acanca wrote: »

Look i agree you can catch me playing anything from bash builds to asylum dw cavalaiers charge script whirlwind build or any other nonsense, i love trying out different stuff.

But when we are discussing balance if one side is coming from most effective tactic available perspective and the other side is coming from fun build perspective its natural that there will be a disconnect.

The class masteries should help you play whatever way you want i agree and they absolutely do. But i dont agree with you that it should make any fun playstyle be meta, thats just not realistic.

NxJoeyD wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

Yes, they do, to an extent. They show an individual's mechanics.

Yes and no. Not all mechanics are visual. Self buffs are often invisible to the opponent so seeing a one sided clip doesn't give us full context unless the full build kit of the opponent is known. Further, we don't always know the skill factor of the opponent. CP level isn't necessarily reflective of skill so clips leave out a lot of material context.

hoangdz wrote: »

That is false. Storm Calling is an extremely overloaded skill line that is currently used by any builds needing damage + utility + defense. Individually, Hurricane, Crit Surge, Streak, and Overload are all very strong abilities.

Not even close. Storm Calling is the most beneficial skill line for Sorcs but far from overloaded.

Overload: It's an Ult and while I do think it's the best skill in the entire Sorc kit it's not a single burst and doesn't provide any significant buff or debuff component. Further, it synergizes more with ranged DPS which are Mag based builds and the weaker of the paths for Sorcs. A Stam Sorc could run Overload but it wouldn't be optimal for them.

Mages Wrath/Fury: The nerf to 2 seconds cut the legs off this skill and made it nearly useless. The animation time is WAY too slow, excessively slow which makes the skill easily and completely avoidable. This is the weakest of the execute skills because it's so slow. Example of a stronger skill: Impale, is actually scaleable to higher values rather than being fixed and performs it's function quickly.

Light Form / Hurricane: This skill is really only good for Resolve and anyone will tell you that's the main reason anyone slots the skill. The DPS on either morph is too low to write home about. Those numbers are not "powerful" and are insanely easy to mitigate through in PvP. Now, IMO, if there's a player that needs a source of Resolve there's better sources than Hurricane, the same goes for Expedition. If one is in need of Resolve Earthen Heart can not only provide access to that buff via Shatterspike but also offers Major Brutality & Sorcery (plus passive damage) through Molten as well as access to Fossilize. So while Storm Calling has access to Resolve and a Stun skill, Earthen Heart has access to those but with mechanics that deliver more damage and utility than Storm Calling. Example of a stronger skill: Shatterspike Mantle, provides resolve, does more damage, also provides 100 W/S damage and also synergizes with Landslide for additional damage.

Lightning Splash: The DPS factor on this skill is low, just really low. The only power prospect comes from the synergy but the problem with that is that the synergy only affects the immediate area around the individual proccing the synergy, NOT the entire AoE. This is incredibly limiting and goes to mechanics. If the synergy damage affected the entire skills AoE then there'd be a better use case. As it is, any ground based AoE DoT is going to be limited, in both PvE and PvP but especially in PvP because nobody experienced is going to "stand in the stupid". When you have a class like Sorc where a good number of their abilities requires the target to "stand in stupid" in order to deal damage then that class is going to under perform because nobody is going to do that. Example of a stronger skill: Fulminating Rune, the skill deals and equitable DPS over a longer duration plus provides a smaller AoE burst as well as the opportunity for 3x synergies, all dealing the same high burst of damage.

Crit Surge: Again, this is another weak skill. The reason it's weak is because, in the scope of "pure Sorc" the Sorcerer class isn't an inherent "crit" class like, Nightblade, for example. The only Crit passive Sorc has is Exploitation which only provides Minor Prophecy and even that requires a Dark Magic cast to proc. This means that Sorcs, as a pure-class, don't have the crit based kit to see Crit Surge proccing with any consistency unless the Sorc equips literally nothing but crit based gear and even then. But what really makes Crit Surge fall short is that the heal is a fixed based value and doesn't scale. Regardless of your health pool, Mag pool, Stam pool, or W/S damage it's the same fixed value at rank IV no matter what. Even though the skill "can" proc up to once per second, doing so on a Pure-Sorc means putting so many "eggs into one basket" to increase crit chance that the build is going to be very vulnerable and the amount of the heal isn't enough to really offset that; especially with Battle Spirit active. Example of a Stronger skill: Blue/Bull Netch, provides Major B/S and also removes one negative effect for free every 5 seconds it's active or provides a flat 5% damage buff. That's a lot more deliverables than Crit Surge. *Runner Up: Igneous Weapons, Provides Major B/S, deals additional damage with each attack which doesn't require a crit to proc so not only does the caster receive the major buffs but they also get consistent passive damage.

Streak: This is probably the second best skill but, again, it's lost value prospect because of subclassing and all of the enhanced mobility that everyone has access to. Streak only has a range of 15m whereas other gap closing skills like Toppling Charge can reach 22m. Given the high degree of immunity that's available in PvP, plus the increase in mobility it means that Sorcs cannot use Streak to create a gap to refocus a fight. Just about any opponent is going to be able to immediately keep up and close gap with any number of available skills. Further, Streak carries a multi use penalty which other like-skill don't have putting Sorc at even more of a disadvantage. When we talk about using Streak as an offensive skill it falls shorter still. A Sorc using streak to stun has to turn around in order to follow up. Even with 3rd party camera speed add-ons this still sees the opponent breaking free before any real follow up can occur. Example of a stronger skill: Aurora Javelin, Deals more damage, is also unblockable, and has great follow up potential. Streak is also plagued with the "Streak bug" whereby at random times the skill will execute twice even when only procc'd once. This has been a known bug for ages and it occurs often.

Storm calling has very real limitations and those examples aren't the only ones in the game that are stronger because I chose skills that were directly similar in function to the Storm Calling skills, I didn't even take into account the opportunity cost of slotting the even stronger skill that exist in the game.

hoangdz wrote: »

Dark Magic and Summoning are slightly less meta for PvP, as the skills are currently either lacking in active effects or misplaced, but that doesn't mean they are inherently weak. When you compare these 2 lines to the meta ones, you're obviously going to see the drawbacks. This isn't the case at all when you compare them to even less useful skill lines like Shadow, Siphoning, Living Death, etc. Dark Magic and Summoning are clearly better in that regard.


Personally, I think Dark Magic and Summoning hover around A-/A tier.

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks Dark Magic is an A tier skill line. Again, these aren't widely chosen skills. We don't see subclassed builds choosing Dark Magic, and why do we think that is? If they're A-Tier doesn't it stand to reason that we'd see more instances of them in PvP or in ESO logs?

Negate: For PvP this is too niche to even consider. Any ranged player can simply attack from outside of the AoE and any melee player can simply lean on light and heavy attacks to still deal major damage within the AoE. We don't hardly ever see this skill in PvP and for good reason.

Fragments: This goes without saying, the cast time. The cast time on Frags make it significantly weaker than every other class spammable in the game, especially when you consider that every other class spammable scales to equal or higher damage than Frags. Most players that slot Frags lean on world / weapon skills as a spam and only toss Frags on the bonus proc which still sees this as weaker because all of the other class spammables are readily useful. Example of a stronger skill: Goes without saying Surprise Attack / Concealed Weapon, either morph deals as much or more damage than Frags, is insta-cast, as well as delivers a buff or a guaranteed crit every 3 seconds which is more frequent than the bonus proc of Frags. Even Wardens Cliff Racer is a stronger skill providing a slightly lower initial hit but provides a 400 W/S damage buff seeing the subsequent attacks dealing significantly more damage than Frags plus enhancing all of the casters attacks.
*Crystal Weapon: This is also weak due to it's limited 6 second duration and significantly reduced 2nd attack buff. This sees the skill having to be recast far too often to keep uptime. Example of a stronger skill: Crushing Weapon, despite a 2 second duration the skill only buffs one attack, however, by more damage than Crystal Weapon and also apples Major Breach to the target. **Runner Up: Inspired Scholarship. Math-wise the max potential of Insp. Scholar comes out to about 9k to 10k less (in total) over the course of 30 seconds than Crystal Weapon, however, since Insp. Scholar is active for the full 30 seconds the caster is FAR more likely to realize every 3 second buff of Insp Scholar whereas in real combat the it's not realistic that the player is going to be able to hit every 6 second re-cast of Crystal Weapon. It's a case of "tortoise & the hare" although Crystal Weapon has a higher potential, in the real world Insp. Scholar often comes out ahead due to better mechanics.

Shattered Spines: This skill is seriously weak. Not only are there so many sources of immunity to immobilizations but here's the real killer, Spines only deals damage to enemies that were "encased". So if the player casts on anyone, PvE or PvP that has immunity they receive no damage. Example of a stronger skill: Tentacular Dread, is equally an immobility skill but scales to more damage than Spines and provides a full damage buff to targets hit by the skill, whether they were immobilized or not so even if the target was immune the player still had the opportunity to deal damage as well as receives the damage increase to them.

Vibrant Shroud: This one I'm mostly ok with. It's essentially the non-pet self heal and works fine. The heal factor is strong and the debuff to enemies in range is ok. I, personally, would like to see a better buff then Minor Vitality given that Ward has a health based hard cap but it doesn't kill the skill. Healing Contingency is still a stronger skill in this case because it delivers a stronger burst heal than Vibrant Shroud, plus you also get the Affix & Signature benefits as well as the Mages Guild passives; so even though Vibrant isn't bad, per se, it still falls short of scribing in terms of best to slot. Stronger buffs on Vibrant would make it a better prospect to consider.

Rune Prison: Again, weak. The weakness here comes down to the details in the mechanics. For Defensive Rune the delay in the stun makes the skill to clumsy. That delay opens the door for attackers to launch a status effect or CC of their own, thereby negating your stun on them. The pace of combat in ESO is quick and effective skills also need to be quick, not carrying delays for no real reason. The big downfall for Rune Cage is that it only deals damage IF the full duration of the stun completes so if the target breaks free they take no damage, that's a HUGE reason not to slot this skill. Given the mechanics of crowd control and subclassing anyone slotting a CC ability needs one that has a reliable damage component, this way, even if the target is immune the caster at least can rely on the damage. Example of a stronger skill: Take your pic, Aurora or Binding Javelin, Shattering Rocks all are ublockable stuns with better overall mechanics and damage components. *Runner up: Colorless Pool, this Fear + Stun CC cannot be blocked and while it doesn't deal damage it does apply two debuffs to the target and "Fear" has a known break free bug making the potential for the full 4 second stun likely.

Dark Exchange: This is a viable sustain for Stam Sorcs but not for Mag Sorcs, especially in PvP. A Mag Sorc cannot lean on sacrificing Stam for Mag in PvP and hope to survive, that's suicide. So this is a very very one sided sustain skill. Even with that the one second cast time is unnecessary.

Daedric Mines: Absolutely useless. Here is yet another effort at a crowd control skill that seemingly tries to tempt with damage scaling. The problem is that the first morph of this skill has such a significant animation time that it's 100% avoidable and requires the player to stand in stupid, which nobody would do. The second morph of this skill has a ridiculous cost and essentially confines the Sorc to the spot their standing in. Again, requires a target to stand in stupid but even a melee player wouldn't do this as melee range is farther than the area around the Sorc so they can attack and land damage from outside of the ground runes. Plus, those runes take 3 seconds to arm giving anyone who might be in range plenty of time to get out. These never work, especially in PvP.

This is not an A-Tier skill tree, and again, I provided skills that are similar in function as comparison but that still doesn't take into account the overall stronger skills out there one could sublcass in-lieu of any of these.

hoangdz wrote: »

That "exception" created a dominant class for nearly a year. In fact, Sorc only got 2 changes during that PTS cycle (Ward heal buff and 10% extra max mag), yet it was able to completely outshine everything else in the game. That goes to show how very minor buffs can inadvertently elevate a class to a much higher status.

I wouldn't say created a "dominant class", more like a difficult to kill class and while that has a benefit, being difficult to kill doesn't make the class effective at damage dealing. At that time, yes, Ward was strong but that was also pre-subclassing. In the post-subclassing game state everything is different and what was strong before, isn't necessarily strong now.

When Ward was strong nobody could subclass which meant breaking such a strong shield took more effort. The power creep subclassing brought enabled those builds to one shot even a strong Ward easily.

hoangdz wrote: »

No, this is completely false. Storm Calling is so loaded that it's hard to find anything else matching it in terms of raw damage and utility.

See above, I found a skill to match and beat every Storm Calling skill in terms of both damage & utility, and gave specifics, exactly how and why those skills out perform, not just because I think so.

hoangdz wrote: »

Storm Caling is an S tier skill line

I'd say it's far from it. I'd give Storm Calling a "B" tier skill line and that's due to the specific examples listed above of other skill that deliver either more power, more passive benefit, or both. Again, not just because I think so but because there are measurable ways that Sorc skills don't deliver in the powerful ways many other class skills do.

hoangdz wrote: »

If Sorc skills are so strong why does seemingly nobody want them?

Storm Calling

Storm Calling isn't a first round draft pick for subclassing. I don't know where that's coming from. If we look at any number of broad sourced feedbacks that are recent we see Storm Calling falling since the DK refresh. Storm Calling used to be around the #4 choice for subclassed builds before the DK refresh now I'd say it's a sold #5, Hack the Minotaur whilst not a gospel for ESO is a common community reference rates Storm Calling as 7th.

hoangdz wrote: »

I also hope you know that next patch, both stam and magsorc are going to be pretty meta. On PTS, my stamsorc can survive up to 8k DPS in an openworld build before having to make dedicated adjustments to survivability, while having stats rivaling or even beating subclassed builds (31k HP, 30k resists back bar, 3k crit resist, 33k stam, 6.9k WD, ~154% crit damage, 50% crit chance, max pen). The only people I'm dying to are good WWs and DKs running pure cheese duel builds. Everyone else has not been an issue whatsoever (including the status effect builds with Signet).

I don't know about "meta" for Sorc, at least not for Mag Sorc running Pure Sorc and slotting Sorc skills. In order for Sorc skills to be "meta" they have to be faster and we need real sources of spammable burst, which we don't have. Many of the Sorcs out here being effective are doing so on the backs of world & weapon skills as their primaries. Any class can lean on Whirling Blades, Rapid Strikes, Vigor, Thrive, Dawnbreaker, Crushing Shock, Wall, Comet, etc .. none of those kills speak to Sorcs, themselves, being strong and just about every Sorc out there leans on one or more of those skills because our class just doesn't bring the power.

When we're in PvP and meta builds are spamming it's skills like Surprise, Deep Fissure, Merciless (to a degree), Toppling Charge, Northern Storm, Incap Strike, Flame Lash, Take Flight .. They're also running Netch and/or Falcon's, especially if they're slotting Fissure. .. Runner up skills are Blastbones, especially on meta bombers that are running Colossus + Vicious Death + RoA (yes that's still a thing). .. Way down past all of that is a sprinkling of Sorc skills that get chosen but sorc skills are not part of the meta at all. The meta is crit and Sorc doesn't deliver crit. The meta is also strong burst and Sorc doesn't bring that either, not like any of those skill I just mentioned.

I think Sorc will be stronger if and only if our passives don't get nerfed. My Mag Sorc can keep pace with the meta builds, I won't go so far as to say it's meta power because it's not, no Sorc is unless they're subclassed into it, which I'm not. I've got nearly 29k health, 28K resist, 3k Crit resist, my W/S damage will peak at 7.3k (I'm built for strong base damage), 35k Mag, 18.8k pen. I'm similar to you but Mag rather than Stam and I'll tell you I had to get creative to deal the kind of burst damage that I do and stack the number of damage instances I do and what I run is very much non-typical and a good chunk of my power isn't coming from the Sorc skill lines.

As for the status effect + signet, I agree with you 100%. I hear people complaining about that in PvP but, IMO, it's a non issue because what it takes to build Signet into dealing meaningful status effect damage is so restrictive it leaves those builds exposed to a good number of attacks and any experienced player will be able to counter that.

Dude idk what to tell you. My magsorc on PTS is doing 4.5k+ DPS consistently.

Also, why can't we stay in the middle? There's you who think the class is insanely weak compared to everything else and want it buffed to the moon, then there's Vinny who thinks Sorc is extremely overpowered and should be nerfed. Please guys, it's not that radical lol.

Who said anything about "buffed to the moon"? All I'm saying is not to nerf the passives. I never said anything about buffing the skills, just that the skills are weak. And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.

My MagSorc delivers too, but relies WAY too heavily outside of the class to do so, as is the case with just about every Sorc. Once Sorc gets their class refresh we can talk about where the skills need to be, but for now the Mastery passives need to be strong to make Sorc competitive versus the highest tier of meta.

What do you mean relies way too heavily outside of the class? My magsorc is using this bar setup:

With Chudan:


Without Chudan:


There are only 3 non-class skills, 2 of which are healing abilities and the other one is an ultimate. I have literally infinite mag sustain with 35k max mag from Conservation of Energy passive. Dark Deal is there for the occasional stam sustain and/or allowing for the use of DDF mythic, but even then it's not really needed with Conservation. I have a crap ton of damage (6.7k spell damage, 43% crit chance, 130%+ crit damage, and 15k+ pen). I've killed subclassed builds easily on PTS.

Sure you guys never said "buffed to the moon", but you guys are souding like magsorc is bottom tier when it's not even the case. On the PTS, it's never been in a better state than ever.

I have no idea whom or what subclassed builds you’re killing with that MagSorc load out but I can say that against top MMR ranked players on XB NA, that build wouldn’t get very far.

It’s not just about “killing a subclassed builds” it’s being competitive with not just the meta (which is subclassed) but top MMR ranked experienced players using that meta.

I’m sorry but those skills are so much easier to mitigate than other classes. Curse can be cleansed, Frags and BA are both SO ungodly slow that it would take the likes of a Hellen Keller to not block them.

Those skills also scream heavy attack main to me, which is sadly what Mag Sorc has been cornered into. No Mag Sorc would slot BA that isn’t leaning on HA as their main attack.

Your Mag Sorc & mine are similar stat-wise. I’ve got more total pen and a bit more W/S but I also deal multiple instances of heavy burst per cast. I only apply 2 DoTs, both are passive and one is un-cleansable and the other ticks per second and is passively applied persistently with an over time value equivalent to Curse, but doesn’t take up a skill slot.

If we had skills that didn’t take nearly a full second to cast or a whopping 1.3 seconds to execute or were readily cleansable we’d have a much more viable skillset.

NxJoeyD wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

Yes, they do, to an extent. They show an individual's mechanics.

Yes and no. Not all mechanics are visual. Self buffs are often invisible to the opponent so seeing a one sided clip doesn't give us full context unless the full build kit of the opponent is known. Further, we don't always know the skill factor of the opponent. CP level isn't necessarily reflective of skill so clips leave out a lot of material context.

hoangdz wrote: »

That is false. Storm Calling is an extremely overloaded skill line that is currently used by any builds needing damage + utility + defense. Individually, Hurricane, Crit Surge, Streak, and Overload are all very strong abilities.

Not even close. Storm Calling is the most beneficial skill line for Sorcs but far from overloaded.

Overload: It's an Ult and while I do think it's the best skill in the entire Sorc kit it's not a single burst and doesn't provide any significant buff or debuff component. Further, it synergizes more with ranged DPS which are Mag based builds and the weaker of the paths for Sorcs. A Stam Sorc could run Overload but it wouldn't be optimal for them.

Mages Wrath/Fury: The nerf to 2 seconds cut the legs off this skill and made it nearly useless. The animation time is WAY too slow, excessively slow which makes the skill easily and completely avoidable. This is the weakest of the execute skills because it's so slow. Example of a stronger skill: Impale, is actually scaleable to higher values rather than being fixed and performs it's function quickly.

Light Form / Hurricane: This skill is really only good for Resolve and anyone will tell you that's the main reason anyone slots the skill. The DPS on either morph is too low to write home about. Those numbers are not "powerful" and are insanely easy to mitigate through in PvP. Now, IMO, if there's a player that needs a source of Resolve there's better sources than Hurricane, the same goes for Expedition. If one is in need of Resolve Earthen Heart can not only provide access to that buff via Shatterspike but also offers Major Brutality & Sorcery (plus passive damage) through Molten as well as access to Fossilize. So while Storm Calling has access to Resolve and a Stun skill, Earthen Heart has access to those but with mechanics that deliver more damage and utility than Storm Calling. Example of a stronger skill: Shatterspike Mantle, provides resolve, does more damage, also provides 100 W/S damage and also synergizes with Landslide for additional damage.

Lightning Splash: The DPS factor on this skill is low, just really low. The only power prospect comes from the synergy but the problem with that is that the synergy only affects the immediate area around the individual proccing the synergy, NOT the entire AoE. This is incredibly limiting and goes to mechanics. If the synergy damage affected the entire skills AoE then there'd be a better use case. As it is, any ground based AoE DoT is going to be limited, in both PvE and PvP but especially in PvP because nobody experienced is going to "stand in the stupid". When you have a class like Sorc where a good number of their abilities requires the target to "stand in stupid" in order to deal damage then that class is going to under perform because nobody is going to do that. Example of a stronger skill: Fulminating Rune, the skill deals and equitable DPS over a longer duration plus provides a smaller AoE burst as well as the opportunity for 3x synergies, all dealing the same high burst of damage.

Crit Surge: Again, this is another weak skill. The reason it's weak is because, in the scope of "pure Sorc" the Sorcerer class isn't an inherent "crit" class like, Nightblade, for example. The only Crit passive Sorc has is Exploitation which only provides Minor Prophecy and even that requires a Dark Magic cast to proc. This means that Sorcs, as a pure-class, don't have the crit based kit to see Crit Surge proccing with any consistency unless the Sorc equips literally nothing but crit based gear and even then. But what really makes Crit Surge fall short is that the heal is a fixed based value and doesn't scale. Regardless of your health pool, Mag pool, Stam pool, or W/S damage it's the same fixed value at rank IV no matter what. Even though the skill "can" proc up to once per second, doing so on a Pure-Sorc means putting so many "eggs into one basket" to increase crit chance that the build is going to be very vulnerable and the amount of the heal isn't enough to really offset that; especially with Battle Spirit active. Example of a Stronger skill: Blue/Bull Netch, provides Major B/S and also removes one negative effect for free every 5 seconds it's active or provides a flat 5% damage buff. That's a lot more deliverables than Crit Surge. *Runner Up: Igneous Weapons, Provides Major B/S, deals additional damage with each attack which doesn't require a crit to proc so not only does the caster receive the major buffs but they also get consistent passive damage.

Streak: This is probably the second best skill but, again, it's lost value prospect because of subclassing and all of the enhanced mobility that everyone has access to. Streak only has a range of 15m whereas other gap closing skills like Toppling Charge can reach 22m. Given the high degree of immunity that's available in PvP, plus the increase in mobility it means that Sorcs cannot use Streak to create a gap to refocus a fight. Just about any opponent is going to be able to immediately keep up and close gap with any number of available skills. Further, Streak carries a multi use penalty which other like-skill don't have putting Sorc at even more of a disadvantage. When we talk about using Streak as an offensive skill it falls shorter still. A Sorc using streak to stun has to turn around in order to follow up. Even with 3rd party camera speed add-ons this still sees the opponent breaking free before any real follow up can occur. Example of a stronger skill: Aurora Javelin, Deals more damage, is also unblockable, and has great follow up potential. Streak is also plagued with the "Streak bug" whereby at random times the skill will execute twice even when only procc'd once. This has been a known bug for ages and it occurs often.

Storm calling has very real limitations and those examples aren't the only ones in the game that are stronger because I chose skills that were directly similar in function to the Storm Calling skills, I didn't even take into account the opportunity cost of slotting the even stronger skill that exist in the game.

hoangdz wrote: »

Dark Magic and Summoning are slightly less meta for PvP, as the skills are currently either lacking in active effects or misplaced, but that doesn't mean they are inherently weak. When you compare these 2 lines to the meta ones, you're obviously going to see the drawbacks. This isn't the case at all when you compare them to even less useful skill lines like Shadow, Siphoning, Living Death, etc. Dark Magic and Summoning are clearly better in that regard.


Personally, I think Dark Magic and Summoning hover around A-/A tier.

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks Dark Magic is an A tier skill line. Again, these aren't widely chosen skills. We don't see subclassed builds choosing Dark Magic, and why do we think that is? If they're A-Tier doesn't it stand to reason that we'd see more instances of them in PvP or in ESO logs?

Negate: For PvP this is too niche to even consider. Any ranged player can simply attack from outside of the AoE and any melee player can simply lean on light and heavy attacks to still deal major damage within the AoE. We don't hardly ever see this skill in PvP and for good reason.

Fragments: This goes without saying, the cast time. The cast time on Frags make it significantly weaker than every other class spammable in the game, especially when you consider that every other class spammable scales to equal or higher damage than Frags. Most players that slot Frags lean on world / weapon skills as a spam and only toss Frags on the bonus proc which still sees this as weaker because all of the other class spammables are readily useful. Example of a stronger skill: Goes without saying Surprise Attack / Concealed Weapon, either morph deals as much or more damage than Frags, is insta-cast, as well as delivers a buff or a guaranteed crit every 3 seconds which is more frequent than the bonus proc of Frags. Even Wardens Cliff Racer is a stronger skill providing a slightly lower initial hit but provides a 400 W/S damage buff seeing the subsequent attacks dealing significantly more damage than Frags plus enhancing all of the casters attacks.
*Crystal Weapon: This is also weak due to it's limited 6 second duration and significantly reduced 2nd attack buff. This sees the skill having to be recast far too often to keep uptime. Example of a stronger skill: Crushing Weapon, despite a 2 second duration the skill only buffs one attack, however, by more damage than Crystal Weapon and also apples Major Breach to the target. **Runner Up: Inspired Scholarship. Math-wise the max potential of Insp. Scholar comes out to about 9k to 10k less (in total) over the course of 30 seconds than Crystal Weapon, however, since Insp. Scholar is active for the full 30 seconds the caster is FAR more likely to realize every 3 second buff of Insp Scholar whereas in real combat the it's not realistic that the player is going to be able to hit every 6 second re-cast of Crystal Weapon. It's a case of "tortoise & the hare" although Crystal Weapon has a higher potential, in the real world Insp. Scholar often comes out ahead due to better mechanics.

Shattered Spines: This skill is seriously weak. Not only are there so many sources of immunity to immobilizations but here's the real killer, Spines only deals damage to enemies that were "encased". So if the player casts on anyone, PvE or PvP that has immunity they receive no damage. Example of a stronger skill: Tentacular Dread, is equally an immobility skill but scales to more damage than Spines and provides a full damage buff to targets hit by the skill, whether they were immobilized or not so even if the target was immune the player still had the opportunity to deal damage as well as receives the damage increase to them.

Vibrant Shroud: This one I'm mostly ok with. It's essentially the non-pet self heal and works fine. The heal factor is strong and the debuff to enemies in range is ok. I, personally, would like to see a better buff then Minor Vitality given that Ward has a health based hard cap but it doesn't kill the skill. Healing Contingency is still a stronger skill in this case because it delivers a stronger burst heal than Vibrant Shroud, plus you also get the Affix & Signature benefits as well as the Mages Guild passives; so even though Vibrant isn't bad, per se, it still falls short of scribing in terms of best to slot. Stronger buffs on Vibrant would make it a better prospect to consider.

Rune Prison: Again, weak. The weakness here comes down to the details in the mechanics. For Defensive Rune the delay in the stun makes the skill to clumsy. That delay opens the door for attackers to launch a status effect or CC of their own, thereby negating your stun on them. The pace of combat in ESO is quick and effective skills also need to be quick, not carrying delays for no real reason. The big downfall for Rune Cage is that it only deals damage IF the full duration of the stun completes so if the target breaks free they take no damage, that's a HUGE reason not to slot this skill. Given the mechanics of crowd control and subclassing anyone slotting a CC ability needs one that has a reliable damage component, this way, even if the target is immune the caster at least can rely on the damage. Example of a stronger skill: Take your pic, Aurora or Binding Javelin, Shattering Rocks all are ublockable stuns with better overall mechanics and damage components. *Runner up: Colorless Pool, this Fear + Stun CC cannot be blocked and while it doesn't deal damage it does apply two debuffs to the target and "Fear" has a known break free bug making the potential for the full 4 second stun likely.

Dark Exchange: This is a viable sustain for Stam Sorcs but not for Mag Sorcs, especially in PvP. A Mag Sorc cannot lean on sacrificing Stam for Mag in PvP and hope to survive, that's suicide. So this is a very very one sided sustain skill. Even with that the one second cast time is unnecessary.

Daedric Mines: Absolutely useless. Here is yet another effort at a crowd control skill that seemingly tries to tempt with damage scaling. The problem is that the first morph of this skill has such a significant animation time that it's 100% avoidable and requires the player to stand in stupid, which nobody would do. The second morph of this skill has a ridiculous cost and essentially confines the Sorc to the spot their standing in. Again, requires a target to stand in stupid but even a melee player wouldn't do this as melee range is farther than the area around the Sorc so they can attack and land damage from outside of the ground runes. Plus, those runes take 3 seconds to arm giving anyone who might be in range plenty of time to get out. These never work, especially in PvP.

This is not an A-Tier skill tree, and again, I provided skills that are similar in function as comparison but that still doesn't take into account the overall stronger skills out there one could sublcass in-lieu of any of these.

hoangdz wrote: »

That "exception" created a dominant class for nearly a year. In fact, Sorc only got 2 changes during that PTS cycle (Ward heal buff and 10% extra max mag), yet it was able to completely outshine everything else in the game. That goes to show how very minor buffs can inadvertently elevate a class to a much higher status.

I wouldn't say created a "dominant class", more like a difficult to kill class and while that has a benefit, being difficult to kill doesn't make the class effective at damage dealing. At that time, yes, Ward was strong but that was also pre-subclassing. In the post-subclassing game state everything is different and what was strong before, isn't necessarily strong now.

When Ward was strong nobody could subclass which meant breaking such a strong shield took more effort. The power creep subclassing brought enabled those builds to one shot even a strong Ward easily.

hoangdz wrote: »

No, this is completely false. Storm Calling is so loaded that it's hard to find anything else matching it in terms of raw damage and utility.

See above, I found a skill to match and beat every Storm Calling skill in terms of both damage & utility, and gave specifics, exactly how and why those skills out perform, not just because I think so.

hoangdz wrote: »

Storm Caling is an S tier skill line

I'd say it's far from it. I'd give Storm Calling a "B" tier skill line and that's due to the specific examples listed above of other skill that deliver either more power, more passive benefit, or both. Again, not just because I think so but because there are measurable ways that Sorc skills don't deliver in the powerful ways many other class skills do.

hoangdz wrote: »

If Sorc skills are so strong why does seemingly nobody want them?

Storm Calling

Storm Calling isn't a first round draft pick for subclassing. I don't know where that's coming from. If we look at any number of broad sourced feedbacks that are recent we see Storm Calling falling since the DK refresh. Storm Calling used to be around the #4 choice for subclassed builds before the DK refresh now I'd say it's a sold #5, Hack the Minotaur whilst not a gospel for ESO is a common community reference rates Storm Calling as 7th.

hoangdz wrote: »

I also hope you know that next patch, both stam and magsorc are going to be pretty meta. On PTS, my stamsorc can survive up to 8k DPS in an openworld build before having to make dedicated adjustments to survivability, while having stats rivaling or even beating subclassed builds (31k HP, 30k resists back bar, 3k crit resist, 33k stam, 6.9k WD, ~154% crit damage, 50% crit chance, max pen). The only people I'm dying to are good WWs and DKs running pure cheese duel builds. Everyone else has not been an issue whatsoever (including the status effect builds with Signet).

I don't know about "meta" for Sorc, at least not for Mag Sorc running Pure Sorc and slotting Sorc skills. In order for Sorc skills to be "meta" they have to be faster and we need real sources of spammable burst, which we don't have. Many of the Sorcs out here being effective are doing so on the backs of world & weapon skills as their primaries. Any class can lean on Whirling Blades, Rapid Strikes, Vigor, Thrive, Dawnbreaker, Crushing Shock, Wall, Comet, etc .. none of those kills speak to Sorcs, themselves, being strong and just about every Sorc out there leans on one or more of those skills because our class just doesn't bring the power.

When we're in PvP and meta builds are spamming it's skills like Surprise, Deep Fissure, Merciless (to a degree), Toppling Charge, Northern Storm, Incap Strike, Flame Lash, Take Flight .. They're also running Netch and/or Falcon's, especially if they're slotting Fissure. .. Runner up skills are Blastbones, especially on meta bombers that are running Colossus + Vicious Death + RoA (yes that's still a thing). .. Way down past all of that is a sprinkling of Sorc skills that get chosen but sorc skills are not part of the meta at all. The meta is crit and Sorc doesn't deliver crit. The meta is also strong burst and Sorc doesn't bring that either, not like any of those skill I just mentioned.

I think Sorc will be stronger if and only if our passives don't get nerfed. My Mag Sorc can keep pace with the meta builds, I won't go so far as to say it's meta power because it's not, no Sorc is unless they're subclassed into it, which I'm not. I've got nearly 29k health, 28K resist, 3k Crit resist, my W/S damage will peak at 7.3k (I'm built for strong base damage), 35k Mag, 18.8k pen. I'm similar to you but Mag rather than Stam and I'll tell you I had to get creative to deal the kind of burst damage that I do and stack the number of damage instances I do and what I run is very much non-typical and a good chunk of my power isn't coming from the Sorc skill lines.

As for the status effect + signet, I agree with you 100%. I hear people complaining about that in PvP but, IMO, it's a non issue because what it takes to build Signet into dealing meaningful status effect damage is so restrictive it leaves those builds exposed to a good number of attacks and any experienced player will be able to counter that.

Dude idk what to tell you. My magsorc on PTS is doing 4.5k+ DPS consistently.

Also, why can't we stay in the middle? There's you who think the class is insanely weak compared to everything else and want it buffed to the moon, then there's Vinny who thinks Sorc is extremely overpowered and should be nerfed. Please guys, it's not that radical lol.

Who said anything about "buffed to the moon"? All I'm saying is not to nerf the passives. I never said anything about buffing the skills, just that the skills are weak. And I'm not the only one on this thread alone who have said the same thing, a handful of people have agreed Sorc is very much lacking.

My MagSorc delivers too, but relies WAY too heavily outside of the class to do so, as is the case with just about every Sorc. Once Sorc gets their class refresh we can talk about where the skills need to be, but for now the Mastery passives need to be strong to make Sorc competitive versus the highest tier of meta.

What do you mean relies way too heavily outside of the class? My magsorc is using this bar setup:

With Chudan:


Without Chudan:


There are only 3 non-class skills, 2 of which are healing abilities and the other one is an ultimate. I have literally infinite mag sustain with 35k max mag from Conservation of Energy passive. Dark Deal is there for the occasional stam sustain and/or allowing for the use of DDF mythic, but even then it's not really needed with Conservation. I have a crap ton of damage (6.7k spell damage, 43% crit chance, 130%+ crit damage, and 15k+ pen). I've killed subclassed builds easily on PTS.

Sure you guys never said "buffed to the moon", but you guys are souding like magsorc is bottom tier when it's not even the case. On the PTS, it's never been in a better state than ever.

I have no idea whom or what subclassed builds you’re killing with that MagSorc load out but I can say that against top MMR ranked players on XB NA, that build wouldn’t get very far.

It’s not just about “killing a subclassed builds” it’s being competitive with not just the meta (which is subclassed) but top MMR ranked experienced players using that meta.

I’m sorry but those skills are so much easier to mitigate than other classes. Curse can be cleansed, Frags and BA are both SO ungodly slow that it would take the likes of a Hellen Keller to not block them.

Those skills also scream heavy attack main to me, which is sadly what Mag Sorc has been cornered into. No Mag Sorc would slot BA that isn’t leaning on HA as their main attack.

Your Mag Sorc & mine are similar stat-wise. I’ve got more total pen and a bit more W/S but I also deal multiple instances of heavy burst per cast. I only apply 2 DoTs, both are passive and one is un-cleansable and the other ticks per second and is passively applied persistently with an over time value equivalent to Curse, but doesn’t take up a skill slot.

If we had skills that didn’t take nearly a full second to cast or a whopping 1.3 seconds to execute or were readily cleansable we’d have a much more viable skillset.

Lol, you or anyone from XBOX are free to test that theory vs me on PTS if you think this build cannot kill anyone decent. The fact that you even suggest that I made a "heavy attack" build is hilarious lol. Sure, if you say so!

If you’re running a MagSorc and slotting Bound Armaments and aren’t a heavy attack focus then I’d wonder why one would slot BA as opposed to either Inner / Radiant light to get either the double
Magicka pool boost or stun resistance as well as other MG passives if you’re not HA to actively proc BA.

Dracane wrote: »

Well, the stuck in 2016 part might be awfully true.
I realize that things have changed, but moreso in the sense that healing, particularly crit healing, is just that strong at the moment and outshines all else.

Dracane wrote: »

And my definition of what a true MagSorc is and has been for half an eternity, will not change because there are some new heretical ideas. This is what Sorc has been at its core always, and I will always advocate for it to be emphazised and returned. It's the identity of the class and the class masteries (try) to emphazise this as well with 2 shield talents.

Everything else than this is not truly a MagSorc in the literal sense. Which is not to say they are not valid or not powerful, but the proper distinctions should be treasured.

Dracane wrote: »

What is Sorc's identity anymore? It's the Streak class and that's it. It used to be known for its wards and burst combos. Now I see people claim that Sorc is not even a burst class. When I see how most Sorcs build, I understand why some believe this.

hoangdz wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

Conservation of Energy is the most busted passive in the game, easily worth 2 full skill lines, and I am willing to bet 1 million gold on that statement.

hoangdz wrote: »

I can go very much in depth as to why Conservation of Energy is worth 2 skill lines, so just hold on. It's going to be a LONG post after this

As stated earlier, here is a detailed breakdown of why Conservation of Energy is worth 2 skill lines. It is going to be a LONG read, but I will try to simplify it as much as possible. I do not expect anyone to read through everything, but if you did, then I hope you would fully understand why this passive is so busted. Regardless, I do not think it deserves to be nerfed to the ground, but rather slightly adjusted along with other problematic passives. Here we go.

First, here is the description of Conservation of Energy and Blood Magic (BM) passives at 30.4k max HP, 35k max stam, and 21.8k max mag:

3.1k BM tooltip, and 437 mag + 643 stam restored per ability with a cost.

With 30.4k HP, you get a ~1.5k heal in PvP before modifiers.

With 40k HP and 26.4k max stam, you get a 4.1k tooltip before modifiers:

This value can be further amped up with Focused Mending CP, Major Vitality, Minor Vitality, and critical healing, all of which are extremely easy to obtain. Here is my BM healing in PvP with 37% critical healing and those aforementioned sources of healing modifiers:



2510 non crit and 4693 crit BM values.

Now, there are 2 main reasons why Conservation of Energy provides utility equivalent to 2 skill lines:

I. Healing per second (HPS) with minimal proc condition

High HPS is not hard to achieve in this game, as it can be easily be sourced from either dedicated skill lines like Restoring Light or specific abilities such as Ash Cloud and Heart of Flame. However, what puts Conservation of Energy above everything else is its extremely easily proc condition. This passive enables BM to proc off any ability with a cost, including core combat abilities such as break free, roll dodge, and bash. This means 2 things:

1) By simply adding a bash everytime you light attack, you effectively maintain a 100% uptime on BM, regardless of whether you used an ability or not

Since bashing costs 655 for me and Conservation of Energy gives 529 stam at 26.4k max stam, I am practically bashing for ~130 cost. This is further reduced with Survival Instincts:



Now, the cost of bash is officially lower than the stam return from Conservation, essentially granting me EXTRA stamina everytime I bash.

When bash spamming with a dedicated button, I can literally sustain between 2.5k to 3.5k HPS just off BM, at zero cost, all thanks to Conservation of Energy.


2) When breaking free from a stun or roll dodging from an immobilization, BM grants you a small "burst heal"

With 40k HP and multiple sources of healing modifier mentioned above, I can gain between 2500 and 4693 healing everytime I roll dodge or break free. That itself is a mini burst heal, which can quite literally pull you out of execute phase. No other ability in the history of the game could allow you to heal like this until now.

With this proc condition, a complete newbie can easily survive if they bind the bash button to some random key and spam it. The opportunity cost for this passive is practically nonexistent.

When you consider the fact that this healing also procs off OTHER healing sources like Vigor's initial tick, Healing Soul, etc. You can imagine just how absurd it is. A 15k crit Healing Soul now gets an extra 2.5k-4.6k BM heal on top, giving you a net total of 17k-19.6k healing. A 2.5k-4k initial Vigor tick now also gets that extra BM proc, turning itself into a mini burst heal. When used offensively, you also heal so much that you legitimately do not need to cast Vigor at all. In fact, this passive has allowed me to sustain up to 6.9k HPS WITHOUT vigor against a top tier dueler, as shown below:



That player was doing almost 7k DPS to me, and I tanked it without Vigor. This is borderline old Hardened Ward territory, but better because you are not confined to stacking max mag.

II. Sustain with minimal opportunity cost

As mentioned above, everytime you use an ability with a cost, core combat maneuvers included, you proc Conservation of Energy which restores max stam + max mag. This means 2 things:

1) Every single ability effectively costs X amount less

An ability costing 3k stamina now only costs ~2.4k-2.5k. An ability with 1k stamina cost now only requires ~400-500 stamina. The most broken combination definitely has to be Blood for Blood (BfB) tho, as it costs health instead of normal resources. This is my current cost for this skill at stage 1 vamp:



Since my BM tooltip doubles this cost, I am practically turning BfB into a heal that also deals damage and restores resources. Combined with everything else having reduced costs, you gain SO MUCH sustain that you can literally drop Dark Deal AND tri-stat potions while running around with sub 1k regen and STILL have enough sustain to 1vX comfortably. This leads to point #2 below:

2) Sustain gain => damage/defense gain

Similar to Heart of Flame's sustain enabling DK players to use Sugar Skull food instead of Orzogas, Sorc players on PTS can now drop tri-stat potions for Armor potions, thereby giving themselves an extra 5k+ armor. This means they are significantly tankier than before if they wish to keep everything else the same. OR, they can drop some defensive traits like switching from Defending to Infused on their back bar weapon and using a damage CP instead of a defensive one due to having consumed this potion. They can also drop Sustained by Suffering red CP as well to slot another defensive CP like Juggernaut.

The end result is that sustain becomes a non-issue with this passive, which in turn creates opportunities to further min-max for more offensive or defensive power.

So why is this passive worth 2 skill lines? It's because by "passively" giving a permanent 2.5k-3.5k HPS off casting any ability with a cost or core combat maneuvers and also giving you sustain in the process, you can basically run ANY build without worrying about heals or sustain. Builds with all damage abilities and no heals? Totally doable if you build enough max HP and modifiers to maximize this proc. Off-meta builds? Totally doable as well. You could run double bow, bow/resto, bow/2h, lightning staff/2h, etc. The caveat is that you have to use Dark Magic, but that line itself is not even bad at all, considering the fact that Cfrag/Cwep now hits like a truck due to all that extra damage stats you just got, as well as the extra sustain and damage passives (BTW, the extra 10% stam/mag from BM is now permanently procced, thanks to Conservation of Energy).

No other skill line in the game can give you that amount of freedom, damage, and survivability. Not even Ardent Flame, Animal Companion, or Assassination. In fact, this single passive is worth both Animal Companion and Assassination combined IF you know how to build around it.

So there it is, that is my reasoning for my claim. You are free to disagree, but I urge you to test it on PTS to see what I meant. You will most likely come to the same conclusion as I did.

NxJoeyD wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

Conservation of Energy is the most busted passive in the game, easily worth 2 full skill lines, and I am willing to bet 1 million gold on that statement.

hoangdz wrote: »

I can go very much in depth as to why Conservation of Energy is worth 2 skill lines, so just hold on. It's going to be a LONG post after this

As stated earlier, here is a detailed breakdown of why Conservation of Energy is worth 2 skill lines. It is going to be a LONG read, but I will try to simplify it as much as possible. I do not expect anyone to read through everything, but if you did, then I hope you would fully understand why this passive is so busted. Regardless, I do not think it deserves to be nerfed to the ground, but rather slightly adjusted along with other problematic passives. Here we go.

First, here is the description of Conservation of Energy and Blood Magic (BM) passives at 30.4k max HP, 35k max stam, and 21.8k max mag:

3.1k BM tooltip, and 437 mag + 643 stam restored per ability with a cost.

With 30.4k HP, you get a ~1.5k heal in PvP before modifiers.

With 40k HP and 26.4k max stam, you get a 4.1k tooltip before modifiers:

This value can be further amped up with Focused Mending CP, Major Vitality, Minor Vitality, and critical healing, all of which are extremely easy to obtain. Here is my BM healing in PvP with 37% critical healing and those aforementioned sources of healing modifiers:



2510 non crit and 4693 crit BM values.

Now, there are 2 main reasons why Conservation of Energy provides utility equivalent to 2 skill lines:

I. Healing per second (HPS) with minimal proc condition

High HPS is not hard to achieve in this game, as it can be easily be sourced from either dedicated skill lines like Restoring Light or specific abilities such as Ash Cloud and Heart of Flame. However, what puts Conservation of Energy above everything else is its extremely easily proc condition. This passive enables BM to proc off any ability with a cost, including core combat abilities such as break free, roll dodge, and bash. This means 2 things:

1) By simply adding a bash everytime you light attack, you effectively maintain a 100% uptime on BM, regardless of whether you used an ability or not

Since bashing costs 655 for me and Conservation of Energy gives 529 stam at 26.4k max stam, I am practically bashing for ~130 cost. This is further reduced with Survival Instincts:



Now, the cost of bash is officially lower than the stam return from Conservation, essentially granting me EXTRA stamina everytime I bash.

When bash spamming with a dedicated button, I can literally sustain between 2.5k to 3.5k HPS just off BM, at zero cost, all thanks to Conservation of Energy.


2) When breaking free from a stun or roll dodging from an immobilization, BM grants you a small "burst heal"

With 40k HP and multiple sources of healing modifier mentioned above, I can gain between 2500 and 4693 healing everytime I roll dodge or break free. That itself is a mini burst heal, which can quite literally pull you out of execute phase. No other ability in the history of the game could allow you to heal like this until now.

With this proc condition, a complete newbie can easily survive if they bind the bash button to some random key and spam it. The opportunity cost for this passive is practically nonexistent.

When you consider the fact that this healing also procs off OTHER healing sources like Vigor's initial tick, Healing Soul, etc. You can imagine just how absurd it is. A 15k crit Healing Soul now gets an extra 2.5k-4.6k BM heal on top, giving you a net total of 17k-19.6k healing. A 2.5k-4k initial Vigor tick now also gets that extra BM proc, turning itself into a mini burst heal. When used offensively, you also heal so much that you legitimately do not need to cast Vigor at all. In fact, this passive has allowed me to sustain up to 6.9k HPS WITHOUT vigor against a top tier dueler, as shown below:



That player was doing almost 7k DPS to me, and I tanked it without Vigor. This is borderline old Hardened Ward territory, but better because you are not confined to stacking max mag.

II. Sustain with minimal opportunity cost

As mentioned above, everytime you use an ability with a cost, core combat maneuvers included, you proc Conservation of Energy which restores max stam + max mag. This means 2 things:

1) Every single ability effectively costs X amount less

An ability costing 3k stamina now only costs ~2.4k-2.5k. An ability with 1k stamina cost now only requires ~400-500 stamina. The most broken combination definitely has to be Blood for Blood (BfB) tho, as it costs health instead of normal resources. This is my current cost for this skill at stage 1 vamp:



Since my BM tooltip doubles this cost, I am practically turning BfB into a heal that also deals damage and restores resources. Combined with everything else having reduced costs, you gain SO MUCH sustain that you can literally drop Dark Deal AND tri-stat potions while running around with sub 1k regen and STILL have enough sustain to 1vX comfortably. This leads to point #2 below:

2) Sustain gain => damage/defense gain

Similar to Heart of Flame's sustain enabling DK players to use Sugar Skull food instead of Orzogas, Sorc players on PTS can now drop tri-stat potions for Armor potions, thereby giving themselves an extra 5k+ armor. This means they are significantly tankier than before if they wish to keep everything else the same. OR, they can drop some defensive traits like switching from Defending to Infused on their back bar weapon and using a damage CP instead of a defensive one due to having consumed this potion. They can also drop Sustained by Suffering red CP as well to slot another defensive CP like Juggernaut.

The end result is that sustain becomes a non-issue with this passive, which in turn creates opportunities to further min-max for more offensive or defensive power.

So why is this passive worth 2 skill lines? It's because by "passively" giving a permanent 2.5k-3.5k HPS off casting any ability with a cost or core combat maneuvers and also giving you sustain in the process, you can basically run ANY build without worrying about heals or sustain. Builds with all damage abilities and no heals? Totally doable if you build enough max HP and modifiers to maximize this proc. Off-meta builds? Totally doable as well. You could run double bow, bow/resto, bow/2h, lightning staff/2h, etc. The caveat is that you have to use Dark Magic, but that line itself is not even bad at all, considering the fact that Cfrag/Cwep now hits like a truck due to all that extra damage stats you just got, as well as the extra sustain and damage passives (BTW, the extra 10% stam/mag from BM is now permanently procced, thanks to Conservation of Energy).

No other skill line in the game can give you that amount of freedom, damage, and survivability. Not even Ardent Flame, Animal Companion, or Assassination. In fact, this single passive is worth both Animal Companion and Assassination combined IF you know how to build around it.

So there it is, that is my reasoning for my claim. You are free to disagree, but I urge you to test it on PTS to see what I meant. You will most likely come to the same conclusion as I did.

This is all true, however, two things here:

1) I think 40k health on a Sorc in PvP is a tad on the extreme side, so while these numbers are possible I don't know that they're realistic for what we're going to see in gameplay.

2) These heal values are cut by 55% when affected by Battle Spirit. Although the tool tip value displayed does not change when BS is active the actual healing received is affected.

Since PvP is the venue that everyone is concerned that these passives will be OP, this is why I've been saying that I don't think that they will be because when we look at the amounts of damage and healing that are capable by subclassed builds in PvP this passive isn't delivering more than what subclassed builds can bring.

The numbers seen in controlled dummy or overworld testing are not what we're going to see in PvP with these passives, hence they're really just in-line with making the class competitive which is what they're supposed to do.

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

Conservation of Energy is the most busted passive in the game, easily worth 2 full skill lines, and I am willing to bet 1 million gold on that statement.

hoangdz wrote: »

I can go very much in depth as to why Conservation of Energy is worth 2 skill lines, so just hold on. It's going to be a LONG post after this

As stated earlier, here is a detailed breakdown of why Conservation of Energy is worth 2 skill lines. It is going to be a LONG read, but I will try to simplify it as much as possible. I do not expect anyone to read through everything, but if you did, then I hope you would fully understand why this passive is so busted. Regardless, I do not think it deserves to be nerfed to the ground, but rather slightly adjusted along with other problematic passives. Here we go.

First, here is the description of Conservation of Energy and Blood Magic (BM) passives at 30.4k max HP, 35k max stam, and 21.8k max mag:

3.1k BM tooltip, and 437 mag + 643 stam restored per ability with a cost.

With 30.4k HP, you get a ~1.5k heal in PvP before modifiers.

With 40k HP and 26.4k max stam, you get a 4.1k tooltip before modifiers:

This value can be further amped up with Focused Mending CP, Major Vitality, Minor Vitality, and critical healing, all of which are extremely easy to obtain. Here is my BM healing in PvP with 37% critical healing and those aforementioned sources of healing modifiers:



2510 non crit and 4693 crit BM values.

Now, there are 2 main reasons why Conservation of Energy provides utility equivalent to 2 skill lines:

I. Healing per second (HPS) with minimal proc condition

High HPS is not hard to achieve in this game, as it can be easily be sourced from either dedicated skill lines like Restoring Light or specific abilities such as Ash Cloud and Heart of Flame. However, what puts Conservation of Energy above everything else is its extremely easily proc condition. This passive enables BM to proc off any ability with a cost, including core combat abilities such as break free, roll dodge, and bash. This means 2 things:

1) By simply adding a bash everytime you light attack, you effectively maintain a 100% uptime on BM, regardless of whether you used an ability or not

Since bashing costs 655 for me and Conservation of Energy gives 529 stam at 26.4k max stam, I am practically bashing for ~130 cost. This is further reduced with Survival Instincts:



Now, the cost of bash is officially lower than the stam return from Conservation, essentially granting me EXTRA stamina everytime I bash.

When bash spamming with a dedicated button, I can literally sustain between 2.5k to 3.5k HPS just off BM, at zero cost, all thanks to Conservation of Energy.


2) When breaking free from a stun or roll dodging from an immobilization, BM grants you a small "burst heal"

With 40k HP and multiple sources of healing modifier mentioned above, I can gain between 2500 and 4693 healing everytime I roll dodge or break free. That itself is a mini burst heal, which can quite literally pull you out of execute phase. No other ability in the history of the game could allow you to heal like this until now.

With this proc condition, a complete newbie can easily survive if they bind the bash button to some random key and spam it. The opportunity cost for this passive is practically nonexistent.

When you consider the fact that this healing also procs off OTHER healing sources like Vigor's initial tick, Healing Soul, etc. You can imagine just how absurd it is. A 15k crit Healing Soul now gets an extra 2.5k-4.6k BM heal on top, giving you a net total of 17k-19.6k healing. A 2.5k-4k initial Vigor tick now also gets that extra BM proc, turning itself into a mini burst heal. When used offensively, you also heal so much that you legitimately do not need to cast Vigor at all. In fact, this passive has allowed me to sustain up to 6.9k HPS WITHOUT vigor against a top tier dueler, as shown below:



That player was doing almost 7k DPS to me, and I tanked it without Vigor. This is borderline old Hardened Ward territory, but better because you are not confined to stacking max mag.

II. Sustain with minimal opportunity cost

As mentioned above, everytime you use an ability with a cost, core combat maneuvers included, you proc Conservation of Energy which restores max stam + max mag. This means 2 things:

1) Every single ability effectively costs X amount less

An ability costing 3k stamina now only costs ~2.4k-2.5k. An ability with 1k stamina cost now only requires ~400-500 stamina. The most broken combination definitely has to be Blood for Blood (BfB) tho, as it costs health instead of normal resources. This is my current cost for this skill at stage 1 vamp:



Since my BM tooltip doubles this cost, I am practically turning BfB into a heal that also deals damage and restores resources. Combined with everything else having reduced costs, you gain SO MUCH sustain that you can literally drop Dark Deal AND tri-stat potions while running around with sub 1k regen and STILL have enough sustain to 1vX comfortably. This leads to point #2 below:

2) Sustain gain => damage/defense gain

Similar to Heart of Flame's sustain enabling DK players to use Sugar Skull food instead of Orzogas, Sorc players on PTS can now drop tri-stat potions for Armor potions, thereby giving themselves an extra 5k+ armor. This means they are significantly tankier than before if they wish to keep everything else the same. OR, they can drop some defensive traits like switching from Defending to Infused on their back bar weapon and using a damage CP instead of a defensive one due to having consumed this potion. They can also drop Sustained by Suffering red CP as well to slot another defensive CP like Juggernaut.

The end result is that sustain becomes a non-issue with this passive, which in turn creates opportunities to further min-max for more offensive or defensive power.

So why is this passive worth 2 skill lines? It's because by "passively" giving a permanent 2.5k-3.5k HPS off casting any ability with a cost or core combat maneuvers and also giving you sustain in the process, you can basically run ANY build without worrying about heals or sustain. Builds with all damage abilities and no heals? Totally doable if you build enough max HP and modifiers to maximize this proc. Off-meta builds? Totally doable as well. You could run double bow, bow/resto, bow/2h, lightning staff/2h, etc. The caveat is that you have to use Dark Magic, but that line itself is not even bad at all, considering the fact that Cfrag/Cwep now hits like a truck due to all that extra damage stats you just got, as well as the extra sustain and damage passives (BTW, the extra 10% stam/mag from BM is now permanently procced, thanks to Conservation of Energy).

No other skill line in the game can give you that amount of freedom, damage, and survivability. Not even Ardent Flame, Animal Companion, or Assassination. In fact, this single passive is worth both Animal Companion and Assassination combined IF you know how to build around it.

So there it is, that is my reasoning for my claim. You are free to disagree, but I urge you to test it on PTS to see what I meant. You will most likely come to the same conclusion as I did.

This is all true, however, two things here:

1) I think 40k health on a Sorc in PvP is a tad on the extreme side, so while these numbers are possible I don't know that they're realistic for what we're going to see in gameplay.

2) These heal values are cut by 55% when affected by Battle Spirit. Although the tool tip value displayed does not change when BS is active the actual healing received is affected.

Since PvP is the venue that everyone is concerned that these passives will be OP, this is why I've been saying that I don't think that they will be because when we look at the amounts of damage and healing that are capable by subclassed builds in PvP this passive isn't delivering more than what subclassed builds can bring.

The numbers seen in controlled dummy or overworld testing are not what we're going to see in PvP with these passives, hence they're really just in-line with making the class competitive which is what they're supposed to do.

He used Battle Spirit adjusted values. While I also think 40k HP is excessive, it's also not unheard of, and one would still have plenty of damage to kill most players easily.

You're right, he did.

What threw me off is that his numbers include both Major & Minor Vitality built in, which is true but is going to skew because it's not realistic that players are going to keep a 100% uptime on those buffs, as a general rule.

So this means that in the most extreme of HP cases BM could (consistently) deliver a 1.8k (non crit) per cast heal but will more realistically deliver around 1.2k to 1.5k for most in PvP.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but from what I've seen and measured in PvP a 1.5k to 1.8k (non crit) per cost cast heal isn't beyond what subclassed builds can bring for themselves so I don't see it as OP.

The only way to get really high values out of this passive is to build into a tank, which is fine, I see no issue with Sorc tanks. That's really the only way that anyone is going to synergize scaling this passive in a way that doesn't compromise the build. That will make a tank harder to kill, but that's kind of the point.

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

Conservation of Energy is the most busted passive in the game, easily worth 2 full skill lines, and I am willing to bet 1 million gold on that statement.

hoangdz wrote: »

I can go very much in depth as to why Conservation of Energy is worth 2 skill lines, so just hold on. It's going to be a LONG post after this

As stated earlier, here is a detailed breakdown of why Conservation of Energy is worth 2 skill lines. It is going to be a LONG read, but I will try to simplify it as much as possible. I do not expect anyone to read through everything, but if you did, then I hope you would fully understand why this passive is so busted. Regardless, I do not think it deserves to be nerfed to the ground, but rather slightly adjusted along with other problematic passives. Here we go.

First, here is the description of Conservation of Energy and Blood Magic (BM) passives at 30.4k max HP, 35k max stam, and 21.8k max mag:

3.1k BM tooltip, and 437 mag + 643 stam restored per ability with a cost.

With 30.4k HP, you get a ~1.5k heal in PvP before modifiers.

With 40k HP and 26.4k max stam, you get a 4.1k tooltip before modifiers:

This value can be further amped up with Focused Mending CP, Major Vitality, Minor Vitality, and critical healing, all of which are extremely easy to obtain. Here is my BM healing in PvP with 37% critical healing and those aforementioned sources of healing modifiers:



2510 non crit and 4693 crit BM values.

Now, there are 2 main reasons why Conservation of Energy provides utility equivalent to 2 skill lines:

I. Healing per second (HPS) with minimal proc condition

High HPS is not hard to achieve in this game, as it can be easily be sourced from either dedicated skill lines like Restoring Light or specific abilities such as Ash Cloud and Heart of Flame. However, what puts Conservation of Energy above everything else is its extremely easily proc condition. This passive enables BM to proc off any ability with a cost, including core combat abilities such as break free, roll dodge, and bash. This means 2 things:

1) By simply adding a bash everytime you light attack, you effectively maintain a 100% uptime on BM, regardless of whether you used an ability or not

Since bashing costs 655 for me and Conservation of Energy gives 529 stam at 26.4k max stam, I am practically bashing for ~130 cost. This is further reduced with Survival Instincts:



Now, the cost of bash is officially lower than the stam return from Conservation, essentially granting me EXTRA stamina everytime I bash.

When bash spamming with a dedicated button, I can literally sustain between 2.5k to 3.5k HPS just off BM, at zero cost, all thanks to Conservation of Energy.


2) When breaking free from a stun or roll dodging from an immobilization, BM grants you a small "burst heal"

With 40k HP and multiple sources of healing modifier mentioned above, I can gain between 2500 and 4693 healing everytime I roll dodge or break free. That itself is a mini burst heal, which can quite literally pull you out of execute phase. No other ability in the history of the game could allow you to heal like this until now.

With this proc condition, a complete newbie can easily survive if they bind the bash button to some random key and spam it. The opportunity cost for this passive is practically nonexistent.

When you consider the fact that this healing also procs off OTHER healing sources like Vigor's initial tick, Healing Soul, etc. You can imagine just how absurd it is. A 15k crit Healing Soul now gets an extra 2.5k-4.6k BM heal on top, giving you a net total of 17k-19.6k healing. A 2.5k-4k initial Vigor tick now also gets that extra BM proc, turning itself into a mini burst heal. When used offensively, you also heal so much that you legitimately do not need to cast Vigor at all. In fact, this passive has allowed me to sustain up to 6.9k HPS WITHOUT vigor against a top tier dueler, as shown below:



That player was doing almost 7k DPS to me, and I tanked it without Vigor. This is borderline old Hardened Ward territory, but better because you are not confined to stacking max mag.

II. Sustain with minimal opportunity cost

As mentioned above, everytime you use an ability with a cost, core combat maneuvers included, you proc Conservation of Energy which restores max stam + max mag. This means 2 things:

1) Every single ability effectively costs X amount less

An ability costing 3k stamina now only costs ~2.4k-2.5k. An ability with 1k stamina cost now only requires ~400-500 stamina. The most broken combination definitely has to be Blood for Blood (BfB) tho, as it costs health instead of normal resources. This is my current cost for this skill at stage 1 vamp:



Since my BM tooltip doubles this cost, I am practically turning BfB into a heal that also deals damage and restores resources. Combined with everything else having reduced costs, you gain SO MUCH sustain that you can literally drop Dark Deal AND tri-stat potions while running around with sub 1k regen and STILL have enough sustain to 1vX comfortably. This leads to point #2 below:

2) Sustain gain => damage/defense gain

Similar to Heart of Flame's sustain enabling DK players to use Sugar Skull food instead of Orzogas, Sorc players on PTS can now drop tri-stat potions for Armor potions, thereby giving themselves an extra 5k+ armor. This means they are significantly tankier than before if they wish to keep everything else the same. OR, they can drop some defensive traits like switching from Defending to Infused on their back bar weapon and using a damage CP instead of a defensive one due to having consumed this potion. They can also drop Sustained by Suffering red CP as well to slot another defensive CP like Juggernaut.

The end result is that sustain becomes a non-issue with this passive, which in turn creates opportunities to further min-max for more offensive or defensive power.

So why is this passive worth 2 skill lines? It's because by "passively" giving a permanent 2.5k-3.5k HPS off casting any ability with a cost or core combat maneuvers and also giving you sustain in the process, you can basically run ANY build without worrying about heals or sustain. Builds with all damage abilities and no heals? Totally doable if you build enough max HP and modifiers to maximize this proc. Off-meta builds? Totally doable as well. You could run double bow, bow/resto, bow/2h, lightning staff/2h, etc. The caveat is that you have to use Dark Magic, but that line itself is not even bad at all, considering the fact that Cfrag/Cwep now hits like a truck due to all that extra damage stats you just got, as well as the extra sustain and damage passives (BTW, the extra 10% stam/mag from BM is now permanently procced, thanks to Conservation of Energy).

No other skill line in the game can give you that amount of freedom, damage, and survivability. Not even Ardent Flame, Animal Companion, or Assassination. In fact, this single passive is worth both Animal Companion and Assassination combined IF you know how to build around it.

So there it is, that is my reasoning for my claim. You are free to disagree, but I urge you to test it on PTS to see what I meant. You will most likely come to the same conclusion as I did.

This is all true, however, two things here:

1) I think 40k health on a Sorc in PvP is a tad on the extreme side, so while these numbers are possible I don't know that they're realistic for what we're going to see in gameplay.

2) These heal values are cut by 55% when affected by Battle Spirit. Although the tool tip value displayed does not change when BS is active the actual healing received is affected.

Since PvP is the venue that everyone is concerned that these passives will be OP, this is why I've been saying that I don't think that they will be because when we look at the amounts of damage and healing that are capable by subclassed builds in PvP this passive isn't delivering more than what subclassed builds can bring.

The numbers seen in controlled dummy or overworld testing are not what we're going to see in PvP with these passives, hence they're really just in-line with making the class competitive which is what they're supposed to do.

He used Battle Spirit adjusted values. While I also think 40k HP is excessive, it's also not unheard of, and one would still have plenty of damage to kill most players easily.

You're right, he did.

What threw me off is that his numbers include both Major & Minor Vitality built in, which is true but is going to skew because it's not realistic that players are going to keep a 100% uptime on those buffs, as a general rule.

So this means that in the most extreme of HP cases BM could (consistently) deliver a 1.8k (non crit) per cast heal but will more realistically deliver around 1.2k to 1.5k for most in PvP.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but from what I've seen and measured in PvP a 1.5k to 1.8k (non crit) per cost cast heal isn't beyond what subclassed builds can bring for themselves so I don't see it as OP.

The only way to get really high values out of this passive is to build into a tank, which is fine, I see no issue with Sorc tanks. That's really the only way that anyone is going to synergize scaling this passive in a way that doesn't compromise the build. That will make a tank harder to kill, but that's kind of the point.