ezareth_ESO wrote: »

Yes you can break out of it at the cost of 50%+ of your stamina and they can recast it a few seconds later.

Niffo wrote: »

Crescent wrote: »

But, yeah, people just want the sorcerer's bolt escape nerfed when the real issue is that light armor cost reduction passives made the ability so dirt cheap. Now it will be expensive to the point where a medium/heavy sorc can't even use it more than twice before depleting half their magicka bar.

Nerf an entire armour line to fix something wrong with one ability on one class then?

ezareth_ESO wrote: »

Crescent wrote: »

Don't use crystal shards. Use crushing shock. It's higher DPS with light attack animation cancel, I don't understand why so many sorcerers are so slow to catch on to switching from Crystal Shards to Crushing Shock.

The only reason you would want crystal shards is for the knockdown, and most people in pvp use immovable so you might as well take the snare and concussion from crushing shock.

Crushing Shock also has the advantage of shutting down any casting target.

Crushing Shock is the meta DPS spell for trials and has quickly replaced most trial builds that had crystal fragment.

But, yeah, people just want the sorcerer's bolt escape nerfed when the real issue is that light armor cost reduction passives made the ability so dirt cheap. Now it will be expensive to the point where a medium/heavy sorc can't even use it more than twice before depleting half their magicka bar.

Crushing Shock is less DPS than Crystal shards, and it requires the use of a destruction staff which lowers your overall DPS, healing and magicka regeneration. Every time I go up against a sorc spamming crushing shock on me they die easily. Good sorcs don't cast in PVP unless they're hidden or not being targeted at all.

Crystal fragments is only cast when it is instant cast and half cost. Even by casting it is the same DPS Crushing Shock and less mana per DPS.

Light Armor right now IS too powerful, but it doesn't need nerfed, the other armor types need buffed. When most of your DKs and Night Blades are using Light Armor something is broken.

Phantorang wrote: »

If they dont nerf BE because some member of an elite guild with the emperor on some some server, I believe ZoS going to have alot more to deal with than an angry Sorc who thinks 7 Bolt Escapes isnt enough.

Even to compare Sorc with Templar says it all, as Sorc DPS is insane compared to Templar, even healing the Sorc got higher HPS, as Templar got no way to regen magicka.

Sorc can now move while doing Dark Deal, 3 sec self heal and magicka regen that is the most powerful in the game, its obviously not enough for the elite sorc, go figure.

Not to speak of Critical surge, self healing AND best dmg in the game, thats pretty OP.

makkon wrote: »

no more "jumps to the horizon" in seconds almost for free
you just have to live with it
mb 50% increased cost is way abit more, but it should be, atleast 30-40%

ezareth_ESO wrote: »

I break out of it and get it put back on me 4 seconds later once the black wisps of smoke disappear from me. I know this because I have several people on my server who dedicate themselves to keep this up on my constantly.

ezareth_ESO wrote: »

I'm an Altmer V12 Sorc who is a guild member of a hardcore PVP guild based on Volendrung. I've easily spent over 22 days of my 32+ days /played exclusively in Cyrodiil and hit Captain Grade 2(Rank 20) so far on a low pop server. Overall I'm third on my server and the top Sorc by over a factor of 2. Let's just say I've cast Bolt Escape (Ball Lightning Morph) many, many times in practically every situation.

I intend this message for the developers who hopefully are reading these forums with an open mind. I have no interest in discussions with the forum trolls or the uninformed plebs I see in other discussions, but I'll entertain rational and unbiased open debate. I've discussed this ability extensively with my guild (our Emperor is your next featured interview) and feel they are in agreement with me.

First I'd like to point out the mechanics and limitations of bolt escape and the more powerful Morph Ball lightning. Ball lightning, when it functions, creates a target for 6.5 seconds that absorbs all projectiles aimed at the caster. This only absorbs projects that are cast or used AFTER the sorc used Ball Lightning. If you start casting crystal fragments (or another projectile ability) on a sorcerer and he casts ball lightning it will still hit the sorc if you complete the cast before he LOS/Out ranges you. Roughly 25% of the time ball lightning fails fails to function and doesn't absorb anything. Anyone who has every fought a duel with another sorc can attest to this.

Now let's talk math. With the Seducer set (3% reduction to modified base cost), Full Light Armor (21% reduction to modified base cost), and 3 V12 Ring/Necks with Magicka Reduction Cost enchants (3*-20 to unmodified base cost) my Ball Lightning costs me 203 Magicka. My Base magicka as an Altmer with food in full V12 Legendary gear with full Legendary Magicka/Health enchants is past the soft cap at 2157 Magicka. Gear doesn't exist in the game better than what I'm wearing right now for my particular build.

Currently I can cast 14 Ball Lightnings in a row which takes me to 43 Magicka. On PTS I can cast 7 Ball Lightnings in a row with 122 Magicka left over. The changes to this ability (elimination of regen & 50% cost increase on consecutive uses) have reduced your capacity to spend your entire mana bar on this spell by 50%.
Which is completely absurd from every other classes perspective. You know, the ones who have to walk.

Now I'll get into some PVP Philosophy discussions and follow up with some PVE Observations as well.

In my 20+ days of playing PVP I've had the pleasure of competing against some very good players and many not so good players of varying ability. Like most skilled players I find killing players that are underlevelled/geared or unskilled relatively easy and I don't feel balance changes to the game should be made based upon these kinds of matchups. Balance changes should be made when certain abilities/skills do not have available counters.

Although I feel the game should not be balanced for 1 v 1s I'll discuss my observations of 1 v 1 encounters I've had against skilled players who play their class effectively.

Sorc Versus DK: Equally skilled DKs of the same level and gearing as me are impossible to kill. Reflective Scales ensure I'm unable to cast Crystal fragments which is my primary DPS. I'm unable to drain their Stamina faster than they can drain my magicka so if I'm matched against a good DK who plays defensively against me my only option is to retreat with ball lightning and find another target. If a DK goes all out DPS against me blowing everything they have to kill me, I have a good chance to kill them unless I miss a block on their charge or make a similar mistake. I've played a few VERY good DKs who have successfully anticipated my ball lightnings after charging me and blocked and were able to continue to charge me and kill me before I could escape. This is extremely difficult to accomplish and quite rare so that is fine with me.
This isn't a problem with class v. class, it's just that 99.9% of Sorcs use staves. My friend who goes 2h Sorc laugh when they do this.

Sorc Versus Templar: A good templar will keep eclipse on a sorc effectively nullifying any and every true offensive ability they have unless they switch to destro AOE which every class has. Even with that a good templar doesn't have to do anything but use his healing and shield abilities on himself until I'm out of mana. A good templar is impossible for an equally skilled/geared sorc to kill. My only option in a 1 v 1 with them is to retreat waste time attacking them.
You know you can break out of it

Sorc Versus Night Blade: Night blades are the weakest class currently but the most effective Night blades that I see in PVP utilize their stealth, invisibility and a Bow to maximimum effectiveness. I do not have difficulty fighting any night blade who tries to melee me. Against an equally skilled bow-weilding Night blade my only option is to try to line of sight him and heal, keep Daedric curse on him and try to slowly work him down. It is very difficult fighting good Night Blades because they invis the moment I cast crystal fragments on them and Most of them are using Animation Cancelling which allows them to front load an absurd amount of uninterruptable damage. Usually it depends on who sees who first. Against a skilled nightblade if I get the jump on them they invis and retreat. If they get the jump on me I have to do a roll and then ball lightning away in a (hopefully) safe direction. Night blades are the most difficult class for me to escape because they can execute a Hasty Retreat roll with run speed increase and pace my speed with Ball lightning for the first 3 jumps.

Sorc Versus Sorc: It comes down to skill and luck. The sorc with the most Crystal fragment procs or the least buggy ball lightning usually wins but if both sorcs have Ball lightning the retreating sorc can typically escape the sorc who has the upper hand. If the retreating sorc has Streak instead then the Ball lightning Sorc has an easy time killing them. This is why Streak is not a good morph of Bolt Escape as in open field encounters it makes killing the fleeing sorcerer typically easy.
Streak is actually a much better morph:
-Holding block while you Streak gives the same effect as Ball
-Amazing offensive ability
-Generates a stupid amount of ult when you streak through groups

So in all of my time PVPing I find my class already becoming less and less powerful and pigeonholed more and more into certain builds. I feel the Sorc is best played as the most mobile class on the battlefield and as a harasser and shock troops. We do not have the damage utility of a DK or an equally skilled night blade but we are able to move around the battle field to a position that needs us or divide enemy forces with harassment better than any other class. This is our defining playstyle. In a 1 v 1 against equally skilled and geared players Sorcerers are currently unable to kill their targets and often must resort to bolt escape to flee. Impeding our only escape mechanism will make us primary targets. In keep defenses we are much weaker with the exception of our Ultimate Negate Magic as a DK counter on flag defenses. Bolt Escape is much less effective in close quarters due to elevation differences and obstacles. When a keep is surrounded I often spend my entire mana bar currently just trying to make it back inside the keep and this is with the best gear in the game! The sorcerer is by far the easiest class to kill in close quarters especially when multiple people are attacking them.
If you think your class has bottlenecked builds, check out DKs. No ranged abilities or escapes.

Currently on a good day of PVP I spend anywhere from 150-200 V5 Elixirs. On the worst days I've spent 260 V5 elixirs (either Panacea of Health or Panacea of Spell Power). Usually I use a potion for the magicka because I'm always low and I'm a max level alchemist with the extra 30% Potion bonus. These changes to bolt escape are really going to curtail the utility of the Sorcerer as we're no longer going to be able to engage and often end up saving our entire mana bar for escape leaving us nothing to be effective with. Increasing our stamina pool actually hurts us as our primary mana regen ability is a percentage based stamina drain.

The hard counter to a sorc focus is always to block and either outheal their damage, reflect it, or evade it. I feel it is way too early in stages of PVP to make such kneejerk balance changes for the sake of PVP alone. As the majority of players continue to level and gain skill in PVP they will learn how to effectively counter sorcerers and as many have pointed out, is a sorcerer fleeing you really impacting your ability to play the game? I find that good players when I harass them will send a couple of nightblades
in stealth behind my position and wait for me to return to harass and effectively kill me by cutting off my retreat. With hasty retreat they are continuously attacking me for the first three bolt escapes and I'm usually dead before I get to the fourth. As probably one of the most annoying and difficult to kill sorcerers in the game I can say everything I do can be countered pretty easily and I'm already finding I'm becoming obsolete and ineffective without these changes

My playstyle already requires me to spend 15-25K gold worth of potions every day I PVP to be effective. Most people fighting sorcs like me probably don't understand how much we're relying on potions. Losing both the mana regen capacity after casting AND a 50% cost increase is far too much and makes an already squishy class that much easier to kill.
Every class uses potions just as much as the other. There is nothing that makes Sorc need them anymore. Also what is this "Squishy" class you speak of? There is nothing that makes a Sorc any weaker then the rest.

My guild and I feel the appropriate way to balance PVP is to bring the other classes up in line with the more powerful classes, not by limiting and restricting the most powerful classes. Each class should have it's own unique flavor and players, it's own strengths and weaknesses. By eliminating these "Flavor" abilities you are effectively making all of the classes similar and homogenizing every class in the game which is boring.

Now I'll say a bit on the PVE side since I do enjoy that somewhat as well and I'm sure the MAJORITY of the player base plays PVE in this game. In dungeons, in Boss fights, and in most veteran zone encounters I find myself using Bolt Escape constantly and rarely do I use it just once at a time. This change is going to seriously impact the enjoyability and survivability of the class in PVE. I use ball lightning constantly while farming herbs, or travelling through dungeons or town. It is our defining ability that makes playing a sorc fun. If that ability becomes too expensive to use as much as we do then we're going to be pigeon holed into crystal fragment spam casting which is about the most boring thing I can think of while playing Sorc. It wasn't until I acquired the Bolt Escape ability at around level 35 that I really started enjoying my class.
It might your class funner, but it makes every other class suck.

At very least if you guys are determined with this course of action you should make these changes apply in Cyordiil only. Negatively impacting the majority of players in this game for the sake of the minority of PVP players is not a sound business decision.

I hope this feedback doesn't fall on deaf ears but realistically I doubt I'll influence anyone. The constant nerfs and homogenization to classes are part of what killed WoW and continuing in that line will surely kill ESO as well.

Signed,

Ezareth