Herald of the tome skill line is overtuned

Raynvan

From what we are seeing on PTS Arcanists skill line dedicated for DPS is simply the best dps spec. It has not only some of the "best in slot" abilities but also the best passives for any dps spec. Lets take a look

Passives
Fated Fortune - Crit dmg
Harnessed Quintessence - Weapon/Spell Dmg
Psychic Lesion - Damage and chance of status effects
Splintered Secrets - Penetration

Skills
Fatecarver - AOE class "spammable" skill which hits almost as hard (if not harder) as skill dedicated to do single target damage. It hits harder than ultimate. Morphing allows for utility in form of damage shield or longer channel/more damage. With most of the fights being AOE fights it is the best spammable in the game.
Tome-Bearer's Inspiration - Probably the best source of Major Brutality and Sorcery in a game, class abilities deal extra damage
Abyssal Impact - Usually people pay attention mostly to "beam" but this is another great ability from this skill line. It hits really hard and it is aoe. You deal % more damage to enemies effected by Abyssal Ink
The Unblinking Eye - One of the best aoe ultimates. This one can be controversial. It competes with skills like Meteor and Elemental Storm. With morph to increased damage every 0.5sec it actually makes up for shorter duration and does similar dps. Ring is at the disadvantage of being shorter radius however destro ultimate requires 75 more ult points. Meteor on the other hand is similar cost (15 ulti point more than ring) with less damage unless it will be able to hit multiple targets to regenerate it very quickly.
The Imperfect Ring - Class DoT. Another ability with great dps potential. Even in single target it does decent damage but shines in aoe.

Runeblades - this is the only "bad" ability in this skill line. Well, it is not actually bad but the main problem is that it was designed to be single target crux consumption ability for arcanist however if you use it over beam you would actually lose dps even in single target.

Arcanist has all of his tools in a single skill line. Some of them are simply BiS for DPS role and what makes it even worse is the fact that it is incredibly strong just on its own. You really won't sacrifice much if you decide to replace 2 other skill lines.

Now, lets take a look at some "iconic" abilities and associated skill lines from other classes which will compete with Herald of the Tome for DPS:

Sorcerer (Dark Magic)
Crystal Frags - Single target damage ability, can be used as spammable as it does good damage. Even better if it procs for instant cast and more damage. It also provides Minor Prophecy for your group with exploitation passive
Other skills are either situational or completely skipped. Passives are mix of improved sustain and survivability

Dragonknight (Draconic Power)
Burning Talons- one of core DoT abilities used on Dk dps.
It is the only mention from this skill line. Everything else is dedicated for different role.

Warden (Winter's Embrace)
Winter's Revenge - Great AOE dot. Used on every Warden DPS
Arctic Blast - AOE ability sometimes used on Magdens
Passives: Extra damage with frost abilities and extra damage/chance with chilled status effect


Templar (Dawn's Wrath+ Aedric Spear)
In my opinion Templar is the most well designed class in a game. If every class had templar design subclassing wouldn't be an issue. It is complete opposite to Arcanist as it has its power spread across all 3 skill lines (well, for dps mostly 2 of them) and combination of them make it powerful as a whole. Unfortunately Herald of the Tome provides as much power as Aedric Spear and Dawn's Wrath combined. Keep in mind these are separate skill lines and each of them will compete with different classes.



I'm fully aware that I mentioned skill lines which have 1-2 abilities dedicated for DPS and generally they are better suited for different role . Also, we have skill lines like Nbs Assasination. Wardens Animal Companion or Necros Grave Lord and they are also dedicated for 1 role only so what am I talking about?

Well, my point is that Herald of the Tome is incredibly strong skill line in any scenario. From what we have seen on PTS Herald of the Tome is completely dominating subclassing as it is simply too powerful to be skipped. The main theme became to take Arcanist and use subclassing to boost its damage even further. Arcanist beam builds are being challenged only in single target fights by combination of Nb, Sorc and... Arcanist.
Herald of the Tome is used in every scenario, either as core of the build with beam or damage buff to a different spec. Sadly there are some classes which are getting completely skipped since they either don't provide enough buffs boosting your own damage or can't compete with Arcanist damage output.

I'm not here to ask for massive nerfs to Arcanist. It would only hurt those players who decide to pass on subclassing (which should also be an option) and they should not be punished for it. Instead of nerfing it I think devs should shift some of the Herald of the Tome power into different skill lines. This way Arcanist will be string powerful just on its own but not too powerful to make it outshine everything else.

Raynvan

I decided to expand on my previous post. As we know with subclassing we will be able to exchange 2 of our class skill lines. Devs have mentioned that theirs goal with subclassing is to give players more ways to build theirs character, however they will have to make sacrifices to gain new benefits.

Keeping that in mind lets take a closer look at Arcanist and some of the older classes. We will pick the best skill tree for dps and replace 2 other skill lines. Lets see what each of these classes has to sacrifice to gain new benefits. I will only list skills and passives which are potentially beneficial for damage dealers (damage bonus, sustain, ulti gen)

Arcanist > Replacing Soldier of Apocrypha and Curative Runeforms

• Implacable Outcome - 4 ult/8sec when consuming Crux
• Hideous Clarity- Magicka or Stamina restored when generated Crux
• Erudition- Magicka and Stamina recovery

Sorcerer > Replacing Dark Magic and Storm Calling
Decided to keep pets as every sorc build runs at least one pet

• Crystal Shards- Single target spammable or cast on proc
• Unholy Knowledge- % reduction of non core combat abilities
• Mages Fury- Execute
• Hurricane- Aoe DoT
• Critical Surge- Source of Major Brutality and Sorcery
• Lightning Splash- Aoe Dot
• Capacitor- Magicka recovery
• Energized- Increased physical/shock damage
• Amplitude- Increased damage based on target current health
• Expert Mage- Increased weapon and spell damage

Templar> Replacing Restoring Light and Aedric Spear
This is a fun one. With Templar it is really hard to replace either Aedric Spear or Dawn's Wrath as both skill lines include core abilities and you really want to keep both of them. However, just so we have comparison of "sacrifices" made by each class we will replace one of them.

• Radial Sweep- Cheap Aoe ultimate
• Puncturing Strikes- Aoe/Single target spammable
• Spear Shards- Aoe dot
• Piercing Spear- Crit Damage
• Burning Light- Extra damage after generating 4 stacks
• Ritual of Retribution- Aoe Dot

Nightblade> Replacing Shadow and Siphoning

• Twisting Path- Aoe dot
• Dark Shade- Dot
• Refreshing Shadows- Increased Stam/Mag recovery
• Strife- Single target spammable for mag builds
• Cripple- Single target dot of mag builds
• Siphonigh Attacks- Magicka/Stamina recovery/1sec when dealing damage or cast to exchange health for resources
• Drain Power- Aoe spammable, source of Major Brutality and Sorcery
• Catalyst- 20 ult after drinking potion
• Magicka Flood- Increased Max Magicka
• Transfer- ultimate gen/4 on siphon ability cast

I will say that some of abilities/passives which I listed are situation and definitely not core of every class build. However, when subclassing we will have to make these choices and decide if these skills will be beneficial to our build. For some classes choice will be much easier than for others.

But if these skill lines are so useful why would you replace them? You can keep them or replace just one of them

Yes, absolutely you can. There is an issue tho... We have few skill lines which are absolutely amazing for dps. In a scenario with healthy class balance each of these skill lines perform at the same level or they are better than others for specific situation. If there is one clear "winner" it will simply make other options less viable.

If we look at Arcanist vs Templar for example. If in the current state of the game (pre-subclassing) both of these classes pull 100k dps (just example) that is an issue. Why? Well, it's very simple. If replacing one of your skill lines would give you even 5% dps increase one of these classes would gain way more than the other. Arcanist is able to replace 2 of his other skill lines losing very little and Templar can either gain only 1 new beneficial skill line or replace 2 but at much higher price.

What about Nb assasination and Necro Grave Lord? These are incredibly strong too
Yes, they are and there is no question about but we need to take another important factor into consideration. If you add 5% to 90 and 100 you will get more from 100. Math is simple. Arcanist outperforms other classes by a good margin. So it is better to take its high "base" power and add on top of it.

There are classes stronger than Arcanist
Please take a moment and look at these few images. Unfortunately I don't have access to official data so I will use Esologs as source of my statics. And I think these will be perfect since they are provided by us, players.

Lucent Citadel


Sanity's Edge


Deadsail Reef


Rockgrove


Kyne's Aegis


Please take a look at number of parses recorded by each class. In some cases Arcanist has more recorded fights than all other specs combined! Technically it is not an indication of class power but in reality- it is. You could argue that this data comes from elitist player and it does not apply to regular players but the only difference is that we will follow whatever they do just few weeks earlier.

mrreow

Number of parses is also due to arcanist bypassing broken weaving mechanic and it isn’t a small factor for many.

MJallday

I really wish people would stop calling for arc nerfs and start calling for other class buffs

It’s getting tiring

Stx

MJallday wrote: »

I really wish people would stop calling for arc nerfs and start calling for other class buffs

It’s getting tiring

Why buff six out of seven classes when you could nerf the obvious outlier?

Heronisan

Yes, the fact that its much harder for base classes and they lose much more from subclassing then arcanist is a glaringly obvious problem you would think zos would do something about before adding subclasses, but that would be expecting to much.

The fact that a arcanist can perform better with templar skill lines then templar can is just disrespectful towards all the time some people have put into their templar

I have 10 outfit slots and all my progress on templar, i have played it religiously for so many years, i expect it to be just as good to subclass with as newer classes, but even from their interview it sounded like they are not even aware base classes have this problem, somehow they seem to think base classes also have dedicated tank/heal/dps line

This snippet from the interview in particular makes me see red “We know the Subclassing system will infuse power into the player community. For example, players can drop their tank and support skill lines for more damage-dealing abilities and passives,” notes Day. “

Zos, please tell me which are pure dps,,tank and support lines for templar

I have tanked 1t 3dd dlc HMs for years on templar and its almost impossible to swap out skill lines, only dawns wrath is a candidate, but i still use living dark from there in order to survive ERE HM bear shout when doing 1t 3dd

Dawns wrath is also the place where nova is, our supposed to be tanking ultimate but its crap

Templar tanking power is split into all 3 trees, so when i subclass, i dont rlly gain anything, while arcanist have 1 super powerful tanking tree, they gain way more from swapping out the other 2 skill lines

Our shield ability (sun shield) , minor maim and protection, is in aedric spear

our major resolve (rune focus) is in restoring light,

our ult regen passive,our ultimate and resource passives are in the dawns wrath tree.

While arcanist have all that in just 1 skill tree.

CameraBeardThePirate

Its pretty powerful in PvP too.

Arcanist (in PvP at least) is designed around having extremely high raw stats with clunky to use abilities that require crux gen and consumption.

The problem is, by keeping only Herald and swapping in two other skill lines (for example, Animal Companions and Restoring Light), now you have extremely high raw stats on top of easy to use burst abilities like Shalks. It gives Arc that extra oomph that it needed to do well in PvP.

Renato90085

today,i parse my pure nb 141k in dummy
but in my dsr trifecta group,i am the only 1 guys still use pure class,the leader cant for me run alk or co or ec because meta build not need them, i only can do 7-9% dps in group(it bad than sup set subclass) and not have good aoe spam/ult can use
i think i only 2 way can go, run alk and still do lowest dps or leave group 3 month and wait subclass nerf