Official Feedback Thread for Sorcerers

Contraptions · February 2016

I'm quite pleased with the pet changes, but here's some more suggestions:

Add a short stun to the tail swipe of the Clannfear please. If the Unstable familiar is the DPS/support morph, the Clannfear should be the healing/support morph; and currently the Clannfear only heals.

Change the Winged Twilight Tormentor ability to add bonus damage to low health enemies please. The twilight's zap already procs Disintegration, and since the Sorc's execute range only starts at 20%, we should have more executes available to make up for the smaller execute window. Also, add a conal scream ability that briefly stuns enemies to both twilight morphs, so like the familiar, one morph will have a DPS/support role, while the other can have a healing/support role.

Lastly, make it such that pets scale to either max magicka or stam so they can be viable in any build if so desired.

Thelon · February 2016

Contraptions wrote: »

I'm quite pleased with the pet changes, but here's some more suggestions:

Add a short stun to the tail swipe of the Clannfear please. If the Unstable familiar is the DPS/support morph, the Clannfear should be the healing/support morph; and currently the Clannfear only heals.

Change the Winged Twilight Tormentor ability to add bonus damage to low health enemies please.

Since you run the risk of pets dying during boss fights, I'd rather had the additional damage earlier in the encounter where the Pet is more likely to still be alive.

Kwivur · February 2016

I'd rather them remove pets from the sorc skill line and add a summoner skill line. Real sorcs don't use pets.. lol

cdobratz · February 2016

I think a cool idea for a stam sorc ability would be changing crystal blast to a stam based, channel that has a lower proc than cfrags, but the proc will ignore X% of an enemies armor.

AddictionX · February 2016

Stamina Sorcs and Stamina DKs Unite! Flood each other threads! you guys got no changes but our stamina dk got a heal nerf, reflective nerf and everything else stayed the same. Never fear we will all be running in bath robes and man dresses soon!

cschwingeb14_ESO · February 2016

So now there is no counter to reflect? This is a massive nerf to ranged builds... Which is the only option for magicka sorc. Why do sorcs not have an un-reflectable spam attack that is actually worth using (like a non-execute version of Fury that has been mentioned many times her). Even if it just did trapping webs level damage with no special effects.

It's terrible game design. At least in 1.5 I could use a resto/lightning staff and the undaunted set to push some damage through.

Pets: why are these still magicka-only? Why do they still require 2 slots? Why can they not be unsummoned?

Absolutely nothing for stam sorcs other than CP changes. And those are mostly for the worse with the addition of physical resist (which is needed)

olsborg · February 2016

3 things that would be nice after further testing pets.

Renew/refresh hardened ward on pets even if they still have some leftover from last time.
Show the pets healthbar in the UI like your group members do.
I still think they need a buff since they require 2 slots to be rly effective, specially the dmg of the volatile fam.

Thelon · February 2016

Kwivur wrote: »

Real sorcs don't use pets.. lol

CP5 · February 2016

Khaos_Bane wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

I actually rather like the changes to Sorc.

Pets: i've never actually used pets in PvP till today. and i have been having a lot of fun with it actually. and i've seen a good deal of other sorcs using pets as well. I think the change to pets is pretty good. although, might wanna consider binding a seperate key for desummoning because they still don't stealth properly.

Is there a way to prevent pets from casting damage abilities so they don't get agro ? I think the winged twilight looks very interesting for sorc healing. However, if it's not dependable and dies all of the time in group dungeons, it's pointless.

If you are on pc the default Y+Right Click commands pets to follow you and they won't attack until you Y+Left click a target. However this is for all pets, so your atronach won't do anything if you tell your twilight to not suicide on mobs. From my testing the twilight's heal is nice for keeping itself alive, but you need to cast it often since it feels like they have less overall health.

Miwerton · February 2016

And Sorcs seems to still be least diverse class, cant truly tank and no real single target options for stamina sorcs.

Well done (sarcastic clapping).

CP5 · February 2016

Miwerton wrote: »

And Sorcs seems to still be least diverse class, cant truly tank and no real single target options for stamina sorcs.

Well done (sarcastic clapping).

Maybe next year, but hey, at least the pets are more engaging than summon and forget.

Force-Siphon · February 2016

Really like where sorcs are at this patch...provided more build diversity with the pet changes and they were needed. The clannfear heal so far seems really good if you run a full pet build...would like to test how it would look in a pvp situation without a resto heal for example.

The CP changes are great for sorc, being able to get our dmg without having to stack multiple trees is wonderful tbh.

The indirect shield nerfs through CP and DOTs are fine imo BC we can put points into hardy for example...duels against stam builds for example felt more balanced with this change...and its more of a buff to mag dk than anything which was needed to give them a shot at a sorc in pvp. It felt more competitive fighting mag dk on pts than live patch ATM.

The new gear sets are interesting but I like how we are not forced into a gear or AP grind to stay competitive though I believe running higher magicka for shields with the changes may become meta.

Daedric tomb is so great, instant mines where you want them...were so awesome in duels and I can see the utility while kiting already.

Lastly, inner light huge change for sorcs but may be a bit unbalanced lol...

Stam sorcs didn't get anything but for magicka sorc we are in a great place and ppl will see that as the meta develops. This next patch will be defined by the return of magicka classes imo.

And pls revert bolt escape cost stacking lol

zoltarg · February 2016

Remove "Crystal Blast"
Make "Crystal Blade" - Something like a crystal spike/sword that you stab or slash within melee range. Insta cast DPS, not ranged, and not deal as much dmg as Frags of course - maybe 50-60% less, but it would still be great for Stam Sorcs to have something besides WB.

In general I do like the changes and you guys are doing a good job with balance especially with CP changes.

But please give Stam Sorc at least one single ability that does dmg with stamina. It's pretty neglectful TBH.
A weak speed buff with a weak aoe dot doesn't count.

DHale · February 2016

Miwerton wrote: »

And Sorcs seems to still be least diverse class, cant truly tank and no real single target options for stamina sorcs.

Well done (sarcastic clapping).

We have four sorced every dungeon in the game no tank and no healer. Any magic sorc can tank. There are occasions where we have two ppl with inner beast but that is just to pull aggro off not to put aggro on. Place four sorc mines on ground hit inner rage boss runs through them... say in dark shade. Do that a few times you can speed run or no death. The best runs are four sorcs with overload packing 42 k plus magic each. It's crazy... makes me cackle like a school child. But agree Stam sorc need some love... There is only one lord and he plays on DC. The rest need some help.

Cathexis · February 2016

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Takuto wrote: »

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

@RinaldoGandolphi I think the double pong makes more sense than a single pong because defensive posture is reactive and we have to do two abilities to make our one ability connect... Not to mention using a specific weapon to have access to the ability. Without the double pong we're basically unable to ever use frags against a dk. With double pong it was our choice to focus our build on it and use the resources to utilize it against a dk.

Ok, but Defensive Posture itself is broken and i'd be all about going back to the double reflect but Defensive Posture would have to be changed in order to do that.

right now a DK casts Wings it lasts 4 secs....very very short duration.

right now a Sword and Board user can cast Defensive Posture it lasts 30 seconds but it only reflects spells.

However here is the issue with Defensive Posture:

After casting Defensive Posture, you can switch weapons to a Destruction Staff or anything else and still reflect projectiles even though your not using the weapon

Change this and im all on board with double reflect.

Can I use Wrecking Blow while using a Bow?
Can i use Executioner while using a Resto Staff?
why are Sword and Board users able to use a Weapon Skill when the said weapon is not their active weapon?

In other words, change Defensive Posture to where:

If you cast Defensive Posture you must have a Sword and Shield on your active bar in order to reflect anything If you cast Defensive Posture then Swap Bars, Turn on Overload, etc, then it cancels the Defensive Posture buff and you lose it....thats only fair. Make this change and im all about doulbe reflect, until then, no way.

You shouldn't be able to reflect projectiles with Defensive Posture if the active weapon on your current bar is not a Sword and Shield, if you switch to a resto or anything else, you lose the reflect buff....Thats balanced, do that and im all for double reflect.

Rapid Regen keeps ticking away after you swap bars away from resto staff, healing ward doesn't dispel when you swap. Rally Still heals after you swap weapons, volley still does damage for the duration, and blade cloak still does it's thing. I don't really care one way or another about the balance of defensive posture, but you're argument is cherry picking. There are plenty of weapon abilities which work even after swapping bars, whole builds are based around doing just that.

Yeah but none of those abilities are allowing you to get a 100% unreflectable projectile back at a player either...

Honestly though, Absorb Magic is the king now...it absorbs like 15 k or something...who needs a reflect just absorb it and heal, its really really good now..

@RinaldoGandolphi Your argument is still cherry picking. You don't think its fair isn't a valid reasoning. If you can show evidence that it is somehow overpowered then I can understand your argument - but you can always just dodgeroll a double reflect or stop reflecting in the first place - and also a dks ability to reflect is vastly superior to shield reflect. So I'm not seeing a problem.

@Cinnamon_Spider I feel the exact same way as you with regard to the homogenization and quitting.

Why does my stam sorc play the exact same as a glass cannon nightblade and why is that the only way to be successful in large scale PvP?

ZOS_KNowak · February 2016

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the feedback on the Sorcerer changes so far. We're collecting everything posted in this thread and elsewhere and are still evaluating Sorcerer performance on the PTS realm, so keep all the feedback coming!

One thing we would like to clarify is that Sorcerer pets are intended to go into stealth when the player enters stealth. This is something that will be addressed before our Thieves Guild patch goes Live.

CP5 · February 2016

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the feedback on the Sorcerer changes so far. We're collecting everything posted in this thread and elsewhere and are still evaluating Sorcerer performance on the PTS realm, so keep all the feedback coming!

One thing we would like to clarify is that Sorcerer pets are intended to go into stealth when the player enters stealth. This is something that will be addressed before our Thieves Guild patch goes Live.

This is what I like seeing, glad to know this is being looked into. I would like to ask if pets are still planned to only scale effectively toward pure magicka builds, or if pets will get additional tweaks to make them more viable in other builds.

jsynoski_ESO · February 2016

Don't know if anyone else has run into this, but on the current Live server and now the PTS if I have my pets up and I transition into a building or go through a one-way door there is a very good chance that the pets will vanish. If I enter combat they do not attack so they are really not present. In the Live game the pets can be toggled to restore them, however with the new behavior there is no way to unsummon them so I'm stuck running around hoping that they will eventually pop into the game.

First, this vanishing act needs to be fixed as it is just annoying on Live but potentially deadly on the PTS.
Second, there really needs to be a way to unsummon the pets as at times they can just get in the way of your exploring an area.

SmalltalkJava · February 2016

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the feedback on the Sorcerer changes so far. We're collecting everything posted in this thread and elsewhere and are still evaluating Sorcerer performance on the PTS realm, so keep all the feedback coming!

One thing we would like to clarify is that Sorcerer pets are intended to go into stealth when the player enters stealth. This is something that will be addressed before our Thieves Guild patch goes Live.

OMG! Pets stealth. Thank you thank you

Zos, you may want to make pets special abilities scale or do percent heal/damage based off of sorcs highest attribute stat. That way magicka, health, stamina sorcs are all able to use them. This would really open up spec choices.

Another option is to designate a pet as a stamina scale pet. Or have it cast a stamina restoration heal .

Cinnamon_Spider · February 2016

TheM0rganism wrote: »

snip

The Templar thread is over here:
forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/245184/official-feedback-thread-for-templars

tinythinker · February 2016

Good to see you in another thread, @ZOS_KNowak. Are you part of the combat team? I know a lot players on the forums have -- strong opinions

-- but we do appreciate seeing devs around.

Grunim · February 2016

jsynoski_ESO wrote: »

Second, there really needs to be a way to unsummon the pets as at times they can just get in the way of your exploring an area.

But you can now on PTS. If you summon a Twilight Matriarch and mouse over the skill in your toolbar, you are instructed to "Hold for 4 seconds to dismiss your twilight matriarch".

I don't see these instructions unless I have actually activated my pet.

Also, it seems to take longer than 4 seconds to dismiss them, it's more like 5 seconds for the pet to actually vanish which is a very long time if you need to get into stealth mode fast and not be detected by enemies. So hopefully the stealth mode for sorc pets works well when the DLC launches.

FENGRUSH · February 2016

I just wanted to take some time to post feedback on the new stam sorc changes:

Zavus · February 2016

Hi, first off, anyone who says the word pe* should be immediately ignored.

I've played magicka sorc for...oh I don't know 200+ days playtime. Went to stam when orsinium came out. Yes stam is fun and different but the main reason is because stam is just so much more OP than magicka. With cp caps and how cp passives 'were' you really needed about 900 cp to be even close to the same level as a stam build who has half your cp. Regardless of the class. Now with the cp changes I'll be going back to my roots.

As for stam sorcs........good luck and godspeed.

-Methuselah

found1779 · February 2016

If changes are going to be made before it goes live consider making some for stamina sorcerers all this patch did was focus on magicka sorcerers think about it none of the changes benefit a stamina sorcerer fix this

Taonnor · February 2016

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the feedback on the Sorcerer changes so far. We're collecting everything posted in this thread and elsewhere and are still evaluating Sorcerer performance on the PTS realm, so keep all the feedback coming!

One thing we would like to clarify is that Sorcerer pets are intended to go into stealth when the player enters stealth. This is something that will be addressed before our Thieves Guild patch goes Live.

Hey. The sorc pet changes are very cool.

But for me the pets are still a bit "unhandly".

1. The aoe animation of volatile familiar is hard to see. Often i double click to look it is realy running? So please make a more visible animation.
2. The idea of active skills with pets are cool, but the "unsommon" on bar switch is abnormally. Better will be a fix time the pet is summoned. For example 1 minute, then you must resummon the pet.

Yolokin_Swagonborn · February 2016

ZOS_KNowak wrote: »

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the feedback on the Sorcerer changes so far. We're collecting everything posted in this thread and elsewhere and are still evaluating Sorcerer performance on the PTS realm, so keep all the feedback coming!

One thing we would like to clarify is that Sorcerer pets are intended to go into stealth when the player enters stealth. This is something that will be addressed before our Thieves Guild patch goes Live.

@ZOS_KNowak

Do you guys mind looking at stam sorc a bit? The stam sorc community has been asking for changes for over a year now and most of us feel that the thundering presence change was a step in the wrong direction. What we would like is a reason to use class abilities and put the Sorcerer back into stam sorc instead of just spamming wrecking blow.

As a stamina build you use stamina for DPS and Magicka for utility. If you use stamina for both, you run out of stam and die. That's what happens when you try and re-apply the stamina lightning form for the speed buff. And that is why stamina sorcs don't use it. I don't know one serious stamina sorc in PvP that uses the stamina morph of lightning form.

Stamina sorcerer has the potential to be the most fun build in the game. ZIpping around charged by lighting streaking and crit rushing things. But as it stands, stam sorc is basically a pure weapon build using very few sorcerer abilities.

In short, here are the things that need to happen for stam sorc to be competative.

Thundering presence needs to be reverted to a magicka utility and offer a longer duration on the speed buff.
Stamina sorc needs a stamina based instant cast non-reflectable skill DPS skill (not dot).
Overload ultimate needs to scale to stamina properly like all ultimates are supposed to when stamina is the higher resource pool.
Streak should reset the cool down timer if you cause damage with the skill- this rewards sorcerers for staying in the fight (and using the skill offensively) but still punishes them for running away. Not being able to use our class defining ability more than once is a real letdown.
Damage shields need to be critable. at least make crits register against a damage shield even if they dont do extra damage so you can get the heals and other set effects off them.
Pet damage should scale off magicka or stamina and their physical attacks should do physical damage

This would be a good start. I would like to see the sorcerer class reworked in the long run, have pets reworked and overload reworked but this would be a good start.

More information about Stamina sorcerer and why the stamina sorc doesn't stack up to the stamina builds of other classes here.

exiledtyrant · February 2016

After more testing with hybrid builds I really like the pet additions. VR 16 gear with full prismatic, 32 magicka, and 32 stamina levels out to around 22-23k magicka, 22-23k stamina, and 19-20k health outside of cyrodil. Stats balances are going to vary between race. I was on a redguard. Healing has proven fairly significant for twilight and clanfear.

With 15% healing from the apprentice, 16% from the Lord, and 15% from the ritual I was able to scale up my base heal of 4.5-7k to 7-10k using twilight matriarch. That felt fairly significant for a 2800 magicka cost skill that is instant. This healing is basically doubled for someone pure magicka which is a very good heal at even more reduced cost. Combined with vigor they made a very potent combo. For non hybrid the same goes with resto staff + twlight. Using either is also a good source of aoe healing.

Clanfear again is a very potent heal that pure stam or tank sorc's can sub in as their magicka pools wouldn't be high enough to benefit from twilight. This skill is costly at around 5k magicka, but it is again instant and combines nicely with vigor for spike healing. Current end game pool should be able to sustain 2-3 uses in succession. Heals for 18k health ranged from 9k-15k with with 15% healing from the apprentice, 16% from the Lord, and 15% from the ritual.

Another positive of the new pet utility is that now sorcerer's have a proper heal that can pull people away from crit builds and bound armor. You no longer have to worry about losing the stam/health regen etc without using bound armor. Critical surge also not the only way to heal now .The pet heals feel like what dark exchange really should have been all along. I'm not sure what place it actually has now outside maybe some tank utility for more clanfear heals.

dpencil · February 2016

My feedback so far... (as a magicka sorc)

The Magelight change is very cool. I love that I can have a detect feature while maintaining the max magicka buff (using Inner Light), but more importantly that it can now be used to proc the Might of the Guild empower buff. Activating Magelight also has a chance to proc Crystal Frags if it's on the same bar, and the length of the empower buff is just long enough to get a fully charged heavy attack off and fire the Crystal Frag. And working for the Crystal Frag proc can be done without coming out of stealth. So when I see a single enemy target, I've begun using this strategry:
1 (optional): Crouch to go into stealth
2: Buff with Power Surge
3. Activate Inner Light until it procs Crystal Frags
- if I have to do it more than 5 times, I usually let my magicka regen back to 100% and then start again (usually using Dark Exchange to speed up the regen)
4. Initiate combat with a fully-charged heavy attack from Inferno Staff.
5. Immediately let the empowered proced Crystal Frag fly.
Both the heavy attack and Crystal Frag hit at the same time, and all this can be initiated from stealth. With the template character on pts using julianos, willpower, molag, maelstrom staff, I would pretty consistently crit on both attacks doing 19k and 21k damage respectively. That's 40k instant damage from stealth. While this opener might not always be quite so effective in pvp with crit mitigation, etc., it's certainly satisfying to basically 1-shot any mob with 40k or less health, which is pretty much everything you run into overland at v16.

I also played a bit with the pet changes. I wasn't convinced that the Familiar/Clanfear was worth slotting. It still feels underpowered, at least offensively. I did find, however, the Twilight Matriarch (healer) to be very helpful. The heal is huge (14.5k) and the Matriarch also grabs aggro pretty well. I soloed one of the new world bosses after dying to him a few times without a pet. Having the Matriarch took the pressure off and provided a similar "oh crap" heal that Healing Ward would've provided, only instant and healing the Matriarch too. I didn't find the magicka cost of the heal to be prohibitive and was easily able to resummon it when it got one-shotted occasionally. I also like the functionality of holding down the summon button for 4 seconds to unsummon the pet.

One suggestion I would make is that I'd really like to see my pet's health bar like it's a party member. I turned on the friendly npc health bars but it's difficult to see clearly, and requires me to be facing the Matriarch. It really is important to be able to know the Matriach's health so that I can use the heal appropriately to keep it alive.

I also liked the change to Daedric Tomb, though the magicka cost is so high it makes it difficult for me to use in my usual aoe rotation.

I'm very happy with Wall of Elements as well. It's still not as strong as liquid lighting, which is understandable, but it is now a viable addition to my aoe approach. When faced with a group of weaker mobs I'll usually do the following:
1. Activate Power Surge
2. Activate Lightning Form
3. Activate Hardened Ward
4. Drop Liquid Lightning
5. Drop Blockade of Elements
6. Spam Pulsar
Everything's usually dead by the 3rd Pulsar. DPS tracker usually shows 6-7k for Pulsar, 3-4k for Liquid Lightning, 2-3k, for Blockade of Elements, and 1k for Lightning Form. And if anything is hanging around or has moved out of AOE range, Crystal Frag is sure to have proced by then.

So all in all I'm pretty happy with the changes. The only big frustration I have is the loss of things like the 5% max magicka buff from Inner Light when bar swapping. It's the same reason I don't like Sturcured Entropy. I go back and forth between my bars alot, so by the time combat starts I never actually have that 5% unless I put the skill on both bars, and I think many of us were hopeful that skills like Magelight, the Summons, and Bound Armor were going to be reworked expressly so we wouldn't feel a necessity to keep them on both bars. That's only partially happened with Magelight and hasn't happened at all with the others. I don't understand why they can't just behave like permenant buffs and stay on regardless of which bar is active. I'd even be happy if they were just long duration spells that would need to be recast every 2, 5, or 10 minutes, whatever. Just something that could free up that extra skill slot and still give us consistent access to those abilities.

In any case, I'm grateful for the hard work everyone at ZOS has put in. Thanks!

MisterBigglesworth · February 2016

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Damage shields need to be critable. at least make crits register against a damage shield even if they dont do extra damage so you can get the heals and other set effects off them.

I think they've decided to continue ignoring this problem. I mean why else would they go with that half-baked Heavy Weapon Expert Champion passive? (never mind the fact that it won't even be turned on in at least 2 of their campaigns)