PTS Patch Notes v3.2.4

MopeyHat

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Sorcerer

• Dark Magic
  • Crystal Shards: This ability and the Crystal Fragments morph no longer stun the enemy hit. The Crystal Blast morph continues to stun the initial enemy hit.
    Developer Comment:
    We wanted to separate the function of abilities into more distinct roles. Crystal Shards was overloaded since it had high damage, instant cast, stun, reduced cost. Now if the sorcerer wants a stun they have to either go through a cast time or deal reduced damage.

You had two weeks to read the response on this and still made the change...k

Blast is still going to be at near zero usage for more competitive players. Nobody will trade free cast for stun. Sorcs have always had way better instant stun options!

Bakkagami

I'm usually ok with a lot of the balance changes since I normally see some level of sense in them and I don't really mind my builds getting nerfed but this change to heavy is ridiculous. The passives were pretty balanced as is. Those weren't the problem with heavy having high damage/healing, the issue was the sets such as fury/legion/ravagers that gave double or triple the stats as the wrath passive.

This change just made my dk cap at 4.6k weapon damage instead of 4.9k, (essentially a pointless change) while just setting us up to get over-nerfed when ZOS finally decides to fix the actual problem and nerf the sets.

I'd even be ok with this if they buffed the healing received from mending to make it worth a passive slot own.

Mystrius_Archaion

Derra wrote: »

On topic of the frags nerf: Nobody is going to use crystal blast for the stun - quite frankly said: nobody is going to use crystal blast at all.

It's still a good change to force them to choose either stun or damage using 2 different skills rather than getting everything in one package so easily. Other classes never had their highest burst also be their stun.

And on the topic of Crystal Blast, I have some build ideas for it. I always liked the AoE splash of it.
I just wish the Blood Magic passive was stronger heal or fixed so that it triggers on every hit of a dark magic skill rather than somehow checking for lingering effects like the stun and then not triggering healing until after that expires.

Hey @ZOS_Wrobel or @ZOS_GinaBruno do you know about the Blood Magic bug?
It doesn't heal on a second hit from a dark magic skill until the secondary effects of the first skill dissipate, making Encase only allow healing at least once every 5 seconds rather than the cooldown of Blood Magic at 1 second and the same for the stun from Crystal Blast interfering with the heal from multiple casts. That bug is severely hampering the ability of the Dark Magic skill line, which is another reason almost everyone relies on Surge for healing exclusively and only uses 1-2 skills at all from that line and doesn't choose Crystal Blast over Fragments.

Zaldan

Wow, Devs still in denial about pvp server performance I see

Yolokin_Swagonborn

How many more nerfs until we are balanced? We've been nerfing iconic class skills that have been around since launch. The fact that we have to keep nerfing things proves that nerfs alone will never balance the game. The problem lies elsewhere.

Talrol

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Warden

• Green Balance
  • Secluded Grove: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs to 90 Ultimate, up from 75.

You keep nerfing our heals which currently is the only thing that a Warden is good at, but yet you will not address the low/no dps that mag wardens face. On my Templar healer using same gear as my warden I can hybrid heal/dps and pull twice the damage that my warden can. If I go full out DPS my warden can barely pull 20k dps on target dummy.

Please quit nerfing the only thing a warden is good at without providing something on the other end.

deadlychaos1991

KingJ wrote: »

Hutch679 wrote: »

scipionumatia wrote: »

wait.... so the wrath passive is being replaced with... NOTHING?

Thank god. The heavy armor tanky builds that deal a bunch of damage are super annoying. No one should be able to take 4 people on and gain a bunch of weapon and spell damage because they can take abuse.

Heavy builds still going to be able to stack high weapon damage because of sets like fury and seven legion.No average medium build can really stack as much weapon damage and sustain a heavy build can.I still have better healing,Higher weapon damage and take less damage while running heavy so why not run heavy.

I have no problem sustaining in medium armor and dealing high burst damage. Meta heavy now got hit twice. No more shuffle and no more wep and spell damage. Plus sword and board ulti got nerfed. It might not be individually a game breaking change but these things add up. You COULD wear fury and seventh legion, but you still would be less tanky overall and the wep damage wouldn't scale as well with wrath passive gone. Shuffle gone, spell wall nerfed, no it's not perfect but it's a damn good start.

Mystrius_Archaion

Masel92 wrote: »

Please don't leave wardens in the dust for another patch...

Asylum dual wield is weird. PvP wrecked a ton of PvE things again, no low cost ultimates for anyone but dds now...

Yep. Wrath was changed because of PVP, the same with Rune Prison and the ultimates.
It's all pvp, which is why they should do what other developers have done and found a way to level the playing field in pvp permanently. Those methods are making pve gear not work in pvp while pvp gear is all the same and making abilities work different for pvp.

They assume people can't learn that things work different in pvp or can't figure out how to use them, but they're so very wrong. People can and will learn. Also, it helps if the tooltip just automatically changes in a pvp area or they can add a button trigger to the inventory to "view pvp tooltip/view pve tooltip" flip a switch.
What happens when someone "assumes" again?

maboleth

SirAxen wrote: »

maboleth wrote: »

ZOS, your PVP community is in a bad shape. People dislike the lag, you force guys to zerg, have only 2 working campaigns, force people to use CP for Battlegrounds, force battles to be without any merit, like some kind of leaderboard.

Not to mention that your Twitch PVP community is dying. Sypher rarely does ESO now, Fengrush too, Blobs ditched the game entirely for good. Two guys you invited to HQ during Morrowind are now out. Are you happy?

While it's always a shame to see someone lose love for something, a few streamers leaving the game is inevitable. People are going to get burnt out of something eventually, regardless. In an MMORPG, people come and go by the day. It's a testament to ESO that most of those guys played as long as they did.

Those weren't 'just' any players but the biggest 3 of the 4 ESO twitch gamers! There's no substitute for those that left, as of now. ESO is more or less nonexistent on twitch. People so much more watch others play cards (ES:Legends) than ESO. ESL already has 2-5x amount of players and watchers. Skyrim too, outperforms ESO in twitch by a huge mile.

And one more thing - all three guys pointed finger at ESO for the same issues - lag, zergs, inability and doubt that ZOS will ever acknowledge let alone fix the issues, because money is not in the PVP but in the PVE content. Bear in mind that those players that leave pull others from the game too.

Stamicka

The sorcerer changes this patch are really bad, what made duel wield sorcs balanced is the fact that you could easily avoid a good burst combo by anticipating a frag and roll dodging or blocking it. Now since you are forcing sorcs to use an uncounterable cc they can easily do a lightning> curse>Rune cage> frag>DB which is an unavoidable 20-35k burst. This is more of a buff. At least with old frags you could reduce the burst to around 10-15k and also avoid a cc with a good dodge roll or block. Please stop this trend of uncounterable pvp mechanics.

Mystrius_Archaion

Rohaus wrote: »

It is already difficult for 1vX these days with the Zerg trains... ZOS just keeps nerfing to the point where the game will eventually just be Zerg to kill or GTFO.

You know what? That's what they always wanted; alliance versus alliance; army versus army.
Nobody was ever meant to solo or small group in pvp until dueling was added and then Battlegrounds.

Although, not supporting solo in pvp, or at least not keeping pve things like skyshards and cosmetic items out of pvp so people wouldn't need to go solo or in small groups to cyrodiil, wasn't good for the popularity and health of pvp. People have a hard enough time finding less-competitive groups for pve content, while pvp is much more cut-throat.

maboleth

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Rohaus wrote: »

It is already difficult for 1vX these days with the Zerg trains... ZOS just keeps nerfing to the point where the game will eventually just be Zerg to kill or GTFO.

You know what? That's what they always wanted; alliance versus alliance; army versus army.
Nobody was ever meant to solo or small group in pvp until dueling was added and then Battlegrounds.

Great so, then, why is the server melting down when "alliance versus alliance" fights occur? If that's how Cyrodiil is meant to be played.

And oh, while I do get what you are trying to say, the trouble is, the zergs are usually mindless and you get bored doing them or fighting them very fast and very quickly.
So small grouping in PVP should be also possible and encouraged, even by some small campaigns that are currently dead or abused by clans for easy wins.

leepalmer95

CSessions wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Warden

• Green Balance
  • Secluded Grove: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs to 90 Ultimate, up from 75.

You keep nerfing our heals which currently is the only thing that a Warden is good at, but yet you will not address the low/no dps that mag wardens face. On my Templar healer using same gear as my warden I can hybrid heal/dps and pull twice the damage that my warden can. If I go full out DPS my warden can barely pull 20k dps on target dummy.

Please quit nerfing the only thing a warden is good at without providing something on the other end.

You need warden ult heal for pve?

leepalmer95

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

On topic of the frags nerf: Nobody is going to use crystal blast for the stun - quite frankly said: nobody is going to use crystal blast at all.

It's still a good change to force them to choose either stun or damage using 2 different skills rather than getting everything in one package so easily. Other classes never had their highest burst also be their stun.

And on the topic of Crystal Blast, I have some build ideas for it. I always liked the AoE splash of it.
I just wish the Blood Magic passive was stronger heal or fixed so that it triggers on every hit of a dark magic skill rather than somehow checking for lingering effects like the stun and then not triggering healing until after that expires.

Hey @ZOS_Wrobel or @ZOS_GinaBruno do you know about the Blood Magic bug?
It doesn't heal on a second hit from a dark magic skill until the secondary effects of the first skill dissipate, making Encase only allow healing at least once every 5 seconds rather than the cooldown of Blood Magic at 1 second and the same for the stun from Crystal Blast interfering with the heal from multiple casts. That bug is severely hampering the ability of the Dark Magic skill line, which is another reason almost everyone relies on Surge for healing exclusively and only uses 1-2 skills at all from that line and doesn't choose Crystal Blast over Fragments.

Blast is and will always be useless.

Instant frag is easy enough to react too in the first place nevermind watching someone charge up one.

Also blast is quite expensive.

Eyesinthedrk

Fantastic move on the heavy armor passives. Cyrodiil may actually be fun again. At the very least that's making great strides in that direction.

I'd buy you all a steak dinner if I lived closer... and wasn't broke.

Mystrius_Archaion

jphipps85b14_ESO1 wrote: »

SidewalkChalk5 wrote: »

So, dozens of players over a month of PTS telling you Templar is broken and not a single fix. Ok then. Sadly, I can no longer sub to a game where class balance is not a dev priority.

The fix is so simple for them too, our execute and spammable. I agree with you that they have given ZERO attention to my main! The nail in the coffin was the 21% nerf to beam, which was an attempt at PVP balance!!! And now here we continue to be at the bottom of the list.

The execute is ridiculously low DPS now, especially for a channeled skill. Obviously from the tooltip, they intended it to be used as the spammable below 50% health, but the thing only does more than Dark Flare AND Puncturing Sweep when the enemy is below 25% health at the highest.
What the hell is the point of Radiant Destruction anymore? It doesn't even do what it is supposed to do.

MyKillv2.0

CSessions wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Warden

• Green Balance
  • Secluded Grove: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs to 90 Ultimate, up from 75.

You keep nerfing our heals which currently is the only thing that a Warden is good at, but yet you will not address the low/no dps that mag wardens face. On my Templar healer using same gear as my warden I can hybrid heal/dps and pull twice the damage that my warden can. If I go full out DPS my warden can barely pull 20k dps on target dummy.

Please quit nerfing the only thing a warden is good at without providing something on the other end.

I will say this again, when the Warden came out the PVE community asked for an upgrade to their DPS potential. Meanwhile the PVP community asked for nerfs to their healing ability. What has happened? TWO NERFS! Albeit it, the nerfs are small in nature and nothing earth shattering. However the fact that Zo$ has double downed on their efforts to please the PVP community by giving the Wardens TWO healing nerfs but not given even a small tweak to the DPS performance of this class shows the world where their priority truely resides.

If the developers of this game want this game to become Dark Ages of Camelot 2, just rename it as such. I am looking at you @ZOS_Wrobel

leepalmer95

MyKillv2.0 wrote: »

CSessions wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Warden

• Green Balance
  • Secluded Grove: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs to 90 Ultimate, up from 75.

You keep nerfing our heals which currently is the only thing that a Warden is good at, but yet you will not address the low/no dps that mag wardens face. On my Templar healer using same gear as my warden I can hybrid heal/dps and pull twice the damage that my warden can. If I go full out DPS my warden can barely pull 20k dps on target dummy.

Please quit nerfing the only thing a warden is good at without providing something on the other end.

I will say this again, when the Warden came out the PVE community asked for an upgrade to their DPS potential. Meanwhile the PVP community asked for nerfs to their healing ability. What has happened? TWO NERFS! Albeit it, the nerfs are small in nature and nothing earth shattering. However the fact that Zo$ has double downed on their efforts to please the PVP community by giving the Wardens TWO healing nerfs but not given even a small tweak to the DPS performance of this class shows the world where their priority truely resides.

If the developers of this game want this game to become Dark Ages of Camelot 2, just rename it as such. I am looking at you @ZOS_Wrobel

Priority?

They literally care nothing about pvp.

Toc de Malsvi

Derra wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

On topic of the frags nerf: Nobody is going to use crystal blast for the stun - quite frankly said: nobody is going to use crystal blast at all.

Theodard wrote: »

Nope not at all. I've never even used that morph on any of my Sorcs ever.

Agree with both of you. I think this applies to all cast time abilities. They can nerf alternatives all they want, nobody will use a slow ability unless they turn it into an instant ability. It's the same reason everyone hates the heavy attack meta, it is slow and boring. Instant abilities are fast-paced and exciting, responsive and satisfying.

As for the stun removal from frags, I will miss it in VMA, but it won't be bad for any group PVE content. Will probably keep my tanks happier with me (they don't like stuns before chains).

100% this. They could delete frags and i wouldn´t slot blast. I would slot a different ability altogether.

Casttime offensive skills that are interruptable do not work period.

Perhaps you grasp the plight of the bow then?

SlowMetabolism

Everyone complaining about not being able to have a stackable damage buff in armor that you are supposed to be a tank with. Change is way past due in my opinion.

Mystrius_Archaion

HEBREWHAMMERRR wrote: »

Heavy armor looks like it’s finally where it should be, for tanking.

No, it's still going to be used for damage because even tanks need stats that help damage because they also help their skills they rely on for defenses. For example, most class damage shields are based on max magicka unless you want a templar tank with sun shield or only use bone shield. They also need stamina to block and bash and dodge and stamina helps damage.

So, the real reason heavy armor can compete in dps is because of the necessity of damage dealing stats that are also provided by sets that are specifically only heavy armor and made for damage role primarily.

Larsay

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

manny254 wrote: »

It is worth looking at the bigger picture. All of the major pvp defensive ults where nerfed. As an overall change this is good for the health of the game.

Wardens are underperforming in every aspect of PVE (the majority of the game). Templars heal better, every magicka class does more DPS, and DKs tank better. The only role they do well is stamina DPS. How is nerfing the worst class good for the health of the game?

BTW, I have no complaints about the cost increase in the resto or shield ultimate. It's just the crippling of the warden's only useful and unique ultimate in a way that is opposite what Wrobel stated the plan was 2 weeks ago (keeping the low cost, but reducing heal magnitude, as was accomplished in 3.2.2).

I will also point out with that super fancy "Cyodiil buff/debuff" we all get when we go into PvP, "Battle Spirit" has been utilized to essentially alter the PvP world and PvE world of the game. Balancing acts like this (Battle Spirit) is good for the game... Nerfing skills purely for PvP is not Healthy.

It would have been just as easy to leave Secluded Grove alone for PvE and flag Battle Spirit to nerf its healing by an additional 75% or even raise its ultimate cost.

With this level of nerf I really hop ZoS looks at increasing the duration of Sleet Storm to something more in line with Veil so that Warden can have a reliable usable defensive Ultimate.

Mystrius_Archaion

rk110132 wrote: »

Zer0oo wrote: »

Are there still balance changes coming? (stam >> mag dps, heavy attack pve combat, terrible mag warden dps, ...)

Stam should always be greater than mag dps because stam has no shields and they are mostly melee so I agree heavy attack builds are op and should be replaced with light attack ones. Mag dps should only be buffed if they are melee

If they wanted magicka dps to be in melee they should have kept the Wrath passive in heavy armor. That actually supported the melee "in range of instakill AoEs" style of play.

I'm guessing they never intended magicka to be able to be in melee range considering the magicka weapons are all ranged, but that was completely screwed up by them with every mechanic that allows npcs and players to get close and locking most skills to magicka scaling and cost only and only staves restoring magicka from heavy attacks.
So, welcome to magicka melee simply because kiting is mostly futile(unless you're a stamina roll-dodger, which wouldn't be magicka).

Toc de Malsvi

GeorgeBlack wrote: »

Who can spot which one of all these changes was suggested by player feedback?
I'm having a really hard time finding one that zos used due to player discussion

Stun on scatter shot, was player feedback. Could really use a lot more but ill take the stun over disorient and be pleasantly surprised that they addressed bows at all.

RandomName123

MyKillv2.0 wrote: »

CSessions wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Warden

• Green Balance
  • Secluded Grove: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs to 90 Ultimate, up from 75.

You keep nerfing our heals which currently is the only thing that a Warden is good at, but yet you will not address the low/no dps that mag wardens face. On my Templar healer using same gear as my warden I can hybrid heal/dps and pull twice the damage that my warden can. If I go full out DPS my warden can barely pull 20k dps on target dummy.

Please quit nerfing the only thing a warden is good at without providing something on the other end.

I will say this again, when the Warden came out the PVE community asked for an upgrade to their DPS potential. Meanwhile the PVP community asked for nerfs to their healing ability. What has happened? TWO NERFS! Albeit it, the nerfs are small in nature and nothing earth shattering. However the fact that Zo$ has double downed on their efforts to please the PVP community by giving the Wardens TWO healing nerfs but not given even a small tweak to the DPS performance of this class shows the world where their priority truely resides.

If the developers of this game want this game to become Dark Ages of Camelot 2, just rename it as such. I am looking at you @ZOS_Wrobel

I would love for this to be DAoC2. We'd have way more than 5 classes, actual unique class and faction skills, realm pride and alliance locks, a dev team capable and interested in PvP development, and even legit player housing with personal vendors. You make me miss the better days of RvR...

deadlychaos1991

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

HEBREWHAMMERRR wrote: »

Heavy armor looks like it’s finally where it should be, for tanking.

No, it's still going to be used for damage because even tanks need stats that help damage because they also help their skills they rely on for defenses. For example, most class damage shields are based on max magicka unless you want a templar tank with sun shield or only use bone shield. They also need stamina to block and bash and dodge and stamina helps damage.

So, the real reason heavy armor can compete in dps is because of the necessity of damage dealing stats that are also provided by sets that are specifically only heavy armor and made for damage role primarily.

That's not the problem here. The glaring issue is that heavy armor can deal near close to as much damage as medium armor with sets like ravager and fury and we're WAY more survivable, sustain is easy as cake on heavy armor with the heavy attack restore passive. With the gradual nerfs they're doing (no shuffle for HA, snare removal at the cost of burst heal for HA, and now less passive damage from wrath) they're gearing the game up for less of a massive heavy armor meta and trying to reach some semblance of balance. Is it perfect, nope. Not at all. Fury, seventh legion and ravager need huge nerfs and a few survivability buffs could come to medium armor but it's a GREAT start.

What makes me laugh is these are gradual changes. What happened a few patches ago when they made sweeping drastic changes? Everyone [snip] about it. They make gradual changes now? Everyone *** about it still. People just love to complain and whine.

Sincerely,
-a former heavy armor dk pvper

Larsay

Jake1576 wrote: »

Alcast wrote: »

If wrobel thinks that removing the 200 weap/spelldmg will make medium or light armor more attractive, then he will be in for a surprise

At least he tried....

Lmao at least he tried dude has no clue what he's doing lol

An attempt and a fail, is still a fail.

Mystrius_Archaion

feyii wrote: »

So, do the changes to dungeon finder also mean, if we queue as a premade group, who is fine with everyone's level, even if some are lower than the new minimum, we can't use the dungeon finder to do e.g. a random dungeon?

I can agree that something like this makes sense if the group actually gets put together by the dungeon finder, but it shouldn't apply for an already formed group that wants to queue.

Why would you want to queue when you can go to the door of the instance easily since One Tamriel? I'm guessing you want the daily random dungeon reward maybe.
Sadly, you can't do that.
The main reason why you can't is that if anybody drops your group will be filled with somebody from the queue who likely won't want to be with lower levels.

leepalmer95

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

GeorgeBlack wrote: »

Who can spot which one of all these changes was suggested by player feedback?
I'm having a really hard time finding one that zos used due to player discussion

Stun on scatter shot, was player feedback. Could really use a lot more but ill take the stun over disorient and be pleasantly surprised that they addressed bows at all.

1.5s stun is worse than the disorient.

SodanTok

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

GeorgeBlack wrote: »

Who can spot which one of all these changes was suggested by player feedback?
I'm having a really hard time finding one that zos used due to player discussion

Stun on scatter shot, was player feedback. Could really use a lot more but ill take the stun over disorient and be pleasantly surprised that they addressed bows at all.

1.5s stun is worse than the disorient.

Wrong. 1.5s stun is better than 0.1s of disorient.