3 Underperforming Skills that Should be Addressed in Update 24

WrathOfInnos

I’m sure there are a few others that could be added to this list, but I wanted to bring up these 3 skills specifically since it is straightforward to show how they are falling behind similar skills.

Haunting Curse (Sorcerer)
This skill was once considered the PVP only morph, but with the changes to pet damage it is becoming more popular in PVE as well (Daedric Prey is not needed without pets). The problem is that it’s damage is not on-par with other similar skills. The easiest comparison is to Entropy (either morph) since both deal magic damage over 12s. Entropy deals 16% more damage, can be cast on an unlimited number of targets, provides Major Sorcery, Empowers the next light attack, and restores either health or magicka depending on the morph choice. Haunting Curse can only be used on one enemy at a time, and has the disadvantage that it cannot be overcast to fit into an 8 or 10s static rotation (half the damage is lost if you don’t wait the full 12s). Haunting does have a small amount of splash damage (less than half of the initial hit), but the radius is small enough and the delay long enough that it rarely hits anything. Both skills have similar passives for slotting, 2% Mag + Mag Regen vs 2% Spell Damage, so we can call that aspect roughly equal. While Haunting Curse functions like a DoT (multiple damage ticks over a set duration), it is not classified as one. This is significant because it does not work for Z’en’s Redress set, and does not benefit from Thaumaturge CP (where most builds have more points than Master at Arms). I would like to see this skill deal more damage over its duration (at least 30% increase), and maybe also apply some type of buff or debuff. It would be nice if it worked with Z’en’s since it is a trackable effect that sticks to the enemy. It could also benefit from more ticks, to be less punishing on overcasting or using against an enemy that may not live for 12 more seconds. Possibly have it tick at 4,8,12, or could even go to 4 ticks on 3s intervals or 6 ticks on 2s intervals. I’m not sure why it is restricted to a single target at a time, but it does make the skill unique so I’m not saying it needs to be changed in this aspect, but the power level should reflect this limitation, by dealing at least 10% more damage than skills without a target cap.

Winter’s Revenge
While seemingly brought to the same standard as other AoE DoTs, this one is actually significantly weaker for a few reasons. Using Liquid Lightning and Blazing Spear as a comparison, we can see that WR is about 4% weaker than LL in raw damage, and LL itself is weaker than BS when considering the Burning Light procs. This wouldn’t be too far off, except for its additional inherent weaknesses. Both Lightning and Spear offer synergies for the group (very important in the Lokkestiiz stam mata), while Winter’s brings nothing of value to the group. WR is also frost damage, which is not as valuable as Fire or Shock from a damage standpoint (Burning and Concussion are more important than Chilled). WR does not offer any useful passives for slotting (Blazing Spear gives 10% crit damage and Liquid Lightning gives 2% Spell Damage), just a small amount of resistance that matters little on a damage build. WR also has a relatively small radius of 6m compared to Blazing Spear’s 8m (although it is larger than Liquid Lightning’s 4m). IMO Winter’s Revenge needs an increase to one or more of the following: size, damage, or group utility. One interesting way to do this would be to have it function like Engulfing Flames for 10% Frost Damage Vulnerability applied for 12s (or while in the AoE). This wouldn’t be a massive buff to its own damage, but it would make allies’ Force Pulse, Boneyard, and Glacial Colossus hit harder, making a Magden DPS less of a detriment to a group (and possibly even desirable in a group with multiple Mag Necromancers). This would also go a long way toward making Frost Mage DPS viable in PVE.

Twisting Path
Once a key part of the Magblade toolkit, it seems that this skill has become completely useless. It functions similarly to Elemental Blockade (which is now the inferior morph compared to Unstable Wall, but serves as a more similar comparison to Path). Path actually does about 5% more base damage than Blockade, but considering that it does not cause status effects, proc enchants or poisons, benefit from Destruction Staff passives, get buffed by things like Engulfing Flames (10% more Fire Damage) or Burning (20% more damage on Flame Blockade), Path actually ends up significantly weaker. It is also smaller, with a length of 15m vs Blockade’s 18m, and I believe it is narrower than Blockade. Path only offers defensive passives; 4% health and poor uptime on Major Ward and Resolve. It also gives Major Expedition to allies, which is often more of a nuisance than benefit when carefully positioning for some mechanics. I’m not sure the best approach to fixing Path, but it definitely needs some form of group utility. Another synergy feels too bland, but maybe a unique buff or debuff for allies or enemies standing in it. It could also use a flat damage increase of at least 30% to put it ahead of Blockade.

Feel free to add any additional skills below that did not make my list. Please supply numbers and justification to show why they are underperforming.

Saril_Durzam

Good, reasoned post.

Tommy_The_Gun

Werewolf Ulti (Especially Pack Leader morph).

MashmalloMan

Can agree with point 2 and 3, but point 1.. it's not a dot, therefore you can't compare total damage to a dot. It's a delayed burst ability and increasing the number of ticks lowers it's burst. I guarantee many pvp mag sorc's would be very upset to see the total damage only slightly increased to have less burst due to more ticks.

Lord-Otto

Hm. I don't think Haunting needs a buff. It's great in PvP and you have alternatives in PvE, namely Trap, Rune and Entropy. But Scamp looks good on any PvE sorc build, so Prey is still preferred.

usmguy1234

I would say no to buffing curse. It's already a stupid strong skill in pvp against classes that don't have a purge accessible. I've killed nightblades with my curse alone in pvp.

WrathOfInnos

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Can agree with point 2 and 3, but point 1.. it's not a dot, therefore you can't compare total damage to a dot. It's a delayed burst ability and increasing the number of ticks lowers it's burst. I guarantee many pvp mag sorc's would be very upset to see the total damage only slightly increased to have less burst due to more ticks.

Fair points, and technically it is not a DoT. However, if we are considering it a delayed damage skill, it should be compared to skills like Blast Bones or Deep Fissure (which deals 74% more damage per tick, covers a larger area, does not initiate combat when cast, has better passives for slotting, and applies Major Breach). I still think it functions more like a DoT, but that is primarily from a PVE perspective. If it became 4-6 ticks then yes the tick damage would need to be reduced. However, maybe an acceptable solution would be 3 ticks over 12s, each at the current damage value. This would make a full duration Haunting Curse deal 29% more total damage than Entropy (although without the Major Sorcery, healing/sustain, Thaumaturge gain, and Empower). The burst would be the same in PVP, and PVE players could choose between an 8-10s rotation that only allows 2/3 ticks to land (aka current power level) or go to a more complicated rotation and land all 3. Personally I would really like for it to work with Z’en’s too, since Sorcerers have no class skills to use with the set, and this has almost no impact on PVP.

Edit: Even if each tick was reduced in damage by about 10% this still could be an improvement. PVP burst would be slightly less, but with a 3rd tick at around 8s it would give more opportunities to set up a burst and be able to pull enemies from stealth sooner/more frequently.

Edit 2: I’d also be open to some other solutions. Like possibly keeping Haunting Curse 2 ticks at the current damage level, but changing them to tick at 3.5s and 8s (instead of 3.5s and 12s). It could also be given a larger splash radius, so the AoE aspect of this skill could be more impactful.

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Hm. I don't think Haunting needs a buff. It's great in PvP and you have alternatives in PvE, namely Trap, Rune and Entropy. But Scamp looks good on any PvE sorc build, so Prey is still preferred.

I mostly disagree with this statement. Scamp + Prey works great against a target dummy, but has some issues in trials. For one thing you won’t have the bar space to slot Flood/Liquid for the Conduits, and many pet Sorcs can’t even fit Frags (so no Minor Prophecy, unless provided by the Iron Atronach or another buff Sorc). IMO the loss of these 2 group buffs results in overall lower group performance than the individual DPS gained by doing so. Also the Scamp still has the problematic stun, which can inconveniently give enemies CC immunity and prevent them from being chained in by the tank.

WrathOfInnos

usmguy1234 wrote: »

I would say no to buffing curse. It's already a stupid strong skill in pvp against classes that don't have a purge accessible. I've killed nightblades with my curse alone in pvp.

Interesting, I’m definitely open to options on how to balance it for both. Maybe it could give Major Slayer to the caster for the 3.5s between casting and the first tick. This would have no impact on PvP at all, and would result in just under 3% DPS gain if using the skill every 12s in PVE. I could also be a fun incentive to use this more often in PVE, getting better buff uptimes by overcasting, and using it more like the old version (before they added the 2nd tick), similar in feel to Deep Fissure or Blast Bones, but only for PVE.

Maybe not the best example, since I don’t actually want Master Architect to be a dead set (if there’s any life left in it after Lokkestiiz), just one obvious buff that could be used to balance PVE and PvP separately.

Lord-Otto

The new Power Surge sorc healers can provide Prophecy and Lightning, Inno. They're super duper meta now!
>;3

OG_Kaveman

Maybe have the second hit of curse go off if you recast it early, like the AOE explosion at the end of unstable blockade.

WrathOfInnos

OG_Kaveman wrote: »

Maybe have the second hit of curse go off if you recast it early, like the AOE explosion at the end of unstable blockade.

That could be a cool mechanic in PVE to allow more flexible rotations. Would need to only be the 2nd hit though, otherwise it would just be spammed.

Not sure how this would work in PVP though, if you place a Curse on an enemy, then they stealth, do you have a detonator for the 2nd Curse hit on demand? Or do you need to find another target to cast the Curse again, causing the 2nd tick of the first Curse to reveal the initial target? Sounds slightly complicated and possibly overpowered if it removes the chance to purge.

Bashev

The aoe dots could be buffed a little but the curse should not be buffed. That is delayed burst skill and it will be too strong in PvP. Converting the skill to DoT will be a big nerf for the pvp Sorcs.

Finedaible

They should have never nerfed Twisting path.

SidraWillowsky

I don't know the sorc class well enough to speak to that point, but I agree with 2 and 3. Has anyone ever complained that WR and TP were OP? I didn't see that happening and I don't think they were unbalanced, so it seems ridiculous to take nerf two strong-but-not-too-strong abilities.

Winter's Revenge is one of my favorite magden skills because it's so fun to run around throwing ice down. It's still viable but I can definitely feel a difference. Twisting Path got hit even harder- it's straight-up useless now.

Iskiab

Another ability that needs looking at is funnel health.

Damage is so low it’s comparable to a light attack, so the healing is so low it’s ineffective. It’s less than half the damage of other spammables and less than half the healing of other heals.

akray21

Curse shows up on my kill feed quite often... just staying.

WrathOfInnos

Iskiab wrote: »

Another ability that needs looking at is funnel health.

Damage is so low it’s comparable to a light attack, so the healing is so low it’s ineffective. It’s less than half the damage of other spammables and less than half the healing of other heals.

I fully agree with this. Funnel has been useless since the damage was cut in half. IMO this skill could be balanced to the same base damage as Crushing Shock (without the interrupt, or counting as 3 direct damage hits, or using elemental damage types for status effects). This would be about a 93% increase in it’s current damage.

Even if it went all the way up to Elemental Weapon damage value (100% increase), it still wouldn’t give a Spell Orb for extra damage every 5 casts, cause status effects, or provide the Psijic Shield while blocking. The minor off-healing and siphoning passives are no better than Psijic or Destro passives, and Magblades have been dead long enough.

master_vanargand

Caltrops is too weak.
I am sad that this is not used in PvE.

Joxer61

some well thought out points.

NyassaV

I still think healing ward could use a slight buff

idk

Zos recently gave us an update in response to question after this last patch. They state that class identity will be looked at after this "audit' pass is complete. That makes sense because they are going for standardization now. It is one of the few areas of reason I agree with.

Their response is pinned in the Combat & Characters section of the forums.

But good right up.

Hapexamendios

master_vanargand wrote: »

Caltrops is too weak.
I am sad that this is not used in PvE.

As is it’s pretty much useless in PVE for me. Halving the damage of the initial hit and applying minor breach/fracture with Razor would have been a better compromise imo.

WrathOfInnos

Hapexamendios wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

Caltrops is too weak.
I am sad that this is not used in PvE.

As is it’s pretty much useless in PVE for me. Halving the damage of the initial hit and applying minor breach/fracture with Razor would have been a better compromise imo.

You’re right, Caltrops does seem particularly weak now. Even compared to the new AoE DoT standard, Caltrops deals about half the DPS of similar skills. I could see the Major Fracture morph being maybe 10-20% weaker than the AoE standard for its utility, but both morphs being 50% weaker than the new standard does not make sense to me.

Heatnix90

Haunting Curse should just be reverted back to its original Velocious Curse form. Give the base morph the pet damage bonus (in a reduced form) so it applies to all morphs, and rework Daedric Prey to a stamina morph with additional bonuses.

ccfeeling

Agree .

The first skill I dropped with this patch is Twisting Path .

This skill revamped so many times , buff , nerf over and over . Right now , it's too weak , not worth a slot .

I could replaced it by Degen or Soul Trap , ZOS must happy that they destroyed the class concept slowly .

zvavi

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Can agree with point 2 and 3, but point 1.. it's not a dot, therefore you can't compare total damage to a dot. It's a delayed burst ability and increasing the number of ticks lowers it's burst. I guarantee many pvp mag sorc's would be very upset to see the total damage only slightly increased to have less burst due to more ticks.

I have said it once and i will say it again. Ffs balance pve and pvp separately.

Gaggin

These skills aren't suffering so much as this patch's combat changes make them not worth slotting a lot of the time. Curse is alright, though compared to any dot it doesn't look as good, aoe dots are just trash right now, very short-sighted on zos's part.

MartiniDaniels

Gaggin wrote: »

These skills aren't suffering so much as this patch's combat changes make them not worth slotting a lot of the time. Curse is alright, though compared to any dot it doesn't look as good, aoe dots are just trash right now, very short-sighted on zos's part.

Lightning flood, winter's revenge and twisting path are completely pointless now, when you need more aoe you can just spam blockade explosions. All 3 skills need some clever ideas attached to them to make them viable.

WrathOfInnos

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Gaggin wrote: »

These skills aren't suffering so much as this patch's combat changes make them not worth slotting a lot of the time. Curse is alright, though compared to any dot it doesn't look as good, aoe dots are just trash right now, very short-sighted on zos's part.

Lightning flood, winter's revenge and twisting path are completely pointless now, when you need more aoe you can just spam blockade explosions. All 3 skills need some clever ideas attached to them to make them viable.

I disagree that Lightning Flood falls into the same category as the other 2. I wouldn’t be opposed to a buff, but in its current form Flood provides a synergy to the group every 8s, and if you add the DoT damage and synergy damage it deals about 30% more damage than Winter’s Revenge per cast (or close to double the DPS). It also helps with Lokke and Alkosh uptime, gives the synergizer back resources, and slightly increases in Minor Vulnerability and Off-Balance uptime from the Concussion procs. The user doesn’t see all the benefits directly, but it still has a place in any group content. WR and Twisting Path are simply useless regardless of group.

Starlock

While I'm still not positive this is really what happened last patch, I'm going to add this:

Destructive Clench: Lightning Staff Only
This morph is supposed to provide utility instead of damage over time, except it doesn't on a lightning staff. Why? Because they removed the stun. Now all it does is an AoE around target, which can also be gotten by the Impulse morph Elemental Ring, which is significantly better than Destructive Clench on both the damage, range, and flexibility. The only thing Destructive Clench has going for it is easier aiming (at least on console) as placed AoE effects can be a bit difficult to target sometimes. But other than that, Destructive Clench needs it's stun back for the lightning staff in order to be remotely useful and not an inferior version of Elemental Ring.

JasonC96

Class abilities are slowly being pushed behind with the skill lines being released but while I agree with your 2nd point ALOT.

I've always loved Magicka Warden personally but they have always somewhat suffered when it comes to PvE, Although in PvP they become a powerhouse in the right hands, This is and always will be an ongoing issue that ZoS need to fix, There are players from both PvE and PvP standpoints and can make their own arguments for either point in either environment whether it be positive or negative, Like your 1st point suggesting a buff to haunting curse, Curse is already a ridiculously powerful ability in a PvP environment, Prevents cloaking, Pressures line of sighters, Very powerful burst when timed and combined with other skills, Only a select few classes have the ability to purge not including purge from alliance because stamina classes simply can't afford to use a 7,000 magicka skill effectively and keep themselves buffed all at the same time, You also cannot dodge it, Although in PvE, Haunting Curses damage is sub par, there is a target cap limited to one, also the target will most likely be dead by the time you get the potential of your damage off on them from a main ability its just very unappreciated in PvE, Though a Curse which slowly inflicts some sort of shadow damage and increases damage taken by shadow damage while active(no benefit currently in-game but could do the same job engulfing flames does on DKs for everyone else using fire staffs) does damage every second or every few seconds would be amazing if scaled properly to fit they also could keep a curse that does slight damage every few seconds alongside a valuable 2 second silence morph for use in PvP which the game lacks.

I just feel like ZoS needs to fix issues with PvE and PvP servers having their own skill morphs and scalings for either environment obviously being able to keep your characters at the same time just having their own bars and inventory on either I think would be very beneficial to the community and keep players from either environment satisfied while doing so.