Sorcerer Class Mastery Discussion

Faltasë · March 12

Let’s start off with the core of my complaint: I think that the Sorcerer, quite frankly, is already at the ceiling for sustain and damage absorption(shields) and don’t think the ones that add more shield and more sustain do anything but make the sustain ceiling… the same ceiling? When you’re already at the top with sustain for example, how does it go any higher?

Sorcerer is already THE class for Solo play, and it needs currently no introduction in that regard, but I can only see how the damage shield ones could be useful in PvP, and the conservation of energy one can be good for builds that utilize stamina rather than magicka, but even then, I don’t see any issues playing sorc where I would ever need more sustain. Lets take a look at some of the current normal passives to understand why. (I will however acknowledge that this is me going over the class before the refresh, and as such, all of the complaints I have can and possibly will be addressed by the time it does get its refresh, but for now, I think the complaints are valid because pure sorcerers in PVE are the king of sustain, but they often fall short in any endeavor past solo play because every other pure class and obviously subclass outranks them in damage output and group utility)

Cost reduction is good, as well as resource increases.

Images

Pairing with resource increases is already getting us to good resource management. And this goes into things even more when you realize that not only does base non-pet Sorcerer not need more shields or sustain, but that Pet Sorcerer trivializes sustain entirely because it basically forces your build to be a heavy attack build since you remove 4 of your skill slots… meaning that’s also a cost reduction because you have to activate 4 less abilities. And then you also have recovery increases, also increasing our sustain.

On top of that, Sorcerer has the best sustain skills in the kit for both sustain and survivability. Dark Exchange for example with both of its morphs basically telling all the other classes, save for DKs new heart of flame to *eat dirt* Even with the cast time, its still really good for resource management and survivability.

images

Another one that keeps us at the ceiling is endless fury

image

And, if the situation calls for it, though you probably are running the alternative here, using energy overload also keeps us at the sustain ceiling.

Image

Then I move on to talking about how we don’t really need more shields(although im sure the PvPers could utilize it, even though the timer is low).

The Pet sorcs basically don’t need more shielding, because they probably are good on crit surge plus the protection of the pets in front of them taking a bulk of the damage, additive to the shields they are probably also already casting.

As for non-pet sorcs, sure it gets a little less, but you still have ward and lightning form, bound armor, and vibrant shroud.

Images

Now with all of that being said, I haven’t even gotten to the point where I talk about the extra sustain we get from scribed skills like Wield Soul or Ulfsilds Contingency, which can also not only replenish resources, but also health AND they have the option to give us even more damage shields. Those aren’t even the only skills that can do that for scribing, so they are just more like 2 options in a pool of more options.

TLDR: I think that Font of Power and Implosion are the only good skills here that are useable, where PVP could benefit from the shield ones, but I think that we don’t need conservation of energy, efficient defense(that timer is atrocious and makes it useless tbh) and Parallel Protection should be made into something else entirely that should focus on the following instead: Group buffs instead of singular buffs, more damage buffs, a crit buff(percent or damage) or something that the pure kit can’t give us at all already.

Though I also think that the numbers in Implosion could be increased, as from first glance that passive doesn’t seem worth taking over Font of Power(if there is an assumption there where we cant pick both) the Implosion damage numbers seem exponentially small.

I was also hoping there’d be a similar focus on more lightning damage than just one passive, but maybe the refresh coming at the end of the year will make that a little bit less jarring to have.

Elendildur · March 12

Conservation of Energy: As a PvE DD option, yeah, this isn't particularly useful, but as a tank, or maybe a healer not running Pearls of Ehlnofey (maybe Spaulder of Ruin instead)? This could be great there, since Dark Exchange having a cast time means you have to drop block when you use it. That can cause problems if you do it at the wrong time

Font of Power: This is going to be one of the main options for DDs. At 30k Magicka/Stamina, which is usually the bare minimum a DD will have, this gives 29% increased damage done, plus if you use a Dark Magic ability to proc Blood Magic, you get another 10% to your highest resource, which is even more damage

Implosion: One thing you have to take into account with this is the 0.2 second cooldown, and the almost guaranteed chance against low health targets. At the maximum number of procs per second, that is about 1570 damage, and if it's based on a baseline character, with 1000 WSD, that's actually fairly high. Assuming linear scaling, each hit would do 2198 damage at 7000 WSD, for a max of 10990 per second, before crits

Efficient Defense: This one looks like another tank themed one, which gives you a damage shield scaled to what looks like half your max health. The duration might seem super low, but it looks like it's meant to be almost like a parry, where you cast an ability at the right time, and tank a hit you might not otherwise be able to

Parallel Protection: Probably the main one intended for healers, although giving damage shield to others isn't really a Sorc healer thing, since your only option with class skills is Daedric Refuge. If Efficient Defense counts as casting a shield for this, Sorcs could have some ungodly shielding. Imagine casting either morph of Conjured Ward, which shields up to 55% of your max health, or 72% for Hardened Ward, then getting another 25% from this, and then Efficient Defense for another 50%. Even without Conjured Ward, that's 75% of your max health for any Sorc ability, or anything with a cast time, and when you factor in Hardened Ward, that's a shield for 147% of your max health. For a tank at 40k health, that's 58800 shields, which is mad

I do agree that Font of Power and Implosion are the clear showstoppers here, but in the right hands and the right situation, the others could really shine too

Tannus15 · March 12

conservation of energy and font of power are really good

implosion is solid, but the pet restriction is stupid. stop punishing sorcs for using their skills. if pets are so amazing, then nerf them and be done with it.

the other 2 are "support" masteries that make no sense and i don't see anyone using them.

Elendildur · March 12

The main thing with these Class Mastery passives that concerns me for support Sorcs (both tanks and healers) isn't any of the Sorc Class Masteries, it's the DK one, Rousing Roar. Standard of Might is already a solid support ult now, but giving your group Major Berserk as well? That could kill Sorc as a support class.

Major Berserk from the Atro is the main reason anyone wants a Sorc running Daedric Summoning as a support. If DKs get that, plus 300 WSD, Major Protection and Major Heroism to all group members, there's no reason to use any Sorc line as a support. If it was Major Force instead, which only tends to get sourced from Aggressive Warhorn or Saxhleel Champion, it would still let Sorc supports have a place, since DK can then replace Saxhleel with another set, rather than replacing a whole class

Malyore · March 12

I like the conservation mastery. It would come in very useful for my solo play, adding that much more healing and sustain– assuming that I go back to monoclassing after the refresh, and assuming these masteries would look anything at all like they do here by that time.

Turtle_Bot · March 12

I was going to make a similar post, but this one covers it.

Implosion 100% needs a massive buff/rework though, especially if it follows the established game-rules ZOS implemented where procs and pets cannot proc procs (i.e. pets and this mastery cannot proc this mastery). A DoT ticks work of damage (even when proccing it the max number (5) of times per second, which is near impossible for pure sorcerers to do within their own kit, especially pre-refresh) is atrocious.

- Font of Power is fine. It's bonus stats and a decent amount of them making it easier to stack into max mag without losing so much damage due to how inefficient max mag is compared to other damage stats (damage, crit, percent, etc.).
- Conservation of Energy is fine on paper, just very janky due to how blood magic's max stats functions (a common complain since that passive got adjusted in U46), this might fix that though since now any ability can proc it.
- Efficient Defense is fine on paper as well due to the cast times Sorcerer has in it's kit, but the 0.3s duration is far too short to line up with the significantly longer 0.8s (frags), 1s (Dark Deal) and 1.5s (summoning the pets) cast times of Sorcerers abilities.
- Implosion is too non-synergistic with the (pre-refresh) class kit. That internal cooldown just ruins it for trying to get the most out of it, especially since pets cannot proc procs and procs cannot also proc other procs and given the limited DoT and multi-hit over time abilities within the sorcerer kit, that makes this extremely difficult to reach the cap for what I'm assuming will only be mediocre damage (unless it has better scaling efficiency than spec bow).
- Parallel Protection really should have been something else entirely (especially give the current state of group wide shields being so problematic in PvP). It's "group support" that is mediocre at best and will only serve as an additional free layer of shields for organized groups that already have far too many shields as it is.

I hope @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_NickG @ZOS_GinaBruno etc. can pass this feedback along to the teams working on the class masteries and the Sorcerer refresh, because there's a lot of work to be done to bring these up to par for Pure Sorc (especially since pure DK is also now getting the one thing that was keeping a single sorc line relevant in PvE post sub-classing, that being group wide major berserk that DK now gets from its mastery passive, eliminating the need to bring anything from sorcerer at all into group content).

Turtle_Bot · March 12

Elendildur wrote: »

Conservation of Energy: As a PvE DD option, yeah, this isn't particularly useful, but as a tank, or maybe a healer not running Pearls of Ehlnofey (maybe Spaulder of Ruin instead)? This could be great there, since Dark Exchange having a cast time means you have to drop block when you use it. That can cause problems if you do it at the wrong time

Font of Power: This is going to be one of the main options for DDs. At 30k Magicka/Stamina, which is usually the bare minimum a DD will have, this gives 29% increased damage done, plus if you use a Dark Magic ability to proc Blood Magic, you get another 10% to your highest resource, which is even more damage

Implosion: One thing you have to take into account with this is the 0.2 second cooldown, and the almost guaranteed chance against low health targets. At the maximum number of procs per second, that is about 1570 damage, and if it's based on a baseline character, with 1000 WSD, that's actually fairly high. Assuming linear scaling, each hit would do 2198 damage at 7000 WSD, for a max of 10990 per second, before crits

Efficient Defense: This one looks like another tank themed one, which gives you a damage shield scaled to what looks like half your max health. The duration might seem super low, but it looks like it's meant to be almost like a parry, where you cast an ability at the right time, and tank a hit you might not otherwise be able to

Parallel Protection: Probably the main one intended for healers, although giving damage shield to others isn't really a Sorc healer thing, since your only option with class skills is Daedric Refuge. If Efficient Defense counts as casting a shield for this, Sorcs could have some ungodly shielding. Imagine casting either morph of Conjured Ward, which shields up to 55% of your max health, or 72% for Hardened Ward, then getting another 25% from this, and then Efficient Defense for another 50%. Even without Conjured Ward, that's 75% of your max health for any Sorc ability, or anything with a cast time, and when you factor in Hardened Ward, that's a shield for 147% of your max health. For a tank at 40k health, that's 58800 shields, which is mad

I do agree that Font of Power and Implosion are the clear showstoppers here, but in the right hands and the right situation, the others could really shine too

Just a correction, Font of power is not damage done, it's percent weapon and spell damage. They are very different in how they scale and likely lands closer to 10-15% damage done rather than the near 30%

Tannus15 · March 12

The combat team has had a mindset for a really long time that Sorcerer is too strong and shouldn't get strong buffs.

for example, the dev comment from update 46 regarding the frags proc change

"We've lagged a bit behind on updating this morph to persist through bar swap out of concern for making Sorcerer that much more powerful in PvP areas where they are not really hurting. With subclassing here, however, the idea of "classic" classes being too overpowered is less of a concern for the new world of truly specialized builds. This morph can be given a little bit extra love to help the skill line have more value for damage dealers, as it lacks other very potent damage producing abilities."

as well as mages fury

"We're tuning down the grace period of the infamous "auto execute" ability both in anticipation for subclassing and to tone down the Sorcerer's ability to easily secure kills, especially when they themselves aren't the ones always earning it. Since the class has been given plenty of other effective increases to their kit over the years, we're much more confident in this iteration of the ability to ensure it still feels significantly different and unique to other executes, while being a bit less effective at being a guaranteed death sentence."

Their initial impulse was to nerf bound armaments by 10% in the same update, but they were convinced not to during the PTS and then in the following update bound armaments was buffed when it was proven that relentless focus was 20% stronger with more functionality, more forgiving stacks and a cheaper cost to use.

Beacon of Oblivion is a terrible set because of the same restrictions being put on it, that you can't use your class skills if you want to use the class set.

@ZOS_Gilliam can you please stop hating on sorcerers and in particular pet builds. They are not a super strong S tier class, dark magic is the worst class line in the game, which even you seem to admit now since the main thing both font of power and conservation of energy do is allow you to get dark magic passives without actually using dark magic abilities, because they suck.

I mean, compare these two passives:

Hemorrhage II: WITH AN ASSASSINATION ABILITY SLOTTED Increases your Critical Damage by 10%. Dealing Critical Damage grants you and your group Minor Savagery, increasing your Weapon Critical rating by 1314 for 20 seconds.

Exploitation II: When you cast a Dark Magic ability you grant Minor Prophecy to you and your group, increasing your Spell Critical rating by 1314 for 20 seconds.

one of these things is not like the other one.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the class masteries, and I realise that the numbers are up for changing or whatever. Mostly, I just want the pet hate to stop.
No other class has this insanity.

Firstly, no pet sorcs, i know you're out there. Saying you want to play a sorc and not use pets is fine, but if I was playing a "no channels templar" no one would care that my dps sucked because i've chosen to ignore 2 of the best dps skills in the templar kit. If you want to play a no pet sorc, just eat the dps loss. you've chosen to ignore the strongest dps options for a sorc, that's your choice.

Secondly, to devs, pets are part of the sorc identify. Stop punishing us for using it and instead encourage that as a viable play style. You know, like at launch with sets like necropotence. Where is the class mastery that makes the pets better? that's the part that is unique to sorcs!

Lean into what makes sorc unique!

YandereGirlfriend · March 12

The Dragoknight giga-buff mastery immediately set off alarm bells for Sorcerer when I saw that on the stream. That was the last remaining bastion of Sorc relevance and now Dragonknights are coming to snatch it away. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Why?

Sorcs need to provide something of tangible value to their groups. They already share a class passive with NB and lose that fight decisively. And now Major Berserk, their final redoubt, is getting plundered as well. At this point, Sorc just needs an entirely new named buff to provide.

It is very much shades of Necromancer, where they launched with Major Vuln as their unique class debuff but that was gradually given away to all sorts of other sources and left Necromancers with nothing else to offer or to justify their presence in content.

MSattrtand · March 12

From the PvE Healer PoV:

Conservation of Energy - you don't really need more sustain, but this passive allows you to tweak your build and get more HPS, so... more overheal? That's useless.

Font of Power - more SPD means more HPS, so... more overheal? Again? That's still useless.

Implosion - you don't care about your personal DPS. Useless.

Efficient Defence - occasional shield on you. Useless.

Parallel Protection - shields can't proc Pearls, so spamming shields looks like a bad strategy. It could be decent if it were able to proc from the Blind, but "casting a damage shield" makes me doubt that it would. Otherwise useless.

Overall: no useful passives for PvE healers. And do not forget that DK gets Major Berserk. So, why would you run any sorcs in your group? Before U46, people ran sorcs mostly for atros, but it's now obsolete. These passives do not make pure sorc better, but the DK passive makes it worse? That's impressive.

ADarklore · March 12

People seem to forget that Sorcs are undergoing a class rework in a few months, and WE as players don't know their plan, but perhaps these Class Mastery passives have been designed to work with the rework. I mean, it's similar to Warden, since Warden is the next class scheduled for rework, so their passives may somehow be tied to the future rework.

IMO, it doesn't make sense to create passives for a system that's going to be changed just a couple months after release. It's one thing if Sorc wasn't going to be reworked until next year, but I believe Sorc rework will come in the fourth quarter of the year. Thus it makes me think that, when they sat down to figure out passives, that they also took into consideration the future plans for Sorc when making them.

ZhuJiuyin · March 12

Tannus15 wrote: »

The combat team has had a mindset for a really long time that Sorcerer is too strong and shouldn't get strong buffs.

for example, the dev comment from update 46 regarding the frags proc change

"We've lagged a bit behind on updating this morph to persist through bar swap out of concern for making Sorcerer that much more powerful in PvP areas where they are not really hurting. With subclassing here, however, the idea of "classic" classes being too overpowered is less of a concern for the new world of truly specialized builds. This morph can be given a little bit extra love to help the skill line have more value for damage dealers, as it lacks other very potent damage producing abilities."

as well as mages fury

"We're tuning down the grace period of the infamous "auto execute" ability both in anticipation for subclassing and to tone down the Sorcerer's ability to easily secure kills, especially when they themselves aren't the ones always earning it. Since the class has been given plenty of other effective increases to their kit over the years, we're much more confident in this iteration of the ability to ensure it still feels significantly different and unique to other executes, while being a bit less effective at being a guaranteed death sentence."

Their initial impulse was to nerf bound armaments by 10% in the same update, but they were convinced not to during the PTS and then in the following update bound armaments was buffed when it was proven that relentless focus was 20% stronger with more functionality, more forgiving stacks and a cheaper cost to use.

Beacon of Oblivion is a terrible set because of the same restrictions being put on it, that you can't use your class skills if you want to use the class set.

@ZOS_Gilliam can you please stop hating on sorcerers and in particular pet builds. They are not a super strong S tier class, dark magic is the worst class line in the game, which even you seem to admit now since the main thing both font of power and conservation of energy do is allow you to get dark magic passives without actually using dark magic abilities, because they suck.

I mean, compare these two passives:

Hemorrhage II: WITH AN ASSASSINATION ABILITY SLOTTED Increases your Critical Damage by 10%. Dealing Critical Damage grants you and your group Minor Savagery, increasing your Weapon Critical rating by 1314 for 20 seconds.

Exploitation II: When you cast a Dark Magic ability you grant Minor Prophecy to you and your group, increasing your Spell Critical rating by 1314 for 20 seconds.

one of these things is not like the other one.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the class masteries, and I realise that the numbers are up for changing or whatever. Mostly, I just want the pet hate to stop.
No other class has this insanity.

I agree with the first half. Over the past few years, Sorc's skills have consistently been among the worst in their category. Exploitation and Bound Armaments are just the tip of the iceberg; there are many more similar cases in Sorc, such as Expert Mage vs. Slayer. Sorc deserves fairer treatment.

Firstly, no pet sorcs, i know you're out there. Saying you want to play a sorc and not use pets is fine, but if I was playing a "no channels templar" no one would care that my dps sucked because i've chosen to ignore 2 of the best dps skills in the templar kit. If you want to play a no pet sorc, just eat the dps loss. you've chosen to ignore the strongest dps options for a sorc, that's your choice.

Secondly, to devs, pets are part of the sorc identify. Stop punishing us for using it and instead encourage that as a viable play style. You know, like at launch with sets like necropotence. Where is the class mastery that makes the pets better? that's the part that is unique to sorcs!

Lean into what makes sorc unique!

However, I disagree with the second half. The pet system is a limitation for Sorc, as repeatedly argued here：https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688704/sorcerer-rework-new-class-new-systems-house-building-and-various-improvements-for-eso#latest. Reducing reliance on pets is beneficial, not harmful, to Sorc.

Furthermore, comparing the Temple's guiding skills, or any other type of skill, to pet gameplay is inappropriate. The biggest difference between pet gameplay and other gameplay is that pets are semi-independent entities whose behavior is essentially controlled by AI. Therefore, they are easy to operate, but also have a low skill ceiling. Moreover, Sorc's pets have many disadvantages that other skill types lack, such as being unable to proc certain proc sets when attacking, and being able to die/disappear under certain circumstances, leading to a loss of output and resources. These are unique to pets.

Unless the developers can resolve the following issues: 1. Pet death/disappearance (e.g., the final boss mechanic in Stone Garden); 2. The inability to proc sets; 3. Find a way to compensate for the weakness of pet area-of-effect damage; 4. Remove the 2-bar restriction; 5. Improve the usability of pet active skills; 6. Find a solution to prevent pets from obstructing the player's view; 7. Prevent pets from falling or getting stuck outside the terrain (this occasionally happens in Infinite Archive, forcing players to move a large distance to allow the pet to return or resummon it), or I support the current class mastery approach, which reduces the importance of pets and makes petless gameplay the mainstream.

Sordidfairytale · March 12

Elendildur wrote: »

The main thing with these Class Mastery passives that concerns me for support Sorcs (both tanks and healers) isn't any of the Sorc Class Masteries, it's the DK one, Rousing Roar. Standard of Might is already a solid support ult now, but giving your group Major Berserk as well? That could kill Sorc as a support class.

Major Berserk from the Atro is the main reason anyone wants a Sorc running Daedric Summoning as a support. If DKs get that, plus 300 WSD, Major Protection and Major Heroism to all group members, there's no reason to use any Sorc line as a support. If it was Major Force instead, which only tends to get sourced from Aggressive Warhorn or Saxhleel Champion, it would still let Sorc supports have a place, since DK can then replace Saxhleel with another set, rather than replacing a whole class

100% this. DK should get something other than Major Berserk. Update the Atronach so the sorc can use their own synergy.

Elendildur · March 12

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

Elendildur wrote: »

The main thing with these Class Mastery passives that concerns me for support Sorcs (both tanks and healers) isn't any of the Sorc Class Masteries, it's the DK one, Rousing Roar. Standard of Might is already a solid support ult now, but giving your group Major Berserk as well? That could kill Sorc as a support class.

Major Berserk from the Atro is the main reason anyone wants a Sorc running Daedric Summoning as a support. If DKs get that, plus 300 WSD, Major Protection and Major Heroism to all group members, there's no reason to use any Sorc line as a support. If it was Major Force instead, which only tends to get sourced from Aggressive Warhorn or Saxhleel Champion, it would still let Sorc supports have a place, since DK can then replace Saxhleel with another set, rather than replacing a whole class

100% this. DK should get something other than Major Berserk. Update the Atronach so the sorc can use their own synergy.

Or just remove the synergy, and give the buff to everyone on cast

YandereGirlfriend · March 12

Elendildur wrote: »

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

Elendildur wrote: »

The main thing with these Class Mastery passives that concerns me for support Sorcs (both tanks and healers) isn't any of the Sorc Class Masteries, it's the DK one, Rousing Roar. Standard of Might is already a solid support ult now, but giving your group Major Berserk as well? That could kill Sorc as a support class.

Major Berserk from the Atro is the main reason anyone wants a Sorc running Daedric Summoning as a support. If DKs get that, plus 300 WSD, Major Protection and Major Heroism to all group members, there's no reason to use any Sorc line as a support. If it was Major Force instead, which only tends to get sourced from Aggressive Warhorn or Saxhleel Champion, it would still let Sorc supports have a place, since DK can then replace Saxhleel with another set, rather than replacing a whole class

100% this. DK should get something other than Major Berserk. Update the Atronach so the sorc can use their own synergy.

Or just remove the synergy, and give the buff to everyone on cast

Synergies are fun, though.

Allowing all synergies to be self-synergize would be a huge improvement on the entire mechanic.

Elendildur · March 12

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Elendildur wrote: »

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

Elendildur wrote: »

The main thing with these Class Mastery passives that concerns me for support Sorcs (both tanks and healers) isn't any of the Sorc Class Masteries, it's the DK one, Rousing Roar. Standard of Might is already a solid support ult now, but giving your group Major Berserk as well? That could kill Sorc as a support class.

Major Berserk from the Atro is the main reason anyone wants a Sorc running Daedric Summoning as a support. If DKs get that, plus 300 WSD, Major Protection and Major Heroism to all group members, there's no reason to use any Sorc line as a support. If it was Major Force instead, which only tends to get sourced from Aggressive Warhorn or Saxhleel Champion, it would still let Sorc supports have a place, since DK can then replace Saxhleel with another set, rather than replacing a whole class

100% this. DK should get something other than Major Berserk. Update the Atronach so the sorc can use their own synergy.

Or just remove the synergy, and give the buff to everyone on cast

Synergies are fun, though.

Allowing all synergies to be self-synergize would be a huge improvement on the entire mechanic.

They can be strong, but tying such a strong buff to a synergy the game tends to bury under 10 other ones is a pain

Ratzkifal · March 12

I'm reading Conservation of Energy as a great option for Sorcerer tanks, but neither Parallel Protection nor Efficient Defense interest me. Parallel Protection might be good on a Sorcerer healer but I think I'd still prefer running Conservation of Energy and Font of Power in that case if I had to choose.

Tannus15 · March 12

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

The combat team has had a mindset for a really long time that Sorcerer is too strong and shouldn't get strong buffs.

for example, the dev comment from update 46 regarding the frags proc change

"We've lagged a bit behind on updating this morph to persist through bar swap out of concern for making Sorcerer that much more powerful in PvP areas where they are not really hurting. With subclassing here, however, the idea of "classic" classes being too overpowered is less of a concern for the new world of truly specialized builds. This morph can be given a little bit extra love to help the skill line have more value for damage dealers, as it lacks other very potent damage producing abilities."

as well as mages fury

"We're tuning down the grace period of the infamous "auto execute" ability both in anticipation for subclassing and to tone down the Sorcerer's ability to easily secure kills, especially when they themselves aren't the ones always earning it. Since the class has been given plenty of other effective increases to their kit over the years, we're much more confident in this iteration of the ability to ensure it still feels significantly different and unique to other executes, while being a bit less effective at being a guaranteed death sentence."

Their initial impulse was to nerf bound armaments by 10% in the same update, but they were convinced not to during the PTS and then in the following update bound armaments was buffed when it was proven that relentless focus was 20% stronger with more functionality, more forgiving stacks and a cheaper cost to use.

Beacon of Oblivion is a terrible set because of the same restrictions being put on it, that you can't use your class skills if you want to use the class set.

@ZOS_Gilliam can you please stop hating on sorcerers and in particular pet builds. They are not a super strong S tier class, dark magic is the worst class line in the game, which even you seem to admit now since the main thing both font of power and conservation of energy do is allow you to get dark magic passives without actually using dark magic abilities, because they suck.

I mean, compare these two passives:

Hemorrhage II: WITH AN ASSASSINATION ABILITY SLOTTED Increases your Critical Damage by 10%. Dealing Critical Damage grants you and your group Minor Savagery, increasing your Weapon Critical rating by 1314 for 20 seconds.

Exploitation II: When you cast a Dark Magic ability you grant Minor Prophecy to you and your group, increasing your Spell Critical rating by 1314 for 20 seconds.

one of these things is not like the other one.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the class masteries, and I realise that the numbers are up for changing or whatever. Mostly, I just want the pet hate to stop.
No other class has this insanity.

I agree with the first half. Over the past few years, Sorc's skills have consistently been among the worst in their category. Exploitation and Bound Armaments are just the tip of the iceberg; there are many more similar cases in Sorc, such as Expert Mage vs. Slayer. Sorc deserves fairer treatment.

Firstly, no pet sorcs, i know you're out there. Saying you want to play a sorc and not use pets is fine, but if I was playing a "no channels templar" no one would care that my dps sucked because i've chosen to ignore 2 of the best dps skills in the templar kit. If you want to play a no pet sorc, just eat the dps loss. you've chosen to ignore the strongest dps options for a sorc, that's your choice.

Secondly, to devs, pets are part of the sorc identify. Stop punishing us for using it and instead encourage that as a viable play style. You know, like at launch with sets like necropotence. Where is the class mastery that makes the pets better? that's the part that is unique to sorcs!

Lean into what makes sorc unique!

However, I disagree with the second half. The pet system is a limitation for Sorc, as repeatedly argued here：https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688704/sorcerer-rework-new-class-new-systems-house-building-and-various-improvements-for-eso#latest. Reducing reliance on pets is beneficial, not harmful, to Sorc.

Furthermore, comparing the Temple's guiding skills, or any other type of skill, to pet gameplay is inappropriate. The biggest difference between pet gameplay and other gameplay is that pets are semi-independent entities whose behavior is essentially controlled by AI. Therefore, they are easy to operate, but also have a low skill ceiling. Moreover, Sorc's pets have many disadvantages that other skill types lack, such as being unable to proc certain proc sets when attacking, and being able to die/disappear under certain circumstances, leading to a loss of output and resources. These are unique to pets.

Unless the developers can resolve the following issues: 1. Pet death/disappearance (e.g., the final boss mechanic in Stone Garden); 2. The inability to proc sets; 3. Find a way to compensate for the weakness of pet area-of-effect damage; 4. Remove the 2-bar restriction; 5. Improve the usability of pet active skills; 6. Find a solution to prevent pets from obstructing the player's view; 7. Prevent pets from falling or getting stuck outside the terrain (this occasionally happens in Infinite Archive, forcing players to move a large distance to allow the pet to return or resummon it), or I support the current class mastery approach, which reduces the importance of pets and makes petless gameplay the mainstream.

I agree totally that pets have issues and in the class rework I think all your points are valid and worth raising.

That aside, an entire skill lines is daedric summoning. it's about the pets. My complaint is that we are getting punished for using the skills in the class kit.

Like it or not, in the past the combat team put a lot of power into the pets for sorcs, in the same way they put a lot of power for templar into jabs and beam. Or focus and impale for nightblade. Or the bear for the warden. I didn't make this choice, this is the developers who did this.
Now however, after they have pushed us into using pets, they are punishing us for using pets.

If I said I wanted to run a Warden dps but not use the bear I would be missing out on a huge amount of dps.
No pet wardens are terrible.

This is the warden animal companion class set

Aerie's Cry
2 items: Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
3 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 items: Dealing damage with a Light Attack applies Eagle's Mark to your target for 12 seconds. Eagle's Mark causes an eagle to attack your target every 3 seconds, after a 3 second delay, dealing 856 Physical Damage per attack. Increase your Damage Done with Animal Companion abilities by 10% against enemies with Eagle's Mark. This effect can occur every 3 seconds but cannot be applied to enemies who already have Eagle's Mark. You can have one Eagle's Mark active at a time.

Compare this to beacon of oblivion. It's a joke.

2 items: Adds 1487 Armor
3 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 items: Adds 1206 Maximum Health
5 items: While you have a permanent pet active, gain 1840 Health and 1980 Armor. While you do not have a permanent pet active, increase your Damage Done and Healing Done by 15%. This value is reduced to 5% while affected by Battle Spirit.

Only sorc gets punished for using their own class kit.
Look at the sorc class mastery

Enchant your closest pet for 5 seconds to heal a nearby ally for 879 Health each time it deals damage, up to once a second. If you do not have a pet, you deal 2312 Shock Damage to enemies within 8 meters of you.

It's garbage if you have a pet, fun if you don't. It's all over the sorc right now. You don't get good things if you use pets. Pets are a 3rd of the kit and pretty much the only good skills available.
I'm so over this.
This isn't a one off, this is a systemic problem with how sorc has been treated by the combat team for literally years.

Tannus15 · March 13

Here is a question, how many dps have opted to use Daedric Summoning in the world of subclassing?

I'll give you a hint. it's basically none. no one is doing this. Pets are not a fantastic class line. What does the most common sorc base build look like? You keep storm calling and drop pets and dark magic. The only thing people are keeping pets for is major berserk on the atro. It's a support dps setup.

I don't understand why pet builds need this nerf. It makes no sense.

ZhuJiuyin · March 13

Tannus15 wrote: »

I agree totally that pets have issues and in the class rework I think all your points are valid and worth raising.

That aside, an entire skill lines is daedric summoning. it's about the pets. My complaint is that we are getting punished for using the skills in the class kit.

Like it or not, in the past the combat team put a lot of power into the pets for sorcs, in the same way they put a lot of power for templar into jabs and beam. Or focus and impale for nightblade. Or the bear for the warden. I didn't make this choice, this is the developers who did this.
Now however, after they have pushed us into using pets, they are punishing us for using pets.

If I said I wanted to run a Warden dps but not use the bear I would be missing out on a huge amount of dps.
No pet wardens are terrible.

This is the warden animal companion class set

Aerie's Cry
2 items: Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
3 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 items: Dealing damage with a Light Attack applies Eagle's Mark to your target for 12 seconds. Eagle's Mark causes an eagle to attack your target every 3 seconds, after a 3 second delay, dealing 856 Physical Damage per attack. Increase your Damage Done with Animal Companion abilities by 10% against enemies with Eagle's Mark. This effect can occur every 3 seconds but cannot be applied to enemies who already have Eagle's Mark. You can have one Eagle's Mark active at a time.

Compare this to beacon of oblivion. It's a joke.

2 items: Adds 1487 Armor
3 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 items: Adds 1206 Maximum Health
5 items: While you have a permanent pet active, gain 1840 Health and 1980 Armor. While you do not have a permanent pet active, increase your Damage Done and Healing Done by 15%. This value is reduced to 5% while affected by Battle Spirit.

Only sorc gets punished for using their own class kit.
Look at the sorc class mastery

Enchant your closest pet for 5 seconds to heal a nearby ally for 879 Health each time it deals damage, up to once a second. If you do not have a pet, you deal 2312 Shock Damage to enemies within 8 meters of you.

It's garbage if you have a pet, fun if you don't. It's all over the sorc right now. You don't get good things if you use pets. Pets are a 3rd of the kit and pretty much the only good skills available.
I'm so over this.
This isn't a one off, this is a systemic problem with how sorc has been treated by the combat team for literally years.

Yes, you're right for we are getting punished for using the skills in the class kit. Sorc is the only class that isn't encouraged to use its own class's abilities, which was obvious before u46 and even more so after u46.

Before u46, Sorc had to use potions or general abilities, or the Oakensoul Ring, to gain important buffs like Major Prophecy. This is why Oakensoul Sorc is still quite common, because Sorc's abilities lack many important buffs, or the abilities that provide these buffs are weaker compared to other similar abilities.

After u46, a popular joke about Sorc is, "The fewer Sorc abilities you use, the higher your Sorc damage." For those unfamiliar with the joke's meaning, let me explain: Sorc's skill line, whether pet-based or non-pet-based, pure Sorc or a subclass of Sorc, struggles to synergize with other class skills and integrate into mainstream builds. Furthermore, mainstream raids cannot provide the penetration and critical damage necessary for Sorc, as the Arc and NB skill lines offer abundant penetration and critical damage. Consequently, previously common support skills like Elemental Catalyst and Roar of Alkosh have almost disappeared from the trials, making it difficult for Sorc to obtain sufficient penetration and critical damage, or severely restricting skill and equipment choices.
Another almost meme-like aspect is that the combined usage of all three Sorc skill lines is less than the usage of a single skill line like Herald of the Tome or Assassination.

The Beacon of Oblivion and class mastery suffer from the same problem, forcing Sorc to avoid using their own class skills, even though they could simply replicate Daedric Protection's effect: "While you have a Daedric Summoning ability active, your damage is increased by 15%." Alternatively, while you have a Sorc ability active, your attacks will deal additional X-shock damage to the target and targets within 8 feet. This would benefit both pet and non-pet playstyles, but the developers chose a skill condition most likely to cause community division.

So, you're right, "this is a systemic problem with how the combat team has been treating Sorc for literally years," and this really needs attention, especially since Sorc is going to be reworked at the end of this year. If the reworked Sorc still adopts this "you will be punished when you use your class skill" model, then a massive exodus of Sorc users is entirely predictable.

Aces-High-82 · March 13

We do not know which and how skills are going to be reworked but looking at those pure class passives there is no way I'd even consider pure Sorc for any kind of PvP content. There are various pain Points in the sorc mit rn. Pets are useless as they are implemented right now. The execute skill is such bad i'd rather Just spent that gcd on any other skill. Ward got nerfed into oblivion again. Hurricane, BoL and crit surge remain solid enough to consider subclassing stormcalling for Mobility.

Faltasë · March 13

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

I agree totally that pets have issues and in the class rework I think all your points are valid and worth raising.

That aside, an entire skill lines is daedric summoning. it's about the pets. My complaint is that we are getting punished for using the skills in the class kit.

Like it or not, in the past the combat team put a lot of power into the pets for sorcs, in the same way they put a lot of power for templar into jabs and beam. Or focus and impale for nightblade. Or the bear for the warden. I didn't make this choice, this is the developers who did this.
Now however, after they have pushed us into using pets, they are punishing us for using pets.

If I said I wanted to run a Warden dps but not use the bear I would be missing out on a huge amount of dps.
No pet wardens are terrible.

This is the warden animal companion class set

Aerie's Cry
2 items: Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
3 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 items: Dealing damage with a Light Attack applies Eagle's Mark to your target for 12 seconds. Eagle's Mark causes an eagle to attack your target every 3 seconds, after a 3 second delay, dealing 856 Physical Damage per attack. Increase your Damage Done with Animal Companion abilities by 10% against enemies with Eagle's Mark. This effect can occur every 3 seconds but cannot be applied to enemies who already have Eagle's Mark. You can have one Eagle's Mark active at a time.

Compare this to beacon of oblivion. It's a joke.

2 items: Adds 1487 Armor
3 items: Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 items: Adds 1206 Maximum Health
5 items: While you have a permanent pet active, gain 1840 Health and 1980 Armor. While you do not have a permanent pet active, increase your Damage Done and Healing Done by 15%. This value is reduced to 5% while affected by Battle Spirit.

Only sorc gets punished for using their own class kit.
Look at the sorc class mastery

Enchant your closest pet for 5 seconds to heal a nearby ally for 879 Health each time it deals damage, up to once a second. If you do not have a pet, you deal 2312 Shock Damage to enemies within 8 meters of you.

It's garbage if you have a pet, fun if you don't. It's all over the sorc right now. You don't get good things if you use pets. Pets are a 3rd of the kit and pretty much the only good skills available.
I'm so over this.
This isn't a one off, this is a systemic problem with how sorc has been treated by the combat team for literally years.

Yes, you're right for we are getting punished for using the skills in the class kit. Sorc is the only class that isn't encouraged to use its own class's abilities, which was obvious before u46 and even more so after u46.

Before u46, Sorc had to use potions or general abilities, or the Oakensoul Ring, to gain important buffs like Major Prophecy. This is why Oakensoul Sorc is still quite common, because Sorc's abilities lack many important buffs, or the abilities that provide these buffs are weaker compared to other similar abilities.

After u46, a popular joke about Sorc is, "The fewer Sorc abilities you use, the higher your Sorc damage." For those unfamiliar with the joke's meaning, let me explain: Sorc's skill line, whether pet-based or non-pet-based, pure Sorc or a subclass of Sorc, struggles to synergize with other class skills and integrate into mainstream builds. Furthermore, mainstream raids cannot provide the penetration and critical damage necessary for Sorc, as the Arc and NB skill lines offer abundant penetration and critical damage. Consequently, previously common support skills like Elemental Catalyst and Roar of Alkosh have almost disappeared from the trials, making it difficult for Sorc to obtain sufficient penetration and critical damage, or severely restricting skill and equipment choices.
Another almost meme-like aspect is that the combined usage of all three Sorc skill lines is less than the usage of a single skill line like Herald of the Tome or Assassination.

The Beacon of Oblivion and class mastery suffer from the same problem, forcing Sorc to avoid using their own class skills, even though they could simply replicate Daedric Protection's effect: "While you have a Daedric Summoning ability active, your damage is increased by 15%." Alternatively, while you have a Sorc ability active, your attacks will deal additional X-shock damage to the target and targets within 8 feet. This would benefit both pet and non-pet playstyles, but the developers chose a skill condition most likely to cause community division.

So, you're right, "this is a systemic problem with how the combat team has been treating Sorc for literally years," and this really needs attention, especially since Sorc is going to be reworked at the end of this year. If the reworked Sorc still adopts this "you will be punished when you use your class skill" model, then a massive exodus of Sorc users is entirely predictable.

This. So much this. The current kit is all sustain and low damage output. As well as low group utilities. At this rate, even with pure class mastery these don't seem to fit the bill "I should take this over subclassing"

There's no way any sorc in their right mind after seeing these passives would continue to use pure sorc unless the sorc refresh directly addresses that pain point. Increase the damaging abilities and group utility of Sorcerer, or keep it dead.

I also have this inkling feeling that the developers don't actually like Sorcerer, because as the person mentioned earlier in this thread, they keep consistently messing up everything good about the sorc. Frags, crystal weapon, boundless armaments, all of these things they changed because "they were overturned" just to nerf the class straight into the dirt.

Just a PSA to the dev team: I had to subclass my sorc main. It was a necessity, because I was holding my teams back and becoming literal dead weight as a pure class. Please for the love of Auri-El do not let that continue to be Sorcs identity. I hope that the devs understand that sustain only is not a sustainable route for any class to take.

They have to make the class masteries super super good and be a yes to "Should I take this over subclassing" and also "This has good group utility and class utility that I can also get equal to subclassing" or else it's just going to stay dead.

ZhuJiuyin · March 13

Faltasë wrote: »

This. So much this. The current kit is all sustain and low damage output. As well as low group utilities. At this rate, even with pure class mastery these don't seem to fit the bill "I should take this over subclassing"

There's no way any sorc in their right mind after seeing these passives would continue to use pure sorc unless the sorc refresh directly addresses that pain point. Increase the damaging abilities and group utility of Sorcerer, or keep it dead.

I also have this inkling feeling that the developers don't actually like Sorcerer, because as the person mentioned earlier in this thread, they keep consistently messing up everything good about the sorc. Frags, crystal weapon, boundless armaments, all of these things they changed because "they were overturned" just to nerf the class straight into the dirt.

Just a PSA to the dev team: I had to subclass my sorc main. It was a necessity, because I was holding my teams back and becoming literal dead weight as a pure class. Please for the love of Auri-El do not let that continue to be Sorcs identity. I hope that the devs understand that sustain only is not a sustainable route for any class to take.

They have to make the class masteries super super good and be a yes to "Should I take this over subclassing" and also "This has good group utility and class utility that I can also get equal to subclassing" or else it's just going to stay dead.

I think this is a sentiment shared by many Sorc players. Remember when the developers planned to nerf Bound Armaments by 10%? That was truly absurd. A skill with lower damage compared to similar skills and unable to maintain stacks permanently was actually deemed nerfed by the developers. Even more absurdly, the developers simultaneously buffed another, more powerful similar skill that could maintain stacks permanently.

I've always suspected that when the overload was modified, some code wasn't completely removed, which caused Sorc to always appear overpowered on spreadsheets when it actually isn't.

Now, when you join a raid as a main Sorc, you're often kicked. This is because others assume you're an HA-Sorc, or that your DPS is low. Honestly, I don't blame them, because I've encountered many Sorc players with very low DPS. In the past, Sorc could hardly gain Important buffs through class skills, so Oakensoul Ring naturally became the mainstream build for Sorc. Now, HA-Sorc's DPS is far behind Arc/NB/Templ combinations by at least 50K-80K DPS, and 2-bar Sorc still lacks sufficient critical damage and penetration. Raids won't pair an Elemental Catalyst and Alkosh for a class that lacks sufficient area damage and is usually considered support. Therefore, since u46, Sorc has been considered a bottom-tier class in PvE, completely unable to compete with other classes/subclasses.

Considering that there are still at least six months until the Sorc rework, if the Profession Mastery is indeed launched as we have seen, then Sorc will face the predicament of being shut out by the team for as long as six months.

ZhuJiuyin · March 14

If I were designing Sorc's class mastery, I would revise it like this.

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

Your tireless hours spent researching and learning the inner machinations of reality have given you insight into your energy transformation：Upgrades rank 2 of Blood Magic to work with any ability with a cost, increasing your critical damage and critical healing by 10% for 20seconds.

Comment: As others have said, resource recovery is not a problem for Sorc; what Sorc lacks is sufficient critical damage and penetration.

FONT OF POWER

Your thirst for knowledge knows no end. The more you quench it the deeper it gets. Upgrades rank 2 of Exploitation to work with any Sorcerer ability and increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 5%, and Penetration increases by 2000 for 20 seconds. The weapon and Spell Damage increases by 1% for every 1500 Max Magicka or Stamina you have, whichever is higher.

Comment: FONT OF POWER is one of the few classes that I think requires almost no modification to master. The design concept of converting the maximum resources into Weapon and Spell Damage is excellent, but I think Sorc already has Expert Mage, so some Weapon and Spell Damage should be converted into penetration.

IMPLOSION

Thunder follows lightning, so too do your Blows Echo and strike again. When you or your permanent pet deal damage, you apply one stack of Blows Echo to the target, stacking up to one stack every 1 second. Once four stacks are reached, all Blows Echoes are automatically consumed, and the target takes 6000 Shock damage.

Comment: I thought ZOS had abandoned the old and unstable "probability-based" design, and in the case of area damage, wouldn't IMPLOSION's "probability-based damage" really put a burden on server computing power? Damage should be changed to a more intuitive design, and the use of permanent pets should not be penalized.

EFFICIENT DEFENSE

You leave nothing to chance, creating contingencies in every plan you enact. When you use any Sorc skill, or any skill that requires a cast time, you gain a damage shield that absorbs 10,000 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can be gained once every 8 seconds. If the damage shield is not broken, it restores 1,000 magicka and stamina.

Comment: 0.3-second damage shield is ridiculous, and all of Sorc's abilities with cast times exceed 0.5 seconds, with the longest reaching 1.5 seconds. I merged the original CONSERVATION OF ENERGY with EFFICIENT DEFENSE because neither of these abilities is particularly appealing on its own.

PARALLEL PROTECTION Dark Pact

You haven't survived your foray into the forbidden realm on luck alone; your dark spells are cast with such efficiency that they can distort reality. When your Unholy Knowledge reaches level 2, your chance to inflict status effects is increased by 50%, and the damage dealt by status effects is increased by 50%. Concussion damage is increased by an additional 50%. Furthermore, inflicting Concussion also inflicts Major Vulnerability on the target.

Comment: One ability related to damage shields is enough; there's no need to give Sorc anything more about damage shields. Therefore, I've chosen to rework Parallel Protection to allow it to interact more with shock damage and Concussion, and to encourage Sorc to use shock damage.

Faltasë · March 14

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

If I were designing Sorc's class mastery, I would revise it like this.

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY
Your tireless hours spent researching and learning the inner machinations of reality have given you insight into your energy transformation：Upgrades rank 2 of Blood Magic to work with any ability with a cost, increasing your critical damage and critical healing by 10% for 20seconds.

Comment: As others have said, resource recovery is not a problem for Sorc; what Sorc lacks is sufficient critical damage and penetration.

FONT OF POWER
Your thirst for knowledge knows no end. The more you quench it the deeper it gets. Upgrades rank 2 of Exploitation to work with any Sorcerer ability and increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 5%, and Penetration increases by 2000 for 20 seconds. The weapon and Spell Damage increases by 1% for every 1500 Max Magicka or Stamina you have, whichever is higher.

Comment: FONT OF POWER is one of the few classes that I think requires almost no modification to master. The design concept of converting the maximum resources into Weapon and Spell Damage is excellent, but I think Sorc already has Expert Mage, so some Weapon and Spell Damage should be converted into penetration.

IMPLOSION
Thunder follows lightning, so too do your Blows Echo and strike again. When you or your permanent pet deal damage, you apply one stack of Blows Echo to the target, stacking up to one stack every 1 second. Once four stacks are reached, all Blows Echoes are automatically consumed, and the target takes 6000 Shock damage.

Comment: I thought ZOS had abandoned the old and unstable "probability-based" design, and in the case of area damage, wouldn't IMPLOSION's "probability-based damage" really put a burden on server computing power? Damage should be changed to a more intuitive design, and the use of permanent pets should not be penalized.

EFFICIENT DEFENSE
You leave nothing to chance, creating contingencies in every plan you enact. When you use any Sorc skill, or any skill that requires a cast time, you gain a damage shield that absorbs 10,000 damage for 6 seconds. This effect can be gained once every 8 seconds. If the damage shield is not broken, it restores 1,000 magicka and stamina.

Comment: 0.3-second damage shield is ridiculous, and all of Sorc's abilities with cast times exceed 0.5 seconds, with the longest reaching 1.5 seconds. I merged the original CONSERVATION OF ENERGY with EFFICIENT DEFENSE because neither of these abilities is particularly appealing on its own.

PARALLEL PROTECTION Dark Pact
You haven't survived your foray into the forbidden realm on luck alone; your dark spells are cast with such efficiency that they can distort reality. When your Unholy Knowledge reaches level 2, your chance to inflict status effects is increased by 50%, and the damage dealt by status effects is increased by 50%. Concussion damage is increased by an additional 50%. Furthermore, inflicting Concussion also inflicts Major Vulnerability on the target.

Comment: One ability related to damage shields is enough; there's no need to give Sorc anything more about damage shields. Therefore, I've chosen to rework Parallel Protection to allow it to interact more with shock damage and Concussion, and to encourage Sorc to use shock damage.

Good changes, but I think there should be some group utility in there(but maybe the group utility will be in the core class refresh idk)

Like the damage shield one? Give damage shields to the entire group in a trial. As well as the recovery to the entire group(extend the sustain to the group, a reason to say "hey bring this sorc along"

I also think Font of Power or Conservation of energy should have group buffs as well. If warden can do it, then let other class masteries do it. Actually it's preferred that way.

moderatelyfatman · March 14

I think the pet dependence of PvE sorc dps happened in patch 35 where they massively nerfed the pet damage (including Storm Atro) but gave much of it back as single target if the player used Daedric Curse. This created a situation where players had to go all in on pets.

If ZOS got rid of the Daedric Curse damage bonus and then restored the damage from the pets, this will give the players the option of running one pet instead of two and free up the skill bar space from Daedric Curse for more useful skills.

Crystal Weapon right now is useless and needs a refresh too.

Let's hope the ZOS devs can give us back some of the build diversity we used to have.

Yudo · March 14

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY
I am actually looking forward to the sustain because of pvp and my pve tank. This will be very useful and high on my list.

FONT OF POWER
Love this is pure power based. Fits sorcerer very well. Looking forward to this one the most.

IMPLOSION
Interesting concept, though only relevant to DD and execute specific. We do not know how strong this will be but low on my list right now.

EFFICIENT DEFENSE
Sounds more like a buffer/parry system, need to test it. If it works with any sorc skill and not just channeling skills this might be very strong. Though less confident about this one where and when I would use it.

PARALLEL PROTECTION.
Sorc should be masters of shields, and this one fits very well. My only concern is the sorc kit really only has self shielding, so this requires external "help" to make the group utility work.

They need to be useful in PvE/PvP and role based so you cannot please everyone I guess.
In general I love the direction and think the Sorc passive makes sense for the identity but obviously the values are not final and hopefully there will be a dialogue for PTS where feedback that matters will be considered.

wolfie1.0. · March 14

Honestly, with all of rhe limitations they are putting on pet sorc builds....

I think i would rather they just remove deadric prey from the tool kit.

xylena · March 14

They need to stop warping the whole class for the sake of preserving the permanent pet mechanic, which has been nothing but problems in PvP, PvE, or just walking around towns.

L_Nici · March 14

For Magsorc those might seem unneeded, but Stamsorcs greatly benefit from those. Yeah Stamsorcs do exist in this game, I know it is regulary forgotten, that not everyone runs around with a zoo.

Faltasë · March 14

L_Nici wrote: »

For Magsorc those might seem unneeded, but Stamsorcs greatly benefit from those. Yeah Stamsorcs do exist in this game, I know it is regulary forgotten, that not everyone runs around with a zoo.

Well Magicka Non Pet Sorc is what I play, and they have near infinite sustain as well. I think that all stamina builds lack that kind of sustain though, as that's kind of the thing with stamina builds.

I agree that they need to hybridize the class a bit better so that Stamina can have the same kind of sustain, but it's still true that the damage output is abysmal. I can't imagine how bad your class is suffering when stamsorcs both lack the top end of sustain AND damage output. I have a stamsorc as well, he's better in PVP but I can't stand him in PVE.