PTS Update 24 - Feedback Thread for Sorcerer

heaven13

Elwendryll wrote: »

heaven13 wrote: »

So the point is the few magicka skills I do use, I don't need increased magicka by 5% because I do not have a sustain problem with magicka.

Most utility skills should have their cost in magicka, I don't have a sustain issue in magicka too, that's why I like that it costs magicka. For a pure tanking perspective, spending extra stamina for blocking isn't particularly good.

I occasionnaly tank on my Khajiit Stamsorc DD, some DLC HMs, with Yolna/Alkosh etc... And If I use bound armaments it's purely because I don't want to change morphs. I recently made a nord sorcerer for tanking, and I was going for bound aegis anyway. Spending magicka makes so much more sense for an utility like that. This skill is used when you have big incoming damage, you don't want to have to use it when you're low on stamina. With magicka, you don't care, you have plenty of it.

I'll admit, I wasn't considering it from that point of view but more from that fact that Max Magicka or Max Stamina is increased. I liked it for the additional stamina increase, rather than looking at cost. Something to consider, I suppose.

giantpixie

Empowered ward is one skill I would like to be shown some love. The shields fine I happy with that it’s the minor intellect I feel needs to be changed my reason being as far as I’ve seen only sorc healers run this skill to buff our group but do you know who else can give this buff? Wardens and they can do it so much better making the sorcs application kinda redundant so I would like instead of granting minor intellect for it to grant another buff maybe minor heroism as no class can currently provide this buff to a group? If not that just something unique to give sorcs healers a little bit more love

echo2omega

At this point the Sorcerer needs a rework from the ground up. ( as do the other original classes)

The Warden and Necromancer kits are quite well done allowing both to do well at tanking, DPS, and healing. (Ironically both need significant help in the mag DPS department)

I know you don't want to do this, but you NEED to do this.

CreepyPahuska

Zippy81 wrote: »

The abilities I had in mind were ultimates. DKs and necros can use those ultimate as last resort when they run out of stamina and magicka, when buffing the group isn't that necessary as simply surviving a fight. A dragonknight will even get stam/mag returned whereas necros will heal themselves. To use bound aegis you need to use 4k magicka and it works only for 3 seconds. Even wardens, templars and nightblades have cool cheap healing abilities with extra perks attached to them. Sorcerers have negate/absorbtion field which only heals because fighting a boss the stun will not work.

Yeah, ok, but you don't need a last resort ultimate for when you run out of ressources if you don't run out of ressources. Managing ressources is one of the most important things a tank has to do.
About bound Aegis, the cost and duration are nothing compared to how powerful the block mitigation bonus is. If it were cheaper and/or lasted longer, it'd be too powerfull IMO. Now I have to admit one thing, the short duration makes it quite tricky to use, it's definitely not a braindead-easy godmode button. It takes some getting used to.
And you're wrong about the negate. It's not only a heal, cause you don't only use it on bosses. The negate is a stun in the first place. It sounds obvious but you got to use it on something that can be stuned. Trash packs, adds on a boss, etc... there are many situations where the negate is a incredibly powerful ally, like the werewolves on Moonhunter Keep for example, or basically, any pack of trash mobs you encounter in a no-death run of any DLC dungeons.

BrightOblivion

Thraben wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Sorcerer. Please read through all the changes in the patch notes and try them out on the PTS before providing feedback in this thread. Thank you!

3) Summon Unstable Familiar:
Reduced the damage of this ability and its morphs’ basic attack by approximately 17%.
Increased the cost of the special activate of this ability and the Volatile Familiar morph to 4500, up from 2808.
Increased the duration of the special activate to 10 seconds, up from 8.
The base cost of summoning these abilities has been streamlined to 3510.
Summon Unstable Clannfear (morph):
This morph’s damage now scales off your Max Stamina, rather than Magicka.
Decreased the cost of the special activate to 4500, down from 4808.
The Area of Effect attack now deals the same damage as the basic attack, but hits in a 6 meter radius, up from 5 meters.
Fixed an issue where the AoE attack would cause the Clannfear to re-evaluate its purpose in life for 1 second after casting, lowering its potential DPS.
Summon Winged Twilight: Increased the heal of this ability and the Twilight Matriarch morph to be closer to the heal power of Rushed Ceremony. This will result in approximately 87% increase for the base, and approximately 55% increase for the Matriarch. Note that these abilities will continue to scale exclusively with Max Magicka.

3) Stop wasting time on Pet balancing. Make them work like the Nightblade´s shade, including it´s one bar requirement and reduced dps, and be done with it.

I am fervently opposed to this suggestion and the mindset behind it. The concept of the pet sorcerer, or the magic wielder summoning the lesser beings of Oblivion to do their bidding, is just as much of an archetype in the Elder Scrolls as the concept of the spellsword that many would like to see from the stamsorc. To claim that trying to facilitate that and support those who enjoy that archetype is a "waste of time," that it should be turned into a knockoff daedra-shaped version of the nightblade shade, that they should just make it into an afterthought without any real reason to put it on your bar and "be done with it" is no less acceptable than claims that they should just stop trying to balance to give the stamsorc a niche or identity outside of weapon skills. Even worse, perhaps, given the bound armaments change is a (certainly shaky *first*) step toward giving stamsorcs an identity (with many more steps to go before they reach the destination), but enacting your suggestion regarding pets would absolutely obliterate an identity that is already there. Simply because it's an identity that you dislike doesn't mean that it's one others don't enjoy, or that it should be abandoned, eliminated, or marginalized.

If the Combat team were to draw from any other class in terms of altering the sorcerer's pet mechanics, I would suggest they look to their recently-created necromancer, rather than the nightblade and its afterthought shadow. Like the shade, the necromancer's archer and mage are both single-barred, but they feel more meaningful and weighty. However, I'm unsure whether or not the skeletons can be controlled with pet commands in the same way that sorc pets or warden bear can, and I do feel that the lifespan/duration of the skeleton pets would be too short if applied to the sorcerer's familiars. Both of these aspects make sense for the necromancer, whose skeletons are more fragile and unthinking, less capable of accepting more than the most basic commands and lasting less time on Nirn, but fall short when ported to the Sorcerer, who's an established manipulator of arcane forces and whose familiars are more capable and sturdy. Additionally, speaking from experience in other games, having pets/familiars/what-have-you that just do their own thing and can't be controlled short of (possibly) dismissing them is extremely frustrating.

Unfortunately, the advent of the necromancer's minions likely means a death knell to one of the better suggestions I've heard, which would be to make the sorcerer's familiars magic- and melee weapon-wielding dremora. Even if the devs were willing to embark in that direction, I suspect many players would be outraged at such a "blatant necromancer knockoff."

katorga

Maybe I haven't figured out the "trick" yet, but streak and its morphs are super hard to stun with. It is a just a mobility tool at this point and they should remove the stacking penalty.

Bound armaments needs to do damage on par with grim focus. Right now it is not worth slotting. It is a joke.

The only interesting aspect is the stam pet, which nobody wanted. But as much as the forums whine about pets blocking, I might give it a go for that purpose alone in pvp.

Why does dark deal/conversion still have a cast time and cost....unlike every other burst heal and resource restore skill in the game?

I guess the Sorcerer identity is "not as bad as Necromancer". Dead class as this point for both mag and stam.

Kolzki

Stam sorcs: failing to proc their class minor group buff since forever. Can we have a skill other than dark deal to proc the passive please?

Amarthiul

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Amarthiul wrote: »

The weapons summoned by Bound Armaments don't seem to know whether they count as pets or not. You get the 8% max health from Expert Summoner, but no Magicka back from Rebate when the weapons are either triggered or expire and disappear. It works with Hunt Leader (you certainly get the Stamina back, didn't check the Health) but not Necropotence.

Are you sure about that? I Tester it too and HL doesnt work with the armaments proc. Even combat metrics doesnt show a hl proc. Tested hl with clannfear and the proc shows in metrics.

You're right, it doesn't. I must've been seeing something like the Adrenaline Rush passive proc instead.

xaraan

My feedback, which won't be popular with some, but here it is:

From a sorc tank perspective:
Do not listen to some and change the clanfear heal to use stamina instead. If it does this, then it will be much less useful for tanking, and with stam sorcs already having several great heal options, they do not need another stam based heal (esp burst). Making it cost magicka is actually a good way to balance someone trying to stack all the healing sources on a stamsorc.

And from a stamsorc perspective (one of my fav dd's to play):
Also, don't let stamsorcs push you into messing up the class with the constant request of 'class identity' or whatever the excuse of wanting more stam morphs of every skill. For one, stam sorcs have great class identity, I actually feel like a unique class when I'm running around as a ball of lightning, moving faster, using skills such as crit surge, dark deal, etc. in addition to weapon skills to create a build with abilities other classes don't have access to. Even before you added anything to bound armor, it was still great, offered a good buff just for being on bar. We do not need a stam morph of crystal blast (though if you were going to do a class stam spammable, that would probably be the one to tinker with), nor do we need to make more non damage skills use stamina, I like that my magicka is useful.

The one thing exception for me however would be the atro ultimate. There is usually one go to morph of storm atro that every mag DD will use and the other gets ignored. Stam sorcs should have a physical damage ulti, like maybe an Air Atro morph.

And last: Streak/BoL
BoL seems a bit strong right now, it should give snare immunity and absorb projectiles, not also stun. One should be more offensive and the other more defensive. I also still do not think this ability should stun through block, it already offers many other tools to make it a great skill to use before this was added in and sorcs already have an ability to stun through block available (although I guess not as useful as something like fossilize), but tacking this onto streak seemed a bit strong to me. Feels good when I'm using my sorc though lol.

DarkGottbeard

xaraan wrote: »

My feedback, which won't be popular with some, but here it is:

From a sorc tank perspective:
Do not listen to some and change the clanfear heal to use stamina instead. If it does this, then it will be much less useful for tanking, and with stam sorcs already having several great heal options, they do not need another stam based heal (esp burst). Making it cost magicka is actually a good way to balance someone trying to stack all the healing sources on a stamsorc.

And from a stamsorc perspective (one of my fav dd's to play):
Also, don't let stamsorcs push you into messing up the class with the constant request of 'class identity' or whatever the excuse of wanting more stam morphs of every skill. For one, stam sorcs have great class identity, I actually feel like a unique class when I'm running around as a ball of lightning, moving faster, using skills such as crit surge, dark deal, etc. in addition to weapon skills to create a build with abilities other classes don't have access to. Even before you added anything to bound armor, it was still great, offered a good buff just for being on bar. We do not need a stam morph of crystal blast (though if you were going to do a class stam spammable, that would probably be the one to tinker with), nor do we need to make more non damage skills use stamina, I like that my magicka is useful.

The one thing exception for me however would be the atro ultimate. There is usually one go to morph of storm atro that every mag DD will use and the other gets ignored. Stam sorcs should have a physical damage ulti, like maybe an Air Atro morph.

And last: Streak/BoL
BoL seems a bit strong right now, it should give snare immunity and absorb projectiles, not also stun. One should be more offensive and the other more defensive. I also still do not think this ability should stun through block, it already offers many other tools to make it a great skill to use before this was added in and sorcs already have an ability to stun through block available (although I guess not as useful as something like fossilize), but tacking this onto streak seemed a bit strong to me. Feels good when I'm using my sorc though lol.

Air atro morph sounds amazing. I want it.

I would love to summon an air atro that zangeif spins off into the sunset.

like mad tinkerer but with a quick to summon fast moving twirly boy.

Same kind of spike dmg at storm atro for casting but it comes down in front of caster automatically and then spins of into the distance for extra dot dmg to targets in its area.

CambionDaemon

I cannot get on the PTS at the moment, but what I have read is not good news (again). All you seem to do is overbuff in one patch and then overnerf in the next, this is not helpful to anyone (you guys included).

Seeing that you are adamant that you won't remove pets, then will you please make them single slot, fire and forget summons. With this change make them Fire/Ice/Storm/Air Atronachs, Golden Saints and proper Daedra or Dremora, we are supposed to be powerful magicka wielding heroes and yet we can only summon the most basic of daedra.

As I have mentioned in other threads you need to rebuild the entire class from the ground up (including passives), because these random changes that you insist in doing are just making things worse. It is good that you are finally doing something for Stamina Sorcerer (identity!)even though it still needs some group utility, but Magicka Sorcerer needs just as much help (in dps and especially in sustain).

I am not quite sure what you think an Elder Scrolls Sorcerer is, but this is not it. Please look at this class in great detail.

BalticBlues

echo2omega wrote: »

At this point the Sorcerer needs a rework from the ground up.

The Warden and Necromancer kits are quite well done.

I cannot believe this. You know, Sorcerer once was the best MagClass in the game?
Great skills, great combos, great possibilites, great damage, only some sustains problems.
Now? Overload bar gone, shield crippled, skills unrecognizable, damage poor, sustain worse, Pet Sorcs dead.
The once best class did and does not need a rework. It just did and does not need devs killing it.

InvictusApollo

Saril_Durzam wrote: »

Twilight Matriarch... why healing buffed? we needed DPS buffed. Okay, Sorc healers will love it but honestly, at the level the Sorc healers play, they dont need such buff...

For PvP. It is actually a very good buff that will probably let magsorcs abandon Hardened Ward entirely and start building like other classes.

Trian94

@ZOS_GinaBruno https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/494293/bound-armaments/p1?new=1 I want to redirect you to this thread as bound armaments right now is really weak in both pvp and pve enviroments. Please see it that the damage is buffed. The skill needs to be comparable to grim focus.

Thraben

BrightOblivion wrote: »

Thraben wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Sorcerer. Please read through all the changes in the patch notes and try them out on the PTS before providing feedback in this thread. Thank you!

3) Summon Unstable Familiar:
Reduced the damage of this ability and its morphs’ basic attack by approximately 17%.
Increased the cost of the special activate of this ability and the Volatile Familiar morph to 4500, up from 2808.
Increased the duration of the special activate to 10 seconds, up from 8.
The base cost of summoning these abilities has been streamlined to 3510.
Summon Unstable Clannfear (morph):
This morph’s damage now scales off your Max Stamina, rather than Magicka.
Decreased the cost of the special activate to 4500, down from 4808.
The Area of Effect attack now deals the same damage as the basic attack, but hits in a 6 meter radius, up from 5 meters.
Fixed an issue where the AoE attack would cause the Clannfear to re-evaluate its purpose in life for 1 second after casting, lowering its potential DPS.
Summon Winged Twilight: Increased the heal of this ability and the Twilight Matriarch morph to be closer to the heal power of Rushed Ceremony. This will result in approximately 87% increase for the base, and approximately 55% increase for the Matriarch. Note that these abilities will continue to scale exclusively with Max Magicka.

3) Stop wasting time on Pet balancing. Make them work like the Nightblade´s shade, including it´s one bar requirement and reduced dps, and be done with it.

I am fervently opposed to this suggestion and the mindset behind it. The concept of the pet sorcerer, or the magic wielder summoning the lesser beings of Oblivion to do their bidding, is just as much of an archetype in the Elder Scrolls as the concept of the spellsword that many would like to see from the stamsorc. To claim that trying to facilitate that and support those who enjoy that archetype is a "waste of time," that it should be turned into a knockoff daedra-shaped version of the nightblade shade, that they should just make it into an afterthought without any real reason to put it on your bar and "be done with it" is no less acceptable than claims that they should just stop trying to balance to give the stamsorc a niche or identity outside of weapon skills. Even worse, perhaps, given the bound armaments change is a (certainly shaky *first*) step toward giving stamsorcs an identity (with many more steps to go before they reach the destination), but enacting your suggestion regarding pets would absolutely obliterate an identity that is already there. Simply because it's an identity that you dislike doesn't mean that it's one others don't enjoy, or that it should be abandoned, eliminated, or marginalized.



"

I admire your passion, but it should be well known that I am one of the most extreme, most classical "Petsorcs" left. My StamSorc has always used the Clannfear, the Morkuldin Set, the daedroth, and the Hunger, and I even miss the time when Bound Armaments conjured a real daedric armor around you.
And I have played every Elder Scrolls game since Morrowind as a StamSorc, i.e. summon bound armor and weapons, summon a meatshield deadra, then pulling with a bound bow, and finally hitting stuff with a bound melee weapon.

But that is not the point.

We Petsorcs have one huge problem, and this is bar space. The lack of bar space creates monotone and boring combat, and even worse, reduces our efficiency as tanks and healers.
Since Dev time and attention is rare, the easiest solution would be if you made the pets work like the Nightblade's shade. Having a permanent pet is a Skyrim invention anyway, in older ES games you could only summon deadra for a short time, so I would be totally okay with it.
The Necromancer summons are quite boring, as they have no secondary effect attached to it, which is a thing I want to keep. I don't want to lose the heal of the Matriarch, for example.

BrightOblivion

And if maintaining the matriarch heal in particular is a goal, then I'd argue that replicating the nightblade shade is not at all the way to go about it. It only lasts for 18 seconds, which is great for the shade. Neither the occasional AoE and minor maim on every attack, nor the get-out-of-trouble-free cards should be particularly long-lasting. But if you're healing with the Matriarch and you're having to re-summon it every time you turn around before you can drop that heal, it's going to be extremely frustrating and unenjoyable. That was the case when pets were screwy and dying all the time, before Finn made them unkillable in 4 and 12 man content. It would be the case here. The 18 seconds seems like it wouldn't be long enough for such an integral part of one's kit, especially if your healing depends on it. I'm also not sure you're able to use the shade's toggle more than once, on the one morph of the shade that has it. If that's the case and you can only cast it once while summoned before having to summon it again, then that would make for an awful heal.

On the DPS side of things, again it'd be difficult to handle a multi-use toggle on a pet that has to be frequently re-summoned, if that's even possible. Again the duration and having to constantly refresh it is going to get very old very quickly. And to take what we have now, turn it into a daedra-shaped turret-esque dot, maybe with a frill or two attached, and call it good? Urgghhhhhh.... I honestly don't think I could bring myself to play that, despite having run petsorc, up or down, good or bad, for the vast majority of the time since I started just before Morrowind came out.

Given the shade is basically a shadowy turret that can't even move, and only one of the morphs has any interaction beyond summon and ignore it (and that one only has any value in PvP), I can't say I find it any less boring than the necromancer summons. Moreso, in fact, given its stationary nature. It's just...there.

Don't get me wrong. I agree that bar space is a pain. But I still strongly disagree that making them sorc shades is the direction to go with it, particularly if you're going to even pretend to give half a crap about class/role identity.

rabidmyers

Lord_Sando wrote: »

Canned_Apples wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam

Conjured weapons do feel like a step in the right direction for a stamina sorc, but the damage and ability is underwhelming.
The Clannfear on the other hand.... why would anyone use it when Dark Deal only requires one slot, restores both health+stamina and also costs less magicka!
.

I tried it on PTS bound armor is tickling my target in pvp less damage than hurricane. please stop focusing on streak and give us stam frag or stam curse. also the bound armor daggers don't count as a pet so no increased hp. stam sorc gets a huge nerf to the class every patch it never fails. nerfing the class in ways I couldn't even dream of. GG ZOS

actually the daggers do count as a pet and do give u the 8% health for expert summoner passive

but as someone said on this thread: they do not give you the magicka return when they "die"

LeoSzilard

I have some opinions and ideas for the combat team regarding stamina Sorcerer. I'm not sure that developing new skills, like the proposed Bound Armaments, is the solution to improving the class. Looking back, I remember feeling really good about stam sorc around Horns of the Reach. It was right after Thundering Presence got reworked to Hurricane and Disintegration was changed to Implosion, dealing shock or physical damage. Those two things alone felt very good and impactful. With the subsequent damage reduction of Hurricane and the removal of Implosion, which I grant you was probably needed, stam sorc has felt sort of lost. Amplitude replaced Implosion, but it is a simple numerical damage buff that doesn't really affect how the class plays or feels, making it sort of lack-luster.

So my suggestion to the combat team is this: instead of trying to add class identity with a new damage skill like Bound Armor, improve passives and existing skills. It could be very simple, too. One or two passives like Amplitude and Blood Magic could be reworked to feel more impactful. Honestly, I haven't been able to think of any good ideas for how to improve those passives, but maybe others have some ideas about that. But as far as existing skills are concerned, Dark Deal could be changed to an instant-cast ability that heals the caster instantly and provides stam or mag over 20s, as it does now. It could lose the burst of up-front resources, but still provide the same mag or stam that the skill does now (meaning that the resource return over time would need to be buffed). Dark Deal has felt bad ever since the cast time was increased. It wasn't a large increase to cast time, but it made the skill feel clunky. I believe that this is largely due to the fact that the animation wasn't lengthened to match the new cast time. Instead, the extra cast time appears to have been added onto the end of the animation, thus the effect and the animation feel out of step.

If new skills are desired/required, I think that there are better candidates than Bound Armor. I like the idea of the base skill and both morphs of Bound Armor being tank skills. Maybe they could have reworked secondary effects. Instead of passively increasing max mag or max stam, maybe activation of the skill can provide the user increased block mitigation as well as provide some group utility. Sorc tank really lacks unique group utility. Maybe activating the skill gives you and your group minor protection for a short length of time, or maybe it grants your group a couple stacks of empower or Minor Courage. But as far as stamina damage abilities are concerned, Crystal Blast might be the most obvious candidate for an overhaul. I recall that a statement was made by the combat team that providing ranged and melee damage options is more important than providing mag and stam skill morphs for all abilities. But Crystal Blast could address both issues--providing mag and stam morphs of a ranged damage ability. Blast is a skill that has received so many buffs over the years to try to entice players to use it, but it is still seldom used. Perhaps the base skill should inherit the proc effect of Crystal Frags. Then Frags and Blast can gain the proc damage increase and proc cost decrease, but Frag does magic damage while Blast does physical damage.

Finally, I think the Charged Atro could be replaced with an ult that does burst aoe damage (in the same vein as Radial Sweep, Leap, or Colossus) that scales well for stamina. As it has been suggested many times, you could replace the Charged Atro with an Air Atro. But since the class doesn't have a very good aoe damage ult, make the Air Atro provide a strong AoE burst. Perhaps the arrival of the Atro could stun enemies in a 6-8m radius and deal X1 physical damage. Then some time later (maybe 1 second), it could spin, dealing X2 physical damage to enemies in the 6-8m radius circle. Another option could be that instead of the Atro spinning and dealing one tick of high AoE burst, it could spin for a longer time (maybe 10 seconds), slowing enemies in the AoE and dealing physical damage ticks every second.

So that's about all I have. Maybe others have some thoughts about my suggestions, or maybe others have some more well-refined ideas that are in a similar vein to my ideas that they'd care to put forward.

Thraben

BrightOblivion wrote: »

you can drop that heal, it's going to be extremely frustrating and unenjoyable. That was the case when pets were screwy and dying all the time, before Finn made them unkillable in 4 and 12 man content. It would be the case here. The 18 seconds seems like it wouldn't be long enough for such an integral part of one's kit, especially if your healing depends on it. I'm also not sure you're able to use the shade's toggle more than once, on the one morph of the shade that has it. If that's the case and you can only cast it once while summoned before having to summon it again, then that would make for an awful heal.


Given the shade is basically a shadowy turret that can't even move, and only one of the morphs has any interaction beyond summon and ignore it (and that one only has any value in PvP), I can't say I find it any less boring than the necromancer summons. Moreso, in fact, given its stationary nature. It's just...there.

Don't get me wrong. I agree that bar space is a pain. But I still strongly disagree that making them sorc shades is the direction to go with it, particularly if you're going to even pretend to give half a crap about class/role identity.

No one said anything about stationary. It's about giving solutions that are easy to implement from a game design standpoint. I was among the people who suggested that Bound Armaments should be a bound weapon with Grim Focus mechanics - not because it was particularly innovative or fun, but because it was rather easy to implement and because it could potentially save bar space.

Both deadra would work as today, the only difference would be the need to re-summon them from time to time - which is okay, in my opinion, as this has always been the case in Elder Scrolls games. Only one perk in Skyrim changed that.

If you would give the Necromancer summons as an example for how the skills are supposed to work, it would imply that you want to abolish the secondary effects (the heals from the Clannfear and Matriarch, the damage skills of the other two morphs) whereas the Shade has the same 2nd activation effect in one of its morphs.

I can understand your second argument "re-summoning makes the game harder", but this is a simple l2p issue. Playing with summons shouldn't be easy; in fact, when it was so easy and effective that it was the meta, most people, even most MagSorcs, hated it.

CreepyPahuska

I keep seeing requests of an instant-cast for Dark Exchange and its morphs. I think it would be a huge mistake.

This patch is about class identity, and one thing is sure : a skill with a cast time that does a huge burst of ressources is quite unique. I understand that sorcerers have sustain issues (it's not new) and that such a skill doesn't fit in a DPS rotation, but it's just not intended to.
Removing the cast time means nerfing the skill as well. That means you can probably say goodbye to the healing it provides, because having a single slotted burst heal ability would make the clanfear worthless. The burst of stamina/magicka would probably get a nerf aswell, with less "burst" and more "over time" ressources, which would actually totally change the purpose of this skill.
IMO, Dark Exchange is perfectly fine in its current state. As a sorc tank, I think it makes our gameplay very dynamic. It's not a stupid buff that you just activate and forget until it runs out. It let's you go from empty to full in a few seconds. It's tricky to use but very rewarding in exchange.
If you guys want to do something about the sustain issues of the sorcerers, you should look at things that are currently useless like the Rebate passive, because getting magicka back when your pet dies is useless considering that it never dies.

FrancisCrawford

There's no reason sorcerer pets couldn't be both permanent-until-dismissed and single-barred. Yes, that would be a little buff, but with all the nerfs going on, a little buff once in a while would be welcome.

Most important, more bar space ==> more FUN. Sorcerers are spellcasters, and it's dreary not to be able to cast many spells.

FrancisCrawford

universal_wrath wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Millz wrote: »

Can we just get a memorial for all stam sorcs in game?

One thing stamina sorcerers have that's really good is a double-dip into damage boosting passives. Another is ultimate cost reduction. So a natural approach for stamina sorcerers would be to play werewolves ... oops.

Not even a werewolf, zos did a number on it this patch and made it even more useless and unplayable.

My point exactly.

VaxtinTheWolf

heaven13 wrote: »

HaruKamui wrote: »

Turns out this was left out on the patch notes.


That’s pretty cool. Gonna combo it with the psijic spammable and i’ll feel like a spellsword.

Unfortunately, this negatively effects sorc tanks. Block mitigation is really nice to have and losing it so stamsorcs have something...is there nothing else that can be done? They already don't have a huge disposable of useful tanking skills within their class. And before someone tells me to switch to Bound Aegis: sorc tanks use very little magicka skills. Switching to Bound Aegis which increases my max magicka is not super helpful.

If you're going to try to update classes to function like warden/necro with tanking, healing, and stamina/magicka versions, this is not the way to go about it. The class will need far more of a rework. Maybe when some additional tanking options are made available within class abilities, then it will be okay to do something like this with Bound Armanents. It's not okay now though. (And, by the way, sorctank functions fairly well at being a stamsorc dps when needed and this is ALSO not the way to give stamsorc identity).

What? I guess I'm doing it all wrong with mine then. I've got Magicka flying all over the place. Depending on food and gear used, around 25-31k health, 25-34k magicka, and 14-19k stamina with 1.6-2k magicka recovery. 14k hardened ward is nice with Matriarch off healing. Only active stamina abilities I'm using are Pierce Armor, Heroic Slash, and Silver Leash.

Not to say Tanking with stamina is wrong, as I am working on that with my Templar Tank, but you can't ignore the existence magicka based tanks either. My Nightblade is also Magicka based.

universal_wrath

VaxtinTheWolf wrote: »

heaven13 wrote: »

HaruKamui wrote: »

Turns out this was left out on the patch notes.


That’s pretty cool. Gonna combo it with the psijic spammable and i’ll feel like a spellsword.

Unfortunately, this negatively effects sorc tanks. Block mitigation is really nice to have and losing it so stamsorcs have something...is there nothing else that can be done? They already don't have a huge disposable of useful tanking skills within their class. And before someone tells me to switch to Bound Aegis: sorc tanks use very little magicka skills. Switching to Bound Aegis which increases my max magicka is not super helpful.

If you're going to try to update classes to function like warden/necro with tanking, healing, and stamina/magicka versions, this is not the way to go about it. The class will need far more of a rework. Maybe when some additional tanking options are made available within class abilities, then it will be okay to do something like this with Bound Armanents. It's not okay now though. (And, by the way, sorctank functions fairly well at being a stamsorc dps when needed and this is ALSO not the way to give stamsorc identity).

What? I guess I'm doing it all wrong with mine then. I've got Magicka flying all over the place. Depending on food and gear used, around 25-31k health, 25-34k magicka, and 14-19k stamina with 1.6-2k magicka recovery. 14k hardened ward is nice with Matriarch off healing. Only active stamina abilities I'm using are Pierce Armor, Heroic Slash, and Silver Leash.

Not to say Tanking with stamina is wrong, as I am working on that with my Templar Tank, but you can't ignore the existence magicka based tanks either. My Nightblade is also Magicka based.

If you have 1.6-2k magicka recovery, i don't see a reason why bound aegis is an issue to use for you.

VaxtinTheWolf

universal_wrath wrote: »

If you have 1.6-2k magicka recovery, i don't see a reason why bound aegis is an issue to use for you.

I made that post almost immediately after waking up and hadn't reloaded the page[4] so see others had already posted.

At that time I was responding to the comment about not having much magicka to use the block mitigation version of the skill, where they don't have a large supply of that pool to use it and their other magicka based abilities. I was just indicating that tanks that do focus on their magicka, opposite to stamina, shouldn't be ignored as a gameplay possibility.

For stamina Sorcerer tanks specifically, which I don't know much about myself, I think using inner Beast could help offset the magicka drain if not already using it, and then adding in enough magicka recovery might be enough to sustain the other utility skills (Encase/Streak/Surge). Spell symmetry is also an option.

LeoSzilard

CreepyPahuska wrote: »

I keep seeing requests of an instant-cast for Dark Exchange and its morphs. I think it would be a huge mistake.

This patch is about class identity, and one thing is sure : a skill with a cast time that does a huge burst of ressources is quite unique. I understand that sorcerers have sustain issues (it's not new) and that such a skill doesn't fit in a DPS rotation, but it's just not intended to.
Removing the cast time means nerfing the skill as well. That means you can probably say goodbye to the healing it provides, because having a single slotted burst heal ability would make the clanfear worthless. The burst of stamina/magicka would probably get a nerf aswell, with less "burst" and more "over time" ressources, which would actually totally change the purpose of this skill.
IMO, Dark Exchange is perfectly fine in its current state. As a sorc tank, I think it makes our gameplay very dynamic. It's not a stupid buff that you just activate and forget until it runs out. It let's you go from empty to full in a few seconds. It's tricky to use but very rewarding in exchange.
If you guys want to do something about the sustain issues of the sorcerers, you should look at things that are currently useless like the Rebate passive, because getting magicka back when your pet dies is useless considering that it never dies.

Fair points, but the animation should be fixed to match the longer cast time. I might be wrong, but the animation seems to still be from the old 1 second skill. I think it would help it feel better to extend the animation, instead of just tacking an extra 0.2s at the end. As it is now, the animation appears complete, but the channel isn't actually over.

bulcke10

Need a cost reduction on shields..
When i cast the sorc shield. Light armor shield. And healing ward as a defense combo it toon almost 10k mag.... Then I need on the offense for a couple of seconds and repeat.... For me I like to see a cost reduction or something 😉👍

Nomadic_Mind

I have tried a multitude of skills and setups on my magsorc on the PTS and frankly.... it's not fun. It's not effective. I am coming from the perspective of a CP 440 player, with a single set of gold gear to my name. I imagine most, if not all, of the people giving feedback are coming from the perspective of well over cap CP and frankly ignores any newer players' experience. I'm not saying that experience is worth more, but I am saying that you are pushing people away rather than including them. I had recently reached the cusp of the magical 30k dps number and was ready to progress in end game content (PvE focus here). Now I cannot get to 20k. This means I will struggle with Vet dungeons. I will be unable to even qualify for vet trials. Maelstrom? Won't beat that again any time soon. DSA? Can't attempt that on vet either. So much for being able to obtain the weapons that make it even possible to get the stupid high numbers people are getting now.

All the nerfs, not just to damage but in a major way to sustain as well, have made the game simply unfun and unrewarding on PTS. I don't mind learning new tactics or skills. But telling me to grind for several more months to get cap CP before I can play content that was DESIGNED for CP 300 is just plain idiotic. I'm very concerned about the problems presented in this update. It's enough to make me dread logging on, and I doubt I'm the only one. Unless you are going to drop the dps threshold requirements down about 10k on all content, you are basically screwing anyone who doesn't have 18 golded sets, 47 mounts, 16 characters, and all the money they could need to spend upgrading new gear. The rest of us are left in the dust. Do you expect us to stick around? Why? What carrot is at the end of the stick?

So how does this turn into something actionable? Simple beginnings really, in my mind. Take it easy on the cost increases as a start. As a magsorc, a lot of my abilities are aoe. They do less damage for more magicka than ever. I have to trade all my spell damage and magicka for recovery. This means I no longer have a magicka pool to cast from, and it's a vicious cycle of weak, overly expensive abilities. At least if it was just damage reductions I could adjust skills to compensate. But when everything is weak and expensive, I'm honestly about to start trying a basic pet bar with every passive buff I can fit on there and heavy attack the world. Wow that sounds terrible. No class identity. Sorcs are designed with lightning in their blood. LET US USE LIGHTNING. That makes for a compelling class to me, a whirling storm of aoe electrical death. Now it seems like they are just... meh. They already were mid-tier but I had fun.

I don't play all the classes, but I understand that some have specific abilities that way overperformed. Why not tune those abilities rather than negate entire types of abilities? Take a simple example of wall of elements. It has an incredibly high cost now for what turns into a 1-1.5k dps ability. Meanwhile, soul trap was nerfed to non-relevance again. The huge swings are just not well designed, too general, and encourage people to over tune for basing their build on a single ability they can find that actually does more damage than a wet noodle. Thanks for reading my rant and please save my sorc from the recycle bin on my desktop.

jecks33

Nomadic_Mind wrote: »

from the perspective of a CP 440 player

from the perspective of an average 1312 CP player that hit 87k dps (not 103k as liko), member of a group that progress and complete vet trials with some difficulties, i complete agree with you.
These changes push away players like you that want to taste end game contents and almost kill groups like mine who are not overpowered

Lord_Sando

LeoSzilard wrote: »

If new skills are desired/required, I think that there are better candidates than Bound Armor. I like the idea of the base skill and both morphs of Bound Armor being tank skills. Maybe they could have reworked secondary effects. Instead of passively increasing max mag or max stam, maybe activation of the skill can provide the user increased block mitigation as well as provide some group utility. Sorc tank really lacks unique group utility. Maybe activating the skill gives you and your group minor protection for a short length of time, or maybe it grants your group a couple stacks of empower or Minor Courage. But as far as stamina damage abilities are concerned, Crystal Blast might be the most obvious candidate for an overhaul. I recall that a statement was made by the combat team that providing ranged and melee damage options is more important than providing mag and stam skill morphs for all abilities. But Crystal Blast could address both issues--providing mag and stam morphs of a ranged damage ability. Blast is a skill that has received so many buffs over the years to try to entice players to use it, but it is still seldom used. Perhaps the base skill should inherit the proc effect of Crystal Frags. Then Frags and Blast can gain the proc damage increase and proc cost decrease, but Frag does magic damage while Blast does physical damage.

I agree blast is the answer and that would cost stam and it would proc off of other stam skills used. A change like this could move stam sorc in the right direction.