Dont let him kid you. Chain lightning isnt even good compared to other classes. Sorc is cooked.
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I disagree. You don’t just change your build because of a patch. There is a skill tree with player choice for a reason - it is meant to provide options. All reasonable builds should work, and hell even some somewhat unreasonable builds should be viable. You shouldn’t have to do ‘what blizzard wants’ because that defeats the point of a skill tree entirely.
Right now, the sorc is balanced in a certain way where the devs are forcing NOT taking many uniques, and they are forcing certain affixes over others for all builds, etc. And even if you do a direct to direct comparison, without abusing flame shield, the class was already underperforming by a lot. Now it’s worse.
There is a skill tree for a reason. As long as the devs are going to offer X core skills and what not, they should ALL be viable.
I just don’t understand, in principle, why players would defend trap options in the skill tree. If all the options are just trap options except for 1-specific blizzard-approved build, just get rid of the skill tree then
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You’re completely missing the point.
They’ve made massive balancing changes. This means that THE SAME builds that worked before likely don’t work the same way anymore, and that is going to be true everytime there are balancing changes, in every single game ever.
But you can look at the changes and figure out how to modify the build to overcome it’s downfalls, just like when creating the build to begind with.
What you’re basically saying is that if a build was great in S1, it should have still been great in S2, S3, S4, and in S5. That’s not how it works.
If you don’t have the patience, knowledge, or whatever else is required to do this, that’s fine. This is a PTR, other people will figure it out and when it goes live they’ll change it further and you can just copy a working build from someone.
But the purpose of PTR is to test things that Blizzard wants to be tested so that they can adjust them.
Complaining that your cookie cutter build no longer works is not useful, and it’s not what PTR is for.
I disagree. It is good and even important to try out your current build in the PTR so you can truly judge how changes they have made to items, skills or aspects effect the game overall. Blizzard should be trying to raise up some skills while maintaining workable builds that are not OP. However, that is not what is happening. Builds that are viable during a season are being scrapped due to some of the changes being made and there does not seem to be any kind of cohesive plan behind the changes that being made.
This PTR they are pushing the Chain Lightning build. Last PTR the pushed the Frozen Orb build and then bizarrely chose the Incinerate/Fire build as the feature build for the Iron Wolf campaign. They stated in the PTR stream that they are targeting each build to use 2-4 Unique items instead of the current 0-2. However, they have introduced a bunch of aspects that are necessary for the CL build to work well. If you are trying to use 4 Unique items how the heck are you going to use the aspects you need along with the aspects needed for attack speed and resources? Plus for the Blizzard build they split up the Glacial and Frozen Tundra benefits and put them on 3 aspects now. WTF?
After I took stock of the damage done to my Blizzard Sorc and my FO Sorc, then I built a CL sorc to see if that was going to save the class this season. Spoiler Alert: It won’t.
Testing all the impacts of the changes is just as important as testing the few new things they dangle in front of us.
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Cuz it’s cheaper.
If we really think about it, they paid some intern to change some numbers and then told the community, “here is a ptr, go test it and complain” rather than invest any amount of time into the problem to really dig deep and understand it fully before addressing it with a competent change. That is what is happening here, and it has been happening in many other areas of the game for some time.
Even the flame shield nerf (and other shield nerfs) is really just a response to “we see invulnerable sorcs, so we will nerf it and release it.” without understanding anything else about the class or what this change could do.
It’s not even a question of seeing barbs stand in one spot against level 200 content vs the sorc having to dodge and manuver around everything to avoid one-shots - they don’t even get that far into their analysis. They just make number changes and release it.
I’m actually really wondering if only 4 people are working on the game now instead of an entire team.
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Except my build isn’t cookie cutter. It was a build I specifically came up with on my own. And I had little to no survivability or damage issues on S4.
The purpose of PTR is to test changes to existing and new setups - that’s literally the purpose of it. Trolling people and telling them they need to “change their build because it’s a PTR” is doing nothing to help your cause and just makes you look like a shill.
We’re SUPPOSED TO TEST EXISTING AND NEW BUILDS, NOT JUST NEW ONES. My fire build should be MORE VIABLE based on patch notes, NOT LESS.
The math DOES NOT ADD UP. This is what testing on the PTR is about - not telling Blizzard everything is great when it isn’t. Part of MY JOB AS A TESTER IS TO TELL THEM WHEN CHANGES THEY MAKE DO NOT WORK WELL. There is no disputing or arguing that FACT.
I don’t know why I’m telling you this, though. You already know this. Your motivations for coming into everyone’s threads and telling us we’re imagining all this and we all have bad builds are pretty laughable, if I’m honest.
Also you repeatedly state the changes are not complete yet. Here’s a list of changes not yet implemented on PTR: Season 5: PTR Known Issues & What to Expect
It says NOTHING about balancing or sorcs getting buffed back to baseline or heaven forbid - maybe getting sweeping buffs to bring it more in line with other classes.
I know you think you’re serving a purpose by telling us we’re all wrong, but this is not the way. We know more than you think we do. Good day o/
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Say that you shouldn’t test anything older then PTR because “things are gonna changes” I think is the dumbest thing ever read in this forum so far.
Please, we know you are some kind of dev undercover but stop try to defend this, you are embarrassing yourself
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Notes for the devs:
I now seem to be taking between double to quadruple damage from monsters depending on enemy type and class.
My damage output is roughly halved.
This is a 1 to 1 comparison of my live build to PTR.
Flame shield is useless essentially and hardly helps to keep me alive. We’re talking maybe an extra half second before i die horribly so 1.5 seconds against an elite instead of 1 second.
The damage modifiers against sorc seem horribly wrong. Not sure but it feels like someone missed a zero somewhere or at this point we’re just the meme of s5.
According to research, the only viable build for s5 is chain lightning. This will not make the class fun, and counters your build diversity meme you repeatedly talk about on stream.
Please, reconsider the lack of balance you’re sticking the sorcs with with this latest patch.
There is no reason to play now unless you get carried or you enjoy repair bills.
Sorc is not fun at all on PTR.
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That is absolutely how it should work. Now, as power creep is a thing, a build might fall behind stuff that has been newly adjusted, but it should never, never, never, be weaker than it was before relative to the same content it was playing before. (Assuming a build isn’t based on a bug, exploit, or extreme outlier like 100% FS that requirs fixing.) Telling someone they can’t continue to have fun with something they are enjoying because reasons, is not good game development.
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Your description of how you are doing in PTR would make me ask for a refund too.
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Just quoting this to amp the message. Also, you could cast those “core” skills more than 3 times in a row without running out of mana (and also needing hours of grinding to get the right resource reduction/regen and cooldown gear, which I also hate).
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Feedback on sorc: Hydra incredible weak, needs 300-500% buff on the damage.
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Quoting your message as well. The sorc is inherently broken, and every patch they release breaks it more.
This is beyond truth. The builds should never stop working just because it’s a new season. If that’s what the developers of this game believe, they are not developing this game correctly. Not saying they do, just saying it’s bad development policy, and anyone justifying it should give up their ARPG badge.
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Can you point out the massive balance changes that would require a massive change in our skill tree/paragon board to make said build work again? You can even add in aspects if you want. ATM Sorc builds are nowhere near Barb/Rogue/Necro. Hell I even heard DM made a druid to billions of damage. Im watching Rax hit training dummy for 15k-20k Chain lightnings right now. Just lolz.
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then you are doeing things wrong
sorc is hitting for 20 Billion in the ptr so its one of the strongest builds in the ptr
Do you have mental problems? I guess you do…
I will not even argue with that comment, because you clearly don’t know what youre talking about
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How are you testing your build on lvl 100 mobs?
Does the miniscule challenge they provide give you an accurate perspective on Sorc’s current power level?
I would have thought a more standardized benchmark would be used such as Pit T101, Uber Lillith, or Tormented Bosses.
I’ve tried various paths…
I’ve cleared NMD95 or 96 without too much trouble (116 enemies iirc).
I’ve cleared Pit61, just not in time (boss HP bug and 1-shot issue on top of slow clear).
I ran Pit100, but the timer was pretty much on par with my kills, 1 death and I am behind and can’t make the portal in time. Killing is super slow, but survivability is generally ok. For the most part I can just stand in whatever is going on and face tank mechanics.
Being able to use potions while stunned/cc’d is a great change, this is a life saver. Unfortunately, because the kill speed is so slow I end up running out of potions, because I use them when not needed when I panic.
Sometimes you can’t avoid death, especially when random nonsense 1-shots you while you have a full double barrier with full health and Ice Armor up with tons of DR and mostly everything on screen burning and stunned. But it happens, and then the run is trashed.
If I could guarantee no deaths, i’d be able to get to the Pit 100 boss possibly in time, but I would have literally 0 chance of killing it. I’d need to increase my damage output by at LEAST 50% to be able to do that, but given that i’m bad at theory crafting and the best i’ve done so far in S4 is 100 on a Blight Necro (although much faster, but more squishy), i’d say this is fairly successful.
that isnt true, and if u even listened to the guys showcasing this, u would knew, that its a bug with an helm item, thats stacking dmg too high. And is likely bein fixed by the time s5 goes live. CL w/o that bug did puny dmg, compared to that, period. And believe me i have theorycrafted this build likely to perfection. Also the cl unique item itself still missing a working double cast.
Besides other classes can abuse it just the same only 10 times better.
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druids are doing trillions, so it’s not like this is a sorc only thing.
we all know this bug will get fixed so bringing this up as an example is pointless.
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