Build diversity with Destruction Staves

RealJobasha

The Ancient Knowledge passive is a really great idea for making the different elemental damage types have a unique identity and use in the sandbox. The problem is that it's slanted to clearly favor Inferno staves. In a dungeon or in a trial, where do you need to perform the best: the group of low health enemies that take about 10 seconds to kill, or the boss with 3 million or 21 million health that takes much longer? The answer is obvious, the boss fight. So which staff type suits that better? Inferno. Why? Ancient Knowledge. An 8% modifier to Single Target (ST) Damage sounds great on paper, but eliminates build diversity when everyone trying to DPS has to use an inferno staff.

My proposition to fix this is three fold:
1. Change Ancient Knowledge.
2. Add stars to a purple CP tree.
3. Consolidate weave speed across staves.

So, to begin with number 1.
This passive, as I said, is great for adding utility to different weapon types, but is slated to favor inferno staves. An easy fix for this would be to change its Single Target damage modifier to a Damage Over Time (or DOT) modifier. Fire sticks around and burns for a while, so it's fitting that the passive changes to a DOT. There aren't currently any other DOT modifiers in the game other than Thaumaturge, and so it's often less viable than AOE damage.

Now, before you nerds start aggressively typing about "muh damage", keep reading. I'll echo your elementary school teachers when they told you to read the instructions in totality before starting your assignment.

Number 2 addresses this loss in ST damage.
Rather than forcing everyone to use inferno staves to get good ST damage, add three CP stars into one of the existing purple CP sub-trees, or add another tree for these plus some creative extras. I won't bother about the extras, just what's needed for this to work.

Similarly to how Skyrim had three branches in the Destruction skill tree which increased Flame, Frost, and Shock damage, CP stars could be added to do the same. 5 stage stars, 10 points each stage, increasing Flame, Frost or Shock damage by 2% each stage, capping at 50 points for a 10% modifier. Making these slottable wouldn't work because the slottables that already exist are good and sacrifices already have to be made in the current state of the system, plus this is being added to replace an existing system within the destruction staff skill tree and so making it slottable would be stupid.

The 3rd point is about consolidating weave speed between the staff types.
Currently, inferno staves can weave the fastest. If you're so inclined you can go download Combat Metrics, do a parse, and look at the numbers yourself, but I don't feel like doing that, so you'll have to take my word for it. Lightning staves come in second, a bit slower than the inferno staves but not terrible. And frost, of course, fittingly, comes in last by quite a considerable margin. It's almost like there's a conspiracy to make frost staves absolutely f-ing useless in this game for DPS despite half-baked recent efforts to the contrary.

More explanation on this isn't really necessary given everything else I've written here. Consolidating weave speeds is necessary to make all staves perform at the same speed mechanically, removing clear favorablity of the Inferno staff, which is necessary because the whole point of this is to make every staff viable for the end result of: Ｂｕｉｌｄ Ｄｉｖｅｒｓｉｔｙ

Thank you all for reading and if the combat team could look this over and implement it or something like it, literally everyone with at least half a brain or more would thank you.

ealdwin

Agree with all your points and ideas.

I've had similar ideas about Inferno Staves increasing DoT damage, usually paired with changing Lightning Staves to increasing Direct Damage, usually for similar reasons as you've outlined. It also would help DKs and Sorcs respectively build into their strengths. DKs would get more power out fo their DoT damage and Sorcs would get more power behind their burst by leaning into their primary element.

zvavi

"muh damage"

flow_valkyrie

Hi,

I completely agree. I dont get why my magicka warden or magicka sorcerer must run a destro staff to do 8% more damage.

I think the reason ancient knowledge is a bad passive is because the way damage currently works:

First of all the dmg ticks are calculated based on your current staff (i think). So doing an aoe with backbar lighting while swapping to fire front wont keep the 8% extra aoe dmg.

Second of all. "Spammables" do waay too much damage compared to aoe or dot abilities. Therefore inferno becomes far superior. Aoe is also most of the time useless compared to single target damage.

I think they maybe should change it to something like this:
With a destruction staff equipped:
Damage of magicka spells increased by 4%.
Damage dealt by the same element of your staff is increased by 4%.

But i 100% agree they should change the ancient knowledge passive to allow more builds!!!

Athan1

I hate staves and I don't want to use them. They are ugly and clanky when we walk. They clip with everything we sit on. I want a grimoire or a rune to cast spells.