Sorcerer's shields were not inadvertently, but indirectly nerfed, so stating that they need changes without actually testing the PTS is just another way to say, "I've read text on the screen" and post about what you've read in a sloppy, non-holistic way.

The champion passives; hardy, and elemental defender values are capped at 15% when 100 points are allocated into them, rather than providing 25%, these passives affect shield strength because they are mitigation values, not resistance.

The distribution of magic recovery and spell cost reduction with the addition of the new siphoned champion passive will enforce players to sacrifice max magic for different sources and methods of sustainability, as a result, the strength of shields will be weaker, using a spell cost increase poison with further this which is why they were also addressed.

The champion passives are also now frontloaded to be more potent with less points spent, and less potent with more points spent, this will encourage players to spend some points into the shattering blows passives: dealing damage to shields.

The new Physical Weapon Expert passive will now include increased damage with bows as it is now concatenated to all other physical/stamina based weapons, this means stamina players will no longer have to divide or avoid allocating points between two passives, therefore, dealing more damage if a bow is applicable.

The original bow passive is now known as Master-At-Arms, increasing damage with direct damage attacks, further supporting the previous aspect.

Having said that, the antithesis to the direct damage attacks is Ironclad under the steed, this will promote players to spend points under this sign, if they do, it is likely for players to have less points available to spend in bastion, regardless for not spending one into the other, the magnitude of the shield is higher but receiving more direct damage or weaker and receiving less direct damage, the term "likely" is used because it is more so unlikely as it is impractical to spend 100 in both Bastion and Ironclad

Complaining about shields not being critable is no different than complaining about cloaking makes you invisible aside to not receive any damage, do not forget; resistance does not apply, many shields are less than half of their original duration from a year ago, battle-spirit halves their potency, and the Sorcerer's pets need them too.

The changes made to stamina will affect magic builds as stamina is still necessary to break free and dodge roll for different mechanics and maintain control, the champion passives for regeneration and cost reduction have been reduced but so has the passive that provided break free and dodge roll become split, some players will proceed to find methods/resources to counter this and there is, without doubt, will affect their offence and primary resource pool if they do.

There is also an attempt to lessen the gap between new players and end-game min/maxing, as previously stated, there is a suppression factor that will promote players to focus more on resource management and sustain, this will require, but is not limited to, reducing primary resource pools and spell damage, thus, some defences, uptime on support, damage, and healing can be expected to be lower.

Now you've heard the "lowering the ceiling portion" here is the "raising the floor", as also previously mentioned, the champion passives are now more frontloaded to be more potent where having less points spent has a higher return, this method has also been applied to having spent points in any constellation as this provides max; health, stamina, and magicka respectively, the return values become exponentially less as players draw closer to 200 CP spent under any of the three signs, meaning; players with less champion points will not only have stronger passives, but can also expect higher resource pools, players who have invested into specific passives will not only have the new reduced capped values, but also diminished returns on both passives and for having a lot of champion points spent in general.

A lot of passive effects that scaled to a resource pool were acting multiplicatively were changed to behave additively as they were providing far too much resources/benefits to those who maximized pools, those who haven't/don't will see an increase based on their level while those who do can expect less.

In addition to the notion that players will have to reallocate different attributes to find sustain, this will promote gear that doesn't provide max resource/damage to become more viable, as lot of crafted and dropped sets will become more ideal to resolve sustainability issues.

There is always more to say of course,