Surge vs Entropy?

Vahrokh · January 2015

MADshadowman wrote: »

You guys are totally mad with your tunnel vision. you only see this one thing and refuse to take a look at the system as a whole.

It's a tunnel in our rear, has little to do with vision.
Our class SUCKS since months now, however you paint it.

Imagine just having to explain a new player that: "hey this is a cool mage class, where we do much better with stamina skills than magic. But wait, there's more. To use our the sorcerer class at best, remove sorcerer skills from the hotbar, because the general skills are better".

MADshadowman wrote: »

You have stat points, skill points, champion points, armor sets, weapon sets, jewelry sets. You have all these options to optimize your build and make it work better than ever, for crying out loud, USE THEM!

So do all the others. And this keeps a permanent gap between us and them.

Also, I wanted to slam my head on the wall when I read: "Sorcs work just fine without it. Less dps - yes, but dps is not what makes a sorc good".

In case you didn't notice yet, we can't one-click become a trial main tank. Can't play the "offtank" either, as ESO is so shallow it does not have "tank + offtanks" end game encounters.
We can't one-click become main healers, we can aspire to be an off-healer.

So, what's left? DPS. That's what we can do. And you come out fresh off the water and tell us: "dps is not what makes a sorc good".

In case reality did not pass in your home today, sorcs ALREADY had to swallow an utmost pathetic DPS, it's not like they are nerfing us from 1800 DPS to 1600, we are getting from Templar LOL levels to below.

So what makes us good? It's not tanking. It's not healing. Apparently by your say, it's not DPS.

So, what's left? Streak to flee like cowards in PvP (wheras the others tank 5-6 guys with no problem and farm them) and be the *ONE* negate bot for trials?
Which, by seeing the latest scoreboards it's not even a given, as now guilds complete content FAST and with ZERO sorcs.
Actually, they complete content fast BECAUSE they bring ZERO sorcs.

Merlin13KAGL · January 2015

MADshadowman wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Went 1v1 yesterday with a DK for quite some time where I'd probably been down (out or resources) on live, so it's going to be doable, just differently.

This was shortly after @MADshadowman‌ dropped a Meteor/Ice Comet on my head... Thanks for that, btw

You are right.

Oh and sorry for the meteor, but you gotta love those cute little fellas

All good, I would have done the same to for you. (think it left a mark, though.)

Kinda sucks that there is zero chance of dodging out of the way, since it tracks you. (I felt honored to be deserving of such an attack - makes me feel I was being a proper thorn in the side!)

It should do environmental damage to the structure though. Figured if I was gonna have to eat it, I'd at least try to damage the building in the process.

A1exeR · January 2015

Vahrokh wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

You guys are totally mad with your tunnel vision. you only see this one thing and refuse to take a look at the system as a whole.

It's a tunnel in our rear, has little to do with vision.
Our class SUCKS since months now, however you paint it.

Imagine just having to explain a new player that: "hey this is a cool mage class, where we do much better with stamina skills than magic. But wait, there's more. To use our the sorcerer class at best, remove sorcerer skills from the hotbar, because the general skills are better".

MADshadowman wrote: »

You have stat points, skill points, champion points, armor sets, weapon sets, jewelry sets. You have all these options to optimize your build and make it work better than ever, for crying out loud, USE THEM!

So do all the others. And this keeps a permanent gap between us and them.

Also, I wanted to slam my head on the wall when I read: "Sorcs work just fine without it. Less dps - yes, but dps is not what makes a sorc good".

In case you didn't notice yet, we can't one-click become a trial main tank. Can't play the "offtank" either, as ESO is so shallow it does not have "tank + offtanks" end game encounters.
We can't one-click become main healers, we can aspire to be an off-healer.

So, what's left? DPS. That's what we can do. And you come out fresh off the water and tell us: "dps is not what makes a sorc good".

In case reality did not pass in your home today, sorcs ALREADY had to swallow an utmost pathetic DPS, it's not like they are nerfing us from 1800 DPS to 1600, we are getting from Templar LOL levels to below.

So what makes us good? It's not tanking. It's not healing. Apparently by your say, it's not DPS.

So, what's left? Streak to flee like cowards in PvP (wheras the others tank 5-6 guys with no problem and farm them) and be the *ONE* negate bot for trials?
Which, by seeing the latest scoreboards it's not even a given, as now guilds complete content FAST and with ZERO sorcs.
Actually, they complete content fast BECAUSE they bring ZERO sorcs.

I think he went only in pvp and do not went in end game encounters, and therefore thinks sorc something can

MADshadowman · January 2015

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Went 1v1 yesterday with a DK for quite some time where I'd probably been down (out or resources) on live, so it's going to be doable, just differently.

This was shortly after @MADshadowman‌ dropped a Meteor/Ice Comet on my head... Thanks for that, btw

You are right.

Oh and sorry for the meteor, but you gotta love those cute little fellas

All good, I would have done the same to for you. (think it left a mark, though.)

Kinda sucks that there is zero chance of dodging out of the way, since it tracks you. (I felt honored to be deserving of such an attack - makes me feel I was being a proper thorn in the side!)

It should do environmental damage to the structure though. Figured if I was gonna have to eat it, I'd at least try to damage the building in the process.

Well, my ult generation is good, so i'm throwing them left and right. You can block them and they won't do much damage, plus you can reflect them with scales and i guess defensive stance too. Whenever i hear the thunder in the sky (love that sound) i immediately block, so in case i'm the target i won't get knocked down and take lots of damage.

Merlin13KAGL · January 2015

MADshadowman wrote: »

Well, my ult generation is good, so i'm throwing them left and right. You can block them and they won't do much damage, plus you can reflect them with scales and i guess defensive stance too. Whenever i hear the thunder in the sky (love that sound) i immediately block, so in case i'm the target i won't get knocked down and take lots of damage.

Yeah, I usually opt for GTFO of the way first and then block. Still hurt like ****.

GreyRanger · January 2015

I was most troubled by the the 1s cool down on the stamina surge heal. It is breaks the stamina weapon builds that had been based on critical hits and heals. I know a number of guild mates and myself who are trying to figure out what to do going forward. It is also the case that the net result is that DOT is now BAD with Critical Surge because you almost always get the heal off of a little DOT tick.

I hope they will fix this mess before this gets to live. I would like there to be a viable Sorcerer stamina build.

Flaminir · January 2015

GreyRanger wrote: »

I hope they will fix this mess before this gets to live. I would like there to be a viable Sorcerer stamina build.

You can have any Sorcerer build you like as long as it involves pets!

In theory you could have FOUR lil flappy things around you in combat:

Clanfear
Flappy bird
Undaunted summons (Engine guardian/Daedroth...)
Vanity pet

Maybe we can buy even more in the crown store & have a new 'ZooKeeper' achievement!

Awesome!

/Sarcasm

Dracane · January 2015

Entropy is a better version of Surge in my opinion.
It also does damage over time, heals you, gives you 2% more Magicka and Magicka regen (Mage's guild passive) and 5% more max health if you use that morph.

I don't see, why you would use Surge. Power Surge got a massive nerf. Its duration was 40 seconds and now only 23 seconds or so. Give Power Surge 40 seconds again and it makes sense again.

Dracane · January 2015

MADshadowman wrote: »

.

That's why many sorcs use a destro staff with crushing shock. It's instant cast, does a good amount of damage, interrupts and can't be reflected.

Do you even play the game ? IF crushing shock was not reflectable, all my worries would be gone. Crushing shock IS reflectable and everyone knows it. That's why Dragonknights are a nightmare for each Sorc.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO · January 2015

GreyBrow wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

if you wanna heal yourself or others, it's good to have something that always works and not just if an enemy is around. it buffs my heals any time i need them. Plus: i can activate it without popping out of stealth. It is not useless at all, no matter how often anyone screams it in chat or in the forums.

YOU are the reason the dev's don't believe that sorcs are complete garbage like 90% of the game and don't buff anything other than trash pug pet builds.

Please stop defending sorcs and saying their skills are completely fine when the VAST majority of the game knows that sorcs are worthless.

ive spent a lot of time on the pts and sorcs who dont suck are doing very well. from what ive seen its mostly people who just read the patch notes and complain before testing that think sorcs are no good.
also stats and champion point allocation make a HUGE difference, make sure to test things out not just do one thing, it sucks, and assume the whole system is bad.

TheBull · January 2015

Out in Cyrodiil, sorcerers are in a really good place. From the outside looking in it looks like people here are trying to get more buffs just for the sake of it. Like "this is what we do".

Dracane · January 2015

TheBull wrote: »

Out in Cyrodiil, sorcerers are in a really good place. From the outside looking in it looks like people here are trying to get more buffs just for the sake of it. Like "this is what we do".

Then tell us please, what's good about Sorcerers.
What are they good at ? And give some arguments, how Sorcerer is on par with the other classes.

(Really just a curious question, I will test it on my own, as soon as my EU character is up for PTS)

Flaminir · January 2015

TheBull wrote: »

Out in Cyrodiil, sorcerers are in a really good place. From the outside looking in it looks like people here are trying to get more buffs just for the sake of it. Like "this is what we do".

Aside from a self heal I still quite like my Sorc in PvP so would agree with you there...

I'm talking from an end game PvE perspective... and from that perspective they are currently broken... and without being a zookeeper I don't see anything changing.

I hope to be proved wrong, but haven't seen, heard, or found anything yet to the contrary.

Robbmrp · January 2015

MADshadowman wrote: »

davedwildebeast wrote: »

I'm going to go get some popcorn and watch you two hash it out.....

MADshadowman · January 2015

I think there is a very good chance ZOS will drop the cooldown on surge or change it in the way that DoTs don't proc the healing.

This seems like something they haven't really tested much and i don't think it's intended.

If you haven't reported it yet, please do so.

Flaminir · January 2015

They just announced that "The surge cooldown is being REDUCED"

...but NOT removed.

Announced on ESO live a few mins ago.

They did say they are monitoring all the feedback & adjusting accordingly.... so /feedback /feedback /feedback!!!!!

Emma_Overload · January 2015

davedwildebeast wrote: »

They just announced that "The surge cooldown is being REDUCED"

What could they possibly reduce it to that would solve the problem? Many of your AOE attacks are going to hit multiple targets at slightly different times, so if there's any cooldown AT ALL, you're going to lose heals.

ZoS needs to understand that Surge Healing only really make sense if the heals scale up with the damage you're dealing.

Darkintellect · January 2015

Don't forget that Mages Guild has a passive that the next ability after you cast a mages guild ability increases an additional 20%.

As my Nightblade Healer I do Entropy + Shadowed Disguise then Health Funnel, or Entropy then Rapid Regen. Those two cause 3500 heal regen every tick (not counting crits which is at 52%).

Surge needs to have a more feasible use than in it's current state.

Flaminir · January 2015

Yeah exactly... ANY cooldown makes the heal useless.... an RNG ride of whether you live or die.

I have no idea why they wanted to nerf this... we have no other self heal.... literally everybody (Including the other classes) noticed this, and nobody begrudged us critical surge as a result.

I just don't understand the need to nerf it on any level at all.

BUT... if they have some twisted dark hatred of Sorcs and really have to nerf it then do it properly... reduce the % of heal that you get! That way you reduce the overall heal, but at least it stays more stable in that you know you will get heals on all crits... which is a better nerf than the RNG ride that you get with any kind of cool down!

Yusuf · January 2015

MADshadowman wrote: »

davedwildebeast wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

I'm just saying that the new version of surge made my build so much better, cause staffs scale off magicka and surge boosts that, so i don't have to rely on a HoT or crit surge heals anymore, i can finally use real strong heals to heal myself to full in 3 seconds, in combination with the strong damage shields, this is really a boost in survivability and this is what matters in pvp. dps is more a pve thing and you still get a decent boost no matter what skill you like to use. It aint get more than that, and that's ok.

Another tip for those who want more dps: use entropy or surge and combat prayer to gain an additional 10% of extra damage.

In the end, with some adjustments to your build you will roughly reach the same quality of dps you had before. Just embrace it.

Ok... I think there are a few genuine misconceptions here...

1. The OLD version of surge boosted resto staff heals by more than the new 1.6 version. The old version was around a 40-50% boost to the staff damage which they scale off... its now just 20% in 1.6 so the boost from surge is half as big. Taking the mechanics of the skill aside for a moment.... mathematically surge is simply not stronger than it was before... its weaker.
2. They have buffed the heal from Blessing of restoration... that's separate... don't confuse the boost to that as being from the new surge... it isn't.

P.S. They also nerfed Combat Prayer... the damage buff was reduced from 10% down to 8.

But staffs scale off magicka now which makes the heals for a full magicka sorc way stronger and with surge they become really good. for me the heals are way stronger than they used to be in 1.5

Please take a look at the costs of those abilities. Compared to surge, entropy costs nothing for the same buff.

Emma_Overload · January 2015

davedwildebeast wrote: »

do it properly... reduce the % of heal that you get! That way you reduce the overall heal, but at least it stays more stable in that you know you will get heals on all crits.

ZoS should hire you, because your idea so much more logical than what they decided to do (*) (*) (*) (*) (*)

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO · January 2015

one thing to take into account is that entropy only is active when the target is alive, so if you are killing targets in a few seconds it may be better to have the buff a static time so you dont wast time constantly casting it. I think neither is best but will be dependant on what your are doing.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO · January 2015

davedwildebeast wrote: »

Yeah exactly... ANY cooldown makes the heal useless.... an RNG ride of whether you live or die.

I have no idea why they wanted to nerf this... we have no other self heal.... literally everybody (Including the other classes) noticed this, and nobody begrudged us critical surge as a result.

I just don't understand the need to nerf it on any level at all.

BUT... if they have some twisted dark hatred of Sorcs and really have to nerf it then do it properly... reduce the % of heal that you get! That way you reduce the overall heal, but at least it stays more stable in that you know you will get heals on all crits... which is a better nerf than the RNG ride that you get with any kind of cool down!

with the new changes to crit resistance the old crit surge would be crazy op for pvp. It falls short now hopefully they can find a middle ground. if they made it so crit dots didnt proc it then you would get stronger heals, maybe even too strong for outputting aggressive dps. but with all critical hits going through and the damage being mitigated instead of the proc rate. there is a whole new world of crit procs so some type of adjustment was inevitable.

MADshadowman · January 2015

Guys, the cost of an ability doesn't matter if you have to cast it once every 20 seconds. Surge is not expensive in any way. You can use whatever you like, but please don't say it's better because it costs less. You really need a crappy magicka management to worry about the costs of that ability, and if so, then you probably have bigger problems that that.

Nightreaver · January 2015

Removing the heals from DOTs would be a much better solution than just lowering the CD. The damage from Shock is spread across 3 hits. With a CD, you would never be able to proc one than once so your heal would still only be a 1/3 of what it should be.

Flaminir · January 2015

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO wrote: »

davedwildebeast wrote: »

Yeah exactly... ANY cooldown makes the heal useless.... an RNG ride of whether you live or die.

I have no idea why they wanted to nerf this... we have no other self heal.... literally everybody (Including the other classes) noticed this, and nobody begrudged us critical surge as a result.

I just don't understand the need to nerf it on any level at all.

BUT... if they have some twisted dark hatred of Sorcs and really have to nerf it then do it properly... reduce the % of heal that you get! That way you reduce the overall heal, but at least it stays more stable in that you know you will get heals on all crits... which is a better nerf than the RNG ride that you get with any kind of cool down!

with the new changes to crit resistance the old crit surge would be crazy op for pvp. It falls short now hopefully they can find a middle ground. if they made it so crit dots didnt proc it then you would get stronger heals, maybe even too strong for outputting aggressive dps. but with all critical hits going through and the damage being mitigated instead of the proc rate. there is a whole new world of crit procs so some type of adjustment was inevitable.

So if the heals would be too strong... just reduce the % of the heal when it crits! Simple.

No OP healing... and at the same time it's consistent & predictable... and probably a lot easier for ZoS to just reduce the % of the heal in the code than to have to add a whole cooldown calculation in there.

GreyRanger · February 2015

1st, I decision to nerf critical surge is perplexing. With so many game imbalancing skills out there, why go after one that is not over powered and is a lynch pin to several builds for arguably the most under powered class. Weird. It seems like balancing sometimes happen based on how someone who codes, but never plays the game thinks the game might work rather than how it does.

2nd, obviously it ZOS feels like they need to have some nerf since they have started down this path (even if it is obviously weird/mistaken); reducing the % healed (say 40%) is the way to go rather than a cool down, which is breaking if you use DOTs or skills like Lightning Form, which has a high frequency very low damage tick.

Nightreaver · February 2015

I can understand the need to nerf it with the change to impenetrable and the removal of the AOE cap but I disagree with how it was done.

The problems I see.
1) DOTs is an obvious problem that result in small inconsequential heals replacing the regular heals. But a CD is a problem for more than just our DOTs, at least for Magicka builds whose DPS comes from Shock. A single Shock attack splits damage into 3 parts. A CD makes the heal available to only one of those 3 meaning we only get 1/3 of the heal for that attack.

2) Its base form is completely useless to Magicka builds making it difficult for Sorcerers leveling Magicka builds who are required to still spend points and time leveling the ability to get to a useable morph.

3) The morphs unfairly favor Stamina giving them both Damage + Heal while Magicka builds must choose between one or the other.

4) The changes makes one of the very few Sorcerer abilities that were worth putting you ability bar and forces us to replace it with yet another non-Sorcerer ability.

5) If the removal of the AOE cap is a problem then put a cap on this ability.

GreyRanger · February 2015

It is sad that I imagine that Sorcerers probably rely on guild and weapon skills more heavily than most classes.

If the problem is really the AOE issue, which I suspect is more an imagined than real issue, it would make more sense to simply cap the AOE targets for this ability than to break it. I hope they will fix this.

I was thinking, it would not have taken much to make the Sorcerer more nearly on even footing with the other classes. Simply bumping Lightning Splash to formidable damage (boom, we have a role: ranged AOE damage) and touching up the dark magic powers to have better control (encase & rune prison) and we have a second role: control.

It is funny that the best Sorcerer builds now are really based on the bow (which is really all about the bow), vampire (which is really about the bats), or healing when you cant find a Templar (which is really about the staff). There isn't a role in which the Sorcerer's class abilities are central

This state of affairs is discouraging. I have 2 that I have stubbornly played with (1 stam 1 mag) with my good friends. It is too hard to find a PUG with a sorc. They are just a relative liability. I keep hoping ZOS will figure the class out.

olsborg · February 2015

GreyRanger wrote: »

It is sad that I imagine that Sorcerers probably rely on guild and weapon skills more heavily than most classes.

If the problem is really the AOE issue, which I suspect is more an imagined than real issue, it would make more sense to simply cap the AOE targets for this ability than to break it. I hope they will fix this.

I was thinking, it would not have taken much to make the Sorcerer more nearly on even footing with the other classes. Simply bumping Lightning Splash to formidable damage (boom, we have a role: ranged AOE damage) and touching up the dark magic powers to have better control (encase & rune prison) and we have a second role: control.

It is funny that the best Sorcerer builds now are really based on the bow (which is really all about the bow), vampire (which is really about the bats), or healing when you cant find a Templar (which is really about the staff). There isn't a role in which the Sorcerer's class abilities are central

This state of affairs is discouraging. I have 2 that I have stubbornly played with (1 stam 1 mag) with my good friends. It is too hard to find a PUG with a sorc. They are just a relative liability. I keep hoping ZOS will figure the class out.

This is basicly how I feel too. Sorcs are generally underpowered and has been for a while.