I'm spinning this off from the combat and abilities thread where I wrote this:

Ghostly Embrace feedback:

"The second area now applies a Frost Damage over time effect for 5 seconds, similar to Burning Talons or Acrid Spray, rather than Immobilizing enemies."

This is another perfect example of how spreadsheet balancing does not work.

Burning talons does not need to be aimed and fires instantly in its 6m radius around the caster. Acid spray, does need to be aimed, but can reach significantly more targets, given the longer range, fires instantly, and gives the caster the benefit of range.

Ghostly embrace gets neither of these benefits. It's a delayed, directional skill. It doesn't feel fun to use at all and doesn't give you a reward for landing the skill like the 9s delayed burst of shalks does.

If you're going to insist on the animation of ghostly remaining the same, it deserves to be better than the two other similar skills that are infinitely easier to use than it.

I get the approach that ZOS wants class identity to be a thing, but to also have standards for categories and hierarchies for broad sets of skills. However, this is just bad.

A DK doesn't need to aim their burning talons to catch their target. There's also the clear irony that the devs removed the CC function from ghostly embrace to give it this special DOT, apparently completely forgetting that burning talons does exactly that WITH an immobilize CC attached. This is clear favoritism and needs to be corrected.

A bow user on any class will not have that much trouble landing an acid spray on a strafing target, allowing them to reapply the dot on cooldown.

This is just simply not possible on Necro and it's really frustrating that the devs once again made a change to Necro that proves they don't play this class. Imagine if the DOT of acid spray was ONLY applicable for the 6m-12m portion of the conal. That's what a Necro has to do, but also do it by seeing the future because the second patch doesn't fire instantly. It has a delay.

The patches need to move at least as fast as shalks to be viable here. There's also no precedent being given as to why this skill needs to have its CC removed to get the damage. DKs get the damage and the CC. Acid spray doesn't, but I'd argue that's fine considering that it's a universal weapon skill and not a class skill. Class skills deserve to be unique and distinct from generic versions of its skills.

Here's a simple set of changes that should be implemented before Week 3 to make this skill see use:

• Travel Time - Increased to match Shalks
• Unique Damage Modifier - If travel time is not addressed, then this skill really deserves to have significantly more damage attached to it.
• CC Status - All patches need to keep their original CC qualities
• Empowering Grasp - Tweaked to increase the damage and healing by all your summons within 12m, not just those hit by the patches

Rationale:

• Travel Time - Landing this skill is not easy, especially in laggy Cyro. There either needs to be an incentive for choosing to use a skill that is multiples harder than its direct counterparts (burning talons or acid spray) or it needs to be easier to use. Increasing the travel time will make it more likely to land on the target.
• Unique Damage Modifier - There's no incentive to use this over the other two skills like it. Anyone can land Burning Talons and most people will be able to land Acid Spray, especially as the target is farther away because the attack is a conal, not linear like Ghostly Embrace.
• CC Status - (Pulled from above) Acid spray doesn't, but I'd argue that's fine considering that it's a universal weapon skill and not a class skill. Class skills deserve to be unique and distinct from generic versions of its skills.
• Empowering Grasp - This skill is nearly impossible to hit your own summons with. The skill was bugged for years and actually never applied the modifier but was clearly fixed a few patches ago. No one noticed because the skill itself is meh and only super niche builds use it, like my current necro pvp healer main. The buff barely ever lands and the skill costs way too much to use like a buff anyway. When I use it, I'm using it to CC a target or a group. I can't waste a GCD, the 3500 magicka, AND the brain power to play the "tag my summons" mini game with this buff. This skill needs to just flat grant the buff. Period. Stop making Necros jump through hoops for their skills.

Here's something I know you won't do, but I think you should consider because it would fix this skill for PvP use without wrecking the PvE balance:

"This damage is not affected by Battle Spirit"

You double the damage on the dot to make up for the fact that you'll only land the dot 1/5 casts and it stays balanced in PvE where you don't have to focus so hard to make the skill land.


Lastly - GLS? Are you done? You made it clear when you debuted it that you were going to continue tweaking it, but it seems that the combat team forgot to do that.