PTS Update 24 - Feedback Thread for Sorcerer

ToRelax

@Ellyhan that's magicka and stamina btw, instead of magic and vigor. Vigor in particular will confuse people

universal_wrath

Kadoin wrote: »

Here is why a sorc spammable is a bad idea, for those that don't get it or think its a "crying" attempt from someone that plays both sorcs.

A. Spammables are typically direct damage, and on DK, NB, and templar they are melee. The classes these skills exist on also either have limited damage options and/or mostly have DoTs available or lower damage direct damage attacks not on the level of frags.

B. Spammables have a secondary effect in the game, exactly what secondary effect could be fair for a stam or mag sorc spammable considering the class passives?

It can't heal on strikes because amplitude, it can't give bonus damage, because again amplitude, it can't give minor resist debuffs because that trivializes stamplar in PvE, it can't give bonus shock damage because of the passives, etc. - the passives on the class make giving it a secondary effect a bad idea. But wait there is more

C. Scaling: what skill would serve as a baseline for the strength of such a spammable? Let's say its baseline was whip (not power lash).

DK cannot reach the same max mag as mag sorc no spell damage, and whip is "balanced" by the cost of the other skills DK has and that there is no other direct damage source that deals massive amount of damage like crystal frags. There are also no pets on the class, and the same is similar for templar. Warden pet is an ult, and warden's spammable is not melee and has a delay, and again there is no other skill that offers massive ranged damage. NB spammable offers utility and that's it, but it is, again a melee spammable and ironically not on the level of whip or jabs. NB's spammable also got nerfed.

D. DW Swords, 2H on Mag Sorc: Once ZOS introduces a spammable, in PvP there will be little reason to not run 2H or DW on a mag sorc. This is different from other classes for a number of reasons:

(1) mag sorc has massive shields, major evasion from DW is significant. Don't get me started on BRP DW, just don't.
(2) mag sorc has a native toolkit that is ranged, offering a melee option means that they would have both ranged and melee in their kit, except you have to remember there's also pets to factor into that equation
(3) sword bonuses, stacked with other bonuses, would be more significant on this class
(4) DW and 2H mag sorc is already powerful on live, you would essentially buff it

The trade-off would only be light attack damage on a mag sorc, but for stam sorc, no such trade-off would exist.

E. Proc set, gear combinations would make this class the go-to. There is so many I cannot even bother expanding on this. But the "build diversity" that would result, would only result because an OP skill was added to the game and result in nerfs later down the line.

So, considering this, what kind of spammable would ZOS even add? One that tickles?

If not, then we will have mag sorcs with two sources of massive direct damage when there is already little reason to invest in DoT damage on the PTS.

If its ranged, then mag sorc will have two ranged skills that are nukes, and one procs off the other?

If its melee, then mag sorc will have effective ranged attack and melee defense -- in addition to pets and shields. It would be a new "dimension" that would be OP once you take your class cheerleading blinders off or experience it yourself (it can be simulated now with a hybrid).

All that would result is that it will expose how unbalanced sorc passives actually are, just like dizzy got exposed when it was "fixed."

You know what will happen? It will result in sorc passives getting nerfed in exchange for a spammable that will also have to have its damage repeatedly toned down to account for crit surge (because it essentially will offer the same function as a magplars jabs with no channel when this skill is on), and the frag proc.

It's hard being a visionary sometimes.

Yo, only 3 offensive passive for sorcerer out of 12, and depend on your spec you will not be able to utilize all of sorcerer passives. You keep talking about amblitude like it is super op, i would rather have 10% crit dmg all the time or crit chance modifier on excaute that having a reverse excute that only gives 2% more dmg during excaute phase. Having a secandy effect does not make it will be OP it will just help you a bit more. Also, stam DK now have a range spammable. Fyi, duzzy does the same dmg as feag without frag proc. And frag is magicka only ability. Crushimg weapon while it is a great skill, it is very cluncky in both pvp and pve on melee weapons to use.

Just because someone asked for spammable like other classes does not mean they asked to be homoginized. See all classes spammable/buff and tell if they are same to use/apply. My last point would is that I'm sick of using weapon spamables, wither it is dizzy, flurry or reverb bash. I have to spam dizzy 5 times to hit someone 1 time because it's a cast time and they easy dodge it or walk away from it so and so with flurry. I need an instant cast spaamable without having to use sword and shield.

I think spammable is a very go addition to sorcerer toolkit and far out-weigh the new change of bound armament.

iCaliban

PVP perspective.

Shields are very very bad in no CP even on tanky builds.

Class has no healing modifiers to take advantage of resto and other healing based changes (vitality on encase is bad)

Matriarch buff is nice, but does not solve anything. 2 bar slots for a heal is weak considering the matriarch does no damage.

Streak change is reinventing the wheel which no one asked for. Leave it as it was.

Too many dead skills and passives: dark magic: mines, encase, both are pretty useless. Why two class roots in the same skill tree? Storm calling: overload should be an instant cast damage ult. No more clunky mechanics. Daedric summoning has been absolutely gutted: shields are bad, both pets are both weak, and cost too much for limited utility. Rebate is a dead passive (change it to work on shields expiring )

universal_wrath

thechiefisback wrote: »

"Area of Effect Damage over Time abilities will now once again mirror the damage of their single target counterparts, instead of dealing approximately 33% less damage. To ensure they do not always beat out their single target counterpart, they will now cost approximately 66% more resources per second to maintain than their single target counterparts, up from 30%."

"Lightning Splash:Increased the base duration of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds, up from 8.Increased the base cost to 4950, up from 3024.Reduced the damage per tick by approximately 33%."
"Wall of Elements:Increased the base duration of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds, up from 8.Increased base cost to 4950, up from 3024.Reduced the damage per tick by approximately 32%."

Can you explain that to me? I see where you increased the cost but where is the more damage? In fact you reduce the damage of aoes again. Why???
And why do you nerf the pet sorcs again?
My trading guilds already lose half of their members (probably gone to wow). It's always difficult to set up a raid since so many players left the game. And now you do this? Do you really want to improve the performamce by putting people off?
If this goes live I will find a new game for me I can play.

Aoe did not get a dmg buff, but ST dots got nerfed. Now lightening splash will deal the same dmg as soul trap after it was nerfed. For example, say lightening splash deals 10k over 10 secs, souls trap will now deal 10k over 10 secs as well. However, lightening spalsh is now 33% more expensive than it used to be. Now this can change anytime in the next weeks as we are in the first week and its always the worst.

thechiefisback

universal_wrath wrote: »

thechiefisback wrote: »

"Area of Effect Damage over Time abilities will now once again mirror the damage of their single target counterparts, instead of dealing approximately 33% less damage. To ensure they do not always beat out their single target counterpart, they will now cost approximately 66% more resources per second to maintain than their single target counterparts, up from 30%."

"Lightning Splash:Increased the base duration of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds, up from 8.Increased the base cost to 4950, up from 3024.Reduced the damage per tick by approximately 33%."
"Wall of Elements:Increased the base duration of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds, up from 8.Increased base cost to 4950, up from 3024.Reduced the damage per tick by approximately 32%."

Can you explain that to me? I see where you increased the cost but where is the more damage? In fact you reduce the damage of aoes again. Why???
And why do you nerf the pet sorcs again?
My trading guilds already lose half of their members (probably gone to wow). It's always difficult to set up a raid since so many players left the game. And now you do this? Do you really want to improve the performamce by putting people off?
If this goes live I will find a new game for me I can play.

Aoe did not get a dmg buff, but ST dots got nerfed. Now lightening splash will deal the same dmg as soul trap after it was nerfed. For example, say lightening splash deals 10k over 10 secs, souls trap will now deal 10k over 10 secs as well. However, lightening spalsh is now 33% more expensive than it used to be. Now this can change anytime in the next weeks as we are in the first week and its always the worst.

But why do they have to nerf everything?

universal_wrath

thechiefisback wrote: »

universal_wrath wrote: »

thechiefisback wrote: »

"Area of Effect Damage over Time abilities will now once again mirror the damage of their single target counterparts, instead of dealing approximately 33% less damage. To ensure they do not always beat out their single target counterpart, they will now cost approximately 66% more resources per second to maintain than their single target counterparts, up from 30%."

"Lightning Splash:Increased the base duration of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds, up from 8.Increased the base cost to 4950, up from 3024.Reduced the damage per tick by approximately 33%."
"Wall of Elements:Increased the base duration of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds, up from 8.Increased base cost to 4950, up from 3024.Reduced the damage per tick by approximately 32%."

Can you explain that to me? I see where you increased the cost but where is the more damage? In fact you reduce the damage of aoes again. Why???
And why do you nerf the pet sorcs again?
My trading guilds already lose half of their members (probably gone to wow). It's always difficult to set up a raid since so many players left the game. And now you do this? Do you really want to improve the performamce by putting people off?
If this goes live I will find a new game for me I can play.

Aoe did not get a dmg buff, but ST dots got nerfed. Now lightening splash will deal the same dmg as soul trap after it was nerfed. For example, say lightening splash deals 10k over 10 secs, souls trap will now deal 10k over 10 secs as well. However, lightening spalsh is now 33% more expensive than it used to be. Now this can change anytime in the next weeks as we are in the first week and its always the worst.

But why do they have to nerf everything?

People complaint that single target dots were doing so much g and that is the case currently on scalebreaker. So single target dot is nerfed, but people in elswyre complaint that aoe dots were doing so much dmg with low cost. Now both ST and AOE dots do same low dmg, but AOE dot is now 60% more expensive. People asked for it, and zos delivered that nerf hammer.

Ellyhan

universal_wrath wrote: »

Yo, only 3 offensive passive for sorcerer out of 12, and depend on your spec you will not be able to utilize all of sorcerer passives. You keep talking about amblitude like it is super op, i would rather have 10% crit dmg all the time or crit chance modifier on excaute that having a reverse excute that only gives 2% more dmg during excaute phase. Having a secandy effect does not make it will be OP it will just help you a bit more. Also, stam DK now have a range spammable. Fyi, duzzy does the same dmg as feag without frag proc. And frag is magicka only ability. Crushimg weapon while it is a great skill, it is very cluncky in both pvp and pve on melee weapons to use.

Just because someone asked for spammable like other classes does not mean they asked to be homoginized. See all classes spammable/buff and tell if they are same to use/apply. My last point would is that I'm sick of using weapon spamables, wither it is dizzy, flurry or reverb bash. I have to spam dizzy 5 times to hit someone 1 time because it's a cast time and they easy dodge it or walk away from it so and so with flurry. I need an instant cast spaamable without having to use sword and shield.

I think spammable is a very go addition to sorcerer toolkit and far out-weigh the new change of bound armament.

thank you

LeoSzilard

Posted this elsewhere, but want to put it in the official sorc thread to improve the chance that devs see it...

The biggest problem that I have with Bound Armaments is that the damage is divided into separate ticks. The sum of the damage is superior to a spammable ability on paper; however, crit chance poses a very big problem. Consider a single source of damage with a 50% crit chance. The probability of that attack being a critical strike is 0.5^1=0.5 or 50%. For BA, the attack is split into four independent damage sources. With a 50% crit chance, the probability of ALL of the BA daggers being a critical strike is 0.5^4=0.0625 or 6.25%. This is especially problematic in PvP where big crits close kills.

Rapid Strikes, incidentally, suffers from a similar problem; however, Rapid Strikes is helped tremendously by the fact that the final tick of damage is so much higher than the other ticks. Thus, with respect to crit chance, it functions a little bit more like a single source of damage.

I do NOT think that buffing the damage of Bound Armaments is the answer. The fundamental problem is that the skill has too much volatility because of each hit being an independent event with respect to crit chance.

If each of the crit chance of each dagger were NOT independent, then I don't think that we would have a problem. That is, the daggers are taken as a set of damage where the crit chance of the entire set is equal to the player's Weapon Critical. In other words, if the first dagger is a critical strike, the others will also be critical strikes. Alternatively, if the skill dealt one tick of direct damage, the problem that I outlined wouldn't exist. But as long as the skill delivers multiple independent damage ticks, the skill will be hard to balance and players will either complain that the skill a) doesn't do enough damage, or b) does way too much damage if all of the daggers happen to crit.

VaxtinTheWolf

LeoSzilard wrote: »

Posted this elsewhere, but want to put it in the official sorc thread to improve the chance that devs see it...

The biggest problem that I have with Bound Armaments is that the damage is divided into separate ticks. The sum of the damage is superior to a spammable ability on paper; however, crit chance poses a very big problem. Consider a single source of damage with a 50% crit chance. The probability of that attack being a critical strike is 0.5^1=0.5 or 50%. For BA, the attack is split into four independent damage sources. With a 50% crit chance, the probability of ALL of the BA daggers being a critical strike is 0.5^4=0.0625 or 6.25%. This is especially problematic in PvP where big crits close kills.

Rapid Strikes, incidentally, suffers from a similar problem; however, Rapid Strikes is helped tremendously by the fact that the final tick of damage is so much higher than the other ticks. Thus, with respect to crit chance, it functions a little bit more like a single source of damage.

I do NOT think that buffing the damage of Bound Armaments is the answer. The fundamental problem is that the skill has too much volatility because of each hit being an independent event with respect to crit chance.

If each of the crit chance of each dagger were NOT independent, then I don't think that we would have a problem. That is, the daggers are taken as a set of damage where the crit chance of the entire set is equal to the player's Weapon Critical. In other words, if the first dagger is a critical strike, the others will also be critical strikes. Alternatively, if the skill dealt one tick of direct damage, the problem that I outlined wouldn't exist. But as long as the skill delivers multiple independent damage ticks, the skill will be hard to balance and players will either complain that the skill a) doesn't do enough damage, or b) does way too much damage if all of the daggers happen to crit.

Would you rather the activation of this ability just become a guaranteed critical, like the Two-Handed gap closer?

Wrexsoul

Please keep 'Bound Armaments' horrible. I hated the Grim Focus play style on the Nightblade and don't want to have to actually use it.

Ellyhan

But you dont have to use it, the passive stay as it is.. Stop cry for nothing ! OMG.

Sinolai

Browart wrote: »

Claanfear (sorc pet) need stam cost when we want to activate it instead magicka, its hard to sustain with soul trap and surge (if its needed)
In general doesnt fit well where it supposed to be for stamina but cost is magicka.

And stamsorc still need more stam morphs... like stamina atronach, deadric prey stamina, crystal fargment stam... duude

On the other hand this would kill my SorcTank I need Clannfear magicka heal and save staminas for block/roll.

Furious_Sniper

I found a bug while testing magsorc. The damage of all skills increases and cost reduces while a character has a damage shield active (Conjured ward or Annulment). This may be the case for all damage shields in the game (like DK's Fragmented shield), but i didn't test it.
I attach images with damage shield active and without it.


Edit:
Nvm it's reported already

LeoSzilard

VaxtinTheWolf wrote: »

LeoSzilard wrote: »

Posted this elsewhere, but want to put it in the official sorc thread to improve the chance that devs see it...

The biggest problem that I have with Bound Armaments is that the damage is divided into separate ticks. The sum of the damage is superior to a spammable ability on paper; however, crit chance poses a very big problem. Consider a single source of damage with a 50% crit chance. The probability of that attack being a critical strike is 0.5^1=0.5 or 50%. For BA, the attack is split into four independent damage sources. With a 50% crit chance, the probability of ALL of the BA daggers being a critical strike is 0.5^4=0.0625 or 6.25%. This is especially problematic in PvP where big crits close kills.

Rapid Strikes, incidentally, suffers from a similar problem; however, Rapid Strikes is helped tremendously by the fact that the final tick of damage is so much higher than the other ticks. Thus, with respect to crit chance, it functions a little bit more like a single source of damage.

I do NOT think that buffing the damage of Bound Armaments is the answer. The fundamental problem is that the skill has too much volatility because of each hit being an independent event with respect to crit chance.

If each of the crit chance of each dagger were NOT independent, then I don't think that we would have a problem. That is, the daggers are taken as a set of damage where the crit chance of the entire set is equal to the player's Weapon Critical. In other words, if the first dagger is a critical strike, the others will also be critical strikes. Alternatively, if the skill dealt one tick of direct damage, the problem that I outlined wouldn't exist. But as long as the skill delivers multiple independent damage ticks, the skill will be hard to balance and players will either complain that the skill a) doesn't do enough damage, or b) does way too much damage if all of the daggers happen to crit.

Would you rather the activation of this ability just become a guaranteed critical, like the Two-Handed gap closer?

No absolutely not. That’s not what it means for probabilities to be dependent. Suppose that on paper sub assault and bound armaments have similar damage, provided you sum four ticks of damage from bound armaments. But how easy is it to critically modify that damage value? Let’s say we’re talking about 10k damage just for simplicity. Well for sub assault, you can get a crit damage modifier for that 10k damage based on your crit strike chance. If your crit chance is 50%, then you have a 50% chance to get a crit damage modifier on the 10k damage.

For bound armaments, to apply your crit damage modifier to the 10k damage, you need to crit four times because the skill does four ticks of damage. So you have a 6.25% chance to get your crit modifier on 10k damage with bound armaments.

The point I was making is that the skill offers much more damage volatility than skills that deal single instances of damage.

karekiz

Sinolai wrote: »

On the other hand this would kill my SorcTank I need Clannfear magicka heal and save staminas for block/roll.

True. Clannfear as a DPS portion is more roleplay/PvP oriented. I don't think it should remove a Tank core option for what will never actually be used anyway leading it into an entirely dead skill.

Remake Tormentor into a stamina morph please. Mag = imp / Stam = tormentor. It makes more sense in the end anyway.

Clannfear = Tank spec <Leave as is current patch with magic based heal. Its our Dragon blood heal>
Matriarch = Heal spec <Leave as is>
Imp = Mag DPS spec <Remove stun for PvE!!!!! You guys nerf it for PvP so might as well remove the stun that annoys tanks>
Tormentor <total rework> = Stamina spec

Each role now has a pet to use and fill in needed abilities to function.

Celestro

I mean, keeping the Clannfear's heal to Magicka is pretty recommended to me. Its damage scaling to max Stamina did make more sense than Magicka just because the Familiar was primarily the goto for Magsorc, while the other was for tanks who dont bother with damage, so a specific scaling is irrelevant. I can see why they went that route, even if a lot of stamsorcs won't bother using it.

But a lot of healing based skills used by tanks use Magicka so they maintain their stamina resource for blocking. I would similarly prefer, especially as a stamsorc main, to use my off stat resource for using non-damaging abilities as already accustomed with Surge and Dark Deal. Using a heal based off your Max Health with Stamina as a DD is kind of silly.

Making the Tormentor a stam-based pet would be cool too though. Or even just making its damage scale off your highest offensive stats, so either spec can make use of it rather than just one.

universal_wrath

karekiz wrote: »

Sinolai wrote: »

On the other hand this would kill my SorcTank I need Clannfear magicka heal and save staminas for block/roll.

True. Clannfear as a DPS portion is more roleplay/PvP oriented. I don't think it should remove a Tank core option for what will never actually be used anyway leading it into an entirely dead skill.

Remake Tormentor into a stamina morph please. Mag = imp / Stam = tormentor. It makes more sense in the end anyway.

Clannfear = Tank spec <Leave as is current patch with magic based heal. Its our Dragon blood heal>
Matriarch = Heal spec <Leave as is>
Imp = Mag DPS spec <Remove stun for PvE!!!!! You guys nerf it for PvP so might as well remove the stun that annoys tanks>
Tormentor <total rework> = Stamina spec

Each role now has a pet to use and fill in needed abilities to function.

Even with the new changes to clanfear to be better stam pet oriented. It is very weak and it's heal is HP based that only work on tank or 25k+ HP specs.

I think all summons should be adjusted. As such, winged twilight should be base skill for twilight mtraich and clanfear as both are healing skills. Unstable fimiliar should be base morph for volitile familiar and twilight tormentor or something else such as benkin or deadroth. That way, healer have their heals and tanks as well, and dd have their dd skills saperated making things easier to balance. Right now zos everytime nerfed dd skill because of tank skill and healer and vice versa.

preevious

karekiz wrote: »

Sinolai wrote: »

On the other hand this would kill my SorcTank I need Clannfear magicka heal and save staminas for block/roll.

True. Clannfear as a DPS portion is more roleplay/PvP oriented. I don't think it should remove a Tank core option for what will never actually be used anyway leading it into an entirely dead skill.

Remake Tormentor into a stamina morph please. Mag = imp / Stam = tormentor. It makes more sense in the end anyway.

Clannfear = Tank spec <Leave as is current patch with magic based heal. Its our Dragon blood heal>
Matriarch = Heal spec <Leave as is>
Imp = Mag DPS spec <Remove stun for PvE!!!!! You guys nerf it for PvP so might as well remove the stun that annoys tanks>
Tormentor <total rework> = Stamina spec

Each role now has a pet to use and fill in needed abilities to function.

No, that's just wrong .. mag petsorc DPS doesn't have a twilight, then? I couldn't care less about the heal matriarch.

Saril_Durzam

im just realizing pets at this game are worse than in most games ive played. But oh well, maybe id move them to different skins which could be "farmed" dominating/taming beings in overland, and give each kind of pet some skills, ala destro staff abilities depending on staff type.

eso_lytw8

LeoSzilard wrote: »

VaxtinTheWolf wrote: »

LeoSzilard wrote: »

Posted this elsewhere, but want to put it in the official sorc thread to improve the chance that devs see it...

The biggest problem that I have with Bound Armaments is that the damage is divided into separate ticks. The sum of the damage is superior to a spammable ability on paper; however, crit chance poses a very big problem. Consider a single source of damage with a 50% crit chance. The probability of that attack being a critical strike is 0.5^1=0.5 or 50%. For BA, the attack is split into four independent damage sources. With a 50% crit chance, the probability of ALL of the BA daggers being a critical strike is 0.5^4=0.0625 or 6.25%. This is especially problematic in PvP where big crits close kills.

Rapid Strikes, incidentally, suffers from a similar problem; however, Rapid Strikes is helped tremendously by the fact that the final tick of damage is so much higher than the other ticks. Thus, with respect to crit chance, it functions a little bit more like a single source of damage.

I do NOT think that buffing the damage of Bound Armaments is the answer. The fundamental problem is that the skill has too much volatility because of each hit being an independent event with respect to crit chance.

If each of the crit chance of each dagger were NOT independent, then I don't think that we would have a problem. That is, the daggers are taken as a set of damage where the crit chance of the entire set is equal to the player's Weapon Critical. In other words, if the first dagger is a critical strike, the others will also be critical strikes. Alternatively, if the skill dealt one tick of direct damage, the problem that I outlined wouldn't exist. But as long as the skill delivers multiple independent damage ticks, the skill will be hard to balance and players will either complain that the skill a) doesn't do enough damage, or b) does way too much damage if all of the daggers happen to crit.

Would you rather the activation of this ability just become a guaranteed critical, like the Two-Handed gap closer?

No absolutely not. That’s not what it means for probabilities to be dependent. Suppose that on paper sub assault and bound armaments have similar damage, provided you sum four ticks of damage from bound armaments. But how easy is it to critically modify that damage value? Let’s say we’re talking about 10k damage just for simplicity. Well for sub assault, you can get a crit damage modifier for that 10k damage based on your crit strike chance. If your crit chance is 50%, then you have a 50% chance to get a crit damage modifier on the 10k damage.

For bound armaments, to apply your crit damage modifier to the 10k damage, you need to crit four times because the skill does four ticks of damage. So you have a 6.25% chance to get your crit modifier on 10k damage with bound armaments.

The point I was making is that the skill offers much more damage volatility than skills that deal single instances of damage.

This is true, but what you get is a skill that has much more predictable hit with lower chance of the damage being really high or really low. You can still get all crits or conversely all non crits its just less likely. What you will tend to get say 3 creates fairly often so the damage will be much more dependable. Not saying you want this but it could be seen as preferably to either getting a total crit or no crit at all.

Regardless it is a fair distinction you bring up.

LeoSzilard

eso_lytw8 wrote: »

LeoSzilard wrote: »

VaxtinTheWolf wrote: »

LeoSzilard wrote: »

Posted this elsewhere, but want to put it in the official sorc thread to improve the chance that devs see it...

The biggest problem that I have with Bound Armaments is that the damage is divided into separate ticks. The sum of the damage is superior to a spammable ability on paper; however, crit chance poses a very big problem. Consider a single source of damage with a 50% crit chance. The probability of that attack being a critical strike is 0.5^1=0.5 or 50%. For BA, the attack is split into four independent damage sources. With a 50% crit chance, the probability of ALL of the BA daggers being a critical strike is 0.5^4=0.0625 or 6.25%. This is especially problematic in PvP where big crits close kills.

Rapid Strikes, incidentally, suffers from a similar problem; however, Rapid Strikes is helped tremendously by the fact that the final tick of damage is so much higher than the other ticks. Thus, with respect to crit chance, it functions a little bit more like a single source of damage.

I do NOT think that buffing the damage of Bound Armaments is the answer. The fundamental problem is that the skill has too much volatility because of each hit being an independent event with respect to crit chance.

If each of the crit chance of each dagger were NOT independent, then I don't think that we would have a problem. That is, the daggers are taken as a set of damage where the crit chance of the entire set is equal to the player's Weapon Critical. In other words, if the first dagger is a critical strike, the others will also be critical strikes. Alternatively, if the skill dealt one tick of direct damage, the problem that I outlined wouldn't exist. But as long as the skill delivers multiple independent damage ticks, the skill will be hard to balance and players will either complain that the skill a) doesn't do enough damage, or b) does way too much damage if all of the daggers happen to crit.

Would you rather the activation of this ability just become a guaranteed critical, like the Two-Handed gap closer?

No absolutely not. That’s not what it means for probabilities to be dependent. Suppose that on paper sub assault and bound armaments have similar damage, provided you sum four ticks of damage from bound armaments. But how easy is it to critically modify that damage value? Let’s say we’re talking about 10k damage just for simplicity. Well for sub assault, you can get a crit damage modifier for that 10k damage based on your crit strike chance. If your crit chance is 50%, then you have a 50% chance to get a crit damage modifier on the 10k damage.

For bound armaments, to apply your crit damage modifier to the 10k damage, you need to crit four times because the skill does four ticks of damage. So you have a 6.25% chance to get your crit modifier on 10k damage with bound armaments.

The point I was making is that the skill offers much more damage volatility than skills that deal single instances of damage.

This is true, but what you get is a skill that has much more predictable hit with lower chance of the damage being really high or really low. You can still get all crits or conversely all non crits its just less likely. What you will tend to get say 3 creates fairly often so the damage will be much more dependable. Not saying you want this but it could be seen as preferably to either getting a total crit or no crit at all.

Regardless it is a fair distinction you bring up.

I agree with you. In PvE or target dummy testing, it’s easy to look at how the skill stacks up to other skills over the long term. But in PvP I think the fact that there can be so much variation in damage output with respect to critical strikes may be problematic.

Arandear

So after testing I must agree with the majority of comments in here regarding Bound Armaments. The damage is definitely a little low, it could do with just a slight buff in terms of damage, other than that it's an awesome concept of a skill.

LeoSzilard

In other news, can we talk about streak and ball of lightning? I'm 90% sure that the changes were made to fix the "streak bug". As a result, targeting is really rough. But, if the targeting change is needed to fix the streak bug, then fine. BUT, the cone AoE for streak is bad. Was that really the only solution? If you want to use streak it as a offensive gap-closer, then RIP because it doesn't stun anything at your target location; however, BOL does. That doesn't make any sense as BOL is the defensive morph. Why doesn't BOL stun at your origin, as it used to? That made much more sense.

In my opinion, streak is now a throwaway skill. BOL, on the other hand, is pretty overloaded. First, it will function better than streak as an offensive gap-closer because it stuns at your target location. Second, BOL absorbs spell projectiles for 3 seconds. Third, it grants snare immunity. I don't see how streak or any morph of the skill needs to provide snare immunity as it's already a mobility skill. Mag sorcs can already use it so effectively to break distance. The added snare immunity will help stam sorcs run away, but that's basically it. In short, it feels like a set of skills with an identity crisis.

I think that the devs must have been thinking about the PTS version of streak as an offensive move for mag sorc: fury > curse > meteor > streak combo. I suspect they were trying to nerf how easy it is to pull off that streak stun. But for stam sorcs, losing the stun at the target location really hurts.

Have others tested it? Any other opinions? I think the skill has some pretty fundamental design problems, but I haven't really seen much about it on the forums and I think it needs to be discussed otherwise a skill with a bad design will make it to the live server.

Bergzorn

LeoSzilard wrote: »

Have others tested it? Any other opinions? I think the skill has some pretty fundamental design problems, but I haven't really seen much about it on the forums and I think it needs to be discussed otherwise a skill with a bad design will make it to the live server.

The skill on PTS has design problems, the live version is fine. Very strong and iconic, but fine (besides the bug).

Since the Devs aren't idiots, they are well aware that BoL outperforms Streak. They are shaking things up again just to shake things up. At least the changed Streak geometry looks ok on paper and just lacks in practice, but BoL stun change is so counter-intuitive and unproductive, they must be trolling us again.

IMO, if Streak area has to be a cone, they should extent the tip of the cone to 22 meters from the starting position (while keeping travel distance as is), adjusting the cone opening angle to 35° or 30° if needed.

ExistingRug61

Class identity wise, while I like the theme of the new Bound Armaments, the actual playstyle of it feels too close to what nightblades have with Grim Focus.

Could its proc condition be changed to be something more like crystal frags, an iconic (mag)sorcerer skill?
Maybe something like it will build a stack whenever you deal damage with any other stamina skill, with somewhere between a half second and one second cooldown. A side benefit would be that this would also allow it to synergise with Stamsorcs' iconic hurricane.

Also, if it could get to max damage faster it could almost get to the point where Stamsorcs could use it instead of a spammable, as long as the player always has other skills to rotate through and reliably build stacks between Bound Armaments procs.

Emma_Overload

LeoSzilard wrote: »

In other news, can we talk about streak and ball of lightning? I'm 90% sure that the changes were made to fix the "streak bug". As a result, targeting is really rough. But, if the targeting change is needed to fix the streak bug, then fine. BUT, the cone AoE for streak is bad. Was that really the only solution? If you want to use streak it as a offensive gap-closer, then RIP because it doesn't stun anything at your target location; however, BOL does. That doesn't make any sense as BOL is the defensive morph. Why doesn't BOL stun at your origin, as it used to? That made much more sense.

In my opinion, streak is now a throwaway skill. BOL, on the other hand, is pretty overloaded. First, it will function better than streak as an offensive gap-closer because it stuns at your target location. Second, BOL absorbs spell projectiles for 3 seconds. Third, it grants snare immunity. I don't see how streak or any morph of the skill needs to provide snare immunity as it's already a mobility skill. Mag sorcs can already use it so effectively to break distance. The added snare immunity will help stam sorcs run away, but that's basically it. In short, it feels like a set of skills with an identity crisis.

I think that the devs must have been thinking about the PTS version of streak as an offensive move for mag sorc: fury > curse > meteor > streak combo. I suspect they were trying to nerf how easy it is to pull off that streak stun. But for stam sorcs, losing the stun at the target location really hurts.

Have others tested it? Any other opinions? I think the skill has some pretty fundamental design problems, but I haven't really seen much about it on the forums and I think it needs to be discussed otherwise a skill with a bad design will make it to the live server.

I like the new BoL, but the new Streak sucks. They should revert the dumb cone thing or add some other useful effect.

I think the snare removal on BoL is fine. Mag sorcs could really use this, because neither morph is that great for escaping on the current patch.

Urvoth

universal_wrath wrote: »

Urvoth 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).

Who cares about sorc tanks? If you’re tanking on sorc, you’re doing it wrong anyways.

I could say same thing about people who care about pet sorcs and stam sorcs since necro and wardes arein the game. You simply cannot ignore a whole sub class and hope for balance.

Ignoring useless subclasses is exactly how you get balance. There’s no reason to run a sorc tank, but stamsorcs have plenty of viablity. Pets may as well be deleted.

Elwendryll

Urvoth wrote: »

Ignoring useless subclasses is exactly how you get balance. There’s no reason to run a sorc tank, but stamsorcs have plenty of viablity. Pets may as well be deleted.

I strongly disagree. I played stamsorc since Tamriel Unlimited in 2015, and back then, there was pretty much nothing for stamina, hurricane came with dark brotherhood.

Stamsorc was an "useless subclass", they made it viable. Are you saying they should just have ignored it?

Svidrir

Anyway, everyone is a wizard in this game, everyone uses (even very little amount) of magic

crazywolfpusher

I cant be the only one who believes Overload needs a rework. And since stam sorc also needs a cheap ultimate i bring a simple proposal...

A huge lightning from your hands that deals instant damage and every oponent after the first take less damage... the typical lightning chain.

Mag version


Stam version