs who are nervous about the changes should do the same. The changes are not as bleak as they sound.

Im adding some pictures as proof. The picture with the leader board was taken just moments ago.

@zeroIndex

I tried it out as well and found that it was a better heal since it's more consistent and triggers off ground AoE. Sure you don't get the Overload mega heals, but I prefer this version more. As for the shields, it's not like they last long enough for the time duration to really be an issue, except for those of us that precast shields.
I think this is once again a case of people reading patch notes and not testing them out, but instead immediately jumping to conclusions. It's the same with the tank changes, which benefits more people than it hurts.
I kind of wish everyone would take the time to properly test things out instead of giving up before even trying and making threads like these. Some of the posts here sound like people didn't even test out the surge.

PTS build ran a skill I didn't want to use to proc more heals. Live build made zero accommodations. Live is still better. Noticeably. I didn't just read the patch notes and jump to conclusions. In the OP I said:

"We often say ZoS doesn't listen to our feedback. Accuse them of ignoring us. Claim they don't play their game.

Maybe they think, perhaps with some justification, that since we rarely actually play the PTS, they want to see how the DB changes perform in gameplay situations as opposed to the theorycrafting and mathematical formulas we throw at them. So I hopped into Vet Maelstrom Arena to play in a competitive setting with the new Sorcerer changes."

I didn't just give up. It was tested, results were documented and are 100% consistent demonstrating that Surge gives less healing all around as well as not offering any burst. If people have the arena memorized and are very good sorcerers, they are still going to be able to beat the arena. I did not say otherwise. My contention was that PTS version of Surge was nerf and when coupled with the nerf to Hardened Ward amounted to a net-nerf to the other three classes, something I find highly questionable as in my estimation sorcs are not indisputably better. Maybe you find the new surge convenient because you can DoT up spawn positions you have memorized in vMA, but some sorcerers play content where the are no spawns to DoT up and the absence of the burst option and the imposition of a 1 second cooldown make adapting to the new version awkward and not fun.

I wasn't really refering to the OP, but more so other comments on this thread that seemingly give up without trying it out for themselves. People are just completely agreeing with your point of view, but don't bother give it a test of their own. I don't think there's anything wrong with advocating someone else's perspective of something, but one has to test for oneself to have an honest opinion. It just sort of reminds of whenever people see patch notes they doom something because on paper it sounds like it is bad, but they don't truly know if it is until they try for themselves. Just like the tank changes.

I agree with the two posts @zeroIndex has made. He's a person whose opinion I trust since he has been playing it since launch and has always been one of the best sorcerers on my server. What he is describing is pretty much the exact same results I have seen. Some rounds on specific stages are harder due to lack of burst heal from Overload crits, but the consistent heal helps a lot more with most of the fights, so it ends up feeling easier with the new surge honestly. Sure it won't be better for everyone, but if you are running ground aoes it is better than on Live. You need to run a resto staff like a lot of people are saying here.

Also, your "heals per second" post (that i didn't include in the quote because it was too long) is pretty misleading. It is just like how some healers can get 80k heals per second, because all they do is spam breath of life with high crit, even though people only require 2k heals, but are getting 30k, which inflates number immensely (same thing happens with dps, where you end up on dps tests doing more overall damage than the target has health, this happens quite often on Bloodspawn for example).
The big crit heals with overload and frags on live are pretty much just like that. They'll heal you for a sh*t ton, but you don't really need all that health most of the time. So I don't trust your point of view purely based on those numbers.

You know what issue i have with his stance on the matter?

He never ran the arena for a competetive score (or he isn´t as good as you make him out to be). For that reason he can only comment on running the arena for the sake of completion not for running it for a good score.

For the sake of completing sorcs will be fine (atleast those who already know what to do) although they´re the most strenuous out of all magica specs on pts now. I know bc i´ve tried on pts and i ran the arena semi competetive before thieves guild release (1 run after TG for current scores).
Also sorc (maybe DK) is the only class with resto staff requirement on pts after the DB changes. Templar and NB are entirely fine without running resto currently on live and it gets easier with the harness/dampen change.

For score runs to remain interesting leaderboards have to be reset for sorcerers.

@zeroIndex is currently the nr.1 DC Sorcerer on the vMSA leaderboard for the PC NA megaserver.

I don't think a scoreboard reset is necessary to be honest, and you can still complete it without a resto staff for a good score, plus if they had to reset it every time there was a skill change, it would have to be reset all the time, which is just silly.They will at one point increase CP as well and even before then I bet you we will still see the score board go beyond 570k as people finetune their run strategies more and more.

Well what´s supposed to tell me that? My over two month old score is 24k higher than his. It just shows he does not run the arena for a competetive score (or maybe the NA megaserver is just not really competetive at all apart from place 1 and 2 - 543k isn´t really relevant when looking at 570k+ being top scores).

It´s entirely irrelevant what you think. You´re not perfoming on a relevant level to discuss if a leaderboard reset is needed neither is he. People simply won´t be able to reach the current top scores of ~575k.

If the class gets changed/nerfed in a way that former performance is no longer achieveable the leaderboard has to be reset just for the sake of equal opportunity for all participants to get a high leaderboard placement.

Saturn

Derra wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

zeroIndex wrote: »

After reading this post, along with many others, I have to say I wasn't thrilled about the update. So I decided to gear up and hop into vMSA on the pts.

I used the same gear I have on live and I used the same skills I use on live, other than empowered ward. I finished the arena in just over an hour.

My honest thoughts:

My score was a little lower due to not being used to the changes, lack of addons and only having 300 champion points. By changes I mean, no more precast of shields and no more burst overload / frag heals. I found that the precast was not needed due to the heals that surge would provide at the time the enemies spawn. Everything else was pretty much the same. I did notice that I was using more magicka than my normal run on live but I feel this could be prevented after a little time spent dealing with the slight change to a rotation. It would just mean breaking some habits. Some rounds were harder but some rounds were easier due to the new surge. The new surge is not bad.

I took the time to run the arena on pts. I suggest other sorcs who are nervous about the changes should do the same. The changes are not as bleak as they sound.

Im adding some pictures as proof. The picture with the leader board was taken just moments ago.

@zeroIndex

I tried it out as well and found that it was a better heal since it's more consistent and triggers off ground AoE. Sure you don't get the Overload mega heals, but I prefer this version more. As for the shields, it's not like they last long enough for the time duration to really be an issue, except for those of us that precast shields.
I think this is once again a case of people reading patch notes and not testing them out, but instead immediately jumping to conclusions. It's the same with the tank changes, which benefits more people than it hurts.
I kind of wish everyone would take the time to properly test things out instead of giving up before even trying and making threads like these. Some of the posts here sound like people didn't even test out the surge.

PTS build ran a skill I didn't want to use to proc more heals. Live build made zero accommodations. Live is still better. Noticeably. I didn't just read the patch notes and jump to conclusions. In the OP I said:

"We often say ZoS doesn't listen to our feedback. Accuse them of ignoring us. Claim they don't play their game.

Maybe they think, perhaps with some justification, that since we rarely actually play the PTS, they want to see how the DB changes perform in gameplay situations as opposed to the theorycrafting and mathematical formulas we throw at them. So I hopped into Vet Maelstrom Arena to play in a competitive setting with the new Sorcerer changes."

I didn't just give up. It was tested, results were documented and are 100% consistent demonstrating that Surge gives less healing all around as well as not offering any burst. If people have the arena memorized and are very good sorcerers, they are still going to be able to beat the arena. I did not say otherwise. My contention was that PTS version of Surge was nerf and when coupled with the nerf to Hardened Ward amounted to a net-nerf to the other three classes, something I find highly questionable as in my estimation sorcs are not indisputably better. Maybe you find the new surge convenient because you can DoT up spawn positions you have memorized in vMA, but some sorcerers play content where the are no spawns to DoT up and the absence of the burst option and the imposition of a 1 second cooldown make adapting to the new version awkward and not fun.

I wasn't really refering to the OP, but more so other comments on this thread that seemingly give up without trying it out for themselves. People are just completely agreeing with your point of view, but don't bother give it a test of their own. I don't think there's anything wrong with advocating someone else's perspective of something, but one has to test for oneself to have an honest opinion. It just sort of reminds of whenever people see patch notes they doom something because on paper it sounds like it is bad, but they don't truly know if it is until they try for themselves. Just like the tank changes.

I agree with the two posts @zeroIndex has made. He's a person whose opinion I trust since he has been playing it since launch and has always been one of the best sorcerers on my server. What he is describing is pretty much the exact same results I have seen. Some rounds on specific stages are harder due to lack of burst heal from Overload crits, but the consistent heal helps a lot more with most of the fights, so it ends up feeling easier with the new surge honestly. Sure it won't be better for everyone, but if you are running ground aoes it is better than on Live. You need to run a resto staff like a lot of people are saying here.

Also, your "heals per second" post (that i didn't include in the quote because it was too long) is pretty misleading. It is just like how some healers can get 80k heals per second, because all they do is spam breath of life with high crit, even though people only require 2k heals, but are getting 30k, which inflates number immensely (same thing happens with dps, where you end up on dps tests doing more overall damage than the target has health, this happens quite often on Bloodspawn for example).
The big crit heals with overload and frags on live are pretty much just like that. They'll heal you for a sh*t ton, but you don't really need all that health most of the time. So I don't trust your point of view purely based on those numbers.

You know what issue i have with his stance on the matter?

He never ran the arena for a competetive score (or he isn´t as good as you make him out to be). For that reason he can only comment on running the arena for the sake of completion not for running it for a good score.

For the sake of completing sorcs will be fine (atleast those who already know what to do) although they´re the most strenuous out of all magica specs on pts now. I know bc i´ve tried on pts and i ran the arena semi competetive before thieves guild release (1 run after TG for current scores).
Also sorc (maybe DK) is the only class with resto staff requirement on pts after the DB changes. Templar and NB are entirely fine without running resto currently on live and it gets easier with the harness/dampen change.

For score runs to remain interesting leaderboards have to be reset for sorcerers.

@zeroIndex is currently the nr.1 DC Sorcerer on the vMSA leaderboard for the PC NA megaserver.

I don't think a scoreboard reset is necessary to be honest, and you can still complete it without a resto staff for a good score, plus if they had to reset it every time there was a skill change, it would have to be reset all the time, which is just silly.They will at one point increase CP as well and even before then I bet you we will still see the score board go beyond 570k as people finetune their run strategies more and more.

Well what´s supposed to tell me that? My over two month old score is 24k higher than his. It just shows he does not run the arena for a competetive score (or maybe the NA megaserver is just not really competetive at all apart from place 1 and 2 - 543k isn´t really relevant when looking at 570k+ being top scores).

It´s entirely irrelevant what you think. You´re not perfoming on a relevant level to discuss if a leaderboard reset is needed neither is he. People simply won´t be able to reach the current top scores of ~575k.

If the class gets changed/nerfed in a way that former performance is no longer achieveable the leaderboard has to be reset just for the sake of equal opportunity for all participants to get a high leaderboard placement.

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were such a bigshot ;p Good for you mate. This is an open forum and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, you fortunately do not have the deciding factor when it is chosen whose opinion is relevant or not.

zeroIndex

.
@Derra

So, what you're telling me is that I have no say in this matter because my score would "only" be number 21 on the EU leader boards? I did mentioned earlier that I was no super sorc. I'm sure i could improve my score if I ran the place more and also talked to people about strategies. But I'm having a hard time understanding what my NA score if placed on the the EU leader board has anything to do with my thoughts on the Surge change. I did not mention anything about a score reset. I was giving my feedback to the thread about how surge was inadequate.

You also said: "Also sorc (maybe DK) is the only class with resto staff requirement on pts after the DB changes. Templar and NB are entirely fine without running resto currently on live and it gets easier with the harness/dampen change." That comment is misleading and for someone to have such a high score should know that statement isn't accurate. Even more so if you actually ran it on the pts. I did not run a resto staff on my 300 champion point template run nor did I find that I would even remotely need the resto staff.


@Joy_Division

I wasn't trying to say anything bad about your analysis. The time you put into your post was much greater than my one run in the arena. I understand your numbers don't add up to live and that this sounds very much like a nerf. The Flawless title is not something that should be taken lightly. I was just trying to point out that in my run it wasn't bad. I will be testing more on the pts when we get our character copies back next week and see how it will truly stack up to my current set up.

Opux

This thread brings me great joy.

It's not because I agree with the OP, it's the fact that it is slowly setting in that Magicka Sorcerer players will now need to "git gud" to complete hard content instead of facerolling it. Now for Magicka Nightblade...



----

More seriously though, any form of getting defense for offence is bad game design, and it's why we see teams full of DPS completing content. The change to Surge is a step in the right direction, but the cooldown seems a little clunky, and it's a shame that the other support-style skills Sorcerer has access to are currently such trash. Note that it isn't just the Sorcerer guilty of this double dipping, skills like Swallow Soul and Jabs also need to be reigned in as well.

Damage and defense should not be scaling with the same stats. It's would be interesting if damage scaled only with weapon power and/or spell power, and healing/shields etc scaled off of resource totals: i.e. Vigor should be healing a tank with a ton of health and stamina for... well... a ton, and that DPS stacking weapon power considerably less. That's a topic of discussion for another thread though.

code65536

Opux wrote: »

This thread brings me great joy.

It's not because I agree with the OP, it's the fact that it is slowly setting in that Magicka Sorcerer players will now need to "git gud" to complete hard content instead of facerolling it. Now for Magicka Nightblade...



----

More seriously though, any form of getting defense for offence is bad game design, and it's why we see teams full of DPS completing content. The change to Surge is a step in the right direction, but the cooldown seems a little clunky, and it's a shame that the other support-style skills Sorcerer has access to are currently such trash. Note that it isn't just the Sorcerer guilty of this double dipping, skills like Swallow Soul and Jabs also need to be reigned in as well.

More generally though, damage and defense should not be scaling with the same stats. It's would be interesting if damage scaled only with weapon power and/or spell power, and healing/shields etc scaled off of resource totals: i.e. Vigor should be healing a tank with a ton of health and stamina for... well... a ton, and that DPS stacking weapon power considerably less. That's a topic of discussion for another thread though.

Bah. If they want to reign in this free-defense-during-offense, then...

1. They need to do it across the board. Otherwise, nerfing one class while leaving others untouched is unfair.
2. They need to stop being so schizophrenic. Nerf Surge on one hand while at the same time giving stam users Bloodthirst, which is essentially a stamina version of Sweeps?
3. Readjust content for this new reality. If they don't want this sort of heals-from-attack mechanism, then maybe they should stop making content (vMA) with such ridiculous levels of incoming damage that strongly favors this sort of gameplay.

I'm not saying that such a change wouldn't be good for the game. But they need to do all of this--one change in the absence of the rest is simply unbalanced, unfair, and good justification for the kind of negative reaction that it engenders.

Opux

code65536 wrote: »

Bah. If they want to reign in this free-defense-during-offense, then...

1. They need to do it across the board. Otherwise, nerfing on class while leaving others untouched is unfair.
2. They need to stop being so schizophrenic. Nerf Surge on one hand while at the same time giving stam users Bloodthirst, which is essentially a stamina version of Sweeps?
3. Readjust content for this new reality. If they don't want this sort of heals-from-attack mechanism, then maybe they should stop making content (vMA) with such ridiculous levels of incoming damage.

Strong agree to all 3 points. However, I'm not convinced the development team is aware of how insidious the design pattern is, and the degree it can dictate class and content balance.

Ep1kMalware

Opux wrote: »

This thread brings me great joy.

It's not because I agree with the OP, it's the fact that it is slowly setting in that Magicka Sorcerer players will now need to "git gud" to complete hard content instead of facerolling it. Now for Magicka Nightblade...



----

More seriously though, any form of getting defense for offence is bad game design, and it's why we see teams full of DPS completing content. The change to Surge is a step in the right direction, but the cooldown seems a little clunky, and it's a shame that the other support-style skills Sorcerer has access to are currently such trash. Note that it isn't just the Sorcerer guilty of this double dipping, skills like Swallow Soul and Jabs also need to be reigned in as well.

Damage and defense should not be scaling with the same stats. It's would be interesting if damage scaled only with weapon power and/or spell power, and healing/shields etc scaled off of resource totals: i.e. Vigor should be healing a tank with a ton of health and stamina for... well... a ton, and that DPS stacking weapon power considerably less. That's a topic of discussion for another thread though.

Why? Then only magica builds could complete vmsa >.> vigor is mandatory. Any nerf to it and the content could easily become undoable.

Lucky28

Opux wrote: »

This thread brings me great joy.

It's not because I agree with the OP, it's the fact that it is slowly setting in that Magicka Sorcerer players will now need to "git gud" to complete hard content instead of facerolling it. Now for Magicka Nightblade...



----

More seriously though, any form of getting defense for offence is bad game design, and it's why we see teams full of DPS completing content. The change to Surge is a step in the right direction, but the cooldown seems a little clunky, and it's a shame that the other support-style skills Sorcerer has access to are currently such trash. Note that it isn't just the Sorcerer guilty of this double dipping, skills like Swallow Soul and Jabs also need to be reigned in as well.

Damage and defense should not be scaling with the same stats. It's would be interesting if damage scaled only with weapon power and/or spell power, and healing/shields etc scaled off of resource totals: i.e. Vigor should be healing a tank with a ton of health and stamina for... well... a ton, and that DPS stacking weapon power considerably less. That's a topic of discussion for another thread though.

Disagree with everything you've said. the changes you purpose would do nothing but promote zerging. I don't like zerging and i don't want to zerg.

allowing players to have defense, offense and healing is good game design in my opinion because it allows players to play how they want to play not be forced to do something they don't want to do because they have to.

that and it makes everyone carbon copies of one another with everyone in generic roles.

ListerJMC

I'm not really concerned about the shortened duration for ward to be honest, but that surge change looks atrocious! That's such a huge difference in self-healing, I really hope that doesn't go live. I never felt like sorcs had the best or most OP self-heals as it was.

Thank you for doing this testing, I really appreciate the work you've put into this I really hope ZOS gives a detailed explanation for it like they did with the tank changes.

Opux

Lucky28 wrote: »

Disagree with everything you've said. the changes you purpose would do nothing but promote zerging. I don't like zerging and i don't want to zerg.

allowing players to have defense, offense and healing is good game design in my opinion because it allows players to play how they want to play not be forced to do something they don't want to do because they have to.

that and it makes everyone carbon copies of one another with everyone in generic roles.

I think you're misunderstanding my post - I'm not saying that a player should ONLY be able to do one thing. I'm saying there should be trade-offs. Everyone pumps stamina/weapon damage or magicka/spell damage because it is the way to "win ESO", since there is no downside - you get just enough health to not get one shot and then pump dat damage because it also lets you sustain yourself.

If you're worried about everyone being a carbon copy of each other, you should take a look at the live server.

CP5

Opux wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

Disagree with everything you've said. the changes you purpose would do nothing but promote zerging. I don't like zerging and i don't want to zerg.

allowing players to have defense, offense and healing is good game design in my opinion because it allows players to play how they want to play not be forced to do something they don't want to do because they have to.

that and it makes everyone carbon copies of one another with everyone in generic roles.

I think you're misunderstanding my post - I'm not saying that a player should ONLY be able to do one thing. I'm saying there should be trade-offs. Everyone pumps stamina/weapon damage or magicka/spell damage because it is the way to "win ESO", since there is no downside - you get just enough health to not get one shot and then pump dat damage because it also lets you sustain yourself.

If you're worried about everyone being a carbon copy of each other, you should take a look at the live server.

There should be trade-offs. It is irritating that a 'successful' build is the one with the damage to make their skills potent. Its all about damage and skews the game in a bad way. But right now sorcerer's feel the brunt of this change when almost all other sources of healing come from that stat.

Derra

Saturn wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Saturn wrote: »

zeroIndex wrote: »

After reading this post, along with many others, I have to say I wasn't thrilled about the update. So I decided to gear up and hop into vMSA on the pts.

I used the same gear I have on live and I used the same skills I use on live, other than empowered ward. I finished the arena in just over an hour.

My honest thoughts:

My score was a little lower due to not being used to the changes, lack of addons and only having 300 champion points. By changes I mean, no more precast of shields and no more burst overload / frag heals. I found that the precast was not needed due to the heals that surge would provide at the time the enemies spawn. Everything else was pretty much the same. I did notice that I was using more magicka than my normal run on live but I feel this could be prevented after a little time spent dealing with the slight change to a rotation. It would just mean breaking some habits. Some rounds were harder but some rounds were easier due to the new surge. The new surge is not bad.

I took the time to run the arena on pts. I suggest other sorcs who are nervous about the changes should do the same. The changes are not as bleak as they sound.

Im adding some pictures as proof. The picture with the leader board was taken just moments ago.

@zeroIndex

I tried it out as well and found that it was a better heal since it's more consistent and triggers off ground AoE. Sure you don't get the Overload mega heals, but I prefer this version more. As for the shields, it's not like they last long enough for the time duration to really be an issue, except for those of us that precast shields.
I think this is once again a case of people reading patch notes and not testing them out, but instead immediately jumping to conclusions. It's the same with the tank changes, which benefits more people than it hurts.
I kind of wish everyone would take the time to properly test things out instead of giving up before even trying and making threads like these. Some of the posts here sound like people didn't even test out the surge.

PTS build ran a skill I didn't want to use to proc more heals. Live build made zero accommodations. Live is still better. Noticeably. I didn't just read the patch notes and jump to conclusions. In the OP I said:

"We often say ZoS doesn't listen to our feedback. Accuse them of ignoring us. Claim they don't play their game.

Maybe they think, perhaps with some justification, that since we rarely actually play the PTS, they want to see how the DB changes perform in gameplay situations as opposed to the theorycrafting and mathematical formulas we throw at them. So I hopped into Vet Maelstrom Arena to play in a competitive setting with the new Sorcerer changes."

I didn't just give up. It was tested, results were documented and are 100% consistent demonstrating that Surge gives less healing all around as well as not offering any burst. If people have the arena memorized and are very good sorcerers, they are still going to be able to beat the arena. I did not say otherwise. My contention was that PTS version of Surge was nerf and when coupled with the nerf to Hardened Ward amounted to a net-nerf to the other three classes, something I find highly questionable as in my estimation sorcs are not indisputably better. Maybe you find the new surge convenient because you can DoT up spawn positions you have memorized in vMA, but some sorcerers play content where the are no spawns to DoT up and the absence of the burst option and the imposition of a 1 second cooldown make adapting to the new version awkward and not fun.

I wasn't really refering to the OP, but more so other comments on this thread that seemingly give up without trying it out for themselves. People are just completely agreeing with your point of view, but don't bother give it a test of their own. I don't think there's anything wrong with advocating someone else's perspective of something, but one has to test for oneself to have an honest opinion. It just sort of reminds of whenever people see patch notes they doom something because on paper it sounds like it is bad, but they don't truly know if it is until they try for themselves. Just like the tank changes.

I agree with the two posts @zeroIndex has made. He's a person whose opinion I trust since he has been playing it since launch and has always been one of the best sorcerers on my server. What he is describing is pretty much the exact same results I have seen. Some rounds on specific stages are harder due to lack of burst heal from Overload crits, but the consistent heal helps a lot more with most of the fights, so it ends up feeling easier with the new surge honestly. Sure it won't be better for everyone, but if you are running ground aoes it is better than on Live. You need to run a resto staff like a lot of people are saying here.

Also, your "heals per second" post (that i didn't include in the quote because it was too long) is pretty misleading. It is just like how some healers can get 80k heals per second, because all they do is spam breath of life with high crit, even though people only require 2k heals, but are getting 30k, which inflates number immensely (same thing happens with dps, where you end up on dps tests doing more overall damage than the target has health, this happens quite often on Bloodspawn for example).
The big crit heals with overload and frags on live are pretty much just like that. They'll heal you for a sh*t ton, but you don't really need all that health most of the time. So I don't trust your point of view purely based on those numbers.

You know what issue i have with his stance on the matter?

He never ran the arena for a competetive score (or he isn´t as good as you make him out to be). For that reason he can only comment on running the arena for the sake of completion not for running it for a good score.

For the sake of completing sorcs will be fine (atleast those who already know what to do) although they´re the most strenuous out of all magica specs on pts now. I know bc i´ve tried on pts and i ran the arena semi competetive before thieves guild release (1 run after TG for current scores).
Also sorc (maybe DK) is the only class with resto staff requirement on pts after the DB changes. Templar and NB are entirely fine without running resto currently on live and it gets easier with the harness/dampen change.

For score runs to remain interesting leaderboards have to be reset for sorcerers.

@zeroIndex is currently the nr.1 DC Sorcerer on the vMSA leaderboard for the PC NA megaserver.

I don't think a scoreboard reset is necessary to be honest, and you can still complete it without a resto staff for a good score, plus if they had to reset it every time there was a skill change, it would have to be reset all the time, which is just silly.They will at one point increase CP as well and even before then I bet you we will still see the score board go beyond 570k as people finetune their run strategies more and more.

Well what´s supposed to tell me that? My over two month old score is 24k higher than his. It just shows he does not run the arena for a competetive score (or maybe the NA megaserver is just not really competetive at all apart from place 1 and 2 - 543k isn´t really relevant when looking at 570k+ being top scores).

It´s entirely irrelevant what you think. You´re not perfoming on a relevant level to discuss if a leaderboard reset is needed neither is he. People simply won´t be able to reach the current top scores of ~575k.

If the class gets changed/nerfed in a way that former performance is no longer achieveable the leaderboard has to be reset just for the sake of equal opportunity for all participants to get a high leaderboard placement.

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were such a bigshot ;p Good for you mate. This is an open forum and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, you fortunately do not have the deciding factor when it is chosen whose opinion is relevant or not.

I just mentioned my score to point out it´s entirely irrelevant as is anyone elses not trying to get #1 - nothing to do with being a big shot (you were the one bringing scoring - of someone else - into this discussion as a measurement to justify arguments. I merely pointed out if scoring would matter you´d have to trust my opinion/experience more - as i get more points. Not that this makes any sense but i did not start arguing that way).
What matters is everyone on the leaderboard has aquired the score by the same means. That´s the point i´m making the whole time.
Score will go down next patch there is no disagreeing in that (my guess would be 5 to 20k from where we´re now) so in my opinion there is no logical argument to leave current scores in place as they were aquired under easier circumstances allowing for better times/scores. It´s simply not fair.

zeroIndex wrote: »

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@Derra

So, what you're telling me is that I have no say in this matter because my score would "only" be number 21 on the EU leader boards? I did mentioned earlier that I was no super sorc. I'm sure i could improve my score if I ran the place more and also talked to people about strategies. But I'm having a hard time understanding what my NA score if placed on the the EU leader board has anything to do with my thoughts on the Surge change. I did not mention anything about a score reset. I was giving my feedback to the thread about how surge was inadequate.

You also said: "Also sorc (maybe DK) is the only class with resto staff requirement on pts after the DB changes. Templar and NB are entirely fine without running resto currently on live and it gets easier with the harness/dampen change." That comment is misleading and for someone to have such a high score should know that statement isn't accurate. Even more so if you actually ran it on the pts. I did not run a resto staff on my 300 champion point template run nor did I find that I would even remotely need the resto staff.

I was just pointing out that someone citing your score to backup their own opinion of: "there is no leaderboard reset needed" is wrong because as you´re saying yourself - you don´t run the arena competetively for score (and neither do i but if i wanted to i would be really pissed if i knew the scores in the top 10 are unreachable bc the class got overhauled).
Not that this invalidates your opinion on the matter - i agree with you on completion of the arena - but you simply don´t have any experience in running the arena for score and the importance of surge in that regard.
Which is why i said i have a problem with the general statement of: sorcs will be fine with some adjustments. Most will be but the top 5% won´t.

That´s all i´ve said about you. I would have tagged you if you had said sth about leaderboard resets yourself.
Sorry if it came of as a personal attack - it simply annoys me when someone tries to give their own argument substance just by dropping someone elses name.

My stance on the surge change is simply it currently allows to drop shields in bossfights. With the new healing you can no longer do that so that equals lost time for every shield cast. Don´t think your opinion is invalid or untrue.
Simply with the changes some tactics don´t work anymore. Which is one of the reasons why times will go up so it´s a really significant change for scoreruns.