Skill lines tier list

necro_the_crafter · April 19

After a few days of test and a dozen of duels observations, and trying to rank them based on overall perfomance, list is more PvP biased.

Offensive lines:

1. Assassination (obviously), S++
Best melee spammable, best execute, nice crit chanse passives, best single target cheap ult, and a DOUBLE SPEC BOW! What were you thinking ZoS?

2. Animal Companions, S+
Pros - good delayed burst with Major AND Minor breach, sustain + weapon buff + autopurge, snare removal + expedition + minor berserk, strong crit damage passive.
Cons - Ult is meh, spammable is whatever, dot has a minor vuln but overall meh.

3. Grave Lord, A
Pros - delayed burst with Major and Minor defile, weapon damage and crit chanse buffs in skills, strong passives (pen, execute crit chanse, dot damage)
Cons - slowest projectile on spammable, has a few PvE exclusive skills (Graveyard, and Tether to some extent), Bligtbones are still clunky as hell.

4. Aedric Spear, A
Pros - Block piercing range stun, setups devastating comet+merciless combo. Crit damage passives, more damage to blocking targets, lil damage proc baked in passives.
Cons - useless shield, PvE/Support AoE dot, jabs and ult are meh
comm: seems like next patch meta will rely on blocking alot, so any block-piercers will be of great value

5. Ardent Flame, A
Pros - decent dots, good spammable, good overall pressure, nice passives
Cons - PvE exclusive ult, useless chain

6. Herald of the Tome, C - (C+/A- on frost builds)
Pros - Dread is good on a frost builds, nice weapon buff, good passives (HUGE pen)
Cons - bad outside of frost builds.

Defense/Healing lines:

1. Restoring Light (armor buff with baked in sustain,on demand cleanse, decent passives), S++
Best armor buff with hot and sustain, purge on demand, okay burst heal, strong passives. Has everything you might ever want to cover yours defences.

2. Storm Calling (mobility, more offence oriented passives), A+
Pros - armor + speed, block piercing stun + blink, weapon buff with hot attached, good damage passives, good offensive ult.
Cons - lacks any good healing/mitigation, have to cover it up with gear and scribing.
comm: overall balanced tradeoff - survivability for mobility.

3. Draconic Power, A+
Pros - good tank+damage hybrid, semi-decent delayed burst, strongest 5s DoT in the game, good burst heal, able to half spec bows damage, big bonk ultimate, big defencive passives.
Cons - ressurect wing reflect!

4. Winters Embrace, A
Pros - Big pressure ultimate, huge health based heal, block piercing delayed stun, nice defencive passives, able to tank specbows with shields, good frost damage passives
Cons - leaning towards nich'iest playstyle of frost builds, gate and shards are kinda meh, CC vs burst heal trade-off.

5. Shadow, A
Pros - passive armor buff, health based hot, hot with major expedition and recovery boost, best kiting tools in the game, block piercing CC, good max health and sustain passives
Cons - Highly skill based, have to actualy know how to kite to utilise this tree to its full potential, worst ultimate in the game, no burst heal.

6. Green Balance (nice heals, a few essential buffs, minor toughness), B+
Pros - minor toughness, cheap burst healing ult, crit chanse buff with hot, nice sustain and healing passives.
Cons - no armor buff, most skills are leaning towards group healing, so lacks strong single target heals.

7. Earthen Heart, B
Pros - one of the best block piercing stuns, AoE HoT with a huge snare attached, longest weapon buff, minor brutality, battle roar and helping hands are decent for sustain.
Cons - no armor buff, wapon buff does nothing outside of buffing damage, poop throw is bad, frag shield is bad, no burst heal.

8. Living Death (No armor buff, Ghost is big for mitigation, tether is nice 2in1 hot + sustain and thats pretty much it), B-
Pros - 2 purges, one of wich is AoE, strong single target heal, ghost is big mitigation buff, tether is good HoT + sustain, good healing passives
Cons - no armor buff.

9. Curative Runeforms (bunch of heals and shields and thats pretty much it, nothing outstanding), C-
Pros - Heal with minor heroism attached, passive shield strengh bonus, nice sustain passives.
Cons - no armor buff, most of skill are focused on group healing

10. Solider of Apocrypha, D
Pros - armor buff with minor breach attached, nice health based heals/shields, has a CC
Cons - tricky to utuilise without proper crux generators, functions best on arcanist with scribed crux generator or in tandem with other arcs skillines (wich is possible only on arc)

11. Bone Tyrant, D
Pros - minor and major resolve on 1 skill, best ult generator (deaden pain + corpse consumption)
Cons - sythe is bad, totem is bad, gravegrasp is terrible. Cant function without proper corpse generation, armor will p[rovede you with corpse every 10 sec, wich is not enough to make a good use of deaden pain. Necros unique skilline as it requiers at least 1 more necro skilline to gen enough corpses.

Whatever lines

1. Siphoning, succ-tier
Pros - Good AoE burst ult, nice burst heal, good AoE spammable with brut./sorc. and minor courage, best sustain skill in the game, arguably, good ult gen/healing passives.
Cons - Skills are all over the place, below average spammable, below avarage DoT, no clear skillline function - jack of all trades, master of none.

2. Daedric Summoning, P+
Pros - Curse and armaments are still good pressure, shields are still huge on max mag builds.
Cons - Leaning towards niche pet gamplay

3. Dark Magic, D+
Pros - Crystal frags
Cons - Everything else, not a single outstanding skill outside of frags to choose this skill line.

7. Dawns Wrath, D
Pros - Minor sorcery, bubble
Cons - All of offensive spells are meh at best, jesus beam nerf was unjustified.

Conclusion:

I want ZoS to look and rethink class unique resourse, as Bone Tyrant and Solider of Apocrypha are bad for multiclassing, since you cant generate enough corpse/crux to use this lines effectivly.

Before any nerfs, I suggest tuning up Whatever lines, as theese would clearly fall off of the game until future adjustments, wich goes against the premice that multiclassing is going to increase build diversity, since this lines wouldnt be run even on classes that they belong to.

Also for the future updates, im curious if will ever see true subclassing, that for example would allow us to sacrifice a skill from a line to enchance other skills, like sacrificing skulls from a grave lord to be able to summon 2-3 skeletal archers/mages at a time. Or sacrifice skeletal summon to be able to tether to living, and make skulls require 2 stacks (down from 3) for max effectivness, something like that.

Zyaneth_Bal · April 19

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

After a few days of test and a dozen of duels observations, and trying to rank them based on overall perfomance, list is more PvP biased.

Offensive lines:

1. Assassination (obviously), S++
Best melee spammable, best execute, nice crit chanse passives, best single target cheap ult, and a DOUBLE SPEC BOW! What were you thinking ZoS?

2. Animal Companions, S+
Pros - good delayed burst with Major AND Minor breach, sustain + weapon buff + autopurge, snare removal + expedition + minor berserk, strong crit damage passive.
Cons - Ult is meh, spammable is whatever, dot has a minor vuln but overall meh.

3. Grave Lord, A
Pros - delayed burst with Major and Minor defile, weapon damage and crit chanse buffs in skills, strong passives (pen, execute crit chanse, dot damage)
Cons - slowest projectile on spammable, has a few PvE exclusive skills (Graveyard, and Tether to some extent), Bligtbones are still clunky as hell.

4. Aedric Spear, A
Pros - Block piercing range stun, setups devastating comet+merciless combo. Crit damage passives, more damage to blocking targets, lil damage proc baked in passives.
Cons - useless shield, PvE/Support AoE dot, jabs and ult are meh
comm: seems like next patch meta will rely on blocking alot, so any block-piercers will be of great value

5. Ardent Flame, A
Pros - decent dots, good spammable, good overall pressure, nice passives
Cons - PvE exclusive ult, useless chain

6. Herald of the Tome, C - (C+/A- on frost builds)
Pros - Dread is good on a frost builds, nice weapon buff, good passives (HUGE pen)
Cons - bad outside of frost builds.

Defense/Healing lines:

1. Restoring Light (armor buff with baked in sustain,on demand cleanse, decent passives), S++
Best armor buff with hot and sustain, purge on demand, okay burst heal, strong passives. Has everything you might ever want to cover yours defences.

2. Storm Calling (mobility, more offence oriented passives), A+
Pros - armor + speed, block piercing stun + blink, weapon buff with hot attached, good damage passives, good offensive ult.
Cons - lacks any good healing/mitigation, have to cover it up with gear and scribing.
comm: overall balanced tradeoff - survivability for mobility.

3. Draconic Power, A+
Pros - good tank+damage hybrid, semi-decent delayed burst, strongest 5s DoT in the game, good burst heal, able to half spec bows damage, big bonk ultimate, big defencive passives.
Cons - ressurect wing reflect!

4. Winters Embrace, A
Pros - Big pressure ultimate, huge health based heal, block piercing delayed stun, nice defencive passives, able to tank specbows with shields, good frost damage passives
Cons - leaning towards nich'iest playstyle of frost builds, gate and shards are kinda meh, CC vs burst heal trade-off.

5. Shadow, A
Pros - passive armor buff, health based hot, hot with major expedition and recovery boost, best kiting tools in the game, block piercing CC, good max health and sustain passives
Cons - Highly skill based, have to actualy know how to kite to utilise this tree to its full potential, worst ultimate in the game, no burst heal.

6. Green Balance (nice heals, a few essential buffs, minor toughness), B+
Pros - minor toughness, cheap burst healing ult, crit chanse buff with hot, nice sustain and healing passives.
Cons - no armor buff, most skills are leaning towards group healing, so lacks strong single target heals.

7. Earthen Heart, B
Pros - one of the best block piercing stuns, AoE HoT with a huge snare attached, longest weapon buff, minor brutality, battle roar and helping hands are decent for sustain.
Cons - no armor buff, wapon buff does nothing outside of buffing damage, poop throw is bad, frag shield is bad, no burst heal.

8. Living Death (No armor buff, Ghost is big for mitigation, tether is nice 2in1 hot + sustain and thats pretty much it), B-
Pros - 2 purges, one of wich is AoE, strong single target heal, ghost is big mitigation buff, tether is good HoT + sustain, good healing passives
Cons - no armor buff.

9. Curative Runeforms (bunch of heals and shields and thats pretty much it, nothing outstanding), C-
Pros - Heal with minor heroism attached, passive shield strengh bonus, nice sustain passives.
Cons - no armor buff, most of skill are focused on group healing

10. Solider of Apocrypha, D
Pros - armor buff with minor breach attached, nice health based heals/shields, has a CC
Cons - tricky to utuilise without proper crux generators, functions best on arcanist with scribed crux generator or in tandem with other arcs skillines (wich is possible only on arc)

11. Bone Tyrant, D
Pros - minor and major resolve on 1 skill, best ult generator (deaden pain + corpse consumption)
Cons - sythe is bad, totem is bad, gravegrasp is terrible. Cant function without proper corpse generation, armor will p[rovede you with corpse every 10 sec, wich is not enough to make a good use of deaden pain. Necros unique skilline as it requiers at least 1 more necro skilline to gen enough corpses.

Whatever lines

1. Siphoning, succ-tier
Pros - Good AoE burst ult, nice burst heal, good AoE spammable with brut./sorc. and minor courage, best sustain skill in the game, arguably, good ult gen/healing passives.
Cons - Skills are all over the place, below average spammable, below avarage DoT, no clear skillline function - jack of all trades, master of none.

2. Daedric Summoning, P+
Pros - Curse and armaments are still good pressure, shields are still huge on max mag builds.
Cons - Leaning towards niche pet gamplay

3. Dark Magic, D+
Pros - Crystal frags
Cons - Everything else, not a single outstanding skill outside of frags to choose this skill line.

7. Dawns Wrath, D
Pros - Minor sorcery, bubble
Cons - All of offensive spells are meh at best, jesus beam nerf was unjustified.

Conclusion:

I want ZoS to look and rethink class unique resourse, as Bone Tyrant and Solider of Apocrypha are bad for multiclassing, since you cant generate enough corpse/crux to use this lines effectivly.

Before any nerfs, I suggest tuning up Whatever lines, as theese would clearly fall off of the game until future adjustments, wich goes against the premice that multiclassing is going to increase build diversity, since this lines wouldnt be run even on classes that they belong to.

Also for the future updates, im curious if will ever see true subclassing, that for example would allow us to sacrifice a skill from a line to enchance other skills, like sacrificing skulls from a grave lord to be able to summon 2-3 skeletal archers/mages at a time. Or sacrifice skeletal summon to be able to tether to living, and make skulls require 2 stacks (down from 3) for max effectivness, something like that.

Haven’t read everything yet but bow isn’t considered a projectile and thus ignores warden shield and dk wings both in melee and at range

necro_the_crafter · April 19

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

Haven’t read everything yet but bow isn’t considered a projectile and thus ignores warden shield and dk wings both in melee and at range

My bad. But it can be reflected by defensive stance and spell wall right? ...right?

acastanza_ESO · April 19

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

Haven’t read everything yet but bow isn’t considered a projectile and thus ignores warden shield and dk wings both in melee and at range

That's actually insane. Like, that has to be a bug. It's clearly and obviously a projectile.

Zyaneth_Bal · April 19

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

Haven’t read everything yet but bow isn’t considered a projectile and thus ignores warden shield and dk wings both in melee and at range

That's actually insane. Like, that has to be a bug. It's clearly and obviously a projectile.

That’s from pts. I don’t remember how it is categorized on live tbh but I have a feeling it’s the same. I’ll test and post again.

Estin · April 19

I wouldn't sleep on Siphoning if you're natively a nightblade. Soulcleaver is a great double bar set and makes fully ranged magblade more than viable.

Zyaneth_Bal · April 19

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

Haven’t read everything yet but bow isn’t considered a projectile and thus ignores warden shield and dk wings both in melee and at range

My bad. But it can be reflected by defensive stance and spell wall right? ...right?

Tried it on live too. Spectral bow isn’t considered a projectile on live and it hasn’t been changed on pts. So any interactions with projectiles don’t apply to it, including defensive stance and spell wall.

necro_the_crafter · April 19

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

Tried it on live too. Spectral bow isn’t considered a projectile on live and it hasn’t been changed on pts. So any interactions with projectiles don’t apply to it, including defensive stance and spell wall.

Thats bad. I clearly remeber how I was getting my specbows back during last mayhem... tested it myself on pts and yeah, it ignores spell wall, stance and simmering shield.

necro_the_crafter · April 19

Estin wrote: »

I wouldn't sleep on Siphoning if you're natively a nightblade. Soulcleaver is a great double bar set and makes fully ranged magblade more than viable.

Yeah thats true, my tierlist is based on how appealing lines are for subclassing. And siphoning doesnt offer anything in particular, except for maybe a PvP bomb setup. Restoring Light offers better heals and Assasssination is far better for damage. So its just outclassed

danko355 · April 19

I would consider Siphoning as A/S tier for defense, especially if playing solo. It has a great ult that could be used offensively and defensively, healthy offering is a good burst heal, power extraction is overloaded - major brutality, minor courage, minor cowardice, AOE, can’t be roll-dodged - great finisher after incap+bow combo, and is decent for pulling nightblades out of stealth. Ult-regeneration passives are fine for quick ulti regen, which pairs good with Balorgh. And I consider Siphoning attacks one of the best skills in game, it’s just so versatile and single-handedly gives you the sustain you need, where other classes need to spend their jewelry enchants or even sets to get to the same level.

Xarc · April 19

When I read all this, I think that the PvP we knew is going to be completely destroyed. I don't know if that's a good thing, but in any case, it's happening.

Red_Feather · April 20

Assassination also has access to the ult gain from trash mobs in dungeons if you want to slot that ult.

necro_the_crafter · April 20

danko355 wrote: »

I would consider Siphoning as A/S tier for defense, especially if playing solo. It has a great ult that could be used offensively and defensively, healthy offering is a good burst heal, power extraction is overloaded - major brutality, minor courage, minor cowardice, AOE, can’t be roll-dodged - great finisher after incap+bow combo, and is decent for pulling nightblades out of stealth. Ult-regeneration passives are fine for quick ulti regen, which pairs good with Balorgh. And I consider Siphoning attacks one of the best skills in game, it’s just so versatile and single-handedly gives you the sustain you need, where other classes need to spend their jewelry enchants or even sets to get to the same level.

Yea, run it today with gravelord and restoring light on native necro. Quite effective, while being kinda in theme of shadow priest. Also synergizes well with restoring light giving you pretty much infinite sustain, i run like 1000 hybrid recoveries before buffs and never run out of resourses during duels, while on live on necro i need at least 1.7k mag recovery before buffs to sustain.

Also, after further testing, Living Death is in C-/D, as on its own Spirit Guardian is super expensive and heavy on sustain if its not supported by summoners armor or reusable parts.

I would also put Earthen Heart a bit higher, just because corrosion double specbows is a thing now...

Urzigurumash · April 20

Corrosive should've always been Melee Range only. Before Hybridization when it was only for StamDK, there were no viable ranged damage skills for a StamDK besides Flames of Oblivion.

Nice write up, all your assessments seem quite sound to me. I agree Bone Tyrant and Soldier of Apoc are dependent on a second class line for corpes, crux, and also running Impervious without the Shield buff passive in Curative Runeforms doesn't feel too great - but they might be the best choice if you are running a second class line?

necro_the_crafter · April 21

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Corrosive should've always been Melee Range only. Before Hybridization when it was only for StamDK, there were no viable ranged damage skills for a StamDK besides Flames of Oblivion.

Nice write up, all your assessments seem quite sound to me. I agree Bone Tyrant and Soldier of Apoc are dependent on a second class line for corpes, crux, and also running Impervious without the Shield buff passive in Curative Runeforms doesn't feel too great - but they might be the best choice if you are running a second class line?

Yeah, herald of the tome, winters embrace and solider of apoc is a well rounded tanky frost themed combo. You got acssess to dealyed health based strong heal (runeguard of still waters), burst health based heal (polar wind), so you dont need to use ward, you have crux gen and minor breach on armor buff, chilling soul with class script to gen more crux, tentacular dread that you can now waist your crux on since you arent relying on it for survivabilty, 18% bonus damage from northen storm, 11% damage bonus from dread, 10% frost damage on passive, 2000 flat bonus on chilling contigency, overall makes for quite well rounded tanky cryomancer, with decent potantial for burst. Sets like frostbite also buff all of your damage, winters embrace + herald passives to buff chilled procs. 2 AoE roots and undodgable charm. also a bunch of free bonus armor on passives just for sloting/using your skills. Yea, you absolutly can c:

MurkyWetWolf198 · April 21

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

After a few days of test and a dozen of duels observations, and trying to rank them based on overall perfomance, list is more PvP biased.

Offensive lines:

1. Assassination (obviously), S++
Best melee spammable, best execute, nice crit chanse passives, best single target cheap ult, and a DOUBLE SPEC BOW! What were you thinking ZoS?

2. Animal Companions, S+
Pros - good delayed burst with Major AND Minor breach, sustain + weapon buff + autopurge, snare removal + expedition + minor berserk, strong crit damage passive.
Cons - Ult is meh, spammable is whatever, dot has a minor vuln but overall meh.

3. Grave Lord, A
Pros - delayed burst with Major and Minor defile, weapon damage and crit chanse buffs in skills, strong passives (pen, execute crit chanse, dot damage)
Cons - slowest projectile on spammable, has a few PvE exclusive skills (Graveyard, and Tether to some extent), Bligtbones are still clunky as hell.

4. Aedric Spear, A
Pros - Block piercing range stun, setups devastating comet+merciless combo. Crit damage passives, more damage to blocking targets, lil damage proc baked in passives.
Cons - useless shield, PvE/Support AoE dot, jabs and ult are meh
comm: seems like next patch meta will rely on blocking alot, so any block-piercers will be of great value

5. Ardent Flame, A
Pros - decent dots, good spammable, good overall pressure, nice passives
Cons - PvE exclusive ult, useless chain

6. Herald of the Tome, C - (C+/A- on frost builds)
Pros - Dread is good on a frost builds, nice weapon buff, good passives (HUGE pen)
Cons - bad outside of frost builds.

Defense/Healing lines:

1. Restoring Light (armor buff with baked in sustain,on demand cleanse, decent passives), S++
Best armor buff with hot and sustain, purge on demand, okay burst heal, strong passives. Has everything you might ever want to cover yours defences.

2. Storm Calling (mobility, more offence oriented passives), A+
Pros - armor + speed, block piercing stun + blink, weapon buff with hot attached, good damage passives, good offensive ult.
Cons - lacks any good healing/mitigation, have to cover it up with gear and scribing.
comm: overall balanced tradeoff - survivability for mobility.

3. Draconic Power, A+
Pros - good tank+damage hybrid, semi-decent delayed burst, strongest 5s DoT in the game, good burst heal, able to half spec bows damage, big bonk ultimate, big defencive passives.
Cons - ressurect wing reflect!

4. Winters Embrace, A
Pros - Big pressure ultimate, huge health based heal, block piercing delayed stun, nice defencive passives, able to tank specbows with shields, good frost damage passives
Cons - leaning towards nich'iest playstyle of frost builds, gate and shards are kinda meh, CC vs burst heal trade-off.

5. Shadow, A
Pros - passive armor buff, health based hot, hot with major expedition and recovery boost, best kiting tools in the game, block piercing CC, good max health and sustain passives
Cons - Highly skill based, have to actualy know how to kite to utilise this tree to its full potential, worst ultimate in the game, no burst heal.

6. Green Balance (nice heals, a few essential buffs, minor toughness), B+
Pros - minor toughness, cheap burst healing ult, crit chanse buff with hot, nice sustain and healing passives.
Cons - no armor buff, most skills are leaning towards group healing, so lacks strong single target heals.

7. Earthen Heart, B
Pros - one of the best block piercing stuns, AoE HoT with a huge snare attached, longest weapon buff, minor brutality, battle roar and helping hands are decent for sustain.
Cons - no armor buff, wapon buff does nothing outside of buffing damage, poop throw is bad, frag shield is bad, no burst heal.

8. Living Death (No armor buff, Ghost is big for mitigation, tether is nice 2in1 hot + sustain and thats pretty much it), B-
Pros - 2 purges, one of wich is AoE, strong single target heal, ghost is big mitigation buff, tether is good HoT + sustain, good healing passives
Cons - no armor buff.

9. Curative Runeforms (bunch of heals and shields and thats pretty much it, nothing outstanding), C-
Pros - Heal with minor heroism attached, passive shield strengh bonus, nice sustain passives.
Cons - no armor buff, most of skill are focused on group healing

10. Solider of Apocrypha, D
Pros - armor buff with minor breach attached, nice health based heals/shields, has a CC
Cons - tricky to utuilise without proper crux generators, functions best on arcanist with scribed crux generator or in tandem with other arcs skillines (wich is possible only on arc)

11. Bone Tyrant, D
Pros - minor and major resolve on 1 skill, best ult generator (deaden pain + corpse consumption)
Cons - sythe is bad, totem is bad, gravegrasp is terrible. Cant function without proper corpse generation, armor will p[rovede you with corpse every 10 sec, wich is not enough to make a good use of deaden pain. Necros unique skilline as it requiers at least 1 more necro skilline to gen enough corpses.

Whatever lines

1. Siphoning, succ-tier
Pros - Good AoE burst ult, nice burst heal, good AoE spammable with brut./sorc. and minor courage, best sustain skill in the game, arguably, good ult gen/healing passives.
Cons - Skills are all over the place, below average spammable, below avarage DoT, no clear skillline function - jack of all trades, master of none.

2. Daedric Summoning, P+
Pros - Curse and armaments are still good pressure, shields are still huge on max mag builds.
Cons - Leaning towards niche pet gamplay

3. Dark Magic, D+
Pros - Crystal frags
Cons - Everything else, not a single outstanding skill outside of frags to choose this skill line.

7. Dawns Wrath, D
Pros - Minor sorcery, bubble
Cons - All of offensive spells are meh at best, jesus beam nerf was unjustified.

Conclusion:

I want ZoS to look and rethink class unique resourse, as Bone Tyrant and Solider of Apocrypha are bad for multiclassing, since you cant generate enough corpse/crux to use this lines effectivly.

Before any nerfs, I suggest tuning up Whatever lines, as theese would clearly fall off of the game until future adjustments, wich goes against the premice that multiclassing is going to increase build diversity, since this lines wouldnt be run even on classes that they belong to.

Also for the future updates, im curious if will ever see true subclassing, that for example would allow us to sacrifice a skill from a line to enchance other skills, like sacrificing skulls from a grave lord to be able to summon 2-3 skeletal archers/mages at a time. Or sacrifice skeletal summon to be able to tether to living, and make skulls require 2 stacks (down from 3) for max effectivness, something like that.

I realize now that this is primarily a PvP perspective, but could you specify that in the beginning of your message a little more clearly? I was about to lose my mind when you said Herald of the Tome is a mid skill line at best

Urzigurumash · April 21

They did say it at the beginning of their message. How you think us PvPers react to this thread about Merciless Resolve?

Great idea @necro_the_crafter , do you think thats the best Cryomantic combination of lines? I have an old affinity for playing Frost gankishly, from a time when Glacial Presence and Brittle combined for 20% Crit Damage bonus, so I'm looking at other ideas, but I think your idea better embraces the Tankish CC-heavy Frost theme.

I also think the Mummy could be quite viable, probably my first spec out the door. Gravelord + Bone Tyrant + Animal Companions.

TempestM · April 21

Urzigurumash wrote: »

They did say it at the beginning of their message.

Well saying it's "pvp biased" is an understatement here because OP puts lines in bad tiers for having good stuff in pve. "PVP skill lines tier list" would be accurate title

necro_the_crafter · April 22

TempestM wrote: »

Well saying it's "pvp biased" is an understatement here because OP puts lines in bad tiers for having good stuff in pve. "PVP skill lines tier list" would be accurate title

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

I realize now that this is primarily a PvP perspective, but could you specify that in the beginning of your message a little more clearly? I was about to lose my mind when you said Herald of the Tome is a mid skill line at best

I agree that PvE perspective would be quite different, both offensive and support skillines would have different rankings.

But, I mean, things like Solider af Apocrypha and Bone Tyrant, requiring other respective classes skillines to fuel them, is less appeling options to subclass, and its an PvE issue as well.
As well as Dawn Wrath and Dark Magic being in a state they are also concerns PvE, so, while this tierlist mostly from PvP observations and testing, and mostly for people who do PvP, some of the issues I highlighted also concerns PvE in some matter.

necro_the_crafter · April 22

Urzigurumash wrote: »

They did say it at the beginning of their message. How you think us PvPers react to this thread about Merciless Resolve?

Great idea @necro_the_crafter , do you think thats the best Cryomantic combination of lines? I have an old affinity for playing Frost gankishly, from a time when Glacial Presence and Brittle combined for 20% Crit Damage bonus, so I'm looking at other ideas, but I think your idea better embraces the Tankish CC-heavy Frost theme.

I also think the Mummy could be quite viable, probably my first spec out the door. Gravelord + Bone Tyrant + Animal Companions.

Right now testing to see best skillines to utilise corpsebooster, so obviusly testing on native necro with gravelord as a main tree. Already tried it with Draconic Power + Herald, makes for a quite good amount of cc to keep people in the explosion radius of corpsebooster. Also tried it with herald and earthen heart, blighted -> fossilize -> detonating syphon (to proc corpse booster) is quite a heavy hitting combo, and also can be pushed further with corrosive, only problem is lack of major resolve. But my favourite is still siphoning+restoring light+gravelord, blighted - > soul shred -> corpsebooster is almost a full bomb, also love healthy offerings huge burst heal and infinite sustain from restoring rune + siphoning strikes.

CameraBeardThePirate · April 22

Living Death is definitely higher than a B-. Hexproof is the best self purge in the game, bar none, and Intensive Mender is back to being one of the best group HoTs in the game after the most recent buff it received, often healing for about a million over the course of an 8v8 BG match.

Combine that with a free HoT (always valuable even when considering the corpse restriction), a pretty strong burst heal (Res Flesh is much better than a lot of people think), pretty strong passives, and one of the most cost effective AoE heals in the game.

FoJul · April 22

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

After a few days of test and a dozen of duels observations, and trying to rank them based on overall perfomance, list is more PvP biased.

Offensive lines:

1. Assassination (obviously), S++
Best melee spammable, best execute, nice crit chanse passives, best single target cheap ult, and a DOUBLE SPEC BOW! What were you thinking ZoS?

2. Animal Companions, S+
Pros - good delayed burst with Major AND Minor breach, sustain + weapon buff + autopurge, snare removal + expedition + minor berserk, strong crit damage passive.
Cons - Ult is meh, spammable is whatever, dot has a minor vuln but overall meh.

3. Grave Lord, A
Pros - delayed burst with Major and Minor defile, weapon damage and crit chanse buffs in skills, strong passives (pen, execute crit chanse, dot damage)
Cons - slowest projectile on spammable, has a few PvE exclusive skills (Graveyard, and Tether to some extent), Bligtbones are still clunky as hell.

4. Aedric Spear, A
Pros - Block piercing range stun, setups devastating comet+merciless combo. Crit damage passives, more damage to blocking targets, lil damage proc baked in passives.
Cons - useless shield, PvE/Support AoE dot, jabs and ult are meh
comm: seems like next patch meta will rely on blocking alot, so any block-piercers will be of great value

5. Ardent Flame, A
Pros - decent dots, good spammable, good overall pressure, nice passives
Cons - PvE exclusive ult, useless chain

6. Herald of the Tome, C - (C+/A- on frost builds)
Pros - Dread is good on a frost builds, nice weapon buff, good passives (HUGE pen)
Cons - bad outside of frost builds.

Defense/Healing lines:

1. Restoring Light (armor buff with baked in sustain,on demand cleanse, decent passives), S++
Best armor buff with hot and sustain, purge on demand, okay burst heal, strong passives. Has everything you might ever want to cover yours defences.

2. Storm Calling (mobility, more offence oriented passives), A+
Pros - armor + speed, block piercing stun + blink, weapon buff with hot attached, good damage passives, good offensive ult.
Cons - lacks any good healing/mitigation, have to cover it up with gear and scribing.
comm: overall balanced tradeoff - survivability for mobility.

3. Draconic Power, A+
Pros - good tank+damage hybrid, semi-decent delayed burst, strongest 5s DoT in the game, good burst heal, able to half spec bows damage, big bonk ultimate, big defencive passives.
Cons - ressurect wing reflect!

4. Winters Embrace, A
Pros - Big pressure ultimate, huge health based heal, block piercing delayed stun, nice defencive passives, able to tank specbows with shields, good frost damage passives
Cons - leaning towards nich'iest playstyle of frost builds, gate and shards are kinda meh, CC vs burst heal trade-off.

5. Shadow, A
Pros - passive armor buff, health based hot, hot with major expedition and recovery boost, best kiting tools in the game, block piercing CC, good max health and sustain passives
Cons - Highly skill based, have to actualy know how to kite to utilise this tree to its full potential, worst ultimate in the game, no burst heal.

6. Green Balance (nice heals, a few essential buffs, minor toughness), B+
Pros - minor toughness, cheap burst healing ult, crit chanse buff with hot, nice sustain and healing passives.
Cons - no armor buff, most skills are leaning towards group healing, so lacks strong single target heals.

7. Earthen Heart, B
Pros - one of the best block piercing stuns, AoE HoT with a huge snare attached, longest weapon buff, minor brutality, battle roar and helping hands are decent for sustain.
Cons - no armor buff, wapon buff does nothing outside of buffing damage, poop throw is bad, frag shield is bad, no burst heal.

8. Living Death (No armor buff, Ghost is big for mitigation, tether is nice 2in1 hot + sustain and thats pretty much it), B-
Pros - 2 purges, one of wich is AoE, strong single target heal, ghost is big mitigation buff, tether is good HoT + sustain, good healing passives
Cons - no armor buff.

9. Curative Runeforms (bunch of heals and shields and thats pretty much it, nothing outstanding), C-
Pros - Heal with minor heroism attached, passive shield strengh bonus, nice sustain passives.
Cons - no armor buff, most of skill are focused on group healing

10. Solider of Apocrypha, D
Pros - armor buff with minor breach attached, nice health based heals/shields, has a CC
Cons - tricky to utuilise without proper crux generators, functions best on arcanist with scribed crux generator or in tandem with other arcs skillines (wich is possible only on arc)

11. Bone Tyrant, D
Pros - minor and major resolve on 1 skill, best ult generator (deaden pain + corpse consumption)
Cons - sythe is bad, totem is bad, gravegrasp is terrible. Cant function without proper corpse generation, armor will p[rovede you with corpse every 10 sec, wich is not enough to make a good use of deaden pain. Necros unique skilline as it requiers at least 1 more necro skilline to gen enough corpses.

Whatever lines

1. Siphoning, succ-tier
Pros - Good AoE burst ult, nice burst heal, good AoE spammable with brut./sorc. and minor courage, best sustain skill in the game, arguably, good ult gen/healing passives.
Cons - Skills are all over the place, below average spammable, below avarage DoT, no clear skillline function - jack of all trades, master of none.

2. Daedric Summoning, P+
Pros - Curse and armaments are still good pressure, shields are still huge on max mag builds.
Cons - Leaning towards niche pet gamplay

3. Dark Magic, D+
Pros - Crystal frags
Cons - Everything else, not a single outstanding skill outside of frags to choose this skill line.

7. Dawns Wrath, D
Pros - Minor sorcery, bubble
Cons - All of offensive spells are meh at best, jesus beam nerf was unjustified.

Conclusion:

I want ZoS to look and rethink class unique resourse, as Bone Tyrant and Solider of Apocrypha are bad for multiclassing, since you cant generate enough corpse/crux to use this lines effectivly.

Before any nerfs, I suggest tuning up Whatever lines, as theese would clearly fall off of the game until future adjustments, wich goes against the premice that multiclassing is going to increase build diversity, since this lines wouldnt be run even on classes that they belong to.

Also for the future updates, im curious if will ever see true subclassing, that for example would allow us to sacrifice a skill from a line to enchance other skills, like sacrificing skulls from a grave lord to be able to summon 2-3 skeletal archers/mages at a time. Or sacrifice skeletal summon to be able to tether to living, and make skulls require 2 stacks (down from 3) for max effectivness, something like that.

Haven’t read everything yet but bow isn’t considered a projectile and thus ignores warden shield and dk wings both in melee and at range

Lol warden shield does block it. I was just fighting one the other day

FoJul · April 22

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

They did say it at the beginning of their message. How you think us PvPers react to this thread about Merciless Resolve?

Great idea @necro_the_crafter , do you think thats the best Cryomantic combination of lines? I have an old affinity for playing Frost gankishly, from a time when Glacial Presence and Brittle combined for 20% Crit Damage bonus, so I'm looking at other ideas, but I think your idea better embraces the Tankish CC-heavy Frost theme.

I also think the Mummy could be quite viable, probably my first spec out the door. Gravelord + Bone Tyrant + Animal Companions.

Right now testing to see best skillines to utilise corpsebooster, so obviusly testing on native necro with gravelord as a main tree. Already tried it with Draconic Power + Herald, makes for a quite good amount of cc to keep people in the explosion radius of corpsebooster. Also tried it with herald and earthen heart, blighted -> fossilize -> detonating syphon (to proc corpse booster) is quite a heavy hitting combo, and also can be pushed further with corrosive, only problem is lack of major resolve. But my favourite is still siphoning+restoring light+gravelord, blighted - > soul shred -> corpsebooster is almost a full bomb, also love healthy offerings huge burst heal and infinite sustain from restoring rune + siphoning strikes.

Yeah my necro seems very strong, as im using the combo you mentioned in OP but without merciless. Blast bones+Meteor+Javelin for a duel setup I add Kjalnar too. not much you can do against that.

Grave Lord-Aedric Spear-Storm Calling. 168% Crit damage lol *Ik that its useless to a certain degree, this build is NOT optimizied whatsoever, I just slapped my current build on and added the new mythic lol.

Mystic Siphon is also alot better than what I initially thought, as most of the time since I'm ranged, people are chasing me, i can just stick them in the tether. It does at very least 1k dmg per second lol. My buddy stood in it the other night, and Mystic siphon was chunking his hp with Burning light passive added

Zyaneth_Bal · April 23

FoJul wrote: »

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

After a few days of test and a dozen of duels observations, and trying to rank them based on overall perfomance, list is more PvP biased.

Offensive lines:

1. Assassination (obviously), S++
Best melee spammable, best execute, nice crit chanse passives, best single target cheap ult, and a DOUBLE SPEC BOW! What were you thinking ZoS?

2. Animal Companions, S+
Pros - good delayed burst with Major AND Minor breach, sustain + weapon buff + autopurge, snare removal + expedition + minor berserk, strong crit damage passive.
Cons - Ult is meh, spammable is whatever, dot has a minor vuln but overall meh.

3. Grave Lord, A
Pros - delayed burst with Major and Minor defile, weapon damage and crit chanse buffs in skills, strong passives (pen, execute crit chanse, dot damage)
Cons - slowest projectile on spammable, has a few PvE exclusive skills (Graveyard, and Tether to some extent), Bligtbones are still clunky as hell.

4. Aedric Spear, A
Pros - Block piercing range stun, setups devastating comet+merciless combo. Crit damage passives, more damage to blocking targets, lil damage proc baked in passives.
Cons - useless shield, PvE/Support AoE dot, jabs and ult are meh
comm: seems like next patch meta will rely on blocking alot, so any block-piercers will be of great value

5. Ardent Flame, A
Pros - decent dots, good spammable, good overall pressure, nice passives
Cons - PvE exclusive ult, useless chain

6. Herald of the Tome, C - (C+/A- on frost builds)
Pros - Dread is good on a frost builds, nice weapon buff, good passives (HUGE pen)
Cons - bad outside of frost builds.

Defense/Healing lines:

1. Restoring Light (armor buff with baked in sustain,on demand cleanse, decent passives), S++
Best armor buff with hot and sustain, purge on demand, okay burst heal, strong passives. Has everything you might ever want to cover yours defences.

2. Storm Calling (mobility, more offence oriented passives), A+
Pros - armor + speed, block piercing stun + blink, weapon buff with hot attached, good damage passives, good offensive ult.
Cons - lacks any good healing/mitigation, have to cover it up with gear and scribing.
comm: overall balanced tradeoff - survivability for mobility.

3. Draconic Power, A+
Pros - good tank+damage hybrid, semi-decent delayed burst, strongest 5s DoT in the game, good burst heal, able to half spec bows damage, big bonk ultimate, big defencive passives.
Cons - ressurect wing reflect!

4. Winters Embrace, A
Pros - Big pressure ultimate, huge health based heal, block piercing delayed stun, nice defencive passives, able to tank specbows with shields, good frost damage passives
Cons - leaning towards nich'iest playstyle of frost builds, gate and shards are kinda meh, CC vs burst heal trade-off.

5. Shadow, A
Pros - passive armor buff, health based hot, hot with major expedition and recovery boost, best kiting tools in the game, block piercing CC, good max health and sustain passives
Cons - Highly skill based, have to actualy know how to kite to utilise this tree to its full potential, worst ultimate in the game, no burst heal.

6. Green Balance (nice heals, a few essential buffs, minor toughness), B+
Pros - minor toughness, cheap burst healing ult, crit chanse buff with hot, nice sustain and healing passives.
Cons - no armor buff, most skills are leaning towards group healing, so lacks strong single target heals.

7. Earthen Heart, B
Pros - one of the best block piercing stuns, AoE HoT with a huge snare attached, longest weapon buff, minor brutality, battle roar and helping hands are decent for sustain.
Cons - no armor buff, wapon buff does nothing outside of buffing damage, poop throw is bad, frag shield is bad, no burst heal.

8. Living Death (No armor buff, Ghost is big for mitigation, tether is nice 2in1 hot + sustain and thats pretty much it), B-
Pros - 2 purges, one of wich is AoE, strong single target heal, ghost is big mitigation buff, tether is good HoT + sustain, good healing passives
Cons - no armor buff.

9. Curative Runeforms (bunch of heals and shields and thats pretty much it, nothing outstanding), C-
Pros - Heal with minor heroism attached, passive shield strengh bonus, nice sustain passives.
Cons - no armor buff, most of skill are focused on group healing

10. Solider of Apocrypha, D
Pros - armor buff with minor breach attached, nice health based heals/shields, has a CC
Cons - tricky to utuilise without proper crux generators, functions best on arcanist with scribed crux generator or in tandem with other arcs skillines (wich is possible only on arc)

11. Bone Tyrant, D
Pros - minor and major resolve on 1 skill, best ult generator (deaden pain + corpse consumption)
Cons - sythe is bad, totem is bad, gravegrasp is terrible. Cant function without proper corpse generation, armor will p[rovede you with corpse every 10 sec, wich is not enough to make a good use of deaden pain. Necros unique skilline as it requiers at least 1 more necro skilline to gen enough corpses.

Whatever lines

1. Siphoning, succ-tier
Pros - Good AoE burst ult, nice burst heal, good AoE spammable with brut./sorc. and minor courage, best sustain skill in the game, arguably, good ult gen/healing passives.
Cons - Skills are all over the place, below average spammable, below avarage DoT, no clear skillline function - jack of all trades, master of none.

2. Daedric Summoning, P+
Pros - Curse and armaments are still good pressure, shields are still huge on max mag builds.
Cons - Leaning towards niche pet gamplay

3. Dark Magic, D+
Pros - Crystal frags
Cons - Everything else, not a single outstanding skill outside of frags to choose this skill line.

7. Dawns Wrath, D
Pros - Minor sorcery, bubble
Cons - All of offensive spells are meh at best, jesus beam nerf was unjustified.

Conclusion:

I want ZoS to look and rethink class unique resourse, as Bone Tyrant and Solider of Apocrypha are bad for multiclassing, since you cant generate enough corpse/crux to use this lines effectivly.

Before any nerfs, I suggest tuning up Whatever lines, as theese would clearly fall off of the game until future adjustments, wich goes against the premice that multiclassing is going to increase build diversity, since this lines wouldnt be run even on classes that they belong to.

Also for the future updates, im curious if will ever see true subclassing, that for example would allow us to sacrifice a skill from a line to enchance other skills, like sacrificing skulls from a grave lord to be able to summon 2-3 skeletal archers/mages at a time. Or sacrifice skeletal summon to be able to tether to living, and make skulls require 2 stacks (down from 3) for max effectivness, something like that.

Haven’t read everything yet but bow isn’t considered a projectile and thus ignores warden shield and dk wings both in melee and at range

Lol warden shield does block it. I was just fighting one the other day

I tested this with every single skill both on pts and live several days ago. It does not work.
You simply think that it happened but don’t exactly remember. Before saying something test it yourself, specifically. Not by just fighting where you mistake one thing for another. Then your comments might actually have some worth. I don’t see how “lol” is an argument

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · April 23

Dark Magic is not D-tier. Not even close.

necro_the_crafter · April 24

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Dark Magic is not D-tier. Not even close.

Yea its better then dawns wrath, so maybe D+

Seriously, I cant see anything going for it ouside of frags or crystal weapon.
Rune is bad, clearly telegraphed and dodgabe, Dark Deal is dependant on skills from other skillines, like Streak, Shadow Image or Light Weaver to use reliably, Mines hadnt see any use since sorc lost its third skillbar, passives are weak or outclassed, like minor prophesy vs assassinations minor savagery +10% crit damage. And negate is super specific and niche, and has a low damage.

Even comparing to Siphoning, that is also a hybrid skilline, Health Offeing > Vibrant Shroud, Siphoning Strikes > Dark Deal, Soul Shred > Negate, Power Extraction > shattering spines, Crippling Grasp > Mines.
Siphoning passives also provides huge ult gen, better sustain, better healing and functions way better as hybrid damage+sustain line than dark magic.

necro_the_crafter · April 24

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Living Death is definitely higher than a B-. Hexproof is the best self purge in the game, bar none, and Intensive Mender is back to being one of the best group HoTs in the game after the most recent buff it received, often healing for about a million over the course of an 8v8 BG match.

Combine that with a free HoT (always valuable even when considering the corpse restriction), a pretty strong burst heal (Res Flesh is much better than a lot of people think), pretty strong passives, and one of the most cost effective AoE heals in the game.

Its really good for healers, I think for PvP-healer it might rank much more higher.

But for average all-round builds it lacks major resolve, and ghost (pretty much main ability) is super expensive without reusable parts or summoners armor.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · April 24

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Dark Magic is not D-tier. Not even close.

Yea its better then dawns wrath, so maybe D+

Seriously, I cant see anything going for it ouside of frags or crystal weapon.
Rune is bad, clearly telegraphed and dodgabe, Dark Deal is dependant on skills from other skillines, like Streak, Shadow Image or Light Weaver to use reliably, Mines hadnt see any use since sorc lost its third skillbar, passives are weak or outclassed, like minor prophesy vs assassinations minor savagery +10% crit damage. And negate is super specific and niche, and has a low damage.

Even comparing to Siphoning, that is also a hybrid skilline, Health Offeing > Vibrant Shroud, Siphoning Strikes > Dark Deal, Soul Shred > Negate, Power Extraction > shattering spines, Crippling Grasp > Mines.
Siphoning passives also provides huge ult gen, better sustain, better healing and functions way better as hybrid damage+sustain line than dark magic.

Dark Magic skill line overall is between A and B tier, slightly leaning towards B tier.

Negate is S+ tier. It's the strongest group ultimate in the game.
Crystal Frags proc is S tier with the U46 buff
Crystal Weapon is B tier after nerfs a few patches ago but can still hit hard
Rune Cage is C tier for most builds but S tier on Sorc Bash builds
Dark Conv/Deal is A tier. It has a nasty interrupt but it's manageable if you know what you're doing. It's still the best recovery in the game and way better than Siphoning Attacks in a 1v1 or 1vX.
Vibrant Shroud is at minimum an A tier self-heal thanks to the Blood Magic passive. It has a combined crit of 20k+ when fully buffed. This is on par with Healthy Offering.
Daedric Mines are still somewhat useful in Battlegrounds but not much outside that - C tier or D tier

The Dark Magic passives are probably C tier. The best thing is Minor Prophecy to you and your group (B tier) followed by Blood Magic (C tier). The cost reduction passives are nice but not really anything more than D tier.

Urzigurumash · April 24

Yeah Negate alone makes Dark Magic a must have skill line for group play.

Wish we could say the same about Nova and Dawn's Wrath like back in the day!

FoJul · April 24

My pvp skill line tier list from what I've seen would look like this:

Strictly offensive skill lines

1. Assassination- this skill line is loaded for crit/burst builds. Assassin's will used to be easily avoided, but now since you can double proc it, can create combo opportunities. Just like op says, strong spammable, best execute "minus the mag version it's dogwater"

2. Gravelord- blastbones is a very strong delayed burst, ult is very good for bombing, always has been. Passives are really strong. Penetration, execute crit chance( that's absolutely insane with killers blade), buffs dot damage.

3. Aedric spear- stacked passives all the way down the list, best ranged stun in the game, opens up endless possibilities with my personal ranged playstyle. Really strong ult for melee builds, other than javelin and jabs, the other skills fall short.

4. Herald of the tome- a little lower on the list , great passives, skills are mid. Recuperating treatise can be used on a few interesting setups that I have seen.

Defense skill lines-
1.Shadow- major resolve passive=more bar space, both cloaks are really good, refreshing path solid HoT with built in sustain. Extra sustain passives, extra HP. Fear, on a melee setup is really good, major cowardice works wonders. Shade creates a playstyle that makes you extremely hard to kill.

2. Storm Calling- Resolve buff grants expedition, major or minor depending on which morph. Also has a small dot(bigger dot on hurricane). Crit surge on crit builds is actually quite a lot of healing. Grants brutality/sorcery. Streak creates endless mobility, and can also help setting up combos. Passives aren't 100% the greatest. But they are deff good.

3. Restoring light- Purge+Rune always been really strong. Gets a lot of healing passives. Ult only used on healers if even that.

Well rounded skill lines

1.Animal companions- has delayed burst and breach caked into one. Blue Betty, self purge and sustain. Fetcher flies pretty decent dot. Sustain/crit damage/healing passives. All 3 roles in one skill line.

2.Siphoning-Siphoning strikes and passives gives some of the best sustain of any skill line ever. Healthy offering really fat burst heal. Power extract, aoe spammable thst gives brutality/sorcery and minor courage. Not many sources of minor courage. Soul tether ult really strong. When paired with soulcleaver swallow soul is actually decent, and you can pretty much have infinite sustain and healing.

3. Daedric Summoning. Bound aegis really strong for block anticipated burst, hardened ward super fat shield, haunting curse, really good delayed burst additive. (Exceptionally strong when paired with assassin's will) passives gives stam sustain, max resource potential.

necro_the_crafter · April 25

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Dark Magic skill line overall is between A and B tier, slightly leaning towards B tier.
Negate is S+ tier. It's the strongest group ultimate in the game.

Crystal Frags proc is S tier with the U46 buff

Crystal Weapon is B tier after nerfs a few patches ago but can still hit hard

Rune Cage is C tier for most builds but S tier on Sorc Bash builds

Dark Conv/Deal is A tier. It has a nasty interrupt but it's manageable if you know what you're doing. It's still the best recovery in the game and way better than Siphoning Attacks in a 1v1 or 1vX.

Vibrant Shroud is at minimum an A tier self-heal thanks to the Blood Magic passive. It has a combined crit of 20k+ when fully buffed. This is on par with Healthy Offering.

Daedric Mines are still somewhat useful in Battlegrounds but not much outside that - C tier or D tier

The Dark Magic passives are probably C tier. The best thing is Minor Prophecy to you and your group (B tier) followed by Blood Magic (C tier). The cost reduction passives are nice but not really anything more than D tier.

I mean, realisticly most of the players who would run it outside of base sorc, would do so for negate. If you want damage - there is better lines for that, if you want sustain, there is better lines, if you want healing, guess what, there are better lines.

It has good spells, they just need to be tuned up. Lets say, if haunting curse is switched with mines, unholy knowledge getting a % magic damage bonus, exploitation gets crit damage bonus, then this skilline is A+/S tier, but right now its painfully average hybrid between damage, healing and sustain, and it just keeps getting outclassed outside of negate and frags.