Dark Brotherhood Sorcerer Q&A

SorataArisugawa

DDuke wrote: »

SorataArisugawa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

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).

If its fine to you, play like this. You are free to complain if not. I (and many others) don't like the dependence at a weaponskill which everybody could use easiely, but no other class does, because they dealing more DMG with ther class skills...

See, atleast some people (Sorcerers & my ranged Magicka DK ) still use this skill.

A lot of effort is spent on trying to make the game balanced, make all skills see use in some build or another - what you're arguing for goes against that philosophy.

So what do you want? That some skills are used? Or balance? Just because some skills are used, there isn't neccessarily balance... What has "every skill should be used" remotely to do with " the classes are blanced in party of utilty and DMG (not speaking of heal or tanking... I know, that my sorc will never be at a good spot there compared to templers and DKs)

You just arguing, that everything is fine, because everything is like it is. That is nonsense!

DDuke wrote: »

Instead of asking for a skill to replace Force Pulse with, you should be asking for buffs to Force Pulse if you feel it's too weak (I don't think it is tbh).

And the thing with Force Pulse is, as Sorcerer you can deal more damage with it than any other class (thanks to passives).

We would get more DMG of forcepulse, if was only lighting element and our passiv for extra lighting DMG would be higher. Now we getting max 10% more spellpower for the skill. A skill that is so weak, that other klasses don't use it, because they have better ones. If they use it, they use it as an gap filler...

Teridaxus

Welp now im scared of the other upcommig "feedback" threads...

SorataArisugawa

Faulgor wrote: »

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Hey Eric! I don't really have a problem with having to rely on weapon skills a bit more than other classes with my sorcerer. But if this is by design, maybe we could add something that actively promotes this and makes sorcerers unique?

I think giving sorcerers a passive or active ability that improves their enchantments for a certain time could be really interesting. First, with the recent improvements to enchanting, this now becomes a viable option; Second, as enchantments only trigger from weapon attacks, this indirectly improves the sorcerer's weapon usage; And third, it perfectly fits the sorcerer's theme.

From the description of the class from previous Elder Scrolls games:

Though spellcasters by vocation, sorcerers rely most on summonings and enchantments. They are greedy for magic scrolls, rings, armor and weapons, and commanding undead and Daedric servants gratifies their egos.

Adjusting Bound Armor for this might be an interesting solution. When activated for a buff, one morph could improve armor and jewelry enchantments (Bound Aegis?), while the other boosts weapon enchantments (Bound Armaments?).

At least consider this @Wrobel! Make the use of weapon skills more interesting (destructive touch and its morphs maybe too?)

AshTal

I guess its better than nothing - but basically all the concerns were noted but they just don't care.

What gets me is that the changes always get done based on the top 1% of players and how over powered these players are but the actual nerfs hit the casual player hardest. The 1%ers will just grind out new gear sets, modifly their load out and be on top within a day or two, casual players will be stuck playing a nerfed to hell class for months till they can re-design.

If shield stacking is too powerful - stop shield stacking, limit the strength of total shields by health - don't just nerf the crap out of them.

Also Pets are still complete crap in end game - in PvP they do so little damage they are just ignored by everyone.


Only plus side is having read this I know all the other classes concerns will be completely ignored so we wont see any of them getting any better of course they didn't get nerfed like we did.

cpuScientist

Honestly I could not care less about a spammable. A quick easy fix for the dark magic passive would be to swap mines with curse. They really fit better in seperate trees. A CURSE is DARK MAGIC and SUMMONING DAEDRIC MINES is well daedric summoning. Completely. That switch would give us a good way to get heals in PvP and PVE from curse, and with a little tweaking give mines a fee ins on the passives. It would be nice simple change that would help all around with self sustaining.

Then switch the magicka from bound aegis with the health passive from pets. Or get rid of the magick and Stam and give it as a passive altogether easy. Then you are free to give us a summons ble dot a floating sword what have you that's a target specific dot. Like vampires bane, just with neat visuals.

That's it, few simple changes. (Don't have to do the dot thing now but work on it) And the Sorc is in a GREAT SPOT PvE and PvP. We got a burst heal with curse, and we have magicka coming from pets so they are actually not a DPS loss to slot, and if/when you give us a dot in place of bound armor then right there we get help in PvE.

And when considering pets for Stam, just make it use Magicka to activate and it scales off max stat. No one wants it to actually USE stamina.

Finally to help boost our use in trials don't just add it to our ultimates. Give us something a bit more elsewhere. But the way to do it would be to have the atro as it lands just give minor force or minor berserk, something useful that is DPS oriented. Things like this will make sorcs wanted and useful.

Faulgor

SorataArisugawa wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Hey Eric! I don't really have a problem with having to rely on weapon skills a bit more than other classes with my sorcerer. But if this is by design, maybe we could add something that actively promotes this and makes sorcerers unique?

I think giving sorcerers a passive or active ability that improves their enchantments for a certain time could be really interesting. First, with the recent improvements to enchanting, this now becomes a viable option; Second, as enchantments only trigger from weapon attacks, this indirectly improves the sorcerer's weapon usage; And third, it perfectly fits the sorcerer's theme.

From the description of the class from previous Elder Scrolls games:

Though spellcasters by vocation, sorcerers rely most on summonings and enchantments. They are greedy for magic scrolls, rings, armor and weapons, and commanding undead and Daedric servants gratifies their egos.

Adjusting Bound Armor for this might be an interesting solution. When activated for a buff, one morph could improve armor and jewelry enchantments (Bound Aegis?), while the other boosts weapon enchantments (Bound Armaments?).

At least consider this @Wrobel! Make the use of weapon skills more interesting (destructive touch and its morphs maybe too?)

I think there's some decent potential here with a relatively minor addition, as it only changes one skill. Mind you, I'm not saying what this enchantment buff has to look like, as there are a plethora of options, the choice of which I would leave to the development team to make sure class balance is not disturbed beyond reason.
The buff could look like a simple effect increase, a cooldown reduction, let enchantments scale with weapon/spell power, execution-like scaling against low health targets, more damage against targets with a status effect (which would make Destructive Touch more interesting, like you suggest), etc. Personally I like to keep it simple, but everything has its pros and cons.

If there is concern this enchantment buff might become too strong, one way to balance it out would be the cost of a filled Soul Gem per cast. This would also synergize well with the Soul Lock passive in the Soul Magic tree, that has a 5/10% chance to trap souls on weapon kills.

Minalan

Smolt wrote: »

Well I suppose my sorc will still be viable in ERP...

Not even. Your 'hardened ward' only lasts for six seconds. That's a little 'premature' for that kind of content. XD

The ZOS design team apparently has lots of experience with this.

bloodenragedb14_ESO

cpuScientist wrote: »

Honestly I could not care less about a spammable. A quick easy fix for the dark magic passive would be to swap mines with curse. They really fit better in seperate trees. A CURSE is DARK MAGIC and SUMMONING DAEDRIC MINES is well daedric summoning. Completely. That switch would give us a good way to get heals in PvP and PVE from curse, and with a little tweaking give mines a fee ins on the passives. It would be nice simple change that would help all around with self sustaining.

Then switch the magicka from bound aegis with the health passive from pets. Or get rid of the magick and Stam and give it as a passive altogether easy. Then you are free to give us a summons ble dot a floating sword what have you that's a target specific dot. Like vampires bane, just with neat visuals.

That's it, few simple changes. (Don't have to do the dot thing now but work on it) And the Sorc is in a GREAT SPOT PvE and PvP. We got a burst heal with curse, and we have magicka coming from pets so they are actually not a DPS loss to slot, and if/when you give us a dot in place of bound armor then right there we get help in PvE.

And when considering pets for Stam, just make it use Magicka to activate and it scales off max stat. No one wants it to actually USE stamina.

Finally to help boost our use in trials don't just add it to our ultimates. Give us something a bit more elsewhere. But the way to do it would be to have the atro as it lands just give minor force or minor berserk, something useful that is DPS oriented. Things like this will make sorcs wanted and useful.

parroting this, mostly for the pet thing but everything else i agree with. Making them scale of max stat would be more preferable than stealing it from magicka sorc's, we have already had to donate so much.

If i can add one thing to the pet thing, however, is to change the skins of the morphs, or at least the scamp, i feel like a hack apprentice being stuck with that for dps. Make it a seducer, a dremora, a Spider Daedra, anything but a gods forsaken scamp

jim.chronous_ESO

For a spammable sorc ability why not just buff the damage to mages fury.

Regarding shield nerf, I understand harden ward down to 6 sec. Though empowered ward i think needs more then 10 secs. If you are going to use empowered ward you are using it for the intellect buff or to protect your pets which you cant fully control control.

One last thing i don't see many people running around with a twilight tormentor, maybe have its buff apply to the character (probably needs a re-balance in power), and/or all your pets (clanfear, twilight, familiar, atronach, maw, morkuldun)

cpuScientist

bloodenragedb14_ESO wrote: »

cpuScientist wrote: »

Honestly I could not care less about a spammable. A quick easy fix for the dark magic passive would be to swap mines with curse. They really fit better in seperate trees. A CURSE is DARK MAGIC and SUMMONING DAEDRIC MINES is well daedric summoning. Completely. That switch would give us a good way to get heals in PvP and PVE from curse, and with a little tweaking give mines a fee ins on the passives. It would be nice simple change that would help all around with self sustaining.

Then switch the magicka from bound aegis with the health passive from pets. Or get rid of the magick and Stam and give it as a passive altogether easy. Then you are free to give us a summons ble dot a floating sword what have you that's a target specific dot. Like vampires bane, just with neat visuals.

That's it, few simple changes. (Don't have to do the dot thing now but work on it) And the Sorc is in a GREAT SPOT PvE and PvP. We got a burst heal with curse, and we have magicka coming from pets so they are actually not a DPS loss to slot, and if/when you give us a dot in place of bound armor then right there we get help in PvE.

And when considering pets for Stam, just make it use Magicka to activate and it scales off max stat. No one wants it to actually USE stamina.

Finally to help boost our use in trials don't just add it to our ultimates. Give us something a bit more elsewhere. But the way to do it would be to have the atro as it lands just give minor force or minor berserk, something useful that is DPS oriented. Things like this will make sorcs wanted and useful.

parroting this, mostly for the pet thing but everything else i agree with. Making them scale of max stat would be more preferable than stealing it from magicka sorc's, we have already had to donate so much.

If i can add one thing to the pet thing, however, is to change the skins of the morphs, or at least the scamp, i feel like a hack apprentice being stuck with that for dps. Make it a seducer, a dremora, a Spider Daedra, anything but a gods forsaken scamp

Hahahaha lol. I very MUCH agree, they are ugly and on such a low scale with other DAEDRIC summons. I think scamp is the lowest if the low on the daedric food chain right? And why 2 twilights.

Let the healing stay twilight, and let the DPS version be a smaller flame atro, and change that silly skill from the tormentor. It's useless take it from a pet sorc, it's useless, make it mirror the aoe scamp, and have its active skill shoot out a single target projectile every 2 seconds just like the scamp does with its AOE. And either have it root on every hit or Stun on last hit like the aoe scamp.

Also please switch the health passive from.pets with the magicka from bound aegis. Let people have a good reason to slot pets.

Keeperz

This patch is unacceptable your answers are worse, you must know this makes sorcs painful to play. I don't play games to be frustrated I play for fun, I'll just move on to other games but I'd rather you just realise how badly you have dropped the ball and engage in meaningful discussion. This is not a discussion this is you trying to justify the destruction of sorcs ignoring the Massive sorc feed back thread, well pretending not to ignore it, nice try by the way.

You need to revert the shield and surge changes

give us a spam damage skill

Undo streak cost increase

Implement dual wield wands

Give bound aegis the Mage light treatment

Maybe add a champion point sink to increase duration of shields(in the red tree not the blue or green one)

I can not see me playing this patch as a sorc

Hridh

bloodenragedb14_ESO wrote: »

parroting this, mostly for the pet thing but everything else i agree with. Making them scale of max stat would be more preferable than stealing it from magicka sorc's, we have already had to donate so much.

Indeed, why not compensate the need for 2 slots to make them viable with the ability to scale from whichever is the highest stat (even keep the initial cast magika if need be)?

and yeah, swapping curse<-->mines from their respective trees would make sense, although I would prefer a more efficient way, as a Stamsorc, to access Bloodmagic passive

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Prospering wrote: »

"We want firing off Dark Exchange in the middle of combat to feel awesome" - Wrobel 2016

So a templar can instant cast Breath of life and heal for 8k in PvP yet we are supposed to feel awesome for getting a 4K heal (after battle spirit) after being a sitting duck. Eric, I don't feel the awesome. By your own risk vs reward logic it should be full health and stam if you pull it off.

RoyJade

Well, the main point about exchange is the resource return. But the skill cost too much time for the benefit. And moreover, the skill don't grew with your character and your resource need.
This skill need a huge buff to be competitive. Here is some idea I have, without taking down the cast time :
- give major fortitude, endurance and intellect when used, and perhaps minor version when slotted. More, give the major version to nearby allies, at least with a morph. More group utility, more resource back, more useful skill.
- give a damage bonus to one of the morph, or to the base skill. Why not a shared bonus too, in order to improve the sorc utility for the group ? Like a spell/physical penetration bonus, something unique.
With such change, this skill can be truly unique and possibly good for a buffer or a solo player. We can also tweak the actual number, but that's not as salty as these ideas in my opinion.

An another idea can be about the "weapon user" spec who seem to be tied down to the sorc. Actually, sorc need more than everybody their weapon, but they don't have much beside it. I don't ask for a spammable, but some improvement can be really good :
- a new dot, or better dot, or something like that who ask us more than 5 slot (no overload-tied gameplay) to slot along with the actual good skill.
- sorc are about summoning and enchantment, a tweak to bound armor in order to improve weapons and enchantment can be really good. More, we can have a totally new skill and a redone to bound armor : make bound armor a pure defensive ability (give defense, mitigation, absorption or else, something good for tank especially) and create a new skill, bound weapon, who improve enchantment and/or weapon attack (morph idea can be a better increase to LA/HA, or a resource regen per hit, or major lifesteal…).

And please, please make our gameplay feel more active and enjoyable. Yes, I'm speaking about the three toogle we still have : pets and bound armor.

DDuke

Hridh wrote: »

bloodenragedb14_ESO wrote: »

parroting this, mostly for the pet thing but everything else i agree with. Making them scale of max stat would be more preferable than stealing it from magicka sorc's, we have already had to donate so much.

Indeed, why not compensate the need for 2 slots to make them viable with the ability to scale from whichever is the highest stat (even keep the initial cast magika if need be)?

and yeah, swapping curse<-->mines from their respective trees would make sense, although I would prefer a more efficient way, as a Stamsorc, to access Bloodmagic passive

Well, to be honest the biggest problem with the pets for stam builds is that their active abilities use magicka as a resource.

To activate the Clannfear heal (+35% of maximum health), I need to spend 6230 magicka - half my entire magicka pool as a heavy armor stamina sorcerer.

It could've been a good instant heal for stamina sorcs (which is what they badly lack, they have a lot of sustained healing with Surge+Vigor+Forward Momentum, but no "oh ***" buttons), but not with this magicka cost.

Natas013

Minalan wrote: »

Smolt wrote: »

Well I suppose my sorc will still be viable in ERP...

OMG hahahahaha!

code65536 wrote: »

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...

So... why the hell do sorcs keep pushing for a spammable when they should be pushing for a better DoT toolkit?

I've gone over this in the other sorc threads--people who think that a sorc spammable will somehow close the PvE DPS gap basically have no clue how top PvE DPS is even achieved.

You have a point that cannot be ignored. itnwould have to be more than just buffing liquid lightning...

We do have three toggles that could easily become instant cast DoTs like NB shade.

I've outlined how the pets and bound armor could be made DoTs on sorcs DB thread, as have others. I don't see how doing this could be a negative in PvP or PvE. I understand that they'd lose some of their versatility for PC players, but it'd also add more control of pets to console players. The lack of control over pets on consoles is one of the main reasons I refuse to run them, and I'm not alone.

On a totally unrelated note, let's lose Overload. It causes to much restriction on playstyle to be somewhat useful, and it's ever buggy to boot. I was thinking a lightning damage variation of rite of passage, with wind stam morph.

NBrookus

Wrobel wrote: »

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.
<snip>
We don’t have any immediate plans to change this, but we would like to give Sorcerers more compelling decisions when selecting a weapon.

The fact that sorcs were using this as a spammable despite its drawbacks may be a clue how lackluster the overall sorc DPS toolkit is. You admit that sorc players are pigeonholed into virtually no options, remove one of the few alternatives we have, then tell us you have no plans to fix it. We didn't even get a "no ETA," we got a "no plans."

I could respond to the other items, but this right there sounds like you have zero interest in fixing any of the issues with the sorc class. Hence the high forum sodium content.

Meanwhile virtually every person who asked questions wanted to know what your vision for the sorc class was. We still don't know.

Lord_Wrath

Wrobel wrote: »

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

WOW! Frickin duh we know we can stack and what conjured ward does, that isnt the point. You completely beat around the bush on that one! I was most curious about this question and you just crapped all over it Wrobel, wtf!

ToRelax

So I'll just hope you now made the step from creating threads on hot topics to actually having a discussion with the players responding to it.

Overall, it seems to me you really don't have a clear vision for the Sorcerer class, do you (or some other things, but this thread is about Sorc now...)? There just have been too many contradicting changes. Let's break it down:

- We have passives that seem to promote the use of our class skills. Most notably Expert Mage, which provides spell and weapon damage for every Sorc skill on our bars, but also Deadric Protection, which requires a summoning skill, and Blood Magic, which gives a small heal when hitting enemies with a Dark Magic skill.
- Our class damage abilities are focused on burst damage. Curse, Fragments and Fury procc each other to deal a sizeable amount of damage. The Volatile Familiar would have been a great as well, had it not been full of bugs during 1.5.
- But there also used to be another side to the class, depending largely on Surge: This skill offered synergies with all weapon skills as it was the largest weapon damage buff in the game before 1.6. Especially AoE, which the class was otherwise lacking, so it really made sense to use AoE abilities from the weapon trees with it, and use them to higher effect than other classes would. It also synergized with Magelight, which provided crit for more reliable healing. And Stam or Hybrid Sorcs had a special synergy with Critical Rush, generating their only reliable sizeable heal. Additionally, the class has a synergy with non class ultimates, due to their reduced ultimate cost from Power Stone.
- Dark Exchange offered a reward for staying at range, in addition to the Sorc's overall weakness in melee combat.

Now, Surge does not really work with the class based damage abilities at all, because they do not offer sustained damage. It does not make the Sorcerer any better at using weapon skills than other classes, because with the buff system they get the same buffs. The Expert Mage passive pales in comparison to the old Surge, and it does not even work with non class skills. And the synergy with Magelight is gone as well, why even try to buff this HoT that Surge is now, by spending two more slots?
I don't have to tell you there is no synergy with AoE - we have a cooldown which basically reads "this skill is not supposed to scale with enemy group sizes anymore, not even a bit" - without any explanation on that to this day, by the way.
Stam Sorcs completely lose the synergy with 2 hand weapons they enjoyed since launch, because Surge, unlike 2 hand, now focuses exlusively on sustain damage. Instead they are supposed to use dualwield now?
The change to Annulment really cuts into the uniqueness of the class. Sorcs stack magicka for a sizeable shield against any damage type. And so does everyone else.
Volatile Familiar doesn't deal burst damage anymore. And has a cast time. That's like saying "We don't want you to use this skill in PvP anymore, find something else, please."
Bolt Escape has been nerfed several times and on top of that, gap closers snare you, and if that wasn't enough overall movement speed is lower, too? And now we are suddenly supposed to just use Dark Exchange inmidst a fight, sure. So there is a way to reliably prevent us from getting into a position to do so, rather than a reliable heal, which is needed in PvP.

So yeah. Other than nerfing key skills like Bolt Escape, Negate Magic, Surge, and Conjured Ward, I can't make out a direction you are trying to go with the class.
I could go on over a couple underperforming skills, but I think I'll rather just wait and see wether there will be any more posts of yours, that actually address the points we made here.

ClockworkArc

Specifically with the Clannfear, why can't its damage scale with health then? Maybe that's too effective given the new passive, heavy armor, and the fact that the heal also scales on health...but the heal could be nerfed a bit to be reasonable and it would help to add diversity to sorc tanks.

Mysticman

Fire Wrobel before he totally ruins this game.

Lucky28

@Wrobel

i see where your thinking came from. however, it seems to me you forgot to ask yourselves one very important question when considering these changes: "why do people play the sorcerer class?".

It was the class that had many flaws but excelled in solo content. now it's just a class with many flaws and excels at nothing. they are no longer a good solo class for PvE or PvP and they've never been a good group class, so where do sorcs fit in?.

and the changes to surge is a nerf of epic proportions in every conceivable way not just in regards to overload. there is no reason to have this skill on your bar anymore.

so long as you realize that by next patch you're gonna either have to undo every change you've made to sorcerer class in DB or re-design the entire class from the ground up. Then i suppose that's something. however, i am not thrilled that you've destroyed the class i most enjoyed playing and it will be in the gutter for the next four months.

LegionLegacy

So, firstly Wrobel, thanks for your justification for what you have done, albeit any die hard stam sorc fan would probably murder you in you sleep, at least your trying.
Here is, (hopefully) a comprehensive fix of for Stam sorcs in particular.
Stam Sorc Tanking - You trying to push for this, and we get it. But heres a little insight from people who play the game. As a tank, or goal is receiving damage and not dying, so when you said you scaled implosion off of health so Stam Sorc tanks can have something special, your conceptually contradicting the entire mindset behind tanking. Why does a damage dealing passive, which requires damage to be done to proc , scale off of health for tanks, when tank don't actually do damage. I think you might need to review the core needs, jobs and values behind damage dealing, healing and tanking, because blurring these lines, will only result in a sub-par/mediocre result. And why would you want a second hand car(Sorc Tank), when you could get a brand new one, which outclasses everything else (Literally any class tank can be put here)

Passives - Yay, so I already gave you crap about implosions little issue, but on the whole, keep the changes, they are good. There are still 5 passives which are still relatively useless, existing from the time stam sorc was not put into consideration. These passives are Rebate, Expert summoner, Blood Magic, Exploitation. They are valid for magicka sorc, but not stam sorcs.
Putting into consideration that I have no way of making you do what I want you to do, I'm just not gonna put any ways to make these viable, as they genuinely just don't have a straight up answer to adjust these passive.
BUT, there is one skill, which is now completely useless. Expert mage, formerly, our most defining passive, has been outclassed by the new fighters guild passives. Why should we slot more useless sorc abilities, when we could slot more useful fighters guild abilities? We commonly use these 3 sorc abilities, Crit surge, Boundless storm/hurricane and streak. In fighters guild, we can use Silver bolts, Dawnbreaker, expert hunter(kinda useless now) and rearming trap. That's four abilities.

Crit Surge - It just trash now, nobody will use it unless they have some ridiculous way of making it viable.

Stamina based damage spam ability - we get it, you don't want to do this. So Give us a unique execute or something, For this, I rally just want to have a guaranteed crit execute. Change out one of the mage's fury, into use throwing a rock at some one, so its physical damage. And if you say that a guaranteed crit execute would be over powered, please go fix the jesus beam, because the first tick, I believe is a guaranteed crit.

Major Mending - Just give this to us already.

And I would continue, but I'm hungry so I'll leave it at this.

If you actually read this, thanks.

Armann

I think he misunderstood the stamina pet request, we want their damage to scale off the highest resource, not having it cost stamina to summon and activate. But even if they did change that the clannfear wouldn't bring amazing dps anyway and its purpose is primarly the heal and taunt for solo players.

As for stam sorc crit tank I believe his vision is that we run crit surge combined with hurricane which will give us major resolve+ward and bring a steady source of healing if we gear up for enough crit rating. Implosion scales with health and synergizes well with a stam sorc tank.

Personally I think it is an interesting setup and reminds me of my Dark Templar tank from AoC which operated in a similar way, working optimally by having a decent amount of crit to proc healing.

Ajaxduo

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Due to the surge nerf this ability should be instant now, how is that hard to see? Have you tried using it? It's so unresponsive during combat, the only time you can make any decent use of it is out of combat between rounds in vMSA lol. Waiting for a cast time is not 'awesome', ESO's combat is relatively fast paced which is why people are shield spamming their way through vMSA. Overall I could care less for the changes, I will just adapt but I still think Dark Exchange is incomplete. Making it instant would add a relatively unique component to stamina sorcerers as they don't have effective shields to hide behind, both surge and vigor are heal over times. Making it instant would also be a nice QoL change for sorc tanks as they wouldn't be forced to drop block and neither slowed during the channel. Just change it already!

NativeJoe

Offering players interesting choices is one of our design goals.They each suit different playstyles and different people have fun in different ways.

I don't feel happy about the changes. I don't feel excited. I'm not looking forward to the "constant" health panic type of play I'll being doing...

In short I literally just feel depressed about this whole thing. Are your sweeping changes supposed to make one feel like this?

Because Trial groups, pvp groups, and 4 man core groups see me as a liability with these changes... And VMA is now off the daily schedule because if the best sorcs in the world can't do it well anymore...what chance do the rest of us mere mortals have?

DDuke

Armann wrote: »

I think he misunderstood the stamina pet request, we want their damage to scale off the highest resource, not having it cost stamina to summon and activate. But even if they did change that the clannfear wouldn't bring amazing dps anyway and its purpose is primarly the heal and taunt for solo players.

As for stam sorc crit tank I believe his vision is that we run crit surge combined with hurricane which will give us major resolve+ward and bring a steady source of healing if we gear up for enough crit rating. Implosion scales with health and synergizes well with a stam sorc tank.

Personally I think it is an interesting setup and reminds me of my Dark Templar tank from AoC which operated in a similar way, working optimally by having a decent amount of crit to proc healing.

He didn't, I'm the one who asked the question

I posted this above:

DDuke wrote: »

Hridh wrote: »

bloodenragedb14_ESO wrote: »

parroting this, mostly for the pet thing but everything else i agree with. Making them scale of max stat would be more preferable than stealing it from magicka sorc's, we have already had to donate so much.

Indeed, why not compensate the need for 2 slots to make them viable with the ability to scale from whichever is the highest stat (even keep the initial cast magika if need be)?

and yeah, swapping curse<-->mines from their respective trees would make sense, although I would prefer a more efficient way, as a Stamsorc, to access Bloodmagic passive

Well, to be honest the biggest problem with the pets for stam builds is that their active abilities use magicka as a resource.

To activate the Clannfear heal (+35% of maximum health), I need to spend 6230 magicka - half my entire magicka pool as a heavy armor stamina sorcerer.

It could've been a good instant heal for stamina sorcs (which is what they badly lack, they have a lot of sustained healing with Surge+Vigor+Forward Momentum, but no "oh ***" buttons), but not with this magicka cost.

The heal from Clannfear is really nice when you're using heavy armor & could be another option to Rally - something to complement that significant amount of sustained healing you get with Surge & Vigor (since we all know Dark Exchange isn't really an option for burst heal).

Not with a 6230 magicka cost however... They should either make it cost stamina or reduce the cost of that heal for the Clannfear to be viable for stamina builds (including stamina based tanks).

Cambion

After coming back to ESO after around seven months, I am extremely annoyed with the changes that have happened and are about to happen to my sorcerer.

I have read alot of threads about these changes, and the only thing that has been made clear, is that these changes are happening and no matter that 90% sorcerer community have mentioned that the class is broken, they do not care.

The opening post basically states, thank you for your concerns but nothing is going to change.

If every class skill ran off of magicka and then one of the morphs was stamina based, this would fix the stamina based class issue.

This game was marketed on play as you want, but this isn't the case as Zenimax seem to be trying to force class into certain play styles.

Sorry for going off topic.

Birdovic

@Wrobel

Hi!
First of all, thanks for this thread, we finally know how you feel about the sorcerer as a class, and I hope this thread will be a constructive discussion, involving both Devs and Players asking and answering each questions. I hope its not going to be a "Discussion" like we had with the AoE Caps(which was just a summary of how the devs felt about it, ignoring any feedback in that thread).

So heres some feedback from my side:
______________________________________________________________

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.

The Difference here is, those 2 Abilities are extremely powerful, yes, and Dark Exchange is not.Not at all. Not in any way possible as it stands now.
Increasing the ressources returned was a step forward, but still 2 steps away from being reliable and useful.
Just compare to the absolutely crazy Damage and Debuff you receive from Dark Flare, not even counting in the debuff. You wont be able to heal against that.

Step 1:
- Increase the healing even more
OR
- On top of the burst heal add a heal over time effect similar to how Vigor works


Step 2:
- Completely remove the Cast Time
OR
- grant immunity to cc's like interrupts/stuns etc. and give atleast 3000 Spellres/Armor while casting(similar to rite of passage from templar).

________________________________________________________________

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.

I disagree here, completely. The idea for having more but weaker heals does not work out too well, also nobody really asked for support on a Stamina Sorc Tank ever. What Sorcerers want, stamina AND magicka, is a good class heal, so we're not forced to use resto staves(Magicka sorc) or 2h Weapons (Stamina Sorc).

We currently have an ok class heal on Live, its not reliable thanks to Critchance being the trigger, but it saves us way more often than the incoming change will. While on PTS 2.4.2 the heal wasnt affected by Battle Spirit, it worked out quite well for Stam Sorc and allowed for some interesting approaches to new builds, but not in PvE and not on Magicka Sorc.

The burst heals are so much needed because there is simply so much burst damage in ESO. Be it PvE (vmsa anyone?) or PvP, every kind of gameplay has so much Burst damage, the new Surge changes wont work out . Dark Exchange will not make up for that aswell the way it is on PTS currently.

__________________________________________________________________

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.

Its great to see you plan to add more important decisions, when going for different kinds of staves.
The best way you can start doing so, is making every staff offer something, others dont give, besides Pure Damage.


Currently, we have

Fire:
Simply deals most Damage

Shock:
Bypasses Reflecting Abilities (no projectiles) and also offers opportunity to fight perma blockers, aswell as multi target damage

Frost:
Absolutely least useful kind of Staff availaible. Fully charged heavy attacks do nothing meaningful like the other 2 types, it offers a mere 1000~ Dmg shield.


As it stands now, its an obvious choice between Fire and Shock.

On top of that, there is countless Item Sets that offer Shock or Fire damage based bonus, for Frost, there is nothing except Winterborn, a outdated and removed Frost Master Staff and a outdated v12 Ice Furnace set, which sometimes only deals a little Flame damage again(when dealing frost dmg). I hope an upcoming Frost Atronach Monster Set or adjusted Frost based Sets will help in the future..?


Improvement Ideas: Frost Staff
- Fully charged Frost Staff attack: Snares target and everyone around it (5m radius) by 50% for 3 seconds
- Fully charged Frost Staff Attack: Steals 500 Magicka and 1200 Health
- Light/Heavy Frost Attacks have a 15/30% chance to freeze (immobilize)
- Having a Frost Staff equipped: Reduce cc Durations by 50%
- Etc.

Build Diversity Improvement Idea:

Force Shock + Morphs:

"Focus all the elemental Energy with your staff and hit your target with 3 attacks of your current staff's element for X dmg."

Yes thats right, keep the 3 hits, but change the dmg to be based on your staff (Example: Fire destro = 3 fire hits).
This allows for different kinds of builds, which use Elemental Dmg based Proc Chances.

Winterborn as example has 3 chances to proc its 5pc bonus with each use like that.

If we ever want to see working"Fire Sorcerers" or "Frost Mages" or "Shock Wizards" independent of your class played, then this is a change that needs to happen.




Thanks for reading trough it.

PainfulFAFA

Nothing on Crystal Blast?
Great, ill see you all in CU and Battlefield 1