Scripted Spells annoyance.

grumlins · June 25

Could you shorten the cast time of these spells, there's no reason for elemental explosion to take 4 seconds of animation each time you cast it. Might as well stick with the normal spells we already have if that's the case! Why do I have to play with my staff before casting that spell and why is it lighting play when I'm casting a fire or ice spell? I sincerely hope none of the other ones are this bad!

notyuu · June 25

Well
1: it's a 2 second cast time, not 4, which is there in an attempt to balance out it's large radius, solid damage and wide varity of effects it can have

2: the reason you're seeing lighting when you cast it is that you choose the lighting effect for the spell, choose a fire one or ice one and you will see fire or ice instead...

fred4 · June 25

notyuu wrote: »

Well
1: it's a 2 second cast time, not 4, which is there in an attempt to balance out it's large radius, solid damage and wide varity of effects it can have

The method they've used to balance these skills is to suck the life out of them. I don't disagree with balancing, but it's unfortunate.

I wanted to knock people from keep walls. The fact that the 2 seconds are enough to uncloak you as a nightblade isn't even the main problem. In fact that may be intentional. The real problem is that you choose your spot on the ground at the beginning and 2 seconds is a lot of time for a player or ballgroup to move. As far as I can see that also affects the direction in which they will be flung, e.g. where they are relative to the centre of the explosion when it finally goes off. Think you'll knock them out of a keep? Nah, it's random. Another instance of a skill that's borderline useless, because it's uncontrollable. It's also only 6 people at most, I reckon, since I went into Skyreach with it. That's fair, but eh. Where is the fun? I want to see 100 Skyreach mobs flying around, not a random 6.

It's probably a decent skill for big fights all the same, but I went on to evaluate other skills. Ulfsild's uncloaks you straight away, has no height component to the knockback, is shorter range and seems unreliable. Which brings me on to the big irony. The best skill for knockbacks, at least as a nightblade, seems to be Magnum Shot. It's instant, you can aim it, you can control the direction and, for some reason, it doesn't even always uncloak you. That's a whole lot of plus points for an existing skill, even though it's only single target.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 25

At most they should only reduce the cast time of Ele Explosion by ~0.5 seconds. Anymore than that, and the ability would be insanely powerful.

The biggest issue with it, as has been stated, is that the location is determined at the beginning of the cast time. This feels rather bad to use.

tsaescishoeshiner · June 25

I would like if it had a shorter cast time but a bit more travel time. But there are pros and cons to each.

I love ele explosion. It's so fun! My main issue is that you lose out on class and set mechanics based on light attacks (Relequen, stamsorc, nightblades) and crux generation, without enough of an upside for the long cast time and risk of being interrupted or staggered.

grumlins · July 3

Well thankfully as long as you keep your distance without being in full detection reduction gear I'm not seen so we can cast it while hiding cloaked with vampire khajiit black hand and thieves' guild enhancements. So they at least thought of that part which I appreciate!

ESO_Nightingale · July 3

notyuu wrote: »

Well
1: it's a 2 second cast time, not 4, which is there in an attempt to balance out it's large radius, solid damage and wide varity of effects it can have

2: the reason you're seeing lighting when you cast it is that you choose the lighting effect for the spell, choose a fire one or ice one and you will see fire or ice instead...

i'm glad that you said they attempted to balance it out because that's the kindest way i can put it. they're horrifically bad spells and they wouldn't be good even if they gave major slayer because they just don't do enough damage to warrant the loss of light attack and gcd damage

xylena_lazarow · July 3

grumlins wrote: »

Could you shorten the cast time of these spells

The cast time on 2h Smash is particularly egregious. They literally made a clone of an existing 2h skill, then made it worse by sticking a pathetically clumsy 0.6sec artifical lag handicap on it, ensuring 0% usage rate.

Lalothen · July 5

I honestly don't see why there's a cast time greater than 1s on any of the scribing skills. I get that it's an attempt to inject something "fresh" into the mix, but long cast times literally don't fit with ESO's core "active combat" value at all - and short cast times like the one on Smash just feel so incredibly arbitrary.

I've been using and enjoying both of the Soul magic abilities & Ulfsild's, but beyond that.... I tried using Ele Explosion in group PvE content and wow, what a pain in the ass it was to use effectively, and for an overall DPS loss to boot.

I'd use Trample if the cast time was 0.8s.

I'd use Torchbearer if either the channel time was 0.8s OR the total instances of damage during the current channel were increased to 5 or 6.

I'd use Smash if it didn't have that ridiculously arbitrary cast time attached.

I want to use these cool abilities, but I don't want to gimp myself in the process. Is that too much to ask?

Firstmep · July 5

Trample could use its cast time shortened to 1 sec as well tbh.