I think something is missing...

Starbridge84 · January 2021

Let me start off with I love ES games. Always have and always will. I think the team did a great job in creation of a world that we are all enjoying.

So, I haven't been playing for very long (1 year) and just a couple of months ago I realized something seemed to be missing from the weapon line up.

So far we have:

1h and shield - melee stam
2 handed weapons - melee stam
Dual wielding - melee stam
Bows - range stam
Destruction Staves (Fire, Ice, Lightning) - range magicka
Restoration Staff - range magicka

Take a quick second to look at that list above for just a moment and see if you can tell where this is going... ~_o

I had just a couple of things that really didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me as far as the classes went--Nightblade being the prime example here.

As a Nightblade, it gives off that feeling that you're a rogue, an assassin, a creature of the night and shadows and its skills would more strong arm it into looking like a melee damage class. I love playing my Nightblades (I have 3) but I struggle with really focusing on making a build to utilize its primary resource--MAGICKA! All--if not most--of a Nightblade's abilities are magicka based, with a couple that can convert to stamina and this is what made me wonder...

Why don't we have a melee weapon that is magicka based? It would add a way for people that want to play magicka in melee to gain/build up the resource they need for their skills. It just makes so much sense.

Since ritual magicka is HUGE thing in the ES world/lore, it would make perfect sense for this weapon to be a 'ritual knife'

As a solid suggestion...

Ritual Knife
Since it would a knife, it could use dagger skins to prevent the creation of a bunch of new images/styles/textures (trying to save the team from having to go back and make new skins for all the motif/styles in the game) and as far as slot/sets go it could count as a double unit, much like 2-handed and staves do but you can only equip one.

Abilities (my personal suggestions)
Heavy Attacks build magicka resource

1 - Forced Offering - Stabbing the target to cause a HEALTH DoT.
(morph 1) - Weakening Strike - Stabbing the target causes a STAMINA DoT drain.
(morph 2) - Essence Drain - Stabbing the target causes a MAGICKA DoT drain.
I would imagine this DoT effect lasting only a few seconds, maybe 3-5 sec procing ever second. This is a draining effect, not stealing.

2 - Willing Gift - You drain your own HEALTH and heal an ally in front of you. (16m range)
(morph 1) - Life Transfer - Take 35% more HEALTH drain to heal twice as much at half the range (8m range)
(morph 2) - Complete the Ritual - Sacrifice yourself to resurrect an ally within 6m of you (2 allies at 3, 3 allies at rank 6)

3 - Preparing Ritual - Light-med damage, stun target.

4 - Maybe a timed summon?

5 - HoT healing well?

Ultimate - Sacrifice of Blood - Draining your HEALTH (20% of max and 100 ult points) you summon an Flesh Atronach to fight at your side, taunting enemies for 12 seconds.
(morph 1) Manifest the Inner Fire - Changes to a Flame Atronach that does med-heavy AoE fire damage
(morph 2) Sent to a Cold Grave - Changes to a Frost Atronach that does AoE slowing and med frost damage.

These were just some ideas, keeping with the sake of ritualistic types of magicka. I would just love to see a melee weapon that is focused for magicka to help with all those close range magicka abilities.

Bloodraven187 · January 2021

The only change to this suggestion I would make is complete the ritual. in any kind of group situation, especially trials and dlc dungeons, dead party members really hurt your chance of success. especially if the dead person is a tank or healer. sacrificing 1 to res others would be detrimental to the group, unless perhaps they were healed to full health with a 20k damage shield upon resurrection so they can turn around and res you.

I would instead say complete the ritual would drain half your health to resurrect 1 target. the balance would be a high magicka cost and the need to heal up before trying to resurrect again. and since anyone can rez at any time with soul gems you wouldn't need to do it often. It would be a very niche and rarely used ability. And in order to be useful at all it would have to be an instant rez as opposed to channeled.

Starbridge84 · January 2021

@Bloodraven187

Thank you for the input. A large HP and magicka drain would work with it, but the idea for the ability is sacrificing yourself to res 3 people. In some cases, this could save a trial/dungeon run from a total wipe, but I see your point.

Grianasteri · January 2021

@Starbridge84

There are numerous threads that you can search for and read regarding this and similar related issues.

Magica is massively under represented in terms of weapon skill trees, for damage we have 1 - destro staves... Stamina has as you mentioned, 4 weapon skill lines.

Even if you discounted resto staves and s+b, (which is arguably wrong given many do use s+b for damage in pvp) its still a 3 to 1 discrepancy with stamina have so much more choice.

For years now players have been asking for a new Magica weapon skill line - anecdotally the consensus is around some form of duel wielding, allowing a 1h weapon in one hand, with the other being open, or for a range of new magica based "weapons", such as runes, scrolls, tomes (magic books), wands etc (these dont need to be Harry Potter monstrosities, see Path of Excile, wants can be cool).

One can only hope Zos eventually listens. Not every magica uses should have to have a staff, its ridiculous.

Raideen · January 2021

@Starbridge84

It's worse than that.

There are 5 races that work for magicka.
There are 8 races that work for stamina.

There are more stamina armor sets to choose from to create a build. Every dungon, trial, arena, overland zone etc has 1 heavy armor set, 1 medium armor set and 1 light armor set, EXCEPT that light armor can mean dps OR heal. There is also the issue of heavy armor sets having more synergy with medium armor sets. This further increases the available amount of possible builds.

This game is extremely stamina centric and it looks like that is not slowing down.

Scardan · January 2021

Magica has 1 weapon skill line and 3 class skill lines, 4 in total. Stamina has only 4 weapon skill lines, no class skill lines. 4 in total. I am not against more magica weapons and I dream about conjured ones, but if magica gets new lines, stamina needs more morphs in return.

Raideen wrote: »

This game is extremely stamina centric and it looks like that is not slowing down.

After playing magcro and magsorc, my opinion is the opposite - game heavy favors magica classes. In the game, all classes first begin as mages, secondly, mages have much better survival, they are more willing to be taken into trials, they are much more convenient to play and a magcro generally has a lot of tasty things in magic class skills, without the need to grind PvP to gain access to Major Breach for your solo build. Also Harness Magica is fantastic damage shield.

Starbridge84 · February 2021

@Scardan

I think you are missing the point of my post.

I want to be able to play a melee magicka based character with a melee magicka weapon. Hell, I don't really care what kind of weapon it is. It could be a melee staff, it would at least be an option.

I at least came with a solid idea and laid out an example. It's more than what most people do which is just rant/whine about how unbalanced things are.

Pencisl2 · February 2021

I have been trying out some unorthodox weapon combos and they do work. there won't be any guides on them but I think you can feel your way through it.

Scardan · February 2021

@Starbridge84
Thx for clarifying ^^.
We will see if it will be possible with new CP system and la scaling from highest res from prev. patch.

Starbridge84 · March 2021

I even had an idea of a weapon enchantment that you can put to convert their resource gain. Seems sound enough.

Would be nice to get a single hand weapon though with no offhand needed.