PTS Feedback Thread for Sorcerer Balance Improvements

TipsyDrow

This patch is garbage, The balance is still heavily in in favor of stam melee wearing heavy armor. You have addressed nothing that needed addressed. People can still wear three proc sets, 7 pieces of heavy armor, never run out of resources and do higher damage in a quicker time frame then ANY ranged character and it will only be worse now that all IC sets will have jewelry and weapons. As a mag sorc I had very little time to get off any kind of so called burst before my shields are down and I'm dead. Now you nerf curse so i have no burst at all but still have 6 second *** shields. So the only thing a sorc can do in Cyrodiil is run in a destro ulti zerg?? Is that it? I'm not going to give suggestions. Better sorcs then I have already tried and failed miserably with suggestions. Alot of extremely unhappy people at the moment.

TreeHugger1

If no one else mentioned this,after the patch the scamp will stun only after 8 seconds.
It is true that you can time it with the enemy's stun immunity though it means it's much more easy to avoid the stun and if you don't have any other source of stun(I know sorcs have streak) you will have to wait 8 more seconds.
I wondered what people think about it...
My suggestion is that the first pulse will stun the enemy so you will have control when to you want to stun x or y.

Pallio

A$$uming class changes will be coming out in crown store after this patch, any ETA on that yet?

bebynnag

TreeHugger1 wrote: »

If no one else mentioned this,after the patch the scamp will stun only after 8 seconds.
It is true that you can time it with the enemy's stun immunity though it means it's much more easy to avoid the stun and if you don't have any other source of stun(I know sorcs have streak) you will have to wait 8 more seconds.
I wondered what people think about it...
My suggestion is that the first pulse will stun the enemy so you will have control when to you want to stun x or y.

I saw
"Increased the duration of this pet’s special ability to 8 seconds from 4 seconds, causing it to pulse for two extra ticks of damage."
I assumed this was a buff increasing the duration, if i used pets i would know whether it was a buff or a nerf.
as stands i am hoping they will be placeable in my home as dps dummies so i can kill them over & over & over again - cause i hate them!

Thornen

Wizball1987 wrote: »

What if the tanky pet tanked really well and the dps pet did 20kdps..then ppl would like pet builds

Sorry but only a small minority of people like pets, its not the damage or utility its the pets themselves, we don't like cutting down our active abilities and relying on *** AI to carry us.

Sinolai

Pet buffs: Nice, although this wont affect veteran players at all it will help new players and maybe sorcerer healer is more viable now that Twilight Matriarch is not dead all the time. To be honest, I'd also move the pets into new summoning skill tree for everyone to use and replace them with something else.

Velocious Curse: I am probably few of the sorcerer's who don't use this skill? But Nobody seem to have complained about it so why to change it?

Overload: Another nerf that nobody asked for. Makes little used overload even less useful, hopefully it still has enough kick left to be used in vMA.

Flak

I really dislike the change to Hurricane, it was a strong skill, I agree. But it was not the reason why StamSorcs have been so powerful in the past patch.
The trapnerf was enough to balance it in PvE and you should've added a costincrease on darkdeal when it's spammed, like you did with Streak, that would've been enough, but not Hurricane pls.

Gothren

MrGorv wrote: »

I really hate manasorcs in PvP. But still, even I see there was no point to nerf Curse. No one even asked for this. Why would you do that?
1. Leave Curse as it is. Don't touch it. You're breaking them.
2. Nerf Overload with max ultimate number? Again, for what purpose? I don't see anything being wrong with it.
3. Hurricane. It was not the problem with stamina sorcs. No reason to nerf it. Again...
3. About pets. I know, you try to make pets useful. But just become more annoying.
4. Atronach. I personally think it was already pretty strong against melee players, and now it becomes more brutal? Uh... Who asked for this one? Put your hands up!
6. Dark Conversion. The only thing that needed to be rebalanced is not touched. This one needs changes. It should still consume magicka, if interrupted, or give less healing, oh, Gods, there were tons of suggestions already, why did you let this one stay?
To summ it up: you changed what was alright already and left the most argued and unbalanced thing to be, as it is. Good job, ZOS.

4. dead wrong. the skill is meaningless when you can just run away.

Pallio

Can sorc atleast get a buff in crafting, like fast training or cheaper on mats now?

Gothren

Birdovic wrote: »

So I did some testing yesterday.
While everyone freaked out about Haunting Curse, I thought it would even benefit my build at first.
But some testing clearly showed me, it does not.

As I've read through the patch notes for the destro staff (unreflectable force pulse, passives increase dmg etc) I though it makes up for the lost damage from Velocious Curse. While overall the damage seems higher, the problem is the now missing burst potential that Velocious Curse offered, that is most important in PvP.

Example:
In a 1vs1 situation the reliable (unblockable/undodgeable) damage of curse simply doesnt come in frequent enough, 3.5s was almost perfect for that. You could combine that with so many things to build up some burst like Mages Wrath (4sec duration), chrystal frag, Meteor (little delay), soul assault (also lasts 4sec) and so on. Its an absolute PvP Issue, if you have no good burst, especially on the sorc class.
But a templar can easily outheal haunting curse, where Velocious happens faster and more often and therefore can take them by suprise.
A Sorc cant spam shields fast enough at some point, if you keep curses on him that explode after 3.5sec, with the 6sec ones there is too much time between each explosion, too much time to react.
And a DK? Until now, a DK could reflect almost anything strong you had back at you, with the exception of curses exploding on him every 3.5sec, that was, what made a fight against DK's possible.

Ok enough about that. But what about 1vs X?
Well, what I loved about the short time for velocious curse was, I could switch my target in the middle of a fight very fast, when I noticed Player A was annyoing but Player B was the dangerous one, setting up a burst or something, I myself could start the burst on the right target in a quick manner, I could react way better to situations overall. This also doesnt work now, its super annoying the way it is now with 6 seconds. A second explosion 6 seconds after that simply doesnt make up for it, when im probably dead already.


Now, lets take a look at the changes that happened to the Sorcerer class in this patch only

- (New) Summons resistances have been doubled
- (New) The Atronach Summon does 25% more damage
- (New) Volatile Familiar's special ability ticks 2 times more often than before
- (New) Twillights Health has been doubled.
- (New) Haunting Curse is replacing Velocious Curse.



I am confident to say now, that ZOS wants to turn the sorcerer into a pet based class.
Its always been going into this direction, but this patch was very obvious.
The Haunting Curse change was, what made it so clear to me.

Nobody really asked for these changes, but the worst part is, they ruin builds that people loved to play and always played, just to force pets onto people.
Velocious Curse was a must have for dual-wield sorcerers because they couldnt weave with a staff(they dont have one) so they can put some pressure on the enemy - thats gone. Staff users loved that ability so they could stand a chance against BoL spamming templars or perma wing flapping DK's who effectively took away any option to attack (too much counted as projectiles, and which didnt, was too weak, take mages wrath for example).

I will give you an example of what ZOS wants people to run:

Gear and Weapons:
- Possible Monster Sets: Shadowrend, Infernal Guardian, Maw of the Infernal
- Necropotence, Desert Rose, Arch Mage, Seducer
- Any fitting 5pc heavy Armor, for example Black Rose (since u wont need much regen and cost reduction from Light Armor with this build + passive makes up anyway )
1x Shock Staff (for heavy attack spamming as main ability)
1x Resto Staff (same as above, maybe for healing ward, too)

Main Bar:
Bound Armaments
Twillight
Familiar
Ward
Power Surge/Mages Wrath/Encase
Ult: Atronach

Backbar:
Bound Armaments
Twillight
Familiar
Haunting Curse
Power Surge/ Daedric Mines
Ult: Overload


You can see, a "Togglemancer". It was always going that direction. And now by ruining velocious curse as one of the most important abilites for "non pet users" (the absolute majority of Mag Sorc), it perfectly fits as a backbar skill, since you dont have much space on your Skillbars anymore (because your pets + other toggles need space right?).

To sum it up:
A extremely dumbed down build, where pets and your heavy attack spam are the focus and the goal is to outsustain/outlast the enemy.
With the change to Velocious Curse, you now have the option to chose between 2 different Curses, depending on which works better for your pet build.
Daedric Prey for increased pet damage? Or save ressources and backbar the new Haunting Curse? Your "choice".

If we really want to go the Haunting Curse path, atleast make it 4sec explosion -> 6 sec explosion, so those who still want to activate it themselves every 4sec can do that, and others who want to backbar and forget it, also can do that.


What I wished would have happened:
- Light Armor gets some deserved buffs
- Destro Staves improve (they did, so its okay)
- Chrystal Blast becoming interesting
- Combining both Atronach Morphs into 1, and redo the 2nd morph into something interesting
- Slight Damage buff to Mages Fury
- Bound Armaments working like Inner Light, finally offering some active ability
- Hardened Ward duration to 8s
- Empowered Ward to have a meaningful buff (minor magickareg is not)
- Lightning Flood to be a real alternative to Liquid Lightning (very unused)
- Ball of Lightning to be a real Alternative to Streak, or atleast have a little longer duration
- Passives to work better with some active abilities, instead of just passively increasing dmg by X/recovery by Y or Pets by Z.
- Combining Haunting Curse and Daedric Prey into one Morph, while leaving Velocious Curse as it is. Keeps both playstyles alive and even improves one (in Daedric Preys situation).

what a pathetic build that no one uses and doesn't even work even with the changes. bound armaments lol are you new or something

Joy_Division

Derra wrote: »

Edit2: @Wrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno every dot retains some functionality against templars ability to cleanse negative effects. 6s curse duration guarantees a templar will never get dmged by curse - could you look into having some sort of dot protection for curse or a partial dmg on cleanse funcionality to put it on par with any other damage over time?

How about instead we make the game less noob friendly?

Keep the fast curse so templars at least have to be conscious of cleansing it and if they dont, the sorc quick burst an option. Rewards skillful play. Im tried of the ZoS new trend of "you can't defend/refelct/interrupt/counter X"

STEVIL

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

zerosingularity wrote: »

For the record, short tests indicate in PvE that this new curse will provide better sustain and damage (since less curse casts = more force pulse weaves) and 1 cast=2 curses. The change should be minor, but might help sorc damage and sustain a little bit. Actual good players (not me) should test this though.

Also note, the damage of curse depends on your bar, so it can be on a lightning staff back bar, and detonate on a fire staff front bar for more damage. Now if only we didn't need 8000 toggles...

More sustain maybe but, unless the skill has had a base damage buff, less damage because 2 curses in 12s < 3.43 curses in 12s. The 8% damage from inferno staff would have applied to velocious curse too. So we have to wait longer for less damage. This is going to be a pain to test correctly because velocious curse doesn't exist on pts and the new inferno passive doesn't exist on live. I welcome sustain buffs but not at the expense of damage and useability.

this is IMO really flawed logic.

They are adding the 8% staff boost AND the reduction to VC at the same time.

So arguing that we should judge it not by "live as a whole vs pts as a whole" but also by "part pts but not other part pts" is just wrong.

It seems fairly obvious they have made a bigger systemic change for magicas...

They add a pretty large global 8% uptick for staff users that applies to a given broad type of attacks (Aoe or single target with bar swap where needed).
They look at class by class and where they see an ability that might be too good in the "+8%" they hit it some.
Some classes get it to different areas etc and they objective seems to be to move the whole close to parity.

Now for me, it seemed VC was always the better option between the two morphs so dialing it back makes sense. Even with pets i would run VC over the other cuz it gave me significant gains and control whereas boosting pets damage did not measure up and was less controlled.

Now, maybe the 12s double tap isn't good enough? maybe it is given the "sustain" DPS gains and the +8%."

I know that i wouldn't want to be on the single target receiving end of a curse-emp-cfrags-wrath-boom trio with an 8% bonus to all three.

Brrrofski

STEVIL wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

zerosingularity wrote: »

For the record, short tests indicate in PvE that this new curse will provide better sustain and damage (since less curse casts = more force pulse weaves) and 1 cast=2 curses. The change should be minor, but might help sorc damage and sustain a little bit. Actual good players (not me) should test this though.

Also note, the damage of curse depends on your bar, so it can be on a lightning staff back bar, and detonate on a fire staff front bar for more damage. Now if only we didn't need 8000 toggles...

More sustain maybe but, unless the skill has had a base damage buff, less damage because 2 curses in 12s < 3.43 curses in 12s. The 8% damage from inferno staff would have applied to velocious curse too. So we have to wait longer for less damage. This is going to be a pain to test correctly because velocious curse doesn't exist on pts and the new inferno passive doesn't exist on live. I welcome sustain buffs but not at the expense of damage and useability.

this is IMO really flawed logic.

They are adding the 8% staff boost AND the reduction to VC at the same time.

So arguing that we should judge it not by "live as a whole vs pts as a whole" but also by "part pts but not other part pts" is just wrong.

It seems fairly obvious they have made a bigger systemic change for magicas...

They add a pretty large global 8% uptick for staff users that applies to a given broad type of attacks (Aoe or single target with bar swap where needed).
They look at class by class and where they see an ability that might be too good in the "+8%" they hit it some.
Some classes get it to different areas etc and they objective seems to be to move the whole close to parity.

Now for me, it seemed VC was always the better option between the two morphs so dialing it back makes sense. Even with pets i would run VC over the other cuz it gave me significant gains and control whereas boosting pets damage did not measure up and was less controlled.

Now, maybe the 12s double tap isn't good enough? maybe it is given the "sustain" DPS gains and the +8%."

I know that i wouldn't want to be on the single target receiving end of a curse-emp-cfrags-wrath-boom trio with an 8% bonus to all three.

Except the proceed frag frag will be 3 seconds before curse lands so you can just heal back up.

No point disguising it as anything other than a nerf. A pointless one. Like nobody had a problem with curse. As a magica sorc, it was fine. As a recepient it was fine. No need to change it.

AhPook_Is_Here

Can we get haunting curse to refresh a 3rd time if a player can /golfclap between the 1st and 2nd detonation?

IzanagiTensei-O

i grew up with highly manipulative people. this reminds me of a tactic they'd use. misdirection. the curse thing i mean. screw with it, people focus on it, then revert it, and act like- see we listen, and we fixed or saved sorc. it shouldnt even have been an issue.

Lexxypwns

You guys can all rot in hell for killing magika sorc for pvp with this curse nerf.

Sub canceled, game uninstalled, forum posting over.

It was a good run guys, but ZoS is *** terrible, they ruin every play style they create.

amasuriel

StopDropAndBear wrote: »

Right now, the pet system is so clunky that you could give these things 5 times as much health and defense and I still can't justify giving up valuable skill slots (on both bars ) for them. Summoning them is awkward, desummoning them is even more awkward, you have barely any control over what they do, the AI is not great, they steal buffs intended for players..buffing them is not the solution, and when other sorc skills keep getting nerfs alongside these buffs, it just feels like salt in the wound.

I totally agree, to give up a slot on both bars a lot more needs to change. a 15k health, 18k resist pet that is annoying to control, does no damage to speak of, steals buffs, can die, stands in AOEs, is slow...I mean its still clearly for people who want to play a summoner even though its terrible still. When I see a pet come out in a hard dungeon I know the DPS of that sorc will be bad 95% of the time.

I haven't tried the curse yet on PTS, but purgability aside (aka only for PvE) it still seems bad. Make it unusable on trash because its too slow, so its boss only. If it nets the same DPS I don't understand the point of the change, if it doesn't it's going to be very difficult for sorcs to pull enough DPS, especially since force pulse spam is going to be harder now that many sources of magicka recovery have been replaced with a single one (magicka steal)

Izaki

Lexxypwns wrote: »

You guys can all rot in hell for killing magika sorc for pvp with this curse nerf.

Sub canceled, game uninstalled, forum posting over.

It was a good run guys, but ZoS is *** terrible, they ruin every play style they create.

Are you on xbox eu? Can i have your stuff plzkthx?

Jokes aside, no need to get this upset about 1 skill change that still has a chance to get reverted, just like the lightning staff one.

Akimbro

cpuScientist wrote: »

Hey so really quick. The echo is not a DPS loss it's a boost. This is because the way DPS works is not total damage done it is damage per second. So the echo gives you a free cast meaning you click once and go back to your weave. And get 2 casts instead of activating the skill 3 times in 12 seconds you do it once. It will need testing but it seems like a small PvE DPS buff, also it can now be moved to back bar allowing for some bar flexibility. However it is a terrible PvP nerf. Where burst is king and keeping pressure up.

Not really. Via tooltip, you get 3 explosions in 10.5 seconds with velocious curse. With haunting curse, you get 2 explosions in 12 seconds. Factor in the cast time for the two extra velocious curses, you're losing one explosion. The whole reason people began running curse again was to reduce force pulse weaves, as that is the worst dps on a sorc. It's only used as a dps filler. With the new haunting curse, you're losing one explosion and replacing that extra cast time with a few extra force pulse weaves. Not a dps boost whatsoever. Only makes the sorc rotation more noob-friendly.

Dracane

Birdovic wrote: »

- (New) Volatile Familiar's special ability ticks 2 times more often than before

That's missleading. Reading this as someone who doesn't know the ability, I would think it will now tick twice as often, so every second and not every 2 seconds. But it just does 2 additional ticks because it lasts longer.

Minalan

Lexxypwns wrote: »

You guys can all rot in hell for killing magika sorc for pvp with this curse nerf.

Sub canceled, game uninstalled, forum posting over.

It was a good run guys, but ZoS is *** terrible, they ruin every play style they create.

I'm not going to threaten to quit forever and get all angsty about it.

... But I did take a break through all of Hist because it was nothing more than an enormous hand job for stamina players from the dev team. So I went and played something else for months, and ZOS didn't see a red dime from me.

Then 1T dropped, with all of the new sets and balance changes I re-subbed, and I've spent and insane amount of money on crowns to get the storm Atro mount, crown store outfits, and appearance changes.

If they do nerf velocious curse and dual wield builds are really gone next month, I feel another break coming. It's not that I can't play a staff build just like everyone else. I just don't want to. I don't like the look, feel, or the force pulse spamming play-style.

Pallio

On a side note, does anyone know when Camelot Unchained is coming out?

Minalan

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

You guys can all rot in hell for killing magika sorc for pvp with this curse nerf.

Sub canceled, game uninstalled, forum posting over.

It was a good run guys, but ZoS is *** terrible, they ruin every play style they create.

Are you on xbox eu? Can i have your stuff plzkthx?

Jokes aside, no need to get this upset about 1 skill change that still has a chance to get reverted, just like the lightning staff one.

They. Never. Revert. Anything. My friend, we should already have a transition plan in place, I'm checking out SWTOR again. It's been awhile.

I hope I'm wrong about it, but I doubt it.

Natas013

When you nerfed our shields you did so basesed on one metric, some jacknails running around vMA with 20s 40K shields. So I guess Velocious curse and hurricane were also over performing in the hands of the top players in vMA? I'd be interested in seeing the percentage of mag sorcs that can clear this content now on all three platforms, and how much that drops when this goes live.

Natas013

PF1901 wrote: »

rustic_potato wrote: »

So magsorcs are out dpsing stam dks on single targets and people still complain on these forums that they got a nerf.. I wonder how many of these players actually tested on the PTS.

Try magsorc in pvp and then tell me this v. curse redesign is not the most idiotic thing they could have come up with.

Hold up just a sec, he might be on to something. Maybe if all other DoTs were rewrote like curse (because it is a DoT and I don't care what @Wrobel says to the contrary), then all other classes could be so ridiculously OP like Mag Sorcs

Dracane

Minalan wrote: »

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

Lexxypwns wrote: »

You guys can all rot in hell for killing magika sorc for pvp with this curse nerf.

Sub canceled, game uninstalled, forum posting over.

It was a good run guys, but ZoS is *** terrible, they ruin every play style they create.

Are you on xbox eu? Can i have your stuff plzkthx?

Jokes aside, no need to get this upset about 1 skill change that still has a chance to get reverted, just like the lightning staff one.

They. Never. Revert. Anything. My friend, we should already have a transition plan in place, I'm checking out SWTOR again. It's been awhile.

I hope I'm wrong about it, but I doubt it.

Yes, they once gave Altmer 3% more magicka regen (well deserved) but then they took it away in the 2nd pts week because people were complaining

STEVIL

Brrrofski wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

zerosingularity wrote: »

For the record, short tests indicate in PvE that this new curse will provide better sustain and damage (since less curse casts = more force pulse weaves) and 1 cast=2 curses. The change should be minor, but might help sorc damage and sustain a little bit. Actual good players (not me) should test this though.

Also note, the damage of curse depends on your bar, so it can be on a lightning staff back bar, and detonate on a fire staff front bar for more damage. Now if only we didn't need 8000 toggles...

More sustain maybe but, unless the skill has had a base damage buff, less damage because 2 curses in 12s < 3.43 curses in 12s. The 8% damage from inferno staff would have applied to velocious curse too. So we have to wait longer for less damage. This is going to be a pain to test correctly because velocious curse doesn't exist on pts and the new inferno passive doesn't exist on live. I welcome sustain buffs but not at the expense of damage and useability.

this is IMO really flawed logic.

They are adding the 8% staff boost AND the reduction to VC at the same time.

So arguing that we should judge it not by "live as a whole vs pts as a whole" but also by "part pts but not other part pts" is just wrong.

It seems fairly obvious they have made a bigger systemic change for magicas...

They add a pretty large global 8% uptick for staff users that applies to a given broad type of attacks (Aoe or single target with bar swap where needed).
They look at class by class and where they see an ability that might be too good in the "+8%" they hit it some.
Some classes get it to different areas etc and they objective seems to be to move the whole close to parity.

Now for me, it seemed VC was always the better option between the two morphs so dialing it back makes sense. Even with pets i would run VC over the other cuz it gave me significant gains and control whereas boosting pets damage did not measure up and was less controlled.

Now, maybe the 12s double tap isn't good enough? maybe it is given the "sustain" DPS gains and the +8%."

I know that i wouldn't want to be on the single target receiving end of a curse-emp-cfrags-wrath-boom trio with an 8% bonus to all three.

Except the proceed frag frag will be 3 seconds before curse lands so you can just heal back up.

No point disguising it as anything other than a nerf. A pointless one. Like nobody had a problem with curse. As a magica sorc, it was fine. As a recepient it was fine. No need to change it.

I am not arguing that the change to VC wasn't a reduction. i even argue that it should be more like somewhere between what it was and what it is right now in pts.

And " nobody had a problem with curse." is just flat out untrue (except maybe if one see it as curse was right and other things were problems logic) and ignores that we wont be looking at the old VC if they revert this change to VC but the old VC plus 8%.

Natas013

omfgitsbatman wrote: »

I'm really disappointed dark deal didn't get toned down.. I say that as a proud owner of 2 sorcerers... either decrease movement speed, increase cast time or adjust the returns (and get rid of the resource return when you get interrupted).. or most preferably, a combination of these

I lol'd so hard to this.

Birdovic

Gothren wrote: »

Birdovic wrote: »

So I did some testing yesterday.
While everyone freaked out about Haunting Curse, I thought it would even benefit my build at first.
But some testing clearly showed me, it does not.

As I've read through the patch notes for the destro staff (unreflectable force pulse, passives increase dmg etc) I though it makes up for the lost damage from Velocious Curse. While overall the damage seems higher, the problem is the now missing burst potential that Velocious Curse offered, that is most important in PvP.

Example:
In a 1vs1 situation the reliable (unblockable/undodgeable) damage of curse simply doesnt come in frequent enough, 3.5s was almost perfect for that. You could combine that with so many things to build up some burst like Mages Wrath (4sec duration), chrystal frag, Meteor (little delay), soul assault (also lasts 4sec) and so on. Its an absolute PvP Issue, if you have no good burst, especially on the sorc class.
But a templar can easily outheal haunting curse, where Velocious happens faster and more often and therefore can take them by suprise.
A Sorc cant spam shields fast enough at some point, if you keep curses on him that explode after 3.5sec, with the 6sec ones there is too much time between each explosion, too much time to react.
And a DK? Until now, a DK could reflect almost anything strong you had back at you, with the exception of curses exploding on him every 3.5sec, that was, what made a fight against DK's possible.

Ok enough about that. But what about 1vs X?
Well, what I loved about the short time for velocious curse was, I could switch my target in the middle of a fight very fast, when I noticed Player A was annyoing but Player B was the dangerous one, setting up a burst or something, I myself could start the burst on the right target in a quick manner, I could react way better to situations overall. This also doesnt work now, its super annoying the way it is now with 6 seconds. A second explosion 6 seconds after that simply doesnt make up for it, when im probably dead already.


Now, lets take a look at the changes that happened to the Sorcerer class in this patch only

- (New) Summons resistances have been doubled
- (New) The Atronach Summon does 25% more damage
- (New) Volatile Familiar's special ability ticks 2 times more often than before
- (New) Twillights Health has been doubled.
- (New) Haunting Curse is replacing Velocious Curse.



I am confident to say now, that ZOS wants to turn the sorcerer into a pet based class.
Its always been going into this direction, but this patch was very obvious.
The Haunting Curse change was, what made it so clear to me.

Nobody really asked for these changes, but the worst part is, they ruin builds that people loved to play and always played, just to force pets onto people.
Velocious Curse was a must have for dual-wield sorcerers because they couldnt weave with a staff(they dont have one) so they can put some pressure on the enemy - thats gone. Staff users loved that ability so they could stand a chance against BoL spamming templars or perma wing flapping DK's who effectively took away any option to attack (too much counted as projectiles, and which didnt, was too weak, take mages wrath for example).

I will give you an example of what ZOS wants people to run:

Gear and Weapons:
- Possible Monster Sets: Shadowrend, Infernal Guardian, Maw of the Infernal
- Necropotence, Desert Rose, Arch Mage, Seducer
- Any fitting 5pc heavy Armor, for example Black Rose (since u wont need much regen and cost reduction from Light Armor with this build + passive makes up anyway )
1x Shock Staff (for heavy attack spamming as main ability)
1x Resto Staff (same as above, maybe for healing ward, too)

Main Bar:
Bound Armaments
Twillight
Familiar
Ward
Power Surge/Mages Wrath/Encase
Ult: Atronach

Backbar:
Bound Armaments
Twillight
Familiar
Haunting Curse
Power Surge/ Daedric Mines
Ult: Overload


You can see, a "Togglemancer". It was always going that direction. And now by ruining velocious curse as one of the most important abilites for "non pet users" (the absolute majority of Mag Sorc), it perfectly fits as a backbar skill, since you dont have much space on your Skillbars anymore (because your pets + other toggles need space right?).

To sum it up:
A extremely dumbed down build, where pets and your heavy attack spam are the focus and the goal is to outsustain/outlast the enemy.
With the change to Velocious Curse, you now have the option to chose between 2 different Curses, depending on which works better for your pet build.
Daedric Prey for increased pet damage? Or save ressources and backbar the new Haunting Curse? Your "choice".

If we really want to go the Haunting Curse path, atleast make it 4sec explosion -> 6 sec explosion, so those who still want to activate it themselves every 4sec can do that, and others who want to backbar and forget it, also can do that.


What I wished would have happened:
- Light Armor gets some deserved buffs
- Destro Staves improve (they did, so its okay)
- Chrystal Blast becoming interesting
- Combining both Atronach Morphs into 1, and redo the 2nd morph into something interesting
- Slight Damage buff to Mages Fury
- Bound Armaments working like Inner Light, finally offering some active ability
- Hardened Ward duration to 8s
- Empowered Ward to have a meaningful buff (minor magickareg is not)
- Lightning Flood to be a real alternative to Liquid Lightning (very unused)
- Ball of Lightning to be a real Alternative to Streak, or atleast have a little longer duration
- Passives to work better with some active abilities, instead of just passively increasing dmg by X/recovery by Y or Pets by Z.
- Combining Haunting Curse and Daedric Prey into one Morph, while leaving Velocious Curse as it is. Keeps both playstyles alive and even improves one (in Daedric Preys situation).

what a pathetic build that no one uses and doesn't even work even with the changes. bound armaments lol are you new or something

mimimi

@Dracane

You're right, the part with the additional summon ticks was misleading, changed it.
Thanks for pointing out.

jarydf

If you are going to kill off the Duel Wield Mag Sorc and force us all to be staff users, can you at least give us a crafted style that makes a really short staff, like say a walking cane length? One the doesn't look like we have a stick shoved down the back of our jumper?