Enchantments should change the damage type of the weapon

Zodiarkslayer · November 2022

Want to be a Frost Warden, but not be locked into using a Frost Staff? Great! Take your TwoHander and slam a frost glyph on it.
And Boom! Frost damage on every light attack.

I think the principle is clear. It would sidestep a lot of frustrating limitations when building characters. It's just an idea on how to solve many issues with damage types, class passives, set effects and how they interact with each other.

What do you think? 😁

Vevvev · November 2022

Not how enchantments worked in the previous games as a steel sword is still a steel sword, and just cause you have an enchantment doesn't mean it'll hurt that ghost. Now the enchantment will hurt the ghost, but it'd be more effective to stick said enchantment on a silver sword.

Same thing applies to ESO, although I will admit enchantment on staves did bug me as it went against the norm. Just took it as enchanting staves as double enchanting and left it as that.

WrathOfInnos · November 2022

Vevvev wrote: »

Not how enchantments worked in the previous games as a steel sword is still a steel sword, and just cause you have an enchantment doesn't mean it'll hurt that ghost. Now the enchantment will hurt the ghost, but it'd be more effective to stick said enchantment on a silver sword.

In Oblivion, an enchanted steel sword would damage ghosts even if the enchant was drained. Not sure about Morrowind or before.

I like the idea for melee weapons and bows (both visually glow with the enchant element), but I'm not sure how it would work with staves. A lightning staff with a frost enchant would show lightning animations but not deal shock damage? Seems strange.

Jabbs_Giggity · November 2022

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Not how enchantments worked in the previous games as a steel sword is still a steel sword, and just cause you have an enchantment doesn't mean it'll hurt that ghost. Now the enchantment will hurt the ghost, but it'd be more effective to stick said enchantment on a silver sword.

In Oblivion, an enchanted steel sword would damage ghosts even if the enchant was drained. Not sure about Morrowind or before.

I like the idea for melee weapons and bows (both visually glow with the enchant element), but I'm not sure how it would work with staves. A lightning staff with a frost enchant would show lightning animations but not deal shock damage? Seems strange.

With that logic, how would non-elemental enchants work? Would a Damage Health enchant change the damage type to Bleed and cause DoT instead of a set physical damage?
I'll admit, it could be interesting. However, more thought would need to go into this than a generic add a glyph = change type.

Silversmith · November 2022

Everyone would put a Fire Enchantment on their weapon because everyone is a DK or a Vampire.

AinSoph · November 2022

I think a good way to compromise is for the enchantment to portion the damage based on the enchant. You want Fire and Ice? Enchant a Fire/Frost staff with a Frost/Fire glyph that gives % based on the potency and aspect runes. You could even go one (drastic) step further and make a Fire Staff with 100% frost that activates anything that needs Frost damage but benefits from Flame staff passives or make a melee weapon do completely elemental damage.

YandereGirlfriend · November 2022

There is a kernel of a good idea here but it needs some more fleshing-out.

Also, we need a Bleed enchant.

Sparxlost · November 2022

agreed but might work better if they reworked the trait stones to do that sort of thing..
stones that increase specific types of damage would be nice...

WrathOfInnos · November 2022

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

There is a kernel of a good idea here but it needs some more fleshing-out.

Also, we need a Bleed enchant.

Agreed, some details to work out. Could be:

Absorb Health = Bleed Damage
Absorb Stamina = Physical Damage
Absorb Magicka = Magic Damage

Not sure how to handle tri weapon glyph damage type.

Jabbs_Giggity · November 2022

Honestly, with the way traits and glyphs work this would only benefit from a third option = runes
Enchantment Glyphs are supplemental
Traits are stat based enhancements
Runes would work as an ability to alter the core of the weapon/armor
1. Armor runes would work to change the weight of an armor.
2. Weapon runes would work to change the base damage type of a weapon/shield

For example,
Sword > Infused > Fire Glyph > Fire Rune
Sword becomes Fire based damage at base, with added Fire damage from Glyph, multiplied by Infused Trait.
-OR-
Shield > Infused > Poison damage Glyph > Magic Rune
Shield becomes Magic damage absorption and returns Poison damage to attacker when blocked, multiplied by Infused Trait

AinSoph · November 2022

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

Honestly, with the way traits and glyphs work this would only benefit from a third option = runes
Enchantment Glyphs are supplemental
Traits are stat based enhancements
Runes would work as an ability to alter the core of the weapon/armor
1. Armor runes would work to change the weight of an armor.
2. Weapon runes would work to change the base damage type of a weapon/shield

For example,
Sword > Infused > Fire Glyph > Fire Rune
Sword becomes Fire based damage at base, with added Fire damage from Glyph, multiplied by Infused Trait.
-OR-
Shield > Infused > Poison damage Glyph > Magic Rune
Shield becomes Magic damage absorption and returns Poison damage to attacker when blocked, multiplied by Infused Trait

A bash that does elemental damage/the martial damages sounds like that could open a lot of possibilities.

Zodiarkslayer · December 2022

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

There is a kernel of a good idea here but it needs some more fleshing-out.

Also, we need a Bleed enchant.

Agreed, some details to work out. Could be:

Absorb Health = Bleed Damage
Absorb Stamina = Physical Damage
Absorb Magicka = Magic Damage

Not sure how to handle tri weapon glyph damage type.

Exactly. You only need to go through the list of glyphs and attach one damage type per glyph. As long as every damage type is covered at least once the system makes sense.

Concerning Staffs I will say something heretic: We do not need three different destrustion staves. This would be the chance to overhaul the skill tree and take a hard look at the passives.
The fact that every elemental type is pigeonholed into a fixed role, has always irked me personally.

And maybe, just maybe, this would be the chance to introduce more staff types based on school. Like Alteration, Conjuration and Illusion.

One can dream... ☺️

berunhieyes · December 2022

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

Honestly, with the way traits and glyphs work this would only benefit from a third option = runes
Enchantment Glyphs are supplemental
Traits are stat based enhancements
Runes would work as an ability to alter the core of the weapon/armor
1. Armor runes would work to change the weight of an armor.
2. Weapon runes would work to change the base damage type of a weapon/shield

For example,
Sword > Infused > Fire Glyph > Fire Rune
Sword becomes Fire based damage at base, with added Fire damage from Glyph, multiplied by Infused Trait.
-OR-
Shield > Infused > Poison damage Glyph > Magic Rune
Shield becomes Magic damage absorption and returns Poison damage to attacker when blocked, multiplied by Infused Trait

I agree it would be more interesting to have the damage type be something that is applied to the weapon separate from the enchantment. Then if you want a staff that does bleed damage or a sword that does lightning damage, you could apply the appropriate damage element. This would probably fit in with the "hyrbridization" approach. Sets that support a particular type of damage could then be used with any weapon.

If the slot is left empty, physical damage weapons would do pure physical damage and staves would do pure magic damage. This would apply to the weapon skills as well. I.e, Wall of Elements with a staff without a damage element would do magic damage instead of elemental damage. If the staff had a bleed element, then Wall would do bleed damage. It may be a little trickier for the physical damage weapons since several of their morphs are designed for a particular type of damage (e.g. Poision Arrow).

It would probably lead to the elimination of the three separate destruction staves. We'd also probably have to grind more research (which would hopefully be more like researching enchantments than researching traits).

I have no idea what this would do to the metas for PVE or PVP.

YandereGirlfriend · December 2022

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

There is a kernel of a good idea here but it needs some more fleshing-out.

Also, we need a Bleed enchant.

Agreed, some details to work out. Could be:

Absorb Health = Bleed Damage
Absorb Stamina = Physical Damage
Absorb Magicka = Magic Damage

Not sure how to handle tri weapon glyph damage type.

Exactly. You only need to go through the list of glyphs and attach one damage type per glyph. As long as every damage type is covered at least once the system makes sense.

Concerning Staffs I will say something heretic: We do not need three different destrustion staves. This would be the chance to overhaul the skill tree and take a hard look at the passives.
The fact that every elemental type is pigeonholed into a fixed role, has always irked me personally.

And maybe, just maybe, this would be the chance to introduce more staff types based on school. Like Alteration, Conjuration and Illusion.

One can dream... ☺️

Oh, I love this!