Why are sorcerers nerfed so much?

Tannus15

so according to my quick and dirty maths, the PTS base damage of crystal weapon needs to be raised from 1427 to 1800 to break even with crushing weapon + 2 frag procs.

anything less than that and it will remain completely useless.

on a side note, if CW does 1800 per proc and it alternating with rapid strikes then it ALSO is competitive with rapid strikes + frag proc

if we assume the ranged spamamble "standard" is 2200 damage, then CW should do approx 15% less damage than that.

Tannus15

Since I'm here complaining about sorc skills, i'm going to drop one more.

Twilight Tormentor activation. It's useless. Literally useless. On live it's only used to pre buff, on PTS the tormentor dps was nerfed so it's even more useless.
I don't know why or how someone can change it from 56% damage increase to a 60% increase and not realise that it's literally a dps loss to activate it. The total damage buff is far less than a spammable.

I think we can call it a true reverse execute. it only works when the target is above 50% and if you activate it you do less damage.

Luede

Tannus15 wrote: »

@Luede @Mr_Stach Crystal frags has been used as a spammable for magsorc in PvE for over 12 months now, especially for DW builds until they changed crystal weapon.

All the very good sorcs have been running that, but I personally hate the 0.8 second cast time so I prefer to use a spammable and frags just for the proc.

with the current meta of wearing medium armour sets, I find a stamina based spammable to be the best option even for mag sorc, hence crushing weapon.

sorry, i should have mentioned that i was referring to pvp. Here, all sorcs do not use crystal frags as spammable, but pull a corresponding skill additionally on the bar

JustAGoodPlayer

Sorc was such dead, that even not full geared and leveled it was better on life than my main - so i even run in PVP on it a little.

Looks more alive than my main. And my main is not necromancer, to look dead to start with

acastanza_ESO

Tannus15 wrote: »

bound armaments right at the bottom *sigh*

ok, now here is some maths on why crystal weapon is so bad. SO BAD

For this comparison I'm going to compare it to Crushing Weapon because the skills are basically the same. Any situation you might use crystal weapon you can swap in crushing weapon and be fine. range builds, melee builds, it doesn't matter.

lets say we put down our dots and we get 10 seconds of just spammable time.

the best case for crystal weapon is to alternate it with another spammable, so lets go with crystal weapon and crushing shock. CW, CS, CW, CS etc
you end up with 10 CW hits and 5 CS hits
according to skinny's spread sheet, that's 24710 total damage.

now lets say I do 10 crushing weapon hits.
again, according to skinny's data it does 25040 damage (including spell orb)

so taking 2 skill slots alternating the crystal weapon cast with the crushing shock cast it's less damage than just crushing weapon.
but it gets worse. I've got an extra skill slot, and i'm not using crystal weapon so i slot crystal frags. over 10 casts, lets say it procs twice (it's now 8 crushing weapon, 2 procs).
now we're looking at 28278 damage over 10 seconds.

so we have a significantly harder rotation that does less damage under all circumstances with less bar space. That's not good. That is in fact, bad.

I always thought the problem was that ZoS balanced by spreadsheet, but it turns out they aren't even doing that.
The moment you look at the numbers it's just bad in every way.

To return to bound armaments for 1 moment, 4 stacks does 2516 damage. 1 hit of crushing weapon does 2504 (factoring in spell orb). apparently the reward for working the stacking building mini game into your rotation is 12 damage. except you need to spend 1 spammable every 40 seconds to enable the proc. If you hit BA perfectly every time it's up you gain 120 damage. And then you lose 1 spammable to activate it and lose 2504 damage.
so best case for Bound Armaments is a net loss of 2384 damage according to the spreadsheet.

The place where Crystal weapon should be gaining damage is when a spammable is missed to cast something like prey and scamp.

I can add this into the above calculations by removing 1 crushing shock and 1 crushing weapon for prey
I will also remove 1 crushing weapon and 1 crushing shock for the scamp (frag procs are unaffected)

now we have 6 crushing weapon, 2 frags, prey and scamp giving us 23270 spammable damage.

10 crystal weapon, 3 crushing shock, prey and scamp giving us 20534 spammable damage.

HOORAY FOR MATHS!

Now, I am very anti-crystal weapon nerf because it was finally a good single target direct damage skill for one of the classes that is supposed to be primarily dedicated to single target direct damage. But while I think this is a strong argument, I do think it isn't quite this cut-and-dried.

Crystal Weapon+Crushing Shock does have some advantages though in terms of damage costs and damage cost distribution.

Lets do some napkin math.

Looking at your simple case, 10 casts of Crushing Weapon.
Crushing Weapon costs 2700 stam per cast, 10 casts is 27000 stam.
25040 damage/27000 stamina is roughly .93 points of damage per point of resource spent.
Edit: I neglected to consider the Psijic order passive which reduces the cost of theses skills by 15%. With that consideration, the equation comes out quite a bit more in favor of Crushing Weapon, although it is hard to quantify the survivability benefit of offloading 42%of the cost to magicka.

The corrected calculation accounting for the passive is:
Crushing Weapon costs 2295 stam (2700-15%) per cast, 10 casts is 22950 stam.
25040 damage/2295 stamina is roughly 1.09 points of damage per point of resource spent.


Crystal weapon+Crushing Shock on the other hand, your simple case of 10 CW hits and 5 CS hits - 5 casts and 5 casts, 24710 damage.
The 5 casts of crystal weapon, each at 2983 stamina - 14915 stamina.
Now crystal weapon also has this little neat addendum: "After casting, your next non-Ultimate ability used within 3 seconds costs 10% less". Surely that'll help it pull ahead, right?
So the crushing shock you're alternating with is 10% less expensive, so that 2430 magicka cost is reduced to 2187. 5 casts is 10935 total magicka.
14915 stamina + 10935 magicka. 25850 total resources. damage. 0.96 damage/point of resource spent.
Well crap. That 10% cost reduction - isn't enough to tip it in Crystal Weapon's favor, and that reduction is on the Magicka side of the equation anyway where it isn't all that useful.

Less total damage, but fractionally more damage per point of resources spent.

The this is on top of the other advantages the Crystal Weapon combination offers like
1) it offloads ~42% of the total resource cost onto Magicka (which has less risk to running dry compared to stamina) so you have a little more buffer there for preserving your ability to block or dodge.
2) If one of your Enhanced light attacks gets blocked or dodged, you still get something out of the stamina you spent on the Crystal Weapon whereas you've lost all of it for nothing on Crushing Weapon since you have a second chance with the second enhanced charge.

One additional factor is the armor reduction offered by Crystal Weapon. Yes, is smaller than major breach, but it is unique, so it'll stack with it assuming you can find another source of breach.

In an active combat, like a group PVP scenario, these factors definitely push the balance towards Crystal Weapon, yes, you're doing a little less damage, but it's generally costing you a little less, and the cost is distributed in a significantly less punishing way, but if you're good enough to pull off the Crushing Weapon combination, you are generally getting more burst but at a slightly higher cost.

Now this might fall apart with more complicated rotations, particularly when Curse or BA are factored in and the "traditional" (non-crystal weapon) rotation starts pulling further ahead in terms of raw damage, but at the simplest sale Crystal Weapon isn't entirely useless, it just isn't good. That said, I firmly believe class skills should be generally better, but not overwhelmingly better, than non-class skills that fill the same niche. That is how you build class identity without locking in unwanted class exclusivity. A slight re-buff to crystal weapon 1800 like you suggest, would, I think, accomplish this well.

MashmalloMan

@acastanza_ESO While I appreciate your analysis and finding a silver lining or a counter arguemnt, this basically means next to nothing for 95% of sorcs in combat where it counts:

"Less total damage, but fractionally more damage per point of resources spent."

So much of the Sorc kit is designed around getting in and out, burst, not sustained preasure. Line up your burst, initiate, retreat, reset, do it all over again.

Dark Deal/Exchange support this idea, as well as the multitude of unnecessary sustain passives and modifers to skills we have.

So when you're comparing cost to damage done, it falls flat on a class that doesn't necesarily need to worry about that as much, the focus becomes what gives the most reliable burst and the most damage done.

I'd take major breach over 1k unique pen 9/10 times, even in pve scenario's. In pve, odds are your group isn't going to optimze everyone around 1 sorc debuff for -1k pen, it's just not feasible, it's so minor that there is no benefit to corrdinate for it, so it largely goes unused.

In pvp, relying on someone else to provide major breach depends on the combat scenario I suppose, but 6x more pen for getting it 100% of the time when I need it instead of 1k seems like a crazy good exchange.

On paper, we can say a sorc could and should weave CW between itself and another ability and maybe this is very easy for a test dumby, but now think about the times where 1 of those light attacks don't connect and you recast the ability assuming it did, now you've spent 2400 stamina for 55% spammable damage. This is the reverse arguement to your statement that if you miss a Crushing Weapon, you don't get any damage, well that skill also refunds you most of the cost for not using the proc.

This is to say we're comparing CW to Crushing Weapon, which isn't a great skill to begin with, it needs it's own buff to the duration like CW got to make it more versatile, this became evidant last patch.

It's just not a good skill, the payoff is not worth the trouble. What the math he showed highlights is even though there is more "risk" and setup involved with the skill, it still only breaks even with something as simple as Crushing Weapon, a universal skill to everyone. Templar is having a similar issue with Jabs this patch and Flurry... NB and Executioners Blade vs Executioner. They're using blanket spreadsheet standards without making the skills unique from one another, so much so that universal skills are passing class skills. That is absurd imo.

This game has a clear lack of class identity across the board, I'm not even sure what Sorc is suppose to be anymore if delayed single target burst and speed isn't our thing, because it certainly isn't sustained pressure, defence or CC like Necro/DK/Templar. Warden and Sorc have no idea what they're suppose to be and we have ZOS to blame for that.

While I don't want them to stick to the way it's designed with 2 procs (would prefer the old setup), the damage of CW should realistically be 150%-160% of a ranged spammable instead of 130%. This would place it above Crushing Weapon, Flurry and Wrecking Blow, all of which offer more dps as a straight spammable, with less of the risk or complication.

Currently the quoted 130% ranged damage equates to about Wrecking Blows damage, minus 100% empower uptime for basically -1k pen and a bit of cost reduction. It's just vastly underwhelming as a class spammable and has joined the ranks of Necro's Skulls at this point..

If Sorc has to much delayed burst which is pretty dumb because they made it that way... then stop giving us delayed burst, give us a real melee spammable like NB. Make Bound Armaments a tad bit better and then the choice of frags vs cw is actually meaningful as they currently fill very similar roles right now.

acastanza_ESO

@MashmalloMan yeah, I strongly agree with your position here, I think you'd see from my other posts on this forum that I am very against the currently proposed gutting of sorcerer. I was just trying to claw out literally any silver lining. Even if one that could more realistically described as aluminum at best.

Tannus15

@acastanza_ESO this is all true and some valid points. I'll even add to your list the blood magic passive which provides a good amount of healing every crystal weapon hit.

the other benefit is that you don't have to use crushing shock, i'm just looking at it in regards to my build which is a mag sorc with inferno staffs. if you're DW you can use rapid strikes, 2h wrecking blow or whatever takes your fancy.

I'll counter this argument with the fact that you're also running crystal fragments.
Crystal weapon and crushing shock vs crushing weapon and crystal fragments gives you a lot of the same benefits.

additionally you're not comparing apples to apples when you say crushing weapon costs 2700, because that's not it's tooltip cost.
it has a 15% cost reduction in the psijic passives making it significantly cheaper.

Finally yes, there is the 1k pen benefit, but it's not a huge deal unless the entire group needs that 1k pen and there is only 1 sorc running crystal weapon.

obviously i'm looking at it from a PvE perspective where you're looking at it from a PvP perspective, which will change the importance of the pros and cons.

acastanza_ESO

Tannus15 wrote: »

additionally you're not comparing apples to apples when you say crushing weapon costs 2700, because that's not it's tooltip cost.
it has a 15% cost reduction in the psijic passives making it significantly cheaper.

I've edited my post to account for this, it does, in fact, tip the equation quite a bit further in favor of Crushing Weapon even without those other (completely valid!) factors you're mentioning.

Really the only benefit is the cost offload to Magicka, which is, as you recognized, very much a PVP specific benefit and not as much a PVE one.

Tannus15

I'm all for looking for silver linings, but all i have right now is don't use crystal weapon or bound armaments.
I can't think of a single situation or build where this is a good idea, literally everything else is a better option.

I've tested it on the dummies, 21m, 3m and 6m.
I've tried it in content.
I've looked at it from a spreadsheet perspective.
the only thing I haven't done is duels because I'm not a PvP'er

as far as I can tell there is no time where using these skills is a good idea.
unless they are changed in a later PTS update, they are dead morphs.

Glantir

Are the mines disappearing without doing damage or will they stay on the ground if a target activates it during the "cooldown"???

Imo mines never was a good skill, maybe in pvp and now it is even worse

Thecompton73

Glantir wrote: »

Are the mines disappearing without doing damage or will they stay on the ground if a target activates it during the "cooldown"???

Imo mines never was a good skill, maybe in pvp and now it is even worse

On live the best use for mines are as a hard counter to trolls running snowtreaders or other forms of root/snare immunity. Those builds use that immunity together with speed bonuses to run around trees, rocks, towers, etc. taking advantage of LOS so they're always turning a corner before anyone can do enough damage to outpace their healing.
But dropping a set of mines in the right place, like a doorway or on a narrow set of stairs, causes the mines to stack and when one of those builds runs across them with the immunity they activate them all in quick succession and it's often enough to finish them. With the PTS change to mines they'll cross all five but only activate one so mines won't work as a counter to those troll builds anymore and this will further empower them, which isn't healthy for PvP.

Stx

Crystal weapon needed a nerf but they hit it too hard. Bound armaments didn't need a nerf at all...

JustAGoodPlayer

https://youtu.be/DzLsfdax9ug

Tell me what else class can do so much DPS this live patch ?

Thats why.

Crystal hit to hard - it overperform even dots in DPS but you can use it every second skill. If they as example make reload time more - it will make DPS smaller and even can be an option - to as example buff =10 seconds and reload time 2-3 seconds after hit.

Mr_Stach

JustAGoodPlayer wrote: »

https://youtu.be/DzLsfdax9ug

Tell me what else class can do so much DPS this live patch ?

Thats why.

Crystal hit to hard - it overperform even dots in DPS but you can use it every second skill. If they as example make reload time more - it will make DPS smaller and even can be an option - to as example buff =10 seconds and reload time 2-3 seconds after hit.

A lot of the power in ESO is a mixture of Class Toolkits and Sets. Zos really should have looked at the sets that will still be the largest factor to high end dps.

Look at sets like Relequin. Still probably this strongest DPS you can currently run.

I really think Zos should have looked at tuning the games, let me look it up.....



577 ARMOR SETS

Good lord. That's just too many.

IonicKai

JustAGoodPlayer wrote: »

https://youtu.be/DzLsfdax9ug

Tell me what else class can do so much DPS this live patch ?

Thats why.

Crystal hit to hard - it overperform even dots in DPS but you can use it every second skill. If they as example make reload time more - it will make DPS smaller and even can be an option - to as example buff =10 seconds and reload time 2-3 seconds after hit.

This is an example of the class excelling in a single target parse against a dummy. In practice most teams stack necros over sorcs because they are only very strong in single target and we aren't talking by a large enough amount to make up for the lack of cleave compared to other classes. Necros are only like 5k behind in single target and do way more cleave. They are not overpowered but rather have a place on a team. That's what's being gutted to the point that they will be simply relegated to a support class if they even make it on to a raid team.

Holycannoli

JustAGoodPlayer wrote: »

https://youtu.be/DzLsfdax9ug

Tell me what else class can do so much DPS this live patch ?

Thats why.

Crystal hit to hard - it overperform even dots in DPS but you can use it every second skill. If they as example make reload time more - it will make DPS smaller and even can be an option - to as example buff =10 seconds and reload time 2-3 seconds after hit.

Would Crystal Weapon still be as OP with the LA nerf? I mean as it is right now on PTS why use it over the Psijic version?

The only reason I'm even still using sorcerer is because he's my first character, my main character and they haven't given us a class respec token. With this patch he will be retired and spend his days as a daily writ crafter until he gets buffed again. Crystal Weapon gave him great single target damage and made him fun to use but without it he will wind up a useless stam sorc that only uses weapon skills, again.

acastanza_ESO

Holycannoli wrote: »

Would Crystal Weapon still be as OP with the LA nerf? I mean as it is right now on PTS why use it over the Psijic version?

The only reason I'm even still using sorcerer is because he's my first character, my main character and they haven't given us a class respec token. With this patch he will be retired and spend his days as a daily writ crafter until he gets buffed again. Crystal Weapon gave him great single target damage and made him fun to use but without it he will wind up a useless stam sorc that only uses weapon skills, again.

There's math in this thread that proves, conclusively, that the there is legitimately zero reason to use the nerfed crystal weapon over the Psijic Crushing Weapon.

Honestly, it being my first, and main character is the only reason I still play my MagSorc. ZOS seems intent on completely killing the class.

JustAGoodPlayer

Sorry guys - but look in eyes of a truth. Other classes can not do such a lot of single target damage.
And no one parse for trash targets damage and even do not need it. But you can always use masters 2 handed or special sets for that - so it even does not metter. Because you always will get high numbers on any class.

The same time sorcs have AOE damage skills too.

Glantir

JustAGoodPlayer wrote: »

Sorry guys - but look in eyes of a truth. Other classes can not do such a lot of single target damage.
And no one parse for trash targets damage and even do not need it. But you can always use masters 2 handed or special sets for that - so it even does not metter. Because you always will get high numbers on any class.

The same time sorcs have AOE damage skills too.

And why isnt there a pve group who's stacking sorcs?

Because other classes deal more cleave, provides buffs and debuffs that Sorc cant.
Things like Zen or EC are trash on Sorc...

Last patch where DK was so strong you had Teams with almost only DK...

JustAGoodPlayer

Glantir wrote: »

JustAGoodPlayer wrote: »

Sorry guys - but look in eyes of a truth. Other classes can not do such a lot of single target damage.
And no one parse for trash targets damage and even do not need it. But you can always use masters 2 handed or special sets for that - so it even does not metter. Because you always will get high numbers on any class.

The same time sorcs have AOE damage skills too.

And why isnt there a pve group who's stacking sorcs?

Because other classes deal more cleave, provides buffs and debuffs that Sorc cant.
Things like Zen or EC are trash on Sorc...

Last patch where DK was so strong you had Teams with almost only DK...

>And why isnt there a pve group who's stacking sorcs?< - the problem that they is ))) and it is not simple to find place on other classes for such groups. (Only like 1 - for buff bot purpose of other classes)

Tannus15

Holycannoli wrote: »

JustAGoodPlayer wrote: »

https://youtu.be/DzLsfdax9ug

Tell me what else class can do so much DPS this live patch ?

Thats why.

Crystal hit to hard - it overperform even dots in DPS but you can use it every second skill. If they as example make reload time more - it will make DPS smaller and even can be an option - to as example buff =10 seconds and reload time 2-3 seconds after hit.

Would Crystal Weapon still be as OP with the LA nerf? I mean as it is right now on PTS why use it over the Psijic version?

The only reason I'm even still using sorcerer is because he's my first character, my main character and they haven't given us a class respec token. With this patch he will be retired and spend his days as a daily writ crafter until he gets buffed again. Crystal Weapon gave him great single target damage and made him fun to use but without it he will wind up a useless stam sorc that only uses weapon skills, again.

the light attack nerf actually has nothing to do with the crystal weapon nerf. the damage from crystal weapon isn't related to the light attack damage, the light attack is just the delivery method. kind of like sausage rolls and sauce.

there are 3 parts to the crystal weapon nerf:

the first is the raw numbers as detailed above. it's too low
the second is the bound armaments nerf. you really need both skills to work together, especially on PTS.
the third part is the dot timer increase. this is the real killer. on live you has so many skills you need to recast that there is always something to alternate with a crystal weapon cast. on pts with 20 second dots there just isn't enough to do for the alternating CW and Other Skill rotation so you end up having to run a second spammable. bound armaments used to help a lot with this, but that's a dead skill. even with BA on PTS you end up with gaps in your rotation for a GCD. the only thing you can really do is light attack twice in a row and cast CW again.

a simplier way to explain this is that for 20 seconds of CW you want 10 skills to cast.
sorc has wall, trap, hurricane, scamp, prey*3 and then "something else" for 3 more skills, whatever they might be.

if you add another dot then you have 2 skills left over. if you have surge or execute then you don't have space. BA used to fill that spot nicely, but it's more damage to just slot a spammble.

this is also by far the hardest rotation in eso. to make this work you need to alternate CW with every skill on your backbar, so instead of
barswap wall, hurricane, trap, barswap CW you need to do
barswap wall, barswap Cw, barswap hurricane, barswap CW, barswap trap, barswap CW

BalticBlues

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

As a MagSorc main this is EXACTLY how I feel about it. The class is just dead.

I play ALL classes and styles
Since three years MagSorcs have been nerfed. Again and Again.
I am so fed up with it. Play as you want? No. Play as the devs want.
Because you have to play something else. MagSorc is just too bad in PvP now.

MashmalloMan

Tannus15 wrote: »

[snip]

Yep. They're making arguments with nobody at this point because they don't like Sorcs, but love DK's. No one said CW didn't need to be adjusted from last patch, it was blatantly evident that it was given too much as seen by their live performance. The same could be said the way ZOS nerfed combustion into the ground after it was overperforming the patches before High Isle.

[snip]

And [snip], apparently we're judging the balance of classes based solely on their single target dummy DPS nowadays and it couldn't be clearer ZOS is doing the same thing, which is the reason the classes are losing identity over time. Apply a standard to abilities instead of allowing classes to shine in unique ways exclusive to them (bye bye Templar's jab spam).

Lets say for a moment, in a perfect world, ZOS allows each class to reach the same DPS potential on a dummy because you know... every class can do everything now.

I guarantee they're not considering the following:

• How much of that DPS is single target and/or dodgeable?
• How much of that DPS is AOE?
• How hard or easy is it to obtain that DPS?
• Is the DPS earned through mini game requirements, delayed burst, DOT pressure, ult gen, etc?
• How well does that class sustain?
• Does the class have a tanky kit?
• Does the class have a strong healing kit?
• Does the class have an evasive kit?
• Does the class have easy access to major/minor debuffs present on the dummy?

The saving grace for a Sorc is suppose to be their single target delayed burst, evasion, and sustain, but with that, they have poor mitigation, poor healing over time, low access to major/minor buffs/debuffs and a highly telegraphed burst kit which relies on setting up multiple skills to burst at the same time (Eg. Haunting, CW, Bound Armaments, Spammable/Ult, Wrath).

Matriarch is the best burst heal in the game, but it can be killed and takes 2 bar slots, on a class that relies on multiple burst skills to be slotted, space is tight, it's not viable on most Sorc builds outside of group scenario's where you can hide in the back so it's not killed. Whats funny is they've added health to Necro's Guardian and it's now useless. Not debating that, it is, but for every other class, imagine your burst heal was something that could die when you needed it most - it's simply bad game design.

If every class is suppose to be good at DPS whether it's aoe or single target, and every class is suppose to sustain said DPS rotation, what is left for a Sorc to be when those are the defining characteristics of the class.

Most games consider these things when creating unique class power fantasy, but ESO has the problem of making every class viable for every role - the idea was suppose to be viable, but not optimal. I'd argue Sorc and Warden aren't great at anything anymore that every other class can do better.

So whatever, take away "Dummy DPS", but you better start giving more viable means to mitigate damage and a less telegraphed burst kit to compensate. It's basic logic.

[edited for baiting, profanity bypass & to remove quote]

Tannus15

They almost had it there for a second with sorc.

Their reverse execute scaling and their weapon damage passives is really close to making them all about front loaded damage.
increase their weapon damage passive by a few % and infused jewels are stronger over a long fight than BT.
Tormentor reverse execute just needs to be a little bit stronger and suddenly it's all fitting into place. It was so close, but for some reason I don't understand they stopped just short and they went from something which would define the class and make it different to everyone else to just being ok passives and an activation ability we never use.

MashmalloMan

Tannus15 wrote: »

They almost had it there for a second with sorc.

Their reverse execute scaling and their weapon damage passives is really close to making them all about front loaded damage.
increase their weapon damage passive by a few % and infused jewels are stronger over a long fight than BT.
Tormentor reverse execute just needs to be a little bit stronger and suddenly it's all fitting into place. It was so close, but for some reason I don't understand they stopped just short and they went from something which would define the class and make it different to everyone else to just being ok passives and an activation ability we never use.

Just makes me miss Implosion, Amplitude is good, but it's not very interesting to build for... But at this point, if it was around, it would be nerfed so hard it would be as lame as Templar's Burning Light proc. With that in mind, I'm happy they got rid of it, because I wouldn't like it today.

On the subject of Sorc being good a stacking damage % modifiers... yeah..that used to be what I thought Sorc's were suppose to be good at, but not anymore. On average it's about 3 skills for both bars for a total of 6% on most of my builds.

1. Templar has 6% applicable all the time, as well as Minor Sorcery for 10% more, both of which hybridized so Stam/Mag can use it both while Minor Prophecy is hard to build around on Stam Sorc. This used to feel more balanced when Stam Templar got 6% Weapon Damage, but no Minor Sorcery and vise versa for Mag Templar.
2. DK has 300 Weapon/Spell damage from their spammable and Minor Brutality for 10% more, again, hybridized and no longer only applicable to Stam DK.
3. NB has 300 Weapon/Spell Damage from their bow proc and another 300 Weapon/Spell Damage this patch from Concealed Weapon, which also happened to get Minor Expedition, Stam Sorc's bread and butter.
4. Templar's don't typically run Hasty Prayer and Quick Siphon from Resto Staff isn't worth the bar slot, both of which are mostly for Group Utility.
5. Warden has 300 Weapon/Spell Damage from Mag Cliff Racer, still a crappy spammable because of the travel time, but after the 3 above classes, it really highlights how ZOS is just handing out raw damage to almost every class at this point. Real unique.

Comparing 6% Damage to 300 raw Damage with maths:

• First, how much is 300 damage after the average players modifiers?
• For a 5 Medium armor player, Major Brutality/Sorcery, and 1-2 Fighters guild skills slotted, their modifier is +30% - 36%. I consider this the lower end of the spectrum, as well, can stack to 7 Medium.
• DK would have Minor Brutality. Templar would have Minor Sorcery and 6% class passive. So they would be 10-16% higher.
• Using the low end: 300 x 1.3 = 390.

For 6% Sorc passive to equal 390 extra damage, you would need a base damage of 6,500. (390 x 0.06) This is incredibly high.

Most builds with the only purpose being stacking damage get 5500 - 7500 Weapon/Spell Damage, but this is after modifiers have already been applied. Again, this is the lower end of the multiplier, the threshold goes higher than 6500 with the extra 10-20% modifiers via more Medium or DK/Plar.

All that said... we now have NB's with +900 damage out of stealth for esentially 100% uptime when they need it due to Cloak.(300 Vampire, 300 Concealed Weapon, 300 Bow Proc). Not even going to bother doing the math for the raw damage needed for the 6% Sorc passive to come close. It's not remotely realistic.

MashmalloMan

I'll add to my previous comment on raw damage being tossed around for each class like ZOS is Oprah, damage not only increases those classes damage output, but also their healing potential, of which they have much better scaling options via their class kit from hybridization via hots and burst heals.

What does a Sorc use from their kit for self healing?

1. Crit Surge - Flat amount, been the same 3k to 3.3k for the past 6+ years.
2. Dark Deal - Flat amount, also been the same 8k for the past multiple years. Attached to an 1s cast time delay that is interruptible.
3. Clanfear - 2 Skill Slots, great max health burst heal, easily killable, only really used in group content.
4. Matriarch - 2 Skill Slots, great damage scaling burst heal, easily killable, only really used in group content.

There is no sorc, 1 skill slot, burst heal or hot, that scales on weapon/spell damage. None.

Dark Deal giving 8k after casting for 1s is way less than the potential 13-16k tooltips possible for Burst Heals every class uses now. To get that same power, a Sorc needs to kill 2 slots and baby sit a pet.

The heals we do use of the 4, are flat heals that have gone down in value over the past few years. With CP 2.0, every build got 7k health and 1k damage. Our health pools increased from a standard from 22-25k to 28k-30k, but damage/healing also increased proportionally, this doesn't apply to flat heals that don't increase with the curve.

Crit Surge, our only semi decent hot (if you build for it), is attached to crits, of which has been lowered over the years in favour of damage, but also damage tick frequency, of which Sorc possbily has the lowest of any class since the kit is highly dependant on delayed burst rather than damage over time.

We're also looking at a patch that is gutting damage tick frequency on dots from the 1s to 2s across the board, making Crit Surge no longer as feasible to use without investing your whole build into aoe dots which hit like wet noodles now.

There is 0 consideration for these factors from ZOS. Their spreadsheet balancing has failed the class drastically. This is probably the first time in the lifespan of ESO that I no longer want to play PVP as Sorc and I'm not interested in playing other classes, so I'll most likely take a break from the game until the issues are addressed.

LashanW

As a PvE magsorc main for ~4-5 years, these nerfs puts the nail in the coffin for me. (btw where hardware upgrade for PC-EU?)

Currently my sorc is progressing Godslayer and several of my core class skills are getting nerfed. I really loved playing pet sorc because of class identity (you can use mostly class skills and be VERY effective) and now some of them are not even worth slotting anymore? Nice one ZoS.

Crystal Weapon -> Nuked (luckily for me I don't use this one as a magsorc main, but my stamsorc is depressed)
Storm atro -> Nuked
Bound armaments -> Nuked
Twilight tormentor -> Nerfed
Hurricane -> Slightly nerfed.

These in addition to global DoT nerfs and LA/HA nerfs just kills the game for me. Seriously, the only good things were the Dark Exchange buff and a bug fix for Lightning Splash.

If these changes go live as it is, I'm actually looking forward to it. I can recover over 100GB from my disk by uninstalling this crap and try out some other games.

Tannus15

@MashmalloMan great points
I only PvE with mag sorc as my main dps and i'm feeling a lot of the same pain points.

for me on live i'm literally running 6 sorcs skills front bar and 5pc medium armour and it's still better to run BT over infused.
that's 22% damage increase.

pretty sure these values are still correct for infused vs BT

Bloodthirsty doc

playing around with the numbers here if you increase the sorc damage passive to 4% with 6 sorc skills and 5pc medium armour infused just edges out BT and sorc would be the only class in the game where, if they build for it, should be running 3 infused jewels instead of 3 BT jewels in a PvE environment.

Sorc would be strongly encouraged to drop the crit meta and go hard into damage sets like yandir or siroria. It just recreates the sorc meta and makes it stand out from everything else.

it's not even a huge amount. it's 1% more than the fighters guild passive.
it also rewards you for using sorc class skills.

this is what i mean by the just stopped short. it's so close, but it's not quite close enough.

JustAGoodPlayer

Just if compare:
Living Dark IV4050 MagickaEnvelop yourself in a lightless sphere for 10 seconds to protect yourself. Anytime you take direct damage, the sphere lashes back at the attacker, reducing their movement speed by 40% for 3 seconds and healing you for 2066 Health. These effects can occur once every half second. You now apply the ability to yourself. Heals you when you take direct damage instead. Melee attackers are snared.

Surge even here lasts 2-3 times longer and heal 1.5 times more.