Dark Brotherhood Sorcerer Q&A

ZOS_Wrobel

There has been a large amount of feedback and questions from the Sorcerer section of the PTS forums. The answer to some of these questions affect all classes, so we're sharing them with everyone! We'd like to engage in this type of communication with all classes as time allows. When providing helpful feedback, taking the following guidelines into account:

• Include specific details about your issue or situation
• Consider all types of gameplay (pvp, pve, solo, group)
• Back up your ideas with math and logical arguments

And here are our first round of questions and answers. Thanks everyone!

Flaminir wrote: »

Sorcerers are the only class that doesn’t have a spammable class-based DPS skill. Why did you change Trapping Webs (the only spammable ability we had access to which isn't tied to a Destro Staff) to only Stamina, so we now have no choice but to run a Destro Staff in all aspects of the game? (This question is coming mainly from a PVP perspective as Trapping Webs was widely used in PVP with Dual Wield Magicka builds.)

Trapping Webs was never meant to be a spammable ability such as Lava Whip, Force Shock, Strife, etc. It costs more and is lower damage. The focus for Undaunted abilities is having powerful Synergies, so we redesigned it to feel less spammy. (Note that each Synergy has a 20-second cooldown before you can activate it again.)
We understand that Sorcerers would like more freedom with choosing what weapon to use. As a Stamina character, even without a class damaging ability, you have a diverse set of options between Bow, 1h Shield, 2h, and Dual Wield. Magicka technically has 4 options as well – Restoration Staff and 3 flavors of Destruction Staff. However Restoration staff doesn’t support offensive abilities and there is not enough diversity between the three types of Destruction Staff. We don’t have any immediate plans to change this, but we would like to give Sorcerers more compelling decisions when selecting a weapon.

Minalan wrote: »

Shields: They took it very hard in this patch, and nothing was given in return. You have a PVE and a PVP morph of the shield, which is untenable because we need to be able to freely switch between them. Empowered Ward is THAT bad for PVP at 6K-8K. Hardened Ward is THAT bad for PVE at 6 seconds. This is not workable. We have to respec morphs based on what content we want to do, which could be multiple times in a day. I already pay enough money to the Shrine of Stendarr. Instead why not fix the stacking problem, or make the shields critable and full-length again?

Offering players interesting choices is one of our design goals. People have different playstyles and some of them will choose to have more sustainabilityin PVP. Some people will prefer Hardened Ward, some will use Empowered Ward, and some will use Hardened Ward with Dampen Magic. None of these decisions are right or wrong or better. They each suit different playstyles and different people have fun in different ways.
As a hardcore gamer, it sounds like you want a duel spec system. This would allow you to quickly switch between 2 different playstyles. We don’t have immediate plans on adding this, but it is something we are interested in for the future.

Flaminir wrote: »

Why did we receive so many defensive nerfs without a single usable buff to our defense / sustainability? (Shields and Surge.)

We based this decision on extensive playtesting, player feedback, and data from the Maelstrom Arena leaderboards. It was our intent to make Sorcerers increase investment in maintaining their current levels of survivability. We specifically didn’t nerf the values on damage shields because we wanted to maintain their powerful feel – when the shields are up, enemies aren’t going to take you down.

Flaminir wrote: »

Surge nerf - all classes have skills which heal based on damage done. Why has ours been removed to give us a low flat value and all the other classes kept theirs? (If Overload was the reason as Wrobel mentioned on ESO live, then why not just cap the heal at say 6-8k to prevent the 20k Overload heals at its peak? There were no other issues with this skill to warrant such a nerf & goes against the stated policy of smaller tweaks rather than huge nerfs.)

We wanted to make the Surge ability a more universal tool in the Sorcerer kit. It wasn’t intended as a nerf, except in the case of Overload because we felt that Synergy was over-performing compared to others, such as Strife and Puncturing Strikes. We’re still working out the balance of the final numbers, so expect to see a sizable increase in Surge healing for Dark Brotherhood’s release.
It’s been a longstanding issue that Surge doesn’t play well with DoT builds, thus limiting the number of options for Sorcerers. Abilities such as Crushing Shock deal damage in 3 separate attacks and Flurry never procced the heal. Surge is now more effective for tank characters since it no longer scales off of damage done. These changes make surge more desirable for a wider number of builds and reduced its power when combined with Overload.

Minalan wrote: »

Surge: Please take a look at the design and functionality inside Cyrodiil. Players do not stand still inside of DOT AOE attacks like liquid lightning. A 900 heal is not helpful, even if it manages to crit. Under the old system, we could at least get a decent heal from a lucky crit if the opponent wasn't shielded.

Surge now feels like a sustain ability instead of a spike heal ability. This design makes more sense for the ability because the procs are random. Big burst heals are something you want to be able to use with reliability when you need them. Getting a big Surge heal when you are at full health and getting no heal when you are low on health can lead to frustrating situations.
Surge has a stronger synergy with damage shields now. The shields help stop big bursts of damage and Surge helps to top off your health bar and keep you sustained through long battles. The healing values on Surge will be balanced against other popular sustain abilities such as Strife and Puncturing Strikes.

Flaminir wrote: »

Why did you make the recent changes to Dark Exchange without actually making it usable due to its cast time? It already has an interesting & unique mechanic, and the user has to sacrifice resources to use it, so why add a double penalty with a cast time for such a small return?

Minalan wrote: »

Dark Deal: This morph should be an instant heal instead of a one-second cast. This would help decouple the class from the restoration staff. I know someone on your team will think it's too much. All I have to say is: Templar. Dark Deal isn't nearly as good as other class self-heals, if you will not improve shields for whatever reason, please consider this.

Cast time abilities add a risk/reward mechanic that makes combat more varied and interesting. They are harder to fire off, but the payoff should make the cast time worthwhile. Some examples of abilities we feel are worth the risk are Dark Flare and Radiant Destruction. These abilities have counter play, but feel extremely powerful when executed without interruption. Finding this balance point is challenging, but it’s something we’re pursuing in an effort to make the gameplay more varied and fun.
We want firing off Dark Exchange in the middle of combat to feel awesome since it’s difficult to do. Our first cut at this was to double the healing it provided, a substantial improvement but not enough. For Dark Brotherhood launch we’re also significantly improving the number of resources returned. We aren’t 100% against making this ability instant cast, but we’d like to further investigate the cast time option first. We think different classes should have different mechanics for resource restoration.

Flaminir wrote: »

Why give a version of our signature defensive ability (Hardened Ward) to all classes but we get nothing in return from the other classes?

Minalan wrote: »

As a skill, the exclusive and class-defining ability Hardened Ward is not much better than Nullify Magicka. Please consider a longer duration, as 8-10 seconds wouldn't be out of line for Hardened Ward and 12 for Empowered.

There are multiple advantages of being a Sorcerer when looking at damage shield options.

• You can stack the Annulment shield with Conjured Ward
• Conjured Ward has more distinct morph choices (increased duration vs increased power)
• Conjured Ward is much cheaper than Annulment
• Conjured Ward gets maximum effectiveness with all armor types, Annulment morphs require light armor
• Expert Mage gives increased spell and weapon damage for slotting Conjured Ward

Flaminir wrote: »

Given this was supposed to be the major Stamina pass on all abilities, why are Sorcerers the only class without a Stamina-based DPS skill? (I would also ask the same question of Magicka Sorcs... but the patch was never advertised as a Magicka-based one.)

We want every class to feel different; they all have unique pros and cons. For example DKs also don’t have a spammable Stamina-based ability. They instead have damage-over-time Stamina abilities from Venomous Claw and Noxious Breath. Hurricane is the Sorcerer class’ Stamina-based damage ability. We made significant updates to this ability for Dark Brotherhood:

• Now deals physical damage so it scales with your physical damage stats
• Deals increasing damage-over-time
  • Damage per cast on this ability is now extremely high
• Increases in size over time
• Cool new FX!
• Now grants the Minor Expedition buff

cpuScientist wrote: »

How are pet Sorcerers supposed to defend our pets now that they simply cannot be shielded as often as before and will now just die in red? Or if we do choose to shield them our low DPS drops even lower. It's not like we are providing some major party boost by having them out.

We’re adding a damage limit to pets so they can’t be 1-shot. This should give you more time to shield them reactively instead of proactively. Also keep in mind that pets take less damage from AoE attacks to make up for the fact that they can’t intelligently move out of red telegraphs.

Minalan wrote: »

Poisons: These seem designed to affect Magicka users in an unbalanced way, when Stamina builds have already been made so much stronger already. Please look into balancing weapon enchants against this, or add a 'poison antidote' potion effect that grants a short time immunity to poisons. Please, we don't want to just get farmed all day, but that's almost inevitable in this patch.

Enchantments and poisons both proc in the same manner—they require weapon attacks. Enchantments proc at a 100% chance every 4 seconds, while poisons proc at a 20% chance every 10 seconds. The key balance distinction between enchantments and poisons is that you’re getting an instant effect from enchantments and an over-time one from poisons.
The total DPS increase from poisons or enchantments should be around 5%, so you aren’t going to get farmed if you don’t use poison. That said, we will certainly be monitoring feedback on poisons once Dark Brotherhood goes live and make balance adjustments or counters if they over perform.

Minalan wrote: »

Magicka Costs Increasing: Can you please look into this? I understand that this is happening to every class across the board, but with the costs of everything going up, this change is adding insult to injury. And there is already plenty of injury here, and that's being as polite about this patch as I am realistically able.

With the removal of Veteran Ranks we wanted ability costs to increase in a more reliable and understandable way. Veteran Ranks used a different calculation for ability cost increase from the level 1-50 experience. With this change, abilities now continue to increase their costs at the same linear pace. This also means cost reduction passives and gear should now return the values listed in the tooltips instead of using a more complex formula.
There are quite a few builds that generate a large number of resources and we expect some players will end up changing their current setup. While costs are higher, note that you can now get increased resource returns from heavy attacks that now scale their return as you gain Champion Points. Additionally, enchantments are now more powerful and restore more resources than they used to. There are also poisons which give you additional options for getting more resources.

Minalan wrote: »

Skill and DPS Loss: We've lost some of our best damage abilities that we used in the DB patch (Trapping Webs, Dawnbreaker of smiting, Fighter's guild passives for werewolves, undead, and daedra). We're okay with this, stamina needed it more than we did. But please figure this into damage and defense calculation changes that you're making.

It’s true that you’ll have lower ability damage when fighting enemies of the Fighters Guild, however we did increase the damage of enchantments and add the option for using poisons. Keep in mind we did not change the Banish the Wicked passive from Ffighters Guild, so you’ll still score 9 Ultimate for killing undead, Daedra, and werewolves. It was important to us that all players wanted to invest in the guild and be properly rewarded.

DDuke wrote: »

Can we get a Stamina morph for at least one of the pets? A Clannfear would be awesome. (Or scale to the highest resource?)

We think this is a fun idea. However, there is much deliberation when considering if an ability should be converted to Magicka or Stamina. The Clannfear’s heal currently scale off the player’s max Health, meaning this is an ideal ability for a tank. Tanks generally spend the majority of their Stamina blocking, and then use their Magicka for utility abilities and heals. This change would put a further tax on the tank’s Stamina resource which is at odds with the new change to constitution where tanks now get back more Magicka each time they are hit. On the whole, converting an ability is exciting because new builds are created, however it can be frustrating as old builds are destroyed.

Wollust

ginoboehm

@wrobel @ZOS_JessicaFolsom beside that hardened ward should last 10 secs and the other one 20 iam not even made about most changes. can you please give an statement about the current state of alpha strike capability ? it is major over performing and will make grieving gank builds a dominant sight. beside of that:why do you harm smaller groups with the current patch this much?

holosoul

@Wrobel Being the lead combat designer, I'm sure you spend at least an hour a week in Cyrodiil, on live, on each class.

ginoboehm

holosoul wrote: »

@Wrobel Being the lead combat designer, I'm sure you spend at least an hour a week in Cyrodiil, on live, on each class.

lol do you actually believe that? have you seen @ZOS_GinaBruno comment about abilities from stealth? they never go there

CP5

Interesting, but some of these answers are either what players don't want to hear or miss the point.

Classes with supplementary skills will almost always out preform classes without them, either by way of dots or spammable abilities. Aside from those skills they also have access to the common-pool skills which sorcerer's are restricted, meaning that most anything a sorcerer can do another class can do better. Stam sorc vs stam dk? I don't think its a question which will do better for the most part.

Dark deal having a cast time for that sense of risk/reward is more a means to end up dead. Most situations where you would need that heal you will simply die if it is even a second late, and the heal does seem to come only after a delay after the animation, making it even less desirable.

Surge now functioning as a hot that requires crits is akward.I run briarheart on my stam sorc on live and I have a sinking suspicion that set will be more reliable in healing me than surge.Surge doesn't scale off of enemy group size, can't provide burst heals at all any more (which is a major blow to my stam sorc who can't use ward) and getting the crit needed to make this work on a high health build requires so many sacrifices that whoever gets the health to crit ration needed for this to 'work' will likely be unable to do much else.

MSA may be a place to pull numbers from to gauge how classes are doing, I get that, but just like when Negate was used in large scale pvp (ideal conditions for the skill to shine in) I feel this class just excelled at solo pve. What utility does the class offer to groups? Spell crit, anything else? Pets that eat heals, a new found hot that will likely tax healers even more, not much that really shines in group content. Solo content is where the class had strength and with that reduced what group buffs does the class provide to make them more useful there?

As a stamina sorcerer who uses a bow the passive changes are helpful but this patch is not looking all that positive for me. Surge was a finicky but at least usable burst heal, where I used vigor to cover my heal over time, but now that its a hot I don't know how useful it will be. Pets scaling only off of max magicka is such a major restriction, and as long as they are a toggle that take a slot on each bar they won't see use beyond odd players such as myself, or the small 'pet sorc' community. The nerf to shield duration is going to significantly hurt pet sorcs (as if they needed that) regardless of if pets can be one shot or not. And again as a player who uses both bow and sorc, neither provide a reliable skill for damaging my target outside of aoe's and dots (bow only), and my class will only support my playstlye with the passives. I keep asking myself why I want to play a sorc, and more and more the other classes look like they offer more.

bloodenragedb14_ESO

ya see, all i read from that was "concerns noted, and ignored"

this is getting incredibly frustrating

Glantir

The answers are a bit disappointing for me....
Sorcs are unique!
- have the only reflectable ultimate
- no mag/stam spamable skill
- only one non reflectable skill but it was cureable!

I think there more points than these ......

SorataArisugawa

[...]We understand that Sorcerers would like more freedom with choosing what weapon to use. As a Stamina character, even without a class damaging ability, you have a diverse set of options between Bow, 1h Shield, 2h, and Dual Wield. Magicka technically has 4 options as well – Restoration Staff and 3 flavors of Destruction Staff. However Restoration staff doesn’t support offensive abilities and there is not enough diversity between the three types of Destruction Staff. We don’t have any immediate plans to change this, but we would like to give Sorcerers more compelling decisions when selecting a weapon.
[...]

Nice one... So you are admit, that eversy sorcerer needs weaponskills for their DMG...

What means, we have the lowest DMG of all, because all other could use the same abilities as we? So you are admitting, that we have to rely on overload?

That is... THATS ALL? This is how everybody has to play the sorc? and you have no plan to change it?
What is about: "play as you like"...

I am so disappointed from you. Just because every class should play unique doesn't mean that some of them have to be crap!

Not even the plan... REALLY?

zerosingularity

CP5 wrote: »

...

As a stamina sorcerer who uses a bow the passive changes are helpful but this patch is not looking all that positive for me. Surge was a finicky but at least usable burst heal, where I used vigor to cover my heal over time, but now that its a hot I don't know how useful it will be. Pets scaling only off of max magicka is such a major restriction, and as long as they are a toggle that take a slot on each bar they won't see use beyond odd players such as myself, or the small 'pet sorc' community. The nerf to shield duration is going to significantly hurt pet sorcs (as if they needed that) regardless of if pets can be one shot or not. And again as a player who uses both bow and sorc, neither provide a reliable skill for damaging my target outside of aoe's and dots (bow only), and my class will only support my playstlye with the passives. I keep asking myself why I want to play a sorc, and more and more the other classes look like they offer more.

Agreed.

As a Magicka Sorc, pets should scale off of the highest stat. Imagine having a use for that Hunt Leader set outside of werewolf Pack Leader. That and needing to be a toggle keeps me from using pets almost entirely, though I did mention as such before TG went live. Making pets like this would open up ALOT of options for the Sorcerer class, both for sustained DPS and for group utility.

Archmage1

We appreciate the detailed write up. However, most of it is vague information to try and justify the significant nerfs, instead of saying that there is a problem with Sorc DPS, healing, shields, etc...

No matter how you cut it, if the changes stay as is, Sorcs will be underwhelming in all respects of the game (PVP, PVE, solo and group) compared to other classes, which is a shame.

ADarklore

Thank you @Wrobel for taking the time to write this out, although I'm sure because you didn't give many players the answers they wanted, there will still be a lot more complaining. Sadly, most players only look at things from their own perspective and don't consider all the numerous ways other players play the game and how their ideas and 'wish list' would negatively impact those other play styles as specifically noted in your post:

• Include specific details about your issue or situation
• Consider all types of gameplay (pvp, pve, solo, group)
• Back up your ideas with math and logical arguments

DDuke

Maybe it's just me but... what's wrong with "having to" use weapon skill lines?

Every stamina build does that too in PvE in form of Rapid Strikes, but when Sorcerers "have to" use Destruction Staff it's the end of the world.

Pandorii

Thank you for your willingness to open up dialogue with the community. I hope this will continue in the future with a variety of different issues that are frequently raised in the forums. Unfortunately, this feels like a lot of diplomacy.

For example, you all stated that strengthening enchantments and poisions is the panacea that will equalize the loss to Fighter's guild passives AND magicka cost increases. They can't both be true.

Preyfar

Wrobel wrote: »

We think this is a fun idea. However, there is much deliberation when considering if an ability should be converted to Magicka or Stamina. The Clannfear’s heal currently scale off the player’s max Health, meaning this is an ideal ability for a tank. Tanks generally spend the majority of their Stamina blocking, and then use their Magicka for utility abilities and heals. This change would put a further tax on the tank’s Stamina resource which is at odds with the new change to constitution where tanks now get back more Magicka each time they are hit. On the whole, converting an ability is exciting because new builds are created, however it can be frustrating as old builds are destroyed.

Odd question, but why can't there be a third morph for pets (or other skills)? The pets could easily be one of those skills.

Ajax_22

Wrobel wrote: »

Flaminir wrote: »

Surge nerf - all classes have skills which heal based on damage done. Why has ours been removed to give us a low flat value and all the other classes kept theirs? (If Overload was the reason as Wrobel mentioned on ESO live, then why not just cap the heal at say 6-8k to prevent the 20k Overload heals at its peak? There were no other issues with this skill to warrant such a nerf & goes against the stated policy of smaller tweaks rather than huge nerfs.)

We wanted to make the Surge ability a more universal tool in the Sorcerer kit. It wasn’t intended as a nerf, except in the case of Overload because we felt that Synergy was over-performing compared to others, such as Strife and Puncturing Strikes. We’re still working out the balance of the final numbers, so expect to see a sizable increase in Surge healing for Dark Brotherhood’s release.
It’s been a longstanding issue that Surge doesn’t play well with DoT builds, thus limiting the number of options for Sorcerers. Abilities such as Crushing Shock deal damage in 3 separate attacks and Flurry never procced the heal. Surge is now more effective for tank characters since it no longer scales off of damage done. These changes make surge more desirable for a wider number of builds and reduced its power when combined with Overload.

Minalan wrote: »

Surge: Please take a look at the design and functionality inside Cyrodiil. Players do not stand still inside of DOT AOE attacks like liquid lightning. A 900 heal is not helpful, even if it manages to crit. Under the old system, we could at least get a decent heal from a lucky crit if the opponent wasn't shielded.

Surge now feels like a sustain ability instead of a spike heal ability. This design makes more sense for the ability because the procs are random. Big burst heals are something you want to be able to use with reliability when you need them. Getting a big Surge heal when you are at full health and getting no heal when you are low on health can lead to frustrating situations.
Surge has a stronger synergy with damage shields now. The shields help stop big bursts of damage and Surge helps to top off your health bar and keep you sustained through long battles. The healing values on Surge will be balanced against other popular sustain abilities such as Strife and Puncturing Strikes.

Flat values are not exciting or enjoyable. Having an ability that does not grow in power with my character feels extremely stale and unimaginative. Additionally, for Stam Sorcs the change to Surge has made it a mediocre skill with DoT builds, and a terrible skill with direct damage builds, specifically those who like to use the Two-Hand skill line. Earlier in this post you say "Offering players interesting choices is one of our design goals. People have different playstyles and some of them will choose to have more sustainabilityin PVP." Putting a flat value on Surge takes the ability from one play style to give it to another. Also, some of us like that the skill is a burst heal. As Stam Sorcs we have a good number of options for a sustained heal, but Surge is the only burst heal we have available. Why can't we have both morphs of Surge give Major Sorcery and Major Brutality, and then make one function like the skill does on live, and one like it does on the PTS? This would be the best way to allow the skill to support as many play styles as possible.

Wrobel wrote: »

Flaminir wrote: »

Why did you make the recent changes to Dark Exchange without actually making it usable due to its cast time? It already has an interesting & unique mechanic, and the user has to sacrifice resources to use it, so why add a double penalty with a cast time for such a small return?

Minalan wrote: »

Dark Deal: This morph should be an instant heal instead of a one-second cast. This would help decouple the class from the restoration staff. I know someone on your team will think it's too much. All I have to say is: Templar. Dark Deal isn't nearly as good as other class self-heals, if you will not improve shields for whatever reason, please consider this.

Cast time abilities add a risk/reward mechanic that makes combat more varied and interesting. They are harder to fire off, but the payoff should make the cast time worthwhile. Some examples of abilities we feel are worth the risk are Dark Flare and Radiant Destruction. These abilities have counter play, but feel extremely powerful when executed without interruption. Finding this balance point is challenging, but it’s something we’re pursuing in an effort to make the gameplay more varied and fun.
We want firing off Dark Exchange in the middle of combat to feel awesome since it’s difficult to do. Our first cut at this was to double the healing it provided, a substantial improvement but not enough. For Dark Brotherhood launch we’re also significantly improving the number of resources returned. We aren’t 100% against making this ability instant cast, but we’d like to further investigate the cast time option first. We think different classes should have different mechanics for resource restoration.

You purposefully fail to mention the skill that is most like Dark Exchange, Healing Ritual. Healing Ritual is that other heal with a cast time no one uses. Comparing Dark Exchange to Radiant Destruction, or Dark Flare is simply not valid. Using channel and cast time damage abilities is very different from using a heal with a cast time. If I am using Dark Flare I'm on the offensive, and have more overall control of the battlefield. If I have to cancel the cast time on my damage ability I'm not put at serious disadvantage, because it is not crucial that I get the damage off at that exact moment. On the other hand, if I am using my heal it is vital that I get it when I need it. Canceling or being interrupted while casting a heal means you are dead a vast majority of the time. It doesn't matter how much the ability heals for. If I'm healing I will always take the option that is guaranteed to work.

Wrobel wrote: »

Flaminir wrote: »

Given this was supposed to be the major Stamina pass on all abilities, why are Sorcerers the only class without a Stamina-based DPS skill? (I would also ask the same question of Magicka Sorcs... but the patch was never advertised as a Magicka-based one.)

We want every class to feel different; they all have unique pros and cons. For example DKs also don’t have a spammable Stamina-based ability. They instead have damage-over-time Stamina abilities from Venomous Claw and Noxious Breath. Hurricane is the Sorcerer class’ Stamina-based damage ability. We made significant updates to this ability for Dark Brotherhood:

• Now deals physical damage so it scales with your physical damage stats
• Deals increasing damage-over-time
  • Damage per cast on this ability is now extremely high
• Increases in size over time
• Cool new FX!
• Now grants the Minor Expedition buff

Class diversity is something we all enjoy. However, sacrificing diversity within a class to achieve it doesn't promote interesting game play. Stam NB and Stam Templars both have a class spamable ability, and are both very different. Also, Magic and Stam Templars use a different morph of the same ability for their spamable, but they feel and play differently as well. Class diversity is created by having unique utility options inside the class skill lines. It is not created by limiting the damaging skill options in the class skill lines. Stam Sorcs are currently suffering form having little unique class utility, and to few class damaging options. This causes a vast majority of Stam Sorc builds to be far to similar.

dagonbeer

@Wrobel @ZOS_JessicaFolsom Appreciate the detailed write up. It's clear that the shield changes aren't going away, though hopefully you can see where the gnashing of teeth is coming from. This is a substantial nerf to a key sorc ability with nothing given back in exchange. Perhaps a buff in an area where the sorc is lacking, or perhaps a more moderate nerf to begin with?

- Ideas for where a buff might be helpful
* improvement to execute
* decouple attribute bonus from bound armor, replace bound armor to something useful and active (maybe a dot that sticks?)
* remove the requirement for pets to be on both bars. Guess this is impossible for this patch, but so long as a pet takes up twice the room of other abilities they'll never see wide use in end game builds.

Re. trapping webs -- I don't use it myself, but why not keep one morph as magicka? Everyone's happy that way.

Re: dark deal -- what others have said. An emergency heal that channels and heals after 1 sec is not an emergency heal. Instant cast but delayed effect is a good idea.

Finally, re: surge. I guess I'll wait to see what the sizeable increase is going to be, but the fact that it now works with DoTs is not a great selling point, considering that the only DoT of value for magsorcs (can't speak for stamsorcs) is liquid lightning, and that is an easily sidestepped aoe. What other DoTs are you expecting sorcs to run? Sorc play is about careful burst anyway, so we may not be attacking/causing damage all the time without a DoT that sticks. With this change we lose out on a good burst heal from a crit frag.

code65536

Why not give Surge two morphs that let us pick the behavior that we like (with something like a percentage-of-health cap for the old behavior for Overload), instead of forcing us into using this new style of Surge? You also didn't address the concerns that people have about sorc DoTs being position-sensitive ones that enemies often don't stay in--quite problematic if you want us to use a new healing mechanism that favors DoTs so much.

Minalan

---- Quoted text

---

There are multiple advantages of being a Sorcerer when looking at damage shield options.
You can stack the Annulment shield with Conjured Ward
Conjured Ward has more distinct morph choices (increased duration vs increased power)
Conjured Ward is much cheaper than Annulment
Conjured Ward gets maximum effectiveness with all armor types, Annulment morphs require light armor
Expert Mage gives increased spell and weapon damage for slotting Conjured Ward

---

end quoted text

---

Annulment is:
1. About the same size as hardened Ward in Cyrodiil. 1-2K difference? Not enough to matter.
2. It lasts the same amount of time. Six seconds.
3. It can be cast from stealth, making it strategically better because you can start a fight and surprise an opponent while shielded. (Bet you didn't even consider that!)
4. When hit by spells, it returns what it cost back to you. So being more expensive isn't a problem in most fights.
5. The expert Mage 2% bonus is barely worth mentioning. Come on man.
6. Stacking two six second shields is an exercise in frustration. Let's not go there.

8-10 seconds on hardened ward. Let's make it happen.

SorataArisugawa

DDuke wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but... what's wrong with "having to" use weapon skill lines?

Every stamina build does that too in PvE in form of Rapid Strikes, but when Sorcerers "have to" use Destruction Staff it's the end of the world.

Or they use uppercut, or bow... what a counterproductive statement...

olsborg

fix cloak please

DDuke

SorataArisugawa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but... what's wrong with "having to" use weapon skill lines?

Every stamina build does that too in PvE in form of Rapid Strikes, but when Sorcerers "have to" use Destruction Staff it's the end of the world.

Or they use uppercut, or bow... what a counterproductive statement...

No, they use Rapid Strikes if they want to deal good DPS. You do not use 2H in PvE.

The off bar is where you keep bow with Arrow Barrage & Poison Injection.


But I don't see how that is being counterproductive - if anything it further reinforces the point that you don't need to get everything from your class skill line.

Stamina DKs don't have a spammable class DPS skill, yet they're head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to DPS.


The weapon skill lines exist there for a reason - so that you use them. If your class skills did everything better than the weapon skill lines, you might as well remove all of them.

CP5

DDuke wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but... what's wrong with "having to" use weapon skill lines?

Every stamina build does that too in PvE in form of Rapid Strikes, but when Sorcerers "have to" use Destruction Staff it's the end of the world.

If the class offers little for what i'm trying to do, why bother playing that class when I could run another whose passives and actives (the actives being far more engaging and definitive of the classes potential) support what i'm trying to do better?

gamerguy757

Okay, well I do definitely understand the reasoning behind Surge now, but I feel that other classes kind of have their "OH CRAP!" heal while sorcs relied on our crit. Reality, our crit can get very high, so that's the risk if it doesn't proc, but if we are low on health, and we get a frag to crit for 35k and and our heal is 40% of that, that's our "OH CRAP" heal. Changing it to a flat low amount per second just doesn't seem right.
Shields I get. Now maybe there will be less Crit builds and more Recovery builds.

SorataArisugawa

DDuke wrote: »

SorataArisugawa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but... what's wrong with "having to" use weapon skill lines?

Every stamina build does that too in PvE in form of Rapid Strikes, but when Sorcerers "have to" use Destruction Staff it's the end of the world.

Or they use uppercut, or bow... what a counterproductive statement...

No, they use Rapid Strikes if they want to deal good DPS. You do not use 2H in PvE.

The off bar is where you keep bow with Arrow Barrage & Poison Injection.


But I don't see how that is being counterproductive - if anything it further reinforces the point that you don't need to get everything from your class skill line.

Stamina DKs don't have a spammable class DPS skill, yet they're head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to DPS.

Yeah because they are a DOTing class... of curse they make the most of their DMG with their CLASS DOTs... what do we have? liquide lightning and a procc (frags)... nice one... what a fun gameplay...

DDuke

CP5 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but... what's wrong with "having to" use weapon skill lines?

Every stamina build does that too in PvE in form of Rapid Strikes, but when Sorcerers "have to" use Destruction Staff it's the end of the world.

If the class offers little for what i'm trying to do, why bother playing that class when I could run another whose passives and actives (the actives being far more engaging and definitive of the classes potential) support what i'm trying to do better?

Sorcs are the class capable of achieving the highest spell damage in the entire game with their passives, I really don't know what you're talking about when bringing them up.

SorataArisugawa

Ajax_22 wrote: »

[...]
Class diversity is something we all enjoy. However, sacrificing diversity within a class to achieve it doesn't promote interesting game play. Stam NB and Stam Templars both have a class spamable ability, and are both very different. Also, Magic and Stam Templars use a different morph of the same ability for their spamable, but they feel and play differently as well. Class diversity is created by having unique utility options inside the class skill lines. It is not created by limiting the damaging skill options in the class skill lines. Stam Sorcs are currently suffering form having little unique class utility, and to few class damaging options. This causes a vast majority of Stam Sorc builds to be far to similar.

Not just the majority of the Stam Sorc builds, but the ones of the magica builds as well. But hey, the plan is, that every sorc plays the same. We have to life with the fact, that or "skills" are just buffs and we make the DMG with the weapons everybody has access to...

SorataArisugawa

DDuke wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but... what's wrong with "having to" use weapon skill lines?

Every stamina build does that too in PvE in form of Rapid Strikes, but when Sorcerers "have to" use Destruction Staff it's the end of the world.

If the class offers little for what i'm trying to do, why bother playing that class when I could run another whose passives and actives (the actives being far more engaging and definitive of the classes potential) support what i'm trying to do better?

Sorcs are the class capable of achieving the highest spell damage in the entire game with their passives, I really don't know what you're talking about when bringing them up.

If they equipt two weapons... but with that, they can't use their main DPS skill. Sorry, but what are you trying here???

CP5

DDuke wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but... what's wrong with "having to" use weapon skill lines?

Every stamina build does that too in PvE in form of Rapid Strikes, but when Sorcerers "have to" use Destruction Staff it's the end of the world.

If the class offers little for what i'm trying to do, why bother playing that class when I could run another whose passives and actives (the actives being far more engaging and definitive of the classes potential) support what i'm trying to do better?

Sorcs are the class capable of achieving the highest spell damage in the entire game with their passives, I really don't know what you're talking about when bringing them up.

Stam sorc vs Stam dk, dk's have multiple active skills they can directly call upon to deal damage and passives that support not only those skills but weapon skills. They also have group utility, and don't even need to try for some of that utility (aoe armor debuff, snares). Stam sorcs? They give some spell crit, and hurricane, the passives make physical damage better for them but does that come anywhere near what a dk does?

And about spell damage, is it all about stacking into one stat? Their sustain comes from liquid lighting but they still lack group utility for those pve encounters. Oh, they have that burst that people in pvp love to bring up, but now their in class methods of surviving are a short duration shield, a hot, and a suicidal pet. In solo pvp sure there are options, but as someone mentioned Negate will likely be the sorcerer pvp calling card, the other classes, while not being able to 'stack the highest spell damage' provide things that provide more value than one raw stat. Is it that hard to see what i'm trying to explain?

DDuke

SorataArisugawa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

SorataArisugawa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but... what's wrong with "having to" use weapon skill lines?

Every stamina build does that too in PvE in form of Rapid Strikes, but when Sorcerers "have to" use Destruction Staff it's the end of the world.

Or they use uppercut, or bow... what a counterproductive statement...

No, they use Rapid Strikes if they want to deal good DPS. You do not use 2H in PvE.

The off bar is where you keep bow with Arrow Barrage & Poison Injection.


But I don't see how that is being counterproductive - if anything it further reinforces the point that you don't need to get everything from your class skill line.

Stamina DKs don't have a spammable class DPS skill, yet they're head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to DPS.

Yeah because they are a DOTing class... of curse they make the most of their DMG with their CLASS DOTs... what do we have? liquide lightning and a procc (frags)... nice one... what a fun gameplay...

Yep, that's how magicka sorc plays - instead of spamming Funnel or Sweeps, you spam Force Pulse - what's the difference?

You get to proc frags & deal sporadic bursts of damage where other classes are more about setting up DoTs. Isn't it good that classes play differently?

On my stamina nightblade, I get to spam Rapid Strikes & keep up Poison Injection, Rending Slashes, Rearming Trap and Arrow Barrage (notice how many class skills?) until execute phase, when you finally get to use one class skill (Killer's Blade).

SorataArisugawa

CP5 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but... what's wrong with "having to" use weapon skill lines?

Every stamina build does that too in PvE in form of Rapid Strikes, but when Sorcerers "have to" use Destruction Staff it's the end of the world.

If the class offers little for what i'm trying to do, why bother playing that class when I could run another whose passives and actives (the actives being far more engaging and definitive of the classes potential) support what i'm trying to do better?

Sorcs are the class capable of achieving the highest spell damage in the entire game with their passives, I really don't know what you're talking about when bringing them up.

Stam sorc vs Stam dk, dk's have multiple active skills they can directly call upon to deal damage and passives that support not only those skills but weapon skills. They also have group utility, and don't even need to try for some of that utility (aoe armor debuff, snares). Stam sorcs? They give some spell crit, and hurricane, the passives make physical damage better for them but does that come anywhere near what a dk does?

And about spell damage, is it all about stacking into one stat? Their sustain comes from liquid lighting but they still lack group utility for those pve encounters. Oh, they have that burst that people in pvp love to bring up, but now their in class methods of surviving are a short duration shield, a hot, and a suicidal pet. In solo pvp sure there are options, but as someone mentioned Negate will likely be the sorcerer pvp calling card, the other classes, while not being able to 'stack the highest spell damage' provide things that provide more value than one raw stat. Is it that hard to see what i'm trying to explain?

I think it is uesless... he is immune to arguments...