Essence Thief Set needs a buff

oMrRust

Unsure if bugged or not. But we all know Selen has 15% chance same as essence thief. But selene procs so much more & feels as if essence thief never procs or bugged.
Perhaps raise that 15 to 20 % & change 12% increase damage to 10%

Yolokin_Swagonborn

just change how it procs. no one wants to go around and chase something

VaranisArano

1. Those are totally differnt proc conditions. Essence thief is 15% on a light attack, Selene's is 15% on direct melee damage. So if you want to increase your proc chance on Essence Thief, make sure you light attack. To make them equal, ZOS would need to increase the proc chance on Essence Thief OR change the proc condition to a more common one.

2. Isn't the bigger problem with Essence Thief the clunkiness of the proc itself because you have to go collect the essence? At least from the critiques of the set I've seen, its hard to use effectively because of the way the essence spawns. I pick up pieces of it because I want to try it out, but I never hear that those issues have been fixed.

casparian

It doesn't need a buff, it needs a sensible proc condition. It feels like it can spawn literally anywhere, and is sometimes impossible to see in AOE-heavy fights. That's why you feel like it never procs -- half the time it procs in a weird place and you just don't see it.

If this were the stamina Moondancer it would be great. All it would take is for the essence to move toward you, just like Harvester orbs move toward them (that's the monster this set is thematically based on anyway).

Ep1kMalware

oMrRust wrote: »

Unsure if bugged or not. But we all know Selen has 15% chance same as essence thief. But selene procs so much more & feels as if essence thief never procs or bugged.
Perhaps raise that 15 to 20 % & change 12% increase damage to 10%

A while back they completely redid the imperial city sets, except for essence thief. Ironically thenonly set that needed to be fixed.

The chasing down of the set proc can be hazardous and takes you out of combat for too long. By the time you get back to the boss you've wasted how many seconds and the proc expired? Furthermore it also procs up walls and unreachable areas.

If the proc automatically applied to your toon the set would be perfect.

Nighn_9

What would be cool is if OTHER players in group could pick it up too

DoctorESO

.

xaraan

Well, selene procs off any direct damage melee attack (whether ability or light/heavy attack), Ess Thief procs only off of light attacks. That's going to change how often it can proc right there.

But I agree, the set is horrible, never been a good option.

The proc chance should be higher if it's going to be tied to only light attacks, but the biggest issue is that the "rune" it spawns just shoots off randomly (and too far away for melee characters to easily grab), it's not easy to or feasible to pick up in a fight and for something with a low proc change it just adds another level of getting benefit from the buff. Just the story of another set that's a neat idea and would offer a cool option, but ends up not being worthwhile due to getting better, more consistent buffs from other sets.

There really is no reason it shouldn't be reworked a bit, other than they've had a lot of time to do so and haven't bothered to yet, even when they did a lot of set overhauls a few patches ago. It's old content at this point to them, I don't think they care.

zethalit

I need to bump this so ZOS can see it again.

Just got me some Essence Thief and well, it really doesn't proc enough.
Theres not even a problem with the light attacks, I can dig it- but the 15% need to be raised to at least 25% or maybe even 30%.

Please ZOS, just this little change and it would be such a great set.

VaranisArano

I finally tried out Essence Thief, and I had some issues (the same issues others have had, so I expected it).

1. The proc condition is low enough that its nearly useless in overland questing. I had to swap to using nearly entirely light attacking just to get the set to proc enough to try it out. If I did a normal rotation, the mobs and minibosses would be nearly dead before the set procced, and there was little benefit from the extra damage.

2. Having to run to stand in the glyph to collect the essence is a pain. It definitely breaks up the rhythm of a DPS rotation, which sort of negates the whole point of going to get the essence to do more damage. This was a big pain point, as the essence moves away from me, I had to track it, and stand in it while being attacked and fighting back.


On the other hand, the appearance of the buff looked amazing on my character! If this set were easier to use, I'd definitely consider it (at least for overland questing), even though its not remotely BIS. As it is, Essence Thief just isn't practical to use for any of the content I regularly run.

redspecter23

If I'm going to chase something, make it worth the time and dps loss to do so. Perhaps allow any group member to pick it up and buff the party when they do so? At least then it might be unique enough to use some of the time. The problem is that right now, the buff is generic enough that you can just get a similar effect with something you don't have to chase so why bother?

sevomd69

Essence Thief is one of those sets that could be so good...but is pretty garbage...

Solariken

Yeah the set is total garbage. IMO it should have a low proc chance but proc on any damage. ALSO it would be super cool if any ally could collect the essence - when that thing shoots out people would scramble for it! Lol

runagate

VaranisArano wrote: »

1. Those are totally differnt proc conditions. Essence thief is 15% on a light attack, Selene's is 15% on direct melee damage. So if you want to increase your proc chance on Essence Thief, make sure you light attack. To make them equal, ZOS would need to increase the proc chance on Essence Thief OR change the proc condition to a more common one.

2. Isn't the bigger problem with Essence Thief the clunkiness of the proc itself because you have to go collect the essence? At least from the critiques of the set I've seen, its hard to use effectively because of the way the essence spawns. I pick up pieces of it because I want to try it out, but I never hear that those issues have been fixed.

I've used it mainly as I wonder what others who watch what I'm doing must make of my character's strangely schizoid behavior and if they know what it all means...

zethalit

The reason I like this chasing the essence thing is because I move around in battle alot already - It's just in there and so this isn't that much of a problem, but it would be cool if it would go towards the player if its finished spawning too.

Besides that, it would be horrible if others could pick it up, except you're a stam healer - but if the tank 'steals' your essence it would be just stupid.

If the proc would be way higher as it is right now it would be totally fine for me - because movement is like I said already in my playstyle.

The thing is, I checked the uptime of the set and well, 10-30% uptime is just kinda useless, -- it pushes the damage a little, but not as consistent as other sets would do, so its more like throwing a dice.

In conclusion it would help to change the proc to 30% or more, or just set the condition to any damage - last would be to much I guess as every enemy would drop one and it would be more running around as it is right now.

Just raise the proc condition.

Zeromaz

I really love the idea of the set.... never been useful though. Too many conditions required to get the buff. Light attack, low % chance, can’t pick it up until its done moving, you have to move to pick it up. Thats 4 conditions in order to get the buff.... pls polish this set

KeiruNicrom

Really what needs changing is how we collect the essence. Having to disengage in order to grab a small buff that for some reason you dont always get right away it downright detrimental to ESO combat.

I suggest a change to something like this:

"When you deal damage with a light attack you have a 15% chance to draw the targets life essence to their skin for 15 seconds. Heavy attacking enemies who have their essence drawn out will restore 2000 health and stamina and increase your damage done by 12% for 10 seconds with a cooldown of 10 seconds"


Values and duration of course being debatable my point is that the buff should be gained by heavy attacking an opponent that has been marked by light attacks.

Cryptical

That heavy attacking after a light attack proc seems right up Zeni’s alley, considering the new mechanics being introduced in the doggie dlc.

Solariken

Is there a reason you wouldn't want the essence to be available to allies?

This would make a super fun group support set along the lines of Powerful Assault. They wouldn't have to change anything else about it honestly.

KeiruNicrom

Solariken wrote: »

Is there a reason you wouldn't want the essence to be available to allies?

This would make a super fun group support set along the lines of Powerful Assault. They wouldn't have to change anything else about it honestly.

If essence thief triggered the damage boost for self on proc and sent out the resources as a synergy that could be a fun group set

zethalit

KeiruNicrom wrote: »

"When you deal damage with a light attack you have a 15% chance to draw the targets life essence to their skin for 15 seconds. Heavy attacking enemies who have their essence drawn out will restore 2000 health and stamina and increase your damage done by 12% for 10 seconds with a cooldown of 10 seconds"

Heavy Attacks as a trigger would destroy the set for me, as there are none in my rotation personally.-

Solariken wrote: »

Is there a reason you wouldn't want the essence to be available to allies?

This would make a super fun group support set along the lines of Powerful Assault. They wouldn't have to change anything else about it honestly.

What I was saying is I don't want the essence to be picked up by other players when there is only one buff - If the buff is for everyone it wouldn't matter.
What I could think of is that the user of the set gets the essence and 12% Damage+ for 10 Seconds and shares the Ressources for everyone but not the damage -

All in all theres just this thing about the uptime -- I play it for some days now, and the uptime is really bad - the ressource bonus of this set isn't worth anything because it procs so badly - 10-30% uptime isn't gonna cut it. -

And like I said earlier too, I myself enjoy the set as it is, I don't drop damage while moving and I like the unique style this set has, and I really want to play it, so I hope, if they change it, they don't make it worse.

TheNightflame

essence thief and relequen, both la based, but rele will always do twice the dps...