Sorc Update is a much welcome change

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StrykerxS77x#8221 wrote:

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spokipo#1869 wrote:

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StrykerxS77x#8221 wrote:

Im in the endgame now. Which tier maps should i report back here?

t15+delirium and uber bosses.

So instead of come out in the end game now you are saying Uber bosses lol.

Actually, this is the END of the game, literally everything is written, the final content.

This is by far the worst implementation of the Sorceress in PoE 2 so far.

Maybe I will open a new thread in the Feedback section of the forum in the future, but I'm writing right now because this kind of threads might induce the developers to believe that they are going in the right direction while, in fact, they are killing the class with every new patch (I have played the Sorceress exclusively, in 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3, for a total of about 700 hours).

Right now the Soreceress gameplay feels like what would have happened if Pac-Man visited Wraeclast.

Most of the damage output has been outsourced from skills to Infusions in order to force combo based gameplay.

The mechanic is based on a negative feedback loop, rather than a positive one, meaning that comboing is not encouraged by rewarding the player with more damage, but rather that the player is punished for not implementing combos by doing very little damage when the character is not Infused.

This loop results in a gameplay where the player is constantly dodging and evading hordes of mobs while trying to generate and gobble Infusions to then cast a few meaningfully damaging spells, before restarting the process.
It seriously looks like Pac-Man gameplay flow: run until your damage is not pitiful, consume the meagre resources that make it not pitiful and then run again, starting a new cycle.

It's both exhausting and frustrating and the character class plays extremely clumsily, with an unnatural rythm and a drastic reduction in DPS that is caused by the need to spend most of the time generating Infusions rather than DPSing.

This system also caused a reduction in build diversity by de facto forcing multi-element builds on the player, because there is a type of Infusion for every single element and you ideally need all of them to improve the damage of skills like Firestorm.
As a mainly Lightning Stormweaver player, the situation is comically bad right now and for the first time I am considering dropping the class once and for all.

As far as the Infusion system goes, the main issues right now are:

- Three different type of Infusions means mono-element builds are intrinsically disadvantaged

- Chasing the Infusions all over the map in the middle of a fight, while dealing with all the visual effects clutter is honestly an appalling experience

- Infusions are too easily consumed, resulting in the player spending most of his/her time trying to generate them, only to then discharge them on spells which many times have little effect (this is especially true for Lightning, whose damage variance is comically exaggerated).

If we are stuck with the Infusion system, I have a few suggestions that, at this stage, are mostly intended as food for thought:

1) Infusions should not be gathered. When an Infusion is generated, it should be automatically added to the character without the need for the player to actively pick it up.

2) Infusions should not be consumed. They should just add a timed buff and as long as the buff is active they should grant their benefit when using skills. The duration of the buff has to be carefully evaluated so that the player need to periodically renew the Infusion but at a much lower frequency that the current version (maybe the typical 8 seconds could be a reasonable timeframe window).

3) The potency of the buff should scale with the number of Infusions and the cap on the Infusion number should be for the total number of Infusions, no matter their type. This would bring mono-element build back into play and a player could be effective by building multi-elemental combos or single element ones without having to worry that his damage is crippled by having only one type of Infusion.

Like I said, these suggestions are just meant as food for thought. They might have unforseen consequences that I can't predict on paper.

But the fundamental issue is that right now the Sorceress gameplay feels unnatural, clumsy and frustrating, like most other kinds of negative feedback systems.

I never thought that I could actually look back to the disaster that the 0.2 Sorceress was with nostalgia, because the actual system is even worse.

Sorc in a great place.

Still managing to crap out very high burst damage, infusions are a fun new mechanic and some nice new nodes in the area.

Only change id like is that they dont drop and just auto pickup when they would drop, why do they need to be something you need to retrieve and not just like a "charge"? this would make snapping for infusions feel very smooth as a mechanic.

What Onegar wrote is very based and I agree with it completely. This is exactly how playing sorc feels.

No. It's absolutely awful.

Im still very excited for my stormweaver. I know sorc has issues but it can still be used.

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spokipo#1869 wrote:

Sorc is unplayable now, what are you talking about? The class is dead. She used to be very strong.

1 button spark was not intended game play and will never come back.
Current Sorc is pretty good, needs more tankyness or better spells the first 5 levels though.

Spells are actually engaging and interactive and by far the most fun thing to play. I really like the changes.
Can you please give bows this treatment next? They are terribly boring.

I made sorc as first char, infusions are horrible mechanic and barely working. Terrible and weak class I quit her at lvl 40, worst char in the game.

[Removed by Support] Thx

There is a lot more build diversity now than before. I leveled through the campaign and I used and enjoyed all skills except frost orb. There are simple combos like living bomb + fire bomb or arc + lightning warp. There are complex combos like using orb of storms + frostorb + eye of winter and then spending the generated infusions on other skills (e.g. firewall + multiple arcs). If one doesn't like infusions, one can play chaos dots + channel incinerate while they tick with the new blackflame node. There are combo possibilities on multiple layers: based on infusions, based on ailments and based on the skills themselves (e.g. orb of storms to deal damage on each cast + ember fussilade for the quick cast time + firewall to increase the damage of each of the many projectiles).

The infusion system is really fun and enchances the sorceress from a class that I found boring to one that I consider playing as main character. I also like the "picking up infusion" mechanic, which adds another layer to kiting.

The main criticism of the new infusion system seems to come from players who do not enjoy more complex and/or slower gameplay.

Sorc is hot garbanzo till you get +to spells, then she's kinda mid. Rerolled at 50, made a Witch and did EDC and never looked back. GGG Cant balance casters to save their lives.