Feedback and suggestions for Awakening Sorceress reboot-
On the 2021/12/03 Global Lab update, Flow:Night Crow (흐름 : 밤 까마귀) cooldown was added back at 1 second, Cartian's Nightmare (카르티안의 악몽) PVP damage was reduced by ~11% and Swirling Darkness (휘몰아치는 어둠) PVP damage was reduced by ~23%.
Not having cooldown on Flow:Night Crow (흐름 : 밤 까마귀) might have been very frustrating to play against so I think 1 second is a good compromise, but it leaves the class a lot weaker than it was for the duration of the rework testing.
In the end, the Sorceress rework became significantly worse right before the last week of changes which leaves very little time for adjustments, even though it was on Global Lab for months.
Sorceress is currently not a particularly strong class, and some other reworks are fairly good compared to ours.
This might end up with Sorceress being underwhelming when its rework was on a nice track for being really good.
Here are my suggestions to fix this issue:
1) Dark Armor (어둠의 갑옷) passive changes
This new passive clearly needs to be reworked.
Sorceress (with Ranger) has had the worst passive in the game for 6 years now.
The rework update was supposed to put every class on an even playing field passive-wise, but this is not what happened. The 2 new Sorceress passives are literally the worst out of the new possibilities.
Sorceress is the class with the lowest base AP in the entire game (as can be seen here), even lower than Shai. Because of that, and because of low % modifiers, our damage is very mediocre.
We are a squishy assassin class that needs to kill people quickly. As such, the only viable build is with Nouver offhand and Bheg’s gloves, and therefore cannot be an evasion (회피율) build.
+10% Evasion (모든 회피율 증가 +10%): This passive does not suit the class whatsoever, and serves very little purpose. It should be changed to +12AP to cover the shortcoming of our base stats.
If you refuse to add an AP passive to sorc, then our base stats should be corrected to 51AP instead of 41AP, like every other class.
+150 Stamina (최대 지구력 증가 +150): This has to be one of the most insulting passive given to classes with the rework. It is incredibly useless, even to Sorc, the most stamina reliant class in the game.
It should be changed to literally anything else: +20DR, +20% critical rate, +10%critical damage, HP+300, etc. All of these stats are miles better than stamina.
2) Mobility/disengage for large scale
Frontal Guard on Crow Wings (까마귀 날개) gives us good engagement potential, but doesn’t help us leave a fight, something Sorceress has always had a lot of issues doing.
Dark Backstep (어둠의 뒷걸음) with Frontal Guard was supposed to help with that issue, but it is a skill that has to be used after Darkness Released (해방된 어둠) which is unprotected. As such, Dark Backstep (어둠의 뒷걸음) is not usable to disengage from a fight, and can only be used after already being away from enemies.
To allow the use of Dark Backstep (어둠의 뒷걸음) as a disengage, it should be allowed to be used from Quick Slot, or should be usable after Night Crow and Flow:Night Crow (밤 까마귀 & 흐름 : 밤 까마귀).
If this is not to your liking, Crow Wings (까마귀 날개) could be made Superarmor instead of Frontal Guard to allow its use as a disengage tool.
3) Overall protected damage
As I said earlier, the lack of base AP and low % damage makes Sorceress’s damage mediocre, especially in end-game when fighting players with +4 Fallen god and +20Caphra armors. The tankiest classes are sometimes unkillable in a single combo, such as Striker, Mystic or Valkyrie for example.
Cartian’s Nightmare (카르티안의 악몽) and Swirling Darkness (휘몰아치는 어둠) might deserve to have their damage lowered, but compensation should be given to another Superarmor skill in return.
Engulfing Shadow (덮쳐오는 어둠) has been nerfed a lot since its release, and with the recent Superarmor damage nerfs deserves to have some of its back. The skill has no accuracy and no critical hit modifiers, and as such does very little damage.
I believe Engulfing Shadow (덮쳐오는 어둠) PVP damage reduction should be lowered from 56% to 40%. Its slow debuff could also be increased, to help us deal with attack speed classes.
4) Lack of Frontal Guard damage
Sorceress is a squishy class with mediocre damage, and is affected a lot by slows because all of our protected damage comes with Superarmor.
We do not have a single damage skill with Frontal Guard protection.
Because of this, I believe Flow:Vile Plan (흐름 : 사악한 복수) should lose the Float and get its Frontal Guard back, with a slight damage increase (+20% PVP critical rate for example).
5) Quality of life changes
-Violation (망자 유린): This skill has been nerfed a lot since the release of Awakening, and recently was nerfed in PVE. Its PVP damage is very low compared to what it used to be.
I believe the 300 Stamina (지구력) cost should only be applied during cooldown, and instead the skill should cost Mana Points (정신력). The PVP damage reduction on Chop hits (찍기 타격 피해) could also be slightly decreased.
-Cartian Nightmare (카르티안의 악몽): After the recent damage nerf, I think the ←/→ + RMB (←/→ + 우클릭 시) dash should be Iframe instead of Superarmor as it uses 10 Shards, the same as Night Crow (밤 까마귀).
-Engulfing Shadow (덮쳐오는 어둠): This skill has been bugged since it came out. You mentioned the character reworks focused on removing bugs from old classes. This one is very annoying and makes the skill tricky to use in group PVP. I’m sure you received a lot of bug reports, please do something about it.
None of these suggestions are particularly impactful, but as a whole they would make Sorceress’s gameplay smoother in PVP, more in-line with the newest classes and would help alleviate the nerfs it has received on the 03/12/2021 Global Lab update.
I believe Engulfing Shadow (덮쳐오는 어둠) PVP damage reduction should be lowered from 56 to 40. Its slow debuff could also be increased, to help us deal with attack speed classes.
Oh yeah, because having the ability to safely and permanently (the slow duration is longer tha the skill cd) someone by 15% is not good enough. We clearly need more slows in the game. /s
Lol no, it should have the slow removed entirely, easy and safe slows are retarded, and sorc does not struggle against speed anyway.
Oh yeah, because having the ability to safely and permanently (the slow duration is longer tha the skill cd) someone by 15% is not good enough. We clearly need more slows in the game. /s
Lol no, it should have the slow removed entirely, easy and safe slows are retarded, and sorc does not struggle against speed anyway.
Honestly I'd be all for removing most slows from the game, but the direction is clearly the other way around. If some classes can have slows on most of their skills, or succ wiz/witch and awa zerk gets their slows cd reduced with the rework, i doubt sorc having a slow that works against half the classes on a melee skill makes a big difference.
Not like this is an important part of the suggestions, i wouldn't care if they ignore it.
buffs for sorcs... lol cray world we live in this 2021