Sorcerer rework, new class, new systems, house building, and various improvements for ESO

BretonMage · February 21

NxJoeyD wrote: »

I don’t know that morphing a Pet into a ground based AoE really support the idea of “pets” per se and Sors already have a slew of AoE skills as it is. If we were going to keep the pets the changes or morphs need to focus on the pet (beings) themselves. Morphing one into a ground based AoE only adds a nail into their coffin, IMO

It was just an example of a possible non-pet skill. I do think that there should be more in Daedric Summoning for non-pet sorcs, given that not all sorcs want pets. I assume ZOS intends for all three lines to be attractive to pet and non-pet sorcs alike.

And perhaps you're right in that we want $50 worth of goods in a $25 basket, but I'm hoping ZOS can work something out.

spartaxoxo · February 21

NxJoeyD wrote: »

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Re-targeting takes multiple input commands; it’s not a single button press and in combat where timing is critical Sorc Pets need to be able to react lightning quick.

No. You just recast Daedric Prey or use a heavy attack. My pets only attack what they want when I don't care about their target. They could shift it to a light or medium attack if they wanted to make it respond faster and not rely on Daedric Prey for fast swapping. They can increase the movement speed while in combat to make their repositioning faster.

Liquid Lightning is another AOE that could be and should be changed to give a better ground aoe. It already is the ground aoe.

Rune Cage can be a sticky dot. It already is on bosses.

One of the morphs of crystal frags should also be more spammable.

Mage's Fury needs buffs so the class has a proper execute.

Daedric Summoning Passives can have different effects depending on if a pet is active or not. So it could be like X extra weapon/spell damage. You get additional weapon/spell damage if no pet is active or additional health if it's not. Or better yet, additional benefits if any Daedric Summoning skill is slotted because there are actually non-pet skills in that skill line like Haunting Curse.

NxJoeyD · February 21

spartaxoxo wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

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Re-targeting takes multiple input commands; it’s not a single button press and in combat where timing is critical Sorc Pets need to be able to react lightning quick.

No. You just recast Daedric Prey or use a heavy attack. My pets only attack what they want when I don't care about their target. They could shift it to a light or medium attack if they wanted to make it respond faster and not rely on Daedric Prey for fast swapping. They can increase the movement speed while in combat to make their repositioning faster.

Liquid Lightning is another AOE that could be and should be changed to give a better ground aoe. It already is the ground aoe.

Rune Cage can be a sticky dot. It already is on bosses.

One of the morphs of crystal frags should also be more spammable.

Mage's Fury needs buffs so the class has a proper execute.

Daedric Summoning Passives can have different effects depending on if a pet is active or not. So it could be like X extra weapon/spell damage. You get additional weapon/spell damage if no pet is active or additional health if it's not. Or better yet, additional benefits if any Daedric Summoning skill is slotted because there are actually non-pet skills in that skill line like Haunting Curse.

Yeah, you can heavy attack but a heavy attack takes a full 2 seconds to complete and in combat, that’s a long time, especially for the purposes for retargeting a pet. A recast of DP is the quickest option but, in all fairness, it’s almost a tax on Sorcs because the recast cost full pool resource. The “free” option to redirect pets via inputs is cumbersome and can be painful when you’re dealing with targets that have high mobility. .. This is why I have such an issue with their AI. In combat one of the things I’m looking for is reliability. If I spend a resource I want reliability that the skill or effect I trigger is going to land where I need it to land at the time I trigger it. … Pets do synergize well with HA builds but any other pure Sorc build is going to have more struggles.

I would like to see pets have a much better AI and control interface that enables them to keep up with the extremely fast pace of combat that we find in latter game PvE & PvP. This is one of my biggest gripes with pets and it’s my biggest apprehension with thinking the Devs can fix that in the current state of the game.

There’s also the 2 bar penalty for Pets. I know people have complained about this and with the CURRENT state of pets I agree with them simply because the Pets are currently weak .. but .. if the Devs did defy the odds and figure out a way to re-write Sorc pet mechanics then I would agree with having to slot Pets on both bars to prevent the caster from becoming OP.

My feeling is that if they did go to a world Conjuring line then enable them to be active on either ability bar so Sorcs wouldn’t have to double slot them. Have them focus on lore oriented buffs and or debuffs and concentrated damage elements. This way the AI really isn’t as relevant because the damage wouldn’t be the focus the summoned empowerment would.

It’s no shock to anyone that we have more server side latency in gameplay than ever and various bugs to deal with. That’s all fine and acceptable but we have to also realize that anything we might ask for has to work in the scope of all that latency and I haven’t seen a single thing, from the Developers or the game itself that says to me that we can get Sorc pet mechanics fixed in a way that makes them more appealing in those latter game content scenarios.

I agree with you 100%, all of those abilities are stale and need reworks and you do have a good point about flexible passives. That is one good way to have passive available for both pet and non pet.

Now, if that same logic could be applied to a base skill itself, say, at the time the base skill is unlocked the Sorc either had to choose between the Pet variant or the Non Pet variant then I’m 100% ok with leaving them in the class. .. I don’t mean morphs, I mean the initial unlock of the skill would see the player choosing the “concentration” by selecting either the pet variation of the skill OR a non pet variation of the skill. Then onward each of those skills would have their own morphs and level ups accordingly.

I do think that sounds a bit complex for the Devs, but, we have UI menus now so we’re only talking about adding one additional selection layer which shouldn’t be too difficult. This would be unique to Sorc because no other class out there has such a concentration split like Sorc does so maybe this is one way to have our cake and eat it too?

spartaxoxo · February 21

NxJoeyD wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

.
Re-targeting takes multiple input commands; it’s not a single button press and in combat where timing is critical Sorc Pets need to be able to react lightning quick.

No. You just recast Daedric Prey or use a heavy attack. My pets only attack what they want when I don't care about their target. They could shift it to a light or medium attack if they wanted to make it respond faster and not rely on Daedric Prey for fast swapping. They can increase the movement speed while in combat to make their repositioning faster.

Liquid Lightning is another AOE that could be and should be changed to give a better ground aoe. It already is the ground aoe.

Rune Cage can be a sticky dot. It already is on bosses.

One of the morphs of crystal frags should also be more spammable.

Mage's Fury needs buffs so the class has a proper execute.

Daedric Summoning Passives can have different effects depending on if a pet is active or not. So it could be like X extra weapon/spell damage. You get additional weapon/spell damage if no pet is active or additional health if it's not. Or better yet, additional benefits if any Daedric Summoning skill is slotted because there are actually non-pet skills in that skill line like Haunting Curse.

Yeah, you can heavy attack but a heavy attack takes a full 2 seconds to complete and in combat, that’s a long time, especially for the purposes for retargeting a pet. A recast of DP is the quickest option but, in all fairness, it’s almost a tax on Sorcs because the recast cost full pool resource. The “free” option to redirect pets via inputs is cumbersome and can be painful when you’re dealing with targets that have high mobility. .. This is why I have such an issue with their AI. In combat one of the things I’m looking for is reliability. If I spend a resource I want reliability that the skill or effect I trigger is going to land where I need it to land at the time I trigger it. … Pets do synergize well with HA builds but any other pure Sorc build is going to have more struggles.

I would like to see pets have a much better AI and control interface that enables them to keep up with the extremely fast pace of combat that we find in latter game PvE & PvP. This is one of my biggest gripes with pets and it’s my biggest apprehension with thinking the Devs can fix that in the current state of the game.

There’s also the 2 bar penalty for Pets. I know people have complained about this and with the CURRENT state of pets I agree with them simply because the Pets are currently weak .. but .. if the Devs did defy the odds and figure out a way to re-write Sorc pet mechanics then I would agree with having to slot Pets on both bars to prevent the caster from becoming OP.

My feeling is that if they did go to a world Conjuring line then enable them to be active on either ability bar so Sorcs wouldn’t have to double slot them. Have them focus on lore oriented buffs and or debuffs and concentrated damage elements. This way the AI really isn’t as relevant because the damage wouldn’t be the focus the summoned empowerment would.

It’s no shock to anyone that we have more server side latency in gameplay than ever and various bugs to deal with. That’s all fine and acceptable but we have to also realize that anything we might ask for has to work in the scope of all that latency and I haven’t seen a single thing, from the Developers or the game itself that says to me that we can get Sorc pet mechanics fixed in a way that makes them more appealing in those latter game content scenarios.

I agree with you 100%, all of those abilities are stale and need reworks and you do have a good point about flexible passives. That is one good way to have passive available for both pet and non pet.

Now, if that same logic could be applied to a base skill itself, say, at the time the base skill is unlocked the Sorc either had to choose between the Pet variant or the Non Pet variant then I’m 100% ok with leaving them in the class. .. I don’t mean morphs, I mean the initial unlock of the skill would see the player choosing the “concentration” by selecting either the pet variation of the skill OR a non pet variation of the skill. Then onward each of those skills would have their own morphs and level ups accordingly.

I do think that sounds a bit complex for the Devs, but, we have UI menus now so we’re only talking about adding one additional selection layer which shouldn’t be too difficult. This would be unique to Sorc because no other class out there has such a concentration split like Sorc does so maybe this is one way to have our cake and eat it too?

The resource tax on Daedric Prey is pretty negligible because Pet Sorcs already have good sustain, especially on heavy attack builds. 5 of your skill slots are already taken by the pet build so the amount of stuff you need to cast and keep up with is lower than non-pet builds. That's one of the things that makes them such a good accessibility option. If you have the matriarch over tormentor (most do in my experience) then you're also not casting that skill often either. The scamp like other dots has a long uptime (20 seconds) and doesn't require a lot of casting. They could up his combat movement speed so he can reposition faster.

I would be fine with being able to swap out the pets for a different Daedric pact as that allows both groups to maintain their play style. It actually sounds pretty cool and Iirc Diablo 4 has something similar with its necromancer.

ZhuJiuyin · February 22

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The resource tax on Daedric Prey is pretty negligible because Pet Sorcs already have good sustain, especially on heavy attack builds. 5 of your skill slots are already taken by the pet build so the amount of stuff you need to cast and keep up with is lower than non-pet builds. That's one of the things that makes them such a good accessibility option.

No, the easy part is the heavy attack, not the pet playstyle.
In fact, the pet playstyle is the root cause of Sorc's single-target damage issues; against targets without Daedric Prey, the pet's damage is ridiculously low. To make the pet deal damage, Daedric Prey must be managed every 6 seconds, which is a terrible skill. As other players and me have mentioned, Daedric Prey was originally created as a crutch to salvage Sorc. Giving the pet 50% pet damage just to make it keep up with other classes illustrates the predicament Sorc faced in U35. Furthermore, other aspects of this skill are very poor. To allow the pet to switch targets, it must be cast again before Daedric Prey explodes, thus losing at least one GCD and one instance of damage.
If we compare Daedric Prey with other similar skills, Purifying Light deals damage twice within 6 seconds, so the loss from repeatedly casting it before the explosion is relatively small. In addition, its overall damage is higher than Daedric Prey, it also has area healing, and casting the skill can trigger two very useful passives that are very effective at increasing damage – Prism and Illuminate. As for Subterranean Assault, we all know how powerful this skill is.

BretonMage · February 22

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

To allow the pet to switch targets, it must be cast again before Daedric Prey explodes, thus losing at least one GCD and one instance of damage.
If we compare Daedric Prey with other similar skills, Purifying Light deals damage twice within 6 seconds, so the loss from repeatedly casting it before the explosion is relatively small. In addition, its overall damage is higher than Daedric Prey, it also has area healing, and casting the skill can trigger two very useful passives that are very effective at increasing damage – Prism and Illuminate. As for Subterranean Assault, we all know how powerful this skill is.

Yes, this is the part of Daedric prey which I dislike. However, I don't really want it removed, since it's useful to send pets to target enemies you don't want to deal with yourself. It does need to be reworked so that the disadvantages of recasting aren't so pronounced.

NxJoeyD · February 22

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The resource tax on Daedric Prey is pretty negligible because Pet Sorcs already have good sustain, especially on heavy attack builds. 5 of your skill slots are already taken by the pet build so the amount of stuff you need to cast and keep up with is lower than non-pet builds. That's one of the things that makes them such a good accessibility option.

No, the easy part is the heavy attack, not the pet playstyle.
In fact, the pet playstyle is the root cause of Sorc's single-target damage issues; against targets without Daedric Prey, the pet's damage is ridiculously low. To make the pet deal damage, Daedric Prey must be managed every 6 seconds, which is a terrible skill. As other players and me have mentioned, Daedric Prey was originally created as a crutch to salvage Sorc. Giving the pet 50% pet damage just to make it keep up with other classes illustrates the predicament Sorc faced in U35. Furthermore, other aspects of this skill are very poor. To allow the pet to switch targets, it must be cast again before Daedric Prey explodes, thus losing at least one GCD and one instance of damage.
If we compare Daedric Prey with other similar skills, Purifying Light deals damage twice within 6 seconds, so the loss from repeatedly casting it before the explosion is relatively small. In addition, its overall damage is higher than Daedric Prey, it also has area healing, and casting the skill can trigger two very useful passives that are very effective at increasing damage – Prism and Illuminate. As for Subterranean Assault, we all know how powerful this skill is.

Agreed.

When I talk about the fundamental mechanics of pets its details like this (and others) that all add up.

I don’t think DP is a good control mechanic for pets because it levies a tax on Sorcs to simply control an ability we already pay resource to summon and then pay again to trigger damage or healing and then pay again-again to re-target.

A heavy attack build is literally the only playstyle that’s going to have enough sustain to make that sort of constant cost feasible. And is that what we’re saying? Sorc skill and playstyle should be concentrated around HA? That would make Sorc a proverbial “one trick pony”. If we’re not going to say that then DP isn’t resource cost effective for anyone besides HA builds, which is basically entry level combat.

Combat in ESO is more challenging, we’re getting more complex mechanics that feature small windows for the team to manage or address the mechanic to avoid an insta-wipe .. We’re getting more trash mobs with one taps .. we’re getting more intermediate mobs that are taunt resistant and with aggro based more on role or output .. we’re getting more mechanics that are hard hitting ground AoE based … Sorc pets aren’t mechanically beneficial in any of those situations.

Sorc pets need faster movement, better AI target priority logic, a better mechanic of applying damage, and better environmental awareness. .. all of those things go to mechanics and I’m not convinced that the Devs are going to dig that deep in the toy box to re-write those key aspects of our pets.

spartaxoxo · February 22

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

No, the easy part is the heavy attack, not the pet playstyle.

It is both. The pets are much easier to command than it is to weave. Getting them to target something else is no different than repositioning other aoes when the enemy moves out of those too. It's one button press. Pets also take aggro. And they provide a burst heal that you can use reactively. The burst heal is easy enough to source elsewhere. The aggro not as much. When we're talking about accessibility builds it is not about putting out meta level damage.

Pet builds do not generally hurt for resources. Pets do not need to be constantly picking a new target in most fights. In some fights they actually stick to the target better than a regular AOE because they pet will continue to target the boss even when they're not visible and are hiding somewhere.

ZhuJiuyin · February 22

spartaxoxo wrote: »

It is both. The pets are much easier to command than it is to weave. Getting them to target something else is no different than repositioning other aoes when the enemy moves out of those too. It's one button press.

No, they're not the same. You're comparing a single-target skill to a ground-dot AOE skill.

Daedric Prey deals absolutely no damage before exploding, so if the boss enters invulnerability or a similar state within 6 seconds, or disappears for exactly 1 second, the Daedric Prey is completely wasted. Any DoT damage or ground-dot AOE skill, even if the boss enters invulnerability or disappears early, only results in a small loss of damage, not all of it.

Furthermore, Daedric Prey requires aiming at the correct target, because if other add die prematurely, the entire Daedric Prey's damage is wasted. Dot skills and ground-dot AOE skills don't have these issues.

In some fights they actually stick to the target better than a regular AOE because they pet will continue to target the boss even when they're not visible and are hiding somewhere.

This is only a very minor advantage, and most of the time the pets simply arrive at the location where the BOSS is going to appear and make an attack gesture, but they don't actually cause any damage.
Moreover, even if damage is inflicted, the pet's attack power is not high. Not to mention that when the mechanism of the BOSS disappearing and reappearing occurs, Daedric Prey is usually cleared or has already become ineffective, so this slight advantage has almost no impact on the pet's damage.

NxJoeyD · February 22

Sorc pets don’t take aggro as a rule anymore.

Yes, there’s still content where they do, but there’s just as much where they don’t.

Let someone run Vet Coral Aerie with Sorc pets and see how much is aggro resistant to the pets .. and even have one taps. .. moreover, play any Vet DLC boss that’s heavy AoE oriented, that’s an Achilles heel for Sorc pets because they can’t get out of the AoEs reliably, they don’t carry enough damage output, and they take zero aggro … and that’s just Vet DLC, we’re not even talking Trial or PvP.

The damage values on pets could be increased but their damage application mechanics are still questionable.

I agree that they align with heavy attack Sorc play styles but they don’t align with anything else Sorc outside of that. Heavy attack is such a narrow focus to have a significant portion of the class to be built around.

I will admit that using DP to command a pet is easier than weaving but, although weaving is an intended mechanic and is an advised tactic to learn, it’s not essential. If you’re playing endgame content and you’re putting out proper endgame DPS (100k - 120k DPS), only around 10% to 16% is going to come from the light attacks fired while weaving so it’s not end of the world if a player doesn’t master it but it’s definitely helpful. And btw, those expected output values aren’t as of subclassing that’s been an end game standard for some time.

I don’t believe Sorc needs to be the meta or that pets have to be built to be at or near the meta but what I do expect that they have to do is contribute a “worthwhile value” toward combat “regularly and reliably”; and with a lot of the newer PvE content as well as PvP content we can’t say that.

All of that is before factoring in subclassing. If part of the idea is to encourage people not defaulting to a subclass then that means that the opportunity cost of running a Sorc skill can’t be significantly lower than choosing a subclassed skill that performs better.

Lekjih · February 26

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Let someone run Vet Coral Aerie with Sorc pets and see how much is aggro resistant to the pets .. and even have one taps. .. moreover, play any Vet DLC boss that’s heavy AoE oriented, that’s an Achilles heel for Sorc pets because they can’t get out of the AoEs reliably, they don’t carry enough damage output, and they take zero aggro … and that’s just Vet DLC, we’re not even talking Trial or PvP.

They don't need to get out of aoe in four man or twelve man, they won't die in vet dungeons or trials unless the player does.

NxJoeyD · February 26

Lekjih wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Let someone run Vet Coral Aerie with Sorc pets and see how much is aggro resistant to the pets .. and even have one taps. .. moreover, play any Vet DLC boss that’s heavy AoE oriented, that’s an Achilles heel for Sorc pets because they can’t get out of the AoEs reliably, they don’t carry enough damage output, and they take zero aggro … and that’s just Vet DLC, we’re not even talking Trial or PvP.

They don't need to get out of aoe in four man or twelve man, they won't die in vet dungeons or trials unless the player does.

They can and will die in Arenas, any solo content, overworld content or the IA, they don’t get the damage immunity in any of those. There are some PvE mechanics that do bypass the pet immunity, there’s not many but I believe there are a couple.

As for the Vet DLC dungeons, the issue with them not getting out of the AoE isn’t that they’ll die but moreover they either aren’t doing anything contributive to the fight while they are in them, or worse, if the boss summons trash mobs and those mobs do happen to be vulnerable to aggro / taunt they can screw with the tank pulling & grouping.

spartaxoxo · February 26

They don't die in IA either.

They do die in overworld and arenas but they also take aggro there so it's a fair trade off.

They can contribute to damage while in an AOE.

ZhuJiuyin · February 26

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They don't die in IA either.

They do die in overworld and arenas but they also take aggro there so it's a fair trade off.

They can contribute to damage while in an AOE.

What? I seriously doubt you've ever played Sorc. The AI is one of the easiest places for pets to die, and many boss mechanics still kill pets today.

spartaxoxo · February 26

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They don't die in IA either.

They do die in overworld and arenas but they also take aggro there so it's a fair trade off.

They can contribute to damage while in an AOE.

What? I seriously doubt you've ever played Sorc. The AI is one of the easiest places for pets to die, and many boss mechanics still kill pets today.

I meant to AOE. They don't take damage in there to AOE. I actually don't have a ton of issues with pets dying in IA but I seldom go past Arc 4 so maybe that's part of it.

NxJoeyD · February 26

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They don't die in IA either.

They do die in overworld and arenas but they also take aggro there so it's a fair trade off.

They can contribute to damage while in an AOE.

They do die in the IA.

The damage output pets contribute in the grand scheme of the required DPS in a Trial or even Vet dungeon is way sub par.

Yes, damage could be increased but that still leaves issues with the mechanics of how our pets apply the damage as well as the AI that doesn’t enable them to maintain strong DPS output.

Those two things are the elephants in the room that I don’t believe the Devs can or would be able to address. So even by turning up the damage would make the pets look good on paper, but in practical application I believe they’d still fall short.

YandereGirlfriend · February 26

Pets definitely get giga-clapped in the IA.

To which I have never really understood why they are immortal in some content and allowed to die in others. I suppose that the devs do not want players to have pets drawing permanent aggro in solo content with no downside to the player. But it does render them unusable beyond the first few Arcs, which is... unfortunate... given their prominence in the Sorc kit.

I would definitely trade their ability to draw aggro/body-block for immortality in all PvE content so that you do not have to worry about your burst heal getting one-tapped by a Marauder.

spartaxoxo · February 26

Yeah, as I already said, I meant to AOE. The topic was on which AOE they could and couldn't die to, so I was saying they couldn't die in IA to that. But I clearly should have been more specific as what I said is much broader than I meant it. I don't go past Arc 4 much and didn't have much trouble the few times I did but I used harden ward and had a tank as well. So I'm not sure if they're hard to keep up past Arc 4.

I'd also ditch aggro for no AOE damage anywhere but I know some people like the aggro as an accessibility thing in the content that allows for it (arenas, overland, IA)

Emphatic_Static · February 27

Alright. I'll throw my hat into the ring.

I've been a pvp stamina sorcerer since BETA. Those dark days BEFORE hurricane, let alone crystal weapon or bound armaments...

Almost everyone in this threads perspective is from a non stamina mentality - I would like to point out that for well over a decade the stamina sorc kit has been completely reliant upon weapon, world, and guild skill lines.

Crystal weapon should have been Stam Frag, obviously... It hardly gets used because light attacks are difficult to utilize reliably in certain aspects of gameplay. It misses a lot, and is punishing if you use the skill compared to others available. It just feels bad and always has. If it were a spammable, it would have been ok, but tying it to light attacks never made sense and sucks when it's dodged constantly, just unreliable. A regular spammable has the chance to hit, then a light attack weave has a chance to hit, but when your attack is tied to that light attack you are effectively trying to rely on 1 attack to land in any given global cooldown that would otherwise be at LEAST a light attack landing. But nope -- WHIFF. Either make it a spammable or a stam frag. period.

Armaments is cool, but once again is light attack focused - why is stam being pushed into light attack gameplay? Currently it's in a weird skill line so it's hard to justify using over other classes lines that are jam packed with stam love... Stam frag should have been like this skill but not tied to light attacks, just a proc but multiple projectiles rather than one frag like mag, making it more prone to missing or whatever but maybe different buff applied to balance that or something... but to put it with summoning is, well.... DUMB.

Hurricane has been the only stam skill that was any good for sorc. I think it was always dumb to make it grow over time and only be good damage for the later part of the duration - visually cool but would just be more consistent in anything other than a parse if it just had the same tick each time. Not the end of the world though, a good skill.

aaaaaand.... That's it. Every other class is offering more to the stamina side of things than sorc. Any build I've ever made in the last decade plus I end up saying to myself "Man... this would really slap on XXX class..."

The ONLY thing stam sorc has going for it is the mobility, but that is just a testament to how good streak is, a MAG skill, and less of a brag for stam sorc now that it has been outsourced to everyone else via subclassing.

We need some more morphs for stam. 3 is a joke. I agree with making summoning a tank focused skill tree, then you have your lightning based tree for mag, but what could be more on theme with dark magic than STAM MAGIC?

We need a tree that's catered to stam. I've been dealing with class identity crisis for far too long. If there's going to be a rework, STAM NEEDS SOME LOVE!

My pvp setup right now has ONE SORC SKILL..... And that is.... DARK DEAL! That's a shame. I'm a shell of a sorc. By the end of the year I'd like to stop living this way :-D

NxJoeyD · February 28

Emphatic_Static wrote: »

Alright. I'll throw my hat into the ring.

I've been a pvp stamina sorcerer since BETA. Those dark days BEFORE hurricane, let alone crystal weapon or bound armaments...

Almost everyone in this threads perspective is from a non stamina mentality - I would like to point out that for well over a decade the stamina sorc kit has been completely reliant upon weapon, world, and guild skill lines.

Crystal weapon should have been Stam Frag, obviously... It hardly gets used because light attacks are difficult to utilize reliably in certain aspects of gameplay. It misses a lot, and is punishing if you use the skill compared to others available. It just feels bad and always has. If it were a spammable, it would have been ok, but tying it to light attacks never made sense and sucks when it's dodged constantly, just unreliable. A regular spammable has the chance to hit, then a light attack weave has a chance to hit, but when your attack is tied to that light attack you are effectively trying to rely on 1 attack to land in any given global cooldown that would otherwise be at LEAST a light attack landing. But nope -- WHIFF. Either make it a spammable or a stam frag. period.

Armaments is cool, but once again is light attack focused - why is stam being pushed into light attack gameplay? Currently it's in a weird skill line so it's hard to justify using over other classes lines that are jam packed with stam love... Stam frag should have been like this skill but not tied to light attacks, just a proc but multiple projectiles rather than one frag like mag, making it more prone to missing or whatever but maybe different buff applied to balance that or something... but to put it with summoning is, well.... DUMB.

Hurricane has been the only stam skill that was any good for sorc. I think it was always dumb to make it grow over time and only be good damage for the later part of the duration - visually cool but would just be more consistent in anything other than a parse if it just had the same tick each time. Not the end of the world though, a good skill.

aaaaaand.... That's it. Every other class is offering more to the stamina side of things than sorc. Any build I've ever made in the last decade plus I end up saying to myself "Man... this would really slap on XXX class..."

The ONLY thing stam sorc has going for it is the mobility, but that is just a testament to how good streak is, a MAG skill, and less of a brag for stam sorc now that it has been outsourced to everyone else via subclassing.

We need some more morphs for stam. 3 is a joke. I agree with making summoning a tank focused skill tree, then you have your lightning based tree for mag, but what could be more on theme with dark magic than STAM MAGIC?

We need a tree that's catered to stam. I've been dealing with class identity crisis for far too long. If there's going to be a rework, STAM NEEDS SOME LOVE!

My pvp setup right now has ONE SORC SKILL..... And that is.... DARK DEAL! That's a shame. I'm a shell of a sorc. By the end of the year I'd like to stop living this way :-D

I agree, you’re 100% right on a lot of this here.

I think part of the reason you’re seeing so much Mag Sorc input is that if we’re talking about the fundamental class identity, Sorc falls more into a Magicka lore than a Stam one. This could be one of the bigger reasons why Sorc never got proper Stam attention or allocation.

I’m not opposed to an expansion of Stam focused skills for Sorc, but, I will say that this opens the door to much bigger problem when it comes to any class where range DPS is a core part of the class identity, and that is Stam has become a FAR too over prioritized resource, especially in PvP, to a much lesser degree in PvE but PvP is a big part of end game ESO content and Sorc has to be viable in both PvE & PvP.

The problem with Stam is that it gravitates around melee skills which have a much lower accuracy threshold and therefore a higher reliability of strike than ranged DPS where reticle & hit detection in both PvP & PvE is atrocious.

Further, Stam based builds see their damage scaling tied to the same resource that’s used as primary counter play for evasion, damage mitigation, and break free. Mag based builds can’t break free from CC using Magicka, nor can they dodge with Magicka. A Stam player that can allocate resource into the Stam pool gets both the extra ability to block, dodge, & break free sustain all while having their damage scale off that resource, that’s a 2 for 1 benefit that Mag doesn’t get. And currently it’s not though Mag scaling is higher than Stam scaling to account for this.

So if we’re going to talk about expanding resources for Stam based Sorcs we need to really talk about and make sure we’re including some sort of utility passive or Skill that enables Mag based Sorcs to keep pace in light of the growing priority Stam has in combat; otherwise we risk Sorc pivoting to Stam based a baseline in order to be competitive which greatly affects the class.

We want to be inclusive of play styles but not to the point that they ever undermine the fundamental of the class, unless, we’re going to redefine the class.

One idea might be that Sorc skills work similar to how some of the Arc skills work whereby the scaling is based off of your max resource (either Mag or Stam). In this way a player can select a skill and utilize its function and have it run off of their main resource, and, the game can scale so that Stam isn’t continuously over prioritized.

ZhuJiuyin · March 1

NxJoeyD wrote: »

I agree, you’re 100% right on a lot of this here.

I think part of the reason you’re seeing so much Mag Sorc input is that if we’re talking about the fundamental class identity, Sorc falls more into a Magicka lore than a Stam one. This could be one of the bigger reasons why Sorc never got proper Stam attention or allocation.

I’m not opposed to an expansion of Stam focused skills for Sorc, but, I will say that this opens the door to much bigger problem when it comes to any class where range DPS is a core part of the class identity, and that is Stam has become a FAR too over prioritized resource, especially in PvP, to a much lesser degree in PvE but PvP is a big part of end game ESO content and Sorc has to be viable in both PvE & PvP.

The problem with Stam is that it gravitates around melee skills which have a much lower accuracy threshold and therefore a higher reliability of strike than ranged DPS where reticle & hit detection in both PvP & PvE is atrocious.

Further, Stam based builds see their damage scaling tied to the same resource that’s used as primary counter play for evasion, damage mitigation, and break free. Mag based builds can’t break free from CC using Magicka, nor can they dodge with Magicka. A Stam player that can allocate resource into the Stam pool gets both the extra ability to block, dodge, & break free sustain all while having their damage scale off that resource, that’s a 2 for 1 benefit that Mag doesn’t get. And currently it’s not though Mag scaling is higher than Stam scaling to account for this.

So if we’re going to talk about expanding resources for Stam based Sorcs we need to really talk about and make sure we’re including some sort of utility passive or Skill that enables Mag based Sorcs to keep pace in light of the growing priority Stam has in combat; otherwise we risk Sorc pivoting to Stam based a baseline in order to be competitive which greatly affects the class.

We want to be inclusive of play styles but not to the point that they ever undermine the fundamental of the class, unless, we’re going to redefine the class.

One idea might be that Sorc skills work similar to how some of the Arc skills work whereby the scaling is based off of your max resource (either Mag or Stam). In this way a player can select a skill and utilize its function and have it run off of their main resource, and, the game can scale so that Stam isn’t continuously over prioritized.

Agreed. I'd also like to add that most Stamina skills are melee, thus they have a 10% damage bonus, resulting in higher damage than magic skills. Stamina also has a faster regeneration rate than magic .
And many magic skills are forcibly tied to healing and resource effects. Therefore, for the sake of balance (at least to appear balanced in the spreadsheet), these magic skills are often weaker than Stamina skills. This isn't limited to Sorc; it includes other classes like Punctuating Sweep, Endless Fury, Burning Embers, etc. This further widens the damage gap between Stamina and magic skills, which is why Stamina builds are the mainstream in PvE.

If each class's spam skills and at least one burst skill were based on the Highest/Lowest Max Resource, like Arc, I think it would help increase build diversity and optimize some niche playstyles.

NxJoeyD · March 1

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

I agree, you’re 100% right on a lot of this here.

I think part of the reason you’re seeing so much Mag Sorc input is that if we’re talking about the fundamental class identity, Sorc falls more into a Magicka lore than a Stam one. This could be one of the bigger reasons why Sorc never got proper Stam attention or allocation.

I’m not opposed to an expansion of Stam focused skills for Sorc, but, I will say that this opens the door to much bigger problem when it comes to any class where range DPS is a core part of the class identity, and that is Stam has become a FAR too over prioritized resource, especially in PvP, to a much lesser degree in PvE but PvP is a big part of end game ESO content and Sorc has to be viable in both PvE & PvP.

The problem with Stam is that it gravitates around melee skills which have a much lower accuracy threshold and therefore a higher reliability of strike than ranged DPS where reticle & hit detection in both PvP & PvE is atrocious.

Further, Stam based builds see their damage scaling tied to the same resource that’s used as primary counter play for evasion, damage mitigation, and break free. Mag based builds can’t break free from CC using Magicka, nor can they dodge with Magicka. A Stam player that can allocate resource into the Stam pool gets both the extra ability to block, dodge, & break free sustain all while having their damage scale off that resource, that’s a 2 for 1 benefit that Mag doesn’t get. And currently it’s not though Mag scaling is higher than Stam scaling to account for this.

So if we’re going to talk about expanding resources for Stam based Sorcs we need to really talk about and make sure we’re including some sort of utility passive or Skill that enables Mag based Sorcs to keep pace in light of the growing priority Stam has in combat; otherwise we risk Sorc pivoting to Stam based a baseline in order to be competitive which greatly affects the class.

We want to be inclusive of play styles but not to the point that they ever undermine the fundamental of the class, unless, we’re going to redefine the class.

One idea might be that Sorc skills work similar to how some of the Arc skills work whereby the scaling is based off of your max resource (either Mag or Stam). In this way a player can select a skill and utilize its function and have it run off of their main resource, and, the game can scale so that Stam isn’t continuously over prioritized.

Agreed. I'd also like to add that most Stamina skills are melee, thus they have a 10% damage bonus, resulting in higher damage than magic skills. Stamina also has a faster regeneration rate than magic .
And many magic skills are forcibly tied to healing and resource effects. Therefore, for the sake of balance (at least to appear balanced in the spreadsheet), these magic skills are often weaker than Stamina skills. This isn't limited to Sorc; it includes other classes like Punctuating Sweep, Endless Fury, Burning Embers, etc. This further widens the damage gap between Stamina and magic skills, which is why Stamina builds are the mainstream in PvE.

If each class's spam skills and at least one burst skill were based on the Highest/Lowest Max Resource, like Arc, I think it would help increase build diversity and optimize some niche playstyles.

Yeah the 10% has always been a bit of a head scratcher for me.

I understand the idea of a melee player incurring a certain risk to approach a target but ZoS essentially gave melee players a gracious allowance of a 7m melee range, which is nearly 29% MORE than what, IMO, a reasonable melee range would be at 5m.

Most melee skills don’t require precise reticle targeting and can strike multiple opponents where’s most magic skill that are AoE based are more often ground AoE oriented with only a small minority being player based AoE.

Further, a good amount of self-targeted opponent approach counterplay & CC skills do observe a 5m range which gives melee players basically a free 2m grace to deal damage without risking some counterplay.

The extra damage scaling for melee never really made sense and it makes even less sense after subclassing.