It's only "hitting hard" because of Shattered Path Signet.

But it's fine to put a delay on the initial status application.

I like overpowered toys as much as the next player, but, yes, this skill has got to catch a planet-cracking nerf.

Its current status (heh) is completely stupid.

They could just give it the empower treatment and only apply status effects if battle spirit isn't active.

Orbital78 wrote: »

They could just give it the empower treatment and only apply status effects if battle spirit isn't active.

The reason why it does damage in the first place is because the game is in a state where skills have to do damage or they have no value or purpose.

If that skill didn't do damage, it then becomes pointless to slot vs. all the alternatives.

Let's look back at when ZOS made this change in the first place. Hybrid builds did not exist (well they did, I ran it anyway even without the weapon/spell changes which I don't think was the way to implement hybridization, butlet's not go 20-30 pages on that & leave it at that).

At the time, didn't stam builds rule damage output period? And also, all status effects didn't do damage did they? Only burning.

ZOS did this as a stop-gap solution for buffing destro staves without actually having to buff all of the destro staff skills properly. Why did they do it? I don't know. I'm not ZOS.

ZOS has repeatedly buffed and changed the goal of status effects overall, not that it's an issue with status effects themselves as it is this skill.

But the thing is, if the skill is nerfed everyone around the block knows that destruction staff no longer has a purpose to be slotted in PvP vs. Restoration staff / DW/ 2H.

Because destruction staff is yet again, a bad skill line. It needs a rework. Kind of like NB's Shadow line, -- you know what we all know what skill lines won't be slotted or used by now.

The skill has been an issue for certain "PvPers" since its change. And, really, I would welcome the change of removing the damage on it BUT ZOS would have to buff and rework the rest of destruction staff or the entire weapon is useless and no one will bother running it.

With scribing, subclassing, etc. available to cover the debuffs, who would seriously use a destruction staff vs. restoration and 2h/SnB/DW without this skill being in the state that it is?

Even with the skill, it's hard for me to bother slotting a destruction staff on a hybrid build that can balance mag and stam. I actually hate destruction staves because they are so useless in PvP and I rarely ever slot them because they're terrible. I only slot them when there's no other option.

And everyone knows destruction staff is bad. Have you even seen a dev team member slot it during PvP? No one seriously is using it unless they are using it as part of an overall build (gank, range) and even then maybe not if they didn't need to.

Destruction staves can have the power rotated out of that skill and moved into the actual active skill damage instead. But then, the same players complaining now would still complain. I know they will.

Imagine if they nerfed this skill and then put the power in reach and force pulse. Oh man, they'd free up a slot for a lot of builds.

Wrong approach that ruins it in PvE, especially for tanks and healers. As a tank, my entire build depends on this skill procing statuses on demand by allowing me to proc Baron Zaldrus for ultimate generation, and it being free or at least a low cost is also pivotal for support roles.
The first hit remains guaranteed, but it does not apply more afterwards over its duration. It should become dodgeable and receive a small magicka cost; like 1k+

That's where I would begin without once again making a skill useless for everyone because PvP got messed up by broken items.