The "Balance" of Mag Sorcs

pieratsos

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

I can't find Faso's clip so this one will do. Not quite 15, but close enough. Now try doing that with any other class.

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

Any other stamina class played by a good player would finish the fight in the tower with dawnbreakers left right and centre. So yeah plenty of classes can do similar 1vX videos. Key word is good player. Knowing ur class and how to play it. You are showing Malcolm, he is one of the best sorcs in the game. If you actually believe that you can perform on the same lvl as him simply because of the class then by all means hop on a sorc and show us.

What sort of moronic argument is this? You think anyone cares what an average player can do? You think we're trying to get sorcs nerfed because of players like me with less than 2 days played on my sorc?

Frozen_Heart246 wrote: »

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

I can't find Faso's clip so this one will do. Not quite 15, but close enough. Now try doing that with any other class.

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

He fight against players who dont even know how to break free. this is a pve zerg. Try to fight agains a real pvp group and sorc will die in less then a minute.

That's what 1vx is. You people are clearly not familiar with it. You can barely 1v1 good players in the current meta, let alone 1vx.

Telling you that you need to understand what you are watching first isn't a moronic argument. The only moronic argument here is trying to deem whether a class should be nerfed or not based on 1vX videos in literally the exact same post where you admit that you basically don't even play the class.

Amdar_Godkiller

pieratsos wrote: »

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

How is this even a debate? Sorc is absolute cheese this current patch and has made Cyrodil unplayable. Damage shields should be crittable as they currently are, but with no benefit gained from resistances, and max shield strength needs to be hard-capped (in fact just make the sorc shield a non-scalable flat amount). Also light attack damage should go back to being heavily weighted towards spell damage and weapon damage, and melee light attacks should deal bonus damage to shielded targets, because there needs to be counterplay for ranged combatants. This is where the developers started to go wrong and its been a descent into balance madness ever since that change was implemented.

So, just nerf sorc into the ground?

Honestly, they've never been nerfed once, so doing so would be a welcome change. Everytime ZOS tries, the sorc community whines so much that the nerf they were going to receive is turned into a buff, while the other class balance changes go ahead as planned (most egregiously was when dodge roll's duration was gutted while shields were at first slightly nerfed, then buffed to a ridiculous level during the same PTS cycle), further expanding the gap.

This also happened this past patch with Stamblade , where they took away some common and semi-rare buffs and debuffs and then replaced them with several extremely rare ones inexplicably. With Nightblade though, usually they just get micronerfed, while mag-sorc has gotten nerfed-into-a-buff basically every other patch since OT.

Kinda ironic to talk about class balance and advocate at the same time for a class to be nerfed to the ground.

I'm curious tho about those buffs that sorcs get every single patch. Care to elaborate?

I already did. The shield buffs that have either buffed sorc mitigation or hurt sorcs less than every other class. Shields have been overperformng for years, and instead of nerfing them, the obvious and needed move, they make the one 5 piece set designed to counter them worthless! It's absolute madness.

I believe the only way to achieve balance is through nerfs. And there's really only one class that needs them for balance. We definitely don't need buffs, because the other 11 classes are fairly well-balanced.

pieratsos

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

How is this even a debate? Sorc is absolute cheese this current patch and has made Cyrodil unplayable. Damage shields should be crittable as they currently are, but with no benefit gained from resistances, and max shield strength needs to be hard-capped (in fact just make the sorc shield a non-scalable flat amount). Also light attack damage should go back to being heavily weighted towards spell damage and weapon damage, and melee light attacks should deal bonus damage to shielded targets, because there needs to be counterplay for ranged combatants. This is where the developers started to go wrong and its been a descent into balance madness ever since that change was implemented.

So, just nerf sorc into the ground?

Honestly, they've never been nerfed once, so doing so would be a welcome change. Everytime ZOS tries, the sorc community whines so much that the nerf they were going to receive is turned into a buff, while the other class balance changes go ahead as planned (most egregiously was when dodge roll's duration was gutted while shields were at first slightly nerfed, then buffed to a ridiculous level during the same PTS cycle), further expanding the gap.

This also happened this past patch with Stamblade , where they took away some common and semi-rare buffs and debuffs and then replaced them with several extremely rare ones inexplicably. With Nightblade though, usually they just get micronerfed, while mag-sorc has gotten nerfed-into-a-buff basically every other patch since OT.

Kinda ironic to talk about class balance and advocate at the same time for a class to be nerfed to the ground.

I'm curious tho about those buffs that sorcs get every single patch. Care to elaborate?

I already did. The shield buffs that have either buffed sorc mitigation or hurt sorcs less than every other class. Shields have been overperformng for years, and instead of nerfing them, the obvious and needed move, they make the one 5 piece set designed to counter them worthless! It's absolute madness.

I believe the only way to achieve balance is through nerfs. And there's really only one class that needs them for balance. We definitely don't need buffs, because the other 11 classes are fairly well-balanced.

You specifically said that sorc has been getting buffed and buffed for years because they whine too much. You listed one buff that isn't even a buff, it's more of a rework that sorc's didn't even ask for and actually warned that it could lead to the current situation.

So again, care to elaborate about all those buffs sorcs get every patch? Could you also elaborate specifically about what nerfs should sorcs get to be balanced?

Lord-Otto

"Fairly well-balanced"...

*magnecro lies on therapist's couch*
》So, there was that dude telling me I was 'fairly well-balanced'...《
*erupts in tears*

Iskiab

Lord-Otto wrote: »

"Fairly well-balanced"...

*magnecro lies on therapist's couch*
》So, there was that dude telling me I was 'fairly well-balanced'...《
*erupts in tears*

Agreed, Necro needs a look at. Bashing ultimate nerfed into oblivion and a buff for magnecro. These are bigger issues I think then any sorc adjustment.

I have a stamnecro but won’t use the bashing ultimate because I think it’s cheesy, wish we knew if it’s here to stay.

There are more and more Necros running the bash in cyrodiil now. The longer they wait the more obviously imbalanced it is.

oxygen_thief

Amdar_Godkiller wrote: »

I already did. The shield buffs that have either buffed sorc mitigation or hurt sorcs less than every other class. Shields have been overperformng for years, and instead of nerfing them, the obvious and needed move, they make the one 5 piece set designed to counter them worthless! It's absolute madness.

I believe the only way to achieve balance is through nerfs. And there's really only one class that needs them for balance. We definitely don't need buffs, because the other 11 classes are fairly well-balanced.

can you explain why its a buff? shields were dependent on magicka only earlier. now sorc needs magicka, health and all three type of resistances. one stat against five. i cant see how its a buff. now my resistances are 23k/21k/1200 and ward value in battlegrounds is 6598. it can protect me only from one hit and if i would be lucky that hit wouldnt be critical and it wouldnt touch my health bar. as for me shields were much better before murkmire at least because it was possible to were more well-fitted parts instead of impen.

Thogard

DKs are terrible in BGs sorry urvoth. It’s a dot pressure class and tank class playing a game mode where both of those things are punished. It’s neither fast nor offers group utility. There’s 0 reason to group queue with a sDK over stamden and if you’re solo, Stam blade now offers the same tankiness with more kill and kill steal potential (although at high MMR stam, Stam sorc would prob be stronger anyway)

DKs top out in mid mmr

Minno

Thogard wrote: »

DKs are terrible in BGs sorry urvoth. It’s a dot pressure class and tank class playing a game mode where both of those things are punished. It’s neither fast nor offers group utility. There’s 0 reason to group queue with a sDK over stamden and if you’re solo, Stam blade now offers the same tankiness with more kill and kill steal potential (although at high MMR stam, Stam sorc would prob be stronger anyway)

DKs top out in mid mmr

we should have a ranking of the classes in the type of comparison you just gave. That might ground the discussion.

Urvoth

Thogard wrote: »

DKs are terrible in BGs sorry urvoth. It’s a dot pressure class and tank class playing a game mode where both of those things are punished. It’s neither fast nor offers group utility. There’s 0 reason to group queue with a sDK over stamden and if you’re solo, Stam blade now offers the same tankiness with more kill and kill steal potential (although at high MMR stam, Stam sorc would prob be stronger anyway)

DKs top out in mid mmr

I’m more so talking about magdks here since I agree about stamdk. Talons, fossilize, and chain are all pretty good for group util by magdks, and their whips and leaps hit pretty hard now. They can be pretty tanky with protective jewelry and a brp staff while building for damage as well. Before Elsweyr, yeah I wouldn’t say magdks were that great and I even ranked them towards the bottom on some forum posts, but a lot changed for them with the patch.

Emma_Overload

It's really frustrating to me to see people demanding that classes be balanced around Battlegrounds when some of those same people ALSO demanded that a core component of the game that affects game balance (CP) was stripped out of Battlegrounds! I don't dispute that Mag Sorcs are strong in certain No-CP scenarios, but the problem with nerfing them to balance those scenarios is that it means gutting them for everything else. NOPE... not on my watch!

If ZOS wants to balance around Battlegrounds, they need to strip CP out of every aspect of the game and give us something worthwhile to replace it.

VoiDGhOs7

Big yikes, the op must be a glorious Xv1er.

Iskiab

Emma_Overload wrote: »

It's really frustrating to me to see people demanding that classes be balanced around Battlegrounds when some of those same people ALSO demanded that a core component of the game that affects game balance (CP) was stripped out of Battlegrounds! I don't dispute that Mag Sorcs are strong in certain No-CP scenarios, but the problem with nerfing them to balance those scenarios is that it means gutting them for everything else. NOPE... not on my watch!

If ZOS wants to balance around Battlegrounds, they need to strip CP out of every aspect of the game and give us something worthwhile to replace it.

Yea, I agree with you Emma. I have a feeling this is their aim. Most people think no-CP pvp is more balanced and maybe this is their aim, balance no-CP pvp and then change CPs (it’s coming up) so so CPs doesn’t have a huge effect on class balance.

That’s what I would do if I were them, start with the basic classes and build up.

Urvoth

Emma_Overload wrote: »

It's really frustrating to me to see people demanding that classes be balanced around Battlegrounds when some of those same people ALSO demanded that a core component of the game that affects game balance (CP) was stripped out of Battlegrounds! I don't dispute that Mag Sorcs are strong in certain No-CP scenarios, but the problem with nerfing them to balance those scenarios is that it means gutting them for everything else. NOPE... not on my watch!

If ZOS wants to balance around Battlegrounds, they need to strip CP out of every aspect of the game and give us something worthwhile to replace it.

Well non cp is more balanced and BGs give the best representation of how well a class can do in an even situation, so it makes sense. Balancing around 1vXing, Xv1ing, or Zerg v Zerg is dumb when you could instead balance around a game mode where the teams have the same number of players and these players are roughly of similar skill levels thanks to MMR.

Emma_Overload

@Iskiab @Urvoth Even though I think the CP system is mostly fine and could be saved with tweaks, I would rather at this poiint that they just REMOVE it from the entire game if they are going to have game modes like Battlegrounds that are No-CP only. I think it's really important for the integrity of the game that the balance be as consistent as possible across all game modes. If CP has to die for that to happen, so be it.

Urvoth

Emma_Overload wrote: »

@Iskiab @Urvoth Even though I think the CP system is mostly fine and could be saved with tweaks, I would rather at this poiint that they just REMOVE it from the entire game if they are going to have game modes like Battlegrounds that are No-CP only. I think it's really important for the integrity of the game that the balance be as consistent as possible across all game modes. If CP has to die for that to happen, so be it.

I’m surprised you of all people said that, but it’s good to see your perspective changed a bit.

Malamar1229

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Malamar1229 wrote: »

If the pet issue is addressed and gutted to a point magsorcs arent slotting let's, the class would need adjustments. Non pet magicka sorc is no where near pet sorc

To me the issue is simple: with pets I can put a lot of pressure on opponents and without pets I can't. I've tried so many schemes and weird builds trying to make non-pet work, but there are a lot of tough guys out there i just can't kill without the extra oomph from the pets.

Yeah that's kinda my point. Amplitude certainly helped with dmg, but the pet changes with shield changes buffed the class tremendously. Taking that away will leave it barren

Iskiab

I didn’t understand why CPs could imbalance pvp so much, I think it’s dodge and block cost reduction? The red and blue trees should mostly just offset each other, I think it’s the green tree with block and dodge roll cost reduction?

Dodge rolling cost reduction is easy enough to nerf without effecting pve, block could pose problems. Maybe just make more player cc go through block if it’s an issue, I only play no-CP so have no idea what the issues even are.

Priyasekarssk

mursie wrote: »

Kel wrote: »

https://youtu.be/tpHD2aVEj6A

20:25 of the video.

Mag sorc rated #1 in PvP. You can see his reasons why.

well said jack. well said.

And magicka warden and warden at bottom ? Biased review.

Urvoth

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

mursie wrote: »

Kel wrote: »

https://youtu.be/tpHD2aVEj6A

20:25 of the video.

Mag sorc rated #1 in PvP. You can see his reasons why.

well said jack. well said.

And magicka warden and warden at bottom ? Biased review.

Yeah a review based on 1vX potential is pretty one-dimensional.

TheBonesXXX

Mag Sorc Army out in force. Lotsa liars here thinking magsorc isnt top pick for PvP.

MaxJrFTW

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

Mag Sorc Army out in force. Lotsa liars here thinking magsorc isnt top pick for PvP.

Preach!!!

#nerfmagsorc

Waffennacht

@Iskiab it's the combination of all factors.

Cheaper mitigation (roll, block)
Stronger sustain
Larger resource pools (though evenly, think gains-to-scale)
CP mitigation + CP heals

You have for added offense: one to your specific damage type, then another for DoT vs Direct,
For opposition: Heals, block/roll, bigger magicka pool/shield buff, resistance, direct mitigation of type, direct mitigation of DoT vs Direct, Sustain indirectly, health Regen

Just over-all; add everything together, you have CP favoring mitigation and sustain - making gaps between players even greater

MaxJrFTW

CP provides you with everything. You can be tanky, have good sustain, and dmg. In the case of stamina builds it's even more pronounced due to sets like seventh, fury, ravager, veiled, truth. Heavy armor sets that give you significantly more weapon dmg than medium armor sets do.

Bloodspawn is obviously part of the problem. It gives recovery, an obscene amount of mitigation, and ultimate that you can turn into either offense or defense. In my opinion they should turn the 1 piece into a neutral stat like health, and cut the effects by half. 14 ult is too much, and 6450 resistance is almost 10% dmg mitigation. It would still be a decent set then.

Needless to say Pirate Skeleton also needs a nerf. 8 second uptime on a 15 sec cooldown instead of 12/15.

Btw, nice try trying to derail the sorc nerf thread. It almost took my mind entirely off the main issue here.

#nerfmagsorc

Derra

Urvoth wrote: »

Emma_Overload wrote: »

It's really frustrating to me to see people demanding that classes be balanced around Battlegrounds when some of those same people ALSO demanded that a core component of the game that affects game balance (CP) was stripped out of Battlegrounds! I don't dispute that Mag Sorcs are strong in certain No-CP scenarios, but the problem with nerfing them to balance those scenarios is that it means gutting them for everything else. NOPE... not on my watch!

If ZOS wants to balance around Battlegrounds, they need to strip CP out of every aspect of the game and give us something worthwhile to replace it.

Well non cp is more balanced and BGs give the best representation of how well a class can do in an even situation, so it makes sense. Balancing around 1vXing, Xv1ing, or Zerg v Zerg is dumb when you could instead balance around a game mode where the teams have the same number of players and these players are roughly of similar skill levels thanks to MMR.

But they aren´t of similar skill because you can´t lose mmr in esos system - that´s why everyone playing enough gets stuck into the highest bracket eventually and gets matched against actually good premades.

Derra

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

CP provides you with everything. You can be tanky, have good sustain, and dmg. In the case of stamina builds it's even more pronounced due to sets like seventh, fury, ravager, veiled, truth. Heavy armor sets that give you significantly more weapon dmg than medium armor sets do.

Bloodspawn is obviously part of the problem. It gives recovery, an obscene amount of mitigation, and ultimate that you can turn into either offense or defense. In my opinion they should turn the 1 piece into a neutral stat like health, and cut the effects by half. 14 ult is too much, and 6450 resistance is almost 10% dmg mitigation. It would still be a decent set then.

Needless to say Pirate Skeleton also needs a nerf. 8 second uptime on a 15 sec cooldown instead of 12/15.

Btw, nice try trying to derail the sorc nerf thread. It almost took my mind entirely off the main issue here.

#nerfmagsorc

Actually agree on much you say here. Though not neccessarily on the reasons why things overperform.

But since you can approach other topics more rationally minded - why don´t you give us an idea WHAT you would want to change about magsorc?

stritzi

reduce streak range by 30%
cap dmg shield at 35%
redesign mages wrath, that ability is just plain *** and an absolute nobrainer
Pets should just be targeted for single target abilities if the player tabbed willingly on the pet via tabtarget, but i guess thats far to hard to implement, so just lower pet health and raise their casttime, so you are actually able to active counter them by killing them

Mitaka211

TheBonesXXX wrote: »

Mag Sorc Army out in force. Lotsa liars here thinking magsorc isnt top pick for PvP.

This is by far one of the biggest problem in the forums. Either the majority of magsorc players who give feedback are liars and delusional or the devs dream of being a magsorc pet as a weird fetish. No other way of explaining why the class seems to grow further apart in power when compared to other classes.

Derra

stritzi wrote: »

reduce streak range by 30%
cap dmg shield at 35%
redesign mages wrath, that ability is just plain *** and an absolute nobrainer
Pets should just be targeted for single target abilities if the player tabbed willingly on the pet via tabtarget, but i guess thats far to hard to implement, so just lower pet health and raise their casttime, so you are actually able to active counter them by killing them

And now tell me how a sorc that doesn´t abuse pets or shieldstacking would be supposed to even play the class anymore...

This is the problem with people who want to nerf sorcs. They don´t care or understand the class - so just carpetbomb it to ***. Just nerf every ability that might be slightly inconvenient to fight against.

Why nerf the shield - when you can adress stacking that´s the issue in 95% of the cases (the others being too little dmg on the attacker side).
Why nerf streak at all atm - high stacking cost. The only reliable class cc and is already only 15m range + gapcloser are finally useable again.

And pets is just an all around stupid approach. They already die like flies in larger encouters and are 1 or 2shot for competent player - effectively being able to lock the sorc into recast + shielding with that.
Pets need to be not attackable - because being able to los but also die is the biggest scaling variable in the viability of these skills. A variable that can´t be controlled at that bc it depends on number and braincells of the enemy players.
To eliminate that you have to make pets unattackable. That removes los and it removes eventual downtimes you´d otherwise need to consider in their scaling.
Then you can go and massively cut matriarch dmg and rework the heal to sth not as much resembling bol.
You can give their (auto) attacks a minimal magica cost to prevent them from being free dmg (apart from slots).
You can finally begin to weight them against other skills without having to consider uptime and recasts and all that nonsense you can´t control.
Essentially to balance pets you need to rework them completely...

Don´t know if i agree on mages wrath. It´s mainly a bg killstealer and potatokiller. If i have to fight a competent player the first skill i remove from my bar is mages wrath.
No idea if the BG problem could be solved otherwise.

Illuvatarr

These are l2p issues. Sorc hiding behind pets is stronger than the other classes ( either 2 pet or engine guardian and matriarch). In that scenario, sorc is silly and if abused I agree with you. They need to change this to make pets not targettable in pvp. Then they need to make the tormentor as strong as the matriarch. They also need to make Daedric tomb morph of mines easier to use and functional in the sorc burst rortation.

One pet sorc is not stronger and never has been. All of the other classes are stronger than sorc with equally skilled players.

WoppaBoem

My 2 cents are, how to counter streak?

Everytime I fight a MagSorc and I get trough his shields damage its health, first thing is streak 3 times. Whats up with that skill. I has no counter for myself as a magwarden. There are gap closer abilities but even those if you aim fast enough and it fires the sorcs already streaked from that position.

I find the game mechanic in making streak more expensive says so much. Because there is no actual player counter that the game itself is the counter needed for this skill.

I would love to see a change to streak which allow players to counter it rather than a nerf or change in game mechanics of the skill itself.