Soul Strike! and morphs

JerBearESO · October 2022

Ability description starts out "Burn the enemy FROM THE INSIDE with soulfire". So...shouldn't this ignore armor?

At any rate, I would very much like to see this ability become more than a lesser version of the bow ult Rapid Fire and morphs. It offers nothing more other than the detect. So by killing Molag Bal you get a PvP nightblade counter? This doesn't add up.

Does it need armor bypass? Or maybe it applies a persistant slow? Maybe a stun? Should it have lifesteal?

What do you think, does Soul Strike need some love? And if so, what would you change about it?

Vevvev · October 2022

When slotted it does activate the Soul Shatter passive where if you fall to low HP it triggers and explodes dealing some damage to people around you. Think it's left the way it is because it doesn't require a certain weapon or class to use, you just have access to it regardless.

But it's not really a carbon copy of the bow's ultimate since one morph lasts longer and deals more damage, and the other causes the target to explode if killed by it. Ultimate seems fine to me for what it does.

JerBearESO · October 2022

i mean if you compare it to bow ult it comes down to doing far less damage per second and far far less overall damage while being very very nearly the same mechanic overall. just seems to me like it needs something

Artim_X · October 2022

Not going to lie, I miss the snare and lower cost of the OG version of the skill.

3.3.5

* Soul Assault: This ability and its morphs no longer snare the enemy target.

Developer Comment: One of the main counters to channeled abilities is being able to break light of sight/out range the ability, which is extremely difficult when faced with a 70% snare.

5.1.5

* Increased the damage per tick for this ability and its morphs by approximately 22%, but increased the time it takes to deal its total damage to 5 seconds from 2.9 seconds to help reduce the bursty nature of the ultimate. This also means the CC immunity granted from activating the ability lasts the 5 seconds, instead of only 2.9.

-Increased the Reveal on this ability and its morphs to 3 seconds from 2 seconds.

-Increased the base cost to 175 Ultimate from 100 Ultimate.

At the end of the day. It makes sense to not have a low cost, ranged ultimate, that completely overwhelms someone with the only proper counter being block due to beiing too snared to line-of-sight, but it still feels lacking as OP has mentioned.

IMO the stealth reveal should last the whole duration of the ultimate to make it a proper anti stealth ultimate that one would choose over the comparable bow ultimate, which no longer takes a player out of stealth.

OBJnoob · October 2022

Been a long time since I used it I really didn't know it was bad now. Kinda sad... I used to use it on a magsorc. I took the morph that creates an explosion at the end it was pretty cool, plus the longer duration would occasionally make me have to cancel my own ultimate in order to play defense.

Curse, endless fury, then soul assault. Aaaah, good times.

YandereGirlfriend · October 2022

I saw this ability used once like a month ago and had to do a double-take because I had NO IDEA what it even was. And this from someone who PvPs basically exclusively. That's also probably commentary enough about the state of this skill.

Not sure about the solution, though. Maybe lean into the AOE aspect of the one morph to at least add some better differentiation between them? As it is, it really does seem like a bargain-bin clone of Toxic Barrage (albeit with a way cooler animation).

JerBearESO · October 2022

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I saw this ability used once like a month ago and had to do a double-take because I had ...clone of Toxic Barrage (albeit with a way cooler animation).

yeah i LOVE the way this ult looks! kinda why i wish i could justify using it. tried it out a lot on my necro, but couldn't out perform dawnbreaker by any means (since im not on bow anymore). was able to get a few kills on nightblades, but i feel i could have with dawn anyway.

i had forgotten this ult used to last 3 seconds. maybe they should make it tick faster to be a 3 second channel again, but then make the damage ramp over its duration. that would allow it to deal its damage faster but could still be counterplayed by LoS break before getting bursted with it.

though i still like that armor bypass would match up to its description xD

dsalter · October 2022

skill sucks because it was overnerfed.
sure the damage is nice in theory but without its slow its so easily range broken its laughable.

give it a 50% slow and i can see it being a viable option, even if just for PvP.

to make it viable in PvE? just make it trigger the soul trap healing+resource restore morph if it kills its target while active

Caribou77 · October 2022

I tried it recently, just for a fresh skill. This ult can get you killed in pvp. You hit it and youre stuck channeling mediocre damage for 6 seconds. Anyone with good burst can do double the damage against you.

Wicked cool animation, though. Kind of complements the Magicka Warden teal, whose skills are also pretty, and pretty useless in pvp.

OBJnoob · October 2022

@Caribou77 can't you cancel it yourself? I'm certain you used to be able to. Can't pretend to remember but I don't think it was hard. Simply press a skill. Or block. Or roll dodge.

Caribou77 · October 2022

yeah, roll dodge or another skill should cancel the channel, but I lag pretty often in pvp, and skills or backbar switch often take a couple of tries to work… so… not worth the risk.

I have a subpar oakensoul build just for when its laggy and I want to play.☺️

Baconlad · October 2022

So, the trick is not to use soul assault, use the other morph. It deals the same per tic damage, but ANYTHING that causes the channel to complete makes it burst its aoe explosion. It sacrifices two tics of DoT to place an AoE alongside the last DoT tic. The AoE hits for equal to a DoT tic. Meaning you get the damage of roughly two tics at once.

This means:
-block cancel it, it explodes.
-enemy LOS, it explodes.
-duration times out, it explodes.
-you die, it explodes

Another trick to soul strike is that it's not great 1v1. It's more of a grouped skill. Allowing ur opponents to go full ham or heal up while it's going off.

If they accidently dodge roll they take a full tick....and these full tics hit for godly amounts, I'm getting about 3/4 of a meteor strike in one tic, so it's almost like throwing a meteor out every second.

Us a powerfull delayed burst skill and an unblockable stun with it, pepper them down to 50% health before you use it. Even if they don't die from it they've now gone from 100 to 0 and are in the process of recovering from it. And it drains stamina!

As it is it's very powerfull...love the skill

tonyblack · October 2022

It used to be such fun ultimate before 5.1.5, it dealt respectable damage for its cost and provided clear advantages and drawbacks (in pvp). Now this skill is a meme worthy and wherever i see it i knew it was used by completely clueless player who was sold by the high tooltip and had no idea it hit like a wet noodle and could easily be broken. How soul assault was imbalanced is beyond me, it was never good against competent tanky players and the main niche of it had as a finisher, particularly against full medium well fitted stamblades. I wish it was reverted to former self.

Zekka · October 2022

tonyblack wrote: »

How soul assault was imbalanced is beyond me, it was never good against competent tanky players and the main niche of it had as a finisher, particularly against full medium well fitted stamblades. I wish it was reverted to former self.

You answered your own question, it was really good at pinning rollerblades down with the massive snare it used to have + reveal so forumblades pushed very hard for it to be nerfed to oblivion, same with a lot of other things that used to kill them like the undodgeable power lash/soul harvest, or piercing mark.
But yeah, these days you only see inexperienced PvP players using it... or someone tired of missbreaker who forgot how bad soul strike is now.

Necrotech_Master · October 2022

ive played this game for 8.5 years and ive never used this ultimate lol

i do remember when it was more common pvp, and i still see it occasionally, but it is way weaker than it used to be

Baconlad wrote: »

So, the trick is not to use soul assault, use the other morph. It deals the same per tic damage, but ANYTHING that causes the channel to complete makes it burst its aoe explosion. It sacrifices two tics of DoT to place an AoE alongside the last DoT tic. The AoE hits for equal to a DoT tic. Meaning you get the damage of roughly two tics at once.

This means:
-block cancel it, it explodes.
-enemy LOS, it explodes.
-duration times out, it explodes.
-you die, it explodes

Another trick to soul strike is that it's not great 1v1. It's more of a grouped skill. Allowing ur opponents to go full ham or heal up while it's going off.

If they accidently dodge roll they take a full tick....and these full tics hit for godly amounts, I'm getting about 3/4 of a meteor strike in one tic, so it's almost like throwing a meteor out every second.

Us a powerfull delayed burst skill and an unblockable stun with it, pepper them down to 50% health before you use it. Even if they don't die from it they've now gone from 100 to 0 and are in the process of recovering from it. And it drains stamina!

As it is it's very powerfull...love the skill

i did not know that cancelling it still caused the explosion kind of like the unstable wall of elements

i would also agree with this that its best used on a target taking a lot of dmg, kind of like a universal templar jesus beam although it does not have the execute scaling

AinSoph · October 2022

The entire soul magic skill line should be reworked.

AinSoph · October 2022

Vevvev wrote: »

When slotted it does activate the Soul Shatter passive where if you fall to low HP it triggers and explodes dealing some damage to people around you. Think it's left the way it is because it doesn't require a certain weapon or class to use, you just have access to it regardless.

But it's not really a carbon copy of the bow's ultimate since one morph lasts longer and deals more damage, and the other causes the target to explode if killed by it. Ultimate seems fine to me for what it does.

That passive does like 2k damage on a 2 MINUTE timer and if you're below 20% HP in PvP you might as well be dead. I wouldn't be surprised if that passive hasn't been touched at all since it's release along with the free revive every hour.

Turtle_Bot · October 2022

AinSoph wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

When slotted it does activate the Soul Shatter passive where if you fall to low HP it triggers and explodes dealing some damage to people around you. Think it's left the way it is because it doesn't require a certain weapon or class to use, you just have access to it regardless.

But it's not really a carbon copy of the bow's ultimate since one morph lasts longer and deals more damage, and the other causes the target to explode if killed by it. Ultimate seems fine to me for what it does.

That passive does like 2k damage on a 2 MINUTE timer and if you're below 20% HP in PvP you might as well be dead. I wouldn't be surprised if that passive hasn't been touched at all since it's release along with the free revive every hour.

outside of soul assault getting nerfed over the years and 1 buff to the other active skill a couple of years ago and the general DoT nerf from U35, I don't think this skill line has been touched at all (especially the passives).

I kind of get it, it used to be a completely free skill line that you started out with and that everyone has access to, so it definitely wasn't supposed to be as strong as the other skill lines that required being unlocked, but yeah, it's another skill line in the game that is long overdue for an update.