Where are the QoL improvements for Sorcerer?

Tyrant_Tim

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

When suggesting a buff to Sorcerer, I would be cautious…

Currently it is in a really strong position with Stam Sorcs whipping around deleting people, whereas Mag Sorc is great, but is pretty much non-existent due to its extremely high skill curve…

Quality of life buffs to Sorc should be made in the form of lessening that skill curve.

Slap that master dw/vate/marselok/PO on any other class and you'll do better.....well except on Necro

Not true at all. I’ve run it on Templar, Dragonknight Necro and Sorc, and the hit and run playstyle of StamSorc tied with DK’s.

Different ways to play it, same efficiency.

You DoT them up, Streak away, wait till the DoTs get them around 66% health then burst them with the best burst combo in the entire game with Curse, Crystal, and Dawnbreaker.

When Hybridization began, out of all the classes, both Stamina versions of Dragonknight and Sorcerer benefit the most.

MetallicMonk

IZZEFlameLash

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

When suggesting a buff to Sorcerer, I would be cautious…

Currently it is in a really strong position with Stam Sorcs whipping around deleting people, whereas Mag Sorc is great, but is pretty much non-existent due to its extremely high skill curve…

Quality of life buffs to Sorc should be made in the form of lessening that skill curve.

Slap that master dw/vate/marselok/PO on any other class and you'll do better.....well except on Necro

Not true at all. I’ve run it on Templar, Dragonknight Necro and Sorc, and the hit and run playstyle of StamSorc tied with DK’s.

Different ways to play it, same efficiency.

You DoT them up, Streak away, wait till the DoTs get them around 66% health then burst them with the best burst combo in the entire game with Curse, Crystal, and Dawnbreaker.

When Hybridization began, out of all the classes, both Stamina versions of Dragonknight and Sorcerer benefit the most.

'Best'...? Best combo is 125+ ult Incap + Merciless Resolve. If you can't break free right after Incap, you are dead.

Tyrant_Tim

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

When suggesting a buff to Sorcerer, I would be cautious…

Currently it is in a really strong position with Stam Sorcs whipping around deleting people, whereas Mag Sorc is great, but is pretty much non-existent due to its extremely high skill curve…

Quality of life buffs to Sorc should be made in the form of lessening that skill curve.

Slap that master dw/vate/marselok/PO on any other class and you'll do better.....well except on Necro

Not true at all. I’ve run it on Templar, Dragonknight Necro and Sorc, and the hit and run playstyle of StamSorc tied with DK’s.

Different ways to play it, same efficiency.

You DoT them up, Streak away, wait till the DoTs get them around 66% health then burst them with the best burst combo in the entire game with Curse, Crystal, and Dawnbreaker.

When Hybridization began, out of all the classes, both Stamina versions of Dragonknight and Sorcerer benefit the most.

'Best'...? Best combo is 125+ ult Incap + Merciless Resolve. If you can't break free right after Incap, you are dead.

That’s not a burst combo. Those are two very strong abilities that take more than two seconds to land fully from activation. Which you have two shots at interrupting it, one before Incap lands, and one before Spec Bow lands.

You can animation cancel a Crystal into Dawnbreaker the second your Curse goes off and your opponent won’t have even half the time to react, let alone the sound queue of Incap.

If you get a good read and dodge the Crystal, you’re still getting hit by the entire damage of Curse and Dawnbreaker, and if you block, you’re still getting hit by a mitigated Crystal and Dawnbreaker while taking the whole damage from Curse.

If you get a good read of Blade, you hit one roll dodge and avoid both an Incap and Spec Bow, if your reaction time was slow, you CC break and dodge the bow, and if you want to be really lazy, just block both of them because both attacks are dodgeable and blockable.

Not to mention, when you build into the same stats as a Blade, being crit damage, you’re going to hit harder than an Incap Spec-Bow with your combined damage because Blade doesn’t have delayed burst, not to say it needs it.

To claim Blade has a better burst combo than StamSorc is extremely disingenuous.

StaticWave

Alright I'm going to give an honest opinion here because I've played all 3 specs of sorcs (stam, mag, and hybrid). This is what I would rank them in terms of strength:

Hybrid > mag > stam

The MAJORITY of sorcs you see right now are hybrid. Yes, that includes the current Vate/mDW/Maarselok build because it's using Curse/Cfrag and Ele Sus. My current stat sorc build, which is arguably the best stat build right now, is also hybrid because I'm using Vampire spammable and Ele Sus. Even the current magsorc is also hybrid as it's using Vigor.

What I'm saying is most iterations of sorc you see right now are hybrid. They aren't really stamsorcs or magsorcs anymore. If we're arguing from a pure magsorc and stamsorc perspective, then magsorc > stamsorc.

I've touched over what stamsorc needs in the past (i.e a true burst heal). Magsorc mains like @Turtle_Bot and @MetallicMonk have also touched on what magsorc needs (more bar space). What I think HYBRID sorc needs, is efficient bar space. Hybrid Sorc is indeed very strong, but it suffers greatly from bar space issue and that makes this class disadvantaged compared to other hybrid classes. Currently, the only way for you to fit Cwep/Cfrag, Curse, and Bound Armaments is by playing a ranged hybrid sorc using Cwep as your spammable, or by slotting Chudan, going 38k+ HP, and use Crushing Shock with Cfrag. You also have to use Spell Crit potions because you don't have bar space for Camo Hunter/Mage Light.

So really, a simple fix could just be giving Sorc a built in Major Breach & Savagery on one of its offensive & defensive skills THAT IT'S ALREADY USING. I have to stress that part because if you're going to give Major Breach on a useless skill like Daedric Mines or Rune Cage, then I would rather just slot Ele sus lol...

What this change does is allows you to use other potions like Tri-pots, Immovables, or Armor pots, and fit another class skill there. No need to change tooltips. Just freeing up 1 bar slot will make this class great again.

Turtle_Bot

StaticWave wrote: »

So really, a simple fix could just be giving Sorc a built in Major Breach & Savagery on one of its offensive & defensive skills THAT IT'S ALREADY USING. I have to stress that part because if you're going to give Major Breach on a useless skill like Daedric Mines or Rune Cage, then I would rather just slot Ele sus lol...

What this change does is allows you to use other potions like Tri-pots, Immovables, or Armor pots, and fit another class skill there. No need to change tooltips. Just freeing up 1 bar slot will make this class great again.

Curious to know what magsorc variant you tested (not trying to be facetious here, genuinely curious), as I have been testing all the specs lately as well and settled back on something similar to the meta hybrid build, masters DW (bleed morph that heals), vate frost ele sus and WoF, sigh, yawn, meta, blah blah, I know, I know...

From my experience I would definitely agree that hybrid sorc (well procsorc) is the best version currently, but I would personally give the edge to pure stamsorc over pure magsorc (but it is very close). For me, it comes down purely to access to better and a wider variety of set/weapon options and medium armor/stamina weapons being significantly better than light armor/staves outside of specific sets (rallying cry, vate destro).

Magsorc from my experience is currently crutching on shock staff draugrkin crushing shock + vate frost staff for damage and while it is a good enough setup (thanks mostly to ele sus), it makes magsorc even more 1 dimensional than it already was, which makes it very predictable to go against and not all that fun to play or theory craft around.

I do agree the best (easiest and fastest fix) for all sorcs is to give inherent access to named buffs/debuffs/secondary effects to already slotted skills.
Personally, imo while ele sus is as good as it currently is, I would rather they look into giving us major prophecy/savagery on something like lightning form.
This would do a few things.
1. It gives magsorc a reason to slot boundless storm again over chudan (freeing up a bar slot and monster slot in 1 go).
2. It helps all sorcs to more reliably proc crit surge heal.
3. It gives the class access to a basic standard buff that realistically should have always been in the class kit.
4. It allows for freer theory crafting with the class since you're not forced into IL/CH + MC as mandatory slots in the build.
This would also need to come with an increase to the base range of both hurricane and boundless storm to be minimum 7m radius to match the reworked melee range that everyone else got last patch and maybe reduce its tick frequency back to 1s.

I do think that breach access would be good for when ele sus is eventually nerfed, but tbh, I think (for magsorc and hybridsorc in particular) being able to switch back to ele drain would help a lot with sustain to not be as dependent on dark conversion and wretched vitality to keep resources up and stamina would be able to feel better about using caltrops with a different weapon back bar instead of feeling forced to run frost staff ele sus.

Pretty sure we discussed this earlier, but my top 3 requests would be the following (in order of importance):
1. Major prophecy/savagery on an already slotted skill (as explained above).
2. Untie 1 of the burst heals from the pets (make it 1 of the ward morphs if they are super concerned about shields + heals combined).
3. Breach on a slotted class skill (curse would be nice since haunting has to compete with prey in PvE and has no chance there with pet build being so strong in PvE).
A close 4th would be an update/tidy up of the class passives, but I can live with those if the above 3 points are addressed.

If we could only have 1 thing it would be the major prophecy/savagery named buff on lightning form (alongside the QoL fixes to lightning form/morphs mentioned above).
This frees up 1 bar space for stamsorc (or monster set for magsorc) and potions for all sorcs, gives slightly better proc rate of crit surge and gives a way to slightly buff your own damage due to slightly more crits.

IZZEFlameLash

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

When suggesting a buff to Sorcerer, I would be cautious…

Currently it is in a really strong position with Stam Sorcs whipping around deleting people, whereas Mag Sorc is great, but is pretty much non-existent due to its extremely high skill curve…

Quality of life buffs to Sorc should be made in the form of lessening that skill curve.

Slap that master dw/vate/marselok/PO on any other class and you'll do better.....well except on Necro

Not true at all. I’ve run it on Templar, Dragonknight Necro and Sorc, and the hit and run playstyle of StamSorc tied with DK’s.

Different ways to play it, same efficiency.

You DoT them up, Streak away, wait till the DoTs get them around 66% health then burst them with the best burst combo in the entire game with Curse, Crystal, and Dawnbreaker.

When Hybridization began, out of all the classes, both Stamina versions of Dragonknight and Sorcerer benefit the most.

'Best'...? Best combo is 125+ ult Incap + Merciless Resolve. If you can't break free right after Incap, you are dead.

That’s not a burst combo. Those are two very strong abilities that take more than two seconds to land fully from activation. Which you have two shots at interrupting it, one before Incap lands, and one before Spec Bow lands.

You can animation cancel a Crystal into Dawnbreaker the second your Curse goes off and your opponent won’t have even half the time to react, let alone the sound queue of Incap.

If you get a good read and dodge the Crystal, you’re still getting hit by the entire damage of Curse and Dawnbreaker, and if you block, you’re still getting hit by a mitigated Crystal and Dawnbreaker while taking the whole damage from Curse.

If you get a good read of Blade, you hit one roll dodge and avoid both an Incap and Spec Bow, if your reaction time was slow, you CC break and dodge the bow, and if you want to be really lazy, just block both of them because both attacks are dodgeable and blockable.

Not to mention, when you build into the same stats as a Blade, being crit damage, you’re going to hit harder than an Incap Spec-Bow with your combined damage because Blade doesn’t have delayed burst, not to say it needs it.

To claim Blade has a better burst combo than StamSorc is extremely disingenuous.

Then in your own logic, what you have listed isn't a combo at all. Just 3 really strong abilities.

Tyrant_Tim

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

When suggesting a buff to Sorcerer, I would be cautious…

Currently it is in a really strong position with Stam Sorcs whipping around deleting people, whereas Mag Sorc is great, but is pretty much non-existent due to its extremely high skill curve…

Quality of life buffs to Sorc should be made in the form of lessening that skill curve.

Slap that master dw/vate/marselok/PO on any other class and you'll do better.....well except on Necro

Not true at all. I’ve run it on Templar, Dragonknight Necro and Sorc, and the hit and run playstyle of StamSorc tied with DK’s.

Different ways to play it, same efficiency.

You DoT them up, Streak away, wait till the DoTs get them around 66% health then burst them with the best burst combo in the entire game with Curse, Crystal, and Dawnbreaker.

When Hybridization began, out of all the classes, both Stamina versions of Dragonknight and Sorcerer benefit the most.

'Best'...? Best combo is 125+ ult Incap + Merciless Resolve. If you can't break free right after Incap, you are dead.

That’s not a burst combo. Those are two very strong abilities that take more than two seconds to land fully from activation. Which you have two shots at interrupting it, one before Incap lands, and one before Spec Bow lands.

You can animation cancel a Crystal into Dawnbreaker the second your Curse goes off and your opponent won’t have even half the time to react, let alone the sound queue of Incap.

If you get a good read and dodge the Crystal, you’re still getting hit by the entire damage of Curse and Dawnbreaker, and if you block, you’re still getting hit by a mitigated Crystal and Dawnbreaker while taking the whole damage from Curse.

If you get a good read of Blade, you hit one roll dodge and avoid both an Incap and Spec Bow, if your reaction time was slow, you CC break and dodge the bow, and if you want to be really lazy, just block both of them because both attacks are dodgeable and blockable.

Not to mention, when you build into the same stats as a Blade, being crit damage, you’re going to hit harder than an Incap Spec-Bow with your combined damage because Blade doesn’t have delayed burst, not to say it needs it.

To claim Blade has a better burst combo than StamSorc is extremely disingenuous.

Then in your own logic, what you have listed isn't a combo at all. Just 3 really strong abilities.

Responses like these are why problems are never addressed. Instead of acknowledging where there is validity in what I wrote, you picked that specific area to argue with me.

Now I could let your semantics bait me into a million condescending remarks, but I’ll humor you and explain…

• Exhibit A; Sorcerer, when three attacks happen at once, that is a combo. When your combo does a lot of damage, it is a “burst.” Crystal has a travel time, so when it’s fired and followed by a Dawnbreaker, they happen within the same second, with a well timed Curse allowing you only one chance to react, and it’s when Dawnbreaker’s sword is in the air milliseconds after the Crystal has already smacked you. These deal a lot of damage at the same time, and are considered part of the same “burst.”

• Exhibit B; Nightblade, when attacks are following each other’s ICDs, and have travel time further breaking them up, it is no longer a “burst” but instead, staggered damage.” An Incap goes off, you have the ability to react, after a second and a half a Spec Bow can land, you have yet another window to react. These are two (2) separate instances of high staggered damage.

If you were to cast Spec Bow, and then Incap, due to the travel time of the arrow, it would land at the same time as Incap, creating a burst, but due to how Incap increases any following damage, it isn’t always ideal.

Hopefully this has clarified what most players define as a “burst,” being multiple sources of damage dealt simultaneously.

Zabagad

StaticWave wrote: »

This is what I would rank them in terms of strength: Hybrid > mag > stam
[...]Even the current magsorc is also hybrid as it's using Vigor. [...]

Even if this is maybe true by definition, I think that part of your post is very missleading.
By that definition I was always (U27-U33?) playing a hybrid sorc with 50K mag because I always used hurricane to reveal stealthy players. (until they sadly took that from hurricane)

So we should more focus on 1) main resources (if different) and then 2) melee vs ranged to categorize magSorc and stamSorc in my opinion. If you use a melee weapon you are definitely not a magsorc anymore, but if you use healing(or frost)+shock staff you could be a magSorc even with hurricane and vigor. So stamSorc > magSorc if you don't use vigor as an hybrid excuse.

Anyway - all sorcs should more focus on the important part:

StaticWave wrote: »

So really, a simple fix could just be giving Sorc a built in Major Breach & Savagery on one of its offensive & defensive skills THAT IT'S ALREADY USING. I have to stress that part because if you're going to give Major Breach on a useless skill like Daedric Mines or Rune Cage, then I would rather just slot Ele sus lol...

So I want just add my opinions to the parts of Turle_Bot:

#1:
Yes they can put Major prophecy/savagery on lightning form, but in my opinion it would be even better if they could give it to a class passive like: "When you cast a Storm Calling ability you grant Minor Prophecy to you for 33s".
So you could still use that free slot for something else - if you are willing to continue using chudan.

#3:
Then they could wait 3 month and see if Sorcs are now suddenly the new OP class
If that's not the case (I'm pretty sure it's not), they can do the next change with Major Breach.
Ofc Curse would be my choise too, but if meleeProcSorc would be somehow to strong after change #1, they could add it maybe somewhere else.
I'm thinking about another passive which may looks like "If you are more then 20m away..." or "If you use a staff..." or whatever. Or they could add Major Breach just for direct damage?
As I said - only if some sorcs are to strong after they added Major prophecy/savagery from #1.

Then they could wait another 3 month and we will see if there is still room for #2 and #4 (with my suggestions partial it would be already done)
If they put #1 on a passive instead on lightning form and #3 on curse or a passive, we could then slot a pet instead.
And if they make one healing pet untargetable (better the ground one then the flappy ) or give them more health we would be able to slot a direct heal on that way?
But - thats future music - they should start just with #1 and then #3 and then maybe....

And ofc - this all is just helpful for the PvP sorcs - PvE is a different topic.

Zabagad

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Exhibit A; Sorcerer, when three attacks happen at once, that is a combo. Crystal has a travel time, so when it’s fired, and followed by a Dawnbreaker, they happen within the same second, with a well timed Curse allowing you only one chance to react, and it’s when Dawnbreaker’s sword is in the air after the Crystal has already smacked you. These deal a lot of damage at the same time, and are considered part of the same “burst.”

I'm not a fan of these NBvsSorc discussions, but something in your argumentation sounds biased for me.
I'm not playing a NB so correct me if I say something wrong.

First to say "you only [have] one chance to react" when you use a curse (first time) then you have to do something else to line up your burst (second chance) before the frag hits (I think that is another chance but not sure) before the "Dawnbreaker’s sword is in the air " - I don't see why you see only one chance?
So after curse hits you, you can cast hot/shield then you have another second for cloak or whatever, before you have to dodge/block the rest.
And on the other side - How many chances do you have against that incap+bow combo from stealth?

Next thing - If you use dawnbreaker, then you have to be very close and the travel time is not very long.
Maybe I do something wrong, but I was never (long time since I tried dawnbreaker) able to get these two skills closer together then any other 2 Skills. (maybe 0.9s)
Sure if you wait perfectly for the curse, they 3 can all land in the same 0.9s - but not in the same 0.3s.
If you are able to get them closer, I would like to see a CMX or whatever and I try to learn!

If you then take into acount that curse+frag+dawnbreaker do ~50K when incap+bow do 40K with the same setup, but NB has more critdmg and can do that unseen from stealth (critchance=100%) the real difference should be even smaller.
And as I said - unseen(!) and the sorc have to wait 3,5s faceup to get that maybe 5K more....?

IZZEFlameLash

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

When suggesting a buff to Sorcerer, I would be cautious…

Currently it is in a really strong position with Stam Sorcs whipping around deleting people, whereas Mag Sorc is great, but is pretty much non-existent due to its extremely high skill curve…

Quality of life buffs to Sorc should be made in the form of lessening that skill curve.

Slap that master dw/vate/marselok/PO on any other class and you'll do better.....well except on Necro

Not true at all. I’ve run it on Templar, Dragonknight Necro and Sorc, and the hit and run playstyle of StamSorc tied with DK’s.

Different ways to play it, same efficiency.

You DoT them up, Streak away, wait till the DoTs get them around 66% health then burst them with the best burst combo in the entire game with Curse, Crystal, and Dawnbreaker.

When Hybridization began, out of all the classes, both Stamina versions of Dragonknight and Sorcerer benefit the most.

'Best'...? Best combo is 125+ ult Incap + Merciless Resolve. If you can't break free right after Incap, you are dead.

That’s not a burst combo. Those are two very strong abilities that take more than two seconds to land fully from activation. Which you have two shots at interrupting it, one before Incap lands, and one before Spec Bow lands.

You can animation cancel a Crystal into Dawnbreaker the second your Curse goes off and your opponent won’t have even half the time to react, let alone the sound queue of Incap.

If you get a good read and dodge the Crystal, you’re still getting hit by the entire damage of Curse and Dawnbreaker, and if you block, you’re still getting hit by a mitigated Crystal and Dawnbreaker while taking the whole damage from Curse.

If you get a good read of Blade, you hit one roll dodge and avoid both an Incap and Spec Bow, if your reaction time was slow, you CC break and dodge the bow, and if you want to be really lazy, just block both of them because both attacks are dodgeable and blockable.

Not to mention, when you build into the same stats as a Blade, being crit damage, you’re going to hit harder than an Incap Spec-Bow with your combined damage because Blade doesn’t have delayed burst, not to say it needs it.

To claim Blade has a better burst combo than StamSorc is extremely disingenuous.

Then in your own logic, what you have listed isn't a combo at all. Just 3 really strong abilities.

Responses like these are why problems are never addressed. Instead of acknowledging where there is validity in what I wrote, you picked that specific area to argue with me.

Now I could let your semantics bait me into a million condescending remarks, but I’ll humor you and explain…

• Exhibit A; Sorcerer, when three attacks happen at once, that is a combo. Crystal has a travel time, so when it’s fired, and followed by a Dawnbreaker, they happen within the same second, with a well timed Curse allowing you only one chance to react, and it’s when Dawnbreaker’s sword is in the air after the Crystal has already smacked you. These deal a lot of damage at the same time, and are considered part of the same “burst.”

• Exhibit B; Nightblade, when attacks are following each other’s ICDs, and have travel time further breaking them up, it is no longer a “burst” but instead, staggered damage.” An Incap goes off, you have the ability to react, after a second and a half a Spec Bow can land, you have yet another window to react. These are two (2) separate instances of high staggered damage.

Hopefully this has clarified what most players define as a “burst,” being multiple sources of damage dealt simultaneously.

Lol, ok. Whatever you say.

Tyrant_Tim

@Zabagad, read the whole discussion.

Zabagad wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Exhibit A; Sorcerer, when three attacks happen at once, that is a combo. Crystal has a travel time, so when it’s fired, and followed by a Dawnbreaker, they happen within the same second, with a well timed Curse allowing you only one chance to react, and it’s when Dawnbreaker’s sword is in the air after the Crystal has already smacked you. These deal a lot of damage at the same time, and are considered part of the same “burst.”

I'm not a fan of these NBvsSorc discussions, but something in your argumentation sounds biased for me.

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Now, for how I would handle lessening the skill curve of the class, would be as simple as buffing Conjured Ward’s size and duration back to what it was originally as sticky DoTs last forever and burst is much higher now, with every player attaching a flood of negative effects to you in the form of debuffs and proc sets…

Then I would buff Critical Surge by adding Major Prophecy/Savagery when slotted on either bar or a unique increase to critical chance when activated.

IMO, these things would be enough to make playing the class more forgiving, resulting in a more enjoyable experience.

Both of my suggestions are to improve the class, not make it worse, so what’s my bias, exactly?

The first idea I had helps Magicka leaning Sorcerer’s survivability through a reversion of all of the nerfs to Conjured Ward post-Orsinium, the second helps all variants by improving Critical Surge.

Both changes would help address the need areas of the class, being survivability and healing, without throwing Sorcerer completely out of balance.

Glantir

Dont know if anyone mentioned it, but in some trials it could happen that you are to far away from your pet to use it e.g. Asylum in Jumping Phase or DSR Endboss.

Increase the command range, It's annoying and would be a good QoL improvement. And do all the good things the people suggested here!

StaticWave

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

So really, a simple fix could just be giving Sorc a built in Major Breach & Savagery on one of its offensive & defensive skills THAT IT'S ALREADY USING. I have to stress that part because if you're going to give Major Breach on a useless skill like Daedric Mines or Rune Cage, then I would rather just slot Ele sus lol...

What this change does is allows you to use other potions like Tri-pots, Immovables, or Armor pots, and fit another class skill there. No need to change tooltips. Just freeing up 1 bar slot will make this class great again.

Curious to know what magsorc variant you tested (not trying to be facetious here, genuinely curious), as I have been testing all the specs lately as well and settled back on something similar to the meta hybrid build, masters DW (bleed morph that heals), vate frost ele sus and WoF, sigh, yawn, meta, blah blah, I know, I know...

From my experience I would definitely agree that hybrid sorc (well procsorc) is the best version currently, but I would personally give the edge to pure stamsorc over pure magsorc (but it is very close). For me, it comes down purely to access to better and a wider variety of set/weapon options and medium armor/stamina weapons being significantly better than light armor/staves outside of specific sets (rallying cry, vate destro).

Magsorc from my experience is currently crutching on shock staff draugrkin crushing shock + vate frost staff for damage and while it is a good enough setup (thanks mostly to ele sus), it makes magsorc even more 1 dimensional than it already was, which makes it very predictable to go against and not all that fun to play or theory craft around.

I do agree the best (easiest and fastest fix) for all sorcs is to give inherent access to named buffs/debuffs/secondary effects to already slotted skills.
Personally, imo while ele sus is as good as it currently is, I would rather they look into giving us major prophecy/savagery on something like lightning form.
This would do a few things.
1. It gives magsorc a reason to slot boundless storm again over chudan (freeing up a bar slot and monster slot in 1 go).
2. It helps all sorcs to more reliably proc crit surge heal.
3. It gives the class access to a basic standard buff that realistically should have always been in the class kit.
4. It allows for freer theory crafting with the class since you're not forced into IL/CH + MC as mandatory slots in the build.
This would also need to come with an increase to the base range of both hurricane and boundless storm to be minimum 7m radius to match the reworked melee range that everyone else got last patch and maybe reduce its tick frequency back to 1s.

I do think that breach access would be good for when ele sus is eventually nerfed, but tbh, I think (for magsorc and hybridsorc in particular) being able to switch back to ele drain would help a lot with sustain to not be as dependent on dark conversion and wretched vitality to keep resources up and stamina would be able to feel better about using caltrops with a different weapon back bar instead of feeling forced to run frost staff ele sus.

Pretty sure we discussed this earlier, but my top 3 requests would be the following (in order of importance):
1. Major prophecy/savagery on an already slotted skill (as explained above).
2. Untie 1 of the burst heals from the pets (make it 1 of the ward morphs if they are super concerned about shields + heals combined).
3. Breach on a slotted class skill (curse would be nice since haunting has to compete with prey in PvE and has no chance there with pet build being so strong in PvE).
A close 4th would be an update/tidy up of the class passives, but I can live with those if the above 3 points are addressed.

If we could only have 1 thing it would be the major prophecy/savagery named buff on lightning form (alongside the QoL fixes to lightning form/morphs mentioned above).
This frees up 1 bar space for stamsorc (or monster set for magsorc) and potions for all sorcs, gives slightly better proc rate of crit surge and gives a way to slightly buff your own damage due to slightly more crits.

I tested Rally/Wretched and some variants of Rally builds. I'd say the Rally/Wretched setup is probably one of the strongest I've used, but that's a hybrid build imo. I've also fought a pure magsorc build that hits really hard, but it lacks survivability.

Personally what made me rank pure magsorc higher than pure stamsorc is due to the lack of a proper burst heal. I'm a pretty experienced dueler, but I still struggled against very good magsorcs before hybridization. They were doing 10k frags and 8k curses to me while block casting and it was just really difficult to land a consistent burst combo against them. Look at this screenshot for example:



This guy had 18 bow procs and I blocked 12 of them on my hybrid sorc. That's what I had to deal with when I fought magsorcs before hybridization lol. They would block most of my stuff while dishing out 10k frags and 8k curses. The rare occassions when they didn't block my burst, I was able to get them to maybe 10% HP, then they shield spam and Streak away to reset the fight. I remember getting triggered when I was spamming Executioner 3 times in a row against a magsorc with 10% HP and he didn't die lol.

You can't really do that on a stamsorc, especially if you don't run 2h. Even then, you're going to need 2.5k+ recovery if you want to deal with a magsorc because you're going to have to dodge roll a lot. That's not to mention Crushing Shock can just screw you over when you try to Dark Deal. It was not a favorable matchup for stamsorc imo.

The only chance for a stamsorc to win in that matchup is by slotting procs and using DoTs to wear down the shields. Even then, you need to have enough survivability in case the Sorc can take your damage.

Turtle_Bot

StaticWave wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

So really, a simple fix could just be giving Sorc a built in Major Breach & Savagery on one of its offensive & defensive skills THAT IT'S ALREADY USING. I have to stress that part because if you're going to give Major Breach on a useless skill like Daedric Mines or Rune Cage, then I would rather just slot Ele sus lol...

What this change does is allows you to use other potions like Tri-pots, Immovables, or Armor pots, and fit another class skill there. No need to change tooltips. Just freeing up 1 bar slot will make this class great again.

Curious to know what magsorc variant you tested (not trying to be facetious here, genuinely curious), as I have been testing all the specs lately as well and settled back on something similar to the meta hybrid build, masters DW (bleed morph that heals), vate frost ele sus and WoF, sigh, yawn, meta, blah blah, I know, I know...

From my experience I would definitely agree that hybrid sorc (well procsorc) is the best version currently, but I would personally give the edge to pure stamsorc over pure magsorc (but it is very close). For me, it comes down purely to access to better and a wider variety of set/weapon options and medium armor/stamina weapons being significantly better than light armor/staves outside of specific sets (rallying cry, vate destro).

Magsorc from my experience is currently crutching on shock staff draugrkin crushing shock + vate frost staff for damage and while it is a good enough setup (thanks mostly to ele sus), it makes magsorc even more 1 dimensional than it already was, which makes it very predictable to go against and not all that fun to play or theory craft around.

I do agree the best (easiest and fastest fix) for all sorcs is to give inherent access to named buffs/debuffs/secondary effects to already slotted skills.
Personally, imo while ele sus is as good as it currently is, I would rather they look into giving us major prophecy/savagery on something like lightning form.
This would do a few things.
1. It gives magsorc a reason to slot boundless storm again over chudan (freeing up a bar slot and monster slot in 1 go).
2. It helps all sorcs to more reliably proc crit surge heal.
3. It gives the class access to a basic standard buff that realistically should have always been in the class kit.
4. It allows for freer theory crafting with the class since you're not forced into IL/CH + MC as mandatory slots in the build.
This would also need to come with an increase to the base range of both hurricane and boundless storm to be minimum 7m radius to match the reworked melee range that everyone else got last patch and maybe reduce its tick frequency back to 1s.

I do think that breach access would be good for when ele sus is eventually nerfed, but tbh, I think (for magsorc and hybridsorc in particular) being able to switch back to ele drain would help a lot with sustain to not be as dependent on dark conversion and wretched vitality to keep resources up and stamina would be able to feel better about using caltrops with a different weapon back bar instead of feeling forced to run frost staff ele sus.

Pretty sure we discussed this earlier, but my top 3 requests would be the following (in order of importance):
1. Major prophecy/savagery on an already slotted skill (as explained above).
2. Untie 1 of the burst heals from the pets (make it 1 of the ward morphs if they are super concerned about shields + heals combined).
3. Breach on a slotted class skill (curse would be nice since haunting has to compete with prey in PvE and has no chance there with pet build being so strong in PvE).
A close 4th would be an update/tidy up of the class passives, but I can live with those if the above 3 points are addressed.

If we could only have 1 thing it would be the major prophecy/savagery named buff on lightning form (alongside the QoL fixes to lightning form/morphs mentioned above).
This frees up 1 bar space for stamsorc (or monster set for magsorc) and potions for all sorcs, gives slightly better proc rate of crit surge and gives a way to slightly buff your own damage due to slightly more crits.

I tested Rally/Wretched and some variants of Rally builds. I'd say the Rally/Wretched setup is probably one of the strongest I've used, but that's a hybrid build imo. I've also fought a pure magsorc build that hits really hard, but it lacks survivability.

Personally what made me rank pure magsorc higher than pure stamsorc is due to the lack of a proper burst heal. I'm a pretty experienced dueler, but I still struggled against very good magsorcs before hybridization. They were doing 10k frags and 8k curses to me while block casting and it was just really difficult to land a consistent burst combo against them. Look at this screenshot for example:



This guy had 18 bow procs and I blocked 12 of them on my hybrid sorc. That's what I had to deal with when I fought magsorcs before hybridization lol. They would block most of my stuff while dishing out 10k frags and 8k curses. The rare occassions when they didn't block my burst, I was able to get them to maybe 10% HP, then they shield spam and Streak away to reset the fight. I remember getting triggered when I was spamming Executioner 3 times in a row against a magsorc with 10% HP and he didn't die lol.

You can't really do that on a stamsorc, especially if you don't run 2h. Even then, you're going to need 2.5k+ recovery if you want to deal with a magsorc because you're going to have to dodge roll a lot. That's not to mention Crushing Shock can just screw you over when you try to Dark Deal. It was not a favorable matchup for stamsorc imo.

The only chance for a stamsorc to win in that matchup is by slotting procs and using DoTs to wear down the shields. Even then, you need to have enough survivability in case the Sorc can take your damage.

I see the discrepancy here, it comes back to sorcerers original design, where magsorc always looked stronger to stamsorc players because of the ability to use shields and get more out of equipping a resto staff for healing, whereas a stamsorc always looked stronger to magsorc players because of how much more mobile stamsorc is and stamsorcs access to more options in terms of sets/weapons.

I honestly don't see this being resolved since that is just how sorc is designed, to have this split in playstyles that they are essentially 2 different classes with how different they are, and it would require a complete rework to the class to address that.

One thing I would like to point out though, mostly with your point about magsorcs going hybrid with vigor, technically magsorcs were always hybrid sorcs since dark conversion always cost stamina.
This point is also why magsorc struggles the most with the hybridization changes and is forced into wretched back bar, magsorc was already using its stamina pool for dark conversion and core combat mechanics (dodge roll, block, sprint), but hybridization and vigor (5 second duration heal) being made the BiS self HoT with no global/weapon mag HoT being comparable) this put additional significant drain on magsorcs stamina, more so than other magclasses that have reliable mag based heals and HoTs that allow them to sustain stamina a lot better than magsorc can.

It's probably why U33 magsorc felt decent to play, equal to stamsorc, despite not having any significant buffs/changes. It's because radiating/rapid was equal in power to vigor and gave magsorc a mag option for a HoT making it on par with other classes in terms of off-resource usage and sustain for overall combat and healing. It's also why pre-nerf Mara's was such a good set for magsorc specifically (even more so that it generally was), since it provided that passive healing over time that sorcerer was lacking to go with shields.

Stamsorc has never felt as though it shared this off resource sustain issue (at least to me) created by hybridization though, since before hybridization it kept its mag for dark deal and streak (equal to magsorc keeping stamina for dark exchange + core combat).
With hybridization though, stamsorc only really got crit surge (a 30 second duration buff) added to this drain on its magicka pool unless they go full hybrid with curse and/or frags, so hybridization didn't hit stamsorc off resource as hard, while opening up significantly more options for it (allowing it to play hybrid much easier).

Regarding your comparisons of the 2 classes, for sure in the situation you have described, magsorc seems stronger, it has crushing shock (a weapon ability with 1 good set that pairs with it in draugrkin) to help prevent dark deal while stamsorc has to rely on venom arrow (a mediocre DoT with a buff that sorc already has) or get into melee range and bash to prevent magsorcs dark conversion.

However, in my testing which is taking the builds up against other classes as well as sorc, not just against other sorcs, stamsorc has always felt stronger to me with better mobility, mitigation, and many more options for other playstyles such as melee.

It simply comes down to, post hybridization, stamsorc feels a lot like other classes mag specs since the hybridization changes and the BiS HoT (vigor) uses its main resource in stamina (similar to other classes mag specs having access to mag based HoTs or burst heals to pair with vigor) while magsorc doesn't have access to an equivalent main resource HoT and the constant gutting of shields mechanically speaking so its been forced to use much more of its off-resource and is significantly more dependent on streak for defense than stamsorc is (which we both know the issues with streak thanks to the abundance of movement speed made available to all classes over the past few years).

ZDunlain

Major_Soulless wrote: »

i was going to complain about templar getting nothing but the lightning staff change is useful to us. sorcs really are the unloved stepchild of eso and i feel bad for sorc players.

Till you play templar or even worst, necro.

ZhuJiuyin

ZDunlain wrote: »

Till you play templar or even worst, necro.

Then you will find that Sorc is indeed unpopular
The esolog data and recent changes in classes sets clearly show this.

Duke_Falcon

MetallicMonk wrote: »

I'm laughing because I think that meme means your all choked up about to cry just thinking about what you lost. lol

Duke_Falcon

Clearly through out this conversation Major Prophecy/Savagery needs to be add to a class skill. Pretty much everyone is agreeing on that.

Duke_Falcon

I keep thinking about it, and I'm really convinced Sorc needs 3 things.

1. Major Prophecy/Savagery put on Lighting Form
2. Cast time removed from Dark Conversion/Dark Deal w/ resource return being over time instead of burst.
3. Ward needs a HoT similar to Arctic Winds.

Those 3 things and its on par with the DK, Nightblade, & Warden.

Duke_Falcon

Those 3 changes an a person could actually make a viable one bar build.

Crafty/1pc Trainee/Ancient Grace/Oaken. Monster set would have to be be Roksa or else Recovery on your jewelry and any Monster set you want.

Skills would be Ward/Dark Conversion/Mages Wrath or Frags/Streak/Crushing Shock/Ultimate.

These are the bare bones minimum skills you would need, and if Ward had a HoT on it then its a viable one bar pvp build, if not then its not viable.

Pelanora

I hate lightning form graphics though. Can they do something about that if they do.

OBJnoob

Duke_Falcon wrote: »

I keep thinking about it, and I'm really convinced Sorc needs 3 things.

1. Major Prophecy/Savagery put on Lighting Form
2. Cast time removed from Dark Conversion/Dark Deal w/ resource return being over time instead of burst.
3. Ward needs a HoT similar to Arctic Winds.

Those 3 things and its on par with the DK, Nightblade, & Warden.

I like all of those ideas. Simple and effective. I'll even say that if the Ward had a HoT attached to it Dark Real wouldn't even need to be instant.

Turtle_Bot

Duke_Falcon wrote: »

I keep thinking about it, and I'm really convinced Sorc needs 3 things.

1. Major Prophecy/Savagery put on Lighting Form
2. Cast time removed from Dark Conversion/Dark Deal w/ resource return being over time instead of burst.
3. Ward needs a HoT similar to Arctic Winds.

Those 3 things and its on par with the DK, Nightblade, & Warden.

I've suggested these 3 changes (as well as many other small changes) as things to look at doing multiple times now, unfortunately they always get met by commenters who have likely never even looked at Sorcerer, let alone played one, with comments like:
"That will make it OP"
"That is broken"
or the ever "fun" baiting comment:
"You just want sorc to be OP" (You here is referring to me).

You literally cannot win trying to suggest anything here on the forums that would help Sorcerer, no matter how small it is or how many nerfs come along with it.

There's too many people here that either haven't touched the game since 2018 and still think sorcerer is as OP compared to the other classes as it was before that time or they just have an irrational hatred of sorcerers and are using that to spout nonsense and whip up hate and fear about the class to ensure the class remains in a bad to mediocre spot forever more.
The other thing I've noticed is the ever-present "whataboutism" that is allowed to freely happen on sorc threads but gets immediately bashed and then [snipped] on threads for other classes...

As for these 3 suggestions, depending on what is done with dark exchange, (cast time removed or not), either adding a simple reasonably strong (but not OP) HoT OR interrupt immunity to wards would be a nice QoL change for the class.

There still needs a few more QoL updates to things like:

• Lightning Form - Which should have gotten its base radius increased alongside the increase in melee range and really should have its tick rate reduced back to 1 second considering how its damage is more akin to a location based AoE DoT ability instead of a sticky DoT ability.
• Mages Fury - Which should either have its threshold increased or make it more reliable (for example it should also proc if they drop below the threshold instead of requiring them to take additional damage while already below the threshold).
• Wards - Slight increase to ward durations (8-9 seconds would be the sweet spot, shorter than the "OP" 10-12 seconds they used to be, but more usable than the 6 seconds they currently are)
• Passives - A few of the passives need looking at and updating with how outdated they have become
• Damage types (not numbers) - Better synergize more class active abilities with the class passives and themes, especially for non-pet abilities.

There's probably more things, but those are the ones off the top of my head for QoL changes that would be easy to do, wouldn't make huge changes to the class, but would definitely help while bigger, more long term, changes were being planned.

Duke_Falcon

8 seconds on Ward would be a good change. Helpful, but not to long. As it is now a Sorc is pretty much spamming that thing. LoL…. Sorc life looks like this…. Cast Ward, put on buffs, Cast Ward, break free streak, Cast ward, Heal Rotation, Cast Ward, Oh *** my mag is all gone, Cast Ward, spam Dark Conversion, Cast Ward, damn buffs fell off, Cast Ward, repeat that whole ridiculous cycle. 😂 😂 😂 LoL. Wouldn’t be so funny if it wasn’t true.

Duke_Falcon

1. Major Prophecy/Savagery put on Lighting Form
2. Cast time removed from Dark Conversion/Dark Deal w/ resource return being over time instead of burst.
3. Ward needs a HoT similar to Arctic Winds.

Those 3 things and its on par with the DK, Nightblade, & Warden.

Quoting Turtle, “I've suggested these 3 changes (as well as many other small changes) as things to look at doing multiple times now, unfortunately they always get met by commenters who have likely never even looked at Sorcerer, let alone played one, with comments like:
"That will make it OP"
"That is broken"
or the ever "fun" baiting comment:
"You just want sorc to be OP" (You here is referring to me).”

Anyone saying those thing is not trying to play Mag Sorc solo in PvP. They are not 1v1ing DKs’ NB’s or Wardens.

If your just cruising around in PvE land Sorc its probably fine as is because the shields are enormous out there and NPCs do stupid weak damage so healing is not a problem. All classes are OP in open world PvE land.

…but in the long timers competitive PvP land everyone knows Sorc is the weaker class making it the toughest to play atm.

Pelanora

If they released a whole new offering for sorc from top to passives- skills, animations the lot, and it survived the reviews in here, looking at you turtle lol, i would buy it.

Obvs especially if we got lightning wings for one of the skills.

Turtle_Bot

Pelanora wrote: »

If they released a whole new offering for sorc from top to passives- skills, animations the lot, and it survived the reviews in here, looking at you turtle lol, i would buy it.

Obvs especially if we got lightning wings for one of the skills.

Lol, I'm not really that hard to please when it comes to reworking/buffing sorc (despite what people seem to take away from my (over)-explanations).

The main things I want to see for sorc are:
- Bringing no-pet sorc class kit options up to a comparable level to the other classes, for all aspects of the game (all 3 roles, PvE/PvP and solo/group play). AND
- it keeps to the themes of the class (dark and lightning magic that are spells, not pets).

If the changes do these 2 things, I'll very likely be more than happy with it and would be buying it in an instant as well.

After getting to give it some real testing in Live situations in Cyro, the buff to shields (in tandem with mara's still being very strong) was actually a solid buff for magsorc for that time and I said so at the time as well.

It has unfortunately fallen back a bit though now that mara's is mostly out of the meta, sigh, another case of the sets carrying the class (same as the masters/vate build currently running around). But it was a good first step in the right direction for the class and as myself and others noted at the time, it did make the class somewhat playable again, which it definitely was not in U35/36.

What has soured that whole U37 change for me though has been the fact that there has been no further relevant action taken to continue on from what that first step did and no communication given regarding the future plans for the class (if there even are any), so the game (and other classes) continued to evolve while sorcerer basically remained the same and it just feels like sorcerer is once again being mostly ignored, despite nothing happening since then to help it evolve with the game.

Then we got Arcanist which basically played like a sorc (shields for defense, ranged magicka spells for offense), but it had actual defensive capabilities/utility attached to its many "Sorc-like" abilities, many of which, sorc had been begging for, for literally years (healing on shields, buffs/debuffs aplenty, shields that lasted more than 1 hit, etc.).

Then there was the whole QoL issues from last patch, where sorc got a couple of nice things (that mostly benefited stam sorc), but then they gave those exact same QoL things alongside the main (bare minimum) thing sorc was asking for, Major prophecy/savagery access, to NB that was already significantly stronger than sorc and was already doing sorcs role better than sorc could (especially for PvP).

Finally there is the fiasco surrounding the Sorc class set from this patch, which we all know about by now.

It feels like we had 1 nice small step forward at the start of the year, where things looked promising, then it was back to normal with another 10 steps backwards added in for good measure.

StaticWave

I’m 99% specced into crit sorc but it still feels lack luster compared to NB. I wish we had built in Major Savagery and extra crit chance to fully make use of Crit Surge. I wouldnt even need anything else tbh if they just implemented those changes.

Oh and don’t forget Bound Arms need to have their stacks last indefinitely like Assassin’s Will or Molten Whip. Idk why BA has a 10s duration but those abilities don’t lol.

Turtle_Bot

StaticWave wrote: »

Oh and don’t forget Bound Arms need to have their stacks last indefinitely like Assassin’s Will or Molten Whip. Idk why BA has a 10s duration but those abilities don’t lol.

Can't have sorcs getting anything remotely close (even QoL) to what NB gets given now can we. Can't upset the NBs or they'll bring up Elsewyr patch again.