Some observations on the sorcerer: the potential game-changer that is unwanted in Sanctum raids

Snit · February 2015

Nihil wrote: »

With 1.6 our thundering presence got a huge buff in duration...Shock as we know has the chance of applying the concussion status affect, reducing the damage a player deals by 15 %.

Two counterpoints:

- The duration of full medium armor is permanent. That's better than 20 seconds.
- Even if concussion were applied 100% of the time, light armor would mitigate far less than medium

Light armor is awful, and light armor users don't get massive DPS to make up for the loss in mitigation. That can still be ok, if frequent and smart use of active defenses can make up the gap. Right now, the math says it does not.

Nihil · February 2015

Snit wrote: »

Nihil wrote: »

With 1.6 our thundering presence got a huge buff in duration...Shock as we know has the chance of applying the concussion status affect, reducing the damage a player deals by 15 %.

Two counterpoints:

- The duration of full medium armor is permanent. That's better than 20 seconds.
- Even if concussion were applied 100% of the time, light armor would mitigate far less than medium

Light armor is awful, and light armor users don't get massive DPS to make up for the loss in mitigation. That can still be ok, if frequent and smart use of active defenses can make up the gap. Right now, the math says it does not.

The difference between full medium and full light is about 12 % damage mitgation from armor (took easy math, other factors obviously alter that). With concussion this changes to ~ 9 % so yea still not as great. But if we start mixing armors (sorry I am not at home so I can't get exact numbers) we start to see the difference become less substantial as light armor could throw on 2 heavy (or 1 heavy and 1 medium to get the 4 % stat increase from undaunted skill line which would give up to ~ 3 % increase to hardened ward based on 26 % magicka gain from other sources) and gain a larger raw defense increase to defense then medium armor would gain. Right now we do see a slightly higher increase to damage for medium armor over light due to 1.6.2 (before hand they had relative similar % increase to dps for 1.6) with 1.6.3 I am hoping to see full light get up to 2.4k spell penetration (not associated with a debuff) to give the damage % increase that the armor gives to be equivalent to that of medium armor.

Light armor in general looks bad, and in general does have the feeling, but the play style that is normally associated with it makes up for it. In large scale battles range does have innate advantages over melee range classes. I feel bad for Magicka melee DK's... not as much for magicka long range light armor users. They seem to have modified the damage of all range abilities (bow is weakend quite a bit too) to make the added range give less damage. Now if we were talking about increasing Light armors spell resistence to make it better then medium armor I would agree with that, This would give bows a use in taking out spell casters, but give spell casters a little damage reduction against magicka attacks.

Dymence · February 2015

Very good post with a lot of valid points. However, I'd just like to say one thing a lot of people here seem to be missing or disregarding.

Bound armor in it's current state (1.5) isn't very appealing, however in 1.6 it's giving the minor buff plus 8% max magicka/max stamina depending on morph. I'd say that could be a significant increase in dps along with inner light.

Mumyo · February 2015

Whatever u say... u have to post ur numbers because u need to compare with the best possible sorc gameplay. How would ever find out if there is a way without saying ur numbers here. In case u compare urself to other classes, try to do a longer fight with its ups and downs to find out who really did what dmg over what time and has ressource probs etc. etc. and can do what for a group.

Its not all about stupid numbers no matter what happened or who takes tons of healing by casting that magikarefill.
From a scientific point of view i stopped reading ur comment because it simply failed the comparison aspect.

Mumyo · February 2015

ThatHappyCat wrote: »

I think Dark Exchange should be turned into a "buff" instead of a channel: cost a lot of stamina instantly (can't be a stamina drain since you cannot stop it) to restore health and magicka over time. The restore should be slower and last longer for balance. This way it wouldn't impact DPS more than Spell Symmetry and might even give Sorcerers a legitimate self-heal.

I would make Daedric Mines a gtAoE instead of a pbAoE. It doesn't need 28m range, maybe just 15m would be enough. The Tomb morph can remain as it is (maybe be a bit more instant). Minefield would increase the area covered without affecting mine density.

The new Bound Armour isn't redundant with Lightning Form and actually increases your maximum resources, so that might be worth using.

I dislike how players and developers alike seem to see Surge as the Sorc's class heal. That, IMO, is stupid. I'd rather see Dark Exchange turned into a legitimate heal and Surge be given a special effect that isn't as boring. Improving basic attacks would be nice and synergises well with Overload.

Lets completely forget PvP hum?

Nihil · February 2015

Mumyo wrote: »

Whatever u say... u have to post ur numbers because u need to compare with the best possible sorc gameplay. How would ever find out if there is a way without saying ur numbers here. In case u compare urself to other classes, try to do a longer fight with its ups and downs to find out who really did what dmg over what time and has ressource probs etc. etc. and can do what for a group.

Its not all about stupid numbers no matter what happened or who takes tons of healing by casting that magikarefill.
From a scientific point of view i stopped reading ur comment because it simply failed the comparison aspect.

I am guessing this is aimed at me.

With the update being out for about 3 weeks on the PTS, and a lot of people having 1 -2 weeks with their character, and not even having the gear (as a lot of the high end gear was devalued with the update) up to best possible standard... We really do have only numbers. I am trying to keep a conversation going with more then just yes, yes and no statements and am actually putting thought into my posts. We will most likely not know how good either class will fall in update 6 till a month or so after its final release seeing as it is in PTS and have had major changes with in these couple weeks (last week medium armor alone got an increase of like 7 % crit rate which was substanatial).

Their are many factors to determining who well you do, DPS is one, but also can be derived by how you influence other players DPS. Did you know that their is only 2 skills in the game that give major brutality? Sorcs ultimate and NB's Reapers mark, and one source of Major force, Aggression horn. You might not agree with how I analyze things when new content is first coming out, but please don't be so fast to throw it under the bridge, I do actually do some research first.

(buffs and debuffs as these do pertain to class balance)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fW5cgdybuvxR8inE6QaPoeVOTsGJtrvKDD3RLFZ07n4/edit?usp=sharing

I have been posting on this thread over all the other Sorc threads because I respect a lot of the insight that these players have put into the thread, and agree with many points. I would be happy to be shown wrong and welcome good debates on the topic, because I figure that is how we will get our class worked the best. The Op stated " In each session I was in, I felt the frustrations were communicated to the developers, but when asked to specifically lay out the problems and why the proposed changes in 1.6 would not allay these concerns, we were not up to the task. It was mostly vague disappointment that would neither outweigh the positive feedback they have received nor alter the reality that many sorc skills have in fact been buffed." The reason why I think this is, is because we are so close, we are very close to being awesome but push us to far and we will just topple over.

One of the problems I have thought on is that in comparison to other classes, we have very much in class passives, we don't gain as much benefits that aid out of class skills. Templars has a weapon increase, NB's have crit/ crit damage, DK's have defensive powers, We had sustain... Which was easily relpicated by other classes. Before the proposed increase to spell power I had actually suggested putting spell / armor penetration on exploitation (our gutted skill to give all classes a group passive buff). With the addition of the spell power buff I am now on hold to see how this will aid us and work in practice.

cschwingeb14_ESO · February 2015

They said that light armor is going to get some spell pen back, and mobs will be getting a more significant amount of spell resist. That could be a buff similar to med armor weapon damage. We'll see.

Sorcs high ability cost (and it's going up due to them switching out the reduced storm cost for the spell damage) and lacking passives is still a problem. Let's look at a couple that recently changed:

DK's Mountains Blessing: Generate 2 ult and give everyone around you 5% weapon damage for 20 seconds. (Used to give just 2 ult per cast)

Sorcs passive gives everyone around you spell 3% crit on using a dark magic spell. (Used to give caster 15% crit)

That's a decent sized Nerf for sorcs, and a buff for dks

Now if we compare Talons to Encase:

After 1.6, where they dropped the cost of Encase:

Talons costs 5-8 % less still
Talons covers 112 sq ft compared to 45 sq ft for encase
Talons unmorphed does more damage than Encase does WITH the damage morph (shattering prison)
Talons lasts 4 sec, Encase 6 sec
Talons can be morphed for AE damage reduction, or DoT damage, Encase can be morphed for snare or damage.
Talons has a synergy

Oh, back to the point: Devs looked Encase, and the only change they made was to reduce the cost a little. They didn't even up the damage for the morph. They just don't get how low the functionality on sorc skills are.

Gyudan · February 2015

Nihil wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

@Nihil the things about Entropy/Surge healing and minor buffs provided by Bound Armor make me wonder wether you are aware of just how small those numbers really are?

300 hps is like 30-40 hps on Live and the Armor gives you about 1,5% damage reduction for 2 slots (the Armor is about magicka/stamina increase and the heavy attack buff).

With the comparison of Entropy and surge I was trying to show how surge is a little stronger then what players are giving it credit for. The common complaint is that our DoT's eat up the heal, so I took the worse case scenario(with a template character with only like 36 % crit rate) and checked how much health you could gain in comparison to Entropy over the life of a fight. In many cases you could very well gain heals on non DoT's and increase spike heal to upwards of 3k (if you crit CF). CS does weaken its strength a bit due to hitting three times, and as now we don't wear off three of the DK's reflect could be a place to argue that all three should heal us ( I personally think CS should only deal the damage of the staff you are wielding, it kind of get's rid of the point of different staves as it can apply all three of the elements status effects). So no I was not trying to show how awesome the DoT's heals were, but show a comparison of 2 skills that are commonly compared, and that one has potential for healing us for quite a bit for casting it once every 23 seconds.

Entropy also adds a dot that can proc item sets like Valkyn Skoria.

In 1.5 trials and DSA, Critical Surge was already overpowered by Power Surge because of the longer duration. I made do without that heal for months and I don't think that it will matter much to have it back now, especially if it comes with a loss of power and a reduced duration.
It's easier to compare the new surge with Structured Entropy (the non-healing morph) that adds 8% max health while on the active bar, which can easily be used to min/max stats, reducing base health to get more magicka and more damage. This is of course in addition to the 2% max magicka and 2% magicka regeneration from the Mages Guild passive.
Both skills grant the Major Sorcery buff. One adds healing, the other adds a substantial amount of DPS. Guess which one will be selected by 90% of magicka PVE players?

Entropy is overpowered and it makes Surge look lame.

Dracane · February 2015

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

Sorcs passive gives everyone around you spell 3% crit on using a dark magic spell. (Used to give caster 15% crit)

I haven't really tested it. But I doubt, exploitation gave us PLUS 15%, but only increase our crit chance by 15%. The average Sorc had 30% crit chance or maybe a bit more, which would be an increase of 4% crit or so.

I have never recognized a high increase of critical hits, when targets were affected by encase or negate magic. Leading me to the assumption, that it only was an increase of 15% of our base crit value and not real 15%. Tooltips in ESO are weird. Just like the apprentice passive: It does not give us 12% more spell crit, but only increase our base crit by 12%.

This means, Exploitation actually got buffed in 1.6 (if my theory is correct)

Derra · February 2015

You might add that encase is even harder to use because since 1.6.x it now features a nice animation delay of about a second before the root is applied. Can you manage to get out of the animation before that you don´t get rooted.

Its a pathetic spell.

Gandogal · February 2015

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

Sorcs passive gives everyone around you spell 3% crit on using a dark magic spell. (Used to give caster 15% crit)

It used to give the following:

"Increases the player's critical strike chance when attacking a target affected by Dark Magic"

This does NOT mean u got 15% more crit when using cstal fragment.

Emma_Overload · February 2015

Great post by @Joy_Division !!

I totally agree with the comments about Crushing Shock. Some Sorcs are getting way too distracted by this supposed Crushing Shock nerf, when there are much more important class-specific issues.

The OP covers all the problems related to single target DPS, but I would just like to add that there are also serious problems for AOE/survival builds that are looming in the 1.6 update. The cooldown on Critical Surge heals makes it much more difficult for a Sorc to survive a "1 vs Many" encounter, especially against the tougher groups of mobs in Upper Craglorn and Veteran dungeons.

I hope the ZoS devs read this thread and realize that there are huge problems for the Sorcerer class, and that the 1.6 update not only fails to address them, but in some case even makes the problems worse!

C0pp3rhead · February 2015

Fantastic post, @Joy_Division‌

Back in August, I was getting tired of my Templar because I couldn't get into raids that required only 1 or 2 healers. I looked around and saw lotsa sorcs in the parties, and decided to reroll: "There's demand for sorcs," I thought, "They must do decent dps." How wrong I was.

When I reached V1, I started looking into magicka-based DPS builds, and found myself in for quite a shock. Crushing Shock, that is.

If I understand your post, I totally agree. Sorcs do just fine in PvP (at least on live, I think the jury's still out on 1.6). However, they are almost nonviable in PvE, except for negate. (I don't know about stamina-build sorcs.) In fact, it has gotten to the point (and I'm guilty of this as well) where sorcs are seen as a dps liability in 4-person groups. In my experience, it is the uncommon and skilled sorc that can pull down over 800 sustained dps. forming a pug group will rarely net you these types of players. Even rarer are the very skilled who can pull over 900 sustained dps or pop 1k when they drop their storm atronach.

So, it's possible to reach the acceptable realms of dps, but that's not the point.

Probably the most telling sentence in your post is, "My DK, using Flames of Oblivion for the first time and butchering the rotation, was able to get 1.2k [dps]" This is the point: an expert sorcerer can achieve around 900 sustained dps with a magicka build whereas a mediocre DK can pull over 1k. In the upper echelons of end-game raids, Sorcs are simply not invited. The same goes for DSA, where most players see 800 sustained dps as the minimum.

Pets are not the answer. Can you imagine doing Sactum Ophidia with 2 pets that can't follow the stack, get knocked down each time a spear gets thrown, and stand in big red circles ad mortum? It won't work.

Nor is a ground-based AoE the answer. I do not find it reassuring that your answer to Sorc dps is, "Throw some lightning under it, proceed as normal, and hope the enemy doesn't move." FFS.

The reason so many sorcs use crushing shock is because it is a low-cost, moderate damage, insta-cast ability that we can use as filler to sustain dps. Every other class has an ability or two that fits this bill.

Please @ZOS take OP's suggestions & feedback seriously. I'm feeling guilty about neglecting 1/4 of the player base due to their dps.

Most of what has been said on this thread is excellent, but my final thought is, "Don't hold your breath." As they said in the most recent ESO Live!, regarding the Templar's charge: the global cool down that this ability inflicts is a bug, and they are working to correct this problem. What I'd like to point out is they have known about and we have complained about this bug for 10 months. They have not fixed it. If this is indeed the case, it seems that they are unable to fix this bug. Thence, I have little faith in their ability to fix trivial details, let alone rectify the game's class balance as a whole.

Nihil · February 2015

Gyudan wrote: »

Nihil wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

@Nihil the things about Entropy/Surge healing and minor buffs provided by Bound Armor make me wonder wether you are aware of just how small those numbers really are?

300 hps is like 30-40 hps on Live and the Armor gives you about 1,5% damage reduction for 2 slots (the Armor is about magicka/stamina increase and the heavy attack buff).

With the comparison of Entropy and surge I was trying to show how surge is a little stronger then what players are giving it credit for. The common complaint is that our DoT's eat up the heal, so I took the worse case scenario(with a template character with only like 36 % crit rate) and checked how much health you could gain in comparison to Entropy over the life of a fight. In many cases you could very well gain heals on non DoT's and increase spike heal to upwards of 3k (if you crit CF). CS does weaken its strength a bit due to hitting three times, and as now we don't wear off three of the DK's reflect could be a place to argue that all three should heal us ( I personally think CS should only deal the damage of the staff you are wielding, it kind of get's rid of the point of different staves as it can apply all three of the elements status effects). So no I was not trying to show how awesome the DoT's heals were, but show a comparison of 2 skills that are commonly compared, and that one has potential for healing us for quite a bit for casting it once every 23 seconds.

Entropy also adds a dot that can proc item sets like Valkyn Skoria.

In 1.5 trials and DSA, Critical Surge was already overpowered by Power Surge because of the longer duration. I made do without that heal for months and I don't think that it will matter much to have it back now, especially if it comes with a loss of power and a reduced duration.
It's easier to compare the new surge with Structured Entropy (the non-healing morph) that adds 8% max health while on the active bar, which can easily be used to min/max stats, reducing base health to get more magicka and more damage. This is of course in addition to the 2% max magicka and 2% magicka regeneration from the Mages Guild passive.
Both skills grant the Major Sorcery buff. One adds healing, the other adds a substantial amount of DPS. Guess which one will be selected by 90% of magicka PVE players?

Entropy is overpowered and it makes Surge look lame.

Wasn't thinking about that set when I made that post so that definitely does change things.

The 8 % passive to hp, tho, I have mostly considered a moot passive on live. As I would need to keep it on both bars to make it worth anything, because as soon as I switch bars I am back to my unmodified health, and nothing Sorcs have currently on live scale with HP (have used it on DK's tho, and could be useful with Templars). There might be some synergy tho come 1.6, and with it's buff it might be worth the second slot... It would gain a small synergy with bone shield if you run that skill (which I could see possible appearing in pvp if stamina gets to strong), and if you run with a DK or another player with bone shield then maybe.

Nihil · February 2015

What ZoS considers Damage over time for sorcs: lightning form, Lightning splash (liquid lightning too), daedric mines, daedric curse. Along with elemental wall (unstable as well), entropy, magicka detonation and volley. None of these skills can break the rune cage morph. Venom injections and rendering slash first hit broke the hold, but obviously the dot's didn't. It was amusing to beat up on npcs with these skills without repercussion.... but sadly don't know of any where that this will actually be of use. Maybe someone else might think of something but I can't off the top of my head.

Dracane · February 2015

Nihil wrote: »

What ZoS considers Damage over time for sorcs: lightning form, Lightning splash (liquid lightning too), daedric mines, daedric curse. Along with elemental wall (unstable as well), entropy, magicka detonation and volley. None of these skills can break the rune cage morph. Venom injections and rendering slash first hit broke the hold, but obviously the dot's didn't. It was amusing to beat up on npcs with these skills without repercussion.... but sadly don't know of any where that this will actually be of use. Maybe someone else might think of something but I can't off the top of my head.

Are you sure, lightning splash, lightning form, mines and curse don't break rune prison ?

Because they aren't DoTs in my eyes. A DoT, is something that is directly one the target (entropy, soul trap) Correct me if I'm wrong.

Nihil · February 2015

Dracane wrote: »

Nihil wrote: »

What ZoS considers Damage over time for sorcs: lightning form, Lightning splash (liquid lightning too), daedric mines, daedric curse. Along with elemental wall (unstable as well), entropy, magicka detonation and volley. None of these skills can break the rune cage morph. Venom injections and rendering slash first hit broke the hold, but obviously the dot's didn't. It was amusing to beat up on npcs with these skills without repercussion.... but sadly don't know of any where that this will actually be of use. Maybe someone else might think of something but I can't off the top of my head.

Are you sure, lightning splash, lightning form, mines and curse don't break rune prison ?

Because they aren't DoTs in my eyes. A DoT, is something that is directly one the target (entropy, soul trap) Correct me if I'm wrong.

I thought the same. But testing did show that neither of those skills broke rune cage, didn't even think of testing soul trap. If someone could catch the opponent in pvp when they couldn't break free, this could be very deadly... but likely hood of pulling that off is very low.

Nihil · February 2015

Some (more) thoughts on entropy and surge. With trying to think of a way to boost the effectiveness / want for sorcs to grab Power surge over entropy, but while keeping entropy viable (as all skills imo should be viable in their own rights) the one problem kept coming up that Entropy is purely offensive. From a strictly "increasing our dps" stand point I couldn't think of anything that would add strength to the skill but still leave a reason to grab entropy. So here are 2 other thoughts I had on it that insight from others might help refine.

Change it to group utility. With the possible change of Light armor's spell penetration being increased with tomorrows update, this might mean that the minor debuff is going to be taken off of concentration, and not have a source in the game. So if sorcs had something like "when you crit add minor breach to the opponent for 3+ seconds" this would add a group utility to spell. At least one sorc in a raid would probably want this to help the entire groups dps, other sorcs would stick with entropy due to it being strait up more damage (as I don't think the spell power buff we are getting tomorrow should / could be enough to off set the DoT on entropy).

Second thought: Aid us in healing. Sorcs right now has literally nothing that sets us apart from healing. If sorcs power surge gave us minor mending (8% increase to healing done) this would set up a slightly higher sustain healing for resto sorcs (could also help in pvp then for larger self heals). This would still keep us separate from the other classes for healing (DK's would use damage shields and have more spike healing in major mending, but couldn't keep the buff active as long, templars are well templars, NB's would have a lot more heal over times from class ability to supplement their healing), but possible give us an addition to our healing capabilities which could be needed for the class.

Teargrants · February 2015

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

Now if we compare Talons to Encase:

After 1.6, where they dropped the cost of Encase:

Talons costs 5-8 % less still
Talons covers 112 sq ft compared to 45 sq ft for encase
Talons unmorphed does more damage than Encase does WITH the damage morph (shattering prison)
Talons lasts 4 sec, Encase 6 sec
Talons can be morphed for AE damage reduction, or DoT damage, Encase can be morphed for snare or damage.
Talons has a synergy

Obviously we're just supposed to Encase + Lightning Splash, just be happy it doesn't take sorcs 3 skills to do that.

ThatHappyCat · February 2015

Mumyo wrote: »

ThatHappyCat wrote: »

I think Dark Exchange should be turned into a "buff" instead of a channel: cost a lot of stamina instantly (can't be a stamina drain since you cannot stop it) to restore health and magicka over time. The restore should be slower and last longer for balance. This way it wouldn't impact DPS more than Spell Symmetry and might even give Sorcerers a legitimate self-heal.

I would make Daedric Mines a gtAoE instead of a pbAoE. It doesn't need 28m range, maybe just 15m would be enough. The Tomb morph can remain as it is (maybe be a bit more instant). Minefield would increase the area covered without affecting mine density.

The new Bound Armour isn't redundant with Lightning Form and actually increases your maximum resources, so that might be worth using.

I dislike how players and developers alike seem to see Surge as the Sorc's class heal. That, IMO, is stupid. I'd rather see Dark Exchange turned into a legitimate heal and Surge be given a special effect that isn't as boring. Improving basic attacks would be nice and synergises well with Overload.

Lets completely forget PvP hum?

Which of my suggestions are incompatible with PvP?

Morvul · February 2015

Teargrants wrote: »

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

Now if we compare Talons to Encase:

After 1.6, where they dropped the cost of Encase:

Talons costs 5-8 % less still
Talons covers 112 sq ft compared to 45 sq ft for encase
Talons unmorphed does more damage than Encase does WITH the damage morph (shattering prison)
Talons lasts 4 sec, Encase 6 sec
Talons can be morphed for AE damage reduction, or DoT damage, Encase can be morphed for snare or damage.
Talons has a synergy

Obviously we're just supposed to Encase + Lightning Splash, just be happy it doesn't take sorcs 3 skills to do that.

that actually a comon theme with the sorcerer class, IMHO.
using multiple of our skills in conjunction, we gain effects which are just as strong if not stronger then what other classes can archieve with a single skill.
And I get the distinct impression that the developers therefore see the sorcerer as balanced.

The fact that we do not have more skill-slots despite needing more skill slots to do the same thing is just a minor detail..

(and no, the 3rd bar from overload does not count - all our togglemancer goodness has to go on that bar as well, leaving nothing useable)

Gyudan · February 2015

Nihil wrote: »

Some (more) thoughts on entropy and surge. With trying to think of a way to boost the effectiveness / want for sorcs to grab Power surge over entropy, but while keeping entropy viable (as all skills imo should be viable in their own rights) the one problem kept coming up that Entropy is purely offensive. From a strictly "increasing our dps" stand point I couldn't think of anything that would add strength to the skill but still leave a reason to grab entropy.

The 8% increased max health from Structured Entropy along with a cheap DoT and the Major Sorcery Buff make it insanely powerful. It was already a decent spell to have on the main bar in 1.5 to min/max health/magicka easily in PVE fights. I always had it on my tank and sometimes in specific DPS situations too.

If you compare Structured Entropy to toggles like Inner Light and Bound armor, it is also superior to any of those abilities, with the added convenience of not requiring to be used on both bars. You're free to switch to your second bar, pop a few buffs/dots and get back to the main bar with entropy to enjoy the +8% max health.
Structured Entropy is probably the best multi-purpose ability in the game now.

Liea · February 2015

Great post! I agree that all sorcerer abilities that are weaker than those available to other / all classes have to be remade from scratch. And you point out very well why they are inferior.

Two things I want to add:
Bound Armor (and Lightning Form and its morphs) was great for tanking - pre 1.6. With 1.6.2 it has been nerfed to uselessness - yes I agree sorcerers would be better off, now, without it. I wish it would be redesigned to be useful for tanking in 1.6.3.

Redesigning Surge to enhance light and heavy attacks from staves would be horrible, not because the idea is bad, but because light attacks with staves fail to fire reliably: About 60 % of my light attacks only cause my avatar to do the winding-up-to-fire animation and then canceling-itself without ever firing the shot. In contrast, if I do the same attacks with a one-handed or two-handed sword 95 % of my light attacks fire reliably. So, prior to implementing any buffs to light attacks a complete fix for the light-attacks-not-firing-reliably-with-staves-bug must be implemented - and no, 1.6.2 did not fix this bug.

Fayaburn · February 2015

Liea wrote: »

because light attacks with staves fail to fire reliably: About 60 % of my light attacks only cause my avatar to do the winding-up-to-fire animation and then canceling-itself without ever firing the shot. In contrast, if I do the same attacks with a one-handed or two-handed sword 95 % of my light attacks fire reliably. So, prior to implementing any buffs to light attacks a complete fix for the light-attacks-not-firing-reliably-with-staves-bug must be implemented - and no, 1.6.2 did not fix this bug.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Light attack weaving with staves is totally working. My light attacks do fire at the same time as my crushing shock beams once per GCD.

nun_nonrb19_ESO · February 2015

After seeing last Eso live I was shocked to see the lack of understanding the lead combat dev had of the inefficiencies of sorcs in most cases other than probably some pvp specific situations, so I really hope he sees this thread as OP did a great job explaining why there's so many unhappy sorcs among the 10% of the base players that like to do end-game content and find it so hard to do it because sorcs stink with their average DPS and are not very liable for any of the other roles neither.

Snit · February 2015

nun_nonrb19_ESO wrote: »

After seeing last Eso live I was shocked to see the lack of understanding the lead combat dev had of the inefficiencies of sorcs...

There are any number of people with a great understanding of the sorcerer class, from the point of view of someone trying to kill that sorc. Misunderstandings abound.

Liea · February 2015

Fayaburn wrote: »

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Light attack weaving with staves is totally working. My light attacks do fire at the same time as my crushing shock beams once per GCD.

You mean to say 'Light attack weaving with staves is totally working for me.'
Rejoice at the fact that you do not suffer from this bug.

Yes, I have heard of people that do not experience this bug, but about 35 % of people I have talked to do. I have no clue why some people suffer from this bug all the time and others never do, but one idea I have is this: The people that I talked to and who do suffer from this bug often had hardware that can be macroed - maybe people with macroable hardware get some special surveillance scripts applied to their clients to ensure they are not using those macros? And those surveillance scripts cause the bug?

nun_nonrb19_ESO · February 2015

and the nerfing continues....

"Expert Mage: This passive ability has been changed. It now grants 2% Spell Power for each Sorcerer ability slotted instead of 10% reduced cost to lightning spells.
Overload: Reduced the rank up bonus damage for this ability from 3% to 1%. Also, Overload and its morphs will no longer trigger Ultimate gain from Light and Heavy Attacks."

Sublime · February 2015

nun_nonrb19_ESO wrote: »

and the nerfing continues....

"Expert Mage: This passive ability has been changed. It now grants 2% Spell Power for each Sorcerer ability slotted instead of 10% reduced cost to lightning spells.
Overload: Reduced the rank up bonus damage for this ability from 3% to 1%. Also, Overload and its morphs will no longer trigger Ultimate gain from Light and Heavy Attacks."

That's dependent on the point of view, I don't mind giving up some cost reduction for some additional damage. I'm playing an Altmer so it might not affect me as much, but sorc does need some damage boost, so I'm happy, even if it's just 2%/skill.

Additionally I prefer to play a more squishy style than most, which itself gets a huge boost with 1.6 due to the removal of softcaps, so more damage is very welcome. On the other hand I almost always was at ~150 magicka regen, so the removal of the softcaps on magicka recovery will probably even out by removing the 15% spell cost reduction.

The thing I will certainly regret however, is the cheap Overload Ultimate, which was very nice on PTS, on top of that Power Overload got a ~5-6% nerf, which was really needed because of the removal of the softcaps.

2% per skill is however really low, it is about the same as the max magicka passive from the Mage's guild, which is available to everyone. I'd suggest to make it either 1%/3% or 2%/4%, the Problem is as soon as you go to you could get really high spell power values. But it's hard to predict numbers so I'll shut my mouth. :P