Critical Surge is underpowered

Jar_Ek

@ZOS_GinaBruno @Wrobel

Critical Surge is underpowered compared to Power Surge and indeed the unmorphed Surge as the difference in healing it provides is under 10%. 10% on a flat 3k heal is 300 hps. So an extra 300hps or a major buff. This is not exactly an even trade.
Now, although I would like more healing from critical surge, I suspect that you would be unwilling to provide more but critical surge ought to have something to warrant it's usage. My suggestion would be have all variants heal for the present critical surge values and for critical surge to get weapon critical buff (replacing the weapon critical buff that was lost when soft caps went).

DRXHarbinger

Have you actually used it? It's made no difference at all. I do VMA just fine with it. Benefit now it's the proc is always up and you don't have to rely on frags or overload to full health. 1s is nothing.

RoyJade

He speaks about the stamina morph, who heal for nearby the same amount without any other benefices.
Crit surge indeed need a boost. It need to scale with the number of enemies (remember, stamsorc don't have shield in order to mitigate incoming damage while being healed by surge), and/or it need an another buff (major crit, minor berserk, or perhaps just a flat heal during the effect or for X second after a crit).

DRXHarbinger

RoyJade wrote: »

He speaks about the stamina morph, who heal for nearby the same amount without any other benefices.
Crit surge indeed need a boost. It need to scale with the number of enemies (remember, stamsorc don't have shield in order to mitigate incoming damage while being healed by surge), and/or it need an another buff (major crit, minor berserk, or perhaps just a flat heal during the effect or for X second after a crit).

No its a bigger hot than rally gives you. It can easily be back barred as pretty much every sorc has it anyway. Making it so it heals per enemy hit again will just be plain OP. Steel tornado for invicibillity mode, brawler the same, the list goes on.

Even on mag Sorc I seldom need my shields just running this.

Also it stacks with blessed as well, so a mere 10 points in there makes it far better.

Plus I'm pretty certain the heal from surge crits roo, I've noticed 4k heals from surge.

Jar_Ek

@DRXHarbinger lol yes I use it, well technically I don't I guess as I currently use Power Surge on a stamina sorcerer because the extra heals from critical surge are not worth it compared to a mjor buff... even when that major buff only actually affects my least used skills/ults.

Jar_Ek

@DRXHarbinger I am also not complaining about Surge as a whole, just the relative impact of selecting critical surge morph over power surge. The critical surge morph adds almost nothing compared to the unmorphed version and hence it could do with a buff - I also noted that such a buff would not need to be heal related.

Dracane

Crit surge is good compared to power surge. Power surge is the true underpowered one.
Both need juicy buffs though.

Jar_Ek

@Dracane Hmm not sure I agree with you. Power Surge adds a major buff compared to a very minor hps increase for Critical Surge. So strictly speaking it is a better morph. The problem is that other skills are actually better for magicka builds and provide the same buff as Power Surge... but that doesn't make Critical Surge actually better than Power Surge.

Dracane

Jar_Ek wrote: »

@Dracane Hmm not sure I agree with you. Power Surge adds a major buff compared to a very minor hps increase for Critical Surge. So strictly speaking it is a better morph. The problem is that other skills are actually better for magicka builds and provide the same buff as Power Surge... but that doesn't make Critical Surge actually better than Power Surge.

Nobody needs the major brutality buff on power surge.
There is no point in taking power surge over crit surge, if it wouldn't grant the major sorcery buff. Otherwise, everyone would go with crit surge obviously

DRXHarbinger

Dracane wrote: »

Jar_Ek wrote: »

@Dracane Hmm not sure I agree with you. Power Surge adds a major buff compared to a very minor hps increase for Critical Surge. So strictly speaking it is a better morph. The problem is that other skills are actually better for magicka builds and provide the same buff as Power Surge... but that doesn't make Critical Surge actually better than Power Surge.

Nobody needs the major brutality buff on power surge.
There is no point in taking power surge over crit surge, if it wouldn't grant the major sorcery buff. Otherwise, everyone would go with crit surge obviously

Tbf they should have split them both completely. One should be a spell boost and something, like gain magika on crit and the other weapon power and health.

Too many lazy skills out there offering both when hybrids just don't work in this game.

Jar_Ek

Now here we all agree. Power Surge doesn't need the brutality buff and both morphs could do with being better focused - one magicka focused and one stamina / general use focused.

Mettaricana

Crit surge needs that heal cooldown removed or reduced to half a sec

Dracane

I always said, that Power surge should deal extra shock damage on your attacks and crit surge physical damage on your attacks.

I mean, why would anyone choose surge over entropy ? Entropy is a bigger damage boost.

CasNation

Jar_Ek wrote: »

Now here we all agree. Power Surge doesn't need the brutality buff and both morphs could do with being better focused - one magicka focused and one stamina / general use focused.

I read the title and was about to disagree with you. Then I read the post, and I agree with you. While I think the ability is fine now in the grand scheme of things, I feel that both morphs lack focus, as you say.

The only ability that is comparable to Surge I think is the DK ability Molten Weapons. The base morph provides major Sorcery, one morph provides both, and the other just one plus buffs your heavy attacks. At a glance, this ability seems to have the same problem. However, this buff applies to the entire group, so having both weapon and spell damage buffs is useful. The morph choice is about whether you want a better group benefit, or self benefit.

I wish that Surge offered equally compelling morph choices.

ToRelax

Mettaricana wrote: »

Crit surge needs that heal cooldown removed or reduced to half a sec

And scale with damage dealt again. For tanks, investing in max magicka/stamina is better than crit chance anyway.

Ghost-Shot

Still better than Dragon's Blood

Mettaricana

ToRelax wrote: »

Mettaricana wrote: »

Crit surge needs that heal cooldown removed or reduced to half a sec

And scale with damage dealt again. For tanks, investing in max magicka/stamina is better than crit chance anyway.

Part of me agrees with you but as it stands I'm getting more beneficial gains from the set heal as it triggers on dots so when my hurricane or caltrops tick crits for 2k I'm getting healed for 3k+ if it was 60% of dmg done its be like 1100-1200 per tick

ADarklore

Strange because when combined with Hurricane, Critical Surge works just fine for me.

Jar_Ek

Maybe we are getting off topic or misunderstanding the OP slightly.

Critical Surge is an underpowered morph as the additional healing it provides over the base ability is very low. In addition both morphs lack a level of focus (ie Power Surge does not really benefit from a Brutality buff in the current meta, and Critical Surge does not provide much benefit over the base ability.

The basic ability Surge works fine within it's design parameters - healing akin to a HoT through repeated criticals best triggered with one or more DoTs, whilst providing the major Brutality buff. Basically a form of Momentum that requires criticals to work.

The topic is not whether surge works but whether the morphs (and Critical surge especially) are relatively underpowered.

ToRelax

Mettaricana wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

Mettaricana wrote: »

Crit surge needs that heal cooldown removed or reduced to half a sec

And scale with damage dealt again. For tanks, investing in max magicka/stamina is better than crit chance anyway.

Part of me agrees with you but as it stands I'm getting more beneficial gains from the set heal as it triggers on dots so when my hurricane or caltrops tick crits for 2k I'm getting healed for 3k+ if it was 60% of dmg done its be like 1100-1200 per tick

Well they only ever not worked because ZOS listened to the players saying that using DoTs would actually reduce their hps as it activated the cooldown constantly. So now that DoTs are currently working with it, removing the cooldown wouldn't change that.

Jar_Ek wrote: »

Maybe we are getting off topic or misunderstanding the OP slightly.

Critical Surge is an underpowered morph as the additional healing it provides over the base ability is very low. In addition both morphs lack a level of focus (ie Power Surge does not really benefit from a Brutality buff in the current meta, and Critical Surge does not provide much benefit over the base ability.

The basic ability Surge works fine within it's design parameters - healing akin to a HoT through repeated criticals best triggered with one or more DoTs, whilst providing the major Brutality buff. Basically a form of Momentum that requires criticals to work.

The topic is not whether surge works but whether the morphs (and Critical surge especially) are relatively underpowered.

I know, and it's a stupid point as said before. Critical Surge is more powerful than Power Surge, not less, except for hybrids. What is a magicka build to do with a weapon damage buff?
Power Surge gives it's users a damage buff and some healing, Critical Surge gives it's users a damage buff and some more healing. Such stupid whining OP, complain about what is wrong with your ability, not what makes it only so slightly better than the other morph.

Jar_Ek

@ToRelax lol. I see your point, but I was rather thinking of it in terms of differentiation and relative impact. I would prefer that both morphs were equally beneficial and different tbh - one for stamina and one for magicka - but that's not the way zos do it. Look at various stamina morphs of magicka skills - quite a few simply replicate the base ability and let it be stamina with no enhancement, whilst the magicka morph is enhanced. This just happens to be the reverse situation.

Instead of arguing though, I'll ask a question. If critical surge healed 25% (numbers made up for example purposes) more than Power Surge which would a magicka build choose? If the answer is it Critical Surge or a tough decision then the morphs are nominally balanced.

Now whether Surge should default to Brutality as a base ability, that is an entirely different question....

If I was designing the skill I would only provide the brutality or sorcery buff on morph, but would have a slightly improved base heal or provide a minor force effect in the base ability. That way they would be equally viable but focused. Mind you I would go through all morphs and check that they were not just a resource swapped version of the base ability vs an enhanced version of the base ability.

ToRelax

Jar_Ek wrote: »

@ToRelax lol. I see your point, but I was rather thinking of it in terms of differentiation and relative impact. I would prefer that both morphs were equally beneficial and different tbh - one for stamina and one for magicka - but that's not the way zos do it. Look at various stamina morphs of magicka skills - quite a few simply replicate the base ability and let it be stamina with no enhancement, whilst the magicka morph is enhanced. This just happens to be the reverse situation.

Instead of arguing though, I'll ask a question. If critical surge healed 25% (numbers made up for example purposes) more than Power Surge which would a magicka build choose? If the answer is it Critical Surge or a tough decision then the morphs are nominally balanced.

Now whether Surge should default to Brutality as a base ability, that is an entirely different question....

If I was designing the skill I would only provide the brutality or sorcery buff on morph, but would have a slightly improved base heal or provide a minor force effect in the base ability. That way they would be equally viable but focused. Mind you I would go through all morphs and check that they were not just a resource swapped version of the base ability vs an enhanced version of the base ability.

A magicka build will take Power Surge every time, simply because the healing is crap now. Those 25% can't be maximized to something that warrants giving up the spell damage buff, and neither to the justify a skill slot for another source of major sorcery.

Jar_Ek

@ToRelax True unless you use an altetnative means of getting major sorcery and then you don't slot Surge at all.

I guess my point is that a 10% hps increase on the ticks of a capped heal, critical dependent buff is a bit, well, lame and zos ought to be able to do better... for both stamina and magicka.

ADarklore

They changed this when they added Hurricane to the line-up, Critical Surge really works well when combined with Hurricane but not 'as well' without it. With Hurricane being a DOT, I can go into a Public Dungeon, activate Critical Surge and Hurricane and just hold block and Hurricane mows them down while Critical Surge keeps healing any damage I take. It works even better when combined Hurricane, Critical Surge AND Steel Tornado. But if you're trying to use Critical Surge with just Steel Tornado, then I expect it could be less useful as it was before... but ZOS wants Stamina Sorcs to use Hurricane so they made Critical Surge more effective with it than without. Those who don't want to use Hurricane are, well, SOL.

Jar_Ek

@Darklore Actually it works very well with dot stacking as a tanky build. The base ability and utility of surge is not in question but the relative merits of the morphs and their focus. In essence critical surge does not perform much better than surge as the increased healing it provides is minimal and as a morphed ability it is therefore underpowered. Not that surge as an ability is lacking effectiveness.

SRIBES

Critical surge is pretty nice for PvE but really gross for PvP. I feel like it shouldn't be effected by battle spirit tbh. Knowing ZOS they don't like that idea, so reducing the cooldown would also work.

Targuris

3k hps with crit surge in pve seems pretty decent to me

Jar_Ek

I am not saying 3k hps (if it procs every second, which is build dependent) isn't nice. I am saying that as a morph that supposedly enhances the base ability a 0.3k increase is a bit weak.

Autolycus

My experiences thus far have evidenced the concept that Crit Surge is incredibly valuable in a pve setting. As for pvp, it varies from encounter to encounter.

A stam sorc in vMA right now with DW and crit surge is proving to be one of the most effective and simplest ways to clear, with some of the top scores too, even compared to that of a magblade.

In pve, we tend to spec into high crit builds. When done properly, high crit virtually guarantees a 3k heal every second. Between Flurry, Twin Slashes, Trap Beast, Volley, Hurricane, and Poison Injection with ~90% crit chance means that there will rarely, if ever, be a second that goes by without that heal proc. Imho and personal experience since DB launch, it's one of the most reliable heals in the game today.

Jar_Ek

@Autolycus I don't actually disagree, my point is that the impact of morphing surge is virtually non existent.

Grao

Sorcerers have several problems but 'some classes are just better than others', according to @Wrobel . Thus why we get no class rebalance at all with this new update.

But hey, you get yet more changes to Bound Toggle's effect and your pets are now smart enough to stand one at your right, the other at your left. Oh, and they are now less obtrusive to your life of crimes, standing further away when you are stealling crap. Isn't that great?