Stats Revamp 1.3: Sorcery

Ranged AoE is what im referring to. Sorry if I wasnt being specific enough. Sorcery's Ranged DPS needs work. It would also be nice to have an explanation for why Shard of Life was removed, and Transmutation was changed to an inferior version.

We loved not having 100% supercharges, we would still love to not have 100% supercharges, 50% maximum.

• Removed Shard of Life - No explanation given.
• Removed Red Aura - No explanation given.
• Removed Red Aura - No explanation given.
• Modified Ritualistic Word - No Explanation given.

Shard of Life is a great source for providing heals. More so for the tank(s) taking mass damage.
Ritualistic Word not giving power back to watcher means you have to use an extra slot. I do not
use a Supercharge in my loadout. I use every one to my advantage and now have to sacrifice
for Offering.

Why were those changes above made ?

From Moja's original Post that can be found in the Archive section:

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/stats-revamp-sorcery.283268/

No where in there does it say why Shard of Life was removed or why Ritualistic Word was changed.

Reason for Ritualistic Ward:

• Offering: now "feeds" all pets (the power return for Watcher was moved here from Ritualistic Word).
• Ritualistic Word is now a full strength small group heal (due to the above change).

Those changes went hand in hand.

Reason for Shard of Life no clue. Probably felt Sorcery had enough Heals but not sure. There's a reason for every change even if its not explained directly (which yes it should be) to us and the Devs know what they are doing. After all, they ARE the ones who made it and work on with it all the time. Ill miss Shard too but we have a tool kit to use.

Quite clearly says why.

Just please please please put the RSA GSA back even if it's just for visual. It just doesn't look right without it.

Actually, the updates should be posted in succession so that there is zero confusion.

ie.......Revamp
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
should all be listed in succession on the same thread and then locked with url link to another thread. This way the testers have a clear path as to what was changed, added or removed.

Agreed. I think I'll have time today to do a write up like this. Meant to do it since Monday but been really busy with other projects

If invocation of Renewal and other channeled heals will be channeled hot, they need to be jump cancelled and RETAIN all healing when jump cancelled. That's the only way they will be used and be useful.

Soul Siphon should be a heal again. Good healing and damage.


For DPS:

Kinda feels clunky.
I like clipping and the dovetails are only made more apparent with cooldowns so they need to be touched again (the dovetails).
Soul Barrage isn't gonna be useful unless it can clip which it cannot currently.

Transmutation.. I like that is does alright but it's a projectile attack now... projectiles are awful in DCUO. Case in Point.. Fury.
I'd rather have it as the explosive sigil. Let it retain the healing function without bad karma but please change it back to the AoE explosive sigil.

Why these 2.2 second cooldowns? I'd find it easier if Soul Storm and Soul Barrage were exactly at 2 seconds.

Oh and let condemn tick a bit higher...

I got asked to do GomR today on live by some random that i healed for before and must pf added me as a friend or something. I joined the group to see that most of them were mid 180's with two trolls in both cr175. Tank was high like me. Looked seen that they had been in there for almost 55 mins already and the list of people that had been in that group was real long. The kinda of group that is in your nightmare. But with good tank play i healed them thru it. A couple of them it was there first time and they was very happy. But then i started thinking about the test server and i was like i just don't think i could of got that group thru that on test. It makes me sad. Every time i try test or think about it i want to cry a little. To change my beloved healing power this much that i can't even image healing anymore where its fun for me is heartbreaking which makes since being that seasonal is up. I know they keep changing and tweaking things back and forth. But sometimes when you spend so much time and energy and money that it just feels wrong to change so much about my toon that i really enjoyed. The power changes, animation changes, cooldown changes... I feel is going to be to much. I liked the idea of passive pot. But i now understand how some people got so mad about there roll changing after so long. I've tried all tests they put up so far and it makes me cry a little each time. I don't know man...I just don't know.....sad face......

Soul Storm is the same channeled type ability like Avalanche and Flame Cascade. We should be able to move and jump while using it.

Currently, we cant move during the animation and damage completely stops if we jump!

I don't want the auras mechanics or visuals back. We can customize and use cosmetic auras already, we don't need them.
Or make them optional.

This.
And Soul Barrage's dovetail is insane. Please adjust it cause you can't clip or anything with that ability.

Im afraid that Sorcery just dont have enough powers for a normal 12345 type of PftT. We have 3 Pets, none of which promotes PftT in any way and not enough high hitting abilities.

Most noticeable is that we lack abilities like Voltaic Bolt and Electrostatic Bomb (hard hitting burst or a combo of burst+short DoT with 12 sec cooldown)

The best possible PftT playstyle for Sorcery would have been with one channeled and one casting bar PI utilizing powers like Ice and Fire, since these take least power slots.

Since we are where we are, the best solution would be to scrap 1 pure Healing power and replace it with Shard of Life as a hard hitting combination of Burst+Dot with 12 sec cooldown. Ritualistic Ward could be scrapped completely and the healing effect could be moved to Soul Siphon.

Another thing that we need is at least one of the Pets to promote PftT somehow. Guardian could be changed to actually grant additional Power regen instead of the opposite. Idk why is Guardian treated the same way as Fury atm, both reducing power regen, since Guardian hardly helps with DPS. Guardian is kinda control or tank type pet but Sorcery is neither tank or controller power set so the effect should be changed to help with PftT.

I don´t know if someone mentioned before but currently there is a glitch involving Pet summonig and armories. If i summon my Fury or Watcher and then swap into a a No Pet armory, the pet will still out doing basically free damage or healing.

I'm not much of a sorc wiz, I just dpsed with it in UT, then ran UT again right after to test electric damage, safe to say a hybrid build focused around prec with fury abolishes anything electric has to offer.

Loadout: Fury, offering, weapon of destiny, soul barrage, final ruin, grand summing, all clipped with staff.

I did at least 75% more damage with this loadout then I did as electric, fury hitting for 12ks along with the final ruin crits being as high as 8 k on enemies below 35% health, its a killer. I hate to be the guy to say it, but fury might need a small nerf.

Sorcery:
Nerf fury again. It should be 10k on the dot if it's gonna do free damage.

Weapon only is tough for this powerset. It only has weapon of destiny but it would be nice if Vengeance and Soul Well buffed the caster to make this play style more valid.

Baleful Transmogrification
This ability is dotty. I think it should be Megavolt's strength.
Currently it's great for healing... not dpsing.

Healing:
Grand Watcher is still restoring power. Either remove that or give other healing powers the ability to restore power once more.

Transmutation
Buff healing to 32-42 base strength. Make it an explosive sigil again... the projectile thing is fine for Soul Storm and Soul Barrage but it's a pain for a main ability in dps and healing.
Not to mention the healing range is still iffy.
Other than that healing is very powerful for Sorcery.

DPS (again)
Soul Barrage:
Never understood why this ability has such potential but never saw light of day after GU36 and Weapon Mastery.
It could have been great. Just like now. It could have been great.. that dovetail really hinders it's use. The damage on it is fine. Just needs to be able to clip again. Standing alone... it's getting blown out but Transmutation and Soul Storm.

Soul Well:
Why take the crits bonus away? It could have been made just to the caster and would help so much in weapon playing! Please consider adding that crits bonus back!
Oh please extend the range of this ability to 15m.
That would help in healing and dps.
Oh and can it do damage ticks in healer role?

Karmic Backlash:
Would it be too difficult to give this a melee boost?
It really just bland and boring. I'd much rather see it a fractured burst power like Electrostatic Bomb is.

Circle of destiny:
Let players who walk through the sigil retain the healing that comes from it.
Can the double tick return on circle with the PI?

Condemn:
Fine as is as a single target ability. Would like it to be able to do an average of 18k damage over six ticks.

RSA and GSA
Please just make it return! It made Sorc players feel unique. I don't care about the passive buffs. Just let it be cosmetic

Well Soul Barrage like Spark Barrage worked great with Jump canceling and Rifle taps pre GU36, after dovetails were added it become useless like many other things.

I think old Transmutation ability should have stayed as it is and new Transmutation should have replaced/become Soul Barrage.

As we have said multiple times in each Sorc update, replacing well established abilities like Shard of Life and Transmutation with projectiles was an awful idea. Really bad.