Dark Brotherhood Sorcerer Q&A

Cronopoly

@Wrobel - PVP Magicka "Sorcs" in particular
Magicka Classes don't have the Stamina pool to really do well in a core combat PVP requirement (Dodge, CC break, Sprint), and if a Magicka player buffs their Stamina resource pool to support these, its at the expense of their Magicka pool and they lose damage which also of course lowers shield strength

Stamina toons can rely on simply just 1 main resource pool and not get bogged down micromanaging resources:
Damage
Dodge
CC break
Sprint
Heal

"Most" Magicka toons typically spec just in 1 main pool supporting their damage and healing abilities, and this leaves them highly free AP in open world PVP.
Damage
Heal
CCbreak- highly limited
Sprint - highly limited
Dodge - highly limited

Prior to Dark Brotherhood, with 2 or 3 shields, many average to good Sorcs definitely lived longer in close combat than they should have, and this was rightfully frustrating to many a Stamina toon trying to Wrecking Blow a Sorc etc who could not be damaged with Stacking Shields.

Now:
With Shields basically gutted in duration, it's not worth it to cast more than 1 most times. One went from a Sorc who could prior get hit on for 3 - 7 seconds in close combat or ranged without refreshing shields while applying tactical OFFENSIVE pressure back at the enemy, to today having no choice but to refresh Shield & Heal constantly DEFENSIVE with paper armor when under Tactical Pressure otherwise you'll be 1 or 2 shot. The Middle ground seems to have been bypassed.

Stamina toons love not having to micromanage and can apply Tactical Offensive Pressure with little worries. At 28m Dodge roll, (2 seconds 100% immunity, what's not to love), Gap Close, CC/WB spam...they don't have to let up the Tactical Pressure and good PVP'ers know this. If you go full defensive first typically you die.

A normal Sorc trying to apply Tactical Pressure has some issues to come to grips with. They have no spammable class DD ability, and most if not all skills are dodgeable. Once they CC break, Dodge, or sprint to reposition they are free again AP. Many lead with a streak into enemies, which they break easily, and since they now have CC immunity, it's on. Gap close rinse repeat.

Some have been trying Lightning staff builds to use the Heavy attack. Looks great on paper, and works great to fluster some other magicka builds, but Vigor / Rally can just tick right on beside it, at most I find it a useful distraction for the uninitiated...Burst seems lacking in practice in PVP. For a Sorc many times, a procced Crystal Frag is coming home to mama as its reflected. At times I'm most useful as a Negate bot. Streak was good at one time, but now it's just waiting to be gap closed as you get rooted at the end for 1 second. Mines...good melee players have long since adjusted to Mines, and easily rotate around them ,eat them or Vamps that pop Mist and destroy them all in about 3 seconds.

In summary there's some room for further discussion...

Specific for Sorcs PVP "required" skills imbalance (CCbreak, Hard Dodge, Sprint) are the problem and were highly masked by stacking shields. Now that this is clearly exposed, some middle ground is desired...

Dracane

Something that would help Sorcerers a lot from a pvp perspective, is reducing the cost stack penalty of bolt escape from 4 seconds to 2 seconds. This ability is too overnerfed.

I don't want to repeat what the other ~300 comments in this thread already mentioned: This "Q&A" is very insulting.
Magicka Sorcerer needs sooo much work. I just don't understand all this ignorance from the devs.
It really seems like they are not interested in maintaining this class and making it viable or good at something.

Why don't you just delete it ?

Waseem

6 seconds damage shield is extremely low. by time we cast it and switch bar its a 4 seconds damage shield..

lepemetus

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Thank you for the extremely detailed post. I have had a lot of fun with my Magicka Sorcerer in PvP, and I don't believe it to be underpowered or overpowered.

steussy

Compared to other classes it's underpowered when it comes to skill choices. #fix sorcerer.

heyewe

I appreciate this thread and comments and sincerely love (addict-status!) this game. I'm most likely an average player...who would solicit the "L2P" and "GitGud" from folks if I transparently asked my questions here. Lol

So...ill just say I'm mostly PVE and trials...and my main and first love is my Sorc. And...I miss feeling effective in PVE. Im nooooowhere near "wow" status...just...I just knew what I was doing, could do it well...and contribute to a crew. I've played on console since day 1, 596 CP and over 3k hours....

Presently, I don't get invited to trials on my Sorc because my DPS isn't as good as the Stam builds, my survivability isn't a button away but a bar switch, cast...and I miss feeling a part of the convo of "cool stuff" happening in terms of builds and gear, etc.

And yeah, I'm jealous. I'm jealous when I hear the numbers that fly around..and man, I'd love to be a part of that. There something less appealing about saying "wow..my dark deal saved my butt" than my friends who say "**daniel..my xxx just crit for xxx"

I would love to complete VMalestrom. I'm trying every combination known to man in terms of gear, etc to try. I know I'm not elite. Or on PC. I'm learning to play, I am. I watch videos and streamers when I can (it's a bit overwhelming) and still feel a bit hamstrung with my build and the end game content. I'll figure it out..I will. But it ain't easy. Just try googling for a true MSorc build for Malestrom and see how few updated builds there are.

Im feeling a bit demoralized that in a game I love, with new friends every day...that my Sorc feels put out to pasture just as I was learning how to fight with my class/race. I am not asking for any special requests. Just sharing how much I miss playing my magika Sorc and feeling that confidence, having fun with challenging content and being sought after to team with.

As of right now, no one wants a Magika Sorc (well...maybe they'll accept 1 of the 12 man crew) to team with to do end-game content. I hope in its most simplistic form, this reaches you as something not acceptable in the community you created. #allclassesmatter

lepemetus

heyewe wrote: »

I appreciate this thread and comments and sincerely love (addict-status!) this game. I'm most likely an average player...who would solicit the "L2P" and "GitGud" from folks if I transparently asked my questions here. Lol

So...ill just say I'm mostly PVE and trials...and my main and first love is my Sorc. And...I miss feeling effective in PVE. Im nooooowhere near "wow" status...just...I just knew what I was doing, could do it well...and contribute to a crew. I've played on console since day 1, 596 CP and over 3k hours....

Presently, I don't get invited to trials on my Sorc because my DPS isn't as good as the Stam builds, my survivability isn't a button away but a bar switch, cast...and I miss feeling a part of the convo of "cool stuff" happening in terms of builds and gear, etc.

And yeah, I'm jealous. I'm jealous when I hear the numbers that fly around..and man, I'd love to be a part of that. There something less appealing about saying "wow..my dark deal saved my butt" than my friends who say "**daniel..my xxx just crit for xxx"

I would love to complete VMalestrom. I'm trying every combination known to man in terms of gear, etc to try. I know I'm not elite. Or on PC. I'm learning to play, I am. I watch videos and streamers when I can (it's a bit overwhelming) and still feel a bit hamstrung with my build and the end game content. I'll figure it out..I will. But it ain't easy. Just try googling for a true MSorc build for Malestrom and see how few updated builds there are.

Im feeling a bit demoralized that in a game I love, with new friends every day...that my Sorc feels put out to pasture just as I was learning how to fight with my class/race. I am not asking for any special requests. Just sharing how much I miss playing my magika Sorc and feeling that confidence, having fun with challenging content and being sought after to team with.

As of right now, no one wants a Magika Sorc (well...maybe they'll accept 1 of the 12 man crew) to team with to do end-game content. I hope in its most simplistic form, this reaches you as something not acceptable in the community you created. #allclassesmatter

My advice, if you choose to take it, is not to worry about what numbers you're hitting, or how well you survive, or pretty much anything... just play however you enjoy it, and tweak from there.
Try out different play styles, different gears... there's literally trillions of combinations and permutations of builds you could put together. Once you find something you realize you enjoy doing, but aren't too effective at - tweak from there.

I get my fun from experimenting endlessly and learning the game in a more in depth level as I go. But to each his own

Adernath

I am playing sorc since open beta, but not continuously.

Now I came back just to saw that my ward is basically gone as soon as I cast it. Moreover, my wall of elements is overwriting the old aoe when recast (wth?). I also remember the time when there was a lot of fruitless discussion going on in the forums regarding to nerf the teleports which in the end happend, imo a completely unecessary change hampering an escape mechanic of the class.

Since I doubt that any official will read my post and also a bit rusty, I don't bother with suggestions. But what I read here is not really encouraging for me to continue playing my sorc

What I find sad is that apparently there is no follow up post of an official to this thread, regardless that an official has started it. Something like: 'sorry guys we are all humans and can make errors, we are planning to revert our changes" or at least "we are currently considering xyz suggestion"

EDIT:
OK I have one suggestion

Remove all classes entirely (i.e. make the various nb, sorc, dk and templar abilibities accessible to everyone like the other skills) so everyone has the freedom to play the build he likes. This will get as close as possible to the previous titles and will also stop all discussions about class balances, while at the same time increase the number of possible build combinations. Only then begin work on balancing the abilities.

darthsithis

So here's my take. I'll be concise, cuz I'm usually not but this should be simple.

One toggle max, and make it one that is enticing enough for us to want it on all three bars. Like bound armor that increased recovery, max, some armor, and a 10% chance for class abilities to hit 5% harder and cost 5% less.

This would help with the shield cost and duration situation immensely, while respecting orhers wishes for sorcs not to walk around with three shields and a barrier that equals 74x their health for 24 second intervals.

Instead of empowered ward giving regen, make the toggle do it. Let empowered ward uh...empower our spell damage for those six seconds? Or let the next attack hit 20% harder like most classes have. Might of the guild for the sorcerer, cuz inner light before a frag is weird, and most other classes use entropy since they don't have surge, essentially depriving mages guild users a way to use their guilds might in any way that isn't useless and costly, redundant, or...volcanic rune.

Second no pets as they are (THIS IS JUST MY OPINION, I respect people who like pets, and if they worked i'd be all for them...but they dont as of now). Let us summon a daedric blast of dark energy that could be used as a spammable class ability. Or maybe a little stranger, an ability that summons the pestilence of peryite, which allows for stamina levels and magicka levels to even out for ten or so seconds, providing balance between less dps for a time, but more physical might to break free of snares. At least it's creative. Maybe they can take these ideas and create something that isn't rune prison.

Lastly, sorcerers should be allowed to sacrifice dps for survival of they choose. Zeni wants us to play together and let dps dps and healers heal, but the problem with this is that they provided us with a means of defensive survival that punishes us way too much for using it effectively. I shield a ton and stay alive. Now I'm out of magic and heavy attack with a resto and use healing ward. The group loses out on the former consistently effective dps I provided, or i choose to be an butthole and tax the healer selfishly. (that's an extreme case, and I manage my resources well...but am shoehorned into the most boring and potion dependent awkward way of doing so I feel) Here's how it should be:

Sorcerer has capability for huge numbers and devastation, although squishy. A ward that's up should add a little spell damage each time We are hit. Then, We can choose to use a class ability that was formerly weaker i.e. *actually* harnessing magicka and unleashing a devastating dark magic spell like mewtwos psybeam or something. It's essentially the inverse of that Templar move that does damage the more damage you inflict. That way the healer has an incentive for the benefit of the group when spending resources on or protecting us. i think specs should channel and hit hard, making people think twice about trying to cc and destroy our shields.

Lastly, streak should inflict no damage or stun, but be cheap again (hear me out) because the option of mobility as a replacement to wards could have profound affects on playstyles. Instead of the squishy guy using all of his mana to endure it like a tank, they could streak away with certain stipulations. If you encourage mobility with the threat of lowering spell power if it was spammed, people might be inclined to use it as 'bolt repostion' rather than 'bolt escape'. Dk's have reflective wings, nb's can go invisible, this is a unique but fair implementation of that principle. Extreme mobility is again, paramount for a ranged offensive user. Warding up in the middle of the red circle is weird for a sorc to do, so encouraging us to zip around and maintain strategic positioning is not only more rational (to me....), but is more immersive in terms of gameplay, and adheres to the caster class.

There's so much potential here, I wish zeni would just get creative! Clannfear is a weak enemy in the sewers, not a class defining skill we should be forced to endure in its state. Make it awesome, thats fine too. But this situation is annoying.

That was not concise, but I feel strongly about changes along these lines, if only just in principal. The specifics are examples, the underlying point is what needs addressing.

Weaving pulse and hitting a frag till my overload is up is kinda not that fun. And toggles just remain off for the majority of us

Xeven

@Wrobel helped design every single ability in the game. He's been there since the beginning. He's no dummy.

That said I wish he would spend A LOT more time on balance. It really is the most important thing he could be doing with his team right now.

Cinbri

My question when will we get same Q&A about Dks and Templars? They in much worse spot than sorcs in pvp.

Jar_Ek

My question is why do zos make such sweeping changes to so many different skills at the same time? They change shields and surge at the same time as buffing stamina.. rather than incrementally change things. How can you balance anything with such massive simultaneous changes?

olsborg

Cinbri wrote: »

My question when will we get same Q&A about Dks and Templars? They in much worse spot than sorcs in pvp.

Templars is in a good spot atm. Specially magicka templars. Any templar is also pretty much immune to any builds using dots.

reddog1948

As an older player (pushing 70) my eye / hand coordination sucks. Trying to keep my shields up or move sufficiently fast enough to stay out of the way of incoming attacks from boss NPCs is now virtually impossible. I play mostly group PvE and of course the only way to get better gear is via a dungeon. Before the Sorc shield time nerif, I could keep my shields up or move out of the heat of the battle and get them back up; that is no longer the case. In fact I find that I almost can not get them back up while in battle - and they go down so quickly that I spend more time trying to get and keep them up than actually doing damage.

As a light armor type of character, a magic shield seems necessary where the boss typically throws out damage far in excess of my toon's health (18K health, 33.5K Magicka, 13.5K Stam - using blue food buff / 53 Magicka and 11 Health Attrib. points. CP 618 so maxed at CP points.) A 20K to 35K hit by a boss one-shots me almost every time.

I used to be an asset in these dungeon runs, now I am just a liability - dying so much that the healer can't concentrate on the party. Needless to say for me and the individuals I normally run with, enjoyment of the game value has be slashed.

From reading this forum it seems to me that most of the "hard core" players are PvP and the developers "tuned" the DB Sorc for that play style; while more or less totally ignoring the PvE / Dungeon player needs and capabilities. In fact the newer higher hitting Boss NPCs is a double wammy to the Scorcerer survivability. Drop shield times / increase one-shot damage.

It seems to me that a clear PvE centric Armor set designed to promote Light Armor Survivability is sorely needed.

As always comments (good or bad) are appreciated.

Jar_Ek

@reddog1948 Unfortunately I suspect that you will need to heavily modify your playstyle given the ward changes. Have you tried wearing more heavy armour and giving yourself a bit more health? Also could you post your build - possibly in a new thread so it gets noticed (and link from here)?

Minalan

reddog1948 wrote: »

As an older player (pushing 70) my eye / hand coordination sucks. Trying to keep my shields up or move sufficiently fast enough to stay out of the way of incoming attacks from boss NPCs is now virtually impossible. I play mostly group PvE and of course the only way to get better gear is via a dungeon. Before the Sorc shield time nerif, I could keep my shields up or move out of the heat of the battle and get them back up; that is no longer the case. In fact I find that I almost can not get them back up while in battle - and they go down so quickly that I spend more time trying to get and keep them up than actually doing damage.

As a light armor type of character, a magic shield seems necessary where the boss typically throws out damage far in excess of my toon's health (18K health, 33.5K Magicka, 13.5K Stam - using blue food buff / 53 Magicka and 11 Health Attrib. points. CP 618 so maxed at CP points.) A 20K to 35K hit by a boss one-shots me almost every time.

I used to be an asset in these dungeon runs, now I am just a liability - dying so much that the healer can't concentrate on the party. Needless to say for me and the individuals I normally run with, enjoyment of the game value has be slashed.

From reading this forum it seems to me that most of the "hard core" players are PvP and the developers "tuned" the DB Sorc for that play style; while more or less totally ignoring the PvE / Dungeon player needs and capabilities. In fact the newer higher hitting Boss NPCs is a double wammy to the Scorcerer survivability. Drop shield times / increase one-shot damage.

It seems to me that a clear PvE centric Armor set designed to promote Light Armor Survivability is sorely needed.

As always comments (good or bad) are appreciated.

Also, try the empowered ward morph of shields, it lasts ten seconds at least, which is better than six. It's half of what it was, but it's still good for most dungeons.

Stack that with lightning form, which lasts about 30 seconds. Put a defending trait on your yellow staff, and you have the same physical protection as heavy armor (about 20K and spell protection will be about 25K). Put some CP into elemental defender (12%) Hardy (12%) and bastion (20%). You'll be harder to kill than most warriors.

I hope this helps you survive out there! Don't give up. I think it's awesome, I sure as hell plan on playing video games when I'm 70.

Last thing, keep the empowered ward shield on your main bar so you don't have to swap just to stay alive. If you're dead you can't put out damage.

If you put inner light on your main bar with empowered wadd shields, you should have a 20K shield with around 43,000+ magicka.

Last hint: use tri-stat purple food for stamina, and tri-stat potions when you get into trouble. Hold down block and do most of your casting. That will cost stamina when you get hit, which you will have more of with the purple food.

Minalan

(Edited above with more stuff.)

Playing a sorc in a dungeon doesn't require fast reflexes. Just brainpower, which only gets better when you're older. Age and treachery and all that

If you need help crafting gear or with setup advice, message me in game.

reddog1948

Since reading your helpful suggestions (thank you), I have been trying Harness Magicka instead of Hardened Ward - would need to respec to enable Empowered Ward -- to see of the re-capture of Magicka helps - not much, guess a respec is in order to get that and lightening form.

quick summary of build
5 Light, 1 Med, and 1 Heavy Armor; all purple Willpower Jewery, Gold precise Lighting Staff, 5 Gold Armor, 2 purple armor.
would like to get the Overpowered set, but obviously can't do WGT, so have 5 Julianos, 3 Trinimac.

Wiith Inner Light and Purple food buff that gives me 35,816 Magicka and 1,461 Magicka Recovery and a 6 second 14,665 Damage Shield on top of 18,226 health -

Jar_Ek suggested that I post my build - where / how can I do that?

Minalan

reddog1948 wrote: »

Since reading your helpful suggestions (thank you), I have been trying Harness Magicka instead of Hardened Ward - would need to respec to enable Empowered Ward -- to see of the re-capture of Magicka helps - not much, guess a respec is in order to get that and lightening form.

quick summary of build
5 Light, 1 Med, and 1 Heavy Armor; all purple Willpower Jewery, Gold precise Lighting Staff, 5 Gold Armor, 2 purple armor.
would like to get the Overpowered set, but obviously can't do WGT, so have 5 Julianos, 3 Trinimac.

Wiith Inner Light and Purple food buff that gives me 35,816 Magicka and 1,461 Magicka Recovery and a 6 second 14,665 Damage Shield on top of 18,226 health -

Jar_Ek suggested that I post my build - where / how can I do that?

You only need to respec morphs at the Stendarr shine, and I think that will cost maybe 3K gold? The empowered ward adds a buff to spell regeneration and that will help you more than harness ever will, and when you level it up it should last for a full TEN seconds.

Trade in the precise staff for Defending trait, that will add 5K more armor protection, and a total of 10K with lightning form.

As for your build, just tell us what skills you have slotted on both bars, what traits are on your armor, what mundus stone you use, and where your CP points are spent.

The only issue I see if that your max magicka is a little low. That can be fixed with more CP, undaunted passives, and slotting something like inner light or bound aegis on both bars.

lepemetus

Just throwing in my .02 on mag sorcerer, specifically for pvp.

I saw a lot of people talk about how terrible it is with the shield nerfed and how they have to boost stamina at the expense of magicka...
My experience has been quite the opposite, and I've had a blast.
I've played in cp and noncp campaigns... and in both, the reduction in pure tankiness with shields needed to be overcome. Though a bit more stamina to dodgeroll/break cc helped, and so did more regen, I still had to come up with other ways to survive... since it simply wasn't enough to tank in pvp.

Streak became more effective from a tactical perspective -> aoe stun + teleporting was extremely helpful in specific situations.
Overload for second ability bar + a quick executioner for unwary nontanks/glass cannons was also effective in very specific situations.
Lastly learning the things that are available to anyone that are overlooked as damage mitigation - trees, rocks, houses, objects... leveraging high ground, other allies... just general situational awareness goes a long way to surviving.
At the end of the day that's what I shoot for as a solo player - learning to survive above all else. I'm not too useful if I'm dead and someone has to rez me, but if I zip out and survive then I can come back fast to fight some more...

Anyways, I've had a ton of fun with magsorc - and I'm certainly nowhere near as good as some of these other players I've seen... but I always seek out the most skilled players I can find to learn as much as I can.
Whether I end up getting destroyed or not, I still get the experience of fighting against someone that's better - and there's a near infinite combination of gear/builds/sets to come across and kill or learn to kill

It's also fun to give myself a handicap - like removing 1 item from a set and seeing how effective it is - then I can learn the real impact of sets / potions / foods / drinks / whatever handicap is added across a large number of different situations.

In my years of fighting in pvp and pve, I can't say that I've truly seen a single build that can't be overcome. Im sure there is some imbalance - but for the most part I don't think it's as big as most people make it out to be... seems pretty balanced to me

darthsithis

Well since we are talking about pve, I feel I can chime in. I'm a dungeon rat and only want the hard stuff!

Beet the new dungeons last night on vet mode, and got through maelstrom with 3 deaths.

Ok weird setup alert!!! but I seriously tanked the huge spider boss in the new dungeon just fine

Pve build for hard dungeons, trials, and maelstrom

Here we go, skills enchants gear and all. You will rule my friends! Engage!:

Build a - vanilla build with resource focus (good for being the last guy standing and rezzing group to victory)

Weapons:
Front bar- 1 Sharpened fire staff of anything, (or maelstrom if you have it) Enchant one with a hakkeijo for dungeon damage bananza time. 7k extra when weaving, with pulse that's 35k per weave. Have another nirnhoned staff with the spell damage increase (~400sp for like 5 seconds) for non daedric targets

Back bar- for survivability and resource sake, use maelstrom resto/a resto of your preferred trait. Prolly defending. I'll explain in a sec.

Armor:
Kena infused light mag glyph
Julianos divine heavy mag
Kena shoulder medium WELL FITTED mag glyph
Rest is Julie with divine

Arcane rings

SKILLS!

Front bar:
Frag, pulse, hardened ward, inner light, flex ultimate: [meteor that you never use]

---

streak for the new dungeon mechanics, aegis for maelstrom, blockade for ads, ll for stationary

Back bar:
Boundless,
healing ward
Harness or annulment (I like harness)
Surge
Flex. No magelight though
Ulti: barrier (trust me...this is regen dps! It works)

Undaunted mettle passives, undaunted synergy passives, support passive for recovery, magicka controller in mages for your front bar to have great max magicka (mines 44k with aegis) all resto passives all destro passives

Cp all in arcanist and magician
Cp all in elemental, 70 elf born, rest in erosion
Cp in bastion, split hardened and elemental defender

Ok so magick is low, heavy attack on your resto bar with barrier slotted fills you back up quick while healing you. Health is low? Hw. Magick is low and trouble inbound? Harness. Stam low? Dark deal on the flex spot. Your frag is your execute, you can tank forever, you got resources, got kena when you want it...


But my personal more risky but way more lethal build is as follows:

Front bar same, except aegis on flex

Back bar dw! One sharpened one nirnhoned torugs pact set:
Boundless,
dark exchange FOR HEALTH AND MAG
Harness
Surge
Aegis

**overload** on this bar only!!!

Execute
Liquid
Hardened
Inner light
Aegis

Ok kena helm shoulder, elegant 5x robes, willpower jewelry,

Listen! Put on surge (20% sd) and then...
A.) Put spell power glyph on one sword,
B.) proc kena with sword (+1,300spell power from glyph kena and nirn)
C.) pop into overload (extra 4% sp from sorc abilities)
D.) cast Mage light (20% motg)
E.) fire off two or three overloads while kena is on (20% again from elegant)
do overload on dw bar with kena proc power surge, might of the guild and mine have hit for 64k ~three times in a row before kena dips

Drop LL, two more overloads, inner light, just wail.

So it seems complicated but if you l cancel into overload it is seamless.

So my spell damage with thief stone buffed with power surge is 3967 ish.

~5k with weapon and kena proc

+20% on overloads from elegance
+20% when using motg

So with 70 in elfborn, and this rotation my overloads hit for ~65k, I've seen more with the motg.

But it's also sustainable on the dw bar- dark deal health and mag, execute on overload bar for endless fury,

Kena prices on staff bar with bonus, if you're using the nirnhoned staff your weaves will make daedra run in terror

Tldr

Elegance with swords and spell power enchants. Overload use magelight bye bye

Foxic

darthsithis wrote: »

Well since we are talking about pve, I feel I can chime in. I'm a dungeon rat and only want the hard stuff!

Beet the new dungeons last night on vet mode, and got through maelstrom with 3 deaths.

Ok weird setup alert!!! but I seriously tanked the huge spider boss in the new dungeon just fine

Pve build for hard dungeons, trials, and maelstrom

Here we go, skills enchants gear and all. You will rule my friends! Engage!:

Build a - vanilla build with resource focus (good for being the last guy standing and rezzing group to victory)

Weapons:
Front bar- 1 Sharpened fire staff of anything, (or maelstrom if you have it) Enchant one with a hakkeijo for dungeon damage bananza time. 7k extra when weaving, with pulse that's 35k per weave. Have another nirnhoned staff with the spell damage increase (~400sp for like 5 seconds) for non daedric targets

Back bar- for survivability and resource sake, use maelstrom resto/a resto of your preferred trait. Prolly defending. I'll explain in a sec.

Armor:
Kena infused light mag glyph
Julianos divine heavy mag
Kena shoulder medium WELL FITTED mag glyph
Rest is Julie with divine

Arcane rings

SKILLS!

Front bar:
Frag, pulse, hardened ward, inner light, flex ultimate: [meteor that you never use]

---

streak for the new dungeon mechanics, aegis for maelstrom, blockade for ads, ll for stationary

Back bar:
Boundless,
healing ward
Harness or annulment (I like harness)
Surge
Flex. No magelight though
Ulti: barrier (trust me...this is regen dps! It works)

Undaunted mettle passives, undaunted synergy passives, support passive for recovery, magicka controller in mages for your front bar to have great max magicka (mines 44k with aegis) all resto passives all destro passives

Cp all in arcanist and magician
Cp all in elemental, 70 elf born, rest in erosion
Cp in bastion, split hardened and elemental defender

Ok so magick is low, heavy attack on your resto bar with barrier slotted fills you back up quick while healing you. Health is low? Hw. Magick is low and trouble inbound? Harness. Stam low? Dark deal on the flex spot. Your frag is your execute, you can tank forever, you got resources, got kena when you want it...


But my personal more risky but way more lethal build is as follows:

Front bar same, except aegis on flex

Back bar dw! One sharpened one nirnhoned torugs pact set:
Boundless,
dark exchange FOR HEALTH AND MAG
Harness
Surge
Aegis

**overload** on this bar only!!!

Execute
Liquid
Hardened
Inner light
Aegis

Ok kena helm shoulder, elegant 5x robes, willpower jewelry,

Listen! Put on surge (20% sd) and then...
A.) Put spell power glyph on one sword,
B.) proc kena with sword (+1,300spell power from glyph kena and nirn)
C.) pop into overload (extra 4% sp from sorc abilities)
D.) cast Mage light (20% motg)
E.) fire off two or three overloads while kena is on (20% again from elegant)
do overload on dw bar with kena proc power surge, might of the guild and mine have hit for 64k ~three times in a row before kena dips

Drop LL, two more overloads, inner light, just wail.

So it seems complicated but if you l cancel into overload it is seamless.

So my spell damage with thief stone buffed with power surge is 3967 ish.

~5k with weapon and kena proc

+20% on overloads from elegance
+20% when using motg

So with 70 in elfborn, and this rotation my overloads hit for ~65k, I've seen more with the motg.

But it's also sustainable on the dw bar- dark deal health and mag, execute on overload bar for endless fury,

Kena prices on staff bar with bonus, if you're using the nirnhoned staff your weaves will make daedra run in terror

Tldr

Elegance with swords and spell power enchants. Overload use magelight bye bye

So that "lethal" setup you posted is pretty meta vma. But you also mentioned trials, I very strongly suggest you do not use an overload build for vet trials. Your dps will be severely lacking. For trials use 5 twice born star, 3 aether jewelry with an aether staff frontbar and a maelstrom destro back bar with 2 nerieneth as your monster helm.

Your bars should be force pulse, crystal frags, velocious curse, bound aegis, inner light, shooting star

Bar 2 should be flame blockade, liquid lightning, mages wrath, bound aegis, inner light, overload(only for utility)

Here is the build in action
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c7KRsu4XwZ8

Jsmalls

Can Sorcerers have more synergies please? Conduit is less than amazing, and if I'm not mistaken is the ONLY class synergy we have (minus charged from Storm Atro but no one really uses that)

I'd very much appreciate a PvP aimed synergy because all I can offer to my small group is being a Negate monkey.

Okay I definitely offer more than being a Negate monkey, but you get my point.

darthsithis

So that "lethal" setup you posted is pretty meta vma. But you also mentioned trials, I very strongly suggest you do not use an overload build for vet trials. Your dps will be severely lacking. For trials use 5 twice born star, 3 aether jewelry with an aether staff frontbar and a maelstrom destro back bar with 2 nerieneth as your monster helm.

Your bars should be force pulse, crystal frags, velocious curse, bound aegis, inner light, shooting star

Bar 2 should be flame blockade, liquid lightning, mages wrath, bound aegis, inner light, overload(only for utility)

Here is the build in action
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c7KRsu4XwZ8[/quote]

Noted. Ty!

Although I've come a long way since I wrote that haha! Overload is only for emergency magicka regen, but we have people rotating aggressive war horns which works beautifully with my twice born set.

My bar setup now is almost identical to what you said. I don't use velocious curse however, as I find that giving up that extra dps can be compensated for by constantly keeping p boundless storm-

This allows me to take a little less damage, and continuously dps while healing myself for free. I firmly believe if you can sustain your health while dpsing (instead of stopping to use like...dark exchange or something) that this shows you are conscientious of the healers and don't allow them to spend the least amount of mana on you as possible.

blimsta

Please add some gameplay.

Please balance sorc and light gear.

Please play your game and see the glass pea shooter in action.

Please see what happends when you get stunned and die before you break free.

Please use your own new Duel system to help not wast anymore time.

If this is too hard then, Please dont make any mmo's agin.

PS. Just play some other games and work it out for your self., infact dont bother new api based games will be out soon so I'll just wait till then, nvm bye.

Vaoh

Wrobel wrote: »

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

This "first round" of Sorcerer Q&A was posted on May 27, 2016. A "second round" has not been released.

Today is October 20, 2016....

All I ask is to please rework Daedric Summoning a bit in particular, along with helping out Light Armor where a significant imbalance has been detected! Thread Here. If Q1 2017's major patch does not balance certain Sets, Stamina, Skill Lines, and so much more in PvP...... then it will truly become detrimental to the game's PvP playerbase (which has dwindled tremendously).

Birdovic

Vaoh wrote: »

Wrobel wrote: »

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

This "first round" of Sorcerer Q&A was posted on May 27, 2016. A "second round" has not been released.

Today is October 20, 2016....

All I ask is to please rework Daedric Summoning a bit in particular, along with helping out Light Armor where a significant imbalance has been detected! Thread Here. If Q1 2017's major patch does not balance certain Sets, Stamina, Skill Lines, and so much more in PvP...... then it will truly become detrimental to the game's PvP playerbase (which has dwindled tremendously).

I think this whole "Balancing Update" should focus to either bring Stamina down to Magicka, or Magicka up to Stamina.
That should include the Staff Trees to be more appealing in PvP, and as you said the daedric summoning Sorc tree aswell as sets need to be improved by a lot. Also the passives should be looked at, too (overall sorc passives).

Vaoh

Birdovic wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Wrobel wrote: »

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

This "first round" of Sorcerer Q&A was posted on May 27, 2016. A "second round" has not been released.

Today is October 20, 2016....

All I ask is to please rework Daedric Summoning a bit in particular, along with helping out Light Armor where a significant imbalance has been detected! Thread Here. If Q1 2017's major patch does not balance certain Sets, Stamina, Skill Lines, and so much more in PvP...... then it will truly become detrimental to the game's PvP playerbase (which has dwindled tremendously).

I think this whole "Balancing Update" should focus to either bring Stamina down to Magicka, or Magicka up to Stamina.
That should include the Staff Trees to be more appealing in PvP, and as you said the daedric summoning Sorc tree aswell as sets need to be improved by a lot. Also the passives should be looked at, too (overall sorc passives).

I'd vouch for generally nerfing Stamina, many blatantly OP Stamina-based sets, and Heavy Armor rather than buffing Magicka.

Regardless, Light Armor needs a buff (as shown in the thread I linked) and multiple skill lines need updating. Needs to all be done in a way that is BALANCED though. No overbuffing plz!

I'm not even joking balance issues unfortunateIy. PvP needs serious help, and it cannot afford to get worse. I've never seen the PvP campaign populations this low ever

illuminousflux

What if we just got rid of the Daedric Summoning Tree and made it into a direct damage dealing tree with some DoTs and melee ranged attacks that have morphs that are either lightning or physical based...I think that would be real neat. Turn bound armaments magicka boost into a passive (like NBs have) you can scrap the resist, not like 1k resistance is going to save your life in PvP. Also keep that stam and health regen passive. Might as well leave ward on there too, but give it some morphs that do more interesting things...

Natas013

illuminousflux wrote: »

What if we just got rid of the Daedric Summoning Tree and made it into a direct damage dealing tree with some DoTs and melee ranged attacks that have morphs that are either lightning or physical based...I think that would be real neat. Turn bound armaments magicka boost into a passive (like NBs have) you can scrap the resist, not like 1k resistance is going to save your life in PvP. Also keep that stam and health regen passive. Might as well leave ward on there too, but give it some morphs that do more interesting things...

We have a storm tree for lightning damage. Frost needs some love, though I'm unsure how you'd make any stam morphs for that. As far as ward staying… maybe an ice shield, one morph working like hardened and the other that deals damage to melee attackers.