ATTN: ZOS ~~Mega Post of Issues with the Game and its Current Problems with Balance!!!

NVNiko

Nifty2g wrote: »

Actually my major issue with this is that you're asking for every class to have it's uniqueness removed and bring the gap in for each class so you're pretty much playing the same thing with different names and different effects.
You are skipping a lot of advantages and disadvantages certain abilities in this OP have

A lot of the stuff mentioned in OP is being fixed and introduced; you're also missing the fact Magicka users get a lot more Spell Penetration than Stamina based characters do which more or less evens out the weapon damage / spell damage argument.

Templars are fine, however sweeps needs to be buffed the damage is not extreme and should take into consideration of it being a cone attack. We need to be able to Critical hit shields, not being able to negates a lot of classes back up to my example of Templars, not being able to critical hit makes sweeps and self sustain nil - but this has been mentioned a lot and I believe is coming. Templars need charge fixed, certain abilities reworked and also OP execute starts at <25% that's when you see the big ticks happen.

Nightblades are out of control but they are in a good spot, their whole class is built around stealth personally I believe there should be more to it and more harder to pull off a one shot combination (require more skills and more internal cooldowns) and their whole stealth mechanic needs work, otherwise it's good but they are too strong for their time, I think this will be adjusted in the new update, which is why we're not seeing nerfs.

I believe sorcerers are in a good spot with how they are, its quite interesting though I'd make bound armor a passive with reduced max magic it gives so they can have more bar slots. There also needs to be several class skill changes which I think ZOS already know and have something in store. STOP increasing the cost of Streak, it's an escape mechanism, not something to be punished for because a bunch of bads run away from their zerg and die to a skill player because they want to be heroes and can't Xv1 a skilled solo player. @Wrobel stop listening and catering to the bads, this is not a general concern, this is outright a silly thing to nerf Sorcerers for, there is also something called gap closers that the other classes have access to in more ways than one.

And lastly Dragonknight a prime example of not knowing how to balance a class and nerfing them into the ground, but at this time you can't buff what you already nerfed, so you need to go back to the drawing board and give it a class overhaul. Admit it, this is where you screwed up by listening to the community. - I have nothing else to say for Dragonknights I just outright dislike what has been done to this class without probable thinking about it for both PvE and PvP aspects.

You're right every class SHOULD be able to heal/dps/tank and personally they can right now, some classes do it better than others, but you are missing a very valuable point, every class should have something unique with them. Sorcerers are solo beasts and actually needs a lot of summoning pet tweaks right now they outright suck, where are flame atronachs, frost atronachs, conjured weapons, proper storm calling etc?
Nightblades are all about stealth and at launch they had a broken skill line since then I feel like this class has been getting stronger and rightfully so, the unique style is to be a full on burst as it is advertised as being a stealth like ninja and all that stuff.
Templars are the healers at heart like it or not, I love being able to heal when I can and switch to DPS or Tanking at ease.
Dragonknights are the tanky debuffers and strong flame skills.

The issue is a lot of players want to be equal and feel like they have the right their chosen class should be able to do what other classes are designed for - which is clearly not what ZOS designed the game for. And I deep down hope they don't stray from that philosophy and make us equals. It would bring the battlefield to a very lack luster cookie cutter playground, more of a shell of it's former 1.5 self

Moral of the story I miss 1.5 and so do you, let's slowly work our way back to it with certain changes and a balanced Champion System (SHOULD HAVE HAD A CHAMPION CAP FROM THE START 1.6 WAS HORRIBLE TO PVP IN WITH BALANCE ISSUES), remove veteran ranks and fix the class breaking skills, fix the lag, introduce battle grounds, remove aoe caps and fix this stacking of snares, give more intensive to PvP for solo and group play, and then we can finally enjoy the game that so many of us are longing for and have been waiting since launch and are still around supporting ZOS HOPING that they will show the games potential we are all trying to give the same feedback to achieve.

I agree and disagree with some of your points:

--First of all 4884 spell pen is not comparable to 20% weapon damage (Agility passive plus Flawless Dawnbreaker)
--As far as shields you are right crits and burning light procs should apply to damage shields but if that's the case they need to buff shields, 50% of my shield which gets crit'ed on would be completely worthless and not worth a skill slot.

Takllin

@Nifty2g should be the Combat/Mechanics guy at ZOS. +1 sir.

Waseem

templar shards are not CC and are not AoE? yes they are.

Nifty2g

NVNiko wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Actually my major issue with this is that you're asking for every class to have it's uniqueness removed and bring the gap in for each class so you're pretty much playing the same thing with different names and different effects.
You are skipping a lot of advantages and disadvantages certain abilities in this OP have

A lot of the stuff mentioned in OP is being fixed and introduced; you're also missing the fact Magicka users get a lot more Spell Penetration than Stamina based characters do which more or less evens out the weapon damage / spell damage argument.

Templars are fine, however sweeps needs to be buffed the damage is not extreme and should take into consideration of it being a cone attack. We need to be able to Critical hit shields, not being able to negates a lot of classes back up to my example of Templars, not being able to critical hit makes sweeps and self sustain nil - but this has been mentioned a lot and I believe is coming. Templars need charge fixed, certain abilities reworked and also OP execute starts at <25% that's when you see the big ticks happen.

Nightblades are out of control but they are in a good spot, their whole class is built around stealth personally I believe there should be more to it and more harder to pull off a one shot combination (require more skills and more internal cooldowns) and their whole stealth mechanic needs work, otherwise it's good but they are too strong for their time, I think this will be adjusted in the new update, which is why we're not seeing nerfs.

I believe sorcerers are in a good spot with how they are, its quite interesting though I'd make bound armor a passive with reduced max magic it gives so they can have more bar slots. There also needs to be several class skill changes which I think ZOS already know and have something in store. STOP increasing the cost of Streak, it's an escape mechanism, not something to be punished for because a bunch of bads run away from their zerg and die to a skill player because they want to be heroes and can't Xv1 a skilled solo player. @Wrobel stop listening and catering to the bads, this is not a general concern, this is outright a silly thing to nerf Sorcerers for, there is also something called gap closers that the other classes have access to in more ways than one.

And lastly Dragonknight a prime example of not knowing how to balance a class and nerfing them into the ground, but at this time you can't buff what you already nerfed, so you need to go back to the drawing board and give it a class overhaul. Admit it, this is where you screwed up by listening to the community. - I have nothing else to say for Dragonknights I just outright dislike what has been done to this class without probable thinking about it for both PvE and PvP aspects.

You're right every class SHOULD be able to heal/dps/tank and personally they can right now, some classes do it better than others, but you are missing a very valuable point, every class should have something unique with them. Sorcerers are solo beasts and actually needs a lot of summoning pet tweaks right now they outright suck, where are flame atronachs, frost atronachs, conjured weapons, proper storm calling etc?
Nightblades are all about stealth and at launch they had a broken skill line since then I feel like this class has been getting stronger and rightfully so, the unique style is to be a full on burst as it is advertised as being a stealth like ninja and all that stuff.
Templars are the healers at heart like it or not, I love being able to heal when I can and switch to DPS or Tanking at ease.
Dragonknights are the tanky debuffers and strong flame skills.

The issue is a lot of players want to be equal and feel like they have the right their chosen class should be able to do what other classes are designed for - which is clearly not what ZOS designed the game for. And I deep down hope they don't stray from that philosophy and make us equals. It would bring the battlefield to a very lack luster cookie cutter playground, more of a shell of it's former 1.5 self

Moral of the story I miss 1.5 and so do you, let's slowly work our way back to it with certain changes and a balanced Champion System (SHOULD HAVE HAD A CHAMPION CAP FROM THE START 1.6 WAS HORRIBLE TO PVP IN WITH BALANCE ISSUES), remove veteran ranks and fix the class breaking skills, fix the lag, introduce battle grounds, remove aoe caps and fix this stacking of snares, give more intensive to PvP for solo and group play, and then we can finally enjoy the game that so many of us are longing for and have been waiting since launch and are still around supporting ZOS HOPING that they will show the games potential we are all trying to give the same feedback to achieve.

I agree and disagree with some of your points:

--First of all 4884 spell pen is not comparable to 20% weapon damage (Agility passive plus Flawless Dawnbreaker)
--As far as shields you are right crits and burning light procs should apply to damage shields but if that's the case they need to buff shields, 50% of my shield which gets crit'ed on would be completely worthless and not worth a skill slot.

You're missing points, Stamina builds typically used Precise on their weapons, Magicka builds use Nirnhoned. This is what helps the balance issues. 18% Spell Penetration is a lot. On average Spell Damage hits harder than Weapon Damage because of the Champion System this is going to be addressed and then we will also have Physical Mitigation (confirmed) to help mitigate. That's a lot of balance coming

No, what they should do to shields is make them give diminishing returns to remove shield stacking. Let the first one be your main then anything casted after that should be weaker. This in my opinion would help a lot of shield stacking and remove that toxic play style from peoples minds, without completely destroying the sorcerer class.
It also requires the player to be smart on their choice of shields

kaithuzar

Tandor wrote: »

NVNiko wrote: »

Not exactly the same skill but every class deserves some sort of decent self heal, cc, or inta-cast damage ability.

Why? What's wrong with each class having its own role? Why does everyone want to have everything these days...

Because that's what we were promised when we bought the game.

AshTal

I think the post shows some very big weaknesses on some classes and highlights some major concerns.

The big problem I have is that ZOS tend to read something like this, take 6 months planning on changes and whacking out major changes to every class all at once. Then they look around in the confusion and wonder why they still have major balance issues. Rather than seeing what is clearly broken, I,E mass spamming Bat swarm and Steel tornado and putting out a small change to these and then seeing how that improves things.

Nifty2g

AshTal wrote: »

I think the post shows some very big weaknesses on some classes and highlights some major concerns.

Nah, OP is missing a lot of things and a lot of points, having played every class I can see a lot of stuff missing

Nifty2g

Takllin wrote: »

@Nifty2g should be the Combat/Mechanics guy at ZOS. +1 sir.

too much work to deal with this community I salute the devs for being able to do that

kaithuzar

@Nifty2g , I agree with most of your post except:
"The issue is a lot of players want to be equal and feel like they have the right their chosen class should be able to do what other classes are designed for - which is clearly not what ZOS designed the game for. And I deep down hope they don't stray from that philosophy and make us equals. It would bring the battlefield to a very lack luster cookie cutter playground, more of a shell of it's former 1.5 self"

Firstly, ZOS told us they were designing the game that way & didn't.
Secondly, it's already a very "lack luster cookie cutter playground" full of wrecking blow & steel tornado spammers.

Xendyn

Lysette wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Fuzzybrick wrote: »

No, no, no. @ZOS_GinaBruno please ignore this post. Classes SHOULD NOT BE EQUAL. One class should always be better than another. One class should always do something another can't. If all classes are "balanced" as you say there will be no need for any of my alts. I want to roll different characters because they are DIFFERENT!

Well, feedback is just that. It's feedback, and everyone is entitled to it. When we review feedback, it's coming from many different sources and players, and part of our job (the studio) is to determine what changes and adjustments to make based on many factors - including player feedback.

That said, our general philosophy in regards to classes is not to give everyone the same version of a spell with a different name. We want each class to feel unique and have their own special identity.

That makes me feel comfortable, thank you.

Agree. Last thing I want to see is homogenization of the classes.
ZOS, however, needs to learn to use a scalpel instead of a machete when "balancing".

NVNiko

Nifty2g wrote: »

AshTal wrote: »

I think the post shows some very big weaknesses on some classes and highlights some major concerns.

Nah, OP is missing a lot of things and a lot of points, having played every class I can see a lot of stuff missing

You're right I am missing a lot of points and concerns and that's the reason for this thread. We can talk about things I failed to mention in the OP and further discuss what needs to be changed

Refuse2GrowUp

First, thanks to you and your mates for a long, well thought out post

NVNiko wrote: »

Class Abilities

Chart describing imbalances between classes >https://www.dropbox.com/s/bnc7qpewlgwy7pk/ESO balance.docx?dl=0
(Great chart submitted by @GreyBrow )





--Major Resolve needs to be uniform across all classes, specifically the nightblade and the templar which should be able to ingnite the Major resolve buff comparable to the way Dragon Knights and Sorcerer's can.

--Every class should have an intant-cast skill that does immediate damage on cast. Specifically the Sorcerer which has no instant cast abilities that do damage on cast comparable to flame whip, funnel health, surprise attack, or puncturing sweep. Instead Sorcs have to rely on force pulse where the other classes do not.

--Templars need a hard crowd control ability comparable to the other classes. Certain primary class abilities should be uniform across all classes.
Shields

- Every Class should have the ability to play as a DPS, Tank or Healer comparably as envisioned by Zenimax's original game model. Certain classes should have certain advantages and disadvantages when it comes to each role of the game: Tanking, Damage dealing, and healing. And at the same time be able to have similar mitigation, dps, and heals

- Magicka and Stamina users should have separate morphs in class trees this way stamina and magicka users have equal opportunities when creating build and not being penalized for being a magicka or stamina user. Each user should have equal opportunities in thier style of play.

NVNiko wrote: »

Not exactly the same skill but every class deserves some sort of decent self heal, cc, or inta-cast damage ability. Why is Maelstrom 10 times harder on a DK? Why can't a magicka Templar contend with DK DPS? I am in no way saying every class should have the same exact abilities with different animations just give them something comparable.

Just my 2 cents. I would agree the classes need a little balance, but I have to agree with others who posted before me, seems you want all the classes to more or less be the same. There is nothing wrong with Templars having less DPS options because they have such great utility and heals. Dragon Knights lack mobility and direct DPS (best known for DoTs vice strong burst DPS) but they are tanky. Nightblades have great burst but are typically squishy (although magica Nightblades defy this with crazy self heals and sustain). Sorcs are DPS beasts but have very little utility.

I wholeheartedly disagree that all classes should more or less be the same with the same viability for DPS, tanking, and heals. Classes are suppose to bring something unique to the table for group PvE and in PvP they are supposed to counterbalance other classes in some way. Currently, I think the classes are great for PvE. I think the devs fall short most in balance and counter balance when it comes to PvP. But, for this reason, I firmly believe there should be separate profiles for PvE and PvP that the devs could balance independent of each other. Yes, making the changes that you suggest would make some happy. However, it would kill class identity for many others (if not the majority). Simply, don't expect all classes to be equally versatile and fully capable of doing all things. It is easy enough to level alts. So what if templars and DKs have a harder time clearing vMSA. Most view them more as utility classes. Leave them as such. Play them for their utility or put together specialized PvP builds. You are not required to play only on toon in this game and expecting a single class to be as capable at everything as every other class seems a bit silly and stubborn.

NVNiko wrote: »

OverFlow Damage-"Damage shields in ESO absorb unmitigated damage (don't factor in armor, spell resist, etc). If a player has 1k damage left on their shield, but is facing an incoming attack dealing 10k unmitigated damage, the shield will absorb that 1k while the remaining 9k hits the player directly without factoring in their armor, spell resist, etc. This is not something players can affect (e.g. by relogging) but is how damage shields work in the game. Best way around is to spam your damage shields so they are always refreshed. For the same reason, the damage shield glyphs on weapons are terrible choices because it will likely cause you to take more damage rather than less since the shield is so small virtually any incoming attack will go through mostly unmitigated."

Players want the ability to crit against shields and proc specific class dps passives (*Burning Light) against shields, if this is the case shields need to be buffed in someway to compensate for the extra damage from the crits and procs, maybe a 75% shield in pvp.
http://gamerelated.info/2015/08/25/elder-scrolls-online-long-standing-bugsissues-that-all-players-should-be-aware-of/

I agree shields need to be reworked by the devs but I personally hate to bring up a problem without offering a solution, and personally...I don't have a solution. The community has asked that shields not stack, that shields be critable, etc. And as pointed out, shields can do more harm than help sometimes. Problem is, how to you properly balance shields for both PvP and PvE and do so without destroying a class that is heavily dependent on them? I think this needs a much more involved, thought out answer as any knee jerk reaction can brake the game.

NVNiko wrote: »

Magicka VS Stamina Imbalances

Light Armor Vs Medium Armor - Besides the differences in actual physical armor the passives each type of armor get are not even comparable. The Agility passive gives 12% more weapon damage where the Concentration passive only gets 4884 Spell Penetraion. The Concentration passive needs to get buffed by offering more Penetration or Spell Damage

Spell Damage Vs Weapon Damage - More or less Weapon damage users have about 1000 more raw damage over magicka builds. This is a huge imbalance especially when it comes to aoe's that have more range

Elemental Ring Vs Steel Tornado - Steel Tornado has a range of 12.5 meters which actually hits for 490 square meters and Elemental Ring has a range of 6 meters which hits at 113 sq meters. The imbalance in range and coupled with the imbalance in raw damage makes magicka users half as effective than stamina users in aoe situations. Besides that Stamina users also get there damaged buffed by the ruffian passive as well as the Duel Weld execute while while both morphs of elemental ring get purged!!

Flawless Dawnbreaker - 8% more raw damage for Stamina users where Magicka users have no equivalent that comes close to this. This skill needs to be changed or give something comparable to magicka users.

You cannot directly compare spell damage vs weapon damage. True, weapon damage is a higher stat. However, and please correct me if I am wrong, but magic tops the charts for damage per second in PvE. Furthermore, compare damage for the hardest hitting skills: Crystal Frags (even at 1,200 less spell damage) hits about as hard as Wrecking Blow. Another way to compare: Energy Overload for my Magicka Sorc at 3k spell damage does the same damage as my Stamina Sorc at 4.3k weapon damage. Giving spell casters a magicka version of Flawless Dawnbreaker or buffing certain passives might cause a very large disparity in dps.

Regarding Steel Tornado vs Elemental Ring. If you did not know, the devs have already identified Steel Tornado as a skill that will likely be nerfed; specifically, they are considering reducing the radius but buffing the damage. Personally, I would rather them leave Steel Tornado as is and buff the radius of Elemental Ring/Pulsar.

Generally speaking, there may be some room for buffing magicka, but all in all I feel they are fairly on par. Again, the disparity is most noticeable in PvP, and there I do not feel it is a large disparity.

NVNiko wrote: »

Champion Points
Spell Damage Mitigation VS Physical Damage Mitigation - We have 2 perks that mitigate spell damage which are Elemental Defender and Hardy. But when it comes to physical mitigation we only have the armor perks which gives us diminished returns specifically on light armor/magicka users

Regarding what I put in itallics...we also have Spell Shield, which is a flat percentage based spell damage mitigator .

This is also something being addressed by the devs. They have a large thread on the Combat and Character Mechanics forum about this and your concerns mirror those adressed by other players. Here is the thread, recommend you add your inputs to it http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/237255/champion-system-ability-review/p1

Tankqull

@NVNiko you have missed a few things:
(in chronological order)

Long duration CC Templar = Luminous Shards & the unmorphed Spearshard apply a long duration disorient comparable to the other singeltarget long duration CCs(not granting cc immunity if not actively broken) even though it is shorter ( the 6sec tooltip value is definatly wrong its around 10-15sec) || (blazing shard has a 3sec stun)

spammable longrange dmg option: if you count dark flare here than Crystal Frag has to be too

ground effect AOE temp: Blazing Spear, btw erruption and LL create the same DPS(overall DPS) as you are missing several additional instant DD attacks when reaplying LL(during eruptions duration)

Heals: dragon blood needs a buff don´t disagree with you but it must not heal as much as BoL as it does not have the ability to completly miss the self healing because some buggy glowworm next to you has less HP than the templar^^

gap closer: ambush does not have a root it aplies a 1sec stun (since 1.5 i believe...) (the root is a fu.cked up attempt of ZOS applied to all gap closers to fix their inabilitiy to track enemy movement while charging)

spell dmg reduction: there are three reducing abilities you forgott thick skinned. the main problem with spelldmg is that those 3 (the two you mentioned and the one you forgot) do actually stack "fu.cking" up all dots and channeled abilities (as either hardy or elementaldefender and thick skinned are stacked in the dmg reduction) and on top of that as a 4th dimnishing resource spell shield wich is the equivilent of the armor foki...

Nifty2g

kaithuzar wrote: »

@Nifty2g , I agree with most of your post except:
"The issue is a lot of players want to be equal and feel like they have the right their chosen class should be able to do what other classes are designed for - which is clearly not what ZOS designed the game for. And I deep down hope they don't stray from that philosophy and make us equals. It would bring the battlefield to a very lack luster cookie cutter playground, more of a shell of it's former 1.5 self"

Firstly, ZOS told us they were designing the game that way & didn't.
Secondly, it's already a very "lack luster cookie cutter playground" full of wrecking blow & steel tornado spammers.

Well what I mean is exactly what Gina posted

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Fuzzybrick wrote: »

No, no, no. @ZOS_GinaBruno please ignore this post. Classes SHOULD NOT BE EQUAL. One class should always be better than another. One class should always do something another can't. If all classes are "balanced" as you say there will be no need for any of my alts. I want to roll different characters because they are DIFFERENT!

That said, our general philosophy in regards to classes is not to give everyone the same version of a spell with a different name. We want each class to feel unique and have their own special identity.

I agree heavily that is how it is now, it used to be different but there is not so much diversity going on, a lot of the classes have been nerfed and a lot of players were lucky enough to follow their class through with the buffs, so many Dragonknights got nerfed and at this point the average player probably plays 2-3 of the classes or has a fully leveled one so they don't deal with the nerfs.
I really do hope ZOS listens to the posts and feedback by the top players taking into consideration of things here and there of some stuff that sounds silly and too OP and biased.

But hey what can you do, when your class gets nerfed because ZOS don't know how to properly handle it (back then) and it gives such a backlash for their future changes.

Robbmrp

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Well, feedback is just that. It's feedback, and everyone is entitled to it. When we review feedback, it's coming from many different sources and players, and part of our job (the studio) is to determine what changes and adjustments to make based on many factors - including player feedback.

That said, our general philosophy in regards to classes is not to give everyone the same version of a spell with a different name. We want each class to feel unique and have their own special identity.

Perfect.

I'm with the OP on this, each class should have their own ability that competes with the other classes. For example, Self Heals, every class should have their own unique self heal, not just Templar's and DK's. The spell/effect shouldn't be exactly the same, but the underlying effect should be. A self heal, is after all, just that. NB's and Sorcs don't posses a class self heal.

We have huge variances in the classes being played right now. If you want raw magicka DPS you roll a Sorc, if you want physical damage you roll a DK or NB. No class should be flat out better than another. They should all be able to handle each role(Tank, Healer, DPS) in their own unique way with their own skills. And by this I don't mean we have Magicka tanking in light armor. Regardless of how many CP's you have, you should never be able to tank in light armor.

The main thing that should differentiate players from one another are the sets, champion points and the skills they selected to use. Not the major difference in damage one class can do over the other.

Tandor

kaithuzar wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

NVNiko wrote: »

Not exactly the same skill but every class deserves some sort of decent self heal, cc, or inta-cast damage ability.

Why? What's wrong with each class having its own role? Why does everyone want to have everything these days...

Because that's what we were promised when we bought the game.

What they said was that you could "play the way you like". That could be taken to mean:-

Want to be a healer? You can roll one.

Want to be a tank? You can roll one.

Want to be a DPSer? You can roll one.

They never said you could do it all on one character.

However, when you look at the back of the box what they actually said was "play the way you like - adventure alone or play with friends, the choice is yours". Not quite what people claim it means at all.

Glory

I appreciate this post for pointing out the disparities between classes. Many have pointed to a concern for diversity amongst classes, and I don't think that @NVNiko and his/her guild are pushing for homogenization. Rather, it appears that they simply want to point out the stark contrasts between different classes are.

Xsorus wrote: »

Classes shouldn't be uniform...That defeats the purpose of Classes..

However....One class shouldn't be vastly better then another.

This summarizes my thoughts. I think the feedback is very good, particularly in regards to imbalances.

RIP Heavy Armor, wasn't even mentioned. I would love to see what a large group of PvE/PvPers (mixed playstyle) think should be done to make heavy armor viable in PvP without making it too strong in PvE.

MaxwellC

@ZOS_GinaBruno

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Well, feedback is just that. It's feedback, and everyone is entitled to it. When we review feedback, it's coming from many different sources and players, and part of our job (the studio) is to determine what changes and adjustments to make based on many factors - including player feedback.

That said, our general philosophy in regards to classes is not to give everyone the same version of a spell with a different name. We want each class to feel unique and have their own special identity.

Yeah Feedback is Feedback but look at what it has done to the templar class and the DK class (Specifically the DK class) you rarely have any DK in PvP using their class skills (unless they're magicka) and you have severely nerf'd/changed skills e.g. FLAMES OF OBLIVION (Use to be a FANTASTIC ability till all the QQs came in). ZoS nerf'd almost all DK skills either changing the skill entirely,lowering damage,Increasing cost,removing buffs/reducing debuffs it gave/or completely breaking the skill and then call it "working as intended". By breaking skills look at DKs Chain and don't get me started on the reflective ability (There are a boat load of videos on youtube all about that already).

Templars have broken jab hit boxes and they can't hit all the time (I'm not a templar and have never played one but I've fought a few and I see it happen). You nerf'd a lot of templar skills to make them more of a healer class instead of allowing what you've stated "Play as you want" or something like that.

@Nifty2g

Nifty2g wrote: »

And lastly Dragonknight a prime example of not knowing how to balance a class and nerfing them into the ground, but at this time you can't buff what you already nerfed, so you need to go back to the drawing board and give it a class overhaul. Admit it, this is where you screwed up by listening to the community. - I have nothing else to say for Dragonknights I just outright dislike what has been done to this class without probable thinking about it for both PvE and PvP aspects.

My man right here gets it exactly.

Alucardo

I appreciate you taking the time to write this, but without even looking at your signature I'd feel like this was the biased writing of a magicka sorc.
Most of the things you wrote about Sorcerer were aimed at the Magicka version. If you were basing it on stam sorcs, we'd see a lot more "None" in your analysis, like defensive ability for instance. I don't know any stam sorcs who run Hardened Ward, and why would they?
Your direct damage statement, you only mention force pulse. What good is that to a stam sorc?
You list streak as a gap closer? No.. this thing has a mind of its own. You face forwards and sometimes you'll streak to the side. A gap closer should take you towards your target, not away from it.

Considering Dawnbreaker is a magic based ability, it's probably fair stamina users get the 8% weapon damage bonus. They generally only slot it on their bar for this effect, not to use the ability itself because it's kind of poor for us. Once again, biased.

Champion Point mitigation. A sorc with a high crit build will eat through my armour in a single burst, while soaking up my damage behind shields, heals and keeping me at bay with CCs (a good player anyway). You want to give them even more resistance? Make shields critable and then we'll talk.

If wings was going to get a buff, you want it to also reflect Wrecking blows? Are you serious? I main a DK and already think scales is still powerful. If you want to buff it, remove the 4 projectile limitation. Adding more reflect options like WB (lol) would be totally stupid.

Molten Armaments is actually a DKs "execute", not Igneous Weapons. Igneous has increased duration, where Molten does increased damage against low health targets.

Nifty2g

MaxwellCrystal wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno Yeah Feedback is Feedback but look at what it has done to the templar class and the DK class (Specifically the DK class) you rarely have any DK in PvP using their class skills (unless they're magicka) and you have severely nerf'd/changed skills e.g. FLAMES OF OBLIVION (Use to be a FANTASTIC ability till all the QQs came in). ZoS nerf'd almost all DK skills either changing the skill entirely,lowering damage,Increasing cost,removing buffs/reducing debuffs it gave/or completely breaking the skill and then call it "working as intended". By breaking skills look at DKs Chain and don't get me started on the reflective ability (There are a boat load of videos on youtube all about that already).

Templars have broken jab hit boxes and they can't hit all the time (I'm not a templar and have never played one but I've fought a few and I see it happen). You nerf'd a lot of templar skills to make them more of a healer class instead of allowing what you've stated "Play as you want" or something like that.

Hmm I think 1.6 was rise of the Templar DPS with their new found Sweep ability and utilizing their Burning Light passive, the thing which caused this to lack was this newest update with the damage reduction, healing reduction and shields. I hit so weak against shields with Sweeps the only way I can get rid of a shield is with Dark Flare but that sucks when I tried to cast it yesterday in a duel I just kept getting interrupted by crushing shock so that made it useless unless you have immovable potions.
I think Sweeps needs to heal more and the heal needs to be able to crit (with an ICD on the critical part), and also account for Sweeps being a cone attack, once I'm locked in place I can't exactly move around freely and Sweeps doesn't auto lock (and I don't want it to, too much cheese)

@ZOS_GinaBruno please pass that on and let them know of the issue with Sweeps and how it used to be

CP5

Nice write up, and good to see some more level headed ideas to bring classes more in line. I do have a quick thing to say about major resolve however as you bring it up specifically. NB's and templars can access those buffs, templars with their rune focus (adding the runes duration plus the lingering armor duration you get a noticeable duration on a rather cheap skill). And NB's can use any shadow ability to get the buff, including surprise attack which gives the major armor debuff (the passive's duration is low but rewards heavy armor use by increasing the duration per piece). They don't have "press skill and get buff" skills for those buffs, but they have easy access to them.

Dexter411

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

...not to give everyone the same version of a spell with a different name. We want each class to feel unique and have their own special identity.

Thank You!

I_killed_Vivec

Refuse2GrowUp wrote: »

Simply, don't expect all classes to be equally versatile and fully capable of doing all things. It is easy enough to level alts. So what if templars and DKs have a harder time clearing vMSA. Most view them more as utility classes. Leave them as such. Play them for their utility or put together specialized PvP builds. You are not required to play only on toon in this game and expecting a single class to be as capable at everything as every other class seems a bit silly and stubborn.

Sorry for the selective quote, but I want to empahsize philosophy rather than any specific proposal.

I agree that the classes shouldn't be the same, and if you want to talk in terms of tank, DPS, healer, then I'd agree that it might be useful to allocate class traits to roles.

However, I don't understand why a templar or DK should be just a "utility" class. Why shouldn't they be capable of clearing vMA as easily as a sorc or NB?

The philosophical argument is that while the classes shouldn't be able to do the same things, they should all be equally viable in the same situations, just in a different way.

So a face-to-face approach should be just as viable as ranged attacks or burst from stealth.

As long as you know what you're doing...

Khaos_Bane

Tandor wrote: »

NVNiko wrote: »

Not exactly the same skill but every class deserves some sort of decent self heal, cc, or inta-cast damage ability.

Why? What's wrong with each class having its own role? Why does everyone want to have everything these days...

Each class should be able to play every role, that's pretty unique with this MMO, and was intended to be that way. Each class should be unique with skills but should be equally effective at each role.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

I agree with some of it, but there's a lot that is flat out wrong, missing additional info about each ability that would affect balance (eg secondary effects, synergies with passives or other abilities, etc), glosses over important aspects of class design, or the actual in-game realities of certain abilities (situationalness of different morphs, PvE vs PvP, differing uses for different roles, etc).

I don't have time to go through every issue, so I'll just take the last one about utility/support/regen. On what grounds and in what way does SA need a nerf? Resource management is currently NB tanks' primary strength, and the class itself has no other way to actively manage resources. It is also wrong when you say that SA does not return magicka because it in fact does replenish magicka. Moreover, SA was nerfed in three ways in the IC update by removing the toggle (as well as damage penalty) in favor a short 15s timer, adding a magicka cost, and changing the resources returned to a flat value instead of a percent. Any more of a nerf and the ability would be not worth the slot, and would hamstring NB tanks.

Another issue is with the point below the table about Major Resolve buffs. Thanks to the Shadow Barrier passive, NBs can get Major Resolve by activating any ability from the Shadow line. This is much preferable to locking the buff to any single ability because it encourages build flexibility and provides more utility than any single ability would. If anything, this passive ability should have a bigger base timer because even with full heavy armor it is still on the short side.

NVNiko

Run Caltrops with SA and then tell me it's not OP:)

ThatNeonZebraAgain

NVNiko wrote: »

Run Caltrops with SA and then tell me it's not OP:)

That is exactly how I manage resources on my NB tank, and it works great most of the time. It is best against large groups of mobs, but not very effective during single, drawn out boss fights.

The thing with Caltrops is, is that it shouldn't be proccing SA. ZOS tried to fix this in the IC update by removing 'melee attack' status from Caltrops, but for some reason it still works with SA. ZOS also shot themselves in the foot by removing the damage penalty/toggle, because this opened the skill up for use by DPS builds rather than just tanks. If they removed Caltrops' ability to proc SA, or added back in a smaller damage penalty+returned it to a toggle (or a super long duration buff) it would help with abuse by high powered damage builds (if they did either of these, however, they would also need to go through and rework what NB class abilities proc SA, as they are currently all over the place). Nonetheless, my points still stand.

kaithuzar

@ThatNeonZebraAgain

Maybe it's just me but I don't see SA & caltrops making a NB tank 10 average players in pvp. 5 horrible players maybe, but it's not a "i'm going to run into this zerg & not die because I'm sapping" considering the heal on sap was nerfed.
Solo 1vx it's not bad & serves it's purpose but you also have to practice using it (I wouldn't consider it easy) & if you're a magicka user then you may not have the stam for it.

TheBull

you did a lot of work OP (more than I will do in this response), but I do not agree with most of it.

What problems are your suggestions supposed to solve specifically? What's your goal?

ThatNeonZebraAgain

kaithuzar wrote: »

@ThatNeonZebraAgain

Maybe it's just me but I don't see SA & caltrops making a NB tank 10 average players in pvp. 5 horrible players maybe, but it's not a "i'm going to run into this zerg & not die because I'm sapping" considering the heal on sap was nerfed.
Solo 1vx it's not bad & serves it's purpose but you also have to practice using it (I wouldn't consider it easy) & if you're a magicka user then you may not have the stam for it.

Are you referring to Siphoning Attacks or Sap Essence? Very different skills. I was talking about Siphoning Attacks in reference to PvE tanking, sorry I didn't specify. But yea, as a magicka build, Caltrops does eat up a lot of stamina.