anatole1234 wrote: »

People Seem to forget that sorc has access to a Breath of Life equivalent : Twilight Matriarch. Although I would love for sorc's pet to be castable and not toggeable to make it more consistent with other classes and not waste a skill spot . Let's be real for a second : shield stacking has been a massive issue since day one. Already working on a heavy armor magicka sorc to show it won't be the death of the class.

I'm waiting for your results. Not like people didn't already tried to make a no-shields magsorc work.

But short question: how do you keep the twilight alive without instant wards? And where do you put all your skills when your two bars are riddled with toggles and your OL bar is gone?

maboleth wrote: »

If they didn't want to for shields to stack, they could have just make one to exclude another. Simple as that. Either use hardened (or conjured) or harness, but not both. One cancels the other.

Ya but they sent us down this road years ago

With the change to overload, will it now work with elemental weapon?

No compromise will work here. Any one of these awful changes sinks mSorc as a competitive spec in PvP outside of a zerg. Cast time kills mSorc. Crittable shields with resistances kills them as well. What someone about said about 10k+ Suprise Attacks is true. Looking at 20k Leaps and 20k+ Spectral Bows. mSorc won't survive that. The third bar from Overload is necessary to compete but the loss of that hurts less than the previous 2. Regardless, I'm switching to stamina toons next patch. They're better than mSorc on live already and these new changes are just completely ridiculous.

Hope satisfying a bunch of PvEers and crappy PvPers is worth the loss of a lot of mSorc subscriptions, not to mention a lot of mSorcs just leaving the game for greener pastures. Actually, I don't really care anymore.

anatole1234 wrote: »

People Seem to forget that sorc has access to a Breath of Life equivalent : Twilight Matriarch. Although I would love for sorc's pet to be castable and not toggeable to make it more consistent with other classes and not waste a skill spot . Let's be real for a second : shield stacking has been a massive issue since day one. Already working on a heavy armor magicka sorc to show it won't be the death of the class.

Nah, I'm a templar and I dont need to double slot my breath of life and shield it so it doesnt die. Oh wait! Shields are nerfed so it's much more likely that braindead bird will just die at the worst possible moment.
"Oh shi-" heal is supposed to be reliable. Pets are not reliable (their AI isnt very good) and summoning them takes a while.

I have been playing this game since it came out. I have only played as a magsorc DW the whole time because I love the playstyle. I do pvp, pve and casual because I love the storyline as I am an old school Morrowind fan. I have seen this class get changed and morphed and nerfed into the ground. Each time I have rebuilt my magsorc DW and everytime I get it back up to snuff they nerf it again. I have learned to adapt and for the most part me and my toon have survived

This by far is the worst I have ever seen, it is too much all at once!! Talk about having to completely retool a character crafting new gear etc. It does not even seem that I can retool my character with this. I have already tested out alternative builds and they are all very unforgiving and clunky. With the one second cast time on shields it completely breaks up any kind of close in high combat situation in pvp, and completely ruins rotation and dps in pve. The only thing I can resort to is casual game play.

I am so disappointed in these projected changes. We as a community of sorcs are pretty good at rolling with the punches and I guess that is what we will have to do if we are to survive this knock out punch.

Perhaps the following suggestions may better adjust shields rather than a cast-time requirement:

1. Do not allow shields to absorb damage from DoTs placed on a player PRIOR to the shield's application. It doesn't quite make sense for an external shield to start absorbing poison and bleed damage when the target is already poisoned or bleeding, particularly if the shields are gas-permeable, as one assumes them to be.

2. Perhaps we should isolate a class of skills that require exponential cost increases for repeated casts in a short period of time, as we do with streak. Cloak could be a candidate, but I say that as a stamblade who doesn't need it as much. (Hint: it's no longer our most effective defense.) Snipe should definitely be a skill in this class. Do you know much strength it takes to bring a powerful non-compound bow to full draw? (Hint: A lot.) Damage reduction shields, as opposed to ability absorption skills like Absorb Magic and Shimmering Shield, could well be another candidate for inclusion in this hypothetical classification of abilities that need cost increases of successive casts. Unlike the absorption shields, which have a narrowly construed scope of effectiveness, harness and hardened ward reduce all damage taken by a player's health. Unlike igneous, harness and hardened ward both scale with the max damage resource of a build, tying augmentations to their defensive power with augmentations to a player's offensive power. Unlike healing ward, harness and hardened ward do not have a risky health threshold upon which they provide the full extent of their defensive benefit. As it stands, they are carte blanche damage mitigation without requiring significant sacrifices to offensive power and without requiring significant risks to a player's health. Imposing a repeat cast cost would increase the burden of using these abilities much as a cast time would.

3. Do not allow damage mitigation shields to stack. Have harness, hardened, igneous, healing ward, and sun shield all replace one another on subsequent casts, rather than augment one another.

Those ideas may not be the best, but hopefully they contribute enough to the conversation that we can move forward without a 1-second cast time.

Considering all the feedback for the cast time is overwhelmingly against it, can someone @ZOS please just acknowledge that it's likely a mistake and investigate alternate methods of approaching the shield stacking issue?

I haven't read every single comment, but I haven't seen anyone that thinks this is a good idea (outside of those who also expressed a hatred for Sorcs generally). At best, some people are willing to accept it, but most of those even acknowledge it's not the best approach too.

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hey all,

First I'd like to talk about our motivation with the change. We believe choices between damage output and survivability make combat more interesting.

Hello, @ZOS_RobGarrett, and thank you for replying to this uproar.

The above quoted sentence is the foundation of the reason why you are nerfing shields.

I find a massive contradiction in this foundation, though.

Magicka Nightblades deal sensibly more damage than magicka and stamina sorcerers, despite stamina sorcerers risking much more.

At the same time, Magicka Nightblades are as survivable as Magicka sorcerers, to the point they are the premiere class to enter Veteran Cloudrest portals and do quick, burst and safe damage in an hostile, high oblivion damage filled environment.

At the same time, Magicka Nightblades are those who are invited in a number of 7 (seven) to complete Veteran Asylum / Cloudrest, while 1 (one) Magicka Sorcerer is invited as healbot and Alkosh buff bot.

So, by your own statement, could you please elaborate on which kind of choice Magicka Nightblades are doing, to justify the most unfun, clunky and even bad looking (poop animation!!!) nerf on Magicka Sorcerers?

Btw why can you not crit cast shields now?

Minalan wrote: »

joaaocaampos wrote: »

@ZOS_RobGarrett The best way, the best solution.

Instead of increasing cast time to 1 second, the cost should be increased. Healing Ritual is an example: the ability had 1 sec cast time and now is instant cast, with increased cost.

• Annulment costs have been increased to 7290 Magicka from 4590 Magicka. That is, an increase of 59%.
• Conjured Ward costs have been increased to 5580 (+59%), 5890 (+68%) or 6210 (+77%) Magicka from 3510 Magicka. Respectively, the Empowered Ward cost would be 5570, 5440 or 5740.

Unfortunately, something needs to be done. Increased cost has worked before, may work again. No shield spam!

If you want increased cost, press "Agree".
If you want cast time, press "Insightful".

How about neither, would that be "Awesome"?

I still think a 3-6 second cooldown would be a better solution.

Add 1 second cast to light armor's shield but leave sorc's ward like it was before.
Sorcs will still have their 911 button in pve but shield stacking will be harder.

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know we've been monitoring the feedback on this thread and elsewhere on the forums. Clearly there's a lot of concern around the impact of adding a cast time to Conjured Ward and Annulment.

First I'd like to talk about our motivation with the change. We believe choices between damage output and survivability make combat more interesting. There are a number of areas within our system that could better adhere to this philosophy, but these self-cast damage shield abilities stood out as being particularly out of line. It was too easy to throw a bunch of effective health on yourself while making a minimal sacrifice in terms of DPS itemization and rotation. This applied to both PvE and PvP scenarios.

The addition of a cast time makes that choice between damage output and survivability more deliberate and strategic. However, as many of you have pointed out, there are several potential issues with this solution. We identified many of these risks prior to PTS, and we're actively monitoring feedback from the community, Class Reps, and PTS testers.

If we decide to make significant changes to the abilities, those changes would not appear until at least PTS 3. However, we agree Conjured Ward and Annulment are too easy to interrupt in PvP, so we'll be making both spells immune to interrupts for PTS 2. We'll also be meeting with the Class Reps next week to discuss the changes.

In the meantime, we encourage you to continue experimenting, evaluating, and providing feedback.

Monitoring and actually doing something about it is big difference.