Magsorc's biggest problem was always sustain. Some sustain tools (crystal fragments cost reduction, CF cost reduction for other abilities, magicka back when daedric ability ends) were introduced this patch as well as pets scaling with spell damage. I wouldn't judge it too early, because the sustain improvements might actually mean dps gain even with CF nerf.

What's still concerning me and all experienced magsorcs tho is the Lightning Splash and morphs. The ability is too expensive for what it does or it does too few for what it costs. Either way, it needs change.

My biggest worry is not the mere parse numbers of sorc/sorc pets but with their hybrid choice taking away a full build option to build and gear towards a full pet setup. I just worry that pets will become mediocre dots on any particular sorc magicka build, and you can no longer focus on amping them at the cost of yourself for a certain playstyle.

BalticBlues wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Pets are not nerfed
Stop spreading misinformation.

Pets already have been nerfed into the ground with last patches and THIS is the final nail.

• Necropotence set nerfed
• Matriarch power loss for healers who have little Spell Damage
• Matriarch with a -50% healing nerf for itself

This is especially devastating in PvP: The underpowered Matriarch now dies easily in siege. There also are PvE situations, for example in vMA, where the Matriarch now dies easily in AoE. Sorcs now have an underpowered and unreliable Matriarch. This kills many builds. Sorcs now need to wear a healing staff and sacrifice an extra slot to have a reliable heal.

Literally rule #1 of this thread is to keep pvp comments out of here.

No where in your post do you talk about the pve damage of actual damage morphs of the pets. So run along now, shoo shoo.

Our huge problem are the willing of PVP Players regarding Sorceres (as I can agree, but ONLY in PVP), but ALL times Zenimax hits the hammer nerf to the PvE content.

Our main problem besides DPS is our sustain that "maybe can be fix or get better", including FG Nerfs too we're getting less sustain.

Zenimax wants to force players to buy Necromancer Classes to be able to hit higher DPS, and doesnt matter they won't listen to us. Sorceres is my main class since beta (I have other classes too), but I like to play as a Sorcerer and we need urgent more viable builds to play as ANY other char.

I really woud like a real answer regarding the hate with Sorceres @ZOS_GinaBruno .

Two minor quibbles with points above:

• This Necropotence nerf was truly trivial.
• ZoS deliberately got away from specific enemy types having specific vulnerabilities.

That said, I've been playing sorcerer since open beta. I wrote one of the early guides for the class. My main crafter/antiquarian/etc. is a sorcerer, so of course I'll keep playing him somewhat. But unless the PTS' reported big nerf to pet damage is an oopsie that will be quickly fixed, I probably won't be playing sorcerers in hard content for a while.

Have you actually tested anything?

Live parse, 21m. perf Siroria, sorrow front bar, maw.
Pts parse, same gear. Keep in mind that siroria has been nerfed on the parse dummy by 80 max spell damage.
My frags average damage is the same, my max frags is higher but with the lower spell damage overall and the changes to BT i'm not surprised.

The change to pets to FINALLY get benefits from spell damage is awesome and should have happened a long time ago. Sorcs are finally able to take advantage of pure spell damage sets properly

The main problem I have with my Magicka Sorc is its AOE. Magicka's strong suit is its cleave and AOE damage and the Sorc is pitiful. Yes I do over 80K against a Dummy but that is single target, and the Sorc is strong at single target damage. But its AOE is basically Wall of Elements on a parse and Wall of Elements + Orbs in live game play.

Liquid Lightning/Lightning Flood is a an incredible destroyed skill. Zos nerfed its damage by 1/2 and upped it cost by X2 then came back and nerfed the cost 50%.

The end result is a skill that STILL does half the damage and STILL costs more to use than what it was and carries the lowest damage output of any class AOE skill. (The synergy damage goes to the player that activates it, not the Sorc caster, and you cannot activate this damage on your own anyway.)

The Damage it outputs is LESS than Unstable Wall of Elements which is at the same cost (And this is even with a Sorc buffing lightning damage 5% vs Unstable Wall which is BIS as Fire). And Unstable wall is basically ONLY used for the Maelstrom Stave Additive Damage. If you were to take away the Maelstrom Stave, Wall of Elements would be dropped from all Magicka builds because its damage output is so incredibly low vs the cost of using it...and again the Sorcs AOE skill is less damage.

The Scamp could be a life saver here, as it did more than 4k AOE damage before this patch. (Though in a small radius, tech still good for Tank stacked trash mobs) However, for some unknown reason a stun is attached to this skill. Thus in PVE no one wants the Scamp to be on a SORC...NO ONE...unless that Sorc OVER CASTS the Scamp active to keep the stun from triggering. This makes it very expensive to use and also messes up a solid rotation is it is already at the minimum of 10 seconds for DOT damage. Thus it is simply dropped from builds completely (Even Trash Mob Builds).

This leaves the Magicka Sorc in a very bad state for PVE play. As you only need a maximum of 1 in a group for its Minor Prophecy buff (Now also easily attainable for a STAM SORC with the new patch) and adding only average damage output overall and the lowest cleave of the group when compared to all other Magicka Classes.

Yes, sustain is a problem which also makes the above worse...over-casting skills to avoid stuns or using skills with EXTREMELY high costs vs damage output.

Pets require 2 bars use (The Twilight Tormentor) is damage you just can not lose if you want decent DPS and this comes at the cost of a free bar space and is basically the Sorcs only valid powerful DOT. Since healing was stripped from this morph that extra bar space is needed as The Matriarch is a MASSIVE dps loss comparatively. All other pets or called upon shadow images are single barred. (Save the Wardens Bear...but that is an ultimate, does tons of damage with an execute attached, and is STILL complained about)

Basically this means only your front bar Bound Aegis is a flex spot, but that single skill provides 2% Spell Damage, 8% Max Magicka, and a small buff to Spell/Physical Defense. Dropping this skill severely gimps your DPS output...it is actually BETTER to drop Mages Wrath/Fury from your bar instead of Bound Aegis and now you are out an execute. (Executes are more important this patch because of the redesign of Bloodthristy.) Or drop whatever skill you are using for Minor Force..again a sizeable DPS loss in order to have either a shield or a heal on your bar.

Amplitude was supposed to keep a Sorc from feeling all bursty with little true power, but instead of giving us nice Single or AOE DOTS to create constant sustained damage, they gave us a passive that creates a constant downward trend of DPS. I can't even tell you how many times in a trial, I open as a blazing DPS GOD shooting to the top of Hodor only to consistently watch everyone one else raise as I loose power. This is as good as it is gunna get for you in a fight. By 75% normally at least 1 has surpassed me, by 50% anyone on any class worth their salt is at a minimum equal to me, and by execute I just fall to always end somewhere in the middle. (Especially if there are Nightblades/Templars in the mix because of how their classes are designed.

When parsing once you fall below 50% health on the Dummy there is a VERY noticeable lag and drop in damage until you reach the 25% execute phase, though the new Bloodthirsty trait has tempered this.

This just feels bad when using the class.

And lastly, the identity of the Sorc is muddled as all get out. Is it a Mage? A Conjurer? A familiar/Summoner? No its all three...and it does each one terribly. Its passives show its mixed state and being half powerful while buffing only certain aspects of the Sorc. The staves are Fire, 1/2 the skills lightning, 1/2 skills magic, 1/2 skills pets, 1/2 skills casts. You cant build as a lightning mage or use Elemental sets because its largest damage output skills are Magic Damage and you waste them plus cannot buff teh elemental damage enough through passives. You can't build for magic damage because its Pets and Ultimate and Finisher are all Lightning damage. You can't create a Pet build, because the pets are under powered on their own without the other skills in the set-up and again no one wants the Scamp to be involved in anything. You can't build a no-pet build because you have to run at least 1 pet for passives and having the DOT of the "bird" (though buffed by direct damage CP? Whatever to that). You can't use take advantage of cast sets because there aren't enough in the toolkit to make them viable, just enough to annoy the hell out of you when you need a frag or a heal.

So in the end you just have to build vanilla tasteless builds that buff everything as much as you can and create this hybrid that does crap AOE and average damage at best.

And with all that they keep giving the Stamina Sorc more skills, BETTER skills, harder hitting skills when it already out-parses its magicka counterpart and now it can consistently proc the group buff of Minor Prophecy, having a Mag Sorc will actually be a LOSS for the group...it will be better to bring a Stam Sorc for more penetration, higher DPS, and providing Major Berserk and Minor Prophecy.

Hell the Sorcs own ultimate of Negate will only hurt other Mag Sorcs....Stam sorcs can keep doing all the stuff above, and providing all the buffs with no loss in damage while immune to the silence...

Its just completely...and utterly mindbogglingly confused in what it is supposed to be and how it is supposed to operate. Its title shouldn't be Sorcerer but something else completely.

And yes, when was the last time the Sorc was buffed....it is nerf after nerf after nerf well at least for the Magicka side. The stamina is buff after buff after buff.

@Nemesis7884

By far the easiest magicka class to play is MagDk not Magsorc.

Stamina Templar is the easiest of the Stam Classes to hit 90k or were...this patch might actually force them to learn a rotation.

Magicka Necro is broken on live because of its design. Everything bugs out and skills wont cast and it doesn't function properly. This is true...it is also the same for Stam Necros to a point as well. The rotation is on par with a Mag Warden. Easier than a Magicka Templar and arguably easier than a Mag Night Blade or at least at the same difficulty. On parses a Mag Necro and Mag Sorc are about equal in DPS.

MagTemplar is likely the hardest mag class arguably and has sustain issues on par if not worse than a Magsorc. Their damage is very end-loaded as well.

The old Magsorc days of 2 pets, heavy atttacks and spamming shields has been over for a very long time. That is when a MagSorc was dumb easier with crazy DPS compared to others. Its a build and style that Zos killed off almost 2 years ago.

If you use Daedric Prey 6-second Timer with Frag procs on a 10 second AOE DOT rotation with a single pet (Which is currently the META and Highest Parcing Magsorc build) the rotation is actually quite dynamic and not forgiving of mistakes. It also provides no heals or shielding to the player and if used on live takes a large DPS loss if you are in content where there such skills are needed (Portal DPS CR or Portals VSS for example)

All Sorc DPS comes from direct damage power burst with at or below Stamina DPS level cleave which is severely weak compared to all other magicka classes...and a sorc is beat only by the Mag Wardens in least requested for End game Trials with a max of 1 spot given (Because lack of buffs, low cleave, average damage output comparative to other classes).

The MagSorc has a reputation from its past that just wont quit, and the modern version of it, is quite changed.