PTS Update 20 - Feedback Thread for Sorcerer

TheInfernalRage

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_Wrobel

Increase Pet Damage by 30-35% and I won't mind the shield cast-time.

Tonturri

TheInfernalRage wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_Wrobel

Increase Pet Damage by 30-35% and I won't mind the shield cast-time.

It'd suck if they decided to cripple the non-pet magicka sorcerers just because pets were buffed though.

BalticBlues

Sorc Healers are not viable anymore:

A: Cast time for Empowered Ward is 1 second
1. If the Matriarch is dead, the most important group heal is gone.
2. To protect the Matriarch, Sorc Healers regularly have to cast Empowered Ward to renew it.
3. During the Cast Time of 1 sec, Sorc Healers cannot heal the group.
4. The increased duration of Empowered Ward does not increase the duration, because not the duration of Empowered Ward decides how long the Matriarch is protected, the incoming damage does. Example: A 12k shield receiving 2k damage/sec is gone after 6 secs. No matter if the shield duration is 9 or 14 secs.

B. Cast time for the Matriarch is 1.5 secs
1. Reviving a killed Matriarch has a cast time of 1.5 secs.
2. During the Cast Time of 1.5 secs, Sorc Healers cannot heal the group.
3. Then giving the Matriarch a shield now has an extra cast time of 1 sec.
4. 2.5 secs without healing is a death sentence for the group in a DLC dungeon or even a Trial.

Conclusion: No group can risk using a Healer with such downtimes. Not the duration of Empowered Ward needs to be longer, the amount of shielding Empowered Ward gives to the Matriarch needs to be much higher. Moreover, from years of experience I can tell you: Only ONE cast time is feasible. 1.5 secs downtown to revive a dead Matriarch already is very risky. An additional cast time to cast her a shield means the end for the Sorc Healer.

jarydf

I can live with the other changes but the cast time on top seems like going to far.

joaaocaampos

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

Just wanna say, @ZOS_RobGarrett , if you guys truly are hellbent on making shields less cheesey, consider putting a cooldown like that of streak. It'll keep people from spamming the shields a lot, but still have the instant defense. It'll most likely have less of an impact of PVE as well. PVE people don't have to shield up as often as PVPers do, but need the instant damage mitigation. At most, they may need 3 casts in a row. At most.

Instead of cast time, I have incessantly suggested increasing the cost. But your suggestion is better than mine. The cost should come gradually in the same way as Streak.

"Casting again within X seconds cost Y% more Magicka."

Or they can do a shared cooldown with Annulment (and perhaps Steadfast Ward). The same way that happens with Spear Shards and Necrotic Orb.

"Casting Conjured Ward or Annulment again within X seconds cost Y% more Magicka." This tooltip could be in both skills.

Biro123

joaaocaampos wrote: »

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

Just wanna say, @ZOS_RobGarrett , if you guys truly are hellbent on making shields less cheesey, consider putting a cooldown like that of streak. It'll keep people from spamming the shields a lot, but still have the instant defense. It'll most likely have less of an impact of PVE as well. PVE people don't have to shield up as often as PVPers do, but need the instant damage mitigation. At most, they may need 3 casts in a row. At most.

Instead of cast time, I have incessantly suggested increasing the cost. But your suggestion is better than mine. The cost should come gradually in the same way as Streak.

"Casting again within X seconds cost Y% more Magicka."

Or they can do a shared cooldown with Annulment (and perhaps Steadfast Ward). The same way that happens with Spear Shards and Necrotic Orb.

"Casting Conjured Ward or Annulment again within X seconds cost Y% more Magicka." This tooltip could be in both skills.

How would that help anything?
Shields are already high cost and only last 1-2 seconds when under attack.
Not spamming them isn't an option. All this does is run you out if mag in seconds, while your opponent is still in your face beating on you.

There is no way to make them an 'occasional use' ability without giving sorcs something else to fill the gap.

On top of harness, Magblades gets cloak, magplar bol/purge etc.. sorcs get hardened...
You cannot screw over the 2 main defensive abilities in one swoop without giving something in return.

Mannix1958

mmolegends44 wrote: »

All you got to do is no shields for sorcs inside cyrodil inside pve let the sorcs use their shields of that doesn't work screw it add the cast time sick and tired of these sorcs shield stacking and cannot penetrate through the ones complainin are the ones that know mag sorcs are overpowered in pvp everyone is a mag sorc they know they don't die often at all spam shields and healing ward hell you guys should nerf healing ward give that a cast time too

You play a much different PvP game than me...that is far from what I experience

cpuScientist

I know we are all very concerned rightfully about magSorc.

But like.. WTF does stamSorc have left? No third bar, no sustain...

For PvE stamSorc has had nothing since hurricane was introduced then subsequently nerfed. Since then it's been either nerfs or just plain nothing.

For PvP stamSorc has had nothing since hurricane was introduced then subsequently nerfed. Since then it's been either nerfs or just plain nothing.

Why are they in game? What do they do? What is their purpose? Only class/sub-class in the game with no type of burst mechanic. Puryfying/power light, arrow proc, class dots and class ultimate and FoO, and shalk. StanSorc still can't get melee frag. ZOS SERIOUSLY damn.

MrGraves

RIP my sorc tank

ResTandRespeC

Sebar80 wrote: »

Apherius wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

joaaocaampos wrote: »

• PvE: You will usually use it to survive. But you will do less damage. Heavy Attack + Damage Shield rotation, baby! Better than cast time.

WHY ANYONE WOULD EVER WANT ME AS DPS?

synergy for alkosh uptime, major berserk ( atronach ) buff for the magNB closest to you.

Yes it's sad.

The state of endgame pve is 7 magnbs and one sorc. Sorc not for dps because its dreadful, but for this two things it can do, which is minor prophecy and liquid lightning for tank alkosh proc. to buff an all might nbs

Honestly if all the changes here go live it's likely going to be a warden healer or dps providing the alkosh synergy a long with their other group buffs. Sorcs aren't even on buff-***** status anymore

jmgrant44ub17_ESO

If you want to keep playing without pulling your hair out, make one of every class. There doesn't seem to be any overall vision for the classes. After all this time you wake up and decide to make it so you can crit shields? How long has the player base been asking for this? Forever, and now with a cast time? So it's almost like they get up one morning and roll the dice and sorcs came up this patch for the nerf hammer. It is very hard to balance a game if you have no idea where its going.

The other problem is they make no adjustments between patches so when the patch comes out they try to cram everything in all at once. ZOS knows what needs to be done by either they don't have the resources and time or don't care.

ezio45

ok lets talk about magsorc "adapting"

devs, please present us with what you think is a viable pvp nonpet magsorc build for murkimire

Some tips,
if its light armor, its not viable anymore
if its heavy, our sustain is trash in light, its not viable

Aedaryl

ezio45 wrote: »

ok lets talk about magsorc "adapting"

devs, please present us with what you think is a viable pvp nonpet magsorc build for murkimire

Some tips,
if its light armor, its not viable anymore
if its heavy, our sustain is trash in light, its not viable

Even pet builds doesn't work because pets die far too easely with crit shield and then you add the cast time one hardened ward.

Sorc is left without ANY viable way.

Can u show us ur balance ZoS ?

Zer0oo

My hope is that they will fix what they doing a.k.a "balance" in the next 3-4 updates and i may take a break from the game till then. They screwed up so much with morrowind and they still handing out band-aid fixes for that. It is almost funny if it wasn't that sad from a gaming perspective.
This update does some good changes but it completely destroys how shields work in pvp/pve. After some updates they will realize how cap their changes were and make some band-aid fixes for the next few updates like the always do.

Just take a break from the game and wait till you can play it again.

Sublime

I haven't seen footage of PTS magicka sorc gameplay, so here's some. But keep in mind, this is by no means the best build for the next patch nor did I try all possibilities, it's just some duels I had. Also I'm from EU so my connection to the server isn't perfect. I hope this helps some of you.

https://youtu.be/6PXxP8K7Kac

HowlKimchi

Sublime wrote: »

I haven't seen footage of PTS magicka sorc gameplay, so here's some. But keep in mind, this is by no means the best build for the next patch nor did I try all possibilities, it's just some duels I had. Also I'm from EU so my connection to the server isn't perfect. I hope this helps some of you.

https://youtu.be/6PXxP8K7Kac

that CP allocation doe

ezio45

Sublime wrote: »

I haven't seen footage of PTS magicka sorc gameplay, so here's some. But keep in mind, this is by no means the best build for the next patch nor did I try all possibilities, it's just some duels I had. Also I'm from EU so my connection to the server isn't perfect. I hope this helps some of you.

https://youtu.be/6PXxP8K7Kac

this is just pathetic, that sorc is barely surviving only to die @ZOS_RobGarrett @ZOS_Wrobel

and thats 1v1

Bakkagami

Figure I'll put this here and maybe it won't get completely drowned out by the tears.

Quite frankly sorc needed the shield nerf. Pushing them away from standing and soaking up damage through wards is overall good, though the changes stacked on each other were a bit over the top and could have been better executed over time to better feel the effects of each. That being said the cast time should stay.

Obviously that's going to trigger a lot of people on here so I'll explain.

The cast time is the primary way in this patch that sorcs and, to a lesser extent, other mag classes (almost all can do it with healing ward + harness) are being pushed to move away from standing still and spamming wards to soak damage. In the event that the cast time is taken away and crit shields remain, the only difference in gameplay would be the amount of times the caster will have to spam the shields, most likely just resulting in just a few more casters moving to 2-3 shields when they used to run 1-2. Basically the root problem wouldn't be fixed. Rather than that, I'd propose keeping the cast time, remove crit from shields, but keep allowing resistances to effect shields. That way shields are less spammable, but in return are given a bit more strength since attacks will hit for less.

With those changes wards will act a bit closer to how ZoS seems to want them to. Preemptively applying them will give a buffer for enough time to setup burst. At the same time rather than allowing sorcs to ward spam tank, good use of class skills, mobility, and cc's will be necessary to keep pressure off, particularly when taking on multiple opponents.

That being said, there are some other general changes that i think could help LA users and really game balance in general.

1. drop swift trait from 10% to 5% per piece. I think this has to happen. As it is the Swift trait is far too potent in pvp and would still be effective even with a 50% nerf, but would require more of a sacrifice to reach ridiculous speeds when stacked with other sources.

2. Add a ward related passive to LA. particularly, I'd like to see something along the lines of " increases physical and spell resistance of wards by 750 per piece of light armor equipped." In 7 light this would be roughly equivalent to a major resistance buff but only apply to wards.

3. Align animation time with cast times. This is really noticeable with hardened ward but the animation time is pretty significantly longer than the actual cast time of the ability. I found that i can block cancel the last bit off the animation to apply the ward and shave off about .4-.5 seconds off the "cast time." Fixing the cast time to align better with the animation would go a long way toward rectifying the impression some players are having that it takes longer to cast described. (of course ping will have something to do with that but ZoS can't be expected to balance around internet issues)

Ipslor

Bakkagami wrote: »

Quite frankly sorc needed the shield nerf.

Sorry, no time to read the rest. I need to recast my shield.

oxygen_thief

Quite frankly nerf is not needed. shields are absolutely fine as they are in non cp environment. in cp pvp there are "unkillable" troll builds on every other class too thus something is wrong with cp system not with shields. but who cares

Bakkagami

oxygen_thief wrote: »

Quite frankly nerf is not needed. shields are absolutely fine as they are in non cp environment. in cp pvp there are "unkillable" troll builds on every other class too thus something is wrong with cp system not with shields. but who cares

Completely agree that every class has troll setups and i don't have an issue with those as they typically sacrifice any semblance of damage for survivability and sustain, making them non-threats. However, those are also almost exclusively heavy armor builds so they also don't benefit from the damage bonii of medium/light armor passives. (heavy armor sets is another thing zos needs to fix but that an entirely different topic) The ability for LA users to straight up tank people with ward spam while still benefiting from both light armor damage passives and max mag damage/ward scaling is why I say the wards needed a nerf. As it is on live, there isn't a tradeoff, you get good survivability and high damage. Even healing isn't a sacrifice as you're essentially replenishing 10k of extra health every time you hit a ward.

ZOS_Mika

We have recently removed several unnecessary/baiting comments. Please keep the discussion civil and constructive. Thanks for your understanding.

oxygen_thief

you cant spam shields without investing into recovery. it means you need to decrease your spell damage or other stats to increase survivability. dont forget vigor benefits form wpd. more damage -better healing

Artim_X

@ZOS_RobGarrett as others have mentioned an important aspect of overload has been significantly nerfed and your post on here didn't mention it at all. There is a lot of feedback discussing the changes done to overload on here and in different discussion posts in regards to the loss of the 3rd bar. This negatively impacts a variety of sorc builds in relation to stam sorcs, pet users, healers, tanks, etc. This change in particular doesn't just change number values around, since it takes something away that has always been unique to sorcs. The 3rd bar allowed sorcs to make up for having to slot so many skills and without any changes done to passives/active skills it feels like too harsh of a nerf for those who utilized it to make their playstyles more viable in variety of content.

For me personally all my builds still work just fine on PTS, but I have significantly less tools at my disposal, which contradicts the premise of wanting us to feel like we have access to our full arsenal.

idk

code65536 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 There were so many ways to nerf shields without adding a cast time. And no, cast time does not and has not ever made combat "more interesting".

A "shield fatigue" system where subsequent casts would be less effective or more costly would've worked far better.

But I want to highlight your view that shields are "out of line" in PvE by asking you a question: How many devs have attempted vCR +3? Are you aware of the kind of damage spikes there are in that trial? Are you aware that if a Malicious Strike picks you as its random target while you are stacked for a Roaring Flare, that you are dead if you don't have a shield? Are you aware that if multiple Malicious Strikes target you (again, they are random), that they will wipe you out in less than a second if you don't have a shield? None of this is something that people can heal through. And we are already asking people to run more health in vCR than in other trials.

There are many players who main stamina, who prefer stamina, and they are forced to come as magicka for certain content, precisely because there is so much damage where damage shields are the only viable solution. So, no, I take special objection to your comment about PvE and suspect that your dev team that wipes in normal Cloudrest is probably wildly out of touch with with what kinds of challenges we are faced with in vet DLC content.

This is a comment from a person who clearly knows and understands far more about how this game plays than @ZOS_RobGarrett does.

What is even more interesting is he proposes a sound solution that Zos has used previously for another skill and that solution served this game well.

PromiscuousNun

Just my humble opinion and feel:

Please revert that cast-time for shields It is a 'oh crap' button, adding seconds to it won't help) not fun to play like that at all, under all possible scenarios… Mostely Sorc, but including all mag classes.

If it is PvP that needs adjustments, just remove stacking shields. If it is those 'healer needs to be more important' PvE thing, shields had nothing to do with it in the first place. There is rarely a middle ground between 1-shots and some light dmg. It's the mechanics that dictate the 3DD stuff. (for the record, I LOVE running with a dedicated healer)


I was also hoping for some help with sustain (both mag and stam Sorc, my favs) alas… But we'll survive that I guess. As we do now

More global changes in the notes are very nice, well done on some classes aswell! There are posivive things
But poor Sorcs… oh my.

Keeping my fingers crossed, dear Zenimax.
Lotsa love and kisses, Nun

Expert

ZOS, I unsubbed from ESO + as I feel you do not treat and listen to your Class Reps and those around you. You listen to those who complain without utilizing your tools (shieldbreaker, knightslayer, oblivion glyphs, etc) to counter shields.

Instead you gutted Sorcs and cut their legs off so they can't do anything, and then you find out the 1 second cast time was a mistake so instead you'll cut our fingers off thinking we'll still be happy about it. (phrase i took from someone else)

Anyways, if you really find the need to have cast time, cut it by 75% so that we can have .25 seconds or half second to cast. As much as I hate it cast time, I know you won't listen because you still want to cut more of our fingers.

Please stop holding Sorcs hostage, and abusing them day to day because some people refuse to utilize your tools to counter shield. The one thing that made sorc stand out from all other classes was having 3 skill bars, more skills means more opportunities. It's a lot harder to play with 3 skill bars because it's clunky, but if done properly that's what can make a good sorc enjoy the best of ESO.

Sadly gutting Exchange, Overload, and Shields with more casts times makes this class feel like an overall channel ability class than any other. Cast time on pets, cast time on Exchange, cast time on shield and harness, cast time on crystal blast, cast time on more things in the future as you are gutting us out.

Class Reps have mentioned about Pet Sorcs being a problem, but you didn't nerf pets you nerfed all sorcs.

People complain shields are too strong and has no counter, you didn't nerf max magicka shields, you nerfed all sorcs.

I feel that your Combat Devs don't target the source of the problem and instead target all of the Sorcs in the community with a shank.

Cool, you made shields crittable, since we're constructive and we aren't complaining about it. It seems fair to us, but what's not fair is the double nerf you slapped on Shield. Adding a cast time is the worst of all, sure it can't be countered by Crushing Shock, but as a PVP sorc, timing is key to align your bursts, now I have to spend half my fights channeling abilities and the other half trying to turn the fight but I'm locked on channeling abilities.

How does a sorc turn the fight if he has to channel? What level of skill and pvp knowledge can be implemented to make a sorc improve cast times? How can a sorc become better if they're limited to channeling abilities all the time? I'm a very competitive pvp Sorc, and I look for improvements. I can't see improvements in surviving open world from gankblades which you heavily buffed this patch. If you look at the population statistics, how many are Sorcerers? Or even more extinct, how many are actually magicka?

I don't feel Sorcs are the focus of the future or the problem in open world right now. A lot of them are Dragonknights because blocking is promising, holding rightclick is better than channeling abilities as a sorc.

Tell me what level of skill does it take to hold right click as a Dragonknight versus the level it skill it takes to properly align shields and do a quick burst as a Magsorc?

It's frustrating because a lot of us believed in your Class Rep program, and not only did you disappoint us, you dissapointed them. How do they represent us if you never listened to them?

How are you taking tips and improving the combat balance if you're doing opposite of Class Reps? You're turning against the community is a harsh way, and you're making decisions without thoroughly thinking this out from a business strategy. People here are unsubscribing because they lost faith in your reckless actions.

You see, most of us complain about sets that over-perform and require no human intelligence to operate that set. Even an animal can use it. It's player vs player right? Not player vs set, we expect the player to be there utilizing his knowledge and level of skill to outperform others. Instead you're adding a cheap ride into pvp by offering sets that do not require any level of skill. That being said, you're continuing to add more sets to fill in the gap of L2P (learn to play) issues.

I did not sign up for an unfaithful dev team to disrupt the pvp community. I know you're open for suggestions and feedback, but at the bottom of my heart, please listen to the people who represent us first before making reckless decisions on your behalf. We're your customers, and we deserve that level of respect to have representation of our thoughts/ideas.

CaptainVenom

There's a simple way to get Wards working better, and without casting time: change it so it doesn't fully protect you: wards could now absorb 90% of incoming damage, and the remaining 10% goes to your health. This way, we keep our shields and shield stacking becomes unreliable in PvP.

AhPook_Is_Here

Stuns, and off-balance are the REWARD for responsive interrupts to cast time abilities. By removing the ability to interrupt players casting shields you have first destroyed the reward for clinging to your target and quickly interrupting their ability, and you have taken away the enjoyment shield caster's tactical decision to find a safe place to recast their shields rather than just rolling through their target and casting.

Please don't go ahead with this change and leave the game play exciting and interesting for people trying to cast shields.

Tonturri

CaptainVenom wrote: »

There's a simple way to get Wards working better, and without casting time: change it so it doesn't fully protect you: wards could now absorb 90% of incoming damage, and the remaining 10% goes to your health. This way, we keep our shields and shield stacking becomes unreliable in PvP.

Gonna cross post something from another thread.

There is a major mechanical difference between some shields. They're either very large or very small - nothing in between. Take DK's Igneous shield - nobody complains about that stacking because it's very small. If the shield is 1k and there's an incoming 10k hit, the shield absorbs 1k, 9k inc, and the 9k is mitigated by other stuff. You can heal it back up, armor res (previously - good change on this one ZOS, makin shields work with that) and blocking come into play, etc.

Now if the incoming hit is 10k and the shield is 10k - the attack is entirely absorbed by the shield. Heals, blocking, dodging even (if you dodge the shield takes no damage, and that defeats the point of the shield) - these all have...no value whatsoever at the time. And then it's just more efficient to cast another shield if your shield strength is at that point.

So I won't claim to have amazing math or anything, but something has got to give a little. Personally, I'm fond of the way Dark Deal went (excluding the cast time - hate that), where there's an on-demand boost to using the skill and then one that's allocated out over time. You can get good, longer sustain by pressing it every so often and getting the most out of the over-time portion, or you can use it quickly for a bigger burst of healing and resources while giving up the over-time part.

Shields could function the same way - they can still stack, but say you have one shield. Casting that one shield once gives a slightly lower immediate shield value than before, but you get additional bits of shielding over a short duration, like a HoT. It'll be stronger sustain if you let the duration run, but you can also press the shield multiple times in a row for a burst of defense if need be. And still let multiple shields stack of course. This would help blocking, HoTs, etc be more useful to classes that are forced by design into using shields in exclusion of everything else.

It'd also definitely help your opponent feel more...rewarded, I think, as they'd have an easier time damaging the shielded player's health pool. PvE tanks would be less worried about blocking while shielding and have more consistant mitigation that synergized together (where previously, shields conflicted with quite literally everything a tank might use to stay alive).

However, this should NOT be done if shields are kept at the same strength they are not. The idea is to follow the same concept of Dark Deal. Unfortunately, DD at the moment was not very well mathed out. Its values were simply halfed, with one half at the start and the other half other time. The only way to get 100% of the value of the skill is to wait out the duration. And in that case, you only...break even, compared to the previous incarnation of the skill (I think there was a small buff to the resource gain, but like...3% or something).

The issue there is that you're forced to wait what, 20 sec? To get the same benefit of the skill where previously you could press it and you got the full benefit. And you could cast it again without gimping yourself - which is an important distinction to make. It would have been better if the resource gain of DD was cut by 25%, and then half of the original value is allocated out over the duration. That way, if you recast it BEFORE a certain point you're definitely giving up some resources over time, but after a certain point you're GAINING. And ZOS just made it so that you can only 'break even' compared to the previous incarnation of the skill - there's no chance to gain. I'd love to see shields modeled similarly, but only if there is a designated point after which you can recast the shield and you're not losing out on shield strength in comparison to the previous version of the skill...because that would be another nerf that shields don't need right now.