Seriously. Just take a step back. It is so funny and out of touch it is hard to believe this stuff comes from a multi billion dollar company and a series with almost 30 years behind its name. It’s like the developers use joke Reddit posts for their buffs/nerfs. High 70s Sorc, already uninstalled the game btw.
TL;DR
Sorc is absolute garbage. Instead of listening to complaints that everyone’s forced to run Fire Bolt Enchantment to apply burning for damage buffs, they gutted the damage buff from burning. Instead of increasing survivability so you maybe don’t have to run 4 defensive skills (teleport/frost nova/ice shield/flame shield) they decreased it. Instead of listening that 2 Enchantment slots was too few and killed build diversity, it stayed the same, you will still be running Fire Bolts and Ice Shards/Flame Shield. Instead of increasing survivability, they increased cooldowns so you can’t keep as much barrier uptime. Instead of relying on vulnerability to do damage, you still rely on vulnerability from Frost Nova to do damage, you just do significantly less now. Uniques are still completely useless. Seasonal changes are a nerf. Every developer needs to be fired, Rod and his thorns necro need to be bullied into being so ashamed he steps down and never shows his face or tells his celebrity stories again. Sorcerer needs a ground up rework, all of the fundamental flaws are still there with nothing to make up for it.
Oh look, new Sorc unique!
The Oculus (Unique Wand): Gain the effect of the Teleport Enchantment for free. When you Evade using Teleport Enchantment, you are taken to a random location.
LMFAO. What? Why would ANYONE use this? Not only was no one using the teleport enchantment to begin with (because it’s garbage and we only have 2-3 real options), it makes it EVEN WORSE. Why is Sorc the ONLY class where every possibly interesting buff is coupled with a completely debilitating nerf? Why would I want to randomly teleport? So I can get put into the middle of the pack of elites I was running away from waiting for my cooldowns to reset so I can get one shot? So I can make it synergize with Raiment and really be sure I get one shot?
Oh look, a new aspect!
Searing Wards (Offensive Aspect): After spending 200-100 Mana your next Firewall is free to cast and will destroy incoming Small Missiles.
Oh. Okay. An aspect for the slowest clear “meta” build for Sorc. Seems fitting it is entirely useless. After I spend my mana pool 1-2 times, I get to cast a free skill once that will maybe save me from getting one shot from an off screen corpse bow because all of my 4 defensive skills are on cooldown. Maybe they could make it do 50% more damage but also self inflict that damage and make you vulnerable if you walk into it as well? Just an idea, seems to fit the theme thus far, feel free to hire me Blizzard.
Woah, big list of class changes!
Meaningless 5% here, useless 10% there…
Hold on, BIG percentage changes!
- Devouring Blaze bonus Critical Strike damage reduced from 10/20/30% to 7/14/21%.
- Devouring Blaze bonus Critical Strike damage to Immobilized reduced from 25/50/75% to 10/20/30%.
…LMFAO. Sorc has always relied on stacking freeze, vulnerable, and burning to attempt to get close to the damage of other end game meta builds from other classes (spoiler alert it still lags behind). I know what we can do, completely gut the most important passive that make the class even remotely playable! - Some moron at Blizzard.
Speaking of stacking effects…
Fixed an issue where Aspect of Control was applying its damage bonus 3 times for Staggered bosses.
Oh hell yeah. I was wondering why my Sorc could do damage to bosses sometimes. Thank you for making sure I’ll never be able to solo Uber Lilith Blizzard, I was scared that I might have a chance of completing D4’s “crowning achievement” for a second.
Oh look, more aspect changes!
Pointless 5% here, pointless 10% there… perfect.
Unique changes!!
- Gloves of the Illuminator Fireball damage reduction reduced from 65-75% to 55%-65%.
Huge! Fireball Sorc goes from being ABSOLUTE DOGS*** to being ABSOLUTE DOGS***! Remember what I said earlier about all interesting buffs coming with a completely debilitating nerf? Case in point. Your fireball now bounces but deals at LEAST 55% less damage instead of at LEAST 65% less. That’s with a max roll unique. Seriously.
- Esu’s Heirloom Critical Strike Chance from Movespeed increased from 15-25% to 20-30%.
…Okay. Still useless. No one runs movement speed even with endgame minmaxed builds, Sorc needs every possible BiS item possible to make it semi-worthwhile to play. Why sacrifice a whole equipment slot AND other rolls to try to buff MS when you can just get more useful affixes for your boots (+ranks of ice shield/flame shield/teleport… remember that whole "forced to run 4 defensive skills thing?). Just get good enough crit affixes on your gear without being forced to sacrifice the bit of survivability you have.
- Esadora’s Overflowing Cameo chance to release a lightning nova increased from 10% to 15%.
I’m not sure how much more I can laugh at this point, it’s getting painful. The unique that procs an effect that is the equivalent of slapping your enemy with a wet noodle has a 5% higher chance of procing, absolutely meta changing.
Maybe some general changes will help…?
- Aspect of Disobedience maximum stacks reduced from 100 to 60, reducing maximum Bonus Armor % from 25%-50% to 15%-30%.
Ah. Nope. Absolutely MASSIVE nerf to the most useful defensive aspect for Sorc, completely guts armor and survivability.
Misc. changes?
Core stats on weapon - From 50% to 25%, fat nerf to Sorc intelligence stat which makes skills do more damage which every build uses.
Cooldown reduction - Reduced by 33%, LOL, now in addition to CDR being even more important, it performs worse and your defensive skills are up for even less time.
Vulnerable damage - Reduced by 40%, the final nail in the coffin. You think the morons at Blizzard thought of fixing their awful and convoluted damage modifiers? Absolutely not. Vulnerable is still a requirement for every build because of how it functions (in its own bucket), but now you’ll do much less damage. Instead of making the Exploit Glyph work like literally every other class, Sorc still has to apply vulnerability through either Destructive Ice Shards or Frost Nova. Even if we didn’t have to run Frost Nova, nothing else is worth filling that skill slot with.
Damage Reduction from Enemies that are x - Okay I lied, this might be the final nail in the coffin. Sorcs have no survivability, BiS pants are 4x DR rolls, and they literally all got nerfed. If Sorc was a glass cannon as the passive skill implied, okay, maybe we should take more damage. Except for the fact that we do the least damage of all of the classes AND are the most squishy, we are not a glass cannon, just glass. Also why the hell is the “ranged glass cannon” class forced to play in melee range because all damage is built around teleporting into the middle of a pack, freezing/applying vuln with Frost Nova, applying burning with Devouring Blaze, and trying to nuke everything before they unfreeze or you die?
Maybe the seasonal changes will be good?
- Spellbreaking (Brutal, Defensive): After taking Elemental damage, gain 20-40% Resistance to that element for 5 seconds.
This is so useful. By Blizzard’s own admission, elemental resistances do not work and they are so incompetent they can’t be bothered to fix it until SEASON 2 (along with a gem stash tab). I’m so happy one of FOUR Sorc specific Malignant Hearts is completely worthless.
- Omnipower (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Core Skills that launch a projectile consume all of your Mana. For every 45-35 extra Mana consumed, you launch an additional projectile, and the damage is increased by 3.0-5.0%.
In what world would I ever want to use this? Maybe I’m misreading this, I hope I am otherwise it’s just unbelievable. Ice shards is a core skill, it costs 20 mana to cast. My Sorc had 130ish mana. I cast one ice shards, an extra 110 mana is consumed by this. Let’s be generous and assume max rolls. So I launch 3 extra projectiles, the first one dealing 105% damage, the second dealing 110% damage, and the third one dealing 115% damage? If so, this is garbage. I’d be much better off using Aspect of Piercing Cold and spamming ice shards.
Oh also remember that these Malignant Hearts take the slots of Skulls, so you get even less armor and survivability.
There is a reason Sorc is the worst for Uber Lilith and high tier NMs by far.
In my honest opinion, I really do not think any of the morons at Blizzard play their own game. How do any of these nerfs (for Sorc and across the board) make sense? How does Helltide dropping almost no cinders make it past QA at all? The answer is that they are genuinely braindead mouthbreathers or that they don’t do any QA, with the truth probably being both rather than one or the other like it usually is.
I’m confident the sweeping damage and exp nerfs are Blizzard’s way of slowing progression. They released a half finished game and got caught with their pants down when players quickly realized there was no endgame in a f*ing ARPG, and now they’re doing damage control for Season 1. Can’t have players complaining about a lack of endgame content when you slow down their progression by making them do no damage to enemies and get no exp from it so that they get burnt out/never reach endgame. They don’t care though, they’re rolling around in their hundreds of millions of dollars, and you can be damn sure they’ll pump out their low effort $20 cosmetics just in time for the returning playerbase spike of Season 1. They’ll also be sure to hotfix any possible avenue of having fun, target farming good loot, or optimized grinding/powerleveling, just like how they could patch multiple exp farm dungeons before fixing Druid loot tables when they were getting Barbarian unique drops for weeks.
I’m sure I missed plenty of things, it’s hard to cover their incompetence in 100% detail.
