Daedric Curse' morph Daedric Prey makes your Sorcerer pets deal additional damage, so it absolutely belongs in Daedric Summoning.

LunaFlora wrote: »

Daedric Curse' morph Daedric Prey makes your Sorcerer pets deal additional damage, so it absolutely belongs in Daedric Summoning.

Either attach bonus pet damage to a passive, or bake it onto pets baseline.
In fact, just add a 15% bonus damage for summoned units to Expert Summoner passive like @Turtle_Bot suggested, this way Daedric Summoning will be much more about the summoning, and Daedric Prey can instead become a (Shattering Curse or smth) class source of Major Breach for sorcerers, or a Splintering Curse that affects 2 additional targets, dealing 50% of its damage to them, and in AoE around them, wich will help sorcs(and anyone who will subclass into dark magic) have more AoE dps.

If haunting curse also had some bonus to pets damage, If daedric prey also affected every possible summon in the game, as well as bound armaments (that are in fact summoned daedric entity with daedric summoning ability, and based on daedric prey description - damage bonus should affect armaments as well), then maybe this ability is more about summoning and less about dark magic.

But for me, cursing someone is as dark of a magic as it gets.

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Talons - and the Warden version in Shards - both have a Tank and a DPS morph, which is now also the case for Grave Grasp. Scythe does too. So it's not so simple.

As for Siphon, it provides a backbarrable Savagery, like Inferno, Sunfire, Cloak, and Lotus, and also it's a DPS skill. And both morphs of Siphon and Tether have uses.

But Curse and Sunshield I'm with you 100%, except it's a further nerf to a now struggling Dawn's Wrath.

Winters embrace is full hybrid between frost damage and tanking, it even has 2 frost damage passives to support that, and shards are more of a your average ground AoE dot then short and strong 5s dots that gravegrasp and talons are.

Speaking of talons - DK's wouldn't lose anything by swaping those skill around, and everyone else who gets dk's lines as subclasses will have better packadged DPS or Tanking line.

As for gravegrasp, I have a long standing fantasy of it becoming a single instanced direct ground targeted AoE skill, that consumes corpses in area to put a DoT on a ground or on the targets hit, it will complete Grave Lord skill line nicely, but it requires a place, so its either consolidating tethers to one skill or removing other one entirly. Probably will never happen.

Also, bone tyrant needs more corps gen to fuel bitter harvest, else its quite underpowered for subclassing, so it also needs to summon something, maybe a skeletal warrior that taunts selected enemy, so you have a little temroporal pocket offtank, and scythe isnt really a dps skill, more of a health-based heal than a proper AoE.

GLS is still disater of a skill btw, ZoS, I beg of you, bring me back my stalking buddy...

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

Some of the changes suggested by the original poster make some sense, but some of the suggestions also seems like they are trying to overload skill lines specially for builds they wish they could make. Moving hardened ward is laughable.

Exactly. As ZoS commented on the patch notes, with subclassing skill lines are now considered modules to be swaped around, so you can assemble a character of your own liking. All I stated in op, is about achiveing independance of said modules, so they arent relying on another skill lines to be useful.

What use would tanks have in burning talons or ghostly embrace?
What pure classes lose in swaping those skills around?

Hardened ward stated as optional, but tell me honestly, how much sorcs u saw on live using hardened without pets? Every sorc? That's beasue, outside of providing shield for pets its a core survivablity element of sorc, and it is not relying on summoning, but in fact providing for it. In my example, daedric summoning recieves vibrant shroud, that will heal pets instead of shielding them.

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Maybe no high level PvE Tank uses them, I have no idea, but Talons and Grasp are both AoE Immobilizes, Choking Talons is also AoE Minor Maim, and also this new Ghostly Embrace is a guaranteed instantaneous AoE Minor Brittle.

Maybe they could use a buff but they're clearly Tank skills.

For PvP however neat and tidy portability isn't always great. Perhaps we want more flexible lines for better efficiency. Draconic Power and Winter's Embrace both give Major Resolve, Burst Heal, and PvP Offensive Ult, along with a damage skill or two.

I say keep the mix, but make Elder Dragon a DPS passive ala Glacial Presence and Piercing Cold.

Emopowering grasp and choking talons definetly are, but burning talons and ghostly embrase are 100% DPS skills.
Ghostly doesnt even have any CC attached and procs chilled only with closest circle, and chilled proc brittle only when using a frost staff soo... its not very popular with tanks.

Its okay for a tanking lines to have some dps skills here and there, but having a pull on clearly dps line is a wierd one. Arcs also have an AoE pull in a offensive line, and templars have health scaling shield in the aedric spear...

But once again, nobody lose anything in those swaps, while everyone is gaining better packadged skillines, both base classes and subclasses.

DK's dps can swap out draconic power and still have theirs most powerful dot inside ardent flame, templars can swap dawns wrath and still have PoTL, sorcs can swap daedric summoning and still have curse and ward, necros can swap bone tyrant and still have Ghostly Embrace, a single sticky DoT they have.
And it applies to anyone who subclass into this lines, they will get better packadged skill lines.

In this example only line that gets nerfed is dawns wrath, but if ZoS ever unnerfs beam, and make a sunshield a flat 10% damage reduction for 15 secs instead of a health scaling shield shield, one morph that explode with magic damage at recast or the end of the duration based on damage absorbed, and the other that heal on recast or after ability expires based on damage it absorbed, with the cap for damage and healing that scales with max health, it will become an interesting line for those who will be stacking health for survivability.

ADarklore wrote: »

They are modules that require CHOICES... as I mentioned in another post... you shouldn't get ALL benefits with no sacrifices when subclassing. If you want the full effects, then stay as as your full class IMO.

They are modules that require choices, but as has been mentioned by many, in many other posts and threads (and the whole point of this thread); some classes (NB and the DLC classes) have a disproportionately easier time making those choices when engaging with sub-classing than the other classes (Sorc, Plar and DK) because ZOS has failed in properly tidying up/organizing the skill lines of those remaining classes who are subsequently forced into making significantly harder decisions when engaging with this brand new system that ZOS is advertising as the hot new thing this patch.

Vaqual wrote: »

Ward + Blood Magic = sure man

Talons and chains are fine where they are, skill lines don't need to be one stop shops.

The curse and mines swap would be cool, but the prey effect can't just be granted passively with the same magnitude, it would need to go somewhere else, like for example replacing the active effect of the twilight tormentor.

ward+blood magic = still dead to double merciless/relentless (or insert any broken combo you can come up with using subclassing). 2k heal wont change that. Not mentioning that hardened, in order to be used effectivly, requires you to run a specific max mana setup that isnt super optimal anymore. You can boost its size with max health as well, but the heal from blood magic is fixed, so it will no longer get any scaling from either max mana or max health.

I cant see how talons are fine where they are.
If you are optimising for dps as a DK you dropping both Earthen Heart and Draconinc Power for Herald+Grave Lord/Assassination.
And you, as a base DK, have no talons, and lose a big portion of your base class AoE dps, but you have useless pull/gapcloser that you wont ever put skill points into.

If you are any other class and decide to run DK's skills for dps - you choosing Ardent Flame and end up with useless pull/gap closer that you wont put any skill points into, instead of short powerful AoE DoT.

In presented example - pure dks lose nothing, they stay how they are on live. DK's whos subclassing keeps theirs signature AoE dps option, anyone else who subclasses for DK's ardent flame gets powerful AoE DoT. Its a win for everyone.

DK tanks, who give up Ardent Flame, keeps their signature pull with draconic power, non-DK tanks whos subclassing for draconic power getting the best single target pull in the game. Everybody gain something.

PvPers, who chose Draconic Power as their major resolve line are getting gap-closer with major berserk, as well as DK's keeping that if they decide to keep Draconic Power as theirs sourse of major resolve.

Ardent Flame now have its own immobilise to proc offbalance with whip, which is great to have acsess to as DK if you want subclass your other lines, as well as its great for other classes with no decent cc's avaliable (mainly necromancers) to be able to proc that offbalance.

Draconic Power is still a tank-damage hibryd, and Ardent Flame is still DoT+Pressure line with a lot of self healing after the swap. But, with those swap, its more covinient for DK to subclass, as well as its more convinvient for every other class to subclass into DK.

For those who still doesnt get whats going on:
A. Subclassing is happening. Its Real.
B. There is no dowsides to subclassing, and I hope there wouldnt be any in a future, otherwise this whole system is dead on arrival and we better keep class integrity as it is.
C. You want this sytem to be convinient, and have wide variety of good avaliable options, otherwise it will become same boring, stale, 1 class + 2 item sets meta, while everything else is barely playable on any competetive level.
D. Yes, I also imagined that this sytem would be different than what it is. Yes, I also dont like that class identity takes yet another hit, from which it might not recover. But, if ZoS are locked into that direction, I'd rather want them to complete this new system without hesistation and second thought, and not leaving any aspect of it forgotten or underdeveloped (looking at you alchemy-post-u35).

EDIT: My bad. blood magic does scale with max health. Still wont save you from Shalks-Incap-2x Spec Bow.

As a sorcerer main, I disagree.

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

Sorcerer:

Daedric Curse <-> Daedric Mines
optional:
Conjured Ward <-> Encase

Reason: those daedric summoning skills are used in a variety of builds that doesnt rely on summons. Also, while there are strong advocates for Dark Magic being a good skill line, I believe, that with those swaps it would be even better. And mines with encase would fit summonig tree snuggly, providing healing and roots and shields for your pets and allies.

Of the 3 abilities discussed ad nauseum on the forums surrounding this topic, you missed arguably the easiest and most logical swap imo. On a scale of easiest to hardest for swapping, it would look like this to me:

Daedric Summoning

1. Bound Armor
2. Conjured Ward
3. Deadric Curse

Dark Magic

1. Rune Prison
2. Daedric Mines
3. Encase

Basically, if I could only take 1, it'd be Bound Armor <-> Rune Prison as neither morph of Bound Armor has absolutely anything to do with pets, while Ward and Curse have pet dedicated morphs. That's not to say I don't think they should be swapped, but it's certainly harder to justify. In an ideal world, we could leave Daedric Prey and Regenerative Ward, then move Haunting Curse and Hardened Ward, but realistically that will never happen. What could happen even in this PTS is Bound Armor shifting places.

Why Rune Prison over "Daedric Mines" (apropriately named) or Encase? Simply because it's arguably the most underused abilities in the entirity of all 36 morphed skills available to Sorc. Daedric Mines and Encase were recently rebalanced within the past year, while Rune Prison has been nearly identical since the launch of the game. Both morphs could receive massive overhauls to better fit within the "Pet" playstyle of the Daedric Summoning skill line without effecting a no pet Sorc playstyle whatsoever. Why does Sorc even have 2 stuns within their kit in the 1st place? I could see a previous argument for people seeking a ranged stun, back when the only other option was Flame Destructive Clench, but we have scribing and subclassing now.

I feel like people are getting really hung up on the name of Daedric Mines as to why it should be swapped when names are entirely interchangable. If you look at the VFX of mines in comparison to something like Rune Prison, Encase, or even Crystal Weapon, they all share similar purple + crystaly visuals. Nothing about any of those skills makes them more or less "daedric" themed, it's just a cool name they landed on. Furthermore, it doesn't even matter if a Daedric Skill is in Dark Magic, or a Storm Skill is in Daedric Summoning, or a Dark Magic skill is within Storm Calling. Subclassing is here, but the classes still maintain some semblence of wholistic vision, it's okay to have overlap outside of the name of a given skill line. If it wasn't, Daedric Mines would never have existed in Dark Magic, nor would half the available shock skills in the Daedric Summoning tree.

And for obvious reasons, skills that are spammed more often fit nicer in Dark Magic vs Daedric Summoning seeing as it proc's Blood Magic and Exploitation vs the oppposite where all you get for spamming is the Rebate passive. This is the other reason I put Encase in last place vs Mines, you are much more likely to spam Encase vs the very nature of Mines which last 15s. Vibrant Shroud in particular relies on Blood Magic to become a decent burst heal, with a tooltip balanced around aoe burst heal, it caps out at 2700 vs single target burst heals at 3600, with Blood Magic, it gets closer to that 3600 value making it relatively competitive where normally it wouldn't be.

Lastly, Bound Armor vs Haunting Curse vs Hardened Ward.

1. They just specifically removed the burst heal from Hardened Ward because it was too powerful, putting the skill in Dark Magic would reinstitute the effect, albeit to a much lower degree (10% hp vs 15% hp or 15% mag).
2. Haunting Curse's entire morph effect is to allow it to blow up twice over 12s instead of once over 6s. Best use case scenario is to reapply this every 12s, stun on 4s for your combo, then stun again at 12s for your 2nd combo (8s window vs 7s CC immunity). Overspamming this while possible, is not the intention of the design for the skill.
3. Bound Aegis and Bound Armaments are both powerful effects based on small windows, while they're not typically spammed back to back, they are intended to be cast between 4-5s apart, this makes it the best option of the 3 to interact with Blood Magic without also being OP (previous Hardened Ward effect).
4. Bound Aegis is a tank skill, Blood Magic is a tank scaling passive (max hp), why it's in Daedric Summoning to begin with is beyond my comprehension of basic game design phylosophy.
5. Bound Armaments continues and forever will be the weaker ugly step cousin to Grim Focus. Mercilous Resolve currently deals about 50% more damage on PTS, even more when you consider it's within a line that gives a low cost +20% dmg ult + up to 300 w/s dmg... all the while it heals for damage dealt. BA is less consistent in that the daggers are 0.3s apart so any human being will dodge at least half of it with the large 1.2s window in addition to minimum travel time all projectiles deal with. In summation, if BA is meant to be weaker and casted more frequently, offering it some extra measure of utility like Blood Magic healing would actually help the skill be more competitive to it's cousin. The heal would be lesser, but more consistent as well seeing as it's 28m vs 7m.

TLDR: Bound Armor for Rune Prison is a slam dunk no brainer, while Ward/Curse for Encase/Mines seems to be like a harder logical argument to make. I can't see ZOS ever doing the ladder, especially during 1 week of the PTS. I could see them swapping the former though.

Talons is very useful for both tank and dps DKs since it's also a root with a very good synergy

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Talons and chains are fine where they are, skill lines don't need to be one stop shops.

Whip and Talons were designed to be used together. Talons should be in Ardent so it can charge the whip. I enjoy building around Burning Talons in PvP and I'm now at a disadvantage compared to one stop shops like Assassin.

From my point of view it is good if there are still incentives to play also pure classes. The skill lines do not need to be fully streamlined around max performance.

Artim_X wrote: »

I like using ward (protect pets) and curse (increase pet damage) on a pure pet build. Why mess with something that works and makes sense?

I disagree cause it would be an unnecessary change. If you want more sorc tools, just make sure that the base class is a sorcerer so you can have two sorc skill-lines.

And then witness pet sorc & non-pet sorc fall far behind others because of subclassing?
And ward and curse as a band-aid are meaningless for any kind of sorc. Ward is very strong at present (U45), but U46 has been severely nerfed, and in the past few years, ward has not been strong most of the time, and those who really use ward are sorcs in PVP without pets.
Curse is an obvious band-aid, forcing sorc to be restricted by pets in PVE, and was also nerfed in U46. I wouldn't mind at all if curse's pet damage was removed, just redistribute the missing parts to the pet itself so that the pet is worthy of the double column limit.


As a main sorc, I totally agree that some of the sorc's skills need to swap skill lines. However, I hope that all three skill lines of sorc need to be completely reviewed and reworked.