It's great to see ZOS finally work on the viability of support roles that are not Dragonknight Tanks and Templar Healers. Silver leash and Time Stop will likely become essential skills for non-meta tanks. The additional tweaking of lesser used morphs into support-focused skills is also invaluable.
However there still is some work to do, so I figured I'd point out some issues with non-meta support roles and throw out some ideas to fix them. If you have better ideas, I'd love to hear them and I'll edit them into the OP for visibility.
All Builds
- Elemental Susceptibility (Weakness to Elements Morph) additionally applies Taunt and Major Fracture but now has a Magicka cost
This helps Ice staff become a bit more independent from sword and board by applying the debuffs from pierce armor.
I would honestly love if the taunt was removed from the heavy attack. There are times as the off-tank where I need to heavy attack the boss to restore Magicka but cannot because I will pull aggro off the boss. This will also make the weapon more usable for Healers and maybe DPS
- Propelling Shield (Siege Shield Morph): Have this morph apply Minor Berserk to up to 12 allies within its radius and for 6 seconds upon leaving.
This shakes up the healing meta by providing an alternative to Combat Prayer, the only AOE source of Minor Berserk, without replacing it entirely. Since this is an expensive Ground AOE, it's not as mobile as Combat Prayer meaning it's more ideal for stacked mostly-stationary fights. In some fights it may cover the whole group, so healers who coordinate can slot something else.
Templars and Wardens may preferk using this with Healing Ritual and Enchanted Growth, rather than relying upon Combat Prayer for AOE burst heals.
Dragonknight Healer
After playing around with it on PTS, I'm very optimistic about this build next patch so I'm only suggestion some minor changes.
- Obsidian Shard and Volatile Armor should do Flame Damage instead of Magic.
- Ash Cloud's new heal is great but should still do flame damage over time that but that damage is weaker than the base skill
DK Healers have little flame damage in their kit to proc the new Combustion passive that restores Magicka when you apply burning status effect.
- Fragmented and Igneous Shields morphs should stack with each other.
The shield change prevents their shields from negatively impacting a DK tanks shields
Nightblade Tanks/Healers
Fairly solid builds but I feel it needs to offer more to the group.
- Refreshing Path: Refreshing Path: Additionally grants Allies Major Expedition and reduces the cost of roll-dodge and break-free for all allies within the effect
- Sap Essence: Could apply Minor Lifesteal to enemies hit.
- Blur could additionally reduce AOE damage by 10%. (like Blade Cloak)
- Double Take (Blur Morph): Applies Minor Evasion to nearby allies.
Sorcerer Healer/Tank
The changes to Bound Armor and Persistence are really strong for tanks. However pets are a liability in trials and the class lacks an AOE Heal Ability (besides the Negate Ult Morph).
- Pets should not trigger vAA Mage Chain Lightning
- Pets light attacks should not trigger vHoF Assembly General's reflection while he kneels
- When pets are recalled, they should teleport to you after playing the desummon/resummon animations
- Pets should only take a maximum of 20-35% of their max health from a single tick of PVE AOE damage sources
The biggest issue affecting Sorc support is their pets constantly dying or triggering mechanics. It's difficult to summon a constantly dying Clannfear after vSO World Shaper, for example. I realize these changes will affect petsorc and wardens but is likely for the better.
- A rarely used morph or skill should be changed into an AOE Heal, preferably a heal over time.
This is a larger change but sorcerers lack a non-ult AOE heal over time ability. They do have 2 Dark Magic Skills plus morphs that AOE immobilize (Encase+morphs and mines+morphs) and also rune prison and crystal blast that single target stuns. Each is a bit different but that's a lot of overlapping crowd control in a single skill line. Alternatively one of the morphs of Lightning Splash could be used but this skill is rather popular.
Templar Tanks
I just ran one of these in vAS last night, so it works, but my main gripe is self-sustain. Repentance is powerful but not usable in most boss fights leaving you with only potions and Heavy Attacks.
- Rune and morphs: Move the Magicka Restore from Channeled Focus to the base skill but its only restores magicka once per second (down from 0.5/s)
- Channeled Focus keeps the original 0.5 second tick timing of magicka restore and reduces the cost of Healing Spells by 4% while slotted
- Restoring Focus additionally restores Stamina per second. Possibly remove Minor Protection (see Empowered Sweeps below)
Choosing between mitigation and sustain is a painful choice. The that this is a small rune that limits your mobility should be more powerful.
Moving a weaker resource restore to the base skill and having the tank skill additionally restore stamina gives Templar Tank a more reliable sustain source. Channeled focus is given a minor buff to compensate, since I'm suggesting a lot of non-Templar Healer buffs in here this is a very modest buff to them.
- Empowered Sweep: While slotted mitigates 8% additional damage while blocking. Alternatively/additionally give Minor Protection while slotted depending on the Rune Focus changes.
Tanks mainly use horn and rely on this for big hits. This makes the skill more attractive while providing some additional mitigation while not in use. A
Another idea is this skill could give the mitigation from this ability to nearby allies
Warden Healers
I've cleared nearly every Vet Trial and some Hardmodes with this build, but there is one quirk about Warden Healers: They have an entire skill line dedicated to healing but those abilities don't seem to scale well with larger groups like the ones in Trials. They also lack an AOE Heal over time ability besides their ultimate, which are usually prized in trials for their helpfulness maintaining full health and SPC uptime.
- Healing Seeds: Slightly increase radius. Make this skill and morphs additionally heal over time. The amount of healing each tick "grows" until the final bloom burst. (example 800 grows to 1400 hp in PVE)
- Budding Seeds: This ability should last 14 seconds.
With the growing heal over time change to the base skill this means the final ticks should be rather strong. The healer can still activate early for emergency burst but loses the higher ticks.
- Living Trellis: The burst heal should be on-cast, not effect end. The heal on damage affects allies within a small radius.
This ability is much weaker than Regeneration in not only healing done, but that the Regeneration can affect many targets. This changes makes the skill a more effective smart burst and a mobile AOE HoT.
Warden Tanks
I've cleared the vet Craglorn Trials with this build, even off-tanked vSO. This isn't a very independent tanking build, and performs better in a group.
- Frozen Device: Change it so that when the pull is triggered it pulls up to 2 additional targets within the circle.
This skill is far less precise than the new Silver Leash change. Having it pull multiple targets gives it a tradeoff: quantity versus accuracy
- Leeching Vines: Change this so that it is always cast on the caster and lasts for 20+ seconds
Tanks could use this to spread Lifesteal, manage their health, and proc Nature's Gift
- Artic Wind (Base). Change it so that this ability heals for 15% max health and an additional 3% every second for 3 seconds.
This keeps the original design of the ability while making it more competitive with similar skills of other classes (Clannfear, Dark Cloak, Green Dragon Bload)
Edited by StoicSunbro on April 25, 2018 6:19PM