Remove natural spell damage and make staves give SPELL damage instead of Weapon damage

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO · July 2014

Are you so blind to not see how this throws the whole balance off?

xaade · July 2014

I voted Other, and here's my reasoning.

Unfortunately there's a balance between weapon and spell damages that makes the game contradict itself often.

For example, how does the fighter's guild abilities scale. Spell power? Because they aren't using your weapon?

But they are free to choose whether an ability uses stamina/magicka and weapon/spell crit, because you don't get these from the weapon.

If they made staves spells or damage use spell power, then the staff would have to provide spell power, or the weapon power it provided would be pointless. You want weapon abilities to scale on the weapon.

So now we have this problem. You can't have a weapon ability scale using spell power, but now everything becomes inconsistent.

You have to get weapon crit for melee spells, and you have to get spell power for non weapon "abilities" (meaning non spells, like the crossbow).

I think it would be better for all weapons to provide weapon and spell power. Then scale back the spell power from gear, and add weapon power to gear.

Then staves could provide MORE spell power than weapon power, melee weapons would be the inverse. Class "spells" could use a mix of both if they are melee, and stamina Fighter's abilities could use weapon power.

killedbyping · July 2014

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO wrote: »

Are you so blind to not see how this throws the whole balance off?

This is actualy a call FOR A BALANCE -.-
Right now, Stamina users are forced to loot or craft and upgrade weapons in order to have decent damage. They are forced to invest alot fo gold and mats in order to deal any damage at all.
At the same time, any spell caster have their spell damage naturaly even empty handed.
You call that balance ? You think this is fair ?
Right now spell damage builds are not only more viable, but also magick dps are much more easier and CHEAPER to obtain.

I am the one who mainly play spell caster, however i do not think this is a balance in anyway. I used to play my NB as 2h\DW\Bow and spend hell of alot of gold and mats to create Legendary weapons and sets like Hunding rage just to be able to do any damage at all.
When i respeced into Warlock build i spend almost nothing to make my build viable. You dont even need to upgrade your gear to Legendary, because non of the Spell casters set's have their set bonuses increased with quality upgrade and you dont actualy need anything besides regen and spell crit because you have all the damage you need even naked(with current soft caps even upgrading gear with infused trait make no senes because it yield nearly 0 effect) and Upgrading staffs also yield nearly 0 effect to your dps.
Once again i dont think this is fair.

I am for completely removing natural spell damage and make spell casters to gain it thru crafting and upgrading Staves like weapon users do. This will actualy bring more balance betwin Magicka and Stamina.
This will also provie a good and balanced way to buff spell damage in the future when more powerfull gear will start to be implememnted into the game and level caps will start to increase (soon or later that WILL happen).

killedbyping · July 2014

I believe tha tthe fact i forgot to mention that i want not to just make Staves give spell damage but remove natural spell damage at the same make some confusion. Unfortunately Post editor do not allow me to edit it.

Cathexis · July 2014

I haven't read a lot of replies but I'd like to point out that for stamina heavy builds, staves offer a range/mana pool consuming flip option. This is really useful, because if your in a fight where you've burned your stamina, if offers a backup offensive resource pool.

Yusuf · July 2014

Actually, that would make a lot of sense. I think blocking with staves should cost magicka and if a staff-user is caught in a negate-magic-field he shouldn't even be able to leftclick-attack. After all its a magic fireball he's shooting right?

BTW I'm just talking about whether it's making sense, not whether it's good for balance or not.

Akula · July 2014

I have seen everything now. Good grief.

Samadhi · July 2014

killedbyping wrote: »

I believe tha tthe fact i forgot to mention that i want not to just make Staves give spell damage but remove natural spell damage at the same make some confusion. Unfortunately Post editor do not allow me to edit it.

So players not using staves as weapons would have no Spell Damage stat for when they use their Class skills?
Or are you proposing to make Class skills scale off of Weapon Damage for everyone else while making this change?

bertenburnyb16_ESO · July 2014

killedbyping wrote: »

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

killedbyping wrote: »

bertenburnyb16_ESO wrote: »

no its the way its supposed to be, skills of spelldamage, weapons and weaponskills of weapondamage (why would you otherwise have wapendamage on staff at all???) what they should unify its what skills scales on weapon/spellcrit

Ehm ? This what i actualy mean. Why there is Weapon damage on Staves if all their skills are SPELLS ?

its still a weaponskill, one you preform with a certain weapon, in this case the magicstick, without it you can't do the skill ...
staves are still weapons => scales of weapondamage => logic

Please lets not convert this topic into senseless demagogy.
I can say the same about class skills. They are all SPELLS, even thou they officaly called SKILLS.

All of the Staves skills are SPELLS no matter from which direction you look at it. Even their visual effects wont make any1 think those are not Spells, unlike other weapon skills.

well please use your brain, if this would be done the game would be even more unbalanced, this is one of the worst ideas suggested on the forum
weapons and their skills use weapondamage as it should be, otherwise the pajamas with their magic sticks would be even more out of wack

Edit: and another thing, if staffs were to use spellpower, they would have to remove weapon power from staffs, remove spellpower like it is now and give that to staffs, but what if you dont equip a staff (so have no spellpower) and use a class skill... it would screw up everything

Kiljaz · July 2014

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

Why the hell would hitting someone/something with a bit of wood do spell damage?

Because the bit of wood fires a magicka projectile.

Cathrin · July 2014

The spell damage is something, that lies within the character and his abilities.
The weapon damage is what the weapon does, so it's good the way it is.

It doesn't matter, if the staff shows some awesome beam coming out of it. It's something bound to the weapon itself so it's a weapon damage.

E.g.: A sword cuts you, a gun shoots a bullet. There is a difference in that, still both "results" are what the weapon do.

If anything, you could give a bonus on handling staffs as a magic class and a bonus on handling other weapons as a meele class. But please don't change this system.

JackDaniell · July 2014

I'm sorry, but removal of natural spell damage means that if your not wielding a staff then all your class skills do almost nothing (they all scale off spell damage).

Changing staves to what you suggest means that if you wanted to use 90% of class skills you have to wield a staff for them to be effective.

Class Skill base value with suggested changes:

Nightblade with 2k magicka.

Ambush with dual wield (170 weapon damage 0 spell damage) = 177 base damage.

Ambush with Restoration staff (140 weapon damage translating to ~140 spell damage) = 398 base damage.

For a change like this all the math behind combat would need to be scrapped and re-worked for it to balance.

JackDaniell · July 2014

As for the spell damage vs. weapon damage this of it like this.

Spell damage is your class skills. Increase this and you class skills will be stronger.

Weapon damage is your weapon skills. Increase this and your weapon skills will be stronger.

A staff is a weapon, not a class skill.

Edit: Renaming spell damage to profession damage may clear up some confusion.