PTS Update 25 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

ZOS_GinaBruno

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

Lughlongarm

Hi, I tried block canceling with several skills and it worked great, but for some reason I wasn't manage to block cancel the "Wall of elements" skill.

Canned_Apples

Vampire drain... sigh.
Just leave the skill line alone until you revamp it. -or remove the first dot on cast.
Mag classes need a stun.

WreckfulAbandon

Balance is terrible for any AoE-heavy class fighting anyone using Blackrose Prison Dual Wield.

If it's a stated/known goal that BRP DW, a 2 piece back bar set, is meant to completely erase incoming AoE damage, that it's meant to be a hard counter to several builds and playstyles, can you please at least go all the way through and let us know that's the case?

Hamboot

I want magblade dmg aoe hit harder, just buff soul tether ulti,by increasing the dmg based on how many players are hit by x %, and lotus fan aoe radius increased by a couple of meters so that it hit more targets. Wouldn't mind sap essence to either have it's cost decreased or it's dmg increased based on how many players are hit.

jcm2606

The off balance change needs to be reverted, as it's pretty much immediately killed Flame Lash. DK's burst combo relies on using off balance to proc Power Lash, and now we have a 7 second window where we do so, followed by a 15 second window where we can't. If the off balance change goes through, Molten Whip will be the only viable morph, which is unfortunate since it really doesn't synergise with DK's playstyle all that well.

Abyssmol

In this patch, the main thing I see is the damage between stamina and magicka widening. Stamina hit way harder now than magicka, and with the new sets, you are making stamina even stronger... it looks like stamina will still be best for PVP.

GeorgeBlack

Restore Reflective Plate

Ragnarock41

Thank you for following up with an update to stonefist, as you promised. Its very nice to see that despite my very salty and childish tone, for once my feedback was taken very seriously, for that, you have my respect.


As for the feedback on the ability itself, Separating the stun from the stagger mechanic, making the ability a two part skill with an AoE stomp (from what I understand reading the notes), these are all amazing changes. And not only that you buffed the range of the projectile back up to 28 meters.

This ability went from ''Poor man's dizzying swing'' to something very unique, and it might not be there yet but I'm really liking the direction you took with it.

Edit: I have finally tested it, and here are my pain points with it from the first impressions(warning: bit of a long read):

1. The visuals are okay. The ground stomp looks cool, the poop balls are whatever. The throwing animation is greatly improved visually.

2.The stomping part of the skill, while looking very cool, is underwhelming due to reasons I will list below:

a. It has a cast time , yet the area is small and the damage is low. Compared to abilities that can be combined with other burst tools&spammables, such as blastbones or sub assault, its small and weak. In a real fight if your opponent is mobile you will very often notice them running out of this circle and it dealing no damage as result, similar to whirling blades.(which does not have a cast time, yet its easily avoided anyways)

b. The stomp has a bad synergy with the second half of this ability , while this is less of a problem for a melee Dk, it still feels weird and honestly underwhelming, the transition from melee AOE to ranged single target, this ability now tries to accomplish three things at once: AoE damage, single target damage, and stun. Yet unfortunately its not optimal for any of this.

Before finishing my feedback on the stomp, I would like to point out that I really, really like this part of the new stonefist, from purely a visual point of view, it looks awesome. My feedback might make you think I want it gone but its quite the opposite, I want more emphasis, more focus on this. As of right now there is no reward for landing this tiny cast time AoE , I want this to change, and I will list some ideas , after I'm done listing my pain points with the whole ability.

3. The poop throw, its time to finally talk about the elephant sized poop in the room. But before that, I must say visually it looks a lot nicer. Reminds me of the earth benders from avatar. So Its not the ''falcon punch'' I asked for, but I'm fine with the visual style, just not with the actual performance.

a. So good things first, I no longer need to stack staggers on a target that might simply purge the stacks, to get a stun. That is good. The range is 28meters so I can shoot it up to keep walls, that is also small but good chance. Oh and the damage is quite high for a fully ''ranged spammable'' too.

b. I still need to cast stonefist 4 times to get a chance at getting a single target stun. That is very, very bad.
This leads to an extremely frustrating feeling considering the ability is dodgeable, blockable,reflectable,absorbable, and yes, also absorbable by cloak since it is a single target projectile. Imagine the frustration of a player using this in an outnumbered situation.

Its true that I don't need to stack rocks on a single target, however lets say I want a stun and I want it now, I have to wait 4 GCDs to get it, considering CC immunity lasts 7 seconds I will spend majority of the combat tossing rocks. That is not good or smart gameplay.

It is totally fine for a ranged spammable to have all this ways of counterplay, however this is an exception. I'm not suggesting to remove the counterplay however I'm making a point that change is needed before Dks actually consider using this ability. If it has all these risk factors, high cost,cast time .... don't give player a good reward, then it will not be used , plain and simple.

c.the rock throw has 28 meter range while the ground stomp is melee centered, creating a disconnection. Its fine for the heal morph to have 28 meters range since that is meant for a different playstyle however I feel like this was the wrong approach for a stamDk ability.

I believe I made a good point for how the two phases of the ability are completely disconnected, now I will list a few suggestions that might change this situation. I'm not implying that all of these should be implemented at the same time, but rather, I'm showing you different branches on how this could go, starting from simpler ones to more complicated, full on tinfoil hat theories, I may or may not add more later but this is all I could come up with atm:

*Increasing ground stomp to 7meters wide instead of 6 would be appreciated since that is now the standart Dk melee range would make things more consistent .

*Making the stagger effect scale based on weapon damage/max stamina(with or without a maximum cap, your decision, I think this debuff would never be good in PvP regardless, just another thing to purge) similar to engulfing flames, would make sure only stamDks, instead of DK tanks, can utilize this ability in PvE, saving you from unneccessary nerfs or restrictions to it.

* You could simply.... make the third rock more special, instead of tossing it with hand , the DK kicks it instead, for an unblockable, but dodgeable stun.

* You could tie the stun to the ground stomp somehow. Make the rocks conditioned to stun only if the target is hit by the stomp. So, similar to dizzying swing, two successful hits would result in a stun.

*You could remove and replace the stun entirely. Honestly, if it doesn't work, maybe letting it go and looking for other opportunities might be for the best. This ability is slowly moving away from the ''standart spammable'' concept and I'm thinking maybe that is for the best. No matter how I compare this to dizzying swing, it always loses hard. That is the unfortunate truth.

* You could.... Make the rock throw a short range AoE (that still requires a target), to achieve consistency with the stomp and maybe a new class theme around close range AoE physical damage. Could give each rock a small cast time to balance it out. This version of stonefist would not really require a stun to be viable.. There are similar spammable abilities with AoE mechanics such as deep slash and fighter's guild crossbow.

So this is what I think of it. Right now I feel like stonefist is a little lost.Its in a bit of an identity crisis. Does it want to be an AoE DPS tool similar to sub or blastbones? A ranged spammable? A very quirky stun? I think a little experimenting could not hurt. I do not expect any changes to it, honestly I am still suprised you guys actually gave it a new animation, however I would encourage you to do more changes to it, and I will give positive feedback regardless on my opinions on those changes.

Inklings

Any skill that does a knock back or knock down cant be blocked and seems to be doing full damage.

Anhedonie

Have yet to test stuff, since I'm still downloading the client, but if Blast Bones now leaps from 28m, then it's awesome. I'll get back as soon as I test it.

Solariken

From a thread I made before I knew this one existed:

Re: Bombard

The immobilize on this skill is so ripe for abuse in BG's it's not even funny. I'm sure you just forgot, so I'd like to remind you to have a look at this skill. No other non-ultimate skill carries as much weight over the outcome of a battleground as this. It deals high damage, has a huge AOE, immobilizes everything, snares everything, steals tons of killing blows (faster damage than Mages Wrath), procs enchants/poisons, exposes Cloak, and cheap enough to spam for days.

I hate asking for nerfs except when a gameplay element is so abusive that it detracts from the fun of everyone on the receiving end. You nerfed the snare on Acid Spray for reasons unknown but left this far more egregious morph untouched. There are tons of ways to address it, including (pick one or dream up your own)

1. ~30% cost increase
2. immobilize only works on targets not affected by a snare (like it used to function)
3. percent chance to immobilize - maybe 30%
4. only immobilizes targets affected by a poison effect
5. can only immobilize targets not currently CC-immune
6. becomes a single-target morph which would be dodgeable
7. Reduce damage by 60% to reinforce the idea that this morph is for utility and Acid Spray is for damage output.

ATreeGnome

Stamcro's are still ridiculously OP compared to other classes for DPS, yet they got some small buffs. They have too much inherent DPS for the amount of group DPS boost they provide - this is obvious and have been reiterated thousands of times. Please balance them. I'm so tired of everyone I know feeling like they're letting the group down if they don't play a stamcro. It seriously drains so much fun out of the game.

OtarTheMad

Thank you for the Blastbones change, it seems to work so far. I need to do more testing but it's reliable now.

Canned_Apples

The cast time on Stone Fist ruins the flow of combat.

ecru

edit: wrong thread

Ragnarock41

Canned_Apples wrote: »

The cast time on Stone Fist ruins the flow of combat.

At least it looks cool now. But the truth is I still would not replace dizzy swing with this, cast time or no cast time. It needs to change.

And guess what? The cast time on dizzying swing does not ruin this ''flow of combat'' or whatever you're talking about.

Hooded_1

While We're on the topic of DK's and AE DoT's... Can we turn Eruption into an AE DoT and put it to that standard? I don't think anyone really uses it for its snare capabilities; ex in PvP there's fossilize which is a way better CC anyway, and in PvE, DK tanks would get the most out of the snare, and they use things like choking talons instead.

Anhedonie

Ok, so Blast Bones still runs for about 1.5 - 2 seconds before leaping to target even if you're at 28m or closer, but it explodes instantly if you're at 6m or closer without running. It's way better than what we have on live right now, but there is still room for improvement.

Corpse targeting is noticeably better though and I like it a lot.

As for Necromancer's sustain, let me tell you one thing. There is a movie called Major Payne, so let me rephrase a quote from it as it perfectly describes current Necromancer sustain issues:

Once upon a time deep, deep in the jungle there was a little Necromancer that could and he was chuggin' his way across the enemy line.

chugga chugga chugga chugga, chugga chugga chugga chugga, toot toot

This little Necromancer's mission was to take some AK-47's and a nuclear payload over the mountain to the 20-63 battalion, needless to say there was plenty opposition. You think that stopped the Little Necromancer That Could? No-sir-e-Bob, He just kept chuggin’ along…

chugga chugga chugga chugga, chugga chugga chugga chugga, toot toot

Not even when they climbed aboard the Necromancer and popped out the eyes. And blood and snot was drippin’ out his eye sockets. You think that stopped the Little Necromancer That Could? Damn skippy he just kept chuggin' along.

chugga chugga chugga chugga, chugga chugga chugga chugga, toot toot

It wasn’t till Charlie rigged the bridge with plastic explosives. Just as the Little Necromancer was making his way across the trestle:

BOOM!

Explosion happened! Blood and guts and spit and ass was everywhere

And Bubba come crawling out the back door, sustain missing... Lula May’s Baby Boy And he looked up at me, he said

'Payne, I can't feel my sustain...'

and I said 'Bubba, it ain't there'

MerguezMan

Please give some love to DKs

- Molten Armaments' cost is too high and should be reduced (in comparison, how do you justify Warden's netch is free, gives back resources AND purges every 5s ?).

- Volatile Armor's Thorns range shouldn't be nerfed down - make it 22m at least.

- Protective Scales' cost is way too high for a 6s defensive buff. Either reduce cost or increase duration.

- Ash cloud's 5m radius is too small to be useful in most situations. Make it on par with Templar's Extended 12m Ritual. And please reduce cost.

- Obsidian's shield Major mending is still useless without another set/skill to heal. Please reduce cost or add some healing to the ability.

- Helping Hands passive is not really helping anything. Please change the proc to return stamina from any positive bonus applied to self or group. Or return also magicka.

Qbiken

The cast times on soul-harvest and incapitating strike are still severely hurting the class, and this comes from someone who isn´t even using nightblade as my primary class. Revert the cast times on these skills so that nightblades can become more competitive in PvP settings again.

The Uninvited

Revert off-balance changes, keep the rest.

Sanguinor2

Look at how off balance changes Impact flame lash please. Power lash already has a cooldown in itself and if the off balance changes go live the skill will be dead since it not only has a cooldown in itself but also the cooldown on offbalance.

Artorias24

Stone Fist got some nice changed. Still a some parts are confusing.

Cast time for the initial cast shouldnt be there, feels clunky slows down Combat. We already have enough cast times.

Ranged/Melee hybrid also doesnt feel fitting for the DK playstyle. Remove the range and change Animation that you really slam someone with your fist supported by a stone sphere and i will happily remove the dust from my DK!

BohnT2

Last patch we managed to get rid of the artificial minimum traveltime on assassins will.

Now we have 2 more crucial skills who are affected by a minimum traveltime those are Strife and crystal frags.
According to older patch notes the travel time of will and frags both got reduced to 250ms travel time but neither of those changes made it through and now only will got changed last patch.

Strife and Frags still take a minimum of 500ms to hit your target even if you're right on them and we're talking proctology exam distance here.

Those travel times make both skills highly unreliable in PvP as you won't hit someone with them if you're solo because they just have to avoid the skill via dodge or block and will never die unless you get a clean kill.
This also means they're impossible to line up with stuns as everyone can break free and dodge/block before the projectile does it's damage.

We have more of those artificial travel times which make skills useless.
Those include mages wrath (800ms), birds (1.1s), stone giant (250ms but horrible because stamdk doesn't gain anything from the range benefit as the class is ment to play in meele, same issue applies to stamina birds (1.1s travel time) and stamnecro's skulls (250ms)

The travel time is a huge reason why many of those skills see no useage in PvP (along with other issues) or in the main case of strife and frags are a huge reason why the offence of magsorc and magnb are too unreliable and then get overbuffed for zerging as the damage when the projectile hits gets increased when the issue is hitting them in the first place when you're solo.

ESO_Nightingale

I think this was mentioned before, but after the loss of so many of our magicka stuns, we really need options now.

For example, a way to help this problem is to give the clenches all stuns again, including frost clench, at the loss of it's immobilise. All should have a secondary effect unique to that element. And all should have a range increase.

TheUndeadAmulet

Patch is fine except for three worry points:

• Revert the changes to how off-balance works, it was fine the way it was before. Class and abilities that rely on off-balance in PvP receive a huge direct nerf because of this. See all the people complaining that their whip broke. If you still want to go ahead with the changes to off-balance, at the very least remove the cooldown on power lash and revert dizzy swing back to simply stunning on hit, as otherwise there is no real reason to use power lash or dizzy swing. Shortening the cooldown might also be a good idea.
• Dizzy swing now stunning people who are already off-balance. Unnecessary change, as the majority of people were fine with how it worked before. Being able to time your stun when you want is so much better. This just encourages dizzy swing spam again as there really is no point heavy attacking when you could just swing.
• Mother Ciannait Monster set - Legitimately useless set. 999/1000 cases, iceheart is simply better. It has a bigger shield, it has a lower cooldown, it deals damage and you don't need to use an ability with a cast time or channel. Even with a strength of 10,000, Iceheart still outperforms. Maybe a strength of 15,000? Otherwise, reworking it into something else is another solution.

Skysenzz

No real test done, but i still don't understand how the rock fist on stamina Dragonknight is any good for it's identity, it doesn't synergyse Well with the other class skills.
I've asked several people (most of them stamdk mains) and they've all agreed that the idea i'm gonna tell you fits better the class.
Stamdk IS and has Always been a class with dots as it's main damage ability. Having a 1 hit spammable has Always been a debate on stamdk, I personally do not like that idea, if I want a spammable then i'll go for non class abilities, elemental weapon/uppercut/rapid strike, they do that very well.
Therefore if you want stamdk's to bring something unique to thé group without ruining it's identity you guys believed that a skill debuff could make the thing. Staggering was a good idea but the current way you play it feels wrong. So instead of how many rock you throw at your enemy, maybe make something that depends on how much dots the caster has applied to the target.
To give an example, you apply a debuff to the target, and the caster if the debuff has 4 dots up, so the boss will have 4 staggering stacks.
To make sure it's a Stamdk DPS that is taken but not a tank, make the damage scale with effective weapon damage.
Also make sure to put a max number of stack per target so the dk doesn't run with 5dots per bars.
It could last 14 seconds or 28 to be sure that it will be coherent with dk's dots.
6stacks would be a good number of maximum stacks, using already claw/breath/endless hail/traps that last 14seconds or more, making 3 max stack would be really easy to get close to 100% uptime, 6 would make the rotation much more dynamic and use a 3rd dot on frontbar (considering FoO isn't a dot) such as rending slashes (make it good again please, it was perfect pre wrathstone ;___; )
Cheers.

Nicalas

Onslaught is not doing enough damage against competent players with the current strength of healing.
Dizzy also does too little damage. As one vigor tick can heal through each strike.

Off balance. I don’t even know what to say. This is horrible considering how you keep tying abilities to this status effect.

Major Evasion needs to be toned down.


Double damage sets are far underperforming when compared to a damage/defensive setup. Defense and healing is still more powerful then a double damage setup. Execute needs to have a modifier for going through block. No more of this hold block full heal from 5 percent hp.

Iskiab

As is, I think this patch will send the game into a crazy high damage meta. The best burst classes will become the dominant classes in solo and small scale - stamwarden and stamnecro.

I don’t see it playing out well.

olsborg

Please remove the cast time on the Soul Siphon ultimate, its a pure healing skill just like restoration ulti. Nightblades has pretty much the worst selfhealing of all the classes, nbs gotta have something to heal themself (stam)