Making skills vastly different in PvP and PvE is unwise.

The New-DK was in excellent condition in v11.3.1 and only needed minor modifications to be released. However, I think the changes in 11.3.2 are a bit of an overreaction.

• Flame Lash & Molten Whip: Do we really need both morphs to have an "increased damage to monsters" buff? This only diminishes the difference between the two skills, negating the purpose of morphs. Why can't they each have different advantages in PvP and PvE?
  
  However, I don't object to conditions like "if you are a Dragonknight," as long as other class reworks have similar conditions. This would at least ensure we see more different main classes, each with its own unique characteristics and advantages. The characteristics of Main Arc + Assassination + Aedric Spear should be different from Main Templar + Herald of the Tome + Assassination, not just produce the same effect.

• Corrosive Armor: It's unwise to make skills vastly different in PvP and PvE. While set bonuses are fine, completely disabling the damage of a class skill, especially an ultimate skill, in PvP is extremely unwise. I think other suggestions are good, such as "reducing initial damage and increasing its damage against monsters" or "reducing damage dealt when affected by a Battle Spirit." Completely disabling it is really overreacting.

• Blessing at the Peak: It should have 10% Critical healing added, consistent with other similar passive abilities.

• Onslaught: Again, It's unwise to make skills vastly different in PvP and PvE. Onslaught's new restrictions are a bit of an overreaction. Completely removing Critical Chance in PvP only makes Onslaught seem like it's being deliberately discriminated against in PvP. There are obviously many more compromises, such as using Battle Sprites for balance, like "only 50% Critical Chance is gained when affected by a Battle Spirit."

U49 has done a good job most of the time, with most of the New-DK changes meeting player expectations and the communication being excellent. However, please do not overcorrect at the last minute and ruin everything.

I feel like what the @Hyperioxes video in post #167 is actually demonstrating is how strong Pale Order is, when paired with a build that does decent AoE damage in AoE fights. It's certainly an accessible build, both in terms of acquisition and ease of use. But it still requires that people use a build like that (and, more importantly, to know that they should use a build like that).

Alright, let's back up a bit. I watched that video and, yea, it looks easy and his health bar stayed mostly full throughout. So if it's that easy, why are there a number of people struggling, I ask? I've only done the Night Market as a tank in a group, so I haven't yet experienced this as a solo DD, so let's give this a try!

Except I didn't want to do what Hyper did; I trust that if I were to use a Pale Order heavy attack build, I'd get the same results, so no point in wasting time on that. Instead, I went with my overland setup that I use for questing, harvesting, etc. It's a pure-class magblade (I cloak past everything in the overland) wearing circa-2019 False God and Mother's Sorrow with Wild Hunt as my mythic (again, questing and harvesting). And I quickly wiped to the trash in a manner similar to what people have described here.

Alright, let's put some more effort in. I put on Pale Order, and... I still wiped. Wait... what? Turns out that my Pale Order wasn't working, because when I checked my death recaps, there was no sign of the Pale Order heal, even though I had it equipped. Removing and re-equipping Pale Order fixed the problem. Until I died and it stopped working again. That's probably a bug.

Anyway, with Pale Order actually working, things were much better, and my health bar was in much better shape. But if I missed the dodge or block on a heavy attack, I'm dead. Or if I get CC'ed by a hackwing. Those Drylands hackwings are horrible.

The fact of the matter is that the amount of incoming damage is fairly high, and players who are solo need to have a way to deal with that incoming damage. Pale Order is an exceptionally strong option, so much so that Hyper used that instead of Oakensoul for his 1-bar heavy attack demo build.

Well, this answers my question of, "So if it's that easy, why are there a number of people struggling?" If people want to solo this, they need to come with a build that's tailored for soloing. That almost certainly means Pale Order. Probably not Oakensoul. Fancy gear or exceptional player skill isn't as important as having the right kind of build.

In any case, getting rofl-stomped by the trash is definitely a real thing for someone who isn't properly prepared. But so is the ability get through it solo, if the build is right.

Kaltivael wrote: »

Didn't they say something they were going to do something about movement speed while Battlespirit was active? Can't find anything on it.

Did they mean a cap % or lowering Expedition to the normal buff %s like vitalty / defile / mending etc?

Movement speed is faster while on a road. I don't remember exact value I tested, but it is noticeable, you move like sprinting, but without sprinting, and spring still works on top of it.

TheLoreMaster420 wrote: »

As someone who’s played this game for a long time, it’s really sad seeing the devs so out of touch with the balance issues. In 12-man “ball groups,” most healing is just overhealing because shields absorb damage before health bars are affected. Shields, not HoTs, are what make these groups unkillable. They prevent damage proactively, scale with coordinated groups, and erase burst windows, turning fights into a battle of mitigation rather than strategy. The proposed HoT nerf doesn’t fix this—it mostly punishes active healing where it isn’t the problem.

TL;DR: To reduce ball group survivability, nerf shields, not HoTs

Agreed, I’d recommend reducing healing effectiveness after a certain number of stacks, but more importantly, significantly nerfing the amount of shields that can be applied and stacked. The players raising these concerns aren’t wrong.

To be honest, ball groups as they currently exist are actively harming Cyrodiil, especially Grey Host. They are driving players away and damaging the health of the PvP environment at its core.

If the goal is a competitive, skill-driven PvP experience, these mechanics need real limits. Addressing shield stacking and excessive sustain would go a very long way toward restoring competitive balance and improving the overall PvP experience.

evLRise wrote: »

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

You have 12 people in the group.

I play as 6-8.

Teeba_Shei wrote: »

You think Critical Riposte and Xoryn are a “ball group shielding” build. You have no clue what you’re talking about.

I'll actually take a step back try to explain stuff in a polite, detailed and constructive way, in the genuine hope that you understand things better and can gain a different perspective.

There's no such thing as a ball group shielding build when i have limited set and skill lines slots. I need to fit everything that's mandatory in the little space I have, in a way that it makes at least a decent amount of sense for each individual build.

Arkasis is generally an awful set in terms of how much group value it provides and there's plenty of better options. Lucent is a good piece on the shielder. My shielder doesn't have perfect lucent tho, and the shield is the person using the DK Standard and Undaunted damage orb to help with damage, so it makes more sense to use a set that procs when you take damage. Whether I have a 2nd set that gives Max HP or Max Mag makes 0 difference since I need to bring the Max Mag over the stam value in order for the heal orbs return mag, so Xoryn is as good as any other set.

Even if in 12-man you would have enough space for something like that, you still have less HP because you need movement speed to keep up with the group, so no healthy / boundless vitality, you can't slot 1h&shield since you need some sort of ranged healing to deal with negates, and you're locked out of options other than resto ( I actually like warden stamina mushrooms on this build as 3rd skill line so that you can heal inside a negate even as a support / shielder / healer, since you go in the frontline ). You kinda have to go melee to give shields in critical moments, and to acutually be able to keep shields up, you want to have more magicka than stamina. Otherwise healing orbs will restore stamina and you won't have enough mag to sustain the shields. This is also more minus max HP.

If you really want to min-max really bad and have 1 guy entirely devoted to shields, you can probably end up around the 8k, maybe 9k mark and still have a build that has all the checkmarks, including all the skill lines you have, and try to make minimal changes.

But if you're playing 12 what's even the point? You definitely can't afford to devote 2 people to just shields and 0 group utility outside of that, cuz then you definitely lack all the skill lines you want.

-- TARGET CAP --

Then a big issue is that shields ( non-ult ones ) are not gonna hit everyone in the group. With abilities capped as 6 targets you have to rotate around the group and recast it anywhere between 3 to 5-6 times to actually hit the whole group.

On average you'll get 5-6 people from the 1st cast, 8-9 people from the 2nd cast, and either 1 or 2 more people on future casts, depending on how good you are at positioning. So even if we take the amazing best case scenario, which is 3 casts, then you'd have to press contingency + soul burst and literally nothing else non stop. No time to heavy attack / break free / dodge for 100% uptime. Both have 6s duration assuming the shield won't break, so 3x from each is 6 casts for 100% uptime. In an actual fight you have to press your major evasion buff, your vigor ( multiple times - for the same reasoning with capped at 6 targets ), your ult, your burst heal when there's a negate, break free every 7s, dodge when pressured etc. You still want to have your HoTs up as much as you can, which in my case is vigor and cauterize, so when you end up getting hit hard by something unexpected - 2-3 sieges which got lucky timing and hit you at the same time, you're not sitting at 12k HP without any ongoing healing. So at best you'll have 50-55% uptime on YOURSELF. Which is gonna be like 35-40% maybe on the whole group? That's if you're super optimistic. So shields get less consistent the more people you play with from 6 and above. Cuz it's always gonna be roulette. Is the guy that actually needs help the one who got the shield? Yea? Great. No? Well, then you're pretty useless.

-- MAX STATS --

Another issue is low stats. The more you invest in HP the harder it gets to sustain. Blocking a lot is also mandatory so since you want acceptable pools of mag and stam you often are forced to run sugar skulls, in which case your sustain is insanely low. I had tons of complaints from my shielder that in pressure situation the build needs to non-stop heavy attack with resto, otherwise it's impossible to cast things. And the way I run it is built way heavier towards the sustain comfortable side. Getting interrupted by a streak at the end of a heavy attack destroys your sustain really bad for example.

-- SKILL LINES --

Then there's the opportunity cost. How good is the 10% shield from curative runeforms for example? Even with an absurd amount like 10k shield/cast, that's like 900-1000 extra shield. It's not BAD, but isn't it better to go something like storm calling for example? I can streak to help with CC. I can streak enemy groups defensively when they push us. I can actually streak away when I get caught in a bad spot, since I kinda want to pendulate from damage point to the backline of the group to try and keep shields up as much as I can on the whole group. And I can't do that if everyone has the same movement speed as me. If I go in the backline to shield the healers, I'm not gonna reach the DDs in front anymore. Then I also get Lightning Flood so I actually do something when we push, not just look at the group. And I get Power Surge. It's 1 button every 20s and heals insane amounts. Definitely more than the extra value I'd get from 10% shields.

Can also take the Necro skill line for example. How useful is 2.4k HP and some ult generation? I could for example go siphoning from NB instead. Then I get siphoning strikes, and can finally run sugar skulls and sustain without problems since with 55k health pool I dont mind the health cost. I have the Soul Tether as ult. Based on logs from the past months, gibbering shelter, even if it scales with HP, is on-par with a barrier in terms of how much defensive power you get out of it. The issue is I actually have to go in the damage consistently to proc it, and when there's a dangerous scenario I kinda don't want to do that. I still run the gibbering shelter as ult, but for a very specific reason. When there's a pressure scenario my players have the tendency to react at the exact same time. If one casts as barrier, at least it stacks with the gibbering shelter, even tho it feels like a complete waste to drop 2 ults, vs having 2 barriers and one of them being completely wasted. It's also a bit cheaper so it's not bad in zerg fights. It's pretty trash against other groups tho. With stuff like Soul Tether, yea, it wont be as big a number on logs, but then everyone from my group gets 12% more healing, including all active HoTs, burst heals etc.

-- SETS --

In a 12-man i'd probably change sets to something like Perfected Lucent, Perfected Pearlescent, trainee light sash and snow treads. That way you get 2 useful sets that are helpful for the group and get a decent amount of Max HP. I've seen some people run the DK Endless Archive set, or Blind Path Induction, but I think these are horrible choices. Yes you end up with some crazy numbers, but stuff like Pearlescent buffs the healing / damage of the whole group. So even if your HPS goes up, the overall group HPS goes down when you use selfish buffs. It just looks pretty since it's a big number, but it's bait and it hurts the group.

I also hate sets around ults, because I think it makes gameplay swingy rather than consistent. I might get used to having a barrier up and thinking I'm way tankier than I actually am. It's enough for one push to not pay attention that defensive ults are down and suddenly I overcommit in a push and end up wiping vs playing consistent and not ult dependent, and keeping ults as emergency buttons.

In Group vs Group environments, ult based gameplay is very inconsistent. You'll end up having scenarios where:
- They push you once. You barrier. You feel tanky.
- They push you once more. You barrier. You feel tanky.
- They push you once more. You barrier. You feel tanky.
- They push you once more. You don't have a barrier. You feel squishy and die.

No matter what your group size is, or what's your target content ( zergs or other groups ), you will ALWAYS have to optimize against groups as well, since they are your biggest threat and you come across enemy groups anywhere between 1-2 times to 10-20 times a raid.

-- CONCLUSIONS --

It is possible to end up with a really high number if you want to invest an excessive amount in this exact thing. But with all the issues I mentioned ( negates , not having a burst heal , awful sustain, awful resource pool ), I genuinely don't think it's worth it. I actually believe it will end up hurting the group despite the log numbers. In practice it won't even feel like much of a difference in the majority of fights whether the shielder is there or not, since very often the shields absorb random stuff that would have been healed by HoTs anyway. Much like playing around ults, it will bait the group a lot. A big issue you have with shields is that gameplay is very swingy. In one moment, when the scribing shields are fresh and the Gibbering Shelter just proc'd, you feel super tanky. 2s later you feel insanely squishy and you're gonna have a "wtf" moment, wondering where that burst came from, when in reality it's just people not paying attention due to these survivability swings.

I don't think shields are OP, because I think going full shielder with all skill lines dedicated to it is genuinely log memes. They're ok in zerg fights. But I feel it way more when a healer is missing from my group vs zergs than when the shielder is missing. In GvG scenarios shields are really strong, and it's the primary reason I use them, to the point where I'm tempted to avoid groups if my shielder is not online. When fighting a 10-man as 8 people its impossible to survive a push when one of my players gets hit by 5 proximity detonations, 5 shalks, 5 contingencies, 5 synergies and 3 bow procs at the same time. So I really need that extra 12k eHP.

So, if I think shields are not OP, why don't I play another healer instead?
Primarily for the reason stated above - I think they're invaluable when going against other groups. In zerg fights they're kinda whatever. HoTs do a way better job at keeping the group alive there. If I just use HoTs and move around in a mid pressure scenario, it's generally fine. If HoTs drop and I just shield and burst heal, it feels pretty rough and dangerous.

In a 12-man I'd probably shift the shielder a bit more towards a healer, and focus specifically on the group vs group aspect with the shield skills.

Also playing a shielder is really fun as it's one of the more challenging builds to play. In zerg fights its slightly boring, as you don't care too much about the shield itself, and you're mostly a buff dispenser. You mostly cast them to keep the related buffs up, and the shield aspect of it is more of a "whatever, it doesn't hurt" kind of scenario. In group vs group it gets pretty tricky. You want to have a really good awarness of what the enemy is doing, and pay close attention to when they cast deep fisure, when they cast proximity detonation etc., since they have a short 6s duration, you want to drop them before the damage, but not too early either since you don't want stuff like destro ults, deadly cloaks etc. to eat their strength before the damage comes. You'd have to have very accurate timing, in order to drop the shields right before the damage, specifically on the person being focused, and also move out before the enemy group CCs you with a fear or streak, so it's a pretty skillful "dance-like' playstyle.

-- IMPLICATIONS --

How would shield nerfs affect groups:
In zerg fights? Not so much. Most setups are built in a way to handle zerg fights consistently, without the need of big survivability spikes, outside of the occasional ult when there's some unexpected oil damage or stuff like that. If anything it will force groups to build more into the tankier side, to survive other groups. This means a bit less damage vs zergs, but also more tankiness. Even if ults like barrier would get nerfed, I dont think it would be impactful in any way in zerg fights, since the whole point is to give the whole group 1-2 seconds of breathing room while the burst heals / HoTs bring everyone up to full HP, which they can accomplish.

I think a nerf to overall group survivability ( of any kind, be it shields, heals or a mix ) might help short term until ballgroups adjust. But you need to be careful what you wish because, if a heal / shield nerf ends up hitting the group's survival really bad, then leads will be forced to shift towards tanky setups.

There's lots of sets / skills that are not there to fight random players. Stuff like Snake in the Stars is rather useless vs solo / unorganized players. But if the survival nerfs are harsh enough to make groups drop stuff like this, then you'll notice that the difference won't be as big as you think when it comes to group vs zerg scenarios. Instead of running Elemental Catalyst, which I don't even bother proc'ing vs random players - I genuinely don't need the damage, I'm gonna run stuff like Beckoning Steel for less pressure / siege damage taken. Instead of Snake in the Stars I'll build more into HP / sustain / survival aspects. Instead of Balorgh on DDs I'll just run Colovian Highlands for more defensive ults. Might even drop a negate and potentially the necro colossus for 2 additional barriers / heal ults, since I probably won't even need the 2nd negate in Group vs Zerg content. If anything, the biggest impact will be disincentivizing groups from engaging with other groups due to lack of damage in favor of survivability and long, boring fights.

If you made it to the end, I hope you learned something new and have a better understanding of group dynamic. And if it still doesn’t make sense… guess it’s one of those ‘can’t explain to everyone’ things.

The best way to deal with it? Embrace it. Coordinated play always beats uncoordinated play, so grab some friends and give it a shot. It’s harder than it looks, but its super satisfying to see consistent improvement week by week. Bonus: most groups are happy to help. The more enemies, the more potential fun fights, and there are plenty of players willing to give tips, help with builds, or even run with your group to help and give feedback. Instead of complaining you can step up, learn, and enjoy the climb.

OR convince ZoS to give us 5v5/6v6/8v8 ranked arenas.

No serious group runs Xoryn.

Hello, this is my first time writing anything on forum, and I would like to share some thoughts regarding the new DK changes on pts U49, particularly those that involve healing and buffs related to it.

As a player who has mainly played the healer/supportive role in 12-man raids for several years, I have some frustrations towards how healing abilities work in this game. It has come to our realization that players get assigned healing priority based on how early they arrive in "chunks" of world space. We came up with the nickname "chunk" to describe what are typically 5k by 5k world unit squares which are arbitrarily laid out in the game. Not all "chunks" in a zone are these perfect squares though, e.g. a bridge or a hallway can be a chunk of its own. In situations where players are full on health, the first 6 players who enter a chunk first will always be the ones the healing ticks select. This applies to majority of the multi-target healing skills. As for situations where some players are injured, these AoE over time healing skills will target the 6 most injured players on the first tick, and lock onto them for the remainder of the duration. So there we have our dilemma: Most healing skills will target the same 6 players, and the buffs that are applied through healing will only go to these 6 targets.

As a result, the buffs that get applied to players when they receive healing ticks, are almost impossible to maintain on everyone. (Eg. Minor berserk that comes from Combat Prayer, Minor heroism that comes from Fire Keeper, Minor Courage that comes from Blood of the Elder Dragon). In order for a raid group to rely on these skills to provide these sought-after buffs, raid group will have to be highly disciplined, to constantly be in 2 groups of 6, so their supports can aim and shift these ground targeting healing skills back and forth among the groups, or run far enough to outrange 1 group follow by running to the opposite direction to outrange yet another group. These methods are highly unreliable (some more than others) and impossible for less experienced groups. As a result, players will simply abandon these skills as a source to provide said buffs and seek for simpler and more reliable options. I think I can quite confidently say that, the newly changed Fire Keeper and Blood of the Elder Dragon, will NOT be the skills of choice to provide Minor Heroism and Minor Courage in a raid environment. At least, no groups will have their players pick up a skill line just for these skills. In stead, people will go back to using expensive heroism potions, and skills that are guaranteed to provide Minor Courage to everyone like Banner Bearer. Another good example is the change to Zenas' Empowering Disc to provide minor courage to only 6 made Curative Runeforms drop from a must-have skill line into one that is rarely used. If ZOS intends that these long-forgotten skills and skill lines can see the light of day again, the targeting of these skills needs to be redesigned.

Last but not least, I hope that the targeting of AOE healing over time skills can be changed to smart target every tick (just like Illustrious healing), because watching your allies dying and not getting healed despite standing in your healing circles, is every healer's nightmare T.T