PTS Update 18 - Feedback Thread for Sorcerer Balance

Tasear

Morgul667 wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

What do you guys think about changes to dark magic?

Will mines be useful?

Is the heal enough say use twlight tormentor?

How is encase looking?

I always like the mine, but as I remember they were clunky as boss didnt trigger them all as intended or understood

Ill give it a try again.

Maybe this is what meant by mines not going off with things immune to etun or something?

Svidrir

Dracane wrote: »

As I said, it provides the stat buff If you have bound armor on 1 bar, you will only have the magicka or stamina bonus on that very bar and it won't carry over to your other bar or Overload bar.

Thank you for the information, that's what I was afraid of .....

Morgul667

Dracane wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Did 8% increase magic or stamina go bye bye from bound armaments?

It's still there.

Do we need to have it on the 2 bars for it to be active, or one bar is enough ?

@Dracane

@Morgul667

Having it on 1 bar provides the stat buff and and also the minor ward and resolve if you are using Bound Aegis or the light attack bonus when you use Armaments. The 20% block mititgation is a baseline effect for both morphs.
When you activate bound armor, you get that old purple mist animation for 3 seconds which gives you the block buff and it remains active for the duration when you swap bars.

Thanks @Dracane what about the 8% magicka or stamina bonus?

As I said, it provides the stat buff If you have bound armor on 1 bar, you will only have the magicka or stamina bonus on that very bar and it won't carry over to your other bar or Overload bar.

Sorry i didnt understand the first time but thanks for clarification

Tasear

Do you guys see more diversity in sorcs in gameplay next patch?

Morgul667

Tasear wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

What do you guys think about changes to dark magic?

Will mines be useful?

Is the heal enough say use twlight tormentor?

How is encase looking?

I always like the mine, but as I remember they were clunky as boss didnt trigger them all as intended or understood

Ill give it a try again.

Maybe this is what meant by mines not going off with things immune to etun or something?

I dont remember if it was alcast or someone who poste an explanation thread about the bug.

Basically the boss takes damage for two mines but not 3 if i remember correctly

I did my own testting as i ran a build without crystal frag at a point ( trying to develop my own thing). It had potential but was not on par with other skills for the magicka spent. Ill give it some tests again

Tasear

Morgul667 wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

What do you guys think about changes to dark magic?

Will mines be useful?

Is the heal enough say use twlight tormentor?

How is encase looking?

I always like the mine, but as I remember they were clunky as boss didnt trigger them all as intended or understood

Ill give it a try again.

Maybe this is what meant by mines not going off with things immune to etun or something?

I dont remember if it was alcast or someone who poste an explanation thread about the bug.

Basically the boss takes damage for two mines but not 3 if i remember correctly

I did my own testting as i ran a build without crystal frag at a point ( trying to develop my own thing). It had potential but was not on par with other skills for the magicka spent. Ill give it some tests again

Thanks more testing and results will help sorc get to where it needs to be.

Thraben

Tasear wrote: »

Do you guys see more diversity in sorcs in gameplay next patch?

Hard to say. There is always a meta and people tend to be meta chasers. This is only partly justified by the fact that the PvE DPS role doesn´t offer much space for "individual builds."

I´d love to see more Sorc healers (even in PvP!), or more Sorc tanks, though. The tools are there, people just have to use them.

Qbiken

Dracane wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Did 8% increase magic or stamina go bye bye from bound armaments?

It's still there.

Do we need to have it on the 2 bars for it to be active, or one bar is enough ?

@Dracane

@Morgul667

Having it on 1 bar provides the stat buff and and also the minor ward and resolve if you are using Bound Aegis or the light attack bonus when you use Armaments. The 20% block mititgation is a baseline effect for both morphs.
When you activate bound armor, you get that old purple mist animation for 3 seconds which gives you the block buff and it remains active for the duration when you swap bars.

Thanks @Dracane what about the 8% magicka or stamina bonus?

As I said, it provides the stat buff If you have bound armor on 1 bar, you will only have the magicka or stamina bonus on that very bar and it won't carry over to your other bar or Overload bar.

Thanks for answering. Was curious since it would´ve been very beneficial for stamsorc werewolf in that case

Chilly-McFreeze

Tasear wrote: »

Do you guys see more diversity in sorcs in gameplay next patch?

Diversity? No, or at least nothing to write home about. You've got maybe 1 bar slot, if you used BA before. But you weren't reliant on a GC before. And the cost reduction after block really benefits SnB builds the most, which ironically many stam sorcs already run in PvP.

The issue at hand is that sorcs "core strengths" (mobility) is still weak and can't compete with shield stacking. Someone already said it, even the "stand your ground" DK now has a snare removal in his class kit, while the oh-so-mobile sorc has to rely on extern skills which all have it's own drawbacks and opportunity costs.

Nothing class relevant has changed to move the meta or anything near it around. In PvP the former frag nerf still hurts mag sorcs. Only thing I can imagine is that imbued weapons will be some kind of class spam replacement for stam sorcs. As Mag you're forced into destro anyway.

I hyped myself too much when they said this will bring changes to the classes.

Joy_Division

My magicka sorc is going to choose the stamina morph for Bound Armor

Maulkin

I don't have the disk space for PTS. Whoever gets to go on it an play about, can they please, please test:
a) what is the light attack damage increase on PTS compared to live
b) does the the new passive for 15% cost reduction after block, have a cool down.

HoloYoitsu wrote: »

Guys, I don't know how many of you have gotten on PTS yet, but the old "Invalid Location" Bolt Escape bug is back.

Haven't uploaded the video of it yet, but it's exactly the same as the old Invalid Location bug back from Thieves Guild PTS, which you can see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvVOFw2u7pk

Well they better sort this out sooner rather than later, because if this makes it to live (again) there shall be carnage.

Maulkin

NBrookus wrote: »

Malamar1229 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

jeskah wrote: »

Quick test: empower do not empower overload.
The bound armaments 11% looks like does.

Goodbye Overload gankers A bit sad, that overload remains rather useless offensive wise, but also glad that no nerfs will be needed.

Not sure what's going on. so on PTS my overload light attack reads 17k when I mouse over it...then I cast mage light and it jumps to 22k. I would say its affected by empower....

It buffs by 20%... not 40%. Not sure if bug that it doesn't do 40%, or a bug that it still does 20%... or if it was supposed to stay at the same level.

22/17= 1.3

That (what Malamar is listing) is a 30% buff. Neither 20% nor 40%.

It's what is known as "ZOS math".

Malamar1229

Maulkin wrote: »

NBrookus wrote: »

Malamar1229 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

jeskah wrote: »

Quick test: empower do not empower overload.
The bound armaments 11% looks like does.

Goodbye Overload gankers A bit sad, that overload remains rather useless offensive wise, but also glad that no nerfs will be needed.

Not sure what's going on. so on PTS my overload light attack reads 17k when I mouse over it...then I cast mage light and it jumps to 22k. I would say its affected by empower....

It buffs by 20%... not 40%. Not sure if bug that it doesn't do 40%, or a bug that it still does 20%... or if it was supposed to stay at the same level.

22/17= 1.3

That (what Malamar is listing) is a 30% buff. Neither 20% nor 40%.

It's what is known as "ZOS math".

ZOS also invented common core

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO

Lightning Flood is only viable for a 6 second rotation builds which are close to non existing. Running liquid lightning for 7 seconds pulls of almost the same damage as the 6 second Lightning flood and you also have 3 more seconds of its duration.

The damage increase of lightning flood should be raised from 15% to 25% or at lease the duration should be increased by 1 or 2 seconds to make it on par with the other morph.

Also I don't understand why Dreadric mines are doing single target explosions. It is common sense that they should do an area of effect damage when one of them explodes.

Also I'd suggest pets to be able to be one slotted and their damage lowered to compensate.

Thraben

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the Sorcerer combat balance and ability changes. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance.

Ah, because this is more of a conversational thread due to the lack of anything worth talking about in the sorc patch notes:

1) Reduce both the costs and the damage of Overload light attacks by 50%.
2) Increase the damage of the Overload heavy attacks by 50%.
3) Dark Deal should convert more ressources per usage

4) Give Sorcs back their class identity:
a) Chrystal Frags: Magicka Skills have a 15% chance of causing the next CF to be instant, deal 20% more damage, and apply minor breach.
b) Chrystal Explosion: Now scales off stamina. 20m range. Does no longer stun, or deal AoE damage. Stamina Skills have a 15% chance of causing the next CE to be instant, deal 20% more damage, and apply minor fracture.

Well, we can at least dream

Irylia

My wishlist is simple

-frag stuns and 10/20% dmg nerf is restored

-streak has no front/back delay (removes snares)

-hard ward has minor protection that kicks in for x seconds when attacked by 2+ people.


-destro ult reworked into 3 ults
1. Inferno: lobs a fireball at single target for x damage and applies a unique burn that while active provides minor beserk to the user. Undodgeable but blockable.
2. Lightning: conal magicka db that deals x damage, concusses and disorients enemies hit (stunning them much like db.)
3. Ice: slam staff into the ground to cause an aoe ripple (ic atro boss) that shoots icicles outwards in an 8m radius all enemies hit once are rooted and take 100/75/50/25% damage for successive icicles. On the 3rd icicle to hit a target they are stunned much like permafrost.

Note: this should reduce stress on server performance and make old ults more popular (diversity). Providing mag classes with unique low cost ult options that don’t lack counterplay like the current ult (compared to the stationary ult counterparts)

I’ll keep the list short so it isn’t scary to read.

Aznox

Dracane wrote: »

I just made a comparison between light attacks on live and pts and I am positively shocked. Yet can hardly believe, these numbers are correct.

Light attack on live: 58189 Magicka, 2120 spell damage: 2899 damage
Light attack on pts : Exactly the same stats : 5929

This is on a skeleton, no penetration applied, no maelstrom weapon. Exact same CP layout with 720 CP.
Holy Trinimac.

Ahaha called it in my excel calc sheet @Qbiken ! 100% increase in light attack damage for your typical magicka stacking petsorc build thanks to the new ratio.

Stong shields, strong pets, now with strong empowered light attacks. Big winner of this new patch, you guys are going to have fun

WardogAce

Your goal in the dps department is a bad one. In your comments, you wanted to close the gap between. Stamina and magick does in trials. In reality, this would remove any chance of stamina wanted in competitive trial runs. The reason stamina was allowed in trials was the fact that they COULD potentially pull more dps. Magicka would then be there to be survivable/ranged. I understand this leaves magDKs in a bad place, which I would suggest making your goal to have magDKs comparable with stamDPS, not your original goal of making stamina and magicka dps the same.
Because of your changes, magicka dps pull WAY more damage than stamina--much more than stamina ever pulled. Someone was able to do a 50k parse on a dummy on a magblade WITHOUT BUFFS. In relation tosources, the magsirc can pull 47k whereas the stamina sorc falls behind by 5k with comparable conditions. Your changes have made magicka way too overpowered with your light attack buff.
The buff is only a symptom of the problem, the true problem is your goal. In summary, you should change your goal to have magdk pull similar numbers to stamsorcs or other stam players. The clockwork city patch has actually been the most balanced when it comes to dps in trials--magdks were practically the only ones left out from the original roster. Do NOT try to boost magDPS over stamina; it will be homestead all over again, with only magicka toons requested in trials.

Beardimus

Tasear wrote: »

Do you guys see more diversity in sorcs in gameplay next patch?

NO.

Beardimus

We REALLY need our class identity back in PvP.

Movement, burst, fun.

Not to blocking and tankier than ever.

Fix streak, give it distance
Remove the clunky feeling from rune cage if you are forcing us to use it
Boundless be boundless!
Frag needs power back
Ultimate back to 1000 (wish list)

Beardimus

Did anyone spot that in known.issues streak is bugged ?

I'm at least hoping that means they meddling with its code to stop the horrid delays.

Derra

Irylia wrote: »

My wishlist is simple

-frag stuns and 10/20% dmg nerf is restored

-streak has no front/back delay (removes snares)

-hard ward has minor protection that kicks in for x seconds when attacked by 2+ people.


-destro ult reworked into 3 ults
1. Inferno: lobs a fireball at single target for x damage and applies a unique burn that while active provides minor beserk to the user. Undodgeable but blockable.
2. Lightning: conal magicka db that deals x damage, concusses and disorients enemies hit (stunning them much like db.)
3. Ice: slam staff into the ground to cause an aoe ripple (ic atro boss) that shoots icicles outwards in an 8m radius all enemies hit once are rooted and take 100/75/50/25% damage for successive icicles. On the 3rd icicle to hit a target they are stunned much like permafrost.

Note: this should reduce stress on server performance and make old ults more popular (diversity). Providing mag classes with unique low cost ult options that don’t lack counterplay like the current ult (compared to the stationary ult counterparts)

I’ll keep the list short so it isn’t scary to read.

I´d be careful to ask for buffs at this point.

Magica as a whole due to lightattack changes and sorc specifically due to changes to rune cage + psijic skilline do not feel weak on pts.

I might agree on CF buff in some way because i´m inclined to no longer slot it under certain circumstances. This shouldn´t be the case for a core skill.

Overload should see a complete overhaul. It´s nuts in combination with the new empower + imbued weapon. On the other hand it´s useless without.

Minalan

Derra wrote: »

Irylia wrote: »

My wishlist is simple

-frag stuns and 10/20% dmg nerf is restored

-streak has no front/back delay (removes snares)

-hard ward has minor protection that kicks in for x seconds when attacked by 2+ people.


-destro ult reworked into 3 ults
1. Inferno: lobs a fireball at single target for x damage and applies a unique burn that while active provides minor beserk to the user. Undodgeable but blockable.
2. Lightning: conal magicka db that deals x damage, concusses and disorients enemies hit (stunning them much like db.)
3. Ice: slam staff into the ground to cause an aoe ripple (ic atro boss) that shoots icicles outwards in an 8m radius all enemies hit once are rooted and take 100/75/50/25% damage for successive icicles. On the 3rd icicle to hit a target they are stunned much like permafrost.

Note: this should reduce stress on server performance and make old ults more popular (diversity). Providing mag classes with unique low cost ult options that don’t lack counterplay like the current ult (compared to the stationary ult counterparts)

I’ll keep the list short so it isn’t scary to read.

I´d be careful to ask for buffs at this point.

Magica as a whole due to lightattack changes and sorc specifically due to changes to rune cage + psijic skilline do not feel weak on pts.

I might agree on CF buff in some way because i´m inclined to no longer slot it under certain circumstances. This shouldn´t be the case for a core skill.

Overload should see a complete overhaul. It´s nuts in combination with the new empower + imbued weapon. On the other hand it´s useless without.

That’s the point. *Magicka* got buffed, that means the Magicka spec of every class, not just ours. The light attack buff is nice, but stamina ayers have been running around with that for years with 5K weapon damage.

The base skill Crystal shards needs to have minor breach on it, even if it’s just for a couple of seconds. Giving the frags morph 10% more damage (20% total) would sweeten the deal. Right now it just doesn’t hit hard enough to justify having an instant cast locked behind a one third proc chance.

Something has to be done about the buff/debuff imbalance with Sorc. Fact is we don’t have any debuffs except those we get from crutching on broken sets. (Riposte, durok, etc)

Rune cage was a nice thing we didn’t really ask for, but many of us don’t see the point of a stun hitting for 3-4K tops when we can spam flame reach. It does the same thing, and lays down six times the damage because it still hits when the enemy CC immunity is up.

Overload isn’t an excuse not to buff our class, that skill is going to get nerfed. We all know it. The only question is how. Hopefully/personally I hope they reduce the light attack damage and make the heavy attack *really* impressive so that the skill isn’t completely pointless. We don’t have any really impressive damaging ultimates, nothing that compares to leap or incap strike.

SirMewser

As a Pet Sorc player...

1. Allow Twilight Tormentor to apply minor breach or something so it's not useless for half of a fight.
2. Reduce the cost of the Clannfear's active heal because it's about 6k for me. For a tank ~6k is ridiculous especially when managing a pet since shields on a tank are weaker than a full mag sorc DPS. Also consider increasing his passive damage while at that.
3. Allow Sorc pet's passive damage to benefit from CP.
4. The charged storm atronach AoE attack would be more useful if tied as a second function when activating the atronach again after being summoned so players have more control and can time when this is necessary.
5. Then just make an air atronach morph that deals physical damage. Remember the last update where you made him scale better with penetration and max resource? Awesome for magic users but where is the love for stam sorcs on this one?
6. Why does Daedric Prey buff pet's damage by 55% BUT the storm atronach? Not asking for a buff but it's eyesore to look at, just make it 55% for all pets and respectively reduce the atronach tooltip if you have to...

While it's great that Empowered Ward and Bound Armour got buffed...
I want the abilities in the game to function with the system's that have been implemented for years. All of the deceiving tooltips are a bloody half-arse mess while morphs are left to be point-blank useless.

Chilly-McFreeze

Minalan wrote: »

Overload isn’t an excuse not to buff our class, that skill is going to get nerfed. We all know it. The only question is how. Hopefully/personally I hope they reduce the light attack damage and make the heavy attack *really* impressive so that the skill isn’t completely pointless. We don’t have any really impressive damaging ultimates, nothing that compares to leap or incap strike.

After you brought that up a lot of times I must ask myself where do you see Overload's uses then?
In PvE boss fights w/ adds you're good with Elemental Rage since that isn't a channel. For PvP single target or even ganking it would be worse than on live. I also don't think it's wise to use a channel when you're relatively close to a tight group, which is needed to do damage with it.
So the only thing that swapped damage would be good for is PvE AoE trash fights. And for that you don't need an ultimate anyway. And after all, there is still a morph that increases damage and range of the heavy attack.

If they don't rework that skill completely (by which I fear loosing out our third bar) they need to either stop empower from working on OL or adjust how it scales with the new system. Maybe through lowering the base damage.

Daila820

Joy_Division wrote: »

My magicka sorc is going to choose the stamina morph for Bound Armor

Why?

Minalan

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

Overload isn’t an excuse not to buff our class, that skill is going to get nerfed. We all know it. The only question is how. Hopefully/personally I hope they reduce the light attack damage and make the heavy attack *really* impressive so that the skill isn’t completely pointless. We don’t have any really impressive damaging ultimates, nothing that compares to leap or incap strike.

After you brought that up a lot of times I must ask myself where do you see Overload's uses then?
In PvE boss fights w/ adds you're good with Elemental Rage since that isn't a channel. For PvP single target or even ganking it would be worse than on live. I also don't think it's wise to use a channel when you're relatively close to a tight group, which is needed to do damage with it.
So the only thing that swapped damage would be good for is PvE AoE trash fights. And for that you don't need an ultimate anyway. And after all, there is still a morph that increases damage and range of the heavy attack.

If they don't rework that skill completely (by which I fear loosing out our third bar) they need to either stop empower from working on OL or adjust how it scales with the new system. Maybe through lowering the base damage.

You have a point, the heavy attack activation time is too slow in PVP, and the range too short to really be useful there.

In any event it needs to be made useful. If the overload bar is a sacrifice we make for it being “really good” then I’d be willing to take that risk

I use the overload bar more than anything. I stick three or four utilities there that I don’t have room for otherwise. Outside of ganking some newbie on a horse, I can’t remember the last time I fired a light attack in anger.

On PTS, Makkir managed to get a tooltip of 27K or something insane. Using it with rune cage is a one shot nearly every time.

Dracane

Aznox wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

I just made a comparison between light attacks on live and pts and I am positively shocked. Yet can hardly believe, these numbers are correct.

Light attack on live: 58189 Magicka, 2120 spell damage: 2899 damage
Light attack on pts : Exactly the same stats : 5929

This is on a skeleton, no penetration applied, no maelstrom weapon. Exact same CP layout with 720 CP.
Holy Trinimac.

Ahaha called it in my excel calc sheet @Qbiken ! 100% increase in light attack damage for your typical magicka stacking petsorc build thanks to the new ratio.

Stong shields, strong pets, now with strong empowered light attacks. Big winner of this new patch, you guys are going to have fun

At about 58k Magicka, you will have a 100% damage increase. However, everything else will be significantly lower.
It's basically keeping the same damage niveau as before, thus it does not really benefit magicka stackers much more.

I don't notice this at all in combat.

NBrookus

Daila820 wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

My magicka sorc is going to choose the stamina morph for Bound Armor

Why?

Increased damage to light attacks just for having it slotted.

Aznox

Dracane wrote: »

At about 58k Magicka, you will have a 100% damage increase. However, everything else will be significantly lower.
It's basically keeping the same damage niveau as before, thus it does not really benefit magicka stackers much more.

I don't notice this at all in combat.

What ? i'm just saying a petsorc on PTS has the same shields, pet and ability damage as on Live, but twice the light attack damage it has on Live.

Magicka stackers do get the biggest boost from this change, they had lesser than everyone else light attacks, and now they have at least the same has everyone.

I "predicted" this 10 days ago :

Aznox wrote: »

Ok i've run some quick math to know where such a change would get us with our LA/HA damage ...

... and it's seems maybe too big of a change for them to only change the ratio, they would probably tune down the coef too because a 42% increase (value for my example werewolf build, it would be around 100% for a petsorc build ...) would have a very big impact on the overall game balance.