fred4 wrote: »

The lack of a reliable / useable burst heal for the most part. Dark Deal / Conversion has a cast time, meaning you can't animation cancel it (into a dodge roll) or block cast it. Timing-wise there is also simply a delay while pets, which can also be used for healing, take up two slots and can be killed.

In the (distant) past, magsorcs used to make up for this by shielding while stamsorcs would dodge roll. Shields have a long history of nerfs and changes. The two death nails that made shields no longer viable were probably CP 2.0 and hybridisation. In order to build for shields you need to spec hard into magicka. To reach 45K+ magicka, you don't have room in the build for much else, e.g. you need to wear purely Alfiq, Ancient Grace, Necropotence, Death Dealer's Fete etc., those kind of sets. The old CP system gave players +20% stats. The new system exchanged that for some puny flat buffs while weapon and spell damage still get buffed by Major Brutality / Sorcery for +20%. Mag-stacking lost that buff. The old CP system was fairer on magicka-stacking builds. You can still match the +20% on a nightblade with Inner Light, a Siphoning skill and Undaunted passives. To achieve the same on a sorc, you'd have to slot a dead / useless skill, Bound Aegis. You can't really afford that. There is no room for a dead skill on the skill bar in addition to Inner Light, not to mention that Inner Light on the back bar, where you likely have your shields, doesn't make much sense either.

Hybridisation, then, gives you new options building for weapon / spell damage instead. You can wear some medium armor. You get a much higher multiplier. Sorc also has a passive (Expert Mage) that buffs that as well and might get Minor Brutality / Sorcery from a group. Hybrid builds are the competition. A high magicka build can't compete with the damage you get out of a weapon / spell damage-stacking build. It's all about the percentage buffs. High mag food and Death Dealer's are flat buffs. They help a weapon / spell damage build as much as a high mag build.

All that said, I don't think sorc is in that bad of a place once you accept that it has become a hybrid class. I'm not sure how good a pure stamsorc is either. A "stamsorc" that uses Curse and the sorc execute however...

Finally I think people bemoan what they have lost. If a high-end player is complaining about magsorc, they may be complaining about the fact they can't 1vX on the class anymore, nor participate in brawls as easily as, well, the brawler classes. I do not necessarily see that as a valid complaint (because I do not subscribe to ZOS' "play as you want on every class" philosophy). As far as I can see sorc can still be very strong 1v1.

OBJnoob wrote: »

Yes NB is stronger than sorc. Yes DK is stronger than sorc. And there's a fairly popular movement among players that we need to stop nerfing the OP classes and start buffing the weak ones.

I would personally caution against going too far down this road. Do sorcs, necros, and templars need buffs? Certainly. But let's not buff them ALL the way to where NB, for example, is right now. As much as we want every class to be fun to play we also want every class to be able to die, right? Sorcs being weak isn't the only problem the game has. There's also the fact that we're in a tank meta and good players stalemate. So the correct answer is probably to buff sorc halfway and then nerf the over performing classes the rest of the way.

Which is why some of these buff sorc lists seem way too much to me. Rework the passives... Give them breach... Make shields scale off damage... Give them a burst heal... Put stun back on frags... Return the 3rd overload bar... It's too much.

I've basically always said give them breach and fix one of their burst heals. I truly believe this is a good start. And it isn't that the other ideas aren't good it's just that these seem the most simple and doing them ALL would only contribute to the power creep problem. Just because NBs can 1-shot people doesn't mean sorcs should. Maybe nbs should NOT? Just because wardens can tank a small zerg doesn't mean sorcs should. Maybe wardens should NOT?

OBJnoob wrote: »

Well if the idea is to just throw all the spaghetti at the wall and hope something sticks I guess I can respect that. I also recognize that it's pretty unlikely they come here looking for ideas. My response to that is different though... I'd rather speak with a bit of sense and be satisfied with myself than be hyperbolic and hope... Well, whatever people hope.

Not that anyone here isn't making sense, but you know what I mean. I view this as a chance to be "better than them," if that makes sense.

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Is it even possible to play mag sorc in PvP now? Or possible only with sets that slaughter for me or make me invincible or whatever? I’ve always been a PvP potato, haha, but now it’s a mashed potato. I play a mag-stacking mag sorc — Alfiq’s and Spinner’s — and everything feels so ineffective now! My shields are tissues and my shards hit like overcooked pasta.

gariondavey wrote: »

AdamLAD wrote: »

As a sorc main who traversed over to stam nb for a little bit can confirm that nb is infinitely stronger than sorc in every single department. I also tested mag dk out, also alot of stronger than sorc in all departments. Whoever says sorc is stronger than these two classes are just straight-up lying or have no idea what they are saying. Sorc even with streak is significantly weaker than these classes in all areas. Elephant in the room nb Mobility is 10x that of a sorc. Hits harder, and press 1 button to escape projectiles and dots damage for a few seconds and no one knows where u are lol. Ridiculous skill cloak is.

You do know cloak doesn't stop dot damage, right? That was changed a few patches ago

AdamLAD wrote: »

Cloak is mechanically flawed for eso combat. Let me explain why.
1 button that's costs roughly 4k magicka, instant cast ,can prevent any projectiles from hitting you and any type of direct damage that's not an aoe. You can move, be healed, and no one has a clue where you went.

But that's not all. This is relevant to all classes but more so on sorc as it's mainly projectiles. In my rotation for a sorc burst, it consists of light attack, degeneration, curse, frag, force pulse, and mages wrath. That's at baseline for simplicity. I could throw in a few more light attacks and skills. But regardless at base, that's 6 button presses that has to be done in correct flawless order to be effective at minimum and roughly costs maybe like 10k magicka if wearing 5 light and breton. It's probably 13 to 15k if not. Cloak which is one button and costs less than half of my entire rotation will completely nullify my entire rotation besides curse. Now add the fact we have no idea where u are on top and the fact your still being healed. Also you have rolldoge which does exactly the same as cloak, however we all have access to it easily. But you have it on TOP of cloak.

So just at base that's a massive imbalance in comparison. But that's not where it ends. Let's say that for example I do 50 completely flawless rotations against this nightblade. How many is actually going to land to do anything ? Maybe like 1 ? 2 ? 0 ? Definitely not many. Out of the 50 rotations
However since other classes do not have access to stealth, we have to stand there a be a target as we are seen. So do u know what this means ? You have a way better chance of landing your entire combination against us because of it. We can't just stealth out of a combination. You can.

So out of my 50 rotations hardly any will land against the nb, but the nightblade since I'm seen all the time can probably land maybe 40 ? Out of the 50, Higher depending on skill factor.

I've spoken about this in the past with my freinds and I've only just realised how broke cloak actually is in PvP since trying nightblade. It's so flawed. I understand nightblade is supposed to be a very slippery. However its done to the degree in which it's so imbalanced. It's why the Nb mains across the board are refusing to use it for duelling and some even open world. It's utterly broken. And people for years have been crutching upon its existence. 1st hand experienced as I have tested it myself

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

AndreNoir wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

AndreNoir wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

AndreNoir wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

We all know for a fact that NB will never be nerfed. Your correct answer is not ZOS’s answer unfortunately

Sorc buff lists are long for a reason. All we can hope is a few bones thrown to other classes while NB’s are infinitesimally buffed.

We all know that we all can read patchnotes. So we all know that NB lost stun on spammable and any usability of dark cloak in pvp so noone uses it nowdays.
Also we all now that healing in the game is a huge problem so adding here a viable shields is the last thing the game needs.

A stun on a spammable is bad anyway.

The thing is, sorc healing isn't a huge problem because it has bad options.

The thing is sorc is the only class that has access to shield use so any healing problems are not relevant here
If stun on spammable is bad (it had conditions btw) then remove it from streak

Everyone has access to shields, no one builds to use them because they are inefficient and don't scale with incoming damage. Trying to shield stack is futile in the long run.

Dodge roll....avoid potentially unlimited incoming damage.
Cloak ....avoid potentially unlimited incoming damage.

Yeah, everyone has access to cloak with those potions, vampirism and crouch. So what did you want to say ?

Cloak is leagues ahead of streak, even dodge roll and especially Ball of Lightning. Lets compare shall we?

Cloak:
- Provides 100% mitigation on all non-AoE Direct damage abilities cast on you (same thing as dodge roll).
- Dodges ALL projectiles travelling towards you even if they were cast before you went invisible.
- Prevents enemies from targeting you with abilities (nothing in the game does this on a spammable ability that doesn't have fatigue).
- Grants a guaranteed crit on your next attack (or ability cast) from invis.
- Acts as an on demand Line of Sight ability that can be used anywhere and at any time.
- Has NO ramping cost
- procs multiple other buffs including the unique +10% damage done, major resolve and max health, potential stun from stealth.
- cost decreases as it levels up.

Streak:
- Has ramping cost of 33% per cast
- Provides no mitigation and only dodges melee attacks that have a cast time (dizzy swing)
- Deals AoE damage (up to 40% less damage than some other AoE non ultimate skills)
- Stuns enemies it hits (being a relocation skill it also is clunky to use offensively unlike stuns that other classes have especially considering the class is entirely single target where as warden with arctic at least has AoE options, it also struggles with every gap closer bug in the game during lag)
- Has shorter distance travelled than all other gap closers (15m to everything else's 22m).

Ball of Lightning: (other morph of streak).
- Avoids 1 projectile per second for 3 seconds (3 projectiles total) instead of all attacks for 5 seconds and preventing targeting for that 5 seconds as well.
- Has ramping cost of 33% per cast.
- Also has shorter travel distance, same as streak.
- Recently got snare immunity added and is still not used because it got nerfed into ground so hard over the years.

Dodge roll:
- Avoids all projectiles and direct damage (same as cloak).
- Has ramping cost.
- Has lots of CP and sets that revolve around this mechanic.
- Is accessible on every class due to being a core combat mechanic.
- Has abilities that buff it such as NB blur which has the potential to reduce its cost to 0.


Cloak is literally a combination of streak, BoL and dodge roll, with zero ramping (fatigue) cost and with additional effects, perks and ability to proc multiple passives, effects and buffs added on top for no reason.

If NB were to be treated like sorc, cloak would have been given a +66% per cast ramping cost at minimum, probably had its guaranteed crit removed, and no longer proc all the passives and effects that it currently procs. Not to mention shade would have been completely changed to no longer grant a teleport.

Also if shields were truly as overpowered as everyone on the forums keeps claiming them to be, then why isn't every other class using the light armor skill, the undaunted skill, resto shield, barrier, etc? The answer is they don't, because using shields is weaker than just healing with HoTs and burst heals.
The reason sorcs shield stack is because the class has no other option defensively because the heals are so lackluster and unreliable that stacking shields + streak is required to make the healing work in the first place.

As for Dark cloak, that morph was overperforming so much it made vigor look bad by comparison. It needed the nerf (although it should have been left as a heal over time, not a changed to a stand still to get more healing HoT). NB also still has refreshing path which is a very strong HoT, but also provides insane utility including AoE major expedition, procs concealed's +10% damage done buff as long as it is up, and provides +15% mag and stam recovery.