PTS Update 27 - 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.

Internet_Mask

Some feedback about Crystal Weapon:

The name does not at all sound like a stamina sorcerer ability calling it something like Storm's Bite or Storm Strike sounds much more thematically fitting for a stamina sorcerer.

The ability itself is not at all interesting it is literally a copy-paste of Imbue Weapon with some tweaks. Please make it an actual direct damage spammable ability so stamina sorcerers can become a bit less reliant on weapon skills. Following that train of thought it would also be great for stamina sorcerers if one of Bolt Escape's morphs could be turned into a stamina based charge ability.

Apox

agreed on the crystal weapon morph. stop stealing from other abilities and give stamsorc something original. bound armaments is even more annoying to use than grim focus.

there was a lot of confusing changes this patch. nerfs that didnt feel needed.

i am hopeful that the necro siphon fix is significant. can @ZOS_GinaBruno or @ZOS_JessicaFolsom give a statement on siphon being grayed out on your action bar despite looking at corpses? can we maybe just cut out the corpse requirement altogether and let siphon attach directly to enemies

edit: also, for advancing yokeda, instead of buffing its other set bonuses, could you just..give it minor slayer 3 set please?

wasnt VO updated to have minor slayer when false god was added to the game? AY and probably all the old trials sets should be updated to minor slayer.

SlimeBro1

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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.

Blood for blood is absolutely useless now, I've seen.

And....can we get some adjustments to vampiric drain? Maybe an evescerate ranged morph? And maybe toss around the idea of giving us players the NPC vampire bat swarm gap closer? OR at the very least make Blood Mist a swarm of bats?

Also how about giving Perfect Scion a better morph effect? Nobody uses it.

Also good changes on grave grasp, but we still can't summon a skeletal warrior or zombie like every other necromancer in the game. Fit it into the Bone Tyrant skill line so each line has a summon....?

Sleep724

So why hasn't Stone Giant been touched? No one outside of trials uses this.

Celestro

Apox wrote: »

agreed on the crystal weapon morph. stop stealing from other abilities and give stamsorc something original. bound armaments is even more annoying to use than grim focus.

there was a lot of confusing changes this patch. nerfs that didnt feel needed.

i am hopeful that the necro siphon fix is significant. can @ZOS_GinaBruno or @ZOS_JessicaFolsom give a statement on siphon being grayed out on your action bar despite looking at corpses? can we maybe just cut out the corpse requirement altogether and let siphon attach directly to enemies

edit: also, for advancing yokeda, instead of buffing its other set bonuses, could you just..give it minor slayer 3 set please?

wasnt VO updated to have minor slayer when false god was added to the game? AY and probably all the old trials sets should be updated to minor slayer.

VO always had Minor Slayer.

Also the name is fine given anything Crystal related fits the Dark Magic skill line. Storm related names fall under Storm Calling skill line.

Otherwise, agreed on giving Crystal Weapon an actual unique effect that isn't just Crushing Weapons from the Psijic Guild line. Even something that actually increases the base damage of Light and Heavy attacks versus the damage done separately would be enough to differentiate the two on a fundamental level, even if something slightly more unique is preferred. And none of that clunky weaving delay that Crushing Weapons has for melee weapons either. Could also throw in something with Empower.

Onefrkncrzypope

Why was there no reworks of Stam classes?

Sleep724 wrote: »

So why hasn't Stone Giant been touched? No one outside of trials uses this.

No one outside of a tank uses it.

Vevvev

Vampiric Drain really does need a look. It severely lacks damage and the way its heal scales makes it not very effective in fast paced combat. If its a healing ability it needs to heal more, and if its a damage dealing ability its damage output needs a serious buff. Right now its not very useful for healers, DPS, or tanks due to the way its been designed.

One proposal is making its damage and healing tick every half second, another is boosting the damage by 50-100%, and then there is changing its healing from scaling on missing health to max health.

katorga

Burning Light: This passive has been slightly reworked ...that is a understatement

Radial Sweep: This ultimate and its morphs now have a minor cast time...gawd, no more .4 second cast times.

Necro Siphon: is it really, really fixed? Just make it a targeted dot.

Crystal Fragments: what is the justification for a 21% nerf on this skill, and will the "window" to keep you hard casting really work, or just break the skill completely in lag.

Rebate: This passive now restores 150/300 Magicka or Stamina (determined by what the ability cost) when one of your Daedric Summoning non-Ultimate abilities end...sorc pets don't "end" what on earth does this mean? Does it apply to bound armaments? Are sorc pets going to the necro model?

Sorc pets scaling off dmg/magicka....if I had 55K mag 2K spell dmg before, but now have 45K mag, 5K spell damage now, will my pets be stronger or weaker? I cannot tell from the description.

Vampire...cure, rip.

Have you really thought through the ultimate generation that is going to be possible?

Some of those set changes for old sets...just wow.

Going to be a proc set paradise.

Apox

yeah some weird stuff for sure. i do hope necro siphons is more reliable, though as i said i still have issues where my siphon is grayed out on my bars despite targeting a corpse. i agree with makin it attach to live enemies and removing its corpse requirement completely. i dont trust their fixes

am i misreading burning light change? to me it seems like its a guaranteed burning light proc every jab, but can no longer proc 2 burning lights per jab. i see some people saying itll only proc every other jabs cast

im more worried about the jabs change from 300 to 333 ms, if it prevents you from animation cancelling the final jabs tic, its going to result in a 7-10k dps nerf for stamplar which will kill the class.

jan.denaanb16_ESO

Nerfhammering Blood for Blood the way you intend with the patch notes will KILL off Magicka Dragonknight off so hard...

There is no spammable in that DK arsenal that allows us to be relevant without MAJOR sustain issues. not whip... not force pulse...


Other than being really rediculous of a suggested change... that you cant receive healing for 5 seconds is honestly... dumb being comprehension. What is even the vision or intended niche for Vampirism itself?

Blood for BLood was overperforming. It was. So nerf the damage and dont touch it untill next patch... then see if it still needs a nerf. Don't completely kill off a skill like this. Its insane the swings you guys make

Apox

blood for blood was not overperforming in group content. just on iron atro.

but also dont forget asylum staff is going back to every other pulse cast instead of 3. the bug will likely be fixed but it should open asylum staff gameplay back up to magdk and let force pulse be used since itll guarantee a burning proc every other cast for 500 mag return. its not a lot but it might help

West93

Change to burning light is too big of a nerf and it makes using other aedric spear abilities rather than puncturing strikes impossible to proc it anymore.

Solution: make it proc on every first aedric spear ability hit, but have a much longer cooldown or revert the change.

SydneyGrey

Switching Vigor and Rapids is a terrible idea. It'll make it absolutely awful for anyone starting a character who doesn't like PvP, or who is new and is afraid to do PvP. It'll be particulaly awful for magicka characters who are slow anyway. Please reconsider this terrible decision.

Heck, it'll even be awful for people starting new characters who DO like to PvP. This is a terrible decision all around. It would be better to put Rapids in place of Siege Shield.

Dracane

Redgarding Crystal Shards:
I am not yet sure what the purpose of the changes to the hard cast of crystal shard is.
Reducing both the cast time but also the damage at the same time, does not make it more desirable than it used to be.
It is still intrusive and clunky to use and does not even have the same benefit as spamming the old crystal blast. It feels funny spamming them and sometimes having that crystal fragment proc, yet this creates another problem in itself.

With the afterdelay you added after a proc before a shard can be hardcasted again, you made using them as a spammable or semi spammable even clunkier then it was.

At this point I would recommend reducing the damage of crystal hard casts to that of other spammables or very slightly above (to make up for the fact that it has no chance to produce elemental conditions) and removing the casttime entirely. Let the 10% cost decrease it provides be its special thing (just like every spammable has something that makes it unique)

Redarding Crystal Fragments:
Crystal Fragments feels a bit left in dark right now. Both, Crystalized Weapon and the base cast provide the 10% cost decrease after they have been used. Crystal Fragments however does not, which also adds to making the previously mentioned chain casting in combination with the proc very unsatisfying. When first reading about the cost decrease, I found it sounded brilliant. A clever way to better one of the biggest concerns sorcerer has in pve; which is the struggle to sustain. Yet since crystal fragments does not provide it, the change lost its appeal and potential. Allowing it to decrease the cost like the other versions of the ability, would go a long way to particularly help non pet sorcerers in pve to sustain better. Please reconsider.

The tooltip is also not exactly clear that crystal fragments proc can not proc another. It would be good if crystal fragments was not the outsider in this ability trio and at least provides the 10% cost reduction as well and optinally the ability to create another proc.
Crystal Shard should really loose its cast time at this moment and crystal fragments can provide the bonus damage when proced and have a more obvious projectile to inform opponents in pvp about the empowered attack.

Sarousse

No one wants Crystal Weapon.

Please, give us a real spammable. After 6 years. It's about time.

M4j0r

Thrassian is totally rip with a 30 second timer. Has been a nice idea with making the User much more vulnerbale while granting spell dmg/weapon dmg. Might be recently overpowered, but if you think about raids aso. you cant play the set anymore.

Would only destroy a new opportunity to play the game, if you have a good movement, because of saving stacks.

False god the same. Why should someone have farmed the perfect version, if normal would be enough?

xI_The_Owl_Ix

Master Assassin:

• This passive’s Weapon and Spell Damage is now granted to your damaging attacks against enemies you are flanking, rather than granting a universal amount while sneaking or invisible.
• The Weapon and Spell Damage is now a flat 129/258, rather than granting 5/10% of your current amount.

This should be changed to "258 are applied for [X]seconds after hitting someone from flank".
Theres no way to flank someone all the time while fighting them. Right now this only buffs ganking and seems not that great have a high uptime.

ArcVelarian

Sleep724 wrote: »

So why hasn't Stone Giant been touched? No one outside of trials uses this.

Agreed.

Stone Giant needs:

1. That pointless cast time removed. Why on Earth did you put that there to begin with???
2. The initial stomp needs to be the part of the ability that stuns opponents.
3. At least a 10% dps buff.

Do all these things and the ability will actually be useful outside of Trials.

jan.denaanb16_ESO

The changes are just ... AGAIN overtuned to start with. Thrassian was soooo overpowered... so yes nerf it by all means. But dont just make it useless all of a sudden. Nuance... nuance. nerf it a little. then evaluate. then nerf it again if its still overperforming.

Onefrkncrzypope

ArcVelarian wrote: »

Sleep724 wrote: »

So why hasn't Stone Giant been touched? No one outside of trials uses this.

Agreed.

Stone Giant needs:

1. That pointless cast time removed. Why on Earth did you put that there to begin with???
2. The initial stomp needs to be the part of the ability that stuns opponents.
3. At least a 10% dps buff.

Do all these things and the ability will actually be useful outside of Trials.

It doesn't proc any melee sets or passives. Ranged spammables are nonsensical with how Stam work in eso.

dave_harter_ESO

My two cents as a pve player:

Templar nerfs feel harsh. In particular, Ritual of retribution loosing any support ability really blows. This really helped the warrior of Light image with damage and support. Now, it is just another boring aoe which the class already has access to.

Sorcerer frags change. I am not sure about this. The increased number of procs needs to keep the damage close. I will see how bad my sorcerer is hurt by the pet change.

Vigor being easier to get: I like the change as I do not pvp so stamina characters felt pretty bad.

Joy_Division

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when it is the armor set I am looking at to play my character, rather than it';s actual abilities.

Cast time on Radial Sweep? 4 consecutive hits for a Burning Light proc? Putting a longer cast-time for Puncturing Strike? Another Crystal Fragment nerf? A Crushing Weapon reskin for Crystal Blast? I'd ask why, but after years of nerfs I know the answer.

Onefrkncrzypope

Joy_Division wrote: »

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when it is the armor set I am looking at to play my character, rather than it';s actual abilities.

Cast time on Radial Sweep? 4 consecutive hits for a Burning Light proc? Putting a longer cast-time for Puncturing Strike? Another Crystal Fragment nerf? A Crushing Weapon reskin for Crystal Blast? I'd ask why, but after years of nerfs I know the answer.

Moving away from active to passive damage seems to be the trend for this patch very much so.

troomar

First impression about Sorcerer's Crystal Shard ability after about 1 hour of testing:

1) magSorc and Crystal Fragments - FANTASTIC. The old frags were a bit hard to weave properly when hard casting (though possible), now it's a blaze. I love it. The ability to proc it of itself (from non-proc version) makes it a viable choice for a spammable. As a long time stamSorc, I have zero issues with cast time spammables, so if it stays, I'm gonna go this way.

TL;DR: I love it. Keep it. It's really cool.

2) stamSorc and Crystal Blast - TOTAL FAIL. I stopped playing my stamSorc as my main when you introduced Bound Armaments, cheap version of NB's ability. It made the rotation harder without any advantage. The skill itself felt bad and was just a rip-off of existing ability. Now you did the same again. Crystal Blast is the same ability as Crushing Weapon (Psijic line) it has even the same animation.

On the plus side, the sustain is really good with this ability, I liked that. Weaving is non-issue. From the combat point of view, this is fine, weaving is fine, it works, it's a cool addition, but as a long-time stamSorc player, it made me sad. I'm not going back, I don't like this ability from role-playing point of view.

TL;DR: It works, but stamSorc remains a rip-off of other classes' abilities.


Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing hard-casting frags in trials now

Solariken

Why are we neutering Templar? Seriously these are some very significant nerfs.

Burning Light got hammered. One of the things that really makes Templar unique and fun is the ability to crank out many instances of damage to interact with various sets (whereas other classes get %damage modifiers, penetration, etc). Can you consider rebalancing BL so that it always procs on every instance of Aedric Spear damage? That would be way more fun than this wonky mechanic of "every 4 hits but only if the hits are very fast" lol.

Ritual of Retribution was the other cash cow in the Templar kit for interacting with a wide variety of sets and granting lots of utility. You are completely gutting the usefulness of this skill by making it just another boring DOT. This one makes me really sad. So now we have a huge ability cost and nothing to show for it but mediocre damage and an ally synergy. Lame change that severely weakens power fantasy and class identity.

The Radial Sweep cast time is really going to hurt. I don't see any reason to slot this over Dawnbreaker in PvP anymore. The big benefit of this ult is not the damage - it's the ability to block while you use it. In BG's already very difficult to stay in melee long enough to do anything, and the ability to hold block for this ult is one of the only things I had to stay alive long enough to attempt a kill.

Backlash was not overtuned. Sure it could hit hard, but only if you unload an entire offensive combo onto a target without buffs up. This is another huge upset because it further reduces the likelihood that I can stay in a fight long enough to get a kill. Seriously why is this getting nerfed when I can just hop on my DK and 2shot dunk players all day long? Templar already takes 6 seconds to kill a decent player and there are tons of other class combos that can do it in 2 seconds. This change was unnecessary.

Skjaldbjorn

The Morag Tong Change: This indirectly buffs Stamina Nightblades quite a bit, and pushes Stamina Necromancers even further up the chart. Stamcro was already very strong, and this just ramps them super hard with so many of their skills doing disease damage. This would be better used as a place to buff a class with group utility from a DPS perspective.

Crystal Weapon: It's...fine. Weaves okay. The pen is not really needed with a lot of the other changes. The penetration buff feels like a waste now. Stamcros can hit pen cap without this buff or Torug's, and still be over. A different direction here would probably be good.

Missing In Action: Stamina Warden, as I have alluded to repeatedly in the past, is still in a terrible spot vs its peers as reflected in basically no one playing them in PVE content. The Stamina Nightblade buffs should push them well ahead as well, leaving Stamdens and Stam DKs to rot in the gutter. For a patch with "a lot of our inputs and ideas", I would hope it would have reflected something from those two communities. Just altering Gripping Shards, the root morph of Impaling Shards, to scale off highest offensive stats would have been a massive boost to Warden DPS.

Joy_Division

Solariken wrote: »

Why are we neutering Templar? Seriously these are some very significant nerfs.

Burning Light got hammered. One of the things that really makes Templar unique and fun is the ability to crank out many instances of damage to interact with various sets (whereas other classes get %damage modifiers, penetration, etc). Can you consider rebalancing BL so that it always procs on every instance of Aedric Spear damage? That would be way more fun than this wonky mechanic of "every 4 hits but only if the hits are very fast" lol.

Ritual of Retribution was the other cash cow in the Templar kit for interacting with a wide variety of sets and granting lots of utility. You are completely gutting the usefulness of this skill by making it just another boring DOT. This one makes me really sad. So now we have a huge ability cost and nothing to show for it but mediocre damage and an ally synergy. Lame change that severely weakens power fantasy and class identity.

The Radial Sweep cast time is really going to hurt. I don't see any reason to slot this over Dawnbreaker in PvP anymore. The big benefit of this ult is not the damage - it's the ability to block while you use it. In BG's already very difficult to stay in melee long enough to do anything, and the ability to hold block for this ult is one of the only things I had to stay alive long enough to attempt a kill.

Backlash was not overtuned. Sure it could hit hard, but only if you unload an entire offensive combo onto a target without buffs up. This is another huge upset because it further reduces the likelihood that I can stay in a fight long enough to get a kill. Seriously why is this getting nerfed when I can just hop on my DK and 2shot dunk players all day long? Templar already takes 6 seconds to kill a decent player and there are tons of other class combos that can do it in 2 seconds. This change was unnecessary.

Yep, those are quite heavy handed. You might as well add how with the slowdown of Puncturing Strikes, it's pretty much back to the old cooldown.

You didn't think Templars would go 6 months with people whining how they were overpowered and not get neutered did you?

ssewallb14_ESO

The ritual of retribution nerf pretty much kills the utility of the skill on a templar tank. It used to make a great combination soft taunt and utility hot, that could also proc sets with a heal based proc condition (hiti's, earthgore, rkugamz, etc) for added utility. Now it's only good for pulling agro and almost any other option fulfills that role better. There's really no reason at this point for me to run this over extended, or just drop it completely and run wall of elements like everyone else.

exiledtyrant

I like crystal weapon and am very much looking forward to it coming to live. It feels a lot less jerky when weaving than other spammable abilities I've used. It is also aesthetically pleasing without being so over the top it distracts from everything else going on. The cost reduction part of the ability feels unnecessary though. Its already pretty cheap and sustain has not been an issue for me. Another unique effect (grants empower on crit?) would be a lot better in my opinion.

I see a lot of talk of reskins, but I'm hopeful this could be the start of another sub class of skills that focus making the light / heavy attack the main focus instead of the ability itself. Something quick and dirty that makes my light / heavy attacks do something cool is right up my alley.

Lastly crystal weapon probably shouldn't stack with imbue weapon, especially if more of these types of abilities are planned in the future. The burst looks problematic.

Nevidyra

Templar burning light change negatively impacts them during PvP situations-- MAJORLY (they are unable to churn out enough damage to break sorc shields and down players using Evasion), and there will be a DPS loss in PvE. I would personally make it proc after 2 or 3 aedric spear damaging ability ticks, or revert it entirely. There is nothing wrong with the passive currently.

The changes to backlash, whilst fine for PvE, absolutely destroy the delayed PvP burst that is a CRUCIAL part of the Templar's kit. It is already difficult enough to stack it to get the maximum damage potential against a competent player. Other classes have much easier burst to pull off. Please revert this change.

Ritual of Retribution change makes sense, but I would further buff the damage tick to increase the utility of the morph.

The jabs damage change to better sync with the animation has a major impact on jabs-based rotations in PvE. It feels rather clunky to use. Not very enjoyable. It is very difficult to optimally weave and punishing skill makes no sense to me. Jabs is such an iconic class ability to both Magicka and Stamina templars and having to look for an alternative spammable ability goes against the purpose of focusing on class identity. It will, as other people have said, absolutely KILL Stamplar as a viable PvE class and it will destroy the Class Identity of Magplar.

The cast time to Radial Sweep and Morphs, whilst not desirable, is a needed change to bring it in line with low-cost ultimates like Dawnbreaker and Incap.

- Templar Main, 88.2k PvE Parse/PvPer