I love eso's classes, I love class identity, and conceptually I love class sets. But a lot of them are really bad. I get the idea of the general set design for the game. Generally speaking the devs seem to want powercreep to scale horizontally instead of vertically that way newer content sets don't completely devalue older ones. That being said, this design philosophy often tends to result in dead on arrival sets due to flawed design.

I discussed Wrathsun in a previous post and now I want to bring to light another set I've been messing around with and offer some constructive feedback on why it doesn't work and how it can be adjusted to be more fun to use without just inflating the damage numbers.

Today's topic: Monolith of Storms

Currently on live, Monolith of Storms functions as a sort of hybrid offensive set. It can function in a single target encounters but its obviously meant for trash fights. Dealing direct damage with a Storm Calling ability or every 5th tick of a storm calling dot summons a Monolith, up to 3, and when they are in range of each other a tether of electricity runs between them damaging all enemies touching the tether.

Immediate issues:

There is a lot of set up required for pretty minimal returns

You can only proc one Monolith at a time, meaning at least 3 GCD's are necessary to attempt maximizing return. The only skills ypu can do that with though are Mages Fury which you wouldn't be using in a fight opening and streak which you wouldn't be using as a DPS through trash. The other way to proc the set takes even longer as lightning splash and hurricane only proc it every 5th tick, the latter ticking every 2 seconds meaning it will take 10 to go off. Keep in mind monomith's only last for 10 seconds. The most useful scenarios AOE sets tend to perform in are trash fights but those only tend to last 15 seconds or so. Meaning at its fastest you're taking up 1/5th of that time setting this up.

The damage is non existent
For all the setup required you are basically getting nothing in return. The range on paper for this set seems big given its 28 meters, but there are tons of blind spots. The monoliths themselves deal no damage. Simply being near one results in nothing, you have to be in between them. Also there's a built in cooldown restricting anything from taking damage from this set more than once every two seconds for some reason. So even in scenarios where you can strategically deploy your monoliths to try and get the most put of your set like in a dragon fight you still are hard locked to a very low damage proc.

The set is extremely clunky and borderline useless in any kind of fight that involves movement/teleporting targets.
This point speaks for itself. The set up is already cumbersome, imagine having to micro manage it again and again during an actual damage sensitive encounter.

Unlike with Wrathsun i genuinely couldn't come up with any kind of consistent use for this set. Its not even a good RP set because it doesn't feel good to use either.


Proposed Changes:

This set is simple in theory but too complicated in practice. I have a reworked version that instead sounds complicated but in practice would be mich easier to use and for multiple forms of content.

Monolith of Storms (Revised Proposal)
​(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(5 items) Casting a Storm Calling ability on yourself grants you a Storm Node for 30 seconds. Dealing damage with a Storm Calling ability applies a Storm Node to your target for 15 seconds. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds.
​Casting a ground-targeted ability places a Monolith Spire at the target location for 20 seconds. You can have only one Monolith Spire active at a time.
​While any Storm Node or Monolith Spire is within 15 meters of another, they create a lightning tether between them. Tethers deal [X] Shock Damage every 2 seconds to any enemy touching the tether or within 5 meters of a Storm Node or Monolith Spire and increases by 100% for every Storm Node in range. Damage scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.

In this rework instead of having to manage 3 grounded points, you instead only have one, and you and your primary target become the other two. With this set up you are able to prebuff the set on yourself, afflict your target with Storm Node as a fight begins, and drop the Monolith immediately after. The tick rate is the same but increases in damage so long as the points are in range of each other so in a static fight you get the most out of it while in a mobile fight you still are capable of dealing decent damage. The different proc conditions encourage you to use more of your storm calling abilities and depending on the ability it can set up the set quickly.

Ex: page's fury procs storm Node on the target, lightning splash procs the spire and the storm node rebuffed on the first target hit, surge procs storm Node on yourself, lightning form and streak procs it on yourself and the first target hit

This version of the set can also function in PVP since the third grounded Storm Point is completely optional, though I dropped the range from 28 to 15 meters and added a cooldown on the stormnode debuff to not make it too oppressive. Thoughts?