State of Destruction Staff

Faulgor · September 2015

So, what's everyone's opinion on Destruction Staves in 2.1/1.7?

Destructive Touch seems pretty decent for what it does, namely single target crowd control. Both morphs seem useful, although I prefer Clench in the current update.

Wall of Elements is a waste of a skill if I ever saw one. The damage is simply pitiful. It could be argued that its main use is AoE CC, but if that were the case, the Unstable morph would be pointless, and so would using it with a fire staff. I'm really not sure what ZOS wants this skill to be.

Force Shock's only benefit is it's spamability (possibly its synergy with the Nerieneth set, as it counts as 3 hits). However, NB's Strife deals more damage for less than half the cost, and also heals. I'm not sure the interrupting effect of Crushing Shock or the chance for AoE damage on Force Pulse can make up for that. Overall the skill is fine, but if you're a DK or NB (possibly Templar), you have better options for a magicka spell.

Weakness to Elements seems fine. I have no complaints with either of its morphs.

Impulse is pretty much the only reason to use a Destruction Staff in the first place. In that sense, it's the skill line's Steel Tornado.

I realize I could make a list like that about every weapon skill line (except 2H, which I think is almost too good), but what Destruction Staff lacks compared to other DD weapon skill lines is an execute. 2H has Reverse Slash, DW has Whirlwind and Slaughter passive, Bow has Poison Injection. 1H+S doesn't have one, but it is rarely used as a DD setup in the first place (although I wouldn't mind an execute on one of its underused abilities).

So, I could think of two resonable ways to include some execute functionality to Destruction Staves.

1. Change Elemental Susceptibility to increase damage with Destruction Staves against targets below 50% health. While I like the auto-rebuff as a support ability, most people would probably use Elemental Drain, and this could make the other morph more viable. In turn it would also improve all other Destruction Staff abilities.
2. Change Wall of Elements to increase damage by up to 200% on targets below 50% health. Additionally, the base damage should be increased by 50-75%. This would make WoE an effect you actually want to stay out of, instead of just taking every hit like it's nothing (because it is). It would also be entirely different to any other execute in the game, as it is a fire-and-forget AoE ability.

willymchilybily · September 2015

Faulgor wrote: »

I realize I could make a list like that about every weapon skill line (except 2H, which I think is almost too good), but what Destruction Staff lacks compared to other DD weapon skill lines is an execute. 2H has Reverse Slash, DW has Whirlwind and Slaughter passive, Bow has Poison Injection. 1H+S doesn't have one, but it is rarely used as a DD setup in the first place (although I wouldn't mind an execute on one of its underused abilities).

not sure i agree with your view that a DOT counts as an execute (bow poison injection). in fact i would say no ranged weapons have an execute.....unless I'm missing something? that's how it should be. So i have no qualms on your Wall of elements suggestion, i even think its quite good

but Your idea for elemental susceptibility is over powered in my opinion. Increase damage on all destro staff abilities and at the 50% health range, on an insta cast debuff is not my cup of tea. Would be bad for pvp, debuff then spam destructive quench and the target is getting CC, high damage, dotted and exectued, knocked back depending on staff. Just too much.

Faulgor · September 2015

willymchilybily wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

I realize I could make a list like that about every weapon skill line (except 2H, which I think is almost too good), but what Destruction Staff lacks compared to other DD weapon skill lines is an execute. 2H has Reverse Slash, DW has Whirlwind and Slaughter passive, Bow has Poison Injection. 1H+S doesn't have one, but it is rarely used as a DD setup in the first place (although I wouldn't mind an execute on one of its underused abilities).

not sure i agree with your view that a DOT counts as an execute (bow poison injection). in fact i would say no ranged weapons have an execute.....unless I'm missing something? that's how it should be. So i have no qualms on your Wall of elements suggestion, i even think its quite good

but Your idea for elemental susceptibility is over powered in my opinion. Increase damage on all destro staff abilities and at the 50% health range, on an insta cast debuff is not my cup of tea. Would be bad for pvp, debuff then spam destructive quench and the target is getting CC, high damage, dotted and exectued, knocked back depending on staff. Just too much.

Well, the game thinks Poison Injection is an execute (as it triggers the Sheer Venom set), so who am I to argue. Of course there are other ranged executes, such as Sorcerer's Mage's Wrath, NB's Impale and Templar's Radiant Destruction.

The drawback on Elemental Susceptibility would be that it has to applied first, which makes it only useful in single target settings. If it would turn out to be op, I'm not against reducing the duration or health percentage of the target where it's effective, whatever. But I'd like the change to Wall of Elements better anyway.

Wing · September 2015

wall of elements is still pretty terrible, just does not do its job as aoe dps, very sad.

force shock while nerfed is still the only source of ranged single target magicka dps for classes that lack any, that is to say DK and Sorc. not saying that justifies it being weak, its just the only option.

destructive touch is solid.

weakness to elements is solid.

The days of impulse being top dog are long over, now its in the same boat as force shock, the only good pbaoe available to classes that don't have one, that is to say, sorc really.

its not terribly good at what it does, its just the only option for what it does available to some classes.

Merlin13KAGL · September 2015

To my knowledge, the only current use for WoE is as a debuff via shock / off balance when your fellow man has 75 points into the passive that does +10% to off balance enemies.

Pre 1.6, it was a very powerful spell.

After 1.6, it was rendered obsolete.

Reverb · September 2015

Unstable wall was great when it stacked. I agree with the concept behind the change, but it made it nearly useless. The uselessness was compounded by the 2.1 changes.

I spent some time with it on a low-ish level pet sorc this weekend, using wall and caltrops under my clanfear, and a lot of CP into elemental damage. It was decent, and allowed me to stay out of the fight in a way that pulse doesn't. It needs to be much better however, to earn a permanent spot on the bar.

Niminion · September 2015

Extremely disappointed with destro staff this patch.

Elemental status effects were for all intents and purposes removed. I don't know if they are broke or if they intended the proc % to be so low, but you basically can not count on them ever happening. It happens far less than the patch states it should, even with the +100% chance passive.

Wall used to be good when you could actually proc the bonus secondary effects from elemental status effects.
Lightning was better when the aoe portion actually worked and reduced the damage you took via concussion.
Ice was better when you could snare things reliably.
Fire was better with the burn damage.

Game gets more and more boring every major patch...

Armitas · September 2015

Destruction staves have been nerfed at least 3 times. They nerfed Impulse by reducing the radius, they nerfed wall of elements by making it so it cannot stack, and finally they nerfed the burning chance.

Impulse - By nerfing the radius of impulse the skill now becomes incomparable to steel tornado which has a 12meter radius, plus a native execute, and an execute in the passive. The state of impulse makes no sense given the existence of Steel Tornado.

Wall of elements - People discovered that they could actually get this skill to be worth a slot by stacking it, so they nerfed it and no one used it again. Noticing that no one wanted it because it was bad they buffed it in 1.7 by making it do 20% more damage to burning targets...however there was one little problem with that... the nerf to secondary effects.

Secondary effect chance. - Because of reasons, they decided to standardize all sources of secondary effects to fixed chances. Wall of elements was nerfed to a 1% chance, but to combat that they buffed elemental force to increase the chances by 100% so it actually has a 2% chance to proc burning... -_- So the chances that Wall of elements will ever see that 20% increase in damage is really small. On top of that it destroyed one of the few combos in the game. Impulse > Force Pulse. Due to impulse and force pulse having a 40% chance to apply burning it was easy to make force pulse an AOE by setting everything on fire with impulse then following it up with force pulse. That is gone now, the 40% chance to apply secondary effects was removed on both impulse and force pulse.

It seems chaotic up there, one hand doesn't even know what the other hand is doing. One guy buffs elemental wall in a way that relies on secondary effects, and the other guy nerfs secondary effects in a vacuum and doesn't see the correlation. The worst thing is they don't listen to anyone but a handful of people from guilds and streamers and design from there. By the time you enter PTS it's too late, design is done. You can post all you want on PTS forums but unless it's a bug, you are wasting your time. You are stuck with whatever comes your way till the next update.

Joy_Division · September 2015

Put down the destruction staff, a terrible weapon, and just equip two swords.