Consider reworking Trapping Webs for stamina PvE dps.

NightbladeMechanics

You targeted caltrops for this, but I believe that you chose the wrong skill to alter. You could consider reworking this as well, or instead of caltrops.

Webs is currently an aoe snare that deals no damage until a small burst after 5 seconds, and then its synergy spawns spiders that deal some damage. It's an awful ability for dps and goes utterly unused in PvP as well. Reworking it into a true ground aoe dps skill would give stamina dps another dot to choose from as well as add a new and attractive damage dealing synergy to trial groups.

My suggestions:

Trapping Webs (unmorphed):
cost: stamina
range: 28 meters
radius: 6 meters
duration: 8 seconds
Hurl strands of silk at target area. Enemies in the area have their movement speed reduced by 25% and take XXXX physical damage every 1 second. After 5 seconds, the webs burst into venom, dealing XXXX poison damage to enemies within.
Allies may activate the Spawn Broodlings synergy against an enemy, dealing XXXX damage to them and spawning 2 spiders for 15 seconds. Spiders light attack for physical damage.

Shadow Silk (damage morph):
Morph effect: synergy spawns more powerful Black Widow spiders which deal additional poison damage over time.

The Shadow Silk morph aims to give dps. I left the ground aoe and the spider light attacks as physical damage for our stam sorc friends. The venom burst and spider damage over time effects are poison for our stam DK friends, and for some variety.

Tangling Webs (PvP-oriented morph):
Morph effect: Webs bursting into venom also roots enemies. Synergy can only be activated against snared enemies. Synergy fears target enemy and one nearby enemy for 3.8 seconds in addition to summoning spiders.

I couldn't help myself. I like to incorporate PvE and PvP mechanics into my suggestions. This Tangling Webs morph aims to lock down opponents and provide a fear cc (which goes through block) to groups lacking reliable ccs. The idea would be to toss down the webs, use its snare and the fear synergy to keep enemies in them for 5 seconds, and then root them with the venom burst. The duration of the ground aoe dot lasts beyond the venom burst as a reward for landing the root, in addition to some free spider damage on immobilized opponents. I suggest keeping the snare mild, only 20% in my suggestion, and not letting the fear affect more than 2 or maybe 3 people in order to keep the ability from becoming to powerful.

Naturally, all damage and cost numbers are subject to balance tweaking internally. I'm not sure what the best tooltip values would be.

Arenguros

Honestly, this isn't a bad suggestion.
Caltrops damage should be reduced and stay mostly as a CC tool in pvp, so there aren't even more aoe skills available.

Spider Webs seems like a more skillfull alternative as allies have to use the synergy in order for this to actually deal its full damage.
It's also quite ironic that the undaunted skill line focuses on dungeons and group support, yet this skill (and altar) barely sees any use in dungeons.
The only problem I see: Spiders last for 15 seconds and afaik the synergy can not be activated again during these 15 seconds.

Toc de Malsvi

Agreed. Bump.

Vosital

I always wanted this skill to be useful. It really does need some attention.

Lynx7386

I honestly think caltrops was primarily changed because a 20 meter, 30 second snare would be incredibly powerful I'm battlegrounds

Ajaxduo

A persistent AoE DoT that snares would be nice, sure we have caltrops already but it would add additional options for stam Warden.

NightbladeMechanics

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I honestly think caltrops was primarily changed because a 20 meter, 30 second snare would be incredibly powerful I'm battlegrounds

I was already planning to stack unmorphed and both morphs of it. lmao

Mettaricana

I like this tweak

I also feel all the undaunted skills need a buff they all kinda suck

NightbladeMechanics

Mettaricana wrote: »

I like this tweak

I also feel all the undaunted skills need a buff they all kinda suck

Orbs is really good, and Inner Fire is really convenient as a ranged taunt with magicka and stamina variants.

The others, though.......the others.

Bc_bmx

Bump, I was playing around with this skill, in an attempt to create a dual bow pve build. It's a little lack luster from a damage perspective for sure.

Maryal

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

You targeted caltrops for this, but I believe that you chose the wrong skill to alter. You could consider reworking this as well, or instead of caltrops.

Tangling Webs (PvP-oriented morph):
Morph effect: Webs bursting into venom also roots enemies. Synergy can only be activated against snared enemies. Synergy fears target enemy and one nearby enemy for 3.8 seconds in addition to summoning spiders.

I couldn't help myself. I like to incorporate PvE and PvP mechanics into my suggestions. This Tangling Webs morph aims to lock down opponents and provide a fear cc (which goes through block) to groups lacking reliable ccs. The idea would be to toss down the webs, use its snare and the fear synergy to keep enemies in them for 5 seconds, and then root them with the venom burst. The duration of the ground aoe dot lasts beyond the venom burst as a reward for landing the root, in addition to some free spider damage on immobilized opponents. I suggest keeping the snare mild, only 20% in my suggestion, and not letting the fear affect more than 2 or maybe 3 people in order to keep the ability from becoming to powerful.

Naturally, all damage and cost numbers are subject to balance tweaking internally. I'm not sure what the best tooltip values would be.

SNARE plus FEAR? The two are not compatible. Snare impairs your movement. When you are 'feared' you run around unimpaired and aimless, holding your head in your hands. Webs has a very small AOE radius ... it is so small that if it did trigger 'fear' you would be 'feared' right out of the AOE radius.

Avran_Sylt

Maryal wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

You targeted caltrops for this, but I believe that you chose the wrong skill to alter. You could consider reworking this as well, or instead of caltrops.

Tangling Webs (PvP-oriented morph):
Morph effect: Webs bursting into venom also roots enemies. Synergy can only be activated against snared enemies. Synergy fears target enemy and one nearby enemy for 3.8 seconds in addition to summoning spiders.

I couldn't help myself. I like to incorporate PvE and PvP mechanics into my suggestions. This Tangling Webs morph aims to lock down opponents and provide a fear cc (which goes through block) to groups lacking reliable ccs. The idea would be to toss down the webs, use its snare and the fear synergy to keep enemies in them for 5 seconds, and then root them with the venom burst. The duration of the ground aoe dot lasts beyond the venom burst as a reward for landing the root, in addition to some free spider damage on immobilized opponents. I suggest keeping the snare mild, only 20% in my suggestion, and not letting the fear affect more than 2 or maybe 3 people in order to keep the ability from becoming to powerful.

Naturally, all damage and cost numbers are subject to balance tweaking internally. I'm not sure what the best tooltip values would be.

SNARE plus FEAR? The two are not compatible. Snare impairs your movement. When you are 'feared' you run around unimpaired and aimless, holding your head in your hands. Webs has a very small AOE radius ... it is so small that if it did trigger 'fear' you would be 'feared' right out of the AOE radius.

It aint always about damage. The fear is utility.

I would also suggest this: For the first two (Base and Shadow), I think you're saying that an ally can activate it on any enemy? Regardless if they are slowed or not? (I.E. It can be cast on bosses) If so, I think this needs to happen:

The spiders spawned belong to you, not the ally that activated the synergy, such that only 2 spiders maximum can come from one player, rather than any number (if owned by synergy caster)

Tangling webs: Why check to see if the enemy is snared? do immovability pots not work against fears? Against bosses and the like that's just an extra condition to check when they wont be feared or snared anyway.

ccfeeling

They only poison synergy in the game .
I have no idea why designers create a skill likes this , how awful .

Toc de Malsvi

The damage from the synergy isn't too bad, but the area is tiny, hitting a group of targets with this is hard enough without needing a synergy.

They should double the radius of effect at least to make it desirable.

Feanor

No. Please. No. No more roots and snares. There are already too many in the game.

hedna123b14_ESO

It could be this skill or another but it woukd be nice if we had another stam DoT. Currently Stam DK dominate in damage, but their bars are full. We need another non poison damage DoT so that thr other classrs could better compete.

Beardimus

Last time this skill had any use was as a spammanle for DW MagSorcs, yet another nail in the DW coffin that was. Might as well make it of more use to those intended

NightbladeMechanics

Beardimus wrote: »

Last time this skill had any use was as a spammanle for DW MagSorcs, yet another nail in the DW coffin that was. Might as well make it of more use to those intended

But dw mag sorc is still really good. It was op with magicka Dawnbreaker, and magicka webs was weird and unnecessary and honestly a bit op.

Feanor

To reiterate on my post further up - Anybody who wants to know how *** a snare/disorient on top of a CC is, just take a look at DKs fossilize. We don't need more of that in the game.

Ladislao

I once created a topic about this skill with some tests.

And I agree that ability should be buffed or reworked somehow because I do not really see where it could be useful (except for corpses for Repentance or Necropotence activation for dks/templars).

But I do not agree that unique ability should become another Endless Hail or Caltrops. Perhaps it makes sense to increase the range and damage of spiders in order to use this ability in narrow spaces. Or increase the duration of spiders and bind them to the character, as ordinary pets. Something like this, depending on how ZOS themselves position this skill.

Maryal

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

Maryal wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

You targeted caltrops for this, but I believe that you chose the wrong skill to alter. You could consider reworking this as well, or instead of caltrops.

Tangling Webs (PvP-oriented morph):
Morph effect: Webs bursting into venom also roots enemies. Synergy can only be activated against snared enemies. Synergy fears target enemy and one nearby enemy for 3.8 seconds in addition to summoning spiders.

I couldn't help myself. I like to incorporate PvE and PvP mechanics into my suggestions. This Tangling Webs morph aims to lock down opponents and provide a fear cc (which goes through block) to groups lacking reliable ccs. The idea would be to toss down the webs, use its snare and the fear synergy to keep enemies in them for 5 seconds, and then root them with the venom burst. The duration of the ground aoe dot lasts beyond the venom burst as a reward for landing the root, in addition to some free spider damage on immobilized opponents. I suggest keeping the snare mild, only 20% in my suggestion, and not letting the fear affect more than 2 or maybe 3 people in order to keep the ability from becoming to powerful.

Naturally, all damage and cost numbers are subject to balance tweaking internally. I'm not sure what the best tooltip values would be.

SNARE plus FEAR? The two are not compatible. Snare impairs your movement. When you are 'feared' you run around unimpaired and aimless, holding your head in your hands. Webs has a very small AOE radius ... it is so small that if it did trigger 'fear' you would be 'feared' right out of the AOE radius.

It aint always about damage. The fear is utility.

I would also suggest this: For the first two (Base and Shadow), I think you're saying that an ally can activate it on any enemy? Regardless if they are slowed or not? (I.E. It can be cast on bosses) If so, I think this needs to happen:

The spiders spawned belong to you, not the ally that activated the synergy, such that only 2 spiders maximum can come from one player, rather than any number (if owned by synergy caster)

Tangling webs: Why check to see if the enemy is snared? do immovability pots not work against fears? Against bosses and the like that's just an extra condition to check when they wont be feared or snared anyway.

I have used this skill for roughly 2 years (on and off) in PVP and it IS very effective IF you know when and where to use it. The radius is very small (smallest AOE radius in the game), the 'snare' is pitiful (50% inside the AOE radius), BUT, it actually deals decent poison damage to anyone standing in the venomous webs when they 'burst.' The amount of poison damage dealt depends on your build.

These are spider's webs ... spiders use their webs to trap/slow down their victims.

Let's assume, for a moment, that a person actually became ensnarled in a spider's web ... I'm guessing that one of their first thoughts might be something like: OMG! I DON'T WANT TO BE EATEN BY A F***ING SPIDER!

Hmmm ... , my, my. I suppose such an unpleasant thought could very well induce a state of FEAR/TERROR/PANIC in the victim. Then what? Try to escape? The person is already ensnared/trapped in the web ... what could they do? Wiggle? Twist around? Squirm? Would that work? No ... it would only cause them to become more ensnarled in the sticky web.

There is no logic in having TRAPPING WEBS induce a fear status, causing the trapped enemy to flee the immediate vicinity. 1.) That's not how spider's webs work, and 2.) the proposed 'fear status' would totally defeat the point of the skill ( deals X poison damage to anyone within the 4 meter AOE radius when the webs explode).

If you want to make the skill more useful, ask to have the AOE expanded to 6-8 meters. Although it would be nice if the 'webs' exploded sooner, it wouldn't be feasible to do so because there needs to be enough time to activate the synergy.

Look on the bright side ... this is a long range AOE skill (cast range = 28 meters (30+ meters in Cyro with 'reach' passive)).

Honestly, the only problem with this skills is that, as an AOE, the circumference is to small (yes, the size matters).

If you are not a NB, but want the ability to 'fear' your victims, or some of them anyway, you can always equip the fighter's guild skill Turn Undead (morph of circle of protection). Upon cast it fears Undead, WWs, and Daedra.

SanTii.92

Although being an interesting change, stam dpses are doing far too well to get even more buffs.
Edit. thanks @Avran_Sylt for necroing this thread *-*

QuebraRegra

maybe add resource return to the webs?

Sordidfairytale

I tried this for a minute on a Templar tank as a possible CC. The AOE needs to be larger, and my 2 cents would be for one of the morphs to not do damage, but increase the radius and apply maim to the targets.

sneakymitchell

Wish it could syngize if a mob is in it but it only works if an enemy is snared.

Amdar_Godkiller

What it really needs is a 66% buff to damage and 2 second increase in the amount of time it takes to deal damage. Then it would work great with a direct damage poison warden build.




Subterranean
DOT
Tangled Webs
Subterranean
DOT
Acid Spray

Jrk

I've been dancing around the idea of this skill being utilized optimally in trials, but I understand why it was nerfed to the ground. @Ladislao had mentioned in his post that the spiders' damage is a flat rate, about 100 per, and does not scale to either player; the caster or the synergizer. From his results, they cannot be buffed by Powerful Assault, but other items like SPC do buff their damage. Mind you there is very little information to find on these skills, specifically Black Widows. I mean to do a full test, but I need to hustle 11 people to help me at some point. I do recall another post previously stating the spiders scale to your max magicka & spell dmg for some odd reason, but that was +2 years old.

____________________________
I look at it like this:

It's an undaunted trap/rune. Mages guild gets a 'trap' that last a while and when procced after 2 seconds, does an AOE hit (3m) with the morph for a DoT or CC. Fighters guild gets a trap that only affect 1 target, but lasts a long time, dots them, increase your crit damage & morphs for utility.

The Undaunted have a trap that doesn't fully immobilize multiple targets, but slows them down for 5 seconds followed by an aoe poison hit (4m, larger than rune); still considered a 'snare.' In that window of opportunity, teammates have 5 seconds to activate it to release two spiders as well as proc an AOE hit (4m) that's about 80% of the final hit after 5 seconds. The morphs allow for either CC or more damage, specifically giving the spiders a Dot with their attack.

Few Things:
- Unlike the other traps, you have to remember this ability's capability is a wide spectrum. Alone it should be weaksauce, used with coordination, it should be deadly. It's hard finding that balance as the damage done is multiplied by player procs, not in it's modifier design. For instance, Poison Injection is powerful because right as you hit 50%, it does x4 damage; it's dependent on current target HP, before then it's damage is meh, not groundbreaking or pitiful. It's easy to balance that skill under multiple circumstances based off those parameters.

Solo -This is a skill alone does nothing but AoE slow followed by one small AoE direct damage hit.
With 2 People it AOE hits twice @ procs 2 spiders for 15 seconds.
Dungeon - With 3 it's at max 4 AoE hits & 6 spiders.
Trial - With 11, you can achieve 12 AoE hits & 22 spiders that attack for 15 seconds; all within 5 seconds.

2 Spiders hitting @ 100 per for ~12 seconds - 2400 (these are all rough examples)
6 Spiders - 7200
22 - 26,400

The same goes for the AoE, but the handoff for that direct damage is while you're activating the synergy, you're not weaving your spammable/heavy attacking/or anything for that brief window.

Given how the spell is operating Much differently under different circumstances, it makes balancing a nightmare. Then factor in how the spiders are used in group play. With 2-22 spiders, are they hitting an assortment of adds (essentially an AoE of it's own through direct damage) or are they all hitting one boss? If devs buff the spiders base damage or have it scale off the caster for dungeon play, then you find trials running widow builds that could maybe finagle +20kdps from the spiders alone being buffed through other means. With the spiders being buff-able, and having a wide range of how many can be present, it's easy to see their damage having the capacity to get out of control.

_____________________
Scaling:

I think this skill should do a $hitload of damage when used by 11 people & buffs are being put out accordingly. You (Zos) got 12 people to coordinate & and use an explicitly party designed synergy simultaneously... Good Job! Your (players) reward is 22 pets for 15 seconds to help grind down the boss/situation that you could consider 'team' dps. The question is balance. How do you buff it so it doesn't get crazy?

I like that they are buffable. Take those 22 spiders over 12 seconds (3 seconds ignored for activation & time for adds to spawn & actually start attacking) with spell cure: 22 x (100+258) x12 = 94,512 total, or 7876 DPS vs 2200.

Per Ladislao, Powerful Assault does not work. However, if it did, let's see the result:

22 x (100+258+164) x 12 = 137, 808 or 11,484 DPS. Problem is that Powerful assault affects only 4 targets. To coordinate buffing 34 individuals (12+22 spiders) you would have to be casting non stop assault abilities and near impossible placement. Even without Powerful Assault, you have combat prayer & other means. The real perk to how this is set is with group play you can add +5k background dps for +10 seconds from group support in trials; like Horn rotations you could every 15-20 seconds have everyone proc the webs and continue their rotations
____________________
Solutions?

So how do you make it less sucky in dungeons yet worth it in trials without being broken? I would have the base of spider's attack be 100, but scale only to stamina (being a stamina based skill, no exceptions), starting at 15k stamina, capping at 225 damage at 38k stamina.

At max damage (225) with a 4 man group:
You'd get 1350 dps (225 x6)
1458 dpswith minor berserk from combat prayer (225 x 1.08 x 6)
2898 with SPC ((225+258) x 6)
With both, it depends on how the buffs add up (my math is probably all wrong so please correct me)
((225+258) x 1.06 x 6) = 3196 dps from spiders alone

With the same setup in a 12 man trial proccing 22 spiders:
Normal, 4950 dps
Combat Prayer, 5346 dps
SPC, 10,626 dps
Both, 11,476 dps ----that seems like a worthy reward for being team players as this level of backline dps from one skill is impossible under any other circumstances outside of trials.

The other alternative to finding a good balance is to make the spiders not buff-able. The best bet to getting a response from Zos is to show them the evidence; documented tests. Ladis' screenshots were good, but something showing how each stat (stam, mag, crit, pen, etc) is or is not affecting their damage.

Everything I've mentioned has only touched on their base attacks & I haven't even covered the poison over time the spiders are suppose to be dealing. Does that dot from the spiders each stand on their own, or would 22 spiders hitting one target just refresh the dot? If that has been a scaling issue as well, having the dot not stack on the same target (plus the buff to melee) sounds like a good rework. Thoughts?

Ladislao

Thanks to your reply, @Jrk. It's great analysis so take my awesome

I would like to clarify a few points of my current opinion on this skill.

1) All my reasoning was more about Trapping Webs skill and Shadow Silk morph. I understand that another morph has the right to live. It is the only common fear which can be triggered distant because you should be near caster to use synergy. Together with the rest of the skill Tangling Webs is a interesting complex (aoe burst with summoning and fearing synergy) ability and a good (albeit niche) option.

2) I conducted superficial tests, because I did not set myself the task of proving that this skill was bad. Creating the previous topic, I was primarily interested in the opinion of the community about it. Is this Trapping Webs underperformed or I didn't understand something? And these are quite logical questions given that the developers have not made changes to this skill for a couple of years.

3) I definitely do not want to suggest concrete options for resolving the issue. Not only because "audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them", in fact I could suggest several options. But I just don't know how ZOS themselves are looking at this skill. Or maybe they know something interesting about Trapping Webs that we don't know. Quite exactly, I can say one thing - I do not want this skill to become another ordinary skill as caltrops, as suggested earlier.

P.S. I was always amazed by the fact that people see imbalance in about balanced things. But they do not see things that really need balancing

Gan Xing

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

It could be this skill or another but it woukd be nice if we had another stam DoT. Currently Stam DK dominate in damage, but their bars are full. We need another non poison damage DoT so that thr other classrs could better compete.

like bleed?

I'd rather they have a plant based armor set that puts thorns into the enemy, slows and causes them to bleed (although we already have Pillar of Nirn and Blooddrinker.... Oddly this set that I would like would make sense to be called Bloodthorn, but we already have a bloodthorn set

Edit: Spawn of Mephala already utilizes the poison damage and reduction in movement speed, and is quite reliable for bow users. If you want a useful set as a bow user to increase dps, this may help