PTS Update 23 - Feedback Thread for PvE DPS

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for PvE DPS changes. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes.

XIIICaesar

Why increase the cost & decrease the damage of MagDK? My sustain was already hard on live server to keep up a measly 45k DPS now it's just abysmal.

MLGProPlayer

Why did magicka warden get nerfed so hard? They were already dealing less DPS than any other class. There was no reason to touch their Advanced Species passive.

Controlled DPS tests by Liko: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuLGCNYH1t5DyQQ5tfU4Hdw/videos

Magicka Sorcerer: 93k
Magicka Templar: 90k
Magicka DK: 89k
Magicka Necromancer: 89k
Magicka NB: 87k
Magicka Warden: 86k

ESO Logs for Vet Sunspire: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/12#dataset=95&difficulty=121&metric=dps&aggregate=amount

Magicka Templar: 57k (4,136 players in last 2 weeks)
Magicka Sorcerer: 55k (6,502 players in last 2 weeks)
Magicka DK: 53k (680 players in last 2 weeks)
Magicka NB: 53k (1,388 players in last 2 weeks)
Magicka Warden: 51k (228 players in last 2 weeks)
Magicka Necromancer: 44k (316 players in last 2 weeks)

But you already have access to these numbers. Why don't you ever use them to make informed balance decisions?

SirAndy

Elsweyr World Boss solo fight with High Elf Mag Pet Sorc

The logs below show a ONE bar fight, i didn't use my back bar to buff at all, just spamming the "easy" button skills since Pet Sorc is "easy mode" and does not require any player skill:

Skills:
- Hardened Ward
- Unstable Wall of Storms
- Liquid Lightning

Pets:
- Clannfear

Ultimate:
- Thunderous Rage

Monster:
- Infernal Guardian

LIVE


PTS



Summary:

- "Tri Focus" is completely missing on the PTS (That's a 500k loss right there)
- "Liquid Lightning" lost 500k of damage
- "Thunderous Rage" lost 200k of damage
- "Unstable Wall of Storms" gained 100k of damage (because it was cast more often)
- "Unstable Wall of Storms" critical gained 400k of damage (because it was cast more often)
- "Infernal Guardian" gained 150k of damage (because it had more procs = more shield casts)
- Overall DPS went down from 40k on live to 30k on pts
- Live needs far fewer heavy attacks to sustain
- TTK went up from 2:45 on live to 3:28 on pts
- I had to heal more on the pts (using the Clannfear)
- DoTs are most notably weaker, trash mobs take much longer to go down
- Shields felt OK-ish
- The Clannfear seemed to die a lot more on the pts (?)

FrancisCrawford

The Twilight Matriarch nerf is devastating. Pets consume two skillbar slots; they SHOULD be twice as beneficial as other uses for those slots.

Also, please eliminate the initial cast time for pets. You're creating a meta in which people are going to reconfigure skill bars between trash (AoE) and many boss (single-target) fights. The cast time will be horrific in that context.

OnThaLoose

I understand the idea of balancing around power creep, but you had most damage dealers around the same dps, give or take a few thousand dps. On PTS I just tested my magplar, and she lost 13k dps on a 6million dummy, 13000!!! From 51k to 38k. Same gear, same stats, everything the same. Thats a bit too much.

Blazing spear nerfed by 42%?!?! Solar barrage by 33%?!?! and Wall of Elements by 33%?!? You have literally gutted Templars by 30-35~% DPS, so now we'll suck like we did for 2 years (until recently).

The nerfs to Templars are too strong, aoe dots are all we have in our kit beyond vamp bane, so nerfing aoes that much kills us... I would suggest 20% to spears, 15% to barrage, and 15% to WoE.

If you continue with this, no one will play templars or sorcs anymore (as dd's, and sorc healers are dead due to your other changes). Of course, I dont even know why I try, you only ever listen to the vocal minority of pvp'ers about this ***.

TheZachinator

OnThaLoose wrote: »

I understand the idea of balancing around power creep, but you had most damage dealers around the same dps, give or take a few thousand dps. On PTS I just tested my magplar, and she lost 13k dps on a 6million dummy, 13000!!! From 51k to 38k. Same gear, same stats, everything the same. Thats a bit too much.

Blazing spear nerfed by 42%?!?! Solar barrage by 33%?!?! and Wall of Elements by 33%?!? You have literally gutted Templars by 30-35~% DPS, so now we'll suck like we did for 2 years (until recently).

The nerfs to Templars are too strong, aoe dots are all we have in our kit beyond vamp bane, so nerfing aoes that much kills us... I would suggest 20% to spears, 15% to barrage, and 15% to WoE.

If you continue with this, no one will play templars or sorcs anymore (as dd's, and sorc healers are dead due to your other changes). Of course, I dont even know why I try, you only ever listen to the vocal minority of pvp'ers about this ***.

Magsorcs lost like 10k so I feel ya man. Bow down to our magcro overlords I guess.

EDIT: I want to confirm the loss is from my own and some friends' testing on Iron Atronach dummies and are in no way associated with the 10k loss shown by SirAndy.

SidraWillowsky

SirAndy wrote: »

*snip*

This is a terrible and completely invalid way of comparing DPS... you need to do a dummy parse since there are so many inconsistencies here (ie, your damage on the boss was 15k and 12k, respectively... the rest is random adds). I'm not saying there's no decrease, just that there's way too much potential for variation here to be able to draw a valid conclusion based on a comparison parse of n=1.

SirAndy

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

*snip*

This is a terrible and completely invalid way of comparing DPS... you need to do a dummy parse since there are so many inconsistencies here (ie, your damage on the boss was 15k and 12k, respectively... the rest is random adds). I'm not saying there's no decrease, just that there's way too much potential for variation here to be able to draw a valid conclusion based on a comparison parse of n=1.

I'm terribly sorry that my terribly quick way of doing a terribly misguided test did such terrible things to you. Just terrible ...


PS: Also, yes, i can read numbers, but thank you nonetheless!

FrancisCrawford

TheZachinator wrote: »

OnThaLoose wrote: »

I understand the idea of balancing around power creep, but you had most damage dealers around the same dps, give or take a few thousand dps. On PTS I just tested my magplar, and she lost 13k dps on a 6million dummy, 13000!!! From 51k to 38k. Same gear, same stats, everything the same. Thats a bit too much.

Blazing spear nerfed by 42%?!?! Solar barrage by 33%?!?! and Wall of Elements by 33%?!? You have literally gutted Templars by 30-35~% DPS, so now we'll suck like we did for 2 years (until recently).

The nerfs to Templars are too strong, aoe dots are all we have in our kit beyond vamp bane, so nerfing aoes that much kills us... I would suggest 20% to spears, 15% to barrage, and 15% to WoE.

If you continue with this, no one will play templars or sorcs anymore (as dd's, and sorc healers are dead due to your other changes). Of course, I dont even know why I try, you only ever listen to the vocal minority of pvp'ers about this ***.

Magsorcs lost like 10k so I feel ya man. Bow down to our magcro overlords I guess.

Every magicka class has three new single-target DoTs. I imagine they are meant to be at the heart of DPS rotations.

Of course, that doesn't account for trash fights or bosses with adds. And while changing
your entire build between fights might just be realistic on the PC, it's an absurd idea on console.

wills43b14_ESO

I need to do some more testing before I can say anything definitive and look at what others are getting, but at the moment stamcro is hitting about 100k+ dps on the iron atro, magcro is hitting 91k+ and the rest of mag are 70k-84k atm. What sucks is there is no room for class abilities so right now mag brings almost 0 utility EXCEPT the magcro (who will likely be put into support sets like Martial Knowledge and Ze'en to fuel the stamcro overlords). It's actually pretty detrimental to run magicka atm and if our groups theory crafting is right, having stam in pseudo-dps setups (dps/healer hybrid) will outweigh the benefits of running healers at all with the echoing vigor changes. There would possibly be one mag dps for orbs/springs, but orbs may get relegated to the tank anyways now.

wills43b14_ESO

I was hoping balance b/w stam and magicka would be closer this patch, but it instead went from jumping across a small creek to trying to jump across the Grand Canyon (in general when comparing a couple stam classes to to all mag except magcro). And Necromancers are the only viable looking class right now

wills43b14_ESO

Honestly, I don't know how to improve it either. ZOS would either have to de-nerf all the skills they just nerfed or vastly increase the dps of the ST dots, which would completely unbalance PvP. Right now mag is essentially broken. Part of that is due to sets like Perfected Relequen, which is 10k free dps for stam atm. Mag dps is also optimal right now, vs. in most fights Zaan is unusable (it won't even proc on dragons), so the mag dps divide will only INCREASE since Zaan is unusable and stam is free to use velidreth and the new monster set.

BluntLightsaber

I main a Breton Magplar and have a Stamina Necro getting set up atm. On live I currently parse for ~89k with Siroria and Spell Strat, and in the interest of trying to maintain some symmetry on the PTS I also used these sets with Vampire's Bane/Reflective replaced with Soul Trap and Elemental Blockade remorphed to Unstable to keep the same skill durations as I have on live. As intended my DPS has taken a fairly big hit, it seems to be about 10k lower (not accounting for playing from Sweden). I do somewhat understand the need to reign in power creep but losing so much damage doesn't feel great, especially as I know that it'll affect the progressions that my guild has going on.

The issue for me lies in the fact that I am sure there is a way to recoup some of the lost DPS, but I highly doubt that it lies within the Templar's toolkit. Magplar was one of the few classes left that had a strong identity whilst also being powerful which is the reason I personally enjoy it so much. Stamina Necromancer, on the other hand, seems to have been fairly unaffected by the changes, with the gap opening up between it and other classes/set ups even more.

Homogenization will just turn the game into "who can press the same sequence of buttons the best" without any of the variety that masks the fact that this is sort of the case already. I feel quite defeated by the prospect of this patch, I want to stick around because of the guild I've been a part of building in the last few months and how enjoyable the balance has been in pve (for me) despite the performance issues, but logging into the PTS tonight, going into a world skill line that all of my characters have access to in order to use a generic ability with a neutral cast not in fitting with the theme of my Magplar just makes me want to enjoy the next 5 weeks on live before 5.1.0 hits and then reassess my next steps with the game. It felt bland and boring.

Alienoutlaw

to be honest from that parse the build doesnt look that good, why use infernal gardian over skoria or illambris? why the mystic orbs, that should be at least 50k on live, as far as i can see there is only a realistic drop of 5k possibly 6k, and until we get more parses to confirm a 10k loss i will hold judgement (i will be testing my pet sorc through fungal grotto solo on live and PTS tomorrow and post the videos of both runs

wills43b14_ESO

So, in short, mag sets are essentially just far worse than stam sets (this has been a problem since Summerset and was exacerbated in Elswery), mag is essentially offering 0 group utility now since conduits and spear shards are potentially dropping from rotations in favor of single target dots (they might stay, but they are now lowest priority for dps) EDIT: ritual of retribution is a decent heal, but nothing compared to the scope of echoing vigor (althought it does do damage to be fair) END, mag has become FAR more complex with extremely dynamic rotations trying to maintain a multitude of dots, and Light Attacks are facing a disparity with CP builds and trial mechanics.

What I mean here is that LAs are the bread and butter of magicka rotations and dps. However, in trials, you can't just sit there and parse and while stam/magicka dots tick, it's very hard to continuously light attack (not to mention maintain siroria stacks or other mag sets that are difficult to use for less benefit than relequen) and MAXIMIZE your LA damage (therefore you're dropping quite a bit of dmg relative to stam for every missed LA and dots will behave similar between the two). Additionally, with a more dot centric build now, we have to move CP away from LA damage and into dot damage (Master at arms/staff expert into thaum), which further just creates an awkward limbo.

SirAndy

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

to be honest from that parse the build doesnt look that good, why use infernal gardian over skoria or illambris? why the mystic orbs, that should be at least 50k on live, as far as i can see there is only a realistic drop of 5k possibly 6k, and until we get more parses to confirm a 10k loss i will hold judgement (i will be testing my pet sorc through fungal grotto solo on live and PTS tomorrow and post the videos of both runs

That wasn't the point. I didn't use the back bar because it's full of undaunted skills i'm currently leveling. I opened the fight with a mystic orb from the back bar, then switched to the front bar and stayed on there.

The point is that as long as whatever you are testing is consistent, you can see the difference between live and pts. You don't need a raid group buffed BiS setup to do that.

SidraWillowsky

SirAndy wrote: »

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

*snip*

This is a terrible and completely invalid way of comparing DPS... you need to do a dummy parse since there are so many inconsistencies here (ie, your damage on the boss was 15k and 12k, respectively... the rest is random adds). I'm not saying there's no decrease, just that there's way too much potential for variation here to be able to draw a valid conclusion based on a comparison parse of n=1.

I'm terribly sorry that my terribly quick way of doing a terribly misguided test did such terrible things to you. Just terrible ...


PS: Also, yes, i can read numbers, but thank you nonetheless!

Sorry, my original post came off as super aggro... I'm exhausted and hadn't eaten all day, so I shouldn't have replied like that. My apologies.

I need to download the PTS environment tonight and while I wait I'm very anxious about the DPS changes, so I panicked reading that post. I really hope it's not as bad as it seems but I feel a bit delusional as I repeat that mantra in my head.

The one (hopefully constructive) thing that I WILL say is that after Elsweyr went live with so many changes to stamblades (my main), I went off the rails for a while and ended up completely psyching myself out when parsing. Pre-Els, my top DPS was 44k; in the days following I was struggling to hit 37k with no changes to my setup. I don't exactly know what happened, but one day I hit 44k again, and once I saw that I was able to calm down and my DPS went back up to pre-Els. I don't think that we're going to be as lucky here and I fully expect DPS across the board to take a major hit, but perhaps some of the drop is just related to the expectation of a drop? Maybe????

wills43b14_ESO

As an aside for the above post, I meant it in relation to certain mechanics. A lot of times it is a VERY parse heavy phase.

SirAndy

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

Sorry, my original post came off as super aggro... I'm exhausted and hadn't eaten all day, so I shouldn't have replied like that. My apologies.

One of the reasons i went with that setup and a world boss instead of a dummy was because i wanted to test this in a real world scenario where one fights solo and has to deal with ads and trash mobs and mechanics and blocking and dodging and healing.
You know, the stuff that happens when you run solo.

I just redid the same test using a target dummy and the difference in dps is indeed smaller there (percentage wise) which would indicate that reduced DoT damage has less of an effect on a single target as it has on multiple targets combined.
Which makes sense, the trash/ads certainly took a lot longer to burn down in the world boss test on the pts.

Anyways, i'm sure the top raid groups have already found a way to turn all this into a buff ...

MLGProPlayer

wills43b14_ESO wrote: »

I need to do some more testing before I can say anything definitive and look at what others are getting, but at the moment stamcro is hitting about 100k+ dps on the iron atro, magcro is hitting 91k+ and the rest of mag are 70k-84k atm. What sucks is there is no room for class abilities so right now mag brings almost 0 utility EXCEPT the magcro (who will likely be put into support sets like Martial Knowledge and Ze'en to fuel the stamcro overlords). It's actually pretty detrimental to run magicka atm and if our groups theory crafting is right, having stam in pseudo-dps setups (dps/healer hybrid) will outweigh the benefits of running healers at all with the echoing vigor changes. There would possibly be one mag dps for orbs/springs, but orbs may get relegated to the tank anyways now.

ZOS:

Emkay333

Why did such skills like Degeneration and Soul Trap get such insane buffs to the point it'll be required to slot them? like roughly 24k dot over 12 seconds with major sorcery for 24 seconds plus the magic return on every light/heavy attack for degen? Then ive seen a rough 34k dot tool tip over 10 seconds for soul trap, with hp/stam/magic return as well?

If the aoe ground dot nerfs were due to pvp complaints, like nearly all nerfs in this game, why wasnt that added to battle spirit? Why should now every magic dps be homogenized to be forced to slot reach, soul trap, degeneration, inner light, comet, etc. One reason I made a magic dps was since it used more class abilities than stamina, since all stamina was forced to use trap/poison inject/caltrops/hail/rending slashes. Now most dps will just all be the same, forget class abilities right?

Also those enormous drops to pets on sorcerer? Im sure all of those complaints were for pvp. Why not just add a nerf to pets to BATTLE SPIRIT, as it was meant to be a de/buff for pvp.

Also considering pve balance, how was things like major vulnerability not nerfed at all? necromancer holds an unbelievable lead in damage over all other classes due to the power of that debuff.

I started out as maining stamina templar then sort of transitioned into magic templar dps, and I thoroughly enjoyed using nearly all class abilities, it felt like a unique and fun class to play. Now itll be the same as every other magic dps, being forced to run the now stupidly strong single target dots they made out of soul trap and degeneration to name a few.

Thank you for reading this rant. Not pleased with these changes, it just goes to show PvP > PvE was in mind while these notes were taken

Toc de Malsvi

wills43b14_ESO wrote: »

I need to do some more testing before I can say anything definitive and look at what others are getting, but at the moment stamcro is hitting about 100k+ dps on the iron atro, magcro is hitting 91k+ and the rest of mag are 70k-84k atm. What sucks is there is no room for class abilities so right now mag brings almost 0 utility EXCEPT the magcro (who will likely be put into support sets like Martial Knowledge and Ze'en to fuel the stamcro overlords). It's actually pretty detrimental to run magicka atm and if our groups theory crafting is right, having stam in pseudo-dps setups (dps/healer hybrid) will outweigh the benefits of running healers at all with the echoing vigor changes. There would possibly be one mag dps for orbs/springs, but orbs may get relegated to the tank anyways now.

I've seen two people repeat this claim, but no videos or parses. Care to provide some evidence for us to peruse? I'm not saying it wasn't done, but I'd like to see what was run and what skill combinations etc.

Emkay333

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

wills43b14_ESO wrote: »

I need to do some more testing before I can say anything definitive and look at what others are getting, but at the moment stamcro is hitting about 100k+ dps on the iron atro, magcro is hitting 91k+ and the rest of mag are 70k-84k atm. What sucks is there is no room for class abilities so right now mag brings almost 0 utility EXCEPT the magcro (who will likely be put into support sets like Martial Knowledge and Ze'en to fuel the stamcro overlords). It's actually pretty detrimental to run magicka atm and if our groups theory crafting is right, having stam in pseudo-dps setups (dps/healer hybrid) will outweigh the benefits of running healers at all with the echoing vigor changes. There would possibly be one mag dps for orbs/springs, but orbs may get relegated to the tank anyways now.

I've seen two people repeat this claim, but no videos or parses. Care to provide some evidence for us to peruse? I'm not saying it wasn't done, but I'd like to see what was run and what skill combinations etc.

Really the biggest thing is Necromancer being the exclusive source of Major Vulnerability, which is an overall 30% boost to damage on the inflicted target. No other class has this, and it favors having nearly exclusive necromancer dps to have the highest uptimes on this overpowered debuff.

After looking at some more of the necromancer abilities, being able to provide yourself with your own synergy is another massive advantage that no other class has, considering the huge nerfs to healing orbs.

Now that I think about it, the "Rapid Rot: Increases your damage done with damage over time effects by 10%." seems kinda strong as well, especially more so now they want to focus dps on single target dots.

Te

WuffyCerulei

As expected, my dps is lower than it would be on live. I'm pulling 41, almost 42k on the 6 mill dummy, selfbuffed, with the new Soul Trap and Degeneration in my rotation. Live would be 45k ish on a similar rotation. I did expect the drop. Just hoping people don't cry NeRf EnTrOpY aNd SoUl TrAp when the dps is already lower.

MLGProPlayer

Emkay333 wrote: »

Why did such skills like Degeneration and Soul Trap get such insane buffs to the point it'll be required to slot them? like roughly 24k dot over 12 seconds with major sorcery for 24 seconds plus the magic return on every light/heavy attack for degen? Then ive seen a rough 34k dot tool tip over 10 seconds for soul trap, with hp/stam/magic return as well?

Because it's easier to balance global skills than class skills. They want everyone to be using the same skills.

It's basically the balance team being lazy (as always).

redspecter23

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

The Twilight Matriarch nerf is devastating. Pets consume two skillbar slots; they SHOULD be twice as beneficial as other uses for those slots.

The number of slots an ability takes up shouldn't reflect the benefit directly. If that's true, I'd love an ability that takes up all 12 slots and is 12 times as effective. I'd argue that the correct fix for that particular issue would be to reduce the number of slots it requires down to 1.

wills43b14_ESO

Best I can do is about 87.4k on the magsorc.... that's with a completely inviable setup for nearly any trial getting as sweaty as possible with a 100% dynamic 10 skill bar... it was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do for as little return as I could get relative to a magplar pulling about 85k w/ a static rotation.... which is all SIGNIFICANTLY behind magcro and providing 0 group utility....

Emkay333

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Emkay333 wrote: »

Why did such skills like Degeneration and Soul Trap get such insane buffs to the point it'll be required to slot them? like roughly 24k dot over 12 seconds with major sorcery for 24 seconds plus the magic return on every light/heavy attack for degen? Then ive seen a rough 34k dot tool tip over 10 seconds for soul trap, with hp/stam/magic return as well?

Because it's easier to balance global skills than class skills. They want everyone to be using the same skills.

It's basically the balance team being lazy (as always).

I just thought of something https://eso-sets.com/set/oblivions-foe

What's gonna happen with this set? Will it replace current meta sets? :^)

SirAndy

Emkay333 wrote: »

I just thought of something https://eso-sets.com/set/oblivions-foe
What's gonna happen with this set? Will it replace current meta sets? :^)

Damn, forgot all about that one ...

MLGProPlayer

Emkay333 wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

wills43b14_ESO wrote: »

I need to do some more testing before I can say anything definitive and look at what others are getting, but at the moment stamcro is hitting about 100k+ dps on the iron atro, magcro is hitting 91k+ and the rest of mag are 70k-84k atm. What sucks is there is no room for class abilities so right now mag brings almost 0 utility EXCEPT the magcro (who will likely be put into support sets like Martial Knowledge and Ze'en to fuel the stamcro overlords). It's actually pretty detrimental to run magicka atm and if our groups theory crafting is right, having stam in pseudo-dps setups (dps/healer hybrid) will outweigh the benefits of running healers at all with the echoing vigor changes. There would possibly be one mag dps for orbs/springs, but orbs may get relegated to the tank anyways now.

I've seen two people repeat this claim, but no videos or parses. Care to provide some evidence for us to peruse? I'm not saying it wasn't done, but I'd like to see what was run and what skill combinations etc.

Really the biggest thing is Necromancer being the exclusive source of Major Vulnerability, which is an overall 30% boost to damage on the inflicted target. No other class has this, and it favors having nearly exclusive necromancer dps to have the highest uptimes on this overpowered debuff.

After looking at some more of the necromancer abilities, being able to provide yourself with your own synergy is another massive advantage that no other class has, considering the huge nerfs to healing orbs.

Who would have thunk that giving the strongest debuff in the game to only one class would create balance issues?