PTS Update 48 - Feedback Thread for Classes & Abilities

ZOS_Kevin · September 15

This is the official feedback thread for any combat or class changes coming in Update 48. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes.

tomofhyrule · September 16

I’ll have to try some things out when I get home so I can make a full report, but I would like to start with one question for the Combat team:

Based on the current patch cadence (and the events to be tested from the patch notes), it seems that U49 will drop somewhere in the area of March. That means that we don’t expect any major balance changes to happen for another 5 months or so. So, is the combat team satisfied with the current balance in PvE and PvP?

I’ll also link the preliminary thread that was started before we got the official thread: ( https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/683025/update-48-combat-balancing-changes ), and I’ll be back later in the week with a more thorough report

BasP · September 16

Sadly, the current class balance isn’t great, and I was really hoping to see more meaningful changes this PTS. From a PvE perspective, several skill lines see little to no use in optimized setups simply because they’re objectively much weaker than the meta options. This is true for Shadow, Dark Magic, and Draconic Power, for example, but other lines like Animal Companions are rarely used in endgame PvE either.

Buffing underperforming lines could have two big benefits in my opinion: it would help 'pure' builds that rely on them, and it might encourage more build diversity overall.

As for the upcoming changes - I do appreciate the upcoming change that lets us use potions while channeling. Since there aren’t many other combat adjustments this round, I’ll take the chance to repost some of my earlier class/ability feedback (in spoiler tags to save space).

Sorcerer

Mage's Fury might be the worst execute ability in the game and it could really use a buff. The least that could be done, in my opinion, is starting the execute scaling at 25% and increasing the damage of the normal hit by ~33% (so that it matches the base damage of Killer's Blade).
Dark Magic's Exploitation is a worse version of Assassination's Hemorrhage. Both grant a groupwide buff, but Hemorrhage also increases the player's Critical Damage by 10%. I think that it'd be fair if Exploitation gave the player a buff too, especially since Dark Magic is far from overpowered at the moment. Maybe it could increase Direct Damage or critical chance by X% or something?
I feel like Haunting Curse is lacking a little bit compared to some of the other delayed burst abilities in the game. Maybe the damage could be increased by, say, 10% or it could apply some sort of debuff to the targets?
When it comes to Blood Magic, I'd still prefer it if casting a Dark Magic ability always increased the player's Magicka or Stamina (instead of having to cast an ability at full health). It's not like the buff is so strong that such a health requirement is necessary, in my opinion, and it'd be nice to just get the extra resources all the time.
It would be nice for soloing if Summon Storm Atronach's synergy could be activated by the caster too.

Nightblade - Shadow

Twisting Path
At the moment Twisting Path deals noticeably less damage per second than most class's ground AoE. Since the Major Expedition it grants is only situationally useful, I think the skill would benefit from a damage increase. If both its damage and cost were increased by 10%, I believe it would match Lightning Flood (without that skill's synergy). Twisting Path could then also gain a higher chance to apply the Overcharged status effect, or some other buff, and it still wouldn't be overpowered compared to other skills.

Shadowy Disguise
I think that Minor Protection feels slightly out of place on this morph since it isn’t the tanking morph. Maybe it could get a different buff that is somewhat useful for damage dealers, such as Minor Force or X Offensive Penetration? I do realize that Minor Force is really common and the Penetration might be wasted in a lot of scenarios, but I reckon that either of those buffs would at least benefit some setups.

Born From Shadow
To further increase the viability of Shadow for PvE damage dealers, maybe the damage done to monsters buff could be increased slightly. Maybe from 10% to something like 12%? It would also help if Born From Shadow could be triggered when skills such as Banner Bearer or Shalks are active.

Grim Focus' lost Weapon/ Spell Damage could be added to one of the passives
Since pure Nightblades have lost the Weapon and Spell Damage from Grim Focus and didn’t really gain anything to compensate, I feel like it would be nice if at least some of that W/S Damage would shuffled into the Shadow skill line. It could maybe be added to one of the passives. For example:

Dark Veil: Increases the duration of your non-invisibility based Shadow abilities by 2 seconds. While a non-invisibility based Shadow skill is active, your Weapon and Spell Damage are increased by 284.

Warden - Animal Companions

While I believe the skill line is one of the best skill lines for PvP, it's a bit underwhelming for PvE. I really hope the devs can come up with some buffs that increase it's viability in PvE that don't impact the PvP balance too much. I gave it some thought during U47's PTS cycle as well and came up with the following ideas (the first one was inspired by Skinny Cheeks' Warden feedback video, if I remember correctly):

Falcon's Swiftness
Perhaps activating it could give a specific PvE buff - similarly to Born From Shadow? Deceptive Predator could reduce the damage done by monsters by X% and Bird of Prey could increase your damage done to monsters by X%, for example.

Dive (and its morphs)
Due to the long travel time, it doesn't really feel good to use this skill as a spammable. It would be great if its speed would be increased a bit.

Screaming Cliff Racer

The Weapon and Spell Damage you get when you hit an Off Balance target is obviously good, but that's the only thing the skill has going for it - and it's not enough to warrant using it in optimized subclassed setups. Other spammables are better, and the buff itself isn't good enough to replace a skill such as Tentacular Dread, Grim Focus or Killer's Blade with Screaming Cliff Racer.
To improve its usage as a spammable, perhaps it could also get an effect similar to Stagger or something? Each hit would then increase your damage done to the target by X per stack, stacking up to Y times.

Cutting Dive

It's a relatively weak skill when it's used as a DoT and it's also overshadowed by other spammables. But maybe applying Off Balance could be replaced with a more impactful effect?
I'd personally really like it if the DoT could stack up to X times. Or maybe the instant hit could always apply the Hemorrhaging status effect, similar to how Surprise Attack always procs Sundered?

Growing Swarm

Since other Class and Scribing skills can apply Minor Vulnerability in an AoE, it's odd that Growing Swarm only inflicts the primary target with the debuff. I think it'd be good if it effected all enemies in its radius instead.
The 5 meter radius is rather small as well – especially compared to Solar Barrage's 8 meters. It would be nice if it was increased a bit, in my opinion.
Sadly, Growing Swarm's damage itself is lackluster too. I think it'd be great if it grew in strength over its duration like Hurricane or had an increased chance to apply the Hemorrhaging status effect.

Fetcher Infection

Even though every second cast dealing 60% more damage, Fetcher Infection's damage is still relatively low and it's not really worth using now that subclassing gives players access to skills that do more damage. Therefore, I think that it would be great if it received some kind of buff.
Maybe it could infect the target with a debuff that increases their damage taken from Class Abilities (or maybe just Warden abilities) by X%, for example? Something like that would be fitting for the name of this morph, I think, and it could replace the increased damage for every second cast if it would make the skill overpowered.

Subterranean Assault

I feel like this morph is a bit underwhelming compared to Deep Fissure. Maybe it could always apply the Poisoned status effect, or maybe the damage could simply be increased a little bit?

Passives

Since this skill line has the most Bleed Damage abilities of all class skill lines, I think adding a Bleed Damage buff (or something that buffs the Hemorrhaging status effect) to its passives would be fitting. (But I wouldn't say no to something else, of course. )
Since Savage Beast effect isn't that impactful, especially now that different class passives that generate Ultimate don't stack, perhaps it could get such a buff?
Or maybe it could be added to Advanced Species since other class passives that increase Critical Damage have a second effect as well (see Piercing Spear, Hemorrhage and Fated Fortune for example).

Dragonknight – Draconic Power

This skill line isn't used much by PvE tanks nor DPS, sadly, as it's overshadowed by other skill lines for both roles. Since the skill line has a couple of cool damage dealing abilities, such as Burning Talons, I'd personally love it if would get some buffs that make the skill line more viable for DPS. Of course it would also have the defensive bonuses, so it shouldn't be as good as e.g. Assassination, but I think that it'd be great if it would be on the same level as Winter's Embrace. I'll list some random ideas below, some of which were inspired by Skinny Cheeks' DK feedback video.

Dragon Leap
It'd be nice if one morph would become better for PvE. Maybe the knockback could be removed from Ferocious Leap, for example, and a strong Flame DoT could be added in its place?

Spiked Armor
I think that it would be great if this skill - or maybe just the Volatile Armor morph - would become more useful for damage dealers, similar to Hurricane. Perhaps the damage could scale off your highest offensive stats or Physical and Spell Resistance? And the damage of Volatile Armor's DoT could be increased?

Dragon Fire Scale
Maybe the duration could be doubled and the “reduced damage taken from projecties” could be removed (or be lowered to something like 10%) in exchange for a new “increasing damage done to monsters by X%” buff?

Deep Breath
While it's a decent skill already, I feel like the damage could be increased a bit without making it overpowered. I believe the damage of the initial hit could even be increased by 33% or something and it'd still be weaker than Blighted Blastbones.
If Deep Breath's cost would be lowered significantly as well, it could even become a skill to build a rotation around (similar to Blastbones).

And perhaps some sort of DPS buff could be added to one (or more) of the passives too.

Iron Skin - Increases the amount of damage you block by 10% and your Area of Effect damage by 10%.
Comment: Since Winter's Embrace's Piercing Cold passive increases the amount of damage one can block by 8% and Frost Damage by 15%, I think some sort of DPS buff could definitely be added to Iron Skin.
Elder Dragon - Increases your Health Recovery by 323 and Weapon and Spell Damage by 108 for each Draconic Power ability slotted.
Comment: Since Health Recovery is one of the least desirable buffs in the game, this passive also seems like a good candidate for a DPS buff in my opinion.

Other abilities

I think that the Arcanist's Tentacular Dread costs way too much Magicka compared to other delayed burst skills. It would be nice if it would be decreased to, say, somewhere between 2160 and 2700 Magicka in my opinion.
The Templar's Purifying Light isn't used much by players. Power of the Light does noticeably more DPS due to the Sundered procs, and Purifying Light's relatively weak Heal over Time isn't enough to really make a difference. Perhaps the heal could be increased or it could always apply Overcharged or something?
The Templar's Prism and Illuminate passives combined give the same effects as just the Dragonknight's Mountain's Blessing passive. Hence, I believe that it would be fair to add a buff to either Prism or Illuminate.
Since Major Brutality and Sorcery aren't rare buffs (especially now that most PvE'ers use Tome-Bearer's Inspiration in group content), maybe Molten Weapons could get some kind of other buff as well? It would be thematic if it would add X Flame Damage to your Light and Heavy Attacks, for example, or maybe it could buff Class Abilities by X%.
Maybe Northern Storm could lose the Major Protection buff and its damage could be buffed instead? The duration of its DoT could be increased and/or Permafrost's guaranteed Chilled application could be moved to Northern Storm. This would make these morphs more distinctive and better suited for different roles.

Rkindaleft · September 16

What do you mean changes? There was one change to Whirlwind and it was completely random.

Radiate77 · September 16

My only question is; where are they?

ZhuJiuyin · September 17

Where can we see "any combat or class changes coming in U48"?

Class Abilities: 2 fixes
Guild Abilities: 1 fix
Weapon Abilities: 1 change & 2 fixes
World Abilities: 1 fix
Grimoire: 1 fix

Is this content really worth feedback on?

Tannus15 · September 17

This is the first PTS i haven't bothered to login to. There is nothing to test or try out.

There is underwhelming and then there is U48

Aliniel · September 19

Second major update and the team is still not addressing balancing issues. This is beyond disappointing.

MincMincMinc · September 19

Grim focus and morphs still scale drastically higher than most ultimates other than takeflight. This delayed burst skill should be at least equivalent to deep fissure or blastbones or curse. Even with the incap damage boost, I am fairly certain incap still doesn't hit harder than merciless. An ultimate......that takes 10x as long to build up and use.

Merciless = 2.1476 dmg/wd
Relentless = 1.9524
Dawnbreaker = 1.627
ice comet = 2.0880
incap = 1.7354
takeflight = 2.2764
haunting curse = 1.3558
Blastbones = 1.627
deep fissure = 1.627

Not to mention how obscenely strong the rest of the toolkit is with the skill giving prophecy while also giving access to the slotted passives and crit. That is an entirely other discussion to be had.

T3vvy · September 19

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Grim focus and morphs still scale drastically higher than most ultimates other than takeflight. This delayed burst skill should be at least equivalent to deep fissure or blastbones or curse. Even with the incap damage boost, I am fairly certain incap still doesn't hit harder than merciless. An ultimate......that takes 10x as long to build up and use.
Merciless = 2.1476 dmg/wd

Relentless = 1.9524

Dawnbreaker = 1.627

ice comet = 2.0880

incap = 1.7354

takeflight = 2.2764

haunting curse = 1.3558

Blastbones = 1.627

deep fissure = 1.627

Not to mention how obscenely strong the rest of the toolkit is with the skill giving prophecy while also giving access to the slotted passives and crit. That is an entirely other discussion to be had.

Some of your comparisons are very misleading here.

Dawnbreaker, Ice Comet, blastbones, deep fissure, haunting curse are all AoE abilities.

You are not taking into account the damage over time effects of Ice Comet and Dawnbreaker.

You are not taking into account the extra damage components of Haunting Curse (hits twice), Deep Fissure (Hits Twice) and Blastbones (Applies diseased)

You are not taking into account the extra effects of Deep Fissure (Applies Major and Minor Breach), Dawnbreaker (Stun or Extra Weapon and Spell Damage), and Incap (extra damage done to target for 8/12 seconds)

The only really fair comparison damage wise is Incap since its ST. But the extra 20% damage done from Incap MASSIVELY outweighs the loss in damage.

MincMincMinc · September 19

T3vvy wrote: »

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Grim focus and morphs still scale drastically higher than most ultimates other than takeflight. This delayed burst skill should be at least equivalent to deep fissure or blastbones or curse. Even with the incap damage boost, I am fairly certain incap still doesn't hit harder than merciless. An ultimate......that takes 10x as long to build up and use.
Merciless = 2.1476 dmg/wd

Relentless = 1.9524

Dawnbreaker = 1.627

ice comet = 2.0880

incap = 1.7354

takeflight = 2.2764

haunting curse = 1.3558

Blastbones = 1.627

deep fissure = 1.627

Not to mention how obscenely strong the rest of the toolkit is with the skill giving prophecy while also giving access to the slotted passives and crit. That is an entirely other discussion to be had.

Some of your comparisons are very misleading here.

I mean we can write out a novel comparing all of these at once if you want, discussions of that nature on the forums tend to just bounce around because there are hundreds of "what about this" gotcha points.

In pvp what matters most right now in this crit burst turtle meta is singular instant ticks. We are very very far from a sustained damage meta, so the curse multiple hits and even the deep fissure multiple hits is not even a factor.

ArctosCethlenn · September 19

MincMincMinc wrote: »

I mean we can write out a novel comparing all of these at once if you want, discussions of that nature on the forums tend to just bounce around because there are hundreds of "what about this" gotcha points.

In pvp what matters most right now in this crit burst turtle meta is singular instant ticks. We are very very far from a sustained damage meta, so the curse multiple hits and even the deep fissure multiple hits is not even a factor.

The delayed burst from shalks in combination with a merciless dump is a big part of those burst setups, man. First shalks pop debuffs the target, second shalks pop lined up with contingency into merciless (or conti into incap) is huge. You're also able to easily do a burst combo around both shalks detonations.

That's not to say bow proc and assassination in general aren't overtuned, they are; assassination could lose half the flanking crit boost from Master Assassin + get the buff to Pressure Points reverted to 2% per skill and it would STILL be one of the strongest lines in the game for both pve and pvp.

Increasing grim focus to 10 stacks from 5 was brutal and should be reduced, probably to 6 for relentless, 7 for merciless, surprise attack could lose its guaranteed crit every 3 seconds and it'd still be one of the strongest if not the strongest ST spammable available.

Subclassing gave everyone access to significantly more bonus crit damage (alongside monomyth in the same patch), so it isn't terribly shocking that the line which gives a huge amount of crit chance just from slotting bow proc (let alone if they use more assassination skills) is heavily outclassing other options.

caffeinatedkit · September 20

So, I understand the idea of removing classes from leaderboards, but would it be possible to keep the class based leaderboards (perhaps for "all time" leaderboards vs weekly?) and also have the non-class ones? For example, on some arenas, I do a subclass build, but when I try for score pushing on IA, I run as a pure Sorc. So, I think this would be a good compromise between those that still want to see class identity celebrated and those that want it removed for leaderboards.

MashmalloMan · September 22

Necromancer Living Corpse from Patch 11.2.1

(Discussion thread I made about this)
https://tinyurl.com/Living-Corpse

Bone Tyrant
Bone Armor: This ability and its morphs no longer summon a corpse when they end or their abilities are refreshed after 10 seconds. Instead, these abilities now grant you Living Corpse if cast while in combat, which allows you to cast a (singular) corpse consuming ability on yourself. This effect is applied instantly but has a 10 second cooldown to ensure the same corpse consuming ability cadence is met.

This is a really awesome change imo. I'm sure Necro mains were requesting this feature when the class set came out so it's nice to see it finally implemented. Also, usually performance changes to abilities hurt identity more often than not, so it's nice to see this is a win/win situation for once.

My only gripe is how long changes like this take, especially since the main reasoning was performance instead of class identity or balance, and appeared week 2 of a of a "minor" patch. It makes me scratch my head because you made such a meaningful change appear simple to implement in 1 week. Has this been worked on for months or did someone come up with this in a few days? Do this more. We're begging you.

With subclassing, I've been thinking about skill lines in a different context where each should be treated as mini classes that can perform well on their own. Necromancer in comparison to Arcanist didn't feel like it met that goal when it comes to corpse vs crux mechanics. Every skill line for Arcanist has a crux generator that can be spammed, and crux spenders for massive payoffs, Necro doesn't do this very well. There was an attempt to make Ghostly Embrace the corpse generator for this line, but as we said back when it was released, it's too clunky to be reliable and should be simplified. For spenders in this line, Bitter Harvest is probably the best for the entire class, so thats not the issue.

I'm not a Necro main, but if you asked me, you need to work on Living Death and Grave Lord with these core principles in mind too.

On the subject of Living Corpse, here's some minor changes I'd love to see for Flame Skull:

Flame Skull

This skill and all morphs now apply Living Corpse instead of creating a corpse nearby on the 3rd cast. The travel speed has been increased by +64% resulting in a travel time of 1s at 28m instead of 1.45s to match similar skills like Wield Soul.
- Ricochet Skull
  - 2nd cast now gives +25% damage and +1 enemy hit nearby, 3rd cast behaves the same.
- Venom Skull
  - The "while slotted" effect based on Necromancer skills cast now works from either bar.

With Living Corpse, you can target cast Tethers, reducing one of the major drawbacks to using them in high mobility encounters like PvP and some PvE fights. It also helps the ability stand out from Blighted Blastbones by providing a different version of corpse generation that is more performant and does not work towards the corpse limit. Ricochet Skull getting a bonus on the 2nd cast and Venom Skull "while slotted" effect working from either bar makes both abilities more consistent and leans into their morph effects. Increasing the travel speed makes these abilities on par with similar ranged spammables, reduces the clunkiness, and improves the reliability.

Also, I could see an argument for giving Living Corpse to Blastbones morphs instead, the morphs would have a fun dynamic of self vs targetted Living Corpse, however GLS would make Bone Armor redundant. I feel it would be too clunky to time everything correctly with the 3s delay on GLS.

propertyOfUndefined · September 22

LIVING CORPSE BUGS:

1. Activating Bone Armor while wearing Nobility in Decay does NOT proc **both** Living Corpse and Beautiful Corpse. The only way to get this to work is by not slotting Nobility in Decay on the bar that has Bone Armor, then switching to the bar with Nobility in Decay and activating Deaden Pain / Necrotic Potency there. At this point, you are able to activate Deaden Pain a 2nd time. The bug seems to be the fact that Beautiful Corpse doesn't proc while Living Corpse is active.

2. Having the necromancer class script activate via Contingency does not generate a free corpse using Bone Armor. Instead, you seem to get the 2% max stat boost, which implies the class script triggered after Living Corpse proc'd. This is annoying because, previously, you could activate Contingency 10 second after casting Bone Armor, then cast Bone Armor again to get 2 corpses. Now you only get 1 -- coupled with a measly 2% stat boost.

Great idea, but seems half-baked and clunky...