Why does ZOS hate Sorcs?

RinaldoGandolphi · December 2014

The Sorc Class Short comings

We have no Direct Damage Instant Cast Class Skills. Were the only class gimped this way. This is why you see so many Sorcs using staffs. We also have the Summoned Pets that are completely useless in PVP. Crystal Shards is a roll of the RNG by using other skills(staff skills) to get an instant cast.

Mages Wrath is an execute and is useless unless the target is at 20% health or below. Rune Prison like nearly every sorc skill, has a cast time and can be interrupted, Encase costs way too much for what it does in comparison Talons. Surge is not useless, but it doesn't fot all builds either and don't make sense unless your using weapon based skills in liue of class skills, and in trials and dungeons you are using staff skills because Shards is a DPS loss and the rest of our class skills don't exactly kill very fast.

Negate is our only real game changing Ultimate but it isn't cheap and is situational...if it wasn't for Negate, Sorcs wouldn't even be asked to do any trials or dungeons.

Now we get to the Crux of the Argument

Why the Bolt Escape Nerf was over the top and has literally made Sorcs the worst class in the game, especially PVP

Since Sorcs have no instant cast time direct damage class abilities, Sorcs are designed to be dependent on "buying time" until their Curses go off, getting a lucky roll with the RNG for a Shard proc, and being able to out maneuver their opponent since Sorcs are obviously not a melee class in the traditional sense. Instead they are kiting class that relies on tickling their opponent with Mage's Wrath, while finding synergy with Curse and Shards while being able to use Bolt Escape to buy the time needed to do this.

However the current Bolt Escape nerf doesn't make this viable unless your willing to suck tri-potions like Skooma. Even then, its very hard to do.

Lets look at this Realistically and the Real cost of Bolt Escape:

Bolt Escape costs around 392 mana to cast(give or take) Now if you cast it again within 4 seconds it costs an INSANE 588 mana(give or take) and it reduces Mana Regen by 50% for 4 seconds...if your mana regen is 137 then cut that in half = 68.5. The mana you don't get in that regen penalty MUST be included in the total cost of the skill as that is mana you don't get regened which is a flat cost in itself.

So the TRUE cost of Bolt Escape's second cast is 588 mana + 68 x4 =(272) Total Cost of the Second Bolt Escape Cast(including regen penalty) is 860 Mana (give or take)

Please tell me how it is fair that a skill i need to cast to reposition myself has a TCOC(Total Cost of Cast) at 860 mana is possibly fair or balance?

Lets take Snipe and give it a 50% cost increase and 50% stamina regen penalty every time you use it twice in a 4 second period.

Lets take Reflective Scales and do the same thing.

Lets do the same thing to Green Dragon Blood

Lets take Templar's Blazing Sheild and give it the same nerf.

The point is Bolt Escape DOES NOT EVEN KILL ANYONE! all the other skills i listed above do, yet its perfectly ok for them...yet the Sorc is crippled for using BE to reposition themselves.

Folks complained BE allowed people to run....didn't you win the fight when the person ran away? Why bother to chase...as a Sorc who sees a another Sorc BE, i don't bother chasing them, I will kill them later, no one has any patience anymore to force someone to fight on your terms. Instead, folks want to instant kill all fight up in your face with no strategy whatsoever.

I thought ESO AvA pvp was called an "Alliance War" retreat/running is a valid tactic. No one forces anyone to chase after a Sorc....and contrary to popular belief pre-nerf BE sorcs were not impossible to kill. You can string gap closers between their casts very easily to lock them down and kill them.

Ezarth commented about this in length that Critical Rush and Sheild Charge users were able to repeatedly spam those skills to lock him down and kill him and he is a former Emp....BE was counterable before this nerf.

Right now, the Sorc is the only class that is actively punished and crippled for using a class skill the entire class concept was designed around. Were the only class that has to deal with such a crippling skill....860 mana to cast a skill a 2nd time within 4 secs is not fair in any world this game takes place in.

DK get the easy nerf to Scales, it won't even effect them 99% of the time...stay stealth sometime and watch a DK...tell me how many times he reflects more then 4 projectiles before he has to recast....those instances are very rare...he usually recasts before he has reflected 4 projectiles, so that nerf changes nothing for them.

Yet Sorcs were hit with a critical blow that made us leaps and bounds weaker then other classes, and the nerfs just kept coming...Harness Magicka Nerf, etc....Sorcs do the worst damage out of all classes in PVP, and BE costs is insane and doesn't allow the skill to be used how it was intended(repositioning and offensively) because doing so costs way to much to be viable...

860 mana cost for 2nd cast...its not feasible...even with Tri-pots...so BE is used primarily to run now and must suck tri-pots most times to do it...i miss the days of being able to use Streak offensively to fight/reposition and kick someones teeth in...can't do that now...the insane costs make it impossible to do this against any other player with half a brain that knows what the block key is as most fights come down to resource management and BE in its current form makes winning a battle of resource mangement next to impossible against anyone who knows what they are doing.

Come on Zeni, you buff bows, been buffing all the stamina stuff...give us Sorcs some love...take this insane cost away from casting BE and set a 6 limit target cap on how many it can hit, reduce the Ultimate gained by targets with with BE, and us Sorcs won't hear another peep from us...we need this badly, the class is too weak otherwise...

if any other class had a skill with this kind of crippling penalty, the entire forum would be up in arms. Need proof? look no further then the Reflective Scales nerf thread, People are crying about a 4 projectile limit before recast when DK right now in 9 out of 10 cases never reflect more then 4 projectiles in a 4 sec period anyways, so this literally changes nothing for them, while Bolt Escape was beat into the dirt with a sledgehammer and buried under 2 tons of rubble.

Please Fix the class Zeni, if your not going to give us our BE back then fix our other class skills, make us viable in some other way, right now, most of our class skills suck for PVP, and in our current state, were only on par with other classes with a BE without this insane penalty, right now, Sorcs are clearly the weakest PVP class by far because of it.

Gyudan · December 2014

Sorcerer is very fun to play but terribly underpowered at the moment.
I hope update 6 brings some balance to the farce.

Xsorus · December 2014

woodsro wrote: »

The Sorc Class Short comings

We have no Direct Damage Instant Cast Class Skills. Were the only class gimped this way. This is why you see so many Sorcs using staffs. We also have the Summoned Pets that are completely useless in PVP. Crystal Shards is a roll of the RNG by using other skills(staff skills) to get an instant cast.

Mages Wrath is an execute and is useless unless the target is at 20% health or below. Rune Prison like nearly every sorc skill, has a cast time and can be interrupted, Encase costs way too much for what it does in comparison Talons. Surge is not useless, but it doesn't fot all builds either and don't make sense unless your using weapon based skills in liue of class skills, and in trials and dungeons you are using staff skills because Shards is a DPS loss and the rest of our class skills don't exactly kill very fast.

Negate is our only real game changing Ultimate but it isn't cheap and is situational...if it wasn't for Negate, Sorcs wouldn't even be asked to do any trials or dungeons.

Now we get to the Crux of the Argument

Why the Bolt Escape Nerf was over the top and has literally made Sorcs the worst class in the game, especially PVP

Since Sorcs have no instant cast time direct damage class abilities, Sorcs are designed to be dependent on "buying time" until their Curses go off, getting a lucky roll with the RNG for a Shard proc, and being able to out maneuver their opponent since Sorcs are obviously not a melee class in the traditional sense. Instead they are kiting class that relies on tickling their opponent with Mage's Wrath, while finding synergy with Curse and Shards while being able to use Bolt Escape to buy the time needed to do this.

However the current Bolt Escape nerf doesn't make this viable unless your willing to suck tri-potions like Skooma. Even then, its very hard to do.

Lets look at this Realistically and the Real cost of Bolt Escape:

Bolt Escape costs around 392 mana to cast(give or take) Now if you cast it again within 4 seconds it costs an INSANE 588 mana(give or take) and it reduces Mana Regen by 50% for 4 seconds...if your mana regen is 137 then cut that in half = 68.5. The mana you don't get in that regen penalty MUST be included in the total cost of the skill as that is mana you don't get regened which is a flat cost in itself.

So the TRUE cost of Bolt Escape's second cast is 588 mana + 68 x4 =(272) Total Cost of the Second Bolt Escape Cast(including regen penalty) is 860 Mana (give or take)

Please tell me how it is fair that a skill i need to cast to reposition myself has a TCOC(Total Cost of Cast) at 860 mana is possibly fair or balance?

Lets take Snipe and give it a 50% cost increase and 50% stamina regen penalty every time you use it twice in a 4 second period.

Lets take Reflective Scales and do the same thing.

Lets do the same thing to Green Dragon Blood

Lets take Templar's Blazing Sheild and give it the same nerf.

The point is Bolt Escape DOES NOT EVEN KILL ANYONE! all the other skills i listed above do, yet its perfectly ok for them...yet the Sorc is crippled for using BE to reposition themselves.

Folks complained BE allowed people to run....didn't you win the fight when the person ran away? Why bother to chase...as a Sorc who sees a another Sorc BE, i don't bother chasing them, I will kill them later, no one has any patience anymore to force someone to fight on your terms. Instead, folks want to instant kill all fight up in your face with no strategy whatsoever.

I thought ESO AvA pvp was called an "Alliance War" retreat/running is a valid tactic. No one forces anyone to chase after a Sorc....and contrary to popular belief pre-nerf BE sorcs were not impossible to kill. You can string gap closers between their casts very easily to lock them down and kill them.

Ezarth commented about this in length that Critical Rush and Sheild Charge users were able to repeatedly spam those skills to lock him down and kill him and he is a former Emp....BE was counterable before this nerf.

Right now, the Sorc is the only class that is actively punished and crippled for using a class skill the entire class concept was designed around. Were the only class that has to deal with such a crippling skill....860 mana to cast a skill a 2nd time within 4 secs is not fair in any world this game takes place in.

DK get the easy nerf to Scales, it won't even effect them 99% of the time...stay stealth sometime and watch a DK...tell me how many times he reflects more then 4 projectiles before he has to recast....those instances are very rare...he usually recasts before he has reflected 4 projectiles, so that nerf changes nothing for them.

Yet Sorcs were hit with a critical blow that made us leaps and bounds weaker then other classes, and the nerfs just kept coming...Harness Magicka Nerf, etc....Sorcs do the worst damage out of all classes in PVP, and BE costs is insane and doesn't allow the skill to be used how it was intended(repositioning and offensively) because doing so costs way to much to be viable...

860 mana cost for 2nd cast...its not feasible...even with Tri-pots...so BE is used primarily to run now and must suck tri-pots most times to do it...i miss the days of being able to use Streak offensively to fight/reposition and kick someones teeth in...can't do that now...the insane costs make it impossible to do this against any other player with half a brain that knows what the block key is as most fights come down to resource management and BE in its current form makes winning a battle of resource mangement next to impossible against anyone who knows what they are doing.

Come on Zeni, you buff bows, been buffing all the stamina stuff...give us Sorcs some love...take this insane cost away from casting BE and set a 6 limit target cap on how many it can hit, reduce the Ultimate gained by targets with with BE, and us Sorcs won't hear another peep from us...we need this badly, the class is too weak otherwise...

if any other class had a skill with this kind of crippling penalty, the entire forum would be up in arms. Need proof? look no further then the Reflective Scales nerf thread, People are crying about a 4 projectile limit before recast when DK right now in 9 out of 10 cases never reflect more then 4 projectiles in a 4 sec period anyways, so this literally changes nothing for them, while Bolt Escape was beat into the dirt with a sledgehammer and buried under 2 tons of rubble.

Please Fix the class Zeni, if your not going to give us our BE back then fix our other class skills, make us viable in some other way, right now, most of our class skills suck for PVP, and in our current state, were only on par with other classes with a BE without this insane penalty, right now, Sorcs are clearly the weakest PVP class by far because of it.

To answer the question, No...you didn't win the fight when the Sorc ran away...Because what would happen is 9/10, they'd come right back when you were fighting someone else to unload on you.

OrangeTheCat · December 2014

ZOS hates NBs not sorcs.

I see sorcs BEing away from battle all the time; spamming BE. If anything, ZOS didn't nerf it enough.

RinaldoGandolphi · December 2014

This video was made back before they nerfed Bolt Escape.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5kfzJ1lNlU4

Every single class can catch, counter, and kill a BE fleeing Sorc....this was before the nerf....this video shows it and proves it....those who whined about BE simply were not good players, because I had good players use the tactics in this video to kill me while trying to flee.

BE was far from OP, and not even close to what Dk Scales, GDB, or Blazing Sheild are...not even close.

Watch the Video...its trivial to kill a BE fleeing Sorc...the video shows you how its done even before the nerf...every class can catch a BE Sorc and kill him...the proof is in the video.

the problem is no one wants to change anything on their skill bar for different situations and instead wants 1 size fits all for everything and nerf everything that don't fit with their "build"

Eglath · December 2014

Finally someone saw this issue about sorcs. As much as I agree with everything you said, your post was focused on BE mostly.

woodsro wrote: »

The Sorc Class Short comings
Mages Wrath is an execute and is useless unless the target is at 20% health or below. Rune Prison like nearly every sorc skill, has a cast time and can be interrupted, Encase costs way too much for what it does in comparison Talons.

Sorcs have almost no kiting capability, only thing that is used to keep enemies away form us is nerfed BE, the whole point of kiting is to be proactive, so to slow/stun opponent before he gets to us not after he's in melee range. Try to pull 3-4 mobs and keep them from hitting you for about 2min, that is impossible due to bad cc/slowing skills.

Besides we have almost no synergy between class skills, and weapon abilities. Only skill that actively works with weapon is crit surge, but nothing to synergize with very popular destro staff, or especially with stam builds.

That's true that we can pull some nice burst dmg, but as you said it's pure RNG, if crystal frag procs or not, yes we can cast it, but it takes time(and ESO pvp is fast-paced) and can be easily interrupted.

Another thing is survivability, it all comes from heals and shield stacking, Hardened Ward is amazing skill and works well, but we have no class heals. Crit Surge is random, with ppl wearing full impen, we don't crit that much, Blood Magic passive is a joke 130-140 heal per Crystal Frag is way too low. Dark Exchange is a decent solution but it drains stam, which is necessary, and can be interrupted while slowing your movement speed(morphed normally you need to be stationary to cast it). We need a strong, reliable heal without any consequences of using it.

You can have a nice DK or Temp build with only class skills, and you have multiple options, as a sorc all you have is those few must-have abilities, without a chance to use any other, and whatsoever we need to mostly use destro/resto staff skills to make a good build.

My idea is to completely revamp sorc, create new skill lines, and make him work like mage-archetype class in other RPGs.

Lorkhan · December 2014

woodsro wrote: »

The Sorc Class Short comings

Lets take Reflective Scales and do the same thing.

Lets do the same thing to Green Dragon Blood

Lets take Templar's Blazing Sheild and give it the same nerf.

yes!

RinaldoGandolphi · December 2014

Eglath wrote: »

Finally someone saw this issue about sorcs. As much as I agree with everything you said, your post was focused on BE mostly.

woodsro wrote: »

The Sorc Class Short comings
Mages Wrath is an execute and is useless unless the target is at 20% health or below. Rune Prison like nearly every sorc skill, has a cast time and can be interrupted, Encase costs way too much for what it does in comparison Talons.

Sorcs have almost no kiting capability, only thing that is used to keep enemies away form us is nerfed BE, the whole point of kiting is to be proactive, so to slow/stun opponent before he gets to us not after he's in melee range. Try to pull 3-4 mobs and keep them from hitting you for about 2min, that is impossible due to bad cc/slowing skills.

Besides we have almost no synergy between class skills, and weapon abilities. Only skill that actively works with weapon is crit surge, but nothing to synergize with very popular destro staff, or especially with stam builds.

That's true that we can pull some nice burst dmg, but as you said it's pure RNG, if crystal frag procs or not, yes we can cast it, but it takes time(and ESO pvp is fast-paced) and can be easily interrupted.

Another thing is survivability, it all comes from heals and shield stacking, Hardened Ward is amazing skill and works well, but we have no class heals. Crit Surge is random, with ppl wearing full impen, we don't crit that much, Blood Magic passive is a joke 130-140 heal per Crystal Frag is way too low. Dark Exchange is a decent solution but it drains stam, which is necessary, and can be interrupted while slowing your movement speed(morphed normally you need to be stationary to cast it). We need a strong, reliable heal without any consequences of using it.

You can have a nice DK or Temp build with only class skills, and you have multiple options, as a sorc all you have is those few must-have abilities, without a chance to use any other, and whatsoever we need to mostly use destro/resto staff skills to make a good build.

My idea is to completely revamp sorc, create new skill lines, and make him work like mage-archetype class in other RPGs.

I agree, thats why is Zeni isn't going to change the Sorc skills then he needs BE the way it was or else its not really viable..the Sorc has no self heal, he needs BE to work the way it did to keep distance and be able to fight...it all comes down to resource management and BE insane cost makes that not an option and forces an already squishy class to be even easier to kill. They either need to revamp the skill line, or take the BE nerf away, as it stand right now, were too weak across the board.

Leovolao · December 2014

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

woodsro wrote: »

The Sorc Class Short comings

We have no Direct Damage Instant Cast Class Skills. Were the only class gimped this way. This is why you see so many Sorcs using staffs. We also have the Summoned Pets that are completely useless in PVP. Crystal Shards is a roll of the RNG by using other skills(staff skills) to get an instant cast.

Mages Wrath is an execute and is useless unless the target is at 20% health or below. Rune Prison like nearly every sorc skill, has a cast time and can be interrupted, Encase costs way too much for what it does in comparison Talons. Surge is not useless, but it doesn't fot all builds either and don't make sense unless your using weapon based skills in liue of class skills, and in trials and dungeons you are using staff skills because Shards is a DPS loss and the rest of our class skills don't exactly kill very fast.

Negate is our only real game changing Ultimate but it isn't cheap and is situational...if it wasn't for Negate, Sorcs wouldn't even be asked to do any trials or dungeons.

Now we get to the Crux of the Argument

Why the Bolt Escape Nerf was over the top and has literally made Sorcs the worst class in the game, especially PVP

Since Sorcs have no instant cast time direct damage class abilities, Sorcs are designed to be dependent on "buying time" until their Curses go off, getting a lucky roll with the RNG for a Shard proc, and being able to out maneuver their opponent since Sorcs are obviously not a melee class in the traditional sense. Instead they are kiting class that relies on tickling their opponent with Mage's Wrath, while finding synergy with Curse and Shards while being able to use Bolt Escape to buy the time needed to do this.

However the current Bolt Escape nerf doesn't make this viable unless your willing to suck tri-potions like Skooma. Even then, its very hard to do.

Lets look at this Realistically and the Real cost of Bolt Escape:

Bolt Escape costs around 392 mana to cast(give or take) Now if you cast it again within 4 seconds it costs an INSANE 588 mana(give or take) and it reduces Mana Regen by 50% for 4 seconds...if your mana regen is 137 then cut that in half = 68.5. The mana you don't get in that regen penalty MUST be included in the total cost of the skill as that is mana you don't get regened which is a flat cost in itself.

So the TRUE cost of Bolt Escape's second cast is 588 mana + 68 x4 =(272) Total Cost of the Second Bolt Escape Cast(including regen penalty) is 860 Mana (give or take)

Please tell me how it is fair that a skill i need to cast to reposition myself has a TCOC(Total Cost of Cast) at 860 mana is possibly fair or balance?

Lets take Snipe and give it a 50% cost increase and 50% stamina regen penalty every time you use it twice in a 4 second period.

Lets take Reflective Scales and do the same thing.

Lets do the same thing to Green Dragon Blood

Lets take Templar's Blazing Sheild and give it the same nerf.

The point is Bolt Escape DOES NOT EVEN KILL ANYONE! all the other skills i listed above do, yet its perfectly ok for them...yet the Sorc is crippled for using BE to reposition themselves.

Folks complained BE allowed people to run....didn't you win the fight when the person ran away? Why bother to chase...as a Sorc who sees a another Sorc BE, i don't bother chasing them, I will kill them later, no one has any patience anymore to force someone to fight on your terms. Instead, folks want to instant kill all fight up in your face with no strategy whatsoever.

I thought ESO AvA pvp was called an "Alliance War" retreat/running is a valid tactic. No one forces anyone to chase after a Sorc....and contrary to popular belief pre-nerf BE sorcs were not impossible to kill. You can string gap closers between their casts very easily to lock them down and kill them.

Ezarth commented about this in length that Critical Rush and Sheild Charge users were able to repeatedly spam those skills to lock him down and kill him and he is a former Emp....BE was counterable before this nerf.

Right now, the Sorc is the only class that is actively punished and crippled for using a class skill the entire class concept was designed around. Were the only class that has to deal with such a crippling skill....860 mana to cast a skill a 2nd time within 4 secs is not fair in any world this game takes place in.

DK get the easy nerf to Scales, it won't even effect them 99% of the time...stay stealth sometime and watch a DK...tell me how many times he reflects more then 4 projectiles before he has to recast....those instances are very rare...he usually recasts before he has reflected 4 projectiles, so that nerf changes nothing for them.

Yet Sorcs were hit with a critical blow that made us leaps and bounds weaker then other classes, and the nerfs just kept coming...Harness Magicka Nerf, etc....Sorcs do the worst damage out of all classes in PVP, and BE costs is insane and doesn't allow the skill to be used how it was intended(repositioning and offensively) because doing so costs way to much to be viable...

860 mana cost for 2nd cast...its not feasible...even with Tri-pots...so BE is used primarily to run now and must suck tri-pots most times to do it...i miss the days of being able to use Streak offensively to fight/reposition and kick someones teeth in...can't do that now...the insane costs make it impossible to do this against any other player with half a brain that knows what the block key is as most fights come down to resource management and BE in its current form makes winning a battle of resource mangement next to impossible against anyone who knows what they are doing.

Come on Zeni, you buff bows, been buffing all the stamina stuff...give us Sorcs some love...take this insane cost away from casting BE and set a 6 limit target cap on how many it can hit, reduce the Ultimate gained by targets with with BE, and us Sorcs won't hear another peep from us...we need this badly, the class is too weak otherwise...

if any other class had a skill with this kind of crippling penalty, the entire forum would be up in arms. Need proof? look no further then the Reflective Scales nerf thread, People are crying about a 4 projectile limit before recast when DK right now in 9 out of 10 cases never reflect more then 4 projectiles in a 4 sec period anyways, so this literally changes nothing for them, while Bolt Escape was beat into the dirt with a sledgehammer and buried under 2 tons of rubble.

Please Fix the class Zeni, if your not going to give us our BE back then fix our other class skills, make us viable in some other way, right now, most of our class skills suck for PVP, and in our current state, were only on par with other classes with a BE without this insane penalty, right now, Sorcs are clearly the weakest PVP class by far because of it.

To answer the question, No...you didn't win the fight when the Sorc ran away...Because what would happen is 9/10, they'd come right back when you were fighting someone else to unload on you.

And how is this different from all the bow users lurking in the shadows, waiting for people to fight just to snipe from safety?

eliisra · December 2014

OrangeTheCat wrote: »

ZOS hates NBs not sorcs.

I see sorcs BEing away from battle all the time; spamming BE. If anything, ZOS didn't nerf it enough.

That was for sure the case in the past. But not any more. My NB is god-mode compared to my broken sorc in PvE. Superior utility, AoE, group support and way better dps. There's a reason people stack NB and DK in trials. Or why we rather do a vet pledge with a NB dps, instead of bringing sorc or templar dps.

Sorc is bottom dps together with temp
Worse tank out of all 4 classes
Worse support
Not viable as main heal because templar
Not viable as off-heal because siphoning/VoB spamming NB

I'll still agree that BE is better than Cloak in most PvP scenarios. But class balance, or class neglect, is so much more than comparing the effectiveness of 2 escape skills in PvP.

Most hated class: The one we play the most of course. There's no unbiased answer. Even main DK's will argue how ZoS hates them the most

OrangeTheCat · December 2014

eliisra wrote: »

OrangeTheCat wrote: »

ZOS hates NBs not sorcs.

I see sorcs BEing away from battle all the time; spamming BE. If anything, ZOS didn't nerf it enough.

That was for sure the case in the past. But not any more. My NB is god-mode compared to my broken sorc in PvE. Superior utility, AoE, group support and way better dps. There's a reason people stack NB and DK in trials. Or why we rather do a vet pledge with a NB dps, instead of bringing sorc or templar dps.

Sorc is bottom dps together with temp
Worse tank out of all 4 classes
Worse support
Not viable as main heal because templar
Not viable as off-heal because siphoning/VoB spamming NB

I'll still agree that BE is better than Cloak in most PvP scenarios. But class balance, or class neglect, is so much more than comparing the effectiveness of 2 escape skills in PvP.

Most hated class: The one we play the most of course. There's no unbiased answer. Even main DK's will argue how ZoS hates them the most

My comment was in the context of PvP, not PvE. Sorry for any confusion.

I agree, in PvE NBs are amazing. In pvp, the two things we do well (crit and stealth) can be (and routinely are) easily nullified by any class.

RinaldoGandolphi · December 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJu1KLm-VR0

I also notice the LOL's on my post and my video post of how to counter BE.

Here is a video of Ezareth(whom greatly influenced my fighting style) the infamous AD Emperor of Haderus using BE, well Ball of Lighting to be exact, to tactically elude, reposition, and kill his opponents.

What he is doing in this video is exactly what folks whined about that lead to BE being nerfed, when in reality Ezarth flat out tactically outplayed his opponents an lulled them into fighting him on his terms where he melted their faces. Outside of tons of tri-pots at 10-12k a stack, doing this now is extremely hard if not impossible.

How Ezareth is playing the Sorc is how the class is supposed to be played, tactically eluding your opponent and keeping fights at a distance where you can kill them because Sorcs in the traditional sense are not meant for melee combat.

A traditional Sorc in melee combat with a DK is a Sorc that won't live very long. The Sorc needs a resource management viable version of BE. I would even go as far as removing the mana regen penalty and just slighting increasing the base cost.

BE costs too much now to maintain an offensive on your opponent while trying to reposition(which is what the skill was intended to do) so now Sorcs only use BE to run because its almost impossible to maintain an offensive while using it because of the prohibitive cost, and not everyone has 10-12k to spend per day on tri-pots in order to make it semi-viable.

OrangeTheCat · December 2014

woodsro wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJu1KLm-VR0

I also notice the LOL's on my post and my video post of how to counter BE.

Here is a video of Ezareth(whom greatly influenced my fighting style) the infamous AD Emperor of Haderus using BE, well Ball of Lighting to be exact, to tactically elude, reposition, and kill his opponents.

What he is doing in this video is exactly what folks whined about that lead to BE being nerfed, when in reality Ezarth flat out tactically outplayed his opponents an lulled them into fighting him on his terms where he melted their faces. Outside of tons of tri-pots at 10-12k a stack, doing this now is extremely hard if not impossible.

How Ezareth is playing the Sorc is how the class is supposed to be played, tactically eluding your opponent and keeping fights at a distance where you can kill them because Sorcs in the traditional sense are not meant for melee combat.

A traditional Sorc in melee combat with a DK is a Sorc that won't live very long. The Sorc needs a resource management viable version of BE. I would even go as far as removing the mana regen penalty and just slighting increasing the base cost.

BE costs too much now to maintain an offensive on your opponent while trying to reposition(which is what the skill was intended to do) so now Sorcs only use BE to run because its almost impossible to maintain an offensive while using it because of the prohibitive cost, and not everyone has 10-12k to spend per day on tri-pots in order to make it semi-viable.

I agree that this is how it should be. But I still see lots of sorcs in pvp who can still spam BE and who are making a bee line away from danger. I think that is what people "whine" about, not what you describe.

Nicko_Lps · December 2014

I dont know what to say really on this topic besides Yes youre right sorcs are crap on pve and pvp but not on a pvp duel.
Bolt escape if it was still at a low cost sorcs would be unkillable in duels at least deom melee range players.
I really hope sorcs dps will be fixed because its so low compaired to dk or nb.

I dont have a sorc but i have a nightblade and dk. even a blind man can tell sorcs need a fix.

themizario · December 2014

Useless thread... title implies ZOS decided that Sorcs would be singled out and hated on versus all other classes.

OP probably feels entitled in life. The world owes OP something.

Just zip it and L2P or reroll

Xsorus · December 2014

Leovolao wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

woodsro wrote: »

The Sorc Class Short comings

We have no Direct Damage Instant Cast Class Skills. Were the only class gimped this way. This is why you see so many Sorcs using staffs. We also have the Summoned Pets that are completely useless in PVP. Crystal Shards is a roll of the RNG by using other skills(staff skills) to get an instant cast.

Mages Wrath is an execute and is useless unless the target is at 20% health or below. Rune Prison like nearly every sorc skill, has a cast time and can be interrupted, Encase costs way too much for what it does in comparison Talons. Surge is not useless, but it doesn't fot all builds either and don't make sense unless your using weapon based skills in liue of class skills, and in trials and dungeons you are using staff skills because Shards is a DPS loss and the rest of our class skills don't exactly kill very fast.

Negate is our only real game changing Ultimate but it isn't cheap and is situational...if it wasn't for Negate, Sorcs wouldn't even be asked to do any trials or dungeons.

Now we get to the Crux of the Argument

Why the Bolt Escape Nerf was over the top and has literally made Sorcs the worst class in the game, especially PVP

Since Sorcs have no instant cast time direct damage class abilities, Sorcs are designed to be dependent on "buying time" until their Curses go off, getting a lucky roll with the RNG for a Shard proc, and being able to out maneuver their opponent since Sorcs are obviously not a melee class in the traditional sense. Instead they are kiting class that relies on tickling their opponent with Mage's Wrath, while finding synergy with Curse and Shards while being able to use Bolt Escape to buy the time needed to do this.

However the current Bolt Escape nerf doesn't make this viable unless your willing to suck tri-potions like Skooma. Even then, its very hard to do.

Lets look at this Realistically and the Real cost of Bolt Escape:

Bolt Escape costs around 392 mana to cast(give or take) Now if you cast it again within 4 seconds it costs an INSANE 588 mana(give or take) and it reduces Mana Regen by 50% for 4 seconds...if your mana regen is 137 then cut that in half = 68.5. The mana you don't get in that regen penalty MUST be included in the total cost of the skill as that is mana you don't get regened which is a flat cost in itself.

So the TRUE cost of Bolt Escape's second cast is 588 mana + 68 x4 =(272) Total Cost of the Second Bolt Escape Cast(including regen penalty) is 860 Mana (give or take)

Please tell me how it is fair that a skill i need to cast to reposition myself has a TCOC(Total Cost of Cast) at 860 mana is possibly fair or balance?

Lets take Snipe and give it a 50% cost increase and 50% stamina regen penalty every time you use it twice in a 4 second period.

Lets take Reflective Scales and do the same thing.

Lets do the same thing to Green Dragon Blood

Lets take Templar's Blazing Sheild and give it the same nerf.

The point is Bolt Escape DOES NOT EVEN KILL ANYONE! all the other skills i listed above do, yet its perfectly ok for them...yet the Sorc is crippled for using BE to reposition themselves.

Folks complained BE allowed people to run....didn't you win the fight when the person ran away? Why bother to chase...as a Sorc who sees a another Sorc BE, i don't bother chasing them, I will kill them later, no one has any patience anymore to force someone to fight on your terms. Instead, folks want to instant kill all fight up in your face with no strategy whatsoever.

I thought ESO AvA pvp was called an "Alliance War" retreat/running is a valid tactic. No one forces anyone to chase after a Sorc....and contrary to popular belief pre-nerf BE sorcs were not impossible to kill. You can string gap closers between their casts very easily to lock them down and kill them.

Ezarth commented about this in length that Critical Rush and Sheild Charge users were able to repeatedly spam those skills to lock him down and kill him and he is a former Emp....BE was counterable before this nerf.

Right now, the Sorc is the only class that is actively punished and crippled for using a class skill the entire class concept was designed around. Were the only class that has to deal with such a crippling skill....860 mana to cast a skill a 2nd time within 4 secs is not fair in any world this game takes place in.

DK get the easy nerf to Scales, it won't even effect them 99% of the time...stay stealth sometime and watch a DK...tell me how many times he reflects more then 4 projectiles before he has to recast....those instances are very rare...he usually recasts before he has reflected 4 projectiles, so that nerf changes nothing for them.

Yet Sorcs were hit with a critical blow that made us leaps and bounds weaker then other classes, and the nerfs just kept coming...Harness Magicka Nerf, etc....Sorcs do the worst damage out of all classes in PVP, and BE costs is insane and doesn't allow the skill to be used how it was intended(repositioning and offensively) because doing so costs way to much to be viable...

860 mana cost for 2nd cast...its not feasible...even with Tri-pots...so BE is used primarily to run now and must suck tri-pots most times to do it...i miss the days of being able to use Streak offensively to fight/reposition and kick someones teeth in...can't do that now...the insane costs make it impossible to do this against any other player with half a brain that knows what the block key is as most fights come down to resource management and BE in its current form makes winning a battle of resource mangement next to impossible against anyone who knows what they are doing.

Come on Zeni, you buff bows, been buffing all the stamina stuff...give us Sorcs some love...take this insane cost away from casting BE and set a 6 limit target cap on how many it can hit, reduce the Ultimate gained by targets with with BE, and us Sorcs won't hear another peep from us...we need this badly, the class is too weak otherwise...

if any other class had a skill with this kind of crippling penalty, the entire forum would be up in arms. Need proof? look no further then the Reflective Scales nerf thread, People are crying about a 4 projectile limit before recast when DK right now in 9 out of 10 cases never reflect more then 4 projectiles in a 4 sec period anyways, so this literally changes nothing for them, while Bolt Escape was beat into the dirt with a sledgehammer and buried under 2 tons of rubble.

Please Fix the class Zeni, if your not going to give us our BE back then fix our other class skills, make us viable in some other way, right now, most of our class skills suck for PVP, and in our current state, were only on par with other classes with a BE without this insane penalty, right now, Sorcs are clearly the weakest PVP class by far because of it.

To answer the question, No...you didn't win the fight when the Sorc ran away...Because what would happen is 9/10, they'd come right back when you were fighting someone else to unload on you.

And how is this different from all the bow users lurking in the shadows, waiting for people to fight just to snipe from safety?

Because its not the same thing as being in a fight with a Sorc who can run away at will and come back when numbers suit him.

Pretty much once that Archer is in the fight, he's in the fight, Meanwhile the sorc can just run away at any given point in a fight.

Derra · December 2014

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Leovolao wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

woodsro wrote: »

The Sorc Class Short comings

We have no Direct Damage Instant Cast Class Skills. Were the only class gimped this way. This is why you see so many Sorcs using staffs. We also have the Summoned Pets that are completely useless in PVP. Crystal Shards is a roll of the RNG by using other skills(staff skills) to get an instant cast.

Mages Wrath is an execute and is useless unless the target is at 20% health or below. Rune Prison like nearly every sorc skill, has a cast time and can be interrupted, Encase costs way too much for what it does in comparison Talons. Surge is not useless, but it doesn't fot all builds either and don't make sense unless your using weapon based skills in liue of class skills, and in trials and dungeons you are using staff skills because Shards is a DPS loss and the rest of our class skills don't exactly kill very fast.

Negate is our only real game changing Ultimate but it isn't cheap and is situational...if it wasn't for Negate, Sorcs wouldn't even be asked to do any trials or dungeons.

Now we get to the Crux of the Argument

Why the Bolt Escape Nerf was over the top and has literally made Sorcs the worst class in the game, especially PVP

Since Sorcs have no instant cast time direct damage class abilities, Sorcs are designed to be dependent on "buying time" until their Curses go off, getting a lucky roll with the RNG for a Shard proc, and being able to out maneuver their opponent since Sorcs are obviously not a melee class in the traditional sense. Instead they are kiting class that relies on tickling their opponent with Mage's Wrath, while finding synergy with Curse and Shards while being able to use Bolt Escape to buy the time needed to do this.

However the current Bolt Escape nerf doesn't make this viable unless your willing to suck tri-potions like Skooma. Even then, its very hard to do.

Lets look at this Realistically and the Real cost of Bolt Escape:

Bolt Escape costs around 392 mana to cast(give or take) Now if you cast it again within 4 seconds it costs an INSANE 588 mana(give or take) and it reduces Mana Regen by 50% for 4 seconds...if your mana regen is 137 then cut that in half = 68.5. The mana you don't get in that regen penalty MUST be included in the total cost of the skill as that is mana you don't get regened which is a flat cost in itself.

So the TRUE cost of Bolt Escape's second cast is 588 mana + 68 x4 =(272) Total Cost of the Second Bolt Escape Cast(including regen penalty) is 860 Mana (give or take)

Please tell me how it is fair that a skill i need to cast to reposition myself has a TCOC(Total Cost of Cast) at 860 mana is possibly fair or balance?

Lets take Snipe and give it a 50% cost increase and 50% stamina regen penalty every time you use it twice in a 4 second period.

Lets take Reflective Scales and do the same thing.

Lets do the same thing to Green Dragon Blood

Lets take Templar's Blazing Sheild and give it the same nerf.

The point is Bolt Escape DOES NOT EVEN KILL ANYONE! all the other skills i listed above do, yet its perfectly ok for them...yet the Sorc is crippled for using BE to reposition themselves.

Folks complained BE allowed people to run....didn't you win the fight when the person ran away? Why bother to chase...as a Sorc who sees a another Sorc BE, i don't bother chasing them, I will kill them later, no one has any patience anymore to force someone to fight on your terms. Instead, folks want to instant kill all fight up in your face with no strategy whatsoever.

I thought ESO AvA pvp was called an "Alliance War" retreat/running is a valid tactic. No one forces anyone to chase after a Sorc....and contrary to popular belief pre-nerf BE sorcs were not impossible to kill. You can string gap closers between their casts very easily to lock them down and kill them.

Ezarth commented about this in length that Critical Rush and Sheild Charge users were able to repeatedly spam those skills to lock him down and kill him and he is a former Emp....BE was counterable before this nerf.

Right now, the Sorc is the only class that is actively punished and crippled for using a class skill the entire class concept was designed around. Were the only class that has to deal with such a crippling skill....860 mana to cast a skill a 2nd time within 4 secs is not fair in any world this game takes place in.

DK get the easy nerf to Scales, it won't even effect them 99% of the time...stay stealth sometime and watch a DK...tell me how many times he reflects more then 4 projectiles before he has to recast....those instances are very rare...he usually recasts before he has reflected 4 projectiles, so that nerf changes nothing for them.

Yet Sorcs were hit with a critical blow that made us leaps and bounds weaker then other classes, and the nerfs just kept coming...Harness Magicka Nerf, etc....Sorcs do the worst damage out of all classes in PVP, and BE costs is insane and doesn't allow the skill to be used how it was intended(repositioning and offensively) because doing so costs way to much to be viable...

860 mana cost for 2nd cast...its not feasible...even with Tri-pots...so BE is used primarily to run now and must suck tri-pots most times to do it...i miss the days of being able to use Streak offensively to fight/reposition and kick someones teeth in...can't do that now...the insane costs make it impossible to do this against any other player with half a brain that knows what the block key is as most fights come down to resource management and BE in its current form makes winning a battle of resource mangement next to impossible against anyone who knows what they are doing.

Come on Zeni, you buff bows, been buffing all the stamina stuff...give us Sorcs some love...take this insane cost away from casting BE and set a 6 limit target cap on how many it can hit, reduce the Ultimate gained by targets with with BE, and us Sorcs won't hear another peep from us...we need this badly, the class is too weak otherwise...

if any other class had a skill with this kind of crippling penalty, the entire forum would be up in arms. Need proof? look no further then the Reflective Scales nerf thread, People are crying about a 4 projectile limit before recast when DK right now in 9 out of 10 cases never reflect more then 4 projectiles in a 4 sec period anyways, so this literally changes nothing for them, while Bolt Escape was beat into the dirt with a sledgehammer and buried under 2 tons of rubble.

Please Fix the class Zeni, if your not going to give us our BE back then fix our other class skills, make us viable in some other way, right now, most of our class skills suck for PVP, and in our current state, were only on par with other classes with a BE without this insane penalty, right now, Sorcs are clearly the weakest PVP class by far because of it.

To answer the question, No...you didn't win the fight when the Sorc ran away...Because what would happen is 9/10, they'd come right back when you were fighting someone else to unload on you.

And how is this different from all the bow users lurking in the shadows, waiting for people to fight just to snipe from safety?

Because its not the same thing as being in a fight with a Sorc who can run away at will and come back when numbers suit him.

Pretty much once that Archer is in the fight, he's in the fight, Meanwhile the sorc can just run away at any given point in a fight.

I want to see that archer actually committing to a fight and not run away the second he is spotted.

Edit: From my experience your discribed sorc behavior is EXACTLY what archers (mainly NBs) do. With the difference that a bow offers some real burst killing power whereas a sorcs dmg is rng based fluff.

Columba · December 2014

Derra wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Leovolao wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

woodsro wrote: »

The Sorc Class Short comings

We have no Direct Damage Instant Cast Class Skills. Were the only class gimped this way. This is why you see so many Sorcs using staffs. We also have the Summoned Pets that are completely useless in PVP. Crystal Shards is a roll of the RNG by using other skills(staff skills) to get an instant cast.

Mages Wrath is an execute and is useless unless the target is at 20% health or below. Rune Prison like nearly every sorc skill, has a cast time and can be interrupted, Encase costs way too much for what it does in comparison Talons. Surge is not useless, but it doesn't fot all builds either and don't make sense unless your using weapon based skills in liue of class skills, and in trials and dungeons you are using staff skills because Shards is a DPS loss and the rest of our class skills don't exactly kill very fast.

Negate is our only real game changing Ultimate but it isn't cheap and is situational...if it wasn't for Negate, Sorcs wouldn't even be asked to do any trials or dungeons.

Now we get to the Crux of the Argument

Why the Bolt Escape Nerf was over the top and has literally made Sorcs the worst class in the game, especially PVP

Since Sorcs have no instant cast time direct damage class abilities, Sorcs are designed to be dependent on "buying time" until their Curses go off, getting a lucky roll with the RNG for a Shard proc, and being able to out maneuver their opponent since Sorcs are obviously not a melee class in the traditional sense. Instead they are kiting class that relies on tickling their opponent with Mage's Wrath, while finding synergy with Curse and Shards while being able to use Bolt Escape to buy the time needed to do this.

However the current Bolt Escape nerf doesn't make this viable unless your willing to suck tri-potions like Skooma. Even then, its very hard to do.

Lets look at this Realistically and the Real cost of Bolt Escape:

Bolt Escape costs around 392 mana to cast(give or take) Now if you cast it again within 4 seconds it costs an INSANE 588 mana(give or take) and it reduces Mana Regen by 50% for 4 seconds...if your mana regen is 137 then cut that in half = 68.5. The mana you don't get in that regen penalty MUST be included in the total cost of the skill as that is mana you don't get regened which is a flat cost in itself.

So the TRUE cost of Bolt Escape's second cast is 588 mana + 68 x4 =(272) Total Cost of the Second Bolt Escape Cast(including regen penalty) is 860 Mana (give or take)

Please tell me how it is fair that a skill i need to cast to reposition myself has a TCOC(Total Cost of Cast) at 860 mana is possibly fair or balance?

Lets take Snipe and give it a 50% cost increase and 50% stamina regen penalty every time you use it twice in a 4 second period.

Lets take Reflective Scales and do the same thing.

Lets do the same thing to Green Dragon Blood

Lets take Templar's Blazing Sheild and give it the same nerf.

The point is Bolt Escape DOES NOT EVEN KILL ANYONE! all the other skills i listed above do, yet its perfectly ok for them...yet the Sorc is crippled for using BE to reposition themselves.

Folks complained BE allowed people to run....didn't you win the fight when the person ran away? Why bother to chase...as a Sorc who sees a another Sorc BE, i don't bother chasing them, I will kill them later, no one has any patience anymore to force someone to fight on your terms. Instead, folks want to instant kill all fight up in your face with no strategy whatsoever.

I thought ESO AvA pvp was called an "Alliance War" retreat/running is a valid tactic. No one forces anyone to chase after a Sorc....and contrary to popular belief pre-nerf BE sorcs were not impossible to kill. You can string gap closers between their casts very easily to lock them down and kill them.

Ezarth commented about this in length that Critical Rush and Sheild Charge users were able to repeatedly spam those skills to lock him down and kill him and he is a former Emp....BE was counterable before this nerf.

Right now, the Sorc is the only class that is actively punished and crippled for using a class skill the entire class concept was designed around. Were the only class that has to deal with such a crippling skill....860 mana to cast a skill a 2nd time within 4 secs is not fair in any world this game takes place in.

DK get the easy nerf to Scales, it won't even effect them 99% of the time...stay stealth sometime and watch a DK...tell me how many times he reflects more then 4 projectiles before he has to recast....those instances are very rare...he usually recasts before he has reflected 4 projectiles, so that nerf changes nothing for them.

Yet Sorcs were hit with a critical blow that made us leaps and bounds weaker then other classes, and the nerfs just kept coming...Harness Magicka Nerf, etc....Sorcs do the worst damage out of all classes in PVP, and BE costs is insane and doesn't allow the skill to be used how it was intended(repositioning and offensively) because doing so costs way to much to be viable...

860 mana cost for 2nd cast...its not feasible...even with Tri-pots...so BE is used primarily to run now and must suck tri-pots most times to do it...i miss the days of being able to use Streak offensively to fight/reposition and kick someones teeth in...can't do that now...the insane costs make it impossible to do this against any other player with half a brain that knows what the block key is as most fights come down to resource management and BE in its current form makes winning a battle of resource mangement next to impossible against anyone who knows what they are doing.

Come on Zeni, you buff bows, been buffing all the stamina stuff...give us Sorcs some love...take this insane cost away from casting BE and set a 6 limit target cap on how many it can hit, reduce the Ultimate gained by targets with with BE, and us Sorcs won't hear another peep from us...we need this badly, the class is too weak otherwise...

if any other class had a skill with this kind of crippling penalty, the entire forum would be up in arms. Need proof? look no further then the Reflective Scales nerf thread, People are crying about a 4 projectile limit before recast when DK right now in 9 out of 10 cases never reflect more then 4 projectiles in a 4 sec period anyways, so this literally changes nothing for them, while Bolt Escape was beat into the dirt with a sledgehammer and buried under 2 tons of rubble.

Please Fix the class Zeni, if your not going to give us our BE back then fix our other class skills, make us viable in some other way, right now, most of our class skills suck for PVP, and in our current state, were only on par with other classes with a BE without this insane penalty, right now, Sorcs are clearly the weakest PVP class by far because of it.

To answer the question, No...you didn't win the fight when the Sorc ran away...Because what would happen is 9/10, they'd come right back when you were fighting someone else to unload on you.

And how is this different from all the bow users lurking in the shadows, waiting for people to fight just to snipe from safety?

Because its not the same thing as being in a fight with a Sorc who can run away at will and come back when numbers suit him.

Pretty much once that Archer is in the fight, he's in the fight, Meanwhile the sorc can just run away at any given point in a fight.

I want to see that archer actually committing to a fight and not run away the second he is spotted.

Edit: From my experience your discribed sorc behavior is EXACTLY what archers (mainly NBs) do. With the difference that a bow offers some real burst killing power whereas a sorcs dmg is rng based fluff.

NBs can't zip away. Here's a hint - see stealth pots or Mage light. They do wonders.

Reverb · December 2014

I see a lot of sorc vs. archer in the last few comments. I don't think it's a fair comparison. Archer is a role, anybody can play it and get the benefits and restrictions of their class.

And I swear at sorcs all the time when they BE away before I can get a kill. But I don't hold against them that they can. I do the same (albeit less effectively) with path of darkness on my nb.

Nijjion · December 2014

Xiphyla wrote: »

[...]

BE is still a great skill and one of the best because of ESO's no cooldowns. No need to buff it or nerf it. Sorcs nowadays have a 50/50 get away rate in my experience when it was more like 90% before. At least they fixed the stun on BE which went through block near release of the game.

Having mobility such as sorcs have is really good in RvR type games... especially when other classes don't have as such.

[Moderator Note: Removed moderated quote and response]

SRIBES · December 2014

So you want bolt escape to be un-nerfed? Lol sorc needs some buffs yes like a DoT or instant cast ability, I agree bs was nerfed in wrong way but being able to port forever was not fun for anyone but sorcs.

Asgari · December 2014

AsweetRoll wrote: »

So you want bolt escape to be un-nerfed? Lol sorc needs some buffs yes like a DoT or instant cast ability, I agree bs was nerfed in wrong way but being able to port forever was not fun for anyone but sorcs.

I have to agree. BE was pretty op with how many times i could streak in the past. I can still do it an absurd amount of times as it is now. I have no gripe with how BE is except the "fix" that put a cap on targets it could hit.

Just like i have an issue with RS having a cap on projectiles it can reflect. Id rather see a cost change over time much like BE got.

Derra · December 2014

Columba wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Leovolao wrote: »

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

woodsro wrote: »

The Sorc Class Short comings

We have no Direct Damage Instant Cast Class Skills. Were the only class gimped this way. This is why you see so many Sorcs using staffs. We also have the Summoned Pets that are completely useless in PVP. Crystal Shards is a roll of the RNG by using other skills(staff skills) to get an instant cast.

Mages Wrath is an execute and is useless unless the target is at 20% health or below. Rune Prison like nearly every sorc skill, has a cast time and can be interrupted, Encase costs way too much for what it does in comparison Talons. Surge is not useless, but it doesn't fot all builds either and don't make sense unless your using weapon based skills in liue of class skills, and in trials and dungeons you are using staff skills because Shards is a DPS loss and the rest of our class skills don't exactly kill very fast.

Negate is our only real game changing Ultimate but it isn't cheap and is situational...if it wasn't for Negate, Sorcs wouldn't even be asked to do any trials or dungeons.

Now we get to the Crux of the Argument

Why the Bolt Escape Nerf was over the top and has literally made Sorcs the worst class in the game, especially PVP

Since Sorcs have no instant cast time direct damage class abilities, Sorcs are designed to be dependent on "buying time" until their Curses go off, getting a lucky roll with the RNG for a Shard proc, and being able to out maneuver their opponent since Sorcs are obviously not a melee class in the traditional sense. Instead they are kiting class that relies on tickling their opponent with Mage's Wrath, while finding synergy with Curse and Shards while being able to use Bolt Escape to buy the time needed to do this.

However the current Bolt Escape nerf doesn't make this viable unless your willing to suck tri-potions like Skooma. Even then, its very hard to do.

Lets look at this Realistically and the Real cost of Bolt Escape:

Bolt Escape costs around 392 mana to cast(give or take) Now if you cast it again within 4 seconds it costs an INSANE 588 mana(give or take) and it reduces Mana Regen by 50% for 4 seconds...if your mana regen is 137 then cut that in half = 68.5. The mana you don't get in that regen penalty MUST be included in the total cost of the skill as that is mana you don't get regened which is a flat cost in itself.

So the TRUE cost of Bolt Escape's second cast is 588 mana + 68 x4 =(272) Total Cost of the Second Bolt Escape Cast(including regen penalty) is 860 Mana (give or take)

Please tell me how it is fair that a skill i need to cast to reposition myself has a TCOC(Total Cost of Cast) at 860 mana is possibly fair or balance?

Lets take Snipe and give it a 50% cost increase and 50% stamina regen penalty every time you use it twice in a 4 second period.

Lets take Reflective Scales and do the same thing.

Lets do the same thing to Green Dragon Blood

Lets take Templar's Blazing Sheild and give it the same nerf.

The point is Bolt Escape DOES NOT EVEN KILL ANYONE! all the other skills i listed above do, yet its perfectly ok for them...yet the Sorc is crippled for using BE to reposition themselves.

Folks complained BE allowed people to run....didn't you win the fight when the person ran away? Why bother to chase...as a Sorc who sees a another Sorc BE, i don't bother chasing them, I will kill them later, no one has any patience anymore to force someone to fight on your terms. Instead, folks want to instant kill all fight up in your face with no strategy whatsoever.

I thought ESO AvA pvp was called an "Alliance War" retreat/running is a valid tactic. No one forces anyone to chase after a Sorc....and contrary to popular belief pre-nerf BE sorcs were not impossible to kill. You can string gap closers between their casts very easily to lock them down and kill them.

Ezarth commented about this in length that Critical Rush and Sheild Charge users were able to repeatedly spam those skills to lock him down and kill him and he is a former Emp....BE was counterable before this nerf.

Right now, the Sorc is the only class that is actively punished and crippled for using a class skill the entire class concept was designed around. Were the only class that has to deal with such a crippling skill....860 mana to cast a skill a 2nd time within 4 secs is not fair in any world this game takes place in.

DK get the easy nerf to Scales, it won't even effect them 99% of the time...stay stealth sometime and watch a DK...tell me how many times he reflects more then 4 projectiles before he has to recast....those instances are very rare...he usually recasts before he has reflected 4 projectiles, so that nerf changes nothing for them.

Yet Sorcs were hit with a critical blow that made us leaps and bounds weaker then other classes, and the nerfs just kept coming...Harness Magicka Nerf, etc....Sorcs do the worst damage out of all classes in PVP, and BE costs is insane and doesn't allow the skill to be used how it was intended(repositioning and offensively) because doing so costs way to much to be viable...

860 mana cost for 2nd cast...its not feasible...even with Tri-pots...so BE is used primarily to run now and must suck tri-pots most times to do it...i miss the days of being able to use Streak offensively to fight/reposition and kick someones teeth in...can't do that now...the insane costs make it impossible to do this against any other player with half a brain that knows what the block key is as most fights come down to resource management and BE in its current form makes winning a battle of resource mangement next to impossible against anyone who knows what they are doing.

Come on Zeni, you buff bows, been buffing all the stamina stuff...give us Sorcs some love...take this insane cost away from casting BE and set a 6 limit target cap on how many it can hit, reduce the Ultimate gained by targets with with BE, and us Sorcs won't hear another peep from us...we need this badly, the class is too weak otherwise...

if any other class had a skill with this kind of crippling penalty, the entire forum would be up in arms. Need proof? look no further then the Reflective Scales nerf thread, People are crying about a 4 projectile limit before recast when DK right now in 9 out of 10 cases never reflect more then 4 projectiles in a 4 sec period anyways, so this literally changes nothing for them, while Bolt Escape was beat into the dirt with a sledgehammer and buried under 2 tons of rubble.

Please Fix the class Zeni, if your not going to give us our BE back then fix our other class skills, make us viable in some other way, right now, most of our class skills suck for PVP, and in our current state, were only on par with other classes with a BE without this insane penalty, right now, Sorcs are clearly the weakest PVP class by far because of it.

To answer the question, No...you didn't win the fight when the Sorc ran away...Because what would happen is 9/10, they'd come right back when you were fighting someone else to unload on you.

And how is this different from all the bow users lurking in the shadows, waiting for people to fight just to snipe from safety?

Because its not the same thing as being in a fight with a Sorc who can run away at will and come back when numbers suit him.

Pretty much once that Archer is in the fight, he's in the fight, Meanwhile the sorc can just run away at any given point in a fight.

I want to see that archer actually committing to a fight and not run away the second he is spotted.

Edit: From my experience your discribed sorc behavior is EXACTLY what archers (mainly NBs) do. With the difference that a bow offers some real burst killing power whereas a sorcs dmg is rng based fluff.

NBs can't zip away. Here's a hint - see stealth pots or Mage light. They do wonders.

Thx. I have been such an idiot not thinking of these

. Any NB dying to a single person popping a stealth detect pot especially in the forementioned situation where the bowman waits till numbers are in his favor probably deserves to die.

No templar or dk player will catch a competent Bow-NB that adds a fight.

But if where going your route of arguments the whole bolt escape nerf was a farce, ppl had charges all available to them. In theory they hardcounter bolt escape.
Yay for arguments that have no connection to reality.

Edit: I personally don´t want bolt escape unnerfed. I´d like a modification for streak though that the cost does not get increased when you hit an enemy with it.
Sorc had a decent instant DD. It just got gutted in the process of nerfing its other use.

Columba · December 2014

So is your argument that an archer adding to other players killing one player is imbalanced? Isn't that true of all skill lines? A healer adding to fights to roll over a solo player isn't much different. Again, archers aren't invulnerable. All classes and skill lines are capable of getting to them.

RinaldoGandolphi · December 2014

Nijjion wrote: »

Xiphyla wrote: »

[...]

BE is still a great skill and one of the best because of ESO's no cooldowns. No need to buff it or nerf it. Sorcs nowadays have a 50/50 get away rate in my experience when it was more like 90% before. At least they fixed the stun on BE which went through block near release of the game.

Having mobility such as sorcs have is really good in RvR type games... especially when other classes don't have as such.

Total Cost of the Second Bolt Escape Cast(including regen penalty) is 860 Mana (give or take)

Let that cost sink into your head...does any other class have a skill that costs that much to use on the second cast?(The mana lost from the regen penalty must be counted as part of the cost of the spell because it is a cost)

Many folks act like BE teleports a Sorc 5 miles ...its sad really...its not my fault many of you made a tank class....tank classes give up mobility, you shouldn't be able to kill a Sorc if he runs, ...you want to catch me? go mobility then, a Medium Armor Archer with Dodge Roll can keep pace with me for nearly 3 blinks...which is more then enough for him to kill me...again you chose to be a warrior tank, you gave up mobility for better melee.

There is even Gear such as the Air Set that has a speed bonus that stacks with the Archer roll speed bonus that will allow you to catch a BE Sorc.

This skill was nerfed only because the DK (tank class) cried that us Sorcs wouldn't just stand there and let them talon and flame whip us to death.

Its also important to understand, DK are going to know how it feels now that Scales is being nerfed, and GDB is next on the list, that you can trust..you will soon understand what it feels like to be greatly weakend like a Sorc in its current state.

This game lacks viable tradeoffs because people QQ and whine...had BE been left alone, DK could have kept their Scales as they are now and it would be fine.

Archers with bow are a great counter to Streaking Sorcs..with the right gear and set up they can 2 shot me and i have over 3.2k health....i don't whine about it...i said Snipe maybe needs a range reduction, but i also wanted to give it 3% more damage to compensate, but the more i think about it, the more i say leave Snipe alone and allow Defensive Posture to reflect bow projectiles too.

the point is its getting to the point that every class will be literally the same...and it will be boring as all can be.

Sorcs should have no trouble running from DK
NB should have no issues killing Sorcs quickly
DK should have no issues killing NB
Templars should sit in the middle

however, no one wants any class to have any hard counters at all IE: DK counters NB, NB counters Sorc, Sorc Counters Templar, Templar counters DK

the game is going to end up bland because people cry their class can't kill this class...the DK is supposed to be the hard counter to the NB for example, so NB should avoid 1vs1 combat with them, just like i avoid 1v1 combat with NB because they are the hard counter to the Sorc class, i like the vareity that way.

however, with the BE nerf, and now the upcoming Scales nerf, this game will soon be homogenized to being absolutely boring because no one wants a class system where 1 class counters another because their build won't win in all scenarios, unlike myself who is willing to accept that Sorcs are at a disadvantage to NB, its supposed to be that way anyways.

[Moderator Note: Removed moderated quote and response]

Derra · December 2014

Columba wrote: »

So is your argument that an archer adding to other players killing one player is imbalanced? Isn't that true of all skill lines? A healer adding to fights to roll over a solo player isn't much different. Again, archers aren't invulnerable. All classes and skill lines are capable of getting to them.

Going from me: adding Archers
to you: they cant teleport away
to me: archers (mostly nb) can get away just fine
to you: stealth pots
to me: charge the sorc (yeah a little fishy i know just like stealth pots when the archer actually attacked from range)
to you: you say archers are op!

WHAT? Sry i can´t follow.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Trolling & Baiting]

ZOS_UlyssesW · December 2014

Hi there, folks.

We are actively reading all your feedback, and do encourage you to continue to share it with us. Your constructive feedback is valuable, and allows us to make improvements to our game and ensure a fun and rewarding experience for everyone.

That said, we have removed or edited a few comments in this thread that violated our Forum Code of Conduct. It is not constructive or helpful to publicly call out others and accuse them of trolling, or call them a troll, please refrain from doing so, as this is also considered trolling. If you genuinely believe someone is trolling, please report the post or thread to the ESO Team, and leave it at that. Thank you for your understanding.

RinaldoGandolphi · December 2014

themizario wrote: »

Useless thread... title implies ZOS decided that Sorcs would be singled out and hated on versus all other classes.

OP probably feels entitled in life. The world owes OP something.

Just zip it and L2P or reroll

Entitled? I'm not even going to bother with this, its a baseless statement that doesn't deserve the consideration or time. Its so far off the mark, were not even playing ball in the same state let alone ballpark.

OtarTheMad · December 2014

Sorcs are not the class they were when this game started. The bottomline is the most powerful spells a Sorc can use are not even ours exclusively because it's the Destro Staff skill line.

I would probably say that, in PvP, 3 skills are useful in Dark Magic: Crystal Fragments, Daedric Minefield (situational), Encase (situational). 2, maybe 3 skills are useful inStorm Calling: Mage's Fury, Bolt Escape (situational), Lightning Form (scrolls run only) and Daedric Summoning really has 1 maybe 2 which are Daedric Curse and Conjured Ward. Most of the other skills are sort of a waste of time to put in your bar, especially when you could put a Destro Staff skill in it, or Mages Guild or Fighters guild ability. Bottomline is Sorcs rely on the other skill lines more than any other class in the game.

I have noticed on my other characters I have a hard time picking which skills to use because so many are viable in PvP and you have more combinations you can work with. Not so much with Sorcs at the moment. Especially now that everyone wears Impen. in PvP... it killed Crit. Surge. Maybe Update 6 will change a lot of this, make it hard for people to find a weak class but until then I don't feel the love on my Sorc. Don't get me going on Sorc ultimates and players who still want Bolt Escape nerfed.

Dazin93 · December 2014

This ^^
Plus keep in mind, that is just a synopsis of the limited viable skills for a magicka based build; it's far worse for sorc stamina builds with the excessive cost of some of those skills, or that they only scale based on your magicka pool.
In terms of useful class abilities, sorcs are at the bottom of the class pool, and if you think otherwise feel free to level up and play a max level sorc for awhile.

cozmon3c_ESO · December 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXMhsaeMZ9I
Here is a video of playing near perfect as a sorc 1.5.7, yeah i do well, but i have to work way way harder to win fights compared to other classes. the average player will not have near perfect timing and positioning, not trying to boast. the current state of the class right now is really hurting them. go to cyrodiil and look around, how many sorcerers do you see, i can almost count them on my hand. i bet most quit or re-rolled to dk to be competitive. just my two cents.