PTS Update 43 - Feedback Thread for Classes & Abilities

huskandhunger · July 22

Claws of Life healing, please for the love of Hircine make this heal worthwhile in PVP contexts/battle spirit.

Alaztor91 · July 22

Just posting here to remind ZOS to please make the Major Prophecy/Savagery and Major Sorcery/Brutality that is being added to Shocking Siphon and Skeletal Mage work ''while slotted on either bar''.

This is basically a QoL request, these 2 skills aren't going to be more powerful by having the buff work ''while slotted on either bar'', I'm just asking for the same treatment that skills like Inferno or Tome-Bearer's Inspiration have.

Zyaneth_Bal · July 22

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Ramping cost on shadowy disguise when?

Considering most NB were against this proposed change to cloak because of these 2 DoTs breaking cloak, I don't see a reason it cannot be implemented now. The DoTs have been reworked, so should be zero issues giving it a ramping cost right?

Want to see a ward adjustment first. Hardened ward is more of a problem than cloak rn.

It most certainly is not. I say with confidence that sorcerer still remains one of the easiest classes for me to fight and kill. Especially at lower skill levels that is 90% and up of pvp sorc population.
Sorcerer does count good damage and decent mobility among it’s strengths but being tanky is definitely not one of them. If you personally can’t deal with something it does not mean it requires a nerf. If things were done this way there would be nothing left of the game.

Tannus15 · July 22

Alaztor91 wrote: »

Just posting here to remind ZOS to please make the Major Prophecy/Savagery and Major Sorcery/Brutality that is being added to Shocking Siphon and Skeletal Mage work ''while slotted on either bar''.

This is basically a QoL request, these 2 skills aren't going to be more powerful by having the buff work ''while slotted on either bar'', I'm just asking for the same treatment that skills like Inferno or Tome-Bearer's Inspiration have.

it would be great if all class sources of these buffs were active while slotted on either bar.

Zyaneth_Bal · July 22

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Removing some of the primary counterplay to steath through the removal of DOTs (Elemental Susceptibility and Entropy) breaking cloak is absolutely unacceptable. These are core counterplay to a massively overperforming playstyle that the combat team has refused to do anything about. Making it even stronger is absolutely disgusting.

The change to elemental susceptibility in particular seems baseless. Considering that it applies chilled and concussed that deal direct damage it behaves as it should.

xylena_lazarow · July 23

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

The change to elemental susceptibility in particular seems baseless. Considering that it applies chilled and concussed that deal direct damage it behaves as it should.

It behaves like a sticky dot rather than direct damage, and none of the other sticky dots break cloak. The game doesn't need to screw over individual NB players, it needs to give NB opponents low opportunity cost short term detection tools to deal with multiple NBs around them, especially with the threat level of Tarnished gankers right now.

IncultaWolf · July 23

huskandhunger wrote: »

Claws of Life healing, please for the love of Hircine make this heal worthwhile in PVP contexts/battle spirit.

Definitely, it should apply minor lifesteal at the minimum

Lalothen · July 23

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

It behaves like a sticky dot rather than direct damage, and none of the other sticky dots break cloak. The game doesn't need to screw over individual NB players, it needs to give NB opponents low opportunity cost short term detection tools to deal with multiple NBs around them, especially with the threat level of Tarnished gankers right now.

If expert hunter actually increased your stealth detection range instead of exposing enemies in a small radius around you, that might help. It's silly that both magelight and expert hunter do the same thing - especially since hybridisation.

Major_Toughness · July 23

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Ramping cost on shadowy disguise when?

Considering most NB were against this proposed change to cloak because of these 2 DoTs breaking cloak, I don't see a reason it cannot be implemented now. The DoTs have been reworked, so should be zero issues giving it a ramping cost right?

Want to see a ward adjustment first. Hardened ward is more of a problem than cloak rn.

It most certainly is not. I say with confidence that sorcerer still remains one of the easiest classes for me to fight and kill. Especially at lower skill levels that is 90% and up of pvp sorc population.
Sorcerer does count good damage and decent mobility among it’s strengths but being tanky is definitely not one of them. If you personally can’t deal with something it does not mean it requires a nerf. If things were done this way there would be nothing left of the game.

On Chudan/Rally/Wretched/DDF with around 48k Magicka I can tank over 7k DPS in a duel vs a Relequen bowsorc.

No contingency. Just Hardened Ward, Crit Surge, and Dark Exchange. Just light attacking for crit surge, casting no offensive abilities whatsoever. 4L, 1M, 2H armour.

If you go offensive sure you can't tank as much as you need to proactively cast Hardened Ward. But if you play defensively, Sorc is extremely tanky.

You should know. You are a Magsorc main that plays in IC every day. Don't be disingenuous just because you like your class being overpowered.

Alaya · July 24

Nothing added to Warden changes for this patch? Dang. I was hoping there'd be some updates towards it. Arctic still needs some help, it's pretty useless where it's at currently on PTS....

Pevey · July 24

Tannus15 wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

Just posting here to remind ZOS to please make the Major Prophecy/Savagery and Major Sorcery/Brutality that is being added to Shocking Siphon and Skeletal Mage work ''while slotted on either bar''.

This is basically a QoL request, these 2 skills aren't going to be more powerful by having the buff work ''while slotted on either bar'', I'm just asking for the same treatment that skills like Inferno or Tome-Bearer's Inspiration have.

it would be great if all class sources of these buffs were active while slotted on either bar.

If you’re playing warden, you don’t get it on even one bar just for slotting it. You have to cast lotus and keep it up to get the buff. Along with netch and arctic. Bar slots are hugely important, so more equity on this would be nice.

ESO_Nightingale · July 24

Pevey wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

Just posting here to remind ZOS to please make the Major Prophecy/Savagery and Major Sorcery/Brutality that is being added to Shocking Siphon and Skeletal Mage work ''while slotted on either bar''.

This is basically a QoL request, these 2 skills aren't going to be more powerful by having the buff work ''while slotted on either bar'', I'm just asking for the same treatment that skills like Inferno or Tome-Bearer's Inspiration have.

it would be great if all class sources of these buffs were active while slotted on either bar.

If you’re playing warden, you don’t get it on even one bar just for slotting it. You have to cast lotus and keep it up to get the buff. Along with netch and arctic. Bar slots are hugely important, so more equity on this would be nice.

who's gonna use lotus anymore? not when you can throw savagery and prophecy on ulfsilds.

Turtle_Bot · July 24

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Ramping cost on shadowy disguise when?

Considering most NB were against this proposed change to cloak because of these 2 DoTs breaking cloak, I don't see a reason it cannot be implemented now. The DoTs have been reworked, so should be zero issues giving it a ramping cost right?

Want to see a ward adjustment first. Hardened ward is more of a problem than cloak rn.

Why not both at the same time. You adjust ward without massive adjustments to NB (for PvP) at the same time and literally zero other classes will even be close to keeping up with NB (in PvP).

NB was already reaching that tier 0 status right before sorc got ward (with NB holding nearly 30% of the population with the next highest class sitting below 20%).

Zyaneth_Bal · July 24

Major_Toughness wrote: »

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Ramping cost on shadowy disguise when?

Considering most NB were against this proposed change to cloak because of these 2 DoTs breaking cloak, I don't see a reason it cannot be implemented now. The DoTs have been reworked, so should be zero issues giving it a ramping cost right?

Want to see a ward adjustment first. Hardened ward is more of a problem than cloak rn.

It most certainly is not. I say with confidence that sorcerer still remains one of the easiest classes for me to fight and kill. Especially at lower skill levels that is 90% and up of pvp sorc population.
Sorcerer does count good damage and decent mobility among it’s strengths but being tanky is definitely not one of them. If you personally can’t deal with something it does not mean it requires a nerf. If things were done this way there would be nothing left of the game.

On Chudan/Rally/Wretched/DDF with around 48k Magicka I can tank over 7k DPS in a duel vs a Relequen bowsorc.

No contingency. Just Hardened Ward, Crit Surge, and Dark Exchange. Just light attacking for crit surge, casting no offensive abilities whatsoever. 4L, 1M, 2H armour.

If you go offensive sure you can't tank as much as you need to proactively cast Hardened Ward. But if you play defensively, Sorc is extremely tanky.

You should know. You are a Magsorc main that plays in IC every day. Don't be disingenuous just because you like your class being overpowered.

Yes, magsorc is finally able to stay alive in a fight again, I don’t see what’s wrong with that. Any other class can tank that and more. If ward is nerfed the class will return to the grave out of which it has so recently returned. Warden/dk/plar/arc can tank a small group by themselves easily. Nightblade isn’t as tanky but has plenty of other effective means to survive. Magsorc has simply become competitive for the first time in a long while.

Besides, people have been saying exact same things complaining about ward even before the recent buffs when it was so weak that it wasn’t even being used. So any complaints like that lose all credibility imo.

I’m sure you have trouble killing other classes too. That should be enough to give you an idea of it not being a sorc issue but a general pvp balance problem.

Perashim · July 24

GLS and SacBones still awful for corpse generation. It doesn't even fit thematically with a necromancer, because what Necromancer would animate a corpse just to detonate on top of them? Blastbones at least makes more sense.

FoJul · July 26

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Ramping cost on shadowy disguise when?

Considering most NB were against this proposed change to cloak because of these 2 DoTs breaking cloak, I don't see a reason it cannot be implemented now. The DoTs have been reworked, so should be zero issues giving it a ramping cost right?

Want to see a ward adjustment first. Hardened ward is more of a problem than cloak rn.

Why not both at the same time. You adjust ward without massive adjustments to NB (for PvP) at the same time and literally zero other classes will even be close to keeping up with NB (in PvP).

NB was already reaching that tier 0 status right before sorc got ward (with NB holding nearly 30% of the population with the next highest class sitting below 20%).

Where is the source to your statistics? Sure I see nightblades, but Not more than Wardens, Sorcs, and Dk's. When you take a step back really all classes get played. The only class that never see's the light is Necro.

I think everyone agree's even sorc mains. That ward is overtuned. There is no defending it. meanwhile nightblade is the same its been for 8 years.

Joy_Division · July 26

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Ramping cost on shadowy disguise when?

Considering most NB were against this proposed change to cloak because of these 2 DoTs breaking cloak, I don't see a reason it cannot be implemented now. The DoTs have been reworked, so should be zero issues giving it a ramping cost right?

Want to see a ward adjustment first. Hardened ward is more of a problem than cloak rn.

Why not both at the same time. You adjust ward without massive adjustments to NB (for PvP) at the same time and literally zero other classes will even be close to keeping up with NB (in PvP).

NB was already reaching that tier 0 status right before sorc got ward (with NB holding nearly 30% of the population with the next highest class sitting below 20%).

Where is the source to your statistics? Sure I see nightblades, but Not more than Wardens, Sorcs, and Dk's. When you take a step back really all classes get played. The only class that never see's the light is Necro.

I think everyone agree's even sorc mains. That ward is overtuned. There is no defending it. meanwhile nightblade is the same its been for 8 years.

There are way more NBs than everything but sorcerers, of which they just outnumber by a fair bit.

As of last weekend, of the top 100 players on Aldmeri Dominion Greyhost PC NA (i.e, the characters played most often that have the most AP): there are 36 NBs, 20 Sorcerers, 19 Wardens, 8 DKs, 10 Templars, 6 Arcanists, 1 Necromancer.

In the top 20, there are 10 Nightblades (50%!)

Before we stereotype AD , Nightblade is also the most represented in the Ebonhart Pact Alliance, by a wide margin: 30 nightblades (second highest was sorcerer at 18)

FoJul · July 26

Joy_Division wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Ramping cost on shadowy disguise when?

Considering most NB were against this proposed change to cloak because of these 2 DoTs breaking cloak, I don't see a reason it cannot be implemented now. The DoTs have been reworked, so should be zero issues giving it a ramping cost right?

Want to see a ward adjustment first. Hardened ward is more of a problem than cloak rn.

Why not both at the same time. You adjust ward without massive adjustments to NB (for PvP) at the same time and literally zero other classes will even be close to keeping up with NB (in PvP).

NB was already reaching that tier 0 status right before sorc got ward (with NB holding nearly 30% of the population with the next highest class sitting below 20%).

Where is the source to your statistics? Sure I see nightblades, but Not more than Wardens, Sorcs, and Dk's. When you take a step back really all classes get played. The only class that never see's the light is Necro.

I think everyone agree's even sorc mains. That ward is overtuned. There is no defending it. meanwhile nightblade is the same its been for 8 years.

There are way more NBs than everything but sorcerers, of which they just outnumber by a fair bit.

As of last weekend, of the top 100 players on Aldmeri Dominion Greyhost PC NA (i.e, the characters played most often that have the most AP): there are 36 NBs, 20 Sorcerers, 19 Wardens, 8 DKs, 10 Templars, 6 Arcanists, 1 Necromancer.

In the top 20, there are 10 Nightblades (50%!)

Before we stereotype AD , Nightblade is also the most represented in the Ebonhart Pact Alliance, by a wide margin: 30 nightblades (second highest was sorcerer at 18)

Where can you see this though?

Turtle_Bot · July 26

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Ramping cost on shadowy disguise when?

Considering most NB were against this proposed change to cloak because of these 2 DoTs breaking cloak, I don't see a reason it cannot be implemented now. The DoTs have been reworked, so should be zero issues giving it a ramping cost right?

Want to see a ward adjustment first. Hardened ward is more of a problem than cloak rn.

Why not both at the same time. You adjust ward without massive adjustments to NB (for PvP) at the same time and literally zero other classes will even be close to keeping up with NB (in PvP).

NB was already reaching that tier 0 status right before sorc got ward (with NB holding nearly 30% of the population with the next highest class sitting below 20%).

Where is the source to your statistics? Sure I see nightblades, but Not more than Wardens, Sorcs, and Dk's. When you take a step back really all classes get played. The only class that never see's the light is Necro.

I think everyone agree's even sorc mains. That ward is overtuned. There is no defending it. meanwhile nightblade is the same its been for 8 years.

@FoJul
The latest data I could find is this post from the thread on hardened ward:

Note1: this data is not mine, is has been gathered, sorted and compiled by @Zabagad who has been compiling data regarding the population of each class in PvP (in both PC EU and PC NA iirc? if @Zabagad could confirm or correct this for me pls) and they have been collecting this data since before U35. The method they are using looks reliable, since their results have been backed up by numerous others (including, but not only, myself) using addons to track unique encounters across PvP.

Note2: They reset their data for U35 because that update had the biggest overall change to the game that affected more than just the classes and was basically a hard reset of the game, hence why their data isn't showing populations from before U35.

In case you are on a phone, or the screenshot is too small to read, I will lay it out in the following spoiler:

U36 and onwards, NB has consistently made up more than 20% of the total PvP population, reaching its peak of 28.13% (nearly 30%) of the population being NB during U41 (the patch ward went live).

With total percent of the population being made up of NB for each patch being the following:
U35 = 21.58%
U36 = 25.08%
U37 = 26.58%
U38 = 23.75%
U39 = 26.25%
U40 = 27.63%
U41 = 28.13% (the peak)
U42 = 25.75% (Note that the sample for U42 is not complete yet/result not yet posted)

Between U38 and U40 (including these patches) NB had the highest population sitting between 5% and 10% more than second place with the second highest class population during those patches being the following:
U38 = DK at 19.25%
U39 = DK at 19.17%
U40 = Sorc at 18.69%
These 3 patches leading up to ward buff being dropped, not a single other class had over 20% of the PvP population, yet NB was sitting comfortably at over 25% across all 3 patches and reached nearly 30% during the patch before ward dropped, going on to increase that gap even more during the patch that ward dropped.

During U41, which is when ward went live, Sorc confirmed itself in second place making up 21.13% of the population compared to NB which hit its peak at 28.13% of the total population during this same patch.

From U37 and earlier, DK was second place to NB with 20.67%, 20.58% and 20.67% respectively, yet DK dropped to 19.25 during U38 when corrosive got nerfed to no longer generate ultimate while it is active, hence why it started to drop in that patch and continued to do so from them on.

It is ONLY during U42, the current patch (for which the data is still incomplete) that you see NB population drop by a meaningful amount (still sitting nearly 26%) and sorc really start to close that gap (sitting just over 23%) between the 2 classes.

The TL//DR of the spoiler is exactly what I said in my previous post:
NB is currently a borderline tier 0 class that is only "balanced" because of specifically Hardened Ward making sorcerer an actual alternative to NB.

Ward is overtuned, I am not defending it. But the data backs up my statement, that if we nerf ward, then NB needs huge nerfs (for PvP) at the same time, since NB is just that strong. Sitting up to nearly 10% ahead of every other class in the game for multiple patches in a row is not normal, it is completely unbalanced.

Sitting that high above everything else shows that there is something more than just "preferred fantasy" inflating the numbers for the class, because if preferred fantasy was what was inflating the numbers, then sorcerer would have instantly jumped to nearly 30% in U41 (and especially by U42), since just as many people like the mage fantasy as like the assassin fantasy in games like ESO.

NB being that far ahead of the other classes shows that NB is as far ahead of the pack as Necro is behind the pack. Nobody is going to say necro is fine, so why are NB mains trying to defend NB when it is clearly that same gap as necro, but ahead of every other class instead of behind.

There is no defending NB in PvP. It is not "the same it's been for 8 years now". NB is objectively that overpowered compared to everything else in the game with the single exception being specifically max mag hardened ward. The data backs that up.

Zabagad · July 26

Joy_Division wrote: »

As of last weekend, of the top 100 players on Aldmeri Dominion Greyhost PC NA (i.e, the characters played most often that have the most AP): there are 36 NBs, 20 Sorcerers, 19 Wardens, 8 DKs, 10 Templars, 6 Arcanists, 1 Necromancer.

In the top 20, there are 10 Nightblades (50%!)

Before we stereotype AD , Nightblade is also the most represented in the Ebonhart Pact Alliance, by a wide margin: 30 nightblades (second highest was sorcerer at 18)

In my opinion we should never take one campaign (and even worse one alliance) to make any kind of statement regarding the population.
I track the data for almost 2 years now and with this narrow view you could get very missleading data.
Thats the reason I take all 4 CP campaigns of both server NA + EU and even than I know for sure that even the Top100 of one campaign is still not significant enough. That's the reason why I wait for two campaigns each patch before I call it "significant".
I like to get 3 campaigns to get minimal variance - but often it's not possible because of various reasons.
Now I guess I cannot really take next campaign into account, because the influence of the event will be to big to get the usuall population.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Note1: this data is not mine, is has been gathered, sorted and compiled by @Zabagad who has been compiling data regarding the population of each class in PvP (in both PC EU and PC NA iirc? if @Zabagad could confirm or correct this for me pls) and they have been collecting this data since before U35. The method they are using looks reliable, since their results have been backed up by numerous others (including, but not only, myself) using addons to track unique encounters across PvP.

confirmed

And - as I said towards (Edit + sorry

)Joy (and is written in the table in the bottom line) I take the Top100 of 4 campaigns each month. [black+grey] * [NA+EU] so basically 400 occurrence each month.
When I get 2 campaigns (= 800 occ) the variance is okish and if I get 3 campaigns (=1200 occ) it is in my opinion really good.
This is a big reason why I have not experienced "strange" jumps over all the time - because I collect enough data until the samplesize is good enough.
The opposite would be like (Edit + sorry

)Joy: "this campaign for AD" or anything like that - I could find situations where one class in one campaign is jumping from 30 to 12 in the next campaign and back to 23 in campaign #3 for example.

And I agree to all the rest you said too.

I expect to publish the sig U42 data on 30.07.

For the final (I guess 3rd campaign will be to much inflicted because of the event) U42 values I try to wait as long as possible (like I always do) to take the data from the actual campaign. I monitor (every 2nd day) if the event will disturb the Top100 to much, but I guess if I take the data on 30.07 they should be ok and I will make a fresh data screenshot and publish it somewhere.

If the event is disturbing I maybe use the data I took before the events started 25.07 or maybe data from after tomorrow 27.07?
I honestly don't like this somehow manually descision - but I had to do this in the past arround events too and I try to do it as good as I can without being biased

So I don't look for the counts - I just look from which position some occ jump into the Top100 and if there are to many I better take the bit older data.

Turtle_Bot · July 26

Zabagad wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

As of last weekend, of the top 100 players on Aldmeri Dominion Greyhost PC NA (i.e, the characters played most often that have the most AP): there are 36 NBs, 20 Sorcerers, 19 Wardens, 8 DKs, 10 Templars, 6 Arcanists, 1 Necromancer.

In the top 20, there are 10 Nightblades (50%!)

Before we stereotype AD , Nightblade is also the most represented in the Ebonhart Pact Alliance, by a wide margin: 30 nightblades (second highest was sorcerer at 18)

In my opinion we should never take one campaign (and even worse one alliance) to make any kind of statement regarding the population.
I track the data for almost 2 years now and with this narrow view you could get very missleading data.
Thats the reason I take all 4 CP campaigns of both server NA + EU and even than I know for sure that even the Top100 of one campaign is still not significant enough. That's the reason why I wait for two campaigns each patch before I call it "significant".
I like to get 3 campaigns to get minimal variance - but often it's not possible because of various reasons.
Now I guess I cannot really take next campaign into account, because the influence of the event will be to big to get the usuall population.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Note1: this data is not mine, is has been gathered, sorted and compiled by @Zabagad who has been compiling data regarding the population of each class in PvP (in both PC EU and PC NA iirc? if @Zabagad could confirm or correct this for me pls) and they have been collecting this data since before U35. The method they are using looks reliable, since their results have been backed up by numerous others (including, but not only, myself) using addons to track unique encounters across PvP.

confirmed

And - as I said towards Joe (and is written in the table in the bottom line) I take the Top100 of 4 campaigns each month. [black+grey] * [NA+EU] so basically 400 occurrence each month.
When I get 2 campaigns (= 800 occ) the variance is okish and if I get 3 campaigns (=1200 occ) it is in my opinion really good.
This is a big reason why I have not experienced "strange" jumps over all the time - because I collect enough data until the samplesize is good enough.
The opposite would be like Joe: "this campaign for AD" or anything like that - I could find situations where one class in one campaign is jumping from 30 to 12 in the next campaign and back to 23 in campaign #3 for example.

And I agree to all the rest you said too.

I expect to publish the sig U42 data on 30.07.
For the final (I guess 3rd campaign will be to much inflicted because of the event) U42 values I try to wait as long as possible (like I always do) to take the data from the actual campaign. I monitor (every 2nd day) if the event will disturb the Top100 to much, but I guess if I take the data on 30.07 they should be ok and I will make a fresh data screenshot and publish it somewhere.
If the event is disturbing I maybe use the data I took before the events started 25.07 or maybe data from after tomorrow 27.07?
I honestly don't like this somehow manually descision - but I had to do this in the past arround events too and I try to do it as good as I can without being biased So I don't look for the counts - I just look from which position some occ jump into the Top100 and if there are to many I better take the bit older data.

Thanks for confirming it's data from both servers.

I'm looking forward to seeing the results for U42. I'm expecting similar numbers to current, maybe a less than 1% change for either class. Would be surprised if it any bigger than that.

malistorr · July 26

Vampire becomes even more of a joke with the changes to undeath. Most of the skills are still not used and need to be reworked. You're taking away any benefit to stage 3 vampire and not replacing it with anything? Really!? Very few people use stage 4, even with the useful invisibility while running because of all the drawbacks of being a high-stage vampire. But now with the changes to undeath, tanky/melee players will all stay at stage 1 for the damage mitigation. Nightblades who use cloak and attack from stealth will go to stage 2. Nobody will stay at stage 3 and only a few people will go to stage 4 for the invisibility. I don't get it at all. You're taking what was a bad deal (stage 3 vamp because of the really bad ability cost increase, much more fire damage, and big health recovery reduction) and making it even worse by removing the reason to do stage 3 and replacing it with nothing. The decreased cost vampire skills nobody cares about because the skills are mostly poorly designed and useless.

Skjaldbjorn · July 27

As I said in another thread, if Zos actually wants to balance Arcanist comparatively to other classes in PVE content with no real impact on PVP, one good solution that would significantly help lower their damage advantage would be to alter how Azureblight and the beam interact. If the beam could not build azure stacks rapidly across a huge clump of targets, the appeal of Arcanist in heavy AoE fights like Reef Guardian would diminish considerably, and would help bring them in line with how most other classes interact with Azureblight.

Effectively, if we remove the ability for Beam to build Azure stacks, which I believe they did previously with jabs (correct me if I am wrong here), that would go a huge distance in bringing Arcanist in line with other DPS classes. Their core advantage is AoE damage, their single target damage seems mostly fine.

ZhuJiuyin · July 27

The change of Daedric Curse is very good, but there is a serious shortcoming that makes this change almost ineffective, that is, the explosion range of Daedric Curse is too small, resulting in the inability to cause area damage in many cases. Daedric Curse and all morphs should be changed to 8m or 10m range.

Joy_Division · July 27

@FoJul - Top 100 per Alliance can be seen under the Leaderboards tab. Not the Alliance War tab; that shows a much smaller amount.

@Zabagad
Joy not Joe

Yes, 10 updates over 2 platforms with 4 servers each is most certainly better. You're probably the only person who has such data, so we do with what we have :P

Thank you for collecting the data and explaining the methodology to make the point clear: there are way more Nightblades than Wardens and DKs, while probably a little more than Sorcerers.

I suspect the order for 43 will be the same, except for Necro moving up one relegating Arcanist to the bottom

ESO_Nightingale · July 27

Joy_Division wrote: »

@FoJul - Top 100 per Alliance can be seen under the Leaderboards tab. Not the Alliance War tab; that shows a much smaller amount.

@Zabagad
Joy not Joe

Yes, 10 updates over 2 platforms with 4 servers each is most certainly better. You're probably the only person who has such data, so we do with what we have :P

Thank you for collecting the data and explaining the methodology to make the point clear: there are way more Nightblades than Wardens and DKs, while probably a little more than Sorcerers.

I suspect the order for 43 will be the same, except for Necro moving up one relegating Arcanist to the bottom

Who's Joe?

Hotdog_23 · July 27

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

The change of Daedric Curse is very good, but there is a serious shortcoming that makes this change almost ineffective, that is, the explosion range of Daedric Curse is too small, resulting in the inability to cause area damage in many cases. Daedric Curse and all morphs should be changed to 8m or 10m range.

If only backlash and it's morph could do area damage as well.

Stay safe🙂

FoJul · July 27

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Ramping cost on shadowy disguise when?

Considering most NB were against this proposed change to cloak because of these 2 DoTs breaking cloak, I don't see a reason it cannot be implemented now. The DoTs have been reworked, so should be zero issues giving it a ramping cost right?

Want to see a ward adjustment first. Hardened ward is more of a problem than cloak rn.

Why not both at the same time. You adjust ward without massive adjustments to NB (for PvP) at the same time and literally zero other classes will even be close to keeping up with NB (in PvP).

NB was already reaching that tier 0 status right before sorc got ward (with NB holding nearly 30% of the population with the next highest class sitting below 20%).

Where is the source to your statistics? Sure I see nightblades, but Not more than Wardens, Sorcs, and Dk's. When you take a step back really all classes get played. The only class that never see's the light is Necro.

I think everyone agree's even sorc mains. That ward is overtuned. There is no defending it. meanwhile nightblade is the same its been for 8 years.

@FoJul
The latest data I could find is this post from the thread on hardened ward:

Note1: this data is not mine, is has been gathered, sorted and compiled by @Zabagad who has been compiling data regarding the population of each class in PvP (in both PC EU and PC NA iirc? if @Zabagad could confirm or correct this for me pls) and they have been collecting this data since before U35. The method they are using looks reliable, since their results have been backed up by numerous others (including, but not only, myself) using addons to track unique encounters across PvP.

Note2: They reset their data for U35 because that update had the biggest overall change to the game that affected more than just the classes and was basically a hard reset of the game, hence why their data isn't showing populations from before U35.

In case you are on a phone, or the screenshot is too small to read, I will lay it out in the following spoiler:
U36 and onwards, NB has consistently made up more than 20% of the total PvP population, reaching its peak of 28.13% (nearly 30%) of the population being NB during U41 (the patch ward went live).

With total percent of the population being made up of NB for each patch being the following:
U35 = 21.58%
U36 = 25.08%
U37 = 26.58%
U38 = 23.75%
U39 = 26.25%
U40 = 27.63%
U41 = 28.13% (the peak)
U42 = 25.75% (Note that the sample for U42 is not complete yet/result not yet posted)

Between U38 and U40 (including these patches) NB had the highest population sitting between 5% and 10% more than second place with the second highest class population during those patches being the following:
U38 = DK at 19.25%
U39 = DK at 19.17%
U40 = Sorc at 18.69%
These 3 patches leading up to ward buff being dropped, not a single other class had over 20% of the PvP population, yet NB was sitting comfortably at over 25% across all 3 patches and reached nearly 30% during the patch before ward dropped, going on to increase that gap even more during the patch that ward dropped.

During U41, which is when ward went live, Sorc confirmed itself in second place making up 21.13% of the population compared to NB which hit its peak at 28.13% of the total population during this same patch.

From U37 and earlier, DK was second place to NB with 20.67%, 20.58% and 20.67% respectively, yet DK dropped to 19.25 during U38 when corrosive got nerfed to no longer generate ultimate while it is active, hence why it started to drop in that patch and continued to do so from them on.

It is ONLY during U42, the current patch (for which the data is still incomplete) that you see NB population drop by a meaningful amount (still sitting nearly 26%) and sorc really start to close that gap (sitting just over 23%) between the 2 classes.

The TL//DR of the spoiler is exactly what I said in my previous post:
NB is currently a borderline tier 0 class that is only "balanced" because of specifically Hardened Ward making sorcerer an actual alternative to NB.

Ward is overtuned, I am not defending it. But the data backs up my statement, that if we nerf ward, then NB needs huge nerfs (for PvP) at the same time, since NB is just that strong. Sitting up to nearly 10% ahead of every other class in the game for multiple patches in a row is not normal, it is completely unbalanced.
Sitting that high above everything else shows that there is something more than just "preferred fantasy" inflating the numbers for the class, because if preferred fantasy was what was inflating the numbers, then sorcerer would have instantly jumped to nearly 30% in U41 (and especially by U42), since just as many people like the mage fantasy as like the assassin fantasy in games like ESO.

NB being that far ahead of the other classes shows that NB is as far ahead of the pack as Necro is behind the pack. Nobody is going to say necro is fine, so why are NB mains trying to defend NB when it is clearly that same gap as necro, but ahead of every other class instead of behind.
There is no defending NB in PvP. It is not "the same it's been for 8 years now". NB is objectively that overpowered compared to everything else in the game with the single exception being specifically max mag hardened ward. The data backs that up.

Nightblade has been the #1 Class since release. Everyone used to complain about stamblades that could build squisher bc of cloak, And its not because they have 15k Merciless Resolve. Its because they have cloak, and pretty much cloak alone, which has been a thing since the beginning of the game. Rather Sorc just getting a *meta wave* cause of this super buff.

I'm Curious to see the data, at the end of MYM to see whats up. But yeah, any game that has cloak, that class will be popular in PvP its a given. But its no excuse of having 13k wards in pvp that burst heal pretty much twice.

xylena_lazarow · July 27

FoJul wrote: »

Nightblade has been the #1 Class since release

During the Warden/DK back bar SnB meta a few years back, they had nerfed the hell out of NB damage for a while to preserve the spammable cloak, NB really couldn't burst much of anything back then. NB is mostly fine now, the problem isn't really NB itself but stacking ranged burst procs like Tarnished Nightmare.

FoJul · July 27

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

FoJul wrote: »

Nightblade has been the #1 Class since release

During the Warden/DK back bar SnB meta a few years back, they had nerfed the hell out of NB damage for a while to preserve the spammable cloak, NB really couldn't burst much of anything back then. NB is mostly fine now, the problem isn't really NB itself but stacking ranged burst procs like Tarnished Nightmare.

Yeah, but just a few weeks ago, people were still crying about cloak. Obviously the ranged procs are problematic, especially now, since every ganker is switching to it. Sadly, Zos is going to get the wrong message and gut the ranged playstyle of nightblade rather than fixing the set. So that the set is still usable.

It's a sad time for brawler swallow soul blades. We know we finna get impacted by this BS, even tho we are already are mid. I finally got my rangeblade to do alright in OW, and I just know its finna get hit. (the scribing skills made my build viable) so I'm already carried by outside forces.

But yeah, stamblade was still solid even during the period you are talking about, maybe not in duels but in OW catching ppl with incap bow has always been easy.