No Love for the Soul Magic Skill Line?

Vercingetorix

Anyone else feel that the release of Necromancer should have had also had an improvement to the Soul Magic skill line since it also deals with the manipulation of souls? The only usable ability in the skill line is the ultimate and even that is a stretch for most folks. The passives are sub-par and the Soul Trap spell's morphs are great but the damage vs cost ratio for this spell is just atrocious.

Suggestions:

1. Increase the base damage of Soul Trap and its morphs:
Lay claim to enemy souls, dealing [655] [1350] Magic Damage to the target and one other nearby enemy over 10 seconds.
NOTE: This damage increase puts it more in line with other similar DoTs like Cripple, making this ability a decent DoT that all classes can take advantage of if they want.

2. Change "Soul Shatter" passive with the following effect:
Enemies you kill with a Soul Magic ability have a 10% chance to erupt in Soulfire, dealing [2000] Magic Damage to nearby enemies.
NOTE: This new passive doesn't necessarily invalidate Shatter Soul as a morph as that morph guarantees an explosion. If ZoS wanted to, they could increase the explosion damage from this morph to make it stand out more.

These changes are pretty easy quick to implement and bring a little more usefulness to the Skill Line. I leave changes to the Ultimate up to the community as I know there's quite a bit of controversy over its strength in PvP and it's seen several *adjustments* because of that. What do you think? Any changes or additions?

Extra Change That Would Take More Time for ZoS:

Besides these two quick changes that ZoS could implement with relative ease, I'd also push for a new ability to be added to the list. One idea I had was to create an ability that functioned similar to Imbue Weapon, but instead of buffing your next Light Attack it would instead buff your next Heavy Attack:

Mystic Weapon:
Infuse your weapon with souls, causing your next Heavy Attack used within 2 seconds to deal an additional [739] Magic Damage and restore 10% more resources. Resources are refunded if a Heavy Attack is not activated.
Stamina Morph: Now deals [900] physical damage instead.
Magicka Morph: Still deals magic damage, but now restores 20% more resources.

NOTE: This ability could be used by stamina characters to get more resource return or simply increase their damage with heavy attacks. Magicka players looking to focus on heavy attacks for their damage could use this ability to do so or simply take advantage of the increased resource return. Maybe it's too strong or weak - I'd like your input about it!

_Ahala_

The secondary effect of Shatter Soul is unreliable as the kb tick must be from the ult in order for the explosion to proc... This is the main reason why so many choose soul assault over shatter soul. SS should be given a window of opportunity for the explosion (ie kb window of 3s from ult activation to trigger explosion) so that it’s effect can my be denied by ally kill steals and ones own delayed damage abilities/dots

Vercingetorix

_Ahala_ wrote: »

The secondary effect of Shatter Soul is unreliable as the kb tick must be from the ult in order for the explosion to proc... This is the main reason why so many choose soul assault over shatter soul. SS should be given a window of opportunity for the explosion (ie kb window of 3s from ult activation to trigger explosion) so that it’s effect can my be denied by ally kill steals and ones own delayed damage abilities/dots

Ah, that makes sense. What about the changed Soul Shatter passive? Do you think it should be given that time window as well? I was trying to find a balance between some occasional bonus damage versus constant chain explosions that would make Vicious Death look tame.

Sheezabeast

I was thinking about this the other day when I had to slot Soul Trap to do the Elsweyr daily quest that makes you go soul trap Daedra! I was thinking how I have never felt the need to morph Soul Trap, and wondered if anyone ever had!

A rework of the whole skill line would be nice, make it relevant.

Vercingetorix

Sheezabeast wrote: »

I was thinking about this the other day when I had to slot Soul Trap to do the Elsweyr daily quest that makes you go soul trap Daedra! I was thinking how I have never felt the need to morph Soul Trap, and wondered if anyone ever had!

A rework of the whole skill line would be nice, make it relevant.

The only time I've ever used Soul Trap was when I was leveling magicka characters early on in dungeons. The extra resource sustain granted by the Consuming morph made it easy to keep myself healed and able to cast my abilities during trash pulls. Early on players don't have class/gear passives to grant them sustain so the Soul Trap spell did help but was quickly made useless as I neared max level and gained more passives. If the damage was still good, I'd be inclined to use it even if for specific scenarios.

_Ahala_

Vercingetorix wrote: »

_Ahala_ wrote: »

The secondary effect of Shatter Soul is unreliable as the kb tick must be from the ult in order for the explosion to proc... This is the main reason why so many choose soul assault over shatter soul. SS should be given a window of opportunity for the explosion (ie kb window of 3s from ult activation to trigger explosion) so that it’s effect can my be denied by ally kill steals and ones own delayed damage abilities/dots

Ah, that makes sense. What about the changed Soul Shatter passive? Do you think it should be given that time window as well? I was trying to find a balance between some occasional bonus damage versus constant chain explosions that would make Vicious Death look tame.

I would make that soul shatter passive heal the caster by the amount of damage done to enemies with the original near death explosion mechanic to make the passive better the more outnumbered you are

Konstant_Tel_Necris

Rework of Oblivion's Foe to something useful will be also welcome.

DenMoria

Meh...

To me it's just a waste of a slot.

I use it to fill gems and leave and then switch it back to something useful.

Noxavian

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Anyone else feel that the release of Necromancer should have had also had an improvement to the Soul Magic skill line since it also deals with the manipulation of souls? The only usable ability in the skill line is the ultimate and even that is a stretch for most folks. The passives are sub-par and the Soul Trap spell's morphs are great but the damage vs cost ratio for this spell is just atrocious.

Suggestions:

1. Increase the base damage of Soul Trap and its morphs:
Lay claim to enemy souls, dealing [655] [1350] Magic Damage to the target and one other nearby enemy over 10 seconds.
NOTE: This damage increase puts it more in line with other similar DoTs like Cripple, making this ability a decent DoT that all classes can take advantage of if they want.

2. Change "Soul Shatter" passive with the following effect:
Enemies you kill with a Soul Magic ability have a 10% chance to erupt in Soulfire, dealing [2000] Magic Damage to nearby enemies.
NOTE: This new passive doesn't necessarily invalidate Shatter Soul as a morph as that morph guarantees an explosion. If ZoS wanted to, they could increase the explosion damage from this morph to make it stand out more.

These changes are pretty easy quick to implement and bring a little more usefulness to the Skill Line. I leave changes to the Ultimate up to the community as I know there's quite a bit of controversy over its strength in PvP and it's seen several *adjustments* because of that. What do you think? Any changes or additions?

Extra Change That Would Take More Time for ZoS:

Besides these two quick changes that ZoS could implement with relative ease, I'd also push for a new ability to be added to the list. One idea I had was to create an ability that functioned similar to Imbue Weapon, but instead of buffing your next Light Attack it would instead buff your next Heavy Attack:

Mystic Weapon:
Infuse your weapon with souls, causing your next Heavy Attack used within 2 seconds to deal an additional [739] Magic Damage and restore 10% more resources. Resources are refunded if a Heavy Attack is not activated.
Stamina Morph: Now deals [900] physical damage instead.
Magicka Morph: Still deals magic damage, but now restores 20% more resources.

NOTE: This ability could be used by stamina characters to get more resource return or simply increase their damage with heavy attacks. Magicka players looking to focus on heavy attacks for their damage could use this ability to do so or simply take advantage of the increased resource return. Maybe it's too strong or weak - I'd like your input about it!

I'd really like to see them make it an actual skill line, give it 4 more abilities. There are no way they can't think of stuff to add with the theme of "soul magic" in the ES setting.

To be quite frank, any skill line having less than 5 abilities seems sub-par and kind of lazy. Yes I'm looking at you vampire (honestly go look at vampire passives, at least 3 of them can be turned into just "working for the subclass/made into 1 passive" and replaced with passives that would help out the 3 new abilities.)