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.
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.
WrathOfInnos wrote: »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.
You have a point. It seems like Clench is now intended to be the PVP morph, which has a range restriction and provides CC. Reach is now the PVE DoT morph. IMO Shock Clench should get its stun back, and Shock Reach should get the splash damage (maybe make the splash a base effect on Destructive Touch). In its current form Flame is always better than Shock for this skill, while it should be balanced with Flame giving more single target damage and Shock giving more AoE damage.
WrathOfInnos wrote: »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.
as soon as i see hauntig curse in op post:
this guy's joke isn't funny
WrathOfInnos wrote: »Well 2/3 of these just had their damage reduced on PTS. Winter’s Revenge and Twisting Path both deal 33% less damage than on live. Two useless skills, now made so much worse. I’m really starting to lose faith in the direction of this game...
OG_Kaveman wrote: »WrathOfInnos wrote: »Well 2/3 of these just had their damage reduced on PTS. Winter’s Revenge and Twisting Path both deal 33% less damage than on live. Two useless skills, now made so much worse. I’m really starting to lose faith in the direction of this game...
are they useless though? the relative damage is going to be around the same as a single target dot now. so really the only difference between single and aoe dots is going to be cost.