Why noone plays stamsorc

milllaurie

Stamina sorc is at a very bad place right now.
In Malcolm 1v1 tournament PCEU it was the only class that received 0 bans on abilities.
Even though no bans were present we saw 0 stamsorcs, compared to a few magdens (which is supposedly the worst pvp class).
In my opinion - these are the pain points:
1. Crit surge. Medium armor got a hit to critical chance. No crit chance - no heals from surge. Stamsorc healing is stupidly low. No% buffs, no passive heals like any other class has. The only other option for healing is dark deal, so:
2. Dark deal. The cast time is just stupid. IMO it should be halved at least. Also dark deal and crit surge should get scaling to max hp/offensive stats. Now it has 7 year old values which are a joke in today's pvp.
3. Same goes for hurricane. Hurricane used to be decent pressure when average player was running 22k hp and 26k was considered a tank. Now average hp is around 29k, many people running close to 40k hp so hurricane can not compete as passive damage. You can weave in shalks or blast bones even while being defensive to keep pressure up, now stamsorc has to be actively on the opponent spamming dizzy/crystal to keep pressure up.
4. Bound armaments can't be weaved as delayed burst. The only way to cancel it is to roll-cancel, you can't combo it with crystal-bounds-dizzy-medium, because the animation lasts forever and results in dps loss.

Brrrofski

The loss of crit chance in medium is a big one for me. It makes crit surge kinda useless.

Which makes hurricane a bit less potent Even when they nerfed the damage, I didn't mind, as it was still an armor buff, and a good way to keep crit surge ticking over. Minor expedition is still nice though. So overall, I think it's fine still. Still does a lot for an armor buff.

Dark deal is an incredibly strong skill, so I don't know about removing the cast time. I feel like if they did this, they'd reduce something on it.i honestly don't mind the cast time. 99% of players never bash you, and there's about 4 mag sorcs in pvp, so crushing shock isn't that much of an issue.

Stam sorc overall is in a decent spot I think. I mean, there's a lot of them in pvp (not sure what you mean by nobody plays them), and I find it easier to play than a lot of classes. Streak is an incredible skill still that gives you a lot of options.

And ok, no skills were banned in a 1v1 tournament. But that's because some skills on other classes might be good in 1v1. Pvp isn't 1v1. Stam sorc is in a better place than a lot of classes at the moment imo.

Things that I have an issue with though:

Healing is still meh. Again, it goes back to crit surge not proccing a lot due to recent changes.

I also still feel it lacks a spammable. I'm sorry, but crystal weapon is garbage in pvp. Melee light attacks miss all the time. In PvE, it works fine. With a bow in pvp it works fine. But melee not so much, so I find myself going back to dizzying, which depresses me.

dinokstrunz

Stam Sorc isn't bad. Just because nobody played in a duelling tournament doesn't make it bad, it still sees a healthy amount of play in Battlegrounds, IC and Cyrodiil. Have you considered playing or fighting a Bow Sorc, they're pretty powerful right now.
Bow Sorc in these last few updates is where Stamina Sorc really shines in both Duelling and Group play.

xDeusEJRx

1. Crit surge sucks for sure, but I don't think that effects stam sorc that much tbh. The heal never was that reliable when crit rates have been low for a long time. Crit rates been nerfed in pvp for 2 years now, I think crit surge probably deserves a rework in functionality tbh. But I can't say it effects stam sorc that badly.

2. Dark deal cast times can be a pain at times, but I personally think it's not that big of a deal on sorc considering their speed and ability to create distance. Someone tries interrupting me during my dark deal? I just streak or ball of lightning and do it again behind a wall then pop my head out again

3. I honestly think hurricane is fine tbh, I think it deals pretty strong damage for a DOT ability. Being able to get over 1k ticks off a DoT ability is nothing to laugh at. And even on the lower end, getting 800-900 dot ticks is also substantial for a DoT.


4. Bound armaments can be annoying to use I agree tbh, I honestly only use it if my opponent survives my crystal weapon dizzy burst combo, I pound them with it from range. But still it can be annoying to use

If I'm being honest. I don't think stam sorc lacks anywhere in the offense department to make it not that viable. They have great passives and a pretty good offensive tool kit with nice variety.
I think the worst department of stam sorc is how bad their defenses are after the ball of lightning changes. I think ball got overnerfed. Don't get me wrong 100 projectiles a second is mega OP, especially since it absorbed projectiles slung at allies. But going from 100 projectiles a second to just 1? That's too much of a nerf. Zos should have at least made ball like 3-5 projectiles a second. It just seems so weak to use now cause it barely absorbs anything considering how many people run around open world. But I still continue to use it because I need some defenses on my sorc, I don't have a pet to use as a shield nor a damage shield ability to augment my defense.

Stam sorc damage is fine, they have a decent burst combo to line up. Dizzy crystal weapon, or Crystal weapon S2w. They have pretty good passives. Decent amount of healing available. I could get 4 heals on my sorc if I wanted (vigor,rally, crit surge, dark deal). Sustain is good. I literally think the only think it lacks is how crap defense is now

PvP_Exploiter

Magden also had no bans in Malcolm's tournament.

EDIT: Sorry let be more specific
StamDK
MagNB
Magden
Stamden

All also had no specific bans during the tournament.

ShalidorsHeir

Stam sorc simply misses bound armaments working like haunting curse and minor savagery. Thats all.
(I also agree that a scaling for our healing abilities would be healthy as well)

No PvP is not about duelling. No crystal weapon is not garbage, its one hell of an awesome spamable even better than usual ones! And do not overestimate bow sorcs like that. Its a nice playstyle but in most situations out of battlegrounds they underperform compared to other possible builds. And one more thing about critical: in the current state it is the strongest heal abiliy you have available as soon as hit at least 30% crit chance. The heavier you go in terms of armor rating the more you can feel this as well. Potentially the strongest thing in your toolkit next to teleport strike if you play it out correctly.

As to why i think that stam sorc is not played that much:

Playing a stam sorc usualy links to effort in most players minds since its not "meta". Where as meta does not mean that is strong. It means that there are easier ways to achieve success in PvP. Technically the reason for that is that mobilty can barely outperform tankyness (mititgation and healing) with same level of effort. Another reason might be that mobilty is not linked to sorcs that much anymore since "race against time" is doing a similar job for any class these days and is therefore a way to impactful for PvP in its current state. Stam sorcs do not really do better with "even more mobility". Mobilty is like recovery, once you hit the point you feel comfortable with and that allows you to make use of certain situations youll face in cyro for instance you do not need more of that.
Another technical depth is that we need crit chance if we want use our full toolkit which is hard to come by currently. other classes have an easier job to get their stats. Stam sorc needs them as well but needs crit on top of that so players might think like: its a waste of build slots in contrast to other classes.
Offensive wise stam sorcs are lacking the ability to burst people with a simply combo out of nowhere. It does not sound really impactful but this "surprise attack potential" that a burst combos can provide seriously changes things. Stam sorcs have good damage in terms of scaling. But usualy we just spam down a rotation with spamables and executes where many damage sources that could be used combos are simply avoidable. Thats why many stam sorcs use dot proc sets in their setups. We could also use abilites but there are heavily outperformed by these sets.
An addiotnal reason is performance. Mobilty should compensate missing tankyness. But mobilty works not as passively as mitigation and hots. So whenever the lag catches you you can not anything but praying to your gods and hope. For that sake and since most players a re playing the big laggy campaign most people associate it with weakness since stam sorc usualy dont survive when they have delays on their abilities.

Summary: I think stam sorc is not in a bad spot considering that no class shines in all kinds of PvP content. But many people refuse to play it since it seems to be more effort than other classes (and honestly it also is more effort).

Larcomar

I play stamsorc. I play alot of classes, but I quite like him. He feels pretty good to me.

Would I take him to a duel? God no. His strength is mobility. That doesn't sound like a good fit with a duel.

Open world pvp in cyro though, he's pretty darn good. Until the lag hits and you can't bar swap but def good in quieter periods.

Could he use some improvements - sure. Crit surge cd be upped a bit, hurricane feels ok to me, dark deal would be awesome with no cast time - but maybe too awesome.

As someone else said, the biggie for me feels to be crystal weapon - it's just janky as hell in pvp. I'd much rather have a decent spammable.

Like I said in another post, classes actually feel more balanced than they have been for a long time. I'm not sure I'd want to just stand there and trade blows with say a stamcro or a warden or a dk on my stamsorc. But then, it feels a bit unrealistic to expect that. Where the stamsorc excels is with mobility. And an unblockable stun. I guess I don't expect to have that *and* the same kind of defensive options that classes like necros and wardens have. His mobility is his defense.

divnyi

Stamsorc is third strongest class to soloQ in BGs. It's combos aren't ez and playstyle requires a lot of skill and precision, that's why it's rare. But at high MMR I see a bunch of god-tier stamsorcs that completely wreck everyone and are really hard to catch because you eat streak and bombard all the time.

Thraben

StamSorcs have traditionally been the least played Stamina class.

That they don't participate in this Duelling contest is due to the fact that their playstyle is not compatible with "standing in limited space doing brawler stuff".
If this would be a medieval tournament, StamSorcs would participate in the Jousting and not the melee.

divnyi

Also worth noting that nobody except me tried building stamsorc into the crit department.

This won't win in today's duels meta, but it is undeniably the strongest DPS pressure I've ever created, with toughness just enough to survive with the help of your team in the teamfight.

ShalidorsHeir

divnyi wrote: »

Also worth noting that nobody except me tried building stamsorc into the crit department.

This won't win in today's duels meta, but it is undeniably the strongest DPS pressure I've ever created, with toughness just enough to survive with the help of your team in the teamfight.

"nobody except me" is not quite correct
but anyways, you are right. This is why many stam sorcs claim that crit surge is too weak. (a scaling would be nice to stay sync with all the patches but it is not weak)
Also the heavy armor stam sorc with 2h + s/b is heavily underestimated by the community these days.

Neoauspex

I took a break from the game and everybody was complaining about stam sorc 1-shot builds at the time... Did they make imbue/crystal weapon not stack or something?

milllaurie

Neoauspex wrote: »

I took a break from the game and everybody was complaining about stam sorc 1-shot builds at the time... Did they make imbue/crystal weapon not stack or something?

They made mellee light and heavy attacks miss 60% of the time.

katorga

divnyi wrote: »

Stamsorc is third strongest class to soloQ in BGs. It's combos aren't ez and playstyle requires a lot of skill and precision, that's why it's rare. But at high MMR I see a bunch of god-tier stamsorcs that completely wreck everyone and are really hard to catch because you eat streak and bombard all the time.

This. The really good stamsorcs just delete me, and they do so with simple weapon skill combos. They are fast, strafe inside your character model so you cannot target them, and a fast animation cancel combo to finish you.

(People under estimate just how much high movement speed prevents the majority of players, including me, from targeting you.)

I lack the "precision" part to exploit the class, so I struggle with survivability with stamsorc.

Alchimiste1

I agree with the first point. crit surge needs a bit of a rework after the lowering of crit chance. I think dark deal needs to stay interruptable. Good sorcs time their dark deals when they have cc immunity so they can play around that.

OBJnoob

Stamsorc isn’t bad I still have fun on mine from time to time.

Crit surge could either be given a flat increase or it could scale with stats…. Either would work for me (a non mathematician lol)

Dark deal should be interruptible. Since it has a cast time I would argue that it’s not really a heal. It heals obviously but you can’t roll cancel it because it’s channeled and it’s not gonna save you from getting executed for the same reason. Taking the cast time away would make it a heal, sure, but then the REAL use of it would become overpowered. It’s a sustain tool.

Someone up above was listing stamsorc heals and made a decently long list. But I’d like to say vigor and rally aren’t stamsorc skills. And dark deal isn’t really a heal in my opinion… so… all the more reason to buff crit surge.

Then again the clannfear is a pretty good heal last I checked and I don’t think anybody has mentioned that. Even still I think… yes I’m gonna say it… EVERY other class has more healing options. Or at least better ones.

Emmagoldman

We can't decide which class is "best" based on one context (dueling). It has incredible mobility and awesome resource management, making it great for open world

Udrath

Stamsorc has always been the hardest class for me to play personally. Has a high skill ceiling I think and DOTs destroy them. No major buffs for defence except vitality on their roots. I miss their instant execute passive lol

Dark deal is a good heal though but it’s so slow and interruptible

Solariken

I think Stamsorc could use some minor loves

Crit Surge sucks in PvP. Maybe they could also make it so receiving crit damage procs it?

Bound armaments should accumulate stacks automatically, you shouldn't have to activate a "buff" that basically does nothing. Just let it add stacks every time you light attack with it slotted

That's really all I think Stamsorc needs at the moment

Udrath

Imagine a class having the best execute in the game but there is no stamina morph lmao...Biggest problem to buff stamsorc is inadvertently buffing magsorc some how

axi

Dark deal is to weak? That thing combined with streak in open PvP is one of the strongest defense combos there is, combining mobility+crowd control+sustain+heal. If anything it should see some tuning down like turning heal into HoT which would also solve one of the complaints that sorc lacks passive healing.

axi

milllaurie wrote: »

Stamina sorc is at a very bad place right now.
In Malcolm 1v1 tournament PCEU it was the only class that received 0 bans on abilities.
Even though no bans were present we saw 0 stamsorcs, compared to a few magdens (which is supposedly the worst pvp class).
In my opinion - these are the pain points:
1. Crit surge. Medium armor got a hit to critical chance. No crit chance - no heals from surge. Stamsorc healing is stupidly low. No% buffs, no passive heals like any other class has. The only other option for healing is dark deal, so:
2. Dark deal. The cast time is just stupid. IMO it should be halved at least. Also dark deal and crit surge should get scaling to max hp/offensive stats. Now it has 7 year old values which are a joke in today's pvp.
3. Same goes for hurricane. Hurricane used to be decent pressure when average player was running 22k hp and 26k was considered a tank. Now average hp is around 29k, many people running close to 40k hp so hurricane can not compete as passive damage. You can weave in shalks or blast bones even while being defensive to keep pressure up, now stamsorc has to be actively on the opponent spamming dizzy/crystal to keep pressure up.
4. Bound armaments can't be weaved as delayed burst. The only way to cancel it is to roll-cancel, you can't combo it with crystal-bounds-dizzy-medium, because the animation lasts forever and results in dps loss.

First of all just because some class have lower participation rate in duel tournaments it doesn't mean it's bad at PvP. Throughout the years many different setups proved that. Stam sorc presents a playstyle that simply doesnt fit 1v1 in greatly limited area.

1. Yes crit surge is problematic in PvP and changes to medium armor only increased that issue. Heal component always felt like PvE designed thing as in PvP both Your crit and damage pressure are lower.
2. Dark deal is very strong and combined with streak basically on the edge of calling it overpowered. This skill also have seen lots of improvements since beggining of the game as its started as 4 seconds channelling ability causing You to float in the air while resources were given to You every second. Then ZoS also added interruption immunity which basically unlocked real potential of this ability since previously You could bash it infinitly. Also values were changed multiple times. Current ones seem to be ok but for me personally heal component is a bit too much ever since it's impossible to interrupt this ability effectively.
3. Every ability had higher pressure when people had less HP. Yes some classes can keep pressure defensively some can't. On the other hand some classes can escape a fight leaving enemies behind in few seconds while others can't and so on. You can't expect for every class to be copy of another. There are classes that would gladly give You some of their passive pressure in exchange for streak or dark deal.
4. Bound armanents are instant cast ability so they undergo global cooldown like every other ability in the game. Even if You cancel the animation You still need to wait for global cooldown to end and the moment when it ends You can cast other ability. They are really no different in cast then lets say grim focus proc or crystal frag proc. Animation will not stop You from firing next ability if global cooldown is over.

Dorkener

This just feels like wanting to be great at everything without building for it. If I wanna play a class with high baseline toughness / healing, I play necro / warden. Who will traditionally struggle with mobility or sustain (which stam sorc gets for free), IF I don't build for it...

divnyi

^ everyone who says that surge is bad is seriously underestimating the skill. It heals on par with Vigor if it procs each second, which isn't that hard given that you can use storm that ticks each second and add LA+skill on top, so baseline is 3 damages per GCD (can be more). You take camo hunter and your crit is at min 20%.

0.8^3 = ~50% to miss the heal. So half vigor without any crit gear. Far from bad really.

And uh, realistically, who runs it anyway? I think all stamsorcs glide with 2h vate for that sweet burst with crystal -> streak/DoS -> medium+whirl execute.

OBJnoob

@divnyi I mean sure on paper it seems good but the problem is that it’s good when you’re on offense but not when you’re on defense. And if our main defense is mobility then nobody is standing in our hurricane either.

So, again, stamsorcs unique class options are a flat value heal that only works when you’re on offense and requires a large-ish amount of a stat that is otherwise useless in pvp (crit,) a pet that needs to be double barred, and a sustain tool with a cast time.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said “who runs it anyway?” I run it. I wish I didn’t have to. Cuz it’s not very good.

To use an example… when the armor set ancient dragon guard came out a while ago people would say “resistance when your under half health is terrible, that’s when you need your damage, so you can heal,” crit surge basically has this same flaw.

divnyi

OBJnoob wrote: »

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said “who runs it anyway?” I run it. I wish I didn’t have to. Cuz it’s not very good.

But uh, you don't have to. Run Vigor + Rally on 2h vate. Rally is big heal you are looking for.

And people seriously underestimate crit in pvp. +30% +10% (5pc medium) +10% channeled accel = +50%, so each 10% crit = +5% damage roughly. Even if you don't want to stack crit gear, it is profitable to camo hunter to increase damage - 5% for minor berserk and 5% average for crit, nevermind that it's lucky crit RNG on big hits is what kills players often.

OBJnoob

Yeah I get it vigor and rally are amazing and every stam toon has to use them to be competitive. I just don’t really love it this way. I run my stamsorc as dual wield and bow because I don’t want all my stam toons to be the same. And I mostly play in no proc so I don’t have the Gateshead 2h.

Which you could definitely say “trade dual wield for 2h if you want to be optimal” and you can say “grind Vateshran if you want to be optimal” and all that is correct and fair.

But we’re talking about the stamsorcs toolkit -v- other toolkits and you keep citing abilities and gear that can also be gotten by necros dragon knights and templars.

L_Nici

I play Stamsorc since I started playing ESO about 6 maybe even 7 years ago and it was great at the start. I love it and I feel nowhere as homely as on my Stamsorc. But over the last years it was essentially nerfed non stop by giving everyone the things that made Stamsorc so great. Speed is a joke nowadays, a Magnecro can outrun you if he wants to, CP and Race against time are just 2 examples of that.
Healing is basically non existent on the class kit, Dark Deal is a garbage heal for the 1 second casttime and will you get interrupted most of the time even if you LOS it. Critical Surge took a massive hit as Medium Armor lost all its Critchance in one blow after that it was unthinkable to play anything else but 2h to just have Rally.
You have no defensive buffs aside Major Resolve with Hurricane, no way to purge and your healing itself is to weak to counter the massive DoT output. Even the abillity to detect stealthed NBs before the hit you if hurricane hits in that second is gone since the last major patch.

The only positive thing that was done to Stamsorc over the years was the adding of Bound Armaments, that was finally something unique and usefull, a little Buff to Stamina, which since the last major update even stays if you swap bar if the skill is active. Its also usefull to hit enemies that run away from you on low health, you can give them a final blow with it but that its even mentionworthy that you can hit running enemies with a Stamsorc is a testament of whats wrong with it. A Stamsorc shouldn't ever need a ranged skill to catch someone. I would put Crystal Weapon there too, but thats not unique its just a copy of elemental weapon and has to rely on the weapon line.

So overall Speed as advantage gone, Healing non existent, defensive weak, the only thing Stamsorc can still do is putting out massive burst and even that is not based on its class kit but on the weapon lines, which means that technically everyone can do it that way, its nothing unique.

Alchimiste1

divnyi wrote: »

^ everyone who says that surge is bad is seriously underestimating the skill. It heals on par with Vigor if it procs each second, which isn't that hard given that you can use storm that ticks each second and add LA+skill on top, so baseline is 3 damages per GCD (can be more). You take camo hunter and your crit is at min 20%.

0.8^3 = ~50% to miss the heal. So half vigor without any crit gear. Far from bad really.

And uh, realistically, who runs it anyway? I think all stamsorcs glide with 2h vate for that sweet burst with crystal -> streak/DoS -> medium+whirl execute.

this isn't true in practice at all. A few months ago there was a forums post by who was arguable the best stamsorc on pc na asking for a rework of crit surge because of the changes and imbalances to crit after the cp changes. Long story short a lot of people pointed that theoretically you should get X uptime on crit surge, however through countless tests and cmx logs you can see that the uptime was a lot less, maybe around 20% if I recall right.


crit surge as it is , is still useful for stamsorcs who don't want to use 2h. As a heal however its a bit lackluster. It doesn't need a huge buff but perhaps something just a bit more consistent

divnyi

@Alchimiste1 DK has literally the same skill but without any upsides (unless you run heavy attack build). I don't see why this skill should be tweaked to be default class HoT, when it's tool that enables crit built sorc specifically.

Uptime says that because you are not spamming LAs and skills every second. If you would stack dots and parse dummy tank, it would go even higher.

ShalidorsHeir

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

^ everyone who says that surge is bad is seriously underestimating the skill. It heals on par with Vigor if it procs each second, which isn't that hard given that you can use storm that ticks each second and add LA+skill on top, so baseline is 3 damages per GCD (can be more). You take camo hunter and your crit is at min 20%.

0.8^3 = ~50% to miss the heal. So half vigor without any crit gear. Far from bad really.

And uh, realistically, who runs it anyway? I think all stamsorcs glide with 2h vate for that sweet burst with crystal -> streak/DoS -> medium+whirl execute.

this isn't true in practice at all. A few months ago there was a forums post by who was arguable the best stamsorc on pc na asking for a rework of crit surge because of the changes and imbalances to crit after the cp changes. Long story short a lot of people pointed that theoretically you should get X uptime on crit surge, however through countless tests and cmx logs you can see that the uptime was a lot less, maybe around 20% if I recall right.


crit surge as it is , is still useful for stamsorcs who don't want to use 2h. As a heal however its a bit lackluster. It doesn't need a huge buff but perhaps something just a bit more consistent

Then he was not the best stam sorc. Not at all. You guys miss the right setups. Crit surge is my strongest heal ability, far more than vigor + rally together. Running on different builds starting from medium armor dw/bow to heavy armor s/b/ 2h. A good stam sorc who dares to plays on its own in real 1vX builds up for crit surge. Having multiple damage source at the same time frame for crit surge to proc, like dots (from sets!) or bash damage on top of the LA weaving while having ~30% crit is enough to achieve this.