fred4 wrote: »

@fred4 As regards the Major Sorcery, Sap Essence is not something any magblade other than a bomber has room for by and large. However a bomb typically starts off with Proxy Det plus ultimate with Sap Essence only being cast afterwards. Having Major Sorcery on that skill neither suits bombers nor gankers nor any magblade I can think of, not even in PvE. If it's a trash fight, attack power usually isn't a problem. If it's a boss fight, would you really want to cast Sap Essence at all?

Yes, you can get 100% uptime on Major Sorcery via potions, but this limits you to certain potions, notably not Immovable potions and not tri-pots. It also affects the timing of your potions. Rather than reserving them for emergencies or simply when your resources are down, you will tend to quaff them at the beginning of fights. This is something I do anyway, because I find immovable potions before ganking invaluable, but it's another limitation that decreases magblade survivability options or that compromises their damage. A stamblade can get Major Brutality from Rally upfront. That means potions aren't on cooldown and they are free to use tri-pots as a "get out of jail" card later.

Sap is just, so bad.

The thing that triggers me the most is probably the fact that you have to hit someone with it first for it to even work. As you said in your post, in you're preparing/buffing up before a fight (bomber, ganking, just paying attention, etc.) then sap is useless anyway, because you're going to prebuff yourself with a spell power pot anyway, or just sacrifice it all together to use an immovable.

I get that somewhere in the convoluted power fantasy of whatever it is magblades are supposed to even be these days is that of the shifty magblade -- getting in close (where sap would actually be possible to use), doing their thing, and quickly getting back out. Problem is this playstyle hardly works already unless a character is built explicitly for a speedy elusive build like you have, and even if you do build that way...where exactly does sap fit in your rotation or even on your bars? Nightblades already have so many sparse underwhelming skills and need so many abilities for survivability that we already have to sacrifice a number of class skills already to make a workable build. Do you want a snare? Gap closer? DOT? Execute? Major Sorcery? Well you only have 1 flex space left after rounding out the rest of your build, so good luck and choose wisely.

It's not even that great on it's own merits. The damage and healing it provides is anemic, so much so that it's really only useful for trying to finish off low health people after a bomb hoping to proc your VD and finish off the rest.

You know, a few days back while I was half delirious at work at like 2am I had this thought that I was gonna try and make a sort-of pseudo sap-tank and try and keep the dream alive. I totally tried it too. Made a tanky high health/healing/health recovery dark cloak magblade, threw a build together using sap and ventured into Cyrodiil trying to tank my way to glory. I don't think I even made it an hour before I realized how truly unfortunately misguided that idea was and took sap right back off my bars and consigned it to the trash bin.

But just like having a heal that doesn't heal you, a DOT that's a slow and dodgeable projectile, a burst skill that punishes you for using it, a CC that's weaker than it's guild equivalent, an ultimate that's a meme, and a mobility/speed skill that traps you inside of a small box, sap just follows the same illogical 'logic' used to balance the rest of our classes abilities.