Upcoming Weapon Skill Line improvements this year (that I would like to see)

chessalavakia_ESO

Personally, I don't think I'd enjoy the bow changes but, I'm a bit odd so maybe others would like them more.

Around half of my characters are bow users but, the one I enjoy playing most uses either two of the three or all three of the skills you are changing and derives all of it's damage from bow skills.

Focused Aim let's me feel awesome as I'm launching a powerful shot that goes for a long distance.

Arrow Salvo seems like it'd move in a bit of a different direction and possibly stepping on the toes of Rapid Fire and morphs. (Name wise you'd also have people potentially confusing it with what was Arrow Barrage)

It might be nice for PvP as the enemies have really high mitigation, attempt to dodge, and attempt to block but in much of the PvE content the remaining mitigation isn't that high and they rarely dodge or block.

You've got multiple other spammables with a 28 meter range that it would be in competition with and your changes to Long Shots would probably give them the edge as the bows take a 2% damage hit and the others get a 10% buff.

You might also run into more awkwardness in group content if it ever takes off as bow users are doing the best damage when they are 24m+ away from the target which puts them in a potentially awkward position for healers at times which may lead to further messing with the bow skill line due to their complaints.

(I believe early in ESO's history Long Shots did actually apply to everything for a bit due to a bug)

Right now, three of the five bow skills and the bow ultimate has the potential to cause poison damage. Is a fourth necessary (Technically it'd be a Fifth if you us Virulent Shot)? I kind of like to think of using the bow as being an archer that occasionally poisons people as opposed to being somebody that poisons people using a bow.

Increasing the duration of Major Brutality/Major Sorcery only really helps builds that are choosing to slot Venom Arrow and are also choosing not to use it much. I'm not sure that is a huge set of people and I'm unsure if they specifically need buffed.

ESO_Nightingale

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Personally, I don't think I'd enjoy the bow changes but, I'm a bit odd so maybe others would like them more.

Around half of my characters are bow users but, the one I enjoy playing most uses either two of the three or all three of the skills you are changing and derives all of it's damage from bow skills.

Focused Aim let's me feel awesome as I'm launching a powerful shot that goes for a long distance.

Arrow Salvo seems like it'd move in a bit of a different direction and possibly stepping on the toes of Rapid Fire and morphs. (Name wise you'd also have people potentially confusing it with what was Arrow Barrage)

It might be nice for PvP as the enemies have really high mitigation, attempt to dodge, and attempt to block but in much of the PvE content the remaining mitigation isn't that high and they rarely dodge or block.

You've got multiple other spammables with a 28 meter range that it would be in competition with and your changes to Long Shots would probably give them the edge as the bows take a 2% damage hit and the others get a 10% buff.

You might also run into more awkwardness in group content if it ever takes off as bow users are doing the best damage when they are 24m+ away from the target which puts them in a potentially awkward position for healers at times which may lead to further messing with the bow skill line due to their complaints.

(I believe early in ESO's history Long Shots did actually apply to everything for a bit due to a bug)

Right now, three of the five bow skills and the bow ultimate has the potential to cause poison damage. Is a fourth necessary (Technically it'd be a Fifth if you us Virulent Shot)? I kind of like to think of using the bow as being an archer that occasionally poisons people as opposed to being somebody that poisons people using a bow.

Increasing the duration of Major Brutality/Major Sorcery only really helps builds that are choosing to slot Venom Arrow and are also choosing not to use it much. I'm not sure that is a huge set of people and I'm unsure if they specifically need buffed.

Focused aim is definitely underused as a morph which is why i elected to give it what i think is a fun rework, i can understand it not hitting the right notes for people though. But i did want to give bow users another spammable option for their weapon other than just snipe. the poison thing seems mostly personal to how you play, i know a lot of people want more representation of damage types in general which is why the suggestion for arrow barrage was made, we definitely need more viable frost and shock damage skills as well which is a problem in the same vein. Venom Arrow having increased buff duration just helps it be more forgiving in general like how degeneration is.

For Long Shots i personally think that this is the most important change. I should clarify that i think it should probably have scaling similar to what screaming cliff racer has, where it increases gradually the further away you get from your target, and should probably max out at 12-15 meters to allow it to be generally less wonky but still emphasising the "play at range" flavor this weapon has. by allowing it to buff all damage done to targets gradually based on your distance, it just means that more builds other than pure bow builds can get more out of using the weapon, the damage of it was lowered by 2% in order to account for it buffing all of your damage. if you look at how the melee weapons have been handled, and how a lot of stuff has changed recently, you can see that zos wants to go fully into hybridization, which is why i think this change should be made to bows, as currently it's so focused on itself and it's own skills that it means that there is less room for using it with non bow skills without it just being a damage loss, it'll also buff any other non-bow skills that you do have on your bow build.

hopefully that provides some insight into what i was thinking regarding the bow suggestions i made.

Elendir2am

Thecompton73 wrote: »

2) Tanks that use it because of the utility and would be just as happy, probably even happier, to use a new magica tanking stave that was designed and dedicated to the role rather than a tacked on set of passives that modified an existing DPS weapon as an afterthought that was introduced years into the games existence.

[snip] Taking support aspects of ice staff and creating new staff for tanks would probably lead to quitting for (not small) part of tanks.

Support roles in ESO need to farm a lot of different sets and have ice staffs for them. Some of them need run trials or arenas, other (like PA) are bought for a lot of gold (milions) if they dont do PvP.

[snip]

PS. I think, that ZOS want more than one purpose for each weapons.

[edited for baiting]

Mr_Stach

I think if Zos created the Alteration Staff Skill Line and gave it relevant tools that out-performed the current Frost Staff Tanking tools, Tanks would want the better thing. Would it be annoying to farm new things?

Sure.

But being behind or missing out? People got FOMO bad in ESO, they will jump through as many hoops as they need to stay relevant.

ESO_Nightingale

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think if Zos created the Alteration Staff Skill Line and gave it relevant tools that out-performed the current Frost Staff Tanking tools, Tanks would want the better thing. Would it be annoying to farm new things?

Sure.

But being behind or missing out? People got FOMO bad in ESO, they will jump through as many hoops as they need to stay relevant.

I really hope next year has a new magic dps weapon. Or spell crafting or something combat related.

Thecompton73

Elendir2am wrote: »

Thecompton73 wrote: »

2) Tanks that use it because of the utility and would be just as happy, probably even happier, to use a new magica tanking stave that was designed and dedicated to the role rather than a tacked on set of passives that modified an existing DPS weapon as an afterthought that was introduced years into the games existence.

[snip] Taking support aspects of ice staff and creating new staff for tanks would probably lead to quitting for (not small) part of tanks.

Support roles in ESO need to farm a lot of different sets and have ice staffs for them. Some of them need run trials or arenas, other (like PA) are bought for a lot of gold (milions) if they dont do PvP.

[snip]

PS. I think, that ZOS want more than one purpose for each weapons.

[edited for baiting]

Please explain what secondary purpose DPS weapons like bow, duel wield, or two-handed have. Each offer a bit of self healing or mitigation in the skill lines but still I don't see many decicated healer or tank builds that use them. What secondary purpose does healing staff have besides healing that would make a pure DPS build run it (keeping in mind tanks are using frost staffs back bar)? What secondary purpose does S&B have to make it viable for pure DPS or dedicated healers?

Thecompton73

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think if Zos created the Alteration Staff Skill Line and gave it relevant tools that out-performed the current Frost Staff Tanking tools, Tanks would want the better thing. Would it be annoying to farm new things?

Sure.

But being behind or missing out? People got FOMO bad in ESO, they will jump through as many hoops as they need to stay relevant.

Exactly, if they come out with a really good mythic for tanks I doubt they'll all quit rather than farm the leads for it. Why would they quit if they had to farm for a new weapon with abilities designed to be used for the role? I think having a new magic weapon designed for tanks would excite current tanks and get new people to try the role. And if someone had farmed a piece of content to get the ice stave it' seems likely they'd have collected enough of the set that the weighted drops would give them the new staff pretty quickly.

ESO_Nightingale

Thecompton73 wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think if Zos created the Alteration Staff Skill Line and gave it relevant tools that out-performed the current Frost Staff Tanking tools, Tanks would want the better thing. Would it be annoying to farm new things?

Sure.

But being behind or missing out? People got FOMO bad in ESO, they will jump through as many hoops as they need to stay relevant.

Exactly, if they come out with a really good mythic for tanks I doubt they'll all quit rather than farm the leads for it. Why would they quit if they had to farm for a new weapon with abilities designed to be used for the role? I think having a new magic weapon designed for tanks would excite current tanks and get new people to try the role. And if someone had farmed a piece of content to get the ice stave it' seems likely they'd have collected enough of the set that the weighted drops would give them the new staff pretty quickly.

I've heard the "i don't want to farm any more items" argument before several times. People do it every patch. It's even easier because of the stickerbook now.

ESO_Nightingale

Thecompton73 wrote: »

Elendir2am wrote: »

Thecompton73 wrote: »

2) Tanks that use it because of the utility and would be just as happy, probably even happier, to use a new magica tanking stave that was designed and dedicated to the role rather than a tacked on set of passives that modified an existing DPS weapon as an afterthought that was introduced years into the games existence.

[snip] Taking support aspects of ice staff and creating new staff for tanks would probably lead to quitting for (not small) part of tanks.

Support roles in ESO need to farm a lot of different sets and have ice staffs for them. Some of them need run trials or arenas, other (like PA) are bought for a lot of gold (milions) if they dont do PvP.

[snip]

PS. I think, that ZOS want more than one purpose for each weapons.

[edited for baiting]

Please explain what secondary purpose DPS weapons like bow, duel wield, or two-handed have. Each offer a bit of self healing or mitigation in the skill lines but still I don't see many decicated healer or tank builds that use them. What secondary purpose does healing staff have besides healing that would make a pure DPS build run it (keeping in mind tanks are using frost staffs back bar)? What secondary purpose does S&B have to make it viable for pure DPS or dedicated healers?

maybe they were refering to snb's spammable getting stronger and having more ways to scale so you could technically get ok dps out of it as a tank. or something to that effect.

Mr_Stach

I think one of ESOs largest issues are the stagnant Skill Lines, Many things have had barely any actual changes since launch. Zos really needs to find some ways to breath life back into the Skills themselves, not relying on Set Bonuses and Mythics to carry the game so much.

ESO_Nightingale

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think one of ESOs largest issues are the stagnant Skill Lines, Many things have had barely any actual changes since launch. Zos really needs to find some ways to breath life back into the Skills themselves, not relying on Set Bonuses and Mythics to carry the game so much.

yeah, i mean, sets are cool and all, but they're not skills. whorl of the depths is great for frostden but it does precisely nothing to fix our bad destro skill effects and it certainly doesn't increase our number of frost damage skills from 1.

Mr_Stach

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think one of ESOs largest issues are the stagnant Skill Lines, Many things have had barely any actual changes since launch. Zos really needs to find some ways to breath life back into the Skills themselves, not relying on Set Bonuses and Mythics to carry the game so much.

yeah, i mean, sets are cool and all, but they're not skills. whorl of the depths is great for frostden but it does precisely nothing to fix our bad destro skill effects and it certainly doesn't increase our number of frost damage skills from 1.

Yeah, definitely agree there. There's also people in the community that want the game to get better but also not change. There's no growth in the Comfort Zone. If Zos wants to really improve the core gameplay, they'll need to stop playing it safe and make some real improvements.

ESO_Nightingale

we'll be seeing news about the next pts in the next few weeks and then likely the week 1 pts a week after that. unless they delay it.

we'll probably see changes to weapon skills. the ranged ones really need attention. the melee weapons have recieved nearly all of the attention lately.

ESO_Nightingale

Mr_Stach wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I think one of ESOs largest issues are the stagnant Skill Lines, Many things have had barely any actual changes since launch. Zos really needs to find some ways to breath life back into the Skills themselves, not relying on Set Bonuses and Mythics to carry the game so much.

yeah, i mean, sets are cool and all, but they're not skills. whorl of the depths is great for frostden but it does precisely nothing to fix our bad destro skill effects and it certainly doesn't increase our number of frost damage skills from 1.

Yeah, definitely agree there. There's also people in the community that want the game to get better but also not change. There's no growth in the Comfort Zone. If Zos wants to really improve the core gameplay, they'll need to stop playing it safe and make some real improvements.

Those are the kinds of people who don't know that change is certainly necessary or else stagnation sets in.