PTS Update 27 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

IARTOI

For necromancer grave grasp is still useless. Firing time of skill is so slow and not fitting with any kind of playstyle. Why dont you make it usefull single target CC ability like this.



I'm telling this since Necromancer released. Please do it.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Brun1234

Agree with earlier comments that the new Crystal Weapon is a bit too much like Crushing Weapon. While its effects and cost are undoubtedly better than Crushing's, it has all of the same problems (clunky animation and weaving) that Crushing does and will probably see little use in PvE as a result.

Rapid Strikes/Wrecking Blow will likely outclass it simply due to the better passives in the DW/2H skill lines. Others have pointed out that Wrecking and especially Rapid will be superior due to higher poison/bleed/enchant proc chances, even if their damage was identical to Crystal Weapon (more total hits will increase the proc chance, as far as I know ESO does not normalize hit-based procs with attack speed or abilities per minute, so this is an issue). With the changes to Alkosh and other mechanics, Penetration will likely be easier to come by so the armor debuff isn't hugely compelling.

If ZOS wants Stamsorcs to actually use this new spammable, it needs to bring something to the table that makes it edge out the weapon skill spammables. The proper way to do that would be some passive skill adjustments in the Dark Magic line, but that's probably more work than ZOS is willing to bite off in a PTS incremental. So realistically it just needs to be buffed to do damage comparable to Rapid/Wrecking. This can be done in fun/interesting ways as some have suggested (making some kind of proc like Crystal Frags).

Side note: I actually like abilities that buff your next LA/HA, they fit well into the weaving playstyle of this game's combat. I think the trick is just to come up with something that doesn't feel awkward to use.

VaxtinTheWolf

After browsing a little bit about Crystal Fragments, I like a combination idea of letting the Magicka morph's proc have increased damage and also splash to two nearby targets similar to what the 'Blast' morph did as an additional for a pseudo AOE when procced.

YandereGirlfriend

You analysis is spot-on, @Brun1234 .

It is the deficiencies in passives between the Weapon Skills and the Dark Magic line (as well as Poison and Bleed proc chances) that really hinder the adoption of Crystal Weapon as a spammable.

My suggestion would be to have the Blood Magic passive both heal and do damage (at least equal to the amount healed but it could also be as a percentage of the overall damage dealt).

At that point, we would have some extra damage (and the heal), slightly better sustain, and 2% max Weapon/Spell damage from slotting and using the skill. Not sure if that would make it more attractive than the Weapon Skills, especially with Poisons and Bleeds still considered, but it would at least be a more reasonable conversation.

Dracane

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

You analysis is spot-on, @Brun1234 .

It is the deficiencies in passives between the Weapon Skills and the Dark Magic line (as well as Poison and Bleed proc chances) that really hinder the adoption of Crystal Weapon as a spammable.

My suggestion would be to have the Blood Magic passive both heal and do damage (at least equal to the amount healed but it could also be as a percentage of the overall damage dealt).

At that point, we would have some extra damage (and the heal), slightly better sustain, and 2% max Weapon/Spell damage from slotting and using the skill. Not sure if that would make it more attractive than the Weapon Skills, especially with Poisons and Bleeds still considered, but it would at least be a more reasonable conversation.

It would be an awesome change. This would also help Sorcerer dps by giving daedric tomb a bit of extra damage.

devildog13_93

The change on the mitigation stacks makes a huge hit to the Nightblade tank, there needs to be something in place of it, as its become the bread and butter for nightblade to tank next to dks. With nothing else in place the diversity of tanking with a nightblade will drop

Beffagorn

Stamdk receives no changes yet again, even though it's at the bottom of the barrel for everything outside of pve tanking.

I guess that at the very least, the vast amount of great stam sets in pvp hard carry the class and actually makes it decent in 1v1 fights against classes without hard counters to dots...Which reduces the number to 2 out of 6. Sorcs and other Dks.

And now with the ridicolous new amount of overpowered dot proc sets that proc just by the fact that you exist, (that get augmented by Malacath's) means the pvp meta for classes without cleanses will shift, just like the last dot meta, to having Curse Eater or Wyrd Tree's Blessing to be able to survive more than 8seconds and making cleanse abilities even more important which in turn means the main source of damage for DKs is getting a huge indirect nerf.

I think it's time to finally address the situation that a class that relies entirely on dots for their damage is playing in a game where 4 of the 6 classes have hard counters to dots and that will soon have to also deal with people running cleanse sets due to the incoming dot meta.

Address the abomination that is Stonefist (Possibly by deleting it entirely and adding an actually strong and good looking ability that fits the theme) and, at the very least, make Hardened Armor a stamina morph with new components. The ability is useless due to Equilibrium being too good to pass on for pve tanking and also giving Major Resolve while Igneous Shield/Bone Shield are much superior for shielding. The ability in pvp doesn't even have a functionality due to Battle Spirit halving the shields resulting in a 1/1.5k shield at most.

Next update i guess. Kappa

maddiniiLuna

[Warden - Stamina]

Still have no real execute or spammable. Yeah cutting dive it's just.. Okay it CAN do a lot of damage, when you get the 7 stacks up it's pretty good. The only problem is, that it's only a ranged ability and it does not have animation cancel and it takes for ever for the animation to complete. If i have to stand there spam 7x cutting dive i might as well not use it at all. It does bleed damage - cool! Except for every player in this game has CP's invested in all 3 perks that mitigate bleed damage. Doesn't make a difference.

Remove the cast time, make it instant bleed damage but don't stack it. That's the changes i want to see.

It took a year to fix the stamina Swarm and at this point every class has a good spammable except for warden But nobody reads this anyway. Was quite disappointed when i saw that warden got almost no changes except a little bug fix and a nerf.

Baharoth77

I think the new Stam fragments morph is awesome. A lot of people are forgetting about the heal from the Dark magic passive you will get in the power budget. Stam sorc is not about burst in the way stamcrow, Stamblade, and Stamden are. They are about being fast, durable, and having lots of passive self healing. This solidifies that identity in my opinion. Good change.

This ability can be used with ranged or melee also. Also a huge benifit.

WrathOfInnos

I just got through testing the updated Crystal Fragments. It's a very interesting skill, and the direction it's being taken is a good one IMO. The hard cast is now quicker than before, and it can be cast back-to-back every 1.1s, not quite the 1s GCD of instant skills (including its own proc), but an improvement. This greatly changes the dynamic of the mag sorc rotation, since you no longer need to slot a non-class spammable like Elemental Weapon or Force Pulse, its just slow frags as a spammable with instant frags occasionally, which frees up a bar slot (big relief for pet sorcs).

However, there is a problem with the current system, it is very clunky. The timing works out very awkward with other skills. If you get all hard casts of frags then it's 8 casts between refreshing Unstable Wall, but if you get a few instant casts then it's 9 between Walls. With Daedric Prey (typically Prey > 5 skills > Prey) even 4 hard casts isn't enough to fill the gap and you end up clipping the last one and dealing no curse damage, but 5 hard casts ends up resulting in 6.5s between prey casts and causing downtime on the debuff (92% max instead of 100% uptime). No rotations based on whole numbers of skill casts can be made from this, and even if one were designed to utilize the 1.1s spammable timing it would still fail because you cannot predict how many instant casts you will get or when.

Because it has a cast time, even a short one, things like synergies, potions (despite making the sound) and bar swaps will fail. The animation is longer than the cast time (similar to templar jabs/sweeps), so you end up having to guess when to start the next light attack and cast mid-animation. And the timing between instant casts and hard casts is very different, so swapping between those seamlessly when you're literally pressing the same skill button is going to be very difficult, especially for new players. This skill makes the sorc rotation more dynamic than any other, it has no repeatable rhythm or count, and raising the skill ceiling for the class through the roof.

I really like the goal of this change, simplifying a spammable and a semi-spammable into a single skill, but I think it's time for Crystal Frags to lose the cast time. Reduce it's hard cast damage further (to make up for the increased frequency once it is on a 1s GCD instead of the 1.1s currently on PTS). This will make it a true spammable, remove all of the issues and clunkiness listed above, and make it feel much better if both procs and hard casts have the same timing. The proc will still be valuable for the decreased cost and vastly increased damage.

6.1.0 took this change 2/3 of the way to greatness. It took a 1.3s interval and reduced it to 1.1s, while also reducing the damage an appropriate 21%. Now please, just take that final step, drop it down to the instant cast on the 1s interval GCD, and take another 10% damage off. Thanks!

Edit: Just wanted to add that the new replacement for Crystal Blast, Crystal Weapon, feels great. Instant cast, easy to weave, good spammable, with a group support debuff and some sustain built-in. 10/10 on this revamp, and I might just switch to stam sorc this patch

Edit 2: Not sure if it's known that a Frag instant proc cannot generate another Frag instant proc. The patch notes implied it could, but there is not currently any way to get consecutive procs. The hard casts can generate an instant proc, but this is not a change in 6.1.0, it has always been the case, so no reason to include that behavior in the patch notes.

Edit 3: Just thought of a good comparison. The mag sorc rotation with crystal frags as a spammable feels like playing a song that switches between 120 BPM and 110 BPM, half the notes fall into each tempo, and there is no pattern, they randomly choose which rhythm to follow and notify you 1s before you have to execute the perfect timing. Please make the hard cast instant, lower damage is acceptable.

Narvuntien

mav1234 wrote: »

STAMINA SORCERER

The new stamina morph Crystal Weapon feels far too similar to the Psjiic line spammable. Please consider revising its functionality, as although it is better than the psijiic skill, it feels simply like an upgraded version of it. It does open up a ton of burst options in PvP, but I would prefer that the class receive such burst options in other ways than their spammable

I agree I think that it should be a % chance to proc off light and (and always proc off heavy) then produce a nice burst hit.

This will mirror the crystal frags mini-game that mag sorcs play waiting for it to proc. Also Stam sorcs seem that light and heavy attacking is important for their identity. Yeah, I know its boring but being boring can be an identity, some people like simple.

Skjaldbjorn

Stamina Warden

I would like to formally suggest/request converting Gripping Shards to a DPS skill. It can retain its root utility for tanks at no harm. Simply make it the next in line (Shades, Ritual, Flames of Oblivion) to scale off highest offensive stat. It's an easy, clean, harmless change that buffs Stamina Wardens in PVE pretty much exclusively without breaking them in PVP. It synergizes with the passive change a patch or two ago, as well as giving Stamden a cool thematic "ice arena" to fight in. It's no cost, no animation alteration, no targeting changes. It's PB AOE which is fine for Stam. Simply alter the damage calculation code and the change is complete.

Wolf81

Can you take look at your math on the Sorcerer Change for Pets being converted from pure magicka to hybrid spellpower/magicka?
One would think you could swap from a 50+K magicka build to more of a standard of 30K magicka build + SP and your pets would balance out in damage to a fair point. But....all the gear swapping around pets are still coming out as a net nerf. Is it the patch changes intention for a net sorc pet nerf?

Qbiken

Templar
Reconsider changing the required hits to proc burning light with aedric spear abilities to 3 instead of the suggested 4. From a PvP perspective, with latency taken into consideration, you'll rarely ever going to land all 4 reliably.

Power of the light and purifying light also feels very underwhelming. While I understand that there was a bug fix with the skill(s), the damage copied is laughable burst compared to many other delayed burst abilities (shalks, blasbones, curse to name a few).

Jabs also feels kinda clunky to use, but can't really say if it's due to latency since I play from EU on the PTS.

Templar overall just doesn't excel and much really at this point outside of being viable in a group setting as a healer. And even in that scenario, there are better/stronger options. Honour the dead/breath isn't efficient enough to act as a self heal to promote the "stand your ground/fight in my house" playstyle that templar apparently should be all about. And stamplar doesn't have it better either.
While it's offensive capacites as of live is strong, it's ability to recover/reset a fight is very limited. On PTS the offensive tools have been reduced severely, while it's defensive capabilities still remains avarage at best. Outside of a group setting (duels/1v1 set aside) I fail to see what place templar has in PvP next patch unless you decide to go full healbot mode, which might be quite futile due to all the buffs to numerous proc sets.

BohnT2

Grave Grasp
The complaints about the skill back when it was launched were a combination of multiple things starting from the overall lack of power on the skill:
All you get is a snare or depending on the morph a root in each circle along with applying minor maim.
You could also choose to give empower to 2 of your available pets however only for one tick and it's impossible to reliably hit your pet and an enemy.
Along with all this the skill is also really expensive.

And you don't get anything else, no damage, no buffs, nothing, compared to other skills with equal effects like encase, talons or bombard this skill simply can't compete at all.

Encase gives up to 8 seconds of the strongest healing buff in the game and reduces its cost if you don't hit enough people.

Talons will root a lot more players while dealing regular AoE damage and either apply minor maim too or add more damage with a dot.

Bombard covers a big Area, deals the AoE damage standard and roots players.

It's clear at this point that there is no reason for grave grasp to be used.
Now the skill was changed to have 3 different effects for each circle.

However this doesn't help at all with any of the issues mentioned above, in fact it makes some things even worse.

The newly added stun is incredibly unreliable and can't be controlled at all in pvp, you have a huge gap between you and the circle that stuns.
Meaning enemies that are right on you are immune to being stunned.
The two new morph effects don't help at all either, changing the empower to last 5 seconds still leaves you with the issue that either you target your pets or you use it on an enemy so no matter what you lose out on half of the effect of the skill.

The other morph adds additional duration however in PvP no one will sit in the root or the stun till the duration ends making this morph not worth the skill point spent.

After all this ranting here's my proposal on how to make the skill better and actually useful.

The main point is splitting up the morphs in two different archetypes:
One morphs is single targeted with skeleton arms crawling to the enemy and pulling them off their feet (ignores block but not dodge)
Also deals 1/2 of the single target spammable standard as damage and applies minor maim

The other morph retains the mechanic of three circles.
The first enemy you hit gets stunned, the next gets rooted and everyone else gets snared.
The circles also consume bodies and deal damage equal to streak when they do so.


This makes the skill strong enough to compete with other equivalent skills while also helping necromancer to strengthen its body mechanics and gives Necromancers the option to either go for more damage and more utility vs multiple players at the cost of absolute control about the stun while still having some vs being able to control the stun and gaining more damage vs a single opponent.

LukosCreyden

I did not see anything in the patch notes about Stalking Blastbones.
I cannot play on the PTS, but it seems that Stalking Blastbones is still in need of a functioning secondary ability.

VaxtinTheWolf

I forgot about the necromancer's ability adjustment. If nothing else, I'd agree that the skill should provide the stronger effects, like the stun the closer the target is to you, and lose strength as it is further from you, like the simple snare on the third trap.

Lughlongarm

The bow change on NB looks great when you think about MagNB. The extra damage potential+the extra healing potential is exactly what MagNB been asking for. However, is it a good idea to make this change for StamNB as well? We already know this will scale much better on a stamNB that already have a very scary burst. With the well deserved nerf to the impren trait, I really don't think this is a good idea.

I think the stam version of the morph should keep the mitigation while the magicka version will get the crit damage bonus.

VaxtinTheWolf

Lughlongarm wrote: »

-Nightblade stuff-

I think the stam version of the morph should keep the mitigation while the magicka version will get the crit damage bonus.

I don't think it can work like that. My NB tank for instances focuses on Magicka, so to get the mitigation I'd have to use already low stamina resource in that situation. I would probably remove the skill anyway after losing the mitigation for something else like another heal or something, but still.

My Stamina NB, I would personally prefer the change to switch mitigation for more healing/damage in combat. I'm not great in a PVP environment but only having Vigor when not religiously clinging to Rally really sucks. So any little bit of sustain is appreciated there.

Just Speaking theoreticals' though.

Nirntrotter

Instead of gimping Blood for Blood for actual vamp players, please address the terrible sustain of certain classes so they don't get pressured into using it for this purpose only. Wasn't one of the facets of the vamp rework to make it less mandatory because of... you know... sustain?

Synssaturdayy9

i think that the burning light changes are a harsh nerf to templars and the burst potential is to low it would be better if you guys buffed it or at least not nerf it because on the pts templars haven't got a burst potential high enough rn to beat stamblades or any other class
and if anything i say buff templar (my opinion) because it may be good in pve but it's lacking a huge amount of damage compared to any other class in pvp rn because of the changes and last patch was already having a hard time going up against nightblades
and necromancers stamina templars are also very squishy as well rn without defensive sets they have a low chance of surviving in pvp

Stx

Crystal Weapon is a copy of crushing weapon, a skill literally no one uses because it cannot be weaved properly and feels clunky.

Why not make crystal weapon similar to the base spell by adding a cast time, and upping the damage? Make it similar to wrecking blow but have all your physical abilities give a chance to make it instant like the magicka version has? Now that would be fun.

Princess_Ciri

My two pieces of feedback are re: Blood for blood (vamp spammable ability) and the mythic gloves the thrassian stranglers.



Blood for blood

I have tested on my magicka templar on the pts, overall not really in favour of the changes to blood for blood.

Nobody is going to use this ability anymore the way it is. Either decrease the damage but make it possible to be healed, or increase the health cost to make it riskier.
Making it impossible to be healed for 5 seconds is turning a perfectly viable spammable ability (which made magplar, magdk, magden viable this patch in end game pve) into an ability that is useless.

My sustain now on PTS is all over the place. I don't mind a dps decrease but not being able to do a full dummy parse even using recovery food AND the templar sustain ability rune focus without running out of magicka is pretty bad. It isn't fun.

Thrassians
I also think the changes to thrassians is pretty meh. I like the addition of weapon damage and the decrease of the amount you get (this makes them less crazy strong) BUT because the stacks drop off after 30 seconds, they become useless in trials. There's no risk in dungeons in using them (which is where the 30 second drop off would be less of a problem) because dungeons are safe and easy, and you don't have any kind of punishment for dying (besides losing stacks and having to do the boss again). In trials, the gloves meant that end game guilds could push themselves to be riskier and get more dps as a result. As it is now, I can't see anyone using them in trials because the stacks dropping off makes them worse than a normal set piece.

Aren't mythic items supposed to be really good? The thrassians got nerfed so hard they're now bad. I do wish I could have the 4 days I spent farming them back, if I had known they would be nerfed so quickly I wouldn't have bothered .

ESO_Nightingale

Internet_Mask wrote: »

Some feedback about Crystal Weapon:

The name does not at all sound like a stamina sorcerer ability calling it something like Storm's Bite or Storm Strike sounds much more thematically fitting for a stamina sorcerer.

The ability itself is not at all interesting it is literally a copy-paste of Imbue Weapon with some tweaks. Please make it an actual direct damage spammable ability so stamina sorcerers can become a bit less reliant on weapon skills. Following that train of thought it would also be great for stamina sorcerers if one of Bolt Escape's morphs could be turned into a stamina based charge ability.

I see why they did it, doesn't necessarily mean i agree though. as stamsorc is based around weapons and being an arcane warrior, mixed with it's light attacks being used for bound armaments, it makes sense to me, why they did it from a thematical point of view. it looks cool, but they should have learned from crushing, that it's extremely clunky to use with melee weapons, and not ranged weapons, it's the whole reason mag can even use it in the first place, because you can pre-load a light attack onto it.

Thraben

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for any combat or class change. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes.

StamSorc:

I've been testing the new Chrystal Weapons skill for a few hours, and here is my feedback:

1) I like the basic concept, but its visuals are FAR too obviously copied from Crushing Weapon. I want something less mundane and more arcane!

2) Its secondary effects should be worked on.

2a) Firstly, the 10% cost reduction is well meant, but StamSorcs don't need that. I'd rather have a 10% chance to spawn a Dremora Lord for 10 seconds on hit . Or a second Deadroth; mine is lonely sometimes.

2b) Concerning the armor reduction: I don't think it is really needed to create a new debuff. Something that has a synergy with Bound Armaments would be great, like: "If an enemy is cursed by this effect, the next attack with Bound Armaments will critically hit."

3)Like its parent skill Inbue Weapons, it doesn't seem to fire off when using an animation cancelled medium/ heavy attack in melee (So it can't be used to make the inofficial StamSorc spammable, Heavy Attack + CritRush, more bursty). This is a shame, since you fill your bar space with at least 4 buff skills, and it's totally useless when you are not in Overload mode. Having a completely useless bar just for some cheap ganks isn't very appealing.

price101610

Buff Vicious Ophidian, don’t nerf false god

Skjaldbjorn

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Internet_Mask wrote: »

Some feedback about Crystal Weapon:

The name does not at all sound like a stamina sorcerer ability calling it something like Storm's Bite or Storm Strike sounds much more thematically fitting for a stamina sorcerer.

The ability itself is not at all interesting it is literally a copy-paste of Imbue Weapon with some tweaks. Please make it an actual direct damage spammable ability so stamina sorcerers can become a bit less reliant on weapon skills. Following that train of thought it would also be great for stamina sorcerers if one of Bolt Escape's morphs could be turned into a stamina based charge ability.

I see why they did it, doesn't necessarily mean i agree though. as stamsorc is based around weapons and being an arcane warrior, mixed with it's light attacks being used for bound armaments, it makes sense to me, why they did it from a thematical point of view. it looks cool, but they should have learned from crushing, that it's extremely clunky to use with melee weapons, and not ranged weapons, it's the whole reason mag can even use it in the first place, because you can pre-load a light attack onto it.

Having tested it for quite a bit of time myself, in melee it actually weaves incredibly cleanly. Much cleaner than Crushing Weapon ever did. I'd guess they cleaned up the animation timing and lockout from LAs or other effects. I had absolutely zero issues weaving it, but always hated weaving Crushing. I haven't played Stam Sorc in a while, and it instantly felt better than weapon spammables on them. I honestly give this change a 9/10.

Brun1234

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Internet_Mask wrote: »

Some feedback about Crystal Weapon:

The name does not at all sound like a stamina sorcerer ability calling it something like Storm's Bite or Storm Strike sounds much more thematically fitting for a stamina sorcerer.

The ability itself is not at all interesting it is literally a copy-paste of Imbue Weapon with some tweaks. Please make it an actual direct damage spammable ability so stamina sorcerers can become a bit less reliant on weapon skills. Following that train of thought it would also be great for stamina sorcerers if one of Bolt Escape's morphs could be turned into a stamina based charge ability.

I see why they did it, doesn't necessarily mean i agree though. as stamsorc is based around weapons and being an arcane warrior, mixed with it's light attacks being used for bound armaments, it makes sense to me, why they did it from a thematical point of view. it looks cool, but they should have learned from crushing, that it's extremely clunky to use with melee weapons, and not ranged weapons, it's the whole reason mag can even use it in the first place, because you can pre-load a light attack onto it.

Having tested it for quite a bit of time myself, in melee it actually weaves incredibly cleanly. Much cleaner than Crushing Weapon ever did. I'd guess they cleaned up the animation timing and lockout from LAs or other effects. I had absolutely zero issues weaving it, but always hated weaving Crushing. I haven't played Stam Sorc in a while, and it instantly felt better than weapon spammables on them. I honestly give this change a 9/10.

Even if it weaves clean if it doesn't account for more damage than Rapid Strikes/Wrecking Blow it won't get used. They need to re-evaluate the bonus effects or the Dark Magic passives.

Some of the suggestions here (making it a cast-time melee ability like Wrecking with a chance on LA/HA to proc an instant cast, to mirror Crystal Frags) are good, but I don't know if ZOS wants to completely redesign the ability at this point.

Celestro

Brun1234 wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Internet_Mask wrote: »

Some feedback about Crystal Weapon:

The name does not at all sound like a stamina sorcerer ability calling it something like Storm's Bite or Storm Strike sounds much more thematically fitting for a stamina sorcerer.

The ability itself is not at all interesting it is literally a copy-paste of Imbue Weapon with some tweaks. Please make it an actual direct damage spammable ability so stamina sorcerers can become a bit less reliant on weapon skills. Following that train of thought it would also be great for stamina sorcerers if one of Bolt Escape's morphs could be turned into a stamina based charge ability.

I see why they did it, doesn't necessarily mean i agree though. as stamsorc is based around weapons and being an arcane warrior, mixed with it's light attacks being used for bound armaments, it makes sense to me, why they did it from a thematical point of view. it looks cool, but they should have learned from crushing, that it's extremely clunky to use with melee weapons, and not ranged weapons, it's the whole reason mag can even use it in the first place, because you can pre-load a light attack onto it.

Having tested it for quite a bit of time myself, in melee it actually weaves incredibly cleanly. Much cleaner than Crushing Weapon ever did. I'd guess they cleaned up the animation timing and lockout from LAs or other effects. I had absolutely zero issues weaving it, but always hated weaving Crushing. I haven't played Stam Sorc in a while, and it instantly felt better than weapon spammables on them. I honestly give this change a 9/10.

Even if it weaves clean if it doesn't account for more damage than Rapid Strikes/Wrecking Blow it won't get used. They need to re-evaluate the bonus effects or the Dark Magic passives.

Some of the suggestions here (making it a cast-time melee ability like Wrecking with a change on LA/HA to proc an instant cast, to mirror Crystal Frags) are good, but I don't know if ZOS wants to completely redesign the ability at this point.

I mean, they've done that with DK's Stonefist a few times already. Would only be fair if they did so but maybe it won't all happen in this same patch.

I'm still in favor of directly adding the additional damage to Light and Heavy attacks instead, so it synergizes better with stamsorc's Bound Armaments light attack but a cast time "Wrecking Blow" is pretty okay with me as long as the secondary effect is still useful for both solo and group compositions.

Brun1234

Celestro wrote: »

Brun1234 wrote: »

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Internet_Mask wrote: »

Some feedback about Crystal Weapon:

The name does not at all sound like a stamina sorcerer ability calling it something like Storm's Bite or Storm Strike sounds much more thematically fitting for a stamina sorcerer.

The ability itself is not at all interesting it is literally a copy-paste of Imbue Weapon with some tweaks. Please make it an actual direct damage spammable ability so stamina sorcerers can become a bit less reliant on weapon skills. Following that train of thought it would also be great for stamina sorcerers if one of Bolt Escape's morphs could be turned into a stamina based charge ability.

I see why they did it, doesn't necessarily mean i agree though. as stamsorc is based around weapons and being an arcane warrior, mixed with it's light attacks being used for bound armaments, it makes sense to me, why they did it from a thematical point of view. it looks cool, but they should have learned from crushing, that it's extremely clunky to use with melee weapons, and not ranged weapons, it's the whole reason mag can even use it in the first place, because you can pre-load a light attack onto it.

Having tested it for quite a bit of time myself, in melee it actually weaves incredibly cleanly. Much cleaner than Crushing Weapon ever did. I'd guess they cleaned up the animation timing and lockout from LAs or other effects. I had absolutely zero issues weaving it, but always hated weaving Crushing. I haven't played Stam Sorc in a while, and it instantly felt better than weapon spammables on them. I honestly give this change a 9/10.

Even if it weaves clean if it doesn't account for more damage than Rapid Strikes/Wrecking Blow it won't get used. They need to re-evaluate the bonus effects or the Dark Magic passives.

Some of the suggestions here (making it a cast-time melee ability like Wrecking with a change on LA/HA to proc an instant cast, to mirror Crystal Frags) are good, but I don't know if ZOS wants to completely redesign the ability at this point.

I mean, they've done that with DK's Stonefist a few times already. Would only be fair if they did so but maybe it won't all happen in this same patch.

I'm still in favor of directly adding the additional damage to Light and Heavy attacks instead, so it synergizes better with stamsorc's Bound Armaments light attack but a cast time "Wrecking Blow" is pretty okay with me as long as the secondary effect is still useful for both solo and group compositions.

When using Wrecking you still weave LA between casts, so having something like that wouldn't necessarily make an antisynergy with Bound Armaments.

But I get what you're saying and I do like the "buff next weapon attack" abilities. Maybe something like this:

Crystal Weapon:
Empower your weapon with dark crystals, causing your next Light Attack or Heavy Attack to deal XXXX additional damage and apply Dark Resonance to the target. Dark Resonance gives your next light or heavy attack a Y% chance to strike twice.

By "strike twice" I mean just duplicate its damage, but from a mechanical standpoint it would count as two separate hits (the extra LA/HA would not trigger an animation, so it would be "free"). This would provide some nice extra damage as well as alleviating some of the issues I described in my earlier post regarding on-hit procs, enchants, and poisons. It would also synergize really well with Bound Armaments as you would get an extra stack when Dark Resonance procs.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, it wouldn't necessarily need to be a debuff. Just bake the extra hit chance into the ability itself:

Crystal Weapon:
Empower your weapon with dark crystals, causing your next Light Attack or Heavy Attack to deal XXX additional damage. Striking an enemy with this ability has a Y% chance to trigger an extra Light or Heavy Attack.

I think they'd need to bring down the extra damage granted considerably to balance out the extra attacks, but it's a lot more interesting than a clone of Crushing Weapon.