Magden AOE GCD impression - Not that bad actually

Lughlongarm · July 2020

Tested Magden on PTS cyrodiil. As a very oriented AOE class I thought it will be quite unplayable.
However, I was happy to find out that it is not that bad, if good in some situation.
Important to note that now on PTS we have the personal AOE skill GCD limitation and not global GCD to alll AOE skills.

1)From what I could tell, the Magen favorite spammable (Force pulse and clench) are out of the GCD.

2)Scorch - the GCD on this skiil feels great, now you cannot double cast it on accident.

3)Arctic Blast - You no longer can spamm heal with this skill. This is definitely a nerf to high HP builds that abused this skill in PvP. It is a actually a very good balance solution for that problem. I recommend that if the ZOS should go with this kind GCD AOE solution, this skill over time effects, should be based on a 3 sec time window(the heal, the damage and the stun). It will solve the old problem that made ticks from this skill to not stack toward the stun, if double cast. This change would make the skill much more reliable as a stun and would trade-off the spamm option with a more busty hot and dot.

4)Living Vines - Another skill that cannot be used anymore for spamm heal. This is not a huge issue as you can alternate the brust heal with another skill(like Artic blast/Dampen Magic) for better results overall. However, now if you target an ally by accident, it is much more punishable. I think this skill should behave like "Ward Ally" as base, so it should put the vines on you and on an ally. This change alone will make the GCD a reasonable trade-off.

5)Fungal Growth - The GCD actually gives the the MAgden a reason to run this skill. Healers that want to chain AOE heals one after the other, will have to equip several AOE heal abilities.

6)Budding Seeds - This morph will have to be changed obviously. Perhaps add an initial burst heal to the effect.

7)Impaling Shards - It's fine, this skill is not meant to be spammed regardless.

8)Frozen Gate - Also not a big deal, but any change to this skill will be welcome.

Unified_Gaming · July 2020

Lughlongarm wrote: »

Tested Magden on PTS cyrodiil. As a very oriented AOE class I thought it will be quite unplayable.
However, I was happy to find out that it is not that bad, if good in some situation.
Important to note that now on PTS we have the personal AOE skill GCD limitation and not global GCD to alll AOE skills.

1)From what I could tell, the Magen favorite spammable (Force pulse and clench) are out of the GCD.

2)Scorch - the GCD on this skiil feels great, now you cannot double cast it on accident.

3)Arctic Blast - You no longer can spamm heal with this skill. This is definitely a nerf to high HP builds that abused this skill in PvP. It is a actually a very good balance solution for that problem. I recommend that if the ZOS should go with this kind GCD AOE solution, this skill over time effects, should be based on a 3 sec time window(the heal, the damage and the stun). It will solve the old problem that made ticks from this skill to not stack toward the stun, if double cast. This change would make the skill much more reliable as a stun and would trade-off the spamm option with a more busty hot and dot.

4)Living Vines - Another skill that cannot be used anymore for spamm heal. This is not a huge issue as you can alternate the brust heal with another skill(like Artic blast/Dampen Magic) for better results overall. However, now if you target an ally by accident, it is much more punishable. I think this skill should behave like "Ward Ally" as base, so it should put the vines on you and on an ally. This change alone will make the GCD a reasonable trade-off.

5)Fungal Growth - The GCD actually gives the the MAgden a reason to run this skill. Healers that want to chain AOE heals one after the other, will have to equip several AOE heal abilities.

6)Budding Seeds - This morph will have to be changed obviously. Perhaps add an initial burst heal to the effect.

7)Impaling Shards - It's fine, this skill is not meant to be spammed regardless.

8)Frozen Gate - Also not a big deal, but any change to this skill will be welcome.

Just no.

As a magicka warden pvp main myself and a content creator, these changes ruin magden for me.

They force you to run 3 defensive/heal type skills i.e. arctic blast, living trellis and dampen magic in order to mimic the playstyle we have currently whej bar space is tight as is.

What's more - the healer role/tank role is completely gutted. Tank healers cannot use polar wind to heal others like before so this morph is pointless and their unique health based healer build will be gutted - more ironic as they have minor toughness too. As for the remaining healing skills, these changes basically make it like you're playing in pve land and should rotate skills - pvp in my eyes is reaction based and decisions should matter rather than have I used that skill recently.

Damage wise it isn't too had actually but it does hurt the zerg busting magden builds that use deep fissure, pulsar, proxy det - there is no aoe spamable so this playstyle is dead once more.

Regarding the standard 1 v x builds or your typical magden, the issue with having to slot in extra heals to overcome the 3 second delay means your support or offensive capabilities are heavily gutted.

All in all, the changes make sense for some skills like ice fortress or deep fissure but for others like gripping shards, caltrops and more makes it meh - now if you used gripping shards and they got imoblized for 3 seconds in it the sure but 99.9% of people on pvp anyway move out of those big, bad red circles.

The thing that is the cherry on the cake is that as a stamden you can play as is and not have any penalty with these changes. As such, stamina vs magicka Will again favour stamina and it will get to a point where you actually place yourself as a disadvantage going the magden route vs the stamden route regardless of race.

My thoughts on the matter.

katorga · July 2020

They force you to run 3 defensive/heal type skills i.e. arctic blast, living trellis and dampen magic in order to mimic the playstyle we have currently whej bar space is tight as is.

That is a very important point...cool down based games have more skills slots, 8-12 per bar. A traditional mmo would have a snare skill, a debuff skill and a damage skill, and a gap closer...ZOS packs all that into a single skill because limited bar space, and bar space has hard limits due to the need to work with console controllers.

(This is also why MMO's have traditionally been computer only, no consoles)

ESO_Nightingale · July 2020

We need blast rn because our other heals are ***. Furthermore we don't have room for more than 3 heals. Our healing is screwed next patch.

Lughlongarm · July 2020

katorga wrote: »

They force you to run 3 defensive/heal type skills i.e. arctic blast, living trellis and dampen magic in order to mimic the playstyle we have currently whej bar space is tight as is.

That is a very important point...cool down based games have more skills slots, 8-12 per bar. A traditional mmo would have a snare skill, a debuff skill and a damage skill, and a gap closer...ZOS packs all that into a single skill because limited bar space, and bar space has hard limits due to the need to work with console controllers.

(This is also why MMO's have traditionally been computer only, no consoles)

Well, most pvp magden builds run 3+ defensive skills to begin with. Because both Artic and Vins are hots ass well as well as burst heals, I found it not too punishing to alternate between only these 2. Your APM, latency and animation cancelling skills should all be on point to really squeeze 3 skills during 3 sec in a real PvP scenario.

Unified_Gaming · July 2020

Lughlongarm wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

They force you to run 3 defensive/heal type skills i.e. arctic blast, living trellis and dampen magic in order to mimic the playstyle we have currently whej bar space is tight as is.

That is a very important point...cool down based games have more skills slots, 8-12 per bar. A traditional mmo would have a snare skill, a debuff skill and a damage skill, and a gap closer...ZOS packs all that into a single skill because limited bar space, and bar space has hard limits due to the need to work with console controllers.

(This is also why MMO's have traditionally been computer only, no consoles)

Well, most pvp magden builds run 3+ defensive skills to begin with. Because both Artic and Vins are hots ass well as well as burst heals, I found it not too punishing to alternate between only these 2. Your APM, latency and animation cancelling skills should all be on point to really squeeze 3 skills during 3 sec in a real PvP scenario.

When fighting out numbered or anyone decent you will realise how iffy the heals are on magden. Arctic blast is 4-6k where executioner is 5-12k a hit. Living trelis is 1k-2k each time you're hit and a 3-5k burst heal. Again executioner will do more than the heal. This the issue - adding a 3rd heal means you lose a defnisve skill like shimmerimy shield. If you're in groups it won't be as bad but solo or small scale this Will vastly alter the class for the worst.

Jaxaxo · July 2020

Living trellis and "burst heal" in one sentence is laughable. In nocp my trellis tooltip is 10.5k. With necro,full ult balorgh, alchemist, master's staff buff, resource buff, combat medic, major mending. Basically 5.4k spell dmg and 37k max mag. And it's almost same like my arctic blast tooltip with 28k hp.
~4k "burst heal" during fight, of course unless u're defiled

Lughlongarm · July 2020

Unified_Gaming wrote: »

Lughlongarm wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

They force you to run 3 defensive/heal type skills i.e. arctic blast, living trellis and dampen magic in order to mimic the playstyle we have currently whej bar space is tight as is.

That is a very important point...cool down based games have more skills slots, 8-12 per bar. A traditional mmo would have a snare skill, a debuff skill and a damage skill, and a gap closer...ZOS packs all that into a single skill because limited bar space, and bar space has hard limits due to the need to work with console controllers.

(This is also why MMO's have traditionally been computer only, no consoles)

Well, most pvp magden builds run 3+ defensive skills to begin with. Because both Artic and Vins are hots ass well as well as burst heals, I found it not too punishing to alternate between only these 2. Your APM, latency and animation cancelling skills should all be on point to really squeeze 3 skills during 3 sec in a real PvP scenario.

When fighting out numbered or anyone decent you will realise how iffy the heals are on magden. Arctic blast is 4-6k where executioner is 5-12k a hit. Living trelis is 1k-2k each time you're hit and a 3-5k burst heal. Again executioner will do more than the heal. This the issue - adding a 3rd heal means you lose a defnisve skill like shimmerimy shield. If you're in groups it won't be as bad but solo or small scale this Will vastly alter the class for the worst.

I'm well aware of Magden healing limitations. One of the reasons I run ~30k HP on my Magden builds + a protective set like Malubeth. My point is that if the HOT on Artic blast will be more bursty(3 sec instead of 5), it will not be too punishing to alternate even between Artic and vines, compared to what we have on live. Also the third defense skill, may it be Crystallized Shield, Rapid Regeneration, Dampen Magic, Is also part of your defensive rotation in most situations.

Regarding Pulsar - this I focused on Magden skills only , but OFC that a skill like Pulsar should be adjusted.

fred4 · July 2020

Can Shock Clench be spammed, bearing in mind it has an AOE component?

Trellis would be a big deal for me. I magicka stack and run Dampen. Someone laughed at the idea of Trellis being a burst heal, but it is. Sometimes I spam it, because I have a big enough shield and can afford pumping up my health that way. It's a more magicka cost effective skill than Enchanted Growth and saves on bar space. Perhaps it could be changed to only self heal you on the second and third cast?

Unified_Gaming · July 2020

fred4 wrote: »

Can Shock Clench be spammed, bearing in mind it has an AOE component?

Trellis would be a big deal for me. I magicka stack and run Dampen. Someone laughed at the idea of Trellis being a burst heal, but it is. Sometimes I spam it, because I have a big enough shield and can afford pumping up my health that way. It's a more magicka cost effective skill than Enchanted Growth and saves on bar space. Perhaps it could be changed to only self heal you on the second and third cast?

Currently shock clench is exempt but it is likely a bug

Apox · July 2020

if your bar for how well something feels is "it prevents me from double castin my abilities", i dont know what to tell you.

Olupajmibanan · July 2020

No global balance (e.g. skill changes you proposed) should be done based on restrictions exclusive to Cyrodiil. Both, PvP (BGs and IC) and PvE sides would be greatly affected if you cannot ensure somehow that changes are kept to Cyro.

Lughlongarm · July 2020

Apox wrote: »

if your bar for how well something feels is "it prevents me from double castin my abilities", i dont know what to tell you.

You cannot double cast "Blastbones" on live and from its original design because it feels better.

The only example I gave to when its actually feels better than live is with Scorch.

Dark_Lord_Kuro · July 2020

katorga wrote: »

They force you to run 3 defensive/heal type skills i.e. arctic blast, living trellis and dampen magic in order to mimic the playstyle we have currently whej bar space is tight as is.

That is a very important point...cool down based games have more skills slots, 8-12 per bar. A traditional mmo would have a snare skill, a debuff skill and a damage skill, and a gap closer...ZOS packs all that into a single skill because limited bar space, and bar space has hard limits due to the need to work with console controllers.

(This is also why MMO's have traditionally been computer only, no consoles)

Weell they couls improve their bar system
Ff14 managed to give us 16 skill per bar

Joxer61 · August 2020

Unified_Gaming wrote: »

these changes ruin magden for me.
.

thats it in a nutshell...good for some, not for others.