Another patch, and no love for Leeching Strikes?

rager82b14_ESO · February 2016

Even with the nerf, No I am sorry "Bug Fix" To Siphoning means people would just rather not use it.

No sense for Leeching to be left like this after so long. Options are nice you know. This skill needs love and a buff.

ninjaguyman · February 2016

There are too many drawbacks on it as it is now. not only is it a toggle, but it also gives a 20% damage penalty on top of that? The fact that it is a toggle should be penalty enough for the skill. I say take off the toggle since so many other skills in the game are having their toggles removed like magelight, sorc pets, and the dk crit ability. Also take off the damage penalty because what other skill in the game imposes that sort of penalty just for using the skill? Then maybe increase the resource gain on light and heavy attacks.

Even if the toggle and the damage penalty are removed, this skill will still be overlooked for siphoning attacks, so something else would still be needed. I was thinking like major mending for a few seconds like igneous shield. Maybe that might cause a few tanks to swap over to leeching.

hrothbern · February 2016

ninjaguyman wrote: »

There are too many drawbacks on it as it is now. not only is it a toggle, but it also gives a 20% damage penalty on top of that? The fact that it is a toggle should be penalty enough for the skill. I say take off the toggle since so many other skills in the game are having their toggles removed like magelight, sorc pets, and the dk crit ability. Also take off the damage penalty because what other skill in the game imposes that sort of penalty just for using the skill? Then maybe increase the resource gain on light and heavy attacks.

Even if the toggle and the damage penalty are removed, this skill will still be overlooked for siphoning attacks, so something else would still be needed. I was thinking like major mending for a few seconds like igneous shield. Maybe that might cause a few tanks to swap over to leeching.

Let's hope that the devs also want to get rid of all toggles

What they could do, is to take away the toggle and give it a special ability.
And if you cast that special ability you get a 15 seconds duration without the damage penalty.

Ilterendi · February 2016

Leeching Strikes is still a thing? I could understand how tanks may find it useful, with out the multiple drawbacks, but it's utter garbage currently.

Diab3ticBatman · February 2016

ninjaguyman wrote: »

Also take off the damage penalty because what other skill in the game imposes that sort of penalty just for using the skill?

Im pretty sure my DK has or has had an ability in the past similar to leeching strikes. That you cast it for free but it does something negative for its use. I think it was like a reduction to magicka or something not exactly sure. I could be wrong but I thought we had an ability like that. And while leeching strikes is weak and what not I used siphoning strikes for my NB tank and the 20% reduction for a tank wasn't all that big a deal since that's not a tanks main focus. I think the reason they fixed siphoning and kept leeching strikes as is is so that people who wanted to dps with siphoning now can and those who want to use it for tanking would use leeching now instead an get somewhat of the same effect as before.

Xvorg · February 2016

Ilterendi wrote: »

Leeching Strikes is still a thing? I could understand how tanks may find it useful, with out the multiple drawbacks, but it's utter garbage currently.

It is so, so bad, that I'm considering soul siphon as an option

Cody · February 2016

there are people who try to pass off leeching strikes as an effective self heal. One does not even need to play the class to understand how bad it is, 2% heal IS NOT self sustaining.

Xvorg · February 2016

Cody wrote: »

there are people who try to pass off leeching strikes as an effective self heal. One does not even need to play the class to understand how bad it is, 2% heal IS NOT self sustaining.

2% for basic attacks. If it was 2% healing (and magicka and stamina recovery) ON HIT it would be a more interesting skill. Then you could use flurry...

Slashie · February 2016

Leeching strikes definitely needs to be looked at.
A good change could be if the weapon damage reduction was 10% instead of 20%, going down to 7% when it's rank 4, and 2% of outgoing WEAPON BASED damage returned as heals.
By weapon based I mean your stamina based attacks. Surprise attack, Ambush, ofc light and heavy attacks.
This ability reducing your damage any only returning health for light/heavy attacks just isn't worth it.
Additionally, it could instead return a higher percentile of health back from light/heavy attacks, but none from abilities.
This move would be the only thing outside of running Rally, Vigor (if you even have it unlocked) and health potions for self-sustain.
Which could potentially put it on the front bar of stamblades everywhere.
Keep in mind, it still reduces your damage, so nobody will have it active ALL of the time.
The reason I am proposing weapon damage procs, is because let's face it, magblades don't need another heal. but stamblades are in dire need of a little bit of sustain.

edit: keep it a toggle

GreenSoup2HoT · February 2016

GUESS WHAT!

Pts just boosted leeching from a huge 2% to a WUMBO 3%!

Slashie · February 2016

3% instead of 2% is... better. I guess, it's still pretty underpowered though.
I mean, healing from your attacks is great! the only problem is 17% less weapon and spell damage. that is a HUGE debuff, making you really, really want to only use it sometimes. meaning you'll use it never.
Stamblades need a heal, Magblades don't.
I cri.

ThatNeonZebraAgain · February 2016

Posted this in my thread about Siphoning Attacks and NB tanking on the PTS forum:

@Wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert

Below is a way to change Leeching Strikes into the tanking morph while keeping base ability and Siphoning Attacks the same (in other words, catering to DPS/Healer roles). Also, note that the values are just suggestions, and mainly help to illustrate balancing mechanisms. Changes are bolded:

Leeching Strikes: Basic attacks restore 600 Magicka, Stamina, and Health. All other direct damage attacks have a 30% chance to restore 2181 Stamina and Magicka. While active, you deal 20% less damage. 2175 Magicka cost. 30 second duration.

New effects and rationales:

Lower stat return on basic attacks than SA since tanks try to limit dropping block, which also promotes DPS using SA for animation canceling. I wonder if eliminating the basic attack stat return could even be an option to further create a tradeoff. The health return on basic attacks does distinguish LS from SA, but is nonetheless essentially fluff because the values are a fraction of most HoT ticks and thus are inconsequential.
Increased proc chance to give tanks way to keep resources up now that it is only possible to get 1 proc chance at a time per mob (ie can't stack GTAoEDoTs with direct damage attacks). With this percentage, slightly less than 1/3 of your direct damage attacks would return resources (an amount that is often less than the cost of the ability itself). Depending on how effective this is, the recent ~10% increase to the value of the SA proc stat return could be reduced back to pre-2.3.2 values (1944 stam/mag), especially if the proc value was increased somewhat further. Also, if the basic attack part was eliminated, the proc could also include a %-based health return, which would benefit tanks since it scales of their higher max health pool.
Significant damage penalty to further promote use by tanks and create tradeoff for better resource management.
Longer duration because the buff timer mini-game is terrible design, and which would also make it roughly correspond to Mirage/Double Take's buff length. Longer duration also helps with resource management because it allows you to more easily recoup cost of ability itself and also cast it twice as less.
Toggle removed to be consistent with ZOS's overall strategy of eliminating toggles from the game.

Given the tradeoffs and possibilities I described, another option could be:

Leeching Strikes: All direct damage attacks (not including basic attacks) have a 35% chance to restore 3000 Stamina and Magicka, and heal you for 5% of your maximum Health. While active, you deal 25% less damage. 2175 Magicka cost. 30 second duration.

Again, numbers are just suggestions that show the balance concepts. The value of the stat return for this is roughly equivalent to combining the value of the basic attack stat return to the original proc value, which could happen for slightly more than 1/3 of your direct damage attacks. Here, basic attacks/animation canceling have no incentive since dropping block is dangerous to tanks and their groups. The health return is a heal and thus benefits from our +healing given/taken passives, and also scales of health, which caters to tanks; however, the value is still rather low compared to HoTs. Slightly larger damage penalty to create further tradeoff.

wskill · February 2016

Leeching strikes was uninteresting to me because of the both melee and spell damage nerf, i picked the other morph on my siphoning healer.

MisterBigglesworth · February 2016

There should be 4 slotted passives, 1 unique to each class, that have a clear trade-off (usually a dps loss) in exchange for better sustain (with a tanking morph and a healing morph). These should always be the first or second ability learned in one of the class trees, so that new players can more easily get into those roles as they're leveling up.