Shield Nerf in VMA

EpicRekkoning

I was running my pet sorc in VMA for the first time since Murkmire, and I'm really feeling the nerf. I run 20k health in there for extra survivability and with harden's cap at 50% health, that only provides a shield of 10k. What I'm seeing is most non boss enemies hit for 4-7k in there, mini bosses 8-13k, and bosses have a combination of the two plus a larger damage ability. Thinking about this for light armor users, 1-2 hits and you shield is gone, 3-4 without reactivating the shield and your dead.

Anyone have any good suggestions/ideas to work around the nerf? I've heard iceheart is working well to make up for the loss. I don't want this thread to turn into a rant session, but rather a place to work out some kinks with the new changes.

susmitds

Use all well-fitted instead of all divines. You will get twice the number of dodges available to you at the cost of 80 spell damage, which is pretty darn low. It will keep Shield up for longer.

EpicRekkoning

Thanks for that idea! I switch it over.

The other thing I forgot to mention above too is I've also noticed my pet is dying a lot more in there. He never died before outside the argonian scream, so I'm thinking that's a result of the nerf as well.

kylewwefan

So...the whole point for many players using pet build was to have this huge magic pool and cast these enormous shields to survive anything and do alright damage with heavy attacks that also restore your resources.

The Devs decided to do away with that this patch.

So, why bother with the pet anymore? Also, putting CP into bastion. Don’t need it anymore. You hit the wall very quick.

I saw a player build using plague Doctor, Clever alchemist/Skoria. 30k health, 3500 SD. Decent sized shield. Looked good stat wise. No idea what it plays like.

BNOC

susmitds wrote: »

Use all well-fitted instead of all divines. You will get twice the number of dodges available to you at the cost of 80 spell damage, which is pretty darn low. It will keep Shield up for longer.

+scaling

kylewwefan wrote: »

So...the whole point for many players using pet build was to have this huge magic pool and cast these enormous shields to survive anything and do alright damage with heavy attacks that also restore your resources.

The Devs decided to do away with that this patch.

So, why bother with the pet anymore? Also, putting CP into bastion. Don’t need it anymore. You hit the wall very quick.

I saw a player build using plague Doctor, Clever alchemist/Skoria. 30k health, 3500 SD. Decent sized shield. Looked good stat wise. No idea what it plays like.

I'm assuming OP struggles in there so clever alchemist may not be great because of the uptime.
Maybe Kagrenacs offers a similar setup that may be better for inexperienced runners?

jypcy

Iceheart is very good. You could also run boundless storm if you don’t already to buff your resistances. But primarily I’d recommend focusing on killing the enemies rather than surviving them. Learn which are the most dangerous mobs, learn where they spawn, and learn which combo of abilities is best for killing them quickly.

Edit: and I think this is the thread talking about the build mentioned above. Sounds like people have had success with it but I haven’t watched the video nor tried it out so can’t personally recommend it: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/444783/1-bar-pet-sorc-vma-build-for-1st-clear-or-farming-weapons

EpicRekkoning

Iceheart is very good. You could also run boundless storm if you don’t already to buff your resistances. But primarily I’d recommend focusing on killing the enemies rather than surviving them. Learn which are the most dangerous mobs, learn where they spawn, and learn which combo of abilities is best for killing them quickly.

I'll pop boundless back on and see how that feels. I have this place memorized and have completed it more times than I can count. I'm not a leaderboards player, but I usually finish with 5-10 deaths, no sigils.

So...the whole point for many players using pet build was to have this huge magic pool and cast these enormous shields to survive anything and do alright damage with heavy attacks that also restore your resources.

The Devs decided to do away with that this patch.

So, why bother with the pet anymore? Also, putting CP into bastion. Don’t need it anymore. You hit the wall very quick.

I completely understand why the dev's made the change. To your point about "why bother with pet builds anymore," I would ask, why have an entire tree for a class dedicated to pet builds? I understand what you mean by the question from an end game perspective and again, this thread isnt about rants, just strategies for those of us trying to figure out how to play a style we enjoy with the new changes.

I saw a player build using plague Doctor, Clever alchemist/Skoria. 30k health, 3500 SD. Decent sized shield. Looked good stat wise. No idea what it plays like.

I saw this the other day. It's a really smart build/concept and I'll probably try it out.

jypcy

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

show previous quotes

Iceheart is very good. You could also run boundless storm if you don’t already to buff your resistances. But primarily I’d recommend focusing on killing the enemies rather than surviving them. Learn which are the most dangerous mobs, learn where they spawn, and learn which combo of abilities is best for killing them quickly.

I'll pop boundless back on and see how that feels. I have this place memorized and have completed it more times than I can count. I'm not a leaderboards player, but I usually finish with 5-10 deaths, no sigils.

Cool, then you probably already knew that sorry, I was thinking this was for progression. Yeah, so I don’t run pets on my mag sorc, but boundless storm, power surge, and empowered ward are the only “defensive” measures I’ve been using since murkmire and it works out.

Mister_DMC

Light divines fortified Brass, and necro should work wonders. Brass basically makes you a tank.

EpicRekkoning

Light divines fortified Brass, and necro should work wonders. Brass basically makes you a tank.

Have you tried this? I've though about it too but I haven't pulled the trigger yet.

kylewwefan

A long time ago I wanted to be a pet Sorc player. They were terrible. Trinimacs valor was the best set you could use to keep pets from dying super quick. Necro was stuck at cp 140 or maybe shields diddnt scale with max magic as much back then I don’t remember.

Then there were changes and things got better. Pet Sorc May never have been OP, but they were easy to play and changes were made that made them great to get decent damage and required very little skill and had great defensive capabilities.

Then everyone and their brother was running pet Sorc.

My deduction is many players are still using pets because they think the builds are powerful. But a lot of that got stripped from them this patch.

It’s still a Sorc. But things got changed. Again. The Max Mag alone build isn’t quite what it used to be. Sure, you can use pets still, but they’re not the same. The reason why many played pet Sorc in the first place isn’t there anymore.

md3788

Mister_DMC wrote: »

Light divines fortified Brass, and necro should work wonders. Brass basically makes you a tank.

I like this idea. Maybe drop lover for Apprentice to get some spell damage?

Mister_DMC

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

show previous quotes

Light divines fortified Brass, and necro should work wonders. Brass basically makes you a tank.

Have you tried this? I've though about it too but I haven't pulled the trigger yet.

Well I've used it in PvP for a couple patches, only reason I don't use it in VMA is I have no issues in there and complete it regularly with 15k Health. I just got a 500k score on my new magplar using sweeps as his only heal the first time I tried it with him. But for learning I imagine Brass is a really solid option.

Mister_DMC

md3788 wrote: »

show previous quotes

Mister_DMC wrote: »

Light divines fortified Brass, and necro should work wonders. Brass basically makes you a tank.

I like this idea. Maybe drop lover for Apprentice to get some spell damage?

Absolutely, you shouldn't use the lover on Magicka toons anyways. You have the light armor penetration passive. The best choices would be, thief, mage or apprentice.

PoseidonEvil

i have heard someone else say that nerfmire made their pet build weaker due to them dying in VMA now, this morning i made it to round 4 with no deaths for me or my pets. i will update and let you know when either of us die but i dont see the nerf? other than shields taking huge amount of dmg and me having to recast but thats about it.

EpicRekkoning

this morning i made it to round 4 with no deaths for me or my pets

Ice round got my pet multiple times this morning

alteredLynx

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

I was running my pet sorc in VMA for the first time since Murkmire, and I'm really feeling the nerf. I run 20k health in there for extra survivability and with harden's cap at 50% health, that only provides a shield of 10k. What I'm seeing is most non boss enemies hit for 4-7k in there, mini bosses 8-13k, and bosses have a combination of the two plus a larger damage ability. Thinking about this for light armor users, 1-2 hits and you shield is gone, 3-4 without reactivating the shield and your dead.

I used to run petsorc too and ran into the same problem. I settled into: Iceheart set + Spinners + Destruction Mastery (can be bought at guild stores or DSA). Hardened Ward/Infused on back bar, Precise / Charged on front bar lightning staves. Running around 650 CP with the usual skills and a volatile familiar. Crit surge for heals and no Twilight. Swapping in Harness Magicka or Boundless storm for certain stages. 20K health, 33/36k mag, 10k stam.

It's a bit harder than PetSorc build, but things are dying so much faster. I think to get to faster complete times, I will need to make Ilambris and Burning Spellweave work; but at this point I'm happy with my results.

f047ys3v3n

I would loose the petsorc thing. Petsorc was really about the synergy between magica pool, the necromancer set, and the scaling of pet damage, sheilds, and light/heavy attacks, all almost entirely on that single magica pool number. Now shields effectively don't scale and light/heavy attacks scale in a more balanced way with spell power.

So, with all that synergistic stuff gone, you really are left with the simple fact that pets take up 2 bar slots, are really no more powerful than abilities that take up one (in the case of volatile familiar it's actually a fairly low dps DOT), and still bug mechanics out a lot and die places they are not supposed to. They also now sit alone in their dependency on magica pool whereas your primary heal, surge, dictates that you need to be crit heavy when it comes to the source of your damage if you also want heals. This is sad because crit is weaker than say spell power as a damage source but it is what it is and you need those reliable crit heals in vMA.

So, drop pets in favor of a frag build with some more utility such as boundless storm for tankieness. Then strap on mothers sorrow for the crits, fortified brass for the resistance, and either iceheart or earthgore for the monster. The dps check is not super high in vMA so it is mostly about keeping your heals going, playing the mechanics, and not running out of resources.

Sorry the wobbler accidentally stumbled into your petsorc and wrecked it even though it hasn't been meta for a year or so. He really can't see past the first effect when he does stuff so most of the time he breaks builds entirely unrelated what he is trying to "balance." I don't think he even has a very good idea of what sort of builds exist out there let alone the second and third level effects that make them work.

Rontabs77

I am using a petsorc and trying to beat vMA. I feel how petsorcs are so vulnerable now specially against the crematorial guards in stage 9 and it is very disappointing.

Here is a video of my petsorc doing the rink of frozen blood and see how I struggle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEt91C3hZZk

remilafo

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

I was running my pet sorc in VMA for the first time since Murkmire, and I'm really feeling the nerf. I run 20k health in there for extra survivability and with harden's cap at 50% health, that only provides a shield of 10k. What I'm seeing is most non boss enemies hit for 4-7k in there, mini bosses 8-13k, and bosses have a combination of the two plus a larger damage ability. Thinking about this for light armor users, 1-2 hits and you shield is gone, 3-4 without reactivating the shield and your dead.

Anyone have any good suggestions/ideas to work around the nerf? I've heard iceheart is working well to make up for the loss. I don't want this thread to turn into a rant session, but rather a place to work out some kinks with the new changes.

Drop the shields... aka stop using them.

go with a Power surge build instead.

Banana

Ice heart

zvavi

ice heart+surge. could also go for the ez sorc build someone posted a while ago (plague+necropotence+pets, one bar sorc)
or you could toughen up, time up your roll dodges better, and survive with surge and shields, use more skills from both bars instead of one, learn to weave better and more.

firedrgn

Rontabs77 wrote: »

I am using a petsorc and trying to beat vMA. I feel how petsorcs are so vulnerable now specially against the crematorial guards in stage 9 and it is very disappointing.

Here is a video of my petsorc doing the rink of frozen blood and see how I struggle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEt91C3hZZk

Crematorial guards are easy just walk in a circle around them .. right where there tail is connected to their bodies. .. if you go further out i will ha e to sprint around them.

You can just lay down wall of elements and heavy attack while u move around them u will take zero damage once u get the hang of it. They die in one circle two at the most.

Im no pro but thats one that i pretty much have down.

firedrgn

The ice stage is just learning which island to start on and what order to take sigils.

firedrgn

Im still on crystal phase .. last two times i got the crystals i took too much fall damage ju.ping down. Lol ..

Lord_Eomer

PoseidonEvil wrote: »

i have heard someone else say that nerfmire made their pet build weaker due to them dying in VMA now, this morning i made it to round 4 with no deaths for me or my pets. i will update and let you know when either of us die but i dont see the nerf? other than shields taking huge amount of dmg and me having to recast but thats about it.

Round 4 are easiest, anyway Good Luck.

OP is right VMA is not same anymore for magicka players as was before.