What's with the wonky change to Spectral Cloak not working unless Quick Cloak was cast in combat?

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · April 2023

Spectral Cloak no longer procs unless the Quick Cloak effect was cast in combat. Now you have to waste a global cooldown after entering combat otherwise you lose out on 6% increased damage and 6% damage mitigation. It's an odd mechanic that results in a reduction in quality of life.

If you're stuck in combat then this bypasses the entire change.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · April 2023

Also, casting Quick Cloak in combat is enough to permanently enable Spectral Cloak for the lifetime of that effect. This means you can refresh the duration of Quick Cloak out of combat and it will proc Spectral Cloak once you're back in combat.

Bashev · August 2023

When I tested it the spectral cloak duration 10+2 seconds like the old skill duration? How was for you?

Amerises · August 2023

1 GCD is a lot for just for a 6% dmg/def buff in combat IMO…

LittlePinkDot · August 2023

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Spectral Cloak no longer procs unless the Quick Cloak effect was cast in combat. Now you have to waste a global cooldown after entering combat otherwise you lose out on 6% increased damage and 6% damage mitigation. It's an odd mechanic that results in a reduction in quality of life.

If you're stuck in combat then this bypasses the entire change.

If stuck in combat helped, I would be able to generate crux, but I still can't.

Might want to check to make sure it does. [snip]

[edited for minor bashing]

luchtt · August 2023

It was done to prevent BRP prebuffing:
swap to BRP daggers before a boss fight, use deadly or quick cloak, sheathe weapon and swap to your normal setup, like pillar nirn for example, and you would have the spectral cloak buff still applied to that first cast of cloak.

I *think* (not 100% sure of course) this is because the way they made spectral cloak actually apply itself is really weird, I think it actually changes the very quick/deadly cloak cast itself, rather than just having it conditionally while slotted. Because you can still prebuff them, you just need to be in combat, swapping them out still doesn't remove the effect.

In my opinion it is indeed just a change terrible for QOL. The only people benefitting from this were and still are endgame scorepushers. 6% damage isn't a whole lot. not to mention you can still do it in trash pulls or using the glyphic, so it only partially(less than partially tbh) removes the problem while making every normal person using it have to think a lot more about how to use it. It just makes the set more annoying to use than anything, this change was a bandaid fix to a larger problem with how the set works.

CameraBeardThePirate · August 2023

Instead of implementing the smart change of simply removing any ability buff on yourself if that ability is removed from your bar, they decided to add these silly prebuff conditions to arena weapons. Classic ZOS taking the most convoluted path to a nerf possible.

Panderbander · August 2023

I think we've established that ZOS's definition of "quality of life" is "make sure nobody's quality of life is improved"

AlterBlika · August 2023

Been using it on my solo build, always prebuffing out of combat. "QoL" change - literally made my life harder lol.

kojou · August 2023

It was a bad “fix” to what was barely even a problem, and the same problem and “fix” was done to Elf Bane.

It’s really annoying that I now have to pay attention to whether I’m in combat or not. I guess removing the buff when the set is unequipped was too hard…