Traveling Knife Damage Types

madmufffin · February 1

Traveling knife damage types should be inclusive of all the damage types, especially since so many classes are starving for useful spammable. Having 3 martial types, one elemental type, and then a generic magic knife as the only options seems like it was designed with the intent of giving specific classes/builds a spammable as opposed to making it functional for everyone. Adding disease, flame, and shock damage types would make skill applicable across the board and help provide some non-meta classes an option to step out of the shadows a bit (shock knife on magsorc for example)

Oblivion_Protocol · February 2

The classes and specs that don’t use Traveling Knife tend to use Wield Soul with the exact elements you mentioned were lacking.

madmufffin · February 2

Oblivion_Protocol wrote: »

The classes and specs that don’t use Traveling Knife tend to use Wield Soul with the exact elements you mentioned were lacking.

Yes but for PVE where knife offers extremely high value debuffs, the lack of damage variety is pretty impactful

Kahnak · February 5

madmufffin wrote: »

Traveling knife damage types should be inclusive of all the damage types, especially since so many classes are starving for useful spammable. Having 3 martial types, one elemental type, and then a generic magic knife as the only options seems like it was designed with the intent of giving specific classes/builds a spammable as opposed to making it functional for everyone. Adding disease, flame, and shock damage types would make skill applicable across the board and help provide some non-meta classes an option to step out of the shadows a bit (shock knife on magsorc for example)

"Traveling knife damage types should be inclusive of all the damage types, especially since so many classes are starving for useful spammable."

Don't think there is anything particularly wrong with wanting some additional damage types, but that bit about so many classes starving for a useful spammable is just objectively wrong. Also, just because a class boosts damage of a certain type doesn't mean a spammable using that particular type of damage would be useful. Adding Disease, for instance, would help nobody outside of PvP. Anyone trying to maximize their damage would likely be using the already existing 'Bleed' damage, Fire or Poison.

That being said, it seems to me that is probably the direction they are headed. It's a brand new system, so they will likely be releasing more as the game continues to iterate on itself.

YandereGirlfriend · February 6

There really isn't any reasonable stance as to why we shouldn't simply have all of the damage types permuted against all of the Scribing skills.

We've long since left the realm of logical damage types with it so people may as well be able to do exactly as they want... for whatever thematic reasons.

Avran_Sylt · February 6

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

There really isn't any reasonable stance as to why we shouldn't simply have all of the damage types permuted against all of the Scribing skills.

We've long since left the realm of logical damage types with it so people may as well be able to do exactly as they want... for whatever thematic reasons.

There's magic. Chalk it up to applying a fire rune on the blades that detonates on impact, like the Psijiic elemental weapon skill.

ESO_Nightingale · February 6

Every scribing skill should deal every damage type

Turtle_Bot · February 6

Kahnak wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Traveling knife damage types should be inclusive of all the damage types, especially since so many classes are starving for useful spammable. Having 3 martial types, one elemental type, and then a generic magic knife as the only options seems like it was designed with the intent of giving specific classes/builds a spammable as opposed to making it functional for everyone. Adding disease, flame, and shock damage types would make skill applicable across the board and help provide some non-meta classes an option to step out of the shadows a bit (shock knife on magsorc for example)

"Traveling knife damage types should be inclusive of all the damage types, especially since so many classes are starving for useful spammable."

Don't think there is anything particularly wrong with wanting some additional damage types, but that bit about so many classes starving for a useful spammable is just objectively wrong. Also, just because a class boosts damage of a certain type doesn't mean a spammable using that particular type of damage would be useful. Adding Disease, for instance, would help nobody outside of PvP. Anyone trying to maximize their damage would likely be using the already existing 'Bleed' damage, Fire or Poison.

That being said, it seems to me that is probably the direction they are headed. It's a brand new system, so they will likely be releasing more as the game continues to iterate on itself.

It's not 100% true that there are many classes starving for a useful spammable, but that also doesn't mean that there are none that are starving either.

Looking at the different damage types and spammables available for each:

Primary Spammable abilities by (pure/single) damage type (not including class skills):
Shock has wield soul
Frost has wield soul, shield throw, travelling knife and destructive reach (only ice reach got the increased impact damage, flame reach and shock reach never got this buff to allow them to be options).
Fire has wield soul
Poison has lethal arrow and travelling knife
Disease has wield soul
Bleed has bloodthirst, wield soul and travelling knife
Physical has wield soul, travelling knife, shield throw, rapid strikes uppercut (both morphs), focused aim, silver shards, crushing weapon and inner beast
Magic has wield soul, travelling knife, shield throw, elemental weapon and eviscerate (both morphs).

There are 3 types here that are severely lacking in options (fire, shock and disease).

If we look at class abilities:
shock has nothing
frost has (technically) dread (arc)
fire has whip (both morphs) in the fire themed class (DK) and flame skull (necro)
poison has venom skull (necro)
disease has nothing
bleed has cutting dive (warden)
physical has biting jabs (plar), surprise attack (NB), crystal weapon (sorc) and technically flail (arc)
magic has puncturing strikes (plar), concealed (NB), crystal frags (sorc), cliff racer (warden), runeblades (both morphs, arc)

There are 2 here that have literally nothing available, 1 of which has the main theme of a class be centered around that damage type (shock).

Combining class and non-class spammables, shock damage and disease damage only have 1 single option available (wield soul), flame damage only has 3 options, 2 of which are class locked (wield soul, skulls and whip), poison has 3 options, 1 of which is class locked (lethal arrow, skull and travelling knife)

Crushing shock is a unique case since it technically deals flame, frost and shock damage, but being a combination of all 3, it technically only gets 1/3 of the buffs that type associated passives grant to other single type abilities compared to other spammables that get the full benefit of said passives.

There definitely are some classes that are starving for options that fit their designated theme.
- Magicka Sorcerer (shock) has nothing for shock damage outside of wield soul, so the classes 5% boost to it's themed shock damage from the energized passive is essentially useless for magicka sorcerer if it's not using shock damage wield soul.
- Mag DK (flame) only has whip and wield soul, but at least has more than 1 option.
- Stam DK (poison) only has lethal arrow and travelling knife, but again, at least has more than 1 option.

The other classes are typically magic damage or physical damage as their primary types/themes, since the other classes don't really have a specific type they focus on in terms of elements or physical types, outside of warden (frost for mag and bleed for stam).

As for maxing out damage, take Sorcerer for example. There is only 1 option available to that class: Stamina Sorcerer with a physical damage spammable.
Magicka sorcerer can't properly utilize the shock damage portion of the energized passive since outside of specifically wield soul (with shock damage focus), there are zero other options for shock damage, since shock reach never got the impact damage increase that ice reach got and there's no other shock damage abilities or scribing skills available. This means that Sorcerer going magicka will always be ~5% behind stamina sorcerer that has countless and varied options available that takes advantage of this passive.

This isn't to say that there's no spammable, but looking at the options, there are definitely some classes/themes/types that have significantly limited options available compared to others that have a clear feast of options to choose from.

Hopefully ZOS focuses on shock and disease as the top priority to be added to the scribing skills, with poison and fire following, since those 4 types are the least represented/have the fewest options available of all the different damage types across both class skills and non-class skills, even for the classes with those respective themes.

Kahnak · February 6

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Kahnak wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Traveling knife damage types should be inclusive of all the damage types, especially since so many classes are starving for useful spammable. Having 3 martial types, one elemental type, and then a generic magic knife as the only options seems like it was designed with the intent of giving specific classes/builds a spammable as opposed to making it functional for everyone. Adding disease, flame, and shock damage types would make skill applicable across the board and help provide some non-meta classes an option to step out of the shadows a bit (shock knife on magsorc for example)

"Traveling knife damage types should be inclusive of all the damage types, especially since so many classes are starving for useful spammable."

Don't think there is anything particularly wrong with wanting some additional damage types, but that bit about so many classes starving for a useful spammable is just objectively wrong. Also, just because a class boosts damage of a certain type doesn't mean a spammable using that particular type of damage would be useful. Adding Disease, for instance, would help nobody outside of PvP. Anyone trying to maximize their damage would likely be using the already existing 'Bleed' damage, Fire or Poison.

That being said, it seems to me that is probably the direction they are headed. It's a brand new system, so they will likely be releasing more as the game continues to iterate on itself.

It's not 100% true that there are many classes starving for a useful spammable, but that also doesn't mean that there are none that are starving either.

Looking at the different damage types and spammables available for each:
Primary Spammable abilities by (pure/single) damage type (not including class skills):
Shock has wield soul
Frost has wield soul, shield throw, travelling knife and destructive reach (only ice reach got the increased impact damage, flame reach and shock reach never got this buff to allow them to be options).
Fire has wield soul
Poison has lethal arrow and travelling knife
Disease has wield soul
Bleed has bloodthirst, wield soul and travelling knife
Physical has wield soul, travelling knife, shield throw, rapid strikes uppercut (both morphs), focused aim, silver shards, crushing weapon and inner beast
Magic has wield soul, travelling knife, shield throw, elemental weapon and eviscerate (both morphs).

There are 3 types here that are severely lacking in options (fire, shock and disease).

If we look at class abilities:
shock has nothing
frost has (technically) dread (arc)
fire has whip (both morphs) in the fire themed class (DK) and flame skull (necro)
poison has venom skull (necro)
disease has nothing
bleed has cutting dive (warden)
physical has biting jabs (plar), surprise attack (NB), crystal weapon (sorc) and technically flail (arc)
magic has puncturing strikes (plar), concealed (NB), crystal frags (sorc), cliff racer (warden), runeblades (both morphs, arc)

There are 2 here that have literally nothing available, 1 of which has the main theme of a class be centered around that damage type (shock).

Combining class and non-class spammables, shock damage and disease damage only have 1 single option available (wield soul), flame damage only has 3 options, 2 of which are class locked (wield soul, skulls and whip), poison has 3 options, 1 of which is class locked (lethal arrow, skull and travelling knife)

Crushing shock is a unique case since it technically deals flame, frost and shock damage, but being a combination of all 3, it technically only gets 1/3 of the buffs that type associated passives grant to other single type abilities compared to other spammables that get the full benefit of said passives.

There definitely are some classes that are starving for options that fit their designated theme.
- Magicka Sorcerer (shock) has nothing for shock damage outside of wield soul, so the classes 5% boost to it's themed shock damage from the energized passive is essentially useless for magicka sorcerer if it's not using shock damage wield soul.
- Mag DK (flame) only has whip and wield soul, but at least has more than 1 option.
- Stam DK (poison) only has lethal arrow and travelling knife, but again, at least has more than 1 option.

The other classes are typically magic damage or physical damage as their primary types/themes, since the other classes don't really have a specific type they focus on in terms of elements or physical types, outside of warden (frost for mag and bleed for stam).

As for maxing out damage, take Sorcerer for example. There is only 1 option available to that class: Stamina Sorcerer with a physical damage spammable.
Magicka sorcerer can't properly utilize the shock damage portion of the energized passive since outside of specifically wield soul (with shock damage focus), there are zero other options for shock damage, since shock reach never got the impact damage increase that ice reach got and there's no other shock damage abilities or scribing skills available. This means that Sorcerer going magicka will always be ~5% behind stamina sorcerer that has countless and varied options available that takes advantage of this passive.

This isn't to say that there's no spammable, but looking at the options, there are definitely some classes/themes/types that have significantly limited options available compared to others that have a clear feast of options to choose from.

Hopefully ZOS focuses on shock and disease as the top priority to be added to the scribing skills, with poison and fire following, since those 4 types are the least represented/have the fewest options available of all the different damage types across both class skills and non-class skills, even for the classes with those respective themes.

"It's not 100% true that there are many classes starving for a useful spammable, but that also doesn't mean that there are none that are starving either."

We're talking about classes starving for a spammable here, not damage types/themes that are missing a corresponding spammable. Not the same thing. There are no classes starving for a useful spammable ability, period. That was the only point I was trying to make. With the only exception being the resto staff, there are at least two weapon abilities per weapon that people are using as a spammable at any one time. Each class has at least one, if not two spammable abilities. Psijic skill line has a spammable. You can use Silver Shards as a spammable. I've seen people use Fire Rune as a spammable. This is without the introduction of the new scribing skills. So, with a surfeit of spammable abilities to choose from, the term 'starving' is a gross exaggeration.

As far as wanting to be thematic is concerned, I'm all for it. Theme it up. Do all Oblivion damage if you want to. That's what makes the game great. I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with that or even arguing against it.

"Hopefully ZOS focuses on shock and disease as the top priority to be added to the scribing skills, with poison and fire following, since those 4 types are the least represented/have the fewest options available of all the different damage types across both class skills and non-class skills, even for the classes with those respective themes."

And another point I previously made that I feel like I have to revisit, because it seems like you just kind of skimmed my post without reading it. It's all fine and good to want some thematic options, but placing missing thematic options as a priority may not be particularly useful for the game. As I said before, outside of PVP, where I hardly see disease damage anyway, there isn't much value in disease damage mechanically. So, outside of the few people who want to play a Necromancer that does disease damage for literally no other reason than RP, what would be the point of prioritizing it? People wouldn't use it for the same reason people don't use the Pestilent Colossus morph or Detonating Siphon. From what I understand, a significant portion of RPers have already vanished from the game because of chat moderation, so you're talking about catering to an ever dwindling group who may not even do much combat in the first place.

madmufffin · February 6

Kahnak wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Traveling knife damage types should be inclusive of all the damage types, especially since so many classes are starving for useful spammable. Having 3 martial types, one elemental type, and then a generic magic knife as the only options seems like it was designed with the intent of giving specific classes/builds a spammable as opposed to making it functional for everyone. Adding disease, flame, and shock damage types would make skill applicable across the board and help provide some non-meta classes an option to step out of the shadows a bit (shock knife on magsorc for example)

"Traveling knife damage types should be inclusive of all the damage types, especially since so many classes are starving for useful spammable."

Don't think there is anything particularly wrong with wanting some additional damage types, but that bit about so many classes starving for a useful spammable is just objectively wrong. Also, just because a class boosts damage of a certain type doesn't mean a spammable using that particular type of damage would be useful. Adding Disease, for instance, would help nobody outside of PvP. Anyone trying to maximize their damage would likely be using the already existing 'Bleed' damage, Fire or Poison.

That being said, it seems to me that is probably the direction they are headed. It's a brand new system, so they will likely be releasing more as the game continues to iterate on itself.

Yes every class has an option to use as a spammable, but that does't mean it is good. I'm talking about equitable distribution of spammables. NB and Sorc both are in pretty sad states for spammables since Concealed passive got nuked and magsorc just is sad with everything. When you look at what those classes have and then compare it to whip, venom skull, or jabs, it's a pretty big gap.

Kahnak · February 7

Uh, I'm pretty sure Sorc is top single target DPS at the moment using crystal frags, so I don't know what you're talking about. People don't use Venom skull over Ricochet skull and Jabs gets nerfed like every two years. For NB, Surprise Attack causes Sundered AND can proc Off Balance AND is a guaranteed critical strike every three seconds. So, again, I don't know what you're talking about. If you're really that set on playing Magicka NB with no crossover whatsoever, you should probably be using Swallow Soul anyway and, if not SS, a Magic Damage version of Travelling Knife already exists. Do you play these classes or are you just parroting anecdotes here?

Lozeenge · February 7

Kahnak wrote: »

For NB, Surprise Attack causes Sundered AND can proc Off Balance AND is a guaranteed critical strike every three seconds. So, again, I don't know what you're talking about. If you're really that set on playing Magicka NB with no crossover whatsoever, you should probably be using Swallow Soul anyway and, if not SS, a Magic Damage version of Travelling Knife already exists.

people looping back around to suggesting Swallow Soul outside of maybe solo content just shows where all that effort towards reworking Concealed Weapon into PVE ended up becoming. Surprise Attack is only back in vogue because ZOS was so adamant towards having invisibility part of an already notorious rotation that continues to chase people away from the class.

Kahnak · February 7

Lozeenge wrote: »

Kahnak wrote: »

For NB, Surprise Attack causes Sundered AND can proc Off Balance AND is a guaranteed critical strike every three seconds. So, again, I don't know what you're talking about. If you're really that set on playing Magicka NB with no crossover whatsoever, you should probably be using Swallow Soul anyway and, if not SS, a Magic Damage version of Travelling Knife already exists.

people looping back around to suggesting Swallow Soul outside of maybe solo content just shows where all that effort towards reworking Concealed Weapon into PVE ended up becoming. Surprise Attack is only back in vogue because ZOS was so adamant towards having invisibility part of an already notorious rotation that continues to chase people away from the class.

"Surprise Attack is only back in vogue because ZOS was so adamant towards having invisibility part of an already notorious rotation that continues to chase people away from the class."

Yet, every year there are always a handful NB's doing top damage in HM groups despite the 5 or 6 'BUFF NB' threads that are on the forums at any one time. Turns out 1-Bar Heavy attack builds and 3 Button Ur-Mage Arcanist rotations aren't ideal for helping people understand how to get good DPS out of an advanced class.

Lozeenge · February 8

Kahnak wrote: »

Yet, every year there are always a handful NB's doing top damage in HM groups despite the 5 or 6 'BUFF NB' threads that are on the forums at any one time. Turns out 1-Bar Heavy attack builds and 3 Button Ur-Mage Arcanist rotations aren't ideal for helping people understand how to get good DPS out of an advanced class.

not saying i wholly disagree with this sentiment as a nightblade main but when the class is pitted against the likes of velothi arcanists or oaken sorcs people are gonna wonder why nightblades are the way they are. everyone has their own reasons for playing whoever but imo people falling off the class due to the skill floor is a failure of design even from the perspective of someone who enjoys it for the skill ceiling. trying to coach to new players about the class is like explaining trigonometry to baby seals.

SalamanNZ · February 8

Physical scribing skills such as traveling knife should have physical damage like bleed and poison. And magical should only be magical damage

ESO_Nightingale · February 9

SalamanNZ wrote: »

Physical scribing skills such as traveling knife should have physical damage like bleed and poison. And magical should only be magical damage

Hard disagree.

Athometodd · February 9

I agree with this request - scribing skills by design should lean into player choice and open up builds. With only destro and resto-staves as 'magicka' weapons, having access to the passives of the othe weapons (vs the passives of soul magic, lol) by adding all damge types would be most welcome.

Kahnak · February 10

Lozeenge wrote: »

Kahnak wrote: »

Yet, every year there are always a handful NB's doing top damage in HM groups despite the 5 or 6 'BUFF NB' threads that are on the forums at any one time. Turns out 1-Bar Heavy attack builds and 3 Button Ur-Mage Arcanist rotations aren't ideal for helping people understand how to get good DPS out of an advanced class.

not saying i wholly disagree with this sentiment as a nightblade main but when the class is pitted against the likes of velothi arcanists or oaken sorcs people are gonna wonder why nightblades are the way they are. everyone has their own reasons for playing whoever but imo people falling off the class due to the skill floor is a failure of design even from the perspective of someone who enjoys it for the skill ceiling. trying to coach to new players about the class is like explaining trigonometry to baby seals.

"when the class is pitted against the likes of velothi arcanists or oaken sorcs people are gonna wonder why nightblades are the way they are."

Yeah, that's understandable. That's just another reason why I feel like these Mythics that effect the Meta in that way are particularly unhealthy for the game. Oakensoul I can live with, because generally the DPS from one bar builds tends to plateau and it opens up a part of the game for people who play a little more casually or have difficulty playing in the traditional way. I say that as someone who really is starting to get a little tired of seeing everyone with a heavy attack build, but I'm trying to be fair. Velothi's I think is the one that is particularly egregious, especially because it encourages folks to NOT light attack, which is a fundamental part of DPS in any other situation, and rewards that player with a significant DPS increase. I'm sure it will be nerfed eventually, but it's definitely worn out it's welcome as a play style as far as I'm concerned. Between the two, it's really easy to see why trying to go from Velothi's Arcanist to a Nightblade would be like trying to learn a foreign language.

Stx · February 10

I don’t understand why you can’t use all damage types for all scribed abilities.