Class Refresh and Channeled DPS Options

FoolishOptimist · March 15

Players have always sought alternatives to the High APM spammable and light attack weaving playstyle. We saw it with the Heavy Attack Sorcerer, the Jabs-and-Rads focused Templar and emphasised even more with the introduction of the Arcanist with the Crux-fuelled Beam and Velothi Mythic that increased overall damage while effectively disabling LA/HA damage.

The class refresh gave DragonKnights balanced options:

High performance Single-Target DPS through Whip and LA Weaving
Moderate AoE DPS through sustained channel (Engulfing Dragonflame)

I feel this is the correct pathway. Now that each class won't have dedicated "Damage, Healing and Tanking" skill lines, options can be added to offer greater thematic flavour and utility than "coloured beam".

The Arcanist's channel offers moderate-high DPS (empowered through Crux-consumption) in a straight 22m line while maintaining mobility and preventing interruption while shielded .
The Dragonknight channel offers moderate-High DPS (empowered through an Ultimate) in a 10m radius cone while maintaining mobility.
The Templar offers two channels in its its: Jabs and Beam. Jabs is a pseudo AoE melee channel/spammable that's typically used outside of execute, where beam is single target and takes over during execute.

How do you all envision Class reworks that will introduce a Channeled skill that remains flavourful to the theme, while offering varied utility?

Here are my ideas:

Warden
Skill Line: Green Balance
Skill: Corrupting Pollen becomes Wither and Bloom
Skill Range: 6m radius circle within 28ms
Skill Description: Root yourself to the earth, becoming immobile for the duration of this channel. While channeling over 4.8 seconds, you summon a field of deadly nightshade that deals x Poison Damage every 0.5 seconds. After 2 seconds the plants wither with winter's touch dealing x Frost Damage. The damage of this ability is increased by x% for each Status Effect applied to the target.

Thoughts: As it stands, Corrupting Pollen is designed for PvP with its utility of Major Defile and Minor Cowardice. I personally enjoy this skill but would love to see a more aggressive take, that damages instead of healing.

Alternating between Poison (Spring) and Frost (Winter) appeals to the theme of the Warden's seasonal cycles. An Channeled AoE that can be placed within 28m at the caveat of rooting the Player to the ground makes this a viable choice in many stationary PvE fights while opening making the Player vulnerable in PvP. The Skill was initially inspired by the Venomcallers of Maelstrom Arena while also appealing to the desire for more Frost-based damage abilities from the player base.

Sorcerer
Skill Line: Storm Calling
Skill: Endless Fury
Skill Range: 10 radius circle around caster
Skill Description: Winds lift you off the ground, immobilising you for the duration of this channel. Lighting falls around you dealing x Shock Damage every 0.5 seconds for 4.8 seconds while strong winds interrupt enemies casting. While your Overload Ultimate is active, this skill deals x% more damage and you restore x Magicka for each time an enemy dies within 2 seconds of being hit by this skill.

Thoughts: Currently we lack a Shock-specific spammable outside of Wield Soul through Scribing. This channeled ability is inspired by those NPCs that teleport, levitate and call down lightning around them. Like, Wither and Bloom, this Channel immobilises the Player, making it less than ideal for PvP while remaining suitable for most PvE fights. Though the AoE interrupt makes it a High Risk/High Reward use in PvP. Like Engulfing Dragonfire, it synergises with its Ultimate ability Overload, which is currently not used in PvE, to strengthen the skill's damage and return resources on enemy death. How Overload will be changed in the refresh I'm not sure.

Nightblade
Skill Line: Siphoning
Skill: Sap Essence becomes Essence Drain
Skill Range: 10m radius cone from caster
Skill Description: Siphon the blood from your enemies, dealing x Bleed damage every 0.5 seconds for 4.8 seconds. This is considered Direct damage. Each time an enemy is hit by this channel, they gain a stack of Haemorrhaging. When the target reaches maximum stacks of Haemorrhaging, they take x% additional damage from this skill.

Thoughts: Nightblades and Blood Magic. It's a beautiful combination. I'm not so well versed in Status Effects but Haemorrhaging places a 4 sec DoT per stack and can stack up to 3 times with each stack increasing the damage of Haemorhhaging by 25%. So a moderate amount of DPS from the Skill that's enhanced through the Status Proc seems reasonable. Player remains mobile throughout channel.

Necromancer
Skill Line: Grave Lord
Skill: Mystic Syphon becomes Soulfire Seance
Skill Range: 10m radius circle around caster
Skill Description: Summon spirits of ghostly coldfire that encircle you while you maintain this channel. Deal x Frost damage every 0.5 seconds for 4.8 seconds. The Frost damage from this skill has a chance to inflict the Burning status effect. Consume up to 3 Corpses to increase the damage for this skill by 33% for each corpse consumed. If there are no Corpses present, you can consume up to 3 Soul Gems instead.

Thoughts: I think in the absence of corpses, Necromancers should have the ability to empower their skills by consuming Soul Gems. I've also felt that Frost is more thematically appropriate for Necromancers, but to give it an edge, allow it to be a form of Coldfire, with the potential to inflict Burning, or Deal Flame damage with the chance of inflicting Chilled. Balancing the 33% per Corpse consumed is on par with the Arcanist's Crux.

Turtle_Bot · March 16

I like the idea of being the center of a full on storm for the Sorcerer one but there are 2 issues I have with this current design.

1. Tying it to overload, while thematically appropriate, requires that ZOS fixes every bug from one of the most bugged abilities in the game while simultaneously making the ability worth using both for actual content, not just cheesing parses. This is a massive task.

2. It does not need a self-immobilize on it. Being a channeled ability already reduces movement speed by a massive amount and it cannot be worked around with speed buffs (something I have tested with DK and Arc channels). Putting a self-immobilize on it would just make it into a casual mode only ability since players would be forced to interrupt their own channel to avoid any incoming AoEs, which is something no other channel requires unless the incoming AoE is big enough and centered on the player. The same can be said for the Warden channeled skill.

ZOS has made a lot of mistakes, but one thing they did get right was making movement possible, albeit very limited, while channeling skills, especially for a game like ESO where the combat plays out more like a fighting game rather than a traditional MMO.

FoolishOptimist · March 16

Very valid points Turtle. Thanks for engaging with the post.

ZhuJiuyin · March 16

I don't really like this "circle around caster" design. It creates many inconveniences in endgame PvE and is highly likely to be inferior to Fate/Carver in essence.

Because:
1. Distance: FateCarver has 22 meters, while the most common circle around casters are currently 8 meters (Eye of the Storm) and 10 meters (Northern Storm). However, such distances make dealing with certain mechanics very difficult, and you might even miss the target. And 10 meters isn't considered far in PvE.

2. Restricted Movement: Due to the short attack range, player movement is often restricted, and the reduced speed during channeling creates double the burden.

3. Target Position vs. Actual Hit Range: Since Tank gathers enemies together, the actual hit range of this "circle around caster" design is still mainly in front of the player, meaning other hit ranges are redundant. And we all know that in spreadsheets, we might pay a price for these extra hit ranges, such as reduced damage.

4. Investment and Return Mismatch: For a "circle around caster" channeling skill, we sacrifice 1. range, 2. movement restrictions, and 3. damage reduction due to the increased attack range. The end result often leads to a mismatch between the resources invested and the damage dealt, potentially even a negative investment.

I believe the ideal channeling skills should fall into these categories:

1. Channeling beams like Fatecarver

2. Skills with short range but a large horizontal area of effect, such as Engulfing Dragonfire and Overload Heavy Attack

3. Skills that channel damage to a designated area; currently, there are no such skills in the game.

4. Channeling an attack on a single target while simultaneously damaging surrounding targets. Currently, there are no such skills in the game; the closest is Templar's Radiant Oppression, but it currently only damages a single target.

As for PvE, if a skill is similar to Elemental Explosion but with higher power and a shorter casting time (not instantaneous), I think such a skill would be acceptable to players. For example, some Sorc players used crystals as spam in the past. Unfortunately, the crystal doesn't deal AOE-damage, and its damage is also somewhat lacking.

ZhuJiuyin · March 16

I would like Sorc's channeled abilities designed like this:

Lightning Flood: Range 28 meters, radius 8 meters.

Ability Description：

Channels storm energy at a designated location, dealing shock damage every 0.6 seconds for 4.8 seconds. Affected targets take 10% increased shock damage.
After fully channeling this ability, your critical damage is increased by 10% for 10 seconds.
If Overload is enabled, this ability has a higher chance of causing Concussion.
This ability is considered direct damage.

FoolishOptimist · March 16

I do like this design @ZhuJiuyin
We all know Sorc could use a bump to increased shock damage. I do hear your concerns with a 360 static channel.

YandereGirlfriend · March 16

I think that these are the bones of some very interesting abilities! I also like the vibes you've hit with the names and how they relate to the specific classes' theming.

Elements such as targeted ground AOE versus on-caster AOE are implementation details that can be easily sorted-out and balanced. Though I would agree that on-caster AOEs are likely problematic in content for the reasons that Zhu outlined.

Kalthea · March 16

I'm going to be honest, my biggest concern with the idea of channeled abilities isn't that they are too powerful. It's that their existence makes the life of Healers far more difficult. We have a hard enough time making sure everyone is healed when they're scurrying around without these abilities (not all of us are Templars with auto-aim healing on the lowest health target), and I fear that adding in more channels will not only cause a problem with positioning for healing, but also cause a problem with players' desire to output as much DPS as possible. It's already a struggle in some dungeons to not be laughed at as a Healer when the obvious choice is to just play the high power beam DPS and melt everything.

Also, Warden should channel bugs, I will die on this hill.

LunaFlora · March 16

i have my own hopes and predictions for Fatecarver-likes in other classes

Warden and Nightblade
Growing Swarm and Twisting Path.
already area of effects that you push forward.

i think one of Templar's Radiant Oppression morphs will be changed to be more like in Fatecarver and Engulfing Dragonfire.
As in you can move around and it is an area of effect.

i like your Sorcerer, Warden, and Necromancer ideas too.
multiple damage types for Warden's channel would be nice.
But i think it has to be closer to Fatecarver and Engulfing Dragonfire.

YandereGirlfriend · March 16

Kalthea wrote: »

I'm going to be honest, my biggest concern with the idea of channeled abilities isn't that they are too powerful. It's that their existence makes the life of Healers far more difficult. We have a hard enough time making sure everyone is healed when they're scurrying around without these abilities (not all of us are Templars with auto-aim healing on the lowest health target), and I fear that adding in more channels will not only cause a problem with positioning for healing, but also cause a problem with players' desire to output as much DPS as possible. It's already a struggle in some dungeons to not be laughed at as a Healer when the obvious choice is to just play the high power beam DPS and melt everything.

Also, Warden should channel bugs, I will die on this hill.

I have been grinding vLC pugs as a healer because I enjoy pain and the number of Beamers who stand in the gold after an elite mob dies is absolutely bonkers.

They have no idea that they are standing in like a 20k per second DOT because all they are thinking about is Beaming. Even if they notice they will still sit there to complete the channel rather than bash-cancel and move. Even if they die while Beaming. It's wild.

Kalthea · March 16

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Kalthea wrote: »

I'm going to be honest, my biggest concern with the idea of channeled abilities isn't that they are too powerful. It's that their existence makes the life of Healers far more difficult. We have a hard enough time making sure everyone is healed when they're scurrying around without these abilities (not all of us are Templars with auto-aim healing on the lowest health target), and I fear that adding in more channels will not only cause a problem with positioning for healing, but also cause a problem with players' desire to output as much DPS as possible. It's already a struggle in some dungeons to not be laughed at as a Healer when the obvious choice is to just play the high power beam DPS and melt everything.

Also, Warden should channel bugs, I will die on this hill.

I have been grinding vLC pugs as a healer because I enjoy pain and the number of Beamers who stand in the gold after an elite mob dies is absolutely bonkers.

They have no idea that they are standing in like a 20k per second DOT because all they are thinking about is Beaming. Even if they notice they will still sit there to complete the channel rather than bash-cancel and move. Even if they die while Beaming. It's wild.

THANK GOODNESS, I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE THAT HAS NOTICED!!!

It is actually insane just how frequently it happens. They only care about press button; win game, and when they end up dying, healers are far more often than not the ones to get blamed for it.