Unstable clanfear bug

DarkGottbeard

The skill menu indicates a 3470 magicka cost. The actual cost to cast is double that. Please fix.

Mystrius_Archaion

DarkGottbeard wrote: »

The skill menu indicates a 3470 magicka cost. The actual cost to cast is double that. Please fix.

The secondary abilities of all pets cost different than the base ability.
Summon the pet and then check the tooltip on your skill bar for the new information. It's very obvious and working as intended. The information on the 3rd party wikis online is incorrect, which is the real problem.


There is a secondary unrelated bug though where the abilities of these pets are not affected by spell/weapon damage, but that's in another thread already.

DarkGottbeard

There is no explanation in game for the summon and the active having a different cost. Therefore , it can't be classified as "very obvious." And whether or not it is working as intended is completely up to the whims of the developers.

I am reporting this as a bug. If it is not a bug then no harm no foul. But hidden mechanics and tool tip discrepancies created half this games problems so in the very least they should look for a better way to inform the players of their intent.

Mystrius_Archaion

DarkGottbeard wrote: »

There is no explanation in game for the summon and the active having a different cost. Therefore , it can't be classified as "very obvious." And whether or not it is working as intended is completely up to the whims of the developers.

It's very obvious if you actually summon the pet and then check your skill bar, as I had said above for you to do. It will give you the exact magicka cost and exact heal amount(in the case of the Twilight Matriarch which is not a percentage of health).

Maybe you should check for in game documentation before assuming a 3rd party user-updated site is "more correct" than the game.


FYI, I agree that the cost sucks to be different. It makes the clannfear heal much too expensive because they assume it is going to be used on tanks, but even tanks consider the Twilight Matriarch more because it's able to heal even more with 2 casts for less magicka. And what stamina tank has enough magicka for more than 1 cast of the clannfear heal when it is nearly 7k magicka cost, especially if they have to resummon the pet also due to no ward protecting it?

Shadowshire

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

DarkGottbeard wrote: »

There is no explanation in game for the summon and the active having a different cost. Therefore , it can't be classified as "very obvious." And whether or not it is working as intended is completely up to the whims of the developers.

It's very obvious if you actually summon the pet and then check your skill bar, as I had said above for you to do. It will give you the exact magicka cost and exact heal amount(in the case of the Twilight Matriarch which is not a percentage of health).

Maybe you should check for in game documentation before assuming a 3rd party user-updated site is "more correct" than the game.

As much as I respect your expertise, frankly, @DarkGottbeard is right in his criticism.

Personally, I have never examined a tooltip for an ability on the Ability Bar to see whether the description for the ability differs from the one on the Skills UI. I am not sure that I would recognize a difference if there is one. Why would anyone expect there might be a difference? Why would anyone reasonably expect any player to look for that?

In my humble opinion, and experience as a software developer and documentation writer, such a tool-tip difference is not "documentation" of anything. It is an arrant user-hostile design flaw. Your remarks are the only "documentation" that I have ever read to the effect that the tooltip for an ability on the Ability Bar might differ from the tooltip on the Skills UI.

Regardless, please lose the know-it-all condescending attitude. Game publishers and developers, in particular, seldom publish any but the most elementary "documentation" for the features of their complex software. They describe changes in the software in Patch Notes, without any prior documentation as to how the feature was implemented previously. They regard the expense of genuine documentation as unnecessary and without any benefit for them, since hardly anyone nowadays will take time to Read The Friendly Manual (RTFM), if there is one. That is, assuming that those who play the game do know how to read and comprehend what they've read.

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

FYI, I agree that the cost sucks to be different. It makes the clannfear heal much too expensive because they assume it is going to be used on tanks, but even tanks consider the Twilight Matriarch more because it's able to heal even more with 2 casts for less magicka. And what stamina tank has enough magicka for more than 1 cast of the clannfear heal when it is nearly 7k magicka cost, especially if they have to resummon the pet also due to no ward protecting it?

In order to use the ability to summon an Unstable Clannfear or Twilight Matriarch, the "stamina tank" would have to be a Sorcerer. Although I have heard of "stamina sorcs", the concept still does not compute (in my thinking). Not that I disagree with any of your statements.

One of my two (DPS) Sorcerers summons the Unstable Clannfear primarily for the familiar's healing ability. Albeit, it's nice for the Clannfear to keep at least one NPC busy while the character fights the others. The Clannfear ordinarily serves because its healing applies to both the character and the Clannfear, and heals one or more other "friendly" characters within range (even not in a group) too. So the cost is comparatively high, but usually affordable while the Sorcerer ventures solo. Usually I choose some other ability instead of the Clannfear when the Sorc participates in a group, especially one that has a healer.

That said, a Clannfear is easily one-shot by just about any dungeon or delve boss that the Sorcerer has fought, so it's no good as a "tank" per se. I've been told by other players who have played since the public beta began that the original Clannfear was practically unkillable. So they could use it to keep a boss busy while they killed the adds. But ZOS changed that, of course.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Shadowshire wrote: »

In order to use the ability to summon an Unstable Clannfear or Twilight Matriarch, the "stamina tank" would have to be a Sorcerer. Although I have heard of "stamina sorcs", the concept still does not compute (in my thinking). Not that I disagree with any of your statements.

One of my two (DPS) Sorcerers summons the Unstable Clannfear primarily for the familiar's healing ability.

Sorcerers in the elder scrolls lore are different then in other fictional lores, they are actually supposed to be heavy armor and sheild magic users, as is pointed out in the flavor text in Oblivion, see here- http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Sorcerer#Sorcerer,

Besting the most well-equipped fighters, they rely on the spells of the mystic arts. Unique to these mages is the bodily stamina to be armed with the thickest armor.

And if you are a magic sorc in ESO and you are not using the scamp, you are just doing it wrong, use the twilight for heals.

FrancisCrawford

Wait a moment.

Does the Clannfear now heal somebody other than the sorcerer and itself? When was that change made?

Yes, I'm one of the folks who used to lean heavily on the Clannfear's tanking ability, but gave it up when the Scamp got buffed ...

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Wait a moment.

Does the Clannfear now heal somebody other than the sorcerer and itself? When was that change made?

Yes, I'm one of the folks who used to lean heavily on the Clannfear's tanking ability, but gave it up when the Scamp got buffed ...

No. The clanfear is just you and itself. For 35% of your health. For 7000 magic. Totally worthless.

The matriarch heal is based on 20% of your max magic for 3200 magic AND heals 2 people. So a tank that has around 16k magic, which is average for tanks, will hit for 3.2k. before percentage amps and crits. So you heal yourself, the Matriarch and one other person ever cast, so that is with out crits and percentage amps, 3.2k*6=19k heals for 6.4k magic. With the clanfear, it is only you and the clanfear for 35% of your health and most tanks have around 30-35k health, so let's call it, 33k. 33k*.35= 11.5k. for 7k magic. I would rather run the matriarch and help my team out and get more heals.

Mystrius_Archaion

Shadowshire wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

DarkGottbeard wrote: »

There is no explanation in game for the summon and the active having a different cost. Therefore , it can't be classified as "very obvious." And whether or not it is working as intended is completely up to the whims of the developers.

It's very obvious if you actually summon the pet and then check your skill bar, as I had said above for you to do. It will give you the exact magicka cost and exact heal amount(in the case of the Twilight Matriarch which is not a percentage of health).

Maybe you should check for in game documentation before assuming a 3rd party user-updated site is "more correct" than the game.

As much as I respect your expertise, frankly, @DarkGottbeard is right in his criticism.

Personally, I have never examined a tooltip for an ability on the Ability Bar to see whether the description for the ability differs from the one on the Skills UI. I am not sure that I would recognize a difference if there is one. Why would anyone expect there might be a difference? Why would anyone reasonably expect any player to look for that?

True, players would not expect to look for that, unless they have used other skills that change under certain conditions, like the DK flame lash skill or Merciless Resolve for nightblades, or just the lack of information on exactly how much the Twilight Matriarch heals for causes you to try to figure it out, which is how I figured it out.


Edit:
Also, the clannfear is not the pet that heals other players. It isn't one-shot by normal delve bosses either. That may be the case in dungeons, or only vet dungeons, but they have tried to make them survive and viable in that content as well.
If the scamp can survive and be viable in vet dungeons then the clannfear can even more easily since you can heal it while healing yourself. That's also why I chose the twilight matriarch over the scamp. The matriarch heals itself when used again and does respectable damage at range.

Mystrius_Archaion

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Wait a moment.

Does the Clannfear now heal somebody other than the sorcerer and itself? When was that change made?

Yes, I'm one of the folks who used to lean heavily on the Clannfear's tanking ability, but gave it up when the Scamp got buffed ...

No. The clanfear is just you and itself. For 35% of your health. For 7000 magic. Totally worthless.

The matriarch heal is based on 20% of your max magic for 3200 magic AND heals 2 people. So a tank that has around 16k magic, which is average for tanks, will hit for 3.2k. before percentage amps and crits. So you heal yourself, the Matriarch and one other person ever cast, so that is with out crits and percentage amps, 3.2k*6=19k heals for 6.4k magic. With the clanfear, it is only you and the clanfear for 35% of your health and most tanks have around 30-35k health, so let's call it, 33k. 33k*.35= 11.5k. for 7k magic. I would rather run the matriarch and help my team out and get more heals.

Exactly my point.

I have also recently seen some documentation indicating the clannfear pet may taunt as well, which is bad when on a tank as it will cause taunt immunity. That makes the twilight matriarch better if it is the case.

Shadowshire

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

....

Well, thanks for the heads-up about potential differences between Skill UI tooltips and Ability Bar tooltips for the same respective ability.

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Edit:
Also, the clannfear is not the pet that heals other players. It isn't one-shot by normal delve bosses either. That may be the case in dungeons, or only vet dungeons, but they have tried to make them survive and viable in that content as well.
If the scamp can survive and be viable in vet dungeons then the clannfear can even more easily since you can heal it while healing yourself. That's also why I chose the twilight matriarch over the scamp. The matriarch heals itself when used again and does respectable damage at range.

In my experience, when I use the Unstable Clannfear's healing ability, there is a brief "flash" of light around my character and around the Clannfear, accompanied by an audio cue. On occasion, usually during an ad hoc Dolmen fight, I have seen the same "flash" simultaneously displayed around a nearby player character. Also, sometimes a Health bar is being displayed above the character's head and it shows that some or all of their health is restored. Go figure.

As to whether the Unstable Clannfear can be one-shot, that is not common among delve bosses. I've fought so many of them (with two different Sorcerers, solo) that I cannot recall the one(s) that I have seen do it. Perhaps the health of the Clannfear was already reduced, so it just looked like a one-shot kill, but in at least one case the delve boss could also one-shot my Sorc unless I had his damage shield up.

For what it is worth, I spend most of my time engaging in Quests. The bosses which my character encounters during a Quest vary significantly in how dangerous they are. There have been at least one or two that can indeed one-shot the Clannfear, certainly at the time that my sorcers fought them. Also beware that "combat leveling" will make a Quest boss tougher for an "alt" that may have a level less than 50, but also has the benefit of all of the Champion Points accumulated by the player's other character(s). The same boss was not as tough for the other characters because they had few, if any, Champion Points.

Granted, I haven't been participating very often at all in any dungeon groups for a quite a while. So I don't know from experience whether the Clannfear is now harder to kill than before. I've only read that in the Patch Notes, if memory serves.

If by the "scamp" you mean the Volatile Familiar, then it's good to know that the VF is "viable and can be viable in vet dungeons". One of my Sorcerers usually summons the Twilight Matriarch while venturing solo, but also summons the VF while venturing solo in Public Dungeons. In a group without a healer, he will summon both the VF and the TM, else usually just the VF.

If I recall correctly, the Twilight Matriarch will heal the Volatile Familiar as well as the summoner and herself, too. Further, other players have told me that the Twilight Matriarch has healed their character, when I used her healing ability, even while she was out of range for healing my character, but within range to heal theirs. On occasion, "Matey" can be just as aggressive as "Pulsifer".

The other Sorcerer ventures mostly as a Lightning sorc and only has the Unstable Clannfear to summon while engaged in solo activities. He has summoned the Unstable Clannfear while solo in Public Dungeons. In a group dungeon or a World Boss group, for example, there is usually a healer participating, so that Sorcerer summons the Twilight Tormentor instead (although whether the TT is on the abilty bar depends upon the prospective fights).

Shadowshire

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Shadowshire wrote: »

In order to use the ability to summon an Unstable Clannfear or Twilight Matriarch, the "stamina tank" would have to be a Sorcerer. Although I have heard of "stamina sorcs", the concept still does not compute (in my thinking). Not that I disagree with any of your statements.

One of my two (DPS) Sorcerers summons the Unstable Clannfear primarily for the familiar's healing ability.

Sorcerers in the elder scrolls lore are different then in other fictional lores, they are actually supposed to be heavy armor and sheild magic users, as is pointed out in the flavor text in Oblivion, see here- http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Sorcerer#Sorcerer,

Besting the most well-equipped fighters, they rely on the spells of the mystic arts. Unique to these mages is the bodily stamina to be armed with the thickest armor.

And if you are a magic sorc in ESO and you are not using the scamp, you are just doing it wrong, use the twilight for heals.

Yes, I have heard about the "Battle Mage" in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. In TESO, the term is even used in a few dialogues about historic NPCs. Concept and lore are all well and good, it's whether a "stamina sorc" can become an effective character in the game software that matters.

That said, I have not attempted to build a "stamina sorc". However, I've been building a "stamina Templar". It seems that a stamina Templar can serve well at least in PvP, in which I do not engage. But I am less confident that the character will have enough DPS for 4-player dungeons, never mind trials.

Those are topics for some other discussion.