How's your Stam Sorc?

Alucardo

I've always enjoyed stam sorc. There's just something about its raw power that drew me in. It's also arguably one of the most versatile of classes. Though upon returning to the game I obviously had to try out Necromancer. 20k blastbones with major defile, 10% free mitigation + HoT from Spirit Guardian, Major Protection on tap from siphoning corpses left behind from your skeleton bomb squad as well as a hefty free 10 ultimate, 2 optional spammables at your disposal (Flame Skull and Scythe).. I thought to myself, why would I play my stam sorc when I have this kind of kit on a Necromancer?
Crit Surge is a shadow of its former self, and barely even functional in no cp campaigns/battlegrounds. Apart from looking fancy and blowing any element of surprise, Hurricane is actually trash. Dark Deal was nerfed to return a bunch of your resources over 20 seconds, which made it worse. I don't know, I just look at its toolkit and ask myself why bother when there's better things out there. Granted Bound Armaments is looking a lot better than last time I saw it, though still feels a little weird to use. Sometimes when I'm at 4 shards and hit the button it just resets it.
I feel like stam sorc could benefit from some more utility, and 15 seconds is just not long enough for Hurricane.
Seriously, look at the other options:
- Bone Armor = 20s
- Restoring Focus = 17s and only 980 stamina cost, restores 240 stam/sec and boosts physical+spell pen by 50% when inside the rune
- Frost Cloak = 24s / AOE and minor protection available

I'm sorry, but Hurricane is just awful.

And that's how you turn a harmless question into a rant. Sorry about that.

ku5h

I've been playing stamSorc lately and i find it in ok spot. Don't get me wrong, it's no stamNecro, but still.

Crit surge actually got buffed not long ago.
Dark deal got changed, yes, but it's still very good sustain tool. Pre cast it, get that extra 240 stam rec going and then just recast it as needed. Also the heal it packs can be very helpful at times.
Hurricane is a great ability imo. Yea, the damage is trash, but it synergize great with Surge and you gain minor expediton which is a pretty rare buff.
Bound armaments is just trash, that's true.

Also switching from CP Cyro to noCP BGs i found out that you can be very viable with DW as your main, if you don't like Dizzy spam. Right now i'm running DW/Bow setup with high HP regen(4k+) and i'm loving it. Surge, Vigor, DW HoTs and HP regen will keep you alive, access to both minor and major expedition and Streak for unparalleled mobility and 5k+ WD for those big DobS smacks.

I like it.

Elwendryll

I've been playing almost exclusively a khajiit stamsorc for 5 years.

I play my character as DD and Tank in endgame scenario. As well as battlegrounds. The class had a lot of significant changes, but I really love it right now, and it has some very interesting perks that I wouldn't trade for anything. The versatility as you say, is what makes me love it the most. Great sustain, self heals, and solid damage. It's great as DD and Tanks, it just lacks group buffs

For PvP I tried a lot of things and I ended up playing Bow/Bow. And surprisingly, it has very good tools for that, I can't go back to melee now.

I also occasionally heal, but a bit irrelevant as I respec to magicka for that.

I will not go on everything I love about that class. It's very different from what it was, but I "grew" with my character and the changes were not too disruptive to me.

I would say that right now I enjoy playing it more than ever.

Alucardo wrote: »

Granted Bound Armaments is looking a lot better than last time I saw it, though still feels a little weird to use. Sometimes when I'm at 4 shards and hit the button it just resets it.

Oh. Sometimes for some reason my timer shows a few seconds left but actually it ran out. And you keep your charges for 10 seconds even if the skill ran out. So you end up re-applying it instead of casting the damage ability.

Faulgor

Invisible most of the time, due to Hurricane's horrible visual effect. I play stam sorc only 10% of the time I'd like just because of this issue.

I'm also still disappointed we got a copy of Merciless Resolve with Bound Armaments, a mechanic I already hate on NB, instead of a unique (skill) identity.

Alucardo

ku5h wrote: »

I've been playing stamSorc lately and i find it in ok spot. Don't get me wrong, it's no stamNecro, but still.

Crit surge actually got buffed not long ago.
Dark deal got changed, yes, but it's still very good sustain tool. Pre cast it, get that extra 240 stam rec going and then just recast it as needed. Also the heal it packs can be very helpful at times.
Hurricane is a great ability imo. Yea, the damage is trash, but it synergize great with Surge and you gain minor expediton which is a pretty rare buff.
Bound armaments is just trash, that's true.

Also switching from CP Cyro to noCP BGs i found out that you can be very viable with DW as your main, if you don't like Dizzy spam. Right now i'm running DW/Bow setup with high HP regen(4k+) and i'm loving it. Surge, Vigor, DW HoTs and HP regen will keep you alive, access to both minor and major expedition and Streak for unparalleled mobility and 5k+ WD for those big DobS smacks.

I like it.

I think the problem I'm having in no-CP is, to get the full effect of crit surge you really need decent crit, but to get that I need to sacrifice a lot of armor, and right now mag sorcs are melting me in IC. On Necro they don't really phase me at all. They're either too busy running from my blastbones or can't break the mitigation that necro offers. I'm just not having a really good time. Even with surge up, blood craze, bloodthirst and vigor there's no stopping the bombard of frags. Perhaps I need to change my build up.

Elwendryll wrote: »

Oh. Sometimes for some reason my timer shows a few seconds left but actually it ran out. And you keep your charges for 10 seconds even if the skill ran out. So you end up re-applying it instead of casting the damage ability.

Aha, maybe that's what's happening. Thanks for the info! I'll try and cast it once the four shards pops up instead of holding onto it.. but that just shows how clunky the ability is. Still, good to know.

Knightpanther

My Stam Sorcerer is in a great place atm, My finger waggler is not so good.

Be safe

FierceSam

Faulgor wrote: »

Invisible most of the time, due to Hurricane's horrible visual effect. I play stam sorc only 10% of the time I'd like just because of this issue.

I'm also still disappointed we got a copy of Merciless Resolve with Bound Armaments, a mechanic I already hate on NB, instead of a unique (skill) identity.

Agree 100%. I like my Sorc, he’s my main, but boy is the class hard to love. In part because of these issues.

Hurricane is fundamentally unusable in dungeons and trials... I have no idea where my character is or what they’re doing in amid the visual cacophony of effects... am I in that AoE, outside it or somewhere else entirely.? I have no time for a skill that actively impedes my ability to actually do things.

It’s not the skill itself that is rubbish, it’s the fact you cannot see yourself. I hate the fact that when I am in stealth (and technically invisible) I’m way more visible to me than I ever am using this ridiculous effect ....

And agree about Bound Armaments.. I think the idea behind it is great (if you’re a nightblade) but it really adds no new distinctive identity to the Sorc class - the whole “well you can fire it off any time while the nightblade has to wait until it’s fully charged” argument provides no real distinction... It’s almost as if they took the line of least effort and simply patched the skill from the nightblade line with a tiny little tweak.

Change these two elements and Sorcs will be way more enjoyable to play

L_Nici

Stamsorc is average at best and was average at best since years. That basically meant also that Stamsorcs rarely got strong nerfs but neither buffs and were able to preserve mostly the same style.

But you can also say that Stamsorcs class identity itself is garbage, most class abillities for Sorcs that make a Sorc a Sorc are Magicka, which forces you to use only weapon skills for offensive.
The biggest Nerf the Stamsorc had to take was the Nerf on D Swing loosing its stun, and it was the only reliable Stun available for a Stamsorc (Now it stuns again on the second hit but that is not really hepful. D Swing -> Heavy is faster).
Streak is great for ranged Magicka Sorcs, but as a Stamsorc you can only use it to escape and almost never offensive in a running battle, since you would need to aim very precise to stun the enemy and be able to follow up with Melee attacks. Which in the current state of the game is almost impossible since the enemy is almost never actually there where you see him and the slightest positioning error makes Streak worthless for you.

Playing Stamsorc feels amazing even though you can't deny that you are not able to compete with Necros or Templars right now in the slightest. Your advantage over them is your speed, which the templar shuts down with one hit (and if it is just the first of the 3) of Jabs, which is insanely easy to land since it is an AoE with ridiculous range and damage, not to mention the Toppling Charge that will guarantee you the Jabs hit and is still bugged that you get stunned in the second where he presses the button and can't break free till he has reached you. And the Necro just doesn't care about your speed he just tanks you out anyway.

Overall I enjoy playing my Stamsorc anyway, it is my main since 4 years and feels still like on the first day.

Alucardo

L_Nici wrote: »

The biggest Nerf the Stamsorc had to take was the Nerf on D Swing loosing its stun, and it was the only reliable Stun available for a Stamsorc (Now it stuns again on the second hit but that is not really hepful. D Swing -> Heavy is faster).

You're not wrong. One of the biggest drawbacks of stam sorc is how tied to the weapon tree it is. If an ability gets a nerf, then my stam sorc does too. An idea that I wouldn't hate is a "Weapon Master" passive. This adds a bonus to each of the weapon skills if you're a stam sorc. As an example, Dizzying could get its initial stun back, flurry could add an additional shock/physical damage on the last hit, Power Slam adds additional shock/physical damage (similar to jolting arms), etc.
That way, if they screw up the weapon abilities it can be rectified for stam sorcs within the passive.
Also for the love of god they need to do something about Hurricane. Make the visual a toggle (except the ring) so we can see our character if we want to and increase the duration to at least 20 seconds.

Karmanorway

Ive played stamsorc for 5 years and agree with everything written here.

Only reason im playing right now is because my business is locked down like the rest of the world, otherwise i wouldnt play eso at all simply just because my weaponsorc makes me depressed when i see all the good stuff the other classes have in comparison.

And the idea of grinding out the last few alliance ranks to Grand Overlord isnt really motivation enough either because im so tired of playing dizzysorc.

And there is no way in hell im going to start grinding out alliance ranks all the way from the beginning on another class just because weaponsorc are the most underwhelming class in the game 😂

TBois

I find Overload provides strong single target burst that gives stam sorc something unique, but I feel like I have to play a much more difficult spec than most just to feel powerful and sorcerer like. Right now im running a 2h/frost staff buid focused on using Overload into Onslaught. It's a shame I have to use an ultimate that doesn't scale with weapon crit or physical penetration to fulfill my "power fantasy", as zos calls it.

https://youtu.be/3IaBTq5elfE

I know some forum warriors may be scoffing at the fact that it is 2h/destro. So here is the 2h/bow variant in Scalebreaker during the dot meta.

https://youtu.be/X4AMdfclbG0

I still run a similar setup in Harrowstorm, and it is the only motivating factor for me to play eso this patch. I went from logging in to do one pve raid, two pvp raids, and some late night solo play a few nights a week to logging in to do my writs during the event and one night of late night solo play every two weeks. Maybe, if I didn't feel like I have to jump through so many hoops and make so many sacrifices to fulfill my "power fantasy", I could bear the horrible performance more.