Here is why these abilities and/or morphs needs to be buffed or reworked

techprince

This is going to be a long post and it will not cover class skills for now. I will try to explain why these abilities / morphs needs to be buffed or reworked. You may disagree on many and thats completely fine.

Weapon Skills - 2H

1. Berserker Strike : The ultimate cost is too high and the uptime is too low for this ultimate to be viable in PvE boss fights. In PvP, this isnt used anywhere simply because its dodgable, blockable, absorbable and comes with a high cost. Add x bleed damage over n seconds instead of stealing targets resistances. This will allow players using 2H to do some decent single target damage in both pvp and pve
2. Onslaught : Mainly used in PvP in few builds and thats about it. I would suggest to increase the duration of the base morph from 8 to 12 seconds and apply Offbalance for the duration instead of an ult refund making this a solid single target ult. This will also allow stamina players to provide a group utility as well.
3. Berserker Rage : Convert the ultimate into 360 degree AOE with 8 meter radius.
4. Cleave : 2H doesn't have any skill that allows player to mitigate damage unless this skill is morphed to brawler. Even then, its quite useless in boss fights as the shield gain is very low. I would suggest to put the shield from brawler morph to the base skill. Replace the static shield strength component with % max hp. Example, single target hit -> 30% of max hp. This will allow the base skill to retain the mitigation in single target fights as well as in AOE. Give stacking damage mitigation buff of 4% per cast upto 20% maximum.
5. Brawler : Increase the shield strength by -10% each target hit. Increase the damage mitigation by 2% for every target hit upto maximum of 10%

Weapon Skills - 1HS

1. Shielded Assault : I can only see this skill being used in solo pve instances. Even then the shield strength is very weak. Shield strength must be increased considerably OR reduce the damage taken from the target by 10-15% for n seconds.
2. Power Slam - This morph is suppose to be the DPS morph for 1HS. However, the cost and the base damage does not make up for the dps loss we get from using this over class skills. Lower the cost and increase the damage of this ability OR add a damage over time component to it.

Weapon Skills - DW

1. Thrive in Chaos : The damage bonus is very little and this morph is only useful in AOE fights. Scrap the damage bonus entirely. Make this a ground AOE, increase the damage done with 8 meter radius and a synergy. This will give more damage with group utility over the duration and self utility of rend.
2. Whirling Blades : Everyone takes the Steel Tornado morph simply because it gives staggering 80% radius increase. I would suggest to give this morph significantly higher scaling damage and lower the cost making this a single target execute rather than an AOE one. This will help the classes without an execute tremendously.
3. Shrouded Daggers : Remove the AOE cap of targets and put the cap on damage increase instead. This will allow this morph to do decent AOE damage in PvE and it will become a lesser stamina variant of Magicka Detonation.

Weapon Skills - Bow

1. Rapid Fire : The ultimate cost of this morph is way to high. Reduce the cost down to 150. Every PvE player uses Ballista morph as it allows player to continue dealing damage. Rapid Fire decreases the DPS by locking the owner out of other abilities for the duration
2. Toxic Barrage : Another channel ultimate which will lock out the player reducing the DPS. Reduce the cost of this ultimate to 100 to makeup for the loss in PvE and it will become a strong ultimate in PvP as well. Please remember that this ult can be countered by common methods as blocking and dodging so it shouldn't be much of an issue. Also, stam players will rejoice as they will have a stamina variant of soul assault. Increase the damage done to the target by 10% from all the sources for n seconds during the channel or after the channel ends. So this gives a choice to players to increase their own damage or to increase groups damage.
3. Arrow Barrage : The radius is way to low for the damage loss it does due to maelstorm bow being the superior choice. Increase the radius to 9m-10m and optionally convert it to poison damage.
4. Acid Spray : The damage overtime is way to low. Increase the damage overtime component of this morph.

Weapon Skills - Destro

1. Unstable Wall of Elements - There is no reason to use this morph over Elemental blockade. I would suggest to change this morph to allow a status effect (based on staff equipped) to be applied to the target for the duration instead of having secondary staff based effects for itself. This will allow more utility based application for support characters. With this change, support characters can apply 2 status effects, one with this morph and second with the enchant + charged trait
2. Elemental Susceptibility - A step towards making ice staff for tanking, allow this morph to apply Major Fracture as well as Major Breach. Remove the refresh on cast. Add a decent magicka cost.
3. Pulsar - Remove the immunity to Minor Mangle from all the bosses and every support character will use this. Reduce the HP% to 5% if applied on bosses.

Weapon Skills - Resto

1. Illustrious Healing : There is no reason to choose this morph over Healing Springs as Healing Springs offers more casts of Grand Healing as they stack with each other. I am not sure what effect would be worth dropping Healing Springs. Give your ideas. Increase the healing done by % amount which is capped at n% according to the number of allies hit.
2. Blessing of Restoration : Same here, there is no reason to use this morph over Combat Prayer as 8% damage is HUGE. Give your ideas. Give Minor Protection to the allies in addition to the current morph buffs.
3. Force Siphon : Same as above. If Elemental Drain provides free magicka steal then there is no use of Force Siphon skill. Give your ideas. If possible, Minor Staminasteal on the morph of Quick Siphon. Remove the cast time all together from the base skills and morphs, there is no reason to keep it.

Fighters Guild Skills

1. Silver Bolts : Add Major Brutality for 20 seconds on this morph. Bow-Bow users will be very happy. Increase the damage done by this ability so that it can compare to class spammables.
2. Circle Of Protection Ring Of Preservation : Costs WAY too much, radius is small. Reduce the cost to around 5k. Increase the radius to 8m

Mages Guild Skills

1. Fire Rune : A skill that has huge potential but nobody uses simply because of very very low damage and no pve utility. Move damage overtime from Scalding Rune to this base morph. Give Minor Force to the caster OR put Minor Breach on the target for the duration.
2. Volcanic Rune : Increase the radius from 3m to 5m. This can be used in PvE and PvP.
3. Scalding Rune : Increase the damage over time of this morph by atleast 30%.

Undaunted Skills

1. Trapping Webs : Very low damaging ability and it takes 5 seconds for the damage to apply. Remove (or greatly reduce) the DoT of Caltrops and instead make Trapping Webs work the same. Keep the synergy, but remove the pet summon from them. The pets summoned currently only scale with Max Magicka, meaning they're useless for non Magicka builds to cast (even though they deal Poison damage and won't scale well with Magicka builds either...) Instead just have a short lasting DoT function after the initial damage of the synergy. (courtesy of Gilliamtherogue)
2. Shadow Silk : Remove the pets. Just increase the damage of the DoT, or the duration (courtesy of Gilliamtherogue)
3. Tangling Webs : Allow this morph to apply Minor Fracture and instead of fearing the enemy immobilize the enemy on activating the synergy (courtesy of Gilliamtherogue)

Vampire Skills

1. Baleful Mist : There is no reason to use this morph anywhere. I would suggest to completely change this morph and allow this morph to do damage without giving any buff and without turning player into a mist. Form a mist around the player and do damage every n seconds instead (similar to flames of oblivion).

I hope i have provided enough reasons to change these morphs. Looking forward to your reply @ZOS_Wrobel

Ladislao

Well, I can agree that SOME of these morphs should be changed somehow. This already shows that everyone has their own point of view. For someone, a bad ability is good and vice versa. Be careful.

But I do not like the proposed changes at all. Thank you for flying fantasy, but no. You may disagree with me and that's completely fine


In any case, it will never be superfluous to remind the developers that balancing needs not only overpowered, but underpowered abilities. The same applies to item sets.

techprince

Summoning @Gilliamtherogue

weg0

Ladislao wrote: »

Well, I can agree that SOME of these morphs should be changed somehow. This already shows that everyone has their own point of view. For someone, a bad ability is good and vice versa. Be careful.

But I do not like the proposed changes at all. Thank you for flying fantasy, but no.

Which of those morphs do you use? Which suggestions do you think are “but no” fantasy? Do you have useful critiques of his ideas so we can keep discourse open, or are you just being argumentative?

@techprince, I like the fact that your suggestions emphasize many aspects of combat (utility, pvp, pve, single target + aoe dps, survivability...). Most of the skills where you suggest changes to one morph, e.g. illustrious healing, are spot on. Again, take grand healing as an example: yes, there is some benefit to both healers taking a diff morph, but no healer needs illustrious healing. For that skill particularly, perhaps illustrious healing could tick harder/faster and longer. May be more useful for those with no burst heal.

Unfortunately I am not familiar enough with the other skills to give much feedback. But that is also kinda your point. No one uses most of the skills/ morphs you mention because they need serious work to make it worth taking up a slot on the bar.

Nice work.

Zer0oo

Please no one says crystal blast that did not end well for sorc who got really hit hard in pvp because it.

SodanTok

techprince wrote: »

This is going to be a long post and it will not cover class skills for now. I will try to explain why these abilities / morphs needs to be buffed or reworked. You may disagree on many and thats completely fine.

Weapon Skills - Bow

1. Rapid Fire : The ultimate cost of this morph is way to high. Reduce the cost down to 150. Every PvE player uses Ballista morph as it allows player to continue dealing damage. Rapid Fire decreases the DPS by locking the owner out of other abilities for the duration
2. Toxic Barrage : Another channel ultimate which will lock out the player reducing the DPS. Reduce the cost of this ultimate to 100 to makeup for the loss in PvE and it will become a strong ultimate in PvP as well. Please remember that this ult can be countered by common methods as blocking and doging so it shouldnt be much of an issue. Also, stam players will rejoice as they will have a stamina variant of soul assault
3. Arrow Barrage : The radius is way to low for the damage loss it does due to maelstorm bow being the superior choice. Increase the radius to 9m, similar to Streel Tornado.
4. Acid Spray : The damage overtime is way to low. Increase the damage overtime component of this morph.

Nobody will still use Toxic Barrage. Soul assault is instant, 3.5s long, uninterruptible, undodgeable channel with 70% snare and for some reason 30% higher tooltip damage on stamina toon than Ballista that ticks precisely that fast to proc every block cost yet disables all forms of defenses (cloak, dodge, reflect, absorb) to force user to blocking (if they cant shield it).
Compared to that, toxic barrage is opposite ultimate having all the counters and none the perks, for bigger price (and with cast delay and longer duration)
Not to say, toxic barrage should be cancer like soul assault is. Both of them should not be cancer and both of them should be better.

Arrow Barrage will never see use, ever, until they equalize duration with endless hail or nerf VMA bow. There needs to be other perks that separate these 2 morphs, not duration as long vma bow lives.

Acid Spray DoT damage is surprisingly not low at all. The duration and/or cost are the problems. It is super expensive (one of the most expensive stamina skills in the game) while lasting only 6s. If it lasted 10s (meaning the total dot damage would obv change so the ticks are the same), it would perform like rending slashes, except in AoE (and would be nearly 3 times as expensive, which would be fair in that situation IMO).

Minno

Here's my thoughts (in bold)

techprince wrote: »

This is going to be a long post and it will not cover class skills for now. I will try to explain why these abilities / morphs needs to be buffed or reworked. You may disagree on many and thats completely fine.

Weapon Skills - 2H

1. Berserker Strike : The ultimate cost is too high and the uptime is too low for this ultimate to be viable in PvE boss fights. In PvP, this isnt used anywhere simply because its dodgable, blockable, absorbable and comes with a high cost. Add x bleed damage over n seconds instead of stealing targets resistances. This will allow players using 2H to do some decent single target damage in both pvp and pve. agreed, cost is too high for how reactive the ability is. Will the bleed dmg be boosted by your max stat? if so, are we prepared for mag builds to have a bleed for less than 140 ultimate?
2. Onslaught : Mainly used in PvP in few builds and thats about it. I would suggest to increase the duration of the base morph from 8 to 12-14 seconds and apply Offbalance for the duration instead of an ult refund making this a solid single target ult. This will also allow stamina players to provide a group utility as well.
3. Berserker Rage : Convert the ultimate into 360 degree AOE with 8 meter radius. it should get a mobility buff. maybe minor expedition while slotted?
4. Cleave : 2H doesn't have any skill that allows player to mitigate damage unless this skill is morphed to brawler. Even then, its quite useless in boss fights as the shield gain is very low. I would suggest to put the shield from brawler morph to the base skill. Replace the static shield strength component with % max hp. Example, single target hit -> 30% of max hp. This will allow the base skill to retain the mitigation in single target fights as well as in AOE.
5. Brawler : Increase the shield strength by 5-10% each target hit. they should remove the shield based off health and make it a dmg mitigation buff?

Weapon Skills - 1HS

1. Shielded Assault : I can only see this skill being used in solo pve instances. Even then the shield strength is very weak. Shield strength must be increased considerably.
2. Power Slam - This morph is suppose to be the DPS morph for 1HS. However, the cost and the base damage does not make up for the dps loss we get from using this over class skills. Lower the cost and increase the damage of this ability OR add a damage over time component to it.

Weapon Skills - DW

1. Thrive in Chaos : The damage bonus is very little and this morph is only useful in AOE fights. Scrap the damage bonus entirely. Make this a ground AOE, increase the damage done with 8 meter radius and a synergy. This will give more damage with group utility over the duration and self utility of rend.
2. Whirling Blades : Everyone takes the Steel Tornado morph simply because it gives staggering 80% radius increase. I would suggest to give this morph significantly higher scaling damage and lower the cost making this a single target execute rather than an AOE one. This will help the classes without an execute tremendously.
3. Shrouded Daggers : Remove the AOE cap of targets and put the cap of damage increase instead. Put a bomb on the target on hit which explodes after n seconds. This will allow this morph to do decent AOE damage in PvE and it will become a stamina variant of Magicka Detonation. bomb doesnt fit in the description of dual weld. maybe a bleed would be better?

Weapon Skills - Bow

1. Rapid Fire : The ultimate cost of this morph is way to high. Reduce the cost down to 150. Every PvE player uses Ballista morph as it allows player to continue dealing damage. Rapid Fire decreases the DPS by locking the owner out of other abilities for the duration
2. Toxic Barrage : Another channel ultimate which will lock out the player reducing the DPS. Reduce the cost of this ultimate to 100 to makeup for the loss in PvE and it will become a strong ultimate in PvP as well. Please remember that this ult can be countered by common methods as blocking and doging so it shouldnt be much of an issue. Also, stam players will rejoice as they will have a stamina variant of soul assault
3. Arrow Barrage : The radius is way to low for the damage loss it does due to maelstorm bow being the superior choice. Increase the radius to 9m, similar to Streel Tornado.
4. Acid Spray : The damage overtime is way to low. Increase the damage overtime component of this morph.

they should make the morph of poison injection higher dmg. This will offset bow not having proper spamable (and it mimics templar's where vamps bane is the main DPS ability for dawns wraith with dark flare being similar to snipe as a burst ability.) Otherwise these look good to me

Weapon Skills - Destro

1. Unstable Wall of Elements - There is no reason to use this morph over Elemental blockade. I would suggest to change this morph to allow a status effect (based on staff equipped) to be applied to the target for the duration instead of having secondary staff based effects for itself. This will allow more utility based application for support characters. With this change, support characters can apply 2 status effects, one with this morph and second with the enchant + charged trait i backbar this morph. I use it in pvp for little extra burst against melee builds (its not much but combined with other abilities it helps switch form defense to offsnse. I would take your suggestion over the current morph, because status effect > dmg with this ability anyway in pvp.
2. Elemental Susceptibility - A step towards making ice staff for tanking, allow this morph to apply Major Fracture as well as Major Breach. Remove the refresh on cast. Add a decent magicka cost. interesting. no comment on balance because NB have this debuff on mark and that seems fine.
3. Pulsar - Remove the immunity to Minor Mangle from all the bosses and every support character will use this. immunity to effects should grant a secondary effect to compensate. like unstable core for templar actually deals some damage to make up for you not being able to use it on boss fights. for Pulsar, it should match the staff type (fire increasing your direct destro dmg on the target, lighting increasing your destro aoe on target, and extra resists when using ice staff.

Weapon Skills - Resto

1. Illustrious Healing : There is no reason to choose this morph over Healing Springs as Healing Springs offers more casts of Grand Healing as they stack with each other. I am not sure what effect would be worth dropping Healing Springs. Give your ideas.debuff removal should be the effect. Every heal has a chance to remove x effects.
2. Blessing of Restoration : Same here, there is no reason to use this morph over Combat Prayer as 8% damage is HUGE. Give your ideas. useful in pvp, duration almost matches major armor buff durations for some classes and the heal is only 2k less than bol for some players. they could increase the heal so it matches bol or have a single burst heal for a random person outside the aoe range?
3. Force Siphon : Same as above. If Elemental Drain provides free magicka steal then there is no use of Force Siphon skill. Give your ideas. should give stamina sustain instead of mag steal. cast time should be lowered (if it isn't less than 1.5secs already) or in fact get rid of the cast time altogether, since ele drain is instant cast and gives penetration.

Fighters Guild Skills

1. Silver Bolts : Add Major Brutality for 20 seconds on this morph. Bow-Bow users will be very happy. also increase the single target damage to your target. makes this a ranged spamable for alot of new builds trying to run bow
2. Circle of Protection : Costs WAY too much, radius is small. Reduce the cost to around 5k. Increase the radius to 8m

Mages Guild Skills

1. Fire Rune : A skill that has huge potential but nobody uses simply because of very very low damage and no pve utility. Move damage overtime from Scalding Rune to this base morph. Give Minor Force to the caster for the duration. agreed
2. Volcanic Rune : Increase the radius from 3m to 5m. This can be used in PvE and PvP. agreed
3. Scalding Rune : Increase the damage over time of this morph by atleast 30%.agreed

Undaunted Skills

1. Trapping Webs : Very low damaging ability and it takes 5 seconds for the damage to apply. Increase the damage done by Spawn Broodlings significantly.
2. Shadow Silk : Increase the damage done by Black Widows significantly.
3. Tangling Webs : Allow this morph to apply Minor Fracture and Minor Breach when the venom bursts instead of fearing the enemy, Every tank will love you for this (yes i know there is a set doing exactly this but why put such important debuff on an entire set?) agreed. skills over sets for balance.

Vampire Skills

1. Baleful Mist : There is no reason to use this morph anywhere. I would suggest to completely change this morph and allow this morph to do damage without giving any buff and without turning player into a mist. Form a mist around the player instead and do damage every n seconds instead. this should be a self buff dps. drop the 75% reduction to 20%, but gain a huge delayed burst spell and every enemy hit increases the dmg reduction by x%

I hope i have provided enough reasons to change these morphs. Looking forward to your reply @ZOS_Wrobel

Gilliamtherogue

I've decided to bold my responses in an edited version of the OP to discuss implications of the suggestions and/or suggest some of my own.

techprince wrote: »

This is going to be a long post and it will not cover class skills for now. I will try to explain why these abilities / morphs needs to be buffed or reworked. You may disagree on many and thats completely fine.

Weapon Skills - 2H

One of the major faults of 2h is it's complete and utter lack of reliable damage in it's kit. Everything (even its AoE, which are intentionally made to be undodgeable) is dodgeable in the kit, on top of the fact that many of them suffer operational losses since they are not wholly applicable in strength. My suggestions will be aimed at absolving those issues, while still helping the skill line stay true to its current operations.

[*] Berserker Strike : The ultimate cost is too high and the uptime is too low for this ultimate to be viable in PvE boss fights. In PvP, this isnt used anywhere simply because its dodgable, blockable, absorbable and comes with a high cost. Add x bleed damage over n seconds instead of stealing targets resistances. This will allow players using 2H to do some decent single target damage in both pvp and pve. Berserker Strike at base should not be a single target ability. Your suggestion of Rage should be streamlined into the base ultimate, making it function as the classic and lovable "Blade Storm" that many RPGs take the route of. Have it deal 5 seconds (hitting once per second x the number of enemies hit) of solid AoE damage, operating like a channel. Make the caster immune to Crowd Control, but not Snares while channeling. This fixes the undodgeable issues, and gives Stamina builds access to the ONLY AoE ultimate available in game to them. Things like Rend/Dawnbreaker have AoE potential, but they are all cleaves instead of radials. Crescent Sweep doesn't count since it's so buggy and misses

[*] Onslaught : Mainly used in PvP in few builds and thats about it. I would suggest to increase the duration of the base morph from 8 to 12-14 seconds and apply Offbalance for the duration instead of an ult refund making this a solid single target ult. This will also allow stamina players to provide a group utility as well. I like the idea of giving Stamina builds a form of Off Balance. While I'd rather see it on a more reliable source (such as a Cleave morph, or Weapon passive to match Wall of Lightning), this could still work. Onslaught now applies Off Balance on targets that you hit 3 times with the skill.

[*] Berserker Rage : Convert the ultimate into 360 degree AOE with 8 meter radius. The Resistance ignore effect now instead removes all Physical and Spell Resistance of the target, allowing for a more Solo-play oriented morph option. The total number of hits is now increased to 7.

[*] Cleave : 2H doesn't have any skill that allows player to mitigate damage unless this skill is morphed to brawler. Even then, its quite useless in boss fights as the shield gain is very low. I would suggest to put the shield from brawler morph to the base skill. Replace the static shield strength component with % max hp. Example, single target hit -> 30% of max hp. This will allow the base skill to retain the mitigation in single target fights as well as in AOE. A 30% damage shield for hitting a single enemy would leave for an extremely imbalanced Cyrodiil. We need something akin to Blade Cloak that has a niche defense,
but something that is still helpful. Perhaps tether a flat damage reduction to the DoT portion, that increases based on the current duration of the DoT. Cleave places a 10s DoT; upon cast you are granted 2% damage mitigation. After 2 seconds it becomes 4%, 4s -> 6%, 6s -> 8% - 8s -> 10%, and 10s -> 12%. The final 12% mitigation persists for 2 seconds after Cleave ends. This enables a slightly less powerful form of damage mitigation for 2h builds, while also allowing tanks to use it. In PvP this also enables a unique counterplay option for the target being Cleaved, as if they purge the effect, the target would lose their damage mitigation after 2 seconds and it would not be able to ramp higher.

[*] Brawler : Increase the shield strength by 5-10% each target hit. Leave Brawler at its base, perhaps slightly nerf the damage shield size, since it would also be receiving the damage mitigation of the base morph.

[*] Carve : The bleed now stacks if recasted early, up to a maximum of three times. Upon reaching 3 stacks, the bleed will no longer refreshes on cast, but your damaging 2h attacks (abilities and Light/Heavy Attacks) now deal 5% bonus damage to the target for the duration. This enables a DPS option for PvE that allows for an interesting mechanic that has plenty of counterplay in PvP due to purging, while being difficult to manage (mastery) in PvE.



Weapon Skills - 1HS

1. Shielded Assault : I can only see this skill being used in solo pve instances. Even then the shield strength is very weak. Shield strength must be increased considerably. Not much to talk about here. The shield size DEFINITELY needs to increase for this morph to ever be taken seriously. Perhaps a shield isn't the best bet, instead perhaps the target you cast this on deals X% less damage to you for a short duration.
   
2. Power Slam - This morph is suppose to be the DPS morph for 1HS. However, the cost and the base damage does not make up for the dps loss we get from using this over class skills. Lower the cost and increase the damage of this ability OR add a damage over time component to it. Since the rework, I have been in love with this skill's idea. I've dreamed and often attempted to make a SnB Bash build, unfortunately to no success. The insanely high cost of this skill, coupled with no Stamina Management while actively Blocking, completely ruins this from happening. A severe cost reduction, or perhaps a mere free cast if blocking a certain number of attacks (perhaps 3, so it cannot be spammed in PvP) would be ideal.

Weapon Skills - DW

1. Thrive in Chaos : The damage bonus is very little and this morph is only useful in AOE fights. Scrap the damage bonus entirely. Make this a ground AOE, increase the damage done with 8 meter radius and a synergy. This will give more damage with group utility over the duration and self utility of rend. I've always thought Thrive in Chaos should have a radial AoE since the purpose of this morph is to hit as many enemies as possible. It is currently impossible aside from target dummy situations, to get the full 30% damage bonus from this morph. Making it an 8-10m AoE single cast, or your suggestion of a ground DoT, would completely fix this morph option into the realm of viability. Have been waiting for some love to this morph since it launched.
   
2. Whirling Blades : Everyone takes the Steel Tornado morph simply because it gives staggering 80% radius increase. I would suggest to give this morph significantly higher scaling damage and lower the cost making this a single target execute rather than an AOE one. This will help the classes without an execute tremendously. Increasing the execute function of this is definitely interesting, especially since the radius is so small. I'd also like to see a flat Stamina return, akin to the original functionality of this morph, to return as well. That way it would reward constant utilization out of this skill, which is already hard enough to enact upon due to its incredibly small radius.
   
3. Shrouded Daggers : Remove the AOE cap of targets and put the cap of damage increase instead. Put a bomb on single target on hit which explodes after n seconds. This will allow this morph to do decent AOE damage in PvE and it will become a stamina variant of Magicka Detonation. Another interesting suggestion. Definitely wouldn't want to give a large damage modifier to this like Magicka Det, but a slight ramping effect would be interesting.

Weapon Skills - Bow

1. Rapid Fire : The ultimate cost of this morph is way to high. Reduce the cost down to 150. Every PvE player uses Ballista morph as it allows player to continue dealing damage. Rapid Fire decreases the DPS by locking the owner out of other abilities for the duration. Can't argue there. While Barrage is a guilty pleasure of mine, I am fully aware of how awful it is.
   Vulnerable, reflectable, unable to continue DPSing; this base morph and Toxic Barrage are both in dire need of help. Remove the ability to Reflect this, and it'll be a bit better off.
   
2. Toxic Barrage : Another channel ultimate which will lock out the player reducing the DPS. Reduce the cost of this ultimate to 100 to makeup for the loss in PvE and it will become a strong ultimate in PvP as well. Please remember that this ult can be countered by common methods as blocking and doging so it shouldnt be much of an issue. Also, stam players will rejoice as they will have a stamina variant of soul assault This morph is also reflectable, while Ballista is not. I don't think the 100 Ulti cost is a good idea, since when this Ulti isn't dodged/blocked/reflected, it does a lot of damage. Toxic Barrage's saving grace is the DoT it applies after it ends. Focus on your strengths is something we're often told to do, and this morph should do the same. While Toxic Barrage's DoT potion persists, the target takes 5% bonus damage from all damage that is casted over 15 meters away from the target. This helps both bow builds gain group utility for other bow builds, but also all classes (Magicka and Stamina), making it a very viable end game option.
   
3. Arrow Barrage : The radius is way to low for the damage loss it does due to maelstorm bow being the superior choice. Increase the radius to 9m, similar to Streel Tornado. Also change the damage to Poison please, so it better fits into the theme of the Bow morph options. 10m would also be a better option than 9, since losing 2s of the DoT means missing 4 whole Maelstrom bonus ticks, which is HUGE.
   
4. Acid Spray : The damage overtime is way to low. Increase the damage overtime component of this morph. "Way too low"
   is a bit misleading. After the buff this skill received, it's not nearly as bad as before. It still could use a bit of love though, or at least allow the DoT to stack instead of merely refreshing.

Weapon Skills - Destro

1. Unstable Wall of Elements - There is no reason to use this morph over Elemental blockade. I would suggest to change this morph to allow a status effect (based on staff equipped) to be applied to the target for the duration instead of having secondary staff based effects for itself. This will allow more utility based application for support characters. With this change, support characters can apply 2 status effects, one with this morph and second with the enchant + charged trait. There totally is a reason to run this morph over Blockade. It allows for more overall damage. Infact, this used to be ideal back in Homestead when resource management allowed for it. It was extremely difficult to manage, but it was worth it. Merely reduce the cost of this skill, or add a Magicka return if targets are hit by the explosion. Maybe a *slight* damage boost to the explosion as well.
   
2. Elemental Susceptibility - A step towards making ice staff for tanking, allow this morph to apply Major Fracture as well as Major Breach. Remove the refresh on cast. Add a decent magicka cost. Magicka steal is still too valuable, adding Major Fracture to this won't do much. Honestly I can't think of anything on this that would help make it more enticing than resource management at this point.
   
3. Pulsar - Remove the immunity to Minor Mangle from all the bosses and every support character will use this. If this was done, Minor Mangle would need to be nerfed in terms of total HP reduction. Seeing how high most Trial Bosses get in Vet HM, this would be a disgusting amount of damage potential. Another option could be made however, where a set limit of HP reduction maximum could be put in place.
   

Weapon Skills - Resto

1. Illustrious Healing : There is no reason to choose this morph over Healing Springs as Healing Springs offers more casts of Grand Healing as they stack with each other. I am not sure what effect would be worth dropping Healing Springs. Give your ideas. Have the Heal over Time get a boost in healing for each ally it hits on the initial hit, but it now shrinks in size as it goes (to prevent Ball Groups from abusing in Cyro). 5% per ally hit (up to 30% with 6) and loses 1m radius every second. Most people would still take Springs because resource management is so important, but it'd allow for more raw Healing, which some encounters call for.
   
2. Blessing of Restoration : Same here, there is no reason to use this morph over Combat Prayer as 8% damage is HUGE. Give your ideas. Add a powerful HoT with the duration. Now you have a utility morph for offensive play, or a more defensive approach. You could also instead place Minor Protection on it instead for the duration.
   
3. Force Siphon : Same as above. If Elemental Drain provides free magicka steal then there is no use of Force Siphon skill. Give your ideas. Put a unique resource management function on this ability, where allies restore a flat (and small) amount of their current Lowest resource. Perhaps 125 Magicka or Stamina, with the standard 1s ICD.

Fighters Guild Skills

1. Silver Bolts : Add Major Brutality for 20 seconds on this morph. Bow-Bow users will be very happy. This skill or one of the morphs also needs a considerable damage boost to Vampires, Undead, and Werewolves. There is no reason this skill should do less damage than other spammables against targets it is literally made to fight against.
   
2. Circle of Protection : Costs WAY too much, radius is small. Reduce the cost to around 5k. Increase the radius to 8m. Keep the cost to prevent it from being spammed, as well as punishing players who cast this improperly. Instead increase the base duration considerably. This still helps the skill become more manageable for resources, while still requiring the user to be smart with placement.
   

Mages Guild Skills

1. Fire Rune : A skill that has huge potential but nobody uses simply because of very very low damage and no pve utility. Move damage overtime from Scalding Rune to this base morph. Give Minor Force to the caster for the duration. Or instead of copying Fighter's Guild, have it give a different buff or debuff. Minor Breach could be interesting, seeing as that buff is incredibly rare compared to Force.
   
2. Volcanic Rune : Increase the radius from 3m to 5m. This can be used in PvE and PvP. Volcanic Rune is already pretty disgusting if used properly in PvP. I would avoid touching this skill at the moment, aside from adding the Minor Breach from the base.
   
3. Scalding Rune : Increase the damage over time of this morph by atleast 30%. 30% might be a bit much, would need to test more values with this skill to see what would be safe without making the skill mandatory.

Undaunted Skills

1. Trapping Webs : Very low damaging ability and it takes 5 seconds for the damage to apply. Increase the damage done by Spawn Broodlings significantly. Honestly this should be the new Caltrops. Remove (or greatly reduce) the DoT of Caltrops and instead make Trapping Webs work the same. Keep the synergy, but remove the pet summon from them. The pets summoned currently only scale with Max Magicka, meaning they're useless for non Magicka builds to cast (even though they deal Poison damage and won't scale well with Magicka builds either...) Instead just have a short lasting DoT function after the initial damage of the synergy.
   
2. Shadow Silk : Increase the damage done by Black Widows significantly. As said above, remove the pets. Just increase the damage of the DoT, or the duration.
   
3. Tangling Webs : Allow this morph to apply Minor Fracture and Minor Breach when the venom bursts instead of fearing the enemy, Every tank will love you for this (yes i know there is a set doing exactly this but why put such important debuff on an entire set?) Both Minor Fracture and Breach would make Power of the Light from Templars redundant. I'd be okay with putting Minor Fracture alone on, and then have the synergy immobilize the target as well (You're getting tangled up!)
   

Vampire Skills

1. Baleful Mist : There is no reason to use this morph anywhere. I would suggest to completely change this morph and allow this morph to do damage without giving any buff and without turning player into a mist. Form a mist around the player instead and do damage every n seconds instead. Ah but you are incorrect! Baleful MIst + Magicka Steal = Magicka return in Mist form! While niche and the potential to be made redundant by other morphs, it still has a purpose. I would have Baleful Mist add Snare/Immobilization Immunity last 2-3 seconds after the skill ends, to offer a better morph option. Elusive will still allow you to cover larger distances due to Expedition too.
   
2. No love for Clouding Swarm? This skill is in dire need of some love! I absolutely love this idea, but the damage potential is currently not there to combat Devouring's overall impact. I suggest having a DoT be applied to targets that are hit by it, and if you hit the same target multiple times (so the DoT is active), instead of it refreshing the DoT, it merely does bonus burst damage (perhaps 20% bonus damage).
   

I hope i have provided enough reasons to change these morphs. Looking forward to your reply @ZOS_Wrobel

Tannus15

these are amazing suggestions.

Usually posts like these leave me going "are you crazy??" but pretty much everything here is awesome. This would make a lot of unused skills have a niche role or even become must slots.

I really like.

StoicSunbro

techprince wrote: »

Mages Guild Skills

1. Fire Rune : A skill that has huge potential but nobody uses simply because of very very low damage and no pve utility. Move damage overtime from Scalding Rune to this base morph. Give Minor Force to the caster for the duration.
2. Volcanic Rune : Increase the radius from 3m to 5m. This can be used in PvE and PvP.
3. Scalding Rune : Increase the damage over time of this morph by atleast 30%.

I have been mentioning giving Scalding Minor Force for weeks to guildies. This idea alone stands out as it is a very minor adjustment, but would dramatically change the magicka meta given the prevalence of Rearming Trap in PVE. I currently run Guard of all things for minor force, so this would be a very welcome change.

Ladislao

weg0 wrote: »

Ladislao wrote: »

Well, I can agree that SOME of these morphs should be changed somehow. This already shows that everyone has their own point of view. For someone, a bad ability is good and vice versa. Be careful.

But I do not like the proposed changes at all. Thank you for flying fantasy, but no.

Which of those morphs do you use? Which suggestions do you think are “but no” fantasy? Do you have useful critiques of his ideas so we can keep discourse open, or are you just being argumentative?

Well, I'll try to go over all the points briefly.

Spoiler: it did not work out "briefly"

1) Berserker Strike and morphs
I don't use it so I can not say with certainty whether this is a weak ability (although many agree on the opinion that this is so).
But I don't like the idea of adding bleeding damage. After the appearance of Blooddrinker (or realizing that dots are viable) people began to suggest adding bleeding to everything. In my opinion, this solution is not suitable for this skill.
Even more I do not like the idea with 360-degree aoe. Maybe it sounds cool, but I'm sure, in fact it would be a big hole in the balance.

2.1) Cleave and Brawler
I do not want to discuss the OP's concept, because I use this ability in both PVE and PVP. And I find it extremely effective. Sensible aoe damage and a nice "airbag" in one skill. Of course, this is a situational skill, but not all of them should be "must have", right?
2.2) Carve
I don't use this skill. And I think it provides a weak alternative. Perhaps it just makes sense to either replace the buff, or increase the damage, or reduce the cost, or something else.

3) Shielded Assaul
I prefer this morph to another. In my opinion, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the target is either immune to control, or will immediately leave it. So it's better to have a bonus in the form of a small shield, than not to have a bonus at all.
Although, of course, both morphs are extremely minor.

4) Power Slam
It's funny. What class spam-abilities does OP offer to Dragon Knights, Sorcerers and Wardens (okay, there might be Cutting Dive) instead of this? Although okay, the question is not even that.
I think this morph is good. But the only problem is that the other morph is better. Currently, Major Defile is a very valuable debuff. Some take S&B only for the sake of this debuff alone. I know people hate such a policy, but I think the best way to strengthen this morph is to weaken Reverberating Bash. You did not see that, okay?

5) Thrive in Chaos
I don't like the idea to make it aoe. Honestly, I'm still looking apprehensively at this morph. I think we all just have not learned to use it.

6) Whirling Blades
I like the cost reduction but don't like sad Major Endurance. I would like to buff it but insignificantly. Do not forget that it is aoe melee damage so it can proc Twin Blade and Blunt bleed, Ravager set, etc very effective. So be careful.

7) Shrouded Dagger
I like this morph. It would be better to complain about Flying Blade (although it is quite good too).

8) Toxic Barrage
I don't like this morph. But I do not think that the cost reduction will have a big impact on its effectiveness. It will still be dodgeable, interruptible, and its dot - purgeable.

9) Arrow Barrage
Well, I completely agree with it.

10) Acid Spray
I have no specific thoughts on this matter, therefore, in general, I can agree.

11) Wall of Elements
Interesting idea so I can agree with it.

12) Elemental Susceptibility
I don't like this morph. But I also do not like the transformation of this morph into a complete analog of Pierce Armor.

13) Pulsar
I do not use this skill, but I do not like the idea. Not only will it be very artificially introduced into PVE, it still does not solve the issue of relevance in PVP.

14) Illustrious Healing, Blessing of Restoration, Force Siphon
There are no proposals - there is nothing to talk about. But I definitely agree that devs should pay attention to them.

15) Silver Bolts
I don't use skill but I think he has a right to life. Not bad damage (plus bonus against vampires and werewolves), snare, good range, averange cost. Such easy access to Major Brutality could become a balance breaker.

16) Circle of Protection
I like this ability and I use it in both PVE and PVP. It lasts 20 (24) seconds and gives good buffs. Plus there is fear against vampires and werewolves which is often useful. The only problem in PVP right now is Earthgore.
The cost reduction will cause everyone to spam it. Now it is necessary to approach with the mind to its use.

17) Fire Rune and morphs
I do not like the symmetrical approach to design. I agree that ability is not strong now. But I disagree that it should be magicka version of Trap Beast. I hope devs can think of something better.

18) Trapping Webs and morphs
I discussed this question in another topic, so I'll just leave the link to it.

19) Baleful Mist
I can agree with it. Although I think this morph has much more potential for rework.

P.S. where is Expert Hunter?

Ragnarock41

I do agree that weapon skills , fighters guild and undaunted needs some love.

techprince

My replies are in Italic inside the quotes

Minno wrote: »

Here's my thoughts (in bold)

techprince wrote: »

This is going to be a long post and it will not cover class skills for now. I will try to explain why these abilities / morphs needs to be buffed or reworked. You may disagree on many and thats completely fine.

Weapon Skills - 2H

1. Berserker Strike : The ultimate cost is too high and the uptime is too low for this ultimate to be viable in PvE boss fights. In PvP, this isnt used anywhere simply because its dodgable, blockable, absorbable and comes with a high cost. Add x bleed damage over n seconds instead of stealing targets resistances. This will allow players using 2H to do some decent single target damage in both pvp and pve. agreed, cost is too high for how reactive the ability is. Will the bleed dmg be boosted by your max stat? if so, are we prepared for mag builds to have a bleed for less than 140 ultimate?
   Yes bleed damage will be boosted by max stat. However, i have seen only one magblade with 2H using onslaught in an entire year. If this change allows more diversity then great !
2. Onslaught : Mainly used in PvP in few builds and thats about it. I would suggest to increase the duration of the base morph from 8 to 12-14 seconds and apply Offbalance for the duration instead of an ult refund making this a solid single target ult. This will also allow stamina players to provide a group utility as well.
3. Berserker Rage : Convert the ultimate into 360 degree AOE with 8 meter radius. it should get a mobility buff. maybe minor expedition while slotted?
   Minor Expedition while slotted looks good on paper but may become a bit powerful in PvP.
4. Cleave : 2H doesn't have any skill that allows player to mitigate damage unless this skill is morphed to brawler. Even then, its quite useless in boss fights as the shield gain is very low. I would suggest to put the shield from brawler morph to the base skill. Replace the static shield strength component with % max hp. Example, single target hit -> 30% of max hp. This will allow the base skill to retain the mitigation in single target fights as well as in AOE.
5. Brawler : Increase the shield strength by 5-10% each target hit. they should remove the shield based off health and make it a dmg mitigation buff?
   That was my initial thought (similar to Empowering Sweeps). However % damage reduction are subject to diminishing returns but shields do not suffer such penalties. Furthermore %dmg reduction would be overpowered in PvP where as shields gets cut in half in pvp. Besides, let the templars keep something unique

Weapon Skills - 1HS

1. Shielded Assault : I can only see this skill being used in solo pve instances. Even then the shield strength is very weak. Shield strength must be increased considerably.
2. Power Slam - This morph is suppose to be the DPS morph for 1HS. However, the cost and the base damage does not make up for the dps loss we get from using this over class skills. Lower the cost and increase the damage of this ability OR add a damage over time component to it.

Weapon Skills - DW

1. Thrive in Chaos : The damage bonus is very little and this morph is only useful in AOE fights. Scrap the damage bonus entirely. Make this a ground AOE, increase the damage done with 8 meter radius and a synergy. This will give more damage with group utility over the duration and self utility of rend.
2. Whirling Blades : Everyone takes the Steel Tornado morph simply because it gives staggering 80% radius increase. I would suggest to give this morph significantly higher scaling damage and lower the cost making this a single target execute rather than an AOE one. This will help the classes without an execute tremendously.
3. Shrouded Daggers : Remove the AOE cap of targets and put the cap of damage increase instead. Put a bomb on the target on hit which explodes after n seconds. This will allow this morph to do decent AOE damage in PvE and it will become a stamina variant of Magicka Detonation. bomb doesnt fit in the description of dual weld. maybe a bleed would be better?
   
   Not exactly a visual bomb, but rather an increasing damage effect based on number of enemies hit that will do delayed damage.

Weapon Skills - Bow

1. Rapid Fire : The ultimate cost of this morph is way to high. Reduce the cost down to 150. Every PvE player uses Ballista morph as it allows player to continue dealing damage. Rapid Fire decreases the DPS by locking the owner out of other abilities for the duration
2. Toxic Barrage : Another channel ultimate which will lock out the player reducing the DPS. Reduce the cost of this ultimate to 100 to makeup for the loss in PvE and it will become a strong ultimate in PvP as well. Please remember that this ult can be countered by common methods as blocking and doging so it shouldnt be much of an issue. Also, stam players will rejoice as they will have a stamina variant of soul assault
3. Arrow Barrage : The radius is way to low for the damage loss it does due to maelstorm bow being the superior choice. Increase the radius to 9m, similar to Streel Tornado.
4. Acid Spray : The damage overtime is way to low. Increase the damage overtime component of this morph.

they should make the morph of poison injection higher dmg. This will offset bow not having proper spamable (and it mimics templar's where vamps bane is the main DPS ability for dawns wraith with dark flare being similar to snipe as a burst ability.) Otherwise these look good to me
Venom Arrow, serves its purpose of a ranged interrupt which only destro skill has access to with Crushing Shock. However, i do agree that the application is limited and can use a buff.

Weapon Skills - Destro

1. Unstable Wall of Elements - There is no reason to use this morph over Elemental blockade. I would suggest to change this morph to allow a status effect (based on staff equipped) to be applied to the target for the duration instead of having secondary staff based effects for itself. This will allow more utility based application for support characters. With this change, support characters can apply 2 status effects, one with this morph and second with the enchant + charged trait i backbar this morph. I use it in pvp for little extra burst against melee builds (its not much but combined with other abilities it helps switch form defense to offsnse. I would take your suggestion over the current morph, because status effect > dmg with this ability anyway in pvp.
2. Elemental Susceptibility - A step towards making ice staff for tanking, allow this morph to apply Major Fracture as well as Major Breach. Remove the refresh on cast. Add a decent magicka cost. interesting. no comment on balance because NB have this debuff on mark and that seems fine.
3. Pulsar - Remove the immunity to Minor Mangle from all the bosses and every support character will use this. immunity to effects should grant a secondary effect to compensate. like unstable core for templar actually deals some damage to make up for you not being able to use it on boss fights. for Pulsar, it should match the staff type (fire increasing your direct destro dmg on the target, lighting increasing your destro aoe on target, and extra resists when using ice staff.
   Interesting, i wont be talking about class skills for now but for Pulsar, wouldn't be better if nobody had immunity to this? if its a boss then reduce the effect to 5% max hp.

Weapon Skills - Resto

1. Illustrious Healing : There is no reason to choose this morph over Healing Springs as Healing Springs offers more casts of Grand Healing as they stack with each other. I am not sure what effect would be worth dropping Healing Springs. Give your ideas.debuff removal should be the effect. Every heal has a chance to remove x effects.
   Wouldn't this make Purge skill useless?
2. Blessing of Restoration : Same here, there is no reason to use this morph over Combat Prayer as 8% damage is HUGE. Give your ideas. useful in pvp, duration almost matches major armor buff durations for some classes and the heal is only 2k less than bol for some players. they could increase the heal so it matches bol or have a single burst heal for a random person outside the aoe range?
   We have to give a choice with enough incentive to switch from combat prayer, we outheal in PvE so more healing is not enough incentive to switch. What about Minor Protection here?
3. Force Siphon : Same as above. If Elemental Drain provides free magicka steal then there is no use of Force Siphon skill. Give your ideas. should give stamina sustain instead of mag steal. cast time should be lowered (if it isn't less than 1.5secs already) or in fact get rid of the cast time altogether, since ele drain is instant cast and gives penetration.
   They gave cast times to both the abilities having Minor Lifesteal in it for unknown reasons (Force Siphon, Blood Altar) which arent needed. Introduction of Minor Staminasteal is much more ideal.

Fighters Guild Skills

1. Silver Bolts : Add Major Brutality for 20 seconds on this morph. Bow-Bow users will be very happy. also increase the single target damage to your target. makes this a ranged spamable for alot of new builds trying to run bow
   Damage should be buffed (atleast against ww and vamps).
2. Circle of Protection : Costs WAY too much, radius is small. Reduce the cost to around 5k. Increase the radius to 8m

Mages Guild Skills

1. Fire Rune : A skill that has huge potential but nobody uses simply because of very very low damage and no pve utility. Move damage overtime from Scalding Rune to this base morph. Give Minor Force to the caster for the duration. agreed
2. Volcanic Rune : Increase the radius from 3m to 5m. This can be used in PvE and PvP. agreed
3. Scalding Rune : Increase the damage over time of this morph by atleast 30%.agreed

Undaunted Skills

1. Trapping Webs : Very low damaging ability and it takes 5 seconds for the damage to apply. Increase the damage done by Spawn Broodlings significantly.
2. Shadow Silk : Increase the damage done by Black Widows significantly.
3. Tangling Webs : Allow this morph to apply Minor Fracture and Minor Breach when the venom bursts instead of fearing the enemy, Every tank will love you for this (yes i know there is a set doing exactly this but why put such important debuff on an entire set?) agreed. skills over sets for balance.

Vampire Skills

1. Baleful Mist : There is no reason to use this morph anywhere. I would suggest to completely change this morph and allow this morph to do damage without giving any buff and without turning player into a mist. Form a mist around the player instead and do damage every n seconds instead. this should be a self buff dps. drop the 75% reduction to 20%, but gain a huge delayed burst spell and every enemy hit increases the dmg reduction by x%
   Damage reduction is a concerning stat for PvP. I would rather make this similar to Flames of Oblivion where it does damage every n seconds.

I hope i have provided enough reasons to change these morphs. Looking forward to your reply @ZOS_Wrobel

techprince

My replies are in Italic inside the quote

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

I've decided to bold my responses in an edited version of the OP to discuss implications of the suggestions and/or suggest some of my own.

techprince wrote: »

This is going to be a long post and it will not cover class skills for now. I will try to explain why these abilities / morphs needs to be buffed or reworked. You may disagree on many and thats completely fine.

Weapon Skills - 2H

One of the major faults of 2h is it's complete and utter lack of reliable damage in it's kit. Everything (even its AoE, which are intentionally made to be undodgeable) is dodgeable in the kit, on top of the fact that many of them suffer operational losses since they are not wholly applicable in strength. My suggestions will be aimed at absolving those issues, while still helping the skill line stay true to its current operations.
Agreed

[*] Berserker Strike : The ultimate cost is too high and the uptime is too low for this ultimate to be viable in PvE boss fights. In PvP, this isnt used anywhere simply because its dodgable, blockable, absorbable and comes with a high cost. Add x bleed damage over n seconds instead of stealing targets resistances. This will allow players using 2H to do some decent single target damage in both pvp and pve. Berserker Strike at base should not be a single target ability. Your suggestion of Rage should be streamlined into the base ultimate, making it function as the classic and lovable "Blade Storm" that many RPGs take the route of. Have it deal 5 seconds (hitting once per second x the number of enemies hit) of solid AoE damage, operating like a channel. Make the caster immune to Crowd Control, but not Snares while channeling. This fixes the undodgeable issues, and gives Stamina builds access to the ONLY AoE ultimate available in game to them. Things like Rend/Dawnbreaker have AoE potential, but they are all cleaves instead of radials. Crescent Sweep doesn't count since it's so buggy and misses
I had this idea of channeled AOE before but players usually hate channeled abilities so i dropped it but i am all in for a 360 channeled ultimate with interrupt and hard cc immunity. I am an old TERA player where i played Berserker class. Berserker class has a skill called Cyclone, here is the ability in slow mow action https://youtube.com/watch?v=ThSKD9hK9Yo

[*] Onslaught : Mainly used in PvP in few builds and thats about it. I would suggest to increase the duration of the base morph from 8 to 12-14 seconds and apply Offbalance for the duration instead of an ult refund making this a solid single target ult. This will also allow stamina players to provide a group utility as well. I like the idea of giving Stamina builds a form of Off Balance. While I'd rather see it on a more reliable source (such as a Cleave morph, or Weapon passive to match Wall of Lightning), this could still work. Onslaught now applies Off Balance on targets that you hit 3 times with the skill.
I do like the idea of cleave applying offbalance but it may produce issues in PvP.

[*] Berserker Rage : Convert the ultimate into 360 degree AOE with 8 meter radius. The Resistance ignore effect now instead removes all Physical and Spell Resistance of the target, allowing for a more Solo-play oriented morph option. The total number of hits is now increased to 7.

[*] Cleave : 2H doesn't have any skill that allows player to mitigate damage unless this skill is morphed to brawler. Even then, its quite useless in boss fights as the shield gain is very low. I would suggest to put the shield from brawler morph to the base skill. Replace the static shield strength component with % max hp. Example, single target hit -> 30% of max hp. This will allow the base skill to retain the mitigation in single target fights as well as in AOE. A 30% damage shield for hitting a single enemy would leave for an extremely imbalanced Cyrodiil. We need something akin to Blade Cloak that has a niche defense,
but something that is still helpful. Perhaps tether a flat damage reduction to the DoT portion, that increases based on the current duration of the DoT. Cleave places a 10s DoT; upon cast you are granted 2% damage mitigation. After 2 seconds it becomes 4%, 4s -> 6%, 6s -> 8% - 8s -> 10%, and 10s -> 12%. The final 12% mitigation persists for 2 seconds after Cleave ends. This enables a slightly less powerful form of damage mitigation for 2h builds, while also allowing tanks to use it. In PvP this also enables a unique counterplay option for the target being Cleaved, as if they purge the effect, the target would lose their damage mitigation after 2 seconds and it would not be able to ramp higher.
Then it loses value in PvE as Blade Cloak offers flat 25% mitigation for 15 seconds.

[*] Brawler : Increase the shield strength by 5-10% each target hit. Leave Brawler at its base, perhaps slightly nerf the damage shield size, since it would also be receiving the damage mitigation of the base morph.

[*] Carve : The bleed now stacks if recasted early, up to a maximum of three times. Upon reaching 3 stacks, the bleed will no longer refreshes on cast, but your damaging 2h attacks (abilities and Light/Heavy Attacks) now deal 5% bonus damage to the target for the duration. This enables a DPS option for PvE that allows for an interesting mechanic that has plenty of counterplay in PvP due to purging, while being difficult to manage (mastery) in PvE.

Interesting. Bleed stacking is something many have asked so can be a good thing.

Weapon Skills - 1HS

1. Shielded Assault : I can only see this skill being used in solo pve instances. Even then the shield strength is very weak. Shield strength must be increased considerably. Not much to talk about here. The shield size DEFINITELY needs to increase for this morph to ever be taken seriously. Perhaps a shield isn't the best bet, instead perhaps the target you cast this on deals X% less damage to you for a short duration.
   How about 15% damage reduction from the target for 4 seconds instead of a shield?
   
2. Power Slam - This morph is suppose to be the DPS morph for 1HS. However, the cost and the base damage does not make up for the dps loss we get from using this over class skills. Lower the cost and increase the damage of this ability OR add a damage over time component to it. Since the rework, I have been in love with this skill's idea. I've dreamed and often attempted to make a SnB Bash build, unfortunately to no success. The insanely high cost of this skill, coupled with no Stamina Management while actively Blocking, completely ruins this from happening. A severe cost reduction, or perhaps a mere free cast if blocking a certain number of attacks (perhaps 3, so it cannot be spammed in PvP) would be ideal.

Agreed

Weapon Skills - DW

1. Thrive in Chaos : The damage bonus is very little and this morph is only useful in AOE fights. Scrap the damage bonus entirely. Make this a ground AOE, increase the damage done with 8 meter radius and a synergy. This will give more damage with group utility over the duration and self utility of rend. I've always thought Thrive in Chaos should have a radial AoE since the purpose of this morph is to hit as many enemies as possible. It is currently impossible aside from target dummy situations, to get the full 30% damage bonus from this morph. Making it an 8-10m AoE single cast, or your suggestion of a ground DoT, would completely fix this morph option into the realm of viability. Have been waiting for some love to this morph since it launched.
   Agreed
   
2. Whirling Blades : Everyone takes the Steel Tornado morph simply because it gives staggering 80% radius increase. I would suggest to give this morph significantly higher scaling damage and lower the cost making this a single target execute rather than an AOE one. This will help the classes without an execute tremendously. Increasing the execute function of this is definitely interesting, especially since the radius is so small. I'd also like to see a flat Stamina return, akin to the original functionality of this morph, to return as well. That way it would reward constant utilization out of this skill, which is already hard enough to enact upon due to its incredibly small radius.
   Agreed
   
3. Shrouded Daggers : Remove the AOE cap of targets and put the cap of damage increase instead. Put a bomb on single target on hit which explodes after n seconds. This will allow this morph to do decent AOE damage in PvE and it will become a stamina variant of Magicka Detonation. Another interesting suggestion. Definitely wouldn't want to give a large damage modifier to this like Magicka Det, but a slight ramping effect would be interesting.
   Agreed

Weapon Skills - Bow

1. Rapid Fire : The ultimate cost of this morph is way to high. Reduce the cost down to 150. Every PvE player uses Ballista morph as it allows player to continue dealing damage. Rapid Fire decreases the DPS by locking the owner out of other abilities for the duration. Can't argue there. While Barrage is a guilty pleasure of mine, I am fully aware of how awful it is.
   Vulnerable, reflectable, unable to continue DPSing; this base morph and Toxic Barrage are both in dire need of help. Remove the ability to Reflect this, and it'll be a bit better off.
   Agreed
   
2. Toxic Barrage : Another channel ultimate which will lock out the player reducing the DPS. Reduce the cost of this ultimate to 100 to makeup for the loss in PvE and it will become a strong ultimate in PvP as well. Please remember that this ult can be countered by common methods as blocking and doging so it shouldnt be much of an issue. Also, stam players will rejoice as they will have a stamina variant of soul assault This morph is also reflectable, while Ballista is not. I don't think the 100 Ulti cost is a good idea, since when this Ulti isn't dodged/blocked/reflected, it does a lot of damage. Toxic Barrage's saving grace is the DoT it applies after it ends. Focus on your strengths is something we're often told to do, and this morph should do the same. While Toxic Barrage's DoT potion persists, the target takes 5% bonus damage from all damage that is casted over 15 meters away from the target. This helps both bow builds gain group utility for other bow builds, but also all classes (Magicka and Stamina), making it a very viable end game option.
   How about "increase the damage taken from all sources by 10% for n seconds after the channel ends"? This will stack with Morag Tong nicely.
   
3. Arrow Barrage : The radius is way to low for the damage loss it does due to maelstorm bow being the superior choice. Increase the radius to 9m, similar to Streel Tornado. Also change the damage to Poison please, so it better fits into the theme of the Bow morph options. 10m would also be a better option than 9, since losing 2s of the DoT means missing 4 whole Maelstrom bonus ticks, which is HUGE.
   Agreed
   
4. Acid Spray : The damage overtime is way to low. Increase the damage overtime component of this morph. "Way too low"
   is a bit misleading. After the buff this skill received, it's not nearly as bad as before. It still could use a bit of love though, or at least allow the DoT to stack instead of merely refreshing.
   Agreed
   

Weapon Skills - Destro

1. Unstable Wall of Elements - There is no reason to use this morph over Elemental blockade. I would suggest to change this morph to allow a status effect (based on staff equipped) to be applied to the target for the duration instead of having secondary staff based effects for itself. This will allow more utility based application for support characters. With this change, support characters can apply 2 status effects, one with this morph and second with the enchant + charged trait. There totally is a reason to run this morph over Blockade. It allows for more overall damage. Infact, this used to be ideal back in Homestead when resource management allowed for it. It was extremely difficult to manage, but it was worth it. Merely reduce the cost of this skill, or add a Magicka return if targets are hit by the explosion. Maybe a *slight* damage boost to the explosion as well.
   Magicka return (similar to healing springs) is ideal. However, why not give a different utility rather than allowing caster just spam it more?
   
2. Elemental Susceptibility - A step towards making ice staff for tanking, allow this morph to apply Major Fracture as well as Major Breach. Remove the refresh on cast. Add a decent magicka cost. Magicka steal is still too valuable, adding Major Fracture to this won't do much. Honestly I can't think of anything on this that would help make it more enticing than resource management at this point.
   Considering healers will still be running Elemental Drain, i still think this morph needs to be a tank morph even if it means giving a ranged Pierce Armor without taunt.
   
3. Pulsar - Remove the immunity to Minor Mangle from all the bosses and every support character will use this. If this was done, Minor Mangle would need to be nerfed in terms of total HP reduction. Seeing how high most Trial Bosses get in Vet HM, this would be a disgusting amount of damage potential. Another option could be made however, where a set limit of HP reduction maximum could be put in place.
   Reduce the hp reduction to 5% on bosses?

Weapon Skills - Resto

1. Illustrious Healing : There is no reason to choose this morph over Healing Springs as Healing Springs offers more casts of Grand Healing as they stack with each other. I am not sure what effect would be worth dropping Healing Springs. Give your ideas. Have the Heal over Time get a boost in healing for each ally it hits on the initial hit, but it now shrinks in size as it goes (to prevent Ball Groups from abusing in Cyro). 5% per ally hit (up to 30% with 6) and loses 1m radius every second. Most people would still take Springs because resource management is so important, but it'd allow for more raw Healing, which some encounters call for.
   Intresting
   
2. Blessing of Restoration : Same here, there is no reason to use this morph over Combat Prayer as 8% damage is HUGE. Give your ideas. Add a powerful HoT with the duration. Now you have a utility morph for offensive play, or a more defensive approach. You could also instead place Minor Protection on it instead for the duration.
   I had thought of Minor Protection instead of then it removes the need of Ring Of Preservation which i am trying to avoid.
   
3. Force Siphon : Same as above. If Elemental Drain provides free magicka steal then there is no use of Force Siphon skill. Give your ideas. Put a unique resource management function on this ability, where allies restore a flat (and small) amount of their current Lowest resource. Perhaps 125 Magicka or Stamina, with the standard 1s ICD.

Agreed

Fighters Guild Skills

1. Silver Bolts : Add Major Brutality for 20 seconds on this morph. Bow-Bow users will be very happy. This skill or one of the morphs also needs a considerable damage boost to Vampires, Undead, and Werewolves. There is no reason this skill should do less damage than other spammables against targets it is literally made to fight against.
   
2. Circle of Protection : Costs WAY too much, radius is small. Reduce the cost to around 5k. Increase the radius to 8m. Keep the cost to prevent it from being spammed, as well as punishing players who cast this improperly. Instead increase the base duration considerably. This still helps the skill become more manageable for resources, while still requiring the user to be smart with placement.
   

Mages Guild Skills

1. Fire Rune : A skill that has huge potential but nobody uses simply because of very very low damage and no pve utility. Move damage overtime from Scalding Rune to this base morph. Give Minor Force to the caster for the duration. Or instead of copying Fighter's Guild, have it give a different buff or debuff. Minor Breach could be interesting, seeing as that buff is incredibly rare compared to Force.
   That works as well
   
2. Volcanic Rune : Increase the radius from 3m to 5m. This can be used in PvE and PvP. Volcanic Rune is already pretty disgusting if used properly in PvP. I would avoid touching this skill at the moment, aside from adding the Minor Breach from the base.
   Ok !
   
3. Scalding Rune : Increase the damage over time of this morph by atleast 30%. 30% might be a bit much, would need to test more values with this skill to see what would be safe without making the skill mandatory.
   Damage is pretty low, 30% is bare minimum.

Undaunted Skills

1. Trapping Webs : Very low damaging ability and it takes 5 seconds for the damage to apply. Increase the damage done by Spawn Broodlings significantly. Honestly this should be the new Caltrops. Remove (or greatly reduce) the DoT of Caltrops and instead make Trapping Webs work the same. Keep the synergy, but remove the pet summon from them. The pets summoned currently only scale with Max Magicka, meaning they're useless for non Magicka builds to cast (even though they deal Poison damage and won't scale well with Magicka builds either...) Instead just have a short lasting DoT function after the initial damage of the synergy.
   Very interesting
   
2. Shadow Silk : Increase the damage done by Black Widows significantly. As said above, remove the pets. Just increase the damage of the DoT, or the duration.
   
3. Tangling Webs : Allow this morph to apply Minor Fracture and Minor Breach when the venom bursts instead of fearing the enemy, Every tank will love you for this (yes i know there is a set doing exactly this but why put such important debuff on an entire set?) Both Minor Fracture and Breach would make Power of the Light from Templars redundant. I'd be okay with putting Minor Fracture alone on, and then have the synergy immobilize the target as well (You're getting tangled up!)
   Agreed, with Rune and Tangling Webs we can cover both Minor Fracture and Minor Breach

Vampire Skills

1. Baleful Mist : There is no reason to use this morph anywhere. I would suggest to completely change this morph and allow this morph to do damage without giving any buff and without turning player into a mist. Form a mist around the player instead and do damage every n seconds instead. Ah but you are incorrect! Baleful MIst + Magicka Steal = Magicka return in Mist form! While niche and the potential to be made redundant by other morphs, it still has a purpose. I would have Baleful Mist add Snare/Immobilization Immunity last 2-3 seconds after the skill ends, to offer a better morph option. Elusive will still allow you to cover larger distances due to Expedition too.
   We need a damage ability that isnt channeled and isnt an ultimate which shouldn't be instant so this morph fits perfectly in it. Similar to Flames of Oblivion, cast a mist around the caster do x damage every n seconds.
   
2. No love for Clouding Swarm? This skill is in dire need of some love! I absolutely love this idea, but the damage potential is currently not there to combat Devouring's overall impact. I suggest having a DoT be applied to targets that are hit by it, and if you hit the same target multiple times (so the DoT is active), instead of it refreshing the DoT, it merely does bonus burst damage (perhaps 20% bonus damage).
   Wasnt this morph got buff to allow it to teleport to the target location recently?
   

I hope i have provided enough reasons to change these morphs. Looking forward to your reply @ZOS_Wrobel

JobooAGS

Weapon Skills - Bow

1. Rapid Fire : Unleash a series of arrows dealing x damage per hit for 1.1(1.2?) seconds To give bow users a usable spammable to be more viable and to perhaps end the infamous snipe spam
2. Morph 1: Toxic Barrage : adds a poison dot for y damage over 5-8 seconds after final arrow hits I guess more pve?
3. Morph 2: Archer's focus : the final hit now deals 3x damage I guess more pvp for burst? The name could be changed
   
4. Snipe : Make it the same as on live, but a cheap ult (say betweem 70 and 110 ult, with 90 being the sweet spot, let me know what you think)
5. Lethal arrow: same as on live, maybe an adjustment or 2
6. Focused aim: same as on live, perhaps also giving you your full or partial hawk eye passive stacks or temporaily increase the stacks or decreasing the cost of bow abilities by 5% or increasing the damage taken by target by 5% (helping group dps?)

Fighters Guild Skills

1. Silver Bolts : Perhaps decreasing the cost of this ability and their morphs by 20%

techprince

Ladislao wrote: »

weg0 wrote: »

Ladislao wrote: »

Well, I can agree that SOME of these morphs should be changed somehow. This already shows that everyone has their own point of view. For someone, a bad ability is good and vice versa. Be careful.

But I do not like the proposed changes at all. Thank you for flying fantasy, but no.

Which of those morphs do you use? Which suggestions do you think are “but no” fantasy? Do you have useful critiques of his ideas so we can keep discourse open, or are you just being argumentative?

Well, I'll try to go over all the points briefly.

Spoiler: it did not work out "briefly"

1) Berserker Strike and morphs
I don't use it so I can not say with certainty whether this is a weak ability (although many agree on the opinion that this is so).
But I don't like the idea of adding bleeding damage. After the appearance of Blooddrinker (or realizing that dots are viable) people began to suggest adding bleeding to everything. In my opinion, this solution is not suitable for this skill.
Even more I do not like the idea with 360-degree aoe. Maybe it sounds cool, but I'm sure, in fact it would be a big hole in the balance.
Its not because of the blooddrinker, bleed is the replacement of resistance steal since bleed goes through all the resistances. And why is this solution not suitable for this skill? Do you have any stamina ultimate that is self centred and has 360 degree radius?

2.1) Cleave and Brawler
I do not want to discuss the OP's concept, because I use this ability in both PVE and PVP. And I find it extremely effective. Sensible aoe damage and a nice "airbag" in one skill. Of course, this is a situational skill, but not all of them should be "must have", right?
Why would one use 2H in PvE when DW provides more damage, more mitigation, ability to wear 2 sets with a monster set? Brawler gives shields only in AOE, thats about it.

2.2) Carve
I don't use this skill. And I think it provides a weak alternative. Perhaps it just makes sense to either replace the buff, or increase the damage, or reduce the cost, or something else.
Cleave mitigation from base ability will automatically favor Carve.

3) Shielded Assaul
I prefer this morph to another. In my opinion, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the target is either immune to control, or will immediately leave it. So it's better to have a bonus in the form of a small shield, than not to have a bonus at all.
Although, of course, both morphs are extremely minor.

4) Power Slam
It's funny. What class spam-abilities does OP offer to Dragon Knights, Sorcerers and Wardens (okay, there might be Cutting Dive) instead of this? Although okay, the question is not even that.
I think this morph is good. But the only problem is that the other morph is better. Currently, Major Defile is a very valuable debuff. Some take S&B only for the sake of this debuff alone. I know people hate such a policy, but I think the best way to strengthen this morph is to weaken Reverberating Bash. You did not see that, okay?
Its quite obvious that i am referring to the classes HAVING class spammable, perhaps it wasnt clear enough for you. Power Slam may get used in PvP and solo PvE builds but its very underwhelming.

5) Thrive in Chaos
I don't like the idea to make it aoe. Honestly, I'm still looking apprehensively at this morph. I think we all just have not learned to use it.
Its already an AOE... i am simply making it a ground AOE with a synergy instead.

6) Whirling Blades
I like the cost reduction but don't like sad Major Endurance. I would like to buff it but insignificantly. Do not forget that it is aoe melee damage so it can proc Twin Blade and Blunt bleed, Ravager set, etc very effective. So be careful.

7) Shrouded Dagger
I like this morph. It would be better to complain about Flying Blade (although it is quite good too).
Flying Blade is the only ranged ability having 28m range in DW. I would not touch it.

8) Toxic Barrage
I don't like this morph. But I do not think that the cost reduction will have a big impact on its effectiveness. It will still be dodgeable, interruptible, and its dot - purgeable.
I have changed my suggestion based on the feedback, its better to just keep the ult cost at 150 and increase the damage done to the target from all the sources by 10% during or after the channel.

9) Arrow Barrage
Well, I completely agree with it.

10) Acid Spray
I have no specific thoughts on this matter, therefore, in general, I can agree.

11) Wall of Elements
Interesting idea so I can agree with it.

12) Elemental Susceptibility
I don't like this morph. But I also do not like the transformation of this morph into a complete analog of Pierce Armor.
Its not a complete analog of Pierce Armor since there is no taunt involved. There is no debuff skill available to ice staff tanks which is publicly available

13) Pulsar
I do not use this skill, but I do not like the idea. Not only will it be very artificially introduced into PVE, it still does not solve the issue of relevance in PVP.
I would have suggested to reduce all the stats by 10% but then it would become op in pvp.

14) Illustrious Healing, Blessing of Restoration, Force Siphon
There are no proposals - there is nothing to talk about. But I definitely agree that devs should pay attention to them.

15) Silver Bolts
I don't use skill but I think he has a right to life. Not bad damage (plus bonus against vampires and werewolves), snare, good range, averange cost. Such easy access to Major Brutality could become a balance breaker.
I am not sure what balance will it break.... DW has it, 2H has it, Mages Guild has it, all classes but templar has it.

16) Circle of Protection
I like this ability and I use it in both PVE and PVP. It lasts 20 (24) seconds and gives good buffs. Plus there is fear against vampires and werewolves which is often useful. The only problem in PVP right now is Earthgore.
The cost reduction will cause everyone to spam it. Now it is necessary to approach with the mind to its use.

17) Fire Rune and morphs
I do not like the symmetrical approach to design. I agree that ability is not strong now. But I disagree that it should be magicka version of Trap Beast. I hope devs can think of something better.
Minor Breach

18) Trapping Webs and morphs
I discussed this question in another topic, so I'll just leave the link to it.

19) Baleful Mist
I can agree with it. Although I think this morph has much more potential for rework.

P.S. where is Expert Hunter?
While slotted, you gain Major Savagery, increasing your Weapon Critical rating by 2191.

techprince

Bump

Rohamad_Ali

Finally someone besides me puts Baleful Mist in the list of needed buffs . Thank you .

jhharvest

I like these ideas for the most part, good suggestions. I have one addition though:
Silver leash - pull range should be increased to 35m from 22m. The skill is very cumbersome to use as a gap closer when the pull range is currently shorter than the initial cast range. Otherwise it would need to be reverted back to an actual pull instead of gap closer. Oh and the pull should be undodgeable.

techprince

Good time for a bump?

techprince

Seems like a good time to bump !