I do not want Sorcerer buffs.

PhoenixGrey

Bushido2513 wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Ideally anything less than a 20k hardened ward will not cut it for me atleast while facing competent players.

@PhoenixGrey

If you're talking after battle spirit this sounds possibly excessive. I say that because I understand that some burst heals can reach close to similar numbers once a few factors are met but having such a large shield with no need for the same factors being met seems a bit over tuned. I certainly agree with buffing the sorc shield though.

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

I And I would also need a similar buff for the other light armor shield and have my old BOL back. In case you haven’t noticed the vamp skill line got a better version of BOL and I don’t see players making a fuss out of it like they did for BOL.

I could see a buff for light armor skill line if it wasn't too big. I think overall some mag classes do need this to play more effectively with more pieces of light armor. Again, it shouldn't be too big of a boost though or stacking might become an issues. I can also agree on the BOL change as they really nerfed it for no good reason in my opinion.

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Ok I m gonna rant here
Problem is most players think my buff list is outrageous. My argument always will be that you have dk, nb and the arcanist class which will be beyond outrageous in the future.

That's not exactly true because we've also seen these classes pulled down when ZOS finds a need for it for whatever reason. DK was at at low level for some time before it was hit with repeated buffs. NB is a bit different because even at the low level it was still at least decently strong but still it did get nerfs for a bit at one time.

Yes Arcanist will be op when it comes out but that's just the usual ZOS making sales. Once enough revenue has been made it will get a bit of the nerf bat too though granted it will be over multiple patches I'm guessing.

Every class has rotated in and out of the high point though I will say sorc has been out of that rotation for a noticeable amount of time, still the rotation does exist. I remember when templar was OP, when warden was even more of an aoe killing machine, and even necro was up there for a bit though not as prominently as others or at least not for the same reasons.

If nothing else ZOS possibly does this just to keep each main rotating in and out and to give people a reason to hop back in or in in general. Sorc is overdue, I'll give you that.

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

The difference between me and others who claim to be better and more knowledgeable in this game is that I don’t live in a fantasy world where zos will spend time balancing 3 classes instead of buffing one.

So it's clear they don't exactly balance as much as they make changes. They might not balance those classes but it's not to say that they won't decide that burst heals need to all function in a certain lower range which will appear as a nerf to all classes with over performing burst heals. This has happened in the past when they decided to have standards around certain things. So they might not balance the three but they may decide to nerf parts of all 3 in the name of standards.

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Also if I were ZOS I wouldn’t want to upset a player base who have gotten used to their OP dk or nb nor create a new arcanist class which is not as OP as dk or nb. Upsetting players in the name of balance causes ZOS to lose $$ and lose more of their already dwindling pvp player base.

Actually ZOS does stuff like this all the time in regards to choices that upset the player base. Some changes are more subtle and in a better order but really they have proven they will do whatever they like even if it upsets the player base and we beg them not to. Now NB is weird because some person or group seems to be protecting that class. But even if they change it NB will still always be the tool for players that just like cloak and stealth attacks. Nerfing DK at this point could be seen by a lot of players as a good move so yes you might *** off some players but there will also be a number of players that will be excited by the prospect of a less boring and stagnant dk filled battlefield.

ZOS knows how it works in terms of sales. They understand they will always upset someone, they just need to make sure they make an equal or larger group happier at the same time.

I've talked about this before but player base isn't always matched up with sales. So you don't have to always have a large player base to have good sales overall. As an example there are those that let subs run and forget about them, those that hop on buy some crowns, do a few things then just go play something else, things that push sales for a period of time like oakensoul/arcanist, etc.

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

At least if you ask me i am glad to see most players in bgs on dk’s and play open world on nb. If those 2 classes were balanced I wonder if those players would even pvp in the first place. If zos really cared about their player base they would not try to fix things which don’t need to be fixed.

Yup some would actually. Of course some people just want a pure power fantasy so they play on the strongest class they can find. There are also those that play because they enjoy the game with friends, group play, playing a certain class, etc.

When warden got buffs for mag warden it wasn't exactly OP though more powerful and arguably annoying. I saw so many wardens who played after that because it was finally viable to play a mag warden spec. So sometimes it's not that the class needs to be op but just playable in general and actually fun to play.

I would say people would rather have a garage full of sports cars they can hop in on any given day depending on mood vs 4 honda civics and 1 lambo and one ferarri. Boredom also kills player base.

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Again the point of playing a video game is to have fun. There is no fun in playing a z tier class and making 1vX videos against z tier players and then claiming all is good with the class.

I have played this game long enough to perfectly know that there is a problem with the class when I cannot play outnumbered against the same players who I had no problem with before. And you can’t make sorc go from z tier to s tier without outrageous buffs. You can always justify a buff by raising the god damn ceiling

Well we all at this point pretty much agree defense needs a buff. I want to see the damage kit changed to be more interesting but not outright buffed exactly.

DK has become a very easy class to play. Sorc currently and has for a while now required skill to do well and enjoy. I want sorc to do better against other classes but I don't want it to get buffed to the point where the gameplay becomes less and less rewarding in a law of diminishing returns way.

I don't want to be on a DK reskinned as a sorc is all I'm saying. That would be fun for a minute but have me being as bored as when I'm on DK.

I agree with most of your points here.

You did bring up a good point on BOL which most self righteous individuals who claim to care about balance but completely failed IMO. This is because they base all their balance based on dueling which is not even considered PVP in my book

Exibit #1
I have seen Sorc mains themselves complaining that BOL is too strong. Probably because they couldn't kill someone like me in a duel on their self righteous builds. However I dont see them complaining at all about the new vampire skill which is better than BOL and accessible to everyone. This proves clear bias and if not read on .....

Exibit #2
Similarly i remember some mains went as far as saying harness magicka was broken or too strong. Right now, none of those individuals use that skill nor does anyone else. However it allowed these top tier folks to run others out of sustain in duels so that they could hold their high horse. The result of this is mag sorc is the only class in the game which needs to run a sustain set to actually be effective in PVP.

Exibit #3
Similarly there were lot of complaints in the pet sorc era as well because they could not compete on their non pet self righteous builds. That takes us to today where these same individuals are running 40k health or running cheese sets like masters dual wield or mara's balm while still complaining about LOS from pets and engine guardian

The sorcerer class is in this state because of these exibits i presented above and completely a self inflicted manifestation of their actions

Bushido2513

@PhoenixGrey

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

I agree with most of your points here.

You did bring up a good point on BOL which most self righteous individuals who claim to care about balance but completely failed IMO. This is because they base all their balance based on dueling which is not even considered PVP in my book

Exibit #1
I have seen Sorc mains themselves complaining that BOL is too strong. Probably because they couldn't kill someone like me in a duel on their self righteous builds. However I dont see them complaining at all about the new vampire skill which is better than BOL and accessible to everyone. This proves clear bias and if not read on .....

Well I believe the true power of BOL was in 1vx scenarios where there were a lot more projectiles to be picked up. This gave sorc some very interesting escape scenarios that I believe bothered groups trying to hunt down sorcs. In a 1v1 it was ok but you could easily predict it and just sidestep the effect with any real ranged damage.

We have yet to really understand what people will think about the vampire skill because as you said it's new. Give it time to see which ways people will try use it for better or worse.

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Exibit #2
Similarly i remember some mains went as far as saying harness magicka was broken or too strong. Right now, none of those individuals use that skill nor does anyone else. However it allowed these top tier folks to run others out of sustain in duels so that they could hold their high horse. The result of this is mag sorc is the only class in the game which needs to run a sustain set to actually be effective in PVP.

Sustain sets can be very effective on mag sorc if you are the type that likes to make use of stam for blocking, rolling, dark deal, etc but they aren't required. Malcom just put up a couple of builds for mag/hybrid sorc that do and don't require a sustain set. This really just depends on your style of play.

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Exibit #3
Similarly there were lot of complaints in the pet sorc era as well because they could not compete on their non pet self righteous builds. That takes us to today where these same individuals are running 40k health or running cheese sets like masters dual wield or mara's balm while still complaining about LOS from pets and engine guardian

The sorcerer class is in this state because of these exibits i presented above and completely a self inflicted manifestation of their actions

It is true there have always been complaints about anything that gives los in a 1v1 but this isn't usually a big deal in group play. Pets should be rebalanced but one can also see how they can be problematic if not done right. They end up either dying too quickly or soaking up to much damage in a 1v1. That's a tough one to balance out. Like maybe pets should be indestructible but drain magic while in operation. Free familiars with no upkeep is just not good for balance I think.

Bushido2513

Melzo wrote: »

Point your finger at at least one necromancer using the skill to get 10 percent protection. 50% percent of a necromancer's skills are rubbish. On the other hand, there are quite a few sorcerers. And no matter how you belittle this class, but it is quite strong. The sorcerer's problem is the tank meta. In the tank meta, any direct burst damage builds are pretty weak. Therefore, the mana sorcerer does not perform well against strong players. This is corny not a meta assembly. In this meta, I consider everything dk and nb top classes. But if you take for example nb, then even I, having 200 ping, I always know when an arrow flies at me and dodge. NB is so predictable in this meta that I don't see how a sorcerer can lose to him. This is a strong weakness of nb. Just like the sorcerer. The strong point of the sorcerer is high damage and healing during an active attack, but a weakness if he retreats to the defense. I see strong sorcerers more often than even wardens. . The sorcerer is unique. Who would not say. But if you remove the weaknesses of the sorcerer, then how to defeat him? Even with fog, I can't catch up with the sorcerers.

Maybe you'll get lucky and be able to draw the attention of the developers to the sorcerer, but I'm already tired of writing about the necromancer. I wrote for six months and got two bad nerfs))

Well I think it depends what matchups you see and what gear they are running. And yes necro could use a revamp on some of the skills because they aren't that fun to play or useful in pvp.

Most of the time when I see sorcs up against higher tier classes the issue is that they don't have the ability to lower the pressure on them and this prevents mounting a counter attack. If you buff defense just a little but not too much this would allow sorcerer a chance to compete a bit better across the board. It just has to be done carefully. They would certainly still be killable because when two good players fight then it's down to who has the better mastery and not so much who has the better class.

I think more play sorc than necro because necros skills just aren't that fun and don't tie together well. Also streak helps deal with a lot of situations including bad gameplay like say rushing in which is a favorite of some.

Necro with the right sets has good damage and is playable but sadly not a fun playable.

StaticWave

Imo Elusive Mist is only better than BoL for providing Major Evasion and 300 wd/spell dmg. Sure it absorbs 3 projectiles, but it can only do that while you're darting away. You can already avoid all incoming projectiles by dodge rolling mid BoL, and after exiting BoL you can still absorb 3 projectiles over 3 seconds.

I think it just really depends on how you play. I would never pick Elusive Mist because there's a delay until I can actually dart to my desired location, not to mention I have to double click to confirm the location I want to dart to. When in heat of a battle it's too much extra work to escape whereas I can just hit 1 button and instantly teleport away with BoL. Some people might prefer Mist over BoL if they want the extra damage and Evasion. That's cool too.

KilianDermoth

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Melzo wrote: »

If he has mara, then he is unkillable.

This set doesn't magically work any better for sorc than any other class. You could put it on and arguably get more benefit because you have access to more defensive buffs and skills.

True but the funny thing is that it "magically" works better on a Necro than on anyone else 🤣, because a Necro can self apply a debuff when using his burst heal which triggers a Maras heal tick plus increases healing even more because of the Necro passive that increases healing when you have a negative effect. Plus the critical chance for healing can be heavily increased through Necro passives. All in all yielding to more ticks and even increased healing.

Even not considering the built in tankiness of Necros that makes healing less necessary, while haveing more healing, more reliable healing and even synergetic effects with Maras. Its like comparing black and white and saying that black is brighter than white...

Necro might not be that overpowered class it once was but if it comes to healing and tankines its still not in a bad spot and by far superior than a Sorc, which is the worst class in this aspect (if not built as a pure PVE tank which wont do any damage at all, which even can be done better on other classes again).

And the 2 Sorcerer heals critical surge and Dark Exchange dont scale at all. They might look good on paper or if you have absolute bad stats, but on literally everyone else with proper stats they are weaker than proper burst heals (dark exchange) or heals over time (critical surge) of other classes...

And if its about flap flap / clanfear? The Sorc using it might have no other burst heal slotted (because he doesnt one except of dark deal and he would otherwise waste 3 slots for 2 lackluster heals). Just kill the pet (it doesnt survive that long), the Sorc will probably try to run or recast it. If he chooses to run instead, see my comment below. If he recasts it, he wont do anything for about 1.5 seconds and can be even interrupted loosing his 1.5 second channel to get his burst heal available again. Makeing the Sorc literally do nothing for almost 2 GCDs. After that he wont even be able to recast the pet for about 3 (?) seconds. And even if he does recast it after that time, then its an additional 1.5 second channel (at least non interruptible this time) + an additional cast to finally get a burst heal, as strong as Render Flesh from the Necro for example. So its like doing 3 seconds nothing + waiting 3 seconds + using an additional GCD = a single Render Flesh after 7 seconds, where you do nothing half of the time...

@Melzo
Is that the healing you want to have in the necro toolkit instead of things like render flesh? No problem, I guess most Sorcs would be more than glad to exchange this skill and give you flap flap in exchange of a proper burst heal for example...

Melzo wrote: »

Point your finger at at least one necromancer using the skill to get 10 percent protection. 50% percent of a necromancer's skills are rubbish. On the other hand, there are quite a few sorcerers. And no matter how you belittle this class, but it is quite strong. The sorcerer's problem is the tank meta. In the tank meta, any direct burst damage builds are pretty weak. Therefore, the mana sorcerer does not perform well against strong players. This is corny not a meta assembly. In this meta, I consider everything dk and nb top classes. But if you take for example nb, then even I, having 200 ping, I always know when an arrow flies at me and dodge. NB is so predictable in this meta that I don't see how a sorcerer can lose to him. This is a strong weakness of nb. Just like the sorcerer. The strong point of the sorcerer is high damage and healing during an active attack, but a weakness if he retreats to the defense. I see strong sorcerers more often than even wardens. . The sorcerer is unique. Who would not say. But if you remove the weaknesses of the sorcerer, then how to defeat him? Even with fog, I can't catch up with the sorcerers.

Maybe you'll get lucky and be able to draw the attention of the developers to the sorcerer, but I'm already tired of writing about the necromancer. I wrote for six months and got two bad nerfs))

Sure a Sorc is strong against bad players or beginners. If that is what you want to tell us, then yes, you are right. But you can be good on any class against bad players or beginners, so what is your point?

But let me guess you were just stomped several times by good sorcs, while probably just standing still and doing nothing until you died, right? That prety sounds like a learn to play issue.

Additionally I guess that you never have played a Sorc yourself. Just try it and not just against bad players / absolute beginners (which you might encounter in your very first battlegrounds) but against at least decent / mediocre players of other classes. You will very quickly change your mind...

But to help you with your learn to play issues and explain to you how you can counter Sorcs mobility, here are some hints:
1. Have high base speed, 200% is max but it is just enough to have a little bit more than the standard 100%. Because Sorcs usually dont have both, high base speed and streak (otherwise they had to sacrifice to much and probably wont even do some damage). With enough base speed (some % are enough) you can just outspeed them, even when they use streak, especially because a Sorc usually only can streak 3 - 5 times in a row and then completely runs out of Magicka (= a free kill, if its a Magicka Sorc).

2. Use a gap closer, in doubt something like critical charge (Two Hander), its absolute nasty for the Sorc, he will waste a GCD doing something you absolutely negate with your gap closer which even does damage and maybe applies a nasty DoT. While the Sorc even wastes about 2x the ressources you need for your gap closer (which has also even almost twice the range of streak...) for literally nothing, no damage, no pressure, no healing and even no escape. The Sorc will only have 2 options. Stay and fight / heal / shield => if you do enough damage, the Sorc has no chance, he is dead, he wont be able to survive your pressure or recover. Or run for example by recasting streak and even wasteing more ressource (than before because of the increasing costs) which again can be completely negated by a gap closer by you, dealing damage again (even more pressure for the Sorc if he isnt already dead) and just using about 1/3 of the ressources, the Sorc needed to streak, this time. The sorc will have again only 2 options and neither is beneficial in any way to him and will cause probably his death.

The only thing that can rescue a Sorc in this situation is to use line of sight and block your gap closer, but this is very situational at best and wont work in many situations / places. Or maybe CCing you long enough to be able to get away, but if you have at least slightly more base speed you will easily catch up after a break free and get a free kill because the Sorc will be completely out of ressources and wont be able to fight back or defend himself...

3. Use CC (timing is important!), especially if its a magicka Sorc he will run out of stamina very quick and probably not even break free anymore and just die.

And btw. with fog you have even a better version of Ball of Lightning (the other Morph of Streak). Can you escape with it? If not, why? It is even better than one of the escape tools of the Sorc. Probably because you see how easily it can be countered and that the short distance combined with the increasing cost often doesnt work out well, exactly the same is true for the Sorc and his escape tools - they can work (even great against bad players / beginners) but often wont work as good as people often think, if at all...

As said, Necro might not be that overpowered it once was and might be weaker than dragon knights but seriously saying that Necro is weaker in defense and healing than a Sorc is really ridiculous.

StaticWave

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Most of the time when I see sorcs up against higher tier classes the issue is that they don't have the ability to lower the pressure on them and this prevents mounting a counter attack. If you buff defense just a little but not too much this would allow sorcerer a chance to compete a bit better across the board. It just has to be done carefully.

This is what I've been trying to say lol. I generally don't have issues pressuring or killing top tier classes if I don't have to struggle to survive. The problem is I always struggle to survive (especially against DKs) and end up not outputting as much dmg as I could. Most of my losses against DKs weren't from the DoTs, but the FoO spam at range into Fossilize + Whip. I can handle the DoTs with my healing but I have nothing to counter the burst except constantly kiting. BoL would handle the FoO spam but then I'd have no stun so it's a hard call.

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

Imo Elusive Mist is only better than BoL for providing Major Evasion and 300 wd/spell dmg. Sure it absorbs 3 projectiles, but it can only do that while you're darting away. You can already avoid all incoming projectiles by dodge rolling mid BoL, and after exiting BoL you can still absorb 3 projectiles over 3 seconds.

I think it just really depends on how you play. I would never pick Elusive Mist because there's a delay until I can actually dart to my desired location, not to mention I have to double click to confirm the location I want to dart to. When in heat of a battle it's too much extra work to escape whereas I can just hit 1 button and instantly teleport away with BoL. Some people might prefer Mist over BoL if they want the extra damage and Evasion. That's cool too.

I can admit that while I have yet to personally try it I pretty much came to the same conclusions you mentioned above and thus decided it probably wouldn't be a go to for me on sorc. Other classes sure I might give it a try but I don't see it as a replacement to old BOL and find it to be just different when compared to current BOL, not better just different.

Bushido2513

KilianDermoth wrote: »

True but the funny thing is that it "magically" works better on a Necro than on anyone else 🤣, because a Necro can self apply a debuff when using his burst heal which triggers a Maras heal tick plus increases healing even more because of the Necro passive that increases healing when you have a negative effect. Plus the critical chance for healing can be heavily increased through Necro passives. All in all yielding to more ticks and even increased healing.

Sure a Sorc is strong against bad players or beginners. If that is what you want to tell us, then yes, you are right. But you can be good on any class against bad players or beginners, so what is your point?

But let me guess you were just stomped several times by good sorcs, while probably just standing still and doing nothing until you died, right? That prety sounds like a learn to play issue.

Additionally I guess that you never have played a Sorc yourself. Just try it and not just against bad players / absolute beginners (which you might encounter in your very first battlegrounds) but against at least decent / mediocre players of other classes. You will very quickly change your mind...

But to help you with your learn to play issues and explain to you how you can counter Sorcs mobility, here are some hints:
1. Have high base speed, 200% is max but it is just enough to have a little bit more than the standard 100%. Because Sorcs usually dont have both, high base speed and streak (otherwise they had to sacrifice to much and probably wont even do some damage). With enough base speed (some % are enough) you can just outspeed them, even when they use streak, especially because a Sorc usually only can streak 3 - 5 times in a row and then completely runs out of Magicka (= a free kill, if its a Magicka Sorc).

2. Use a gap closer, in doubt something like critical charge (Two Hander), its absolute nasty for the Sorc, he will waste a GCD doing something you absolutely negate with your gap closer which even does damage and maybe applies a nasty DoT. While the Sorc even wastes about 2x the ressources you need for your gap closer (which has also even almost twice the range of streak...) for literally nothing, no damage, no pressure, no healing and even no escape. The Sorc will only have 2 options. Stay and fight / heal / shield => if you do enough damage, the Sorc has no chance, he is dead, he wont be able to survive your pressure or recover. Or run for example by recasting streak and even wasteing more ressource (than before because of the increasing costs) which again can be completely negated by a gap closer by you, dealing damage again (even more pressure for the Sorc if he isnt already dead) and just using about 1/3 of the ressources, the Sorc needed to streak, this time. The sorc will have again only 2 options and neither is beneficial in any way to him and will cause probably his death.

The only thing that can rescue a Sorc in this situation is to use line of sight and block your gap closer, but this is very situational at best and wont work in many situations / places. Or maybe CCing you long enough to be able to get away, but if you have at least slightly more base speed you will easily catch up after a break free and get a free kill because the Sorc will be completely out of ressources and wont be able to fight back or defend himself...

3. Use CC (timing is important!), especially if its a magicka Sorc he will run out of stamina very quick and probably not even break free anymore and just die.

And btw. with fog you have even a better version of Ball of Lightning (the other Morph of Streak). Can you escape with it? If not, why? It is even better than one of the escape tools of the Sorc. Probably because you see how easily it can be countered and that the short distance combined with the increasing cost often doesnt work out well, exactly the same is true for the Sorc and his escape tools - they can work (even great against bad players / beginners) but often wont work as good as people often think, if at all...

As said, Necro might not be that overpowered it once was and might be weaker than dragon knights but seriously saying that Necro is weaker in defense and healing than a Sorc is really ridiculous.

Probably a little more direct than I would have been but yeah this is kind of along the lines of what I was thinking should be said.

Only thing I'll say is that the scenarios you included are helpful but not complete because I think where this person will run into trouble is understanding how to deal with overloads and also mounting a counter offensive. You can gap close and stay on top of a sorc but a good sorc is already lighting you up from the farthest range before you start making your way over.

Unfortunately offensively the necro is just clunky, you can get a BB up and on the way to counter and he bb will eat damage for you but if you don't time it right with follow up the the burst can kind of fall flat. There's a lot of scenarios here so I'll just say as a necro someone if built right should be able to tank some of the sorc burst, the other part is just staying on top of them and mounting a good offense which may be the part this person is lacking or also lacking.

Bushido2513

@StaticWave

StaticWave wrote: »

This is what I've been trying to say lol. I generally don't have issues pressuring or killing top tier classes if I don't have to struggle to survive. The problem is I always struggle to survive (especially against DKs) and end up not outputting as much dmg as I could. Most of my losses against DKs weren't from the DoTs, but the FoO spam at range into Fossilize + Whip. I can handle the DoTs with my healing but I have nothing to counter the burst except constantly kiting. BoL would handle the FoO spam but then I'd have no stun so it's a hard call.

That's fair and I do agree on the need for defenses. I was just saying for instance in the scenario you described if damage skills or damage was changed you might be able to say throw more damage or a mechanic that would make the other player have to make a choice to keep attacking or go on the defense.

Buffing defenses supports a good model of counterplay where that dk fossilizes you break free and heal then offer a counter attack so I agree with that idea.

I was just saying I was ok with buffing damage to a reasonable point where you offense became more of your defense. Currently if you go offensive in the scenario you described or even try to start off offensive before the foo and fossilize the dk can just keep coming. If the damage were retooled I could also see a scenario where you're healing is still what it is but the offense becomes the defense. I'm probably only suggesting this because it revolves around possibly more skilled gameplay.

I'll admit just buffing defense is probably a much easier suggestion but I also don't want to see more stalemates

StaticWave wrote: »

I can handle the DoTs with my healing but I have nothing to counter the burst except constantly kiting. BoL would handle the FoO spam but then I'd have no stun so it's a hard call.

Correct, this is pretty much usually how it goes down. You break free of the fossilize and yes you can get a DD off uninterrupted but it's not enough because more damage is already pouring in. When I'm on mag sorc I admit I can usually shield stack through the first assault or two but between ccs and their medium/high level of sustain it becomes a losing resource battle even if you streak stun away because it's just not enough distance.

Turtle_Bot

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Correct, this is pretty much usually how it goes down. You break free of the fossilize and yes you can get a DD off uninterrupted but it's not enough because more damage is already pouring in. When I'm on mag sorc I admit I can usually shield stack through the first assault or two but between ccs and their medium/high level of sustain it becomes a losing resource battle even if you streak stun away because it's just not enough distance.

This last point is another issue that I don't think many realise or bother to think about when discussing sorcs balance/pain points.

That distance nerf on streak/BoL made it so much harder to create enough distance for interruptible heals with cast times to be reliable, especially when compounded with the excessive speed creep and the constant reductions to shield sizes and shield mitigation values that have occurred over the past few years.

That's usually how my attempts at fighting good DKs with my sorc go as well, it gets even worse when its an emp DK, as they have even more damage/mitigation/healing/sustain and it's pretty much impossible to even survive, let alone put up any sort of fight. At least on my warden an emp DK struggles to actually kill me, but with the same build, my sorc just melts almost instantly, can't even put distance since they can spam leap like its whip.

In saying that, I don't want a return of OP sorc, but at least give the class proper healing possibilities. If they don't want to give us class heals, then un-nerf resto staff so sorc has the option to fix the gap in its class kit via weapon skills like the other classes have.

Bushido2513

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

This last point is another issue that I don't think many realise or bother to think about when discussing sorcs balance/pain points.

That distance nerf on streak/BoL made it so much harder to create enough distance for interruptible heals with cast times to be reliable, especially when compounded with the excessive speed creep and the constant reductions to shield sizes and shield mitigation values that have occurred over the past few years.

In saying that, I don't want a return of OP sorc, but at least give the class proper healing possibilities. If they don't want to give us class heals, then un-nerf resto staff so sorc has the option to fix the gap in its class kit via weapon skills like the other classes have.

Yeah in IC where I play most since groups know they will be hunting people they build into speed so that nobody can get away from them. I usually end up trying to know the area better so that I can los etc but sometimes even that's not enough if they have speed and know the area.

So yeah if we can't get away can we at least get a little more bang for our shield buck or a burst heal.

If we bring back resto staff to where it was we just get what we had which was a lot of people running it because it was that good. Sorc needs buffs that actually play into the kit and move it more away from crutching on sets and weapon skills and more towards having a class oriented playstyle.

FeedbackOnly

This is a nerf nightblade thread correct? Isn't the combat devs main character a nightblade so probably not then...

Bushido2513

@FeedbackOnly

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

This is a nerf nightblade thread correct? Isn't the combat devs main character a nightblade so probably not then...

Negative

#BuffSorc

PhoenixGrey

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Most of the time when I see sorcs up against higher tier classes the issue is that they don't have the ability to lower the pressure on them and this prevents mounting a counter attack. If you buff defense just a little but not too much this would allow sorcerer a chance to compete a bit better across the board. It just has to be done carefully.

This is what I've been trying to say lol. I generally don't have issues pressuring or killing top tier classes if I don't have to struggle to survive. The problem is I always struggle to survive (especially against DKs) and end up not outputting as much dmg as I could. Most of my losses against DKs weren't from the DoTs, but the FoO spam at range into Fossilize + Whip. I can handle the DoTs with my healing but I have nothing to counter the burst except constantly kiting. BoL would handle the FoO spam but then I'd have no stun so it's a hard call.

The gap is quite huge.

dk’s and NB’s have everything in their toolkit to tank out multiple sorcs without even having to use their burst heal.

I have to literally run 15k penetration and sacrifice all my defense to dent some of them in bg’s. I thought sorc damage is fine but it’s far from it given the kind of tankiness dk, nb and warden have.

Bushido2513

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

The gap is quite huge.

dk’s and NB’s have everything in their toolkit to tank out multiple sorcs without even having to use their burst heal.

I have to literally run 15k penetration and sacrifice all my defense to dent some of them in bg’s. I thought sorc damage is fine but it’s far from it given the kind of tankiness dk, nb and warden have.

@PhoenixGrey


Ok this is the same thing everyone is saying just stated differently. The damage is fine IFFFFF you build into it. The problem is if you build into it you don't have enough defense. So if defense is buffed you can build into damage. Make sense?

There are a few things going on with dk and nb but one of the main things is that when they add damage it buffs their heals. Sorc does not have this and that's the problem.

You can add as much damage as you want and DD tooltip stays the same, shield size stays the same, crit surge barely increases. Having to compensate for these things is what weighs sorc down.

StaticWave

Bushido2513 wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

The gap is quite huge.

dk’s and NB’s have everything in their toolkit to tank out multiple sorcs without even having to use their burst heal.

I have to literally run 15k penetration and sacrifice all my defense to dent some of them in bg’s. I thought sorc damage is fine but it’s far from it given the kind of tankiness dk, nb and warden have.

@PhoenixGrey


Ok this is the same thing everyone is saying just stated differently. The damage is fine IFFFFF you build into it. The problem is if you build into it you don't have enough defense. So if defense is buffed you can build into damage. Make sense?

There are a few things going on with dk and nb but one of the main things is that when they add damage it buffs their heals. Sorc does not have this and that's the problem.

You can add as much damage as you want and DD tooltip stays the same, shield size stays the same, crit surge barely increases. Having to compensate for these things is what weighs sorc down.

Yup, that is exactly the problem. When I ran a yolo full damage dizzy swing build I was one shotting the majority of people with 8-9k dizzies, 6-7k cwep, 8k curses. Had no defense though, but could comfortably kill people. It wasn’t sustainable in the long run so I dropped a 5-piece dmg set for another defensive one.

Adding a class burst heal scaling with offensive stats will solve the issue instantly. Every class can wear full damage and have their important heals scale off it. No idea why sorc has none lol.

StaticWave

Well before you technically could scale your heals off crit healing, but they nerfed crit chance so much it’s hard to build into it without sacrificing other stats. Even if they don’t want to give sorc a burst heal, at least give us the ability to build crit chance easier so we can rely on crit heals.

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

Yup, that is exactly the problem. When I ran a yolo full damage dizzy swing build I was one shotting the majority of people with 8-9k dizzies, 6-7k cwep, 8k curses.

Every class can wear full damage and have their important heals scale off it. No idea why sorc has none lol.

Oh you just reminded me of the other part of the joke that is supposed to be sorc healing.

So in theory on sorc you should be able to heal from doing crits with crit surge (iffy), hitting people with crystal weapon/frags (passive/again gotta be offensive even when you can't afford it), double barring a pet that can die fairly easily, or using DD and hoping not to get bashed or crushing shocked.

Oh and I guess I'm supposed to put a shield or two up so that I can pull off these clunky heals, too bad most people can take it/them down in pretty much 1gcd (oh yeah until recently if you wanted a decent shield better build into mag which doesn't scale as well as damage).

Now that I write it out I'm wondering how that even sounds like viable heals?

Turtle_Bot

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Yup, that is exactly the problem. When I ran a yolo full damage dizzy swing build I was one shotting the majority of people with 8-9k dizzies, 6-7k cwep, 8k curses.

Every class can wear full damage and have their important heals scale off it. No idea why sorc has none lol.

Oh you just reminded me of the other part of the joke that is supposed to be sorc healing.

So in theory on sorc you should be able to heal from doing crits with crit surge (iffy), hitting people with crystal weapon/frags (passive/again gotta be offensive even when you can't afford it), double barring a pet that can die fairly easily, or using DD and hoping not to get bashed or crushing shocked.

Oh and I guess I'm supposed to put a shield or two up so that I can pull off these clunky heals, too bad most people can take it/them down in pretty much 1gcd (oh yeah until recently if you wanted a decent shield better build into mag which doesn't scale as well as damage).

Now that I write it out I'm wondering how that even sounds like viable heals?

It just gets worse and worse the deeper you look into it too.

Matriarch:

Ideal conditions, summoning the pet with no interruption:
1.5s channel time to summon it, then another GCD to cast the heal itself (2.5s minimum between attempting summon to then receiving the heal)

Ideal conditions, the first attempted summon is interrupted:
1.5s channel time, followed by interrupt which stuns the sorc and hard locks the skill for 3 seconds, then it's another 1.5s channel time to attempt to summon the second time, followed by 1 more GCD before you can actually cast the heal itself. That's a minimum of 7 seconds (1.5 + 3 + 1.5 + 1) without a burst heal if the pet gets killed and the first attempted summon is interrupted

Actual conditions, accounting for lag, delay, bugs, etc:
Impossible to put an accurate figure here, but in actual play conditions, the heal might as well not exist at all with how long it takes from first attempting the summon to receiving a heal, if you are able to receive a heal at all since it's highly likely that by the time you're able to attempt another summon, CC immunity has worn off or bugged out leaving you vulnerable again and essentially without any heal at all.

Dark Deal:

Ideal conditions, no interruptions:
1s cast time with a non-scaling heal at the end of the cast.

Ideal conditions with the first cast interrupted:
1s cast time, interrupt which stuns and the skill hard locks for 3 seconds, then its another 1s cast time with the heal at the end of that cast, essentially 5 seconds (1 + 3 + 1) without a burst heal.

Actual conditions accounting for lag, delay, bugs, etc:
See above on the matriarch, but at least the time between first and second attempt is slightly shorter.

It's all well and good in PvE where the 1 shot heavy attacks/mechanics that matter and require proper burst heals come in at most once every 10-20 seconds, have long build up times and are easily visible.

It also looks perfectly balanced on spreadsheets because it's extremely difficult to quantify interruptible cast times vs instant cast and put numerical values on those, so the cast times tend to get ignored for the most part when balancing is done on spreadsheets because it's too hard to put a value to those that would allow for fair balancing to be done.

Accounting for that kind of potential delay/disable on healing, when balancing on a spreadsheet, the matriarch heal would likely have to be a lot stronger that it currently is and dark deal very similar too, likely to the point that both abilities would be full heals (or near enough) from 0 health after applying battle spirit to balance that interrupt/hard lock downside those skills have and no class should have that kind of healing power without sacrificing something else.

For PvP, where the heavy hitting combos come in every 3-5 seconds (or much more frequently if you're outnumbered) and the cast times allow for interruptions to the healing effectively disabling it for quite a long duration considering, this is where it becomes extremely noticeable and detrimental for the players and becomes very frustrating to try and play.

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

This last point is another issue that I don't think many realise or bother to think about when discussing sorcs balance/pain points.

That distance nerf on streak/BoL made it so much harder to create enough distance for interruptible heals with cast times to be reliable, especially when compounded with the excessive speed creep and the constant reductions to shield sizes and shield mitigation values that have occurred over the past few years.

In saying that, I don't want a return of OP sorc, but at least give the class proper healing possibilities. If they don't want to give us class heals, then un-nerf resto staff so sorc has the option to fix the gap in its class kit via weapon skills like the other classes have.

Yeah in IC where I play most since groups know they will be hunting people they build into speed so that nobody can get away from them. I usually end up trying to know the area better so that I can los etc but sometimes even that's not enough if they have speed and know the area.

So yeah if we can't get away can we at least get a little more bang for our shield buck or a burst heal.

If we bring back resto staff to where it was we just get what we had which was a lot of people running it because it was that good. Sorc needs buffs that actually play into the kit and move it more away from crutching on sets and weapon skills and more towards having a class oriented playstyle.

When bringing back resto staff to what it used to be (I'm talking U33 resto staff, not the old 2017/2018 resto staff), it would come with the caveat that heal stacking would be directly addressed at the same time to prevent it from being too strong. (I should have included this point).

Ideally all it would take is making 1 morph of blessings of restoration into a ST burst heal that's roughly 95% healing value of class single target burst heals such as offering/resistant flesh/HtD.

I'd also prefer they actually buff sorc's healing directly, but it seems the devs don't want to even consider that option for the foreseeable future, hence the suggestion to un-nerf resto staves.

StaticWave

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Yup, that is exactly the problem. When I ran a yolo full damage dizzy swing build I was one shotting the majority of people with 8-9k dizzies, 6-7k cwep, 8k curses.

Every class can wear full damage and have their important heals scale off it. No idea why sorc has none lol.

Oh you just reminded me of the other part of the joke that is supposed to be sorc healing.

So in theory on sorc you should be able to heal from doing crits with crit surge (iffy), hitting people with crystal weapon/frags (passive/again gotta be offensive even when you can't afford it), double barring a pet that can die fairly easily, or using DD and hoping not to get bashed or crushing shocked.

Oh and I guess I'm supposed to put a shield or two up so that I can pull off these clunky heals, too bad most people can take it/them down in pretty much 1gcd (oh yeah until recently if you wanted a decent shield better build into mag which doesn't scale as well as damage).

Now that I write it out I'm wondering how that even sounds like viable heals?

It just gets worse and worse the deeper you look into it too.

Matriarch:

Ideal conditions, summoning the pet with no interruption:
1.5s channel time to summon it, then another GCD to cast the heal itself (2.5s minimum between attempting summon to then receiving the heal)

Ideal conditions, the first attempted summon is interrupted:
1.5s channel time, followed by interrupt which stuns the sorc and hard locks the skill for 3 seconds, then it's another 1.5s channel time to attempt to summon the second time, followed by 1 more GCD before you can actually cast the heal itself. That's a minimum of 7 seconds (1.5 + 3 + 1.5 + 1) without a burst heal if the pet gets killed and the first attempted summon is interrupted

Actual conditions, accounting for lag, delay, bugs, etc:
Impossible to put an accurate figure here, but in actual play conditions, the heal might as well not exist at all with how long it takes from first attempting the summon to receiving a heal, if you are able to receive a heal at all since it's highly likely that by the time you're able to attempt another summon, CC immunity has worn off or bugged out leaving you vulnerable again and essentially without any heal at all.

Dark Deal:

Ideal conditions, no interruptions:
1s cast time with a non-scaling heal at the end of the cast.

Ideal conditions with the first cast interrupted:
1s cast time, interrupt which stuns and the skill hard locks for 3 seconds, then its another 1s cast time with the heal at the end of that cast, essentially 5 seconds (1 + 3 + 1) without a burst heal.

Actual conditions accounting for lag, delay, bugs, etc:
See above on the matriarch, but at least the time between first and second attempt is slightly shorter.

It's all well and good in PvE where the 1 shot heavy attacks/mechanics that matter and require proper burst heals come in at most once every 10-20 seconds, have long build up times and are easily visible.

It also looks perfectly balanced on spreadsheets because it's extremely difficult to quantify interruptible cast times vs instant cast and put numerical values on those, so the cast times tend to get ignored for the most part when balancing is done on spreadsheets because it's too hard to put a value to those that would allow for fair balancing to be done.

Accounting for that kind of potential delay/disable on healing, when balancing on a spreadsheet, the matriarch heal would likely have to be a lot stronger that it currently is and dark deal very similar too, likely to the point that both abilities would be full heals (or near enough) from 0 health after applying battle spirit to balance that interrupt/hard lock downside those skills have and no class should have that kind of healing power without sacrificing something else.

For PvP, where the heavy hitting combos come in every 3-5 seconds (or much more frequently if you're outnumbered) and the cast times allow for interruptions to the healing effectively disabling it for quite a long duration considering, this is where it becomes extremely noticeable and detrimental for the players and becomes very frustrating to try and play.

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

This last point is another issue that I don't think many realise or bother to think about when discussing sorcs balance/pain points.

That distance nerf on streak/BoL made it so much harder to create enough distance for interruptible heals with cast times to be reliable, especially when compounded with the excessive speed creep and the constant reductions to shield sizes and shield mitigation values that have occurred over the past few years.

In saying that, I don't want a return of OP sorc, but at least give the class proper healing possibilities. If they don't want to give us class heals, then un-nerf resto staff so sorc has the option to fix the gap in its class kit via weapon skills like the other classes have.

Yeah in IC where I play most since groups know they will be hunting people they build into speed so that nobody can get away from them. I usually end up trying to know the area better so that I can los etc but sometimes even that's not enough if they have speed and know the area.

So yeah if we can't get away can we at least get a little more bang for our shield buck or a burst heal.

If we bring back resto staff to where it was we just get what we had which was a lot of people running it because it was that good. Sorc needs buffs that actually play into the kit and move it more away from crutching on sets and weapon skills and more towards having a class oriented playstyle.

When bringing back resto staff to what it used to be (I'm talking U33 resto staff, not the old 2017/2018 resto staff), it would come with the caveat that heal stacking would be directly addressed at the same time to prevent it from being too strong. (I should have included this point).

Ideally all it would take is making 1 morph of blessings of restoration into a ST burst heal that's roughly 95% healing value of class single target burst heals such as offering/resistant flesh/HtD.

I'd also prefer they actually buff sorc's healing directly, but it seems the devs don't want to even consider that option for the foreseeable future, hence the suggestion to un-nerf resto staves.

You forgot to mention another disadvantage of a channeled heal, which imo is by far the most important disadvantage of Dark Deal, and that's the inability to block cast.

They don't even need to give the class a true burst heal if they can just remove the cast time on Dark Deal and reduce the amount of resource restored. Even if the tooltip of Dark Deal remains at 8k (or 10k with Dark Conversion), the ability to block cast will guarantee at least 80% of that heal being applied to your HP when HoTs are also rolling.

This is why the difference between using Dark Deal with and without Spell Wall is massive. I am always able to recover my HP to full when Spell Wall is active due to the fact that the majority of the incoming damage is blocked and I'm able to restore my health.

Imo this is a fair compromise for the class. Streak + instant cast Dark Deal will allow a much better chance of recovery for a sorc without making it too strong.

Turtle_Bot

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Yup, that is exactly the problem. When I ran a yolo full damage dizzy swing build I was one shotting the majority of people with 8-9k dizzies, 6-7k cwep, 8k curses.

Every class can wear full damage and have their important heals scale off it. No idea why sorc has none lol.

Oh you just reminded me of the other part of the joke that is supposed to be sorc healing.

So in theory on sorc you should be able to heal from doing crits with crit surge (iffy), hitting people with crystal weapon/frags (passive/again gotta be offensive even when you can't afford it), double barring a pet that can die fairly easily, or using DD and hoping not to get bashed or crushing shocked.

Oh and I guess I'm supposed to put a shield or two up so that I can pull off these clunky heals, too bad most people can take it/them down in pretty much 1gcd (oh yeah until recently if you wanted a decent shield better build into mag which doesn't scale as well as damage).

Now that I write it out I'm wondering how that even sounds like viable heals?

It just gets worse and worse the deeper you look into it too.

Matriarch:

Ideal conditions, summoning the pet with no interruption:
1.5s channel time to summon it, then another GCD to cast the heal itself (2.5s minimum between attempting summon to then receiving the heal)

Ideal conditions, the first attempted summon is interrupted:
1.5s channel time, followed by interrupt which stuns the sorc and hard locks the skill for 3 seconds, then it's another 1.5s channel time to attempt to summon the second time, followed by 1 more GCD before you can actually cast the heal itself. That's a minimum of 7 seconds (1.5 + 3 + 1.5 + 1) without a burst heal if the pet gets killed and the first attempted summon is interrupted

Actual conditions, accounting for lag, delay, bugs, etc:
Impossible to put an accurate figure here, but in actual play conditions, the heal might as well not exist at all with how long it takes from first attempting the summon to receiving a heal, if you are able to receive a heal at all since it's highly likely that by the time you're able to attempt another summon, CC immunity has worn off or bugged out leaving you vulnerable again and essentially without any heal at all.

Dark Deal:

Ideal conditions, no interruptions:
1s cast time with a non-scaling heal at the end of the cast.

Ideal conditions with the first cast interrupted:
1s cast time, interrupt which stuns and the skill hard locks for 3 seconds, then its another 1s cast time with the heal at the end of that cast, essentially 5 seconds (1 + 3 + 1) without a burst heal.

Actual conditions accounting for lag, delay, bugs, etc:
See above on the matriarch, but at least the time between first and second attempt is slightly shorter.

It's all well and good in PvE where the 1 shot heavy attacks/mechanics that matter and require proper burst heals come in at most once every 10-20 seconds, have long build up times and are easily visible.

It also looks perfectly balanced on spreadsheets because it's extremely difficult to quantify interruptible cast times vs instant cast and put numerical values on those, so the cast times tend to get ignored for the most part when balancing is done on spreadsheets because it's too hard to put a value to those that would allow for fair balancing to be done.

Accounting for that kind of potential delay/disable on healing, when balancing on a spreadsheet, the matriarch heal would likely have to be a lot stronger that it currently is and dark deal very similar too, likely to the point that both abilities would be full heals (or near enough) from 0 health after applying battle spirit to balance that interrupt/hard lock downside those skills have and no class should have that kind of healing power without sacrificing something else.

For PvP, where the heavy hitting combos come in every 3-5 seconds (or much more frequently if you're outnumbered) and the cast times allow for interruptions to the healing effectively disabling it for quite a long duration considering, this is where it becomes extremely noticeable and detrimental for the players and becomes very frustrating to try and play.

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

This last point is another issue that I don't think many realise or bother to think about when discussing sorcs balance/pain points.

That distance nerf on streak/BoL made it so much harder to create enough distance for interruptible heals with cast times to be reliable, especially when compounded with the excessive speed creep and the constant reductions to shield sizes and shield mitigation values that have occurred over the past few years.

In saying that, I don't want a return of OP sorc, but at least give the class proper healing possibilities. If they don't want to give us class heals, then un-nerf resto staff so sorc has the option to fix the gap in its class kit via weapon skills like the other classes have.

Yeah in IC where I play most since groups know they will be hunting people they build into speed so that nobody can get away from them. I usually end up trying to know the area better so that I can los etc but sometimes even that's not enough if they have speed and know the area.

So yeah if we can't get away can we at least get a little more bang for our shield buck or a burst heal.

If we bring back resto staff to where it was we just get what we had which was a lot of people running it because it was that good. Sorc needs buffs that actually play into the kit and move it more away from crutching on sets and weapon skills and more towards having a class oriented playstyle.

When bringing back resto staff to what it used to be (I'm talking U33 resto staff, not the old 2017/2018 resto staff), it would come with the caveat that heal stacking would be directly addressed at the same time to prevent it from being too strong. (I should have included this point).

Ideally all it would take is making 1 morph of blessings of restoration into a ST burst heal that's roughly 95% healing value of class single target burst heals such as offering/resistant flesh/HtD.

I'd also prefer they actually buff sorc's healing directly, but it seems the devs don't want to even consider that option for the foreseeable future, hence the suggestion to un-nerf resto staves.

You forgot to mention another disadvantage of a channeled heal, which imo is by far the most important disadvantage of Dark Deal, and that's the inability to block cast.

They don't even need to give the class a true burst heal if they can just remove the cast time on Dark Deal and reduce the amount of resource restored. Even if the tooltip of Dark Deal remains at 8k (or 10k with Dark Conversion), the ability to block cast will guarantee at least 80% of that heal being applied to your HP when HoTs are also rolling.

This is why the difference between using Dark Deal with and without Spell Wall is massive. I am always able to recover my HP to full when Spell Wall is active due to the fact that the majority of the incoming damage is blocked and I'm able to restore my health.

Imo this is a fair compromise for the class. Streak + instant cast Dark Deal will allow a much better chance of recovery for a sorc without making it too strong.

I still reckon they could give DD some slight scaling on top of making it instant cast and it wouldn't break sorc.

When you have 7k spell damage plars that can get 18k+ tooltips on HtD, NBs that can get 20k+ offering tooltips, cros that can reach 18k tooltip resistant flesh, wardens that can get 30k+ polar winds heals, having some scaling on dark conversion/morphs wouldn't be too bad alongside making it instant cast, maybe cap the heal at 16-17k so its still behind what other classes can achieve with similar damage investment, but not so far behind that it struggles to actually heal when under pressure/defile/etc.

Edit: completely agree about block casting, it is just far too strong defensive measure that everything else pales in comparison.

StaticWave

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Yup, that is exactly the problem. When I ran a yolo full damage dizzy swing build I was one shotting the majority of people with 8-9k dizzies, 6-7k cwep, 8k curses.

Every class can wear full damage and have their important heals scale off it. No idea why sorc has none lol.

Oh you just reminded me of the other part of the joke that is supposed to be sorc healing.

So in theory on sorc you should be able to heal from doing crits with crit surge (iffy), hitting people with crystal weapon/frags (passive/again gotta be offensive even when you can't afford it), double barring a pet that can die fairly easily, or using DD and hoping not to get bashed or crushing shocked.

Oh and I guess I'm supposed to put a shield or two up so that I can pull off these clunky heals, too bad most people can take it/them down in pretty much 1gcd (oh yeah until recently if you wanted a decent shield better build into mag which doesn't scale as well as damage).

Now that I write it out I'm wondering how that even sounds like viable heals?

It just gets worse and worse the deeper you look into it too.

Matriarch:

Ideal conditions, summoning the pet with no interruption:
1.5s channel time to summon it, then another GCD to cast the heal itself (2.5s minimum between attempting summon to then receiving the heal)

Ideal conditions, the first attempted summon is interrupted:
1.5s channel time, followed by interrupt which stuns the sorc and hard locks the skill for 3 seconds, then it's another 1.5s channel time to attempt to summon the second time, followed by 1 more GCD before you can actually cast the heal itself. That's a minimum of 7 seconds (1.5 + 3 + 1.5 + 1) without a burst heal if the pet gets killed and the first attempted summon is interrupted

Actual conditions, accounting for lag, delay, bugs, etc:
Impossible to put an accurate figure here, but in actual play conditions, the heal might as well not exist at all with how long it takes from first attempting the summon to receiving a heal, if you are able to receive a heal at all since it's highly likely that by the time you're able to attempt another summon, CC immunity has worn off or bugged out leaving you vulnerable again and essentially without any heal at all.

Dark Deal:

Ideal conditions, no interruptions:
1s cast time with a non-scaling heal at the end of the cast.

Ideal conditions with the first cast interrupted:
1s cast time, interrupt which stuns and the skill hard locks for 3 seconds, then its another 1s cast time with the heal at the end of that cast, essentially 5 seconds (1 + 3 + 1) without a burst heal.

Actual conditions accounting for lag, delay, bugs, etc:
See above on the matriarch, but at least the time between first and second attempt is slightly shorter.

It's all well and good in PvE where the 1 shot heavy attacks/mechanics that matter and require proper burst heals come in at most once every 10-20 seconds, have long build up times and are easily visible.

It also looks perfectly balanced on spreadsheets because it's extremely difficult to quantify interruptible cast times vs instant cast and put numerical values on those, so the cast times tend to get ignored for the most part when balancing is done on spreadsheets because it's too hard to put a value to those that would allow for fair balancing to be done.

Accounting for that kind of potential delay/disable on healing, when balancing on a spreadsheet, the matriarch heal would likely have to be a lot stronger that it currently is and dark deal very similar too, likely to the point that both abilities would be full heals (or near enough) from 0 health after applying battle spirit to balance that interrupt/hard lock downside those skills have and no class should have that kind of healing power without sacrificing something else.

For PvP, where the heavy hitting combos come in every 3-5 seconds (or much more frequently if you're outnumbered) and the cast times allow for interruptions to the healing effectively disabling it for quite a long duration considering, this is where it becomes extremely noticeable and detrimental for the players and becomes very frustrating to try and play.

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

This last point is another issue that I don't think many realise or bother to think about when discussing sorcs balance/pain points.

That distance nerf on streak/BoL made it so much harder to create enough distance for interruptible heals with cast times to be reliable, especially when compounded with the excessive speed creep and the constant reductions to shield sizes and shield mitigation values that have occurred over the past few years.

In saying that, I don't want a return of OP sorc, but at least give the class proper healing possibilities. If they don't want to give us class heals, then un-nerf resto staff so sorc has the option to fix the gap in its class kit via weapon skills like the other classes have.

Yeah in IC where I play most since groups know they will be hunting people they build into speed so that nobody can get away from them. I usually end up trying to know the area better so that I can los etc but sometimes even that's not enough if they have speed and know the area.

So yeah if we can't get away can we at least get a little more bang for our shield buck or a burst heal.

If we bring back resto staff to where it was we just get what we had which was a lot of people running it because it was that good. Sorc needs buffs that actually play into the kit and move it more away from crutching on sets and weapon skills and more towards having a class oriented playstyle.

When bringing back resto staff to what it used to be (I'm talking U33 resto staff, not the old 2017/2018 resto staff), it would come with the caveat that heal stacking would be directly addressed at the same time to prevent it from being too strong. (I should have included this point).

Ideally all it would take is making 1 morph of blessings of restoration into a ST burst heal that's roughly 95% healing value of class single target burst heals such as offering/resistant flesh/HtD.

I'd also prefer they actually buff sorc's healing directly, but it seems the devs don't want to even consider that option for the foreseeable future, hence the suggestion to un-nerf resto staves.

You forgot to mention another disadvantage of a channeled heal, which imo is by far the most important disadvantage of Dark Deal, and that's the inability to block cast.

They don't even need to give the class a true burst heal if they can just remove the cast time on Dark Deal and reduce the amount of resource restored. Even if the tooltip of Dark Deal remains at 8k (or 10k with Dark Conversion), the ability to block cast will guarantee at least 80% of that heal being applied to your HP when HoTs are also rolling.

This is why the difference between using Dark Deal with and without Spell Wall is massive. I am always able to recover my HP to full when Spell Wall is active due to the fact that the majority of the incoming damage is blocked and I'm able to restore my health.

Imo this is a fair compromise for the class. Streak + instant cast Dark Deal will allow a much better chance of recovery for a sorc without making it too strong.

I still reckon they could give DD some slight scaling on top of making it instant cast and it wouldn't break sorc.

When you have 7k spell damage plars that can get 18k+ tooltips on HtD, NBs that can get 20k+ offering tooltips, cros that can reach 18k tooltip resistant flesh, wardens that can get 30k+ polar winds heals, having some scaling on dark conversion/morphs wouldn't be too bad alongside making it instant cast, maybe cap the heal at 16-17k so its still behind what other classes can achieve with similar damage investment, but not so far behind that it struggles to actually heal when under pressure/defile/etc.

Edit: completely agree about block casting, it is just far too strong defensive measure that everything else pales in comparison.

I would increase the tooltip to maybe 13k max. I'd still like for it to restore resources. This is what I'd prefer for a Dark Deal rework

Dark Exchange: Bargain with darkness to restore 12000 Health and 500 Magicka instantly, and an additional 2400 Magicka over 20 seconds.

Dark Deal: Bargain with darkness to restore 13000 Health and 500 Stamina instantly, and an additional 2400 Stamina over 10 seconds. (Increases the initial heal, converts the resource return to Stamina, and reduces the value)

Dark Conversion: Bargain with darkness to restore 10000 Health and 2200 Magicka and 2200 Stamina instantly, and an additional 1500 Magicka and 1500 Stamina over 20 seconds. (Also restores Stamina)

jaws343

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Yup, that is exactly the problem. When I ran a yolo full damage dizzy swing build I was one shotting the majority of people with 8-9k dizzies, 6-7k cwep, 8k curses.

Every class can wear full damage and have their important heals scale off it. No idea why sorc has none lol.

Oh you just reminded me of the other part of the joke that is supposed to be sorc healing.

So in theory on sorc you should be able to heal from doing crits with crit surge (iffy), hitting people with crystal weapon/frags (passive/again gotta be offensive even when you can't afford it), double barring a pet that can die fairly easily, or using DD and hoping not to get bashed or crushing shocked.

Oh and I guess I'm supposed to put a shield or two up so that I can pull off these clunky heals, too bad most people can take it/them down in pretty much 1gcd (oh yeah until recently if you wanted a decent shield better build into mag which doesn't scale as well as damage).

Now that I write it out I'm wondering how that even sounds like viable heals?

It just gets worse and worse the deeper you look into it too.

Matriarch:

Ideal conditions, summoning the pet with no interruption:
1.5s channel time to summon it, then another GCD to cast the heal itself (2.5s minimum between attempting summon to then receiving the heal)

Ideal conditions, the first attempted summon is interrupted:
1.5s channel time, followed by interrupt which stuns the sorc and hard locks the skill for 3 seconds, then it's another 1.5s channel time to attempt to summon the second time, followed by 1 more GCD before you can actually cast the heal itself. That's a minimum of 7 seconds (1.5 + 3 + 1.5 + 1) without a burst heal if the pet gets killed and the first attempted summon is interrupted

Actual conditions, accounting for lag, delay, bugs, etc:
Impossible to put an accurate figure here, but in actual play conditions, the heal might as well not exist at all with how long it takes from first attempting the summon to receiving a heal, if you are able to receive a heal at all since it's highly likely that by the time you're able to attempt another summon, CC immunity has worn off or bugged out leaving you vulnerable again and essentially without any heal at all.

Dark Deal:

Ideal conditions, no interruptions:
1s cast time with a non-scaling heal at the end of the cast.

Ideal conditions with the first cast interrupted:
1s cast time, interrupt which stuns and the skill hard locks for 3 seconds, then its another 1s cast time with the heal at the end of that cast, essentially 5 seconds (1 + 3 + 1) without a burst heal.

Actual conditions accounting for lag, delay, bugs, etc:
See above on the matriarch, but at least the time between first and second attempt is slightly shorter.

It's all well and good in PvE where the 1 shot heavy attacks/mechanics that matter and require proper burst heals come in at most once every 10-20 seconds, have long build up times and are easily visible.

It also looks perfectly balanced on spreadsheets because it's extremely difficult to quantify interruptible cast times vs instant cast and put numerical values on those, so the cast times tend to get ignored for the most part when balancing is done on spreadsheets because it's too hard to put a value to those that would allow for fair balancing to be done.

Accounting for that kind of potential delay/disable on healing, when balancing on a spreadsheet, the matriarch heal would likely have to be a lot stronger that it currently is and dark deal very similar too, likely to the point that both abilities would be full heals (or near enough) from 0 health after applying battle spirit to balance that interrupt/hard lock downside those skills have and no class should have that kind of healing power without sacrificing something else.

For PvP, where the heavy hitting combos come in every 3-5 seconds (or much more frequently if you're outnumbered) and the cast times allow for interruptions to the healing effectively disabling it for quite a long duration considering, this is where it becomes extremely noticeable and detrimental for the players and becomes very frustrating to try and play.

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

This last point is another issue that I don't think many realise or bother to think about when discussing sorcs balance/pain points.

That distance nerf on streak/BoL made it so much harder to create enough distance for interruptible heals with cast times to be reliable, especially when compounded with the excessive speed creep and the constant reductions to shield sizes and shield mitigation values that have occurred over the past few years.

In saying that, I don't want a return of OP sorc, but at least give the class proper healing possibilities. If they don't want to give us class heals, then un-nerf resto staff so sorc has the option to fix the gap in its class kit via weapon skills like the other classes have.

Yeah in IC where I play most since groups know they will be hunting people they build into speed so that nobody can get away from them. I usually end up trying to know the area better so that I can los etc but sometimes even that's not enough if they have speed and know the area.

So yeah if we can't get away can we at least get a little more bang for our shield buck or a burst heal.

If we bring back resto staff to where it was we just get what we had which was a lot of people running it because it was that good. Sorc needs buffs that actually play into the kit and move it more away from crutching on sets and weapon skills and more towards having a class oriented playstyle.

When bringing back resto staff to what it used to be (I'm talking U33 resto staff, not the old 2017/2018 resto staff), it would come with the caveat that heal stacking would be directly addressed at the same time to prevent it from being too strong. (I should have included this point).

Ideally all it would take is making 1 morph of blessings of restoration into a ST burst heal that's roughly 95% healing value of class single target burst heals such as offering/resistant flesh/HtD.

I'd also prefer they actually buff sorc's healing directly, but it seems the devs don't want to even consider that option for the foreseeable future, hence the suggestion to un-nerf resto staves.

I'll add another dark deal heal issue.

Using it, you not only risk stuns and hard locking the skill. In pressured situations you risk pushing your stam too low to break free if you get stunned.

Bushido2513

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

When bringing back resto staff to what it used to be (I'm talking U33 resto staff, not the old 2017/2018 resto staff), it would come with the caveat that heal stacking would be directly addressed at the same time to prevent it from being too strong. (I should have included this point).

Lol if just the heal stacking could be dealt with that would be a game changer but yeah I could seen the changes working and I get what you mean about it looking like sorc just can't get a healing buff.

But yeah basically one could say cast times pretty much ruin a large portion of sorcs heals.

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

You forgot to mention another disadvantage of a channeled heal, which imo is by far the most important disadvantage of Dark Deal, and that's the inability to block cast.

So much this! It's one of the things that makes dk seem immortal at times and that makes a huge difference in the effectiveness of a given heal.

Bushido2513

jaws343 wrote: »

I'll add another dark deal heal issue.

Using it, you not only risk stuns and hard locking the skill. In pressured situations you risk pushing your stam too low to break free if you get stunned.

I'll add one better, the streak into dd that gets hit by crushing shock which stuns you then drags you back to before the streak. Bonus you continue taking damage but are locked out of any responses until the drag back resolves.

PhoenixGrey

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

You forgot to mention another disadvantage of a channeled heal, which imo is by far the most important disadvantage of Dark Deal, and that's the inability to block cast.

So much this! It's one of the things that makes dk seem immortal at times and that makes a huge difference in the effectiveness of a given heal.

Dk isn’t immortal. It’s just sorc being garbage
I feel dks are finally in a good place after years of neglect

Bushido2513

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

You forgot to mention another disadvantage of a channeled heal, which imo is by far the most important disadvantage of Dark Deal, and that's the inability to block cast.

So much this! It's one of the things that makes dk seem immortal at times and that makes a huge difference in the effectiveness of a given heal.

Dk isn’t immortal. It’s just sorc being garbage
I feel dks are finally in a good place after years of neglect

Correct and what I really mean is more like ridiculously hard to kill for the skill level required.

DK is in too good of a place at the moment. I'm fine with giving sorc better defense but I don't want sorc in the same place as dk where we end up all playing the same game just with different skins.

PhoenixGrey

Bushido2513 wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

You forgot to mention another disadvantage of a channeled heal, which imo is by far the most important disadvantage of Dark Deal, and that's the inability to block cast.

So much this! It's one of the things that makes dk seem immortal at times and that makes a huge difference in the effectiveness of a given heal.

Dk isn’t immortal. It’s just sorc being garbage
I feel dks are finally in a good place after years of neglect

Correct and what I really mean is more like ridiculously hard to kill for the skill level required.

DK is in too good of a place at the moment. I'm fine with giving sorc better defense but I don't want sorc in the same place as dk where we end up all playing the same game just with different skins.

I have no problem with sorc being better than dk as well

However I would like to see the ceiling of the class be raised in parallel

PhoenixGrey

StaticWave wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

deejayvee wrote: »

Yeah, because the only people who should be able to enjoy playing this game are those who put in the time, effort and dedication, right?

FYI, if ZOS ever went ahead and buffed Sorc, the top end sorcs will dominate other classes. The gap between top end and low/medium end sorcs is THAT big.

I remember the days when shields would hold off entire groups and sorc could pretty much possibly two tap you if you weren't paying correctly.

Sorcs including myself can still get kills but it's far from the dominating spec it once was.

I remember that iteration of sorc very well. Watching SypherPK tanking 5-6 people made me pick sorc as my first PvP class lol.

I have no doubts that if that version of sorc returned, the class would dominate once again.

No it won’t. We don’t have that caliber of player on PC NA anymore.

There are still a few top tier magsorc mains who are on the caliber of SypherPK during his prime.

The problem is we may never know as the ceiling of the class and game in general was way higher back then. The gap between a newbie in pvp and vet is quite low as long as both use the meta sets.

meta builds even on sorc are way too easy to play and far too forgiving.

Sets like Mara’s balm heal for you and damage is through masters dual wield or dragrkin spamming one skill

Sustain is super easy with wretched vitality. On top of that you have high health which is far too forgiving.

Sorc is not even required to keep up shields. I remember previously if you were caught without shields up it used to be insta death.

Obviously 1vx is slightly harder than before because everyone is as good as everyone else