[Weapon Ultimates | Destruction Staff] An in-depth Suggestion

Sublime

Destruction Staff

Passives:

• Tri-Focus: Heavy attacks get a bonus effect based on the staff used.
  • Fire: Spell Crit
  • Frost: Snare
  • Lightning: Splash damage
• Penetrating Magic: Destruction Staff skills ignore 10% spell resistance
• Elemental Force: Increased chance to apply elemental status effects
• Ancient Knowledge: Heavy Attacks charge faster
• Destruction Expert: Killing a target with a Destruction Staff skill restores Magicka

While those passives do not tell a lot about the characteristics of the weapon, because they all boost the skill-tree itself, it can still be guessed, from the name and the Penetrating Magic/Destruction Expert passives, that this weapon is all about dealing damage using the might of the elements.

There is however this awesome choice between the three types of staffs, each offering a slightly different playstyle. And this is where the passives come in really handy, so let's see what they reveal about the Destruction Staff:

• Fire Staff: "Heavy Attacks increases Spell Critical by 10%", this passive basically shows that the Fire version is the damage type, especially after considering the 40% additional damage to vampires and the flame damage bonus from the Dunmer.
• Frost Staff: "Heavy Attacks snare the target for 40%", while snare is only a soft version of crowdcontrol, the Frost Staff is certainly the go-to weapon for supportive DPS', especially when taking a look at skills like Elemental Blokade or Pulsar. Destructive Clench (Fire version of the first skill) might add some doubt to this , but I'd rather consider it a defensive ability to get rid of a threat as a squishy, than calling the Fire staff a CC-heavy option, especially when considering that it's really hard to follow up on it, which makes it really unsuited as a supportive skill.
• Lightning Staff: "Deals X splash damage to up to 2 nearby targets", here it can already be read in the tooltip, the Lightning Staff is the weapon for AOE damage focused players.

I really liked the options to choose from three different types of the same weapon to costumize ones gameplay, so I really wanted to build up on it, which resulted in three different skills, each building up on the the respective playstyle with an ability built around its core characteristics.

To make it easier to distinguish I gave each skill a different name:

Fire Staff:

Tooltip:

Fiery Core

Channels all sourrounding energy into the target's body, heating it up and melting all of the wearers armor, directing the poisonous metal into the corpse, causing it to take serious damage from the internal heat and additional damage depending on the amount of transformed armor.

Facts:

• Cost: 300 (75s cooldown with 1.6 ult generation)
• Cast time: 2s
• Range: 38m
• Deals 950 + 〖((target^′ s spell resistance)/100)〗^1.5 fire damage to target (the spell resistance is based on the stats of 1.6)

Comments:
Fiery core is build to counter heavy tank builds with a lot of damage, the initial value is already quite good but it really excells against tanks.The 2s casting time is needed to keep the skill on an even level, it is however not too impactful because of the 38m range, so this is certainly something to keep an eye on.

Pro's and Con's:

• + While this skill does acceptable DPS in normal boss fights, it really helps to take down the enemies frontline tanks
• + It is not reflectable
• + Long range allows for save casting
• - The Long cast time can be really punishing if used badly
• - Really high cost for a single-target ultimate

Frost Staff

Tooltip:

Blizzard

Calls forth the winter's power covering a large area in an icy blizzard snaring all enemies by 15%, reducing their spell resistance by 20% and all elemental resistances by 60%. While inside the area all enemies have their vision blurred due to the natural circumstances.

Facts:

• Cost: 75/second channeling
• Cast time: Channel
• Range: 20m
• Area: Elipse with the area of 2 Negates placed after each other
• Blurred vision means that the victims can only see very few things on the screen, it does not CC the character in any way, but denies a lot of information from the player. The effect looks similar as the borders of the following screenshots but over the whole screen.
• 
• The vision blur gets replaced with a disorient against NPC's.
• Allies still have full vision while inside the area.

Comments:
While the skill itself does not deal any damage it, vastly increases the damage done by allies and denies a lot of information from enemies causing them to taking irrational actions. This makes the skill extremely powerfull, to put it back in line, I added the channeling property, which makes the caster really vulnerable. Note that the caster does not gain any CC-immunity while channeling, unlike the Templar Restoring Light ultimate.

The idea of the skills is to creat an opportunity for the team to deal huge amounts of damage, by snaring enemies in an unfortunate location. The streanght of the skill is that it snares and debuffs all enemies inside.

I considered denying the vision to allies as well, but it seemed to be a too high nerf, because the only remaining difference would be the resistance reductions. Additionally you don't want to deny vision to your allies, so it probably wouldn't be used at all.

Pro's and Con's

• + Strong boost to a group's overall DPS in AOE fights
• + Large AOE slow + debuff is basically a built in synergy
• + The vision blur can deny a lot of Information from an enemy
• - Very high cost
• - The caster is very vulnerable during the channel, because of the missing CC-immunity

Lightning Staff:

Tooltip:

Lightning's Relevation

Gathers dark clouds in the sky, throwing a powerfull lightning on the target, which gets passed on to all nearby standing enemies. The lightning continues to be passed on until each target got affected once and no more new targets can be found.

Facts:

• Cost: 250 (62.5 with 1.6 ult generation)
• Cast time: Instant
• Range: 38m
• Deals 700 damage per target
• The skill is basically an AOE so it gets affected by the AOE caps
• Lightning's Relevation can connect targets that are up to 3m away from each other

Comments:
Lightning's Relevation does not deal a lot of damage, it is however really easy to land, due to its target aquiring mechanism. It still requires intelligent use to maximise ist utility though. Additionally it is really hard to counterplay, since all players involved have to be fully aware of their surrounding territory.

Pro's and Con's

• + Very strong instant AOE damage
• + Very large potential AOE
• + Long range
• - Very dependent on skillful use, i.e. close to ineffective if used badly

Overall Comments:
While only two out of the three skills deal damage, each of them increases the overall destructive power of a group in a way that fits their respective weapon type. Additionally they all offer a new kind of skill, which invites players to reinvent their role, or come up with completely new playstyles.