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Why does Dark Flare have a cast time?

  • Billium813
    Billium813
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    Billium813 wrote: »
    lQrukl wrote: »
    0.01% of templars acually use Dark Flare (before 6.3.5 it was around 0.05% of population)
    Noone is going to do anything about that.
    It is not a PvP skill becase of cast time.
    It is not a viable PvE spamable becase of cast time (and damage)
    It's just a morph for show

    And the only it gets every year is about "±Xs to Major Delfie duration, ±0.Ys cast time for fetch standards"
    It's really sad

    Yeah, I'd say in PVE the lack of damage and useless buffs is more of an issue than the cast time. Dark Flare and Wrecking Blow have the same cast time and both give Empower.

    Personally, I like how one morph can be more for PvP (Dark Flare) and one is more for PvE (Solar Barrage). You can certainly use either in whatever content you want, but I like when there are pretty clear indications on where morphs are targeted for. It really helps for balancing too. I wouldn't mind them dropping Empower from Dark Flare all together given that Empower is only for monsters now and extending the Major Defile duration to 10 seconds

    Well that certainly makes the choices easier. I'm on the opposite side in this one. I dislike when one morph is the obvious choice in any build. I never liked when morphs were something like stam vs mag, and you just had to pick the one that fit your build, with no other viable option.

    For a few examples, I currently like the balancing on the following morphs:
    - Unstable Wall (more burst and DPS) vs Blockade (larger size and longer duration)
    - Screaming Cliff Racer (spell damage buff) vs Cutting Dive (adds bleed DoT)
    - Honor the Dead (restores magicka) vs Breath of Life (heals an additional ally)
    - Mage's Wrath (more splash damage) vs Endless Fury (returns magicka)
    - Radiant Oppression (max damage) vs Radiant Glory (self healing)

    Whenever something becomes the obvious choice I feel like we have no choice at all. Why even have morphs at that point?

    As one more example, I'll mention the old Twisting Path vs Refreshing Path. Both dealt damage a few years ago, just Refreshing also added a heal while Twisting was maybe 10-20% more damage. This was a tough choice, especially in difficult group content. When they removed the damage from Refreshing one morph was effectively deleted for every DPS build. Now healers used their assigned morph, and nobody had to think, theorize, test or optimize.

    I'm certainly not advocating for something as heavy handed as literally restricting Skills to game modes (PvP vs PvE) in the same way that Stamina and Magicka restrict usage. There could certainly be limited use cases for things like Defile in PvE, but the primary usecase is certainly PvP. On the same note, Morphs like Solar Barrage COULD have limited use cases in PvP as mobile AOE damage against tight zergs. Not black & white, but more dark vs light grey; more of a 75/25 split.

    The alternative I think is much harder. Things like adding more aggressive NPC healing in PvE to make Defile more applicable. Or changing Empower back to work against Players. Those changes have much further reaching ramifications than simply using skills as they should be used IMO: as tools.

    > I dislike when one morph is the obvious choice in any build.

    I do just want to be a bit clearer on this. I'm also against specific skills being obvious choices for builds (mostly). But I'm much more open to morphs being obvious choices for specific content (BG, Trials, Dungeons, Cyrodiil, IC). I view skills as more "toolbox" oriented, being available to swap as the situation demands. In PvP at least, thats much harder to do with set items, but much easier with Skills! I would never want Dark Flare to be a MUST RUN skill; that's a sign that something is broken. But I am open to the morph Dark Flare being more obviously PvP than PvE. Morphs can't be changed without visiting respec shrines (ik scrolls exist...) so I would rather the system be open to bringing in skills like Dark Flare when needed, rather than being goto obvious "build" choices. Just because I would rather Dark Flare be more obviously PvP targeted, doesn't mean I want it to be an obvious go to for all Templar builds.
    Edited by Billium813 on 23 March 2023 02:56
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