PTS Update 26 - Feedback Thread for Classes & Abilities

ZOS_GinaBruno

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

Cinbri

Classes and abilities are where they were. There is no changes for classes and their abilities, apart from huge nerf of healing and vampire skilline.
Huge nerf to heals obviously will decrease survivability of classes based on healings.
Vampire line is for "Vampire & Werewolf" category.
So what this category for?

GeorgeBlack

StamDK:

1)We dont like the Stone Giant ability. When will it become a viable stamina class tool?

2)StamDK was only strong as 7th Fury BloodSpawn SnB 2h playing around Major Mending. The rest of the class is weak.
Consider improving now for Weapon skills usage rather that wait to see the difference between the OP build based on healing and BloodSpawn and the rest of the class

3) Give us back Reflective plate exacly as it was + fatique cost increase so that ranged enemies (that dont disengage a stand your ground class that has 0 mobility to esc) dont complain about being shut down from using abilities

4)Attrition class? Our Dots feel weak.

5)Igneous Weapons/Molten arms.
During the light/heavy change period people immidiatly jumped to say how OP DKs would be in the future.
At present this ability offers nothing to DKs. PvP? High cost for Maj Brut/Sorc, negates the benefit of the class passive that gives minor brut for only 15s since the ability effect lasts double that.
Meanwhile stamSorc gets an OP self healing ability without effort with a Major Brutality effect

xI_The_Owl_Ix

As a nightblade, what the actual f?

ESO_Nightingale

Loving random bug fixes for minor issues no-one even knew about, when there are legitmate class issues.

irstarkey57

Magicka Dragonknight needs so much work I just really don't know where to begin. I wrote a huge essay on it last patch. I don't have it in me again. I mean most of us don't even use whip anymore. Let that sink in when you think about a magdk. Our skills cost too much, our dots are way to weak, and our only burst comes from our ultimate. Wings, whip, fossilze were skills that made the class. Wings were nerfed too hard, whip is just so convoluted now, and now everyone has access to fossilize via the vamp skill, stupefy. You guys just aren't careful enough when you make changes to see which classes it affects the most. NB is another class that has been nerfed too hard by game changes. Meanwhile, templars seem to benefit every time.

Xvorg

Nightblades

Seriously, now the class is not even worth to be used unless you are a vampire. It is the same to what happened to DKs a couple years ago, though in the case of stam DKs they had some tricks under the sleeve (like old evasion). In the case of Mageblades, they are absolutely ***... and stamblades are even worse.

And what's even worse is that Vampires now have a melee attack that is even better than old SA attack, that costs health and that increases its dmg on missing health, with one morph being much stronger if you are under 50% health. Any DK should look at that skill to use instead of the stupid whip or the stupid stone. Just put foss on your enemy and then profit: Foss -> evis -> leap -> evis. Not even the old foss --> WB (with old empower) --> leap, hit that hard.

YandereGirlfriend

The Magicka morph of Blastbones is still broken and there is not a solution currently in the patch notes.

Surely the development team cannot believe a broken morph is acceptable for 6+ months, especially when its Stamina counterpart is so extremely potent?

Universe

There are almost no changes to the classes.
I expected that you will buff the Nightblade & Sorcerer and nerf the following classes: Templar, Necromancer and a slightly the Warden.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Should we expect major changes to Class balance in the upcoming PTS incremental patches ?

MashmalloMan

Stam Sorc:

Bound Armaments was a nice addition and can be fun to use in pve, but it is awful in pvp. It does not fulfil the desired class identity stam sorcs have been looking for in numerous ways.

• Never hits your target because it takes at least 1.2s to fully complete.
  • This time is too long and highly telegraphed to reliably hit anyone, especially since each dagger is spread out 0.3s apart. By the time you hear the skill, you can easily avoid 3/4 daggers due to projectile travel time and delay built into the daggers.
  • Yet, the timing is also too short to use as a delayed burst ability present in some of the strongest classes for pvp. (Mag Sorc Curse/Frags, Warden's Shalks, Templar's PotL, Necro's BB and even NB Bow Proc).
• The mini game mechanic is a copy/paste of NB's that already lost so much of what made them unique in the past year. I'd also consider it in a worse state given the fact that Heavy Attacks do not count as 2 ticks, yet they do for NB.
  • This does not feel unique to Stam Sorc, Magicka Sorcerer already has 2 mini game mechanics with Curse and Frags to pull from, yet you chose to pull from NB. This was the wrong decision.
  • This mechanic is an issue in pvp. You can spend upwards of 10-15s trying to land 4 light attacks on moving targets, just to hold on to the ability for 5-10s waiting for the right opportunity to fire it off because you're afraid you will miss your target. Even when you land a stun and follow up with this attack, it's not guaranteed to hit them because the ability has the projectile delay + the 0.3 delay on each dagger. The only way to hit someone with this ability is if they can't break free right after a stun due to the buggy servers. I would prefer all the damage to hit at once. My point about the amount of time it takes to actually fire off is to illustrate how weak this ability is in comparison to the other mini game mechanic skills, all of those skills, projectile or not, can be fired off every 3-6 seconds. When you miss your opportunity, you don't feel as punished because it didn't take as long to build up. Missing Bound Armaments makes me want to unslot it completely. It is not strong enough to warrant the annoying cost to use.
• It is STILL required to be double slotted for passive damage as a dps in pve. The 8% stamina and 10% light attack damage can either be added to the 40s buff duration or it can simply be removed for making the damage ability much stronger. I'm so tired of feeling weaker just for not double slotting an ability.
  • Out of all the burst abilities in the game, Bound Armaments is the weakest. It does roughly about 1.5x the damage of an instant spammable like Silver Shards. This places its damage at roughly only 20%-30% more than Wrecking Blow and Rapid Strikes and it only does single target damage with no Debuff. O

Clanfear, thank you for finally listening and making the damage scale based on stamina. However, this skill is first and foremost a tank ability. As such, it absolutely sucks for stamina sorc.

• The only reason anyone actually uses this skill in pve for dps is because you nerfed all dots in the game. None of them are worth their cast anymore, the Clanfear doesn't cost any GCD's so it's effectively a weak dot you never need to pay for allowing you to fire off 1 more spammable/execute which are the only damage abilities worth using anymore. This is a huge problem and is not fun to play. This is something your statistics won't show because it doesn't consider the current meta's context. I fear you will look at what stam sorcs are using and say... well they must like Clanfear huh. No, it still sucks.

Where is the class identity? Where are new unique abilities to use? Why are you so afraid to take something away from magicka sorcs? They completely dominate every skill line with 5/6 magicka damage based ultimate morphs. Multiple expensive magicka CC's only they can use. Multiple magicka abilities for Stuns when some classes don't even have 1 worth using. Multiple redundant morphs that do so little to change the base ability it makes even magicka sorcs question why you haven't updated them.

Not only do stam sorcs feel left in the dark here, but tanks and healers too. They have barely any unique passives and when you really consider the passives the whole class has, yes, they have great damage passives, but there is 5-6 passives for JUST resource cost/regen. Why? Does it really make sorcs better passive sustainers? No, it doesn't, in many ways we still require spamming dark deal/dark exchange to sustain so it just takes away from the overall class budget which explains why we have 0 tank/healer passives.

Just look at this: 6/12 passives taken for medicore passives that sound strong, but really aren't. They're numerical passives that require very little thought or build variety. I can name 2-3 of these passives that could of easily been combined.

• Unholy Knowledge: -6% health, stam, magicka cost
• Persistance: -15% health, stam, magicka cost after blocking an attack
• Rebate: +1452 magicka when a pet dies
• Power Stone: -15% ult cost
• Daedric Protection: +20% health and stam regen for daedric summoning skill slotted
• Capacitor: +10% mag regen

As a quick example, Necro gets +200 stam/mag regen which translates to roughly 300-350 with proper multipliers. In order for a sorc to earn 350 regen from 20%, they would need to have a base regen of at least 1750! That is insanely high and will never be reached. Now think about the miniscule 10% magicka regen. You would require 3500 magicka regen. This illustrates how frustrating the passives can be because they appear strong at face value without proper context. In pve, you only really invest invest 300-450 regen so these passives equate to under 100 extra.

So imo combine some of these like so:

• Unholy Knowledge: -10% health, stam, magicka and ultimate cost
• Persistance: Something for tanking
• Rebate: Something for pet sorcs
• Power Stone: something for healers
• Daedric Protection: +10% health, stam, and magicka regen when a daedric summoning skill is slotted
• Capacitor: Something for non pet sorcs

It's not a perfect example and requires more thought, but you can see how easy it is to combine these to nerf/buff the class in different ways. My quick example is to push sorcs into a more active playstyle rather than a passive 1. They have have higher cost reduction across the board, but lower regen and ult/block cost reduction. Just like redguards, sorcs earn their sustain by being aggressive which fits into the speed identity and further highlights why dark deal/dark exchange are designed the way they are. Upfront resources with the risk of an interuptable cast time.

Looking at DKs as an example. They use 2-3 sustain passives that are so strong and unique that they can actually build for them in different ways. That is what I call class identity! Want more sustain? Increase your ult gen or use charged/infused enchantments to proc poison/burning status more often. Want more stamina? Cast magicka utility abilities from the Eathern Heart skill line. DK does not have an "active" sustain skill, so their passives were made much stronger and I understand why, but why does Sorc HAVE a sustain skill, but ALSO 5-6 sustain passives. It's redundant and it's a waste of the overall class budget.

Damage passives are pretty good, but they aren't unique either. There is nothing to build for. At least with the old Implossion passive it made you think about how you built your character. Increasing the amount of damage ticks you did per second, increased your chances for implossion procs. This made Flurry and dots feel like unique assets to specifcally stam sorcs. Now what are we? Wrecking Blow/Dizzy Swing spammers.. I wanted so much more. I've waited years for you to get your things together. I had hope the first time I read your class rep notes, yet here we are... 2 chapters later. Promises made to work on class identity for Stam DK and Stam Sorc and yet they feel more shallow than ever before. Whats sad is Stam NB use to be the poster child for class identity and now they're worse in many ways.

Ariades_swe

Zero changes to class skills.
You said your vision was to make each class unique lol.
Stone giant still ***, cutting dive still ***, necro skulls still ***, stam sorc still lack a class spammable.
We're stuck with being dizzy clones for at least 5 months forward.
You are just laughable and I'm done with this abusive relationship.

Fruity_Ninja

Quite a few magicka classes are going to struggle next patch- it’s going to be hard to build in enough survivability (monster set nerfs hurt here), and sustain (vampire sustain changes).

Now of course we can re-build our characters to make up for this loss, but it will come at the cost of damage. Something which is borderline, and harder to build for than stamina.

It’s just getting harder to play magicka in PVP each patch, whilst stamina get easier and easier. (And yes I play both, having 2x characters for each class, one mag and one Stam).

newtinmpls

What was the point of the Bash nerf?

ESO claims "play as you like" but then when creative players come up with something that's not meta, it gets crapped on.

This is really disrespectful of the creativity of your players.

Frankly I never used it and suck at weaving, but it's still a low trick.

Skjaldbjorn

Stamina Warden:

While I generally approve of this patch, I love the new trial, I feel the bulk of the changes were in a positive direction, etc...it troubles me that Zos seems to continue to ignore just how abysmal Stamdens are in PVE atm. While the parse releases right now are absolutely insane due to the overtooled Vamp skills, particularly frenzy which only some classes can reasonably sustain while others lack the meaningful self-heals to work with, even without those you see a Stamina DPS class trailing well beyond Mag DPS, including their own Magden counterparts. Stamdens haven't really been higher than #3 at any point in their history, but since Elsweyr have continued to get pummeled down into complete and total irrelevance.

If you cruise over to ESOLogs and look through Stamden parses, of what few there actually are, I am typically the only one that's even remotely competitive, and it's still incredibly bad. I've played this class since release and work very hard to try to excel, but look at raptors, as an example, from vHOF. My best parse this patch on Stamden is 94.9k overall, which isn't horrendous. However, compared to the field of current ESOlog parses for that fight, I am sitting at...216th. I'm not some random scrub who picked up Stamden this patch and decided to get froggy.

Stamden has consistently struggled to stay in the meta, and the constant nerfs and 'retools' which just end up being nerfs are exhausting. I'm not asking for Stamden to be broken in PVP (because I don't actually PVP) or take over as the top Stam DPS, simply be competitive in the field. That's it. There's a litany of ways this could be accomplished without breaking Stamden in PVE. For example, here's a change i've proposed repeatedly to address two issues that plague Stamden: too much burst in PVP, and poor sustained damage in PVE.

Subterranean Assault:
Stir a group of Shalk that attacks after 3 seconds, dealing x Poison Damage to enemies in front of you, and an additional x Poison Damage damage over 2 seconds.
Enemies damaged are afflicted with Major Fracture, reducing their Physical Resistance by 5280 for 6 seconds.

This directly reduces their burst in PVP, their "pain point", as a percentage of damage can be moved from the burst portion to the over-time portion, while also allowing you to increase the overall damage of the main Stamina Warden DPS skill. Or just move the damage and buff other areas. The point is, i've suggested at least thirty ideas of various ways to put power back into Stamden's kits after the repeated sledgehammer to the dome they've received for the past year or so, including filtering ideas through class reps, but it seems Zos is content to let the class be terrible. That makes me so, so sad.

C'mon, guys. Don't let another PTS cycle go without even attempting to give Stamden some desperately needed love.

Blynjubitr

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Stamina Warden:

While I generally approve of this patch, I love the new trial, I feel the bulk of the changes were in a positive direction, etc...it troubles me that Zos seems to continue to ignore just how abysmal Stamdens are in PVE atm. While the parse releases right now are absolutely insane due to the overtooled Vamp skills, particularly frenzy which only some classes can reasonably sustain while others lack the meaningful self-heals to work with, even without those you see a Stamina DPS class trailing well beyond Mag DPS, including their own Magden counterparts. Stamdens haven't really been higher than #3 at any point in their history, but since Elsweyr have continued to get pummeled down into complete and total irrelevance.

If you cruise over to ESOLogs and look through Stamden parses, of what few there actually are, I am typically the only one that's even remotely competitive, and it's still incredibly bad. I've played this class since release and work very hard to try to excel, but look at raptors, as an example, from vHOF. My best parse this patch on Stamden is 94.9k overall, which isn't horrendous. However, compared to the field of current ESOlog parses for that fight, I am sitting at...216th. I'm not some random scrub who picked up Stamden this patch and decided to get froggy.

Stamden has consistently struggled to stay in the meta, and the constant nerfs and 'retools' which just end up being nerfs are exhausting. I'm not asking for Stamden to be broken in PVP (because I don't actually PVP) or take over as the top Stam DPS, simply be competitive in the field. That's it. There's a litany of ways this could be accomplished without breaking Stamden in PVE. For example, here's a change i've proposed repeatedly to address two issues that plague Stamden: too much burst in PVP, and poor sustained damage in PVE.

Subterranean Assault:
Stir a group of Shalk that attacks after 3 seconds, dealing x Poison Damage to enemies in front of you, and an additional x Poison Damage damage over 2 seconds.
Enemies damaged are afflicted with Major Fracture, reducing their Physical Resistance by 5280 for 6 seconds.

This directly reduces their burst in PVP, their "pain point", as a percentage of damage can be moved from the burst portion to the over-time portion, while also allowing you to increase the overall damage of the main Stamina Warden DPS skill. Or just move the damage and buff other areas. The point is, i've suggested at least thirty ideas of various ways to put power back into Stamden's kits after the repeated sledgehammer to the dome they've received for the past year or so, including filtering ideas through class reps, but it seems Zos is content to let the class be terrible. That makes me so, so sad.

C'mon, guys. Don't let another PTS cycle go without even attempting to give Stamden some desperately needed love.

Stamden was fighting for top DPS once, then they nerfed ADvanced Species into oblivion and bear with it. I like idea with shalks but i would also love if we had our old passive back and old bear back, bird off balance bleed is plain stupid, bring old bird back. Also some actually useful debuffs or buffs for trial groups. None of those would hurt PvP those were intended PvE nerfs by ZoS and wasn't nececary at all.

So yes i also support buffing Wardens and maybe Sorcs with it to be more viable in PvE.

Great opinions to make Wardens viable;

*Stamden

--Sub. Assault

Add to its current state, increase poison damage target(or in this case targets because it is an aoe) recieves for X sec for X%

--Cutting Dive

Remove off balance bleed and increase damage instead.

--Advanced Species

Make it %3 per skill again

*Magden

--Galacial Presence

Make it so you and your GROUP deals X% more critical damage to enemies that are Chilled only by you.

Qbiken

Why does stamina necromancer still get to keep major defile on blastbones? It´s in need of a rework. Having 100% (or at least close to) uptime on 30% healing reduction isn´t balanced. With healing getting a rough 20% reduction with next patch (while classes like stamcro, stamdk and stamden will be fairly unaffected by these Changes) having easy access to major defile shouldn´t be a thing.

Artorias24

Stamina Dragonknight:

Stone Giant:

Was ist this even supposed to be? Its aoe, single target, melee and ranged at the same time. As a stamdk i cant even take Advantage of the ranged Part cause i need to stay close anyway to apply nexious or claw. Cast time also makes combat weird. For the initial cast you kinda need to Take your Hands away from the keyboard cause pressing Something else or even trying to weave is clunky and not working really good with this.

Damage is also not great and in mobile fights its hard to hit the aoe stomp so you kinda waste one GCD. Its would be so simple to make it feel powerfull and usefull at the same time. Give it an Animation of a powerfull punsh with your fist supported by stones. Melee, No cast time and adding the stagger effect. Get rid of the CC and increase the base damage instead. DK already has CC Options (change one morph of fossilize to stam).

Would fit stamdk so much. "Altering the earth around him). Using stone to Support their attacks and using the earth to control his enemys.

LukosCreyden

Magicka Necromancer

Stalking Blastbones:

"New effect
The skeleton deals more damage the longer it chases the target."

This passive effect no longer has any discernible function in the game. This was brought up in the previous PTS, but not acknowledged.

Could somebody please highlight this to the appropriate team?

Czekoludek

I think they said that their class rebalance project was already finished, that's why we see almost no changes to classes. ZOS balance is definietely not achieved and some classes needs rebalance or even rework. Especially in PvP where there is huge difference between current meta and the weakest classes (I think one of the biggest gap in game history, pvp is really unbalanced right now

IARTOI

What is this? Explain please.

Grave Lord
Stalking Blastbone --> Still doesn't have a second feature, since the blastbone leap directly to enemy you need to change it's second effect more be more balanced but ofc. there is nothing like that.

Shocking Siphon and its morphs --> Skill is still trash and once again has a global cooldown. This must be a single target effect link to enemy with beam and must have a magicka and stamina cost.

Colossus Ultimate --> This ultimate is AoE but its dodgeable under animation. It has 225 ultimate cost and you are putting it a dedicated place and enemy can rolldodge it in animation circle. Make it undodgeable.

Bone Tyrant
Death Scyte and its morphs --> Has high cost, low damage. IMO need a bit balance for be preffered.

Bone Totem and its morphs --> 2 seconds delay before fear release must be removed. Enemy can easily move away so you are only wasting your magicka in most situations.

Grave Grasp and its morphs --> Remove this skill from game really this skill tree can remain with 4 active abilities. THIS SKILL IS USELESSSSSS. You know it is but you still bringing animation fixes to it instead of rework. FFS noone using this. Why are you insisting to keep it in game. Since the Necromancer released I'm suggesting this idea to you about rework but you don't even see.



If you change it to this which is already exist in game at NPCs named "Bonelords" this would be amazing.

Please consider it this time.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert

FatelessLava

Please fix Stalking blastbones, since it was changed the secondary effect is useless. It no longer chases the target and instead jumps directly to it. Might as well save a skill point and not morph it if you are magicka/

Blynjubitr

Czekoludek wrote: »

I think they said that their class rebalance project was already finished, that's why we see almost no changes to classes. ZOS balance is definietely not achieved and some classes needs rebalance or even rework. Especially in PvP where there is huge difference between current meta and the weakest classes (I think one of the biggest gap in game history, pvp is really unbalanced right now

Say what now ? If classes will not get balance updates i can also be finished with this game. Because right now there is a lot to fix to achieve balance.

Tommy_The_Gun

As for the NB class, I would like to take a brief moment to point some things out:
Nightblade class have lost a lot of their identity & uniqueness over the last year.

-Turn Evil was added to Fighters Guild, and it is a superior version of NB Fear - Mass Hysteria. Just for comparison:

Mass Hysteria (Instant) Cost: 3,7 Magicka:
- Summon a dark spirit to terrify up to 6 enemies, causing them to cower in fear for 3 seconds (has a target cap).
- 3% more health for slotting it (Dark Vigor passive)

Turn Evil (Instant) Cost: 3,8 Stamina:
- You and your allies in the area gain Minor Protection - reducing your damage taken by 8%.
- You and your allies in the area gain Minor Endurance - increasing your Stamina Recovery by 10%.
- AOE on the ground lasts for 20 seconds.
- Upon activation, enemies in the area are feared for 5 seconds (does not have a target cap)
- 3% more weapon damage for slotting it (Slayer passive).

- Similar thing happened to Teleport strike - NB iconic gap closer. Very similar skill was added to Dual wiled skill line - Flying Blade.
- Grim Focus - another NB class identity mechanics was copied into Sorcerer's toolkit - Bound Armaments.

Now, with new vampire changes, with 2 new vampire passives - Strike from the Shadows (that boosts your weapon / spell dmg when you exit Sneak, Invisibility, or Mist Form) and Unnatural Movement (That gives every class easy access to on-demand invisibility) it looks like the final Nightblade class core identity trademark - invisibility & stealth combat - will also be available for every other class.

Nightblade toolkit was basically "spread-out" onto weapon / guild /world skill lines, that every class can use.

My point is:
What is the point of a Nightblade class ? All of the things that made class unique are now easy accessible by other classes. I can pick any other class and be as good as what niche role NB class specialize in, while still having benefits & unique features of other class.

Now, I don't know yet what Nightblade changes you have for us ZOS, but the point is that... I doubt that buffs will be enough. The problem is that you will have to re-work NB skills to give them their class identity back.

On live server I am using "zero" NB skills on my Nightblade. Why ? Because weapon / guild / world skills are better. No joke. Even something as basic as an Execute ability - I use one of the weapon skills. One would think that an "Assassin Class" probably has decent (if not best single target) Execute skill... it is kinda intuitive to make that assumption, right ? Well, that is not the case...

Also, I think that New Combat team Lead PvP designer was saying something about Weapon / Armour / Guild / World skills that are suppose to be a supplement for your class toolkit. If you are missing some tool, then slot one of those, that are inferior to class abilities - but if you don't have it in your class toolkit at all then you have that option.

In case of Nightblade, that statement does not work as basically - Weapon / Guild / World skill lines are better than Nightblade class skills.

SidraWillowsky

Magwarden main here- no class changes and no real changes to the gear I wear = I'm noticing a bit of an increase in DPS but not much else.

I'm not complaining per se- the class is in a decentish spot and I'd rather it be left alone than nerfed.

I'm still not seeing any sort of benefits whatsoever to Off-Balance, at least from a PvE DD perspective. It's unfortunate, then, that the Warden spammable focuses so heavily on Off-Balance.

Dive remains as terrible as ever- Elemental Weapon is much better for magdens, and Rapid Strikes is much better for stamden. Seems like a waste to have a class-based spammable that's inferior to weapon skill line spammables, especially with the passive that increases damage for each AC ability slotted.

The bear seems to be doing better in execute and the ulti damage appears to be properly interacting with the Bloodthirsty trait.

I haven't gone to SS in the PTS, but this wasn't addressed in the patch notes so I figure it hasn't been dealt with- bears' swipe doesn't hit the SS dragons, which drops my DPS quite a bit. Fix please?

SidraWillowsky

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Stamina Warden:

While I generally approve of this patch, I love the new trial, I feel the bulk of the changes were in a positive direction, etc...it troubles me that Zos seems to continue to ignore just how abysmal Stamdens are in PVE atm. While the parse releases right now are absolutely insane due to the overtooled Vamp skills, particularly frenzy which only some classes can reasonably sustain while others lack the meaningful self-heals to work with, even without those you see a Stamina DPS class trailing well beyond Mag DPS, including their own Magden counterparts. Stamdens haven't really been higher than #3 at any point in their history, but since Elsweyr have continued to get pummeled down into complete and total irrelevance.

If you cruise over to ESOLogs and look through Stamden parses, of what few there actually are, I am typically the only one that's even remotely competitive, and it's still incredibly bad. I've played this class since release and work very hard to try to excel, but look at raptors, as an example, from vHOF. My best parse this patch on Stamden is 94.9k overall, which isn't horrendous. However, compared to the field of current ESOlog parses for that fight, I am sitting at...216th. I'm not some random scrub who picked up Stamden this patch and decided to get froggy.

Stamden has consistently struggled to stay in the meta, and the constant nerfs and 'retools' which just end up being nerfs are exhausting. I'm not asking for Stamden to be broken in PVP (because I don't actually PVP) or take over as the top Stam DPS, simply be competitive in the field. That's it. There's a litany of ways this could be accomplished without breaking Stamden in PVE. For example, here's a change i've proposed repeatedly to address two issues that plague Stamden: too much burst in PVP, and poor sustained damage in PVE.

Subterranean Assault:
Stir a group of Shalk that attacks after 3 seconds, dealing x Poison Damage to enemies in front of you, and an additional x Poison Damage damage over 2 seconds.
Enemies damaged are afflicted with Major Fracture, reducing their Physical Resistance by 5280 for 6 seconds.

This directly reduces their burst in PVP, their "pain point", as a percentage of damage can be moved from the burst portion to the over-time portion, while also allowing you to increase the overall damage of the main Stamina Warden DPS skill. Or just move the damage and buff other areas. The point is, i've suggested at least thirty ideas of various ways to put power back into Stamden's kits after the repeated sledgehammer to the dome they've received for the past year or so, including filtering ideas through class reps, but it seems Zos is content to let the class be terrible. That makes me so, so sad.

C'mon, guys. Don't let another PTS cycle go without even attempting to give Stamden some desperately needed love.

The issue with Stamden seems to be that it's one of the strongest PvP classes (I'm told, at least) but has become the new meme status class in PvE. Nerfs to balance it in PvP are likely going to make it even worse in PvE, and buffs to balance it in PvE will result in even more OP-ness in PvP. Rock and a hard place...

The Warden's class spammable is optimized at range, but this will only make a positive difference to DPS if you're using your bow bar, which kind of forces one into a Bowden.... which is in an abysmal state, and I don't want to play a Bowden anyway. I personally keep Dive on my DW bar, so I have to be close enough to be able to get my DW LAs in, which means I get no real bonus. But the bonus is this stupid and random Off-Balance "perk" that seems to have been forced upon us, and the stam morph is especially strange with its even-more-random bleed damage. Wouldn't poison damage make more sense given the nature-based class? And we won't even talk about how clunky Dive is to begin with...

It sucks. I created a stamblade, stamplar, and stamden in the PTS and am by far the most comfortable on the stamden. Thanks to sub assault's major fracture and wings' minor berserk, I'm able to easily clear 50k on the 6 mil (though I have ot use freaking Rapid Strikes instead of Dive as my spammable if I want the highest DPS possible). With stamblade and stamplar, I have to slot Camo Hunter and parse behind the dummy if I'm self-buffing, which feels like cheating. However... stamblade and stamplar outperform the stamden on the 21 mil by a stupidly large margin.

Magwarden has pulled ahead largely, I think, because it has a small cult following lead by someone passionate about improving the class (especially the frost skills). His ideas have actually been implemented and have benefit the class quite a bit. I don't see people rallying around stamden the same way, especially in PvE, so I think it's just kind of been forgotten entirely.

Jarrods32

Mystic syphon should not be on the gcd still very unreliable, hardly works should stay off gcd or actually get fixed

Stalking blastbones still has no added bonus to make it worth morphing while stam version is so much better

Pefected VAS staff should stay at 2 shots for proc condition 3 is just too much the staff is one of the harder perfected versions to get in game and was already a niche build on one class make normal on both be 2 shots for proc not 3

navystylz_ESO

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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

Um...

Nightblade
Siphoning
Siphoning Strikes: Fixed an issue where this ability and its morphs could proc off Mend Wounds and its morphs. The soul-stealing power of this ability is now reserved for damaging Light and Heavy Attacks.
Soul Shred: The synergy granted from this Ultimate and its morphs will now work for allies who are 10 meters or closer to the target, rather than 10m or further.

Is anemic as far as changes go.

Cellentel

Shocking siphon remains unreliable. In a vKA run, I estimate I only got it off successfully about 50% of the time. There hills in there seemed to be especially bad - any time the corpse was on a slightly different elevation (which, in there, is basically everywhere), the siphon wouldn’t work as intended.

If this hits live it might remain a useful tool for parses and other controlled environments, but there are so many other things I could slot there that would have better practical DPS because they worked.

Davadin

Stone Giant - please get rid of the first AoE cast.

if u guys going to insist making it a ranged skill, then so be it. but don't confuse us on making something with cast time or having AoE melee to begin, or throw in some weird stun.

as a PvP-er, I enjoy the occasional stun, the damage is great, but that stupid stupid waste of space, time and resource of that first AoE melee is killing this skill.

as a PvE casual, the AoE is actually good, we're in melee range most of the time anyway, the stacked debuff works great, but what's with the stun?? and why make it a range skill after all?

it's like the skill don't know what to become, so it half-assed both side.

It's an awful awful skill.

Thraben

1. StamSorc: Bound armaments is just not impactful enought to actually use it in PvP (and I even suggested the skill, so I WANT to use it). Even with a guaranteed crit it is not in the same league as Grim Focus.

Please add something to it - like an execute with the last bound dagger strike.

2. Magtemplar: Please reintroduce the cast time of Healing Ritual, and reduce the skill's cost by at least 50%. A MagWarden can spam the similarily powerful heal of Budding seeds for hours, whilst a Templar will run out of Magicka in seconds. This skill should be a powerful group heal with plenty of counterplay. Which it is when there is a cast time of, like, 1 second.

3. Mend Wounds (Psijic): There is a reason that this skill is almost unused. Rework idea:

Mend Wound Heavy Attack: The channel now heals 20% more with each tick (basically an Anti- Zaan)
Mend Wounds Light Attack: The skill now is no longer targeted, but applies a conal AoE HoT to affected players. The HoT can stack up to three times.

Alucardo

Please give stam sorc more utility, ie: mending, protection, defile, maim (just examples). Change bound armaments to passively collect shards if slotted, because the toggle mechanic is too hinky and doesn't function correctly. The actual ability itself is okay, though.
Remove the requirement to have a daedric ability slotted to receive the daedric protection passive, unless you're willing to let us utilise more of our sorc abilities. No? I didn't think so at this point. Why would you do that.
Increase the resistance buffs of Hurricane to 20 seconds, but feel free to leave the other benefits to 15 seconds, and remove the model visual that makes you look like a ghost. Obviously the ring is needed, but everything inbetween not so much.
Even without the utility listed above, those other few changes will make stam sorc feel a lot smoother. I'm not looking for anything drastic, just some quality of life changes.