Stats Revamp: Sorcery

Please use this thread for feedback specific to Sorcery powers.

For general combat feedback (not specific to Sorcery), please use this updated overview thread instead.

For a power cost overview, go here.


What else has changed beyond global balance changes:

• Red Soul Aura and Golden Soul Aura have been removed. These were generally effects that players just passively received for normal play, rather than promoting interesting choices and build variation.
• Bad Karma no longer has the additional heal/damage proc effects. These were inconsistent and generally small bonuses that were largely ignored in normal gameplay. The damage/healing from these effects have been shifted into the throughput across the powers that originally applied them.
• Permanent pets now slightly reduce passive power regen while in combat.
• 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).
• Shard of Life has been replaced with Karmic Suspension, an AoE levitation and Supercharge Generator ability.

Do not like. Only bad sorcery players ignored Bad Karma. Removing the last two auras (Vengeance went bye-bye when uber Fury came around) takes away from the flavor of the power quite a bit, IMO.

I'll be testing this using a weapon/clip play style as I preferred that over either WM or being the pet's slave.

OK since youre removing bad karma procs are you guys adjusting base dot damages for powers like CoD?
Whats the role of WoD now? Is 33% dps increase restricted to weapon or does it include abilities?
What Pis except bad karma do sorc benefit from now?

I'll be getting on test soon, but would be nice to know to get started with loadouts?
Also, can you guys put the dummies back? Would help lot with some testing.

Question:

Is transmutation still going to heal? It needed bad karma to heal.

Immediate note:
RW is 48-59 base heal strength just like Celestial's Admonish with a short cooldown to mirror it.

I'm a little shocked Moja. Not in a bad way but the changes need to sit with me a little bit to really give good feedback.

Does this mean that the healing/damage benefits that we used to get from Bad Karma application have just been rolled into other abilities?

For Sorcery and also for Earth I would like to have a petless competitive DPS optional rotation.
I love the power but never been a fan of being a troll for the pet who defeats everything for me.
Some years ago Sorcery worked without pet and Eath have the Aftershook mechanic. Please offer some variation, pets shouldnt be mandatory for competitive damage.

About the changes I'm happy to see the golden and red aura gone. Less VFX is better, I'm glad we just get the benefits.
Karmic Suspension seems interesting.

Initial Thoughts:

Miles better than electric healing it's not even funny. I'll do a break down in comparison between what I think should change and what's actually beneficial in this update, yes there are actually things I can praise in this revamp!

Power costs are also very low, it's so nice not seeing two abilities drain me below 50% like electricity did and it is so much more effective in healing capabilities than electric.

Bug Report:

• Whilst dueling someone I used Transmutation in healer role, this would damage them and heal them at the same time.

Balancing Requests:

• Transmutation is very weak and that range is abysmal, I know the cooldown is basically instant like the priority heal but it won't be used over some of the other options since Ritualistic Ward has actually received the change I've been begging for every single healer power set - Admonishes Cooldown! I think a stronger heal would be necessary, since you removed shard of life maybe you could make it function similarly to that?
• Circle of Protection is extremely weak, with roughly 17000 restoration it was only healing for 600s, due to the change with soul well I think using this may not be as beneficial as soul well since it heals around 500 and I can stack two now and the range is more forgiving than the circle. Could we see an increase to the healing value?
• Soul Siphons healing was removed, healing options being removed are never good
• Could we see a range increase for Soul Well? Since the cooldown seems to be the same as live but the value was increased a lot in return for a maximum stacking of 2 soul wells but the range seems lackluster.
• I feel the HoTs in Sorcery will be in second priority to sorcery's new found burst, Ritualistic Ward is not only stronger but has the cooldown I've been requesting for all 4 man heals - Admonishes cooldown, I feel with this along side ritualistic warding the Watcher it'll make utilizing your HoTs fairly obsolete.
• The priority heal - Rejuvenate, like Bioelectric Surge is very weak, I understand that it's a low cost low cooldown ability but the base healing is so low that it would be very effective to use at all.
• Invocation I noticed has had it's burst heal at the end removed in favor of HoTs throughout the cast. Not really sure how I feel about this yet since cast times are still fairly useless and threatening to use.

Ability Changes:

Rejuvenate:

• Much lower base value
• No more 10% Crit chance from the Golden Soul Aura

Soul Siphon:

• Healing REMOVED

Shard of Life:

• DELETED FROM EXISTENCE

Circle of Protection:

• Healing is extremely weak in comparison to live (600s at 17000 resto)
• Cooldown I believe unchanged
• I feel this ability isn't going to be very useful and needs further adjusting.

Soul Well:

• Maximum stack is now 2
• Cooldown I believe unchanged
• Heals on dead enemies REMOVED
• Base Value slightly increased (500s at 17000 resto)

Ritualistic Ward:

• This is now become Sorcerys staple, it is the saving grace and what I wish bio capacitor received.
• Cooldown now matches Admonish on live
• Heals all 4 like live but no HoT after cast
• Powering pet TRANSFERRED to Offering

Transmutation:

• No longer heals based on Bad Karma'd enemies, does a small burst (1000 with 17000 restoration)
• Cooldown is basically similar to priority heal
• Power Cost literally non existent, you can spam this forever but the healing is very low
• Range is Abysmal, seems to be a little smaller than the live version of electroburst

Transcendence:

• Still a 50% super charge
• Power back REMOVED
• Now gives the whole group a shield and a small HoT over X amount of seconds
• I feel this may be still worth people running
• I feel this power isn't going to be very useful and needs further adjusting.

Boon of Souls:

• Unfortuantely it's received tests electrics Flux treatment where the duration is pitiful
• Needs to be reverted to the live version no matter what. This is only change that I currently disagree 100% with.

Invocation of Renewal:

• No longer gives a burst heal at the end of the channel
• Is a constant stream of HoTs (700s at 17000 restoration)
• I didn't see properly but it no longer seems to be interruptible, please correct me if I'm wrong
• Cooldown is Abysmal. (12s maybe or higher)
• I feel this power isn't going to very useful and needs further adjusting.

Final Thoughts:

This has actually given me some faith that you don't intend for healing to feel completely garbage with this update, the buff to the reliable healing like Ritualistic Ward and still keeping the strength of the watcher good makes me feel so much more confident in this power sets ability to heal than Electric.

The HoTs need to be looked at as they are very weak and I am not sure they will be worth using. (Explanations are above)

This is so much better than Electric healing, so sorry for repeating myself but it needs to be said. Please re-look at electric healing because that power set needs so much more love than this one it's not even funny.

I actually feel like testing with this as it is miles better than electric for healing as I actually feel like I'm not gated by large cooldowns, poor ability functionality/reliability and stupidly high power costs.

I will post further thoughts later on as I play with the power set.

This is an first look review at what's been done, I'm sure I will spot inconsistencies and potential weak spots later on but I can't thank you enough for restoring my hope for healing with this update.

I just hope you listen to our feedback as I feel Electrics just been given the cold shoulder yet again.

Transmutation is not hitting properly. hate the change to line of sight.
SC generator is doing unrealistically low amount of damage given cool-down.

What is the additional damage % from bad karma PI? Very hard to estimate from playing as doesn't seem to be significant.

Question: I see Circle of Destruction and Protection listed as"Medium to high power cost"

What exactly do yall mean by that?

Feedback:

• I went with Sorcery and took it with a 1-2-3 build, results weren't all that great.
• Choices were Limited. I had no choice but to use a Medium power consuming loadout; This being Circle of Destruction; Soul barrage and Transmutation. Kept running out of Power.
• Alternatively; I could've used Vengeance but it's a single target attack; not viable when you have lots of adds on you.
• Not a fan of Karmic Suspension. Unlike Shards Of life: you have to be in melee-range to use it. The damage output is also meh; I averaged out about 691 damage against Faust.
• Arbiter of Destiny is Flawed; in the Faust boss fight you need to use weapon attacks to stop the shade portal. If you are in this form and faust summon shades; you have to waste the supercharge by returning back to normal.

Overall: My first impressions of using a Play from the tray build with sorcery isn't all that good. I'll probably do some variant loadouts w/Fury and post my results.

More feedback:

• I feel like Fury is still the King of My damage output. He's like EMP right now but without a high power cost.
• Personally speaking. I whooped Artemis with using Fury, My health didn't even come close to being low due to fury's constant damage output taking agro from her.
• It's a little bit of a struggle to keep Fury powered, but he's a beast once he is powered up.
• On a Final Note, Why is Fury still Based off of CR? I thought stats matter was gonna make the Pet damage require some actual stats to use; not combat rating. Kinda disappointed there.
• Using fury with a play from the tray isn't viable; You still consume too much power and need to use weapons.

Is fury still largely the same in terms of power usage? Does he generate his own power now or is Fury still very dependent on Offering?
Also how hard is Fury hitting?

Bug Report:

• Ritualistic Ward doesn't have render distance range, Spord said that all of these types of heals would receive this range?
• Sometimes clipping soul well will involuntary make my character jump. (Cast Soul Well Clip > Another power)
• The HoT on Soul Well feels like it has line of sight issues

fury now uses all his power but that's okay, you do still have to use Offering but Offering now no longer requires the use of two Bad Karma spells, instead now you can just hit Offering and fury power bar is back up in seconds.

as for dmg i am Cr166 which is the suggest Cr inside the Penguin solo with fury Cr 166 and well here is a pic of his damage.

Thanks for the feedback so far. Some notes:

Transmutation in Healer Role is bugged: it heals enemies instead of allies... will fix -_-
Invocation of Renewal will be getting a large healing buff but an increased cooldown.
Supercharge Generators should all do fairly low damage. Their main function is Supercharge Generation...
All PIs are a 10% increase in throughput.
Ritualistic Word is getting its range increased.
Circle of Protection/Destruction use their own cost category (Medium-High) which is between Medium and High. For reference, current base cost categories are below. Note these values are still subject to change as we continue to iterate on feedback.
Low = 135
Medium = 270
Medium-High = 350
High = 450

with the loadout I use on live, ive tried to reproduce with that power you replaced for shard and its garbage I will try other loadouts later. but that cost for cop/cod is ridiculous reduce that. and make offering shield fury why was that removed anyways that's what keeps him alive while he ventures to far near the boss.

Bug Report:

• Allies that now leave Circle of Protection lose the healing aura now, this isn't the case on live? I feel if this is intended it further diminishes Sorcery's HoTs

Further Feedback (Sorcery Functionality Related):

So ran some content, ran Underworld Trials and Olympus - Solo Heal.

My biggest complaint so far is that the HoTs really feel meaningless, they're so weak and have such limited range they honestly feel like a waste of power, Soul Well was like this on live but this improved version I am slightly indifferent to still as it is a stronger HoT but the range is really limiting, I feel allowing a third Soul Well to be dropped as well would help with the strength issues of the ability; more on this later.

Circle of Protection desperately needs a buff in base value as well as allowing people to enter and then leave the field - Even if I try my best to position it to hit everyone they can walk away and sometimes the tank will never stay in the same spot so it's extremely punishing to use.

Transmutation in my honest opinion is just currently worthless, really low heals and range, no one in their right mind would use it. It's a very weak ability. I honestly thing giving it the same functionality as Shard of Life will help immensely.

I also saw that the bird transformation was changed to which you'd gain quicker cooldowns. All of which felt very spammy. I didn't use this in any content, just realized of the change as I logged off. I think it's suitable as it adds rather than removes options in healing. I could put down 3 soul wells in this form but I think 3 should be available naturally for reasons above.

Further Feedback (Power Cost / Cooldowns / Tank Survival Related / Both Healer Role Feedback):

My Loadout was: Boon of Souls, Rejuvenate, Circle of Protection/Soul Well, Ritualistic Ward, Sacrificial Offering and Watcher

I switched between Circle and Soul Well as they were equally as bad but wanted to see the extremes of the ranges and limitations of which I added to the bug report above ^^ I feel like the cooldowns for the abilities suited them just right.

Power felt like an issue, I didn't run much content with Electric Healing because I despised it very much. So running as Sorcery solo healing Olympus Normal at 17600ish Restoration might not be a thing for the average player anymore, it was fairly difficult to keep the tank alive because they are really weak, we used an Atomic Tank at 178, not sure of his stats. Previously we used an Ice Tank which was so much worse at staying alive.

We ran two controllers, I was also using my weapon attacks to regen but when there was a lot of damage being taking in by the group it was difficult to do so - I believe the instant power dump cooldown needs to be reduced, the trolls in the group were saying they just couldn't give power any quicker. So it's all a bit of a correlation in which the tanks you've released on test are extremely weak to which I need to use fairly weak abilities to heal them with which then requires a fair amount of power if the tank is still taking heavy sustained damage.

I mainly relied on critical shield usage as well as relying on Ritualistic Ward and Sacrificial Offering being off cooldown because the rest of the abilities didn't feel that strong. I feel the Watchers instant heal seems fair in strength as the cooldown for Sacrificial Offering is very modest.

With Electric I wouldn't be able to do this at all due to unreliability of it's abilities, I'll go further into this on Electrics Topic...

Im pretty sure it never required using 2 bad karma powers to use offering. I played sorc for a while. And in dps role ya just hit offering to give your pet power. If im not mistaken. I could be wrong, but dont think so.

Uh Fixed

Also does the watcher still retain it's render distance healing as it was on live? I didn't couldn't tell during my Olympus run.

Not bad if to compare with atomic. But this:

is not really good idea actually. Sorc was not really good power to heal and now we will have to replace some spell on loadout with offering because Ritualistic Word doesn't restore pet's pwr anymore.