For all the sorcs who think they've been nerfed

Serenityx · June 2016

In light of all the sorcs complaining about their classes (and many even encouraging others to continue complaining) - If you look at the patch notes for your class, the only thing that got reduced was shield duration. Literally EVERY other change to your class abilitys was an increase.

Here, Ive emboldened everywhere your class abilitys/passives has been improved per patch 2.4.5 (Dark brotherhood/ May 30th)

Sorcerer
* Dark Magic
* Absorption Field (Negate Magic morph): Redesigned this morph so it now heals you and your allies standing within the area of effect, in addition to stunning or silencing enemies.
* Dark Exchange: Increased the amount of resources gained from this ability and its morphs: Health by 100%, Stamina and Magicka by 75%.
* Suppression Field (Negate Magic morph): Redesigned this morph so it now damages enemies standing within the area of effect, in addition to stunning or silencing enemies. Also fixed an issue where the damage from this morph could not critically strike
* Daedric Summoning
* Fixed an issue where many Sorcerer pets did not have any Physical Resistance. They will now all have a normalized amount of Physical Resistance equal to their Spell Resistance
* Bound Armor: This ability and its morphs no longer permanently change your appearance when they are toggled on; instead, they now only display a brief visual effect when toggled on.
* Conjured Ward: Reduced the duration of this ability and the Hardened Ward morph to 6 seconds from 20 seconds
* Empowered Ward (Conjured Ward morph): Reduced the duration of this morph to 8 seconds from 20 seconds
* Expert Summoner:
* Redesigned this passive ability so it now grants you 4/8% more maximum health whenever you have a Daedric Summoning pet active.
* This passive ability’s old bonuses are now baseline effects for your pets.
* Storm Calling
* Disintegrate:
* Renamed this passive ability to Implosion.
* This passive ability now also grants all Physical Damage you deal a chance to instantly pulverize low health enemies, dealing additional Physical Damage to them
* Updated this passive’s tooltip to indicate what the health threshold is for it to trigger.
* Energized: This passive ability now also increases your Physical Damage done in addition to the Shock Damage done
* Implosion: Fixed an issue where this passive ability could not critically strike.
* Mage’s Fury:
* This ability and its morphs willnow be more responsive when proccing their execute damage explosion.
* This ability and its morphs now proc their execute damage explosion when the target is at or below 20% Health instead of only below 20% Health
* This ability and its morphs have had some minor visual FX improvements made and bugs fixed
* Surge:
* This ability and its morphs now restore a flat value of health whenever you deal a Critical Strike. It will now also proc on any Critical Strike instead of only direct damage Critical Strikes, but can only restore health once every second
* This ability and the Power Surge morph have also had their healing increased by approximately 30%.
* Thundering Presence (Lightning Form morph):
* Renamed this morph to Hurricane.
* Redesigned this morph so it now increases the size and damage of the periodic effect the longer it is active, increasing up to 225% more damage and up to 9 meters in size
* This morph now deals Physical Damage instead of Shock Damage.

Nothing was noted to have been changed in the recent 2.4.6 or 2.4.7 patches either. The only thing that got reduced was shield duration and some changes to crit surge that may have made it somehow less optimal for PvP, despite those changes it still recieved a buff.

EDIT: I meant to aim this at the players who play this class in cyrodil, as their class is still very capeable of competing with other classes in PvP even though some insist otherwise. I do sympathize with sorcs in the PvE environment post DB.

FrostFallFox · June 2016

Same af. But isn't Empowered ward now 10 seconds in duration and not 8?

Serenityx · June 2016

According to my ESO database app the tooltip says shield duration is 8 seconds, and provides minor intellect (+10% magicka regen) for 10 seconds

FrostFallFox · June 2016

;0

Grao · June 2016

@Serenityx , someone that clearly does not play a sorcerer.

RoyJade · June 2016

For the nerf :
Surge is a nerf for all "burst" playstyle. You heal far less now than before patch.
Pets survivability has been greatly reduced because of the shield duration.
And of course, shield duration is a great nerf to our only reliable survivability skill.

For the problem we still have :
Pets survivability is still very low even with the added defense and the damage cap. Their damage are crap also, so they are still useless for nearly all build (pve especially, in pvp we might use them for some build).
Dark exchange is still useless as an emergency heal. The cast time kill the skill. This skill must not be a heal but a resource management skill, and even with the number added it still useless for most of the case, due to the awful cast time.
Mage's fury is still the weakest execute in the entire game : lower damage and lower % heal proc.
Surge still don't scale with the number of enemies, unlike sweep, inhale and sap essence. Moreover, it should add a "tiny and reliable heal when we have shield", but what about stamina sorc who don't have shield ?
We still have three st*pid toogle.
We still have a lot of very situational skill, and too few useful skill for dps, tanking or healing. I don't speak about a spammable, I speak about group utility and dots/hots/tank utility.
Our skill are very expensive in comparison with other classes.
Our main survivability skill has been given to everyone, and don't say that ward has some bonus over dampen, because dampen also have some bonus over ward.

So yes, we have been nerfed a few, but we was already the worst class for all spec except two : solo survivability (aka maelström), and pvp shieldstacking + burst. Both has been removed and I'm fine with that, as long as we get something else to be on par with other classes. We still are the worst healer, the worst tank, nearly the worst dps, the worst group utility, and now one of the worst solo survivability. What we have lest for endgame ? Nothing more than other classes, and they all have something unique useful we don't have any more.

Ep1kMalware · June 2016

RoyJade wrote: »

For the nerf :
Surge is a nerf for all "burst" playstyle. You heal far less now than before patch.
Pets survivability has been greatly reduced because of the shield duration.
And of course, shield duration is a great nerf to our only reliable survivability skill.

For the problem we still have :
Pets survivability is still very low even with the added defense and the damage cap. Their damage are crap also, so they are still useless for nearly all build (pve especially, in pvp we might use them for some build).
Dark exchange is still useless as an emergency heal. The cast time kill the skill. This skill must not be a heal but a resource management skill, and even with the number added it still useless for most of the case, due to the awful cast time.
Mage's fury is still the weakest execute in the entire game : lower damage and lower % heal proc.
Surge still don't scale with the number of enemies, unlike sweep, inhale and sap essence. Moreover, it should add a "tiny and reliable heal when we have shield", but what about stamina sorc who don't have shield ?
We still have three st*pid toogle.
We still have a lot of very situational skill, and too few useful skill for dps, tanking or healing. I don't speak about a spammable, I speak about group utility and dots/hots/tank utility.
Our skill are very expensive in comparison with other classes.
Our main survivability skill has been given to everyone, and don't say that ward has some bonus over dampen, because dampen also have some bonus over ward.

So yes, we have been nerfed a few, but we was already the worst class for all spec except two : solo survivability (aka maelström), and pvp shieldstacking + burst. Both has been removed and I'm fine with that, as long as we get something else to be on par with other classes. We still are the worst healer, the worst tank, nearly the worst dps, the worst group utility, and now one of the worst solo survivability. What we have lest for endgame ? Nothing more than other classes, and they all have something unique useful we don't have any more.

I for one would have nerfed shields differently. I'd keep it at 20 sec and remove the immunity to crit. Would be untouched pve and not as retardedly OP/broken in pvp. Also, do you reckon the problem isn't thay they nerfed your only survivability skill, or that A SHIELD IS YOUR ONLY SURVIVABILITY SKILL in the first place.

RoyJade · June 2016

Yep, one of our main problem is that we have only one survivability skill including passive. And more : we have nearly one or two effective build, unlike other classes.

Personally, I'ld have nerfed shield stacking instead : each shield you cast don't stack with the other, if you have a 8k and a 10k shield you only have 10k shield to protect you. "Tiny" shield like those in cp passive and weapon enchantment and other should also apply additively to other shield, unlike active abilities.
But there is so much thing who need a change...

Tyrion87 · June 2016

Hahaha

Do you even play a sorc?

If yes, you should know that reduction of shields' duration was way too big, even unnecessary, and makes shields useless in most situations. You should also know that there was another heavy nerf to surge healing which is the reason why many sorcerers started to use entropy instead of surge. When you compare those nerfs (few in terms of quantity, but massive in terms of quality) to those funny 'buffs' to skills that most people don't use at all (with exception of negate which is overused now in PvP), there is no doubt that sorcs' survivability and indirectly DPS was nerfed too hard in one single update with giving nothing in return. The playstyle itself is not fun anymore.

If no, you shouldn't comment on this matter at all.

Lucky28 · June 2016

Surge nerf is what killed the class not ward duration. for me anyways.

Ward duration, is an annoyance that doesn't need to be in the game. but that's about it.

Duiwel · June 2016

I have said it before and I will say it again PvE & PvP need different "skills" it can be exactly the same but the shield nerf was not needed ( for any shield ) in PvE.

Apart from what I just said in a way I agree with OP, but I don't play sorc enough anymore to care. It was my first V16 char, I will always remember him but I only log in on him to grab alt leveling gear

(I have multiple sets on him for various levels already crafted )

Asmael · June 2016

There's a lot more to it than that.

Velocious curse no longer benefits from Thaumaturge
Loss of Dawnbreaker to stamina
Magicka detonation now has terrible single target damage AND no longer benefits from Thaumaturge
Surge heal is absolute trash (2k5 crits. Yay).
No more DW main bar sorc, unless you want to spam an execute
Nerf to magicka as a whole, as the increase was % based, and magicka abilities have on average a higher base cost compared to stam

Magicka det wasn't used by every sorc, it was more of a way to increase the chances of bursting down an opponent. Curse is a lot more common, but the burst potential has been, Dawnbreaker put aside*, not nerfed that much, since you can still respec those points in thaumaturge to critical damage or penetration.

* Dawnbreaker was strong even on stam builds before. Now, huh, it just destroys instantly 50% of just about anyone's health, CC and put a DoT. Totally not overperforming.

The problem is more with on the defense aspect. Yes, shields have the same strength (not duration) as before, but damage went up the roof with the buffs to stamina especially (basically +20-25% on dawnbreaker, +20%~ish on incap, higher penetration, etc etc...), while Surge could provide a nice burst healing option, rewarding aggressive gameplay. Now it just sucks (2k5 healing. Mmh... definitely sounds OP).

Were shields overperforming? Yes they were. 20 seconds was definitely too much (6 seconds, bit short tho), what hurts as well is the nerf to Surge, which rewarded aggressive gameplay, instead of forcing sorcs into shield spamming even more.

Sorcs have basically 3 options:
- Stick to the meta sorc, which has been nerfed (but still holds his own), with the usual minecamp, streak, shield, frag.
- Go for a tankier (perhaps Heavy armor / sustain build), possibly with pets and ,more health, but drastically lower damage
- JOIN THE ZERK, ASDFGHJSDFSDF, ZERK EM ALL!!!!!1!!

Realistically, the average sorc will pick options 1 or 3, since pet builds are much harder to pull off (running one right now**, nice change of pace from the old meta sorc).

** Not maining sorc, just trying stuff out. Gotta love playing with exotic builds.

stevepdodson_ESO888 · June 2016

i had to change my mag sorc to a stam sorc due to these changes...
yes surge+hurricane and DW skills that now also give a heal (slashes and flurry morphs) make this viable but i really liked my mag sorc, it was my first character i made on ESO

i want her back again ....*sobs uncontrollably*

Blevil · June 2016

The nerf to ward was my fun killer as a Sorc. Now I find myself dealing much less damage and "weaving" in ward between my attacks instead of focusing on damage. I think they should increase it to at least 10 seconds and empowered to 14 seconds. They could also keep it at 20 and have it critable/non stackable. A 6sec shield's duration ends much more times before the shield actually gets depleted in battle.

It's just simply not fun to play anymore.

Birdovic · June 2016

* Redesigned this passive ability so it now grants you 4/8% more maximum health whenever you have a Daedric Summoning pet active.

I had to laugh so hard when I Noticed you left The "whenever a Daedric Summoning pet active" without [ b ]

Reevster · June 2016

I had to switch from a Mag Sorc to a Magblade because I suck, I hate that I cant use the OPed 20 sec blue bubble anymore "Cries" .....

Flaminir · June 2016

I'm not to go into a detailed post... others have said the issues very eloquently... but just as a comment @Serenityx it does sound as though you do not main a sorc based on your comments...

I would also point out that you are just looking at the patch notes for one major update having ignored all the previous changes since the game began.... which is an exceptionally limited viewpoint.

....AND you are only looking at the sorc specific section. Other game general mechanics that change can have a bigger or lesser impact on different classes depending on their makeup.... something you have ignored entirely.

To give you a small example... in DB trapping webs (Undaunted) was changed from a spammable dps skill that could be used with any weapon to a ground based AoE.... whilst the change effects every class, Sorcs are the only class without a single spammable dps class ability.... therefore sorcs relied on trapping webs as the only option to use different weapons in pvp... now we are literally just tied to an inferno staff for force pulse. No other option at all.

If you're going to pass comment on a class that it sounds like you don't play then I would suggest doing proper research or you'll find a lot of people who do know & understand the class will just come here and quite effectively 'point out' the errors in the original post.

TheHsN · June 2016

-shields are useless any way no matter people say ok.

-power surge is powerless surge now

-tharmaturge now not working for us

-mage wrath is the worse and weakest execute in the game

-not a class spamable dps skill like other classes has .. such as whip dk-swallow soul nb- jabs-tempar.. instead of it we uses destruction weapon and it is weak ad costs alot

-cyrstal fargs.. it is not spamable and when u use it any build can dodge it or block it or return (reflect)it to you back BECAUSE it is slow like turtle to hit player anyone see thats coming wait till coming and let run:):):)

play stayle and gears not fun anymore or creative...

and if people can ask more they will ask more nerf for it...

why stamina builds were killing them very hard...and they just wanna kill them in a second...

visionality · June 2016

Thanks for the post, @Serenityx!

I'm playing a sorc myself and I'm really unhappy about all the whining and complaining of some "masters" of this class. Most sorcs do as well after DB as before. It's the guys who relied upon masses of shields stacking for their survival who now cry their hearts out. L2P and all is fine.

TheHsN · June 2016

visionality wrote: »

Thanks for the post, @Serenityx!

I'm playing a sorc myself and I'm really unhappy about all the whining and complaining of some "masters" of this class. Most sorcs do as well after DB as before. It's the guys who relied upon masses of shields stacking for their survival who now cry their hearts out. L2P and all is fine.

which server and alliance are u in...lets duel...i wanna see how u play...and since when u are playing sorc...

if u beat e i will never say anything about sorc again ok?

Flaminir · June 2016

visionality wrote: »

Thanks for the post, @Serenityx!

I'm playing a sorc myself and I'm really unhappy about all the whining and complaining of some "masters" of this class. Most sorcs do as well after DB as before. It's the guys who relied upon masses of shields stacking for their survival who now cry their hearts out. L2P and all is fine.

Nope... sorry... another person who hasn't read the main posts & missed the main points.

Nothing at all to do with shields. Or survival...

Nothing to do with L2P.... those of us who've been maining sorcs since beta and run all end game content, trials. vma etc are very capable of adapting, still pulling reasonable numbers etc...

None of that is the issue...

The issue is that class has taken so many nerfs and changes that just pigeon hole it into one build to be competitive.... basically, Sorc's are boring. They have virtually no build options, most of the skills are either broken (Summoning) or useless. They offer next to group utility... and anything a sorc can do, other classes can do better, more easily, and with more fun and interactive gameplay. Every class is best at something... except Sorc's. We were best at solo stuff (vMA) but had that taken away via the large number of survivability nerfs in DB with no recompense elsewhere.

Of course a lot of this is subjective & depends on the content you're running.... a bit of questing and the odd 4 man dungeon & it may seem ok.... step beyond this & the limitations/boredom factor set in.

Tryxus · June 2016

Flaminir wrote: »

To give you a small example... in DB trapping webs (Undaunted) was changed from a spammable dps skill that could be used with any weapon to a ground based AoE.... whilst the change effects every class, Sorcs are the only class without a single spammable dps class ability.... therefore sorcs relied on trapping webs as the only option to use different weapons in pvp... now we are literally just tied to an inferno staff for force pulse. No other option at all.

Actually, you still got 3 weapons:

Inferno Staff, Ice Staff and Lightning Staff

Sounomi · June 2016

For sorcs being nerfed so hard, there sure is a lot of new sorcs out in PvP these days. Sorc is like FoTM now.

As someone that plays the class and has done so for over 1k hours, I feel that the nerfs are blown out of proportion by a lot of people here. Though at same time, I do agree that they may have gone a little too far with the nerfs too. Beyond the latest nerfs that everyone's whining about, yes the class has some other issues too. But you know what, the rest of the classes have issues as well. Personally, none of this has been bad enough to cause me to stop enjoying the class and frankly if this stuff does ruin your enjoyment, you probably weren't really enjoying the class that much in the first place.

Flaminir · June 2016

Tryxus wrote: »

Flaminir wrote: »

To give you a small example... in DB trapping webs (Undaunted) was changed from a spammable dps skill that could be used with any weapon to a ground based AoE.... whilst the change effects every class, Sorcs are the only class without a single spammable dps class ability.... therefore sorcs relied on trapping webs as the only option to use different weapons in pvp... now we are literally just tied to an inferno staff for force pulse. No other option at all.

Actually, you still got 3 weapons:

Inferno Staff, Ice Staff and Lightning Staff

Congrats.... you earn 10 troll points!

Even Wrobel got the point on this one.... just a shame about the 'no plans' reply!

Wrobel wrote: »

We understand that Sorcerers would like more freedom with choosing what weapon to use. As a Stamina character, even without a class damaging ability, you have a diverse set of options between Bow, 1h Shield, 2h, and Dual Wield. Magicka technically has 4 options as well – Restoration Staff and 3 flavors of Destruction Staff. However Restoration staff doesn’t support offensive abilities and there is not enough diversity between the three types of Destruction Staff. We don’t have any immediate plans to change this, but we would like to give Sorcerers more compelling decisions when selecting a weapon.

Bfish22090 · June 2016

so were talking about magicka sorcs here, so buffs to stam sorcs are uselss
nerfs:
6 second shield duration
dawnbreaker scales off physical damage now
crit surge is useless for magicka sorcs
buffs:
negate is good in group pvp now

Tyrion87 · June 2016

visionality wrote: »

Thanks for the post, @Serenityx!

I'm playing a sorc myself and I'm really unhappy about all the whining and complaining of some "masters" of this class. Most sorcs do as well after DB as before. It's the guys who relied upon masses of shields stacking for their survival who now cry their hearts out. L2P and all is fine.

Teach me how to play a sorc then, my Master!

I have a feeling that you haven't reached an end-game content yet, have you?

You know, of course sorcs are still playable, but they are much worse than any other class in any role. Does it sound like a balance to you?

Tryxus · June 2016

Flaminir wrote: »

Tryxus wrote: »

Flaminir wrote: »

To give you a small example... in DB trapping webs (Undaunted) was changed from a spammable dps skill that could be used with any weapon to a ground based AoE.... whilst the change effects every class, Sorcs are the only class without a single spammable dps class ability.... therefore sorcs relied on trapping webs as the only option to use different weapons in pvp... now we are literally just tied to an inferno staff for force pulse. No other option at all.

Actually, you still got 3 weapons:

Inferno Staff, Ice Staff and Lightning Staff

Congrats.... you earn 10 troll points!

Even Wrobel got the point on this one.... just a shame about the 'no plans' reply!

Wrobel wrote: »

We understand that Sorcerers would like more freedom with choosing what weapon to use. As a Stamina character, even without a class damaging ability, you have a diverse set of options between Bow, 1h Shield, 2h, and Dual Wield. Magicka technically has 4 options as well – Restoration Staff and 3 flavors of Destruction Staff. However Restoration staff doesn’t support offensive abilities and there is not enough diversity between the three types of Destruction Staff. We don’t have any immediate plans to change this, but we would like to give Sorcerers more compelling decisions when selecting a weapon.

Well, hopefully we'll get that Illusion staff certain NPCs have. Would be a start

Tyrion87 · June 2016

Sounomi wrote: »

For sorcs being nerfed so hard, there sure is a lot of new sorcs out in PvP these days. Sorc is like FoTM now.

Please say it was a joke...

Pick up the bounty quests in Cyrodiil and tell me which one you will be doing the longest.

Tyrion87 · June 2016

Tryxus wrote: »

Flaminir wrote: »

Tryxus wrote: »

Flaminir wrote: »

To give you a small example... in DB trapping webs (Undaunted) was changed from a spammable dps skill that could be used with any weapon to a ground based AoE.... whilst the change effects every class, Sorcs are the only class without a single spammable dps class ability.... therefore sorcs relied on trapping webs as the only option to use different weapons in pvp... now we are literally just tied to an inferno staff for force pulse. No other option at all.

Actually, you still got 3 weapons:

Inferno Staff, Ice Staff and Lightning Staff

Congrats.... you earn 10 troll points!

Even Wrobel got the point on this one.... just a shame about the 'no plans' reply!

Wrobel wrote: »

We understand that Sorcerers would like more freedom with choosing what weapon to use. As a Stamina character, even without a class damaging ability, you have a diverse set of options between Bow, 1h Shield, 2h, and Dual Wield. Magicka technically has 4 options as well – Restoration Staff and 3 flavors of Destruction Staff. However Restoration staff doesn’t support offensive abilities and there is not enough diversity between the three types of Destruction Staff. We don’t have any immediate plans to change this, but we would like to give Sorcerers more compelling decisions when selecting a weapon.

Well, hopefully we'll get that Illusion staff certain NPCs have. Would be a start

I bet we'll get Wabbajack sooner than Illusion staff ;-)

incite · June 2016

visionality wrote: »

Thanks for the post, @Serenityx!

I'm playing a sorc myself and I'm really unhappy about all the whining and complaining of some "masters" of this class. Most sorcs do as well after DB as before. It's the guys who relied upon masses of shields stacking for their survival who now cry their hearts out. L2P and all is fine.

Are you at Molag Bal now or still finishing up Mannimarco?

Wreuntzylla · June 2016

Tyrion87 wrote: »

Sounomi wrote: »

For sorcs being nerfed so hard, there sure is a lot of new sorcs out in PvP these days. Sorc is like FoTM now.

Please say it was a joke...

Pick up the bounty quests in Cyrodiil and tell me which one you will be doing the longest.

Sorcs have always been one of the crappiest bounty quests to get. Losing 1v1? STREAK! Losing 1vx? STREAK! Losing 1vZerg? STREAK!