Maintenance for the week of May 11:
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – May 11
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – May 11
The PTS is now offline for the patch 12.0.4 maintenance and is currently unavailable.
Addressing U50 PTS Combat & Ability Concerns
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So Nightblades are still stuck being trash and won’t be able to compete with pure classes or subclasses is what I am hearing and stop trying to buff nbs thru pure damage stacks Jesus Christ it’s an rogue class with no bleeding or poison damage could have used this opportunity to give nbs some of those thru the passives not that trash crit damage passive3 -
xylena✭✭✭✭✭
✭
Yes this is how it should be. The sweatlord still beats the casual 100% of the time. The player who sweats extra just to do 31k more instead of 30k more is still the top player. I don't need a stat sheet making me do logarithmically more damage than casuals on top of my skill advantage.2) Diminishing returns could help solve the power-creep issue, but it would also drive away the veteran community. I mean, would you even want to take the game seriously if you spent 4 hours a day perfecting your rotation and farming gear, only to barely do 30k more DPS than some average guy who logs in for an hour a day or once every few days?
This was how the game was at launch with the Soft Cap system that they got rid of in the name of the "infinite progression" they were marketing the cp system as. So after a decade+ of "infinite progression" we can see pretty well what that's done to the game.PC/NA || Cyro/BGs || solo/smallscale || retired until Dagon brings a new dawn of PvP1 -
Tannus15✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Just throwing my support behind the excellent posts by @Turtle_Bot @MashmalloMan @ZhuJiuyin @Cammiepoo @pluvioisaplanet
Please, trust us. We know that on the dummy sorc looks amazing, but there are huge limitations when it comes to group content which are not being represented on the dummy.
The dummy is not the game.
Cleave matters.
Support in the form of buffs and debuffs matter.
Sorc does almost nothing on all these fronts.
To make sorc work right now we're running essentially 3 spammables. Knife, bound armaments and frags. It's all single target. Stack static reverb on top of that and it becaomes very clear that you're not going to get any cleave out of this build.
You're just not, all the GCD's are tied to those skills.
Static reverb is carrying sorc hard in these parses. Take it off and you lose 17k+ for the passive damage plus whatever concussed it's procing.
I also want to put some emphasis on any build that is running 60% crit chance is going to have big swings on the dummy. Look a those big 200k parses and you'll see 80% crit on frags. Because why would someone post their parse with bad frag crit %?
In real content we don't reset the boss because we're not getting frag procs and can see that the NUMBA TOO SMOL.
You're balancing on a curated data set where it only shows the best case scenario.
Please, I'm begging you, stop using dummy parses as the most important metric for PvE balance. It's a really good metric is identifying where something is too weak, but it's a terrible metric for identifying when something is too strong.Edited by Tannus15 on 10 May 2026 00:5811 -
coop500✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Just throwing my support behind the excellent posts by @Turtle_Bot @MashmalloMan @ZhuJiuyin @Cammiepoo @pluvioisaplanet
Please, trust us. We know that on the dummy sorc looks amazing, but there are huge limitations when it comes to group content which are not being represented on the dummy.
The dummy is not the game.
Cleave matters.
Support in the form of buffs and debuffs matter.
Sorc does almost nothing on all these fronts.
To make sorc work right now we're running essentially 3 spammables. Knife, bound armaments and frags. It's all single target. Stack static reverb on top of that and it becaomes very clear that you're not going to get any cleave out of this build.
You're just not, all the GCD's are tied to those skills.
Static reverb is carrying sorc hard in these parses. Take it off and you lose 17k+ for the passive damage plus whatever concussed it's procing.
I also want to put some emphasis on any build that is running 60% crit chance is going to have big swings on the dummy. Look a those big 200k parses and you'll see 80% crit on frags. Because why would someone post their parse with bad frag crit %?
In real content we don't reset the boss because we're not getting frag procs and can see that the NUMBA TOO SMOL.
You're balancing on a curated data set where it only shows the best case scenario.
Please, I'm begging you, stop using dummy parses as the most important metric for PvE balance. It's a really good metric is identifying where something is too weak, but it's a terrible metric for identifying when something is too strong.
This entire post can also include WW in most PvE cases too, and NB and Necromancer and Templar. It's rough out there for these playstyles/classes, especially when not abusing the meta.Hoping for more playable races.
I just want werewolf to be viable in endgame PvE T.T (which not allowed according to PTS update 50)6 -
Draggimus✭✭how does it make any sense to acknowledge that nightblade class masteries are bad but then point out that they have subclassing builds that are overperforming as some sort of counterargument
they're mutually exclusive
can u explain, cause i don't think u actually understand3 -
ZhuJiuyin✭✭✭✭✭
✭how does it make any sense to acknowledge that nightblade class masteries are bad but then point out that they have subclassing builds that are overperforming as some sort of counterargument
they're mutually exclusive
can u explain, cause i don't think u actually understand
Where's the contradiction? Because Nightblades lack AoE, class mastery doesn't truly help them. And class mastery doesn't offer a more effective means of survival in PvP (aside from stealth).
However, in subclass builds, Assassination provides a huge amount of critical chance and critical damage, and no other class skills can provide so much critical chance and critical damage simultaneously. This forces many subclass builds need to revolve around Assassination; otherwise, they're limiting themselves."是燭九陰，是燭龍。"──by "The Classic of Mountains and Seas "English is not my first language,If something is ambiguous, rude due to context and translation issues, etc., please remind me, thanks.2 -
ArctosCethlenn✭✭✭✭
no ***? that's the problem?how does it make any sense to acknowledge that nightblade class masteries are bad but then point out that they have subclassing builds that are overperforming as some sort of counterargument
they're mutually exclusive
can u explain, cause i don't think u actually understand
Where's the contradiction? Because Nightblades lack AoE, class mastery doesn't truly help them. And class mastery doesn't offer a more effective means of survival in PvP (aside from stealth).
However, in subclass builds, Assassination provides a huge amount of critical chance and critical damage, and no other class skills can provide so much critical chance and critical damage simultaneously. This forces many subclass builds need to revolve around Assassination; otherwise, they're limiting themselves.
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Draggimus✭✭
that is literally the point of the class masteries?Because Nightblades lack AoE, class mastery doesn't truly help them. And class mastery doesn't offer a more effective means of survival in PvP (aside from stealth).
to do so, to make it worth keeping all 3 lines, to bridge the gap between the mistake that is subclassing and pure classes
they're also literally mutually exclusive with subclassing, so a subclassing build being overpowered has ZERO relevance to them being bad?
"assassination is too good in subclassing!" that's sure an issue because you can definitely get these passives while subclassing
what are you even talking about [snip]
[edited for flaming]Edited by ZOS_Icy on 10 May 2026 10:153 -
ZhuJiuyin✭✭✭✭✭
✭
that is literally the point of the class masteries?Because Nightblades lack AoE, class mastery doesn't truly help them. And class mastery doesn't offer a more effective means of survival in PvP (aside from stealth).
to do so, to make it worth keeping all 3 lines, to bridge the gap between the mistake that is subclassing and pure classes
they're also literally mutually exclusive with subclassing, so a subclassing build being overpowered has ZERO relevance to them being bad?
"assassination is too good in subclassing!" that's sure an issue because you can definitely get these passives while subclassing
what are you even talking about [snip]
Let's be rational, okay?
It was for some unknown reason that the development team decided to concentrate all of Nightblade's damage potential on the Assassination line and over-buff that line, resulting in Assassination being excessively powerful in sub-builds and possessing the highest crit cap in the game. Many acknowledge that most Nightblade masteries don't significantly benefit the build, but many also point out that with a pure Nightblade possessing the highest crit cap in the game, it's difficult to truly balance PvE and PvP, because once the crit reaches a certain level, the advantage is amplified exponentially. This problem is essentially unsolvable before the class refresh, which is exactly what the developers said: "This isn't something we can comprehensively solve until we do the refresh work for the Nightblade class. What we were able to adjust on the PTS helps, but it is intended to be a stopgap until the class refresh."
For a simple example, if An Eye for Exploitation is increased to 1665 (the same as Warden Mastery), then due to the excessively high crit rate of Assassination, the benefit from this 1665 Weapon Damage will be greater than that from Warden, because Warden's passive ability does not have an additional crit chance.
[edited to remove quote]Edited by ZOS_Icy on 10 May 2026 10:17"是燭九陰，是燭龍。"──by "The Classic of Mountains and Seas "English is not my first language,If something is ambiguous, rude due to context and translation issues, etc., please remind me, thanks.4 -
ArctosCethlenn✭✭✭✭
Except that's not true for your example of e4e vs warden mastery.
that is literally the point of the class masteries?Because Nightblades lack AoE, class mastery doesn't truly help them. And class mastery doesn't offer a more effective means of survival in PvP (aside from stealth).
to do so, to make it worth keeping all 3 lines, to bridge the gap between the mistake that is subclassing and pure classes
they're also literally mutually exclusive with subclassing, so a subclassing build being overpowered has ZERO relevance to them being bad?
"assassination is too good in subclassing!" that's sure an issue because you can definitely get these passives while subclassing
what are you even talking about [snip]
Let's be rational, okay?
It was for some unknown reason that the development team decided to concentrate all of Nightblade's damage potential on the Assassination line and over-buff that line, resulting in Assassination being excessively powerful in sub-builds and possessing the highest crit cap in the game. Many acknowledge that most Nightblade masteries don't significantly benefit the build, but many also point out that with a pure Nightblade possessing the highest crit cap in the game, it's difficult to truly balance PvE and PvP, because once the crit reaches a certain level, the advantage is amplified exponentially. This problem is essentially unsolvable before the class refresh, which is exactly what the developers said: "This isn't something we can comprehensively solve until we do the refresh work for the Nightblade class. What we were able to adjust on the PTS helps, but it is intended to be a stopgap until the class refresh."
For a simple example, if An Eye for Exploitation is increased to 1665 (the same as Warden Mastery), then due to the excessively high crit rate of Assassination, the benefit from this 1665 Weapon Damage will be greater than that from Warden, because Warden's passive ability does not have an additional crit chance.
Eye for exploitation scales based off the targets missing health while warden mastery is simply based on status effects which will always be active. So even if the peak values are identical, the warden has that 1665 s/wd all the time for offense based on their status effects on the nb, and for defense from the nb's status effects on the warden. The nightblade gets nothing for offense unless they're already able to pressure through the warden's self healing without eye for exploitation, and their own healing boost from e4e only kicks in as they're losing the fight, but still won't be as potent as the warden's until the nb is in execute range or dead on the ground.
[edited to remove quote]Edited by ZOS_Icy on 10 May 2026 10:173 -
ZhuJiuyin✭✭✭✭✭
✭ArctosCethlenn wrote: »
Except that's not true for your example of e4e vs warden mastery.
that is literally the point of the class masteries?Because Nightblades lack AoE, class mastery doesn't truly help them. And class mastery doesn't offer a more effective means of survival in PvP (aside from stealth).
to do so, to make it worth keeping all 3 lines, to bridge the gap between the mistake that is subclassing and pure classes
they're also literally mutually exclusive with subclassing, so a subclassing build being overpowered has ZERO relevance to them being bad?
"assassination is too good in subclassing!" that's sure an issue because you can definitely get these passives while subclassing
what are you even talking about [snip]
Let's be rational, okay?
It was for some unknown reason that the development team decided to concentrate all of Nightblade's damage potential on the Assassination line and over-buff that line, resulting in Assassination being excessively powerful in sub-builds and possessing the highest crit cap in the game. Many acknowledge that most Nightblade masteries don't significantly benefit the build, but many also point out that with a pure Nightblade possessing the highest crit cap in the game, it's difficult to truly balance PvE and PvP, because once the crit reaches a certain level, the advantage is amplified exponentially. This problem is essentially unsolvable before the class refresh, which is exactly what the developers said: "This isn't something we can comprehensively solve until we do the refresh work for the Nightblade class. What we were able to adjust on the PTS helps, but it is intended to be a stopgap until the class refresh."
For a simple example, if An Eye for Exploitation is increased to 1665 (the same as Warden Mastery), then due to the excessively high crit rate of Assassination, the benefit from this 1665 Weapon Damage will be greater than that from Warden, because Warden's passive ability does not have an additional crit chance.
Eye for exploitation scales based off the targets missing health while warden mastery is simply based on status effects which will always be active. So even if the peak values are identical, the warden has that 1665 s/wd all the time for offense based on their status effects on the nb, and for defense from the nb's status effects on the warden. The nightblade gets nothing for offense unless they're already able to pressure through the warden's self healing without eye for exploitation, and their own healing boost from e4e only kicks in as they're losing the fight, but still won't be as potent as the warden's until the nb is in execute range or dead on the ground.
However, unless Serpent's Disdain is worn, status effects only last for 4 seconds, and Wild Adaptation requires at least 5 status effects on the target to receive the full bonus. Warden, aside from Chilled, doesn't increase the chance of other status effects, and Chilled is already included in the commonly used Elemental Susceptibility. Therefore, it's difficult for a single person to maintain the full Wild Adaptation bonus. Furthermore, An Eye for Exploitation also increases Nightblade's survivability, as the lower the target's health, the less damage Nightblade takes. Therefore, An Eye for Exploitation alone provides Nightblade with: 1. Execution ability covering the entire battle (based on target's health 100-0%), 2. Healing ability in critical situations, and 3. Damage reduction covering the entire battle (based on target's health 100-0%).
Because An Eye for Exploitation provides multiple effects simultaneously, we can see the development team constantly fine-tuning the numbers in each patch (which is what many players have been hoping for – not a complete overhaul, but rather fine-tuning the numbers to achieve balance). This precisely demonstrates that the development team has indeed been paying attention to the balance of pure Nightblade, and with a (good) cautious attitude, rather than as some have complained.
[edited to remove quote]Edited by ZOS_Icy on 10 May 2026 10:18"是燭九陰，是燭龍。"──by "The Classic of Mountains and Seas "English is not my first language,If something is ambiguous, rude due to context and translation issues, etc., please remind me, thanks.4 -
Dracane✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭ArctosCethlenn wrote: »
Except that's not true for your example of e4e vs warden mastery.
that is literally the point of the class masteries?Because Nightblades lack AoE, class mastery doesn't truly help them. And class mastery doesn't offer a more effective means of survival in PvP (aside from stealth).
to do so, to make it worth keeping all 3 lines, to bridge the gap between the mistake that is subclassing and pure classes
they're also literally mutually exclusive with subclassing, so a subclassing build being overpowered has ZERO relevance to them being bad?
"assassination is too good in subclassing!" that's sure an issue because you can definitely get these passives while subclassing
what are you even talking about [snip]
Let's be rational, okay?
It was for some unknown reason that the development team decided to concentrate all of Nightblade's damage potential on the Assassination line and over-buff that line, resulting in Assassination being excessively powerful in sub-builds and possessing the highest crit cap in the game. Many acknowledge that most Nightblade masteries don't significantly benefit the build, but many also point out that with a pure Nightblade possessing the highest crit cap in the game, it's difficult to truly balance PvE and PvP, because once the crit reaches a certain level, the advantage is amplified exponentially. This problem is essentially unsolvable before the class refresh, which is exactly what the developers said: "This isn't something we can comprehensively solve until we do the refresh work for the Nightblade class. What we were able to adjust on the PTS helps, but it is intended to be a stopgap until the class refresh."
For a simple example, if An Eye for Exploitation is increased to 1665 (the same as Warden Mastery), then due to the excessively high crit rate of Assassination, the benefit from this 1665 Weapon Damage will be greater than that from Warden, because Warden's passive ability does not have an additional crit chance.
Eye for exploitation scales based off the targets missing health while warden mastery is simply based on status effects which will always be active. So even if the peak values are identical, the warden has that 1665 s/wd all the time for offense based on their status effects on the nb, and for defense from the nb's status effects on the warden. The nightblade gets nothing for offense unless they're already able to pressure through the warden's self healing without eye for exploitation, and their own healing boost from e4e only kicks in as they're losing the fight, but still won't be as potent as the warden's until the nb is in execute range or dead on the ground.
Warden's damage passive is without a doubt the most OP in the game, but it is only spell damage against the target, not for Warden. So they gain no healing from it.
The Nightblade talent gets so wrongfully underestimated it's laughable. I can hit 20k malevolent offering burst heals with this in PvP. It is OP just like Warden. It kicking in on lower HP is no counter argument at all, because you do not care for healing when you are full health, do you? I don't. Eye for Exploit kicks in when it's actually needed.
Same goes for the damage component. You outright nuke people below 60% HP. I was able to land a 22k spec bow after Incap (which dropped the target to ~60% HP) and it was a clean 2 shot. I was only otherwise able to do it with subclassed Shalks or Blastbones, which means dropping invisibility and infinite sustain throughout the Siphoning Strikes.
And in case you have not seen Nightblade ganker on the PTS, its most popular playstyle, it is unsurvivable. Though I will concede that ganking is a joke currently with max range pulse ganking. There is no art or challenge in it right now.
Pure class talents do not solve it all for any class, but they offer, in my opinion, enough power to move things into a different light.
[edited to remove quote]Edited by Dracane on 10 May 2026 13:41Auri-El is my lord,
Trinimac my ward,
and Magnus my mind.3 -
ArctosCethlenn✭✭✭✭
1) note that this can apply to friendly targets?No, that's not correct. Warden's damage passive is without a doubt the most OP in the game, but it is only spell damage against the target, not for Warden. So they gain no healing from it.
The Nightblade talent gets so wrongfully underestimated it's laughable. I can hit 20k malevolent offering burst heals with this in PvP. It is OP just like Warden. It kicking in on lower HP is no counter argument at all, because you do not care for healing when you are full health, do you? I don't. Eye for Exploit kicks in when it's actually needed.
Same goes for the damage component. You outright nuke people below 60% HP. I was able to land a 22k spec bow after Incap (which dropped the target to ~60% HP) and it was a clean 2 shot. I was only otherwise able to do it with subclassed Shalks or Blastbones, which means dropping invisibility and infinite sustain throughout the Siphoning Strikes.
And in case you have not seen Nightblade ganker on the PTS, its most popular playstyle, it is unsurvivable. Though I will concede that ganking is a joke currently with max range pulse ganking. There is no art or challenge in it right now.
Pure class talents do not solve it all for any class, but they offer, in my opinion, enough power to move things into a different light.
[edited to remove quote]
2) of course you care about healing when at high or full health, people run hots for sustained healing to keep their health high even while on offense, so a bucket of s/wd for those hots does in fact do a lot of work.
3) hitting a target at 60% translates to about 400 bonus s/wd, a whole 67 more than what the warden gets from having a single status effect on target.
4) pulse ganking nowadays is largely done without any nightblade lines, most often storm/dark magic/herald. NB can still gank but its pretty ludicrous to suggest the masteries are super powerful for it, esp. vs something that provides upfront s/wd like the sorc or warden masteries.
I'd also point out that taking less damage from people with low health is largely meaningless because aside from one extremely niche build which plays around having their health% low, only the most incompetent player goes "I might be at 10% health but I'm going to keep tunneling damage and try to kill you!". They instead tap a burst heal to reset their health rather than trying to do damage, so taking less damage based on the attackers' missing health is of minimal benefit in pvp.
edit: Eye for Exploitation is a textbook example of a winmore passive. It doesn't do much for damage unless you were already doing enough damage to bring your target low, so it is very difficult to justify it vs a passive which can work against a target at any level of health. If you were already winning the fight it makes you win. more. if you're in a 10 minute stalemate against a competent player, it offers minimal benefit, while their damage masteries are overwhelmingly always active.Edited by ArctosCethlenn on 10 May 2026 11:093 -
ArctosCethlenn✭✭✭✭People are also forgetting that comparing the nightblade masteries to other class masteries is not as important as comparing them to giving up mastery for subclassing. None of the nb masteries are good enough to compete with, say, dropping shadow for storm calling in pvp. It isn't even remotely close. They don't offer enough damage to compete with subclassing for more damage, they dont offer enough support to compete with subclassing for support lines, and they don't offer enough defense to compete with subclassing for a strong defensive line.5
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Dracane✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭ArctosCethlenn wrote: »
1) note that this can apply to friendly targets?No, that's not correct. Warden's damage passive is without a doubt the most OP in the game, but it is only spell damage against the target, not for Warden. So they gain no healing from it.
The Nightblade talent gets so wrongfully underestimated it's laughable. I can hit 20k malevolent offering burst heals with this in PvP. It is OP just like Warden. It kicking in on lower HP is no counter argument at all, because you do not care for healing when you are full health, do you? I don't. Eye for Exploit kicks in when it's actually needed.
Same goes for the damage component. You outright nuke people below 60% HP. I was able to land a 22k spec bow after Incap (which dropped the target to ~60% HP) and it was a clean 2 shot. I was only otherwise able to do it with subclassed Shalks or Blastbones, which means dropping invisibility and infinite sustain throughout the Siphoning Strikes.
And in case you have not seen Nightblade ganker on the PTS, its most popular playstyle, it is unsurvivable. Though I will concede that ganking is a joke currently with max range pulse ganking. There is no art or challenge in it right now.
Pure class talents do not solve it all for any class, but they offer, in my opinion, enough power to move things into a different light.
[edited to remove quote]
2) of course you care about healing when at high or full health, people run hots for sustained healing to keep their health high even while on offense, so a bucket of s/wd for those hots does in fact do a lot of work.
3) hitting a target at 60% translates to about 400 bonus s/wd, a whole 67 more than what the warden gets from having a single status effect on target.
4) pulse ganking nowadays is largely done without any nightblade lines, most often storm/dark magic/herald. NB can still gank but its pretty ludicrous to suggest the masteries are super powerful for it, esp. vs something that provides upfront s/wd like the sorc or warden masteries.
I'd also point out that taking less damage from people with low health is largely meaningless because aside from one extremely niche build which plays around having their health% low, only the most incompetent player goes "I might be at 10% health but I'm going to keep tunneling damage and try to kill you!". They instead tap a burst heal to reset their health rather than trying to do damage, so taking less damage based on the attackers' missing health is of minimal benefit in pvp.
edit: Eye for Exploitation is a textbook example of a winmore passive. It doesn't do much for damage unless you were already doing enough damage to bring your target low, so it is very difficult to justify it vs a passive which can work against a target at any level of health. If you were already winning the fight it makes you win. more. if you're in a 10 minute stalemate against a competent player, it offers minimal benefit, while their damage masteries are overwhelmingly always active.
Is this a new change? I saw this but glanced over it. Well if that is the case and it actually applies to self healing, as in status effects on yourself, then my point was invalid. I still think and know that Nightblade's Eye for Exploitation is anything but weak, but of course it's a joke compared to the Warden talent. Everything is.Auri-El is my lord,
Trinimac my ward,
and Magnus my mind.1 -
ArctosCethlenn✭✭✭✭
Week one patch notes.Is this a new change? I saw this but glanced over it. Well if that is the case and it actually applies to self healing, as in status effects on yourself, then my point was invalid. I still think and know that Nightblade's Eye for Exploitation is anything but weak, but of course it's a joke compared to the Warden talent. Everything is.
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Dracane✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭ArctosCethlenn wrote: »
Week one patch notes.Is this a new change? I saw this but glanced over it. Well if that is the case and it actually applies to self healing, as in status effects on yourself, then my point was invalid. I still think and know that Nightblade's Eye for Exploitation is anything but weak, but of course it's a joke compared to the Warden talent. Everything is.
And I verified it also. So far I only handled this talent offensively. It does indeed scale the healing on self and allies based on the status effects you suffer.Auri-El is my lord,
Trinimac my ward,
and Magnus my mind.1 -
dark_hunterxmg✭✭✭✭ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »We’ve also seen some commentary that Werewolf continues to create some problem spaces with certain Class Mastery passives. What we can say is that some Class Masteries affect Werewolf in ways that we didn’t plan for, and this will be adjusted over time. ........
..... All that being said, because these passives are a bit more generic, they are being used in ways that we never accounted for, including Werewolf benefiting from a lot of the passives in ways that we hadn’t planned for or considered.
I mean no disrespect, but saying things like this makes it seem like the development team doesn't have many, or any Werewolf mains. It's not anyone's fault really. There isn't exactly an abundance of them. Every Werewolf main that I know instantly knew that class mastery skills, if allowed to be used, would make Werewolf much stronger and allow interactions like what we are seeing. Even if they were only applied to the current Werewolf on the live server, it would be stronger.(not necessarily stronger than humans) Combine that with a Werewolf rework and it now seems "double buffed". I have no doubt that human builds will be surpassing the reworked Werewolf. The meta has yet to be discovered.
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duagloth✭✭✭✭✭Tell me you dont play the game without telling me, pretty easy solution to your dilemma: learn too develop pvp and pve separately.0
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spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I can't speak to the exact balance on pts as a console player but as a sorceror, I can tell you why they feel underwhelming. Sorceror is not great at AOE but also not great at single target damage. Players will cheese target dummies to see big numbers and that should never be used as a way to dismantle a class that couldn't possibly pull those kinds of numbers in real content. Sorcerors have been behind other classes for a long time.
Sorcs have also always had two distinctive DPS flavors and it sometimes feels like the dev team decides that one of them should feel neglected and uncared about. I know that's not the case but that's what it feels like when sorc gets so starved for meaningful changes and then what little they get is only one build or the other for so long.
When pet sorc players found out that the only thing you have specifically for them in the class mastery system was specifically designed to punish them for using their skills, it made it clear that the intention is to further nerf a build that has already been underperforming. Pet Sorcs power has been dismantled piece by piece for years now in other to bring non-pets builds up to par. Instead of buffing non-pet Sorcs for slotting additional skills outside of the Daedric summoning line, you punish Sorcs for using pets. Pets already take up a lot of bar space. They can't possibly get the same power in such an approach.
You even made the Daedric summoning Class Set people had waited so long for punish people for using Daedric summoning. No other class has to deal with that and it frankly felt a bit disrespectful. I even saw some non-pet Sorcs confused because they wanted the Storm Calling set to work better rather than expecting the Daedric Summoning set to cater to non-pet users. Although some were happy as well, ofc.
Sometimes it feels like the people who use pet summons are thought of as just using builds for tutorial content and roleplay and people with real skill won't use them. It is disappointing to see this attitude reinforced time and time again. You should not be required to use a pet but you also shouldn't be punished for using them. Sorcerers have been conjurers in Elder Scrolls lore for 20+ years.
Pet Sorcs are DPS builds and should be treated as such without taking away their accessibility (permanent pets).
I saw someone suggest letting Sorcs make a pact with a different daedra so that Sorcs have different skills in that line. I think something like that could be a good solution. Works pretty well for Diablo and let's either setup play a bit different without taking away from the other. Perhaps it could work with Overload slotted instead of the Atronach.
Idk all I know is that I can't particularly think of anything a sorc is good for in PvE that any other class can't do better. Neither dps build is good compared to other classes and they are also outclassed as supports.Edited by spartaxoxo on 11 May 2026 05:295 -
Umbracat449✭✭✭Rkindaleft wrote: »You mentioned not understanding why Sorcerer is said to be weak, and mentioned that its DPS was so high the first week.
I am quite sure the main complain people have about Sorcerer is its lack of group utility and cleave damage. Its damage having been the highest against parse dummies never had any real value to it, as Sorcerer doesn't offer the dearly needed cleave damage nowadays and also nothing unique to groups in general.
All Sorcerer offered anymore was Major Berserk through the Atronach; which Dragonknight received as a class mastery and does better than the Atronach. And the 6% spell damage from Calculated Defense or the recovery from Sphere of Influence don't do much to solve this when other classes already have more group utility to begin with, and get it boosted tremendously by their class masteries.
This is why Sorcerer is said to be weak; not because of some single target dummy during week 1. People have explained this at length in all of the feedback threads, so there is no way anyone can say they do not understand why this is being said.
Adding on to this, it really just takes 5 minutes of looking at ESOlogs to look at raid composition from previous updates to find which classes are and are not used.
The reason people say Sorcerer DD sucks is because classes that are only good at single target damage do not translate well at all to a lot of the trial and dungeon content, especially the newer content and especially on HM.
Sorcerer, as well as Nightblade, have always parsed high on dummies and in some niche trial encounters like in Kyne's Aegis where cleave is not as important, but with every fight design in the last few years incentivizing/requiring high cleave damage (Bahsei HM, Reef Guardian HM, Ansuul HM, literally everything in Lucent Citadel HM, almost everything in Ossein Cage HM) it renders classes without strong cleave in those trials not viable, and thus almost never used.
Even before Subclassing, most progression groups never had more than one Sorc DPS player, and it was always shoehorned into the support DPS role by being the Storm Atronach Martial Knowledge slave.
This. A thousand times this. If you build content needing cleave damage, which you did give to the Arc, you then need to understand the issues with the classes which have little to none.
Either build content around all the damage types, so all classes have a role, or give all the damage types to all the classes.
& Giving the one useful group buff to another class was a bit of a kick in the teeth for sorcs, tbh.Edited by Umbracat449 on 11 May 2026 08:179 -
Umbracat449✭✭✭Just throwing my support behind the excellent posts by @Turtle_Bot @MashmalloMan @ZhuJiuyin @Cammiepoo @pluvioisaplanet
Please, trust us. We know that on the dummy sorc looks amazing, but there are huge limitations when it comes to group content which are not being represented on the dummy.
The dummy is not the game.
Cleave matters.
Support in the form of buffs and debuffs matter.
Sorc does almost nothing on all these fronts.
To make sorc work right now we're running essentially 3 spammables. Knife, bound armaments and frags. It's all single target. Stack static reverb on top of that and it becaomes very clear that you're not going to get any cleave out of this build.
You're just not, all the GCD's are tied to those skills.
Static reverb is carrying sorc hard in these parses. Take it off and you lose 17k+ for the passive damage plus whatever concussed it's procing.
I also want to put some emphasis on any build that is running 60% crit chance is going to have big swings on the dummy. Look a those big 200k parses and you'll see 80% crit on frags. Because why would someone post their parse with bad frag crit %?
In real content we don't reset the boss because we're not getting frag procs and can see that the NUMBA TOO SMOL.
You're balancing on a curated data set where it only shows the best case scenario.
Please, I'm begging you, stop using dummy parses as the most important metric for PvE balance. It's a really good metric is identifying where something is too weak, but it's a terrible metric for identifying when something is too strong.
Surely, SURELY, zos has actual analytics running over the data generated from players in game. Seriously, in this day and age, how are they not making use of real player data.
Are we SURE they are only using parse data?
I don't think since Zynga, anyone in gaming has any business to NOT be ALL about data-centric game design.
Edited by Umbracat449 on 11 May 2026 08:180 -
Lord_Hev✭✭✭✭✭
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2) Diminishing returns could help solve the power-creep issue, but it would also drive away the veteran community. I mean, would you even want to take the game seriously if you spent 4 hours a day perfecting your rotation and farming gear, only to barely do 30k more DPS than some average guy who logs in for an hour a day or once every few days?
Funnily enough, this phenomenon exists in PvP to an extent. Proc sets and subclassing have raised the floor so much that skill expression is literally meaningless now because anybody can hit 2-3 buttons and delete people's entire HP bar.
Yes I would still take the game very seriously as a veteran player with over 40,000 hours clocked since before the game's official launch. Just because I barely do more dps then some casual under a hypothetical soft-cap system, I'm still superior to them in every way via my deep intuitive understanding of core combat, trial mechanics that I can functionally sleep-walk. You cannot train intuition or teach it. You just become it with time and effort, and everyone learns differently. A soft-cap system actually rewards skill expression and practice, as you can no longer use fake metrics like parsing as a cheap lazy resume. Logs are an option now, but under a soft-cap system, logs would be the only way as it should be. What is the player actually -doing- during the fight, not what they are wearing and how high do they hit.
Why is this a valid concern for how the game should fundamentally function? And how else can we address rampant power creep? This is something I think the devs should be considering. But I am curious if you have any alternative ideas? I already get the gist that we can agree we have a serious power-creep issue. Where is skill expression when in pvp, the floor is raised arbitrarily via proc sets that replace abilities? Its lame is what it is, but under this system it's all that we can really do. At least with soft caps we still get to keep all our gear and other core character connections that get stripped away from us in vengeance. Maybe a full return of it wouldn't go well, but at least some aspects of it I think should be considered. In its rawest form, soft-caps deter casual friendliness, but it can also enhance and allow casual friendliness. On one hand, forcing true skill expression in a pve sense makes raid lead's jobs more difficult, and serves as a deterence since players wanting to get into vet content will have a steeper curve as the meta gear wouldn't carry. However on the flip side, one player can wear unoptimized gear and still parse comparatively high. Maybe some form of soft-caps or "diminishing returns" can be used to address power creep while still preserving the veteran skill or "gear" progression we're familiar with now? Food for thought.3 -
Prionyx✭✭✭✭YOu CANNOT balance around what the above-average or top players can do.
Do people not remember U35? That whole debacle happened because ZOS attempted to raise the floor by lowering the ceiling. What happened, though? Who was it that was adversely affected by that? It was the average or below-average player hit the hardest.
The top players will ALWAYS, ALWAYS find what's the strongest. What works the best. What gives the highest numbers, what does the most damage or tanks the most damage or heals the most damage.
When was the last time lowering the ceiling actually stopped the power creep? When was the last time it actually raised DPS or tanking or healing for average players?
Power creep doesn't happen because of average players. It happens because of the top players finding new interactions with new Sets and old Skills/Passives.
No matter how much you nerf WW, ZOS, certain people will keep claiming it isn't enough, because THEY will continue to find ways of pumping out high damage and will just keep saying "Look how OP it still is!" while the rest of us who aren't absolute aces at the game will just watch as WW keeps getting gutted over and over before it even reaches Live.
You CANNOT balance around what the ceiling can do, because it never raises the floor, it only ever pushes it farther into the ground.
That's a wildest take. Literally 100% games with good balance is balanced around what top players do and that's how things should be4 -
xylena✭✭✭✭✭
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I'll take this even further, the extreme power in the stat sheet makes me take the game less seriously. So many PvP engagements where I don't even need to try to win because I already know that my stat sheet is effectively giving me god mode. Wins feel unearned or even automated. Losses come from being outbuilt on paper, not outplayed in combat, which only reinforces players trying to avoid actually fighting to instead try to cheese the build system.Yes I would still take the game very seriously as a veteran player
Agree that was a weird take but they still need to balance the floor to something, because casuals and noobs need to be able to jump in and do something other than repeatedly die, especially in the absence of any ladder or rank system. Some players just don't seem to understand why raising the floor above the ceiling is a bad thing (one dimensional cheese spam meta).That's a wildest take. Literally 100% games with good balance is balanced around what top players do and that's how things should bePC/NA || Cyro/BGs || solo/smallscale || retired until Dagon brings a new dawn of PvP2 -
YandereGirlfriend✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Umbracat449 wrote: »Just throwing my support behind the excellent posts by @Turtle_Bot @MashmalloMan @ZhuJiuyin @Cammiepoo @pluvioisaplanet
Please, trust us. We know that on the dummy sorc looks amazing, but there are huge limitations when it comes to group content which are not being represented on the dummy.
The dummy is not the game.
Cleave matters.
Support in the form of buffs and debuffs matter.
Sorc does almost nothing on all these fronts.
To make sorc work right now we're running essentially 3 spammables. Knife, bound armaments and frags. It's all single target. Stack static reverb on top of that and it becaomes very clear that you're not going to get any cleave out of this build.
You're just not, all the GCD's are tied to those skills.
Static reverb is carrying sorc hard in these parses. Take it off and you lose 17k+ for the passive damage plus whatever concussed it's procing.
I also want to put some emphasis on any build that is running 60% crit chance is going to have big swings on the dummy. Look a those big 200k parses and you'll see 80% crit on frags. Because why would someone post their parse with bad frag crit %?
In real content we don't reset the boss because we're not getting frag procs and can see that the NUMBA TOO SMOL.
You're balancing on a curated data set where it only shows the best case scenario.
Please, I'm begging you, stop using dummy parses as the most important metric for PvE balance. It's a really good metric is identifying where something is too weak, but it's a terrible metric for identifying when something is too strong.
Surely, SURELY, zos has actual analytics running over the data generated from players in game. Seriously, in this day and age, how are they not making use of real player data.
Are we SURE they are only using parse data?
I don't think since Zynga, anyone in gaming has any business to NOT be ALL about data-centric game design.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but I don't believe there is any particularly robust use of player data for analytical purposes in ESO.
I think that the endless junkyard of never-used sets is testament to that. Game analytics would indicate that most sets never see use in-game but ZOS either does not have visibility into those statistics or they refuse to leverage that data.
Similarly, we have ESOLogs results from top groups that show skill lines like Shadow, Dark Magic, etc. are never selected and yet those lines are still ignored. While basically all groups use the same copypasta meta load-outs.Edited by YandereGirlfriend on 11 May 2026 17:075 -
xylena✭✭✭✭✭
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Then here's some worse news: they do have the data, they just aren't using it for the things that you want them to use it for, or drawing the same conclusions that you are.YandereGirlfriend wrote: »Hate to be the bearer of bad newsPC/NA || Cyro/BGs || solo/smallscale || retired until Dagon brings a new dawn of PvP1 -
YandereGirlfriend✭✭✭✭✭
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Then here's some worse news: they do have the data, they just aren't using it for the things that you want them to use it for, or drawing the same conclusions that you are.YandereGirlfriend wrote: »Hate to be the bearer of bad news
I wouldn't be so sure that they do actually have the information.
There has been a ton of evidence over the years to suggest that their visibility into what happens in-game is not nearly as robust as is commonly imagined.2 -
coop500✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Wow they ignored and did literally nothing after bragging about having a week 5 patch, that's hilarious haha. Oh my godHoping for more playable races.
I just want werewolf to be viable in endgame PvE T.T (which not allowed according to PTS update 50)1