Warden Dive ability rework concept.

Skullstachio

From what I have observed currently, there is currently a few problems with the current iteration of Dive and it’s morphs. (Specifically to do with its travel velocity as well as being a questionable “spammable” but I’m probably just scratching the proverbial surface.)

So heres an idea on how it “could” be better overall.

• Dive: Command a cliff racer to dive bomb an enemy, dealing X Magic Damage. If you are more than 7 meters away from the target, you set them Off Balance for 7 seconds. If the enemy is already Off Balance, the cliff racer rips through them, causing them to bleed for [x] Bleed Damage over 7 seconds. This effect can stack and scales to your highest offensive stats.
  Note: Taking the effects of Cutting dive and adding it in as a baseline effect would give players somewhat more reason to use dive as a spammable as repeated use against off-balanced targets as a base effect would incentivise it as a spammable, plus given how other abilites are being hybridised, making the bleeds scale off your highest offensive stats is probably something that should be done with an attentful eye.
  • Wretched Dive (renamed from cutting dive): Command a cliff racer to dive bomb an area, dealing X poison damage to the initial targets in radius and creating a 6 meter pool of poison at the target location for 10 seconds dealing x poison damage every 2 seconds with a chance to apply poison, Enemy targets standing in the pool already affected by a poison status effect take up to 6% increased damage from all sources based on your weapon and spell damage. Only one poisonous pool can be active at a time.
    New effect: No longer sets targets off-balance or bleeds them, slightly increases cast cost, converts to poison damage, can target an area instead of a target and poisoned targets in the pool take extra damage from all sources.
  Note: The idea for wretched dive comes from one of the cliff striders own attacks which already exists called retch, but by having a similar variation hand-tailored to a morph for the wardens dive ability could make for something interesting. Ideally given the way this morph would work, it would also incorporate an increase in cost to use this morph specifically as it isn’t as spammable, not to mention sacrificing a stacking bleed dot application on off-balance targets in exchange for a poison AoE which can damage and uniquely debuff targets for you and your teammates seemed like a good idea from my perspective.
  • Screaming Cliff Racer: Command an enraged cliff racer to dive bomb an enemy at high speeds, dealing X Magic Damage. If you are more than 7 meters away from the target, you set them Off Balance for 7 seconds. Each successful consecutive cast increases the speed of the cliff racer and is lost upon use of another ability. If the enemy is already Off Balance, the enraged cliff racer rips through them, causing them to bleed for [x] Bleed Damage over [7/8/9/10] seconds. This effect can stack and scales to your highest offensive stats.
    New effect: slightly increases the initial flight speed of the cliff racer, increases the duration of the abilities bleed effect and each successful cast increases the cliff racers flight speed while cast in succession.
  Note: Screaming cliff racer almost remains roughly the same but gets a touchup in the form of increased velocity which in turn will allow the ability to hit the target quicker, the increased duration of the off-balance bleeds which scale with your highest offensive stats like the base ability, and moreover, increasing the abilities velocity even further with each successful cast may give it a good spammable feel, plus making that bonus velocity on cast be lost by casting another ability, even I do not know what may happen but given the problems which already exist in the live iteration and soon to be with high isles.

Another fair note: if the bleed stacking becomes a problem with the touched up screaming cliff racer morph, let alone the revised base ability, it just means the maximum amount of bleed stacks from it can be hard-capped accordingly to keep it from being too overpowered in both PvE and PvP.

Thoughts?

Mr_Stach

Interesting thoughts, the bleed being baseline is nice and the AoE is ok.

My issue is the same issue I've had since the Dive Changes.

DPS effects tied behind Off-balance is annoying. Having a required range for the special thing to happen is annoying. And the general speed of Dive is Annoying.

I'm just sick of jumping through hoops. You need to be so far away but not so far away that Scorch misses. Whelp gotta stand next to someone for 5 seconds to stun em. Or wait for someone to hit you with a Ranged attack to stun em.

ESO_Nightingale

Skullstachio wrote: »

From what I have observed currently, there is currently a few problems with the current iteration of Dive and it’s morphs. (Specifically to do with its travel velocity as well as being a questionable “spammable” but I’m probably just scratching the proverbial surface.)

So heres an idea on how it “could” be better overall.

• Dive: Command a cliff racer to dive bomb an enemy, dealing X Magic Damage. If you are more than 7 meters away from the target, you set them Off Balance for 7 seconds. If the enemy is already Off Balance, the cliff racer rips through them, causing them to bleed for [x] Bleed Damage over 7 seconds. This effect can stack and scales to your highest offensive stats.
  Note: Taking the effects of Cutting dive and adding it in as a baseline effect would give players somewhat more reason to use dive as a spammable as repeated use against off-balanced targets as a base effect would incentivise it as a spammable, plus given how other abilites are being hybridised, making the bleeds scale off your highest offensive stats is probably something that should be done with an attentful eye.
  • Wretched Dive (renamed from cutting dive): Command a cliff racer to dive bomb an area, dealing X poison damage to the initial targets in radius and creating a 6 meter pool of poison at the target location for 10 seconds dealing x poison damage every 2 seconds with a chance to apply poison, Enemy targets standing in the pool already affected by a poison status effect take up to 6% increased damage from all sources based on your weapon and spell damage. Only one poisonous pool can be active at a time.
    New effect: No longer sets targets off-balance or bleeds them, slightly increases cast cost, converts to poison damage, can target an area instead of a target and poisoned targets in the pool take extra damage from all sources.
  Note: The idea for wretched dive comes from one of the cliff striders own attacks which already exists called retch, but by having a similar variation hand-tailored to a morph for the wardens dive ability could make for something interesting. Ideally given the way this morph would work, it would also incorporate an increase in cost to use this morph specifically as it isn’t as spammable, not to mention sacrificing a stacking bleed dot application on off-balance targets in exchange for a poison AoE which can damage and uniquely debuff targets for you and your teammates seemed like a good idea from my perspective.
  • Screaming Cliff Racer: Command an enraged cliff racer to dive bomb an enemy at high speeds, dealing X Magic Damage. If you are more than 7 meters away from the target, you set them Off Balance for 7 seconds. Each successful consecutive cast increases the speed of the cliff racer and is lost upon use of another ability. If the enemy is already Off Balance, the enraged cliff racer rips through them, causing them to bleed for [x] Bleed Damage over [7/8/9/10] seconds. This effect can stack and scales to your highest offensive stats.
    New effect: slightly increases the initial flight speed of the cliff racer, increases the duration of the abilities bleed effect and each successful cast increases the cliff racers flight speed while cast in succession.
  Note: Screaming cliff racer almost remains roughly the same but gets a touchup in the form of increased velocity which in turn will allow the ability to hit the target quicker, the increased duration of the off-balance bleeds which scale with your highest offensive stats like the base ability, and moreover, increasing the abilities velocity even further with each successful cast may give it a good spammable feel, plus making that bonus velocity on cast be lost by casting another ability, even I do not know what may happen but given the problems which already exist in the live iteration and soon to be with high isles.

Another fair note: if the bleed stacking becomes a problem with the touched up screaming cliff racer morph, let alone the revised base ability, it just means the maximum amount of bleed stacks from it can be hard-capped accordingly to keep it from being too overpowered in both PvE and PvP.

Thoughts?

the problem i immediately see with the suggestion is keeping the awful off balance intergration with the skill. the proc condition is really bad because it forces you to be at a certain distance from the target which is not something you can replicate easily in pvp while also being awkward af when using melee skills, and the bleed condition tied to said off balance is even worse because of off balance having a cooldown meaning you'll only sometimes get the effect. this is something that needs to be completely redone and to be made way simpler.

it would be much easier to use if instead of relying on off balance, that it just did it whenever you hit the target with the spammable, and also significantly reduce the damage of the stacks since currently it's way out of wack. I personally think that the poison idea is unnecessary as the stamina version of our class might do poison damage via shalks, but the rest of it is bleed based including dive itself currently. i don't think that stamden needs a poison engulfing effect at all. i think if you would want to make the morphs good, firstly, reducing their minimum travel time significantly in some way would help a lot. something interesting would be if the skill transformed, doing different things based on your distance from the target. if in melee range, it becomes an instant cast, instant hit rake-type attack similar to arterial burst that does more damage than the ranged spammable and sets the target off balance, but if you cast it from more than 5 meters away, it becomes the cliff racer instead, this would make it far more versatile for pvp. however this would require a lot of work. another way to help the skill out is to reduce it's minimum travel time, and to reverse the off balance effect in order for it to only work in melee range, same with SCR's morph effect.

another thing that would help is making the magicka costing damage skills in animal companions deal frost damage for various reasons such as increasing synergy with frost sets, and opening up piercing cold to have some kind of bleed bonus.