Please reverse the lightening staff changes

Decado · September 2016

like the title says please dont let the changes to lightening staff go live,

as is common knowledge now stamina is pushing ahead in terms of DPS so most trials teams are now 90% stamina users and atm we are still taking a few sorcs for ranged duties and using that lightening staff is making us somewhat tactically useful, and while im pulling decent numbers im always behind the stam sorcs and DKs, you take away the lightening staff AoE and the only reason to have a magicka sorc is for the ranged parts of Vet Mol, the rest of the trials there is 0 reason to bother might aswel bring a different char and do an all stam run.

thats when you know things are completely unbalanced when raid teams are considering full stam runs.

Toast_STS · September 2016

A valid argument

Daveheart · September 2016

Do you mind enlightening me on what the changes were? I was reading the patch notes on mobile and must have missed it.

Emma_Overload · September 2016

I second this motion.

Dracane · September 2016

Daveheart wrote: »

Do you mind enlightening me on what the changes were? I was reading the patch notes on mobile and must have missed it.

Oh my dear, it was one of their famous stealth nerfs.
Lightning staff heavy attacks no longer deal AoE damage. Only the last tick deals some Aoe damage now. Garbage

Toast_STS · September 2016

They have not mentioned lightning staff the last 3 patches but they are always tweaking it.

RoyJade · September 2016

I still think that some bosses should have some specific counter-magic or counter-stamina mechanism (negate is a beginning, but not enough and no counterpart). A boss with a lot of physical defense somewhere, an another with a lot of resistance… The second boss on MoL must be the best example, one should naturally have a lot more defense, the other a lot more resistance. Making the idea of magicka (even close combat magicka) useful.

And of course, I'm agree that the thunder staff change need to be reversed. There is NO reason to choose a thunder staff over a fire one, except for this aoe channel. Flame has better weaving, a better elemental blockade, a better synergy with the stronger magicka race, and frost/thunder have nothing except for the aoe channel of thunder staff.

Alcast · September 2016

Decado wrote: »

like the title says please dont let the changes to lightening staff go live,

as is common knowledge now stamina is pushing ahead in terms of DPS so most trials teams are now 90% stamina users and atm we are still taking a few sorcs for ranged duties and using that lightening staff is making us somewhat tactically useful, and while im pulling decent numbers im always behind the stam sorcs and DKs, you take away the lightening staff AoE and the only reason to have a magicka sorc is for the ranged parts of Vet Mol, the rest of the trials there is 0 reason to bother might aswel bring a different char and do an all stam run.

thats when you know things are completely unbalanced when raid teams are considering full stam runs.

Incorrect, 90% of the guilds are almost full magicka DD setups.

The change was kind of unnecassary tho, I do agree.

WreckfulAbandon · September 2016

They could throw us a little bone by reverting the change and modifying the tooltip.

I get the feeling that Dizzying Swing will get a buff before that happens though.

KenaPKK · September 2016

Also fix the resting pose for lightning staff. It's so unnatural and painful looking. It is the sole reason I hate using lightning staves in PvP.

GCVDJ11T · September 2016

@ZOS_Finn @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Guys is this just a bug or is this nerf truly intended?

Thank you!

the_Beard · September 2016

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3343513/#Comment_3343513

Time to put the lightening staves back in the bank to collect dust along with ice staves.

Minno · September 2016

GCVDJ11T wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Guys is this just a bug or is this nerf truly intended?

Thank you!

They said the change was intended.

Joy_Division · September 2016

ESO Community: "Please ZoS do something that can help close that gap between the power between stam and magicka."

Worbel: "I hear you. I promise to make game adjustments so magicka is more competitive."

ESO Community: "Great. Can't wait to see some progress!"

Wrobel: "Let's give a totally redundant and poor destruction staff ultimate. Just throw anything on the restoration staff, I forget what that weapon does anyway. Be sure to include those stam armor sets that boost all physical damage. Throw one light armor set that requires the use of a frost staff. Oh, yeah, remove the lighting staff AoE. Ryan out parsed me on the trash fight before the Mantikora and I'll have none of that, I don;t care if my Boss DPS is 10K higher. Don;t include these in the patch notes, maybe they won't notice since Lightning staves have been trash for so long and people just decon them."

Erasure · September 2016

I think at this point, we may need a melee magicka weapon tree to be released, so that magic dps can be decoupled from the idea of safety-from-range.

I've never heard a whisper of new trees or classes being developed, though, so for now it may be best to rework the lightning staff's AoE effect entirely. As it stands, Tri-Focus does not grant enough damage to be worth activating at once per heavy attack, in any situation. Casting the weak Impulse skill is a better use of time. It takes high CP, Trial sets, and specific builds to make the heavy attack passive worth using, even at 4 ticks per attack. Try it without Aether and at 150cp, your damage will half or third.

Perhaps it could be reworked to grant a scaling amount of damage, still based on the passive's logic, but scaling down based on targets hit? For example, if your total Heavy attack damage was 40k, perhaps it could deal 60k total AoE damage at the end. With one target to AoE, that would be very strong; with Two, it would be good, with three it would be neutral, and in a real clump you'd want to use something else. Sort of a reverse-proxy det logic. Keep the radius at 6m centered on the chosen target, that part is balanced well enough.

Or then again, it could be reworked into a strong, single target arc? Imagine built up static hopping to a nearby foe after the whole channel has passed, which strikes for similar damage to the heavy attack and has a high rate of concussion. There are a lot of ways to underline the Spreading Damage motif which could be useful in Cyrodiil or Trials, the current PTS Tri-Focus behavior does not manage it.

SirMewser · September 2016

When ZoS has something unintentional in the game, they remove it because it's balanced not because it's unintentional.

Lava_Croft · September 2016

A bug was fixed, get over it. There are better, more valid ways to buff Magicka.

hrothbern · September 2016

Lava_Croft wrote: »

A bug was fixed, get over it. There are better, more valid ways to buff Magicka.

The total damage was too high that could be achieved with certain builds in multiple mobs situations.
And removing this freak damage gives, I agree with you, a better foundation for valid Magicka improvements.

But I would rather have seen a decrease of the Tri-Focus percentage.
That would be more fitting to the character the lightning staff has gotten.

Derra · September 2016

Lava_Croft wrote: »

A bug was fixed, get over it. There are better, more valid ways to buff Magicka.

I hope they fix cloak again.

Lava_Croft · September 2016

Derra wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

A bug was fixed, get over it. There are better, more valid ways to buff Magicka.

I hope they fix cloak again.

I think they have been fixing Dark Cloak since the game's release and nice try at implying a Lightning Staff is class specific.

hedna123b14_ESO · September 2016

Lava_Croft wrote: »

A bug was fixed, get over it. There are better, more valid ways to buff Magicka.

Its been in the game since beta...its not a bug...what kind of a bug persists in the game unaddressed for two years? Nothing wrong was with it...

Lava_Croft · September 2016

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

A bug was fixed, get over it. There are better, more valid ways to buff Magicka.

Its been in the game since beta...its not a bug...what kind of a bug persists in the game unaddressed for two years? Nothing wrong was with it...

There's quite a few bugs that still persist since beta, it's no excuse to not fix them. The discussion should be centered around how to improve staves via legit means, not by relying on bugs.

RoyJade · September 2016

After a lot of reflection, I think the best solution should be to keep the "bug" fix but to apply the 100% splatch damage with the cumulated channeled attack. If you deal 2000 damage x3 then 2000 final damage, you should do 8000 splatch damage.

After all, the passive says "fully charged heavy shock attack damage nearby enemies for 100% of the damage done". Nothing say specifically "the last tick's damage", the HA shock is a channel and the "heavy attack" damage is the cumulated damage, not the last tick. ZOS already stated that when they applied molten armament's buff to all tick after a lot of threads.

At a conclusion : bug fixed, aoe damage still here, shock staff still relevant in endgame build and a new burst channeled aoe for magicka players.

NordSwordnBoard · September 2016

Lava_Croft wrote: »

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

A bug was fixed, get over it. There are better, more valid ways to buff Magicka.

Its been in the game since beta...its not a bug...what kind of a bug persists in the game unaddressed for two years? Nothing wrong was with it...

There's quite a few bugs that still persist since beta, it's no excuse to not fix them. The discussion should be centered around how to improve staves via legit means, not by relying on bugs.

Haha define "legit means" considering how they went about this change. We are already lobbying zos here. Considering precedent, reverting the lightning staff back before live is far more likely than them finding a way to balance anytime soon.

Cronopoly · September 2016

This was ONLY producing high splash with Maelstrom Arena Lightning Staves in conjunction with the Wall of Elements Proc on the VMA lightning stave. ONLY. Someone had a video up on with 10k splash ticks.

Enchantment
Targets affected by Wall of Elements take 387 additional damage from your Light and Heavy Attacks. While equipped, grants 189 additional Spell Damage.

For the 5 people that have this specific weapon and setup, yeah it was performed better than ZOS ever intended a Magicka class should with burst...obviously. That's why it was Ninja nerfed on PTS.

It was clarified that it was done on purpose as Gina asked the dev staff and they told her so. It was of course conveniently forgotten about in their communication and left out of the PTS Patch Notes. One of us discovered it and reported it here.

hedna123b14_ESO · September 2016

Lava_Croft wrote: »

hedna123b14_ESO wrote: »

Lava_Croft wrote: »

A bug was fixed, get over it. There are better, more valid ways to buff Magicka.

Its been in the game since beta...its not a bug...what kind of a bug persists in the game unaddressed for two years? Nothing wrong was with it...

There's quite a few bugs that still persist since beta, it's no excuse to not fix them. The discussion should be centered around how to improve staves via legit means, not by relying on bugs.

It's a bug in your opinion...if it hasn't been brought up as a bug until this patch it clearly wasn't one...just an excuse to nerf another option from the limited list of options that magicka has.

Rykmaar · September 2016

Joy_Division wrote: »

ESO Community: "Please ZoS do something that can help close that gap between the power between stam and magicka."

Worbel: "I hear you. I promise to make game adjustments so magicka is more competitive."

ESO Community: "Great. Can't wait to see some progress!"

Wrobel: "Let's give a totally redundant and poor destruction staff ultimate. Just throw anything on the restoration staff, I forget what that weapon does anyway. Be sure to include those stam armor sets that boost all physical damage. Throw one light armor set that requires the use of a frost staff. Oh, yeah, remove the lighting staff AoE. Ryan out parsed me on the trash fight before the Mantikora and I'll have none of that, I don;t care if my Boss DPS is 10K higher. Don;t include these in the patch notes, maybe they won't notice since Lightning staves have been trash for so long and people just decon them."

So much truth here.

It's honestly hard to see how they can turn the ship around without some fundamental redesigns -- which are needed, by the way.

Split the staves, make them unique, and make them work.
REsto staves should be able to keep someone alive efficiently. (just like, guess what, vigor+rally. Btw, that heals more than magicka classes..... Let's think about that for a minute.)
Change the light armor passives significantly.
Address the survivability gap - magicka relies on a tiny stam pool to survive, has the lowest physical protection, does not get damage increases.
DEstro ultimate is bad. The DoT focus of magicka that ZoS is pushing is bewildering. In every mmo I've played, magic users get CC and damage to compensate for survivability. In this game, magic users don't have a CC advantage, don't get more damage (just dots rofl), and are still penalized with lousy survivability.

Game's gonna suffer if the gulf persists (barring other reasons). Stop digging, ZoS.

Dredlord · September 2016

RoyJade wrote: »

After a lot of reflection, I think the best solution should be to keep the "bug" fix but to apply the 100% splatch damage with the cumulated channeled attack. If you deal 2000 damage x3 then 2000 final damage, you should do 8000 splatch damage.

After all, the passive says "fully charged heavy shock attack damage nearby enemies for 100% of the damage done". Nothing say specifically "the last tick's damage", the HA shock is a channel and the "heavy attack" damage is the cumulated damage, not the last tick. ZOS already stated that when they applied molten armament's buff to all tick after a lot of threads.

At a conclusion : bug fixed, aoe damage still here, shock staff still relevant in endgame build and a new burst channeled aoe for magicka players.

Agreed, i am of the same opinion but also aware this may be too much aoe burst from a free attack that is not vulnerable to interupts.

Lord_Eomer · September 2016

Hardly seeing magicka builds on trial ezcept healers lol..

Stamina is so OP

RoyJade · September 2016

Dredlord wrote: »

RoyJade wrote: »

After a lot of reflection, I think the best solution should be to keep the "bug" fix but to apply the 100% splatch damage with the cumulated channeled attack. If you deal 2000 damage x3 then 2000 final damage, you should do 8000 splatch damage.

After all, the passive says "fully charged heavy shock attack damage nearby enemies for 100% of the damage done". Nothing say specifically "the last tick's damage", the HA shock is a channel and the "heavy attack" damage is the cumulated damage, not the last tick. ZOS already stated that when they applied molten armament's buff to all tick after a lot of threads.

At a conclusion : bug fixed, aoe damage still here, shock staff still relevant in endgame build and a new burst channeled aoe for magicka players.

Agreed, i am of the same opinion but also aware this may be too much aoe burst from a free attack that is not vulnerable to interupts.

In pve it's not really a problem, in pvp you have a whole two second where you see the enemy channeling his attack and you can interrupt him or just spread enough to avoid the splatch damage. It would be a problem with fire/ice HA because you can use them from stealth, but with the shock HA you clearly see the enemy and the attack.

Vangy · September 2016

Minno wrote: »

GCVDJ11T wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Guys is this just a bug or is this nerf truly intended?

Thank you!

They said the change was intended.

Damn..... Well.... Time to put that masters lightning staff back into the bank....