Battlemaster’s Corner – Lightning TornadoFrom the above article:
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Critical Surge (Surge) – My entire build hinges on this ability being active at all times. It gives health up to 65% of critical weapon damage dealt, even from weapon-based abilities. Once morphed, you’ll understand the power of critical hit damage and barely see your health bar drop in combat."
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Lightning Form (Boundless Storm) – This ability really adds high damage for targets near me, but it does so much more. Boundless Storm not only increases my armor and spell resistances to overcharged, but it gives a huge speed boost for chasing down enemies. This is the Lightning; next comes the Tornado."
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Whirlwind (Steel Tornado) – Remember when I said you can get up to 65% health back for critical hits? Once morphed, this ability hits enemies within an 11-meter radius! Moreover, it gets more effective the lower the enemies' health. With the two abilities above active, you’ll have overcharged armor, lightning damage to all nearby targets,
and self-heals for everyone hit by Tornado (NOT ANYMORE!). The combination thus far is jaw-dropping, but we’re not done..."
From the 1.6 patch notes:Surge - Critical Surge: This ability now has a one second cooldown on the heal.
That means trying to survive AOE as a melee Sorc is now pointless as this heal will be completely useless to mitigate the AOE and multi-target damage you will be taking! One tick from Boundless Storm or Steel Tordnado on ONE target and you get no heals for another second, even if that tick was only for 54 damage!
Critical Surge is now a completely pointless waste of an ability point that ruins the melee options for what is already the most pigeon-holed one-trick-pony class in the game! This leaves Sorc as the only class in the game without any meaningful class-based self heals.
But the didn't stop there...
From the above article: Ultimate – Negate Magic (Absorption Field) – Probably the second-best ultimate in the game (next to Standard of Might),
Absorption Field stuns, heals, and prevents people from casting (NOT ANYMORE!) I like to use Crystal Fragments to slow them down, throw a dagger to slow them, and bang! drop a field on them and destroy them.
From the 1.6 patch notes:Negate Magic - Supression Field (morph): This ability has been redesigned (to useless), and now applies the Minor Protection buff to your allies inside the field.
Negate Magic - Absorption Field (morph): This ability has been redesigned (to useless). Allies who pass through the field now gain the buffs Major Expedition, Major Intellect, Major Fortitude, and Major Endurance for 12 seconds.
This ultimate (the only Sorc-class ultimate really worth taking) is now to be an utterly useless and situational group buff, and thus the only decent trick that Sorc's had without going full skirt and staff vampire bat swarming is now gone. No more stun, no more heal, no more silence!
Seriously, what is ZOS thinking? It is like they took the class that was struggling the most with adaptability and took away their best options to do anything but the cookie cutter build. I guess we're all supposed to use pets now and sit there mashing curse and ward.
One thing is certain, they have completely destroyed their own featured Sorcerer build with these changes. They should probably just take that article down.