Am i the only one who think destruction is useless yet again

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO

While i do apreciate the cool variety of spells the destruction staff offer what prevent me from just running any of my class ''damaging'' spell tree such as ardant flame, siphon, storm magic, dark magic? The spells and passive in the destruction staff hardly qualify as essential to a build and in some case could even be regarded as sub par to class spells (ok so i got a wall of fire and i can push people in melee range with my staff... so what?

I mean if destruction at least had some cool unique flashy stuff like a elemental orb aoe, a meteor, an elemental summon an elemental shield or just a BIG flashy fireball with huge dps then there could be incentive to run it but by default that weapon brings nothing over what dragonknight ardent flame and sorcerer storm magic have. As for combining the elemental effect of class spells with destruction passive im not even sure that would work x.x

Is the skyrim syndrome just repeating itself yet again?

Ardais

I am only level 9, but I had to switch to daggers for a quest because the staff couldn't keep up with the healing orbs that spawned. The destruction staff just feels pretty clunky and not very powerful.

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO

Doshia eh? Well thats another problem destroy has over other weaponry... those projectiles are slow as hell.

Loopy27

im lvl 12 and had no issues so far with my destro frost staff of flame

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO

This destro staff itself feels lackluster as a DPS based magic specialisation in comparison to other weapon but i didnt bother raising it past rank 20

Dekor

my friend is lvl 46 and during his entire time lvling he has had to switch to melee just to keep up its ridiculous

Raice

My brother uses an Inferno Destruction staff. I don't know what you guys are talking about. When he and I group up together, it's ridiculous how much stuff just dies right in front of him. Seriously - he doesn't even bat an eyelash. And these are trash mobs we're talking about. He has a bit more difficulty against Boss's or stronger solo mobs, but he uses sword and board for that.

His AOE is just ridiculous...

Master_Quack14b14_ESO

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO wrote: »

but by default that weapon brings nothing over what dragonknight ardent flame and sorcerer storm magic have. As for combining the elemental effect of class spells with destruction passive im not even sure that would work x.x

I must disagree with you because of several reasons...

First of all, if you are using Destruction Stave abilities then you will NOT be using them for their raw damage potential, but for their synergistic and status effects.

Destructive Touch:
-morphed to Destructive Clench can give you the ability with a fire stave to knock back a target and also stun a target. This ability is VERY effective to clear a mob off of a squishy class such as a mage or a healer.
-morphed to Destructive Reach can give you the ability with a frost stave to freeze a target in place at a fair distance and still dps the target without the effect breaking early. On my Sorcerer I use this as part of my main rotation because the only spell I have that is even remotely close to this is Encase. Encase has a shorter range and ONLY roots. Destructive reach hits from further, does damage, AND roots for the same amount of time.

Wall of Elements:
- Great for AoE builds like a Sorcerer that does dungeons and runs with Daedric Mines, Daedric Curse Lightning Splash, and Mages' Fury. It just adds a fifth AoE ability to the tool kit and can be obtained at a much lower level.

Force Shock:
- Does decent damage and when fully buffed has a 55% chance to Snare for 5 seconds, 55% chance to apply a fire DoT for 5 seconds, and a 55% chance to reduce the target's damage output by 10% for 5 seconds.
- When morphed to Force Pulse it hits two additional targets that are burning/concusses/chilled. This synergizes VERY well with Dragonknights that use AoE fire abilities and Sorcerers that use AoE lightning damage and is SPAMMABLE!!! Not to mention that if you use it on multiple mobs the effect becomes even stronger as you have 165% chance to apply at least one effect on each. When hitting multiple mobs this ability does triple damage and applies all kinds of status effects all over the place.

Weakness to Elements:
- Will be one of the, if not the most, important spells for any class dealing elemental damage come end game content.
- When morphed to Elemental Drain is a very powerful opening effect. It not only reduces the targets spell resistance by a whopping 40%, but, also returns magicka when you cast an elemental spell against said target.
- Becomes even stronger of an effect for other players that use melee weapons enchanted with fire/frost/lightning enchants. Allows you to do combos like open up with a destruction stave and then swap to melee weapons that do elemental damage to regenerate magicka.
- Has a very long duration

Impulse:
- When morphed to Elemental Ring has a 55% chance to apply all 3 status effects in an AoE.
- Becomes very strong when followed up by Force Pulse spam (See above).


So, in conclusion, All of these abilities synergize very well with Dragonknight's and Templar's fire abilities as well as a Sorcerer's Lightning abilities. Not to mention it allows a player the ability to make FULL AoE damage builds or drastically increase the penetration of a boss' high armor values. They all may not be beneficial or preferable depending on whatever class you chose to play but they do provide an additional skill set for build tweaking and definitely have group synergy.

~Æther

bantad87

I wonder if weakness to elements + puncture stack for -80% resistance to elements. Hmm.

Calaban

Kind of agree. I wanted to be a classic sorcerer with a staff but I'm using a bow 90% of the time. My staff just feels weak.

Just turned 15 and now I can swap but I don't know what I want to do. Probably just keep the bow and switch other abilities.

Master_Quack14b14_ESO

As a level 26 Sorcerer, ever since I obtained Destructive Reach and equipped a frost stave, my quality of enjoyment greatly increased. I highly recommend it! Glass cannon for life!!!

~Æther

Drekor

Destruction staff is the best for AoE leveling, other than that ... meh class skills are better.

Carde

@NordJitsu‌

Maybe we can get some real changes done to this weapon line, eh?! We told them it was weak.

Svann

I started out using bow but switched to destruction staff. Even before reading master-quacks great info the passives all by themselves are worth using the staff.

Vilixiti

You naysayers are ridiculous, I've been using a destruction staff since level 3 and I will never stop. Those abilities are crazy good.. in fact I rerolled from dual wield melee sorc at level 22 as soon as I saw destructive reach used. Haven't looked back once!

Ralathar44

Why would I ever use this over Bow? Why would I use this over class skill lines?

I mean I appreciate that it has nice utility. But where is the damage? It's destruction magic, it's supposed to be DAMAGING .

Also: Destructive Staff vs Bow

Destructive Touch. Gets owned by Scattershot, your all purpose single target CC.

Wall of Elements. Gets owned by both Volley AND Arrow Spray.

Force Shock. Gets owned by Poison Arrow for AOE damage (with CC) in one skill.

Weakness to Elements: Nice debuff that's good for teams. This is an actual bright spot of the set. However this skill also means the staff cannot do near as much damage on it's own, so staff damage will always be worse than everything else thanks to this spell. IMO to achieve balance this spell has to go.

Impulse: Actually better in terms of pure dps than bow but at the penalty of being much closer ranged and harder to use selectively for aggro management. Arrow Spray is not far behind on DPS and is far more versatile and useful both offensively and for CC. (safer too).

Bow is competitive or flat better at everything Destruction Staff does AND has snipe/better single target skills/better CC.

Thechemicals

Better is bow than Destro staff. use snipe

fantom

Honestly some of the problem is that the Sorcerer class abilities are just *** GOOD. They overshadow the Destro staff abilities, and to make things worse, the best Sorc spells aren't elemental damage, so you can't even use the staff to boost your damage.

Destro staff is pretty terrible right now, particularly because it uses magicka. Honestly if they switched it over to using stamina like the other weapon skills, it would instantly get much better (maybe even OP). Sorcs have no reason to use the staff because you don't need multiple magicka dumps, and their class abilities trump all the "dumps" of the destro staff.

Aimeryan

What are "Destruction Spells" classed as? The abilities that come from the destruction staff line? Sorc class abilities?

Wondering in respect to Tri Focus (Fire), Penetrating Magic, Destruction Expert.

Teloran

Impulse is probably the best AoE spell in the game atm. Plus it scales with Surge and Drain Power. Otherwise it is pretty meh.

Crescent

The destro staff is the only real source of aoe a sorcerer has worth a damn that scales with magicka.

Lightning Splash is pretty garbage if nobody uses the synergy, and velocious curse is meh.

Wall of Fire+ Impulse spam will clear groups of mobs like nothing else. Just slap on storm form and go in with impulse+wall and things drop dead.

Force Shock needs a buff, as it's crappy.

Destructive clench is amazing, I don't know how you can even compare it to the bow's cc, which is inferior. Fire Clench knocks a target out further, and stuns it for a much longer time.

I run 2h sorc with destro staff. Slap on storm form, wall of elements, impulse, and when I run out of magicka just Cleave with 2h for the damage shield until my magicka is back up.

Ralathar44

Crescent wrote: »

Destructive clench is amazing, I don't know how you can even compare it to the bow's cc, which is inferior. Fire Clench knocks a target out further, and stuns it for a much longer time.

Scattershot knocks them away the same as Destructive Touch baseline only from longer range. Magnum morph knocks you away as well + also has bonus range + damage and Draining Shot morph snares in addition to the knockback.

Not only is it easier to use for both yourself and others because of the increased base (and morph) ranges but it's far more likely to keep melee off of you, animates faster, is cheaper to use, and chains really well off of the bows normal attacks. (You can quickly fire double attacks by using an ability directly after the bow shot and that functions smoothly). I can also confirm that it interrupts enemies so any enemy vulnerable to CC can be interrupted by this skill.

Not only is this move slightly better in PVE it's way better in PVP.

NordJitsu

Carde wrote: »

@NordJitsu‌

Maybe we can get some real changes done to this weapon line, eh?! We told them it was weak.

@Carde‌

Ya we told them this early and often.

At least impulse is good, right?

Wall of Elements is a joke because it barely tickles and because its is SOOOOOOO easy to move out of. I think this ability could be replaced with a meteor style ability (though obviously not as hard hitting.) So it could be an ability that you call down from the sky for a one and done AoE (not over time.) You'd get a circle to place it with like Lightning Pool.

Force Shock used to be decent until they reduced the proc chances. The "damage" this ability does is really just laughable. I think this is the place to put the "Elemental Bolt" style ability that everyone in the Psijic Order seemed to agree we were missing. You could keep it pretty much the same in terms of morphs though, one adds some AoE and one interrupts. But change the animation to a Fire Bolt/Ice Bolt/Lightning Bolt depending on the staff and give it the ability to actually do damage.

Weakness to Elements is actually a pretty solid ability, especially the Elemental Drain morph. Problem is there aren't enough good elemental damage abilities to make use of it.

Destructive Touch would actually be a great ability if it were cheaper. It does decent damage and gives you a little bit of Control. The problem is its cost to return ratio. What @Master_Quack14b14_ESO‌ doesn't get is that Destructive Touch is single target while Encase is an AoE. I'm guessing he/she just hasn't done much high end content, PvE or PvP. When you start fighting groups this ability becomes absolutely worthless. It would only be good if you could spam it off, but its too expensive for that. The ability should only cost about 100 Magicka at max rank level 50 if you ask me.

Again...at least we have Impulse, right? Both morphs are good too. So we've got ONE good ability out of FIVE.

Carde

Blockade morph should be baseline, give it another morph. That default spell isn't so much as a wall of elements as it is a roadbump of elements.

NordJitsu

Carde wrote: »

Blockade morph should be baseline, give it another morph. That default spell isn't so much as a wall of elements as it is a roadbump of elements.

Agreed.

But...one of my problems with D-staff is that everything that does damage is close range. I mean...isn't the point of a Destruction Staff to be a ranged character?

Bow gets Volley, Arrow Spray, ect. They can actually do damage from range. Sorcs get Lightning Pool.

D-staff gets Impulse and WoE? Both of which require you to be right on top of your enemies...? I'd much prefer a single shot AoE nuke with actual range on it where I could pick the placement instead of WoE which is really a weird skill that seems like it would fit better on a DK skill line.

I'm not too optimistic we'll see any changes though. We gave this same feedback in the Psijic Order pre-release. That was the time for them to fix things.

Ralathar44

NordJitsu wrote: »

I'm not too optimistic we'll see any changes though. We gave this same feedback in the Psijic Order pre-release. That was the time for them to fix things.

To be honest the changes needed to staff are large enough that once they confirmed it via beta/release likely takes some time.

Carde

Nah I agree entirely about having a long range nuke in the destro line. I wish Destructive Touch did that instead. I don't understand why people like it so much tbh, but oh well.

Jadeviper1974

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO wrote: »

While i do apreciate the cool variety of spells the destruction staff offer what prevent me from just running any of my class ''damaging'' spell tree such as ardant flame, siphon, storm magic, dark magic? The spells and passive in the destruction staff hardly qualify as essential to a build and in some case could even be regarded as sub par to class spells (ok so i got a wall of fire and i can push people in melee range with my staff... so what?

I mean if destruction at least had some cool unique flashy stuff like a elemental orb aoe, a meteor, an elemental summon an elemental shield or just a BIG flashy fireball with huge dps then there could be incentive to run it but by default that weapon brings nothing over what dragonknight ardent flame and sorcerer storm magic have. As for combining the elemental effect of class spells with destruction passive im not even sure that would work x.x

Is the skyrim syndrome just repeating itself yet again?

I have come to the conclusion that Resto staff is a much better choice.

SexyVette07

My destruction staff is 49 1/2. I re-speccd and completely gutted the destruction talents and passives except Elemental Ring and the last mana regen passive. The rest is fluff that isnt needed. Theres no synergy with the passives either. I only use a destruction staff with my aoe weapon swap set.

Resto staff is much better for single target builds. Thats sad.... resto staff should never be a clear winner for everything, dps included.

Kyubi_3002b16_ESO

resto staff has several advantage that destro don't starting with increased self healing access to healing shields party heal AND increased damage when health is above certain percentage (wich will almost always be the case) Your better off running a restoration staff dps wise if you aint gunna run an elemental based caster because destro brings no synergy to siphon/dark magic/earthen and holy damage spells to begin with.

alienbongs

I agree fully with what Aether said. With my build of daedric curse / crystal fragment / mage's wrath I was doing pretty well. I switched to weakness to elements / surge / impulse and I absolutely wreck groups of up to 5 mobs now. Three was about all I was willing to handle with the previous skill spec. Destruction staffs do have their place.