@Leandor

Probably. But at that point the skill just functions as a more spread out (damage/time/radius) version of Cleave or Whirlwind. It's cost efficient, but it doesn't make it any more damage efficient than those other skills. (Whirlwind is just as damaging a skill when the enemy is at 80% hp or lower, cleave has the added bleed damage)

Boiling down to being just a source of Major Brutality.

@Leandor

Hence why the Minor Maim suggestion.This isn't aimed at making it a PvE viable Stam AoE spammable. But rather as a more defensive skill that also applies damage.

PvE Stam it would still be better to use a Weapon Skill AoE.
PvE it opens it up as a tanking option.
PvE magblade it works as it always has.(+Minor Maim)
PvP it opens it up as a defensive tool (Mag and Stam). (Counter Cloak, Reduced Damage)

Just have it give major savagery instead, or even minor force. Alternatively it could apply lifesteal

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Leandor

With the current shades change, yes I would agree on that front. But this is also from the perspective that I think shades should be changed to be more of a MagNB DPS Pet Skill than a tanking skill.

Yeah, that would be sweet as well. More use for necropotence setups.

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Leandor

With the current shades change, yes I would agree on that front. But this is also from the perspective that I think shades should be changed to be more of a MagNB DPS Pet Skill than a tanking skill.

Funny, I was thinking that it should be stamina based so that the damage scales off of stamina.

Don't we already have 2 forms of Minor Maim in our Toolkit as NBs? A 3rd is not going to help any.

I suggested Minor Mangle be added to Power Extraction awhile back and I prefer that over another Maim debuff.

Not sure about minor mangle, though a second effect is much needed for this skill. Since the objective is to buff dps (with sap essence being the tank morph), it should apply an offensive buff. Minor vulnerability, minor force, new empower would be fitting buffs/debuffs imo.

@VaxtinTheWolf

That could also work. But IMO I'd prefer they just did that with Debilitate. Then it'd be an AoE snare and a self-buff.

@VaxtinTheWolf

Eh, for debilitate I wouldn't even have it as a stamina morph. Give it the ole cloak treatment. You want it for the buffs, not to spam it.

Making it AoE but still cost Magicka* will leave it as a Utility/CC option that doesn't dip into your main resources, but offers good bonuses even though you're not specced for magicka. The damage is an afterthought. As IMO stamina should generally try to source most of its damage from Weapon Skill lines (But this also requires a larger arsenal of weapons and tools to choose from than what is currently availible, since there are not a lot of diverse options atm), and use magicka for utility based purposes that the world's base "physics" can't provide.

Drain Power based at Major Sorcery? I can see that, but then what do you put for the Magicka morph? Generally the base skill is best to have attributes that can benefit both specs if the intention is to have both a stam cost and a magicka cost morph. IE, why I suggested Minor Maim. This is of course only if you want to keep the skill the same between both morphs, otherwise, a core functionality change is generally what is needed from a morph. (IE Drain power turning into a heal, or Debilitate turning into an AoE skill)

VaxtinTheWolf wrote: »

I had said in that post that Sap essence stays the same as it is now. Though overall I don't know what to do with drain power myself.

Oh right, right.

@Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

At that point though, that's really all it becomes. Just a source of Major Brutality.

The more I've been thinking on it though, the simplest solution would be to make this skill more damaging, decrease the %hp needed for it to be better than Whirlwind. Dragging it down to about 50% would make PE a better lowby dungeon skill as it provides a source of Major Brutality while performing similarly to Whirlwind. In High-end content it will be useful at the start, but towards the end it will taper off as the increased execute damage from whirlwind will start doing more work even though it has a higher cost.

So, as it stands now, a simple solution (that will still need testing), is to increase the amount of Damage Power Extraction does by 37% (After which Whirlwind is a more damaging skill). This value should likely be lowered slightly to take into account that whirlwind is 14% more expensive than PE. So perhaps somewhere along the lines of a 30-34% damage increase.

Enough with the maim already! Pretty soon the only buffs/debuffs NBs will have will be 1.) poison and 2.)maim and 3.) defile

It's good to have some diversity.

Even though I'm a stamblade I use the magica version of the skill (when I do use it) ... because I like the healing ... a lot! Great to use when surrounded by trash mobs.

Really, you can get minor maim in so many ways, I don't think another minor maim inflicting skill is the solution. Besides, people should wait to see how everything shakes out with Summerset ... we are getting a new skill line and new jewelry traits as well as jewelry crafting ... right now is the calm before the Summerset storm (lol). I'm getting my umbrella ready.

@Maryal

Well the point of this is that the stamina version doesn't really have any diversity associated with it. It's sub-par damage, sub-par buffs, whose saving grace is really its range. If you've read the initial post, you should understand that the Minor Maim would be in addition to the Major Sorcery and the Healing of the Magicka morph. Admittedly it would overload the skill itself just to make the stamina morph somewhat interesting.

@Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

TL:DR

So yeah, the 6 mob cap, but reduced to around 7% bonus per mob hit would probably make this an alternative choice for most content over Whirlwind. This is a convoluted way to say your idea is a good one, but the % needs to be reduced by 3%:

It's true that this would allow for 0.5 ult/s while spammed, I just don't see that as being very impactful.

However, the scaling damage based on nearby enemies might make for a much more interesting approach on increasing the damage of this skill. It rewards proper positioning, and, while in PvE this generally requires more focus on teamwork rather than a solo aspect, it does at least require good awareness of the battlefield. Whereas Steel tornado can be spammed to the same effect on any enemy, just being more efficient the larger the group is, this skill really only is effective the larger the group is.

I wouldn't even begin to know what a good balance for the damage efficiency/mob size would be. Turns out my calculations were a bit FUBAR above. if the damage of the skill was increased by 37% it would be more damage efficient up until the enemy was at 36% health in comparison to Whirlwind. So a damage increase of 60% would make it more efficient up until the enemy was around 8% health when at max Mob Cap (and excluding the slaughter passive on DW). Which, while it would reward positioning, this would be rewarding it too much seeing as it also is cheaper, has more range, and has the ulti gen.

But even then I don't know what a good balance would be. 35% health but also requiring good positioning? That wold require somewhere along the lines of the 37% increase, so for nice numbers could be a 40% increase. But the balance factor then becomes the number of mobs required. 4 alone might be to few as to really require thought, 8 might be too much apart from huge waves. 5 could be considered at 8% per, but 6 and 7 would cause decimals unless raised to 42% (which would be 30% instead of 35%).

Though, then 6 & 7 might be good at 30% with a 7% or 6% damage increase per mob hit, as then Whirlwind with the fewer ulti, range, and slightly higher cost starts to outscale and then suddenly improve upon PE once it hits the additional DW execute phase below 25% health. Though this wouldn't be much of a concern apart from Min/Maxing.

@Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Hmm. Fair enough. Though that in itself speaks as to the viability of the other morph of Whirlwind, which could probably be discussed at a later date.

I''ll concede at this point as I'm away from my main comp, (and still should do the calculations against the execute phase vs up to +60%), but taking into consideration the execute phase, that may be in line. However, it should also be considered that this is a source of Major Brutality too, and while there are other sources for this, this can make the skill more gold efficient than Steel Tornado, as regular Stam pots become a reasonable option in lowby content.