Please remove "with a X ability slotted" requirements for passives

moo_2021 · February 8

For class passives. What's the purpose other than to limit build choices and force us to slot otherwise useless abilities? I mean passives like Flourish
and Hemorrhage, not those with scaled effects to the numbers of abilities.

ankeor · February 8

I disagree.
Classes are already quite homogenized within past years.
It started first with psijic skill line, later hybridization and as last scrybing.
Any distinction between different builds is achived thru class skill lines and removing the requirement to use them will eradicate build diversity even further.

DestroyerPewnack · February 8

ankeor wrote: »

I disagree.
Classes are already quite homogenized within past years.
It started first with psijic skill line, later hybridization and as last scrybing.
Any distinction between different builds is achived thru class skill lines and removing the requirement to use them will eradicate build diversity even further.

I don't think that's what he meant. He's saying a specific class should have access to all of their class skill line passives, even if they don't use skills from that specific skill line. If anything, that would add more to class identity, by turning on all their class-specific passives, and making the difference between them and other classes more apparent.

I think it's a great idea!

ankeor · February 8

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

ankeor wrote: »

I disagree.
Classes are already quite homogenized within past years.
It started first with psijic skill line, later hybridization and as last scrybing.
Any distinction between different builds is achived thru class skill lines and removing the requirement to use them will eradicate build diversity even further.

I don't think that's what he meant. He's saying a specific class should have access to all of their class skill line passives, even if they don't use skills from that specific skill line. If anything, that would add more to class identity, by turning on all their class-specific passives, and making the difference between them and other classes more apparent.

I think it's a great idea!

I am sorry but you are wrong with class identity. Active skills is the most important distinguishers between different play styles not the passive skills. Most passives just increase stats and does very little when it comes to make your toon look different compared to other classes and roles.

If the toon is not forced to use its own class skills to get benefits of certain passives then you are free to use other more powerful common skills (weapon,guilds etc) making each class feel much more similar to play.

Main problem is the common skill lines have often more powerful skills compared to some of the class skills.
They should should be weaker but can be useful by covering weakness of each class.

For example destruction staff could have more aoe oriented skills which cover a class not having enough cleave.
Or bow could be more single target oriented for a class with not enough single target focused skills.
But they should never perform better than class skills.

DestroyerPewnack · February 8

ankeor wrote: »

I am sorry but you are wrong with class identity. Active skills is the most important distinguishers between different play styles not the passive skills. Most passives just increase stats and does very little when it comes to make your toon look different compared to other classes and roles.

If the toon is not forced to use its own class skills to get benefits of certain passives then you are free to use other more powerful common skills (weapon,guilds etc) making each class feel much more similar to play.

Main problem is the common skill lines have often more powerful skills compared to some of the class skills.
They should should be weaker but can be useful by covering weakness of each class.

For example destruction staff could have more aoe oriented skills which cover a class not having enough cleave.
Or bow could be more single target oriented for a class with not enough single target focused skills.
But they should never perform better than class skills.

Nah. Nightblades for example have the Hemorrhage passive, which gives minor savagery to you and your group. But it requires an Assassination skill slotted. The ability to give your group minor savagery is part of your class identity. However, if you choose to run a build that doesn't use any Assassination skills, say goodbye to that part of your class identity. And the people you're playing with have no idea if you will be providing them with that buff, unless they double check to make sure you're using an Assassination skill. In OP's world view, as soon as the party sees that they have a Nightblade in their group, they would immediately know that they have minor savagery covered.

Arcanists have a passive that gives 129 mag and stam recovery for each Soldier of Apocrypha skill you have slotted (the tanky skill line.) If it gave you a flat number instead (300 for example,) then Arcanist dd's and healers wouldn't have to worry about sustain as much as other classes, which would lead to different sets and skills being used, which would lead to more build diversity and better defined class identity.

Maybe you haven't given OP's suggestion enough thought, or maybe you don't know enough about the different class passives in the game. Or maybe you think class identity is a problem that should be tackled in an entirely different manner. At any rate, it's debatable. I just happen to think it's one of the better suggestions I've read on the forums in a while.

DeadlySerious · February 8

This action would create very substantial power creep. Seems like a bad idea to me.

ankeor · February 8

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

ankeor wrote: »

I am sorry but you are wrong with class identity. Active skills is the most important distinguishers between different play styles not the passive skills. Most passives just increase stats and does very little when it comes to make your toon look different compared to other classes and roles.

If the toon is not forced to use its own class skills to get benefits of certain passives then you are free to use other more powerful common skills (weapon,guilds etc) making each class feel much more similar to play.

Main problem is the common skill lines have often more powerful skills compared to some of the class skills.
They should should be weaker but can be useful by covering weakness of each class.

For example destruction staff could have more aoe oriented skills which cover a class not having enough cleave.
Or bow could be more single target oriented for a class with not enough single target focused skills.
But they should never perform better than class skills.

Maybe you haven't given OP's suggestion enough thought, or maybe you don't know enough about the different class passives in the game. Or maybe you think class identity is a problem that should be tackled in an entirely different manner. At any rate, it's debatable. I just happen to think it's one of the better suggestions I've read on the forums in a while.

No I have given thought.
Should class identity be tackled in a different manner? Yes I agree on that. But it is not happening. Class identiy keeps eroding. And implementing OP's suggestions before making classes feel unique to play using their own class skills will further homogenize the classes.

Tonturri · February 8

I don't really consider 'class identity' to be 'generic number go up'. Increasing my regen or something by a hundred or so, give or take, doesn't really mean anything to me. Sure, some classes actually have terrible sustain compared to others and this could help them, but I'd much rather have actually unique passives.

To be sure, generic passives can contribute to class identity - like if one class has more regens while another has a lot more armor. And personally, I don't like the forced 'while slotted' bonuses, the nonsensical gremlin in my head who has no experience in anything but thinks it knows stuff is suspicious that having 5-10 different stats change every time I bar swap makes the server hamster unhappy. But I'd rather get actually interesting passives. DK is a good example for a more interesting regen passive - it gains resources when applying burning or poison. It's not the *best*, but it's far better than generic percentage increases.

SugaComa · February 8

Personally I think a lot of the champion passives in the green tree should be moved to skill line passives and the champion points system should have the class passives placed there ... Then you can pick which 4 you want

And just for sh...n giggles remove all weapon passives

VoxAdActa · February 8

Is "class identity" purely about the visual effects produced by someone playing a class?

Because I kind of thought it was about the benefits provided by each class in a specific role.

But if nothing matters for "class identity" other than the flashy-shiny lights that go off when they activate an ability, then I guess I can kind of understand the objections to this idea.

moo_2021 · February 8

ankeor wrote: »

If the toon is not forced to use its own class skills to get benefits of certain passives then you are free to use other more powerful common skills (weapon,guilds etc) making each class feel much more similar to play.

The issue with some skills is not that they're comparably weaker, but utterly useless in many situations.

For example, who use Vitalizing Glyphic or Apocryphal Gate from Curative Runeforms? Only Runemend in this line is useful for non-support roles, but it's not reliable since you could end up healing someone else when you need it most. Does it mean the shield passive is only meant for healers? But then Chakram is quite weak.

YandereGirlfriend · February 9

Glyphic is such a hilariously bad ultimate, it's actually crazy.

Definitely not dogwater tier as Bolstering Darkness-tier but I just cannot imagine looking at its current tuning and being like, "Yep, this looks great!"

VoxAdActa · February 9

Bolstering Darkness is at least kind of useful for Nightblade Sap Tanks....

...wait, where did the Nightblade Sap Tanks go....?

....

I'm still living in 2018, aren't I?

Amottica · February 9

What is the goal here? If it is to homogenize builds even further, making the effects passives have the only difference, then it will achieve that goal.

I think a better path would be to improve the class skills to make them more useful. In the end, we might have some class identity.

James-Wayne · February 9

I think class passives should have a scale attached to them. Don't have class abilities slotted then passive is weak but more class skills you slot the greater the rewards from passives.

How much class identity do you want?

barney2525 · February 10

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

ankeor wrote: »

I disagree.
Classes are already quite homogenized within past years.
It started first with psijic skill line, later hybridization and as last scrybing.
Any distinction between different builds is achived thru class skill lines and removing the requirement to use them will eradicate build diversity even further.

I don't think that's what he meant. He's saying a specific class should have access to all of their class skill line passives, even if they don't use skills from that specific skill line. If anything, that would add more to class identity, by turning on all their class-specific passives, and making the difference between them and other classes more apparent.

I think it's a great idea!

but what would the in game rationale be? All you have to do is slot it to get the passives. hit 50 you got access to them all. This at least implies that your character is aware of the skills and knows how to use them.

After 50 you can remove it from the slot, the passives don't go away.

Taril · February 10

To be honest, class passives could do with an overhaul completely.

Given the large amount of "Generic" passives like the "You get some Ultimate when you use a skill every so often" or "You have X% more stats/damage"

A lot of this stuff could easily be baked into baseline aspects of the game.

Like the ult generation thing could simply be scrapped and have the default ult generation buff from LA/HA/Healing/Blocking simply be increased slightly.

Classes could have their aura buff (DK's Minor Brutality, Sorc's Minor Prophecy, NB's Minor Savagery, Templar's Minor Sorcery, Warden's Minor Toughness, Cro's Minor Sadness, Arc's Minor Evasion) as simply a base effect where it's just auto-applied to anyone in your group.

Stats/damage can be easily added to CP's... Which could actually help some classes out that have bad sustain passives (Like Templar/Cro)

Leaving class passives more about bolstering up their respective skill lines, empowering them and adding more utility (Not just "Your skills last 2s longer" garbage)

KekwLord3000 · February 10

moo_2021 wrote: »

For class passives. What's the purpose other than to limit build choices and force us to slot otherwise useless abilities? I mean passives like Flourish
and Hemorrhage, not those with scaled effects to the numbers of abilities.

The whole idea is so you actually have skills from your class.
Otherwise people would load their chars with weapon/guild skill line and lose the last class identity there is (there is no class identity)

JiubLeRepenti · February 10

I disagree with this suggestion.

According to me, the game is already far too easy in many ways.

It would be insanely broken to allow to get all the passives at the same time, mostly for the (already) OP one bar builds.

olsborg · February 10

I agree. And please rework the entire shadow ultimate for nbs.

moo_2021 · February 10

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

It would be insanely broken to allow to get all the passives at the same time, mostly for the (already) OP one bar builds.

How are one bar builds OP? All top players use two bars and I don't see anyone switching.

magnusthorek · February 10

Personally, I would like to have some skills passive effects active without slotting them, especially classes' and guilds-related ones.

Problem is, as someone mentioned, this could cause a power creep and make some classes — like the outrageous Arcanists <_< — even more powerful than they already are, taking out the little fun of those not playing on harder contents when fighting along them.

moo_2021 · February 10

it wouldn't cause power creep if passives scaling to the numbers of abilities are not touched.

VoxAdActa · February 10

KekwLord3000 wrote: »

The whole idea is so you actually have skills from your class.
Otherwise people would load their chars with weapon/guild skill line and lose the last class identity there is (there is no class identity)

In almost every case, a class skill that performs a specific function is better than a weapon/guild skill that performs the same function. They exist to fill gaps in the class ability list.

If your class doesn't have a good spammable (some arguable examples: Warden, Sorc), you can pick up force shock, silver shards, rapid strikes, or whatever. If your class doesn't have a good burst AOE, you can use carve, that one bow skill (acid arrow?), or impulse. Same for gap closers, sticky dots, ground target AOE/dots, and every other classification.

Almost all of the time, however, if your class lines have a spammable, it's better than the weapon/guild spammables. It usually does more damage and also includes more knock-on effects. Same with every other ability use-case.

(Some notable exceptions are, arguably, the entropy morphs from Mage Guild and consuming trap from Soul Magic, which are good sticky dots on their own.)

People aren't only using class skills for the passives, and they wouldn't stop using class skills if the passive restrictions were removed. There's no universe in which my stamblade drops surprise attack in favor of uppercut, rapid strikes, or silver shards.

moo_2021 · February 10

VoxAdActa wrote: »

People aren't only using class skills for the passives, and they wouldn't stop using class skills if the passive restrictions were removed. There's no universe in which my stamblade drops surprise attack in favor of uppercut, rapid strikes, or silver shards.

Some of us do.

There are NBs using Blood for Blood or bow abilities as the spammable. Curative Runeforms is almost useless in PvP except for healer, and you don't need Warden's Animal Companions on both bars.

Stx · February 10

ankeor wrote: »

I disagree.
Classes are already quite homogenized within past years.
It started first with psijic skill line, later hybridization and as last scrybing.
Any distinction between different builds is achived thru class skill lines and removing the requirement to use them will eradicate build diversity even further.

What causes homogeneity is min/maxing. Which will never go away. Tying class passives to abilities needing to be slotted absolutely restricts build diversity.

Example: I want to make a cool Stam Sorc build like Thor, that uses storm skills and weapon abilities. But wait, to gain powerful Daedric summoning passives, I need to have one of those abilities slotted. To gain powerful buffs from dark magic, I need to cast those abilities.

Example 2: I want to make a poison knight DK build that loads up on poison ardent flame abilities and poison abilities from weapons. Oops, to gain access to 10% weapon power, I need to cast earthen abilities.

There are endless examples like this where cool build themes are made weaker and less viable due to restrictive requirements for class passives.

One thing to note is that ZOS is aware of this issue and has slowly made changes to improve passive accessibility. One of the changes that comes to mind is changing the Burning light passive from Templars to proc from all damage instead of just Aedric spear damage. Which was a great change for build diversity even if it was part of the package of Jabs nerfs.

VoxAdActa · February 11

moo_2021 wrote: »

VoxAdActa wrote: »

People aren't only using class skills for the passives, and they wouldn't stop using class skills if the passive restrictions were removed. There's no universe in which my stamblade drops surprise attack in favor of uppercut, rapid strikes, or silver shards.

Some of us do.

There are NBs using Blood for Blood or bow abilities as the spammable. Curative Runeforms is almost useless in PvP except for healer, and you don't need Warden's Animal Companions on both bars.

Which bow ability? Snipe? I tried that, but it's sooo slow. I hated how clunky it made the rotation. Blood for Blood is fine, I guess, but after quite a bit of testing, Surprise Attack did consistently more damage per strike (I might just not be letting myself get low enough on health to see the benefit).

Warden was one of the classes I mentioned as (arguably) not having a good spammable. Cutting Dive feels like it was intended to be more of a DoT than a spammable, and it's also kind of clunky to rotate around. A lot of people use it, but I find Silver Shards to be a better stand-in for the lack of a true spammable.

Not sure why you're bringing up the healing class line of Arcanist. Aren't Runeblades supposed to be their spammable?

Vaqual · February 11

Yes, fully in favor of that. Or at least make them "either/or", like on Sorc resource passive. Having dead passives while already not bringing the most loaded abilities (as with Hemorrhage) feels twice as punishing.

TheDarkRuler · February 11

Arcanist gives Minor Evasion when you use any "arcanist ability".
Warden gives Minor Toughness when you heal anyone - no class identify required.
Necromancer doesnt give any group buff, it has two enemy debuffs (Minor and Major Vulnerability) going through active skills.

The original classes only give the group buff through specific sub-class skills instead of giving it generally.
Nightblade gives it through assassination abilities and depends on a critical hit.
Sorcerer gives it through dark magic abilities.
Templar requires a Dawn's Wrath abilty and Dragon Knight requires Earthen Heart.

I think, that if you already go the route of enabling passives through anything with Arcanist and Warden, you can ease it with the basic classes.

moo_2021 · February 11

VoxAdActa wrote: »

Not sure why you're bringing up the healing class line of Arcanist. Aren't Runeblades supposed to be their spammable?

not in PvP.

I brought up the healing line because the only thing that does healing there is Runemend, which is unreliable in messy pvp fights, but the line also grants 10% shield boost despite of having no real shield ability (chakram is for group).

And having to balance both pve and pvp makes similar problems worse. How can they ensure all 3 class lines are useful?

Zodiarkslayer · February 11

Personally, I think it is these restrictions that enable one to make specialised builds and to experience class fantasy.
I don't see a problem in forcing players to slot class skills. I'd like to see it as rewarding the player for using class skills.

I get that some don't like it. So, how about a compromise?

Lets keep the slotting requirement for passive activation, but have it slotted on any bar.
The precedent was set by Arcanist and has been expended since. I don't see why ZOS couldn't rework some passives to allow for that.

Edit: @moo_2021 I had to giggle a bit, when I first read the thread title. Maybe a single "X" would suffice?