Cooldown on light attacks? That sounds wonderful

Destruction Staff has the Tri-Focus passive which makes Lightning Staves do AOE damage with Heavy Attacks.....

Sorc finisher Mages Wrath/Endless Fury is instant cast with AOE splash damage....yet not on timer...and yes 2-handed/lightning stave make heavy attacks AOE and not on cooldown....2-handed also light attacks.

FORCE PULSE....is single target....and a spammable...

1) It has conditions to turn it into an AOE...requiring other enemies to be under a status effect. Meaning you can use it till the cows come home and never get cleave AOE unless you or someone else use another skill (wall of elements for example) to apply these status effects.

2) If the AOE portion fires, it is in a separate damage type (magic damage vs elemental) and at a reduced damage rate...compared to the initial attack.

3) It hits a MAX of 3 people at a time compared to AOEs which have a 6 enemy maximum.

Thus, Force pulse is being quad penalized 1) cool-down timer, 2) Required proc conditions, 3) reduced damage spread and type 4) 3 enemies max vs 6.

The base skill and other morph are not on cool down making the unique function of the Force Pulse morph penalized comparatively.

Destructive Touch and it's morphs are falling into this same imbalance. The skill was nerfed from it's historic usability and function and now Destructive Clench is being further subjugated.

Shock Clench lost its range, and stun under the guise of becoming a strong AOE spammable. Now that AOE spammable is being put on a 3 second timer...thus further destroying it's functionality. The skill now has limited range, no stun or immobilization, and is on a 3 second timer....Triple penalized.

The rules of what does and does not get placed on cool down are far too broad. This is a perfect example of unholistic balancing.

Zos has problem A and they have set up rules to try and resolve problem A without looking at how these changes effect B, C, D.....and will ultimately destroy the usability of entire skills, build make-ups,and classes (Templar)

This will ultimately cause further changes down the road to try and fix what they are about to break which will need further balancing.....making the testing of skills as they are now pointless as many will simply be unable to stay as they are currently designed and is setting ESO on a long path of redesign.

Or, which has happened mutliple times over the past year and a half, be forced to completely come back and revert or trash what they are attempting currently, not to mention this entire process is flying in the face of the past 6 years of ESO combat purpose and not being based around cooldown timers but instead resource management.

Their current rule set does not include any Ultimates (as Ultimates can't be spammed) thus the ball Zerg AOE meta can remain as is. The stacking of AOE ultimates is what make it so effective...not those spamming force pulse and lightning heavy attacks.

Zos, please drill down to the root of the problem.

You claim in your reasoning and write up that ESO combat was not intended to be AOE focused, but you are placing skills that are designed as spammables and focused for single target damage that happen to have splash AOE damage effects on the same cool downs of true full AOE and dot skills....which doesnt seem to make any sense.

Spamming wall of elements as you move is not the design of the skill...it is a static 10 second AOE dot...thus placing a penalty timer on someone who is using not as such, makes logical sense..and I am not against it.

Templar jabs is a class spammable, Shock Clench is an AOE spammable...they do not have dots that occur over a timer and they are designed to be used in quick succession...placing a timer on such skills makes absolutely no logical sense.

Look at how these changes will domino...and then rework the rule-set to only target skills that are being used in a way not intended.

Such as placing timers only on Instant cast AOE DOTs.

This, will narrow the field down considerably on affected skills, reinforce current game intended design, allow timers and force lower casting of intensive computation skills, and reinforce single target gameplay.

You could also simply change ALL AOEs to deal damage to everyone (Allies and Enemies) while in PVP zones ...this would create "friendly fire" deaths that subtract AP at the same rate killing enemies adds AP. While there will of course be trolls who try to bomb their own campaign...the campaign lock system will help gate enemy campaign spy bombing..if someone does choose to be a spy they will be locked into that campaign for the entire 30/7 days and lose out on all AP as their ally bombing would negate AP gained making it a loss/loss for the player..and this would completely destroy the BALL Zerg meta, as now they will kill themselves as fast as anyone they are attacking. This would strongly reinforce single target gameplay over AOE gameplay.

Colby?