PTS Update 23 - Feedback Thread for PvE DPS

Toc de Malsvi

wills43b14_ESO 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.

One of my guild mates right here with the stamcro


Magcro:



Tbf, magsorc is getting up there close to about 90k now, but it provides no where near the utility a magcro does ntm aoe dps and such.....

Thank you.

Toc de Malsvi

master_vanargand wrote: »

Bow skill's Volley and Arrow Barrage has too short duration.
Why is Arrow Barrage 8 sec and Endless Hail is 12 sec?
This disparity is very bad.
Volley and Arrow Barrage should change the duration to 10 sec.

Endless isn't actually 12 seconds I'm not sure why the tool tip says otherwise. I've tested several times and it lasts 10seconds.

Toc de Malsvi

SaucyMcSauceface wrote: »

The hit to caltrops looks like it can be replaced with deadly cloak, although the restriction to the dw bar makes it a little awkward, but Hail has just seen a straight out nerf from live. Even with the VMA bow, which is supposed to account for the nerf, it is still well behind live.

Master Bow is way better at the moment.

Toc de Malsvi

fboostb16_ESO wrote: »

The nerf to pets to bring them in line with other abilities would only make sense if they didn't have to be double-barred. A double barred ability is different from a single bar ability and the damage and utility should reflect that.

No they completely make sense.

Pets damage does not need to be activated and costs no resources.
Pets are almost impossible to cleave down due to mitigation from AOE's.
Pets follow the target whether the owner can see the target or not and keep dealing damage.
Pets teleport instantly back to the owner to provide LOS when the owner runs.
Pets provide free LOS in the open.
Pet's damage although like a dot, does not need to be refreshed like a dot.
Class shields protect owner and pet.

Toc de Malsvi

Why is Barbed Trap so much better than Light Weight Beast Trap?

Barbed Trap does almost double the damage and almost double the uptime on Minor force, with only 7% more cost. Should range deal 50% less damage than Melee? That's not balanced at all.

Barbed:

LightWeight:

This means ranged needs to commit almost twice the resources, as well as an additional cast to get similar dps. While already having lower damage due to weapon damage.

Why would anyone ever choose the LightWeight morph unless they just want to punish themselves?

IonicKai

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

fboostb16_ESO wrote: »

The nerf to pets to bring them in line with other abilities would only make sense if they didn't have to be double-barred. A double barred ability is different from a single bar ability and the damage and utility should reflect that.

No they completely make sense.

Pets damage does not need to be activated and costs no resources.
Pets are almost impossible to cleave down due to mitigation from AOE's.
Pets follow the target whether the owner can see the target or not and keep dealing damage.
Pets teleport instantly back to the owner to provide LOS when the owner runs.
Pets provide free LOS in the open.
Pet's damage although like a dot, does not need to be refreshed like a dot.
Class shields protect owner and pet.

Pets cost two bar slots instead of one therefore need insentive to be run

Pets do need to have a dot reapplied if you want to not hit like a wet noodle.

Pets scale only off of max magicka not spell damage.

Pets also require uptime of daedric prey for damage which is only a 6 second up time.

They were maybe 2-5% overtuned with a perfect rotation damage wise. They were not completely overpowered like you claim they had a cost. Honestly pets were pushed on us by the devs who buffed the crap out of them in Murkmire and continued to in WrathStone. The LoS issues can be done by any class near a tree or rock and honestly the familiar is more like to cause targeting issues since it actually stands between you and the person you are fighting. The twilight often ends up far away from you so it's rarely useful for LoS.

Emkay333

Also another thing I noticed with necro passives is its the only class with penetration, an hp buff, and a boost to ALL dots. The insane crit execute, as well. It's also the only class with a ground dot aoe ability that covers either both major frac/breach OR provides you with your own synergy. ZoS truly made it by far the strongest class and most likely won't nerf it much since its with the newest chapter dlc, if they did, who'd want to play the new class/dlc if a current/vanilla class was comparable or stronger.

Emkay333

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

fboostb16_ESO wrote: »

The nerf to pets to bring them in line with other abilities would only make sense if they didn't have to be double-barred. A double barred ability is different from a single bar ability and the damage and utility should reflect that.

No they completely make sense.

Pets damage does not need to be activated and costs no resources.
Pets are almost impossible to cleave down due to mitigation from AOE's.
Pets follow the target whether the owner can see the target or not and keep dealing damage.
Pets teleport instantly back to the owner to provide LOS when the owner runs.
Pets provide free LOS in the open.
Pet's damage although like a dot, does not need to be refreshed like a dot.
Class shields protect owner and pet.

Except both tormentor and scamp you do have to activate to use their potential for damage. They also are forced double bar abilities. Pet sorc was not top of the meta performance, no where near necromancer. Maybe a smaller damage nerf could have been done but 70% is just ridiculous, just to sate pvp-only players who cry about not incap-deleting a sorc or who dont know how to click tab to target.

MehrunesFlagon

Azurrath wrote: »

Flame of Oblivion now has a cast time (somewhere around 0.5s, like the crystal fragment before fix) now but the skill's description says it's an instant cast ability, is it intended or just a bug?

They need to quit doing this cast time ***.Getting really old.

SodanTok

Can we have recheck on bow passives/skills? I am not against pushing standards but current ranged stamina style is greatly behind other standards by being limited to single weapon with passives affecting DPS of just that one skill line.

This pass on all dot abilities just created so many strong options everywhere around (buffed rending, deadly cloak, soul trap, new 2H gap closer DoT, trap and for magicka reach or entropy) the same time both endless hail and vma bow received huge nerf. I dont' have to explain how nerfing abilities affected by hawkeye/long shots while buffing abilities either unaffected by it or not fitting or directly unusable on bow widens the gap.

Then there are cases of abilities like trap where melee only option is literally 80% stronger causing double dipping in range punishment where being ranged stamina with bow means less weapon damage than melee, access to less abilities and then in cases like this access to weaker versions of abilities.

This mimics Morrowind patch huge overall changes that too didnt take into considerations different impact on different builds and massively nerfed stam ranged playstyle by forcing heavy attack meta with back then totally unbalanced performance of heavy attack on DW vs bow.

The only solution to this is (other than giving another weapon skill line to complement bow) buffing or changing bow passives so they can compensate for lack of choices or lack of overall damage.

Emkay333

MehrunesFlagon wrote: »

Azurrath wrote: »

Flame of Oblivion now has a cast time (somewhere around 0.5s, like the crystal fragment before fix) now but the skill's description says it's an instant cast ability, is it intended or just a bug?

They need to quit doing this cast time ***.Getting really old.

Yes, cast times are just stupid for rotations. I still don't know why crystal frags is an RNG skill, being a 35% chance to consider casting it in your rotation

Why not make it a set number of other magic skills? LA's? Something consistent that can be rotated not just luck.

Xogath

Emkay333 wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

fboostb16_ESO wrote: »

The nerf to pets to bring them in line with other abilities would only make sense if they didn't have to be double-barred. A double barred ability is different from a single bar ability and the damage and utility should reflect that.

No they completely make sense.

Pets damage does not need to be activated and costs no resources.
Pets are almost impossible to cleave down due to mitigation from AOE's.
Pets follow the target whether the owner can see the target or not and keep dealing damage.
Pets teleport instantly back to the owner to provide LOS when the owner runs.
Pets provide free LOS in the open.
Pet's damage although like a dot, does not need to be refreshed like a dot.
Class shields protect owner and pet.

Except both tormentor and scamp you do have to activate to use their potential for damage. They also are forced double bar abilities. Pet sorc was not top of the meta performance, no where near necromancer. Maybe a smaller damage nerf could have been done but 70% is just ridiculous, just to sate pvp-only players who cry about not incap-deleting a sorc or who dont know how to click tab to target.

Except it wasn't a problem for ONLY Nightblades; it was a problem for the entire playerbase who has ever fought a pet Sorc (or a Werewolf).

This same concept was entirely too hard to grasp back when shields weren't nerfed yet; you can't have it all. At that time, you had ridiculous ranged damage, ranged CC, ranged stuns, pets if you wanted and could slot them, AND damage shields to completely mitigate basically any damage? I'm sorry, but that's just too much for one class to have in their toolkit.

I mean, a damage shield is fine, but not when it essentially gives you two health bars while you also have every way in the world to keep people away from you to begin with if you play intelligently.

MehrunesFlagon

Emkay333 wrote: »

MehrunesFlagon wrote: »

Azurrath wrote: »

Flame of Oblivion now has a cast time (somewhere around 0.5s, like the crystal fragment before fix) now but the skill's description says it's an instant cast ability, is it intended or just a bug?

They need to quit doing this cast time ***.Getting really old.

Yes, cast times are just stupid for rotations. I still don't know why crystal frags is an RNG skill, being a 35% chance to consider casting it in your rotation

Why not make it a set number of other magic skills? LA's? Something consistent that can be rotated not just luck.

Honestly what I want to see from crystal frags would be to make it only fire ona proc.Obvious reason being in case you happen to be on the wrong bar.

humpalicous

I feel like many of the complaints (valid ones) have already been said in this thread, but I would like to throw my hat into the ring.

Overall AOE dps loss:
I understand the idea behind it all, but this was too much in too many places. Some of the abilities have become useless and have now become dead skills (which is what you tried to counteract with this blanket nerf and buff to single target dots), back to square 1. Maybe cut down the damage 15-20 % instead of 30+ ?

Pet nerf:
Yeah, I know, Pet Sorcs are an abomination and require no skill. But then again your whole marketing strategy relies on getting new, casual players through the door and guess what they will do? Play the easiest class or move on. Kind of counter intuitive destroy the easiest class then? Because let's face it, Pet Sorcs are dead now. Another example of dead skills.

Don't feel like writing more now but there's a few thoughts.

Honestly, Brian Wheeler or whatever, you need to sit down and look at your proposed changes because they indicate that you:
A) Don't play or understand your own game
You just don't care

None of which is good

Starlock

I'm a console player who does not have the option to do pts, but here's how I foresee the changes impacting my characters and gameplay experience. For context, none of my characters are strict dd's; they are all dd/tank or dd/heal hybrids. The main reason why I don't have any straight up dd characters is relevant to the discussion: there is a ridiculous chasm between dds in this game.

In some respects, this patch seems an attempt to address that. Trouble is, it looks to me like it's going to hit players like me pretty hard too. How this fits into the long-term plan for balancing the game will be interesting to see, but in the short term it seems like it's going to make certain things tougher for me. I'm most concerned about the changes to resource cost reductions and DoT abilities and with no access to pts, I really have no idea how that is going to play out. As such, that's the most I'll say about that on a general level.

Going character-by-character and focusing only on the dd part of how they play...

The Lightning Mage

He's my favorite and my first character. He's a magicka sorcerer that focuses on lightning damage. I am really excited about changes to two sets - Elemental Succession and Overwhelming Surge. Sadly, until BoP dies in fire, I probably will not bother with either of them (please kill BoP?). Onto some ability details...

• Conjured Ward changes push me further in the direction of dropping it from my skill bar. I keep it because his only self-healing is Critical Surge so he kinda needs proactive defense in some content, but the cost increase plus reduced shield means... well... probably better to slot Deep Thoughts and get an easy 5k shield just from blocking.
• Bolt Escape is loosing some of its cost ramp up! Yay! Personally, I would just kill the cost ramp up entirely, but if it were up to me I'd also kill PvP from this game which is the only reason we have that cost ramp up at all in the first place.
• Lightning Splash changes I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I feel he's doing just way too much AoE damage with it on live right now. On the other, well... I kinda like it that way... haha. The cost reduction is welcome and will probably balance this one out overall, so I'm not too concerned here.
• Destructive Touch changes are a bit confusing as the patch notes are a bit unclear. Is the lightning staff loosing it's stun? I am getting kind of frustrated with the constant removal of stuns from skills lately. Please stop it! I like my stuns for PvE questing! They are fun! Other than the mean removal of stun from lightning staves (?), I'm okay with these changes.
• Unstable Wall of Elements that he uses will get more boom. Fun, fun! Yay!
• Volcanic Rune will still be one of my favorite, most fun abilities to use and cost less. Yay!

In sum, he'll be fine. If I cared about being a competitive dd I'd be loosing my mind, but that ship sailed years ago. Besides, he has an order of magnitude more class than those other mer anyway...

The Ashlander Vampire

This character is perhaps the most challenging to manage because he's a magicka dragonknight who doesn't use staves (yes, I know). This makes resource management a significant challenge. Last patch was amazing for him with boots to various DK abilities. This patch seems like it will ratchet him back a notch...

• Fiery Breath got really powerful for him last patch, so while a cost increase is never welcome on a character that cannot restore resources with heavy attacks, I'm not too concerned about it.
• Molten Whip changes I'm indifferent about, because I never stacked it that high with his inability to recover magicka through heavy attacks.
• Searing Strike cost increase has me concerned. This is his primary self heal, and a literal lifesaver for him in many situations. I don't know of the increased DoT ticks will balance this out, but it may?
• Ash Cloud cost increase may make this prohibitively expensive for him to use regularly. On live, I already have to be careful about casting this ability too frequently and that it is kind of tough to see visually means it is easy to over-cast it.
• Bat Swarm changes look interesting, but I still probably won't slot it over a giant meteor from the sky.
• Drain Essence will hopefully be a bit more consistent now, though the decreased healing is a bummer.
• Mist Form I only really use for fun and flavor, but it might have a touch more utility now?
• Entropy may be something I experiment with again for this character, but we'll see.
• Scalding Rune is something I keep meaning to get on the character, and the cost reduction may make this a fun ability to play with.

In sum, he'll still be in a pretty good spot considering some of the really nice helping hands he got last patch. I'm still waiting for that melee-magicka weapon line, though, guys. Any day now. Come on!

The Plucky Bosmer

Of my characters, this stamina warden werewolf has the hardest time soloing world bosses and relies very heavily on DoTs or wolfing out in order to do so. I expect this patch is going to be pretty bad for her. And by pretty bad I mean really bad. Good thing she's mostly fishing these days, yeah?

• Poison Arrow cost increase I'm not too worried about, but that's only because this character has stupid stamina regen. The loss of the execute bonus will hurt her a lot against world bosses and I'm not too excited about that.
• Draining Shot change so the heal fires when you fire will be really nice. Again, not too worried about the cost increase on this particular character.
• Snipe getting some of its damage back will be nice. It felt a bit sad after the last patch.
• Volley change is... how to put this... YUCK! Slashing the damage here is REALLY going to suck, guys. She has no way to recover that damage loss. None. Zip. Zero. Maybe by itself this wouldn't be so horrible, but combined with...
• Caltrops changes? Double YUCK. Again, she has no way to recover this damage loss. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Ew. All kinds of ew. Soloing world bosses may be out of her future entirely with the cumulative impact of all these changes. Especially when her one saving grace in one of these fights was often...
• Werewolf form which is also getting slapped. The healing probably won't keep her alive through world boss fights anymore. Cost increases are a bit more of a concern since restoring resources in wolf form is a good deal harder. LA/HA will do less damage. Bleeds will be affected by resistances. It is an ugly, ugly day for this poor bosmer.
• Trapping Webs always fit the character pretty well, but the ability was just kinda blah. That said, it's... kind of the only skill she can use to even attempt to make up for the double whammy of Volley/Caltrops sucking. Now, if she could activate her own synergy, it'd be golden.

In sum, .... yeah. Uh huh. Sucks to suck. You do realize that she doesn't take offenses lightly, right? She's going to come after you with so many arrows you'l be taking several to both knees. She always goes for the knees...

Morimizo

Feedback for lower MagSorc PvE DPS:

Four out of five of the abilities on my main's first bar have been nerfed substantially; not because of any alteration of equipment or skill,, but because there is a concerted push to lessen some alleged power creep (Totally felt way more potent when last adding 30 CP, when I received another 2.34%ish reduction to Sprint cost, 1.2%ish mitigation to elemental damage, and 1.4%ish to DoT damage---what out of control vertical prgoression!!).

How shall I explain this update's nerfbomb from a RP perspective? Aging?

#ElderlyScrollsOnline

pwidsten

Reducing the Twilight Matriarch damage by 69% makes some sense. It's the heal morph. As a Sorc lover, I cringe just saying that, but it's true. The value 69% is a bit drastic, but it definitely needed a substantial damage nerf. Reducing the Twilight Tormentor damage however, does not make sense at all. As has been stated above, it requires two bar slots, provides zero group utility and must be activated for good damage to a target above 50% health and then it does become passive damage, but it is easily surpassed by a myriad of other abilities.

With these proposed changes, the tormentor even while activated still does poor damage for the activation cost, let alone taking two bar slots to use and either of the Twilight morfs will see little to no use if left this way. My recommendation here would be to make the base damage of the two Twilight pets the same, low damage number. One morf heals on activation and the other morf does more damage on activation. In that way the Tormentor could be more like the Volatile Familiar and only really pack a punch when you activate it.

Observing the process of changes to Sorc pets is like watching a volatile stock market. The stock is always way up or way down. One patch and Sorc players are rejoicing in the streets and the next, they're filing for bankruptcy. This observation communicates to me that the development process associated with Sorc pets is either out of touch or greatly disliked. Should that be true, why not consider getting rid of them completely and change their associated passive to work with whatever ability they're replaced by? It appears that would be much easier for everyone, as much as I enjoy them.

Wuuffyy

WW is now 35k plus dmg behind other classes. Why not just make more skill lines for it or add more intricacies to it instead. Viable combos would add what you need without a revamp.

master_vanargand

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

WW is now 35k plus dmg behind other classes. Why not just make more skill lines for it or add more intricacies to it instead. Viable combos would add what you need without a revamp.

Werewolf is very very very easy.
So Werewolf is weak in PvE.
If Werewolf is 100k DPS, PvP will be destroyed.

Wuuffyy

master_vanargand wrote: »

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

WW is now 35k plus dmg behind other classes. Why not just make more skill lines for it or add more intricacies to it instead. Viable combos would add what you need without a revamp.

Werewolf is very very very easy.
So Werewolf is weak in PvE.
If Werewolf is 100k DPS, PvP will be destroyed.

Are you kidding me dude? Come back with facts. Thank you! Something logical to add to the statement.

Wuuffyy

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

master_vanargand wrote: »

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

WW is now 35k plus dmg behind other classes. Why not just make more skill lines for it or add more intricacies to it instead. Viable combos would add what you need without a revamp.

Werewolf is very very very easy.
So Werewolf is weak in PvE.
If Werewolf is 100k DPS, PvP will be destroyed.

Are you kidding me dude? Come back with facts. Thank you! Something logical to add to the statement.

Also... who's fault is it that WW is "easy". Try it in real trials sometime btw. My fault or the game makers. There isn't a single reason there shouldn't be extra skill lines for it not to be its own "class". It is the definition of the MMO brawler.

WuffyCerulei

If yall are gonna nerf stuff, just don’t nerf entropy. Gives classed like the sorc and necro a reasonable dot. Soul Trap is too strong though, especially on stamina toons. I’ve been seeing 50k+ tooltips.

stevenyaub16_ESO

I really do not like the direction these changes are going. Shifting damage from class abilities to universal skills.

Especially for mag DD where instead of using a unique class ability it will be replaced by a skill all classes can use. Slowly all classes will be using the same skills as each other.

I would reconsider changing back some of the decisions made. Taking away one of the very few frost spells from warden's DPS kit, templars DDs also providing resources as part of their DPS rotation. Sorcerers also providing synergy (though would be nice if they provided minor vunerability)

I would much prefer these skills be changed back in some degree so that the skills will be used again, 99% of the players out there will not switch skills just to kill trash or packs of mobs. You should be making single target abilities do slightly more so players CAN use those for bosses if they really want to push for maximum damage.

Please take another look at class skills (warden's swarm could have stamina and magicka morph, the aoe spread is next to useless as you'd have to wait for 10 seconds for it to work). Smaller aoe should do same damage as they did before, and there are so many minor/major buffs that do not have many sources which could be applied to classes that lack any utility.

Shift damage to classes again rather than world/shared skills please.

Also Lightweight trap needs to be looked at (or barbed should be nerfed in damage)

Narvuntien

Well, I finally had a chance to test... err for some reason I couldn't get combat metrics to work for me
but I still have the basic dps details.

Surprisingly my MagDks dps was fine but I beg you to fix Eruptions animation because I can't afford to accidentally double-cast the thing but it's still doing descent damage

I was surprised at who well my Stamwarden went considering they are losing a big % of damage from losing the animal 5% from companion buff... I also lost another 2% because I now have to slot Deadly Cloak over a 5th animal companion buff. but the deadly cloak is quite a lot of damage a lot cheaper than Caltrops (which I dropped).

My Pet Sorc was awful though, I get that I am medicore dps player but I lost a full 10K off my Pet Sorc.

Olauron

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes.

There are some changes that I'm not fond of. Among them are the following.
1. Burning Embers increased cost. The main advantage to use it on Live was very small cost (567 Magicka in my case) that allowed using it with almost zero Magicka in melee range. On PTS the cost is 1280 Magicka for my character, that is 2.26 times more.
2. The Flame Lash cost increased from 1399 to 1755 that is not even mentioned in the patch notes! Note that both total Magicka and Magicka recovery remained equal on Live and on PTS.
3. The Shrouded Daggers not only increased in cost from 2109 to 2798, that skill doesn't give Major Brutality on range now. Major Brutality on melee hit is useless for the ranged AoE skill (utility or not). Essentially this skill will no longer be used by my DW character, instead I'll use Silver Shards and a potion with Major Brutality.
4. Phoenix set loses its fluff as a resurrection set. It also loses its 'correct a mistake' use in the 'no need for healer, one-shot everything' dungeon mechanics.

Saril_Durzam

Have commented in another thread:

- Make Stamina shields and VIgor morph for magicka.
- Create a new Magicka melee weapon(S). Dual wield wands, two handed sceptres. It´s a good way to balance builds.
- Give each class flavour skills that, in general, be more useful than general skills, so each class recovers its identity.
- Build playable builds for both magicka and stamina on each class.

Heymexa

Mag. Sorc Twiilight is too weak. This ability takes 2 slots. 69% - too much. In make this pet useless. Do not repeat old mistakes.

Perhaps it is required to redesign this skill - 1 slot, or a complete reworking of the mechanics of this ability.

Vercingetorix

Not sure if this is the proper feedback thread, but I wanted to get more exposure on this issue:

The Rapid Maneuver changes NEED to be reversed ASAP. Using Rapids in PvE to give oneself the Major Expedition buff to navigate the overworld or delves on foot faster was extremely useful as a tool. It was balanced because you couldn't attack with it active or you'd lose the buff. People use this skill extensively in PvE for questing and you're not giving us another tool to compensate for it. Rapids is not unbalanced in PvP so there's no reason to remove because of that, either. Please revert this change.

Bladerunner1

So I'm not the only one who sees how this patch will create an even bigger gap between console and PC in PVE DPS.

It seems we now have to choose between AOE damage over time which is a lot weaker, or single target damage over time which was buffed quite a bit. If you pick some of both to cover more ground in dungeons, like a lot of console players will have to do, they won't be dealing amazing single target or AOE DPS.

On a PC you could use addons to swap entire sets and skill bars between AOE damage and single target damage. It's just 1 second of waiting, then you can smash through anything with the most efficient build for any dungeon fight.

When this patch goes live speed runs on PC aren't going to be hampered nearly as much as Console.

SidraWillowsky

On the 3/6 mil dummy in PTS::

• Stamblade: a little bit lower, but mine is fine even when I use the current meta rotation (with caltrops).
• Magden: in a good place it seems. Hitting over 40k with a few tweaks
• Magblade: SOS. This patch is the nail in the coffin, if the coffin's not already sealed shut. PLEASE reconsider your weird and nonsensical need to standardize all AoEs across all classes. My test magblade is performing terribly even with perfected trial gear and the vMA staff. The class is already underperforming and the changes made to magblade weren't even considered OP in PvP; NO ONE was complaining about them. The class is now solidly at the very bottom of DD classes.

I didn't notice any sustain issues whatsoever across my three chars.

I tested the entropy and soul magic skills and they're profoundly annoying to work into a rotation. Depending on how much DPS they add as I do more testing, I may stay with the current meta.

The place where I DID feel the negative effects of the AoE nerfs was out in the open world- I took the magden to Spellscar Craglorn to see how she performs against mobs. First off, LA weaving completely broke for a me a few times... LAs just wouldn't go off. Restarting the game helped. Secondly- are there changes to mobs in the patch notes? Because something now throws down a crazy annoying AoE stun that I've never seen before. Lastly, I definitely felt weaker. Things still died but they took longer to die, and I couldn't melt mobs like I used to. The DPS was all over the place; from 10k in one mob to over 70 in another.

It's really, REALLY difficult to be able to provide valid feedback when I'm not sure whether a bug is a "feature" of the new patch or just the PTS sucking...