I think it makes the most sense that we'll probably see a lot of changes to the weapon skill lines during update 35 or 36 (and whether or not they'll actually "improve morph options" is yet to be seen with classes but that is what it is.), With that in mind i really think it's time for zenimax to look at the ranged weapons as the melee weapons have had a significant number of changes over the years and are in a mostly healthy spot. the ones i would like to talk about are the frost and shock destruction staves and the bow, as well as the restoration staff. I'll be listing problems that i have with the skills and potential simple, and/or fun solutions to help out the ranged weapons.
Tooltips were made by editing client-side HTML from ESO Skills and are not indicative of the developers intentions of any of the skills or passives.
Starting with the bow, I think that at least 1 of it's passives are in significant need of adjustment. Unlike every other weapon, the bow is almost entirely focused on itself and it's own skills when it comes to it's damage passives. This is an outdated mindset to have and it restricts the use of the weapon from being a good general option. Some of it's morphs don't see very much use and so some changes will be made to hopefully improve their pick-rate and to open up more options for builds.
Passive Change Suggestion:
Long Shots:
Decoupled this passive from purely bow skills and reduced the value to 10%.
Tooltip:
Change Notes:
This will hopefully incentivize the use of a bow on classes or with playstyles that like to stay at longer ranges but don't like to use as many bow skills as possible.
Morph Change Suggestions:
Arrow Barrage:
Renamed this morph to Corrosive Barrage.
Changed damage type to poison.
Tooltip:
Change Notes:
Hopefully this will give poison builds a poison damage ground area of effect weapon skill for which to proc their passives/skills and/or item sets.
Focused Aim:
Renamed this morph to Arrow Salvo.
Reworked this morph to be a channeled spammable that fires arrows in rapid succession. Each of the 3 projectiles has a different effect, starting with ignoring enemy resistances and dealing physical damage, then being undodgeable and dealing poison damage and finally, with the last arrow being unblockable and dealing disease damage.
Tooltip:
Change Notes:
The intention of this change is to allow bow users to have an option of 2 different types of spammables rather than having a morph of snipe that is seldom picked over lethal arrow.
Venom Arrow:
Increased the duration of major sorcery and brutality to 20 seconds up from 10 seconds.
Tooltip:
Change Notes:
This change is about quality of life and to allow it to match other durations of sources of major sorcery and brutality.
The Destruction staff has been a staple weapon for the entire game's history. but for most of the history of the game, Flame Staves have been utterly dominant compared to their Frost or Shock variants. part of this is due to the existance of Engulfing Flames and also the recently introduced Encratis's Behemoth set. But another part of the problem lies within the Destruction Staff skill tree itself. The Flame staff is able to increase the power of it's own light attacks which often makes up a large portion of DPS during PvE single target encounters, while also having access to the most powerful damage dealing version of Unstable Wall of Elements, the only hard crowd control in the skill line, and the only execute. It is clear that it is the winner in a majority of encounters of all destruction staves. however, compared to other weapons such as dual wielding daggers, the Flame Staff does not always pull ahead. The most logical way to increase the pick-rate of non Flame Destruction staves is to directly help out flame's competitors. The Frost and Shock destruction staves.
Passive Change Suggestions:
Tri Focus:
Removed the Frost Staff magicka block cost.
Change Notes:
This effect will instead be included as a new slottable red CP in order to allow the Tri Focus passive to be taken by frost dps builds and to not cripple tanks who still may want to use their stamina to block on their frost staff bar.
There has been a lot of resistance to this change in paticular so while i won't delete the section, i will acknowledge that a lot of people don't like it. so i will strike it from being a suggestion.
Penetrating Magic:
No longer grants 10% spell penetration to destruction staff skills, now grants a flat bonus of 1500 Weapon and Spell Penetration.
Tooltip:
Change Notes:
Decoupled the 10% penetration from destruction staff skills, to make it a flat bonus of 1500 penetration while slotted, allowing medium armor characters to gain another source of penetration and to increase the overall usefulness of this passive in most situations.
Ancient Knowledge:
Increased the damage of shock staff light attacks by 10% while a shock staff is equipped
Tooltip:
Change Notes:
This bonus is intended to get the shock staff closer to flame staves in single target dps, so that you would be more incentivized, but not forced, to take shock staves for more area of effect orientated classes as opposed to taking flame staves nearly all the time, this bonus does not account for engulfing flames or encratis's behemoth, but it does help to even out the playing field a little bit more as currently shock staves are way behind.
General Suggestions:
Weakness to Elements:
Applying this skill and it's morphs now also gives Major Sorcery and Brutality for their duration.
Tooltip:
Change Notes:
This was done to provide more sources for Major Sorcery and Brutality. It was also put on the utility skill for the line in order to help increase the pickrate of the utility skill in more situations while also providing a nice buff to people who already use the skill.
Unstable Wall of Elements:
Removed the frost and shock bonuses from this morph and replaced them with the bonus that is currently unique to unstable wall of flame. however, the proc conditions are dependent on the status effect unique to that damage type.
Tooltip:
Change Notes:
This change will allow the damage dealing morphs of wall of elements to no longer have a clear winner with unstable wall of fire, as now all of them provide the same bonus provided that the specific status effect for each element is present on enemies to proc the respective walls. Please note that Blockade has not been changed and will retain it's existing bonuses.
Shock Staff:
The Shock staff has not seen much use in recent years due to often being inferior to the Flame Staff execpt against some trash packs. In the past it has been used in some pvp builds and also by more casual players to fufill a fantasy of a shock mage, however this is generally outshadowed by the Flame Staff and other weapons regardless. As seen in the passive changes to Ancient Knowledge, the goal is to allow the shock staff to be more useful overall in single target.
Destructive Clench:
Shock Clench:
Increased the base range of this version to 28 meters and increased it's single target damage to match that of Frost Reach
Tooltip:
Change Comment:
These changes will allow this skill to stand out as a shock based spammable for shock based dps builds similar to the change that was made during Waking Flame for Frost Reach. Unlike frost reach's damage over time, Shock Clench instead provides a very solid area off effect damage portion that will allow it to match a spammable like Silver Shards.
Frost Staff:
The Frost Staff has seen a lot of improvements over the last couple of years mainly due to the introduction of minor brittle and the glacial presence buff for warden. Warden is a natural prodigy of frost damage and brittle application and it loses the least of any class out of going with a frost build, with that being said, destruction staff frost skills are paticularly weak compared to their flame staff counterparts. this was entirely true until the introduction of the Frost Reach buff which showed that it was possible to cater for both Frost DPS and Frost Tank archetypes. With that being said, continuing in this direction would significantly help the power of the Frost Staff as currently the state of the passive damage is relatively sorted out. as shown before, Unstable Wall of Frost was given a direction where it would excel in dealing damage, where as frost blockade was not touched and so it can continue to be used by supports and tanks or by dps looking to support their group.
Impulse:
Frost Impulse:
Frost Impulse and it's morphs now deal additional damage to enemies who are stunned, taunted, snared or immobilised.
Tooltip:
Change Comment:
This change was made to provide additional damage for Frost Impulse in a way that is unique compared to the Flame and Shock versions. It now works better against enemies who have been inflicted with tank/cc-related effects which will mean an increase in damage for both frost damage dealers and frost tanks. Before, Frost Impulse and it's morphs only gave minor protection to the caster and allies around them, however this bonus was almost entirely useless for frost damage dealers and generally was not felt. Now, it should help significantly more against trash packs where you would be using the skill.
Destructive Rage:
Icy Rage:
Replaced the Immobilization provided by this skill and added 4 seconds of Major Brittle instead.
Tooltip:
Change Comment:
This morph's effect is currently made redundant by the existing playstyle of frost damage dealers as immobilization already occurs on chilled enemies inside of wall of frost, while this effect would be going away on unstable wall of elements, it is also sometimes detrimental to group situations where Icy Rage is used for damage, as it will root enemies on the outside of the ring and not allow approaching enemies to be grouped up properly. Instead, this morph now provides Major Brittle, giving another source for the powerful effect up to a maximum duration of 11 seconds. because of the crit cap, Major Brittle isn't always getting it's full value, however with this change, Major Brittle via Icy Rage could see use in trash pulls by tanks, dps or healers and within unoptimised groups or even during solo play in order to give a brief but powerful group critical damage bonus. This will also allow it to have a significant niche within groups unlike the skill functions currently.
Grand Healing:
Increased the duration of this skill and it's morphs by 2 seconds.
Tooltip:
Change Comment:
This was done for standardisation and will result in both morphs having 2 more seconds of duration.
Healing Springs:
Renamed this morph to Coalescent Springs to better fit it's new dual damage/healing theme.
This morph no longer returns a small amount of resources, instead it deals a minor amount of magic damage over it's duration.
Tooltip:
Change Comment:
This morph now also does a small amount of magic damage every second for 10 seconds in order to allow healers to proc their backbar weapon enchantments if they double-slot a restoration staff. It also doubles to give tanks another option for a backbar that allows them to be a tiny bit more supportive for their group and will allow for more creative build diversity across the board for supports. This change was also made with the intention to not invalidate healers that often feel left out as every other option that a damage dealer will have from other weapons will provide far stronger damage and supporting skills/passives, where as the restoration staff neither has any damage bonuses from passives, nor skills that do damage other than this 1 proposed change, Additionally, Tanks will be disincentivised to run buff skills such as combat prayer as there are already easier sources out there including from healers that do a far better job at sustaining expensive healing skills.
Force Siphon:
Applying this skill and it's morphs now also gives Major Sorcery and Brutality for their duration.
Tooltip:
Change Comment:
This was done to provide more sources for Major Sorcery and Brutality. Similar to the change done to weakness to elements, it was also put on the utility skill for the line in order to help increase the pickrate of the utility skill in more situations while also providing a nice buff to people who already use this skill.
This took way too long to write.