Sorc Ward Neft

baguette_poolish · November 6

NB Cloak has somewhat been balanced by the latest pass, and forum posts seem to be able to be the best way to reach devs so its time to look at Sorc Wards and hit them with a balance pass. Cost hike? Shield size reduction ? Maybe both? Sorc players seem to like a challenge which is ofc why they play class and not because it's an easy class to play. So let's give them a challenge. Discuss !

tsaescishoeshiner · November 6

On top of the nerf from Update 44?

Conjured Ward: Reduced the heal scaling of this ability and the Hardened Ward morph to match the scaling of the Regenerative Ward morph, which is 10% of your Max Health or Magicka, down from 15%.

RomanRex · November 6

was nerfed

baguette_poolish · November 6

RomanRex wrote: »

was nerfed

Definitely not enough, still needs to be looked at.

Oblivion_Protocol · November 7

baguette_poolish wrote: »

Definitely not enough, still needs to be looked at.

I’ve been playing a lot of Battlegrounds. Prior to Update 44, it was common for MagSorcs to absolutely dominate matches with upwards of 30+ kills. Now, that doesn’t happen unless that Sorc is really skilled or has a whole team behind them.

If you can’t kill a MagSorc at this point, the problem is that you aren’t applying enough pressure to drain their Magicka and kill them or make them Streak away. That’s a skill issue, not a subject of further nerfs.

Templar and Necro are borderline unplayable, stealth NB is on life support, and Warden has been mostly relegated to 2H ‘bonk’ builds and healers. Let’s not push for more class nerfs, lest you want this game to become Dragonknight Scrolls Online.

Major_Toughness · November 7

Magsorcs are still several tiers above any other class in PvP.

xylena_lazarow · November 7

Ranged damage spam across the board needs to be looked at. Sorc spam, Plar beams, bows with proc sets. Constantly being blasted by faraway players who are pragmatically or literally impossible to engage, if you can even see them in the first place, who head for the hills as soon as you make eye contact, does not make for fun PvP.

VinnyGambini · November 7

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Magsorcs are still several tiers above any other class in PvP.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Ranged damage spam across the board needs to be looked at. Sorc spam, Plar beams, bows with proc sets. Constantly being blasted by faraway players who are pragmatically or literally impossible to engage, if you can even see them in the first place, who head for the hills as soon as you make eye contact, does not make for fun PvP.

Agree to both. Ranged is just 10000% more safe option than melee. And yes, sorcerers wer nerfed form S+++ to S++ tier. They are still broken, a bit less broken, but still broken. Not "overpowered", literally broken.

TechMaybeHic · November 7

I so want an evaluation of the balance between range and melee. Should be as pronounced as aoe vs single target

Jabbs_Giggity · November 7

I am on console, so not updated to 44 yet. However, I just fought a Sorc in Cyro today using just a max mag build...literally no damage or defensive sets.

I fought on a DK with 12k Pen, 6k WD, 32K Def, 1.8k Crit Res, 30K Health, Major AND Minor Protection + BRP BB....

Got this sorc down to <10% health, over 10 times....and they just shield spam and heal back to full in 1 or 2 GCD and then Nuke.

Please make this make sense....

Two of the biggest problems IMO with Sorcs is Shields prevent execute scaling and Streak fatigue is not even close to acceptable.

Suggestions:
When shields are equipped on skill bars, reduce Spell/Physical Res to 0. This creates counterplay to give other clasess the ability to to do more damage when shields are broken through, since Penetration and Execute scaling does not work against shields.

Increase Streak fatigue by 2x, or Reduce the distance traveled to half the current value.

baguette_poolish · November 8

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

I am on console, so not updated to 44 yet. However, I just fought a Sorc in Cyro today using just a max mag build...literally no damage or defensive sets.

I fought on a DK with 12k Pen, 6k WD, 32K Def, 1.8k Crit Res, 30K Health, Major AND Minor Protection + BRP BB....

Got this sorc down to <10% health, over 10 times....and they just shield spam and heal back to full in 1 or 2 GCD and then Nuke.

Please make this make sense....

Two of the biggest problems IMO with Sorcs is Shields prevent execute scaling and Streak fatigue is not even close to acceptable.

Suggestions:
When shields are equipped on skill bars, reduce Spell/Physical Res to 0. This creates counterplay to give other clasess the ability to to do more damage when shields are broken through, since Penetration and Execute scaling does not work against shields.

Increase Streak fatigue by 2x, or Reduce the distance traveled to half the current value.

that maybe a start, at least for me its the first time i've heard of this. Might be a good balanced change.

preevious · November 8

Your post might have had a point, weren't it for the "witty" comment about sorc pvp player.

Vaqual · November 8

Maybe a direct interaction between melee and range can solve this relationship without affecting balance otherwise.
Something like "Being hit by a player melee attack applies a "harried" debuff to you if you are wielding ranged weapons. This decreases your movement speed by 10 % for 2 seconds and the damage of your equipped ranged weapon (so you can swap out of the damage penalty, but not the speed debuff) by 20% for 2 seconds."
Or something like that. Of course tracking more short duration debuffs is not exactly ideal given the current performance.

Chilly-McFreeze · November 8

I love how every serious thread about balance sooner or later turns into a contest who can outbid with the most absurd ideas to nerf something. And yet the outcry about the latest overnerfed thing never the ends. Sledgehammer instead of a scalpel seems to have rubbed off.

However, to add to the topic. Ward had it‘s healing component nerfed by 1/3. Is it enough when you account for scribing options? Is the healing of ward really the issue or is it how sorcs systemically are nudged to go fully into max mag? Could something that helps you to build such stellar max resources be traded for something severly missing in the class kit? *hint hint*

Btw originally wards lasted much longer, had 0 resist but couldnt be crit hit either. You can ask some old timers if that was a better option.

Chilly-McFreeze · November 8

Vaqual wrote: »

Maybe a direct interaction between melee and range can solve this relationship without affecting balance otherwise.
Something like "Being hit by a player melee attack applies a "harried" debuff to you if you are wielding ranged weapons. This decreases your movement speed by 10 % for 2 seconds and the damage of your equipped ranged weapon (so you can swap out of the damage penalty, but not the speed debuff) by 20% for 2 seconds."
Or something like that. Of course tracking more short duration debuffs is not exactly ideal given the current performance.

Why so inconvenient? That wouldnt change any of the current issues with ranged pew pew
What about a modifier to battle Spirit , similar to that bow passive (vinedusk), that nerfs your damage the further you are away?

xylena_lazarow · November 8

No need to argue how we should nerf ranged damage. There's a million ways the devs can do that, we simply need to keep telling the devs to nerf ranged damage in PvP, really take the sledgehammer to it.

TechMaybeHic · November 8

Or make melee damage worth it. If my damage of ranged is only 3k less than melee, then damage reduction from bs, armor, and flat resist reduces both by a percentage (ie the bigger number is reduced more) that damage difference is muted.

For some reason, I feel like this same logic might apply also to the efficiency of health attributes over mag/stam in most classes to where we do not feel much loss stacking health, and only sorc really feels the gain of stacking mag. Something more complicated there to where ATM I at least can't put my finger on it.

Vaqual · November 8

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Maybe a direct interaction between melee and range can solve this relationship without affecting balance otherwise.
Something like "Being hit by a player melee attack applies a "harried" debuff to you if you are wielding ranged weapons. This decreases your movement speed by 10 % for 2 seconds and the damage of your equipped ranged weapon (so you can swap out of the damage penalty, but not the speed debuff) by 20% for 2 seconds."
Or something like that. Of course tracking more short duration debuffs is not exactly ideal given the current performance.

Why so inconvenient? That wouldnt change any of the current issues with ranged pew pew
What about a modifier to battle Spirit , similar to that bow passive (vinedusk), that nerfs your damage the further you are away?

Because that would just penalize being at range. The current balancing penalizes not being at range in many scenarios. Either is undesirable. Ranged playstyles should have advantages over melee playstyles and melee should have advantages over ranged, too, without one being flat out worse than the other. That was intention. Firing with impunity from a distance is ok, if closing the gap also has meaningful consequences. At least this is how I see it.

Elendir2am · November 8

Vaqual wrote: »

Maybe a direct interaction between melee and range can solve this relationship without affecting balance otherwise.
Something like "Being hit by a player melee attack applies a "harried" debuff to you if you are wielding ranged weapons. This decreases your movement speed by 10 % for 2 seconds and the damage of your equipped ranged weapon (so you can swap out of the damage penalty, but not the speed debuff) by 20% for 2 seconds."
Or something like that. Of course tracking more short duration debuffs is not exactly ideal given the current performance.

This would have zero effect on Sorc. It would harm only other class ranged builds. You can use gap closer on not sorc ranged enemy and rob them of their advantages. Sorc will just streak away.

Chilly-McFreeze · November 9

Vaqual wrote: »

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Maybe a direct interaction between melee and range can solve this relationship without affecting balance otherwise.
Something like "Being hit by a player melee attack applies a "harried" debuff to you if you are wielding ranged weapons. This decreases your movement speed by 10 % for 2 seconds and the damage of your equipped ranged weapon (so you can swap out of the damage penalty, but not the speed debuff) by 20% for 2 seconds."
Or something like that. Of course tracking more short duration debuffs is not exactly ideal given the current performance.

Why so inconvenient? That wouldnt change any of the current issues with ranged pew pew
What about a modifier to battle Spirit , similar to that bow passive (vinedusk), that nerfs your damage the further you are away?

Because that would just penalize being at range. The current balancing penalizes not being at range in many scenarios. Either is undesirable. Ranged playstyles should have advantages over melee playstyles and melee should have advantages over ranged, too, without one being flat out worse than the other. That was intention. Firing with impunity from a distance is ok, if closing the gap also has meaningful consequences. At least this is how I see it.

Yes, that's the point. Firing away from 28m+ should do a lot less damage than now..
With your solution I can still fire from out of reach and do whatever I'm doing now (read: having oppressive damage from the other side of the map). The whole point is to limit that.

Vaqual · November 9

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Maybe a direct interaction between melee and range can solve this relationship without affecting balance otherwise.
Something like "Being hit by a player melee attack applies a "harried" debuff to you if you are wielding ranged weapons. This decreases your movement speed by 10 % for 2 seconds and the damage of your equipped ranged weapon (so you can swap out of the damage penalty, but not the speed debuff) by 20% for 2 seconds."
Or something like that. Of course tracking more short duration debuffs is not exactly ideal given the current performance.

Why so inconvenient? That wouldnt change any of the current issues with ranged pew pew
What about a modifier to battle Spirit , similar to that bow passive (vinedusk), that nerfs your damage the further you are away?

Because that would just penalize being at range. The current balancing penalizes not being at range in many scenarios. Either is undesirable. Ranged playstyles should have advantages over melee playstyles and melee should have advantages over ranged, too, without one being flat out worse than the other. That was intention. Firing with impunity from a distance is ok, if closing the gap also has meaningful consequences. At least this is how I see it.

Yes, that's the point. Firing away from 28m+ should do a lot less damage than now..
With your solution I can still fire from out of reach and do whatever I'm doing now (read: having oppressive damage from the other side of the map). The whole point is to limit that.

Yes, but it might take only one melee player to charge a bunch of ranged player to reduce their effectiveness. Of course the penalty can be numerically adjusted. I am not sure how you imagine the ideal balancing, but if ranged playstyles completely lose their kill potential this will also not be fun to play for many.

Vaqual · November 9

Elendir2am wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Maybe a direct interaction between melee and range can solve this relationship without affecting balance otherwise.
Something like "Being hit by a player melee attack applies a "harried" debuff to you if you are wielding ranged weapons. This decreases your movement speed by 10 % for 2 seconds and the damage of your equipped ranged weapon (so you can swap out of the damage penalty, but not the speed debuff) by 20% for 2 seconds."
Or something like that. Of course tracking more short duration debuffs is not exactly ideal given the current performance.

This would have zero effect on Sorc. It would harm only other class ranged builds. You can use gap closer on not sorc ranged enemy and rob them of their advantages. Sorc will just streak away.

Yeah but you can still do anything you want. You can put a mana cost penalty on the same buff or whatever makes sense. It's just a framework for an idea, use your imagination.