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New SOUL MAGIC skill line: hopes and suggestions

Algorax
Algorax
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PREFACE

Greetings

With the most recent upgrade of the Vampire talent tree (and the evident slap on the faces of those that back at the time deemed it unnecessary and unprobable) it appears obvious that the old talent trees can really shine if you just give them some love and attention.
Besides the matters concerning balance (about which many ppl may have different opinions) it is out of doubt that the old Vampire talent tree was really poor and out of place in a game which promotes diversity. The same thing happens ith the current Soul Magic talent tree: a missed opportunity in my opinion, and i am now going to explain why in a brief list.



REASONS TO PERFECT THE SKILL LINE

Here you will find a list of reasons to improve the talent tree, based on a personal assesment of its current state, its sets and the potential it has.

1) Lack of diversified skills:
Armor talent trees aside (which may or may not be left as they are), this is the last remaining "uncompleted" talent tree.It counts only 2 active skills and a bunch of highly situational passives. The overall resoult is a skill line that practically noone actively seeks. The only real reason players had was for the PvP relevance of the spell named "Soul Strike", but after the last changes it has become less viable, specially considering the grind it requires.


2) Rediscover the old content:
For the reasons explained above, players NEED more reason to farm this skill line, and this need perfecly merges with the direction ZOS declated to be following: bringing players back to the old content. Giving this talent tree more relevance would induce many players to farm it and go through the long quest line up to Coldharbour.


3) Lack of relative sets:
Every ESO player knows that one of this game's greatest aspect is the great variety and diversification of sets. The great number of skill lines allows it and many talent trees are used as base to many set or they indirectly are inspired by it.
At the current state, the only dedicated set is the Oblivio Foe's set:

https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Oblivion's+Foe+Set

A cursed set with a black history (those who played ESO the first two year will remember it). Even though now the set boosts the Soul Strike damage too, and not like it did before when it applied its damage boos only to the weak soul trap, its relevance is directly linked to the one the Soult Magic tree has, which is equal to zero.
There are also 2 other sets INSPIRED by the SOUL MAGIC theme, the Oblivion's edge set:

https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Oblivion's+Edge+Set

and the Essence Thief set:

https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Essence+Thief+Set

But that's still far from an ideal situation.


4) Lack of coherence:
One would expect that being the vestige would mean being more attuned with such a talent tree and not being able to just cast a beam and a weak dot that every common mage in the TES universe can use.



SUGGESTIONS

I will now point out some aspects which could be added or changed in order to acheive a greater resoult.

1) Make a COMPLETE talent tree where every single skill has morphs for both stamina and magika builds:
Being the skill line that every player gets by default, regardless of their choice, i believe that this set cannot be considered as primarily focused on a resource pool/playstyle so every futher expansion should keep this in mind.


2) Give passives more importance
What you did with the vampire skill line was really appropriate since it created a dedicated playstyle that focuses greatly on the passives, which futher characterize the vampire. I think that this can and should be repeated here, maybe by removing hilariously useless passives like Soul Shatter passive (irrelevant damage in a very limited blast radius that triggers only when going below 20% health, only if you have a soul ability slotted and only ONCE every 2 minutes! :D ) or the Soul Lock one (which basically gives you a small chance of doing what the Soul Trap spell already does better and with no direct combat relevance).


3) Make this talent tree completely synergy free:
In order to underline the extremely personal nature of the soul, i believe that no synergy should be planned to this set and instead you hsould rely on other, more ingenious approaches. I don't know, maybe something like generating soul shards that restore resourges/generate ult points to allies gathering them?


4) Make the talent tree feel REALLY rewarding
This is probably the most importan of the suggestions. If devs succeed in this you will acheive to bring so many players back to old content, making old players meet with new ones and you will eventually create two ways to have a ne, funny and rewarding experience that EVERYONE, regardless of the class and build will always have the chance to experience.



CONCLUSION
I really put much hope and expectation into this talent tree, leaving it as it is would really be a missed opportunity that would forever taint the game.
I thank every single reader who had the patience to carefully go through this post, regardless of the fact that he/she may agree or not with that i wrote.

Sincerely
Algorax
Edited by Algorax on July 28, 2020 10:23AM
  • Grianasteri
    Grianasteri
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    The dot is still very effective, or can be in the right build. Both morphs.

    But it would be nice to have the skill line revamped and fleshed out. I think when doing so, thought should be given to synergy with Necromancy and Vampirism. Not overtly, but the skills should compliment one another, kind of like Nightblade and Vampirism do already.

    I used to love the ultimate, there was something really fun about it. But they nerfed it :(
  • Algorax
    Algorax
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    The dot is still very effective, or can be in the right build. Both morphs.

    But it would be nice to have the skill line revamped and fleshed out. I think when doing so, thought should be given to synergy with Necromancy and Vampirism. Not overtly, but the skills should compliment one another, kind of like Nightblade and Vampirism do already.

    I used to love the ultimate, there was something really fun about it. But they nerfed it :(

    Yeah, ppl who believe that the current version of Soult Assoult is an improvement clearly never used the ability in the first place.

    I have to disagree with your evaluation of Soul trap and its mophs: although the damage output roughy the same to the other dots (being even inferior in some cases) after the latest changes to dot mechanics, the real problem is what the dot gives you. Other dots have other side effects that actually help during a fight and even if it is true that one morph grants resources, it does only after you managed to kill your target while the other dots are have more weight during the fight.
    Add this to the fact that the other morph is useless and that the ability has no real passive from which it can gain some kind of benefit and you understand why practically noone uses this ability, which shined for a very small period when esewyr came out and the game became a dot clown fest.

    Also, what i ment with the fact that the tree should have no synergy, i ment actual synergies, the commands that other players use to interact with the ability, not that it should not complete another concept like vampirism completes nightblades.
    I do like the idea of the Soul Magic skill line completing the necromancer class, which still feels bad when you see that its spell do elemental damage and slain enemies are affected by elemental effects on death instead of being consumed by cool coldharbour flames like in the case of the Soul Magic skill line.
  • Celestro
    Celestro
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    I actually had this same thought process that similarly extended to the Undaunted skill line having more passives and an ultimate, as well as the Fighter's and Mage's guild (who only have 4 active skills). The others I largely feel that way about due to both loving a multitude of options and preferring conformity of all skill lines with active skills, wherein the majority have 5 actives, 5 passives, and an ultimate.

    Overall though, I did believe Soul Magic could be fleshed out for a lot of the reasons you mentioned when vampire was as well Not that they should dedicate a whole chapter or something like that too it but nevertheless, giving it more purpose than what I currently has. Like even after having touched up Soul Trap by allowing it to deal Magic Damage or Physical Damage, they left Soul Assault the same old way despite the two being derived from the same source essentially. And yes, the set dedicated to it just seems a bit outrageous in its narrowness. I mean, it's not entirely unlike sets such as Sword Singer, Sword Dancer, etc. but at least those lines are actually fleshed out and all.
  • Red_Feather
    Red_Feather
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    Yes please!

    It could be a big skill tree that gets a new skill or passive with each chapter (if you own the chapter).

    :o

    Edited by Red_Feather on July 29, 2020 1:10AM
  • Algorax
    Algorax
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    Yes please!

    It could be a big skill tree that gets a new skill or passive with each chapter (if you own the chapter).

    :o

    I disagree.
    The Soul Magic skill line is conceptually the most basic one for every character, regardless of race and faction: you cannot lock it behind a chapter.
  • Algorax
    Algorax
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    Btw yes, i do too believe that there are other skill lines which could use some help but this seems to be the one more in need of some love...
  • Kittytravel
    Kittytravel
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    No offense but it would be kind of be nice if instead of "conceptual" advice that's literally the same lineup that devs have been using for years you gave real suggestions. Maybe some actual skill suggestions? A unique mechanic to the skill line?
    Using vampire as a basis isn't the best move in my opinion as Vampire was reworked into having the same exact issue that's plagued it for years; a complete lack of a core mechanic defining the skill line and getting cherry picked for 1-2 parts of it with zero incentive to remain at stage four.

    As for actual suggestions so I'm not a hypocrite, I'd say make the entire skill lines damage abilities unable to be used on other players. A PvE focused skill line since it'd make sense (to me at least) that soul magic doesn't work on someone who has an altered soul. We can all pretty much agree that the fact (spoilers to main story)
    we have our soul back after the main story line but still cannot die like normal people means we have some sort of alteration to our souls being that we have become tied to aetherius. To me that feels like normal soul magic wouldn't affect us anymore.

    If it's a skill line for PvE focused with that change then the damage type on all soul magic can be made into "Oblivion" damage which again makes sense if you are striking at someones very soul. Since CP or passives won't affect that type of damage it's easier to balance while also offering a unique line to part of the game.
    Edited by Kittytravel on July 30, 2020 1:39PM
  • Celestro
    Celestro
    ✭✭✭
    No offense but it would be kind of be nice if instead of "conceptual" advice that's literally the same lineup that devs have been using for years you gave real suggestions. Maybe some actual skill suggestions? A unique mechanic to the skill line?
    Using vampire as a basis isn't the best move in my opinion as Vampire was reworked into having the same exact issue that's plagued it for years; a complete lack of a core mechanic defining the skill line and getting cherry picked for 1-2 parts of it with zero incentive to remain at stage four.

    As for actual suggestions so I'm not a hypocrite, I'd say make the entire skill lines damage abilities unable to be used on other players. A PvE focused skill line since it'd make sense (to me at least) that soul magic doesn't work on someone who has an altered soul. We can all pretty much agree that the fact (spoilers to main story)
    we have our soul back after the main story line but still cannot die like normal people means we have some sort of alteration to our souls being that we have become tied to aetherius. To me that feels like normal soul magic wouldn't affect us anymore.

    If it's a skill line for PvE focused with that change then the damage type on all soul magic can be made into "Oblivion" damage which again makes sense if you are striking at someones very soul. Since CP or passives won't affect that type of damage it's easier to balance while also offering a unique line to part of the game.

    No offense but being critized for not offering suggestions to a company that doesn't generally listen to said suggestions, including for the horrid creation that is the Vampire skill line, is beyond silly. Even the simple fact that they themselves don't establish a more cohesive style since it remaking emphasizes that thought process even more so. If people choose to offer suggestions for active skills and the like is on them. In most cases, it is a pointless aim that shouldn't be "forced" upon anyone considering the chances of specific suggestions being taken into consideration is abysmal. At the bare minimum, bringing forth the very idea of remaking a skill line for the purposes of fleshing it out and giving players more options to the company is practically more than enough.

    As for your suggestion, even just on the premise of locking away practically a whole skill line from one side of the game is grounds to be questionable. I can't say I understand 100% why the skill line shouldn't affect players. Soul Gems were, if I'm not mistaken, given the facet to resurrect players, all of whom have altered souls. And since they can actually die while requiring said resurrection to be brought back to life, I'm not seeing the reason why that should grant immunity to Soul Magic.

    I will say it is a really interesting idea to make a whole skill line solely deal Oblivion Damage but with your suggestion to lock it away to PvE, which is where Oblivion Damage generally isnt really used as much compared to PvP, would probably make it have a more niche use. Not to say that's necessarily a bad thing but at the very least, restricting it to PvE isn't ideal. Overall, still a bit iffy in some respects I'd think.

    Personally though, I'm honestly more of a fan of them expanding on Soul Trap's ability to deal Magic or Physical Damage for all its potential active skills. I'm partial to this idea given it could be the only one that gives options to either stam or mag dps without having any one skill shoehorned into only one spec being able to utilize it. Still satisfies being a unique line for the game as well, which I'm certainly in favor of.
    Edited by Celestro on July 30, 2020 4:37PM
  • Kittytravel
    Kittytravel
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Celestro wrote: »
    No offense but it would be kind of be nice if instead of "conceptual" advice that's literally the same lineup that devs have been using for years you gave real suggestions. Maybe some actual skill suggestions? A unique mechanic to the skill line?
    Using vampire as a basis isn't the best move in my opinion as Vampire was reworked into having the same exact issue that's plagued it for years; a complete lack of a core mechanic defining the skill line and getting cherry picked for 1-2 parts of it with zero incentive to remain at stage four.

    As for actual suggestions so I'm not a hypocrite, I'd say make the entire skill lines damage abilities unable to be used on other players. A PvE focused skill line since it'd make sense (to me at least) that soul magic doesn't work on someone who has an altered soul. We can all pretty much agree that the fact (spoilers to main story)
    we have our soul back after the main story line but still cannot die like normal people means we have some sort of alteration to our souls being that we have become tied to aetherius. To me that feels like normal soul magic wouldn't affect us anymore.

    If it's a skill line for PvE focused with that change then the damage type on all soul magic can be made into "Oblivion" damage which again makes sense if you are striking at someones very soul. Since CP or passives won't affect that type of damage it's easier to balance while also offering a unique line to part of the game.

    No offense but being critized for not offering suggestions to a company that doesn't generally listen to said suggestions, including for the horrid creation that is the Vampire skill line, is beyond silly. Even the simple fact that they themselves don't establish a more cohesive style since it remaking emphasizes that thought process even more so. If people choose to offer suggestions for active skills and the like is on them. In most cases, it is a pointless aim that shouldn't be "forced" upon anyone considering the chances of specific suggestions being taken into consideration is abysmal. At the bare minimum, bringing forth the very idea of remaking a skill line for the purposes of fleshing it out and giving players more options to the company is practically more than enough.

    As for your suggestion, even just on the premise of locking away practically a whole skill line from one side of the game is grounds to be questionable. I can't say I understand 100% why the skill line shouldn't affect players. Soul Gems were, if I'm not mistaken, given the facet to resurrect players, all of whom have altered souls. And since they can actually die while requiring said resurrection to be brought back to life, I'm not seeing the reason why that should grant immunity to Soul Magic.

    I will say it is a really interesting idea to make a whole skill line solely deal Oblivion Damage but with your suggestion to lock it away to PvE, which is where Oblivion Damage generally isnt really used as much compared to PvP, would probably make it have a more niche use. Not to say that's necessarily a bad thing but at the very least, restricting it to PvE isn't ideal. Overall, still a bit iffy in some respects I'd think.

    Personally though, I'm honestly more of a fan of them expanding on Soul Trap's ability to deal Magic or Physical Damage for all its potential active skills. I'm partial to this idea given it could be the only one that gives options to either stam or mag dps without having any one skill shoehorned into only one spec being able to utilize it. Still satisfies being a unique line for the game as well, which I'm certainly in favor of.

    Prefacing a post with "New Soul Magic Skill Line" generally has the inflection that it will contain, at the minimum, a core identity for the skill line if not new passives or mechanics. The OP's general addition (with the exception of no synergies and instead a mechanic that drops soul shards onto the ground as a different kind of synergy which I admit I missed at first but now sounds really interesting) are all the basic rules of creating a skill line which ZoS has been doing for years. Which is to say; not really all that "New" to the game. It'd fit much better if the title of the thread was "ZOS Can You Please Redesign The Soul Magic Skill Line?" because seemingly that is what he is asking for.

    Mind you just because the company doesn't seem to take suggestions from the community doesn't necessarily mean they never have; who knows how many changes they've made referencing a post from Reddit or their own forums. They don't link anything so it's hard to really validate your point there. After all many housing changes have been at the behest of the community asking for specific features.

    Arguably oblivion damage would be used more if it didn't need to be balanced around PvP where it ignores mitigation. Thus the suggestion to not allow it to target players. Anytime Oblivion damage is introduced in the game it has to be purely balanced around PvP because of the mitigation factors any single source of 'Too-strong' oblivion damage immediately gets wiped out of existence because it would be in the PvP Meta forever. There are already skills/passives that are PvP exclusive (Combat Frenzy, Reach, Continuous Attack, Combat Medic, Battle Resurrection, Revealing Flare, Siege Shield) so locking the damaging type abilities from the Soul Magic line to PvE only wouldn't really be that unheard of. The passives/supportive abilities in the line would still be able to be used just fine and this would allow them to freely adjust the damage values of those abilities without any outside calculations (Oblivion damage isn't affected by anything to my knowledge.) The morphs can just cost stamina or magicka and have extra effects tied to it.
  • Strykerous
    Strykerous
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    I remember using soul assult before they needed it, used to be able to get it up to 90k onntooltip, now I can only get to 80k if I build only towards that skill.
  • Celestro
    Celestro
    ✭✭✭
    Celestro wrote: »
    No offense but it would be kind of be nice if instead of "conceptual" advice that's literally the same lineup that devs have been using for years you gave real suggestions. Maybe some actual skill suggestions? A unique mechanic to the skill line?
    Using vampire as a basis isn't the best move in my opinion as Vampire was reworked into having the same exact issue that's plagued it for years; a complete lack of a core mechanic defining the skill line and getting cherry picked for 1-2 parts of it with zero incentive to remain at stage four.

    As for actual suggestions so I'm not a hypocrite, I'd say make the entire skill lines damage abilities unable to be used on other players. A PvE focused skill line since it'd make sense (to me at least) that soul magic doesn't work on someone who has an altered soul. We can all pretty much agree that the fact (spoilers to main story)
    we have our soul back after the main story line but still cannot die like normal people means we have some sort of alteration to our souls being that we have become tied to aetherius. To me that feels like normal soul magic wouldn't affect us anymore.

    If it's a skill line for PvE focused with that change then the damage type on all soul magic can be made into "Oblivion" damage which again makes sense if you are striking at someones very soul. Since CP or passives won't affect that type of damage it's easier to balance while also offering a unique line to part of the game.

    No offense but being critized for not offering suggestions to a company that doesn't generally listen to said suggestions, including for the horrid creation that is the Vampire skill line, is beyond silly. Even the simple fact that they themselves don't establish a more cohesive style since it remaking emphasizes that thought process even more so. If people choose to offer suggestions for active skills and the like is on them. In most cases, it is a pointless aim that shouldn't be "forced" upon anyone considering the chances of specific suggestions being taken into consideration is abysmal. At the bare minimum, bringing forth the very idea of remaking a skill line for the purposes of fleshing it out and giving players more options to the company is practically more than enough.

    As for your suggestion, even just on the premise of locking away practically a whole skill line from one side of the game is grounds to be questionable. I can't say I understand 100% why the skill line shouldn't affect players. Soul Gems were, if I'm not mistaken, given the facet to resurrect players, all of whom have altered souls. And since they can actually die while requiring said resurrection to be brought back to life, I'm not seeing the reason why that should grant immunity to Soul Magic.

    I will say it is a really interesting idea to make a whole skill line solely deal Oblivion Damage but with your suggestion to lock it away to PvE, which is where Oblivion Damage generally isnt really used as much compared to PvP, would probably make it have a more niche use. Not to say that's necessarily a bad thing but at the very least, restricting it to PvE isn't ideal. Overall, still a bit iffy in some respects I'd think.

    Personally though, I'm honestly more of a fan of them expanding on Soul Trap's ability to deal Magic or Physical Damage for all its potential active skills. I'm partial to this idea given it could be the only one that gives options to either stam or mag dps without having any one skill shoehorned into only one spec being able to utilize it. Still satisfies being a unique line for the game as well, which I'm certainly in favor of.

    Prefacing a post with "New Soul Magic Skill Line" generally has the inflection that it will contain, at the minimum, a core identity for the skill line if not new passives or mechanics. The OP's general addition (with the exception of no synergies and instead a mechanic that drops soul shards onto the ground as a different kind of synergy which I admit I missed at first but now sounds really interesting) are all the basic rules of creating a skill line which ZoS has been doing for years. Which is to say; not really all that "New" to the game. It'd fit much better if the title of the thread was "ZOS Can You Please Redesign The Soul Magic Skill Line?" because seemingly that is what he is asking for.

    Mind you just because the company doesn't seem to take suggestions from the community doesn't necessarily mean they never have; who knows how many changes they've made referencing a post from Reddit or their own forums. They don't link anything so it's hard to really validate your point there. After all many housing changes have been at the behest of the community asking for specific features.

    Arguably oblivion damage would be used more if it didn't need to be balanced around PvP where it ignores mitigation. Thus the suggestion to not allow it to target players. Anytime Oblivion damage is introduced in the game it has to be purely balanced around PvP because of the mitigation factors any single source of 'Too-strong' oblivion damage immediately gets wiped out of existence because it would be in the PvP Meta forever. There are already skills/passives that are PvP exclusive (Combat Frenzy, Reach, Continuous Attack, Combat Medic, Battle Resurrection, Revealing Flare, Siege Shield) so locking the damaging type abilities from the Soul Magic line to PvE only wouldn't really be that unheard of. The passives/supportive abilities in the line would still be able to be used just fine and this would allow them to freely adjust the damage values of those abilities without any outside calculations (Oblivion damage isn't affected by anything to my knowledge.) The morphs can just cost stamina or magicka and have extra effects tied to it.

    I understand how you essentially read into the title in that manner but thats the issue with reading into something more than necessary when the general premise can be whatever the OP wishes to touch upon without a passive aggressive remark just because thats what you desire. And I'm aware they probably take suggestions at times. But I'm more so referring to the combat team who would be in charge of doing anything to the skill line. And more often than not, they certainly don't take suggestions. The desire to bother varies for each person but being specifically told to do so is a different thing altogether that could be a pointless effort as long as enough people potentially convey they want the skill line redesigned or fleshed out. Which is the main objective. The personal suggestions are just icing on the top.

    I get that the Oblivion Damage dealt in that skill line wouldn't have the PvP balancing issue it currently does but nevertheless, its biggest advantage would basically be ignoring Resistances. In PvE, penetration is kind of irrelevant going down the line from trials to four man content to soloing. Depending on how much damage these skill would be doing is the major factor, but they very likely wouldn't or shouldn't come close to the damage a person could achieve with full penetration of course. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, given any skills outside of one's class are used to fill in gaps but I just wonder how this skill line would fit in. I dont see many being favorable for damage but other effects or specific skill types might be. Like so far with Soul Trap, it adds another DoT, which is decent enough for a class that lacks one while they attempt to use sets that synergize well with DoTs. Something with a synergy would be nice as well. Ultimately, opening it up to PvP, and its balancing requirements as a result, is the main way I see Oblivion Damage working for the skill line without it being too iffy. Still like the general idea behind it at the least.
  • Alchimiste1
    Alchimiste1
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    Coldharbour is actually a very interesting place, it could be nice adding maybe a small zone/area if a rework happens. As you said the current skill one is very bland but it has so much potential.
  • AinSoph
    AinSoph
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    I always found the soul magic line super funny bc of that one passive where you explode. It has been 5+ years and that passive still does 1k+ damage with a 2 minute cooldown. How it's still there is beyond me.
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