Fix mDK dps in PvE discussion

the_Beard

Starting a new discussion since its been a while since I've seen much chatter on the topic lately, and the few threads I've seen don't seem to gain much traction. Since Zos is in the process of going through combat changes possibly for the next major patch, this may be an appropriate time to discuss what is working, what isn't, and ideas on how to make this class great again for PvE without buffing them too much for the sake of PvP.

I'm really worried about mDK, because they are completely non-existent in PvE trials (at least in any competitive raid group) due to the fact that they are extremely difficult to sustain resources on, even with plenty of off-balance for flame lash, and no one wants them taking up a melee spot because stam on average can do at least 10k dps more. This is a bizarre swing in the opposite direction, because during homestead, mDK was on top for PvE dps behind magSorc (while stam was nowhere to be found due to survivability issues). Now stam has great survivability, and is doing the most dps by a long shot. MagSorc (and MagBlade) they still have a place in end-game content because every trial requires at least a small handful of ranged builds to balance positioning and provide and off-balance. Hence why mDK, and Magplar respectively, have fallen off the face of the earth in trials. Take a look at the static leaderboards for any trial, mDK is literally dead.

MagDK dps in PvE really isn't all that bad. I've used mine only a handful of times when my group is doing a weekly leaderboard run with alts, and I've been able to do roughly 50k dps on Rakkhat, Valarial, and some other very static fights. 50k is really not all that high for a single-target based fight with few ads, but in terms of magicka dps, its really not all that week either. They don't seem too far off the mark compared to magsorc, though magblades do seem to do a little more dps. Fixing impale and the changes to Merciless / Spectral Bow really helped a lot there. However, when considering a melee spot, literally NO ONE wants to give up a melee spot to a mDK when StamDK, StamSorc, Stamplar, etc can all do much higher dps. This is where the biggest problem lies. There was once an argument that mDK steals off-balance far too often with flame lash, but as many have pointed out, heavy attacks, on any build whether magic or stam, also consumes off-balance, perhaps nullifying that argument. The other issue is that in order to sustain without completely running out of magicka, WE HAVE to run flame lash over molten whip. Our skills are FAR too expensive to be able to sustain otherwise, even with group support.

Maybe the answer isn't to up the dps of mDK, maybe there is an argument to give them more group support so that there is a need/desire to have them in trial groups again. We still can provide 10% flame damage to everyone in the group, but that obviously just isn't enough. I myself have been using stamdk/stamsorc in trials for the past 3 patches, with the exception of vAS where most stam players have been running magsorc/magblade because of the movement/mechanics favoring ranged. I would for one, rather see mDK do high dps again, maybe not as much as stam, but still higher than they do now, to justify being in melee range.

The problem with buffing mDK that the few people left that play mDK in Cyrodiil usually do fairly well with them, and most people agree that they don't need a buff there. They do still lack in the group utility department, as most larger PvP groups don't have a use for them, but on small-scale/solo most would agree that they are in a pretty good spot. Dragon leap really helped with that, and gave us a means to finish other players off, which was previously lacking.

Zos has a really difficult task ahead of them to fix this class. They need to find a way to substantially up the dps in PvE whilst lowering skill cost in order to make it even remotely competitive with stam builds as well as ranged builds, while being careful not to buff it in PvP. The same holds true for MagPlar as well for the standard puncturing sweeps build, they need help as well, but there is room for another discussion for that.

VaranisArano

I think this needs a slight correction.

Fix mDK *DPS* in PVE

Magicka Dragonknights are doing just fine as tanks in PVE.

the_Beard

Forgot to clarify that in the title. Fixed

Nelson_Rebel

I tried before I just gave up. I've been mag dk since console launch but the last 5 patches of nerfs on top of Morrowind nerfs just made me
depressed with it and I rolled mag sorc.


Really no reason not to. 100% Improved performance damage and survivability

Sigtric

mDK really does need help in PVE. The only reason I continue mine on is I am too stubborn to let go of my favorite character in favor of something better.

I'll switch as necessary for the sake of the group when needed, but I hate that I have to feel like my mDK is detrimental to the raid group.

jakeedmundson

How bad is it compared to other mag builds? I can hit 30k on my mDK.
Thats enough for literally every piece of content in this game.
And mag dk is still more survivable than most stam builds (except maybe stam sorc)

Nelson_Rebel

jakeedmundson wrote: »

How bad is it compared to other mag builds? I can hit 30k on my mDK.
Thats enough for literally every piece of content in this game.
And mag dk is still more survivable than most stam builds (except maybe stam sorc)

It's bad because we are melee range magic. So we don't actually pull the same numbers on a dps dummy as the other mag classes. And on single parsed for mag classes we have the 2nd lowest of all besides mag warden.

Mazbt

Obviously a mag dk can complete everything but in a competitive raid context they aren't in a good spot. Let's see if they change anything at all next update.

beetleklee

Sigtric wrote: »

mDK really does need help in PVE. The only reason I continue mine on is I am too stubborn to let go of my favorite character in favor of something better.

I'll switch as necessary for the sake of the group when needed, but I hate that I have to feel like my mDK is detrimental to the raid group.

Same reason why I won't let go of mine. I do get frustrated with the bad sustain though. Been asking for buffs for a few months but each patch mDK gets ignored.

the_Beard

@ZOS_Wrobel

Please consider giving mDK some sort of buff for PvE dps. Is it possible to give a sizable buff to eruption, engulfing flames, and/or flames of oblivion, that way mDK in PvP wouldn't become OP? Or can we at least have the costs reduced? Eruption currently costs over 4000 magicka to cast. I realize its an 18 second skill, but that is by far one of the most expensive dps skills in the game, especially for how little damage it does in our overall rotation. Maybe engulfing flames could also be reduced to be more in line with burning embers, which is almost half the cost. The nerf to battle roar hurt us a lot more than many of us thought it originally would. Perhaps its time to revisit that passive as well, that way maybe some of these skills costs could stay as they currently are, and we would be able to sustain. I'm really hoping that the changes proposed in the November Combat Update thread end up helping mDK in the long run. This class needs to be saved from extinction in trials.

Nelson_Rebel

the_Beard wrote: »

@ZOS_Wrobel

Please consider giving mDK some sort of buff for PvE dps. Is it possible to give a sizable buff to eruption, engulfing flames, and/or flames of oblivion, that way mDK in PvP wouldn't become OP? Or can we at least have the costs reduced? Eruption currently costs over 4000 magicka to cast. I realize its an 18 second skill, but that is by far one of the most expensive dps skills in the game. Maybe engulfing flames could also be reduced to be more in line with burning embers, which is almost half the cost. I'm really hoping that the changes proposed in the November Combat Update thread end up helping mDK in the long run. This class needs to be saved from extinction in trials.

While I wholeheartedly agree, I'm fairly certain wrobel explicitly stated he wanted DK's to only actually excel at tanking while being a "fun" class to play but he won't allow them to be as good as the other classes

the_Beard

I remember seeing that as well, and while I understand that not every class can perform as well as all others in dps, the current situation in trials is that magicka dps either run magicka sorc or magicka nightblade. I can't imagine that the intent is to have such a short list of dps roles to be competitive in raid groups.

Nelson_Rebel

the_Beard wrote: »

I remember seeing that as well, and while I understand that not every class can perform as well as all others in dps, the current situation in trials is that magicka dps either run magicka sorc or magicka nightblade. I can't imagine that the intent is to have such a short list of dps roles to be competitive in raid groups.

I think the warden was supposed to fill in that role


But in any case. If they were to change DK they would have to rework it's damage passives and some of the skills in the ardent flame line to be more useful in a pve setting. Flames of oblivion is a pathetic substitute of Magelight. No one in their right mind uses it over maglight in any pve main bar scenario.

And all dk skills cost a fortune to cast lol with the worst sustain in the game

Danksta

jakeedmundson wrote: »

How bad is it compared to other mag builds? I can hit 30k on my mDK.
Thats enough for literally every piece of content in this game.
And mag dk is still more survivable than most stam builds (except maybe stam sorc)

The reason they're frowned upon in raid groups is that they are taking a melee spot that could be used for stam.

Insanepirate01

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

the_Beard wrote: »

@ZOS_Wrobel

Please consider giving mDK some sort of buff for PvE dps. Is it possible to give a sizable buff to eruption, engulfing flames, and/or flames of oblivion, that way mDK in PvP wouldn't become OP? Or can we at least have the costs reduced? Eruption currently costs over 4000 magicka to cast. I realize its an 18 second skill, but that is by far one of the most expensive dps skills in the game. Maybe engulfing flames could also be reduced to be more in line with burning embers, which is almost half the cost. I'm really hoping that the changes proposed in the November Combat Update thread end up helping mDK in the long run. This class needs to be saved from extinction in trials.

While I wholeheartedly agree, I'm fairly certain wrobel explicitly stated he wanted DK's to only actually excel at tanking while being a "fun" class to play but he won't allow them to be as good as the other classes

Well that sucks what's cooler than a fire wielding mage. I can pull 41k solo on a magdk but I just wish it wasn't so dependant on off balance to make it work. They hit hard but in the context of end game performance nobody wants them around. Skill costs need to be reassessed as well as the outdated passives designed around dynamic ultimate. Magdk has the worst sustain of any class without off balance. It wasn't even that good before the mistake that was morrowind.

SoLooney

melee magplars and mag dks arent in a great place, they take the stam dk or stamplar spot

mag dks have bad sustain even though off balance helps a lot with it.

sure, they can do fine in vet trials but if youre going for score and optimization, you will not see them at all

its basically 4 range, 3 stam dks, and a stamplar

Qbiken

When it comes to damage output magDK can do good numbers........

.....but not for a very long time. What magDK needs are other and/or more ways to sustain. Damage isn´t the issue, sustain is. If you even want to consider playing magDK in PvE you are forced to have certain things cleared:

* The correct morph of whip: Flame-lash. Without this you can´t sustain, no one can deny that (I´m not including heavy attack builds into this one)

* Off-balance support: Either from yourself using lightning-wall (often not enough) + healers and magsorcs using lightningwall

Without these 2 things, you can´t play magDK in PvE without having trouble with either damage or sustain. There isn´t a single class in the game that are forced to have certain conditions like this in order to be somewhat competitive.

FIXES:
* Revert the changes to battle-roar and helping hands to pre-Morrowind values
* Change "Combustion" in DK skilline to reduce the cost of all skills (not abilities like block/dodgeroll etc, only active skills aside from ultimates) while an enemy is affected by an ardent flame ability
* Instead of Engulfing Flames giving 10% more damage to flame-abilities, make it so that it reduces the cost of all Ardent Flame abilities while active.

Zer0oo

Welcome to post morrowind! Now everyone except nb have s**t sustain and are spamming heavy attacks like crazy. If you don't like it, you can either play nb or deinstall the game. And don't expect that they will change this bs. The only thing they will do is some kind of lazy band-aid-fix like making heavy attacks more sparkling so they are less boring.

Mag dks do not have low damage, they have actually quite high damage(maybe even the highest mag) for mag dds but they are melee dds and stam dds have so much higher dps than mag dds that it is not worth to give up a melee spot for a lousy mag dd. The sustain is actually not that bad if you have high up-time on off-balance and if not welcome to the club of heavy attack spammers.

Another minus point is: their spam-able skill steals off-balance for the rest of the grp.

Qbiken

Zer0oo wrote: »

Welcome to post morrowind! Now everyone except nb have s**t sustain and are spamming heavy attacks like crazy. If you don't like it, you can either play nb or deinstall the game. And don't expect that they will change this bs. The only thing they will do is some kind of lazy band-aid-fix like making heavy attacks more sparkling so they are less boring.

Mag dks do not have low damage, they have actually quite high damage(maybe even the highest) for mag dds but they are melee dds and stam dds have so much higher dps than mag dds that it is not worth to give up a melee spot for a lousy mag dd. The sustain is actually not that bad if you have high up-time on off-balance and if not welcome to the club of heavy attack spammers.

Another minus point is: their spam-able skill steals off-balance for the rest of the grp.

So does each heavy attack any stamina DD does, so "stealing-offbalance" isn´t the reason why magDK´s isn't being used.

FloppyTouch

We really didn’t need to double nerf to sustain battle roar needs to come back.

Skills cost way to much either reduce cost or change a passive to reduce our damage abilities.

One of the big things that hurt was sorcs use to run flame staff with bsw so engulfing flames helped a lot and have at least one mdk in the group was 10% more damage. Now every sorc has lightning staff and we are just not needed. Again blanket nerfs the hurt mdk more then other classes.

When I do a dps test(I’m not the best) but I’m out of magic so fast only way to get higher numbers is to have someone else useing WoE to get more proc whips.

I really wish we can go back to the housing update mdk felt balance and good in both pve and pvp then ZoS had to screw it all up.

Zer0oo

Qbiken wrote: »

Zer0oo wrote: »

Welcome to post morrowind! Now everyone except nb have s**t sustain and are spamming heavy attacks like crazy. If you don't like it, you can either play nb or deinstall the game. And don't expect that they will change this bs. The only thing they will do is some kind of lazy band-aid-fix like making heavy attacks more sparkling so they are less boring.

Mag dks do not have low damage, they have actually quite high damage(maybe even the highest) for mag dds but they are melee dds and stam dds have so much higher dps than mag dds that it is not worth to give up a melee spot for a lousy mag dd. The sustain is actually not that bad if you have high up-time on off-balance and if not welcome to the club of heavy attack spammers.

Another minus point is: their spam-able skill steals off-balance for the rest of the grp.

So does each heavy attack any stamina DD does, so "stealing-offbalance" isn´t the reason why magDK´s isn't being used.

....

And?

It it still steal off-balance which other spam-able skills don't do. (I never said other things don't steal off-balance)

Izaki

Okay no, stam are probably not doing 10k more than mag DKs. Its just that melee spots are always valuable, since that means you can use an extra debuff set, and that's why in the end, stamina builds are doing more DPS. They work together to get max penetration values and buff poison damage, etc. A mag DK wouldn't be too far behind stam builds, but its just counter productive to use one since a stam build would benefit more from all the debuff sets than a mag DK.

Its not that the class itself isn't strong, because its still possible to pull very good numbers on a mag DK, it just they are a melee class and melee spots are for stamina only at the moment. Magplars are always entirely non-existant in raids, mainly for the same reason.

Qbiken

removed

Drachenfier

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

the_Beard wrote: »

@ZOS_Wrobel

Please consider giving mDK some sort of buff for PvE dps. Is it possible to give a sizable buff to eruption, engulfing flames, and/or flames of oblivion, that way mDK in PvP wouldn't become OP? Or can we at least have the costs reduced? Eruption currently costs over 4000 magicka to cast. I realize its an 18 second skill, but that is by far one of the most expensive dps skills in the game. Maybe engulfing flames could also be reduced to be more in line with burning embers, which is almost half the cost. I'm really hoping that the changes proposed in the November Combat Update thread end up helping mDK in the long run. This class needs to be saved from extinction in trials.

While I wholeheartedly agree, I'm fairly certain wrobel explicitly stated he wanted DK's to only actually excel at tanking while being a "fun" class to play but he won't allow them to be as good as the other classes

What the hell kind of BS is that?

ak_pvp

Drachenfier wrote: »

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

the_Beard wrote: »

@ZOS_Wrobel

Please consider giving mDK some sort of buff for PvE dps. Is it possible to give a sizable buff to eruption, engulfing flames, and/or flames of oblivion, that way mDK in PvP wouldn't become OP? Or can we at least have the costs reduced? Eruption currently costs over 4000 magicka to cast. I realize its an 18 second skill, but that is by far one of the most expensive dps skills in the game. Maybe engulfing flames could also be reduced to be more in line with burning embers, which is almost half the cost. I'm really hoping that the changes proposed in the November Combat Update thread end up helping mDK in the long run. This class needs to be saved from extinction in trials.

While I wholeheartedly agree, I'm fairly certain wrobel explicitly stated he wanted DK's to only actually excel at tanking while being a "fun" class to play but he won't allow them to be as good as the other classes

What the hell kind of BS is that?

StamDK is top for dps St. But DK is first and for most a tank class. There is a link to Gina Bruno saying why they won't buff DKs in @Kilandros 's sig.

Draxys

How about starting with making changes that reflect the current game rather than a far bygone era? DKs are the only class that are still designed for first version of the game when they were the strongest class (by very far in pvp). A good place to begin would be cheaper class skill costs and less underwhelming passives. Even for tanking, some of those passives are super lame.

AverageJo3Gam3r

An easy solution would be to make MDKs more viable at range.

Kilandros

tag

Nelson_Rebel

Drachenfier wrote: »

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

the_Beard wrote: »

@ZOS_Wrobel

Please consider giving mDK some sort of buff for PvE dps. Is it possible to give a sizable buff to eruption, engulfing flames, and/or flames of oblivion, that way mDK in PvP wouldn't become OP? Or can we at least have the costs reduced? Eruption currently costs over 4000 magicka to cast. I realize its an 18 second skill, but that is by far one of the most expensive dps skills in the game. Maybe engulfing flames could also be reduced to be more in line with burning embers, which is almost half the cost. I'm really hoping that the changes proposed in the November Combat Update thread end up helping mDK in the long run. This class needs to be saved from extinction in trials.

While I wholeheartedly agree, I'm fairly certain wrobel explicitly stated he wanted DK's to only actually excel at tanking while being a "fun" class to play but he won't allow them to be as good as the other classes

What the hell kind of BS is that?

To be honest it's a completely outdated notion.


After the sweeping changes to morrowind that hurt DK's the most, the 3 additional follow up Nerf patches that hit Dk's sustain (already the worst) even more pathetic. The DK class has no identity now, we have been perma relegated to block cast for duels only, and just tanking builds for everything else. We have a WHOLE fire skill line for magic damage and we can't even freaking use it because the class sucks everywhere else


In passives
In skills
In sustain
In sets of armor for synergy.


Etc..W/e though. It's past arguing. Wrobel and his team made their choice to gut this class into nothing. Just roll mag sorc

FloppyTouch

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

Drachenfier wrote: »

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

the_Beard wrote: »

@ZOS_Wrobel

Please consider giving mDK some sort of buff for PvE dps. Is it possible to give a sizable buff to eruption, engulfing flames, and/or flames of oblivion, that way mDK in PvP wouldn't become OP? Or can we at least have the costs reduced? Eruption currently costs over 4000 magicka to cast. I realize its an 18 second skill, but that is by far one of the most expensive dps skills in the game. Maybe engulfing flames could also be reduced to be more in line with burning embers, which is almost half the cost. I'm really hoping that the changes proposed in the November Combat Update thread end up helping mDK in the long run. This class needs to be saved from extinction in trials.

While I wholeheartedly agree, I'm fairly certain wrobel explicitly stated he wanted DK's to only actually excel at tanking while being a "fun" class to play but he won't allow them to be as good as the other classes

What the hell kind of BS is that?

To be honest it's a completely outdated notion.


After the sweeping changes to morrowind that hurt DK's the most, the 3 additional follow up Nerf patches that hit Dk's sustain (already the worst) even more pathetic. The DK class has no identity now, we have been perma relegated to block cast for duels only, and just tanking builds for everything else. We have a WHOLE fire skill line for magic damage and we can't even freaking use it because the class sucks everywhere else


In passives
In skills
In sustain
In sets of armor for synergy.


Etc..W/e though. It's past arguing. Wrobel and his team made their choice to gut this class into nothing. Just roll mag sorc

It’s sad but true I’m about to just switch to a stam dk just so I can run end game trials bc I want to have all achievements on one character and no one wants a mdk in their trial group.

Guess I’m stuck to duels and vet dungeons for the time being in my favorite class.

Or I can just roll a magic sorc and do it all and start all over again