PTS Update 25 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

xBananaFish

unstable wall only works for 10secs with elfbane. bug?

ESO_Nightingale

it's time to give magden and magcro reliable stuns.

llElLoboll

Can we get Major Savagery added to Cauterize? FoO has Major Prophecy/ Savagery while Cauterize only has Major Prophecy. Would be a very nice change.

Qbiken

The new block mechanics completely ruins the "block-cancel/block tap" features which are crucial for reactive gameplay in PvP. Don´t let this go live as it is on PTS right now. Here´s what it looks like right now (not recorded by me btw):
https://imgur.com/WzkWEOy

Joy_Division

Qbiken wrote: »

The new block mechanics completely ruins the "block-cancel/block tap" features which are crucial for reactive gameplay in PvP. Don´t let this go live as it is on PTS right now. Here´s what it looks like right now:
https://imgur.com/WzkWEOy

This was my one big worry when I read the combat preview. The last time ZOS changed animation priorities during Thieve's Guild, they made the system clunkier and it's been that way ever since.

I can;t download the PTS. What you've uploaded looks clunkier, and that is not a good sign. I can only hope is just looks clunky, but still at least works the same way.

VaxtinTheWolf

But can you activate an ability immediately after the animation of blocking on the PTS? On live, when you tap-block after an ability use you can't actually use another skill until the global is finished. The animation smoothing was supposed to extend the block animation to cover that up and blend the visual components of combat.

Starlock

*Insert the usual "console voices matter but I can't PTS" ramble here that I always put in these things*

• Necromancer Changes. I haven't played my psychopomp recently, but in my experience I really didn't run into the targeting issues that seem to plague other players. As such, I'm rather indifferent to the changes related to that but I've got no complaints either. I bet Blastbones will be much smoother with the quicker speed and sooner jump, which will make it more responsive to use as an ability.
• Blocking Changes. This is something that is very difficult to comment on without being able to test how it feels myself. I look forward to block cancelling looking less stupid, definitely, as it's one of the main beefs I have with how wonky animation canceling works in this game. My main concern about these changes is to ensure the tick rate for magicka/stamina recovery is nice and smooth to minimize issues with being able to block. Doesn't the game only calculate the recovery every 2 seconds or something? If so, how will this impact how the blocking and bracing feel?
• Off-Balance Changes. This is another area that is very difficult to comment on without being able to test firsthand. As someone who isn't a number-crunching min-maxer, though, I'm just not that concerned about this. It's worth noting that part of the reason for that, though, is how difficult it is to really track buffs/debuffs on console still. I can't be bothered to fuss over whether or not my foe is off-balance or not to capitalize on it.
• Other Class Changes. Stonefist (Dragonknight) looks neat - will be playing around with that when I dust off my vampire for the prologue quest and Greymoor (because of course!). I'm also pretty darned happy about the change to Sacred Ground (Templar) because it restores something my poor artificer lost when a passive was changed several patches ago. The change to Glacial Presence (Warden) are pretty unique and I like them.
• AoE DoTs Cost Reduction - Thank GODS. This one is getting its own line because it deserves one. Thank you for going back on the mistake of both reducing the effectiveness of these abilities while at the same time making them a lot more expensive to cast. This is a very welcome change especially for my poor lightning mage.
• Drain Essence. I'm not going to gripe much about this because I assume it is going to get revamped with Greymoor anyway, but I'm really not a fan of putting the stun on the end of this ability. If the stun is such a problem for PvP-land, just remove stuns from PvP and leave them alone in PvE. It's not going to be as fun to use this on my vampire if the stun happens after it's completed.
• Destructive Clench - Lightning Staves. This is supposed to be the utility morph, except it provides no utility. This was a problem introduced a patch or so ago, and I don't see anything about adding the stun back to this morph for lightning staves. Every other staff has a CC attached to it making it a real choice bewteen DoT and utility. There is no choice for lightning mages. Destructive Clench just plain sucks. The only thing going for it is that it is easier to target on console than Impulse is, which is on the whole a far superior option if you want an AoE for lightning damage off this weapon line.

Ascarl

I would have preferred to remove block canceling llike any other something-canceling at all. The game has one big problem which is lag, therefore I think the best way to counter that is to remove anything that punishes you for suffering from lag.

KurtAngle2

Defensive buffs/Heals are still too strong, they need to somehow nerf few of them before PTS hits Live because otherwise it's UNBEARABLE to withstand for other 3 months

Solariken

HEY what the heck is up with the stun on the 2nd hit of D-Swing!?!? It's just a generic stun - what happened to that sexy ragdoll thrash

I was so pumped when I read the notes but now only disappointment and sadness

NBrookus

Iskiab wrote: »

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.

I think damage will be WAY up (because stam needed another Major Berserk set to balance the zero magicka ones) and most players will just build tankier as a result.

Magicka outside of sorc was already vet hard mode for true solo, with magDK being reasonably playable as well. I can't think of a single reason to play magicka solo or small scale now other than stubbornness.

Revokus

Blastbones seems a lot better and more reliable now. Will have to see in heavy combat load like Cyrodiil/Lag kinda hard to test this on PTS. Thank you ZOS for the Blastbones improvements finally.

Only 2 other things I wish can make it before the patch is live is increasing the speed of Ricochet Skull to be on par with other spammables. Skull is so slow and easy to dodge. Otherwise I don't see the point of using it instead of Force Pulse or Elemental Weapon.

Also Skeletal Arcanist should at least give Major Sorcery for the huge cost it has and poor damage. It would increase the chance of people using it in PvP.

Lastly Spirit Mender and morphs have been reported to not heal anyone and bugs out in certain situations while being low life with no one else around.

https://youtu.be/dVpVm2GJmG8

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam

KillsAllElves

Nerf resistances or buff all damage abilities.

Buff mount speed. I noticed the stealth nerf months ago.

juhislihis19

You forgot to buff Flurry.. and you forgot to change Armor of the Veiled Heritance..

And you could buff DoTs a little bit.

And what's up with a cast time on a spam skill? Stonefist shouldn't have a cast time.

Olupajmibanan

I feel like Flame Lash should be adapted to new off-balance function to at least retain it's current function it has on live. Because if Flame Lash makes it to live unchanged that would mean ultimate end for the skill.

Valenor

After parsing for a while and playing around with different settings revolving around stone giant as a spammable for the stamina dragon knight, I have a few things to note.

The new animation is nice and easy to keep track of. The ground stomping is cool but makes it harder to keep a perfect stagger uptime. It could participate in keeping stagger up by automatically launching the first orb or should be made a lot quicker to be more responsive especially when weapon swapping.

Basically, if it could stay as "snappy" as the live version while retaining the new cool effect, it would be nice.

However, I don't get why it's a ranged skill. It could be reworked as a proper stamina melee morph where we would slam the back of our rocky fist in the face of the enemy.

edit: typos and stuff

kaithuzar

Nerf warden,
Buff mag/stam nightblade, buff mag dk

Skysenzz

y'all asking for "buff X, Y" without asking exactly what you wants sounds pretty pathetic ngl xD

Looking at how BB on necro now is, it will become a much more reliable skill to use for them, this is now a good time to buff other classes. I will talk about Stamina dragonknight, stamina nightblade & stamina warden since those are the most popular classes amongst the pvp community that I am in touch with.

right now the pvp stamina meta for necromancer/dk/warden are fairly similar considering frontbar skills:
Executioner, dizzy swing, rally/fm & 2 flex spots depending on the class, sometime using Camouflaged Hunter, if there is 1 free spot.
Stamden right now uses Dizzy executionner fm shalks, the wings & DB ult
Stamnecro uses Dizzy executionner fm BB & a flex spot, camoflage for the most of them & Colossus .
StamDK uses dizzy executionner fm noxious & camoflage & take flight. (not using claws being too weak & many magplars/purges in the meta; not worth using by any mean).

Let's first compare those frontbars. The numbers in parentheses are the base damage +8% from minor berserk.
BB being the most damaging skill, with base damage of 1400(1512) (hit ~3seconds after cast), with major defile - straight up -30% healing capacity.
Shalks 2nd most damaging skill, with base damage of 1200 (hit 3seconds after cast), with major fracture -8% phys mitigation (major fracture reducing phys mitigation by 5280, 1% mitigation being 660 armor).
Noxious breath being the 3rd one, with base damage of 705(761) (+910(982) base damage over 14 seconds) , with major fracture, same story as shalks.

We can first clearly see that there is a huge gap between necro & wardens with their "delayed abilities" necromancer have a targetable ability (let's be honest, the skeleton will be really hard/impossible to kill when you're on a close fight) & warden it's an aoe in the direction the player is moving.
those two abilities are usually cast every 3-4 gcd depending on how the fight is going. This is not hard to see that damage wise shalks are weaker(and not by a bit) than BB, then if you look at the debuffs they add, major defile is much stronger than major fracture, just need common sence to realize that, even with ~50% uptime.
Then DK has noxious breath, which is a really weak dot & weak direct hit (almost nobody uses this skill to deal aoe damage btw, the direct damage should be hitting harder on the 1st target like jabs on stamplars to be efficient IMO) 2 cast of those hit for almost the same as 1 blighed blastbone. Also the cost of this ability is about 3k wich make it fairly expansive to uses.
Noxious breath is almost (as if only) used for major fracture.

If you compare those 3 classes burst wise without ultimate, necro comes first, then stamden then much under there is stamDK.
if you add the ultimates, the gap between necro & warden increases a bit, assuming you hit 2/3 hits of the ultimate (which once again can have a hit from it linked with a BB & a dizzy to have a really huge burst),
the gap between DK & warden decrease, take flight being better than DB.
damage wise, this is an easy win for necro, warden a bit behind & dk behind warden.
I did not count dk's minor brutality to make thing easiers, but 10% weapon damage will never be enough to compensate their lack of burst.
same for warden's advanced species passive.

then on defensive bar, people run with
(- is for almost every good players, ~ 80% of the good players uses it, if not more)
Wardens run mostly with
-vigor
-ice fortress
-bull netch
~green lotus/living vines
~green lotus/living vine/flex spot

Dragonknights run mostly with
-vigor
-volatile armor
~cauterize
-fragmented shield
-flex spot

necromancers run mostly with
-Vigor
-summoner's armor
-Spirit guardian
~mortal coil
flex spot

with the passives,
-dragonknights gets 12% extra heal received, 3.3k extra spell resistance.
-wardens gets major mending for a short period of time if heal a friendly target with hp<40%,minor protection, minor toughness 100% uptime, 2/4% extra heal on backbar, 500extra spell resistance on backbar
-necromancers get 1250 extra max health 15% mitigation on dots, 10% self heal (assuming you have 100% uptime on any negative effect & armor, which is really likely to happen) and increase up to 20% your critical heal when health is scaling from 100 to 0 and 3% extra on backbar.
from skills
-dk get major mending, a 709 base self heal every 5 seconds, 4 times over 15seconds.
-wardens get 1300 health every time they hit a light attack on an enemy (if lotus, last 20seconds, scales with magicka so let's say it stays at that number), 246 base self heal.
-necromancers get 246 base heal every every 2 seconds + pet absorb damages(last 16seconds/when pet dies), 2196 base heal over 12 seconds.

It is clear to see that once again DK is lacking over those two classes, once again (tank class btw) and necromancer gets ahead of wardens because of the mitigation from pet + hot.
We can easily say that necromancer will keep overperfoming in defense & offense over stamina wardens & stamina dragonknights.
I propose some adjustments:
bring back DK's dots to where it was back before the nerf (dps + cost) it was really liked by the dragonknights players and was competing with old dizzy spam. Make them a tank class (how it's supposed to be l0l) so they have a "turtle" gameplay and getting their kills with dots rather than only burst.
up warden's shalks damage (will also help in pve).
reduce necromancer's tankiness to make it more of a really high damaging class, rather than being insanely strong in offense & defense.

Now stamina nightblade has a damaging issue, you guys gave them an aoe fear which can be not really reliable in most of the time, they've been using offbalance to stun for quite a while now, and worked fairly nicely. (but you guys put an insane cooldown on that, rip) so if you guys remove them a way to stun their enemies in a reliable way, they need something to gank properly, which, atm they don't. You gave them also 10% resistance that could be traded for +%damage on the bow stacks, just from that they will get easier time to burst down enemies (idk if it will be enough to break down those necros with 31k hp though).

TipsyDrow

Now that sacred ground has been changed and the huge aoe snare removed. A large source of snares have been removed from pvp which is good as that passive was a main offender. However in doing so you have empowered and made much much better these speed freak builds. This change needs to be balanced with a reduction of the speed cap. It needs lowered by 30 %. There is nothing good about entire groups of people simply running away at top speed or even entire groups running around at top speed all the time in pvp. Combat speed needs to be more normalized not these extremes of 70% snares or 100% run speed.

Anhedonie

Is there any plans to redraw awful Graveyard animation? You know, the one why necromancer is called concreteomancer.
Or maybe up the damage, dropping a tombstone on somebody's head gotta hurt, I imagine.

ESO_Nightingale

Starlock wrote: »

The change to Glacial Presence (Warden) are pretty unique and I like them.

Thanks! my discords and i discussed this passive change a lot a year ago and decided that critical damage on chilled enemies was something unique that we should apply when using frost damage abilities. since chilled is our native element's status effect, we thought that we should gain a special damage related bonus to chilled because it didn't do anything for damage on damage dealers before and we wished for more interesting passives. DK gains something for burning and poisoned, so we figured that it was a good idea to make chilled do something good for warden dps. what's even more surprising is the nice little change for warden healers in there too! it's flavourful and i'm so happy they listened to our suggestion. at the time we suggested it, it was supposed to be a precursor buff to more reliable frost damage abilities, so we'll have to see if they include that.

Faulgor

I'm curious why some AoE DoTs had their cost reduced and others didn't.

Not Reduced:
Twisting Path
Eruption
Ritual of Retribution
Impaling Shards

Will we see adjustments to those later? Especially Eruption is still expensive as hell, and I'm not sure why it should be. Maybe there are reasons, but I'm not seeing any consistency in this new ruleset for abilities.

ESO_Nightingale

Faulgor wrote: »

I'm curious why some AoE DoTs had their cost reduced and others didn't.

Not Reduced:
Twisting Path
Eruption
Ritual of Retribution
Impaling Shards

Will we see adjustments to those later? Especially Eruption is still expensive as hell, and I'm not sure why it should be. Maybe there are reasons, but I'm not seeing any consistency in this new ruleset for abilities.

Impaling Shards is already pretty cheap. I don't think it needs a cost reduction.

Faulgor

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

I'm curious why some AoE DoTs had their cost reduced and others didn't.

Not Reduced:
Twisting Path
Eruption
Ritual of Retribution
Impaling Shards

Will we see adjustments to those later? Especially Eruption is still expensive as hell, and I'm not sure why it should be. Maybe there are reasons, but I'm not seeing any consistency in this new ruleset for abilities.

Impaling Shards is already pretty cheap. I don't think it needs a cost reduction.

Yeah I think it's mainly Eruption that sticks out to me, unless I forgot something.

ESO_Nightingale

kaithuzar wrote: »

Nerf warden,
Buff mag/stam nightblade, buff mag dk

can i ask why?

Czekoludek

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

Nerf warden,
Buff mag/stam nightblade, buff mag dk

can i ask why?

For PvP warden is the best class currently, nice and reliable burst, healing, survivalability, sustain and group utility. Blades are the weakest, magDK are really powerful but only in PvE and maybe some niche builds at PvP. I agree we need to buff underperforming classes, not only the ones mentioned above. But please, do not nerf good classes. Wardens are fun and devs should work on making a other classes fun also. Not nerfing fun by destroying wardens

ESO_Nightingale

Czekoludek wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

Nerf warden,
Buff mag/stam nightblade, buff mag dk

can i ask why?

For PvP warden is the best class currently, nice and reliable burst, healing, survivalability, sustain and group utility. Blades are the weakest, magDK are really powerful but only in PvE and maybe some niche builds at PvP. I agree we need to buff underperforming classes, not only the ones mentioned above. But please, do not nerf good classes. Wardens are fun and devs should work on making a other classes fun also. Not nerfing fun by destroying wardens

is Arctic Blast's heal one of the main reasons for this?

Czekoludek

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Czekoludek wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

Nerf warden,
Buff mag/stam nightblade, buff mag dk

can i ask why?

For PvP warden is the best class currently, nice and reliable burst, healing, survivalability, sustain and group utility. Blades are the weakest, magDK are really powerful but only in PvE and maybe some niche builds at PvP. I agree we need to buff underperforming classes, not only the ones mentioned above. But please, do not nerf good classes. Wardens are fun and devs should work on making a other classes fun also. Not nerfing fun by destroying wardens

is Arctic Blast's heal one of the main reasons for this?

Highiest burst potential from Subterranean Assault + Dawnbreaker, perfmafrost, nice passives, access to a lot of buffs, powerful hots. Amount of utility and raw power warden provides made it great class

ESO_Nightingale

Czekoludek wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Czekoludek wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

Nerf warden,
Buff mag/stam nightblade, buff mag dk

can i ask why?

For PvP warden is the best class currently, nice and reliable burst, healing, survivalability, sustain and group utility. Blades are the weakest, magDK are really powerful but only in PvE and maybe some niche builds at PvP. I agree we need to buff underperforming classes, not only the ones mentioned above. But please, do not nerf good classes. Wardens are fun and devs should work on making a other classes fun also. Not nerfing fun by destroying wardens

is Arctic Blast's heal one of the main reasons for this?

Highiest burst potential from Subterranean Assault + Dawnbreaker, perfmafrost, nice passives, access to a lot of buffs, powerful hots. Amount of utility and raw power warden provides made it great class

So you're refering to stamden? Unfortunately, nerfs to it's damage output or sustain would heavily impact it's pve performance which is reportedly very bad at the moment. What specifically do you want nerfed?

HackTheMinotaur

I really like the Necro skill updates. Blast bones and tethers are working great. However the stalking blastbones morph effect is now broken. No extra damage is given. Consider adding any new secondary effect to this: breach, off-balance, DoT, etc.

Also, necro and Templar really need class based major sorcery/brutality. Come on, it’s 2020! At this point, excluding 2 classes from this buff still seems arbitrary and silly.