"Hey look, it's that one guy who honestly only cares about fashion. Let's see what he could have to say about class skills!"

First of all, thanks to all of you in advance. It's wonderful that people actually read these things and provide feedback! But yes, let's talk about class skills and changes. Let's talk, about Overload.

Overload. You know it, you might love it, you might hate it. But if you've played Sorcerer at all, chances are you've probably played with this skill once or twice. It's an incredibly fun ultimate ability, and feels unique among its fellow ultimate peers. The sheer feeling of power and control is phenomenal! Over the years of mostly playing sorcerer, I've often come back to this skill and had plenty of fun. It feels nice, and looks nice. But you all know me, and therefor you know I'm a massive sucker for aesthetic. But more on that in a bit. First, I'd like to address something.

Over the years I've heard some of my friends, and even some strangers, talk about Overload. Specifically, how they feel that Overload should have a stamina-based morph. A morph that does physical damage, and visually would become similar to a skill like the Hurricane morph for Lightning Form. Control of the winds, blasting enemies with sheer force alone! I'll admit, that sounds amazing. Recently, I saw a post where someone described Overload Sorcery, specifically with Energy Overload, as training yourself to understand Stance Switching. You're using Overload not just as an attack, but as a utility to maintain your own magicka resources. I really like this idea of Stance Switching, and treating Overload as less of a pop-and-drop ultimate, and more like a core part of your build. This got me thinking about how Overload could be changed.

I'll admit, I've never much been a very big fan of stamina/magicka separations for ultimates. While I do understand it, as anyone is either doing physical or spell damage, it always felt a bit restricting. A good example of this would be Templar's ultimate Radial Sweep and its morphs. Empowering Sweep reduces all damage by 30% for at least 6 seconds, while Crescent Sweep deals 60% more damage to enemies in front of you. However, they're separated by Magic and Physical damage, which means you can't always feel like you get the most out of your ability. Going against that restriction is how I want to try and establish this change to Overload. Let's start with the basics; the initial Overload you get:


Overload: Charge your fists with the power of the storm. Light Attacks become ranged bolts, dealing [X] Shock Damage/Physical Damage, and Heavy Attacks blast enemies in target area for [X] Shock Damage/Physical Damage. Light and Heavy attacks restore [X]/[X%] of Magicka or Stamina. Damage type and resource return are determined by whether your Spell Damage or Weapon Damage is higher. Attacks deplete Ultimate until you run out or the ability is toggled off.

Now let's address the first few points:

1) Why dual damage?
-Well, it's not really dual damage, so much as it is shifting damage. From a skill choice, your damage with Overload would be based on your own personal abilities and attributes, changing to meet your needs, rather than requiring your to only rely on spell damage, which could be detrimental if you aren't very magically inclined. From a visual perspective, Overload itself would also change appearance to fit this. A spell-based character would maintain the typical Lightning Arms and blast bolts of shock magic. Meanwhile, a physical-based character would instead have wind whipping around their arms and would blast gusts and tornadoes.

As well, this isn't exactly unprecedented. The Destruction Staff skill line is full of abilities that change their damage and function based on the type of staff one wields. This would simply be a modification of what already exists for some skills.

2) Why the resource restore?
-This is more to ensure their neither of the morphs for this feel particularly limiting. Which is to say, neither of the morphs would become useless for any particular play style based on the resource they restore. By allowing resource restore in the base version of the ability, this allows both morphs to branch out more visually and functionally.

So we have now established that the base version of this skill can be either physical or magical, depending on how one develops their skills, let's now look at the possible morphs. In keeping with aesthetic, both of these morphs will maintain their duality. However, the differences comes in the application of the morphs. Particularly, whether the morph is meant for melee range, or long range combat.

Bursting Overload: Morph Effect - You have studied the form and function of Storm and Air Atronachs, and think you can emulate their style. Light Attacks become ranged bolts, dealing [X] Shock Damage/Physical Damage to the target and [X] Shock Damage/Physical Damage to nearby enemies. Heavy Attacks become a charged blast which deal [X] Shock Damage/Physical Damage to the target and apply either Minor Breach or Minor Fracture for [X] seconds.

Controlled Overload: Morph Effect - You have met Thundermauls in your journey, and have learned to Move Like This. You manifest a two-handed weapon out of the power of Storm, and can swing it with ease. Light Attacks become melee swings, dealing [X] Shock Damage/Physical Damage to your target and 50% of the damage inflicted to 3 nearby enemies. Heavy Attacks become a charged slam, creating an area of Lightning/Wind that deals [X] Shock Damage/Physical Damage to all enemies in a cone in front of you.

Now to address these things:

1) Aesthetics?
-Visually, they would become drastically different. Energy Overload would become more chaotic, with more "storm" surging around the player. This is to represent the raw, outward power that the sorcerer is calling on to use. Likewise, Controlled Overload would be more condensed. The storm would likely be dialed back to just your hands, while you manifest the "storm" into a two-handed melee weapon, adding on the "Lightning Form" shader to the weapon to give the appearance of the weapon being magical in nature. As for the weapon itself, I would say that it could be a Greatsword, Axe, or Warhammer, of your race's Tier-4 version of such a weapon.

2) Why the difference of range of melee? Wouldn't that still push one morph to be stamina, and the other to be magicka?
-In a way, maybe? The difference itself is to show a difference in what the player feels they need from the skill. Bursting Overload would generally be more useful for players who want to have a ranged skill, while Controlled Overload would be more useful for those seeking a melee option. Given that the damage will already change based on the player's own choices, I felt that these morphs could help alleviate pressure to pick one morph over another. And while melee-magicka and ranged-stamina may not necessarily be the "meta," I don't feel we should exclude such playstyles from morphs. It could even convince some players to try them out!


Do I think these are balanced? I have no clue. I'm no game designer, I just happen to love aesthetic and wanted to voice an idea.

Do I think these are cool? Absolutely! I often find it fun to have visual differences on the same skill, with the visuals changing to suit the circumstances.

Do I think these can be tweaked and changed to be implemented? Well, yeah. It's ZOS's game, and if they wanted to use this idea, it'd be their choice to use it and tweak it how they see fit. All I'd really hope for is that the duality and resource restore remains, seeing as the whole point of these morphs was that resource restore would become a core part, and thus not relegated to one version or the other.

Do I reference obscure and/or dumb lore stuff too much? Let's be honest, you already know the answer if you read those two flavor texts for the morph effects.


I do hope a lot of you may have enjoyed these. To those who didn't enjoy this idea, well, I understand. Again, I'm not a game designer. I can't speak much on terms of balance or core mechanics. All I can really comment on is aesthetics and fashion, two things that I care a good deal about. Probably too much if I'm being honest. But please, let me know what you think!