PTS Update 20 - Feedback Thread for Sorcerer

Maryanne

taco_suave wrote: »

I'm your average magsorc player, not bad, not great, like to do dungeons and BGs. This shield cast time change is just demoralizing and unnecessary. I will have almost zero ability to stay alive in a BG, let alone Cyr. There will be a variety of vMA and vet dungeon mechanics that will prolly be near impossible for your average magsorc (like me) to tackle with the 1 sec cast on the shield. Of all the creative and interesting ways to have potentially dealt with "shield stacking," this seems like frankly the most dumb, brute force nerf possible.

This. I am not a good player and I never will, but I really like the fast paced combat here, it's fun. The cast time will kill it.
Don't do this ZOS, please. Find another soulution, everything is better than this cast time nonsense.

polgarah

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know we've been monitoring the feedback on this thread and elsewhere on the forums. Clearly there's a lot of concern around the impact of adding a cast time to Conjured Ward and Annulment.

First I'd like to talk about our motivation with the change. We believe choices between damage output and survivability make combat more interesting. There are a number of areas within our system that could better adhere to this philosophy, but these self-cast damage shield abilities stood out as being particularly out of line. It was too easy to throw a bunch of effective health on yourself while making a minimal sacrifice in terms of DPS itemization and rotation. This applied to both PvE and PvP scenarios.

The addition of a cast time makes that choice between damage output and survivability more deliberate and strategic. However, as many of you have pointed out, there are several potential issues with this solution. We identified many of these risks prior to PTS, and we're actively monitoring feedback from the community, Class Reps, and PTS testers.

If we decide to make significant changes to the abilities, those changes would not appear until at least PTS 3. However, we agree Conjured Ward and Annulment are too easy to interrupt in PvP, so we'll be making both spells immune to interrupts for PTS 2. We'll also be meeting with the Class Reps next week to discuss the changes.

In the meantime, we encourage you to continue experimenting, evaluating, and providing feedback.

That’s right, I got it now.

My warden magicka healer is top dps right now, it’s pretty unfair for the rest of players. I need a nerf asap in order to balance my insane dps and survivability.

Thank you Rob for the insightful answer!

Morgul667

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know we've been monitoring the feedback on this thread and elsewhere on the forums. Clearly there's a lot of concern around the impact of adding a cast time to Conjured Ward and Annulment.

First I'd like to talk about our motivation with the change. We believe choices between damage output and survivability make combat more interesting. There are a number of areas within our system that could better adhere to this philosophy, but these self-cast damage shield abilities stood out as being particularly out of line. It was too easy to throw a bunch of effective health on yourself while making a minimal sacrifice in terms of DPS itemization and rotation. This applied to both PvE and PvP scenarios.

The addition of a cast time makes that choice between damage output and survivability more deliberate and strategic. However, as many of you have pointed out, there are several potential issues with this solution. We identified many of these risks prior to PTS, and we're actively monitoring feedback from the community, Class Reps, and PTS testers.

If we decide to make significant changes to the abilities, those changes would not appear until at least PTS 3. However, we agree Conjured Ward and Annulment are too easy to interrupt in PvP, so we'll be making both spells immune to interrupts for PTS 2. We'll also be meeting with the Class Reps next week to discuss the changes.

In the meantime, we encourage you to continue experimenting, evaluating, and providing feedback.

I still disagree with the proposed change from ZOS Combat team

But For the record you are my new hero for coming down here and taking the time to share information with us ! @ZOS_RobGarrett

Lord_Eomer

joaaocaampos wrote: »

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know we've been monitoring the feedback on this thread and elsewhere on the forums. Clearly there's a lot of concern around the impact of adding a cast time to Conjured Ward and Annulment.

First I'd like to talk about our motivation with the change. We believe choices between damage output and survivability make combat more interesting. There are a number of areas within our system that could better adhere to this philosophy, but these self-cast damage shield abilities stood out as being particularly out of line. It was too easy to throw a bunch of effective health on yourself while making a minimal sacrifice in terms of DPS itemization and rotation. This applied to both PvE and PvP scenarios.

The addition of a cast time makes that choice between damage output and survivability more deliberate and strategic. However, as many of you have pointed out, there are several potential issues with this solution. We identified many of these risks prior to PTS, and we're actively monitoring feedback from the community, Class Reps, and PTS testers.

If we decide to make significant changes to the abilities, those changes would not appear until at least PTS 3. However, we agree Conjured Ward and Annulment are too easy to interrupt in PvP, so we'll be making both spells immune to interrupts for PTS 2. We'll also be meeting with the Class Reps next week to discuss the changes.

In the meantime, we encourage you to continue experimenting, evaluating, and providing feedback.

@ZOS_RobGarrett Instead of increasing cast time, you could increase the cost, just as you did with Healing Ritual. The same cost.

• Annulment costs have been increased to 7290 Magicka from 4590 Magicka. There is also the equivalent for Conjured Ward.

There is no need to increase cost or else skill will hardly get good use even in PVE! if going for increase cost than increase for Evasion and Vigor too!

I believe ZOS failed to find solution for Shield stacking and instead introduced cast time.

Gnozo

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know we've been monitoring the feedback on this thread and elsewhere on the forums. Clearly there's a lot of concern around the impact of adding a cast time to Conjured Ward and Annulment.

First I'd like to talk about our motivation with the change. We believe choices between damage output and survivability make combat more interesting. There are a number of areas within our system that could better adhere to this philosophy, but these self-cast damage shield abilities stood out as being particularly out of line. It was too easy to throw a bunch of effective health on yourself while making a minimal sacrifice in terms of DPS itemization and rotation. This applied to both PvE and PvP scenarios.

The addition of a cast time makes that choice between damage output and survivability more deliberate and strategic. However, as many of you have pointed out, there are several potential issues with this solution. We identified many of these risks prior to PTS, and we're actively monitoring feedback from the community, Class Reps, and PTS testers.

If we decide to make significant changes to the abilities, those changes would not appear until at least PTS 3. However, we agree Conjured Ward and Annulment are too easy to interrupt in PvP, so we'll be making both spells immune to interrupts for PTS 2. We'll also be meeting with the Class Reps next week to discuss the changes.

In the meantime, we encourage you to continue experimenting, evaluating, and providing feedback.

Thanks for the reply. Still i have so many questions.

First off all, i play this game für ist fast action combat. So cooldown, ressource Management really important etc. With 1 sec cast time. Sorcs are to smoth and fluid in their playstyle. Casting your shields will interrupt the flow of combat.

So, sorc got 3 big nerfs this patch.

1st: Shields:
Giving them resistences and let them be critable is something i can work with. Even tho, its not needed. Sorc is only good to kill players with a much lower skilllevel. They get frustrated due to the burst and that the hp bar of the sorc never shows due to them only hitting the shields. But you know What? Light attack spam wont cut through shields. Proper skilled players cut through shields like its Butter. But now here comes the big part. 1 sec cast time. Already enough said in this thread.

2nd: Dark Deal:
Class Reps told you Sorcs where struggling with sustain. In pvp mostly due to the fact shields need to be recast every 2 seconds. Wich cost a Lot. What do you come up with? You nerf one of our sustain pools. It is literally a nerf. Sorcs where kiting out of los, do 1-3 dark conversions/deal to recover ressources and start the fight again . Now we get 50% less ressources back. How is this gonna help?

3rd: Overload:
This was so unique for sorcs. One of the sorcs class identity. My whole stamsorc playstyle was involving my Overload Bar.
Stamsorc dont offer anything in group play. So i was using Caltrops, rapid and siege shield on my overload bar for group utility. Was really good and also needed due to the fact i also have hard times putting abilities on my main Bars. Bound Armaments was on both bars to get much needed passive sustain, more stam recovery and more stamina. So i also put Shuffle and Crit Surge in Overload. Now this is gone too. My stamsorc lost a lot of skills and all of my group utility. What group wants me now? I cant offer anything anymore for the group.......

Pls revert this really Bad changes..... rethink them. This cant go live. You will kill so many playstyles with this that where here since years. Used by a Lot of ppl, mastering it, loving it. You take this away. With just one patch....

Edit: what i also dont understand. You take away our main defense but give us nothing in return. No reliable instant heal without giving up 2 slots for a useless pet. No other form of mitigation from damage. What do we get in return? Nothing.

bayushi2005

This is kind of a goodbye letter...

I main a sorc since beta, it is my beloved character and I am already sad that I will need to put her aside. I play mostly pve, though pvped enough to get an Emperor on a proper campaign and I remember sorc being fun to play in pvp. Over four years I have been watching sorcerer's condition deteriorate from "negate monkey" to "utter garbage" as issued in the newest PTS patchnotes. It hurts, almost physically. Most of my friends shelved their sorcs years ago... Sorc became a niche class for these in love or really devoted. I fought for my main, tried to compensate for all the nerfs, lack of decent skills and with long hours spent on training dummy (or Bloodspawn) after every single nerf I usually managed to get my beloved character back on her feet. This time I give up. I won't be using shields, I won't be playing sorc. With, at best, mediocre dps, pathetic self heal, no class spammable, mostly useless cc's - after nerfing shields - Sorcerer has nothing much to offer but negate. I've been there, a negate monkey nerfed to the ground and I'll tell you - feels horrible.

I've already unsubbed but I may grab my stamblade and do what devs have been trying to enforce on me - play it. Roll dodge !@#$ out of everything, while dumping unbelievable amounts of damage.

Summary on shields: I tested them on PTS - clunky and uncomfortable to use, break your rotation and the animation of ward makes you think that your character just got a serious constipation.

NO - I won't be using cast time shields because I won't be playing sorc if the cast time makes live.

Tasear

Somewhere wrote: »

So this post is almost definitely going to be buried underneath all of the people crying about Ward nerfs, but I'm going to get it off my chest. I'm calling just @Tasear specifically because honestly out of the class representatives I see them the most active on the forums and "taking notes" the most. I appreciate all the work you do just as a volunteer.

I think we, and I include myself here, have relied a lot upon shields for our defensive abilities. This isn't entirely unfair though, as shields were simply our easiest and most effective way to mitigate damage directly. If you go down a checklist of things you want in a defensive ability you have nearly all of them: Conjured Ward was fast, strong, scaled off your offensive stats, easy to use, and relatively cheap. A lot of our other defensive abilities are either not that great, or just a pain to use. Based on the Dev response from this morning, I'm pretty sure they have no intention of reverting the cast time on shields, so I suppose now is a good of time as any to actually look at why we are worried about such a nerf to a strong ability, and what other skills we have to mitigate this nerf.

Of all of our skills, these are the few that I feel are truly designed to avoid or mitigate damage in way that isn't simply, kill the enemy fast than it kills you. These are specific to just Sorcerer. My biggest pain points/suggestions are bolded if you want to ignore my text wall.

• Dark Exchange
• Unstable Clannfear
• Twilight Matriarch
• Conjured Ward
• Bound Armor
• Lightning Form
• Surge
• Bolt Escape

One could argue that Encase and Rune Prison could belong on this list, but they simply prevent the enemy from hitting you instead of actively mitigating incoming damage. So I chose not to include them for this discussion. From here let's go down the list of what we have available. I will mostly talk about QoL changes here, not straight buffs. A lot of our skills are good in terms of raw numbers, but we don't use them because they don't feel good to use.

Dark Exchange is strong as a heal but comes with a cast time. This is because it offers(ed) a lot of resources and healing up front. This skill suffers the same problems shields do now. Channeled skills interrupt the flow of a rotation (read: not fun to use), and this one in particular is clunky. This is literally the same reason why we all ignore Crystal Blast and use Crystal Fragments procs instead. This skill needs to be more fluid to use. I think there's a lot of ways you could improve this skill potentially. I think the first and best way would be to remove the .2 second "blending time" added on a the end of this skill. Compare the Live version of Crystal Fragments and PTS version which just got a similar change on the instant cast, and it makes a world of a difference. We can animation cancel at the end of almost every other skill, even these new wards, why must we wait through the entire animation here?

Clannfear/Matriarch both suffer from the same issues. PTS 1 helped alleviate the fact that the casting cost on these were so high. However it doesn't really touch on any of the real issues that pets face. Pets take up 2 bar slots. One could argue that this is because they function as a means to soak up damage from enemies, deal some damage, and offer utility. Whether or not that is worth them taking up 2 bars to slot is really up in the air and for each individual player to decide. However what isn't really in the air is that the AI on pets is woefully simple. A pet can't do the same thing a real player can do, they can't think. The problem is that the game treat pets as if they are a real player. They trigger mechanics such as Chain Lightning in vAA, and Sorcerers have no way of effectively controlling them on console. On PC we can only tell them to attack or pull back. I think a more advanced control scheme is probably out of the question since consoles do not have enough buttons. That said, at the very least these pets need to ignore many boss mechanics basically. I can't tell my pet to avoid a one shot mechanic, so why am I punished for running one? In PvP this problem is exacerbated by the fact that you're fighting an intelligent opponent that can focus specifically on your pet, absolutely decimating your utility and damage. With the long cast times, you're now out of what costed you 2 slots. Rework the Rebate passive a la Crystal Fragments so when your pet dies you can summon it again for half cost as an instant cast. Give it a cooldown.

Bound Armor is honestly way too unfocused of a skill in my opinion. The light attack damage and resource passive increase tells me this is a DPS skill. The block mitigation tells me this is a damage mitigation skill. The fact that it increases block mitigation is great and all, but it has never really screamed "Sorcerer" to me. If you changed the name and made this a DK skill, I wouldn't even blink. Sorcerer for the longest time was seemingly about avoiding damage or using shields to avoid it, so what is this "stand your ground" blocking skill doing here? I think the Devs would point to this skill first for the Sorcerer's ability to mitigate damage. We scream "where is our OS skill?" The Devs say "here it is, cast this and block". I barely consider using it. A shield casts instantly and my damage is mitigated. This skill costs more than a shield, doesn't last as long, doesn't mitigate as much damage, and requires 2 actions to work (cast, then block). One could argue this is fair because it also passively gives stats. This skill needs to have a longer duration to be taken seriously; a reduced cost would not be out of the question as well.

Lightning Form gives Major Ward, Major Resolve, and Minor Expedition in addition to dealing damage at close range. That's a lot from one skill. Major Ward and Major Resolve aren't anything to write home about since everyone gets that, but it's definitely something that we should be looking into when dealing with dying. Thing is, we are all double barring bound armor to keep those dps buffs up. Stamina users have to have this skill because they literally have nothing else. Magicka Sorcerers have very little room as it is. The damage it deals is very low, and we don't want to be in melee range anyway, so other than to proc Implosion, the damage is basically flavor text. I've maintained that this skill should have the passive resource bonus instead of Bound Armor having it and place the Major Ward/Resolve on Bound Armor, as this focuses the skills and brings them both more in line with ZOS' new philosophy of "damage vs survivability". Ultimately there's nothing wrong here though, we're just starved for bar space and can barely afford it while keeping up with the damage output of other classes.

Surge is a great skill, but most people don't bother slotting it because we can get Major Sorcery and Major Brutality from potions. The secondary effect doesn't do anything unless you're actively damaging an enemy, and even then you must land a crit. In terms of survivability alone, I don't really see much more you can do with this skill without making it the mess it used to be. (For newer players it used to heal you for a % of the crit and the heal portion didn't have a cooldown, essentially giving you unlimited healing with high enough crit + aoe damage).

Bolt Escape should be a class defining skill. When I think Sorcerer, I should think "they're the ones with the magicka based dodge". When I see incoming damage, I should be able to avoid it via Bolt Escape instead of just shielding and tanking the damage. What's the problem here? In theory this skill is amazing, but the execution is poor. If this skill were properly executed I think Bolt Escape would be the Sorcerer's answer to OS damage. Essentially this should be a Magicka dodge, but it's not. I see a lot of people complain about the stacking cost and want it removed. I don't think that's the proper fix. Dodging has an increased cost associated with it, and yet dodging works just fine. The problem with Bolt Escape is that it sends you flying off in a single direction, doesn't maintain your momentum like dodging does, and maintains your z position until the end of animation, where you stop moving at the end and drop to your new z position if you're in the air. Bolt Escape needs to maintain your momentum and function like a dodge. If you cast it while standing still it moves forward, but if you are strafing, I want it to move me in the direction I'm moving, not where I'm looking. If I cast this down a hill I want to follow the hill/stair's angle, not go flying off it and drop straight down. Ball of Lightning should remove snares, and dodge/avoid damage and projectiles. Basically I think it should function like how a dodge does, but uses magicka instead. It is not out of the question to ask for this since we use up a valuable skill slot just to use it. Streak should not provide those same benefits, but should provide a slightly longer stun so that it can be used more offensively. These changes fall in line with ZOS' new philosophy of damage vs survivability.

tl;dr: With shields being nerfed, sorcerers need to look at our other defensive options, but ZOS needs to look at them because there's a lot of QoL changes that could be happening here. Suppose this really belongs in the other sorcerer feedback thread. Oh well.

Noting some things down to share with others.

OnlyOnThursday

I would like to point out:

Light armor users DO NOT HAVE A LARGE STAMINA POOL

Without a large stamina pool how do we block when our shields won't come up?

Without shields or a large stamina pool how do we survive starfall?

I have to recast my shield a half dozen times in less than 30 seconds during phases of vet trials

Medium armor wearers can block and vigor through this

My stam runs out after two blocks

WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU EXPECTING US TO DO?

@ZoS_RobGarett Please explain, honestly.

Aeowhyn

putting a 1 sec cast time on a shield was the worst idea ever!

mlsweet

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know we've been monitoring the feedback on this thread and elsewhere on the forums. Clearly there's a lot of concern around the impact of adding a cast time to Conjured Ward and Annulment.

First I'd like to talk about our motivation with the change. We believe choices between damage output and survivability make combat more interesting. There are a number of areas within our system that could better adhere to this philosophy, but these self-cast damage shield abilities stood out as being particularly out of line. It was too easy to throw a bunch of effective health on yourself while making a minimal sacrifice in terms of DPS itemization and rotation. This applied to both PvE and PvP scenarios.

The addition of a cast time makes that choice between damage output and survivability more deliberate and strategic. However, as many of you have pointed out, there are several potential issues with this solution. We identified many of these risks prior to PTS, and we're actively monitoring feedback from the community, Class Reps, and PTS testers.

If we decide to make significant changes to the abilities, those changes would not appear until at least PTS 3. However, we agree Conjured Ward and Annulment are too easy to interrupt in PvP, so we'll be making both spells immune to interrupts for PTS 2. We'll also be meeting with the Class Reps next week to discuss the changes.

In the meantime, we encourage you to continue experimenting, evaluating, and providing feedback.

Had a few extra mentions. With respect to the statement that "it was too easy to throw a bunch of effective health on yourself while making a minimal sacrifice in terms of DPS itemization and rotation. This applied to both PvE and PvP scenarios".

The first set I had success in PvP with was the seducer set. A magicka regen set. My favorite magsorc ultimate? Light's Champion. The restoration staff ultimate.

I generally only hear proclamations like this from community members that have never played the class before. I encourage the team to solo into some battlegrounds on available magsorc toons while making a minimal sacrifice in terms of DPS itemization and rotation.

I have found in my experience that you have to sacrifice quite a bit in order to survive.

DoonerSeraph

What if instead of adding a 1s cast time, the shields get 50% of their value instantly and the rest after a 1s delay? Wouldnt that be a bit better? Or less worse. I echo (as a 80% stamina player) that the nerfs to shields are too heavy handed.

StrawberryKitsune

Pretty much all that needs to be said has I'm just adding my own disappointment. I'm not a great player but I'm not bad either. I pull about 35-38k on my mag sorc. I tried other classes and just couldn't get along with them. Stamina classes were the hardest of all for me and near impossible for me to get the jist of. So I picked the most fun for me.

I mostly do pve. After learning my build, working with another player who taught me everything he knew and worked with me day and night and literally helped me add 20k + to my DPS almost over night I felt confident to try harder content like vMA and vTrials. I was getting burnt out and bored of face roll east overland content and normal dungeons. Even many of the older vDungeons were too easy. So this was my new challenge that brought enjoyment back to the game. I've been doing well, can reliably clear vMA under an hour and my group are working on getting past vMoL twins (we are NOT and elite group, just mid range players trying to progress). I can tell you now after testing I will be locked out of this content overnight if it goes live. Shield as it is gives me that time and survivability to learn the mechanics. To experience the *** awful damge and LEARN WHAT I DID WRONG so maybe next time I won't need to spam my shield. As it is now on PTS, I don't see how I can learn when I'm just dead on the floor.

That's even if I'm not kicked from my spot in the group. So @ZOS_RobGarrett I'm going to genuinely ask you this question. With either boringly easy content below my level or alienatingly hard content past my level that I will be locked out of overnight, what do you suggest I do? There is no content catering to those middle of the range players as it is, you get thrown into the deep end. I'm just too tired of your company's nerfs at this point. What would be the point of putting years of effort and practice to bring myself back up to this mid range level on another class when you will likely just nerf that one instead?

I'm just a tired, disheartened average player who isn't seeing many options here.

And please I'm not interested in your "git gud" or "L2P" comments, I'm clearly trying.

Sasco

Why not just try reducing the amount of shields first, rather then horrid option? (I'm mainly think of my ping and recast hell here)

Eyesinthedrk

Choosing to play a sorc in PVE is in itself, a sacrifice to dps. With no reward to health in true end game leaderboard content. Now we have to add a non dps skill to our already low damage and unsustainable rotations.

You could have solved shield stacking by making shields unstackable so that casting any shield replaces any shield already applied. then weakened them for pvp with the crit, enchant, and poison damage.

But let’s be real. You guys have never really listened to the community. Your first statement here is you guys pretty much digging your heels in. You’re basically saying this is going to go live and we can either take it or leave it.

I guess we’ll see which option I choose soon enough.

Stibbons

Great changes !!! Nice balance patch !!! Now i actually will play my sorc.

katorga

Dark deal should be instant cast and cost less than 1000 resource like the Psijik, Warden, Nightblade and Templar resource return skill and return resource over time.

All shields should be instant cast and scale off health, and stack. Heck if implosion can scale off health (?!) so can shields. If the cast time stays, then the skill needs to be REALLY worth it, like double the size and lasting 33 seconds so you can use it as a buff.

Simple, easy.

If the current changes go live, you need to completely delete pets. They are unusable without shields and the overload bar. There are dev posts of way back saying the purpose of the 3rd bar was because so many skills had to be triple barred. With pets and bound armaments, a sorc needs 3 bars just to get 6 usable slots. The pets have never actually worked anyway, well worth deleting.

Maybe replacing with a healing or tanking tree, more like Templars.

Malem_Benign

Dear all,

I played ESO for the last several months, and can say that it's one of the best (or is the best) fantasy mmo game ever I played from the very beginning, from Ultima Online.

It's brilliantly developed, has a lot of PVE and PVP stuff, great story, beautiful design, lack of boring grind. It's truly immersive. The little greedy part with crown store prices makes the fly in the oitment, but that's no problem after all for me.

But now I read the upcoming changes to the classes, and I stumbled confused. Why? What for? What is the cause of such changes? I played a lot of different PVE and PVP games, and from my humble opinion the balance in the game is in good state. Especially if we say that ESO isn't pure PVP game, but more PVE, COOP... and PVP game.

First of all I shocked by Sorcerer shields nerf...

I don't see any ultimate OP in that skill at all, but it helps a lot both in PVE to save from instant death and in PVP to keep alive a little bit more against some OP melee builds. So what is the purpose of that change?

If you say that's for PVP, then please explain to me how this will affect the balance? PVP DD Sorcs will kill everyone in sight like before. Heal and PVE builds in PVP will just have no chance to survive. And once again - this is not a pure PVP game, as far as I know.

If you say that's for PVE - then I'm totally confused. This will bring hell to single and coop PVE players without any reason. Some challenges will be unbearable.

So after all what is it for? Any explanations?

If you need so much the PVP balance changes - then why don't you leave current shields for PVE?

I seen before such toxic changes in once very popular and interesting game for me - World Of Tanks. After years of such toxicity, when unreasonable changes made suffer different groups of players each time - a lot of good players (and good payers) left including myself. Now the're trying to get us back by different new features and invitations, but that doesn't work - no trust anymore.

So please, don't make these toxic changes, not only for sorc shields. Keep an eye on the community. Don't listen to haters, that just play for the different class at the moment.

And what I can suggest for the community members, I can say that in nowadays there is only one real way to influence games development - money. Don't pay for what you don't like. Stop paying for what spoiled your trust, unsubscribe when changes harm you in any way. Trust me, financial reports is the best way for company to acquire feedback from the community. Vote by your money. Pro or Con.

I say:
#VOTENOESOTOXICNERF

bardx86

joaaocaampos wrote: »

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know we've been monitoring the feedback on this thread and elsewhere on the forums. Clearly there's a lot of concern around the impact of adding a cast time to Conjured Ward and Annulment.

First I'd like to talk about our motivation with the change. We believe choices between damage output and survivability make combat more interesting. There are a number of areas within our system that could better adhere to this philosophy, but these self-cast damage shield abilities stood out as being particularly out of line. It was too easy to throw a bunch of effective health on yourself while making a minimal sacrifice in terms of DPS itemization and rotation. This applied to both PvE and PvP scenarios.

The addition of a cast time makes that choice between damage output and survivability more deliberate and strategic. However, as many of you have pointed out, there are several potential issues with this solution. We identified many of these risks prior to PTS, and we're actively monitoring feedback from the community, Class Reps, and PTS testers.

If we decide to make significant changes to the abilities, those changes would not appear until at least PTS 3. However, we agree Conjured Ward and Annulment are too easy to interrupt in PvP, so we'll be making both spells immune to interrupts for PTS 2. We'll also be meeting with the Class Reps next week to discuss the changes.

In the meantime, we encourage you to continue experimenting, evaluating, and providing feedback.

@ZOS_RobGarrett Instead of increasing cast time, you could increase the cost, just as you did with Healing Ritual. The same cost.

• Annulment costs have been increased to 7290 Magicka from 4590 Magicka. There is also the equivalent for Conjured Ward.

Bad idea as well. Sorcs have sustain issue already.

Rak_am

Malem_Benign wrote: »

Dear all,

I played ESO for the last several months, and can say that it's one of the best (or is the best) fantasy mmo game ever I played from the very beginning, from Ultima Online.

It's brilliantly developed, has a lot of PVE and PVP stuff, great story, beautiful design, lack of boring grind. It's truly immersive. The little greedy part with crown store prices makes the fly in the oitment, but that's no problem after all for me.

But now I read the upcoming changes to the classes, and I stumbled confused. Why? What for? What is the cause of such changes? I played a lot of different PVE and PVP games, and from my humble opinion the balance in the game is in good state. Especially if we say that ESO isn't pure PVP game, but more PVE, COOP... and PVP game.

First of all I shocked by Sorcerer shields nerf...

I don't see any ultimate OP in that skill at all, but it helps a lot both in PVE to save from instant death and in PVP to keep alive a little bit more against some OP melee builds. So what is the purpose of that change?

If you say that's for PVP, then please explain to me how this will affect the balance? PVP DD Sorcs will kill everyone in sight like before. Heal and PVE builds in PVP will just have no chance to survive. And once again - this is not a pure PVP game, as far as I know.

If you say that's for PVE - then I'm totally confused. This will bring hell to single and coop PVE players without any reason. Some challenges will be unbearable.

So after all what is it for? Any explanations?

If you need so much the PVP balance changes - then why don't you leave current shields for PVE?

I seen before such toxic changes in once very popular and interesting game for me - World Of Tanks. After years of such toxicity, when unreasonable changes made suffer different groups of players each time - a lot of good players (and good payers) left including myself. Now the're trying to get us back by different new features and invitations, but that doesn't work - no trust anymore.

So please, don't make these toxic changes, not only for sorc shields. Keep an eye on the community. Don't listen to haters, that just play for the different class at the moment.

And what I can suggest for the community members, I can say that in nowadays there is only one real way to influence games development - money. Don't pay for what you don't like. Stop paying for what spoiled your trust, unsubscribe when changes harm you in any way. Trust me, financial reports is the best way for company to acquire feedback from the community. Vote by your money. Pro or Con.

I say:
#VOTENOESOTOXICNERF

agree

1 unsuscribe (sorry zenimax, but it's the only alternative)
2 no longer buy crowns
3 wait for better news from the pts (and test other games)

so I know it's a drop in the ocean but in my guild (30 people) everyone did that ...

AhPook_Is_Here

Might be nice if any class that had more magicka than sta got a magicka dodge, where roll dodging uses the magicka pool for it's resource instead of STA, you can just change the animation up so we get a little blink or something. This should not be a skill.

Then dump the shield skill from sorc, and put something else useful there, like invisibility or something to put you out of phase or teleport you somewhere with a 2 stage mark and recall. Or if it must be a shield make it a different type of shield like say one that absorbs all damage but you have to hold to activate, can't do anything else but move or bolt while it is up and channel drains your magicka fast, so effectively a very expensive and effective block.

boombazookajd

bardx86 wrote: »

@ZOS_RobGarrett Instead of increasing cast time, you could increase the cost, just as you did with Healing Ritual. The same cost.

• Annulment costs have been increased to 7290 Magicka from 4590 Magicka. There is also the equivalent for Conjured Ward.

Bad idea as well. Sorcs have sustain issue already.[/quote]

And let's not forget there are other mag classes that use harness and this would obliterate their sustain. Nerfing Sorcs is going to nerf the entire magicka end game community.

Stop bringing up Harness and focus on Ward.

Yusuf

If they REALLY want to nerf shields they should nerf their numbers and not add a cast-time after 4 years.

Hell, I'd rather have only a 3k shield that is responsive than this disaster on the PTS.

Chilly-McFreeze

boombazookajd wrote: »

bardx86 wrote: »

@ZOS_RobGarrett Instead of increasing cast time, you could increase the cost, just as you did with Healing Ritual. The same cost.

• Annulment costs have been increased to 7290 Magicka from 4590 Magicka. There is also the equivalent for Conjured Ward.

Bad idea as well. Sorcs have sustain issue already.

And let's not forget there are other mag classes that use harness and this would obliterate their sustain. Nerfing Sorcs is going to nerf the entire magicka end game community.

Stop bringing up Harness and focus on Ward.
[/quote]

right. *** over one class in particular. at best the one that has no other means of survival.

bpmachete

Don't take away the utility bar from overload from sorcs, all they need to do if you want this change is to make weapon abilities work on the overload utility bar.

Furthermore, they should give everyone a utility bar overload type.

Make it so if you hit block and certain ultis, or are out of range, you get an extra bar with overload type functionality.

Crescent Sweep make it need to be in range to fire the ulti attack in one shot or block cast and make it a spear overload sun based, spear out with attacks like a melee spear that wastes ultimate and heavy attack like a long range stab, and again like all others No Ulti Regen.

Death Stroke be a Concealed weapon type of melee attacks as well and grant the extra bar, you take out the red daggers and same as overload but melee.

Same with Warden Bear ulti, when bear not in range of special attack or block cast so you can move in tandem with bear and use abilities but light attacks and heavy be the bears and gain control and tandem with bear. You should go into this bar in a good position with the bear and it moves with you, you control the heavy and light attacks and the abilities you want including weapon abilities work (this would be kinda sick taking cover behing bear but of course wastes ulyimate and no ulti regen).

Sorc Overload could stay similar but allow weapon abilities and add add an actual ultimate for 175 without reduction passive for an electric Aoe blast in front of player if a player is in range similar to dawn break but needs to be in range to use, if you have 175 and don't want to cast it you need to block cast or be out of range.

Dragon Knight, Dragon leap when not in range or block cast extra bar and overload type with wings out and allow weapon abilities too and like all others can't build ult and the light and heavys can be shouts combined with wings and wind 💨... Thum

Too many abilities that we can't use in pvp and pve and stam sorc was that guy that could have the group utility. Maybe have all classes having this would be so much better. One of the biggest grippes is not having slots.

bpmachete

I think they could leave in the interrupt, but make the cast time .25-.5 seconds something almost instant so you could have a counter to the shield stacking at least for a split second.

1 second is way too long. Also make it so the cast time abilities no longer slow your character down.

If you keep it interruptable and then when they break free get immunity it would offer some counter to the shield stacking, but the cast time has to be close to instant like .2 seconds somewhere around there so it prevents insta weapon switch insta block cancel. Once the shiled stacker gets interupted in that split second then he can use annulment without being able to be interrupted, and then back to hardened without interrupt because he will have immunity.

If you gonna make any cast time make it virtually instant. I bet if you take a poll and give sorcs a choice either (0.2 second cast time that is interruptable but no movement speed slowdown) vs (1.0 second cast time, slowdown but not interruptable) you would get 90%+ percent very fast cast time.

AhPook_Is_Here

The reason why they are going after sorcs is because our shields are redundant and stack-able. If they insist that our class shields must be nerfed, instead of letting them make that skill useless we need a new skill that is worth using before the pts ends.

Malem_Benign

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

The reason why they are going after sorcs is because our shields are redundant and stack-able. If they insist that our class shields must be nerfed, instead of letting them make that skill useless we need a new skill that is worth using before the pts ends.

I'd say leave what is ok as is. Focus on something else that is defenitely not ok for all the players, not for part.

Gnozo

I really dont know how sorcs gonna survive in pvp now.
Even if we now also stack into high resistences and impen. We dont have healing to compensate our loss of shields.

If you use healing ward we have no way to protect it. Normally we protect healing ward with other shields. If we try now to protect it, it takes more then 1 second to get our shield up. Healing ward gets cast if we are low hp, so execute multipliers already comes into this. Basicly healing ward will be gone before our conjured ward kicks in resulting in no healing and pretty much a respawn.

Are we now forced into slotting pets to get some healing? Sorcs dont have a reliable source of healing that can compensate the loss of shields.

Resto also wont really help. Rapid Regen or Mutagen ticks are to low to rely on and also we cant get any proper mitigation to outheal incoming damage. Crit Surge with lightning form and hoping lightning for crits so we get 1k heal?

Cant See any way to make sorcs work without shields. No class heal, healing ward gets destroyed before it will heal us or even if we manage to get a heal from it ,it comes with 6 seconds (?) delay....

Cant a dev pls tell me how to survive in pvp now?

Malem_Benign

Gnozo wrote: »

I really dont know how sorcs gonna survive in pvp now.
Even if we now also stack into high resistences and impen. We dont have healing to compensate our loss of shields.

If you use healing ward we have now way to pretect it. Normally we protect healing ward with other shields. If we try now to protect it, it takes more then 1 second to get our shield up. Healing gets cast if we are low hp, so execute multipliers already comes into this. Basicly healing ward will be gone before our conjured ward kicks in resulting in no healing and pretty much a respawn.

Are we now forced into slotting pets to get some healing? Sorcs dont have a reliable source of healing that can compensate the loss of shields.

Resto also wont really help. Rapid Regen or Mutagen ticks was to low to rely on and also we cant get any proper mitigation to outheal incoming damage. Crit Surge with lightning form and hoping lightning form crits so we get 1k heal?

Cant See any was to make sorcs work without shields. No class heal, healing ward gets destroyed before it will heal us or even if we manage to get a heal from it ,it comes with 6 seconds (?) delay....

Cant a dev pls tell me how to survive in pvp now?

Another interesting question is how to survive in high dif dungeons? Especially with k.o. bosses? How should sorc heal someone if he will fall right after first k.o. for example? And once more - what is the purpose of this nerf? What this toxicity for?

bpmachete

Dark convertion is a class heal. I am not disagreeing with what people are expressing but sorc does have a class heal.