Revitalize Lightning Staff Sorcerer

WrathOfInnos

I was thinking recently about how lightning staves on sorcerers are not very effective these days. I’m speaking mainly from an end game PVE perspective, but I think most of this post will apply to other parts of the game.

Starting with a little bit of history. For a long time after launch, Inferno staves were far superior to lightning staves. Lightning became slightly more useful when it received an 8% bonus to AoE damage in Homestead (early 2017), but for most builds the Inferno staff 8% to single target damage was still better. Lightning staves really caught on right after the Morrowind patch in May 2017, mainly because their heavy attacks synergised well with vMA staves (buffs every tick of the channel). Nobody was using unsustainable spammable rotations after Morrowind, so a high % of DPS was coming from AoEs DoTs, and heavy attacks restored resources and filled the gaps.

This type of build remained viable through the rest of 2017, and worked well with the off-balance meta. Lightning damage caused concussion, which could be turned into off-balance with each tick of lightning wall of elements. All Magicka builds were encouraged to use a lightning staff at east on back bar for better off-balance uptime. And off-balance also went well with the heavy attack builds, since their damage was vastly increased with off-balance. The introduction of the Asylum destruction staff with Clockwork city made an Inferno front bar a good option for sorcerers, but most still kept lightning on back bar.

This changed with the released of Dragon Bones in early 2018. The changes to off-balance, capping the uptime at 25% and only requiring one caster to use wall of storms, made an inferno back bar the best option. Typically a tank or healer will take care of the one required lightning wall, and there’s no group benefit for anyone else doing so. Furthermore, the shift from heavy attacks (damage nerfed) to light attacks (damage buffed) also favors Inferno over Lightning staff, since Inferno light attacks benefit from the 8% single target damage and the 10% bonus of Engulfing flames (not to mention Dunmer racials). The change to a light attack meta also encouraged builds to shift back to a faster paced rotation based around spammables (like the new, cheap spammable elemental weapon) and crystal frags (which didn’t proc enough to be useful on heavy attack builds). This meant more DPS from single target skills, and less from AoEs, so the lightning staff bonus became less useful. The wide use of Fire enchants also promotes Flame Wall, since burning uptime increases its damage.

Today, the only builds that can really justify a lightning staff are pet sorc, and maybe mag warden with deep fissure. Neither of these are desirable in end game PVE, so lightning staff is effectively dead again. It had a good run for pretty much all of 2017, but Inferno is back on top.

I would like to see it become competitive with Inferno at least for the lightning class, sorcerer. One possible way to implement this would be to buff the storm calling passive Energized from 5% increased Shock Damage to something around 10-20%, while decreasing the base damage on any Shock class skills so they net no change (no need to buff liquid lightning or mages wrath). All this would do is bring the damage of Lightning Wall, Clench, and Light Attacks more in line with Inferno. IMO these shouldn’t be more than a couple % behind their fiery counterparts, while Light Attacks are currently about 12% stronger with Inferno with raid buffs (mostly from Engulfing Flames multiplicative 10% and the additive 8% from Ancient Knowledge, even with losing Energizer).

I’m not recommending that Lightning become the best option for all builds again, this wasn’t any better for build diversity. No need for every Mag DK or Nightblade to be channeling lightning. But for sorcerers it should really be more competitive (Im also a believer in Frost Warden DPS, even though it seems like a lost cause).

I wouldn’t be opposed to the Energized buff extending to Stam Sorcs’ physical damage as well. I don’t play mine often, but they don’t seem to be in a good place at the moment. I can’t remember the last time I saw a stam Sorc in any competitive raid.

This change may also help Sorcs become a little closer to Nightblade DPS, which would be nice.

Thanks for reading. Please leave your thoughts below.

MerlinPendragon

Couldn't have said it better. This is a well written post that I hope gets the attention of ZOS.

I too would like to see lightning staff become more viable for Sorc builds, particular with reversing the change made to off-balance. Even if not a full reversal, some amount of tweaking should be done to put it back on par with inferno staff.

Good post!

AcadianPaladin

I'd also like to see the staves on par with each other. Partly just for a matter of taste/preference. Not only do I prefer the continuous damage stream of lightning over fire, but I also prefer AoE chars over single target. My magsorc does not even slot a single target attack - trash, bosses, everything gets the full AoE treatment. Lol.

Narvuntien

I think the issue is related to the light attack damage being really high atm.. the same issue that is making MagNB op.. So the single target damage from fire is a high % of damage.

Personally I really like the lightning/fire Sorcs with llambras monster helmet and kind of generic spell damage boosts, I kind of don't want to see Sorcs in BSW... with proper balance each class should be wearing different sets....

Eyesinthedrk

Narvuntien wrote: »

I think the issue is related to the light attack damage being really high atm.. the same issue that is making MagNB op.. So the single target damage from fire is a high % of damage.

Personally I really like the lightning/fire Sorcs with llambras monster helmet and kind of generic spell damage boosts, I kind of don't want to see Sorcs in BSW... with proper balance each class should be wearing different sets....

it has more to do with the PVE community not wanting pet and/or clench rotations in their Trial teams because of their stuns. there's no point in making a dot build when half the abilities aren't allowed.

if they take the stun off of pets and one morph of clench. lightning staffs will ne back in style in a big way. maybe not BIS but at least feasible.

WrathOfInnos

Pets have more issues then just stuns. As long as they are targets for Chain Lightning (mage), World Shaper (serpent) and Storm of the Heavens (st. Olms) they will be unwelcome in trials.

For clench, I partially agree. The stun does annoy some tanks, but it’s easy enough to choose targets selectively. Most adds in trials are stun immune, so not really an issue. Just have to be careful it to hit things like the adds in Twins before they are chained in. The stun can be really useful for places like vMA and some dungeons, as well as PVP.

I ran a Clench build pretty successfully back in Clockwork City patch, before I was able to get a Perfected Asylum staff for an effective Force Pulse build. I actually got my first vMoL HM clear with a Clench build. This was after the buff to the Master Destro, and the problem with a Shock Clench build is that is absolutely requires the Master Destro for sustain and instant damage to make it a spammable. This was ok back when the staff was one gear slot, but now that a staff can fill 2 set bonuses for 5-5-2 there are simply better options.

The other issue with a pure lightning build is that there isn’t a good spammable. The only option is Shock Clench or Reach, which are terrible without a Master Destro. Elemental weapon and Force Pulse don’t allow for effective use of the Netch’s Touch set, which should be the staple of a Lightning Build. Sure someone could run, for example, Siroria + Netch + Master Destro, but you lose too much dropping the Monster Helm. Maybe if the Master Destro got its 1-piece bonus back. I guess the other option would be giving Sorcs a Shock damage spammable.

I do find it strange that all the classes are back to using the same sets. Burning Spellweave is the best option for Sorc, Nightblade, Dragonknight, and Templar because they all need to build around Inferno staves to be competitive. And I’m not saying Spellweave should be nerfed, it’s not overpowered, it’s just that the viability of other sets and diverse builds have been reduced as a side effect of other changes to game mechanics. Netch should be competitive on Sorc, War Maiden should be competitive on Templar, Scathing Mage should be competitive on Nightblade, but right now everything is so based on fire that none of these builds stand a chance.

BeefyMrTips

Right now sorcs have two options for non pet.

1. Play like a mnb with fire staves and similar sets but only getting upper 40s due to sustain issues.
2. Play like a sorc with lightning backbar and champ points allocated in a certain way with group play in mind and youll get mid 40s.

Either way its not great lol

Oakmontowls_ESO

What if sorc got a lightning version of engulfing flames? Also adjusting the uptime of off balance so that more than one lightning blockade is needed would at least cement needing a couple sorcs in each raid.

Priyasekarssk

MerlinPendragon wrote: »

Couldn't have said it better. This is a well written post that I hope gets the attention of ZOS.

I too would like to see lightning staff become more viable for Sorc builds, particular with reversing the change made to off-balance. Even if not a full reversal, some amount of tweaking should be done to put it back on par with inferno staff.

Good post!

No one in ZOs give attention. ZOs is planning for next NB & DK buffs and nerf sorcs to the ground even if no one plays. Just quit sorc and play mag DK & NBs. You can solo vet dlc dungoens .

Priyasekarssk

BeefyMrTips wrote: »

Right now sorcs have two options for non pet.

1. Play like a mnb with fire staves and similar sets but only getting upper 40s due to sustain issues.
2. Play like a sorc with lightning backbar and champ points allocated in a certain way with group play in mind and youll get mid 40s.

Either way its not great lol

Right sorcs have only 1 option. Quit the class and ask for class change token.

jypcy

It’d require some serious revamps so I don’t see it happening, but an interesting mechanic to encourage different destro element choices would be causing you to deal more damage with each element depending on how many sources of that element you’re dealing damage with. Thus, dragonknights, as a fire-based class, could get the most out of using a flame destro. Sorcs could get the most out of a lightning. Wardens could get the most out of ice (especially if made a damage-oriented element. I’ve liked the idea that ice buffs execute damage, just as fire buffs ST and lightning buffs AoE). Templars and nbs would have greater choice being primarily magic-based classes, each having a strong execute that might make ice the best choice but also good ST that might make fire preferable (Templars would also benefit with fire from vampires bane). Further, element scaling could help boost other classes’ dps output to be more in line with nbs’, since iirc nbs lack any class elemental damage.

PromiscuousNun

Just posting to give my full support. Bring back Lightning Sorcs!

There are excellent suggestions in the opening post and others. Energized passive and lightning spammable amongst them.

Please Zenimax…. *puppy eyes*

Beardimus

Nice summary.
Personally I ducked the shock staff meta, so happy inferno came back Into the fold, as dunmer too! And personally I find heavy attack meta dull.

I do use it on my pet sorc Alt, bit for proper content its just not that Interesting a style

But I do see tour point to bring it up a bit. That said I'm sure frost staff guys would say they first in line for a buff!

PromiscuousNun

I did not really like the HA meta either Beardimus. But as it is now, who uses that cool looking lightning staff besides healers?

And as long as the line goes fast, i'll gladly let the Ice staff buffers go in front

Valrien

BeefyMrTips wrote: »

Right now sorcs have two options for non pet.

1. Play like a mnb with fire staves and similar sets but only getting upper 40s due to sustain issues.
2. Play like a sorc with lightning backbar and champ points allocated in a certain way with group play in mind and youll get mid 40s.

Either way its not great lol

#1 describes the issues with Sorc perfectly.

You could play mSorc, but why not play mNB?

WrathOfInnos

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

What if sorc got a lightning version of engulfing flames? Also adjusting the uptime of off balance so that more than one lightning blockade is needed would at least cement needing a couple sorcs in each raid.

I like this idea too, but it wouldn’t fully solve the problem. It could easily result in the same situation where most DPS are nightblades, with one buff Sorc (DPS or healer). Or groups may not even care about increased lightning damage since no other class uses this element. It could also cause problems in PvP, where people already seem to think that Mages Wrath and Overload are too powerful, so I did not want to suggest buffing them.

I could see some type of debuff to increase elemental damage taken, possibly associated with the next Arena weapons (most likely for Ele Drain). But again, if nobody is using shock damage then the group may opt to skip that debuff entirely.

Oakmontowls_ESO

Another problem would be implementing a debuff that is only feasible for a dps to run or we will just have the same situation as dk where a support role runs it instead of a dps.

WrathOfInnos

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

Another problem would be implementing a debuff that is only feasible for a dps to run or we will just have the same situation as dk where a support role runs it instead of a dps.

Maybe it if was attached to a spammable, with a short duration, like 3-4s. No support role is going to be able to use a DPS spammable that frequently. It would pigeonhole the group Sorc into using that spammable though, and could actually reduce build diversity.

Tannus15

Brilliant post.
Well thought out and researched, I completely agree with your reasoning and conclusion.

Minalan

Fix the tri-focus passive so that all staves get an 8% single target damage bonus. Then people might use something other than a fire staff for everything in the game.

Tasear

As your class representative,

I have shared this thread with other class representatives. Also will be noted some concerns that I see here.

WrathOfInnos

@Tasear Thanks for sharing. I was actually just discussing this in the Sorcerer discord. I want to bring some content from over there into this thread.

If the passive was changed from 5% increased shock damage to 20% (the maximum I recommended in the post), I want to explain how much that would affect DPS. It is not a 15% increase, or even close to that.

The way additive passives work, and given raid buffs, you already have Altmer 4%, about 35% from CPs (23% thaum and 12% Ele expert), 8% from Combat Prayer, 8% from Destro passive,5% from Minor Slayer and often 15% from Major Slayer.

That’s a 1.75 multiplier already, 5% from the current Sorc passive makes it 1.8, 20% would make it 1.95.

1.95/1.8 is an 8.3% increase proposed to non-class lightning skills (basically light attacks, wall, Clench, and ulti), which would probably result in 3-4% more DPS on a pure lightning Sorc build.

After looking at these numbers I think that the passive going to 20% is probably the best way to balance Lightning with Inferno builds. Honestly an Energizer passive of 10% would only be like 1% DPS gain and wouldn’t solve the problem at all.

Apherius

Or they could change Surge morphs.

Power Surge: Invoke Meridia's name to energize your lightning attacks, increasing all your lightning damage by 10%
While active, dealing lightning damage has a 25% chance to restore X magicka. ( This would help sorc with sustain)

Critical Surge:Invoke Meridia's name to gain Major Sorcery and Major Brutality increasing your spell damage and Weapon damage by 20% for 33 seconds. While active, dealing a critical strike heals you for 2700 health. This effect can occur once Every 1 sec

This would make the choice interesting for magicka sorcerer, Self heal + major sorcery OR lightning damage buff + sustain boost.
Stam sorc would still choose critical surge.

Priyasekarssk

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I was thinking recently about how lightning staves on sorcerers are not very effective these days. I’m speaking mainly from an end game PVE perspective, but I think most of this post will apply to other parts of the game.

Starting with a little bit of history. For a long time after launch, Inferno staves were far superior to lightning staves. Lightning became slightly more useful when it received an 8% bonus to AoE damage in Homestead (early 2017), but for most builds the Inferno staff 8% to single target damage was still better. Lightning staves really caught on right after the Morrowind patch in May 2017, mainly because their heavy attacks synergised well with vMA staves (buffs every tick of the channel). Nobody was using unsustainable spammable rotations after Morrowind, so a high % of DPS was coming from AoEs DoTs, and heavy attacks restored resources and filled the gaps.

This type of build remained viable through the rest of 2017, and worked well with the off-balance meta. Lightning damage caused concussion, which could be turned into off-balance with each tick of lightning wall of elements. All Magicka builds were encouraged to use a lightning staff at east on back bar for better off-balance uptime. And off-balance also went well with the heavy attack builds, since their damage was vastly increased with off-balance. The introduction of the Asylum destruction staff with Clockwork city made an Inferno front bar a good option for sorcerers, but most still kept lightning on back bar.

This changed with the released of Dragon Bones in early 2018. The changes to off-balance, capping the uptime at 25% and only requiring one caster to use wall of storms, made an inferno back bar the best option. Typically a tank or healer will take care of the one required lightning wall, and there’s no group benefit for anyone else doing so. Furthermore, the shift from heavy attacks (damage nerfed) to light attacks (damage buffed) also favors Inferno over Lightning staff, since Inferno light attacks benefit from the 8% single target damage and the 10% bonus of Engulfing flames (not to mention Dunmer racials). The change to a light attack meta also encouraged builds to shift back to a faster paced rotation based around spammables (like the new, cheap spammable elemental weapon) and crystal frags (which didn’t proc enough to be useful on heavy attack builds). This meant more DPS from single target skills, and less from AoEs, so the lightning staff bonus became less useful. The wide use of Fire enchants also promotes Flame Wall, since burning uptime increases its damage.

Today, the only builds that can really justify a lightning staff are pet sorc, and maybe mag warden with deep fissure. Neither of these are desirable in end game PVE, so lightning staff is effectively dead again. It had a good run for pretty much all of 2017, but Inferno is back on top.

I would like to see it become competitive with Inferno at least for the lightning class, sorcerer. One possible way to implement this would be to buff the storm calling passive Energized from 5% increased Shock Damage to something around 10-20%, while decreasing the base damage on any Shock class skills so they net no change (no need to buff liquid lightning or mages wrath). All this would do is bring the damage of Lightning Wall, Clench, and Light Attacks more in line with Inferno. IMO these shouldn’t be more than a couple % behind their fiery counterparts, while Light Attacks are currently about 12% stronger with Inferno with raid buffs (mostly from Engulfing Flames multiplicative 10% and the additive 8% from Ancient Knowledge, even with losing Energizer).

I’m not recommending that Lightning become the best option for all builds again, this wasn’t any better for build diversity. No need for every Mag DK or Nightblade to be channeling lightning. But for sorcerers it should really be more competitive (Im also a believer in Frost Warden DPS, even though it seems like a lost cause).

I wouldn’t be opposed to the Energized buff extending to Stam Sorcs’ physical damage as well. I don’t play mine often, but they don’t seem to be in a good place at the moment. I can’t remember the last time I saw a stam Sorc in any competitive raid.

This change may also help Sorcs become a little closer to Nightblade DPS, which would be nice.

Thanks for reading. Please leave your thoughts below.

ZOs wont care unless it buffs up DKs & NBs. Is this discussion really necessary ?
When ZOs is looking to nerf sorcs and buff DKS & NBs in future releases , even when no one playing it.

SilverWF

My heavy attack Sorc is fine.
No pets btw, because of less damage (but bigger survivability tho)

WrathOfInnos

Apherius wrote: »

Or they could change Surge morphs.

Power Surge: Invoke Meridia's name to energize your lightning attacks, increasing your lightning damage by 10%
While active, dealing lightning damage has a 25% chance to restore X magicka. ( This would help sorc with sustain)

Critical Surge:Invoke Meridia's name to gain Major Sorcery and Major Brutality increasing your spell damage and Weapon damage by 20% for 33 seconds. While active, dealing a critical strike heals you for 2700 health. This effect can occur once Every 1 sec

This would make the choice interesting for magicka sorcerer, Self heal + major sorcery OR lightning damage buff + sustain boost.
Stam sorc would still choose critical surge.

Cool idea, but I wouldn’t like having to switch morphs all the time when going between dungeons (where I like cheap potions and self heals) and trials (where I want to maximize DPS).

If an additional % lightning damage was added to Surge, I think it would need to be in addition to the current effects. This might make surge earn a bar slot in trials, where it is currently redundant. I think it would need to be more than 10% to justify use though. As I explained above, a tooltip “15%” increase would only result in about 4% more DPS. This would be competing with Bound Aegis for bar space, while Bound Aegis also adds about 4% DPS as well as adding resistances, and it doesn’t have to be cast every 30s (which means skipping 2 spammables every minute, roughly 2% DPS loss).

Maybe if it was a 10% boost to all lightning skills (including class), and base values were not adjusted to net no change. Or if it was only a buff to non-class lightning skills (as I initially proposed) it would need to be about 20% tooltip to be worth slotting.

WrathOfInnos

SilverWF wrote: »

My heavy attack Sorc is fine.
No pets btw, because of less damage (but bigger survivability tho)

Fine for what content though? I’m sure it plays easy enough, but I doubt it puts out numbers anywhere near other builds. I would confidently take my Mag Warden to a DPS contest with a Heavy Attack Petless Lightning Sorc .

SilverWF

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

SilverWF wrote: »

My heavy attack Sorc is fine.
No pets btw, because of less damage (but bigger survivability tho)

Fine for what content though? I’m sure it plays easy enough, but I doubt it puts out numbers anywhere near other builds. I would confidently take my Mag Warden to a DPS contest with a Heavy Attack Petless Lightning Sorc .

Not close to mNBs, sure.
Good enough to deal in vet trials

Mehden is lol-class in the any specs.

Septimus_Magna

Fire dmg is prefered in groups because the target is usually debuffed with Engulfing Flames.

One of the problems is that when you cast an AoE skill of your lightning staff back bar and switch to your fire staff front bar, the AoE dmg boost from the lightning element disappears. In this case you’re always better of with fire dmg that gets buffed by EF.

I still have to try out a heavy attack magsorc build with Lightning Flood and Unstable Wall. Curious to see if thats more viable dps-wise.

CGPsaint

Great post! I personally run a MagSorc Pet build (5-Necro, 5-IA, 2-Ilambris) for 4-man content, solo content, and vMA, but always end up having to completely re-gear and respec if/when I want to run trials, because pets are frowned up for certain fights, and the off-balance from Blockade has been nerfed. I have a perfectly good set of gold Netch's Touch gathering dust in the bank, that I would love to slot and use again, but can't/won't for the reasons that you've laid out.

Sordidfairytale

Apherius wrote: »

Or they could change Surge morphs.

Power Surge: Invoke Meridia's name to energize your lightning attacks, increasing your lightning damage by 10%
While active, dealing lightning damage has a 25% chance to restore X magicka. ( This would help sorc with sustain)

Critical Surge:Invoke Meridia's name to gain Major Sorcery and Major Brutality increasing your spell damage and Weapon damage by 20% for 33 seconds. While active, dealing a critical strike heals you for 2700 health. This effect can occur once Every 1 sec

This would make the choice interesting for magicka sorcerer, Self heal + major sorcery OR lightning damage buff + sustain boost.
Stam sorc would still choose critical surge.

Interesting, although I'd prefer if stam sorcs have the same difficulty in making choices with morphs.

Critical Favor: Invoke Meridia's Favor against an enemy, increasing damage that target takes from lightning and physical attacks by 10% for 10 seconds. While active, any player dealing a critical strike against this target also gains Meridia's Favor and has a 10% chance to reduce the cost of their next ability by 50%. (Much like the DK Engulfing Flames, but single target rather than cone, so increased duration.)

Critical Surge:Invoke Meridia's name to gain Major Sorcery and Major Brutality increasing your spell damage and Weapon damage by 20% for 33 seconds. While active, dealing a critical strike heals you for 2700 health. This effect can occur once Every 1 sec