They want to nerf sorcerers again!

VoiDGhOs7

"Hardened Ward has had some number tweaking - Conjured Ward’s damage shield is now only 10% stronger than Empowering Ward."

IV_Deity

Where's this?

OdinForge

Hardened ward effectively stays the same as before, it's not really a nerf to hardened ward.

VoiDGhOs7

OdinForge wrote: »

Hardened ward effectively stays the same as before, it's not really a nerf to hardened ward.

It's a 23% shield nerf.

Ley

Do you have some sort of inside information? I'm not seeing this anywhere.

smacx250

By my interpretation of Shimmer's video (5:10), it breaks down like this:

Conjured Ward: base increased by 10% (10% buff vs live)
Hardened Ward: now +20% over base (2% buff vs live)
Empowered: now +10% over base (21% buff vs live)

Feanor

I do hope this will be a buff to base shield strength and adjustments are done for Bastion. This would help noCP quite a bit.

Merlin13KAGL

It changes nothing. +10% from Conjured (base skill), +20% from Hardened = +30% that it is right now.

Huyen

More worried about the bound araments as stam sorc tbh...

Zeni0s

Nice change, without this huge difference, i'll get 10% more recovery for a short time

Ankael07

Conjured shield isnt nerfed but Empowered shield is buffed. Although it doesnt even matter because casting EW still removes retreating maneuver preventing you from escaping.

Lynx7386

Huyen wrote: »

More worried about the bound araments as stam sorc tbh...

Well it might be a buff, apparently it no longer needs to be toggled so hopefully that means it offers the benefits passively while slotted.

Feanor

The real concerning nerf is elsewhere. Sustain got a big hit if they remove the cost reduction passive.

Vaoh

The way I interpret it is:

- Conjured Ward (base morph) was buffed by 10%
- Empowered Ward is the same
- Hardened Ward was nerfed by 13%

So overall:
Empowered Ward: 10% buff
Hardened Ward: 13% nerf

I like the change because I always used Empowered Ward, though now Hardened Ward is a pretty pathetic morph choice. No reason to use Hardened Ward at all

Beardimus

DW magsorcs are getting the 15th nail in their coffin
Empowered frags gone even less burst

Nice they are buffing the useless morphs buy will it be enough.

Catering to Sorc tanking yet hating on DW diversity seems odd.

I read it that hardened is nerfed, empowered is buffed so support Sorcs have it easier.

Sounds like PvE changes impacting PvP to me....

Asardes

Will be pretty hard to benefit from the empowered LA though, since it's hard to fit them on front bar. That means that stamina Sorcerer will de facto be forced to still double bar it, chiefly for the stat bonus that still applies, and to buff at least the light attacks from the bow bar. The rotation won't change much since you'll still need plenty of heavy attacks on the melee bar to keep stamina up.

Illurian

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Huyen wrote: »

More worried about the bound araments as stam sorc tbh...

Well it might be a buff, apparently it no longer needs to be toggled so hopefully that means it offers the benefits passively while slotted.

The concern is the change from the skill buffing heavy attacks to only buffing light attacks. Stamsorcs heavily rely on heavy weaving. Most Stamsorcs exclusively heavy weave on the front bar.

Biro123

Vaoh wrote: »

The way I interpret it is:

- Conjured Ward (base morph) was buffed by 10%
- Empowered Ward is the same
- Hardened Ward was nerfed by 13%

So overall:
Empowered Ward: 10% buff
Hardened Ward: 13% nerf

I like the change because I always used Empowered Ward, though now Hardened Ward is a pretty pathetic morph choice. No reason to use Hardened Ward at all

That's not how I see it. The current description for Hardened says that your own shield will be 30% bigger.

30% of what? Well, its the base skill - conjured ward - which will now be 10% higher. So overall, your own hardened will be pretty much the same as on live. HOWEVER, your pet shields will be 10% bigger.

WuffyCerulei

They're not nerfing sorcs. They're bringing down Hardened Ward's bonus to 20%, BUT increasing the strength of Conjured Ward and morphs (including Hardened Ward) by 10%. It's to be virtually the same, but the base skill and Empowered Ward are both getting buffs.

ccfeeling

PVE
For me , I like to use Hardened Ward more , but I would like to change to Empowered Ward if it gets buff !

I am fine with either of them ... the shield is still hard enough

Vaoh

Biro123 wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

The way I interpret it is:

- Conjured Ward (base morph) was buffed by 10%
- Empowered Ward is the same
- Hardened Ward was nerfed by 13%

So overall:
Empowered Ward: 10% buff
Hardened Ward: 13% nerf

I like the change because I always used Empowered Ward, though now Hardened Ward is a pretty pathetic morph choice. No reason to use Hardened Ward at all

That's not how I see it. The current description for Hardened says that your own shield will be 30% bigger.

30% of what? Well, its the base skill - conjured ward - which will now be 10% higher. So overall, your own hardened will be pretty much the same as on live. HOWEVER, your pet shields will be 10% bigger.

I hope you’re right! I’ve seen three different descriptions of the Conjured Ward changes so far from playtesters.

Beardimus

Vaoh wrote: »

Biro123 wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

The way I interpret it is:

- Conjured Ward (base morph) was buffed by 10%
- Empowered Ward is the same
- Hardened Ward was nerfed by 13%

So overall:
Empowered Ward: 10% buff
Hardened Ward: 13% nerf

I like the change because I always used Empowered Ward, though now Hardened Ward is a pretty pathetic morph choice. No reason to use Hardened Ward at all

That's not how I see it. The current description for Hardened says that your own shield will be 30% bigger.

30% of what? Well, its the base skill - conjured ward - which will now be 10% higher. So overall, your own hardened will be pretty much the same as on live. HOWEVER, your pet shields will be 10% bigger.

I hope you’re right! I’ve seen three different descriptions of the Conjured Ward changes so far from playtesters.

Agreed, seems really unclear. We need dem patch notes

Jsmalls

If the math is exactly as described its actually is a 2% buff to hardened Ward over live.

30,000 + 33% = 39900
33,000 + 23% = 40590

Jarryzzt

They are somewhat nerfing sorcerers but not in terms of shields. My read of Hardened Ward is that it stays more or less the same, but they wanted to bring Empowered up a bit, which might actually give me a reason to experiment with it. Although I'd still use Hardened for content like vMA.

The biggest nerf I've seen is for Stamsorces where the armaments skill switches from buffing HA to buffing LA. Essentially it's - keep your rotation and miss out on...what, like 1% total DPS? You minus 11% off a 5%-10% DPS contributor or so? [I don't actually remember what my Stamsorc parses look like, but HA certainly wasn't at 20% or even close to it. But even at 20%, minus 11% is...2% of total? Please...] Still, technically it's a nerf unless you switch to LA in your rotation, which I certainly am not planning on doing (since that's my resource build).

Vahrokh

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

They're not nerfing sorcs. They're bringing down Hardened Ward's bonus to 20%, BUT increasing the strength of Conjured Ward and morphs (including Hardened Ward) by 10%. It's to be virtually the same, but the base skill and Empowered Ward are both getting buffs.

If they become the same, why anyone would slot Hardened Ward since it does not give the buffs you get from the other morph?

Celestro

Because it still absorbs a good chunk of damage more than Empowered still. It varies with the content you'd be doing or just your personal preference, but with the change, they're both appealing options rather than one feeling like the obvious choice.

I still don't fully understand the interpretation with Armament and people saying they need to do all heavy attacks on the front bar. Most people I know only need 2 HA and then 2-3 LA, while the backbar is all LA. If you still double slot, that'd definitely be a buff over the current version, but even just front barring it isn't losing that much DPS in itself.

Maulkin

Jarryzzt wrote: »

They are somewhat nerfing sorcerers but not in terms of shields. My read of Hardened Ward is that it stays more or less the same, but they wanted to bring Empowered up a bit, which might actually give me a reason to experiment with it. Although I'd still use Hardened for content like vMA.

The biggest nerf I've seen is for Stamsorces where the armaments skill switches from buffing HA to buffing LA. Essentially it's - keep your rotation and miss out on...what, like 1% total DPS? You minus 11% off a 5%-10% DPS contributor or so? [I don't actually remember what my Stamsorc parses look like, but HA certainly wasn't at 20% or even close to it. But even at 20%, minus 11% is...2% of total? Please...] Still, technically it's a nerf unless you switch to LA in your rotation, which I certainly am not planning on doing (since that's my resource build).

Combined (off & main hand) heavy attacks are usually 10% of your parse. So you are are right 11% of 10% is ~1.1%. But also you gain about 0.4% from the LA bonus, since Bow light attacks are usually about 4% of your deeps.

So it would be a DPS loss of around ~0.7% (boohoo) if you still had to double bar it. But you don't. By the sounds of it, the free slot will go to Psijic skill Imbue Weapons, which massively buffs next 2 light attacks (allegedly to Surprise Attack levels). So by the sounds of it, it's a DPS buff.

Based on speculation and subject to testing, of course.

Sixty5

Maulkin wrote: »

Jarryzzt wrote: »

They are somewhat nerfing sorcerers but not in terms of shields. My read of Hardened Ward is that it stays more or less the same, but they wanted to bring Empowered up a bit, which might actually give me a reason to experiment with it. Although I'd still use Hardened for content like vMA.

The biggest nerf I've seen is for Stamsorces where the armaments skill switches from buffing HA to buffing LA. Essentially it's - keep your rotation and miss out on...what, like 1% total DPS? You minus 11% off a 5%-10% DPS contributor or so? [I don't actually remember what my Stamsorc parses look like, but HA certainly wasn't at 20% or even close to it. But even at 20%, minus 11% is...2% of total? Please...] Still, technically it's a nerf unless you switch to LA in your rotation, which I certainly am not planning on doing (since that's my resource build).

Combined (off & main hand) heavy attacks are usually 10% of your parse. So you are are right 11% of 10% is ~1.1%. But also you gain about 0.4% from the LA bonus, since Bow light attacks are usually about 4% of your deeps.

So it would be a DPS loss of around ~0.7% (boohoo) if you still had to double bar it. But you don't. By the sounds of it, the free slot will go to Psijic skill Imbue Weapons, which massively buffs next 2 light attacks (allegedly to Surprise Attack levels). So by the sounds of it, it's a DPS buff.

Based on speculation and subject to testing, of course.

Also something to remember is that light and heavy attack damage is being buffed across the board with the changes to the way it scales off of max resources, and given that with Bound Armaments Stam Sorc has the highest max stam pool of any Stam build, you should see a decent DPS boost there as well.

So even if you are losing 0.7% DPS through the swap from heavy attack damage to light attack damage, you are going to gain more back over other classes with your larger stam pool

Imbue Weapons looks to be pretty massive, as long as the cost is managable.

Imbue > Heavy > Ability > Light will probably be sustainable with pots, and if the damage is comparable to Surprise attack, you are basically getting two spammables for the price of one GCD.

Tasear

VoiDGhOs7 wrote: »

"Hardened Ward has had some number tweaking - Conjured Ward’s damage shield is now only 10% stronger than Empowering Ward."

Somebody probably said but ward is still same just conjured was underpowering in actual combat compared to harden. Besides to regain was not and is not that amazing buff for allies.

Tasear

Vahrokh wrote: »

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

They're not nerfing sorcs. They're bringing down Hardened Ward's bonus to 20%, BUT increasing the strength of Conjured Ward and morphs (including Hardened Ward) by 10%. It's to be virtually the same, but the base skill and Empowered Ward are both getting buffs.

If they become the same, why anyone would slot Hardened Ward since it does not give the buffs you get from the other morph?

Not the same enough for you to have to think about the decision. Thou now I worry about hamony + guidance + shield clashs. Also what can I do as support now. :'(