Question about Scribing’s Wield Soul

Elvenheart · May 14

For my non-pet sorcerer I will be using for Subclassing (and hopefully without Oakensoul so I can have the two-bar playstyle) since I’ll be losing Conjured Ward along with Daedric Summoning I decided to try creating a shield spell with Wield Soul that also heals and gives me Empower for 10 seconds. It works perfectly when I’m soloing, but when I am grouped, it always goes to everybody else in the group but me most of the time! That’s because the shield part reads “Grants you or an ally a damage shield that absorbs 6500 damage for 6 seconds….” And there doesn’t seem to be a way to control where it goes. It wouldn’t be so bad if the healing and Empower didn’t also go to the shielded person instead of me. Any thoughts?

tsaescishoeshiner · May 15

Unfortunately for that purpose, that's just how it works. 10 seconds is also a bit short for Empower--you might be better off using another source of Empower like Solar Barrage (22 seconds) or Molten Armaments (36 seconds) (depending on your subclass choice, of course).

If you want a guaranteed shield from scribing for yourself, you'd want Ulfsild's Contingency (10 seconds), which has some nice defensive and offensive signature scripts (reduced damage taken, Class Mastery, etc). As long as you cast it again, or any skill, with 22 seconds, it'll trigger and give you the buff, so casting one time every 10 seconds is a guaranteed shield and Empower. Alternatively, it could be used as a shock damage DoT with Empower.

And because it grants its Empower from the Mages Guild passive, you get a free Affix slot for Minor Force, Minor Resolve, and a few more.

It's a bit more expensive than Wield Soul, but at least it's AoE to help allies. Not a 1:1 replacement, though.

Elvenheart · May 15

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Unfortunately for that purpose, that's just how it works. 10 seconds is also a bit short for Empower--you might be better off using another source of Empower like Solar Barrage (22 seconds) or Molten Armaments (36 seconds) (depending on your subclass choice, of course).

If you want a guaranteed shield from scribing for yourself, you'd want Ulfsild's Contingency (10 seconds), which has some nice defensive and offensive signature scripts (reduced damage taken, Class Mastery, etc). As long as you cast it again, or any skill, with 22 seconds, it'll trigger and give you the buff, so casting one time every 10 seconds is a guaranteed shield and Empower. Alternatively, it could be used as a shock damage DoT with Empower.

And because it grants its Empower from the Mages Guild passive, you get a free Affix slot for Minor Force, Minor Resolve, and a few more.

It's a bit more expensive than Wield Soul, but at least it's AoE to help allies. Not a 1:1 replacement, though.

Thank you, those are some good points! I did see that on Molten Armaments, but I am planning to try Ardent Flame first and if it doesn’t work out that was going to be my second choice. And I hadn’t thought about the Mages Guild Empower from Ulfsild’s Contingency, that’s a great idea!

SeaGtGruff · May 15

I'll have to check my two mains, but I scribed a healing ability for both of them and the abilities work differently as far as their targeting-- one targets myself "or an ally" as you mentioned, whereas the other one targets me exclusively. If you want to use it for solo content, I would go with a purely self-targeted skill. But the one that targets allies can also be nice if that's what you want it to do-- for instance, I was in Cyrodiil and was using it to help keep fellow players alive while we were sieging the inner door of a keep.