Suggestion: Change some Psijic skill morphs to deal damage instead

Imperial_Archmage · November 2022

I am a huge lore nerd and when the Psijic Order was introduced with the Summerset expansion I really embraced it on my main. Psijic outfits, mount, emotes, mementos, the works! However, the Psijic skills themselves, while absolutely beautiful, are pretty useless and not really viable for most builds maybe with the exception of Imbue Weapon. To that end I think it would be really cool to change one of the two morphs of the Mend Wounds ability to deal damage instead of healing. In it's current state the ability is not being used because there are much better healing options and it can't even be used at all by solo players since you can't use it on yourself. And it's a real shame too because it is a gorgeous ability, especially the modified heavy attack.

The change makes sense not just from a gameplay perspective but from a lore one too because the Psijic Order is all about temporal magic and it is fitting for an ability that mends wounds to also be able to unravel flesh if cast in reverse. And since the other morph will retain the original healing aspect of the spell nothing is lost while a great deal is gained.

I would also advance a similar argument for one of the Time Stop morphs i.e. instead of freezing time in the bubble, you speed it up, prematurely aging enemies and thus damaging them. That way there is a Psijic AoE damaging ability as well. I really don't see any downsides to this and I think it would really revitalize the entire Psijic Skill Line.

DrNukenstein · December 2022

Every Psijic skill is the best skill in the game for what it can add to someones kit.

-Crushing weapon: A proc you can just preload whenever you want that also gives major breach
-CA/RAT: minor force on demand. Can get your Major expedition in the form of long duration for filthy ganks from down town, or short and with a root cleanse.
-Deep Thoughts: Infinity sustain between fights, potential taunt in PVP, can be used to get some resources back after break free (the mitigation with passives), can "jump cast" for extreme style
-The ult with passive minor prot. You can use as your back bar ult for 100% uptime on this nice buff when you really want that buff, supposedly is useful to use too
-Try to kill a player channeling symbiosis. just try.

I hope ZOS never touches these skills more than they already have in update 35. They are perfect.

YandereGirlfriend · December 2022

I think that there's a strong case that, like with certain Warden abilities, many of the Psijic morphs are too close to one another and not well-differentiated.

Like Medidate has fairly underwhelming morphs that slightly shade resource return in one direction or another. Okay? The distinction between morphs could stand to be significantly improved.

Similarly, Channeled Acceleration is just... longer... but otherwise does the exact same things as Race Against Time. It has a channel but this is a pretty lazy implementation of morph choice.

Time Stop has a morph that eliminates the channel component whereas the other has a very weak Heal Absorption component. At the very least, the Heal Absorption should be amped-up to give players a reason to actually use this skill.

And Mend Wounds is a total mess after they nerfed it years ago. In particular, the Major Resolve morph is absolutely redundant and lacks a clear use case. That morph should be totally scrapped and started anew.

So yes, there IS much room for improvement in the Psijic line. Skills typically have one good morph and one lazy morph that lags behind the other because not enough effort was put into its design.