Sorc Pain Points and ideas on buffs, changes and reworks to skills to bring the class up to par.

PhoenixGrey

Bergzorn wrote: »

This discussion should be about the performance of the class in general and not about the performance of individuals.

Performance of the class is trash tier

Performance of players on the class is also thrash except some individuals who are deluded enough to believe it’s not

Turtle_Bot

@MalcolM24 Curious on your thoughts on this. Was there anything I missed here, anything you would want to add or change? Anything that isn't as much of an issue?

Pelanora

Yes please to every good idea in here.

Also why do warden and dk only get wings. NB obviously can't have any, they're the invisible class. Templars glow like the sun.

Sorcs deserve lightning wings.

StaticWave

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

gariondavey

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

Aces-High-82

Cwep ain't worth the slot after the triple nerf (skill plus LA)

gariondavey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

You opt for BA primarily because it ignores almost all LOS as long as you have taptargeted your enemy and he's in range (Walls, Towers, Barricades, Rocks, Trees, Terrain etc). Yes, it's dmg was nerfed but still justified for its passive if you look at its cost.

Turtle_Bot

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

StaticWave

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

StaticWave

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Cwep ain't worth the slot after the triple nerf (skill plus LA)

gariondavey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

You opt for BA primarily because it ignores almost all LOS as long as you have taptargeted your enemy and he's in range (Walls, Towers, Barricades, Rocks, Trees, Terrain etc). Yes, it's dmg was nerfed but still justified for its passive if you look at its cost.

Cwep is still 100% needed. It's still a massive buff compared to its vanilla version. You are getting 2 stacks that can potentially heal twice for the cost of 1. The light attack nerf has zero effect on this ability because only its activation is tied to light attack. The actual damage tooltip is similar to other spammables. You are going to weave light attacks regardless of the nerf, so it makes zero sense to slot something else in place of Crystal Weapon.

Aces-High-82

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Cwep ain't worth the slot after the triple nerf (skill plus LA)

gariondavey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

You opt for BA primarily because it ignores almost all LOS as long as you have taptargeted your enemy and he's in range (Walls, Towers, Barricades, Rocks, Trees, Terrain etc). Yes, it's dmg was nerfed but still justified for its passive if you look at its cost.

Cwep is still 100% needed. It's still a massive buff compared to its vanilla version. You are getting 2 stacks that can potentially heal twice for the cost of 1. The light attack nerf has zero effect on this ability because only its activation is tied to light attack. The actual damage tooltip is similar to other spammables. You are going to weave light attacks regardless of the nerf, so it makes zero sense to slot something else in place of Crystal Weapon.

You are trading two tiny heals for what??..~30% better burst with a proced cfrag. Cfrag alone is comparable to Dizzy as ele sus enables Crushing Weapon not being mandatory. Additionally it enables even more burst as you can insta weave a proced frag of itself. No need for a spammable atm.
Also fluid LA weaving is not always possible in cyro (PC EU).

Aces-High-82

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

Oh, you run crushing shock oO thank you very much for the free cc immunity lol

Turtle_Bot

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

If a magsorc burst is taking 80% of anyones HP, they're either in no cp, on a pve build, on a gank build with 0 defense or they're not "a competent player". No matter which of these they are, it does not mean sorc offense is in a good spot, especially if it requires enemies to not do anything defensively to achieve that damage. Haunting curse is also the most reliable part of the current sorc offensive burst, it would be nice if the rest of the burst would be even close to curses reliability.

On another note, I've noticed you're on PCNA, so that is likely the reason for your differing opinion on the class to me.

On PCEU where lag and horrendous performance still very much exist even outside of prime time due to the lack of a server upgrade still, things are very different for sorc in general and mag sorc especially.

Everyone is running around on 35k+ health, near max resistances + CP mitigation, streak doesn't work (even outside of prime time) and casting the burst combo on a visibly stunned enemy only ever results in 4-5 dodges above their character (or 3 dodges and 1 tick of about 4k damage if you're lucky), then there's the issue of healing and streak, it takes about 5 seconds for the servers to register that the heal/streak is being cast making dark deal/conversion and summoning the pets almost impossible to not have interrupted and with CC immunity not working at all, especially if there's more than 0 bars population on any faction online, it makes healing/defense on sorc practically impossible for anyone who has 300+ ping.

RemoryAzure

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

~30% better burst with a proced cfrag.

cfrag has somewhat bugged animation lock making u unable to use skills or LA after use for like 1-1.5 sec therefore cannot be called "burst". if u ever tried to check dummy dps with and without cfrag then u know that WITH cfrag its always the same and often less coz of mentioned bug. cw >> cfrag in every possible way.

catalyst10e

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

The following would improve Sorc quality of life.

• Pets should remain active when slotted on only 1 bar and you toggle bar.
• Pets needs a survivability buff. Either mitigation or health. They die in 1 global cooldown.
• Sorc shields need a buff. They don't mitigate nearly enough damage anymore. Increase shield strength by 10% or provide Major Protection when active.
• If you're not going to buff pets and you're not going to buff shields, then you need to make Dark Deal/Conversion an instant cast heal. Every other class gets one. Having to rely on a cast time for your burst heal is not good.

Honestly just this, in the short term would do a lot for Sorcs. Shield would benefit greatly if they just reverted back to when they couldn't be hit with crit.

Dark deal doesn't heal nearly enough for all the downsides it has. Necros get a big burst heal with a downside being minor defile so a good balance there. dark deal is just a bad heal with a cast time that can be interrupted when someone sneezes on you, no compensation.

StaticWave

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

Oh, you run crushing shock oO thank you very much for the free cc immunity lol

You can take the free CC Immunity. I run a charged Staff, and every single Crushing Shock cast will apply 3 status effects on you. Combined with Crystal Weapon and double damage poisons, I'm applying 5 status effects. That's a lot extra damage on top of my regular spammable damage.

Your CC Immunity isn't going to save you from that.

StaticWave

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Cwep ain't worth the slot after the triple nerf (skill plus LA)

gariondavey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

You opt for BA primarily because it ignores almost all LOS as long as you have taptargeted your enemy and he's in range (Walls, Towers, Barricades, Rocks, Trees, Terrain etc). Yes, it's dmg was nerfed but still justified for its passive if you look at its cost.

Cwep is still 100% needed. It's still a massive buff compared to its vanilla version. You are getting 2 stacks that can potentially heal twice for the cost of 1. The light attack nerf has zero effect on this ability because only its activation is tied to light attack. The actual damage tooltip is similar to other spammables. You are going to weave light attacks regardless of the nerf, so it makes zero sense to slot something else in place of Crystal Weapon.

You are trading two tiny heals for what??..~30% better burst with a proced cfrag. Cfrag alone is comparable to Dizzy as ele sus enables Crushing Weapon not being mandatory. Additionally it enables even more burst as you can insta weave a proced frag of itself. No need for a spammable atm.
Also fluid LA weaving is not always possible in cyro (PC EU).

Tiny heal? lol. It's a 1.5k base heal after Battle Spirit per half second. You're getting 3k HPS from that for just being consistent with light attack weaving, which is not that hard to do. Even if you don't consistently weave, it's still on demand extra damage.

Cfrag is comparable to Dizzy but Crushing Weapon is better than dizzy. The amount of utility you get from Cwep, Cfrag cannot compare. Just the fact that you can precast Cwep and use it with another ability makes it better than Cfrag. You can also weave it with back bar abilities, whereas to do that with Cfrag you have to double bar it.

There's no scenario where Cfrag is even remotely better than Cwep. Ask any magsorc main that isn't a potato.

StaticWave

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

If a magsorc burst is taking 80% of anyones HP, they're either in no cp, on a pve build, on a gank build with 0 defense or they're not "a competent player". No matter which of these they are, it does not mean sorc offense is in a good spot, especially if it requires enemies to not do anything defensively to achieve that damage. Haunting curse is also the most reliable part of the current sorc offensive burst, it would be nice if the rest of the burst would be even close to curses reliability.

On another note, I've noticed you're on PCNA, so that is likely the reason for your differing opinion on the class to me.

On PCEU where lag and horrendous performance still very much exist even outside of prime time due to the lack of a server upgrade still, things are very different for sorc in general and mag sorc especially.

Everyone is running around on 35k+ health, near max resistances + CP mitigation, streak doesn't work (even outside of prime time) and casting the burst combo on a visibly stunned enemy only ever results in 4-5 dodges above their character (or 3 dodges and 1 tick of about 4k damage if you're lucky), then there's the issue of healing and streak, it takes about 5 seconds for the servers to register that the heal/streak is being cast making dark deal/conversion and summoning the pets almost impossible to not have interrupted and with CC immunity not working at all, especially if there's more than 0 bars population on any faction online, it makes healing/defense on sorc practically impossible for anyone who has 300+ ping.

On PC NA players are running in max tank builds too, there's not that much difference between the two servers. The only noticeable difference is server performance and I'm speaking from experience playing with better performance. I don't think Sorc's offense need to be extensively reworked. Sure it could get a few extra buffs like applying a Major debuff or having some unique damage buff, but when the server performs well it's doable to drop someone's HP by 80%. Tankier players will take less damage, but you can still drop their HP by 50%. I've dueled plenty of good players to make this statement.

What it really needs is survivability. In a good performance environment, my only weakness is not having a true burst heal. I also play stamsorc with no Rally, so my weakness is amplified even more, but I'm still able to survive well when the server performs up to standards. If I had a true burst heal, I would literally be extremely hard to kill.

This is why I think buffing sorc is a double edged sword. The class's weakness is also needed to prevent it from being OP. If it got the same treatment as NB, it would literally be a FOTM class. Heck, even a single buff to Cwep made it FOTM. Do you think it's a good idea to give it all these buffs then seeing them nerfed the patch after because it became OP?

Turtle_Bot

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

If a magsorc burst is taking 80% of anyones HP, they're either in no cp, on a pve build, on a gank build with 0 defense or they're not "a competent player". No matter which of these they are, it does not mean sorc offense is in a good spot, especially if it requires enemies to not do anything defensively to achieve that damage. Haunting curse is also the most reliable part of the current sorc offensive burst, it would be nice if the rest of the burst would be even close to curses reliability.

On another note, I've noticed you're on PCNA, so that is likely the reason for your differing opinion on the class to me.

On PCEU where lag and horrendous performance still very much exist even outside of prime time due to the lack of a server upgrade still, things are very different for sorc in general and mag sorc especially.

Everyone is running around on 35k+ health, near max resistances + CP mitigation, streak doesn't work (even outside of prime time) and casting the burst combo on a visibly stunned enemy only ever results in 4-5 dodges above their character (or 3 dodges and 1 tick of about 4k damage if you're lucky), then there's the issue of healing and streak, it takes about 5 seconds for the servers to register that the heal/streak is being cast making dark deal/conversion and summoning the pets almost impossible to not have interrupted and with CC immunity not working at all, especially if there's more than 0 bars population on any faction online, it makes healing/defense on sorc practically impossible for anyone who has 300+ ping.

On PC NA players are running in max tank builds too, there's not that much difference between the two servers. The only noticeable difference is server performance and I'm speaking from experience playing with better performance. I don't think Sorc's offense need to be extensively reworked. Sure it could get a few extra buffs like applying a Major debuff or having some unique damage buff, but when the server performs well it's doable to drop someone's HP by 80%. Tankier players will take less damage, but you can still drop their HP by 50%. I've dueled plenty of good players to make this statement.

What it really needs is survivability. In a good performance environment, my only weakness is not having a true burst heal. I also play stamsorc with no Rally, so my weakness is amplified even more, but I'm still able to survive well when the server performs up to standards. If I had a true burst heal, I would literally be extremely hard to kill.

This is why I think buffing sorc is a double edged sword. The class's weakness is also needed to prevent it from being OP. If it got the same treatment as NB, it would literally be a FOTM class. Heck, even a single buff to Cwep made it FOTM. Do you think it's a good idea to give it all these buffs then seeing them nerfed the patch after because it became OP?

I see the issues with our conflicting points of view more clearly now.

1. We are talking about magsorc here, not stamsorc. Stamsorc is still in a decent spot, especially for offense. Sure, it could use some small buffs to healing/defense but its offense is fine as is (I am speaking as a magsorc main who has switched to stamsorc for now because of how bad it is for mag and can do fine on stamsorc).

For mag especially, the damage issue comes down to 1 main thing. Reliability.

Improving performance will help with this, but it still isn't enough. Dodge roll, block, and even the more niche counters such as invis/LoS/speed/damage reflection and cleanse are all far too cheap for how easily accessible these counters are combined with how strong they are at countering the entirety of magsorcs offensive toolkit. Also, frags proc chance seems to be much lower than the stated 33% that it got nerfed to, to account for proccing off any ability, at least, that is how it has been for me where it regularly is closer to a 20% proc chance than the stated 33% chance.

2. Those of us calling for the more drastic buffs to the class (for the most part) seem to be PC EU players, not PC NA players, so poor performance is the norm for us rather than an exception. Although from what I've been hearing, PC NA has been having issues since U36 release as well.

As you stated, improving performance will definitely help, no argument from me there, but the class still has other issues that need addressing.

I do agree that the damage values don't need much, what is most needed for the offensive part of the toolkit is better reliability of that damage and some additional buffs/debuffs or a better, more reliable execute that every other class already has to help with applying pressure and finishing targets.
As for defense, it definitely needs a lot more help, again though, the theme of the buffs required needs to be in the reliability of the abilities to work without the punishing downsides that get drastically and disproportionally punished even further when performance is poor.

Also, note about U34 bowsorc. The reason it became a FOTM class was purely because of a very strong build that used savage werewolf that could stack its damage infinitely, but it was only meant to work at melee range which was overlooked during the entire proc set rework a few patches prior and left to work at any range. That build got leaked and became very popular. Sure, crystal weapon was an overtuned ability, but it wasn't the sole reason bowsorc was as strong as it was.

It was savage werewolf ticking so frequently and with so many stacked instances that it negated all healing over time that was causing bowsorc to be so overwhelmingly strong. Also, due to inflicting so many stacks, cleanse could not remove enough stacks to reliably counter it either, hence why people would be fine for like 5 seconds then instantly melt after that.

They have since fixed the issue with savage werewolf and combined with the nerfs to crystal weapon and bound armaments, bowsorc immediately fell off again until the way of fire build was figured out and even that build had its issues and was only strong in the hands of good players.

Aces-High-82

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

Oh, you run crushing shock oO thank you very much for the free cc immunity lol

You can take the free CC Immunity. I run a charged Staff, and every single Crushing Shock cast will apply 3 status effects on you. Combined with Crystal Weapon and double damage poisons, I'm applying 5 status effects. That's a lot extra damage on top of my regular spammable damage.

Your CC Immunity isn't going to save you from that.

So you neglect neglect roughly 10% from sharpened instead of slotting ele sus for major breach/status effects and morphing to force pulse. That double dot poison is ok but sundered via stam absorb glyph is a better option imo. Be realistic - all those tiny dots are out healed easily as how scaling is atm.

Aces-High-82

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Cwep ain't worth the slot after the triple nerf (skill plus LA)

gariondavey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

You opt for BA primarily because it ignores almost all LOS as long as you have taptargeted your enemy and he's in range (Walls, Towers, Barricades, Rocks, Trees, Terrain etc). Yes, it's dmg was nerfed but still justified for its passive if you look at its cost.

Cwep is still 100% needed. It's still a massive buff compared to its vanilla version. You are getting 2 stacks that can potentially heal twice for the cost of 1. The light attack nerf has zero effect on this ability because only its activation is tied to light attack. The actual damage tooltip is similar to other spammables. You are going to weave light attacks regardless of the nerf, so it makes zero sense to slot something else in place of Crystal Weapon.

You are trading two tiny heals for what??..~30% better burst with a proced cfrag. Cfrag alone is comparable to Dizzy as ele sus enables Crushing Weapon not being mandatory. Additionally it enables even more burst as you can insta weave a proced frag of itself. No need for a spammable atm.
Also fluid LA weaving is not always possible in cyro (PC EU).

Tiny heal? lol. It's a 1.5k base heal after Battle Spirit per half second. You're getting 3k HPS from that for just being consistent with light attack weaving, which is not that hard to do. Even if you don't consistently weave, it's still on demand extra damage.

Cfrag is comparable to Dizzy but Crushing Weapon is better than dizzy. The amount of utility you get from Cwep, Cfrag cannot compare. Just the fact that you can precast Cwep and use it with another ability makes it better than Cfrag. You can also weave it with back bar abilities, whereas to do that with Cfrag you have to double bar it.

There's no scenario where Cfrag is even remotely better than Cwep. Ask any magsorc main that isn't a potato.

LA CD is 0.7...
On magsorc I like to conserve Stam for streakdodge and BF so I don't have to run double reg food. You ask for a burst heal while matriarch crits up to 18k in nocp....

PhoenixGrey

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Cwep ain't worth the slot after the triple nerf (skill plus LA)

gariondavey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

You opt for BA primarily because it ignores almost all LOS as long as you have taptargeted your enemy and he's in range (Walls, Towers, Barricades, Rocks, Trees, Terrain etc). Yes, it's dmg was nerfed but still justified for its passive if you look at its cost.

Cwep is still 100% needed. It's still a massive buff compared to its vanilla version. You are getting 2 stacks that can potentially heal twice for the cost of 1. The light attack nerf has zero effect on this ability because only its activation is tied to light attack. The actual damage tooltip is similar to other spammables. You are going to weave light attacks regardless of the nerf, so it makes zero sense to slot something else in place of Crystal Weapon.

You are trading two tiny heals for what??..~30% better burst with a proced cfrag. Cfrag alone is comparable to Dizzy as ele sus enables Crushing Weapon not being mandatory. Additionally it enables even more burst as you can insta weave a proced frag of itself. No need for a spammable atm.
Also fluid LA weaving is not always possible in cyro (PC EU).

Tiny heal? lol. It's a 1.5k base heal after Battle Spirit per half second. You're getting 3k HPS from that for just being consistent with light attack weaving, which is not that hard to do. Even if you don't consistently weave, it's still on demand extra damage.

Cfrag is comparable to Dizzy but Crushing Weapon is better than dizzy. The amount of utility you get from Cwep, Cfrag cannot compare. Just the fact that you can precast Cwep and use it with another ability makes it better than Cfrag. You can also weave it with back bar abilities, whereas to do that with Cfrag you have to double bar it.

There's no scenario where Cfrag is even remotely better than Cwep. Ask any magsorc main that isn't a potato.

Aren’t you talking about stam sorc ?

I mean your damage comes mostly from a stamina skill and your heal is probably vigor because obviously shields are useless and sorc does not have a class heal( bird dies instantly so can’t count that )

So probably better to say you are playing a stam sorc and using some utility mag skills.

Doesn’t matter though does it ? Stam sorc is only slightly less trash than mag sorc. Both have non existent defense

StaticWave

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

Oh, you run crushing shock oO thank you very much for the free cc immunity lol

You can take the free CC Immunity. I run a charged Staff, and every single Crushing Shock cast will apply 3 status effects on you. Combined with Crystal Weapon and double damage poisons, I'm applying 5 status effects. That's a lot extra damage on top of my regular spammable damage.

Your CC Immunity isn't going to save you from that.

So you neglect neglect roughly 10% from sharpened instead of slotting ele sus for major breach/status effects and morphing to force pulse. That double dot poison is ok but sundered via stam absorb glyph is a better option imo. Be realistic - all those tiny dots are out healed easily as how scaling is atm.

You can slot Force of Nature CP to get back more pen from stacking status effects. Minor Vulnerability is 5% dmg taken as well, and Burning applies a nice DoT. It also lets you proc Minor Breach more frequently which is nice for extra damage AND basically makes up for the Sharpened loss. You're trading Sharpened for more chance to proc status effects that can apply debuffs. This is a net gain, not net loss.

StaticWave

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Cwep ain't worth the slot after the triple nerf (skill plus LA)

gariondavey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

You opt for BA primarily because it ignores almost all LOS as long as you have taptargeted your enemy and he's in range (Walls, Towers, Barricades, Rocks, Trees, Terrain etc). Yes, it's dmg was nerfed but still justified for its passive if you look at its cost.

Cwep is still 100% needed. It's still a massive buff compared to its vanilla version. You are getting 2 stacks that can potentially heal twice for the cost of 1. The light attack nerf has zero effect on this ability because only its activation is tied to light attack. The actual damage tooltip is similar to other spammables. You are going to weave light attacks regardless of the nerf, so it makes zero sense to slot something else in place of Crystal Weapon.

You are trading two tiny heals for what??..~30% better burst with a proced cfrag. Cfrag alone is comparable to Dizzy as ele sus enables Crushing Weapon not being mandatory. Additionally it enables even more burst as you can insta weave a proced frag of itself. No need for a spammable atm.
Also fluid LA weaving is not always possible in cyro (PC EU).

Tiny heal? lol. It's a 1.5k base heal after Battle Spirit per half second. You're getting 3k HPS from that for just being consistent with light attack weaving, which is not that hard to do. Even if you don't consistently weave, it's still on demand extra damage.

Cfrag is comparable to Dizzy but Crushing Weapon is better than dizzy. The amount of utility you get from Cwep, Cfrag cannot compare. Just the fact that you can precast Cwep and use it with another ability makes it better than Cfrag. You can also weave it with back bar abilities, whereas to do that with Cfrag you have to double bar it.

There's no scenario where Cfrag is even remotely better than Cwep. Ask any magsorc main that isn't a potato.

LA CD is 0.7...
On magsorc I like to conserve Stam for streakdodge and BF so I don't have to run double reg food. You ask for a burst heal while matriarch crits up to 18k in nocp....

You light attack first, then cast Cwep. This will give you the 1st heal tick. By the time the 1st light attack lands, you've already casted a 2nd light attack imbued with the 2nd Cwep charge.

StaticWave

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Cwep ain't worth the slot after the triple nerf (skill plus LA)

gariondavey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

You opt for BA primarily because it ignores almost all LOS as long as you have taptargeted your enemy and he's in range (Walls, Towers, Barricades, Rocks, Trees, Terrain etc). Yes, it's dmg was nerfed but still justified for its passive if you look at its cost.

Cwep is still 100% needed. It's still a massive buff compared to its vanilla version. You are getting 2 stacks that can potentially heal twice for the cost of 1. The light attack nerf has zero effect on this ability because only its activation is tied to light attack. The actual damage tooltip is similar to other spammables. You are going to weave light attacks regardless of the nerf, so it makes zero sense to slot something else in place of Crystal Weapon.

You are trading two tiny heals for what??..~30% better burst with a proced cfrag. Cfrag alone is comparable to Dizzy as ele sus enables Crushing Weapon not being mandatory. Additionally it enables even more burst as you can insta weave a proced frag of itself. No need for a spammable atm.
Also fluid LA weaving is not always possible in cyro (PC EU).

Tiny heal? lol. It's a 1.5k base heal after Battle Spirit per half second. You're getting 3k HPS from that for just being consistent with light attack weaving, which is not that hard to do. Even if you don't consistently weave, it's still on demand extra damage.

Cfrag is comparable to Dizzy but Crushing Weapon is better than dizzy. The amount of utility you get from Cwep, Cfrag cannot compare. Just the fact that you can precast Cwep and use it with another ability makes it better than Cfrag. You can also weave it with back bar abilities, whereas to do that with Cfrag you have to double bar it.

There's no scenario where Cfrag is even remotely better than Cwep. Ask any magsorc main that isn't a potato.

Aren’t you talking about stam sorc ?

I mean your damage comes mostly from a stamina skill and your heal is probably vigor because obviously shields are useless and sorc does not have a class heal( bird dies instantly so can’t count that )

So probably better to say you are playing a stam sorc and using some utility mag skills.

Doesn’t matter though does it ? Stam sorc is only slightly less trash than mag sorc. Both have non existent defense

I run a hybrid build. Stamsorcs don't exist this patch. Half of my damage comes from magicka based skills like Curse + Crushing Shock/Vamp Spammable. The other half comes from Cwep + Bound Arms. The only stamina based defense I have is Vigor. Streak, Dark Deal, Crit Surge are all Magicka skills. Stamsorc actually has worse survivability compared to magsorc if you think about it. They just move faster because that's the only way they can survive.

StaticWave

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

If a magsorc burst is taking 80% of anyones HP, they're either in no cp, on a pve build, on a gank build with 0 defense or they're not "a competent player". No matter which of these they are, it does not mean sorc offense is in a good spot, especially if it requires enemies to not do anything defensively to achieve that damage. Haunting curse is also the most reliable part of the current sorc offensive burst, it would be nice if the rest of the burst would be even close to curses reliability.

On another note, I've noticed you're on PCNA, so that is likely the reason for your differing opinion on the class to me.

On PCEU where lag and horrendous performance still very much exist even outside of prime time due to the lack of a server upgrade still, things are very different for sorc in general and mag sorc especially.

Everyone is running around on 35k+ health, near max resistances + CP mitigation, streak doesn't work (even outside of prime time) and casting the burst combo on a visibly stunned enemy only ever results in 4-5 dodges above their character (or 3 dodges and 1 tick of about 4k damage if you're lucky), then there's the issue of healing and streak, it takes about 5 seconds for the servers to register that the heal/streak is being cast making dark deal/conversion and summoning the pets almost impossible to not have interrupted and with CC immunity not working at all, especially if there's more than 0 bars population on any faction online, it makes healing/defense on sorc practically impossible for anyone who has 300+ ping.

On PC NA players are running in max tank builds too, there's not that much difference between the two servers. The only noticeable difference is server performance and I'm speaking from experience playing with better performance. I don't think Sorc's offense need to be extensively reworked. Sure it could get a few extra buffs like applying a Major debuff or having some unique damage buff, but when the server performs well it's doable to drop someone's HP by 80%. Tankier players will take less damage, but you can still drop their HP by 50%. I've dueled plenty of good players to make this statement.

What it really needs is survivability. In a good performance environment, my only weakness is not having a true burst heal. I also play stamsorc with no Rally, so my weakness is amplified even more, but I'm still able to survive well when the server performs up to standards. If I had a true burst heal, I would literally be extremely hard to kill.

This is why I think buffing sorc is a double edged sword. The class's weakness is also needed to prevent it from being OP. If it got the same treatment as NB, it would literally be a FOTM class. Heck, even a single buff to Cwep made it FOTM. Do you think it's a good idea to give it all these buffs then seeing them nerfed the patch after because it became OP?

I see the issues with our conflicting points of view more clearly now.

1. We are talking about magsorc here, not stamsorc. Stamsorc is still in a decent spot, especially for offense. Sure, it could use some small buffs to healing/defense but its offense is fine as is (I am speaking as a magsorc main who has switched to stamsorc for now because of how bad it is for mag and can do fine on stamsorc).

For mag especially, the damage issue comes down to 1 main thing. Reliability.

Improving performance will help with this, but it still isn't enough. Dodge roll, block, and even the more niche counters such as invis/LoS/speed/damage reflection and cleanse are all far too cheap for how easily accessible these counters are combined with how strong they are at countering the entirety of magsorcs offensive toolkit. Also, frags proc chance seems to be much lower than the stated 33% that it got nerfed to, to account for proccing off any ability, at least, that is how it has been for me where it regularly is closer to a 20% proc chance than the stated 33% chance.

2. Those of us calling for the more drastic buffs to the class (for the most part) seem to be PC EU players, not PC NA players, so poor performance is the norm for us rather than an exception. Although from what I've been hearing, PC NA has been having issues since U36 release as well.

As you stated, improving performance will definitely help, no argument from me there, but the class still has other issues that need addressing.

I do agree that the damage values don't need much, what is most needed for the offensive part of the toolkit is better reliability of that damage and some additional buffs/debuffs or a better, more reliable execute that every other class already has to help with applying pressure and finishing targets.
As for defense, it definitely needs a lot more help, again though, the theme of the buffs required needs to be in the reliability of the abilities to work without the punishing downsides that get drastically and disproportionally punished even further when performance is poor.

Also, note about U34 bowsorc. The reason it became a FOTM class was purely because of a very strong build that used savage werewolf that could stack its damage infinitely, but it was only meant to work at melee range which was overlooked during the entire proc set rework a few patches prior and left to work at any range. That build got leaked and became very popular. Sure, crystal weapon was an overtuned ability, but it wasn't the sole reason bowsorc was as strong as it was.

It was savage werewolf ticking so frequently and with so many stacked instances that it negated all healing over time that was causing bowsorc to be so overwhelmingly strong. Also, due to inflicting so many stacks, cleanse could not remove enough stacks to reliably counter it either, hence why people would be fine for like 5 seconds then instantly melt after that.

They have since fixed the issue with savage werewolf and combined with the nerfs to crystal weapon and bound armaments, bowsorc immediately fell off again until the way of fire build was figured out and even that build had its issues and was only strong in the hands of good players.

Well the title is Sorc, so I figured I'd also give my POV on stamsorc since it rarely gets the same attention as magsorc. Not to say that stamsorc has been performing worse than magsorc recently, in fact it's been performing quite decently due to the use of proc sets and certain ranged builds. However, the melee version is still underperforming compared to other stamina classes.

Stamsorc is just a faster melee version of magsorc, so any buffs you give to the class will inherently buff stamsorc as well. Since I play at a very high level for my class, I believe that we have to becareful going about buffing sorc because the class only needs a tiny bit more buff. Buffing the class like NB will put it over the top. That's why I believe that minor offensive buffs like giving class skills the ability to apply offensive debuffs, and giving a true burst heal will improve the class by at least 50% more than its current version.

I know I play mostly on PC NA, but I have an EU account as well. I took my stamsorc to EU to duel in Alikir and also played Cyrodiil, and I could still perform quite decently during the tanky dot/proc meta despite the slightly worse ping.

Aces-High-82

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

Oh, you run crushing shock oO thank you very much for the free cc immunity lol

You can take the free CC Immunity. I run a charged Staff, and every single Crushing Shock cast will apply 3 status effects on you. Combined with Crystal Weapon and double damage poisons, I'm applying 5 status effects. That's a lot extra damage on top of my regular spammable damage.

Your CC Immunity isn't going to save you from that.

So you neglect neglect roughly 10% from sharpened instead of slotting ele sus for major breach/status effects and morphing to force pulse. That double dot poison is ok but sundered via stam absorb glyph is a better option imo. Be realistic - all those tiny dots are out healed easily as how scaling is atm.

You can slot Force of Nature CP to get back more pen from stacking status effects. Minor Vulnerability is 5% dmg taken as well, and Burning applies a nice DoT. It also lets you proc Minor Breach more frequently which is nice for extra damage AND basically makes up for the Sharpened loss. You're trading Sharpened for more chance to proc status effects that can apply debuffs. This is a net gain, not net loss.

Maybe you missed it but ele sus has no cost, has 30sec dur, applies all status effects {concussed (minor vul) /chilled (decrease dmg done) /burning (dot)} frequently at once besides major breach. As you run destro/Bow anyways and BGs are nocp I can't see why to slot any other source of major breach and take the free pen on your weapon.
Additionally GH is a [snip] on PCEU performance wise so good luck with proper LA weaving there.

[edited for profanity bypass]

PhoenixGrey

StaticWave wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Cwep ain't worth the slot after the triple nerf (skill plus LA)

gariondavey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

You opt for BA primarily because it ignores almost all LOS as long as you have taptargeted your enemy and he's in range (Walls, Towers, Barricades, Rocks, Trees, Terrain etc). Yes, it's dmg was nerfed but still justified for its passive if you look at its cost.

Cwep is still 100% needed. It's still a massive buff compared to its vanilla version. You are getting 2 stacks that can potentially heal twice for the cost of 1. The light attack nerf has zero effect on this ability because only its activation is tied to light attack. The actual damage tooltip is similar to other spammables. You are going to weave light attacks regardless of the nerf, so it makes zero sense to slot something else in place of Crystal Weapon.

You are trading two tiny heals for what??..~30% better burst with a proced cfrag. Cfrag alone is comparable to Dizzy as ele sus enables Crushing Weapon not being mandatory. Additionally it enables even more burst as you can insta weave a proced frag of itself. No need for a spammable atm.
Also fluid LA weaving is not always possible in cyro (PC EU).

Tiny heal? lol. It's a 1.5k base heal after Battle Spirit per half second. You're getting 3k HPS from that for just being consistent with light attack weaving, which is not that hard to do. Even if you don't consistently weave, it's still on demand extra damage.

Cfrag is comparable to Dizzy but Crushing Weapon is better than dizzy. The amount of utility you get from Cwep, Cfrag cannot compare. Just the fact that you can precast Cwep and use it with another ability makes it better than Cfrag. You can also weave it with back bar abilities, whereas to do that with Cfrag you have to double bar it.

There's no scenario where Cfrag is even remotely better than Cwep. Ask any magsorc main that isn't a potato.

Aren’t you talking about stam sorc ?

I mean your damage comes mostly from a stamina skill and your heal is probably vigor because obviously shields are useless and sorc does not have a class heal( bird dies instantly so can’t count that )

So probably better to say you are playing a stam sorc and using some utility mag skills.

Doesn’t matter though does it ? Stam sorc is only slightly less trash than mag sorc. Both have non existent defense

I run a hybrid build. Stamsorcs don't exist this patch. Half of my damage comes from magicka based skills like Curse + Crushing Shock/Vamp Spammable. The other half comes from Cwep + Bound Arms. The only stamina based defense I have is Vigor. Streak, Dark Deal, Crit Surge are all Magicka skills. Stamsorc actually has worse survivability compared to magsorc if you think about it. They just move faster because that's the only way they can survive.

I understand hybrid sorc is much stronger. But the defense just does not convince me to play it

Sorc is incapable of face tanking damage for even a little while to finish off kills. This becomes more evident when you try to take on average players who are not complete potatoes. It might seem super strong in a 2vX but it’s not good enough to take the heat while solo’ing like a nb or ice warden. This is the main issue with the class

It needs a scalable defensive ability or stronger shields.

StaticWave

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

Against players that don't block, roll, LoS, stealth or heal, it is enough to kill (barely), but against any semi-competent player, this combo will do less than nothing.

As someone who has 300+ ping at the best of times, I easily tank and outheal every magsorc burst that has been thrown my way, even from competent magsorcs.

Sorc doesn't need a huge buff to offense, especially on the numbers side, a simple buff to the reliability of its burst and a proper reliable execute would likely suffice for offense, but it definitely needs huge defensive buffs. A reliable burst heal that is not tied to any detrimental mechanics or severely outdated pets and a HoT that passively heals, not requiring crit damage to be dealt is needed, every other class has both of these defensive tools and more in their class kits on top of access to weapon and other skills, even nb has both, so it's high time sorc got them too.

I have fought many competent players and my experience is that this combo can shave off 80% of their HP if correctly timed. Obviously some classes will have the tools to prevent you from landing all your combo, but even Cwep + Bound Arms + Crushing Shock can easily deal 15k burst reliably. Making Haunting Curse a reliable burst would be a massive buff for sorc and make its offense way too strong.

Its defense definitely needs some buffs in the form of better on demand heals though.

Oh, you run crushing shock oO thank you very much for the free cc immunity lol

You can take the free CC Immunity. I run a charged Staff, and every single Crushing Shock cast will apply 3 status effects on you. Combined with Crystal Weapon and double damage poisons, I'm applying 5 status effects. That's a lot extra damage on top of my regular spammable damage.

Your CC Immunity isn't going to save you from that.

So you neglect neglect roughly 10% from sharpened instead of slotting ele sus for major breach/status effects and morphing to force pulse. That double dot poison is ok but sundered via stam absorb glyph is a better option imo. Be realistic - all those tiny dots are out healed easily as how scaling is atm.

You can slot Force of Nature CP to get back more pen from stacking status effects. Minor Vulnerability is 5% dmg taken as well, and Burning applies a nice DoT. It also lets you proc Minor Breach more frequently which is nice for extra damage AND basically makes up for the Sharpened loss. You're trading Sharpened for more chance to proc status effects that can apply debuffs. This is a net gain, not net loss.

Maybe you missed it but ele sus has no cost, has 30sec dur, applies all status effects {concussed (minor vul) /chilled (decrease dmg done) /burning (dot)} frequently at once besides major breach. As you run destro/Bow anyways and BGs are nocp I can't see why to slot any other source of major breach and take the free pen on your weapon.
Additionally GH is a [snip] on PCEU performance wise so good luck with proper LA weaving there.

[edited for profanity bypass]

Ele sus applies a random effect every 6s, while a charged crushing shock applies all 3 on demand. Btw, I have both on my bar.



I run an off meta inferno/snb build

StaticWave

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Cwep ain't worth the slot after the triple nerf (skill plus LA)

gariondavey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

The biggest buff a sorc needs is survivability. Cwep + Crushing Shock + Curse + Bound Arms are enough to kill the majority of players, but they can arguably be buffed with some form of Major Debuff on a target. Dark Conversion/Dark Exchange, Crit Surge, and Hardened Ward definitely need to be buffed to provide on-demand defense compared to Coag Blood, Honor of The Dead, Artic Blast, etc.

I would love it if sorc pets were like necro pets. Can 1 bar it, then sorc, especially stam, has a pretty reliable burst heal that doesn't have a cast time.
Would also allow for those nice passives to be up without being forced to run bound armaments (easily dodged)

You opt for BA primarily because it ignores almost all LOS as long as you have taptargeted your enemy and he's in range (Walls, Towers, Barricades, Rocks, Trees, Terrain etc). Yes, it's dmg was nerfed but still justified for its passive if you look at its cost.

Cwep is still 100% needed. It's still a massive buff compared to its vanilla version. You are getting 2 stacks that can potentially heal twice for the cost of 1. The light attack nerf has zero effect on this ability because only its activation is tied to light attack. The actual damage tooltip is similar to other spammables. You are going to weave light attacks regardless of the nerf, so it makes zero sense to slot something else in place of Crystal Weapon.

You are trading two tiny heals for what??..~30% better burst with a proced cfrag. Cfrag alone is comparable to Dizzy as ele sus enables Crushing Weapon not being mandatory. Additionally it enables even more burst as you can insta weave a proced frag of itself. No need for a spammable atm.
Also fluid LA weaving is not always possible in cyro (PC EU).

Tiny heal? lol. It's a 1.5k base heal after Battle Spirit per half second. You're getting 3k HPS from that for just being consistent with light attack weaving, which is not that hard to do. Even if you don't consistently weave, it's still on demand extra damage.

Cfrag is comparable to Dizzy but Crushing Weapon is better than dizzy. The amount of utility you get from Cwep, Cfrag cannot compare. Just the fact that you can precast Cwep and use it with another ability makes it better than Cfrag. You can also weave it with back bar abilities, whereas to do that with Cfrag you have to double bar it.

There's no scenario where Cfrag is even remotely better than Cwep. Ask any magsorc main that isn't a potato.

Aren’t you talking about stam sorc ?

I mean your damage comes mostly from a stamina skill and your heal is probably vigor because obviously shields are useless and sorc does not have a class heal( bird dies instantly so can’t count that )

So probably better to say you are playing a stam sorc and using some utility mag skills.

Doesn’t matter though does it ? Stam sorc is only slightly less trash than mag sorc. Both have non existent defense

I run a hybrid build. Stamsorcs don't exist this patch. Half of my damage comes from magicka based skills like Curse + Crushing Shock/Vamp Spammable. The other half comes from Cwep + Bound Arms. The only stamina based defense I have is Vigor. Streak, Dark Deal, Crit Surge are all Magicka skills. Stamsorc actually has worse survivability compared to magsorc if you think about it. They just move faster because that's the only way they can survive.

I understand hybrid sorc is much stronger. But the defense just does not convince me to play it

Sorc is incapable of face tanking damage for even a little while to finish off kills. This becomes more evident when you try to take on average players who are not complete potatoes. It might seem super strong in a 2vX but it’s not good enough to take the heat while solo’ing like a nb or ice warden. This is the main issue with the class

It needs a scalable defensive ability or stronger shields.

As I've said, it just needs a burst heal or some rework to crit surge. It doesn't need much tbh.

axi

Reading threads like this one makes me agree with devs decision to not take players suggestions under consideration when making balance decisions. These changes wouldn't bring magsorc "on par" they would buff him through the roof. Magsorc realistically needs like 4-5 tweaks to be on par with others while one of said tweaks is a nerf to streak, a real nerf not the one proposed by OP which is basically replacing disruptive part of streak with more evasivness while also giving sorc more base defense from other abilities. it's like 2014-2016 havn't learned people anything.