Fighters vs Mage guild imbalance hurts stamina builds

SickDuck · February 2015

Guilds were always core feature of every Elder Scrolls game. ESO created Fighters Guild with stamina based abilities mainly for stamina based builds, while the Mage Guild has magicka based abilities and focuses on magicka builds. These should be balanced between the builds but are far from that. I always felt that stamina based builds suffer unfair disadvantage on multiple levels, where the gap between the guild abilities is one big contributor. It even gets bigger and more significant with the 1.6 changes. I wanted to create a little overview/comparison focusing mainly on the gap between the two type of builds.

Ultimates

Meteor (Mage) - this skill was buffed massively in 1.6. For my NB it out-damages VOB with the option to proc burning/cold effects (Destro staff FTW). It has some CC utility as well. I think it is a bit OP. Before 1.6 it was very rarely used (I slotted on my sorc for the extra magicka and regen), but expect it to the next FOTM. At least it is a skill that can be used by anyone regardless of build.
Dawnbreaker (Fighters) - this skill got some buffs with 1.6, giving it significantly more damage, less cost and removing casting time. That should sound amazing, but it's not that all shiny. First of all, a ninja nerf was applied to Flawless Dawnbreaker (anyone used the other morph ever?) reducing the passive weapon power buff from 13% to 8%. Which is even less because it does not stack with the 12% bonus from medium armor or with Major Brutality, giving only 6% (could be even less with other buffs used, like Minor Brutality). Also the damage buff is nice but still not good enough, maybe except for daedra/undeads. All classes have better options in terms of ultimate damage or utility. So it still falls back to the current situation: FD being slotted only for the damage buff. But given that casting time is removed, we'll see more accidental casts of this ultimate by people hitting 'R' by mistake, or just because weapon swapping is not reliable. Currently at least you have a little chance to interrupt your own casting. I have mixed feelings with this skill, it's not that essential as before because of the passive damage nerf but probably still will be used in min/max builds.

Meteor is definitely superior to Dawnbreaker, especially after the recent changes. Both can be used in any builds, but Meteor is heavily skewed towards magicka builds because of the guild passives.

Mage Guild Active Skills

Magelight - a must have. Personally I don't like these toggle-to-win skills that eat up 2 slots in your bar, but the skill gives a lot. 10% crit rate and 5% max magicka with Inner Light (plus the passive bonuses) are a lot. It is still included in almost every magicka build without a doubt.
Entropy - the new favorite with the recent changes, must have for all magicka builds. A very cheap skill giving the Major Sorcery buff along with a mediocre HoT + DoT as bit of an extra. Degeneration could be a semi-useful option for melee, except I've never seen the heal to proc ever (bug or does not work as I think?). Because of that Structured Entropy is the way to go, giving an additional 8% max HP buff. Smells OP.
Fire Rune - damage and cost scales about the same as Impulse, except the later can be much better due to the destro staff passives. On the other hand this can be used without any staff (not a big deal for most, but just for completeness). Has some limited CC capabilities with Volcanic Rune or can give an extra DoT ability with Scalding Rune for Skoria set fans. Nothing special about this skill, not expecting it to see many times but not totally useless either.
Equilibrium - or should I just say Spell Symmetry? This skill alone adds a huge imbalance between magicka and stamina DPS. Having a magic button that gives you resources immediately during a fight (along with a Major Empowered bonus) is very OP. On top of that Spell Symmetry reduces the cost of the next spell, giving even more help with resources. It costs HP surely but unless used mindlessly it can be easily activated more than necessary. Though if you rely on it too much don't forget to send some gifts of appreciation to your healer in the of the day. Given Balance is quite useless there would be a great opportunity to change the other morph to return stamina instead of magicka, giving melee a more equal ground.

As you see 3 of 4 skills are very powerful and used by most magicka builds. On the top of that slotting these already good skills give a significant buff because of the passives. Skills are useless in stamina builds.

Fighters Guild Active Skills

Silver Bolts - a decent ranged DPS skill. There are better options with bow damage and cost-wise but this one can come handy if you use melee weapons only. Quite good against daedra/undeads, and with Silver Shards you get some AOE capabilities. Silver Leash could be great skill if it would apply the pulling effect to everything, not just D/U (could do the extra damage to the later only). It is a well built ability except for the weak pull effect.
Circle of Protection - a minor damage debuff. With 1.6 it gives 8% flat reduction which is nice and easier to comprehend than the current defence bonuses in live. Still it is a situation skill, not worth the slot for all occasions but could be a great opportunity for cooperative play in group runs. Morphs are not extraordinary, not sure which is a better choice. Overall it a well-thought skill which benefits ALL builds equally.
Evil Hunter - the old/new favorite from this line. It got buffed massively by giving 10% weapon crit just for being slotted. That sounds nice, until we take into account that medium armor passive was nerfed about the same amount, so if you're a melee you need to slot this ability just to get back as you were before. (I know Inner Light was nerfed by 10% too, but it gives 10% more magicka now which is a fair trade) It got buffed that you have 4% chance now to proc the extra damage on any target not just D/U. This is nice. On the other hand it was nerfed because killing any D/U now does not increase the current duration by 15 sec, simply it restarts the 15 sec duration. Guess that's a fair call but it's hitting the usefulness of the skill heavily. On 1.5 I could use this skill on the secondary bar and re-cast it once in a while. Now it has to be on both bars because of the crit buff and needs to be re-cast lot frequently. With no D/U around it does not even worth casting it (gives around 100-200 extra DPS in 1.6 but you lose more just because you need to re-cast it every 15 seconds), which makes it much worse than Inner Light.
Trap Beast - seriously, has anyone ever used it? It is utterly useless, hope they kill it one day. Would be a great place for a... stamina based heal or damage shield skill?

While FG active abilities are not bad only one can be considered mandatory for stamina builds. CoP is equally good on all builds. There are no passives that work together with the active skills (well Skilled Tracker is, but you get the point).

Mage Guild Passive Skills

Persuasive - no comment. Nice to have while questing, then you can claim your skill point back.
Mage Adept - 15% cost reduce is always nice. It does no good for Meteor or Inner Light. Quite good for Spell Symmetry, doesn't matter much for Entropy as it is very cheap already.
Everlasting Magic - 20% extra duration, again a nice skill but does not work with Inner Light or Spell Symmetry.
Magicka Controller - 2% max magicka and 2% magicka regeneration. This is very strong passive and can justify slotting more MG skills. With people using 2-4 skills on their bar, it gives a chunky 4-8% increase in vital magicka DPS/healer stats. The lack of similar skill in the Fighters guild creates a huge imbalance on its own.
Might of the Guild - just as if Magicka Controller did not create big gap between the guild passives, this is the cherry on the top. Spell Symmetry + damage skill and now Entropy + damage skill gives a very nice extra DPS.

Fighters Guild Passive Skills

Intimidating Presence - same as Persuasive, afaik it's pretty balanced between the two guilds.
Slayer - 9% damage buff on D/U. Pretty good, especially when those little *** are on every corner. But it's a bit unfair on stamina builds again, as it gives the same advantage to ALL builds. Would it require slotting a Fighters Guild skill or just giving out weapon damage buff it would make stamina builds more of a special snowflake. I wouldn't mind this skill if the gap between the guild passive would be addressed in some way.
Banish the Wicked - I have mixed feelings about this passive. It is good, actually I'm quite surprised that it haven't got changed with 1.6. Gaining a flat 9 ultimate with any D/U kill can be massive with the new ultimate system. It seems to go against the whole concept of the recent changes. Personally I hope it will be replaced by something else (maybe something along the Magicka Controller / Might of the Guild lines). And again, it is for EVERYONE without the need to slot any guild specific skills or any restriction on how those kills should be earned.
Skilled Tracker - this is very is goes all downwards. This skill is pretty useless, given there are much less werewolves in PvE than D/U. Good for PvP but a bit unfair on vampire players. Imho this knowledge should be part of the basic Fighters Guild training and all skills should affect WW the same as D/U by default.
Bounty Hunter - seriously wtf? How did this useless c**p ended up here in the first place? AvA specific passive in the guild?! Even if you are OK with that, gotta admit it's pretty pointless. There are massive amount of dailies in Cyrodiil already. Not to mention the massive amount of dailies in Craglorn or the two Undaunted ones. Can't recall people complaining about the lack of dailies, especially not for PvP. The only reason I could think of ever doing this is to get the Indomitable Adventurer achievement a bit earlier. Please kill this!

The main gap between FG and MG is because of the passives are very good for the mages. Two FG passives are not bad, but they give the same advantage to everyone. The last two FG passives are just pathetic.

TL;DR -
Mage Guild skills are pretty strong especially with the 1.6 upcoming changes. The passives give very good synergy for the active skills. Only usable in magicka builds.
Fighters Guild skills are not bad but weaker than some MG counterparts. The passives are much worse than the mage ones and does not require the actual slotting/use of the guild abilities. All passives and some skills are equally good for all build types.

Suggested changes

Balance (Equilibrium morph) - change it to "Stamina Symmetry", mimicking Spell Symmetry for stamina users. There are already lot of complaining about stamina management which will get worse in 1.6 (more stamina based skills, increased relative cost).
Silver Leash - make it work on all type of monsters, similar to DK chain.
Trap Beast - replace this skill with a stamina based damage shield or self-heal ability. That could resolve the issues raised around Vigor (note, this skill should not be as OP as Vigor).
Slayer - reduce it to a 2 points passive, with 3/5% damage bonus. 9% is a bit high. Either make it work only if FG skills are slotted (at least one on the active bar or maybe giving 2/3% bonus per skills slotted?) OR at least balance FG passives versus the current MG ones by implementing the suggestions below this.
Banish the Wicked - reduce it to a 2 points passive, giving Minor Heroism for 10/20 seconds. Again make it FG more specific OR reduce the gap between the two guilds via other means.
Skilled Tracker - remove this skill and let WWs be affected by all FG skill by default. Add a new 2 points passive that gives 1/2% max stamina and 1/2% stamina regeneration per FG skills slotted.
Bounty Hunter - replace this skill with a 2 points passive, similar in power to Might of the Guild. Could be the same thing or something else, but close the gap between the two guilds.

Gyudan · February 2015

Fighters Guild abilities could use the 2℅ increase in max stamina and stamina recovery per skill slotted that you suggested.
Trap Beast needs some love but the other abilities are fine imo.

Snit · February 2015

FG does more for casters than MG does for stam-builds. Agreed. However, Undaunted does more for stam builds. Also, pretty much everything in 1.6 tilts the overall balance toward stam builds. Medium Armor/ Two Handers are the new black.

You've identified one isolated imbalance, but the larget context tilts the other way.

SickDuck · February 2015

Snit wrote: »

FG does more for casters than MG does for stam-builds. Agreed. However, Undaunted does more for stam builds. Also, pretty much everything in 1.6 tilts the overall balance toward stam builds. Medium Armor/ Two Handers are the new black.

You've identified one isolated imbalance, but the larget context tilts the other way.

I have to disagree with you on many levels. For me it's getting old to see so many "OMG stamina builds are so OP and magicka builds are dead" threads since around 1.3/1.4. Yet stamina melee DPS is still a small minority. I understand bow got much more popular because it does massive DPS without much risk or effort, but afaik it got its own nerf in 1.6 (which I think is fair). Medium and 2H OP? Cannot say at this point, but let's check back in a month's time. My bet is that magicka builds won't lose much charm as stamina is still much harder to play because of issues not related to how big Wrecking Blow can hit if you're dumb enough to stand in it. But the worst thing is that most of the time people are complaining without having any end game experience on stamina builds.

If there's an imbalance between two things that should be quite similar than the solution for me is not to make something else imbalanced too to make it right when it comes together. That would just narrow down choices cause you have to pick things together to make viable builds. If 2H is the next thing I'll be quite unhappy as I prefer DW+Bow (even that I've got all existing skills and morphs maxed on my main so changing build is not very hard). Still people will have to realise that using 2H means being very close to the enemy all the time. And moving a lot. And you'll get out of stamina quick and there's no way you can just quickly refill on your own. And DPS and blocking don't go hand-in-hand. And the awareness and time needed to avoid close range attacks. And cannot build ultimate when not close to any enemy. And the list could go on for long, I don't really see at which point gets the larger context tilted back the other way.

"Yes, but there's a guy with a big sword coming towards me and he hits me for a massive amount" - Well I think that is more like an isolated issue taken out the bigger context.

Also I understand the concerns around 2H (though I think they will prove wrong), but why medium armor? It is still worse than light armor or at least not any better.

both gives the same amount of cost reduction and regeneration bonus
both gives about the same amount of critical bonus: light gives 10% wearing 5+ pieces for 2 skill points, while medium gives about 11% wearing 7 pieces for 3 skill points (nerfed from 21% on live)
medium gives 12% weapon damage wearing 5+ pieces, which is nice even that it's somewhat less because does not stack with everything - you can get out like 10% or less in the end when buffed, giving maybe 5% DPS increase
light gives a chunk of spell penetration which I've no idea how much that contributes to DPS but would be surprised if it would not worth 5% overall
apart from that light has spell resistance bonus while medium gives bonuses on sneak cost, detection radius, run speed and dodge roll cost. That looks a long list but the first half has no use in combat. Run speed is nice but again not really useful in combat, especially as it burns stamina fast. (Not to mention the usual scenario when I need to run with my clothed friends for some speed achievement arriving to a fight with a drained stamina pool... wish I could use symmetry.) Dodge roll cost is quite nice, except dodge still costs around 3k stamina on 1.6 which is 1.5-2 skill uses. Double that for break-outs. Many times there's no stamina left for DPS because need to use it to avoid certain death... or certain death because doing damage ate most of the resources.
damage mitigation is 1:3 for medium's advantage which received loads of complaining. Again most people probably never played in medium otherwise they'd know that you pretty much never block in medium armor (except when your life depends on it because of some game mechanics, but that decreases your DPS significantly). Let's say light gives 10% damage mitigation for you. That means you get 90% of the damage, which is halved to 45% using block casting. With medium you might get 30% mitigation but you cannot block pretty much ever unless you only want to watch the fight. That means in medium get 70% of the original damage which is still much more than you get with light armor. I understand that you cannot block forever in light armor but usually you don't have to and in the long run you still get less damage. Add the extra spell resistance on the top of that and you are clearly much better. I think the current mitigation ratio is alright, with light still being a better option as long as block casting is available.

Not sure why Undaunted is better for stamina? All but one skills are magicka based and very situational. I think they are fine but definitely not OP for any kind of DPS builds. I can't say I could see people massively using them in DPS builds. The only skill that was hyped a bit at some point is the Orb which is magicka based and can return magicka. Or you meant Inner Fire that got changed to stamina/weapon damage? Or Bone Shield which can be equally useful to all? Only advantage I can think of is the Undaunted Command passive as melee tend to be closer to activate synergies.

The majority on magicka build is focusing so much on its own misery and confusion that it fails to notice that stamina builds suffer from the same. For example 9 out of 12 skills used in my current live build got nerfed in a way or other. That and the massive changes around passives and ultimate leaves me no idea how this will come together. Probably need about a month of live play with 1.6 to see how things going relative to others, and I can't say I'm not anxious.

Father · February 2015

Great post. I totally agree with the OP.
No one cried about this imbalance since magicka builds dominated the game ;/
Right now the only active ability that I use is evil hunter and the first 3 passives, skill tracker is useless since u never see WW in pvp and Bounty hunter is a passive that I never used and most likely I'll never use.
Trap beast never used it I don't even know how the animation look like.
Silver leash I never used. Silver bolts I used it on low lvls when I started playing this game back in april 2014

Its kinda unfair that mages guild is a universal skill line for every magicka build while fighter's guild is only for killing undead.
About the dawnbreaker nerf...8% boost is still good in my book, but I would rather a more reliable ultimate.
If you think Ice Comet is OP,then take a look at Soul Assault from the soul magic tree it does 30k on crit...and costs 100 ult I know this ult won't leave my bar in pvp.

ZigoSid · February 2015

They should create a "Monster Hunter/Dawnguard" skill line and put all the current FG skills in it and then make real fighter skills for FG.

Father · March 2015

Fighters guild skills don't match TES lore...why would they be focused on undead anyways

LtCrunch · March 2015

Father wrote: »

Fighters guild skills don't match TES lore...why would they be focused on undead anyways

Maybe you should pay more attention to the fighters guild storyline, eh?

Rune_Relic · March 2015

Thanks OP. Always wanted to say something similar but never had the time or the in depth experience to fairly comment.

AlnilamE · March 2015

I like bounty hunter. I pick up a bounty every time. I go into Cyrodiil.

eliisra · March 2015

Snit wrote: »

FG does more for casters than MG does for stam-builds. Agreed. However, Undaunted does more for stam builds. Also, pretty much everything in 1.6 tilts the overall balance toward stam builds. Medium Armor/ Two Handers are the new black.

You've identified one isolated imbalance, but the larget context tilts the other way.

Yeah, let's talk about real imbalance instead. No reason playing a magicka build in 1.6 at all, unless you're a templar healer or possibly a sorc in PvP. Less dps than medium/stam build, less burst than a medium/stam build and crap survivability in LA armor.

Besides ultimates scales of your highest attributes. Meteor from Mage's guilds will scale of weapon power, if you're a stam user and still hit like a truck.

It's really 2 different discussions. One is about balance or lack of it. Stamina stacked medium builds on PTS outshine magicka, heavy- or hybrid builds by far. Meaning all those magicka skills to pick from, they wont be used in the first place, if 1.6 goes live in it's current state.

The other is about flexibility and options, where magicka builds still have the upper hand, as in more skills to pick and mix from compared to a stamina user. I do agree that Fighters Guild is a little bit to situational. I would love more skill lines with stamina- and weapon power options to.

Erock25 · March 2015

Stamina builds are leaps and bounds greater than magicka builds in 1.6, so I'm not sure how buffing fighters guild will help anything.

dodgehopper_ESO · March 2015

ZigoSid wrote: »

They should create a "Monster Hunter/Dawnguard" skill line and put all the current FG skills in it and then make real fighter skills for FG.

I agree. There should be what I call the 'Inquisitor' skillset under World Skills, that would be mutually exclusive to players who are not Vampire/Werewolf. Alternately they should be Fighters Guild skills that are specific to actually fighting (stamina/health) based combat. I also agree that the Silver leash should pull everyone, not just Daedra. If they made that one change to the skill I would definitely slot it on my bar. As it stands I'm not a particular fan of silver bolts. I realize that many people like the skill, but I severely dislike low chance to proc skills for an instant win. I'd much rather Silver Bolts simply hit 40% harder or something versus all Daedra/Undead/Vampire/Werewolf all the time (or whatever percentage they deem fair).

SickDuck · March 2015

Erock25 wrote: »

Stamina builds are leaps and bounds greater than magicka builds in 1.6, so I'm not sure how buffing fighters guild will help anything.

I wonder how much that statement will stand in a month's time. People are all doom and gloom now but it's hard to get the whole picture, and changes will happen. My bet is on magicka builds still will be better and more popular after 1.6 settles. But even if stamina builds get the upper hand balance should be maintained by nerfing OP bits and buffing weak ones.

technohic · March 2015

Erock25 wrote: »

Stamina builds are leaps and bounds greater than magicka builds in 1.6, so I'm not sure how buffing fighters guild will help anything.

DPS but I still don't see a lot of group utilities and synergy.

jelliedsoup · March 2015

i agree, but it's not surprising - this game's design was always heavily focused on magicka.

1.6 may help but you still use stamina to block roll sprint etc. Magicka you just use for magicka. why they designed it this way is beyond me.

xaraan · March 2015

Dawnbreaker got a lot better in 1.6, but yea, the whole line isn't as awesome as Mages Guild.

Personally, they need to take Vigor out of Alliance War and replace Trap Beast with it (or some version of it). It is the only power in alliance war skill line that isn't truly tied to the alliance war. Granted, all the powers there have niche uses in PvE, but are mostly useful only in PvP, where Vigor is just a stamina heal and has no true tie to PvP moreso than any other heal.

They should create an actual PvP power for that slot in alliance war, create another type of heal that is more useful in just PvP with only a niche use in PvE like every other alliance war power. Move Vigor or some version of it to Fighter's Guild line.

Other than that - silver bolt, circle and evil hunter are all good as is. Evil Hunter much more useful now and as good for slotting on your bar as a stam build as mage light would be for a caster. The passives are good as well, bonus damage and ultimate on daedra/undead is awesome (and the passive for including WWs isn't that bad either, that should stay). Edit: the last passive in FG line is pretty lame though, maybe a passive that gave a 5% boost in stamina per FG active slotted would even things up.

SickDuck · March 2015

xaraan wrote: »

Personally, they need to take Vigor out of Alliance War and replace Trap Beast with it (or some version of it). It is the only power in alliance war skill line that isn't truly tied to the alliance war. Granted, all the powers there have niche uses in PvE, but are mostly useful only in PvP, where Vigor is just a stamina heal and has no true tie to PvP moreso than any other heal.

They should create an actual PvP power for that slot in alliance war, create another type of heal that is more useful in just PvP with only a niche use in PvE like every other alliance war power. Move Vigor or some version of it to Fighter's Guild line.

Would like to see that, never really made sense why was added there, except there was no other place to put. But Vigor is quite OP and I don't really get the idea behind it (stamina based HoT AOE???). I'm happy for Vigor to stay where it is or at least should be replaced by something really good (for PvP for gs!). There are already quite a few hot debates about it. It makes HC PvPers a sad panda as they think they should get something special for their efforts (<sarcasm> apart from the skill points, rewards, titles, possible emperor skills+dye+title+costume... that non-PvPers will never get </sarcasm>). I get that and it's fine. But would love to see a more lore-friendly stamina based self-heal or damage shield. Maybe with the morph option for AoE capabilities - could be called the 'Gentle Touch of the Comrade'.

xaraan wrote: »

Other than that - silver bolt, circle and evil hunter are all good as is. Evil Hunter much more useful now and as good for slotting on your bar as a stam build as mage light would be for a caster. The passives are good as well, bonus damage and ultimate on daedra/undead is awesome (and the passive for including WWs isn't that bad either, that should stay). Edit: the last passive in FG line is pretty lame though, maybe a passive that gave a 5% boost in stamina per FG active slotted would even things up.

SB, CoP and EH are good as they are. Personally I hate these must slot skills like EH became (same for old/new Inner Light) and really hope one day ZOS will remove these slot eaters or do something about them. But I agree, the skills are good.

The dmg and ulti bonus passives are OP imho, especially with the latest game mechanic changes. Nevertheless the issue with those is not how they work, but the fact that they work for anyone without the need to slot fighter guild skills at all. This creates one of the main balance issues between magicka/stamina builds regarding to the two guild passives. One way to balance things more is to add the need of FG skill slotting to gain these bonuses. That would give both builds some unique advantage. Going down that road (and I don't wanna rant too much) it would be even more fair for these passives to add a much smaller bonus to other types of opponents (as MG passives are always working too). I get all the obsession about D/U/WW but surely the FG training could offer something for general combat situation too.

Other option is to keep these skills as they are, open to all. But in that case ZOS should replace the last two with some meaningful passives, like in my suggestion. I get the WW one is alright now, but not sure if it really needs another skill point to be spent. Also it's not fair to vampires in PvP. But I wanted to remove it mostly to get more space for other options and I don't think putting WW in the standard training package without the need of a separate skill would be OP.

Hypertionb14_ESO · March 2015

here is a fun tip..

use Meteor on your stam build... it will actually hit harder than it would on your magicka build since you can generally get more weapon damage than spell damage..

it like all other ults now scale on whatever is higher...

also... pick the Shooting Star Morph and have Soul Harvest on the oppsite bar where your AOEs are. Cast Shooting Star and then switch and start AOEing, the Ult restore on hit of Shooting star will still proc on the other bar and anything that dies will cause Soul Harvest to give you even more ult... done right you can get full ult to recast Shooting Star moments after it impacts...

all this said... yes, most of the fighers guild trees suck... tho i am liking the Weap Crit from the Hunter skill..

SickDuck · March 2015

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

here is a fun tip..

use Meteor on your stam build... it will actually hit harder than it would on your magicka build since you can generally get more weapon damage than spell damage..

it like all other ults now scale on whatever is higher...

also... pick the Shooting Star Morph and have Soul Harvest on the oppsite bar where your AOEs are. Cast Shooting Star and then switch and start AOEing, the Ult restore on hit of Shooting star will still proc on the other bar and anything that dies will cause Soul Harvest to give you even more ult... done right you can get full ult to recast Shooting Star moments after it impacts...

all this said... yes, most of the fighers guild trees suck... tho i am liking the Weap Crit from the Hunter skill..

Nice idea especially about the Harvest. Although (maybe a noob thought) aren't ultimates scale off damage + max resource pool (stamina or magicka) both? The same as regular skills do? Cause that way it could go both ways as magicka builds can get much higher max magicka than melee builds can get max stamina. (Btw I wish I thought of this when someone was complaining about weapon damage potential being higher than spell damage).

Anyway Meteor (especially ST with the massive ulti gain potential) is too strong at the moment and I would not bet on it to stay as is for the long run. For now I enjoy it on my sorc the most - finally he can feel like a real mean with a strong ultimate

Hypertionb14_ESO · March 2015

SickDuck wrote: »

Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »

here is a fun tip..

use Meteor on your stam build... it will actually hit harder than it would on your magicka build since you can generally get more weapon damage than spell damage..

it like all other ults now scale on whatever is higher...

also... pick the Shooting Star Morph and have Soul Harvest on the oppsite bar where your AOEs are. Cast Shooting Star and then switch and start AOEing, the Ult restore on hit of Shooting star will still proc on the other bar and anything that dies will cause Soul Harvest to give you even more ult... done right you can get full ult to recast Shooting Star moments after it impacts...

all this said... yes, most of the fighers guild trees suck... tho i am liking the Weap Crit from the Hunter skill..

Nice idea especially about the Harvest. Although (maybe a noob thought) aren't ultimates scale off damage + max resource pool (stamina or magicka) both? The same as regular skills do? Cause that way it could go both ways as magicka builds can get much higher max magicka than melee builds can get max stamina. (Btw I wish I thought of this when someone was complaining about weapon damage potential being higher than spell damage).

Anyway Meteor (especially ST with the massive ulti gain potential) is too strong at the moment and I would not bet on it to stay as is for the long run. For now I enjoy it on my sorc the most - finally he can feel like a real mean with a strong ultimate

one of the bigger changes in 1.6 is which ever is higher, Magicka and spell dam, or Stam and weapon dam, determines the damage done by all ults.

also, all skills that use magicka use spell dmg and spell crit now, but many class skills now have morphs that use stam and weapon crit+dmg.