Cinbri wrote: »

Regarding Backlash change:
1. Change is not as positive as it look, because request was to make skill more reliable for caster to deal burst damage and make so only caster store it. But zos made in only half-way and decreased group utility capability without actually making it any better for caster. It was already impossible to reach damage cap even with group utility unless you largely outnumber opponent like 4v1 or fight afk player, templar overall dps will decrease in next update and now with only caster store it will be impossible to reach cap because amount of stored damage wasn't increased in return of lost group utility for some reason. This skill already supbar to other burst skills because unlike them it require caster to be fully offensive for entire duration of skill while rest of burst can be used either defensive(you can light attacks even when outnumbered) or fire-and-forget but there is no accountment for this.

2. There is problems with how skill perform because zos want to push it to be workable in pve and pvp.
Final damage despite should be just % of stored damage:
a. can be reduced by damage taken effect but also can be increased by vulnerabilities debuff, so fair here.
b. can be reduced by Red CP but can't be increased by Blue CP - if you cant fix it than make Blue CP affect it too, otherwise we just have skill with like triple reduction.
c. It now double dip in crit. In PvP this wont make skill super strong because it just adding rng to it which is too conditional. Change was done because skill in pve seriously underperform - you can instant cast frag that require almost no efforts yet backlash deal same damage despite it require efforts of storing damage <- inconsistent and so crit should help to make it actually dps skill but it also break rule of skills should not double dip. However there is way to achieve strong pvp/pve backlash without double diping crit:
Skill now store damage only of caster and thus relative mechanics should be addressed.
I suggest to do several steps:
1. Remove crit from final explosion, so skill will avoid double dips that were removed from game previously to avoid too much power.
2. Remove damage cap: one of the reasons skill had originally cap is that coz it was able to store damage from all sources.
Here is remind if combat team forgot it:

It was way to avoid ridiculously high damage in both pvp and pve when entire group store damage. However now when skill store only caster damage - get super high numbers simply impossible. Removing both crit and max cap will allow in PvE - to keep it as dps skill because if damage will be enough - it will deal damage comprable to current crittable backlash anyway, without being artificial limitier. In PvP cap is impossible to reach and thus it existence is formality.
3. Increase amount of stored damage back to numbers pre-2.3.5 patch. Reason of having low store damage is same as cap - to avoid super high damage numbers with group, which is not the case now and thus cant stay on that low level. It could be done in couple ways:
a. Just revert amount of stored damage to something familiar of 2.3.5 - i.e. twice of what it now.
b. To make it benefit for dps make percentage of stored damage scale, based on spd/max mana/wpd/max stam, like it was done for Engulfing Flames to distinguish it for dps-oriented chars. Also since max mana cap need to be removed it wont have double diping by max mana scaling.

3. And back to practice: in PvE skill works fine but it seems something messed up with either Battle Spirit or Crit Damage or Champion System again because when it goes to PvP damage results are weird:
1. Initial damage is counting for stored damage of final explosion:

^^ doing fast test with it shows something wrong with how damage calculate in pvp. Damage numbers of released damage is too different even with same circumstances and released damage is higher than 100% of stored damage.

2. Trying bit more damage to store shows it again:

^^final explosion even without being crit dealt more than 100% of total damage done during backlash store. Definitely not 20%.


Living Dark:
1. As showed in previous posts skill is below similar skills because it cost higher and it duration is lower than Scales or Crystal Shield. Bring it cost and duration to standards of those skills.
2. Having snares proc is going against plans to decrease redundancy within class tree as templar already have lot of skills that snare. Having another skill whos unique auxiliary power is one more snares is going against it and thus one of solution I suggest to make it equal to comparable skills and restore it original capability of Total Dark - make darkness lashes back and deal damage every 0.5s that equal to Fiery Dragon Scales and Crystallized Slab. It wont be against how morphs of Eclipse operate because both morphs are offensive originally while difference is that one is defensive buff, other is debuff CC.