Sorcrers but again?

Melzo · February 2023

Aces-High-82 You can say whatever you want, but without evidence or examples, these are empty words. Just to insult me.

PhoenixGrey · February 2023

Reduce battle spirit on shields

Ez fix

AdamLAD · February 2023

Melzo wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

Melzo wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

"It's stupid for me to take two mana shields for protection, so a mana shield from a branch of light armor is rubbish"

The fact your saying this speaks volumes at the state of Shields. How can you go from not wanting sorcerer to be buffed as wards are strong but then just say one of the primary defences they use is rubbish which is a shield? Do u genuinely have any idea what your even going on about

The sorcerer's mana shield is strong, but the light armor's mana shield is weak. The meta has changed and now the sorcerer will not die from spitting without shields. You just need to have one or two hot effects on yourself and call the sorcerer's mana shield in the right circumstances. You keep your defense on hot effects like all players and use a shield to give these hot effects time to take effect.

Where exactly are we getting these 2 extra hots from on our bar space. So ur suggesting 1 sheild and 2 hots. Other classes need 1 hot and a burst heal. Why do we need 3 forms of defence and they need 2 ?

I have my necromancer mortal coil and ghost as well as direct healing. On DK I have a direct heal and one hot heal but I also have a shield to give a 16% healing bonus and a weapon damage buff. Most players have three defensive skills. I have played with all classes and this is the base setting for all classes. You can ask any player and everyone will answer that they use three skills for defense. There are exceptions. For example some use two or 4 but three skills is the base setting.

Even then, stacking 3 or 4 heals is far superior than 1 sheild and 2 hots. It's why people have totally dropped sheilds on a sorc. This is the entire point we are talking about. Shields are not as strong as healing and need a buff

Aces-High-82 · February 2023

Melzo wrote: »

Aces-High-82 You can say whatever you want, but without evidence or examples, these are empty words. Just to insult me.

How you wanna build resist on a shield sorc, given the possible mag increasing sets remains a mystery. Not even accounting given stas/return per cost.

Turtle_Bot · February 2023

katorga wrote: »

ForumBully wrote: »

Imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth is Assassins Will had to be double barred to maintain stacks while bar swapping, or Blastbones went "poof" when barswapping.

This last point, lmao, so true.

They already complain to sorcs that spec bow is easily dodged and is fine as is, conveniently ignoring the fact that sorcs entire combo that takes far more resources to use and skill to line up and deals less damage is also dodgeable outside of curse.

AdamLAD · February 2023

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

ForumBully wrote: »

Imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth is Assassins Will had to be double barred to maintain stacks while bar swapping, or Blastbones went "poof" when barswapping.

This last point, lmao, so true.

They already complain to sorcs that spec bow is easily dodged and is fine as is, conveniently ignoring the fact that sorcs entire combo that takes far more resources to use and skill to line up and deals less damage is also dodgeable outside of curse.

Dr_Con · February 2023

They made it so crystal weapon can't stack with charged weapon, I don't see why they can't make it so that damage shields can't stack and then buff damage shields appropriately for pvp.

AdamLAD · February 2023

Dr_Con wrote: »

They made it so crystal weapon can't stack with charged weapon, I don't see why they can't make it so that damage shields can't stack and then buff damage shields appropriately for pvp.

Shield stacking has been around since the dawn of eso and shouldn't be changed. If you buffed shields to the point that it would surpass the current benefits of stacking 2 at a time, then it would lower the skill level requirements and make it far too easy to survive. Sheild stacking, costing more magicka, and two global cooldowns is fine because it gives a window of opportunity to burst you down without a shield up. Unfortunately even with sheilds up in this current meta we get bursted down regardless as they are so weak and need buffing significantly in PvP

Melzo · February 2023

Not as strong as healing?? Are you healed by 12 thousand constantly?? I understand that under certain conditions, healing wins, for example, a dk or a necromancer at a low level of health, but when they have 50 percent of health, they can count on 6-7 thousand. The defense of all classes is based on hot healing. Unlike a magical sorcerer, they can't spam healing as often. I was talking about having a hot heal while holding a shield. I also talked about improving the quality of your health. If you use a battle cry and a pirate hat, you will increase not only shields but also health. As I understand it, your gameplay is based on two shields, but I don’t understand why a sorcerer needs a buff if you can strengthen the mana shield from the light armor branch so that it would correspond in strength to the sorcerer’s magic shield. Also, your gameplay has a huge drawback in that when you run out of shield you die very quickly so you have very little damage reduction bonuses. This is especially true of the battle against the NB.

And at low health, there are effects with finishing effects and such sorcerers die very quickly because the templar beam does more damage than your shield protects.

I saw sorcerers for examples of which I told. I also saw a strange sorcerer with a bow and a staff of restoration using a sorcerer's mana shield and a shield from a restoration staff. There, some kind of beast, he never died and killed more than anyone. I saw strong sorcerers from pets. In addition to the magic specification, there is a hybrid one. But you are trying to complicate your life and say that the sorcerer is weak. Maybe the skill from the light armor branch is weak, but the sorcerer is certainly not weak.

I don't know who, but someone suggested that the shield would scale from spell damage/weapon damage. It won't do any good to a magical sorcerer, but archer sorcerers will be delighted. Dubious idea. The archer will have good damage and mana shield and the magical sorcerer will lose all meaning.

In place of the shield is direct healing. I'm thinking, how do you keep the damage then wake up ?? It's even easier to kill you...

Melzo · February 2023

Well, I went to complain about the necromancer. I play Necro 99% of the time and participated in the forum in the tabs of the sorcerer 99% of the time ... Something is wrong with me ...

Dr_Con · February 2023

AdamLAD wrote: »

Dr_Con wrote: »

They made it so crystal weapon can't stack with charged weapon, I don't see why they can't make it so that damage shields can't stack and then buff damage shields appropriately for pvp.

Shield stacking has been around since the dawn of eso and shouldn't be changed. If you buffed shields to the point that it would surpass the current benefits of stacking 2 at a time, then it would lower the skill level requirements and make it far too easy to survive. Sheild stacking, costing more magicka, and two global cooldowns is fine because it gives a window of opportunity to burst you down without a shield up. Unfortunately even with sheilds up in this current meta we get bursted down regardless as they are so weak and need buffing significantly in PvP

You are saying that pressing two buttons takes skill, so it shouldn't be locked into being just one button. Then, you are asking for the same exact thing I was suggesting.

acastanza_ESO · February 2023

I'm sorry @Melzo, but you seem to have several fundamental misunderstandings about how 1) the sorcerer's skills work, and 2) how they compare to other classes skills.

A critical one is that a shield does not function as extra health. Calling it extra health is extremely misleading as the game mechanics simply do not treat it that way. Unlike health it isn't protected by block mitigation and unlike health it doesn't protect you from execute scaling damage. It is not that the beam is doing more damage than the shield protects from (in your example) it is that the beam is obliterating your shield instantly because the damage is scaled based on your real health, not the non-health that the shield provides. These are extremely important downsides that you are not considering.

Weapon/Spell damage scaling would absolutely help magicka sorcerer for the same reason that it helps every other magicka spec of any other class with their defenses.

Seeing "strong sorcerers" with all these specs you describe doesn't speak to the sorcerer's fundamental issues as a class at all, good players exist. Players better than any given player here exist. Players better than me, and players better than you exist. It is completely irrelevant to the discussion.

Necrotech_Master · February 2023

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

From my perspective, there are three main issues with Sorcerer
1) Lack of access to buffs and debuffs
2) Dependence on pets
3) Requirement for mathematically inferior max-stat stacking to access in-class defenses.

There are people here that will argue changing shields to scale off anything other than max stats is "too strong" but the fact of the matter is that every other class's defense already scales this way. I think it would go a long way to bringing shields up to par.

I would lean towards changing empowered ward to one that has a HOT instead of resource recovery. Again people might argue this is too strong, but, this already exists in the game, there is a HOT on the resto staff skill tree shield. It is just problematic because you can't guarantee who this shield will be applied to, which makes it useless.

While I would like to see 1, and 2 addressed as well, if Sorc had any other access to a heal (that isn't a channel, like a HOT morph of one of the shields) I think it would feel less like being forced to run the bird all the time and it would become less of a pain-point.
Buff and Debuff access, and toolkit synergy does need to be addressed though.

i dont think this idea of empowered ward getting some kind of heal over time too farfetched

the companion ember class skills are based off of a sorc skillset, and she has a shield which shields the group and applies a heal over time (companions are rulebreakers but are too dumb and have cooldowns on skills for balance)

i could see that potentially working for a player, if things were balanced appropriately of course

Caribou77 · February 2023

2 main Magsorc buffs I’d like to see:

1) Major breach on haunting curse

2) Speed up crystal frags and give it higher consistent damage so that it works like an effective spammable, not gimped by RNG (see Dk & Nb toolkits for effective spammables)

I’d also love to have a more reliable heal than the matriarch, but I am in the anti-pet camp, so I guess I am biased in that regard.

I appreciate the good advice and wisdom many have offered here. I hope that ZOS will implement some meaningful changes to make Magsorc more viable and fun to play in PVP soon.

Brrrofski · February 2023

ForumBully wrote: »

Melzo wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Melzo wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Melzo wrote: »

Shields have fewer modifiers but count as extra health. Shields are buffed to defense and critical damage resistance. For example, you can make about 44 mana and get a shield for 11-12 thousand. The pirate hat gives 10 percent defense and the sorcerer's skill gives 5 percent defense. You can also take the battle cry to the back panel. In fact, all defense bonuses such as armor, critical damage resistance and defense buffs give a direct boost to your shield, since the shield is your additional health.

Shields don't allow block mitigation. Shields also don't make up for execute damage. Shields also require resources to keep up, they can be remove early and have zero way of regenerating without straight up recasting them.

Say I am a sorc with 30K health and a 10K shield. That doesn't mean I have 40K health. It just doesn't. When that sheild takes 5K damage, that shield will never be a 10K shield again until I fully recast it. When I block, that shield takes the full damage from the incoming hit. When I am in execute range, the value of that 10K shield is not taken into account. The shield doesn't cover up being in execute, you still take the full execute scaling damage, even if you are covering your health with a shield. Sure, the shield may absorb some of that, but it isn't adding to your health to pull you out of execute range.

Now, compare that to a player with 40K health. They can have HOTs active, that are constantly restoring their missing health values. On top of that they can have burst heals that restore the values. They also benefit from major and minor buffs that increase the ammount of health that can be restored. They also benefit from being able to utilize block mitigation for the entirety of their 40K health pool. When they are put into execute damage, casting a burst heal takes them out of execute range, rather than just putting a shield over them that doesn't effect the execute scaling at all.

The point is, Shields are not health. And this idea that they are is just a complete failure to understand how shields work and only works to add to the misinformation being spread by players that really have no clue how sorcs actually function.

Most players have 30k health. The sorcerer can also run around with the same amount of health and have 44 thousand mana. As for the 40k health you are talking about, those players are sacrificing damage and self-healing in favor of health. I just do not understand why you should be afraid of those who sacrifice damage and destruction in favor of a pointless waste of points.

It's stupid for me to take two mana shields for protection, so a mana shield from a branch of light armor is rubbish. The shield can act as a heal if you are below 100% health and restore life with other skills. I don't understand your logic either. Others have hot healing and the sorcerer does not?? You only need one shield. I'm playing a necromancer with two healing skills with a hot effect and a dk who only has one skill with a hot effect. The necromancer and dk have bonuses that allow you to restore health in a dying state. This is the only advantage these two classes have over the sorcerer. Yes, healing and shield are different things, but it is unnecessary to underestimate the benefit of a mana shield. When you have 30k health but you only have 10k health left, the shield adds up to 20k health temporarily, at which point you can restore health healing with a hot effect. Also at full health you add a shield on top of your health but any hot healing or any other healing at full health goes to waste.

The sorcerer has access to hot healing. Sorcerer rely too heavily on the shield. It needs to be used properly and not spammed. You won't find a single DK spamming with their direct heals like a sorcerer does with his shield. Four or five times and there is no mana for the dk ...

Magicka, please just say Magicka. Mana is not a thing in this game.

And no, a player running 40K health is not sacrificing damage or healing. They are stacking spell damage, which also increases their damage and their healing amounts.

And again, nothing you have described here leads me to believe that you understand how healing, health, or shields function in this game.

Shields DO NOT act as a heal with you are below 100%. That might be the most egregious claim you have here.

I wrote an example gameplay. Not that healing and shield are the same thing. I even wrote that it's not the same. I said that the shield is a temporary solution for a place of direct healing. And it acts as a pseudo heal so that you have time to restore health with a hot effect.

So, on this point, yes, you have the potential to HoT heal under a shield, but you can't do it well with low spell power. So as you're waiting for the heal to tick your shield is still being chopped down by whatever incoming damage you're facing, and it's being chopped down quicker than you can get a substantial heal from HoTs.
Part of the problem is you must stack Magicka and sustain to have an effective shield size AND sustain the constant reapplication, and this leaves no room to invest in spell power, which would make your HoT more potent.

You also forgot that you need to use a red CP to get a good shield.

Other classes can use that for more sustain, movement speed or mitigation.

Melzo · February 2023

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

I'm sorry @Melzo, but you seem to have several fundamental misunderstandings about how 1) the sorcerer's skills work, and 2) how they compare to other classes skills.

A critical one is that a shield does not function as extra health. Calling it extra health is extremely misleading as the game mechanics simply do not treat it that way. Unlike health it isn't protected by block mitigation and unlike health it doesn't protect you from execute scaling damage. It is not that the beam is doing more damage than the shield protects from (in your example) it is that the beam is obliterating your shield instantly because the damage is scaled based on your real health, not the non-health that the shield provides. These are extremely important downsides that you are not considering.

Weapon/Spell damage scaling would absolutely help magicka sorcerer for the same reason that it helps every other magicka spec of any other class with their defenses.

Seeing "strong sorcerers" with all these specs you describe doesn't speak to the sorcerer's fundamental issues as a class at all, good players exist. Players better than any given player here exist. Players better than me, and players better than you exist. It is completely irrelevant to the discussion.

I know how the shield works. And I'm aware of the shield issues. But you can take a shield from the Restoration Staff branch and also take sets such as a pirate monster and a warcry. You can also take wampire stage 3. As a result, you can significantly reduce the impact of finishing blows against you. And all the protective properties also affect the shield. And I understand that the block does not work on the shield, but you must also understand that players of other classes have the ability to block and heal themselves, but they cannot tear themselves away from the enemy. They have to endure being hit all the time and they can be hit by 2-3 players. But the sorcerer can tear himself away from them. You also have access to an elevated block. Do you have any idea how strong the block would be if used with a shield??

I see the point in maintaining a magical identity if you strengthen the mana shield from the light armor branch. The assumption that the shield is based on spell damage would completely remove any motivation to play a magical sorcerer. Everyone will play archer and invest in medium armor and take damage from weapons since dk plays more than templar. And if you strengthen the mana shield even more, then this will result in immortal sorcerers or builds based on only one specific shield will be stronger.

Melzo · February 2023

Brrrofski That quote was in response to my comment that the sorcerer needs to invest in spell damage in order to get good healing but healing depends on both stats and since you have good damage, then the healing will be just as strong. My blastbones do 6k damage. Sorcerers investing in the maximum amount of magic deal the same amount of damage at the expense of the crystal. Accordingly, you can restore the same amount of health.

But specifically to your argument that it is necessary to strengthen the shield at the expense of the red branch, then you can take a set on the restoration of resources and, at the expense of the red branch, strengthen the protective functions of the sorcerer but not invest points in the restoration of resources as others do.

All my arguments are aimed at moving away from the old meta where you invested everything in mana but making a more versatile sorcerer with various types of protection besides very strong mana shields.

Pelanora · February 2023

Melzo wrote: »

I don't care what it's called. I write through Google and correct what I wrote. I've only been studying English for a month.

Well done on being brave enough to write in english after a month of learning! But when learning a language you need to care what words mean and what context to use words in.

So it's Magicka in eso not mana.

'Mana' in english isn't really 'magic', even if it's used in games in that way.

Melzo · February 2023

Pelanora wrote: »

Melzo wrote: »

I don't care what it's called. I write through Google and correct what I wrote. I've only been studying English for a month.

Well done on being brave enough to write in english after a month of learning! But when learning a language you need to care what words mean and what context to use words in.

So it's Magicka in eso not mana.

'Mana' in english isn't really 'magic', even if it's used in games in that way.

A chic argument in favor of the sorcerer's buff. Why else do you need a gaming forum other than to reproach that a person does not know English.

StaticWave · February 2023

jaws343 wrote: »

Melzo wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Melzo wrote: »

Shields have fewer modifiers but count as extra health. Shields are buffed to defense and critical damage resistance. For example, you can make about 44 mana and get a shield for 11-12 thousand. The pirate hat gives 10 percent defense and the sorcerer's skill gives 5 percent defense. You can also take the battle cry to the back panel. In fact, all defense bonuses such as armor, critical damage resistance and defense buffs give a direct boost to your shield, since the shield is your additional health.

Shields don't allow block mitigation. Shields also don't make up for execute damage. Shields also require resources to keep up, they can be remove early and have zero way of regenerating without straight up recasting them.

Say I am a sorc with 30K health and a 10K shield. That doesn't mean I have 40K health. It just doesn't. When that sheild takes 5K damage, that shield will never be a 10K shield again until I fully recast it. When I block, that shield takes the full damage from the incoming hit. When I am in execute range, the value of that 10K shield is not taken into account. The shield doesn't cover up being in execute, you still take the full execute scaling damage, even if you are covering your health with a shield. Sure, the shield may absorb some of that, but it isn't adding to your health to pull you out of execute range.

Now, compare that to a player with 40K health. They can have HOTs active, that are constantly restoring their missing health values. On top of that they can have burst heals that restore the values. They also benefit from major and minor buffs that increase the ammount of health that can be restored. They also benefit from being able to utilize block mitigation for the entirety of their 40K health pool. When they are put into execute damage, casting a burst heal takes them out of execute range, rather than just putting a shield over them that doesn't effect the execute scaling at all.

The point is, Shields are not health. And this idea that they are is just a complete failure to understand how shields work and only works to add to the misinformation being spread by players that really have no clue how sorcs actually function.

Most players have 30k health. The sorcerer can also run around with the same amount of health and have 44 thousand mana. As for the 40k health you are talking about, those players are sacrificing damage and self-healing in favor of health. I just do not understand why you should be afraid of those who sacrifice damage and destruction in favor of a pointless waste of points.

It's stupid for me to take two mana shields for protection, so a mana shield from a branch of light armor is rubbish. The shield can act as a heal if you are below 100% health and restore life with other skills. I don't understand your logic either. Others have hot healing and the sorcerer does not?? You only need one shield. I'm playing a necromancer with two healing skills with a hot effect and a dk who only has one skill with a hot effect. The necromancer and dk have bonuses that allow you to restore health in a dying state. This is the only advantage these two classes have over the sorcerer. Yes, healing and shield are different things, but it is unnecessary to underestimate the benefit of a mana shield. When you have 30k health but you only have 10k health left, the shield adds up to 20k health temporarily, at which point you can restore health healing with a hot effect. Also at full health you add a shield on top of your health but any hot healing or any other healing at full health goes to waste.

The sorcerer has access to hot healing. Sorcerer rely too heavily on the shield. It needs to be used properly and not spammed. You won't find a single DK spamming with their direct heals like a sorcerer does with his shield. Four or five times and there is no mana for the dk ...

Magicka, please just say Magicka. Mana is not a thing in this game.

And no, a player running 40K health is not sacrificing damage or healing. They are stacking spell damage, which also increases their damage and their healing amounts.

And again, nothing you have described here leads me to believe that you understand how healing, health, or shields function in this game.

Shields DO NOT act as a heal with you are below 100%. That might be the most egregious claim you have here.

They are definitely sacrificing damage by reducing their max stats to use Bear Haunch. If they have decent max stats and 40k HP, then they are definitely lower on recovery or weapon/spell damage. You can't have all 3 stats equally high unless you're emp. If you don't believe me you can always plug a standard weapon/spell damage build into the editor and see for yourself.

I agree with you that shields don't act as a heal if you are in execute range, but I disagree with your statement that shields are not health. They definitely act as pseudo health.

Let's use your example of a 30k HP player with 10k shield. If you cast a shield and someone hits you for a 35k burst, you are going to have 5k HP left. If that same person hits someone with 40k HP for a 35k burst, he's still going to have 5k HP left. Even though you have 10k less HP than the other guy, both of you still end up with 5k HP after taking a 35k burst because that 10k shield acts as pseudo max HP.

I'm going to guess that you will say "But I have to recast that 10k shield if I want to have the same HP pool as that 40k HP guy". Correct, you have to, because that is the drawback. What you're conveniently forgetting to mention is while you can purposely lower your actual HP to increase your damage AND get back that HP through a shield, the guy with 40k HP definitely needs to drop an offensive stat or a recovery stat to increase his HP.

For example, this is a random build I put together that has 37.6k HP, 34.7k stam, ~5.4k weapon damage, 1.7k mag regen, and 1.9k stam regen using Clever Alc + Wretched Vitality + DDF:

There is ZERO extra investment into HP for this build. I have 64 attribute points into max stam, all weapon dmg and tri stat glyphs, and Sugar Skull food. If I want to get to 40k HP, I will have to convert some of that attribute points to max HP, which means I'm losing damage and stamina that can mean an extra cast of Vigor or an extra roll dodge. If I don't want to lose my damage and gain HP, I will have to drop Wretched and run a set that gives more HP.

Meanwhile, you can build for both damage and recovery, and regain the HP through a shield. The drawback is you have to constantly reapply the shield if you want to keep that HP. This is fair and balanced, and it's something you and many sorc mains need to understand.

As for the weakness of not being able to heal out of execute range, I think that's a good thing. While other classes have to worry about staying at a certain HP threshold to not get one shotted, you can just chill in 25k HP and stack full damage/regen because you're able to apply 2 shields that temporary bump your max HP up to 45k (20k total shield value). Don't you think that it would be too strong if you could also heal to full while sitting with 45k effective HP and in a full damage build?

I haven't even talked about the fundamental differences of shield vs healing, and how healing can be worse than shielding in some cases.

StaticWave · February 2023

OR, you could just slot 1 heal + 1 shield instead of 2 shields, and have the best of both worlds. Hybridization is an amazing feature.

RemoryAzure · February 2023

Pelanora wrote: »

So it's Magicka in eso not mana.

ugh, does it even matter?
i mean, i also call it 'mana' because its called mana in almost every other game. eso isnt even a game u would respect, u cant take it seriously, it isnt even an mmorpg, so the common term prevails over the local one.

Caribou77 · February 2023

In matters of lexical protocol, there are only opinions.

I’ve always thought magicka sounds stupid. But then I don’t like the sound of the name Albert, so I realize this is completely subjective.

I’m inclined to side with the English Language Learner, that mana/magicka isn’t an important difference; however, I disagree with most of his/her thoughts on the state of Sorcerer in pvp.

KilianDermoth · February 2023

Yeah its Magicka, but Mana is also correct in a way it means exactly the same thing even its not the term usually used in ESO. Still its best to stick to the usually terms and use Magicka.

There are much worse words people are missusing, for example DPS (damage per second) for talking about the DD (damage dealer) role, which on the other side are things with a complete different meaning. One is a metric (which also applies to healers and tanks btw.) and the other is clearly a role.