Magicka Sorcerer Shields Are So Weak

Overamera

I have 50k+ magicka and it takes just one spammable for it to go down. It feels impossible to play outnumbered or solo when the shields go down so easily. Specially in No Cp all it takes in one crushing shock from and enemy and my shield is down.

Shields definitely need a buff!

acastanza_ESO

You have to run three shields, each with a 6 duration to even start to have a decent amount of shielding, and even then one of those shields will randomly appear on someone else if they happen to have less health than you - and of course, this is the only shield that will actually heal you.

I'd propose that Hardened Ward and Empowered Ward both need to be (more than) tripled in strength and have their duration doubled (and Empowered Ward needs healing added to it) and have the 60% of your Max Health cap removed, but at the cost of only being able to benefit from one self-cast damage shield at a time.

Quethrosar

i HATE shields, how are you supposed to dps if you need to keep a shield up ?
Mana and time go to the shield instead of combat.

YandereGirlfriend

I have never really grasped the supposed power of the shield-stacking style.

It always seems like you are chucking SO many GCDs into the fire maintaining them - WAY more than if you're simply stacking HoTs as is done on basically any other class.

Minalan

First off you need to stack two shields at least, hardened ward and the big morph of the light armor shield (harness?).

For efficiency, keep one shield up at all times, and cast both when under pressure. Keep at least one HOT running as well on top of that.

Next up, Sorc class shield is terrible. It does need a buff. There’s no buff associated with the hardened morph (unlike empowered ward) and hardened ward does NOT give you all of the extra shielding because of the battle spirit health cap on shields. Solution: add minor protection to this morph please.

YandereGirlfriend

Come to think of it, both shield morphs also only give you the Daedric Protection passive while the shield is actually active, so when you lose your shield you also lose a chunk of your Max HP. That seems unnecessarily punitive. In addition to a buff to the actual morphs, this should probably also be addressed.

acastanza_ESO

Minalan wrote: »

First off you need to stack two shields at least, hardened ward and the big morph of the light armor shield (harness?).

For efficiency, keep one shield up at all times, and cast both when under pressure. Keep at least one HOT running as well on top of that.

Next up, Sorc class shield is terrible. It does need a buff. There’s no buff associated with the hardened morph (unlike empowered ward) and hardened ward does NOT give you all of the extra shielding because of the battle spirit health cap on shields. Solution: add minor protection to this morph please.

Minor Protection is already on Bound Ageis (along with Minor Resolve). What Sorc really needs access to is self healing that isn't tied to a liability pet or to crit RNG.

Minalan

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

First off you need to stack two shields at least, hardened ward and the big morph of the light armor shield (harness?).

For efficiency, keep one shield up at all times, and cast both when under pressure. Keep at least one HOT running as well on top of that.

Next up, Sorc class shield is terrible. It does need a buff. There’s no buff associated with the hardened morph (unlike empowered ward) and hardened ward does NOT give you all of the extra shielding because of the battle spirit health cap on shields. Solution: add minor protection to this morph please.

Minor Protection is already on Bound Ageis (along with Minor Resolve). What Sorc really needs access to is self healing that isn't tied to a liability pet or to crit RNG.

They could add major protection (10%) while the shield is up, and it wouldn’t be overpowered.

Ideally they need to raise the health cap for shields to cope with the reality of 28K spectral bow procs. Then no buff would be required, we would actually get the hardened ward shield increase that we need to survive in light armor.

It should be at least 80% max health with scaling, then we could afford to put more spell damage and less magicka stat in our builds.

But we don’t get what we’re due, and the class is bad.

Overamera

Minalan wrote: »

First off you need to stack two shields at least, hardened ward and the big morph of the light armor shield (harness?).

I run both hardened and dampen and they still get fried so easily. 50k+ mag with pretty much useless shields and the low damage you put out. Magsorc is useless for pvp. Hats off for the sorcs that still manage to put up a fight.

Soarora

The shield definitely needs help in my opinion. It’s nigh useless on my pve tank, I only use it if I need a magicka cost shield and even then it covers little of my health compared to the sword and board shield. I use it fine on my pvp stamsorc but that’s just in place of dark conversion when I need a “heal” faster than the dark conversion cast time.

Minalan

Here's some real numbers:

Hardened ward has a 60% health cap on shields. This is what you're getting:

• With 28K health and 49K max magicka, outside of Cyrodiil I am getting 16,754 shields
• Inside Cydodiil with the same: 12,113 shields
• Battle spirit reduces shield strength and damage taken by 50%.

So basically the base shield strength of the hardened morph is getting cut in half, though they let us keep the scaling.

I am not sure whether they should increase the health cap, or alter the battle spirit cap for damage shields (raise to 60%), but a 12K shield isn't good for that much max stat investment. I can't push max magicka any higher without losing some of the 4-4.5K+ spell damage that I managed to squeeze in.

TLDR; Sorc should be at 12K shields with 35K max magicka so that we can push spell damage to 6K+. That would be more competitive in this meta. But you cannot do that. Proc set effects scale with spell damage, not max stats. Max stat damage scaling is not increased by 20% with major sorcery/brutality.

It's all because of one defensive mechanic: Damage shields that scale on max stat. It would be nice if we could heal like everyone else in PVP, but we can’t do that. We get damage shields.

Adernath

They nerfed sorcs into the ground over the years, likey that they can enjoy playing their favorite stamina toons and feel OP in PvP.

With all that lag on top of it, it is hardly possible to re-apply the buffs effectively in cyro. Sorc playstile requires literally zero lag to be effective, in particular with all the nerfs they have done.

OBJnoob

Don't get me wrong I want PvP sorc to get buffs as well, I'm just not sure this is the way to go. Shields have been out of style long before u35. You'd be better off taking your own advice, stacking damage instead of max stat, include a couple pieces of other armor weights, and maybe wearing a defensive set.

Crit surge, matriarch, and vigor isn't a bad start for healing.

Anyway... Who knows maybe I'm wrong. But the original post talking about making the shield 3x as big as last 2x as long... Nah. That's madness. Keep in mind nobody else would benefit from this change at all. Does it really need to be threefold?

Minalan

OBJnoob wrote: »

Don't get me wrong I want PvP sorc to get buffs as well, I'm just not sure this is the way to go. Shields have been out of style long before u35. You'd be better off taking your own advice, stacking damage instead of max stat, include a couple pieces of other armor weights, and maybe wearing a defensive set.

Crit surge, matriarch, and vigor isn't a bad start for healing.

Anyway... Who knows maybe I'm wrong. But the original post talking about making the shield 3x as big as last 2x as long... Nah. That's madness. Keep in mind nobody else would benefit from this change at all. Does it really need to be threefold?

Without five light, we don’t have any armor pen, and no class access to armor pen debuffs other than maybe 1K on crystal weapon.

Matriarch is a terrible heal in PVP. That stupid bird is literally a 20K+ PB/OO bomb waiting to explode and kill anyone near it. Find me another class where their heal isn’t one global away from exploding and killing them?

We would benefit the most by raising the PVP battle spirit cap for damage shields or making damage shields scale off of spell damage to 12K at the high end. The former is REALLY easy to do though, and the latter is a difficult rework.

jaws343

Minalan wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

Don't get me wrong I want PvP sorc to get buffs as well, I'm just not sure this is the way to go. Shields have been out of style long before u35. You'd be better off taking your own advice, stacking damage instead of max stat, include a couple pieces of other armor weights, and maybe wearing a defensive set.

Crit surge, matriarch, and vigor isn't a bad start for healing.

Anyway... Who knows maybe I'm wrong. But the original post talking about making the shield 3x as big as last 2x as long... Nah. That's madness. Keep in mind nobody else would benefit from this change at all. Does it really need to be threefold?

Without five light, we don’t have any armor pen, and no class access to armor pen debuffs other than maybe 1K on crystal weapon.

Matriarch is a terrible heal in PVP. That stupid bird is literally a 20K+ PB/OO bomb waiting to explode and kill anyone near it. Find me another class where their heal isn’t one global away from exploding and killing them?

We would benefit the most by raising the PVP battle spirit cap for damage shields or making damage shields scale off of spell damage to 12K at the high end. The former is REALLY easy to do though, and the latter is a difficult rework.

Plus matriarch takes two bar slots away, which is huge for the already problematic bar space situation for sorcs.

Another good idea for shields would be to just allow them to crit. If they can take crit damage they should also be able to crit, using both crit chance and crit damage modifiers to account for the chance to crit and the size of the shield increase after a crit.

PhoenixGrey

OBJnoob wrote: »

Don't get me wrong I want PvP sorc to get buffs as well, I'm just not sure this is the way to go. Shields have been out of style long before u35. You'd be better off taking your own advice, stacking damage instead of max stat, include a couple pieces of other armor weights, and maybe wearing a defensive set.

Crit surge, matriarch, and vigor isn't a bad start for healing.

Anyway... Who knows maybe I'm wrong. But the original post talking about making the shield 3x as big as last 2x as long... Nah. That's madness. Keep in mind nobody else would benefit from this change at all. Does it really need to be threefold?

Any mag sorc using crit surge, matriarch and vigor for heals is a typical one shot farmable dummy

You can safely delete crit surge and matriarch from sorc toolkit with zero effect to mag sorc itself. I believe surge might be useful to stamsorcs but not mag sorc. Matriarch will die before you get the heal off. Vigor on mag sorc is weak as mag sorc typically does not stack spell damage

Run 3 shields and I still one shot you. Run 3 heals and it's still the same.

PhoenixGrey

Minalan wrote: »

Here's some real numbers:

Hardened ward has a 60% health cap on shields. This is what you're getting:

• With 28K health and 49K max magicka, outside of Cyrodiil I am getting 16,754 shields
• Inside Cydodiil with the same: 12,113 shields
• Battle spirit reduces shield strength and damage taken by 50%.

So basically the base shield strength of the hardened morph is getting cut in half, though they let us keep the scaling.

I am not sure whether they should increase the health cap, or alter the battle spirit cap for damage shields (raise to 60%), but a 12K shield isn't good for that much max stat investment. I can't push max magicka any higher without losing some of the 4-4.5K+ spell damage that I managed to squeeze in.

TLDR; Sorc should be at 12K shields with 35K max magicka so that we can push spell damage to 6K+. That would be more competitive in this meta. But you cannot do that. Proc set effects scale with spell damage, not max stats. Max stat damage scaling is not increased by 20% with major sorcery/brutality.

It's all because of one defensive mechanic: Damage shields that scale on max stat. It would be nice if we could heal like everyone else in PVP, but we can’t do that. We get damage shields.

Battle spirit not affecting shield sizes will be a good start.

There are already heals with battlespirit exceptions for a fan favorite class

PhoenixGrey

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

First off you need to stack two shields at least, hardened ward and the big morph of the light armor shield (harness?).

For efficiency, keep one shield up at all times, and cast both when under pressure. Keep at least one HOT running as well on top of that.

Next up, Sorc class shield is terrible. It does need a buff. There’s no buff associated with the hardened morph (unlike empowered ward) and hardened ward does NOT give you all of the extra shielding because of the battle spirit health cap on shields. Solution: add minor protection to this morph please.

Minor Protection is already on Bound Ageis (along with Minor Resolve). What Sorc really needs access to is self healing that isn't tied to a liability pet or to crit RNG.

Bound aegis is an expensive skill

If casting it gave major protection it makes sense to keep that buff up.

PhoenixGrey

jaws343 wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

OBJnoob wrote: »

Don't get me wrong I want PvP sorc to get buffs as well, I'm just not sure this is the way to go. Shields have been out of style long before u35. You'd be better off taking your own advice, stacking damage instead of max stat, include a couple pieces of other armor weights, and maybe wearing a defensive set.

Crit surge, matriarch, and vigor isn't a bad start for healing.

Anyway... Who knows maybe I'm wrong. But the original post talking about making the shield 3x as big as last 2x as long... Nah. That's madness. Keep in mind nobody else would benefit from this change at all. Does it really need to be threefold?

Without five light, we don’t have any armor pen, and no class access to armor pen debuffs other than maybe 1K on crystal weapon.

Matriarch is a terrible heal in PVP. That stupid bird is literally a 20K+ PB/OO bomb waiting to explode and kill anyone near it. Find me another class where their heal isn’t one global away from exploding and killing them?

We would benefit the most by raising the PVP battle spirit cap for damage shields or making damage shields scale off of spell damage to 12K at the high end. The former is REALLY easy to do though, and the latter is a difficult rework.

Plus matriarch takes two bar slots away, which is huge for the already problematic bar space situation for sorcs.

Another good idea for shields would be to just allow them to crit. If they can take crit damage they should also be able to crit, using both crit chance and crit damage modifiers to account for the chance to crit and the size of the shield increase after a crit.

The class does have some crit passives so it does synergies well

Xarc

I remember when sorc ruled the world, some years ago.

Minalan

Xarc wrote: »

I remember when sorc ruled the world, some years ago.

We don't want to rule the world, but we do want to play and be competitive.

Fixing shields would be a great start. Anything would help, even if it's 40% lower on battle spirit instead of 50%. Or add more shields to the base so that the 50% battle spirit cut is less punitive.

One 12K hardened ward at 50K max magicka is absolutely ridiculous, it should be 20% higher at least.

Artim_X

Damage shields are fine if you build for it (high resistance, decent health, decent magicka, bastion CP, etc.).

A slight buff to them wouldn't be game breaking, but they definitely aren't useless.

Overamera

Artim_X wrote: »

Damage shields are fine if you build for it (high resistance, decent health, decent magicka, bastion CP, etc.).

50k+ mag 30k health with death dealers. What do you think we build for? Damage?

jaws343

Overamera wrote: »

Artim_X wrote: »

Damage shields are fine if you build for it (high resistance, decent health, decent magicka, bastion CP, etc.).

50k+ mag 30k health with death dealers. What do you think we build for? Damage?

Not to mention, in order to build for large shields you have almost zero opportunity to also built for high resistance, and barely hit that 30K health mark.

ArgonianAustin

I remember the days of barrier like shields in pve with a 60k max magicka, and when shields lasted 26 seconds for hardened and 20 for light armor shield. But the latter only protected against magic attacks. I feel making shields last 10 seconds would be ok but they are still weak. Maybe make them not crittable again and not scale on resistances.

PhoenixGrey

Artim_X wrote: »

Damage shields are fine if you build for it (high resistance, decent health, decent magicka, bastion CP, etc.).

A slight buff to them wouldn't be game breaking, but they definitely aren't useless.

Sure, build for it! I can still rip through any sorc shield and insta delete you on any other class of mine

OBJnoob

@PhoenixGrey like I said, I know they need buffs, I just don't think buffing shields is the answer. For one thing it just promotes an already dead play style wherein, as you mentioned in talking about vigor, sorcs are still weak because they have no damage stacked. Also in your responses, to others as well as myself, you complain about a lack of penetration. So give sorcs a skill with major breach. Then they don't have to wear 5 light, and don't have to rely on shields cuz they have no armor, and at the same time can achieve higher damage with a few pieces of medium. Its a much more circumspect answer than "make shields 3 times bigger and last 2 times longer." Or make sorc pets untargetable and also unkillable... Would solve a lot of problems old and new. All of these suggestions are borne of complaints found in this very thread. And all of these suggestions would actually help sorc now, not put a bandaid on a playstyle that's been dead for a long time.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

I hate so much where mag sorc is right now. I wont even get into it too much how they are now trash tier for solo/openworld PVP. Shields are the lowest form of defense in ESO. The best Mag sorcs dont run them in PVP anymore. They dodge and heal. Add to that that one dodge roll negates their entire offensive bust combo. That is just the tip of the sorc PVP iceberg.

Random Sorc PVE Tangent:

I just spent the last 2 nights parsing with a mag sorc on the trial dummy. I havent done a dummy parse in about 6 months or so, but I wanted to see how things where going in the new Meta. I hate what the sorc rotation has become.

Want to parse competitively? Well, better go DW and 2H, because of course that makes sense for a magic sorcerer. Why would we want a staff to be competitive. Great job! Not uniquely a sorc problem, I will concede.

Let's also talk weaving in a world where ZOS is trying to lower the ceiling and raise the floor on a class that has historically been one of the most accessible for beginners. Well guess what folks, you have 4 different weave timings you need to deal with:

1. Overload weaving.
2. Hard cast frags weaving.
3. Stampede weaving.
4. Regular skill weaving.

None of these timings are the same. Take that floor! Trying to maintain high pace with few missed LAs is harder on sorc now than any other class ever been since launch by a mile.

Want to really squeeze out everything? Well, you also need to manage a back bar proc (Pillar) on a class where you cant swap off the main spammable, and nothing in the meta rotation lines up well from a duration standpoint with Pillar. Because most DOTs hit like a noodle and are 20 Seconds long, there is another minigame that needs to be played where you need to decide every 10 seconds what DOT is best to recast early. Its a nightmare.

This class now has a .8 second channel (that you cant bar swap off of). A 6 second skill in curse. A 10 Sec proc for pillar on meta specs, and potentially an 8 second proc if running siroria, a 15 second skill in stampede (also has swapping/weaving issues), and various 20 second skills, 2 of which require double bar slots. None of it lines up well, and you can literally have 3-4 skills in a row that all need to be weaved with different timing. Sure, there are people that hit 135k+ with one on a dummy after parse fishing for a month, but it is the clunkiest and most frustrating rotation I have ever played.

The rotation is also HEAVILY RNG dependent. I have been parsing on pretty much every class since target dummies where introduced, with more time on sorc than most. I have never seen a standard deviation in parses like I am seeing, my pace is as slow as its ever been, and the number of LAs I miss has never been higher than on mag sorc right now. Sure I can pull 120k+ with one, but the next parse might come in at 105k. I am done playing it. Its a disaster.

AdamLAD

I only want a few buffs. Like shields get a direct increase of 20%. A 25% reduction in cost. Harness gives Stamina and magicka. Curse gives minor or major breach. Frags got its stun back. And force pulse and shock is undodgeable. Our execute should be unblockable, undodgeable and unstealthable. What i mean by this is that when you press execute but a nightblade goes into stealth at the same time it shouldn't dodge/suppress or not make our direct hit from execute land. Make pets 1 bar (PvP only) I think this would bump sorcerer up to the power levels of the other classes. Also rework a few passives. Like why get a reduction in cost after blocking ? It should be after dodgerolling. I think all these are fair changes. Considering Max Magicka is way way less powerful than raw spell or physical damage. It would keep the identity of sorcerer. All playstyles would be accommodated and not make it broken.

Overamera

If magsorc were to pick up the non shield style and use vigor it would need a better burst heal for pvp. The pet heal is just too unreliable since it can just be killed of lol. Like almost every other class that uses vigor as a HoT now and their own class burst heal. Tho i would prefer they buffed shields somehow so magsorc sticks with shield style which makes it unique.

PhoenixGrey

OBJnoob wrote: »

@PhoenixGrey like I said, I know they need buffs, I just don't think buffing shields is the answer. For one thing it just promotes an already dead play style wherein, as you mentioned in talking about vigor, sorcs are still weak because they have no damage stacked. Also in your responses, to others as well as myself, you complain about a lack of penetration. So give sorcs a skill with major breach. Then they don't have to wear 5 light, and don't have to rely on shields cuz they have no armor, and at the same time can achieve higher damage with a few pieces of medium. Its a much more circumspect answer than "make shields 3 times bigger and last 2 times longer." Or make sorc pets untargetable and also unkillable... Would solve a lot of problems old and new. All of these suggestions are borne of complaints found in this very thread. And all of these suggestions would actually help sorc now, not put a bandaid on a playstyle that's been dead for a long time.

The old playstyle is the sorc identity. It will be like playing stamblade without cloak.

I would rather play ranged magplar which is 10x better ranged class than mag sorc right now.
Or continue playing stamblade which I just started and feel quite invincible and can probably beat any mag sorc main on it

Mag sorc with heals will never work because we don't have any viable class healing abilities neither do we have healing passives. Nor do we have damage mitigation passives to survive without shields.

Defense and sustain are bigger problems than damage right now. I picked to play stamblade a few weeks back because it has the best defense in the game.