PTS Update 37 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

Nyxenwhite · February 2023

NECROMANCER: Necrobombing is needed in PVP to counter large groups. I understand harmony change and it is good for PVE, but it is also negatively buffing the problematic ball groups situation.

A fix to this that would make sense in both PVE/PVP situation is to buff the self-synergizing damage output of Avid Boneyard on a chance percentage (ei: when self-synergizing, you have a 25% chance to deal 20% more damage).
It would help both worlds in terms of damage outputs without being overpowered, and -although readjusted- would keep the bomber playstyle a viable option in PVP.

SORCERER: Absolutely need a burst heal, and pets are a bar-hoggin’ problem. The change to wards is nice though, and i’m happy with that.
I’d suggest ridding of one pet skill in the line, and rework the remaining one along the lines of a damage/debuff morph (offensive) and a slight HoT/buff morph (defensive).
With the now empty skill spot in the line, summon us a burst heal, please! Integrate in the morphs buffs/debuffs that sorcs lack.
Yes, you won’t be able to run a two pet build anymore, but that positively frees up a bar spot and opens up many possibilities to sorcs, as well as providing access to buffs/debufs that the community has been outcrying for.

TEMPLARS: If only ZOS would even but slightly buff jabs, I think even the entirety of Cyrodiil would take a moment of truce to rejoice.

AND PLEASE, above all else, please seriously take the PVP heal-stacking feedback into consideration and apply a same-skill stack limit Battle Spirit situations. Two or three radiating regens per player is plentiful.

Edit: awesome job @ZOS_Kevin on the communication

Evrieleth · February 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Backlash and morphs are seriously underperforming in PvP right now. Templar's burst ability should be hitting for more than 2-5k damage against players. Please look at the several threads talking about how weak Templar is currently and address the issue properly for week three of PTS, or look at the several comments on this thread. Nerf beam too, please.

Nightblade is still overperforming due to the unique 10% damage buff attached to concealed weapon.

Sorc changes don't address the issues with the class in PvP.

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

I returned to the game after a long break and always played a stamplar as a main. Templar's damage is non existent, jabs losing 25% of it's damage on a GCD, the nerf to burning light which once could proc two times on a jab's cast, backlash and its morphs hitting for less than a spammable in PVP.

I've always played my stamplar both PVE and PVP, when it was good and when it was bad, but right now it's just torture to play.

From a PVP perspective there's no point in using jabs when dizzying swing is way more efficient:

- Jabs has 3 instances of damage which crit separately, so to get a jab to deal the same amount of damage of a critical dizzying swing you should be really lucky on those crits, that's why building into high crit is the only way to even try to get some damage from its defining class ability, making it very one dimensional
- The amount of roots and snares makes jabs a really bad skill to use on the less mobile class of the game, meanwhile you can basically 360noscope with dizzying swing
- Burning light being nerfed and proccing on every damage makes totally unnecessary to use aedric spear's skills

I've always enjoyed stamplar over other stamina characters because of jabs, it was fun to use and gave the class that identity that i never found in others stamina specs. It felt like a templar, now it's your generic stamina class spamming dizzying but with way less burst potential due to backlash being completely useless in pvp.

Regarding Backlash: it's damage pales in comparison to other delayed burst abilities. Hitting for 4k max on a build with 7k+ Spell Damage and 23k+ penetration is ridiculous, dizzying hits for more than double. I don't know if there's some issues with it being double gutted by battle spirit or what, it's just a wasted slot at this point.

From a PVE perspective instead i think that increasing jabs damage to what once was and giving some love to backlash could actually bring the templar on the same level as DK so we would not see only one class running trials.

Finally i think that the class is in desperate need of a complete revamp, giving it back its identity (i.e. giving back major mending now that even NBs have minor mending)

I already opened a thread with some suggestions that could be, in my opinion, a good starting point to start improve the class without major ovehauls, so it could even be done before update 37 goes live, and bring it on the same level as other classes. You can find it here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/627121/how-to-fix-templar#latest

Regarding sorcerers i think they're fine in PVE, maybe annoying to play due to being forced into using a double pet build. While in PVP i can only speak from a stamsorc perspective and while it's true that healing is not that great, mobility is amazing and damage is good even if still lower than NBs, Wardens and DKs. Overall it's still fun to play both PVE and PVP even if it doesn't feel as strong as the top 3.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe · February 2023

@ZOS_Kevin

Concerning Sorcerers: I would like to suggest taking some of the power out of the pets/summoning aspect of sorcerers, and redistributing that instead to the rest of the sorcerer kit.
My reasoning: reliance on pets are one of sorcerers' greatest weaknesses in pvp. The pets are easily killed, they're the only access to an instant burst heal, and they take up far too much valuable bar space. It's far too much to sacrifice for very little return.
On the PvE side, this would be a welcome change for many, as it would also open up more access to highly craved build variety on the sorcerer class. Pet builds should be viable, but absolutely not leagues above their no-pet cousins.

Concerning Templars: I once again ask, please, that the team would consider an option to have our old Jabs animation back. I cannot even enjoy my characters anymore.
On the technical side, as others have noted: Templars lack burst in pvp. Far too much power has been taken from the kit and given to the execute, which creates an unreliable and far too niche playstyle.

Thank you so much for the responses, and I hope this feedback is useful to the team.

Tannus15 · February 2023

@AdamLAD while these suggestions might be great for PvP, some of them are terrible for PvE, such as changing Expert Mage to max mag instead of weapon / spell damage.
We don't need stronger shields in PvE so we'd just be losing dps. Proc sets only scale from weapon/spell damage so this loss would be significant, even if balanced by some dps increase from the higher mag pool. Secondly this would leave max stam build out in the cold with no real benefit from this passive.

Raevenglass · February 2023

My main is a sorcerer - only because when I started ESO, that was the class I thought seemed the closest to what I would want to play in a role-playing game like this one. I learned everything on my sorc.

So my issues are:
1. Sorcs aren't sought after for Trials and such because other classes bring so much more for the group. Why can't Sorcs have more sought after class-only buffs/debuffs?

2. I don't play much PVP but you can see a similar issue from the PVP players in that Sorcs don't seem to have a lot to offer in PVP either.

3. I honestly don't mind the pets. If ZOS is trying for more accessibility (ie helping players who can't LA weave a 2 bar build well for "reasons" (arthritis, ADD, you name it) then making a rotation a bit easier with pets seems like a nice thing. Especially for an Oakensoul build - but make a no pet build work for us all too!

4. My biggest whine (and yes it's petty) - could you please, pretty please make playing with a staff cool again? I really hate using daggers and greatswords on my Sorc because the best parses use cleave and stampede. Yuck.

@ZOS_Kevin thanks for the communication. It means a lot.

vulonsil · February 2023

DISCLAIMER: I don't usually bother keeping up with the changes happening, so I get most of my information secondhand from endgame players who actually pay attention and discuss it. As a result, I have some understanding of how things work, but not on the level of this discussion. However, as a mid-tier player (vet trials, DLC HM, PvP etc), here's how I feel about certain things.

RE: Sorcerers

I started ESO playing Templar and Nightblade and got used to good overall heals, so I find playing Sorc difficult because of the lack of heals. Everyone always says use crit surge, but it only works when you deal damage, not when you are avoiding damage and can't do any yourself. I will die in more difficult content if I don't have a non-damage-based heal. I assume that in trials with actual healers it's fine, but in dungeons etc people generally don't use healers unless they are going for more difficult HM or trifecta runs. I haven't even bothered trying most non-HM vet DLC with sorc because the gameplay just doesn't fit my style.
In PvP I feel that Sorc is completely useless - I can't survive and the only plausible way I could see of making it work would be some cheesy pet build, which is just not fun. Also can't see anything with flabberton covering half my view. (Maybe with Mara it could work - haven't tried that.)
In PvE I don't like Sorc both because of the lack of non-damage-based heals (Vigor only gets you so far and is impossible to use on sorc anyway with so few slots because of pets) and because you have to use pets - esp. Tormentor with its flappy wings is distracting. (I liked Sorc when I used Matriarch, but it's not great dps, so it's frowned upon in group play.) A functional non-pet or one pet version of Sorc could be fun to try. I was planning on trying Stamsorc because it might actually have fit my style, but it got nerfed before I had the chance, so I decided just to not bother. (Apparently HA-Sorc works atm, but I find that sort of gameplay boring. I like mechs and movement, not stand-and-parse-to-sleep.)

RE: Templar

I was going to post a proper analysis of how Templar feels to me now but started second-guessing myself because I haven't played Templar a lot recently outside of a healer role. I guess that says something on it's own.
My main (mostly quester now) is NB and Templar was my second main. Used to be my PvP main, but I've also played DK, NB and recently Warden a decent amount of time in PvP.)
In PvP on the level I play (9 res gladiators, PvDoor, casual zerg vs zerg, occasional smallscaling but not too serious / not with premade matching set ups, occasional solo BG and very rarely group BG) I feel that it works fine after I got rid of jabs (useless now) - at least in a group situation where I mainly heal and do aoe damage etc. However, if I'm solo, I die fast because I have basically negative damage - so unless I have someone with higher dps with me to actually kill people, any players can kill me eventually because I just can't beat their heals. Before, I could. On another class, I can.
Playing healer with Templar has been rather fun, but it would be nice to run as DD again at some point. Currently, it's not really plausible because other classes are just better. (At least DK is fun to play atm, though heals are a bit of a problem like with Sorc. I liked Warden for a while, but the bear prog is a bit annoying - remembering to summon it and having to control it all the time.)

RE: Two-handed

Word is that two-handed weapons are doing a comeback. If this is actually the case, will you please first fix the bugs related to them when using E. If you have a two-handed weapon in your hands and try to a) loot a corpse, b) get a survey c) activate anything else with E, it usually doesn't work unless you weapon swap, unsheathe and dodge roll or do some other quirky little dances to the aedra who then have pity on you and fix it for you. This has been going on for very long and I was happy to finally get rid of it since I've been switching to staves more now, so I was not happy to hear that E proge is coming back. Also, stampede is a double-edged sword because while it is fun to play with (Blackheart harpies, anyone?) it can also get you killed easily in more difficult content and is apparently not very good right now.

Other:

- Can we get field of view even further? I would like to see mechs and where people are better, especially when healing. People have bigger screens now and it's adjustable anyway, so it should be ok?
- Can you please do something about being forced to first-person view when near a wall? (I get screen sickness so the field of view changing much makes me nauseous, it's why for a long time I played only games which were from "above".)

Excited for Necrom and more Hermamora!

Pelanora · February 2023

Pelanora wrote: »

That's because they start consultation too late in the whole process. Consultation starts with the discussion of the problem, not with proposals of solutions. The consultation is to agree the problem is well understood first, rather than just how to tweak and improve the proposed solution. That way everyone can be sure a proposed solution is to the right problem or a problem rightly understood, and therefore, is likely to work.

Grand reveals for the chapter is fine, for combat changes, it doesn't work.

Consultation goes: propose issues, discuss; propose solutions, discuss; implement; discuss results.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

This is great to see! This is just what i was saying.

First thing is for everyone to be sure that THE PROBLEM is well understood well defined, everyone agrees on the reasons for it, the effects of it, the nature of it.

This is all before you move to thinking about what possible solutions there might be, and for sure before settling in a change and doing the coding and design work!

Not only is that more likely to resolve the problems with good solutions, and so is cheaper for everyone, it ensures all stakeholders are behind what you do. Everyone comes on the journey.

I really hope this continues.

Ankael07 · February 2023

Few suggestions to improve Necromancer;

1) Better pet AI. Sorcerers already have this mechanic with a control button or medium/heavy attack. As a Necromancer it feels weird not being able to control my Ghost, Skeletal Mage or Animated Blastbones ulti

2) 2 versions for Reanimation ulti (like Nightblade's Incap) where you can raise 3 blastbones for 200 ulti as AOE around the caster. At 320 you can also raise players from 41 meters away

3) Return the unique Burning status effect from before. Necro used to have a ''blue burning'' status effect that would stack with the regular burning. Maybe it can be implemented like the burning light passive of Templar

4) Fix the plethora of bugs. Im sure the company has a mountain of bug reports from Necromancers.

Pelanora · February 2023

Because someone mentioned it.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/618634/class-access-to-named-buffs-debuffs

acastanza_ESO · February 2023

Everything @AdamLAD said is compltely on-point. Cosigned, 100%.
I would note though that we do have access to Major VItality through Restraining Prison, which is IMO a legitimately good skill, but the duration on it is tied to enemies hit and is, frankly, pitiful. Not to mention that with our extremely limited barspace, we basically never get to slot it.
Also in that spreadsheet above, we only get Major Berserk from an Ultiamte, and we aren't even guaranteed to benefit from it ourselves since an ally has to activate the synergy first.

Turtle_Bot · February 2023

Syiccal wrote: »

proteinexe wrote: »

Well to put it bluntly (for PvP);

Templars are now fairly useless. Backlash change was needed but the average damage done in PvP has gone from a strong 12k - 15k to 2k - 4k (if you’re lucky), making it the same damage as a spammable. The potential killing power isnt there anymore and there are better healers out there with more utility to offer.

Necromancers now dont have the potential synergy power they once had, reducing them back to a side character class where it’s ‘cute’ to role play in PvP but realistically they dont stand a chance against most stronger classes.

Nightblades are in a good position but because they’re a head above other classes, they’re overtuned. Buff the other classes, dont nerf nightblades.

Wardens are also in a decent spot, you now have frost wardens and you have interesting gameplay but when you inevitably nerf polar wind/arctic blast, dont destroy it. Tiny nerfs please.

Dragonknights are potentially too strong. They spit out damage without intention and they’re incredibly good at survival. Their class utility is very high and they don’t necessarily have a counter.

Sorcerers are my biggest concern. Changes to shields was nice, now give them a burst heal that’s effective like you did with Healthy Offering for Nightblades. Dont make it mandatory for Sorcerers to have to wear Mara’s to survive, that shouldnt be how a class has to function to stand a chance.

I've never understood this argument for sorcs to have a burst heal, thier bust heal is effectively shields which protect HoTs. A shield worth 5-7k is about the same as typical non crit burst heal of templar for example. What sorcs need isn't burst heals it's for shields to crit like burst heals

Shields need more than just being able to crit like heals. The other 2 factors they are missing compared to heals are:
- They don't get block mitigation if you block while they are active.
- They don't count towards the "health percentage" when getting hit by execute abilities meaning those abilities will still deal their increased execute damage often going through the shield in 1 cast.

This means that using a heal, you get to reduce incoming damage by up to 90% (or whatever the block mitigation cap is) while also increasing your actual health value to bring yourself out of that high pressure execution range, where as when shielding, yes you get "extra health", but you aren't reducing that incoming damage with block mitigation so the damage still hits that shield at full power, which more often than not deletes the entire shield within 1 GCD, especially if it's hit by an execute while you're on low health, they delete shields as fast as (or faster) than you can cast them meanwhile all the other damage (DoTs, AoE, other enemies etc) are still chunking what's left of your health bar.

to make shields the equivalent of healing, shields need to work with block mitigation and count towards the total health pool when used to bring you out of execution range, both of these would make shields insanely strong. Hence why just give sorc an actual burst heal that's not tied to a cast time or a killable 2018 pet.

If they're so concerned about shields + heals stacking being too strong, make 1 morph of the shield into a proper burst heal, that way sorcs can choose to keep the shield/max stats build or switch to a normal healing/damage build.

fizl101 · February 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Backlash and morphs are seriously underperforming in PvP right now. Templar's burst ability should be hitting for more than 2-5k damage against players. Please look at the several threads talking about how weak Templar is currently and address the issue properly for week three of PTS, or look at the several comments on this thread. Nerf beam too, please.

Nightblade is still overperforming due to the unique 10% damage buff attached to concealed weapon.

Sorc changes don't address the issues with the class in PvP.

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

I can see feedback from the PVP side, and some of those comments are relevant for PVE too

On the PVE side they are really lacking from the point of view of benefit of putting into a group in vet/hm trials. With the hybridization they aren't required as you will 100% have DK in the group to give brutality. Even before hybridization optimised teams were only looking for 1 templar. These days if you look at compositions for dd you are looking something like 6 dk, a necro and a flex spot and healers a warden and probably nightblade.

With regards to jabs, not only has the animation changed very significantly (and personally not in a positive way) but when you are finding that in order to get a decent parse you are using flurry, silver shards or even a skill like templar shards shows that it is underperforming in comparison, especially with the change to templar passives only proccing every 500ms whereas it was tightly coupled previously with the jabs playstyle.

There are other threads in pts that probably put into words better some of the interactions between skills

Tannus15 · February 2023

here are some ideas.

put major prophecy / savegry on bound armour (both morphs)
change the stupid twilight tormentor enrage that no uses to be major berserk
change haunting curse to 3 sec and 6 sec like shalks instead of 3 sec and 12 sec
change endless fury to be a scaling execute and leave mages wrath as the health gate execute
change the lightning splash synergy back to the live value and instead buff the AOE ticks by 20%
increase the damage for crystal weapon because you lose access to frag proc if you run it. you literally have to sacrifice the biggest dps skill in the sorc skill kit to access a basic spammable. It should be an OP spammable because of this hidden cost!
increase the weapon / spell damage passive to 3% to match fighters guild passives

Turtle_Bot · February 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Backlash and morphs are seriously underperforming in PvP right now. Templar's burst ability should be hitting for more than 2-5k damage against players. Please look at the several threads talking about how weak Templar is currently and address the issue properly for week three of PTS, or look at the several comments on this thread. Nerf beam too, please.

Nightblade is still overperforming due to the unique 10% damage buff attached to concealed weapon.

Sorc changes don't address the issues with the class in PvP.

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

@ZOS_Kevin Thanks for passing these concerns on, as I previously noted a couple of times in this topic thread, Sorcs are underperforming in pvp and when using non pet focused builds in pve due to the following few points. It's a bit of a long read and I have tried to make it easier to follow with the spoiler tabs, so hopefully it will help to narrow down the 3 main issues with the class and help provide some direction to focus on when it comes to designing and implementing fixes.

1. The class defense is just not up to par with other classes. Shields as a mechanic are severely outdated compared to what healing can do and it's not just the way that they scale.
Comparing healing to shields, here's the following differences

Heals:

- can be block-cast which provides a huge amount of mitigation of incoming damage
- they also draw you out of the high pressure execute threshold meaning that combined with block mitigation you can reduce and even prevent the execute bonus damage from triggering.
- can critically heal to provide much bigger healing.
- buffed by raw damage instead of max stats, which is much more efficient, so building for damage also simultaneously builds for better healing as well, thus being able to effectively utilize the latest and best sets that scale with damage to reach their full potential without any sacrifice in either offense or defense capabilities.
- Innumerable CP, named buffs and armor sets that increase healing done/healing taken and also provide many unique extra abilities/functions/bonuses when healing.
- reactive in nature, so they don't require pre-casting to be the most effective and as such tend to be much more effective at recovering from high pressure life or death situations.

Shields:

- don't gain the block mitigation, meaning that any damage that hits the shield will hit at full power.
- don't factor into the health threshold for calculating execute damage meaning that execute abilities will proc their bonus damage and very often straight up delete the shield as fast as or faster than the shield can be recast all while the other damage instances are still hitting the sorcerers health pool bringing them even closer to death.
- cannot crit to increase the size of the shield like heals can.
- scales off max magicka (and now max health), meaning that to make shields worthwhile to run, you are investing into either max magicka (which scales horribly for damage due to the changes made a while ago to how damage and healing and proc sets very efficiently scale with raw damage compared to max stats) or you're forced to build into max health which makes you tanky, but again doesn't do anything to help with damage. Simply put, the class is forced to choose, build for its defense or its offense, but not both, where as other classes can build purely for damage and at the same time increase their defenses drastically via much bigger heals.
- Very limited CP options to buff this mechanic and dedicated monster sets (infernal guardian) requires damage shields that scale off max stats to proc it, but the set itself scales off damage instead of max stats meaning it will be a very weak proc that is not worth using.
- proactive in nature, meaning they need to be pre-cast to attempt to prevent damage instead of allowing you to recover from damage making them much worse when trying to recover from those life or death situations.

I bring these up, not because I want healing to be nerfed to be as weak as shields, but to show that outside of a vacuum, there are multiple outside factors in the core combat systems of ESO that just make shields much worse as a defensive option compared to healing which is what every other class is able to effectively and efficiently utilize that sorcerer currently cannot.

As for the class heals themselves
pets

- the clannfear is a nice PVE heal for tanks as it scales off max health
- matriarch it nice in PVE as its a group heal that is very strong
- but both of these abilities are tied to pets that have their stats based on 2018 ESO combat metrics and as such both of these pets are simply a liability in PVP
- both of these abilities take up multiple bar slots to use them which heavily limits how flexible sorcerers can build if they want to utilize either (or both) of these abilities.
- both of these abilities have a 2GCD summon time which can be interrupted and when interrupted they hard lock for 3GCD leaving a sorc without a heal for up to 8GCD (1.5-2GCD for the first attempted summon, 3 GCD for the interrupt hard lock which also stuns the sorcerer, 1.5-2 GCD for the second summon attempt and another final GCD for the actual heal) so with how high and free damage has gotten over the past few years, having no heal for upwards of 8 seconds is a literal death sentence in PVP, especially with how easy to kill those pets are now and the fact that they heavily restrict build/ability flexibility when using them.

dark conversion

This leaves the class with dark conversion as its main burst/self heal for PVP which has its own issues.
- this ability and its morphs are flat heals that don't scale with anything
- they also have very low tool tips for a burst heal, due to this lack of scaling. I.e. the tooltip of this ability is the same as the actual post battle spirit heal value of other class burst heals and as such once battle spirit is taken into account on this ability they only heal for half the amount a burst heal should be healing for.
- This ability also has a cast time on it meaning it is a delayed heal and not an instant burst heal, it is also interruptible (see issue with summoning twilight and clanfear above) where if it is interrupted, it leaves the class without a burst heal for 5GCD (1 GCD for first attempted cast, 3GCD for the interrupt hard lock which again also stuns, then another 1 GCD for the second cast), this, while not quite as long as the pet summon, is still just as deadly with the current high damage available in the game.
- due to having a cast time, this ability cannot be block cast meaning that while you are trying to heal, you are vulnerable to all CC/interrupts and cannot gain the very strong block mitigation to reduce damage taken while waiting for the heal to go through.
This ability is supposed to be the class's sustain ability, but due to how terrible the pets are for PVP, the class is forced into using this ability as its main self heal.

There's also the issue of healing over time, albeit not as urgent of an issue, but more one that exacerbates the main issue with defense (burst healing) mentioned above.
Critical surge is very strong in PVE due to how infrequent and slow npcs are with their heavy hits that require a burst heal to push through. This allows plenty of time for the sorcerer to stay on the offense and heal back up with this ability before the next heavy hit is thrown at them.
However, in PVP, high damage burst is much more frequent and comes in much faster and more frequently and this exposes how infrequent critical surge is as a heal over time, where there is much less time to go on the offense to trigger this abilities healing when under pressure which is when this healing is needed the most.
This is less of an issue due to access to vigor and regen abilities and sets like Mara's Balm that helps with this, but it still becomes a factor when under pressure and only serves to exacerbate the issues surrounding the burst heals I have gone through above.

2. The class lacks in access to buffs and debuffs and those it does have access to are restricted behind requiring allies to use a synergy to potentially obtain or are on abilities that have no use due to a complete lack of power

The class is currently tied for the lowest amount of total named buffs/debuffs on any class alongside necro with less than 1/2 of the total named buffs of the current top classes in DK and NB.
Important buffs are tied to abilities that require others to use the synergies (berserk is tied to atro synergy meaning no self access to this powerful buff that DK are currently getting for free on a spammable gap closer that also grants major expedition), or they are tied to abilities that are severely underpowered making them very difficult to try and fit onto a build (mending, a healer buff, is on an extremely short duration that is tied to restraining prison which is a ground based immobilize that is useless in pve due to messing with tanks CC/pull and boss immunity to immobilize, and it doesn't do enough to warrant using in PVP since it only immobilizes and does nothing else, not even a DoT, debuff or synergy whereas DK talons (another AoE immobilise ability) has all 3 of those effects on top of having better synergy with the class's passives since it deals flame damage).

The class is also missing many staple buffs and debuffs, most importantly critical chance and critical damage modifiers.
- Major prophecy/savagery would go a long way towards tying critical surge (the class heal over time that requires dealing critical damage to proc its heal) in with the rest of the kit and increase its reliability.
- Staple debuffs such as breach, which can be overcome currently by running elemental susceptibility, but what happens when that skill inevitably gets nerfed and is no longer worth running?
- The class also lacks any sort of critical damage modifiers and considering it relies so heavily at the moment on proccing critical surge for healing over time, as well as granting minor prophecy to the group, you would think that it would have something in this department to facilitate a spell critical based playstyle to be a spell based counterpart to the NB physical critical playstyle.

Compare this to NB and DK which get a bunch of very powerful buffs (major berserk, unique +10% damage done (a stacking major berserk), unique +20% damage taken on enemy, free sustain, additional effects such as stun, minor/major expedition) for free by simply slotting some of their best abilities, in their passives or on abilities that have good uses, but were lacking in terms of raw power.

3. This one is more of a general update to the class, but there are a lot of passives that are either doing the same thing or they don't fit with the classes playstyle.

- Daedric protection grants +20% to health and stamina recovery while a daedric summoning ability is slotted and capacitor grants +10% to magicka recovery, meanwhile nightblade gets +15% to all 3 recoveries just for having 1 passive unlocked. This double up of passives hurts the class, since it takes 2 passives to do the same thing that 1 passive does for other classes.
- The persistence passive reduces the cost of your next active ability after blocking an attack, but sorc has no inherent mitigation passives outside of activating bound aegis which is only ever used on tank builds, so the sorc is reliant on avoiding attacks instead of blocking them which makes this passive almost entirely useless for the class. It also doesn't help when shields don't get block mitigation meaning that when you shield up there's no point to also block because it doesn't do anything, meaning that you won't trigger this passive even if you are playing defensively with shields.

Some things to consider when looking to solve these issues, I will leave the specifics to you guys to discuss, but these are the most balanced ideas I can think of that won't put the class into overpowered territory.
Please note that it won't take much (if any) in terms of numerical buffs to help bring the class into a good spot, and with the directions for fixes in the spoiler tab below taken into account, it would be more than acceptable to tone down the numerical values on some of the class abilities with small tweaks if they are overperforming.

Direction to take defense (healing)
- Make 1 morph of conjured ward into a proper self targeting burst heal on par with healthy offering that has no cast time and keep the other morph as a damage shield. By doing this, you give sorcerer players a choice with their builds, they can continue to play the current shield playstyle or they can switch to a traditional burst heal instead, while not being able to stack both abilities in the same build.

Passives to look into tidying up while simultaneously providing much needed buff/debuff access.
- Combine the daedric protection and capacitor recovery passives into 1 single passive and make the new passive into a passive based around critical damage or critical chance modifiers.
- Find a way to incorporate major prophecy/savagery into the class kit on a skill that is usable in both pve and pvp that is not tied to pets (bound armor and morphs or lightning form and morphs seems fairly fitting as both are definitely usable on most builds but both are slightly behind other equivalent class abilities which just provide so much more comparatively).
- Change the persistence passive to work better with how the class tries to defend itself, tying it to dodge or block would help with this as it will keep it viable for tanks, but also allow it to be used by non-tank builds as well.

Also, as stated before, breach is not as important with elemental susceptibility being in a good spot right now, but if that skill ever gets nerfed this will become an issue for the class in the future.

One final point, and less to do with sorcerer itself but something that needs to be considered with how it is to be looked at when trying to balance its kit.

Streak while still being a very solid ability, the mist form changes now allow every class to have access to what is essentially a pre-nerfed ball of lightning that also provides much better passives/buffs (which I do like the new mist form by the way) as well as access to a lot of free movement speed through CP, swift traits, major and minor expedition on cheap skills (race against time, refreshing path, concealed weapon, etc), the sorcerers best defense (mobility), has had its effectiveness significantly reduced over the past few years.
I want to note this, because many players still like to think of streak in terms of 2018 ESO when mobility and movement speed were extremely hard to access for most classes, and as such, streaks mobility was much stronger as a defensive tool, whereas in 2023 it has been relegated into primarily being an offensive AoE stun to try and help land a burst combo or help set up for a coordinated group ultimate dump while hoping you can streak an enemy and stun them long enough to attempt to get away to have time to recover (which is very unreliable and buggy in poor performance/lag). Not saying that streak or mist form need to be changed, but just that this new "streak light" needs to be taken into account when looking at comparing sorcerers defensive kit to other classes defensive kit as mobility is much less of a factor now.

Once again, thankyou for taking the time to listen to my feedback and concerns over the class that I have put together through the last few months by communicating and discussing them with many sorcerer mains.
Hopefully these 3 points can help you guys to focus in on the issues that sorcerer faces and can give you a direction to take current/future fixes, that will help bring the class into 2023 eso and allow for an easier time balancing the class via small numerical tweaks instead of trying to fix poor functionality with huge misdirected numerical/functionality swings that rarely last more than 1 patch before being over-reverted leaving the class in an even worse spot.

AdamLAD · February 2023

Tannus15 wrote: »

@AdamLAD while these suggestions might be great for PvP, some of them are terrible for PvE, such as changing Expert Mage to max mag instead of weapon / spell damage.
We don't need stronger shields in PvE so we'd just be losing dps. Proc sets only scale from weapon/spell damage so this loss would be significant, even if balanced by some dps increase from the higher mag pool. Secondly this would leave max stam build out in the cold with no real benefit from this passive.

I would keep the passive exactly the same but ADD the max magicka on top if you read it correctly

Thraben · February 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

To add additional feedback from dev, Harmony was being used in ways outside the intended goals of rewarding group play. Additionally, dev has noted that Necromancers being used as a "bomb" class was outside of the intended scope of play and created a unhealthy play environment.

With that context, we are happy to relay additional questions and/or feedback to dev regarding the this change to Harmony.

When you create a group for PvP group play, you generally design your expected damage output around skills that can be coordinated: Skills like Deep Fissure, Proxy, synergies, and Ultimates. Proxy and ultimates can be provided by all classes (as does Whirling Blades), so we can ignore them.

Right now on the live server there is a trade-off between Deep Fissure and synergies: Both have roughly the same impact, so you can decide whether you want to have more wardens in a group, or more synergy providing classes.

With the Harmony changes, synergies are getting outperformed by Deep Fissure, so a group is incentivised to stack wardens, whereas on the live servers there is a place for other classes: A group of 3 Wardens and one DK (for buffing and support) will always beat a group of 4 different classes all other things equal (on live servers, a Synergy group of 1 DK, 1 Necro, 1 Templar, 1 Sorc might actually beat them).

The consequence is that classes other than Warden (well, and one lonely DK) will be replaced. This is not even a pure theory, because this was the Meta before Harmony was introduced, both in battleground and in Cyro group play.

A less destructive option would be to disallow crits on synergies: It's not the 11k Grave- Robber people hate, it's the 20k+ one.

Thraben · February 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

Sorcerers:

Problem: Sorcerers are not able to reliably kill targets that are tanky enough.

Evaluation: Generally, a Sorc has to make a decision: Do I want to kill squishy stuff quickly, and then port away, or do I want to be able to take on serious opposition? I think this base design is correct. Either glass canon or ... well, and here we have the problem: PetSorcs have been orginally designed to be tanky enough to deal with more serious threats. But will a PetSorc beat a normal 40k health brawler DK? Unlikely.

Solution: The Skill Volatile Familiar is quite bad: It does not enough damage to justify having it on 2 bars, and the stun at the end is meaningless when the duration is 20+ seconds. I suggest giving it an explosion when it despawns (either because it died, or because you have switched to a bar where you haven't it slotted).

This explosion could either:

(1) become stronger the more damage the scamp has done before
(2) or zap away a percentage of the other players' Magicka and Stamina

Both options create a higher skill cealing and won't have much influence on the class balance as a whole, but would give Sorcs an option for standing their ground.

Thraben · February 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Additionally, dev has seen Necromancers used as a "bomb" class and this is outside of the intended scope of play. It contributes to creating an unhealthy play environment.

However, we would like to hear from you regarding what you think the class needs. What do you think the class needs and how are you coming to that determination? Let us know - this will help give the dev team a better constructive perspective from all of you.

Firstly, there is no easy fix. There are too many things here that need to be changed to make the class viable in PvP.

Emergency fix 1: Stalking Blast Bones now does up to 100% more damage depending on its distance. Furthermore, the damage is independent of the actual animation, i.e. the skill works like Haunting Curse and the Blast Bones themselves are just optical fluff.

Emergency fix 2: In the Beta, Ruinous Skythe had an Healing Absorbtion effect on it. Put it back onto the skill, and Necroes might have a chance in Duelling situations against certain classes; additionally it is a useful tool in group play to curb the mass Vigor/ Rapid Regen spamming that plagues Cyrodiil.

Emergency fix 3: Tether skills: Multiple tethers should now be possible, and they should require no targetting; instead, all corpses in an area around the Necro should now be tethered to the Necro by simply pressing the skill.

Cast_El · February 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Backlash and morphs are seriously underperforming in PvP right now. Templar's burst ability should be hitting for more than 2-5k damage against players. Please look at the several threads talking about how weak Templar is currently and address the issue properly for week three of PTS, or look at the several comments on this thread. Nerf beam too, please.

Nightblade is still overperforming due to the unique 10% damage buff attached to concealed weapon.

Sorc changes don't address the issues with the class in PvP.

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

Hi @ZOS_Kevin , here the PB with templar: to make a kill in PvP you need burst and backlash don't work as it should be.

-to be effective with backlash skill, you need to deal a lot of damage in 6secondes window and don't swap to your defense bar. Even if you manage to do it you can hit your opponent for 5-6k. This skill is so bad 😞 . The base damage should be higher.
-burning light nerfed in U35 by 30%(not sure about the exact number)
-jabs snare nerf yo 0,5sec. When you jab the enemy just go away, the snare doesn't work and they take one or two hit. And the damage is nerf by major evasion. And the damage is bad.

I use balorgh, clever alchemist or sthun, olorime, markyn.

Even with this full damage build jabs damage and backlash are bad.

Being main pvp templar for 2 year, 1 year in 1Vx gameplay style

How to solve this without change everything:
Increase the jab snare duration to 1 second like it was before and base damage by 10%, increase backlash base damage by 20%, those small changes will be very welcome and won't require to change everything, add buff,etc

Cast_El · February 2023

Class like DK, Warden, nightblade, sorc(Stam) can wear 1 defensive set and they will hit harder than templar wearing full damage set

Syiccal · February 2023

@ZOS_Kevin please can you comment on templar, its been great seing dev thoughts on dk and necro but hearing nothing about why templar is getting no love is very frustrating for alot of us..also sorcs for the sorc mains..thanks

TechMaybeHic · February 2023

Syiccal wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin please can you comment on templar, its been great seing dev thoughts on dk and necro but hearing nothing about why templar is getting no love is very frustrating for alot of us..also sorcs for the sorc mains..thanks

He did. Look 2 posts above yours.

Syiccal · February 2023

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

Syiccal wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin please can you comment on templar, its been great seing dev thoughts on dk and necro but hearing nothing about why templar is getting no love is very frustrating for alot of us..also sorcs for the sorc mains..thanks

He did. Look 2 posts above yours.

Yea he just asked for more clarity which is not acknowledging why no love is given to those classes. Templar and sorc concerns giving reasons why they need fixes/buffs litter the forums in just about every way.

Lucifer9th · February 2023

@ZOS_Kevin, some ideas to make the pvp content more healthy and reduce the tanky meta which increase the lag on server :

- hardcap on Health points to 30k (except for ult/emperor which increase health point)
- make all heals scale with max ressources only
- increase the fatigue cost of rolldodge
- put a fatigue cost on block to avoid permablock bot (in pvp only)

MachineGod · February 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, we chatted with the dev team to follow up on some of the player commentary around Harmony. First to frame the conversation, we want to reiterate the dev team's thoughts around the change, which was highlighted in the patch notes.

"This trait is currently far too niche for its intended use and is meant to be an enhancer to the Undaunted skill line and group play, but ironically is being utilized more by solo builds in PvP to instantly obliterate large groups. We’re shifting this trait over to be more recovery focused, which has much more use potential between PvE and PvP, rather than trying to continue making a value that doesn’t add more insta-gibbing potential but still has impact enough in PvE.""

To add additional feedback from dev, Harmony was being used in ways outside the intended goals of rewarding group play. Additionally, dev has noted that Necromancers being used as a "bomb" class was outside of the intended scope of play and created a unhealthy play environment.

With that context, we are happy to relay additional questions and/or feedback to dev regarding the this change to Harmony.

So a couple of points to pull from this.

1. Necro being used as a "Bomb" class is not the first time of a class being used as such a role or playstyle. In fact Dragon Knights using "Corrosive" bomb's on flags is a thing, albeit less popular. Another from that class is the infamous Leap bomb. Nightblade bombers have always had this style as well. With that said, are the dev's indirectly advocating these playstyles Only for nightblade? This deviates away from "play how you want". Does this also mean existing bomber styles are completely fine from a gameplay perspective and it's just necro that's not allowed? Are the other classes doing it also "unhealthy"?

2. There will be no wide scale adoption from PvE/P for this new trait. There is simply no need for recovery from the types of groups currently using these. In fact the Necromancers using this are a subset of the 2 larger groups actually using this which is organized 12 man and smaller 3-6 man groups looking to pump out massive damage in small time frames. The new trait as it stands is not good for anyone. Even for solo necromancers. Adding recovery does not incentivise or distinguish Group from solo play. If the original and intended goal was group play then harmony should do something to synergise with the group not simply "Bigger number better" which seems to be the case with adding recovery. The Dev's managed to create an entire playstyle around this trait. It seems wasted to simply throw it away because of quite frankly obscure given reasons.

3. Why not simply change the way graveyards operate? Why re-work a trait and change 1000's of players gear across multiple classes and groups because of a single instance? It simply does not make any sense. This is a complete overreaction to a niche problem.

LittlePinkDot · February 2023

LukosCreyden wrote: »

The harmony adjustment deletes the only viable pvp build necromancer has.

Also, necromancer has struggled for a long time with clunky skills, specifically blast bones. The whole class revolves around babysitting this one skill, which makes it awfully fiddly to play in pve and, when combined with a rather slow spammable, very weak in pvp.
Blastbones needs to be reworked to be on the same level of effectiveness as warden's scorch. The skulls spammable needs to be faster or undodgeable in pvp.
Combined with other issues such as poor cc and lack of buffs, necromancer is becoming very unappealing for both pve and pvp. The nice aesthetics cannot carry it through its clunky gameplay.

Going to be honest, I am really wanting to play the game more, but am honestly struggling to find a class I actually like.

Hera Mora cultist mage doesn't interest me, the theme is too specific.

Sorcerer is a pet class with nothing else going for it due to lacking passives. Bring back no pet sorc!

Templar is in a hole, still bleeding profusely from jabs and other nerfs. Also, that animation is still bad.

I personally do not like the defence buffs on DK, i really dislike how they look.

NB has incredibly subdued spell effects, making it hard to see if the skill activated in the first place.

Warden as a frost mage is pretty cool, but honestly I'm waiting for the nerf hammer to come and destroy that playstyle, or the class as a whole. I just get the feeling that this will happen before the other classes get the buffs they desperately need.

Stamina is better than magicka, especially for sorc. No need for useless pets.

Melzo · February 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

There have been 4 or 5 "Necro needs help" feedback posts the past patch cycle alone, each one talking about different areas the class was hurting. Harmony graverobber was Necro's only real use in PvP anymore, and with it gone, Necromancer feels aimless right now.

The developer team often states they want each class to have a certain "feel", flavor, or gameplay fantasy they perform well, so I urge you to consider the question "What does a Necro play like?" with these upcoming changes.

Are they a DoT class? Well, they have 10% DoT damage and 15% DoT reduction, but they aren't really a DoT class - they only have 2 class DoTs, both AOE.

Are they a burst class? Well, blastbones is a strong burst ability, but that's only when it wants to be. Taking out Graverobber doesn't really leave necro with anything that would fit this role.

Well surely they have a unique and exciting, useful class kit right? Almost. They had usefulness in applying Major Vulnerability and Empower, but Major Vuln has many options for application now, and Empower is nearly useless in all scenarios now. Blastbones and the tethers being the exception (with the latter being situational at best) Necros likely won't use many of their other class abilities. Why? Well they need an ability that gives their major damage buff, their major crit buff, and need an on demand stun if they'll be PvPing. They also need to outsource their spammable, as Skulls underperform most of the other alternatives. Are you running proc sets? Then you should probably run even fewer class skills, since Blastbones and the Archer/Arcanist won't proc damage sets, and Ghost won't proc healing sets.

Necro needs some love. They're almost an excellent class but they've been shoehorned into Harmony bombing for so long that the areas they've lacked in have flown under the radar. Now with Harmony bombing gone, and many of their other issues being more significant in today's meta, they need a bit of help. Throw them a lifeline ZOS.

Hi all, we chatted with the dev team to follow up on some of the player commentary around Harmony. First to frame the conversation, we want to reiterate the dev team's thoughts around the change, which was highlighted in the patch notes.

"This trait is currently far too niche for its intended use and is meant to be an enhancer to the Undaunted skill line and group play, but ironically is being utilized more by solo builds in PvP to instantly obliterate large groups. We’re shifting this trait over to be more recovery focused, which has much more use potential between PvE and PvP, rather than trying to continue making a value that doesn’t add more insta-gibbing potential but still has impact enough in PvE.""

To add additional feedback from dev, Harmony was being used in ways outside the intended goals of rewarding group play. Additionally, dev has noted that Necromancers being used as a "bomb" class was outside of the intended scope of play and created a unhealthy play environment.

With that context, we are happy to relay additional questions and/or feedback to dev regarding the this change to Harmony.

I find this not fair. Why NB has the ability to kill crowds of enemies and the necromancer can't? Nb did this even before the release of the necromancer. NB has always been in first place in bomb builds even with the release of the DC set. Many different assemblies were built on harmony, but now the necromancer has only one skill in his arsenal and this is blastbones. If we consider the entire first skill tree as a whole, then only blastbones can be used in pvp. The necromancer has a 10% bonus to dot damage, but the necromancer does not have dot damage. Bonuses to crit chance when the enemy has low health creates a situation that in most cases this passive ability does not work, since rarely anyone has 5 thousand health.
Also, the lack of finishing skills affects the damage to the enemy. You only hit with two skills and that is blastbones and a spam ability. And you see how the damage is significantly reduced before your eyes.

Replace the morph that gives 10 percent protection from the second branch with a new skill. When activated, consumes corpses for 20 seconds and gains charges. When you gain 4 charges, you can activate another skill and stun the enemy and deal damage with the bone hand. You already have animation.

The totem needs to be repaired because it didn't stun very often for 2 seconds. Add AoE damage or healing to this skill, otherwise it makes no sense for the necromancer to stand in one place and die for a miserable 5 percent defense. Also, synergy is of little use to an ally, and certainly to the necromancer himself.

Skull needs more damage. On the second roll, the damage is increased by 10%. And by 3, everything is also 20 percent, but add the finishing effect to these percentages so that the damage increases depending on the enemy’s missing health.

Add a control system to the skeleton mage, as is done with the sorcerer and warden pets. And also add an additional effect to each morph when they are buffed with Grave Grasp. For example, an archer deals damage to 3 targets, and a skeleton mage imposes off-balance on all those hit. You could also apply a buff to blastbones. For example, a blastbone deals 30 percent less damage, but after the explosion leaves a corpse that explodes again after two seconds.

K9002 · February 2023

Templar can't do damage anymore and it doesn't have anything to offer to any groups. It's no longer a good solo class either.

People don't realize the scale of Burning Light nerf. Its damage was reduced to ~66% and due to the new cooldown it procs not every global cooldown but on average every 3 seconds. You can go to esologs and pick any Templar DPS in any trial, read the encounter log. It pops every 2.5~3.5 seconds. Divide 66% by 3 and you get measly 22% of its original damage output when using Jabs/Sweeps. It does proc when not using Jabs, so from a distance and during execute phases. But J-Beam is already strong in execute phase all on its own, we just got an unjust nerf outside of execute range. Damage has to be returned either to Jabs or to Burning Light. Alternatively Burning Light's cooldown should be reduced to 300ms.

Backlash is another skill that is not alright, and not just in PvP like the PvP crowd says. First a comparison with similar skills of other classes. Tooltip numbers scaled to 30k resource + 6k weapon/spell damage.

Backlash: 4 802 single target damage + 5 313~10 626 single target damage after 6 seconds. Maximum damage per cast - 15 428.

Purifying Light: adds AoE HoT of 2 479 every 2 seconds.
Power of the Light: stamina conversion and inflicts Minor Breach.
Passive bonus from Prism: generates 3 ultimate per cast; 6 seconds cooldown.

Grim Focus: after 5 light attacks - 18 466 single target damage + conditional melee range heal for 33% of damage done. Also offers a unique w/s damage buff of 300; tooltip corrected by this amount.

Relentless Focus: stamina conversion and longer w/s damage buff duration.
Merciless Resolve: damage increased to 20 313 and healing to 50% of damage done.
Passive bonus from Pressure Points: increases critical rate by 438 (2%) for being slotted.

Daedric Curse: 12 008 single target damage + 5 523 splash damage after 6 seconds.

Daedric Prey: large cost reduction + 45% damage increase for all class pets and one of the class ultimates.
Haunting Curse: Damage increased to 12 403 + 5 705. After additional 8.5 seconds hits a second time for the same amount. Total damage per cast increased to 24 806.
Passive bonus from Rebate: refunds 300 of its resource cost when it ends.

Scorch: 10 716 AoE damage after 3 seconds + additional 14 884 AoE damage after additional 6 seconds. Maximum damage per cast - 25 600.

Subterranean Assault: stamina conversion. Reduces the delay of second hit to 3 seconds and its damage to 10 716. Maximum damage per cast - 21 432.
Deep Fissure: applies Major and Minor Breach to all enemies hit.
Passive bonus from Bond with Nature: heals the caster for 1 260 health when it ends.
Passive bonus from Savage Beast: generates 4 ultimate per cast; 8 seconds cooldown.
Passive bonus from Advanced Species: increases critical damage by 4% for being slotted.

Blastbones: 14 884 AoE damage after 2.5 seconds. Creates a corpse when it ends.

Blighted Blastbones: stamina conversion and applies Major Defile to all enemies hit.
Stalking Blastbones: deals up to 50% more damage scaling with the time spent chasing distant targets. Maximum damage per cast - 22 326.
Passive bonus from Reusable Parts: cost reduced by 50% after any summoned minion including Blastbones dies.
Passive bonus from Death Knell: increases critical chance against enemies under 25% health by 8% for being slotted.
Passive bonus from Dismember: increases armor penetration by 1500 while active.

All other classes hit in the range of 20k+, with no conditional gimmicks such as building up a lot of damage on the target. Nightblade's light attack condition is trivial to achieve in comparison. 3 other classes deal this higher damage as AoE damage with no downsides. Other classes also see more synergistic effects with their passives.

Backlash and both morphs need to be able to deal at least as much damage per cast. Either:
- its base damage needs to increase by around 40-45%.
- its accumulated damage scaling needs to be increased to 300%.
Power of the Light has a completely obsolete added bonus. Minor Breach is readily provided by tanks in any group content. It's applied by all sources of physical damage; Jabs are good at it. It's applied by a similar Warden skill. Soon it will be sourced from frost staves as well. This debuff needs to be replaced by something more useful. Possible substitutes:
- Major Berserk for the caster.
- Unique debuff on target enemy. Something akin to armor debuff from Crystal Weapon or % fire damage taken from Engulfing Flames (just make it something else than fire, like physical).
- Move Major Brutality/Sorcery from Biting Jabs to PotL and make Jabs ignore 10% of enemies' armor, similar to destruction staff skills.

Templars still need help in the buff and team support department, as explained in this thread. Radiant Aura is the perfect candidate. As it stands, it offers too little to justify sacrificing a skill slot. Skill slots are a more precious and scarce resource than magicka, stamina or even ultimate. Make this ability cost magicka and do what it currently does + something extra. We don't need more healing, we need a unique buff that no other class has to offer. How about returning the old effect of Maelstrom staves? A flat increase to light attack damage that goes over the new base damage cap.

Billium813 · February 2023

Can we get more creative than simply stapling Major Berserk to everything?

SkaraMinoc · February 2023

It was already difficult to kill players as a Mag Sorc.

Then they nerfed Molag Kena.

Then they nerfed Simmering Frenzy.

Then they buffed Vigor so everyone has Minor Resolve now.

Then they gave some serious buffs to Nightblade and Warden, making them more difficult to kill.

Then they buffed Cinder Storm so DKs sit there turtling with block.

Templars and Necros got nerfed but they were already difficult to kill as a Mag Sorc. Try combo'ing a Templar that keeps purging your Haunting Curse. Much fun.

The icing on the cake is they ended up nerfing both Crystal Fragments and Crystal Weapon.