Staffs, Class Skills, Uppercut And It's Morphs; Read This Please

Khivas_Carrick

So the story starts like this:

Last night a guy gets me to respec and in the process of respeccing I decide not to take up my bow skills again (going to do so later after I get all dem skyshards bruh) and instead to take up a staff, see what all the hub and bub is about. I didn't really get to use it right away until recently this early afternoon when fighting yet another Over Powered Mob that whipped my ass up and down the forests of Grahtwood until I finally switched to the staff to see if it would work better.

It didn't just work better, I toyed with it before I killed it.

Toyed with it, think about that for a second.

With the Two Handed yellow quality vr7 Sword I was using, with Sharpened Trait on it, I struggled just to stay alive, but with the staff, a simple blue quality staff with Charged on it, I beat this thing's ass like it was nothing. Well ok that's a stretch, I definitely struggled a bit, but still, I beat it down rather well.

That said, this brings me to the main point of this entire new thread, one that might get my head bitten off:

Staffs are fine, leave them mostly alone, save for a slight nerf in numbers here and there, but very very slight and small.

I say this because while I beat this boss-ish Mob, it still wasn't a complete cakewalk, it still wasn't 110% lolfaceroll. I burned it, zapped it, and punched it in the face, but the key thing I noticed however was even with my instant cast ranged knockback that burns things and gives me breathing room far better than my own class skill Javelin, it still wasn't easy. That leads me to believe that this game isn't so much as tuned up as we think it is, just our skills are tuned too far down.

With that in mind, I say we tweak staffs to be lowered only slightly, but greatly buff and improve the other class skills, starting with my personal favorite Two Handed Weapon's Uppercut and all it's morphs. With Staffs the way they are, there is no reason that a mage gets to run around shooting literal wheels of flame at people sending them flying and us Warrior types have to stand there for a casting time, getting pounded as we do so, just to knock a mob away a few meters. Make this move instant cast and lower the damage slightly, that's my suggestion for the suggestion box. Or, since Stamina builds run out faster leaving the player open longer (which is bad btw) leave the damage and effects on Uppercut and it's Morphs exactly as is, just make the darn skill Instant Cast.

I promise you that will end a lot of the issues people face at once, and act as one hell of a first step to balancing out the game for both classes and weapons.

Now for you, the playerbase, hopefully you and the devs are reading this, and as you read this I hope you sat there and thought of "Man this guy is a total tool" or "Man, this guy is right!" and from there you post a bunch of stuff either supporting me to flaming me, I don't care which, just as long as you make your voice heard in a proper manner that will see this game totally get fixed.

The Devs cannot ignore us as much as they or you think they or you can. They will eventually listen, and for their sake I hope it is sooner rather than later.

Discuss.

gronbek

Agree with you. Melee need to be on par with staff. And "owning" veteran trash mobs is completely correct if you yourself are a veteran character. I have unsubbed mainly because the higher level you are meaning more skilled, the weaker you are in comparisson to your opponents.

Fix this and stamina and melee and i will return.

Khivas_Carrick

Thank you for this, I need more comments like this so ZoS can see just what the hell they're going to their own game and community.

demonlkojipub19_ESO

Yea I do not understand why destro staff gets an insta cast melee range knockback, which can be morphed into a ranged knockback (with flame staff equipped), while 2h has a cast time. 0 sense made, other than ZoS likes staves more than swords.

It has other effects based on what element staff you have equipped, but they all equate to insta-cast enemy stoppage.

Khivas_Carrick

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This, even bows get instant knock back and shields instant knock-down. Dual Wielding get's nothing but their DPS is admitted to be higher of the melee weapons, yet a 2H get's a cast time. Sense is made, totally.

Yankee

I wish I was not so cynical, and thought they would buff weak stamina weapon skills up to par with staff skills.

What is easier to do and therefore more likely to happen (given the track record) is that staff skills and certain very effective mage guild skills will be nerfed to be equal to current stamina weapon skills.

Then all players can still be at the same satisifaction level with minimal development effort.

Khivas_Carrick

Adjustments are one thing, flat out nerfs are another.

I'm hoping for the former

Mykah

Agreed, its abit baffeling Staff gets a Ranged Knockback that is instant where as 2h gets a Melee Knockback that has a cast bar.

I'd be happy with Uppercut at a .5 second cast time.

ErykGrimm

I agree with the direction of this post. Slight modifiers to stamina based damage would be simple to implement and would not hurt any other skill lines. Slight tweaks to a few of the abilities would be a good starting place too. Bringing medium and heavy armor up a bit would nerf light armor without actually touching it at all. I would much rather see those kinds of changes than the heavy handed nerfs that are being doled out.

AltusVenifus

I see a lot of players denying the current state of the game. If you like the game to be easier go light armor and staves. Simple. When melee weapons become viable, switch back. That way u enjoy the game now, and can enjoy it later, nobody like having a crap build, so change it.

OneForSorrow

An across the boar reevaluation of weapons and armors would not be remiss.

It's bizarre that the higher you get in level the more everyone looks the same (cloth gear and staves). If this game could follow what was clearly it's original design plan and have multiple ways to level and play that would be awesome. Like, truly awesome. It'd make it very unique compared to most MMOs.

SirPuppingtonVonHat

My favorite modification to Uppercut that I've seen proposed on these boards has been to treat it like Crystal Fragments and give it a chance to fire off as an instant cast for reduced resources. I think most 2H users would jump at that (I know I would).

Khivas_Carrick

AltusVenifus wrote: »

I see a lot of players denying the current state of the game. If you like the game to be easier go light armor and staves. Simple. When melee weapons become viable, switch back. That way u enjoy the game now, and can enjoy it later, nobody like having a crap build, so change it.

No, hell no, it is not that simple. I am a brutish, ugly son of a *** that wears a freaky eclectic mix of leathery bits of armor and heavy metal plating with chainmail and loose flowly cloth bits. I have magic but I suck with it so I always used it to augment my swordplay, of which I am dead proud of, and lately I've also gotten good at keeping allies alive while carving baddies a new one.

What does this translate to?

A Templar with 3 Pieces of Heavy (Pants, Belt, Shoulders), 2 Leather (Chest, Boots, and 2 Pieces of Light (Hood and Gloves), and he used skills from all of his mastered trees (all my armor skills, class skills, and 2H are maxed) to the best of his ability.

Atm the way I want to play this game, the way I paid to to play this game is being denied to me due to horrible class imbalance and weapon imbalance.

This is what is barring many others from continuing on and is wiping off Subscriptions to ESO, ZoS little pet project money cow out, and if that continues, ZoS abandons this game and MANY DEVS LOSE THEIR JOBS, which they may think is ok now because they still have money, but once another company sees how badly they jacked this up, they won't hire you.

Yes Devs I'm looking at you. You guys have done great things so far, but there is still MUCH left to be desired from this game, and we do not mean content and immersion, we mean enjoying the freaking game for what it is and what was promised to us, not being forced into one of two classes with one weapon type and one armor type because the other 2 classes, 2 armor skills, and a whopping 4 out of 6 weapon classes blow chunks (Resto staff is pretty baller too).

No reason for that, not when the changes to be made are dumb easy and, to be frank, you've already used us as a Free Testing Ground already, don't be shy about having us test more stuff.

Phantorang

Again, sta dependent stuff like roll, bash, block, sprint etc needs to go on a seperate bar than the sta abilities.

Or magicka based attacks need to be blocked with magicka, sta based is blocked with sta. I think its weird it isnt so already.


Anyways, sprint, roll, crouch etc needs another bar, call it Endurance or something.

Khivas_Carrick

Nah, leave Stamina as it is, just make the uses of these vastly cheaper, especially dodging and blocking. Like I could see the first dodge being free, second within 4 seconds X Stamina, 3rd X.5, etc.

Just up the damage that Stamina Moves do by a rather hefty amount to counter act the fact that it's being used for quintuple effects whereas Magicka is used for Damage Shields, Attacking, and healing, a mere triple by comparison. Tweak the numbers, easiest fix possible.

I will say ZoS is doing it right with taking their time to ensure everything is ok, what they're not doing right is not fixing what we're pointing out but instead "fixing" things that are totally ok. I really want to know who's calling the shots up there.

Catches_the_Sun

Comparing 2 skills from different skill lines without comparing the entire skill lines will get you in trouble. That being said, in this case, there is absolutely no question that stamina builds are a joke compared to magicka builds. If class skills were stamina based, or a mix of magicka/stamina, or if there were Ultimate choices that scaled damage based on stamina (maybe weapon Ultimates?), or if sprint/dodgeroll/etc used something else, maybe it would be different. Right now, Zenimax has it wrong.

Khivas_Carrick

I'm aware that comparing two skills from different lines with doing both of the skill lines in their entirety is a bad thing.

However these two things stand out so strongly that you actually don't need to do that, and if you look closely upon Destro Passives and their spells and Bow and 2H passives and their active skills, you'll notice very quickly which order from best to worst they go.

zgrssd

Yes, mana skills are more powerfull lategame or PvP then Stamina skills. That is no news, as you yourself pointed out.

They are currently nerving mana skills to bring them more in line with the Stam Skill. Once that is done and a acceptable amount of PvP balance is archeived, they will adjust the PvE mobs properly work against this common level.

At least that is what I see them doing there.

Szx

a melee dps ahs to do more dmg than ranged dps simple..
ZOs said it before releas and failed so hard with melee weapon skill trees.
thats all melle needs to do more dmg than ranged otherwise there is no way to get any balance into this game at least in pvp

captain_awesome

Staves have too much utility. They do AOE damage, they also can add AOE dots and AOE CC all with one keypress. Can you do this with melee weapons? Bow?

It's very poor balance, staves are a huge force multiplier and they need some fundamental changes made to them. They should not have all that utility. It should be CC or Damage or dot. It should not be cc+damage+dot.

The entire combat system needs a rework. It's completely messed up, it's illogical and frustrating.

Fix please. 4 days left to my sub.

darkopale

My NB with a staff do more damages than with dagger and sword with a stealth backstab attack and can do ranged attack.

So just play EVERY CLASS in the game with a staff, you ll be awesome

Welcome to "The Elder STAFF Online"

stungateb14_ESO

Not only that but the differences between a full health buffed tank only has approximately 500 more hit points than a full magicka buffed light armor dps'er.

edit" Oh and heavy armor isn't mitigating anymore damage than medium/light armor.

Khivas_Carrick

captain_awesome wrote: »

Staves have too much utility. They do AOE damage, they also can add AOE dots and AOE CC all with one keypress. Can you do this with melee weapons? Bow?

It's very poor balance, staves are a huge force multiplier and they need some fundamental changes made to them. They should not have all that utility. It should be CC or Damage or dot. It should not be cc+damage+dot.

The entire combat system needs a rework. It's completely messed up, it's illogical and frustrating.

Fix please. 4 days left to my sub.

Ehh, not quite. The combat system here is grand and well made imho, it's just the weapon system got tossed asunder a bit is all.

A weapon can be a jack of all trades as long as it's a master of none, and I'd be completely ok with Destro Staffs having a ranged instant cast knockback, AoE, AoE DoTs, and CC if they didn't hit so damn hard.

Likewise if Melee Weapons got an upgrade to their overall damage and in turn their passives got scaled far better than what they are now.