Shameless copy/paste because part of my still wants to believe that constructive werewolf feedback ‘just isn’t being seen somehow’ and maybe posting here brings some visibility:

“We are told the PTS is for testing and the multiple avenues for feedback are for feedback. I am told things are allowed to change on the PTS as it’s ’a testing environment’.

Why is it that every medium of content is malleable with enough public or logical scrutiny yet werewolf balance must consist of vast endeavors of ‘pulling’ without so much as a meaningfully constructive ‘push’ along the way?

You say you’ve heard various avenues of feedback including that of the highly-obscured feedback on nightblade ‘Strife’ changes yet are unable to hear me say:

-you’re clearly balancing werewolf based on power levels from masteries (every resource and sustain adjustment mimics the over-the-top resource and health sustain from the CoE mastery and ‘Blood Magic’)

-you continuously require more and more health for heal scaling to achieve similar healing from pre-rework yet re-introduce heavy stam sustain issues in the playstyle causing me to be spread far too thin to do anything meaningful, especially lacking in many areas in-kit (no burst, no snares, no immobilizes, no S&B backbar/DW front bar, no monomyth, no Balorgh)

-you are directly affecting many playstyles heavily in PvE while citing your proposed changes are geared towards PvP

-you are forcing anyone still playing werewolf in PvP next patch into sorc which restarts the ‘nerf requests’ all over again for the exact same topic (high resource sustain still) while bite healing still carries werewolf’s ’in your face’ healing (which incentivizes low APM/effort ‘bite spam’ versus utilizing the entire kit)”

Source: my ‘PTS feedback’ post- https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/697698/zos-why-is-werewolf-balancing-unchanging

I'm not trying to be 'rude' or 'inconsiderate' but this is about as 'ignored' as I've seen constructive werewolf PTS feedback be in a bit.

At the very least, you haven't fully resolved the issue (sustain) you were meaning to resolve and at the very most you've went 'over the top' on anything but Sorc with CoE... meanwhile keeping 'infinite sustain' available to a reworked class like 'DK'.

Warden Class Refresh [Feedback]: This is a carry-over from last week’s PTS Summary. While not strictly related to this PTS, we see your questions and concerns related to the Warden class refresh, and the class refresh effort in general. We know everyone is disappointed by the delay and would like to know where we’re at with the Warden and general next steps. We are working on an additional written update for you and hope to share it in the coming weeks. In the meantime, thank you for your patience.

Awesome.

VFX Intensity [Feeback]: This is a carry-over from last week’s PTS Summary. We have seen your feedback regarding adding the option to reduce VFX to 0% via the VFX Intensity settings. We are currently exploring options – please note that any solution will not be available during the U51 PTS cycle.

i am confused by why 0% was not already explored.

Even after the layoffs, estimates suggest ZOS may still have somewhere around 224–281 employees. Obviously, not every single one of those people works on combat or class balance, but we’re still talking about a sizeable development studio. At this point, it’s difficult to accept “lack of resources” as an excuse for the state of class balance. With proper organisation, priorities and enough people actually assigned to combat, the major class reworks could be completed in a relatively short period of time (a month even). Instead, it often feels like the problem is productivity and priorities. Like many large companies, it’s very easy for inefficiency to creep in and for people to get away with producing far less than they realistically could.

And that’s what makes the direction of ESO so frustrating. It increasingly feels as though the priority is simply to milk an established game rather than seriously improve it, and frankly, that feeling hasn’t appeared overnight. It’s been building for the better part of a decade.

Look at what has happened with Dragonknight.

DK was arguably one of the weakest classes during the subclass meta. To compete, you had DKs running ridiculous setups involving sets like Pyre and Relequen, where essentially the sets were playing the game rather than the class or the player. ZOS finally reworked DK, only to turn around and hammer it again by ruining its sustain and destroying it’s Molten Whip damage, which you know, it can be blocked anyways. Flame lash is the only good change, this thing had no reason being so busted in PVP.

Meanwhile, look at what they’re allowing elsewhere.

Werewolves can still benefit from class masteries while having enormous damage, extremely strong healing and an incredibly effective one-bar playstyle. Sorcerer, somehow continues escaping the treatment DK receives despite having some incredibly strong passives (actually strongest ones by far), infinite sustain, huge burst potential and one of the strongest mobility tools in PvP: Streak.

Streak is just ridiculous. Teleport has no room in a PvP game. With the sustain available through subclassing/masteries, Sorcs can now spam it until Jesus’s second coming while maintaining tremendous pressure as it can do 10k+ damage. Oh it’s also unblockable and undodgeable

And this is where the balancing decisions start feeling completely backwards.

Sorcerer is one of the easiest classes for less experienced players to get value from while simultaneously having an extremely high level of effectiveness in experienced hands. Yet rather than properly addressing the things that make Sorc oppressive, ZOS repeatedly seems to hit classes capable of challenging it. Whether that’s because Sorc has a huge player population, because changing it would upset too many players, or for some other reason, people can draw their own conclusions. But the result is the same: the balancing decisions on this post make increasingly little sense.

The state of ESO PvP is beyond disappointing.

The skill ceiling feels increasingly compressed. Gear, sets, CP and whatever the current overtuned interaction happens to be have far too much influence compared with individual mechanical skill. When sets and passive interactions are doing so much of the work, winning stops feeling like you outplayed somebody and starts feeling like you brought the better spreadsheet. In plain words, PvP is about gear and cp.

And now we’re apparently supposed to accept a situation where Sorcs, a class that hasn’t been reworked yet can have far better sustain than DKs, deliver damage faster and better, maintain enormous mobility through Streak, while DK gets its sustain and one of its defining offensive abilities knocked down again.


After years of this cycle, these latest changes may finally be the point where it’s simply time to move on to another game. ESO PvP could be so much better than this, which is exactly what makes watching these decisions happen over and over again so frustrating.

It’s painfully obvious too, that the people responsible for those changes and the shambles of the PVP state since subclassing, just test these changes casually and not competitively.

No disrespect but Mr Kevin, should be ashamed of himself.

What is this about air? what if your an argonian who can breathe underwater or an "undead" vampire, why would you need air? bit immersion breaking no?

I really hope nbs have some real buffs in the coming weeks instead of trying to force us to use strife

Wup_sa wrote: »

Nerfs to whip are too heavy handed and unjustified. HoF and the wings are what needs nerfing. Nerfing damage is always unhealthy and besides its onslaught that allowes the one shot tank build to exist. Please take a look into those before nerfing the only dk skill that matters.

As someone who also mained necro. This feels the same, back when you decided to turn necros burst skill into a self buff. These are bad changes and you have been given multiple great feedbacks how to balance dk, by experienced players.

Nerfs to whip are incredibly justifed.

They nerfed the stacks to about half. But that is still a whip at 75% power or rather only a 25% nerf. My casual (I'm in Order's, Rally BB, BloodSpawn, Mono, Trainee) 15-19k whips are still 11-14k whips and my corro/onslaught whips go from 27k to 20k... which is still ALOT for being in defensive gear.

Nevermind the clip that one dude experienced with max resists and 40k health... that 41k whip would only go down to 30k. The nerf is absolutely appropriate.

Wup_sa wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Wup_sa wrote: »

Nerfs to whip are too heavy handed and unjustified. HoF and the wings are what needs nerfing. Nerfing damage is always unhealthy and besides its onslaught that allowes the one shot tank build to exist. Please take a look into those before nerfing the only dk skill that matters.

As someone who also mained necro. This feels the same, back when you decided to turn necros burst skill into a self buff. These are bad changes and you have been given multiple great feedbacks how to balance dk, by experienced players.

Nerfs to whip are incredibly justifed.

They nerfed the stacks to about half. But that is still a whip at 75% power or rather only a 25% nerf. My casual (I'm in Order's, Rally BB, BloodSpawn, Mono, Trainee) 15-19k whips are still 11-14k whips and my corro/onslaught whips go from 27k to 20k... which is still ALOT for being in defensive gear.

Nevermind the clip that one dude experienced with max resists and 40k health... that 41k whip would only go down to 30k. The nerf is absolutely appropriate.

No they nerfed each stack by 50%. So at max stacks you have 48% increased dmg, which means it will do less dmg than crystal frags and spectral bow. And again it is only onslaught and corro that allowes whip to deal such high dmg. Corro itself its very easy to counter, but go after that and crit dmg if you dont want this problem to reappear each rework.

But HoF and wings still remain too strong. Reduce the sustain at least to 10% and wings need the aoe knockback removed and projectile dmg reduced to 20%

It's 49,5% actually but lets round it down to 49. Let's take a base tooltip of 10k. Live seething fury: 10k×1.99 at 3
stack 19900.
Pts: 10kx1.49= 14900. That's a little over 25% nerf to 3 stacks damage.

Dk does not need a crystal frag level burst, the class has the literal strongest dots in the game , not to mention the myriad of % modifiers built into the class toolkit.

Firstmep wrote: »

Wup_sa wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Wup_sa wrote: »

Nerfs to whip are too heavy handed and unjustified. HoF and the wings are what needs nerfing. Nerfing damage is always unhealthy and besides its onslaught that allowes the one shot tank build to exist. Please take a look into those before nerfing the only dk skill that matters.

As someone who also mained necro. This feels the same, back when you decided to turn necros burst skill into a self buff. These are bad changes and you have been given multiple great feedbacks how to balance dk, by experienced players.

Nerfs to whip are incredibly justifed.

They nerfed the stacks to about half. But that is still a whip at 75% power or rather only a 25% nerf. My casual (I'm in Order's, Rally BB, BloodSpawn, Mono, Trainee) 15-19k whips are still 11-14k whips and my corro/onslaught whips go from 27k to 20k... which is still ALOT for being in defensive gear.

Nevermind the clip that one dude experienced with max resists and 40k health... that 41k whip would only go down to 30k. The nerf is absolutely appropriate.

No they nerfed each stack by 50%. So at max stacks you have 48% increased dmg, which means it will do less dmg than crystal frags and spectral bow. And again it is only onslaught and corro that allowes whip to deal such high dmg. Corro itself its very easy to counter, but go after that and crit dmg if you dont want this problem to reappear each rework.

But HoF and wings still remain too strong. Reduce the sustain at least to 10% and wings need the aoe knockback removed and projectile dmg reduced to 20%

It's 49,5% actually but lets round it down to 49. Let's take a base tooltip of 10k. Live seething fury: 10k×1.99 at 3
stack 19900.
Pts: 10kx1.49= 14900. That's a little over 25% nerf to 3 stacks damage.

Dk does not need a crystal frag level burst, the class has the literal strongest dots in the game , not to mention the myriad of % modifiers built into the class toolkit.

Agree, arent DK supposed to be more of a pressure class anyway?

shadoza wrote: »

First you nerf Night Blade until one must use certain skills to be effective.
Now, you nerf Dragon Knight so one must use certain skills to be effective.
What's next Templar?

They already did, Balanced Warrior now scales off of slotted Templar skills so you are now actively discouraged from using any Weapon Skills on a Class who’s identity has been augmenting your ability to use them…

All this talk about Class Identity lately, and wanting to bolster it, yet all of these “for each _insert class_ skill slotted” are doing nothing but pigeonhole people into a singular playstyle of ALL Class skills.

Why have countless options when we’re just gonna force everyone to play the exact same way?

Sometimes pummeling bash will fail to use after some “laggy” skills，especially after swap weapon

Gupitoos wrote: »

The DK nerfs on whip are unjustified indeed and too heavy handed. Flame Lash is fine but Molten Whip should have remained the same, the only thing making it do this much damage as some people cry about is onslaught. Not putting corrosive out there as its easy to manage and avoid.

Onslaught can have almost 20k tooltip with the right setup and this is ignoring the fact that it always crits. Flame Lash & Hearth of Home are the only stuff that warranted a nerf - Wings are fine as long as Streak exists unnerfed.

Werewolves are overtuned and thanks to conservation of energy and static reverberation deal absurd amounts of damage while taking none (as their healing scales off max health). They wont even stop allowing class masteries carrying over on Werewolf form because they are lazy and don't want to have to deal with the extra coding.
Even lore wise it makes no sense for a Werewolf to be benefitting from class masteries. If they wanted to give it masteries, it should have had its own set but again they are too lazy to deliver quality content and do some work.

At this rate, noone will trust them with the class reworks and the game will sink - watch how many people are still playing next summer

Just wrong but no real engagment with anything. No math or logic behind any of the claims, just "haha it's not too strong" yet you reference WW which is being nerfed pretty hard. Try giving an actual statement that can be engaged with. Tell us why whip should be able to hit harder than direct damage ULTS while just being a base skill tied to the strongest skill line in the game.

Wup_sa wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Wup_sa wrote: »

Nerfs to whip are too heavy handed and unjustified. HoF and the wings are what needs nerfing. Nerfing damage is always unhealthy and besides its onslaught that allowes the one shot tank build to exist. Please take a look into those before nerfing the only dk skill that matters.

As someone who also mained necro. This feels the same, back when you decided to turn necros burst skill into a self buff. These are bad changes and you have been given multiple great feedbacks how to balance dk, by experienced players.

Nerfs to whip are incredibly justifed.

They nerfed the stacks to about half. But that is still a whip at 75% power or rather only a 25% nerf. My casual (I'm in Order's, Rally BB, BloodSpawn, Mono, Trainee) 15-19k whips are still 11-14k whips and my corro/onslaught whips go from 27k to 20k... which is still ALOT for being in defensive gear.

Nevermind the clip that one dude experienced with max resists and 40k health... that 41k whip would only go down to 30k. The nerf is absolutely appropriate.

No they nerfed each stack by 50%. So at max stacks you have 48% increased dmg, which means it will do less dmg than crystal frags and spectral bow. And again it is only onslaught and corro that allowes whip to deal such high dmg. Corro itself its very easy to counter, but go after that and crit dmg if you dont want this problem to reappear each rework.

But HoF and wings still remain too strong. Reduce the sustain at least to 10% and wings need the aoe knockback removed and projectile dmg reduced to 20%

We tried to call this interaction out in U49, but the DK mains didn't want to give up their god-mode crutch ultimate.

evLRise wrote: »

Gupitoos wrote: »

The DK nerfs on whip are unjustified indeed and too heavy handed. Flame Lash is fine but Molten Whip should have remained the same, the only thing making it do this much damage as some people cry about is onslaught. Not putting corrosive out there as its easy to manage and avoid.

Onslaught can have almost 20k tooltip with the right setup and this is ignoring the fact that it always crits. Flame Lash & Hearth of Home are the only stuff that warranted a nerf - Wings are fine as long as Streak exists unnerfed.

Werewolves are overtuned and thanks to conservation of energy and static reverberation deal absurd amounts of damage while taking none (as their healing scales off max health). They wont even stop allowing class masteries carrying over on Werewolf form because they are lazy and don't want to have to deal with the extra coding.
Even lore wise it makes no sense for a Werewolf to be benefitting from class masteries. If they wanted to give it masteries, it should have had its own set but again they are too lazy to deliver quality content and do some work.

At this rate, noone will trust them with the class reworks and the game will sink - watch how many people are still playing next summer

Sooo it's ok to have strongest DoT in-game, strongest sustain in-game AND on top of that strongest burst in game? Whip is easier to stack than bow. Does not have a travel time like bow / crystal frags. Does not get nerfed by projectile reduction. Is harder to dodge due to no travel time.

People complain about "whip only OP with corrosive and onslaught". If onslaught and corro were the reason whip was strong we would have already known half a year ago during subclassing meta.

To add to this point as well, whip's damage lands BEFORE it's animation plays, so there is even less counterplay than no travel time.
I'm also not talking about animation canceling whip, the animation itself even when left to play out in full does so after the damage has been dealt (ZOS misaligned the animation and timing of the damage).

It makes whip feel great to use since like force pulse the damage appears when the button is pressed, but it makes it horrible to fight against.

This is a big part of why players just seem to fall over dead even though they blocked/rolled the whip on their screen. They "countered" the animation, but not the damage, so once the servers syncs up the clients, they just fall over dead and are left wondering why they died mid-roll or despite block healing the whip.

Also majority of the time, molten whip does 6500 damage on average. Unless you’re running some high penetration set or orders wrath/acuity with molag keena or some similar monster set and onslaught, molten whip damage really isn’t that high/much of a problem. It’s squishy casuals who don’t know how to deal with it that get hit loads off molten whip and complain. Use the right gear/traits/cp and block at the right times and you won’t be taking 15k + whips.

Gupitoos wrote: »

Also majority of the time, molten whip does 6500 damage on average. Unless you’re running some high penetration set or orders wrath/acuity with molag keena or some similar monster set and onslaught, molten whip damage really isn’t that high/much of a problem. It’s squishy casuals who don’t know how to deal with it that get hit loads off molten whip and complain. Use the right gear/traits/cp and block at the right times and you won’t be taking 15k + whips.

You are just making up random numbers. Where are you getting the average of 6,500 from? Maybe yours is that weak, but that is just some arbitrary number. In addition, you mentioned sorc sustain as the strongest by far yet you're wrong about this as well. Also, nobody said whip is applied faster because of animation canceling, it's because it doesn't have a travel time. Almost every single thing you posted was wrong.

NovelliESO wrote: »

Gupitoos wrote: »

Also majority of the time, molten whip does 6500 damage on average. Unless you’re running some high penetration set or orders wrath/acuity with molag keena or some similar monster set and onslaught, molten whip damage really isn’t that high/much of a problem. It’s squishy casuals who don’t know how to deal with it that get hit loads off molten whip and complain. Use the right gear/traits/cp and block at the right times and you won’t be taking 15k + whips.

You are just making up random numbers. Where are you getting the average of 6,500 from? Maybe yours is that weak, but that is just some arbitrary number. In addition, you mentioned sorc sustain as the strongest by far yet you're wrong about this as well. Also, nobody said whip is applied faster because of animation canceling, it's because it doesn't have a travel time. Almost every single thing you posted was wrong.

Stop lying, average Molten Whip is 6-7k and if you have the 3 stacks on it, sure it can go to hit for 10k and can reach 13-15k if the enemy is fully debuffed etc.
If molten whip is doing any more damage then people are in the wrong gear, wrong traits and cp or you caught them in onslaught with the instant fear scribe.

Nightblade can still hit for 10-15k with merciless, warden can do over 10k bursts with deep fissures and vamp spammable, etc.
These abilities are much harder and nearly impossible to see and block in time in PvP unlike Molten Whip which is very easy to deal with.

Blastbones can do very high burst too.
Crystal frags if you get the damage boost proc can hit as hard as a molten whip.

Obviously if you’re going against casuals who have no clue what they’re doing then you might hit them for crazy numbers but you would hit noobs with crazy numbers on anything you play if you know what you’re doing.

DK doesn’t have as good sustain as Sorc does or even Necro.
Be honest about what you main because it’s going to be one of these and you just don’t like the fact DKs can finally kill you.

The only thing other than Flame Lash that needed a nerf is perhaps Heart Of Flame cos it’s lame, rest are easy to deal with.