Class Identity Refresh for Sorc and Warden

Radiate77 · January 19

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

I don’t think they are going to keep the Vvardenfell theme, they would have to be crazy not to use this opportunity to fix the class.

This 100%. One of the largest pieces of feedback i always hear about warden is that people dont like the vvardenfell animals. Frankly i dont really care for them either.

If they ever change the appearance and animal types of the animal companions skills at a base level so as to not alienate players, itll be during the refresh. All theyve got to do to keep the vvardenfell animals is retain the current visuals as skill styles as a free unlock.

How cool would it be if our animal companions were Race specific by default?

ZhuJiuyin · January 19

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

I think you’re right about them going for Poison, but the reason I bring up Fire as a possibility is that Fetcherflies in Vaardenfell deal fire damage. There is a huge volcano in that place, so it makes sense from a lore perspective. Unless of course they distance from Vaardenfell and make Warden a more generic class geographically.

I don't think it's necessary to completely separate Warden and Vaardenfell. After all, Warden's current style is more like the Skaal style of Solstheim, themed around animals and frost. While Morrowind's animals mainly arrived after the Fourth Age, the island was inhabited by Dunmer (primarily pirates or smugglers) and Hircine followers as early as the First Age. Furthermore, Morrowind and Skyrim have always been vying for control of Solstheim. Therefore, saying Warden and Vaardenfell are completely unrelated is a bit of a stretch.

I think the best approach is to give each of Warden's animal morph abilities two distinct appearances, like Sorc's Clannfear and Familiar, or Necro's Archer and Arcanist. Frankly, I think all summoning abilities should follow a similar approach. Storm Atronach should have one morph changed to Daedric Lord, and Winged Twilight should have one morph changed to Dremnaken.

As for Warden, one of the bear morphs can be changed to Nix-Ox, one of the Dive morphs can be changed to Raven, one of the Shalk morphs can be changed to Mudcrab or Ice Wraith, one of the Swarm morphs can be changed to Firemoth, and Netch can be changed to Torchbug. In this way, Warden will have both the old Vaardenfell style and the new and more general continental style. And as long as the damage attribute is limited to frost or poison, no matter which morph the player chooses, it will still be consistent with Warden's seasonal/druid style.

ZhuJiuyin · January 19

Radiate77 wrote: »

I just wish the Clannfear was better. Being 2-bar required, you should expect 2x the value of a normal skill.

The first skill is the pet, the second skill is the heal, why does the heal not provide anything else?

Agreed, Clannfear should be stronger. However, I think Clannfear's active ability should be changed to provide a shield instead of healing, since Twilight Matriarch already provides healing, making Clannfear's healing redundant.

Clannfear could perhaps be changed to: Each tail spike hit inflicts a Minor Breach on the attacked target. Upon activation, it provides a shield to both Clannfear and the player, the shield size scaling with the player's maximum resources.

Malyore · January 19

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Cooperharley wrote: »

When you think of a dragon do you think of poison? I think of everything essentially but poison. Poison sounds like itd fit much better on NB

Today, poison damage is removed from DK for simplification; what about tomorrow? Will ...

Will the elves take your homes? Your... businesses? Your children?! Your very LIVEEEEEEES

YandereGirlfriend · January 19

I like and use the Clannfear Buddy on my Sorcerer tank but it's mainly for vibes because I know that it is not a smart use of my bar space.

Either making the pets one-bar to use or giving them deeper and more useful activation abilities is necessary.

For Clannfear Buddy, having it apply like Major Vitality would be a very nice perk for Sorcerer tanks. And it isn't like that's an insane demand given that you can already have that with a class-agnostic simple Scribing ability. It would also synergize with using Hardened Ward. Having its attacks apply Minor Breach would be the cherry on top.

MindOfTheSwarm · January 19

If Sorcerer is going full into Dark Magic, what does this mean? What is ‘dark’ in this context? Does it strictly mean ‘purple’ Magic Damage? Or does it mean ‘anything daedric’ in origin?

For Pets specifically I want to see this:

Clannfear/Frost Atronach (Physical or Frost)

Ogrim/Flame Atronach (Physical or Fire)

Ultimate: Watcher/Storm Atronach (Physical/Magic or Shock)

This way we can choose to go for a more deadric summoner or elemental Atronach style, or a combination.

Of course the Daedric Prey curse needs to stay or some variant.

I would also like more ‘curse’ style skills a player if they didn’t want pets or zappy playstyles. Although a new Occultist class added later might be better for such a role especially if it goes all Void Witch style.

ZhuJiuyin · January 20

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

If Sorcerer is going full into Dark Magic, what does this mean? What is ‘dark’ in this context? Does it strictly mean ‘purple’ Magic Damage? Or does it mean ‘anything daedric’ in origin?

I believe dark magic encompasses both daedric magic and magic of various attributes. Any magic that can damage, weaken, or drain energy from enemies, while simultaneously strengthening or healing oneself, can be considered dark magic.

For Pets specifically I want to see this:

Clannfear/Frost Atronach (Physical or Frost)

Ogrim/Flame Atronach (Physical or Fire)

Ultimate: Watcher/Storm Atronach (Physical/Magic or Shock)

This way we can choose to go for a more deadric summoner or elemental Atronach style, or a combination.

Agreed. It's a real shame that we can't summon the Atronach with all three elements, especially since there are already many complete models in the game.

Of course the Daedric Prey curse needs to stay or some variant.

I would prefer to see Daedric Prey's damage buff removed and moved directly to the pet itself or its passive ability, so it wouldn't have to be used every 6 seconds.

Tannus15 · January 20

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

If Sorcerer is going full into Dark Magic, what does this mean? What is ‘dark’ in this context? Does it strictly mean ‘purple’ Magic Damage? Or does it mean ‘anything daedric’ in origin?

I believe dark magic encompasses both daedric magic and magic of various attributes. Any magic that can damage, weaken, or drain energy from enemies, while simultaneously strengthening or healing oneself, can be considered dark magic.

For Pets specifically I want to see this:

Clannfear/Frost Atronach (Physical or Frost)

Ogrim/Flame Atronach (Physical or Fire)

Ultimate: Watcher/Storm Atronach (Physical/Magic or Shock)

This way we can choose to go for a more deadric summoner or elemental Atronach style, or a combination.

Agreed. It's a real shame that we can't summon the Atronach with all three elements, especially since there are already many complete models in the game.

Of course the Daedric Prey curse needs to stay or some variant.

I would prefer to see Daedric Prey's damage buff removed and moved directly to the pet itself or its passive ability, so it wouldn't have to be used every 6 seconds.

on prey I partially agree, I think it's buff should be lowered and the pet's passive attacks buffed, however i think the skill allows for some interesting, unique interactions like maw of the infernal, which i would like to see more of in the game, not less.

unfortunately, even in it's current state on a pet build you're better off replacing it with better skills. the damage component for curse in general needs to be brought up to match skills like scorch. it's probably worth pointing out that if mages fury did comparable damage to impale, then no one would run prey at all.

Honestly I can see curse being moved to the dark magic line and being buffed fairly significantly in the sorc rework, as it has no real place in the summoning line apart from the prey morph.

ZhuJiuyin · January 20

Tannus15 wrote: »

on prey I partially agree, I think it's buff should be lowered and the pet's passive attacks buffed, however i think the skill allows for some interesting, unique interactions like maw of the infernal, which i would like to see more of in the game, not less.

Ya, you're right. I forgot about the other set pets. Maybe it would be better to move Prey's damage buff to passive, and that way some pets would deal more area damage, since Prey can only use it on one target.

unfortunately, even in it's current state on a pet build you're better off replacing it with better skills. the damage component for curse in general needs to be brought up to match skills like scorch. it's probably worth pointing out that if mages fury did comparable damage to impale, then no one would run prey at all..

Yes, I think the most ironic thing is that most Sorc skills can be found in better versions in other classes. With the New-DK's Molten Weapons getting buffed, Overload will also become dwarfed.

Honestly I can see curse being moved to the dark magic line and being buffed fairly significantly in the sorc rework, as it has no real place in the summoning line apart from the prey morph.

I think Dark Magic is well-suited for burst or delayed abilities like Proc-Crystal, Curse, and Spines, but the damage of Curse and Spines needs to be increased, or they should be given other buffs. I believe Spines should have its immobiliz effect removed because it overlaps with Daedric Tomb. Furthermore, the damage should be made two-stage: dealing continuous damage over 10 seconds upon hit (which would compensate for Sorc's lack of sticky DoTs), and then dealing a high burst of damage at the end of the duration.
Daedric Tomb should have its quantity limit removed, becoming a large-area ground damage attack that immobilizes the target upon hit.

MincMincMinc · January 20

Overload concepts by themselves could be a thread. Part of me thinks it would be cool to use overload form to give a bonus buff to each skill. For instance while in overload hurricane stays at max value. Or streak only does damage in overload. Maybe critsurge has an increased tickrate like every 0.25s while overloaded.

Malyore · January 20

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Overload concepts by themselves could be a thread. Part of me thinks it would be cool to use overload form to give a bonus buff to each skill. For instance while in overload hurricane stays at max value. Or streak only does damage in overload. Maybe critsurge has an increased tickrate like every 0.25s while overloaded.

Balancing points aside, from a gameplay standpoint that actually sounds really fun. That sounds like an overload.

MincMincMinc · January 20

Malyore wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Overload concepts by themselves could be a thread. Part of me thinks it would be cool to use overload form to give a bonus buff to each skill. For instance while in overload hurricane stays at max value. Or streak only does damage in overload. Maybe critsurge has an increased tickrate like every 0.25s while overloaded.

Balancing points aside, from a gameplay standpoint that actually sounds really fun. That sounds like an overload.

not only balancing, but you can save alot of server performance by hiding the more strenuous points during the ult. Which we could probably do more of in general skill design, where we are seeing basic rotation skills getting so complicated they are competing with ultimates on minute+ cooldowns *COUGH* merciless resolve *COUGH*

katorga · January 20

I actually like leaning into an element for each class.

But I think in trying to undo all the balance damage they did with subclassing.....every class refresh will get:

A functional equal to fatecarver, beam with cleave and classified as direct damage
A skill hits as hard as merciless (the lucky classes like DK will get it as a spammable with cleave, not a delayed single target skill
A set of passives that amp up power based on using base class skills
A monster self heal
A damage shield roughly the size of Hardened Ward

then queue wailing and gnashing of teeth when it all gets neutered when they force vengeance mode on PVP.

MXVIIDREAM · January 21

Hopefully the reskin the pets a bit