Critical/Power Surge needs a change

Einstein_ · January 2022

Hi,

i want to make a suggestion about changeing a Sorc skill. Surge and its morphs have a fixed value which is verry old, meanwhile every class got a strong heal which scales of their stats. A few years ago the value of Surge was fine since the max stats weren't that high on other classes. But today Surge is far behind other class heals and sorc is left with spamming shields.

Critical Surge: heals 3300 everytime you crit, with a 1s CD. (only effected my % heal mulipliers) -> is not even 2k heal in PvP.
Meanwhile other classes for example Necro can have up to 10k healing ticks from the "Spirit Mender" while still have other sources of healing.

I think buffing that skill by making it scale of the highes offesive values would make sence. It also wouldn't strait up buff a tanky playstyle, since you would only gain healing while acually doing dmg. I also think it wouldn't effect PvE to much.

i think Coefficients for Critical Surge could be arround this:

0.05 Stat + 0.525 Power = Tooltipp (still the ESO loved 10.5 ratio)

i think reasonable stats of a full dmg build for PvP are 35k mag/4500SD which would lead to a 4112 tooltipp (which is halfed in PvP).

(https://esoitem.uesp.net/viewSkillCoef.php other skill coefficients)

the1andonlyskwex · January 2022

I kind of like the fact that it doesn't scale traditionally (it can still crit). It gives me a reason to build a crit-focused healer (that sacrifices max mag and spell power for more/bigger crits). It also scales off of %healing, so it helps encourage those types of builds as well.

In general, I think we need more skills with unconventional scaling, not fewer.

Vaoh · January 2022

Plenty of abilities need changes but this isn’t one of them imo. The only benefit I can see in this is buffing Sorc vamp toggle dps.

SkaraMinoc · January 2022

Surge scales with healing but that's it. It's one of the worst heals in the game.

MashmalloMan · January 2022

Careful what you wish for, I foresee this ending up in a nerf for most builds if they did go through with it.

The fact that it's flat means it only ramps up from critical chance/critical healing which is a nice synergy since it relies on crit chance to begin with..to a lesser extent, healing done/received effects it too.

I find this to be a nice design choice that helps it stand out, not many builds even bother focussing on crit chance/healing to boost their overall output.. Furthermore, this would kill any use tanks get out of the skill as they would have nowhere near enough max stats/damage to come close to what a dps gets.

You may say, well. They already have less crit chance as they're not a dps, but a counter argument is they usually have more agro or allies surrounding them to help proc Crit/Power Surge.

Just please, don't mess with what works. I no longer trust ZOS with decisions like this. It takes them years to course correct bad decisions.

Better yet, boost Sorcs innate Crit Chance by allowing the 20s minor buffs of the base classes to be hybridized, it's been a long time coming and the last thing they need to adjust to make classes feel inclusive of all roles. Currently Stam Sorcs, Mag DKs, Stam Templars and Mag Blades all miss out on a crucial boost to their base stats because of these flawed group buffs.

In regards to Power Surge, it doesn't suck because it doesn't scale.. it sucks because it only procs once every 3 seconds. If it procced every 2 seconds, it would be much more consistent. The base tooltip is a little lower, but keep in mind it's a 33s buff and procs on everything within a 18m radius. It's pretty damn insane in comparison to things like ritual, but it functions very poorly.

MashmalloMan · January 2022

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Surge scales with healing but that's it. It's one of the worst heals in the game.

I understand you're trying to illustrate a point that it's weak in comparison to other hots, but your comparing apples and oranges.. The skill lasts 33seconds long while most of those only last about 10 seconds.

The only remotely comparable skill is Alter which only carries about 200 more and is a named debuff that can't be stacked. Power Surge has no Synergy, but it does follow the player which is awesome for pvp content. But whatever, hard to compare the base skills utility, should probably focus on the Heal Per Second and Duration.

My original point since they introduced the skill change has always been to make it hit every 2 seconds instead of every 3 seconds, since nothing in the game is on a 3 second interval. It's just a dumb design and is awkward to work around. In terms of HPS it would increase it by 50%, it would also make it easier to proc. Hots that hit every 2 seconds would line up with it instead of awkwardly proccing it.. then not proccing it again for 4 seconds later which adds a 1 second downtime.

Your chart does show how pathetic Echoing Vigor and Ring of Preservation are though.. lol god awful skills.

milllaurie · January 2022

Another reason this skill is underperforming rn is that they took away crit chance from medium armor.
Crit surge used to be the main tool in stamsorc's survival toolkit but now it does barely even proc. That is why stamsorc is sitting even below magden in pvp.

Some trivia: stamsorc was the only class who suffered 0 bans on abilities in PC EU Malcolm 1v1 tournament. Even then 0 stamsorcs joined.

Brrrofski · January 2022

milllaurie wrote: »

Another reason this skill is underperforming rn is that they took away crit chance from medium armor.
Crit surge used to be the main tool in stamsorc's survival toolkit but now it does barely even proc. That is why stamsorc is sitting even below magden in pvp.

Some trivia: stamsorc was the only class who suffered 0 bans on abilities in PC EU Malcolm 1v1 tournament. Even then 0 stamsorcs joined.

Yeh, this is the main issue.

That Stam sorc has barely any crit in pvp and barely procs this.

The healing is fine. Even if it's less than 2k, it basically a "free" heal as it keeps you topped up while being aggressive.

But the lack of crit is a big issue

Einstein_ · January 2022

For Group pvp powersurge is in a good Spot.

But critsurge heals not alot compared to other class heals. Every class has a strong hot and a burstheal, for sorcs the burstheal is the shield but then there is no 2. Source of healing.

I also think its good that it would be a nerf to tanky builds, they are already tanky and dont need more heals.

SkaraMinoc · January 2022

MashmalloMan wrote: »

<snip>

I understand you're trying to illustrate a point that it's weak in comparison to other hots, but your comparing apples and oranges.. The skill lasts 33seconds long while most of those only last about 10 seconds.

The healing performance of Power Surge is terrible and only procs every 3 seconds, leaving a huge window for burst. PvP healers want the maximum amount of healing over time with the highest tick frequency to mitigate burst damage.

If you've played any amount of Team Deathmatch battlegrounds, you'll know that an entire team can die in 1 global cooldown from Colossus, Ice Comet, and Dawnbreaker all hitting at the same time. High frequency hots that heal for 2-3x the performance of Power Surge is what keeps teams alive.

When you have a skill that performs as badly as Power Surge, the 33s duration means nothing.

Einstein_ · January 2022

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

<snip>

I understand you're trying to illustrate a point that it's weak in comparison to other hots, but your comparing apples and oranges.. The skill lasts 33seconds long while most of those only last about 10 seconds.

The healing performance of Power Surge is terrible and only procs every 3 seconds, leaving a huge window for burst. PvP healers want the maximum amount of healing over time with the highest tick frequency to mitigate burst damage.

If you've played any amount of Team Deathmatch battlegrounds, you'll know that an entire team can die in 1 global cooldown from Colossus, Ice Comet, and Dawnbreaker all hitting at the same time. High frequency hots that heal for 2-3x the performance of Power Surge is what keeps teams alive.

When you have a skill that performs as badly as Power Surge, the 33s duration means nothing.

ye kinda true, but in large groups its not as bad as in <4 man groups.

but anyway make it scale with offensive stats, and not some stupid fixed value. I also wouldn't mind if its reduced to 20s instead of 33s

xylena_lazarow · January 2022

The sweeping PvE nerfs to crit chance were a significant indirect nerf to Crit Surge in PvP, and the Sorc class never received any buffs to compensate. Stamsorc still doesn't have any class crit buffs as its Minor Prophecy buff is not symmetrical (oversight or weird hill to die on, who knows). The nerf to PvP health regen was also an indirect Sorc nerf, as the class has a 20% health regen passive but no healing buff passives, and again Sorc was not buffed to compensate.

SkaraMinoc · January 2022

I wonder what the data shows on Surge usage. I'm pretty sure it's not widely used in PvP at this point. If not, this should be a signal for ZOS to give it a buff. Not sure how active they are in making class changes based on skill usage.

milllaurie · January 2022

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

I wonder what the data shows on Surge usage. I'm pretty sure it's not widely used in PvP at this point. If not, this should be a signal for ZOS to give it a buff. Not sure how active they are in making class changes based on skill usage.

Well undaunted spiders or scatter shot is even less used skill but it does not necassarily mean it needs a buff 😀

Faulgor · January 2022

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

The sweeping PvE nerfs to crit chance were a significant indirect nerf to Crit Surge in PvP, and the Sorc class never received any buffs to compensate. Stamsorc still doesn't have any class crit buffs as its Minor Prophecy buff is not symmetrical (oversight or weird hill to die on, who knows). The nerf to PvP health regen was also an indirect Sorc nerf, as the class has a 20% health regen passive but no healing buff passives, and again Sorc was not buffed to compensate.

For what it's worth, we said so at the time of every nerf to crit chance: This will nerf stam sorc survivability.

Foremost I think it needs to get the Briarheart treatment and have its cooldown removed. Not having to roll twice to get the heal (is it a crit? is it off cooldown?) would make it much more reliable.
From there, it would be much easier to adjust the magnitude according to the new crit chance values.