I want to start by saying that this is my first forum post so I apologize for any formatting errors or if this isn't in the right place. I have played Eso for years on console and read through the forums regularly but only recently made an account so I could make this post. Please correct me if i am overlooking anything, thank you.

I personally think that cost increase poisons are too strong but that isn't the point of this post, the point is to point out the indirect buffs that cost increase poisons keep getting that i feel are being overlooked. Every time a skill becomes more expensive, as most skills have been recently, cost increase poisons become more effective because they work off percentages. For example, last patch DKs engulfing flames had a base cost of 2808, which with the 10% increase from cost increase poisons would be 3088. This amounts to an increase of 280 per cast. In the current patch engulfing flames has a base cost of 3510, which with the poison becomes 3861, an increase of 351. This means the poison gets an additional 71 point increase on top of sustain already being hit by increased base costs. Engulfing flames is just an example, this applies to any skill that gets a cost increase, just to slightly varying degrees based on the amount of base cost increase.

This might not seem like a big deal but the further back you go the more times this happens. Even as recently as Elsweyr engulfing flames base cost was 2700, meaning poisons made it 2970, or an increase of 270. This means poisons increase the cost of engulfing flames by 81 points further than they did in Elsweyr. Its not a big deal in small increments but because of the way these poisons function, unless i am misunderstanding them, they keep getting stronger. And of course if skills would be made cheaper, then the poisons would be indirectly nerfed in the same manner.

I have two possible solutions to this that would eliminate this problem while allowing poisons retain their strength while also being more consistent. The first is to make the poisons increase cost of skills by a flat value instead of a percentage. For example, if the goal is to have skills increase in cost by 250 magic/stam, then have the poisons do that. This would eliminate the indirect buffs and nerfs to these poisons, while allowing them to be easily tweaked by changing the value of the cost increase. The issue with this solution i see is that if the value is too low the poisons would become less effective against expensive skills such as shields and heals. While if the cost increase value would be too high, the poisons would be too effective against cheaper skills such as spamables.

The second solution is one that i have seen around before in many places. Instead of having the cost increase poisons increase cost, have them reduce recovery similarly to the siphoner skill in the tower tree of champion points. This would allow the poisons to keep the same functionality of having the target run out of resources quicker and out sustaining them, while still eliminating indirect buffs and nerfs to poisons and make them easier to tweak as sustain changes throughout future patches. Also, if the poisons do not affect resource restore from potions, like the siphoner cp does, it creates an obvious, and seemingly appropriate counter of drinking a potion. And since potions have such a long cooldown, using poisons would still be strong. It also creates an interesting synergy with the siphoner cp that would create builds who focus around having high sustain and survivability while simultaneously draining their targets resources in order to kill them.

I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of either one of these and that neither of them are perfect but its a starting point to fix an issue I'm not sure many people have realized. Again, I apologize for any formatting issues or if this isn't in the right place and I thank you for reading. Please point out any mistakes i made or anything that i may have overlooked, thank you.