Emotions have been running high on the topic of damage shields ever since the DB patch hit. So many threads have popped up saying how sorc has been broken, and each of those threads fills up with people who agree, and those who lazily type "L2P" and think sorc got what was coming to them. It's not a very productive dialogue, so I am making this post in an attempt to take a larger look at the class to see if there's other ways of making the class balanced, interesting, and fun to play in pvp.

This is not an attempt at 100% objective analysis. I am writing from my point of view and playstyle of being a soloer and small group PvP'er. Regardless, I think I make valid points, raise interesting questions, and provide solid suggestions.

I will address all the sorc abilities - but first I think it's important to look at shields first since that is what everybody is fixated on.

Sorcerer and Shields

Up until now, what has been special about sorcs is that they've been able to shift between offensive and defensive phases, enabled by the stacking of damage shields. It used to also be the case that sorc had extraordinary mobility, but this has since been reduced to slightly above-average mobility due to numerous changes: Overall movement speed decrease, the decrease in speed bonus granted by major expedition, the stacking cost increase on streak, ubiquitous powerful snares, and the nerf of retreating maneuvers.

With a flattening of all damage shields to just 6 seconds (except for empowered ward) - stacking shields has really been minimized to the point of near irrelevance. In an average encounter, assuming a player has taken both hardened ward and a morph of annulment, the shields will overlap for only a few seconds before one wears off. This is a very tiny window to effectively absorb damage with both shields up. What tends to happen now is that a sorc buffs up with shields, engages in combat, one of the shields wears off while the sorc attempts to deal damage and then the sorc is open to being burst down. Previously, a sorc's shield came down due to receiving damage, not simply for running out of time. It's important to note that although annulment now also absorbs physical damage, it's a non-factor due to the minimal duration overlap.

So now with both reduced mobility, and minimized effectiveness of shield stacking - the sorcerer is a lot less special. Sorc damage remains competitive, but survivability is diminished.

I don't think we need to return to the old paradigm of stacking shields. I am not opposed to the fact that there was a change to shields. But I think the current solution was poorly conceived, because like so many others have noted - we now have a class ability that is available to all in generic form via annulment. Granted there are some minor advantages to conjured ward, but really so minor as to not even be notable.

What if we really thought differently about conjured ward? I keep seeing people simply asking for it to be returned to 20 seconds, or in even more desperate pleas, people saying "I would be happy if it was at least 10 seconds..."

Why not open up the gameplay by making conjured ward work more like how wards work in Skyrim (yes I am serious), where it is an active shield you cast in the same manner as blocking. Imagine that! A cross-pollination of two historically polar playstyles of magicka and stamina. My rough concept would look something like this: Magicka sorc casts conjured ward - no damage shield is directly applied to the character that will absorb damage - instead, the character can now press block to bring up a magical ward that works much in the same manner as a character blocking with a shield. While using this ward, magicka is drained instead of stamina as the shield takes hits. Now, the player must use their situational awareness to mitigate damage which involves a layer of skill compared to just repeatedly pressing 1 button to gain an absorb shield. Also, wouldn't this be more lore-friendly? I don't particularly care about that but I know a lot of other players do since this is an Elder Scrolls title.

I have also pondered the possibility of a different cross-pollination with stamina gameplay. What if a morph of conjured ward granted a 40-50% decrease in the cost of dodge-rolling for X seconds? Just because the game design has moved to eliminate hybrids shouldn't mean there can't still be some mixing of playstyles. Maybe this isn't the greatest idea, but it does remind me that I still do not understand why magicka builds are affected by the stacking increase of dodge-rolling. The cost increase should only apply if stamina is the max stat of the player. Even without the stacking increase, a magicka build can only roll a few times due to having a very small pool of 10-14k stam and poor stam regen on top of that. And unfortunately such stam issues cannot be mitigated alone by build variations.

A Look at Abilities

Dark Magic

Daedric Summoning

Storm Calling

Ultimates

Passives

Conclusion

Changes like the ones I have suggested above would have the effect of opening up build opportunities and playstyles. As of right now, magicka sorcs are pigeonholed into a destruction/restoration setup, due to the lack of class abilities compatible with other weapons, specifically dual-wield and s&b. I think the community is in agreement that build diversity and "playing how you want" are good things for the game.

I really like this game and it's always so close to getting it right. I think that's why we all stick around throughout the lag, the bugs, imbalances and even full-on cheating as seen recently. I hope we can make an impression on the devs to fix this class to aid in improving the overall quality of the game.

TL;DR Sorc needs more build variety, gameplay options, and survivability without having to revert to the previous mechanic of stacking shields.