PTS Feedback Thread for Sorcerer Balance Improvements

Bowser · January 2017

Judging by all the hate for sorc pets, I'm guessing their next move will be something like:

Remove Bound Armor ability and move its passives to pets.
- Clannfear grants max stam while summoned.
- Volatile Familiar grants max magicka while summoned.
- Winged Twilight grants minor resists and heavy attack damage while summoned.
Replace Bound Armor with a spammable fire-and-forget summon flame/frost atronach ability.

Thornen · January 2017

Birdovic wrote: »

Im glad so many people are against this change.

If we think about it now, velocious curse was actually a pretty perfect skill as was.
It worked PERFECTLY to combo and build burst, and nobody ever said it was too strong or too weak, it needed practice and timing.

How you can ruin such a fundamental and balanced Ability for sorcerer, especially in a "Balance Patch" is just beyond me.

Is the 8% Buff the problem?
Please,go ahead and reduce its Damage by 8% to compensate.
I don't 100% plan to use a Inferno Staff, but I prefer giving up 8% Dmg instead of this ability as a whole, just because the way it works and the duration it lasts are simply perfect.

I think the problem was no one was using the other morph so by Zos logic that means destroy the popular morph everyone is using to compensate.

Dracane · January 2017

psychotic13 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Just found out, that even the storm atronach does not profit from elemental expert Cp etc.... this needs to be fixed/changed.
No wonder, that they can't keep up with other abilities.

Well that's annoying, I had the intention of trying to incorporate it into my build. Is it even half decent with the 25% damage buff? With/without daedric prey.

Not at all. Not even with daedric prey, still low damage. If it was boosted by elemetal expert, then it could actually be used for single target dps in pve, provided your daedric prey uptime is flawless.

Vudokan · January 2017

You've got to be KIDDING me with these changes. If you're trying to maintain player interest and engagement - and one can only assume you must be - you're going about it in exactly the wrong way. If you nerf my sorc to hell, I will have no reason to keep playing.

Yolokin_Swagonborn · January 2017

Force-Siphon wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

CosmicSoul wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

When people try to argue with Derra thinking he's a standard pug sorc who barely plays the class or doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's one of the best sorcs in the world across all platforms. He knows the class, and I and other sorcs can understand the nerf, even if we don't agree with it. He's pointing out why it's an understandable nerf with the buff to both flame/lightning staves and force pulse.

I do not think anyone disagrees with the nerf for pvp except one guy.

From talking to Derra/other sorcs, they think it should be reverted and I'm one of them. But at the same time, it is understandable why it was nerfed. ZOS just went the wrong way about nerfing it, changing the amount of time was stupid.

this, with more testing the 8% dmg buff is huge

This is the most disgusting path this games balance is taking right now. Increasing GENERIC buffs that affect overall damage, and nerfing INDIVIDUAL skills to compensate.

The price of the champion system is that individual skills and gear keep getting nerfed to balance the power creep introduced. Do templars even realize that even though RD got nerfed, you can put 13 more points into thaumaturge and bring a bit of that damage back up?

What makes the game unique and the classes unique is that each class has some powerful class defining skills. But thanks to over-buffing certain skill lines, removal of softcaps, and huge buffs coming from CP, ZOS feels they have to continuously nerf skills and gear because the lion's share of your build power comes from CP, attribute stacking, and generic buffs like these destro changes.

Bolt escape being nerfed and nerfed and nerfed was a casualty of the champion system and removal of softcaps,
Now curse is the next casualty.
In a few years all of our abilities are just going to do flashy sparkles like freaking Jubilee from X-men but our OP passives from destro, CP, and attribute stacking will make our boring zero utility sparkles hit hard.

Does that sound fun to you? Please see the writing on the wall. If ZOS continues balancing like this, further utility and uniqueness will be stripped from ALL class skills and classes will only differ by their particle effects.

Mayrael · January 2017

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Force-Siphon wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

CosmicSoul wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

When people try to argue with Derra thinking he's a standard pug sorc who barely plays the class or doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's one of the best sorcs in the world across all platforms. He knows the class, and I and other sorcs can understand the nerf, even if we don't agree with it. He's pointing out why it's an understandable nerf with the buff to both flame/lightning staves and force pulse.

I do not think anyone disagrees with the nerf for pvp except one guy.

From talking to Derra/other sorcs, they think it should be reverted and I'm one of them. But at the same time, it is understandable why it was nerfed. ZOS just went the wrong way about nerfing it, changing the amount of time was stupid.

this, with more testing the 8% dmg buff is huge

This is the most disgusting path this games balance is taking right now. Increasing GENERIC buffs that affect overall damage, and nerfing INDIVIDUAL skills to compensate.

The price of the champion system is that individual skills and gear keep getting nerfed to balance the power creep introduced. Do templars even realize that even though RD got nerfed, you can put 13 more points into thaumaturge and bring a bit of that damage back up?

What makes the game unique and the classes unique is that each class has some powerful class defining skills. But thanks to over-buffing certain skill lines, removal of softcaps, and huge buffs coming from CP, ZOS feels they have to continuously nerf skills and gear because the lion's share of your build power comes from CP, attribute stacking, and generic buffs like these destro changes.
Bolt escape being nerfed and nerfed and nerfed was a casualty of the champion system and removal of softcaps,

Now curse is the next casualty.

In a few years all of our abilities are just going to do flashy sparkles like freaking Jubilee from X-men but our OP passives from destro, CP, and attribute stacking will make our boring zero utility sparkles hit hard.

Does that sound fun to you? Please see the writing on the wall. If ZOS continues balancing like this, further utility and uniqueness will be stripped from ALL class skills and classes will only differ by their particle effects.

Passive from destro staff works only with destro staff skills, Ive tested it on PTS.

JasonSilverSpring · January 2017

Given the discussion here, I thought it would be worth sharing this recent post from Jessica. Hopefully this will work.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Is there ever going to be something resembling an explanation for all the lovely "balance" in this update?

Rich is working on a post that should help shed some light on some of the balance changes. He'll be posting it as soon as possible.

MercTheMage · January 2017

LEAVE CURSE ALONE! <insert chris crocker meme here>

STEVIL · January 2017

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Force-Siphon wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

CosmicSoul wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

When people try to argue with Derra thinking he's a standard pug sorc who barely plays the class or doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's one of the best sorcs in the world across all platforms. He knows the class, and I and other sorcs can understand the nerf, even if we don't agree with it. He's pointing out why it's an understandable nerf with the buff to both flame/lightning staves and force pulse.

I do not think anyone disagrees with the nerf for pvp except one guy.

From talking to Derra/other sorcs, they think it should be reverted and I'm one of them. But at the same time, it is understandable why it was nerfed. ZOS just went the wrong way about nerfing it, changing the amount of time was stupid.

this, with more testing the 8% dmg buff is huge

This is the most disgusting path this games balance is taking right now. Increasing GENERIC buffs that affect overall damage, and nerfing INDIVIDUAL skills to compensate.

The price of the champion system is that individual skills and gear keep getting nerfed to balance the power creep introduced. Do templars even realize that even though RD got nerfed, you can put 13 more points into thaumaturge and bring a bit of that damage back up?

What makes the game unique and the classes unique is that each class has some powerful class defining skills. But thanks to over-buffing certain skill lines, removal of softcaps, and huge buffs coming from CP, ZOS feels they have to continuously nerf skills and gear because the lion's share of your build power comes from CP, attribute stacking, and generic buffs like these destro changes.
Bolt escape being nerfed and nerfed and nerfed was a casualty of the champion system and removal of softcaps,

Now curse is the next casualty.

In a few years all of our abilities are just going to do flashy sparkles like freaking Jubilee from X-men but our OP passives from destro, CP, and attribute stacking will make our boring zero utility sparkles hit hard.

Does that sound fun to you? Please see the writing on the wall. If ZOS continues balancing like this, further utility and uniqueness will be stripped from ALL class skills and classes will only differ by their particle effects.

Actually i liked jubilee so not so much a problem for me.

But, the board has been full of multiple threads etc about damage imbalances between on large scale stam vs magica and complaints about DW getting damage boost for mag but not staff etc - so it is not surprising or incorrect at all to see a larger generic damage boost this time and then (since burst complaints were also common - see burst killing pvp ad nauseum) to see some of the more specific high burst combos take a hit.

people can morph any change into their agenda but to me this really isn't a CP issue rather than a specific focused set of changes and the domino effect to jubilee is certainly fanciful and colorful but in my opinion a bit over reaching based on what we see in the first PTS release here.

paget4444 · January 2017

Thank you for giving us this official thread, makes giving feedback a very easy and somewhat civil process.

I believe that the changes made to the sorcerer skill Velicious curse (now Haunting) is somewhat backwards.

For one, the skill itself doesn't really deal much damage considering there is a 3.5 (realistically 4) second period in which you have to wait for damage to come and then reapply the ability. From a PvE standpoint, this skill isn't groundbreaking in any manner, and is out-dps'd by just about any spam-able ability in the game. Considering most "normal" enemies would die by other abilities before this even has a chance to deal damage proves its usefulness is somewhat limited to boss fights or random tank enemies, as aoe abilities just out perform it. This new haunting skill, in PvE would ONLY be useful in boss fights, as there isn't enough health in most normal enemies for the skill to actually deal its full potential of damage.

Secondly, also from a PvE standpoint, looking at the two morph options for the curse ability, each has their own unique niche to help a player fill in the game. Specifically, "daedric prey" is a wonderful ability to use when running a pet build, which some players love to do, but more importantly is that the other morph help a player to achieve a completely different style of play. The short 3.5 sec duration encourages a player to be quick-minded with their dps rotation, and to REALLY practice with timing the use of each skill they choose to slot in order to compete with other dps players. The two styles of play are perfect for what the sorcerer class can offer, however, the change of velicious to haunting really takes away some of this. Basically, with this new change, we would apply the curse and then sit in our normal rotation for a while twelve seconds just to achieve the most damage we could, seems quite boring to me, it's as if you've implemented an "Easy" version of this skill while at the same time taking away a GREAT and FUN skill from others who really want that fast-paced action.

Thirdly, considering the large changes made to sorcerer summoning abilities, including damage increases for pets, health changes, etc., you are increasing the quality of various pet builds in the game, which is great. However, not EVER sorcerer wants to run around with pets, some would much rather deal fast-paced, high damage ourselves, and this change from velicious to haunting kind of seems like you are attempting to take away some of these other options. I would much rather have a powerful sorcerer, master of the elements, throwing FAST detonating curses to my enemies only to demolish them with a rain of lightning and force them to stand on hot coals.

Lastly, from a PvP standpoint, velicious curse just offers SO MUCH to the sorcerer class, who lack a bit in a PvP scenario. Sure, even if this change goes through, players will somehow find a way to still force nightblades out of their seemingly infinite stealth, or to help in nuking down those "god-like" templars and dragonnights that just seem to never go down, but as these changes take place those sorcerer builds just seem to mold together. The usefulness of velicious curse extends far beyond just a quick-damage ability, especially considering its not exactly "GREAT" damage in the first place, unless its paired with an execute and some skill spamming. However, it does allow sorcerer to keep up with the rush>uppercut>execute>execute>execute>etc. meta.

TL:DR

-Velicious curse needs to remain untouched, without it sorcerer builds become even more similar in both PvE and PvP.
-Its damage isn't groundbreaking but its usefulness in rotations and boss fights is immense, so why the change in the first place?
-Not every sorcerer wants to run a pet build, with every patch it seems there are more buffs to pets and more nerfs to everything else.
-PLEASE stop letting PvP influence balance and skill changes in PvE.

Icarus42 · January 2017

If this velocious curse change goes through the magic sorc in cyrodiil will become a joke. Small man group and solo will no longer be a viable choice. You will have to join a group or a guild that ball groups to maximize your AOE and ultimates since you no longer have a quick burst option for solo targets. It will severely limit what you can do, because try to take down any tanky opponent without burst in open world sorry but its not realistic. If you have to wait 6 seconds to burst, any player worth his salt will go full offence on you in a heartbeat.
My prediction if this new change does go through the pvp builds you have to choose from will be much the same, and you will find yourself an ultimate spammer for some ball group or another. We have already seen it in trueflame, ball groups are coming back because of eye of the storm ulti, and negates. Without burst in pvp sorcs will have to resort to this option. There will be this nagging feeling while you hear someone tell you to pop that eye of the storm that things used to be better and once once upon a time sorcs were fun to play...

Icarus42 · January 2017

two more words might sum it up. Lag potato

Minalan · January 2017

They're re-evaluating the Velicious curse change.

IMO they need to replace 'Daedric Prey' with the 'Haunted Curse' morph, and leave Velicious as-is. That way PVE and PVP players aren't split on the issue.

Haunted Curse is superior for PVE rotations because of the GCD it frees up. So let the PVE raiders keep it.

In PVP three unblockable, undodgeable, uncloakable curses is ALWAYS better than just two in twelve seconds. The other guy isn't going to just stand there and take a rotation.

PS: Thanks to @ZOS_RichLambert !

Betheny · January 2017

Minalan wrote: »

They're re-evaluating the Velicious curse change.

That isn't enough to fix the mess they've created. I'd rather have a whole lot of other things "re-evaluated" than this for a start.

psychotic13 · January 2017

@Minalan have they confirmed this somewhere?

Minalan · January 2017

psychotic13 wrote: »

@Minalan have they confirmed this somewhere?

It's in here:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/312717/balance-direction-in-update-13#latest

Be sure to thank him.

STEVIL · January 2017

i confess to being curious how many of the "put VC back" supporters fall into::
1 - The "the high burst in PVP now is great" crowd
2 - The "high burst in PVP in the game now is bad but its all everyone else's burst, not mine" crowd.
3 - Other?

psychotic13 · January 2017

Minalan wrote: »

psychotic13 wrote: »

@Minalan have they confirmed this somewhere?

It's in here:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/312717/balance-direction-in-update-13#latest

Be sure to thank him.

Thanks

AtAfternoon · January 2017

A suggestion would be to merge Haunting Curse with Daedric Prey (as in, give Daedric Prey an echoing effect) and leave Vicious Curse as it is on live.

You would still have people running Vicious over Daedric/Haunting since some would want Daedric/Haunting for a PvE rotation while some would want Vicious for pressuring people in PvP. This would be in line with how Conjure Ward got changed after the nerf iirc, where they expanded time on one morph to be easier to handle in PvE while the other was more aimed towards PvP players.

Minalan · January 2017

STEVIL wrote: »

i confess to being curious how many of the "put VC back" supporters fall into::
1 - The "the high burst in PVP now is great" crowd
2 - The "high burst in PVP in the game now is bad but its all everyone else's burst, not mine" crowd.
3 - Other?

In my best "Stevil" impression I pontificate:
Defense stacking requires burst requires more defense stacking requires even more burst in a never-ending vicious destructive cycle. It's the natural way of things, some will build for one or the other.

3. (Other) Next update we're getting magicka sorc and Templar tanking with ice staves, now is the last time to take a curse PVP burst nerf. It'll be interesting, I can't wait to see it.

dpencil · January 2017

@ZOS_GinaBruno Thanks for taking our feedback. I hope it will be heard and honestly considered by the dev team. I have spent some time on the PTS on my main mag sorc. Here is my feedback:

Pets: The changes to pets are good, but there are a few more tweaks I would suggest.
1. Please look at how pets are effected by Champion Points. It is my understanding they are not benefitting from them as they should.
2. Please seriously consider making them NOT required to be slotted on all bars. I would take a 2 minute summon that then required recasting if not just making them permenant. (Same thing with Bound Armor)
3. For the console players, please get a Command Pet control for them.
4. Please add a UI health bar for pets. The overhead health bar is not good enough.

Overload: Lowering stored Ultimate from 1000 to 500 doesn't seem like a necessary move. Some explanation for this would be appreciated. As it stands, I think this unnecessarily punishes sorcerers who use Overload, particularly on vMA. My recommendation would be to revert this change.

Haunting Curse: I think this change would make more sense if it could stack on the same target if recast after the first explosion but before the second. This would open up the opportunity for a double curse to potentially hit the target every 12 seconds, which I think would be a fair trade. Currently recasting at any point during the 12 seconds resets the entire thing. That doesn't make sense. The echo should happen regardless, as long as the first explosion goes through.

Snit · January 2017

I think the devs are more enthusiastic about pets than the players. Every patch seems to be a list of sorc nerfs, followed by pet buffs.

I think it's great that some sorcs want to play pet herders, and those specs should be viable. But it would be great if non-pet sorcs could get some positive attention to our class skills, too. As it is, the best we can hope for each patch is that the inevitable nerfs won't be too awful.

Streak was overpowered at launch. We've been paying for that ever since.

Lord-Otto · January 2017

STEVIL wrote: »

i confess to being curious how many of the "put VC back" supporters fall into::
1 - The "the high burst in PVP now is great" crowd
2 - The "high burst in PVP in the game now is bad but its all everyone else's burst, not mine" crowd.
3 - Other?

3 - We got our mobility nerfed, our defense, our dps is sub-par and we're the only class to date to have a set designed to counter us. On top of a burst that is already highly predictable and easily blocked. With VC burst nerfed, we got nothing left to excel at.

That's my camp, Stevie.
Just let VC be and focus on the important stuff.

STEVIL · January 2017

Lord-Otto wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

i confess to being curious how many of the "put VC back" supporters fall into::
1 - The "the high burst in PVP now is great" crowd
2 - The "high burst in PVP in the game now is bad but its all everyone else's burst, not mine" crowd.
3 - Other?

3 - We got our mobility nerfed, our defense, our dps is sub-par and we're the only class to date to have a set designed to counter us. On top of a burst that is already highly predictable and easily blocked. With VC burst nerfed, we got nothing left to excel at.

That's my camp, Stevie.
Just let VC be and focus on the important stuff.

Thanks Lord_Oh-no.

Lord-Otto · January 2017

STEVIL wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

i confess to being curious how many of the "put VC back" supporters fall into::
1 - The "the high burst in PVP now is great" crowd
2 - The "high burst in PVP in the game now is bad but its all everyone else's burst, not mine" crowd.
3 - Other?

3 - We got our mobility nerfed, our defense, our dps is sub-par and we're the only class to date to have a set designed to counter us. On top of a burst that is already highly predictable and easily blocked. With VC burst nerfed, we got nothing left to excel at.

That's my camp, Stevie.
Just let VC be and focus on the important stuff.

Thanks Lord_Oh-no.

Good one. It's actually what most of my enemies say when they see me approaching. =P

Punn · January 2017

Elder Scrolls Online the game that never lags, the classes are completely balanced, the severs are great, and SKILL MATTERS. this game is now a compete joke LUL. Keep nerfing sorcs to the ground. I honestly cant even comprehend why you would change curse. time to Uninstall and move on

Nebthet78 · January 2017

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Force-Siphon wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

CosmicSoul wrote: »

KisoValley wrote: »

When people try to argue with Derra thinking he's a standard pug sorc who barely plays the class or doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's one of the best sorcs in the world across all platforms. He knows the class, and I and other sorcs can understand the nerf, even if we don't agree with it. He's pointing out why it's an understandable nerf with the buff to both flame/lightning staves and force pulse.

I do not think anyone disagrees with the nerf for pvp except one guy.

From talking to Derra/other sorcs, they think it should be reverted and I'm one of them. But at the same time, it is understandable why it was nerfed. ZOS just went the wrong way about nerfing it, changing the amount of time was stupid.

this, with more testing the 8% dmg buff is huge

This is the most disgusting path this games balance is taking right now. Increasing GENERIC buffs that affect overall damage, and nerfing INDIVIDUAL skills to compensate.

The price of the champion system is that individual skills and gear keep getting nerfed to balance the power creep introduced. Do templars even realize that even though RD got nerfed, you can put 13 more points into thaumaturge and bring a bit of that damage back up?

What makes the game unique and the classes unique is that each class has some powerful class defining skills. But thanks to over-buffing certain skill lines, removal of softcaps, and huge buffs coming from CP, ZOS feels they have to continuously nerf skills and gear because the lion's share of your build power comes from CP, attribute stacking, and generic buffs like these destro changes.
Bolt escape being nerfed and nerfed and nerfed was a casualty of the champion system and removal of softcaps,

Now curse is the next casualty.

In a few years all of our abilities are just going to do flashy sparkles like freaking Jubilee from X-men but our OP passives from destro, CP, and attribute stacking will make our boring zero utility sparkles hit hard.

Does that sound fun to you? Please see the writing on the wall. If ZOS continues balancing like this, further utility and uniqueness will be stripped from ALL class skills and classes will only differ by their particle effects.

THIS....

I also am wondering, what is the point of having the CP system when all they are ever doing now is nerfing everything to compensate for the creep. I feel like I keep being set back with each and every patch to where I was before, and it's not fun. It's frustrating.

If the power creep is such a major issue for PVP, introduce soft caps back into that part of the game so every one there is on a level playing field, no matter what they play.

sirtadzio · January 2017

Can we verify that as of right now sorc pets are soaking up 6 target raid buffs? I was under the impression they did, but someone in the NightBlade post, in regards to shades, stated that he has tested and confirmed that while they can receive the buffs, they are last priority and only receive them if there aren't enough actual player targets available/eligible for the buff.
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert

Digiman · January 2017

JasonSilverSpring wrote: »

Given the discussion here, I thought it would be worth sharing this recent post from Jessica. Hopefully this will work.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Is there ever going to be something resembling an explanation for all the lovely "balance" in this update?

Rich is working on a post that should help shed some light on some of the balance changes. He'll be posting it as soon as possible.

I hope its him saying he and the team are being replaced by monkeys because they are better then these changes.

But he will probably double down on the Daedric Curse changes. Thank god leveling an alt is easier now.

Icarus42 · January 2017

I sincerely hope that zeni reverts the changes to velocious curse