Green Beam of Nonsense

Ginxie · February 29

Step 1: Create an Arcanist.
Step 2: Put one ability on your toolbar.
Step 3: Spam that one ability

LunaFlora · February 29

it's useful to use other abilities like Runemend or Cephaliarch's Flail too for building up Crux, makes your Beam of Nonsense deal more damage

moderatelyfatman · February 29

Lets compare some abilities:

A. Cephaliarch's Flail (Arcanist):
1. Does AOE damage.
2. Heals the caster
3. Immobilises the enemy
4. Adds a 20s debuff to the enemy
5. Executes
6. Generates Crux

B. Crystal Weapon (Sorc)
1. Does single target damage
2. Removes an inconsequential amount of resistance (1k)
3. Get a 10% cost reduction to your next ability.

Response: Lets balance out the damage on a spreadsheet and call it a day.

El_Borracho · February 29

Guessing this is a PVP thread by the tone of it. If you are dying to the beam, its not the beam.

While we're at it, lets compare an execute skill with Crystal Weapon. After all, Crystal Weapon is the gold standard when it comes to PVP skills. Lets ignore the 400 point cost difference between the two because... why not. Or that flail's damage is not that effective unless the target is under 30%. Clearly Executioner is way out of balance too. And don't get me started on Radiant Oppression.

moderatelyfatman · February 29

El_Borracho wrote: »

Guessing this is a PVP thread by the tone of it. If you are dying to the beam, its not the beam.

While we're at it, lets compare an execute skill with Crystal Weapon. After all, Crystal Weapon is the gold standard when it comes to PVP skills. Lets ignore the 400 point cost difference between the two because... why not. Or that flail's damage is not that effective unless the target is under 30%. Clearly Executioner is way out of balance too. And don't get me started on Radiant Oppression.

I don't think this is a PvP thread. I'm looking from the perspective of someone who plays Stamsorc in PvE and has spent years waiting for a decent class spammable. Right now all I have is either Rapid Strikes cheese parsing or Silver Shards for actual content.

Regarding PvP, Radiant Oppression in absolutely disgusting: I've had 2-3 templars kill me by spamming it on me at 100% health. I don't know why the devs nerfed Jabs so hard and then buffed Radiant Oppression so much: the only result was to kill off the stamplar class for PvE.

For Excecutioner, I think it should be the strongest execute since it is melee, single target and does not heal you. Compare that to Whirling Blades which only does 100% more damage but has a nice AOE to make up for this. Or Impale which gives 330% bonus at range but only kicks in at below 25% health.

El_Borracho · February 29

@moderatelyfatman Well, in that case, we pretty much agree. I played a stam sorc in PVE for a while until the Arcanist came along. I liked Crystal Weapon and how it worked because it was pretty easy, but I do agree, a better class spammable is needed. But it does have other things the Arcanist does not, like Hurricane, which makes up for a lot of the stam sorc's missing spammable damage.

The two are nowhere near in the same class as each other in PVE (or PVP for that matter). But if you are looking to buff another class' damage to keep up with Arcanist, I am all in.

As for PVP, there has been an overload of people claiming the Arc is overpowered. This felt like another one of those. Its not overpowered, its also not weak. I just think there are too many inexperience PVPers because of this event that are dying from Arcs' beams and think that is the way to PVP, when they should be more concerned with the Arc's shields

Araneae6537 · February 29

Arcanist beam is not that useful in PVP — maybe for defending choke points, but not in open battle as it’s easier to get out of than most attacks and when it runs out or gets interrupted, you have to build up crux to make good use of it again.
I enjoy my Arcanists; it’s nice to have different playstyles and visuals.

SandandStars · March 1

what @El_Borracho said

wilykcat · March 1

Arcanist beam vs demon hunter eye beam. Both are channeled abilities that appear as a neon green laser that does high amounts of damage. I'm not sure which one I like better.

Jestir · March 1

Beam absolutely destroys people in pvp in 2 spots

1 against someone who has no clue what they doing both build and game sense wise, they get instant melted by how quick it ticks

2 at choke points, mainly in battlegrounds and especially when playing chaos ball, where people are forced to try to run through a straight path into a beam

Uvi_AUT · March 1

The beam is the only thing Arcanists have. Literally. There is no other way to play the class other than RB/CF->Beam. For Magicka and Stamina.
If changing the Beam while allowing for more build-diversity, than fine, no problem. But I know ZOS will just nerf it and leave Arcanist with their Wiener in their hands, just like they did Necromancer.

Uvi_AUT · March 1

---doublepost---

Mesite · March 1

My arcanist managed to dispatch an enemy in Imperial City yesterday but I'm sure it was my ultimate that did most damage. I find it difficult to aim my green beam of nonsense.