How to: implement a magicka Dawnbreaker — *without* removing options for stam players

TheYKcid

Discussion about a magicka Dawnbreaker seems to be on the rise again, primarily on the grounds that two classes—Magplar and Magsorc—do not have a viable burst+CC ultimate, a crucial tool when PvPing. Both classes are thus somewhat shoehorned into running Dawnbreaker of Smiting (DBoS), which heavily gimps the user. This is because the skill deals physical damage, and therefore doesn't derive any benefit from half your offensive CP stars, nor the penetration provided by light armor—resulting in a tremendous damage loss. Yet both classes are stuck with it for lack of better options.

One main argument against this idea is that changing one morph of Dawnbreaker to magicka would reduce options for stam players, who utilise both morphs (Flawless in PvE to buff frontbar damage, and DBoS as the PvP morph). On the contrary, a very simple adjustment to DBoS can be made to make it work for both stam and mag players, using coding already available in-game:



As you can see, the Burning Light passive automatically deals the relevant damage type, based on which stats your build has invested into (stam+WD vs. mag+SD), and this allows it to be equally useful for both Stamplars and Magplars.

Exporting this mechanic to DBoS would effectively give mag classes access to a magicka Dawnbreaker, without removing any pre-existing morphs!

Pastas

Dawnbreaker is the Figthers Guild ultimate, it makes sense to me that it is more effective on stamina chars.

Why don't you ask for changes to meteor, soul asault or class ultimates? it makes more sense to me if you are feeling that some magicka builds lack a burst damage ultimate.

I just like to see some diversity, and won't like to see everybody using DBoS in PvP.

Kelces

Or one can simply use this set.

TheYKcid

Pastas wrote: »

Dawnbreaker is the Figthers Guild ultimate, it makes sense to me that it is more effective on stamina chars.

It still is, to an extent, since mag toons don't benefit from the 3% weapon damage passive.

Pastas wrote: »

Why don't you ask for changes to meteor, soul asault or class ultimates? it makes more sense to me if you are feeling that some magicka builds lack a burst damage ultimate.

I just like to see some diversity, and won't like to see everybody using DBoS in PvP.

DBoS is used because a burst+CC ultimate is indispensable in PVP. If you wanted meteor/soul assault/atro to be viable substitutes, they'd have to be redesigned into burst+CC tools anyway, in which case we'd be right back at square one, with just the superficial illusion of skill diversity. I'd much rather keep the abovementioned skills as they are—unique, with niche but effective uses—while letting DBoS do what it does best.

Besides, making DBoS mag-compatible won't reduce ult diversity any further. Magblades will still prefer soul harvest/incap for the cost and debuffs, while Leap has way better synergy with magDKs. The mag classes that would use DBoS after this change are the same ones that already use it now (imo).

code65536

Dawnbreaker used to deal magic damage.

ZOS changed it to physical despite protests from magicka users. And I think it's fine that they did--magicka users have a lot of other ultimates at their disposal already. I don't think this is something that will be revisited any time soon.

TheYKcid

Kelces wrote: »

Or one can simply use this set.

Pelinal's is irrelevant because ultimates already scale-off your highest stats. Mag toons are already getting the full damage value of DBoS, as far as the tooltip is concerned.

It's the type of damage dealt (physical) that leads to all the complications of using it on a mag build.

TheYKcid

At no point did I (or anyone) ask for Dawnbreaker to be in spell damage, whatever that means. It already scales-off spell damage for a mag toon. It does not deal magic-type damage, regardless if one does or does not use Pelinal's.

You need to re-read and process the OP, and/or revise your mechanics knowledge.

TheYKcid

Pelinal's doesn't currently do anything for the strength of DBoS on a mag build. Ultimates on a mag toon already scale-off your max magicka, spell damage, and crit, so you're already getting everything you can out of the tooltip by wearing exclusively mag gear.

Beardimus

Pastas wrote: »

Dawnbreaker is the Figthers Guild ultimate, it makes sense to me that it is more effective on stamina chars.

Why don't you ask for changes to meteor, soul asault or class ultimates? it makes more sense to me if you are feeling that some magicka builds lack a burst damage ultimate.

I just like to see some diversity, and won't like to see everybody using DBoS in PvP.

It's a good point, however sadly already true that alot of Magika users run DBoS anyway as it has advantages over the other options.
The issue is for new players Meteror etc seems OP, as do MagSorcs lol. But for medium onwards players its not that strong.

However as we've seen with magsorcs the people that struggle to counter stuff are the loudest thus i don't think the forum could take a buff to meteror etc lol.

code65536

[Quoted post has been removed.]

You obviously have no clue what you're talking about.

All ultimates scale off of whatever your main stat is. For magicka specs, Dawnbreaker will scale off of magicka and spell damage, and for stamina specs, it will scale off of stamina and weapon power.

Pelinal is worthless for ultimates. Because all ultimates already do the pick-your-best-stat scaling that Pelinal does. Pelinal is for regular abilities that don't use that scaling.

But there is more to damage than stat scaling. There are CP amps and penetration. Yes, I can put CP into physical damage on a magicka character, but those CP points won't buff any of my other abilities and will mean fewer CP to buff those abilities.

DBoS is actually very commonly used by magicka characters in Battlegrounds, because BGs are no-CP, so the only downside to DBoS is the lack of spell penetration, but that's a small enough loss that people don't care.

For the OP: As I've said earlier, Dawnbreaker once upon a time used to be magic damage. People urged ZOS to give it two morphs with physical and magic damage when ZOS unveiled their plans to change it physical damage. People even suggested turning Ice Comet into Rocky Comet as a compromise so that Mages Guild can be useful for stamina toons. All this had been suggested--quite loudly and insistently--when Dawnbreaker was made physical. ZOS refused. They want MG to be for magicka and FG to be for stamina. This is a deliberate design decision on their part, not some some matter of oversight. You can complain about it all you want, but it's not going to change.

danno8

I am not a big fan of the "whichever is higher" approach to skills and passive. It seems very lazy and at some point makes you wonder why all skills don't simply do this. The theme for Stamina is suppose to be a more "physical" playstyle and yet half the physical skills used are thematically very magical.

I digress.

Psijic order was a good opportunity for zos to add a stronger Magicka ultimate for Templar and others that wasn't the huge telegraph and expense of Meteor. But they added the poor man's Shade instead.

For Templar, Zos really just needs to make Crescent Sweep Magicka again since every stamina character uses DBoS anyway, and retool the skill to reliably hit since that has always been an issue.

TheYKcid

code65536 wrote: »

For the OP: As I've said earlier, Dawnbreaker once upon a time used to be magic damage. People urged ZOS to give it two morphs with physical and magic damage when ZOS unveiled their plans to change it physical damage. People even suggested turning Ice Comet into Rocky Comet as a compromise so that Mages Guild can be useful for stamina toons. All this had been suggested--quite loudly and insistently--when Dawnbreaker was made physical. ZOS refused. They want MG to be for magicka and FG to be for stamina. This is a deliberate design decision on their part, not some some matter of oversight. You can complain about it all you want, but it's not going to change.

@code65536

Fair enough, I get that.

Admittedly all this was before my time, so just out of curiosity, what update was it in which DB was changed from magic to physical, and what was the prevailing meta at the time? Was it during a magicka-dominant patch?

I ask because balance decisions made it the past context may not be relevant today. It's not entirely unreasonable to ask for a better offensive ultimate choice for magsorcs and magplars in the current state of the game, in my opinion.

Also in response to your first post, I get that mag does have other ults to choose from (namely meteor and soul assault), but the argument goes both ways—if meteor and SA were so good, you'd see stam toons using them based on their merits, in spite of the damage-type incompatibility.

But you don't see this, only the converse. Mag toons forced into using stam ults for lack of better options. Which indicates an asymmetry in the usefulness of ults between stam and mag.

Solariken

It's a fine idea, but I would rather see this happen with Templar Radial Sweep and for sorcs make at least one morph of Atronach burstier on impact.

ZOS_GregoryV

Greetings all,

After removing a few posts, we must remind everyone to keep all posts civil and constructive.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-

TheYKcid

danno8 wrote: »

I am not a big fan of the "whichever is higher" approach to skills and passive. It seems very lazy and at some point makes you wonder why all skills don't simply do this. The theme for Stamina is suppose to be a more "physical" playstyle and yet half the physical skills used are thematically very magical.

I digress.

Psijic order was a good opportunity for zos to add a stronger Magicka ultimate for Templar and others that wasn't the huge telegraph and expense of Meteor. But they added the poor man's Shade instead.

For Templar, Zos really just needs to make Crescent Sweep Magicka again since every stamina character uses DBoS anyway, and retool the skill to reliably hit since that has always been an issue.

Retooling Crescent to mag could affect PvE Stamplars that use it to maintain War Machine uptime though (I know it's hardly meta but they are out there). The thing I like about a dual-function DB is that it takes nothing away from anybody, yet benefits the builds that need it. But yes, I do agree it feels like an inconsistent design choice.

Solariken wrote: »

It's a fine idea, but I would rather see this happen with Templar Radial Sweep and for sorcs make at least one morph of Atronach burstier on impact.

Atro does have a delay prior to landing though. While not nearly as bad as meteor, it still doesn't bring that catch-you-offguard instant burst of a DB. I'm also doubtful it would be raised to the strength of a full-fledged burst ult, since the tooltip has to be weighed against the benefits of having a pet persist for 21-28 seconds.

I'd use it if it were made good enough, of course. Only reason to stick with DBoS is a lack of good alternatives, after all.

NBrookus

TheYKcid wrote: »

Admittedly all this was before my time, so just out of curiosity, what update was it in which DB was changed from magic to physical, and what was the prevailing meta at the time? Was it during a magicka-dominant patch?

It was around 1.6ish? The playstyle was really different then, and we didn't have weapon ultimates yet either. I remember mag sorcs being really strong and pvp were running dual wield with dawnbreaker or else weaving destro attacks with trapping webs.

I think magicka dawnbreaker is gone for good; the need for a burst ultimate for some classes should come elsewhere.

TheYKcid

Thanks for that bit of history, @NBrookus! Always interesting to hear how much the game has evolved in just a few years.

Honestly I would be just as glad to get a new competitive class/guild line burst ult. I just can't forsee it happening any time soon, and getting a functional mag DB would ease a lot of class pain points in the meantime.

OrphanHelgen

Then I want poison damage on meteor as well, and inner light give 7% max stamina and crit

Silver_Strider

The thing with this suggestion is that, you do it to 1 Ultimate and the others will HAVE to follow. Every Class Ultimate will HAVE to deal the corresponding damage type to suit whatever build you're using because now, there's precedence to do so and that's a lot of work and coding that ZOS would have to and, let's be real here, they'll do a shotty job at it.

CatchMeTrolling

Pastas wrote: »

Dawnbreaker is the Figthers Guild ultimate, it makes sense to me that it is more effective on stamina chars.

Why don't you ask for changes to meteor, soul asault or class ultimates? it makes more sense to me if you are feeling that some magicka builds lack a burst damage ultimate.

I just like to see some diversity, and won't like to see everybody using DBoS in PvP.

Given dawnbreakers history it should have never been put in the fighters guild tree. It’s a magical sword, forged by magic and deals magic damage. So it would actually make more sense if a magic character harnessed it’s power more efficiently.

If anything it should have a magic and stam morph

Most people already use dawnbreaker...

danno8

OrphanHelgen wrote: »

Then I want poison damage on meteor as well, and inner light give 7% max stamina and crit

Poison Meteor would still never be used compared to Dawnbreaker. Dawnbreaker is just so much cheaper, easier to land.

Emma_Overload

They should just do this to ALL ultimates.

KingExecration

I can’t say much for mag sorc because I don’t play it, but for Templars lack of ult should be fixed with class ults. Mostly a revamp of empowering or some kind of change to a morph of nova. I remember back when ic first dropped and running around with my magic Templar. I used dark flare into a cresent sweep (was magic damage at the time) and it would clean house on players. That’s also the time frame empower worked on everything.

Was such a simpler time for Templar. Bats and spear shard to even odds with big aoe damage, and dark flare into crescent for quick burst. Above all I was still a noob and went with what worked. I would love for a decent mag ultimate for magplar or sorcs too. It’d make fighting with them a whole lot more interesting then waiting for the usual db, frag, endless fury combo.

Finviuswe

Yes, this should happen. Apply same concept as Burning Light. Plenty mag players running DBoS.

Wuuffyy

So I like the idea (I play only stam for my personal chars) of two dawnys. Although rather than giving it (and everything else) exceptions for some reason let’s take the FG passive that increases wep dmg based on skills equipped from x/3% to 1/2% (7 overall possible % dmg from max dmg Dawny) and take the DBoS and give it 1/2/3/4% increase to wep dmg based on morph level (total max 6% increase to wep dmg)

Now take the base morph and give it a stun and take flawless dawn breaker(possibly rename this to something more magical) and make it give 2/3/4/5% increase to overall magic, do an AOE stun, and deal magical damage.

code65536

@NBrookus It wasn't that long ago. The change happened a bit over 2 years ago, during the Dark Brotherhood patch.

Looking back, there was actually a lot of support among the players for ZOS's decision to make it all-physical.

This poll, from May 2016 during the Dark Brotherhood PTS, had all-physical Dawnbreaker winning over split-morph Dawnbreaker with a margin higher than 2-to-1.

Edit: One of the things to keep in mind is that the two morphs of Dawnbreaker (and Meteor) are already meaningful. Flawless provides a WD buff that's desirable for PvE players, and Smiting provides a stun that's valuable in PvP. Dawnbreaker has an interesting and meaningful morph choice of PvE-vs-PvP, and you'll be taking that away to make a mag-vs-stam morph. Similarly, Shooting Star is preferred in PvE, and a number of people prefer the burst and snare of Ice Comet for PvP, and that would be lost if one of the morphs is made into a physical Rocky Meteor.

Solariken

Emma_Overload wrote: »

They should just do this to ALL ultimates.

I kind of agree with this, but I would rather see an overhaul of the Champion system - what a pile of garbage that thing is.

Lord-Otto

NBrookus wrote: »

TheYKcid wrote: »

Admittedly all this was before my time, so just out of curiosity, what update was it in which DB was changed from magic to physical, and what was the prevailing meta at the time? Was it during a magicka-dominant patch?

It was around 1.6ish? The playstyle was really different then, and we didn't have weapon ultimates yet either. I remember mag sorcs being really strong and pvp were running dual wield with dawnbreaker or else weaving destro attacks with trapping webs.

I think magicka dawnbreaker is gone for good; the need for a burst ultimate for some classes should come elsewhere.

It was Dark Brotherhood, and a big reason why mag sorcs struggled so much in that patch. They never fully recovered, but Summer Met+Cage was very close.

And no, Dawnbreaker does not fit physical damage. Meridia's holy artifact has always dealt magic or flame damage in the Elder Scrolls games. Just saying. The FG argument is invalid. It's an arbitrary design choice, nothing more.

Pastas

Lord-Otto wrote: »

NBrookus wrote: »

TheYKcid wrote: »

Admittedly all this was before my time, so just out of curiosity, what update was it in which DB was changed from magic to physical, and what was the prevailing meta at the time? Was it during a magicka-dominant patch?

It was around 1.6ish? The playstyle was really different then, and we didn't have weapon ultimates yet either. I remember mag sorcs being really strong and pvp were running dual wield with dawnbreaker or else weaving destro attacks with trapping webs.

I think magicka dawnbreaker is gone for good; the need for a burst ultimate for some classes should come elsewhere.

It was Dark Brotherhood, and a big reason why mag sorcs struggled so much in that patch. They never fully recovered, but Summer Met+Cage was very close.

And no, Dawnbreaker does not fit physical damage. Meridia's holy artifact has always dealt magic or flame damage in the Elder Scrolls games. Just saying. The FG argument is invalid. It's an arbitrary design choice, nothing more.

FG is an stamina skill line and it's ultimate MUST be physical damage, I think this argument is quite valid.

Lord-Otto

Pastas wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

NBrookus wrote: »

TheYKcid wrote: »

Admittedly all this was before my time, so just out of curiosity, what update was it in which DB was changed from magic to physical, and what was the prevailing meta at the time? Was it during a magicka-dominant patch?

It was around 1.6ish? The playstyle was really different then, and we didn't have weapon ultimates yet either. I remember mag sorcs being really strong and pvp were running dual wield with dawnbreaker or else weaving destro attacks with trapping webs.

I think magicka dawnbreaker is gone for good; the need for a burst ultimate for some classes should come elsewhere.

It was Dark Brotherhood, and a big reason why mag sorcs struggled so much in that patch. They never fully recovered, but Summer Met+Cage was very close.

And no, Dawnbreaker does not fit physical damage. Meridia's holy artifact has always dealt magic or flame damage in the Elder Scrolls games. Just saying. The FG argument is invalid. It's an arbitrary design choice, nothing more.

FG is an stamina skill line and it's ultimate MUST be physical damage, I think this argument is quite valid.

But the FG's ultimate doesn't have to be Dawnbreaker. Ballista would have made more sense.

Joy_Division

Devs said they were working on a burst ultimate for templar for update 20.