Additional Burst for Stamina Sorcerer

Avandi

Nearly every stamina class has additional burst potential:

• Templar - Power of the Light
• Warden - Subterranean Assault
• Nightblade - Assassins Scourge
• Necromancer - Blast Bones
• Dragonknight - has multiple DoTs and also if you want the Flames of Oblivion to Time with (I know it is nothing in comparison to other abilities^^)
• Sorcerer - has basically nothing

I know people might say: "There is Bound Armaments". I tried a lot to make it work as an additional Burst to combine with Ults and stuff like that. Bound Armaments is not something you can precast and time like Power of the Light, Subterranean or Blast Bones. It kinda works like Assassins Scourge but way weaker. The damage of Bound Armaments is simply not enough to make it worth to run. Casting another spamable or execute is way more damage most of the time.

My ideas around that topic are change bound armaments into one projectile instead of multiple projectiles that can all dodged by one dodgeroll and make it hit harder. Another idea would be leave the multiple projectiles as they are, make them hit a bit harder, but not each dagger after 0.3 sec make it about a dagger in 1 or 1.5 sec or something like that so you can time stuff afterwards. Another idea would be redesign a curse morph (haunting curse or daedric prey). I mean all the active abilities are made only for magicka so would be just fair to give stamsorc some more class abilities. A stamina curse morph is what i like to see in game to give stamina sorcerer a bit more but spaming dizzy multiple times.

L_Nici

I agree, that there is no class burst, most Stamsorcs are forced to take the Weapon abillities for an effective Burst.

I actually only use 4 Sorc Abillities at all on my Stamsorc, those being Critical Surge, Hurricane, Bound Armaments and on the backbar the Attro as ultimate. As you can see none of those are a Damage attack, its just buffs and one ultimate.

2 of those I only put in because of lack of better options, Surge since Momentum lost its heal over time and Armaments since the only reliable Burst attack Dizzying Swing lost its stun which is why I switched to Wrecking Blow. The Armaments and Wrecking Blow add up to 50% additional damage on the light attack after the Blow, which I use to cancel into the Reverse Slice.

kalunte

have you ever heard about "bound armament" which is the same skill as assassin's scourge but stacks faster and gives 2 absurdly powerfull passives?

Brrrofski

kalunte wrote: »

have you ever heard about "bound armament" which is the same skill as assassin's scourge but stacks faster and gives 2 absurdly powerfull passives?

Yet hits like a wet flannel in PvP. Even with 6k weapon damage.

L_Nici

@kalunte Bound Armaments deals absolutely no damage against non NPCs. Its not even close to any burst, I deal with one reverse Slice three times the damage of those stupid daggers combined, without having the enemy in low HP. Just do one dodgerole and all 4 will miss the target, they are neither reliable nor good.

Also no one denies the passives. They are between average and good, but this post is about a missing Classburst for Stamsorcs.

JobooAGS

L_Nici wrote: »

@kalunte Bound Armaments deals absolutely no damage against non NPCs. Its not even close to any burst, I deal with one reverse Slice three times the damage of those stupid daggers combined, without having the enemy in low HP.

Also no one denies the passives. They are between average and good, but this post is about a missing Classburst for Stamsorcs.

Video or screenshot?

SodanTok

JobooAGS wrote: »

L_Nici wrote: »

@kalunte Bound Armaments deals absolutely no damage against non NPCs. Its not even close to any burst, I deal with one reverse Slice three times the damage of those stupid daggers combined, without having the enemy in low HP.

Also no one denies the passives. They are between average and good, but this post is about a missing Classburst for Stamsorcs.

Video or screenshot?

^ I want to see those reverse slices dealing triple damage of BA to high HP target too

EtTuBrutus

Burst its not meant to be the overwhelming strength of stam sorc. Survivability and mobility are. Different classes are different. It's a good thing.

mav1234

They should reduce Bound Armament's damage delay, as that would help its burst potential. The base damage is not too far off from other burst skills named here at all, but the delay and the nature of how the damage is delivered makes it easy to avoid.

MashmalloMan

mav1234 wrote: »

They should reduce Bound Armament's damage delay, as that would help its burst potential. The base damage is not too far off from other burst skills named here at all, but the delay and the nature of how the damage is delivered makes it easy to avoid.

I'm not sure removing the delay would help with the issue OP brings up. Delayed burst is so strong because you can line it up with other attacks. Look at mag sorcs that have incredible delayed burst. You can line up Mages Fury for when they hit 20% health (5s), curse (3.5s), frags (travel time) and lastly a spammable or ultimate, meteror (2s) usually secured by a streak.

Bound Armaments can work in a similar fashion, all the daggers hitting at once would help for starters. There is just something missing about the abilitiy. It really only feels good to use in pve as a damage supplement to a spammable, especially for sustain purposes. I usually don't get much use out of it anytime I try to line it up in pvp. Very easy to dodge most of the daggers.

The delay seems to be there because ZOS was aware the ability should fit a delayed burst archetype. It doesn't do it very well currently.

EtTuBrutus wrote: »

Burst its not meant to be the overwhelming strength of stam sorc. Survivability and mobility are. Different classes are different. It's a good thing.

Says who? You? They wouldn't of made the ability have similar mechanics and damage as Assassins Scourge if they didn't want it to fit a similar burst archetype. Just because they lack class identity and have for years, doesn't mean they can't have this tool in their kit work more reliably. I do not consider this ability as final, more of a prototype in the growing effort to reinforce class identity. ZOS seems to have taken a break this update, but I'm hoping they revisit it with U26. The only major change they made was DK's Stone Fist and they made it clear the last patch that they weren't done with it.

Lets not let ZOS think Stam Sorcs are in a good place for class identity. It's bad enough they were just slapped in the face with Aegis Caller, when the community has been largely on board for an Air Atro morph. Still excited to use the set because I'll take what I get to make my Stam Sorc feel more unique.

What I'd like changed... Any physical/stamina based ultimate. Bound Armaments should have it's light attack/stamina passive moved to the daedric tree or have it be granted via the active portion of the ability. This will help stam sorcs free up a back bar slot that is largely dead just to get the passives. If something needs to change because the skill is overloaded, so be it, but I don't like having to double bar something just for passives. It's a big fat MEH and a huge bandaid because Stam Sorcs lack damage abilitities to use.

ElvenVeil

EtTuBrutus wrote: »

Burst its not meant to be the overwhelming strength of stam sorc. Survivability and mobility are. Different classes are different. It's a good thing.

no it's not a good thing. It has strengths such as mobility and dark deal, but lacking damage is a big problem. Stamsorc is the least tanky class in the game, and combined with the worst damage option in the tool kit it is starting to be a bit lack luster. Because sorc has nothing in the toolkit other than hurricane to help defeat enemies, it relies almost entirely on weapon skill lines and zos has nerfed those a lot. If the big dizzy nerf in the patch notes go through, stamsorc will just be a dead class unless you want to be a snipe spammer, and that is pretty far from how people have enjoyed and imagined their stamsorcs in the past.

So yes stamsorcs should get some more tools, because right now it is walking a fine line between being passable and completely dead. Being able to move doesn't matter if that's the only thing your char can do

TheUndeadAmulet

Hear hear, a lack of burst really hurts what would otherwise be a fine class. When I get burst down by someone in bg's I'm always wondering "why can't I have that?"

Crixus8000

kalunte wrote: »

have you ever heard about "bound armament" which is the same skill as assassin's scourge but stacks faster and gives 2 absurdly powerfull passives?

The damage is terrible in pvp and doesn't work into a burst combo. Any good stamsorc will tell you it is not worth using. And yes the passives are good but they don't solve the issue. I would glady trade the passives if it meant the activated skill actually useful and helping to secure kills.

EtTuBrutus wrote: »

Burst its not meant to be the overwhelming strength of stam sorc. Survivability and mobility are. Different classes are different. It's a good thing.

Most players see stamsorc as a fast, aggressive damage class, yet it has no damage in the kit apart from hurricane and because our damage lacks it often means we need to overextend to get the kill and that is a huge issue since stamsorc is the squishest class in the game.

Since stamsorc has no spammable or damage skill in it's kit most players use dizzy swing, yet that is getting a huge nerf next patch that will make it terrible, meaning stamsorc will have no good options to deal damage.

MincVinyl

I still think the new bound armaments is trash, and a sorry excuse for "class identity" as zos calls it. I'm sorry but doing 4 or 5 light attacks for a proc is not unique or fun in any way. At least with nightblade it is a near one shot, but even so nb has been stuck playing a boring light attack minigame for years now instead of lining up and timing combos.

If zos really wanted to push class identity with bound armaments or any other change to stamsorc, they would lean into the highly mobile hard hitting idea that has always been the focus of stamsorc. Maybe instead of hurricane building up with the time, it builds up all of your damage.(this is not only a buff for the stamsorc, but gives counter play options for both sides). Maybe instead of a silly light attack proc minigame something gets added for mobility like bound armaments gives snare immunity, or a burst of major expedition. Tbh the block mit from before was even better.

There could be a stam pet curse, but even then I feel like you guys are asking for the wrong things. Like dk asking for stam whip, at that point you are trying to make stamsorc the same as magsorc, when it plays differently.

More could be done along the lines of ultimates for starters. Overload barely works, but i would only use it if I didn't care to get banned. Atro is really not an option for stamsorc since it doesn't move with you, and at that point you can run dbos or 2hult. Negate really comes into use for utility during large group play, but even then why would you have a class who pretty much can run 3 damage sets, sustain and tank fine, run a utility ult instead of damage. So out of the 3 ultimates we have available, one will probs get you banned and the other two do not play into a mobile damage dealer playstyle at all.

MashmalloMan

MincVinyl wrote: »

I still think the new bound armaments is trash, and a sorry excuse for "class identity" as zos calls it. I'm sorry but doing 4 or 5 light attacks for a proc is not unique or fun in any way. At least with nightblade it is a near one shot, but even so nb has been stuck playing a boring light attack minigame for years now instead of lining up and timing combos.

If zos really wanted to push class identity with bound armaments or any other change to stamsorc, they would lean into the highly mobile hard hitting idea that has always been the focus of stamsorc. Maybe instead of hurricane building up with the time, it builds up all of your damage.(this is not only a buff for the stamsorc, but gives counter play options for both sides). Maybe instead of a silly light attack proc minigame something gets added for mobility like bound armaments gives snare immunity, or a burst of major expedition. Tbh the block mit from before was even better.

There could be a stam pet curse, but even then I feel like you guys are asking for the wrong things. Like dk asking for stam whip, at that point you are trying to make stamsorc the same as magsorc, when it plays differently.

More could be done along the lines of ultimates for starters. Overload barely works, but i would only use it if I didn't care to get banned. Atro is really not an option for stamsorc since it doesn't move with you, and at that point you can run dbos or 2hult. Negate really comes into use for utility during large group play, but even then why would you have a class who pretty much can run 3 damage sets, sustain and tank fine, run a utility ult instead of damage. So out of the 3 ultimates we have available, one will probs get you banned and the other two do not play into a mobile damage dealer playstyle at all.

I think most stam sorc's weren't satisfied, but I don't think ZOS ever mentioned they were done either. Seems like they're just extremely slow.. I'm still holding out hope that U26 will really go bonkers with some additions.

The minigame is fine imo because it synergizes with the abilities passive and rewards skillful players who want to step up their rotations for better dps and sustain.. It's utility in pvp is the issue.

It would help to have a class based single target dot or spammable to compliment bound armaments. We are quite literally the only class without a spammable at this point along with Mag Sorc, but at least they have a class based execute, 1 dot/burst, another burst, 2 damage dealing pets, and finally 5 damage based ultimates. It's ridiculous how much Mag Sorc has in comparison. Why 5 ultimates, just why... Not to mention very unpopular morphs that ZOS doesn't want to touch for whatever reason.

Mages Wrath and Endless Fury could easily be combined, they do practically the same thing. We lost the excuse that we were missing a class execute because we had Implossion. The new passive reverse execute has been odd since it's introduction. At least back then, you could build yourself around dots to proc more implossions. Yes it was kinda cheap, but it was replaced with something much less interesting.

Curse morphs are different enough and serve 2 playstyles.

Crystal Frags is awesome, Crystal Blast is very rarely used, the only time I've seen it used is for stealth sorc bombers and I guarantee ZOS has statistics for this morphs pick rate.

Ultimates... This just baffles me.

Negate Magic, 1 for mag damage and other for healing. Both morphs make sense, however this is one of the lamest healing ultimates in the game and the ultimate only seems to be used in pvp. Mag healers are really lacking something here.

Summon Storm Atronach, if you've been paying attention, we see a partern here. Both morphs could be combined to make room for something new, they are really similar already. Most Mag Sorcs pick Greater, choosing less duration for the occasional aoe is pretty underwhelming.I haven't seen many Mag Sorcs up and arms about losing Charged Atro for an Air Atro physical damage morph. Either way, both morphs shouldn't do the SAME damage.

Overload, once a staple of a stam sorcs kit in pvp, ruined to take out the 3rd skill bar. Once again, both morphs do shock damage and both morphs could be combined to make room for a new morph.. I once mentioned it would be cool to have a physical damage morph act as an uppercut + gap closer. Fits the stam sorcs playstyle of being quick as a brawler by helping you glue to your targets.

The newest addition, Power Surge, is a CLEAR example of 2 morphs being combined into 1 to offer something unique for Healers and I greatly supported that change, even if I don't agree with the super awkward 3s cooldown. They did a similar thing with defining Streak and Ball of Lighting as distinctive morphs. We need this treatment elsewhere in the class. Sorc was clearly designed to be very magicka/spellcaster heavy from its inception, but it's been almost 6 years and that idea has been dropped for any class can play any role. Templars aren't only healers and DK's aren't only Tanks. Necro and Warden were designed pretty balanced for all roles for the most part.

I could keep picking the morphs a part, frankly there is a lot more, but the point is, it's not like there is no room for more abilities that favour Stam Sorc or even healer/tank for that matter. They opted to do Bound Armaments first and I'm happy with that since it was dead on our bars, but this can't be all we get.. There is a huge bias towards Mag Sorc in the class that you don't see as much in other classes. Sorc Tanks and Healers severely lack morphs as well.

Stam Sorc desperately needs a burst tool and Bound Armaments is so close, yet falls so flat.

MincVinyl

Idk, I would hate to see stamsorc fall into the state that magblade is in, where they pretty much only can compete if they play around a light attack proc. As it is stamsorc functions on its own, but if they pull some dumb *** and cut passives or damage elsewhere in the kit for a proc, stamsorc will probably fall inline with magblade.

As for the amplitude passive, that change was nice, since you could build into a bursty 1-2 shot build with dizzy onslaught(ult return) which was removed. Now on the pts there is a strange mechanic that is new, and it essentially is giving insane amounts of random mitigation if someone is burst within a gcd.(see Gottbeard's thread "call to test") So we will have to see if this hits live.

When it comes to my thoughts on adding a dot to stamsorc's kit, I honestly think it wouldn't be great. Something that is always been mobile with quick engagements into a fight and out of a fight will not pair well with having to apply multiple dots, (which again I find dot builds just as boring as proc builds). If anything gearing a stamsorc towards a dot build would push it more towards a stamdk, which i think would be better suited for a dot build anyways if you want a sit around and wait for dots to kill someone playstyle.

Faulgor

I will never understand why, in their effort to improve class identity, they borrowed a Nightblade skill to give a worse version to Sorcerers, instead of using a mechanic that's already unique to Sorcerers and rework Bound Armaments to proc like Crystal Fragments. That would have been better for class identity and burst.

TheUndeadAmulet

Faulgor wrote: »

I will never understand why, in their effort to improve class identity, they borrowed a Nightblade skill to give a worse version to Sorcerers, instead of using a mechanic that's already unique to Sorcerers and rework Bound Armaments to proc like Crystal Fragments. That would have been better for class identity and burst.

Why has no one thought of this yet.

MashmalloMan

TheUndeadAmulet wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

I will never understand why, in their effort to improve class identity, they borrowed a Nightblade skill to give a worse version to Sorcerers, instead of using a mechanic that's already unique to Sorcerers and rework Bound Armaments to proc like Crystal Fragments. That would have been better for class identity and burst.

Why has no one thought of this yet.

We have, we've suggested it before. I can't really think of anyone who suggested the current Bound Armaments. It's not gonna happen, if they brought in a 35% chance on stamina skills to get a burst ability, it would have to be on frags. You can't copy 1 mechanic over to a completely different ability. That's just odd and would work better as a new Frag morph or for dynamic scaling.

The only thing I remotely asked for close, was changing it to Bound Weapons and to make it an active ability, not sure how, but I wanted it to do something.

MashmalloMan

I made a hybrid pvp build on pts that doesn't use Penials Aptitude since we've got some pretty good sets that double dip stats, it made me think there may be no point to using that set. It was interesting to meld some Mag Sorc abilities with a Melee Stam Sorc setup and feel what it would be like to have some of those tools at our disposal if they scaled to stamina. I'd recommend Stam Sorc's to try it for sure.

Shacklebreaker (2H Sword Nirn front/jewelry)+ New Moons Acolylte (body)+ Slimecraw + BRP (DW Infused Daggers back, weapon damage + flame/poison/shock/diseased). 5 heavy, 1 light, 1 medium.

Jewelry, x3 Triune 1x stam regen, 1x mag regen, 1x weapon damage.

Bewitched Sugar Skulls food. Vampire at least stage 2. Dark Elf. Lover mundus stone.

Almost all of these options will give you stats that benefit both magicka/stamina setups, making Penials Aptitude not required. The only "downside is heavy" if you don't like that armor, but the passives work both ways and damage/sustain is good enough.

These were my bars. Frags + Curse feels great to use. I'm already using Streak on live. Defense and Speed is great. Only problem is trying to get Frags to Instant cast since you only use Curse and Streak as magicka abilities. You could swap frags for Endless Fury if you were more comfortable with it.



Anyway, debating making it on live, just don't feel like paying for a race change token, so I know it's gonna be a huge headache to complete. I wish stam sorcs played like this without having to use Hybrid Stats.

D3N7157

so ok boomer listen up, all you need on your stamsorc is two decent procsets like zaan or verlindreth coupled with plague slinger i use this setup on my stamsorc all the time and have no prolbems 1vX like a god gl stamsorc brother

Faulgor

MashmalloMan wrote: »

TheUndeadAmulet wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

I will never understand why, in their effort to improve class identity, they borrowed a Nightblade skill to give a worse version to Sorcerers, instead of using a mechanic that's already unique to Sorcerers and rework Bound Armaments to proc like Crystal Fragments. That would have been better for class identity and burst.

Why has no one thought of this yet.

We have, we've suggested it before. I can't really think of anyone who suggested the current Bound Armaments. It's not gonna happen, if they brought in a 35% chance on stamina skills to get a burst ability, it would have to be on frags. You can't copy 1 mechanic over to a completely different ability. That's just odd and would work better as a new Frag morph or for dynamic scaling.

The only thing I remotely asked for close, was changing it to Bound Weapons and to make it an active ability, not sure how, but I wanted it to do something.

To keep it thematically closer to Bound Armaments, I would have suggested that it doesn't proc on stam abilities, but on weapon abilities. Effectively not a big difference as those are Stamsorcs' most used stam abilities anyway, and makes more sense. Alternatively it could proc on light/heavy attacks, which would be similar but different to frags, although that might not be as useful for PvP.

But, as you said, we've suggested these things. I don't see why it would make an impact on ZOS now when it didn't before.

Davadin

Avandi wrote: »

Nearly every stamina class has additional burst potential:

• .....................
• Dragonknight - has multiple DoTs
• .............

lol

YandereGirlfriend

I started ESO as a stamSorc main in PvE and then PvP and quite enjoyed it until the recent (late summer-present) patch cycles.

Part of it was simply playing one class and "not realizing what I was missing" from the other classes, but a part of it also was the general blandness of the playstyle and that feeling, with the recent patches, that I was having to work twice as hard for everything versus my magSorc, magWarden, and now (especially!) my magPlar.

You have all the drawbacks of a melee class (e.g. having to take damage to do damage) with only a fraction of the native lethality and survivability of most other Stamina classes.

I hear people speak of "Hurricane" like it's an amazing damage skill, but its damage is that of a weak DoT that doesn't even have the luxury of being fire-and-forget.

Rather than Hurricane, it is Streak, to me, that is easily the best skill in the class for its unique mix of offensive/defensive utility and mobility. If anything happened to Streak, I would probably recycle my stamSorc and use the character slot for something else.

In any case, I don't want to further litigate the shortcomings of the class but even in those instances where I get the Onslaught, Wrecking, and Executioner combo, my first thought is that I could have done this on literally any other Stamina class in the game, which is a shame.

Elwendryll

I PvP with a stamsorc Bow/Bow build for BGs. Bound armaments DO hurt. It has a very important place in my burst combo. And I often finish kills with it. I'd say that Mechanical Acuity makes everything hit hard anyway, but still. It's a ranged instant cast, it's cheap, and it does decent damage. Not even talking about the passives.

Digiman

I agree with everything but the stamina morph for daedric curse because it is too penalizing for magicka sorcerer DPS, unless they made it so which ever highest damage stat you have at the time of casting.

Avandi

@Digiman sorry but I actually dont care about magicka sorcerer pve dps ^^. No offense but with that morph-system it should be like one magicka one stamina morph easy as it is on every skill.

React

I personally like bound armaments right now. The passives attached to the ability are really nice to have on stamsorc, as previously there was no way to access the health buff and the sustain is nice to have as well. I do agree that they're rather ineffective against dodging targets though. Personally I would like to see the daggers become undodgeable. They don't do a ridiculous amount of damage, and you're required to maintain your rotation w/light attacks to continuously use them. They could provide stamsorc with a viable way to pressure rolling targets, as the class is generally pigeon holed into using 2h front bar with dswing & executioner, relying solely on dodge able abilities .