Scribing... in my opinion it's a failure.

Parasaurolophus

Scribing has been around for two weeks now, but I still can't find a single useful skill to create it. I'm serious. It looks so weak and so uninteresting. I don't even want to describe it. I don’t want to seem toxic, but the system that was supposed to diversify the combat system now (and I hope that it will be finalized) looks no more useful than companions. That is, just simple content for casuals.

colossalvoids

I believe it was said to be intended as something like that before release even, so basically people who wanted spell crafting now will never get it, not even dumbed down alternative.

tsaescishoeshiner

I've heard of tanks and healers benefiting from certain buffs on builds. I saw a 93k+ parse on esologs where someone used two scribing skills for the minor buffs--esologs doesn't list the details, but I assume it was minor heroism and minor force.

People would be complaining if the skills were at the top of the meta. I'm just not sure yet if they're useful enough to have a niche.

That's for endgame PvE--for funsies, nothing beats Elemental Explosion!

Necrotech_Master

the skills themselves i think are fine, they border more along the lines of utility than raw dps

however the part of the system i see as a failure is the severe lack of ink to experiment or try anything

i still have not gotten enough ink to even finish scribing all of the skills at least once on 1 toon yet

Mathius_Mordred

This did quite well on a trial dummy parse, about 10% of my damage and second highest damage, looks like three sweeps of 20-26K when critical, but the real issue is I don't want to experiment much because of the lack of inks.

Foxtrot39

Pretty sure initial PTS stated : not as potent as regular skill but more flexible/versatile

In term of raw damage/heal, yeah they're utterly worthless without making your entire build around them, some hitting for just a tad above a light attack at best

Its only good in regard of giving access to buff you can't usualy access or QoL effect such as AOE pull-taunt combo for tanks

tsaescishoeshiner

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

This did quite well on a trial dummy parse, about 10% of my damage and second highest damage, looks like three sweeps of 20-26K when critical, but the real issue is I don't want to experiment much because of the lack of inks.

Would love to see the parse--I'm not sure when I'll splurge on ink to try this out as a spammable.

Elvenheart

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the skills themselves i think are fine, they border more along the lines of utility than raw dps

however the part of the system i see as a failure is the severe lack of ink to experiment or try anything

i still have not gotten enough ink to even finish scribing all of the skills at least once on 1 toon yet

This can’t be emphasized enough. We should only have to say it once, but sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case.

shadyjane62

They seem to be more trouble than they are worth considering the difficulty in doing the quest line and then finding the ink and scripts.

KaosWarMonk

I don't mind it. The destro staff skill that does 12k magic damage in a 10m circle is fun on may crit build sorcerer. She can nuke whole groups of low tier mobs with the one cast.

That's pretty niche though. I think we need to be realistic about how powerful the abilities can be and a bit patient, see what tweaks are made and what is added.

Nathrai

Yes, Elemental Explosion is one heck of a fun skill. Great animation, nice big AOE, not overly demanding on upkeep.

I'll probably never use it in any of my Trial or Arena builds, but I sure DO love spamming it during less demanding content. For the visuals, for the meditative rhythm, for the fun of it. Not because it's the best skill ever.

If not for the shortage of ink, I'ld really like the system. It definitely gives a lot more freedom to not-quite-top-tier-but-lots-of-fun builds. Sure, you won't get the super hyper bestest skills out of it, but it could be a lot of fun to create crazy new builds.

fred4

This is what is called "balanced". If a new thing is truly useful, part of the population will call it "pay to win". I agree that scribing is "meh" overall. It very much depends who you are, what content you play, and whether you play all the classes. I first started looking into options for my PvP nightblade and couldn't find anything useful. Part of this is down to IMO poor implementation of skills. I found issues with Vault. I didn't find the targeting of Warding Soul appropriate to the skill, thus crippling it. I found no clear use case of Wield Soul as a damage skill either, nor was Traveling Knife any good on my nightblade. However, I then came up with a build concept for a PvP sorc, where Shocking Soul plays a definite role. Leave it to that class to make use of a foreign / weapon skill. 1 out of 5 success rate for me personally, then, so far.

Skills that I know others use include Ulfsild's Contingency, e.g. to generate burst, such as for bombing. I would also say that the kockback skills must be useful to disperse ball groups. I'm sure you could knock half a group off a keep wall with that 12m AOE knockback option from the destro skill.

dinokstrunz

The second I saw the scribing skills I was like "meh, meh, okay, meh, meh" Just knew it was going to be underwhelming. Pretty much the story of this game really. "Meh". This game never blows you away anymore. Just disappointment after disappointment.

The grind is hardly worth it, ink drops are whatever, on classes like Arcanist you probably wouldn't use them. One of the animations are cheap reused asset. Wield Soul skill sometimes bugs and you can hear the hidden blade sound lol. Nobody likes cast times ZoS. Majority of the affix combos are bleh.

As someone already said in the thread unless Scribing gets continuous updates it will be relegated to forgettable & very few people care about status similar to companions & tales of tribute.

Vulkunne

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Scribing has been around for two weeks now, but I still can't find a single useful skill to create it. I'm serious. It looks so weak and so uninteresting. I don't even want to describe it. I don’t want to seem toxic, but the system that was supposed to diversify the combat system now (and I hope that it will be finalized) looks no more useful than companions. That is, just simple content for casuals.

First Steps are always the hardest.

Araneae6537

Scribing, as I understand it, is supposed to be less efficient but more flexible. So scribed spells should not be better than class or weapon spells at what they do, but allow new combinations, which may be situationally better for some classes in some roles, or simply give new options. Whether it has hit the mark yet I feel is too soon to say, and reasonable that it may require some adjustments.

Firstmep

There are quite a few useful combinations for pvp, including on demand stun for classes that wouldn't have them normally.
As for raw power, that depends on the combinations, shocking soul with the class script for sorc is more damage than hardcast frags, and you can still attach an additional affix to it.

AndyMac

Some of the skills seem closer to a memento than a skill - ie explosion on backflip - but I've unlocked Scribing on my main and am working on alts. Hopefully we will see some buffs and tweaks.

amig186

I was a bit disappointed by all the restrictions, but was able to make 2 somewhat useful skills with buffs I don't usually have access to. Trample with minor heroism, which I can pre-buff since the mount doesn't have to actually hit anything, and to a lesser degree, the healing version of soul explosion with minor courage. I would love the elemental explosion if it wasn't for the long-ass cast time, I don't like being stuck in an animation for 2 seconds without even being able to bar swap.

Treeshka

While i am making builds sometimes i try to find skills to slot. Mostly for support roles. Scribing allowed me to fix that. If i am having a free skill slot while playing healer. I just put some of the scribing skills there. Free shields for everyone.

Due to that i do not think this system is a failure. They just need to increase the number of activities that you can get ink. Fishing would be good. Pretty relaxed activity as well.

Sarannah

After playing a bit with scribing I also think it is a failure. Not just with alts, but in general as well. (scripts should be accountwide, and I am really disapppointed yesterday's patch didn't provide that.)

The skills(grimoires) are too specific and tied to a certain weapon. You are forced to choose that specific grimoire, even if it is not what you want to use as a base form grimoire. I wanted to make a sword/shield aoe pull, but unless I am doing something wrong, this isn't possible. As the base sword/shield grimoire is already a single target by itself. While pull removed itself from the list when using the soulline scribed grimoires.

The way scribing now looks to me is like it is just 12 or so new skills(grimoires) for which we can choose the damage types or specials. Which is bad, as it feels ZOS could have just added another skillline by themselves.

Something else I noticed is: Why would I ever choose a scribed skill over a class skills?? Class skills can always do the same or more than a scribed skill, but have the added benefit of the class passives which affect it. Either granting more utility or more damage at it's base. So scribed skills, to me, feel like watered down weak skills. Personally I suggest adding a scribing skillline, which grants passives for slotting/using scribed skills. Maybe even granting the ability to change single target grimoires to aoe grimoire's and vice versa.

To me, right now, there is no point to use scribing at all.

PS: ZOS needs to add a base attack form for every grimoire! Close magic/weapon dmg, ranged magic/weapon damage, and single target/aoe versions of all of those. Scribing should have launched with atleast 8 grimoires for every available skillline.
PPS: I'm not too worried about the ink, but ZOS does need to add a safeguard to ink drops so players can't have dryspills where ink doesn't drop for days.(forced ink drop every two hours, counting from the last ink drop)

Major_Toughness

Lots of the skills are useful at endgame.

licenturion

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

looks no more useful than companions. That is, just simple content for casuals.

95 percent of this game is casual, so this content is here just diversify or change up your standard gameplay

If you are doing the hardest content in the game you don't have much diversity and always have to pivot to the most recent meta. This is in every game. If they brought out OP DLC, everyone would be angry because it is pay2win.

Companions seem to be loved by most people since almost everyone in overland runs around with one.

Eliahnus

It's meant to have fun and as a gapfiller, it's not meant to be meta.

xylena_lazarow

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

That is, just simple content for casuals.

Scribing is pretty big for competitive PvP. Wield Soul and Contingency are commonplace already.

That said, a lot of the skills could use a buff. 2h Smash is pathetic, like who looked at the 2h line and thought yup, let's make a clone of Cleave, except with a clunky cast time (because the 2h line doesn't have enough of those already).

FelisCatus

It really needs more content and a big buff. A lot of it is useless as it's mainly for utility or roleplay. Needs a lot more spells.

PurpleScroll

I actually find vault extremely useful, as I tend to always play with a bow (favourite weapon in any fantasy setting). I have it set to add one stack to hawk eye, so my spammable (acid spray) gets an instant 5% damage buff, and then it also sets the group of enemies off balance which my +10% damage champion buff to off balanced enemies kicks in, allowing me to wipe out groups very, very fast. My main is a DK, and I just find the animation to vault extremely fun to play with, more so when I add chains of devastation into the mix (use chains to get up and personal, use vault, profit).

However, I do not find much enjoyment out of any other skills. I use throwing knife because of the off balance, multi-target and ruffian debuff it can apply, but that's basically it.

The fun I get out of vault alone made scribing worth it to me, but I'm really an odd-one-out here.

Quackery

It's a completely new feature, just give them some time to figure it out and make it right.

furiouslog

Eliahnus wrote: »

It's meant to have fun and as a gapfiller, it's not meant to be meta.

How do you know this, exactly? Is there a quote somewhere that you can reference or are you just guessing?

ZOS_Kevin

FelisCatus wrote: »

It really needs more content and a big buff. A lot of it is useless as it's mainly for utility or roleplay. Needs a lot more spells.

Just wanted to chime in here and remind folks that we will be supporting this feature over time, just like many of our other features. So if you don't see anything in the near 4000 possible combinations, we will have more coming. Feel free to sound off regarding what you would like to see in scribing support.

EF321

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

That is, just simple content for casuals.

Scribing is pretty big for competitive PvP. Wield Soul and Contingency are commonplace already.

That said, a lot of the skills could use a buff. 2h Smash is pathetic, like who looked at the 2h line and thought yup, let's make a clone of Cleave, except with a clunky cast time (because the 2h line doesn't have enough of those already).

Stun + Immobilize makes it AOE Fossilize.

Jaimeh

Tbh I'm glad none of the skills are meta or overpowered, and it actually means that combat is more varied this way (if there were stronger I bet you everyone would be using the same thing and it would bring the oposite of diversity), because people can use them to fill certain gaps in their build that perhaps their class or sets were lacking, which was the original intention of the devs. Hence from that perspective I wouldn't call the system a failure at all, I think it started in a good spot in terms of combat balance overall and it will get better, as soon as more ink gets accumulated and people have the chance to experiment more.