PVE for Sorcs Consists of:

Crushing Shock
Critical Surge
Elemental Drain
Impulse
Inner Light
Flawless Dawnbreaker for 13% Weapon Damage passive.

Second bar, Negate, Endless Fury perhaps, and whatever else really.

Notice that, Primary damage bar consists of 1 class skill. Execute Phase consists of 1 class skill, and Negate is not even required for every group dungeon or trial, its situational. Atronach was nerfed, no longer taunts, and wasn't really that great before it lost the taunt.

Lets get to PVP now, lets see here:

Dark Magic

Rune Prison - Useless
Restraining Prison - Good Skill, but costs way to much to use.
Crystal Shard - only useful on instant cast procs, too long cast time, reflectable.
Daedric Mines - Costs way too much, nearly 468 base cost at vet 14. Doesn't do enough damage to warrant its insane high cost.
Dark Conversion- Trade stamina for health and magic, but is a channel and leaves you a sitting duck, not a viable in-combat heal.

Negate - The best Sorc ultimate, honestly its the only reason anyone even wants a Sorc in their group.

So we have 1 (Crystal Shards), maybe 2 skills(Restraining Prison) that are useful out of the whole tree. one could argue Dark Conversion, but its only useful running away with Bolt Escape and using it to get magic back, otherwise, its useless...i wouldn't exactly call that a good skill. Encase needs a lower cost to be viable, Daedric Mines could be good, but it needs to do much more damage to be viable considering its cost.

Daedric Summon

Clannfear/Familiar - useless due to AI. The Volatile Familiar used to be useable until they nerfed the explosion damage. Im not talking about the double explosion, that was a bug, the actual explosion damage was nerfed and the Volatile Familiar is no longer viable. the Clannfear was never viable due to pathetic damage and AI issues. Not to mention you need it on both bars if you want to use it weapon swapping so in that case it costs you two skill slots too, as well as 10% of your max magic.

Velicious Curse - The only real useful skill out of this tree IMO. Too bad its cripped by the fact only 1 Curse can be active at any time...yes 1...if i cast a curse on 1 target, and you cast a curse on another target, my Curse gets cancel....this makes the skill borderline useless, but its the only skill Sorcs have that really bypass DK Scales that actually does damage above 20% health, its not much damage mind you, but its damage.

Bound Armor - Bound Armaments is Ok, but IMO its not viable...it costs 10% of your mana bar, and what you get in return isn't worth it. Your better off with Lighting Form for Armor, and the attack damage from Armaments is not enough to justify -10% of your max magic, which means the more max magic you have, the more this skill costs. at 2500 magic, this skill costs you 250 magic every second you have it turned on...thats 250 magic you can't use for spells, 250 magic that never regens. Not to mention you need it on both bars if you want to use it weapon swapping so in that case it costs you two skill slots too.

Winged Twilight - The Heal morph can be useful when it works, but it suffers from the same problems the Clannfear and Volatile Famliair have..not enough damage, -10% max magic, and 2 skill slots...it costs too much for how weak it is and it don't do enough daamge, the bad AI just is icing on the cake...skill isn't viable in pvp.

Hardened Ward- This is an OK damage shield. Its not as good as the DK Obsidian Sheild, but its better then nothing. It helps an allready squishy class at least attempt to survive and may actually do that more often then it does without it..its not a game changing skill though, its merely an average damage sheild. The Empowered Ward may be useful if they have actually buffed and fixed pets in 1.6 like the claim, but we will soon see.

Storm Atronach - Charged Atronach is useful against trash in PVE, the Greater Storm Atronach used to be a good tank until they nerfed it and removed the taunt. Its only used because we have nothing else, not because the skill is actually good.

Storm Calling-

Mages Fury - is a good execute and works well when the enemy is at 20% or less health, dodgeable, but a useful skill nonetheless. its probably on a Sorc's bar somewhere.

Lightning Form - Is useful for a speed increase if Morphed to Boundless Storm. this is more of a tank skill, i won't say it usesless for a caster class, but if your not a tank, your probably better off with Hardend Ward.

Lighting Flood - Doesn't do enough damage, and don't last long enough, makes it hard to use the Synergy. Would be a good skill if it did more damage, had a larger radius, and lasted longer.

Surge - May be the Sorc's best class skill, its useful in nearly every situation. I really don't know where the class would stand without it.

Bolt Escape - The Sorc's only saving grace in PVP. Without this skill, the class wouldn't be playable...the penalties associated with using it however can be crippling and prevent consistent offensive use of the skill. You can use it offensively sometimes with tri-pot addiction, but I wouldn't bank on it. the skill is better off used to reposition and use another skill to fight with, but sometimes the increased cost doesn't make that viable, as you almost always need 2 casts to reposition and your hit with a 50% cost increase and a 50% mana regen pentalty for 4 secs, in essence, your punished and crippled for using a skill the class was based on.

Overload - Power Overload is really the only morph option for this skill PVE or PVP. Energy Overload is useless as your mana will regen just fine while launching Overload attacks. Power Overload does way more damage, I can hit for 1.2-1.3k per Light Attack in PVP with Power Overload and straight up melt people. Its reflectable, so its use is situational, but in the situations you can use,Power Overload is very, very good. The 3rd Ability bar you get with the skill is just a bonus.

As you can see Storm Calling is by far the best line of the 3.

In PVP your looking at Mages Wrath, Bolt Escape, Crystal Shard, and Velicious Curse, and Surge as the only real viable skills....and Mages Wrath don't do poo for damage unless the target is at 20% or less health. Crystal Shard is only useful on an instant cast proc that is based on an RNG, and Velicious Curse is only used because we have nothing else, its damage is very lackluster. Bolt Escape because we have to unless we want to be a sitting duck, even though using it is a penalty. Surge because it helps staff abilities.

Sorcs are very much pigeonholed,. and the the skills we do have that are useful are much weaker then the other classes counter parts....

Take Lethal Arrow as an example compared to Crystal Shards...it has:
More Range,
Does more damage,
has less of a cast time,
ignores Armor
Has a Healing Debuff

Compared to Shards that just has a stun and an RNG chance at an instant cast that isn't really instant, has a animation cooldown that prevents one from light attack weaving with it....yup...oh did i mention Lethal Arrow also allows one to weave in a Poison Injection and a Light Attack before the Lethal Arrow even lands...while Shards is stuck with an animation cooldown that won't even let you weave?

Obsidian Shield vs Hardened Ward...i know which one I would want...Obsidian Sheild is better in every way.

then we have Encase vs Talons....Talons costs much less, and even has a synergy....Sorcs get saddled with 2 lesser versions of DK skills, the DK versions of both of those skills are better, and cost less.

Right now, Sorcs very much are the un-wanted chidren of ESO. We get saddled with weaker versions of other skills, the few skills we did have that were good were nerfed to death. The class now has no reddeming qualities.

Our Damage sucks. BE costs too much and in turn is easily countered by gap closers. Due to this, an already squishy class is easier to kill. DK's get a 4 reflect limit to scales...they can still spam it...BE users get penalized with mana regen and cost increases for using ours...like thats relaly fair or makes sense considering DK do way more damage then Sorcs do.

Im leveling a Templar build right now that feels way stronger then my Sorc ever was...i destroy stuff with him....playing the weakest class made me a better player in PVP, no doubt...if you can balance the tightrope of the Sorc, it forces you to outplay your opponent to win...their is pretty much zero margin for error while playing a Sorc, other classes can make mistakes and still win, Sorc's can't,. for that reason alone, playing 1 in PVP will make you a better player.

However, even with buffs, I don't see how pets will be useful in PVP. you can't stealth with them, and stealth is a big part of PVP, the AI on them isn't that great...they will have to be OP to be useful, and with ZOS already nerfing them before they hit PTS don't give me much hope of them being viable.

This is not to mention Negate being nerfed (giving regeneration instead of healing you for effects dispeled), and either having to go physical damage to get heals from surge, or no heals to get boosted damage on staff...pick your nerf....

if 1.6 ends up how i think its going to go, just pack up your sorc and store him in the closet because he will be useless for all intents and purposes...if you don't have an alt, i suggest rolling one thats not a Sorc because chances are you will wish you did.

just my 2 cents.

Valencer wrote: »

woodsro wrote: »

Lighting Flood - Doesn't do enough damage, and don't last long enough, makes it hard to use the Synergy. Would be a good skill if it did more damage, had a larger radius, and lasted longer.

Quick question regarding this skill...

Comparing it to Impulse, a very popular AoE, is Lightning Flood really that weak? It does more total damage than Impulse, over a very short period of time (2.5 seconds), while applying the damage in 0.5 second increments.

With the Lightning Flood morph it now has the same radius as Impulse, and it has the advantage of being a ranged AoE. In addition to that, it has a synergy which essentially seems to double its' damage output.
2000 magicka, 100 spell damage... ~400 total AoE damage (~80 x 5), while the synergy does another instant 400 AoE damage.

Doesn't seem all that bad on paper. For PvE, anyway.

You can move out of lightning flood. The ranged part is nice but meh. The best part about it is it can proc disintegration but Boundless Storm/Impulse can do the same with WAY more damage.

Also the Synergy has a cooldown of something like 6 seconds, longer than others making it a poor synergy skill not to mention a pain to activate. The skill is pretty bad.

Jaerlach wrote: »

There are essentially 16 baseline build options in this game, each with many variations:

Tank
magicka dps
Stamina dps
healing

For 4 classes.

The following ones haven't yet found or dont have a vdsa/so caliber build setup:

Magicka sorc dps
magicka Templar dps

The next weakest is dk heals, probably.

Really the game isn't doing that badly. I have seen a sorc tank complete vdsa.

The main issue imo is that sorcerors should have had another class name. They're not a ranged fireballing death spewer and I think if they had been named battlemages many people would be happier with what they do.

I have guild mates who get stam sorcs and Templar over 1400 dps. The issue is with magicka builds for 2 classes, and its resolvable.

^^^this.

Valencer wrote: »

Nightreaver wrote: »

First, how are the number of nerfs relevant if the only issue is balance? If one person has 100 dollars and loses 10 while another person has 40 dollars but only loses 2 is the 2nd person better off because he lost less? I could care less of how many nerfs one class has vs. another. My only interest is if the end result is that all classes are balanced.

The number of nerfs is relevant when the OP includes a claim about ZOS destroying the class in question.

I've been here since launch and I still remember Dragonknight and Sorcerer being considered the top dogs for the first few months. The situation has clearly changed for the Sorcerer class and I was curious why. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's not the Zenimax has actively nerfed or "destroyed" the sorcerer. The problem is that Zenimax has (so far) been apathetic and has neglected to rebalance the classes with respect to each other as the game's meta has evolved.

The only notable nerf to the sorceror class was making a quick succession in casting bolt escape prohibitive. It was a heavy nerf: increased cost AND decreasing magicka regeneration strikes me as an overreaction.

That being said, look at some of their class skills. Critical surge has a heal component to it. This was great in April when nobody wore impenetrable in Cyrodiil. Now everyone wears impenetrable so this morph is 100% worthless in PvP. Or look at Dark Exchange. This skill was designed to give sorcerers an exclusive superior way to regenerate their magicka without the risks of equilibrium. In one of the developer videos before launch where the team was fighting a dolmen, they specifically pointed out the use of this skill. But now everyone realizes Dark Exchange takes too long to replenish resources and it's too easy to circumvent the "cost" for using Equilibrium - the healer just heals the damage. So sorcs use equilibrium instead of their own class skill. Or consider Crystal shards. nick Konkle, who was a lead designer in charge of combat skills, dubbed this skill "crystal mortars" because it hit like a truck, implying it was a meant to be the class's nuke. But sorcerers do not use "crystal mortars" - even on a "instant" cast (because the obscenely long global cooldown does not make it instant) - since it is a DPS loss.

In sum, it is not that Zenimax has actively "destroyed" the sorcerer. Rather they have passively done nothing to respond to the evolution of the game. And from the Live episode, they have still not demonstrated they are aware of the sorcerer's limitations vis-a-vis other classes.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Blockcasting prevents the stun from streak which is necessary to chase a sorc with gap closers. If people are having trouble using gap closers to catch a bolt-escaping sorcerer, then they are doing it wrong. I would not have a problem of other classes using their gap closers to catch a sorc, if the resources required to do so were commensurate with what the sorc must spend

The stun on Streak is not what prevents Ambush from working, the range and the cast time on Ambush are. It is entirely possible to have a Nightblade block the stun and still be able to break range more quickly than Ambush can cast.
If you are focusing on the stun from Streak as being your impetus of escape, it is now clearly comprehensible why you are having issues escaping from a Nightblade spamming this skill.

As advice from one Sorcerer to another:
Ambush has only 22 yards range and almost a full second cast time; moving beyond the skill's range before the cast time completes will cause the skill to fail, leaving the Nightblade standing where they are. Use these limitations to your advantage.
If a Nightblade is spamming Ambush on you while you are Streaking back and forth through a group, break off and re-engage later; lead a few members of the group away from their herd in the process and fight them individually.
Stop over-extending your resources.

You are talking about a different scenario. If I seek to use bolt ESCAPE, I am not streaking "back and forth," I am streaking AWAY from the NB or other attacker with a gap closer. If I could "break off" from the combat...why would I have to cast bolt escape in the first place?

Every charge skill in this game out-ranges bolt escape, some of them by a good 50% (i.e. 22 meters to 15). A sorc who has been closed on and hit by these gap closers is basically screwed because they cannot move beyond the cast range. The stun, I assume, was designed to be the component of the spell that allowed the sorcerer to create the necessary space, but block casting foils this.

Again, I'm not happy that block casting with gap closers render the "escape" part of the skill pointless (and I suppose this is necessary since a bolt escaper could block cast through an enemy zerg without fear of getting wiped), but I should not have prohibitive costs on my teleport skill whereas they are not under the same restrictions.

Against Ambush, relying on the stun is about the worst available strategic option for you to take. Assuming that it is the best strategy only serves to make your problem worse.

The types of gap closers have different strengths and limitations; as such, they also have different basis for counters.

Our teleport has different restrictions than gap closers, this is true.
Gap closers can only be used if there is a target within range, whereas we get to teleport freely and use attacks with greater range than gap closers have.
Could fully agree that Stamina gap closers have costs that drop too low, because they were not properly rebalanced after the Armour passive changes. This by no means makes them impossible to counter if you know what you are doing though.
In contrast to the Stamina skills, Ambush has higher base cost than Streak does, and a cast time that we Sorcerers can exploit to our advantage.

You seem to be quite familiar with Sorcerer, and I respect that.
The key to victory however is to know your enemy as well as you know yourself. In this regard, you would benefit from taking some time to learn more about the builds that are apparently giving you trouble.
As someone who has played on both sides of the issue, escaping as a Sorcerer is far more easy and reliable than it is to catch a Sorcerer who knows what he or she is doing.
Realistically, a far bigger concern to me is the risk of seeing ZOS nerf Bolt yet again, after the Champion System enhances regen and cost reduction further.

There are some high (very high) Sorc DPS builds out there. You just have to get creative.

Exstazik wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

Aeratus wrote: »

The above post by Xevenex is about PVP, rather than PVE. There hasn't been any nerfs to sorcs specifically.

...

So I think the reason for the recent sorc complaint threads is due to the rise of stamina dps, which allows templars to easily exceed the dps of magicka sorcs. This makes sense, because most of the sorcs that are complaining now are the magicka ones.

That's what it looks like to me too. I can't really find any serious nerfs to sorcerer-specific damage skills. Seems more like the changing metagame has hurt the sorcerers with a full-on magicka build (which seems like a very common build among sorcerers). That may be good or bad, but I think claiming ZOS is killing the sorcerers is a bit much.

I've heard some good stuff about stamina DPS sorcerers. Anyone care to give some insights on that?

Sorc dps with bow/dual wield around 1200 with pots.
Sorc mage dps with pots+ult around 1100
Sorc DPS after they up pets+fix CF....hmm.....(LA+CS+CF proc+1 hit of each pet)x2 every ~3 sec.....hmmm...i think we will see "NERF OP SORC"

Stamina sorc will hit the hardest they can push weapon damage close to 300 but you need a healer.... My brothers sorc DPs 1100 + easily passes my DK most of the time...

Durham wrote: »

Exstazik wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

Aeratus wrote: »

The above post by Xevenex is about PVP, rather than PVE. There hasn't been any nerfs to sorcs specifically.

...

So I think the reason for the recent sorc complaint threads is due to the rise of stamina dps, which allows templars to easily exceed the dps of magicka sorcs. This makes sense, because most of the sorcs that are complaining now are the magicka ones.

That's what it looks like to me too. I can't really find any serious nerfs to sorcerer-specific damage skills. Seems more like the changing metagame has hurt the sorcerers with a full-on magicka build (which seems like a very common build among sorcerers). That may be good or bad, but I think claiming ZOS is killing the sorcerers is a bit much.

I've heard some good stuff about stamina DPS sorcerers. Anyone care to give some insights on that?

Sorc dps with bow/dual wield around 1200 with pots.
Sorc mage dps with pots+ult around 1100
Sorc DPS after they up pets+fix CF....hmm.....(LA+CS+CF proc+1 hit of each pet)x2 every ~3 sec.....hmmm...i think we will see "NERF OP SORC"

Stamina sorc will hit the hardest they can push weapon damage close to 300 but you need a healer.... My brothers sorc DPs 1100 + easily passes my DK most of the time...

Magicka DK can do up to 1600 dps and smile at sorc That's why i up DK and keep Sorc for negate-sell runs.

daemonios wrote: »

Mormo wrote: »

There are some high (very high) Sorc DPS builds out there. You just have to get creative.

Creative, as in stamina build and 2-handed/bow? Do we have no other choice? I know it's unimaginative, but I *really* like playing a magicka sorc wielding a staff. If we absolutely have to go for bows and stamina builds, it says a lot about sorc weapon/class skills.

It's not creative, it's rubbish.
If sorc players wanted to play 2h / bow they'd rolled a ranger / NB.
Most sorc players roll sorc to use magic. Some would even love to play "plate battlemage" (I did) but found out it massively underperformed, so they had to "revert" to "mage".

Joy_Division wrote: »

It's not the Zenimax has actively nerfed or "destroyed" the sorcerer. The problem is that Zenimax has (so far) been apathetic and has neglected to rebalance the classes with respect to each other as the game's meta has evolved.

...

In sum, it is not that Zenimax has actively "destroyed" the sorcerer. Rather they have passively done nothing to respond to the evolution of the game. And from the Live episode, they have still not demonstrated they are aware of the sorcerer's limitations vis-a-vis other classes.

Makes sense. Thanks for clarifying!

Since they've apparently rebalanced a huge amount of skills in the game, the situation might be a bit different in 1.6.

They did mention they weren't doing a total overhaul of some of the sorcerer because none of the skills were really *bad* like skills such as the DK's Inferno or the Templar's Blinding Light.
But that doesn't mean they haven't tweaked the numbers here and there or fixed some usability issues like the mentioned GCD on Crystal Fragments. We'll just have to wait for them to update the PTS. They might surprise us.

spryler wrote: »

If you unsubbed because your class got nerfed too many times, you probably weren't that happy with the game in the first place.

As a person who has played many other MMOs you should know that over time different classes get to be on top. This game is no different, in fact Sorc lead the damage meters in ZOS' internal testing with pets.

As person who has played even more MMOs I know that "utility classes" always, ALWAYS end up being the "jack of all the trades, master of none" and end up as niche stuff good for "fun to play material farming alt" and similar.

Sorcs are heavily headed towards that black hole of a niche.

It's true, I unsubbed also because ESO at this point lacks 70% of the content a proper MMO should have and ZoS seems impotent to close the gap. I unsubbed also because the controls are clumsy and unresponsive and PvP is poorer than the 2001 MMO it claims to have taken inspiration from.

But I love crafting and my guild mates and to raid with them. However I can't help but feel my spot is truly stolen from somebody playing another, worthwhile class.

spryler wrote: »

Also, it goes without saying that when they buff pet damage they will also gain raid survivability. Otherwise Sorcs wouldn't be topping the damage meters in ZOS' internal testing.

1) Seeing is believing. In fact they said they will nerf it.
2) I don't want to be FORCED to play with a pet. In the "play as you want" MMO there are too many drawbacks to using pets. What hotkeys should I give up to use a pet? Mage light? The ability to use expert hunter? Or the poor excuse of AoE they have left to use? What about less mana penalty = lower damage and less mana endurance? What about pets dying to any boss damage? They CANNOT buff pets to have 20k health (PvPers would scream murder), we'll have to spend tons of mana to resummon pets 10 times a boss.

Tankqull wrote: »

Homm wrote: »

Valencer wrote: »

We'll just have to wait for them to update the PTS. They might surprise us.

I really hope they will, and this (first time?) positively.

hope is the last to die.

Mine's died months ago. They'll need more than warm air to convince me to not unsub again. I am not going to pay ZoS "experiments" while they fiddle with a class that worked so well and they turned into a waste... because DKs and NBs "out-Sorcered sorcs" and THEY needed to be nerfed... yet for say a 5% nerf to crushing shock (just an example) we sorcs get nerfed by 10% on our whole class (which has nothing else but crushing shock).

woodsro wrote: »

PVE for Sorcs Consists of:

Crushing Shock
Critical Surge
Elemental Drain
Impulse
Inner Light
Flawless Dawnbreaker for 13% Weapon Damage passive.

Second bar, Negate, Endless Fury perhaps, and whatever else really.

Notice that, Primary damage bar consists of 1 class skill. Execute Phase consists of 1 class skill, and Negate is not even required for every group dungeon or trial, its situational. Atronach was nerfed, no longer taunts, and wasn't really that great before it lost the taunt.

Lets get to PVP now, lets see here:

Dark Magic

Rune Prison - Useless
Restraining Prison - Good Skill, but costs way to much to use.
Crystal Shard - only useful on instant cast procs, too long cast time, reflectable.
Daedric Mines - Costs way too much, nearly 468 base cost at vet 14. Doesn't do enough damage to warrant its insane high cost.
Dark Conversion- Trade stamina for health and magic, but is a channel and leaves you a sitting duck, not a viable in-combat heal.

Negate - The best Sorc ultimate, honestly its the only reason anyone even wants a Sorc in their group.

So we have 1 (Crystal Shards), maybe 2 skills(Restraining Prison) that are useful out of the whole tree. one could argue Dark Conversion, but its only useful running away with Bolt Escape and using it to get magic back, otherwise, its useless...i wouldn't exactly call that a good skill. Encase needs a lower cost to be viable, Daedric Mines could be good, but it needs to do much more damage to be viable considering its cost.

Daedric Summon

Clannfear/Familiar - useless due to AI. The Volatile Familiar used to be useable until they nerfed the explosion damage. Im not talking about the double explosion, that was a bug, the actual explosion damage was nerfed and the Volatile Familiar is no longer viable. the Clannfear was never viable due to pathetic damage and AI issues. Not to mention you need it on both bars if you want to use it weapon swapping so in that case it costs you two skill slots too, as well as 10% of your max magic.

Velicious Curse - The only real useful skill out of this tree IMO. Too bad its cripped by the fact only 1 Curse can be active at any time...yes 1...if i cast a curse on 1 target, and you cast a curse on another target, my Curse gets cancel....this makes the skill borderline useless, but its the only skill Sorcs have that really bypass DK Scales that actually does damage above 20% health, its not much damage mind you, but its damage.

Bound Armor - Bound Armaments is Ok, but IMO its not viable...it costs 10% of your mana bar, and what you get in return isn't worth it. Your better off with Lighting Form for Armor, and the attack damage from Armaments is not enough to justify -10% of your max magic, which means the more max magic you have, the more this skill costs. at 2500 magic, this skill costs you 250 magic every second you have it turned on...thats 250 magic you can't use for spells, 250 magic that never regens. Not to mention you need it on both bars if you want to use it weapon swapping so in that case it costs you two skill slots too.

Winged Twilight - The Heal morph can be useful when it works, but it suffers from the same problems the Clannfear and Volatile Famliair have..not enough damage, -10% max magic, and 2 skill slots...it costs too much for how weak it is and it don't do enough daamge, the bad AI just is icing on the cake...skill isn't viable in pvp.

Hardened Ward- This is an OK damage shield. Its not as good as the DK Obsidian Sheild, but its better then nothing. It helps an allready squishy class at least attempt to survive and may actually do that more often then it does without it..its not a game changing skill though, its merely an average damage sheild. The Empowered Ward may be useful if they have actually buffed and fixed pets in 1.6 like the claim, but we will soon see.

Storm Atronach - Charged Atronach is useful against trash in PVE, the Greater Storm Atronach used to be a good tank until they nerfed it and removed the taunt. Its only used because we have nothing else, not because the skill is actually good.

Storm Calling-

Mages Fury - is a good execute and works well when the enemy is at 20% or less health, dodgeable, but a useful skill nonetheless. its probably on a Sorc's bar somewhere.

Lightning Form - Is useful for a speed increase if Morphed to Boundless Storm. this is more of a tank skill, i won't say it usesless for a caster class, but if your not a tank, your probably better off with Hardend Ward.

Lighting Flood - Doesn't do enough damage, and don't last long enough, makes it hard to use the Synergy. Would be a good skill if it did more damage, had a larger radius, and lasted longer.

Surge - May be the Sorc's best class skill, its useful in nearly every situation. I really don't know where the class would stand without it.

Bolt Escape - The Sorc's only saving grace in PVP. Without this skill, the class wouldn't be playable...the penalties associated with using it however can be crippling and prevent consistent offensive use of the skill. You can use it offensively sometimes with tri-pot addiction, but I wouldn't bank on it. the skill is better off used to reposition and use another skill to fight with, but sometimes the increased cost doesn't make that viable, as you almost always need 2 casts to reposition and your hit with a 50% cost increase and a 50% mana regen pentalty for 4 secs, in essence, your punished and crippled for using a skill the class was based on.

Overload - Power Overload is really the only morph option for this skill PVE or PVP. Energy Overload is useless as your mana will regen just fine while launching Overload attacks. Power Overload does way more damage, I can hit for 1.2-1.3k per Light Attack in PVP with Power Overload and straight up melt people. Its reflectable, so its use is situational, but in the situations you can use,Power Overload is very, very good. The 3rd Ability bar you get with the skill is just a bonus.

As you can see Storm Calling is by far the best line of the 3.

In PVP your looking at Mages Wrath, Bolt Escape, Crystal Shard, and Velicious Curse, and Surge as the only real viable skills....and Mages Wrath don't do poo for damage unless the target is at 20% or less health. Crystal Shard is only useful on an instant cast proc that is based on an RNG, and Velicious Curse is only used because we have nothing else, its damage is very lackluster. Bolt Escape because we have to unless we want to be a sitting duck, even though using it is a penalty. Surge because it helps staff abilities.

Sorcs are very much pigeonholed,. and the the skills we do have that are useful are much weaker then the other classes counter parts....

Take Lethal Arrow as an example compared to Crystal Shards...it has:
More Range,
Does more damage,
has less of a cast time,
ignores Armor
Has a Healing Debuff

Compared to Shards that just has a stun and an RNG chance at an instant cast that isn't really instant, has a animation cooldown that prevents one from light attack weaving with it....yup...oh did i mention Lethal Arrow also allows one to weave in a Poison Injection and a Light Attack before the Lethal Arrow even lands...while Shards is stuck with an animation cooldown that won't even let you weave?

Obsidian Shield vs Hardened Ward...i know which one I would want...Obsidian Sheild is better in every way.

then we have Encase vs Talons....Talons costs much less, and even has a synergy....Sorcs get saddled with 2 lesser versions of DK skills, the DK versions of both of those skills are better, and cost less.

Right now, Sorcs very much are the un-wanted chidren of ESO. We get saddled with weaker versions of other skills, the few skills we did have that were good were nerfed to death. The class now has no reddeming qualities.

Our Damage sucks. BE costs too much and in turn is easily countered by gap closers. Due to this, an already squishy class is easier to kill. DK's get a 4 reflect limit to scales...they can still spam it...BE users get penalized with mana regen and cost increases for using ours...like thats relaly fair or makes sense considering DK do way more damage then Sorcs do.

Im leveling a Templar build right now that feels way stronger then my Sorc ever was...i destroy stuff with him....playing the weakest class made me a better player in PVP, no doubt...if you can balance the tightrope of the Sorc, it forces you to outplay your opponent to win...their is pretty much zero margin for error while playing a Sorc, other classes can make mistakes and still win, Sorc's can't,. for that reason alone, playing 1 in PVP will make you a better player.

However, even with buffs, I don't see how pets will be useful in PVP. you can't stealth with them, and stealth is a big part of PVP, the AI on them isn't that great...they will have to be OP to be useful, and with ZOS already nerfing them before they hit PTS don't give me much hope of them being viable.

This is not to mention Negate being nerfed (giving regeneration instead of healing you for effects dispeled), and either having to go physical damage to get heals from surge, or no heals to get boosted damage on staff...pick your nerf....

if 1.6 ends up how i think its going to go, just pack up your sorc and store him in the closet because he will be useless for all intents and purposes...if you don't have an alt, i suggest rolling one thats not a Sorc because chances are you will wish you did.

just my 2 cents.

ZOS, did you have your pens out because this dude hit it right on the head.

Out of the 15 skills Sorcs have 4-5 are useful in PvP... maybe. Sorcs are the only class that HEAVILY relies on other skill lines in order to do damage/be effective. I've been busting my ass (when I'm not at work or doing real life crap) to make my Sorc work because it was my favorite class in this game and in past Elder Scrolls games but I am finding it a pain in the ass when other classes have better options for skills and don't really have to stray very far away from the class abilities assigned to them.

I am hoping Update 6 changes this but... I am not sure honestly. Which is why I took my Templar out of retirement and have been leveling him.