Update 6 - the last nail in the coffin for sorcerer DPS/Healer in PVE

mousekime111rwb17_ESO

looks to me like sorcs are going to be stupid OP - crushing shock build with 30% of the time being able to smash out a 1.5k damage crit instant cast AND having an execute. Nightblades are getting a massive win with being able to throw in crippling grasp into their crushing shock build - also with an execute! Also this is a massive buff to ALL healers. Perhaps templars can use blazing spear as a dot in their crushing shock build every few seconds - and be AOE monsters with solar barrage > impulse > repeat. I'm looking foward to it!

Gyudan

mousekime111rwb17_ESO wrote: »

looks to me like sorcs are going to be stupid OP - crushing shock build with 30% of the time being able to smash out a 1.5k damage crit instant cast AND having an execute. Nightblades are getting a massive win with being able to throw in crippling grasp into their crushing shock build - also with an execute! Also this is a massive buff to ALL healers. Perhaps templars can use blazing spear as a dot in their crushing shock build every few seconds - and be AOE monsters with solar barrage > impulse > repeat. I'm looking foward to it!

I think you should re-read GreyBrow and Demira's comments.
Sorcs can't be OP since they have almost no useful abilities among their class skills (other than mage's wrath and crystal fragments, which are both situational). All they have right now is the ability to easily raise their weapon power, which will soon be useless when staff abilities start scaling with spell power.

Ragefist

I must agree with reasonable people in this thread. Its really way too early to start doin what you do best (QQ) guys.

If 1.6 brings the promised changes to skills and mechanics, they would surely adjust not only Surge, but also bring the promised stamina morphs to class skills. That means a BUFF to melee players across the board, not a nerf of crit chance. Same will happen to your staff abilities, they may not be affected by Surge anymore but they will do more damage due to scaling off magicka and smacking spellpowah glyphs on your jewellery will affect all your skills, not only staff ones

Ok now go ahead and QQ some more

EsORising

Am i understanding this wrong? This is a major buff for sorcs and not a nerf. First of all, Sorcs don't need a buff. Second of all, everyone and their mama is running around in light armor magicka build destro staff and most of them are sorcs for the mp. Third of all, there is always a third.

Anywho, I don't think some people are seeing the bigger picture. Think about it if damage is based of spell power; Once champion system is implemented Destro staff will be the cap regarless if you spend points to increase spell power with champion points butttttttttttt if power is based on spell dmg then it will keep growing.

Which would you rather have? I'm sure it will be a mix of the 2 eventually like every single other mmo. This is a smart move by ZoS but no one will see it till champion system is implemented.

Natjur

How about we just wait until patch 1.6 hits PST and we can SEE all the skills\spells they are changing as they are looking at most of them. THEN, complain if its still as you think it will be

s7732425ub17_ESO

GreyBrow wrote: »

The reading comprehension of most of the people posting here is sooooo low.

The issue is that sorcs are already LAST out of tank/dps/heals....

Anything a sorc can do, another class can do it better. This isn't debatable at this point in the game. And i've played a sorc since beta.

Rolled a DK 2 months ago and i've never been happier, but I still love my main sorc. They really need to redo the entire Fing class. Just get rid of the entire daedric tree, replace it with support abilities (heals/buffs), make lightning form a toggle that increases crit chance (same as flames of oblivion), and fing PLEASE make major changes to dark magic.

Dark deal is worthless, mines are COMPLETELY useless, and the two cc abilities don't work on any mobs that you would actually need a cc for. Crystal shards is extremely low dps, and negate is a JOKE in PvE. Give negate a straight 25% damage buff while standing in it, just like dk's banner

Wtf you smoking? The dark magic tree is the best on Sorc. Dark deal is really good and has actual use. Mines are very strong and have use. Crystal shards is a huge ranged attack that can perma CC mons. Negate is very, very strong in PVE. Negate actually stuns/silences enemies for a very, very long time.

What needs reworking is the summoning tree. Right now it's completely useless at endgame except for Hardened Ward.

RSram

MrGhosty wrote: »

...How I personally read it is that they're trying to demystify the systems the game uses to determine overall usage so that we as players don't require a million different add ons and hours of testing time just to get a vague idea of how things work. I can't imagine they wouldn't make sure things unify across all classes, this change could well mean a lot of changes in many builds out there but I wouldn't declare the sky is falling just yet.

The developers should have figured this out during the design phase. With each update, its like they are re-designing the game at the expense of the players who have already invested hundreds of hours of loss sex to become emperor for a day.

RSram

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

Wtf you smoking? The dark magic tree is the best on Sorc. Dark deal is really good and has actual use. Mines are very strong and have use. Crystal shards is a huge ranged attack that can perma CC mons. Negate is very, very strong in PVE. Negate actually stuns/silences enemies for a very, very long time.

What needs reworking is the summoning tree. Right now it's completely useless at endgame except for Hardened Ward.

Mines are good to CC hovering NPCs because encase won't work.

My crystal shards attacks do over 700 DP per hit. I am just an average player, nothing special.

Negate can also be used in PVP, hitting several enemy players bunched up in a spamming zerg.

You forgot to mention the utility of the Unstable Clanfear for solo players. This pet can be used to perform a variety of functions and is really durable when combined with the Hardened Ward, and you can even use restoration spells on it to keep it kicking like a Timex watch.

Here are some of the uses that I use an Unstable Clanfear for:

1) Distracting bosses or small groups of NPCs while I kite them from a distance.

2) Sending the Clanfear into a mob to clump them together so I can spam them with impulse. This is a good tactic when soloing public dungeons.

3) Sending the Clanfear into an area to attack a single NPC and see if the nearby NPCs response as a mob or just ignore the attack. This is a good tactic when soloing public dungeons.

4) Sending the Clanfear to attack and distract a NPC, that I am too lazy to fight, so I can harvest the node at a leisurely pace.

5) Attacks the NPCs that ambush me, giving me time to pull my head out of my *ss while fumbling for the keyboard.

Nightreaver

mousekime111rwb17_ESO wrote: »

looks to me like sorcs are going to be stupid OP - crushing shock build with 30% of the time being able to smash out a 1.5k damage crit instant cast AND having an execute.

Can someone please explain how this works 'cause I'm just not getting it.
I currently do 400 damage with Crushing shock, increasing to 465 with Crit Surge. That is with 153 Weapon damage increased to 211 (8 over Weapon damage soft cap)Weapon Damage with Crit Surge.
Spell damage has a soft cap of 135 (2/3 of the weapon damage soft cap). So how is changing the scaling of Staff abilities from weapon power to spell power resulting in a 150% increase in damage?

EsORising wrote: »

Am i understanding this wrong? This is a major buff for sorcs and not a nerf. First of all, Sorcs don't need a buff. Second of all, everyone and their mama is running around in light armor magicka build destro staff and most of them are sorcs for the mp. Third of all, there is always a third.

Completely lost me here.

This is a major buff for sorcs and not a nerf.
First of all, Sorcs don't need a buff.

So this is a major buff because Sorcs don't need a buff?

Second of all, everyone and their mama is running around in light armor magicka build destro staff and most of them are sorcs for the mp.

Or this is a major buff because there are Sorcerers wearing robes using staves?

Third of all, there is always a third

I'm still waiting for the 1st reason why this would be a major buff.

I don't see anything here that indicates it would be any kind of buff for Sorcerers. In respect to Sorcerers it seems it would only further reduce the DPS of what is already the lowest DPS class.

GreyBrow

mousekime111rwb17_ESO wrote: »

looks to me like sorcs are going to be stupid OP - crushing shock build with 30% of the time being able to smash out a 1.5k damage crit instant cast AND having an execute. Nightblades are getting a massive win with being able to throw in crippling grasp into their crushing shock build - also with an execute! Also this is a massive buff to ALL healers. Perhaps templars can use blazing spear as a dot in their crushing shock build every few seconds - and be AOE monsters with solar barrage > impulse > repeat. I'm looking foward to it!

Are you stupid?

crushing shock DPS will be garbage, sorcs have no dots, and even if you can do a 1.5k crystal shard, its only 750 dps because it takes so long to cast. If they change crit surge to spell damage, you will have no abilities to use which will proc crystal fragments because staff damage will be disgustingly low.

Still_Mind

Is it just me, or the OP misread ZOS_JoeBlackburn, and is just causing a panic?

By the same logic (or lack of thereof), we can scream "OMG, Stam weapon skills won't use weapon damage anymore".

The post said:

For Update 6 we are making a huge effort to make sure that everything that costs Magicka scales in damage based off your Max Magicka and Spell Damage, and uses Spell Critical as its Critical Strike Chance. Similarly, all abilities that cost Stamina will scale in damage based off your Max Stamina and Weapon Damage, and use Weapon Critical as their Critical Strike Chance.

They didn't say that they are removing weapon power from the equation. They just said they'll be ironing out scaling so that skills use proper stats.

Dracane

Horrible change. I hope, they are going to overthink this. This would give the Sorcerer the final hit, to fade in full weakness. Sorcerer definately needs love and this chance will make it even worse.

Gyudan

Still_Mind wrote: »

Is it just me, or the OP misread ZOS_JoeBlackburn, and is just causing a panic?

By the same logic (or lack of thereof), we can scream "OMG, Stam weapon skills won't use weapon damage anymore".

The post said:

For Update 6 we are making a huge effort to make sure that everything that costs Magicka scales in damage based off your Max Magicka and Spell Damage, and uses Spell Critical as its Critical Strike Chance. Similarly, all abilities that cost Stamina will scale in damage based off your Max Stamina and Weapon Damage, and use Weapon Critical as their Critical Strike Chance.

They didn't say that they are removing weapon power from the equation. They just said they'll be ironing out scaling so that skills use proper stats.

Step by step reasoning:
1) Sorcerers are less effective at healing/DPS than other classes.
2) Buffing weapon damage to boost staff abilities (critical surge) is what keeps their head out of the water, for both magicka and stamina users
3) Update 6 will change staff ability scaling from weapon power to spell power.
4) Sorcerers using staves will be even weaker.

Bonus: if critical surge is changed to a spell power increase, it will weaken the stamina sorcerers. If it is changes to an hybrid ability increasing both spell and weapon power, the increased amount will be nerfed and both stamina and magicka users will be weakened.

On a side note, I was in Sanctum Ophidia yesterday and on one of the last mob groups before the final fight a teammate of mine was reaching 5.9K AoE DPS with his DK. Standing in the exact same place with a sorcerer I couldn't go over 2.9K.

Robert_Pendragon

Gyudan wrote: »

Still_Mind wrote: »

On a side note, I was in Sanctum Ophidia yesterday and on one of the last mob groups before the final fight a teammate of mine was reaching 5.9K AoE DPS with his DK. Standing in the exact same place with a sorcerer I couldn't go over 2.9K.

Sorry man, both your DK and you are clearly lacking a ton of dps, our sorcs can cap over 12k easily without popping a pot. That pull is more about tricks rather than flat damage.

Dracane

I could cry my beloved class is getting worse and worse.

guybrushtb16_ESO

Ragefist wrote: »

I must agree with reasonable people in this thread. Its really way too early to start doin what you do best (QQ) guys.

If 1.6 brings the promised changes to skills and mechanics, they would surely adjust not only Surge, but also bring the promised stamina morphs to class skills. That means a BUFF to melee players across the board, not a nerf of crit chance. Same will happen to your staff abilities, they may not be affected by Surge anymore but they will do more damage due to scaling off magicka and smacking spellpowah glyphs on your jewellery will affect all your skills, not only staff ones

Ok now go ahead and QQ some more

Where are you getting the info that 1.6 brings stamina morphs? Not saying it can't happen, but AFAIK only the stat change has been announced to definitely be in 1.6; last time I looked stamina morphs were still in the "something we'd like to do" limbo.

DezIsDead

I had a long post written, got pissed. So I'm just going to say sorc is a dying breed, want proof? Look how many vr14 sorcs have re rolled a DK NB or Templar. Look at the average 24 man PvP group today compared to 3 months ago. Thanks a bunch. Devs please consider altering sorcs a bit seriously. No need to "buff" us! just redo our class skills. Give us an insta cast ability, or a self heal ability. No dark exchange doesn't count. Bai guys!

Dracane

I love the pets. They allow me to solo many group VR dungeons..... so nothing against my pets They NEED to buff our Sorc skills. Look at the passives, mostly useless stuff. The only good passives are 'Exploit' and 1 or 2 others. Passives should completly be replaced with more usefull passives.

And skills like Bound armor, Mine field, RUNE PRSION (so stupid) and maybe Shock field should be erased and replaced with serious, appropriate skills. This can't be a problem.....

kevlarto_ESO

When was the last time anything official has been talked about for update 6, I have not seen anything for a long time, unless I missed it somewhere, seems like a lot of knee jerk reaction to something, that might or might not be in the update. I would hope we start to see things for update 6 soon.

Faulgor

Gyudan wrote: »

3) Update 6 will change staff ability scaling from weapon power to spell power.

That's not what he said, though. For all we know staff abilities will cost stamina, scale with weapon power and crit with weapon crit.

Murmeltier

Faulgor wrote: »

Gyudan wrote: »

3) Update 6 will change staff ability scaling from weapon power to spell power.

That's not what he said, though. For all we know staff abilities will cost stamina, scale with weapon power and crit with weapon crit.

Uhm, as i read this i was totally confused. The Source says:

For Update 6 we are making a huge effort to make sure that everything that costs Magicka scales in damage based off your Max Magicka and Spell Damage, and uses Spell Critical as its Critical Strike Chance. Similarly, all abilities that cost Stamina will scale in damage based off your Max Stamina and Weapon Damage, and use Weapon Critical as their Critical Strike Chance.

Read this above please. I really dont understand how you could say that Staff Abilities will cost Stamina? That means that all of the Destructionstaff Skills will cost Magicka and have Spellcrit/Spelldamage.

So that what you say is wrong, maybe you can explain what you mean excactly?

And for the second, why are the People are so angry about this Changes. As i said before, you can do all your Skills over Magicka/Spelldamage and Spellcrit with the Update 1.6, if it works like that.

That means you dont have to split Jewels or Equip between Spelldamage and Weapondamage, no Splitting between Spellcrit and Weaponcrit anymore. You can put all your Stats in one Direction and push ALL your Classskills together .

The only negative Side is for the Hybrids, but that is a good Thing too. Before it the Balance wasnt right.

Old System = Weapondamage push the 2H Sword and Destructionstaff for an Example, count that together and you can boost both diffrent Things with the same Stat or Surge. That is one of the Reason why Sorcerers really hate this Change. But the Destructionstaff uses Magicka and do Spelldamage, the 2H Sword use Stamina, so the Changes are logical.

If Surge ever change to Magicka my Sorcerer will love it, because i can push ALL of my Classskills and Staffskills with that then.

This is an Advantage, all this talking about that Sorcerers will lose isnt right. A Magical Surge will boost ALL your Magicka Skills, Staffs too then. Before it pushes only the Weapondamage but no Classskills from the Sorcerer.

Someone says here hat Crushing Shock isnt a good Damage Skill, sorry but that Skill is one of the best Staffskills, it procs the Shard too i mean. After 1.6 it will hit like a Truck.

And no, now we dont have to play only Magicka or Stamina Classes now, we only to think more about the Hybrid Builds, they have Positives and Negatives and more Balance now. Like in other Games too, you can play what you want but you cant get all and be the Best in everything now.

And for all other Classes, one Stat to push them all, its precious .

TehMagnus

Murmeltier wrote: »

That means you dont have to split Jewels or Equip between Spelldamage and Weapondamage, no Splitting between Spellcrit and Weaponcrit anymore. You can put all your Stats in one Direction and push ALL your Classskills together .

True but if the softcap from spell dmg is kept at ~135, you won't necessarily gain DPS on the process... This has to be studied.

Don't see though how this will affect sorcs as off healers, IMO it's the best class to heal(after mighty templars of course) since they regen ulti faster and thus can pop them op negates

Gyudan

Murmeltier wrote: »

And for the second, why are the People are so angry about this Changes. As i said before, you can do all your Skills over Magicka/Spelldamage and Spellcrit with the Update 1.6, if it works like that.

That means you dont have to split Jewels or Equip between Spelldamage and Weapondamage, no Splitting between Spellcrit and Weaponcrit anymore. You can put all your Stats in one Direction and push ALL your Classskills together .

The only negative Side is for the Hybrids, but that is a good Thing too. Before it the Balance wasnt right.

Old System = Weapondamage push the 2H Sword and Destructionstaff for an Example, count that together and you can boost both diffrent Things with the same Stat or Surge. That is one of the Reason why Sorcerers really hate this Change. But the Destructionstaff uses Magicka and do Spelldamage, the 2H Sword use Stamina, so the Changes are logical.

If Surge ever change to Magicka my Sorcerer will love it, because i can push ALL of my Classskills and Staffskills with that then.

This is an Advantage, all this talking about that Sorcerers will lose isnt right. A Magical Surge will boost ALL your Magicka Skills, Staffs too then. Before it pushes only the Weapondamage but no Classskills from the Sorcerer.

Someone says here hat Crushing Shock isnt a good Damage Skill, sorry but that Skill is one of the best Staffskills, it procs the Shard too i mean. After 1.6 it will hit like a Truck.

And no, now we dont have to play only Magicka or Stamina Classes now, we only to think more about the Hybrid Builds, they have Positives and Negatives and more Balance now. Like in other Games too, you can play what you want but you cant get all and be the Best in everything now.

And for all other Classes, one Stat to push them all, its precious .

ZoS never said that surge will switch to increasing spell damage. If it does, it will have a very negative impact on stamina sorcerers (some of them are pure stamina, not hybrids). If it doesn't, it will weaken magicka sorcerers even more.

Right now sorcerers don't have to split jewelry enchantments since they already softcap their weapon damage with surge. In my opinion magicka cost reduction is more effective than spell damage because of the uselessness of the class skills. Since Mage's Wrath is the only really valuable one for me, I usually pop a spell crit potion (+19 spell dmg) right before the start of the boss execute phase and it lasts for most of that phase (not on Sanctum/Arena though).

Leeric

mousekime111rwb17_ESO wrote: »

looks to me like sorcs are going to be stupid OP - crushing shock build with 30% of the time being able to smash out a 1.5k damage crit instant cast AND having an execute. Nightblades are getting a massive win with being able to throw in crippling grasp into their crushing shock build - also with an execute! Also this is a massive buff to ALL healers. Perhaps templars can use blazing spear as a dot in their crushing shock build every few seconds - and be AOE monsters with solar barrage > impulse > repeat. I'm looking foward to it!

Crushing shock is not a sorcerer ability doofus lol

Dymence

Still_Mind wrote: »

Is it just me, or the OP misread ZOS_JoeBlackburn, and is just causing a panic?

By the same logic (or lack of thereof), we can scream "OMG, Stam weapon skills won't use weapon damage anymore".

The post said:

For Update 6 we are making a huge effort to make sure that everything that costs Magicka scales in damage based off your Max Magicka and Spell Damage, and uses Spell Critical as its Critical Strike Chance. Similarly, all abilities that cost Stamina will scale in damage based off your Max Stamina and Weapon Damage, and use Weapon Critical as their Critical Strike Chance.

They didn't say that they are removing weapon power from the equation. They just said they'll be ironing out scaling so that skills use proper stats.

He clearly says that things which costs magicka will scale off max magicka and spell power. I don't see how there is any further room for misunderstanding and speculation.

GreyBrow

Murmeltier wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Gyudan wrote: »

3) Update 6 will change staff ability scaling from weapon power to spell power.

That's not what he said, though. For all we know staff abilities will cost stamina, scale with weapon power and crit with weapon crit.

Uhm, as i read this i was totally confused. The Source says:

For Update 6 we are making a huge effort to make sure that everything that costs Magicka scales in damage based off your Max Magicka and Spell Damage, and uses Spell Critical as its Critical Strike Chance. Similarly, all abilities that cost Stamina will scale in damage based off your Max Stamina and Weapon Damage, and use Weapon Critical as their Critical Strike Chance.

Read this above please. I really dont understand how you could say that Staff Abilities will cost Stamina? That means that all of the Destructionstaff Skills will cost Magicka and have Spellcrit/Spelldamage.

So that what you say is wrong, maybe you can explain what you mean excactly?

And for the second, why are the People are so angry about this Changes. As i said before, you can do all your Skills over Magicka/Spelldamage and Spellcrit with the Update 1.6, if it works like that.

That means you dont have to split Jewels or Equip between Spelldamage and Weapondamage, no Splitting between Spellcrit and Weaponcrit anymore. You can put all your Stats in one Direction and push ALL your Classskills together .

The only negative Side is for the Hybrids, but that is a good Thing too. Before it the Balance wasnt right.

Old System = Weapondamage push the 2H Sword and Destructionstaff for an Example, count that together and you can boost both diffrent Things with the same Stat or Surge. That is one of the Reason why Sorcerers really hate this Change. But the Destructionstaff uses Magicka and do Spelldamage, the 2H Sword use Stamina, so the Changes are logical.

If Surge ever change to Magicka my Sorcerer will love it, because i can push ALL of my Classskills and Staffskills with that then.

This is an Advantage, all this talking about that Sorcerers will lose isnt right. A Magical Surge will boost ALL your Magicka Skills, Staffs too then. Before it pushes only the Weapondamage but no Classskills from the Sorcerer.

Someone says here hat Crushing Shock isnt a good Damage Skill, sorry but that Skill is one of the best Staffskills, it procs the Shard too i mean. After 1.6 it will hit like a Truck.

And no, now we dont have to play only Magicka or Stamina Classes now, we only to think more about the Hybrid Builds, they have Positives and Negatives and more Balance now. Like in other Games too, you can play what you want but you cant get all and be the Best in everything now.

And for all other Classes, one Stat to push them all, its precious .

tl:dr; you need to get off ESO and level up your reading comprehension skill tree.

Any decent sorc wasn't splitting weapon damage and spell damage enchants anyway, they were going 100% weapon damage. l2p please

GreyBrow

guybrushtb16_ESO wrote: »

Ragefist wrote: »

I must agree with reasonable people in this thread. Its really way too early to start doin what you do best (QQ) guys.

If 1.6 brings the promised changes to skills and mechanics, they would surely adjust not only Surge, but also bring the promised stamina morphs to class skills. That means a BUFF to melee players across the board, not a nerf of crit chance. Same will happen to your staff abilities, they may not be affected by Surge anymore but they will do more damage due to scaling off magicka and smacking spellpowah glyphs on your jewellery will affect all your skills, not only staff ones

Ok now go ahead and QQ some more

Where are you getting the info that 1.6 brings stamina morphs? Not saying it can't happen, but AFAIK only the stat change has been announced to definitely be in 1.6; last time I looked stamina morphs were still in the "something we'd like to do" limbo.

Either you've never played ESO or you're a terrible troll:

Destro/Resto have always scaled off max magicka. Go back to school and try again tomorrow. k thx bai

again, allow me to spell it out for you:

If they change destro/resto to using spell damage, and do not alter crit surge, there is no possible way that sorc DPS will increase.

whsprwind

On a side note, DK's will be buffed quite a bit by this lol

Concentrating on Spell damage means more damage from Standard and Dots.
And Molten whip scaling off Spell crit? wow

Thechemicals

This fact of sorcerer dps being less effective than other classes....where did you get this fact? Your own personal experience?

GreyBrow

I had a buddy of mine (DK) get something insane: 12k DPS during the feeding pit.

Three skills are responsible: Engulfing Flames, Flames of oblivion, and Banner.

A huge dot from banner, a dot from engulfing, a dot from flames of oblivion... so much extra damage right there.

In addition, flames of oblivion gives a flat out 13% crit (which is equal to an increase of 6.5% dps if not using the shadow stone), and causes you to gain ultimate like a MOFO (I can get 3 banners up at once), 6% extra damage from engulfing, and 20% extra DPS from banner.

Disregarding the DOTS from banner, engulfing, and flames of oblivion, DK's are able to do at least 32.5% more DPS than a sorc if both characters are doing impulse.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌
Care to comment on how this is "balanced?" :P

IDK why you refuse to fix it or even acknowledge this nearly 35 percent power disparity, but let me provide you with a solution:

1. Thundering presence becomes a toggle that drains magicka and increases either weapon/spell power or crit chance. your choice. Hell, you can even change the twilight matriarch to give increased crit. at this point we'll take anything

2. liquid lightning becomes a lightning DOT that increases lightning damage by 6%

3. Storm atro: gives a morph that does AoE thunderstorm, increases damage by 20% while active.

In addition, DK's have passives that increase fire AoE and the burning effect. This is similar to our disintegrate passive, although it is far more powerful. I propose that you allow disintigration to proc at any health level to make up for this disparity.

Also, while i'm at it... a skill similar to lava whip (insta cast, high damage, super high heal) would be nice. You could call it... oh, I don't know.... Lightning bolt???? You could even provide a morph where it would branch off to two additional targets and call it... gasp Chain lightning!

Seriously, Just give me like $50k a year and i'll come out to ZOS headquarters and do all your thinking for you. I promise, the game will be AWESOME and the skills might even start to make sense!