PTS Update 22 - Feedback Thread for Class Balance

ilcavallo

thankyourat wrote: »

Are we going to just ignore how strong magicka sorcerers are? They are currently the best class on live by far and it doesn't look like there are any plans to balance them

The development team will do as they please regardless of feedback and class reps aren't fully aware of the impact changes have on PVP and PVE. It's unfortunate because they are ruining the experience for a lot of loyal longtime subscribers, but that's the way it is right now:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/471538/stam-sorcs-seriously-need-some-changes#latest

Strider__Roshin

thankyourat wrote: »

Are we going to just ignore how strong magicka sorcerers are? They are currently the best class on live by far and it doesn't look like there are any plans to balance them

Agreed. They nerfed Nightblades damage, but left magsorcs unchecked even though on live they're top dog. Honestly I was shocked to not see them nerfed.

Minno

This is a legit nerf Sorc thread now lol

Vapirko

Has anyone else compared Ritual tooltips on Stamina Templar between live and PTS? I’ve gotta do it again later and double check but I did it quickly this morning and it was very underwhelming so I’m wondering if it’s working properly. On live it’s something like 730 with and on PTS it’s only like 1000 or so. Not quite the boost I was expecting, in my mind I was imagining a tooltip that would be closer to double. Will jump on again later to make sure I’m not making mistakes but if anyone else has tested it let me know.

Zedrian

Have you seen Magicka Nightblade parses lately? Videos?
If yes, did you or the person use Merciless Resolve or did you replace it with another skill such as the Shades?
Thanks

Iskiab

Magblade
Primary roles: healing, secondary dps
Primarily PvP focused

Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?

The loss of major defile on the assassination skill line tree. This will hurt the ganker playstyle more than most are aware. Removing it from an ultimate while leaving it on normal abilities with no recast timer (like in the sword and shield line) seems like a weird choice. How can something be too powerful for an ultimate ability but okay for abilities that can be recast at will.

Are you able to weave abilities better or worse in this Update?

Same, no change

Do you feel your class is stronger, weaker, or relatively the same with the standardization pass on class abilities?

Stronger due to contextual changes in the game to other classes and some guild abilities. Mitigation from merciless and race against time in the psijiic line are good changes.

Do you feel we addressed abilities that in the past year have been over or under performing?

Somewhat. I still have four areas of concern:

1. Refreshing path’s area is too small leading to it underperforming.

2. The abilities that heal for a percentage of damage are underperforming in pvp. For pve targets are reduced to 0 mitigation so these abilities provide good healing. In pvp players typically sit at the mitigation cap so the healing amount is significantly less. A solution is to have healing values based on stats like other heals and not damage done. This would be a pve nerf and a pvp buff.

3. Dark cloak needs to be a stronger self heal for those who like tanking. Giving up cloak is losing a large advantage as a NB, as it stands no one will choose dark cloak.

4. Synergies are used for tank sustain in pve. If NB healers could provide a synergy outside an ultimate it would let NBs be used to heal trials.

Do you have any other general feedback?

At this time no. I assume that some imbalances are due to the pass on class abilities being done before the pass on weapon abilities, but hopefully you are aware that there are obvious imbalances in game. Like sword and shield has an ability that inflicts major defile for 3k stamina and at the same time you’re removing it from an ultimate. As is I have no idea why all stamina classes in pvp wouldn’t use sword and board.

Deathlord92

Prutton wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?

Removing major fracture (instead of major ward/resolve) from Surprise Attack is against the spirit of the NB class. Instead of removing major fracture from the skill, veiled strike and its morphs should have been removed from the shadow skill tree (to avoid procing major ward/resolve from the shadow barrier passive). Blur and it's morphs could take its place the shadow tree as compensation.

Surprise attack was admittedly stacked (giving major ward/resolve, major fracture, and also very strong burst damage), but limiting the offensive capabilities of this skill was the wrong way to go about it (and goes completely against the class's identity). It limits the damage potential of the class in favor of sustained defense, which directly contradicts not only NB being emphasized as a high offense/low defense class, but also the NB's class identity as rogues/assassins (as opposed to brawlers).

Allowing surprise attack to proc major ward and resolve makes NB the only class that receives these buffs passively (and for free) inherent in spamming their class single target damage attack.

This encourages them to continually attack and pressure enemies, which tends to be more associated with the brawler style of gameplay rather than the rogue/assassin (which nightblades are most associated with).

Classic NB (rogue style of play) should be regarded as opportunistic, and should capitalize off of short durations of offense (burst, which is already their forte) followed by a short duration of going on the defensive to set up their next offensive burst (usually facilitated by cloaking, which also grants major ward/resolve).

If the defensive portion of the skill were removed (instead of fracture), it would be rewarding to the assassin/rogue playstyles and fit in nicely with the high risk/high reward theme of the class. It would also leave the less traditional NB brawler playstyles relatively unharmed. The brawler style of play for NB can still be achievable through the upkeep of other defensive buffs (specifically dark cloak for the sustained healing) that should be kept up at all times, and is further facilitated by major ward/resolve scaling positively with the number of pieces of heavy armor the user is wearing.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

To resolve the redundancy issue of major fracture being granted by both surprise attack and mark target, mark target could receive minor vulnerability and it could be removed from teleport strike. Concealed weapon could be the class source of major breach, to give an advantage to magicka characters willing to expose themselves in melee range.

Stamina nightblades can use Weapon skills, just like sorcerers and dragon knights have been doing for years. Anyone that think this is *** should support more those classes when they ask for spammables and better skills.

Blood craze is a weapon skill and very popular on stamblades

_Ahala_

Iskiab wrote: »

Magblade
Primary roles: healing, secondary dps
Primarily PvP focused

Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?

The loss of major defile on the assassination skill line tree. This will hurt the ganker playstyle more than most are aware. Removing it from an ultimate while leaving it on normal abilities with no recast timer (like in the sword and shield line) seems like a weird choice. How can something be too powerful for an ultimate ability but okay for abilities that can be recast at will.

Are you able to weave abilities better or worse in this Update?

Same, no change

Do you feel your class is stronger, weaker, or relatively the same with the standardization pass on class abilities?

Stronger due to contextual changes in the game to other classes and some guild abilities. Mitigation from merciless and race against time in the psijiic line are good changes.

Do you feel we addressed abilities that in the past year have been over or under performing?

Somewhat. I still have four areas of concern:

1. Refreshing path’s area is too small leading to it underperforming.

2. The abilities that heal for a percentage of damage are underperforming in pvp. For pve targets are reduced to 0 mitigation so have good self healing. In pvp players typically sit at the mitigation cap so the healing amount is significantly less. A solution is rather than have healing values based on stats and not damage done. This would be a pve nerf and a pvp buff.

3. Dark cloak needs to be a stronger self heal for those who like tanking. Giving up cloak is losing a large advantage as a NB, as it stands no one will choose dark cloak as it stands.

4. Synergies are used for tank sustain in pve. If NB healers could provide a synergy outside an ultimate it would let NBs be used to heal trials.

Do you have any other general feedback?

At this time no. I assume that some imbalances are due to the pass on class abilities being done before the pass on weapon abilities, but hopefully you are aware that there are obvious imbalances in game. Like sword and shield has an ability that inflicts major defile for 3k stamina and at the same time you’re removing it from an ultimate. As is I have no idea why all stamina classes in pvp wouldn’t use sword and board.

Soul Harvest will keep the defile effect... The morphs are very different now with Incap giving damage and a 20% damage done to target buff at 70 ult and a stun/minor mangle debuff at 125 ult and Soul Harvest giving damage, a 20% damage done to target buff and major defile for 6s at 70 ult while providing 10 ult per kb

HowlKimchi

Iskiab wrote: »

Magblade
Primary roles: healing, secondary dps
Primarily PvP focused

Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?

The loss of major defile on the assassination skill line tree. This will hurt the ganker playstyle more than most are aware. Removing it from an ultimate while leaving it on normal abilities with no recast timer (like in the sword and shield line) seems like a weird choice. How can something be too powerful for an ultimate ability but okay for abilities that can be recast at will.

soul harvest still has major defile buddy.

Kalitas

Magblades should keep Minor Berserk on Merciless. The class already underperforms in 1vX PVP. It's not the top damage dealer in PVE. Stamblades can still get minor berserk from camo hunter. Combat Prayer uptimes are generally too low to consider that a viable replacement for PVE DPS.

Strider__Roshin

Kalitas wrote: »

Magblades should keep Minor Berserk on Merciless. The class already underperforms in 1vX PVP. It's not the top damage dealer in PVE. Stamblades can still get minor berserk from camo hunter. Combat Prayer uptimes are generally too low to consider that a viable replacement for PVE DPS.

Magblades can get minor berserk from camo hunter as well.

StarOfElyon

hunter937 wrote: »

I’ll start with this I am so excited for SOME of the changes to stamplar in the upcoming class/skill changes in Elsweyr. Gap closers, root cool down, cleansing/purifying ritual, such GREAT and needed changes.. BUT we as a stamina class do not have a large damage mitigation tool kit. Magplar has total dark, dk wings, warden shimmering, sorc ball of lightning. Stamplar doesn’t have an affordable skill to mitigate upfront burst. EXCEPT the major protection we received from empowering sweep. This skill was beautiful because it could be used defensively in a pinch, turn a fight in one’s advantage, or add the needed burst to down an opponent. Also please make toppling a stam/magic skill and do phys/magic damage based on whichever pool is higher? We don’t have access to a class gap closer! Please make this right for the small stamplar community we have. Let stamplar finally have its day and live among the ranks of stamden, stam DK, and stamblade!
Much love

Didn't you hear? TD got nerfed. It's not going to be worth slotting anymore..

ilcavallo

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for current class balance and the class ability audit in this update. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?
  
  I PVP more than PVE so most of these answers are from a PVP perspective.
  
  Yes. NBs now have what the devs describe as a "burst heal" (brief pause for laughter from anyone that's ever PVPd on a NB) in their assisination skill line and the nerfs to their single-target abilities are way too drastic (even their food is being nerfed) for what's considered a rogue/single-target style class. RIP NB.
  
• Are you able to weave abilities better or worse in this Update?
  
  This is a serious problem on console. Even with top-tier high-speed internet, there are times when only my light attacks seem to register, and abilities don't work properly, for example silver leash pulls the target completely behind me.
  
  I would recommend focusing on game performance until it's fixed instead of turning the game upside down, but this seems to have been ignored for at least a couple years.
  
• Do you feel your class is stronger, weaker, or relatively the same with the standardization pass on class abilities?
  
  Weaker. No one can say with a straight face that stamsorcs are balanced. It's mentioned numerous times in this thread and there are several other threads on the board providing the same feedback. Stamsorcs are forced to rely on weapon skill lines and now they're being nerfed for whatever reason. How long has this been an issue? Once again this doesn't seem like it will be fixed in Elswyr.
  
• Do you feel we addressed abilities that in the past year have been over or under performing?
  
  Let's see:
  
  Uppercut is being addressed, but unfortunately it's a nerf to an already underperforming ability in PVP. The snare is being removed from Hidden Blade. Bizarre. I never thought it was an issue for anyone. So what are my options for a spammable as a stamsorc?
  
• Do you have any other general feedback?
  
  I feel like the development team is kind of all over the place with a lot of the changes being made. It seems like either class reps don't have a good understanding of the impacts changes have in both PVE and PVP scenarios or ZOS isn't interested in addressing concerns raised by the community or both. This is a failure overall when it comes to class balance and now of course we have necromancer on the way and at this point I'm not sure if the combat team will ever get PVP right. I mean the new chapter will attract new players but the current state of the game is driving away a lot of the longtime players that I know and have played with over the past year or two. I just don't feel like the game is headed in a good direction anymore.
  

GeorgeBlack

Please move Seething Fury passive from Molten Whip morph to Searing Strikes base ability.
Searing Strikes has both magika and stamina morphs.
Seething Fury increases both Spell and Weapon dmg.


Please improve all the Ardent Flame passives, Igneous Weapons and give us either stamina Talons or stamina Wings to help with class ID and resource managment

marius_buys

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I feel like there are a lot of boring, low impact passives in the original 4 classes that should be removed to make room for more interesting ones. These all have in common that the abilities they are buffing are exclusive to the class and thus do not create any further class identity or unique value. Removing these passives will also make balancing a little bit easier as ability durations can then be balanced independent of oneanother without needing to remember how the passives could potentially blow it out of proportion. Currently they all feel flat and not very meaningful.

Templar

• Enduring rays - Increases the duration of your Sun Fire, Eclipse, Solar Flare and Nova abilities by 2 seconds.

Dragonknight

• Searing Heat - Increases the damage of Fiery Breath, Searing Strike, and Dragonknight Standard abilities by 3% and the duration by 2 seconds.
• Eternal mountain - Increases the duration of Earthen Heart abilities by 20%.

Sorcerer

• Persistence - Increases the duration of Dark Magic abilities by 15%.

Nightblade

• Dark Veil - "Adjusted this passive to grant a flat 1 and 2 second duration increase to Shadow abilities".

There are some weapon abilities following the same boring and flat design.
Balanced Blade (2-handed), Controlled Fury (Dualwield), Ranger (Bow), Restoration Master (Restoration staff).

CRAP, do you even play these dude?

marius_buys

Can the OP stam players PLEASE stop your nefarious calls for sorc nerfs, if anything we cant break free from any kind of stun which just gets spammed til we die. ZERO skill required to kill sorcs these days.

marius_buys

Do sorcs EVEN HAVE A CLASS REP or do we just get bent over because he/she is not vocal/knowledgeable/commited enough to fight for sorcs?

Mitaka211

marius_buys wrote: »

Can the OP stam players PLEASE stop your nefarious calls for sorc nerfs, if anything we cant break free from any kind of stun which just gets spammed til we die. ZERO skill required to kill sorcs these days.

What do you mean dude, a magsorc has no excuse to losing 1v1 against a stamina user period. If anything stamina users are the least vocal and every time one mentions a problem with their class, he gets bombarded by triggered magika users who don't know what they are doing in the first place.

The majority of players as a guild mate mentioned have the "maximum powaaaa" syndrome.
Thing is magsorc is so damn good , you won't see a bg without at least 1 . Hell last night there i encountered a full team of magsorcs. They outperform any other class period. Sure NBs are annoying but if you get to them they die quite fast. Big damage for extremely high risk. Magsorcs in bgs can get away with any mistake they make. They can achieve amazing burst and aoe dmg while having extremely good protection unlike a NB.

Im sorry but do you know what 4 sorcs with a pet build look like in one team. It's god damn absurd what it is. Besides 2h stamina users are getting a big nerf so you can sleep tight.

Every time i duel a magsorc on my templar and i beat him, i just know he is bad. I know what a good player can do with a mag sorc so please stop. They should be nerfed any player who is not delusional can see that.

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO

Petsorcs need some love for trial environments:

Suggestion: make then untargetable in raids, remove stun and increase dots. Win for everyone!

Deathlord92

Mitaka211 wrote: »

marius_buys wrote: »

Can the OP stam players PLEASE stop your nefarious calls for sorc nerfs, if anything we cant break free from any kind of stun which just gets spammed til we die. ZERO skill required to kill sorcs these days.

What do you mean dude, a magsorc has no excuse to losing 1v1 against a stamina user period. If anything stamina users are the least vocal and every time one mentions a problem with their class, he gets bombarded by triggered magika users who don't know what they are doing in the first place.

The majority of players as a guild mate mentioned have the "maximum powaaaa" syndrome.
Thing is magsorc is so damn good , you won't see a bg without at least 1 . Hell last night there i encountered a full team of magsorcs. They outperform any other class period. Sure NBs are annoying but if you get to them they die quite fast. Big damage for extremely high risk. Magsorcs in bgs can get away with any mistake they make. They can achieve amazing burst and aoe dmg while having extremely good protection unlike a NB.

Im sorry but do you know what 4 sorcs with a pet build look like in one team. It's god damn absurd what it is. Besides 2h stamina users are getting a big nerf so you can sleep tight.

Every time i duel a magsorc on my templar and i beat him, i just know he is bad. I know what a good player can do with a mag sorc so please stop. They should be nerfed any player who is not delusional can see that.

I was about to complain about mag sorcs after reading few comments then I saw this you said exactly what I was thinking completely agree

josh.lackey_ESO

Nightblade Cloak invisibility is still too powerful in PvP it should only be a miss chance not 100% miss + invis.

Checkmath

marius_buys wrote: »

Do sorcs EVEN HAVE A CLASS REP or do we just get bent over because he/she is not vocal/knowledgeable/commited enough to fight for sorcs?

I think your dear sorc class rep left, because he felt ashamed by all those magsorcs, who think their class is weak.

Firstmep

Couple pieces of feedback for templar:

Backlash:

This ability and its morphs (the released damage), do not scale with offensive champion points at the moment, as the released damage is capped by maximum magicka/stamina.

Both the copied and the released damage are however mitigated by cp-s such as ironclad, elemental defender and hardy.

The released damage only scales with max magicka or stamina however templars in class buffs are to spell/wpd dmg, spell/wpn critical and critical damage. Not great synergy.


Solar Flare(Dark Flare morph):

The damage decrease doesnt match the reduction in its cast time and it has been reported that the skill doesnt weave faster/better with the new changes.

Please either change it to behave like solar barrage, with aoe major defile on each tick, or change the skill to instant cast, and balance its damage accordinhly.
As it stands this ability(Dark Flare), is outparsed and outshined by other spammables, such as elemental weapon, force shock, and in melee puncutring sweeps. The cast time makes it undesireable even PVE, and its damage isnt even good enough, especially since solar barrage provides easy uptime on empower for a single cast.

Healing Ritual(and both morphs),

I think this skill should be change to a short range aoe healing over time skill, one magicka, one stamina morph.

This is to give templars more proactive defenses in pvp.

This skill may be used by a few people, mainly in larger groups in pvp, however, there is no content in the game where its necessary.

Please also look at the templar passive master ritualist, as its more of a flavor passive than anything, ever since resurrection speeds were made not stackable. Soul gem generation isnt really an issue for even the newest players.

Some kind of a near death passive could be nice, like gaining minor heroism for a few seconds if an ally(or us), we have healed recently drops below 40% health.

Minno

AOE 6 target fear AND single target silence? Glad we traded wings shutting down ranged for nightblade shutting down mag based reactive defenses lol.

Firstmep

Incap change cannot go live. It cant, im sorry. How did we go from a straight up nerf to a buff? It is already overloaded on live, this change will make it even stronger. Hello? @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_BrianWheeler You guys cant be serious, Magicka NB-s need better defenses and you deliver the stamina counterpart of this class the most brutal hard counter to every magicka class.

Hello? You guys cannot be serious.

Prutton

Stamina nightblades were already at the top of PVE and around the top in PVP. How to balance it? Make them stronger in PVE, giving more sustain, and stronger in PVP, giving a 75 cost ult that kills any magicka character. I am sure the devs main stamina nightblades.

Czekoludek

Firstmep wrote: »

Incap change cannot go live. It cant, im sorry. How did we go from a straight up nerf to a buff? It is already overloaded on live, this change will make it even stronger. Hello? @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_BrianWheeler You guys cant be serious, Magicka NB-s need better defenses and you deliver the stamina counterpart of this class the most brutal hard counter to every magicka class.

Hello? You guys cannot be serious.

Well they clearly don't know what they are doing

Tommy_The_Gun

So.. about incap... if you are mag character (try to be as much objective and not biased as possible) - what would you replace the silence part with ? Honest question.

_Ahala_

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

So.. about incap... if you are mag character (try to be as much objective and not biased as possible) - what would you replace the silence part with ? Honest question.

Literally anything

hunter937

Okay so you aren’t going to fix empowering sweep... stamplar needs SOMETHING to mitigate ranged damage. I propose we have access to minor maim somewhere in our passives and have a stam version of toppling charge to stun and close the distance on our enemies. Without major protection we have nothing stopping mag sorcs and magdens from spamming their rotation from a distance...