PTS Update 22 - Feedback Thread for Class Balance

ftballjj20

Stam sorcs have need more stam class abilities. The streak was a great start but maybe add two or three more. Not necessarily pets or maybe just one pet.
Maybe make frags morph into its original design to be a straight up push back but for stam. Just spit balling ideas

Stam nb (i main this but do agree nerfs needed to happen) got nerfed to hard. Change that 5% pen to minor fracture and take away that hit from behind proc. Or add minor fracture and leave the 5 percent from behind for a unique design (which is what i believe u were trying to do). Incap minor mangle? Come on now. Maybe add a minor force to go with the crit theme. Have it be a short time tho. Like 4 seconds. Grim focus is really garbage. Add the minor resources for there respective morph. Maybe add minor force here to help mag blades. Or take away the second cost since that damage js all its good for now

Dont play dk so idk about that

Havent tested templar yet

Love the necro. Good work on it!

Warden updates were solid

Not class related but i think guard should have the damage be mitigated but the caster of the ability since the damage is getting transferred to him

ochsinator

juhislihis19 wrote: »

Can I finally get an answer why NECROmancer has 5 stamina morhps but dragonKNIGHT only has 2?

Seems like MagDK got buffed, and apart from Obnoxious Breath (this was buffed for mDKs as well), stamDKs got fudge all.

StamDK:

Still many useless passives
Still just DOTs after DOTs - no AOE, no burst
Wings nerfed
No sensible way to access major buffs (except Fracture)
No burst heal
No identity, just general weapon skills


ZOS, you failed.

Agree

Zophix

My opinion on Wings.
Leave the changes to Protective Scale the same but change Protective Plate (morph) and Dragon Fire Scale (morph).

• Dragon Fire Scale (morph): Flex your scales, deflecting any projectiles directed at you for 2 seconds. Casting again within 4 seconds costs 50% more magicka.
  This puts Dragon Fire Scale on par with Sorcerers Ball of Lightning.
  The cost increase negates the complete denial of projectile based attacks.

• Protective Plate (morph): Flex your scales, reducing the damage of all projectiles by 50% for 6 seconds and granting immunity to snare and immobilization effects for 4 seconds.
  Increasing the immunity to 4 seconds brings it up to par with the Race Against Time change.

Tommy_The_Gun

LoreToo wrote: »

Ok. I'm here olny for 1 thing. Thank you. This is THE BEST class and skills changes we've seen for 2 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4

Pyatra

Skill length changes have eliminated 6s/12s/18s rotations from Sorcerer and Templar. Making Unstable Wall from Destruction Staff the odd man out. This skill can not longer fit in even a pet sorcerer rotation due to changes with Lightning Flood (Templar rotation has moved to only 8s/16s rotation as well). Also seems to tick during explosion too. So it does not meet the requirements for standardization and it is no longer a viable length skill morph.

Please replace this skill morph as fixing it to match where the tick doesn't pop on the explosion would be a waste of time as this is now a non-rotation damage only skill.

josh.lackey_ESO

Dark Flare had travel time and cast time reduced by 10% (1.1 to 1) and damage reduced by 37%.

Snipe had travel time cast time reduced by 10% (1.1 to 1) and damaged reduced by only 25%.

Please nerf Snipe down to 37% to match Dark Flare!

I know there is going to be extreme stam favoritism, but this is just too blatant.

Sloban

Stam Warden is currently a garbage PVP class, and after this patch Mag warden will be too. Please help

Titan_01

For my StamDK

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

I'm not sure what the vision is for the class in the current incarnation. A Dot based brawler class doesn't really seem to go together, but that is all i can guess it is. The changes seem to really work for MagDK but stamina DK (along with stam sorc) still just seem bland. I guess changes to dots help but we should have also been given a class spammable that works in conjunction with the dots much like you did with the new Whip morph.

The wings change also erases a class defining skill and as much as i hate that, others have covered it enough.

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

Breath seems a lot less clunky to weave. Caltops and Endless Hail seem better as well

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

The same if not slightly weaker. We didn't really gain anything and while we didn't really lose anything either compared to other stam classes we are still near the bottom.

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

I believe there were some really easy changes that could have been done that were overlooked (even if you don't want to make a stam whip). Molten Weapons should have been adjusted to fit in the current environment. Igneous might be useful for tanks to provide if people are running the new pots but i'm not sure who would use Molten.

There are many passives that could be changed that would benefit the class overall, regardless of the Role.

• Do you have any other general feedback?

I realize there are priorities but it really seems that some classes were just ignored with hope for another review at a future date.

phantasmalD

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Do you feel we addressed abilities that in the past year have been over or under performing?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

For the most part the DK changes look fairly interesting, astonishing even, but I think Earthen Heart tree really deserves another (BIG) look.

Magma Armor -> the shorter duration, weaker shield effect, worse passives and smaller radius (8m) makes this ultimate straight up inferior to Barrier (Support) and the damage it does makes it inferior to the other two DK class ultimates as well as plenty of non-class ultimates.
DKs already have an Ultimate (Dragon Leap) that combines survivability with damage, do we really need a second one? Especially considering that the removal of Major Protection from Radial Sweep was justified by saying that Templars have too many defensive ultimates.
Magma Shell tries to be survivability+damage+support but it ends up just being the worst of all worlds.
Maybe replace the damage with a healing aura? Or significantly drop the cost or whatever.

Stone Giant -> I don't have any data on this but personally never seen it being used. Destructive Clench pretty much does the same job but better, the minor armor buffs are really not that enticing.

Igneous Weapons -> Completely superflous and wasted skillslot. Major Sorcery&Brutality are the two easiest to acquire buffs, this skill is pretty much just a newbietrap, making those new dk tanks/healer feel like they are supporting a team when in fact they are just wasting mana as their teammates are already applying these themselves.

Obsidian Shield -> From what I can tell this is supposed to be the core skill of a DK healer and core part of their identity, supplying their team with a constant stream of shields. The problem is that this scales off the user's max health making the given shield pathetically small, like sub/barely 1.5k. And what's worse, if two person uses this skill the newer shield will override the older one, meaning you can replace a stronger shield with a weaker one, which is very problematic in the case of a dk tank + healer combination.
Imo this skill should scale off the combination of your primary resource (mag or stam) and health, and maybe separate sources should stack.

Petrify -> The problem with this skill is that you can't use it on anything that's CC immune. Kinda makes sense as stunning is the main effect, but this means that you won't be able utilize the secondary effects of these skills pretty much 90% of the time. Like Shattering Rocks got a heal tacked on it but you will only be able to trigger it once in a blue moon. Like in PvP environment pretty much everything is either CCd or is currently immune to it, while PvE bosses are immune by default. And even if you manage to use it on a mob or something, you are just kind of screwing over your tank as he won't be able to pull that mob.

Ash Cloud -> the increased healing is nice but what this skill could have really used was +1m increase in radius

Lack of good class supportive synergy -> Something that I think DK healers are really lacking is a healer specific, supportive class synergy.
Tbh imo every class should have 3 synergies not just templars

Mojmir

ZO$ did exactly what i expected, fail.

ATreeGnome

Magdens exist. It honestly feels like ZoS forgot. The fact that the new necromancers are pulling such ludicrous numbers just makes it that much more frustrating to see magdens go, yet again, without a significant sustain, damage, or utility boost.

Tannus15

Mag sorc

Overall I'm happy with mag sorc right now.

mages fury - This change is completely worthless. In PvE mages fury is completely worthless. If you're using fury in PvE stop. It's a DPS Loss in execute if you have bound aegis slotted instead.

lightning flood Nice. You can now build a simple rotation of ele blockade & lightning flood on the same timing. However, liquid and flood are basically the same thing. The number crunchers are going to work out which morph is better and that will be that. One morph will be better, everyone will run that, end of story. Make 1 morph the dps morph and the other some sort of utility. Or better yet, stamina.

daedric prey omg I love this so much. I was literally saying a few days ago how much better sorc pets would be if they targeted whatever you case prey on. Awesome.

Stx

Please dont remove major protection from empowering sweep. Stamplar already has poor survival in pvp and this ultimate was huge for being able to go toe to toe with enemies.

It's also very useful for tanks and solo pve.

If you really want to make a morph of the aedric ultimate pure physical dps, then make both morphs physical and leave one with major protection.

Nova is magicka for both morphs so this shouldn't be a problem.

ESO_Nightingale

Sloban wrote: »

Stam Warden is currently a garbage PVP class, and after this patch Mag warden will be too. Please help

stamden isn't garbage? magicka warden will take a hit though, that's for sure.

Vapirko

With respect to Stamina Templars, while the jabs change is small but welcome and helps combat to flow a bit better, Stamplars still lack a bit of survivability. The change to Ritual is of course welcome, but the heal on it is maybe 250-300 per second which doesn’t make much of a difference. Now this brings me to PotL. The extended duration of minor fracture is not all that useful because a good Stamplar will be reapplying after expiration for the most part. What if instead of an extended minor fracture PotL gave some sort of heal on expiration that related to copied damage? This would be in line with, and encourage, the highly offensive style of Stamplars.

Faulgor

May I ask, why was healing added to Grim Focus when just a few patches ago, damage and healing was deliberately separated for other Nightblade skills like Funnel Health/Swallow Soul and Twisting Path/Refreshing Path? What has changed since then that damage and healing no longer needs to be separated, and if so, why isn't that new rationale also applied to the aforementioned skills? I thought this patch was all about consistency.

jbjondeaueb17_ESO

Vapirko wrote: »

With respect to Stamina Templars, while the jabs change is small but welcome and helps combat to flow a bit better, Stamplars still lack a bit of survivability. The change to Ritual is of course welcome, but the heal on it is maybe 250-300 per second which doesn’t make much of a difference. Now this brings me to PotL. The extended duration of minor fracture is not all that useful because a good Stamplar will be reapplying after expiration for the most part. What if instead of an extended minor fracture PotL gave some sort of heal on expiration that related to copied damage? This would be in line with, and encourage, the highly offensive style of Stamplars.

That's already almost what's doing the magicka version, having a small (I mean radius mostly) healing dot around the target it was put on. It would be too close and the magicka version is "only" healing, which would make it vastly inferior.

Vapirko

jbjondeaueb17_ESO wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

With respect to Stamina Templars, while the jabs change is small but welcome and helps combat to flow a bit better, Stamplars still lack a bit of survivability. The change to Ritual is of course welcome, but the heal on it is maybe 250-300 per second which doesn’t make much of a difference. Now this brings me to PotL. The extended duration of minor fracture is not all that useful because a good Stamplar will be reapplying after expiration for the most part. What if instead of an extended minor fracture PotL gave some sort of heal on expiration that related to copied damage? This would be in line with, and encourage, the highly offensive style of Stamplars.

That's already almost what's doing the magicka version, having a small (I mean radius mostly) healing dot around the target it was put on. It would be too close and the magicka version is "only" healing, which would make it vastly inferior.

That’s not correct. The magicka versions also copies damage. The magicka version features a multi target HoT, whereas the stamina version would be a single target burst on the caster. That’s not too similar, and would not make the magicka version irrelevant in any form.

Victor_Blade

Grim focus loses minor berserk cos stamblades were over performing? Okay cool I can relate. But you add minor vulnerability to teleport strike? A melee gap closer? Which stamblades use????? And no such buffs to magblade???? Makes a lot of sense to me. Nerfing the worst class in the game to the point people want class change tokens. GG

jbjondeaueb17_ESO

Vapirko wrote: »

jbjondeaueb17_ESO wrote: »

Vapirko wrote: »

With respect to Stamina Templars, while the jabs change is small but welcome and helps combat to flow a bit better, Stamplars still lack a bit of survivability. The change to Ritual is of course welcome, but the heal on it is maybe 250-300 per second which doesn’t make much of a difference. Now this brings me to PotL. The extended duration of minor fracture is not all that useful because a good Stamplar will be reapplying after expiration for the most part. What if instead of an extended minor fracture PotL gave some sort of heal on expiration that related to copied damage? This would be in line with, and encourage, the highly offensive style of Stamplars.

That's already almost what's doing the magicka version, having a small (I mean radius mostly) healing dot around the target it was put on. It would be too close and the magicka version is "only" healing, which would make it vastly inferior.

That’s not correct. The magicka versions also copies damage. The magicka version features a multi target HoT, whereas the stamina version would be a single target burst on the caster. That’s not too similar, and would not make the magicka version irrelevant in any form.

I know about the copied damage, I was meaning there's no minor breach/fracture, so if you add healing to the already overused stamina version (even most of the time by healers if there is no stamplar in the group).
Btw the radius of the healing dot is so small that on a lot of the new bosses it's affecting only the tank and not always.

Victor_Blade

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 know magblade was overperforming in pve compared to other classes but the nerfs didn't justify magblades that only do pvp. It's obviously makes them weak as they already lack a lot of buffs and heals.
  
  
• Are you able to weave abilities better or worse in this Update?
  
  It seems similar right now. I'll have to do further tests to see if there are any improvements.
  
  
• Do you feel your class is stronger, weaker, or relatively the same with the standardization pass on class abilities?
  
  
  I main a magicka nightblade and I mostly do pvp. Compared to other classes magblades didn't have any snare immunity or decent heal over time abilities. The one we had(dark cloak) got nerfed to oblivion and you should know we have to drop our classes most unique skill (cloak) to get the heal over time.
  
  A 4.5% hot over 8 seconds on a 20k health player isn't enough.
  
  
• Do you feel we addressed abilities that in the past year have been over or under performing?
  
  Yes
  
  
• Do you have any other general feedback?
  
  I do feel magsorc(no pets) are too generic at the moment. They certainly feel like any other magicka class rather than being unique.
  
  Magdens needs some buffs to their damage dealing and utility skills so more people would use it.
  
  Obviously magblades, should get a better buff on grim focus other than the heal, a different source of minor vulnerability as a ranged skill if no minor berserk (cause why would a ranged dps use melee skills?), a decent burst heal in exchange for that useless malevolent offering skill in siphoning.

Tommy_The_Gun

Faulgor wrote: »

May I ask, why was healing added to Grim Focus when just a few patches ago, damage and healing was deliberately separated for other Nightblade skills like Funnel Health/Swallow Soul and Twisting Path/Refreshing Path? What has changed since then that damage and healing no longer needs to be separated, and if so, why isn't that new rationale also applied to the aforementioned skills? I thought this patch was all about consistency.

Funny thing is that it was one of a NB class identity "thing". You heal by dealing dmg. That is what sap tank was all about. The other funny thing is that i remember ZOS said that they want to keep class identity to make their specific play style unique.

As they said - hope dies last. I will wait till the next PTS round to see if there are any positive changes. But I an not holding my breath.

Tasear

Coagulating Blood: Increased the heal of this morph by approximately 19% to put it better in line with other burst heal abilities.

I hope this only accounts for single target burst skills in it's standard healization.

Kater_Murr

So-o-o, what can I say as someone who mained Bosmer Stamblade and Dunmer Magblade? I'm glad I quit ESO.

Beffagorn

Same as every patch. Stamdk lacks an identity.

Tasear

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

Yes ash cloud didn't need more healing. It's just made it more blah to the class.

This ability and its morphs now operate like the Flames of Oblivion morph, where they will scale with your highest offensive stats. Also increased the power of these abilities by 5%.

It should have a different animation for scale with stamina dk. Such a poison. This would in turn give stamina dk more identity feeling just by adding new animation to it.


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

Special note: Sorc class lacks in utility compared to all other classes in game. This was balanced before with the 3 bar but doesn't exist anymore.

My Sorc Healer - is in love with negate changes. But still hungers for more.

My Nightblade healer - finds things interesting to come. Feels like the spirit of the class is so much better now.

My Dk healer - feels laughed at with changes....

My templar healer likes that that it can do more dps with other morph of cleansing ritual now. I like the changes to templar charge. Now I can off balance and interrupt with out worrying about using having crushing shock or elemental blockade.

My Warden healer - feels like I can do tank/healer better now with lots of changes in this regards. Makes me feel stronger to it's idenitity.

My Stamina Warden Healer - nature grasp is a weird change but I supposed it makes it stronger now...

.....

My Nb Stam Dps - feels like this could be very interesting for my love of group play but minor mangle seems short duration.

My Warden Stam dps- don't play it enough to notice any changes.So lets say the same feeling....

My planned Magdk - looks like it's a lot more stronger for a melee magicka dps class

My Planned Mag nb dps - Likes the idea of having minor vulnerability on it. It makes so much sense and just feels stronger in planning.
.....

My Sorc tank - likes idea of using streak more. Is jealous that necro tank root can do something for allies.

My Retired NB tank - Finds the fear changes interesting. I feels like with the slow debuffs and fear it's other utility it makes me want to try things again with it again. I say it has class identity now.

My non existing templar tank finds the fear changes interesting can use the other morph of circle of protection now. Also gap closer on charge and interrupt makes it very heavly loaded for tank. Feels over powered... but if you compare to concealed weapon on nb.

My Retired Warden Tank - Feels like things could be interesting with chilled on tooltips for skills and better tank healing skills.

My Dk tank - Feels like it's got more room with enfluging flames being able to be on magdk now.




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

Cinderstorm, didn't need more healing but group utility with a synergy or like nb path by walking in it.

Shattering rocks is bad in PvE like negate was till this patch. Too many things are immune to it.

Funnel heal - It's better but cleansing ritual has a synergy heals 3 allies per a sec and purges along with burst heal. It's not balanced.

Negate - thank you heavenly divines this makes so much sense now.

Dk shield - Still has biggest issue of overriding it's self when different roles use it even between morphs (ex healer vs tank)

Empowarded Ward - gives the same buff as Warden but they can heal and give minor stamina regain with it. It's supposed to give Sorc group utility over others.


Restraining Prison - radius is still very bad. Also lacks group utility like necro root, dk root, even the nb root!



Do you have any other general feedback?

Shock staves will in long run have issues as it is currently. More sources of minor vulnerability will make people pick flame 100% of the time as increase of range with shock is negligible when single target dps matters most.

Pyatra

Tannus15 wrote: »

Mag sorc

Overall I'm happy with mag sorc right now.

mages fury - This change is completely worthless. In PvE mages fury is completely worthless. If you're using fury in PvE stop. It's a DPS Loss in execute if you have bound aegis slotted instead.

lightning flood Nice. You can now build a simple rotation of ele blockade & lightning flood on the same timing. However, liquid and flood are basically the same thing. The number crunchers are going to work out which morph is better and that will be that. One morph will be better, everyone will run that, end of story. Make 1 morph the dps morph and the other some sort of utility. Or better yet, stamina.

daedric prey omg I love this so much. I was literally saying a few days ago how much better sorc pets would be if they targeted whatever you case prey on. Awesome.

LF - UW - VF - DP - HA. 45k+ DPS. there was already a simple 6 second rotation using lightning flood and unstable wall. This actually breaks it. Same with the changes to some of the Templar skills getting longer. I feel the floor just got lowered again, but cannot test until Pet critical bug is fixed. UW and EB were actually both useful depending on your rotation. Now UW is pointless because no 6s rotations. You can make a magen-like 12s rotation alternating Curse and Liquid Lightning, but it is convoluted and not lower skill level friendly and damage is subpar.

Ritter

I like to come up with unique and effective builds and this is the first major update where several of my concepts are being severely weakened or completely undone when I'm fairly certain my application of the sets and skills is not what is being focused by the changes. It's quite disheartening, to be honest.

The removal of Major Protection from Light's Champion will undo my bona fide Sorc and DK DPS+Healer specs (4-man/arena application) that rely on that protection and buff for utility that is normally only provided by 'meta builds.' With the current iteration of the skill, I can at least defend my builds on the objective merit of being able to use Light's Champion frequently with Master Architect. After the change, I'm lose my argument and an forced into builds that I don't want to use or not be included into groups because of lack of utility.

Moving Major Protection to the other morph would make more sense than just removing it, IMO.

I've invested a lot of time and resources into a PvP build that centers around Robes of the Hist and Oblivion Damage Enchants... it's a high health spec that does not dominate any encounter, but has decent damage output and a lot of staying power due to the setup. After these changes, my favorite PvP setup and one that I've put together myself will just be decon fodder as it will be simply outclassed by 'meta' options.

I feel like a lot of these changes just cement and enforce a meta rather than opening up unique and interesting playstyle options.

Tasear

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

Twlight Maritach is still compared to breath of life and this still is often used by dps with greater effectiveness then on a healer.

Pyatra

Tasear wrote: »

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

Twlight Maritach is still compared to breath of life and this still is often used by dps with greater effectiveness then on a healer.

That's probably why they nerfed the DPS portion for pets.