Dark Deal's Minor Berserk and Force Durations

Grim_Overlord

Recently Dark Deal had Minor Berserk and Force added for its duration of 10 seconds alongside the stamina restore. While this is a really interesting change allowing class skill access to Minor Force in particular, the short duration makes it clunky to use in content at least on the PvE side of things. While it is really helpful merging a heal onto the source of Minor Force for Sorcs due to their limited bar space on pet builds at least, it could benefit from having the Minor Force and Berserk buffs last 20 seconds rather than the 10 over which stamina is regained.

That being said, I'm mostly curious as to what other people think about how it functions as an alternate choice for sorcerers to Trap Beast and Accelerate and its morphs and how it could be made to compete with those skills.

phaneub17_ESO

I'm using it right before a pull, but I have a hard time remembering to use it again unless there is an intermission phase between attack waves. Cast time and short duration, I've already built around sustained healing and recovery so it's a normally unnecessary extra heal. I only use Dark Deal for all builds, magicka and hybrid characters have an overabundance of magicka and lack stamina; stamina characters barely use their magicka pools. Stamina is essential either way so the other morph is a hindrance regardless which way I play.

El_Borracho

I only use it in dungeons as raid groups cover the sustain aspects of Dark Deal. I prefer Dark Deal over Accelerate. Trap is better in a raid on a boss as its damage and Minor Force.

My main complaint with Dark Deal is the cast time. Its unnecessary in my opinion, as its primarily a heal and sustain skill. I've found that it can mess up bar swapping in a fight, either the skill doesn't fire because you swap too soon, or it fires and kind of blocks the bar swap.

FeedbackOnly

Sorc healer here...how about dark deal gives everyone minor berserk yes? It would be a compromise on bar space issues

Johngo0036

you dont think that upping the time may make it slightly overpowered?

Grim_Overlord

Johngo0036 wrote: »

you dont think that upping the time may make it slightly overpowered?

I think upping the Minor Force time would be ok, as evidenced with Barbed Trap and Race Against Time, but I agree that 20 seconds of Minor Berserk could be a bit much in PvP situations given the only permanent version of the buff, Slimecraw, takes two armor slots. In organized group content, a healer would be providing it anyways.

Upping the time on these buffs likely isn't the best solution, however right now the skill is an awkward split between sustain and damage boosting effects that also is awkward to cast in a rotation due to the cast time on it. I agree that it should have drawbacks because it is a heal and a source of these rare buffs, but all of these drawbacks in concert with one another makes the skill difficult to use in most situations.

Another possible answer to this issue could be to remove the cast time and just have the heal and resource restore trigger after 1 second, but have the buffs come in on cast.

Grim_Overlord

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Sorc healer here...how about dark deal gives everyone minor berserk yes? It would be a compromise on bar space issues

This is another important thing to think about on all classes is how much bar space is getting compacted by must run skills. Healing on most classes requires 3 Restoration skills, Healing Orb, and Aggressive Horn. This leaves most people 6 slots and 1 free ultimate, but on Sorcerer this is harder because of Matriarch taking 1 slot on each bar. For DPS, Trap Beast is all but required as the easiest and highest DPS attaining source of Minor Force(Acceleration is primarily used for trash packs), along with either Deadly Cloak, Stampede, or Wall as some of the highest damaging skills in the game. On Sorcerer this is again a larger issue due to pets taking four slots and their reliance on them in this current patch for top tier damage.

All this to say that giving more ways for healers and dps to access these buffs in class helps greatly with build diversity and making rotations feel more natural to the player, not to mention more thematic.