this skill is a disaster. It started from point A and between there and where it is now the pathway looks like a snailtrail while on crack or something. It needs to be wiped clean completely and started from the bottom up, it's disgusting.

It really seems like a skill that can't seem to decide what it actually is. Is it a damage skill? The magicka version is literally a dps loss if you can't get three arrows off - which, with all the new movement or invulnerablility mechanics, is a very common occurrence even for experienced magblades. Is it a selfheal? The heal doesn't fire around 60% of the time even in melee range. Is it a defense skill? Well, that's what it feels like it is supposed to be now, but a very badly designed one. The 15% is barely noticeable in pve, and a good dps will have it for less than half a second anyway. In pvp, however? Its basically "Hey, you like major protection, right? Here's half of that, all the time, courtesy of light attacks and the combat bug." I am very concerned that next patch, ZOS will nerf or strip the damage of the ability entirely in favor of buffing the worthless heal and because it is such a powerful defensive ability in pvp.
And that's not even mentioning that the activation is still a dead cast. You spend ~2k of your primary resource and a GCD on exactly nothing.

The heal is garbage, especially in PvP. Battle spirit double dips into the skill by halves the damage and then the heal, effectively making the heal for 25% of the damage, rather than 50% as the tooltip suggests.

I think the mitigation is good, but I wish they would put the buff icon for stacks earned towards spectral bow somewhere other than in permanent effects. The icons are hard to see as it is - they're tiny af and move around all the time - so having the icon for ESO plus, vampirism, and my mundus stone is a lil annoying.

Also, has anyone noticed that the stacks don't remain after battle has ended? I thought dudeface said we get to keep our stacks if we don't use spectral bow.

Cundu_Ertur wrote: »

It's not on my bar now.

The skill now has no theme. It's a buff to defense that goes up the more you attack, and culminates in an easily dodged ranged attack that heals you if you are in melee range. It couldn't be more of a mess.

I agree, it feels lost and confused.

The mitigation buff is stronger than Minor Berserk and it was probably a neccessary buff in the current (tank) meta. However i don't like how the game forces players into stacking passive defense/mitigation after alternatives got gutted and the change to Grim Focus fortifys this direction, so i'm still not a big fan of the change.

ProbablePaul wrote: »

The heal is garbage, especially in PvP. Battle spirit double dips into the skill by halves the damage and then the heal, effectively making the heal for 25% of the damage, rather than 50% as the tooltip suggests.

I think the mitigation is good, but I wish they would put the buff icon for stacks earned towards spectral bow somewhere other than in permanent effects. The icons are hard to see as it is - they're tiny af and move around all the time - so having the icon for ESO plus, vampirism, and my mundus stone is a lil annoying.

Also, has anyone noticed that the stacks don't remain after battle has ended? I thought dudeface said we get to keep our stacks if we don't use spectral bow.

The heal doesn't double dip. It just seems to behave differently than the tooltip states. More like a flat heal than actually based on dmg dealt (I've got 3k heals on blocked Merciless hits that dealt less than 2k dmg, i've got similar heals on hits that hit for 6k).
The amount of healing isn't the issue with this skill. The reliability is.

"Keeping stacks" was probably referring to keeping them when the skill runs out and isn't recast. They were always lost out of combat and it would be op if not.

New grim focus is stronger imo but I don't like the direction they are taking the class into.

Stx wrote: »

I just want to know what baked as hell intern thought that it would be a cool idea to have the spectral arrow heal you but only in CLOSE RANGE. Lol! Like you're rewarded for point blank no scope headshots or something.

It makes sense I think.

In pvp there are melee type magblades and ranged ones. Ranged can use swallow soul for healing, but melee use concealed weapon as their spammable.

It’s a way to buff melee magblade healing without helping ranged magblade.

I find it perfect for my playstyle. I could never get the hang of the meta PvP Stamblade set-up since I prefer S&B brawlers, and this ability adds a lot of much needed tankiness.

I build up the stacks at the beginning of the fight and never fire the bow unless I can combo it with Major Defile and Dawnbreaker's stun as I'll lose a lot of mitigation if I fire it haphazardly. Only thing I'd love to see is Minor Endurance added back to the ability. To me, Stamblades seem harder to sustain than StamDK or StamSorc for example -- where my StamDK sustains endlessly with 1.5k recovery in No-CP, my Brawlerblade can't sustain well below 1.9k (with Leeching Strikes).