Should Entropy provide Minor Force?

Vaoh

Should Entropy (+morphs) provide Minor Force?

The Suggestion:
Entropy
- Bind an enemy with chaotic magic, dealing 3480 Magic Damage over 10 seconds. Excess magic spills out from them, granting you Minor Force, increasing your Critical Damage by 10% for 20 seconds.
Degeneration
- Bind an enemy with chaotic magic, dealing 3480 Magic Damage over 10 seconds. Excess magic spills out from them, granting you Minor Force and Major Sorcery, increasing your Critical Damage by 10% and Spell Damage by 20% for 20 seconds.
Structured Entropy
- Bind an enemy with chaotic magic, dealing 3480 Magic Damage over 10 seconds, and healing you for 398 every 2 seconds. Excess magic spills out from them, granting you Minor Force, increasing your Critical Damage by 10% for 20 seconds.

Some Context:

Spoiler

Rearming Trap is a Fighter's guild skill that gives this buff, so why not have a Mages Guild skill provide it too.

Minor Force is an important buff for DPS to keep up. This causes the vast majority of Magicka DPS (especially on console) to stick to Medusa so we have more flexibility with bar space. If Minor Force was more accessible from our regular skills, we could look at using other sets instead of having practically everyone funneled into Medusa for actual content... aka not parsing on a target skeleton. This suggestion would also provide an option for Stamina builds (mostly ranged) to get this buff without having to slot Tzogvin's Warband or the terrible morph that currently is Lightweight Beast Trap.

I got this idea because it's looking like I will never be able to unslot Medusa on my Magicka dps which is kind of disappointing. Gameplay is a lot less fun when using a barbed trap in rotation.

That's all:p

WrathOfInnos

I haven’t heard this request for Entropy before, usually the topic is for Minor Force on Scalding Rune because it’s so similar to Barbed Trap. I guess it doesn’t matter either way, I’d take Minor Force on any Magicka self buff or ranged damage skill. Medusa is becoming harder to run with the changes to Light Armor, the upcoming Piercing nerf, and the introduction of Harpooner’s Wading Kilt which will take up an armor slot with a piece of medium.

Maybe the core issue here is that Channeled Acceleration is a poor skill. It can be cast for 36s of Minor Force, but doing so in any long fight is a DPS loss. This is because the opportunity cost is so high, it fills a precious skill slot and is a slow cast that requires 2 GCD’s (2/36 or 5.6% of casts) and skipping a Light Attack weave, for a buff that only results in about 3% DPS. If it were an instant cast buff, that lasted 50s (requiring only 1/50 or 2% of casts to keep active) then it might be useful. Or alternatively give Channeled Accel a secondary effect that also affects damage (not speed, which is useless because it is short duration and requires self-snaring during the cast).

Anyway, I agree this is a problem, and there are numerous ways to solve it that I’d be happy with.

YandereGirlfriend

I'd still lean toward Fire Rune but there does need to be a universal, Magicka-oriented damage skill that provides Major Force.

Personally, I would love to see Major Sorcery moved to the base morph of this skill and then you could do whatever else you wanted to in the morphs.

One of them could provide Minor Force and then Degeneration could provide the self-heal (though that's still rather weak as its only morph effect).

ResidentContrarian

No.

When the skill is slotted on every build, stam and mag, in PvE and PvP because of the proposed changes that is when ZOS will take action and nerf it.

Not to mention, a single skill doing damage, healing, and giving a minor and major buff is probably not a good idea for balance esp. a crit buff.

ZOS will never allow free buffs to crit builds that allow them to either sustain or do damage easier, not to mention it means that Accelerate would be pointless in nearly every context given the time, duration, cost, and lack of damage, on every mag build in the game (and some stamina there too and in PvP will slot it).

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

I would say yes except that it would give classes with inbuilt major sorcery an unfair advantage over those using degeneration for the sorcery.

Vaoh

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

No.

When the skill is slotted on every build, stam and mag, in PvE and PvP because of the proposed changes that is when ZOS will take action and nerf it.

Not to mention, a single skill doing damage, healing, and giving a minor and major buff is probably not a good idea for balance esp. a crit buff.

ZOS will never allow free buffs to crit builds that allow them to either sustain or do damage easier, not to mention it means that Accelerate would be pointless in nearly every context given the time, duration, cost, and lack of damage, on every mag build in the game (and some stamina there too and in PvP will slot it).

Rearming Trap is already on every Stamina and many Magicka dps though.

Entropy (or Fire Rune) gaining Minor Force only means it won’t be 100% mandatory anymore for Mag dps in PvE to slot trap or gear up in Medusa, and gives ranged Stam builds a new choice.

And tbh Acceleration has other uses - you don’t have to worry about having a target so it’ll always be great for prebuffing.

Starlight_Whisper

Twilight Remedy would like a buff first

zvavi

Starlight_Whisper wrote: »

Twilight Remedy would like a buff first

Definitely

FriedEggSandwich

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

I would say yes except that it would give classes with inbuilt major sorcery an unfair advantage over those using degeneration for the sorcery.

I don't understand what you mean. The OP is suggesting Degeneration gets sorcery and force, not force instead of sorcery. This would give an advantage to anyone using Degeneration for sorcery, because they would also get force.

mocap

well it's a good idea to make base skills (not morphs) something useful. Currently there is little to no base skills which are useful as it is.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

If going for symmetry, certainly nothing says you have to, Rune seems like a better source of minor force. My worry is that the morphs of entropy start to look a little overloaded especially in PVP, but that I suppose is not a huge issue since its a non class skill and mag could use an overall buff (plus, crit damage is frankly not as important in PVP). In PVE I am not as concerned about it feeling overpowered. I really wish magic classes could get away from Trap/Medusa. As stated, medusa is becoming less optimal by the minute with the new mythic item that I believe is medium armor.

Also, if your goal is to lower raise the floor, maybe not requiring magic DPS to get into melee range (to cast trap) on trial bosses would be helpful for newer players.

Vaoh

Starlight_Whisper wrote: »

Twilight Remedy would like a buff first

100% yes

MindOfTheSwarm

Leave Entropy and Degeneration as is. Rework Structured Entropy:

Heat Death:
Bind an enemy with chaotic magic, dealing 1026 Frost Damage over 10 seconds. Gain Minor Force for 20 seconds increasing your Critical Damage by 10%.

Changed it to Frost as Entropy and Heat Death are very closely related in thermodynamics.

WrathOfInnos

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Leave Entropy and Degeneration as is. Rework Structured Entropy:

Heat Death:
Bind an enemy with chaotic magic, dealing 1026 Frost Damage over 10 seconds. Gain Minor Force for 20 seconds increasing your Critical Damage by 10%.

Changed it to Frost as Entropy and Heat Death are very closely related in thermodynamics.

Sounds interesting, but Structured Entropy is an important self-heal over time for some classes. Mechanics like Nahviintaas portal require DPS to self-heal, and classes like Templar don’t want to spam Breath of Life for instant burst heals. Even for Necromancer with the healing ghost, and Warden with lotus, Entropy is a much more reliable HoT (partially because AI bugs, and partially because it always heals the caster). Pale Order was maybe an answer to this issue last patch, but it was risky during Soul Tear, and after Blackwood releases it will give 0 healing in trials. Removing the self-heal from Entropy would make some things difficult for anyone that isn’t a Sorcerer or Nightblade.

NordSwordnBoard

I wonder if the utility granted encroaches on class skills meant for the same 20%. I agree with others that the Mage's Guild Rune is also a better candidate due to the mechanic similarity with trap. Connecting trap or rune with a target in PvP is much different than PvE. Entropy +morphs is a fire and forget dot, so the global ease of use is a factor.