Introducing the Battlemage to ESO

TumlinTheJolly

People have tossed around the term 'Battlemage' for a very long time. It was quite a popular thing in previous Elder Scrolls games, and many players have asked for it in one way or another since the release of ESO. It was supposedly even going to be one of the initial playable classes.

According to a few wikis:
'During the beta, the Battlemage was planned to be the sixth player class. Along with the Warden, it was scrapped at launch in favor of the four standard classes, though the Warden class later returned to the game in Update 14'.

People want to be able to play a Battlemage. There have been many forum posts recently, asking for options such as weapons scaling off highest stat, or for magicka morphs to be introduced to weapon skills. I believe I have a simpler, more realistic solution... a new 5 piece set. And here it is:



Allow me to explain it a bit.

The issue that we currently have is that while we have plenty of melee skills that scale off mag and spell damage, physical weapon light and heavy attacks still (and rightly so) scale off weapon damage and stam. This means that tools such as Ele Weapon, Knight Slayer etc are still better when paired with a Destro staff. In order to make a 'Battlemage' viable, we need to come up with a solution to this problem - hence this set.

In order to balance the 5 piece bonus (assuming you've built for max mag/spell damage):

X = the difference in damage between light attacking with a physical weapon vs a destro staff, PLUS additional damage equivalent to a 5 piece light attack bonus (such as the bonus provided from Undaunted Infiltrator).

Y = the difference in damage between heavy attacking with a physical weapon vs a destro staff, PLUS additional damage equivalent to a 5 piece heavy attack bonus (such as the bonus provided from Undaunted Infiltrator).

For the RP! : As a tribute to Bound Weapon, this set would provide your weapons with a magical blue glow.

Would people like to see this set? Would you use it? Can you think of any improvements that you would like to see?

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO

go back to your necromancer already.

AcadianPaladin

The problem is that ESO went back to the archaic D&D idea of restricting play with the classic 'If you pick up a bow, you cannot be skilled be skilled with magic; rather, you shall pick up daggers and we shall call you rogue. Never shall physical weaponry and magic mix or blend!'

Oblivion and Skyrim did not follow this path. If your skill with bow and skill with illusion magic were both leveled up then you could be a very effective 'mystic archer' - an archer who backed up her bow with magic instead of blades. The traditional TES concept has never precluded blending physical weaponry with magic so creating a heavy armor wearing warrior who wielded a blade in one hand and a fireball in the other - with equal skill - was wonderfully and refreshingly doable.

Having come from Oblivion and Skyrim, I appalled by the giant leap backwards in terms of pushing players to either magic or physical weaponry but discouraging blending the two. I still consider that to be one of this wonderful game's larger shortcomings.

So my approach would be way too radical for this point in ESO's evolution. Tie damage to how far you have leveled up a particular skill and use attributes simply to fuel their use.

TumlinTheJolly

It could maybe be a crafted set, so that players would have access to the play style at lower levels.

Bosov

Lets fix things first before adding new things... alright?

Also a mage who battles, sounds like a mag dk.

TumlinTheJolly

Bosov wrote: »

Lets fix things first before adding new things... alright?

Indeed. I do agree with this!

sly007

Bosov wrote: »

Lets fix things first before adding new things... alright?

Also a mage who battles, sounds like a mag dk.

Sadly, mag dk don't have a melee magicka weapon, thus, have to use staves.

TumlinTheJolly

sly007 wrote: »

Bosov wrote: »

Lets fix things first before adding new things... alright?

Also a mage who battles, sounds like a mag dk.

Sadly, mag dk don't have a melee magicka weapon, thus, have to use staves.

Exaaaactly.

Elusiin

Or instead, the 5th effect could read:

Two Handed, Dual Wield, and Sword and Board abilities now scale with magicka and spell damage rather than stamina and weapon damage.

TumlinTheJolly

Elusiin wrote: »

Or instead, the 5th effect could read:

Two Handed, Dual Wield, and Sword and Board abilities now scale with magicka and spell damage rather than stamina and weapon damage.

Good idea. The problem here is that you'd then be lacking the power of a 5piece bonus. You could maybe make it scale and then also add extra damage... but that would be a pretty complex tooltip.

Urzigurumash

In my view the simplest solution would be to append "and Penetration" after "Damage" in the 5 piece bonus of Pelinal's. With this improvement to Pelinal's and considerate selection of skills in terms of Skill Coefficients, a Battlemage of any class may be viable in both CP and No CP.

for reference:

https://esoitem.uesp.net/viewSkillCoef.php

Iskiab

Best thing to do is wear medium armour and pelinals. Then wear sets that give magicka and weapon damage, no spell power. Voila - battle mage.

It’s not ideal, reason being your crit ends up being very low and you’ll have sustain issues from the missing light armour passives. Never tried it but I was theorycrafting a build with it:
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=166272

Urzigurumash

@Iskiab I suppose this new Onslaught does mitigate the Penetration issue rather well, at least if you can generate Ult quickly enough to make it more than a seldom buff. As for sustain, I see this build is nearly all Mag skills. Mixing it up with Mag and Stam skills actually makes sustain excellent, in my experience, but the attendant motivation to split Max Stats discourages the use of skills with Coefficients that give greater weight to Stat than Damage.

Iskiab

Oh, as mag I never use abilities that cost stamina. Breaking free, dodge rolls and blocking’s too important.

That build is without CPs or unrealistic buffs like 500 stacks of balrog. The tooltips look decent enough so I was tempted to try it out, but haven’t gotten around to collecting the transmutation stones.

For pve the lack of crit would hurt the build, IDK I’d it would work. You could use better sets though.

Ult gen can be done by setting up on the resto bar with ranged light attacks/heals, then only engage when onslaught’s up. Idk how it would play really, but the tooltip’s look decent apart from crit.

I was thinking if I tried it I’d go Nord and bloodspawn.

Urzigurumash

Another point on sustain - while using Medium gives you 15% more power, or 30% I guess you could say, if you were to wear 7 heavy and Black Rose, mix it up with Mag and Stam skills, I think you would find incomparable sustain. In fact, in my view, this excellent sustain would be the best reason to run Pelinal's.

The limitation I've found is I end up using one, or maybe two, skills that I wouldn't use without Pelinal's, and it's just not a good enough reason to use it over another 5 piece. I am speaking from the perspective of a Stam character using Mag morphs, rather than what @Iskiab and @TumlinTheJolly seem to be contemplating, a Mag character using Stam weapons.

Urzigurumash

@Iskiab Yes I see that, your motivation to try Pelinal's was to make good use of Onslaught on a mag build? Like many StamDKs the new Seething Fury passive recently motivated me to try it out again to make use of Whip, but as was expected, it seems I'm better off just leaving Whip for the passive and picking a 5 piece which buffs Stam abilities, and saving my Mag for buffs and defensive skills.

Iskiab

Urzigurumash wrote: »

@Iskiab Yes I see that, your motivation to try Pelinal's was to make good use of Onslaught on a mag build? Like many StamDKs the new Seething Fury passive recently motivated me to try it out again to make use of Whip, but as was expected, it seems I'm better off just leaving Whip for the passive and picking a 5 piece which buffs Stam abilities, and saving my Mag for buffs and defensive skills.

Couple reasons. Medium armour weapon damage buffs are nice, especially combined with fighter’s guild abilities etc... In no-CP where mag’s missing the magicka CP boost it’s difficult to get high tooltips.

That plus onslaught yea, especially since light attacks with 2h or DWs scale with stamina and weapon damage. Destro staff passives are terrible, so a lot of magblades use 2hs and eat the light attack damage loss, so pelinals is a good work around.

Urzigurumash

@Iskiab Interesting, I guess one problem here is heavy attacks with Resto Staff for sustain aren't very worthwhile? Also I'm sure you just overlooked it on that build page, but don't forget your Berserker enchant. That Onslaught tooltip would look quite a bit better with it. Of course it is true that Pelinal's is strongest on a MagPlar or a StamDK, given the access to Minor Sorcery / Brutality, but a 2h using MagBlade in Pelinal's is a novel enough idea you should definitely give it a try, but don't disregard the idea of using 5 heavy, granted you might not have Balorgh in Heavy. It's only a slight improvement to sustain on this build but it might be worth the loss of damage.

Urzigurumash

@Iskiab possibly one thing we are hinting at here is that on a Battlemage (i.e. wizard using stam weapons), Pelinal's improves overall damage at the cost of sustain, whereas on a Spellsword (warrior casting spells), Pelinal's improves overall sustain at the cost of damage.

Urzigurumash

@TumlinTheJolly Our apologies for derailing this conversation into a discussion about Pelinal's, but with all the recent changes to skills, there's probably lots of new ideas to be explored with Pelinal's. Seething Fury and Onslaught are just a couple of recent changes that elicit Pelinal dreams. Have you tried it on your builds at all?

TumlinTheJolly

Ya I have... The issue I find with it is that (while medium passives are great), you're kinda giving up a 5piece to get it, so its dps ends up being sub par. It could do with a second 5 piece bonus of a wee bit of extra weapon and spell damage IMO.

mairwen85

"we don't need another hybris set because we already have one" isn't really a counter argument to OP, it's actually a restatement of the problem OP is suggestion a solution to.

I'd love a more classic TES approach, but I can't see it becoming a reality this late in the games life. Not with how theyve created class skills and racial passives.

Beardimus

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

People have tossed around the term 'Battlemage' for a very long time. It was quite a popular thing in previous Elder Scrolls games, and many players have asked for it in one way or another since the release of ESO. It was supposedly even going to be one of the initial playable classes.

According to a few wikis:
'During the beta, the Battlemage was planned to be the sixth player class. Along with the Warden, it was scrapped at launch in favor of the four standard classes, though the Warden class later returned to the game in Update 14'.

People want to be able to play a Battlemage. There have been many forum posts recently, asking for options such as weapons scaling off highest stat, or for magicka morphs to be introduced to weapon skills. I believe I have a simpler, more realistic solution... a new 5 piece set. And here it is:



Allow me to explain it a bit.

The issue that we currently have is that while we have plenty of melee skills that scale off mag and spell damage, physical weapon light and heavy attacks still (and rightly so) scale off weapon damage and stam. This means that tools such as Ele Weapon, Knight Slayer etc are still better when paired with a Destro staff. In order to make a 'Battlemage' viable, we need to come up with a solution to this problem - hence this set.

In order to balance the 5 piece bonus (assuming you've built for max mag/spell damage):

X = the difference in damage between light attacking with a physical weapon vs a destro staff, PLUS additional damage equivalent to a 5 piece light attack bonus (such as the bonus provided from Undaunted Infiltrator).

Y = the difference in damage between heavy attacking with a physical weapon vs a destro staff, PLUS additional damage equivalent to a 5 piece heavy attack bonus (such as the bonus provided from Undaunted Infiltrator).

For the RP! : As a tribute to Bound Weapon, this set would provide your weapons with a magical blue glow.

Would people like to see this set? Would you use it? Can you think of any improvements that you would like to see?

We had MagDW for years, which was better than this set suggestion.
People thought it was an abomination, and ZOS killed it slowly patch after patch after patch. It seems unlikely they will bring it back.

They like Wizards to have wands..Potter fans over LOTR...

HowlKimchi

I miss soft caps

kind_hero

I would like to see a Conjuration skill line soon, one to allow conjured weapons and summonable creatures as temporary pets, like a daedroth.

My suggestion is to have something like the bound armor skill, while slotted your magical weapon (staff) will be replaced with a conjured weapon with certain buffs and limitations.

TumlinTheJolly

Beardimus wrote: »

TumlinTheJolly wrote: »

People have tossed around the term 'Battlemage' for a very long time. It was quite a popular thing in previous Elder Scrolls games, and many players have asked for it in one way or another since the release of ESO. It was supposedly even going to be one of the initial playable classes.

According to a few wikis:
'During the beta, the Battlemage was planned to be the sixth player class. Along with the Warden, it was scrapped at launch in favor of the four standard classes, though the Warden class later returned to the game in Update 14'.

People want to be able to play a Battlemage. There have been many forum posts recently, asking for options such as weapons scaling off highest stat, or for magicka morphs to be introduced to weapon skills. I believe I have a simpler, more realistic solution... a new 5 piece set. And here it is:



Allow me to explain it a bit.

The issue that we currently have is that while we have plenty of melee skills that scale off mag and spell damage, physical weapon light and heavy attacks still (and rightly so) scale off weapon damage and stam. This means that tools such as Ele Weapon, Knight Slayer etc are still better when paired with a Destro staff. In order to make a 'Battlemage' viable, we need to come up with a solution to this problem - hence this set.

In order to balance the 5 piece bonus (assuming you've built for max mag/spell damage):

X = the difference in damage between light attacking with a physical weapon vs a destro staff, PLUS additional damage equivalent to a 5 piece light attack bonus (such as the bonus provided from Undaunted Infiltrator).

Y = the difference in damage between heavy attacking with a physical weapon vs a destro staff, PLUS additional damage equivalent to a 5 piece heavy attack bonus (such as the bonus provided from Undaunted Infiltrator).

For the RP! : As a tribute to Bound Weapon, this set would provide your weapons with a magical blue glow.

Would people like to see this set? Would you use it? Can you think of any improvements that you would like to see?

We had MagDW for years, which was better than this set suggestion.
People thought it was an abomination, and ZOS killed it slowly patch after patch after patch. It seems unlikely they will bring it back.

They like Wizards to have wands..Potter fans over LOTR...

True... but this was more a PvP burst combo thing. And back in the day not everybody realised how important animation canceling was. LAs are far stronger now though, so you do have a fair point. Still, personally I don't think these nerfs to the play style were intentionally aimed at said play style, and the community definitely seem to miss it.

AcadianPaladin

A magplar with sweeps can feel pretty battlemagey as she swings her spear of light. Only thing is that you need to really go all in on the 'mag' bit because sustaining sweeps is very costly - at least 5 light pieces of armor, Seducers, Channeled Focus, Elemental Drain. . . . A heavy armor costume can make her more look the part though.

Firstmep

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

The problem is that ESO went back to the archaic D&D idea of restricting play with the classic 'If you pick up a bow, you cannot be skilled be skilled with magic; rather, you shall pick up daggers and we shall call you rogue. Never shall physical weaponry and magic mix or blend!'

Oblivion and Skyrim did not follow this path. If your skill with bow and skill with illusion magic were both leveled up then you could be a very effective 'mystic archer' - an archer who backed up her bow with magic instead of blades. The traditional TES concept has never precluded blending physical weaponry with magic so creating a heavy armor wearing warrior who wielded a blade in one hand and a fireball in the other - with equal skill - was wonderfully and refreshingly doable.

Having come from Oblivion and Skyrim, I appalled by the giant leap backwards in terms of pushing players to either magic or physical weaponry but discouraging blending the two. I still consider that to be one of this wonderful game's larger shortcomings.

So my approach would be way too radical for this point in ESO's evolution. Tie damage to how far you have leveled up a particular skill and use attributes simply to fuel their use.

You can use a bow as a nightblade and use illusion magic, like cloak, fear, blur, shades etc.
You dont have to use daggers at all.

Iskiab

You know I was messing about thinking if pelinals could be used in pve. Stam are higher dps in trials afterall, maybe medium armour's a big reason.

I was playing around and came up with this. Think this is feasible? IDK, crit looks low to me but when looking at the effective spell power nirnhoned came up higher then precise so maybe the weapon/spell damage is high enough to offset the difference.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=172437

Anyone play PvE enough to tell, or want to take it for a spin on PTS?

Iskiab

Edited the build again, looks promising but IDK, the low crit will really hurt in PvE. It's also interesting that dots end up coming out ahead of impale sub 25%, might be best to add lotus fan or shade (if it's boosted by the bow weapon damage) instead. Maybe relentless, IDK.

Dot tooltips come out to 40k without the Soul Harvest buff.

lucky_Sage

Dk is the closest to a battle mage you can get. They do need to add a melee magick weapon what ever it is just because melee magick builds get range punishments with the staff even though they are melee. Like longer heavy attacks.