Mag Sorcerers Need a Buff (ZOS Please READ)

Maulkin

technohic wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

Bit of a long one here, please do bear with me. I'm perhaps gonna buck a trend here among fellow Sorcs and say that power wise I think we're mostly in a good place.

That said, I do think the damage nerf on the frags needs to be reverted now the stun is gone. The class plays as a kiting class with burst and it's only got two core damage skills Curse and Frags. So nerfing frag (i.e. burst) damage in the first place was contradictory to how the class is supposed to play. A weird change considering it's already trailing behind StamDen, Stamplar, StamBlade and MagBlade in terms of burst damage, while being on a par with MagDen who is tankier. But apart from that I don't think the class really needs buffs.

The only major complain about Sorc (and I hear the same from most experienced Sorcs) is how due to low availability of buffs and a high number of very core skills, nearly every Sorc plays the same. I see some people drop Power Surge in favour of spell power pots and find a place for either Rune Cage or Daedric Mines.... but that's about it. The rest is frag, fury, curse, reach, streak/BoL and 3 shields on probably +95% of experienced Sorcs out there. There is no class with less variability than Sorcs, aside from complete novelty builds like pet or overload sniper.

So if anything, Sorc does not need buffs imo but a tiny bit of a rework. My personal recommendation has always involved suggestions to reduce reliance on shield stacking and that way open up slots for more skills and builds. I petitioned to remove Hardened Ward and in return:

1. augment the Daedric Protection passive to reduce the cost of shields by, say, ~20% percent which would bring the cost of Harness/Dampen down to current Hardened Ward levels. So Sorcs would have Dampen/Harness and Heal Ward like anyone else, only cheaper.
2. add some small mitigation like the Minor Protection buff that Warden has, to compensate for the loss of the 3rd shield
3. create a wholly new skill to replace Hardened Ward in the skill tree, so long as it's not a freaking shield.

What that would do is free up a slot (Hardened) on the bar and create an opportunity for more diverse and interesting builds. Survivability will slightly go down in 1v1s due to the loss of the 3rd shield, but 3 shields especially in magicka vs magicka fights are ridiculously strong. The % damage mitigation however will scale better against many opponents than shields do and so survivability against many opponents (whether group vs group, or 1vX ) should be largely unaffected. Also the flat protection buff would work for a wider range of builds. Be it magicka builds that don't want to rely on Shields or StamStorc builds.

I like your thinking here. I've actually run my sorc without shields other than healing ward and just wizards riposte just to change up the play style. You can zerg surf like any other bad build and snipe some kills; but I wouldn't recommend it when isolated. It was kind of fun though to not have to keep recasting shields as part of a rotation and to streak around LOS when targeted spamming healing ward hoping help comes.

That's a rather ambitious set up in the current meta. I tried extensively with 2 shields, Hardened and Heal Ward, which is certainly easier than only one shield. It had some positive results and some negative ones.

The problem with two shields is that as soon as you meet another Sorc with 3 shields, you realise how inferior your set up is. They will have much better sustain than you, due to the Harness magicka return. Also the double stack of Harness-Hardened creates a larger protection buffer from burst and opens up a bigger window to set up your own burst. I found that by using only Hardened, I had to quite often break up my offensive rotation to re-apply Hardened. So eventually you fight a losing resource battle against any other Sorc that's remotely competent.

It's hard to accept that your build will always lose against a particular opponent especially when that is your own class. With 3 shields you can always force another MagSorc into a stale-mate at the very least.

Dracane

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Savos_Saren wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Savos_Saren wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

Savos_Saren wrote: »

This thread blows my mind. I decided to roll a MagSorc in AvA the other day with my guild...

...in one night got 374 kills and 181 were killing blows. It was absolutely astonishing!

Here was my setup:
1 Molag Kena
5 Innate Axiom
5 Netch’s Touch

Front bar (Lightning Destro):
Mage’s Wrath, Haunting Curse, Inner Light, Boundless Storm, Restraining Prison Ultimate: Meteor

Back bar (Resto):
Power Surge, Empowered Ward, Cleanse, Healing Ward, Streak Ultimate: Suppression Field

If you think MagSorcs are weak and need a buff: You’re doing it wrong.

Sorcs register on average 2 KBs for every actual killing blow they get. Some times even 3. This is because of delayed burst and multiple abilities count as a killing blow. So those 181 killing blows are at least double the actual killing blows u get on a sorc. Thats 1 killing blow every 4-5 kills on the class that is prety much designed to get killing blows even when u literally dont actually do anything to the target. Those are not astonishing numbers, those are horrible numbers and u've set ur bar too low.

You were also running in a large group cause that build is simply trash for any actual solo/small scale PVP, so other people were covering your weaknesses so you basically still have no idea about what sorc is good or not good at other than just abusing people with roots, spamming fury and a couple of negates here and there thinking that you are actually doing good. This is the same like a mDK playing with a stamblade that executes people for fun and the DK thinking that his dots are those that kill people.

To wrap it up, you just experienced the enthusiasm of playing a new class, not playing an OP class. First learn the class and actually go and play solo, get some clips and then u can tell people how astonishing it is. Until then dont bother talking about sorc balance cause the only thing you prove with posts like that is what actual sorcs have been telling for years. That nerf sorc threads are filled with clueless people like you who have no idea about what they are talking about and they basically just talk out of their .....

Regardless of your fantastic knowledge- the kills/KBS were still higher than my mDK in the same group composition. So, there's that...

Which, by your own bolded statement means that mDKs are even worse in PVP than mSorcs... right? But hey... buff Sorcs!

I'll be the guy and speak out what everyone is thinking:
Your build is absolute sh... trash and you only have a sense of accomplishment because your zerg... I mean, guild, did the hard work for you. Your opinion on this matter is best ignored, as you clearly lack a lot of experience.

Right- so I guess everyone in the forums that has been acknowledging that sorcs have been OP for quite some time now... all of them are inexperienced and uninformed? Poor sorcs. You guys will never be happy until you can one-shot everyone and streak away unscathed.

It becomes abundantly clear you lack experience to be a source of discussion and have never engaged with a good player on your own. You're just hiding in your group.

In fact, you let it slip.
Whenever the tides turn against you or you see a difficult fight approaching, you run away. Your last comment clearly indicates that. Just wait until a good player finds you and you can't run away, you'll see...

What has happened. Now pitiful zerglings come to the forums and try to teach us.
Silence this imposter

Feanor

@Maulkin

It’s ok. @Azurya plays NB. Also known as the class you can’t have balance discussions with. I’d be supportive of a class overhaul too - hopefully one that finally gets us rid of staves as only option too.

Izaki

So I personally agree that Sorcs need buffs.

However... This patch Dark Conversion is actually VERY strong, especially in conjuction with Immovability pots and those poisons that root the enemy and give you CC immunity (Escapist poisons I believe they are called?). You are able to Dark Conversion for days without being interrupted which is a huge thing for sustain.

technohic

Maulkin wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

Maulkin wrote: »

Bit of a long one here, please do bear with me. I'm perhaps gonna buck a trend here among fellow Sorcs and say that power wise I think we're mostly in a good place.

That said, I do think the damage nerf on the frags needs to be reverted now the stun is gone. The class plays as a kiting class with burst and it's only got two core damage skills Curse and Frags. So nerfing frag (i.e. burst) damage in the first place was contradictory to how the class is supposed to play. A weird change considering it's already trailing behind StamDen, Stamplar, StamBlade and MagBlade in terms of burst damage, while being on a par with MagDen who is tankier. But apart from that I don't think the class really needs buffs.

The only major complain about Sorc (and I hear the same from most experienced Sorcs) is how due to low availability of buffs and a high number of very core skills, nearly every Sorc plays the same. I see some people drop Power Surge in favour of spell power pots and find a place for either Rune Cage or Daedric Mines.... but that's about it. The rest is frag, fury, curse, reach, streak/BoL and 3 shields on probably +95% of experienced Sorcs out there. There is no class with less variability than Sorcs, aside from complete novelty builds like pet or overload sniper.

So if anything, Sorc does not need buffs imo but a tiny bit of a rework. My personal recommendation has always involved suggestions to reduce reliance on shield stacking and that way open up slots for more skills and builds. I petitioned to remove Hardened Ward and in return:

1. augment the Daedric Protection passive to reduce the cost of shields by, say, ~20% percent which would bring the cost of Harness/Dampen down to current Hardened Ward levels. So Sorcs would have Dampen/Harness and Heal Ward like anyone else, only cheaper.
2. add some small mitigation like the Minor Protection buff that Warden has, to compensate for the loss of the 3rd shield
3. create a wholly new skill to replace Hardened Ward in the skill tree, so long as it's not a freaking shield.

What that would do is free up a slot (Hardened) on the bar and create an opportunity for more diverse and interesting builds. Survivability will slightly go down in 1v1s due to the loss of the 3rd shield, but 3 shields especially in magicka vs magicka fights are ridiculously strong. The % damage mitigation however will scale better against many opponents than shields do and so survivability against many opponents (whether group vs group, or 1vX ) should be largely unaffected. Also the flat protection buff would work for a wider range of builds. Be it magicka builds that don't want to rely on Shields or StamStorc builds.

I like your thinking here. I've actually run my sorc without shields other than healing ward and just wizards riposte just to change up the play style. You can zerg surf like any other bad build and snipe some kills; but I wouldn't recommend it when isolated. It was kind of fun though to not have to keep recasting shields as part of a rotation and to streak around LOS when targeted spamming healing ward hoping help comes.

That's a rather ambitious set up in the current meta. I tried extensively with 2 shields, Hardened and Heal Ward, which is certainly easier than only one shield. It had some positive results and some negative ones.

The problem with two shields is that as soon as you meet another Sorc with 3 shields, you realise how inferior your set up is. They will have much better sustain than you, due to the Harness magicka return. Also the double stack of Harness-Hardened creates a larger protection buffer from burst and opens up a bigger window to set up your own burst. I found that by using only Hardened, I had to quite often break up my offensive rotation to re-apply Hardened. So eventually you fight a losing resource battle against any other Sorc that's remotely competent.

It's hard to accept that your build will always lose against a particular opponent especially when that is your own class. With 3 shields you can always force another MagSorc into a stale-mate at the very least.

Yeah; its not ideal. Its why I'd support the idea of moving away from shield stacking being so relied on by sorcs with some other way for defense. I've not quite ever mained a sorc even though a lot of it feels good to me; maybe from playing a sniper in SWTOR before coming here. I just selfishly hate having to focus on keeping shields up.

Maulkin

Feanor wrote: »

@Maulkin

It’s ok. @Azurya plays NB. Also known as the class you can’t have balance discussions with. I’d be supportive of a class overhaul too - hopefully one that finally gets us rid of staves as only option too.

I don't foresee any change in the destro staff meta any time soon, sadly. It's not a Sorc thing either. The moment they changed the Ancient Knoweldge passive, buffed the Master's destro staff and removed the frag CC.... the DW and S&B setups became part of history. Now they are just novelty builds.

Trading the pressure of light attacking weaving and a spammable skill for extra burst was one thing. But now the 8% extra damage from Ancient Knowledge offsets a large part of the spell damage loss of switching from DW to Destro. And having a spammable CC makes S&B reflect useless too. Reach buffed by Masters is too good to give up.

I just don't see it unless something very drastic happens.

Maulkin

Izaki wrote: »

So I personally agree that Sorcs need buffs.

However... This patch Dark Conversion is actually VERY strong, especially in conjuction with Immovability pots and those poisons that root the enemy and give you CC immunity (Escapist poisons I believe they are called?). You are able to Dark Conversion for days without being interrupted which is a huge thing for sustain.

Agree on Dark Conversion being very strong now, but my counter argument is that it was extremely strong last patch too. Quick LOS with Streak would prevent you from being interrupted. Now you can spam it on peoples faces after the CD has expired but I wouldn't take the risk of being interrupted and being set off balance if I can avoid it. So the play-style has not really changed.

As for immovable pots they've been nerfed to Oblivion and are no longer part of the meta. The CC immunity has been nerfed form 15" down to 5" this patch. Less than the 7" you get from CC breaking. Huge nerf.

Azurya

Feanor wrote: »

@Maulkin

It’s ok. @Azurya plays NB. Also known as the class you can’t have balance discussions with. I’d be supportive of a class overhaul too - hopefully one that finally gets us rid of staves as only option too.

yes THAT would be awesome!
in fact I went back with my magblade to play frontbar 2 swords, using the stave backbar to buff up,
and must say functions very well so far, must optimize a few things, but yes

about the staves anywhere, it is nice to see that we have so many styles, but it is really TOO MANY, around midnight, doing a rnd dungeon, 4 staves (yes me too) something really went wrong there with the balancing, imho.....

Anti_Virus

Minalan wrote: »

The class is hopelessly broken since they took the stun off of crystal fragments.

We are asking for a few small, incremental buffs. Tiny things that could add up quickly.

More damage on frags - we have two damage skills that aren’t an execute or an ultimate. Fine, we can do without the stun, but please make crystal fragments do 20% more damage on a proc again.

Lower the cost penalty slightly on streak. I don’t see gap closers or mist form costing this much. If you lower the stacking cost penalty by just 5-10%, we will notice.

Make streak range just one meter further. Gap closers are longer than streak, cost far less to use over and over, and they snare. Just one meter or so will help with our mobility issues.

Lower the cost on shields because sustain is killing us. Seriously, unlike stamina classes you never ever see a Sorc with 5000-6000 spell damage. We have to stack far too much sustain to move and keep shields up. Lower the cost on hardened ward slightly. Even 10% would help.

We constantly get ignored by the devs. Most of us are getting tired of it. There are other games to spend money on, and my friends are leaving.

They need to add gap closer fatuige.

Also I think shields should go back to 20s but shouldn't stack.

KramUzibra

GeorgeBlack wrote: »

Oh yeah?
You have every tool needed for pvp and you can't manage?
Do you want to swap with my stamDK?

Right! This has to be a joke