CRIT IS NOT ENOUGH for Monolith of Storms

acastanza_ESO

Seriously ZOS, we gave you so much feedback on how this set is lacking, you didn't listen to any of it. Come on.

Also, single target direct damage is literally all of Sorcerer's offensive kit so changing the set to not be buffed by the same CP as literally everything else Sorc runs is a huge yikes.
The core design of this set really seems to stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of Sorc as a class.

RaptorRodeoGod

I've said it since week 1, I'll say it again. Monolith of Storms is caca

Literally is as far away from synergizing with the Storm Calling skill line as it can get

MashmalloMan

1. Needs to crit. We're talking about the Storm Calling line where Crit Surge is from.
2. Needs to tick every 1s, not every 2s. It's an aoe GROUND dot.
3. Needs to be easier to proc, no one is dropping a pet to use Lightning Splash/Mages Fury and they're certainly not using Lightning Splash on front bar.
4. Needs to deal damage from the Monoliths, not just the links, spawning 1 Monolith does nothing.
5. Needs to stack with other Sorcs.

If all those conditions were met and it did about the same dps as Pillar, I would slot it in a heart beat just because it looks cool. I don't expect it to be OP, but I expect it to be competitive and fun to use. It does neither of those things, criting won't fix how bad the damage is and how awful it is to work with.

Tannus15

Exactly my thoughts when I read the patch notes.

The set is bad and it just got nerfed. It needs a major redesign to be worth running. Either the damage needs to be quadrupled to make it on par with depths AOE or it needs new proc conditions.
Even then it'll be a bland proc set.

I'd love to see the rationalization of why this is a good set that someone would use and what the situation they expect to see it used in from ZoS.

MashmalloMan

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Also, single target direct damage is literally all of Sorcerer's offensive kit so changing the set to not be buffed by the same CP as literally everything else Sorc runs is a huge yikes.

Yep. My stance on this is it's clearly an aoe dot set, so I understand why they'd fix it.

The problem is, why was this ever the design of the set to begin with? It needs a complete rework that we're never going to get as they move on to bigger and better things.

Add it to the pile of 100s of other useless 5 piece sets.

Tannus15

look at how rubbish this is!



monolith of storms has the same dps as 1 damage type of ilambris.

WrathOfInnos

MashmalloMan wrote: »

1. Needs to crit. We're talking about the Storm Calling line where Crit Surge is from.
2. Needs to tick every 1s, not every 2s. It's an aoe GROUND dot.
3. Needs to be easier to proc, no one is dropping a pet to use Lightning Splash/Mages Fury and they're certainly not using Lightning Splash on front bar.
4. Needs to deal damage from the Monoliths, not just the links, spawning 1 Monolith does nothing.
5. Needs to stack with other Sorcs.

If all those conditions were met and it did about the same dps as Pillar, I would slot it in a heart beat just because it looks cool. I don't expect it to be OP, but I expect it to be competitive and fun to use. It does neither of those things, criting won't fix how bad the damage is and how awful it is to work with.

Agree completely on points 1, 2, 4 and 5. For #3, I would love to have a set that rewards dropping a pet and slotting Fury + Flood. However this would require its damage output to outweigh the loss of a pet, and this is far from the case currently. We’d be jumping through hoops to proc it, and the reward would need to be significantly more proc DPS than Pillar of Nirn, Aegis Caller or Relequen (which all work fine on pet builds and require no bar space).

Tannus15

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

1. Needs to crit. We're talking about the Storm Calling line where Crit Surge is from.
2. Needs to tick every 1s, not every 2s. It's an aoe GROUND dot.
3. Needs to be easier to proc, no one is dropping a pet to use Lightning Splash/Mages Fury and they're certainly not using Lightning Splash on front bar.
4. Needs to deal damage from the Monoliths, not just the links, spawning 1 Monolith does nothing.
5. Needs to stack with other Sorcs.

If all those conditions were met and it did about the same dps as Pillar, I would slot it in a heart beat just because it looks cool. I don't expect it to be OP, but I expect it to be competitive and fun to use. It does neither of those things, criting won't fix how bad the damage is and how awful it is to work with.

Agree completely on points 1, 2, 4 and 5. For #3, I would love to have a set that rewards dropping a pet and slotting Fury + Flood. However this would require its damage output to outweigh the loss of a pet, and this is far from the case currently. We’d be jumping through hoops to proc it, and the reward would need to be significantly more proc DPS than Pillar of Nirn, Aegis Caller or Relequen (which all work fine on pet builds and require no bar space).

increase damage of storm skills by 20% would be a change that would help for example.
earlier in the pts we were discussing the set changing fury to work as a spammable which would also make it work.

basically the entire proc is so bad that it's irrelevant to the value of the set.

Turtle_Bot

The proc just needs reworking.

If they are so intent on keeping its current design ponts:
- Make it summon a monolith upon dealing any damage with a storm calling ability
- Make the monolith deal damage to enemies nearby (within 5m radius)
- Revert the change to its damage type (this was a 24% damage nerf to the set)
- Allow the damage from the beams to stack
- Allow the set to crit

With these changes the set would at least be functional at which point you can tweak the numbers to ensure its not too strong or too weak (easy changes that can be done in a day or 2).

It still would be just another mediocre generic proc set, but at least it would be functional and easy to adjust.

ZhuJiuyin

The sorcer complains about the lack of AOE, but gaining AOE through nerfing overall DPS is certainly unnecessary, not to mention that Monolith of the Storms' poor trigger conditions will lose more DPS. Using Monolith of the Storms will only reduce the sorcer's DPS to 120K or even lower, and the AOE damage gained cannot make up for the loss at all.

Monolith of the Storms needs to be completely reworked and buffed, otherwise we'll be preparing for its funeral in advance.Because it will become one of many useless sets and be forgotten by everyone.

WrathOfInnos

Tannus15 wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

1. Needs to crit. We're talking about the Storm Calling line where Crit Surge is from.
2. Needs to tick every 1s, not every 2s. It's an aoe GROUND dot.
3. Needs to be easier to proc, no one is dropping a pet to use Lightning Splash/Mages Fury and they're certainly not using Lightning Splash on front bar.
4. Needs to deal damage from the Monoliths, not just the links, spawning 1 Monolith does nothing.
5. Needs to stack with other Sorcs.

If all those conditions were met and it did about the same dps as Pillar, I would slot it in a heart beat just because it looks cool. I don't expect it to be OP, but I expect it to be competitive and fun to use. It does neither of those things, criting won't fix how bad the damage is and how awful it is to work with.

Agree completely on points 1, 2, 4 and 5. For #3, I would love to have a set that rewards dropping a pet and slotting Fury + Flood. However this would require its damage output to outweigh the loss of a pet, and this is far from the case currently. We’d be jumping through hoops to proc it, and the reward would need to be significantly more proc DPS than Pillar of Nirn, Aegis Caller or Relequen (which all work fine on pet builds and require no bar space).

increase damage of storm skills by 20% would be a change that would help for example.
earlier in the pts we were discussing the set changing fury to work as a spammable which would also make it work.

basically the entire proc is so bad that it's irrelevant to the value of the set.

Yes, a universal increase to Storm Calling abilities would be a much better set IMO. I don't think 20% would be enough though, since that would only:
- Bring Hurricane from 5% to 6% of DPS, for 1% DPS gain (assuming you are slotting this instead of better skills)
- Bring Lightning Flood from 5% to 6% DPS, for 1% DPS gain (assuming you are slotting this instead of better skills)
- Bring pre-execute Endless Fury from 40% of a typical spammable to 48%, still not a viable option
- Bring execute Endless Fury from 81% of an Impale to 98% of an Impale, which is nice, but still only works for the last 20% of a fight
- Maybe some slight damage increase from Overload, but that ult is really only used for initial burst.

That seems unlikely to result in more than 4% DPS from a 5-piece set bonus, which would not be competitive with any of the meta sets (generally giving around 8% DPS from the 5-piece bonus).

I would say double that to be a 40% increase to Storm Calling abilities. However this would inevitably lead to PVP issues, where the strength of Endless Fury shines, and some builds attempt to one-shot other players with Overload combos.

It's a tough problem, but it would be really cool to see a set that brings Liquid/Flood, and Boundless/Hurricane into the realm of good DPS abilities, especially if it could buff Endless Fury enough to be a pre-execute spammable.

The best example of a this would be Cephaliarc's Flail, which does not deal quite a typical spammable's damage (~90%), but has still become the meta Arcanist spammable since it has a built in execute and saves bar space for more DoTs and passives. Flail's base damage is more than double Fury's, so it could take a lot to create this scenario for Sorcerers.

Tyrant_Tim

Imagine it turned Mage’s Wrath into a spammable?

That would have been such a nod back to 2015 when players would spam it to proc their frags.

Tannus15

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Imagine it turned Mage’s Wrath into a spammable?

That would have been such a nod back to 2015 when players would spam it to proc their frags.

literally the first change we asked for.
increase initial hit, nerf execute explosion and this set can at least work because we'll proc the monoliths.

the dev silence on this set is deafening. it's like they really think fixing a 0% crit bug will somehow triple the damage and make all the other issues go away.

hot tip. it won't.

@ZOS_Kevin is there any update from anyone about what is happening with monolith? i'm happy to test it in any in game situation to provide feedback if that's at all useful.
Pretty much the entire sorc PTS community have major issues with the set. No one thinks it will work in any role or facet of the game.

Tannus15

just to make my position clear on this, I would love nothing more than to replace pillar of nirn with monolith of storms

I really really really want this set to be good enough that using it won't feel like i'm holding back my prog group.
I will happily farm EA for it even if it's slightly worse than nirn (1% - 2%) just because it's a cool sorc set.

but as it stands it's so far off that I can't justify it. I know for a fact i'd be running a significantly inferior build to the detriment of the group, making life harder for 11 other people. it's not an option.

Turtle_Bot

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Imagine it turned Mage’s Wrath into a spammable?

That would have been such a nod back to 2015 when players would spam it to proc their frags.

Yep, This was the first change we all mentioned for this set. Unfortunately the silence from the devs has been deafening and informative.

They don't give 2 [snip] about the sorcerer class and quite frankly it feels like they'd just prefer it if the entire class was removed from the game (they got close with the over nerfs in U35), which as a paying customer, this is not acceptable by any means.

Tyrant_Tim

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Imagine it turned Mage’s Wrath into a spammable?

That would have been such a nod back to 2015 when players would spam it to proc their frags.

Yep, This was the first change we all mentioned for this set. Unfortunately the silence from the devs has been deafening and informative.

They don't give 2 [snip] about the sorcerer class and quite frankly it feels like they'd just prefer it if the entire class was removed from the game (they got close with the over nerfs in U35), which as a paying customer, this is not acceptable by any means.

Who knows, maybe after all three class skill lines receive sets we could start seeing class Mythics targeting specific skills.

It would be in theme with the give and take nature of them currently, ie; Mage’s Wrath could no longer do AoE but gain 4,000 - 5,000 more damage on initial impact.

Regardless, this Sorc set definitely needs to be competitive with other Proc sets at the very least, especially considering the fact that only one player in your group can use it.

One out of the eight DDs in a group running a slightly stronger set won’t result in free clears for trials, even in PvP, Sorcs are extremely squishy I don’t see how giving them damage would be a problem that couldn’t be solved with Dragon Leap.

Pelanora

Why are sorcs summoning monoliths. Is this a merlin thing?

Pelanora

@ZOS_Kevin

Why don't you love us sorcs???

WHY????

Galeriano

I really don't understand why they insist that set needs to stay the way it is. This whole idea of some AoE dmg proc set with special conditions to proc it makes it boring and uninterresting no matter how much they will buff the damage.

Pelanora

When it is the crown store at risk:

"Multiple teams have worked long hours to evaluate the best technical solutions that we could stand up in a reasonably short time, while also prioritizing the Crown Store gifting player experience."

But when it's anything else..... crickets.

StaticWave

Monolith of Storm could be a very cool set if it does the following things:

1) Ticks once per second
2) Is created for each enemy hit at the location of the enemy, up to a maximum of 3
3) Can crit
4) Deals damage from each Monolith, not the link between two of them

This would basically create 3 lightning rods that zaps people around them and would make for a very interesting playstyle. Imagine being a melee Sorc streaking towards a group, proccing 3 monoliths that can crit and zap everyone near them.

MashmalloMan

StaticWave wrote: »

Monolith of Storm could be a very cool set if it does the following things:

1) Ticks once per second
2) Is created for each enemy hit at the location of the enemy, up to a maximum of 3
3) Can crit
4) Deals damage from each Monolith, not the link between two of them

This would basically create 3 lightning rods that zaps people around them and would make for a very interesting playstyle. Imagine being a melee Sorc streaking towards a group, proccing 3 monoliths that can crit and zap everyone near them.

For 2) I think it would be more balanced if it procced on any tick of a Storm calling ability, but still limited to one Monolith a second.

1. Adds a little more control over the set because it's based on the GCD esentially.
2. 1 streak wouldn't proc 3 monoliths at the exact same time for too much unavoidable damage on a group of stunned enemies. If we're asking them to tick on 1s, have a decent aoe (5m at least), and no easy to avoid links.. it feels fair enough to lose this.
3. With the 1s internal proc cooldown, the set still requires a Sorc to somewhat focus on Storm Calling skills if they want the max benefit from it. This is keeping in line with the theme of how class sets function, instead of just slotting 1 skill. You can still do that, but it would be more of an uphill battle.

Example: A Mag Sorc casts Haunting Curse, Meteor, Mages Fury (Monolith 1), Streaks (Monolith 2), Hurricane/Boundless active (Monolith 3).

You can see it's still usable with an internal cooldown, except it avoids some balancing issues that could arise from instant proccing 3 aoe dots on 1 enemy.

Yeah Stam Sorc doesn't usually run Mages Fury, but thats moreso an issue with the skill line rather than the set itself. I still think Mages Fury cost should scale on highest offensive stats.

It's also not a huge drawback because in pve/pvp, Hurricane with the new setup would proc a monolith once every 2 seconds which means 1 cast of hurricane can get 100% uptime, just with a small ramp up.

.. but yeah, I would 100% use that set. As long as 3 monoliths together, deals about 10-20% more dps than Aegis Caller, I think it would be worth running. 10-20% more to supplement the fact that you need 3 monoliths, potentially multiple skills and it's specifically made for 1 class instead of being generic. Class sets should be strong, but not overbearing. At a 5m radius, they would be smaller than Aegis Caller, but idealy, start dealing damage instantly from 0s, once a second up to 10s where as Aegis Caller has the build up phase.

MashmalloMan

• A preliminary fix has been found for this set’s inability to Critically Strike but requires more thorough testing before implementing it.

If anyone is looking for a bit of copium, I have a small sliver of hope that Gina just wasn't given the full intentions from the devs regarding Monolith and what could be a potential rework behind the scenes.

Depending on how you look at it, a "preliminary fix" could be taken as a 1st step in multiple steps of intended changes.

... I know this is a huge stretch, I know the comment is meant to say they may have found a fix for the crit issue, but they're still testing it. No mention of a potential rework, still, a little copium for a few days doesn't hurt..

madmidwestmark

Imo, make the pillars shoot lightning at the closest target (18m range), every 2 seconds for 10s. Can have up to 3. Dealing damage with storm calling drops a pillar, this can occur every 3 seconds. Can crit. Trying to get beams to line up to enemies isn't going to work. Also, increases all storm calling abilities damage by 5% and cost 5% less. This would be the best option and could look freakin cool. Having aoe on pillar and stacking them is too much dots, imo. Not sure which takes more computations, aoe or finding closest target? Might have to be aoe, if easier. 2s tix aren't bad, if they hit twice as hard

Tannus15

MashmalloMan wrote: »

• A preliminary fix has been found for this set’s inability to Critically Strike but requires more thorough testing before implementing it.

If anyone is looking for a bit of copium, I have a small sliver of hope that Gina just wasn't given the full intentions from the devs regarding Monolith and what could be a potential rework behind the scenes.

Depending on how you look at it, a "preliminary fix" could be taken as a 1st step in multiple steps of intended changes.

... I know this is a huge stretch, I know the comment is meant to say they may have found a fix for the crit issue, but they're still testing it. No mention of a potential rework, still, a little copium for a few days doesn't hurt..

that's a lot of copium,

imo they like the concept of the set and they are keeping all the bad parts of it.
the build i've been testing with flood front bar has a 100% uptime and the damage sucks.

it's less than 1 of the illambris procs in an AOE situation.
it's less than half of nerien'eth

if it had 100% crit chance it would still be lacking.

Dealing damage with a Storm Calling abilities' initial hit or every 5th tick, creates a Monolith near the enemy for 10 seconds, up to one every 1 second. You may have up to 3 Monoliths at a time. Monoliths link to your other Monoliths within 28 meters of each other, each link dealing 3064 Shock Damage every 2 seconds to enemies between and near them. An enemy can only take damage from this set once every 2 seconds.

i've highlighted everything problematic about the set as it stands. it's literally everything the set does. You can't run it front bar like every other proc set.
lightning form will not proc enough monoliths to do any damage.
in another thread @ZhuJiuyin compared it to rele and I thought, "that's a silly comparison". but it's not really. you have to run it on the body because you have to proc it constantly. if you don't have 2 procs you do 0 damage.

which brings me to the really interesting part of trying to make this set work is it underlined why the sorc is so one dimensional and why update 35 gutted the class so much.

the worst thing about update 35 was first they nerfed literally every skill making sorcs completely garbage, but then at the last minute they doubled the prey damage bonus. this got sorc back up to par, but completely locked us into pet builds. we're crutching hard on the prey + pet damage.

By far the biggest dps loss is in using this set actually trying to use lightning flood instead of scamp.

and make no mistake, this set ONLY works if you run lightning flood and have this set on both bars.

i did a quick test: 1 dummy, 1 minute with monolith just keeping up hurricane and then 1 minute just keeping up flood

hurricane, 11 hits


lightning flood, 25 hits


the set simply doesn't work with only lightning form. you actually get less ticks with boundless storm since you get less "inital" hits.

you get more dps running a standard 2 pet build with no 5pc bonus.
I don't know how to more fully underline how over reliant sorc is on pets and how bad stormcalling is. lightning flood sucks to cast and too much of it's effective dps is locked up in the synergy.
it's not reliable, it's a bad damage type with a weak status effect. it's only slightly more dps than hurricane while costing twice as many GCD.
lightning flood is a bad skill.

Tannus15

here is another fun tidbit about how weak storm calling is:

initial hit damage : 3680


vs executioner : 4905


I don't understand why, but mages fury, which has the shortest execute window in the game, has the worst non execute damage in the game. using it early is more punishing than any other execute skill. using it to proc monoliths pre execute is a dps loss compared to not proc'ing monoliths and just using your spammable.

Tannus15

@ZOS_Kevin How is this set meant to work?

Literally just look at the numbers and tell me how this is makes any sense?

The more I look into this set and the more I play around with it to TRY and understand it the less sense is makes and the more I'm convinced that whoever dreamed it up has no idea what is actually in the storm calling skill line.

I don't know what the internal testing process is, but I do know it needs to be looked at because everything about this set is rubbish.
It should never have got past the first prototype.
The first bit of feedback should have been "this is completely useless, back to the drawing board".

It has no redeeming features. It's terrible in PvE because of the skills required to use it. It's terrible in PvP because it's stationary and can only proc every 2 seconds, and further more it's terrible everywhere because it's damage is so weak.

It's not just bad, it's utter garbage.

Pelanora

I'm sure they fed all the sets there are, and the class skills, into Microsofts AI, asked for new ones, and it spat them out.

Because otherwise we have to assume they did this on purpose.

Tannus15

here's another problem with your garbage AOE set



can you spot it?

It spawned all the monoliths in the same spot.

it's SO BAD it's NOT FUNCTIONAL.

MashmalloMan

Tannus15 wrote: »

here's another problem with your garbage AOE set



can you spot it?

It spawned all the monoliths in the same spot.

it's SO BAD it's NOT FUNCTIONAL.

Noticed this too. It's beyond incomprehensible why this set is designed this way.

I'm convinced whoever conceived the set design has never played Sorc and thinks Mages Fury is a spammable because thats legitimately the only way this set could work the way they expect it to with the massive 28m links.

Even if we did want to use it, 99% of the time it's going to proc on a random enemy from an aoe skill. Streak.. Lightning Splash.. Lightning Form..

MashmalloMan

@Tannus15 I find it's better to compare to Impale and Mages Fury as they're both instant ranged executes that have flat values within execute range instead of scaling based on missing health. The instant melee executes are typically a bit stronger.

Comparing tooltips from base characters, no passives or bonuses:

Impale: Throw a magic blade with lethal precision to strike an enemy, dealing 1161 Magic Damage. Deals 330% more damage to enemies below 25% Health.

Mages Fury: Call down lightning to strike an enemy, dealing 870 Shock Damage. If the enemy falls to or below 20% Health within 4 seconds of being struck, an explosion deals an additional 3195 Shock Damage to them and 695 Shock Damage to other enemies nearby.

Neither morph of Mages Fury gives bonus damage, just sustain vs aoe.

NB: 1161 x 4.3 = 4992 from 25% health
Sorc: 870 + 3195 = 4065 from 20% health

4992 / 4065 = 1.228... so 1.23

Impale has a tooltip worth 23% more than Mages Fury.

• NBs kit gives easy Major Berserk for 10% damage done, ours is from the expensive Atro synergy.
• NBs kit gives easy 300 or 400 base weapon damage, we get 2% per slotted, nowhere near as valuable and NBs can slot Fighters guild skills for 3% per slotted or are already getting 2% crit chance per slotted Assassination skill or 3% healing per slotted Siphoning skill.
• NBs kit guarantees Minor Vulnerability, we have to rely on shock proc chance or again.. wait for Charged Atro which is notobly worse and easy to avoid vs Greater Atro.
• Both NB and Sorc get decent Minor Berserk uptime easily. Null comparison.
• NBs kit gives an additional 20% damage dealt for 8s via cheap af Incap, nothing comparable for Sorc.
• NBs kit gives 3k pen flanking, nothing comparable for Sorc.. maybe the 5% Shock damage passive.
• NBs kit gives 10% crit damage which can stack with Minor Forces 10%, Sorc gets Minor Force via Dark Deal (not for Mag Sorc).
• NBs kit gives 8% max mag passively, Sorcs get 8% max mag for slotting a tank skill that buffs block mitigation for a shielding class where shields don't get block mitigation, Minor Resolve is useless with Resolving Vigor meta and Minor Protection NB can get from Undo.
• NBs kit gives Major Savagery passively from slotting Shadowy Disguise, Sorcs have to waste a skill slot for Camo Hunter or get shoe horned into mag crit/power potions.
• NBs kit gives 1k mag/stam for killing an enemy passively, Sorc has to specifically use Endless Fury to get 5k mag back, a lot, but less versatile and Mages Wrath is the better morph.

Only thing Sorc has over NB is in class Major Sorcery/Brutality on a self buff, NB has it, but they need to get in melee range, can just use Rally, Degen or Pots.
And... Amplitude, a passive that literally gets worse the closer you get to execute. More specifically it gives 2-1% damage done for Mages Fury in execute.

TLDR: So not only is the base tooltip 23% stronger for Impale despite both skills being a ranged magicka instant execute, NB gets much higher damage bonuses that will result in Impale dealing anywhere from 50-100% more damage if I were to guess. 100% is very likely due to the fact that a Mag Sorc is probably going to be using Max Mag sets to get reasonable defence which also scales much worse than a typical setup... Cherry on the cake, it scales from 25% health instead of 20% health.

Only plus sides for Sorc is they can cast Fury early to get some delayed execute burst for a combo and some decent aoe. Whatever.