Two Years On, Lightning Staff Arc Still Broken — Please Fix It

loveeso · November 26

ZOS, please restore the AoE damage of the lightning staff’s electric arc — because right now it’s just ridiculous. It’s always been ridiculous for you to change it. Watching an electric arc pass through enemies and do nothing completely breaks immersion.

No one will be against bringing back its damage anymore. We all have Arcanist beams, which are both much stronger and easier to use, so the lightning staff wouldn’t suddenly become overpowered.

In the past, some players were against the Oakensoul ring, not against heavy attack builds themselves. Heavy attack builds using two bars have always been part of ESO’s identity.

Then some devs nerfed the lightning staff, and the result is a weapon that looks powerful but feels hollow.

Please make it right.

Restoring its AoE damage won’t hurt your sales — people will still pay for and use the Arcanist beam. But it will fix a long-standing issue and bring back consistency to combat.

Soarora · November 26

Wasn’t the problem because people were getting 1-shot in PvP with no time to react? And ZOS never fixed the core problem?

loveeso · 3:41AM

Soarora wrote: »

Wasn’t the problem because people were getting 1-shot in PvP with no time to react? And ZOS never fixed the core problem?

One‑shot in PvP with a lightning staff heavy attack channel? Don’t think so. Sure, I vaguely remember a few noobs trying it in PvP, but they were quickly disillusioned about its actual viability. Anyway, what I’m talking about here is the first two pulses of the channel — which still hit single targets exactly the same as before, just no longer AoE. The single‑target damage hasn’t changed, so this clearly isn’t related to “one‑shotting players.”

No. The issue wasn’t the lightning heavy attacks themselves — those builds were letting more players step into vet and HM content, finally giving us a bigger pool of teammates that were (mostly) capable of pulling their weight. But then, right before the Arcanist expansion, a few forum voices decided that seeing “too many lightnings everywhere” was apparently intolerable, and that low‑APM players didn’t “deserve” that much power… and ZOS happily nerfed it. We lost quite a few players.

And what did those who paid for the expansion immediately get instead? The green beam. A straight‑up replacement. Same role, same purpose — only now it does more damage, easier, adds a shield, and runs at an even lower APM. Beams everywhere, bravo 😆

This isn’t really about damage anymore (no one’s giving up the beam, let’s be honest, much more powerful than those HA builds ever were).

It’s about fixing the absurdity: electric arcs phasing harmlessly through enemies looks ridiculous, breaks immersion, and makes the game feel sloppy. Time to clean it up.

BretonMage · 4:03AM

loveeso wrote: »

And what did those who paid for the expansion immediately get instead? The green beam. A straight‑up replacement. Same role, same purpose — only now it does more damage, easier, adds a shield, and runs at an even lower APM. Beams everywhere, bravo 😆

Yeah, they should revert the AOE nerf to the lightning staff. Now that lots of players are using Herald anyway, giving the lightning staff back its unnerfed AOE damage would give people a viable alternative to the beam.

tomfant · 6:09AM

Yet still 50% of the people at dolmens or world bosses use lightning staves. It was very ovbious during the writhing wall event at siege camps. One half beams, the other half channels lightning (and some weirdos use random other attacks). So, can't be that bad, right?

Avran_Sylt · 6:21AM

Lightning staff is literally the best HA weapon.

Avran_Sylt · 6:22AM

Are you annoyed that the Lightning HA beam doesn't also damage targets it passes through in addition to the targets it deals splash damage to?

Orbital78 · 6:25AM

tomfant wrote: »

Yet still 50% of the people at dolmens or world bosses use lightning staves. It was very ovbious during the writhing wall event at siege camps. One half beams, the other half channels lightning (and some weirdos use random other attacks). So, can't be that bad, right?

For overland anything is "not bad". Just because people still try to enjoy the build play style doesn't mean it is competitive anymore. I'm sure there were people using resto staves too.

Avran_Sylt · 6:31AM

Y'know, I wouldn't be too conflicted if the Lightning Staff HA only dealt damage to up to 3 additional enemies within a line connected to the target with a max of three, (ranged needing more coordination) with the 2H HA dealing damage to three enemies near the target (needing less coordination, range cost of melee, and such allowing 3 hit for LA's as well).

Avran_Sylt · 6:37AM

I'll admit I've never played a heavy attack build, but what's been neutered from them so far? (apart from power creep?) OP's "arc undamaging thorguh plauyers" sin't sometjing I';ve experienced, myself.

Soarora · 7:14AM

loveeso wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Wasn’t the problem because people were getting 1-shot in PvP with no time to react? And ZOS never fixed the core problem?

One‑shot in PvP with a lightning staff heavy attack channel? Don’t think so. Sure, I vaguely remember a few noobs trying it in PvP, but they were quickly disillusioned about its actual viability. Anyway, what I’m talking about here is the first two pulses of the channel — which still hit single targets exactly the same as before, just no longer AoE. The single‑target damage hasn’t changed, so this clearly isn’t related to “one‑shotting players.”

Yes, I know what you’re talking about. The problem is something like battle spirit not applying to NPCs in PvP zones. If you heavy attack an NPC and a player is in the splash range, they get 1-shot. If you attack the player themselves, they don’t. As far as I know, this is still true for the last hit of the attack. Since the first splash happened quickly, it was difficult to avoid the 1-shot.

loveeso wrote: »

No. The issue wasn’t the lightning heavy attacks themselves — those builds were letting more players step into vet and HM content, finally giving us a bigger pool of teammates that were (mostly) capable of pulling their weight. But then, right before the Arcanist expansion, a few forum voices decided that seeing “too many lightnings everywhere” was apparently intolerable, and that low‑APM players didn’t “deserve” that much power… and ZOS happily nerfed it. We lost quite a few players.

As one of the complainers, the problem was never the damage for me. It was the survivability. It became meta in the way that arcanist became meta pre-subclassing. AoE damage with self heals (group heals on a HA sorc!) and survivability (minor aegis on oakensorc, now shield on pragmatic). I had never seen people truly require a certain setup until the HA sorc sweep and it annoyed me that 1) the meta pigeonhole wasn’t even a similar playstyle to what everyone was used to and 2) the very same people pushing the meta pigeonhole complained about the build all the time.

Anyways, I’m not opposed to the lightning splashes coming back, it would make using a lightning staff more satisfying, but ZOS should also fix the problem in PvP. Probably by making battle spirit damage apply to the NPCs. Or make the AoE damage only apply to “monsters” if really necessary.