The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
My Experience with Dragonhold’s Combat
Stamicka
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Dragonhold just recently hit Xbox and I thought I’d share my feedback regarding the combat. In short...the combat is stale and not fun. Let me start off by talking about class identity.
Stam classes do not feel unique. Currently the rotation for each stam class goes as follows: Endless Hail- Class ability-Spam till your berserker enchant is out. This is the most mind numbing gameplay of any patch. Even testing your numbers by parsing is a bad experience simply because the rotations are so boring. Now consider that there’s no new PVE content that has been released in this patch, so the only option is to use my boring rotation in a trial I’ve done plenty of times. Several rotations involve the use of wrecking blow which I strongly dislike. Abilities with cast times do not feel good in PVE in my opinion.
Now let’s talk about Mag. Mag rotations are a bit more unique and somewhat challenging, However, you rarely get to pull off a consistent rotation because you are gasping for resources. The sustain is actually so bad on certain classes that I’ve slotted Equilibrium. Running out of sustain constantly IS NOT FUN and this is a concept that I do not wish to see in future patches.
Lastly let’s talk about DOTS. For the most part they’re not rewarding. In the past you got the most damage by keeping the best uptime of your DOTS as possible while using a spammable. Now DOTS are so weak and unrewarding that they are more of a means of proccing your back bar enchants. Its actually okay to let your DOTS go down in some scenarios, and very little, if any DPS is lost. Some abilities like poison inject aren’t even worth using. Now I understand that DOTS were too strong, but this is not a great alternative.
All of these changes combined have ruined what made combat in ESO feel fun and rewarding. I hope to see improvements in the future. In my opinion the rotations pre-scalebreaker were fun and rewarding for the most part.While damage did need a nerf, you could have done so without changing how people play. I still don’t understand why the scalebreaker DOT meta was even introduced. Damage before that patch was still high but would need less severe tweaking (for example nerfing CP or Light attacks instead of a complete DOT overhaul). I would like to see these rotations come back for the long run.
Stam classes do not feel unique. Currently the rotation for each stam class goes as follows: Endless Hail- Class ability-Spam till your berserker enchant is out. This is the most mind numbing gameplay of any patch. Even testing your numbers by parsing is a bad experience simply because the rotations are so boring. Now consider that there’s no new PVE content that has been released in this patch, so the only option is to use my boring rotation in a trial I’ve done plenty of times. Several rotations involve the use of wrecking blow which I strongly dislike. Abilities with cast times do not feel good in PVE in my opinion.
Now let’s talk about Mag. Mag rotations are a bit more unique and somewhat challenging, However, you rarely get to pull off a consistent rotation because you are gasping for resources. The sustain is actually so bad on certain classes that I’ve slotted Equilibrium. Running out of sustain constantly IS NOT FUN and this is a concept that I do not wish to see in future patches.
Lastly let’s talk about DOTS. For the most part they’re not rewarding. In the past you got the most damage by keeping the best uptime of your DOTS as possible while using a spammable. Now DOTS are so weak and unrewarding that they are more of a means of proccing your back bar enchants. Its actually okay to let your DOTS go down in some scenarios, and very little, if any DPS is lost. Some abilities like poison inject aren’t even worth using. Now I understand that DOTS were too strong, but this is not a great alternative.
All of these changes combined have ruined what made combat in ESO feel fun and rewarding. I hope to see improvements in the future. In my opinion the rotations pre-scalebreaker were fun and rewarding for the most part.While damage did need a nerf, you could have done so without changing how people play. I still don’t understand why the scalebreaker DOT meta was even introduced. Damage before that patch was still high but would need less severe tweaking (for example nerfing CP or Light attacks instead of a complete DOT overhaul). I would like to see these rotations come back for the long run.
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mocap✭✭✭✭✭
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same with magicka. Unstable + dot + dot + spamspamspamspam + repeat. It's current meta though, everything can change next big update.Currently the rotation for each stam class goes as follows: Endless Hail- Class ability-Spam till your berserker enchant is out.
Rotation in ESO, mag or stam, is basically same. Fire here, lighing there, rain of arrow there, but all of this are ground dots with just different visual effects. Same with single target dots. Nothing you can do about it.0 -
Stamicka✭✭✭✭✭
✭Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »I mean how was this any different last patch or the patch before that?
The difference is the loss of DOTS in a rotation which makes it more stale. Let’s look at a Stamplar rotation. Currently poison inject is not worth using, Caltrops, rending, and virtually all other DOTS are not worth slotting on the class. So the rotation consists of applying endless hail and Jabbing about 7 times with an occasional trap beast or power of the light. This means that most bar space is filled with skills that buff weapon damage passively and are never pressed. Endless Hail can actually run out with no detriment, as long as it is applied before the berserker enchant wears out. Basically the rotations for stam are a very watered down and boring version of what they used to be. Now I didn’t like having a bar full of DOTS, but I don’t like spamming 1 button either. The key is a balance of both DOTS and spammsbles( which we saw pre- scalebreaker and back)
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Oakmontowls_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »I mean how was this any different last patch or the patch before that?
The difference is the loss of DOTS in a rotation which makes it more stale. Let’s look at a Stamplar rotation. Currently poison inject is not worth using, Caltrops, rending, and virtually all other DOTS are not worth slotting on the class. So the rotation consists of applying endless hail and Jabbing about 7 times with an occasional trap beast or power of the light. This means that most bar space is filled with skills that buff weapon damage passively and are never pressed. Endless Hail can actually run out with no detriment, as long as it is applied before the berserker enchant wears out. Basically the rotations for stam are a very watered down and boring version of what they used to be. Now I didn’t like having a bar full of DOTS, but I don’t like spamming 1 button either. The key is a balance of both DOTS and spammsbles( which we saw pre- scalebreaker and back)
Fair enough0 -
Shantu✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »I mean how was this any different last patch or the patch before that?
The difference is the loss of DOTS in a rotation which makes it more stale. Let’s look at a Stamplar rotation. Currently poison inject is not worth using, Caltrops, rending, and virtually all other DOTS are not worth slotting on the class. So the rotation consists of applying endless hail and Jabbing about 7 times with an occasional trap beast or power of the light. This means that most bar space is filled with skills that buff weapon damage passively and are never pressed. Endless Hail can actually run out with no detriment, as long as it is applied before the berserker enchant wears out. Basically the rotations for stam are a very watered down and boring version of what they used to be. Now I didn’t like having a bar full of DOTS, but I don’t like spamming 1 button either. The key is a balance of both DOTS and spammsbles( which we saw pre- scalebreaker and back)
^^This^^
While it was a bit of a fiasco, the change that strong DOT's were actually a LOT more fun than the watered down damage skills we have now. The gear meta now for every single PVE magicka class build is False God's and Mother's Sorrow. Yeah, you don't have to chase the meta, but when it's identical for every single magicka class, what's that tell you? So much for the idea of diversity.
Since this last patch hit, I've had 2 vet progression groups (one trial and one dungeons) shut down now because of either players leaving or just having an very low level of enthusiasm. The only thing that ZOS is killing with this current combat team...is the fun. Amateurs with their head in the sand...all of them!1 -
IonicKai✭✭✭✭I think the thing that upsets me most about this patch is that yet again the combat misses the mark on how to balance a system while keeping their players in mind. The entire point of wrath stone was to allow for racial diversity but these constant nerfs to sustain have made it detrimental to be anything but a Breton short of pvp burst builds for mag. Even bretons can barely sustain on some classes which is just not fun.
People lost a ridiculous amount of damage if they weren't near the top already and nothing is more frustrating then logging in and finding out you are way weaker after all the hard work you put in. Players have said it time and again that they hate fighting sustain issues yet all the combat team does is continue to make it tougher and while damage can be ok for the best of players you are crippling the groups trying to get near the top end so that they can complete content that is measured on endless DPS checks.1