Combat Feedback for Upcoming Combat Patch

exiledtyrant

Since the next combat patch is coming I thought I'd give some more recent feedback about skills and other combat related things that I care about.

Bleeds and DOTs in general

The axe changes were good. The overall problem with axe seems to have vanished as soon as the latest fix came in. The bleed is impactful and procs often. However there are still a number of bleed immunities and purges available to counter DOTs. It was stated that there is an interest in fixing the bleed immunity situation so I’ll just leave it at that.

As far as DOT counters go I still think they are to prolific. Counters include blocking, damage shields, purges, and heal over time. Blocking interferes with DOT damage. Damage shields are everywhere in PVP. They cleanse dots and stop them from being reapplied. Then there is the rampant use of purge in organized (or even unorganized) play. Top this off with how easily AOE healing over time spreads and dots just can’t keep up.

I propose either the elimination of the various counters to the point where Dots only have go up against HOTs and blocking, or release a new debuff that allows DOTs to be focused on a target without removal. This way there is a clear indicator of intent coming from the DOT user and the person being affected can react to the attack by healing or blocking the damage. The debuff would preferably be in a global skill line like the soul line.

Dual Wielding

Unlike the two handed line dual wielding’s overall skill package never really comes together. I’ve stated before it appears to try and do everything at once while only doing one thing well. Instead of competing with two handed in the single target/burst damage area, I think it would be best to fully transition dual wield into sustained AOE damage. Whirlwind is already the premiere skill that sets dual wield apart from the rest why not build upon that strength instead of offering a mish mash of under performing skills.

Twin slashes – Damage appears fine but it suffers from the overall DOT problem in general that was previously mentioned. I think the snare morph should be converted to an immobilize skill so there is some Ruffian synergy. Possibly lowering the upfront damage of the healing morph ad converting it to a cone attack would also be nice.

Flurry- Flurry is still too slow. I look at this skill every PTS and I still see it not coming in at around 1.3 seconds. I time it up against velocious curse and its 3.5 second detonation. It always finishes around 2.5-3 seconds even with canceling. That’s basically double or more than the displayed 1.3 second channel time. Meanwhile Wrecking blow can go off twice with proper canceling during same time period. The small dps edge drops off immensely when a skill that already hits harder can be executed almost twice as much.

Blinding flurry is to RNG even with the amount of proc chances to be considered usable. I find a lot of things dead before I ever see the knockdown proc. Flurry itself should either be buffed to be the clear single target option, or become more utility based/ combo based so it makes other skills better ( flurry triggers extra bleed ticks on bleeding enemies, grants a barrier against ranged attack etc..)

Blade Cloak- Deadly cloak is at odds with itself. Somehow it is the highest single target damage skill in the duel wield tree yet its design is focused on sustained AOE damage and a defensive buff. The hidden dagger it produces is clunky to use (can do 2 hidden daggers in the time it takes to fire off deadly cloak) and the dagger itself isn’t really free because it makes you spam blade cloak. If it was meant to be some type of burst ability it will have to do better than only being a little bit more than 10% higher than hidden dagger.

I really wish the deadly cloak morph just made blade ticks 1 tick a second instead of 1 tick every 3 seconds. That way the blade cloak ticks match up to right around the other sustained DPS aoe options and the damage becomes actually noticeable. Right now wall of elements could break even if not out dps Blade cloak.

Hidden Dagger- I don’t like this skill. I feel like this was an attempt to make the melee weapon lines appear less generic. Instead of adding yet another charge skill like sword and board and two handed, dual wield got a ranged snare. The problem is the skill feels flat. It just enough dps to pull ahead of flurry in most situations because flurry’s channel is twice as long, but it’s not high enough damage to compete with just about anything in the Two handed line. It comes off as a mediocre single target skill that you have to take because flurry isn’t quite living up to its tooltip.

Secondly I didn’t pick a melee line to attack people at ranged. Why the final move of the skill line goes against everything dual wield builds on is a little off putting. Lastly the aoe morph with even lower damage doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s not going to compete with whirlwind. Even the single target version struggles to compete with whirlwind past 50% health. It’s just not a fun or practical morph.

I think hidden dagger would be best served as a new skill altogether. One that provides even more AOE support, sustained damage support or a truly unique buff to go along with the Major brutality buff like bringing back attack speed.

Destruction Staff

Destructive Clench- Its effects don’t go through damage shields. This caveat can make the morph fairly useless in a lot of situations.

Sorcerer Skills

Pet summons – Pets should scale with magicka or stamina.

Single target stamina skill – This suggestion has been done to death. Out of all the skills to choose from I would pick crystal blast, daedric tomb, or mages wrath as one of the morphs to change into a stamina single target. One offers a good base damage skill, tomb could offer more CC, and wrath could add a non-weapon specific execute. Any one of these would fit a gap missing in the stamina sorc arsenal.

Surge- It would be nice if it worked on channeled skills.

Thundering Presence- This ability made sense as a stamina morph. You want to encourage melee users to protect themselves because they are almost always putting themselves in harm’s way more often than ranged users. Stamina sorcerers also have predominately melee skill lines to choose from so they want a way to get to their target quickly. Again this makes sense.

What doesn’t make sense is the major damage drop off and the short term buff that encourages spamming before the buff has completed its duration. There are a lot of things to manage as a melee and critical surge is already a buff that needs constant attention even with its longer duration. Spamming yet another buff starts to get tedious.

The skill would feel better as a whole if it ramped up to a threatening amount of damage and stayed there until the buff ran its course. Increasing the expedition buff duration couldn’t hurt either. 4 seconds of good damage and movement speed followed by 11 seconds of terrible damage and movement speed does not feel good.

GreenSoup2HoT

I agree with pretty much everything.

It's a shame this post will be looked at and forgotten. Many players on the forums have made great feedback posts and suggestions. However Zos has yet to implement any decent changes. Flying Blade got Major Brutality.... if that shows you anything.




Some of my thoughts if your interested.

Hidden Blade does not feel like a real "Hidden Blade", your just throwing a toothpick at people. They should really include some sort of increased damage from stealth instead of Major Brutality, give your flurry an increased attack speed for a duration. Which could give more synergy between the two skills.

Twin slashes, sounds alright to have it as a cone attack, however i would also want the HoT to effect more then one target. Also for the DoT to work on shield's or through blocking. I hear all the time people saying the DoT does work on shields or when blocking as well. It would be nice to see some clarification on the tooltip.

Blade Cloak. This should be an ability where it does not take you out of nb cloak since the damage is to small for it to matter. I agree the ticks should be every second sort of like caltrops. However i will be in combat if someone is on top of caltrops but caltrops will not take me out of nb cloak, which should be the same with blade cloak. I believe Blade Cloak is where Major Brutality should of gone. Duel Wield users should have access to major brutality befor their first attack from stealth. I believe Hidden blade does not get this bonus damage (Major Brualtiy) once used as an opener and is a huge dps lose compared to 2H.

I personally think giving Blade Cloak Major Brutality is needed, Hidden Blade needs extra damage from stealth and flurry's channel needs to be decreased. Also Twin Slashes DoT's need to effect shields and decrease stamina if someone blocks with it active. This would be a step in the right direction.

EvilWaterman

Reading this has just turned me into a casual gamer.

Dam you filthy casual!

Chims

Is there any information available about the next combat patch?

Toc de Malsvi

"I personally think giving Blade Cloak Major Brutality is needed, Hidden Blade needs extra damage from stealth and flurry's channel needs to be decreased. Also Twin Slashes DoT's need to effect shields and decrease stamina if someone blocks with it active. This would be a step in the right direction."

^This I like this, I felt the same way, blade cloak makes sense for the brutality buff and works with attacking from stealth better.

I feel like they need to take a look at all stamina weapon builds, when two handed has skills that are so massively out performing every other skill line it becomes almost necessary to always run two handed on one bar. Freaking Sypher in a podcast basically said if two handed WB gets nerfed then stam DK is sunk, any class having to depend on 1 weapon out of 4 choices is a bad setup. Two handed offers a strong direct heal+major brutality buff, hardest hitting single target ability+knockdown+empower, strongest stam execute outside of NB class ability.

I don't necessarily think two handed needs a nerf just some balancing needs to happen. Right now two handed is heads and shoulders above the other stam weapon options. It would be nice to see the other stam weapons brought more in line to be more competitive.

Khivas_Carrick

Wut? I am 110% certain that DWing has a higher DPS output than 2H does, in PvE at least.

Now with that said, I will agree with the status of it Duel Wielding being clunky and disorganized big time. As to how to go about fixing it though, well, idk

Toc de Malsvi

Yeah I should have stated I was really only looking at it from a PVP stand point where two handed has far and away the best morphs. I think when you've got 4 stam weapon tree's 3 primarily dps and 1 defensive you shouldn't have 1 that is so heavily out performing the others in either PVP or PVE. I think a part of ESO's niche is the option for builds and if you get to the point where its 'x' weapon for pvp and 'y' weapon for pve and don't even touch 'z', 'k', or 'n' then you have a problem.Not saying they are entirely there but certainly they have set up things to be that way currently which is why you see the hordes of WB spammers everywhere.

Some classes like DK or Templar just cant get to Major brutality outside of two handers so as a stam build they pretty much have to run a two hander on one bar at least. Then take into consideration that two hander has the only stam execute outside of NB's and that two hander has an actually rather powerful self heal attached to the brutality buff it already has. The strongest single target direct dmg+knockdown just makes it over the top.

Adding the brutality to dual wield was a much needed change, but attaching it to a targeted dmg spell is the wrong answer. This means you cannot get it for your opening, which is often a big part of fights in pvp.

Toc de Malsvi

Giving the brutality buff to blade cloak would make blade cloak a much more attractive option and would allow all dual wield builds to pre buff for opening dmg same as whats available to two handers but in a different way.

Jar_Ek

Major brutality on blade cloak could screw up stealth openers as the blade cloak DoT could pull you out of stealth before you actually attack. As for my thoughts

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/224448/dual-wield-current-issues#
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/222557/current-sorcerer-issues#
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/209120/stamina-sorcerers-the-next-steps-for-zos#latest


They all in these threads OPs.

Toc de Malsvi

Good point I didn't think about it bringing you out of stealth. Thanks for the links to those other posts.