[Class Reps] Meeting Notes - August 16

Jamdarius

1.Power Lash stun does not synergize well with class theme of control. Also want to move away from high burst+stun mechanics

If you will take it away how else will MAG DK kill players in PvP ???? We got no sustain, we got no execute, but ye NB and sorcs gonna cry cause of not being able to win against Power Lash which needs to be procc'ed !

2.Harness Magicka and Conjured Ward skills are overshadowing and diminishing the role of healers

Just no... Leave my Harness Magicka alone... People still die even with this skill on thx to 1 shot mechanics oriented DLC's dungeons (which is sad), thus making healers be less viable in game - that is the real issue, why take healer when we can take off-healer DPS and do dung faster with more DMG, healers cannot heal through so many 1 shots anyway so why bother with the 1 shot mechanics when you can burn mobs/bosses faster without healer. Take new dungeons for example: Archers like in vMA, hulking WW, enraged Bosses dealing 350k dmg on normal difficulty... healers got nothing to do except generating resource return/combat prayer/horn ulti/cleanse when necessary. Old Sets need to be updated to allow us to go outside of the meta Healer box (Trinimac, Combat Physician, Sentinel of Rkugamz <little spider gets wrecked/stunned/knockbacked before he can do anything and sometimes goes wherever he pleases - even to enemies location instead of players>).

DK shield with mending buff should scale with max magicka so that when we override DK Tank shield it is worth using.
DK Healer skills from Earthen Heart skill tree cost 2 much comparing to what they can do: Obsidian Shard - need to deal dmg with the skill to heal 1 guy and the cast animation and distance travel time makes it a very bad skill with a very huge magicka cost. Cinder Storm would be nice if lowered the cost + add some purify with fire synergy (cleanse), so far in 4 dung vet content it is just easier to double tap mutagen as it gives more HoT, cleanse and burst heal if low Health player gets healed and SPOILER ALERT: Double Tap of Mutagen COSTS LESS and LAST LONGER than the circle you need to stand in to actually be healed for less.

3.They know players want the “Ice Mage” theme

Just Make 1 morph for ice tanks and second morph for DPS Ice Mage in Winter's Embrace skill line, it would be fine, also would be nice to see Bear deal Ice Damage after being morphed and perhaps one cliff racer morph be a kind of summoned Frost Familiar instead of regular cliff racer so that we can have more Ice skills.

4.Address inconsistent ability ranges (Embers 5 meters, Whip 8 meters, Flames 10 meters)

Add to the list - Hitbox Issues with engulfing flames, sometimes it is just not possible to hit enemies with it unless they are ~4m+ away from DK

5. Frost staff is intended to be a tanking/control element as opposed to a DPS element.

You are aware players want Ice Mage DPS yet here u are writing what is intended for Frost staves role <facepalm>

Overall I can see that you have finally saw that Warden - a class behind a PayWall is having it's troubles, you can see what players want - question is can you (will you?) do it? Ice tanking staves that taunt for doing Heavy attack is kinda meh... You should just discard the idea already as it is a BIG PAIN POINT for those who even now run Ice Mage theme DPS Warden, the crowd control Ice DPS offers in the game does not do anything beside keeping stacked enemies intact, there should be bonus effect for having chilled enemies like lowering Spell and Physical resistances by 1320 (Minor Fracture and Breach), it would add some kind of unique group utility to the wardens DPS play as the frost AoE skills would cause better group DPS (WHy? Cause frozen things get brittle, armor crumbles away, frozen people shiver and cannot put up that shield up cause arms do not move as intended). Well and of course I am very happy you have noticed that NB's are beloved children with no sustain issues, breaking 60k DPS bubble while other classes struggle with their sustain.

PS: Combat Prayer had other morph? Heresy, there is no other beside Combat Prayer.

NupidStoob

Most of this discussion is just about the perception charts... I understand that you class reps are not using them as a serious metric, but why even include them here? Feelings simply have no place in this discussion. Just remove them so the discussion can focus on the actual meeting.

While I don't necessarily agree with all the points being raised by the class reps this is just a summary and might not completely reflect what has been said. It was the same with the last class rep post.

Now my major issue is that the last class rep notes looked great overall and had some really nice points, yet we got maybe a tiny fraction of that with wolfhunter. Now it seems like it might just be the same. Especially the very first point raised makes me concerned:

"Smaller number of high impact changes"

Right now what the game needs would be exactly that, because the current meta needs some serious shaking up.

If this trend continues the class rep meetings will be talking 90% about the same old issues that very slowly get addressed and the rest over the other 10%.

ZoS always has been slow to address balance issues in this game and this program has given me hope that that would change. Sadly this doesn't seem to be the case.

FrancisCrawford

Daus wrote: »

It's about time they address damage shields. I'm liking the direction they're going. Makes me happy to support it.

If they do that, they will drive a majority of the players from endgame or, if my estimates of the player skill distribution are a bit off, then at least a large minority. At a minimum, they'd chase out players of my ability level and below, and I'm guessing that I'm not far below average. (E.g., I've completed all non-DLC dungeons and a couple of DLC ones, ~20 of them just duoing normal mode , with a lot of vet or vet HM clears in 4-player groups. I've done nMA and am tackling vMA now.)

Everybody knows that shields are overwhelmingly recommended for people who first tackle VMA. Perhaps less appreciated is that they're similarly essential to many players when tackling other content whose threats they can't yet predict or predict the magnitude of, such as dungeon or world bosses. Simply put, for MANY players, shields are essential for difficult or unfamiliar content.

FrancisCrawford

Fallewarrior wrote: »

And on vampires, I keep mentioning in the discordand not sure how many others agree, but does anyone else see an issue in a cosmetic game like ESO where having vampirism turns off or mutes a LOT of character skin markings? I mean I don't mind the pale look, some fangs would be cool, but at stage 1 vampirism I can't see any tattoos, markings, and by stage 4 I look like almost every other khajiit, save my clothing. No point to buy cosmetics when they don't show up right?

One of the smaller disadvantages I have as a player is that I simply refuse to accept the benefits of vampirism because of how it diminishes the visual pleasure of playing the game. Many, many other players are surely in the same boat.

FrancisCrawford

Bergzorn wrote: »

There is some good stuff on the list, but quite some strange points which make me hope it's an unlucky compilation that gives a skewed view on the communication between ZOS and the representatives.

Two sorc points:

"Crystal Fragments needs to be more cost effective"

I don't remember reading a serious complaint about frags cost (you know, the skill with 50% cost reduction on proc) ever before. I'm not sure why this made it on the list.

"Harness Magicka and Conjured Ward skills are overshadowing and diminishing the role of healers"

This comment alone makes me not look forward to class balance changes.

Sorcerers have in many, many cases stopped slotting Crystal Frags.

We still have one strong class damage skill that everybody takes, Liquid Lightning, so reasonable PvEers can disagree as to whether the dimunition of Frags is a major problem.

FrancisCrawford

NyassaV wrote: »

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MissBizz wrote: »

I really don't know what the other morph of combat prayer is called...

Blessing of Protection. Do people not know this?

We've all known it many times. But we have no need to remember it, so each time we learn it is then again quickly forgotten.

FrancisCrawford

GawdSB wrote: »

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ZOS acknowledged this and pointed out a solution may not be easy as they want to avoid the danger of making each class necessary to complete a trial.

They want to prevent a scenario where a real-life issue caused the stamina Warden to drop raid and then they couldn’t do the trial because no other stamina Warden was available

Also, this whole spill just makes me think ZOS was and is well aware of how powerful nightblades are in comparison to other classes in PVE and just decided to leave it like that. If you're going with this reasoning then make it where every class is capable of being used with just that particular class in a trial and not just one particular class. The excuse and outcome you guys decided so far is pitiful.

One point in the notes read very clearly as "nerf nightblades", and that looks to me to contradict all the more general statements that can be taken to mean the opposite.

FrancisCrawford

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

Do not nerf shields because some people think it negates the reason healers are around. They do not. In every trial, in almost every dungeon, in pvp, healers are needed. They are the backbone of any good group. I have heard from healers that they actually appreciate that magicka dps use their shields to help ease their workload in trials and stuff. The healers can't always focus on the dps being careless and not using shields. 98% of the time, the tanks are the focus of the healers, as they're taking the most damage.

I'd further say that in four-person groups, healing SHOULD not be a full-time job. So finding and "fixing" reasons that it isn't is silly. Healers should do what's needed in healing and buffing, then contribute directly to DPS as best they can.

ALSO, there have long been two separate reasons that healers want to keep people at 100% health. The small reason, which might well now be changing, is the power of the Spell Power Cure set. But the big reason, which surely won't change any time soon, is to ensure that one-shot near kills don't become one-shot actual kills. That's a little different from other games most of us have played, but it's not a fundamentally bad thing. Indeed, it probably makes even more sense than "Glynnifred's health is down to 75%; I'll heal her if it ever drops below half."

Carbonised

Mureel wrote: »

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Harness Magicka and Conjured Ward skills are overshadowing and diminishing the role of healers

SO NOT what we even ever said!

1. DUNGEON MECHANICS are either minimal damage or one shot, rendering healers ineffective.
2. DPS IS OP
3. SELF HEALS are OP (in PVE)

Were the things we actually said. smh.

*Gives up and focuses on Tanking and DPS.*

This needs to be stressed more. You do realise that Harness Mag is the ONLY defense in many mag builds AT ALL? Compared to block, roll dodge and evasion of stam builds. You cannot simply nerf shields without an eye to that.

Also, the reason why healers are not needed for much of the content is NOT shields, it is by far due to poorly designed dungeons and trials with loads of one shot mechanics. Those make healers superfluous. Do less one shot mechanics and more sustained damage from multiple sources. That will make healers viable again.

And DPS is too high, especially on NBs. Why bring a healer when you can out-DPS all mechanics. You, the devs, made this scenario yourselves.

Also, all DPS classes and specs have access to great self healing that doesn't require you to switch out DPS skills. All classes have way too OP self healing tied to DPS skills or pasisve buffs, which essentially makes them their own healers.

It's fine to make healers more viable again, but nerfing Harness is NOT the direction to go. Make more clever dungeons with heavy sustained damage instead of loads of one shot mechanics. Reign in the DPS outliers, such as Nightblades, and have dungeons punish groups that put out too much DPS too fast, and de-couple powerful self heals from DPS skills, so you have to choose between the two, instead of getting everything in 1 skill.

Joy_Division

OK a few things here.

About the Charts
They are not “my” feedback, nor are they the reps. They are from the ESO community. I don’t agree with a lot of the rankings, so what do you suppose I should do? Throw them away and disregard your feedback because I don’t agree with it? I would not presume to be so arrogant.

And what’s this about a /played requirement to give feedback? What elitist nonsense. Even if we did implement such a methodology, a lot of the feedback would still be skewed, biased, inaccurate, and bad; I’ve know quite a few people who have played for a long time and some of them just aren’t good at the game or their understanding of it is questionable at best. It’s not like old-time players aren’t biased, especially those upset at what their classes used to be able to.

We live in a democratic culture where everyone has the right to give their opinion and have it heard. Even the not-so-smart, the not-very-informed, and the fire-breathing ideologues. That does not mean I, we, the devs, or anybody else has to agree or act on those opinions. LOL magplar PvP defense capabilities better than Warden? I didn’t realize holding down block was a class feature. If a ZOS rep asks me about something about that chart, I will not take the chart as Gospel. I will give my assessment if I feel the community is exaggerating, still stuck in an old meta, missing out on the nuances, etc., which is kind of how things are supposed to work: everyone has their voice heard, but not necessarily followed. Which is why when ZOS went through their future plans and asked if there was something else, I spoke up and said templars only have one outdated craptastic ability that actually defends them (as opposed to reacting to attacks which have already hit them, which is quite a different thing).

About Collecting feedback in general.
What do you want us to do? I’ve been a rep for months and ONE person has bothered to send me a message telling me something. One! I am not an expert at Clairvoyance and Mindreading. We put threads on the forums. We opened up discords. We have “representative” under our forum name. We made evaluation forums (where the much-derided charts came from). If you think it’s so easy to collect worthwhile feedback, how about you take a look at the Sorcerer Discord: it is full of salt, e-peen, and immature nonsense. If you have some sort of constructive idea where we can gather actual feedback as opposed to creating another venue for in-game rivalries and personality conflicts which will make another salt mine, I’m all ears.

And many of you have no idea the amount of contradictory feedback we get, even from the 4+ year “elite” players who claim to know everything. Every class has a lobby that insists they have been over-nerfed, are useless, and in general pointless to play, while some other class is OP. Ever since 1.6, it’s been a joke how Sorcerers and Nightblades trash each other and insist the other is ZOS’s favorite.

We did submit to ZOS detailed DPS parses comparing all the classes to each other, the DPS, the resource management, both stamina and magicka, we broke it all down. We sent the videos to ZOS. One of the reps collected ELEVEN pages on notes on just ONE topic – that’s longer than 90% of college essays. It was done because that rep is dedicated to ensuring YOUR feedback is communicated to the devs.

Whatever you may think, we do spend a lot of our free time listening to what the community has to say, which is more I can say for some people in this thread doing a lot of complaining:

“None of your metrics point to the fact that high level raids will only allow 1 Sorc and usually max out their DPS squad with Stamblade.”
First of all, they are NOT my or our metrics. Those charts are a collection of date from the community. If you dislike or disagree with the perception of the community, that’s your prerogative, but it is what it is, which is not our evaluations.

Secondly:

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

PVE diversity. Class reps brought up the unsatisfying “meta” that some groups are just loading up on Nightblade DPS, with just one other support class (DK tank for Engulfing Flames, Templar healer for Purify and PoTL, Sorcerer off-healer for Conduits).

Yes, the metrics you disagree with didn’t point to your complaint. However, because those aren’t our metrics, the reps did precisely bring up your complaint and it’s right there in the OP

About the reps not playing sorcerers while outnumbered and being “god awful” at the class.
First of all, the reps aren’t assigned to a specific class. So no sorcerer Rep. Or Templar Rep. Etc. We collaborate. Someday, perhaps some of you will be a part of a program designed to gather feedback from people who are hoping you will bring some change they are desperately seeking. And then, have people doubt your aptitude and ability when those hopes did not fully materialize despite your best efforts. Because maybe, just maybe, we aren’t clueless chumps?

Secondly, some of us do play sorcerers and do care about where the class is going. People think of me as a templar, but I said a lot more about Sorcerers in this meeting. Twice, when the meeting was going to move onto the next topic, I interjected and said we needed to talk about sorcerers because ever since the change to crystal frags, the class has been in essence stuck in neutral, in PvP and PvE. At the end of the meeting, I straight up said this and that if the PTS sorcerer notes consist of only what’s in ZOS’s goals, they are going to be profoundly disappointed. I was told High damage+Stun frags are not coming back - that was made crystal clear - so I said at present both morphs of Crystal Shard are in bad way that it’s no longer a defining feature: the channeled blast will not be a competitive stun or AoE without major reform or the instant-cast Fragment morph no longer does the sort of damage that makes it noteworthy (and it costs more than Assassin’s will). Will ZOS heed what I had to say? I don’t know. Hopefully. But I don’t think it is fair at all that the Reps comments are not being evaluated: people are just looking at ZOS’s goals and those charts, which are being mistaken for our assessments.

What more was I supposed to do? I stick up for your class, repeated your feedback to ZOS when I did not feel their goals acknowledged it, and I come onto this thread and see this sort of crap about our methodology and that I’m “god awful” at the class? What a bunch of garbage.

About Zos’s goals
They are just that. Goals. That’s all. Not patch notes. Subject to change. They did not tell us how or in what way they are going to go about it. We have no idea. You don’t agree with some of them? That’s fine. I don’t agree with some of them either. I tell you one straight up that I think is not a good idea:

Having multiple templars be able to repent the same course is something I disagree with. The whole point of the original skill was for ONE templar to use this skill to support their groupmates with stamina and a heal. Now the skill is selfish, having other templars being able to repent still makes it a selfish skill and I really dislike the tactical element where enemy templars could deny the other side those corpses. The original skill was one of the most interesting in the entire game.

But here’s the thing. Even though I don’t agree with the goal, I’m not going to throw my hands up in the air, proclaim the program a miserable failure. Because this program has brought up something I and many old-time players have been asking ZOS to do for years: let us know what they are working on *before* the patch notes. Everything has always been just given to us, with no ability to have any input until it was on the PTS and basically too late to change much aside from bug fixes. Not anymore. Now at least we have some idea. That was kind of the whole point of the program. How should they readjust what they are thinking of doing? As I said, at the meeting I told them that Sorcerers would not be happy. We hammered the reality that many groups just bring Nightblades to DPS and classes really need something interesting to offer aside from a DPS parse. ZOS had this meeting before the PTS to give them time for adjustments and see how we’d react. OK tell them. But is it necessary to toss trash over them? Give me a break. As certain as some of you think these issues are so easy, they aren’t. I do agree the healing issue goes a lot deeper than shields, and we told ZOS that. We gave them 11 pages of healer related notes just before the meeting to make sure! I do agree the Blade Cloak thing was from another meta. Stamina players cheered when that was first changed, but it just turned into another DoT (although I find the skill very useful in PvP).

I get it sounds ominous and I’d be worried that this might turn into a nerf shield and then sorcerers are even more screwed. But, we don’t know how or anything about how ZOS is going to implement these goals. Many sorcerers for years have said if they could get another defensive mechanic aside from stacking shields, they’d gladly take it. Maybe ZOS is thinking of doing this, they did say Bound Armor needed to be more worthwhile. I don’t know and neither do you. So, I don’t think it’s fair to accuse them of something they even haven’t implemented yet. Why not be productive, take advantage of this never before has happened in ESO opportunity, and give meaningful input to nudge ZOS in the way you think they ought to go? That is the whole point of this process.

FrancisCrawford

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Great post! So many good points made here.

The only one that sounds slightly concerning is this “Harness Magicka and Conjured Ward skills are overshadowing and diminishing the role of healers.” Any reduction in the effectiveness of damage shields would primarily hurt solo players in PVE and PVP.

And duo. Some of us play with wives, girlfriends, or simply friends.

And duo players are very important to Zos' business! Many duos consist of one person who really wanted to play the game plus another recruited the first one.

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Healers certainly have a place right now, and yes their emphasis is on buffing and support more than just being heal-bots, but most groups enjoy this. From what I’ve seen, the only healers that feel their role is diminished are the ones that refuse to slot things like combat prayer and elemental drain because “increasing DPS isn’t my job, I’m here to heal”.

I agree with just about every other point in the meeting notes.

As previously noted, the bolded part is ridiculous in 4-person (or smaller) groups. One COULD construct a game where groups that small required a dedicated healer -- Guild Wars was sort of that way -- but it's more than fine that ZoS didn't choose that route.

FrancisCrawford

NateA93 wrote: »

Have there been any thoughts of actually separating PvP and PvE?

For example, a simple, temporary fix for mag sorcs in PvE would be to lower the cost of liquid lightning, which would improve their sustain, and in turn make their rotations less clunky. I don't post much on the forums, but I've been playing for 3 years, have held emp in vivec, and have had #1 trials scores on multiple platforms. In most SUCCESSFUL games, there's some sort of variance between PvP and PvE skills. If that's not do-able at this point in the game, perhaps looking into ways to buff characters in PvE without effecting them in PvP and vice versa could be do-able. The game has gotten far more unbalanced as of late, stam isn't relevant in either vAS or VCR, yet 5-6 stam are doable (and almost preferred) in every other raid. I'm honestly not sure where to take this conversation, as there's so many things to change, but it will take multiple inputs rather than just my own... Perhaps you could making purifying light return magicka to improve PvE templar sustain? My main concerns are PvE, where the most imbalance is seen currently (8 NB DPS, 1 healplar, 1 heal sorc, 2 DK tank meta)

In principle, buffs to DoTs have much more impact in PvE than PvP.

FrancisCrawford

ccmedaddy wrote: »

, especially the part where they talk about bringing other classes up to NB's level of effectiveness, rather than nerfing the NB class. That's the direction I want ZOS to go.

But they also said that NB shouldn't be allowed to be strong at damage and healing at once. So yes, in fact they plan to strongly nerf NB.

FrancisCrawford

Dracane wrote: »

So Overload's third bar is being removed ? Damage shields are getting nerfed ? It's what I gather from this.
Needless to say, my way of playing Sorcerer will become completely unviable. Pet Sorcerers need this 3rd bar if they want to be able to have some basic important abilities.

Seems like this could be the final blow for this class as far as I am concerned.
I really do applaud those notes, really. But even they can not outshine this destructive change.

On the other hand, I've greatly diminished my use of Overload on pet sorcerers due to clunkiness. Perhaps the issue is that it's taking a gcd to get in or out of Overload -- is that what's happening? -- so using it as a place to stash utility skills isn't worthwhile. Anyhow, for whatever reason I love Overload a lot less than I used to.

Dracane

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

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Dracane wrote: »

So Overload's third bar is being removed ? Damage shields are getting nerfed ? It's what I gather from this.
Needless to say, my way of playing Sorcerer will become completely unviable. Pet Sorcerers need this 3rd bar if they want to be able to have some basic important abilities.

Seems like this could be the final blow for this class as far as I am concerned.
I really do applaud those notes, really. But even they can not outshine this destructive change.

On the other hand, I've greatly diminished my use of Overload on pet sorcerers due to clunkiness. Perhaps the issue is that it's taking a gcd to get in or out of Overload -- is that what's happening? -- so using it as a place to stash utility skills isn't worthwhile. Anyhow, for whatever reason I love Overload a lot less than I used to.

It's your opinion if Overload is too hard for you to handle. For me, it is not. It's essential and even more so at the moment than ever before. The global cooldown bothers me not, because I know to use it at the right moment. Overload is and has never been for everyone. But those who know it's value, could never play without it.

Sure I sometimes get stuck on that bar for some reason. But that's a rare bug and does not affect me most of the time.
They can do to Overload whatever they wish. But if the 3rd bar gets removed, I have simply no clue how to continue. I have endured years of nerfs and somehow adjusted, even though the Crystal shard nerf was almost the final blow and yet I endured it all and never said that I would stop playing.

But if this goes through + shield nerfs, I am really at the end of my options and should either restore my Magblade or just play Fallout 76 and wait for Starfield and TES 6. Overload, streak and hardened ward were the final pillars that allowed Sorcerer to work for me personally.

Mojomonkeyman

Masel92 wrote: »

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King_Thelon wrote: »

I've lost all faith in this program. It's clear that Zenimax doesn't know how to balance Mag Sorc and the reps have little impact or useful feedback to provide on this issue.

Your PvP mag Sorc "ratings " are just lol. Like please. Mag Sorc has more mobility than Mag Blade? Sure bud. Better defense than Mag Blade, Mag DK, Mag Warden and Mag Plar??? Lol sure bud. Mag Sorc has best sustain of all Mag classes? Wow. Just wow.

Did the Mag Sorc class rep resign? Who in the program actually plays this class in outnumbered PvP? Surely they didn't provide input onto those "ratings"...

The class does not function without an effective stun. Period. Right now, our only viable stun is blockable, dodgeable, reflectable,requires DSA farming, and still is worse than old frags, a skill that was nerfed so "people will try the other morph". How is that acceptable? How does ZOS plan to address that? It's no where in the notes. No where

And these are old issues fellas. You've had months to address it. You're getting nowhere. That's failure. Plain and simple.

I've been as constructive as I can. I'm not bashing or baiting anyone. But you've got to call it like you see it. This is failure personified.

Ratings are based on community feedback as the entries are done by players, so they're not "ours", they're more yours than ours for example. You could've entered your own opinion to counter what you disagree with.

Your opinion apparently does not match the majority of feedback we received, otherwise they'd be on there

Sorry, but we all know populations & therefore bias is not evenly distributed. That Mag PvP NB is rated in the same category as Mag PvP Warden is hilarious and doesn't relfect reality. Just look at the toolkits.

How can Templar CC be rated worse than Mag Wardens? I mean, seriously?

At this point I'm afraid this program will cause more harm than good. Balance is not achieved by democracy (popularity contest), its something that only experts can work on. How can a non-expert ever know whether his perception is balance related or due to flawed play?

Mureel

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Great post! So many good points made here.

The only one that sounds slightly concerning is this “Harness Magicka and Conjured Ward skills are overshadowing and diminishing the role of healers.” Any reduction in the effectiveness of damage shields would primarily hurt solo players in PVE and PVP. Healers certainly have a place right now, and yes their emphasis is on buffing and support more than just being heal-bots, but most groups enjoy this. From what I’ve seen, the only healers that feel their role is diminished are the ones that refuse to slot things like combat prayer and elemental drain because “increasing DPS isn’t my job, I’m here to heal”.

I agree with just about every other point in the meeting notes.

I agree! Where I feel 'obsolete' as a healer is when I'm often told, by my own two core raid groups, wherein I'm the healer, is that '3dps is better' for HM DLC dungeons.

I feel like it would be nicer to be able to play those on my healer where I have 3/4 the achievements.

That said; I understand the point especially when I guested as DPS at a VSO and someone in coms said 'can we get Ele drain or anything?' one healer said nothing and the other said 'I'm too busy healing to cast ele drain.'

As a guest I said nothing - but I'm still cringing over that.

Mureel

Namarkas wrote: »

I really don't get why people are so hostile here. The class reps are simply trying to help, and this is just a quick write up of their meeting. As such you shouldn't treat it as the "Update 20 Declaration" which is signed by all the important people to fulfil at their best of their abilites lol. Calling them disgraceful and I don't know what else is just... let's use the word "lame". If you have something to contribute, maybe try...manners?

Yes, the chart could have used a bit context
Overall, interesting points, however please keep tell Zenimax that shields are really not the issue why healers feel to be less important.
And for the conclusion, my personal pain point I would like to see adressed sooner than later:

(I am on 43 mins and still counting)
best regards
Namarkas

It's not hostility, the word you're looking for is discerning.

People aren't being hostile but they are being discerning and feeling incredulous about some of these things.

It doesn't mean people are being hostile, so let's not exaggerate.

HankTwo

'Light and Medium Armor do not compare favorably to Heavy Armor (mostly in PvP: it’s easier to get good damage, sustain, and mitigation from heavy)'

Could a class rep explain to me the developers reasoning behind this statement please? What does ZOS intend to do about it? I would really appreciate it.

Because we already had a couple of heavy armor nerfs in the past. One common complaint after these nerfs was that heavy set bonuses were oftentimes better than medium set bonuses, but with jewelry transmutation one can use a heavy armor set and still run 5 medium. The only problem I see left is that people can build to be a tank while still have decent offense because of damage proc sets. But thats a problem because of the proc sets (which do good damage without building for it) and not heavy armor itself.

BohnT

@Joy_Division great post.

There are some things i want to talk about however.

1. Providing Data and Feedback is extremely frustrating.
Many things have been said multiple times already and just repeating the same things over and over again feels wrong.
Example: Magwarden CC, Stamplar sustain, multiple passives on classes being bad or outdated, each and any bug, ...

you can say these things once and then you're done with them there's not much to talk about them afterwards eventhough they are the biggest pain points for many players.
That means however that they will just make a very short list but the list still contains the biggest issues.
There is no further discussion needed for these things other than just repeating them which doesn't help anyone, you'll waste time reading things for the 100th time while the community wastes the time writing it down this often.

Then on the other side there are many very important things where providing Feedback is just a shot in the dark.
Example: Stamdk and class identity, Sorc being onedimensional, healers being replaced in many situations, cloak and Counterplay, Nightblades dominating pve, hardcounters in general, class identity, stand your ground classes

These things are highly complex and require lots of changes and there are very different possible attempts to tackle these issues but writing down a lengthy post just for it to be entirely ignored because Zos doesn't touches the issue at all is frustrating.
I made posts on things like cloak and Counterplay, hardcounters, stamdk and class identity but i don't see these points even being touched at all and especially not in the scale that these things would require.
So anyone who Talks about these things just seems to waste their time because ZOS will either go with a different approach or just doesn't touch the issue at all.


One last thing you say you try to filter the Feedback and remove biased comments.
For me this means it's hard to keep talking about one special all the time because you easily get viewed as biased.
For example I've been talking about stamdk and the issues revolving around the class for probably 10 months which could easily put me in this category even when i talked about many different things aswell, the number of comments just increases your chance to be viewed as biased.

Spoiler

Not because it's my main or anything, stamdk was the third last twink I made, but because it's the only character that i have absolutely no fun playing and that's a bad thing in a game that you play because you want to have fun. When i'm 1vXing on my stamdk and i finish the fights I'm not happy like on the other classes but I'm pissed because i had to do the fight with the stamdks toolkit, even if i win the fight I'm frustrated and that's just sad.

And now i have to guess if my comments are even considered at this point of if i dropped into the "biased" category a long time ago so anything i post is ignored or seen as "oh it's just this guy again"


Also sending private feedback feels odd as it feels like trying to order a balance change directly from one Rep without giving anyone else the chance to review the things that are said in these messages. Also what happens with my post if the Rep I'm talking to has a completely different opinion on the topic than i do.
Isn't it more likely for the Feedback to be viewed as useless by the Rep and it doesn't get handed over to others.

HankTwo

@Ragnarock41

Some stam DK friends of mine already switched to medium armor some time ago and they do pretty well with it in no CP open world + BGs. Otherwise, I mostly agree with those statements about dizzying swing. The skill just feels too clunky and can easily be countered by speed, which is even more so a problem with swift jewelry around.

Btw, I think you are confusing hardened armor with the stone giant animation.

Liofa

Hello. There seems to be some confusion about which line are ZOS' plans and which are Class Rep feedback. So I'll clarify as good as I can.

We decided that it's better if we send our notes (If you want to read the Tanking Notes, they are in the Tank Discord and can be found in Class Rep Tanking Feedback Thread.) to Devs before the meeting, let them have some time to read them all. Because during the previous meetings, Reps talked about the Notes and Devs asked questions once in a while. The notes you read before were all our notes basically copy pasted. This one is different. That's why the confusion. This time, Devs spoke and we listened for the first half an hour. Summary of it is the part where it says "ZOS’s high-level goals and things actively being worked on for update 20", "Specific Class goals for update 20" and "Goals beyond Update 20 that ZOS is currently working on:". These are ZOS' goals. These may be affected by our previous feedback or not. There is no rule that says all the changes have to be what the Reps talked about. If they see something that needs changing even though Reps didn't say a word about it or no concerns mentioned, they have the right to change it, either we agree on it or not.

So the first thing you need to know is the difference between previous Meeting Notes and this one. Not everything here is what Reps said. You can read it there. It says "ZOS’s high-level goals and things actively being worked on for update 20". That's where the confusion is coming from. I hope that's clear now.

About my opinions on the goals ZOS has. There are few things that concern me and some stuff that I like quite a lot.

Spoiler

- "Harness Magicka and Conjured Ward skills are overshadowing and diminishing the role of healers"

I kinda see where they are coming from but this will not solve the issue. Most of the 3 DD stuff is coming from insane self healing capabilities of certain classes while doing a lot of damage and the one-shot mechanics. Shields are not the biggest problem in this topic mostly because Shields are used to prevent one-shots which have nothing to do with healing.

- "Duel Wield is an end-game PvE requirement because of the Blade Cloak skill"

To be honest, this made me laugh a lot. We dropped using Blade Cloak how many patches ago? Only class that uses this skill is StamDK because they have nothing better to put on their bar. The amount of Red CP we have covers all the mitigation and tankiness we need, this skill became obsolete such long time ago, even before the damage nerf to Deadly Cloak. I don't think they will simply nerf it because as far as I know, it's a pretty good skill for PvP. I think they will implement similar things to other weapon trees to give them tankiness that Dual Wield has as an advantage to other lines.

- "Want to get class DPS and resource regeneration more in tune with each other"

I want to see this happen but in a certain way. When you look at Nightblades from a Nightblade perspective, it's the good gameplay that let's you do this. Being able to shoot 3 bows (even though it is quite common now) still requires good tracking of buffs/debuffs and skillful gameplay. Better thing is, it rewards the player for doing it. As is it a free cast, you get more sustain and damage. In my opinion, it's what all classes should be about but in different ways. Timing your Ultimates, pulling off complex rotations etc. should be rewarding. If they simply buff the sustain of other classes to be in line (or closer to) with Nightblade, it might get boring and feel homogenized. For example, I would love to see Crystal Fragments RNG element being removed and a requirement implemented to proc it. Not a very difficult one but something that will reward the player for doing it better.

- "Light and Medium Armor do not compare favorably to Heavy Armor (mostly in PvP: it’s easier to get good damage, sustain, and mitigation from heavy)"

This looks like a good change but also a bad one. It definitely will depend on what route they will choose while changing Heavy Armour. If they nerf the damage of Heavy Armour, they need to give something back in terms of tankiness to make it clear that Heavy Armour is for tanking and it's effective at it while other two are for damage and healing. I see few simple ways of doing this such as reworking damage boosting sets such as 7th Legion and Ravager into actual tanking sets.

- "Address inconsistent ability ranges (Embers 5 meters, Whip 8 meters, Flames 10 meters)"

I am not sure where they will line them up. More ranged or full melee? If full melee, we can pull the plug of mDK DPS as they will never make it into the new trials due to pretty much every mechanic punishing for having melee DPS. If ranged, this may cause issues in PvP as Embers is a very strong heal. I don't know where they will go with this.

- "Would like to have players choose between high damage or strong healing rather than current model"

This right here will make things so much better for PvE. For those who don't know, Magblades are pulling insane HPS while dealing a ton of damage thanks to Refreshing Path and sometimes (not used as much as Elemental Weapon) Funnel Health. You can literally go in anywhere stacked up on magblades knowing that healers can literally AFK and you'll still have no issues with incoming healing. It's crazy how much off healing they can do. Looking forward to this.

- "High DPS too reliant on Bear"

This is more of a general pet issue. There are already immortal/untargetable pets in the game, why can't we just make all of them like that, at least for PvE? Make all mechanics ignore pets and make them unkillable/untargetable by mechanics. I still hear people reporting that their bear got targeted by the Shield Throw in Hel Ra Citadel. Why is this still happening? Just get rid of it already and make pets viable in all of PvE content. Simply buffing non-bear MagWarden DPS will not solve the main problem. ZOS should go to the root of problems and fix those.

- "Needs a unique buff to offer groupmates"

This. There needs to be a passive that gives a buff to allies that will make groups want to have a Warden in the group. There is literally one single reason to have a Warden in a PvE group right now. Harvest. That's literally it. They can have all the amazing buffs or whatever they want. Alkosh meta wants synergies and Warden bring one. Now read it more carefully. How pathetic is it to know that a class is only useful in end-game content for a single synergy they bring. This also goes to Magicka Sorcerers as the only reason to bring them into an end-game group is the Conduit synergy. It's sad. A lot more like this need to happen, for other classes too.

- "Bound Armor needs to be more worthwhile"

I've commented on this so many times. It's the worst skill in the game in terms of cost effectiveness. So happy to see that they are changing it. Whatever it is will be better than Bound Armour active, no doubt.

- "Crystal Fragments needs to be more cost effective"

I don't know why ZOS waited on this so much. You have 2 proc skills. One that randomly activates and deals x amount of damage for y amount of Magicka. Other that activates without RNG and deals 2x damage for free, 3 times per cast. Yeah, balance.

- "Need an ultimate for burst damage"

We all know what skill this line brings to mind. Templar Tanks don't use it. PvE Magplars don't use it. PvP Magplars don't use it. No one uses it. Nothing else to say.

- "Agree that Templars fighting over repenting corpses is undesirable"

I think it should be a group skill. Let one Templar to use it per corpse and make it unrepentable but give resources to the whole team. I think it'll be better for PvP as being faster than your enemy while repenting a corpse will be rewarding for the player and their group.

- "Make the Spear Wall passive more applicable"

It could be more applicable if Sun Shield wasn't so bad.

- "More diversity for Tank gearing"

This is under "beyond Update 20" section. That means more than 3 months of Alkosh meta. It's been years, still, not a single set can beat this set.

- "Want to make healing both more valuable and rewarding for end-game group play"

I have a healer (pretty decent at it actually) and I literally spam Orbs, Combat Prayer and sometimes Mutagen. I rarely use Springs but haven't had any issues with healing done or had any complaints about resource support. It's more like "Hello I am here to throw you orbs and give you Minor Berserk, please don't mind me." I can see healers being more relevant to content once insane self healing of DDs are gone.

- "Some classes need better resource regeneration while blocking"

Here is another thing that confuses me as a tank about ZOS' goals for tanking. They made many, many changes to blocking in the past that pushed players into smart blocking and away from permablock. Then suddenly we had Galenwe. Now we have this line here that pushes players into permablocking, again.

Overall, this looks decent from PvE side. PvE DPS meta being addressed but DK Tank and Templar healer are meta for 4 years and still going is annoying to me. My only personal concern is that at the moment as I spend most of my time in PvE.

Elsterchen

Well, first things first:
So many good points mentioned. I like the new transparent way of changes to come and I really respect and honor the hard work our reps are putting up with!

- I really look forward to combat/playstile changes that take NBs as model. Not playing NBs much, I still percieve this class to be well thought-through and enjoyable to be played and hope this goal can be achieved for each class, too.

- I believe some tension here in the thread can be relieved when 2 named pain points (i.e. :
1) Harness Magicka and Conjured Ward skills are overshadowing and diminishing the role of healers
2) Light and Medium Armor do not compare favorably to Heavy Armor) are rather viewed as having 1 problem and 2 ways of adressing the issue. Along with the goal to Want to make healing both more valuable and rewarding for end-game group play this does make sense, imo.
-> Its shaking up the role of the healer, especially for those taking part in engame PVE or PVP NOT aiming for progess entitlement (Vet,HM,speedrun, no death ... *you name it*) and at the same time sharpening the profile for entitled healers. In the end I hope to see more choices and options in the "lower-skill-required" endgame activities, while progress healers might finally get the attenion they deserve for the awesome play they make possible.

In case you still feel stressed out:

Spoiler

... well, or just do what I do:

- Agree that Templars fighting over repenting corpses is undesirable, and very much so! This ability doesn't have a group utility (anymore) and while I do see beneficial tactical use in PVP, its just plainly selfish to the point of promoting selfishness for a questionable combat "advantage". The main pain point is templar sustain. And the currently bad state of templar sustain is the only reason this ability offers any combat advantage at all. I can only speak for myself, but using a broken design to gain a win in PVP, when beeing and fighting one specific class, doesn't sound like a widely used tactic. And the more I think about it, I feel its rather cheap ... not yay.

- Absorb Stamina glyphs doing magicka damage went on the list to be changed. - i have been wondering about these since launch, i think. Ty, a change is highly appriciated.

- Why do small daggers and range light attacks do more DPS than huge Axes and melee light attacks? Melee has a hard time Vs. opponents using Swift jewelry. ZOS says they will look more closely into Duel Wield Vs. Two-Handed damage. Imo this is going to be interesting! I had the impression (and no I don't have charts, just my personal observation) that alot of players changed to 2H for DPS reasons rather then gameplay with summerset. As for DW damage I had the impression, its the same for all 1H weapons (base damage) regardless of "size"? I agree damage output should be comparable between 1H and 2H weapons (difference beeing attackspeed) and I agree both melee type weapons should offer some more damage then ranged weapons. I just don't see why the devs or reps need to state "small daggers" dealing damage, its the same as swords or maces (when looking at base damage)?

- Channeled abilities and those longer than 1 second (like Templar Puncturing Strikes) miss out on Light attacks, which are a big DPS contributor. Well, i take any damage buff i can get, but I feel actually hitting my target with jabs would contribute most to my DPS. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Drdeath20

Things id like for them to look at: templar

Passives- every class has 1 passive that either boosts duration or gives a small addition to a skill. We have 2 in light weaver and enduring rays. Why cant light weaver just be part of the base skill? With that being said that would open a spot for a real stackable passive to replace it. Look no further than the 10% increase in regen thats tied to repentance. Clearly ZoS is comfortable with us having this passive. This way when repentance is fixed, players can freely bar swap with no penalty. Secondly the passive burning light should proc per target. Only 4 of the 18 aedric spear skills/ultimates are single target, this is a nice damage bump to skills we have all said need it. Sweeps, shards, explosive charge, the ultimate and sun shield.

Dark flare is a hard hitting skill that has just recieved 2 nerfs and 1 ninja nerf. Accross the board defile was reduced regardless of uptime and counter playability. Dark flare just soo happened to be sucked into that. If this was the only nerf i wouldnt care but combined with empowers function being changed it takes away alot from this skill. Another ninja nerf it recieved is that before staffs only counted as 1 armor piece so we could still duel weild, get the 5/5/2 set bonus, and have decent ranged abilities. Now we still can but it makes dark flare less desirable. When you look at the damage and the secondary effects I believe that zenimax wants to give templars a powerful ranged ability to use in PVP. Force pulse, ele weapons, sweeps all out dps it but its a heavy hitter that had great secondary pvp effects and counter playability. I really believe this skill needs to be looked at.

Solar barrage is another skill that losts its secondary funtion with the changes to empower. I saw this as more of the pve morph. Im glad its instant cast now but does the damage match that of what a comparable world skill like channeled acceleration can do? Is the actual damage done worth the potential damage minor force provides plus the increased speed? This needs to get looked at.

Radiant aura is a giant AoE buff but it can only work on 1 target. Its just not cost effective to use on trash mobs. They die before you gain back your magicka. Even on long boss fights, if you keep 100% uptime on damage (which most dlc bosses go through periods of immunity), your recovery is very underwhelming. Something needs to be done with this.

Healing ritual and its morphs needs to just be a magicka vigor. The range and cost work against the entire point of a instant heal. This change will not make healers OP because healing springs already exists. This change would help magicka DDs do what templars do best Heal. It not even a big change because we already have BoL. This is more a quality of life change. Shield up attack the boss or vigor up "healing ritual" and attack boss vut now we have the benefit of helping heal our neighbors.

Solar disturbance is another ultimate that needs to get looked at. Nova is the clear choice for groups. When you take a look at solar disturbance it does less damage, it costs too much and what differentiates it from nova (clearly meant for pvp) is not worth while. I say that its clearly meant for pvp because in pve the enemies always charge you. This needs to be more distinguished.

Well if they trully are looking at sun shield, repentance and the aedric spear ultimate these small changes would be nice and not game breaking.

@Minno @Checkmath @Joy_Division

HankTwo

@Liofa

Aside from tanky healers, tanks are useless in PvP. Why do you think it would be a good change to remove heavy armor from all players who want to run a bruiser type of character in PvP? And tanks in PvE run heavy armor anyway, so how would this help build variety?

Joy_Division

@BohnT

I see where you are coming from. In fact for years I have felt I have written the same thing over and over again for templars and have zero clue whether or not the devs comprehend the gist of my critiques, let alone are considering them.

I see the issue of magplar melee DPS are incredibly complex. When ZOS made the staff changes, that really made a big impact on magplars here because so many of them used 2 Swords (which give higher spell damage + 5% damage) and now doing so means missing out on powerful staff light attacks (which potentially can be even more powerful because of empower, which templars have the easiest time accessing). But a Templar who goes the staff route now tanks their spell damage and potentially misses our on the 5%), so now their Sweeps are hitting like wet noodles (aside from it probably being mitigated by more CP stars than other skills). That's not going to come up in a 90 minute meeting where the entire game and all the classes in every aspect of the game need to be discussed. So what do I do? I don't know? Make a forum post? But that's what I've been doing for years...

I'm sure there are quite a few people out there that see me as being biased toward templars so yep, I get not wanting to be seen as a biased source and thus not have their feedback taken seriously.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I see the concept of bias a little differently than most people. We are all biased, so someone who presents themselves as being more objective could mean they are simply better at hiding their bias (or, of course, it could mean they are actually trying to be objective). And just because someone is biased, does not necessarily mean their point is invalid. What matters to me is what evidence do they bring to back up their claim and, based on that evidence, are they demonstrating that they are at least are trying to understand the other side of the argument.

Quantum_V

Hey all!

I just quickly want to talk about the comment on the comparison between heavy, medium and light armorm -- hopefully clarify that a little bit more.

I'm gonna talk for myself now and present my personal opinion. What came to my mind from the meeting is not that ZoS necessarily plans on nerfing heavy armor, but bringing up the utility you get in medium and light. We had an internal meeting a couple of days prior to the meeting with the devs, and we almost unanimously agreed that the balance between the three is pretty good, atleast when it comes to passives and what they offer you for each determined playstyle.

Because of that I believe we wont be getting nerfs to heavy armor, but a possible revitalization of the three armor types. A new balance point for armor. It seemed like they're not looking for a simple "nerf heavy/buff medium light solution", but a rework between the three. No plain nerfs/buffs in a vacuum, but almost like overhauling changes that might alter how each armor piece works, modifications that extend simple changes in passives.

I don't know, ZoS didn't tell us directly what they're planning on doing, whenever they propose a solution (and it will surely be done before the patch hits), we will have a more viable and coherent way to argument in favor or against the changes.

Hopefully that helped clarify somethings!

Let me know if you've got any questions!

BohnT

Joy_Division wrote: »

@BohnT

I see where you are coming from. In fact for years I have felt I have written the same thing over and over again for templars and have zero clue whether or not the devs comprehend the gist of my critiques, let alone are considering them.

I see the issue of magplar melee DPS are incredibly complex. When ZOS made the staff changes, that really made a big impact on magplars here because so many of them used 2 Swords (which give higher spell damage + 5% damage) and now doing so means missing out on powerful staff light attacks (which potentially can be even more powerful because of empower, which templars have the easiest time accessing). But a Templar who goes the staff route now tanks their spell damage and potentially misses our on the 5%), so now their Sweeps are hitting like wet noodles (aside from it probably being mitigated by more CP stars than other skills). That's not going to come up in a 90 minute meeting where the entire game and all the classes in every aspect of the game need to be discussed. So what do I do? I don't know? Make a forum post? But that's what I've been doing for years...

I'm sure there are quite a few people out there that see me as being biased toward templars so yep, I get not wanting to be seen as a biased source and thus not have their feedback taken seriously.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I see the concept of bias a little differently than most people. We are all biased, so someone who presents themselves as being more objective could mean they are simply better at hiding their bias (or, of course, it could mean they are actually trying to be objective). And just because someone is biased, does not necessarily mean their point is invalid. What matters to me is what evidence do they bring to back up their claim and, based on that evidence, are they demonstrating that they are at least are trying to understand the other side of the argument.

Do you think there are some of these more complex questions where it's worth to make lengthy posts because the devs are actually looking into these things atm or do you feel that it's better to wait for the devs to come up with something during a PTS patch and then hope to bring in changes during the PTS?

One of the Class reps mentioned that the Devs made/ wanted to make a list with questions for the Reps which focused on the things that the Devs are looking at and on which things they like to have feedback, does this list exist and are you allowed to share it?

Will there be Talks about Sets in the future? Things like proc scaling is still the root of many balance issues and the lack of "hybrid" sets in the terms of 7th legion, bone pirate, bloodspawn, amberplasm, bloodthorn, shackle
I.e sets that give you both damage and sustain, damage and survivability or survivability and sustain.
As these sets often make builds far more viable as people can have builds that don't lack sustain, survivability or damage while being able to do the other things.
If we measured the effectiveness of all builds with a triangle which corners tell us how good they perform sustain, damage and survivability wise then we often have the issue that players have to run 1 defensive set +either a sustain set or a damage set which has bad influence on the third aspect which is then really weak.

With these hybrid sets however we are able to have builds that perform decently in all categories while being weaker than a build that only focuses on one or two categories and that is good but sadly we don't have many of these sets and as we can see from the sets we do have is that they are often used on strong builds.
There is no set for example that gives magicka damage and sustain at the same time (like bone pirate does for stam), neither is there a stamina set that gives sustain and survivability, or a magicka set that gives survivability and sustain, neither do we have a good stamina set that gives stam and mag sustain (except for shackle which gives some damage, some stam sustain and some magsustain)
I'm not asking for flat mirror sets just sets that provide more than just flat "moar damage" "moar tankiness"

arkansas_ESO

idk wrote: »

show previous quotes

arkansas_ESO wrote: »

"ZOS is firm in their stance that high burst damage skills combined with stuns are undesirable and is looking to get away from that."

Where's the nerf for Dizzying Swing?

(Not that it actually needs a nerf, but this new rule they're trying to implement is very inconsistent.)

Dizzy has a full second activation. Very big warning time.

Deep Fissure had a 3 second delay to serve as a warning time, but it lost it's CC all the same.

Joy_Division

BohnT wrote: »

show previous quotes

Joy_Division wrote: »

@BohnT

I see where you are coming from. In fact for years I have felt I have written the same thing over and over again for templars and have zero clue whether or not the devs comprehend the gist of my critiques, let alone are considering them.

I see the issue of magplar melee DPS are incredibly complex. When ZOS made the staff changes, that really made a big impact on magplars here because so many of them used 2 Swords (which give higher spell damage + 5% damage) and now doing so means missing out on powerful staff light attacks (which potentially can be even more powerful because of empower, which templars have the easiest time accessing). But a Templar who goes the staff route now tanks their spell damage and potentially misses our on the 5%), so now their Sweeps are hitting like wet noodles (aside from it probably being mitigated by more CP stars than other skills). That's not going to come up in a 90 minute meeting where the entire game and all the classes in every aspect of the game need to be discussed. So what do I do? I don't know? Make a forum post? But that's what I've been doing for years...

I'm sure there are quite a few people out there that see me as being biased toward templars so yep, I get not wanting to be seen as a biased source and thus not have their feedback taken seriously.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I see the concept of bias a little differently than most people. We are all biased, so someone who presents themselves as being more objective could mean they are simply better at hiding their bias (or, of course, it could mean they are actually trying to be objective). And just because someone is biased, does not necessarily mean their point is invalid. What matters to me is what evidence do they bring to back up their claim and, based on that evidence, are they demonstrating that they are at least are trying to understand the other side of the argument.

Do you think there are some of these more complex questions where it's worth to make lengthy posts because the devs are actually looking into these things atm or do you feel that it's better to wait for the devs to come up with something during a PTS patch and then hope to bring in changes during the PTS?

I think it's worth making a lengthy post and including some sort of evidence demonstrating the complexity of the that demonstrates you have a better grasp on it than the "meta" or what is in those charts.

How often do you just see a death recap and the poster assumes the solution is self-evident and the issue is easy and clear as day? Don't be that person.

As for when, my impression is before PTS. How often has a big change been reversed on the PTS? Hardly right? A lot of work and testing go into them and often times they are connected to other changes such that reversing them would totally upset the balance elsewhere.

One of the Class reps mentioned that the Devs made/ wanted to make a list with questions for the Reps which focused on the things that the Devs are looking at and on which things they like to have feedback, does this list exist and are you allowed to share it?

I don't think so because that's something that sounds like a good idea. Specifically, I mean the devs making a list of questions for the Reps to focus on. We haven't received such a list. They have asked us to come up with pain points. I think this would be a really good idea for the devs to make a list with questions because from our meeting, it sounds like to me the devs want to know how people are using skills or how we are playing the game.

What has happened is something similar, but not the same thing. Instead we have been presenting lists of things for the devs to focus and comment on. That is fine for giving the devs (way too many) things to look at. Though perhaps the way you framed it would be more efficient: if the devs gave us specific questions, it would narrow the focus and allow for deeper discussion on big issues rather than shorter discussion on many issues.

Will there be Talks about Sets in the future? Things like proc scaling is still the root of many balance issues and the lack of "hybrid" sets in the terms of 7th legion, bone pirate, bloodspawn, amberplasm, bloodthorn, shackle
I.e sets that give you both damage and sustain, damage and survivability or survivability and sustain.
As these sets often make builds far more viable as people can have builds that don't lack sustain, survivability or damage while being able to do the other things.
If we measured the effectiveness of all builds with a triangle which corners tell us how good they perform sustain, damage and survivability wise then we often have the issue that players have to run 1 defensive set +either a sustain set or a damage set which has bad influence on the third aspect which is then really weak.

Perhaps there should be. The focus on the program now is more about classes and roles. But the reality is that gear is such a huge component. We have mentioned some sets that aren't very good, have communicated the frustration with proc sets, and let ZOS know that it might be a better approach to say release 2 interesting sets than 5 sets that that proc for x damage.

It's perhaps as reflection of what comes on these forums. Probably 95% of the pain points people bring up is class or role related. It is not often at all does gear get talked about unless it's seen as particularly bad (for example Sloads and, some time ago, 7th Legion).

I would agree that it would be great to see more interesting gear diversity, perhaps it would be worthwhile for people to talk more about the sort of gear they'd like to see. Or what they use and why they use it. And what they don't use and why they dont, to give ZOS a better idea of the direction it should go.