PTS Update 27 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

YandereGirlfriend

Suggestion for making Crystal Weapon more attractive versus other spammable options (Flurry, Wrecking Blow): modify Blood Magic to heal AND do equivalent damage to its target.

As it stands now, there is nothing in the Dark Magic tree that assists in (stamSorcs especially) dealing damage, whereas both DW and 2H (and other class spammables) have very strong passives that either deal damage directly or else provide useful damage-oriented self-buffs.

In addition to filling a need it is also very thematic (e.g. you are stealing the vitality of an enemy, which is the very power fantasy of Blood Magic) to the passive's name.

Apox

troomar wrote: »

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.

your problem is you were hardcasting cfrags. which is probably one of the literal worst thing you can do in the game.

i do agree with a few people that losing the healing/utility of ritual of ret in the same patch as what appears to be a massive stamplar nerf is just going to kill that build.

please do something to make non-pet sorc competitive. people should have access to a low skill cap pet build to do alright dps, but it shouldnt reign supreme.

were moving in a direction where being good at your class is losing importance compared to just having high damage from your armor, and thats not going to be fun for anyone. thats how wow is and now nobody enjoys their rotation in wow because there is no failing it sometimes

Ashamray

Ability Altering Weapons
Concentrated Force:
This set now requires 2 Force Shock casts to activate, down from 3.
Reduced the duration of the window between each cast to 2 seconds, down from a refreshing 5 seconds each cast.

2 seconds are not enough. Even if you insert 1different cast inbetween, you apparently won't get a proc.

AelyinESO

Please Stop nerfing Sorcmag classes! Necro, Templar still dealing TONS of DPS ...... What's the point to change the DAMAGE from CF and Pets? I really would like to understanding the hate Zenimax has with Sorceres in general. DO u wanna me to buy necro classe?

Athyrium93

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.

These changes just make me sad, and completely kill the uniqueness of the class, they basically force magplar back into the healer box they seem to have only just crawled out of, which is really un-fun since healers aren't wanted in this game anyway...

igniz93

I've tried weaving with jabs in the PTS servers, and it feels absolutely terrible and clunky. People have dedicated time and effort to practice their weaving, and now we're basically forced to relearn the timing (which is a super strange one), making the class feel slower, and as a result, deal less damage. With the relequen and lokkestiiz nerf, these are very sad times for stamplars. Heck, even ritual got changed... Now it's a boring endless hail? That's just killing class identity even more. I'm not even gonna mention the burning light changes...

Overall, underwhelming and quite sad changes to stamplars... I feel like I've wasted time on this character, not only are mag dps better in trials (GL doing vAS+2 and vCR+3 as a stamplar), they are even nerfing and changing the way weaving feels.

Very sad.

renne

Ritual of Retribution (morph): This morph now sacrifices its healing potential for the damage, rather than adding damage on top of the healing. The damage now increases by 5% each tick for the duration of the ability, up to a max of 35%.

This change is extremely unpleasant. What is the point of this skill's huge cost if you aren't getting healing out of it as well as damage? Absolutely cannot see the point of slotting this anymore when there's cheaper DOTs out there you can whack down instead.

MincVinyl

5 year pvp stamsorc on the new Crystal Weapon:

To be honest crystal weapon being a morph of a cast timed ability that hits hard, I would have thought crystal weapon would have been a remake of old dizzy with a long cast and hard hit.

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That being said, I am very pleased with Crystal weapon, it is a re-skin of crushing, but does not entirely work the same way. The fact that it works with heavy attacks as well as light attacks does not gimp you into a simple brain dead rotation. This opens up many rotations that are good for burst and can be timed well with bound armaments. Damage wise I think I would be fine to run crystal weapon instead of dizzy swing as a spammable......but I am having to give up a potential 10% damage debuff, stun, snare. Which I suppose I can deal with in the long run.

Blood Magic proccing from Crystal weapon has an issue. This passive can crit heal. Considering the homogenous heal changes a while ago it should crit based on your highest crit. Meaning stamsorc should be using weapon crit. I believe this is the case which is good, but the issue is that the passive only uses the Magicka Elfborn cp passive to modify crit heals on this passive procced by using a stam ability and the heal uses weapon crit.

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People for some reason think it is clunky to use, but it is just that instead of the usual:

Light/Heavy > Ability

you have to do:

Ability> Light/Heavy

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Being a "Re-skin" isn't a new thing or anything bad, usually we see it the otherway around though where one class in particular has/gets something and then eventually an out of class option comes out......Think of goliath and vamp ult.

Ragnaroek93

Stam Nb buffs look kinda good, good job on that, magblade probably needs some more love tho.

Please rework stam Dk stone fist, just turn it into a cool meele spammable.

Nerf proc sets, let Battlespirit reduce their damage by 60% for example. Having that much AFK dmg is ridiculous and for sure not healthy for the game.

Revokus

[Magicka Necromancer]

Tired of giving feedback to this mess of a class. Now that they nerfed harmony it will be even more at the bottom than before. Everyone should play something else than Magcro in pvp tbh.

The devs seems to think the class is fine but it's clunky badly designed compared to other classes and full of bugs.

Mender not always healing. Blastbones being clunky and should have a better debuff. Boneyard/harmony nerfed and animation is clunky. Ricochet skull being slowest projectile in the game and clunky to weave. Mist form bugged more than before. Mystic syphon being only usable in PvE because damage is so bad in PvP. Hungry scythe poor damage should be buffed and act as an execute. Arcanist not usable in PvP again..It's a PvE skill and should at least give major sorcery. No good stun in the class kit since ZOS think we shouldn't be able to compete 1v1 with this class. Expensive ults.. Damage morph of the Rez too expensive no one using it. Resistant Flesh Minor Defile should be examined with the healing nerf of last patch.

I could go on forever so many things wrong with this class. It's a shame always wanted Necro in this game since launch but I'll just move on to another class next patch.

There is your feedback ZOS. Plenty of players passionate about the Necro class already gave tons of feedback since the class came out.

setayco

MAGICKA NECROMANCER

Okay ZOS.
Now is the time to apply small buffs to an underperforming class. There are multiple issues with a core burst ability which is Blast-Bones. The skill has seen adjustments which are Fantastic , but completely makes the active passive of the magicka morph useless in most situations. A suggested changed to the magicka morph is add the Minor Mangle debuff to the skill. I can understand that it might be an issue with PVE imbalance as there are not many forms of the debuff added to abilities. But this will add another form of synergy to the class kit which is lacking in both forms of intuitive design and playability.
The target acquisition of the skill is dynamic meaning multiple casts of the ability varies on the position and distance of the target. The time taken for the skill to initiate launch at a target is comparable to that of the wardens fissure. The only anomaly is the dynamic change between the summon, acquisition and launching. This difference in the time it takes for each blast-bones to hit the target creates a window for spammables and ultimates to be cast. With the window being dynamic it makes it harder to achieve static DPS compared to other magicka DDs. On to the PvP portion. Another problem with the acquisition and targeting of the skill relies on the position of the skill and the server. At times a player is able to dodge the AOE blast causing the summon to disassemble. The same thing happens when you flame clench an enemy just before the explosion. With the skill being AoE the area of effect is small and or the requirements for explosion. It seems in does not explode until it touches a target. If it does not touch the target or get close then it disappears. Shortly after the skill sometimes gets grey and unusable for a few seconds.

On another note the balance change towards Grave Grasp. There is another thread which is very vocal about the changes and hopefully they take initiative and post his/her ideas here. I think the structure of the skill should be reversed, with the current change being a slow for the first area, immobilize then a stun, while this changed is a very good step in the right direction for balance and playability and is a great tool for Zerg control it does not add very much to the kit as it is already. There is already a class skill with a AoE fear attached to it that can catch ball groups off guard and provide a wall or deny area. With the skill having a delay to each patch of AoE it provides enemies much counter-play to prepare for the end effect. The skill in my opinion could be reversed having the stun come first then immobilize then slow justifying it being a block-able delayed stun. If not reversed than provided the amount of calculations, aiming and positioning the stun and effects of the skill should be undodge-able and unblock-able to justify the nature of the ability.

The tether, more specifically the damaging morph is a really terrible skill to use and does not justify using a slot. With the skill being free and needing a corpse to cast more often than not is just seen as a hassle or just a 3% damage increase. If that is the only use of the skill than it should be reworked or just added into class passives. The problem with the skill is it being a tether and only doing damage to things between the caster and the tether. With the damage being so low and no other use or synergy for the skill.

Lastly the scythe needs a damaging increase. In the form of an execute. There are only 3 magicka classes with an execute. One of which is an ultimate which requires slotting on both bars. Each and every stamina character has access to two executes in the form of weapon skill lines. Of which magicka characters do not have. In my opinion it would cater more to lore to have a scythe be an execute skill that provides some more capability to a class who has problems within its own class kit to secure kills without a harmony boosted gravedigger. Which is being nerfed by 45%. The skill can be tailored after whirling blades since it is an AoE skill. These are my proposed changes that i feel should be implemented or used as inspiration for future changes and rebalancing.

ArcVelarian

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

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.

Well fix that too. Or better yet they should just give us a Stamina Whip morph already. MagDKs can have poop fist instead.

Tommy_The_Gun

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

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.

This ^

Game has no indicator, so you don't really know if you are hitting from flank or not (especially with server lag taken into account).
You can not check it on your character stats window either, since it only applies to one attack.
With stealth / invisibility it is pretty obvious.

New version of this passive will only get players confused. Since it is now a flat bonus, it should give you bonus for X seconds or at least for the next X attacks (like 3 or something). Also, it should have a clear INDICATOR when it procs, so you could see it active on your buffs during combat (Just like Hemorrhage passive. When it procs you see it as an active effect).

If not, then at least there should be some visual feedback for the players for them to know that they are attacking from the flank and Master Assasin passive procs (example small red flashes on your hands / weapon each time you attack from flank & trigger the passive).

Abyssmol

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

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.

Yeah, a ground aoe with a cost of over 4k magicka. It is insane....

Lughlongarm

Still looking for the Warden changes, have you found it?

robpr

Abyssmol wrote: »

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

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.

Yeah, a ground aoe with a cost of over 4k magicka. It is insane....

DK Eruption says hi

ecru

The magicka Blastbones morph still does nothing.

Shocking tether is still completely unusable in most trials due to LOS issues. It's nearly unusable on the last two bosses of Kyne's Aegis. It would be nice if this ability worked properly at some point.

troomar

Apox wrote: »

troomar wrote: »

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.

your problem is you were hardcasting cfrags. which is probably one of the literal worst thing you can do in the game.

Come on, I'm not hardcasting cfrags on live now. I just said that weaving hard casting cfrags is possible (1000 ms), but the new version (800 ms) is much easier. Especially when it's gonna be a new spammable.

troomar

Apox wrote: »

please do something to make non-pet sorc competitive. people should have access to a low skill cap pet build to do alright dps, but it shouldnt reign supreme.

Why do you call pet builds low skill cap? Pet sorcerers (2 pets) have actually harder rotation than non-pet sorcs. Of course I'm talking about proper dynamic rotation.

But I agree that non-pet sorcs were left behind.

Czekoludek

jan.denaanb16_ESO wrote: »

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

You know that vAS staff is back, right?

Firstmep

Templar:
Burning light change reduces damage across the board in a big way, and actively pushes people into mindless jabs spam to get the most out of the passive.
Either increase the frequency, or buff the damage of the proc in a big way.
I'd go for increased frequency so other abilities like javelin etc still have a realistic chance of proccing it.

Radial sweep: Not a fan of cast times on ultimates, but it's a fair change nonetheless.
Jabs frequency: Why? It feels fine to weave on live, why mess with it, if the animation doesn't match up, then curb the animation instead, this feels like a lazy cop out fix to a problem that didnt exist.

Puncturing strikes heal: great, now if only jabs did reasonable dmg to secondary targets so we can actually benefit from it.

Also please remove major savagery from biting jabs and move the % heal to thr base ability so it affects both morphs, stamina Templar has a major lack of healing/defensive tools in pvp, and savagery is already one of the easiest buffs to get both in pvp and pve.
Also nightbladea are receiving 10% critical healing from grim focus, can the Templar passive that increases healing with restoring lifht skill on lower health targets get some love? Make it work with all healing skills and increase the value please.
Looking at my stamdens where I have actual choices to make in terms of healing skills stamplar is just too weak in that regard.

Sorcerer:
Crystal weapon : another lazy copy of another skill, you guys didn't even bother to change animation of the skill from crushing weapon.
Pet scaling nerf: I feel like you guys are missing the main issue with pets in pvp, and that's free meatshield.
I'd be all for pets doing more dmg in pvp, if they also didn't soak up massive amounts of dmg.
Also matriarch heal should be brought in line with other skills, especially since it heals multiple targets for the full value.
Blood magic passive:
I honestly didn't feel like my stamina sorcerer need anymore sustain, I can already run around with 1k Stam recovery in no cp and never run out.

Nb

Master assassin passive: this should be a duration buff, after you attack someone from flank, the way lag and positional desyncs work this really won't work that well otherwise.

Grim focus change:
I don't think my magblade was missing healing modifiers, but rather lacked in term of burst dmg, due to cast time on SH and travel time on spectral bow.
Still a good change overall.

Warden:
I'll be honest I'm surprised wardens aren't receiving any changes, both mag and Stam has hands down the best self healing in pvp right now, and possibly the best off healing too.
Arcitc Blast also allows for people to build absordly high health pools and benefit from major mending at much higher health values than usual.
Still no on demand stun for the class, you are forced into melee range as a magden to land arctic.
The ultimates are very 1 dimensional, and northern/perma far outclasses bear/trees.

The bears active attack is also laughably slow, slower than selene procs and that is already so easy to avoid.

Dk:

Liking the inhale change, although I feel like this will push people further into pemablocking and tanking entire groups again.

Still no melee spammable for stamDK, even though ardent flame is pretty much designed as a melee skill line.

zDan

Don't get me wrong I'm thrilled that stamsorc is now getting a true class spammable, it's been a long time coming. But I am not a fan of the light attack based skills like this and crushing/ele weapon. They feel very clunky to play with especially in lag. They also tend to cause desyncs A LOT, which is a huge problem. Overall this is great but it needs to be its own skill and not a light attack based one.

Elwendryll

Stamsorc feedback:
With the change to pet damage calculation, my clannfear got a very noticeable damage buff, Charlie will be happy (that's my Clannfear).

Crystal Weapon:
As expected, it's a Crushing Weapon reskin, with a debuff to armor. Though I didn't expect the cost reduction on the next ability. The ability itself is nice, and brings some utility, it definitely helps sustain, although we already have a very good sustain on stamsorc. The issue I have with that ability is that I can't really use it as a main spammable, it hits for ~84% of a Wrecking Blow and ~74% of a Focused Aim, just looking quickly at tooltips. Wrecking blow also gives a charge of empower, putting Crushing Weapon absolutely out of the picture for a main spammable choice.

However, the armor debuff is nice. And the ability could be used only to keep the debuff up. The issue with this solution is that I end up juggling with Wrecking Blow as a main spammable, Bound Armaments every 4s, and Crystal Weapon every ~4-5s, it's an interesting rotation, and maybe it's just the high PTS ping that causes that, but it makes my character animations absolutely weird. I can't rely on visual cues anymore for my timings.

I'll keep practicing with that, maybe I'll use that ability as a tank. Maybe the ability could get a little increase on the armor removal duration.

Whatever happens, this ability is not going to be used as a main spammable for the same reasons crushing weapons isn't, but I can see myself putting that in my rotation for the debuff only, on Tank or DD.

On the other hand, it can be used with crushing weapons, for interesting burst combos, I'm probably not going to use that in PvE, but for PvP, definitely.

igniz93

Tested again, jab weaving feels absolutely terrible in PTS. Also, if you are reworking burning light like that, why not just remove the skill completely and add the dmg in the jab tooltip? Since it is clearly made to proc after 1 jab cast...

Please reconsider the 300ms => 333ms because it really makes the experience very clunky and not fun at all.

paganslyer

please revert the healing nerf and just nerf cross healing in PVP
and maybe do some balance work on specific healing and survive abilitys if needed
the must of pvp community agree on that i think.
the healing now in Most cases Does not get to the point that can allow heal off the damage that players can do in this patch

Zippy81

Crystal Blast (morph): This ability has been reworked into a Stamina morph, and renamed to Crystal Weapon. It is now an instant-cast ability that causes your next Light or Heavy Attack made within 4 seconds to deal additional damage, equal to the standard spammable amount such as Lava Whip or Veiled Strike. Enemies hit by this ability will their armor reduced by up to 1000.

I don't understand why so many ESO players get simply ignored. Stamina DKs ask for a poison whip, they get a totally different skill. Stamina sorcerers asked for a spammable, they get it as some sort of a copy/paste of a skill that's a morph of a totally different magicka ability. Strange.

The very idea of allowing crystal fragments proc off itself is great. Now let's make the crystal weapon ability work precisely the same way as crystal fragments BUT make it a stamina morph. Similar cast time as the uppercut ability yet a special effect: lower cost, faster cast, more damage. That would make a very unique version of a spammable.

Other classes have similar skills working like that: NBs have veiled strike, necromancers have the skull, wardens have the bird. Let's just add a poison whip for dragonknights and that part is covered fine.

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On the other hand, I'm a bit worried about the inconsistency of all the major/minor buffs/debuffs system when there are so many unique effects introduced to make skills more appealing. More numbers to calculate during fights.

Wolf81

I'm more concerned right now that the change to pets on sorcs from pure magicka to hybrid of spelldamage/magicka is bigger nerf for this build than expected. I would imagine the idea was make more set diversity choices but earlier posts are showing it as a net loss either way. I hope more build changes in upcoming ptr will look at that.

ItsNotLiving

If you want crystal fragments to be a cast time spammable akin to dizzy swing then it needs to be uninterruptible and deal slightly more damage.

OrphanHelgen

I been waiting for a vicious ophidian perfected version for a long time. Have to say, did NOT expect false god nerf. I can't see any reason to nerf it. Literally no one likes this nerf. This nerf will do nothing to the gameplay at all. You gave 18% crit damage permanently to group, you buffed divine trait and precice trait, you buffed infused aka crusher backbar wall of elements (edit to write torugs pact here too). But 1k mag on perfected false god is too much? Zos devs that cant even please casuals.

[Snip]

[Edited for rude content]

mav1234

STAMINA SORCERER

The new stamina morph Crystal Weapon feels far too similar to the Psjiic line spammable. Please consider revising its functionality, as although it is better than the psijiic skill, it feels simply like an upgraded version of it. It does open up a ton of burst options in PvP, but I would prefer that the class receive such burst options in other ways than their spammable