Blizzard’s reasoning doesn’t really make sense.
They specifically said that certain Sorc talents like Devouring Blaze made everyone felt like they were forced into those talents. That is to say, regardless if someone was a fire sorc or not, they were going use up talent points in it anyways.
But after the PTR changes with Icy Touch, how is that design philosophy any different? All people are going to do is just get forced into Icy Touch the same way they are doing Devouring Blaze if they make it a general damage increase for all damage, not just frost. And you would end up with the exact same situation.
If Blizzard really wanted to limit those type of situations, then none of the elemental talents should have generalized affects like that. And push all those into the colorless talents instead. They need to really decide on what their goal of the Sorc is and then revise things around that same explained philosophy. Otherwise, everyone is just shuffling talent points around, and its just another season of the exact same thing, but just a different color…
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Now there are 3 important passives for damage
- Glass Cannon
- Inner Flames
- Icy Touch
Also, if you play lighting, the legendary paragons of boards Ceaseless Conduit and Static Surge increases your damage too. So they are required with Frigid Fate and Elemental Release.
Tempering “% Chance to X cold damage” in weapon/focus seems to do a lot of damage too. Much better than any skill hit twice.
Anyway, Sorceress is still weak and not able to reach PIT 100 without those crazy builds with perfect everything which requires you expend billions and billions gold to achieve.
Until they truly address balance within the sorcerer class, Theory crafters will continue to find the mathematically strongest options whatever they may be and post it. Many players will copy it.
Many others will hear XYZ build is strong and make thier own version of it. Some may be satisfied with their first take on it, while others will tweak it over time to try to make it as good as it can be. Because the public meta builds are not based on fun but math, the better anyone’s home brew version of that build is, the more it will converge with the meta.
As long as the class is not balanced and most build variants are weak, the appeal of the “One to Rule Them All” will continue to dominate, and players will continue to feel forced to use a particular skill, passive, enchant, item, or whatever the current meta is leaning on.
Nerfing specific things because players complain they are forced to use them literally does nothing but weaken the class until/unless it is done as part of an overall balancing
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Blizz math has always been hard to follow. I agree with your observation that % chance to do cold damage is doing way more damage than an actual skill despite the skill reading that it’s damage is 100k or 1m. This of course lines up with the outcome of many things like Frostburn/Azure/Axial damage doing more damage then the sorc skills themselves.
I can’t help but wonder if something is fundamentally broken at a code level that has been overlooked after so many overhauls of the base damage calculation, almost to the scale of the problem like the antivenom bug of a decimal point misplaced.
I have a working theory about this. I think becasue so much of sorc is AOE, and the 1-60 actually seems somewhat well balanced, they are afraid to push up the power directly on skills and are trying to address it with aspects and items for end-game. Ala Axial Winterglass, Splintering, constellation etc.
I Understand not wanting to push up base power but the item/aspect thing has been a bumpy ride. If i were the class lead on sorc i would want the team to explore scaling base power with paragon in greater depth. i think this may help with endgame and not break 1-60 expereince