Ranged damage play patterns: Sorc buffs and nuking PvP opponents from complete safety

xylena_lazarow

So I've been seeing a lot of talk over buffing "Magsorc" which, in this hybrid world, I take to mean the old meta caster Sorc playstyle that dealt heavy pressure and burst from full range, and survived using spammable shields and mobility. Part of the reason it's so nerfed now seems pretty simple to me: being chunked by massive damage coming from someone sitting in complete safety 41m away feels bad. That Sorc is probably on a keep wall, behind a zerg, or just ready to spam Streak to safety before you're in gap closer range. Should any Sorc buff result in this play pattern becoming widespread again, the complaints will come pouring in and it'll get nerfed to the ground again, just like Bow Sorc did.

That said, Sorc needs buffs, and the tank meta needs to die. Half its kit is non-functional in PvP. Is it even possible to do this without the untouchable ranged nuke problem? I know at one point it was sorta mitigated by "forcing" Sorcs into Streak/Dawnbreaker combos to finish off 1v1 kills, but that never mattered to zergers sitting in the back parsing on outnumbered randoms.

OBJnoob

Sorc needs buffs and the tank meta needs addressing. Make heals scale more with max mag than with spell damage.

Now sorcs have an added benefit to stacking max mag and tanky brawlers can't sustain themselves forever. As the tanky brawlers are forced to build for more max stat the sorcs damage will also appear to go up.

xylena_lazarow

OBJnoob wrote: »

Make heals scale more with max mag than with spell damage.

Healing is supposed to be secondary to damage shields for this style Sorc, and I promise you that you do not want to fight a Sorc that can both stack shields and heal like crazy. The last thing we need is more accidental healing buffs.

Since I hear this one a lot, as far as things like DK and Warden, they'll heal slightly less but still way too much, the gap between groups with dedicated healers and those without will widen, because the type of minmaxing involved here will further buff "comps" but make it harder for randoms to figure out how to build. A lot of players will simply sacrifice damage to keep the same level of healing. The meta could get even more tanky in this case.

But anyway back to Sorc damage buffs... yea I don't know and I'm glad it's not my job. But they need damage buffs. I don't know why there's always been so much emphasis on the damn pets and not on being a Storm Mage. I love Sorc but I really hate the pet mechanics for this class, they are beyond horrible in PvP, both playing with and against.

TechMaybeHic

It seems to me there are a handful of sorcs out there that have .ade it work by using a shield, matriarch, engine guardian to provide cover while using Maras balm and sea serpents coil. Buys time for the burst heal to proc and sea serpents to reset to proc again. Who cares about the snare if you're going to spam streak?

Still; as you say it's not so great for average players that are not going to position so well to not get overwhelmed anyway. So sorcs will need a buff. The tank and healing that needs addressed is sea serpents and Maras, or else we are going to wind up more of the same. Dedicated healer groups and jumpers/stealthers resetting CDs on automatic healing and tankiness of those 2 sets by making it difficult to impossible to sustain pressure on them.

OBJnoob

It wouldn't be a healing buff to anyone except sorc. And while I agree that isn't the particular help they need-- at least it is help. And again, once solo X builds need to incorporate max stat then their healing and damage will go down to they'll sacrifice some tankyness to get it back... Thus sorcs do more damage.

There's literally 0 point trying to nerf comp groups. Remove the thought from your head and fixing what actually needs fixing becomes clear. Since a good comp group will ALWAYS incorporate dedicated roles and dispense unique buffs.

What needs to be fixed is the fact that good players can't kill each other. This fixes that and makes magsorcs stronger at the same time.

Like it or don't. Nobody is gonna come up with anything better. And dedicated healers being important would be a good change not a bad one.

Even though it's fun to be superman and I guess that is what most people want out of a videogame they've become good at--- it is the ongoing desire for 1 man to withstand 5 WHILE retaining the ability to kill that has resulted in this stalemate meta.

Isn't that obvious? And don't we need to give it up?

xylena_lazarow

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

It seems to me there are a handful of sorcs out there that have .ade it work by using a shield, matriarch, engine guardian to provide cover while using Maras balm and sea serpents coil.

Yea these type of generically powerful defensive tools that any class minmax player can abuse are a massive tank meta problem and probably need to be dealt with before any proper Sorc rework. If I were doing a competitive custom ruleset, I'd have to ban SnB, Resto, Frost Staff, defensive class ults, literally any set with a defensive component... Rallying Cry, Clever Alchemist, Serpent's Coil, even Bloodspawn would all need to be thrown out. Probably sustain sets like Wretched too because of how they enable endless defensive skill spam. It's really nuts how broken this game is.

xylena_lazarow

OBJnoob wrote: »

There's literally 0 point trying to nerf comp groups.

Yea sorry that's a huge reason this game is so screwed, both PvP and PvE. Making comp groups sacred and untouchable has had exactly that effect on PvP gameplay, while also making it impossible to balance Vet PvE. Doing new DLC dungeons on Vet with randoms is a pathetic joke. Ball group vs randoms is a pathetic joke. The gap between comp groups and randoms is absolutely insane and broken. This is now off topic so I'll refer you to this post (not made by me, worth a read).

Back to Sorcs... maybe they should do low damage from 41m away but heavy damage from say 15m-22m range.

Katlefiya

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Yea these type of generically powerful defensive tools that any class minmax player can abuse are a massive tank meta problem and probably need to be dealt with before any proper Sorc rework.

So every class can have a proper rework but Sorcs because any class players may use "engine guardian to provide cover while using Maras balm and sea serpents coil."? What kind of logic is this?

xylena_lazarow

Katlefiya wrote: »

So every class can have a proper rework but Sorcs because any class players may use "engine guardian to provide cover while using Maras balm and sea serpents coil."?

Look I'm not paid to solve these problems lol. The game is pretty messed up. All my favorite Sorc builds in the 5 years I played it on and off have been deleted by damage nerfs. I don't want to end up in a situation where Sorc is buffed, becomes overpowered due to overpowered tank meta nonsense like what's happening with NB, and then everyone complains about Sorc and it gets nerfed again (but the tank meta persists because that's how ZOS rolls). People are blaming NB spectral bow for NB abusing generic tank meta stuff, same would happen to Sorc damage skills. See? It's a mess.

Turtle_Bot

The problem is that no magicka based sorcerer (ranged, melee, brawler, ganker, etc) is viable for high level or solo/small scale pvp at the moment. It's not just damage either, the class just has no good defensive options outside of running away with streak anymore.

A few simple fixes that would help the class without increasing the amount of damage it deals would be to make its current damage (frags, curse, mages wrath and overload) more reliable with smaller dodge windows/faster travel times and grant sorc in-class access to what are supposed to be common debuffs like breach.

As for a defensive fix, untie the burst heal from the pets and rework dark deal/conversion to be a proper, reliable class burst heal and make 1 morph of the shields into a defensive HoT + buff instead of a damage shield. This way shield sorcs can still be built and will have a proper heal, but won't have a defensive HoT that will tick while the shield is up, meanwhile sorcs who choose to give up their shields have equivalent healing options to every other class.

For those who say the defensive HoT will be op with healing ward + the light armor shields, every other class can already do this combo, but don't because it's just not a good defensive option. Even templar, who can shield stack just as many shields as sorc can, don't run this type of build because healing is just objectively better than damage shields.

Aces-High-82

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

So I've been seeing a lot of talk over buffing "Magsorc" which, in this hybrid world, I take to mean the old meta caster Sorc playstyle that dealt heavy pressure and burst from full range, and survived using spammable shields and mobility. Part of the reason it's so nerfed now seems pretty simple to me: being chunked by massive damage coming from someone sitting in complete safety 41m away feels bad. That Sorc is probably on a keep wall, behind a zerg, or just ready to spam Streak to safety before you're in gap closer range. Should any Sorc buff result in this play pattern becoming widespread again, the complaints will come pouring in and it'll get nerfed to the ground again, just like Bow Sorc did.

Magsorcs are insane.... wait... Templar has a better ranged toolkit which rather enables you can to stay in the fight than Streak for your life... but wait.... you can do even more dmg with less effort on a bowblade... I'm looking forward to the nerfs.

xylena_lazarow

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

make its current damage (frags, curse, mages wrath and overload) more reliable with smaller dodge windows/faster travel times and grant sorc in-class access to what are supposed to be common debuffs like breach

This makes a lot of sense. In a similar vein I'd like to see the stun on Frags return for more combo possibilities. Decoupling the pet skills from, well everything except dedicated pet builds, is a rework that could happen now. It's completely idiotic the way they keep trying to "force" Sorcs into pet builds.

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Templar has a better ranged toolkit but wait.... you can do even more dmg with less effort on a bowblade...

Those seem to draw no forum complaints so maybe they could be a model for buffing ranged Sorc? The one damage buff I'd definitely like to see for them is the same damage buff everyone deserves, restoring DoTs back to their appropriate pre-U35 power levels for PvP. I'll stand by wanting to force any ranged spec into the 15m-22m range to close out kills.

Aces-High-82

What are you talking about? Streak has only 15m range and frag has such abysmal travel speed your better on top of the target anyways.

Turtle_Bot

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

make its current damage (frags, curse, mages wrath and overload) more reliable with smaller dodge windows/faster travel times and grant sorc in-class access to what are supposed to be common debuffs like breach

This makes a lot of sense. In a similar vein I'd like to see the stun on Frags return for more combo possibilities. Decoupling the pet skills from, well everything except dedicated pet builds, is a rework that could happen now. It's completely idiotic the way they keep trying to "force" Sorcs into pet builds.

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Templar has a better ranged toolkit but wait.... you can do even more dmg with less effort on a bowblade...

Those seem to draw no forum complaints so maybe they could be a model for buffing ranged Sorc? The one damage buff I'd definitely like to see for them is the same damage buff everyone deserves, restoring DoTs back to their appropriate pre-U35 power levels for PvP. I'll stand by wanting to force any ranged spec into the 15m-22m range to close out kills.

Agreed, they need to stop forcing pet builds on sorcs, too many sorcs are only running pets because the other builds just cannot compete in pve. It's why I suggested the changes I did on my thread about sorcs here
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/621073/sorc-pain-points-and-ideas-on-buffs-changes-and-reworks-to-skills-to-bring-the-class-up-to-par/p1
The main purpose of that thread was to help generate and give ideas for the devs to think about and look into making non pet pve builds and by extension pvp builds, viable again, without just flat out overbuffing shields/streak/pets.

xylena_lazarow

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

What are you talking about? Streak has only 15m range and frag has such abysmal travel speed your better on top of the target anyways.

I'm gonna sit behind a zerg on a keep roof and parse you from 41m away while you fight outnumbered. I bet this will be very fun for you, the target, who can do absolutely nothing to stop me, the ranged Sorc, regardless of either of our skill levels. If that's cool with you, than yea I accept your argument, and look forward to zerging you down from safety.

OBJnoob

I think it's pretty insightful that you're thinking ahead to what may happen if magsorcs get buffed... But I think it's counterproductive to getting them buffed. Hard to have the two conversations at the same time.

What is it you really want OP? Give sorcs major breach, stun on frags, and reduce range of all abilities by 10? Not a suggestion just an honest question.

Chilly-McFreeze

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

What are you talking about? Streak has only 15m range and frag has such abysmal travel speed your better on top of the target anyways.

I'm gonna sit behind a zerg on a keep roof and parse you from 41m away while you fight outnumbered. I bet this will be very fun for you, the target, who can do absolutely nothing to stop me, the ranged Sorc, regardless of either of our skill levels. If that's cool with you, than yea I accept your argument, and look forward to zerging you down from safety.

Because no other class has the capacity to be played as ranged?

xylena_lazarow

OBJnoob wrote: »

Give sorcs major breach, stun on frags, and reduce range of all abilities by 10? Not a suggestion just an honest question.

That's one of the best suggestions I've heard lol. Turtlebot also made good ones as well as a more general thread. I made this post because I recognize this problem and wanted to hear other Sorc players' takes on it. Sorc is a really badly designed class even though we all still love it.

If I could make one Sorc change, it would probably be to make their pets behave like the untargetable Necro pets that have a normal skill duration and can be single barred. ZOS has bent over backwards warping this class for what, to preserve being able to drag around your summons in PvE towns, something that also gets constant forum complaints?

jaws343

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

What are you talking about? Streak has only 15m range and frag has such abysmal travel speed your better on top of the target anyways.

I'm gonna sit behind a zerg on a keep roof and parse you from 41m away while you fight outnumbered. I bet this will be very fun for you, the target, who can do absolutely nothing to stop me, the ranged Sorc, regardless of either of our skill levels. If that's cool with you, than yea I accept your argument, and look forward to zerging you down from safety.

Because no other class has the capacity to be played as ranged?

They'll hate my ranged magblade. That build can dish out more burst damage from ranged than my sorc build can even dream of. And then can also disappear the moment someone closes the distance.

xylena_lazarow

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Because no other class has the capacity to be played as ranged?

I played some Bow Sorc during the Oakensoul meta. Got plenty of hate. No skill, cheese, hacker, zergling, etc. Moved the same Oakensoul Bow Savage Werewolf build to a Templar. Same build, same cheese tactics, but instead of hate, I was getting compliments and build requests. There were plenty of obnoxious play patterns they could've nerfed after U34 but since ranged Sorc got the most complaints they gutted it first.

Personally I'd have a lot of fun for a patch if they buffed ranged Sorc to the sky, clowning opponents from 41m away is certainly a guilty pleasure, even if I'm sometimes on the other end. I'm willing to die in PvP though, many aren't.

OBJnoob

Well it wasn't a suggestion, lol, but yes I figured you'd like that. I don't think limiting the range is necessary-- for the same reasons as others-- other classes have range also what's the big deal?

My actual suggestion is: 1) give sorcs major breach... And most people want it put on curse but curse is already strong and undodgeable and I'm worried this will make stamsorc too strong. I think it should be put on crystal frags instead. Instead of the stun, sorry.
2) Make pets, ALL pets, untargetable and unkillable. This gives magsorcs their reliable pvp heal and also fixes the ongoing BS where blast bones and engine guardians eat burst.

And that's it. No reason to buff further (until we see how these changes play out,) and therefore no need to nerf range.

NordSwordnBoard

I wonder if reworking some passives would help. Changing the health recovery passive which is nearly useless in PvP into extra magic might help. This boosts the shield size of a mag sorc and hybrid sorc more than seriously buffing stam sorcs.

Maybe Overload does more damage when over 250 Ultimate in reserve?

I'd honestly prefer passive reworks that benefit PvP and don't take away from PvE. Also in the sense they over buff some skill, it becomes prolific, and then it gets nerfed. Harder to pin down what passive advantages factored in unless you're experienced.

OBJnoob

^-- yeah that's a good idea too. I'm not familiar with that passive specifically (haven't played sorc in ages... Magsorc in even longer,) but isn't there a passive that with a daedric summoning ability slotted you get 20% health and stam recovery? Change the health recovery to magic recovery that'd be awesome.

xylena_lazarow

Another one: the Bound Armaments dagger throw cast should be standardized to 0.6sec like most other channels were. The current 1.3sec channel bleeds into a second GCD and only gives you 3/4 daggers if you attack weave normally, it's very disruptive to the rhythm of combat. It's clumsy, unreliable, and slow. It's not a standalone kill shot like Templar beams, it needs to be able to be smoothly comboed with animations both players can see. Speed up travel time.

xylena_lazarow

OBJnoob wrote: »

but isn't there a passive that with a daedric summoning ability slotted you get 20% health and stam recovery? Change the health recovery to magic recovery that'd be awesome.

Better yet, make these into general passives that require neither pets nor slotting Daedric Summoning. Even the old meta "Magsorcs" were effectively walking around missing half their class passives.

AdamLAD

The only problems that we face if sorc gets buffed is zergs just destroying you from range and running using streak. Streak can be adjusted quite easily. The ranged damage maybe not so. Either way, nightblade can one bang you by ganking whilst getting zerged or can hit u ridiculously hard from range using snipe. Snipe is and always be a bigger issue than ranged abilities from sorcerer, just like cloak on a nightblade. Much bigger problem than streak especially with infinite dodgeroll on top. Whys no one talking about how absolutely broken Blocking is, especially with ice staff and sword and shield. One button gives 36k resistance (50% damage mitigation) and complete immunity to critical damage which may aswell be over like 12k critical resistance? My maths might be wrong, but you get my point. Every other class in the game can use basic core mechanics more than a sorcerer. We cannot use blocking as wards negate the effects of block. Roll sorc is absolutely atrocious as our healing is terrible. So many elephants in the room which other classes abuse yet they all complain about sorcerer lol. Let's not forget that destruction staff is THEE worst offence in the game for PvP. Restoration staff now is going in to coffin soon. Ice staff better, vigor miles ahead of rapid regeneration/morphs (unless you ball group). Healing ward was absolutely gutted a while back. Everything that a sorc uses is trash. Whilst every single other class can use so many different things, especially sets. Even if you try and adjust to suit the modern climate, mag sorc falls way behind still as our toolkit is outdated. Passives and skills do not match or sync with hybridization at all. I jumped on a stamina nightblade. After a looooooong time with outdated sets. Unbelievable how strong that thing is. Did exactly the same on a dk. Absolutely mental how strong it is in comparison to a mag sorc. Plenty of elephants in the room in which are broken that sorc can't use. But we have to nerf streak ? And people complain about ranged damage?
Laughing currently at
Infinite roll dodge
Holding block for insane amounts of time
Ranged damage from snipe and sets
Cloak spamming and running away
Ridiculously overpowered healing on other classes
Sets everyone else can use
List goes on.
Oh but let's nerf streak before any of these broken mechanics are changed. (I UNDERSTAND WHY you want it nerfed but there's bigger elephants in the room)

xylena_lazarow

AdamLAD wrote: »

The only problems that we face if sorc gets buffed is zergs just destroying you from range and running using streak.

Yes that's the type of thing I meant. Half the posts here are just like "nah screw it buff ranged Sorc to the sky" which isn't surprsing. Good luck ever getting gamers to talk about nuance in a metagame outside esports. I'll concede that it's a valid opinion, but I bet those same players change their tune when there's half a dozen nuke Sorcs on the outpost roof repeatedly zerging them down every time they try to fight outnumbered near the porch.

RemoryAzure

just replace Overload with Streak and buff sorc any way u want. No more infinite streaks and +burst ability (or maybe even slightly rework overload to be proper spammable). Profit?... isnt it obvious?..

Bergzorn

RemoryAzure wrote: »

just replace Overload with Streak

If this is a serious suggestion, I don't think you know these skills very well.

Edit, putting some more thought into this.

Streak as an Ulti (20 points cost per streak) would be ok with me if it gets a passive bonus for slotting. Minor Protection comes to mind. Not a bad idea on second thought.

But Overload (the toggle) as a skill? I would not like this. IMO, Overload is still very clunky in weaving, activation and deactivation. It's not worth the ulti slot for me, but some players make it work and it can be quite strong. If it were changed to a normal skill, what would be the cost? What about the secondary effects? What about ressource return on heavy attacks? There is a lot potential to make this very OP or totally useless during a neccessary rebalancing.

xylena_lazarow

RemoryAzure wrote: »

just replace Overload with Streak and buff sorc any way u want. No more infinite streaks and +burst ability (or maybe even slightly rework overload to be proper spammable). Profit?... isnt it obvious?..

So you mean each Streak costs 25 ult and Overload becomes a lightning spammable? That's... not obvious, but could be good? Comboing Streak with another ult would require wep swapping but that is doable. I'd like to see Overload travel faster and hit more reliably, the classic ZOS balance of "huge damage but clumsy and unreliable" makes poor gameplay.

Bothers me that Streak has a stacking cost increase but NB Invis Cloak does not. Streak is easily countered by gap closers, which don't have 30 seconds of downtime like Detect pots do, also gap closers are half the cost of invis counters like Camo Hunter, etc... not saying nerf NB, if anything remove the cost increase from Streak. It's not the advantage it once was in a ridiculously speed creeped meta where Templar tankhealbots are running around at speed cap.

RemoryAzure

Bergzorn wrote: »

Streak as an Ulti (20 points cost per streak) would be ok with me if it gets a passive bonus for slotting. Minor Protection comes to mind. Not a bad idea on second thought.

But Overload (the toggle) as a skill? I would not like this. IMO, Overload is still very clunky in weaving, activation and deactivation. It's not worth the ulti slot for me, but some players make it work and it can be quite strong. If it were changed to a normal skill, what would be the cost? What about the secondary effects? What about ressource return on heavy attacks? There is a lot potential to make this very OP or totally useless during a neccessary rebalancing.

there is already minor protection in bound aegis, not saying many use it but it is still in the class kit, so, why not berserk, for example?
also, overload as an ult has its own disadvantages, like not proc'ing balorgh, etc. it can be reworked into anything, literally, proper spammable that sorc needs very much or maybe instead of toggling it can be a 6-10 sec buff changing LA/HAs into what they do with overload