In light of the templar Balanced Warrior changes, sorcerers shall also receive an adjustment to reinforce their class fantasy and address long-standing balance issues.

Sorcerer has always been a class that stacks max resources and find ways to preserve their vitality, live longer, and stay young forever. Since U50, pet playstyles have lagged behind, so to boost pet builds, the Expert Mage passive, instead of granting 108 weapon and spell damage per Sorcerer skill slotted, now grants weapon and spell damage based on the player's Max Health. At level 2, the passive is updated: "For every 60 points of max health, grant 1 weapon and spell damage. This bonus is capped at 600."

In practice, this is a buff to PvE endgame dps builds. It's a buff because most hardcore parsers only slot 3 sorcerer skills, which means you'll go from 324 damage to 433 damage when you have 26k max health, and is a net gain of 100+ damage. In a raid, you have Minor Toughness from warden and bi-stat food, as well as Boundless Vitality CP. Certain races like Khajiit, Argonian, and Imperial also grant health. Having a pet slotted will boost your max health further with the Expert Summoner passive (Increases your Max Health by 5% if you have a permanent pet active). You also have the Beacon of Oblivion class IA set that gives health as a set bonus. When players stack HP, they survive better. It encourages good buildcraft for new and veteran players alike. Sorcerers are rarely seen as pure damage dealers in endgame PvP leaderboards, so this change will increase their damage to be competitive with nightblades.

In PvP, most recommended builds are around 36k health, which is standard for PvP builds and reaches the cap on this newly changed passive. We realize that your damage will go down when you are affected by Minor Mangle, however you can always build more health to counter this. Traditionally, sorcerers tended to be defensively weak and squishy, and relied on shields, streak and hurricane to mitigate damage from enemy combatants. Now, you can build more into shielding and get boosted even further when using Major Brutality/Sorcery from Surge.

Magicka-stacking builds using Font of Power class mastery will experience a slight decrease in power, but sorcerer is overperforming in PvP due to their new penetration group buff, so this change is necessary for balance. Most sorcerer players in both casual and hardcore environments will benefit from these changes. Please look forward to the interesting mechanics we have planned for next year's sorcerer rework.