Sorcerers need more than Surge.

Crescent

It just does not sit right with me how playing other classes I have ample access to self healing without needing to stack ungodly amounts of crit % to have sustain. 5 leather just becomes mandatory, because a leather crit based surge build is actually MORE survivable than a plate sorcerer build.

Maybe the plate passives are just bad (hough the active skill for CC immunity is the one good thing), the % are too small, but even if the plate passives were increased in %, I would still go down pretty quick as a melee sorcerer against groups of mobs if I didn't have a healer.

This could be fixed in several ways:

- Change Blood Magic so the 5% hp heal happens for ALL spell types.
- Make Twilight Matriarch emergency heal baseline and make it a 20 second cd. The morph that is now empty could turn the heal into a stamina and magicka recovery as well when the heal triggers.
- The imp/clann attacks could restore some HP like swallow soul.
- The Conjured Ward could increase health regen.

I'm picking out Daedric Summoning because clearly the line seems to be the survivability/support line, and the one in most need of help.

Dark Exchange also needs tweaking. CC'ing yourself with a channel for 4 seconds and wiping out your stamina bar for the current mediocre amount it heals is just something only a ranged sorcerer may use, and even then most don't take it because ranged sorcerers can afford to stack crit with Inner Light and Blood Magic+ Surge to heal for far more just by spamming Crystal Shards.

Rahaya

What needs to happen is Blood Magic triggering on all Dark Magic casts and not just when it feels like it. Right now, best I can tell, it doesn't trigger when the spell doesn't do damage (Like Prison) and if the ability kills, it doesn't heal either.

Dark Exchange is fine. Mediocre heals? Full attribute points into health, nearly soft capped and one channel heals me to full is mediocre? And as far as I know, it's used cause it is free magicka, not for the heal.

Daedric Summoning has 20% increased health regen in it's passives already, along with FREE armor. That's huge, as it means I can run around in my 7/7 light armor with all the passives and have the armor rating of someone in heavy armor. Win-win.

Not to mention, that ward.

With that light armor is free 10% crit chance on spells. Dark magic has crit chance passive (15%) and you can trait your weapon for more.

This is not including all the free extra damage your class lines give you (Bound Armaments heavy attack, Storm Calling, Overload, etc). I run with a Greatsword and take on the skull and cross bones lairs by myself.

Carde

Uh, Dark Exchange. It comes a little late, but its worth it.

steinernein

This entire thing is pretty laughable.

Crescent have you completed most of the content yet?

Teloran

I'm afraid the heavy vs medium thing won't change with more diverse healing. The crit from medium and everything from light simply blows the heavy passives out of the water. Considering a stamina based Sorcerer should have Lightning Form or Bound Armour, there's little reason to consider Heavy.

As for Critical Surge, it works out to give 97% of your crit chance multiplied by your DPS as healing. To put that in perspective, the Nightblades main heal, Strife, heals roughly 10% of ther DPS every second if they're speced for magica. To achieve this level of healing, a stamina based Sorcerer only needs to have one of:

- A weapon with precise and the thief stone OR
- Two weapons with precise OR
- A two daggers, one with precise (currently broken) OR
- More then three pieces of medium armour.

A magica based Sorcerer will easily triple Strife's healing with light armour and Inner Light alone.

Crescent

steinernein wrote: »

This entire thing is pretty laughable.

Crescent have you completed most of the content yet?

What part of build diversity don't you get. Until then, stay on ignore until you've grown out of your socially maladapted phase.

Teloran wrote: »

I'm afraid the heavy vs medium thing won't change with more diverse healing. The crit from medium and everything from light simply blows the heavy passives out of the water. Considering a stamina based Sorcerer should have Lightning Form or Bound Armour, there's little reason to consider Heavy.

As for Critical Surge, it works out to give 97% of your crit chance multiplied by your DPS as healing. To put that in perspective, the Nightblades main heal, Strife, heals roughly 10% of ther DPS every second if they're speced for magica. To achieve this level of healing, a stamina based Sorcerer only needs to have one of:

- A weapon with precise and the thief stone OR
- Two weapons with precise OR
- A two daggers, one with precise (currently broken) OR
- More then three pieces of medium armour.

A magica based Sorcerer will easily triple Strife's healing with light armour and Inner Light alone.

That's the problem. Surge is so strong against the other alternatives, and those are not even worth considering.

The whole point of this game is build variety but right not it's kinda lopsided. If you want to melee you need to go leather.

Just think about it, not only does leather output better damage, but plate is even worse survival wise than leather or light armor on a sorc build in terms of survival. They need to bring the weaker aspects up to par. Playing one way gets boring quick, at least for me.

Carde wrote: »

Uh, Dark Exchange. It comes a little late, but its worth it.

Dark Exchange is terrible, especially for stamina based builds.

Even if you are a caster, spamming crystal shards with blood magic trait and surge up with inner light, you'll actually achieve greater HPS than using Dark Exchange and bring your DPS to 0 for 4 seconds on top of wiping out your dodge/sprint pool.

The_Emproer

that's just a drawback to Sorc - they have 'meh' sustain outside of critical surge in exchange for their high ranged burst and untouchable mobility with Bolt Escape. it's similar to how DK's have nonexistent ranged presence and low burst damage.

Crescent

The_Emproer wrote: »

that's just a drawback to Sorc - they have 'meh' sustain outside of critical surge in exchange for their high ranged burst and untouchable mobility with Bolt Escape. it's similar to how DK's have nonexistent ranged presence and low burst damage.

The bow variant for DK is actually pretty viable, and fire staff DK is not unheard of.

I just hope they buff plate, it's plain wrong that I do much better survival wise with lower armor pieces than the piece actually intended to be the brawler set.

The_Emproer

Crescent wrote: »

The bow variant for DK is actually pretty viable, and fire staff DK is not unheard of.

right, weapons can remedy a classes inherent weaknesses (like equipping a resto staff on a sorc to increase sustain), but i was speaking more about the class lines themselves.

Teloran

Yes, Critical Surge is the only real heal stamina sorcerer has. Stamina based Dragon Knights only really have Dragon Blood, and stamina based Nightblades will usually only have strife or possibly Leaching Strikes if they're tank speced.

The only class that will have more diverse healing for Stamina builds are templars.

Crescent

The_Emproer wrote: »

Crescent wrote: »

The bow variant for DK is actually pretty viable, and fire staff DK is not unheard of.

right, weapons can remedy a classes inherent weaknesses (like equipping a resto staff on a sorc to increase sustain), but i was speaking more about the class lines themselves.

Ah, ok, fair point. I'd still argue that the lack of ranged presence is more than made up by the sustain of the class, but I admit this is not a good point if we think about PvP where DK's might be pigeonholed into tanky specs because all melee specs need to be tanky specs in zerg environments.

Whereas bolt escape doesn't help much a melee sorc other than resetting the fight. Any time you spend escaping is lost DPS.

I also want to emphasize sustain on a DPS spec does not mean you switch to a healing stance at the expense of DPS. We're looking at skills you can use while continuing a fairly average DPS rotation. Like NB leeches, etc. Sustain that can function while offensive. Yeah, resto staff can be OK DPS as well but not really on a melee based sorcerer.

Carde

Crescent wrote: »

Carde wrote: »

Uh, Dark Exchange. It comes a little late, but its worth it.

Dark Exchange is terrible, especially for stamina based builds.

Even if you are a caster, spamming crystal shards with blood magic trait and surge up with inner light, you'll actually achieve greater HPS than using Dark Exchange and bring your DPS to 0 for 4 seconds on top of wiping out your dodge/sprint pool.

If that were true you wouldn't be crying in this thread.

Crescent

Carde wrote: »

If that were true you wouldn't be crying in this thread.

Well done, you really know how to read. On to the ignore pile, I don't have time for some run of the mill jackass who dismisses anything he disagrees with as "crying". Grow up.

Carde

Crescent wrote: »

Carde wrote: »

If that were true you wouldn't be crying in this thread.

Well done, you really know how to read. On to the ignore pile, I don't have time for some run of the mill jackass who dismisses anything he disagrees with as "crying". Grow up.

Maturity is automatically ignore listing people who disagree with you?

Seems we both have a lot of growing to do, bromigo!

Sleepydan

Crescent wrote: »

The whole point of this game is build variety but right not it's kinda lopsided. If you want to melee you need to go leather.

Just think about it, not only does leather output better damage, but plate is even worse survival wise than leather or light armor on a sorc build in terms of survival. They need to bring the weaker aspects up to par. Playing one way gets boring quick, at least for me.

Just being devils advocate here.

Besides a melee sorcerer using critical surge and bound armor/lightning form, who else is more tanky in leather than plate? I'm accepting your claim that it is indeed the most tanky sorc build at face value despite my temptation to devils advocate that as well.


Pretty sure it's the only one, but I'm not positive. I sure can't think of anything synergistic elsewhere off the top of my head. Isn't that the definition of build variety? It IS the variety, as far as I can tell. There is one way to be tanky in not plate, this way.

Rahaya

You can use Hardened Ward (500+ damage shield) and not touch Critical Surge. Brawler for 2 Handed also gives a small shield for each enemy hit, Dual Wield has that Blind.

You seem way too focused on Surge for no reason at all. If you insist on self healing being the only way to give yourself survivability, then yes Sorc is lacking.

But it's not the only way. And if you don't want to see or use alternatives, don't blame the game for limiting your choices.

Rosveen

Crescent wrote: »

steinernein wrote: »

This entire thing is pretty laughable.

Crescent have you completed most of the content yet?

What part of build diversity don't you get. Until then, stay on ignore until you've grown out of your Asperger's phase.

Please, don't use Asperger's as an insult.

Crescent

Sleepydan wrote: »

Crescent wrote: »

The whole point of this game is build variety but right not it's kinda lopsided. If you want to melee you need to go leather.

Just think about it, not only does leather output better damage, but plate is even worse survival wise than leather or light armor on a sorc build in terms of survival. They need to bring the weaker aspects up to par. Playing one way gets boring quick, at least for me.

Just being devils advocate here.

Besides a melee sorcerer using critical surge and bound armor/lightning form, who else is more tanky in leather than plate? I'm accepting your claim that it is indeed the most tanky sorc build at face value despite my temptation to devils advocate that as well.


Pretty sure it's the only one, but I'm not positive. I sure can't think of anything synergistic elsewhere off the top of my head. Isn't that the definition of build variety? It IS the variety, as far as I can tell. There is one way to be tanky in not plate, this way.

Not just leather. Light armor can cap armor with those buffs, making plate fairly obsolete because of its terrible passives.

For those not wearing heavy you can take Immovable and cap on armor as well without needing to be a sorc, though admittedly it drains stamina instead of magicka for stamina dependent builds.

chrisub17_ESO104

Weapon swap to resto staff, cast hot, swap back. Takes about 2 seconds. Make it a habit.

bubbajones

ive got to say sorcerers suck bad for damage I am lvl 1 VR and a lvl 10 just killed me because I can do no damage ? WTF sorcerers are supposed to be killer nukers not just support types

Im disgusted with this I used all of my abilities knockback with fire clench, unstable wall of fire, lightning pool shattering prison and then auto attack im oom and the lvl 10 got up and walked all over me ***

bantad87

Aoe does *** for damage...lol.

Reykice

If as a VR1 sorc you got rolled by a level 10 the problem is you suck, the class has nothing to do with it.

Sakiri

Crescent wrote: »

Carde wrote: »

If that were true you wouldn't be crying in this thread.

Well done, you really know how to read. On to the ignore pile, I don't have time for some run of the mill jackass who dismisses anything he disagrees with as "crying". Grow up.

Run of the mill jackass that played sorc extensively in beta and I think made emperor.

Yeah, Carde doesnt know what hes talking about. Ok.

Crescent

Sakiri wrote: »

Crescent wrote: »

Carde wrote: »

If that were true you wouldn't be crying in this thread.

Well done, you really know how to read. On to the ignore pile, I don't have time for some run of the mill jackass who dismisses anything he disagrees with as "crying". Grow up.

Run of the mill jackass that played sorc extensively in beta and I think made emperor.

Yeah, Carde doesnt know what hes talking about. Ok.

Appeals to authority don't make you look any smarter here. Dark Exchange is bad compared to going surge and building for crit. And stamina builds won't use dark exchange.

Surge completely dominates sorc survival, overshadowing both dark exchange and conjured ward as means of survival. Skills that are ridiculously better than the alternatives dwarf build diversity.

Though I'm sure you don't care about this discussion anyways and would rather mock, so why bother.

Rahaya

From my point of view it seems to be you are the one who isn't interested in discussion. You've pretty much ignored counter arguments, focusing mainly on those you can dismiss.

Crescent

Rahaya wrote: »

From my point of view it seems to be you are the one who isn't interested in discussion. You've pretty much ignored counter arguments, focusing mainly on those you can dismiss.

Forgive me for ignoring the eloquence of counterarguments such as "you're crying" and "this is laughable".

The people who have actually discussed it have received responses, and I've conceded several points to them, such as the one with DK's and the informative posts by Teloran.

Rahaya

Right, so I am imagining no response to my posts at all then? Given I was the first one to respond, it struck me as very obvious.

Crescent

Rahaya wrote: »

Right, so I am imagining no response to my posts at all then? Given I was the first one to respond, it struck me as very obvious.

I completely missed it, my bad.

Unfortunately, a lot of what you said applies to a ranged sorcerer playstyle. Dark Exchange will completely gimp your DPS as a stamina based melee build (replenishing a stamina pool is a lot harder than a magicka pool). And as a caster a 4 second channel is also a hit to DPS, you're better off replenishing magicka via resto staff and gearing rather than Dark Exchange.

I'm not saying we don't have alternatives. I'm saying those alternatives are really, really bad by comparison to critical surge on a crit based build. And it's just not good when one trait/skill completely overshadows others.

Sleepydan

Crescent wrote: »

Sleepydan wrote: »

Crescent wrote: »

The whole point of this game is build variety but right not it's kinda lopsided. If you want to melee you need to go leather.

Just think about it, not only does leather output better damage, but plate is even worse survival wise than leather or light armor on a sorc build in terms of survival. They need to bring the weaker aspects up to par. Playing one way gets boring quick, at least for me.

Just being devils advocate here.

Besides a melee sorcerer using critical surge and bound armor/lightning form, who else is more tanky in leather than plate? I'm accepting your claim that it is indeed the most tanky sorc build at face value despite my temptation to devils advocate that as well.


Pretty sure it's the only one, but I'm not positive. I sure can't think of anything synergistic elsewhere off the top of my head. Isn't that the definition of build variety? It IS the variety, as far as I can tell. There is one way to be tanky in not plate, this way.

Not just leather. Light armor can cap armor with those buffs, making plate fairly obsolete because of its terrible passives.

For those not wearing heavy you can take Immovable and cap on armor as well without needing to be a sorc, though admittedly it drains stamina instead of magicka for stamina dependent builds.

Seriously? That's what you got from my my comments? "Not just leather, sorcerers can go tanky light armor too! There is no such thing as build diversity!"

I'll rephrase. The big idea I wanted from you to gain my support was "what other classes can effectively be as tanky as they can possibly be without wearing at least mostly heavy armor?"

(Hint: I *think* dragon knights have enough armor stuff they could soft cap it through abilities as well. Not sure about that being the "best, most efficient way" though for a serious, drawn out high end encounter. Bound armor being forever > temporary and constantly resource draining. And they don't live or die off their crits, since they don't have critical surge)

Not only have you failed to address the only point i choose to actually call you out on, Rahaya pointed out a different sorcerer tank concept that while I admit I haven't tested, succeeds as a proof of concept.

Then there is the whole assburgers thing, and being a general tool to other people, not yet myself who more aggressively disagree with you.



I fail how to see how anything productive is coming from this discussion. Are you trying to troll, or just accidentally being disruptive with your requests for what is essentially a buff to a class that I main as?

Don't get me wrong, buffs wheeee! But as they giveth they taketh away, and I enjoy the slice of gameplay I get as a sorcerer.

You want more straightforward, baseline healing? Play a different class.

Adena

Crescent wrote: »

I also want to emphasize sustain on a DPS spec does not mean you switch to a healing stance at the expense of DPS. We're looking at skills you can use while continuing a fairly average DPS rotation. Like NB leeches, etc. Sustain that can function while offensive. Yeah, resto staff can be OK DPS as well but not really on a melee based sorcerer.

Cast Quick Siphon from resto staff, heal from your DPS for 20 seconds?

Kyotee0071

bubbajones wrote: »

ive got to say sorcerers suck bad for damage I am lvl 1 VR and a lvl 10 just killed me because I can do no damage ? WTF sorcerers are supposed to be killer nukers not just support types

Im disgusted with this I used all of my abilities knockback with fire clench, unstable wall of fire, lightning pool shattering prison and then auto attack im oom and the lvl 10 got up and walked all over me ***

Don't use destro staffs aoe skill for single target damage. You should have one bar set up for single target fights, and one for utility / Aoe Fights.