Dragonknight and Seething Fury

Vildebill

I've been thinking a lot about the new Seething Fury mechanic, and how to use it properly and efficiently in PvE on a Magicka Dragonknight damage dealer. But however I do it I can't seem to get something going that seems good, or that I like. These are my findings:

I'll assume we want to use Flame Lash on only front bar. This is the only scenario that I personally like, since it's really stupid if you'd have to double bar a spammable just for the passive. It might be better to double bar it, but that's not how I like to play, wasting a skill slot, or in my opinion, how a class' passives should be designed.

Since you have to activate an Ardent Flame ability three times on the Flame Lash bar to get the full effect, we'll take a look at the skills we have in the Ardent Flame skill line, excluding the ultimate and Flame Lash itself:

• Burning Embers (DoT, 10 12 seconds)
• Engulfing Flames (DoT, 10 12 seconds)
• Chains (utility skill)
• Flames of Oblivion (DoT, 17 19 seconds)

By just looking at the nature of these skills, only three of them qualify to a damage dealer build, leaving chains out of the equation. That leaves us with only 3 skills, which are DoTs. Since you don't want to overcast DoTs, it would be natural to keep all three of them on the same bar as Flame Lash to be able to build up Seething Fury stacks. So, if you don't overcast your DoTs, and apply all these on the front bar in your rotation (which is not optimal since it's beneficial to pre-buff Flames of Oblivion before the fight starts) you'll have a full 3-stack of Seething Fury every 19 seconds, and a 2-stack every 12 seconds (this assumes a kind of static rotation where you apply Burning Embers and Engulfing Flames every rotation and Flames of Oblivion every second rotation). These stacks will be consumed immediately since you'll start spamming Flame Lash after you've applied the DoTs.

The scenario I'm describing now is a pretty typical setup on a damage dealer, where you have some buff skills and DoTs on your back bar, like Elemental Blockade and Eruption, and after applying them you switch over to the front bar, apply some more DoTs, then using your spammable until you have to start over and re-casting your DoTs. Throw in buff skills in between, like Major Sorcery if you don't want to use potions, or a Minor Force buff, like Channeled Acceleration.

What I guess most of you are realizing by now is that with this kind of typical damage dealer rotation, and utilization of skills, you hardly get any benefit of the new Seething Fury passive at all. The passive spell damage boost are consumed almost immediately, and in ~15 seconds, only two whips are buffed, and only one of them fully.

So, what other options do we have? A lot, probably, but I can't seem to find one that I like, or goes in the line of how ZOS wants the game to be played. The two most common I've seen is:

• Spamming Unrelenting Grip (Chains morph), which becomes a free spammable on targets that can not be pulled (like all bosses) and builds up Seething Fury stacks. Pretty good damage, but hardly not how a utility skill should be utilized, especially since we've seen other skills used as spammables being nerfed (Searing Strike and morphs). Who knows what'll happen to this skill if we keep using it as spammable? Damage portion nerfed/removed?
• Over casting DoTs, especially Engulfing Flames, which got a huge buff in Elsweyr. This actually works pretty well damage wise, but this method has the same problem as spamming either Chains or Embers, it's a DoT being utilized as a spammable. Which, as stated before, ZOS don't want.

Bonus information on this method is that Stamina DK:s use this exact method to keep Seething Fury up, spamming the stamina morph of Fiery Breath, and passively slotting Flame Lash just to get the Weapon Damage. If that's not unintended usage I don't know what is.

This is the part in the topic where I should deliver a solution, but I don't really have one. Maybe the Seething Fury mechanic can be incorporated in a class passive instead? Or what I personally would prefer, a flat damage increase on flame/poison damage on Ardent Flame skills in a passive, both Warmth and Searing Heat is kind of underwhelming and could be reworked. A skill change to Magicka Dragonknight was well needed to get our DPS on par with other classes, but this was really poorly implemented, and didn't do the job.

Thoughts? Has anyone come up with another method of using Seething Fury that works good? What other changes could be done to the skill and/or passives to make it good?

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

SaintSubwayy

Have to agree altouh its very strong on a stamDK if you can manage to keep the 3x stack up at about 80% of the fight, you will deal crazy dmg, and yes it is possible to keep it up even over backbar, if you only cast 3 skills on backbar. (cough tzogvins op...no trap needed )

Rotation kinda looks like this then:
.....Nox -> swap -> Hail -> LA -> Injection -> LA -> Clatrops -> Swap -> Claw -> LA ......

on a magDK (which I played till last week when I swapped to stamDK again, the buff is very underwhelming, and IMO completly misses the needed dmg boost on magDK's to be on par with magsorc, and kinda closer to stamina meeles (not even close enough imo)

But I have made a few thoughts on how to improve this issue.

Here's the Idea I came up with:

Detatch the SD+WD from the Seething fury passive, and throw it onto warmth (which IMO is still the worst passive of any class)

Change seething fury to add additional dmg to whip by 15%, for each ardent flame ability slotted on the same bar as whip is.
So on frontbar, with 4 Ardentflame skills slotted you'd get a 60% stronger whip for every whip cast (Embers, Engulfing, FoO and Whip itself as slotted skills)
This will mos tlikely end up in a small dmg boost on whip, but it wont require the overcasting of Dots to gain the Dmg boost factor.

Vildebill

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

Have to agree altouh its very strong on a stamDK if you can manage to keep the 3x stack up at about 80% of the fight, you will deal crazy dmg, and yes it is possible to keep it up even over backbar, if you only cast 3 skills on backbar. (cough tzogvins op...no trap needed )

Rotation kinda looks like this then:
.....Nox -> swap -> Hail -> LA -> Injection -> LA -> Clatrops -> Swap -> Claw -> LA ......

on a magDK (which I played till last week when I swapped to stamDK again, the buff is very underwhelming, and IMO completly misses the needed dmg boost on magDK's to be on par with magsorc, and kinda closer to stamina meeles (not even close enough imo)

But I have made a few thoughts on how to improve this issue.

Here's the Idea I came up with:

Detatch the SD+WD from the Seething fury passive, and throw it onto warmth (which IMO is still the worst passive of any class)

Change seething fury to add additional dmg to whip by 15%, for each ardent flame ability slotted on the same bar as whip is.
So on frontbar, with 4 Ardentflame skills slotted you'd get a 60% stronger whip for every whip cast (Embers, Engulfing, FoO and Whip itself as slotted skills)
This will mos tlikely end up in a small dmg boost on whip, but it wont require the overcasting of Dots to gain the Dmg boost factor.

Both ideas are good, you could either do it with the passive, or slotted Ardent Flame abilities of you want to tie it to whip itself, like they've done now.

SaintSubwayy

Vildebill wrote: »

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

Have to agree altouh its very strong on a stamDK if you can manage to keep the 3x stack up at about 80% of the fight, you will deal crazy dmg, and yes it is possible to keep it up even over backbar, if you only cast 3 skills on backbar. (cough tzogvins op...no trap needed )

Rotation kinda looks like this then:
.....Nox -> swap -> Hail -> LA -> Injection -> LA -> Clatrops -> Swap -> Claw -> LA ......

on a magDK (which I played till last week when I swapped to stamDK again, the buff is very underwhelming, and IMO completly misses the needed dmg boost on magDK's to be on par with magsorc, and kinda closer to stamina meeles (not even close enough imo)

But I have made a few thoughts on how to improve this issue.

Here's the Idea I came up with:

Detatch the SD+WD from the Seething fury passive, and throw it onto warmth (which IMO is still the worst passive of any class)

Change seething fury to add additional dmg to whip by 15%, for each ardent flame ability slotted on the same bar as whip is.
So on frontbar, with 4 Ardentflame skills slotted you'd get a 60% stronger whip for every whip cast (Embers, Engulfing, FoO and Whip itself as slotted skills)
This will mos tlikely end up in a small dmg boost on whip, but it wont require the overcasting of Dots to gain the Dmg boost factor.

Both ideas are good, you could either do it with the passive, or slotted Ardent Flame abilities of you want to tie it to whip itself, like they've done now.

well, then you'd loose the SD+WD while on backbar, and its kinda good to have the option for the SD+WD to be accessable on backbar.
Especially since DK lack any form of DMG boosts like critdmg mods (like NB+temp have), or Sorcs % dmg boost for high health targets, wardens minor berserk...necros 10% DOTDMG boost.

if it would only be accessabel on frontbar, then StamDK DPS would suffer quite harsch IMO

Vildebill

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

Vildebill wrote: »

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

Have to agree altouh its very strong on a stamDK if you can manage to keep the 3x stack up at about 80% of the fight, you will deal crazy dmg, and yes it is possible to keep it up even over backbar, if you only cast 3 skills on backbar. (cough tzogvins op...no trap needed )

Rotation kinda looks like this then:
.....Nox -> swap -> Hail -> LA -> Injection -> LA -> Clatrops -> Swap -> Claw -> LA ......

on a magDK (which I played till last week when I swapped to stamDK again, the buff is very underwhelming, and IMO completly misses the needed dmg boost on magDK's to be on par with magsorc, and kinda closer to stamina meeles (not even close enough imo)

But I have made a few thoughts on how to improve this issue.

Here's the Idea I came up with:

Detatch the SD+WD from the Seething fury passive, and throw it onto warmth (which IMO is still the worst passive of any class)

Change seething fury to add additional dmg to whip by 15%, for each ardent flame ability slotted on the same bar as whip is.
So on frontbar, with 4 Ardentflame skills slotted you'd get a 60% stronger whip for every whip cast (Embers, Engulfing, FoO and Whip itself as slotted skills)
This will mos tlikely end up in a small dmg boost on whip, but it wont require the overcasting of Dots to gain the Dmg boost factor.

Both ideas are good, you could either do it with the passive, or slotted Ardent Flame abilities of you want to tie it to whip itself, like they've done now.

well, then you'd loose the SD+WD while on backbar, and its kinda good to have the option for the SD+WD to be accessable on backbar.
Especially since DK lack any form of DMG boosts like critdmg mods (like NB+temp have), or Sorcs % dmg boost for high health targets, wardens minor berserk...necros 10% DOTDMG boost.

if it would only be accessabel on frontbar, then StamDK DPS would suffer quite harsch IMO

Yeah, it depends on the direction and purpose of the buff I guess. The whip burst is all Magicka DK oriented, even if the winner in this case is the Stamina DK, funny enough. Or maybe both, I don't know. Stamina DK also needs some love.

Vildebill

I don't want this topic to die so I'll shamelessly bump my own thread. Been almost exclusively playing MagDK both in PvE and PvP the last weeks, and I still can't get the hang of the logic behind this change.

In PvE, the above still stands, no matter how I try to build around Seething Fury, it never gets fluent and smooth. Just spamming skills that aren't supposed to be spammed, or doing an ineffective rotation.

In PvP, I've come to the conclusion that I need to alter my play style pretty much from how I used to play DK to get the change to be somewhat effective to me. Overcasting engulfing and/or embers isn't as painful in PvP since it has its benefits, like extra healing or AoE damage. The burst potential is pretty good as well, and you can build for it yourself. But it doesn't feel very smart running around casting engulfing just to not loose stacks. Will try it out some more, but my conclusion is starting to be that flame lash still is better in PvP, and fits the DK play style better.

A change was done to the PvE morph, but it looks like we have two PvP morphs now

SaintSubwayy

Vildebill wrote: »

I don't want this topic to die so I'll shamelessly bump my own thread. Been almost exclusively playing MagDK both in PvE and PvP the last weeks, and I still can't get the hang of the logic behind this change.

In PvE, the above still stands, no matter how I try to build around Seething Fury, it never gets fluent and smooth. Just spamming skills that aren't supposed to be spammed, or doing an ineffective rotation.

In PvP, I've come to the conclusion that I need to alter my play style pretty much from how I used to play DK to get the change to be somewhat effective to me. Overcasting engulfing and/or embers isn't as painful in PvP since it has its benefits, like extra healing or AoE damage. The burst potential is pretty good as well, and you can build for it yourself. But it doesn't feel very smart running around casting engulfing just to not loose stacks. Will try it out some more, but my conclusion is starting to be that flame lash still is better in PvP, and fits the DK play style better.

A change was done to the PvE morph, but it looks like we have two PvP morphs now

both moprhs are now stron in PVP jeah, while before we atleast had separate morphs, which were nice by themself
but jeah switched to stamDK anyways 4 weeks ago, and there the nearly 100% uptime on additional 500 WD is amazing.

Lokey0024

Vildebill wrote: »

I don't want this topic to die so I'll shamelessly bump my own thread. Been almost exclusively playing MagDK both in PvE and PvP the last weeks, and I still can't get the hang of the logic behind this change.

In PvE, the above still stands, no matter how I try to build around Seething Fury, it never gets fluent and smooth. Just spamming skills that aren't supposed to be spammed, or doing an ineffective rotation.

In PvP, I've come to the conclusion that I need to alter my play style pretty much from how I used to play DK to get the change to be somewhat effective to me. Overcasting engulfing and/or embers isn't as painful in PvP since it has its benefits, like extra healing or AoE damage. The burst potential is pretty good as well, and you can build for it yourself. But it doesn't feel very smart running around casting engulfing just to not loose stacks. Will try it out some more, but my conclusion is starting to be that flame lash still is better in PvP, and fits the DK play style better.

A change was done to the PvE morph, but it looks like we have two PvP morphs now

In PvP the new whip is great. Its much needed pressure to a class with no execute. You have to get "in the pocket" so to speak so can build a bit tanky and not be a joke for no sustain/dmg.

Davadin

SaintSubwayy wrote: »

Vildebill wrote: »

I don't want this topic to die so I'll shamelessly bump my own thread. Been almost exclusively playing MagDK both in PvE and PvP the last weeks, and I still can't get the hang of the logic behind this change.

In PvE, the above still stands, no matter how I try to build around Seething Fury, it never gets fluent and smooth. Just spamming skills that aren't supposed to be spammed, or doing an ineffective rotation.

In PvP, I've come to the conclusion that I need to alter my play style pretty much from how I used to play DK to get the change to be somewhat effective to me. Overcasting engulfing and/or embers isn't as painful in PvP since it has its benefits, like extra healing or AoE damage. The burst potential is pretty good as well, and you can build for it yourself. But it doesn't feel very smart running around casting engulfing just to not loose stacks. Will try it out some more, but my conclusion is starting to be that flame lash still is better in PvP, and fits the DK play style better.

A change was done to the PvE morph, but it looks like we have two PvP morphs now

both moprhs are now stron in PVP jeah, while before we atleast had separate morphs, which were nice by themself
but jeah switched to stamDK anyways 4 weeks ago, and there the nearly 100% uptime on additional 500 WD is amazing.

i dunno about 100% uptime, but before i engage, i simply breath noxious breath 3x..... lol

Vildebill

Yay, some more DK changes to pour more gasoline on my fire. This is from PTS Patch Notes v5.1.2:

Ardent Flame
Searing Heat: Rank II of this passive now increases the duration of the affected abilities by 4 seconds, up from 2. It also increases the damage dealt of the abilities by 10%, up from 3%.
Developer Comment:
Spoiler
These changes were done to ensure these abilities keep up with our current DoT standards, and to help emphasize the Dragonknight’s more attrition-based combat style.

So now, if utilizing the skills in the Ardent Flame as they are designed to be utilized, we've just got lower downtime on Seething Fury stacks, since we'll re-apply the DoTs more seldom.

This passive turned out to be such a joke in PvE.

Hotdog_23

This changes also has me scratching my head as well which is why I started a thread about it as well here.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/486684/ardent-flame-searing-heat-question#latest

Vildebill

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

This changes also has me scratching my head as well which is why I started a thread about it as well here.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/486684/ardent-flame-searing-heat-question#latest

Yeah I saw that and made a comment Good that there still are some players that are vocal about the Dragonknight class. Most people seem to just have given up.