Could Scribed abilities get damage buffs?

ArchMikem · July 25

Subclassing helped turn my Stamblade into a SpellSword, so I went and scribed myself a Shocking Soul as a Shock damage utility attack that fit the theme and benefits from Storm Calling, but,

I'd have expected the tooltip for the Damage Over Time affix to say 18,000, not 8,000. A DoT usually is a larger amount, so why is it so low for this one?

nb_rich · July 29

In my opinion with the current stats of scribing, the scribed skills are more used for the buffs/debuffs you need instead of using the skills for damage. For example people will add major prophecy and savagery to banner since you usually drop a skill like camo hunter since it needs to be double bar. For myself I used to use Soul Burst, not for damage but for breach and also added class mastery to it for a crux. Keep in mind im talking from a PvE perspective, PvP can be different

YandereGirlfriend · July 29

Yeah, the DOTs and the HOTs on basically all Scribing abilities have been over-nerfed.

At least for HOTs, they're about half the value of any standard HOT like Regen or Vigor and basically not worth using in any context unless you need it to proc SPC or something from just tick spam.

Vaqual · July 29

Usually the DoTs with higher tooltips have no or lower direct damage components (or a tradeoff on both). In your version you get 18k per activation in 10s. Compare that to your 20s DoTs. Is the tooltip higher than 36 k on that build? There are very few DoTs playing in that league and most of those only make it due to extra status proc damage.

BasP · July 30

Truth be told, I think the damage of Scribing abilities is fine the way it is. If they'd be much stronger, they'd probably overshadow a lot of class skills (except for the outliers, of course), leading to even more homogenization.

As for your example - the only other 10 second DOT with a Direct Damage component that comes to mind is Cutting Dive. The upfront damage of Wield Soul is exactly the same as Cutting Dive's, but the DOT is indeed a bit weaker. The fact that you can add a Major Buff or Debuff to Wield Soul arguably makes up for that damage loss though.

For reference, these were my values on the same build:

YandereGirlfriend · July 30

BasP wrote: »

Truth be told, I think the damage of Scribing abilities is fine the way it is. If they'd be much stronger, they'd probably overshadow a lot of class skills (except for the outliers, of course), leading to even more homogenization.

As for your example - the only other 10 second DOT with a Direct Damage component that comes to mind is Cutting Dive. The upfront damage of Wield Soul is exactly the same as Cutting Dive's, but the DOT is indeed a bit weaker. The fact that you can add a Major Buff or Debuff to Wield Soul arguably makes up for that damage loss though.

For reference, these were my values on the same build:

But also - no passives at all on Soul Magic vs. cracked passives on Warden.

People would use Bird if Bird felt good to use. Gotta speed up that travel time by like 2x for that to happen, though.

MincMincMinc · July 30

nb_rich wrote: »

In my opinion with the current stats of scribing, the scribed skills are more used for the buffs/debuffs you need instead of using the skills for damage. For example people will add major prophecy and savagery to banner since you usually drop a skill like camo hunter since it needs to be double bar. For myself I used to use Soul Burst, not for damage but for breach and also added class mastery to it for a crux. Keep in mind im talking from a PvE perspective, PvP can be different

Scribing literally shows us the issue with the current combat design of the game. ACTIVE skills shouldn't solely be slotted for PASSIVE portion of the skill. Hell I am pretty sure zos has stated they want the active portions to be more important.......but then a paragraph down in the patch notes they will boost a passive portion on an active skill so IDK.

BasP · July 30

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

Truth be told, I think the damage of Scribing abilities is fine the way it is. If they'd be much stronger, they'd probably overshadow a lot of class skills (except for the outliers, of course), leading to even more homogenization.

As for your example - the only other 10 second DOT with a Direct Damage component that comes to mind is Cutting Dive. The upfront damage of Wield Soul is exactly the same as Cutting Dive's, but the DOT is indeed a bit weaker. The fact that you can add a Major Buff or Debuff to Wield Soul arguably makes up for that damage loss though.

For reference, these were my values on the same build:

But also - no passives at all on Soul Magic vs. cracked passives on Warden.

People would use Bird if Bird felt good to use. Gotta speed up that travel time by like 2x for that to happen, though.

Eh, from a PvE perspective I wouldn't call those passives cracked at all - I feel like Herald of the Tome, Aedric Spear and Assassination, for example, have much better passives. I do hope ZOS reworks the Soul Magic passives someday so that you actually benefit from using its skills in combat, though.

As for Cutting Dive - I think it'd need to have a stacking bleed again (or some other mechanic that increases its damage) in order to really make it worth using. Especially now that subclassing is a thing and everyone has access to both better spammables as well as skills that are better than Cutting Dive when it's used as a DoT. That said, I of course I wouldn't be against an increased travel time too

.

tsaescishoeshiner · July 30

Each cast of your Shocking Soul does deal 18000 damage. It's just not all DoT damage. The fact that it happens early makes it debatably better than most DoTs, because you deal more damage sooner and are less punished for re-upping the DoT too soon. Although it's probably a bit more expensive than other single-target DoTs.

They could probably adjust this by making the DoT signature script reduce the direct damage portion and make the ability a bit cheaper.

The DoTs and HoTs are so low because the skills are budgeted around their direct/focus effect. For that DoT to deal 18000 damage, the direct damage would have to be reduced, like for Vampire's Bane or Destructive Touch, which only deal a little bit of direct damage.

All this said, I would like if we could make DoTs through scribing, but that would be tricky to implement (would it replace a script or be its own grimoire?) and these hybrid abilities deal similar damage anyway.

You can use that Shocking Soul as either a DoT or a spammable, but it would be too much if it was fully both in one skill. If only Soul Magic had better combat passives.

Thumbless_Bot · July 31

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Yeah, the DOTs and the HOTs on basically all Scribing abilities have been over-nerfed.

At least for HOTs, they're about half the value of any standard HOT like Regen or Vigor and basically not worth using in any context unless you need it to proc SPC or something from just tick spam.

The scribing hots are about as effective as health recovery in pvp. In other words, basically nonexistent.

My hunch is that they are as bad as they are to prevent groups from stacking multiple powerful hots... imagine having 12 instances of vigor and rapid rege..... oh, wait... actually, come to think of it, I have no idea why they are as weak as they are....

Major_Mangle · July 31

Thumbless_Bot wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Yeah, the DOTs and the HOTs on basically all Scribing abilities have been over-nerfed.

At least for HOTs, they're about half the value of any standard HOT like Regen or Vigor and basically not worth using in any context unless you need it to proc SPC or something from just tick spam.

The scribing hots are about as effective as health recovery in pvp. In other words, basically nonexistent.

My hunch is that they are as bad as they are to prevent groups from stacking multiple powerful hots... imagine having 12 instances of vigor and rapid rege..... oh, wait... actually, come to think of it, I have no idea why they are as weak as they are....

Because organised groups actually stack those HoTs from scribing abilities. Healing burst (soul burst) is incredibly common in a 4+ man group.

YandereGirlfriend · August 1

For PvP, those super weaksauce HOTs are going to become even more dead than they already are once that new set arrives and you're taking 2% more damage for your lousy 250 HP per 2 seconds HOT.

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Each cast of your Shocking Soul does deal 18000 damage. It's just not all DoT damage. The fact that it happens early makes it debatably better than most DoTs, because you deal more damage sooner and are less punished for re-upping the DoT too soon. Although it's probably a bit more expensive than other single-target DoTs.

They could probably adjust this by making the DoT signature script reduce the direct damage portion and make the ability a bit cheaper.

The DoTs and HoTs are so low because the skills are budgeted around their direct/focus effect. For that DoT to deal 18000 damage, the direct damage would have to be reduced, like for Vampire's Bane or Destructive Touch, which only deal a little bit of direct damage.

All this said, I would like if we could make DoTs through scribing, but that would be tricky to implement (would it replace a script or be its own grimoire?) and these hybrid abilities deal similar damage anyway.

You can use that Shocking Soul as either a DoT or a spammable, but it would be too much if it was fully both in one skill. If only Soul Magic had better combat passives.

Is there a compelling reason why DOTs even do the up-front tick thing like the NB Siphoning DOT and the Templar DOT? It never really made much sense to me. I would much rather a DOT just be a DOT and deal a uniform amount of damage every tick. So what you say about being able to Scribe a purely DOT ability at the proper overall strength sounds very good to me. That is a clear missing niche along with Execute and some others.