My final attempt at pleading for stam sorc buffs

Alucardo

Several years ago I made quite a few threads asking for changes to stam sorc, to give it a little class identity and to make it "feel good" to play. For the longest time it has suffered from a few major drawbacks.

- The need to slot useless abilities just for passives
- No access to debuffs like major fracture
- Very little to choose from in terms of its core class abilities
- No extra offensive utility, be it a burst ability (PoTL, Sub assault, spectral bow), or even a DoT (noxious breath, venomous claw)

This results in having to gimp your builds by wasting a slot on your bar for a passive, using ransack as your source of major fracture, and not being able to capitalise on the sorc passives as much as their magicka counterparts do.

So, here are some changes I propose.

• Move the bound armaments passives (8% max stam and 11% bonus damage to physical light attacks) to the Energized passive in Storm Calling, while maintaining the 5% shock and physical damage
• Bound armaments now reduces the effectiveness of DoTs by 50% while active.
• You get the Daedric Protection passive for having ANY sorcerer ability slotted. Thanks to the daedric summoning restriction I end up slotting the atro on my backbar just for this passive.
• Increase Hurricane duration to 20 seconds, and adjust the pulses accordingly. The AOE should not get any bigger than it currently is now - just looking for a longer duration.
• Convert Crystal Blast (Crystal Shard morph) to a stamina ability. It's now an insta cast melee ability that slices at the target with a crystal dagger, inflicting the target with major fracture and a small physical DoT over 12 seconds. Not flagged as a bleed, though.. there's enough of them around.

That's it.

anatole1234

Bound armaments block reduction is fine the way it is, it s stronger than major protection and works wonder on my SnB/2h stam sorc. I do agree with the rest though

Alucardo

anatole1234 wrote: »

Bound armaments block reduction is fine the way it is, it s stronger than major protection and works wonder on my SnB/2h stam sorc. I do agree with the rest though

It's definitely a lot of block mitigation, but one of the things I have the most trouble with on stam sorc is dots/bleeds. Still, I'm happy to leave that one as is, as long as its passives are moved into the main sorc passives so I don't have to slot it if I don't want the skill.

rafaelcsmaia

What concerns me is that now that they nerfed uppercut, 2h sorc has no effective burst or spammable to use, aside from the *** crushing weapon.

Feels sad

zParallaxz

I’m sorry bro, I would have sympathy for stam sorc then again you are able to dark deal without being interrupted if your cc immune.

TBois

My fatigue with this issue prevents me from writing anything else than stam sorc needs identity and direction with usable active stamina class skills and/or ultimates.

Ace_SiN

They need to go down the list and give every class the Necro treatment. It's something that a large portion of the community has wanted ever since the first separation of magicka/stam builds. Weapon skills should be optional, not necessary to make a class functional.

Alucardo

zParallaxz wrote: »

I’m sorry bro, I would have sympathy for stam sorc then again you are able to dark deal without being interrupted if your cc immune.

What has that got to do anything? Since the nerf I'm having to spam this more than ever. The stamina over time is totally negligible. Do you think I enjoy having a cast time on my resource return? No. I'd rather a tool like siphoning, or rune focus, or battle roar. Anything else but running around corners to dark deal mid fight

Qbiken

rafaelcsmaia wrote: »

What concerns me is that now that they nerfed uppercut, 2h sorc has no effective burst or spammable to use, aside from the *** crushing weapon.

Feels sad

For PvP spammable:
Heroic Slash >>>>>>>> Dizzying swing

Alucardo

Qbiken wrote: »

rafaelcsmaia wrote: »

What concerns me is that now that they nerfed uppercut, 2h sorc has no effective burst or spammable to use, aside from the *** crushing weapon.

Feels sad

For PvP spammable:
Heroic Slash >>>>>>>> Dizzying swing

Yeah, I use heroic slash myself. It's not really the spammables that I have a problem with. For the most part I just want them to move some of the passives around so we don't have to waste precious ability slots on bound armaments and atro just to get some extra stats.
If they do that and neglect everything else, I'd still be happy.

psychotic13

Agree with everything apart from frags, curse would be better imo. Frags base already has a cast time, cant see them making the other morph stam and able to instant cast too. The cast time becomes pointless.

Alucardo

psychotic13 wrote: »

Agree with everything apart from frags, curse would be better imo. Frags base already has a cast time, cant see them making the other morph stam and able to instant cast too. The cast time becomes pointless.

I wanted to use an undesirable morph to change to stamina. Unfortunately both morphs of curse are used by mag sorcs. Daedric prey for pet sorcs, and haunting curse for regular ones.
I can't think of anyone who uses, or would want to use, Crystal Blast

psychotic13

Alucardo wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

Agree with everything apart from frags, curse would be better imo. Frags base already has a cast time, cant see them making the other morph stam and able to instant cast too. The cast time becomes pointless.

I wanted to use an undesirable morph to change to stamina. Unfortunately both morphs of curse are used by mag sorcs. Daedric prey for pet sorcs, and haunting curse for regular ones.
I can't think of anyone who uses, or would want to use, Crystal Blast

I agree that the unused things she be reworked, if it had an instant cast yeah would be nice, but since the other morph has that, i cant see them doing it to both morphs.

Tasear

Easy solution

New animation and name to lighting flood, called wind storm. (Also give it a new synergy)

New animation and name to power overload - wind blast

Have Charged Atro changed based on maximum offensive stat and give it a new animation

This still keeps the sorc theme but gives stamina options.

P.S

Crystal blast will be for us healers in my dreams.

Rikumaru

Alucardo wrote: »

• Move the bound armaments passives (8% max stam and 11% bonus damage to physical light attacks) to the Energized passive in Storm Calling, while maintaining the 5% shock and physical damage
• Bound armaments now reduces the effectiveness of DoTs by 50% while active.
• You get the Daedric Protection passive for having ANY sorcerer ability slotted. Thanks to the daedric summoning restriction I end up slotting the atro on my backbar just for this passive.
• Increase Hurricane duration to 20 seconds, and adjust the pulses accordingly. The AOE should not get any bigger than it currently is now - just looking for a longer duration.
• Convert Crystal Blast (Crystal Shard morph) to a stamina ability. It's now an insta cast melee ability that slices at the target with a crystal dagger, inflicting the target with major fracture and a small physical DoT over 12 seconds. Not flagged as a bleed, though.. there's enough of them around.

1: Moving the max stamina into a passive would buff magicka sorcs, which really isn't needed right now.

2: Bound armaments should also last longer than just 3s, maybe 8s or 10s would do?

3: Yes.

4: Yes.

5: Stam sorcs should get some form of a UNIQUE spammable, one which provides more than just damage otherwise players will continue to use stuff like heroic slash.

Even though I play many classes, I feel triggered reading a post about wanting to add major fracture to a spammable skill after the NB changes. Is that bad?

Another thing I would love to see, an air overload ultimate. It would provide something like short range high damage AOE light attacks, similar to how the bash works on the bone colossus necromancer ultimate. This would really make stam sorc stand out from other classes.

Alucardo

Rikumaru wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

• Move the bound armaments passives (8% max stam and 11% bonus damage to physical light attacks) to the Energized passive in Storm Calling, while maintaining the 5% shock and physical damage
• Bound armaments now reduces the effectiveness of DoTs by 50% while active.
• You get the Daedric Protection passive for having ANY sorcerer ability slotted. Thanks to the daedric summoning restriction I end up slotting the atro on my backbar just for this passive.
• Increase Hurricane duration to 20 seconds, and adjust the pulses accordingly. The AOE should not get any bigger than it currently is now - just looking for a longer duration.
• Convert Crystal Blast (Crystal Shard morph) to a stamina ability. It's now an insta cast melee ability that slices at the target with a crystal dagger, inflicting the target with major fracture and a small physical DoT over 12 seconds. Not flagged as a bleed, though.. there's enough of them around.

1: Moving the max stamina into a passive would buff magicka sorcs, which really isn't needed right now.

2: Bound armaments should also last longer than just 3s, maybe 8s or 10s would do?

3: Yes.

4: Yes.

5: Stam sorcs should get some form of a UNIQUE spammable, one which provides more than just damage otherwise players will continue to use stuff like heroic slash.

Even though I play many classes, I feel triggered reading a post about wanting to add major fracture to a spammable skill after the NB changes. Is that bad?

Another thing I would love to see, an air overload ultimate. It would provide something like short range high damage AOE light attacks, similar to how the bash works on the bone colossus necromancer ultimate. This would really make stam sorc stand out from other classes.

- Sure it'd buff magicka sorcs with the max stamina, but it wouldn't exactly break them.I couldn't think of any other way to get it without slotting an ability for passives, which is what I'm trying to get away from
- If Bound Armaments had the 50% DoT mitigation it probably shouldn't last any longer than maybe 6 seconds. I agree 3 seconds would barely be worth it.
- I'm fine with using weapon skills, and there will be more to choose from once Cleave gets buffed. With the sorc ult cost reduction and minor heroism from heroic I actually don't mind it at all. Not to mention the snare and 15% damage mitigation.. I'd probably keep using it anyway.
- The major fracture I'm after is on a weak DoT over 12 seconds, with no initial damage. There's no way they could possibly use this as a spammable
- The air overload ultimate actually sounds pretty sweet. Truth be told I'd love something that would charge the stam sorcs weapons and work like Storm Master and Jolting Arms in one ability as an ultimate

Minalan

Stamina air atronach please?

Physical damage, scales with weapon damage and max stamina.

You have the art assets and mobs, why is this not a thing?

rafaelcsmaia

Guess they're too worried with necro to give sorc some love

Alucardo

rafaelcsmaia wrote: »

Guess they're too worried with necro to give sorc some love

lol I wish it was just necro. Every update stam sorcs asks to get thrown a bone, and for the most part, they are neglected. I'm actually surprised they are making streak scale from your highest offensive stat

Joxer61

I bet OP posts again......

Alucardo

Joxer61 wrote: »

I bet OP posts again......

Same

rafaelcsmaia

Alucardo wrote: »

rafaelcsmaia wrote: »

Guess they're too worried with necro to give sorc some love

lol I wish it was just necro. Every update stam sorcs asks to get thrown a bone, and for the most part, they are neglected. I'm actually surprised they are making streak scale from your highest offensive stat

Yep it surprised me too, however I'm kinda dissapointed they keep turning a blind eye to things every single person has been suggesting for ages (I see you crystal blast) to change into stam options.

Btw is there still a class rep discord? I'd like to go there talk a bit with some of them

Alucardo

rafaelcsmaia wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

rafaelcsmaia wrote: »

Guess they're too worried with necro to give sorc some love

lol I wish it was just necro. Every update stam sorcs asks to get thrown a bone, and for the most part, they are neglected. I'm actually surprised they are making streak scale from your highest offensive stat

Yep it surprised me too, however I'm kinda dissapointed they keep turning a blind eye to things every single person has been suggesting for ages (I see you crystal blast) to change into stam options.

Btw is there still a class rep discord? I'd like to go there talk a bit with some of them

True, stam sorcs have been asking forever to have crystal blast, but instead of giving it to them they buffed it. Still, nobody uses it because frags will always be better.. I don't get why we can't just have it.

Not sure about the class rep discord tbh, but I am also curious. I'm also curious if there's a class rep that is on the stam sorcs side. Perhaps that's why they don't get listened to.

ShadowKyuubi

I think you are looking at this from a PvP perspective, but I am going to come at this from a PvE perspective. Yes, stamina sorcerers have no identity. Exatctly four of my twelve available ability slots are from the sorcerer class lines. Bound armaments is double slotted, so only three unique skills: Bound Armaments, Storm Atronach, and Hurricane. While my stamblade has six unique class skills slotted. With that said, I am perfectly fine with the way bound armaments is now. Bound armaments on my stam sorc is like having inner light on my magblade, it is just part of the build. Moving it to a class passive, would make that passive ridiculously overpowered when compared to what other classes have. So, for the sake of balance, it stays, otherewise people will be screaming about a sorc nerf again. In my opinion, hurricane is the exact length that it needs to be. I cast it before switching to my bow bar and it runs outs right before I need to recast endless hail. Increasing the duration amount means that I would have to awkwardly cast it in the middle of my bow bar rotation. I am not exaggerating when I say that Hurricane is the exact length it needs to be provided that you cast it before switch to your bow, I do not want it increased or decreased at all. The last skill, Sparky (storm atro) is only there because I like him. Plus I can give a teammate the atro buff, so why not.

The main issue I have with the stamsorc class is the lack of identity when compared to other classes. I agree that stamsorcs need a class specific spammable like all the others. Your suggestion of the Crystal blast morph is amazing (except the DoT part) and I would totally love to have it as a spammable. It would be the surprise attack of sorcs, so to speak and a much needed source of fracture. I would also love to see a permanent stamina pet, like a morph for the Atro that acts like the Warden bear and is out all the time. I think a permanent mini-air atronach would be amazing. The entire stamsorc class needs to be revisted from an abilities point of view and not a passives point of view so that we can have a few more options. However, I think the changes they have made to the passive in the past are spot on and where they need to be.

However, with all this said. It will either never happen or it won't happen for a while. The new craze is Necromancer and I guarantee that it will break the game like Wardens did when they were first released. They will have a lot of work cut out for them when Necromancer is released and we all know how long it took them to get Wardens back on track after Morrowind. So we can keep pining after this stuff, but nobody is listening. The only people that are regularly heard are the Class Representatives and for the most part, they do not always share the same sentiment as the rest of the community. Now is this a bad thing, no because it does filter a lot of bad requests. But it has drawbacks if your representatives are not as outspoken as the others. I do not know if this is the case or not, because quite frankly I don't always think that the class reps have the right mindset for the job and don't follow their discussions (used to pay attention, but gave up after a couple months). However, ZoS does care about them and this may be why no changes are happening to stamsorc.

Alucardo

@ShadowKyuubi thanks for taking the time to comment. I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that ZOS want stam sorcs strength to come from their passives, which is why we haven't really received any new class abilities. So I think moving the passives from bound armaments into the base sorc tree makes sense, that is, if they aren't willing to give us any skills.
You should not have to double bar bound armaments just for passives. Next patch I want to use race against time like everybody else, but I won't be able to do that because there is literally nothing that I can drop to make room for it, not unless I forgo the daedric protection passive and the max stam. That's a lot to lose.
If you really are so used to slotting bound armaments, perhaps if they move the current passives to the sorc tree they can give it major savagery for having it on your bar. Because at the moment I'm also slotting evil hunter. That's 2 skills on one bar I'm slotting JUST for passives.

I believe their identity is raw power that doesn't need to come from skills like a lava whip, or a surprise attack. While they don't have all the utility that other classes have, at their base they hit the hardest, and have the cheapest ultimates in the game. Like, if you see Hurricane, you think "damn, this guy is going to hit me hard", and for the most part they do.
But for that to truly shine they need to stop relying on slotting useless abilities for these passives. Only then could I be satisfied. Considering what other classes have, I'm really not asking for much.

But, you're right. It most likely won't ever happen. I've been singing the same song for years to no avail, and so have others. I have no faith we'll get anything, but it doesn't stop me from trying.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

20 Second duration on hurricane would make it a pretty extreme outlier for class skills. If there is one thing we know from the recent patch notes, its that they are trying to standardize this sort of thing. I agree stam sorcs need a little love.

Personally, I would start with having pets scale of max resources. It seems silly to have an entire skill line of a class be essentially useless to stamina. Other than prey for this weird bow/bow trapping webs meta we have going on right now, and bound armaments, which for most of us, amounts to nothing more than some stats that should probably be included in a passive, its a pretty useless skill line for stamina.

I would then rework shards to have a stam morph of some sort NOBODY runs anything but crystal frags. And if you say you do, well then you are a nobody. Haha. Weather it was a spammable or more of a proc based skill would be up for debate, but they could use something in that department.

ShadowKyuubi

@Alucardo I had never thought about stamsorcs identity being raw power, but you are right. It is raw power. They have some of the best passives in the game for classes. However, they are subject to some of the worst dps because of a lack of skills. They have no class skills that add "umph" to their damage. For PvE, you can get by with rending as your spammable, at least until U22 comes out. I don't know what will happen to them after that, cause I am sure as heck not spamming flurry or crushing weapon. I already made the switch to two-hander a while back, and that has made a huge difference for me in PvE. I get a reliable spammable, wrecking blow and an execute. However, these are still weapon abilities, plus I am missing out on the huge buff from dual daggers and just the raw damage that goes along with rending slashes. I would be happy with just stamina class ability that I can spam and does reasonable damage. A rework of endless fury, maybe. It is sort of a niche ability since it is hard to gain magicka back with it and generally the execute bonus of mage's wrath is just better. A spammable with that scales from stamina, but keeps the lightning damage would be amazing, even though I know that won't happen because of the magicka (fire, lightning/frost/magic) damage and stamina (poison/disease/physical/bleed) damage divide that they want to enforce.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw a different morph for Crystal Blast to be a proc ability for stamina is a fantastic idea. That would keep the uniqueness of being a sorc and potentially provide a good dps buff. I think you commented on one of my posts about stamina pets a while back, but yes, pets should scale on max resource, not just max magicka. That would provide a alternative play style. I hope the bow/bow meme dies soon, cause I am tired of hearing about it.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

ShadowKyuubi wrote: »

@Alucardo I had never thought about stamsorcs identity being raw power, but you are right. It is raw power. They have some of the best passives in the game for classes. However, they are subject to some of the worst dps because of a lack of skills. They have no class skills that add "umph" to their damage. For PvE, you can get by with rending as your spammable, at least until U22 comes out. I don't know what will happen to them after that, cause I am sure as heck not spamming flurry or crushing weapon. I already made the switch to two-hander a while back, and that has made a huge difference for me in PvE. I get a reliable spammable, wrecking blow and an execute. However, these are still weapon abilities, plus I am missing out on the huge buff from dual daggers and just the raw damage that goes along with rending slashes. I would be happy with just stamina class ability that I can spam and does reasonable damage. A rework of endless fury, maybe. It is sort of a niche ability since it is hard to gain magicka back with it and generally the execute bonus of mage's wrath is just better. A spammable with that scales from stamina, but keeps the lightning damage would be amazing, even though I know that won't happen because of the magicka (fire, lightning/frost/magic) damage and stamina (poison/disease/physical/bleed) damage divide that they want to enforce.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw a different morph for Crystal Blast to be a proc ability for stamina is a fantastic idea. That would keep the uniqueness of being a sorc and potentially provide a good dps buff. I think you commented on one of my posts about stamina pets a while back, but yes, pets should scale on max resource, not just max magicka. That would provide a alternative play style. I hope the bow/bow meme dies soon, cause I am tired of hearing about it.

Yep. And to your first point, sorcs have always been about raw stats. I can’t count how many times I have written to someone asking for advice, “As a sorc, your greatest strength is raw stats. Play to it.”

It’s certainly NOT their access to major/minor buffs. For that metric, they are dead F’ing last.

ShadowKyuubi

@Oreyn_Bearclaw I had, what I think at least a good idea and compromise, for helping sorcs. While a class spammable would be cool and extremely useful, a better idea would be increase damage and utility of the stamsorc. Make them desirable for trials. And I think this can be done with the Crystal Blast Ability and the Exploitation Passive . Change Crystal Blast into a insta-cast stamina morph that applies a dot that lasts for 8 seconds, but also change the Exploitation passive to not only apply minor prophecy, but also minor savagery to the group. This would give the sorcs a good utility use for any trial as there are not a lot of sources of minor savagery, while giving a class ability to help increase their dps. It is a win/win for everyone, except the one person who uses Crystal blast for some unknown reason.

WeylandLabs

With over 8k hours on the class - I can say 2 years of nerfs and 1 minor mag buff. Zos hates us Stam Sorcs, it's a sad sad way of ending.

StamNecro here I come !

idk

Not every class has access to major fracture so not sure why OP suggest that the Sorc needs it. I do not think we need to homogenize classes and start giving all classes access to a buff/debuff just because one class has it.

I am not suggesting OP is wrong overall, but this point is out of place.