Constructive feedback on Sorcs

EpicRekkoning

The changes to dark exchange has been problematic in PVE. I understand the need for the change in PVP, but as a PVE player, the change broke the ability within a dps rotation because of the cast time.

-One simple solution would be to remove the cast time, reduce the initial health recieved by 1/3-1/2 of the current amount, and add a HOT for the remaining health (if they cut the initial health by 50%, add that other 50% to a HOT).

Other feedback on the stam sorc is the playstyle feels flat. All rotations are built off of weapon abilities and there's no unique feel to the class. Compared to all other classes, sorcs feel like they have fewer stam options for skills. I think the passives are fine, but the skills are just flat.

I've shared some ideas thes ideas on other threads recently and will continue to share them to try and start a conversation. These would be my preference, but at this point, I just want something to add some flavor to the playstyle.

-make air it's own physical type spell. It's all over throughout the game. A simple status effect, has a chance to set targets off balance. Makes sense when you consider large wind gusts can do that to people. (Side note, if they did this, this could setup some future weapon types like unarmed or pole weapons).

-change one of the pets (tormentor) to a durzog, scale off of stam, make it physical damage, and add a chance to bleed.

- change unstable clanfear to scale off of stam  and do physical damage. I'm not sure about the healing part of this skills either.

-add an air atro as an ultimate that does physical damage, give it a large aoe damage (spinning with multiple swords) and cause a chance to bleed.

-change crystal blast to a spammable stam skill. You can go a lot of different directions with this skill. One thought, reduce the range (5 meters), make it a cone, have it do physical wind damage (no cast).

-change one liquid lighting morph to a tornado/cyclone with physical damage.

twofaced

Not enough stam meta! MORE STAMINA TO THE GOD OF STAMINA!

validifyedneb18_ESO

I mean... other classes have access to strong spammable instant heals...

Sucks because exchange is the only ability for stamina users that fits into a rotation for the minor prophecy buff.

I also totally agree that a stamina morph og crystal should be different (Potentially a spammable as you said) its already bad without the instant cast proc, and the stam version cant work the exact same way.

-make air it's own physical type spell. It's all over throughout the game. A simple status effect, has a chance to set targets off balance. Makes sense when you consider large wind gusts can do that to people. (Side note, if they did this, this could setup some future weapon types like unarmed or pole weapons).

This would be cool, a magic type for physical. Maybe destruction staves for Air too.

validifyedneb18_ESO

Never a fan of summons though, id take more self buffs. Or just make bound armaments count as a summon so I can actually get that 8% health buff (Assuming it actually gets changed to an active ability rather than a 3 second piece of ***)

EpicRekkoning

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Never a fan of summons though, id take more self buffs. Or just make bound armaments count as a summon so I can actually get that 8% health buff (Assuming it actually gets changed to an active ability rather than a 3 second piece of ***)

It's funny that they made that skill a tanking ability. I know they're trying to give each class a unique feel for dps (mag/stam), healing, and tanking, but for years we've been asking for a stam identity and they've consistently overlooked that request. Relying on weapon skills is not an identity in my opinion.

Emma_Overload

An instant cast HoT would be amazing... as long as the heal was high enough.

lokulin

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

- change unstable clanfear to scale off of stam  and do physical damage. I'm not sure about the healing part of this skills either.
.

As a sorc tank please don't take away our main heal. Having it use the magicka pool at the moment is great and mirrors the DK heal. Making dark deal an instant cast with return of stamina over time would also be a welcome change. Having no class skill that returns stamina while blocking is frustrating when you compare to what other classes get.

validifyedneb18_ESO

lokulin wrote: »

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

- change unstable clanfear to scale off of stam  and do physical damage. I'm not sure about the healing part of this skills either.
.

As a sorc tank please don't take away our main heal. Having it use the magicka pool at the moment is great and mirrors the DK heal. Making dark deal an instant cast with return of stamina over time would also be a welcome change. Having no class skill that returns stamina while blocking is frustrating when you compare to what other classes get.

This. Its important that if abilities are to be reworked to add to the potential usable skills for stamina that we dont try to tell ZOS to remove actually useful abilities. Got to be aware of the genuinly useless abilities.

Crystal fragments for example. If you're using it, its making your DPS worse, so replacing/removing that ability can be considered a buff for anyone who is actually using it. lol.

EpicRekkoning

lokulin wrote: »

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

- change unstable clanfear to scale off of stam  and do physical damage. I'm not sure about the healing part of this skills either.
.

As a sorc tank please don't take away our main heal. Having it use the magicka pool at the moment is great and mirrors the DK heal. Making dark deal an instant cast with return of stamina over time would also be a welcome change. Having no class skill that returns stamina while blocking is frustrating when you compare to what other classes get.

I agree that it's a strong heal and useful skill. I tank with a sorc and the only problem I have with the skill is I have to use two skill slots for one heal. It limits certain fights.

But you're right that the focus should be on skills that need to be changed and dont have any current use.

MashmalloMan

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

The changes to dark exchange has been problematic in PVE. I understand the need for the change in PVP, but as a PVE player, the change broke the ability within a dps rotation because of the cast time.

-One simple solution would be to remove the cast time, reduce the initial health recieved by 1/3-1/2 of the current amount, and add a HOT for the remaining health (if they cut the initial health by 50%, add that other 50% to a HOT).

Huh? The change they recently did to dark deal was reduced cost by like 1k magicka, 75% stam up front and 50% over 20 seconds. I actually really like it now, cheap, heals a good chunk and can be prebuffed for 120 sta/sec. It was never instant cast to begin with. Although I agree somewhat with your suggestion, the key factor of dark deal is upfront return that ZOS likes about the skill. Without a cast time it would have to be much weaker on the upfront resource return, not just the heal.

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

-make air it's own physical type spell. It's all over throughout the game. A simple status effect, has a chance to set targets off balance. Makes sense when you consider large wind gusts can do that to people. (Side note, if they did this, this could setup some future weapon types like unarmed or pole weapons).

I don't think they will make an air element or status effect attached to physical dmg, nor would I want them to, but a new spammable or dot that provides off balance would be really interesting. Great idea.

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

-change one of the pets (tormentor) to a durzog, scale off of stam, make it physical damage, and add a chance to bleed.

- change unstable clanfear to scale off of stam  and do physical damage. I'm not sure about the healing part of this skills either.

We only need one. Tormentor sucks and quite honestly, 1 dmg morph pet is good enough for mag DD with volatile familiar, they already play that way currently so I somewhat agree here. However I think it would be more fair to focus on clanfear. The skill is a tanking ability and although clunky for 2 slots, we should not take away their % heal. The pet already scales on crit/pen/cp for stam stats but requires max magicka.

In order for it to scale off max stam, I think ZOS will instead change the cost to stamina which hurts tanks so I'd prefer for it to still cost magicka but scale on stam. The only skill that behaves this way from my knowledge is FoO from DK so it's doable.

The other problem is, even with 30k max magicka, cp and weapon crit. The clanfear does pitiful dps, I'm talking like 1.2k with full penetration. It's core tooltip is weak to begin with. It needs to do at least double or even tripple, even if it starts scaling on max stam.

EpicRekkoning wrote: »

-change one liquid lighting morph to a tornado/cyclone with physical damage.

Sorry but this won't happen. We have caltrops. The game is designed this way. Every single class has a ground aoe dot based around magicka. The idea was for sta and mag DD's to have access to only 2 aoe ground targetted dots.

Volley = Wall of Elements

Caltrops = lightning splash/path of darkness/ash cloud/spear shards/impaling shards.

From Morrowind patch:

"Caltrops:

• Multiple player characters can now stack this ability and its morphs in the same area and damage the same target.
• Reduced the size of this ability and its morphs to 8 meters from 12 meters.
• Reduced the duration of this ability and its morphs to 12 seconds from 30 seconds.
• Reduced the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 50%.
• Increased the damage of this ability and its morphs by approximately 75%.

Developer Comments:

The changes to Caltrops allow it to behave more like a standard ground-targeted damage over time ability, such as Lightning Splash or Volley. This will help improve Stamina builds’ sustained single target and area of effect damage in dungeons and Trials.

EpicRekkoning

@Marshall1289

Thanks for your feedback. My main issue with dark exchange is the downtime in dps and blocking while waiting for the skill to proc. I too really like the change you mentioned from the previous patch, but delay on using other skills becomes problematic in using a rotation or tanking (pve).

The goal of most of my comments is to try and give stam sorcs an identity (example durzog). Outside of hurricane, there are 0 damage skills for a stam sorc. No other class is limited like that.

I understand caltrops comment too, but again, I'm trying to think of stam damage skills. My biggest issue with stam sorcs is we're limited to weapons skills, which means VMA bow backbar and dual wield front bar I'm PVE (although changes in PTS strengthens the 2h).

I appreciate all your feedback.

Steelshiv

Removed, wrong topic. Miss the days when Stam sorc was good though