Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

My guess is you haven't played much sorc? These changes, while nice, are barely scratching the surface of the issues with the class, especially for PvP and No-Pet PvE builds. I'll try to add my own here. I've also bolded the changes I made to your suggestions/comments.

Sorcerer

• Daedric Summoning
  • Conjured Ward:
    • Increased the duration of this ability to 8 seconds.
    • Hardened Ward (Morph): Increased the duration of this ability to 8 seconds.
    • Regenerative Ward (Morph): Increased the duration of this ability to 12 seconds. This morph now also grants Minor Fortitude, in addition to Minor Endurance and Intellect.
      Developer Comment:
      We understand that thanks to the years of power creep, blocking and dodge roll cancelling a burst heal has become far superior to shields. While we don't want to see a return to the old shields that lasted forever, we are going to slightly increase their duration.
  • Bound Armor:
    • Bound Aegis (Morph): Now passively increased Health, Magicka, and Stamina by 5%, rather than just Magicka by 8%.
    • Bound Armaments (Morph): Now increases your maximum offensive resource (Magicka or Stamina) by 8%, rather than Stamina specifically. The cost of activating the ability is also now based on max resource and the damage this ability deals depends on the cost, shock damage for magicka cost, physical damage for stamina cost.
      Developer Comment:
      Since we seem determined to stick with this whole hybridization thing, it seemed prudent to update this ability. No longer will magicka-oriented Sorcerers be forced to pick up an arbitrary Stamina bonus or forego a strong damage ability.
      On the other hand, Sorcerers opting for a bruiser or tank oriented playstyle may prefer the defensive capabilities and "tristat" bonus of Bound Aegis.
  • Daedric Curse:
    • Haunting Curse (Morph): Reduced the time between the bursts. The first hit will proc at 3 seconds and the second hit will proc 7 seconds later at a final delay of 10 seconds after the initial cast of the ability. We have also added minor breech to this morph.
    • Daedric Prey (Morph): Half of this abilities burst damage will now instead be dealt to the target as damage over time while the debuff is active on the target. The bonus damage provided to pets has also been reduced to 20% down from 45% to better spread the classes power budget back away from pets and into the rest of the class.
      Developer Comment:
      We have seen that the pet build has become the only way to play Sorcerer and that many players are missing their old preferred playstyle that had a real choice between using the pets or not using them. We hope that by spreading the power of the class out from the pets and into other abilities there will hopefully be less flapping annoyances around Tamriel. We also wanted to better align the Haunting Curse morph with other delayed burst ability duration standards as the 12 second delay was far too long considering the single target nature of this ability and the counter play of blocking and cleansing is available. We have also finally understood just how harsh the removal of overloads third bar was for the sorcerer class so we are finally adding some additional common and easy to obtain bonuses to commonly slotted abilities to make up for essentially removing 1/3 of sorcerers available bar space all those years ago.
  • Summon Winged Twilight:
    • The secondary active of this skill no longer heals allies or itself. Instead it causes the twilights basic attacks to deal an additional 10% damage to enemies for 20 seconds.
    • Twilight Tormentor (Morph): Adjusted the scaling of the tormentors secondary ability, when cast the tormentor will deal up to 100% bonus damage depending on the health of the enemy being attacked (starting at 1% bonus damage when the enemy is at 75% health up to 100% bonus damage when the enemy is at 1% health).
    • Twilight Matriarch (Morph): Removed the burst heal from this ability. Instead when the secondary ability is cast, the matriarch will summon 2 smaller winged twilights for 30 seconds. The winged twilights summoned by this secondary active deal half the damage of the matriarch.
      Developer Comment:
      We realise that we have limited all of sorcerers healing into the pets and were doubling up on this, so we have removed the heal from the matriarch and instead it now calls 2 additional twilights to its side. We also realized that the pet builds were typically lacking much execute scaling due to the limited bar space, so we have inverted the tormentors secondary ability to now act more like an execute.
  • Summon Unstable Familiar:
    • Summon Unstable Clannfear (Morph): The heal from the clannfears secondary ability now scales from the higher of your max health or max magicka, healing you or an ally in front of you.
    • Summon Volitile Familiar (Morph): The secondary ability from this morph now also heals you and the familiar for the amount of damage it deals.
      Developer Comment:
      To compensate for the removal of the matriarchs heal and better streamline the pets of the class, we have given the clannfear the ability to scale off max health or max magicka. This way the clannfear can be used by a pet sorc that is any role as a group heal or self heal instead of being limited only to being a selfish heal since the matriarch no longer acts as a group heal. To reinforce this skill as the pets heal, the familiar now also heals you for the damage done by its secondary ability so players who choose the familiar over the clannfear won't be forced to miss out on a heal.
  • Daedric Protection:
    • This passive now increases health magicka and stamina recovery by 7%/15% instead of stamina and health recovery only by 10%/20%. Also reduces the cost of Conjured Ward and morphs by 15%.
      Developer Comment:
      This passive was not hybridized, so we have aimed to fix this issue by removing capacitors magicka recovery and adding it here instead while slightly toning down the values slightly. We are also improving sorcerers ability to utilize damage shields for those who wish to continue this original playstyle.
  • Expert Summoner:
    • Reduced the max Health this passive grants down to 3%/5% from 4%/8%.
      Developer Comment:
      We want to reinforce the idea that damage dealers do not have excessively large health pools and since Bound Aegis now provides 4% bonus max health, we have reduced this passive to account for that change such that tanks and bruisers will still have a similar amount of max health, but other playstyles that focus more on offense won't have as much bonus health while not missing out entirely.

• Dark Magic
  • Crystal Shards:
    • Crystal Fragments (Morph): While slotted, casting a Health, Stamina or Magicka ability has a 33% chance of causing your next Crystal Fragments to be instant, deal 66% increased damage and cost 50% less magicka, it will also shatter upon impact dealing 50% of its impact damage to nearby enemies (6m Radius).
    • Crystal Weapon (Morph): This ability no longer keeps its bonus damage for 2 light or heavy attacks, instead this ability now deals its bonus damage to enemies in a small radius around the target of the initial light attack (6m).
      Developer Comment:
      We have noticed that the content in ESO is being designed around clearing a large number of important adds while also keeping the majority of your damage focused on the main bosses. Sorcerer has been severely lacking any real form of strong area of effect damage to keep up with the current top classes, so we are hoping that this change should(TM) help the class to better keep up in actual content instead of only when in the favorable scenario of trial dummy parsing.
  • Encase:
    • This ability now lasts over an area for 4 seconds, immobilizing any enemies that enter the area. Enemies can only be immobilized once per cast.
    • Shattering Shocking Prison (Morph): This ability now deals 330 Shock damage each second to all enemies in its area and immobilize all enemies hit or that enter this area for 4 seconds. It will also deal an additional 1799 Shock damage when the effect ends.
    • Restraining Embracing Prison (Morph): This ability now heals allies within its area for 250 health each second. An enemy within this area that attacks an ally that is also in this area will be immobilized for 4 seconds. If an enemy is immobilized by this ability, grants Major Vitality to you for 4 seconds.
      Developer Comment:
      This ability was never seeing use, the hope is that by adding some damage or healing over time while keeping the original ideas behind this ability that it will hopefully find its way onto some bars.
  • Rune Prison:
    • Rune Cage (Morph): This ability is now a single target DoT ability that deals 4631 Magic damage over 20 seconds. This ability will also attempt to stun the target for 3 seconds on the third tick (ticks once every 2 seconds). This stun can be blocked.
    • Defensive Rune (Morph): This abilities duration has been reduced to 10 seconds. This ability now applies a small heal over time on the caster while it is active, healing for 1740 health over the duration. While active, if you are attacked, you will consume the buff, healing you for half of the remaining heal amount and surround the attacker with a runic prison that will attempt to stun them for 3 seconds after a short 1.5 second delay. This stun cannot be blocked.
      Developer Comment:
      We understand that giving this ability and instant stun alongside a burst of damage created some unfair circumstances where it all but guaranteed for the sorcerers burst combo to always find its target. We hope that by spreading the damage out to be over time will reduce the peak potential of burst damage while also helping sorcerer to apply pressure that has consequences for ignoring it. We are also aiming to help facilitate sorcerers defensive capabilities by giving the class a proper heal over time to reinforce the defensive aspect of the defensive rune morph.
  • Dark Exchange:
    • Cast Time has been removed. This ability no longer provides 3600 magicka instantly, instead it now restores 3600 up to 4800 magicka over the 20 second duration. The heal from this ability and morphs now also scales from weapon/spell damage, but the base heal value has been reduced to 3200 down from 8000 to keep it in line with other burst heals that scale. This ability and morphs also grants minor berserk for the duration. The heal from this ability and morphs is halved if you have an active damage shield on you.
    • Dark Deal (Morph): Converted to a magicka ability that restores stamina over the duration instead. Cast Time has been removed. This ability no longer provides 3600 stamina instantly, instead it now restores 4800 up to 6000 stamina over the 20 second duration. This ability also grants minor force for the duration.
    • Dark Conversion (Morph): Cast Time has been removed. This ability no longer provides 3600 magicka instantly, instead it now restores 4800 up to 6000 magicka over the 20 second duration. Increased the base heal of this morph from 3200 to 3600.
      Developer Comment:
      We understand that sorcerer has been forced into running pets or this ability as it's main heal and so to give those sorcerers who wish to remain free from their pets an option to heal themselves, we have adjusted this ability to now act as a more standard heal and removed the cast time to allow for sorcerer to feel more in control of their actions and respond more actively to ever present threats. To prevent the situation where a sorcerer can have unlimited burst sustain while holding block, we have removed the instant resource restore and shifted it to be entirely resource restore over time instead. We have also reduced the healing from this ability when a damage shield is active to prevent the combination of a strong, scaling, reliable heal on top of a large temporary health buffer that can cause issues.
  • Daedric Mines:
    • Reduced the cost of this ability and its morphs to 5000 Magicka down from 5400 Magicka.
      Developer Comment:
      We removed the ability for this skill to provide a massive burst potential to act more like a short but powerful Damage over Time + area denial ability, but leaving this ability as expensive as it was had it see much less play than we originally intended.
  • Negate Magic:
    • Silence from this ability now applies to both stamina and magicka non-core combat abilities instead of magicka non-core combat abilities only. Note: this will not affect block, dodge roll, sprint or other core combat abilities.
      Developer Comment:
      While this is a unique aspect to sorcerer, the fact that stamina focused builds could simply ignore what is supposed to be an ultimate was limited its use cases. We hope that this change will now force all enemies regardless of what attacks they use to respect the globe of silence that this ability brings to the battle field.
  • Blood Magic:
    • Increased the cooldown on the proc heal from this passive to 1 second, up from 0.5 seconds and reduced the heal amount by 25%. This passive now also procs on dealing damage with a Dark Magic ability
      Developer Comment:
      To account for the multiple new ways to proc this ability via revitalized skills and on any damage instance, we have increased the cooldown and reduced the heal amount. We will keep a close eye on this passive and make further adjustments if required.
  • Persistence:
    • This passive now procs upon avoiding an attack or blocking an attack with a damage shield as well as when blocking an attack. Reduced the cost reduction to 5%/10% down from 7%/15% to account for the additional ways to proc this passive.
      Developer Comment:
      Sorcerer typically prefers to avoid attacks or absorb them with damage shields instead of just simply face tanking attacks with blocking and to better reflect this playstyle we have adjusted the proc conditions for this passive.

• Storm Calling
  • Lightning Form:
    • This ability and morphs have had their base radius increased to 7m.
    • Boundless Storm (Morph): This ability now also provides snare removal/immunity and minor expedition for 2 seconds upon cast. Major expedition duration is increased to 6 seconds up from 4 seconds.
    • Hurricane (Morph): This ability now lasts 25 seconds and pushes nearby enemies away from the caster by 3m on activation (this push can only occur once every 7 seconds per enemy).
      Developer Comment:
      We forgot to increase the radius of this ability and morphs when we updated all melee attack ranges to 7m meaning that this ability failed to hit melee enemies attacking the sorcerer. Boundless storm was in a bad spot, that even magicka based sorcerers were slotting Hurricane or Chudan over it. We hope that these changes will reinforce the idea of the boundless storm not being bound to 1 spot while hurricane will move slower but buffet nearby enemies harder and knock them back due to the force of the prevailing winds.
  • Lightning Splash:
    • Removed the synergy from this ability. Increased the damage of this abilities damage over time to 415, up from 280.
    • Liquid Lightning Shard(Morph): Also deals 898 damage in the area on cast.
    • Lightning Flood (Morph): Enemies within the area also take an additional 6% shock damage
      Developer Comment:
      We have removed the synergy from this ability to allow for some power to be given back to the ability itself. Since we have given flame damage multiple unique ways to boost its damage, we felt it fitting that being flooded by lightning should have the enemy feel the effects of shock damage taken even more while giving the other morph the ability to deal a bigger burst up front for those shorter fights.
  • Surge:
    • This ability now also grants Major Prophecy/Savagery for its duration.
    • Critical Surge (Morph): Reduced the base heal amount of this ability by 66% down to 1100 from 3300.
    • Power Surge (Morph): Reduced the base heal amount of this morph by 66% down to 850 from 2550. This ability now also grants minor courage whenever you critically heal an ally. This heal can now proc once every 1 second.
      Developer Comment:
      We have reduced the heal amount of this ability significantly since it now grants increased crit chance via granting major prophecy/savagery and the changes to the dark magic line which makes the exploiter passive much easier to proc resulting in a much greater chance to proc its heal and also to account for the additional ways to proc its heal via changes to the class abilities which have given sorcerer more ways to more consistently deal damage or heal. This should result in smaller but more consistent healing coming in as sorc applies its damage.
  • Bolt Escape:
    • This ability no longer stuns enemies near your final location, instead it snares them by 60% for 2 seconds.
    • Streak (Morph): This ability no longer instantly stuns, instead this ability will snare enemies along its path by 60% for 2 seconds. If an enemy that is currently snared by this ability is hit by this ability again, they are stunned for 2 seconds.
    • Ball of Lightning (Morph): This ability now blocks all projectiles and gap closers cast on you for 2 seconds and grants major evasion for 4 seconds after teleporting.
      Developer Comment:
      With the changes to the rest of the class kit, we cannot leave streak as strong as it currently is. We have replaced the stun of streak with a snare, but to bring some skill and decision making into using the ability, we have made it so that an enemy hit by it twice by this skill will still be stunned. This will result in streak still being a very strong escape/initiation tool but will require weighing up the costs of using the ability twice (with the associated ramping cost) to get the stun.
      We also want to differentiate the other morph, Ball of Lightning from mist form as the changes to mist form ended up rending Ball of Lightning obsolete so that it creates a real choice in which morph to take. We hope that by also blocking gap closers and granting 1 of the buffs of elusive mist (evasion), Ball of lightning will now be the ability of choice for those sorcerers who wish to evade their enemies and give a real reason to choose Ball of Lightning over mist form or streak.
  • Overload:
    • Toggling this ability and its morphs on while you have over 175 ultimate will shoot a lightning bolt out at enemies in front of you in a 6x8 area dealing 2090 Shock damage and draining half of your current Ultimate. After this initial burst the ability will remain the same as current where it alters your Light and Heavy attacks. This initial burst when toggling this ability and morphs on can only occur once every 15 seconds.
    • Power Overload (Morph): Also Increases the size and damage of the burst when toggled on. The burst now deals 2375 shock damage in an 8x10 area when toggled on with 175 or more ultimate.
    • Energy Overload (Morph): Hitting an enemy with the burst when toggled on restores 1500 Magicka and Stamina.
      Developer Comment:
      We realise that Overload has been through some rough changes in the past and while we wanted to keep its unique aspect of modifying light and heavy attacks we also wanted to give sorcerer some up front burst potential when toggling this ability on, so we have given it a single tick of a heavy attack in front of the caster when toggled on. We are also increasing the size of the heavy attack area slightly to better account for the recent melee range increases we have done.
  • Capacitor:
    • New Passive: This passive now grants an additional 219 (1%) critical chance and +1% critical damage for 5 seconds upon casting/toggling a Storm Calling ability. This can stack up to 6 times.
      Developer Comment:
      With the magicka recovery being moved to the daedric protection passive, we took into consideration the countless feedback of sorcerer being a critical based class with its heal over time from crit surge so we are leaning into that with this new passive to better synergize the class kit. Hopefully this charges up those sorcerers out there to unleash their full potential.
  • Expert Mage:
    • This passive now also increases your critical chance by 219 (1%) for each sorcerer ability slotted.
      Developer Comment:
      Class abilities and passive should be at minimum on par and preferably slightly ahead of the globally available abilities and passives and this passive being objectively weaker than the globally available fighters guild passive Slayer, we have decided to give this passive a slight buff that fits with the class kit by giving it a slight increase in critical chance instead of just a flat damage increase.

So you just want MagSorc to be completely overpowered.

Got it.

hmm, lets see the nerfs I gave sorc to account for the changes, since people always want to ignore those when it comes to putting forward ideas/suggestions/wishes for buffing/changing/fixing sorcerer.

• streak loses its stun on the first cast (it now costs nearly 10k magicka to cast streak twice on the same target within 2 seconds to get the stun)
• rune cage stun has been made blockable and now attempts to stun 6 seconds after being cast.
• rune cage lost its burst damage
• crit surge (and power surge) heal amount reduced by 2/3
• daedric prey bonus pet damage reduced from 45% to 20%
• dark exchange and morphs lose the instant resource restore
• dark exchange and morphs base heal value reduced by 60% to account for now scaling off offensive stats
• blood magic passive heal reduced by 25% and cooldown doubled in length
• crystal weapon lost its second hit
• expert summoner had its bonus health reduced by 50%
• daedric protection recovery values reduced by 25% to account for now also doing mag (NB gets the same recovery values just for existing, not even slotting anything)
• defensive rune duration reduced from 2 minutes down to 10 seconds

Lets see the buffs given to currently commonly used abilities.

• fragments only gets the AoE on the proc with 50% reduced damage
• weapon proc is now AoE (still relies on the light/heavy attack connecting with the target, still doesn't stack with crushing weapon)
• haunting curse gets minor breach (which everyone gets from the sundered status effect already)
• haunting curse total duration reduced from 12 seconds to 10 seconds
• crit surge gets major prophecy/savager (something all classes should already have and all but sorc and necro already do have, usually on much better abilities)
• overload gets 1 tick of a heavy attack (or half the upfront burst damage of dawnbreaker) when toggled on with a long cooldown and a cost of half your current ultimate and is only available when you toggle on with 175+ ultimate (or same amount of ultimate as atro/onslaught).
• daedric prey has half of its damage now done over the 6 second duration (it doesn't gain any damage at all, its burst damage at the end was halved to make this change)
• power surge gains minor courage (extremely common in group play and even for solo play its not that rare)
  
  But sure, do go on about how "I want sorc to be overpowered". Try reading the post thoroughly before attempting to bait/bash people.
  The abilities that got the biggest changes are the abilities that nobody (or barely anyone) slots/uses and even then, those abilities were standardized to global equivalent ability standards.
  The abilities that are already being used only got common minor buffs or changes that bring them into line with the current standard.
  The biggest buffs were to ball of lightning because it needed something to make it stand out compared to streak and mist form since it has zero offensive capacity and boundless storm because magsorc was literally slotting chudan over this ability because it is that bad.

(This is basically exclusively regarding PvP, I do not know enough about PvE to comment on that)

The only nerfs of the ones you mentioned that really are going to hurt current sorcs are Streak no longer stunning, the reduced heal on Crit Surge (Neither of which is a good idea in my opinion, since both are very important and defining skills to sorcs atm), no direct resource gain with Dark Deal/Conversion and the slightly reduced Health buff on Expert Summoner.
The reduced regenerations on Daedric Protection are going to hurt StamSorcs but buff MagSorcs.

You also did not mention a lot of the other buffs you suggested:

• Bound Armaments also increasing your Max Mag and doing Shock damage (allows MagSorcs to get good damage with Bound Armaments and also get increased Magicka for bigger shields)
• Hardened duration increased to 8 sec
• Cast Time removed on Dark Deal/Conversion
• the Reduced Dark Deal healing will still end up being more healing than now (Adding a reliable burst heal for Sorcs, on top of longer Shields. Also 6000 Magicka/Stamina over 20 seconds is equal to 600 recovery)
• Increased Mag Recovery additional to stam/health from Daedric Protection (50% higher Magicka Regen than the current Capacitor)
• Dark Magic being able to proc from damage over time (The 1 second cooldown only prevents it from healing from ticks on multiple targets, the cooldown does not matter currently anyways. It will still end up being more heal than now most likely)
• Negate also silencing Stam abilities (making negate effectively an area in which you are untouchable if placed in a good spot)
• basically permanent 10% cost reduction on skills for MagSorcs with persistence
• passive Cost reduction on Hardened (equal to roughly 150 Magicka Regen, even if Hardened Ward is only cast every 8 seconds)
• 6% increased passive crit chance and crit damage
• increased crit chance on Expert Mage (These 2 will lead to about 10% increased crit chance and 6% increased crit damage)

All those in total will give MagSorc:

• 8% more Max Magicka on both bars
• a reliable burst heal with Dark Conversion, that is on par with Honor the Dead for self healing while giving a lot of regen
• about 500 free extra Mag Recovery (from Dark Conversion and Daedric Protection)
• 10% cost reduction on everything, 25% cost reduction on Hardened Ward
• about 10% increased Crit Chance and 6% Crit Damage

The increased recovery and cost reduction would more than make up for the loss of Dark Conversions direct ressources.
The other buffs would give MagSorcs longer (and stronger) shields under which they cant now actually burst heal, as well as extra damage through more Crit and Max Mag/Bound Armaments.
The Streak and Surge nerfs would seriously hurt Sorc and are imo really not necessary, as both of those Skills are defining for Sorc and among the few things that still seperate them from other classes.
But Sorc would still end up considerably stronger than it is now if ZOS would make those changes (especially MagSorc)

MagSorc is at least in PvP already in a pretty solid spot. It might not be as strong as DKs, MagBlades or StamSorcs but it is also nowhere near the worst specs.

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I strongly disagree with your statement “Magsorc is at least in PvP already in a pretty solid spot.”

I assume you mean pet magsorc. I gave up on my no pet magsorc months ago, she basically could not compete against any other class. I have seen a few players pull that off successfully, but I guess I don’t have the secret sauce build with certain skills and gear to do it.

I basically never see MagSorcs running pets in PvP unless they are healers.

Still MagSorcs are still one of the most common specs i see in Cyrodiil, behind probably DK and Nightblade.
While it is definitely not as strong as either of those it is still considerably stronger than Necros or Wardens at the other end, at least from what i have experienced fighting them.

I personally do not have a ton of experience playing MagSorc, but atm i would much rather fight a Necro, Warden or Templar (except for when im playing Sorc myself) than fight a MagSorc.

Urvoth wrote: »

The necro ones look like they’re mostly pve based and don’t really fix the pvp issues lol

I'll readily agree that these proposed changes aren't enough to 'fix' Necromancer, but again:

Woodenplank wrote: »

I'd say everything I suggested is only scratcing the surface.

I'm just curious that you felt they were geared towards PVE, when I myself was chiefly thinking of pressing issues in PVP performance. Could you elaborate?

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I strongly disagree with your statement “Magsorc is at least in PvP already in a pretty solid spot.”

I assume you mean pet magsorc. I gave up on my no pet magsorc months ago, she basically could not compete against any other class. I have seen a few players pull that off successfully, but I guess I don’t have the secret sauce build with certain skills and gear to do it.

You're not wrong, the only players who can pull off magsorc in any sort of high tier capacity are the top tier players who can make even necro look A+ tier.

Pets aren't used for PvP outside of group play or simply someone just messing around with them (not playing seriously). Pets are simply too squishy and too clunky to be viable with how far power creep has gone in this game compared to when pets were actually good.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

My guess is you haven't played much sorc? These changes, while nice, are barely scratching the surface of the issues with the class, especially for [...] No-Pet PvE builds.

I feel like Sorcs being spurred into the double pet and Daedric Curse builds was in part due to the fall of Ground AoE meta.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying I want the meta to return to Wear Maelstrom wep. and spam as much scary crap onto the ground as you possibly can, but abilities like Lightning Splash have been left in the dust. Their damage too low for PVE and too slow for PVP - their only real use in modern times being PVP ball groups stacking damage synergy procs.

When there are no worthy class skills, and only one or two worthwhile Weapon-skill DoTs, what was left in the end but for Sorcerers to fill their bars with pets?

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Ok, so a 50% nerf is only

slightly reduced

sure....

8% more hp to 5% more hp might be a big nerf to that passive, but is overall really not going to have a huge impact.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Also, whenever talk of buffing sorc comes up, the 2 most common abilities talked about by those opposing sorc buffs are streak and crit surge. Of course a nerf to those is going to be put forward when discussing buffs to other areas of sorcs.

As for the other buffs, they are either negligeable or they are much needed due to things in the class that have not kept up with the power creep in the game.

• Max mag has horrible scaling for shields and 8% off bound armaments will not change this, especially since magsorc already currently gets 8% off bound aegis and that still doesn't make a difference to sorc shields over just building max health. You currently get significantly stronger shields by having 40k health than you get from having 50k+ magicka (including the 8% currently from bound aegis).
  Here is Hardened Ward tooltip with 55K+ max magicka and 31k+ max health
  
  
  Here is the tooltip for 40k max health
  
  
  The tooltip from the 55k+ max magicka had the following to reach that
  - bound aegis
  - inner light
  - another 4% from mages guild passive with 2 MG abilities slotted second MG ability is Ice comet)
  - + 10% from warhorn
  - CP invested entirely into max mag and shield size as much as possible
  - crafty alfiq set active
  - high elf race
  - mage mundus (max mag)
  - sugar skulls food
  And it's still 28% weaker than hardened ward was with simply getting to 40k health and no other investment (which is super easy to get to on any class without sacrificing any real damage)

That is just plain wrong.
I tested it earlier and my MagSorc got a 10,300 shield with 33k max hp and 39k max mag (and bastion CP) in PvP. I got a very similar size shield on a StamSorc with about 40k hp.
If you looked at the tooltips on the editor im pretty sure those are bugged.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Shield duration is a non-factor, they don't last for more than 2-3 seconds currently anyway with how much damage has been power crept over the past 5 years to the point that a single cast of a spammable instantly wipes out a hardened ward, especially since shields don't get any mitigation bonuses outside of armor mitigation. Shields also don't pull you out of execute range so those executes still hit for their scaled damage even through the shield and remaining damage is then taken from the sorcs health bar so that low health sorcs health, just got even lower.

When you are on the defense shields are basically never going to last the full time, that is true. But if you are on the offensive and your opponent is waiting for an opening to burst you those extra 2 seconds on each shield are going to give you 2 more GCDs for doing damage before you have to renew your shield.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Dark exchange is a horrible heal, it is a flat non-scaling heal that is also halved by battle spirit, the ONLY reason sorcs slot it is because the pet is even worse. I have gone into this in great detail on a number of other threads, I'm not going to repeat myself again here.

Dark Exchange in its current form is a horrible heal, no question about that. However without cast time and normal heal scaling it would be a very good heal, especially if you get a lot of recovery with it too.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

NB gets 15% to all 3 recoveries just for existing, sorc still has to slot a daedric summoning ability to get those recoveries. By all rights, the recoveries should be 18%+, but I made them 15% and gave a reduction to shield costs because of how expensive shields are and how bad they are mechanically in the current game compared to the objectively superior block casting, dodge roll cancelling and HoT stacking that every other class has.

Slotting a Daedric Summoning ability on both bars really is not a hard requirement. Also Shields cost about the same as other classes burst heals. You can also absolutely block cast or dodge cancel shields currently (even tho that does not have the same effect as doing the same with a good burst heal, i will admit that)
With your changes MagSorc would now be able to block cast burst heals, while having a (cheaper) shield on top of them.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Negate should have ALWAYS silenced stamina abilities, or at least 1 morph should have had this as its defining trait. It is absurd that half the abilities in the game can simply completely ignore an ultimate (imagine if all magicka abilities simply ignored corrosives mitigation/barriers shield or if half the siege weapons simply ignored siege shield).

Negate not silencing stamina abilities forces you to still be somewhat careful when using it. Not having to do that is IMO one of the worst things with current corrosive. Though i do not feel that strongly about this one since Negate is at least very stationary.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Wards are insanely expensive already, 4k+ cost for a temporary buffer that doesn't help to bring you out of execute range or mitigate damage any better than if you just blocked or dodge rolled an attack while casting a vigor/regen/heal of choice.

Ward is around the same cost as most class burst heals and the only reason it is not as strong or stronger than most of them is because currently it is pretty hard to recover your hp under those shields because sorc healing is lacking (it wouldnt with an actual burst heal). Also even without that shields can offer you a lot of survivability, at least against 1 or 2 players (against anything above that basically everyone is going to have trouble sustaining their hp).

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

10% crit chance on a class that lives and dies (literally) by their damage critting often enough to proc their class HoT, on a class that doesn't currently have proper in class access to this basic and vital named buff and no bar space to include it from out of class abilities without massive sacrifice somewhere else.

If luck with Surge ticks is the only reason you are surviving on Sorc then you are doing something wrong.
I do think Sorc should have access to a bit more reliable healing though.
The only classes that have actually good in class Skills for Major Prophecy/Savagery are DK, NB and Warden, basically every other class is using Camo Hunter or Magelight, which everyone has access to.
Also a lot of MagSorcs are using Magelight, its very much possible to fit on your bar, especially on the only class that still really benefits from more max mag.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

The only 2 things that are strong are the cost reduction from persistence, but considering how the passive works (it doesn't gain stacks to infinitely have reduced cost, its just block/avoid an ability and the next ability cast has reduced cost, it is a 1 for 1 block/dodge to gain 1 cast at reduced cost, so that reduced cost is still costing the sorc in terms of block/dodge/shield costs) and sorcs abilities are so expensive currently that its the only class forced to still run a sustain set (wretched) even when running sustain food and/or mundus, its more than warranted to have at least some cost reduction that is more consistent, and secondly, the heal from blood magic, hence why I noted that this passives heal would see further adjustments (see reductions) as required.

If you are playing a MagSorc well then you should almost always have a shield up on yourself and should basically always have that buff up. So that reduced cost is really not costing the sorc that much if they keep up their shield (as they should anyways).
A lot of classes run wretched, simply because it is so much regen. I am personally using it (at least sometimes) on everything but DK currently.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

8% more Max Magicka on both bars Nothing gained here, MAGsorc already has this buff, they just don't have any real reason to use the active component of the ability currently.

Absolutely something gained there lol. Bound Aegis is basically only used for the passive 8% mag, with the buff you still get the 8% mag on Bound Armaments while also getting a very nice skill to add damage to your build.
(Btw i dont think that is a bad idea, imo since hybridization all skills/passives that offer just mag or stam should be changed to buff either both or the higher one)

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

a reliable burst heal with Dark Conversion, that is on par with Honor the Dead for self healing while giving a lot of regen a real fix for the most important pain point for all sorcs including stamsorc.

Certainly is the most important pain point, absolutely doesnt make what i said wrong tho and is still a huge buff.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

about 500 free extra Mag Recovery (from Dark Conversion and Daedric Protection) Magsorcs can finally actually think about slotting something on the back bar that's not wretched vitality.

Also doesnt change anything about what i said [Snip]. Getting that much Regen gives you a lot more options for more damage by going with different glyphs or sets etc.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

10% cost reduction on everything, 25% cost reduction on Hardened Ward Sorcs version of a HoT/temporary health buff that is used to counter DoTs and other pressure (status/debuffs) now only costs 10% more than regular HoTs instead of 30% more as long as they have specific abilities slotted and consistently roll dodge/block/keep their shields up for every single incoming attack.

Hardened is absolutely not a HoT and should cost more than them. Hardened is closer to a burst heal and costs slightly less than them (with Unholy Knowledge Passive).
Also again Sorcs should (at least try to) keep their shields up basically permanently.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

about 10% increased Crit Chance and 6% Crit Damage You're right, for a class so dependent on dealing crit damage for its class HoT to even function, these should be much higher to account for the nerf in healing done.

How much Crit do you want? You already get 30%+ Spell Crit chance currently with the only additional buff to it being Major Prophecy either from Magelight/Camo or potions.
With those buffs it would be 40% crit chance without building for crit at all. If you actually try to get high Crit it would be pretty easy to get up to like 60% crit chance.
Also with Dark Deal actually being a working burst heal they would not be "dependant" on crits at all anymore.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Lets also see what magsorc loses from these changes

• 4% max health (smaller shield sizes due to lower cap)
• burst sustain (this is a bigger nerf than most will realise, even with the additional recovery provided by the buffs which would only equate to roughly 77% of the extra regen currently being provided by wretched vitality)

You are going to have 4% less max health, but you wont notice a change in shield size at all if you build for max mag. You basically never reach the cap in PvP anyways.
Yeah the burst sustain is going to hurt when you make mistakes, otherwise the consistent sustain should basically cover that.
You wont be able to bounce back up to high mag/stam when dropping low anymore, but you will drop a lot slower.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

I've done the builds with 50k+ max magicka the rework to the damage scaling formula done years ago has made max magicka a useless stat to invest into for gaining real significant damage, with raw weapon/spell damage providing significantly more value than max magicka ever can (50k max magicka is roughly equal to about 5k (or just under) weapon/spell damage and all the other classes can reach that value (and significantly more) of weapon/spell damage without even trying thanks to how many sources of percentage based bonuses to damage that stack which simply don't exist for max magicka.
Yet for sorc to reach that amount of magicka it needs to give up on so much in terms of sustain, damage and healing, just to reach that amount of magicka for a damage shield that is still significantly worse than if they just built into max health and damage like the other classes.

WD/SD is a lot easier to get to level where you can do nice damage than Max Mag/Stam and ZOS should absolutely try to balance that better. They didnt change (i think) the effective SD value of Max Mag, but made the average SD achievable a lot higher than it used to be, while max mag did not change close to as much.
However a MagSorc can still get a decent amount of SD while building for max mag. Not as much as classes speccing directly into SD but about enough to make it even. Also MagSorc damage can be very nice, the defense is more of a problem.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Even plar which can build for over 9k spell damage, while maintaining near to 30k resistances, has more effective power in terms of scaling damage and healing abilities than an emperor magsorc that is full invested into max magicka (which caps out at 88k (or 8.8k spell damage) and leaves the emp sorc sitting at only 20k resistances) can achieve. That is how bad max magicka is for scaling compared to weapon/spell damage.

The MagSorc does also gets their SD on top of the max mag tho. (still should be made more balanced)

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

MagSorc is at least in PvP already in a pretty solid spot. It might not be as strong as DKs, MagBlades or StamSorcs but it is also nowhere near the worst specs.

[snip] Magsorc is NOT in a good position, anyone who does any amount of high tier PvP will tell you this exact same thing. [snip]
Stamsorc is in a fine spot (well the meta proc build is), sure, but magsorc is consistently rated at or close to the bottom right alongside plar and has been this way for a long time now.

The only reason a magsorc might seem strong to some players is because its either part of a huge zerg/ball group which more than covers all of its weaknesses (and isn't getting pressured by those being attacked by that zerg/ball) or it's being played by top tier players who can make a gearless necro look A+ tier.

I usually play several hours of PvP everyday, split up between high mmr BGs and duo/solo Cyrodiil .

While MagSorc is definitely not the strongest spec right now, its also absolutely not the weakest. Its still quite common in both cyro and BGs and i pretty regularly see magsorcs that are doing well.
[Snip]

[Edited to remove quote/minor bait]