U50 Feedback Thread for Class Mastery

acanca · April 28

Sorcerer's Conservation of Energy provides too much healing and sustain in PVP. Please consider putting a cap on both the healing and sustain with battle spirit active. For example, when battle spirit active recieve maximum 500 magicka and stamina and 1000 health. This would make this passive still the best sustain and healing class mastery in the game by far while not feeling oppressive as it currently is. If this is too hard to implement, please consider putting a cooldown on this passive with battle spirit active, for example, this passive can proc once every 3 seconds with battle spirit active.

Conversely Necromancer's Pound of Flesh functions extremely similarly to Sorcerer's Conversation of Energy as a Maximum HP heal and sustain tool but it has 10% base chance to proc when recieving damage increased by 1% for each missing Max Health and can proc once per second instead of reliably proccing every second like Sorcerer's Conservation of Energy. This passive is, no matter how you look at it, a worse version of Sorcerer's Conversation of Energy. Please consider changing 5% stamina restored to both stamina and magicka restored so it doesnt feel like a strictly worse version of conversation of energy

Also currently Malevolent Promise does not target players. This seems needlessly harsh of a nerf because Necromancer is unlikely to be good in pvp even with this passive. This passive should not go to live in this state, please allow this passive to target players.

Oshea_OK · April 28

My solo HA scor oakensoul (subclasse) build on non-trail dummy is about 42k dps (On PTS).
The pureclass simular build Scor is about 37k dps

So a big dps loss on oakensoul HA solo build on pureclass versus subslcass, and that is not addressing other issues.

ADarklore · April 28

Firstmep wrote: »

I will reiterate the issue with the 2 offensive templar masteries, in hopes that we can see some last minute changes.
Bright harbinger: compared to other similar passives this is just plain boring and weak. Please just add at least major sorcery to it, it wouldn't break the passive but would open up some skill options.

Judgements brand: 750 flat damage is still extremely weak. Outside of jabs, most other templar damage is on a 2 second tick rate and this doesn't even significantly help jabs, like you can reach 5k tt on it with just increasing weapon damage. I have 2 suggestions here:

1. Double the flat amount for both pve and pvp, but give it a cooldown let's say 10 seconds. This would create a meaningful burst windows for pvp, without breaking it for pve.
2. Make it apply to all damage, but reduce the amount to about 450 both pve and pvp. This would decouple it from jabs, but could create interesting interaction for dot/status builds.

Unless these passive change or get buffed, pure class templar damage is going to be awful next patch, which is wierd considering how these passives are supposed bridge the power level between sub and pure classes.

^THIS! Right now there is absolutely no reason for me to pure class as a Templar, when other subclassing specs still far outperform the use of Class Mastery. When will the new ZOS team actually decide to take a LEAP and give us a real boost while we wait for individual class refresh, instead of still trying to balance around an unbalanced class structure? I mean, letting DK, then Warden, then Sorc become much stronger after their refresh... while the rest of us continue our wait to shine. Instead, give us some real boost now and let us play for awhile and see how it actually works out on LIVE before making adjustments. Originally Judgement Brand was supposed to be at 2000, then they nerfed it to 1250, then increased to 1500, but 2000 should have been the starting point as originally planned.

Firstmep · April 28

ADarklore wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

I will reiterate the issue with the 2 offensive templar masteries, in hopes that we can see some last minute changes.
Bright harbinger: compared to other similar passives this is just plain boring and weak. Please just add at least major sorcery to it, it wouldn't break the passive but would open up some skill options.

Judgements brand: 750 flat damage is still extremely weak. Outside of jabs, most other templar damage is on a 2 second tick rate and this doesn't even significantly help jabs, like you can reach 5k tt on it with just increasing weapon damage. I have 2 suggestions here:

1. Double the flat amount for both pve and pvp, but give it a cooldown let's say 10 seconds. This would create a meaningful burst windows for pvp, without breaking it for pve.
2. Make it apply to all damage, but reduce the amount to about 450 both pve and pvp. This would decouple it from jabs, but could create interesting interaction for dot/status builds.

Unless these passive change or get buffed, pure class templar damage is going to be awful next patch, which is wierd considering how these passives are supposed bridge the power level between sub and pure classes.

^THIS! Right now there is absolutely no reason for me to pure class as a Templar, when other subclassing specs still far outperform the use of Class Mastery. When will the new ZOS team actually decide to take a LEAP and give us a real boost while we wait for individual class refresh, instead of still trying to balance around an unbalanced class structure? I mean, letting DK, then Warden, then Sorc become much stronger after their refresh... while the rest of us continue our wait to shine. Instead, give us some real boost now and let us play for awhile and see how it actually works out on LIVE before making adjustments. Originally Judgement Brand was supposed to be at 2000, then they nerfed it to 1250, then increased to 1500, but 2000 should have been the starting point as originally planned.

For pvp Judgements brand is even worse, since its cut in half vs players and then again reduced by 50% by battle spirit. Basically provides next to no damage.

gammelscroll · April 28

Templar masteries is a joke. How on earth would someone play pure Templar over subclass? (I do)
If pure classes is gonna compete with subbing, we need some real good ***.
More wep.power, healing reduce, 10 % more DMG to subclass. And more reward for playing pure class.
Or just revert the whole subclass. Cyrodil is almost dead after subclass was introduced. But hey, when did zos care about cyrodil?
@ZOS_Kevin fix templar class masteries

NxJoeyD · April 28

hoangdz wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

Stamsorc and magsorc will 100% be the 2nd or at least 3rd strongest spec in the game after this patch goes live, guaranteed. We gaming now fellas

And this is a sin? Sorc can only be abided when it's last or 2nd last? I do not see the issue here. Good it's finally playable with good emphasis again.

Until you fight 40k+ HP sorcs that proc Blood Magic every GCD with a 4.4 - 4.7k tooltip. Then you’d wish this passive never went live in that state.

I personally think that passive needs to proc off Sorc abilities only, but what can I do? ZOS has the final say.

@hoangdz

I don't hate this and I think it's fine for right now because Sorc hasn't had their refresh yet.

Remember, we have to compete with the whole scope of subclassed builds, that includes BOTH Stam Sorc & Mag Sorc and whilst Stam Sorc has the clear advantage if we nerf the passives then Mag Sorc gets tossed into the back seat again.

I've been a proponent that these passives need to deliver pretty strongly because Sorc skill slotting is so poor in a pure class context, especially in PvP.

Given the power creep that we've seen out of the subclassed crit metas in PvP I think this is fine. Leave it for now and then adjust accordingly during the Sorc refresh.

Sorcs may have gained solid sustain here but they still have garbage skills in the grand scheme of combat .. We still have no target mobility debuff, our go-to mobility skill has less range than other class abilities and poor follow up, we have no reliable spammable heavy burst.

Plus, there's a slew of other class skills that deliver a heal component with their spammable damage output so the Sorc passives help align us in that perspective with those other skills in an a by proxy way. We're still very much lacking so this is needed right now.

warm_blanket · April 28

Interesting changes to the nb masteries. Some additional feedback (recall we're competing with subclassing & now the upcoming u50 pvp environment in general here)...

Eye for Exploitation: you doubled the values

Appreciated, but the battlespirit tag is unneeded and should be removed. Players will not sit in execute range like a dummy, they heal back up, so the actual benefit of this passive is lower than the big number implies against live opponents. If anything a decent change to this would be to move a portion of the value upfront, and keep the rest as execute. Say +300 wpn/spell dmg with up to 2.2k in execute.

Above and Beyond: Same issue here, the battlespirit tag should be removed. In practice the +35% crit dmg cap is negated by crit resist so w/o battlespirit this option reduces to +25% cdmg/healing. Lot better than 5% (lol) but so far wouldn't give up subclassing for it.

Nocturnal Inspiration: Decent but again it didn't compare against subclassing for me. It would need some other bonus, like mag/stam/hp return whenever the effect procs.

Evasive Trance: Like the idea but it's just not practical at all. Did not enjoy being locked into spamming nb abilities to get what is essentially a diceroll dodge with poor odds. The duration is far too short for deliberate usage and it does nothing against half the damage you get hit by. This would be much better if it worked more like old mist form. eg 50% dmg reduction for 3 seconds on a 10s cooldown would be actually usable.

Firstmep · April 28

warm_blanket wrote: »

Interesting changes to the nb masteries. Some additional feedback (recall we're competing with subclassing & now the upcoming u50 pvp environment in general here)...

Eye for Exploitation: you doubled the values Appreciated, but the battlespirit tag is unneeded and should be removed. Players will not sit in execute range like a dummy, they heal back up, so the actual benefit of this passive is lower than the big number implies against live opponents. If anything a decent change to this would be to move a portion of the value upfront, and keep the rest as execute. Say +300 wpn/spell dmg with up to 2.2k in execute.

Above and Beyond: Same issue here, the battlespirit tag should be removed. In practice the +35% crit dmg cap is negated by crit resist so w/o battlespirit this option reduces to +25% cdmg/healing. Lot better than 5% (lol) but so far wouldn't give up subclassing for it.

Nocturnal Inspiration: Decent but again it didn't compare against subclassing for me. It would need some other bonus, like mag/stam/hp return whenever the effect procs.

Evasive Trance: Like the idea but it's just not practical at all. Did not enjoy being locked into spamming nb abilities to get what is essentially a diceroll dodge with poor odds. The duration is far too short for deliberate usage and it does nothing against half the damage you get hit by. This would be much better if it worked more like old mist form. eg 50% dmg reduction for 3 seconds on a 10s cooldown would be actually usable.

Subclassed skills and passives dont get this wierd battlespirit treatment so neither should pure class passives imho.

NxJoeyD · April 28

Firstmep wrote: »

warm_blanket wrote: »

Interesting changes to the nb masteries. Some additional feedback (recall we're competing with subclassing & now the upcoming u50 pvp environment in general here)...

Eye for Exploitation: you doubled the values Appreciated, but the battlespirit tag is unneeded and should be removed. Players will not sit in execute range like a dummy, they heal back up, so the actual benefit of this passive is lower than the big number implies against live opponents. If anything a decent change to this would be to move a portion of the value upfront, and keep the rest as execute. Say +300 wpn/spell dmg with up to 2.2k in execute.

Above and Beyond: Same issue here, the battlespirit tag should be removed. In practice the +35% crit dmg cap is negated by crit resist so w/o battlespirit this option reduces to +25% cdmg/healing. Lot better than 5% (lol) but so far wouldn't give up subclassing for it.

Nocturnal Inspiration: Decent but again it didn't compare against subclassing for me. It would need some other bonus, like mag/stam/hp return whenever the effect procs.

Evasive Trance: Like the idea but it's just not practical at all. Did not enjoy being locked into spamming nb abilities to get what is essentially a diceroll dodge with poor odds. The duration is far too short for deliberate usage and it does nothing against half the damage you get hit by. This would be much better if it worked more like old mist form. eg 50% dmg reduction for 3 seconds on a 10s cooldown would be actually usable.

Subclassed skills and passives dont get this wierd battlespirit treatment so neither should pure class passives imho.

I 3rd this. Subclassing may not have access to our class passives but they have access to the full scope of our skills and baseline passives. Those mechanical combinations deliver sky high power and versatility.

If we're going to combat subclassed builds we need to be able to reach similar power scaling as they have. This makes even more sense when we consider that practically every class is still subject to OG class limitations that subclassed builds can bypass.

None of the Mastery passives in any class should have a Battle Spirit reduction.

acanca · April 28

Above and Beyond
This passive is a little problematic.

Orders wrath + Monomyth + RAT on NB with soulcleaver gives around 150% crit damage maximum and effectively less than that in duels. It also isnt particularly a good way to build imo because despite the good burst damage you are left way too squishy so probably abandoning orders wrath for even less crit damage and going for a defensive set like rallying cry will be necessary to be anything but a gank build.

Its not realistic to reach maximum crit damage without sacrificing way too much.

Though my worry is that this seems really hard to balance because i dont expect many people surviving an Incap into bow proc with an even unoptimized NB as long as both crit, i was easily hitting 16k+ bow procs. It's not good during duels, yes. But going about your business and then immediately dying to an NB from invis will be imo way more common in IC and Cyro.

This causes a problem where NB has too strong burst damage from invisibility while not also being particularly good enough in other scenarios.

Please consider giving NB more crit damage with battle spirit active but treat it more like landslide so it stacks while you deal or take damage.
For example, when battle spirit is active and during combat taking or dealing damage increases your crit damage by 2% for 10 seconds up to 25%. This would encourage a more brawler type NB and less ganker type NB. I would advise against leaving out the 'during combat' part for ravaging pot shenanigans

danko355 · April 28

Imagine someone still wants to play a pure Nightblade in U49.

Yes, you are already outclassed by many top-tier subclass combinations. Any 3 of these: Assassination/Restoring Light/Storm Calling/Grave Lord/Animal Companion combinations can bring more damage, more burst, more AoE, more DoTs, more sustain, more healing, more defense, or simply better overall pressure than a pure Nightblade build.

On top of that, DK pressure is in 90%+ of fights. So you adapt. You build tankier. You maybe even put on an Infused Fire Resistance ring just to survive the fire pressure. You accept that you are not playing the strongest thing available, but you still play pure Nightblade because you enjoy the class identity.

Now imagine pure Nightblade in U50 if it goes live like this.

You are no longer just behind subclass builds and DKs. You are now surrounded by reworked DKs, stronger Werewolves, Sorcs with absurd sustain, healing, and damage from their class masteries, Necros that become harder to kill the lower their health gets (with infinite Stamina sustain as well), and other pure classes that received much more practical tools.

And what does pure Nightblade get in comparison?

Above and Beyond is effectively only +5% Critical Damage in PvP. The Critical Damage cap increase has practically zero benefit for pure Nightblade PvP builds.

This is important, because some people keep arguing with wrong numbers while ignoring how PvP crit calculations actually work.

The 125% crit damage cap is only meaningful against a target with zero Critical Resistance. That is not a real PvP situation.

Even a character with only base Critical Resistance, around 1320, has roughly 20% crit damage mitigation. So against that player, you already need around 145% raw Critical Damage just to effectively reach the normal 125% cap.

Most PvP players aim for something closer to 2000 Critical Resistance, which is roughly 30% crit mitigation. Against that kind of target, even without the new Nightblade mastery, you can already go to around 155% raw Critical Damage and still only effectively hit the normal 125% cap.

So what does the new cap increase actually do?

Against a player with around 2000 Critical Resistance, to fully benefit from the new +35% cap increase, you would need around 190% raw Critical Damage: 125% normal cap + 30% crit mitigation + 35% extra cap.

Good luck reaching that on a pure Nightblade solo PvP build without completely destroying your survivability.

So in practice, for pure Nightblade PvP, Above and Beyond is not “+5% Critical Damage and +35% Critical Damage cap.” It is basically just +5% Critical Damage. The cap increase is a PvE benefit or a tooltip fantasy. It does not solve anything for real PvP Nightblade builds (please pass this to the dev team @ZOS_Kevin )

Eye for Exploitation also gets Battle Spirit treatment, even though players do not sit in execute range like target dummies. The real value is much lower than the tooltip suggests.

And the defensive mastery concept is not a real answer either. A tiny defensive window tied to blocking while casting a Nightblade ability is far too clunky for PvP. It does not help properly against real incoming pressure: DoTs, AoE, delayed burst, travel time, lag, or simply being pressured by multiple players.

This is the core problem: these masteries do not make pure Nightblade competitive with subclassing, and they definitely do not make pure Nightblade competitive with the U50 PvP environment.

Pure Nightblade needs something practical and reliable. Either remove the Battle Spirit reductions from the Nightblade mastery passives, or give the class something that actually solves its current problems: real sustain, real survivability, or meaningful pressure that works outside of ganking.

Right now it feels like the class is being balanced around fear of invisible gank burst, while the rest of PvP is moving toward tanky, high-sustain, high-pressure brawler builds. That leaves pure Nightblade in the worst possible place: still annoying enough for people to complain about ganks, but not strong enough to compete in real fights.

And honestly, it is frustrating that some people argue about this with completely wrong numbers, without understanding the actual PvP crit rules, and that kind of feedback is apparently taken into account when making important balance changes.

If this goes live as it is, many people who still tried to make pure Nightblade work in U49 will simply stop logging into the class until the full rework finally arrives in 2 years.

acanca · April 28

Conservation of Energy

This passive by itself is objectively stronger than running both wretched vitality and max stack roksa together, 2 of the best sustain sets in the game. Max stack roksa + wretched vitality gives 630 magicka and stamina recovery. This passive, on a really unoptomized build with 35k stamina and 20k magicka gives 700 stamina and 400 magicka which is equal to 1400 stam sustain and 800 magicka sustain or an average 1100 sustain.

This much sustain should be ok in solo but it's a little too much value in pvp. Please consider putting a cap of 500 maximum magicka and stamina on it with battle spirit active. And please adjust the healing recieved with Blood Magic while this passive is taken to maximum 1500 hp with battle spirit active as its also providing too much value. This would reign in some of its power while still being incredibly strong.

Alternatively, put a 3 second cool down on the passive with battle spirit active

NxJoeyD · April 28

acanca wrote: »

Conservation of Energy

This passive by itself is objectively stronger than running both wretched vitality and max stack roksa together, 2 of the best sustain sets in the game. Max stack roksa + wretched vitality gives 630 magicka and stamina recovery. This passive, on a really unoptomized build with 35k stamina and 20k magicka gives 700 stamina and 400 magicka which is equal to 1400 stam sustain and 800 magicka sustain or an average 1100 sustain.

This much sustain should be ok in solo but it's a little too much value in pvp. Please consider putting a cap of 500 maximum magicka and stamina on it with battle spirit active. And please adjust the healing recieved with Blood Magic while this passive is taken to maximum 1500 hp with battle spirit active as its also providing too much value. This would reign in some of its power while still being incredibly strong.

Alternatively, put a 3 second cool down on the passive with battle spirit active

I'm sorry but no. The sustain is strong but it's only sustain. Sorc skills are extremely under-performing. The trade off for high sustain is poor skills, especially in PvP.

The lions share of Sorc skills are no competition in PvP. Sorcs have more sustain with these passives but the healing factor isn't strong enough to mitigate the degree of continuous power creep we're seeing amongst DK and WW nor subclass builds with persistent crit. The resource recovery is strong, but again, those resources are going toward skills that just don't measure up right now.

A pure Sorc build in PvP is getting a stronger sustain but in order to get it has to give up the massively beneficial subclassed skills in order to do it, cutting Sorc power output by huge amounts.

acanca · April 28

Font of Power

This passive provides 851 weapon and spell damage on my character carried over from live. The sheer amount of raw stats offered is a little concerning but the passive doesnt have any secondary effects like granting maximum crux to arcanist or granting 300 weapon and spell damage to team members like templar. Imo the passive doesnt need a nerf, but would be a good idea to keep an eye on it.

acanca · April 28

NxJoeyD wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

Conservation of Energy

This passive by itself is objectively stronger than running both wretched vitality and max stack roksa together, 2 of the best sustain sets in the game. Max stack roksa + wretched vitality gives 630 magicka and stamina recovery. This passive, on a really unoptomized build with 35k stamina and 20k magicka gives 700 stamina and 400 magicka which is equal to 1400 stam sustain and 800 magicka sustain or an average 1100 sustain.

This much sustain should be ok in solo but it's a little too much value in pvp. Please consider putting a cap of 500 maximum magicka and stamina on it with battle spirit active. And please adjust the healing recieved with Blood Magic while this passive is taken to maximum 1500 hp with battle spirit active as its also providing too much value. This would reign in some of its power while still being incredibly strong.

Alternatively, put a 3 second cool down on the passive with battle spirit active

I'm sorry but no. The sustain is strong but it's only sustain. Sorc skills are extremely under-performing. The trade off for high sustain is poor skills, especially in PvP.

The lions share of Sorc skills are no competition in PvP. Sorcs have more sustain with these passives but the healing factor isn't strong enough to mitigate the degree of continuous power creep we're seeing amongst DK and WW nor subclass builds with persistent crit. The resource recovery is strong, but again, those resources are going toward skills that just don't measure up right now.

A pure Sorc build in PvP is getting a stronger sustain but in order to get it has to give up the massively beneficial subclassed skills in order to do it, cutting Sorc power output by huge amounts.

Sorc is more than doing fine in pvp currently in PTS. I am looking forward to playing the builds i tested in pts when signet drops tomorrow & class masteries hit live later on. I am not looking forward to only seeing Dk's and sorcs in pvp

Also even a badly made pure class sorc currently in PTS is vastly stronger and more viable than any subclassed Sorc build as you well know...

NxJoeyD · April 28

acanca wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

Conservation of Energy

This passive by itself is objectively stronger than running both wretched vitality and max stack roksa together, 2 of the best sustain sets in the game. Max stack roksa + wretched vitality gives 630 magicka and stamina recovery. This passive, on a really unoptomized build with 35k stamina and 20k magicka gives 700 stamina and 400 magicka which is equal to 1400 stam sustain and 800 magicka sustain or an average 1100 sustain.

This much sustain should be ok in solo but it's a little too much value in pvp. Please consider putting a cap of 500 maximum magicka and stamina on it with battle spirit active. And please adjust the healing recieved with Blood Magic while this passive is taken to maximum 1500 hp with battle spirit active as its also providing too much value. This would reign in some of its power while still being incredibly strong.

Alternatively, put a 3 second cool down on the passive with battle spirit active

I'm sorry but no. The sustain is strong but it's only sustain. Sorc skills are extremely under-performing. The trade off for high sustain is poor skills, especially in PvP.

The lions share of Sorc skills are no competition in PvP. Sorcs have more sustain with these passives but the healing factor isn't strong enough to mitigate the degree of continuous power creep we're seeing amongst DK and WW nor subclass builds with persistent crit. The resource recovery is strong, but again, those resources are going toward skills that just don't measure up right now.

A pure Sorc build in PvP is getting a stronger sustain but in order to get it has to give up the massively beneficial subclassed skills in order to do it, cutting Sorc power output by huge amounts.

Sorc is more than doing fine in pvp currently in PTS. I am looking forward to playing the builds i tested in pts when signet drops tomorrow & class masteries hit live later on. I am not looking forward to only seeing Dk's and sorcs in pvp

Also even a badly made pure class sorc currently in PTS is vastly stronger and more viable than any subclassed Sorc build as you well know...

No, it's not, I'm sorry I very much disagree. I'm on PTS currently. I'm not talking dummy parsing, I mean genuine PvP combat.

Perhaps Stam Sorc is holding their own but Mag Sorc is absolutely not. Stam Sorc is night & day different from Mag Sorc and in PvP Stam based anything is more viable; albeit that shouldn't be the case.

My subclassed Mag Sorc was light years stronger than pure Mag Sorc even with these passives.

The burst delivery simply isn't in our skill kit and the skills we do have are either too slow or mechanically lacking compared to what other pure classes have.

acanca · April 28

NxJoeyD wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

Conservation of Energy

This passive by itself is objectively stronger than running both wretched vitality and max stack roksa together, 2 of the best sustain sets in the game. Max stack roksa + wretched vitality gives 630 magicka and stamina recovery. This passive, on a really unoptomized build with 35k stamina and 20k magicka gives 700 stamina and 400 magicka which is equal to 1400 stam sustain and 800 magicka sustain or an average 1100 sustain.

This much sustain should be ok in solo but it's a little too much value in pvp. Please consider putting a cap of 500 maximum magicka and stamina on it with battle spirit active. And please adjust the healing recieved with Blood Magic while this passive is taken to maximum 1500 hp with battle spirit active as its also providing too much value. This would reign in some of its power while still being incredibly strong.

Alternatively, put a 3 second cool down on the passive with battle spirit active

I'm sorry but no. The sustain is strong but it's only sustain. Sorc skills are extremely under-performing. The trade off for high sustain is poor skills, especially in PvP.

The lions share of Sorc skills are no competition in PvP. Sorcs have more sustain with these passives but the healing factor isn't strong enough to mitigate the degree of continuous power creep we're seeing amongst DK and WW nor subclass builds with persistent crit. The resource recovery is strong, but again, those resources are going toward skills that just don't measure up right now.

A pure Sorc build in PvP is getting a stronger sustain but in order to get it has to give up the massively beneficial subclassed skills in order to do it, cutting Sorc power output by huge amounts.

Sorc is more than doing fine in pvp currently in PTS. I am looking forward to playing the builds i tested in pts when signet drops tomorrow & class masteries hit live later on. I am not looking forward to only seeing Dk's and sorcs in pvp

Also even a badly made pure class sorc currently in PTS is vastly stronger and more viable than any subclassed Sorc build as you well know...

No, it's not, I'm sorry I very much disagree. I'm on PTS currently. I'm not talking dummy parsing, I mean genuine PvP combat.

Perhaps Stam Sorc is holding their own but Mag Sorc is absolutely not. Stam Sorc is night & day different from Mag Sorc and in PvP Stam based anything is more viable; albeit that shouldn't be the case.

My subclassed Mag Sorc was light years stronger than pure Mag Sorc even with these passives.

The burst delivery simply isn't in our skill kit and the skills we do have are either too slow or mechanically lacking compared to what other pure classes have.

You have a black gem monstrosity off meta build going on with the void damage set if i remember correctly. I think you are using shocking soul with class mastery, try shattered path signet and if you havent switched to it try switching to bound armaments. Use a charged LS, and try switching to shattered path signet + draugrkin. They buffed bound armament to have a higher proc chance for sundered and can proc it up to 4 times a few months back which synergizes well with signet, wield soul with class mastery can proc concussion twice per cast (which is still worse than crushing shock which can proc 3 status effects) and draugrkin synergizes well with signet because its damage is further boosted by 85% when procced by a status effect. Magsorc isnt too bad in pts. Worse than stamsorcs i agree but deals so much more damage than subclassed versions.

NxJoeyD · April 28

acanca wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

Conservation of Energy

This passive by itself is objectively stronger than running both wretched vitality and max stack roksa together, 2 of the best sustain sets in the game. Max stack roksa + wretched vitality gives 630 magicka and stamina recovery. This passive, on a really unoptomized build with 35k stamina and 20k magicka gives 700 stamina and 400 magicka which is equal to 1400 stam sustain and 800 magicka sustain or an average 1100 sustain.

This much sustain should be ok in solo but it's a little too much value in pvp. Please consider putting a cap of 500 maximum magicka and stamina on it with battle spirit active. And please adjust the healing recieved with Blood Magic while this passive is taken to maximum 1500 hp with battle spirit active as its also providing too much value. This would reign in some of its power while still being incredibly strong.

Alternatively, put a 3 second cool down on the passive with battle spirit active

I'm sorry but no. The sustain is strong but it's only sustain. Sorc skills are extremely under-performing. The trade off for high sustain is poor skills, especially in PvP.

The lions share of Sorc skills are no competition in PvP. Sorcs have more sustain with these passives but the healing factor isn't strong enough to mitigate the degree of continuous power creep we're seeing amongst DK and WW nor subclass builds with persistent crit. The resource recovery is strong, but again, those resources are going toward skills that just don't measure up right now.

A pure Sorc build in PvP is getting a stronger sustain but in order to get it has to give up the massively beneficial subclassed skills in order to do it, cutting Sorc power output by huge amounts.

Sorc is more than doing fine in pvp currently in PTS. I am looking forward to playing the builds i tested in pts when signet drops tomorrow & class masteries hit live later on. I am not looking forward to only seeing Dk's and sorcs in pvp

Also even a badly made pure class sorc currently in PTS is vastly stronger and more viable than any subclassed Sorc build as you well know...

No, it's not, I'm sorry I very much disagree. I'm on PTS currently. I'm not talking dummy parsing, I mean genuine PvP combat.

Perhaps Stam Sorc is holding their own but Mag Sorc is absolutely not. Stam Sorc is night & day different from Mag Sorc and in PvP Stam based anything is more viable; albeit that shouldn't be the case.

My subclassed Mag Sorc was light years stronger than pure Mag Sorc even with these passives.

The burst delivery simply isn't in our skill kit and the skills we do have are either too slow or mechanically lacking compared to what other pure classes have.

You have a black gem monstrosity off meta build going on with the void damage set if i remember correctly. I think you are using shocking soul with class mastery, try shattered path signet and if you havent switched to it try switching to bound armaments. Use a charged LS, and try switching to shattered path signet + draugrkin. They buffed bound armament to have a higher proc chance for sundered and can proc it up to 4 times a few months back which synergizes well with signet, wield soul with class mastery can proc concussion twice per cast (which is still worse than crushing shock which can proc 3 status effects) and draugrkin synergizes well with signet because its damage is further boosted by 85% when procced by a status effect. Magsorc isnt too bad in pts. Worse than stamsorcs i agree but deals so much more damage than subclassed versions.

Your suggestion to run Singlet + Draugrkin is a good one but it wouldn't work well for me. Singlet would also discourage Ult use which I use to synergize with BGM as a low resource cost LA power buff.

I do have BGM (which I only use for PvP) but I'm not running a void damage set, my Shocking Soul scribe does deal Oblivion Damage, I'm not using the Class script on Weld Soul as the Class script for Sorc is poor, the non-pet damage is low and easily mitigated in PvP whereas Oblivion cannot be, or cleansed.

I already use a LS. I like Bound Armament but IMO it's more viable for Stam Sorc, especially if they're dual wield or if the Sorc is a HA based build. But even still, an HA attack isn't really viable in PvP unless they're going to be carried by a squad. If I were going to go the route of slotting an attack-based stacked skill then I'd have to take Merciless, that's a no brainer; scales higher, performs quicker, and casts off Mag.

My subclassed Mag Sorc slots Storm Calling, Aedric Spear, & Herald of the Tome.

Skills like Topping Charge can beat out Streak because it doesn't have a progressive pool cost, has a longer range, plus grants Major Protection; all while scaling to more damage than Streak. Sure Streak is un-blockable but there's so much immunity in PvP now that it reduces that prospect of streak in favor for a skill that has better follow up potential.

The combination of Balanced Warrior + Harnessed Quintessence + Tentacular nets roughly a 17% increase to W/S damage. Compare that to the 20% I get from Font of Power and it's easy to see why the subclass is better; access to faster and better skills than Sorcs that all synergize better for only a slightly less buff to W/S damage than Font.

My Subclassed Mag Sorc can stack consistently 5 instances of burst per every GCD attack I cast, plus two persistent DoTs, that's something Sorc skills lines just can't deliver. Crystal Weapon, Bound Armaments, Streak, Wrath; all are insanely slow to execute their function compared to like-skills in other classes. Curse doesn't tick per second so I'm not getting those persistent damage application there either.

Bound Armaments is probably the only skill I'd consider taking back, even as a Mag Sorc, but in order to do so I'd have to give up either Aedric or Herald and both of those deliver more power & utility than Daedric Summoning does.

My subclassed Sorc in current game U49 absolutely decimates other Mag Sorcs in PvP, in fact, outside of PTS my Mag Sorc build will run just under meta in PvP in terms of results (BG & IC); I have clips of my build 2 shotting a full health players in BGs due to stacking burst instances.

Pure Mag Sorcs cannot compete with subclassed builds in PvP. Pure Stam Sorcs can, but not Mag; the skills are just too weak.

For Mag Sorcs we have to rely too heavily on status chance, set procs, and/or World & Weapon skill trees to kit out anything remotely useful without Subclassing. Pure Mag Sorc is horrible in PTS right now, yes, they can parse on a dummy, and are fine in PvE but not in PvP. Mag Sorcs have solid sustain in PTS but for all intents & purposes the only pure classes really running in PvP right now are DKs and Mag Sorcs don't have anywhere near that kind of power. After U50 goes live expect everyone & their brother to run WW.

My issue isn't with my subclassed Mag Sorc, I've got plenty of content that supports that build. My issue is with Pure Mag Sorc having to slot skills that are not competitive just to get access to passives, which has 1 solid and 4 weak options.

Dracane · April 28

acanca wrote: »

Font of Power

This passive provides 851 weapon and spell damage on my character carried over from live. The sheer amount of raw stats offered is a little concerning but the passive doesnt have any secondary effects like granting maximum crux to arcanist or granting 300 weapon and spell damage to team members like templar. Imo the passive doesnt need a nerf, but would be a good idea to keep an eye on it.

It needs buffs. Warden gets 1665, Nightblade up to 2500 (or 1250), Arcanist can stack over 900 or 30% damage done.
Font of Power is too weak and requires you to stack a highly suboptimal stat, while other classes get their damage just for living and using what they already do.

1500 magicka scaling would still be too harsh for Font of Power.

Dracane · April 28

NxJoeyD wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

Conservation of Energy

This passive by itself is objectively stronger than running both wretched vitality and max stack roksa together, 2 of the best sustain sets in the game. Max stack roksa + wretched vitality gives 630 magicka and stamina recovery. This passive, on a really unoptomized build with 35k stamina and 20k magicka gives 700 stamina and 400 magicka which is equal to 1400 stam sustain and 800 magicka sustain or an average 1100 sustain.

This much sustain should be ok in solo but it's a little too much value in pvp. Please consider putting a cap of 500 maximum magicka and stamina on it with battle spirit active. And please adjust the healing recieved with Blood Magic while this passive is taken to maximum 1500 hp with battle spirit active as its also providing too much value. This would reign in some of its power while still being incredibly strong.

Alternatively, put a 3 second cool down on the passive with battle spirit active

I'm sorry but no. The sustain is strong but it's only sustain. Sorc skills are extremely under-performing. The trade off for high sustain is poor skills, especially in PvP.

The lions share of Sorc skills are no competition in PvP. Sorcs have more sustain with these passives but the healing factor isn't strong enough to mitigate the degree of continuous power creep we're seeing amongst DK and WW nor subclass builds with persistent crit. The resource recovery is strong, but again, those resources are going toward skills that just don't measure up right now.

A pure Sorc build in PvP is getting a stronger sustain but in order to get it has to give up the massively beneficial subclassed skills in order to do it, cutting Sorc power output by huge amounts.

Sorc is more than doing fine in pvp currently in PTS. I am looking forward to playing the builds i tested in pts when signet drops tomorrow & class masteries hit live later on. I am not looking forward to only seeing Dk's and sorcs in pvp

Also even a badly made pure class sorc currently in PTS is vastly stronger and more viable than any subclassed Sorc build as you well know...

No, it's not, I'm sorry I very much disagree. I'm on PTS currently. I'm not talking dummy parsing, I mean genuine PvP combat.

Perhaps Stam Sorc is holding their own but Mag Sorc is absolutely not. Stam Sorc is night & day different from Mag Sorc and in PvP Stam based anything is more viable; albeit that shouldn't be the case.

My subclassed Mag Sorc was light years stronger than pure Mag Sorc even with these passives.

The burst delivery simply isn't in our skill kit and the skills we do have are either too slow or mechanically lacking compared to what other pure classes have.

You have a black gem monstrosity off meta build going on with the void damage set if i remember correctly. I think you are using shocking soul with class mastery, try shattered path signet and if you havent switched to it try switching to bound armaments. Use a charged LS, and try switching to shattered path signet + draugrkin. They buffed bound armament to have a higher proc chance for sundered and can proc it up to 4 times a few months back which synergizes well with signet, wield soul with class mastery can proc concussion twice per cast (which is still worse than crushing shock which can proc 3 status effects) and draugrkin synergizes well with signet because its damage is further boosted by 85% when procced by a status effect. Magsorc isnt too bad in pts. Worse than stamsorcs i agree but deals so much more damage than subclassed versions.

Your suggestion to run Singlet + Draugrkin is a good one but it wouldn't work well for me. Singlet would also discourage Ult use which I use to synergize with BGM as a low resource cost LA power buff.

I do have BGM (which I only use for PvP) but I'm not running a void damage set, my Shocking Soul scribe does deal Oblivion Damage, I'm not using the Class script on Weld Soul as the Class script for Sorc is poor, the non-pet damage is low and easily mitigated in PvP whereas Oblivion cannot be, or cleansed.

I already use a LS. I like Bound Armament but IMO it's more viable for Stam Sorc, especially if they're dual wield or if the Sorc is a HA based build. But even still, an HA attack isn't really viable in PvP unless they're going to be carried by a squad. If I were going to go the route of slotting an attack-based stacked skill then I'd have to take Merciless, that's a no brainer; scales higher, performs quicker, and casts off Mag.

My subclassed Mag Sorc slots Storm Calling, Aedric Spear, & Herald of the Tome.

Skills like Topping Charge can beat out Streak because it doesn't have a progressive pool cost, has a longer range, plus grants Major Protection; all while scaling to more damage than Streak. Sure Streak is un-blockable but there's so much immunity in PvP now that it reduces that prospect of streak in favor for a skill that has better follow up potential.

The combination of Balanced Warrior + Harnessed Quintessence + Tentacular nets roughly a 17% increase to W/S damage. Compare that to the 20% I get from Font of Power and it's easy to see why the subclass is better; access to faster and better skills than Sorcs that all synergize better for only a slightly less buff to W/S damage than Font.

My Subclassed Mag Sorc can stack consistently 5 instances of burst per every GCD attack I cast, plus two persistent DoTs, that's something Sorc skills lines just can't deliver. Crystal Weapon, Bound Armaments, Streak, Wrath; all are insanely slow to execute their function compared to like-skills in other classes. Curse doesn't tick per second so I'm not getting those persistent damage application there either.

Bound Armaments is probably the only skill I'd consider taking back, even as a Mag Sorc, but in order to do so I'd have to give up either Aedric or Herald and both of those deliver more power & utility than Daedric Summoning does.

My subclassed Sorc in current game U49 absolutely decimates other Mag Sorcs in PvP, in fact, outside of PTS my Mag Sorc build will run just under meta in PvP in terms of results (BG & IC); I have clips of my build 2 shotting a full health players in BGs due to stacking burst instances.

Pure Mag Sorcs cannot compete with subclassed builds in PvP. Pure Stam Sorcs can, but not Mag; the skills are just too weak.

For Mag Sorcs we have to rely too heavily on status chance, set procs, and/or World & Weapon skill trees to kit out anything remotely useful without Subclassing. Pure Mag Sorc is horrible in PTS right now, yes, they can parse on a dummy, and are fine in PvE but not in PvP. Mag Sorcs have solid sustain in PTS but for all intents & purposes the only pure classes really running in PvP right now are DKs and Mag Sorcs don't have anywhere near that kind of power. After U50 goes live expect everyone & their brother to run WW.

My issue isn't with my subclassed Mag Sorc, I've got plenty of content that supports that build. My issue is with Pure Mag Sorc having to slot skills that are not competitive just to get access to passives, which has 1 solid and 4 weak options.

And this is old news. Pure Sorc is the lowest parsing spec of all now after the nerf to Static Reverberation and Monolith of Storms. While I wanted both of these to get nerfed, I did not expect the drop to be 40k DPS+. So it's not doing anything good anymore. For pve it remains unused and for pvp you still have to run stamsorc.

NxJoeyD · April 28

Dracane wrote: »

acanca wrote: »

Font of Power

This passive provides 851 weapon and spell damage on my character carried over from live. The sheer amount of raw stats offered is a little concerning but the passive doesnt have any secondary effects like granting maximum crux to arcanist or granting 300 weapon and spell damage to team members like templar. Imo the passive doesnt need a nerf, but would be a good idea to keep an eye on it.

It needs buffs. Warden gets 1665, Nightblade up to 2500 (or 1250), Arcanist can stack over 900 or 30% damage done.
Font of Power is too weak and requires you to stack a highly suboptimal stat, while other classes get their damage just for living and using what they already do.

1500 magicka scaling would still be too harsh for Font of Power.

Agreed. Our skills need the power buff.

Any well built Sorc should be at or around the 7k Weapon or Spell damage with Font, easily, and that sadly isn't enough to make Sorc skills competitive.d

I'm really surprised they nerfed MoS .. even with the higher W/S damage asking Sorcs to run this set was going to be a tall order.

Prionyx · April 28

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

danko355 wrote: »

I don’t get the nerfs for nightblade masteries in PVP specifically. Who actually thinks nightblades overperform in PvP? You have dk whips dealing the same damage as bow procs, necros with unlimited stamina-health sustain, sorcs with overpowered masteries and yet nightblade gets the nerfs? The class with already the worst class masteries for PVP?

What is wrong with Whips being on par with Bowproc? One is melee and the other is ranged.

This sort of bias that only NBs are allowed to have high burst makes me tune-out these conversations.

NB has been subclassed in every PvP metabuild since forever so we should not pretend that they are hurting the same as, say, Necromancer has been.

What's your point? Bow being ranged is a massive disadvantage, this is the only reason mericless is soo bad. Because it's ranged you can't hit it after incap and will always be dodged, but whip is guaranteed after leap or db. NB is a melee class, you can't realy take advantage of it anyway. Incap is melee, fear is melee, your spammable is melee, axes are melee, bow only heals in melee...

"NB has been subclassed in every PvP metabuild" - no. Assassination was tier 3 skill line and far from must have unlike tier 1 lines(storm/restoring) and tier 2 lines(grave/animal)

NxJoeyD · April 28

Prionyx wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

danko355 wrote: »

I don’t get the nerfs for nightblade masteries in PVP specifically. Who actually thinks nightblades overperform in PvP? You have dk whips dealing the same damage as bow procs, necros with unlimited stamina-health sustain, sorcs with overpowered masteries and yet nightblade gets the nerfs? The class with already the worst class masteries for PVP?

What is wrong with Whips being on par with Bowproc? One is melee and the other is ranged.

This sort of bias that only NBs are allowed to have high burst makes me tune-out these conversations.

NB has been subclassed in every PvP metabuild since forever so we should not pretend that they are hurting the same as, say, Necromancer has been.

What's your point? Bow being ranged is a massive disadvantage, this is the only reason mericless is soo bad. Because it's ranged you can't hit it after incap and will always be dodged, but whip is guaranteed after leap or db. NB is a melee class, you can't realy take advantage of it anyway. Incap is melee, fear is melee, your spammable is melee, axes are melee, bow only heals in melee...

"NB has been subclassed in every PvP metabuild" - no. Assassination was tier 3 skill line and far from must have unlike tier 1 lines(storm/restoring) and tier 2 lines(grave/animal)

I have to agree with @YandereGirlfriend on this one. I'm watching the lions share of builds run to Assassination for subclassing, honestly, seeing that as one of the top 2 choices (between Animal Companions & Assassination).

Most grab Assassin for Surprise Attack and Merciless Resolve specifically, because they perform so well.

Merciless isn't a range only skill and bow being a ranged attack and having issues I don't disagree with but that's not a NB specific issue nor does it have anything to do with Merciless.

Merciless has been one of the strongest performers in PvP since subclassing.

The majority of what I've seen for Subclassing is: Assassination, Animal Companion, & Aedric Spear. .. Storm Calling would be a solid 4th. This was only further amplified after the DK refresh where anyone who wanted to subclass Flame Lash would also grab either Surprise Attack or Toppling Charge to better proc Power Lash with as max uptime as possible.

Prionyx · April 28

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

danko355 wrote: »

I don’t get the nerfs for nightblade masteries in PVP specifically. Who actually thinks nightblades overperform in PvP? You have dk whips dealing the same damage as bow procs, necros with unlimited stamina-health sustain, sorcs with overpowered masteries and yet nightblade gets the nerfs? The class with already the worst class masteries for PVP?

What is wrong with Whips being on par with Bowproc? One is melee and the other is ranged.

This sort of bias that only NBs are allowed to have high burst makes me tune-out these conversations.

NB has been subclassed in every PvP metabuild since forever so we should not pretend that they are hurting the same as, say, Necromancer has been.

What's your point? Bow being ranged is a massive disadvantage, this is the only reason mericless is soo bad. Because it's ranged you can't hit it after incap and will always be dodged, but whip is guaranteed after leap or db. NB is a melee class, you can't realy take advantage of it anyway. Incap is melee, fear is melee, your spammable is melee, axes are melee, bow only heals in melee...

"NB has been subclassed in every PvP metabuild" - no. Assassination was tier 3 skill line and far from must have unlike tier 1 lines(storm/restoring) and tier 2 lines(grave/animal)

I have to agree with @YandereGirlfriend on this one. I'm watching the lions share of builds run to Assassination for subclassing, honestly, seeing that as one of the top 2 choices (between Animal Companions & Assassination).

Most grab Assassin for Surprise Attack and Merciless Resolve specifically, because they perform so well.

Merciless isn't a range only skill and bow being a ranged attack and having issues I don't disagree with but that's not a NB specific issue nor does it have anything to do with Merciless.

Merciless has been one of the strongest performers in PvP since subclassing.

The majority of what I've seen for Subclassing is: Assassination, Animal Companion, & Aedric Spear. .. Storm Calling would be a solid 4th. This was only further amplified after the DK refresh where anyone who wanted to subclass Flame Lash would also grab either Surprise Attack or Toppling Charge to better proc Power Lash with as max uptime as possible.

They don't perform well, assassination was just a supportive line to animal and grave lord. "Most grab assassination for suprise attack" - no, it was only used in 1 build and only because it had no access to any other CC. Even on this build multiple people still used BFB. Bow was a pressure tool that wasn't involved in bursting whatsoever and incap was the only actually good skill there since it actually buffed your shalks/bb and spammable. You FEEL like assassination is more impactful, but that would fade immedietely if you tried playing without storm or restoring against good players

Prionyx · April 28

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

danko355 wrote: »

I don’t get the nerfs for nightblade masteries in PVP specifically. Who actually thinks nightblades overperform in PvP? You have dk whips dealing the same damage as bow procs, necros with unlimited stamina-health sustain, sorcs with overpowered masteries and yet nightblade gets the nerfs? The class with already the worst class masteries for PVP?

What is wrong with Whips being on par with Bowproc? One is melee and the other is ranged.

This sort of bias that only NBs are allowed to have high burst makes me tune-out these conversations.

NB has been subclassed in every PvP metabuild since forever so we should not pretend that they are hurting the same as, say, Necromancer has been.

What's your point? Bow being ranged is a massive disadvantage, this is the only reason mericless is soo bad. Because it's ranged you can't hit it after incap and will always be dodged, but whip is guaranteed after leap or db. NB is a melee class, you can't realy take advantage of it anyway. Incap is melee, fear is melee, your spammable is melee, axes are melee, bow only heals in melee...

"NB has been subclassed in every PvP metabuild" - no. Assassination was tier 3 skill line and far from must have unlike tier 1 lines(storm/restoring) and tier 2 lines(grave/animal)

I have to agree with @YandereGirlfriend on this one. I'm watching the lions share of builds run to Assassination for subclassing, honestly, seeing that as one of the top 2 choices (between Animal Companions & Assassination).

Most grab Assassin for Surprise Attack and Merciless Resolve specifically, because they perform so well.

Merciless isn't a range only skill and bow being a ranged attack and having issues I don't disagree with but that's not a NB specific issue nor does it have anything to do with Merciless.

Merciless has been one of the strongest performers in PvP since subclassing.

The majority of what I've seen for Subclassing is: Assassination, Animal Companion, & Aedric Spear. .. Storm Calling would be a solid 4th. This was only further amplified after the DK refresh where anyone who wanted to subclass Flame Lash would also grab either Surprise Attack or Toppling Charge to better proc Power Lash with as max uptime as possible.

How is merciless being ranged isn't a NB issue? It's NB's skill, and it being ranged is NB's core problem. If it was a melee skill NB would be miles stronger

Prionyx · April 28

warm_blanket wrote: »

Interesting changes to the nb masteries. Some additional feedback (recall we're competing with subclassing & now the upcoming u50 pvp environment in general here)...

Eye for Exploitation: you doubled the values Appreciated, but the battlespirit tag is unneeded and should be removed. Players will not sit in execute range like a dummy, they heal back up, so the actual benefit of this passive is lower than the big number implies against live opponents. If anything a decent change to this would be to move a portion of the value upfront, and keep the rest as execute. Say +300 wpn/spell dmg with up to 2.2k in execute.

Above and Beyond: Same issue here, the battlespirit tag should be removed. In practice the +35% crit dmg cap is negated by crit resist so w/o battlespirit this option reduces to +25% cdmg/healing. Lot better than 5% (lol) but so far wouldn't give up subclassing for it.

Nocturnal Inspiration: Decent but again it didn't compare against subclassing for me. It would need some other bonus, like mag/stam/hp return whenever the effect procs.

Evasive Trance: Like the idea but it's just not practical at all. Did not enjoy being locked into spamming nb abilities to get what is essentially a diceroll dodge with poor odds. The duration is far too short for deliberate usage and it does nothing against half the damage you get hit by. This would be much better if it worked more like old mist form. eg 50% dmg reduction for 3 seconds on a 10s cooldown would be actually usable.

Yeah, they should just keep these NB passives or maybe buff them a bit and completely remove battle spirit penalty. Even with this 25% crit and execute passive NB still wouldn't be nowhere near DK's or sorc's level but at the very least it wouldn't be unplayable. At this point if you created NB then you just ruined your character lol

MSattrtand · April 29

From PvE NB healer PoV:

Share the Spoils still feels really bad to use. Let's compare it to Warden's Bountiful Harvest:

Upgrades rank 2 of Nature's Gift to grant you and your group Members Major Heroism for 3 seconds and an additional 125 Magicka and Stamina, up to once every 2 seconds

Where Nature's Gift is:

When you overheal yourself or an ally with a Green Balance ability, you gain 250 Magicka and 250 Stamina, up to once every 1 second.

So, what does this mastery do in simple terms? If you're keeping Buddying Seeds, your allies are getting 2 ult and 62.5 Mag and Stam per second. That's extremely easy to use.

Now let's take a look and Share the Spoils:

Upgrades rank 2 of Transfer to grant group members 250 Magicka and Stamina, 2 Ultimate and doubles the Ultimate you gain when it activates

Where Transfer is:

Casting a Siphoning Ability while in combat generates 2 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 4 seconds.

So, what does this mastery do in simple terms? If you're casting Siphoning abilities every 4th GCD, your allies are getting 0.5 ult and 62.5 Mag and Stam per second. And you don't wanna cast Siphoning abilities every 4th GCD.

As NB, you have to work more than Warden to get worse results. That's miserable. Playing against Transfer's short CD is not fun. Please just make this Mastery work from Catalyst, not from Transfer, so it would be a built-in Arkasis, since, I guess, we have no time for a proper rework.

Now from PvE NB DD PoV:

NB still has no group utility. At least now it can deal good ST-damage with no cleave, but in something like vOC, there's no reason to bring NB as a parse-DD, and at the same time, there's no reason to bring it as at least support DD.

Nocturnal Inspiration is nice if you're in WM or Crypt jail. But that's a DPS loss to run it instead of better Masteries, especially if you can't ult whenever you want, and with Crypt, you can't ult at all. And if you wanna put someone in this kind of jail, Plar exists - it also has high ulti-gen, but it also provides 300 unique WPD/SPD from Mastery and synergy for your Kosh from Ritual. So NB isn't the obvious pick to put in WM/Crypt, but at least you'll generate more ult than Plar in fights with more additional targets.

Share the Spoils requires you to cast Siphoning abilities every 4 GCDs. But you don't wanna do that - they are weak and expensive without Soulcleaver, and you can't combine Soulcleaver with WM/Crypt if you're support DD, since it drains your ultimate and therefore weakens those sets. And running this Mastery is also a DPS loss. And even if you're running Soulcleaver, you won't be casting Swallow Soul/Debilitate actually every 4th GCD to proc the already weak passive on CD.

Also, you can't use Banner, since you can't cast Cloak while it's active, and not running Cloak is a DPS loss once again.

Overall, can you provide some group utility? Yes. Does it feel good? Not really.

NxJoeyD · April 29

Prionyx wrote: »

NxJoeyD wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

danko355 wrote: »

I don’t get the nerfs for nightblade masteries in PVP specifically. Who actually thinks nightblades overperform in PvP? You have dk whips dealing the same damage as bow procs, necros with unlimited stamina-health sustain, sorcs with overpowered masteries and yet nightblade gets the nerfs? The class with already the worst class masteries for PVP?

What is wrong with Whips being on par with Bowproc? One is melee and the other is ranged.

This sort of bias that only NBs are allowed to have high burst makes me tune-out these conversations.

NB has been subclassed in every PvP metabuild since forever so we should not pretend that they are hurting the same as, say, Necromancer has been.

What's your point? Bow being ranged is a massive disadvantage, this is the only reason mericless is soo bad. Because it's ranged you can't hit it after incap and will always be dodged, but whip is guaranteed after leap or db. NB is a melee class, you can't realy take advantage of it anyway. Incap is melee, fear is melee, your spammable is melee, axes are melee, bow only heals in melee...

"NB has been subclassed in every PvP metabuild" - no. Assassination was tier 3 skill line and far from must have unlike tier 1 lines(storm/restoring) and tier 2 lines(grave/animal)

I have to agree with @YandereGirlfriend on this one. I'm watching the lions share of builds run to Assassination for subclassing, honestly, seeing that as one of the top 2 choices (between Animal Companions & Assassination).

Most grab Assassin for Surprise Attack and Merciless Resolve specifically, because they perform so well.

Merciless isn't a range only skill and bow being a ranged attack and having issues I don't disagree with but that's not a NB specific issue nor does it have anything to do with Merciless.

Merciless has been one of the strongest performers in PvP since subclassing.

The majority of what I've seen for Subclassing is: Assassination, Animal Companion, & Aedric Spear. .. Storm Calling would be a solid 4th. This was only further amplified after the DK refresh where anyone who wanted to subclass Flame Lash would also grab either Surprise Attack or Toppling Charge to better proc Power Lash with as max uptime as possible.

How is merciless being ranged isn't a NB issue? It's NB's skill, and it being ranged is NB's core problem. If it was a melee skill NB would be miles stronger

Merciless isn't a ranged skill per se. It's not melee in the sense that it's not physical damage or a physical attack but it provides a significant health restore if used within melee range which is incredibly easy to do for most melee builds, especially those running dual wield.

You don't have to cast Merciless from a distance and it provides an incentive to synergize the skill with melee play styles. Merciless isn't "ranged" in the bow sense where you really only want to use it at considerable range.

Merciless executes it's function blisteringly quick. There are so many sources of CC in the game now, thanks to subclassing that applying a hard CC followed by Merciless is common and easy.

I admit that Merciless synergizes much better with subclassed builds than it does with pure NB but that's true for basically any class and skill at this point.

Merciless being an instant application that can scale to 15k to 20k damage, after resistances, it's hard to make a case for this skill being a poor performer; especially when it's so consistently slotted in PvP now.

If you want bad skills go slot Sorcs. Mostly redundant utility and no burst. The Sorcs dueling in Riften on PTS are mostly leaning on the Signet mythic to buff Overcharged with big pools while sitting behind shields. .. The funny part is that's not a Sorc-specific thing. Any class could do that very same thing, DKs could use that to jack Burning way up, but they don't need to. They have competitive skills.

The NB passives do need a bump up and the BS condition removed. Merciless though, that's a popular skill for good reason.

pluvioisaplanet · April 29

From a PvE DD perspective:

The nerf to Static Reverberation should be fully reverted, or at the very least heavily walked back.
The 220k+ parses used both Signet and Overload, a combination that would never appear in real content. The 211k+ parse is more realistic since it drops Signet, but still uses Overload as an opener and in execute, which alone adds 12-14k. It was noted along with this parse that the average parse was a lot lower, crit luck and status rng pushing it higher:

My average parse was 200kish, the best I've done before hitting this one was 206k but I wasn't recording so I decided to go once more and hit at least as much. I knew 210k was possible but I didn't realistically expect I'd be lucky enough to hit it

Even setting Overload aside, Sorc is running both banner and status knife on the dummy, which most classes can't lean on as heavily on the dummy. Banner is particularly strong here because nearly all of Sorc's damage is a single type: direct. The status knife adds at least 7k DPS on top of that, and it's worth noting that its value is somewhat tied to Static Reverberation, fewer Reverb procs means fewer concussed procs.

Stripping out Overload, banner, and the status knife, a realistic Sorc parse lands around 180k. The current top Nightblade parse is 195k without external buffs, without reaching its crit cap, and with better content scaling thanks to its execute along with Incap, martial knife and morag tong (from which sorc doesn't get nearly as much benefit). All of the buffs Sorc relies on for the dummy will be available to every other class in group content too. Nb is in a good spot, but for sorc to be viable, it needs to be decently higher than nb on the dummy.

Personal parses for reference , all on PTS with the same gear and CPs. All still buffed by banner and status knife.

Week 1 with Overload: 196k.

Week 1 without Overload: 182k.

Week 3 with Overload: 176k.

Removing Overload's contribution from my week 3 parse lands at around 164k, on a pure ST class, still buffed by banner and the status knife.

Ecgberht_confused · April 29

DK Mastery: I welcome the toning down of the pyrebrand wildfire interaction, as this was way too oppressive in pvp. However, in pve pure DK channel build is now underpowered compared to U49, leaving subclassing the only viable way to play DK channel in U50. This is particularly bad since DK is the only reworked class and is expected to be in a good place.

Backtracking a little bit, I'll remind people of the balance efforts for the DK channel. First the winding up was nerfed from 20% to 5%, and this was compensated for by the general 15% passive damage done to whip (U49). This was to balance channel and dot pve builds. Now this 15% is gone, and the claim is we get similar power back from class mastery. This claim does not hold: while the landslide buff gives something back, wildfire/pyrebrand doesn't give much back to channel builds. Honestly even if it did, it would be bad design if the only way we get the same power is by using one particular set.

So please give channel pure DK some of that power back. It's such a cool thematic build and it's a shame if it's only viable via subclass.

Sorc Mastery: For context, magSorc was my main and only char for my first 2 years playing eso. Since then I completely gave up on it for pve because of the extreme lack of cleave. It's just hopeless for me. MagSorc is still my pvp main and I'm very excited for the sorc masteries to hit live! I agree with the general feedback here though that conservation of energy needs looking at! At the very least the heal should not be triggered by core skills and it should not scale with max HP. Perhaps it can have it's own heal that can be tuned independently from Blood Magic. I think activating only from sorc skills would be too much of a nerf though, as magsorc have to use a lot of non sorc skills (including the spammable lol). You can also completely change it to give crit instead, which would synergies with crit surge and would be useful defensively and offensively. On that note, kudos to main sorcs here leading the charge calling for a self nerf. We all know too well that if sorc hits live like this it will be nerfed to the ground in U51.

As for pve, I wasn't expecting masteries to suddenly make sorc useful for pve, but I'm definitely expecting the sorc rework at the end of this year to do that! Please zos my sorc hasn't seen any pve in 3 years!

Necro Mastery: This is only from pve dps (solo or unorganised groups). My corpseburster build is now parsing about the same for pure necro (with cycle unending and malevolent promise) and subclass necro (aedric and assassination). This is a huge improvement already! Malevolent allows me to Blastbones-Siphoning-Siphoning which is really cool and thematic on corpseburster and is basically infinite sustain. The problem though is that it doesn't have any healing as you do damage, which completely kills the build out of organised groups with a dedicated healer. It's no go for solo. It's particularly bad because neither blastbones nor the proc from corpseburster trigger reaving blows, only the direct damage portion of siphoning does, which is definitely not enough. My subclass necro rotation goes blastbones-puncturing sweep-siphoning, so I get a heal every 3 seconds as I'm doing my dps rotation without stopping to heal. My other pve solo builds often rely on reaving blows to fill that role. I think pure necro would be viable only if blastbones or corpseburster (or both, ideally) triggered reaving blows, which shouldn't be too much of an ask to be honest.

This is the summary of my feedback after I was able to try my builds after the EU character copy. Sorry for the long post