What do you guys think of the boundless storm change?

Tasear

It's 8 secs to 4 secs? How will this affect your gameplay?

Galarthor

I don't think you will get any meaningful answers for that since pretty much nobody is using that skill on live.
But I will say this, given how poorly streak performs in PvP the additional 3.5 seconds of Major Expedition would have been useful.

ZarkingFrued

It garbage, there was no reason to nerf major expedition in addition to swift. Swift should have been nerfed or never added and that should have been it. Why add something like that and then nerf other forms of speed rather than just accept it was dumb to add it? They cant admit when they were just wrong on something.

THE_BIG_BOSS

a trashy skill got trashed even harder...yeah, nice one.

Lord-Otto

Not using it on live right now. The few times I used it were while Dark Conversioning, so

Streak-Streak-Boundless-Conv-Conv-Streak-Streak-Conv-Conv-Repeat

was a nice rotation for increased mobility. Now it's only covering the first conversions, which is quite useless.

But what can I say? Sorcs are still helpless to snares, so IDGAF about Expedition buffs, really.
=/

Derra

It won´t really affect gameplay because the skill isn´t used on live and will prob not be used next patched if chudan is an option for the build.

I´ve posted feedback on boundless storm prior to the major expedition nerf in the sorc topic comparing it to all other means of aquiring major resistance + armor buffs.

It was woefully inadequate prior to the nerf to major expedition by 45%.
Now it´s just pathetic.

The skills extreme cost was somewhat justified by the relatively long expedition time (but not really).
It lost that.
Furthermore the secondary function of countering melee attacks fails against a wide variety of melee builds because melee range is no longer predominantly 5m (the range of boundless storm). The only class still being purely 5m range is NB. All other classes can avoid boundless dmg component partially or entirely.
Then having this function is questionable in the first place - sorc is a ranged class and the speed is actively meant to get you out of the range of attackers...

Warden has the 2nd worst armor buff and i´d chose that without second thought over boundless. Every other classes means of aquiring thsoe buffs are not even remotely in the same dimension to be discussed here.

It´s probably the single worst skill when looking at mandatory game mechanics (armor + resi buffs). If i´d play heavy i would slot immovable over boundless.

tl;dr - bad skill got made even worse. nice job.

SirAndy

My Pet Sorc uses Boundless Storm, but not for the speed boost.

So that won't really impact her but i feel for people that were relying on speed, they got nerfed hard this patch ...

Chilly-McFreeze

Saying we shouldn't only rely on wards alone but nerfing our other options for survivability (read: to kite - major expedition)/ having lackluster skills (streak's whiplash and terrain issues, gap closer vulnerability) or simply non existant options (snare removal) makes me believe this whole patch is made by an intern.

But yeah, pretty much what the others said. I barely see anyone running it on live. Too bad it becomes somewhat mandatory to slot a resistance buff under wards.

troomar

For my Sorc tank the only place I use this buff for the speed boost is in Cloud Rest after Z'Maja ports away, so I can run to it asap. Will those 4 seconds suffice? They probably will.

Rikumaru

Derra wrote: »

Warden has the 2nd worst armor buff and i´d chose that without second thought over boundless. Every other classes means of aquiring thsoe buffs are not even remotely in the same dimension to be discussed here.

What..? It gives armor buffs and 100% uptime on minor protection, in what way is that the 2nd worse armor buff?

WrathOfInnos

Sounds like I’m one of the few people that actually uses this skill on live. The resistances are nice because it means you can get away with shielding less frequently, and for fights where you are stacked on the boss it does decent damage over its duration (like assembly general). For the speed boost, it is comparable to Channeled Acceleration without the 2s of self snare. Therefore it worked much better for fights that require moving to a new position when the enemy moves out of range (like interruptor in vAS or when Z’Maja moves across the room). The new duration is a little short for these cases, but will still be better than CA because it doesn’t have a cast time. I don’t like the change, since the skill was certainly not overperforming, but I don’t think it will significantly change its use in PVE. I would still prefer something in between, like maybe 6s as a compromise.

iCaliban

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Sounds like I’m one of the few people that actually uses this skill on live. The resistances are nice because it means you can get away with shielding less frequently, and for fights where you are stacked on the boss it does decent damage over its duration (like assembly general). For the speed boost, it is comparable to Channeled Acceleration without the 2s of self snare. Therefore it worked much better for fights that require moving to a new position when the enemy moves out of range (like interruptor in vAS or when Z’Maja moves across the room). The new duration is a little short for these cases, but will still be better than CA because it doesn’t have a cast time. I don’t like the change, since the skill was certainly not overperforming, but I don’t think it will significantly change its use in PVE. I would still prefer something in between, like maybe 6s as a compromise.

Ive used it on live for about a year for my pvp sorc. I dont understand how people said it was trash, the resists it gives are invaluable to avoid death while bursting someone down on a crowded battlefield.

The speed nerf hurts and isnt needed. Stam sorc uses hurricane which wasnt nerfed, mag sorcs need the mobility.

Heavy armor mobility (and some medium) was the issue when it came to speed. Not light armor. Blanket nerfs to classes/skills/builds dont need it just seem out of touch to me.

Tonturri

The skill has lost some of the already small amount of uniqueness it has. I never used it on live, and I'll probably use Chudan x2 instead of slotting the skill, as sorc bar space is even more cramped than before.

For me to use it, it'd need a range increase, damage boost, and unnerf the speed. Maybe give it a more regular chance to apply Minor Vuln - it's currently an extremely generic armor buff. It may look like it does some things, but it really only gives you the armor buff because the rest is...negligible. The damage is too small to really make a difference, and the speed boost is approaching that same level of usefulness. Or perhaps an increased defensive buff when the damage ticks hit something - that'd certainly be unique and useful, and give sorcs some extra oomph in melee while making it less useful in range (a trade off).

Metafae

ZarkingFrued wrote: »

It garbage, there was no reason to nerf major expedition in addition to swift. Swift should have been nerfed or never added and that should have been it. Why add something like that and then nerf other forms of speed rather than just accept it was dumb to add it? They cant admit when they were just wrong on something.

This pretty much sums up ZoS quite well.

There was no issue with Major Expidition, it was well balanced. They added Swift trait. Suddenly speed is a big problem in the game, so naturally their idea to fix it is to apply the heavy handed nerf hammer to the situation. Slam down all forms of speed boosts, rather than taking a close look at the source of the problem and addressing that problem alone.

Sevn

Zero complaints about speed before swift. They add swift and now players are moving too fast to target. Solution? Nerf swift? Remove swift? Fix or improve the targeting system?

Nope, we're going to nerf every form of speed we can. Makes sense. It's cool Zos, getting snared and slowed to a crawl every 5 seconds is exactly the type of combat I was looking for.

Derra

Rikumaru wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Warden has the 2nd worst armor buff and i´d chose that without second thought over boundless. Every other classes means of aquiring thsoe buffs are not even remotely in the same dimension to be discussed here.

What..? It gives armor buffs and 100% uptime on minor protection, in what way is that the 2nd worse armor buff?

Highest cost together with boundless.

Templar focus is armor in combination with good passive + resource mechanic. Easily #1
Volatile is a good dmg spell medium cost + triggering one of the best passives.
NB is a passive.

I´d rate all those higher than minor protection from my personal playing experience.

MashmalloMan

I don't play mag sorc, but I thought the skill would see more use now that major ward/resolve is a buff to shields as well as your base resistances. Chundane takes up a potential monster set, skill seems more useful to me, but that monster set would help mag sorc a lot with the changes to shield. + 8k armor + 1200 hp.

I'm happy with hurricane as an aoe dmg tool with minor expedition on stam sorc.

I'd like to see both hurricane and boundless storm receive 2sec snare immunity. For hurricane, it makes sense, skill costs a high amount of stamina and recasting the ability early for snare immunity means you lose access to the extra dmg and aoe range that it had built up over time.

I think boundless storm deserves it too, however I find it's harder to balance because they're is less of a trade off. Maybe because the dmg/aoe range/major expedition is on the weaker side, it would bring it more in line. However I'm sure people would love +6-7m range, + more dmg, + higher expedition time which would mean the snare immunity would be overkill as you recast the ability early for major expedition anyway. Might have to be one or the other.

Beardimus

That length of speed buff is pointless if shortened. Sorc speed wasn't an issue. Swift was. And now they gone off in a weird direct on it all.

Boundless will be more popular cos of resistances, however its costly. The damage is pointless. The speed is now pointless and its hardly boundless, let it drop CCs etc Forward Momentum style then we talking. Otherwise its a weird skill left in limbo.

I've run it alot in BG, but the speed loss means ill do.that less.

ALSO. Bar space is the issue, this was handy on the OL bar. What do we ditch to run it now?

Mintaka5

Aw ***!!!!!

I'll just treat it like every other *** time nerfed skill i run...

SPAM SPAM SPAM

This is gonna make lag so much better, guys! MOAR COMMANDS!!!!!!!! BOTTLENECK!

IAVITNI

I'd be better off slotting Chudan and shield stacking. Not that it matters since Bone Pirate is probably going to be meta.

The class mobility needed a buff and instead gets nerfed.

The skill itself is fairly useless outside the armor buff. As @Derra said, it fails as a melee deterrent and now it also fails as a mobility skill, not that it really succeeded before outside of 1vrunning. As far as I'm concerned the skill only grants an armor buff. 4 seconds duration is moot for any Major Expedition buff (arguably any buff in PvP), with the exception of Elusive Mist. Base duration should really be 8 seconds for magicka sources.

It didn't see use before because it offered too little. Now that it offers less overall, and this is accounting for the resistance changes, it simply wouldn't even be worth an overload slot if sorcs still had a third bar.

Increase the range to all of Cyrodil and MAYBE I'll slot it.

Mintaka5

IAVITNI wrote: »

I'd be better off slotting Chudan and shield stacking. Not that it matters since Bone Pirate is probably going to be meta.

The class mobility needed a buff and instead gets nerfed.

The skill itself is fairly useless outside the armor buff. As @Derra said, it fails as a melee deterrent and now it also fails as a mobility skill, not that it really succeeded before outside of 1vrunning. As far as I'm concerned the skill only grants an armor buff. 4 seconds duration is moot for any Major Expedition buff (arguably any buff in PvP), with the exception of Elusive Mist. Base duration should really be 8 seconds for magicka sources.

It didn't see use before because it offered too little. Now that it offers less overall, and this is accounting for the resistance changes, it simply wouldn't even be worth an overload slot if sorcs still had a third bar.

Increase the range to all of Cyrodil and MAYBE I'll slot it.

Agreed. Especially on the melee deterrent. It is NOT a deterrent at all. LMFAO (laughing at the absurdity of this). The resistances it offers are marginal at best. Now we have to more frequently return to it for sub-standard expedition bump. Streak is useless, and the alternative is great defensively, but no more damage or stun. Trash.

This skill just went from worse to worst. I am now using the Psijic skill for speed, cuz at least that won't eat my stamina as much when I sprint, but it's still not a viable alternative due to it's low uptime. It feels like I spend so much time managing buffs, due to these types of changes, and very little time on the offensive. Just stop hacking the sorc class skills to death.

Juhasow

I think overload change is horrible for boundless use in PvP despite how long major expedition last. Boundles seems to be the weakest source of class armor buff even expedition wasnt that great and now it's cut in half and dmg feels like it's just there because devs had no other idea for it. With sorc loosing identity more and more with each update other skills starts to feel even more useless in the procces.

MashmalloMan

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Every rep that spoke remarked that sorcerers already have to make difficult decisions with builds because sustain is an issue and lack of bar space, which means they already have trouble securing legit kills in PvP (i.e. not kill stealing by spamming mage’s wrath). We also noted that making shields so they can be critically hit was already a significant nerf that deserved testing on its own, and that the one-second cast-time will get sorcerers killed in a competitive PvP environment. We also said that ZOS has hit sorcerer offensive capability pretty hard the past year, which makes the sort of build diversity they want harder. They acknowledged this and did more than insinuate that sorcerer offense is going to be reformed in the future (at one point, a dev asked out loud if they could be specific. They could not). We told them without these offensive changes it was asking too much to hit the sorcerers with a nerf to their defense first and make them wait for this vague promise in the future. We also mentioned, numerous times, that the mechanic of cast-times is something that is disliked by many people because it breaks the flow of the fluid and fast paced combat that defines ESO. We also went through a bunch of other various reasons that folks on the forums and discords brought up. In short, we pressed and that’s why it lasted over 30 minutes.

The part in bold ^, quote from class rep meeting on Sept 25. I know it's difficult to look at all the big changes to sorc's right now, but I have a lot of hope that these changes are the better part of a big change to how sorc's will play in the future. It's hard to be patient, but I think all the changes made this patch are a stepping stone to the bigger picture. It's sad that we have little to no idea what that is.

Emma_Overload

I'm probably going to be running 2 pc Mighty Chudan and the Psijiic speed spell.

WuffyCerulei

I

Emma_Overload wrote: »

I'm probably going to be running 2 pc Mighty Chudan and the Psijiic speed spell.

That's exactly what I was thinking of doing.

WuffyCerulei

I hate it. 7 seconds isn't that long. Why, magsorcs rarely use swift with Boundless anyways. It's the turbo stam builds (mainly stamdens, stamblades, and stamsorcs) that would zip away. Magsorcs don't do that.

Mintaka5

Juhasow wrote: »

Boundles seems to be the weakest source of class armor buff even expedition wasnt that great and now it's cut in half and dmg feels like it's just there because devs had no other idea for it.

Yeah. It seems the only ideas they have had lately are bad ones. It is weak, and requires additional resistances buffs to be viable. So that's even more upfront preparation sorcs need to make, and less time doing anything fun like actually fighting. It's almost like the devs expect sorcs to just run around lit up with effects, not really doing anything meaningful.

#feelsbadman

ku5h

Marshall1289 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Every rep that spoke remarked that sorcerers already have to make difficult decisions with builds because sustain is an issue and lack of bar space, which means they already have trouble securing legit kills in PvP (i.e. not kill stealing by spamming mage’s wrath). We also noted that making shields so they can be critically hit was already a significant nerf that deserved testing on its own, and that the one-second cast-time will get sorcerers killed in a competitive PvP environment. We also said that ZOS has hit sorcerer offensive capability pretty hard the past year, which makes the sort of build diversity they want harder. They acknowledged this and did more than insinuate that sorcerer offense is going to be reformed in the future (at one point, a dev asked out loud if they could be specific. They could not). We told them without these offensive changes it was asking too much to hit the sorcerers with a nerf to their defense first and make them wait for this vague promise in the future. We also mentioned, numerous times, that the mechanic of cast-times is something that is disliked by many people because it breaks the flow of the fluid and fast paced combat that defines ESO. We also went through a bunch of other various reasons that folks on the forums and discords brought up. In short, we pressed and that’s why it lasted over 30 minutes.

The part in bold ^, quote from class rep meeting on Sept 25. I know it's difficult to look at all the big changes to sorc's right now, but I have a lot of hope that these changes are the better part of a big change to how sorc's will play in the future. It's hard to be patient, but I think all the changes made this patch are a stepping stone to the bigger picture. It's sad that we have little to no idea what that is.

ZoS is made of empty promises. Dont hold your breath my friend. Btw, what they ment by reforming the offense was adding that 10% on proc frag...lol, it's funny but it can easily be true in their heads. This PTS cycle is all the proof you need for it.

Mintaka5

Emma_Overload wrote: »

I'm probably going to be running 2 pc Mighty Chudan and the Psijiic speed spell.

Cool option, but I am not willing to give up my max magicka on my current monster set.

Vahrokh

Marshall1289 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Every rep that spoke remarked that sorcerers already have to make difficult decisions with builds because sustain is an issue and lack of bar space, which means they already have trouble securing legit kills in PvP (i.e. not kill stealing by spamming mage’s wrath). We also noted that making shields so they can be critically hit was already a significant nerf that deserved testing on its own, and that the one-second cast-time will get sorcerers killed in a competitive PvP environment. We also said that ZOS has hit sorcerer offensive capability pretty hard the past year, which makes the sort of build diversity they want harder. They acknowledged this and did more than insinuate that sorcerer offense is going to be reformed in the future (at one point, a dev asked out loud if they could be specific. They could not). We told them without these offensive changes it was asking too much to hit the sorcerers with a nerf to their defense first and make them wait for this vague promise in the future. We also mentioned, numerous times, that the mechanic of cast-times is something that is disliked by many people because it breaks the flow of the fluid and fast paced combat that defines ESO. We also went through a bunch of other various reasons that folks on the forums and discords brought up. In short, we pressed and that’s why it lasted over 30 minutes.

The part in bold ^, quote from class rep meeting on Sept 25. I know it's difficult to look at all the big changes to sorc's right now, but I have a lot of hope that these changes are the better part of a big change to how sorc's will play in the future. It's hard to be patient, but I think all the changes made this patch are a stepping stone to the bigger picture. It's sad that we have little to no idea what that is.

I'll be going to be very patient, but ZOS won't get my money while they sort their mess up. I know of no service that stops working and you keep paying for it.

GreenHere

I, for one, will miss the Expedition duration. I use this skill for the resists (and the coolness factor!), and have come to really like the burst of speed I can get while:

- catching up to allies
- moving out of red scary stuff
- getting to an objective or enemy quickly
- other stuff, because 3 items lists are too short and I'm sure there's things I've overlooked

As it is on live, I have to recast it sometimes already. Cutting the duration in half is sort of a kick in the nuts. Kinda tired of having that feeling from the devs' decisions, tbh.

And to everyone saying Swift is/was the problem, it needed to be nerfed... I maintain that that's a very narrow way of thinking. Swift was fine. The upper limit of how fast players could get while not sprinting was not. This whole thing could have been handled better. And now we'll all suffer yet another unimaginative and unnecessary nerf. Hooray?

Also, despite Swift being nerfed pretty hard, people will still be able to go combat-breakingly fast if they continue to build for it, so...