Dark Exchange Changes PTS Week 2

MashmalloMan · September 2018

Dark Deal (I play stam sorc and don't have the numbers for dark conversion)

LIVE
Cost: 3078 magicka.
Cast time: 1.2 sec
4878 stamina immediately
8059 health immediately

PTS Week 1
Cost: 2309 magicka. (Reduced cost)
Cast time: 1.2 sec
2400 stamina immediately - 2400 stamina over 20 seconds (120/sec)
8059 health immediately

PTS Week 2
Cost: 2309 magicka. (Reduced cost)
Cast time: 1.2 sec
3600 stamina immediately - 2400 stamina over 20 seconds (120/sec)
8059 health immediately

Suggestion to make Dark Deal useful for pve and pvp, based on a comment below.

Cost: 2309 magicka.
Cast time: Instant
2400 stamina immediately - 3600 stamina over 20 seconds (180/sec)
4000 health immediately - 6000 health over 20 seconds (300/sec) (can crit)

Thoughts? I think this is a great change for pvp. I fully support this change. However there still needs to be something done about the passive sustain for sorc's in pve. Dark Exchanges cast time is hindering the ability to weave this in pve dps properly. Given the fact that there were 0 sustain changes for stam sorc's elsewhere it leads me to believe ZOS expects Dark Deal to be a pvp AND pve sustain tool. As it stands the payoff for a cast time in pvp makes sense, but if you remove the cast time and adjust the numbers, it can be usable for both forms of content.

MashmalloMan · September 2018

I'd rather take the skill out and use stamina recovery in PVE because I'm willing to bet adding this to a rotation and substituting the stamina recovery in a build with max stam/dmg/crit etc would net the same dps and even if it did help the rotation enough to warrant more sustain and therefore more dmg, I wouldn't want to weave a 1.2sec cast time sustain ability that actually comes out to around 1.5sec.

This skill will remain useful for pvp, honestly even better than on live. Decreased cost, same hp return, lesser upfront stam return, but more stamina over 20seconds is actually awesome.

If this was your way of balancing sustain for sorc's you missed the mark. Mag and Stam do NOT want to add this to our rotations, at least if you made it instant cast I could see it being usable. Fine tune heal to a lesser amount and I would use it. If you prefer this to be primarly a pvp skill, there has to be something to change elsewhere in the class passivley, but honestly I'd prefer an active ability that requires some thought to use, just not a cast time one.

ccmedaddy · September 2018

If they wanted this skill to be in line with other class sustain skills, why not remove the cast time altogether? This could be the big sustain buff that non-pet magsorcs desperately needed in PvE since, I dunno, Morrowind.

MashmalloMan · September 2018

ccmedaddy wrote: »

If they wanted this skill to be in line with other class sustain skills, why not remove the cast time altogether? This could be the big sustain buff that non-pet magsorcs desperately needed in PvE since, I dunno, Morrowind.

Agreed, but so far I don't see the changes in that way. I think they know it's only used in pvp competitively and the initial change on week 1 of the pts shows it was a straight up nerf because they felt it was over performing, which I suppose it was.

That begs the question, where is the sustain change they mentioned in the preview for update 20. If this isn't meant for pve, why was nothing else modified.

The 2nd week changes are nice, but they could easily make this viable in pve and pvp simply by changing the numbers and removing the cast time, but if you look at their developer comment. It seems they have 0 intentions of taking it off of a cast time.

BaylorCorvette · September 2018

As a PvPer I like DD in this PTS version more than live. So I am OK with it.

Kikke · September 2018

For PvP this is a good change, a overall buff to the ability, but it stops the spamming of it from certain stam sorcs.
For PvE this ability is just as useless now than it was a patch ago.

Biro123 · September 2018

A much needed help for PvP sustain after the hit from needing to build in resists

MalagenR · September 2018

They should remove the cast time if they are leaving it in for shields. We need instant cast self heals that provide stamina because we are no longer going to be able to afford to build for Stam Regen if shields have a cast time.

Juhasow · September 2018

Remove instant resource gain and cast time , cut the heal in half with half of heal isntant and half as 20 second HoT that can crit based on higher crit chance , make whole resource restore over time . Decent for PvE and for PvP not brokenly OP in any of them.

Another option - remove cast time , leave insnant restore but make it that if You'll recast it while ability still restores resource over time portion the amount of instant resource regained wil be decreased by x% each time.

katorga · September 2018

That defeats the entire original stated purpose of the change, so just revert it to live version and leave it alone. These dev's, lol.

Nox_Noir · September 2018

Now it's useful for PVP again, but the cast time still leaves it hateful in a PVE rotation... Pointless changes, none of the problems fixed.

Strider__Roshin · September 2018

Better than live in my opinion

MashmalloMan · September 2018

It's funny. The change was arguably done because it was too powerful to give 4878 stamina back within a 1.5 second window, however people forget that stam sorcs in pvp can really only cast this 3 times in a row, 2 times if you use crit surge. This would be if you DON'T use streak, defensive rune or other magicka abilities..

With these changes it's even stronger than on live. They reduced the magicka cost from 3078 to 2309 so now I can cast it more frequently. Sure you get 50% less resources, but the heal is the same and you may not need 3 continuous casts anymore because you had 20 seconds of 120 stam a second bypassing blocking, sprinting, etc before you got to a point where you would need to cast this again.

This is actually better for pvp and I love it, but it isn't any better for pve with that cast time.

Juhasow wrote: »

Remove instant resource gain and cast time , cut the heal in half with half of heal isntant and half as 20 second HoT that can crit based on higher crit chance , make whole resource restore over time . Decent for PvE and for PvP not brokenly OP in any of them.

This is close to what I'd be happy with. Added this to OG post.

Cost: 2309 magicka.
Cast time: Instant
2400 stamina immediately / 3600 stamina over 20 seconds (180/sec)
4000 health immediately - 6000 health over 20 seconds (300/sec) (can crit)

Half return hp/stam instantly from live, other half +50% over 20 seconds.

jaws343 · September 2018

Honestly, I just want the cast time gone. Get rid of the initial heal and resource restore. Combine it all together into one overtime restore. Raise the cost slightly to account for this and increase the healing a bit.

So

Cost: 2500 Magicka
Cast Time: instant
Heal: 10,000 health and gain 6,000 stamina over 20 seconds.

The heal is negated by battle spirit anyways, so it's a small heal. And the resource return adds to regen without needing a wasteful cast time. It would have a chance to bring sorcs in line with other classes sustain.

MashmalloMan · September 2018

jaws343 wrote: »

Honestly, I just want the cast time gone. Get rid of the initial heal and resource restore. Combine it all together into one overtime restore. Raise the cost slightly to account for this and increase the healing a bit.

Cost: 2500 Magicka
Cast Time: instant
Heal: 10,000 health and gain 6,000 stamina over 20 seconds.

That's pretty good too, whatever makes it instant cast, but still worth slotting. I think it kind of takes away the unique upfront return though.

bpmachete · September 2018

For PvP the more Stamina immediately the better. I think this week two change looks good in comparison with week one. Also the more health immediately the better, in PvP is not like PvE and we are not using it in a rotation per se.

I think the changes look good as is, if they could increase the immediate stamina return even more even better, but if not, the way they are doing it is way better than the sugestion of having less health and stamina up front. This is one of the only heals that we can use in certain situations to survive a rough fight in PvP. The health back at once is very important and the burst stamina back as well but its ok if they adjust the stamina return so it's not so easy as it was, so week two better.

Rex-Umbra · September 2018

It worked fine and will still work fine.

bpmachete · September 2018

jaws343 wrote: »

Honestly, I just want the cast time gone. Get rid of the initial heal and resource restore. Combine it all together into one overtime restore. Raise the cost slightly to account for this and increase the healing a bit.

So

Cost: 2500 Magicka
Cast Time: instant
Heal: 10,000 health and gain 6,000 stamina over 20 seconds.

The heal is negated by battle spirit anyways, so it's a small heal. And the resource return adds to regen without needing a wasteful cast time. It would have a chance to bring sorcs in line with other classes sustain.

This shows me you have never efficiently played a Stamina Sorcerer in PvP before. Maybe not in PvE either.

The heal in PvP is a good heal, not a small heal, you have to know how to use it. The heal for sure should not be touched. The Stamina return was a bit overpowered according to them so they will tone it down a bit and allow for the rest to come back over a period of time. I think it's fair even though we liked it the way it was.

I disagree with you 100%

royo · September 2018

Not useful in leaderboard pve unless it's instant cast.

Minno · September 2018

Should be instant cast. The stamina sustain with a burst amount at the end is enough to force sorcs into letting the full duration play out without spamming it and you avoid dumb cast times.

Same style mechanic as honor the dead, restoring/channeled focus, and warden netch. Except those are entirely sustain over time.