Upcoming U47 PTS changes, based on feedback

Erickson9610 · July 16

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Now would you celebrate this build as "wow such build diversity! I would like to play that!" Or is it more like "wow, are you stupid for gimping yourself that much?"

I would say the latter.

But here's what Class passives enable for Werewolf:

Damage buffs from Aedric Spear, Storm Calling, Grave Lord, Herald of the Tome, etc
Max Health buffs from Bone Tyrant, Green Balance, and Daedric Summoning
Armor buffs from Aedric Spear and Draconic Power
Block-related buffs from Restoring Light, Dark Magic, Draconic Power, and Winter's Embrace
Ability cost reduction from Dawn's Wrath and Dark Magic
Healing Done with Living Death and Restoring Light
Resource Recovery from Shadow and Curative Runeforms
...and so on

The build diversity comes from which attributes you want to stack into.

For a PvP Werewolf, sometimes I'll want to stack Armor, Ability Cost Reduction, and Healing Done, so I could go with Aedric Spear, Dawn's Wrath (or Dark Magic), and either Restoring Light or Living Death.

Maybe I want a tank/block build that uses Draconic Power and Winter's Embrace. I could supplement Daedric Summoning for Max Health if I run Pack Leader.

Damage dealer werewolves will for sure want to use Aedric Spear and Storm Calling, but a good third skill line is Herald of the Tome or Grave Lord.

All of those builds wouldn't be possible without Subclassing, much less without the ability to use your native Class passives at all. Even before Subclassing, certain Classes were by far the most optimal for Werewolf — Sorcerer Werewolf was top tier for the longest time before Templar Werewolf had Burning Light made available to them. Now that we aren't locked to our native Class skill lines, any Class Werewolf can be competitive with one another.

tomofhyrule · July 16

Erickson9610 wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Now would you celebrate this build as "wow such build diversity! I would like to play that!" Or is it more like "wow, are you stupid for gimping yourself that much?"

I would say the latter.

But here's what Class passives enable for Werewolf:
Damage buffs from Aedric Spear, Storm Calling, Grave Lord, Herald of the Tome, etc

Max Health buffs from Bone Tyrant, Green Balance, and Daedric Summoning

Armor buffs from Aedric Spear and Draconic Power

Block-related buffs from Restoring Light, Dark Magic, Draconic Power, and Winter's Embrace

Ability cost reduction from Dawn's Wrath and Dark Magic

Healing Done with Living Death and Restoring Light

Resource Recovery from Shadow and Curative Runeforms

...and so on

The build diversity comes from which attributes you want to stack into.

For a PvP Werewolf, sometimes I'll want to stack Armor, Ability Cost Reduction, and Healing Done, so I could go with Aedric Spear, Dawn's Wrath (or Dark Magic), and either Restoring Light or Living Death.

Maybe I want a tank/block build that uses Draconic Power and Winter's Embrace. I could supplement Daedric Summoning for Max Health if I run Pack Leader.

Damage dealer werewolves will for sure want to use Aedric Spear and Storm Calling, but a good third skill line is Herald of the Tome or Grave Lord.

All of those builds wouldn't be possible without Subclassing, much less without the ability to use your native Class passives at all. Even before Subclassing, certain Classes were by far the most optimal for Werewolf — Sorcerer Werewolf was top tier for the longest time before Templar Werewolf had Burning Light made available to them. Now that we aren't locked to our native Class skill lines, any Class Werewolf can be competitive with one another.

And yet, each of these rely on the exact same 5 skills, so is the playstyle really that different? Especially if you also want to consider playing a werewolf in group, at which point groupmates could give some of those buffs as well. Especially for things like the "healing done" bonus, since werewolves really only have self heals unless you specifically use a set to heal others. There really is no way to make a practically useful werewolf healer.

This is just a classic example of the difference between "sledgehammer balance" versus "scalpel balance." If the problem is "werewolves are underpowered" - which they are, don't get me wrong - the answer does not need to be "well, let's just let players stack Class passives so Arcbladeplars are even more OP than they are.
Couldn't they just... buff werewolf specifically?

Heck, I think there's a lot they could do to werewolf that would make them a lot more unique. Consider that vampire is able to use vamp skills in addition to other skills. What if werewolves could use their Class skills? That would mean you need to put more thought into what lines you want instead of just taking a line for its passives.

But all of this goes back to my idea of the two schools of thought: you're considering Subclass balance as "I just need to stack passives and I don't care about the skills," whereas others think "I need to choose skill lines to account for my Class's shortcomings." There are ways that things can be adjusted to make it so a 3xWarden werewolf (I'm still pretending he's a werebear; ZOS give me a skill style for that!) isn't leagues behind an Arcplarsorc werewolf, and that neither are actual trash compared to a human Arcbladeplar.

Erickson9610 · July 16

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Heck, I think there's a lot they could do to werewolf that would make them a lot more unique. Consider that vampire is able to use vamp skills in addition to other skills. What if werewolves could use their Class skills? That would mean you need to put more thought into what lines you want instead of just taking a line for its passives.

Werewolves shouldn't be able to use Class skills. Not only would the animations be incompatible, but it would ruin the identity of Werewolf in general. People would start running Werewolf solely for the Werewolf passives, not using a single Werewolf ability — Werewolf would basically just be Oakensoul but with +18% WD/SD, +30% Movement Speed, and so on.

This is actually the problem many people have with Subclassing. Suddenly, there is no such thing as a "pure Templar" because you have the option of Subclassing. Sure, you can roleplay as a pureclass Templar, but you shouldn't be as strong as someone who prioritizes their role over their archetype.

Letting werewolves use non-Werewolf abilities is the same as letting Templars use non-Templar Class abilities. Werewolf is a "class" that is mutually exclusive from "the non-werewolves", which is every human form build thanks to Subclassing.

Werewolf literally is the last bit of "class identity" in this game, solely because its skills are mutually exclusive from everyone else, and vice versa.

tomofhyrule · July 16

Erickson9610 wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Heck, I think there's a lot they could do to werewolf that would make them a lot more unique. Consider that vampire is able to use vamp skills in addition to other skills. What if werewolves could use their Class skills? That would mean you need to put more thought into what lines you want instead of just taking a line for its passives.

This is actually the problem many people have with Subclassing. Suddenly, there is no such thing as a "pure Templar" because you have the option of Subclassing. Sure, you can roleplay as a pureclass Templar, but you shouldn't be as strong as someone who prioritizes their role over their archetype.

Once again, that was the whole point of this post

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I think the biggest problem with the different views of Subclassing are the fact that there are two schools of thought on how it works, and those are diametrically opposed to each other. This means that one person's "perfect suggestion" is another person's "obviously wrong idea."

I think everyone can get behind the idea of a character who is built to be focused in one way should be more powerful than, and have more drawbacks than, a character who is a jack of all trades, master of none. The issue is... how do you define the "focused in one way" versus the "jack of all trades?"

School of thought 1: We're talking about the character's role.
These are the people who think that the character's position in the Holy Trinity is the important thing. A character who is focused into being a Damage Dealer would be one with three DPS lines, and therefore they should absolutely have higher DPS than someone who is spreading their lines out to take one each of a tank/healer/DPS line. This also means the 3xDD character should have weaknesses in not being able to survive much at all, and they will require healers/tanks to support them. Pureclasses are normally set up to be able to do every role, so they are more the jack-of-all-trades types, and therefore the suggestion to "buff pureclasses!" makes no sense since they should be lower DPS since they are not focused purely on one role.
In essence, the Subclassed build is the focused one, and the pureclass is the jack of all trades.

School of thought 2: We're talking about the character's archetype.
These are the people who favor the idea of Class identity. They see each Class as playing slightly differently - DKs tend to be tanky and mostly pressure with DoTs and poison/burning status effects, but they suffer from low sustain and no execute power; NBs are sneaky stabby assassins with high burst and great single target damage, and basically no cleave; and the like. They see a pureclass as someone who is all-in on their character's skills and has to play to their Class's strengths and weaknesses. A Subclass, however, allows players to take skills from another class to cover those weaknesses, and therefore they're making themselves more versatile. They therefore think that buffing pureclasses is obvious since the Subclass is extending its capabilities, so it should logically be sacrificing power to do so.
In essence, the pureclassed build is the focused one, and the Subclass is the jack of all trades.

What you see as "you can roleplay as a pureclass Templar, but you shouldn't be as strong as someone who prioritizes their role over their archetype" is someone else's "you can give up your entire identity to cover your innate weaknesses, but you shouldn't be as strong as someone who prioritizes their Class over their role."

Erickson9610 · July 16

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Heck, I think there's a lot they could do to werewolf that would make them a lot more unique. Consider that vampire is able to use vamp skills in addition to other skills. What if werewolves could use their Class skills? That would mean you need to put more thought into what lines you want instead of just taking a line for its passives.

This is actually the problem many people have with Subclassing. Suddenly, there is no such thing as a "pure Templar" because you have the option of Subclassing. Sure, you can roleplay as a pureclass Templar, but you shouldn't be as strong as someone who prioritizes their role over their archetype.

Once again, that was the whole point of this post

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I think the biggest problem with the different views of Subclassing are the fact that there are two schools of thought on how it works, and those are diametrically opposed to each other. This means that one person's "perfect suggestion" is another person's "obviously wrong idea."

I think everyone can get behind the idea of a character who is built to be focused in one way should be more powerful than, and have more drawbacks than, a character who is a jack of all trades, master of none. The issue is... how do you define the "focused in one way" versus the "jack of all trades?"

School of thought 1: We're talking about the character's role.
These are the people who think that the character's position in the Holy Trinity is the important thing. A character who is focused into being a Damage Dealer would be one with three DPS lines, and therefore they should absolutely have higher DPS than someone who is spreading their lines out to take one each of a tank/healer/DPS line. This also means the 3xDD character should have weaknesses in not being able to survive much at all, and they will require healers/tanks to support them. Pureclasses are normally set up to be able to do every role, so they are more the jack-of-all-trades types, and therefore the suggestion to "buff pureclasses!" makes no sense since they should be lower DPS since they are not focused purely on one role.
In essence, the Subclassed build is the focused one, and the pureclass is the jack of all trades.

School of thought 2: We're talking about the character's archetype.
These are the people who favor the idea of Class identity. They see each Class as playing slightly differently - DKs tend to be tanky and mostly pressure with DoTs and poison/burning status effects, but they suffer from low sustain and no execute power; NBs are sneaky stabby assassins with high burst and great single target damage, and basically no cleave; and the like. They see a pureclass as someone who is all-in on their character's skills and has to play to their Class's strengths and weaknesses. A Subclass, however, allows players to take skills from another class to cover those weaknesses, and therefore they're making themselves more versatile. They therefore think that buffing pureclasses is obvious since the Subclass is extending its capabilities, so it should logically be sacrificing power to do so.
In essence, the pureclassed build is the focused one, and the Subclass is the jack of all trades.

What you see as "you can roleplay as a pureclass Templar, but you shouldn't be as strong as someone who prioritizes their role over their archetype" is someone else's "you can give up your entire identity to cover your innate weaknesses, but you shouldn't be as strong as someone who prioritizes their Class over their role."

As far as Werewolf is concerned, Class Passives shouldn't be nerfed (as many of them don't require Class Active Abilities) while Werewolf Passives should continue to require the use of Werewolf Transformation (implying the use of Werewolf Active Abilities).

Werewolf is considered a "subclass" of your Class/archetype (not to be confused with Subclassing). If your Class/archetype has innate boosts to physical damage, then your Class's Werewolf form would also benefit from those physical damage boosts.

Now with Subclassing — the players decide their archetype. It's no longer just Templar, Warden, etcetera. One's archetype is determined by the unique combination of skill lines equipped; one example is a "Hunter" archetype which uses Aedric Spear, Shadow, and Animal Companions. While technically they are of some base Class, their archetype changes to what skills they use.

Applying this logic to Werewolf means that this "Hunter" archetype should apply all of its innate boosts to the Werewolf form. Now obviously I wouldn't ever run Animal Companions on a Werewolf (all 4 passives require Animal Companions abilities to be slotted) perhaps those skills are useful in the human form.

diamondo · July 16

I’m glad to see people considering options for pure builds here.
The fact is sub classing does make someone stronger than someone who wants to remain pure class, I’m sure there are some players who could make it work but for your average Joes this has nuked the fun of the PVP. This shouldn’t be the way.

I like the ideas floated about

1-players not being able to use the morph on sub classes skill lines,
2- damage reduction for players using sub classes lines
3- Or even damage increase for players who stay with the pure class lines

PVE is not an issue I simple would like to see something in PVP These changes can be done going on the vengeance campaign adjusts the skills while in Cyro

I’m aware that some people won’t be happy with these suggestions but isn’t this game about playing the way you want to play, so shouldn’t you not be disadvantaged for wanting to stay pure class.

randconfig · July 16

ZOS_Amy wrote: »

We'll also be introducing a failsafe for the Arcanist's Class Mastery script with Banner Bearer — so it's not a complete loss of power. It will generate Ultimate if the effect did not generate a Crux.

That was never the problem with this change, it's the lack of ability to generate crux using subclassed or weapon abilities.

1/3 of Arcanist passives require you to generate/consume crux: Fated Fortune, Healing Tides, Hideous Clarity, Implacable Outcome. If I'm a DPS Arcanist and I want to subclass Herald of the Tome for Grave Lord, I now lose access to 3/8 of my remaining two base class skill line passives because of the Bannerbearer change. Additionally, there's no point in slotting any crux consumption abilities, as I will never be able to generate more than a single crux, so 7 abilities/morphs from the two base Arcanist skill lines kept in this scenario are also rendered useless.

Alternatively, if I'm forced to always keep the Herald of the Tome skill line, I have access to Runeblades... But the whole point is I want to use a different spammable/to engage with subclassing or weapon skill lines while being an Arcanist. Perhaps I could use Tome-Bearer's Inspiration, but again, it only generates a single crux and only works with class skills, so at most I would get a single crux, meaning all consumption abilities would be useless to slot and up to 1/3 of my class passives would do nothing.

So your post does nothing to soothe my frustration, as you did not address the core issue with the Arcanist class mastery change, and it doesn't appear that there's any intention to add an alternative method of crux generation to replace the one you're taking away from us, leaving us functionally locked out of engaging with subclassing and weapon skill lines.

PeacefulAnarchy · July 17

randconfig wrote: »

ZOS_Amy wrote: »

We'll also be introducing a failsafe for the Arcanist's Class Mastery script with Banner Bearer — so it's not a complete loss of power. It will generate Ultimate if the effect did not generate a Crux.

That was never the problem with this change, it's the lack of ability to generate crux using subclassed or weapon abilities.

1/3 of Arcanist passives require you to generate/consume crux: Fated Fortune, Healing Tides, Hideous Clarity, Implacable Outcome. If I'm a DPS Arcanist and I want to subclass Herald of the Tome for Grave Lord, I now lose access to 3/8 of my remaining two base class skill line passives because of the Bannerbearer change. Additionally, there's no point in slotting any crux consumption abilities, as I will never be able to generate more than a single crux, so 7 abilities/morphs from the two base Arcanist skill lines kept in this scenario are also rendered useless.

Alternatively, if I'm forced to always keep the Herald of the Tome skill line, I have access to Runeblades... But the whole point is I want to use a different spammable/to engage with subclassing or weapon skill lines while being an Arcanist. Perhaps I could use Tome-Bearer's Inspiration, but again, it only generates a single crux and only works with class skills, so at most I would get a single crux, meaning all consumption abilities would be useless to slot and up to 1/3 of my class passives would do nothing.

So your post does nothing to soothe my frustration, as you did not address the core issue with the Arcanist class mastery change, and it doesn't appear that there's any intention to add an alternative method of crux generation to replace the one you're taking away from us, leaving us functionally locked out of engaging with subclassing and weapon skill lines.

The change is only for banner. You can scribe any other skill and put the class mastery on that and it will build crux. Also every line has a crux builder. You can certainly argue that that is still too restrictive, but there are options.

Eormenric · July 17

I understood the original changes, but appreciate listening to the community.

In regards to Grim Focus:
I was subclassing into Warden and saw the 400 bonus power from Screaming Cliff Racer and thought "Wait, why isn't this being looked at for a nerf?" Maybe because it's mostly only a 100 power bonus, with 400 only during Off Balance moments. But with just 1 other target up within 10 seconds, it's basically always 400. Grim Focus is 400 all the time. But SCR gives Off Balance, which with the CP Exploiter could be 10% additional damage. I think Grim Focus should retain its current iteration with a minor change to balance it with SCR. Grim Focus should gain 1 stack per heavy attack--no stacks gained from light--but gain 2 stacks if attacking a target from behind. I think that's all that's needed to feel like you actually need to invest some strategy to benefit. Preferably put a CD on the buff to require an additional HA every so often.

I think subclassing and scribing obviously opens wide a big can of worms for balance. But ZOS has gone the wrong direction for progress. Don't reduce the creativity and options--give MORE. Give each class a power bonus for doing something:

Nightblade - Heavy Attack with Grim Focus
Warden - Off Balance with Screaming Cliff Racer
Sorcerer - Minor Vulnerability which could increase to Major Vulnerability after so many applications.
Templar - Inflicting Overcharge could give x power for x seconds.
Dragonknight - Already has Poison and Flame increase.
Necromancer - Something to warrant Disease in PVE combat.
Arcanist - I don't care, they're already OP (fix that).
[future class] - Give a reason to apply Sundered or Hemorrhaging, etc.

Ezhh · July 17

This is the kind of communication we need. Please - work with us more like this. It's appreciated, it makes you look much better and it will improve more players' spirits to see more of it!

That said: sorc is still suffering. It's really difficult to subclass usefully while still leaving it feel like a sorc. I'm not going to repeat all the arguments or add to the suggestions others have listed, but please look into this more. Moving the max resources feels like a step backwards to me.

Also can you please consider unnerfing the Pearls mythic? It was an engaging playstyle and I'm finding healer way less interesting with the changes. Pillager should also be reconsidered now the ult issues should be fixed.

StihlReign · July 17

ZOS_Amy wrote: »

Hello All,

We've seen a lot of your feedback about some of the class and ability changes that are currently on the PTS for Update 47. We hear your frustration and confusion about why some of these changes are being made, and we wanted to give you some additional context.

We also understand that having to continually update builds with every patch can be tiresome and can detract from the fun and enjoyment of playing the way you want, something that is a part of ESO's DNA. In considering the community’s feedback, we will be making the following changes starting in an upcoming week of the U47 PTS, sometime after PTS week 2.

...

As we mentioned before the release of U46 and Subclassing, we will continue to work on tuning these abilities to achieve greater class balance. It's worth noting that the changes above are also subject to change, and we'll continue listening to your feedback before these go live. In the months ahead, we are going to continue to look at balancing and will make additional adjustments. For now, we hope these amended abilities are more in line with your expectations, and you continue to enjoy Subclassing.

Thank you, again, for all the thoughtful and constructive discourse around the U47 PTS changes. Your input is valuable and these adjustments are a direct result. Please continue to let us know how your experience is on the PTS — we're listening.

Hi, is class balance or ability vs ability balance the higher priority?

Radiate77 wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Well, this is just confusing.

While the communication is great, stepping backwards is a horrible sign. When you make a change, and then revert it, it tells me you either have no vision or there’s not enough confidence in that vision… and that’s a horrible sign for the future.

I couldn't disagree more. Actually listening feedback and walking back negative changes is a great thing. That's what the PTS is for, testing and feedback. Mistakes happen to everyone and sometimes you can overlook things when trying to fix something.

My feedback was that each subclass should feel more unique and that I appreciated the change they just reverted, so no.

They didn’t listen to my feedback and they walked back a change that I felt was strongly heading towards that future.

Why even touch the skill if it wasn’t part of some bigger plan?

The issue wasn't them touching the skills, it was that they didn't implement enough of said "bigger plan" alongside those changes to have those changes make sense. They also didn't communicate with us what said bigger plan was, so those changes simply read as just a straight up nerf to specific abilities/skill lines/playstyles.

Rolling those changes back (even if only for a patch or 2) so they can work on creating and implementing more changes to be added alongside those changes for a more complete picture of their "bigger plan" is the best way to move forward. It prevents a repeat of U35 where players got a massive nerf only to be forced to wait multiple patches (in some cases over a year), completely in the dark regarding the bigger plan, to receive any buffs/changes that allowed those U35 changes to somewhat make sense.

We need a clear mission statement from ZOS following Subclassing.

Despite wanting to believe they rolled back these changes to implement them better later down the road, they haven’t communicated that.

I'd love to see a combat mission statement, that would be awesome!

OnGodiDoDis · July 17

Hello, I want to suggest some ways to balance the most used combination of subclassed skill lines for PvP DPS users. At this moment, Animal Companions and Assassination are dominating PvP. Why? This is because the immense burst potential that comes from a delayed ability (Deep Fissure) paired with a skill that hits very, VERY hard (Merciless Resolve and its morphs). The bow was never too problematic before subclassing because people could just dodge the bow. The problem now comes from the way the combo has changed. You see, NBs used to Incap and then follow up with a Bow. After the Incap, players would normally roll dodge, naturally causing the Bow to miss. With subclassing, however, people that use the aforementioned skill lines use the Bow BEFORE they even do any damage. So, the Deep Fissure and Bow are hitting players before they even have time to react. This is followed up by a Dawnbreaker and then ANOTHER Bow. That is the current PvP meta. People are getting deleted before they even have time to react. The two most powerful skills are hitting players at the same time before they even know it. There is a reason NBs never had any delayed skills they could combo with the Bow. These skills are the only thing I, and many other players, see on my death feed. You can move the bow to another NB skill line that no one likes to use to make that skill line better. This will not affect NBs because they have access to all skill lines. Putting the best skills and passives in unpopular skill lines is just one way we can balance subclassing in favor of people that choose to stay true to their class without borrowing skill lines from other classes. This will prevent players from grabbing skill lines that have all the best skills and passives from certain classes, and it will help with similar metas inthe future, after the Animal Companions/Assassination meta gets adjusted.

randconfig · July 18

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

ZOS_Amy wrote: »

We'll also be introducing a failsafe for the Arcanist's Class Mastery script with Banner Bearer — so it's not a complete loss of power. It will generate Ultimate if the effect did not generate a Crux.

That was never the problem with this change, it's the lack of ability to generate crux using subclassed or weapon abilities.

1/3 of Arcanist passives require you to generate/consume crux: Fated Fortune, Healing Tides, Hideous Clarity, Implacable Outcome. If I'm a DPS Arcanist and I want to subclass Herald of the Tome for Grave Lord, I now lose access to 3/8 of my remaining two base class skill line passives because of the Bannerbearer change. Additionally, there's no point in slotting any crux consumption abilities, as I will never be able to generate more than a single crux, so 7 abilities/morphs from the two base Arcanist skill lines kept in this scenario are also rendered useless.

Alternatively, if I'm forced to always keep the Herald of the Tome skill line, I have access to Runeblades... But the whole point is I want to use a different spammable/to engage with subclassing or weapon skill lines while being an Arcanist. Perhaps I could use Tome-Bearer's Inspiration, but again, it only generates a single crux and only works with class skills, so at most I would get a single crux, meaning all consumption abilities would be useless to slot and up to 1/3 of my class passives would do nothing.

So your post does nothing to soothe my frustration, as you did not address the core issue with the Arcanist class mastery change, and it doesn't appear that there's any intention to add an alternative method of crux generation to replace the one you're taking away from us, leaving us functionally locked out of engaging with subclassing and weapon skill lines.

The change is only for banner. You can scribe any other skill and put the class mastery on that and it will build crux. Also every line has a crux builder. You can certainly argue that that is still too restrictive, but there are options.

You're arguing against a point I did not make. I am pointing out how banner enabled flexibility, and without it, the class is too restricted to utilize Subclassing or Weapon abilities, and that they should not remove it until they implement an alternative solution.

The banner Arcanist script was not game breaking, there's no reason to remove it immediately before you have a solution to the restrictions the Crux mechanic places on only the Arcanist class.

tomofhyrule · July 18

randconfig wrote: »

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

ZOS_Amy wrote: »

We'll also be introducing a failsafe for the Arcanist's Class Mastery script with Banner Bearer — so it's not a complete loss of power. It will generate Ultimate if the effect did not generate a Crux.

That was never the problem with this change, it's the lack of ability to generate crux using subclassed or weapon abilities.

1/3 of Arcanist passives require you to generate/consume crux: Fated Fortune, Healing Tides, Hideous Clarity, Implacable Outcome. If I'm a DPS Arcanist and I want to subclass Herald of the Tome for Grave Lord, I now lose access to 3/8 of my remaining two base class skill line passives because of the Bannerbearer change. Additionally, there's no point in slotting any crux consumption abilities, as I will never be able to generate more than a single crux, so 7 abilities/morphs from the two base Arcanist skill lines kept in this scenario are also rendered useless.

Alternatively, if I'm forced to always keep the Herald of the Tome skill line, I have access to Runeblades... But the whole point is I want to use a different spammable/to engage with subclassing or weapon skill lines while being an Arcanist. Perhaps I could use Tome-Bearer's Inspiration, but again, it only generates a single crux and only works with class skills, so at most I would get a single crux, meaning all consumption abilities would be useless to slot and up to 1/3 of my class passives would do nothing.

So your post does nothing to soothe my frustration, as you did not address the core issue with the Arcanist class mastery change, and it doesn't appear that there's any intention to add an alternative method of crux generation to replace the one you're taking away from us, leaving us functionally locked out of engaging with subclassing and weapon skill lines.

The change is only for banner. You can scribe any other skill and put the class mastery on that and it will build crux. Also every line has a crux builder. You can certainly argue that that is still too restrictive, but there are options.

You're arguing against a point I did not make. I am pointing out how banner enabled flexibility, and without it, the class is too restricted to utilize Subclassing or Weapon abilities, and that they should not remove it until they implement an alternative solution.

The banner Arcanist script was not game breaking, there's no reason to remove it immediately before you have a solution to the restrictions the Crux mechanic places on only the Arcanist class.

There are several solutions to this in place already.

The following skills will all generate up to three Crux:

Herald of the Tome: Runeblades, both morphs
Herald of the Tome: Cephaliarch's Flail morph
Soldier of Apocrypha: Runic Jolt, both morphs
Soldier of Apocrypha: Cruxweaver Armor morph on hit
Curative Runeforms: Runemend, both morphs
Curative Rumeforms: Chakram of Destiny morph
Curative Runeforms: Apocryphal Gate, both morphs on port
Scribing: All Scribed skills except Banner-bearer can generate Crux on cast for characters whose primary Class is Arcanist

You can use any of those to generate Crux to power your skills. If you prefer to use a Subclassed build based around Tentacular Dread instead of Fatecarver, then you have Runeblades or any Scribed weapon or guild or Soul Magic spammable which can generate the Crux you need.

ZOS has been extremely clear in their vision for Crux though: it needs to be either actively cast, or passive forms of Crux generation need to have limitations. As stated in the dev comments:

Crux was designed to play a central role in the Arcanist's rotation, and most of its sources are built on taking actions with an active cost or reacting to events outside of one's control. Passive forms of Crux tend to have a limitation on their activation: Cruxweaver requires taking damage with a mild cooldown and Tome-Bearer's Inspiration requires you to have no Crux active. Both limitations are done to ensure you cannot purely passively generate Crux

This means that if you intend to generate Crux to use your abilities, you are required to work towards doing so. And, as stated, Banner-Bearer was gamebreaking since it literally broke ZOS's main rule for Crux generation - that it needs to be actively cast or have a limitation.

Sabre · July 18

Please. With new management overseeing the game - rollback subclassing (and hybridization for that matter). If a change can be rolled back, so can the whole idea. Changing and watering down the classes to be the same is not making the game better. Subclassing was not well prepared for release, and every attempt to solve an issue creates a new issue. This feels like it will be never ending until all the classes are watered down to be the same.

The flavor of the classes is what made the game good. There were acute differences. Not all classes are 'tanks' or 'healers' The idea that each class has to have a 'tank' 'healing' and 'dps' skill line is a fallacy. This trend with each new class release was interesting, but not necessary. The classes could have been better if they were simply made to be a good class rather than cookie cutter 3 similar skill lines. For example...nightblade is typically not a tank class...and doesn't need to be. Sorcerer...typically not a tank class.

Instead of wrecking the game over and over please roll it all back and focus on rebalancing armor introduce new armor types (chainmail?), and new weapons while reworking many of the armor sets that have become hardly used or obsolete due to power creep.

The more unique and separate the classes are, the better. The game is going in the exact opposite direction to make everything the same. The time and energy spent on subclassing and ruining the classes could be otherwise spent on fixing other things in the game; which we all thought was going to happen based upon past communication.

With so many skill lines to choose from beyond the 3 class skill lines, subclassing was not necessary.
Subclassing is a pandora's box that is now opened to unleash this chaos on us all. Stuff it back into Pandora's Box and please move on to other things. Everything about the game seems to be in free fall and it would be nice for it to just end and be stabilized.

randconfig · July 18

tomofhyrule wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

ZOS_Amy wrote: »

We'll also be introducing a failsafe for the Arcanist's Class Mastery script with Banner Bearer — so it's not a complete loss of power. It will generate Ultimate if the effect did not generate a Crux.

That was never the problem with this change, it's the lack of ability to generate crux using subclassed or weapon abilities.

1/3 of Arcanist passives require you to generate/consume crux: Fated Fortune, Healing Tides, Hideous Clarity, Implacable Outcome. If I'm a DPS Arcanist and I want to subclass Herald of the Tome for Grave Lord, I now lose access to 3/8 of my remaining two base class skill line passives because of the Bannerbearer change. Additionally, there's no point in slotting any crux consumption abilities, as I will never be able to generate more than a single crux, so 7 abilities/morphs from the two base Arcanist skill lines kept in this scenario are also rendered useless.

Alternatively, if I'm forced to always keep the Herald of the Tome skill line, I have access to Runeblades... But the whole point is I want to use a different spammable/to engage with subclassing or weapon skill lines while being an Arcanist. Perhaps I could use Tome-Bearer's Inspiration, but again, it only generates a single crux and only works with class skills, so at most I would get a single crux, meaning all consumption abilities would be useless to slot and up to 1/3 of my class passives would do nothing.

So your post does nothing to soothe my frustration, as you did not address the core issue with the Arcanist class mastery change, and it doesn't appear that there's any intention to add an alternative method of crux generation to replace the one you're taking away from us, leaving us functionally locked out of engaging with subclassing and weapon skill lines.

The change is only for banner. You can scribe any other skill and put the class mastery on that and it will build crux. Also every line has a crux builder. You can certainly argue that that is still too restrictive, but there are options.

You're arguing against a point I did not make. I am pointing out how banner enabled flexibility, and without it, the class is too restricted to utilize Subclassing or Weapon abilities, and that they should not remove it until they implement an alternative solution.

The banner Arcanist script was not game breaking, there's no reason to remove it immediately before you have a solution to the restrictions the Crux mechanic places on only the Arcanist class.

There are several solutions to this in place already.

The following skills will all generate up to three Crux:
Herald of the Tome: Runeblades, both morphs

Herald of the Tome: Cephaliarch's Flail morph

Soldier of Apocrypha: Runic Jolt, both morphs

Soldier of Apocrypha: Cruxweaver Armor morph on hit

Curative Runeforms: Runemend, both morphs

Curative Rumeforms: Chakram of Destiny morph

Curative Runeforms: Apocryphal Gate, both morphs on port

Scribing: All Scribed skills except Banner-bearer can generate Crux on cast for characters whose primary Class is Arcanist

You can use any of those to generate Crux to power your skills. If you prefer to use a Subclassed build based around Tentacular Dread instead of Fatecarver, then you have Runeblades or any Scribed weapon or guild or Soul Magic spammable which can generate the Crux you need.

ZOS has been extremely clear in their vision for Crux though: it needs to be either actively cast, or passive forms of Crux generation need to have limitations. As stated in the dev comments:

Crux was designed to play a central role in the Arcanist's rotation, and most of its sources are built on taking actions with an active cost or reacting to events outside of one's control. Passive forms of Crux tend to have a limitation on their activation: Cruxweaver requires taking damage with a mild cooldown and Tome-Bearer's Inspiration requires you to have no Crux active. Both limitations are done to ensure you cannot purely passively generate Crux

This means that if you intend to generate Crux to use your abilities, you are required to work towards doing so. And, as stated, Banner-Bearer was gamebreaking since it literally broke ZOS's main rule for Crux generation - that it needs to be actively cast or have a limitation.

Instead of addressing my issue with Arcanist restrictions in a DPS scenario (e.g. maybe I want to subclass and use Lava Whip or Flaming Skull as a spammable), you list off the literal same problem for the Arcanist Tank and Healer roles. MAYBE I don't want to use Chakram or Runemend as a healer, MAYBE I want to subclass and use Restoring Light healing abilities or restoration staff healing abilities. ONCE AGAIN, neither of those can generate crux, yielding the same problem.

Also, I wasn't talking about wanting to use scribing abilities, I said subclassing and weapon abilities, so if you're not even going to read my posts to try to understand my point, stop replying to me.

"it literally broke ZOS's main rule for Crux generation", oh I didn't know they wrote out some arbitrary rules on a forum post. But why would that even matter when the same can be said for the current state of the Warden's frost damage passive, which they also wrote on a forum post during U46, saying they're leaving it in the game UNTIL THEY IMPLEMENT A BETTER SOLUTION TO ADDRESS THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM, WHICH IS WHAT THEY SHOULD DO IN THIS SCENARIO

Chibicosmos · July 18

Thank you for taking the time to communicate

I hope we get an arc balance for beam especially Pragmatic. I'm sure you hear it a lot but it's for good reason. Having a nice damage dealing skill with amazing range, cleave and a good shield to help you ignore things is a little too overpowered. Until you tone down the damage it's going to be very difficult to promote diversity when it's the answer to everything in game

As for banner, revert the changes and make class mastery only available for pure Class. So you need to choose what's best for the content. The skill, subclassing, etc...

I know this is going to be a tough job. Looking forward to week 3

BlackLabel · July 18

I still think it’s unwise to move the max magicka resource to a different skill line. Max mag sorc has been slowly gutted over the last patches and with the heal being taken away from the shield. It’s almost impossible to have any survivability with these tiny shields against the amount of burst available.

Either bring max resources back to bound aeges, increase the passives, or add back a small heal back to hardened ward please!

autocookies · July 18

deleted

CheenTheCat · July 19

On the note of Grim Focus: I've seen people suggesting the w/s damage be applied for a certain time upon bow proc, which I personally really like! It would solve the passive slotting issue while maintaining its original function.

SugaComa · July 19

I feel I'm a little late to this conversation ... But honestly the whole idea of each class having a skill line dedicated to each role is exactly what is needed

Why ... Let me explain

For PvP your going to need a mix of all three and to keep PvP balanced you enforce that mix subclassing can still be a thing,

For pve you need strong tanks , strong healers strong DPS and with subclassing you can double down even triple down on those roles skills lines

Truth of the matter is PvP balancing and pve balancing have to be separated for subclassing and fair play to both remain viable, where does this leave pure builds or solo players ...well subclassing means mixing and matching so you don't need to build glass cannons you build a solo play build just you will have to adapt to the fact that you will have lower DPS in favour of increased survivability which is also going to increase the challenge which is what most solo players look for anyway

And if zos really wanted to help out pur builds they could add in a 4th skill line of pure passives that only function on pure builds

boi_anachronism_ · July 19

This is terrible. Bound and relentless is trash now. Bro.

YandereGirlfriend · July 19

boi_anachronism_ wrote: »

This is terrible. Bound and relentless is trash now. Bro.

Relentless is still a best-in-slot skill.

Spearblade · July 20

Very excited to see a Dark Magic passive buff. I don't think it's nearly enough to warrant using the skill line yet, but it's a start.

Spearblade · July 20

Sabre wrote: »

Please. With new management overseeing the game - rollback subclassing (and hybridization for that matter). If a change can be rolled back, so can the whole idea. Changing and watering down the classes to be the same is not making the game better. Subclassing was not well prepared for release, and every attempt to solve an issue creates a new issue. This feels like it will be never ending until all the classes are watered down to be the same.

The flavor of the classes is what made the game good. There were acute differences. Not all classes are 'tanks' or 'healers' The idea that each class has to have a 'tank' 'healing' and 'dps' skill line is a fallacy. This trend with each new class release was interesting, but not necessary. The classes could have been better if they were simply made to be a good class rather than cookie cutter 3 similar skill lines. For example...nightblade is typically not a tank class...and doesn't need to be. Sorcerer...typically not a tank class.

Instead of wrecking the game over and over please roll it all back and focus on rebalancing armor introduce new armor types (chainmail?), and new weapons while reworking many of the armor sets that have become hardly used or obsolete due to power creep.

The more unique and separate the classes are, the better. The game is going in the exact opposite direction to make everything the same. The time and energy spent on subclassing and ruining the classes could be otherwise spent on fixing other things in the game; which we all thought was going to happen based upon past communication.

With so many skill lines to choose from beyond the 3 class skill lines, subclassing was not necessary.
Subclassing is a pandora's box that is now opened to unleash this chaos on us all. Stuff it back into Pandora's Box and please move on to other things. Everything about the game seems to be in free fall and it would be nice for it to just end and be stabilized.

I'm not sure I can disagree harder. More options is always a good thing. I honestly think having classes at all when the game launched was a mistake. But, it's an MMO, and it's what's familiar and comfortable to those familiar with the genre. Even if it's foreign to the Elder Scrolls franchise.

This idea that "Nightblade is typically not a tank class" or "Sorcerer is a magicka dps" is what got them in trouble in the first place with all the base game classes. Every class is supposed to be able to perform each role effectively- it's not strictly your weapon choice, otherwise everything WOULD be (more) cookie cutter. The classes are flavor with mostly subtle gameplay differences, but admittedly, base game classes did fall into the tank/healer/rogue/mage tropes more than they ought to have.

demonology89 · July 20

Thank you for the communication ZOS! Glad to see the ulti gen passives are being reworked.

Ratzkifal · July 20

This is a step in the right direction. Given the track record, I had already resigned myself to needing to delete my potion-drinking NB meme tank (for organized play it's not good at all, but it's fun and relied on Nightblades gaining ultimate when drinking potions). I'm glad that I won't have to do this now.

There are still plenty of other pain points left unaddressed that have accumulated over the years. For example, while reverting the change to Balorgh is much much appreciated, why does this not extend to Elf Bane? Elf Bane is a set that used to be popular and some people still appreciate its unique functionality today, but your (ZOS') insistence on having it not work out of combat makes it so that the first cast of every rotation, the one that initiates combat, is never benefitting from this set even when it is permanently active on your frontbar. Unfun, unintuitive and a bad solution for a problem no player cared about. Please revert that too. If you are feeling extra generous, a couple of crit rate buffs would help this heavy armor set become relevant in PvE again.

There are more still. Bosmer still don't have their stealth racial passive back either - which was a change that was pretty much universally disliked as it goes against over 20 years of established lore and the tone-deaf developer comments from back in the day still ring in my ears to this day. If you really want us to start giving you the benefit of the doubt again and trust that new patch notes aren't something to be dreaded (a feeling shared by many ESO players today and unheard of in pretty much any other game), then please also address these long standing issues that have eroded that trust to begin with.

AtriaKhorist · July 21

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

I’m still baffled by the fact that they took max res from bound armour and moved it to dark magic. As I explained in the first post it doesn’t make any sense. And it’s not like daedric summoning is a strong line in any capacity, they add a little bit more power but at the same time take it away when the line clearly needs to be improved.

This tbh. Moving resources from Daedric Summoning to Dark Magic gives me even less reason to use DS without Pets.

Frankly, I'm really not sure what class line I should keep as a Sorc Tank in general like this. Aside Ward it seems to have very little going for it.

Ramber · July 21

Yeah thanks for listing in some small way after the fact. After the complaints pre release and 170k+ parses using the same garbage all over the place. thanks for costing me 200+ hours of testing 10 dps toons for my guildies and millions of gold mats to make multiple sets for each toon and a thousand or more crystals in doing so. Thanks for not listening or paying attention to your own "test" system... only to really listen once its on the real test system we call refer to as "live".

Thanks

Elvenheart · July 21

Ramber wrote: »

Yeah thanks for listing in some small way after the fact. After the complaints pre release and 170k+ parses using the same garbage all over the place. thanks for costing me 200+ hours of testing 10 dps toons for my guildies and millions of gold mats to make multiple sets for each toon and a thousand or more crystals in doing so. Thanks for not listening or paying attention to your own "test" system... only to really listen once its on the real test system we call refer to as "live".

Thanks

Wow, that’s dedication! I’m sure the people in your guild are very appreciative of your efforts.

Personally, I never test a set until I have collected all of the pieces so I can reconstruct it for 25 transmit crystals. And while I’m in my testing phase, I only test them on the level that they are reconstructed, which is usually blue since those are the sets I’m usually comparing. I still get a good feeling since I’m comparing like for like. It’s only after I pick the set I think I really want to use that I upgrade it.

And right now, I’ve put changing my characters on hold until sometime in the future after Subclassing has had time to settle into place better. I think everyone has known that some of the outliers which created ridiculous parses like 170K were going to be rectified sooner than later. After correcting the most egregious offenders, I’m sure they’ll move onto the next ones, and the next ones until things are a little bit more balanced. My characters are all doing fine right now anyway for what they do so I don’t have to change anything anyway until everything is more stable.