Mages Guild Skill Rework

ZhuJiuyin

This skill line is currently underutilized. Aside from Scribing for healing and Meteor for occasional cmobo in PvP, almost no one uses skills from this line. Inner Light and Magicka Controller's Max Magicka are ineffective for half of the builds, and Everlasting Magic makes it difficult for Mages Guild's skill duration to synergize with other skill lines. Might of the Guild is also almost useless due to the lack of suitable spam skills, especially since the new-DK's Molten Armaments are a better choice, achieving the functionality of two Mages Guilds in one skill (Might of the Guild + Degeneration).

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_NickG @ZOS_GinaBruno While we're unlikely to see a major overhaul of Mages Guild in U50, could it be reworked in U51 along with Warden? Like what you did with the new-DK and 2H skill lines in U49, could some modifications be made to Mages Guild?

The Max Magicka of Inner Light and Magicka Controller needs to be changed to piercing or critical damage to be equivalent to the Hunter and Slayer in Fighters Guild.
Volcanic Rune's radius is too small, making it almost impossible to hit a target. In my opinion, this skill should be changed to summon a Flame Atronach; otherwise, there are almost no Conjuration-related skills in the Mages Guild line.
One of Entropy's morphs might be able to cause a shock, which is currently the only magical element Mages Guild lacks.
Equilibrium needs a rework; almost no one chooses this skill now. Perhaps it could be designed as a spam skill? With a spam skill, it would synergize well with Might of the Guild.

Elendildur

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

The Max Magicka of Inner Light and Magicka Controller needs to be changed to piercing or critical damage to be equivalent to the Hunter and Slayer in Fighters Guild.

If you're on a Magicka build, and can source Minor Berserk elsewhere, Inner Light is stronger than Camoflagued Hunter, even with the Slayer passive. I'm not sure this needs to be changed

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Volcanic Rune's radius is too small, making it almost impossible to hit a target. In my opinion, this skill should be changed to summon a Flame Atronach; otherwise, there are almost no Conjuration-related skills in the Mages Guild line.

Does Mages Guild need a Conjuration-related skill? I agree that the skill isn't great, but that's more because Scalding Rune is so much better, since it puts a long lasting DoT on anything hit. Maybe it should be similar to Sorcerer's Daedric Mines, where it creates multiple runes, so there's a better chance of one of them hitting

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

One of Entropy's morphs might be able to cause a shock, which is currently the only magical element Mages Guild lacks.

This is personal preference, so I'll skip it. I don't think it needs Shock damage, but that's just me, you obviously feel different, and there's no right answer

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Equilibrium needs a rework; almost no one chooses this skill now. Perhaps it could be designed as a spam skill? With a spam skill, it would synergize well with Might of the Guild.

The main thing this needs is to lose is the reduction to healing done and damage shields. That is probably the main reason people skip it, since doing less healing makes you easier to kill, which is never a good thing
Also, most people use Ulfsild's Contingency to proc Might of the Guild on Heavy Attack builds, since it can do extra things, like Minor Force on the affix, and the main function of Equilibrium is to restore Magicka, something HA builds rarely need, even when using Rakkhat's Voidmantle

YandereGirlfriend

Elendildur wrote: »

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

The Max Magicka of Inner Light and Magicka Controller needs to be changed to piercing or critical damage to be equivalent to the Hunter and Slayer in Fighters Guild.

If you're on a Magicka build, and can source Minor Berserk elsewhere, Inner Light is stronger than Camoflagued Hunter, even with the Slayer passive. I'm not sure this needs to be changed

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Volcanic Rune's radius is too small, making it almost impossible to hit a target. In my opinion, this skill should be changed to summon a Flame Atronach; otherwise, there are almost no Conjuration-related skills in the Mages Guild line.

Does Mages Guild need a Conjuration-related skill? I agree that the skill isn't great, but that's more because Scalding Rune is so much better, since it puts a long lasting DoT on anything hit. Maybe it should be similar to Sorcerer's Daedric Mines, where it creates multiple runes, so there's a better chance of one of them hitting

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

One of Entropy's morphs might be able to cause a shock, which is currently the only magical element Mages Guild lacks.

This is personal preference, so I'll skip it. I don't think it needs Shock damage, but that's just me, you obviously feel different, and there's no right answer

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Equilibrium needs a rework; almost no one chooses this skill now. Perhaps it could be designed as a spam skill? With a spam skill, it would synergize well with Might of the Guild.

The main thing this needs is to lose is the reduction to healing done and damage shields. That is probably the main reason people skip it, since doing less healing makes you easier to kill, which is never a good thing
Also, most people use Ulfsild's Contingency to proc Might of the Guild on Heavy Attack builds, since it can do extra things, like Minor Force on the affix, and the main function of Equilibrium is to restore Magicka, something HA builds rarely need, even when using Rakkhat's Voidmantle

Equilibrium has the Warden and Psijic issue of: "What if two morphs but they did basically the same thing!"

There's no reason why we couldn't combine the functionality of both morphs into a single morph and then do something much more interesting with the new, freed-up morph.

Same sort of issue for Degeneration and its morphs. Volcanic Rune is mainly used for trolling and getting people stuck in geometry in PvP, which is not really a use-case that requires continued support, IMO.

Revealing Magelight is never used because the radius is still too small and the cost is too high for being such a one-trick, pigeon-holed pony that is only relevant in one game mode.

Mages Guild is a very weak line that feels like a time-capsule from a bygone age.

I will say, though, that one huge improvement would be to add Empower as an affix to Contingency so that HA builds could use Growing Impact + Empower to solve their Empower situation on a very economical number of total casts. That would be such a massive bang-for-buck and simple win for quality-of-life.

wolfie1.0.

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

This skill line is currently underutilized. Aside from Scribing for healing and Meteor for occasional cmobo in PvP, almost no one uses skills from this line. Inner Light and Magicka Controller's Max Magicka are ineffective for half of the builds, and Everlasting Magic makes it difficult for Mages Guild's skill duration to synergize with other skill lines. Might of the Guild is also almost useless due to the lack of suitable spam skills, especially since the new-DK's Molten Armaments are a better choice, achieving the functionality of two Mages Guilds in one skill (Might of the Guild + Degeneration).

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_NickG @ZOS_GinaBruno While we're unlikely to see a major overhaul of Mages Guild in U50, could it be reworked in U51 along with Warden? Like what you did with the new-DK and 2H skill lines in U49, could some modifications be made to Mages Guild?

The Max Magicka of Inner Light and Magicka Controller needs to be changed to piercing or critical damage to be equivalent to the Hunter and Slayer in Fighters Guild.
Volcanic Rune's radius is too small, making it almost impossible to hit a target. In my opinion, this skill should be changed to summon a Flame Atronach; otherwise, there are almost no Conjuration-related skills in the Mages Guild line.
One of Entropy's morphs might be able to cause a shock, which is currently the only magical element Mages Guild lacks.
Equilibrium needs a rework; almost no one chooses this skill now. Perhaps it could be designed as a spam skill? With a spam skill, it would synergize well with Might of the Guild.

A rework is likely, but its probably not going to be for a while. It makes most sense to complete it when there is a new quest arc that involves the guild. I think we will see a theives guild or dark brotherhood rework before a mages guild one.

Zodiarkslayer

Yeah, I think the priorities lie elsewhere. 😅

Radiate77

They will improve these skills, question is when. I agree this is important for Mage’s Guild, but is it more important than let’s say, Destruction Staff?

In a perfect world we’d get both at the same time, and Ice Destruction spells would once again be Destructive… but we’re slowly moving through everything.

Malyore

Some of the skills are very niche, and I've had a use for each one except for the fire rune. If they are changed, I hope they are only boosted rather than completely changed.

wolfie1.0.

Radiate77 wrote: »

They will improve these skills, question is when. I agree this is important for Mage’s Guild, but is it more important than let’s say, Destruction Staff?

In a perfect world we’d get both at the same time, and Ice Destruction spells would once again be Destructive… but we’re slowly moving through everything.

My hope is that when they get to the destruction tree that they split it. And give unique skills.

emeraldshado

I use inner light on my mag setups.

Its just too bad that the devs have decided the the optimal builds are all stam builds.

*Merlin has decided to put his staff down and pick up a large oblong object to be used in a bludgeoning fashion so as to dispatch his enemies as he has decided that the arcane arts no longer suit him. He felt it best to remove the contents of the enemies skulls since he found they do not seem to use those contents the vast majority of the time.

structured entropy works well with generating HP while running the vampire skill that costs health to boost spell power, but this is a niche area since most people don't run vampire and again, most still don't use this skill since the healing is so minimal per individual target


I use the fire rune to activate olorime on my full magika based tank which is really nice. or i use it in pvp at the front gate as it is about to go down to pop people up so they cant enter and they get picked off.

Turtle_Bot

One of the biggest things a Mages Guild line reworks needs is a mag based spammable ability, probably a melee one, since destro staff is ranged.

This would put it closer to Fighters Guild line since that line has a ranged spammable (most stam weapon lines have melee spammables).

The passives definitely need some updating as well and it would be nice to see the third elemental damage type (shock damage) see some representation within the line since it is the only missing type from that line (and one of the most underrepresented types in the game as a whole).

ZhuJiuyin

Regarding some people's doubts: Yes, most of Mages Guild's skills are "niche," and before U46, these skills retained a slight advantage.
However, after we gained subclassing, these previously "niche" advantages are almost lost.

In comparison, Fighters Guild is still superior. Barbed Trap is still the best single-target DoT, and PvE players will still equip Fighters Guild skills to obtain Slayer and Banish the Wicked. Even Dawnbreaker of Smiting appears more frequently in PvP damage recaps than Ice Comet.

However, in the current environment, not only is Mages Guild outdated, but Psijic Order and Undaunted are also outdated. I agree that class refresh is the top priority, but based on the New-DK+2H change model, ZOS's production capacity is clearly sufficient to support 1 class + 1 skill line. It would be ideal if a weapon or guild skill line could be updated with each class refresh.

ZhuJiuyin

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

The passives definitely need some updating as well and it would be nice to see the third elemental damage type (shock damage) see some representation within the line since it is the only missing type from that line (and one of the most underrepresented types in the game as a whole).

Yes, I've always been puzzled by the Mages Guild. It's understandable that the Fighters Guild lacks poisons and diseases, as an honorable warrior might disdain such petty tactics. But the Mages, a guild that should theoretically possess a vast array of magical skills and frequently demonstrates a thirst for magical knowledge in the game, consistently lack shock damage and conjuration-related skills, which seems somewhat inconsistent with the story.

Malyore

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Regarding some people's doubts: Yes, most of Mages Guild's skills are "niche," and before U46, these skills retained a slight advantage.
However, after we gained subclassing, these previously "niche" advantages are almost lost.

In comparison, Fighters Guild is still superior. Barbed Trap is still the best single-target DoT, and PvE players will still equip Fighters Guild skills to obtain Slayer and Banish the Wicked. Even Dawnbreaker of Smiting appears more frequently in PvP damage recaps than Ice Comet.

However, in the current environment, not only is Mages Guild outdated, but Psijic Order and Undaunted are also outdated. I agree that class refresh is the top priority, but based on the New-DK+2H change model, ZOS's production capacity is clearly sufficient to support 1 class + 1 skill line. It would be ideal if a weapon or guild skill line could be updated with each class refresh.

With introducing buffs to pureclasses, those niche uses can have a valid place again.

I do agree that psijic line definitely needs some boosts. Particularly towards just how janky it is to use. Elemental weapon can be an odd spammable that seems to sometimes not fire. And I've tried using symbiosis on my velothi-ur build to help keep others alive, but again weaving it feels very janky... I suspect its because it doesn't share the same animation canceling of light attacks. I'd also honestly like to see a boost to its cursor radius (being able to use the spell while aiming further to the side of an ally). The only use I have had for meditation is when I am needing to block large hits but am out of resources, with the passive that becomes a free way to reduce damage by 30% while also restoring all resources. But that's too rare for me to slot on a character.

I'd love to see undaunted get an ultimate that has very diverse of its 3 morphs depending on which of the three roles you play.

Urzigurumash

emeraldshado wrote: »

I use inner light on my mag setups.

Its just too bad that the devs have decided the the optimal builds are all stam builds.

I guess they forgot to apply that idea to DK when they deleted all the Martial damage and made it the strongest class?

I think probably the reality is players have an individually easier time playing one or the other, or an individually harder time fighting one or the other in PvP. I would say the overall PvP meta has been Mag more often than Stam and definitely leans Mag right now.

Urzigurumash

But yeah I still use Magelight too

Destai

I totally agree it needs a rework. I would really like each of the guild skill lines to function like mini-classes. Give us spammables, buffs, dots, so we can round out our characters.

The mages guild really should have been a more broadly used magical skill line for characters who didn’t feel like the classes fully represented their identity. The Psijic line, same thing.

Fighters guild should be for pure melee characters, get in that brawler/melee warrior fantasy.

I don’t anticipate them getting to these lines any time soon, but the desire is there.

Orbital78

I'd like to see skill reworks and the passives as well. Might of the Guild should be more around the lines of a 20 second buff IMO.