Sorcerer Pets dying in Endless Archive

Marcelovski · October 2023

For some reason, pets take damage in the Endless Archive. As I main a Sorcerer-Tank, I heavily rely on the heal from clanfear. This has multiple bad implications:

In AoE-Heavy fights, especially the Tho'at Replicanum, the clanfear dies almost immediately.
During the corridor fights, the pet would pull aggro of enemies. This makes stacking really difficult in some cases as this can happen behind corners rather far away.
It also makes Sorc-DD even less viable in the Archive.

At the Tho'at in Arc 4, I was not able to heal myself with my clanfear at all anymore. I would summon it and before I could even get out a single heal it would die from all the AoEs present. This is not even to mention the long cast time for the summon itself (in which I have to leave block). It was really frustrating and took a lot from the otherwise great experience.

There isn't really a way to build or play around this without being so inefficient you might as well not play Sorc at all. The clanfear is the only reliable heal in the class-kit of a Sorc-Tank. So all I can do is to ask for the pets to work like in almost any other instanced content and be immune.

Raikiki · October 2023

I had the same issue yesterday playing Sorc DD in endless archive. At some point, both of my pets would die instantly. Since the damage is ramping up so high at some point, there is a change needed urgently.

Sorcpets are the bread und butter for most builds, regardless of DD, Heal or Tank. But the fact that the pets will die immadetely will make Sorcs not viable for endless archive.

Please fix it, so pets wont die anymore.

@ZOS_Kevin

Luke_Flamesword · October 2023

My dk, yesterday also died in all of these AOEs and even was one-shoted by boss. I can't play when my character is dead so please fix it, so dk's wont die anymore

Seriously now - since when sorcs pets are immune to damage anywhere? They normally die in solo arenas if they take too much damage. Having undaying pet which can't some heat of you will be broken and OP.

virtus753 · October 2023

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

My dk, yesterday also died in all of these AOEs and even was one-shoted by boss. I can't play when my character is dead so please fix it, so dk's wont die anymore

Seriously now - since when sorcs pets are immune to damage anywhere? They normally die in solo arenas if they take too much damage. Having undaying pet which can't some heat of you will be broken and OP.

4.2.2: "Combat pets will now take 0 damage while in a Dungeon, Trial, or Group Arena."

Does Endless Archive count as a group or solo arena? You can do it as a group or solo, so which rules apply?

Four_Fingers · October 2023

Yeah, Ember shouldn't die either.

RoxyPhoenix · October 2023

It's made that way so you couldn't get your hands on that sweet super powerfull sorc set too early...oh wait😉

Arizona_Steve · October 2023

I'm just disappointed the flappies don't drop dead when entering towns. And I play a sorc mostly. Without pets.

Soarora · October 2023

As a warden, I really hope they make our pets immune to damage in EA. Some bosses my bear just gets slaughtered repeatedly so I just don’t get to ult.

jaws343 · October 2023

It's as much of a problem in the Bastian Nymics. Constantly needing to re-summon pets because it is not classed as a dungeon, trial, or arena.

flizomica · October 2023

I did my first Arc 1 clear on my oakensorc because I thought it would be the least stressful way to learn the content. It ended up being the hardest because I wasn't able to reliably burst heal myself on Tho'at with my flappy bird as she died every 3 seconds.

Gray_howling_parrot · October 2023

Im surprised that this wasn’t noticed in the PTS honestly, but sounds like something that definitely needs to be fixed!

Ragged_Claw · October 2023

Yeah I had to continuously resummon my bird leaving me unable to block and getting my face smashed in. So annoying.

Tannus15 · October 2023

Sorc pets and warden bear are basically useless in EA. They just get deleted from arc 3 onwards

katorga · October 2023

Don't use the pets. Really the only option.

Makes no sense. EA is a group arena, and a dungeon. So 4.2.2. should apply.

Don't use tank companions either. They die almost as quickly. I've had more success with DD using medium armor and vanish.

ESO_player123 · October 2023

Are the pets viable in Arc 1 at least? I'm not planning to progress any further, but if my flappy dies every 3 seconds in Arc 1 it's a no-go for me. I had no major issues with them in BN.

Quethrosar · October 2023

can confirm, no where else in the game have i had pets die , even in vet trials, but EA ? 10 times a run.

prof-dracko · October 2023

My bear usually survives fine until Tho'at, then I spend half the match running and resummoning. Sharp, on the other hand, dies almost immediately in every round. Good thing just having him there counts for the achievements, even if he is permanently face-down.

FantasticFreddie · October 2023

Yeah the aoe intense fights makes life interesting for my HA sorc with Ember....

Galeriano · October 2023

Pets die in solo arenas. Same goes for maesltrom and vateshran. It's intentional design.

Jaimeh · October 2023

Marcelovski wrote: »

This is not even to mention the long cast time for the summon itself (in which I have to leave block).

This is the biggest issue with the clanfear pet, you're vulnerable when you're summoning it, so if it dies not only you are left without a reliable heal, but you take a risk in order to resummon it.

Major_Toughness · October 2023

Marcel is the goat

Tannus15 · October 2023

Galeriano wrote: »

Pets die in solo arenas. Same goes for maesltrom and vateshran. It's intentional design.

they actually made pet's immune to a bunch of mechanics in the solo arena's like the poison flowers in vMA because they won't move out of AOE's and just die.

Araneae6537 · November 2023

This underscores the need for sorcs to have additional damage and especially heal options besides pets. Of course pets should also follow the same rules in EA as they do in dungeons, arenas, and trials.

ESO_player123 · November 2023

Galeriano wrote: »

Pets die in solo arenas. Same goes for maesltrom and vateshran. It's intentional design.

But EA is not a solo arena. Another player or a companion are allowed there. (Are companions allowed in Maelstrom?? I cannot remember). So, it's more like a dungeon.

BloodyStigmata · November 2023

I want to say that it makes sense that they can be damaged and that managing them is part of the tradeoff of having 2 on demand passive damage sources with you.

....but you have to have them slotted on both bars, and if you were any other class you could slot 3 DoT's and a self-heal instead and those would actually function when you need them to and not randomly die.

ArchMikem · November 2023

Raikiki wrote: »

Sorcpets are the bread und butter for most builds,

"Bread and butter" while here I am, never using summoned pets at all.

Pelanora · November 2023

Finally an end to sorc pets. Maybe give us a reliable heal not tied to pets, and put the oops-U35 damage boost elsewhere in the skills.

Galeriano · November 2023

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

Pets die in solo arenas. Same goes for maesltrom and vateshran. It's intentional design.

But EA is not a solo arena. Another player or a companion are allowed there. (Are companions allowed in Maelstrom?? I cannot remember). So, it's more like a dungeon.

If You take another player or companion than it's duo mode. There are two modes solo and duo. They even have separate leaderboards. If You enter solo mode than it's a solo arena.

Galeriano · November 2023

Tannus15 wrote: »

Galeriano wrote: »

Pets die in solo arenas. Same goes for maesltrom and vateshran. It's intentional design.

they actually made pet's immune to a bunch of mechanics in the solo arena's like the poison flowers in vMA because they won't move out of AOE's and just die.

Kinda the exception that proves the rule. Pets by design take damage in solo and overland content.

ZhuJiuyin · November 2023

The bugs about pets don't end there. Greater Storm Atronach sometimes loses its effect in EA's battles. He just stays in place without making any attacks, or repeatedly raises his hands and puts them down.

Turtle_Bot · November 2023

@ZOS_Kevin Another thread pointing out these long standing issues with sorcerer and the constant changes over the past half decade that has forced sorcerers into using their pets (removing the option for those players to "play the class as they want").

Can we please get a real explanation (and no more "time to bake" excuses) as to why it is apparently ok for one class to be forced to be entirely dependent on such easily removed outdated summons with their significant downsides as their only modern defense option (healing) and sustained damage pressure (sticky damage over time), yet the other classes get to freely slot multiple other abilities that perform just as good as the pets do while taking the same number of bar slots and don't have anywhere near the massive downsides that the pets have.

It's long overdue for sorcerers to be looked at as a class and freed up from their pets. The class is clearly severely lacking in everything when it comes to trying to run it without the pets and when the class does run pets in content where the pets can actually be killed (PvP and now EA) because the pets don't have their developer inserted god-mode stop-gap solution, the pets are just not good enough from a gameplay perspective to warrant their current multiple significant downsides of:
- long summon times (2 global cooldowns).
- inability to proc sets/secondary effects of abilities.
- taking up 2 bar slots each.
- on top of the downside of them being easily killable.

This has been a long standing issue with sorcerer, ever since Summerset when overloads third bar was removed (this deleted an extreme amount of utility access that was never given back to the class at all ever since then) and almost everything for the class was forced into the 2 pets and it needs addressing.

No more "Time to Bake", this issue has "baked" for so long now that it is nothing but burnt ash and charcoal.

The results have been in for a long time, the class is significantly behind ALL other classes when it cannot use its pets, which are only being made viable by a forced stop-gap solution that is not applied everywhere across all content.

It is time to fix this and allow sorcerers the option of attempting to keep up with the other classes in actual content (not just dummy parsing) and have viable modern defensive options for themselves without being forced to run pets that many players have issues with (including medical issues which required direct intervention via implementation of toggle options to disable pets from being seen in populated areas) and that were (and still are) also balanced around outdated 2018 ESO combat balance designs while every other class has long since moved on from those same balances.

The issues with the current state of communication regarding the many various different concerns and issues being raised about the class:

If this is already in the works, then at least a brief statement addressing the growing concerns and issues players are having with the class is definitely warranted, if not long overdue.
Even if it cannot go into detail, a simple communication such as:
"We are working on changes to the Sorcerer class to bring it more into line with where the balance changes/updates for the rest of the classes that will hopefully address the many concerns raised with healing and being forced into using pets, among others. However, due to how involved it is with addressing these concerns without causing more balance issues, it is taking us longer than expected to find a suitable solution."

But, if it is not being looked into, then an explanation as to why the team feels that sorcerers current state is acceptable despite how many varied issues a significant (and growing) number of players have with the state of the class is warranted.

Because as it stands right now, with there being no communication responding to the many, many threads regarding sorcerer and the various different issues being raised about the class, it is only serving to reinforce the feeling that the class is either being ignored or worse, that the team is hoping that sorcerer players will simply just "give up and go away". Hardly a good look for a class that used to be the most popular class among players based on ZOS's own data (coincidently this was also back when the class had options to choose from that could keep up with other classes outside of just pets).
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