Are No-Pet PVE MagSorcs viable again?

MakeMeUhSamich · February 5

Console newb here. Thanks in advance.

acastanza_ESO · February 5

Meh. They're underperforming petsorc by about 10k, which is pretty bad considering the significantly increased amount of effort compared to petsorc. But that's a significant improvement over where they used to be, and they're the main way to run sorc in PVP for sure.

Tannus15 · February 5

10% damage loss to run no pet, and it's way harder, and everything is single target, so there is no cleave.

depends on what content you're doing, but if you are in a progression group then you should be running pets.

J18696 · February 5

Tbf at a end game level you would be running trial trifecta level content and no one would bring a sorc over a arc still other than a token mk sorc

RandomKodiak · February 5

As Tannus15 said about 10% behind pet Sorcs but that is a big jump from the 20% they have been. If you just really hate pets and are not proging they are much better. So if you are soloing or just running casual with friends you can now but as was said above by all not for serious damage in trials or trifecta groups for dungeons.

Tannus15 · February 6

RandomKodiak wrote: »

As Tannus15 said about 10% behind pet Sorcs but that is a big jump from the 20% they have been. If you just really hate pets and are not proging they are much better. So if you are soloing or just running casual with friends you can now but as was said above by all not for serious damage in trials or trifecta groups for dungeons.

the problem with this is that it's vastly underestimating how much more work the frags + BA + spammable rotation is. it's a lot more work to get good dps from a no pet build which makes it less casual friendly to do.

Araneae6537 · February 6

I really hope there will be further improvements/ adjustments so that lightning sorcs are viable in endgame content! Sorcs don’t have to be good at everything (keeping healing minimal compared to other classes is fine), but they should be a strong DPS class and two of the three skill lines aren’t yet where they should be.

I hope that ZOS will continue to make incremental improvements to sorc — and that should ultimately be much better than over-buffing followed by over-nerfing!

MakeMeUhSamich · February 6

Thanks, all!

Jsmalls · February 6

Could theoretically increase damage dealt by the sorcerer while haunting curse is active. Kind of like a reverse Daedric Prey. Should only be like 5% - 10% or something. This would bring them in line with PvE DPS of pet Sorcs while doing something that makes sense as a bonus to the other morph.

Tannus15 · February 6

they just need to change it from 10% resource to 10% damage done

straight up, the passive is not strong enough. resource % is welcome, but it's also the weakest dps buff you can get.

Pelanora · February 6

Thanks for the not play- it- your- way, zos.

Tannus15 · February 6

Pelanora wrote: »

Thanks for the not play- it- your- way, zos.

to be fair, it works, it's just not optimal.

Pelanora · February 6

Should be the same, tho.

10% less damage....

Tannus15 · February 6

Why? you're ignoring some important skills from the sorc skill trees.

I don't see why "partial sorc" should be able to compete with "full sorc".

however, shouting at ZoS about it seemed to work for frost wardens, so lets go shock sorc!

Turtle_Bot · February 6

Jsmalls wrote: »

Could theoretically increase damage dealt by the sorcerer while haunting curse is active. Kind of like a reverse Daedric Prey. Should only be like 5% - 10% or something. This would bring them in line with PvE DPS of pet Sorcs while doing something that makes sense as a bonus to the other morph.

Honestly they just need to do 2 things for no-pet sorc, could even tie them to not having a permanent pet active if they really want to (or reduce the bonus damage prey gives to pets):
1. Give lightning splash/morphs a significantly higher base chance to proc concussed (like they did for debilitate, shouldn't need to adjust damage since LS base damage is so low already anyway and this would only really bring it up to par in terms of DPS for the caster).
2. Change the max stats from bound armor/morphs to major prophecy/savagery while slotted on either bar and have each active dagger from bound armaments gives a small bonus to crit chance (+1% or there abouts) to solidify it's role as the DPS morph of the skill.

This gives sorc the following:
- Actual cleave in the class kit for PvE when combined with wall (this won't affect PvP) that better keeps up with the other classes (haunting AoE portion is extremely low at basically 2-3 DoT ticks worth of damage every 12 seconds).
- Hybridizes bound armor/morphs for all sorcs, not just for stamsorcs.
- Reduces the overall potential stat stacking extremes that might cause issues with the buffs to wards, since shield size cannot crit.
- Finally gives sorc the 1 standard/common major buff the class has needed since forever without requiring slotting a guild ability (which also reduces max mag by another 5-7% due to not needing inner light).

A nice addition would be reworking 1 morph of fury to be more like a regular spammable (or more standard scaling execute), which would also make the sorc class set actually usable, but the other 2 changes above would have less of an impact on PvP and be less likely to then get nerfed later on.

MashmalloMan · February 6

Tannus15 wrote: »

they just need to change it from 10% resource to 10% damage done

straight up, the passive is not strong enough. resource % is welcome, but it's also the weakest dps buff you can get.

This would be completely busted for PVP, we already have 1-10% damage done, 5% physical/shock, and 2% weapon/spell damage per Sorc skill slotted. Some of that is kind of weak, but when paired with the 10% mag/stam we're getting, our damage related passives are some of the best in the game now.

The suggestion is looking at the wrong problem. No pet sorc sucks because the replacement skills for pets suck (for pve). Passives are fine, the abilities are the problem.

Change all the Magic damage to Shock/Physical. No pet Sorc relies heavily on Haunting Curse and Crystal Frags, yet neither get any benefit from our 5% physical/shock passive. Small, but also helps with concussed/sundered uptime.
Add a small, but unique modifier to that passive that gives like.. +50% status effect chance for concussed/sundered. Would stand out vs DK's Burning/Poisoned damage, Warden's Chilled damage, and Arcanists all status effect chance/damage bonuses. This would help Haunting Curse, Bound Armaments, and Frags/Weapon as they all deal direct damage and have a harder time fitting on a pet sorc build.

Bound Armaments

Remove 8% stamina.
Add Major Savagery/Prophecy and +1.5% crit chance per dagger.
These 2 changes will bring it more in line with Grim Focus, while not surpassing it in upfront damage. Grim Focus still gives 300-400 weapon damage and a heal in addition to the ultimate level burst it has. BA is easier to spam with 4 lights instead of 5, much less damage, but slightly more passive power.
This also hybridizes the skill for mag sorc to get a better tool in their no pet kit.

Haunting Curse

Great for PVP delayed burst, but undervalued with only damage on it. Skills like Scorch have Major Breach and fire off much quicker (albeit for less damage). It should give a debuff or buff or both.
Major Breach would make this better for solo and small group content, alleviates some bar space issues Sorcs are plagued with.
Adding 5% class damage dealt is unique and paralels how Daedric Prey behaves, but with the other changes I've suggested, this wouldn't be necessary and would avoid overloading Sorcs burst potential in pvp.

Mages Fury

Great for PVP burst combo's and stealing kills, but also undervalued with the lowest execute damage scaling in the game and only starting at 20% health instead of 25%. The best executes in the game start from 50% health with higher tooltips like Executioner, Killers Blade, or Radiant Oppression.
Mages Wrath - Update the 20% health to 25%. Buff the proc by 14%, this puts it 11% weaker than Impale with similar mechanics.
Endless Fury - Remove the delayed proc, change the 20% health to 50% and introduce a scaling modifier.
These changes would make Mages Wrath work earlier to warrant the bar space, but keeps the original delayed proc mechanic we're used to. Endless Fury would suit the name in that you will be casting this more frequently from higher health, but no longer can it be used in a delayed burst combo for pvp seeing as the proc is removed.

Lightning Splash

Terrible skills that rely too heavily on the Synergy to get their value. Necro's Boneyard deals the same damage as the base skill, but you can get +30% damage with a corpse and have the option to get a self synergy or Major Breach... The synergy also heals, while ours just deals damage.
Lightning Flood has an entire morph dedicated to the +30% damage that Boneyard gets at base. The radius could be taken off completely now that the skills are 6m at base in favour of more damage.
These skills should give increased chance to proc Concussed, with how Concussed was buffed, this would be a decent damage bonus and replaces the concussed you lose from removing Scamp (which has increased Concussed chance). This would paralel how Boneyard has +30% with a corpse or how Winters Revenge has +30% with a frost staff.

Pelanora · February 6

Tannus15 wrote: »

Why? you're ignoring some important skills from the sorc skill trees.

I don't see why "partial sorc" should be able to compete with "full sorc".

however, shouting at ZoS about it seemed to work for frost wardens, so lets go shock sorc!

I don't see no pet sorc as partial sorc. Dark magic should be viable, or lightning, as a full sorc.
Zos cld juggle things so either, or, works, and you don't get double, if using both.

Tannus15 · February 6

@MashmalloMan while a lot of these suggestions are great, and sure, they would help no pet sorc, they would also help pet sorc so the gap between them would remain the same.

if you buff liquid lightning and morphs then we run it instead of hurricane.
we're already using bound armaments because of maelstrom 2h, and the thing pet sorcs need more than anything is something on their bar with Major Savagery/Prophecy. no pet sorc actually has the bar space to slot evil hunter / inner light.
changing mag damage to shock or physical buffs daedric prey, and frags, which again, we're already using.
if mages fury gets buffed then most likely pet sorcs run frags as spammable with fury.

don't get me wrong, these are great suggestions which would fix a lot of problems with the class, however it does almost nothing to close the gap between pet and no pet.

Alpheu5 · February 6

Tannus15 wrote: »

they just need to change it from 10% resource to 10% damage done

straight up, the passive is not strong enough. resource % is welcome, but it's also the weakest dps buff you can get.

Then sorc tanks would be bottlenecked into running a pet to get any use out of the passive. At least they can still benefit from more resources.

Tannus15 · February 6

Alpheu5 wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

they just need to change it from 10% resource to 10% damage done

straight up, the passive is not strong enough. resource % is welcome, but it's also the weakest dps buff you can get.

Then sorc tanks would be bottlenecked into running a pet to get any use out of the passive. At least they can still benefit from more resources.

funnily enough the current change is a nerf to tanks since slotting bound aegis no longer gives you 10% max health

MashmalloMan · February 7

Tannus15 wrote: »

@MashmalloMan while a lot of these suggestions are great, and sure, they would help no pet sorc, they would also help pet sorc so the gap between them would remain the same.

if you buff liquid lightning and morphs then we run it instead of hurricane.
we're already using bound armaments because of maelstrom 2h, and the thing pet sorcs need more than anything is something on their bar with Major Savagery/Prophecy. no pet sorc actually has the bar space to slot evil hunter / inner light.
changing mag damage to shock or physical buffs daedric prey, and frags, which again, we're already using.
if mages fury gets buffed then most likely pet sorcs run frags as spammable with fury.

don't get me wrong, these are great suggestions which would fix a lot of problems with the class, however it does almost nothing to close the gap between pet and no pet.

The suggested changes are warranted regardless if pet sorc can utilize them or not, I don't think the gap would remain the same as you suggest when you make much more skills viable instead of a handful, of which are pets and Prey.

I didn't write it in this thread, but I'm also suggesting Daedric Prey gets nerfed back to it's original 20% value instead of 45%. A lot less passive damage would come from their pets and they'd need something active instead of passive like Camo Hunter or Inner Light to make up for it, if that's Lightning Splash, so be it.

The skills are behind and the class kit is in an awkard place. Many of what I suggested is just quality of life and isn't necessarily towards a pet vs no pet sorc debate, it may buff both equally for all I care. We're really not that far behind now, it's mostly Daedric Prey propping up pet sorc farther than it should be, but if that went down, we wouldn't be competitive with other DDs in the game.

We have to replace the 5 slots that we lose from 2 pets and Daedric Prey, the options just aren't there. You can keep saying "pet sorc would use x if x changed" for anything that needs a buff, but they can't run everything and we can't not get nice things just because they can use it too. With those 5 skill slots, Frags as a Spammable, a back bar weapon dot, and Trap, they really only have 2 flex spots, but there is still Fury, Lightning Splash, Hurricane, and BA for a total of 4 skills. They can't possibly fit everything, and when Scribing comes, they won't have nearly as much flex spots for any of those skills either.

A 10% damage done bonus for no pets is straight overkill and would destroy PVP balance where we don't need the help. It doesn't fix any of the skills no pet sorc wants to use, but can't. Focus on that first, then see where we stand, we can reassess the situation afterwards, especially when Scribing is in the picture to which no pet sorc should have more space to make use of than pet sorc. That said, the class skills still should be worth slotting and right now they're not (Splash/Fury, Haunting Curse to some degree).

Tannus15 · February 8

@MashmalloMan yeah, absolutely. the prey buff was a band-aid to address the over the top nerfs in U35.

unless they nerf prey, haunting curse feels like the skill most primed for a buff. I reckon increase the damage of the second explosion. if you get hit by the 2nd proc in pvp, well fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

if pet sorc wants to run haunting then their pets won't be hitting so hard so it'll close the gap anyway.

Turtle_Bot · February 8

Yeah, that over nerf in U35 was absolutely insane and still makes no sense why they decided to go that hard on top of the generic nerfs every class was already getting. The fact that they had to band-aid buff 2 abilities in the final week of the PTS with a 100% or more damage increase each, goes to show just how overboard they went with the nerfs to sorcerer in U35...

Bound Armaments had its 50% damage nerf reverted, i.e. a 100% buff from the new value it had that PTS cycle (still didn't get its LA boost back).
Prey got its pet bonus increased by over 100% from 20% to 45%.

MashmalloMan · February 8

Tannus15 wrote: »

@MashmalloMan yeah, absolutely. the prey buff was a band-aid to address the over the top nerfs in U35.

unless they nerf prey, haunting curse feels like the skill most primed for a buff. I reckon increase the damage of the second explosion. if you get hit by the 2nd proc in pvp, well fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

if pet sorc wants to run haunting then their pets won't be hitting so hard so it'll close the gap anyway.

True. I still don't think PVP sorc needs something like that. For PVP, we just need better bar space and pot flexibility which would instantly be fixed by Breach on Haunting and Savagery/Prophecy on BA.

I'll say this. If they did everything I suggested, not the specifics necessarily, but just buffing Fury/Splash at minimum, nerf Prey, and Scribing comes out... And no pet sorc is still behind, then the easiest buff they can do without effecting PVP is:

Add a +5% unique debuff to Haunting Curse that increases damage dealt to monsters. With everything else, that would probably be enough to equalize the 2 builds.

But again, I feel like we'd have to see how things play out first before jumping to something like that.

MashmalloMan · February 8

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Yeah, that over nerf in U35 was absolutely insane and still makes no sense why they decided to go that hard on top of the generic nerfs every class was already getting. The fact that they had to band-aid buff 2 abilities in the final week of the PTS with a 100% or more damage increase each, goes to show just how overboard they went with the nerfs to sorcerer in U35...
Bound Armaments had its 50% damage nerf reverted, i.e. a 100% buff from the new value it had that PTS cycle (still didn't get its LA boost back).
Prey got its pet bonus increased by over 100% from 20% to 45%.

Yeah. Excellent summary.

BA is still in a weird place with hybridization, especially now that we get 10% stam/mag. Stam sorcs really don't need 18% stam beyond some niche applications like Dragon's Appetite heal scaling.

We rely on Surge and Dark Deal which scale from crit, Vigor which scales easier with damage/crit, lastly Hardened Ward sometimes and Blood Magic which both scale from HP. The new Mine shields scale from stamina, but I really don't think any stam sorc is going to rely on that jank in a melee setup, maybe range, but at that point I'd say a mag sorc is probably stronger and I'd rather use Hardened Ward + Heal Encase anyway.

BA is a prime candidate for some much needed hybridization and Sorc quality of life improvements. Whether you're a stam sorc, mag sorc, or pet sorc, the skill is a good addition for passives, sustain, and damage as a semi spammable.

I'm willing to concede that BA can't be as powerful as Grim Focus seeing as Sorc has other burst tools at their disposal... However, why is it also a worst passive/utility boost? Grim Focus's 300-400 weapon damage and heal is infinitely better than 8% stamina. If we can't get the power, let's balance out the passives. Crit for earning daggers would make it more rewarding, but not permanent, major prophecy would play well with our minor prophecy.

RandomKodiak · February 8

Pet Sorc still way better but for those that just hate pets and want to run solo or with friends that don't mind.
Screenshot_20240208_133716.png?ex=65d7a3bb&is=65c52ebb&hm=51952b9633874ad51438da1febc0ff832d059b7428e69ea16f6e0ad52f3ca371&

Screenshot_20240208_133716.png?ex=65d7a3bb&is=65c52ebb&hm=51952b9633874ad51438da1febc0ff832d059b7428e69ea16f6e0ad52f3ca371&

Screenshot_20240208_133706.png?ex=65d7a3bb&is=65c52ebb&hm=1230a321d188d7676dd02f632e4b1749afb39ef2c47626e4a5862979dbe785de&

And even has some AoE
Screenshot_20240208_133736.png?ex=65d7a3e0&is=65c52ee0&hm=ff1b0bac4bc8bbafc46306dc2ab9111f7e967246464e710868330f101a645407&

Screenshot_20240208_133736.png?ex=65d7a3e0&is=65c52ee0&hm=ff1b0bac4bc8bbafc46306dc2ab9111f7e967246464e710868330f101a645407&

Now want to restate what others have said, this is still about 10% behind pet sorc and it's a running not a parse set up so DO NOT try to take this build where it is not wanted and come back and yell at me LoL

RandomKodiak · February 8

Had a bad few lag spikes so that's why Rele got dropped the one time but since it was just for fun didn't feel like redoing it

MakeMeUhSamich · February 8

RandomKodiak wrote: »

Pet Sorc still way better but for those that just hate pets and want to run solo or with friends that don't mind.

And even has some AoE

Now want to restate what others have said, this is still about 10% behind pet sorc and it's a running not a parse set up so DO NOT try to take this build where it is not wanted and come back and yell at me LoL

Thanks for this!

Alpheu5 · February 14

Tannus15 wrote: »

Alpheu5 wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

they just need to change it from 10% resource to 10% damage done

straight up, the passive is not strong enough. resource % is welcome, but it's also the weakest dps buff you can get.

Then sorc tanks would be bottlenecked into running a pet to get any use out of the passive. At least they can still benefit from more resources.

funnily enough the current change is a nerf to tanks since slotting bound aegis no longer gives you 10% max health

I know it is in a sense but at least with a health/stat split it's possible for a non-pet tank to reallocate some of the extra resources back into health. A health/damage split would just mean that tanks must either proc the health half of the passive or not benefit from it at all.