Crystal Shard replaced by Crystal Weapon — please roll back!

Ryuvain · May 2021

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

show previous quotes

Ryuvain wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Ryuvain wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Ryuvain wrote: »

Yeah, I want Crystal blast back. Funny how those who backed zos on this got a literal copy of elemental weapon and liked it? Like literally take something unique and make it copy something else, why?

Because taking a functionally dead morph that's used by a tiny minority of the player base and turning it into something that's useful for stamSorcs in both PvE as well as PvP was and remains a good use of developer resources.

I like Crystal Weapon and I use Crystal Weapon. You don't do either. Both of us are simple anecdotes though and ZOS has the actual data on how popular the morph was and currently is. The fact that they changed the morph tells you all you need to know about how popular Crystal Blast used to be.

There it is again. Zos is always right? Except when they do something people themselves specifically don't like.

People still used the skill, so what about them?

Seriously, taking something unique and making a clone is never right. Why not buff elemental weapon a bit? It's the exact same skill.

What's not right is allowing a tiny minority of magSorc players to block stamSorcs from being able to use their own class abilities.

The situation is still wildly imbalanced, with Magicka vacuuming up all 6/6 available ultimate morphs plus something like 75% of all class abilities. It was the least that could be done to throw stamSorcs a small bone in the form of a spammable. In the same change, ZOS also improved Crystal Frags and allowed magSorcs to save a bar slot that otherwise would have been dedicated to using a non-class spammable. It was a win-win for the overwhelming majority of overall Sorcerer players.

But game design is zero-sum so that meant that somebody had to lose - and that was Crystal Blast users. Making a change that benefits the many instead of catering to the few, however, is a hallmark of good balance decision-making.

Everyone uses dswing even now anyway. That's still no reason to be happy about something unique being replaced by a cloned skill. I would be accepting if what replaced blast was an aoe stam unique spammable or something, but no, just a literal clone skill.

Also, stam has a LOT more variety in weapon skill choices. Sorcerer mostly being mag made sense. Why do you only have to use class skills and nothing else out of 3 weapon skill lines?

Using "everyone uses the better skill anyway" argument to justify not giving an alternative is the exact same line of reason ZOS used to change Crystal Blast. Everyone used superior Frags anyway. See?

Cleave already is subpar on stam toons. Hence the caltrops buff. Mag has better AoE options. You could very well use some of those. Also MagSorc already brought some group utility in LL synergy, exploitation minor group buff (which can be procced via superior frags) and in some cases a big cleave heal via Matriarch.
StamSorc had neither of those options to conveniently use. With the change they got 4 positive changes. Exploitation & unnamed penetration and a class spam that also acts as delayed burst for PvP. Sure, it's not the most fluid or original skill to use but the design decision is brilliant. Mag only lost a subpar morph instead of 1 for a stam spam, 1 for utility and another 1 for delayed burst.

show previous quotes

Noxulous wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Ryuvain wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Ryuvain wrote: »

Yeah, I want Crystal blast back. Funny how those who backed zos on this got a literal copy of elemental weapon and liked it? Like literally take something unique and make it copy something else, why?

Because taking a functionally dead morph that's used by a tiny minority of the player base and turning it into something that's useful for stamSorcs in both PvE as well as PvP was and remains a good use of developer resources.

I like Crystal Weapon and I use Crystal Weapon. You don't do either. Both of us are simple anecdotes though and ZOS has the actual data on how popular the morph was and currently is. The fact that they changed the morph tells you all you need to know about how popular Crystal Blast used to be.

There it is again. Zos is always right? Except when they do something people themselves specifically don't like.

People still used the skill, so what about them?

Seriously, taking something unique and making a clone is never right. Why not buff elemental weapon a bit? It's the exact same skill.

What's not right is allowing a tiny minority of magSorc players to block stamSorcs from being able to use their own class abilities.

The situation is still wildly imbalanced, with Magicka vacuuming up all 6/6 available ultimate morphs plus something like 75% of all class abilities. It was the least that could be done to throw stamSorcs a small bone in the form of a spammable. In the same change, ZOS also improved Crystal Frags and allowed magSorcs to save a bar slot that otherwise would have been dedicated to using a non-class spammable. It was a win-win for the overwhelming majority of overall Sorcerer players.

But game design is zero-sum so that meant that somebody had to lose - and that was Crystal Blast users. Making a change that benefits the many instead of catering to the few, however, is a hallmark of good balance decision-making.

well to be fair Sorcerer is a magic class, the idea of being used for a stamina build is asinine to start with. a sorcerer by definition uses magic, but ignoring that, game design is not zero-sum and no one -had- to lose, they just chose not to overhaul the stagnating skill system and add more things, instead choosing to change the already anemic selection of choices.

i mean they overhauled the champion point system a few times, the skill system being overhauled a little could take very little work, adding a bunch of new skills is hard, yes, but i think a multimillion dollar company can handle it.

This is rich. Neither in previous TES lore nor in ESO class design is a Sorcerer a pure wizard. If you care to catch up, read up class descriptions and skill composition from Morrowind and Oblivion. Not a single ESO class is forced into a single resource only. But it goes well with your expressed disregard to the game design overall. Sure they could add a third morph or a sixth skill. But that's just as unlikely as beating a single class out of the build freedom we had since launch.

Lastly a few words about "class skills = magick, stam should use it's more numerous weapon skills". When ESO launched there were no stam/mag dichotomy. So you could very well run around as something we'd call a hybrid build today. Wrecking Blowing, Mage's Fury casting Sorcerer etc. The removal of caps was a cheap trick to stretch their 4 classes to 8. So having more weapon skills and less class skills for stam is a remnant of a long gone design decision.

Pretty sure you completely ignored what I meant. All those stam skill lines? Nah, I wanna use a sorc spammable. Ok then. Mag frags wasn't even a spammable either, you had to use a staff spammable to proc it.

Let alone ignoring taking out a truly unique ability for a clone. That's fine.

I get the feeling your mind is set in the completely opposite direction, so no use trying to argue. I still stand at my own points.

Beardimus · May 2021

lurkin777 wrote: »

show previous quotes

Beardimus wrote: »

lurkin777 wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

A common through-line of many of the pro-Blast contingent is the focus on the stun and mobs not reaching you. Are you not using food that adds Health? Or using Lightning Form for resistances?

With 810 CP properly allocated (and really, with diminishing returns, it ends up being anything above like 400) Overland enemies pose basically zero threat to even a Light Armor wearer.

Plus, you have Critical Surge, pets, and shields to assist with staying alive. There is a reason that bot farms use Sorcerers with Surge and Lightning Form to passively farm Mudcrabs for leather, because the Critical Surge heals and player-based AoE basically ensure that you cannot die. And using an ultimate like Suppression Field is the instant-win button for triumphing over any number of non-boss mobs.

Anyway, I'm not trying to bash but simply want to point out that the magSorc toolkit is already AMAZING for soloing and farming and that it really does not need Crystal Blast to be effective at it.

I don't need someone telling me how to play. Would you like me to tell you how to play!

You seem to have a stamina sorc so I understand why you want and like the change. I an not talking to you as I was making my voice heard that I don't like the change or the way they did it!!

@lurkin777 Listen, there are plenty of threads on this forum where folks will seem elitist or tell folks how to play in a negative way, this isn't one of them. (what are you doing right now then?)

This is less experienced players talking about a skill that wasn't that good, and how they miss it / can't cope without it, and then it's others just trying to help. (it is how I wanted to play and liked it)

And those open to listening to the help have adapted and are happy now, in fact better off than before..

If you don't care about performance at all and just miss the skill I get it, but many posts are talking about missing it's effectiveness and it just isn't thus folks are trying to help.

Folks aremt TELLING you how to play. A change has happened, you can't undo, people are posting about that and folks are trying to help. That's it..

(what you just did)

I guess we have been reading different posts. Many of the comment talk about no knowing how to play because I and other like this skill over the others and we should change to this or that!!!

That is telling me how to play.

Also how do you know that everyone that changed likes it better and are happy?

They are making the classes more and more generic. If you play magicka use these skills and it you do stamina use these. I don't like that! They are making changes every time that make on classes more alike. Do you know why? I believe that it is all for PVP. They can't seem to balance PVP.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

show previous quotes

Ryuvain wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Ryuvain wrote: »

Yeah, I want Crystal blast back. Funny how those who backed zos on this got a literal copy of elemental weapon and liked it? Like literally take something unique and make it copy something else, why?

Because taking a functionally dead morph that's used by a tiny minority of the player base and turning it into something that's useful for stamSorcs in both PvE as well as PvP was and remains a good use of developer resources.

I like Crystal Weapon and I use Crystal Weapon. You don't do either. Both of us are simple anecdotes though and ZOS has the actual data on how popular the morph was and currently is. The fact that they changed the morph tells you all you need to know about how popular Crystal Blast used to be.

There it is again. Zos is always right? Except when they do something people themselves specifically don't like.

People still used the skill, so what about them?

Seriously, taking something unique and making a clone is never right. Why not buff elemental weapon a bit? It's the exact same skill.

What's not right is allowing a tiny minority of magSorc players to block stamSorcs from being able to use their own class abilities.

The situation is still wildly imbalanced, with Magicka vacuuming up all 6/6 available ultimate morphs plus something like 75% of all class abilities. It was the least that could be done to throw stamSorcs a small bone in the form of a spammable. In the same change, ZOS also improved Crystal Frags and allowed magSorcs to save a bar slot that otherwise would have been dedicated to using a non-class spammable. It was a win-win for the overwhelming majority of overall Sorcerer players.

But game design is zero-sum so that meant that somebody had to lose - and that was Crystal Blast users. Making a change that benefits the many instead of catering to the few, however, is a hallmark of good balance decision-making.

Spot on @YandereGirlfriend for MagSorc Frag is the clearly better morph. Stamsorc needed something and I'd warrant there definitely more SS using it that MS were using blast.

It was a poor choice of skill that has overlap with other, better options

One exception was Blast & Overload for snipe ganking..but when OL was needed for the gazzilionth time it killed that combo anyway.

ZOS_Ragnar · May 2021

We have removed a few recent posts from this thread that were starting to derail the discussion. Please take the time to review your message before posting to help ensure the comment is civil, respectful, and abides by our Community Rules.