Sorcerer Changes - Good(ish) but More is Needed

grzes848909 · January 30

Grim_Overlord wrote: »

grzes848909 wrote: »

Sorc will be having 4 instant health abilites
- 2 pets with each having a morph that gives you instant heal
- dark deal that gives you instant(ish considering cast time but upfront heal nonetheless)
- and soon new morph of entomb ''Vibrant Shroud''
But no heal overtime. Moreover for comparison majority of other classes already have access to a HoT thanks to their class abilities. And top it all off you could add the heal overtime to the regenerative ward morph to make it more competitive against hardened ward and to give players more options; hardened for bigger shield and heal upfront; more utility and small bonuses for regenerative
As for the exact number values and details I and rest of us should leave them to the devs.

Would it destroy any particular playstyle or be too overpowered to change regenerative to not target pets but instead target up to six allies with the lowest amount of shield while also giving a small HoT as well as the minor buffs it already provides? Obviously the strength of the shield would reduced in this situation to make up for it applying to everyone.

They already changed daedric mines morph (Daedric Minefield) morph into giving shield to yourself or up to 5 allies. Making another ability that has near identical function would be redundant now.

silentxthreat · January 30

React wrote: »

You should get on the PTS and test these changes before talking about how it needs more. Magsorc is shaping up to be one of the strongest classes in the game (pvp wise) with these changes.

i dunno about that. i havnt been on ptr but im hopeful that they can do enough damage to kill the tank meta without being instant killed by the proc/nb meta lol

Duke_Falcon · January 31

React wrote: »

You should get on the PTS and test these changes before talking about how it needs more. Magsorc is shaping up to be one of the strongest classes in the game (pvp wise) with these changes.

I play on the Play Station, but man I really really wish Play Station had a PTS version now. lol Non Pet Mag Sorc was my very first class I played in the game and have made it my main for the past couple years because it was so weak. I came back to the game and mained Warden when Morrowind DLC came out because I love the old original Morrowind game. I made the change from Warden to Sorc 2 years ago, because I could beat most players on my Warden. I quickly found Non Pet Mag Sorc was really really hard to play in comparison because of its lack of healing. Unfortunately I missed the glory days of Sorc because I took a break from the game for a while Sorc was OP. All I've ever known is the struggle.

If I can beat my Dragon Knight and Night Blade friends 50% of the time in a dual now, I'll be happy, because that means the game is more balanced. I will also say the inverse of this, if your playing a DK, Nightblade, or Arcanist and Sorcs start beating you 50% of the time instead of you always beating them, don't cry, it probably means the classes are more balanced, not that the Sorc is now too OP.

Turtle_Bot · January 31

I55UE5 wrote: »

I like the changes so far, but what I lack as a Stamina Sorcerer with no pets is a reliable self heal.

Yes, I have Crit Surge active as an Orc.. so staying on target keeps me alive.. but when I can't do that I am forced to run around spamming Dark Conversion. I shouldn't need to explain why doing that feels terrible.

My proposition is a simple one.

The new Conjured Ward heal is a great addition.. but due to the 15% max health heal.. its still almost better to rely on Dark Conversion, as the heal is likely larger.

Ember's Companion skill for Conjured Ward is a Heal Over Time. YOU GOT THIS RIGHT!

Please make the new Conjured Ward heal a HoT, to match what you did with the companion skill line.

Honestly, give the new encase heal morph a go, I know its technically a mag skill, but all class burst heals are and it's actually a very good heal, especially if you are running ward as well.

I do agree that a HoT would be nice on ward, but imo if they just improved the reliability of being able to proc crit surge and the blood magic passive, that would definitely be enough as far as HoTs are concerned.

Small things like increasing lightning form base AoE to 7m to match the new melee attack range, reverting the nerf to its tick rate back to 1 second because its an AoE DoT, not a sticky target DoT so it should follow the AoE DoT standards for tick rate and also if they could find somewhere in the class kit to add major prophecy/savagery, that would help a lot as well.

katorga · January 31

Jsmalls wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Lol, I literally main pvp on a Sorc I just don't stack max mag because it isn't 2017 anymore. If you're not pumping up your health, sorry but you're the one VDing everyone around you.

If you're a MagSorc and don't have your Ward up (bumps effective health to over 40k) then that's a skill issue.

I run with 27k health and have no issues surviving bombs.

Other classes just fine with no wards at all. Wards are the worst defensive mechanic in the game.

Stacking magicka is a bad investment all around. The best max mag sets are worse than hundings rage. Garbage tier sets. At least until this patch, mag/stam had worse multiplier options than almost any other stat in the game. The baseline is 20% from sorcery/brutality. Max resource is what, 15%?

40K health 18K resource, 7k spell damage is better than 27K health 48K mag and 4K spell damage - note the effective weapon damage is the same, 8.8K.

Jsmalls · January 31

katorga wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Lol, I literally main pvp on a Sorc I just don't stack max mag because it isn't 2017 anymore. If you're not pumping up your health, sorry but you're the one VDing everyone around you.

If you're a MagSorc and don't have your Ward up (bumps effective health to over 40k) then that's a skill issue.

I run with 27k health and have no issues surviving bombs.

Other classes just fine with no wards at all. Wards are the worst defensive mechanic in the game.

Stacking magicka is a bad investment all around. The best max mag sets are worse than hundings rage. Garbage tier sets. At least until this patch, mag/stam had worse multiplier options than almost any other stat in the game. The baseline is 20% from sorcery/brutality. Max resource is what, 15%?

40K health 18K resource, 7k spell damage is better than 27K health 48K mag and 4K spell damage - note the effective weapon damage is the same, 8.8K.

On live the bonus is 21% for stats (inner light, bound aegis, undaunted). I whole heartedly agree stats has lower base damage 129 spell damage > 1096 resource on each item piece. But since our core defense (and our best defense) scales from this we have to make due.

On live I run 27k health, 58k magicka, ~4k spell damage ~10k effective spell damage. Grace of ancients is unique in what it offers for stats and crafty alfiq is very concentrated in what it does. So you get a lot of bonuses from these sets.

If ward scaled differently I would play differently but it doesn't.

This next patch gives me a free 4k magicka (another 400 effective spell damage), and a very strong ward (larger from the magicka buff and adding the heal).

Id argue that this setup will be one of the meta setups for Sorcs who can handle low health this coming patch. (Low health is a high risk high reward playstyle but if you can handle it no reason not to take the free damage it provides).

MashmalloMan · January 31

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Max health is simply more useful in the circumstances where you're most likely to not have pets. Giving it to the pet builds is a bad decision. Nothing they've done here is going to even come close to providing a viable non-pet option for PVE so putting the most impactful max stat on the build that it works best on is the best thing for all Sorcerer builds. The most impactful stat is health for non-pet and mag/stam for pet.

But that is only if they insist on keeping the core idea of this change and don't adopt one of the other better ideas people have given here.

You're missing the point.

PVE and PVP Sorcs can convert their max stamina or magicka into health by simply adjusting their character stats. You lose very little by doing this without a %HP multiplier because you're also gaining more of your primary and secondary resources. That is always useful.

PVE Sorcs can NOT convert their max health into max stamina or magicka because they go 100% into max magicka or stamina to begin with on food, enchants, mundus stones, gear, character stats. Flipping them would literally defeat the purpose of their intended goals to buff non pet Sorc in all content. It simply won't happen and hurts more builds than it helps, while going against their goals.

MashmalloMan · January 31

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Not to mention they got this on Arcanist. Tidal Chakram when cast with 3 Crux gives you a heal over time, and it can affect you or an ally. Considering that Ward can only target you just giving it the heal over time is reasonable.

If you're going to reference that skill, you should also highlight the fact that it's 50% worse than Hardened Ward for a slightly higher cost. They're not directly comparable, we need to be realistic here.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

I55UE5 wrote: »

I like the changes so far, but what I lack as a Stamina Sorcerer with no pets is a reliable self heal.

Yes, I have Crit Surge active as an Orc.. so staying on target keeps me alive.. but when I can't do that I am forced to run around spamming Dark Conversion. I shouldn't need to explain why doing that feels terrible.

My proposition is a simple one.

The new Conjured Ward heal is a great addition.. but due to the 15% max health heal.. its still almost better to rely on Dark Conversion, as the heal is likely larger.

Ember's Companion skill for Conjured Ward is a Heal Over Time. YOU GOT THIS RIGHT!

Please make the new Conjured Ward heal a HoT, to match what you did with the companion skill line.

Honestly, give the new encase heal morph a go, I know its technically a mag skill, but all class burst heals are and it's actually a very good heal, especially if you are running ward as well.

I do agree that a HoT would be nice on ward, but imo if they just improved the reliability of being able to proc crit surge and the blood magic passive, that would definitely be enough as far as HoTs are concerned.

Small things like increasing lightning form base AoE to 7m to match the new melee attack range, reverting the nerf to its tick rate back to 1 second because its an AoE DoT, not a sticky target DoT so it should follow the AoE DoT standards for tick rate and also if they could find somewhere in the class kit to add major prophecy/savagery, that would help a lot as well.

This. 100% this. It would do wonders. Sorc honestly doesn't need a lot, it's mostly pve dps and solo pve/pvp builds that struggle.

Faint_One · January 31

lightning pool still delay 1 sec to drop sad

MashmalloMan · January 31

Jsmalls wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Lol, I literally main pvp on a Sorc I just don't stack max mag because it isn't 2017 anymore. If you're not pumping up your health, sorry but you're the one VDing everyone around you.

If you're a MagSorc and don't have your Ward up (bumps effective health to over 40k) then that's a skill issue.

I run with 27k health and have no issues surviving bombs.

Other classes just fine with no wards at all. Wards are the worst defensive mechanic in the game.

Stacking magicka is a bad investment all around. The best max mag sets are worse than hundings rage. Garbage tier sets. At least until this patch, mag/stam had worse multiplier options than almost any other stat in the game. The baseline is 20% from sorcery/brutality. Max resource is what, 15%?

40K health 18K resource, 7k spell damage is better than 27K health 48K mag and 4K spell damage - note the effective weapon damage is the same, 8.8K.

On live the bonus is 21% for stats (inner light, bound aegis, undaunted). I whole heartedly agree stats has lower base damage 129 spell damage > 1096 resource on each item piece. But since our core defense (and our best defense) scales from this we have to make due.

On live I run 27k health, 58k magicka, ~4k spell damage ~10k effective spell damage. Grace of ancients is unique in what it offers for stats and crafty alfiq is very concentrated in what it does. So you get a lot of bonuses from these sets.

If ward scaled differently I would play differently but it doesn't.

This next patch gives me a free 4k magicka (another 400 effective spell damage), and a very strong ward (larger from the magicka buff and adding the heal).

Id argue that this setup will be one of the meta setups for Sorcs who can handle low health this coming patch. (Low health is a high risk high reward playstyle but if you can handle it no reason not to take the free damage it provides).

Yep. Plus, you have a 60k magicka pool, we can't forget that max resources technically double dip in that they provide damage (to a lesser degree) and sustain. Having that much wiggle room has a lot of benefits.

I'm not disagreeing that building for max resource IS an uphill battle seeing as over the years, max stat multipliers from CP (20%) and races (10%?) have been removed, but it has some positives.

On the same page as you though, a big problem is that since 2017/2018, multipliers have gone down for stats, while multipliers for weapon/spell damage have gone up. Compound this with changes to increase races spell/weapon damage over % multipliers, all the while set options for max resources are very limited and have low set value weight in comparison to other set bonuses that give damage. Look no further than the fact that minor/major Courage has become a much easier buff to obtain today, while there is no equivalent max stam/mag named buff (warhorn doesn't count).. and you start to understand why Sorc's original playstyle has fallen lower and lower over the years.

I55UE5 · January 31

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

I55UE5 wrote: »

I like the changes so far, but what I lack as a Stamina Sorcerer with no pets is a reliable self heal.

Yes, I have Crit Surge active as an Orc.. so staying on target keeps me alive.. but when I can't do that I am forced to run around spamming Dark Conversion. I shouldn't need to explain why doing that feels terrible.

My proposition is a simple one.

The new Conjured Ward heal is a great addition.. but due to the 15% max health heal.. its still almost better to rely on Dark Conversion, as the heal is likely larger.

Ember's Companion skill for Conjured Ward is a Heal Over Time. YOU GOT THIS RIGHT!

Please make the new Conjured Ward heal a HoT, to match what you did with the companion skill line.

Honestly, give the new encase heal morph a go, I know its technically a mag skill, but all class burst heals are and it's actually a very good heal, especially if you are running ward as well.

I do agree that a HoT would be nice on ward, but imo if they just improved the reliability of being able to proc crit surge and the blood magic passive, that would definitely be enough as far as HoTs are concerned.

Small things like increasing lightning form base AoE to 7m to match the new melee attack range, reverting the nerf to its tick rate back to 1 second because its an AoE DoT, not a sticky target DoT so it should follow the AoE DoT standards for tick rate and also if they could find somewhere in the class kit to add major prophecy/savagery, that would help a lot as well.

I agree with your point on increasing Lightning Storm for sure, probably the same deal with Deadly Cloak right? I run both of those one my Stamina Sorcerer. I even have Restore Health weapon enchantments on the back bar to increase some of my healing.

My problem as a Stamina Sorcerer is that the new Vibrant Shroud costs 4800 Magicka, significantly higher than Dark Conversion. I don't have a ton of Magicka to blow on a self heal. I already run Regenerative Ward to get the Minor regens, but I would love if the skill had more utility for healing besides this upcoming 10% Health heal. With Battle Spirit that heal might as well not even be there. I am on console so I don't have the ability to mess around with PTS, but that is how I feel with these patch notes currently, we will see what happens.

Jsmalls · January 31

@MashmalloMan

So here is also my take on it.

A lot of times players will disregard resources and try to push for weapon damage. They'll even run health and recovery food to push that damage further. But they'll end up with like 25k resources and 7.5k buffed spell/weapon damage.

Which is the same damage potential as 4k Resources and 60k resources (pretty close I know 10.5=1).

So resource stacking isn't performing too poorly and this is because one stacking resources targets those % increases which provides bonus to those base 25k~ stats. At 30% that's an additional ~750 spell damage over those not chasing those bonuses. Then add stat food and that's another 6-7k after % bonuses. This helps make up the difference lost in multipliers and base spell damage set bonuses. And as you said sustain, walking into a fight with twice the resources helps you stay in it longer and have a very strong initial push.

nwilliams2107b16_ESO · January 31

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Honestly, if ZOS are that determined to keep this change for expert summoner, it should have kept the Health buff as it currently is (essentially up all the time), then if you have no pets active, you also get the bonus magicka and stamina. This way it has the same baseline utility for all sorcerers that the passive currently provides, but it would also provide a small additional bonus for those sorcerers who choose to not run the pets. This small change would also prevent the issue of constantly fluctuating max stats due to atro being summoned/ending or twilight/scamp being killed etc. This would be less of an issue if sorc had an ultimate as reliable as atro, alas, until overload or negate get a morph reworked, this won't be the case.

Well said that man, my thoughts exactly!

Duke_Falcon · February 1

I don't have access to the PTS, but if your keeping your Damage Shield up or running Bound Aegis without the Twilight or Clanfear does that give you the 10% increase on Max HP? Or are we just losing the HP in exchange for 10% Max Mag period?

Even if we are losing the Max HP bonus in exchange for Max Mag, I think I'd still take it over what we currently have as we are still getting a heal on the damage shields, and it gives us more options to more Heavy Armor sets and Heavy Armor passives to make up for the lost HP. This change should increase our build diversity a lot as a Non Pet Mag Sorc.

Also I was thinking that the Burst Heal on the Shield may actually be better than a HoT w/ the Damage Shield, as there are currently 2 forms of HoTs you can run with it in Healing Ward, and Vigor. So in my mind a Burst healing Damage shield w/ a Healing Ward or Vigor is probably better than just running 2 skills that give you 2 different HoTs.

silentxthreat · February 1

changes are good but sheild needs to last longer since its our only defense. needing to cast it again every 4 sec doesnt feel good and makes it clunky especially in solo content

Turtle_Bot · February 1

silentxthreat wrote: »

changes are good but sheild needs to last longer since its our only defense. needing to cast it again every 4 sec doesnt feel good and makes it clunky especially in solo content

With the changes made to the heal morph of encase (assuming they make it through the pts cycle without getting ruined), shields will finally not be sorcs only real form of defense (that is not running away).

I used to 100% agree that hardened should be changed to 8 seconds duration, but with the proposed changes, I would honestly need to see more thorough testing done (that can only really be done on the live servers with proper populations) to see if that is the case anymore, especially now that the ward has a heal on it as well.

Duke_Falcon · February 3

What are people getting for the Normal & Crit Heal on Hardened Ward on actual usable builds on the PTS? Something with 2k Mag Recovery, 1k Stam recovery, 25-30k resistances front bar, and obviously as max mag as I can get balanced with Hp so my damage shields are as large as I can get. I know people may disagree about the stats, I see people on PC run way lower resistances than people on PlayStation. I've seen a few videos and it looks like 3-4k normal heal with 5-6k Crit ones. Does that sound about right?

I just watched Malcolm's video and It looks like he's only getting 3823 normal non-crit. I think we all have Stockholm syndrome, because thats not an OP heal. lol

Probably balanced though as we also get a Damage Shield with it. Comparing it to Arcanist Impervious Runeward I think its weaker, but I also think Impervious Runeward is a bit over tuned.

Turtle_Bot · February 3

Duke_Falcon wrote: »

What are people getting for the Normal & Crit Heal on Hardened Ward on actual usable builds on the PTS? Something with 2k Mag Recovery, 1k Stam recovery, 25-30k resistances front bar, and obviously as max mag as I can get balanced with Hp so my damage shields are as large as I can get. I know people may disagree about the stats, I see people on PC run way lower resistances than people on PlayStation. I've seen a few videos and it looks like 3-4k normal heal with 5-6k Crit ones. Does that sound about right?

I just watched Malcolm's video and It looks like he's only getting 3823 normal non-crit. I think we all have Stockholm syndrome, because thats not an OP heal. lol

Probably balanced though as we also get a Damage Shield with it. Comparing it to Arcanist Impervious Runeward I think its weaker, but I also think Impervious Runeward is a bit over tuned.

On my build (about 30k health, 30ishk mag), I was getting about a 9k shield and a 3-4k non crit heal. Very balanced values.

Where it gets potentially absurd (not the heal, but the shield) is when you stack everything (and I mean literally everything) into max mag.

StaticWave · February 3

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

I have to say, the sorcerer changes are a small step in the right direction this patch.

Putting a small heal on the shield is a good step, but it needs to also have a HoT component while the shield persists like Tidal Chakram.

The new Expert Summoner passive is interesting but it would be better swapped the other direction, this is mostly from a PVE perspective though where you're mostly using pet builds that benefit most from Max stats, and in PVP where you're making more use of things like Crystal Weapon to proc Blood Magic, and not running pets you want more Max Health. Swap these Bonuses

The changes to Encase are interesting, but the offensive morph needs to be brought up to a standard comparable with Deep Fissure. I can't really comment on the healing morph but generally looks useful.

Two things that weren't addressed but absolutely MUST be:

Remove the cast time from Dark Conversion/Dark Deal. Nightblade got its equivelent of these skills massively buffed. There is not any reason for keeping this a channel anymore. Nightblade's version is better and completely passive.

Move Minor Expedition to Lightning Form base skill and make it completely passive. Rework the morphs to increase damage (maybe with unnamed buffs like Nightblade gets), and give Major Expedition on activation. Nightblade was given completely passive access to Minor Expedition while Sorc's access is still neglected even though Sorc was supposed to be the fast class and nightblade the stealthy class. Nightblade is just as if not more maneuverable than sorc, while also doing massively more damage, and with better healing. Not an acceptable state of play.

I'm sorry but these suggested changes will just flat out make Sorc broken lol, and this is coming from a guy that always wants Sorc to be buffed.

Sorc balancing needs to be done carefully. Giving it the same level of buffs as NB would just turn it into another NB. Nobody wants to deal with that

StaticWave · February 3

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

GusTheWizard wrote: »

Udrath wrote: »

The new conjured shield is going be really overpowered. You won’t even need to slot a heal.

Highly doubt it, even with a 60k max magicka pool you’ll still only get a 9k heal which will be halved in pvp.

With 60k magicka You will be getting around 16k shield and 10k heal tooltip in PvP even more near the keeps and resources. Even after halving that heal value it will be still strong because it's covered by a 16k shield. 5k heal covered by a 16k shield is worth more than 16k heal covered by nothing and keep in mind that heals with 16k tooltip are also halved in PvP.

Shields are halved too. That's a 8k shield, with a 4.5k heal after battlespirit. That 60k mag player also had to use underperforming sets like Crafty Alfiq to achieve it, so they have low sustain, low pen, low armor, low crit.. all of those are key to pvp right now.

Most burst heals from other classes scale much higher than a 9k tooltip and don't have to sacrifice all their set bonuses. Weapon/Spell damage is king right now, a mag stacking Sorc has very little of it. Most builds you watch now have 20-24k of their main resource because it doesn't scale well with proc sets or damage in general to begin with.

Idk, I have no leg in this race. I don't play mag Sorc for pvp, but are we all forgetting that CP use to give +20% mag/stam/hp only a few years ago? Let's be real. Max mag stacking Sorcs are very 2019.

Also. It's not like this was a free trade. No pets and no more HP passive. You're gonna have to make up that HP elsewhere. Shields are still capped by HP.

No, a 60k mag player WILL have a 16k shield after the halving, with a 5k non crit burst heal after the halving as well. It's absolutely broken when stacked with high enough max magicka. I'm sure you've see my comments in my thread addressing new Hardened Ward.

Glantir · February 3

Has anyone thought about that Charged Atronarch could outperform Greater Atronarch by far with the safe Concussion proc and the Status effect buffs?

Maybe someone tested it?

Duke_Falcon · February 3

[/quote]No, a 60k mag player WILL have a 16k shield after the halving, with a 5k non crit burst heal after the halving as well. It's absolutely broken when stacked with high enough max magicka. I'm sure you've see my comments in my thread addressing new Hardened Ward.[/quote]

I suspect it will be much like a block tank in Cyrodiil, but less effective defensively. Sure they can hold block while 12 people pound on them, but they have very little damage. Similarly a Sorc who just builds into Max Magic and stacks damage shields will be impossible for 1,2, maybe even 3 people to kill, but if 12 people pound on him he is toast.

I think the argument would be that,"Yes but the Sorcs will still have damage." To that I'll say they are gimping their damage by not building into Crit, Penetration, Spell Damage or Damage Done. Will they be able to kill better than a block tank who can hold off 12 guys, yes, but then shield stacking sorc can't hold off 12 guys.

A shield stacking sorc won't be able to kill like they used to in the old days because now skill damage scales primarily with Weapon & Spell Damage, not so much Max Resource.

I've tried many many builds, and if Sorcs don't build into Crit, Pen, Spell Damage and Damage Done they aren't killing any good player on literally any other class. All Classes heals will out preform the damage of a Max Mag Sorc who neglects Crit, Pen, Spell Damage, and Damage Done.

Duke_Falcon · February 3

Glantir wrote: »

Has anyone thought about that Charged Atronarch could outperform Greater Atronarch by far with the safe Concussion proc and the Status effect buffs?

Maybe someone tested it?

In PvE situations I think the Charged Atronarch is way better than the Greater Atronarch. In PvP go with the Greater Atronarch, because no one is going to stand in that AoE, and you'll need the Greater Atronarch to reach out and zap who ever your fighting. Actually ZoS might want to increase the range that Atronarch can zap people.

StaticWave · February 3

Duke_Falcon wrote: »

I suspect it will be much like a block tank in Cyrodiil, but less effective defensively. Sure they can hold block while 12 people pound on them, but they have very little damage. Similarly a Sorc who just builds into Max Magic and stacks damage shields will be impossible for 1,2, maybe even 3 people to kill, but if 12 people pound on him he is toast.

I think the argument would be that,"Yes but the Sorcs will still have damage." To that I'll say they are gimping their damage by not building into Crit, Penetration, Spell Damage or Damage Done. Will they be able to kill better than a block tank who can hold off 12 guys, yes, but then shield stacking sorc can't hold off 12 guys.

A shield stacking sorc won't be able to kill like they used to in the old days because now skill damage scales primarily with Weapon & Spell Damage, not so much Max Resource.

I've tried many many builds, and if Sorcs don't build into Crit, Pen, Spell Damage and Damage Done they aren't killing any good player on literally any other class. All Classes heals will out preform the damage of a Max Mag Sorc who neglects Crit, Pen, Spell Damage, and Damage Done.

13 ppl will kill anybody. Doesn’t matter if its a DK or a NB. You need to be a dedicated block tank to face tank and survive getting pounded by 13 ppl.

You underestimate the scaling of max mag. It’s a 5% difference between max mag and spell dmg builds in terms of tooltip dmg. A 60k max mag build with 4k spell dmg is going to hit as hard as a 50k max mag and 4.5k spell dmg build. The difference is the 60k max mag build is tankier, especially on PTS with new sorc buffs.

With the new Hardened Ward buff, stacking max mag is absolutely more valuable and easier than dmg. You give up 5% dmg for A LOT more shield size AND heal, and resource sustain (because your mag pool is bigger). It’s a no brainer to go that route

Aces-High-82 · February 3

Your not accounting other hps sources, chc, chd and pen. Equal tooltip isnt damage dealt to your target.

StaticWave · February 3

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Your not accounting other hps sources, chc, chd and pen. Equal tooltip isnt damage dealt to your target.

Surge and blood magic ignore spell dmg or mag scaling. Only thing that would make spell dmg better is Vigor, and that’s still only 5% difference. The shield scales strictly with max mag and the burst heal also scales strictly with max mag. Shielding is also a larger part of your mitigation anyways

Pen is equal on both builds unless you run a pen set like Spinners, so that isn’t relevant either. Crit damage is relevant as I would be dropping Shadow for Mage, but that is also not as important if we consider the build as a whole.

I have been testing both versions on PTS extensively. You can’t really convince me on this one, especially when I’ve seen the numbers between a max mag vs a spell dmg build, and especially when I’ve seen 2 good magsorcs duel each other on PTS, with 1 in a spell dmg build vs the other in a high max mag build. The max mag one won way more duels.

Duke_Falcon · February 3

@StaticWave How are the Max Mag dueling builds doing against DK's, Wardens, Nightblades, and Arcanists? Is it 50/50?

acastanza_ESO · February 3

StaticWave wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

I have to say, the sorcerer changes are a small step in the right direction this patch.

Putting a small heal on the shield is a good step, but it needs to also have a HoT component while the shield persists like Tidal Chakram.

The new Expert Summoner passive is interesting but it would be better swapped the other direction, this is mostly from a PVE perspective though where you're mostly using pet builds that benefit most from Max stats, and in PVP where you're making more use of things like Crystal Weapon to proc Blood Magic, and not running pets you want more Max Health. Swap these Bonuses

The changes to Encase are interesting, but the offensive morph needs to be brought up to a standard comparable with Deep Fissure. I can't really comment on the healing morph but generally looks useful.

Two things that weren't addressed but absolutely MUST be:

Remove the cast time from Dark Conversion/Dark Deal. Nightblade got its equivelent of these skills massively buffed. There is not any reason for keeping this a channel anymore. Nightblade's version is better and completely passive.

Move Minor Expedition to Lightning Form base skill and make it completely passive. Rework the morphs to increase damage (maybe with unnamed buffs like Nightblade gets), and give Major Expedition on activation. Nightblade was given completely passive access to Minor Expedition while Sorc's access is still neglected even though Sorc was supposed to be the fast class and nightblade the stealthy class. Nightblade is just as if not more maneuverable than sorc, while also doing massively more damage, and with better healing. Not an acceptable state of play.

I'm sorry but these suggested changes will just flat out make Sorc broken lol, and this is coming from a guy that always wants Sorc to be buffed.

Sorc balancing needs to be done carefully. Giving it the same level of buffs as NB would just turn it into another NB. Nobody wants to deal with that

Discussing the need for nerfs and buffs is a negotiation with the development team. If you only ever ask for the bare minimum what you actually end up getting won't even be half of what you actually need.

Galeriano · February 4

Many people is talking about Vibrant Shroud (the new healing morph of encase) but seem to be missing the potential that changes to other morph, Shattering Spines are bringing. This ability was changed to be always a 4 seconds delay dmg explosion and it recived a dmg buff giving it a tooltip around 5% higher than AoEs like whirling blades.

That means it can potentially be combined with haunting curse explosion to increase sorc's burst potential. Those who remember good old days of DW or 2h one shot magsorcs with inevitable detonation on bar should know what I am talking about. In theory You should be able to basically combine vibrant shround, curse, crystal frag and endless fury explosion into one combo that explodes basically at the same time when target is being stunned by a streak. You can either add overload light attacks or ice comet to the combo. Theoretically with changes to shields You should have both enough bar space and survivability to make that setup possible.

ZhuJiuyin · February 4

Galeriano wrote: »

Many people is talking about Vibrant Shroud (the new healing morph of encase) but seem to be missing the potential that changes to other morph, Shattering Spines are bringing. This ability was changed to be always a 4 seconds delay dmg explosion and it recived a dmg buff giving it a tooltip around 5% higher than AoEs like whirling blades.

That means it can potentially be combined with haunting curse explosion to increase sorc's burst potential. Those who remember good old days of DW or 2h one shot magsorcs with inevitable detonation on bar should know what I am talking about. In theory You should be able to basically combine vibrant shround, curse, crystal frag and endless fury explosion into one combo that explodes basically at the same time when target is being stunned by a streak. You can either add overload light attacks or ice comet to the combo. Theoretically with changes to shields You should have both enough bar space and survivability to make that setup possible.

I feel like this comparison fails to truly compare Shattering Spines to other AOE abilities.
First of all, according to the old data (Shattering Prison) it can deal [4765 / 4816 / 4869 / 4920] Magic Damage, and other similar AOE skills.
For example:
lemental Ring [4765 / 4816 / 4869 / 4920], which has a variety of effects and includes execution effects (Fire Ring hits Burning enemies with Ring Afterburn, which deals more damage based on their missing Health).
Whirling Blades also have an execution effect: ([4765 / 4816 / 4869 / 4920] . Deals up to 100% more damage to enemies with less than 50% Health).
The same is true for Shrouded Daggers. Although it does not include execution, it has a variety of effects without any delay ([4765 / 4816 / 4869 / 4920], and If enemies hit are casting they are interrupted, set Off Balance, and stunned for 3 seconds. You also gain Major Brutality and Sorcery, increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 20% for 20 seconds.)

Additionally, in addition to the delay, Shattering Spines is an area of effect damage, so the target only needs to leave that area.

So instead, Shattering Spines still needs to be slightly buffed, otherwise it will still appear weak compared to other similar abilities.
I've done a comparison of Shattering Spines before (CTRL+C & CTRL+V):
Shattering Prison (Old) deal [4765 / 4816 / 4869 / 4920] Magic Damage, and according to U41's instructions, it will increase the damage of Shattering Spines by 10%, which is 4920*1.1=5412.
In comparison, Wardens' Scorch can cause [6641 / 6714 / 6787 / 6860] AOE magic damage (3 seconds delay) + [9223 / 9324 / 9426 / 9527] magic damage (6 seconds delay). Morphs even grant Major and Minor Breach .
Blighted Blastbones(old) (2.5 seconds delay) can cause [9529 / 9633 / 9737 / 9842] Disease Damage and give Major Defile.

Even compared with Cephaliarch's Flail, Cephaliarch's Flail is delayed by 0.3 seconds, causing
1.5303 damage (AOE)
2.healing
3.generating Crux
4.immobilized for 3 seconds
5. 5% increased damage
6. Execution (morph) or more damage (morph)
A total of 6 different effects are given. In contrast, Shattering Spines only has
1.Cause about 5412 AOE damage (delay)
2.immobilized for 4 seconds
3.Major Maim
Shattering Spines only has 3 effects, which is obviously completely lost to Scorch, Blighted Blastbones (in terms of damage), and Cephaliarch's Flail (in terms of number of effects)

I recommend:
1. Let Shattering Spines always give Overcharged(or Concussed) when it hits, and give the target another Overcharged(or Concussed) when it causes damage.
2. Or let Shattering Spines give the target an additional 10 seconds of magic damage after causing damage, making Shattering Prison worthy of being used in PVE.
3. Or gives [140 / 160 / 180 / 200] points of Weapon and Spell Damage after casting (similar to the 5% unique buff provided by Cephaliarch's Flail)
4. Or directly increase the damage of Shattering Spines by 40% (4920*1.4=6888), which is slightly higher than the [6574 / 6646 / 6718 / 6791] damage of Crystal Fragments. Considering that Shattering Spines is a delayed skill, And easy to dodge, it should be compensated for more damage. It needs to deal at least the same damage as Curse.