they do not exist.

Well, maybe not something that reduces the effectiveness of AoE Cleave, but maybe something like a Tank NPC that blocks providing high damage reduction to nearby allies (enemy npcs), requiring a CC skill that can stun through block in order to make those nearby enemies vulnerable again. This probably relegates such a skill to the tank or off-tank though, but does change it up from the typical bash-interrupt kind of thing.

I think a beam nerf is inevitable in some form at this point. Having range, cleave, and protection (shield from pragmatic) is just too much for one skill when every other competing skill is like "pick one/two." Even the new dk flame breath channel is a wider cone but slightly shorter range and has no self heal/shield and there is still a lot of builds showing how the new dk skills despite intent buff the fatecarver builds.

Some practical solutions is to add a beam equivalent to every class, but didn't many people myself included say they wanted unique skills for classes and not just a reskin of another class's ability? I don't feel this is a fulfilling solution personally. Another option could be more single target friendly boss fights that have mechanics that do not rely on cleaving down a dangerous ad that may or may not be far away and not able to be pulled in by the tanks, which requires creativity from the ZOS teams to make fights that feel fun and interesting while playing out like that. I don't like or think it's healthy to have negative deterrents like the netches in brp (and being there recently with 3 beam dps I don't think it works even, nor will it as power creep naturally rises and shifts what is easy and hard in game).

Emeratis wrote: »

I think a beam nerf is inevitable in some form at this point. Having range, cleave, and protection (shield from pragmatic) is just too much for one skill when every other competing skill is like "pick one/two." Even the new dk flame breath channel is a wider cone but slightly shorter range and has no self heal/shield and there is still a lot of builds showing how the new dk skills despite intent buff the fatecarver builds.

Some practical solutions is to add a beam equivalent to every class, but didn't many people myself included say they wanted unique skills for classes and not just a reskin of another class's ability? I don't feel this is a fulfilling solution personally. Another option could be more single target friendly boss fights that have mechanics that do not rely on cleaving down a dangerous ad that may or may not be far away and not able to be pulled in by the tanks, which requires creativity from the ZOS teams to make fights that feel fun and interesting while playing out like that. I don't like or think it's healthy to have negative deterrents like the netches in brp (and being there recently with 3 beam dps I don't think it works even, nor will it as power creep naturally rises and shifts what is easy and hard in game).

It's pretty ridiculous because don't forget flail prior to beam. Flail heals, applies debuff, AND stuns everything before getting beamed down.

I saw Dooma making builds with the dual weild scribe throw abilities. I never ended up trying it, too niche? Only viable solo? I miss the old lightning staff heavy splash.

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

For starters, take the direct damage off of the beam and put it back to AOE like it was bc that's exactly what it is, AOE. Or, every other AOE in the game including elemental explosion needs to be direct damage. And not have a 2 second delay either.
You'd also have to give pretty much every other dps in the game a lot more cleave, or reduce the cleave of that beam so it doesn't exceed other dps.
No matter what happens, they've taken the longer way more expensive route since they've created this issue

Beam (arc’s beam, not templar’s) is still AoE. Always has been. The change to direct damage did not change this. Quite a few other AoE skills, especially spammables or semi-spammables, are also direct (e.g. pulsar, whirling blades, sub assault/deep fissure, flail).

We have plenty of examples of AoE direct damage, single target direct damage, AoE DoTs, and single target DoTs. These are all represented in game, and some skills are made up of multiple components from more than one of these buckets, so it doesn’t follow that the presence of one direct AoE skill in game means that all AoEs in game need to be direct.

The opposite of direct damage is damage over time, which is what the beams used to be. No skill component (barring a bug) is both direct and DoT.

Both beams were changed to direct damage from damage over time in part to avoid strong combinations, like Grave Lord’s +25% damage to DoTs (Rapid Rot passive + Grave Lord’s Sacrifice effect). This change allowed the Grave Lord line to still help DoTs in general without making the beams even more powerful. Turning them back to DoT would allow this interaction again, unless channeled skills were then excluded. That’s what they did with Cruel Flurry after it was brought to their attention that templar beam should have worked with it but was not working properly.

Nyseto wrote: »

Ranged cleave in pve is bonkers (aka fatecarver). What can be done to counter this without nerfing beam? It's gotten to the point where if a build isn'r ranged cleaving, it's trash for pve.

Without nerfing? You can't.