Possible Rework Suggestion: Soul Lock

Skullstachio

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_Wrobel

Over the last few years, some if not many people have discussed about a passive in the Soul Magic passive that many are quite familiar with: Soul Lock
Most of the discussions "And" Commentary have suggested that putting an additional skill point to have a 10% chance to fill an empty soul gem by killing enemies with weapon abilities instead of 5% is quite Underwhelming for a passive as a whole.

While this may be fine from a perspective, but I speak for the people (& the Ambassadors & other such noble folk) when I say: "Soul Lock needs a change".

Because figuratively speaking on a technological format, People only have to put in one skill point just for the 5% bonus & then the second skill point could be used for something completely different, like a different skill line perhaps, maybe to do with existing classes, guilds, etc. the point is, Soul Lock needs more meaning to the people of Tamriel (primarily those who's souls were stolen by the lord of domination.)

Now here is where I get straight to the point:
instead of having a passive that just increases the percentage value of trapping souls by killing enemies with weapon abilities, why not this that I have provided below?

Keeper of Souls:

• (1/2): Kills have a 5% chance to fill an empty soul gem. While you have no empty soul gems: enemies killed while affected by "soul trap/soul splitting trap/consuming trap" will build up soul charges within for 20 seconds, increasing weapon & spell damage by 10 for each soul charge accumulated, stacking up to a maximum of 10 times.
• (2/2): Kills have a 10% chance to fill an empty soul gem. While you have no empty soul gems: enemies killed while affected by "soul trap/soul splitting trap/consuming trap" will build up soul charges within for 20 seconds, increasing weapon & spell damage by 20 for each soul charge accumulated, stacking up to a maximum of 10 times.

Notes:

• Excessive kills after hitting the 10th stack will simply refresh the duration to max.
• Soul charges only accumulate when you have both no empty soul gems and only when the killed target was affected by Soul trap and its morphs beforehand.
• When it expires, the whole stack falls off back to zero.

A passive like this could be a type of all-round balanced passive that could be plausible regardless of class chosen or what armor one wears (remember the old heavy armor passive called wrath? The one where getting hit by enemy attacks would increase your weapon & spell damage by a small amount for a few seconds.) but more importantly, what do you ZOS staff think of this? And what does the whole ESO forum community think of this change? Do you want to see this happen coming summerset or after summerset? (Seriously, don't hold back.)

Personal feedback on this reworked passive: this passive not only gives more incentive in spending their skill points on a good passive, but it also gives players a greater incentive in using soul trap & their morphs in any unique builds created by the community, this could also give a slightly "unexpected" incentive to give molag bal what he deserves & getting your soul back. (Spoiler alert.)

Edit 1: @Avran_Sylt asked if the stacks fall off on expiration, They do indeed. (Added to notes.)

Jameliel

The whole line needs to be reworked. It's comically useless as is.

AchlysNox

@Alpha-Lupi That's a pretty creative idea, and I like it! +1 from here!

Avran_Sylt

My own pet peeve about "speaking" for others when the idea presented hasn't been (or seems to have not been) discussed with anyone prior aside, this actually does seem like a fun little synergy.

I can certainly see it being used Offensively (Perhaps even Defensively as well with Consuming Trap?) in a majority of Solo/Small Group content, as a form of buff/resource management, but generally see it falling off against health sponge Bosses/Mob Phases that don't have trash adds who periodically spawn in. Which could be a trade-off, and award knowledgeable gameplay of when to slot it. Not making it a BiS skill across all content (cause magicka DDs can certainly use this to great effect), but giving a boost when used in the proper areas. Essentially promoting skilled/informed gameplay.

For Stamina DPS, I'm not sure if the DPS loss of a skill slot will warrant a skill that doesn't match their max resource, but 200 additional Base Weapon Damage alongside the resource restore of Consuming Trap does seem very tempting, especially on a group of trash adds from before you get into AoE spammable range. Though I can only really see this happening in Lowby/Solo content.

While the question of application time does rear its head, this could be the trade-off for the respective morphs and slotting this skill in general.

And it would also promote rushing through dungeons to get to each add as quickly as possible as to not let the stack fall off, which may be a good or bad thing based on your perspective. However, if you decided to increase the duration of the buff, that only serves to over-tune it, and decreasing the amount given will only make it worthless. So it should be assumed that this skill will promote rushing content when enemies are sparse.

I do have a question though, after 20s, does the entire stack fall off, or just one?

Sidenote: Apart from the off-chance of a Forum mod saying "Hey cool, we love to see your ideas but won't promise anything" Don't really expect a detailed response from ZoS.

Ladislao

Jameliel wrote: »

The whole line needs to be reworked. It's comically useless as is.

I still remember the topics "Soul Strike should be nerfed".
Consuming Trap and Soul Lock are also good skills in my opinion.

Skullstachio

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

My own pet peeve about "speaking" for others when the idea presented hasn't been (or seems to have not been) discussed with anyone prior aside, this actually does seem like a fun little synergy.

I can certainly see it being used Offensively (Perhaps even Defensively as well with Consuming Trap?) in a majority of Solo/Small Group content, as a form of buff/resource management, but generally see it falling off against health sponge Bosses/Mob Phases that don't have trash adds who periodically spawn in. Which could be a trade-off, and award knowledgeable gameplay of when to slot it. Not making it a BiS skill across all content (cause magicka DDs can certainly use this to great effect), but giving a boost when used in the proper areas. Essentially promoting skilled/informed gameplay.

For Stamina DPS, I'm not sure if the DPS loss of a skill slot will warrant a skill that doesn't match their max resource, but 200 additional Base Weapon Damage alongside the resource restore of Consuming Trap does seem very tempting, especially on a group of trash adds from before you get into AoE spammable range. Though I can only really see this happening in Lowby/Solo content.

While the question of application time does rear its head, this could be the trade-off for the respective morphs and slotting this skill in general.

And it would also promote rushing through dungeons to get to each add as quickly as possible as to not let the stack fall off, which may be a good or bad thing based on your perspective. However, if you decided to increase the duration of the buff, that only serves to over-tune it, and decreasing the amount given will only make it worthless. So it should be assumed that this skill will promote rushing content when enemies are sparse.

I do have a question though, after 20s, does the entire stack fall off, or just one?

Sidenote: Apart from the off-chance of a Forum mod saying "Hey cool, we love to see your ideas but won't promise anything" Don't really expect a detailed response from ZoS.

When it expires, the entire stack does indeed fall off, as I may have said, it is a type of incentive, that and you do remember the Oblivions Edge set that increases the damage of soul trap & its morphs by 100% right?

Avran_Sylt

Ah, gotcha.

I'm aware of "Oblivion's Foe". Yet the ability still scales off of Magicka/SpellDmg. Hence being more beneficial for MagDD. It's also a 5-piece that could be utilized for something else. StamDD wouldn't use OF. But I'm not exactly sure why you bring up that set.

High-end content still has larger TTK of trash mobs (and thus a lower total uptime of the passive), and in Trials or areas where the mobs are spaced out, or there are very few of them (Asylum Sanctorim for example), this passive/skill combo is useless. Which is a good thing.