Sorcerer, a Dying Class in PvP

Murmeltier · August 2015

Hi,

normaly i play a Templar Healer but at the Moment i twink my Sorcerer to VR14. I can understand that some Mechanics are very unbalanced, like Shieldstacking or endless Streaks / Bol. But there are enough Ideas and Options to Balance them, without destroying the best defensiv Mechanics completley.

Streak / Bol: the Changes there are too high. I can use Stealth on my Magicka NB very very often, i can heal with my Templar very very often but i see no raise in the Cost there. I think the Idea of raising Costs for really unbalanced Mechanics is ok, but then for all Classes please and with moderate Numbers.

Shieldbreaker - Set: This Set can be used very well with the Molag Kena Set and i am sure that many Players will use this Set or have this as a backup Set in PvP. As a Shield User you cant know which Person is using it, so you dont want to use your Shields anymore.

How long a Sorcerer will Survive without his Shields, how long he can get away with this terrible Malus in Cost for Streak / Bol?

For any DK, Templar and Healing Ward using Class, it is the same but these Classes have a Selfheal, the Sorcerer not. The Restoration Staff Skills arent good enough to Counter Green Dragonblood or Breath of Life.

I think it is a important Part to Balance the Skills from each Classes but these Changes, the higher Cost of Streak / Bol and the unbeleavable Shieldbreaker Set, destroys the most defensive Options a Sorcerer have.

What Sets coming next, maybe a Set which can detect every Stealth Character on 20m and do double Damage on him, or a Set that does Damage to every Person who recieved a Heal?

There are many Options to Change the Shield stacking Problem, like remove it and let only one Shield work at the same Time for an Example. But no Zos, you implement a Set that destroys the using for Shields completley.

What do you mean a Sorcerer now can do if he gets attacked from another Classes, ports away, no i dont think so because every Person uses a Gapcloser in PvP. Uses a Damageshield to Counter Damage, because he cant heal good enough like other Classes or stealth away, no i dont think so because he will go down and die faster then i can say " I thought the Shieldbreaker Set is not common and no one uses this".

It is ok to Balance some Skills out, but it isnt ok to destroy some of the most important Skills a Sorcerer, DK and Templers have. Remove Shieldstacking, raise the Cost with moderate Numbers maybe but erase the Shieldbreaker Set, and throw away any of this Ideas for Sets like this.

Dracane · August 2015

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

Murmeltier · August 2015

Dracane wrote: »

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

You hit the Point with a Sentence that doesnt cost more then a Minute. So why Zos have so much Problems to work like this? Read Dracanes Answer and you have a better Solution then your Changes & Sets.

Grimbim · August 2015

Dracane wrote: »

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

Amen

Dracane · August 2015

Murmeltier wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

You hit the Point with a Sentence that doesnt cost more then a Minute. So why Zos have so much Problems to work like this? Read Dracanes Answer and you have a better Solution then your Changes & Sets.

Thank you.
I am a Sorcerer and I'm more than annoyed by shield stacking. I can't even blame people for complaining about shield stack.
At the moment, I only have my hardened ward and no other damage shield. No healing ward and no Harness Magicka.
It's hard to survive, but it can work against 1 single enemy or maybe a few, provided their damage output is not too high. Why do we need so many shields, if all it takes is to improve every single shield by a bit ?

Increase the strenght of each single shield a bit and make it impossible to have several shields at the same time. Then we don't need any QQ threads or counter sets. Casters don't have any other defense besides damage shields, at least Sorcerers.

I don't know if this is possible, but if shield stacking gets removed, you should still be affected if someone protects your with Ward Ally or igneous shield without your own shield being removed.

Murmeltier · August 2015

Dracane wrote: »

Murmeltier wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

You hit the Point with a Sentence that doesnt cost more then a Minute. So why Zos have so much Problems to work like this? Read Dracanes Answer and you have a better Solution then your Changes & Sets.

Thank you.
I am a Sorcerer and I'm more than annoyed by shield stacking. I can't even blame people for complaining about shield stack.
At the moment, I only have my hardened ward and no other damage shield. No healing ward and no Harness Magicka.
It's hard to survive, but it can work against 1 single enemy or maybe a few, provided their damage output is not too high. Why do we need so many shields, if all it takes is to improve every single shield by a bit ?

Increase the strenght of each single shield a bit and make it impossible to have several shields at the same time. The we don't need any QQ threads or counter sets. Casters don't have any other defense besides damage shields, at least Sorcerers.

I don't know if this is possible, but if shield stacking gets removed, you should still be affected if someone protects your with Ward Ally or igneous shield without your own shield being removed.

I can understand the People who are angry about the Shieldstacking, i dont like this too. Your Solution is effective and smart. It is good to speak about this Theme, because Zos is going to far, it can destroy the Fun for a whole Mechanic and Class.

First the Stamina changes for Tanks, then this. At the Moment i lose the Thrust in Zos and his Developers. Do they play the Game or do they only drink some Coffee with Guilds, PvPers to evolve their Game?

It cost many Time to level up a Class, i dont want to Level up a new again, only because of some Changes destroys this Class in PvP.

Dracane · August 2015

Murmeltier wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Murmeltier wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

You hit the Point with a Sentence that doesnt cost more then a Minute. So why Zos have so much Problems to work like this? Read Dracanes Answer and you have a better Solution then your Changes & Sets.

Thank you.
I am a Sorcerer and I'm more than annoyed by shield stacking. I can't even blame people for complaining about shield stack.
At the moment, I only have my hardened ward and no other damage shield. No healing ward and no Harness Magicka.
It's hard to survive, but it can work against 1 single enemy or maybe a few, provided their damage output is not too high. Why do we need so many shields, if all it takes is to improve every single shield by a bit ?

Increase the strenght of each single shield a bit and make it impossible to have several shields at the same time. The we don't need any QQ threads or counter sets. Casters don't have any other defense besides damage shields, at least Sorcerers.

I don't know if this is possible, but if shield stacking gets removed, you should still be affected if someone protects your with Ward Ally or igneous shield without your own shield being removed.

I can understand the People who are angry about the Shieldstacking, i dont like this too. Your Solution is effective and smart. It is good to speak about this Theme, because Zos is going to far, it can destroy the Fun for a whole Mechanic and Class.

First the Stamina changes for Tanks, then this. At the Moment i lose the Thrust in Zos and his Developers. Do they play the Game or do they only drink some Coffee with Guilds, PvPers to evolve their Game?

It cost many Time to level up a Class, i dont want to Level up a new again, only because of some Changes destroys this Class in PvP.

Zenimax is doing a good job in my opinion.
They tend to overnerf or buff things and add things to the game, that aren't thought out well enough and turn out to be extremely underwhelming or too strong.

But then again, it's pts and we can provide feedback. People focus too much on the developers, I myself have no problems with experiments and hey, some of them turn out to be good ideas without the need to change them.
I think, there are more underwhelming abilities and morph in the game than overpowered things. I've made a list, containing each ability in the game and each morphs and what needs to be done to make EACH ability desirable

my dream is, that each ability in the game becomes interesting.

If I'm about to morph a skill, I wanna say 'Oh wow, now that's a hard choice. This morph looks good, but this morph is just as good' At the moment, 1 morph is clearly the superior choice, while the other one is just useless. I encourage Zenimax to keep on making such experiments.

Septimus_Magna · August 2015

Dracane wrote: »

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

I agree but people would still QQ about sorcs bolting away, plus BoL would be OP again..

Leandor · August 2015

Murmeltier wrote: »

What Sets coming next, maybe a Set which can detect every Stealth Character on 20m and do double Damage on him, or a Set that does Damage to every Person who recieved a Heal?

Well, we have one set that does exactly that, not double damage but in a game that has many abilities deal 15k+ damage, this set comes close to the 2k damage of shieldbreaker, with the difference of course being the fact that you can cancel stealth but can't cancel shields. For me, the make or break in regards to shieldbraker is whether the irresistable damage can be increased (by stamina/weapon damage/forum credibility or whatever other mechanic). If yes, then the set needs to die a very quick death. If not, its use will degrade with increasing base stats.

Nonetheless, I do agree that the 50% stacking cost of BE is over the top - instead of making it 50%, they should have made it 33% and observed how it played out for longer than just the semi-artificial PTS testing. In general, I do not like the cost stacking mechanism at all, it is a bad fix for a very separate problem (infinite resources), which is most strongly materializing in engage/disengage mechanics.

Also, the cost increase mechanic will always hit those worse that had little use from said mechanic anyways - in this case the stamina sorcs (same is valid for the other cost stack, but for way more builds, but that is not the topic here). So I do absolutely not agree with your proposal to implement it for other issues as well.

I am very sure that those were used more as a rhetorical figure in order to make the point and get other players to feel the implied impact and not a serious proposal, but it may be taken as such and would pretty much destroy the dynamics of ESO combat.

It is a fine line to walk, at what point is a mechanic a needed balancing function and where does it convert into a class-/build-destroying overnerf. I think the cost stacking is an easy way out. Alternatives:

I would have loved to see shields not refreshing their full capacity if recast prior to being used up/run out instead of creating the shield breaker set. That way, one would have to make oneself vulnerable for very brief periods of time without making shields actually a liability against good players (where you need them most).
I would have loved to see bolt escape given a reduction in travel distance for successive uses. Base distance is a couple meters longer than a gap closer, if used a second time within 4 seconds, the distance is reduced by 7% 5% and doubled for each consecutive use down to naught after ~5 uses.
I would have loved to see dodge cost related to max stamina instead of a fixed, level-dependent cost so that stacking stamina will result in less effectivity of stamina regeneration but you don't make the ability useless for magicka builds.

There are quite some other options over cost stacking. Please get creative, ZOS.

Dracane · August 2015

Leandor wrote: »

[*] I would have loved to see bolt escape given a reduction in travel distance for successive uses. Base distance is a couple meters longer than a gap closer, if used a second time within 4 seconds, the distance is reduced by 7% for each consecutive use down to naught after ~14 uses.

Oh yes, I highly agree with this. I had a similar idea.
If Bolt Escape is supposed to be a 1 time event, then it should be a good one. 15 meters is nothing. They should increase it to around 25 meters BUT if you dare using it more than once, then your Magicka gets hit really hard, not only 50% more cost.

This way, Bolt Escape is a great 1 time escape to create reasonable distance and you might use it twice, but then your Magicka gets drained like crazy.

Your idea is not bad either, with the reduced ranged for each cast. I think we can agree, that the first blink should have a larger range

WRX · August 2015

I get this discussion, but what is with the capitalization in the OP posts? It really is bothering me haha..

And quick input, stam light attacks are triggering this set as well and especially with bows, its making it way to strong. I fought guys with this two nights ago, ran BoR and all was good.

trimsic_ESO · August 2015

This thread must be a troll, because if there is one daily quest that I can complete very quickly in Cyrodiil, in a raid vs raid situation, it's the kill 20 sorcs quest. And there is a good reason for that: There are tons of sorcs in PVP.

This being said, NBs are getting in the first position as many people retire their former character and reroll a NB for IC.

The longer daily quest in Cyrodiil is the kill 20 DK quest, and by far. It takes hours to complete in raid vs raid situations.

Leandor · August 2015

WRX wrote: »

I get this discussion, but what is with the capitalization in the OP posts? It really is bothering me haha..

Don't diss us native German speakers. We do capitalize on many things and apart from Greek financial crisis and some such, one of these is nouns.

TheBonesXXX · August 2015

Dracane wrote: »

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

Got rid of the thing I didn't like, balance the skill. endless bolt escape is not balanced.

ZoS, you really need to buff surge, my hybrid sorc demands it!

RoyJade · August 2015

A reduced range for each consecutive cast seem good in my opinion, but the CC should be reduced too or we will have aoe cc spammer. Or does BoL CC give a CC immunity ? I don't remember (I just know streak give one).

Dracane · August 2015

RoyJade wrote: »

A reduced range for each consecutive cast seem good in my opinion, but the CC should be reduced too or we will have aoe cc spammer. Or does BoL CC give a CC immunity ? I don't remember (I just know streak give one).

BoL only stuns enemies in a 4 meter radius and yes, it grants immunity after 1.5 seconds

Bashev · August 2015

Same story again as before 1.6 and then boom Sors super OP.

Springt-Über-Zwerge · August 2015

here take my bag of pity you sorcs really need it

Levo18 · August 2015

I hope they dissapear! Im sick of fighting fragment spamming 30k+ shield stacking harry potters who bolt away if they about to lose .

Rook_Master · August 2015

Ever since they removed softcaps sorcs have been super super OP.

If you are geared properly and are decently skilled at playing a sorc, you can absolutely wreck on 1.6 currently. 30k+ shields, stack all into magicka and get offense and defense and mobility, it's absolutely ludicrous.

I've heard good sorcs say that they never will die except to another sorc. And I've seen crap like that where the only counter to a shield spamming CF kiter is another sorc.

It's stupid, and that kind of crap has got to go. It's a long time overdue.

ThyIronFist · August 2015

Sorcs a dying class???

Not sure if you're playing the same game as I'm playing.

Defilted · August 2015

@Murmeltier

Critical Surge heals me all the time. Seems like a self heal to me. You receive a 20% increase to damage and are healed for damage done. This ability procs all the time.

In a short fight with one PVE mob I have seen this proc 3 to 4 times. This is a fight that last 4 seconds. I see high proc rate on this skill often.

Maybe you are referring to a self heal that you control directly? Dark Exchange is also a self heal. This is a not a spike damage heal , but I have used this to survive situations before.

Dracane · August 2015

Defilted wrote: »

@Murmeltier

Critical Surge heals me all the time. Seems like a self heal to me. You receive a 20% increase to damage and are healed for damage done. This ability procs all the time.

In a short fight with one PVE mob I have seen this proc 3 to 4 times. This is a fight that last 4 seconds. I see high proc rate on this skill often.

Maybe you are referring to a self heal that you control directly? Dark Exchange is also a self heal. This is a not a spike damage heal , but I have used this to survive situations before.

Against monsters probably. Not against players. Dark Exchange is no strong self heal and will not help you against a player, if he even allows you to fullfill the cast.
And surge...Crits are blockable and most serious damage is dodgeable. I doubt, Surge is a reasonable self heal in pvp.
In PvE however, it can be fairly usefull if there wasn't this cooldown.

Would be cool, if they remove the cooldown for single target attacks, but keep it for AoEs.

Robbmrp · August 2015

They should buff individual shields to be based off the players highest stat regard less of what it is. We should also only get one active shield IMO that being the highest damage absorbing one. If you cast Healing Ward and are already shielded you only get the heal from it. If Barrier is cast and your shield is stronger than that, you are unaffected at all.

Bolt is in a good place, dodge roll is in a good place, blocking is in a good place. If you can Bolt or Dodge Roll 4+ times your fine. You don't need to be able to do them 10+ times....A friend an I tested this, I was able to dodge roll for 5 times and he could bolt for 7. That's plenty. If you can't do that, you may need to adjust your build accordingly.

All of the changes just force us to be better players than a press x key and hold the entire time.....

TheBull · August 2015

Are you fricken serious OP? This has to be the funniest thread of the year.

Wreuntzylla · August 2015

Dracane wrote: »

Defilted wrote: »

@Murmeltier

Critical Surge heals me all the time. Seems like a self heal to me. You receive a 20% increase to damage and are healed for damage done. This ability procs all the time.

In a short fight with one PVE mob I have seen this proc 3 to 4 times. This is a fight that last 4 seconds. I see high proc rate on this skill often.

Maybe you are referring to a self heal that you control directly? Dark Exchange is also a self heal. This is a not a spike damage heal , but I have used this to survive situations before.

Against monsters probably. Not against players. Dark Exchange is no strong self heal and will not help you against a player, if he even allows you to fullfill the cast.
And surge...Crits are blockable and most serious damage is dodgeable. I doubt, Surge is a reasonable self heal in pvp.
In PvE however, it can be fairly usefull if there wasn't this cooldown.

Would be cool, if they remove the cooldown for single target attacks, but keep it for AoEs.

This is a PTS forum. Blocking and dodging is going the way of the dodo. However, shields will still not be crittable. Funny how you, as a sorc, left that out.

Dracane · August 2015

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Defilted wrote: »

@Murmeltier

Critical Surge heals me all the time. Seems like a self heal to me. You receive a 20% increase to damage and are healed for damage done. This ability procs all the time.

In a short fight with one PVE mob I have seen this proc 3 to 4 times. This is a fight that last 4 seconds. I see high proc rate on this skill often.

Maybe you are referring to a self heal that you control directly? Dark Exchange is also a self heal. This is a not a spike damage heal , but I have used this to survive situations before.

Against monsters probably. Not against players. Dark Exchange is no strong self heal and will not help you against a player, if he even allows you to fullfill the cast.
And surge...Crits are blockable and most serious damage is dodgeable. I doubt, Surge is a reasonable self heal in pvp.
In PvE however, it can be fairly usefull if there wasn't this cooldown.

Would be cool, if they remove the cooldown for single target attacks, but keep it for AoEs.

This is a PTS forum. Blocking and dodging is going the way of the dodo. However, shields will still not be crittable. Funny how you, as a sorc, left that out.

Well, if it's necessary to mention, that shields are not critable....... Shields also prevent crits (and it's good this way, everything else would be sick)

Dodging and blocking is still strong. Haven't you heared ? All them Dragonknights are permablocking like ever before, only even more unkillable than on live.

Emma_Overload · August 2015

Dracane wrote: »

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

I second this. I would rather just use one shield at a time then deal with all the horrible nerfs to Ball of Lightning and other Sorc spells.

As long as I could keep 100% uptime on BoL, I could live with Hardened Ward only.

Dracane · August 2015

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

I second this. I would rather just use one shield at a time then deal with all the horrible nerfs to Ball of Lightning and other Sorc spells.

As long as I could keep 100% uptime on BoL, I could live with Hardened Ward only.

100% uptime on BoL is very mean

that's why it got nerfed in the first place.
But you're right, if our class escape would be more reliable and would actually help us escaping, 1 shield is enough to not die instantly. Bolt Escape used to be a characteristic Sorcerer ability.

No it's just bad, nerfed to death basically. Mistform and Cloak are the way to go now.

kaithuzar · August 2015

Just because your previous play-style is no longer viable doesn't mean there isn't any other method for success.
Just because you can't escape as easily doesn't mean you still can't use BoL or streak as an offensive tool to win.

Sallington · August 2015

Dracane wrote: »

I say, restore Bolt Escape, remove shield stacking, buff single shields and good.

It really does seem like it's as easy as just making shields not stack with each other.