Sorcerers as a Class.

Miss_Morphine

I'm not going to ask for shield duration to be restored. I'm not going for crit surge to be unnerfed. I'm asking that sorcerers be made a viable and needed class again, in any way you see fit.

If you share my points, please let zeni know. If you can think of any efficient ways to play as it is, or can think of some efficient fixes please reply. I'd love to hear what you have to say. If you're retiring your sorcerer, I'd love to know that as well.

Most of our class skills are unusable at endgame level. Pets still do too little damage, die too quickly and take a while to cast, they are also toggles which take up 4 slots if you choose to use both. Bound armor, which would work much better as a passive, is also a toggle - taking up two more spaces.
Streak is not cost effective in PvE, and easily overtaken by gap closers in PvP. Crit surge doesn't heal enough in PvE and doesn't grow with your skill, and it certainly doesn't heal enough in PvP. With the way crit surge is it even broke stam Sorcerers. Rune prison is unusable with lightning form. Dark exchange will get you killed by its cast time every time.
Hardened ward now has its match in Annulment even if the latter costs slightly more. Even if you look at stacking them both, at 6 seconds each you hardly have enough time left to do any damage. If there was a more expensive shadow cloak or breath of life Nightblades and Templars would be rightfully mad, and everyone would use them.
There is hardly anything special or fun left for sorcerers - overload, frags, and mage's fury. Liquid lightning as well if you're fighting a stationary enemy which is not often. All stam sorcs are left with is one morph of lightning form.

There is no efficient heal for magicka sorcerers. There is no spammable class skill, no good defensive skill that lets us get away.
We have the worst DPS, the worst healing, one of the worst unilities and the worst survivability.
Our bars are filled with toggles if we play the way zeni intends.
We are pigeonholed into using destro/resto.
The class is not fun, and there is absolutely no reason to play it over any other.

I don't want to rely on shields, I don't like relying on shields, but it was there if it was needed. Now it's too inefficient. The problems that existed before are laid bare now.

Give us some new skills, change the ones that are useless, make the class playable again. Give us some options.

RebornV3x

couldn't have said it better myself its almost like someone read my mind.

catalyst10e

It's starting to feel like they want sorcs to be a pet class but don't do anything to make that a viable playstyle, and then for some reason, they keep listening to the Nightblades and nerf our damage.

With that in mind, I say, Drop the summoning tree from sorcs, move it to a world skill, and make the pets DoTs.
Remove curse and ward from the summoning tree, and move them into a new sorc skill tree for alteration. Alteration could give us more/better options for defenses instead of forcing us to rely entirely on shields. Or heck, give us more shields and commit to the idea we should be stacking them.

I'd even take some supportive illusion spells, give us our own fear spell, and some party bolstering abilities so groups have a NEED for sorcs. something, anything.... Can we at least have 1 spammable class ability?

bardx86

Put the shields back to were they where. When i started playing this game i couldn't believe they were only 18-20 sec. EQ had shield stacking and they lasted like 2 min and it wasn't an issue. Making someone try and refresh 2 shields in 6 sec is asinine game play. What most don't understand is the shield bar is the basically the health bar to a Mag sorc, the red health bar means very little. The shield bar needs to be at full at all times much like other classes health bar. If in PVP you are getting to my health bar I'm playing wrong. Now I have to cast 2 spells every 6 secs the entire time I play? Whats fun about that? Stupid!

Grao

Alright, here goes my analyses of the class as it is now with the release of DB:

On Pets

While DB attempted to fix some of the issues with pet builds, it wasn't all that successive. If reports are correct, pets are actually dying more easily even against normal mobs; that maybe due to the fact mobs now scale differently, from CPs and not veteran levels, and pets are not having their health and resistance scaled with CPs. That is a guess though and further testing is required to be certain.
Meanwhile, the patch was successful in making pets resist longer in boss encounters. Limiting the damage they can take from a single attack to 45% of their max health was an improvement. That coupled to the damage reduction from AoEs and the fact pets now have armor and not only spell resist, should help them stay alive, though again, more testing is needed.
A huge issue with pets is their damage though. Their 'basic attack' scales solely from the summoner's max magicka and it is not at all affected by your CP allocation or Sorcerer Passives. That needs to be changed for pet builds to ever be viable. As it stands, the pet's active is affected by CPs, meaning the AoE pet, the healer pet and maybe the tank pet have their uses, unfortunately the main DPS pet is left doing very low damage as its active simply increases the damage done by its auto attack and none of it is affected by CP allocation.

On a spammable ability

Though I understand @Wrobel desire to keep each class unique in their play style, I can't support the decision to keep Magicka Sorcerers so heavily tied to a destruction staff.

There are different ways this problem could be solved though, for instance, Dark Exchange and its morphs could be turned into an ability that deals damage and regains either magicka or stamina depending on the morph. This skills could be made Melee for Magicka users and ranged for stamina users, which would create some interesting build diversity. Such skill would also aid with the class's survivability as dealing damage with a Dark Magic skill procs Blood Magic healing the caster for 8% of their max health.

Another alternative and an interesting one as well, would be to alter Crystal Fragment's proc mechanics. Instead of giving the spell a fixed chance of 35%, maybe Crystal Fragments could proc on Critical Strikes. Because in PvE we stack crit and use as many DoTs as possible, we'd be able to actively spam crystal fragments. Of course that would require the skill's base damage to be adjusted, alas, it would be an interesting change and certainly would be a unique skill.

Couple together, those changes plus a change to Crystal Blast into a stamina morph that applied debuffs to the target could greatly increase sorcerer DPS and build flexibility.

On Utility

Currently our Utility is providing Minor Prophecy to the raid and in some cases Minor Intellect, in the case of those still slotting Empowered Ward. Those two buffs may be sufficient, but our Ultimates are definitely lacking when compared to the Utility ultimates from other classes.
The Heals provided by Negate need further adjustment to make it into a great Utility Ult and the buff provided by the synergy of Storm Atronach needs to give Major Berserk not only to the synergizer, but to the summoner of the pet as well.

On Bound Armor and Morphs

I don't understand what is going on with this ability. Its benefits are passives other classes get without needing to have anything slotted and yet for sorcerers it is a toggle, for me it makes no sense. Even worse, while the pets were given actives, leading us to believe Zenimax understands toggles need an extra layer to justify having them double slottted, Bound Armor and Morphs were not changed. It baffles me.

The Magicka increase from Bound Aegis should be traded with the Passive Master Summoner's health bonus and both Aegis and Armaments should be given actives, the first some skill that provided some benefit for tanking, the second some benefit to DPSing.

There... I think those would suffice and provide build diversity. The sorcerer kit is not entirely bad, it is simply not working as intended and it is lacking skills that free us to try different builds. The nerfs to shields and Surge were bad, but having spammables in the Dark Magic tree would definitely improve on our survivability. Having pets scale properly from Cps would help their survivability and damage. And Finally, having Bound Armor's morphs have an active component would make so slotting this skill was less disappointing and boring.

The Matriarch's heal is actually pretty good, if the pet would stay alive. The same can be said for the heal provided by the Clannfear and the damamge from the AoE pet.

Negate is an interesting Ultimate and so are the Atronachs, they need improving though...

catalyst10e

Grao wrote: »

Though I understand @Wrobel desire to keep each class unique in their play style, I can't support the decision to keep Magicka Sorcerers so heavily tied to a destruction staff.

There are different ways this problem could be solved though, for instance, Dark Exchange and its morphs could be turned into an ability that deals damage and regains either magicka or stamina depending on the morph. This skills could be made Melee for Magicka users and ranged for stamina users, which would create some interesting build diversity. Such skill would also aid with the class's survivability as dealing damage with a Dark Magic skill procs Blood Magic healing the caster for 8% of their max health.

Another alternative and an interesting one as well, would be to alter Crystal Fragment's proc mechanics. Instead of giving the spell a fixed chance of 35%, maybe Crystal Fragments could proc on Critical Strikes. Because in PvE we stack crit and use as many DoTs as possible, we'd be able to actively spam crystal fragments. Of course that would require the skill's base damage to be adjusted, alas, it would be an interesting change and certainly would be a unique skill.

Couple together, those changes plus a change to Crystal Blast into a stamina morph that applied debuffs to the target could greatly increase sorcerer DPS and build flexibility.

I agree with most of what you said, just this part here I wanted to discuss. If I'm understanding correctly you were suggesting Melee range for a magica users and ranged for stamina, I'd be all for a skill that could work like a siphon that we could spam, but the issue there would be, magicka users need to do everything from range and most all of the stamina abilities require they be within melee range. It wouldnt solve the issue of needing a spammable, it would just mean getting one no one would want to use.

On the crystal frag procing off crits, this would absolutely kill us in PVP. with so much crit resistances, and more players using shields which negate critical hits, we would nearly never be able to pop off one of our major damage dealing spells. I'd rather lose the hard CC and make it an instant cast, with the proc only effecting the damage and magica cost reduction. (But that's me)

Grao

catalyst10e wrote: »

Grao wrote: »

Though I understand @Wrobel desire to keep each class unique in their play style, I can't support the decision to keep Magicka Sorcerers so heavily tied to a destruction staff.

There are different ways this problem could be solved though, for instance, Dark Exchange and its morphs could be turned into an ability that deals damage and regains either magicka or stamina depending on the morph. This skills could be made Melee for Magicka users and ranged for stamina users, which would create some interesting build diversity. Such skill would also aid with the class's survivability as dealing damage with a Dark Magic skill procs Blood Magic healing the caster for 8% of their max health.

Another alternative and an interesting one as well, would be to alter Crystal Fragment's proc mechanics. Instead of giving the spell a fixed chance of 35%, maybe Crystal Fragments could proc on Critical Strikes. Because in PvE we stack crit and use as many DoTs as possible, we'd be able to actively spam crystal fragments. Of course that would require the skill's base damage to be adjusted, alas, it would be an interesting change and certainly would be a unique skill.

Couple together, those changes plus a change to Crystal Blast into a stamina morph that applied debuffs to the target could greatly increase sorcerer DPS and build flexibility.

I agree with most of what you said, just this part here I wanted to discuss. If I'm understanding correctly you were suggesting Melee range for a magica users and ranged for stamina, I'd be all for a skill that could work like a siphon that we could spam, but the issue there would be, magicka users need to do everything from range and most all of the stamina abilities require they be within melee range. It wouldnt solve the issue of needing a spammable, it would just mean getting one no one would want to use.

On the crystal frag procing off crits, this would absolutely kill us in PVP. with so much crit resistances, and more players using shields which negate critical hits, we would nearly never be able to pop off one of our major damage dealing spells. I'd rather lose the hard CC and make it an instant cast, with the proc only effecting the damage and magica cost reduction. (But that's me)

Currently Magicka sorcerers have no alternative but to be ranged casters, or at least no benefits for being in Melee range. If we had a spammable that was melee though, it would pair nicely with dual wield as our main weapon, not ot mention it would make Boundless Storm a far more useful DoT. It would also make it easier to cast Liquid Lightning and Elemental Blockade...

At the same time, Stamina sorcerers have a good number of melee range spammables they can choose from the different weapons. There aren't that many ranged alternatives though, specially considering how weak bow skills are. I thought having a good ranged spammable would open different possibilities for stamina sorcerers.

You are right about Crystal Fragments though, it was simply an idea that popped in my head and I didn't take enough time to consider how the change would work. So ignore that alternative, lets stick with the replacement for Dark Exchange... It was always my original proposition either way.

ParaNostram

I've been trying to come up with a viable sorc build for hours, I just can't come up with anything that everything else can simply do better. I tried coming up with a dark magic tank build, nothing. What about a pet build? Well, this thread shows how useless those are. Simply put, we're the least at everything and can expect to be kicked out of a group just for being a sorc. My main is dead. The character I've played through every buff and nerf since launch is useless now. I'm of the philosophy that you play what you love through the buffs and the nerfs but even I can't justify this philosophy in the face of the worst nerf I've ever seen in an MMO.

Please ZOS... Give us something!

STEVIL

Rune prison is unusable with lightning form.

But isn't rune cage fine with lightning storm/hurricane? IIRC it doesn't mind DOTs.

With the way crit surge is it even broke stam Sorcerers.

have to reserve judgement on this. its definitely less than the mass heal free surge used to be but the non-crit-heal tooltip for my newly minted stamsorc is 2700 per sec. Add in only 30% crit chance and thats like 3.1k per second and with all the DOts flying, its a lock for always procing. Add in bloodthirst which also gives you spam-attack-healing and an occasional dark magic proc not to mention other options to layer in and I am looking at a pretty constant healing from multiple sources. toss in actual mitigation and not dead yet seems to be the case.

Finally

Pets still do too little damage, die too quickly and take a while to cast, they are also toggles which take up 4 slots if you choose to use both. Bound armor, which would work much better as a passive, is also a toggle - taking up two more spaces.

I recommend restating this as six and three slots because you likely want them on the extra overload bar too. After sorcs slot these three on all three bars, they only have SIXslots left for normal non-ult skills. thats an impossible to overcome deficit when other classes after slotting three different skills have SEVEN. that six-seven gap is basically insta-death in all likelihood.

I agree in part on pets. have always said the pets damage isn't sufficient but also think it misses the point. Damage wont ever be sufficient for pets BC its not gonna be possible to micromanage three different attackers - IMO YMMV. So thats why i prefer an approach that lets pets do damage in a meh whatever way (think of them as a meh unpredictable DOT) but suggest giving them more useful key0click abilities or even auto-buffs for groups. basically enough to make them unwise to ignore.

Had they done something like give the tough clanfear maybe three of the following five things: a strong key-click heal based on health (so good for either flavor sorc), better defenses, tougher HP and even some special rules for AOE mitigation and one shots... had they done these, using the clanfear at least might be viable. Not expecting they would do all of these, what, five things but if only they would consider two, maybe three of them to enable the clanfear to be even a consideration.

interesting post though.

Shunravi

A loooooong time ago I pissed off all the forum sorcs by insisting that ZOS in their 'infinite wisdom' were trying to design the class around the 'classic' tes sorcerer, that being a conjuring mage and weapon master. It's an idea they should have abandoned years ago when this exact same complaint was given. Seems like they are sticking with it for some stupid reason.


At least all those complaints got overload and lightning splash buffed..... Hurrah.

Lord_Wrath

I don't like relying on shields either, i agree bound armor should be a passive, and it should be much higher armor value. Removing the cast time from dark deal would came in hand too.

SanSan

It's funny that they're trying to make you use summon skills when they suck.
Change bars? Sorry, summons go bye bye unless you waste 2 more slots on that bar -_-
Overload you say? Sorry nope, they get unsummoned again, waste 2 more slots so they don't get removed.
Genius .....*slow clap*
Only reason why i'm not playing Sorc. I love the pets and being able to control them to attack but i am not wasting bars...plus the summon ulti doesn't even move! It's handicapped.

Vaoh

It's just.... sad. I can't even imagine how discouraged players who don't have high CP (no stacking much into Bastion) feel. Those who play casually and picked Sorcerer but won't really level another character. They just had their main form of survivability (Surge and Conjured Ward) not just messed up, but made unfun as well.

The class needs a MAJOR overhaul, both passively and actively. I will continue to wonder if removing Bastion would've fixed the shieldstacking "problem".

Now my Stam DK and Stam Temp (along with Stam NB and Mag Temp) are clearly better. I don't like the feeling that one class is noticeably neglected and made worse than the other three. Whether it is my main or not, this is bad for the game.

My Magicka Sorc has done some amazing things before DB:
• Soloed Ra Kotu, Lightning Storm Atronach
• Soloed all soloable Vet dungeons numerous times
• Soloed all IC bosses and Barathrum Centrata numerous times
• Flawless Conqueror, without Overload and rocking low DPS to deal with all bosses and not just burn ASAP (1hr 35min run time!)
• Massive amount of vMA runs
• 1vXed to Centurion Grade 2
• Finally fulfilled the dream of being an Ice Mage by wearing 5x Divines Winterborn and slaughtering people still in PvP
• Soloed Normal Maw of Lorkhaj up to the 5 mobs in front of the first boss door

When my Stam DK or Stam Templar is boosted to max level, all of these accomplishments will be far easier and faster to achieve than it ever was on my TG Magicka Sorc. This isn't proper class balance......

Tyrion87

Amen.

wisej12

I feel the exact same way. I've spent hundreds of hours on my sorc. Doing math, testing builds, practicing my skills... So much love and sweat went into that sorc. And now with DB, I've tried everything. I swear I've tried every single Magicka Sorc build there is, and nothing works. I have the best gear in the game, and I used to always defeat top-tier players on the leaderboards, but now enemies can essentially 2-shot me and I have no time DPS. Everyone's damage went up, but shields weren't strengthened. Even WHEN I spam shields, enemies can burn right through them now. And on the rare occasion that the enemy doesn't have enough damage to do that, I get 3 seconds of proper DPSing until I have to recast them, or I get 2-shotted when the shields go down. Not to mention, that entire 3 seconds of DPSing is completely negated by a dodge roll or two, since dodge rolls are so effective against projectiles. The Twilight Matriarch is okay, but I hate playing with pets.It's not fun for me. I also hate being forced to use Destro staff, since they took away trapping webs. I've created a level 15 Nightblade, and I already feel stronger in PVP (battle-leveled) than my endgame Sorc did. It's so disheartening. I feel scammed, cheated.

bardx86

wisej12 wrote: »

I feel the exact same way. I've spent hundreds of hours on my sorc. Doing math, testing builds, practicing my skills... So much love and sweat went into that sorc. And now with DB, I've tried everything. I swear I've tried every single Magicka Sorc build there is, and nothing works. I have the best gear in the game, and I used to always defeat top-tier players on the leaderboards, but now enemies can essentially 2-shot me and I have no time DPS. Everyone's damage went up, but shields weren't strengthened. Even WHEN I spam shields, enemies can burn right through them now. And on the rare occasion that the enemy doesn't have enough damage to do that, I get 3 seconds of proper DPSing until I have to recast them, or I get 2-shotted when the shields go down. Not to mention, that entire 3 seconds of DPSing is completely negated by a dodge roll or two, since dodge rolls are so effective against projectiles. The Twilight Matriarch is okay, but I hate playing with pets.It's not fun for me. I also hate being forced to use Destro staff, since they took away trapping webs. I've created a level 15 Nightblade, and I already feel stronger in PVP (battle-leveled) than my endgame Sorc did. It's so disheartening. I feel scammed, cheated.

well said

FriedEggSandwich

#makestreakgreatagain

Grao

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

#makestreakgreatagain

# resurrectthesorcerers

DHale

Great OP could not have written it better myself. I am in the process of converting my sorc to my crafter. It's not that I can't play that way in this new meta it's that I won't play. Hit two abilities reapply shield hit two abilities reapply shield and repeat repeat repeat repeats it's not remotely fun. I have to sit in TS every night listening to them *** about replying shields, getting rekt and then I have to Rez them constantly. I thought wow I am so glad I leveled multiple toons. All the time spent reapplying shields is not time on target. Sustained dps has never been a sorc strength now it's worse. Sure some ppl with no options and refuse to level another toon or are stubborn or die hards will adapt and/or trudge along. I won't be one. I stopped playing my magic Templar for 8 months until they were fixed. Hopefully, they will make sorcs better again. For those of you who will say learn to play or shield stacker don't bother I don't care. On every Stam class I play which is 6 I never had any problems getting through a Sorcs shields. Not even an average player needs shattering blows or shield breaker. It's very easy to run Sorcs out of Stam. The number of Sorcs that are actually good on PC NA I can count on one hand literally. The rest are just AP in training.

Grao

DHale wrote: »

Great OP could not have written it better myself. I am in the process of converting my sorc to my crafter. It's not that I can't play that way in this new meta it's that I won't play. Hit two abilities reapply shield hit two abilities reapply shield and repeat repeat repeat repeats it's not remotely fun. I have to sit in TS every night listening to them *** about replying shields, getting rekt and then I have to Rez them constantly. I thought wow I am so glad I leveled multiple toons. All the time spent reapplying shields is not time on target. Sustained dps has never been a sorc strength now it's worse. Sure some ppl with no options and refuse to level another toon or are stubborn or die hards will adapt and/or trudge along. I won't be one. I stopped playing my magic Templar for 8 months until they were fixed. Hopefully, they will make sorcs better again. For those of you who will say learn to play or shield stacker don't bother I don't care. On every Stam class I play which is 6 I never had any problems getting through a Sorcs shields. Not even an average player needs shattering blows or shield breaker. It's very easy to run Sorcs out of Stam. The number of Sorcs that are actually good on PC NA I can count on one hand literally. The rest are just AP in training.

Agreed... I am jumping on the DK bandwagon... I mean, when they are not the best Magicka DPS they end up the best Stamina DPS and even if ZOS goes completely nuts and nerfs their two DPS specs to the ground, DKs will still be the best tanks... So many build choices XD

Meanwhile what sorcerers can do better than other classes? -insert deafening silence-

Father_X_Zombie

via Imgflip Meme Generator

Grao

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

via Imgflip Meme Generator

Welcome to the club brigadier Avidius. I see the Dark Brotherhood got to you to... A great loss to the Daggerfall Covenant.

Father_X_Zombie

Grao wrote: »

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

via Imgflip Meme Generator

Welcome to the club brigadier Avidius. I see the Dark Brotherhood got to you to... A great loss to the Daggerfall Covenant.

The EP DKs will overwhelm us........

Grao

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

Grao wrote: »

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

via Imgflip Meme Generator

Welcome to the club brigadier Avidius. I see the Dark Brotherhood got to you to... A great loss to the Daggerfall Covenant.

The EP DKs will overwhelm us........

I thought Stamina Nightblades were the thing in PvP this days... DKs are great at this too? Damn, is there anything in this game DKs can't do better than everyone else? >.>

Father_X_Zombie

Grao wrote: »

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

Grao wrote: »

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

via Imgflip Meme Generator

Welcome to the club brigadier Avidius. I see the Dark Brotherhood got to you to... A great loss to the Daggerfall Covenant.

The EP DKs will overwhelm us........

I thought Stamina Nightblades were the thing in PvP this days... DKs are great at this too? Damn, is there anything in this game DKs can't do better than everyone else? >.>

stam nbs are going to be flavor of the month, but there will be alot of stam dks too

Father_X_Zombie

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

Grao wrote: »

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

Grao wrote: »

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

via Imgflip Meme Generator

Welcome to the club brigadier Avidius. I see the Dark Brotherhood got to you to... A great loss to the Daggerfall Covenant.

The EP DKs will overwhelm us........

I thought Stamina Nightblades were the thing in PvP this days... DKs are great at this too? Damn, is there anything in this game DKs can't do better than everyone else? >.>

stam nbs are going to be flavor of the month, but there will be alot of stam dks too

KundaliniHero

There was never "a problem" with shield stacking - just like there was never a problem with stealth - if the other two classes were enhanced to be more competitive against these two styles of play we would have a damn fun game on our hands. Instead we have a developer that doesn't really play their own game, doesnt have competent testers (if any) and is completely out of touch with item rarity, balance and synergy. Instead they are playing "mommy" to a bunch of whining [snip] on the forums and absolutely committed to dumbing the game down until it finally recaptures its reputation as one of the shittiest MMO's on the market.

NordSwordnBoard

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

via Imgflip Meme Generator

You can always rest on your laurels from the Hoth system...

Father_X_Zombie

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

via Imgflip Meme Generator

You can always rest on your laurels from the Hoth system...

Wut?

Miss_Morphine

Father_X_Zombie wrote: »

The EP DKs will overwhelm us........

I will be one of them

Vaoh

Grao wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

#makestreakgreatagain

# resurrectthesorcerers

I agree with you.

But I'll think twice before wasting Grand Soul Gems now..... cost vs. benefit....