Scribing Highlights Need for Cleaning up Radius of Existing Skills

MashmalloMan · May 8

We have yet to receive a follow up to existing abilities after the melee range adjustment from 5m to 7m (update 38 - 9.0.5 - June 2023). The radius of existing skills were originally designed around the 5m melee range standard. As of this patch, almost all Grimoires have seemingly adopted what many of us have been requesting for almost a year now, an 8m radius for direct/dot aoes. A radius which makes sense for the new standard as it's +1 from the melee range.

Example. Why does Soul Burst and Contingency have an 8m radius when Whirling Blades has 6m (many, many others in my list below). Something is clearly outdated here. Steel Tornado spends most of its morph effect getting +3m radius to 9m, yet all Grimoires come at 8m by default, with a signature and affix attached. All Steel Tornado gets is +1 radius and a reduced cost.

Another example of this ongoing issue is for self applied AOE DOTs remaining at a 5m radius, this made sense when it matched melee range, but that is no longer. This has made hit detection in pvp very annoying and positioning in pve intolerable. What is the point of a 7m melee range if I'm forced into 5m range for Deadly Cloak?

Furthermore, the skills are simply confusing, unintuitive, a mixed bag of varying numbers, abilities have less or more radius without any justification through the morphs or the core ability itself.

Below I've created a list of standards and categorized the majority of non-ultimate abilities I could think of within them. It's not everything, so apologies if I missed something. I opted to not "nerf" anything because that isn't the point of this, if something had an obvious improvement over the standards, it either keeps the same value or gets a small bump for compensation like Ritual of Retribution as a sort of.. "Rule Breaker" or morphs like Elemental Blockade which get more range/duration.

I didn't get into creating NEW differences among the morphs, I kept their original intent, maybe with changes like this, some could justify larger (or even smaller) radiuses as special cases to differentiate them. As a thought experiment this is purely for showcasing how out of wack the current design is and how it could be improved as a baseline.

Self AOE DOT = 7m radius:

(5m -> 7m) Quick Cloak
(5m -> 7m) Deadly Cloak
(5m -> 7m) Blood Mist
(6m -> 7m) Arctic Blast
(8m -> 9m) Solar Barrage
(5m -> 7m) Boundless Storm
(5-9m -> 7-9m) Hurricane
(10m -> n/a) Volatile Armor

Ground AOE DOT = 6m radius:

(5m -> 6m) Endless Hail
(7m -> 8m) Arrow Barrage
(5m -> 6m) Stampede
(5m -> 6m) Eruption
(5m -> 6m) Detonating Siphon
(6m -> n/a) Boneyard
(6m -> n/a) Volatile Familiar
(8m -> n/a) Lightning Flood
(6m -> n/a) Liquid Lightning
(6m -> n/a) Spear Shards
(12m -> n/a) Ritual of Retribution
(6m -> n/a) Winter's Revenge

AOE Rectangle = 20m x 8m:

(18x8m -> 20x8m) Unstable Wall
(18x12m -> 20x12m) Elemental Blockade
(17x7m -> 20x8m) Refreshing Path
(18x6m -> 20x8m) Encase
(20x7m -> 20x8m) Scorch
(18x5m -> 20x8m) Grave Grasp
(20x8m -> n/a) Combat Prayer
(20x10m -> 20x12m) Blessing Of Restoration

AOE Heals = 8m radius:

(8m -> n/a) Arcanist's Domain
(5m -> 8m) Cinder Storm
(8m -> n/a) Life amid Death
(5m -> 8m) Braided Tether
(6m -> 8m) Purifying Light
(10m -> 12m) Healing Ritual
(12m -> n/a) Repentance
(12m-> n/a) Extended Ritual
(8m -> n/a) Healing Seed
(12m -> n/a) Polar Wind
(8m -> n/a) Grand Healing
(5m -> 8m) Ring of Preservation
(8m -> n/a) Necrotic Orb
(15m -> n/a) Echoing Vigor

AOE Utility = 8m radius:

(6m -> 8m) Talons
(12m -> n/a) Bitter Harvest
(6m -> 8m) Bone Totem
(22m -> n/a) Beckoning Armor
(6m -> 8m) Aspect of Terror
(5m -> 8m) Sun Shield
(6m -> 8m) Gripping Shards
(8m -> n/a) Ice Fortress
(7m -> 8m) Hypnosis
(6m -> 8m) Roar
(5m -> 8m) Turn Evil
(8m -> n/a) Expert Hunter
(8m -> n/a) Inner Light
(12m -> n/a) Radiant Magelight
(8m -> n/a) Time Stop
(8m -> n/a) Razor Caltrops
(8m -> n/a) Anti-Calvary Caltrops

AOE Direct/DOT = 8m radius:

(8m -> n/a) Inhale
(15m -> n/a) Flames of Oblivion
(6m -> 8m) The Imperfect Ring
(7m -> 8m) Death Scythe
(6m -> 8m) Lotus Fan
(8m -> n/a) Drain Power
(6m -> 8m) Dark Shade
(6m-> 8m) Daedric Curse
(6m -> 8m) Explosive Charge
(8m -> n/a) Dark Flare
(5m -> 8m) Reflective Light
(5m -> 8m) Growing Swarm
(8m -> n/a) Soul Splitting Trap
(8m -> n/a) Shrouded Daggers
(6m -> 8m) Whirling Blades
(9m -> 8m + new effect) Steel Tornado
(6m -> 8m) Elemental Ring
(6m -> 8m) Pulsar
(5m -> 8m) Reverse Slice
(6m -> 8m) Cleave
(6m -> 8m) Deep Slash
(8m -> n/a) Magicka Detonation

Runes = 5m radius:

(3m -> 5m) Rune Focus
(3m -> 5m) Fire Rune
(5m -> n/a) Frozen Gate

Auras = 28m radius:

(28m -> n/a) Molten Armaments
(36m -> n/a) Igneous Weapons
(28m -> n/a) Cauterize
(18m -> 28m) Power Surge
(20m -> 28m) Regenerative Ward
(28m -> n/a) Lotus Flower
(36m -> n/a) Expansive Frost Cloak
(28m -> n/a) Ward Ally
(28m -> n/a) Radiating Regeneration
(28m -> n/a) Rapid Maneuver

Turtle_Bot · May 8

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_RichLambert An explanation or at least an acknowledgement on this issue would be appreciated as this has been a fairly common complaint since the increase to the melee attack range almost a year ago now (U38).

This is especially relevant for self cast AOE DOT abilities such as:

Blade Cloak and both morphs (from the Dual Wield skill line)
Blood Mist (damage over time morph of Vampire skill Mist Form)
Lightning Form and both morphs (Sorcerer armor skill)

Because these abilities have the smallest base radius at 5m, which is the old melee attack range, meaning that these abilities will do nothing at all for 90% of their duration unless the caster positions themselves directly on-top of the enemy which is next to impossible in PvP thanks to positional desyncs, and impractical in PvE because the main targets that require as much DPS as possible such as bosses tend to have 1 shot AOEs at that radius around them.

Dracane · May 8

I know this comes one update cycle too late, but I was vacant.

This reminds me to mention that the 18x6 corridor aoe of the new Sorcerer skill "Vibrant Shroud" feels horrible and unreliable in pve. In a chaotic dungeon or high pressure trial fight, I can forget healing anyone with this as a tank. If I have to focus on my own survival as well, I have no capacity to personally look at every DD and hope my 4k magicka costing skill is not blown into the wind.

It's virtually the same skill as Warden shrooms, which have been changed into a 20 meter radius in front, if I recall.
I would gladly sacrifice the self heal portion or even the mending, if it meant I can heal allies better, because having to rely on the 2 slot Twilight is dreadful in 2024.

It's also very unfortunate that the root has been removed from this morph. Again, bad for tanks.

MashmalloMan · May 8

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_RichLambert An explanation or at least an acknowledgement on this issue would be appreciated as this has been a fairly common complaint since the increase to the melee attack range almost a year ago now (U38).

This is especially relevant for self cast AOE DOT abilities such as:
Blade Cloak and both morphs (from the Dual Wield skill line)

Blood Mist (damage over time morph of Vampire skill Mist Form)

Lightning Form and both morphs (Sorcerer armor skill)

Because these abilities have the smallest base radius at 5m, which is the old melee attack range, meaning that these abilities will do nothing at all for 90% of their duration unless the caster positions themselves directly on-top of the enemy which is next to impossible in PvP thanks to positional desyncs, and impractical in PvE because the main targets that require as much DPS as possible such as bosses tend to have 1 shot AOEs at that radius around them.

Amen, I went into that for my aoe self dot portion with examples too.

What's worse about this point specifically is the following tests I conducted:

(6m) Arctic Blast = 435 x 11 over 20s = 4785
(5m) Blood Mist = 435 x 11 over 20s = 4785
(8m) Solar Barrage = 435 x 12 over 22s = 5220 (with +2s class passive)
(5m) Quick Cloak = 422 x 16 over 30s = 6752
(5m) Deadly Cloak = 566 x 11 over 20s = 6226
(5m) Boundless Storm = 463 x 15 over 30s = 6945 (Should be 7408 with 1st tick)
(5m-9m) Hurricane = 478 x 10 over 20s = 7935 (Should be 8413 with 1st tick)

From this list, you'll notice a pattern of 435 a tick 11x over 20s. 422 on Quick Cloak is actually the starting value at rank 1 for all of these abilities, but Quick Cloak ranks up in duration from 24s to 30s by rank 4, Arctic Blast, Blood Mist, and Solar Barrage rank up in damage done from 422 to 435 by rank 4.

In the case of Deadly Cloak, morphing it receives an initial +30% damage, then it also ranks up in damage from 549 to 567 by rank 4.

This is where it's a little confusing, unmorphed Lightning Form starting at rank 1 is 448 instead of the usual 408 found on abilities such as Rank 1 unmorphed Blade Cloak. So Lightning Form technically breaks the rule by starting at a higher base value, which then goes to 463 when morphed, instead of 422 like the other abilities.

Boundless Storm like Quick cloak ranks up in duration from 24s to 30s by rank 4, Hurricane ranks up in damage done from 463 to 478 by rank 4.

When testing Hurricane on a dummy these are the ticks you'll find:

20s = 478 (doesn't hit)
18s = 535.36
16s = 592.72
14s = 650.08
12s = 707.44
10s = 764.8
8s = 822.16
6s = 879.52
4s = 936.88
2s = 994.24
0s = 1051.6
Total = 7935 instead of 8413

TLDR: This data proves the implied standard for self aoe dots should be 11 ticks over 20s, starting at 422 damage per tick, ticking from refresh, not 2s after cast, before further deviating in damage, duration, cost, what have you, beyond that standard. Hurricane and Boundless Storm while having a slight buff in damage initially, completely miss out on 1/11 or 1/16 of the ticks they should be receiving.

To further prove my point, why would the morph effect of Hurricane giving +12% damage per tick up to 120% start on the FIRST tick, when it's suppose to happen AFTER the first tick. The answer is, the first tick never happens.

MashmalloMan · May 8

Dracane wrote: »

I know this comes one update cycle too late, but I was vacant.

This reminds me to mention that the 18x6 corridor aoe of the new Sorcerer skill "Vibrant Shroud" feels horrible and unreliable in pve. In a chaotic dungeon or high pressure trial fight, I can forget healing anyone with this as a tank. If I have to focus on my own survival as well, I have no capacity to personally look at every DD and hope my 4k magicka costing skill is not blown into the wind.

It's virtually the same skill as Warden shrooms, which have been changed into a 20 meter radius in front, if I recall.
I would gladly sacrifice the self heal portion or even the mending, if it meant I can heal allies better, because having to rely on the 2 slot Twilight is dreadful in 2024.

It's also very unfortunate that the root has been removed from this morph. Again, bad for tanks.

Totally, I initially started this post based on self aoe dots, ground dots, and aoe direct/dot abilities... then I began to see a huge difference in ranges across the weird areas like conals, aura's, and rectangular aoes.

If you play as a Sorc healer, it gets really confusing using Combat Prayer and Encase when they virtually appear and behave the same way, but don't hit in the same area. Combat Prayer seemed to be a good place to base all rectangular aoes off of because nothing gets nerfed, only slightly bumped to match that range.

Combat Prayer also happens to be the most common and long standing rectangular aoe in the game, so most players are familiar with how it feels to use.

MashmalloMan wrote: »

AOE Rectangle = 20m x 8m:
(18x8m -> 20x8m) Unstable Wall

(18x12m -> 20x12m) Elemental Blockade

(17x7m -> 20x8m) Refreshing Path

(18x6m -> 20x8m) Encase

(20x7m -> 20x8m) Scorch

(18x5m -> 20x8m) Grave Grasp

(20x8m -> n/a) Combat Prayer

(20x10m -> 20x12m) Blessing Of Restoration

Tannus15 · May 8

Awesome work, however you're missing shock clench

next patch notes : boundless storm and hurricane nerfed to 422 on their initial hit. no other changes.

Dracane · May 9

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

I know this comes one update cycle too late, but I was vacant.

This reminds me to mention that the 18x6 corridor aoe of the new Sorcerer skill "Vibrant Shroud" feels horrible and unreliable in pve. In a chaotic dungeon or high pressure trial fight, I can forget healing anyone with this as a tank. If I have to focus on my own survival as well, I have no capacity to personally look at every DD and hope my 4k magicka costing skill is not blown into the wind.

It's virtually the same skill as Warden shrooms, which have been changed into a 20 meter radius in front, if I recall.
I would gladly sacrifice the self heal portion or even the mending, if it meant I can heal allies better, because having to rely on the 2 slot Twilight is dreadful in 2024.

It's also very unfortunate that the root has been removed from this morph. Again, bad for tanks.

Totally, I initially started this post based on self aoe dots, ground dots, and aoe direct/dot abilities... then I began to see a huge difference in ranges across the weird areas like conals, aura's, and rectangular aoes.

If you play as a Sorc healer, it gets really confusing using Combat Prayer and Encase when they virtually appear and behave the same way, but don't hit in the same area. Combat Prayer seemed to be a good place to base all rectangular aoes off of because nothing gets nerfed, only slightly bumped to match that range.

Combat Prayer also happens to be the most common and long standing rectangular aoe in the game, so most players are familiar with how it feels to use.

MashmalloMan wrote: »

AOE Rectangle = 20m x 8m:
(18x8m -> 20x8m) Unstable Wall

(18x12m -> 20x12m) Elemental Blockade

(17x7m -> 20x8m) Refreshing Path

(18x6m -> 20x8m) Encase

(20x7m -> 20x8m) Scorch

(18x5m -> 20x8m) Grave Grasp

(20x8m -> n/a) Combat Prayer

(20x10m -> 20x12m) Blessing Of Restoration

Combat Prayer never bothered me. It just feels different to use than Vibrant Shroud. Somehow more fluent (faster cast?) and precise. It's hard to explain.

MashmalloMan · May 9

Tannus15 wrote: »

Awesome work, however you're missing shock clench

Yeah, I kind of avoided ranged attacks that deal aoe damage like that and Silver Shards because I didn't quite know where to categorize them due to them being 2 in 1, I guess it would make sense to put them in the aoe direct/dot category for 8m radius. If I were to guess, they're currently 5m.

They don't explicitly say the aoe radius on the abilities so I would have had to hop on and test them. I can edit them in later when I know.

Fun fact: Grimoire Shield Throw's "Multi Target" Focus is a distance of 10m per bounce. This means it can travel up to 20m with 3 targets. Although, it's not full proof, it appears to randomly bounce. So it can go from the 1st target to the 2nd target, then back to the 1st target 4-5 GCDs in a row before deciding to hit the 3rd target despite being in range.

I find it funny that on the subject of Grimoire's being based off of some hidden new standard, Multi Target Shield Throw is not just 8m, but way beyond that. To be fair, it doesn't have unlimited hits, but it's a very good argument that Silver Shards/Shock Clench should be at least in the 7-8m radius range.

Tannus15 wrote: »

next patch notes : boundless storm and hurricane nerfed to 422 on their initial hit. no other changes.

Lol trust me, I thought about that, but I have to be objective and show all the facts unfortunately. I would be okay with them nerfing it to the standard damage value as long the first tick was there... BETTER YET, give us back the tick frequency of 1s with half the damage again. I'm still upset about it.

Standardization should be used to reach a bare minimum like cost, range, radius, tick volume, etc, not copy/paste every single function to the point where they're identical. When morphs say things like: "Get x, but lose y." it makes sense to show it's breaking a standard, and converting it into something that fits the identity of the skill, yet this very rarely ever gets shown leading me to believe things like a missing tick is an oversight/bug, not an identity modifier.

If you go to the other thread about standardization and dots, some really good examples of how dots can behave in different ways to meet the same goal is an example of how to do standardization well. Instead, aoe grimoires are all 20s dots, st grimoires are all 10s dots, both of which tick on 2s. It's kind of boring.

ESO_Nightingale · May 12

Great idea. I hope they standardise these.

ESO_Nightingale · May 12

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

Awesome work, however you're missing shock clench

Yeah, I kind of avoided ranged attacks that deal aoe damage like that and Silver Shards because I didn't quite know where to categorize them due to them being 2 in 1, I guess it would make sense to put them in the aoe direct/dot category for 8m radius. If I were to guess, they're currently 5m.

They don't explicitly say the aoe radius on the abilities so I would have had to hop on and test them. I can edit them in later when I know.

Fun fact: Grimoire Shield Throw's "Multi Target" Focus is a distance of 10m per bounce. This means it can travel up to 20m with 3 targets. Although, it's not full proof, it appears to randomly bounce. So it can go from the 1st target to the 2nd target, then back to the 1st target 4-5 GCDs in a row before deciding to hit the 3rd target despite being in range.

I find it funny that on the subject of Grimoire's being based off of some hidden new standard, Multi Target Shield Throw is not just 8m, but way beyond that. To be fair, it doesn't have unlimited hits, but it's a very good argument that Silver Shards/Shock Clench should be at least in the 7-8m radius range.

Tannus15 wrote: »

next patch notes : boundless storm and hurricane nerfed to 422 on their initial hit. no other changes.

Lol trust me, I thought about that, but I have to be objective and show all the facts unfortunately. I would be okay with them nerfing it to the standard damage value as long the first tick was there... BETTER YET, give us back the tick frequency of 1s with half the damage again. I'm still upset about it.

Standardization should be used to reach a bare minimum like cost, range, radius, tick volume, etc, not copy/paste every single function to the point where they're identical. When morphs say things like: "Get x, but lose y." it makes sense to show it's breaking a standard, and converting it into something that fits the identity of the skill, yet this very rarely ever gets shown leading me to believe things like a missing tick is an oversight/bug, not an identity modifier.

If you go to the other thread about standardization and dots, some really good examples of how dots can behave in different ways to meet the same goal is an example of how to do standardization well. Instead, aoe grimoires are all 20s dots, st grimoires are all 10s dots, both of which tick on 2s. It's kind of boring.

I don't mind elemental explosion and ulfsild's aoe dot portions being 20 seconds. Frost Warden found it really hard to use ulfsilds contingency when needing to work around sub assault and frost reach. Elemental Explosion is deeply flawed in of itself, but if it's initial damage was worth running, you'd only have to press it every 20 seconds which wouldn't brick your rotation.

MashmalloMan · May 13

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

Awesome work, however you're missing shock clench

Yeah, I kind of avoided ranged attacks that deal aoe damage like that and Silver Shards because I didn't quite know where to categorize them due to them being 2 in 1, I guess it would make sense to put them in the aoe direct/dot category for 8m radius. If I were to guess, they're currently 5m.

They don't explicitly say the aoe radius on the abilities so I would have had to hop on and test them. I can edit them in later when I know.

Fun fact: Grimoire Shield Throw's "Multi Target" Focus is a distance of 10m per bounce. This means it can travel up to 20m with 3 targets. Although, it's not full proof, it appears to randomly bounce. So it can go from the 1st target to the 2nd target, then back to the 1st target 4-5 GCDs in a row before deciding to hit the 3rd target despite being in range.

I find it funny that on the subject of Grimoire's being based off of some hidden new standard, Multi Target Shield Throw is not just 8m, but way beyond that. To be fair, it doesn't have unlimited hits, but it's a very good argument that Silver Shards/Shock Clench should be at least in the 7-8m radius range.

Tannus15 wrote: »

next patch notes : boundless storm and hurricane nerfed to 422 on their initial hit. no other changes.

Lol trust me, I thought about that, but I have to be objective and show all the facts unfortunately. I would be okay with them nerfing it to the standard damage value as long the first tick was there... BETTER YET, give us back the tick frequency of 1s with half the damage again. I'm still upset about it.

Standardization should be used to reach a bare minimum like cost, range, radius, tick volume, etc, not copy/paste every single function to the point where they're identical. When morphs say things like: "Get x, but lose y." it makes sense to show it's breaking a standard, and converting it into something that fits the identity of the skill, yet this very rarely ever gets shown leading me to believe things like a missing tick is an oversight/bug, not an identity modifier.

If you go to the other thread about standardization and dots, some really good examples of how dots can behave in different ways to meet the same goal is an example of how to do standardization well. Instead, aoe grimoires are all 20s dots, st grimoires are all 10s dots, both of which tick on 2s. It's kind of boring.

I don't mind elemental explosion and ulfsild's aoe dot portions being 20 seconds. Frost Warden found it really hard to use ulfsilds contingency when needing to work around sub assault and frost reach. Elemental Explosion is deeply flawed in of itself, but if it's initial damage was worth running, you'd only have to press it every 20 seconds which wouldn't brick your rotation.

I don't think they can increase the upfront damage anymore than what it is currently due to pvp, it's at Dawnbreaker damage levels of burst. I just don't think the current design of the 2s cast time can ever be warranted for pve dps rotations unless they overbuff lingering torment or rework it to be instant.

It's unfortunately a missed opportunity.