Return of Reckoning

Well, there's one question that needs answer. Why are all sorc lvl 13 skill utter crap? They are useless.

Sorc cookie cutter st spec is very strong but outside that there is very little viable options.

For some reason theres some borderline useless skills in sorc mastery trees. Two biggest issues in my opinion are shades of death and black horror.

-Shades of death belong in the trash. I'd at least take it off gcd or alternatively rework the whole ability.
-Black horror. Basically shattered shadows with different dmg type. Has little ini debuff and but also lower base dmg than ss. Somewhat useful in pve if your grp has access to strong corp debuff (such as BO's waaaagh). Added bonus is that it doesnt break your ears with huge "kaboom" sound effect like SS does. But I'd rework if I had power to do so.

Echo of power, gloom of night, AV and Shadow knives are all somewhat useful in some situations. Not great but not bad either. For aoe spec ice spikes, infernal wave and dc are really good but overall lose to BW aoe by quite a bit.

Brizio wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 4:29 pm Well, there's one question that needs answer. Why are all sorc lvl 13 skill utter crap? They are useless.

Hmm. This game is chalk full of useless. None of those 13 pointers are. Absorb Vitality is being used all the time. A lot of players are keeping this on cooldown. Its not great. Its not useless.

Shades of Death should be the first spell in your rotation if sniping. It doesnt crit, but it becomes free damage layering when you wind up. For a class trying to deliver burst packages, i.e. surprise damage, whats not to like?

Shadow Knives, im single target, but correct me if Im wrong here. On live when Mythic nerfed Pit of Shades to not stack, alll of us just specced shadow knives and we were back at blowing up zerg in keeps. Its a quick AOE reaction to a push. Maybe others can go into its application in RoR because I dont have experience with it. Im just surprised people didnt like it.

Charon wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 4:21 pm

Spoiler:

emiliorv wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 11:02 am

Fey wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:32 amListen to Mez.

Since cap targets changed from 9 to 24 nobody cares about ST, AoE is king. BW AoE >> Sorc AoE

For pug stomp both are great ..for high end organised fights 24vs24 i would take none of them (thanks gods/devs that mara stack is not meta anymore) but if i would need to chose i would take rather sorceress taking into consideration synergies which it may provide. You don't have to believe me - especially im talking something that is not commonly approved - your choice.

You even play sorc in 24 vs 24 or ORVR (zerg Vs zerg)??

Brizio wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 4:29 pm Well, there's one question that needs answer. Why are all sorc lvl 13 skill utter crap? They are useless.

The mastery system was haphazardly put together last minute because some people wanted to feel like they could “specialize” in something.
You can also see it in the moral abilities. Some are very random. They wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t take 4 minutes to build here, unlike live.

Rework of Black Horror / Disastrous Cascade while moving could help with the BW AoE discrepancy in minor ways.

Agree with what people are saying about m4s but id be more inclined to look at useless tactics/abilities.

Hastened Fear/Triumphant Blasting are both terrible tactics that I don't think anyone has ever used. Maybe rework Triumphant to root/freeze instead of knockback player and rework grip of fear/cage of fire for both classes to not break on damage/not escapable. I don't think any of these abilities have ever saved me or anyone else before considering every mdps in the game has a root break. Recover energy in Path of Agony is also useless as its gcd is 3 seconds compared to devour energy which procs on EVERY ability with 2 second gcd. Maybe increase Obsessive focus to 20-30% damage with same penalty to off targets as it is another ability that no one ever seems to use. Sorcs don't have time to waste a gcd on applying OF over another dot for 10%.

In path of destruction I think black horror is extremely bad and as is Shattered shadows except in niche situations with focused mind. As of right now most sorcs will spam infernal wave on cooldown weaving ice spikes between casts as well as the odd shadow knives. In no way is it worth it to stand still for 3 seconds to cast at a measly 80 yard range. Maybe allow shattered shadows/black horror to build up while moving like Shoot Thru Ya as dwyur said above.

I don't think sorc aoe is that far behind bw aoe nor do I think bw st is that far behind sorc st but playing it does feel extremely clunky as of late.

Mez wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:12 pm

Brizio wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 4:29 pm Well, there's one question that needs answer. Why are all sorc lvl 13 skill utter crap? They are useless.

Hmm. This game is chalk full of useless. None of those 13 pointers are. Absorb Vitality is being used all the time. A lot of players are keeping this on cooldown. Its not great. Its not useless.

Shades of Death should be the first spell in your rotation if sniping. It doesnt crit, but it becomes free damage layering when you wind up. For a class trying to deliver burst packages, i.e. surprise damage, whats not to like?

Shadow Knives, im single target, but correct me if Im wrong here. On live when Mythic nerfed Pit of Shades to not stack, alll of us just specced shadow knives and we were back at blowing up zerg in keeps. Its a quick AOE reaction to a push. Maybe others can go into its application in RoR because I dont have experience with it. Im just surprised people didnt like it.

I was going to do some math here to try to argue why i disagree with you, not entirely, but quite a bit.

Then i remembered that no one cares but us and changes are not community based, so i won't.

Brizio wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 5:30 pm

Mez wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:12 pm

Brizio wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 4:29 pm Well, there's one question that needs answer. Why are all sorc lvl 13 skill utter crap? They are useless.

Hmm. This game is chalk full of useless. None of those 13 pointers are. Absorb Vitality is being used all the time. A lot of players are keeping this on cooldown. Its not great. Its not useless.

Shades of Death should be the first spell in your rotation if sniping. It doesnt crit, but it becomes free damage layering when you wind up. For a class trying to deliver burst packages, i.e. surprise damage, whats not to like?

Shadow Knives, im single target, but correct me if Im wrong here. On live when Mythic nerfed Pit of Shades to not stack, alll of us just specced shadow knives and we were back at blowing up zerg in keeps. Its a quick AOE reaction to a push. Maybe others can go into its application in RoR because I dont have experience with it. Im just surprised people didnt like it.

I was going to do some math here to try to argue why i disagree with you, not entirely, but quite a bit.

Then i remembered that no one cares but us and changes are not community based, so i won't.

catholicism198 wrote: Thu Nov 12, 2020 7:32 pm I was going to do some math here to try to argue why i disagree with you, not entirely, but quite a bit.

Then i remembered that no one cares but us and changes are not community based, so i won't.

Yeah, this isn't true. We regularly use community feedback to inform balance changes. The dissonance that you're feeling is that we don't blanket implement community suggestions based on subjective popularity. The ongoing discussions about rSH changes specifically have the proposals from the balance forum included. Discussions like this aren't tracked as closely, but if you gather up a solid proposal and post it here, it's very likely to be considered when we come around to reviewing either changes to Sorc or M4's in general.