Scalding Rune, Channeled Acceleration and Minor Force

Bodycounter · June 2020

Hello Community,

after years i have picked up this game again and having alot of fun. Since im starting to get into more serious content (veteran trials for example) one thing really seems to be off on my magicka damage dealer: Nowadays the Minor Force buff is a must have in every raid and there are only two practical ways for this buff. One is the Trap Beast ability and its morphs from the Fighers Guild. This stamina ability feels really bad on magicka classes but are very common to see. The second option is Channeled Acceleration from the Psijic Order skill line. And let's be honest with this ability, the 1.3 second cast time feels horrible for what it does.

Then we have the Mages Guild skill line opposing the Fighters Guild. There is this ability called Scalding Rune (Fire Rune morph) that works very similar to Trap Beast but is a magicka ability and actually offers some useful passives for magicka classes. On top of that: this ability is currently very underperforming in PvE, because it lacks damage in comparison to almost every other damage over time ability in the game. So why not add Minor Force to the damage over time duration of the Scalding Rune morph? I think this a huge missed opportunity by ZoS and would make this ability actually worthwhile.

Im not exactly sure what to do about Channeled Acceleration but it should not be that hard to come up with something better than two buffs that do not even synergize behind a 1.3 second cast time which feels alot in endgame content. But since Minor Force is such an important buff for endgame players, it should not be gated for half of the community (magicka) while being freely availabe for the other half (stamina).

Best Regards,
Bodycounter

MindOfTheSwarm · June 2020

Hmm... I would probably rework Equilibrium. No one ever uses it.

Danksta · June 2020

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Hmm... I would probably rework Equilibrium. No one ever uses it.

PvE tanks use it.

WrathOfInnos · June 2020

Yes, Minor Force on Scalding Rune would be great.

Mr_Wolfe · June 2020

If you're worried about the cast time on Channeled Acceleration go with the other morph, Race Against Time. It has a shorter duration but is instant-cast.

WrathOfInnos · June 2020

Mr_Wolfe wrote: »

If you're worried about the cast time on Channeled Acceleration go with the other morph, Race Against Time. It has a shorter duration but is instant-cast.

I did some testing with that a while back. It’s surprisingly not too far off from Channeled Accel for DPS. This is because for a 36 second duration, Channeled requires skipping 2 GCD’s (typically spammables) and 1 Light Attack to cast, while RAT requires 3 GCD’s but doesn’t skip any Light Attacks. The main thing Channeled has going for it is the ability to pre-cast before combat and use 0 GCD’s for the first 36s (or 50s with Jorvulds on a buff loadout). And the main downside I found with RAT is that you spend 3X the Magicka to keep the same uptimes as Channeled.

Barbed Trap is almost always the answer, instant, free for your mag pool, longer duration than RAT, and deals a little damage itself. However using it on a mag build just feels bad, despite it being more effective than both Channeled and RAT, which is why Minor Force on Scalding Rune would be an excellent solution.

Bodycounter · June 2020

At this point i completely dropped Scalding Rune from my rotation. Its damage is just awful even on my Magicka Dragonknight and its cast animation screws with my light-weaving. Im currently using Eruption, Wall of Elements and Barbed Trap as my damage over time abilites on my backbar until ZoS acknowledges that Scalding Rune does too little and definitely needs a buff like adding minor force to it.

On trash fights im pre-buffing myself with Channeled Acceleration and Molten Armaments because most fights do not take longer than 36 seconds. So even in trash fights Scalding Rune seems to be useless because of the long time to activate combined with its really small radius making it unusable on larger groups.

Then there's still the Necrotic Orb that adds utility for the whole group and does decent damage. Another reason not to pick up Scalding Rune and at this point there is not room left on my skill bar to slot it at all.

Mr_Wolfe wrote: »

If you're worried about the cast time on Channeled Acceleration go with the other morph, Race Against Time. It has a shorter duration but is instant-cast.

Race Against Time has to be buffed too often to be viable and always eats a whole GCD. Barbed Trap at least adds some damage over time. RAT is probably nice to have in PvP but i see not use in PvE for it.

FangOfTheTwoMoons · June 2020

It's really telling that Mag dps have to use a stamina ability to acquire a sought after buff.

Not only is it a stam ability, it also goes makes ranged dps move into melee dps range. Yeah it might not be a huge deal but it's silly to see.

Inb4 ZoS takes away minor force from trap beast for "balance".

Bodycounter · June 2020

My main issues with Barbed Trap are the range and that it thematically does not fit magicka playstyles at all except maybe Warden. Since its a buff that every damage dealer needs it should probably be more available to them.

Kavar162 · June 2020

Scalding Rune actually deals a pretty decent amount of damage with an elf bane set up. But I agree that adding minor force to it would make it a go-to and vastly accessable on much more set ups and builds. This is a suggestion that pops up almost every other month it seems, and I really hope zos considers it. Channeled acceleration would be better if it gave you some other buff.

MashmalloMan · June 2020

FangOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

It's really telling that Mag dps have to use a stamina ability to acquire a sought after buff.

Not only is it a stam ability, it also goes makes ranged dps move into melee dps range. Yeah it might not be a huge deal but it's silly to see.

Inb4 ZoS takes away minor force from trap beast for "balance".

Right! We've all been conditioned with very low expectations. ANY other game would of fixed this years ago, ESO has been around for 6 years and only added a magicka version of minor force on its 4th year through a paid guild skill line. It's not even a great alternative because it does 0 damage from a utility skill. One option is low duration, but instant and the other is high duration, but a lengthy cast time. It's a no brainer to just use barbed trap for the best of both worlds and then some.

I mean c'mon, Mages Guild and Fighters Guild are practically mirrors of each other with one being Magicka and the other Stamina. Look at some of the skills, Fire Rune and Trap Beast.. Magelight and Expert Hunter. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice that these skill lines must of been designed with each other in mind, which should highlight how obvious it is to add Minor Force to the "trap" skill of the Mages Guild. Why an esential buff like that wasn't duplicated to the other skill line is beyond my level of understanding and shows ZOS is so disconnected with how their pve functions, that they actually though RAT/Channeled Acceleration was the answer to Mag DPS prayers.

It's just dissapointing, it teaches the playerbase to have very low expectations because ZOS is so slow with meaningful quality of life changes to the core of their game. It only took them 5 years to make base class skills for Major Brutality/Sorcery provide both in the base skill instead of requiring a specific morph, which again, should be obvious. I wonder how long we will need to wait for this change to go through.. Maybe by 2023?

Narvuntien · June 2020

I am a weirdo that still uses Scalding Rune... but I am the kind of wierdo that uses silks of the sun on MagDK and I just need one more fire dot.

Vajrak · June 2020

...Race Against Time + slight overcasting, so every 5th rotation you get the spell orb from Psijic. Works just fine.

Apox · June 2020

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Hmm... I would probably rework Equilibrium. No one ever uses it.

??

tanks use it all the time. an irrelevant hp cost for your defensive buffs and a large sum of magicka, hello?

Narvuntien wrote: »

I am a weirdo that still uses Scalding Rune... but I am the kind of wierdo that uses silks of the sun on MagDK and I just need one more fire dot.

Scalding rune is a pretty meta pick for magdk, but mostly because of elf bane, not silks of the sun

OrphanHelgen · June 2020

No one ever wanted channeling skills, and one of the thing this game got good feedback on, was the fast paste combat. So why they keep giving us channeling skills and sets that goes well with it, I honestly think they are trolling on purpose.

MashmalloMan · June 2020

OrphanHelgen wrote: »

No one ever wanted channeling skills, and one of the thing this game got good feedback on, was the fast paste combat. So why they keep giving us channeling skills and sets that goes well with it, I honestly think they are trolling on purpose.

Channeled skills like Flurry/Jabs don't feel bad to use imo. In fact, because Flurry lasts 0.6s it makes it one of the easiest skills to light attack weave with.

Any channeled/cast time skill that goes over 1s while also slowing down your movement speed feels awful to use. They would be accepted more if they didn't slow you down.

But yeah, the closest they got to listening to players about this was when they reduced cast/channel times to match the 1s GCD while also removing the 200ms delay after casting these skills. Step in the right direction, but continuing to try and get your playerbase to use skills like Crystal Blast is just showing their unwillingness to bend. That skill will always be crappy, not only does it have a cast time, but a minimum travel distance as a projectile, yuck.