Stamina Sorcerer issues with proposed changes to help stam synergize with sorc

Morvul · July 2015

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Also just to touch on the whole critical/power surge controversy... the 1/4th of a second internal cooldown really doesn't affect much other than huge amounts of aoe dot's going off from us. It still allows for our big attacks to proc it even after a dot recently had, for example (yum when an insta-empowered frag clutch heals as a crit ), and provides a good chunk of healing when aoe'ing (especially in stamina builds since you can spec for the much higher healing percentage of your damage done, as the morph!). Having lowered AOE cap limits with no stat caps as of 1.6, and being able to still aoe spam alongside the higher crit rates we can reach now (impenetrable no longer makes us not crit, it just can lower the damage from our crits) would be extremely broken.

Nearly of the hits on average will crit in a damage-oriented build, minimum, on the sorc factoring in the typical 42% basic spell critical loadout of gear along with the 3% dark magic bonus for a total of 45%, and not using a precise staff (instead having a nirnhoned staff for the extra spell pen along with the Apprentice mundus or in some builds, the Mage for pvp or Atronarch). It used to be the case that most people ran around with 20-50% flat reductions in chance to be critically hit, so it kept this in check when there was no internal cooldown for us. If you had 45% spell crit against someone wearing 50% worth of impenetrable gear... you literally could not critically hit them. Now if you have 45% spell crit... you will critically hit 45% of the time against them, rain or shine.

You can't think that purposefully avoiding DOTs so they don't eat up your Surge healing is a good mechanic, can you? I understand the internal cooldown because AOE builds would have some insane healing, but getting those 400 point heals from Boundless Storm while your Wrecking Blow crit for what would be a 7k heal right afterwards is extremely frustrating. Add in the fact that you can not crit a blocking opponent, and for stamina builds, it will always be Rally over Crit Surge.

Not sure why you are talking about spell crit and such in a stamina thread, by the way.

You're nitpicking, honestly here: substitute "weapon crit" and the exact same point applies . And in a single-target situation, you won't be using enough DOT's for it to be an issue. It's only once you're slamming down aoe's that it comes into play, but at that time the cooldown is being hit every single time and you're still getting nice amounts of healing in any case. I think that Eric Wrobel's solution, outlined on the last ESO Live broadcast, of potentially adding a minimum heal amount to the effect will be more than sufficient.

ohhh... liquid lightning is a worthwhile DoT even single target, Storm form is a worthwhile DoT even single target. And whenever you use crushing shock/force pulse you have a very high chance of starting a burning DoT on your target.

sooo... 3+ DoTs eating away at your potential heals, even single target...

Crit surge with the cooldown is useless compared to similar skills (like rally)...

WarrioroftheWind_ESO · July 2015

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

WarrioroftheWind_ESO wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure where this 'general consensus' comes from. While I agree that changes need to be made to some under used or poorly performing abilities, not every sorc is on the sky is falling wagon.

I cannot think of anyone off the top of my head who uses Thundering Presence. I remember one person mentioning it in their build it didn't rely a great deal on magicka, so for them it was beneficial to have the extra time over speed. I would like for them to increase the armor/resistances gained a smidgin tho, as well as increase the damage. Honestly, triple digits is a kitten whisker tickle compared to the mana pools people are rocking these days. In PVE I'll occasionally roast a crocodile or welwa with the disintegration passive, but in PVP it's mostly just for the speed as well as resistances. Maybe not make it stam cost based, just scale off of highest stat perhaps and add increased resitances/dmg to presence and increase the duration of Boundless' speed by a couple seconds.

The biggest problem I see with sorcs is that they've been pidgeonholed into playing a handful of viable specs because those ARE the only 'viable specs' and proposed changes have people convinced that ZOS hates their class. I play a spec I like not because I can go on 200+ unbroken kill streaks but because I LIKE it, and I'd like it to be given a fair shake and not perform so badly because I don't use the same cookie-cutter setup as every other rank 40+ sorc.

Dark Deal definitely should be changed into a hot of some kind, either that or return more for its cost. I get its trying to emulate Equilibrium from Skyrim or the old Restore Fatigue spells from older ES games, but NPC mobs operate much differently there than in ESO where you have mobs that can close distances intelligently or perform interrupts, or Players who can easily break out of snares. Maybe add a cast timer to it where you can stop and go with small bursts between attacks to replenish your resources.

BE. I hate this skill. I hate it so much I refuse to use it at all, so I can't comment on it besides saying that I've seen some players use it very creatively in builds where they will take it just as readily as they dish it out, and others run away like schoolyard sissies and claim it's for 'survivability'.

I've never used crystal shard or any of its morphs at all, mostly because I see everyone and their mom using it. When I'm running a stam spec I aim to use sorc abilities to supplement my damage and utility such as shattering prison for snares and Bound Armaments for dmg. If I'm dealing damage I expect to use weapon abilities. I wouldn't object to a close range burst that would synergize well with melee, but it'd be tricky to work with with the limited bar space and so much that is integral to my setup.

The internal cd on Surge is kind of dumb. If DK's can heal themselves ad nauseum, or temps, or NB's, then why not sorcs? The point of no cooldowns is that resources have to be exhausted first. Throw the cooldown in the garbage and just bump the cost some. Or make it the self heal sorcs have been yammering about for months, make it a burst heal that adds weapon/spell crit/dmg.

Stormie: can you PLEASE make this guy not stunnable/knockdownable? I think its kind of dumb that NPC stormies are immune to stuns but mine can get dropped like a pancake by a little bitty clannfear. Except for one time where I saw a AD guild rolling around with sorcs leading the charge and dropping stormies simultaneously, I just don't see them used a great deal. They don't seem to do that much damage and they're too easily CCed. Meanwhile DK's can melt enemies like butter with an INVULNERABLE standard, NB's can suck life with an INVULNERABLE vampire pool of death, and temps can flatten people with an INVULNERABLE glowy swirly orb.

Pets: I think they could use some love. As much as ZOS tried to nerf everything else to make pets look more appetizing, they're not, and only new players or PVEers still use them. Occasionally I'll see them in PVP, but very rarely. Balance shouldn't involve making everything else suck then telling people to use what YOU want, but making everything that sucks look more appetizing so you think "Hrm...you know I might wanna try that".

I still want to summon a *** dremora lord one of these days, but that's still on the back burner afaik.

I remember there was a player who first started using stam sorc setups. I'm not sure if she still plays anymore, last I checked on her channel she had not updated any ESO videos for a long time, at least since last year. Alot of the abilities she used ended up getting the nerf hammer in 1.5 I believe, but I've seen other sorcs continue to build up on that style. I would like to see sorcs be able to sport a wider range of viable builds.

Good feedback, while I don't agree with all of it, I can see where you're coming from .

Dark deal already works that way and can be cancelled between any of its ticks at will.

Bolt escape and morphs both have huge utility in group and solo play. Ball of lightning gives protection to you and any allies it is near, and fan be used as a deterrent when healing or as a quick help when mainly damaging. Streak is a moderate damage hit stuns and disrupts the enemylines, and gets you in tthere for aoe. Can also stun people off of you or your healers use it to get out of Los to avoid focused fire on you.

Crystal blast has good use as I said in my last post while frag is useful for extra burst, and for tagging an unaware enemy even without the proc. Goes great on someone who just popped on someone next to you and as a damage back load combined with curse and ice reach. Hit them and sstun right as the curse is applied then root hits a sec later .

Atronarch is incredibly high damage in aoe with its morph for charged Atronarch and a group mate can tag it with the synergy for a nice damage buff for it and themselves. It is much higher dps than the other ultimates you mentioned and fan benefit from your empowered ward to boot. Also stuns with a big hit on impact and can be commanded to single target channel on an out of range enemy. I feel its downside is balanced.

Summoned pets should only need to be on one bar... Pet builds could be viable and great options if not for bar slot starvation when using them and even just empowered ward, to make them good. At worst they could be turned into timed summons that last a 45 second or so stretch, but they were much more feasible in beta when not needing to be on every skill bar including overload to stay active. I also would like to see an on death effect added for the morphs of the winged twilight's.

When I was talking about DD I meant it along the lines of a HOT similar to the old Morrowind/Oblivion hots such as Convalescence or the chunky single cast ones such as Respite. It wasn't until Skyrim we started getting 'channel' spells such as equilibrium and healing hands.

Stormie if it does so much damage I can never tell because it's always CCed off the bat. If it isn't NPC's negate stopping it dead in its tracks it's a player-based stun like frags or disorient. It goes down very quickly if focusfired and I've never seen anyone specifically die because of it that I've fought. That's my experience. Most raw dps sorcs won't use stormie but only negate or overload. A handful of gravity orbs or standards will stop a zerg dead in its tracks on the alessia bridge but toss a stormie in there and it's just a big fat target, far in comparison to the daedric powerhouse seen in NPC stormies.

I would rather they turn pets into timed summons similar to the summon casts from older games. The only time I can think of that you could have a permanent summon was the endless atronach perk from conjuration, but that only worked on atronachs, and they just didn't have the oomph compared to 2 dremora lords screaming for blood and wielding big stonking swords. Plus atronachs got stuck on logs. alot. Supposedly there's a glitch with the bound armor that allows it to be used without slotting it on both bars. If there's no way to have summons/bound objects persist while switching bars like a buff that'll stay active until you're killed or until you toggle it off, then make it a timed cast that will last base 60 seconds, maybe more with passives.

The aura damage from storm form really does pitiful damage in comparison to the number bloat. It's okay now but it could be nicer in relation to other armor/resist buffs.

I still hate BE. I've seen some sorcs use it very well like mister Fengrush (I keep wanting to type Fencrush) or Prett, who were both incredibly strong in pvp when I encountered them, but they'd usually keep tossing themselves into the fight until they got killed or killed everyone, usually a combination of both. That's a good utility for it to have, but it just gets plain silly when you have other sorcs that will keep popping all around the shore of Lake Rumare if they're way up in the boonies by Chalman Milegate and EP or DC get tired of their shenanigans and want them to butt out and die. Painfully.

Now that I think about it why don't they have a raise dead spell yet. Lasts 30 seconds or so and keeps friendlies from rezzing the target but target fights for you then crumbles into ash. Funyuns.

Attorneyatlawl · July 2015

CP5 wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Also just to touch on the whole critical/power surge controversy... the 1/4th of a second internal cooldown really doesn't affect much other than huge amounts of aoe dot's going off from us. It still allows for our big attacks to proc it even after a dot recently had, for example (yum when an insta-empowered frag clutch heals as a crit ), and provides a good chunk of healing when aoe'ing (especially in stamina builds since you can spec for the much higher healing percentage of your damage done, as the morph!). Having lowered AOE cap limits with no stat caps as of 1.6, and being able to still aoe spam alongside the higher crit rates we can reach now (impenetrable no longer makes us not crit, it just can lower the damage from our crits) would be extremely broken.

Nearly of the hits on average will crit in a damage-oriented build, minimum, on the sorc factoring in the typical 42% basic spell critical loadout of gear along with the 3% dark magic bonus for a total of 45%, and not using a precise staff (instead having a nirnhoned staff for the extra spell pen along with the Apprentice mundus or in some builds, the Mage for pvp or Atronarch). It used to be the case that most people ran around with 20-50% flat reductions in chance to be critically hit, so it kept this in check when there was no internal cooldown for us. If you had 45% spell crit against someone wearing 50% worth of impenetrable gear... you literally could not critically hit them. Now if you have 45% spell crit... you will critically hit 45% of the time against them, rain or shine.

You can't think that purposefully avoiding DOTs so they don't eat up your Surge healing is a good mechanic, can you? I understand the internal cooldown because AOE builds would have some insane healing, but getting those 400 point heals from Boundless Storm while your Wrecking Blow crit for what would be a 7k heal right afterwards is extremely frustrating. Add in the fact that you can not crit a blocking opponent, and for stamina builds, it will always be Rally over Crit Surge.

Not sure why you are talking about spell crit and such in a stamina thread, by the way.

You're nitpicking, honestly here: substitute "weapon crit" and the exact same point applies . And in a single-target situation, you won't be using enough DOT's for it to be an issue. It's only once you're slamming down aoe's that it comes into play, but at that time the cooldown is being hit every single time and you're still getting nice amounts of healing in any case. I think that Eric Wrobel's solution, outlined on the last ESO Live broadcast, of potentially adding a minimum heal amount to the effect will be more than sufficient.

"Nitpicking" a vital flaw that turns your vital heal into a decorative buff and gives you next to no healing when you need it most is more than valid. I shouldn't have to cut so many skills from my bar just to assure myself that i'll get the powerful heals when I need them, and the higher my crit rate the more I need to avoid.

Nitpicking about the usage of the term spell crit instead of physical crit. I didn't call the cooldown a nitpick at all. In fact, I addressed it directly and fairly thoroughly in both posts. You took that completely out of context . And no, there's no need to take anything off your bar as I said.. Outside of a multitarget scenario you are unlikely to run into the cooldown very much overall. It is aoe, where it would be nuts with no cooldown restricting it to a maximum of four times a second, that it gets throttled.

Atropos · July 2015

Thanks to the folks in this thread fighting the good fight on behalf of Stamina sorcs. I carried that banner for over 2 years and have lost the energy to make these arguments myself anymore, I'm glad to see some new blood able to carry on and try to represent our needs.

WarrioroftheWind_ESO · July 2015

Atropos wrote: »

Thanks to the folks in this thread fighting the good fight on behalf of Stamina sorcs. I carried that banner for over 2 years and have lost the energy to make these arguments myself anymore, I'm glad to see some new blood able to carry on and try to represent our needs.

RhinSTC I think was the name of the first sorc I can remember off the top of my head who really began pursuing a dedicated stam sorc build. I dunno if shes till plays anymore but she inspired me to switch to the style I've been using since. Much of her original technique involved locking down entire groups with streak and negate, and back then wrecking blow was kind of broken. Now she focused primarily on 2h/sorc abilities. I'd seen some variations that dabbled in dual wield or bow. It was a fun thing to delve into, but you still see so many robe n sticks because that still yields the highest dmg output as well as survivability.

Hypertionb14_ESO · July 2015

right now, if you are hitting a target that is not blocking or using a damage shield, the healing rate from Crit Surge while using either morph of Flurry is insane. Generally better than what you can do with Puncturing Sweep on the best possible build.

Erock25 · July 2015

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

right now, if you are hitting a target that is not blocking or using a damage shield, the healing rate from Crit Surge while using either morph of Flurry is insane. Generally better than what you can do with Puncturing Sweep on the best possible build.

That is a hell of a qualifier though.

Also, am I missing something from the tool tip for Puncturing Sweep on esohead.com? It says heals you for damage done. Crit Surge is healing you for 60% of your damage that hits for a critical. Is Flurry really hitting for that much more damage than Puncturing Sweep that even with around a 50% critical rate and the fact that it is only healing 60% of those criticals it still out heals Puncturing Sweep? I find that extremely hard to believe considering Puncturing Sweeps is AOE and let's not forget about the fact that Puncturing Sweeps heals every time. The randomness of Critical Surge combined with the not-blocking not-shielded qualifier is a tough pill to swallow compared to guaranteed heals.

Emma_Overload · July 2015

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Also just to touch on the whole critical/power surge controversy... the 1/4th of a second internal cooldown really doesn't affect much other than huge amounts of aoe dot's going off from us. It still allows for our big attacks to proc it even after a dot recently had, for example (yum when an insta-empowered frag clutch heals as a crit ), and provides a good chunk of healing when aoe'ing (especially in stamina builds since you can spec for the much higher healing percentage of your damage done, as the morph!). Having lowered AOE cap limits with no stat caps as of 1.6, and being able to still aoe spam alongside the higher crit rates we can reach now (impenetrable no longer makes us not crit, it just can lower the damage from our crits) would be extremely broken.

Nearly of the hits on average will crit in a damage-oriented build, minimum, on the sorc factoring in the typical 42% basic spell critical loadout of gear along with the 3% dark magic bonus for a total of 45%, and not using a precise staff (instead having a nirnhoned staff for the extra spell pen along with the Apprentice mundus or in some builds, the Mage for pvp or Atronarch). It used to be the case that most people ran around with 20-50% flat reductions in chance to be critically hit, so it kept this in check when there was no internal cooldown for us. If you had 45% spell crit against someone wearing 50% worth of impenetrable gear... you literally could not critically hit them. Now if you have 45% spell crit... you will critically hit 45% of the time against them, rain or shine.

As the person whose question about Surge was answered by Eric on the last ESO Live (LOL, did anyone notice my 15 seconds of fame?), I was particularly depressed by the answer: ZoS simply does NOT want Sorcs to be able to out-heal the damage from multiple, hard-hitting mobs.... PERIOD. This means that my dream of soloing all the Veteran dungeons is crushed, at least until I hit 3600 CP or something. If it weren't for the cooldown, I could be hitting 20,000+ HPS with my current AOE build, but because of the CD, I'm lucky to get 2000 HPS. Of course, I use Wards now like everybody else, but those have a hard limit that doesn't scale with the number of foes you are facing.

You can call the old Surge mechanic "broken" or whatever, but the reality is that the cooldown slammed an iron door in the face of every hardcore solo PvE Sorc.

Yolokin_Swagonborn · July 2015

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Also just to touch on the whole critical/power surge controversy... the 1/4th of a second internal cooldown really doesn't affect much other than huge amounts of aoe dot's going off from us. It still allows for our big attacks to proc it even after a dot recently had, for example (yum when an insta-empowered frag clutch heals as a crit ), and provides a good chunk of healing when aoe'ing (especially in stamina builds since you can spec for the much higher healing percentage of your damage done, as the morph!). Having lowered AOE cap limits with no stat caps as of 1.6, and being able to still aoe spam alongside the higher crit rates we can reach now (impenetrable no longer makes us not crit, it just can lower the damage from our crits) would be extremely broken.

Nearly of the hits on average will crit in a damage-oriented build, minimum, on the sorc factoring in the typical 42% basic spell critical loadout of gear along with the 3% dark magic bonus for a total of 45%, and not using a precise staff (instead having a nirnhoned staff for the extra spell pen along with the Apprentice mundus or in some builds, the Mage for pvp or Atronarch). It used to be the case that most people ran around with 20-50% flat reductions in chance to be critically hit, so it kept this in check when there was no internal cooldown for us. If you had 45% spell crit against someone wearing 50% worth of impenetrable gear... you literally could not critically hit them. Now if you have 45% spell crit... you will critically hit 45% of the time against them, rain or shine.

As the person whose question about Surge was answered by Eric on the last ESO Live (LOL, did anyone notice my 15 seconds of fame?), I was particularly depressed by the answer: ZoS simply does NOT want Sorcs to be able to out-heal the damage from multiple, hard-hitting mobs.... PERIOD. This means that my dream of soloing all the Veteran dungeons is crushed, at least until I hit 3600 CP or something. If it weren't for the cooldown, I could be hitting 20,000+ HPS with my current AOE build, but because of the CD, I'm lucky to get 2000 HPS. Of course, I use Wards now like everybody else, but those have a hard limit that doesn't scale with the number of foes you are facing.

You can call the old Surge mechanic "broken" or whatever, but the reality is that the cooldown slammed an iron door in the face of every hardcore solo PvE Sorc.

As long as Crit surge doesn't prioritize a high damage crit over a small crit dot, it will be a skill I never use. Doesn't matter how small the cooldown is, if it exists, it will ruin a huge heal at some point in some battle. All they need to do is cap the incoming healing to 6 sources (like they do for sap essence) then they can remove the cooldown for good and the skill will be usable again.

skillastat · July 2015

I agree that some kind of crystal punch would be so nice, on par with surprise attack/concealed weapon from the Nightblade.

c0rp · July 2015

I agree that they are about to ruin the lightning form skill for a lot of people if they dont add the speed increase to the BASE SKILL before making one of the morphs stam.

Maulkin · July 2015

It's simple really. 5 things could make stam sorcs so much better.

1. Passives that give Spell Dmg/Spell Crit should also give Wep Dmg/Crit. As OP suggested
2. Buff Hardened Ward shield and make it scale off HP. Make it so whatever a 30k magicka build would get in 1.7 (post shield nerf) you can actually get with 20k-22k HP. So it's not a nerf for magicka builds but a buff for stamina builds
3. Make Dark Exchange/Dark Deal skill an instacast HoT skill. So you cast it once and it heals and recovers one attribute at the expense of the other, over the course of 4". But it doesn't leave you stunned for 4".
4. Make Crit Surge heal not proc on DoTs but only hits. Or alternatively put a cap to heals per sec and remove cooldown. The skill is useless in 1.6 in its current format.
5. DO NOT MESS OTHER SKILLS UP.

By 5, I mean things like what you propose to do with Lightning Form. It's better to have that skill cost magicka than stamina since all your attacks and dodge-rolls (whose cost is increasing btw) plus all your heals (rally, vigor) cost stamina.

Or what you are about to do with Bolt Escape. Having all your Magicka bar drain with two Bolts is absurd. Find another way to stop infini-bolt. Either make a way to remove the ever increasing cost (by attacking for example), or make the base cost depend on your magicka pool (but with a ceiling). So base cost ranges from 2k-3.5k (the latter is the current base cost, I believe) depending on how much magicka you have and then the % increase stacks on top of that.

SturgeHammer · July 2015

Here is a summary of things I'd like to have for my stam sorc:

- More Relevant class passives.

- A reason to use surge, it should be a signature ability in a stam sorc's arsenal but is currently just not as useful as momtentum. My suggestion is to allow it to be reactivated (think grim focus mechanics, but with an easier trigger) when a condition is met to do a powerful stamina scaling, melee range attack.

Those are really the only things I want and I don't think that is asking for anything unreasonable. Also, here is my feedback on the Known changes coming in the next update:

-I won't use the new lightning form if it provides no speed buff.

-The new Dark Deal would have to be amazing to warrant a spot on my bar. Maybe this isn't the popular take, but I prefer evasion/mobility over heals on my stam sorc so even a burst heal wouldn't interest me that much.

-I really need to be able to bolt 3 times from max magicka.

-The dodge roll nerf will hurt, but I can't dodge roll forever so it probably won't change my play too much.

ToRelax · July 2015

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Also just to touch on the whole critical/power surge controversy... the 1/4th of a second internal cooldown really doesn't affect much other than huge amounts of aoe dot's going off from us. It still allows for our big attacks to proc it even after a dot recently had, for example (yum when an insta-empowered frag clutch heals as a crit ), and provides a good chunk of healing when aoe'ing (especially in stamina builds since you can spec for the much higher healing percentage of your damage done, as the morph!). Having lowered AOE cap limits with no stat caps as of 1.6, and being able to still aoe spam alongside the higher crit rates we can reach now (impenetrable no longer makes us not crit, it just can lower the damage from our crits) would be extremely broken.

Nearly of the hits on average will crit in a damage-oriented build, minimum, on the sorc factoring in the typical 42% basic spell critical loadout of gear along with the 3% dark magic bonus for a total of 45%, and not using a precise staff (instead having a nirnhoned staff for the extra spell pen along with the Apprentice mundus or in some builds, the Mage for pvp or Atronarch). It used to be the case that most people ran around with 20-50% flat reductions in chance to be critically hit, so it kept this in check when there was no internal cooldown for us. If you had 45% spell crit against someone wearing 50% worth of impenetrable gear... you literally could not critically hit them. Now if you have 45% spell crit... you will critically hit 45% of the time against them, rain or shine.

You can't think that purposefully avoiding DOTs so they don't eat up your Surge healing is a good mechanic, can you? I understand the internal cooldown because AOE builds would have some insane healing, but getting those 400 point heals from Boundless Storm while your Wrecking Blow crit for what would be a 7k heal right afterwards is extremely frustrating. Add in the fact that you can not crit a blocking opponent, and for stamina builds, it will always be Rally over Crit Surge.

Not sure why you are talking about spell crit and such in a stamina thread, by the way.

You're nitpicking, honestly here: substitute "weapon crit" and the exact same point applies . And in a single-target situation, you won't be using enough DOT's for it to be an issue. It's only once you're slamming down aoe's that it comes into play, but at that time the cooldown is being hit every single time and you're still getting nice amounts of healing in any case. I think that Eric Wrobel's solution, outlined on the last ESO Live broadcast, of potentially adding a minimum heal amount to the effect will be more than sufficient.

"Nitpicking" a vital flaw that turns your vital heal into a decorative buff and gives you next to no healing when you need it most is more than valid. I shouldn't have to cut so many skills from my bar just to assure myself that i'll get the powerful heals when I need them, and the higher my crit rate the more I need to avoid.

Nitpicking about the usage of the term spell crit instead of physical crit. I didn't call the cooldown a nitpick at all. In fact, I addressed it directly and fairly thoroughly in both posts. You took that completely out of context . And no, there's no need to take anything off your bar as I said.. Outside of a multitarget scenario you are unlikely to run into the cooldown very much overall. It is aoe, where it would be nuts with no cooldown restricting it to a maximum of four times a second, that it gets throttled.

So, how could you rely on that heal as your main source of healing?
You obviously need a high crit rate, daage shields would be very good as a more reliable way to stay alive either way, protecting you until you get enough healing.
But you also need a lot of hits to make this heal reliable. If you use burst damage, you'll often won't get a good heal at all, leaving you spamming shields without the ability to heal yourself.
So we need a spammable single target ability with decent damage output... for a magicka Sorc, there is exactly one skill in the entire game that should give us what we need here: Force Shock. This skill was indeed excellent for that purpose pre 1.6 (against everyone without impenetrable of course). That the damage is split in 3 hits made the heal a lot more reliable (while not any bigger), and as the strongest weapon damage buff in the game, Surge increased both the damage and healing from using that ability.
Now the split up hits make the heal still more reliable, but also 3 times smaller than it would be with a single hit.
Only Power Surge buffs the damage now, though far less than it used to, and providing an even smaller heal.

Secondly, they explained they do not want players to heal themselves from all the enemies around them.
That may make sense for PvE, but it's exactly the attitude that makes them create game mechanics that favour numbers over skill, thus horrible for PvP. If a player gets healed from all the idiots standing around them, they had better spread out already.
In fact, before 1.6, every class had options for such an AoE build, although the templar one didn't sustain itself from enemy players before they died, at least unless one used Devouring Swarm.

Sorcs had Critical Surge (nerfed in 1.6) and Absorption Field (nerfed in 1.6).
DKs had Draw Essence, Ash Cloud (nerfed in 1.6), Talons, Battle Roar (nerfed in 1.6), Igneous Shield (nerfed in 1.6) and Standard (nerfed in 1.6, synergy radius reduced).
Templars had Blinding Light (removed with 1.6, replaced by a nice Xv1 skill), Blazing Shield (nerfed in 1.6), Repentance, Empowering Sweep, Nova (synergy radius reduced).
NBs have Siphoning Attacks, Sap Essence, Fear, Refreshing Path, Veil of Blades (nerfed in 1.6), Soul Tether (since 1.6).

A few of these skills also got minor and partly even considerable buffs (Draw Essence), though even in that case they are not any stronger now, as you have to invest more into defense to survive anyway, so the damage and resource return is not higher than it used to be.

Now I am very curious, why they still do not seem to care about NBs playing that kind of build (sap tank when the focus on surviving inmidst the enemies is extreme). I embrace the possibility to play in such a way and do not want them nerfed, but their excuse to nerf Critical Surge looks extremely lame when comparing the two.

TBois · July 2015

Yeah they do seem to have inconsistent treatments to nerf similar abilities across classes. I mean you cap crit surge at 6 targets like they did sap, I would be happy with 3 even. Seems like an easier fix to ZOS's conceived problems with the skills than adding a cooldown in a game that ZOS doesnt want to have cooldowns.

FENGRUSH · July 2015

@ZOS_RichLurkbert will fix it

Attorneyatlawl · July 2015

ToRelax wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Also just to touch on the whole critical/power surge controversy... the 1/4th of a second internal cooldown really doesn't affect much other than huge amounts of aoe dot's going off from us. It still allows for our big attacks to proc it even after a dot recently had, for example (yum when an insta-empowered frag clutch heals as a crit ), and provides a good chunk of healing when aoe'ing (especially in stamina builds since you can spec for the much higher healing percentage of your damage done, as the morph!). Having lowered AOE cap limits with no stat caps as of 1.6, and being able to still aoe spam alongside the higher crit rates we can reach now (impenetrable no longer makes us not crit, it just can lower the damage from our crits) would be extremely broken.

Nearly of the hits on average will crit in a damage-oriented build, minimum, on the sorc factoring in the typical 42% basic spell critical loadout of gear along with the 3% dark magic bonus for a total of 45%, and not using a precise staff (instead having a nirnhoned staff for the extra spell pen along with the Apprentice mundus or in some builds, the Mage for pvp or Atronarch). It used to be the case that most people ran around with 20-50% flat reductions in chance to be critically hit, so it kept this in check when there was no internal cooldown for us. If you had 45% spell crit against someone wearing 50% worth of impenetrable gear... you literally could not critically hit them. Now if you have 45% spell crit... you will critically hit 45% of the time against them, rain or shine.

You can't think that purposefully avoiding DOTs so they don't eat up your Surge healing is a good mechanic, can you? I understand the internal cooldown because AOE builds would have some insane healing, but getting those 400 point heals from Boundless Storm while your Wrecking Blow crit for what would be a 7k heal right afterwards is extremely frustrating. Add in the fact that you can not crit a blocking opponent, and for stamina builds, it will always be Rally over Crit Surge.

Not sure why you are talking about spell crit and such in a stamina thread, by the way.

You're nitpicking, honestly here: substitute "weapon crit" and the exact same point applies . And in a single-target situation, you won't be using enough DOT's for it to be an issue. It's only once you're slamming down aoe's that it comes into play, but at that time the cooldown is being hit every single time and you're still getting nice amounts of healing in any case. I think that Eric Wrobel's solution, outlined on the last ESO Live broadcast, of potentially adding a minimum heal amount to the effect will be more than sufficient.

"Nitpicking" a vital flaw that turns your vital heal into a decorative buff and gives you next to no healing when you need it most is more than valid. I shouldn't have to cut so many skills from my bar just to assure myself that i'll get the powerful heals when I need them, and the higher my crit rate the more I need to avoid.

Nitpicking about the usage of the term spell crit instead of physical crit. I didn't call the cooldown a nitpick at all. In fact, I addressed it directly and fairly thoroughly in both posts. You took that completely out of context . And no, there's no need to take anything off your bar as I said.. Outside of a multitarget scenario you are unlikely to run into the cooldown very much overall. It is aoe, where it would be nuts with no cooldown restricting it to a maximum of four times a second, that it gets throttled.

So, how could you rely on that heal as your main source of healing?
You obviously need a high crit rate, daage shields would be very good as a more reliable way to stay alive either way, protecting you until you get enough healing.
But you also need a lot of hits to make this heal reliable. If you use burst damage, you'll often won't get a good heal at all, leaving you spamming shields without the ability to heal yourself.
So we need a spammable single target ability with decent damage output... for a magicka Sorc, there is exactly one skill in the entire game that should give us what we need here: Force Shock. This skill was indeed excellent for that purpose pre 1.6 (against everyone without impenetrable of course). That the damage is split in 3 hits made the heal a lot more reliable (while not any bigger), and as the strongest weapon damage buff in the game, Surge increased both the damage and healing from using that ability.
Now the split up hits make the heal still more reliable, but also 3 times smaller than it would be with a single hit.
Only Power Surge buffs the damage now, though far less than it used to, and providing an even smaller heal.

Secondly, they explained they do not want players to heal themselves from all the enemies around them.
That may make sense for PvE, but it's exactly the attitude that makes them create game mechanics that favour numbers over skill, thus horrible for PvP. If a player gets healed from all the idiots standing around them, they had better spread out already.
In fact, before 1.6, every class had options for such an AoE build, although the templar one didn't sustain itself from enemy players before they died, at least unless one used Devouring Swarm.

Sorcs had Critical Surge (nerfed in 1.6) and Absorption Field (nerfed in 1.6).
DKs had Draw Essence, Ash Cloud (nerfed in 1.6), Talons, Battle Roar (nerfed in 1.6), Igneous Shield (nerfed in 1.6) and Standard (nerfed in 1.6, synergy radius reduced).
Templars had Blinding Light (removed with 1.6, replaced by a nice Xv1 skill), Blazing Shield (nerfed in 1.6), Repentance, Empowering Sweep, Nova (synergy radius reduced).
NBs have Siphoning Attacks, Sap Essence, Fear, Refreshing Path, Veil of Blades (nerfed in 1.6), Soul Tether (since 1.6).

A few of these skills also got minor and partly even considerable buffs (Draw Essence), though even in that case they are not any stronger now, as you have to invest more into defense to survive anyway, so the damage and resource return is not higher than it used to be.

Now I am very curious, why they still do not seem to care about NBs playing that kind of build (sap tank when the focus on surviving inmidst the enemies is extreme). I embrace the possibility to play in such a way and do not want them nerfed, but their excuse to nerf Critical Surge looks extremely lame when comparing the two.

Now that was a good way of presenting your argument... and now I understand it. I made the first level 50 character during closed beta, and it was a dualwield stamina crit surge sorc, by the way. So these concepts aren't news to me... but the comparison of how it was nerfed compared to how similar skills were adjusted over time put it in a better perspective. I'm now of the mind that the cool down should be gone as it used to be. If they feel the need to limit the peak potential healing and adjust other skills the same way, then it could simply be an internal debuff to the healing it gives after proccing x number of times in a given second. I'd rather that not even be there.

Props, @ToRelax.

Waylander · July 2015

I'm trying out a stamina sorc at the moment, and it feels pretty decent, but not on a par with other classes. It's imperial, which is a nice stamina pvp race.

I think what is lacking is a few key passives and actives.

A few idea's below (which echo some of the other contributors ideas)

I would like to see bound armor changed from an active toggle to a passive ability. Passive would add 2% (rank 1) and 4% (rank 2) max stamina and magica and increase armour by the small amount it currently does. Replace one of the passives that really doesn't add a lot.

Remove cooldown on crit surge but cap the heal at a % of players health per ability cast. This encourages putting attributes into health and promotes diversity of both magica and stamina builds. I am not sure what would be balanced but was thinking about 25%. This ability should heal for about the same as sap essence or deep breath as it only procs on crits, but the buff stays active for 20 seconds.

Make one of the deadric minefield morphs cost effective for stamina users. Great ability, unable to be used by stamina sorcs due to high cost of use and lack of being stamina friendly. I wouldn't mind if it stayed magica and calling 5 mines cost 5 times as much as calling 1 mine. Make the 1 mine have a slightly bigger footprint. The mine is a good cc for charging enemies and could be used to set up wrecking blows or for kiting or escape purposes etc.

Rework dark deal. I like the concept, but no sorcerer I know uses it since 1.5. I think an active attacking ability that has two morphs, one stamina giving a melee ranged physical damage ability and one magica giving a melee ranged magica attack. It would promote diversity among both builds. Both should trigger the dark magica passive heal. Tone down the passive if it is OP.

Instead of bound ageis, have a 20 second buff to your attack that applies to light/heavy attacks and pet attacks. One morph can add physical damage, the other magica. Make the value strong enough to be a contender on your bar for both pvp and pve. It should not effect overload atttacks though.

Make pets damage scale off max magica or max stamina. Why couldn't a stamina sorc have pets. Might see development of a bow/pet/kite build or something.

BigTone · July 2015

There are just so many sorc class abilities wasted.

Surge: Easily outclassed by rally and entropy. From a magicka perspective the cost compared to entropy is not even close, entropy gives a health buff, plus the might of the guild passive. From a stamina perspective it is completely outclassed by rally.

Familiar: Two bar toggle, pets are still buggy and have stealth issues

Twilight: Two bar toggle, pets are still buggy and have stealth issues

Rune Prison: Useless

Bound Armor: Two bar toggle that only provides minor buffs

Dark Exchange: "Please interrupt me"

If you want to make a change to improve stam/healing sorcs, improve these abilities. Leave Boundless Storm alone!
Streak and Negate have been nerfed very hard. Negate needs a little love in my opinion.

The Bolt Escape nerf screws stam sorcs over more than magicka sorcs as well. Please consider:

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/190454/the-big-problem-with-the-bolt-escape-nerf#latest

kevlarto_ESO · July 2015

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

/lurk

I like the fact you are reading these threads, but how about some feedback from your point of view, are these threads something you find interesting are there good ideas, are they crazy never gona happen ideas, maybe share and idea you have on the subject... Thanks

Rook_Master · July 2015

This is what needs to happen with Sorc.

They need to give Sorc reasonable Stamina options, and bring the Magicka ones more in line with the power of other classes.

Erock25 · July 2015

Rook_Master wrote: »

This is what needs to happen with Sorc.

They need to give Sorc reasonable Stamina options, and bring the Magicka ones more in line with the power of other classes.

So you want them to buff magicka sorc to be on par with magicka nightblades in this future update? Brilliant!

Attorneyatlawl · July 2015

BigTone wrote: »

There are just so many sorc class abilities wasted.

Surge: Easily outclassed by rally and entropy. From a magicka perspective the cost compared to entropy is not even close, entropy gives a health buff, plus the might of the guild passive. From a stamina perspective it is completely outclassed by rally.

Familiar: Two bar toggle, pets are still buggy and have stealth issues

Twilight: Two bar toggle, pets are still buggy and have stealth issues

Rune Prison: Useless

Bound Armor: Two bar toggle that only provides minor buffs

Dark Exchange: "Please interrupt me"

If you want to make a change to improve stam/healing sorcs, improve these abilities. Leave Boundless Storm alone!
Streak and Negate have been nerfed very hard. Negate needs a little love in my opinion.

The Bolt Escape nerf screws stam sorcs over more than magicka sorcs as well.

Three* bar toggles. We're talking sorcs

.

Surge: For magicka, not at all... Entropy requires you to have a target to hit both to begin having the buff, and to maintain it. Surge can be used in sneak or as you approach a fight and dismount.

Familiar: You don't use volatile familiar on both bars. You use it on one as a bomb

and backloaded aoe+stun. It is cast, sent to its death, and discarded. Clannfear would be a different argument and as I said, the pets shouldn't need to be on both bars, or at least otherwise should be moderate-long duration timed summons (40-60 seconds).

Twilight: See above regarding summons.

Rune Prison: Impractical to use in 95% of situations, I'll agree. The defensive morph isn't bad if you're 1vX'ing since it has such a long duration.

Bound Aegis: 2% spell damage, 8% max magicka (in the case of magicka morph, otherwise stamina), and the minor versions of armor/spell buffs is hardly a "minor" bonus. In the case of Armaments, it's a heavy attack (including partial) amplifier along with stamina and the minor versions of the mitigation buffs. It's a great substitute for magelight on magicka setups, and frees you to use radiant magelight on both stam and magicka setups, for the huge sneak attack reduction and toggle-on Empower. Top it off with the passive hp regen bonus, which if you aren't a vampire and are using a tri-drink adds up a bit alongside other amplifiers.

Dark Exchange: "Please LoS first!" You can toggle it back off mid-channel, y'know. It's a situational, but extremely powerful, skill when used properly

.

Absorption Field or Suppression Field: Both act as powerful area denial, give non-trivial buffs, and can be tide-turners when dropped by experienced sorcs. In PVP they really haven't seen any overall nerf because of the added buffs. They're just no longer 100% control areas, but still more than do the trick when you really wanted them in the first place.

RinaldoGandolphi · July 2015

IMO the best way to fix stamina Sorcs is as follow:

1. Bound Armaments needs to give a 6% boost to weapon daamge at rank 4 instead of a boost to heavy attack damage.
2. Expert Mage needs to give a buff to both Weapon and Spell damage for each Cl;ass ability slotted.
3. Rebate Passive needs to Restore Stamina as well as Magic to help make pets useful to stamina builds.
4. Pet damage needs to scale off max magic or max stamina, whichever is higher.
5. Capacitor Passive needs to increase both Magic and Stamina recovery.
6. Streak needs to go back to being a Disorient instead of a stun.
7. Rune Cage and Defensive Rune need to be Instant Cast

Do those 7 things, and Stamina Sorcs will be on par with other class specs. Yes Magic Sorcs will be OK to. Fixing Rune Prison so it doesn't have a stupid cast time will make Sorc's less apt to run away from everyone all the time...Rune Cage breaks on any damage but a DOT, if you get killed by a DOT your most likely were going to die anyways....if Petrify can be instant cast and can root and disorent its target, there is no reason Rune Cage can't be instant cast. This also gives Stamina Sorc's a cheap magic dump and a defense against Fear spammers. It also gives Sorc's a viable block breaker.

FENGRUSH · July 2015

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

IMO the best way to fix stamina Sorcs is as follow:

1. Bound Armaments needs to give a 6% boost to weapon daamge at rank 4 instead of a boost to heavy attack damage.
2. Expert Mage needs to give a buff to both Weapon and Spell damage for each Cl;ass ability slotted.
3. Rebate Passive needs to Restore Stamina as well as Magic to help make pets useful to stamina builds.
4. Pet damage needs to scale off max magic or max stamina, whichever is higher.
5. Capacitor Passive needs to increase both Magic and Stamina recovery.
6. Streak needs to go back to being a Disorient instead of a stun.
7. Rune Cage and Defensive Rune need to be Instant Cast

Do those 7 things, and Stamina Sorcs will be viable. Yes Magic Sorcs will be OK to. Fixing Rune Prison so it doesn't have a stupid cast time will make Sorc's less apt to run away from everyone all the time...Rune Cage breaks on any damage but a DOT, if you get killed by a DOT your most likely were going to die anyways....if Petrify can be instant cast and can root and disorent its target, there is no reason Rune Cage can't be instant cast. This also gives Stamina Sorc's a cheap magic dump and a defense against Fear spammers. It also gives Sorc's a viable block breaker.

FENGRUSH considers your comment that stam sorc is not viable as a personal attack on His Lordship.

RinaldoGandolphi · July 2015

FENGRUSH wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

IMO the best way to fix stamina Sorcs is as follow:

1. Bound Armaments needs to give a 6% boost to weapon daamge at rank 4 instead of a boost to heavy attack damage.
2. Expert Mage needs to give a buff to both Weapon and Spell damage for each Cl;ass ability slotted.
3. Rebate Passive needs to Restore Stamina as well as Magic to help make pets useful to stamina builds.
4. Pet damage needs to scale off max magic or max stamina, whichever is higher.
5. Capacitor Passive needs to increase both Magic and Stamina recovery.
6. Streak needs to go back to being a Disorient instead of a stun.
7. Rune Cage and Defensive Rune need to be Instant Cast

Do those 7 things, and Stamina Sorcs will be viable. Yes Magic Sorcs will be OK to. Fixing Rune Prison so it doesn't have a stupid cast time will make Sorc's less apt to run away from everyone all the time...Rune Cage breaks on any damage but a DOT, if you get killed by a DOT your most likely were going to die anyways....if Petrify can be instant cast and can root and disorent its target, there is no reason Rune Cage can't be instant cast. This also gives Stamina Sorc's a cheap magic dump and a defense against Fear spammers. It also gives Sorc's a viable block breaker.

FENGRUSH considers your comment that stam sorc is not viable as a personal attack on His Lordship.

"Not Viable" wasn't the correct term, I meant to say "On par with other specs"

Will edit

Of course with these changes folks will be saying Fengrush is OP even more then they do now.