Magicka Sorcerer Suggestions as a 4 year main

AdamLAD · July 2021

I have played Magicka Sorcerer for 4 years on Xbox EU and played in all the different patches so my knowledge of the class is very high. However I'm always open to understanding others opinions as knowledge is power. Now this isn't a nerf thread or a buff thread but I know people like to talk about how its too strong so here are some of my suggestions for the class.

Nerf Dark deal. The reasoning behind this is because its FAR to easy for people to streak away from fighting without any sustain repercussions because of dark deal. The increased cost is nullified with Dark Deal.
I wouldn't change streak itself as its what makes us survive as we cannot just stand and fight like other classes. We need the mobility. But Dark deal 100% makes getting away to easy. I prefer promoting standing and fighting when you can.

Streak costs more the higher the maximum magicka you have. This will also prevent people from being able to abuse streak. Someone with 40k maximum magicka cannot spam streak as much as someone who has 50k. Like I say streak it's self doesn't need a nerf but it shouldn't be able to be spammed 6 times in a row. I do think it should be used 3 to 4 times but after that it becomes obviously broken especially with dark deal giving recourses back.

Now to compensate for those nerfs id suggest giving us some defensive buffs. The only reason Sorcs spam streak is because we cannot just stand and fight toe to toe like other classes especially outnumbered. We have 0 defensive passives and shields have been gutted over the years. I see 21k incaps. Thats more than 2 of the biggest shield skill in the game with hardened ward nevermind being forced to run 5 light pieces just to use harness thats an extra 5% damage taken for no reason from stamina. Why ? We already have the lowest resistance. Light armour should provide increased shield size to harness/dampen magicka. And not just increase its CAP. I mean a litteral increase to size like bastion does.

Give us a decent self bust heal other than a pet. Pets provide a good self heal but is extremely unreliable as they can die. Surge isn't reliable as you need to do damage in order to be healed. Or at least give us old healing ward back that was 300%. That would also help out the horrendous state magblade is in a little bit.

Nerf Overload. Yup nerf if. Its far to strong especially with with elemental weapon. I don't even see Sorcerers do good combinations anymore they just spam overload and elemental weapon together. Overload shouldn't be a light attack. It should be its own source of damage. Next patch its actually getting buffed due to stealth changes lol

To compensate for the Overload changes. Give it a slight damage buff. Maybe 5% 10% MAYBE. Thats it. Also I think a good unique change would be for haunting curse to provide minor breach instead of 2 explosions. Sorcerers have 0 debuffs in the game. And many people don't even use the 2nd explosion very well as it takes a while to happen. A curse by definition should DEBUFF an enemy or somewhat hinder.

The only reason I am suggesting some changes is because theres a lot of people complaining about Magicka Sorcerers being very strong. And they are but only due to certain things in my opinion. Zenimax wants ideas as previously stated instead of people just complaining. So hopefully we can all provide some ideas. Everyone has different opinions and I'd like to hear them.

Alucardo · July 2021

AdamLAD wrote: »

Nerf Dark deal.

No.

Yours sincerely,
Stam sorc.

AdamLAD · July 2021

Dark deal spam is even worse on a stam sorc lol. Because stamina classes naturally have increased movement speed on top of it. And increased stamina pool and sustain. Plus stamina classes have less need for Magicka than Magicka does stamina.

Fawn4287 · July 2021

OP makes some very good points, the dark deal comments are exactly what I’ve felt for ages, I always thought dark deal needed a change to deal with players that just infinitely steak back to the nearest keep or zerg and stamsorcs that can run donut in to regen, double down on damage and simply convert for their entire sustain. this option makes far more sense, its always seemed far too overpowered since its a spammable and should have been a just a stronger over time stat return and heal rather than a spammable burst. Magsorc needs more survivability options, not just for balance but for some build variety, more tankyness and a real burst heal will give it that. There is literally 1 way to play magsorc solo on essentially 1 build that actually works. Its cycling streak and wards on a glass cannon until you get gapclose spammed or have enough DOTs that you cant outheal them.

Alucardo · July 2021

AdamLAD wrote: »

Dark deal spam is even worse on a stam sorc lol. Because stamina classes naturally have increased movement speed on top of it. And increased stamina pool and sustain. Plus stamina classes have less need for Magicka than Magicka does stamina.

Dark Deal was basically cut in half. Instead of getting a big chunk of resources you get them over 20 seconds, which is a loooong time to be waiting for resources you desperately need. If you're spamming dark deal you're not moving very fast and easy to catch/interrupt and throw off balance. And you want to nerf it more? Why don't we just remove it. Because we may's well if it gets nerfed any further.

AdamLAD · July 2021

Because when you spam streak like 6 times in a row you are massively out of range and cannot be interrupted. The whole point of darkdeal of having a cast time is for it to be interrupted yet with streak spam thats nullified. And the whole point of streak having a cost increase is for you to be out of resources when u spam it, yet with darkdeal its nullified. You see the problem

WrathOfInnos · July 2021

Alucardo wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

Dark deal spam is even worse on a stam sorc lol. Because stamina classes naturally have increased movement speed on top of it. And increased stamina pool and sustain. Plus stamina classes have less need for Magicka than Magicka does stamina.

Dark Deal was basically cut in half. Instead of getting a big chunk of resources you get them over 20 seconds, which is a loooong time to be waiting for resources you desperately need. If you're spamming dark deal you're not moving very fast and easy to catch/interrupt and throw off balance. And you want to nerf it more? Why don't we just remove it. Because we may's well if it gets nerfed any further.

^ this. It previously returned 5000 stamina instantly, and could easily be spammed. The last change was a nerf, but a good one. It reduced that to 3600 instantly and 2400 more over 20s. Clearly this was intended to encourage preemptive use, and discourage spamming, and IMO it succeeded.

I guess I wouldn’t care too much if it shifted a little more into gradual sustain and less in burst. Maybe 3000 instant and 3400 over 20s (increase from 6k to 6.4k total over a long fight with some patience, but not as spammable). However we have to be careful not to make any large changes that could kill the skill entirely, it is actually pretty well balanced in the current form.

Fawn4287 · July 2021

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

Dark deal spam is even worse on a stam sorc lol. Because stamina classes naturally have increased movement speed on top of it. And increased stamina pool and sustain. Plus stamina classes have less need for Magicka than Magicka does stamina.

Dark Deal was basically cut in half. Instead of getting a big chunk of resources you get them over 20 seconds, which is a loooong time to be waiting for resources you desperately need. If you're spamming dark deal you're not moving very fast and easy to catch/interrupt and throw off balance. And you want to nerf it more? Why don't we just remove it. Because we may's well if it gets nerfed any further.

^ this. It previously returned 5000 stamina instantly, and could easily be spammed. The last change was a nerf, but a good one. It reduced that to 3600 instantly and 2400 more over 20s. Clearly this was intended to encourage preemptive use, and discourage spamming, and IMO it succeeded.

I guess I wouldn’t care too much if it shifted a little more into gradual sustain and less in burst. Maybe 3000 instant and 3400 over 20s (increase from 6k to 6.4k total over a long fight with some patience, but not as spammable). However we have to be careful not to make any large changes that could kill the skill entirely, it is actually pretty well balanced in the current form.

Balanced by letting magsorcs infinitely streak away? Work out what it works to as equivalent regen and it would come up as anything but balanced. The issue is that everything in the game breaks down in to a triangle of damage, survivability and sustain, most builds are running around with regen food, regen mundas and and however many regen glyphs. Magsorc can forgo this purely thanks to 1 skill, this is doubled down with the fact that magsorc stacks max mag for both damage and survivability with shields, letting good players in the right meta stack next to nothing but max mag. A similar but even more problematic version of this issue is stamblade with cloak, whilst most builds have to run pariah and sometimes bloodspawn for a decent chance of surviving, stacking in to defences can be skipped purely thanks to cloak, turning whats essentially a gank build in to 1vXing builds. Necro mitigation stacking can also be seen as a similar issue and will be far more noticeable and problematic next patch.

Now this isn’t me saying any potato can go and run one of these builds off the bat and turn them from run of the mill zergling pug in to 1vXing super star but good players who know how to play and don’t spam abilities uselessly (like someone who dodge rolls 4 times in a row) and use it to their advantage stacking far more damage than any regular build can, which is why magsorc was by far the strongest class in no proc cyro.

Alucardo · July 2021

AdamLAD wrote: »

Because when you spam streak like 6 times in a row you are massively out of range and cannot be interrupted. The whole point of darkdeal of having a cast time is for it to be interrupted yet with streak spam thats nullified. And the whole point of streak having a cost increase is for you to be out of resources when u spam it, yet with darkdeal its nullified. You see the problem

How does a stam sorc spam streak 6 times in a row and still have magicka left over for dark deal? Unless you're just talking about dark conversion the mag sorc version, in which case I don't care.

AdamLAD · July 2021

Like I stated previously streak spam is even worse on stam sorc. And to add another reason why. Even if you were interrupted, as a stamina player you will be even more likely to break free as you have a larger stamina pool. Stamina as a whole is far superior is magicka in nearly every department in PvP. Stam temp maybe as an exception but next patch it has its burst back due to the changes. Stam sorc would 100% still be extremely good even without spamming darkdeal to streak away. Its not all doom and gloom you will still have streak.

WrathOfInnos · July 2021

Fawn4287 wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

Dark deal spam is even worse on a stam sorc lol. Because stamina classes naturally have increased movement speed on top of it. And increased stamina pool and sustain. Plus stamina classes have less need for Magicka than Magicka does stamina.

Dark Deal was basically cut in half. Instead of getting a big chunk of resources you get them over 20 seconds, which is a loooong time to be waiting for resources you desperately need. If you're spamming dark deal you're not moving very fast and easy to catch/interrupt and throw off balance. And you want to nerf it more? Why don't we just remove it. Because we may's well if it gets nerfed any further.

^ this. It previously returned 5000 stamina instantly, and could easily be spammed. The last change was a nerf, but a good one. It reduced that to 3600 instantly and 2400 more over 20s. Clearly this was intended to encourage preemptive use, and discourage spamming, and IMO it succeeded.

I guess I wouldn’t care too much if it shifted a little more into gradual sustain and less in burst. Maybe 3000 instant and 3400 over 20s (increase from 6k to 6.4k total over a long fight with some patience, but not as spammable). However we have to be careful not to make any large changes that could kill the skill entirely, it is actually pretty well balanced in the current form.

Balanced by letting magsorcs infinitely streak away? Work out what it works to as equivalent regen and it would come up as anything but balanced. The issue is that everything in the game breaks down in to a triangle of damage, survivability and sustain, most builds are running around with regen food, regen mundas and and however many regen glyphs. Magsorc can forgo this purely thanks to 1 skill, this is doubled down with the fact that magsorc stacks max mag for both damage and survivability with shields, letting good players in the right meta stack next to nothing but max mag. A similar but even more problematic version of this issue is stamblade with cloak, whilst most builds have to run pariah and sometimes bloodspawn for a decent chance of surviving, stacking in to defences can be skipped purely thanks to cloak, turning whats essentially a gank build in to 1vXing builds. Necro mitigation stacking can also be seen as a similar issue and will be far more noticeable and problematic next patch.

Now this isn’t me saying any potato can go and run one of these builds off the bat and turn them from run of the mill zergling pug in to 1vXing super star but good players who know how to play and don’t spam abilities uselessly (like someone who dodge rolls 4 times in a row) and use it to their advantage stacking far more damage than any regular build can, which is why magsorc was by far the strongest class in no proc cyro.

Well, I was talking about Dark Deal, which gives stamina, but I guess I have to respond to the ridiculous claims about Dark Conversion now...

Mag Sorcs cannot infinitely streak away because of this skill. For one thing, if they are casting Conversion then they are obviously not Streaking in those GCD’s. They’re also not sprinting while performing the 1s cast time, and won’t be doing much soon since every cast eats into their small stamina pool. Additionally, the stacking cost on streak continues regardless of resources returned by Conversion. The first cast of streak is about the same as Conversion’s instant return, and with any stacking cost increase it quickly becomes unsustainable. They can sometimes avoid taking a fight, but not always if the opponent has a gap closer. The concept of speed allowing the choice of whether or not to engage is nothing new.

Sorcs need to build for sustain just like other classes. My preference is Amber Plasm because stamina sustain is such a weakness, especially with conversion. And stacking Max Mag is far from meta, it gives very little damage, and the best defense is a good offense. The days of Necropotence and Arcane jewelry are long gone.

I also don’t find stamblades with cloak to be a problem, but that’s a topic for another day.

Alucardo · July 2021

AdamLAD wrote: »

Its not all doom and gloom you will still have streak.

It is when you're out of resources. They don't really have any way to get back stam like other classes. Yes you have a 20% regen passive, but you need a daedric ability slotted, so I had to give up something useful like temporal guard and backbar the storm atro just to get it.
And this "streak spam" you talk about, how do you accomplish that with the increasing cost on a stam sorc?? You'll have no magicka left for dark deals, or streak, or surge, and I also use defensive rune which is pretty costly. We don't have endless pools of magicka to streak spam and then dark deal spam. You will never convince me dark deal needs yet another nerf.

Faulgor · July 2021

I'd already be happy if Sorcs couldn't keep hiding behind a zoo.
People say you can just gap-close to a streaking Sorc (as if), but how is that even theoretically possible if you can't target them?

AdamLAD · July 2021

"You will never convince me dark deal needs yet another nerf"

I am literally willing to nerf my own class for the betterment of balance. Im extremely open minded. Im not saying nerf it so it absolutely useless and im not saying nerf us and not give us some buffs in other departments to compensate. But it does need some additional work. I'm tired of watching people just spam the ability with hardly any repercussions for to long have people been carried. Spoken to most top players on my server and they all agree. Needs adjustment and we need buffs in other areas such as defence. We all have different opinions. But theres a reason why Sorcs are top for open world PvP. And thats the reason.

amir412 · July 2021

I think necro and stamden needs to get nerfed way more than mag sorcs.

Joy_Division · July 2021

AdamLAD wrote: »

"You will never convince me dark deal needs yet another nerf"

I am literally willing to nerf my own class for the betterment of balance. Im extremely open minded. Im not saying nerf it so it absolutely useless and im not saying nerf us and not give us some buffs in other departments to compensate. But it does need some additional work. I'm tired of watching people just spam the ability with hardly any repercussions for to long have people been carried. Spoken to most top players on my server and they all agree. Needs adjustment and we need buffs in other areas such as defence. We all have different opinions. But theres a reason why Sorcs are top for open world PvP. And thats the reason.

I dont get your reasoning about "spamming" with no repercussions. Do you wish that sorcerers to be even more unique of all the classes in having two abilities they get punished for casting multiple times? My templar isn't punished for spamming jabs. Nightblade isn't punished for spamming cloak. Nobody is punished for spamming D-Swing. I don;t think you're being open-minded. You are out to somehow get this ability nerfed and complaining about it being spammed when ESO is all about spamming abilities. Besides, IIRC a sorc who does spam this ability isn't getting the full resource value out of it.

As far as sorc effectiveness, it's not dependent on Dark Deal. Ever since 1.6 (before ZOS changed Dark Deal to be a good skill), sorcs have always been strong because their basic gameplay revolving around Streak, Curse, Shields, and Frag is strong, makes them good at any range, and is a lot less complicated than other classes.

AdamLAD · July 2021

If you think spamming dark deal and streak is the same as spamming jabs and dizzy swing then good for you because its obvious the difference. Cloak does need adjustments also but thats another topic.

Stamicka · July 2021

When shields were reduced to 6 seconds and frag still stunned (Dark brotherhood/ shadows of the hist era) Sorc was in a perfect spot. Shield changes, overload changes, CP changes, they’ve all been detrimental.

Shields, especially healing ward, should’ve been left alone they were perfectly balanced. The fact that sorcs can roll more than stam builds however, that’s broken. Stam management used to be a skill gap on magic builds, this was healthy for the class and it’s also why dark conversion wasn’t OP in the past. You would risk not being able to break free if you over used the skill (you only had a Max of like 14k stam).

Frag stun could be blocked or rolled, so the frag stun made the class easier to counter, but very punishing if you did not counter it. This has been replaced with unblockable, unrollable stuns which has no place on sorc in my opinion.

Overload is a joke. The skill desyncs, and it was far more balanced in the past.

Honestly they just need to revert the class to its 2016 form. It was well balanced then.

divnyi · July 2021

Sorc is the only class where I can sustain on zero magicka regen. Being able to shift resources from bar you don't need to bar you use is insanely good, and you also get a healing on top and sustain buff.

Hotdog_23 · July 2021

You should be able to block Streak and Ball of Lightning should get the same treatment as DK wings and reducing damage taken from projectiles by 50% for 2 seconds.

Dark Deal and Dark Conversion both should be 50% resources instant and the other 50% over time but decrease the time to 16 seconds on the return from 20.

Agree overload should be its own source of power and not require a light attack. The only problem with that is on consoles or anyone using a controller is it takes pushing 2 buttons at the same time to activate which in lag sometimes that seems to be an issue. We really need the ability to program which buttons we use in game on a controller but that’s an issue for another thread.

Also I continue to say that no pets should be permanent and last 8/16 seconds like nerco's but only need to single bar them as well.

Stay safe everyone and ZOS please fix the green tree micromanaging

Septimus_Magna · July 2021

Sorcs can Streak away, NBs can Cloak away, I dont see an issues with this as you effectively lose the fight when you flee. So I dont think a Dark Deal nerf would be necessary.

I agree that its a major flaw in judgement that light armor users get increased dmg taken from Martial attacks. The armor amount already takes care of that, adding the %modifier means that you effectively get no armor from small light armor pieces against melee attacks.

The suggestion to add increased shield sieze to light armor passives is a good one, it wont impact PVE because shields are capped at 60% health but it will help light armor users in PVP.

Alucardo · July 2021

divnyi wrote: »

Sorc is the only class where I can sustain on zero magicka regen. Being able to shift resources from bar you don't need to bar you use is insanely good, and you also get a healing on top and sustain buff.

Did you just say you don't need stamina?

divnyi · July 2021

Alucardo wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

Sorc is the only class where I can sustain on zero magicka regen. Being able to shift resources from bar you don't need to bar you use is insanely good, and you also get a healing on top and sustain buff.

Did you just say you don't need stamina?

You don't need all of that stamina if you have all-stats food buff, you can safely transfer half of it without risking anything.

Fawn4287 · July 2021

amir412 wrote: »

I think necro and stamden needs to get nerfed way more than mag sorcs.

I don’t think theres a single person, necro and warden players included who doesn’t think those classes need a nerf.

Stamicka wrote: »

When shields were reduced to 6 seconds and frag still stunned (Dark brotherhood/ shadows of the hist era) Sorc was in a perfect spot. Shield changes, overload changes, CP changes, they’ve all been detrimental.

Shields, especially healing ward, should’ve been left alone they were perfectly balanced. The fact that sorcs can roll more than stam builds however, that’s broken. Stam management used to be a skill gap on magic builds, this was healthy for the class and it’s also why dark conversion wasn’t OP in the past. You would risk not being able to break free if you over used the skill (you only had a Max of like 14k stam).

Frag stun could be blocked or rolled, so the frag stun made the class easier to counter, but very punishing if you did not counter it. This has been replaced with unblockable, unrollable stuns which has no place on sorc in my opinion.

Overload is a joke. The skill desyncs, and it was far more balanced in the past.

Honestly they just need to revert the class to its 2016 form. It was well balanced then.

Getting hit by max range CC for a 10k+ crit was always broken, I played magsorc at the time and still couldn’t believe how strong it was. I quickly picked up masters destro afterwqrds, which was even more annoying to play against I imagine.

Wraithseer_ESO · July 2021

I agree with the topic starter

There are so many magsorcs that can literally tank high damage builds with all the shielding and healing, and infinitely streak away as soon as they feel trouble, all while having decent burst damage.

I've seen several groups of 2-5 magsorcs that go around smallscaling and there is nothing you can do to them. Even if you catch one, others will spam matriarch healing and shower you with frags. They will streak-kite for ages until people stop chasing them, and then they will turn around no kill the most persistent pursuers.

I think gaze of sithis actually benefited magsorc more then any other class, as they can have more hp and armor, and much stronger shields while loosing basically nothing.

axi · July 2021

When it comes to dark deal I wouldn't nerf it per se but rather switch how it works. For example currently it gives 3,6k mag instantly and 2,4k within next 20 seconds. Lets switch those numbers and give lower value as instant return and higher one as periodic return.