Why are sorcerers nerfed so much?

MashmalloMan

JustAGoodPlayer wrote: »

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.

They're not remotely comparable or even in the same ball park thematically. 1 is defensive, 1 is offensive.

Your attempt at an argument no one asked for is also comparing the abilities in a vaccum without considering what the classes are capable of passively and actively, like how most of Templar's skills have hots attached to them allowing them to stack a lot while Sorcs don't.

A typical pvp templar will have stacked hots on multiple skills via bubble, ritual, backlash and jabs from their class kit alone.

Living Dark supports the playstyle of a Templar by being a defensive, in your face playstyle centered around slowing enemies and healing from damage taken while Crit Surge, the only class hot is based on dealing critical damage which has become increasingly harder to do over the years. Assuming Crit Surge is going to proc once every second in a patch like this is less likely than Living Dark proccing once every half second. Taking direct damage in pvp that frequently is a lot easier to come by with skills like Force Pulse and Light Attack Weaving, really any multi hit direct damage attack.

Living Dark also has the potential to heal more per second than Crit Surge does at a potential 4132 a second vs 3300. Templar has access to Minor Mending further boosting that value. It also lasts 12seconds with their passive, not 10s so your argument is really all over the place.

Either way, apples to oranges, shouldn't even entertain the idea of comparing them.

I can only assume you don't play a Sorc, even on an alt, certainly not in pvp, so you don't understand any of the issues being presented in this thread. Not sure why you're trying to invalidate any criticism the thread has with the underwhelming skills that have fallen behind as if you have an agenda against Sorcs for some reason. No one is asking for your class to be nerfed.

JustAGoodPlayer

For 6 years here - I have 1 opinion - even if you give sorcs skills that will be 6 times better than all others - they the same way will say that they are nerfed so much )

I play the sorc - and do you play all other classes ?

Playing the sorc it does not feels like - weak class at all.

And ofcorse - you can always find some bad thing in everywhere - that Sorc hits 140k whyle others do not - but have not some thing not important and etc.

So DK is melee - so all your skills are already better based on this logick.
The same for templar.

Or sorc is weak because it is ranged class so it have to hit harder based on your logick ?

MashmalloMan

Tannus15 wrote: »

@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.

At bare minimum, 3% to match Fighters guild makes sense - 4% seems a bit too high imo, but maybe it's not with the whole 300 weapon/spell damage being tossed around to most of the classes. Thats up for ZOS to determine, but it's definitely not what I once thought was unique to Sorc's playstyle.

Before the hybridization of skills, the 3% for fighters guild only applied to Weapon Damage. Back before that change, I always viewed Sorc's 2% as justified for a lower amount because it gave both Spell and Weapon Damage. Well.. that isn't exactly unique anymore.

Idea's like that are in the right direction, I'd say adjusting Sorc's shields to scale based on damage or resources is another step in the right direction. I'm willing to accept Sorc's burst heal is attached to a 2 slotted pet if we had an alternative like shields that could fill a similar role and that just isn't the case anymore. Building for shields is barely competitive anymore for Mag Sorc and non existant for Stam Sorc in a meta where stacking damage as high as possible is best to scale heals and damage, as well as proc sets.

Vetixio

Poor Sorcs getting nerfed cause of Bow Sorc which was mainly op cause of proc sets and Crystal Weapon stacking. ZOS have been way too harsh on Sorcs here, this ain't it.

JustAGoodPlayer

It was not the true reason and I do not think that it is good to gloom about nerfs or some thing - but - just have some conscience at least a little !

Because all overperforming / underperforming others - we already get nerfs each update.

Just look trully on your skills and compare it to others.

I am ok when some class have good skills - but it looks fair enough if the same has others.

And some thing like PVE DPS - show very good when some class skills was made to good in compare to others.

Any standartizations like now - and you will lose all your abilitys - how will you play than ?

Ofcorse you will be dissapointed - and how you think about other classes ? Some of them even have not some thing special to start with.

Holycannoli

Tannus15 wrote: »

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.

What I want to see is how Crystal Weapon is performing as it is right now on live with the LA nerf on PTS. Most sorcerers are not using it with HA. The overall damage will be lessened so the massive sledgehammer nerf it took won't be necessary. It will need slight adjustment only.

Stx

ZoS doesn't know what slight adjustments are.

MetallicMonk

Holycannoli wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

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.

What I want to see is how Crystal Weapon is performing as it is right now on live with the LA nerf on PTS. Most sorcerers are not using it with HA. The overall damage will be lessened so the massive sledgehammer nerf it took won't be necessary. It will need slight adjustment only.

It would still be overperforming especially from ranged, it's too loaded and the class shouldn't need it if it was brought up to properly performing standards. Maybe if it was only applicable from melee it would be worth testing but LA damage as nothing to do with it really.

I'm completely on board with sorc receiving multiple buffs but I don't think they should rely on just one stacked ability basically giving you 2 spammables, minor breach+ extra 1k pen.

JustAGoodPlayer

Stx wrote: »

ZoS doesn't know what slight adjustments are.

If fixex work like +10% - 10% ->then->+5% - 5% ->then->+2.5% -2. 5% ->... we have more chances )))

But if it always is increase in numbers it looks more like total unbalance )))

But may be they just troll players already - like - " think you are nerfed ? - hahaha - look how a real nerfs looks like )))"

Holycannoli

MetallicMonk wrote: »

It would still be overperforming especially from ranged, it's too loaded and the class shouldn't need it if it was brought up to properly performing standards. Maybe if it was only applicable from melee it would be worth testing but LA damage as nothing to do with it really.

I'm completely on board with sorc receiving multiple buffs but I don't think they should rely on just one stacked ability basically giving you 2 spammables, minor breach+ extra 1k pen.

What's Crushing Weapon then?

Faulgor

TBH, I think Sorcs need a comprehensive overhaul at this point.
That they basically have 3 DPS skill lines and themes (Pets, Dark Magic, Shock Magic) has always caused a bit of an identity crisis, similar to Wardens' split between animal and Frost magic. DKs and Templars have had some passes in recent years that solidified their identity much better, and Necros already came out strong in that regard.

But Sorcs' direction has always felt a bit all over the place, seeing nerfs and then buffs to the same skills over several patch cycles. And they are doing it again this patch by gutting Bound Armaments and Crystal Weapon.

I just don't see what they want the class to be.
Okay, so after hybridization, Sorcs had too much burst potential together with Bound Armaments. Fine, but what's the point of Bound Armaments, now? Why do we still have these light-attack-based mini games, and an even more unforgiving one in the last change to Crystal Weapon, when you want to lessen the importance of weaving?
You want to make Crystal Weapon more unique, hence the change last patch that let it persist for 2 light attacks instead of 1 (see Crushing Weapon). Okay, but that makes it a terrible "spammable", as you now have to use another skill in between. Why shouldn't I just use Crystal Fragments instead if I have to slot a real spammable anyway?
And let me be honest, pets still kind of suck. Occupying 2 slots and dying like proverbial flies even to overland world bosses doesn't make them feel like impactful skills.

MetallicMonk

Holycannoli wrote: »

MetallicMonk wrote: »

It would still be overperforming especially from ranged, it's too loaded and the class shouldn't need it if it was brought up to properly performing standards. Maybe if it was only applicable from melee it would be worth testing but LA damage as nothing to do with it really.

I'm completely on board with sorc receiving multiple buffs but I don't think they should rely on just one stacked ability basically giving you 2 spammables, minor breach+ extra 1k pen.

What's Crushing Weapon then?

A skill that is only active for 1 global and applies major breach with no extra pen? Not sure what you mean if you're trying to compare the 2 in the current state one is obviously much much stronger.

KilianDermoth

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.

Lets do a fact check on real game play with real performances by real players against real content.

The following statistics are sorted by the upper quartile of the best 1/4 of all players participating in trials and appearing in logs. Considering that players who participate in trials (and log) even belong to a small part of the complete community that probably performs even on the low end better than the standard player this allows us to compare how the classes perform on the upper end without considering a few outliners. Also its probably the best data we overall have to compare the real class performance.

Dreadsail Reef: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/16#class=DPS
Mag Sorc: even not listed (probably bad)
Stam Sorc: 5 / 8 - medium Tier

Rockgrove: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/15#class=DPS
Mag Sorc: 1 / 11 - top Tier
Stam Sorc: 9 / 11 - bottom Tier

Kyne's Aegis: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/14#class=DPS
Mag Sorc: 9 / 12 - bottom Tier
Stam Sorc: 8 / 12 - bottom Tier

Sunspire: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/12#class=DPS
Mag Sorc: 3 / 12 - top Tier
Stam Sorc: 9 / 12 - bottom Tier

Cloudrest: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/8#class=DPS
Mag Sorc: 6 / 12 - medium Tier
Stam Sorc: 10 / 12 - bottom Tier

Asylum Sanctorium: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/7#class=DPS
Mag Sorc: 10 / 12 - bottom Tier
Stam Sorc: 1 / 12 - top Tier

The Halls of Fabrication: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/6#class=DPS
Mag Sorc: 6 / 12 - medium Tier
Stam Sorc: 7 / 12 - medium Tier

Maw of Lorkhaj: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/5#class=DPS
Mag Sorc 8 / 12 - medium Tier
Stam Sorc 6 / 12 - medium Tier

Sanctum Ophidia: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/3#class=DPS
Mag Sorc: 11 / 12 - bottom Tier
Stam Sorc: 5 / 12 - medium Tier

Hel Ra Citadel: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/2#class=DPS
Mag Sorc: 7 / 12 - medium Tier
Stam Sorc: 3 / 12 - top Tier

Aetherian Archive: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/1#class=DPS
Mag Sorc: 11 / 12 - bottom Tier
Stam Sorc: 2 / 12 - top Tier

Total:
Mag Sorc:
2x top Tier out of 10 Trials,
4x bottom Tier out of 10 Trials,
almost in half of all Trials it is bottom tier, so the whole class is absolutely underperforming compared to others.

Stam Sorc:
3x top Tier out of 11 Trials,
4x bottom Tier ouf of 11 Trials,
more often bottom tier than top tier but at least somehow balanced and overall not really overperforming.

Conclusion:
The magicka sorcerer (even on trial dummies) is completely underperforming, so a nerf sounds completely legit...

The stamina sorcerer can produce high trial dummy numbers if played perfectly. But the class wont be able to unleash the same power in real content most of the time and seems balanced, especially considering that the rotation is absolutely unforgiving if you want to reach high numbers, a few missed light attacks are enough to fall below most other classes. This (high risk) which probably can be only utilized by the best players and the lack of cleave are probably reasons for the mediocre performance in real content. So what happens is that a mediocre class with a high risk and several shortcomes gets nerft, because of a handful virtual dummy parses by the best of the best that cant be translated into real fights? Sounds absolut legit...

I am wondering if you really dont understand the coherence here or if you are just trolling? For me it looks pretty much like the later one is true and I assume that you just dont like / hate sorcerers. Probably you even were beaten by sorcerer (higher DPS) and just cant stand the fact that probably higher skill was involved, like it happens often in such discussions...

Further almost any of the stamina sorcerer skills gott completely useless, there is basically nothing left besides weapon skills which are probably even stronger on other classes nowadays, because even the passives of the sorcerer toolkit arent that great anymore compared to other classes. The class will went from mediocre to absolute bottom end, doesnt sound like reasonable balancing to me...

Holycannoli

MetallicMonk wrote: »

A skill that is only active for 1 global and applies major breach with no extra pen? Not sure what you mean if you're trying to compare the 2 in the current state one is obviously much much stronger.

Crystal Weapon only applies -1000 and not in the form of a named debuff like minor breach so it won't proc Nocturnal's Ploy. Where is this extra pen coming from? Crushing Weapon has way more pen and after the PTS is the only option of the two worth using as it not only results in more pen but can debuff the target in PvP with that OP set.

The point is the sorcerer, especially stam sorc, has no real usable skills anymore. Bound Armaments is nerfed, Crystal Weapon is nerfed. What's left? Crit Surge, Hurricane and Streak. Utility skills. Yeah you can use Rune Cage and mines (also nerfed though) but you'll be using weapon and guild skills instead of class skills, again.

MetallicMonk

Holycannoli wrote: »

Crystal Weapon only applies -1000 and not in the form of a named debuff like minor breach so it won't proc Nocturnal's Ploy. Where is this extra pen coming from? Crushing Weapon has way more pen and after the PTS is the only option of the two worth using as it not only results in more pen but can debuff the target in PvP with that OP set.

I'm not arguing that crystal wasn't overnerfed just that it was not ok in it's current live form. Also crystal weapon does indeed apply minor breach frequently along with the -1000 unique to the ability. Currently on magsorc builds if I run crystal with major breach stacking them together I have insane pen, if I use the force of nature blue slottable I have over 20k pen while using a charged staff not even sharpened.

JustAGoodPlayer

"Lets do a fact check on real game play" ->

If class can have top dummy DPS - i agree that a lot more people may be play it.
The same time the best one will be players who do not abbandon their main class.

The same time I can not look sets of that player - if they are in buff sets when others are in full dps sets - the one in DPS sets will have less damage.

So for me such statisticks do not show a lot.

If 1 gamer eat bananas every day and i never - by statistiks we eat bananas every second day.

The same time it is clearly seen that if some skill have *2 damage of spammable and can be cast half of the rotation it will hardly overperform other skills - including dots with *2 damage because you need 10+ seconds to gett full damage from it - here you only need 2 seconds for the same result.

Holycannoli

MetallicMonk wrote: »

I'm not arguing that crystal wasn't overnerfed just that it was not ok in it's current live form. Also crystal weapon does indeed apply minor breach frequently along with the -1000 unique to the ability. Currently on magsorc builds if I run crystal with major breach stacking them together I have insane pen, if I use the force of nature blue slottable I have over 20k pen while using a charged staff not even sharpened.

How is it applying minor breach if it doesn't apply minor breach?

KilianDermoth

Thats why the upper quartile is used and not the average to reduce such effects.

Also if one player / class does top DPS it is usually not the one who gets the buff set to wear.

Furthermore many / most buff sets wont work well on Sorcs (epsecially stam Sorcs), so considering what you just said about buff sets and considering that wardens and necros often use such sets instead of Sorcs, the conclusion is that Sorcs are probably performing even worse after taking this into consideration...

MetallicMonk

Holycannoli wrote: »

MetallicMonk wrote: »

I'm not arguing that crystal wasn't overnerfed just that it was not ok in it's current live form. Also crystal weapon does indeed apply minor breach frequently along with the -1000 unique to the ability. Currently on magsorc builds if I run crystal with major breach stacking them together I have insane pen, if I use the force of nature blue slottable I have over 20k pen while using a charged staff not even sharpened.

How is it applying minor breach if it doesn't apply minor breach?

Any physical damage can proc minor breach, and charged traits making it even more prevalent.

ZOS_Icy

Greetings,

We have recently removed some unnecessary back-and-forth in addition to some non-constructive posts from this thread. This is a reminder to keep the discussion civil and constructive. Please keep our Community Rules in mind moving forward.

Thank you for your understanding.

francesinhalover

They have 2 slottable pets that do dmg for them

francesinhalover

Didgerion wrote: »

Also no one is talking about it yet, but how exactly stamsorcs are supposed to heal themselves?

Same has all stam classes in 2017 , use vigor

MetallicMonk

francesinhalover wrote: »

Didgerion wrote: »

Also no one is talking about it yet, but how exactly stamsorcs are supposed to heal themselves?

Same has all stam classes in 2017 , use vigor

Honor the Dead, Coagulated Blood, Healthy offering, Resistant Flesh; almost every other class has an amazing burst heal, nice try though.

All stam classes just utilize a mag burst heal now.

starkerealm

francesinhalover wrote: »

They have 2 slottable pets that do dmg for them

Those pets had the tar nerfed out of them. (Yeah, I'd need to log in to double check exactly how serious those nerfs were, don't have the time to do that right now, sorry.)

BretonMage

francesinhalover wrote: »

They have 2 slottable pets that do dmg for them

These pets take up a whopping FOUR ability slots over 2 bars. And they don't actually do that much damage, a bare minimum (less than a companion) if one doesn't manually activate the pulse mode, a barely passable amount if one does. And yes, they're being nerfed as well.

Chilly-McFreeze

MetallicMonk wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

MetallicMonk wrote: »

I'm not arguing that crystal wasn't overnerfed just that it was not ok in it's current live form. Also crystal weapon does indeed apply minor breach frequently along with the -1000 unique to the ability. Currently on magsorc builds if I run crystal with major breach stacking them together I have insane pen, if I use the force of nature blue slottable I have over 20k pen while using a charged staff not even sharpened.

How is it applying minor breach if it doesn't apply minor breach?

Any physical damage can proc minor breach, and charged traits making it even more prevalent.

So Crushing Weapon applies both, minor and major breach then, Right?

Holycannoli

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

So Crushing Weapon applies both, minor and major breach then, Right?

I forgot about Sundered. It was added I think after I quit after the last round of DoT nerfs in 2019.

Yeah Crushing Weapon should be able to apply both. Haven't tried it since I don't have it yet but after this patch if I decide to continue with my stam sorc I'm switching to it.

Holycannoli

Anyone else thinking Crystal Weapon is even more irrelevant compared to Crushing Weapon than before this patch? Haven't tested it but it seems like the first hit does it's normal damage and the second hit does 30% of that, which means it's mostly frontloaded now and only that first hit matters.

I'll happily trade that heavily nerfed 30% second hit for Major Breach.

jaws343

Holycannoli wrote: »

Anyone else thinking Crystal Weapon is even more irrelevant compared to Crushing Weapon than before this patch? Haven't tested it but it seems like the first hit does it's normal damage and the second hit does 30% of that, which means it's mostly frontloaded now and only that first hit matters.

I'll happily trade that heavily nerfed 30% second hit for Major Breach.

I think, compared to crushing at least, it should provide a bit more DPS towards the end of the rotation, as you are reapplying buffs/dots. Since you can spam it as usual throughout the spammable portion of the parse, and then when you switch to buffing, you get that extra 30% proc without having to activate the skill.

Chilly-McFreeze

Hu? So they gutted CW even further, do I get this right? But cost remains the same?