I feel like the title of this system will get people confused with the Veteran system, i.e. the umbrella title for content that unlocks at Level 50 (Champion Points, Veteran Dungeons, Veteran Pledges, etc). Unless you have to be Level 50 before this activates in Cyrodiil and other PvP settings?

Yeah, not gonna lie, no pet is looking really good




However things are looking less rosy for pet builds




I mean, 165k is still really good, don't get me wrong.
Sorc is doing just fine.

Dracane wrote: »

That is likely it. Yet still, 1750 magicka per stack is a considerable nerf. I expected to see at 1250 or even 1000.

It's a nerf, but still powerful.

For PVE, every build has at minimum 32k resources or so, sometimes higher, especially with a group, so you just get a free, no nonsense, +20% w/s damage.

In PVP, if you built for Max Mag stacking for Hardened Ward like before subclassing, you're sitting at 22~28% w/s damage.

An average w/s damage/crit/proc build with 30k HP has around 22~25k resources, so 12~14% w/s damage. They should effectively have more raw w/s damage to scale in comparison to the Max Mag stacker, so it could be quite close in the end.

If you compare to the other class Masteries:

• Warden = 15% - great baseline, simple, no hoops, matches normal non Max Mag stacking Sorc multiplier
• Templar = 600 w/s damage - Sorc with +15% would need 4000 raw w/s damage to achieve the same result
• NB = 1~1250 w/s damage - x2 of Templar, but based on 1~100% HP
• Necro = 2-20% - Slightly higher than Warden, but requires build up
• Arcanist = 666 (based on ult) or 300 w/s damage (perma) - Weaker than Templar, same Sorc logic

So all things considered, Sorc's Mastery is equal, if not better to what I'm seeing on other classes, but it has no secondary effect like Max HP or crux, etc. I have no doubt the passive is still strong, I just wonder if it's enough in conjunction with Implosion to compete with some of the other 2x DPS Masteries available out there.

On looking at the class masteries and multiclassing over the last few patches, I have increasingly asked: where is the healing fantasy? Today, healers run hodgepodge builds that feel more like a Frankenstein than a holistic fantasy. A dragon knight dps may roar at their foes, but what does the healer do? Many run cooldown potion glyphs with a mixture of lines and skill that feel more a construct than a fantasy role.

Some of the Support Class Masteries Will Not Be Used
Items that rely on raw healing do not work. The set Transformative Hope and the "blood mark" monster set (I forget the name) showed us this. The new necropassive, and the new warden class mastery passive are rendered useless because they rely on healing and not overheal.

Why we would love to use these glass mastery passives and these items, they are not useful due to how healing in ESO works.


Some Skills Will Not be Used
The new DK minor courage skill is not used in raid comps due to its poor buff targeting. It is an example of skills and items which would benefit from being capped at 12 rather than 6. A benefit of 12 rather than 6 for these buffs removes the question of target priority since target priority is somewhat murky or uncertain on many skills. There is no point to the skill being cast twice, because who knows where the benefit will go? And therefore, these skills do not end up being used.

For some sets, going from 6 to 12 just makes them feel more fun an dynamic, as would be the case w Roaring Opportunist. A single heavy would do much for this set. As of now, healers often compete for who is forced to run it. While not a universal experience, I have had Raid Leads apologize to me after asking me to run this set, after having tried it, themselves. Some healers do enjoy this set; however, the 2 heavies make it less enjoyed. A single heavy would go towards increasing its dynamism and enjoyment across the board.


Small and Big Changes to Enable the Healing Fantasy

I am hopeful more support players will speak up with their ideas to strengthen the healing and tanking fantasies. Right now, the frankenstein healer ends up chugging potions with potion, cooldown glyphs with a hodgepodge of skills from different classes and random skills that do not flow well together, nor feel like a holistic fantasy.


Small Changes to Dragonknight
- Enable Minor Courage to go to 12, rather than 6. Or, improve buff targeting.
- For Earthenehart, allow heavy attacking to apply off-balance to the enemy it hits PLUS two nearby. While a small change, this would make it flow with sets like roaring opportunist and feel nice and rewarding on a healer running this class.

Necro Needs More Love
- At the Precipice doesn't work as-written. The necro, passive, which grants ult also works on healing rather than overheal, this makes it not useful the healer.

- Consider the tethers. The necro suffers from targeting issues. It's often a case of, "Where is the corpse?" and "Where is my party?" The necro tether, while a nice heel suffers from any composition where corpses are randomly selected. To complicate, the skill is useless if DPS are not fixal stacked. Therefore, this skill rarely sees use not just due to a combination of both difficulties, though one is enough to make it less attractive.


Arcanist Doesn't Realize that Healers are Dynamic
- Some skills and masteries are a mismatch with how healing is done in the game. For example, healers rarely use crux. They built crux, and then hold on to it. So, there is not much use in them. Healers are also, often doing mechanics. Therefore, stationary heals that lock them into place such as heal beam are only regularly used in perhaps 2 fights in the game. Channels may be avoided for similar reasons.
- Arc shields hitting 4 people with a short cooldown mean this is all the healer casts if relying on this skill. By the time 3 casts are done and all of your party is covered, it is time to cast, again. While not a deal-breaker, making this 6 people instead of 4 may make it smoother to slot into the toolkit. Right now, it tends to only be used to build Crux, which are then not spent. Finally, the shields do not proc Pearls, a common healing mythic. While this skill was intended to build crux for the heal-beam, the heal beam itself doesn't match how heals are used in ESO.


There is more, but I need a computer break. Thank you for listening

The Glacial Presence change is not present on PTS; it looks like it was removed in time. The pet nerf on the mythic is still there.

I did a quick parse for comparison purposes. Using pure Warden with the dps boosting class masteries, I was getting the same general ballpark with the mythic as I was on the previous PTS. This seems to be a definite nerf for subclassing builds but neutral to positive overall if you switch back to pure class.

Fixed an issue where some bonuses that granted “damage done to monsters” were multiplicative with other damage bonuses, instead of additive. Affects the following;


Empower

[Developer Comment]
Spoiler
This fix will result in the affected effects to be reduced in power when used in tandem with other percent based damage bonuses. While we've gently increased some of the affected effects, some of these remain untouched until we get more data on average value impacts (since the change in power was dependent on what other bonuses were being ran in tandem), which we can rectify during PTS or in a future update if necessary.

I have some issues with this change in general, but I want to focus in on Empower because it's a very big % value, tied to a very specific playstyle whose main numbers are clear. There are two ways people use empower, as part of oakensoul and with voidmantle, on heavy attack builds. That means that at the very least, with oakensoul you had Minor Slayer and Minor Berserk and on any reasonable build Weapon's Expert CP. There are other CP and other buffs you could have, but these would be the baseline. Minor Berserk and Slayer are also not hard to source so pretty expected buffs in a voidmantle situation.

For an oakensoul baseline user we went from 1.36*1.7=2.312 coefficient to 2.06 coefficient.
For a voidmantle user we went from 1.86*1.7=3.162 coefficient to 2.56.
These are big nerfs to builds that are nowhere near meta. You could change empower to 100% from 70% and it would be barely a slight buff to baseline oakensoul users (and a slight nerf to most real oakensoul users) and still a noticeable nerf to voidmantle users.

I know there are some other variables going on in there, but I don't see what you need to wait and see to realize at least some buff needs to be made. You could have changed empower to 100% and then see where it lands and decide if it needs further buff. Starting from no change makes me doubt that a proper adjustment is going to come in the next few weeks. Empower has worked as multiplicative for almost 4 years, the power is what is expected and what heavy attack builds have been balanced around, if the buckets were an issue, it was an issue that informed the numbers you chose for empower in the first place.

BTW I did a quick parse test on a voidmantle build I tried 2 days ago and the last tick of the heavy attacks did go down about 25% so this isn't just theoretical. I also did a parse on an oakensoul build and the last tick of the heavy attacks are down about 16% from the exact same build on live.
Both of these parses were under 100k, btw. I'm sure a fully optimized voidmantle build could still get over 100k, but it would still be miles away from la builds. Empower doesn't affect PVP either, so there's no real fear of this ending up overpowered if you buff empower significantly.

Initial WW Feedback:

Do the refreshed abilities correctly portray the mechanics of the ability?

I would say generally yes. It might be beneficial to put something on Gnash to tell people how to taunt with it.

Are there any key Werewolf changes that you enjoyed?

I definitely enjoyed using Slaughter. Occasionally the long range ones looked a little odd but, it is definitely fun.

Are there any key Werewolf changes that did not feel great?

The glow on the visuals doesn't really align with my fantasy as a WW. The red at least looks kinda cool but the green on Pack Leader combined with it's default white fur looked pretty bad to me.

I would say at least initially that the Ultimate tuning feels a little odd for a creature of Hircine. When I'm doing regular Overland stuff I'm gaining Ultimate significantly faster than I was losing it to the point I was leaving WW form to use a regular Ultimate once I got to 500. When I was fighting harder npcs without adds to feed on I was finding that my WW form was losing Ultimate and occasionally dropped.

Is there anything else you would like to share about the Werewolf changes?

The new WW isn't necessarily that much like the old WW. That isn't necessarily bad as the old had some issues but, if you run the same approach on everything over the next couple years you might start to bleed some of the longer term players as the game gradually stops being what they liked.

The new WW has enough of a power increase that it can be hard to tell if it feels better because it is stronger or if it feels better because the design is more appealing.

Shapeshifter's Chain, Vykosa, and Salvation might benefit from some adjustment if the time exists.

Deafening Roar provides Major Cowardice for 15 seconds which makes Vykosa's 8 seconds every 15 unnecessary on a WW and as Major Cowardice has become more common it isn't that great on a non-WW.

Salvation isn't any good on a non-WW and the 33% discount doesn't seem as impressive when the Ult only costs 100.

Shapeshifter's Chain partially draws the value on the WW by reducing ability cost. But, as the cost for many WW abilities are lower the Mythic isn't delivering as much value.

Where is the "Awoooo"... that was one of my favorite parts on the WW. Overall, it seems to be heading in the right direction but the Awoooo call is a linchpin for me, heal or no heal. Doesnt matter... Return the Awooooo