The Changes to Lingering Torment Are Standardized for the Sake of Standardizing

thesarahandcompany · May 7

I was excited to see a selection of DoTs that ticked every 1s, because DoTs that tick fast provide unique opportunities to play builds in PVP that center around DoTs, paired with sets like Dragon's Appetite and Draugrkin's Grip.

However, the recent changes making them 20s+ long (the lingering torment script) have basically made them like any other DoT in the game. So I don't really know what they are adding new. Like, I would think it would just be better to make lingering torment add a modifier buff to existing DoT abilities, similar to sets like draugrkin or DA. Cause right now they just make kinda zero sense, and don't even interact with certain sets (e.g., the 20s bleed dot from torchbearer doesn't interact as bleed damage with sets that require bleed damage to proc the set; like Dragon's Appetite).

Seraphayel · May 7

Obviously they make no sense because it’s all the same. Standardization killed individualism. DoTs are basically the most boring part of this game because each and every DoT is just another carbon copy of another one.

thesarahandcompany · May 7

Seraphayel wrote: »

Obviously they make no sense because it’s all the same. Standardization killed individualism. DoTs are basically the most boring part of this game because each and every DoT is just another carbon copy of another one.

Agreed. Nothing interacts really with DoTs well to make them entertaining to run. You basically mindlessly place them and they just tick. Basically, with all the new skills we get 1) A pull without needing agony/DC; 2) Easier access to minor evasion/mangle; 3) Access to shock, frost, flame, magical, physical, and bleed damage without having to run a specific weapon/classs at the expense of taking a worse version of an existing spell.

I don't see why we needed an entire $60 chapter, or whatever the price is, and a long series of quests and farming, to obtain things that could have been easily done with just a slight rework of the soul magic skill line. It feels like the chapter was basically geared toward making soul gems useful and that's it.

Like there's so many routes we could have gone with lingering torment as an example:

1. Apply a mark where the next X DoT ticks on the target deal Y damage additionally.

2. Extend the duration of [Flame, Frost, Lightning, Disease, Poison] DoTs by X seconds.

3. Apply a mark where DoTs have an X% increased chance to apply status effects. If a DoT ability applies a status effect , increase the chance to apply status effects by an additional Y%, stacking up to Z times per enemy. Stacks can only be acquired once every 0.5s per target.

4. Apply a mark where every time an enemy takes damage form a [Flame, Frost, Lightning, Disease, Poison] damage over time effect, the enemy gains a stack. Stacks can only apply once per 0.5 seconds. At 20 stacks, a soul gem and the mark is consumed and detonates equal to X% of damage remaining on the duration of applied [Flame, Frost, Lightning, Disease, Poison] damage over time effects.

MashmalloMan · May 7

They basically killed the ST dots for me. I can understand 20s dots ticking on 2s due to the length of them, however silly for them to be on aoe skills in the first place... but 10s dots make no sense on 2s for ST skills.

Shield throw and Wield Soul are in such an awkward place now.

Feels like they got the dynamic reversed. ST should be more potent than AOE, why is it easier to share buffs/debuffs with multi targets, when it should be harder? IMO it should look like this:

ST = 10s dot + 20s affix
AOE = 5s dot + 10s affix

Before someone says it, I fully support the idea of a 20s dot being possible like Degeneration, however nothing in the current scribing system supports a 100% dot. It would be interesting if you could pick a dot focus that when combined with Lingering Torment signature created a 20s dot. As spammables, the dot portion being 10s on the signature currently makes sense to keep the skill within the power budget.

Also, why does the multi target version of Shield Throw cost 3780, as if to imply it's in the same category as aoe skills... yet only the 3rd hit is the same value as other aoe skills AND hits a maximum of 3 enemies?

Example:

(3780 cost before -15%) Multi Target Shield Throw = 1012 + 1348 + 1687 (assuming it's 5m radius)
(3780 cost before -15%) Physical Soul Burst = 1687 (8m radius)

MashmalloMan · May 7

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

Agreed. Nothing interacts really with DoTs well to make them entertaining to run. You basically mindlessly place them and they just tick. Basically, with all the new skills we get 1) A pull without needing agony/DC; 2) Easier access to minor evasion/mangle; 3) Access to shock, frost, flame, magical, physical, and bleed damage without having to run a specific weapon/classs at the expense of taking a worse version of an existing spell.

I don't see why we needed an entire $60 chapter, or whatever the price is, and a long series of quests and farming, to obtain things that could have been easily done with just a slight rework of the soul magic skill line. It feels like the chapter was basically geared toward making soul gems useful and that's it.

I can't say I entirely agree with this, this is probably the most excited I've been for a chapter in a long time. Throughout the past 10 years, the only general combat expansion was Psijic Order, some reworks to vampirism/werewolf, and adding some weapon ultimate's. This has been a long time coming and I was happy to pay for it, even if it leaves a lot to be desired and some of their decisions were questionable.

Scribing may not be useful for everyone at first, but unfortunately you have to remember as with any chapter of the past 3-4 years... this is just an introduction to the system they plan to support for years to come.

I'm almost more excited for the prospect of the future than what it actually is today. It sucks, but it's the truth. Look at companions, mythics, TOT, and Infinite Archive. They all started out basic, we don't know what Scribing will look like in 2-3 years.

You're totally right about Soul Magic though (this extends to Assault, Support, and Undaunted). They decided to add 2 new grimoires to it, yet they kept the passives exactly the same as launch? Soul Burst is just a worse version of Contingency, yet they're practically the same ability in almost every way. They didn't even try to distinguish how the same focuses/signatures work between them.

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

Like there's so many routes we could have gone with lingering torment as an example:

1. Apply a mark where the next X DoT ticks on the target deal Y damage additionally.

2. Extend the duration of [Flame, Frost, Lightning, Disease, Poison] DoTs by X seconds.

3. Apply a mark where DoTs have an X% increased chance to apply status effects. If a DoT ability applies a status effect , increase the chance to apply status effects by an additional Y%, stacking up to Z times per enemy. Stacks can only be acquired once every 0.5s per target.

4. Apply a mark where every time an enemy takes damage form a [Flame, Frost, Lightning, Disease, Poison] damage over time effect, the enemy gains a stack. Stacks can only apply once per 0.5 seconds. At 20 stacks, a soul gem and the mark is consumed and detonates equal to X% of damage remaining on the duration of applied [Flame, Frost, Lightning, Disease, Poison] damage over time effects.

I would have loved to see some more dynamic systems within like the examples you mentioned. Sure... Lingering Torment may be designated damage over time, but that could have come in different variations based on the Grimoire it's attached to. Specifically when looking at Soul Burst vs Contingency.. Like come on, keep one at 5s, the other at 20s. There. Options.

thesarahandcompany · May 7

I hear you. I was super excited to see the scribing patch. Definitely peaked my interest to get back in the game (I have about 12,000 hours in game but haven't played in about a year because I was disappointed with the game's direction).

I was excited last week, but this patch that came out this week, I think is a huge step in the wrong direction. Doesn't look like there's as much potential and was just signaling to me that they are going in a direction I think they needed to go in.

Urvoth · May 8

A lot of the skills just look extremely weak at least offensively now. Besides filling in a gap with a certain buff, I don't see much reason to slot most of these. They really don't provide any new alternative damage or playstyle options. At least short duration, high damage dots would've provided a new playstyle option.

MashmalloMan · May 8

Urvoth wrote: »

A lot of the skills just look extremely weak at least offensively now. Besides filling in a gap with a certain buff, I don't see much reason to slot most of these. They really don't provide any new alternative damage or playstyle options. At least short duration, high damage dots would've provided a new playstyle option.

Yeah, but we need to consider all Grimoires have forced Affixes for minor/major buffs/debuffs. They're effectively all utility skills no matter how you build them, so the damage on them is technically within "budget". This is why PVE DPS are seeing little reason to engage with scribing, while PVE Support and PVP of any role are seeing a lot of potential here.

This is why I suggested in their feedback section that there should be an affix meant for PVE DPS which basically sacrifices the typical named buff/debuff for a straight up bonus to the potency on the focus and signatures selected.

Of course, if you picked shield, healing, pull, etc, they would also have improved effects, but the main objective would be offering PVE DPS something for when they're getting buffs/debuffs from the supports. It wouldn't fix the fact that some of these script choices are boring, but at least the abilities would be competitive.

Eg. A new Improved Potency Affix:

For damage focuses/signatures, gives +10% damage done.
For shield focuses/signatures, gives +10% shield strength.
For heal focuses/signatures, gives +10% healing done.
For sustain focuses/signatures, gives 10% resources returned.
For utility focuses/signatures (pulls, stuns, snares, knockbacks, and immobilize), gives -10% cost.

This change, coupled with adding the missing +3.3% - 6.6% damage you get from ranking skills to IV normally would be enough to pass that breaking point these are currently below IMO.

inf.toniceb17_ESO · May 8

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Yeah, but we need to consider all Grimoires have forced Affixes for minor/major buffs/debuffs. They're effectively all utility skills no matter how you build them, so the damage on them is technically within "budget"

Thing is we have plenty of dots that do better damage and also provide major, minor or even unique buffs and/or synergies. Caltrops, Energy Orb, Twisting path, Graveyard to name a few. I don't see any reason why scribing skills should be weaker just because they have some buff. Especially considering that most buffs provided by affixes are in abundance as it is.

xylena_lazarow · May 8

Even as a dot enjoyer I'm pretty happy to see this gutted, full base 28m range attacks in PvP need to be more carefully controlled as it is, and powerful ranged dots just exacerbate the complaints of fire-and-forget gameplay. That said, some MELEE sticky dots that tick every 1sec would've been welcome.

Seraphayel · May 8

inf.toniceb17_ESO wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Yeah, but we need to consider all Grimoires have forced Affixes for minor/major buffs/debuffs. They're effectively all utility skills no matter how you build them, so the damage on them is technically within "budget"

Thing is we have plenty of dots that do better damage and also provide major, minor or even unique buffs and/or synergies. Caltrops, Energy Orb, Twisting path, Graveyard to name a few. I don't see any reason why scribing skills should be weaker just because they have some buff. Especially considering that most buffs provided by affixes are in abundance as it is.

Honestly I’d rather get rid of the buff altogether and just make the skill itself strong. Some players simply don’t care about buffs and that’s fine.

As mentioned above, there should definitely be an option for a no-buff-script which then increases the potency of the other script by 25% or so.

tsaescishoeshiner · May 8

I wish there were more Focus DoT scripts. I assume the Signature script can't have too big of a DoT because then the skill would do full spammable damage (single-target or AoE) plus a full DoT.

Alternatively, what if the DoT Signature script instead reduced the direct damage by XX% but added a full-strength 20-second DoT? (AoE or single-target, based on the skill)

ESO_Nightingale · May 9

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Urvoth wrote: »

A lot of the skills just look extremely weak at least offensively now. Besides filling in a gap with a certain buff, I don't see much reason to slot most of these. They really don't provide any new alternative damage or playstyle options. At least short duration, high damage dots would've provided a new playstyle option.

Yeah, but we need to consider all Grimoires have forced Affixes for minor/major buffs/debuffs. They're effectively all utility skills no matter how you build them, so the damage on them is technically within "budget". This is why PVE DPS are seeing little reason to engage with scribing, while PVE Support and PVP of any role are seeing a lot of potential here.

This is why I suggested in their feedback section that there should be an affix meant for PVE DPS which basically sacrifices the typical named buff/debuff for a straight up bonus to the potency on the focus and signatures selected.

Of course, if you picked shield, healing, pull, etc, they would also have improved effects, but the main objective would be offering PVE DPS something for when they're getting buffs/debuffs from the supports. It wouldn't fix the fact that some of these script choices are boring, but at least the abilities would be competitive.

Eg. A new Improved Potency Affix:
For damage focuses/signatures, gives +10% damage done.

For shield focuses/signatures, gives +10% shield strength.

For heal focuses/signatures, gives +10% healing done.

For sustain focuses/signatures, gives 10% resources returned.

For utility focuses/signatures (pulls, stuns, snares, knockbacks, and immobilize), gives -10% cost.

This change, coupled with adding the missing +3.3% - 6.6% damage you get from ranking skills to IV normally would be enough to pass that breaking point these are currently below IMO.

I'd add "skill has a 300% increased chance to apply its damage types status effect" option as well.