Ifthir_ESO wrote: »

use your destro build and swap destro out to use bow?

I was tempted to go bow sorc just to show how absurd it could be when played well but I've never been much of a follower of others and I realized that by doing so I'd be rewarding the failure of ZoS.

1 reason: Grinding has been nerfed. It is going to take you 2 months to level anything else.

This is depressing to hear from experienced sorcs. My main is VR2 and I pretty much only PvP on her, so I've been clinging to the hope that at VR14 things will feel a lot better. Maybe it's not worth it..

kijima wrote: »

Haven't you not renewed your sub anyway?

That's what I meant by "not rewarding failure".

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Daedric mines are good against charging dks and also are not reflect-able.

They are also the most expensive ability (as far as I know) in the game. I wouldn't really call them "good" against dks but they can be if you can sucker a DK into charging over them, otherwise they are pretty easy for them to avoid and for the slot cost are going to do less damage at more expense than Daedric Curse in most situations.

Sorcerer is the most powerful class, but have less health and easy to be killed. You will have a lots of challenge and fun.

Negate.

ezareth_ESO wrote: »

The sharpened Nerf was the nail in the coffin.

But you know that wasn't a nerf?

Sharpened trait was bugged in a way that it completely ignored ALL magic resistance together with light armor. Even using a weapon based stamina build you did 20% more dmg with this trait. For peoples who relied on exploiting this bug it should have been clear that this won't stay in the game forever.

All abilities which reduce or increase armor and resistance did not make any sense before. But now they do. As a light armor user you get a compensation with your passive. So this affects magic and stamina based builds equally if they used the sharpened trait.

Mauz wrote: »

ezareth_ESO wrote: »

The sharpened Nerf was the nail in the coffin.

But you know that wasn't a nerf?

Sharpened trait was bugged in a way that it completely ignored ALL magic resistance together with light armor. Even using a weapon based stamina build you did 20% more dmg with this trait. For peoples who relied on exploiting this bug it should have been clear that this won't stay in the game forever.

All abilities which reduce or increase armor and resistance did not make any sense before. But now they do. As a light armor user you get a compensation with your passive. So this affects magic and stamina based builds equally if they used the sharpened trait.

I know exactly what this entails. Penetration works nothing like you think it does....nothing like the tooltip says it does. ZoS has no clue how it works. A "Stamina" build in full medium armor couldn't take advantage of the Sharpened bug.

I'm not saying they shouldn't have fixed sharpened (they still haven't actually), Spell penetration is just broken right now and because historically so many players were using sharpened they allowed the base magicka damage abilities to become weak to compensate. When they fixed the sharpened bug, they did nothing else the counteract the loss of damage by players who depend on magicka abilities.

Once again Destruction abilities with Sharpened get more than full penetration, it is only the class magicka abilities themselves which are no extremely weak. Compare the damage output of a sorc using sorc abilities to any physical damage class right now and it will be no contest and I'm not talking about armor disparities.

there's always altruism.......

I read the whole thing.

Your bolt escape was nerfed because it was allowing a hard escape directly out of pvp. It's intended purpose was to provide a ranged damage dealer the ability to kite. The idea is probably that your dps output against an opponent should be sufficient that 1 or 2 bolt escapes to keep the opponent at range when going 1v1 would provide you an alternative survivability. Also, in larger group fights it is a valuable tool for repositioning if you see groups of opponents closing in on you after wiping a group of allies. It'd allow you to quickly reposition behind other players to provide a wall and additional security so you can keep on doing your dps while other people with harder chins are taking the punches to the face.

The changes to the weapons was to make the game more easily understandable for new players. Please understand that skills can be nerfed and buffed post-change to allow for sufficient competitiveness among other skills. It probably wasn't meant to be a nerf to those that rely on weapon skills as a primary means of damage.

Overload is pretty awesome dude. Storm Antaroch isn't good in my opinion. How much are your light auto attacks doing with overload compared to spell damage? I have a level ~10 sorc and overload is letting my light auto attacks deal twice as much as a normal spell. The heavy attacks are doing as much as a normal spell but doing aoe damage and just wiping groups of mobs. Yea I can understand that having your autos get reflected is probably frustrating. There's always the uber useful negate, though that is most useful in group v group action.

Sorcs ARE lacking in powerful 1v1 skills within their own class skills. To be more specific, spammable spells to get Crystal Shards procs. A procced Crystal Shard IS powerful. A Mage's Wrath once the enemy is below 20% HP IS powerful. So rather than focus on what a Sorc ISN'T, lets focus on what a Sorc IS.

1v1
-Daedric Curse has great damage output with the drawback of having it's countdown timer. This is a great spell to initiate with.
-Crystal Fragments is not very good if cast without the proc. It's is quite potent if you get your proc, and should be used every single time you get it.
-Restraining Prison is a good AoE CC. It is not as potent as Talons, but does it still provide the snare if the enemy rolls out of it? Regardless, it could be considered a potential situational spell to slot that could also be used for Crystal Fragments procs (obviously not spammable by itself but each spell cast is a 35% proc).
-Weakening Prison disorients your opponent, allowing for a heavy attack to knock them down and has a 35% chance to proc Crystal Fragments. Also, your next spell is going to hit harder.
-Mage's Fury is a great finisher and has the potential to proc Crystal Fragments. Imagine hitting your opponent with one of these and getting the bonus damage and proccing a Crystal Fragments. That's a kill!
-Lightning Form gives survivability and punishes melee enemies for attacking you, and has the potential of proccing Crystal Fragments.
-Bolt Escape will let you kite enemies a bit, and can proc Crystal Fragments

So in review, there are no truly spammable high damage spells inside the Sorc class kit. What there ARE, are several means of survivability and crowd control. So rather than try to blow someone out of the water in 1v1, keep them CC'd, at range, and not doing as much damage to them as they are to you. You have plenty of ways to finish off people as well. When you get an opponent even at half hp, they need to be on their guard. A single Crystal Fragments can knock them down allowing for a damage-boosted Mages's Wrath followed by Perhaps a procced Crystal Fragments or a Daedric Curse.

GroupvGroup
All of those skills are obviously all still useful. In addition:
-Negate is a Godesend
-Encase is even better
-Lightning Form and Lightning Spash become invaluable for DPS and ult generation
-Overload's Heavy attacks have quite the potential

Sorc Flaws
Not really so much a flaw as it is a drawback. The increased Bolt Escape costs and out-of-combat magicka regeneration are appropriate for what the spell does. It eliminates spamming and acknowledges the spell can be used as both a means of escape and a gap closer. However, IT has a scaling cast cost. Invasion, Critical Charge, Teleport Strike, and Focused Charge do not. This puts Sorcs at a massive disadvantage. The cost to remain aggressive with the other skills is far cheaper. Even Sorcs planning to be melee combatants are at a disadvantage

Additionally, the Storm Calling tree has Energized, decreasing the cost of Storm Calling abilities. You'd think then that you want to be spamming the skills from this tree. Then we look at Mage's Fury and want to cast it once the enemy is low. We look at Lightning Form and realize it's a buff that really shouldn't be spammed. We also come to the same conclusion about Surge. We look at Bolt Escape and realize we do not want to be spamming that unless necessary. Really, the only spell that truly appeals for spamming is Lightning Flood.

Elemental Blockade and Elemental Ring do better damage. Really there are no high-end spammable damage spells within the Storm Calling tree. The real advantage of Lightning Flood is that it can be cast at range, allowing the Sorc to keep a safe distance back (when compared to Elemental Blockade/Ring).

To supplement Sorcs, we can use Elemental Ring or Elemental Blockade. We can still use Invasion as a gap closer to cast these spells and Bolt Escape to move out of combat if needed.

The final point, and the most important one, is to not feel a class is deficient if it is not completely self-reliant. DK's do not have a gap closer. They have Fiery Grip, but that doesn't put them into combat. They also have 0 ranged capabilities. Templars feel like a jack of all trades and masters of none. They have no way to boost their defenses, just bubbles. Besides Rune Focus, which limits their mobility. NBs are completely vulnerable to spells. They have no way to increase their magic resistance. They do have Consuming Darkness as a fantastic survivability skill, but again it's an aoe. They also are gimped when it comes to ranged damage.

Don't try and play what you think is the most powerful build out there dude, play what you enjoy. The meta changes on a regular basis as people find new powerful combinations with skills and ZOS buffs and nerfs abilities. If you try to be the biggest dog in the yard, you're always going to be scrambling to use the current FOTM. Instead, be the you dog in the yard and just have fun playing your favorite playstyle.

Columba wrote: »

Last night I saw a sorc port across the map 10x time. Can't be that expensive to use.

If this was thread about PvE, I would sort of agree.

Nightblade is a better all around dps-class. Not only in trials, but also brings more to the table when doing 4-man content.

Templar is a better healer, better support skills and better tank.

DK is a better tank (and does slightly more dps).

So where does a sorcerer fit in PvE right now? I rarely play mine, but guessing you still use one for Negate duty or something?

Still think they're awesome and balanced in PvP though. People forget it's not all about class skills. Synergy with weapon skill lines and passives, also determines how good a class is. Sorcerer still have the best passives in the game, best synergy with destro, strongest class shield in the game, best CC with streak, best PvP ulti and capped weapon power without making any gear sacrifices.