[FEEDBACK], [IMPORTANT] ZOS, we need to talk. Open, direct and honest communication needed here.

Turtle_Bot · January 30

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_Wrobel

First off, I want to say that I appreciate what you are trying to do for sorc and no-pet sorc in particular with the changes this upcoming PTS/patch. The changes to Conjured Ward and morphs are definitely a step in the right direction and I still need to test it out, but the healing morph of encase looks somewhat promising.

However there are still many pain points that need urgently and directly addressing and I implore you to please, listen to the sorc players on these issues. I know you want to put your own unique spin on things, but for these issues, that isn't going to work and will only lead to future balance implications (remember crystal weapons original design when sorcerers asked for a stamina spammable and the balance issues that had with sets and other stackable abilites?).
Most sorcerers have come to a consensus on what few small changes would be required that would work wonders for the class without completely risking it becoming super over powered, what is mostly disagreed on is where specifically to apply those changes. I will be posting those changes shortly either in a different thread which I will link in a reply or edit in this thread.

Now, with that out of the way, lets get into the topic.

There has been a clear and blatant bias against sorcerer and for NB for a long time now, but it has become overtly problematic over the past 18 months to 2 years. Now, NB definitely needed help before U35, especially in PvE, there is no denying that and it does still need help in PvE specifically but the amount of GENERIC buffs it has been given that are not limited to PvE only via battle spirit or the against monsters clause has become completely absurd, to the point where it is even constantly being given versions/combinations of multiple of sorcs best abilities.

Let's look at some examples:

Major prophecy/savagery for slotting Shadowy Disguise on either bar.

This morph is clearly a skill designed for PvP and roleplay. In PvP, NB did not need any more buffs, in fact it needed (and still needs) balancing. In roleplay, having a buff like this is not what's important for that aspect, it's the invisibility itself that is what makes this skill important when roleplaying.

This named buff of major prophecy/savagery was also something that Sorcerer players have been desperately crying out for in class access to as the sorcerer class's heal over time ability in critical surge depends on landing critical strikes to proc its heal, not just dealing any damage as sorcerer has no other way to get healing over time from its class kit, something that is essential in today's PvP environment. This is especially problematic in PvP where it is drastically harder to build notable critical chance on a class that lacks access to that named buff. Which compounds when other changes (nerfs) are made to things like tick rates and radius (melee attack range) on the class AoE DoT that was used to somewhat reliably proc the class HoT.

The proposed changes to Siphoning Strikes and morphs.

Sorcerer is known for having Dark Conversion, an ability that grants sustain and healing. That ability is balanced around the fact that it has a significant (1 second) cast time (something that also notably messes with PvE rotations). Sorcerer is also known as the "Offensive healing" class that requires dealing damage to potentially proc healing every second via crit surge and the blood magic passive.

The proposed changes you are making to Siphoning Strikes simply takes the best aspects of these skills and rolls them into a singular skill that is also significantly stronger and easier to use.
- The heal proc is on any damage, not just critical damage.
- The heal proc is passive and on either bar, not just when the skill is active.
- The sustain is instant cast and is a burst, allowing block casting of the skill which facilitates permanent blocking (healing for NB is not an issue at all, even more so in group play so the health cost basically doesn't exist).

Bound Armaments and Merciless Resolve.

In U35, bound armaments had its damage halved and it's unique bonus to light attacks deleted entirely. That same patch there was a seemingly panicked reverting of the reduction to the skills damage, but that was it. This left the skill as an objectively inferior version of Merciless Resolve. It deals less damage, it's stacks fall off after 10 seconds and it has no unique effect apart from a small increase to max stamina (something that magicka sorcerers don't get any tangible benefit from, which is important considering Hybridization).

Meanwhile Merciless Resolve deals significantly more damage (even more than the vast majority of ultimates deal, only DK stamina leap has a higher base tooltip), it has it's own built in unique (unnamed) damage modifiers, its stacks last indefinitely, meaning it can be pre-buffed or even used passively.

Both of these skills are delayed burst that you build up by weaving light/heavy attacks, yet 1 is objectively significantly stronger than the other and the other doesn't have anything unique to help it stand out.

Bar Space.

NB has THE most efficient bar space in the game, bar none. It has (or is tied with arcanist) for the easiest access to the MOST buffs/debuffs/effects in the game. NB can very easily fill up 1 bar with class skills and have a completely functional (albeit basic) build. It doesn't do this however because it has the flexible bar space to easily slot absurd amounts of utility that other classes can only dream about having a small portion of.

Compare this to sorcerer and sorcerer is trying to force 14+ abilities into its 12 bar spaces just to meet the basics of standard buff/debuff access (brutality/sorcery, prophecy/savagery, resolve and breach), and this is without trying to slot the pets which take up 2 bar spaces each and are only made viable in PvE thanks to being programmed to ignore/be immune to the majority of mechanics and AoE in PvE content (a luxury that pets do not have in PvP, making them all but useless, sometimes even a detriment, there with their numerous downsides there).

Passives.

NB has very simple and efficient passives that cover a wide variety of things required for combat in ESO. Passives that boost things like: Healing done, Ultimate generation, max stats, damage, critical chance, critical damage, sustain and even the class's armor buff (major resolve) is a passive that procs off casting the class's spammable and utility skills, which ties in with the previous point about bar space.

Meanwhile Sorcerers passives are outdated, inefficient, and focus too much on trying to fix sorcerers sustain issues that would be better solved by more efficient and/or cheaper costing active skills.

A prime example of this is the Refreshing Shadows Passive that NB has. It grants +15% to all recoveries, just for existing. There are no requirements outside of simply learning that single passive, no skills slotted or activated, no conditions such as taking damage, etc.

Compare this to the equivalent Sorcerer Passives (yes passiveS as in multiple passives required to get a similar bonus to Refreshing Shadows), those being Daedric Protection (+20% health/stamina recovery) and Capacitor (+10% magicka recovery). Capacitor is active at all times, like Refreshing Shadows, but it's only 10% recovery (5% lower) and ONLY for magicka, meanwhile Daedric Protection gives +20% recoveries (5% more) to health and stamina, but it requires slotting a Daedric Summoning ability, half of which are the pets that take up 2 bar slots.
Health recovery is a completely dead stat (especially in PvP), so Daedric Protection might as well just say grants +20% stamina recovery while you have a Daedric Summoning ability slotted. That's 2 sorcerer passives required just to get an equivalent to what 1 passive gives NB and those sorcerers passives heavily favour stamina over magicka, despite so much of sorcerers active skills costing a significant amount of magicka to cast.

I am bringing this up, because there is a clear and blatant bias (not just perceived but provable via past and proposed changes to the 2 classes, especially over the past 2 years) and this really needs to be addressed.

NOTE1: I don't say this to see NB just gutted, but to implore ZOS to think about the changes they put forward for the classes, communicate and discuss these changes with their players early on and make a concentrated effort to keep things more balanced overall (it doesn't have to be perfectly balanced, but within a few percent is required for a healthy game state).

NOTE2: Sorcerer doesn't need a huge overhaul with a completely new kit/abilities (I will go further into this in another thread that I will link in a reply or edit on this thread), but listening to what Sorcerer players are telling you in regards to what the class needs and openly discussing it with them and implementing something along the lines of what is concluded from those open discussions would go a long, long way to improving your image regarding communication, and also restoring one of the old favourite classes/playstyles that many people, not just myself have not been able to play at anything more than just casual/roleplay level for far too long now.
It has been far too long of trying to put ZOS own spin on sorcerer to address sorcerer pain points and it is just not working. Please, just talk with those who know the class, play the class and can provide insight into things that can be done to help the class, they all just want to help, but the communication needs to be open and go both ways for it to work and right now, it seems like the players are simply talking to a brick wall.

EDIT: to add a link to the thread discussing simple changes to fix Sorcerers issues and preliminary feedback on the proposed changes to Sorcerer for the upcoming patch.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/651334/suggestion-qol-improvements-for-sorcerer-that-are-simple-and-effective/p1?new=1

ZOS_Hadeostry · January 30

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic, as it's about potential changes from the PTS.

Thank you for your understanding

Vaqual · January 30

Expert summoner and ward buffs look huge tho.

Turtle_Bot · January 30

Vaqual wrote: »

Expert summoner and ward buffs look huge tho.

The ward buffs are definitely a step in the right direction (as I noted).

The changes to expert summoner misses the mark though.
- Atro (especially for PvE DPS) counts as a pet, by casting atro (typically on the back bar), sorc loses the bonus mag/stam if it switches bars which is a DPS drop.
- In PvP, sorc wants as much health as possible for wards (and their new heal), but to get that bonus health to make those abilities/effects worthwhile, the sorc needs to have a pet active.

The most offensive thing about the patch notes though is that they are giving NB what is essentially a combination of dark deal and crit surge in 1 instant cast ability that is on a class that has no issues healing itself up. It's another thing that ZOS is stealing/copying from sorcerer and giving to NB on top of everything they have stolen/copied from sorcerer and given to NB in the past, which is what this thread is pointing out.

HowlKimchi · January 30

the NB hate is strong with this one.

James-Wayne · January 30

<this Templar sitting over in the corner just watching the other classes discuss their changes as a group>

I'll sit this one out again team!

xylena_lazarow · January 30

I too would like to know why PvP NB continues to be buffed (and Necro nerfed lol).

I would also like to know where the 7815 number for MDW comes from. The standard is supposed to be ~6300.

I don't expect an answer, Cyro is just slow today.

Zabagad · January 30

@Turtle_Bot
Thank you for all the time you invest to write this down - over and over again!
So sad, that they don't listen....

loosej · January 30

Wish I could give OP an Insightful, Agree and an Awesome for this.

Faulgor · January 30

HaruKamui wrote: »

the NB hate is strong with this one.

Nah, envy. I don't want to see NB abilities nerfed, but the disparity to similar Sorcerer skills is so apparent that you can't help but feel like a stepchild.

I made some suggestions in another thread to change Surge, Dark Exchange and Blood Magic in ways that bring them into the 2024 version of ESO, while disentangling their concepts and getting more in line with NB skills.

Take a look if you like.

Surge
Grants Major Brutality and Sorcerery for 33 seconds.
(maybe) While active, dealing Critical Damage grants you Major Prophecy and Savagery for 10 seconds.

Critical Surge
new: While active, dealing Critical Damage grants you Minor Berserk and Minor Force for 3 seconds.

Power Surge
new: While active, activating a Critical Heal grants Minor Vitality to the target and Minor Mending to you for 6 seconds.

Dark Exchange
Instantly restore 8000 Health and 3600 of your highest resource, as well as 2400 of your highest resource over 20 seconds.
Always costs your lowest resource.

Dark Conversion
new: Increases the amount to 10000/4500/3000, and decrease restore time from 20 to 10 seconds.

Dark Deal
new: This skill now costs a filled Soul Gem to use. Enchants your weapon with a trapped Soul for 60 seconds, dealing another 50 (Dark) Magic damage when you deal damage.
While slotted, killing an enemy fills an empty Soul Gem and restores 1000 Health, Magicka and Stamina.

Blood Magic
When you deal damage with a Dark Magic ability, you heal for 1800 and restore 200 Magicka and Stamina, up to once every second.

Of course things could be tweaked here or there, especially the values which I just copypasted, but I think the concept makes sense. The Surges become really powerful offensive fire-and-forget buffs, and dynamic resource costs for skills allow us to consolidate both Dark Exchange morphs into one, freeing up one morph for a long-lasting buff that finally makes effective use of the Blood Magic passive.

Jsmalls · January 30

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Expert summoner and ward buffs look huge tho.

The changes to expert summoner misses the mark though.
- Atro (especially for PvE DPS) counts as a pet, by casting atro (typically on the back bar), sorc loses the bonus mag/stam if it switches bars which is a DPS drop.
- In PvP, sorc wants as much health as possible for wards (and their new heal), but to get that bonus health to make those abilities/effects worthwhile, the sorc needs to have a pet active.

@Turtle_Bot

I think this is an over exaggeration. I don't think the point of this change was to effect Pet Sorcs at all which it hasn't.

Attributes are extremely flexible. For the free stamina and magicka given, points could be added to health to compensate via a lot of different ways while still being a buff to stamina and magicka pools.

What I don't entirely understand is the push for max stats on this class. But that's the message they keep giving us so going to try to embrace it.

We now have a potential 31-33%% increase to max magicka through skills and passives. This is bordering on the available multiplier for weapon/spell damage (Major brutality 20%, Sorc skills ~6-8%, medium armor 2-10%, etc). Obviously I'm not including ALL buffs there is minor brutality and continuous that add to this that can help really push those numbers but in a duel scenario those aren't accessible.

The ward change was a significant buff to the core defense of the class and they gave us additional ways to burst heal and shield. Our offense already was in a decent spot but the stat pool increase helped that as well.

Yes major buff access still needs to be added to our build choice rather than having it for free but they are synergizing better than before.

Magelight could benefit from the active on both bar treatment but that's now a buff that synergizes with our class (max stats).

Ele drain is going to be stronger with the buffs to status effects so it makes even more sense to use it as the option for major breach.

SandandStars · January 31

ele drain is a braindead, undynamic way to do damage that is not fun

like status effects

like proc sets

like dk’s flames of oblivion

i don’t like it

MashmalloMan · January 31

HaruKamui wrote: »

the NB hate is strong with this one.

Like the middle child, most of us are just jealous NB gets attention every patch when classes like Necro, Templar, and Sorc are being neglected. Everyone needs adjustments, it's just weird to watch NB and DK get buffs or quality of life improvements every patch for the past 2-3 years whether they were top tier or not.

silver1surfer69 · January 31

MashmalloMan wrote: »

HaruKamui wrote: »

the NB hate is strong with this one.

Like the middle child, most of us are just jealous NB gets attention every patch when classes like Necro, Templar, and Sorc are being neglected. Everyone needs adjustments, it's just weird to watch NB and DK get buffs or quality of life improvements every patch for the past 2-3 years whether they were top tier or not.

Somewhat true but i can tell you i remember the days whenn DK was absolute trash. For the first years in ESO DK was so bad you likely wouldnt imagine this. I played it all the years and waited like 4 years or so the get the first love and attention in the patches.

Pelanora · February 1

It's like we scream into a void

bar_boss_A · February 1

you gotta write in-game feedback on the pts server. It works better than making forum posts as it is the direct feedback loop. Forum is more for checking if the community is on your side or discussing things.
(Just my two cents after years of feedback)

Turtle_Bot · February 1

The main issue I can remember when trying to do in-game feedback is that it is so limited in how much you can write up (unlike here where you can really go in depth on things).

Unless they have changed that of course.

bar_boss_A · February 1

no they did not

MashmalloMan · February 1

bar_boss_A wrote: »

you gotta write in-game feedback on the pts server. It works better than making forum posts as it is the direct feedback loop. Forum is more for checking if the community is on your side or discussing things.
(Just my two cents after years of feedback)

Excellent point, I may hop on just to put in some feedback about Sorc's loosing stam/mag when they summon their only dps ultimate or the fact that status effects are more interesting than ever, but Sorc's physical/shock still feels underwhelming and half baked. I can write those rather briefly on the PTS.