Sorc nerfs are too heavy handed

Turtle_Bot · April 29

Vulkunne wrote: »

I'm not gonna rain on this effort. While most Sorcs I've known from Cyrodiil are so massively overpowered no one can play against them, I've actually found parts of the Sorc class incredibly useful for other things. I've seen how annoying these DKs are now, and I don't care for most of the DK animation either tbh. It's hard to keep track of whats going on. Figures they'd come for Sorc sooner or later.

Best of luck with any effort to keep the class from getting the necro treatment, that is to say being broken with features we all liked getting ripped out then leaving it broken on the shelf for years now. While ignoring anyone who didn't go along with it, just like changes they made to jabs and flurry. Which are still broken and awkward. Just imagine them doing that to an entire class now.

Wouldn't be the first time ZOS did this to sorcerers (not even the second time either). How quickly people forget just how destructive for the class that things like the U35 giga-nerfs were, and the removal of overloads 3rd bar was, to the Sorcerer class.

FYI: the removal of overload 3rd bar was the start of this whole feast/famine nonsense with sorcerers balancing issues (not to mention the beginning of the conflict between pet and non-pet builds) because that 3rd bar allowed for sorcs to make a cohesive build despite the class abilities having none of the utility that other classes equivalent abilities have, and things like the pets taking up 2 (3 at the time) bar slots each was much less of an issue with those additional bar slots even though the pets needed 2 of those 3rd bar slots as well.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_NickG @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam As an extra aside for non-sorcs (and ZOS devs as well) to think about when looking into the Sorc refresh (as devs) or just to better understand the class (as non-sorc players):

To give an example of what the removal of overloads 3rd bar did to sorc all those years ago, I suggest try playing the other classes (as pure classes and without the crutch of non-class abilities or sub-classing) with only 3 bar slots on each bar and try to make a functional high end build just from that limited bar space only (and no that does not mean you can slot abilities for their passive effects on those unused slots to cheese this challenge, those slots must be completely empty/unused).

Understanding the impact of this nerf all those years ago is the first step to understanding just how how bad that decision was back in the day, and why anytime ZOS has tried to balance sorcerer since then, it has always been a complete mess when using numbers to balance the class and why Sorcerer has been in dire need of a proper rework from the ground up since.

Yudo · April 29

New mythic is interacting very strongly with shock damage and therefore bloating sorc numbers. Anyone not running this mythic is also being pushed down. I would have preferred if they added a proc limit to the new mythic instead of trying to balance the sorc class just for that one item.

Monolith is just another parse set now like siroria let's face it. Dummy cheese, but not useful in a lot of content. Monolith in current form without reliable spammable to proc this set should imo just have stayed at 600 spell damage until rework. This nerf was needed, but is way ahead of its time.

Also not a fan on how much hinges on specific playstyle or key skills. Let's say I do not want to use liquid lightning for what ever reason. Well too bad you cannot proc monolith reliably and less mythic procs. One skill change and things already start to fall apart. All of the above interacts with eachother in a specific way, and mastery system is a big win in general but I wish these outliners could be addressed somehow rather than flat nerfs that affects the class in general.

The nerf to Stativ Rev was needed imo, so I guess i'm just not happy to see monolith changed in addition. Just a reminder that a specific combination is very strong, but the moment you opt-out of one of those you end up on the losing end.

I really hope the rework will be decent because much of the friction is actually also caused by the current sorc kit.

Faltasë · April 29

Yudo wrote: »

New mythic is interacting very strongly with shock damage and therefore bloating sorc numbers. Anyone not running this mythic is also being pushed down. I would have preferred if they added a proc limit to the new mythic instead of trying to balance the sorc class just for that one item.

Monolith is just another parse set now like siroria let's face it. Dummy cheese, but not useful in a lot of content. Monolith in current form without reliable spammable to proc this set should imo just have stayed at 600 spell damage until rework. This nerf was needed, but is way ahead of its time.

Also not a fan on how much hinges on specific playstyle or key skills. Let's say I do not want to use liquid lightning for what ever reason. Well too bad you cannot proc monolith reliably and less mythic procs. One skill change and things already start to fall apart. All of the above interacts with eachother in a specific way, and mastery system is a big win in general but I wish these outliners could be addressed somehow rather than flat nerfs that affects the class in general.

The nerf to Stativ Rev was needed imo, so I guess i'm just not happy to see monolith changed in addition. Just a reminder that a specific combination is very strong, but the moment you opt-out of one of those you end up on the losing end.

I really hope the rework will be decent because much of the friction is actually also caused by the current sorc kit.

Isn't the entire point of the mythic though to have high powered status effect synergy? How would you even go about nerfing that while avoiding making it lame.

Yudo · April 29

Faltasë wrote: »

Yudo wrote: »

New mythic is interacting very strongly with shock damage and therefore bloating sorc numbers. Anyone not running this mythic is also being pushed down. I would have preferred if they added a proc limit to the new mythic instead of trying to balance the sorc class just for that one item.

Monolith is just another parse set now like siroria let's face it. Dummy cheese, but not useful in a lot of content. Monolith in current form without reliable spammable to proc this set should imo just have stayed at 600 spell damage until rework. This nerf was needed, but is way ahead of its time.

Also not a fan on how much hinges on specific playstyle or key skills. Let's say I do not want to use liquid lightning for what ever reason. Well too bad you cannot proc monolith reliably and less mythic procs. One skill change and things already start to fall apart. All of the above interacts with eachother in a specific way, and mastery system is a big win in general but I wish these outliners could be addressed somehow rather than flat nerfs that affects the class in general.

The nerf to Stativ Rev was needed imo, so I guess i'm just not happy to see monolith changed in addition. Just a reminder that a specific combination is very strong, but the moment you opt-out of one of those you end up on the losing end.

I really hope the rework will be decent because much of the friction is actually also caused by the current sorc kit.

Isn't the entire point of the mythic though to have high powered status effect synergy? How would you even go about nerfing that while avoiding making it lame.

Sure but maybe it is not supposed to be this strong with concussion? Either the chance, a proc cd or changes to concussion itself. I'm not a designer so these are just some thoughts for temporary measures. You could argue that the flat nerf is also a temporary measure, just one I do not agree with.

I believe the real solution is rework. Sorc needs a spammable to proc monolith, then the nerf is justified and the set is becomes less situational. If there are more skill options that allow different playstyle choices, those would naturally proc the mythic as well without forcing hugging targets for example. A wider audience can enjoy and benefit from a stronger meta in more content rather than a very specific cheese example.

Tannus15 · April 29

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

The elephant in the room - Shattered Paths Signet

Shattered paths signet is a really cool mythic, with a serious downside that if you use your ult with it you lose a heap of damage.

Unless you're using overload.

This is a really cool interaction, where you can switch on and off overload to keep your ult above 170, keeping the full damage from the mythic.

in this parse, I start with 500 ult, burn to 175, disable overload until the last 20% and then use it in execute.

I get to use 702 ult over the parse while still getting the full benefit of shattered signet.

There are a couple of issues with this parse though compared to content.
The first is that I start with 500 ult. In almost no trials in the game, should you be starting a boss fight with 500 ult. If you're doing that then you're not using your ults on trash.
Secondly you get a burst of dps at the start, but you get it at a time when you're likely going to be getting ult gen from a set like pillagers. Overload stops ult gen, so you miss out on some of the more significant support buffs.
Thirdly sorcs have Atro, which in most groups is there for major berserk. In fact, they really really want atro right at the start for their main ult burn. What no one wants at that time is a selfish sorc using all their ult on an overload opening after they just banked it all though all the trash pulls so they can have bigga numba on the boss.

My point is that using overload in trials like we do on the dummy is incredibly selfish and not good for group content.

Finally, compare the signet parse to a warmask parse where i use overload to start the parse, then drop an atro at 185 ult and then reenable overload for the last 10%

it's a big dps drop. This is more representative of what you can expect in actual content.

Sorc's passive ability is terrible, practically malicious to Sorc players.

Sorc is the only class that cannot gain ultimate points through class abilities, and also the only one whose passive ability lacks additional penetration or critical damage. Furthermore, Sorc is the only class whose active ability doesn't provide an unnamed damage buff. Necromancer has GLS & Siphon, Arc has Tentacles, Dragon Knight has Dragon Leap, Nightblade has Shadowy Disguise, Temple has Solar Barage, and Warden has Netch. Sorc has nothing, and most of Sorc's skill effects are inexplicably tied to "Resource Recovery."

Sorc's class masteries are even worse. Of Sorc's five masteries, one cannot be triggered by a class skill, one has a shorter duration than other general-purpose shield abilities, one related to Resource Recovery is excessively inflated and has incurred widespread criticism, and the other two that increase DPS have been nerfed.

This is truly disheartening.

Sorc get an unnamed, unique damage bonus in amplitude. 10% damage done reducing as the target health drops, which works nicely with static reverberation ramping up as aplitude ramps down.

Expert mage is really good if you're using pets, but kinda weak if you're not.
A non pet build has a front bar with 2 or 3 sorc skills, where a pet build is running 4 or 5 or even 6. so that's 216 weapon damage on the low end, 640 on the top end.

Sorcs do get 15% cost reduction on ults instead of ult gen, so it's weaker in general for something like war machine, but overall it's still pretty good.

Font of power is a really good mastery. Most builds sit at +20% weapon damage. I would be way happier if it was defaulting to 25%, because that's the magic number.
You need to hit +67% weapon damage for infused to be equal to blood thirsty over the coarse of the fight. Combinind Font of Power and Calculated Defence now give you the juice for that, and since pet builds suck with Static Reverberation, that's what people are doing now.

Static reverberation is a good passive that is way over nerfed if you're using pets. It would probablyt be ok if it was changed to only be nerfed by half, instead of adding an additional nerf if there are 2 pets active.

Pets are in a bad place at the moment now because you don't have enough bar space for daedric prey. Bound armaments is the strongest sorc skill by some margin, crystal frags is required for the blood magic passive for the all important 10% max resource.

pluvioisaplanet · April 29

From a PvE DD perspective:

The nerf to Static Reverberation should be fully reverted, or at the very least heavily walked back.
The 220k+ parses used both Signet and Overload, a combination that would never appear in real content. The 211k+ parse is more realistic since it drops Signet, but still uses Overload as an opener and in execute, which alone adds 12-14k. It was noted along with this parse that the average parse was a lot lower, crit luck and status rng pushing it higher:

My average parse was 200kish, the best I've done before hitting this one was 206k but I wasn't recording so I decided to go once more and hit at least as much. I knew 210k was possible but I didn't realistically expect I'd be lucky enough to hit it

Even setting Overload aside, Sorc is running both banner and status knife on the dummy, which most classes can't lean on as heavily on the dummy. Banner is particularly strong here because nearly all of Sorc's damage is a single type: direct. The status knife adds at least 7k DPS on top of that, and it's worth noting that its value is somewhat tied to Static Reverberation, fewer Reverb procs means fewer concussed procs.

Stripping out Overload, banner, and the status knife, a realistic Sorc parse lands around 180k. The current top Nightblade parse is 195k without external buffs, without reaching its crit cap, and with better content scaling thanks to its execute along with Incap, martial knife and morag tong (from which sorc doesn't get nearly as much benefit). All of the buffs Sorc relies on for the dummy will be available to every other class in group content too. Nb is in a good spot, but for sorc to be viable, it needs to be decently higher than nb on the dummy.

Personal parses for reference , all on PTS with the same gear and CPs. All still buffed by banner and status knife.

Week 1 with Overload: 196k.

Week 1 without Overload: 182k.

Week 3 with Overload: 176k.

Removing Overload's contribution from my week 3 parse lands at around 164k, on a pure ST class, still buffed by banner and the status knife.

pluvioisaplanet · April 29

Quoted post has been removed

The original commenter is wrong, but this is also incorrect, in content you can often end up hitting way higher than on the dummy due to a lot of buffs that are not present on the dummy. And a lot of the time, not all the time, the setups being used on dummy get used in content too exactly as is, for ST focused fights.

Now not directly responding to you, all the talk about damage having to come down is silly too, this is just what the game has come to and there's no going back. If you heavily nerf everything back to what some are suggesting as "normal" damage levels, the game dies, casuals will be upset, endgamers will be upset. Damage going up is natural for an MMO, but usually content also scales up according to the damage, which it hasn't in ESO at all. The problem present in ESO is that things just don't have enough health, but this is a small part in a different, larger conversation.

Pinktraining · April 29

Tannus15 wrote: »

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

The elephant in the room - Shattered Paths Signet

Shattered paths signet is a really cool mythic, with a serious downside that if you use your ult with it you lose a heap of damage.

Unless you're using overload.

This is a really cool interaction, where you can switch on and off overload to keep your ult above 170, keeping the full damage from the mythic.

in this parse, I start with 500 ult, burn to 175, disable overload until the last 20% and then use it in execute.

I get to use 702 ult over the parse while still getting the full benefit of shattered signet.

There are a couple of issues with this parse though compared to content.
The first is that I start with 500 ult. In almost no trials in the game, should you be starting a boss fight with 500 ult. If you're doing that then you're not using your ults on trash.
Secondly you get a burst of dps at the start, but you get it at a time when you're likely going to be getting ult gen from a set like pillagers. Overload stops ult gen, so you miss out on some of the more significant support buffs.
Thirdly sorcs have Atro, which in most groups is there for major berserk. In fact, they really really want atro right at the start for their main ult burn. What no one wants at that time is a selfish sorc using all their ult on an overload opening after they just banked it all though all the trash pulls so they can have bigga numba on the boss.

My point is that using overload in trials like we do on the dummy is incredibly selfish and not good for group content.

Finally, compare the signet parse to a warmask parse where i use overload to start the parse, then drop an atro at 185 ult and then reenable overload for the last 10%

it's a big dps drop. This is more representative of what you can expect in actual content.

Sorc's passive ability is terrible, practically malicious to Sorc players.

Sorc is the only class that cannot gain ultimate points through class abilities, and also the only one whose passive ability lacks additional penetration or critical damage. Furthermore, Sorc is the only class whose active ability doesn't provide an unnamed damage buff. Necromancer has GLS & Siphon, Arc has Tentacles, Dragon Knight has Dragon Leap, Nightblade has Shadowy Disguise, Temple has Solar Barage, and Warden has Netch. Sorc has nothing, and most of Sorc's skill effects are inexplicably tied to "Resource Recovery."

Sorc's class masteries are even worse. Of Sorc's five masteries, one cannot be triggered by a class skill, one has a shorter duration than other general-purpose shield abilities, one related to Resource Recovery is excessively inflated and has incurred widespread criticism, and the other two that increase DPS have been nerfed.

This is truly disheartening.

Sorc get an unnamed, unique damage bonus in amplitude. 10% damage done reducing as the target health drops, which works nicely with static reverberation ramping up as aplitude ramps down.

Expert mage is really good if you're using pets, but kinda weak if you're not.
A non pet build has a front bar with 2 or 3 sorc skills, where a pet build is running 4 or 5 or even 6. so that's 216 weapon damage on the low end, 640 on the top end.

Sorcs do get 15% cost reduction on ults instead of ult gen, so it's weaker in general for something like war machine, but overall it's still pretty good.

Font of power is a really good mastery. Most builds sit at +20% weapon damage. I would be way happier if it was defaulting to 25%, because that's the magic number.
You need to hit +67% weapon damage for infused to be equal to blood thirsty over the coarse of the fight. Combinind Font of Power and Calculated Defence now give you the juice for that, and since pet builds suck with Static Reverberation, that's what people are doing now.

Static reverberation is a good passive that is way over nerfed if you're using pets. It would probablyt be ok if it was changed to only be nerfed by half, instead of adding an additional nerf if there are 2 pets active.

Pets are in a bad place at the moment now because you don't have enough bar space for daedric prey. Bound armaments is the strongest sorc skill by some margin, crystal frags is required for the blood magic passive for the all important 10% max resource.

I don't think this calculation is appropriate because each class has a unique "passive damage buff," and the other classes he mentioned are all active skills, not passive abilities.

He didn't mention prey, but the prey's influence is very limited, and in most cases, it doesn't affect Sorc's damage.

Furthermore, I think reducing ultimate point costs and gaining extra ultimate points are two different concepts, at least in Shattered Paths Signe. Gaining ultimate points faster in Shattered Paths Signe is more advantageous.

Font of Power seems redundant to me because Sorc doesn't need that much weapon damage, regardless of whether a pet is used; it needs penetration and critical damage, otherwise it will lag far behind other classes in PvE.

Static reverberation is indeed very good; it would be even better if the pet restriction were removed.

The 10% max resource from blood magic isn't important, even with Font of Power, because it only lasts 10 seconds. If you're unlucky, Sorc might not use crystals for more than 10 seconds. Not to mention that blood magic requires full health to gain the 10% max resource.

Tannus15 · April 29

Pinktraining wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

The elephant in the room - Shattered Paths Signet

Shattered paths signet is a really cool mythic, with a serious downside that if you use your ult with it you lose a heap of damage.

Unless you're using overload.

This is a really cool interaction, where you can switch on and off overload to keep your ult above 170, keeping the full damage from the mythic.

in this parse, I start with 500 ult, burn to 175, disable overload until the last 20% and then use it in execute.

I get to use 702 ult over the parse while still getting the full benefit of shattered signet.

There are a couple of issues with this parse though compared to content.
The first is that I start with 500 ult. In almost no trials in the game, should you be starting a boss fight with 500 ult. If you're doing that then you're not using your ults on trash.
Secondly you get a burst of dps at the start, but you get it at a time when you're likely going to be getting ult gen from a set like pillagers. Overload stops ult gen, so you miss out on some of the more significant support buffs.
Thirdly sorcs have Atro, which in most groups is there for major berserk. In fact, they really really want atro right at the start for their main ult burn. What no one wants at that time is a selfish sorc using all their ult on an overload opening after they just banked it all though all the trash pulls so they can have bigga numba on the boss.

My point is that using overload in trials like we do on the dummy is incredibly selfish and not good for group content.

Finally, compare the signet parse to a warmask parse where i use overload to start the parse, then drop an atro at 185 ult and then reenable overload for the last 10%

it's a big dps drop. This is more representative of what you can expect in actual content.

Sorc's passive ability is terrible, practically malicious to Sorc players.

Sorc is the only class that cannot gain ultimate points through class abilities, and also the only one whose passive ability lacks additional penetration or critical damage. Furthermore, Sorc is the only class whose active ability doesn't provide an unnamed damage buff. Necromancer has GLS & Siphon, Arc has Tentacles, Dragon Knight has Dragon Leap, Nightblade has Shadowy Disguise, Temple has Solar Barage, and Warden has Netch. Sorc has nothing, and most of Sorc's skill effects are inexplicably tied to "Resource Recovery."

Sorc's class masteries are even worse. Of Sorc's five masteries, one cannot be triggered by a class skill, one has a shorter duration than other general-purpose shield abilities, one related to Resource Recovery is excessively inflated and has incurred widespread criticism, and the other two that increase DPS have been nerfed.

This is truly disheartening.

Sorc get an unnamed, unique damage bonus in amplitude. 10% damage done reducing as the target health drops, which works nicely with static reverberation ramping up as aplitude ramps down.

Expert mage is really good if you're using pets, but kinda weak if you're not.
A non pet build has a front bar with 2 or 3 sorc skills, where a pet build is running 4 or 5 or even 6. so that's 216 weapon damage on the low end, 640 on the top end.

Sorcs do get 15% cost reduction on ults instead of ult gen, so it's weaker in general for something like war machine, but overall it's still pretty good.

Font of power is a really good mastery. Most builds sit at +20% weapon damage. I would be way happier if it was defaulting to 25%, because that's the magic number.
You need to hit +67% weapon damage for infused to be equal to blood thirsty over the coarse of the fight. Combinind Font of Power and Calculated Defence now give you the juice for that, and since pet builds suck with Static Reverberation, that's what people are doing now.

Static reverberation is a good passive that is way over nerfed if you're using pets. It would probablyt be ok if it was changed to only be nerfed by half, instead of adding an additional nerf if there are 2 pets active.

Pets are in a bad place at the moment now because you don't have enough bar space for daedric prey. Bound armaments is the strongest sorc skill by some margin, crystal frags is required for the blood magic passive for the all important 10% max resource.

I don't think this calculation is appropriate because each class has a unique "passive damage buff," and the other classes he mentioned are all active skills, not passive abilities.

He didn't mention prey, but the prey's influence is very limited, and in most cases, it doesn't affect Sorc's damage.

Furthermore, I think reducing ultimate point costs and gaining extra ultimate points are two different concepts, at least in Shattered Paths Signe. Gaining ultimate points faster in Shattered Paths Signe is more advantageous.

Font of Power seems redundant to me because Sorc doesn't need that much weapon damage, regardless of whether a pet is used; it needs penetration and critical damage, otherwise it will lag far behind other classes in PvE.

Static reverberation is indeed very good; it would be even better if the pet restriction were removed.

The 10% max resource from blood magic isn't important, even with Font of Power, because it only lasts 10 seconds. If you're unlucky, Sorc might not use crystals for more than 10 seconds. Not to mention that blood magic requires full health to gain the 10% max resource.

I disagree with your take on font of power.

While I do agree sorc is lacking crit damage and pen, you can shift gear and stats around for more pen, like wearing 1pc pen instead of 1pc crit, and some extra light to match the pen.
maybe use some other blue cp.

Wuuffyy · April 29

Tannus15 wrote: »

We warned this would happen when you took the 225k parses at face value, instead of understanding the mechanics of what is going on.

Shh, Tanus- you can’t let them hear you say this. BIG NERF will catch wind and take are your ability to overload entirely.

Turtle_Bot · April 29

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

We warned this would happen when you took the 225k parses at face value, instead of understanding the mechanics of what is going on.

Shh, Tanus- you can’t let them hear you say this. BIG NERF will catch wind and take are your ability to overload entirely.

At this point, good.

Overload is just a buggy mess (that only gets worse with more bugs each new patch) that is only being used in game to cheese dummy parses to pretend sorc is still on par with the other classes. Just remove/redesign the skill from the ground up at this point, since the work required to fix it would be the same or more anyway.

Wuuffyy · April 29

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

We warned this would happen when you took the 225k parses at face value, instead of understanding the mechanics of what is going on.

Shh, Tanus- you can’t let them hear you say this. BIG NERF will catch wind and take are your ability to overload entirely.

At this point, good.

Overload is just a buggy mess (that only gets worse with more bugs each new patch) that is only being used in game to cheese dummy parses to pretend sorc is still on par with the other classes. Just remove/redesign the skill from the ground up at this point, since the work required to fix it would be the same or more anyway.

Wouldn’t it be more logical for anyone on the balance team to see ‘omg sorc go brrr’, and say ‘oh overload is doing this, this, and this because they’re grabbing the well’… ah nevermind then, we’ll move on

katorga · April 29

Agree the Sorc class masteries are too low now, and notice there are no masteries for pet builds, only penalties. Really?

ZOS should never have "re-worked" one class at a time. Look how long it is taking to get to the next one, and I bet they lose interest by the time they get to the last class re-work and either forget about it or just phone in garbage.

Sub-classing was a bad idea for the game (great for me because my main class depends on it to even be competitive).

Reworking one class at a time and subclassing break things. Class masteries are supposed to be the band-aid, until they nerf that into uselessness during PTS and we are right back to broken.

Faltasë · April 29

pluvioisaplanet wrote: »

Quoted post has been removed

The original commenter is wrong, but this is also incorrect, in content you can often end up hitting way higher than on the dummy due to a lot of buffs that are not present on the dummy. And a lot of the time, not all the time, the setups being used on dummy get used in content too exactly as is, for ST focused fights.

Now not directly responding to you, all the talk about damage having to come down is silly too, this is just what the game has come to and there's no going back. If you heavily nerf everything back to what some are suggesting as "normal" damage levels, the game dies, casuals will be upset, endgamers will be upset. Damage going up is natural for an MMO, but usually content also scales up according to the damage, which it hasn't in ESO at all. The problem present in ESO is that things just don't have enough health, but this is a small part in a different, larger conversation.

Since the mods deleted my original comment, in so that we can keep it in the convo for continuities sake I originally said something along the lines of "I don't think parses are a good indicator of how someone performs in content and that the dps isn't really all that accurate in actual content so the argument for nerfing stuff based on parses alone is bad" then you responded with what i am responding to now.

In content you can hit higher only if you are in a specific dedicated tight knit prog group who has min/maxxed themselves into oblivion. While I agree this should be alot of peoples goal, it isn't realistic to assume *perfection* should be the norm. Normal people do about 130k in trial groups, and that is generally *enough* for vet dungeons, but they always need more when it comes to HM or other achievement hunts. It's also very involved to get that high, and most people don't reach that. Most people, no matter how hard they try, won't reach that.

Also I kinda disagree that "more health" is the solution to this. Bullet sponges are never a good development methodology to have in relation to difficulty, and neverr will be. No one wants to sit doing the same stuff for a longer time. More health doesn't = more difficulty. What makes a games difficulty should be the damage dealt by the boss, combined with good tangible and learnable mechanics.

pluvioisaplanet · April 29

Faltasë wrote: »

Also I kinda disagree that "more health" is the solution to this. Bullet sponges are never a good development methodology to have in relation to difficulty, and neverr will be. No one wants to sit doing the same stuff for a longer time. More health doesn't = more difficulty. What makes a games difficulty should be the damage dealt by the boss, combined with good tangible and learnable mechanics.

I'm not going to go further into this, generally this statement that more health isn't a good solution holds true. But in ESO's case, everything is way too squishy, bosses, trash, all die way too fast and it's been that way for a while, this is the case for dungeons and trials just the same.

The game already has a lot of rich mechanics, that never happen ever in a fight because a boss dies too fast. Look at Rakkhat in Maw of Lorkhaj, that fight has some of the most interesting and fun mechanics from bosses in the game, but you never get to see any of them because the boss dies way before he even gets to start doing any of them. That's only one example of many.

Lord_Hev · April 29

pluvioisaplanet wrote: »

Faltasë wrote: »

Also I kinda disagree that "more health" is the solution to this. Bullet sponges are never a good development methodology to have in relation to difficulty, and neverr will be. No one wants to sit doing the same stuff for a longer time. More health doesn't = more difficulty. What makes a games difficulty should be the damage dealt by the boss, combined with good tangible and learnable mechanics.

I'm not going to go further into this, generally this statement that more health isn't a good solution holds true. But in ESO's case, everything is way too squishy, bosses, trash, all die way too fast and it's been that way for a while, this is the case for dungeons and trials just the same.

The game already has a lot of rich mechanics, that never happen ever in a fight because a boss dies too fast. Look at Rakkhat in Maw of Lorkhaj, that fight has some of the most interesting and fun mechanics from bosses in the game, but you never get to see any of them because the boss dies way before he even gets to start doing any of them. That's only one example of many.

They never happen in a fight because of power creep. ESO has bosses and mobs that are too squishy because of power creep. It's a never-ending goose chase where the developers keep implementing sets and buffs that inflate power, and then we complain about content being trivialized because we're stuck in a loop of causing rampant power creep in an effort to "balance things" or "add new things, buffs, sets" that are interesting only in so far how much can we min-max group dps to burn and skip things to a mathematical certainty.

pluvioisaplanet · April 30

Lord_Hev wrote: »

They never happen in a fight because of power creep.

Obivously?

But fights like Rakkhat in MoL has been powercrept for years, wayyy before subclassing, it's not a sudden thing.

But if you nerf things from doing 180k+ now back to 130k/140k+ You'll lose a lot of the playerbase, you'll lose casuals because suddenly it's hard again for them to clear stuff, they need these power increases, you'll lose endgame players because it's not fun having to re-prog because of drastic changes, and it simply would suck to lose that much damage all of a sudden. I know this would happen, because that's exactly what happened with U35, and the power loss that happened there isn't even close to what some current suggestions would be.

So the only way to make these mechanics relevant again, is by increasing the health. Endgame has been begging for forever now for another difficulty tier above veteran, where you just 3x health of all enemies, and that'd be enough.

And the way other MMOs do it, that have power increases over time, is by adjusting content or balancing new content to match the new power levels, which ESO has not done at all.

Tannus15 · May 4

I'm looking forward to seeing what this looks like

I was hoping for a slight bump for monolith from 100 per pylon to 150, but it might be fine. we'll see how it fares in actual content when it hits live.
it's so weird having monolith as a viable set isntead of the butt of a joke...

ZhuJiuyin · May 4

Tannus15 wrote: »

I'm looking forward to seeing what this looks like

I was hoping for a slight bump for monolith from 100 per pylon to 150, but it might be fine. we'll see how it fares in actual content when it hits live.
it's so weird having monolith as a viable set isntead of the butt of a joke...

I think Monolith of Storms is in a good position right now. Although it's been nerfed to 100 weapon damage, considering the potential for subclass builds to abuse the original 200 weapon damage, and the fact that Sorc will be reworked at the end of the year, if the Storms line gains spam skills or better DoT skills by then, Monolith of Storms would be even more likely to be abused by subclass builds. 100 might be the best compromise.

Dracane · May 4

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

I'm looking forward to seeing what this looks like

I was hoping for a slight bump for monolith from 100 per pylon to 150, but it might be fine. we'll see how it fares in actual content when it hits live.
it's so weird having monolith as a viable set isntead of the butt of a joke...

I think Monolith of Storms is in a good position right now. Although it's been nerfed to 100 weapon damage, considering the potential for subclass builds to abuse the original 200 weapon damage, and the fact that Sorc will be reworked at the end of the year, if the Storms line gains spam skills or better DoT skills by then, Monolith of Storms would be even more likely to be abused by subclass builds. 100 might be the best compromise.

And sets decorating a class's performance to look better than it is is always bad. Which is why overperforming sets should be nerfed to see the ugliness that lies beneath. In the case of Sorc DPS, that became quite dramatically visible after the nerf.

Pinktraining · May 4

Sorc's AoE is already very strong; Monolith shouldn't provide an additional 100 weapon damage as a general bonus. In my opinion, the best approach would be to make Monolith only provide 150 weapon damage to Sorc's skills.

Turtle_Bot · May 4

Dracane wrote: »

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

I'm looking forward to seeing what this looks like

I was hoping for a slight bump for monolith from 100 per pylon to 150, but it might be fine. we'll see how it fares in actual content when it hits live.
it's so weird having monolith as a viable set isntead of the butt of a joke...

I think Monolith of Storms is in a good position right now. Although it's been nerfed to 100 weapon damage, considering the potential for subclass builds to abuse the original 200 weapon damage, and the fact that Sorc will be reworked at the end of the year, if the Storms line gains spam skills or better DoT skills by then, Monolith of Storms would be even more likely to be abused by subclass builds. 100 might be the best compromise.

And sets decorating a class's performance to look better than it is is always bad. Which is why overperforming sets should be nerfed to see the ugliness that lies beneath. In the case of Sorc DPS, that became quite dramatically visible after the nerf.

Same thing should happen with all things that can cheese these stupid dummy parses that players are wrongly using to call for unnecessary nerfs (even this week non-sorcs are still crying about those no longer possible week 1 PTS cheesed parses) and ZOS is/has been using to "spreadsheet balance" this game for years now.

Nerf overload, travelling knife's specific status effect build combination with signet + static reverb + conservation of energy that players use to cheese unrealistic parse numbers on the trial dummy and I would bet anything that Sorcerer as a class would be lucky to parse anywhere close to the current "weakest" PvE DPS class (NB).

ZOS already proved this is the case with the nerf to JUST reverb and monolith alone dropping sorc from being top tier single target DPS (that is actually worth considering even in the current cleave heavy content we have) to well below average without any changes to the build that was used to cheese those week 1 parse numbers.

YandereGirlfriend · May 4

Pinktraining wrote: »

Sorc's AoE is already very strong; Monolith shouldn't provide an additional 100 weapon damage as a general bonus. In my opinion, the best approach would be to make Monolith only provide 150 weapon damage to Sorc's skills.

I don't think that we are playing the same game if you think that Sorc's AOE is strong.

BagOfBadgers · May 4

Pinktraining wrote: »

Sorc's AoE is already very strong

For that you win comment of the week (as I type this while rolling around on the floor) and it's only Monday, well played, well played.

MashmalloMan · May 5

BagOfBadgers wrote: »

Pinktraining wrote: »

Sorc's AoE is already very strong

For that you win comment of the week (as I type this while rolling around on the floor) and it's only Monday, well played, well played.

Better than NB and WW I guess lol 😅

That's something right? 3rd last place.

Tannus15 · May 5

things are looking pretty good overall imo

my only real complaint is exactly the issue that @Turtle_Bot raised about the specific combination of things working really well and everything else being very pale by comparison

no pet mag sorc with static

double pet with static

double pet with calculated defence

frost knife, signet and static reverb all play very well together for single target dps.
each step you move away from this build drops some more dps. there isn't a lot of flexibility for sorc, which personally i'm fine with.
let them be a single target specialist if they build for it properly. it's far and away better than live where they are the "cast atro" specialist

Tannus15 · May 5

Pinktraining wrote: »

Sorc's AoE is already very strong; Monolith shouldn't provide an additional 100 weapon damage as a general bonus. In my opinion, the best approach would be to make Monolith only provide 150 weapon damage to Sorc's skills.

also this is an amazing take. look at the above parses, of the top 10 damage skills how many are aoe? it's literally just monolith of storms. Sorc has terrible AoE.

MashmalloMan · May 5

Tannus15 wrote: »

things are looking pretty good overall imo

my only real complaint is exactly the issue that @Turtle_Bot raised about the specific combination of things working really well and everything else being very pale by comparison

no pet mag sorc with static

double pet with static

double pet with calculated defence

frost knife, signet and static reverb all play very well together for single target dps.
each step you move away from this build drops some more dps. there isn't a lot of flexibility for sorc, which personally i'm fine with.
let them be a single target specialist if they build for it properly. it's far and away better than live where they are the "cast atro" specialist

Yeah, that's my only concern. Overall I don't care that much because Sorc rework is so close, but I'm happy ZOS realized to take these parses with a grain of salt because there's a lot going on here that doesn't translate well to majority of content.

Mora's, Traveling Knife, Monolith + Liquid Lightning, Overload + Signet, and even Blue/Green parse food doesn't translate well off the dummy. It's highly unlikely you'd even use it in a trial, and downright next to impossible to use for solo/4man content.

Try using 6 Medium, with parse food, and Throwing Knife in Night Market Solo on one trash pile. You'll nuke yourself and your Magicka pool in 10 seconds. I play Stam, I attempted it on live, same thing, I nuked my Stam, and couldn't even block/dodge the major CC's, went right back to subclassing with Jabs, infinitely easier and the upcoming DPS Mastery's in question won't really make this any less true, especially in this example with cleave being a necessity, my single target DPS has to be insane to make it worth it.

I've been forcing myself to use Monolith on live to prepare. Overload and Liquid Lightning are the bane of my existence. I want so badly to enjoy them, but my god, they are so clunky and frequently bug out. I can not wait for them to be reworked.

Pinktraining · May 5

Tannus15 wrote: »

Pinktraining wrote: »

Sorc's AoE is already very strong; Monolith shouldn't provide an additional 100 weapon damage as a general bonus. In my opinion, the best approach would be to make Monolith only provide 150 weapon damage to Sorc's skills.

also this is an amazing take. look at the above parses, of the top 10 damage skills how many are aoe? it's literally just monolith of storms. Sorc has terrible AoE.

Empower+Overload is the strongest area-of-effect attack in the game, Lightning Splash is the strongest ground-based area-of-effect attack, Haunting Curse is the strongest delayed burst attack, and Mages' Fury is the strongest area-of-effect execution attack.

Turtle_Bot · May 5

Arcanist beam (the real strongest AoE in the game that comes with massive damage shield).

Winter's Revenge (when using frost staff on a pure warden easily beats out flood thanks to status effect procs/synergy oh and it doesn't have a hidden cast time like flood does that cancels the ability if you do anything too quickly after casting it).

Shulks is curse but with double breach and larger AoE.

Fury is the literal worst execute in the game right now.

Lets face it, vast majority of sorcs abilities are complete garbage that despite having equivalent tooltips, remain completely outperformed by other classes abilities due to a lot of other factors (cast times (hidden ones especially), lack of effects/buffs/debuffs, non-synergistic passives, etc.) that have power crept other classes abilities to well beyond sorcs raw tooltips.

This is why spreadsheet balancing (being done based on a false notion that dummy parses are the only viable way to compare classes) doesn't work in this game.