Lightning Damage needs a buff

Vylaera

Lightning damage already underperforms in the content where damage actually matters, that being Dungeons, Arenas, Trials, and PvP.

This is for multiple reasons, notably the Ancient Knowledge Destuction Staff passive, there not being a lightning damage spammable (in either Sorcerer's abilities or Destruction Staff abilities), and Sorcerer's Energized passive being unusually low compared to other classes' buffs to certain damage types.

Sorcerer is supposed to be the lightning damage class, yet its bonus to lightning damage is half as much as other classes buffs, such as Warden's Piercing Cold passive.

Energized
Increases your Physical and Shock Damage by 5%.

Piercing Cold
Increases your Magic and Frost Damage by 10%.

Sorcerer should get a buff to Energized to be equal to Warden's Piercing Cold.
Such that it reads:

Energized
Increases your Physical and Shock Damage by 10%.

(the same should be applied to Dragonknight's bonus to flame and poison damage but that's for another post).

Additionally, there is not a good lightning damage spammable ability. Light attacks with Elemental Weapon from the Psijic Order skill line are the closest we can get to an electromancer.
I would change Destructive Reach in the Destruction Staff skill line to be brought up in damage to other spammable abilities.
This ability currently reads:

Destructive Reach
Target: Enemy
Range: 28m
Cost: 2700
Skill description
Devastate an enemy with an enhanced charge from your staff, dealing 1161 Magic Damage and an additional 2315 Magic Damage over 10 seconds. The initial hit always applies the element's status effect.

My proposed change would have it read:

Destructive Reach
Target: Enemy
Range: 28m
Cost: 2700
Skill description
Devastate an enemy with an enhanced charge from your staff, dealing 1767 Magic Damage and an additional 2315 Magic Damage over 10 seconds. The initial hit always applies the element's status effect.

This way, with the first DOT tick, you're dealing the same amount of damage as you would with any other instant cast spammable. Currently the ability deals too little damage and the DOT doesn't matter because it is reapplied early when used as a spammable, so you aren't getting much use out of it.

Additionally, the staff bonuses in Destruction Staff's Ancient Knowledge passive put both Lightning and Frost at a clear disadvantage compared to Inferno. I would change the ancient Knowledge passive to open up better build utility for all content.
The current passive reads:

Ancient Knowledge
Equipping an Inferno Staff increases your damage done with single target abilities by 10%. Equipping a Lightning Staff increases your damage done with area of effect abilities by 10%. Equipping an Ice Staff reduces the cost of blocking by 36% and increases the amount of damage you block by 20%.

I would change this to:

Ancient Knowledge
Equipping an Inferno Staff increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 284. Equipping a Lightning Staff increases your Critical Damage by 12%. Equipping an Ice Staff increases your Offensive Penetration by 3300.

Mimicking the bonuses granted for each weapon type in the other weapon skill lines such as Two Handed's Heavy Weapons passive and Dual Wield's Twin Blade and Blunt passive. The block bonuses currently granted to Ice Staff would get moved to the Tri-Focus passive. Inferno staff outclasses the other options and needs to be better balanced with the other staff types.

This would make lightning damage much better than it is now, and a viable option for all content. As a side bonus it would make Frost damage better as well, but this post was indented for Lightning specifically, since it is currently the weakest element to damage-deal with, given the many sets and bonuses given to Frost lately in an attempt to bring it up a little.

CP5

Honestly, in regards to your suggestions about force pulse, just make flame and shock reach more akin to frost reach, being full damage single element spammables, and you wouldn't need to do either of those changes. I continue to feel if they did unique things to fire and shock staves, like how frost staves get brittle from chilling enemies, then tapering back the 10% bonus single target or aoe bonuses, then you'd have more reason to run different element staves.

ESO_Nightingale

BroughBreaux wrote: »

Lightning damage already underperforms in the content where damage actually matters, that being Dungeons, Arenas, Trials, and PvP.

This is for multiple reasons, notably the Ancient Knowledge Destuction Staff passive, there not being a lightning damage spammable (in either Sorcerer's abilities or Destruction Staff abilities), and Sorcerer's Energized passive being unusually low compared to other classes' buffs to certain damage types.

Sorcerer is supposed to be the lightning damage class, yet its bonus to lightning damage is half as much as other classes buffs, such as Warden's Piercing Cold passive.

Energized
Increases your Physical and Shock Damage by 5%.

Piercing Cold
Increases your Magic and Frost Damage by 10%.

Sorcerer should get a buff to Energized to be equal to Warden's Piercing Cold.
Such that it reads:

Energized
Increases your Physical and Shock Damage by 10%.

(the same should be applied to Dragonknight's bonus to flame and poison damage but that's for another post).

Additionally, there is not a lightning damage spammable ability. Light attacks with Elemental Weapon from the Psijic Order skill line are the closest we can get to an electromancer.
I would change Force Shock in the Destruction Staff skill line to use the element of your equipped staff type, rather than all three elements at once, with a new visual effect to accompany that change.
This ability currently reads:

Force Shock
Target: Enemy
Range: 28m
Cost: 2700
Skill description
Focus all the elemental energies with your staff and blast an enemy for 695 Flame Damage 695 Frost Damage, and 695 Shock Damage.

My proposed change would have it read:

Force Shock
Target: Enemy
Range: 28m
Cost: 2700
Skill description
Focus the elemental energy of your staff and blast an enemy for 2085 Magic Damage.

Where the Magic Damage changes to Flame, Frost, or Shock when placed on your bar just like Destructive Touch does.

This may also necessitate a change to the Concentrated Force weapon set from Asylum Sanctorium, as well as its perfected version.
Where it currently reads:

Concentrated Force
(2 items) Every second cast of Force Shock will always apply the Burning, Concussion, and Chilled status effects. The Force Shock casts must be made within 5 seconds of each other for this effect to occur.

I would change this to:

Concentrated Force
(2 items) When you deal damage with Force Shock, you apply the Burning, Concussed, or Chilled status effect depending on your Staff's Elemental type.

This would overall be a nerf to the set but removes the "every second cast" to compensate for that. Though this set isn't exactly meta so leaving it as-is would probably be fine and no one would care.

Additionally, the staff bonuses in Destruction Staff's Ancient Knowledge passive put both Lightning and Frost at a clear disadvantage compared to Inferno. I would change the ancient Knowledge passive to open up better build utility for all content.
The current passive reads:

Ancient Knowledge
Equipping an Inferno Staff increases your damage done with single target abilities by 10%. Equipping a Lightning Staff increases your damage done with area of effect abilities by 10%. Equipping an Ice Staff reduces the cost of blocking by 36% and increases the amount of damage you block by 20%.

I would change this to:

Ancient Knowledge
Equipping an Inferno Staff increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 284. Equipping a Lightning Staff increases your Critical Damage by 12%. Equipping an Ice Staff increases your Offensive Penetration by 3300.

Mimicking the bonuses granted for each weapon type in the other weapon skill lines such as Two Handed's Heavy Weapons passive and Dual Wield's Twin Blade and Blunt passive. The block bonuses currently granted to Ice Staff would get moved to the Tri-Focus passive. Inferno staff outclasses the other options and needs to be better balanced with the other staff types.

This would make lightning damage much better than it is now, and a viable option for all content. As a side bonus it would make Frost damage better as well, but this post was indented for Lightning specifically, since it is currently the weakest element to damage-deal with, given the many sets and bonuses given to Frost lately in an attempt to bring it up a little.

Nah give crit dmg/chance to ice staff if you're gonna do that.

Tbh I'd be okay if they just made unstable wall of frost, icy rage and frost pulsar have solid damage effects.

Mr_Stach

If I recall correctly, they buffed Piercing Cold due to Magden being so far behind in damage. It used to be 5%.

This was probably due to Lighting getting bonus AoE damage and Fire getting bonus single target damage, so it was fine at the time.

Now that Brittle is in the picture though, I'd say that frost should be refocused to increasing Crit Chance/Damage to further increase it's viability.

Also I would 100% be ok with Sorcs Energized passive getting bumped up.

Vylaera

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Nah give crit dmg/chance to ice staff if you're gonna do that.

I think lightning getting crit damage and frost getting pen works out better for both PvE and PvP. Ice staff grans a damage shield and gets minor brittle, penetration on top would make magwardens very good in PvP. Extra penetration is always good in PvE as well, especially in unoptimized groups. In optimized groups, it just means you don't have to worry as much about sourcing group pen for support itemization, or you can run a medium armor body like kinras's wrath and not have to worry about having abysmal penetration. Lightning staff gets the critical damage, which would open up the option for lightning sorc ganks, and crit damage is very necessary to source and not already sourced by lightning sorcs where it is already sourced for ice wardens.

emilyhyoyeon

Really not sure why ancient knowledge wouldn't be reworked to increase your X damage when wielding X staff by Y%

ESO_Nightingale

BroughBreaux wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Nah give crit dmg/chance to ice staff if you're gonna do that.

I think lightning getting crit damage and frost getting pen works out better for both PvE and PvP. Ice staff grans a damage shield and gets minor brittle, penetration on top would make magwardens very good in PvP. Extra penetration is always good in PvE as well, especially in unoptimized groups. In optimized groups, it just means you don't have to worry as much about sourcing group pen for support itemization, or you can run a medium armor body like kinras's wrath and not have to worry about having abysmal penetration. Lightning staff gets the critical damage, which would open up the option for lightning sorc ganks, and crit damage is very necessary to source and not already sourced by lightning sorcs where it is already sourced for ice wardens.

i think when it comes to penetration they should just standardise penetrating magic as many people have said. ice staff should give crit chance or damage instead your suggested penetration

ResidentContrarian

Mr_Stach wrote: »

If I recall correctly, they buffed Piercing Cold due to Magden being so far behind in damage. It used to be 5%.

This was probably due to Lighting getting bonus AoE damage and Fire getting bonus single target damage, so it was fine at the time.

Now that Brittle is in the picture though, I'd say that frost should be refocused to increasing Crit Chance/Damage to further increase it's viability.

Also I would 100% be ok with Sorcs Energized passive getting bumped up.

Why would they increase crit and/or crit damage on frost when they keep nerfing it? Sounds counterproductive and a point that would be an issue further down the line.

Arthtur

Removing block cost reduction so tanks cant use Ice Staffs... Sweet. Im so tired of ppl trying to make Ice Staff a DDs weapon at the cost of tanks....
Why im complaining? Because there are Ice/Ice tanks and They dont want to use magicka for blocking...

Vylaera

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Really not sure why ancient knowledge wouldn't be reworked to increase your X damage when wielding X staff by Y%

While I think any change is a welcome change, I think this might force you to use elemental damage, which a lot of great abilities aren't. The more generic Weapon Damage, Critical Damage, and Penetration don't force you to use any specific damage type and is better for build diversity. Most inferno staff users right now probably don't have any abilities that use flame damage. So their staff type would only be buffing their light attacks. Daggers would totally take over the MagDD meta as a consequence.

Arthtur

BroughBreaux wrote: »

Arthtur wrote: »

Removing block cost reduction so tanks cant use Ice Staffs... Sweet. Im so tired of ppl trying to make Ice Staff a DDs weapon at the cost of tanks....
Why im complaining? Because there are Ice/Ice tanks and They dont want to use magicka for blocking...

[snip]

U wrote this: "The block bonuses currently granted to Ice Staff would get moved to the Tri-Focus passive."

Which means that both, blocking with magicka and blocking cost reduction is in this same passive. So Tanks who use Ice staff on both bars will be forced to block with magicka and not everyone wants to do that. [snip]

[edited for mild baiting & to remove quote]

Vylaera

Arthtur wrote: »

BroughBreaux wrote: »

Arthtur wrote: »

Removing block cost reduction so tanks cant use Ice Staffs... Sweet. Im so tired of ppl trying to make Ice Staff a DDs weapon at the cost of tanks....
Why im complaining? Because there are Ice/Ice tanks and They dont want to use magicka for blocking...

[snip]

U wrote this: "The block bonuses currently granted to Ice Staff would get moved to the Tri-Focus passive."

Which means that both, blocking with magicka and blocking cost reduction is in this same passive. So Tanks who use Ice staff on both bars will be forced to block with magicka and not everyone wants to do that. [snip]

Boo hoo the DESTRUCTION staff tanks have to use magicka to block so they just build for magicka like ice staff tanks are supposed to.

Ice Staff should never have been designed for tanking. Ice was never tanky in the single player games, it was a DAMAGE type. If people want to tank they have a whole skill line specifically for it called One Handed and Shield they can use, which was tanky in the single player games because you BLOCK damage. Mages aren't supposed to be tanky.

[edited to remove quote]

Arthtur

BroughBreaux wrote: »

Arthtur wrote: »

BroughBreaux wrote: »

Arthtur wrote: »

Removing block cost reduction so tanks cant use Ice Staffs... Sweet. Im so tired of ppl trying to make Ice Staff a DDs weapon at the cost of tanks....
Why im complaining? Because there are Ice/Ice tanks and They dont want to use magicka for blocking...

[snip]

U wrote this: "The block bonuses currently granted to Ice Staff would get moved to the Tri-Focus passive."

Which means that both, blocking with magicka and blocking cost reduction is in this same passive. So Tanks who use Ice staff on both bars will be forced to block with magicka and not everyone wants to do that. [snip]

Boo hoo the DESTRUCTION staff tanks have to use magicka to block so they just build for magicka like ice staff tanks are supposed to.

Ice Staff should never have been designed for tanking. Ice was never tanky in the single player games, it was a DAMAGE type. If people want to tank they have a whole skill line specifically for it called One Handed and Shield they can use, which was tanky in the single player games because you BLOCK damage. Mages aren't supposed to be tanky.

Thats will be my last post.

1. Other games doesnt matter.
2. Ice staff was ALWAYS deisgined for tanks in THIS game. Just because ZOS showed some love to Ice DDs doesnt mean they cant just take everything at the cost of the tanks.
3. Ice/Ice tank build most likely have more magicka skills so blocking with magicka isnt good for them. And building for magicka doesnt matter as magicka regen is off when tanks block.
4. I see that u dont have any idea how tanking works in this game. Tanks need backbar weapon that can proc enchants that help the group. Thats the point of magicka tanking weapon. S&B doesnt have that option.
5. U are basically saying "I don care about tanks because i want Ice as damage type just like in diffrent games".
6. We have what we have. Even if its not ideal there is no reason to destroy other ppl fun because u want more.
7. "Boo hoo DDs cant use TANKS weapon to deal damage. Remove tanks from the game because i want more".

Have fun.
[edited to remove quote]

umagon

I think it might be better just to change the ancient knowledge line.

From: Equipping a Lightning Staff increases your damage done with area of effect abilities by 10%.

To: Equipping a Lightning Staff makes your destruction abilities jump to two additional targets and increases your damage done with area of effect abilities by 15%.

The problem I have with changing the whole force shock line is that the application of all three elemental attacks can apply all three of the status effects. And with the up coming patch there is more build play available surrounding status effects.

Force Pulse is the only spamable that can allow players to place all the elemental status effects on a target along with poisoned and diseased in certain builds. When the patch comes there is a champion point that increases penetration based on the number of status effects on the target. It allows better function for builds where players are full med armor but using a full mag build.

Mr_Stach

Arthtur wrote: »

2. Ice staff was ALWAYS deisgined for tanks in THIS game. Just because ZOS showed some love to Ice DDs doesnt mean they cant just take everything at the cost of the tanks.

By "Always" you actually mean since Morrowind, frost staff being a Tank option happened in update 13 in preparation for the Launch of Morrowind and Warden a few months later.

Granted it has been a while, but Frost was originally the CC option and had stuns and immobilization attached.

Now I don't want Frost Staff to lose its Tanking Goodies, but Destruction Staff was designed as a DPS Skill Line.

Just my 2 cents on the subject.

Vylaera

I edited the post to change the Force Shock change to simply buff Destructive Reach. I also removed the concentrated force set change since it was no longer necessary.

It now reads:

Additionally, there is not a good lightning damage spammable ability. Light attacks with Elemental Weapon from the Psijic Order skill line are the closest we can get to an electromancer.
I would change Destructive Reach in the Destruction Staff skill line to be brought up in damage to other spammable abilities.
This ability currently reads:

Destructive Reach
Target: Enemy
Range: 28m
Cost: 2700
Skill description
Devastate an enemy with an enhanced charge from your staff, dealing 1161 Magic Damage and an additional 2315 Magic Damage over 10 seconds. The initial hit always applies the element's status effect.

My proposed change would have it read:

Destructive Reach
Target: Enemy
Range: 28m
Cost: 2700
Skill description
Devastate an enemy with an enhanced charge from your staff, dealing 1767 Magic Damage and an additional 2315 Magic Damage over 10 seconds. The initial hit always applies the element's status effect.

This way, with the first DOT tick, you're dealing the same amount of damage as you would with any other instant cast spammable. Currently the ability deals too little damage and the DOT doesn't matter because it is reapplied early when used as a spammable, so you aren't getting much use out of it.

Vylaera

Arthtur wrote: »

Thats will be my last post.

Good. I'm still going to address it all. I wanted to wait until I got home so I could type out a reply easier.

Arthtur wrote: »

1. Other games doesnt matter.

This is an Elder Scrolls game. The rest of the 30 year old franchise does indeed matter.

Arthtur wrote: »

2. Ice staff was ALWAYS deisgined for tanks in THIS game. Just because ZOS showed some love to Ice DDs doesnt mean they cant just take everything at the cost of the tanks.

Like Mr. Stach said, it was not always this way. Ice staff is a destruction staff that exists both in the game and in the lore to deal damage. It, by nature, has a crowd control element, but it exists primarily as a damage source. Ice has never been used for taking in the entire rest of the series and it shouldn't be used primarily for tanking in ESO.

Arthtur wrote: »

3. Ice/Ice tank build most likely have more magicka skills so blocking with magicka isnt good for them. And building for magicka doesnt matter as magicka regen is off when tanks block.

They do it the same way 1H&S does it. Don't throw your hands up and act like there's just no other way. Don't insult my intelligence.

Arthtur wrote: »

4. I see that u dont have any idea how tanking works in this game. Tanks need backbar weapon that can proc enchants that help the group. Thats the point of magicka tanking weapon. S&B doesnt have that option.

How does this negate Ice Staff's use as a damage weapon? Nonsensical point. "I can only proc backbar enchants if my weapon is designed for tanking" doesn't make any sense. But yes, I don't tank, and tanking isn't usually necessary for most content. It's a support role, which, indicated by the name support, the primary role in a group setting is Damage Dealing. Supports support the damage dealers. But further to the point, a damage type like Ice magic should be for damage dealers.

Arthtur wrote: »

5. U are basically saying "I don care about tanks because i want Ice as damage type just like in diffrent games".

This post isn't even about ice, just to remind you and everyone else. But yes, that is, unironically, what I'm saying. Tanks have a whole skill line and then some dedicated completely to tanking. Taking a damage type and castrating it so that tanks can use it is not okay.

Arthtur wrote: »

6. We have what we have. Even if its not ideal there is no reason to destroy other ppl fun because u want more.

You're destroying the fun of building an elemental damage dealer because you want to steal our damage skills. All we have left for magic is inferno staff. You have ice staff and sword and shield. And for the record I never said to get rid of Ice Staff tanking, you just got totally hung up on magic blocking, which every ice tank does anyway, [snip]. Ice staff and Lightning staff both deserve to be viable and good damage weapons, just as shock and frost magic in every prior elder scrolls game was viable and good for damage dealing.

Arthtur wrote: »

7. "Boo hoo DDs cant use TANKS weapon to deal damage. Remove tanks from the game because i want more".

[snip]

[edited for mild baiting]

Vylaera

Thanks, ZOS, really appreciate only buffing one version of the skill in favor of one of the staves but not the other two. Frost is no longer the redheaded stepchild, Lightning now takes the cake for worst staff.

As a side note, the lightning version is higher because I'm a sorc and I get a 5% bonus to lightning damage.

Mr_Stach

This also goes back to the fact of DKs with Fire Staff will also do more Damage because Fire Staff increases single target damage my 10% but then DKs get increased Fire damage by 5% then +50% damage to the guaranteed Burning Status.

Warden also has that +10% to Frost Damage.

It would be much simpler to just make each type to do increased damage of that type.

Also maybe bump up the Energized Passive to match Piercing Cold.

Vylaera

Mr_Stach wrote: »

This also goes back to the fact of DKs with Fire Staff will also do more Damage because Fire Staff increases single target damage my 10% but then DKs get increased Fire damage by 5% then +50% damage to the guaranteed Burning Status.

Warden also has that +10% to Frost Damage.

It would be much simpler to just make each type to do increased damage of that type.

Also maybe bump up the Energized Passive to match Piercing Cold.

Now that I think about it, I think your suggested change to buff each staff's respective elemental type would be good if it was beefy enough. Being limited exclusively to elemental damage is very restrictive so the payoff should be bigger.

This is what I would change it to:

Ancient Knowledge
Equipping an Inferno Staff increases your Flame Damage done by 15%. Equipping a Lightning Staff increases your Shock Damage done by 15%. Equipping an Ice Staff increases your Frost Damage done by 15%, reduces the cost of blocking by 36%, and increases the amount of damage you block by 20%

This way you still get the separated out tank passives and the ice staff can still actually deal damage. The Ice portion of this doesn't really seem too stacked imo because a DPS won't really get much use out of the block bonuses.

I would also change the Penetrating Magic passive to be actually useful by granting a flat penetration bonus.
So that it reads:

Penetrating Magic
While a Destruction Staff is equipped, you gain 1800 Offensive Penetration.

This passive is currently a 10% modifier based on the current resistances of the enemy you're in combat against, meaning the effectiveness of this passive is reduced greatly by debuffs. The max resistances of any PvE enemy is 18000 (roughly), so after Major Breach, Minor Breach, infused Crushing Weapon glyph are factored in, the boss only has 6970 resistances left. Meaning you're only getting 697 penetration from this passive currently. It's even worse if your group is using Roar of Alkosh. I decided on 1800 because that's 10% of a dungeon enemy's resistances, and half as much from the bonus you get from using a Maul or two Maces.

All of this in addition to the buff for Sorc's Energized and DK's World in Ruin as well as changes suggested to Destructive Touch, Clench, and Reach to make them viable elemental spammables for all three staff types.


Also, in regards to this,

BroughBreaux wrote: »

Thanks, ZOS, really appreciate only buffing one version of the skill in favor of one of the staves but not the other two. Frost is no longer the redheaded stepchild, Lightning now takes the cake for worst staff.

As a side note, the lightning version is higher because I'm a sorc and I get a 5% bonus to lightning damage.

I found out that Destructive Clench has increased damage for Lightning Staves, but it's still not up to par with a standard spammable, and is not competitive with other options like Elemental Weapon or Force Shock. Frost Warden still outperforms lightning Sorcerer in a comparable setup.

Mr_Stach

BroughBreaux wrote: »

[
Also, in regards to this,

BroughBreaux wrote: »

Thanks, ZOS, really appreciate only buffing one version of the skill in favor of one of the staves but not the other two. Frost is no longer the redheaded stepchild, Lightning now takes the cake for worst staff.

As a side note, the lightning version is higher because I'm a sorc and I get a 5% bonus to lightning damage.

I found out that Destructive Clench has increased damage for Lightning Staves, but it's still not up to par with a standard spammable, and is not competitive with other options like Elemental Weapon or Force Shock. Frost Warden still outperforms lightning Sorcerer in a comparable setup.

In regards to the damage, I would really suggest trying out the Master Ice/Lightning Staff. It really bumps up the Viability of Destructive Clench/Reach (Also a note that since Clench is Frost Staffs Taunt, we're required to take reach which is still pretty nice as the Dot is good). But still Warden with the +10% Frost will beat out the +5% Lightning.



If Zos were to standardize the Damage Bonus Passives, with 10% that would be an Interesting Change. Or if they were to revert the Piercing Cold back to 5%, they would be forced to implement some choices to make up for the lost damage.

Also it's weird that NB doesn't have a +x% damage buff, even Templar have a +x% Spell Damage buff to lean on

Agenericname

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Also it's weird that NB doesn't have a +x% damage buff, even Templar have a +x% Spell Damage buff to lean on

Nightblades give minor savagery. Templar and DK are the only two, that I can remember, that give a minor buff that increases spell or weapon damage. Sorc gives minor phophecy.

Mr_Stach

NB - Minor Savagery
Warden - Minor Toughness
Templar - Minor Sorcery
DK - Minor Brutaility
Sorc - Minor Prophecy
Necro - ???

Oddly Enough, Necro doesn't have a Minor Group Buff..... But they do have Major Vuln so I'll let it pass.

Point is these are Group Buffs but I still think Every Class should have a personal damage buff that coincides with their Class. Maybe Give NB Bonus Magic Damage from Warden and give Warden Frost & Bleed Instead.

Xarc

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Oddly Enough, Necro doesn't have a Minor Group Buff..... But they do have Major Vuln so I'll let it pass.

only for stam.

ZOS_Icy

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EozZoe1989

DARK MAGIC for all classes and races..

Vylaera

Mr_Stach wrote: »

BroughBreaux wrote: »

[
Also, in regards to this,

BroughBreaux wrote: »

Thanks, ZOS, really appreciate only buffing one version of the skill in favor of one of the staves but not the other two. Frost is no longer the redheaded stepchild, Lightning now takes the cake for worst staff.

As a side note, the lightning version is higher because I'm a sorc and I get a 5% bonus to lightning damage.

I found out that Destructive Clench has increased damage for Lightning Staves, but it's still not up to par with a standard spammable, and is not competitive with other options like Elemental Weapon or Force Shock. Frost Warden still outperforms lightning Sorcerer in a comparable setup.

In regards to the damage, I would really suggest trying out the Master Ice/Lightning Staff. It really bumps up the Viability of Destructive Clench/Reach (Also a note that since Clench is Frost Staffs Taunt, we're required to take reach which is still pretty nice as the Dot is good). But still Warden with the +10% Frost will beat out the +5% Lightning.



If Zos were to standardize the Damage Bonus Passives, with 10% that would be an Interesting Change. Or if they were to revert the Piercing Cold back to 5%, they would be forced to implement some choices to make up for the lost damage.

Also it's weird that NB doesn't have a +x% damage buff, even Templar have a +x% Spell Damage buff to lean on

I do use the Master's Ice Staff on my warden, it adds a nice little punch with a super easy proc condition with easy uptime, making it better than any monster set I could use.

If Ancient Knowledge was changed to grant a 15% modifier to the elemental damage of the staff type equipped, Warden's Piercing Cold got nerfed to 5%, and then the Elemental Reach ability was buffed to standard spammable damage like the frost version is currently, then I think this would open up the options for people to viably run whichever staff they wanted to and still perform well in relation to each other. I'd also definitely swap around Force Shock and Destructive Touch in the skill line so that Destructive Touch is first on the list (since it's the more standard spammable) and Force Shock is third down the list (since it's now more about being able to apply status effects and does a little less damage as a result of the passive changes).

Keep Ice staff tanking, add in some extra utility to the other staff types as well that aren't related to damage dealing so that ice staff isn't oddly stacked. Ice reduces block cost, so they could do something like healing taken/received for inferno and core combat ability reduction (sprint, dodge, break free, etc) to lightning. Something minor and incidental like that which wouldn't be powerful or influential enough to force your hand to pick a certain "best" staff type (unless you're tanking).

Vylaera

Addendum to my last comment:

Remove the guaranteed status effect proc from Destructive Reach, add an increased chance to apply status effects to Force Shock and its morphs. Additionally, add an extra effect to the Asylum staff to make up for its utility being reduced.
Something like:
Concentrated Force
(2 items)Every second cast of Force Shock will always apply the Burning, Concussion, and Chilled status effects to the target and increases your offensive penetration by 1487. The Force Shock casts must be made within 5 seconds of each other for this effect to occur.

Supreme_Atromancer

I agree.

I think that the problem is the over-importance of damage. Everything in the game serves damage. The solution is always more dps, which results in very narrow design space.

I'd love it if elemental damage resistances and vulnerabilities were meaningful.

Or that the conceptual design space for "control" would be broader (they were moving in the right way with ice, mechanically, though conceptually some of it is too contrived).

Or that other factors or attributes mattered to the strategy of a fight. Just off the top of my head, for example, lightning in the older games would also drain magicka. If that mattered in ESO, then lightning would become significant.

Vylaera

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

I agree.

I think that the problem is the over-importance of damage. Everything in the game serves damage. The solution is always more dps, which results in very narrow design space.

I'd love it if elemental damage resistances and vulnerabilities were meaningful.

Or that the conceptual design space for "control" would be broader (they were moving in the right way with ice, mechanically, though conceptually some of it is too contrived).

Or that other factors or attributes mattered to the strategy of a fight. Just off the top of my head, for example, lightning in the older games would also drain magicka. If that mattered in ESO, then lightning would become significant.

Going in that same direction, the Tri-Focus passive, which adds effects to heavy attacks, could proc an effect for inferno and lightning rather than increasing damage or exploding, Those would be Minor Lifesteal for Inferno and Minor Magickasteal for lightning to mimic the effects they had in the main series ES games

Tannus15

Shock clench needs buffing to spammable level of damage.

The other issue that 10% aoe damage is not even close to 10% single target damage, especially for the shock class, Sorcs, which has almost no AOE in their kit to take advantage of the staff passive.