Hardened Ward heal making it to live is a mistake and needs to be changed

Bushido2513

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

A knife gives you a better chance at stealth kills and never runs out of ammo. A gun will reveal my position to the enemy with every use and possibly bring more enemies who will have an easier time finding me each time I use the gun. With a knife and tactics I an probably acquire one or multiple guns without revealing my location until I'm ready.

Dang, TIL Bushido is a Nightblade IRL. Very cool. Not me, I'm getting old and not as fit anymore, I'll take the gun.

But that's sorta my point, consider all the training, skill, fitness, and risk that goes into getting up close with a knife. The tiniest mistake, and all I have to do is point and click, and the IRL ninja is dead to a minimally trained IRL 40yo gamer. Now give the 40yo gamer the knife, and the ninja the gun, what do you think happens?

So this is when we get into what makes eso a bit different in that you can wear sets and run skills that defend you easily even if you don't know how to use them all that well. You're also encouraged to gather with friends and play as a team.


So sure now the ninja has a gun but as soon as he goes for that first kill he's then at risk of becoming the target and now we're back to my first scenario where sure if he's a good ninja he will probably escape but it's also likely that enemies that were camouflaged or waiting with sniper rifles are moving to engage him. And yes as a ninja perhaps he has caltrops on the ground or a well positioned claymore but now he's still got an increasing number of threats coming his way so the ranged advantage becomes less and less useful.


Sorcs can definitely blow you up from range if you're not prepared or otherwise engaged with other enemies, I do that all the time but at the same time I know that a good player on any class can keep up with me without too much trouble.

StaticWave

Bushido2513 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

@Bushido2513 what would you rather have on the battlefield: knife or gun

Depends on the engagement. A knife gives you a better chance at stealth kills and never runs out of ammo. A gun will reveal my position to the enemy with every use and possibly bring more enemies who will have an easier time finding me each time I use the gun. With a knife and tactics I an probably acquire one or multiple guns without revealing my location until I'm ready.

So as a sorc yes you can drop long range attacks however you can then become the target of multiple attackers yourself. Yes you have shields and a great escape utility but good attackers can work around that by using things like movement speed, high damage attacks from stealth, raw damage with cc/roots, etc.

A sorc is for me no more or less of a threat than any of the other stronger classes. I mean even if I just don't want to deal with a sorc I'll just roll dodge to get rid of a few pieces of the combo then los, heal up, etc. And yes now they can heal up like ever before but so can other classes to for me it's no worse or better than what is already commonly seen in the game. Maybe a little better but by no means a clearly identifiable case that can be proved in the way some are representing here.

Thats why you go with a team and have cover fire to defend when you take the first shot. 4 guns vs 4 knifes, well guess what happens haha

Galeriano2

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

For example when static was claiming bound aegis can provide up to 5,5k max magicka I don't need to link any cmx or build page to prove him wrong

This is what I said:

"This allows the Sorc to gain somewhere between 3.5-5.5k max mag depending on how much they already have, and also drop Undo for Dawnbreaker because they no longer need the Minor Protection on Undo"

That top end 5.5k was just a number I pulled out randomly and didn't verify, but you could absolutely cheese it to give 4.2k max mag when slotting Bound Aegis by wearing certain sets and playing in certain areas.

3.5k is also achievable for a normal build, like this:

Without Bound Aegis:



With Bound Aegis:




61657- 57892 = 3765 extra max mag from slotting Bound Aegis

Build is Crafty/Wretched/1x Domi/1x Swarm/DDF and using Crushing Weapon for Major Breach to have Hurricane. CP is also included with 4 dmg CPs because we don't need defensive CP on magsorc.

These are the stats self buffed in CP:

Front bar:





Back bar (just gonna show the resistances):



Tooltips:





Can you tell me a class that has 28.3k HP, 61.6k max mag, 27.2k max stam, 1.7k mag recov, 1.9k stam recov, 30% crit rate, 64% crit dmg, 26k resists back bar and 1.8k crit resist?

How do you expect to kill this sorc unless he messes up? 61k max mag = 16k+ shields and 10-11k burst heal tooltip. 61k max mag + 27k max stam +1.7k mag recov + 1.9k stam recov = infinite sustain, and that's not mentioning Overload sustain. Minor Expedition and Streak with 3 medium to give unmatched mobility.

Please explain to me how you expect to kill this Sorc unless you severely outnumber him? Don't give me the "but he won't do as much damage" bull crap. I can promise you this spec has enough damage for 99% of encounters in PvP except for the very elite players.

What are melee players going to do? You can't gap close him reliably cause he got Streak + movement speed. Even if you do, he got a 16k ward + 11k burst heal underneath

I'm sorry but anybody defending this is literally being biased.

The only part of this long comment that was connected to what I said was quote "that top end 5.5k was just a number I pulled out randomly and didn't verify". Everything else is just some talking just to talk that is complety not related to the topic of my comment.

Bottom end 3.5k still achievable by slotting 1 skill.

Bottom end is that You were wrong in Your claims about 5,5k and You can't deny it so now You will just try to change the subject anytime it's being mentioned. Just take the L for not knowing how math in ESO work and move on.

Galeriano2

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

@Galeriano2 So it's been a while since the patch came out. Have you noticed magsorcs dominating now ?

Magsorcs dominating? No. There is definietly more of them and some players pull nice fights but the amount of actually good magsorcs that will continously endanger a semi decent player instead of just being annoyance crutching on defenses like lot of other setups is really low. I would say stamsorc is still superior to magsorc in right hands.

Galeriano2

StaticWave wrote: »

@Galeriano2

Are you going to address the fact that your reasoning for NB needing a nerf is exactly identical to my reasoning for nerfing Sorc, yet somehow Sorc gets a free pass because it’s “not dominating PvP”, despite you also saying that you “kill just as many NBs”?

So using your logic that NB making a new player better than others necessitates a nerf, Sorc making a new player better than others should also necessitate a nerf too yea? Because I have plenty of evidence from new players dominating the competition on their Sorc.

For You to claim that our reasonings on different topics are identical You would've to first understand my reasoning which Yoiu dont and Your proved that beyond any doubt.

Let me walk You slowly through what happened in last few comments. You asked me can I prove that ward isn't OP, I replied by asking can You prove I said it isn't. You answered with giving me props for being vague but not slick and You started to link my comments where I still didn't said ward is OP and all commets pretty much boiled down to the same conclusion that I don't see magsorcs dominating PvP which is not even close to saying that ward isn;t OP.

Now here is the real kicker. We had similar comversation around a month ago. A conversation where You claimed that You know what my stances , You accused me of being biased toward sorc and hiding my intentions. In that conversation I linked You multiple of my comments from different threads where I was criticising ward change. Comments that I've made before Your rampages toward ward even started and where I pretty much suggested ward change makes this ability OP. Here is the link to the comment I am talking about https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8096975#Comment_8096975

So despite me and You having very similar conversation not that long ago You still stayed with Your initial claims about me despite me disproving them. it only suggest that You're either too much biased towards Your own agenda or You just straight cannot comprehend my point of view.

This is why when You're claiming that we have identical reasonings on some topics, it sounds a bit silly for me when You proved beyond any doubt You don't even understand my reasoning. I don't blame You for not understanding something, it happens but You don't need to double down on it so much.

Bushido2513

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

@Bushido2513 what would you rather have on the battlefield: knife or gun

Depends on the engagement. A knife gives you a better chance at stealth kills and never runs out of ammo. A gun will reveal my position to the enemy with every use and possibly bring more enemies who will have an easier time finding me each time I use the gun. With a knife and tactics I an probably acquire one or multiple guns without revealing my location until I'm ready.

So as a sorc yes you can drop long range attacks however you can then become the target of multiple attackers yourself. Yes you have shields and a great escape utility but good attackers can work around that by using things like movement speed, high damage attacks from stealth, raw damage with cc/roots, etc.

A sorc is for me no more or less of a threat than any of the other stronger classes. I mean even if I just don't want to deal with a sorc I'll just roll dodge to get rid of a few pieces of the combo then los, heal up, etc. And yes now they can heal up like ever before but so can other classes to for me it's no worse or better than what is already commonly seen in the game. Maybe a little better but by no means a clearly identifiable case that can be proved in the way some are representing here.

Thats why you go with a team and have cover fire to defend when you take the first shot. 4 guns vs 4 knifes, well guess what happens haha

Depends on the encounter and the tactics of the opponents. If you have knives and your opponents are well armed then your first move is to not be anywhere where they can target you for a first shot.

The NB stays in stealth as they approach the one sorc that doesn't have shields up at the moment and goes for the kill. You don't say walk around out of stealth waiting for the sorc and his buddies to take aim. You also don't stay far from line of sight in case they do pull you out of stealth.

It's just basically chess, we all start out fairly evenly and the loser is going to be the first one to make a mistake. So we could do combat scenarios all day but generally speaking there are always going to be ways to work around a disadvantage and of course for the enemy to counter your workaround to your disadvantage.


This is my point about sorc and trying to measure the effect of the hardened ward change. Because of so many potential variances in combat it will come down to things that just can't be accurately measured by a simple set of CMX data or even observation by us as client side players of the game.

StaticWave

Galeriano2 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

@Galeriano2

Are you going to address the fact that your reasoning for NB needing a nerf is exactly identical to my reasoning for nerfing Sorc, yet somehow Sorc gets a free pass because it’s “not dominating PvP”, despite you also saying that you “kill just as many NBs”?

So using your logic that NB making a new player better than others necessitates a nerf, Sorc making a new player better than others should also necessitate a nerf too yea? Because I have plenty of evidence from new players dominating the competition on their Sorc.

For You to claim that our reasonings on different topics are identical You would've to first understand my reasoning which Yoiu dont and Your proved that beyond any doubt.

Let me walk You slowly through what happened in last few comments. You asked me can I prove that ward isn't OP, I replied by asking can You prove I said it isn't. You answered with giving me props for being vague but not slick and You started to link my comments where I still didn't said ward is OP and all commets pretty much boiled down to the same conclusion that I don't see magsorcs dominating PvP which is not even close to saying that ward isn;t OP.

Now here is the real kicker. We had similar comversation around a month ago. A conversation where You claimed that You know what my stances , You accused me of being biased toward sorc and hiding my intentions. In that conversation I linked You multiple of my comments from different threads where I was criticising ward change. Comments that I've made before Your rampages toward ward even started and where I pretty much suggested ward change makes this ability OP. Here is the link to the comment I am talking about https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8096975#Comment_8096975

So despite me and You having very similar conversation not that long ago You still stayed with Your initial claims about me despite me disproving them. it only suggest that You're either too much biased towards Your own agenda or You just straight cannot comprehend my point of view.

This is why when You're claiming that we have identical reasonings on some topics, it sounds a bit silly for me when You proved beyond any doubt You don't even understand my reasoning. I don't blame You for not understanding something, it happens but You don't need to double down on it so much.

How about just tell everyone here your stance? It takes 1 sentence.

Here is my stance: I am against Ward having a burst heal, but agree that Sorc need an extra HoT or another burst heal that doesn’t require slotting an extra skill.

What is your stance? Just type it out please.

xylena_lazarow

@Galeriano2 are you a native English speaker? I ask because we seem to be having trouble understanding each other.

Major_Toughness

Can you believe some people still use Resto staff on magsorc in U41 when you can just run Hardened Ward and Crit Surge for 6k Healing per Second.

xylena_lazarow

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Can you believe some people still use Resto staff on magsorc in U41 when you can just run Hardened Ward and Crit Surge for 6k Healing per Second.

Yes, these are the players who say Ward is balanced, and are running Resto because they still have trouble staying alive even with both Ward and Resto (they're also getting zero Surge procs).

StaticWave

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Can you believe some people still use Resto staff on magsorc in U41 when you can just run Hardened Ward and Crit Surge for 6k Healing per Second.

Some ppl still stack Hardened, Dampen, and Healing Ward when 1 is enough lmao

Bushido2513

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Can you believe some people still use Resto staff on magsorc in U41 when you can just run Hardened Ward and Crit Surge for 6k Healing per Second.

Yes, these are the players who say Ward is balanced, and are running Resto because they still have trouble staying alive even with both Ward and Resto (they're also getting zero Surge procs).

I actually have resto still on because I've just never taken the time to change it out and sometimes I enjoy a lazy ranged heavy for resources.

It's not efficient but I think that's part of what's missing here, acting like everyone runs a particular build or minmaxed setup when in truth it could be quite the range.

DaisyRay

I still use my other heal because I don't think ward is enough for me personally as my only heal, but I also don't have 60k mag. I'm pretty average when it comes to pvp myself, so I don't think I really count. I may try the 60k mag though just to see how strong it really is when you have the "op setup" since I saw how well it did on my average one bar build. I have a few friends who have about that much mag and then some, but they are already pretty good no matter the class.

xylena_lazarow

DaisyRay wrote: »

I'm pretty average when it comes to pvp myself, so I don't think I really count. I may try the 60k mag though just to see how strong it really is

Anyone who can debate honestly and in good faith counts, the tests you did were a welcome contribution. I do recommend trying the 60k mag version, the one I posted can be used as a base, but probably shouldn't be copied exactly since a few things were a bit awkward just so I could get 62k mag on an Orc.

DaisyRay

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

DaisyRay wrote: »

I'm pretty average when it comes to pvp myself, so I don't think I really count. I may try the 60k mag though just to see how strong it really is

Anyone who can debate honestly and in good faith counts, the tests you did were a welcome contribution. I do recommend trying the 60k mag version, the one I posted can be used as a base, but probably shouldn't be copied exactly since a few things were a bit awkward just so I could get 62k mag on an Orc.

Thank you! ;p I did grab yours and one from my guild, I think I'll do a mix of the two because I hate Wretched. I know it's the meta, but it's never been one I liked.

Turtle_Bot

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Any cmx data or build editor screenshot to prove that? Burden of proof is on Your side

I have posted this build multiple times. I used it in Cyrodiil, no there is nothing special about piloting it compared to piloting a stamsorc, you move slower but you get to deal heavy pressure from range. Yes frags is better than wep here.





Please prove your position by explaining how the above is a balanced skill in the context of this meta. Thank you.

How are you getting to 30k health? There are a few discrepancies from your screenshots that I cannot account for when copying your build to my sorc or even the build editor.

Here's the stats and ward tooltips from your build on my sorc (dark elf sorc) in cyro:

Character stats:

Ward tooltip (not near a keep):

Ward tooltip (near a keep):


Everything is the same (CP, skills, attribute points, armor weights (5/1/1), passives (including maxed undaunted), gear is golded out, except for the following differences:

• Race, I am a Dark elf instead of Orc:
  - This grants me +910 stamina and +1910 magicka at the cost of 1000 health. Both races have +258 weapon/spell damage.
• I have 4 tri-stat glyphs (on chest, legs, hands and waist):
  - This grants me 1340 health (or 340 more than the orc racial passive gives) and 1218 stam/mag (or 1654 less mag, but 1218 more stamina)
• Rallying cry is not proc'd because I'm just letting a random add in the wilds of cyro hit me to keep DDF stacks maxed while I test this.
• I have sharpness trait front bar instead of charged trait (it was the Alfiq staff I had on hand to test this).

Overall these differences should give me:
- 340 more health
- 2128 more stamina
- 256 more magicka

However, my stats are:
- 1523 less max health (doesn't make sense since there's no modifiers to this value in your build?)
- 576 more max magicka (makes sense from the percent modifiers) since I have slightly higher flat magicka)
- 2468 more max stamina (again, makes sense because the 10% modifier off my base 2k more flat stamina)

The mag and stam make sense since I have slightly higher base values for the percent modifiers to boost from, but the lower health is something that isn't making sense. I should have essentially the same max health as you unless you are getting a modifier to your health from somewhere.

---

Even in the build editor that copied your build exactly, the health is roughly 7% lower that in your screenshot.

---

Also, to give some insight/context into that "11k heal" argument:
Here is the actual healing done value on my 9.6k ward heal tooltip in my screenshot above that was not near a keep:

Here is the actual healing done value on my 11k ward heal tooltip in my screenshot above that was near a keep:

Both of these healing taken values are using your build. Ward is a 4k - 5k heal in cyro, not an 11k heal.

This is because the tooltips for healing values do not show the actual value of healing done when in cyrodiil, since the tooltip doesn't account for battle spirits 55% reduction to healing received that is applied to the actual healing values that heals your health bars. This makes the tooltips for the healing part of ward, quite misleading in this discussion because the tooltips for the shield size do get adjusted by the 50% reduction when battle spirit is applied while the tooltips for the healing value does not.

---

BTW @StaticWave something I found when using the build editor, you can mimic expert summoner's 10% bonus stats by simply applying the warhorn buff from the buff tab. It doesn't have the bonuses of the morphs of warhorn, just the 10% mag/stam increase (same value as expert summoner passive). This should help so you don't have to keep manually adjusting it in the individual modifiers for each stat for extra screenshots/work.

StaticWave

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

---

BTW @StaticWave something I found when using the build editor, you can mimic expert summoner's 10% bonus stats by simply applying the warhorn buff from the buff tab. It doesn't have the bonuses of the morphs of warhorn, just the 10% mag/stam increase (same value as expert summoner passive). This should help so you don't have to keep manually adjusting it in the individual modifiers for each stat for extra screenshots/work.

Thanks! I'll do that instead

xylena_lazarow

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

How are you getting to 30k health? Also, to give some insight/context into that "11k heal" argument

Had the hp buff from emp, those screenshots were from Blackreach. Forgot about that, apologies. The vast majority of Cyro action happens around objectives so that is the more relevant TT. For more context, here's a side by side comparison with the overpowered Polar Wind on my 35k hp Warden DD (we need to compare actual DD builds not 55k hp healers).

Polar is an immediate 14k, Ward is an immediate near 28k (and the shield value already accounts for Battle Spirit unlike the heal values). Polar heals for maybe 2k per cast more than Ward in practice, but without the gigantic shield, I need to spam Polar like crazy if I'm under heavy fire. One Ward cast and I'm out of the danger zone, two Wards and I'm near full hp, while face tanking. Like I needed to deliberately try to play carelessly to die on MagSorc (a less familiar spec to me).

The fact that we're legitimately comparing the face tanking abilities of the teleporting ranged nuke class to an intended tanky healy brawler class... like what? That same Sorc build I have can Streak 10 times in a row from full.

Bushido2513

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

How are you getting to 30k health? Also, to give some insight/context into that "11k heal" argument

Had the hp buff from emp, those screenshots were from Blackreach. Forgot about that, apologies. The vast majority of Cyro action happens around objectives so that is the more relevant TT. For more context, here's a side by side comparison with the overpowered Polar Wind on my 35k hp Warden DD (we need to compare actual DD builds not 55k hp healers).

Polar is an immediate 14k, Ward is an immediate near 28k (and the shield value already accounts for Battle Spirit unlike the heal values). Polar heals for maybe 2k per cast more than Ward in practice, but without the gigantic shield, I need to spam Polar like crazy if I'm under heavy fire. One Ward cast and I'm out of the danger zone, two Wards and I'm near full hp, while face tanking. Like I needed to deliberately try to play carelessly to die on MagSorc (a less familiar spec to me).

The fact that we're legitimately comparing the face tanking abilities of the teleporting ranged nuke class to an intended tanky healy brawler class... like what? That same Sorc build I have can Streak 10 times in a row from full.

How is it a teleporting ranged nuke though? I mean the teleport sure but last time I checked you couldn't roll dodged, block, or solo shield a nuke?

Yes the ranged abilities are strong but any and every class can counter or negate them.

The sorc just has more survivability but so do many other classes that have hard hitting attacks of their own.

We talk about streaks but without specing into movement speed as well sorc is easily catchable these days.

Again when you take this into gvg content the shields power becomes more so normalized with the state of the game.

Joy_Division

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

@Bushido2513 what would you rather have on the battlefield: knife or gun

Depends on the engagement. A knife gives you a better chance at stealth kills and never runs out of ammo. A gun will reveal my position to the enemy with every use and possibly bring more enemies who will have an easier time finding me each time I use the gun. With a knife and tactics I an probably acquire one or multiple guns without revealing my location until I'm ready.

So as a sorc yes you can drop long range attacks however you can then become the target of multiple attackers yourself. Yes you have shields and a great escape utility but good attackers can work around that by using things like movement speed, high damage attacks from stealth, raw damage with cc/roots, etc.

A sorc is for me no more or less of a threat than any of the other stronger classes. I mean even if I just don't want to deal with a sorc I'll just roll dodge to get rid of a few pieces of the combo then los, heal up, etc. And yes now they can heal up like ever before but so can other classes to for me it's no worse or better than what is already commonly seen in the game. Maybe a little better but by no means a clearly identifiable case that can be proved in the way some are representing here.

Thats why you go with a team and have cover fire to defend when you take the first shot. 4 guns vs 4 knifes, well guess what happens haha

Depends on the encounter and the tactics of the opponents. If you have knives and your opponents are well armed then your first move is to not be anywhere where they can target you for a first shot.

The NB stays in stealth as they approach the one sorc that doesn't have shields up at the moment and goes for the kill. You don't say walk around out of stealth waiting for the sorc and his buddies to take aim. You also don't stay far from line of sight in case they do pull you out of stealth.

It's just basically chess, we all start out fairly evenly and the loser is going to be the first one to make a mistake. So we could do combat scenarios all day but generally speaking there are always going to be ways to work around a disadvantage and of course for the enemy to counter your workaround to your disadvantage.


This is my point about sorc and trying to measure the effect of the hardened ward change. Because of so many potential variances in combat it will come down to things that just can't be accurately measured by a simple set of CMX data or even observation by us as client side players of the game.

I've seen arguments like this all the time in military history.

It is akin to pointing out out how because there are cases when [insert new technology] does not perform as well or even worse than [insert existing technology], then [new technology] is not a superior alternative to [existing technology].

Of course knife Vs. gun is situational. The special forces soldier is going to want to use the knife to eliminate a guard in an infiltration scenario. But what army uses knives as their primary weapons system? None. And none ever have. Yeah, I liked Oberyn in GOT and thought it was a cool scene with the whole, "Longsword is a bad option in close quarters" line. But how often do we find ourselves in close quarters combat? There was a reason why rapiers, not knives, were a weapon of choice in duels and spears were the weapon of choice on basically every battlefield up until the 17th century when the historical conditions made it possibly for firearms to put a consistent wall of lead toward the enemy.

So to say that gun Vs. knife is situational is disingenuous as it is not acknowledging the crux of the issue: if you a gamer and get into a hundred fights, how many times will it take before you lose with the knife before you quit the game because the devs do not think the gun is a superior choice?

TechMaybeHic

Knives are only situationally better than guns in silence and maneuverability in tight quarters. This is really a ridiculous comparison as the ranged in ESO is not disadvantaged by tight quarters as it works the same. It's also not a determination of detection compared to melee. That's why historically it's been balanced by less damage and or less staying power. Right now, that just is not the case.

Caecus0

The people defending the state of Sorcs in this thread is really just astounding to me.

The only counter-arguments I've seen can basically be summed up as "the numbers aren't THAT high" and "Well I can still die on my Sorc under X conditions"

Even if you could argue Hardened Ward is on equal footing with skills on tankier classes such as Warden or DK (which it is still provably better), it wouldn't change the fact it is an incredibly strong skill on class with an already incredibly insane toolkit. Streak was already an annoying skill to deal with being a Blink that also not only does damage, but also applies an un-dodgeable and unblockable stun in an area with such a misleadingly large hit-box that it will stun people by accident. Those 2 skills combined just makes fighting Sorcs the most frustrating experience in PvP on any class.

EDIT: My autocorrect changed Streak to Steak. I corrected my autocorrect.

Bushido2513

Joy_Division wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

@Bushido2513 what would you rather have on the battlefield: knife or gun

Depends on the engagement. A knife gives you a better chance at stealth kills and never runs out of ammo. A gun will reveal my position to the enemy with every use and possibly bring more enemies who will have an easier time finding me each time I use the gun. With a knife and tactics I an probably acquire one or multiple guns without revealing my location until I'm ready.

So as a sorc yes you can drop long range attacks however you can then become the target of multiple attackers yourself. Yes you have shields and a great escape utility but good attackers can work around that by using things like movement speed, high damage attacks from stealth, raw damage with cc/roots, etc.

A sorc is for me no more or less of a threat than any of the other stronger classes. I mean even if I just don't want to deal with a sorc I'll just roll dodge to get rid of a few pieces of the combo then los, heal up, etc. And yes now they can heal up like ever before but so can other classes to for me it's no worse or better than what is already commonly seen in the game. Maybe a little better but by no means a clearly identifiable case that can be proved in the way some are representing here.

Thats why you go with a team and have cover fire to defend when you take the first shot. 4 guns vs 4 knifes, well guess what happens haha

Depends on the encounter and the tactics of the opponents. If you have knives and your opponents are well armed then your first move is to not be anywhere where they can target you for a first shot.

The NB stays in stealth as they approach the one sorc that doesn't have shields up at the moment and goes for the kill. You don't say walk around out of stealth waiting for the sorc and his buddies to take aim. You also don't stay far from line of sight in case they do pull you out of stealth.

It's just basically chess, we all start out fairly evenly and the loser is going to be the first one to make a mistake. So we could do combat scenarios all day but generally speaking there are always going to be ways to work around a disadvantage and of course for the enemy to counter your workaround to your disadvantage.


This is my point about sorc and trying to measure the effect of the hardened ward change. Because of so many potential variances in combat it will come down to things that just can't be accurately measured by a simple set of CMX data or even observation by us as client side players of the game.

I've seen arguments like this all the time in military history.

It is akin to pointing out out how because there are cases when [insert new technology] does not perform as well or even worse than [insert existing technology], then [new technology] is not a superior alternative to [existing technology].

Of course knife Vs. gun is situational. The special forces soldier is going to want to use the knife to eliminate a guard in an infiltration scenario. But what army uses knives as their primary weapons system? None. And none ever have. Yeah, I liked Oberyn in GOT and thought it was a cool scene with the whole, "Longsword is a bad option in close quarters" line. But how often do we find ourselves in close quarters combat? There was a reason why rapiers, not knives, were a weapon of choice in duels and spears were the weapon of choice on basically every battlefield up until the 17th century when the historical conditions made it possibly for firearms to put a consistent wall of lead toward the enemy.

So to say that gun Vs. knife is situational is disingenuous as it is not acknowledging the crux of the issue: if you a gamer and get into a hundred fights, how many times will it take before you lose with the knife before you quit the game because the devs do not think the gun is a superior choice?

Sooooo your comment is dancing all over the place. I'm simply saying in some situations you want a knife and in others a gun. That's just simple tactics, it will depend on the engagement, your desired outcome, etc. I wasn't really talking about any specific conflict, number of enemies, terrain, etc etc. If you want to set a very specific scenario I'll be happy to tell you if I'm choosing the gun or the knife and you're very welcome to set a scenario in which the gun is the obvious choice and I'd happily agree. I think you're reading more into that response then was intended. Or perhaps I more so answered in a very open ended way and you took it where it made sense to you.

As is specific to ESO, other melee classes can definitely keep up with sorc at the moment. When you add in gvg dynamics it's even more possible to keep up with sorc. Harder to kill than before, obviously so. Are they ridiculously hard to kill at the moment, no more so than other classes depending on the player and build/setup.

Bushido2513

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Knives are only situationally better than guns in silence and maneuverability in tight quarters. This is really a ridiculous comparison as the ranged in ESO is not disadvantaged by tight quarters as it works the same. It's also not a determination of detection compared to melee. That's why historically it's been balanced by less damage and or less staying power. Right now, that just is not the case.

Well yeah knives isn't the best way to describe the strength of melee, but more so range. Really we're talking about a ranged opponent that can be moved to and attacked with a fair amount of ease but who just happens to be able to hit back and defend itself fairly well.


I can admit that when I'm not setup quite correctly or playing a class that I'm not used to, sorc can seem much more daunting. On the other hand as a sorc main I can see I've seen each and every class be able to properly go defensive and offensive against me. Obviously experiences are mostly subjective so I understand others don't see it this way.

Bushido2513

Caecus0 wrote: »

The people defending the state of Sorcs in this thread is really just astounding to me.

The only counter-arguments I've seen can basically be summed up as "the numbers aren't THAT high" and "Well I can still die on my Sorc under X conditions"

Even if you could argue Hardened Ward is on equal footing with skills on tankier classes such as Warden or DK (which it is still provably better), it wouldn't change the fact it is an incredibly strong skill on class with an already incredibly insane toolkit. Streak was already an annoying skill to deal with being a Blink that also not only does damage, but also applies an un-dodgeable and unblockable stun in an area with such a misleadingly large hit-box that it will stun people by accident. Those 2 skills combined just makes fighting Sorcs the most frustrating experience in PvP on any class.

EDIT: My autocorrect changed Streak to Steak. I corrected my autocorrect.

It's interesting to me when people talk about sorc and then mention insane toolkit. Add ward change and now it's an insane toolkit when just before magsorc was considered mediocre and something you played if you just loved the class.

Sorc isn't the only one those counter arguments have been used for, just the most recent.

StaticWave

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

The people defending the state of Sorcs in this thread is really just astounding to me.

The only counter-arguments I've seen can basically be summed up as "the numbers aren't THAT high" and "Well I can still die on my Sorc under X conditions"

Even if you could argue Hardened Ward is on equal footing with skills on tankier classes such as Warden or DK (which it is still provably better), it wouldn't change the fact it is an incredibly strong skill on class with an already incredibly insane toolkit. Streak was already an annoying skill to deal with being a Blink that also not only does damage, but also applies an un-dodgeable and unblockable stun in an area with such a misleadingly large hit-box that it will stun people by accident. Those 2 skills combined just makes fighting Sorcs the most frustrating experience in PvP on any class.

EDIT: My autocorrect changed Streak to Steak. I corrected my autocorrect.

It's interesting to me when people talk about sorc and then mention insane toolkit. Add ward change and now it's an insane toolkit when just before magsorc was considered mediocre and something you played if you just loved the class.

Sorc isn't the only one those counter arguments have been used for, just the most recent.

Idk if you're underestimating the power increase of U41 magsorc by receiving 2 simple buffs, but Sorc got ALOT more indirect buffs than what's shown on the patch notes. Here are the 2 direct buffs with the most significant impact:

- Ward change:

- Expert Summoner passive change:

In U40, if you were in a standard Rally/Wretched/Chudan/DDF build, you'd have around 38.5k max mag, 24.7k max stam, and 4816 spell damage:

In U41, you get 10% max mag AND stam, so that becomes 42k max mag and 27k max stam. The spell damage is unchanged:

A 3.5k extra max mag and 2.3k extra magstam. Sure you lost the 8% max HP, but it was only active when your shield is up anyway, so that doesn't matter. Now this was just the direct changes you could see. The indirect changes are a result of Ward getting a burst heal. You see, that burst heal is so strong that magsorc can now drop Vigor for Bound Aegis, and drop Undo for Dawnbreaker/another ulti of their choice. This is U41 magsorc when you account for the indirect changes:

By replacing Vigor and Undo with Bound Aegis and Dawnbreaker, magsorc now has 44.7k max mag and 4929 spell damage. That's an extra 6.2k max mag and 113 spell damage compared to U40 magsorc. But wait, you can also run full max mag glyphs too because Ward is THAT strong:

47.3k max mag and 24.7k max stam. An 8.8k extra max mag compared to U40 magsorc, and you still have the same amount of max stam.

2 simple changes gave magsorc 8.8k extra max mag and 113 spell damage. If you convert the max mag to spell damage, it's 10.5 magicka for every 1 spell damage, as taken from AlcastHQ website:

8.8k max mag is equivalent to 838 spell damage when using this conversion. Of course some skills will scale better with max mag, and some better with max spell damage, but that's the general conversion ratio.

U41 magsorc got ~950 extra spell damage equivalent with 2 simple changes, and their shield is also BIGGER as well. Much bigger. This is what most people conveniently forget to discuss about. It's not just Ward. It's the fact that Sorc's damage also got giga buffed as a direct and indirect result of the buffs.

Sorc's toolkit has always been insane. The class was just shadowed by other classes getting loads of buffs over the years. 2 simple changes elevated Sorc to top tier status, so that speaks a lot of volume about how strong the class already was.

EDIT: Ignore the Crystal Weapon morph. I forgot to change it to Crystal Fragment.

StaticWave

StaticWave wrote: »

Bushido2513 wrote: »

Caecus0 wrote: »

The people defending the state of Sorcs in this thread is really just astounding to me.

The only counter-arguments I've seen can basically be summed up as "the numbers aren't THAT high" and "Well I can still die on my Sorc under X conditions"

Even if you could argue Hardened Ward is on equal footing with skills on tankier classes such as Warden or DK (which it is still provably better), it wouldn't change the fact it is an incredibly strong skill on class with an already incredibly insane toolkit. Streak was already an annoying skill to deal with being a Blink that also not only does damage, but also applies an un-dodgeable and unblockable stun in an area with such a misleadingly large hit-box that it will stun people by accident. Those 2 skills combined just makes fighting Sorcs the most frustrating experience in PvP on any class.

EDIT: My autocorrect changed Streak to Steak. I corrected my autocorrect.

It's interesting to me when people talk about sorc and then mention insane toolkit. Add ward change and now it's an insane toolkit when just before magsorc was considered mediocre and something you played if you just loved the class.

Sorc isn't the only one those counter arguments have been used for, just the most recent.

Idk if you're underestimating the power increase of U41 magsorc by receiving 2 simple buffs, but Sorc got ALOT more indirect buffs than what's shown on the patch notes. Here are the 2 direct buffs with the most significant impact:

- Ward change:

- Expert Summoner passive change:

In U40, if you were in a standard Rally/Wretched/Chudan/DDF build, you'd have around 38.5k max mag, 24.7k max stam, and 4816 spell damage:

In U41, you get 10% max mag AND stam, so that becomes 42k max mag and 27k max stam. The spell damage is unchanged:

A 3.5k extra max mag and 2.3k extra magstam. Sure you lost the 8% max HP, but it was only active when your shield is up anyway, so that doesn't matter. Now this was just the direct changes you could see. The indirect changes are a result of Ward getting a burst heal. You see, that burst heal is so strong that magsorc can now drop Vigor for Bound Aegis, and drop Undo for Dawnbreaker/another ulti of their choice. This is U41 magsorc when you account for the indirect changes:

By replacing Vigor and Undo with Bound Aegis and Dawnbreaker, magsorc now has 44.7k max mag and 4929 spell damage. That's an extra 6.2k max mag and 113 spell damage compared to U40 magsorc. But wait, you can also run full max mag glyphs too because Ward is THAT strong:

47.3k max mag and 24.7k max stam. An 8.8k extra max mag compared to U40 magsorc, and you still have the same amount of max stam.

2 simple changes gave magsorc 8.8k extra max mag and 113 spell damage. If you convert the max mag to spell damage, it's 10.5 magicka for every 1 spell damage, as taken from AlcastHQ website:

8.8k max mag is equivalent to 838 spell damage when using this conversion. Of course some skills will scale better with max mag, and some better with max spell damage, but that's the general conversion ratio.

U41 magsorc got ~950 extra spell damage equivalent with 2 simple changes, and their shield is also BIGGER as well. Much bigger. This is what most people conveniently forget to discuss about. It's not just Ward. It's the fact that Sorc's damage also got giga buffed as a direct and indirect result of the buffs.

Sorc's toolkit has always been insane. The class was just shadowed by other classes getting loads of buffs over the years. 2 simple changes elevated Sorc to top tier status, so that speaks a lot of volume about how strong the class already was.

EDIT: Ignore the Crystal Weapon morph. I forgot to change it to Crystal Fragment.

And to elaborate on this argument, here are the tooltips of Curse and base Frag for magsorc in U40 using Rally/Wretched/Chudan/DDF:

Curse:



Frag:



Here are the tooltips of the same skills in U41 when accounted for all the direct and indirect changes:

Curse:


Frag:



Curse goes from 15571 to 17291, and base Frag goes from 12893 to 14316. That's an 11% damage increase for Curse and Frag.

Look, it would be fine if Ward just got a burst heal. But the problem is Sorc got a burst heal, more tankiness, more mag sustain, and an extra 11% damage increase for EVERYTHING. People are complaining because it's the truth lol. Sorc is currently too tanky while dealing a lot of ranged damage, and it's aids. The highest Frag proc I've taken last patch was 9.5k from a decent player. Now it's 10.5k. Curse was 7.5k last patch. Now it's 8.3k+.

If people don't want the burst heal removed, then we absolutely need to remove the 10% max mag or reduce Streak potency, because quite frankly I don't think Sorc is balanced rn.

Turtle_Bot

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

How are you getting to 30k health? Also, to give some insight/context into that "11k heal" argument

Had the hp buff from emp, those screenshots were from Blackreach. Forgot about that, apologies. The vast majority of Cyro action happens around objectives so that is the more relevant TT. For more context, here's a side by side comparison with the overpowered Polar Wind on my 35k hp Warden DD (we need to compare actual DD builds not 55k hp healers).

Polar is an immediate 14k, Ward is an immediate near 28k (and the shield value already accounts for Battle Spirit unlike the heal values). Polar heals for maybe 2k per cast more than Ward in practice, but without the gigantic shield, I need to spam Polar like crazy if I'm under heavy fire. One Ward cast and I'm out of the danger zone, two Wards and I'm near full hp, while face tanking. Like I needed to deliberately try to play carelessly to die on MagSorc (a less familiar spec to me).

The fact that we're legitimately comparing the face tanking abilities of the teleporting ranged nuke class to an intended tanky healy brawler class... like what? That same Sorc build I have can Streak 10 times in a row from full.

Emp buff explains it, note I was also in BR, just no emp buff, also no scroll buffs, or keeps buffs since my faction had literally nothing at that time.

Let me correct you there in regards to warden DD builds that use polar. As someone who also plays warden quite a bit alongside my sorc and who frequently plays with and against warden mains, here is a fairly simple, typical, basic warden DD build that uses Polar in PvP:




CP are as follows:
Red: Boundless vitality, slippery, bastion & celerity (bastion doubles as a mixed CP, buffing slab and increasing damage done to sorcs by a significant amount)
Blue: Master at arms, fighting finesse, wrathful strikes & untamed aggression* (*this CP is typically replaced with biting aura for deep fissure or a defensive or healing CP)

NOTE: I have adjusted this build slightly to make it for a ranged magden spec, since you want to hyper focus on the ranged aspect of sorc (typically a similar build with a different damage front bar set would be on a 2h stamden that would replace force pulse and clench for dizzy and executioner and have a much higher damage output alongside an actual execute).

This build has a ton of damage and pressure (thanks to the bonuses to chilled/frost staff that warden gets) as well as very strong defenses and good mobility.

As you can see on the tooltip for Polar, with zero healing CP and only damage CP slotted, it sits at an immediate 24k heal, with a 6k HoT. The warden's health is also 53k so that "health buffer" that ward grants, already exists on the wardens permanent health bar.

Here is the tooltip for Crystaline Slab (pretty much a hard counter to magsorc):


It is a 41k+ shield (in cyro) that reflects attacks and stuns attackers.

Here is the tooltip for lotus blossom (basically crit surge but lasts 1 minute instead of 30s) and only costs about 1/3 mag to cast.



Clench can easily be replaced with vigor if you want minor resolve/heal instead of major maim/immobilize/chilled or replaced with blood mist for an AoE DoT + HoT + teleport. But I have found that the major maim (that same buff shroud has) with immobilize and another way to proc chilled is just a lot of bonus pressure that can't be matched. Frost clench is also the full 28m range (thanks to it being buffed for PvE) unlike the flame/shock version of clench.

So lets compare them now shall we?

Polar Warden ranged DD:
- Has 50k + health.
- Has an immediate 24k heal that also has a 6k HoT attached for a total healing value of ~54k+ healing.

Hardened Ward Mag stacking DD Sorc:
- Ward provides a 16k (temporary) health buffer (your screenshot).
- Ward provides an 11k immediate heal (your screenshot) with no heal over time.

Lets be generous and assume that the DD sorc has 30k health (your stats with alliance emp buff):
- Ward brings sorcs effective max health up to ~46k (your stats + ward value), that is still 7k behind my ranged DD Warden's permanent health pool, that can also be increased to an ~95k effective health pool with slab active (or over double your 62k mag sorcs effective health with ward active).
- Ward heals for 11k (before battle spirit), Polar heals for over double that amount just on the upfront heal (not including the HoT that provides an additional ~30k healing over its duration).

It's not like that warden build is giving anything up like your sorc build is.
It has a free cleanse (from netch).
It has double your sorcs stam recovery and 1.5x your sorcs mag recovery.
It has snare removal/immunity
It has anti ranged defenses in crystaline slab (that could be shim shield for ulti gen instead)
It has plenty of CC via clench/slab
It has ranged pressure on top of ranged burst
It has just as much movement speed as a magsorc that uses boundless storm
It has both major and minor breach
It has prophecy/savagery
It has passive healing similar to crit surge

Also, fun fact, I can switch my wardens mundus from lord (max health) to apprentice (spell damage), still be at 50k health for 22.5k Polars, but I have about 1000 more effective power. I can also switch my jewelry to arcane instead of healthy and still have 21k polars, but my effective power has gone up another ~400.

You can say what you want about Hardened Ward:
- It is indeed above what a burst heal should be providing.
- A good fix for it is what static has suggested in making the burst heal into a heal over time.
But lets not be stupid and try to claim that Hardened ward is anything near as broken as what Polar Winds is, even on a full DD polar warden build that is spec'd for a ranged DD playstyle, Polar, on its own, just objectively outperforms hardened ward even with that ward being buffed in multiple ways like bound aegis.

Remember, this was a RANGED DD Warden with no healing CP, no defensive CP and no defensive sets.

Here is the Polar tooltip for a 56k healer warden (not even using healer sets, just healing CP and switching a few traits for 56k+ max health).

That is a 27k immediate heal with a 7k HoT attached to it. I have also seen this ability heal for over 30k (actual heal, not just tooltip) in game, ward can't even tooltip for that amount (outside of completely bias situations like vamp ult) let alone heal for that amount. That heal alone is stronger that wards entire combined tooltip, not even counting the HoT part of Polar Wind and this is with a permanent built in base health buffer that is 10k above what ward temporary buffer puts the sorcs effective health at (using your emp buffed values), even using your ward values for 62k mag.

This is what I mean when I say that yes, ward is busted and the burst heal should be a HoT as static has stated and I have agreed with multiple times now, but ward is NOT the most busted burst heal in the game and sorc is not the only class that can play that ranged nuke playstyle. Yes sorc is one of the most effective at it (alongside NB), but that doesn't mean other classes cannot play at range very effectively while having absurd amounts of defense, utility and mobility.

Turtle_Bot

StaticWave wrote: »

If people don't want the burst heal removed, then we absolutely need to remove the 10% max mag or reduce Streak potency, because quite frankly I don't think Sorc is balanced rn.

And this right here is why I think they should replace the max stats on bound armor + morphs into major prophecy/savagery.

That's 15% less max mag (lowers both shields and damage values) due to the 8% from BA and also taking off inner light (since it's not a good ability realistically), while making crit surge more reliable while using the class kit and not being forced to use magelight/camo hunter.
It also hybridizes this skill and both morphs for all sorcs instead of keeping split as per pre-hybridization.

StaticWave

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

StaticWave wrote: »

If people don't want the burst heal removed, then we absolutely need to remove the 10% max mag or reduce Streak potency, because quite frankly I don't think Sorc is balanced rn.

And this right here is why I think they should replace the max stats on bound armor + morphs into major prophecy/savagery.

That's 15% less max mag (lowers both shields and damage values) due to the 8% from BA and also taking off inner light (since it's not a good ability realistically), while making crit surge more reliable while using the class kit and not being forced to use magelight/camo hunter.
It also hybridizes this skill and both morphs for all sorcs instead of keeping split as per pre-hybridization.

I for one support this change. It's a 2-in-1 solution. You reduce their ability to stack high mag => lower shield value, but you also give them more bar space to then use other skills that allow more diversity. Even if they slot an extra damage skill or defensive skill to get back their dmg loss/tankiness loss, it's still a choice between either damage or defense, not both, and it still requires 2 GCD instead of just 1 GCD.