Please Reconsider Rune Cage

mr_wazzabi · August 2018

Galarthor wrote: »

And you always could cloak when the meteor started falling onto you and yet here the NBs are complaining about it.
Of all the classes in the game, NBs acutally had the easiest counter to the Sorc combo.

And any class could just stun the sorc when the meteor started fall, thus preventing the Rune Cage and block the meteor.
There has always been counterplay.

Besides, that video is only of limited relevenance b/c your dodging party knew what was coming and when. At that range, with random activation of the abilities the limitations of the human body would not allow you do dodge these attacks unless you were already dodging. Besides, when NBs stun the target is usually already under a lot more pressure than when sorcs stun. So the amount of HP and mitigation NBs have to overcome during and right after the Fear is less.

As I said, I am not trying to maintain rune cage the way it is at any cost. But,
1) Fear should be treated the same way as Rune Cage as stamblades are as bursty as sorcs
2) Sorcs need a way to deal with perma dodgers, same way stamina builds need a way to deal with sorcs.

Meteor cannot be cloaked. This was changed WAY back in TG or DB.

DDuke · August 2018

Galarthor wrote: »

And you always could cloak when the meteor started falling onto you and yet here the NBs are complaining about it.
Of all the classes in the game, NBs acutally had the easiest counter to the Sorc combo.

And any class could just stun the sorc when the meteor started fall, thus preventing the Rune Cage and block the meteor.
There has always been counterplay.

Besides, that video is only of limited relevenance b/c your dodging party knew what was coming and when. At that range, with random activation of the abilities the limitations of the human body would not allow you do dodge these attacks unless you were already dodging. Besides, when NBs stun the target is usually already under a lot more pressure than when sorcs stun. So the amount of HP and mitigation NBs have to overcome during and right after the Fear is less.

As I said, I am not trying to maintain rune cage the way it is at any cost. But,
1) Fear should be treated the same way as Rune Cage as stamblades are as bursty as sorcs
2) Sorcs need a way to deal with perma dodgers, same way stamina builds need a way to deal with sorcs.

Yeah, I did use that several times to survive the full combo - it works fine when sorc isn't using a det pot and will still be one strategy against the combo next patch (other one being dodge cage+block before Meteor lands).

Problem is that you don't even need the full combo to kill medium armor builds (full combo bursts down even heavy armor tanks up to 30k'ish health).

Most common scenario where Rune Cage results in death is currently just getting cursed while dodging/sprinting away, then LA+Cage, LA+Frag & Fury -> dead. This can happen in 1v1, this can happen in Xv1, this can happen in XvX - and there's not really anything you can do about it as magicka is extremely limited for stamina builds.

You'd have to cloak after every curse to avoid combo every time (assuming there's no det pots from sorc), i.e. every 3s which means you'd need 2520 magicka regen as a stamblade to do that.

The maximum amount of times you can cloak in a row with the 8117 base magicka pool you get as a stamina build & 642 magicka regen (vampire+nb passive) is 2,8 times on average (timing cloak cast every 3 seconds) and it takes an average of 11,77 seconds to regenerate magicka for one cloak.

So I hope you can see why that isn't feasible.

Also, what do you mean by "target usually being already under a lot more pressure" after NB CC? If you mean Incap/Surprise Attack.. sure, I agree - those deal a lot of damage. But the total amount of damage target can receive during that CC'd period is still less than sorc combo.

Sorcs have 74k "tooltip burst" (i.e. damage before any mitigation modifiers) with full Meteor Frag Curse Fury combo, where as NBs "only" get 54k with their Incap->Merciless (note: actually talking about the dangerous combo, not fear that only lets one damaging attack land sometimes). Every other class besides sorc is in the 50-60k range when it comes to maximum burst and yes, this includes stamblades (which have around the same burst as magblades).

If you think I can't dodge anything after Fear or any other instant cast CC in the game apart from Rune Cage I'm happy to prove otherwise at any time on PC EU (my forum username is my in game username as well).

Oh also, I haven't had Fear on my bar for years because an instant cast CC that does no damage on a class with no delayed damage doesn't really do anything else than drain stamina from targets that CC Break fast. It's good for killing players with slower reaction time (i.e. majority of pugs in Cyrodiil, but those you can kill with Incap/Surprise Attack stuns as well), but that's about it.

Another reason why I'm saying dodge roll isn't as strong as people make it out to be. If it was, surely I'd be using the only undodgeable (non-ultimate) CC available to my NB, no? Or atleast the ultimate one (DBOS)?

There's plenty of ways to deal with them on sorc (more than on other classes even without Cage), just like there are ways to deal with sorcs for stam builds (and no, I'm not talking about cheese like oblivion damage).

It just takes some effort to get through those defenses, and that's not a bad thing.

Tbh, maybe what you'd need is a set that helps you vs dodge rollers (similar to how there are oblivion dmg sets vs dmg shield builds) but gimps you vs other builds (like Shield Breaker does) as counterbalance.

DDuke · August 2018

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Galarthor wrote: »

And you always could cloak when the meteor started falling onto you and yet here the NBs are complaining about it.
Of all the classes in the game, NBs acutally had the easiest counter to the Sorc combo.

And any class could just stun the sorc when the meteor started fall, thus preventing the Rune Cage and block the meteor.
There has always been counterplay.

Besides, that video is only of limited relevenance b/c your dodging party knew what was coming and when. At that range, with random activation of the abilities the limitations of the human body would not allow you do dodge these attacks unless you were already dodging. Besides, when NBs stun the target is usually already under a lot more pressure than when sorcs stun. So the amount of HP and mitigation NBs have to overcome during and right after the Fear is less.

As I said, I am not trying to maintain rune cage the way it is at any cost. But,
1) Fear should be treated the same way as Rune Cage as stamblades are as bursty as sorcs
2) Sorcs need a way to deal with perma dodgers, same way stamina builds need a way to deal with sorcs.

Meteor cannot be cloaked. This was changed WAY back in TG or DB.

I think what he meant is the Cloak+Block strategy after Meteor cue to avoid getting rune caged before the Meteor lands.

Chilly-McFreeze · August 2018

DDuke wrote: »

You'd have to cloak after every curse to avoid combo every time (assuming there's no det pots from sorc), i.e. every 3s which means you'd need 2520 magicka regen as a stamblade to do that.

The maximum amount of times you can cloak in a row with the 8117 base magicka pool you get as a stamina build & 642 magicka regen (vampire+nb passive) is 2,8 times on average (timing cloak cast every 3 seconds) and it takes an average of 11,77 seconds to regenerate magicka for one cloak.

So I hope you can see why that isn't feasible.

I can understand why you used the common base line for that scenario but wouldn't you think that a class which defense so heavily relies on magicka should invest a bit into said resource to use it reliably? I mean other threads started with "stam sorcs OP now, best mobility, endless sustain" and all that rambling. Nobody ever talks about how much magicka that burns but that isn't your fault. Just wanted to point that out.

DDuke · August 2018

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

You'd have to cloak after every curse to avoid combo every time (assuming there's no det pots from sorc), i.e. every 3s which means you'd need 2520 magicka regen as a stamblade to do that.

The maximum amount of times you can cloak in a row with the 8117 base magicka pool you get as a stamina build & 642 magicka regen (vampire+nb passive) is 2,8 times on average (timing cloak cast every 3 seconds) and it takes an average of 11,77 seconds to regenerate magicka for one cloak.

So I hope you can see why that isn't feasible.

I can understand why you used the common base line for that scenario but wouldn't you think that a class which defense so heavily relies on magicka should invest a bit into said resource to use it reliably? I mean other threads started with "stam sorcs OP now, best mobility, endless sustain" and all that rambling. Nobody ever talks about how much magicka that burns but that isn't your fault. Just wanted to point that out.

Yeah, you can do that - but then you can also join the crowd that complains about dmg shields and "unkillable builds". It requires too much of a sacrifice to try and get a high mag regen on a stamina class (and you'll never be able to get enough to "infinitely" sustain cloaks anyway).

I find it more practical to keep mag regen low, focus on damage and then use cloak->sneak for example to maintain invisibility at the cost of stamina instead (which is much easier to manage).

That, and I think builds spamming cloak are extremely cheesy (they should add a cooldown to cloak if it gets broken by damage, really frustrating to fight against the builds that seem to be able to spam it endlessly & force misses).

Ramber · August 2018

WELL HE DID SAY PLEASE... Since were asking, can i get all the regen i lost a while back??

Strider__Roshin · August 2018

Edit: there's nothing more for me to add to this discussion that's constructive.

Millz · August 2018

I think people forget how hard it is actually playing stam in a small scale, battlegrounds scenario. People are still going to get stunned by meteor after you try and throw a flame clench or rune cage at them still. Then that frag will follow right behind it with a pre execute on, getting pushed passed 30% by the curse while youre weaving shields and putting out high offense as they lay in your meteor because CC breaking that skill is absolutely not broken.

Yeah mag sorcs got it rough when youre stam you have to use your resources all the same as mag except you have 0 mitigation. This SS patch indirectly buffed mag as meta. Increasing light attack damage to staves and nerfing stam heavies. And now mag can build high recov, turtle builds and still put out damage while stam you have to build high recov, sacrifice damage (or) healing and try to avoid all the undodgable aoes/abilities. Mag gets mad that stam has better kiting but thats how we SURVIVE. Try running right at a magsorc next time youre on a stam class tell me how "overpowered" you feel.

Anyways I gave a biased response because I feel the OP is just really upset hes not going to be easy mode anymore.

Btw I player dw magsorc since CWC it wasnt the best but did its job, I do believe sorcs are now "missing" something again and should be looked at maybe a shorter duration in between curse pops or more upfront damage on mages wrath and nerfing the proc damage making it more viable to use in exec than when theyre at full health

TheValar85 · August 2018

Daus wrote: »

TheValar85 wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

You're wrong, the fact that it was undodgeable was the issue. The issue was that this move allowed no counterplay. Now there is thankfully. Now you'll actually have to outplay your opponent to win rather than have victory handed to you.

you do know that there are a *** ton of meles who can do the same? bascikly no one can dodge roll out of thieir stunns or even break free? what about those issues hm? meles can get out of stunns but rangeds cant cc in teh same way? thats a bit unfair dont you think? not to mention how many sorc skills were nerfed before even they werent even over proformed but yet the constant qq against the sorcerers classes lead the class to edge of full destruction. thats not how you fix things in a game like this, this is how they ruins tjhings in this game. a litle logical skill ussage is requiered in these matters to finde a solution that wont kill other classes from @ZOS and the most of the qq plebs are it seems a luxury thing that they cant afford to have.

You're offensive to dictionaries.

You are pathetic and pitiable do you want me to tell you what i realy think about you? i would gladly do it but i will do it in private and i will do it with my own langugae and i realy want to see, you could even undrestand a word what im going to say without using the goolge transleate. You think you are superrior or something? You think you are above me becasue you are a self proclaimed linguist or something? Because clearly your reactions on my comments only filled with your mockery of your supperior usage of English grammar and spelling and thats all you got basicly

Nothing more. So please do your self a favour and stop quoting me and commenting only on my spelling and grammar ussage. becasue thats not how an intelligent person would react on that matter. Mostly they just ignore it and move along, but it seems you have some sort of fetish about me i would gladly satisfy your needs in privates in an ERP enviroment. pm if you want that. if not leav me alone. Thank you.

The_Brosteen · August 2018

Doesnt matter what you do, you still gonna die to sorcs

Strider__Roshin · August 2018

TheValar85 wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

TheValar85 wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

You're wrong, the fact that it was undodgeable was the issue. The issue was that this move allowed no counterplay. Now there is thankfully. Now you'll actually have to outplay your opponent to win rather than have victory handed to you.

you do know that there are a *** ton of meles who can do the same? bascikly no one can dodge roll out of thieir stunns or even break free? what about those issues hm? meles can get out of stunns but rangeds cant cc in teh same way? thats a bit unfair dont you think? not to mention how many sorc skills were nerfed before even they werent even over proformed but yet the constant qq against the sorcerers classes lead the class to edge of full destruction. thats not how you fix things in a game like this, this is how they ruins tjhings in this game. a litle logical skill ussage is requiered in these matters to finde a solution that wont kill other classes from @ZOS and the most of the qq plebs are it seems a luxury thing that they cant afford to have.

You're offensive to dictionaries.

You are pathetic and pitiable do you want me to tell you what i realy think about you? i would gladly do it but i will do it in private and i will do it with my own langugae and i realy want to see, you could even undrestand a word what im going to say without using the goolge transleate. You think you are superrior or something? You think you are above me becasue you are a self proclaimed linguist or something? Because clearly your reactions on my comments only filled with your mockery of your supperior usage of English grammar and spelling and thats all you got basicly Nothing more. So please do your self a favour and stop quoting me and commenting only on my spelling and grammar ussage. becasue thats not how an intelligent person would react on that matter. Mostly they just ignore it and move along, but it seems you have some sort of fetish about me i would gladly satisfy your needs in privates in an ERP enviroment. pm if you want that. if not leav me alone. Thank you.

You got it bud. I've decided to delete my quote since it wasn't keeping the discussion healthy. Granted, neither are you but two wrongs don't make a right.

bardx86 · August 2018

Millz wrote: »

I think people forget how hard it is actually playing stam in a small scale, battlegrounds scenario. People are still going to get stunned by meteor after you try and throw a flame clench or rune cage at them still. Then that frag will follow right behind it with a pre execute on, getting pushed passed 30% by the curse while youre weaving shields and putting out high offense as they lay in your meteor because CC breaking that skill is absolutely not broken.

Yeah mag sorcs got it rough when youre stam you have to use your resources all the same as mag except you have 0 mitigation. This SS patch indirectly buffed mag as meta. Increasing light attack damage to staves and nerfing stam heavies. And now mag can build high recov, turtle builds and still put out damage while stam you have to build high recov, sacrifice damage (or) healing and try to avoid all the undodgable aoes/abilities. Mag gets mad that stam has better kiting but thats how we SURVIVE. Try running right at a magsorc next time youre on a stam class tell me how "overpowered" you feel.

Anyways I gave a biased response because I feel the OP is just really upset hes not going to be easy mode anymore.

Btw I player dw magsorc since CWC it wasnt the best but did its job, I do believe sorcs are now "missing" something again and should be looked at maybe a shorter duration in between curse pops or more upfront damage on mages wrath and nerfing the proc damage making it more viable to use in exec than when theyre at full health

Don't screw with curse, the delay is part of the burst setup. What we need if we get rid of Rune cage is more damage. If we can land a full 4 GCD rotation and the opponent doesn't active defend then it should kill most players. Thats how it use to be an not many folks complained then.

RGD · August 2018

I dunno if they're even thinking about magicka builds or in the case when there's multiple sorcs. For example; as a magicka build you have enough stam usually to dodge a mere 2-3 times, should you do exactly that, you'll be left without enough stamina to break free if you get hit by rune cage after you roll by another sorc shortly after the immunity period has ended, thus leaving them open to burst/death.

Honestly, they should make it so it breaks off you when you take X amount of damage, and make it dodgable. I doubt it would be seen as such a big problem. Either way, it needs something a little better than just a dodgable property, the sheer power that sorcs have right now, at least in BGs almost makes it unplayable (for me at least.) The amount of times I've been beating down on a mSorc, they panic spam shields until they have a comfortable amount of health then curse>runecage>mages fury>weave>dead.

It's 10x worse when there's multiple mSorcs on the other team, or as I've seen quite a few time, a full stacked team of 4 mSorcs... you might as well give up, because most times you won't be able to kill them and they can easily destroy you in milliseconds with rune cage, ultis and fury/implode. It's honestly one of the most imbalanced and busted things I've seen in any multiplayer game in a long time. There's people who roll their eyes at the complaints and you only have to take a glance at their bio to see their top character happens to be a mSorc.

Galarthor · August 2018

First of all, thanks for the nice constructive post. I prefer those, over the ones that simply say "it's op nerf it" b/c it's not my class.

DDuke wrote: »

Yeah, I did use that several times to survive the full combo - it works fine when sorc isn't using a det pot and will still be one strategy against the combo next patch (other one being dodge cage+block before Meteor lands).

Thanks for acknowledging that. You are literally the first NB who has so far. Everybody else just keeps saying there is no counterplay at all. ( I am not saying that this makes any of you following points invalid!)

DDuke wrote: »

Problem is that you don't even need the full combo to kill medium armor builds (full combo bursts down even heavy armor tanks up to 30k'ish health).

That's just not true. I literally had one of those fights a few minutes ago in IC. It took two simulatneous and precisely cooridnated Curse-Meteor-Rune-Cage-Frag combos and a Zaan proc with executes to kill 1 DK perma blocking tank with 33.xk HP. And even then it was close. We both have fully buffed around 3.3k spell damage. You won't see magSorcs with much more than that.

Btw, at 2.1k mag regen and 2.6k regen respectively we both ran out of magicka several times, while using tri-stat on cooldown. Just referring to BohnT's assessment that perma blockers run out of stamina before sorcs run out of magicka. Well he kept blocking the whole time except for when is ulti was up ofc. But I deviate ...

DDuke wrote: »

Most common scenario where Rune Cage results in death is currently just getting cursed while dodging/sprinting away, then LA+Cage, LA+Frag & Fury -> dead. This can happen in 1v1, this can happen in Xv1, this can happen in XvX - and there's not really anything you can do about it as magicka is extremely limited for stamina builds.

You'd have to cloak after every curse to avoid combo every time (assuming there's no det pots from sorc), i.e. every 3s which means you'd need 2520 magicka regen as a stamblade to do that.

The maximum amount of times you can cloak in a row with the 8117 base magicka pool you get as a stamina build & 642 magicka regen (vampire+nb passive) is 2,8 times on average (timing cloak cast every 3 seconds) and it takes an average of 11,77 seconds to regenerate magicka for one cloak.

So I hope you can see why that isn't feasible.

To be honest, I think it is fair to expect stamina builds to have a higher magicka regen than that. After all, magicka builds are also expected to have a certain amount of stamina regen to be able to CC break on cooldown. Nobody would have any sympathy for a magicka build that runs on 600 stamina regen and asks for nerfs to CCs because he can't afford to break CC every 6 sec. So I think it is fair to expect stamina builds to have to invest the same amount into magicka regen as magicka build have to invest into stamina regen. Same goes for the max magicka pool.

Nonetheless, you are right! It isn't really feasibly to prevent a Rune cage every 1 to 3 sec. My suggestion was focused on the Meteor-Rune Cage combo that everybody was complaining about. Though the counter-stun option still remains available to everybody, this is a sound reason for Rune Cage having counterplay - especially since other classes don't have access to cloak. And I have never been against a counterplay.

I am just against the counterplay being dodge roll, b/c too many of the sorcs abilities can already be dodged. That's why I suggested the following:

1) Make Rune Cage blockable
2) Have it increase the cost of successive blocks, similar to how Fear slows the target

What's the reasoning behind this?
1) Everybody can block, so everybody has a counter to Rune Cage. So the counterplay is given. At the same, since it is not dodgeable, sorcs are left with something to be able to hit dodgers. I am also for making the CC break less clunky so people have more time to react. When critting and timed perfectly this combo would still be deadly, but then again if you time your burst perfectly against sorcs when their shields run out they die too.

And combining / swapping between blocking and cloaking should allow you to keep evading these rune cages. And if the sorc is just spamming rune cages every global cooldown, then you won't die (net even closely) from it b/c the burst combo is not set up.

2) This allows sorcs to deal with perma blockers, which was one of the intended uses of rune cage anyway. However, by making rune cage blockable, this feature is gone. So how can rune cage still be effective against perma blockers? Drain their stamina a lot faster so they can eventually be hit without blocking when they run out of stamina OR they will have to drop block for a short period, which gives the sorc an opening.

These changes can also be applied to Petrify and Fear, which would remove any double standards.

As for the weakness of Medium Armor:
It might be worth considering giving Medium Armor a damage reduction when being stunned. The mechanics for this are already in the game and would just have to be tied to medium armor. However, light armor can also use some love. You don't see many people running light armor if they don't have shields or cloak. Remember light armor mitigation is only 1/3 of medium armor's.

DDuke wrote: »

Also, what do you mean by "target usually being already under a lot more pressure" after NB CC? If you mean Incap/Surprise Attack.. sure, I agree - those deal a lot of damage. But the total amount of damage target can receive during that CC'd period is still less than sorc combo.

I mean prior to the sun-combo. More on that below.

DDuke wrote: »

Sorcs have 74k "tooltip burst" (i.e. damage before any mitigation modifiers) with full Meteor Frag Curse Fury combo, where as NBs "only" get 54k with their Incap->Merciless (note: actually talking about the dangerous combo, not fear that only lets one damaging attack land sometimes). Every other class besides sorc is in the 50-60k range when it comes to maximum burst and yes, this includes stamblades (which have around the same burst as magblades).

Not sure where you got your 74k from but at 3.3k Spell Damage I got a total tooltip damage of 63k for the Meteor-Frag-Curse-Fury combo. Since I don't know and cannot replicate where you got your numbers from. I can't put that into relation to reported the NB damage of 54k. But the maximum damage potential of a burst combo is only half the equation.

The other half is the damage / pressure between burst spikes. For example, if you manage to get and keep your target at 50% health prior to your burst combo, then this burst combo needs less damage to cccomplish the job. That's what I was referring to by "target usually being already under a lot more pressure" .

DDuke wrote: »

If you think I can't dodge anything after Fear or any other instant cast CC in the game apart from Rune Cage I'm happy to prove otherwise at any time on PC EU (my forum username is my in game username as well).

You can also dodge attacks after breaking Rune Cage. The fact that Rune Cage is clunky to break doesn't mean it should be dodgeable. It is rather a separate issue that needs to be addressed.

DDuke wrote: »

Oh also, I haven't had Fear on my bar for years because an instant cast CC that does no damage on a class with no delayed damage doesn't really do anything else than drain stamina from targets that CC Break fast. It's good for killing players with slower reaction time (i.e. majority of pugs in Cyrodiil, but those you can kill with Incap/Surprise Attack stuns as well), but that's about it.

Well maybe now you understand why Rune Cage will be pretty sh**ty after the update. Keep in mind, unlike fear, rune cage will no longer guarantee you the stun and fear stuns 2 targets, applies minor maim (15% less damage taken!) and slows the target for 50% .... Rune Cage will do none of it. And the damage is gone too. The 1k to 3k damage after 5 sec is a joke. Nobody stays in a stun for 5 sec unless they are out of resources and therefore done for anyway.

That means, back to te Flame Reach meta where you can't really use the CC tactiacally since it is your f***ing spamamble

Also the fact that you don't use fear doesn't mean fear is bad. It just means that you got a better alternative.

DDuke wrote: »

Another reason why I'm saying dodge roll isn't as strong as people make it out to be. If it was, surely I'd be using the only undodgeable (non-ultimate) CC available to my NB, no? Or atleast the ultimate one (DBOS)?

I have no idea what you are using. But given the amount of perma blockers and the magicka builds that cannot afford to dodge that much, I'd say in more otfen than not you are still better off, b/c your target is simply not dodging - either b/c they don't have to OR b/c they cannot afford to.

DDuke wrote: »

There's plenty of ways to deal with them on sorc (more than on other classes even without Cage), just like there are ways to deal with sorcs for stam builds (and no, I'm not talking about cheese like oblivion damage).

Well at least we can apparently agree 100% on the oblivion damage

The only really viable alternative is Soul Assault. But unless you already significantly reduced their HP, NBs won't die before they can cloak. I have even seen NBs healing through it. Literally mitigating the damage as it was dealt. And yes, they were stamina NBs using vigor. Not sure how though. If vigor was that potent I'd be running it instead of Healing Ward and enjoy those sloads scrubs crying

DDuke wrote: »

It just takes some effort to get through those defenses, and that's not a bad thing.

And that's why Fear needs counterplay as well.

DDuke wrote: »

Tbh, maybe what you'd need is a set that helps you vs dodge rollers (similar to how there are oblivion dmg sets vs dmg shield builds) but gimps you vs other builds (like Shield Breaker does) as counterbalance.

I don't like that idea. That's like saying, let NBs use a set to counter Rune Cage but that leaves them gimped vs other builds. I don't really like that Rock-Paper-Sissors concept. It sucks to have to run / surrender just b/c your opponent has a certain build / class.

An alternative would be some way to slowly drain the HP over time so when you are eventually able to hit the perma dodgers with a partial combo that it will kill him.

As I said, I don't need undodgeable Rune Cage per se, I need a reliable counter against perma dodgers.

DDuke · August 2018

Galarthor wrote: »

First of all, thanks for the nice constructive post. I prefer those, over the ones that simply say "it's op nerf it" b/c it's not my class.

DDuke wrote: »

Yeah, I did use that several times to survive the full combo - it works fine when sorc isn't using a det pot and will still be one strategy against the combo next patch (other one being dodge cage+block before Meteor lands).

Thanks for acknowledging that. You are literally the first NB who has so far. Everybody else just keeps saying there is no counterplay at all. ( I am not saying that this makes any of you following points invalid!)

Eh, I think everyone is a bit too focused on trying to defend their own class to look at the big picture. In the end, facts are the only thing that matter - not these class tribal politics.

Galarthor wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Problem is that you don't even need the full combo to kill medium armor builds (full combo bursts down even heavy armor tanks up to 30k'ish health).

That's just not true. I literally had one of those fights a few minutes ago in IC. It took two simulatneous and precisely cooridnated Curse-Meteor-Rune-Cage-Frag combos and a Zaan proc with executes to kill 1 DK perma blocking tank with 33.xk HP. And even then it was close. We both have fully buffed around 3.3k spell damage. You won't see magSorcs with much more than that.

Btw, at 2.1k mag regen and 2.6k regen respectively we both ran out of magicka several times, while using tri-stat on cooldown. Just referring to BohnT's assessment that perma blockers run out of stamina before sorcs run out of magicka. Well he kept blocking the whole time except for when is ulti was up ofc. But I deviate ...

Oh, I was more referring to the "normal" heavy armor dueling builds with Duroks & Sloads etc, not really the dedicated S&B permablock builds.

When you start stacking high health, heavy armor and sets like Riposte, Impregnable, Pirate Skeleton/Blood Spawn etc etc it does get obnoxious. Good news is that those builds deal almost zero damage though and can be ignored.

I recently played a Domination BG game where one such tank was present. That tank would just walk to the middle flag of Ald Carac & hold block. Our team & the other enemy team tried to kill the tank a couple of times, but eventually everyone decided to just ignore him and focus on other flags.

When the game ended, you could still see that tank, all alone, holding block at the middle flag...

Galarthor wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Most common scenario where Rune Cage results in death is currently just getting cursed while dodging/sprinting away, then LA+Cage, LA+Frag & Fury -> dead. This can happen in 1v1, this can happen in Xv1, this can happen in XvX - and there's not really anything you can do about it as magicka is extremely limited for stamina builds.

You'd have to cloak after every curse to avoid combo every time (assuming there's no det pots from sorc), i.e. every 3s which means you'd need 2520 magicka regen as a stamblade to do that.

The maximum amount of times you can cloak in a row with the 8117 base magicka pool you get as a stamina build & 642 magicka regen (vampire+nb passive) is 2,8 times on average (timing cloak cast every 3 seconds) and it takes an average of 11,77 seconds to regenerate magicka for one cloak.

So I hope you can see why that isn't feasible.

To be honest, I think it is fair to expect stamina builds to have a higher magicka regen than that. After all, magicka builds are also expected to have a certain amount of stamina regen to be able to CC break on cooldown. Nobody would have any sympathy for a magicka build that runs on 600 stamina regen and asks for nerfs to CCs because he can't afford to break CC every 6 sec. So I think it is fair to expect stamina builds to have to invest the same amount into magicka regen as magicka build have to invest into stamina regen. Same goes for the max magicka pool.

Sure, and many do run high magicka regen as well (at the cost of a lot of damage). So let's see how it'd look with Atronach mundus:
642->939 magicka regen (with vampire & NB passive)

Now you'd be able to cloak 3,4 times in a row, so that bought one extra second & instead of 11,77 seconds recovering magicka for one cloak would "only" take 8 seconds.

Galarthor wrote: »

Nonetheless, you are right! It isn't really feasibly to prevent a Rune cage every 1 to 3 sec. My suggestion was focused on the Meteor-Rune Cage combo that everybody was complaining about. Though the counter-stun option still remains available to everybody, this is a sound reason for Rune Cage having counterplay - especially since other classes don't have access to cloak. And I have never been against a counterplay.

I am just against the counterplay being dodge roll, b/c too many of the sorcs abilities can already be dodged. That's why I suggested the following:

1) Make Rune Cage blockable
2) Have it increase the cost of successive blocks, similar to how Fear slows the target

What's the reasoning behind this?
1) Everybody can block, so everybody has a counter to Rune Cage. So the counterplay is given. At the same, since it is not dodgeable, sorcs are left with something to be able to hit dodgers. I am also for making the CC break less clunky so people have more time to react. When critting and timed perfectly this combo would still be deadly, but then again if you time your burst perfectly against sorcs when their shields run out they die too.

And combining / swapping between blocking and cloaking should allow you to keep evading these rune cages. And if the sorc is just spamming rune cages every global cooldown, then you won't die (net even closely) from it b/c the burst combo is not set up.

2) This allows sorcs to deal with perma blockers, which was one of the intended uses of rune cage anyway. However, by making rune cage blockable, this feature is gone. So how can rune cage still be effective against perma blockers? Drain their stamina a lot faster so they can eventually be hit without blocking when they run out of stamina OR they will have to drop block for a short period, which gives the sorc an opening.

I think they are changing the skill to do something new in update 20 from what I've gathered, I don't think the dodgeability change is going to... change. But maybe they'll read your suggestions and take them into consideration.

I also do have to disagree on sorcs having "too many" dodgeable abilities, as they have more undodgeable ones with Curse & Streak (and currently Fury as well) than: mWarden (Shalks), magblade (zero), mDK (Petrify, Leap), stamblade (zero), stam DK (Leap... Petrify if they're weird), stam sorc (zero) etc etc.

The only class with more undodgeable abilities currently is magplar, which has: sweeps, purifying light, jbeam (and status effect from Dark Flare).

Galarthor wrote: »

These changes can also be applied to Petrify and Fear, which would remove any double standards.

These abilities already have counterplay in that they are extremely range limited and on classes with no delayed burst. For "double standards" to exist these abilities would first have to be on par with Rune Cage and perform similar functions.

Galarthor wrote: »

As for the weakness of Medium Armor:
It might be worth considering giving Medium Armor a damage reduction when being stunned. The mechanics for this are already in the game and would just have to be tied to medium armor. However, light armor can also use some love. You don't see many people running light armor if they don't have shields or cloak. Remember light armor mitigation is only 1/3 of medium armor's.

Well, I think shields is pretty much the main defensive mechanic of light armor builds similar to what dodge roll is for medium, so it's natural to see them running those.

I'm not too sure I like the idea of "damage reduction" on medium armor, since that is based more around evading damage than tanking it. The game needs clearer distinction between armor types & their playstyles, I don't think having medium armor mitigate more would really help in that regard.

Also, comparing 7 light armor to 7 medium:

Light Armor
10 042 Spell Resistance (15%)
7501 Physical Resistance (11%)

Medium Armor
11 199 Spell Resistance (17%)
11 199 Physical Resistance (17%)

Light armor has 82.23% of the Spell Resistance medium gets & 64.70% of its Physical Resistance.

I.e. 4/5 & 2/3 of medium's mitigations, not 1/3rd.

DDuke wrote: »

Also, what do you mean by "target usually being already under a lot more pressure" after NB CC? If you mean Incap/Surprise Attack.. sure, I agree - those deal a lot of damage. But the total amount of damage target can receive during that CC'd period is still less than sorc combo.

I mean prior to the sun-combo. More on that below.

DDuke wrote: »

Sorcs have 74k "tooltip burst" (i.e. damage before any mitigation modifiers) with full Meteor Frag Curse Fury combo, where as NBs "only" get 54k with their Incap->Merciless (note: actually talking about the dangerous combo, not fear that only lets one damaging attack land sometimes). Every other class besides sorc is in the 50-60k range when it comes to maximum burst and yes, this includes stamblades (which have around the same burst as magblades).

Not sure where you got your 74k from but at 3.3k Spell Damage I got a total tooltip damage of 63k for the Meteor-Frag-Curse-Fury combo. Since I don't know and cannot replicate where you got your numbers from. I can't put that into relation to reported the NB damage of 54k. But the maximum damage potential of a burst combo is only half the equation.[/quote]

Well, I did the math in another thread already:

Using same setup on both characters.
Gear: 5/1/1 2x Engine Guardian 5x Necropotence 5x Destruction Mastery
Sorc buffs: Major Sorcery, Wpn Dmg Enchant, Ancient Knowledge passive, Empower for Light Attack (from Meteor), Altmer passive +4% to Shooting Star & Light Attack & Shock Glyph, +5% (Energized passive) to Shock Glyph, +10% to Frag proc
NB buffs: Major Sorcery, Wpn Dmg Enchant, +20% to Merciless & Light Attack (Incap buff), Minor Berserk, Altmer passive +4% to Light Attack

So let's compare.
Shooting Star 14 323+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge])=16 041
Light Attack 3565+(40%[Empower]+4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge])=5418
Shock Glyph 2534+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge]+5%[Energized])=2964
Rune Cage 0 (for the sake of the argument)
Light Attack 3565+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge])=3992
Frag 12 260+(8%[Ancient Knowledge]+10%[Frag Proc])=14 466
Curse 10574+8%(Ancient Knowledge)=11 419
54 300 tooltip burst

and NB:
Light Attack 3565+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge]+8%[Minor Berserk])=4278
Incap 12 890+(8%[Ancient Knowledge]+8%[Minor Berserk])=14 952
Light Attack 3565+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge]+8%[Minor Berserk]+20%[Incap])=4991
Shock Glyph 2534+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge]+8%[Minor Berserk])=3040
Merciless 16 370+(8%[Ancient Knowledge]+8%[Minor Berserk]+20%[Incap])=22 263
49 524 tooltip burst

Now let's assume everything crits (NB has 60% crit modifier, Sorc 50%):
54 300+50%=81 450
49 524+60%=79 238

...that's a comparison between mSorc combo & magblade burst without Fury counted in (and no Cage damage like on live) to reflect next patch better.

Other builds setups compare similarly & you can push sorc damage much higher if you replace Cage with Reach on the equation.

Galarthor wrote: »

The other half is the damage / pressure between burst spikes. For example, if you manage to get and keep your target at 50% health prior to your burst combo, then this burst combo needs less damage to cccomplish the job. That's what I was referring to by "target usually being already under a lot more pressure" .

Yeah, I can agree with that. It's one of the main reasons why the Bleed/Sload builds are so strong currently.

It also justifies sorcs having more burst damage than other classes as they lack DoTs.

Galarthor wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

If you think I can't dodge anything after Fear or any other instant cast CC in the game apart from Rune Cage I'm happy to prove otherwise at any time on PC EU (my forum username is my in game username as well).

You can also dodge attacks after breaking Rune Cage. The fact that Rune Cage is clunky to break doesn't mean it should be dodgeable. It is rather a separate issue that needs to be addressed.

You can't. The thing with Rune Cage is that it isn't "clunky", it like that by design.

There's a 1s "travel time" before Rune Cage lands, which means after you cast it you throw out a Frag & it'll land at the exact same time as Rune Cage, leaving no time to CC Break & dodge the Frag.

There are some cases where you might be sprinting away at maximum range & manage to dodge the Cage follow up, but those are rare.

Galarthor wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Oh also, I haven't had Fear on my bar for years because an instant cast CC that does no damage on a class with no delayed damage doesn't really do anything else than drain stamina from targets that CC Break fast. It's good for killing players with slower reaction time (i.e. majority of pugs in Cyrodiil, but those you can kill with Incap/Surprise Attack stuns as well), but that's about it.

Well maybe now you understand why Rune Cage will be pretty sh**ty after the update. Keep in mind, unlike fear, rune cage will no longer guarantee you the stun and fear stuns 2 targets, applies minor maim (15% less damage taken!) and slows the target for 50% .... Rune Cage will do none of it. And the damage is gone too. The 1k to 3k damage after 5 sec is a joke. Nobody stays in a stun for 5 sec unless they are out of resources and therefore done for anyway.

That means, back to te Flame Reach meta where you can't really use the CC tactiacally since it is your f***ing spamamble

Also the fact that you don't use fear doesn't mean fear is bad. It just means that you got a better alternative.

Oh, don't get me wrong: I do think Rune Cage was overnerfed. They should've kept the damage since they introduced a way to avoid said damage. Too late to complain though, I hope it'll be fair to fight against but still worth using (which it isn't next update imho) when they rework it in Update 20.

And no, Fear isn't "bad" per se - many people (most, even?) still use it.

I just personally build more around having better kill potential vs good players than farming as many bad ones as possible in open world.

Galarthor wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Another reason why I'm saying dodge roll isn't as strong as people make it out to be. If it was, surely I'd be using the only undodgeable (non-ultimate) CC available to my NB, no? Or atleast the ultimate one (DBOS)?

I have no idea what you are using. But given the amount of perma blockers and the magicka builds that cannot afford to dodge that much, I'd say in more otfen than not you are still better off, b/c your target is simply not dodging - either b/c they don't have to OR b/c they cannot afford to.

Yeah, there's lots of light/heavy armor builds around - but I still find other medium armor builds the easiest to kill.

I do play in noCP though (BGs mostly), so no one is able to dodge forever.

Galarthor wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

There's plenty of ways to deal with them on sorc (more than on other classes even without Cage), just like there are ways to deal with sorcs for stam builds (and no, I'm not talking about cheese like oblivion damage).

Well at least we can apparently agree 100% on the oblivion damage

The only really viable alternative is Soul Assault. But unless you already significantly reduced their HP, NBs won't die before they can cloak. I have even seen NBs healing through it. Literally mitigating the damage as it was dealt. And yes, they were stamina NBs using vigor. Not sure how though. If vigor was that potent I'd be running it instead of Healing Ward and enjoy those sloads scrubs crying

Tbh Soul Assault is one of the least dangerous things out there since it always gets blocked (and when blocking it's easy to outheal with Vigor/Troll King/Lingering Health Pots).

It does take a toll on stamina pool though (which is something you don't see when hitting people with it), but a good NB will just cloak, run behind LOS & Meditate to full resources in a jiffy.

What you've got to do is catch them off guard (well, atm not necessary due to RC) with burst & Meteor is great for that.

Galarthor wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

It just takes some effort to get through those defenses, and that's not a bad thing.

And that's why Fear needs counterplay as well.

Well, I'd argue that getting within 6m range of an opponent, landing that Fear & then landing enough burst to kill someone does take effort (or a bad opponent), and that the counterplay is kiting your opponent or CC Breaking & dodging fast enough (which is demonstrably possible).

Galarthor wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Tbh, maybe what you'd need is a set that helps you vs dodge rollers (similar to how there are oblivion dmg sets vs dmg shield builds) but gimps you vs other builds (like Shield Breaker does) as counterbalance.

I don't like that idea. That's like saying, let NBs use a set to counter Rune Cage but that leaves them gimped vs other builds. I don't really like that Rock-Paper-Sissors concept. It sucks to have to run / surrender just b/c your opponent has a certain build / class.

An alternative would be some way to slowly drain the HP over time so when you are eventually able to hit the perma dodgers with a partial combo that it will kill him.

As I said, I don't need undodgeable Rune Cage per se, I need a reliable counter against perma dodgers.

Let me ask you a question: do you play in CP or noCP? The amount of dodge roll spam you see is vastly lower when in a noCP campaign or a BG so that could be an alternative for you.

Other than that, maybe they could buff Impulse (destruction staff, last skill) to be similar to Steel Tornado in power level, which stamina builds are currently using effectively vs dodge roll.

Galarthor · August 2018

DDuke wrote: »

Oh, I was more referring to the "normal" heavy armor dueling builds with Duroks & Sloads etc, not really the dedicated S&B permablock builds.

When you start stacking high health, heavy armor and sets like Riposte, Impregnable, Pirate Skeleton/Blood Spawn etc etc it does get obnoxious. Good news is that those builds deal almost zero damage though and can be ignored.

I recently played a Domination BG game where one such tank was present. That tank would just walk to the middle flag of Ald Carac & hold block. Our team & the other enemy team tried to kill the tank a couple of times, but eventually everyone decided to just ignore him and focus on other flags.

When the game ended, you could still see that tank, all alone, holding block at the middle flag...

Even those builds usually don't die to a full combo unless they play recklessly and don't pay attention to their health in between the burst spikes.

As for the true tanks ... well I guess that's balance: You can't kill them but they cannot kill you either. Nonetheless it is a severe issue in BGs and small scale when you need an entire raid to kill a single player. When one of those tank freaks takes the objective all you can do is wait for him to die (if it's choasball) or ignore him while he holds the flag for his team or carries the relic home. Don't know if i recall correctly, but the relic used to reduce the shields and heals over time, but not the resistances and block effecitveness .... that's part of what makes (made) them so strong.

DDuke wrote: »

Sure, and many do run high magicka regen as well (at the cost of a lot of damage). So let's see how it'd look with Atronach mundus:
642->939 magicka regen (with vampire & NB passive)

Now you'd be able to cloak 3,4 times in a row, so that bought one extra second & instead of 11,77 seconds recovering magicka for one cloak would "only" take 8 seconds.

Magicka builds cannot afford to dodge and/or break-free more than that either. That makes fossilize so strong. It costs 1 global cooldown and a nominal amount of resource to apply, but it costs 2 clobal cooldowns and 2 break frees to counter it. That's very expensive for magicka users. And magicka users are expected to be able to break CC and roots on cooldown and in addition we are supposed to dodge NB burst combos and now even sloads. Maybe now you can see why I am not a huge.

DDuke wrote: »

I think they are changing the skill to do something new in update 20 from what I've gathered, I don't think the dodgeability change is going to... change. But maybe they'll read your suggestions and take them into consideration.

I also do have to disagree on sorcs having "too many" dodgeable abilities, as they have more undodgeable ones with Curse & Streak (and currently Fury as well) than: mWarden (Shalks), magblade (zero), mDK (Petrify, Leap), stamblade (zero), stam DK (Leap... Petrify if they're weird), stam sorc (zero) etc etc.

The only class with more undodgeable abilities currently is magplar, which has: sweeps, purifying light, jbeam (and status effect from Dark Flare).

The question is not how many undodgeable abilities the classes have at their disposal. The question is how well can a class counter or rather deal with perma dodgers.

For example: If I have 20 abilities that all deal 100 undodgeable damage I will have dealt 2000 damage to the perma-dodger at the end of the day and he will have easily outhealed that and be fine. If I had only 1 undodgable DPS abilities which, however, dealth 50k undodgeable damage, then I would one-shot every perma-dodger and be far superior to the guy with the 20 undodgeable abilities.

The second issue is, only b/c one class has more undodgeable abilities than others doesn't mean they are sufficient. Maybe all of them have too few and/or too weak undodgeable DPS abilities.

Finally, nobody dies from a Curse-Streak combo. The damage is a) too low and b) streak way too clunky and expensive to even be able to deal a decent amount of damage in the short-term. You might get an occasional hit, but those 2k damage are not gonna kill somebody that just got hit by 3k to 6k damage. And Fury is dodgeable. What's not dodgeable is the proc, but that's similiar to how you cannot dodge the ticks of DoTs.

DDuke wrote: »

These abilities already have counterplay in that they are extremely range limited and on classes with no delayed burst. For "double standards" to exist these abilities would first have to be on par with Rune Cage and perform similar functions.

Range isn't really a hinderance as both classes have access to gap closers and all fights between a melee and a range class are happening at melee range as all gap closers are cheaper, faster, more effective, and more reliable than any of the gap openers. And both these classes are designed as melee classes.

DDuke wrote: »

Well, I think shields is pretty much the main defensive mechanic of light armor builds similar to what dodge roll is for medium, so it's natural to see them running those.

I'm not too sure I like the idea of "damage reduction" on medium armor, since that is based more around evading damage than tanking it. The game needs clearer distinction between armor types & their playstyles, I don't think having medium armor mitigate more would really help in that regard.

Also, comparing 7 light armor to 7 medium:

Light Armor
10 042 Spell Resistance (15%)
7501 Physical Resistance (11%)

Medium Armor
11 199 Spell Resistance (17%)
11 199 Physical Resistance (17%)

Light armor has 82.23% of the Spell Resistance medium gets & 64.70% of its Physical Resistance.

I.e. 4/5 & 2/3 of medium's mitigations, not 1/3rd.

Shields are so expensive and weak that you don't see a whole of of magicka classes running them. There are ofc the sorcs, but that's b/c they got Hardened Ward which is cheaper and stronger and even with this it is a struggle. You also got magblades, b/c they can supplement it with cloak. And Wardens are sometimes running their Anti-Range shields b/c those things are completely Op against range damage, but since they do nothing against melee damage it's pretty much like russian roulette. So it's pretty much just 2 classes and those only b/c they can supplement with class abilities.

But I definitely agree on the bold part. For example, I would like to have the shield strength tied to the amount of Light Armor pieces you wear. Make the shields strong, when the resistances are low. But don't give Heavy Armor tanks similar shields as light armor class cannons. This could be extended to (burst) heal, cloaking, etc.

I think something similar is needed for medium armor where dodge does not mitigate 100% of the damage by default then you get additional damage reduction with each piece of medium armor. Same goes for dodge cost reduction. And HoTs should also be increased with the amount of medium armor you wear (burst heal and perma dodging combined would be too OP). The CC effects should however remain 100% dodgeable (or we need different counterplay for such effects).

For heavy armor something similar could be done with the block effectiveness and its cost. And the healing received should be tied (more) to the amount of heavy armor pieces worn.

Is the difference between light and medium armor really that low? I seem to recall ZOS stating light armor was 1/4 of heavy armor and medium armor was 3/4 of heavy armor. I will have to check that ingame tomorrow (too late now).

DDuke wrote: »

Sorcs have 74k "tooltip burst" (i.e. damage before any mitigation modifiers) with full Meteor Frag Curse Fury combo, where as NBs "only" get 54k with their Incap->Merciless (note: actually talking about the dangerous combo, not fear that only lets one damaging attack land sometimes). Every other class besides sorc is in the 50-60k range when it comes to maximum burst and yes, this includes stamblades (which have around the same burst as magblades).

Not sure where you got your 74k from but at 3.3k Spell Damage I got a total tooltip damage of 63k for the Meteor-Frag-Curse-Fury combo. Since I don't know and cannot replicate where you got your numbers from. I can't put that into relation to reported the NB damage of 54k. But the maximum damage potential of a burst combo is only half the equation.[/quote]

Well, I did the math in another thread already:

Using same setup on both characters.
Gear: 5/1/1 2x Engine Guardian 5x Necropotence 5x Destruction Mastery
Sorc buffs: Major Sorcery, Wpn Dmg Enchant, Ancient Knowledge passive, Empower for Light Attack (from Meteor), Altmer passive +4% to Shooting Star & Light Attack & Shock Glyph, +5% (Energized passive) to Shock Glyph, +10% to Frag proc
NB buffs: Major Sorcery, Wpn Dmg Enchant, +20% to Merciless & Light Attack (Incap buff), Minor Berserk, Altmer passive +4% to Light Attack

So let's compare.
Shooting Star 14 323+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge])=16 041
Light Attack 3565+(40%[Empower]+4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge])=5418
Shock Glyph 2534+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge]+5%[Energized])=2964
Rune Cage 0 (for the sake of the argument)
Light Attack 3565+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge])=3992
Frag 12 260+(8%[Ancient Knowledge]+10%[Frag Proc])=14 466
Curse 10574+8%(Ancient Knowledge)=11 419
54 300 tooltip burst

and NB:
Light Attack 3565+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge]+8%[Minor Berserk])=4278
Incap 12 890+(8%[Ancient Knowledge]+8%[Minor Berserk])=14 952
Light Attack 3565+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge]+8%[Minor Berserk]+20%[Incap])=4991
Shock Glyph 2534+(4%[Altmer Passive]+8%[Ancient Knowledge]+8%[Minor Berserk])=3040
Merciless 16 370+(8%[Ancient Knowledge]+8%[Minor Berserk]+20%[Incap])=22 263
49 524 tooltip burst

Now let's assume everything crits (NB has 60% crit modifier, Sorc 50%):
54 300+50%=81 450
49 524+60%=79 238

...that's a comparison between mSorc combo & magblade burst without Fury counted in (and no Cage damage like on live) to reflect next patch better.

Other builds setups compare similarly & you can push sorc damage much higher if you replace Cage with Reach on the equation.[/quote]

I like the math approach here

But those numbers are way closer than the 20k difference in the original comparison. And that's not even for the StamBlades. In addition, the increased crit multiplier for NBs would suggest that they focus more on crit chance than sorcs, shifting the numbers more towards being in favor for magBlades. So the numbers seem pretty even to me. And that's despite the sorc combo being more complex. And given how simple the NB combo is, they don't even need delayed burst.

And it does not show the sustained pressure the target is under. For example, is the target at the beginning of that combo at 100% health and with full shield strength?

Do have a similar calculation for stamblades? Those are afterall the perma-dodging burst-monsters that are causing the problems.

DDuke wrote: »

Yeah, I can agree with that. It's one of the main reasons why the Bleed/Sload builds are so strong currently.

It also justifies sorcs having more burst damage than other classes as they lack DoTs.

But that in turn causes the problem with perma-dodgers

DDuke wrote: »

You can't. The thing with Rune Cage is that it isn't "clunky", it like that by design.

There's a 1s "travel time" before Rune Cage lands, which means after you cast it you throw out a Frag & it'll land at the exact same time as Rune Cage, leaving no time to CC Break & dodge the Frag.

There are some cases where you might be sprinting away at maximum range & manage to dodge the Cage follow up, but those are rare.

You are right about that. I misunderstood what you meant. But it is a double-edged sword as you can also not use to interupt somebody or when they are running away they often times get stunned when they are already behind the obstacle, thus preventing any meaningful damage. And it can also cause you to miss the window between the meteor starting to fall and hitting the target.

But all in all I'd like to see Rune Cage to have its clunkyness removed. That would solve both the issue of the undodgeable follow-up damage and the LoS issue.

DDuke wrote: »

Oh, don't get me wrong: I do think Rune Cage was overnerfed. They should've kept the damage since they introduced a way to avoid said damage. Too late to complain though, I hope it'll be fair to fight against but still worth using (which it isn't next update imho) when they rework it in Update 20.

And no, Fear isn't "bad" per se - many people (most, even?) still use it.

I just personally build more around having better kill potential vs good players than farming as many bad ones as possible in open world.

I seriously hope they will do something good with Rune Cage b/c the Flame Reach meta is annoying and sorc build diversity is already almost nonexisting.

As for the bold part: That's exactly why magSorc needs something to deal with perma-dodgers. The bad ones are annoying as hell, but oftentimes screw up pretty quickly. The decent and good ones are the problem. They dodge almost all of your damage and still can kill you in 2 global cooldowns which you spent pretty much incapacitated if your shields are not up to full strength.

DDuke wrote: »

I do play in noCP though (BGs mostly), so no one is able to dodge forever.

That explains so much. I play mainly CP. And I keep telling people, the issue is that you can reduce the cost of blocking in the CP system (and the armor traits). But in nonCP they only have the armor trait available, and they cannot stack as high as in the CP environment b/c they cannot get crit resistance through the CP system.

DDuke wrote: »

Tbh Soul Assault is one of the least dangerous things out there since it always gets blocked (and when blocking it's easy to outheal with Vigor/Troll King/Lingering Health Pots).

It does take a toll on stamina pool though (which is something you don't see when hitting people with it), but a good NB will just cloak, run behind LOS & Meditate to full resources in a jiffy.

What you've got to do is catch them off guard (well, atm not necessary due to RC) with burst & Meteor is great for that.

Well that explains the vigor healing countering my ulti.

Given how meteor kindly announces itself ages ahead of its arrival, one has to be a moron to be caught off guard by a meteor burst combo.

So ... that leaves Sorcs with nothing counter perma-dodgers. Hence my reluctance to make Rune Cage dodgeable again.

DDuke wrote: »

Well, I'd argue that getting within 6m range of an opponent, landing that Fear & then landing enough burst to kill someone does take effort (or a bad opponent), and that the counterplay is kiting your opponent or CC Breaking & dodging fast enough (which is demonstrably possible).

Getting and staying in range is no problem if you have a gap closer, as those far outperform any gap openers. All fights that include a melee build are fought at melee range. And if you don't have one while your opponent has a gap opener, then you frankly do not deserve to be in range. The same way you opponent does not deserve to be at range when you got a gap closer but he does not have a gap opener. And then there are still the roots and slows against which magicka builds (which are the majority of all ranged builds) have far fewer counters than stamina builds (which are the majority of melee builds).

DDuke wrote: »

Let me ask you a question: do you play in CP or noCP? The amount of dodge roll spam you see is vastly lower when in a noCP campaign or a BG so that could be an alternative for you.

As mentioned above I am mostly playing CP.

I occasionally play BGs, but there are mainly 2 things that I dislike about noCP.
1) shields are too weak (it's often already a struggle in the CP environment - despite the persception issues people have)
2) regen too low (I don't enjoy spamming heavy attacks or not being able to kill my opponent b/c i put everything into regen)

I could mitigate the first by joining the Heavy Armor meta, but that would only worsen the second issue. I'd like to play more BGs though. No lags and no zergs. That's a huge plus. I'd prefer IC, but it's too unreliable in terms of meeting opponents. You usually meet none or entire raids (which sucks when you are alone or in a small grp).

DDuke wrote: »

Other than that, maybe they could buff Impulse (destruction staff, last skill) to be similar to Steel Tornado in power level, which stamina builds are currently using effectively vs dodge roll.

I'd rather not see an AoE solution to that problem. AoE means more calculations for the server, which means more lag. And we already got plenty of that.

We really gotta shorten these posts. It takes way too much time to reply

RighteousBacon · August 2018

To balance RC they needed to either make it dodgeable or blockable. They went overboard, I’ll admit, by reducing the damage and nerfing the defensive morph as well, but hey, at least they did something kinda right

JobooAGS · August 2018

I say revert the dodgeable nerf to defensive cage and restore the damage to rune cage as long as rune prison and rune cage are dodgeable.

xAk_MoRRoWiNdx · August 2018

Man, all the Sorc tears. Beautiful and delicious.

Galarthor · August 2018

xAk_MoRRoWiNdx wrote: »

Man, all the Sorc tears. Beautiful and delicious.

The NB tears when exploding to Rune-Cage Meteor combo were much better.

...

Unfortunately, NBs ran to mommy and daddy and they gave their spoiled brats new toys.

mr_wazzabi · August 2018

Galarthor wrote: »

xAk_MoRRoWiNdx wrote: »

Man, all the Sorc tears. Beautiful and delicious.

The NB tears when exploding to Rune-Cage Meteor combo were much better.

...

Unfortunately, NBs ran to mommy and daddy and they gave their spoiled brats new toys.

Are you a sorc exclusive player? If you never play nb, your opinion holds less weight than someone who plays both sorc and nb

Valrien · August 2018

mr_wazzabi wrote: »

Galarthor wrote: »

xAk_MoRRoWiNdx wrote: »

Man, all the Sorc tears. Beautiful and delicious.

The NB tears when exploding to Rune-Cage Meteor combo were much better.

...

Unfortunately, NBs ran to mommy and daddy and they gave their spoiled brats new toys.

Are you a sorc exclusive player? If you never play nb, your opinion holds less weight than someone who plays both sorc and nb

Not really, if you still understand how NB works.

All that really is is a way to automatically invalidate the statements of people with differing opinions

OGLezard · August 2018

DuskMarine wrote: »

Valrien wrote: »

DuskMarine wrote: »

Valrien wrote: »

All it needed was to be fixed so it wasn't (literally) broken anymore.

The fact that it couldn't be dodged was never the issue in the first place. You're changing all of the wrong things, ZOS!

rune cage is probly one of the most abused spammable ccs in the game right now with nearly little to no counterplay(only counterable if your cc break actually works). this nerf was needed and was well deserved for sorcs at this point. sorcs need nerfed and its been a long time coming even if the fix is miniscule its a welcome change. finally shows that zos is coming off the hip with balancing now.

It could have easily gotten fixed to allow CC breaking. The undodgeable-unblockable part was insanely great for countering permarolling stam characters

dude you have aoes that are undodgeable. you can roll eye of the storm and they arent suppose to be able to roll dodge that due to zos making aoes undodgeable(and ive even had it happen so ik for a fact you cant roll dodge it). but something as broken as rune cage. a unblockable stun that hits no matter if you have cc immunity or not that can be continueously chainned you dont see a issue with that? anyone who uses it is a noob who cant get a kill otherwise in its current state. its abused to the point if you see a sorc your better off just running cause your gonna be chain stunned to death. so how is there not a issue with this ability at this point???

Chain stunned? That's a new one. What's the difference between a sorc waiting for cc immunity to go away vs anyone else waiting for cc immunity to go away? There isnt one aside from the fact that every other cc you can dodge.

Every other cc is heavily telegraphed and only terribads dont notice em.

For the record, I got kills before the change, will get kills after the change. My only gripe is that sorcs (been one since beta and never changed) will continue to get nerfed into oblivion because people just hate us with a passion.

I was even using rune cage before they added the damage to it and like many have stated, no one complained back then about it.

NB bursting you to death from stealth with no counter play (yeup, mage light detect pot etc etc) until after the burst has been initiated. Sorcs and nb forever the two most hated classes and only one of them gets catered too. Look at sloads and no longer pulling nb from cloak, or now being able to see who is using a detect pot, further helping nb choose their targets and evasive tactics.

Just my opinion here.

I don't even read patch notes anymore, they are just depressing as ***. You want to predict patch notes? Just read any nerf sorc thread and there you go lol whatever is the skill players want nerfed is what's getting changed.

Also, buff magdens, I dont even like the class but man does it suck seeing them get shafted lol I feel for you magdens out there trying to be dps.

Beardimus · August 2018

Zoal_AUG wrote: »

Oooh I couldnt wait to see the tears of sorcs when they come to realize that now they actually have to learn to play abit...its still not fully needed since they can still shieldstack like scrubs but at least they wont run around with delayed dmg plus unavoidable cc...I didnt think I will ever witness sorcs begging since they have such a big face when they win u with curse fury meteor rune cage c frag and they claim it was pure skill but here it is....keep em coming gotta love sorc tears.

Lol , hilarious. Sorcs aren't the ones crying on here, its the Nerf sorc/cage brigade. And as of today on PC sorcs are nerfed, so careful what you wish for as when you continue moaning there's only one person looking like a scrub. They will be worse than in dragonbones if PTS goes live, anyone struggling against sorcs if so is a pretty bad player.

As for 'Shield stack like scrubs' yeah how dare they use defence. I presume you are so awesome you don't use yours right? Be that roll dodge, block, heavy armour, wings, stealth, OP healing? YEAH all those that use their class defence are scrubs haha. Hilarious, great arguement fella. Well articulated.