It's time to reshuffle the other three base game classes

madmufffin · July 28

MincMincMinc wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

So the design philosophy is 2-3 one-stop-shops for playing competitive, the other 17 are purely aesthetic?

Probably makes it easier to balance the meta, but also makes the whole build system feel pointless.

Funny how in all the vengeance threads people cry for build diversity like on live...... meanwhile on live its the same handful of builds.

Assassin+Animal+storm+aedric
Trainee
BS+onslaught or Bal+dbos
Mono
RC backbar
Acuity or your favorite pen/dmg set frontbar

PVE is no better. You're picking Herald/Assassination/Aedric or Ardent and then run Ansuul/Deadly or Null/Deadly. People acting like making lines more defined and thus inherently stronger is going to be a bad thing are crazy.

Gabriel_H · July 28

madmufffin wrote: »

Templar: Templar is in a weird place of having a very clearly defined healing line

Eh? I think you need to re-look at the line. Both the active skills (morph dependent) and the passives fit into a healer, dd, or tank build.

madmufffin · July 28

Gabriel_H wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Templar: Templar is in a weird place of having a very clearly defined healing line

Eh? I think you need to re-look at the line. Both the active skills (morph dependent) and the passives fit into a healer, dd, or tank build.

Are you trying to argue that Restoring Light isn't the class' obvious healing line?

Renato90085 · July 28

I think all class line work like sorc is a good idea
Meta 2 line is Dlc skill (all Dps skill 1 line)
if base game line work like Dlc, you still will see 3 line have 95% pick and have other 18 dead line
or maybe Zos choose you need use Dps line swap Dps line ,or other good idea
Not why , people will choose best 3 line if sorc today skill line work like Dlc class and better than temp,Aedric will be a dead line too

madmufffin · July 28

Renato90085 wrote: »

I think all class line work like sorc is a good idea
Meta 2 line is Dlc skill (all Dps skill 1 line)
if base game line work like Dlc, you still will see 3 line have 95% pick and have other 18 dead line
or maybe Zos choose you need use Dps line swap Dps line ,or other good idea
Not why , people will choose best 3 line if sorc today skill line work like Dlc class and better than temp,Aedric will be a dead line too

That's how it works already. Every single dps build uses herald + assassination since they're both pure dps lines. After that it's either Ardent or Aedric most of the time and no one even uses ardent skills it just has good passives.

MasterSpatula · July 28

You've correctly articulated the problem, but all your solutions really do is put in stark relief just how bad an idea Subclassing is in a game where the base-game classes exist.

madmufffin · July 28

MasterSpatula wrote: »

You've correctly articulated the problem, but all your solutions really do is put in stark relief just how bad an idea Subclassing is in a game where the base-game classes exist.

If they hadn't made a concerted effort to solve the issue by swapping Nightblade around, I would agree with you. The fact that NB is now basically segmented as well as the DLC classes after swapping two skills, makes it so that your point doesn't quite stand. DK could very easily be switched to be as broken up as DLC classes as well. Sorc and Templar are the two problem classes. Templar has it's good skills and good passives completely seperated from eachother in two different lines and Sorc is just a complete hodgepodge.

Stamicka · July 28

Please no, the idea that each class needs a tank, DPS, and healing skill line is so rigid and boring. There's much more interesting ways to balance skill lines without this system. The original developers got it right by making each skill line have skills for different roles.

If you make it so cut and dry like this, one skill line will almost always come out on top. There will be a best tank skill line of all the tank skill lines, a best DPS skill line, and a best healing skill line.

If each skill line is thematically consistent instead of consistent with a role, there's much more flexibility when it comes to balancing. This is cause you can make a skill line strong in some areas and weaker in others in order to balance them out. So for example, a skill line could have great offensive skills and passives, but the healing or tank skills in that skill line are not as good. Then you can have another skill line that's the opposite, better defensive options, but weaker offensive options. So now there's a system with tradeoffs and you could choose to go full glass cannon or take a more balanced approach. This is more relevant in PvP than PvE, but still.

MincMincMinc · July 28

Stamicka wrote: »

Please no, the idea that each class needs a tank, DPS, and healing skill line is so rigid and boring. There's much more interesting ways to balance skill lines without this system. The original developers got it right by making each skill line have skills for different roles.

If you make it so cut and dry like this, one skill line will almost always come out on top. There will be a best tank skill line of all the tank skill lines, a best DPS skill line, and a best healing skill line.

If each skill line is thematically consistent instead of consistent with a role, there's much more flexibility when it comes to balancing. This is cause you can make a skill line strong in some areas and weaker in others in order to balance them out. So for example, a skill line could have great offensive skills and passives, but the healing or tank skills in that skill line are not as good. Then you can have another skill line that's the opposite, better defensive options, but weaker offensive options. So now there's a system with tradeoffs and you could choose to go full glass cannon or take a more balanced approach. This is more relevant in PvP than PvE, but still.

ayyy someone gets it. The only way subclassing can work is if each skill line portrayed dmg, heal, and tank properites in their own playstyle way.

madmufffin · July 28

Stamicka wrote: »

Please no, the idea that each class needs a tank, DPS, and healing skill line is so rigid and boring. There's much more interesting ways to balance skill lines without this system. The original developers got it right by making each skill line have skills for different roles.

If you make it so cut and dry like this, one skill line will almost always come out on top. There will be a best tank skill line of all the tank skill lines, a best DPS skill line, and a best healing skill line.

If each skill line is thematically consistent instead of consistent with a role, there's much more flexibility when it comes to balancing. This is cause you can make a skill line strong in some areas and weaker in others in order to balance them out. So for example, a skill line could have great offensive skills and passives, but the healing or tank skills in that skill line are not as good. Then you can have another skill line that's the opposite, better defensive options, but weaker offensive options. So now there's a system with tradeoffs and you could choose to go full glass cannon or take a more balanced approach. This is more relevant in PvP than PvE, but still.

But that's just not the reality of where the game is now. Because they made the decision to do that with the DLC classes as well as making the changes to NB to make it conform to that model, the rest of the game needs to follow suit now. Arguably 5 of the 7 classes are already almost entirely segmented into DPS/Tank/Healer(Utility) with DK just needing one skill flipped between lines to really be optimized ideally in that manner. We left the class station and have to adjust accordingly or other lines will just fall off the face of the game.

Where the game is now with subclassing, is that classes are viable based off of role dependent lines. Templar and Sorc are probably the only ones that aren't and realistically never will be fully segmented between the 3 lines because their skills and passives are all over the place (Dawn's Wrath passives are all awful while Aedric Spear active abilities are all awful). DK getting its best AOE skill moved to its DPS line and getting a skill that's ALWAYS been a tank skill moved to the tank line is realistically the best I can hope for and never will get

I also REALLY like the changes @MincMincMinc proposed for Sorc in their thread, but also don't forsee ever getting that much of a class rework 12 years into the games life.

BananaBender · July 28

Stamicka wrote: »

Please no, the idea that each class needs a tank, DPS, and healing skill line is so rigid and boring. There's much more interesting ways to balance skill lines without this system. The original developers got it right by making each skill line have skills for different roles.

If you make it so cut and dry like this, one skill line will almost always come out on top. There will be a best tank skill line of all the tank skill lines, a best DPS skill line, and a best healing skill line.

If each skill line is thematically consistent instead of consistent with a role, there's much more flexibility when it comes to balancing. This is cause you can make a skill line strong in some areas and weaker in others in order to balance them out. So for example, a skill line could have great offensive skills and passives, but the healing or tank skills in that skill line are not as good. Then you can have another skill line that's the opposite, better defensive options, but weaker offensive options. So now there's a system with tradeoffs and you could choose to go full glass cannon or take a more balanced approach. This is more relevant in PvP than PvE, but still.

As you said, that would probably work well in PvP, but in PvE it just doesn't work, unless every skill line is built like that.
If there are fully specialized skill lines designed for damage, there is no room for split skill lines to be viable. For an example Draconic Power, they would have to buff Burning Talons and Deep Breath to a point where those two skills would do equal damage to a whole skill line, because they are the only two offensive skills in the line. Of course this would lead to horrible balance issues in PvP where the defence stats aren't completely wasted, so there is no way ZoS is ever going to take this route.
Standardizing all skill lines to include both offence and defence would just completely break a few of the classes, mainly Arcanist and would require a lot of tweaks and balances, which I have 0 trust ZoS would handle well, based on how little thought was put into the balancing of subclassing itself. You would pretty much redesign all skill lines completely for the skills to feel in place and all of them being functional.

To me the best approach would be just to redo the whole subclassing to only allow the player to pick a few skills (up to 5 or something) from other skill lines, while still having access to your skills. No passives at all from other skill lines. This way there would still be class identity, as you still had access to your entire class, good skills being in a bad skill line wouldn't be a problem. Of course there would still be a lot of balancing issues, but it would at least give people access to all the skills they've grown to really like.

DK just doesn't feel the same without Talons and Deep Breath in trash...

Araneae6537 · July 29

Noooo, I much prefer the themed skill lines where different morphs have different utilities! Subclassing doesn’t need to be a mindless lumping of three tank, healer, or DPS skill lines! This always bothered me about warden especially — at least some of the ice morphs have some utility as damage, but I wish that of more skills, such as vines that snare, for instance.
Let the four original classes stay as they are!

LittlePinkDot · July 29

madmufffin wrote: »

Given that subclassing now exists and has very strong implications on the intention and value of each skill line, I think it's time for ZOS to look to get the lines of all the original classes to better align with the role specific nature that they've added in the DLC classes. This is almost exclusively from a PVE perspective, but I don't really see anything that would outright break the balance present in PVP.

Templar: Templar is in a weird place of having a very clearly defined healing line, 1.5 dps lines, and like 2 tank skills.
Aedric Spear(Tank) - Add Eclipse and make this the tank skill line. Passives don't really fit the concept as they are largely damage oriented and probably would need a rework with bonuses being pushed into the Dawn's Wrath line, but at least the skills themselves would largely encompass the tank line with Focused Charge, Sun Shield, and Eclipse being together. Restructuring Radial Sweep to provide maim or something as opposed to damage would be ideal.
Dawn's Wrath(DPS) - Thematically I don't really see a great fit here to come over from Aedric Spear, but I'd say Spear Shards is probably the best fit as it fits the aoe damage over time concept the line has and kinda have the firey theme that the line leans towards. With Prism now being entirely worthless, I'd definitely look to carry over some of the benefits, be it the minor berserk or weapon/spell damage, from Aedric Spear to properly boost the lines damage emphasis. Nova definitely needs a rework to be a stronger damage skill comparable to something like Standard as it is already completely worthless and would reflect even more so in a purely damage oriented skill line.
Restoring Light(Heal) - In a great place for a heal line o7

Dragonknight: For the most part I think DK is pretty well put together relative to the intention of 3 funtioning lines. Passives fit for the most part and really just needs to swap around talons and chains. Adding a taunt to leap would be a cool addition as well as making things a bit more thematically appropriate.
Ardent Flame(DPS)- Add Dark Talons to the line. AoE, fire damage, increased burning, and a damage synergy. Everything about it fits with the theme and damage oriented nature of the line and it's been a huge part of DK's damage kit for a while now. Overall passives are in a great spot for the line and its intent as is.
Draconic Power(Tank)- Add Fiery Grip to the line. The skill for most of ESO's time as a game has been the iconic tank add grouping skill. Pretty useless at this point given the superior nature of the scribing chains, but still very much tank oriented and definitely not dps oriented.
Earthen Heart(Heal)- Not ideal, but DK doesn't exactly have anything else heal oriented or worth swapping around. Would like to justify moving stagger, but doesn't really have a reason to imo.

Nightblade: As the class that is the use case for ZOS being able and willing to change skill lines around, it's pretty much already sorted out.
Assassination(DPS) - Skills and passives fit the role
Shadow(Tank) - Skills and passives fit the role
Siphoning(Heal) - Skills and passives fit the role

Sorcerer: The class is an absolute disaster and the recent uneccessary nerfs just make it worse. All 3 lines are exceptionally mediocre on their own and none of them really fit a role based niche either. To make them functional within the modern subclassing era of ESO, you need to outright ignore thematic fit to brute force things being worthwhile while also providing significant buffs and reworks to some skills.
Dark Magic(Heal) - Add Daedric Curse. This is largely about just getting the skill out of the "tank" line and into something it at least thematically kinda works with. As opposed to making it damage oriented, giving some form of debuff coupled with magickasteal and/or lifesteal seems like it would be appropriate. Add Surge. As the "heal" line, it seems appropriate to move surge up here to allow for some personal buff access as well as the amplified healing benefits from Power Surge. Negate Magic needs to get a lot of love to make it remotely viable. Amping up the healing and adding some other buffs to it like vitality would go a long way. Passive wise, I would swap the effects of Exploitation and Capacitor to meet the needs of the new role oriented lines.
Daedric Summoning(Tank) - Add Rune Prison or Encase. Either would work but I'm leaning towards Rune Prison as the cc component feels more tank oriented and taking the only outright heal from the class out of the healing line feels icky. I'd revert the nerfs to Bound Aegis as well since major resolve is in no way more valuable than 8% mag and minor protection. Passive wise the line already is pretty tank oriented, so I don't think it needs much change.
Storm Calling(DPS) - Add crystal frags and make one or both morphs do shock damage. Sorc desperately needs a class based source of damage and this is really the only option without creating a net new skill which we know isn't going to happen. Mage's Fury needs quite a rework as it's far and away the worst execute in the game and has no functionality aside from PVP kill stealing memes. Would boost it's tooltip to be comparable to other class executes around 1100 and then make it scale from 33% as that is now apparently the new execute threshold. Energized also needs a rework to be in line with other passives of similar nature either outright boosting phys and shock by 10-15% or dealing an additional 10-15% damage to sundered and concussed enemies. Either of these are comparable to similar passives present in other classes. As mentioned under Dark Magic, we'd look to add the minor prophecy trigger in this line while moving regen to Dark Magic.

While ultimately I don't think this picks up dead lines like Shadow, Dark Magic, and Draconic Power to a point of viability, it still helps create more value and incentive for one to pick the better defined skill lines for subclassing. Just for reference:

Leave Aedric spear skills alone. I need those passives with binding Javelin.

LittlePinkDot · July 30

madmufffin wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

So the design philosophy is 2-3 one-stop-shops for playing competitive, the other 17 are purely aesthetic?

Probably makes it easier to balance the meta, but also makes the whole build system feel pointless.

Well the argument and general point of this post is that reshuffling each class' power into specific role focused lines would raise viability in all facets as opposed to right now where there's only like 4 good lines for each role and that's why they're vastly over picked in content for both pve and pvp.

They should buff other skill lines so that there are other combinations that will allow us to hit Crit Damage cap with good weapon/spell damage buffs. Either in the passives or on skills.

MincMincMinc · July 30

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

So the design philosophy is 2-3 one-stop-shops for playing competitive, the other 17 are purely aesthetic?

Probably makes it easier to balance the meta, but also makes the whole build system feel pointless.

Well the argument and general point of this post is that reshuffling each class' power into specific role focused lines would raise viability in all facets as opposed to right now where there's only like 4 good lines for each role and that's why they're vastly over picked in content for both pve and pvp.

They should buff other skill lines so that there are other combinations that will allow us to hit Crit Damage cap with good weapon/spell damage buffs. Either in the passives or on skills.

People are already capping pen+critchance+critdamage+resists all on the same build. If anything crit damage sources need to be cut down to size or limited with more major/minor buffs. The easy way to force people on other lines is to start cutting down the unique sources for major/minors that can be obtained in other places. Probably why they pushed to do the heroism ult gen on different places......although ult gen is hardly the problem *COUGH* SURPRISE ATTACK AND MERCILESS *COUGH*

Ideally game theory wise having unique passives is far more interesting, but 10x harder to balance out or deal with power creep wise. Things like warden's 5% crit damage per skill worked great before subclassing. Now there is no limitation to grabbing assassin 10% +warden 2x5% + aedric 12%. Suddenly you are doing 32% damage done where 3 other passives give like 300 regen worth......seems a bit bloated to me.

Zos just did the subclassing feedback. Have they given any indications of retconning subclassing? I haven't seen any recent streams.

madmufffin · July 30

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Given that subclassing now exists and has very strong implications on the intention and value of each skill line, I think it's time for ZOS to look to get the lines of all the original classes to better align with the role specific nature that they've added in the DLC classes. This is almost exclusively from a PVE perspective, but I don't really see anything that would outright break the balance present in PVP.

Templar: Templar is in a weird place of having a very clearly defined healing line, 1.5 dps lines, and like 2 tank skills.
Aedric Spear(Tank) - Add Eclipse and make this the tank skill line. Passives don't really fit the concept as they are largely damage oriented and probably would need a rework with bonuses being pushed into the Dawn's Wrath line, but at least the skills themselves would largely encompass the tank line with Focused Charge, Sun Shield, and Eclipse being together. Restructuring Radial Sweep to provide maim or something as opposed to damage would be ideal.
Dawn's Wrath(DPS) - Thematically I don't really see a great fit here to come over from Aedric Spear, but I'd say Spear Shards is probably the best fit as it fits the aoe damage over time concept the line has and kinda have the firey theme that the line leans towards. With Prism now being entirely worthless, I'd definitely look to carry over some of the benefits, be it the minor berserk or weapon/spell damage, from Aedric Spear to properly boost the lines damage emphasis. Nova definitely needs a rework to be a stronger damage skill comparable to something like Standard as it is already completely worthless and would reflect even more so in a purely damage oriented skill line.
Restoring Light(Heal) - In a great place for a heal line o7

Dragonknight: For the most part I think DK is pretty well put together relative to the intention of 3 funtioning lines. Passives fit for the most part and really just needs to swap around talons and chains. Adding a taunt to leap would be a cool addition as well as making things a bit more thematically appropriate.
Ardent Flame(DPS)- Add Dark Talons to the line. AoE, fire damage, increased burning, and a damage synergy. Everything about it fits with the theme and damage oriented nature of the line and it's been a huge part of DK's damage kit for a while now. Overall passives are in a great spot for the line and its intent as is.
Draconic Power(Tank)- Add Fiery Grip to the line. The skill for most of ESO's time as a game has been the iconic tank add grouping skill. Pretty useless at this point given the superior nature of the scribing chains, but still very much tank oriented and definitely not dps oriented.
Earthen Heart(Heal)- Not ideal, but DK doesn't exactly have anything else heal oriented or worth swapping around. Would like to justify moving stagger, but doesn't really have a reason to imo.

Nightblade: As the class that is the use case for ZOS being able and willing to change skill lines around, it's pretty much already sorted out.
Assassination(DPS) - Skills and passives fit the role
Shadow(Tank) - Skills and passives fit the role
Siphoning(Heal) - Skills and passives fit the role

Sorcerer: The class is an absolute disaster and the recent uneccessary nerfs just make it worse. All 3 lines are exceptionally mediocre on their own and none of them really fit a role based niche either. To make them functional within the modern subclassing era of ESO, you need to outright ignore thematic fit to brute force things being worthwhile while also providing significant buffs and reworks to some skills.
Dark Magic(Heal) - Add Daedric Curse. This is largely about just getting the skill out of the "tank" line and into something it at least thematically kinda works with. As opposed to making it damage oriented, giving some form of debuff coupled with magickasteal and/or lifesteal seems like it would be appropriate. Add Surge. As the "heal" line, it seems appropriate to move surge up here to allow for some personal buff access as well as the amplified healing benefits from Power Surge. Negate Magic needs to get a lot of love to make it remotely viable. Amping up the healing and adding some other buffs to it like vitality would go a long way. Passive wise, I would swap the effects of Exploitation and Capacitor to meet the needs of the new role oriented lines.
Daedric Summoning(Tank) - Add Rune Prison or Encase. Either would work but I'm leaning towards Rune Prison as the cc component feels more tank oriented and taking the only outright heal from the class out of the healing line feels icky. I'd revert the nerfs to Bound Aegis as well since major resolve is in no way more valuable than 8% mag and minor protection. Passive wise the line already is pretty tank oriented, so I don't think it needs much change.
Storm Calling(DPS) - Add crystal frags and make one or both morphs do shock damage. Sorc desperately needs a class based source of damage and this is really the only option without creating a net new skill which we know isn't going to happen. Mage's Fury needs quite a rework as it's far and away the worst execute in the game and has no functionality aside from PVP kill stealing memes. Would boost it's tooltip to be comparable to other class executes around 1100 and then make it scale from 33% as that is now apparently the new execute threshold. Energized also needs a rework to be in line with other passives of similar nature either outright boosting phys and shock by 10-15% or dealing an additional 10-15% damage to sundered and concussed enemies. Either of these are comparable to similar passives present in other classes. As mentioned under Dark Magic, we'd look to add the minor prophecy trigger in this line while moving regen to Dark Magic.

While ultimately I don't think this picks up dead lines like Shadow, Dark Magic, and Draconic Power to a point of viability, it still helps create more value and incentive for one to pick the better defined skill lines for subclassing. Just for reference:

Leave Aedric spear skills alone. I need those passives with binding Javelin.

I'm more advocating for Dawn's Wrath passives not to be complete trash than anything. Would like to see Burning Light or Piercing Spear get a defensive component like the other two passives have to make it a little more tanky.

tomofhyrule · July 30

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

So the design philosophy is 2-3 one-stop-shops for playing competitive, the other 17 are purely aesthetic?

Probably makes it easier to balance the meta, but also makes the whole build system feel pointless.

Well the argument and general point of this post is that reshuffling each class' power into specific role focused lines would raise viability in all facets as opposed to right now where there's only like 4 good lines for each role and that's why they're vastly over picked in content for both pve and pvp.

They should buff other skill lines so that there are other combinations that will allow us to hit Crit Damage cap with good weapon/spell damage buffs. Either in the passives or on skills.

I feel like the point of an RPG is that one should have to make meaningful choices. Like "Oh, if I build to be at Crit Cap, that means I have to sacrifice literally everything else."

The current idea of "I can be at crit cap, resistance cap, all with super high crit chance and WD/SD" is not a good game style. In the current case, the 'choice' people have is "do you want to be in godmode, or take a bunch of nerfs so you can get clapped repeatedly and people will laugh at you?"

Heck, with the number of people saying "buff not nerf!" I'm actualyl wondering why ZOS doesn't just give out Finn's insta-kill console command, since evidently "fun" = more damage and "not fun" = less damage. Surely a single-button that does 1B damage on press and skips all mechanics means that would be mathematically the most fun setup, right?

thepandalore · July 30

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Subclassing has been like a grocery store for getting every major/minor buff in the game. At what point do we stop? When quite literally everyone has every buff? Ok at that point why bother having the major/minor buff system?

That's not quite what's being advocated here, but well-structured 12-man and 4-man group comps do aim at just this. Good class balance should make the obviously role-appropriate major/minor buffs available to every class while also giving each class a class-specific enemy debuffing (like stagger) or group-buffing effect, as well as major debuff.

For templar, that would mean giving the Nova ult something more meaningful than Major Maim, since Major Maim can now be sourced from so many non-ultimate abilities on demand.

Another idea for templar would be to add a unique debuff that causes boss attacks to "glance", i.e. reduce damage done, on a cooldown that could work like Stone Giant's stagger effect. An idea for Warden could be to cause, at least any non-player, enemy attacks to slow in frequency for a duration.

karios525 · July 31

MincMincMinc wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

So the design philosophy is 2-3 one-stop-shops for playing competitive, the other 17 are purely aesthetic?

Probably makes it easier to balance the meta, but also makes the whole build system feel pointless.

Well the argument and general point of this post is that reshuffling each class' power into specific role focused lines would raise viability in all facets as opposed to right now where there's only like 4 good lines for each role and that's why they're vastly over picked in content for both pve and pvp.

They should buff other skill lines so that there are other combinations that will allow us to hit Crit Damage cap with good weapon/spell damage buffs. Either in the passives or on skills.

People are already capping pen+critchance+critdamage+resists all on the same build. If anything crit damage sources need to be cut down to size or limited with more major/minor buffs. The easy way to force people on other lines is to start cutting down the unique sources for major/minors that can be obtained in other places. Probably why they pushed to do the heroism ult gen on different places......although ult gen is hardly the problem *COUGH* SURPRISE ATTACK AND MERCILESS *COUGH*

Ideally game theory wise having unique passives is far more interesting, but 10x harder to balance out or deal with power creep wise. Things like warden's 5% crit damage per skill worked great before subclassing. Now there is no limitation to grabbing assassin 10% +warden 2x5% + aedric 12%. Suddenly you are doing 32% damage done where 3 other passives give like 300 regen worth......seems a bit bloated to me.

Zos just did the subclassing feedback. Have they given any indications of retconning subclassing? I haven't seen any recent streams.

In regards to animal companions, change the crit damage passive to increasing bleed/magic damage instead as those damage types are what animal companion skills use, or just drop crit damage cap to 100% but no nerfing please, and though a bit situational at least I get my 400 sd/wd from screaming cliffracer, so no loss in power from the pointless changes to merciless.

Turtle_Bot · July 31

MincMincMinc wrote: »

People are already capping pen+critchance+critdamage+resists all on the same build. If anything crit damage sources need to be cut down to size or limited with more major/minor buffs. The easy way to force people on other lines is to start cutting down the unique sources for major/minors that can be obtained in other places. Probably why they pushed to do the heroism ult gen on different places......although ult gen is hardly the problem *COUGH* SURPRISE ATTACK AND MERCILESS *COUGH*

This is something that does need to be addressed. I am seeing passive crit damage so high currently that malacath has become a viable option again despite removing the base 50% crit damage characters start with. Sure it doesn't hit the cap technically, but still sits at crit damage values that were considered high pre-subclassing, even with that downside.

It's like how there's so much passive, easy, movement speed in the game that SSC has no practical downside at all, despite the massive (uncleansable) snare it inflicts.

These mythics are supposed to have detrimental downsides as trade-offs for the massive power they grant, but powercreep (speed creep before and now crit damage creep) has all but removed the downsides of these mythics, making them all positive for no practical trade-off.

LittlePinkDot · August 1

tomofhyrule wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

So the design philosophy is 2-3 one-stop-shops for playing competitive, the other 17 are purely aesthetic?

Probably makes it easier to balance the meta, but also makes the whole build system feel pointless.

Well the argument and general point of this post is that reshuffling each class' power into specific role focused lines would raise viability in all facets as opposed to right now where there's only like 4 good lines for each role and that's why they're vastly over picked in content for both pve and pvp.

They should buff other skill lines so that there are other combinations that will allow us to hit Crit Damage cap with good weapon/spell damage buffs. Either in the passives or on skills.

I feel like the point of an RPG is that one should have to make meaningful choices. Like "Oh, if I build to be at Crit Cap, that means I have to sacrifice literally everything else."

The current idea of "I can be at crit cap, resistance cap, all with super high crit chance and WD/SD" is not a good game style. In the current case, the 'choice' people have is "do you want to be in godmode, or take a bunch of nerfs so you can get clapped repeatedly and people will laugh at you?"

Heck, with the number of people saying "buff not nerf!" I'm actualyl wondering why ZOS doesn't just give out Finn's insta-kill console command, since evidently "fun" = more damage and "not fun" = less damage. Surely a single-button that does 1B damage on press and skips all mechanics means that would be mathematically the most fun setup, right?

I'm only talking from standpoint of PvP. The undying forever healing tank meta is finally cracking..
Just need other skill lines capable of the same thing.

thepandalore · August 1

thepandalore wrote: »

would be to add a unique debuff that causes boss attacks to "glance", i.e. reduce damage done, on a cooldown that could work like Stone Giant's stagger effect

Just to demonstrate that there is ample room in Templar for some QOL reconciliations, such a debuff could easily be fit into the Rune Focus skill.

First, collapse the current mag recovery from Channeled Focus into Restoring focus, so that Restoring Focus functions in a way that is much more appropriate post-hybridization combat than is currently configured:

Create a rune of celestial protection and gain Major Resolve for 20 seconds, increasing your Physical Resistance and Spell Resistance by 5948. You also recover 292 Magicka or Stamina, whichever maximum value is higher, every 1 second over the duration. While the rune is active you heal for 413 Health every 1 second, scaling off your Max Health. Standing within the rune increases the healing done by 200%.

Then, reframe Channeled Focus to function like this:
Summon a rune of Magnus' light beneath you, dealing 2323 Radiant Damage to all enemies within 6 meters of you. Light summoned from the rune is held around you for 10 seconds. Activating the ability again allows you to launch an orb of solar energy at an enemy, dealing 2323 Radiant Damage, up to 3 times. The final cast stuns for 2.5 seconds. Each hit applies Blinded, decreasing damage done by 2.5% per stack for 5 seconds.

pre-emptively, yes, my suggestion is, in fact, a re-skin. no, pointing that out doesn't undermine the broader arguments, namely 1) there's room for such a skill in the templar kit, 2) this highlights an opportunity to apply some legacy system modernization to the templar class, and 3) such a skill would drastically improve templar tanking.

thepandalore · August 1

And while I'm thinking about templar tanking,

I can't come up with a single good reason that one of Nova's morphs couldn't be re-jiggered to do something like:

Summon a fragment of Magnus to envelop a single enemy, limiting its outgoing damage to 4% of your Max Health for 10 seconds and stunning all nearby enemies for 3.5s. When activated, nearby allies reduce their damage taken by 30% for 10 seconds. While active, you cannot generate Ultimate. Something something Battle Spirit something something.

MincMincMinc · August 1

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

People are already capping pen+critchance+critdamage+resists all on the same build. If anything crit damage sources need to be cut down to size or limited with more major/minor buffs. The easy way to force people on other lines is to start cutting down the unique sources for major/minors that can be obtained in other places. Probably why they pushed to do the heroism ult gen on different places......although ult gen is hardly the problem *COUGH* SURPRISE ATTACK AND MERCILESS *COUGH*

This is something that does need to be addressed. I am seeing passive crit damage so high currently that malacath has become a viable option again despite removing the base 50% crit damage characters start with. Sure it doesn't hit the cap technically, but still sits at crit damage values that were considered high pre-subclassing, even with that downside.

It's like how there's so much passive, easy, movement speed in the game that SSC has no practical downside at all, despite the massive (uncleansable) snare it inflicts.

These mythics are supposed to have detrimental downsides as trade-offs for the massive power they grant, but powercreep (speed creep before and now crit damage creep) has all but removed the downsides of these mythics, making them all positive for no practical trade-off.

IDK some people live for the power creep and even continue to justify it for their own gain (without realizing if everyone power creeps it doesnt matter because it is relative).

Its a clear problem if pvp builds are regularly capping half the stats in the game.

Crit chance
Crit damage
pen
Armor
Speed

Even on these builds you have enough % mit and % damage done that a 10% mit source really only gives about half of that due to efficiency losses.

Zyaneth_Bal · August 4

In my opinion, skill lines should resemble those of base game classes more, containing skills that perform different functions and serve different roles simultaneously. Unlike the popular opinion that skill lines should be strictly separated, one line for one role, certainly a much easier way, but hardly a good one. Of course, some kind of separation should exist as it always has, like generally each base class line is a mix of two roles.

This would reduce the potential power of subclassing as each line wouldn’t be focused solely on a single role which would lower the ceiling of minmaxed specialization. And at the same time would present more creative opportunities as you would mix lines dedicated to several roles at the same time instead of only stacking damage lines for instance.

Turtle_Bot · August 4

MincMincMinc wrote: »

IDK some people live for the power creep and even continue to justify it for their own gain (without realizing if everyone power creeps it doesnt matter because it is relative).

Its a clear problem if pvp builds are regularly capping half the stats in the game.
Crit chance

Crit damage

pen

Armor

Speed

Even on these builds you have enough % mit and % damage done that a 10% mit source really only gives about half of that due to efficiency losses.

Mhmm. Oh, I think you forgot 1 capped stat: Status effect chance, a lot of players have near capped status effect chance now too.

Reminds me of an old saying, what do you give a man who has everything.

What can ZOS give these builds that already have everything possible.

A new speed skill/class/set/script will never sell because players are already at/beyond speed cap. Same for crit chance, crit damage, pen and armor. So there's no design space left for those stats.

I guess there's always more uncapped weapon/spell damage and percent modifiers, but what happens when everyone is also running around with those capped stats +20k weapon/spell damage and +3000% for every percent modifier that allows them to just 1 shot vet HM trial bosses while standing in the middle of/completely ignoring multiple 1 shot mechanics.

On a semi-related tangent:

Power creep can be interesting when it brings a new design/playstyle into the game. One that is strong, but not overwhelmingly so. What needs to be done when doing this though is that the other playstyles need to be constantly updated to remain at or near the power level of the new thing (doesn't have to be right away, but within a patch or 2 at most).

Beam was both a good and bad example of power creep. Good in the way it brought an entirely new playstyle to the game, but bad because ZOS didn't do part 2: bringing other playstyles up to par (for actual content, not just parsing/parse cheesing).
If 1-2 patches after Arcanist's release, ZOS brought back Sorcerers Crystal Blast (easiest just to add the AoE to the frags proc, but ideally the whole morph brought back), plars old jabs (for at least 1 morph, preferably both) and stalking blast bones, and buffed a few other AoE options at that same time, this would have given other non-beam playstyles options to pick from that had decent enough cleave power to keep up with beam in current content that was being designed around beams existence and would have made beam a good example of power creep, but because this was never done, beam will always be contentious.

madmufffin · August 4

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

In my opinion, skill lines should resemble those of base game classes more, containing skills that perform different functions and serve different roles simultaneously. Unlike the popular opinion that skill lines should be strictly separated, one line for one role, certainly a much easier way, but hardly a good one. Of course, some kind of separation should exist as it always has, like generally each base class line is a mix of two roles.

This would reduce the potential power of subclassing as each line wouldn’t be focused solely on a single role which would lower the ceiling of minmaxed specialization. And at the same time would present more creative opportunities as you would mix lines dedicated to several roles at the same time instead of only stacking damage lines for instance.

This would've been the more ideal way, but given that NB and all 3 DLC classes are fully segmented and DK is pretty much there as well, we can't really roll back to that design.

MincMincMinc · August 4

madmufffin wrote: »

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

In my opinion, skill lines should resemble those of base game classes more, containing skills that perform different functions and serve different roles simultaneously. Unlike the popular opinion that skill lines should be strictly separated, one line for one role, certainly a much easier way, but hardly a good one. Of course, some kind of separation should exist as it always has, like generally each base class line is a mix of two roles.

This would reduce the potential power of subclassing as each line wouldn’t be focused solely on a single role which would lower the ceiling of minmaxed specialization. And at the same time would present more creative opportunities as you would mix lines dedicated to several roles at the same time instead of only stacking damage lines for instance.

This would've been the more ideal way, but given that NB and all 3 DLC classes are fully segmented and DK is pretty much there as well, we can't really roll back to that design.

Well dk is fairly split up or able to be tweaked.
Sorc just needs damage redistributed to dark and daedric
NB needs merci cut down with damage added back to shadow and siphon
Templar dawns can play more into dots like it was supposed to. Aedric and restoring could be balanced out damage/heal wise for passives.
Warden frost damage could have tooltips raised and the green tree can play more into debuffs and dots
Necro just needs higher tooltips in general with less random % buffs. A reshuffle of skills where the corpse system is consolidated to grave may function the best with subclassing.
Arcanist, tbh I didnt bother to level because I never saw anything strong in pvp.

madmufffin · August 4

MincMincMinc wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

In my opinion, skill lines should resemble those of base game classes more, containing skills that perform different functions and serve different roles simultaneously. Unlike the popular opinion that skill lines should be strictly separated, one line for one role, certainly a much easier way, but hardly a good one. Of course, some kind of separation should exist as it always has, like generally each base class line is a mix of two roles.

This would reduce the potential power of subclassing as each line wouldn’t be focused solely on a single role which would lower the ceiling of minmaxed specialization. And at the same time would present more creative opportunities as you would mix lines dedicated to several roles at the same time instead of only stacking damage lines for instance.

This would've been the more ideal way, but given that NB and all 3 DLC classes are fully segmented and DK is pretty much there as well, we can't really roll back to that design.

Well dk is fairly split up or able to be tweaked.

Sorc just needs damage redistributed to dark and daedric

NB needs merci cut down with damage added back to shadow and siphon

Templar dawns can play more into dots like it was supposed to. Aedric and restoring could be balanced out damage/heal wise for passives.

Warden frost damage could have tooltips raised and the green tree can play more into debuffs and dots

Necro just needs higher tooltips in general with less random % buffs. A reshuffle of skills where the corpse system is consolidated to grave may function the best with subclassing.

Arcanist, tbh I didnt bother to level because I never saw anything strong in pvp.

PVE wise DK is pretty heavily split between DPS/Tank/Utility for their 3 lines. The weirdness of the ults in Draconic and Earthen are really the only things that keep them from being extremely segmented. Swapping talons and chain would basically make all non-ult skills be in perfect role alignment. Sorc and Plar are just too mixed up to untangle at this point since we're never getting full class reworks.

katorga · August 4

MincMincMinc wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

So the design philosophy is 2-3 one-stop-shops for playing competitive, the other 17 are purely aesthetic?

Probably makes it easier to balance the meta, but also makes the whole build system feel pointless.

Funny how in all the vengeance threads people cry for build diversity like on live...... meanwhile on live its the same handful of builds.

Assassin+Animal+storm+aedric
Trainee
BS+onslaught or Bal+dbos
Mono
RC backbar
Acuity or your favorite pen/dmg set frontbar

Ooh onslaught. The pen and defense is too good when you have that much crit power.

MincMincMinc wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

madmufffin wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

So the design philosophy is 2-3 one-stop-shops for playing competitive, the other 17 are purely aesthetic?

Probably makes it easier to balance the meta, but also makes the whole build system feel pointless.

Well the argument and general point of this post is that reshuffling each class' power into specific role focused lines would raise viability in all facets as opposed to right now where there's only like 4 good lines for each role and that's why they're vastly over picked in content for both pve and pvp.

They should buff other skill lines so that there are other combinations that will allow us to hit Crit Damage cap with good weapon/spell damage buffs. Either in the passives or on skills.

People are already capping pen+critchance+critdamage+resists all on the same build. If anything crit damage sources need to be cut down to size or limited with more major/minor buffs.

This.