Dark Brotherhood Sorcerer Q&A

NativeJoe

So Where do sorcs stand now?
In pvp: we're going to have a strong shield stack... but remember that every other class got buffed, all magicka builds are now going to be using shields against us, and while maintaining our own shields it may be difficult to push out any sort of dps considering we lack dots, and they don't....to an extreme. For burst... I don't think thats going to do it verses anything magickal because of shields again.
Verses stamina... if we are not spamming our expensive shields... then we're dead pretty much first charge/stun combo. Stamina builds got major boosts to their dps this patch, and I imagine we're going to be put on the defensive because they're going to be hitting for FAR more then our simple ward can protect us for...so odds are we'll have to slot 2 shields on the same bar and Hope they get tired so we can actually do some dps back.
In zergs... I wouldn't put it out of question that we are banned from being part of the group because a sorc without his shield up is the weakest target and can serve as the perfect target for VD. 100 points into bastion, light armor, and probably not wearing impenetrable means we're just a bomb waiting to happen for our team.

In PVE: We're going to need to lose the shields because they don't offer enough utility and we take massive dps losses maintaining them. not to mention the strain on our resources since everything costs more next patch.

Solo, we're taking a major nerf. Sure we'll be fine farming nodes, but soloing bosses, VMA, etc... these things just got ALOT harder. GL~ The best sorcs in the world are struggling to complete it with any vitality left.

4-man: We're the weakest class, bring no utility, and effectively we're going to drain the healers resources. Can we do it? yes. But we're no longer desirable for core groups. Before we could maintain shields, and blast away , and where often the last ones left standing~sometimes even becoming the hero of the dungeon because we had to finish the boss off. now tho... slotting a shield Hinders your dps to much and takes up a slot that you could be using for dps (since we're the lowest dps anyway we don't have slots to waste on survivability)

Trials: With no unique buffs, Lowest sustained dps, and needing to rely on everyone else to stay alive~we're a resource drain. All in All there is no reason to take a sorc into a trial.

For the future it seems Zos has gotten what they want and... "We don’t have any immediate plans to change this. "

LordSidious

ZOS creates a feedback thread.
The community provides feedback.
ZOS takes weeks to address the community feedback.
ZOS doesn't use the feedback, but says why we should agree with the changes.

What a pointless exercise for everyone involved.

bloodenragedb14_ESO

LordSidious wrote: »

ZOS creates a feedback thread.
The community provides feedback.
ZOS takes weeks to address the community feedback.
ZOS doesn't use the feedback, but says why we should agree with the changes.

What a pointless exercise for everyone involved.

im saving this and am going to post it, at random, in ZOS social media posts

olsborg

Stam nb:

The whole siphoning tree is basicly useless for stamina builds. Theres few if any reasons to slot siphoning abilities (apart from siph atks now and then) and therefore you dont get to use any of the passives either (apart from potion drinking one, catalyst)

bloodenragedb14_ESO

you know, this game is no longer play your way, its now #playwrobelsway

Grao

First of all, I would like to thank @Wrobel for taking the time to answer a few of our questions and @ZOS_JessicaFolsom for putting this together for us. That said, I think some of the answers we got raise some serious concerns that need to be addressed if Zenimax hopes to keep Sorcerers as a class viable and fun to play, not to mention keeping players that heavily main sorcerers at all interested and paying for this game.

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.

This is where I believe sorcerer's greatest problem lays. To put it simply, Magicka oriented sorcerers are forced into a single weapon, a Fire Destro staff and that is not only boring, but completely contrary to everything you seem to be trying to achieve in ESO. To say we have the option of the other staves is a blunt lie or a complete lack of understanding of your own game; because the damage from light and heavy fire attacks is so superior to the other elemental attacks, it is simply impossible to equip a lighting or ice staff, even when sorcerer passives so desperately indicate we should be using a lightning staff for every ability.

That you, @Wrobel , recognizes this is a reality but have no plans to make changes seriously concerns me and I think the majority of the sorcerer community. You are keeping sorcerers from developing so many Damage Dealers builds with this one decision it simply makes no sense and makes you seem stubborn or lazy and I am not sure which is worse in a game developer.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

I understand the reasoning behind the nerfs to our shields, but this heavily affected the survivability of pets and that was already an issue previous to this change, yet you, @Wrobel , did very little to improve upon the pet's ability to stay alive. As far as they were tested in the PTS it is still nearly impossible to keep pets alive during a raid encounter thus rendering the summoner build and most of that tree rather useless.

On top of that, pets have to contend with their damage not being affected by champion points even though they are spell cast by a sorcerer and thus should scale like every other damage spell in the game. How do you expect pet builds to be even remotely viable when you make its damage lackluster and its sustainability near to impossible?

Please, consider giving the Ward line or Empowered Ward a secondary effect that heals pets affected by a good amount when it is active, thus giving Summoners better ways of caring for their pets, currently in Live the only way to heal your pet is by actually having a healer pet equipped which means not having the good DPS pet slotted. On top of that, please allow all our spells to benefit from champion points? I think sorcerers are the only class that has damage spells that are simply ignored by our current progression system.

Wrobel wrote: »

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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.

Again, this nerfs were understandable. Unfortunately when you nerf a class's strength, you should buff it where it is weak, that is what Balancing is all about. You, @Wrobel , simply forgot that last part. Except for buffs to our Stamina builds, there was no increase at all to our damage, an area many understand sorcerers are lacking in comparison to other classes.

Wrobel wrote: »

Flaminir wrote: »

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

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

Minalan wrote: »

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

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

Again an understandable nerf / idea, but you are assuming by this that a tank will have enough crit to rely on its healing and that is not ever likely to happen because ESO lacks the sets that would make this idea interesting for sorcerer tanks, not to mention the likelihood of those builds being viable after the nerfs to Ward are not great.

Alas, even considering your idea, the current values for Surge in the PTS are too low and need to be increased, not only for PvE but also for PvP. 1.5k heals that don't scale at all is simply ridiculous.

Wrobel wrote: »

Flaminir wrote: »

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

Minalan wrote: »

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

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

Again you, @Wrobel , show a lack of understanding of the game you are designing, that or you are simply trying to excuse not redesigning an ability with clear problems to everyone that has used it either in PvE or PvP. Again it makes you seem either stubborn or simply lazy, alas...

Both abilities you mentioned having a cast time are damage dealing abilities. They are used when the situation is appropriated, thus their use is more optional. Burst healing abilities and resource managing abilities are the complete of opposite of DD abilities though as by their very nature, they are used for emergencies. Both in PvP and in PvE Exchange is a useless spell, in PvE because standing still in group content means either dying or losing DPS and in PvP because standing still in a emergency definitely means dying. This spell is simply poorly designed and should be removed all together.

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

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

Fine, you want all classes to feel unique, but a spammable ability is a basic skill every class should have, at least for Magicka builds. As you, @Wrobel , mentioned before, stamina builds do have the 8 different spammables from the weapon skills, but Magicka sorcerers only have 2 choices which feels exceedingly restrictive. Right now the general feel sorcerers have of their class is that it is lacking and not fun to play. Are you ok with that being the uniqueness of sorcerers?

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

@Wrobel , you should keep in mind that despite taking less damage from AoEs, pets are still dying to them in Raids and thus are not useful. Also to keep in mind, sorcerers have no way to heal their pets except by having the Matriarch active, thus rendering pointless slotting the pet in both bars as it doesn't deal sufficient damage.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

You seem to have @Minalan point entirely, @Wrobel. What he is concerned about is that we, Sorcerers, are losing DPS options while gaining nothing in return. Other classes didn't use Trapping Webs as a spammable because they have better options, thus they are not as heavily affected by this changes as we are. And your answer to this is a vague increase in the damage dealt by enchants and the addition of poisons? Seriously...
I think you were getting tired when you answered this question because there is no effort in showing how this will make sorcerers DPS as before DB, when our DPS was already scrapping the bottom of the DPS charts.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Fecius

This is frustrating.

Will we see a class-change in future?

I don't want my main to be sorcerer any more. He is bad in trials now and we will not get meaningful changes for this class in nearest future. My point of view at sorcerer is directly opposite with devs. I guess I just need to accept this after more than 2 years of maining sorcerer and hoping for better place for my beloved class in high end trial PvE, witch is my only love in MMO.

I just feel sad for all achievements I have on him.

Derra

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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

Grao

Fecius wrote: »

This is frustrating.

Will we see a class-change in future?

I don't want my main to be sorcerer any more. He is bad in trials now and we will not get meaningful changes for this class in nearest future. My point of view at sorcerer is directly opposite with devs. I guess I just need to accept this after more than 2 years of maining sorcerer and hoping for better place for my beloved class in high end trial PvE, witch is my only love in MMO.

I just feel sad for all achievements I have on him.

I feel your pain. So much time on my character and pretty much every achievement except fishing completed... It feels like a waste of time now that the character is useless...

Digiman

Wollust wrote: »

God this pic captures this how debacle quite clearly.

bloodenragedb14_ESO wrote: »

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

this is getting incredibly frustrating

Seems to paint that quite clearly with a dose of condescension

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. 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.

How, it seems like your dodging the question because you didn't think of anything till this question was presented. It's not just weapons that are the problem sorcerers lack an actual proper DPS sustaining ability that other classes have, you can't cry uniqueness when 3 other classes have sustainable DPS ability except sorcerers because that's biased and poor programming.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

No, you missed the question, this wasn't about dual system, it was about sorcerer survivability which YOU CRIPPLED when you made cloth 1/4 the resistant to plate without compensating, releasing the soft caps on stats you then decided to FORCE sorcerers to pick up conjured ward in order to survive in PvE.

You just misdirected the argument of how costly it was for sorcerer to pick survivability in PvP and PvE and made up reason the poster wanted dual spec system as an excuse not answer a tantamount question behind the reason for the 6 second nerf to sorcerers survivability and your pathetic excuse of compensating it by forcing sorcerers to run with a pet.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Yet many Veterans of Maelstron Arena have expressed massive struggles trying to keep their wards up in PvE, it's the reason you backtracked on Empowered Ward, because your bias against Sorcerers survivability revealed your intent. At least that is the most sensible reason I can come up with when it comes to you nerfing a lynch pin of defense for a class YOU FORCED ON IT!

Eitherway many players including Deltia have expressed displeasure in playing magicka sorcerers, to their lack of options and being forced to play Overload 1000 to compete.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Except Surges CD limits it in terms of healing on top of it requiring critical damage, unless you make it significantly huge and Shields critiable then it is sub par as a healing mechanic for a class that sorely needs one.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

You claim to give classes unique abilities but keep bringing Strike and Punchering Strikes in when comparing Surge. To top it off classes now have access to damage shields and thus are immune to crits. This isn't helpful to sorcerer class and will fail spectacularly because it is too niche for it. Requiring crits for heals and balancing numbers to make it significant is a terrible game design choice.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

But Dark exchange is tied to the sorcerers surviviablity not damage output, because of this Sorcerers are put into a huge disadvantage compared to other classes, this would fine if it was a damage ability. But it's not and feels like your out to get a class for being magicka ranged DPS based.

Wrobel wrote: »

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

What has that got to do with the he price of fishsticks? Quite frankly it seems like your nerfing a class because you expect them to take an ability and stack it instead of actually balancing it and giving tools to survive without it. That's just biased inept programing especially considering the fact that those abilities are now 6 seconds long. You just made an excuse for forcing sorcerers to use a particular ability instead of playing as they want.

Wrobel wrote: »

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

Cool new FX is now a feature to your balancing a class? Good to know. Quite frankly you obviously dodged a question with misdirection. The question was about the lack of diversity in class specific DPS abilities for pure damage, not a buff that does damage to other classes. I would suggest you think of a replacement for Runic Prison, a very useless ability for PvP and PvP.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Really!? Your solution to forcing pets on a class is to make them more of special case? Pets are cumbersome, they require to be on all weapon bars to remain active and cost as much to summon when dying. Unless you make them do super damage which would be imbalanced and OP no one would find them fun abilities to use, even with your damage reduction changes they are boring liabilities.

Honestly I am keeping champagne poppers in my drawer for the moment you are replaced, this thread was a pure biased ego stroking post of how your terrible choices when designing this class were justified because of your previous terrible choices broke the class in the first place.

Sorcerers are no longer fun to play, they required very specific abilities to survive and are tied to destruction and restoration staff to survive competitively in PvE and PvP they are forced to have toggles to remain active that are cumbersome and a liabilty to boot.

You are a terrible combat designer because you fail to acknowledge these problems and further exacerbate their issues with such terrible niche choices and this post proves your bias against magicka ranged DPS for sorcerers, thanks for wrecking a class.

dodgehopper_ESO

@Grao and @Digiman some of the complaints you guys are making about Sorcerer, mirror complaints that have been going on with Templars for a very long time (over a year). Your concerns have to do with skills that just don't perform as they should, or skills that are a liability, or filler at best. While I'll be the first one to tell you that some of those same skills/complaints are a liability, I get a strong sense after interaction that they are making an effort. My suggestion to you is to focus on the core concerns.

My concern with the Sorcerer is the Toggles. Having to slot bound armor, matriarch, etc is painful. The long cast time of those pets with their additional brief up time make being a pet summoner build less interesting for quite a few. A Tank will never use the clanfear because the pet is going to die too fast, and will never be as tanky as the Tank itself. This means the pet actually is a huge waste of time. Additionally, while the boss is trying to burn you down and you're holding your shield up, there is no way in hell you're going to resummons a Clanfear, so its a one-shot deal. That needs to be considered. The other elephant in the room with Sorcerer Tanks (yes I had a character that was one of these) is the fact that while they have a nice regen passive for Stamina, that is made worthless by the fact that you have no means to recover stamina outside of luminous shards when you're in a shield raised state. Some elements of the game force you to keep your shield up or die. Its as simple as that. Sorcerer and Templar really hurt in this situation.

DDuke

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

Waffennacht

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

One complaint of the destruction staff is you lose a weapon slot. This is a huge advantage to dw and sb.

DDuke

Waffennacht wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

One complaint of the destruction staff is you lose a weapon slot. This is a huge advantage to dw and sb.

You "lose" a weapon slot, but you gain the ability to actually deal some damage with your weapon attacks. Though if you get a vMSA staff (or 2H), you don't really lose a weapon slot since these give the benefits of 1,5x spell/weapon dmg bonus.

I.e. normally, you'd get 2 torug's pact DW weapons to get a 129 spell dmg bonus (or 2x Leki for 129 weapon dmg), with vMSA staff/2H you get a 189 bonus with only one piece.

To be fair though, you do lose weapon/spell dmg compared to Dual Wield (since it has higher base spell/weapon dmg), but you gain a lot of actually useful passives and the aforementioned light/heavy attack damage.

Natas013

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

Overload is garbage, worse skill ever. I've been on the toggles since I started posting here as well. Also kudos to you for making a ranged magDK work. See with DK you have that option. Now try making a heavy armor DW/S&B magsorc work…………no? I guess we don't have that option in our toolkit.

DDuke

Natas013 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

Overload is garbage, worse skill ever. I've been on the toggles since I started posting here as well. Also kudos to you for making a ranged magDK work. See with DK you have that option. Now try making a heavy armor DW/S&B magsorc work…………no? I guess we don't have that option in our toolkit.

Uh, I didn't say I managed to make it work

Ranged magicka DK is something I try every patch, kind of like a mage/elementalist character with fire/frost staves. There's good chance it'll work next patch with the Dampen Magic being available as a good shield, we'll see.

As for DW/S&B heavy armor magicka sorc... I can see some build possibilities (involving Clannfear) that could work, but I haven't really theorycrafted around that before. Generally, you'd probably want to get more focused on mitigation & healing than dmg shields if you try that, since dmg shields & heavy armor are kind of anti-synergetic.

Oh, and I wouldn't call Overload garbage: it's a niche skill & easily countered by most builds, sure - but it's also capable of dealing a crap ton of damage. When I play on my magicka templar, overload sorcs are probably the most annoying thing after jesus beamers in 1vX fights.

Natas013

DDuke wrote: »

Natas013 wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

Overload is garbage, worse skill ever. I've been on the toggles since I started posting here as well. Also kudos to you for making a ranged magDK work. See with DK you have that option. Now try making a heavy armor DW/S&B magsorc work…………no? I guess we don't have that option in our toolkit.

Uh, I didn't say I managed to make it work

Ranged magicka DK is something I try every patch, kind of like a mage/elementalist character with fire/frost staves. There's good chance it'll work next patch with the Dampen Magic being available as a good shield, we'll see.

As for DW/S&B heavy armor magicka sorc... I can see some build possibilities (involving Clannfear) that could work, but I haven't really theorycrafted around that before. Generally, you'd probably want to get more focused on mitigation & healing than dmg shields if you try that, since dmg shields & heavy armor are kind of anti-synergetic.

Oh, and I wouldn't call Overload garbage: it's a niche skill & easily countered by most builds, sure - but it's also capable of dealing a crap ton of damage. When I play on my magicka templar, overload sorcs are probably the most annoying thing after jesus beamers in 1vX fights.

So you see the build possibilities on PC but not on consoles. Tbh I wish for just one day PC players experienced the hell that is the console version. No addons so you're fumbling around for what works (at least we know how much damage we're dealing now), no tab target, two buttons to do 1/3 of the things combat related, no reassigning keys (at least there's a work around for this on PS4) and pets that are 100% stuck on stupid and uncomandable.

I know it's not PC players fault consoles got a subpar product. It just burns me up the things I can't do as a result.

As for overload, the reason I say it's garbage is because of the play style it forces you into to be effective with it. Ults shouldn't define a play style, the play style should decide the ults. I'd love to see this clunky, buggy, PoS ult changed. Idc if it's a cheap single target or a damage channel ult similar to RoP (which I suggested but never really fleshed out).

Waffennacht

DDuke wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

One complaint of the destruction staff is you lose a weapon slot. This is a huge advantage to dw and sb.

You "lose" a weapon slot, but you gain the ability to actually deal some damage with your weapon attacks. Though if you get a vMSA staff (or 2H), you don't really lose a weapon slot since these give the benefits of 1,5x spell/weapon dmg bonus.

I.e. normally, you'd get 2 torug's pact DW weapons to get a 129 spell dmg bonus (or 2x Leki for 129 weapon dmg), with vMSA staff/2H you get a 189 bonus with only one piece.

To be fair though, you do lose weapon/spell dmg compared to Dual Wield (since it has higher base spell/weapon dmg), but you gain a lot of actually useful passives and the aforementioned light/heavy attack damage.

Meh. You get a useable move per build. As Proxy and curse are getting nerfed I'm forced into slotting a d staff and spell. Yeah, an extremely difficult to acquire BiS weapon can make up the difference (but why shoud I be forced to try and obtain the most difficult to obtain weapon in the game to be on par with any stamina/dw sb build, which has access to craftable weapons of equal strength?)

So outside of vMA staff I'm gimped, you mention light attacks and heavy attacks. Well resto staff actually deals more damage via heavy than destro (unless counting lightning passive - which is actually good omg) and I lose an armor bonus.

Two viable D staff moves, only one of which I will use (because I'm forced to) and again it's dps is directly tied into a single BiS almost unobtainable weapon... cool

There is no way pigeonholing a whole class to one weapon and one extremely limited set of attacks a good thing.

Minalan

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

The dual wield builds usually use proxy det, curse, a procced frag, and mages wrath together. It's effective as hell now, at least until Tuesday when inevitable/proxy det gets the nerf bat.

DDuke wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

One complaint of the destruction staff is you lose a weapon slot. This is a huge advantage to dw and sb.

You "lose" a weapon slot, but you gain the ability to actually deal some damage with your weapon attacks. Though if you get a vMSA staff (or 2H), you don't really lose a weapon slot since these give the benefits of 1,5x spell/weapon dmg bonus.

I.e. normally, you'd get 2 torug's pact DW weapons to get a 129 spell dmg bonus (or 2x Leki for 129 weapon dmg), with vMSA staff/2H you get a 189 bonus with only one piece.

To be fair though, you do lose weapon/spell dmg compared to Dual Wield (since it has higher base spell/weapon dmg), but you gain a lot of actually useful passives and the aforementioned light/heavy attack damage.

Dual wield passive gives you another 5% damage bonus (including spell damage) on top of that. If you havea Kena shoulder, and the two piece torug bonus on top of Kags or Julianos, 5% of 3200 spell damage is an extra 160 points.

Anyways, It beats out VMA by a little.

Minalan

Digiman wrote: »

Wollust wrote: »

God this pic captures this how debacle quite clearly.

bloodenragedb14_ESO wrote: »

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

this is getting incredibly frustrating

Seems to paint that quite clearly with a dose of condescension

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. 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.

How, it seems like your dodging the question because you didn't think of anything till this question was presented. It's not just weapons that are the problem sorcerers lack an actual proper DPS sustaining ability that other classes have, you can't cry uniqueness when 3 other classes have sustainable DPS ability except sorcerers because that's biased and poor programming.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

No, you missed the question, this wasn't about dual system, it was about sorcerer survivability which YOU CRIPPLED when you made cloth 1/4 the resistant to plate without compensating, releasing the soft caps on stats you then decided to FORCE sorcerers to pick up conjured ward in order to survive in PvE.

You just misdirected the argument of how costly it was for sorcerer to pick survivability in PvP and PvE and made up reason the poster wanted dual spec system as an excuse not answer a tantamount question behind the reason for the 6 second nerf to sorcerers survivability and your pathetic excuse of compensating it by forcing sorcerers to run with a pet.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Yet many Veterans of Maelstron Arena have expressed massive struggles trying to keep their wards up in PvE, it's the reason you backtracked on Empowered Ward, because your bias against Sorcerers survivability revealed your intent. At least that is the most sensible reason I can come up with when it comes to you nerfing a lynch pin of defense for a class YOU FORCED ON IT!

Eitherway many players including Deltia have expressed displeasure in playing magicka sorcerers, to their lack of options and being forced to play Overload 1000 to compete.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Except Surges CD limits it in terms of healing on top of it requiring critical damage, unless you make it significantly huge and Shields critiable then it is sub par as a healing mechanic for a class that sorely needs one.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

You claim to give classes unique abilities but keep bringing Strike and Punchering Strikes in when comparing Surge. To top it off classes now have access to damage shields and thus are immune to crits. This isn't helpful to sorcerer class and will fail spectacularly because it is too niche for it. Requiring crits for heals and balancing numbers to make it significant is a terrible game design choice.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

But Dark exchange is tied to the sorcerers surviviablity not damage output, because of this Sorcerers are put into a huge disadvantage compared to other classes, this would fine if it was a damage ability. But it's not and feels like your out to get a class for being magicka ranged DPS based.

Wrobel wrote: »

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

What has that got to do with the he price of fishsticks? Quite frankly it seems like your nerfing a class because you expect them to take an ability and stack it instead of actually balancing it and giving tools to survive without it. That's just biased inept programing especially considering the fact that those abilities are now 6 seconds long. You just made an excuse for forcing sorcerers to use a particular ability instead of playing as they want.

Wrobel wrote: »

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

Cool new FX is now a feature to your balancing a class? Good to know. Quite frankly you obviously dodged a question with misdirection. The question was about the lack of diversity in class specific DPS abilities for pure damage, not a buff that does damage to other classes. I would suggest you think of a replacement for Runic Prison, a very useless ability for PvP and PvP.

Wrobel wrote: »

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.

Really!? Your solution to forcing pets on a class is to make them more of special case? Pets are cumbersome, they require to be on all weapon bars to remain active and cost as much to summon when dying. Unless you make them do super damage which would be imbalanced and OP no one would find them fun abilities to use, even with your damage reduction changes they are boring liabilities.

Honestly I am keeping champagne poppers in my drawer for the moment you are replaced, this thread was a pure biased ego stroking post of how your terrible choices when designing this class were justified because of your previous terrible choices broke the class in the first place.

Sorcerers are no longer fun to play, they required very specific abilities to survive and are tied to destruction and restoration staff to survive competitively in PvE and PvP they are forced to have toggles to remain active that are cumbersome and a liabilty to boot.

You are a terrible combat designer because you fail to acknowledge these problems and further exacerbate their issues with such terrible niche choices and this post proves your bias against magicka ranged DPS for sorcerers, thanks for wrecking a class.

You pretty much summed up my thoughts exactly. Dodging my questions. Condescension. Trying desperately to sell us such an awful package. Urinating on all of us and calling it rain.

I'm not giving up hope that they throw us a bone in the live patch, but I strongly doubt it. At that point just stop giving this company money, don't let it stress you out. Wait for some staff turnover when the content flops and their subs tank.

PVP is already almost unplayable with the machine-gun meteor hackers. This next patch isn't even going to fix that much.

cschwingeb14_ESO

@Wrobel, thank you for posting this, but all you did was defend the decisions you have already made. It comes off as an "here is why I am right", without giving any consideration to the concerns and ideas of the player base.

You mention magicka sorcs not having weapon choices, but say you have no plans to change that. What are we supposed to think about that? It also ignores the fact that magicka sorc has no melee option, like every other class does. This is one of the major limiters in sorc weapon selection: no magicka-melee option. Honestly, magicka weapon selection is bad. If you are looking at adding new weapons (or adding a melee ability to staff, like destructive clench was), please tell us. Otherwise please address the sorc situation

I do understand the change to shields being 6 seconds. But those shields used to be a magicka sorcs "pre-buff" damage mitigation as well as reactive damage mitigation. You took away the pre-buff part with the duration change, then gave every other magicka build the reactive part of it. Sorcs have gotten nothing to make up for what they have lost. If you, for example, gave sorc ward the minor protection buff for 20 seconds, then it would again have a long term benefit

Surge should not go live with flat values for heals. That is just so lazy of a change. If you have to, for tanks, make surge scale with health, power surge with magicka and crit surge with stamina. Otherwise, just stam for surge. Then magicka for power surge and stamina (higher healing) for crit

Dark Exchange is most comparable to Healing Ritual (speed cast morph) in cast time and functionality, not Dark Flare. When you think about it like that, Dark Exchange is poor. Even though the resource recovery is large. I also think that the heal off of this ability should scale with something. And if this is supposed to be out survivability replacement for Ward, nothing with a cast time can do that.

Pets: please understand just how agonizing pets are, both to control, and to look at on a long term basis(gigantic flapping wings). Make them flavor, solo-play crutches, but not core functionality. Adding a great heal to a giant flapper that cannot be used in PvP or endgame content was just cruel

Natas013

Something tells me that since the responses to our questions and concerns (we nerfed sorcs because they were OP in one aspect of the game that they were only measured up against other sorcs, and we know this made the class utterly useless but we have no plans to fix it) were met with the toxicity these responses probably deserved, we'll not see more involvement from them anytime soon.

Tbh, if they expected anything but the fire storm of txt lashing, disappointment, and general disgust at these responses, they're delusional or on something (don't drink the kool aid).

That being said I do feel they genuinely want to see this game stand the test of time. With that in mind, they'll either learn from these mistakes made in DB or eventually fail at it miserably.

This patch will survive as it is DB, and has been so anticipated. What do they have left after that? Psijic Order, Dawnguard, Akavari, Morag Tong? None of these with as great of a following as DB, though MT may come close.

At console launch I said to myself, now here's a game I'll still be playing even after the launch of PS5… I'm not so sure about that now though

Drummerx04

I really want to know who actually had a problem with sorc shield duration in pvp. I was running vicp with a group of fairly inexperienced average skill players (I was a sorc). After wiping several times on Warden Dusk, I found myself as the last one standing with the Warden at 800k health. Rezzing group members proved too risky so I just soloed him down (was in execute range). We won. And you know what? No one in the group complained. In fact, they even thanked me. They were not upset with the sorc's ability to survive at all.

Okay, how about vMSA which you claim led to the nerf? You want some numbers?

I and many other sorcs are SCRAMBLING to get the flawless conqueror title before you kill us with the nerf so we are getting better scores whilst still dying. The scores on the leader board for the sorc this week range from about 410k - 570k. The scores for the nb range from 450k-570k.

So why aren't nbs being sacrificed to the dark lord like sorcs are? I think a 70% reduction on the heal duration of funnel health and the strength of sap essence healing is in order. And hey stamina classes use vigor to stay alive pretty effectively, I think a 70% reduction to the duration of that should help as well, oh but make sure you also slash the strength by 70% to maintain the HOT utility of the skill. I mean if they just cast it 3 times as often, they can keep themselves alive just as long as before!

Also, your overuse of the words FUN and INTERESTING was possibly the most disgustingly patronizing thing I have read since the last thing the devs posted. And did you seriously list the advantages of the sorc shield for us? Do you think we don't know how conjured ward works? It's not like I have used it for 70+ DAYS of magicka sorc gameplay or anything, so thanks for clearing up the pros and cons of Annulment and Conjured Ward for me. I have no experience with any pve or pvp content besides running every vet dungeon and trial, running solo or running with/running groups for multiple guilds in Cyrodiil and IC.

But now I understand that sorc shield is actually really good and not just a 70% duration or 50% duration nerf coupled with 30% strength reduction over what I can use now.

RebornV3x

Why even play a Magicka Sorcerer at this point? Ive been playing my Magicka Templar(Vet 9) I have better heals with DB I get my own shield with Annulment I have both ranged attacks like Dark Flare a ranged knock back in Aurora Javelin and a gap closer in Topping Charge. I have both a melee and ranged spammable and a better execute than a Sorc with Radiant Oppression. Why do Templars feel like a complete class I could go on about what wrong with Sorcs but I would have to save it for another thread and theres over 50 pages of complaints already.

So I'll ask again why even be a Sorc?
(Ive mained a Sorc on PC beta and since console release)

Grao

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

What is wrong is, first of all, that Sorcerer don't have a choice other than to equip a destruction staff as their main weapon. That goes against the premise of this game of playing as you want and makes sorcerer builds extremely rigid. Second, we are not simply forced into a Destruction Staff, we are forced into a Fire staff. Now, that may be advantageous for a DK, but for a sorcerer it is horrible, we have no passives that relate to fire damage and about 3 that increase the damage of shock damage, but because lightning staves have been as borked as Overload since the release of the game, we can't make use of lightning staves. (I won't even mention Ice staves).

On top of that, our bar are extremely limited by the number of toggles we have to use, thus we are forced to use the Overload bar, unfortunately we can't slot any weapon skill into that bar and thus our build choices become even more limited. Top that with the fact we have a passive that gives us more powers the more sorcerer skills we slot at the same time we don't have enough good sorcerer skills to slot in our bars and we end up with a completely inefficient and inflexible build. It is horrible. The simple fact you keep on arguing proves you have never played a sorcerer in meaningful content and you should just shut up as you have no real feedback to provide, you simply don't know what you are talking about.

Derra

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

Apart from overload a magica sorc has one legit offensive build choice (and overload is just broken nonsense that should be reworked for the sake of the whole class). There is a reason why i mainly stated pvp (pve is dw for all stam destro for all mag i don´t enjoy that either but it´s zos way of making balancing easier).

For PvP:
DK can choose between magica melee and ranged.
NB can choose between magica melee and ranged (with ranged have double resto as an option aswell).
Templar can choose between magica melee and ranged (with casttime/channel heavy builds even DW ranged/hybrid builds).

Sorc can play magica ranged with destro and a dw ranged 1000 ulti trollbuild (that you´re considering this a legit build is very telling of your view on the class). The class offers no choices at all compared to any other class.

You´re being nonconstructive on a class you don´t main while at the same time whining on NB topics that you have to use rapid strikes over SA in pve. Then at the same time you come here telling me having to slot a destro staff with force shock to do ANYTHING in the game on a magica sorc is fine?
What you´re doing is the same as if i had come to every stam(nb) topic pre vigor and posted what´s wrong about having to equip 2h to have access to a heal.

Sorry but what you´re doing is either completely nonreflective or bigot.

SorataArisugawa

Grao wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

What is wrong is, first of all, that Sorcerer don't have a choice other than to equip a destruction staff as their main weapon. That goes against the premise of this game of playing as you want and makes sorcerer builds extremely rigid. Second, we are not simply forced into a Destruction Staff, we are forced into a Fire staff. Now, that may be advantageous for a DK, but for a sorcerer it is horrible, we have no passives that relate to fire damage and about 3 that increase the damage of shock damage, but because lightning staves have been as borked as Overload since the release of the game, we can't make use of lightning staves. (I won't even mention Ice staves).

On top of that, our bar are extremely limited by the number of toggles we have to use, thus we are forced to use the Overload bar, unfortunately we can't slot any weapon skill into that bar and thus our build choices become even more limited. Top that with the fact we have a passive that gives us more powers the more sorcerer skills we slot at the same time we don't have enough good sorcerer skills to slot in our bars and we end up with a completely inefficient and inflexible build. It is horrible. [...]

That are the problems, which DDuke and especially @Wrobel doesn't understands.
At first we are tied to fire staff, but we have no passiv buffs for fire. We have passive buff for lightning. We are the lightning class It would be great, if the lightning staff would be good for weaving and single target DPS, but it isn't now. Or if we get bonus on frost DMG as well and a better frost staff

Secondly we get more spell damage for all class skills we are using, but we just could use them as buffs (and the 1 procc). Even equiping pets doesn't fit together with this, because they scalling with magica.

The whole class is a mess! But luckly you have no plans to fix that...

DDuke

Derra wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Derra 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.

Any other build in pvp has vaible option to choose from with different playstyles.

Show me a sorc without destruction staff and i know they don´t have the ability to kill me on any class. Especially with Dawnbreaker AND trapping webs removed. Magica sorcerer is the only class that is 100% locked on one weapon choice to be semi competetive for pvp with the next patch.

What's wrong with having to equip a destruction staff though? It's the magicka damage dealing weapon in this game, one I'm using on all of my ranged magicka characters because it's simply the best choice even if you have class abilities you can spam.

Besides, I'm quite sure you can go DW on a sorc & spam overload, dealing more damage with it than you would with destruction staff equipped. Next patch, you can combine that with Elegance set & legit one shot people. Yay.

It's kind of the opposite of magicka NBs actually, where you equip DW to perform a niche role of proxy bombing groups - in single target that kind of magicka NB is much weaker than one who can utilize the single target burst & sustain that destro staff heavies provide.

Meanwhile, to play a ranged magicka DK you also have no choice but to use destro staff - and there's nothing wrong with that.


That's just PvP. In PvE, all magicka classes are locked to using destro staff for vMSA staves & WoE.

---

Bottom line is: there are things to complain about the Sorcerer class - but "having to" use destruction staff as Magicka Sorcerer really isn't one. The lack of "active" skills when 100% passive toggles fill your bar is where I'd start at.

Apart from overload a magica sorc has one legit offensive build choice (and overload is just broken nonsense that should be reworked for the sake of the whole class). There is a reason why i mainly stated pvp (pve is dw for all stam destro for all mag i don´t enjoy that either but it´s zos way of making balancing easier).

For PvP:
DK can choose between magica melee and ranged.
NB can choose between magica melee and ranged (with ranged have double resto as an option aswell).
Templar can choose between magica melee and ranged (with casttime/channel heavy builds even DW ranged/hybrid builds).

Sorc can play magica ranged with destro and a dw ranged 1000 ulti trollbuild (that you´re considering this a legit build is very telling of your view on the class). The class offers no choices at all compared to any other class.

You´re being nonconstructive on a class you don´t main while at the same time whining on NB topics that you have to use rapid strikes over SA in pve. Then at the same time you come here telling me having to slot a destro staff with force shock to do ANYTHING in the game on a magica sorc is fine?
What you´re doing is the same as if i had come to every stam(nb) topic pre vigor and posted what´s wrong about having to equip 2h to have access to a heal.

Sorry but what you´re doing is either completely nonreflective or bigot.

What you think of Overload is your opinion, but the amount of overload sorcs I see in PvP indicates it's a very viable build. Maybe not for your purposes but... it's viable.

And sure, sorcs are actually the only class that doesn't have a melee magic skill, granted. Maybe Crystal Blast could be turned into one to increase build diversity - but as long as there isn't one I don't even see why you'd even want to use DW (or 2H) over destro staff. You play a ranged magicka character - you use a magic staff (not a 2H weapon or Dual Wield).

That's kind of like if a stamina build complained about there not being viable destro or resto builds. You are not supposed to use those with a stamina character (though I suppose you can with the Pelinal set...).


I may not main a sorcerer, but I have played the class extensively (well, mostly stamina but also a fair bit on my magicka sorc). I am not saying the class is without issues - but it sure doesn't have issues that would warrant this outbreak of negativity & toxicity like seen on this thread.
Do you ever wonder why ZOS hasn't been communicating with us much? Just take a look at the responses in this thread.


Alas, since I've been accused of nonconstructivity let me reiterate my very constructive stance, again:

• Bound Armaments/Aegis should function like Magelight (passively granting buffs while on bar) & should have an active component to the skill. Inactive skills on bar just make the gameplay more dull & one-dimensional.
• One of the pets should get a stamina morph.
• If +60% cost poisons end up fixing the shield spam problem, then reducing their duration as well was unnecessary.

and since you brought it up, one more:

• Sorcs should get access to a magicka melee (not ranged spammable, I still think there's a reason why destruction staff skill line exists) skill as well in order to increase build diversity.

See, I can be constructive. I just happen to disagree with one complaint people have and the general toxic attitude in this thread.

andy_s

Why can't we start with simple things? Remove sorc toggle abilities. Bound armor, clannfear, twilight... -3 slots on each bar. So how sorcs are supposed to use their class skills, when they also need at least 2 destro staff skills (force pulse and wall of elements)? Sorcs would use pets in pve if they wouldn't take 4 damn slots, and it's not a hard / game breaking change.

Fecius

andy.s wrote: »

Why can't we start with simple things? Remove sorc toggle abilities. Bound armor, clannfear, twilight... -3 slots on each bar. So how sorcs are supposed to use their class skills, when they also need at least 2 destro staff skills (force pulse and wall of elements)? Sorcs would use pets in pve if they wouldn't take 4 damn slots, and it's not a hard / game breaking change.

Here we have one more issure: pets have no scale with Campion Points.

If they make pets strong to match 501 CP, they will be OP for 0 CP.
If they make pets OK for 0 CP, they will not be valuable for 501 CP.