Subclassing will completely kill non-pet sorcs

katorga

And in pvp sorc can’t efficiently subclass at all. So all it got was huge nerfs in the name of subclassing(multiclassing).

I don't buy that at all. I'm sure it is not the pinnacle of subclass options, but it will really work well. But I have to subclass two lines to make it viable. right now it melts targets. I end up with MORE healing, big increases in tankiness, movement speed, and a huge increase in weapon damage, crit rate and crit damage compared to live. Gonna be sweet.

StarOfElyon

It's still crazy to me how they could nerf bound armaments into the ground, buff merciless resolve, tell us to use subclassing to replace what was nerfed, and still act as if there are countless ways to play. 😂

ZhuJiuyin

We should have more passives like Sorc's Expert Mage: "Increases your Damage by X for each classes ability slotted." instead of just "With a X ability slotted" or unconditional "Increases your Crit against enemies you are flanking by 1487". This would reward pure classes and put some restrictions on subclassing. This prevents unlimited power increase and forces the player to choose a main class from the beginning, since you can't have two of the same subclassing.

For example, change Unholy Knowledge (which moves the original effect to Persistence) to: "Increase your direct damage by X for each Dark Magic (or sorc class) ability slotted"

In this way, even if the developers strengthen the active ability of Dark Magic & Storm Calling, it will not lead to an uncontrollable increase in power compared to other classes, because although Dark Magic & Storm Calling provides more attractive options for players, it requires the use of the abilities of this line or class, which forces players to make adjustments within the limited skill grid.
Think about Pokémon. Although each Pokémon can only use a maximum of 4 skills, even the same Pokémon can make a variety of effective combinations.
By readjusting the passive abilities of all classes according to this rule, we may be able to achieve a certain balance for subclassing before June.

Zyaneth_Bal

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

We should have more passives like Sorc's Expert Mage: "Increases your Damage by X for each classes ability slotted." instead of just "With a X ability slotted" or unconditional "Increases your Crit against enemies you are flanking by 1487". This would reward pure classes and put some restrictions on subclassing. This prevents unlimited power increase and forces the player to choose a main class from the beginning, since you can't have two of the same subclassing.

For example, change Unholy Knowledge (which moves the original effect to Persistence) to: "Increase your direct damage by X for each Dark Magic (or sorc class) ability slotted"

In this way, even if the developers strengthen the active ability of Dark Magic & Storm Calling, it will not lead to an uncontrollable increase in power compared to other classes, because although Dark Magic & Storm Calling provides more attractive options for players, it requires the use of the abilities of this line or class, which forces players to make adjustments within the limited skill grid.
Think about Pokémon. Although each Pokémon can only use a maximum of 4 skills, even the same Pokémon can make a variety of effective combinations.
By readjusting the passive abilities of all classes according to this rule, we may be able to achieve a certain balance for subclassing before June.

A good idea. In any case, overall passives should be balanced out in power because now at the same time we have plenty of underwhelming passives and even absolutely useless ones like expert summoner and powerhouses like hemmorhage, mountain’s blessing, advanced species among most notable. Not to mention that in case of these particular skill lines other passives are very strong too and one would think this is to balance the weaker active skills but they also happen to be among the strongest. While many other skill lines not only have weaker passives but no stronger skills to balance them either. In other words there is a major power discrepancy between skill lines. As one would expect because they were balanced to only be used alongside the other 2 trees of the same class and nothing else.

WuffyCerulei

I managed to hit near 97k on the trial dummy on a non-pet sorc. I only swapped Dark Magic with Nightblade’s Assassination, and pretty much still played like I had crystal frags with Grim Focus. Even get some better DPS passives with Assassination. I was also running Nerieneth, Beacon of Oblivion, and Monolith of Storms. Non-pet sorc isn’t dead. Ya jist gotta put some more thought into it.

Dino-Jr

noblecron wrote: »

non pet sorcs were half dead to begin with because most endgame content required pets to begin with

I have run a double dagger + bow sorc without pets for awhile. has worked fine for basically all vet content with bound armaments and haunting curse. probably will continue to function after the patch I think? may have to deal with less sustain overall is my guess.




Wish a passive of some kind for this was available without a pet...


I wonder if they could introduce a line that grants a version of the passives to Sorc's Class (not other classes) if they dont have a pet?

Yudo

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I managed to hit near 97k on the trial dummy on a non-pet sorc. I only swapped Dark Magic with Nightblade’s Assassination, and pretty much still played like I had crystal frags with Grim Focus. Even get some better DPS passives with Assassination. I was also running Nerieneth, Beacon of Oblivion, and Monolith of Storms. Non-pet sorc isn’t dead. Ya jist gotta put some more thought into it.

So you gave up Dark magic + stayed on Deadric summoning on a non-pet build with dead passives.
Might as well go naked and call it no-pet sorc.

ZhuJiuyin

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I managed to hit near 97k on the trial dummy on a non-pet sorc. I only swapped Dark Magic with Nightblade’s Assassination, and pretty much still played like I had crystal frags with Grim Focus. Even get some better DPS passives with Assassination. I was also running Nerieneth, Beacon of Oblivion, and Monolith of Storms. Non-pet sorc isn’t dead. Ya jist gotta put some more thought into it.

The analysis of 97K has no reference value, especially when Arc can easily get 150K at u46. Even at u45, in the pve final game, that is, HM Trial, non-support members below 100K will be eliminated.

ZhuJiuyin

By the way, I got 110K on pts with non-pet sorc, but had to fight hard, and it was still far behind Arc's 150K.
97K is not even up to the standard of HM trials and does not help the team at all.

Trejgon

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Pets:
1. Scamp
2. Tormentor
3. Prey (this might as well be a pet since its mandatory to have pets deal competitive damage)
4. Atro
5. Armaments (yes this is a summon)

Putting armaments as a pet there is dishonest. Sure themewisely it may be a summon, but with current state of PTS changes there is nothing in this skill that counts as a pet. It does not benefit from the summoning passives, it does not trigger summoning passives.
It is a skill within daedris cummoning line, that with proposed changes would much better with in dark magic mechanically, heck it even got changed "to better with with crsytal weapons rotations".

I am not disagreeing with rest of assesment, that other skill lines of sorc have it even worse.

Ezhh

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I managed to hit near 97k on the trial dummy on a non-pet sorc. I only swapped Dark Magic with Nightblade’s Assassination, and pretty much still played like I had crystal frags with Grim Focus. Even get some better DPS passives with Assassination. I was also running Nerieneth, Beacon of Oblivion, and Monolith of Storms. Non-pet sorc isn’t dead. Ya jist gotta put some more thought into it.

I don't want to be harsh, but have you seen arc parses? That said, the more worrying thing about it than the single target damage is that it likely has little to no built in cleave as well. It simply won't hold up in a vet HM trial environment.

I've already spent hours on PTS putting thought into how to make sorc work. The answer is that outside of solo content it mostly just doesn't. Not unless you want to be far behind people who are playing meta classes and builds.

Zyaneth_Bal

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I managed to hit near 97k on the trial dummy on a non-pet sorc. I only swapped Dark Magic with Nightblade’s Assassination, and pretty much still played like I had crystal frags with Grim Focus. Even get some better DPS passives with Assassination. I was also running Nerieneth, Beacon of Oblivion, and Monolith of Storms. Non-pet sorc isn’t dead. Ya jist gotta put some more thought into it.

Not relevant as 90k is currently beatable on live naked. I am not exaggerating.

ZhuJiuyin

Ezhh wrote: »

I don't want to be harsh, but have you seen arc parses? That said, the more worrying thing about it than the single target damage is that it likely has little to no built in cleave as well. It simply won't hold up in a vet HM trial environment.

I've already spent hours on PTS putting thought into how to make sorc work. The answer is that outside of solo content it mostly just doesn't. Not unless you want to be far behind people who are playing meta classes and builds.

As I said before, "some activists and trolls continue to emphasize how high Sorc's stats are in the analysis"
What these people like to quote most are usually data about "Overland" or "Normal Dungeon" or "Anything under 100K", etc., but they are completely unwilling to mention anything in the pve end-game.

ZhuJiuyin

Although it's only the second week, based on past experience I'm not expecting any major balance changes. But I think Expert Summoner is the right first step.
I just hope that over the next few updates, the developers can seriously evaluate and adopt the many suggestions on the forums regarding sorc reworks, especially differentiating between pet sorc & non-pet sorc, and making both viable.

StarOfElyon

Un-nerf Bound Armaments please!

ZhuJiuyin

Are you serious? There are very few updates to the combat balance, which doesn't seem like a report card that players have to wait for two weeks. So disappointing.
Many feedbacks were ignored, such as the poor skill distribution of Sorc, and the fact that the Dark Magic skill line is a damage skill line with most skills and passive abilities being substandard.
Instead of reworking the Necromancer's GLS, they just changed the types of all "beam" skills (can't say for sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I think it's a lazy, one-size-fits-all fix that will likely cause bigger problems in the future, such as a bigger power boost with Merciless Charge)
If ZOS really intends to launch U46 with the current battle balance, then the exodus of U35 will happen again, and people may even miss U35 because U46 completely shattered the balance.

Why is it so hard to simply swap some skills to different skill lines? As many people have suggested before, moving all damage skills other than pet-related ones from Daedric Summoning to the Dark Magic line will make Daedric Summoning and Dark Magic more consistent with the lore setting, and also make the Sorc skill line more thematically distinct. However, this week's combat balance notes are pitifully few, and even ignore the suggestions that most players have reached consensus on.

SilverBride

Subclassing is killing more than my no pet Sorcerer. It's killing my desire to play.

Orbital78

Ezhh

SilverBride wrote: »

Subclassing is killing more than my no pet Sorcerer. It's killing my desire to play.

Unfortunately, this.

For me personally, let's see:

• PvE parse DD sorc, non-pet or otherwise - gave up long ago because it can't keep up due to newer trials all needing cleave.
• PvE sorc tank - fun on live because of the shield heal, will be less fun with the changes due to loss of healing and resources. Doubt I play it more.
• PvP sorc - it just needed the heal adjusted on hardened ward or a change to max mag passive to reduce shield size. If I PvP I'll play it regardless because I always played sorc in PvP no matter the meta. But will I PvP anymore?
• PvE DK tank - sustain nerfs are just... yea. Group I tank for disbanded this week anyway. Doubt I play it more.
• PvE plar DD - been playing this because I wanted a DD with some cleave that wasn't a low CPM beamer. Plar is now a low CPM beamer for at least a third of the fight. Won't play it more.

I've been telling myself I can still heal trials though, so maybe I get the update for the new trial but...

• PvE healer - Pillager and Pearls nerfed, which happens to be what I enjoy most when playing healer...

I'd honestly not worry about all the other things if I could take my sorc into trials as a parse DD and not feel like I was holding the group back as a result. The changes on PTS notes today were nice but it's much too little much too late, and without adjusting the skill lines there is no chance for a sorc to compete. Out of all the classes I looked at, it's by far the worst to try and use with subclassing.

ZhuJiuyin

Kazpian’s Cruel Signet changes: Increased the base damage this set deals by ~98%. This set no longer deals increased damage for each sword active (and by nature, can now Critically Strike because of this). Increased the application cooldown of this set to 500ms, up from 100s. This set now increases your damage done by 1% for every sword active.

At the same time, Fatecarver was changed to direct damage in patch notes-v11-0-3, which indirectly enhanced Fatecarver's AOE damage and made the new sets more suitable, or even only suitable for Arcanists, because other classes do not have spam with range direct damage, while Arcanists have Fatecarver and Cephaliarch's Flail.

Now, pair it with Merciless Charge & Born Wildstalker....
Arcanists will continue to be a T0 class, and other classes will be severely hurt by subclassing and will not even be use suitable for the new Trials sets.

sans-culottes

SilverBride wrote: »

Subclassing is killing more than my no pet Sorcerer. It's killing my desire to play.

Same.

ZhuJiuyin

The change to Lightning Splash is good, but Sorc's Dark Magic still needs more love. As a damage line, Dark Magic, except for Crystal and Exploitation, the rest of the skills and passives are either mediocre or terrible. More buffs are needed to make the Dark Magic line suitable for Subclassing, otherwise almost no one will choose this line.

In addition, even in v11.0.3, Sorc cannot make non-pet builds playable by simply replacing Daedric Summoning. More damage power needs to be allocated to Dark Magic, and Daedric Prey of Daedric Summoning needs to be nerfed. After all, Daedric Prey exists as a band-aid for U35, should be taken to nerf it and buff Dark Magic to make non-pet builds viable.

The poor skill distribution of Sorc, "Those who do not wish to interact with the pet gameplay can now replace this skill line as a whole." is basically unfeasible, swapping Daedric Summoning alone still cannot make non-pet sorc viable in PVE. Either need to swap a lot of non-pet damage skills and passives in Daedric Summoning to Dark Magic, or need to heavily buff Dark Magic and Storm Calling, or need to completely rework all three sorc skill lines.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin Any chance we'll see Dark Magic buffed to accommodate Subclassing before 6/2?

supabicboi

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin Any chance we'll see Dark Magic buffed to accommodate Subclassing before 6/2?

lemme answer this for u bud. its a big fat no.



ITS OVOOOEEER WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

supabicboi

doubt any of us will see any sorcs in cyro or any other form of pvp setting, not subclassing. its impossible to stay pure, quite literally impossible. pure sorc is positioned very neatly at the 'pure trash' tier.

altho sorc sublcass with nb assassin and warden winter embrace looks like a very good combo. like a very min max good combo.

mark my word i WILL abuse those 2 spec bows. why would anyone need curse+frags when u can just rapid fire 2 buttons that will do more burst dmg than that curse+frag delay combo?

dark magic not f tier, but turd tier.

say goodbye to whatever was known before. o7 sorc

Yudo

You will sadly see others utilise your class skills at higher potential, while you on your own class will be at a disadvantage because you stayed no pet, or pure sorc.

ZhuJiuyin

With the current patch set, without a massive overhaul of Dark Magic and Storm Calling, pure Sorc pet-sorcs will take a small hit due to Subclassing, and non-pet sorcs will take a severe hit. After using Subclassing, pet-sorc may gain some benefits, while non-pet sorc will die.
Many of the skill morphs for Dark Magic and Storm Calling are either too similar or too useless to be useful in PVE, or are only useful in specific situations. It would be great if these skill morphs could be improved, or even just add some dots or special damage buffs, such as adding 10/20 seconds of continuous damage, increasing direct damage by 5%, or increasing Dark Magic damage by 10%, etc., will greatly improve the usability of non-pet sorc.