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• PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – December 15, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
• Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – December 15, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for maintenance – December 15, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
Theorycrafting: Battlemage class
Lynx7386
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This is unofficial and just for fun, but in another thread I made regarding what classes could possibly be added in future updates I came to the conclusion that whatever class they add next is probably going to mirror the warden in design. In the base game we had a specific role for each class: Dragonknights are tanks, Templars are healers, Nightblades are melee damage, Sorcerors are ranged damage (or physical/magic damage respectively). The warden bridges the gap between dragonknight and templar as a hybrid tank-healer, with lower regard for damage output but quite a bit of versatility; wardens are great at seamlessly swapping between tanking and healing roles or performing both at once, even.
So it stands to reason that the next class would follow suit: either a healer-damage hybrid (less likely if you ask me, as most healers are basically damage dealers anyways), or a tank-damage hybrid (something we dont really have at present). The latter makes more sense to me, and would also be more fun to play IMO. A class focused on tanking as much as the warden or dragonknight, but with the ability to dish out damage; obviously this necessitates the lack of any kind of healing built into the class.
Additionally, each class we have currently covers the damage types in the game: DK has fire and poison, Nightblade has magic and disease, templar has magic, sorceror has magic and lightning, warden has magic and ice. There are no damage types, save for physical damage (provided by weapons) or oblivion damage (too powerful to base a class on since it ignores damage shields and armor). However, a physical-damage based magicka class could be interesting, taking into account telekinesis and force-blasts.
So after some research into previous games and what would fit here, this is what I came up with - I'm sure not all of this would be balanced, but it's fun to speculate anyways.
Battlemage Class
Skill trees:
Alteration - focused on resource manipulation, shielding, defense
Mysticism - focused on telekinesis/force, spell manipulation, buffing/debuffing
Combat - focused on physical attacks and skill / conjured weapons
Essentially combat ends up being the main damage-focused tree, supported by mysticism, while alteration ends up being the tanking tree, also supported by mysticism. The idea is to build a class that uses magic primarily to hinder enemies and buff allies/himself, with the damage side of the class focused on physical damage applied by magical sources (this would be a hybrid, maybe even moreso than the warden, in that you'd benefit from physical damage bonuses while using magicka, and those physical abilities would scale in most cases with magicka and spell power).
So on to the trees and their abilities. Abilities are in bold while their morphs are beside the dashes beneath.
Alteration: Alteration magic is based heavily on telekinesis and manipulation of basic elemental forces. This is the primary defensive skill tree for the battlemage.
Burden- slows the target and deals damage over time. This is a staple ability from previous elder scrolls games, but in those games weighed a target (or yourself) down, preventing carrying as much. In ESO it's more reasonable to consider it a single target snare.
--Encumber: more powerful slow, and a longer duration.
--Oppressing Grasp: snares all enemies in the area.
Lighten- increases movement speed (minor expedition) and dodge chance (minor evasion). This is the opposite of burden, lightening your own weight instead.
--Featherweight: Removes snares and immobilization effects on activation and provides brief (5 second) snare and immobilization immunity.
--Lift Spirits: Now grants minor expedition and minor evasion to all nearby allies.
Protection- Grants minor resolve and ward, increasing your physical and spell resistance.
--Ironskin: Also grants major resolve and ward, further increasing physical and spell resistance.
--Aegis: also grants minor protection, reducing all damage taken by 8% (if you have another source of major resolve/ward, this is the go to obviously)
Elemental Shell- provides fire, ice, or lightning resistance and deals fire, ice, or lightning damage to nearby enemies while active. Lasts 15 seconds, rotates element every 5 seconds.
Essentially this ability creates something like the elemental susceptibility effect on yourself: rotating fire, ice, or lightning. For the first 5 seconds, it will provide a major boost to fire resistance and deal fire damage every 1 second to nearby enemies. Then it changes to ice, providing a boost to frost resistance and dealing frost damage every 1 second to nearby enemies. Finally it changes to lightning, providing major lightning resistance and dealing lightning damage to nearby enemies every 1 second.
--Prismatic Shell: Provides resistance to all 3 elements for the duration. This morph still only does one type of elemental damage at a time, but for the entire 15 second duration you gain major fire, frost, and lightning resistance.
--Elemental Fury: Deals all 3 damage types for the duration. This means that you still only get the resistance boosts one at a time, but for the whole 15 seconds it will deal fire, frost, and lightning damage to all nearby enemies every 1 second, something like force pulse.
Paralysis- Freeze an enemy, stunning for 1 second and immobilizing for 4 seconds after the stun ends.
--Mass Paralysis: Effects all enemies in an area, no longer stuns but immobilizes all enemies effected for 4 seconds.
--Enduring Paralysis: Increases the stun duration to 3 seconds, but no longer immobilizes after the stun ends.
Mysticism: Mysticism focuses more on the offensive side of telekinesis, as well as mixing in some manipulative magic to hinder enemies.
Force push- Repel an enemy with physical force, dealing damage and knocking it down for 1 second.
--Force Wave: Effects a conal area in front of you and deals increased damage.
--Force Pull: No longer knocks down the target, instead pulls it to you. This is the morph for tanks looking to have a frozen device/unrelenting grasp equivalent.
Telekinetic Blast- Unleash a blast of kinetic energy, dealing damage and shattering the enemy's defenses (applies minor fracture/breach). This is the battlemage's basic spammable damage spell.
--Kinetic Barrage: 3 second channel, unleashes a barrage of kinetic blasts at the target dealing physical damage every 0.5 seconds. Each blast increases the damage of subsequent blasts by 5% (8 blasts over a full channel, for a total of +40% damage on the final blast). This makes the ability far more damaging but less spammable.
--Concussive Blast: sets target offbalance and applies the concussed status effect. This morph would be more useful for tanks looking to boost group dps on bosses with ease.
Disintegrate Armor- Wither an enemy's armor, causing major fracture and major breach for 20 seconds.
--Disintegrate Weapon: also applies minor maim, reducing the target's damage dealt by 15% for the duration.
--Immolate: Causes fire damage on application and always applies the burning status effect. Deals additional damage to enemies below 25% health. This it the battlemage's execute option, while also being a major debuff source.
Enfeeble- Reduces the target's max health by 10%. This is the same effect (minor mangle) as the destruction staff pulsar.
--Demoralize: effects all enemies in front of you (aoe, same as pulsar)
--Frenzy: Taunts the target, causing it to attack you for 15 seconds. This gives the class a taunt unlinked to 1h/shield or frost staff, and combined with some of the other abilities allows for tanking options using more damage-oriented weapons.
Charm- causes any standard (non-champion, non-boss) target to fight for you for 12 seconds. Can only be used once per target.
--Mind Control: Increases the duration to 24 seconds.
--Mass Conversion: Charms up to 3 enemies in an area for 6 seconds.
Combat: The final skill tree focuses primarily on boosting your damage output and enabling you to deal damage more effectively with weapons and non-class abilities.
Fortify Weapons- Imbue your weapons with kinetic energy, causing light and heavy attacks to deal additional physical damage for 20 seconds. This would essentially provide the same damage bonus as many current gear sets which increase light and heavy attack damage, but the damage dealt would be a seperate entity attached with each swing.
--Infinite Edge: also grants you major force, increasing critical damage by 15% for the duration.
--Bound Weapons: replace your weapons with a daedric equivalent, causing your light and heavy attacks to deal additional magic damage instead of physical damage. This ability would 'summon' replacement weapons based on whatever you're wielding (if you're dual wielding, you get two bound weapons, if you're using 1h/shield, you get a bound 1h, if you're using a staff, you get a bound staff, bow gets a bound bow, 2h gets a bound 2h, etc.)
Respite- Exchange magicka to regain stamina. Similar in function to the sorceror's dark exchange/dark deal, helps with sustain.
--Second Wind: reduces the cost and increases the stamina returned.
--Innervation: costs stamina and restores magicka instead.
Bound Shield- Conjure daedric shields that orbit around you, absorbing damage from up to 3 projectiles. Lasts 4 seconds.
--Reflective Shield: Redirects projectiles back at the attacker.
--Bound Bulwark: Absorbs up to 6 projectiles, duration increased to 8 seconds.
Bolster- Increase your physique, gaining Major brutality and minor toughness for 20 seconds.
--Empower: Also grants Major sorcery.
--Berserk: Also grants Major Savagery.
Wound- Inflict a precision wound on the target, causing physical damage and bleed damage over time.
--Mortal Wound: Also inflicts Major Defile, reducing healing received and health recovery by 30%.
--Crippling Wound: Also inflicts minor vulnerability, increasing damage taken by 8%.
So it stands to reason that the next class would follow suit: either a healer-damage hybrid (less likely if you ask me, as most healers are basically damage dealers anyways), or a tank-damage hybrid (something we dont really have at present). The latter makes more sense to me, and would also be more fun to play IMO. A class focused on tanking as much as the warden or dragonknight, but with the ability to dish out damage; obviously this necessitates the lack of any kind of healing built into the class.
Additionally, each class we have currently covers the damage types in the game: DK has fire and poison, Nightblade has magic and disease, templar has magic, sorceror has magic and lightning, warden has magic and ice. There are no damage types, save for physical damage (provided by weapons) or oblivion damage (too powerful to base a class on since it ignores damage shields and armor). However, a physical-damage based magicka class could be interesting, taking into account telekinesis and force-blasts.
So after some research into previous games and what would fit here, this is what I came up with - I'm sure not all of this would be balanced, but it's fun to speculate anyways.
Battlemage Class
Skill trees:
Alteration - focused on resource manipulation, shielding, defense
Mysticism - focused on telekinesis/force, spell manipulation, buffing/debuffing
Combat - focused on physical attacks and skill / conjured weapons
Essentially combat ends up being the main damage-focused tree, supported by mysticism, while alteration ends up being the tanking tree, also supported by mysticism. The idea is to build a class that uses magic primarily to hinder enemies and buff allies/himself, with the damage side of the class focused on physical damage applied by magical sources (this would be a hybrid, maybe even moreso than the warden, in that you'd benefit from physical damage bonuses while using magicka, and those physical abilities would scale in most cases with magicka and spell power).
So on to the trees and their abilities. Abilities are in bold while their morphs are beside the dashes beneath.
Alteration: Alteration magic is based heavily on telekinesis and manipulation of basic elemental forces. This is the primary defensive skill tree for the battlemage.
Burden- slows the target and deals damage over time. This is a staple ability from previous elder scrolls games, but in those games weighed a target (or yourself) down, preventing carrying as much. In ESO it's more reasonable to consider it a single target snare.
--Encumber: more powerful slow, and a longer duration.
--Oppressing Grasp: snares all enemies in the area.
Lighten- increases movement speed (minor expedition) and dodge chance (minor evasion). This is the opposite of burden, lightening your own weight instead.
--Featherweight: Removes snares and immobilization effects on activation and provides brief (5 second) snare and immobilization immunity.
--Lift Spirits: Now grants minor expedition and minor evasion to all nearby allies.
Protection- Grants minor resolve and ward, increasing your physical and spell resistance.
--Ironskin: Also grants major resolve and ward, further increasing physical and spell resistance.
--Aegis: also grants minor protection, reducing all damage taken by 8% (if you have another source of major resolve/ward, this is the go to obviously)
Elemental Shell- provides fire, ice, or lightning resistance and deals fire, ice, or lightning damage to nearby enemies while active. Lasts 15 seconds, rotates element every 5 seconds.
Essentially this ability creates something like the elemental susceptibility effect on yourself: rotating fire, ice, or lightning. For the first 5 seconds, it will provide a major boost to fire resistance and deal fire damage every 1 second to nearby enemies. Then it changes to ice, providing a boost to frost resistance and dealing frost damage every 1 second to nearby enemies. Finally it changes to lightning, providing major lightning resistance and dealing lightning damage to nearby enemies every 1 second.
--Prismatic Shell: Provides resistance to all 3 elements for the duration. This morph still only does one type of elemental damage at a time, but for the entire 15 second duration you gain major fire, frost, and lightning resistance.
--Elemental Fury: Deals all 3 damage types for the duration. This means that you still only get the resistance boosts one at a time, but for the whole 15 seconds it will deal fire, frost, and lightning damage to all nearby enemies every 1 second, something like force pulse.
Paralysis- Freeze an enemy, stunning for 1 second and immobilizing for 4 seconds after the stun ends.
--Mass Paralysis: Effects all enemies in an area, no longer stuns but immobilizes all enemies effected for 4 seconds.
--Enduring Paralysis: Increases the stun duration to 3 seconds, but no longer immobilizes after the stun ends.
Mysticism: Mysticism focuses more on the offensive side of telekinesis, as well as mixing in some manipulative magic to hinder enemies.
Force push- Repel an enemy with physical force, dealing damage and knocking it down for 1 second.
--Force Wave: Effects a conal area in front of you and deals increased damage.
--Force Pull: No longer knocks down the target, instead pulls it to you. This is the morph for tanks looking to have a frozen device/unrelenting grasp equivalent.
Telekinetic Blast- Unleash a blast of kinetic energy, dealing damage and shattering the enemy's defenses (applies minor fracture/breach). This is the battlemage's basic spammable damage spell.
--Kinetic Barrage: 3 second channel, unleashes a barrage of kinetic blasts at the target dealing physical damage every 0.5 seconds. Each blast increases the damage of subsequent blasts by 5% (8 blasts over a full channel, for a total of +40% damage on the final blast). This makes the ability far more damaging but less spammable.
--Concussive Blast: sets target offbalance and applies the concussed status effect. This morph would be more useful for tanks looking to boost group dps on bosses with ease.
Disintegrate Armor- Wither an enemy's armor, causing major fracture and major breach for 20 seconds.
--Disintegrate Weapon: also applies minor maim, reducing the target's damage dealt by 15% for the duration.
--Immolate: Causes fire damage on application and always applies the burning status effect. Deals additional damage to enemies below 25% health. This it the battlemage's execute option, while also being a major debuff source.
Enfeeble- Reduces the target's max health by 10%. This is the same effect (minor mangle) as the destruction staff pulsar.
--Demoralize: effects all enemies in front of you (aoe, same as pulsar)
--Frenzy: Taunts the target, causing it to attack you for 15 seconds. This gives the class a taunt unlinked to 1h/shield or frost staff, and combined with some of the other abilities allows for tanking options using more damage-oriented weapons.
Charm- causes any standard (non-champion, non-boss) target to fight for you for 12 seconds. Can only be used once per target.
--Mind Control: Increases the duration to 24 seconds.
--Mass Conversion: Charms up to 3 enemies in an area for 6 seconds.
Combat: The final skill tree focuses primarily on boosting your damage output and enabling you to deal damage more effectively with weapons and non-class abilities.
Fortify Weapons- Imbue your weapons with kinetic energy, causing light and heavy attacks to deal additional physical damage for 20 seconds. This would essentially provide the same damage bonus as many current gear sets which increase light and heavy attack damage, but the damage dealt would be a seperate entity attached with each swing.
--Infinite Edge: also grants you major force, increasing critical damage by 15% for the duration.
--Bound Weapons: replace your weapons with a daedric equivalent, causing your light and heavy attacks to deal additional magic damage instead of physical damage. This ability would 'summon' replacement weapons based on whatever you're wielding (if you're dual wielding, you get two bound weapons, if you're using 1h/shield, you get a bound 1h, if you're using a staff, you get a bound staff, bow gets a bound bow, 2h gets a bound 2h, etc.)
Respite- Exchange magicka to regain stamina. Similar in function to the sorceror's dark exchange/dark deal, helps with sustain.
--Second Wind: reduces the cost and increases the stamina returned.
--Innervation: costs stamina and restores magicka instead.
Bound Shield- Conjure daedric shields that orbit around you, absorbing damage from up to 3 projectiles. Lasts 4 seconds.
--Reflective Shield: Redirects projectiles back at the attacker.
--Bound Bulwark: Absorbs up to 6 projectiles, duration increased to 8 seconds.
Bolster- Increase your physique, gaining Major brutality and minor toughness for 20 seconds.
--Empower: Also grants Major sorcery.
--Berserk: Also grants Major Savagery.
Wound- Inflict a precision wound on the target, causing physical damage and bleed damage over time.
--Mortal Wound: Also inflicts Major Defile, reducing healing received and health recovery by 30%.
--Crippling Wound: Also inflicts minor vulnerability, increasing damage taken by 8%.
PS4 / NA
M'asad - Khajiit Nightblade - Healer
Pakhet - Khajiit Dragonknight - Tank
Raksha - Khajiit Sorcerer - Stamina DPS
Bastet - Khajiit Templar - Healer
Leonin - Khajiit Warden - Tank
M'asad - Khajiit Nightblade - Healer
Pakhet - Khajiit Dragonknight - Tank
Raksha - Khajiit Sorcerer - Stamina DPS
Bastet - Khajiit Templar - Healer
Leonin - Khajiit Warden - Tank
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RavenSworn✭✭✭✭✭Excellent writeup! While I must say that a battlemage class is less likely than a new weapon skill, some of the ideas are definitely interesting. Some might need a bit more refining but it's quite solid imo.
I don't think Disney would allow the use of the word force push or pull as that is a direct correlation with star wars.
There are quite a number of self buffs for the battlemage.. It might happen that if this is ever release, it would end up the way of the warden; great in pvp, not so great in pve.Ingame: RavenSworn, Pc / NA.
Of Wolf and Raven
Solo / Casual guild for beginners and new players wanting to join the game. Pst me for invite!1 -
Lynx7386✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭RavenSworn wrote: »Excellent writeup! While I must say that a battlemage class is less likely than a new weapon skill, some of the ideas are definitely interesting. Some might need a bit more refining but it's quite solid imo.
I don't think Disney would allow the use of the word force push or pull as that is a direct correlation with star wars.
There are quite a number of self buffs for the battlemage.. It might happen that if this is ever release, it would end up the way of the warden; great in pvp, not so great in pve.
It's not the self buffs that make wardens great for pvp (those actually lend to the warden being a good tank/healer in pve) - it's the huge burst damage they put into one or two skills because the warden has so few damage skills available compared to other classes.PS4 / NA
M'asad - Khajiit Nightblade - Healer
Pakhet - Khajiit Dragonknight - Tank
Raksha - Khajiit Sorcerer - Stamina DPS
Bastet - Khajiit Templar - Healer
Leonin - Khajiit Warden - Tank0 -
SydneyGrey✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Waiting for the person who jumps onto this thread to say "but that's what a sorceror is!" without reading your post. LOL. In 3 .... 2 .... 1 ....0 -
TimeDazzler✭✭✭✭✭Yea lets just give them every buff/debuff from the game. The class concept itself is fine but this just seems like stamwarden 2.0 in PvP.PC NA
Characters:Aldmeri Dominion Champion - Stamina Warden - AD
Tımë Ðâzzłër - Magicka Nightblade - AD
Ðazzler - Stamina Arcanist - AD
Sugar Deady - Magicka Necromancer - AD
Sprint v X - Stamina Sorcerer - EP
Tımë Ðâzzlër Ðk - Stamina Dragonknight - EP
Tımë Ðâzzłêr - Stamina Templar - DC
Time Dazzler - Magicka Warden - DC1 -
exeeter702✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Classes in eso require thematical establishments. Nature holy dark fiery etc etc etc.
Battlemage as a class and concept is far to broad. The catagories a class brings require something that is not already represented in some way in game already.
Mechanically, some of your ideas work, some a little redundant. But thematically they would need to be much different. For example, with only a tiny bit of changes, i could easily make a necromancer class concept out of your ideas here.
Each of the 5 current classes, can easily qualify as a "battlemage".0