I hate to come out of the woodworks and post this as I main a magsorc (and magblade), but this needs airing out to avoid some out-of-nowhere nerf to one of sorcs abilities (probably would end up being something other than Rune Cage). I think there are also a lot of out-of-proportion complaints about sorc burst because dying from a sorc (mines, curse animation, cage falling from heaven, exploding into 0 HP) is a very visually impressive way to die, and dying from several other OP specs right now (bleed, stam, oblivion) just looks like getting hit with swords until your recap screen loads.
This is what others abbreviate as the "L2P" that others reference in the whine threads. You need to adapt to the current game. For instance, many sorcs now slot HoTs for Sloads. Many good players dropped vamp due to increased light attack damage. They don't want to lose the bar space or vamp perks, but changing with the game is what sets good players apart. There are less streamers now, making this tougher to do on your own.
So in the interest of us all getting better:
1. Have enough effective HP (HP x Resistance x Crit Resistance) to mitigate the current increased levels of damage output in the game. In my experience as an msorc, this is about 24k HP with about 18k spell resist or 22-23k with 25k spell resist for an unshielded player. I'm sorry Sypher told you in 2016 that you need 20k HP for Cyrodil with "all points into stam."
2. In hand with the above, take advantage of tri-stat armor glyphs and the brand-new Triune trait that net-benefits almost every spec but magsorc. These math-advantaged glyphs benefit almost everyone more (especially DKs and Argonian race); msorc is uniquely balanced (which some call an "advantage") where our primary defense (max magicka/shields) goes from good to useless if we drop our magicka, thus we have to give up essentially 4k of free HP/stam.
3. The 3 light attacks in the magsorc burst combo amount to ~9k player damage with recent light attack buffs. This is probably more harmful than Rune Cage. They are dodgeable, blockable, and reflectable, and taking 2 out of 3 of them in the face is completely voluntary. Whether you prefer HoTs, dodge rolling, cloak, or blocking, eliminating this damage and the 2-3k initial Fury hit is easy for good players. If you avoid all of these, and have any reasonable effective HP, you will not die to sorc burst without a chance to retaliate.
4. Use immovable pots (and/or the Immovable skill) nullifying the sorc burst for 10.4 seconds. Go from being an Xv1er slotting resource-drain poisons to slotting Immovable poisons.
5. If you are running an Xv1 build (Eye of the Storm, resource poisons, not enough stam to break free more than twice, low HP with all damage sets, roll dodge as your only defense), don't expect to win alone vs. a competent player of any class with a 1v1 or 1vX build.
6. If you are a DK and you are not slotting wings, you are not adapting to the game.
7. If your build uses primarily HoTs, roll dodge, or cloak for defense, and you are dying to light attacks and direct damage more than DoTs, put CP into Direct Damage AND Light/Heavy Attack mitigation stars rather than DoT or physical defense stars. This is adapting.
8. The main way to counter sorc burst, even if you completely ignore every single point above, is to time your CC as soon as you see their Curse. A sorc's burst window (Shield-Shield-swap-Curse-Fury-Cage-Frag) takes 6 seconds if executed perfectly, and that is conveniently also the CC cooldown time.
If a sorc slots immovable pots, then you use your immovable pot, then both wait 10 seconds, and a sorc gets his full 6-skill burst combo in and times it perfectly so that not a single HoT tick occurs in between procs, and your effective HP is low enough to go to execute, and you haven't CC'd him, and haven't gotten your burst combo in first, and neither did your friend, then you didn't get cheesed. You got outplayed.
Signed,
Sorcs of Tamriel
- Dionysus
