PTS Feedback Thread for Sorcerer Balance Improvements

Icarus42

please

Icarus42

.

Betheny

Uhh, the problems with sorcs go way beyond Velocious nerfage...bet you anything this is a distraction to stop us talking about all the other real problems sorcs have.

Icarus42

you are correct, I have been playing since beta and have only maned 7 sorcerer skills. Mage skill line needs to lose equilibrium and replace it with a spammable damage ability

Betheny

It's not just that...I mean here they are telling us they want to reduce overall damage, yet haven't come up with a way to improve survivability in the sorcerer.

If sorc damage goes down then sorc survivability must go up. Yet in this balance patch - nothing.

To this end fix shield length and fix light armour passives. And then start work on the other things we've brought up.

psychotic13

Changed a few of the morphs last night, one was trying daedric prey over velocious curse in pvp, I like it. im a DW sorc and had no problem bursting people down with it, it's the same as always, timing the frag with the curse. After testing it for several hours in duels it's fair to say I don't care if they change velocious curse, though it would make more sense to have the echo attached to daedric prey, that way every cast the pets have increased damage for 12 seconds

Masty_Spy

Every sorc on a planet could tell you, that WE are very hard class to master. If u want to win duels in PVP against other classes and experienced players - you have to push a lot more buttons than NB for example.

We know its hard, but also - ITS CHALLENGING. And now we have a massive Curse NERF. MASSIVE. Its a core sorc ability like frags and and shields. Its a disaster.

If u want to siplify this ability - just give us 3.5-4 sec UNMORFED and make new morph for pvp and pve.

Also waiting for 10 sec shields.

Vogtard

As many people before me, I think changing the v.curse is ridiculous.
It would only make sense to leave v.curse as it is, and maybe tweak the prey morph so that it becomes a more attractive alternative. They prey morph with the secondary explosion could even do more dps and therefore be more suitable for raw dps pve players focusing on a single boss, while the 3.5 v.curse would be the choice of people who prefer more control.

Personally, I love the 3.5 v.curse for both pve and pvp because:

PVE: I hate rotations, they are boring. That is why I like the magsorc. I have to time aoe dots, time v.curses, and pay attention to c.frag procs and emergency wards. If you want to make me cast the curse every 12 sec, it becomes a tedious pulse spam fest. As for the aforementioned scrolling elders with low reaction times, you should perhaps be more worried about them falling asleep.. pfff.

PVP: Considering that magsorcs lack a spammable class skill, the 3.5s v.curse was the second best thing. Even that 3.5s delay is somewhat interesting for a burst skill, it provides a decent balance between tactic regarding setting up the burst, and the burst itself. Time flies faster in pvp, and 6/12 seconds becomes too long for single target damaging skills when fighting against many choatic targets, switched on the fly. On the other hand, a 6s ward is a bit too short, but this is a self defence skill, so different story.


Moreover, I am shocked (almost disintegrating) that you didn't touch other sorc issues such as:
- streak cooldown vs other gap closers spammability
- ward stacking and duration
- dark deal
- active bound armor/aegis (like inner light)
as well as other issues directly related to sorcs:
- light armor!
- mist form
- Cyrodiil overall performance

Instead, you worked super hard on some houses <vomit on the floor> and improved pets <vomit on the walls>.
I pledge to never ever use pets no matter how powerful they are!
If I wanted to play something like the Sims Online, I would play the Sims Online. As much as I understand that there are people who care about it, I am getting a bit tired of this approach. A good game is "easy to learn, difficult to master" because they cover the whole spectrum of players. I have an impression that you focus too much on the former part, forgetting that the objectively best games (WoW, Lineage2, Quake3, UT, Starcraft) are the best due to the latter part. I was really hoping for some promised love for pvp in this update.

Note that I wouldn't write this if I didn't care about this game. I think it has the potential to be great! The basic content is fine, the idea of Cyrodiil is great. I enjoy running dungeons, but I would also love to enjoy pvp. It just needs some tweaks in the right direction.

Not to be too critical, there are also some nice changes, especially regarding the proc set nerf (small step, but better than notihng), destro staff love vs stam adjustments. Can't wait till PTS 2 and 3!

Juhasow

Haunting curse in PvE is improvement but in PvP it's a nerf. Cant we get daedric prey morph changed into hautning and velocious untouched ? There could be also passive in daedric summoning that makes pets hitting enemies affetced by daedric summoning abilites 55% more (to compensate daedric prey change) , so we would have hautning curse for PvE , velocious curse for PvP and pet builds could use both depends of situation.

lucky_Sage

they should make pets scale of thurmaturge and also make you pets only attack the enemy with deadric prey only them

Izaki

WTB bound aegis/armaments active ability to remove snares and immobilizes.

Still double slotting it in PvE and PvP cause 8% max mag OP.

MidknightWolf

This is purely my opinion here. I feel that the Sorcerer is a complete class that is fun to play and as it is right now on live, should not be touched at all.

Instead of nerfing the sorcerer instead, we should really be focusing on all of the other classes and bring them up to the level the sorc class is at right now as well as give the sorc pets more damage, resist, and life to make them actually usable besides their activated abilities.

Again, the sorcerer class is a complete success in my opinion as is and should not be nerfed in any way. All of the other classes just need to be worked up a bit to come in line with it. This would make each class more fun to play and much more balanced.

DragonBound

sirtadzio wrote: »

Can we verify that as of right now sorc pets are soaking up 6 target raid buffs? I was under the impression they did, but someone in the NightBlade post, in regards to shades, stated that he has tested and confirmed that while they can receive the buffs, they are last priority and only receive them if there aren't enough actual player targets available/eligible for the buff.
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert

This needs to be looked into.

Pinja

Really though add the anti tank mana save to daedric pray, not vicious curse.
rather then ruin The classic build to make pets look better, just let pets be 'better' at a saving mana as they 'can'.
Looking at this in a community perspective:
Issue: Typically noobs run pet builds, run out of magica, & have trouble with rotation.
Solution: Make the additional recast to Daedric Prey.
IE:Anti-tank sustain sorcs & classic burst sorcs.
Leaving the community to do their own with help.

usmcjdking

I think the AtroBRO buff is nice, but it's still not enough to justify using over basically anything outside of duels. Also, Charged Atro sucks compared to Greater.

My preferred list of changes to Atronach:

- Greater Storm Atro; provides minor berserk/minor protection buff to the caster when near the Atronach for it's duration. Increase duration to 20 seconds.
- Charged Atronach; reduce the damage of the AOE it does by 25%, remove the synergy, inflicts Minor Maim on any enemies in it's AOE radius for 3 seconds and provides major berserk to all allies in range of it's AOE for 3 seconds.

The Atronach should be a force multiplier in groups, not a hindrance.

usmcjdking

I think the AtroBRO buff is nice, but it's still not enough to justify using over basically anything outside of duels. Also, Charged Atro sucks compared to Greater.

My preferred list of changes to Atronach:

- Greater Storm Atro; provides minor berserk/minor protection buff to the caster when near the Atronach for it's duration. Increase duration to 20 seconds.
- Charged Atronach; reduce the damage of the AOE it does by 25%, remove the synergy, inflicts Minor Maim on any enemies in it's AOE radius for 3 seconds and provides major berserk to up to 4 allies in range of it's AOE for 3 seconds.

The Atronach should be a force multiplier in groups, not a hindrance.

Snit

The problem with pets is feeding them -- they eat too many slots. They render builds boring. Someone at ZOS thinks there is an audience for simple builds with two active abilities. Let me suggest there's a much bigger audience for builds with six+.

If you want to see more pet builds, don't force them to be the entirety of the build. Remove the toggles.

Lord_Hev

I want SUMMONS. Not toggled pets, there is a huge difference between the two. We are Daedric Summoners, not zoo-mancers.

Derra

Lord_Hev wrote: »

I want SUMMONS. Not toggled pets, there is a huge difference between the two. We are Daedric Summoners, not zoo-mancers.

^Soo much this^

Permanent pets should never have been a thing without a proper petUI.

Birdovic

Snit wrote: »

The problem with pets is feeding them -- they eat too many slots. They render builds boring. Someone at ZOS thinks there is an audience for simple builds with two active abilities. Let me suggest there's a much bigger audience for builds with six+.
[/i].

That's especially true when people are used to other mmos, where you have way more than 5-6 slots for active abilities. Limiting space on a already limited Bar?

Who the hell wants that.

Delegator

I disagree with all the whiners who say "stop pushing pets." I have always liked pet classes in every MMO, and I would like to see the Sorcerer pets made more useful. Others have mentioned the issues, many of which are still to be addressed, especially the fact that pets consume 40% of your ability slots if you use them.

Another issue is that pets scale only off Magicka and Spell Damage/Crit. Stam Sorcs would only use pets for heals (from the Hunt Master set in particular)...but stam sorcs get plenty of self heals from critical surge and vigor anyway. If I'm going to use a pet, it had better deliver me something useful compared to another choice I would make for that slot. Right now, they don't.

cpuScientist

CosmicSoul wrote: »

sirtadzio wrote: »

Can we verify that as of right now sorc pets are soaking up 6 target raid buffs? I was under the impression they did, but someone in the NightBlade post, in regards to shades, stated that he has tested and confirmed that while they can receive the buffs, they are last priority and only receive them if there aren't enough actual player targets available/eligible for the buff.
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert

This needs to be looked into.

I have tested it, they do get the buffs but they are prioratized after players so they will never EVER steal a buff. I have tested it thoroughly with both magblade and magsorc pets. I even tested proximity in terms of combat prayer if they were closer or further away from the caster than the 6th player. It did not matter. It is working perfectly which amazed us. So pets are fine for PvE.

So just to reiterate they are getting the buffs but not stealing them. If they got it then less than 6 players were present, OR other players were not in range.

cpuScientist

The simple fix since like @ZOS_RichLambert said this was all about simplicity. Would be to just have both morphs increase pet damage, and have haunting be the PvE morph and Velicous be the PvP morph. And tahdah. simple and easy like you said you wanted....

Calboy

We need a way to control pets. If you won't allow use to send our pets to attack and call back when we want they will NEVER work because we have to rely on the pet AI which is terrible and always will be. Please just implement something like holding down the pet icon for 3 seconds.

leepalmer95

Calboy wrote: »

We need a way to control pets. If you won't allow use to send our pets to attack and call back when we want they will NEVER work because we have to rely on the pet AI which is terrible and always will be. Please just implement something like holding down the pet icon for 3 seconds.

Or a setting so my twilight stays within 5m of me xD

Calboy

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Calboy wrote: »

We need a way to control pets. If you won't allow use to send our pets to attack and call back when we want they will NEVER work because we have to rely on the pet AI which is terrible and always will be. Please just implement something like holding down the pet icon for 3 seconds.

Or a setting so my twilight stays within 5m of me xD

Even that's an improvement. I summon twilight for her heal but she runs off into the distance, so frustrating

cpuScientist

Calboy wrote: »

We need a way to control pets. If you won't allow use to send our pets to attack and call back when we want they will NEVER work because we have to rely on the pet AI which is terrible and always will be. Please just implement something like holding down the pet icon for 3 seconds.

If you are talking PC you can already do this. Hold down v and left click on the enemy you want them to focus on, hold down v and right click to make them return to you passive not attacking anything. I would then suggest to switch c and v buttons if you mainly play your sorc as it is very easy to manage them if you do.

On consoles NOTHING! NOT A DANMED THING! They have not addressed it. I just hope they don't make the pets attack whoever is cursed. As that's not what we need.then need to get a little creative with controllers. Maybe long press a button or something.

alexkdd99

Please revert all sorc changes. I would rather nothing gets buffed if that means you will not nerf/ change the rest of sorc abilities.

You always go overkill on any nerf you do. You took shields down by roughly 75% now you are cutting overload down by 50% by cutting ultimate in half.

Your eots nerf is laughable as you buffed destro staves at the same time.

Bye bye to anyone still running overload.

cschwingeb14_ESO

Here's a great compromise for haunting curse:

Have it explode after 3.5 seconds, then explode again after another 6 seconds. PvE long term dot functionality, or recast for more magicka to get a quicker explosion

Flak

I still can't get over the insane nerf on Stamina, stamsorc in particular. I'm talking from an endgame PvE perspective here and I am aware that things are different in PvP. Still I think there has to be a way to balance it in Cyro without ruining it in PvE.

Has anyone at ZOS looked at the trialleaderboards and checked how many Staminaplayers are in an average group?
It's already very rare, Staminachars have alot of disadvantages compared to Magicka, they have to stay melee, they are squishier, their rotations are harder, they have no shields and using the same pool for skills and defense.

So yes, Stamsorc and StamDK did a bit more damage than their Magicka Counterparts, but shouldn't there be some reward at least for playing a significantly harder class?
How can you compare a Class that can sit in 20m range from the fight with a 20k shield and effectively only uses 5 skills to a class that stays right at the boss and uses a channeled spammable that can't even be blockcasted?

If this patch goes live the sides will be flipped on damage aswell and Stamina will be banished from endgame.