PTS Feedback Thread for Sorcerer Balance Improvements

Birdovic

Im glad so many people are against this change.

If we think about it now, velocious curse was actually a pretty perfect skill as was.
It worked PERFECTLY to combo and build burst, and nobody ever said it was too strong or too weak, it needed practice and timing.

How you can ruin such a fundamental and balanced Ability for sorcerer, especially in a "Balance Patch" is just beyond me.

Is the 8% Buff the problem?
Please,go ahead and reduce its Damage by 8% to compensate.
I don't 100% plan to use a Inferno Staff, but I prefer giving up 8% Dmg instead of this ability as a whole, just because the way it works and the duration it lasts are simply perfect.

pattyLtd

Even if the staff buffs make up for it which i don't know if it will i'm not a math wizard just a magicka one hehe.

It still is a unexplainable bizar change because if that's the reason they change it they change a class based skill to accommodate a buff on weapon skill which is wrong. I know my explaination is not the best but i hope it's understandable .

What's it gonna be next patch zos: Probably frags because it's pretty much the only usefull thing sorcs have left by now.
There are enough crappy skills with unused morphs already and destroying those that still are somewhat usefull is not the way to go balance things.

Remember VC isn't that great it only got popular because other things got ruined before.

Birdovic

pattyLtd wrote: »

Even if the staff buffs make up for it which i don't know if it will i'm not a math wizard just a magicka one hehe.

It still is a unexplainable bizar change because if that's the reason they change it they change a class based skill to accommodate a buff on weapon skill which is wrong. I know my explaination is not the best but i hope it's understandable .

What's it gonna be next patch zos: Probably frags because it's pretty much the only usefull thing sorcs have left by now.
There are enough crappy skills with unused morphs already and destroying those that still are somewhat usefull is not the way to go balance things.

Remember VC isn't that great it only got popular because other things got ruined before.

Well my "real" guess is, fitting with all the other changes to sorc in this patch (almost exclusively pet sorc stuff), they wanted to make curse possible to backbar, for those who have few space left on their front bars because they use many toggles (Pets, bound armaments, inner light, stuff like that).

Either that, or the 8% buff. If none of those are the reason, then Im wondering even more what the hell they were thinking.

bebynnag

Pallio wrote: »

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

or even, all sorcs above CR160 will no longer find training or prosperoous anywhere in the world ever!

Derra

Minalan wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

ku5h wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

ku5h wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Force-Siphon wrote: »

Beardimus wrote: »

Curse we need to wait and see.

Nah friend we dont need to wait and see, they need to revert these changes. The sorc community has spoken and we are seriously triggered by being pushed into summoner class. PVP sorcs are literally leaving the game and canceling subs over this. The pet buff was fine for people who want to run pets, but most of us dont and that should be clear by this thread alone.

Sorc is in a really really good spot though with the next patch.
The curse change is just a minor hickup. The buffs to staves outweight this by far.

DW sorcs on the other hand. Well. RIP.

So 8% buff to AoE makes up for completely ruining fundamental part of your burst. Yea sure your are not biased at all.

8% to your singletarget dmg. That´s huge. Especially when it comes alongside an open skillslot on your mainbar.

Edit: I can hardly be biased in the way you imply i would be. I main a magica sorc since beta and love the class enough to have 4 in total.

8% to a single target if using fire staff, which i dont want to use. That 8% will apply on c.frag and force pulse and thats it, where your curse, ulti and execute wont be affected by it since they all have AoE component. So that 8% ST buff you keep mentioning is no where near black and white as you think.
Yea opening skill slot is great when you have to remove one of your fundamental skills from it. Silver lining i guess! Btw, my main bar already has all the skill i need there and this change wouldnt make me back bar it.

Every skill that has a dedicated singletarget with a destinct aoe component (curse, fury) benefits from the firestaff buff - i know because i´ve tested that.
If you don´t want to use it that´s up to you.

Minalan wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

ku5h wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Force-Siphon wrote: »

Beardimus wrote: »

Curse we need to wait and see.

Nah friend we dont need to wait and see, they need to revert these changes. The sorc community has spoken and we are seriously triggered by being pushed into summoner class. PVP sorcs are literally leaving the game and canceling subs over this. The pet buff was fine for people who want to run pets, but most of us dont and that should be clear by this thread alone.

Sorc is in a really really good spot though with the next patch.
The curse change is just a minor hickup. The buffs to staves outweight this by far.

DW sorcs on the other hand. Well. RIP.

So 8% buff to AoE makes up for completely ruining fundamental part of your burst. Yea sure your are not biased at all.

8% to your singletarget dmg. That´s huge. Especially when it comes alongside an open skillslot on your mainbar.

Edit: I can hardly be biased in the way you imply i would be. I main a magica sorc since beta and love the class enough to have 4 in total.

Enjoy your 500 DPS spamming force pulse. But you won't be killing anyone with that.

What an convincing argument.

I mean i get you´re upset DW sorc is getting shafted by one of wrobels questionable designdecisions.
But this is in no way constructive or anything. That´s just : "Mr. Wrobbels took mah "

Edit: I really get why people playing DW absolutely think this is a terrible change and i agree with them in that regard - reducing buildvariety sucks. But it´s not going to break the class. With all changes coming magsorc is going to be stronger than before homestead.

If you ignore every situation where a 3.5s curse helps counter enemies in Cyrodiil, then yes. We'll be so much better off.

Edit: as I've already stated, PVP is more than just spamming force pulse. If you think someone is going to sit still and take all of your FP spam, I have to wonder how much PVP you do against good players? With curse? They didn't have any choice but to take one every 3.5 seconds.

I've already given a dozen reasons why it makes us weaker, but you're fixated on the 8% number. Which isn't all that much. I think you'll find I'm right in the end here.

I´m playing builds without curse at the moment quite frequently - which is why i think the nerf is not that much of an issue. If you built in a way to compensate for it. That´s entirely in the realm of possibilities.

Now i won´t even have to make any compromise. I´ll just use curse from backbar and get to keep everything that made my noncurse frontbar good.

The only circumstance where i absolutely need curse was a mDK in 1v1. That possibility gets eliminated with force pulse no longer being reflectable.

I´m against this change aswell. I´d combine haunting curse and daedric prey into one ability while leaving velocious curse untouched. That would be an interesting skillchoice aswell.
I´m just arguing against everyone saying it´s going to weaken or break the class. That´s not going to happen for staff builds.

Derra

exiledtyrant wrote: »

Why would sorcerers be using fire staff when all shock damage is buffed by 5% from passives and off balance ( which blockade can proc frequently) gives another 10% buff to damage done all the time? That is without considering the ability to keep up vulnerability and another 8% damage buff on half your skills. Lightning looks like the best overall group support and damage option for sorcerers to me.

For pve? Backbar lightning maelstrom frontbar fire aether/moondancer will be my go to choice.
For pvp i have to think really hard for a reason to use a lightning staff - simply because of the number of vampires running around. The heavy attack burst, medium weaves and now 8% increased dmg alongside fiery reach guaranteed fragment hit just make the choice easier.

pattyLtd

Birdovic wrote: »

Well my "real" guess is, fitting with all the other changes to sorc in this patch (almost exclusively pet sorc stuff), they wanted to make curse possible to backbar, for those who have few space left on their front bars because they use many toggles (Pets, bound armaments, inner light, stuff like that).

Either that, or the 8% buff. If none of those are the reason, then Im wondering even more what the hell they were thinking.

Yea, the toggles are an issue for sorcs and always has been.
It's why i don't use bound armor even though i know how strong it is i just need more skillslots i can actually use during combat.

If they want to boost the use of pets i suggest making it like boundless storm so it doesn't have to be on both bars i might even use it then in some very specific scenarios but i will never use a full pet build it distracts me just like the non-combat pets do haha.

opaj

I'm seeing a lot of folks make statements that seem to be grounded in assumption rather than testing the content, so spurred by one such comment I hopped on the PTS and tried some things out with the Ancient Knowledge passive.

I gave my new template character a CR 160 Inferno, Frost, and Lightning Staff, then checked the tooltips on a bunch of skills that had both single-target and AOE components. (The Frost Staff was a control group, used to get base values.)

- When equipped with an Inferno Staff, the single-target component of Crystal Blast, Summon Volatile Familiar, Haunting Curse, Mages' Wrath, and Overload gain a damage boost.

- When equipped with a Lightning Staff, the AOE component of Summon Volatile Familiar, Haunting Curse, and Mages' Wrath gain a damage boost.

- When equipped with a Lightning Staff, the AOE component of Crystal Blast and Overload do not get a damage boost. ( @ZOS_GinaBruno , I bugged this, but you may want to have the team look at how this skill interacts with the Ancient Knowledge passive. It should also be noted that, when testing Overload, the tooltips got finicky and stopped updating -- I had to confirm the damage changes by testing it on a target dummy.)

- The bonus will switch on the fly when you bar swapped. I cast Wall of Fire on the training dummy then swapped to my Lightning Staff bar to gain the bonus AOE damage. This is what I expected, but again, we have the PTS so we can actually test things.


I'm looking forward to playing with lightning/inferno staff combos, though I'm mildly bummed about being shifted away from my dual-wield bar. I'm not seeing the appeal of Haunting Curse and the new Ultimate limit will probably get me to stop using Overload as my main magicka recharging skill, but hopefully this weekend some better players than I will really put these changes through their paces.


[EDIT]
There appear to have been some errors with my testing. Corrections have been made.

Force-Siphon

KisoValley wrote: »

CosmicSoul wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

When people try to argue with Derra thinking he's a standard pug sorc who barely plays the class or doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's one of the best sorcs in the world across all platforms. He knows the class, and I and other sorcs can understand the nerf, even if we don't agree with it. He's pointing out why it's an understandable nerf with the buff to both flame/lightning staves and force pulse.

I do not think anyone disagrees with the nerf for pvp except one guy.

From talking to Derra/other sorcs, they think it should be reverted and I'm one of them. But at the same time, it is understandable why it was nerfed. ZOS just went the wrong way about nerfing it, changing the amount of time was stupid.

this, with more testing the 8% dmg buff is huge

jarydf

opaj wrote: »

- When equipped with an Inferno Staff, the single-target component of Crystal Blast, Summon Volatile Familiar, Haunting Curse, Mages' Wrath, and Overload gain a damage boost.

If overload is getting boosted by an inferno staff weapon passive. That looks to me like something that would get a "not working as intended" nerf in the not too distant future.

opaj

jarydf wrote: »

If overload is getting boosted by an inferno staff weapon passive. That looks to me like something that would get a "not working as intended" nerf in the not too distant future.

Maybe, maybe not. It's a similar case Twin Blade and Blunt giving a boost to magicka abilities when dual-wielding swords. Note that, in this case, you have to give up a slot on your Overload bar for a Destruction Staff skill, so you actually have to give something up to get that 8% boost.

[EDIT]
Please see Dracane's comments below; my Overload numbers were wrong. I suspect that I accidentally concussed the target dummy without realizing it, which now applies Minor Vulnerability instead of Minor Maim as of 2.7.0.

Dracane

Derra wrote: »

exiledtyrant wrote: »

Why would sorcerers be using fire staff when all shock damage is buffed by 5% from passives and off balance ( which blockade can proc frequently) gives another 10% buff to damage done all the time? That is without considering the ability to keep up vulnerability and another 8% damage buff on half your skills. Lightning looks like the best overall group support and damage option for sorcerers to me.

For pve? Backbar lightning maelstrom frontbar fire aether/moondancer will be my go to choice.
For pvp i have to think really hard for a reason to use a lightning staff - simply because of the number of vampires running around. The heavy attack burst, medium weaves and now 8% increased dmg alongside fiery reach guaranteed fragment hit just make the choice easier.

To me, the reason to choose lightning staff was because of these unreflectable heavy attacks. Since force shock is now unreflectable, I will prefer this over heavy attacks.

Fire staff will clearly be my main weapon, lightning staff remains on my 2nd bar
I always had problems using fire staves, but now I appreciate them so much, feels much better in combat.

Dracane

opaj wrote: »

- When equipped with an Inferno Staff, the single-target component of Crystal Blast, Summon Volatile Familiar, Haunting Curse, Mages' Wrath, and Overload gain a damage boost.

- When equipped with a Lightning Staff, the AOE component of Summon Volatile Familiar, Haunting Curse, and Mages' Wrath gain a damage boost.

- When equipped with a Lightning Staff, the AOE component of Crystal Blast and Overload do not get a damage boost. ( @ZOS_GinaBruno , I bugged this, but you may want to have the team look at how this skill interacts with the Ancient Knowledge passive. It should also be noted that, when testing Overload, the tooltips got finicky and stopped updating -- I had to confirm the damage changes by testing it on a target dummy.)

The volatile familiar is not affected by the fire staff, despite what the tooltip may say. NEVER ever trust tooltips, always do actual damage testing against monsters and compare everything.
Overload looses the bonus as well as soon as you activate it, because weapon passives are lost at this point.

opaj

Dracane wrote: »

The volatile familiar is not affected by the fire staff, despite what the tooltip may say. NEVER ever trust tooltips, always do actual damage testing against monsters and compare everything.
Overload looses the bonus as well as soon as you activate it, because weapon passives are lost at this point.

That's good to know.

Testing on the dummy confirms that the pet damage is indeed unchanged regardless of staff. I actually did do initial testing with Overload on the dummy and had higher numbers with the Inferno Staff the first time around; but when I tested it again, I got the same numbers regardless of staff. Not sure how I managed that one.


[Edit]
Concussed now inflicts Minor Vulnerability. That's why I was getting inconsistent damage numbers from Overload. I was concussing my poor skeleton.

MrGorv

Zenimax Online office before update 13.

TreeHugger1

Derra wrote: »

ku5h wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

ku5h wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Force-Siphon wrote: »

Beardimus wrote: »

Curse we need to wait and see.

Nah friend we dont need to wait and see, they need to revert these changes. The sorc community has spoken and we are seriously triggered by being pushed into summoner class. PVP sorcs are literally leaving the game and canceling subs over this. The pet buff was fine for people who want to run pets, but most of us dont and that should be clear by this thread alone.

Sorc is in a really really good spot though with the next patch.
The curse change is just a minor hickup. The buffs to staves outweight this by far.

DW sorcs on the other hand. Well. RIP.

So 8% buff to AoE makes up for completely ruining fundamental part of your burst. Yea sure your are not biased at all.

8% to your singletarget dmg. That´s huge. Especially when it comes alongside an open skillslot on your mainbar.

Edit: I can hardly be biased in the way you imply i would be. I main a magica sorc since beta and love the class enough to have 4 in total.

8% to a single target if using fire staff, which i dont want to use. That 8% will apply on c.frag and force pulse and thats it, where your curse, ulti and execute wont be affected by it since they all have AoE component. So that 8% ST buff you keep mentioning is no where near black and white as you think.
Yea opening skill slot is great when you have to remove one of your fundamental skills from it. Silver lining i guess! Btw, my main bar already has all the skill i need there and this change wouldnt make me back bar it.

Every skill that has a dedicated singletarget with a destinct aoe component (curse, fury) benefits from the firestaff buff - i know because i´ve tested that.
If you don´t want to use it that´s up to you.

True,if you use fire stave the curse's single target dmg will be buffed and if you will switch to lightning stave the curse's aoe dmg will be buffed.
In addition mines counts as aoe so lightning stave passive buffs their dmg.

Aethereal'Golden

Leave Velocious Curce with 3,5 seconds, just make it able to scale with Thaumaturge!
Stop making pets take one slot on each bar to keep active!
Don't nerf Overload!
Shields to 8 seconds at least!
Make two hand weapons like staves count as two pieces of a set for 12 set items!

psychotic13

Venzardi wrote: »

Leave Velocious Curce with 3,5 seconds, just make it able to scale with Thaumaturge!
Stop making pets take one slot on each bar to keep active!
Don't nerf Overload!
Shields to 8 seconds at least!
Make two hand weapons like staves count as two pieces of a set for 12 set items!

Velocious curse was fine as it was yes.

Pets should take 2 slots to be honest, they don't have a duration is my reasoning behind that. Shades for example only take 1 slot, but you have to keep recasting them. The cast time is annoying though.

Overload, I've never used it for damage just for the utility of having an extra bar. I understand people are mad they cut the stored ult in half, but to be honest I'd be happy if they just swapped the ultimate completely, overload builds are boring as hell.

Shields are fine at 6 seconds tbh

Never going to happen, imagine your 2h counted as 2pcs of a set.. lol

Gothren

Venzardi wrote: »

Leave Velocious Curce with 3,5 seconds, just make it able to scale with Thaumaturge!
Stop making pets take one slot on each bar to keep active!
Don't nerf Overload!
Shields to 8 seconds at least!
Make two hand weapons like staves count as two pieces of a set for 12 set items!

if it only took one slot it would be op. making it into a nontoggle would require a significant damage nerf that would make it useless. I say it stays. Its been years before they finally fixed this skill line.

Betheny

Gothren wrote: »

Venzardi wrote: »

Leave Velocious Curce with 3,5 seconds, just make it able to scale with Thaumaturge!
Stop making pets take one slot on each bar to keep active!
Don't nerf Overload!
Shields to 8 seconds at least!
Make two hand weapons like staves count as two pieces of a set for 12 set items!

if it only took one slot it would be op. making it into a nontoggle would require a significant damage nerf that would make it useless. I say it stays. Its been years before they finally fixed this skill line.

Pets die. They are not a toggle item as they have a shelf life.

If they're going to keep pets a toggle item they need to make pets unkillable.

Izaki

@Derra I was wondering.. isn't it better to front bar the lightning staff and back bar the inferno in PvE?
Highest sorc DPS moves are Liquid Lightning and Fire Blockade after all, so giving an extra 8% boost to that seems pretty legit. Then you get a 8% more damage on you execute on the inferno bar.

Or is it better to go the other way round? Lightning vMA staff on back bar to get an extra chance to proc minor vulnerability and then go all out on Frags, Force Pulse, Curse and Shooting Star?

Really wondering here... I mean its not like there's a lot of single target fights in the game...

Derra

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

@Derra I was wondering.. isn't it better to front bar the lightning staff and back bar the inferno in PvE?
Highest sorc DPS moves are Liquid Lightning and Fire Blockade after all, so giving an extra 8% boost to that seems pretty legit. Then you get a 8% more damage on you execute on the inferno bar.

Or is it better to go the other way round? Lightning vMA staff on back bar to get an extra chance to proc minor vulnerability and then go all out on Frags, Force Pulse, Curse and Shooting Star?

Really wondering here... I mean its not like there's a lot of single target fights in the game...

I´m getting better singletarget results with:

fire: pulse reach frags
lightning: curse LL woe

over:

lightning: pulse curse frags
fire: LL woe wrath

For pure singletarget dmg woe and ll are the highest dmging abilities - but looking at the total recap overall dmg is more from singletarget abilities compared to aoe ones for me. I´m mainly interested in the singletarget part of my parse rather than dps *** with aoe :P

Edit: Also when actually aoeing adds i´m on backbar lightning anyway and the aoe gets the boost when needed. Also DKs will love anyone with lightning staves because of offbalance proccs from woe.

Zedrian

My New Sorc rotation bar for trials will require mad skills and lots of fun....

SwaminoNowlino

Velocious Curse nerf = bad. Don't make this change. It's pretty simple. Even the 8% fire staff damage increase doesn't make up for damage lost by not being able to dual wield. Twin blade and blunt plus the increased spell damage from a 2nd sword nets higher damage than the 8% single target increase. Every other magicka class has dual wield available to them, if you take curse away from sorcs they will be the only class literally forced into one weapon tree.

Overload nerf. People arguing against this change because of counters to overload are obviously ignoring what people were doing with their 1,000 ultimate. Everyone uses overload until its down to 225 and then they cast their Destro Ultimate or Ice Comet. So I get why this nerf was implemented. Doesn't mean I like it, but sorcs were the only class able to use two ultimates like this. I feel like a more elegant fix could have been implemented that doesn't drastically impact folks who relied on it without using it in this fashion, but for the life of me I can't think of how it could be done.

Pet buffs are good, of course. They will never really be mainstream for DPS, because they are so unreliable and the opportunity cost is outrageous given that they are toggles. The matriarch is probably the strongest heal in the game. Consoles have no way to control their pets, so they will remain largely useless there even with the changes. Pets also steal group buffs without getting the benefits of them, so they will never be a feature of true end game content. And while you changed curse, you didn't change daedric prey or whatever the other morph is, which has never actually worked right. And pets also still don't get CP benefits, so you're giving up 4 of your possible ten spots without reaping as much reward. So overall, still pretty useless for overall gameplay.

Agree with what some others have said, make pets their own separate skill line in the mages guild or something similar. Open them up for anyone to use who likes that type of thing. Could add disease damage and poison damage flesh atros and bone colossus for stam players and do some really neat stuff that way. Like some really cool stuff that doesn't render nearly an entire skill tree of a class as useless. Could build a whole DLC around it, like a necromancy thing, and allow any class to become a necromancer or worm cult or something like that.

This would open up a skill line for sorcs and also allow for some really cool stuff. Make it an illusion skill tree or something like that, and fill it with some unique buffs or debuffs that would give sorcs a new place in end game PVE, and provide some different utility based stuff in PVP. Or make it the much requested battle mage tree. Or put necromancy in there. Lots of cool options for the creative team to play with. Obviously can't get it done this patch, but worth considering.

Gothren

Zedrian wrote: »

My New Sorc rotation bar for trials will require mad skills and lots of fun....

only an idiot would use magelight and bound armor. oh wait...

evedgebah

Regarding curse: I never heard anyone complain about it other than those getting caught in PVP by well timed and executed skill stacking by the other player. If anything, Daedric Prey needed a duration boost if the goal was to support pets, but that duration boost should involve more damage (either bigger buff to pets, or bigger explosion damage), rather than copying the re-triggering mechanic of Trap Beast.

I love the idea of pets and pet builds. It seems very fun to me. I must agree with the unfortunate severe disadvantages with trying to make them work in serious end-game content.

They frequently are difficult to direct (nigh impossible on console).
They steal raid buffs (many are capped at 6 people, and they each count as a person).
They die to raid mechanics very easily (Manticora Shards, Color Rebalance of Twins fight, Mage black circles of doom, etc), forcing lengthy recasts.
They are not buffed by CP or most passive skills.
They force you to sacrifice two bar-slots to utilize them.

The opportunity cost is simply too high, even if you build specifically for them. For this level of risk, I would need to have significantly higher benefit. They would need to buff the group more than an, admittedly powerful, heal, or do enough DPS to offset stealing raid buffs. They also need to not die to one-shots (or ridiculously strong AOE dots).

STEVIL

Comment on Volatile Clanfear Change

Summon Volatile Familiar (Summon Unstable Familiar morph):
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.
Fixed an issue where the damage from this morph’s special ability was not being increased by Daedric Prey.

While this could be seen as a sustain boost due to one click lasting longer, the bigger impact IMO is the stun now takes 8 second to proc. instead of 4 which really cuts down on its impact in combat.

i would strongly suggest that you rewrite thew tooltip to read that the Third pulse causes stun or add some effect at the halfway point otherwise the appeal of this pet (which is usually less taken than the clanfear now) will likely drop.

As it is now in PTS i would strongly consider switching my pets from twimat/volfam to clan/twimean.

Finisherofwar

Can we get any reasons for the nerf to velicious curse? I just cannot understand why this is apparantly a skill that needed such a heavy nerf.

Dracane

Just found out, that even the storm atronach does not profit from elemental expert Cp etc.... this needs to be fixed/changed.
No wonder, that they can't keep up with other abilities.

psychotic13

Dracane wrote: »

Just found out, that even the storm atronach does not profit from elemental expert Cp etc.... this needs to be fixed/changed.
No wonder, that they can't keep up with other abilities.

Well that's annoying, I had the intention of trying to incorporate it into my build. Is it even half decent with the 25% damage buff? With/without daedric prey.