Alpheu5 wrote: »

I don't think it needs to be buffed to the same extent as the Master DW since it also provides a CC or root, but it definitely needs some sort of modification, whether it's even more cost reduction or empowering the DoT slightly.

Except bosses are CC immune, so that part of the equation is irrelevant for PvE.

In PvP I kinda agree with you, but most class CC abilities will still be better. A boost for 3750 over 8 seconds is not going to put pressure on anybody in PvP either.

This staff is in dire need of some buffing. I don't think the staff should reduce the cost, the base skill needs a cost decrease instead. At least 20%, this skill costs FAR too much for what little it does; poor damage, clunky animation, easy to dodge projectile, the list goes on.

I'm all for increasing the DoT portion of this skill by ~1500, similarly to the Master Daggers. Otherwise reworking the staff completely always works as well. Perhaps putting on an enemy afflicted with Destructive Touch's DoT could have them take some % more damage of whatever element type was used? I.e; 5% more Flame damage taken by all sources if Flame Touch, and so on for each element. This helps the staff become a powerful enabler for not only the caster, but groups as well. It would also help incentive running multiple staff types to coordinate enabling DPS in raids, and help Magicka builds feel slightly more impactful.

Some comparisons wich show the buff of master destro staff. In real the 1500 dmg buff will be much more, because it will be affected by stats. At my tests its around 2.2k more direct dmg to the single target part and the aoe part!!

The staff is a PvP staff!

So with the master destro you have a slightly stronger aoe than elemental ring. For aoe elemental ring is still stronger. In my eyes the skill should be buffed, not the weapon.

ztyhurstub17_ESO wrote: »

I know the Asylum staff is going to be the one to run anyway, but I figured I would bring this up.

• Destructive Impact (Master Destro): Increased the damage bonus to Destructive Touch’s direct damage to 1500 from 516.

So this means that the initial direct damage for destructive touch gets a buff of 1500... Lets compare that to the dual wield Master weapons...

• Stinging Slashes (Master DW): Increased the damage bonus to Twin Slashes’ bleed to 1500 each tick from 516.

So Twin Slashes has 5 bleed ticks which will be buffed 1500 each for a total of 7500 additional damage.

Now the Master's destruction staff does reduce the cost of Destructive Touch by 12% which at ~3800 magicka is 456 magicka every 8 seconds if you are achieving 100% up time (114 magicka every 2 seconds if you want to normalize it to regen), but I think most players would rather have it do 7500 additional damage every cast.

Besides that we are talking about a skill that costs way too much, barely does enough damage to make it worth doing instead of a spammable attack, and doesn't make it onto most people's skill rotations. At least before this patch the Master staves were good for adding some max magicka. I think after this they will basically be decon fodder.

You have to remeber that destructive touch and its morphs now apply massivley buffed status effects..you mentioned bleed which ia a strong dot...but so is burning and concussed/ off balance. Not to mention the stun that applied making your opponent face tank for 3sec. Alot of mag users slot this skill and use it to stun against stam pressure

There are three separate issues with the master destro here:

1) The issue with having special weapons only buff one skill.
In the past master and vMA weapons had a flat 1x (master) or 1.5x(vMA) stat bonus in addition to the ability bonus. This was sort of a do no harm provision. The weapon couldn't be a POS even if the skill bonus was weak or to a bad skill. In the case of the vMA weapons the weapon in fact would always actually be good because the bonus was 1.5x in magnitude. This also helped to make up for the whole no enchant thing though in the case of the masters it didn't quite get that done. Dropping the general stat bonus makes most of these weapons too week to use even for the ones that have a good buff to a good ability because it is only one ability in a kit of 10 plus and ultimate. ZOS is not about to make any one ability buff strong enough to make up for taking a chunk out of 9 other abilities. The only exception to this will be group buff abilities where that one buff can be multiplied by 6 or 12 players such as the master resto or the new status effect destro. Taking the general buff away will not work. It will just make virtually all the special weapons trash drops. I like the switch to making these weapons set piece bonuses and able to take enchants though.

I think the simple solution is to give each special weapon a 1x stat bonus, the ability bonus, and an enchant. At that point they do no harm and are judged as better than baseline wholly on the strength of the ability bonus.

2) Issue with the strength of destructive touch and it's PVE / PVP ramifications.
We need to acknowledge that destructive touch is a *** ability that costs a lot. It does not really do enough damage to be a PVE DOT despite the 8 second duration which looks desirable to many classes, especially NB's who are DOT lite, have a lot of 8 second stuff, and, with the demise of siphoning, have a bar slot. I have never been able to get anything out of it worth adding it. For PVE it is just too little damage and too much cost.

For PVP I similarly do not slot it. For PVP it comes down to a slow CC with poor damage. When I think of other CC's, 2H charge, shards, and fear come to mind. I cannot imagine anybody using destructive touch. It neither has the kind of damage of charge or shards (or even half that damage) nor the duration and through block capability of fear.

All around Destructive touch is weak. This probably stems from the idiocy of ZOS whole stance that everything must behave the same in PVE and PVP and the fact that touch does 4 things (damage, CC, DOT, and status.) ZOS seems to think you can just add all these four together so each must be weak and the skill must be expensive. There is never a situation where they all actually add though and so the result is just an expensive skill that does not provide enough punch in any situation to be any good.

3) Issue with the buff to destructive touch.
The buff itself is also ***. Cmon, 1,500 damage to one skill would be peanuts even if that were your primary and best skill which destructive touch is not. I should also mention that where a master staff and destructive touch looks the closest to interesting now would be a mNB but it actually fits badly there as destructive touch and elemental blockade are both 8 second skills and so would naturally be better on the same bar but can't be because the buffs to these skills would necessarily come from two separate (masters and vMA) staffs. I should note that this issue will also present for any other magica dps that would be interested in this skill for dps.

In summary I think that the whole masters destro staff thing is a good illustration of just how bad Wrobel is at his job. There is just so much wrong with everything about the situation and a lot of it is very obvious. I will also note that I have used my masters and vMA staves 100% of the time on PTS as Wrobel is an idiot and thinks that his little internal metric statistics are a good judge of what is good and a substitute for understanding it himself of listening to the forums. Those statistics are worthless as 99% of players are clueless and half the remaining 1% are not running optimal stuff at any particular time because they are testing something, didn't feel like swapping gear from another toon, gave up chasing the operatic meta, or are *** with you statistics for malicious reasons.