PTS Update 28 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

Jarrods32

Are there plans to add a secondary effect to the magica morph for blastbones as it stands there is no reason to morph BB

Batmanna

With the minor magika steal gutted in half, could we please look into magdk DPS sustain? Class ability to cast is already terrible is PvE and Pvp, and without the much needed sustain from Ely drain the situation is ridiculous.
Embers and engulfing are as cheap as a ferrari, can we please reduce those class abilities costs??

Jodynn

Parsed several times on MagDk and I am doing around -5k with main build ( charged staff ) and -7k with other builds (precise usually) with less sustain and it feels limp, weak and more frustrating.

FrancisCrawford

Meldor_Greenwood wrote: »

Can you buff Nightblades Mark? Now that you removed its dual resistance debuff and for Reaper’s Mark nerfed Major berserk significantly. Maybe finally add a synergy to a Nightblade skill?

More discussion on those problems in https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/546491/reapers-mark-just-lost-its-already-niche-uses#latest

Onefrkncrzypope

There will need to be a new audit needed for tanks this patch. You have taken away mitigation and healing without compensation elsewhere. An easy example is the dk and also the sDK in PvP. This is another patch that nerfed underlying pieces to the DK toolkit and the class was completely ignored in this patch again. Without strong healing the sDK is gimped in PvP and the nerf to mending is going to hit the class hard. It relied on that buff. Mending on the pve tank DK was extremely important as well. A sorc tank presses one button to get a strong heal, I have two global cool downs to maybe get the same amount of self heal output. I am well acquainted with the DK but know that this healing and damage mitigation will reverberate through most tank based classes.

Jodynn

PvE Stamina and Magicka is feeling more imbalanced

Light attack changes will hit Magicka harder

Adv. Yokeda gives 3.3k crit while the best you can do as Magicka is acuity or Mother Sorrow at 1.9k
- Not saying nerf yokeda, just give a magicka based one.

Light attacks may scale with highest stat passives like critical with daggers only work for Stamina.
- Make it scale for both

All the penetration increases will make the Spell Pen passive on light armor much less strong than the Weapon Damage passive on
Medium armor.
- Change to something other than pen, max magicka ( maybe better because of inner light and Mages Guild ), spell damage, just something.

Trap Beast gives a lot more DoT damage for Stamina while Magicka needs to use it anyways for minor force.
- Scale off highest stat, just like the fighter guild passive could give 3% Weapon AND Spell damage.

Minor Magickasteal was to account ( I think ) for the less cost skills stamina has natively, now it's nerfed that NO ONE asked for, and it's even harder to sustain than before.

Thor199389

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

"Reduced the damage from all ranged Light and Medium Attacks by 10% to ensure they meet ranged damage standards. Heavy Attacks already meet these standards."

Light Attack Weaving was an unintended mechanic that was allowed -- and the numbers from Light Attack Weaving got to out of control levels.
Instead of trimming it or trying to tweak it now and again, and making all sorts of changes elsewhere constantly to bring numbers down to your "damage standards", how about just starting by removing Light Attack Weaving altogether? Recognize that it should have never been allowed.

And players who don't use the unintentional unintuitive exploiting-your-programming of animation cancelling in light attack weaving get penalized by this change.

Please explain a skill like grim focus if light attacks are not intended.

Light Attacks are not an unintended mechanic. Don't state your "facts" as real facts.
Light Attack weaving is what distigues eso from any other MMO. That is what makes ESO so much more fun than any other Game. You have to practice.

Maybe instead of "removing" light attacks just except the skill gap and except that not every title is ment for everyone to achieve. Otherwise... just put it in Crownstore.

Firstmep

Thor199389 wrote: »

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

"Reduced the damage from all ranged Light and Medium Attacks by 10% to ensure they meet ranged damage standards. Heavy Attacks already meet these standards."

Light Attack Weaving was an unintended mechanic that was allowed -- and the numbers from Light Attack Weaving got to out of control levels.
Instead of trimming it or trying to tweak it now and again, and making all sorts of changes elsewhere constantly to bring numbers down to your "damage standards", how about just starting by removing Light Attack Weaving altogether? Recognize that it should have never been allowed.

And players who don't use the unintentional unintuitive exploiting-your-programming of animation cancelling in light attack weaving get penalized by this change.

Please explain a skill like grim focus if light attacks are not intended.

Light Attacks are not an unintended mechanic. Don't state your "facts" as real facts.
Light Attack weaving is what distigues eso from any other MMO. That is what makes ESO so much more fun than any other Game. You have to practice.

Maybe instead of "removing" light attacks just except the skill gap and except that not every title is ment for everyone to achieve. Otherwise... just put it in Crownstore.

Grim focus, siphoning strikes, reave passive on incap, sorcerers bound armaments, there are plenty of mechanics that work off of weaving.
Honestly 6 years into the game if someone can't accept weaving as part of the game they can just go ahead and play another mmo without.

Ragnarock41

I've been hoping to see changes to the minor/major system for a long time now, seeing those changes finally happening makes me happy, even though I have my doubts for some of them, it makes me want to try the game again after a long while. As for class feedback I have nothing to say since there are no changes to DKs, though Its fair to say that it was rather disappointing whenever something changed, so maybe this is for the best.

Edit: Yes I'm aware this effectively nerfs fragmented shield even further. Its just beating the dead horse at this point to complain about it.

zaria

karthrag_inak wrote: »

So, will khajiit get some kind of recompense since the crit chance nerf affects them more than any other race?

This especially as it was changed from crit chance to crit damage for reasons.
Changing it back would work.

Scion_of_Yggdrasil

Very excited about this direction (light/heavy attack scaling), coming from someone who prefers hybrid play styles and always preaches about it being a TES staple. Question though (PS4 NA here, so I'm very jealous of not being able to test things out for myself):

Hypothetically, if I have medium armor passives, and wearing a set that adds weapon dmg, but have higher max magicka vs stamina, and Im using a physical dmg weapon (bow, sword, etc.)... would my attacks then scale from my existing physical dmg stats (weapon dmg) and max magicka?

Or, would it force you to scale from the corresponding passives based on your highest offensive resource? i.e. max magicka is your highest offensive resource, so your attacks now also scale from spell dmg, instead of weapon dmg?

And is it safe to say skills will continue to scale off the resource they require, vs your highest offensive resource?

[Edit to add:] And what does this mean for pelinals aptitude? Still useful? Useless now? Buff/change coming?

YandereGirlfriend

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

PvE Stamina and Magicka is feeling more imbalanced

Light attack changes will hit Magicka harder

Adv. Yokeda gives 3.3k crit while the best you can do as Magicka is acuity or Mother Sorrow at 1.9k
- Not saying nerf yokeda, just give a magicka based one.

Light attacks may scale with highest stat passives like critical with daggers only work for Stamina.
- Make it scale for both

All the penetration increases will make the Spell Pen passive on light armor much less strong than the Weapon Damage passive on
Medium armor.
- Change to something other than pen, max magicka ( maybe better because of inner light and Mages Guild ), spell damage, just something.

Trap Beast gives a lot more DoT damage for Stamina while Magicka needs to use it anyways for minor force.
- Scale off highest stat, just like the fighter guild passive could give 3% Weapon AND Spell damage.

Minor Magickasteal was to account ( I think ) for the less cost skills stamina has natively, now it's nerfed that NO ONE asked for, and it's even harder to sustain than before.

Strongly agree with this.

Weapons and Armors ought to give bonuses to both Magicka and Stamina. That would, at one stroke, throw wide open the gates of build diversity and theorycrafting.

MincVinyl

Thanks zos for finally fixing ground abilities to no longer root you in place when you turn your camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ObAxQJOg1g&t=79s&ab_channel=MincVinyl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dN8LeR7slU&ab_channel=MincVinyl

Extinct_Solo_Player

Stamina dk needs a unique 30% healing buff on fragmented shield comparable to the unique buff you placed for ironblood or an added heal over time to the armor buff to compensate the mending nerf. The class relies on mending to able to stand its ground in PVP as it does not have any percent based mitigation like necro and warden and also no passive heal over times built into the class kit. It is already rough on live but next patch it will be terrible if you do not compensate the class with those changes.

Onefrkncrzypope

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Stamina dk needs a unique 30% healing buff on fragmented shield comparable to the unique buff you placed for ironblood or an added heal over time to the armor buff to compensate the mending nerf. The class relies on mending to able to stand its ground in PVP as it does not have any percent based mitigation like necro and warden and also no passive heal over times built into the class kit. It is already rough on live but next patch it will be terrible if you do not compensate the class with those changes.

That would actually help dk healers as well.

Atherakhia

The major buffs were hit a little hard in general. Major Mending and Major Protection need to be boosted a bit. The main balancing mechanic for a lot of these things has been that their durations are so incredibly short that you really need to use the wisely. With their power so drastically reduced, there's little reason the durations should be so short as a 10% increase to healing or 10% reduction in damage just isn't that powerful.

Either the durations need to be increased of these things or the potency needs to be boosted up a bit more. Major Prot up to 15 or 20% and Major Mending up to 20%. Otherwise, may as well just make the things that give us major mending and major prot 10 seconds in duration or something.

Kharner

The major mending nerf is going to cripple Stam DK's, and they are already on life support in terms of class identity. Fragmented shield needs something to compensate or it will be one of the most under-tuned defensive skills in the entire game.

universal_wrath

Thor199389 wrote: »

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

"Reduced the damage from all ranged Light and Medium Attacks by 10% to ensure they meet ranged damage standards. Heavy Attacks already meet these standards."

Light Attack Weaving was an unintended mechanic that was allowed -- and the numbers from Light Attack Weaving got to out of control levels.
Instead of trimming it or trying to tweak it now and again, and making all sorts of changes elsewhere constantly to bring numbers down to your "damage standards", how about just starting by removing Light Attack Weaving altogether? Recognize that it should have never been allowed.

And players who don't use the unintentional unintuitive exploiting-your-programming of animation cancelling in light attack weaving get penalized by this change.

Please explain a skill like grim focus if light attacks are not intended.

Light Attacks are not an unintended mechanic. Don't state your "facts" as real facts.
Light Attack weaving is what distigues eso from any other MMO. That is what makes ESO so much more fun than any other Game. You have to practice.

Maybe instead of "removing" light attacks just except the skill gap and except that not every title is ment for everyone to achieve. Otherwise... just put it in Crownstore.

Light attacl weaving does exist in other games, its just that it is called auto attack. Only differnt is thst it deals signifcantly less damage in other games because it is essentaily free damge that cost no resources.

universal_wrath

with the current changes to major/ minor buffs/debuffs. Storm atronach major berserk synrgy should affect mtiple targets and last longer. On live, it only affects 1 target and last for 8 secs.

Also, lightning splash and its morphs is too weak in comparison to other AOE generic and class skills. Lightning splash and its morphs are still missing 1 second of their overall duration. Currently on live, it is stated in skill description that is last 10 secs, but it actually last 9 secs instead. Also lightning flood last 9 secs instead of 10 secs. Liquid lightning also last 13 secs insteas of 14 secs. This problem has been around for a year now and no actions were done to address this problem.

Scion_of_Yggdrasil

IrishOphidia wrote: »

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

"Reduced the damage from all ranged Light and Medium Attacks by 10% to ensure they meet ranged damage standards. Heavy Attacks already meet these standards."

Light Attack Weaving was an unintended mechanic that was allowed -- and the numbers from Light Attack Weaving got to out of control levels.
Instead of trimming it or trying to tweak it now and again, and making all sorts of changes elsewhere constantly to bring numbers down to your "damage standards", how about just starting by removing Light Attack Weaving altogether? Recognize that it should have never been allowed.

And players who don't use the unintentional unintuitive exploiting-your-programming of animation cancelling in light attack weaving get penalized by this change.

The only people who complain about LA weaving are the people who don't know how to do it properly. LA weaving does nothing to "break the game" or give an sort of unfair advantage. Players who put the time and effort in to learn this mechanic will benefit from it. Those who do not will not. It's a simple concept. If you were to remove LA weaving, the combat system would essentially face plant. You'd go from having a smooth uninterrupted flow of combat that feels interactive to a clunky, unimpressive, and slow combat system. ESO became popular in the first place due to its fast paced and active combat system.

I light attack weave. I got the hang of it after just a few tries..... and I am against it. Maybe try not to insult players, that would be a good start. Way too many people glorify an accidental combat mechanic.

Ironically enough, your exact argument about not-weaving describes weaving perfectly. Nothing about weaving is smooth, your character cuts animations short and spazzes out. There is nothing uninterrupted about weaving, as it literally interrupts your skills/attacks. Animation cancelling is clunky, not the other way around, since you have to follow a strict pattern of button presses. Wheres the finesse in repeating the same pattern over and over again vs dynamically reacting to the present situation? So many players can't function outside their rotation.

I see so many insults about how non-weavers need to l2p, when most people I see who weave can't step out of red, or stop their rotation long enough to properly react to mobs or mechs. Thats the real l2p issue, not the fact that many of us hate the undeniably un-intuitive craze of animation canceling.

My biggest complaint about weaving? Not the overly-praised "skill" gap, but just the fact it cuts off animations. How clunky/ugly/visually disappointing. Whats the point of all the visuals then if they intended for us to interrupt them???

Besides, you can still "light attack weave" if they forced animations to play to completion, you would just have to wait the added second before continuing (and would still be required for things like the bow passive, or sets with stacks proc-ed by light/heavy attacks). Having to time your light attacks organically based on the varying animation times would be more skill than spazzing out to a metronome. Nothing about weaving feels natural, and like most have pointed out, the game does not teach you how to do this. All the more reason its not a legitimate, intended feature of the game, just an accident that has yet to be cleaned up.

Atherakhia

Scion_of_Yggdrasil wrote: »

IrishOphidia wrote: »

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

"Reduced the damage from all ranged Light and Medium Attacks by 10% to ensure they meet ranged damage standards. Heavy Attacks already meet these standards."

Light Attack Weaving was an unintended mechanic that was allowed -- and the numbers from Light Attack Weaving got to out of control levels.
Instead of trimming it or trying to tweak it now and again, and making all sorts of changes elsewhere constantly to bring numbers down to your "damage standards", how about just starting by removing Light Attack Weaving altogether? Recognize that it should have never been allowed.

And players who don't use the unintentional unintuitive exploiting-your-programming of animation cancelling in light attack weaving get penalized by this change.

The only people who complain about LA weaving are the people who don't know how to do it properly. LA weaving does nothing to "break the game" or give an sort of unfair advantage. Players who put the time and effort in to learn this mechanic will benefit from it. Those who do not will not. It's a simple concept. If you were to remove LA weaving, the combat system would essentially face plant. You'd go from having a smooth uninterrupted flow of combat that feels interactive to a clunky, unimpressive, and slow combat system. ESO became popular in the first place due to its fast paced and active combat system.

I light attack weave. I got the hang of it after just a few tries..... and I am against it. Maybe try not to insult players, that would be a good start. Way too many people glorify an accidental combat mechanic.

Ironically enough, your exact argument about not-weaving describes weaving perfectly. Nothing about weaving is smooth, your character cuts animations short and spazzes out. There is nothing uninterrupted about weaving, as it literally interrupts your skills/attacks. Animation cancelling is clunky, not the other way around, since you have to follow a strict pattern of button presses. Wheres the finesse in repeating the same pattern over and over again vs dynamically reacting to the present situation? So many players can't function outside their rotation.

I see so many insults about how non-weavers need to l2p, when most people I see who weave can't step out of red, or stop their rotation long enough to properly react to mobs or mechs. Thats the real l2p issue, not the fact that many of us hate the undeniably un-intuitive craze of animation canceling.

My biggest complaint about weaving? Not the overly-praised "skill" gap, but just the fact it cuts off animations. How clunky/ugly/visually disappointing. Whats the point of all the visuals then if they intended for us to interrupt them???

Besides, you can still "light attack weave" if they forced animations to play to completion, you would just have to wait the added second before continuing (and would still be required for things like the bow passive, or sets with stacks proc-ed by light/heavy attacks). Having to time your light attacks organically based on the varying animation times would be more skill than spazzing out to a metronome. Nothing about weaving feels natural, and like most have pointed out, the game does not teach you how to do this. All the more reason its not a legitimate, intended feature of the game, just an accident that has yet to be cleaned up.

They talk out of both sides of their mouth. One post they'll tell you light attack weaving is easy and another they'll tell you the reason people complain about it is it's too hard. The problem with light attack weaving and animation cancelling is it's unintuitive and inconsistently 'implemented'. It's clearly a fragment of a poorly designed combat system and left in place because overhauling said combat system is likely too large a task. Clearly ZOS agrees that it's impacting their bottom line as they tried to overhaul it 6ish months ago and were met with largescale complaints by people who largely didn't even bother trying the new system and instead complained about a single sentence in the post as opposed to the actual substance.

Regardless, this is the PTS forum and not worth discussing here.

To get things back on track, I'd like to direct everyone to the Necromancer class and how Magicka Necromancers are awful.

They were awful before Stalking Blastbones was changed and now doesn't work.
They were awful before Harmony was cut in half and nothing was adjusted for the Necromancer to compensate.
They are awful now with slated changes to Maim, Protection, and Vulnerability all having a direct impact on the class.

The major protection and major mending changes are too large given that the skills that apply these buffs have traditionally been balanced by the fact that their duration is incredibly short. Now that these buffs are both trivial in overall power, there's no need for their durations to be so limited. That said, the solution should be to make applying these types of major buffs actually valuable and noticeable so I'd much rather see their effects increased to 15/20%.

Olupajmibanan

dhoward5b14_ESO wrote: »

Maim changes and Heroic Slash:

It appears that boss damage will effectively be going up 10% without using currently unused sets to apply major maim (or Shadowrend with it's unique 5% debuff). This is because Heroic Slash used to maim for 15% but now will only maim 5%. Obviously this is 10% more damage on the tank - usually not a problem.

In fights where group deaths from burst damage is a real problem (e.g. 1st boss vMoL shield phase), this would require some mitigation. Tanks could forgo a damage set for a maim set (I believe only Banis will give almost full maim uptime, and it must be on whoever is taunting the boss). I'm not sure that shield sets would be that effective (Combat physician would be very RNG on when it has proc'd, and Prayer Shawl isn't useful in large groups). Healers could use Mending (if they can be close to boss).

Using Vateshran SnB should be the solution to this type of encounters. You have to sacrifice a skill slot on your SnB bar for Power Bash, but in combination with Heroic Slash, you'll get to +- same mitigation level as with old Minor Maim. Definitely more mitigation than Shadowrend. Or in best case, one tank will have Shadowrend and the other Vateshran SnB for solid group damage mitigation.

Donaldjdrumpf46

The change to the Master Assassin passive is horrendous. It'll be over-powered in pvp, while being useless in moderately organized pve raid groups, whilst also strongly encouraging a 5 nightblade 3 necromancer composition in pve

Tannus15

universal_wrath wrote: »

with the current changes to major/ minor buffs/debuffs. Storm atronach major berserk synrgy should affect mtiple targets and last longer. On live, it only affects 1 target and last for 8 secs.

Also, lightning splash and its morphs is too weak in comparison to other AOE generic and class skills. Lightning splash and its morphs are still missing 1 second of their overall duration. Currently on live, it is stated in skill description that is last 10 secs, but it actually last 9 secs instead. Also lightning flood last 9 secs instead of 10 secs. Liquid lightning also last 13 secs insteas of 14 secs. This problem has been around for a year now and no actions were done to address this problem.

major berserk has taken a huge nerf, and every set that grants major berserk had their duration doubled. atro? not so much.

Donaldjdrumpf46

karthrag_inak wrote: »

So, will khajiit get some kind of recompense since the crit chance nerf affects them more than any other race?

They need a buff even without taking the incoming crit nerf into account.

Jman100582

Idea for power of the light/purifying light:

Instead of it being an unblockable single target direct dmg ability, it could be something similar to the curse that sorcerers have. BUT, instead of applying it to a target, apply it to yourself. And after 6 secs it releases a percentage of the dmg that u have dealt to all targets in a circular aoe. This combines certain elements from proxi det and curse, which I think would be unique. It requires a player to stay on the offense, unlike proxi or curse which just rely on u activating the ability. This way it still keeps the theme of the skill, but better suites the templars kit. How much dmg it replicates around u is up for debate, as since it can store dmg from hitting multiple targets it will obviously have to be less then the current 20%.

Either way, just a thought

ExistingRug61

I have a couple of concerns regarding the changes to buffs and how they affect magicka vs stamina sustain.

Firstly, the availability of minor intellect vs minor endurance. The value of these buffs have been increased to 20%, so the importance and value of them to builds has increased. However, minor endurance is readily available to all classes via weapon/guild skills, notably momentum, whereas minor intellect is only available to some classes via class skills, and even then perhaps not on a skill as commonly used even by those classes as momentum is by stam builds. As such it seems like almost all stamina builds will gain a sustain buff from this change, whereas this is not the case for magicka builds.

Perhaps minor intellect could be made more readily available via multiple weapon/guild/world skills like minor endurance is to balance this issue.

Secondly, the reduction in the value of minor magickasteal obviously also is a change that only affects magicka sustain, whereas stamina sustain is unaffected (sure there is no equivalent minor staminasteal, but stamina gets a generic cost reduction on all skills, which is unchanged, and this somewhat balances magickasteal). It seems like if sustain was currently balanced in the live version between magicka and stamina, then this change will mean it no longer is. Is there something else that could be done make up for this loss of sustain that only affects magicka builds?

It may be that sustain is simply not an issue anymore given that major intellect and major endurance are now 40% leading to everyone having enough sustain anyway, but if not then it seems like there is now an imbalance.

rrimöykk

Please help magDK sustain. It is absolutely worst ever atm. I don't want to put my favourite character to the bin.

ebix_

9k penetration for 1350 Stamina
Pierce Armor is overpowered now and it will allow really tanky builds to have a huge source of penetartion.

Aznarb

ebix_ wrote: »

9k penetration for 1350 Stamina
Pierce Armor is overpowered now and it will allow really tanky builds to have a huge source of penetartion.

That will also give the option to finally get ride of Alkosh and try new set since we can hit the cap easier.