Solar Barrage and Empower

LordSlif

*Templar with 4k spell damage and 40k max magicka*:
http://esoitem.uesp.net/viewSkills.php?id=24157&level=66&health=50000&magicka=40000&stamina=40000&spelldamage=4000&weapondamage=4000

Solar Barrage Effect:
Scorch enemies around you with a blast of solar energy, dealing 5216 Magic Damage. Also grants you Empower, increasing the damage of your next attack by 20%.

Solar Barrage is a "good" skill thoretically, but "no one" uses it.

Solar Barrage "bonus":
1.Prism: Casting a Dawn's Wrath ability generates 3 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds. (Passive)
2.Illuminate: Casting a Dawn's Wrath ability grants Minor Sorcery to you and your group for 20 seconds, increasing your Spell Damage by 5% (Passive)
3.Empower
4.Area damage

Let's see why no one uses it:

Bonus 1 and 2:
Templars have better Skills to activate these passive skills:
.Radiante destruction and morphs
.Purifying Light: good for burst damage and heals allies in the area
.Sun Fire and morphs: increase your Spell Critical rating by 10%; reduce enemy Movement Speed by 40% and it is a DOT so... Valkyn Skoria (if you use it)

Bonus 3:
templars can get empower with mages guild passive skill and them usually have magelight or entropy (morphs) on bar, both have really good bonus too:

Inner Light:Summon a mote of magelight, revealing stealthed and invisible enemies around you for 5 seconds. Exposed enemies cannot return to stealth or invisibility for 3 seconds. While slotted your Max Magicka is increased by 5% and you gain Major Prophecy, increasing your Spell Critical rating by 2191.

Entropy: increase your Spell Damage by 20% (templars need major sorcery)
.Degeneration: While active, your Light and Heavy Attacks against the enemy have a 15% chance to heal you for 115% of the damage caused.
.Structured Entropy: While slotted, your Max Health is increased by 8%

Bonus 4:
Solar Barrage has a good damage ( Sap Essence In the same configuration deals 5126 magic damage: http://esoitem.uesp.net/viewSkills.php?id=37950&level=66&health=50000&magicka=40000&stamina=40000&spelldamage=4000&weapondamage=4000). But puncturing sweeps deals 4,736 (nearest enemy takes 140% additional damage) and heals (like sap essence and sap essence garant major sorcery). when templars are bombing or fighting in group puncturing Sweeps will alwaysl be the best option because it heals, the nearest enemy takes more damage and puncturing can procs Burning Light (When you deal damage with an Aedric Spear ability, you have a 25% chance to deal an additional 4509)

Coclusion:
Templars cant "spam" Solar Barrage(SB) to get the empower all time, they need heal themselves and heal their alies; puncturing sweeps is more effective than SB and there are better ways to get all buffs that SB gives. Im not saying that SB is a bad skill but it can be better, Dark Flare the other morph of Solar Flare has a minor Defile, if SB recives major Defile too or instead empower recives defile or another debuff, so this skill will be much better and a lot of players will use it. it useless at this moment. it needs a diferent bonus.
Edit: DF has major defile
@Wrobel
@ZOS_GinaBruno

danno8

Solar Barrage gets no use because of two main things:

1. The other morph, Dark Flare, is one of the strongest single target burst skills in the game, notwithstanding the cast time and travel time, and it has Major Defile (not minor like you stated).
2. The animation for Solar Barrage is somehow clunkier and longer than the one for Impulse (try it and you will see).

Defile will be getting a huge buff come Morrowind (the CP star will go all the way up to like 60-70% or something like that) so giving up the only skill in the Templars repertoire that has that debuff is a non-starter.

GeneralLucks

Yeah, of course this skill needs some changes. Puncturing sweeps is so much better, templars dnt need another AoE Dmg skill like solar barrage. Maybe reducing the damage and receiving other new effect like defile  or fracture and breach or maim this skill will be better because it will be awesome for pvp and pve ( if fracture and breach), very useful. The debuff would affect up to 3 enimies (like mass hysteria)

LordSlif

55%*
Dark flare deals so much damage and applies major defile in area (28M range) so strong. SB is useless now needs something more attractive

LordSlif

GeneralLucks wrote: »

Yeah, of course this skill needs some changes. Puncturing sweeps is so much better, templars dnt need another AoE Dmg skill like solar barrage. Maybe reducing the damage and receiving other new effect like defile  or fracture and breach or maim this skill will be better because it will be awesome for pvp and pve ( if fracture and breach), very useful. The debuff would affect up to 3 enimies (like mass hysteria)

I liked your ideia.
(Affect up to 3 enemies). It will be difficult to continue "spamming" skills with the champions point nerf so "affect up to 3 enemies" it is a really great ideia.
How dark flare already has major defile makes more sense a major defile for SB too, but with this condition (affect up to 3 enemies and less damage)

CatchMeTrolling

Outside of group play dark flare isn't getting slotted as well because of the cast time.

LordSlif

Yep! the cast time is really annoying so templars just use it when they are "safe" (behind their group).Let solar barrage a useful skill is good way to improve templars play style. Dark flare is a good single target dmg skill (it needs the cast time to balance it)and puncturing sweeps is an awesome AoE so SB is usuless in this point.

Now ZOS looks to Dark flare (DF):
Big damage
Empower (useful, DF has a high dmg)
Defile
1.1 cast time
Range (28 M)

Now lets looks to Solar Barrage
AoE good damage (useless)
Empower (useless)
Instant

Can u see why no one use it? So many reasons

Removing the major defile from DF and putting it in the Solar barrage this skill will be more competitive and you will force templars to join in combat and not just stay away "spamming" DF and BoL.
I trust your changes, zenimax

@Wrobel
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Lexxypwns

Just replace it with the old blinding flashes

lolo_01b16_ESO

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Just replace it with the old blinding flashes

Great idea. But I doubt that we will ever get that skill back.

LordSlif

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Just replace it with the old blinding flashes

I remember it. But SB needs be more harmonic

Minno

Lexxypwns wrote: »

Just replace it with the old blinding flashes

I'll take a self buff that adds resource return on percentage of all skill use

LordSlif

SB is useless and needs to change, this a fact. It's a non-purpose ability, no combos, there are better skills for all that SB can make, but this skill has potential.
it cant be op, it needs be harmonic and give new options to the templars playstyle, some improvement.

Minno

LordSlif wrote: »

SB is useless and needs to change, this a fact. It's a non-purpose ability, no combos, there are better skills for all that SB can make, but this skill has potential.
it cant be op, it needs be harmonic and give new options to the templars playstyle, some improvement.

That new morph is probably what the warden got*********

Edit: NDA

LordSlif

Minno wrote: »

LordSlif wrote: »

SB is useless and needs to change, this a fact. It's a non-purpose ability, no combos, there are better skills for all that SB can make, but this skill has potential.
it cant be op, it needs be harmonic and give new options to the templars playstyle, some improvement.

That new morph is probably what the warden got*********

Edit: NDA

i really hope some changes

LordSlif

Everybody knows SB is useless

Destruent

Solar barrage is great if you want to nuke thrash in group PvE (mostly in vSO). Reason it's mostly not used is, groups usually burn most important adds and just cleave everything else (best seen in vMoL).
But i'd always slot solar barrage for aoe if
1. we don't fokus anything
2. i have time to swap skills

LordSlif

Destruent wrote: »

Solar barrage is great if you want to nuke thrash in group PvE (mostly in vSO). Reason it's mostly not used is, groups usually burn most important adds and just cleave everything else (best seen in vMoL).
But i'd always slot solar barrage for aoe if
1. we don't fokus anything
2. i have time to swap skills

yup but puncturing is best in all situations i have never seen any player using SB in Vtrials, i Can not waste any slot in Vmol. It is not a bad skill but it is useless know, Templars already have good (better) "spammable" skills for dps (single and AoE), if SB be a good dot it would be better, but i think SB with a "debuff´" effect is the best solution

Destruent

belive it or not, solar barrage is better for pure aoe compared to puncturing sweeps.
If you'd have carefully read my post, you'd have also seen that i don't recommend using it in vMoL, bc you are focussing important adds there. But as i said...it's very usefull in vSO.

LordSlif

Please try to make something new to this morph @Wrobel

GeneralLucks

I hope for some change in Solar Barrage on a future "patch note"

Sanct16

If there were Templar DDs in pvp raids, they would use Solar Barrage. However Templars are kinda forced to be healer, especially as NB DDs are better than Templar DDs. Changing the skill wont change that.

For pvp group play I wouldnt consider Puncturing Sweeps AoE. It has a way too small area to be effective. It is singletarget with some splash damage.

Kas

imho it's very simple:

1) templars have little use for empower. they do not have a situational hard-hitting ability with instant cast (crstal frags and assassin's will come to my mind right now). thus it is not worth using the skill mostly for the empower. the best (still not perfect) use would actually be dark flare and that's impossible.
2) if you spam the ability (and thus consume its own empower), the damage is still rather low. so if it isn't for the empower (see point 1), the skill is a very generic aoe and just not very good.

Sanct16 wrote: »

If there were Templar DDs in pvp raids, they would use Solar Barrage. However Templars are kinda forced to be healer, especially as NB DDs are better than Templar DDs. Changing the skill wont change that.

For pvp group play I wouldnt consider Puncturing Sweeps AoE. It has a way too small area to be effective. It is singletarget with some splash damage.

if solar barrage + templar selfbuffs actually was at least close to sap essence + nb buffs, there would also be magplar dds, i think (okay, the gap closer is still vastly inferior but okay). with the passive penetration, even pulsar is an equally good skill (with penetration from the passive, the damage is closed to empowered barrage, often higher if you also include a first unempowered cast. whereas barrage has no secondary life-reduce effect and doesn't give mana back on kill. maybe barrage is ultimately a bit better because of that extra aoe radius but blockade is much better anyway. i guess a templar did much better if he proc'd the dw passives with reflective light (or purifying) and relied on wall for more aoe.).
i'm not saying templars should have a great aoe so that they can be preferred dds (they have other strengths), but solar barrage is just a bad skill.

LordSlif

Ty for tell us your opinion. I agree with you, at this moment Solar Barrage is useless, meaningless and a Bad skill. SB has a big potential to be a good skill, you said a very important thing:

Kas wrote: »

2) if you spam the ability (and thus consume its own empower), the damage is still rather low. so if it isn't for the empower (see point 1), the skill is a very generic aoe and just not very good.

Yes, even with empower the damage still "low". I know this skill deals more damage than Sap Essence (for example), but the damage bonus of the empower is low, it is low and totally unnecessary.

The big problem with this skill is the empower, it makes Solar Barrage useless.
A low dmg bonus wont make templars moph Solar Flare to Solar Barrage instead Dark Flare, it is obvious, Templars already have Puncturing Sweeps for AoE damage. A debuff instead empower will make this skill useful.

GeneralLucks

LordSlif wrote: »

Ty for tell us your opinion. I agree with you, at this moment Solar Barrage is useless, meaningless and a Bad skill. SB has a big potential to be a good skill, you said a very important thing:

Kas wrote: »

2) if you spam the ability (and thus consume its own empower), the damage is still rather low. so if it isn't for the empower (see point 1), the skill is a very generic aoe and just not very good.

Yes, even with empower the damage still "low". I know this skill deals more damage than Sap Essence (for example), but the damage bonus of the empower is low, it is low and totally unnecessary.

The big problem with this skill is the empower, it makes Solar Barrage useless.
A low dmg bonus wont make templars moph Solar Flare to Solar Barrage instead Dark Flare, it is obvious, Templars already have Puncturing Sweeps for AoE damage. A debuff instead empower will make this skill useful.

I was testing Solar Barrage in the last week and i can assure you: empower is useless and it is the big problem of Solar Barrage It is an irrelevant increase damage, totally expendable. so if there is a skill that no one use it because it is "bad"... it is a problem, of course it is a problem.
look, im not saying: improve Solar Barrage because the others classes have better skills or a better buff. no, i'm not saying it.
im saying: change the "empower" it is making a good skill bad.
So, i really expect something about it In a future patch notes. Me and many players.
@Wrobel
@ZOS_RichLambert

GeneralLucks

Sacred Ground debuff will hurt templars a lot so a change to improve templars playstyle is a good change

LordSlif

You can see in this forum many people saying Solar Barrage and Healing Ritual are useless. i agree.
ZOS must change all useless skills and improve eso playstyle.
Make mistakes is normal, we are here to help. Just ask

DeHei

After realaese of Morrorwind, i dont see any options to use Dark Flare and Solar Barrage... you need skills, which are able to weave them and get mana back... Dark flare dont allow to weave it... i vote for less damage and no cast time, that this skill can be an option again..

LordSlif wrote: »

You can see in this forum many people saying Solar Barrage and Healing Ritual are useless. i agree.
ZOS must change all useless skills and improve eso playstyle.
Make mistakes is normal, we are here to help. Just ask

Most guys use healing springs instead of Healing Ritual.. that skill is much more flexible and gives a hot. Solar Barrage is ok, but Templar have enough area damage options. Templar dont need to choose between 4,5 or 6 options to make area damage.. most of them have 3 which work fine! Blazing Spear, Elemental Blockade and puncturing sweep!

LordSlif

Probably healing ritual is the worst skill in this game, a heal hability with cast time, a big cast time. Everybody in my grupo can die during the cast time, it makes no sense.

LordSlif

DeHei wrote: »

After realaese of Morrorwind, i dont see any options to use Dark Flare and Solar Barrage... you need skills, which are able to weave them and get mana back... Dark flare dont allow to weave it... i vote for less damage and no cast time, that this skill can be an option again..

LordSlif wrote: »

You can see in this forum many people saying Solar Barrage and Healing Ritual are useless. i agree.
ZOS must change all useless skills and improve eso playstyle.
Make mistakes is normal, we are here to help. Just ask

Most guys use healing springs instead of Healing Ritual.. that skill is much more flexible and gives a hot. Solar Barrage is ok, but Templar have enough area damage options. Templar dont need to choose between 4,5 or 6 options to make area damage.. most of them have 3 which work fine! Blazing Spear, Elemental Blockade and puncturing sweep!

i totally agree. Insisting on an error is a bad choice. Now we are trying to help fix Solar Barrage, the next will be Healing ritual.
Despacito

LordSlif

Templars can't(in any situation)use Solar Barrage and Healing Ritual because both are bad abilities.

LordSlif

@DeHei and healing ritual, Do you vote for what?