No changes to shieldbreaker?

Ragnaroek93 · July 2018

BohnT wrote: »

Sorcs burst has been changed in the past to work without a undodgeable, unblockable stun now they just added one on top, that's like giving stamnb access to curse.

It would have been "fine" balance wise (not design wise) if they wouldn't have buffed light attacks and letting 2h weapons count as 2p setboni at the same time. All of that is just too much, I think sorc without RC dmg would do fine with new light attacks and 5-5-2 setup.

It's always the same, instead of buffing one or two things they rework so much all at once and let the community wait months before something gets a "fix".

BohnT · July 2018

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

BohnT wrote: »

Sorcs burst has been changed in the past to work without a undodgeable, unblockable stun now they just added one on top, that's like giving stamnb access to curse.

It would have been "fine" balance wise (not design wise) if they wouldn't have buffed light attacks and letting 2h weapons count as 2p setboni at the same time. All of that is just too much, I think sorc without RC dmg would do fine with new light attacks and 5-5-2 setup.

It's always the same, instead of buffing one or two things they rework so much all at once and let the community wait months before something gets a "fix".

For my preference it's still too much burst that can be dealt to easily with less counterplay than other burst rotas have.
Either you have skills that ignore dodge or block (curse, potl, shalks, etc)
or you have access to an undodgeable and unblockable cc (fear, fossilize)

Having access to both (undodgeable power lash and embers + fossilize or rune cage and the sorcs toolkit)
Is just too much.
I can just repeat what i said here or in another post.
An undodgeable and unblockable cc has no reason to exist in the sorcs toolkit

Aedaryl · July 2018

Something they can do remove a condition on rune cage. Make it either blockable or dodgeable.

Streak/BoL is already an undogeable cc, make Rune cage dogeable, so when you see the animation you can dodge it easely.

More counterplay, more brain use for the sorc.

_Ahala_ · July 2018

Yeah this set feel perfectly fine when I get nuked by it on my Magden when trying to recover from a gank with hots, major mending, 2 wards, minor protection, and major protection when I get chased down by 2 sweaty oblivion build Nightblades across Cyrodiil after the other 15 zerglings gave up... I mean you want to make this all about sorcs while it still murders shielding magdens... why don’t we change it so it put a negative effect on the user that does oblivion damage to them every time they cast a ward, so frantic triple shield spammers are punished more and people who rely on multiple forms of defense are punished less and so the set doesn’t promoted this low skill light attack to win hard counter playstyle

Galarthor · July 2018

_Ahala_ wrote: »

Yeah this set feel perfectly fine when I get nuked by it on my Magden when trying to recover from a gank with hots, major mending, 2 wards, minor protection, and major protection when I get chased down by 2 sweaty oblivion build Nightblades across Cyrodiil after the other 15 zerglings gave up... I mean you want to make this all about sorcs while it still murders shielding magdens... why don’t we change it so it put a negative effect on the user that does oblivion damage to them every time they cast a ward, so frantic triple shield spammers are punished more and people who rely on multiple forms of defense are punished less and so the set doesn’t promoted this low skill light attack to win hard counter playstyle

You do realize, sorcs dnot put 3 shields on their bars because they enjoy it, but because they have to.

1) Hardened Ward is the sorcs core (and pretty much only) mitigation tool.
2) Healing Ward is there b/c magSorcs lack access to a decent heal that can get them out of execute range without sacrificing 2 slots on their bars and having a large proportion of their screen blocked by some wings.
3) Harness Magicka is there just in case you fight other magicka users to help with your sustain issues.

So you on your magDen with 2 shields, which are far more powerful on range btw, with access to the most powerful major and minor buffs and decent heals should take less damage than somebody who has no access to these things?

If Shields are too strong (which they are not) then fix the shield strength. Don't introduce a game mechanic that screws every shield user over and only caters to people that always have wanted to get fast and easy kills (e.g. proc meta stamblades).

As for rune cage, it pretty much only affects perma-dodgers and perma-blockers, which sorcs always had a lot of trouble with b/c both builds could mitigate / avoid like 80% of a sorcs DPS, as the other builds usually already got stunned by e.g. CFrag (back in the days) and Flame Reach. And I am pretty sure the people complaining loudest belong to these 2 build categories as they used to have an easy time against sorcs for years and are now all of a sudden susceptible to sorc damage. But I agree, that the break-free on Rune Cage should be more responsive.

IAVITNI · July 2018

Derra wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

All that said, I still think that damageless cage should at least be tested. My experience with it was that it was very lacklustre and I preferred running no CC than running a damageless Cage. The CC was consistent, the kill was not.

Personally dislike cage without dmg because as you rightly stated - it´s noticeably worse when solo/1v1/1vX but makes hardly any difference for Xv1 or grp scenarios.
And my gutfeeling is that most people take issue due to getting caged when outnumbered.

I'm all for removing cage and I'd trust your gut feeling. I just don't see the class recovering from having no viable CC.If sorcs go back to Clench, most sorcs are going to lose about 1k worth of bonus magicka to run Master destro and we're right back to where we were prior to SS, which is pure potato farmers.

Hence why I think removing the damage is a better solution. Not because it's ideal but rather because it requires the least amount of time and financial investment from ZoS that nerfs the class without overnerfing it.

BohnT wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

Partially disagree with you here.

First most of the magsorc mains called out the Rune Cage problem after the first week of PTS. By Mains I mean people who actually understand how the class works both in a vacuum and relative to other classes, not simply those who defend sorc.

Second, the Rune Cage damage is much more significant than people realize in open world. After the the frag nerf, sorcs lost a gcd and about around 1.5k tooltip damage if they didn't rune Master+Clench. I've basically run the same build since homestead only swapping between Infernal and Engine Guardian and skills/Jewlerry glyphs/traits (i've tested out every meta and my own ideas,still like my original). The difference may not seem like much, but it's often the difference between 26% and 25%, which equates to an avg. 12k tooltip difference.

Too be fair I was a DW main until SS (and hopefully will be again one day) so the difference was far more noticeable for me. I ran Rune Cage with a destro as well prior to the damage buff, kill potential was much better than DW but still required a a sense of timing because the burst was always just short if my opponent had an active defence (i.e. they weren't potatoes). It's current iteration on live takes no effort at all, due to the damage from Rune Cage and the fact that overall damage has gone up across the board and many players have refused to adapt.

Taking ALL the damage off makes a noticeable difference. Trading a GCD for a stun doesn't seem like much but that extra GCD means our shields have expired. I've had to spec more into stam sustain because some kills require that I drop my shields and roll dodge. I don't think the 20% nerf was enough, but removing the damage and decreasing the cost could theoretically balance the skill.

Every other CC does a lot more than just CC. Rune Cage's only function is the stun. Trading all damage and any potential utility for a potential (no longer guaranteed) seems like a fair trade.

I have to say - having a ranged unavoidable stun will always be a balancing problem.

Imo if you want to have that functionality on sorc it should be on bolt escape + morphs (those would also prohibit the guaranteed hit of meteor + frags - you can´t hit frags after streak against someone who ccbreaks in time).

I´m not even sure sorc should have that functionality at all.

Not saying I disagree with you. But shrinking the range of the skill makes it useless and everybody will just go back to Clench. Although you are suggesting they remove Rune Cage all together, which I wouldn't be adverse to.

All that said, I still think that damageless cage should at least be tested. My experience with it was that it was very lacklustre and I preferred running no CC than running a damageless Cage. The CC was consistent, the kill was not.

Right now sorc is strong because it has an unavoidable high burst. A damageless cage is 9k tooltip damage gone. Running without it allows a stronger but avoidable burst, whereas running Rune cage keeps that burst unavoidable but significantly weakens it forcing significant sacrifices to make up for that lost damage or simply playing with a weaker burst.

I don't think unblockable CC on streak should be done either. Only way I could see that being balanced is if it only stuns the first person. But at that point you may as well just go BoL to escape because streaking into a group of non-stunned opponents is a good way to die.

I remember when they released the CWC patch notes, i was on a TS server with one of the best sorcs (Metzger) in the game.
When i told him what they'll do to rune cage he started laughing how stupid that change will be and how broken such a skill is on a sorc.
That was without the really stupid change that was done with SS.
Sorcs burst has been changed in the past to work without a undodgeable, unblockable stun now they just added one on top, that's like giving stamnb access to curse.

An undodgeable, unblockable stun has no right to exist in the toolkit of a sorc, just like many other things have no right to exist in other classes toolkit.

Well the premise is that Rune Cage changes the very nature of the toolkit. Instead of sorcs having strong burst and moderate CC at range, they have moderate burst with high CC at range. It's a horizontal shift from burst to control which should keep sorcs around the same power level. The gcd also makes sorcs more vulnerable because their shields are set to expire so there is less pre-/followup damage. It's a significant loss to dps within the 6 second time frame sorcs have to be offensive.

I think the difference between damageless and damage rune needs to be checked before making any firm statements. Simplest way would be to just test out the rotation of Curse-Fury-Cage-Frag vs Curse-Fury-wait 1 GCD (maybe cast shield)-Frag and compare the difference in burst. Anything more in-depth with that would require something like a dk that could cast shattering rocks on the target to emulate a damageless rune. None of my friends really enjoy testing this kind of stuff so it may be a while before I can do it myself.

I'd simply state that the damage is just not there but the 2h set bonus changes are a variable I'm unfamiliar with with a damageless cage. Unless ZoS does a rework of sorc offensive, removing Cage completely will place magicka sorc right there with magden.

PhoenixGrey · July 2018

I think oblivion damage should be entirely removed from the game

What's the idea behind having something which goes through all forms of class defences or resistances.?

Secondly Not sure why shield stacking looked down upon. In this meta, it's pretty easy to one bang a sorc through a full hardened ward.

TheDoomsdayMonster · July 2018

Silver_Strider wrote: »

I use this set shamelessly and without discrimination.

I also use resource poisons, have about 11% into the Siphoner CP and get hate whispers all the time for it but honestly IDGAF at this point. Everyone and their mother is an infinite sustain, instagib Overload Sorc in PvP nowadays that I really don't feel bad about any of it.

"Shieldbreaker is cheese"
So is having an unblockable, undodgable burst combo from 40m away while also having 40k shield on top of it all so f*** off with your whiney attitude.

Awesome post!!

Mayrael · July 2018

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

I think oblivion damage should be entirely removed from the game

What's the idea behind having something which goes through all forms of class defences or resistances.?

Secondly Not sure why shield stacking looked down upon. In this meta, it's pretty easy to one bang a sorc through a full hardened ward.

Through a hardened ward yes, but through 20-25k shields + 20-23k hp + 12k healing ward when low on hp not anymore. It's incredibly frustrating when you bring someone to 10% hp, you try to finish him while he turtles into 30k triple shield and you see how he goes up with his hp. Then he uses fury, curse, meteor, cage, frags combo and suddenly without any effort you're dead or very low on hp. Nope, shield stacking is bad design. It scales incredibly bad, but the shieldbreaker is not a solution.

_Ahala_ · July 2018

Galarthor wrote: »

_Ahala_ wrote: »

Yeah this set feel perfectly fine when I get nuked by it on my Magden when trying to recover from a gank with hots, major mending, 2 wards, minor protection, and major protection when I get chased down by 2 sweaty oblivion build Nightblades across Cyrodiil after the other 15 zerglings gave up... I mean you want to make this all about sorcs while it still murders shielding magdens... why don’t we change it so it put a negative effect on the user that does oblivion damage to them every time they cast a ward, so frantic triple shield spammers are punished more and people who rely on multiple forms of defense are punished less and so the set doesn’t promoted this low skill light attack to win hard counter playstyle

You do realize, sorcs dnot put 3 shields on their bars because they enjoy it, but because they have to.

1) Hardened Ward is the sorcs core (and pretty much only) mitigation tool.
2) Healing Ward is there b/c magSorcs lack access to a decent heal that can get them out of execute range without sacrificing 2 slots on their bars and having a large proportion of their screen blocked by some wings.
3) Harness Magicka is there just in case you fight other magicka users to help with your sustain issues.

So you on your magDen with 2 shields, which are far more powerful on range btw, with access to the most powerful major and minor buffs and decent heals should take less damage than somebody who has no access to these things?

If Shields are too strong (which they are not) then fix the shield strength. Don't introduce a game mechanic that screws every shield user over and only caters to people that always have wanted to get fast and easy kills (e.g. proc meta stamblades).

As for rune cage, it pretty much only affects perma-dodgers and perma-blockers, which sorcs always had a lot of trouble with b/c both builds could mitigate / avoid like 80% of a sorcs DPS, as the other builds usually already got stunned by e.g. CFrag (back in the days) and Flame Reach. And I am pretty sure the people complaining loudest belong to these 2 build categories as they used to have an easy time against sorcs for years and are now all of a sudden susceptible to sorc damage. But I agree, that the break-free on Rune Cage should be more responsive.

I actually agree with you here as far as shields and shieldbreaker goes, I’m just really sick of people suggesting nerfs to shields or defending oblivion damage sets in their anti magsorc crusade without any regard for how these things effect the very few remaining pvp magdens

Derra · July 2018

IAVITNI wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

All that said, I still think that damageless cage should at least be tested. My experience with it was that it was very lacklustre and I preferred running no CC than running a damageless Cage. The CC was consistent, the kill was not.

Personally dislike cage without dmg because as you rightly stated - it´s noticeably worse when solo/1v1/1vX but makes hardly any difference for Xv1 or grp scenarios.
And my gutfeeling is that most people take issue due to getting caged when outnumbered.

I'm all for removing cage and I'd trust your gut feeling. I just don't see the class recovering from having no viable CC.If sorcs go back to Clench, most sorcs are going to lose about 1k worth of bonus magicka to run Master destro and we're right back to where we were prior to SS, which is pure potato farmers.

Hence why I think removing the damage is a better solution. Not because it's ideal but rather because it requires the least amount of time and financial investment from ZoS that nerfs the class without overnerfing it.

Agree with this - removing cage would have to be accompanied by giving frags CC back and one of the following two options:
1. Double cc duration on bolt escape and morphs
or
2. make bolt escape + morphs cc through block

Options for cage reworks? Make it an "offensive" alternative to defensive rune - like enemy attacking you gets dmg + debuff.
Make it into a dot.
Whatever.

Galarthor · July 2018

Derra wrote: »

Agree with this - removing cage would have to be accompanied by giving frags CC back and one of the following two options:
1. Double cc duration on bolt escape and morphs
or
2. make bolt escape + morphs cc through block

Options for cage reworks? Make it an "offensive" alternative to defensive rune - like enemy attacking you gets dmg + debuff.
Make it into a dot.
Whatever.

But that will still bring us back to where perma dodgers can avoid 80%+ of our damage and perma-blockers mitigate it without any effort by simply keeping a single key pressed 24/7. And both can achieve that without even having to sacrifice a ability slot.

The problem with the streak alternative is that you will face away from the enemy and be stunned afterwards, which makes you quite vulnerable.

pieratsos · July 2018

Galarthor wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Agree with this - removing cage would have to be accompanied by giving frags CC back and one of the following two options:
1. Double cc duration on bolt escape and morphs
or
2. make bolt escape + morphs cc through block

Options for cage reworks? Make it an "offensive" alternative to defensive rune - like enemy attacking you gets dmg + debuff.
Make it into a dot.
Whatever.

But that will still bring us back to where perma dodgers can avoid 80%+ of our damage and perma-blockers mitigate it without any effort by simply keeping a single key pressed 24/7. And both can achieve that without even having to sacrifice a ability slot.

The problem with the streak alternative is that you will face away from the enemy and be stunned afterwards, which makes you quite vulnerable.

Thats an overall balance issue or an issue with sorcs not fitting with a tank meta if you prefer it. That doesnt mean sorcs should start ignore everything they struggles against. Same applies for all classes.

PhoenixGrey · July 2018

Mayrael wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

I think oblivion damage should be entirely removed from the game

What's the idea behind having something which goes through all forms of class defences or resistances.?

Secondly Not sure why shield stacking looked down upon. In this meta, it's pretty easy to one bang a sorc through a full hardened ward.

Through a hardened ward yes, but through 20-25k shields + 20-23k hp + 12k healing ward when low on hp not anymore. It's incredibly frustrating when you bring someone to 10% hp, you try to finish him while he turtles into 30k triple shield and you see how he goes up with his hp. Then he uses fury, curse, meteor, cage, frags combo and suddenly without any effort you're dead or very low on hp. Nope, shield stacking is bad design. It scales incredibly bad, but the shieldbreaker is not a solution.

Rally along with soothing spores brings me to full health on my stamden before a 6 second healing ward.

I agree its bad by design on the point that it scales badly. However I m not convinced it's a problem when it saves someone at execute range since there are classes with better options

Galarthor · July 2018

pieratsos wrote: »

Thats an overall balance issue or an issue with sorcs not fitting with a tank meta if you prefer it. That doesnt mean sorcs should start ignore everything they struggles against. Same applies for all classes.

I agree on the overall balance issue part. I am just not sure what you meant by the rest. Could you please clarify.

Thanks