Honest Classes: Sorcerer Edition

GrumpyDuckling

In-Game Description: “Sorcerers can use conjuration and destruction spells to hurl lightning bolts and create shock fields, wield dark magic to snare and stun, and summon Daedric combat followers from Oblivion to assist them.”

Honest Description: “Welcome to the OG pet class, where you get to summon permanent purple monsters that look like a little monkey or a little raptor, and a bat-lady. Make space, as the prolonged presence of these summons is contingent upon your consent to occupy 4 out of your 10 available skill slots. Whether you decide to roll with Familiar/Clannfear and Twilight, or not, be prepared to be entirely underwhelmed with the rest of the skill line. Summon a stationary Storm Atronach as your ultimate -- the apparent lone survivor of the holy trinity of elemental atronachs that we are accustomed to summoning in Elder Scrolls games -- and weep after Google searching ‘ESO Spell Crafting’ only to realize we were supposed to have access to more…
Ignore the cooler Daedra that exist in the game that would have been more fun to summon -- like, a Daedroth that is exclusively trapped inside a helmet (Maw of the Infernal), a Spider that spits venom and would be an obvious ranged stamina morph of the Twilight, an Air Atronach that would be a far too obvious stamina morph of the Storm Atronach, and the Daedric Titan, which looks way too cool to ever be summoned by an elf wielding a stick.
Instead, you get a curse skill that isn’t really even that much of a Daedric Summon, a shield that isn’t even really that much of a Daedric Summon, and armor that is… well technically it’s Daedric armor, so I guess it counts as a summon. Or, you could always morph your armor into conjured daggers that operate in a way that is dangerously similar, borderline copyright infringement, to the Nightblade skill Grim Focus.
Is the the Daedric Summoning skill line not your cup of tea? Then go ahead and pour out two passives in Rebate and Daedric Protection that will be entirely useless to you. Cheers.

Lock and load a Dark Magic skill line that basically wants to be a FPS war game -- it contains both Mines and Frags (in a fantasy game!) that you can use in combat against your opponents. Don’t forget to ask on the forums for a stamina morph of Frags because no one has ever asked for one...
Encase your enemies and stick them in a Rune Prison if you want to briefly pretend you are a prison guard, and make shady Dark Exchanges to barter for more resources. Don’t forget your all important Negate ultimate, an essential tool for ball-group-on-ball-group war crimes in Cyrodiil -- just be sure to listen to whoever has the crown because they know best, and your failure to follow their Negate directions always means that it is your fault that the whole ball-group got wiped.

Ah, Storm Calling.
The lightning skill line that contains the only element that a Sorcerer is apparently capable of mastering. Surround yourself in lightning to bolster your defense, critical hit with lightning to heal yourself, travel as lightning to cover ground, toss lightning around to damage enemies, and call down a burst of lightning that finishes weak foes and makes everyone in Battlegrounds hate you and spam your inbox.
Ah, Storm Calling.
The skill line with the ultimate that used to grant you a third line of abilities, pumping your total skill slots up to 15 and making you feel a whole lot better about slotting both Winston and Genevieve (the names of my Familiar and Twilight, respectively) into your life.
Ah, Storm Calling.”

Sorcerer Class: The Elder Scrolls Online
“Play the way you want.”

Valykc

Beautiful, well done yet again! 😂

Noxavian

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

In-Game Description: “Sorcerers can use conjuration and destruction spells to hurl lightning bolts and create shock fields, wield dark magic to snare and stun, and summon Daedric combat followers from Oblivion to assist them.”

Honest Description: “Welcome to the OG pet class, where you get to summon permanent purple monsters that look like a little monkey or a little raptor, and a bat-lady. Make space, as the prolonged presence of these summons is contingent upon your consent to occupy 4 out of your 10 available skill slots. Whether you decide to roll with Familiar/Clannfear and Twilight, or not, be prepared to be entirely underwhelmed with the rest of the skill line. Summon a stationary Storm Atronach as your ultimate -- the apparent lone survivor of the holy trinity of elemental atronachs that we are accustomed to summoning in Elder Scrolls games -- and weep after Google searching ‘ESO Spell Crafting’ only to realize we were supposed to have access to more…
Ignore the cooler Daedra that exist in the game that would have been more fun to summon -- like, a Daedroth that is exclusively trapped inside a helmet (Maw of the Infernal), a Spider that spits venom and would be an obvious ranged stamina morph of the Twilight, an Air Atronach that would be a far too obvious stamina morph of the Storm Atronach, and the Daedric Titan, which looks way too cool to ever be summoned by an elf wielding a stick.
Instead, you get a curse skill that isn’t really even that much of a Daedric Summon, a shield that isn’t even really that much of a Daedric Summon, and armor that is… well technically it’s Daedric armor, so I guess it counts as a summon. Or, you could always morph your armor into conjured daggers that operate in a way that is dangerously similar, borderline copyright infringement, to the Nightblade skill Grim Focus.
Is the the Daedric Summoning skill line not your cup of tea? Then go ahead and pour out two passives in Rebate and Daedric Protection that will be entirely useless to you. Cheers.

Lock and load a Dark Magic skill line that basically wants to be a FPS war game -- it contains both Mines and Frags (in a fantasy game!) that you can use in combat against your opponents. Don’t forget to ask on the forums for a stamina morph of Frags because no one has ever asked for one...
Encase your enemies and stick them in a Rune Prison if you want to briefly pretend you are a prison guard, and make shady Dark Exchanges to barter for more resources. Don’t forget your all important Negate ultimate, an essential tool for ball-group-on-ball-group war crimes in Cyrodiil -- just be sure to listen to whoever has the crown because they know best, and your failure to follow their Negate directions always means that it is your fault that the whole ball-group got wiped.

Ah, Storm Calling.
The lightning skill line that contains the only element that a Sorcerer is apparently capable of mastering. Surround yourself in lightning to bolster your defense, critical hit with lightning to heal yourself, travel as lightning to cover ground, toss lightning around to damage enemies, and call down a burst of lightning that finishes weak foes and makes everyone in Battlegrounds hate you and spam your inbox.
Ah, Storm Calling.
The skill line with the ultimate that used to grant you a third line of abilities, pumping your total skill slots up to 15 and making you feel a whole lot better about slotting both Winston and Genevieve (the names of my Familiar and Twilight, respectively) into your life.
Ah, Storm Calling.”

Sorcerer Class: The Elder Scrolls Online
“Play the way you want.”

So well done lol. Especially the part about daedric summoning.

Always found it funny how out of all of the daedra in the game, we're seemingly stuck with summoning the most basic, boring, bland ones....

Olupajmibanan

Noxavian wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

In-Game Description: “Sorcerers can use conjuration and destruction spells to hurl lightning bolts and create shock fields, wield dark magic to snare and stun, and summon Daedric combat followers from Oblivion to assist them.”

Honest Description: “Welcome to the OG pet class, where you get to summon permanent purple monsters that look like a little monkey or a little raptor, and a bat-lady. Make space, as the prolonged presence of these summons is contingent upon your consent to occupy 4 out of your 10 available skill slots. Whether you decide to roll with Familiar/Clannfear and Twilight, or not, be prepared to be entirely underwhelmed with the rest of the skill line. Summon a stationary Storm Atronach as your ultimate -- the apparent lone survivor of the holy trinity of elemental atronachs that we are accustomed to summoning in Elder Scrolls games -- and weep after Google searching ‘ESO Spell Crafting’ only to realize we were supposed to have access to more…
Ignore the cooler Daedra that exist in the game that would have been more fun to summon -- like, a Daedroth that is exclusively trapped inside a helmet (Maw of the Infernal), a Spider that spits venom and would be an obvious ranged stamina morph of the Twilight, an Air Atronach that would be a far too obvious stamina morph of the Storm Atronach, and the Daedric Titan, which looks way too cool to ever be summoned by an elf wielding a stick.
Instead, you get a curse skill that isn’t really even that much of a Daedric Summon, a shield that isn’t even really that much of a Daedric Summon, and armor that is… well technically it’s Daedric armor, so I guess it counts as a summon. Or, you could always morph your armor into conjured daggers that operate in a way that is dangerously similar, borderline copyright infringement, to the Nightblade skill Grim Focus.
Is the the Daedric Summoning skill line not your cup of tea? Then go ahead and pour out two passives in Rebate and Daedric Protection that will be entirely useless to you. Cheers.

Lock and load a Dark Magic skill line that basically wants to be a FPS war game -- it contains both Mines and Frags (in a fantasy game!) that you can use in combat against your opponents. Don’t forget to ask on the forums for a stamina morph of Frags because no one has ever asked for one...
Encase your enemies and stick them in a Rune Prison if you want to briefly pretend you are a prison guard, and make shady Dark Exchanges to barter for more resources. Don’t forget your all important Negate ultimate, an essential tool for ball-group-on-ball-group war crimes in Cyrodiil -- just be sure to listen to whoever has the crown because they know best, and your failure to follow their Negate directions always means that it is your fault that the whole ball-group got wiped.

Ah, Storm Calling.
The lightning skill line that contains the only element that a Sorcerer is apparently capable of mastering. Surround yourself in lightning to bolster your defense, critical hit with lightning to heal yourself, travel as lightning to cover ground, toss lightning around to damage enemies, and call down a burst of lightning that finishes weak foes and makes everyone in Battlegrounds hate you and spam your inbox.
Ah, Storm Calling.
The skill line with the ultimate that used to grant you a third line of abilities, pumping your total skill slots up to 15 and making you feel a whole lot better about slotting both Winston and Genevieve (the names of my Familiar and Twilight, respectively) into your life.
Ah, Storm Calling.”

Sorcerer Class: The Elder Scrolls Online
“Play the way you want.”

So well done lol. Especially the part about daedric summoning.

Always found it funny how out of all of the daedra in the game, we're seemingly stuck with summoning the most basic, boring, bland ones....

Winged Twilights get the most hate because of their size. So would you really like to have Summon: Daedroth or Summon: Daedric Titan? Daedric Titan sounds much more cool than Winged Twilight, but crafting stations would disappear

Kel

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

Noxavian wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

In-Game Description: “Sorcerers can use conjuration and destruction spells to hurl lightning bolts and create shock fields, wield dark magic to snare and stun, and summon Daedric combat followers from Oblivion to assist them.”

Honest Description: “Welcome to the OG pet class, where you get to summon permanent purple monsters that look like a little monkey or a little raptor, and a bat-lady. Make space, as the prolonged presence of these summons is contingent upon your consent to occupy 4 out of your 10 available skill slots. Whether you decide to roll with Familiar/Clannfear and Twilight, or not, be prepared to be entirely underwhelmed with the rest of the skill line. Summon a stationary Storm Atronach as your ultimate -- the apparent lone survivor of the holy trinity of elemental atronachs that we are accustomed to summoning in Elder Scrolls games -- and weep after Google searching ‘ESO Spell Crafting’ only to realize we were supposed to have access to more…
Ignore the cooler Daedra that exist in the game that would have been more fun to summon -- like, a Daedroth that is exclusively trapped inside a helmet (Maw of the Infernal), a Spider that spits venom and would be an obvious ranged stamina morph of the Twilight, an Air Atronach that would be a far too obvious stamina morph of the Storm Atronach, and the Daedric Titan, which looks way too cool to ever be summoned by an elf wielding a stick.
Instead, you get a curse skill that isn’t really even that much of a Daedric Summon, a shield that isn’t even really that much of a Daedric Summon, and armor that is… well technically it’s Daedric armor, so I guess it counts as a summon. Or, you could always morph your armor into conjured daggers that operate in a way that is dangerously similar, borderline copyright infringement, to the Nightblade skill Grim Focus.
Is the the Daedric Summoning skill line not your cup of tea? Then go ahead and pour out two passives in Rebate and Daedric Protection that will be entirely useless to you. Cheers.

Lock and load a Dark Magic skill line that basically wants to be a FPS war game -- it contains both Mines and Frags (in a fantasy game!) that you can use in combat against your opponents. Don’t forget to ask on the forums for a stamina morph of Frags because no one has ever asked for one...
Encase your enemies and stick them in a Rune Prison if you want to briefly pretend you are a prison guard, and make shady Dark Exchanges to barter for more resources. Don’t forget your all important Negate ultimate, an essential tool for ball-group-on-ball-group war crimes in Cyrodiil -- just be sure to listen to whoever has the crown because they know best, and your failure to follow their Negate directions always means that it is your fault that the whole ball-group got wiped.

Ah, Storm Calling.
The lightning skill line that contains the only element that a Sorcerer is apparently capable of mastering. Surround yourself in lightning to bolster your defense, critical hit with lightning to heal yourself, travel as lightning to cover ground, toss lightning around to damage enemies, and call down a burst of lightning that finishes weak foes and makes everyone in Battlegrounds hate you and spam your inbox.
Ah, Storm Calling.
The skill line with the ultimate that used to grant you a third line of abilities, pumping your total skill slots up to 15 and making you feel a whole lot better about slotting both Winston and Genevieve (the names of my Familiar and Twilight, respectively) into your life.
Ah, Storm Calling.”

Sorcerer Class: The Elder Scrolls Online
“Play the way you want.”

So well done lol. Especially the part about daedric summoning.

Always found it funny how out of all of the daedra in the game, we're seemingly stuck with summoning the most basic, boring, bland ones....

Winged Twilights get the most hate because of their size. So would you really like to have Summon: Daedroth or Summon: Daedric Titan? Daedric Titan sounds much more cool than Winged Twilight, but crafting stations would disappear

Not if it was an ultimate...

daemonios

Be the butt of every nerf joke and have your skills gutted in the name of balance.

(only applies to Sorcs at launch)
Gimp yourself by dual-barring staves (the only magicka-oriented weapon in the game), denying yourself both the ability to use a third set and giving you less spell power than what you'd get by slotting two... magic swords? Wait, that can't be right... can it?

Kolzki

Cough... nerf sorcs... cough...

MasterSpatula

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

In-Game Description:
The skill line with the ultimate that used to grant you a third line of abilities, pumping your total skill slots up to 15 and making you feel a whole lot better about slotting both Winston and Genevieve (the names of my Familiar and Twilight, respectively) into your life.

*wistful sigh*

Paralyse

Can confirm OP's class description is honest.

Source: Magsorc main since Beta.

I will add that I have always loved being a Sorc (both with a Julianos/Necro/Willpower pet build and my current Julianos/Magnus/Willpower mystic build) but ZOS seems determined to ruin the class every time I really get into it.

The major nerf to Empowered Ward is still an unforgivable crime against the class IMO, and for awhile when pets were useless in group dungeons, that defeated most of the point of being a pet sorc build in the first place; combined with the bottom of the pack DPS, good luck getting invited to anything, ever.

I remember that at one time Sorcs could stam tank, sort of, and even heal (which got me through OG Molag Bal with resto staff) but it seems these days everyone in ESO would rather play anything but a Sorc.

Meteor is good Ulti (provided your target doesn't immediately run out of the AOE) but Greater Stormy is just sad. I roll fire and storm staves, so I should be able to summon a Flame Atronach, gosh dang it.

I weep every time I see a stamblade or magblade streak past me and one shot anything I've been trying to kill. I mourn my former ability to solo world bosses and grind pub dungeons and Craglorn without even a thought of death.

As Sorcerers we should be able to stand at range and use roots and stuns to nuke all the things from afar, but our DoT's are terrible (both class and Entropy) and even with proper kit Magicka regen and costs are horrendously bad for the "big nukes", making light attack weaving a must to maintain any sort of sustained DPS. At least Shock Ring is good AOE, for the few casts you can get in before you're OOM. It feels broken, and is broken, and constantly having to bar swap to maintain uptime on DOT's along with the stupid insistence that pets must take up two or four slots (one or two per bar) reminds me of playing a bad imitation of an Affliction Warlock when the class should instead feel like a Fire Mage, to use a WoW comparison.

As to Winged Twlight, it's fun having a giant pet in your face that manages to walk in front of you every time you're trying to loot or use anything. At least the Clannfear holds aggro...well, nope. Here comes a train of 20 mobs it facepulled for you right before it wanders off, gets stuck in terrain, or dies for no apparent reason.

FrancisCrawford

@Paralyse,

That sounds a LITTLE harsh to me. Public dungeons still feel easy on a sorcerer. Dungeon healing works pretty well too; I still prefer templars, but it's hard to think of something I've actually done on a templar that I couldn't do on a sorc too.

Toon_Raider

i blame PVP whiners for the sad state of sorcs

Paralyse

@FrancisCrawford you may be right; I can still solo pubs, it just takes twice as long as it used to.

@Toon_Raider I feel you are probably correct, as many Sorc controversies (bolt surge, keep/wall hacks, etc) seem to have directly resulted in nerfs that greatly affected PvE.

VaranisArano

Now I want Stam Frags for my stam sorc. It makes sense - you throw grenades, right? Throwing is clearly a stamina thing, right?

FrancisCrawford

Paralyse wrote: »

@FrancisCrawford you may be right; I can still solo pubs, it just takes twice as long as it used to.

Is that a sorcerer thing in particular, or is it because of the general nerf to AoE damage and sustain?

Paralyse

@VaranisArano that would make me consider rerolling as a stamsorc lol

@FrancisCrawford the reduction in Ward strength and duration results in a need to refresh it more frequently than its cooldown, resulting in large mana consumption. As a result, it makes it more complex to maintain Ward while bar swapping and keeping your DOT's applied. Nowadays I just use invis potions, and wait on Meteor to reset, then nuke everything with Meteor, Barrier and Shock Ring. Bosses are a bit more challenging sometimes with channelled casting and the need to maintain uptime while kiting/roll dodging, but still fairly doable as long as they don't summon adds you have to burn down (which eats mana quickly.)

FrancisCrawford

Paralyse wrote: »

@VaranisArano that would make me consider rerolling as a stamsorc lol

@FrancisCrawford the reduction in Ward strength and duration results in a need to refresh it more frequently than its cooldown, resulting in large mana consumption. As a result, it makes it more complex to maintain Ward while bar swapping and keeping your DOT's applied. Nowadays I just use invis potions, and wait on Meteor to reset, then nuke everything with Meteor, Barrier and Shock Ring. Bosses are a bit more challenging sometimes with channelled casting and the need to maintain uptime while kiting/roll dodging, but still fairly doable as long as they don't summon adds you have to burn down (which eats mana quickly.)

Got it.

Personally, when soloing public dungeons or duoing group dungeons, I just wade in and blast everything. I often cast the 10 second ward on cooldown or when it expires and heal with the Matriarch as needed. Now that Critical Surge is back, the health situation is even more comfortable. I lean to the Atronach as an ultimate so that I don't have to worry about bosses walking out of my AoEs, at least when I'm running Daedric Prey. My non-ultimate skills are usually a subset of:

• Volatile Familiar x2
• Twilight Matriarch x2
• Empowered (?) Ward
• Daedric Prey
• Critical Surge
• Wall/Blockade (whichever morph -- I lean to the long duration one, actually, so that it's available when I heal)
• Lightning Flood
• Crushing Shock/Force Pulse
• Frags
• (rarely) Endless Fury

Gear is the same I've always had -- some combination of Necropotence, Mother's Sorrow, occasionally Julianos (if I'm going light on pets/shields), occasionally Mad Tinkerer, plus Slimecraw or Maw of the Infernal or Valkyn Skoria, with traits and enchantments that I regarded as close to optimal a couple years ago.

NordSwordnBoard

Awesome. Can't wait for necromancer, that one is ripe for the pickin'

mayasunrising

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

@Paralyse,

That sounds a LITTLE harsh to me. Public dungeons still feel easy on a sorcerer. Dungeon healing works pretty well too; I still prefer templars, but it's hard to think of something I've actually done on a templar that I couldn't do on a sorc too.

I agree. I melt pretty much everything in public and - with few exceptions - solo dungeons. Can solo most world bosses, and can even toe to toe dragons for a bit. I also flip back and forth from DPS to Healer as needed and perform more than adequately as a healer.

I do agree with the OP's assessment of the skill lines though in that it would be nice if they were flavore to represent their names. Daedric summoning should primarily be focused on summoning uh...daedra, and more variety of them. and it would be super nice if we had some sort of actual pet control bar. As it is, the only skill i really use off that line is curse. I'm just not willing to waste 2/4 slots to summon a lack luster pet.

L_Nici

Poor Stamsorc, people act like it wouldn't exist.

Loves_guars

This is great, you should make videos with the narration