PTS Update 20 - Feedback Thread for Sorcerer

Oreyn_Bearclaw · October 2018

pattyLtd wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Copied from another thread, just gonna leave this here ...

Jumped on the PTS and made an exact copy of my live PetSorc. I somehow ended up with slightly less critical but a few more points in spell damage even though they are an exact copy of each other.

I play this character mainly to solo veteran group content so i took her to solo veteran Fungal Grotto I because i have run this dungeon many, many times on live while farming for gear.

My setup is pretty simple:
Heavy attack lightning staff AOE based using the Clannfear to take aggro and to heal myself while i and my AOE's do the damage. I weave in light attacks and skills when my resources allow for it. Empowered Ward is my goto shield.

ON LIVE:
The Clannfear may not taunt enemies anymore but it sure holds a *lot* of aggro, even on the mini bosses and final boss.
Resource management is not a problem and neither is shield uptime. I do have to pay attention to my Pet healthbar, but otherwise this dungeon is simple and routine.

ON PTS:
The Clannfear still takes damage (so i'm guessing the 0 damage hasn't been added yet?) but it does *not* draw any aggro anymore, even the trash mobs ignore it!
So now i have the full onslaught of all trash mobs plus the bosses while trying to keep my reduced 40% shields up, heavy attacking and staying alive.
There are no more resources for any light attacks or skills, i can barely keep up the Liquid Lightning, let alone weave in an staff skills.
All my magicka goes into shields and heals and there is nothing left for offensive attacks.

This pretty much confirms what i suspected from your comments.
I never imagined this character to struggle that hard to get through what i otherwise consider the easiest of the veteran group dungeons.

OMFG, i didnt realize they nerfed pets too, it was my very very slight hope to be able to keep use my backup sorc, she’s a pet build, guess not.

I am sure they have fixed the small bug with the staves targeting issue that we have since summerset though.
Because right now i have a really hard time working around the endless list of bugs, this is most annoying on for me.

I know thats bit off topic but imho they should be more careful with changing so many things, they dont seem to understand the games code very well.

Actually, I think that is directly on topic and of course you are correct. ZOS has no subtlety. They hit the game with a sledgehammer every 3-6 months and wonder why its in pieces.

@SirAndy

Sorry man, that sucks. It's not my thing, but I love watching what you and others are able to do solo in this game, and of course, pets are vital to that. It was literally their one redeeming quality, and now its gone.

Also, public service announcement. If you havent cleared VMA and were considering pet sorc for your first try, might want to get on that sooner rather than later. People that know the arena wont care, but for first timers, these changes are going to hurt.

arasysb14_ESO · October 2018

I tried VMA on PTS with exact same pet build and sets I have been using. Long story short, pets die all the time. On 2nd arena they are mostly useless since they are dead even before monsters spawn (unless you spam the switches).

Empowered shield goes down immediately as most of the instant damage is above 5k+, so half of the time Matriarch's heals are not there because it's either dead or I am out of magicka. Can't imagine how painful stages 7 and 9 would be with these shields.

Based on my initial experience, I am not planning on doing a full VMA run on PTS, I'd rather try to farm for my inferno staff I never got till nerfs go on live server. But even if I get a staff before Nerfmire, what will I be using it for anyway? I love playing glass cannon, always have but switched to pet sorcerer to to farm VMA. Now with these changes it makes no sense to even farm it.

I feel like after all these years I can only continue to play ESO like "story mode" and keep looking for other options.. Been playing MMOs for 16 years, never seen such clueless devs before. Enough is just enough. For those who say "adapt", games are meant to be enjoyed, not stressed about.

*hits alt + f4*

Vahrokh · October 2018

arasysb14_ESO wrote: »

I tried VMA on PTS with exact same pet build and sets I have been using. Long story short, pets die all the time. On 2nd arena they are mostly useless since they are dead even before monsters spawn (unless you spam the switches).

Empowered shield goes down immediately as most of the instant damage is above 5k+, so half of the time Matriarch's heals are not there because it's either dead or I am out of magicka. Can't imagine how painful stages 7 and 9 would be with these shields.

Based on my initial experience, I am not planning on doing a full VMA run on PTS, I'd rather try to farm for my inferno staff I never got till nerfs go on live server. But even if I get a staff before Nerfmire, what will I be using it for anyway? I love playing glass cannon, always have but switched to pet sorcerer to to farm VMA. Now with these changes it makes no sense to even farm it.

I feel like after all these years I can only continue to play ESO like "story mode" and keep looking for other options.. Been playing MMOs for 16 years, never seen such clueless devs before. Enough is just enough. For those who say "adapt", games are meant to be enjoyed, not stressed about.

*hits alt + f4*

In the end, you need to sit down and think rationally.

That is, if you remove for a moment the "I am sort of addicted to the game" factor, you suddenly realize it's ZOS who needs you. Not the contrary.

Basically, what does a person normally do when they pay good money and a product turns to be wildly defective?
They return it and want their money back. And they tell about how bad is their experience to everyone they know.

If people learned to do the same with MMOs, the developers would stop throwing random darts at changes and to make people's life miserable for a year (until the next nerfs partial undo).

When Nerfmire will land on the live servers, I'll try what disaster they have done to pets. If it's anywhere as bad as Andy has described it, I'll certainly be the last guy on Earth to still give ZOS 1 penny.

Do they take 1 year to repair the immense damage they are about to do to our class?

No problem, I'll save 1 year worth of subscription. It's not me who need money. When friends will ask me about ESO, I won't be really motivated to push them to try it.

I still recall my previous MMO: the developers acted like ZOS, the general playerbase finally had enough of constant dramatic changes and nerfs, and now they have closed down since some years.

Natas013 · October 2018

I might be missing it, but I can’t find where they changed what bastion and shattering blows stars do in cp in light of these shield changes. I mean bastion is superfluous to anyone not running heavy and they surely don’t need to be tankier. Shattering blows is now overkill bordering on OP dealing with LA mag tunes.

BrightOblivion · October 2018

arasysb14_ESO wrote: »

I tried VMA on PTS with exact same pet build and sets I have been using. Long story short, pets die all the time. On 2nd arena they are mostly useless since they are dead even before monsters spawn (unless you spam the switches).

Empowered shield goes down immediately as most of the instant damage is above 5k+, so half of the time Matriarch's heals are not there because it's either dead or I am out of magicka. Can't imagine how painful stages 7 and 9 would be with these shields.

Based on my initial experience, I am not planning on doing a full VMA run on PTS, I'd rather try to farm for my inferno staff I never got till nerfs go on live server. But even if I get a staff before Nerfmire, what will I be using it for anyway? I love playing glass cannon, always have but switched to pet sorcerer to to farm VMA. Now with these changes it makes no sense to even farm it.

I feel like after all these years I can only continue to play ESO like "story mode" and keep looking for other options.. Been playing MMOs for 16 years, never seen such clueless devs before. Enough is just enough. For those who say "adapt", games are meant to be enjoyed, not stressed about.

*hits alt + f4*

I did the same, more or less, and it was admittedly brutal. The ward honestly felt like it was made of tissue paper, and my familiar died far more times than I can count. Then I would go to respawn the familiar, hit that oh-so-fun cast time, and have a 50-50 shot of going splat before I finished.

Major pain points of the run, regarding the pet, were the boss of stage 2 (the spinny blades and the cannon shots into the air which still hit him), the boss of stage 4 (the pet slows out of the safe spot, or I go to heavy attack the sentry or adds, and he dies. Or he goes to attack the spider during the flame phase, and he dies), the entirety of stage 5 (because the water kills the pet over and over again), environmental damage in stage 6, the behemoth's roars in stage 7, and the lava geysers along the arena edge in stage 8.

After stage 8 round 4, I exited the arena, logged to character select, and deleted the test character I made for the experiment. There's really no point to continuing it to its conclusion.

@ZOS_Finn I understand that there are reasons pets aren't invulnerable in vMA, at least in the abstract (reasons exist). That said, however, they're dying far too much, which, in conjunction with the cast time that feels like an eternity in the middle of the fast-paced vMA combat, is incredibly frustrating and makes it where I'm skeptical that they're even useful in that content.

Add to that more player deaths than I care to count, my shield feeling like it's not even a defense even in conjunction with boundless storm and crit surge, and the fact that those people who are getting 600k scores in vMA will still get 600k scores because they don't use shields, and I'm honestly more frustrated with the arena than I've ever been, even when I was learning it the first time.

So thanks for that, I guess.

Feanor · October 2018

It’s a bit funny actually. They make a 3 year old arena less accessible for players trying for their first clear with changes that are totally unnecessary. It’s really absurd.

kind_hero · October 2018

About the sorc class I would ask the devs just one question: after your changes, in what way playing a magicka sorc feels different from the other classes, rewarding or fun?

Thanks!

edit: P.S. My alt is magicka sorc

coradaelu · October 2018

Sorc is just a shell of a class now, before was and now with these changes will be on the bottom, this game has always been broken... almost every patch i see nerfs.. directly or not to sorcs, i played a lot in 1.4 since then the class is in declibe.. sorc was never op, people forgot the broken things in the game, like 50% reduction in dmg of harness apply on all shields and a simple Dot give infinite sustain or Sharpened trait was broken and gave you the 100% of spell pen... and for those things they nerf sorc again and again in the start, not because the class was OP it was the game broken, took years to solve it, currently i can have fun in cyrodill i can beat some good player and others not.. i really dont see the overperforming in that, cannot get really serious on these changes, we will see when "the class reworks" hit for now ZOS will nerf nosense again.

*Sorry for my bad grammar English.

Nicko_Lps · October 2018

Vahrokh wrote: »

arasysb14_ESO wrote: »

I tried VMA on PTS with exact same pet build and sets I have been using. Long story short, pets die all the time. On 2nd arena they are mostly useless since they are dead even before monsters spawn (unless you spam the switches).

Empowered shield goes down immediately as most of the instant damage is above 5k+, so half of the time Matriarch's heals are not there because it's either dead or I am out of magicka. Can't imagine how painful stages 7 and 9 would be with these shields.

Based on my initial experience, I am not planning on doing a full VMA run on PTS, I'd rather try to farm for my inferno staff I never got till nerfs go on live server. But even if I get a staff before Nerfmire, what will I be using it for anyway? I love playing glass cannon, always have but switched to pet sorcerer to to farm VMA. Now with these changes it makes no sense to even farm it.

I feel like after all these years I can only continue to play ESO like "story mode" and keep looking for other options.. Been playing MMOs for 16 years, never seen such clueless devs before. Enough is just enough. For those who say "adapt", games are meant to be enjoyed, not stressed about.

*hits alt + f4*

In the end, you need to sit down and think rationally.

That is, if you remove for a moment the "I am sort of addicted to the game" factor, you suddenly realize it's ZOS who needs you. Not the contrary.

Basically, what does a person normally do when they pay good money and a product turns to be wildly defective?
They return it and want their money back. And they tell about how bad is their experience to everyone they know.

If people learned to do the same with MMOs, the developers would stop throwing random darts at changes and to make people's life miserable for a year (until the next nerfs partial undo).

When Nerfmire will land on the live servers, I'll try what disaster they have done to pets. If it's anywhere as bad as Andy has described it, I'll certainly be the last guy on Earth to still give ZOS 1 penny.

Do they take 1 year to repair the immense damage they are about to do to our class?

No problem, I'll save 1 year worth of subscription. It's not me who need money. When friends will ask me about ESO, I won't be really motivated to push them to try it.

I still recall my previous MMO: the developers acted like ZOS, the general playerbase finally had enough of constant dramatic changes and nerfs, and now they have closed down since some years.

If i could give you 10 awesome's 10 insightful and 1m Agree i would.

A glassy build is being utilized from players with fast reaction to mechanics and knowledge of their pvp oponents skills+passives.

Now when ESO whinebaby's cry because they CANT dodge roll when a curse is being applied to them WE get cyrodiil transformed to WORLD OF TANKS just because people cant react fast and just because people DIE when using a glassy build.

Now the glassy build ZoS nerfed to the ground for magsorcs is not being nerfed for whineblades as they can TP+Cloak away with their 800 recovery ultra burst ganking glassy builds, but hey NERF THAT SORC

o_0 · October 2018

There isnt enough agrees, awesomes, insightfuls, that I can use to describe how accurate the majority of these posts are. in my 22 years of MMO experience I can honestly say ZOS is going down a bad path. I've seen too many games come and go, live and die, all due to developers poor decisions.

ruikkarikun · October 2018

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RobGarrett
Why pets easy dying in solo and immortall in group content. This is joke? You even don't let to play solo?

cpuScientist · October 2018

Pets can be one barred sure if they remain until death. If not nah.

Elwendryll wrote: »

Sustain on a stamina sorcerer is very hard. Give us a stamina restoring overload. Thanks!

Yes please do this exact thing ZOS! @ZOS_Wrobel
Stamina restoring morph of overload and add the enhanced range to base skill. Thanks dear

RMerlin · October 2018

Morgul667 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

BrightOblivion wrote: »

Jimmy_The_Fixer wrote: »

Great changes, 10/10, shields no longer negate 90% of itemization for both the user and the attacker. Mag sorc VS Mag sorc now incorporates spell resist, spell pen, crit chance, crit modifier, crit resist, et cetera. Cast time is gonna take some getting used to but the good players will adapt.

Why take away the overload bar though? That was fun and cool and unique to sorc, not a balance issue either, nobody was complaining about it.

If you're still talking cast times, you're two weeks behind (fortunately). It's still insta-cast, but an individual shield's strength tops out at 40% of max health.

As for overload, no idea. "Reasons", I guess.

Overload likely got the axe because no other class has a third health bar and they probably thought it was "OP".

The actual changes to overload are actually pretty good that help sorc's consistant DPS, so. Not too angrhy about that.

There were a fee complains that overload third bar was clunky so they probably just removed it....

Biggest complain AFAIK were other players claiming it was unfair that sorcerors could get a free third hotbar.

RMerlin · October 2018

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

The difference is, while his version was not only balls hard but inaccessable [snip], he at least could design some good system fundementals.

I liked the original idea of having a diminishing return on stats with the presence of both soft and hard caps, as it forced people to better balance their character. It also limited the risks of power-creeps. I think they felt it was too "complicated" for newcomers (funny, it was fairly intuitive to me when I started playing back in beta), so it got removed around the time CP became a thing. Now, we have people almost always going all-in on one single attribute, and putting only a few trickles of points into the others.

[edited for profanity bypass]

RMerlin · October 2018

Lord-Otto wrote: »

I mean, about the only sorc' ability on a PvP bar that is spammable is shield, lol.

That`s why I still love Infernal Guardian more than any other sets for my magsorc...

RMerlin · October 2018

Maybe one possible solution is to give everyone a third bar, that would be limited to utility. Having to lose one slot for Rapids, or TWO SLOTS for any pet is pretty harsh. And with the Psijic Line adding 5 new abilities with no increase in hotbar space, that makes it hard to justify using any of these skills in a regular 2 hotbar setup (I was using one in my Overload bar).

RMerlin · October 2018

Gnozo wrote: »

The changes to Overload just killed one identity of sorcs. Like shields also got deleted from sorcs identity it feels so generic playing this class now.

I'm one of them. My magsorc was largely built around Overload (even wearing the Elegant set). With these Overload changes, I will need to severely change my whole playstyle, or switch toon.

It's almost as if I were suddenly forced to change class. It's that drastic of a change for those of us who were relying on Overload for what it was, not just for a free hotbar.

Galarthor · October 2018

Feanor wrote: »

It’s a bit funny actually. They make a 3 year old arena less accessible for players trying for their first clear with changes that are totally unnecessary. It’s really absurd.

Nothing about this update is funny. It's only sad.

BretonMage · October 2018

SirAndy wrote: »

[
ON PTS:
The Clannfear still takes damage (so i'm guessing the 0 damage hasn't been added yet?) but it does *not* draw any aggro anymore, even the trash mobs ignore it!
So now i have the full onslaught of all trash mobs plus the bosses while trying to keep my reduced 40% shields up, heavy attacking and staying alive.
There are no more resources for any light attacks or skills, i can barely keep up the Liquid Lightning, let alone weave in an staff skills.
All my magicka goes into shields and heals and there is nothing left for offensive attacks.

This pretty much confirms what i suspected from your comments.
I never imagined this character to struggle that hard to get through what i otherwise consider the easiest of the veteran group dungeons.

I've been mulling this over for a day (and throughout my sleepless night), and I really think ZOS needs to reflect on whether they want to keep us solo players as customers. I know this is an MMO and therefore I have no right to demand things for what may well be a niche group, but I also imagine that many of us are solo players. We like it, it's something we find relaxing (while challenging, paradoxically) and fun. Do we want to be boxed into a role deemed acceptable by ZOS? I know I don't.

Not all of us are max CP either. Top-tier, max CP players can probably adapt to nerfs (will they? I cannot imagine it would be fun having to die a lot, and struggle with survivability while trying to keep up damage). But for the rest of us still learning and trying to get better, it will hit us really hard. If you lower shield strength to 40% AND take away the utility of the summon, what do we have left that we can use?

As a solo player, I need my shields, and I need my pet to draw aggro. If you let a boss/bosses and their adds whale on me and me alone with just 40% shields, combat is decidedly going to be Not Fun. And maybe even Not Possible.

ZOS, please reconsider the shield and pet changes in light of solo players. Thanks.

maboleth · October 2018

+1 for pets needing better shield/survival in both pvp and pve.

ruikkarikun · October 2018

maboleth wrote: »

+1 for pets needing better shield/survival in pvp - bgs especially. For PVE they got a buff imo.

They got buff for group, in solo game they die too much often -> unplayable.

maboleth · October 2018

^ You mean overland content? I will try some bosses tonight on the pts and will post my thoughts.

I tested my pvp pet sorc in cyrodiil against 5 npcs simultaneously and I managed to win, my pets also. One died 2x times but it was before I noticed that Matriarch must be used a bit more often to pump the hp to both pets, even if the caster has max HP.

BrightOblivion · October 2018

maboleth wrote: »

^ You mean overland content? I will try some bosses tonight on the pts and will post my thoughts.

I tested my pvp pet sorc in cyrodiil against 5 npcs simultaneously and I managed to win, my pets also. One died 2x times but it was before I noticed that Matriarch must be used a bit more often to pump the hp to both pets, even if the caster has max HP.

Nope. In vMA (which is a solo arena), they most certainly were not buffed. They die far more frequently, all over the place. I usually average a 50-55 minute clear with under 7 deaths (generally under 5). The pet dies at least once on the stage 5 boss, and at least once per scream on the Argonian Behemoth. Last night, I quit after 2+ hours, only at round 4 of stage 8, with 25-30 deaths and the pet having died probably double that.

So yeah. Definitely not a buff in vMA.

maboleth · October 2018

Well, I tested my pet sorc on world bosses and I agree with you.
Pets die way too often and are usually insta-shot by a single boss take. Shield helps a bit, but is scrapped off very fast.

For example, Lonely Papa boss giant.

- PTS3, Volatile familiar dies in a single take, two if having luck.
- Live, Volatile familiar takes 4-6 hits before he dies, without shields.

We are still in the testing phase, but how this got passed their combat team is beyond me.

Zos, do you actually think that re-casting pets so many times in fights is actually fun? Don't need to answer. It is not.
Yes, I won the bosses solo but it wasn't so fun, it was tedious.

ruikkarikun · October 2018

maboleth wrote: »

Well, I tested my pet sorc on world bosses and I agree with you.
Pets die way too often and are usually insta-shot by a single boss take. Shield helps a bit, but is scrapped off very fast.

For example, Lonely Papa boss giant.

- PTS3, Volatile familiar dies in a single take, two if having luck.
- Live, Volatile familiar takes 4-6 hits before he dies, without shields.

We are still in the testing phase, but how this got passed their combat team is beyond me.

Zos, do you actually think that re-casting pets so many times in fights is actually fun? Don't need to answer. It is not.
Yes, I won the bosses solo but it wasn't so fun, it was tedious.

Yes, overland is unplayable too. I don't have any words guys, I don't know why they kill even solo overland? This is just pura hate.

ruikkarikun · October 2018

Thanks for class representatives for asking to change pets and kill them for solo PVE. GOOD WORK. ARE YOU PROUD?

BrightOblivion · October 2018

ruikkarikun wrote: »

Thanks for class representatives for asking to change pets and kill them for solo PVE. GOOD WORK. ARE YOU PROUD?

Bear in mind that the reason they die so quickly is the shield nerf, something that caught even the reps by surprise. All that has happened since, in regards to pets being invulnerable in dungeons, trials, and group arenas is also not attributable to them (but instead to Finn), and serves to ensure they aren't dying all the time/completely useless everywhere.

I get the hate, sort of, but direct it where it's due. Not toward the group of people actually trying to help.

ezio45 · October 2018

ruikkarikun wrote: »

Thanks for class representatives for asking to change pets and kill them for solo PVE. GOOD WORK. ARE YOU PROUD?

aint the reps fault

maboleth · October 2018

BrightOblivion wrote: »

ruikkarikun wrote: »

Thanks for class representatives for asking to change pets and kill them for solo PVE. GOOD WORK. ARE YOU PROUD?

Bear in mind that the reason they die so quickly is the shield nerf, something that caught even the reps by surprise.

It's not just the shield nerf. As I tested it, pets die more frequently even without any shields. Please see above my test with the Giant boss. They have the same HP in pts3 and in live, no shields, but die so much more on pts3. Why? Is it because something from CP isn't working on pts3 or what?

TheWorldsLastChance · October 2018

This might have been the single worst patch I have ever seen in MMO history. And I have almost played them all, even the ones you haven't heard of.

Look at what SWTOR did to their healers in patch 3.3, and how they server merged twice immediately afterwards because of how bad their population dropped.
Look at what LOTRO did to their hunters.
Those are NOT examples to follow.

When you take someone's character that they have poured hours of love into and make it a laughing stock of the game, they don't like that. They unsubscribe and leave your game, to never come back.

Things were fine the way they were before. I would be happier if you just left us alone. But you have to listen to PvP whiners who want to be gods with little to no time and effort to building their characters, and have to punish the class where people go when they are willing to put thousands (literally, THOUSANDS) of hours each to make their character stronger and better.

I have 2,000 hours clocked on my Sorc alone and nearly all of it has been devoted to making her strong in PvE, and because you listen to the PvP whiners who have never played magsorc for a day in their lives,

I am having something I worked very, very hard for taken away from me when I did nothing wrong. It's not fair.

I don't PvP, none of my guilds PvP. We don't like the toxicity of the ESO PvP community.

We avoid the forums because we know that this is where the PvP Community's toxicity is the worst.

Yes, my sorc can pull 40.9k dps.
But every class (even Wardens) can pass 40k. Some classes (Dragonknights, Nightblades, Templars) can even break 55k nearing to 60k.
I even have a guidlie with a stamDK who can pull 67k dps.
But like the sorcerers, he has put close to 6,000 hours of time, thought, practice, failure, frustration, consideration, and love into his character. He has almost 1300cp, and I have never encountered someone with more love for this game than him.

Why is it us you punish?

Because we are the class people choose when wanting to solo?
Because we are the class people choose when wanting to PvE?
Because we are the most people choose when wanting to play the most stereotypical magic user of ESO?
Because we are the ones people choose when wanting to control elements (ice, lightning, fire, darkness)
Because we are the ones people choose when wanting to play a summoner fantasy?

Things were fine the way they were before. Shields are reduced ANYWAYS in PvP.

Find a system to make the classes you want to nerf weaker in PvP and only in PvP - like you do with the personal shields already. You shouldn't ruin your PvE to tune to your PvP. PvEr's hate PvP, and they hate it even more when their characters are ruined to the likes of the PvP whiners.

I have already canceled my ESO plus and started to recommend interested friends to stay away from this game.

If this patch goes through, I am taking my family & friends to never return.