Is it just me or is Destruction Staff bad?

Somewhere

I don't think people really mention just how bad this weapon line is. Like I get it, magicka users in the past had entire class kits to work with while stamina players had nothing but weapons. That said, that's just not true anymore. Sure not all the classes have perfect stamina toolkits, but more and more have been added over time and I think this trend will continue. On the other hand, Destruction staff remains pretty subpar in comparison. It seems as if the developers felt that the skill line deserves to be this way because Destruction staff is:

1. ranged
2. primarily focused on elemental damage which have useful status conditions
3. used by players with high magicka and therefore easy access to heals / damage shields

My grievances:

• Lower weapon/spell damage on the weapon itself
• Bad passives that don't synergize with anyone's toolkit. It seems like they're there to fill up space.
• Too many dead skills.
• Lack of build diversity, everyone uses Inferno Staff.

Passives: Too many of the passives focus on just the destruction staff skill line without acknowledging that most of the players using the weapon are using few to no skills from the line and only using the weapon because there is no other option.

• Tri-Focus spends an entire passive to buff the effects of heavy attacks. This would be great if it made the heavy attacks coming off of a Destruction Staff actually useful, but unfortunately it does not. Heavy attacks need a look over to make them worth using and to make this passive better.
• Penetrating Magic: % modifers to penetration are applied at the end of a calculation. This means that most players are getting very little penetration because they're already trying to get as much penetration as needed (in pve) or as possible (pvp). Further, this only applies to the 5 damaging skills in the destruction staff line. Of those 5 skills, most people may run 1 or 2. Some will run 3 in pve, but in pvp this is likely 1 or 0. Generally speaking most players will find that the penetration bonus this passive provides is either non-existent or negligible.
• Ancient Knowledge reduces build diversity and is strangely conditional on its damage boost. Other weapon lines boost all damage, re: Sword and Board, Twin Blade and Blunt, Heavy Weapons, and Long Shots to name a few. While that made sense 4 years ago when there were few stamina morphs so stamina builds required a larger damage bonus this is no longer true. It completely ruins all build diversity because single target damage is the highest. Only a few classes can take advantage of the area bonus.
• Destruction Expert is difficult to actually proc. People will have Elemental Rage, Force Pulse, and Wall of Elements at most. Unless one of those 3 manages to land the killing blow, which is not always a common occurrence, then this passive will not proc. Did your class dot technically get the last hit in? No proc.

Skills:

• Some skills deal different based on what elemental staff is being used. Some do not. There is no logical consistency as to which ones do or do not. Wall of Elements starts with that effect in the base skill: each wall has a different effect. Destructive Clench & Elemental Rage require that one morph the skill to make each element perform a different effect. The rest operate as normal, only dealing different elemental damage.
• Elemental Susceptibility is functionally useless. It applies a common debuff in the form of Major Breach which refreshes anytime the target takes damage, and the range on the skill increases by 5m. It has to compete with Minor Magickasteal on the other morph. Major Breach is relatively easy to obtain: Mark Target, Pierce Armor, Deep Fissure, Weakness to Elements, Unnerving Boneyard all apply the effect. On the other hand Minor Magickasteal has only 3 sources: Elemental Drain, Restoring Aura, and Siphon Spirit. The bonus effect of Susceptibility: refreshing its duration on damage is completely negated if the target has a purge, in which case you have to reapply it again anyway. Since the skill costs nothing to cast the boon amounts to this: The caster saves themselves 1 skill cast every 23 seconds (Elemental Drain lasts 23 seconds so that's how often the other morph would be re-cast).
• Impulse is underwhelming at best. Most players do not want an AoE spammable as they're too expensive and deal poor damage. Pulsar seems fine enough as it has a higher chance to apply a status condition and applies a unique debuff, but Elemental Ring only deals damage and nothing else. It seems like a lost opportunity to not have it deal an additional effect based on the element used.
• Every single Frost bonus on a skill is this: Immobilize. Flame gets damage bonuses and a stun. Shock gets more area damage and procs off-balance. Frost only immobilizes, there's no other bonus effect. The very fact that there exists CC Immunity makes that much overlapping Immobilization effectively useless.

Destructive Touch is a mess and a confusing skill and as a result deserves a section to itself:

• The base version is plain bad as it appears at first to a new user to be just be an objectively worse version of Force Shock. It's balanced around being a spammable but deals half the damage and has half the range.
• The morph changes it into a full 28m DOT with no additional effects. There exist 3 universal DoTs magicka users can slot: Entropy, Soul Trap, and Destructive Reach. Destructive Reach has no bonus effect and deals the least damage. Dealing elemental damage is not enough for people to slot it and that's why it rarely shows up on builds.
• Destructive Clench is an un-classifiable skill. If you're using an Inferno Staff it becomes a stun. If you're using a Shock staff it becomes a targeted aoe spammable; it deals the same damage as Impulse but with a lower cost because it has to be targeted, a nebulous boon at best given its short range. If you're using a Frost Staff it becomes a single target immobilize, something that is not needed should one be running a Frost staff.
• This skill has difficulty making its way onto anyone's bar except someone needing a stun in which case they need Flame Clench, which further reinforces Inferno Staff's dominance in the meta and reduces build diversity.

tl;dr: Destruction Staff could use a real re-work, overhauling how its passives and skills interact with the toolkits of the players that are actually using the weapon. More skills should have bonus effects based on the element of the staff equipped, and the existing bonuses should be reconsidered, especially for Frost Staff. The biggest reason anyone is using this weapon is because they want light attacks that scale on their highest stats.

FrancisCrawford

On magicka characters who are short of skill points, destruction staff (active and passive skills alike) is one of the areas I skimp.

One thing I feel you overstated is the usefulness of the destro ultimate. Sorcerers, necros and wardens all prefer pet ultimates. Most classes have offense/defensive hybrid ultimates that are attractive in some use cases. Etc.

Somewhere

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

On magicka characters who are short of skill points, destruction staff (active and passive skills alike) is one of the areas I skimp.

One thing I feel you overstated is the usefulness of the destro ultimate. Sorcerers, necros and wardens all prefer pet ultimates. Most classes have offense/defensive hybrid ultimates that are attractive in some use cases. Etc.

Yeah, and DK will use Standard. That said, in a lot of situations Destro ult is still pretty good, especially in trials and dungeons when you may need a little cleave. I was running vAS today, everyone used Destro ult because of the protectors, and in vCR we all ran Destro ult mostly because moving targets and lots of adds. In almost every other situation, you're right, there's better ultimates.

Everest_Lionheart

I use lightning staff on solo magplar. The only skills I run are wall, ele drain and destro ult. Lightning staff has the better heavy attack passives and rss return and works solo. I find the rest of the line useless though outside of crushing shock which is a niche skill because it offers a ranged interrupt.

On my MagDK I run inferno staves and only use wall. Passives are essentially there to boost damage. I wish destro line offered some better alternatives, but it’s kind of a meh skill line.

And don’t get me started on ice staff which is pretty useless to 95% of the player base.

YandereGirlfriend

Strongly agree with most of what was written.

The tree is littered with dead morphs and under-achieving passives based upon what seems like a bygone epoch in the game's development.

LovesCoffee

Elemental Susceptibility still used by few builds without sustain problems (on non trial dummy)

Atherakhia

It is very disappointing, I will agree. Half the skills are never used unless you have the corresponding monster weapon to go with it and even then are highly situational and may only get use in PvP or PvP and rarely both. I think the larger question should be what are magicka classes as a whole currently missing?

The most obvious answer is an execute. There is no Mag execute other than Templar and Sorc skills and Necros technically have a crit passive for theirs. A universal Mag execute would be a welcome change to the class and a redesign of the Destruction staff would certainly be one place to put it.

Another thing that Mag classes lack in general is a relatively cheap ultimate. Most Mag ultimates are no more or less powerful than any other ultimate in the game but they tend to cost significantly more. Sometimes this can be explained by the simple fact that they're ranged, but to compensate for that they often have very obvious tells and have significantly more counterplay than their stamina alternatives. Other than DK, other 'mag ults' are short ranged or quite expensive.

idk

Having access to heals because a build is high in max magicka is pretty irrelevant to the dStaff as it does not have any heals. One can say the same thing about the bow and DW because they are high in stam and have access to heals such a vigor Warden has a stam based heal.

Somewhere wrote: »

Bad passives that don't synergize with anyone's toolkit. It seems like they're there to fill up space.

A similar argument can be made about the bow, DW and 2h skill lines as most of their passives only affect that weapon line. Not to forget that most class passives only affect that skill line. So it seems to be an intended design of most skill lines. I am just bringing this up to shed a correct light on the discussion.

Somewhere wrote: »

Lack of build diversity, everyone uses Inferno Staff.

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

Somewhere

idk wrote: »

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

That is very true, but it takes far too long to write out everything wrong with build diversity across all classes and weapon types so I chosetop focus on the area I have the most experience with.

The game is littered with dead or underused skills, but I felt there were some glaring instances in the destruction staff line like destructive touch and elemental susceptibility in particular. There exist others in the game for sure, but I lack the expertise nor do I have the desire to speak about all the dead morphs the game has at length.

idk

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

That is very true, but it takes far too long to write out everything wrong with build diversity across all classes and weapon types so I chosetop focus on the area I have the most experience with.

The game is littered with dead or underused skills, but I felt there were some glaring instances in the destruction staff line like destructive touch and elemental susceptibility in particular. There exist others in the game for sure, but I lack the expertise nor do I have the desire to speak about all the dead morphs the game has at length.

There are two realities at play here.

1. In a game that gives us significant choices beyond just class skills, there will be less diversity between builds because we will use some of the same skills. That is life when playing a game that is not notably restrictive with builds as WoW type games are.

2. Being we have to choose skills we want to use vs. having half a screen full of skill bars to click on, we are more selective with what we put on our skill bars. Most of the skills we have on our screen in SWTOR are really dead skills. We only have them on our bar because we have so much space available to place them and we might use that skill once a month when we do a specific raid. In ESO we slot that skill only in the rare time we need it. As long as we are not optically focused on only one activity we are changing up our bars often.

In the end, I do not want to play a game that locks me to only class skills and clutters up half my screen with so many skill bars so I can pretend dozens of skills I never or rarely use are worthwhile.

Somewhere

idk wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

That is very true, but it takes far too long to write out everything wrong with build diversity across all classes and weapon types so I chosetop focus on the area I have the most experience with.

The game is littered with dead or underused skills, but I felt there were some glaring instances in the destruction staff line like destructive touch and elemental susceptibility in particular. There exist others in the game for sure, but I lack the expertise nor do I have the desire to speak about all the dead morphs the game has at length.

There are two realities at play here.

1. In a game that gives us significant choices beyond just class skills, there will be less diversity between builds because we will use some of the same skills. That is life when playing a game that is not notably restrictive with builds as WoW type games are.

2. Being we have to choose skills we want to use vs. having half a screen full of skill bars to click on, we are more selective with what we put on our skill bars. Most of the skills we have on our screen in SWTOR are really dead skills. We only have them on our bar because we have so much space available to place them and we might use that skill once a month when we do a specific raid. In ESO we slot that skill only in the rare time we need it. As long as we are not optically focused on only one activity we are changing up our bars often.

In the end, I do not want to play a game that locks me to only class skills and clutters up half my screen with so many skill bars so I can pretend dozens of skills I never or rarely use are worthwhile.

That's a fair assessment that I would agree with. Yet there remains a difference between a skill that is only occasionally used or slotted and one that exists to be ignored by the populace. More to the point I do not want so many skills like in your example. In fact I would argue that most of ESO's skills are useful across many types of content,and as someone that plays a variety of the content type available in the game I understand this personally. I think it is this fact that makes some of the exceptions to this rule that much more glaring.

idk

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

That is very true, but it takes far too long to write out everything wrong with build diversity across all classes and weapon types so I chosetop focus on the area I have the most experience with.

The game is littered with dead or underused skills, but I felt there were some glaring instances in the destruction staff line like destructive touch and elemental susceptibility in particular. There exist others in the game for sure, but I lack the expertise nor do I have the desire to speak about all the dead morphs the game has at length.

There are two realities at play here.

1. In a game that gives us significant choices beyond just class skills, there will be less diversity between builds because we will use some of the same skills. That is life when playing a game that is not notably restrictive with builds as WoW type games are.

2. Being we have to choose skills we want to use vs. having half a screen full of skill bars to click on, we are more selective with what we put on our skill bars. Most of the skills we have on our screen in SWTOR are really dead skills. We only have them on our bar because we have so much space available to place them and we might use that skill once a month when we do a specific raid. In ESO we slot that skill only in the rare time we need it. As long as we are not optically focused on only one activity we are changing up our bars often.

In the end, I do not want to play a game that locks me to only class skills and clutters up half my screen with so many skill bars so I can pretend dozens of skills I never or rarely use are worthwhile.

That's a fair assessment that I would agree with. Yet there remains a difference between a skill that is only occasionally used or slotted and one that exists to be ignored by the populace. More to the point I do not want so many skills like in your example. In fact I would argue that most of ESO's skills are useful across many types of content,and as someone that plays a variety of the content type available in the game I understand this personally. I think it is this fact that makes some of the exceptions to this rule that much more glaring.

It seems you are pointing out that there are not really any skills ignored by the populace, merely some skills used in some interests that are not used by players with other interests.

I doubt there is any skill in ESO that is not used at all. Just some that are not useful for our specific interests but is useful for someone else's. That is perfectly fine as the game is all about meta DPS or being a top PvP player.

Somewhere

idk wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

That is very true, but it takes far too long to write out everything wrong with build diversity across all classes and weapon types so I chosetop focus on the area I have the most experience with.

The game is littered with dead or underused skills, but I felt there were some glaring instances in the destruction staff line like destructive touch and elemental susceptibility in particular. There exist others in the game for sure, but I lack the expertise nor do I have the desire to speak about all the dead morphs the game has at length.

There are two realities at play here.

1. In a game that gives us significant choices beyond just class skills, there will be less diversity between builds because we will use some of the same skills. That is life when playing a game that is not notably restrictive with builds as WoW type games are.

2. Being we have to choose skills we want to use vs. having half a screen full of skill bars to click on, we are more selective with what we put on our skill bars. Most of the skills we have on our screen in SWTOR are really dead skills. We only have them on our bar because we have so much space available to place them and we might use that skill once a month when we do a specific raid. In ESO we slot that skill only in the rare time we need it. As long as we are not optically focused on only one activity we are changing up our bars often.

In the end, I do not want to play a game that locks me to only class skills and clutters up half my screen with so many skill bars so I can pretend dozens of skills I never or rarely use are worthwhile.

That's a fair assessment that I would agree with. Yet there remains a difference between a skill that is only occasionally used or slotted and one that exists to be ignored by the populace. More to the point I do not want so many skills like in your example. In fact I would argue that most of ESO's skills are useful across many types of content,and as someone that plays a variety of the content type available in the game I understand this personally. I think it is this fact that makes some of the exceptions to this rule that much more glaring.

It seems you are pointing out that there are not really any skills ignored by the populace, merely some skills used in some interests that are not used by players with other interests.

I doubt there is any skill in ESO that is not used at all. Just some that are not useful for our specific interests but is useful for someone else's. That is perfectly fine as the game is all about meta DPS or being a top PvP player.

Mm no, I am pointing out that there are skills that are too niche in their current renditions. With a tweaks or reworks (like how the old Molten Whip was changed) they can still fit the function they are meant for but also increasing their scope of use.

I do not offer suggestions on what these tweaks should be because the developers are not interested in suggestions, nor do I think it's conducive for me to do so. However, the simple fact that a skill is used by someone, somewhere does not necessarily justify its existence. Some changes get made regardless if some people use it because the change made the skill more generally applicable, such as with the recent rework of Crystal Blast/Fragments. Sometimes they hit the mark like with Molten Whip, other times it's less than perfect like people's mild reaction to Stonefist.

At the end of the day only ZOS has data on how often a skill gets used and what is enough to justify a change in a skill while we only have anecdoctal evidence. However, if we don't make noise about what we feel is underpowered, underutilized, or [insert whatever adjective you want] how do we expect any kind of changes to occur?

Circling back, I am making noise because it is my opinion that the destruction staff skill line has a couple of skills and passives that could use some real attention and I pointed out why I feel that is. It's fine if you disagree, that's what forums are for i suppose.

idk

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

That is very true, but it takes far too long to write out everything wrong with build diversity across all classes and weapon types so I chosetop focus on the area I have the most experience with.

The game is littered with dead or underused skills, but I felt there were some glaring instances in the destruction staff line like destructive touch and elemental susceptibility in particular. There exist others in the game for sure, but I lack the expertise nor do I have the desire to speak about all the dead morphs the game has at length.

There are two realities at play here.

1. In a game that gives us significant choices beyond just class skills, there will be less diversity between builds because we will use some of the same skills. That is life when playing a game that is not notably restrictive with builds as WoW type games are.

2. Being we have to choose skills we want to use vs. having half a screen full of skill bars to click on, we are more selective with what we put on our skill bars. Most of the skills we have on our screen in SWTOR are really dead skills. We only have them on our bar because we have so much space available to place them and we might use that skill once a month when we do a specific raid. In ESO we slot that skill only in the rare time we need it. As long as we are not optically focused on only one activity we are changing up our bars often.

In the end, I do not want to play a game that locks me to only class skills and clutters up half my screen with so many skill bars so I can pretend dozens of skills I never or rarely use are worthwhile.

That's a fair assessment that I would agree with. Yet there remains a difference between a skill that is only occasionally used or slotted and one that exists to be ignored by the populace. More to the point I do not want so many skills like in your example. In fact I would argue that most of ESO's skills are useful across many types of content,and as someone that plays a variety of the content type available in the game I understand this personally. I think it is this fact that makes some of the exceptions to this rule that much more glaring.

It seems you are pointing out that there are not really any skills ignored by the populace, merely some skills used in some interests that are not used by players with other interests.

I doubt there is any skill in ESO that is not used at all. Just some that are not useful for our specific interests but is useful for someone else's. That is perfectly fine as the game is all about meta DPS or being a top PvP player.

Mm no, I am pointing out that there are skills that are too niche in their current renditions. With a tweaks or reworks (like how the old Molten Whip was changed) they can still fit the function they are meant for but also increasing their scope of use.

I do not offer suggestions on what these tweaks should be because the developers are not interested in suggestions, nor do I think it's conducive for me to do so. However, the simple fact that a skill is used by someone, somewhere does not necessarily justify its existence. Some changes get made regardless if some people use it because the change made the skill more generally applicable, such as with the recent rework of Crystal Blast/Fragments. Sometimes they hit the mark like with Molten Whip, other times it's less than perfect like people's mild reaction to Stonefist.

At the end of the day only ZOS has data on how often a skill gets used and what is enough to justify a change in a skill while we only have anecdoctal evidence. However, if we don't make noise about what we feel is underpowered, underutilized, or [insert whatever adjective you want] how do we expect any kind of changes to occur?

Circling back, I am making noise because it is my opinion that the destruction staff skill line has a couple of skills and passives that could use some real attention and I pointed out why I feel that is. It's fine if you disagree, that's what forums are for i suppose

.

I will talk to the first major point discussed at length in the OP, passives. The complaint is that so many of the passives do not benefit a Magicka build at large, that they mostly focus on the dStaff skill line. To anyone who looked at the design of the game as a whole that defines pretty much every skill line in the game since most of the passives in every skill line focus on that skill line in one manner or the other.

The reality is, it makes perfect sense that the passives that are part of a skill line relate mostly to that skill line. After all it is part of that skill line.

Granted, you mentioned that you focused on the dStaff because it is what you are familiar with but the complaint is really about the combat design of the entire game. It is a complaint about the very foundation of combat in this game.

Beyond that, there is nothing to discuss as "skills that are too niche" is far to vague to address. To me, it sounds like a niche skill is just one that is not useful for the areas of the game that I focus on.

I hope you can see past that not all skills are always very useful and that passives for skill lines tend to focus on that skill line more than other skill lines. Enjoy the game.

Firstmep

Elee drain is one of the best sustain skills in the game.
Crushing shock great range spammable with interrupt.
Wall is mandatory with vma staff in Pve.
Destro staff is the only one where all the arena weapons are really good.
Destructive touch and morphs are kinda bad IMHO, they should've never reduced the range on clench.
Their passives are kinda outdated, 2h and dual wield have a lot more universally useful passives that can boost all skills.

Somewhere

Firstmep wrote: »

Elee drain is one of the best sustain skills in the game.
Crushing shock great range spammable with interrupt.
Wall is mandatory with vma staff in Pve.
Destro staff is the only one where all the arena weapons are really good.
Destructive touch and morphs are kinda bad IMHO, they should've never reduced the range on clench.
Their passives are kinda outdated, 2h and dual wield have a lot more universally useful passives that can boost all skills.

Right? Like by slapping on two swords I boost the damage done with every single skill in my toolkit and increase my overall weapon damage further increasing my damage and my healing with other skills that scale on weapon damage / stamina. With 2h just killing anyone boosts stamina recovery, but with a destruction staff I need to kill someone with only a skill from that line. You can drop Destruction Mastery and Penetrating Magic and never even notice they were even there. I could say the same about Tri Focus, but it has its uses with Ice Staff tanking, so it gets a pass.

ThePedge

Tanks use Lightning/Frost Staves
Healers use Lightning Staves
DDs use Lightning Staves in Trash fights

So no, not everyone uses Inferno

Force Shock (both morphs) used by multiple classes in various content
Wall of Elements is used by everyone, everywhere
Destructive Touch has its uses everywhere. One morph is a dot, other is either AoE skill for trash/PvP, knockback for PvP, or damage and root for PvP
Weakness to Elements is used by tanks, healers, solo DDs, and in PvP
Impulse has situational use in PvE and PvP, especially when combined with BRP Destro

Pretty damn useful and well rounded skill line.

Major_Lag

Although I generally agree with most of OP's points, IMO the biggest grievance with the destro staff skill line is not that the skill line is bad per se, but rather that no viable alternatives exist.
That is what really kills build diversity.

Stamina has access to 4 widely differing weapon skill lines, of which 3 are damage oriented.
Magicka has only 2, and only one of those (destro) is damage oriented.

So for magicka DPS, or even for a "hybrid role" (PvP or solo PvE), the only possible frontbar choice is a destro staff of some variety.

For DPS, unless you are a Warden, you can safely cross the aberration that is frost staff off of the list right away.
This immediately stinks of poor design - after all, it's supposed to be a destruction staff, which implies it's meant for causing destruction (damage), and not for tanking as is actually the case.

So that only leaves us with flame or shock staff. And that's it - there is nothing else that can possibly be viable.
Resto staff... not useful for damage oriented builds.
Any of the stamina weapons? Even worse, and their HA returns the wrong resource as well.

TL;dr: magicka is long overdue for the addition of more weapon skill lines.
Alteration staff skill line is one obvious candidate (for magicka tanking), freeing up the frost staff for actual DPS usage.
Conjuration staff would be also interesting, although I'm not sure how to implement it without also making it a cheap plastic knock-off of the Necromancer class. Maybe a Conjuration "spellbook" or a rune instead of a staff, for summoning various bound weapons?

VoxAdActa

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

That is very true, but it takes far too long to write out everything wrong with build diversity across all classes and weapon types so I chosetop focus on the area I have the most experience with.

The game is littered with dead or underused skills, but I felt there were some glaring instances in the destruction staff line like destructive touch and elemental susceptibility in particular. There exist others in the game for sure, but I lack the expertise nor do I have the desire to speak about all the dead morphs the game has at length.

There are two realities at play here.

1. In a game that gives us significant choices beyond just class skills, there will be less diversity between builds because we will use some of the same skills. That is life when playing a game that is not notably restrictive with builds as WoW type games are.

2. Being we have to choose skills we want to use vs. having half a screen full of skill bars to click on, we are more selective with what we put on our skill bars. Most of the skills we have on our screen in SWTOR are really dead skills. We only have them on our bar because we have so much space available to place them and we might use that skill once a month when we do a specific raid. In ESO we slot that skill only in the rare time we need it. As long as we are not optically focused on only one activity we are changing up our bars often.

In the end, I do not want to play a game that locks me to only class skills and clutters up half my screen with so many skill bars so I can pretend dozens of skills I never or rarely use are worthwhile.

Yet there remains a difference between a skill that is only occasionally used or slotted and one that exists to be ignored by the populace.

We only get 10 skill slots. If you're chasing the meta, there are only two categories of skill: BiS and Dead. All the skills you're complaining about are "dead", and will be "dead" no matter how they're reworked, until and unless they become "BiS", at which point whatever skill they replace is now "dead". There's no middle ground, in this game or any game. There is only one way to skin a cat.

If you're not chasing the meta, you'd notice a lot of people use Destructive Clench and Force Shock because they like the skills, regardless of how effective they are for vet Trial achievements.

Somewhere

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

That is very true, but it takes far too long to write out everything wrong with build diversity across all classes and weapon types so I chosetop focus on the area I have the most experience with.

The game is littered with dead or underused skills, but I felt there were some glaring instances in the destruction staff line like destructive touch and elemental susceptibility in particular. There exist others in the game for sure, but I lack the expertise nor do I have the desire to speak about all the dead morphs the game has at length.

There are two realities at play here.

1. In a game that gives us significant choices beyond just class skills, there will be less diversity between builds because we will use some of the same skills. That is life when playing a game that is not notably restrictive with builds as WoW type games are.

2. Being we have to choose skills we want to use vs. having half a screen full of skill bars to click on, we are more selective with what we put on our skill bars. Most of the skills we have on our screen in SWTOR are really dead skills. We only have them on our bar because we have so much space available to place them and we might use that skill once a month when we do a specific raid. In ESO we slot that skill only in the rare time we need it. As long as we are not optically focused on only one activity we are changing up our bars often.

In the end, I do not want to play a game that locks me to only class skills and clutters up half my screen with so many skill bars so I can pretend dozens of skills I never or rarely use are worthwhile.

Yet there remains a difference between a skill that is only occasionally used or slotted and one that exists to be ignored by the populace.

We only get 10 skill slots. If you're chasing the meta, there are only two categories of skill: BiS and Dead. All the skills you're complaining about are "dead", and will be "dead" no matter how they're reworked, until and unless they become "BiS", at which point whatever skill they replace is now "dead". There's no middle ground, in this game or any game. There is only one way to skin a cat.

If you're not chasing the meta, you'd notice a lot of people use Destructive Clench and Force Shock because they like the skills, regardless of how effective they are for vet Trial achievements.

I dont recall mentioning anywhere that i was focused only veteran trials, I think you assumed that yourself. I didn't mention force pulse because there's nothing wrong with the skill, it's great.

Destructive clench though... Only flame clench sees much real use across all content. I don't care about the meta in this argument, I care about the most basic question: "what situation does this skill shine most in,and why should I use it?" Look at shock clench and shock impulse, they are very nearly identical. Both deal the same shock aoe damage, one has more range and costs a little bit magic, that's all. Frost clench is an immobilize in a tree with two others, do the question is:

Why would we not want these underutilized skills to do more than they already do?

Everest_Lionheart

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

That is very true, but it takes far too long to write out everything wrong with build diversity across all classes and weapon types so I chosetop focus on the area I have the most experience with.

The game is littered with dead or underused skills, but I felt there were some glaring instances in the destruction staff line like destructive touch and elemental susceptibility in particular. There exist others in the game for sure, but I lack the expertise nor do I have the desire to speak about all the dead morphs the game has at length.

There are two realities at play here.

1. In a game that gives us significant choices beyond just class skills, there will be less diversity between builds because we will use some of the same skills. That is life when playing a game that is not notably restrictive with builds as WoW type games are.

2. Being we have to choose skills we want to use vs. having half a screen full of skill bars to click on, we are more selective with what we put on our skill bars. Most of the skills we have on our screen in SWTOR are really dead skills. We only have them on our bar because we have so much space available to place them and we might use that skill once a month when we do a specific raid. In ESO we slot that skill only in the rare time we need it. As long as we are not optically focused on only one activity we are changing up our bars often.

In the end, I do not want to play a game that locks me to only class skills and clutters up half my screen with so many skill bars so I can pretend dozens of skills I never or rarely use are worthwhile.

Yet there remains a difference between a skill that is only occasionally used or slotted and one that exists to be ignored by the populace.

We only get 10 skill slots. If you're chasing the meta, there are only two categories of skill: BiS and Dead. All the skills you're complaining about are "dead", and will be "dead" no matter how they're reworked, until and unless they become "BiS", at which point whatever skill they replace is now "dead". There's no middle ground, in this game or any game. There is only one way to skin a cat.

If you're not chasing the meta, you'd notice a lot of people use Destructive Clench and Force Shock because they like the skills, regardless of how effective they are for vet Trial achievements.

Still at the end of the day even off meta builds are running 7-8 BiS skills and maybe 2-3 off meta. Most meta builds have 1-2 flex spots for heals/shields as well.

The problem as pointed out by others isn’t exclusive to destro line. There are plenty of class skills that are basically junk as well. That and so many ultimate skills are way underpowered. Ultimates need balancing for sure and some skills that have been around for years that get minimal use need to be revisited.

Somewhere

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Somewhere wrote: »

idk wrote: »

When I read the OP and got to this line it seems more than OP is complaining about the game in general and just seems focused on the dStaff. Pretty much every build in the game is the same alone their chosen resource line. There is very little class flavor and this has been more so with stamina builds but also with magicka builds. Vary to far from the general meta and you are in sad shape.

That is very true, but it takes far too long to write out everything wrong with build diversity across all classes and weapon types so I chosetop focus on the area I have the most experience with.

The game is littered with dead or underused skills, but I felt there were some glaring instances in the destruction staff line like destructive touch and elemental susceptibility in particular. There exist others in the game for sure, but I lack the expertise nor do I have the desire to speak about all the dead morphs the game has at length.

There are two realities at play here.

1. In a game that gives us significant choices beyond just class skills, there will be less diversity between builds because we will use some of the same skills. That is life when playing a game that is not notably restrictive with builds as WoW type games are.

2. Being we have to choose skills we want to use vs. having half a screen full of skill bars to click on, we are more selective with what we put on our skill bars. Most of the skills we have on our screen in SWTOR are really dead skills. We only have them on our bar because we have so much space available to place them and we might use that skill once a month when we do a specific raid. In ESO we slot that skill only in the rare time we need it. As long as we are not optically focused on only one activity we are changing up our bars often.

In the end, I do not want to play a game that locks me to only class skills and clutters up half my screen with so many skill bars so I can pretend dozens of skills I never or rarely use are worthwhile.

Yet there remains a difference between a skill that is only occasionally used or slotted and one that exists to be ignored by the populace.

We only get 10 skill slots. If you're chasing the meta, there are only two categories of skill: BiS and Dead. All the skills you're complaining about are "dead", and will be "dead" no matter how they're reworked, until and unless they become "BiS", at which point whatever skill they replace is now "dead". There's no middle ground, in this game or any game. There is only one way to skin a cat.

If you're not chasing the meta, you'd notice a lot of people use Destructive Clench and Force Shock because they like the skills, regardless of how effective they are for vet Trial achievements.

Still at the end of the day even off meta builds are running 7-8 BiS skills and maybe 2-3 off meta. Most meta builds have 1-2 flex spots for heals/shields as well.

The problem as pointed out by others isn’t exclusive to destro line. There are plenty of class skills that are basically junk as well. That and so many ultimate skills are way underpowered. Ultimates need balancing for sure and some skills that have been around for years that get minimal use need to be revisited.

Well it's funny too, since we all talk about "meta" like we're talking about the same meta, when in reality there's at least half a dozen metas floating around in this game. You've got metas for IC, BG, and Cyrodiil running solo, small group, or large organized group. There's metas for 4-man dungeons, maelstrom arena, trials, overworld content. Even within those exists smaller sub-metas. For instance, Camo Hunter is "meta" in vAS because it provides berserk to the group members in an area that's difficult to obtain it otherwise.

It's easy to run off-meta in these instances and still do well. I've been called off meta in the past because I was in a trial running elemental succession on a magDK and as a result, used Scaling Rune despite the fact that I was doing just as well. Meta doesn't really matter, what matters is effectiveness.

Since I only focused on destro staff here, I only mentioned the skills here that I thought were problematic, but like, when is Elemental Susceptibility more effective than Elemental Drain? If we have to craft some incredibly niche scenario just to get one skill to be more effective and for a player to say to themselves, "man I'm glad I have this morph over the other one" then I feel that the skill falls into the category of "dead morph" and deserves some adjustment.

itscompton

Frost also procs chilled, which afflicts the enemy with minor maim, reducing their damage done by 15%.

GrimTheReaper45

I agree with this. Would Really like Destruction staff line to get an update.

Just to echo some points a really agree with:

- Theres Basically only fire staffs: Lightning is ok, it needs a bit of work to make it worth running over fire staff. Ice is pretty useless or at least very niche.

- Destruction expert is not a very good passive: Its not a reliable thing and it gives back resources when you dont need it, after the fight is over.

- Penetrating magic is also not really good: Mag characters mainly utilize class skills and destruction is used to supplement what classes are lacking. Lacking a spammable or good offensive ultimate for example. Which means it rarely gets applied.

Jpk0012

Only skill line in the game that few people use any of the skills from. Even bow has 1 useful skill, and its so OP that every stamina character has to use it on backbar.


What can mag characters do? Just use another destro staff. 6 years plus this has been going on. Don't expect a solution that doesn't involve the eso store.

IrishOphidia

Jpk0012 wrote: »

Only skill line in the game that few people use any of the skills from. Even bow has 1 useful skill, and its so OP that every stamina character has to use it on backbar.


What can mag characters do? Just use another destro staff. 6 years plus this has been going on. Don't expect a solution that doesn't involve the eso store.

We use a lot of the skills from the Destro line rather frequently. Wall is used by every mag build, FP is used pretty often, Ele Drain is used in every PvE group, Impulse is used on most mag builds for add pulls, and the Destro ulti is used in a lot of Mag builds. So I'm not sure why people believe the skill line isn't used.

IrishOphidia

Somewhere wrote: »

Well it's funny too, since we all talk about "meta" like we're talking about the same meta, when in reality there's at least half a dozen metas floating around in this game. You've got metas for IC, BG, and Cyrodiil running solo, small group, or large organized group. There's metas for 4-man dungeons, maelstrom arena, trials, overworld content. Even within those exists smaller sub-metas. For instance, Camo Hunter is "meta" in vAS because it provides berserk to the group members in an area that's difficult to obtain it otherwise.

It's easy to run off-meta in these instances and still do well. I've been called off meta in the past because I was in a trial running elemental succession on a magDK and as a result, used Scaling Rune despite the fact that I was doing just as well. Meta doesn't really matter, what matters is effectiveness.

Since I only focused on destro staff here, I only mentioned the skills here that I thought were problematic, but like, when is Elemental Susceptibility more effective than Elemental Drain? If we have to craft some incredibly niche scenario just to get one skill to be more effective and for a player to say to themselves, "man I'm glad I have this morph over the other one" then I feel that the skill falls into the category of "dead morph" and deserves some adjustment.

Well when you say "Meta doesn't really matter, what matters is effectiveness." That's kind of a contradiction since META is an acronym for "Most Effective Tactic Available." So therefore, META does matter IF what matters is effectiveness.

Bucky_13

Jpk0012 wrote: »

Only skill line in the game that few people use any of the skills from. Even bow has 1 useful skill, and its so OP that every stamina character has to use it on backbar.


What can mag characters do? Just use another destro staff. 6 years plus this has been going on. Don't expect a solution that doesn't involve the eso store.

For end game PvE bow have 1 useful skill sure, but poison arrow still have a use occasionally when you don't really want to be in melee range for some bosses. For PvP, the other 4 skills (in some cases, poison arrow as well) can all be very useful, with snipe being the most obvious. While i'd love to see a source of major brutality from a bow skill, the whole line is in a pretty good place overall, it's miles ahead of destro staff.