CaptainRele wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

You are being bombarded with a laser beam, it is obviously direct damage and always should have been, I support this change.

"Direct damage" does not mean "bombard". Direct damage is the opposite of damage over time, in the same way single target and area of effect are opposites. A single beam that deals continuous Damage over a period of Time cannot by definition be direct damage. Words have meaning.

Nah, Channeled Direct Damage is exactly what this is.

CaptainRele wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

You are being bombarded with a laser beam, it is obviously direct damage and always should have been, I support this change.

"Direct damage" does not mean "bombard". Direct damage is the opposite of damage over time, in the same way single target and area of effect are opposites. A single beam that deals continuous Damage over a period of Time cannot by definition be direct damage. Words have meaning.

Actually, indirect damage would be the opposite of direct damage. Direct is just the terminology this game uses, in other games it is called Strike damage, special attack damage, whatever.

This game has clear classifications and each ability has more than one. Direct, DoT, Single target, AoE, Channel, casted, instant.

Beam is now a direct damage AoE channel, due to game balance reasons, not because it’s logical to call it that. This was a common sense change as you can not have a spammable ability benefit from things like thaumaturge CP or Rapid rot.

Assassin tree is still grossly overpowered in PvP. Players who haven't read the notes are gonna assume the double spectral bow is some sort of cheat. The rest of the line is loaded too, instant spammable that puts cast time skills to shame, best single target execute, insane crit passives that blow away every other source of crit chance. It's a one stop shop that's gonna largely homogenize the PvP damage meta into Assassin NB derivatives, overshadowing all of subclassing.

Glad to see some of the feedback on DK sustain was addressed. Thanks for that ZOS.

this was the big combat change week ?

feedback basically useless imo

Ironically, we do have instant damage over time.

We have DoTs that are instant cast, and we also have pets and summons such as Dark Shade, skeletal minion, and Sorc pets that deal direct damage… over time.

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

You are being bombarded with a laser beam, it is obviously direct damage and always should have been, I support this change.

Laser beams are more akin to being hit with a stream of water than a blast from a projectile.

While it makes sense from a balancing perspective this change is going to confuse the heck out for anyone that's trying to learn the game. Why would a channel act this way? It makes no sense. Even within how the game defines its own mechanics.

I was under the impression that subclasses were supposed to at least make sense and allow for easier game mechanics but it doesn't appear to be the case.

Alaztor91 wrote: »

[So, which one is it? Obviously no one expects a perfect release and that every single variable will be accounted for, but are we really supposed to believe that Subclassing in its current state is polished enough to be ready for release?

The bell can't be unrung. Once subclassing is live, there will be no reining it in. They can't go "oopsie!" and pull it from the game.

That's the whole problem. They weren't prepared going in, and they won't be prepared in two weeks. Given their track record over the course of this PTS cycle, their approach seems to be to wait until something they didn't anticipate happens, nerf that specific interaction, and then wait for the next bombshell.

PTS 11.0.3 states that beams are now considered direct damage rather than DoTs. Are they still considered channels?

This affects the Deadly Strike set, and one of the more common builds for Arcanists.

All the combat changes were great, especially the beam ability type being changed to direct damage and giving Stormcaller the ability to use the synergy of Lightning Splash.

Still hoping for a change to Animate Blastbones ultimate for necromancer, since the summons count towards the maximum summon cap and the ultimate is long overdue for a buff (buff duration of blastbones outside of combat, reduce ultimate cost, make the blastbones not require corpses to spawn, or just anything to buff the ultimate), but other than that I'm happy with everything so far!

Hoping there are more combat changes inbound in the coming weeks? GLS still needs some QoL changes at the minimum (instant summon/buff time).

Also echoing the sentiment that the changes to beams seems illogical and is only being made from a balancing perspective, which I think is a poor way to decide changes. Hope those changes are reconsidered - it seems a shame to sanitize the system before it goes live.

The change to Lightning Splash is good, but Sorc's Dark Magic still needs more love. As a damage line, Dark Magic, except for Crystal and Exploitation, the rest of the skills and passives are either mediocre or terrible. More buffs are needed to make the Dark Magic line suitable for Subclassing, otherwise almost no one will choose this line.

In addition, even in v11.0.3, Sorc cannot make non-pet builds playable by simply replacing Daedric Summoning. More damage power needs to be allocated to Dark Magic, and Daedric Prey of Daedric Summoning needs to be nerfed. After all, Daedric Prey exists as a band-aid for U35, should be taken to nerf it and buff Dark Magic to make non-pet builds viable.

The poor skill distribution of Sorc, "Those who do not wish to interact with the pet gameplay can now replace this skill line as a whole." is basically unfeasible, swapping Daedric Summoning alone still cannot make non-pet sorc viable in PVE. Either need to swap a lot of non-pet damage skills and passives in Daedric Summoning to Dark Magic, or need to heavily buff Dark Magic and Storm Calling, or need to completely rework all three sorc skill lines.

In addition, SHOCK Damage is still weak. Since Piercing Cold can be adjusted to 7/15%, can we also consider buffing Energized moderately? After all, other than Burning, Poisoned, Sundered and Hemorrhaging, other status effects are still unattractive.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin Any chance we'll see Dark Magic buffed to accommodate Subclassing before 6/2?

Stx wrote: »

Sorcerer trees are particularly unsuited for subclassing due to how spread out over all three trees the sustain, buffs, healing, and tanking abilities and passives are. It’s going to be difficult to balance for subclassing without some big changes.

Stormcalling is the easiest, it can clearly be made the shock damage tree.

Daedric summoning is a little tricky because it’s obvious theme is summoning minions or bound armor / weapons. It is clearly a dps line, but also has tank sprinkled in and heal as well. I think no matter if you make this a dps line or a tank line, some players will be upset. But I suppose this tree could be a dps line or a heal line and remove the tanky stuff.

Dark magic has dps elements to it, but I think it would be easily converted to a skill line focused solely on control, defense, and therefore leans into tanking. I have no idea what to do about crystal frags. It would be weird to just stick it in one of the other two lines, but it’s such an iconic ability and clearly belongs in a dps line.

I think the easiest way is to make good use of the skill morph, eliminate some useless/less used morphs and rework them, so that each skill line of sorc is damage + defense/damage + treatment
Example: Dark Magic
Negate Magic, one of the two Morphs, focuses on damage and the other focuses on healing (but the damage of Suppression Field needs to be greatly increased, otherwise the current damage is still not suitable for the ultimate)
Crystal Shard, both of its current variants are iconic and don't need much change.
Encase, the same two Morphs, one focused on damage, one focused on treatment, Vibrant Shroud is fine, but the damage of Shattering Spines is insufficient. Major Maim should be removed and given a 10-second dot to facilitate weaving.
Rune Prison: Neither is great, but Rune Cage is a ranged control ability in PVP and doesn't need to be adjusted for now, while Defensive Rune can be reworked into an ability suitable for tanks.
Dark Exchange, no changes are needed for now.
Daedric Mines, same problem as Encase, Daedric Refuge is ok, but Daedric Tomb is terrible and needs to be reworked.

Unholy Knowledge, with a 6% cost reduction, seems a bit weak compared to Templar Dawn's Wrath's Restoring Spirit, which also reduces the ultimate cost by 5%. Should give Unholy Knowledge a buff applicable to damage. Example: Increases the damage of a Sorc class ability by 5%
There's nothing wrong with Blood Magic, but it would be nice to be able to apply the healing to allies as well
Persistence is the same as Unholy Knowledge, it's too cheap. Should give a buff appropriate for treatment.
Exploitation is in a similar situation to Unholy Knowledge, being too mediocre when compared to other passive abilities of the same type. Compared with NB's Hemorrhage, the latter also has an additional Critical Damage by 10%. Exploitation should be given a damage buff, such as increasing Sorc's Critical by 5%, or increasing direct damage by 5%.

The new Fatecarver (direct damage) does not appear to be enhanced by Eagle Eye or Wrath of the Imperium.
However, the new Fatecarver can trigger sets such as Prior Thierric and Nazaray.

LonePirate wrote: »

Is there a game whose developers do not understand (to be kind) or despise (to be unkind) their PVP community as much as ZOS does with the ESO PVP community? I have not seen anything in these first four weeks of this PTS cycle that will address player complaints with the current state of skills and sets in PVP. Is it a communication issue? It is simply apathy?

Although pvpers do suffer most but they have the same position with their game’s entire community.
I have never seen devs treat their players with such disrespect and disregard.