Crystal Shard replaced by Crystal Weapon — please roll back!

Necoriban

mandywesterhoutb16_ESO wrote: »

Maybe the skill wasn's used often, but as a casual pve player who doestn't like al the build stuff this was a very nice AOE spell. I used it all the time.
I really hate the fact it changed this much, but sometimes [snip] happens and we just have to deal with it.

But it would be nice of Zos if they would give a free skill respec token if they change big things like this; for any class.
Or just empty all the sorcerer points so I can redo them for free. Now I have points in a skill I will never chose or use and it will cost me money to reset it

[Edited to remove Profanity]

it costs 750 gold to reset a point.... you can make that in like half a minute

the1andonlyskwex

Necoriban wrote: »

mandywesterhoutb16_ESO wrote: »

Maybe the skill wasn's used often, but as a casual pve player who doestn't like al the build stuff this was a very nice AOE spell. I used it all the time.
I really hate the fact it changed this much, but sometimes [snip] happens and we just have to deal with it.

But it would be nice of Zos if they would give a free skill respec token if they change big things like this; for any class.
Or just empty all the sorcerer points so I can redo them for free. Now I have points in a skill I will never chose or use and it will cost me money to reset it

[Edited to remove Profanity]

it costs 750 gold to reset a point.... you can make that in like half a minute

Last I checked, you can't reset one point at a time.

Necoriban

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Last I checked, you can't reset one point at a time.

He wants to reset crystal weapon, which is a morph. you can reset a single morph at a time

Rebiludo

For a better understanding of the combo, where the crystal blast does an AOE damage + Stun just before the inevitable detonation and haunting curse explodes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VehXWYmTnuo

With the War Maiden up...

Very fun gameplay... RIP...
All this for a spammable when there is already some and all the spammable will be equal anyway?

Sad...

lucky_Sage

There is a small sorc population that some how thinks it was a amazing ability and they can’t be convinced to see that it actually not a good ability.
But there are many options to aoe stun mobs for a sorc streak, time stop And vamp stun also sorcs have a aoe root to keep enemies away from you then you have pets which could take most of your dmg for you and very strong shield

Fur_like_snow

The only two players I know of who ever used crystal blast was a troll meme ganker and a five star DC magsorc who rarely used other skills.

Beardimus

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Beardimus wrote: »

Wow, a nerf sorc rant. How novel..

It's also misguided, it's a morph people don't use being changed to suit stam. They surely that's anti your goal? As it's not more useful not less.

I mean serious, don't moan about Frag. It's a fragment of its former self.

Sorry @Beardimus, who are you replying to? I'm assuming me because you already commented on the thread above to OP and you used the word "rant".

If so, let me clarify:

I never ranted about nerfing mag sorc, I said the sorc kit is bloated with magicka DD related morphs and passives. The class as a whole needs a lot of work to support more of the other 3 roles; Stamina DD, Tank and Healer.

Losing an unused morph like Crystal Blast or combining redundtant morphs to make room for completely new ones is exactly how ZOS should proceed to offer more options for the roles when adjusting for better Class Identity. The exact same way they handled Power Surge vs Crit Surge, 2 morphs that did basically the same thing before, now have clearly defined purposes, 1 for powerful self healing via damage and the other for powerful group healing. Everyone benefits from changes like that.

Up on the chopping block imo is Endless Fury vs Mages Wrath, Energy Overload vs Power Overload and Greater Storm Atronach vs Charged Atronach.

Ah ha! Ok makes sense! My apols was a misunderstanding. Thx for clearing up

Fury v wrath and E OL v P OL id say are the same thing there is a difference, sustain v damage. I'm just unsure it's enough of a difference.

Plus, as someone that ran Overload for almost 4 years they have destroyed it as a skill. Seriously who runs it. At least it gave the 3 rs even after they crippled the damage. Now it's a dead skill.

As for comment on toolkit. I dunno. Sorc Healing is better than it was for many years. And I'm unsure about the flattening of all skill options to allow for niche roles. It kinda bugs me. Make a way sure. It if everything can be everything it means not brilliant at anything

But I digress.

Xvorg

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

Rebiludo wrote: »

I loved playing ranged bomber with the Inévitable Détonation + Haunting Curse + C-Blast.
When I saw War maiden up 600 magic damage =>
When I saw C-Blast change =>

Another specific fun build deleted for that all class are the same...

You can do the same with frags putting even more dmg.

No, you can't, because the whole point of that setup is that it's AoE.

Blast AoE was laughable... it was clunky as hell. In any case Sorc has plenty of skills that are AoE, including Shattering prison and streak (both can be combined btw)

Crystal Blast did literally twice as much damage as either of those, and cost significantly less than both. It was also ranged. There's no comparison.

But it was bad for a skill with a cast time. If you compare it with sweeps it has nothing to do in terms of dmg and utility. Even Soul trap will give you more options (unblockable and undodgeable).

If you wanted it for RP purposes, well, sorry; but if you pretended to be somehow competitive, just pass from it. It won't give you anything.

Xvorg

Rebiludo wrote: »

For a better understanding of the combo, where the crystal blast does an AOE damage + Stun just before the inevitable detonation and haunting curse explodes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VehXWYmTnuo

With the War Maiden up...

Very fun gameplay... RIP...
All this for a spammable when there is already some and all the spammable will be equal anyway?

Sad...

Against low tier enemies who don't know how to break free, any combo works. Any decent player keeps on moving and dodge roll immediately after getting curse since it marks a frag/fury coming.

JohnOfMarkarth

TBH my issue is that... the crystal weapon, whose intention is to add class identity to stamina sorcs... is a recolored ele weapon.

Its like trying to give someone unique personality... by copying a random other person's personality.

It tries to give identity... by copying something everyone can use with different colors? Thus yet again losing any identity?

the1andonlyskwex

Xvorg wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

Rebiludo wrote: »

I loved playing ranged bomber with the Inévitable Détonation + Haunting Curse + C-Blast.
When I saw War maiden up 600 magic damage =>
When I saw C-Blast change =>

Another specific fun build deleted for that all class are the same...

You can do the same with frags putting even more dmg.

No, you can't, because the whole point of that setup is that it's AoE.

Blast AoE was laughable... it was clunky as hell. In any case Sorc has plenty of skills that are AoE, including Shattering prison and streak (both can be combined btw)

Crystal Blast did literally twice as much damage as either of those, and cost significantly less than both. It was also ranged. There's no comparison.

But it was bad for a skill with a cast time. If you compare it with sweeps it has nothing to do in terms of dmg and utility. Even Soul trap will give you more options (unblockable and undodgeable).

If you wanted it for RP purposes, well, sorry; but if you pretended to be somehow competitive, just pass from it. It won't give you anything.

1) People need to get over the idea that cast times automatically make skills bad. Dizzying Swing and Snipe both have cast times and are very effective in certain situations. Crystal Blast is basically a magicka AoE Snipe with a stun.
2) Just because something isn't optimal for trials (where single-target DPS is king) or duelling (where cast times are a problem) doesn't make it bad.
3) Comparing to sweeps is all sorts of silly. Not only is sweeps not an option for magsorcs, but it's also a melee ability. If we were to make the comparison though, Crystal Blast is ranged, it has a higher burst (because the damage isn't spread out over a channel), it includes a stun, and it does significantly more AoE damage (while doing less single-target damage only because Burning Light is/was so good).
4) Soul Trap is a DoT. It's completely useless for overland trash (where Crystal Blast excels), and purgable in PvP. The AoE morph also only does about 80% as much damage as Crystal Blast.
5) From a purely numeric perspective, Crystal Blast was actually way overpowered. It was an AoE with the cost and damage of a single-target ability with the same cast time (like Snipe or Dark Flare).
6) Crystal Blast was good in content that people don't generally optimize for. It was amazing at one-shotting packs of overland trash, and it was good for dumping damage into PvP groups that were otherwise occupied fighting somebody else.

In summary, the fact that you don't value something doesn't make it valueless.

All of that said, I do understand why ZOS felt the need to replace Crystal Blast, and I'm not really complaining about it's loss like the OP. It was an ability that was generally underused, despite completely breaking their normal power budget. It was an easy target and removing it was an opportunity to throw stamsorcs a bone that they desperately needed. Unfortunately, there are already threads on these forums suggesting that Crystal Weapon might not get much use either, so I'm not sure the change is really having the desired effect.

FriedEggSandwich

JohnOfMarkarth wrote: »

TBH my issue is that... the crystal weapon, whose intention is to add class identity to stamina sorcs... is a recolored ele weapon.

Its like trying to give someone unique personality... by copying a random other person's personality.

It tries to give identity... by copying something everyone can use with different colors? Thus yet again losing any identity?

To be fair, skills have always shared animations. The hardened ward clap is shared by a NB ability (can't remember which), the breath of life wave is the same as the dark conversion wave. There are examples of shared particle effects too, but I can't think of any atm.

Celestro

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

JohnOfMarkarth wrote: »

TBH my issue is that... the crystal weapon, whose intention is to add class identity to stamina sorcs... is a recolored ele weapon.

Its like trying to give someone unique personality... by copying a random other person's personality.

It tries to give identity... by copying something everyone can use with different colors? Thus yet again losing any identity?

To be fair, skills have always shared animations. The hardened ward clap is shared by a NB ability (can't remember which), the breath of life wave is the same as the dark conversion wave. There are examples of shared particle effects too, but I can't think of any atm.

Its really both the animation and the effect, the latter of which isn't sufficiently unique from Crushing Weapons. Animations are indeed shared and I dont imagine is as much of a concern for people as much as the largely copied effect in addition to sharing the clunky use of the aforementioned skill when used with melee weapons.

SshadowSscale

richi_b wrote: »

Hi there,

Quoted from today‘s patch notes:

###
Crystal Blast (morph): This ability has been reworked into a Stamina morph, and renamed to Crystal Weapon. It is now an instant-cast ability that causes your next Light or Heavy Attack made within 4 seconds to deal additional damage, equal to the standard spammable amount such as Lava Whip or Veiled Strike. Enemies hit by this ability will their armor reduced by up to 1000.
###

Why the hack did you do that? The crystal Blast is the only meaningful attack for single player High Elves sorcerers.
This is the only attack that makes you survive against one AND multiple opponents.
Taking this ability away means you kill the character.

PLEASE roll this back, seriously — this was a really bad idea.

Op I do not mean to insult you but clearly you are a new playet to eso.... Crystal blast is one of the worst abilities in the game to use and stamsorcs needed a class base spammable and now they have one... The betyer morph crystal frags is still available to you and can now proc itself.... If you are facing multiple oponents you have lightning form liquid lightning and the destro staffs wall of elements and you should be fine

newer1d

I have to partially agree richi_b and wholly agree with the1andonlyskwex.
This was a great skill for those who just casually play, spending money on each new story line.
It allowed us to clear dungeons quickly in search of treasure, loot and valuable items.
It allowed us to meander around the country side, completing simple quests, dailies, with a single spamable skill, alongside our summon/s.
By no means is this leet play, but it was what we like doing and the skill was perfect.

I am all for ZOS changing things up, but when a skill is changed out for the greater good and we need to respec our skill line, as the new skill is useless to us, Shouldn't ZOS at the least provide us with a free skill respec scroll, rather than using this as an opportunity to rip us off, even if we are a minority casual player.

Fur_like_snow

Use the magicka morph crystal frags. If you can learn to use it and manage the procs you’ll learn to play the game at a higher level. Watching a player spamming old crystal blast was downright cringe.

robpr

Shock clench does the same now as Crystal Blast did just with less range. It's amazing to clean trash especially with Master Staff (that you can get from normal too)

Necoriban

newer1d wrote: »

I am all for ZOS changing things up, but when a skill is changed out for the greater good and we need to respec our skill line, as the new skill is useless to us, Shouldn't ZOS at the least provide us with a free skill respec scroll, rather than using this as an opportunity to rip us off, even if we are a minority casual player.

Why people don't read. As i said, if you want to respec the new skill which is useless for you now, which is a morph of another skill, it costs between 100-1k gold to do, depending on you level. which is nothing. kill 2 random monsters and you have the money.

Even if you want to respec the whole skill line, it doesn't cost so much.

SpaceElf

Uhhh...I used Crystal shard all the time with success. I was pretty pissed off that it was changed on my bar to this useless spammable thing. Granted it was slow, I'll give people that.

JinMori

SpaceElf wrote: »

Uhhh...I used Crystal shard all the time with success. I was pretty pissed off that it was changed on my bar to this useless spammable thing. Granted it was slow, I'll give people that.

You didn't even get the name of the morph right.

It was a terrible skill, that any player with a modicum of skill did not use.

juliandracos

I think it is clear that people play this game differently. I think it is also clear that the class has not lived up to the idea that any play style is viable. Instead of looking at the decision through your particular eyes, perhaps if we try to look at things from the perspective of those who used the ability, we can see a way forward on revamping the class in a way to achieve the idea that you can play the class that is viable without ruining the style of those who currently play.

With this patch we incurred:

21% reduction in damage
loss of stun
loss of AoE damage

While crystal blast is not used by all, it is obviously used by some. As some others have posted, it has its uses. I am one of those who is using it. Since the change, I respeced to the other morph. Since then, the content I am playing through is much more difficult. The result has been:

1. Battles taking a long time (I used to be able to blast an entire group, and now I have to kill one at a time).
2. Running low on mana a lot (again, from battles lasting longer)
3. Having to use potions (pretty much never had to do that before)
4. Having to recharge my staff (I am having to use it a lot more)
5. My pets die (pretty much almost never happened before this patch, but they die every few battles now)
6. Having to take on much smaller number of targets to avoid death. I used pull multiple groups to save time
7. I die in encounters I never died in before. I have probably died more in the past two days than I have in the past 2 months.

Yes, you can say I suck, but people who suck are allowed to play games as well.

Now, with that said, those wanting stamina, tank or healer have been missing out. Those options also need support. I have an idea, but before that, I want to point out why the weapon morph is bad:

1. It does not fit as a morph. It is not a modified version of the original spell, but is really just a different ability.
2. It is copying another ability, thus, both classes are losing identity.

What is the solution?

I propose two possible options (and this can help in redesigning other classes as well)

1. Instead of having two morphs on some skills, you have three morphs. Thus, instead of removing this current spell, we just add weapon morph on to those who want it. This gives players more options to achieve the desired result of classes fitting multiple roles.

2. Classes can have a new spell/ability added to each of the classes. In this case, you add in some weapon ability and then it morphs into other weapon abilities. Again, but adding another line here, and then eventually other classes, it makes it easier to get the desired result.

Unlike other games with massive quickbars, ESO is very limited. Thus, adding more abilities to classes instead of replacing current ones is not going to have an impact. You can still only have 12.

Celestro

juliandracos wrote: »

I think it is clear that people play this game differently. I think it is also clear that the class has not lived up to the idea that any play style is viable. Instead of looking at the decision through your particular eyes, perhaps if we try to look at things from the perspective of those who used the ability, we can see a way forward on revamping the class in a way to achieve the idea that you can play the class that is viable without ruining the style of those who currently play.

With this patch we incurred:

21% reduction in damage
loss of stun
loss of AoE damage

While crystal blast is not used by all, it is obviously used by some. As some others have posted, it has its uses. I am one of those who is using it. Since the change, I respeced to the other morph. Since then, the content I am playing through is much more difficult. The result has been:

1. Battles taking a long time (I used to be able to blast an entire group, and now I have to kill one at a time).
2. Running low on mana a lot (again, from battles lasting longer)
3. Having to use potions (pretty much never had to do that before)
4. Having to recharge my staff (I am having to use it a lot more)
5. My pets die (pretty much almost never happened before this patch, but they die every few battles now)
6. Having to take on much smaller number of targets to avoid death. I used pull multiple groups to save time
7. I die in encounters I never died in before. I have probably died more in the past two days than I have in the past 2 months.

Yes, you can say I suck, but people who suck are allowed to play games as well.

Now, with that said, those wanting stamina, tank or healer have been missing out. Those options also need support. I have an idea, but before that, I want to point out why the weapon morph is bad:

1. It does not fit as a morph. It is not a modified version of the original spell, but is really just a different ability.
2. It is copying another ability, thus, both classes are losing identity.

What is the solution?

I propose two possible options (and this can help in redesigning other classes as well)

1. Instead of having two morphs on some skills, you have three morphs. Thus, instead of removing this current spell, we just add weapon morph on to those who want it. This gives players more options to achieve the desired result of classes fitting multiple roles.

2. Classes can have a new spell/ability added to each of the classes. In this case, you add in some weapon ability and then it morphs into other weapon abilities. Again, but adding another line here, and then eventually other classes, it makes it easier to get the desired result.

Unlike other games with massive quickbars, ESO is very limited. Thus, adding more abilities to classes instead of replacing current ones is not going to have an impact. You can still only have 12.

I agree on the idea of adding a third morph to at least class skills as others have also suggested in the past, particularly to cater to the non-Mag DPS specs. I'm not sure if that'll ever happen but I imagine it would lessen a lot of complaints between the aforementioned specs not having many in-class skill options and those that have used certain skills for years just to have those options taken away. It definitely does suck.

My only concern would be giving mag specs, specifically in the case of opening up Crystal Shard to morph into Crystal Fragments, Crystal Blast and Crystal Weapon, even more options but isn't entirely an issue if done sufficiently enough.

Also I agree on Crystal Weapon being so significantly different than the base ability. There are a few skills that kind of do the same but it being perhaps the worse of its kind is questionable. I only hope it serves as a placeholder of sorts until later updates, almost like they've done with Stam DK's Stone Giant (which is also one of the weird morphs in its current iteration).

JinMori

Celestro wrote: »

juliandracos wrote: »

I think it is clear that people play this game differently. I think it is also clear that the class has not lived up to the idea that any play style is viable. Instead of looking at the decision through your particular eyes, perhaps if we try to look at things from the perspective of those who used the ability, we can see a way forward on revamping the class in a way to achieve the idea that you can play the class that is viable without ruining the style of those who currently play.

With this patch we incurred:

21% reduction in damage
loss of stun
loss of AoE damage

While crystal blast is not used by all, it is obviously used by some. As some others have posted, it has its uses. I am one of those who is using it. Since the change, I respeced to the other morph. Since then, the content I am playing through is much more difficult. The result has been:

1. Battles taking a long time (I used to be able to blast an entire group, and now I have to kill one at a time).
2. Running low on mana a lot (again, from battles lasting longer)
3. Having to use potions (pretty much never had to do that before)
4. Having to recharge my staff (I am having to use it a lot more)
5. My pets die (pretty much almost never happened before this patch, but they die every few battles now)
6. Having to take on much smaller number of targets to avoid death. I used pull multiple groups to save time
7. I die in encounters I never died in before. I have probably died more in the past two days than I have in the past 2 months.

Yes, you can say I suck, but people who suck are allowed to play games as well.

Now, with that said, those wanting stamina, tank or healer have been missing out. Those options also need support. I have an idea, but before that, I want to point out why the weapon morph is bad:

1. It does not fit as a morph. It is not a modified version of the original spell, but is really just a different ability.
2. It is copying another ability, thus, both classes are losing identity.

What is the solution?

I propose two possible options (and this can help in redesigning other classes as well)

1. Instead of having two morphs on some skills, you have three morphs. Thus, instead of removing this current spell, we just add weapon morph on to those who want it. This gives players more options to achieve the desired result of classes fitting multiple roles.

2. Classes can have a new spell/ability added to each of the classes. In this case, you add in some weapon ability and then it morphs into other weapon abilities. Again, but adding another line here, and then eventually other classes, it makes it easier to get the desired result.

Unlike other games with massive quickbars, ESO is very limited. Thus, adding more abilities to classes instead of replacing current ones is not going to have an impact. You can still only have 12.

I agree on the idea of adding a third morph to at least class skills as others have also suggested in the past, particularly to cater to the non-Mag DPS specs. I'm not sure if that'll ever happen but I imagine it would lessen a lot of complaints between the aforementioned specs not having many in-class skill options and those that have used certain skills for years just to have those options taken away. It definitely does suck.

My only concern would be giving mag specs, specifically in the case of opening up Crystal Shard to morph into Crystal Fragments, Crystal Blast and Crystal Weapon, even more options but isn't entirely an issue if done sufficiently enough.

Also I agree on Crystal Weapon being so significantly different than the base ability. There are a few skills that kind of do the same but it being perhaps the worse of its kind is questionable. I only hope it serves as a placeholder of sorts until later updates, almost like they've done with Stam DK's Stone Giant (which is also one of the weird morphs in its current iteration).

Oh yea, third morph options for at least a few abilities would be a great addition to the game.

They could start with the most important abilities and then move on to less and less important.

Examples of abilities that should get the third morph option first:

Whip, orb, crystal, blastbones, skills like these.

Rebirthment

I've been having a blast(lul) with the new crystal frags for my Magsorc as a spammable because ever since the cast time change it feels much better weaving it + the cost reduction it has now and after every cast + blood magic proc + insta proc on itself makes it a pretty viable spammable for Magsorc. I haven't really used crystal wep but im really happy that sorcs finally got their class spammable. OP should really give the frags morph a go as it's MUCH better than that crap blast morph that's been dead for ages

Xvorg

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

Rebiludo wrote: »

I loved playing ranged bomber with the Inévitable Détonation + Haunting Curse + C-Blast.
When I saw War maiden up 600 magic damage =>
When I saw C-Blast change =>

Another specific fun build deleted for that all class are the same...

You can do the same with frags putting even more dmg.

No, you can't, because the whole point of that setup is that it's AoE.

Blast AoE was laughable... it was clunky as hell. In any case Sorc has plenty of skills that are AoE, including Shattering prison and streak (both can be combined btw)

Crystal Blast did literally twice as much damage as either of those, and cost significantly less than both. It was also ranged. There's no comparison.

But it was bad for a skill with a cast time. If you compare it with sweeps it has nothing to do in terms of dmg and utility. Even Soul trap will give you more options (unblockable and undodgeable).

If you wanted it for RP purposes, well, sorry; but if you pretended to be somehow competitive, just pass from it. It won't give you anything.

1) People need to get over the idea that cast times automatically make skills bad. Dizzying Swing and Snipe both have cast times and are very effective in certain situations. Crystal Blast is basically a magicka AoE Snipe with a stun.

Did I say cast times are bad? I just said that the cast time on blast wasn't enough to compensate its meager dmg even as an AoE. For example inevitable deto has also a cast time and the dmg is much better

2) Just because something isn't optimal for trials (where single-target DPS is king) or duelling (where cast times are a problem) doesn't make it bad.

My complaint was that is bad even in PvP (Cyro) were skills like that should work. It is a very slow projectile with a cast time. There's a reason why people preferred frags over blast, do not try to play it the other way around.

3) Comparing to sweeps is all sorts of silly. Not only is sweeps not an option for magsorcs, but it's also a melee ability. If we were to make the comparison though, Crystal Blast is ranged, it has a higher burst (because the damage isn't spread out over a channel), it includes a stun, and it does significantly more AoE damage (while doing less single-target damage only because Burning Light is/was so good).

Sweeps gives: snare + proc + minor protection + AoE + heal based on dmg
Blast: small dmg on a slow projectile + heal based on health + minor prophecy.

Even as a melee skill that puts you on a difficul position, sweeps is better. Blast is bad even with its range.

Regarding comparing blast with other skills, Sweeps is the skill I think is closer to, being an cast timeAoE skills that defines a class. Luckily there are no other skills like blast... maybe Blastbones, but that one doesn't lock you in animation, allowing you to do something else. If you have any other skill that could be compared to blas, I'm all ears[/quote]

4) Soul Trap is a DoT. It's completely useless for overland trash (where Crystal Blast excels), and purgable in PvP. The AoE morph also only does about 80% as much damage as Crystal Blast.

Same as above there's no real comparison to blast, in the case of soul trap, I mentioned it as a replacement in which you trade dmg for reliability. If you want to stick to a very unreliable skill like blast, that's your decision, but not a decision shared by the majority. It has been a skill everyone has complained over 6 years, SIX, not just a month. If you wanted to play outside the box, congratulations if you did it, but as I said above, do not try to sell us a bad skill as something "good" based on a specific situation. Based on that, volcanic rune is the best skill in Cyro, since it allows you to pull down enemies defending the wall.

5) From a purely numeric perspective, Crystal Blast was actually way overpowered. It was an AoE with the cost and damage of a single-target ability with the same cast time (like Snipe or Dark Flare).

No, it wasn't OP, it was a unreliable skill with a high tooltip and a cast time, nothing else. I'm going to give you an example that explains my position: before the cast time changes, Incap and DBoS were the strongest ultimates in the game by far, not because their high tooltip, but because they were instant cast skills. Once they got a cast time, both left that position for other ultis.

6) Crystal Blast was good in content that people don't generally optimize for. It was amazing at one-shotting packs of overland trash, and it was good for dumping damage into PvP groups that were otherwise occupied fighting somebody else.

So it was a class skill used to kill skeevers... got it.
That's a problem with the design of the game. Class skills are meant to be competitive since they are the ones that set the differences between classes. It is amazing the fact that stam sorcs are forced into running towards bows or melee weapons to get their spammable, utilities and nukes. And you complain here for a skill that wasn't even popular.

In summary, the fact that you don't value something doesn't make it valueless.

All of that said, I do understand why ZOS felt the need to replace Crystal Blast, and I'm not really complaining about it's loss like the OP. It was an ability that was generally underused, despite completely breaking their normal power budget. It was an easy target and removing it was an opportunity to throw stamsorcs a bone that they desperately needed. Unfortunately, there are already threads on these forums suggesting that Crystal Weapon might not get much use either, so I'm not sure the change is really having the desired effect.

In summary, something that you value, doesn't make it valuable, even more if the majority agrees on the low value it has.

Regarding weapons, it should be looked. The armor reduction is OK imho, but its mechanics should be changed.

Xvorg

JinMori wrote: »

Celestro wrote: »

juliandracos wrote: »

I think it is clear that people play this game differently. I think it is also clear that the class has not lived up to the idea that any play style is viable. Instead of looking at the decision through your particular eyes, perhaps if we try to look at things from the perspective of those who used the ability, we can see a way forward on revamping the class in a way to achieve the idea that you can play the class that is viable without ruining the style of those who currently play.

With this patch we incurred:

21% reduction in damage
loss of stun
loss of AoE damage

While crystal blast is not used by all, it is obviously used by some. As some others have posted, it has its uses. I am one of those who is using it. Since the change, I respeced to the other morph. Since then, the content I am playing through is much more difficult. The result has been:

1. Battles taking a long time (I used to be able to blast an entire group, and now I have to kill one at a time).
2. Running low on mana a lot (again, from battles lasting longer)
3. Having to use potions (pretty much never had to do that before)
4. Having to recharge my staff (I am having to use it a lot more)
5. My pets die (pretty much almost never happened before this patch, but they die every few battles now)
6. Having to take on much smaller number of targets to avoid death. I used pull multiple groups to save time
7. I die in encounters I never died in before. I have probably died more in the past two days than I have in the past 2 months.

Yes, you can say I suck, but people who suck are allowed to play games as well.

Now, with that said, those wanting stamina, tank or healer have been missing out. Those options also need support. I have an idea, but before that, I want to point out why the weapon morph is bad:

1. It does not fit as a morph. It is not a modified version of the original spell, but is really just a different ability.
2. It is copying another ability, thus, both classes are losing identity.

What is the solution?

I propose two possible options (and this can help in redesigning other classes as well)

1. Instead of having two morphs on some skills, you have three morphs. Thus, instead of removing this current spell, we just add weapon morph on to those who want it. This gives players more options to achieve the desired result of classes fitting multiple roles.

2. Classes can have a new spell/ability added to each of the classes. In this case, you add in some weapon ability and then it morphs into other weapon abilities. Again, but adding another line here, and then eventually other classes, it makes it easier to get the desired result.

Unlike other games with massive quickbars, ESO is very limited. Thus, adding more abilities to classes instead of replacing current ones is not going to have an impact. You can still only have 12.

I agree on the idea of adding a third morph to at least class skills as others have also suggested in the past, particularly to cater to the non-Mag DPS specs. I'm not sure if that'll ever happen but I imagine it would lessen a lot of complaints between the aforementioned specs not having many in-class skill options and those that have used certain skills for years just to have those options taken away. It definitely does suck.

My only concern would be giving mag specs, specifically in the case of opening up Crystal Shard to morph into Crystal Fragments, Crystal Blast and Crystal Weapon, even more options but isn't entirely an issue if done sufficiently enough.

Also I agree on Crystal Weapon being so significantly different than the base ability. There are a few skills that kind of do the same but it being perhaps the worse of its kind is questionable. I only hope it serves as a placeholder of sorts until later updates, almost like they've done with Stam DK's Stone Giant (which is also one of the weird morphs in its current iteration).

Oh yea, third morph options for at least a few abilities would be a great addition to the game.

They could start with the most important abilities and then move on to less and less important.

Examples of abilities that should get the third morph option first:

Whip, orb, crystal, blastbones, skills like these.

at least one per class imho. Whip for sure. Crystal shards? IDK... for sorcs I prefer a third morph on curse even if it is a 10 mts skill

dpr999

Oh man, now things are all screwed up. I was wondering why my "4" key acted so different. It used to be able to throw damaging stuff at a distant bad guy, and now it doesn't do that any more. I thought it was a bug or maybe I had done something wrong. And now I learn that this was an intentional change, and what was a magicka skill is now consuming stamina and not doing what I set it up to do.

I see that many people are saying "nobody used this." How do you know that? (Rhetorical question, please don't start flaming me.)

universal_wrath

lucky_Sage wrote: »

There is a small sorc population that some how thinks it was a amazing ability and they can’t be convinced to see that it actually not a good ability.
But there are many options to aoe stun mobs for a sorc streak, time stop And vamp stun also sorcs have a aoe root to keep enemies away from you then you have pets which could take most of your dmg for you and very strong shield

You are just not understanding the usage of the skill. For roleplayers or casuals, using a class skill is better than outside skills. Also, there were some PvP builds that used crystal blast primaely gank builds. Everyone know that streak, time stop and many other skills with stuns exist, but crystal blast was very much like the old dizzy swing when it use to stun from first hit. Crystal blast used to do a very high damage, AOE, range, and stun. It does not matter how cheap or costly it was, there is no skill that can compare to what crystal blast had to offer. I still hate the skill, and almost never used it, but this does not mean it is bad or useless. It is just like saying, nobody uses dark flare, it is ok to remove the skill and bring about a stam morph or something entirely different. It needed some adjustments to make it favorable.

What stamsorc needed was a storm themed spammable not a deadric summon. This is least compatible with stamsorc identity.

universal_wrath

Fur_like_snow wrote: »

Use the magicka morph crystal frags. If you can learn to use it and manage the procs you’ll learn to play the game at a higher level. Watching a player spamming old crystal blast was downright cringe.

the new crystal frag spammble will give you the same feeling, beceaae unless you use other spammable, it is a cast time until you proc instant part.

Celestro

universal_wrath wrote: »

What stamsorc needed was a storm themed spammable not a deadric summon. This is least compatible with stamsorc identity.

I dont understand why some people say this like Hurricane, Bolt Escape morphs and Critical Surge should be the sole determining factors of stamsorc identity when it comes to future skills just because they were the only usable skills for years. Would it be cool? Sure. Does it make sense objectively? Not really. Even Magsorc doesn't have a storm themed spammable. Only Crystal Shard fits that role for both specs. Storm Calling is only one skill line that dedicates to sorcs identity as a whole. There are two others.

I didn't care too strongly one way or another about a daedric summon for stamsorc but having a whole skill line called "Daedric Summoning" without having anything in it to relate to stamsorcs also didnt make sense either honestly. An Air Atronach ultimate would've been preferred more but its something at least. Progress is progress.