Subclassing needs to be balanced ASAP.

Danse_Mayhem · December 2025

PVE

In PVE this is already pretty clear - The most effective all around PVE DPS build usually revolves around herald of the time and something else. This is so we can beam the entire room at every fight and breeze through content, regardless of actual DPS numbers on a dummy. This has killed variety but I think less people mind because it’s all to our advantage, and we are always just working with it, and not against it

PVP

Here’s where the big problem is.
As ZOS have already said, classes weren’t originally designed to be mixed with other classes, and as such as can expect an imbalance. I just think we have waited long enough for this to be looked at and it needs to be a priority, since people are getting bored and logging out.

It’s also skewing the vengeance test results; A lot of people aren’t choosing to play vengeance because it’s enjoyable gameplay and they really like it; many people are going there because grey host has become an insufferable mess of meta builds all using the same thing.

Look at the main 3 subclasses people use; Assassination / Storm calling / animal companions.
In addition to being 3 damage subclasses with great damage passives, they have all of the necessary buffs covered; Sorcery, prophecy, speed, resolve, healing, sustain, cleanse, burst, breach etc etc. Sure you can use something else but you’re instantly at a disadvantage.

The average sweat using the above 3 subclasses, using the sameeee set everyyyyyyone uses (rallying cry) can comfortably kite around 10-20 people and still have room to burst someone down.

The addition or scribing skills was such a bad idea. Now every single person has access to another delayed burst that just allows for an even faster offence, and less time away from the back bar (contingency) and has also given everyone a ridiculously broken burst heal - 16k crits from healing soul are very normal.

The end result is that everyone is using the exact same thing, is pretty much invincible on the back bar, and only has to open up for 1-2 seconds on the front bar to secure a kill before going back to defending whilst their ult charges. It’s made things turn based.

More and more people are noticing this and hating PvP. Before there were 7 classes. Now there’s just one, with occasionally a small variation on a single subclass, as no one is about to drop assassination / storm calling.

My suggestion;
Balance the location of the skills and buffs. A while back, veiled strike was moved to assassination from shadow. This made sense and there were no issues with it. More recently, there was a plan to move major resolve from storm calling to daedric summoning; That would have been SUCH a good change, to change the defensive buff to the defensive line, and add minor force to lightning form…

No. The community wanted their busted OP skill line and now the result is that’s it’s overloaded and one of the only viable options.

If these skill lines were balanced, the variety of cyrodil would come back, and so would the enjoyable action.

It is AWFUL right now.

Kram8ion · December 2025

Pure class builds need minimum 15% buff🤷‍♂️

Sotha_Sil · December 2025

Danse_Mayhem wrote: »

PVE

My suggestion;
Balance the location of the skills and buffs. A while back, veiled strike was moved to assassination from shadow. This made sense and there were no issues with it. More recently, there was a plan to move major resolve from storm calling to daedric summoning; That would have been SUCH a good change, to change the defensive buff to the defensive line, and add minor force to lightning form…

That's exactly what they said in the latest class rebalance article, so let's wait and see.

olsborg · December 2025

Yep, pretty much spot on. The meta atm with subclass (animalcompanion,stormcalling,assassination) and rallying cry and most likely null arca is naseous. Ppl are sick of it and the pvp population is dwindling day by day.

MincMincMinc · December 2025

Its just leftover of the strongest stam lines. It is literally combining stamsorc+stamden+stamblade all at once. These stam classes have lived on one skill line all their lives.

On stamsorc builds you chose all your stormcalling skills first. Then filled with weapon skills. then filled with out of class. then filled with the dark magic and daedric summoning if anything was left over. Stamwarden followed the same build path with animal and so did stamblade for the most part with assassination. Except now you can fill your stamsorc skills, then replace weapon skills with efficient stamblade damage, then replace the out of class utility with the efficient animal utility.

The problem that most people are going to see it as is how these damage skill lines have the utility....so lets remove it. Well now you just left extremely dense damage lines. If you didnt understand general theorycraft most people always try to maximize damage as much as possible and then find the cheapest ways to get armor. We already saw this when zos removed resolve from hurricane, people instantly started preparing running chudan.

The solution is that to fix subclassing, every skill line needs to be individually balanced against every other. Meaning zos would have to disregard "class balance" and solely compare animal vs draconic power vs daedric summoning vs assassination vs winters embrace vs........ Instead of a 7 class game it would become a 21 skill line game.

For instance daedric summoning would need more passives geared towards boosting pet damage and maybe cast speed. It has tanking and healing already. Something like stormcalling would have to lose damage passives for maybe regen or healing.

olsborg · December 2025

The only logic way to fix the situation they have created , is to revert subclassing entirely, or remove classes entirely and instead just go with the 21 skill line game and balance them vs eachother, instead of class vs class.

ZhuJiuyin · December 2025

The compromise is to balance based on themes, such as: Zoo theme (Daedric Summoning + Grave Lord + Animal Companions), Ice Magic theme (Winter's Embrace + Herald of the Tome + Grave Lord), Dark Magic theme (Dark Magic + Shadow + Herald of the Tome), etc. If a pure class is significantly weaker than other themes or classes, then in the next patch, give that pure class a temporary +10% damage buff until the three skill lines of that pure class are reasonably balanced.

BXR_Lonestar · December 2025

There's no balancing subclassing. In fact, subclassing is, at least in part, a product of their inability to balance 7 rigid classes against eachother, and so they figured they'd give everyone access to everything. Do you really think that they're going to be able to balance subclassing now without doing significant harm to pure classes?

The ONLY way this will be possible is if they separate class passives from class skill lines so that players can subclass in a skill line, but they can't use the passives from another class. Only then would they be able to make well thought out nerfs and buffs to abilities, and those abilities' performance would be amplified (or be underwhelming) based on the presence or lack of class passives they were intended to work with.

valenwood_vegan · December 2025

I chuckle whenever folks tell zos they need to do something ASAP. There's likely not even another update till like Feb or March.

And they did tease this new class overhaul, but that sounds like it'll take years.

El_Borracho · December 2025

You can not balance something that can not be balanced. Subclassing, by definition, allows players to take the strongest 3 skill lines and combine them to make the strongest possible build. Subclassing has effectively removed the pro/con analysis one had to do when choosing a class. The only way to "balance" subclassing is to scrap it.

Vaqual · December 2025

The sad reality is that the classes with the currently most OP skill lines have long hinged on those exact lines for the bulk of their available power. Variety was always trash within the classes because of this lopsided balancing style and this simply is reflected and amplified through subclassing.

Balancing across lines is long long long overdue already. Subclassing has highlighted this and it didn't take a lot of brain power to predict the gravest issues. It would have been more than easy to act on the core issues by now.
The Devs said the in the last stream that balancing isn't as easy as just tweaking a few numbers. But such tweaks could already have gotten us 90% of the way towards an enjoyable or at least playable state. I do appreciate diligent combat and class improvements. But you have to put the fire out before you start building a new house.

The only other thing that annoys me nearly as much are the people that are acting as if everything pre U46 was some kind of utopia. The balance was still trash, albeit with less extreme outliers.

aLi3nZ · February 12

Add does 5% more damage to monsters and 10% less damage to players for null arca.

Change rally cry to to add 200 spell damage and 1000 resist instead of 300 and 1500

Remove major prophecy buff from merciless resolve or at minimum add major prophecy buff to crystal frags for slotting it.

Move veiled strike to shadow.

Change some passives in storm calling to make it less OP.

BXR_Lonestar · February 12

It doesn't need balancing. It needs a complete reversion.

It is pretty clear now that subclassing the way that they did it was a mistake. DAY 1, the fix should be to completely undo the mistake, and then work out a different system from there if you want to allow subclassing at all.

Oblivion_Protocol · February 12

aLi3nZ wrote: »

Add does 5% more damage to monsters and 10% less damage to players for null arca.

Change rally cry to to add 200 spell damage and 1000 resist instead of 300 and 1500

Remove major prophecy buff from merciless resolve or at minimum add major prophecy buff to crystal frags for slotting it.

Move veiled strike to shadow.

Change some passives in storm calling to make it less OP.

- Null Arca would still be free damage that hits like a truck off-GCD.
- If you nerf Rallying Cry, the crit meta will get even more out of control than it already is.
- The Major Prophecy buff isn’t the problem here.
- People would just find another spammable.
- I’ll agree here. Storm Calling does need changes to make its passives less open to any ability you want.

Mrtoobyy · February 18

It's not as bad as the Dark convergence META that happened when the set came out... Oh my! That ping-pong gameplay I was ready to spit on the screen every BG match.

To the topic: YES subclassing is ruining the PVP. I think SUB-CLASSING other skill lines should increase their cost by 15-20% or reduce their damage/healing by 15-20%.

It's a subclass skill line, a Templar should not have "mastered" Storm calling like a true Sorcerer has etc...
They are sub-skill lines and therefor should be on a sub-par level

Oblivion_Protocol · 3:33PM

Mrtoobyy wrote: »

To the topic: YES subclassing is ruining the PVP. I think SUB-CLASSING other skill lines should increase their cost by 15-20% or reduce their damage/healing by 15-20%.

It's a subclass skill line, a Templar should not have "mastered" Storm calling like a true Sorcerer has etc...
They are sub-skill lines and therefor should be on a sub-par level

The problem is that ZoS sank a lot of resources into making subclassing happen, and they’ve fundamentally changed the game with it. There’s no putting that genie back in the bottle. So there’s no way they would present a solution where choosing to use their shiny new system would make players significantly weaker than they would be if they didn't.

Also, your reasoning is flawed. You’re looking at this from a perspective of endgame play. But for the casual player who came here from Oblivion and Skyrim looking for the Elder Scrolls experience doesn’t care about the logic of “a Templar wouldn’t master Storm Calling like a true Sorcerer”.

I’ve played D&D for 12 years, and I can tell you from experience that you can justify any class option with the right head canon. Who’s to say you can’t play a Templar/NB as the Sacred Blade of Meridia, tasked with striking down her foes from the shadows?

xylena · 4:34PM

Since NB is so late in the rework schedule, something definitely needs to be done about Assassination tree in PvP. At least Warden and Sorc are up next, I'm hoping the full strength versions of Shalks and Streak are only available to pure class Warden and Sorc.