PTS Feedback Thread for Dragonknight Balance Improvements

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for the Dragonknight for Update 13. Please let us know how you feel about the changes we made to this class, if you ran into any bugs, and any other feedback you'd like to give.

Zakor

Well let's start with: Is this everything you gonna do? We gave you tons of feedback the last few patches and this is it? Please tell me you have more coming in the next few weeks...

Just to mention a few things that were asked for:

1. Purgeresist/Purgedamage on DK dots
2. ash cloud rework to regain dodge chance
3. Obsidian shard rework
4. improved sustain/battle roar rework
5. chain fix
6. ....

At this point I'm actually really disappointed (again) by this "class balance"

Glarin

I think the change to Coagulating Blood is terrible. In order to get an effective heal you have to be out of magicka and health. If you really want to fix this for PvP, keep it at 33% missing health and make it so heals that are based off of a percent are not effected by the 50% heal reduction in Cyrodiil.

Ghost-Shot

I think we need to talk about what improvements means...

skwherl

Give db a value heal like bol or hot like vigor. Its been said so many times before.

Veg

Okay, there were two (2) things mdk's needed fixed for pvp to be playable. Not a great class, but at least playable.

1.Dragon leap. What should be our only possible kill mechanic.

2.Dragon blood. Battle spirit hits this too hard since our healing done buffs only buff its percentage healed.

These are probably the 2 most requested abilities to be buffed on the forums. The current changes DO NOT BUFF THESE ABILITIES AT ALL.

DRAGON BLOOD could heal for 8-9k health if used properly with decent gear/buffs. Now it can not. For example, my dragon blood heals for 50% of my missing health. I have 35k health so if im missing 30k health my dragon blood will heal for 15k in pve. Now for pvp, battle spirit will cut that in half so now its only 7500. Then my healing received buffs can boost it a little more. This was good. Difficult to use but if im droping 4k health every second I can atleast survive a few seconds to get to safety.

Now I need to be missing 30k health and 30k magic. Since dragon blood costs 4k magic, i can now only use it 1 time for the same heal. Simply give dragon blood a small purify and slightly adjust the battle spirit nerf on it. Just making battle spirit hit 1 ability differently from all the others isn't difficult to do

DRAGON LEAP doing fire damage is good but it still does less damage than dawnbreaker even on a magic dk. This ultimate is only supposed to do damage. remove the shield and replace it with a damage over time effect similar to dawnbreaker.

Malthorne

skwherl wrote: »

Give db a value heal like bol or hot like vigor. Its been said so many times before.

^ This ^

Vyle_Byte

Whats the point? We gave you tons of threads, tons of suggestions and you gave us this crap. Well over a year we have discussed and pleaded. Why would any feedback we give you now matter?

It wont.

Xsorus

Scale db off magicka, add a hot... really simple.

Lord_Eomer

Only like DK changes

Vynn

Unf**k yourselves Zos. Then pull out from us. Lube up, try again.

You should not need a 4th thread to tell you how you screwed DKs up royally.

Want an official statement? Learn the definitions of "balance", "improvement" and "great changes". It is as if ESO has the Trump of ability development teams.

Areloth

Just tested dragon blood on pts...I manage to get 19.2k heals on light armor. The heal bonuses and the cp make the heal pretty good. Test it before judging

Brrrofski

Areloth wrote: »

Just tested dragon blood on pts...I manage to get 19.2k heals on light armor. The heal bonuses and the cp make the heal pretty good. Test it before judging

But at how much magica?

That's halfed in PvP. So on empty magica you might get a 9k heal? You're just prolonging death. What's the point?

OrphanHelgen

Stam DK feedback:

Fact: Stamina are already weaker part in raids due to their lack of AOE, burst dmg and being melee, which is a problem in many part of every trial.

The only thing they had to save them, was the single target dps.

Fact:
Maelstrom flurry enchant nerfed - Not the end of the world, still many useful skills out there.
Proc sets nerfed (Myself used poisoned serpent and got poor AOE but like I said, single target saved me)
Minor and major force nerfed - the general group dps are getting lower and lower
Rearming trap dmg nerfed - was one of the more importent parts of stamina users dps
standard of might nerfed - you have already nerfed our base dps to the ground, why is this nerf a necessary one?

Nerf one thing and it will affect pve. I didnt care about the proc set nerf on the sneak peak, because I was sure you did something to balance it for pve, for example kena buff from 500 to 800 on proc, the useless sets being reworked, rng being fixed etc. This isnt even a secret, you cant even hide it, that the only reason nothing happend in pve end game is due to the lack of money income it gives you. Dont tell me its lack of time, I dont believe you spent more then half a day figuring out to give molten whip 5% more dmg, and reducing standard passive from 20 - 15%. Its a very poor rework. Im sure it will work for mag DK with the fire staff passive rework and fire rune in mages guild, and burning spellweave already best in slot. But for stamina, who already have a hard time getting a spot in raids, are completely RIP.


To sum up:
-Proc monster set, whatever you want to use, are now 2k dps loss
-Poisoned serpent which I personally used, and was a purely single target dps - 2k dps loss
-Major and minor force nerf
-Rearming trap dmg nerfed - the damage of this is already automaticly lower since the crit dmg are not as high as before. No need to adjust this.
-Standard of might nerf - Not so much loss, but really not necessary at all !!

I think my single target went down 5-6k this patch. #progressionfeeling

Armitas

Ardent flame.

• Fiery Grip. - While I appreciate the major expedition increase, run speed and gap closers are very different. The main problem with the skill is that it doesn't gap close due to being jammed up on the Z axis (which causes it to jam for a while) or auto dodged or dodge rolled. In either case no gap closing occurs but you lose magicka for casting it.
  
• Flames of Oblivion - We were really hoping this skill would be cool like it used to be. Our inferno was replaced with a mage light clone and given to sorcs in the form of hurricane. The skill functions adequately as dps but there is nothing exciting about this top tier skill.
  
• Cauterize - In the past this skill could not heal the DK, it also didn't heal smartly. I have tested this on the PTS and it still will not heal the caster, it also needs to do so smart healing if it doesn't already.
  
• Lava Whip - I'm happy with the 5% increase in damage.
  
• Standard - I don't know how much dps we lost on this nerf but I am aware that the loss is mitigated by the constant 5% damage on whip and single target damage from a destro staff. I'm not sure why we lost the mitigation on it. I personally prefer the 5% detachment to whip for PvP sake. Will have to see what the trial DK's find on it to know for sure.
  
• Combustion Passive - I feel like most of the ardent flame passives are fillers, more damage or more duration but this one really stands out. This does poor damage on it's own, it's slow to proc, and there are so many ways to mitigate it. You can reduce it with armor, Elemental defender, and thick skinned. Why not make this passive into something more exciting. Why not make it increase dot damage while it's ticking or proc minor defile whenever it crits, or even make it return burning damage as magicka or magicka steal?

Draconic Power

• Coagulating Dragons Blood - (I still need to test this, but speaking from the notes) A lot has been written and will be written about this so I will be short and defer to those that have focused on it. When this skill was based off of health it still wasn't strong enough because of Battle spirit, 50% executes, incredible burst, and constant defiles. Switching this to magicka is going to result in a larger heal than the health equivalent but it won't save you from getting ganked at full magicka. This means you will have to carry two nuke heals to cover the deficiency of cDB.
  
• Ferocious leap - Now does flame damage. This is great, thank you. I am very excited about this.
  
• Volatile Armor - really cool, i'm glad to see this getting buffed and I am excited to see how it plays with Thaumaturge.
  
• Reflective Scale - Force Shock becoming a beam has finally wrecked this skill. There is very little that this skill now effectively reflects. It doesn't reflect poison injection because that is 100% animation canceled and invisible so you can't cast reflect reactively. It doesn't reflect lightning channels which nearly every sorc now uses. It only ever reflected 2 people at a time because of the way range is weaved for 2 hits. It doesn't reflect meteor. It rarely reflects crystal shards because most experienced players don't hard cast it but hold the shard proc for a surprise burst combo. It really has little purpose at this point.
  
  There was a nice balance between sorcs with them hiding in their mine fort and channeling lit staffs and curses while holding back their burst. Now there is nearly nothing to protect the DK as he gets hit by lit channels, curses, force shocks, infernal guardian mortars, all while trying to navigate through a now cheaper encase spam which sticks to you even after you roll out of it, as well as an impassible mine fort that the sorc circles around to close any blown breaches. You can't dragon leap or chain over it without risking blowing up every mine at once. It is a bad situation that was formerly balanced. Something needs to be done to make up for the imbalance that this has created.
  
• Elder Dragon - A lot of us are vampires by a near necessity and will never see much value to a % health recovery, let alone 5% per slotted. Compare that to refreshing shadows which gives 15% health, magicka and stamina recovery with no prerequisites. A lot of our passives are just really sad and lack luster.

Earthen Heart.

• Obsidian Shard - This is a very powerful heal, however I found it very unreliable given all the dodging in PvP. I have seen it dodged 3x in a row giving no heal. It would be nice to see the heal not be contingent with it landing.
  
• Fragmented Shield - This isn't a poor mans Blazing shield. It's a poor shield, and it's a poor damager. If I wanted a shield I would cast Annulment, if I wanted more damage I'd slot a real damage ability. This isn't a two for one skill, it's a disappointing shield and disappointing damage. This used to be best in slot for the way it worked on release but since it was obliterated by the nerf I have not seen it on a single dragon knight build. This skill either needs caster damage, some of the old group damage, or provide some form of debuff or buff that originates on each person whose shield is blown.
  
• Igneous Shield - In PvP this is basically major mending with a minor shield attached. It's not slotted for the purpose of shielding, it's slotted for the value it provides for healing. This is an amazing skill for PvE tanking but battle spirit has completely destroyed it as a personal shield and as a group shield. Before this was destroyed I would use it to pad my groups incoming damage but it has become too low on any viable build to have any value as a shield. At 25-27k health it needs to be at least a 3k shield on a group member in PvP and at least 5k on the caster. Most importantly is the shield it provides for the group as we can use annulment if we want a personal performance shield.

I could say much more but anything else has been said for over a year and half now. I may add points as they come to me.

Malthorne

Areloth wrote: »

Just tested dragon blood on pts...I manage to get 19.2k heals on light armor. The heal bonuses and the cp make the heal pretty good. Test it before judging

In Cyrodiil? If so, did you pull that off in combat? How much magicka were you missing to achieve that heal?

Veg

Blackfyre20

Would actually much rather have the old coagulating blood back with the ability to crit than this new gimicky garbage. At least I know it is going to be at its best when I need it most even if it can't/barely can get me out of execute range.

Vynn

Do not base a heal off missing magicka, it is counter intuitive. Forces you to have bad resource management to heal effectively. What are you supposed to do after that heal with no magicka left? Pop an ult or potion every time you want to heal yourself? This is the most poorly thought out ability I've ever heard of.

themdogesbite

Areloth wrote: »

Just tested dragon blood on pts...I manage to get 19.2k heals on light armor. The heal bonuses and the cp make the heal pretty good. Test it before judging

Even if it healed for 30k its garbage due to beeing unreliable.

Armitas

Areloth wrote: »

Just tested dragon blood on pts...I manage to get 19.2k heals on light armor. The heal bonuses and the cp make the heal pretty good. Test it before judging

How much does it heal for when you get ganked at full magicka?

Vynn

Simply adding additional major expedition time to chains may be "helpful", but it is a bandaid on a pair of broken legs. It is also useless when the ability fails due to elevation or dodge rolls.

Forcing a melee dmg class to use an ability like chains that fails consistently to go off, and therefore have no dependable method to gap close, is ludicrous. Give us an option that doesnt fail at elevation, isnt reflectable, and cannot be instantly dodged as our only magicka option. It is silly.....

Armitas

At the very least I would like to see Coagulating dragons blood calculate from health and magicka separately and give the heal from which ever is larger. This would fix the problem of it being useless when ganked at 100% magicka.

Adenoma

Like others have said, I don't care that I can get a big heal when it means that I'm out of magicka. So now I can only use my ult as a reactive "oh crap" follow up to me being out of resources? I guess I can't time meteors now and have to drop them just for resources.

Bashev

1) I didnt test chains but I saw no changes in the patch notes. The skill should gap close even if it is dodged or reflected.
2) Cauterize should be able to heal the caster
3) Coagulating dragons blood - when 50% of my health is missing when i cast the skill, it should heal for 0.5*(max magicka)*0.33. This way it will scale of magicka but it will be useful when I am on low health and full magicka. With the example if I have 40k magicka and if I have 50% of my health it should heal me for 40000*0.5*0.33 = 6600 health.

Xsorus

I just tested Dragons Blood, in PVE mind you without the Battle Spirit Debuff

at 20% of my health, it healed for around 1200...when I was at full magicka

It is an absolutely worthless heal.

Moglijuana

Xsorus wrote: »

I just tested Dragons Blood, in PVE mind you without the Battle Spirit Debuff

at 20% of my health, it healed for around 1200...when I was at full magicka

It is an absolutely worthless heal.

Ouch...my soul hurts ='(

Vynn

Xsorus wrote: »

I just tested Dragons Blood, in PVE mind you without the Battle Spirit Debuff

at 20% of my health, it healed for around 1200...when I was at full magicka

It is an absolutely worthless heal.

Do you love that this thread has the term "Dragonknight Balance Improvements" in the title as much as i do? It's like being sh*t on then having the person tell you it's chocolate.

Armitas

Xsorus wrote: »

I just tested Dragons Blood, in PVE mind you without the Battle Spirit Debuff

at 20% of my health, it healed for around 1200...when I was at full magicka

It is an absolutely worthless heal.

Doesn't the dragon blood on live heal for 1 health at 100% health? I wonder if there is a hidden base value to the new skill. But anyway, RIP DK after that gank.

Zakor

And that being said we actually lost more than we gained this patch. It's a shame to cripple this once mighty class even more.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @Wrobel
Is there more "balancing" ahead? Please enlighten us with a few reasons behind those changes!

Star_Carrier

Extremely disappointed in the change to Dragons Blood. It's far to unreliable to use in pvp with this change. Not matter what heal you could "potentially" get from it, if I'm at full magicka and need health I'm dead.