Dragonborn Shouts needs rebalancing, no?

[kyonkon]

Hey all,

 

Been playing the game for a while and I've rarely been tempted to use Shouts for the fact that they're, well, ineffective, for the most part. I haven't unlocked every shout possible yet, but as the game progresses, I've noticed something rather strange about some of these shouts, so I've got some ideas to share.

 

1. Unrelenting Force

Problem : Too much pushing, not enough damage.

- The proportion between environmental damage and push is at times imbalanced. On more than a few occasions I've shouted humans, giants, and bears into rocky mountain sides, trees, and lakes. Even on the lowliest of bandits, they rarely take more than 10% damage.

- The targets also instantly become a ragdoll, free to fly off into whichever, tumbling and rolling into every rock, stump or uneven grounding. I'd imagine them to have broken arms or legs should they be so inclined as to hit their limbs at that force, causing them to at the least be disarmed. They don't.

- Voice. Animals should flee from you out of fear of a nearly dragon-like bellow. Instead, the AI just picks up where it left off and they charge head first into you anyway.

Fix : To balance the skill,

- Either increase the environmental damage dealt, or decrease the force so the damage done is directly proportional to the force of the shout. It's like being tackled by a 250 pound football player and getting little more than a slap on the wrist.

- To creatures of lesser intelligence, (any shouts, really,) should cause them to flee.

- Chance to disarm, or instant kill; based on, again, environmental damage. If you can die hitting your head tumbling down a staircase, being smashed into a tree at the speed of sound should do the job just as damn fine.

Fun fix :

- Increase the force of the shout so you can push dead bodies around effectively.

 

2. Ice form

Problem :

- You're frozen solid. being hit shouldn't unfreeze you. This isn't Pokemon. You should shatter into a million pieces, and blood should seep everywhere as you're being unfrozen.

- Rapid expansion of water-into-ice in your cells makes them explode. Kind of like what would happen if you put a bottle of water or bubbly soda into the freezer.

Simple fix :

- Trap target in a block of ice to immobilize them instead of freezing them into a statue; or

- Ice Form shouts decrease target hp to 1, making the next blow the kill. To re-balance this, decrease the area of effect of the shout, making it require more precision, increasing cool down, and making it required to hit a good amount of the body to take effect.

- Selective dismemberment. If the shout hits you in the arm, your body shouldn't freeze. You'd lose an arm, but you're still alive. for now.

Realistic fix :

- Instantly kills victim, turning them into 'breakable object' but destroying the majority of non-essential, non-quest items from their body.

- Shatter victim for fun :]

- Pick 'em up and put 'em somewhere for display. You can have your own wax-- er, ice museum.

 

3. Dragonrend

Problem :

You shout flying, heavy things into grounding them. They crash land from the sky and takes no damage.

Fix :

Add..some... damage. Or something. If an arrow can damage dragons, crashing into the earth like a meteor should too.

 

4. Disarm

Problem :

Enemies pick up weapon again as if nothing happened, making this shout merely delay some enemies for a few seconds while they either run to pick up their weapons, or start hitting you with their bare fist.

Fix:

Rebalance it by decreasing the time delay, but regardless, this shout is generally pretty useless, especially if you're being gang banged by some higher level npcs.

 

5. Fire/ice breath

Problem :

- At ~ level 40, the scaled npcs, even the most common of bandits, barely take damage from this. I don't know about you, but if I was set on fire, I would likely be out of commission for the immediate fight.

- I'm not quite sure whether this is a dragon ball-spitting or a dragon breathing attack. I'm rather confused, but regardless, either one should have a more dramatic effect, damagewise, and not act like a slightly upgraded effect of a novice spell.

Realism fix :

- Greatly increase the damage output of the shout, giving it a wider angle of attack, and increasing the cooldown time. If a dragon breathing fire on a group of guards can kill them instantaneously, this shout should replicate at the least, part of that power.

 

:D Thanks for indulging this post with your time.

[exnecross]

Most of your suggestions would make the shouts extremely OP lol. Ice form is already one of the best shouts (if not the best) for dungeons as, if aimed properly, you can freeze an entire room and single-target enemies down as you see fit. The only shout that can really match this would be call of valor, however its on a much longer cooldown and unless he manages to get aggro then its not that great of a help.

 

I agree that unrelenting force is underpowered at lvl 3, lvl 1 is fine because you get it really early on.

 

Dragonrend is fine, probably the best shout for a melee user vs a dragon, much better than call dragon.

 

Ice form puts fire/ice breath to shame. Ice breath doesn't even freeze them, just slows.

[Deleted2039153User]

Ice Form is some majorly OP stuff. Freeze a whole group of guys and have fun hacking them down one by one while their buddies sit there unable to do anything about it.

 

I haven't completed all three words for it yet, but I'd be willing to say Slow Time is gonna be a beast too. Especially if on the higher level ones they become even slower or you become faster.

[Barlas]

If anything, reduce some of their cooldowns instead of changing them.

 

With all the Health and Magicka potions a random character drinks, their throats shouldn't hurt from shouting dragon language, and be able to shout more.