PTS Update 30 - Feedback Thread for Classes & Abilities

boaz733

this patch looks promising,
but a few things ruined it for me, kinda making me not to care anymore:


1 . The Battle Spirit passive now also reduces your Health Recovery by 50% - nobody asked for it, why?
2. Gaze of Sithis - it's insanely overperforming while the other 4 are heavily underperforming
3. Heavy Armor - Unstoppable - this is long overdue that CC should be removed - u made this skill useless to both PVE and PVP, don't care about the morph really, as far as I concern just make the unmorphed version without any effect any remove the CC.

VaxtinTheWolf

Narvuntien wrote: »

I understand you are all super passionate about balance but we all know that ZoS's balance team moves at a glacial pace at best you'll see some of your ideas start to turn up next year.

I/We all gave suggestions several years ago and I still haven't seen a single noticeable adjustment in favor of those changes for Nightblades. Even some decent quality of life would be appreciated. I've already been waiting for the 'next year' (New Chapter) multiple times telling myself "this will be the time they do.. something, right?" I had hope that the Class Audit would bring some good changes, but several classes never got their turn and then it was put on hold, seemingly indefinitely at this point, and now we're just left with the scraps that are tossed out.

So here we are again, another PTS cycle; Where is Major Sorcery/Brutality on Siphoning Strikes? Making Refreshing Path's area match Twisting Path so that it's more user friendly for healers/tanks, or giving Nightblades some built in stealth(crouch) speed bonuses so you don't need to be a friggin' Vampire or use a set to play stealthy. Taking basically forgotten morphs like "Shrewd Offering" and- I don't know, have it do something more interesting? Heal two targets for 2/3 the original value but drain slightly more health? Provide an additional group buff for effected targets? Something.. Mark Target is also pretty lackluster, same with the execute morph Impale since all it does it make it ranged. That's boring too, right? and I think the scaling on this skill in general could be increased to 35% at least. Others have pointed out that Teleport Strike has flaws too, that can be reacted to and countered by players who are combat aware, and potentially outright kill you just for using it. There's more than just this of course, and it's certainly not only Nightblades, but every class needs proper and/or further adjustments than what has been done so far.

The problem in general is that the majority of the time they will implement changes however and whenever they feel like it, and the only feedback they want or seem to accept has to specifically be related to what they've done and anything else is hands over ears. Maybe I'm just talking out of my tail and it's not as bad as it feels and just waiting a little longer will actually bring changes the majority of the playerbase will end up liking, but who really knows.

I'll dig up suggestions I made a little while time ago that may or may not even all be relevant anymore now but it was still something I guess. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6572004/#Comment_6572004

p4l4mu7

Can we please get a developer comment on what are they planning for brawler/tank nightblades. So far it feels like they're trying to kill the tank nightblades. We need to hear something from balance team so we know whether we should give up on out brawler/tank nightblades or not.

phil.maricel08ub17_ESO

RogueShark wrote: »

xI_The_Owl_Ix wrote: »

Just to add to PvE:

PvE class balance isnt much better, most endgame groups straight up run with 8 necro DDs all magicka because stamina hasnt been viable since craglorn trials...

Worse now, a stam in an all or mostly-mag group struggles to support themselves penetration-wise. I'm running lover with a cringey crit rate just to hit pen cap because it's not worthwhile supporting a stam when 6 out of 8 dps don'tneed alkosh.
Why not find a stam group? Finding one WOULD be the problrm there; mag just works so much better, the real question is why run stam at all?

We're losing more pen with this patch. It's getting harder to make up. Bad changes. Stam needs some more work put into it, PvE wise.

Please pay attention to this poster that's quoted. You guys are consistently making it harder for stamina to compete with end game scoring runs. How are we supposed to reach penetration cap now? Do you not want stamina to be viable for PvE end game? Where do these supposed changes come from and who thinks of them without completely going through how they will effect both stamina and magicka? This will completely DELETE stamina in trial groups. Please, get into your game and play all characters and classes so that you get a sense of what you are literally doing to half of the DD classes. Please remember that staves are not the only weapons that you put into your game and that melee DD isnt just a myth for PvE!

ArcVelarian

There is just a laundry list of buffs that need to be considered based on DK's abysmal performance.

1. Lava Whip (and both morphs) need to scale off of highest offensive stats.
2. Inferno (and both morphs) should really be activating every 1 or 2 seconds as opposed to 5 seconds.
3. Combustion should be providing Magicka and Stamina resource restoration per DoT tick in addition to flat regen.
4. Dragon Blood should scale based on max health and not missing health.
5. Inhale needs a damage buff and a Stamina Morph.
6. Iron Skin should be doubled (to 20%) if not tripled (to 30%).
7. Burning Heart should increase healing received by 20% while a Draconic Power ability is active.
8. Draconic Power abilities need to have their costs reduced in general.
9. Scaled Armor should provide 3300 Physical Resistance in addition to 3300 Spell Resistance.
10. Stone Giant NEEDS to have that stupid cast time removed in addition to a 20% damage buff.
11. Ash Cloud (and both morphs) should have its radius increased to 8 meters and Cinder Storm should heal for significantly more.
12. Mountain's Blessing should generate 6 Ultimate every 3 seconds.

RandomKodiak

Sorc: Crystal Frags not fragging! 50 casts of Crystal frag and not one single instant for more damage. I know it's a 35% chance but literally 50 in a row without a single proc? Update 50 casts of Mages wrath and no procs for it either.

SilverKatz

DK is in desperate need for better class healings .

1. Dragon blood ( both morph)
   Although the cost of dragon blood is reduced but it is still the very least healing in heal/cost ratio .It is amazing heal on tanks with 50K health, but it is terrible for other roles for dk.
   Other class heals in similar cost : the best single target burst heals Pet heal / Render Flesh ; or the best HoTs Darkclock Winter’s Embrace.
   
   
2. Cauterize
   The gap between Cauterize is so large , which making it unreliable, unaccountable . In both PVP and PVE no one could expecting a heal would arrive in 5 second later ,with a sip of mediocre heal amount.
   That is also the case that player isnt get killed during this 5 sec. Which is mostly impossible against Dungeon/Trail mechanisms or a burst of dmg from PVP . I would call it the worst healings .
   

Firstmep

SilverKatz wrote: »

DK is in desperate need for better class healings .

1. Dragon blood ( both morph)
   Although the cost of dragon blood is reduced but it is still the very least healing in heal/cost ratio .It is amazing heal on tanks with 50K health, but it is terrible for other roles for dk.
   Other class heals in similar cost : the best single target burst heals Pet heal / Render Flesh ; or the best HoTs Darkclock Winter’s Embrace.
   
   
2. Cauterize
   The gap between Cauterize is so large , which making it unreliable, unaccountable . In both PVP and PVE no one could expecting a heal would arrive in 5 second later ,with a sip of mediocre heal amount.
   That is also the case that player isnt get killed during this 5 sec. Which is mostly impossible against Dungeon/Trail mechanisms or a burst of dmg from PVP . I would call it the worst healings .
   

Actually, coag can heal for more than render flesh/breath of life, if you are low on hp.
As for cauterise, well yes, 5 seconds is too long.

YandereGirlfriend

DK Healers need Cauterize to include multiple targets (and to decrease the cooldown) if there's any chance for them to move out of the meme tier for healers. It should also include Major Savagery for slotting it since it already scales with maximum stats and it should be equally useful for Stamina characters (or Stamina Healers...).

DK Healers also need a substantial radius increase in Cinder Storm (at least 6 meters but preferably 8 or even 10 for such a crushingly expensive skill) since five meters is criminally tiny. The snare is also unnecessary and could stand to be replaced with an effect that buffs the party and that sets it apart from other healers. A rare Minor buff such as Minor Heroism (or, less interestingly, Minor Force or Minor Fortitude) would really make this ability stand out as well as provide a reason to include a DK Healer in a group. For reference, Illustrious Healing costs half the Magicka and already has a radius of 8 meters.

Obsidian Shard is a conceptually amazing skill and its burst heal is quite powerful but requiring an enemy to cast as well as its 2 player target cap greatly circumscribe its general usefulness. If the target provision remains on the skill, then it, too, ought to have a powerful secondary effect to complement the burst heal. A buff for the healed targets such as Minor Courage would be a worthy reward. For reference, a universal burst heal like Combat Prayer a) costs substantially less Magicka, b) heals more group members (up to 6 rather than 2), and c) provides valuable secondary effects (Minor Berserk and Minor Resolve).

phantasmalD

I disagree on that last part, Obsidian Shard is already amazing, that's the one skill that doesn't really need any extra effects and is actually usable. It's a vastly superior version of Breath of Life as it's omnidirectional, has a longer reach, cheaper and heals for more. It's about on par with Twilight Matriarch, which iirc is the best burst skill in the game?!

The target provision requirement is completely inconsequential as if there are no enemies nearby then you don't need use a huge emergency burst heal. In other words, you only need to use big burst skills when there's active danger (aka enemies) around, which means you have a target to proc it off on.
The only bad thing about OS is that it has a good 1 second delay between firing and the healing reaching the target, but you can anticipate the damage and pre-fire it.

Compat Prayer is a ludicrous comparison
a) heals for way less, so if only one or two person needs healing it's not efficient
b) it's an AoE which means you can't heal targets NOT in front of you (sometimes you have to split up, for example: SCP bosses + PUG DDs love to stand behind the healer)
c) has only a reach of 20 meter as opposed to a reach of 56m(!!)
d) Minor Berserk is not a unique buff, there are other sources (for example, Kinras'), same for Minor Resolve, so the buffs' usefulness depends on team composition


Cinder Storm
The snare has the niche usefulness of stopping trash packs from spreading out so they remain grouped together for longer, but you are better off getting the other morph, Eruption, so they also die faster since you don't need heavy healing for most trash fights. And then swap to Illustrious Healing for boss fights.
But the radius. the radius is truly, utterly ridiculous. Iirc it's supposedly so small to stop it from being too oppressive in PvP, buuuut, we have Caltrops, 50% snare with an 8m radius??????

This is pretty much the theme for DK healers, everything they could bring to the table (besides Obsidian Shard, Engulfing Flames and occasionally Talons) is either obsolete or there's a universal skill that does the job better.

Cinder Storm -> Caltrops or Grand Healing
Cauterize -> Regeneration
Magma Armor -> Barrier
Obsidian Shield -> Bone Shield
Molten Weapons -> obsolete

So you just end up swapping out all your class skills for universal skills cause they do the job better.

Back onto the radius of Cinder Storm. The 5m radius means that CS covers an area of pi*25 = 78.5 meter area. While Illustrious Healing covers pi*64 = 201 meters. That alone is already a bonkers difference, but not even the opportunity cost is balanced. [using numbers from my own tooltips here btw]

Illustrious Healing is 2350 healing for 1+12s for 2527 magicka = 12.09 healing per magicka
Cinder Storm is 2309 for 18s for 5103 magicka = 8.14 HpM

Tbh, this last difference is mainly only present for the morphs, the base versions are more balanced:
Grand Healing is 1564 for 1+8s for 2527 magicka = 5.57
Ash Cloud is 1540 for 18s for 5103 magicka = 5.43

So the thing that mainly breaks balance here is the overloaded morph bonus of IH?!

phantasmalD

The stuff that def needs to be looked at imo:

Cinder Storm
Needs a larger radius and/or a better morph effect.
Potentially a synergy that gives a shield to the activator?

Cauterize -
Unusable to trigger on-heal procs as it only fires once every 5 seconds on a single person.
Unusable for burst heal needs as it's actually pretty small heal and it doesn't fire when there's a need for it. In other words, enemies are not polite enough to wait 5 seconds between hits so their damage corresponds with the proc of Cauterize. :V

Potential idea: change it to a smart heal that automatically targets any ally or you when their HP dips below 30%. This can happen up to 5 times while the fireball lasts.

Obsidian Shield
Laughably small shield and multiple DKs overwrite each other's shields
Resto staff already gives Major Mending, so little use for the buff.

Magma Armor
Even on a tank build, Barrier gives larger and longer lasting shields to your teammates AND targets more people AND has a larger range. And the shield you give yourself is on par with the survival buff MA gives you. Plus Barrier has the passive benefit of increasing your Mag recovery by 10%.

At least the targetting limit should be raised for MA.

Molten Weapons
Pointless skill since everyone has access to Major Brutality and Sorcery, THE easiest buff to get.

nihoumab14_ESO

DK Supports really, really, really need help. As is, we have no useful synergies from a support perspective, and we only have a few useful skills, none of which really synergize with class passives or other class abilities all that much. Another problem is most of our support abilities share space with offensive or tank abilities. We have no healer abilities that offer two competing healer morphs. The closest is Obsidian shield with a tank morph and healer morph. Other healers get choice for how to customize their healer skills. And I won't even comment on Dragon Blood. Enough has been said about that, and it isn't really a healer skill anyways.

Cauterize
This really needs to be relooked at. It is a HOT, but one that ticks every 5 seconds. Either make it hit harder, increase frequency, or make it heal 2 targets or give some other benefit. This skill is also not affected by any class passives at all. It should at least be affected in some way by at least 1 class passive. Even the "increase duration" passives (which shouldn't be a thing anyways) don't affect it.

Obsidian Shard
The DK burst heal. That has to target an enemy, not an ally. While it is a strong burst heal, having to damage an enemy just doesn't feel good. First, you have to wait for the projectile to hit an enemy, then for the heal to hit. The range is nice, theoretically the largest range heal in the game, and it's an improvement from the stun + heal it used to do. Please, let this be cast on an ally. You can even keep the name and maintain that feel. "Draw forth healing magma to heal yourself or up to 2 allies for X health. You then cool the magma into obsidian shards that slam into a nearby enemy, dealing X damage." With this one change, this ability becomes great.

Molten Weapons
I like the idea of this ability, and I think it is undervalued. You can give a group Major Brutality and Sorcery, great for helping friends save money on more expensive pots for regular dungeons while still keeping the damage boost, as well as for PVP (especially with randoms) to give them an extra edge if they aren't potting for these buffs. That said, I wish it did more with the igneous weapons morph that gave DKs something unique to offer as support, but that isn't mandatory like other unique buffs like Minor Toughness. Something like "While Igneous Weapons is active, and you heal an ally, they gain X ultimate. This effect can only occur every X seconds" or "While Igneous Weapons is active, and you heal an ally, they gain a damage shield for 3 seconds for X". There are plenty of things that can be done with this morph other than a boring "It lasts longer."

Obsidian Shield
This ability and it's morphs are meh at best for DK healers. Sure, it is nice getting Major Mending, but with the Major Mending nerf, and the lackluster shields provided by this ability for the cost, it just isn't worth spending the cost and cooldown for an extra 16% healing, especially since these shields overwrite the ones of other DKs, even if that other DKs shield is stronger.

This ability needs changes as Major Mending just isn't the same juicer for heals as it once was. It'd be nice if this ability actually scaled off of max magicka for the shield strength for Fragmented Shield morph, even if it didn't scale as aggressively as the health scaling on the Igneous Shield morph, or even gave major mending for longer (though 6 seconds still feels decadently long, Major Mending just isn't the show stopper it used to be as a buff). Whatever is done, this ability needs something more. It feels under budgeted, and I know part of it is because it affects up to 6 allies, but if the only useful place to use this skill is in Trials, it doesn't matter if DKs are never brought to Trials, especially as healers, in the first place.

Shattering Rocks
Why is this morph even a thing? Either put in a dedicated healer ability that has nothing to do with the base ability like is done for all other DK abilities à la Cauterize and Obsidian Shard (such as a shield on an ally that heals upon expiration?), or make it an actually useful alternative to Fossilize. Is it a strong heal? Sure, stronger than a tick of cauterize. But slotting this as a heal is a bad idea anyways as is. You don't get healed until the stun expires, you can't stun something that is CC immune, like something you recently stunned, and stunning things at the wrong time in certain situations is worse than not stunning them at all (like PVP, I've gotten yelled at numerous times for stunning enemies at the wrong time, and understandably so. I thought this was a good support skill in my more noobish days.

This is not a good support skill. And Fossilize will always be better as a support skill). Just change this to be literally anything else.

Cinder Storm
Why is this so expensive, so small, and so underwhelming? Illustrious healing is essentially 201 square meters, Cinder Storm is 78 square meters. Sure, this lasts 6 seconds longer than illustrious healing, but that makes it even worse because of how expensive it is. It's hard to justify casting this spell over illustrious healing except in circumstances where you know the fight will stay in that small 78 square meter area for a good chunk of 18 seconds. Illustrious Healing, in contrast, is less than half the cost for 2/3rds the duration for a larger area, for very similar healing numbers.

Remove the snare from this ability, and reduce, at the bare minimum. Enlarge it to at least 6 radius, which would be 113 square meters (an improvement, but not by much, 7, or even 8 would be significantly better). Improve the graphics for this one. It shouldn't be hard to see the edges of your own abilities. And if the cost of this ability is going to be the same, it needs to do more than it does now as a support ability, such as offering some kind of morph, purging debuffs from allies in it over time, or anything other than slow enemies.

Magma Armor
This ultimate is the closest thing DKs have to a 'healer ultimate' but it falls so, so short. One of the morphs, Corrosive Armor, is trying to be a DPS ultimate while offering survivability. The other tries to be a healer ultimate while offering survivability. And I get this is also a tank ultimate as well, but I know of no tank builds that use this in high end play, and I've honestly never seen anyone aside from myself use it in group play in dungeons and small group pvp. I honestly feel Corrosive Armor should be removed, and this ultimate retooled. One morph could retain the 3% maximum amount of damage taken at a time and be allowed to refocus as a more 'tank survivability' tool. The other could be reworked to be more healing/support focused as an ultimate, and potentially offer a unique group benefit as well.



Passives

DK passives are awful for healers, in that barely any of them apply to a healer. Combustion is a sustain passive that only works off of Obsidian Shard (and likely why it still requires a target to be hit. Combustion can be changed also work off of critically healing an ally, and the numbers adjusted for that accordingly

Eternal Mountain feels like a meme passive at this point in time. Does any other class have a passive ability which is literally just "Your abilities last longer"? Please, change this to be something useful for supports and readjust ability durations for existing abilities. 2 skill points for a skill like cinder storm to to last longer? Feels bad. Feels really bad considering that the skill is monumentally worse without that 20% increase, because it isn't like it would be cheaper. These skills are balanced around that duration increase

This isn't to say all of the DK passives are awful. Mountain's Blessing is lots of value for DK healers both in terms of Minor Brutality as well as Ultimate generation. Battle Roar is just chef's kiss. I love that passive so much. Helping Hands is great for PVP sustain (our overall sustain as healers is still really, really poor, because I think too much value for sustain passives is placed on Battle Roar).



This became way longer than I intended it to be. Kudos to anyone who actually managed to read all of this rambling text.

TL;DR: All DK healer abilities are fundamentally flawed in some way, please change these for the better

TheBonesXXX

I'd undo the crit nerf to necro and increase the passives from the classes lagging behind.

There's better ways to balance.

Nirntrotter

It's baffling me how after such a long time, with a new chapter coming up, there's a pittance of class changes coming and lots of it feels completely out-of-touch with the reality of current gameplay. Instead of breathing life into vanilla classes according to the vision of DD/Heal/Tank trees that the DLC classes are clearly built around, we're still stuck with multiple class specs that are a underperforming horribly in harder content, not to mention the gigantic rift between mag and stam that seems to steadily get bigger instead of smaller. Still no better definition of class identity through passives. Very disappointed so far.

Firstmep

Nirntrotter wrote: »

It's baffling me how after such a long time, with a new chapter coming up, there's a pittance of class changes coming and lots of it feels completely out-of-touch with the reality of current gameplay. Instead of breathing life into vanilla classes according to the vision of DD/Heal/Tank trees that the DLC classes are clearly built around, we're still stuck with multiple class specs that are a underperforming horribly in harder content, not to mention the gigantic rift between mag and stam that seems to steadily get bigger instead of smaller. Still no better definition of class identity through passives. Very disappointed so far.

I wouldn't hold my breath for any major class reworks anymore.
Somehow the devs always find something that's more important.
I'm convinced that they don't want to do any major class balance, Beacuse they don't want to have to deal with any potential Backlash.

YandereGirlfriend

@nihoumab14_ESO I love your suggestions!

I'd forgotten to mention Magma Shell and definitely agree that it needs significant work in order to bring it up to par for a support ultimate.

At the very least, the shield needs to cover everyone in the group and not be capped at a mere 6 targets. Its closest analogue, Barrier, covers an entire 12-person group and provides additional benefits depending upon the morph. Losing the Flame Damage component for the caster seems like a fair trade in order to strengthen the group component of the morph.

For its secondary benefit, you could invert the ult-gen concept from Replenishing Barrier (that restores 4 ultimate and 1000 Magicka to the caster when each shield ends - for a total of 48 ultimate returned and 12000 Magicka returned) and instead provide ultimate to the shield recipients for each second that the shield remains active on them. Or you could de-couple the secondary effect from the shield and simply provide something like 15 seconds of group Major Heroism (e.g. 30 ultimate per group member).

For pure shielding, Barrier will always be superior since it scales to the moon with Weapon/Spell Damage and its duration is 3x longer than Magma Shell. Meanwhile, Magma Shell will always be inhibited by scaling with Maximum Health so appending some potent group utility is really the only means of it ever finding a home on a Healer's bar.

I would, however, leave Corrosive Armor alone as a damage morph. In fact, I would like to see Spell Penetration added to the morph so that magDKs might get some mileage out the morph as well.

phantasmalD wrote: »

I disagree on that last part, Obsidian Shard is already amazing, that's the one skill that doesn't really need any extra effects and is actually usable. It's a vastly superior version of Breath of Life as it's omnidirectional, has a longer reach, cheaper and heals for more. It's about on par with Twilight Matriarch, which iirc is the best burst skill in the game?!

The target provision requirement is completely inconsequential as if there are no enemies nearby then you don't need use a huge emergency burst heal. In other words, you only need to use big burst skills when there's active danger (aka enemies) around, which means you have a target to proc it off on.
The only bad thing about OS is that it has a good 1 second delay between firing and the healing reaching the target, but you can anticipate the damage and pre-fire it.

Compat Prayer is a ludicrous comparison
a) heals for way less, so if only one or two person needs healing it's not efficient
b) it's an AoE which means you can't heal targets NOT in front of you (sometimes you have to split up, for example: SCP bosses + PUG DDs love to stand behind the healer)
c) has only a reach of 20 meter as opposed to a reach of 56m(!!)
d) Minor Berserk is not a unique buff, there are other sources (for example, Kinras'), same for Minor Resolve, so the buffs' usefulness depends on team composition


Cinder Storm
The snare has the niche usefulness of stopping trash packs from spreading out so they remain grouped together for longer, but you are better off getting the other morph, Eruption, so they also die faster since you don't need heavy healing for most trash fights. And then swap to Illustrious Healing for boss fights.
But the radius. the radius is truly, utterly ridiculous. Iirc it's supposedly so small to stop it from being too oppressive in PvP, buuuut, we have Caltrops, 50% snare with an 8m radius??????

This is pretty much the theme for DK healers, everything they could bring to the table (besides Obsidian Shard, Engulfing Flames and occasionally Talons) is either obsolete or there's a universal skill that does the job better.

Cinder Storm -> Caltrops or Grand Healing
Cauterize -> Regeneration
Magma Armor -> Barrier
Obsidian Shield -> Bone Shield
Molten Weapons -> obsolete

So you just end up swapping out all your class skills for universal skills cause they do the job better.

Back onto the radius of Cinder Storm. The 5m radius means that CS covers an area of pi*25 = 78.5 meter area. While Illustrious Healing covers pi*64 = 201 meters. That alone is already a bonkers difference, but not even the opportunity cost is balanced. [using numbers from my own tooltips here btw]

Illustrious Healing is 2350 healing for 1+12s for 2527 magicka = 12.09 healing per magicka
Cinder Storm is 2309 for 18s for 5103 magicka = 8.14 HpM

Tbh, this last difference is mainly only present for the morphs, the base versions are more balanced:
Grand Healing is 1564 for 1+8s for 2527 magicka = 5.57
Ash Cloud is 1540 for 18s for 5103 magicka = 5.43

So the thing that mainly breaks balance here is the overloaded morph bonus of IH?!

Obsidian Shard is nice in Battlegrounds and in small-scale PvP but it's useless in many PvE contexts and it is impossible to even use in situations where mechanics are causing damage but the boss is untargetable. That is a pretty fundamental flaw of the skill and it absolutely deserves compensation with an added effect.

The snare on Cinder Storm has also got to go as it is hogging up "power budget" on the skill without providing any meaningful utility is the overwhelming majority of contexts. When you cast a healing spell you expect to receive buffs not to debuff the enemy. The snare can stay on Eruption if need be as a negative effect attached to a damage skill makes considerably more sense.

Cinder storm also compares poorly with another class AoE HoT in the Templar's Extended Ritual. Not only is the radius gigantic for that skill (12 meters!) but it also provides the valuable Purge synergy to 6 group members per cast. Further, the Warden AoE HoT provides a synergy in addition to the various highly desirable Warden buffs. Even with an increased radius, leaving Cinder Storm as a plain vanilla HoT without a secondary effect or a group synergy would be a tremendous missed opportunity for the class.

Overall though, I think that everyone who is posting about DK Healers are broadly in agreement that the class is largely a meme that provides no compelling reason to include it in group play. We all want the same thing as well as the skills that need to be modernized in order to achieve it.

Jman100582

living dark isn't scaling with health properly. On a build with 4k spell dmg and 36k hp, it would rather scale with the spell dmg. I think the cc morph (which has been a mess from the start) should take the role of being a heal scaling with spell dmg/max mag and living dark should be the health scaling morph. And the base cost needs to be reduced down to around 3.5k, as the ability only lasts 6 seconds.

Nortenho_PT

Hey,

Just my thoughts about Templar's Rune Focus.
We all know the infamous tanking hability of templar's and this last change contribute even more for that reputation.
One of the skills that help templar to mitigate some damage is the extra Rune Focus Armor.
Templar is an healing focused char and it has already to much healing habilities, and i think you should leave at least the stamina morf to maintain some tankiness, like that you can change what is justified and let the player choose the way.

Lets see if this produce some efects

WrathOfInnos

I think that change to Necromancer’s passive Death Knell was excessive. I think most would agree that 10% crit chance per Grave Lord skill in the current meta is a little high (where crit chance is generally low and crit damage is higher than ever before). However, I believe that back when Necromancer was first introduced the passive seemed balanced (on magcro at least, stamcro was powerful for other reasons).

In 2019 Necro crit damage was typically around 105-110% (from Elfborn, Shadow, Maj/Min Force). These days we have more (EC, Brittle, Khajiit, Backstabber, Maj Force buff) with 150% crit damage reasonably achievable. This means that in terms of power, crit chance is roughly 40% more valuable now, and 10% of 2019 crit chance would be equal to 7% of 2021 crit chance.

Th calculation above is assuming Shadow Mundus. Maybe Thief is more common currently, in which case crit damage drops to ~132% and 10% crit chance from 2019 would be equal to 8% crit chance now.

So maybe 7-8% crit chance per Grave Lord would be fair? But 4% is too low. Keep in mind this passive is Necro’s only form of execute ability.

Another way to look at it is by comparing to Nightblade’s crit chance passive: 2% per Assassination ability. Since Death Knell only applies to 25% of the fight, it could give 8% crit during this window and still average out to the same 2% crit chance as Nightblade. This also seems like a fair way to balance the passive.

4% crit chance with 25% uptime only averages 1% crit chance per Grave Lord skill. This has hardly any impact, and really waters down one of the most valuable and unique things about Necromancer. It also will homogenize builds since there’s very little diminishing return on the new crit peak, so everyone will just stack 5-6 Grave Lird skills front bar (previously builds would use 3-5 GL front bar to optimize crit on both bars, and it was dependent on gear choices).

Anyway, I believe 7-8% crit chance per Grave Lord ability would be balanced, without being overpowered, and retain the feel of the class “execute”.

Raegwyr

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I think that change to Necromancer’s passive Death Knell was excessive. I think most would agree that 10% crit chance per Grave Lord skill in the current meta is a little high (where crit chance is generally low and crit damage is higher than ever before). However, I believe that back when Necromancer was first introduced the passive seemed balanced (on magcro at least, stamcro was powerful for other reasons).

In 2019 Necro crit damage was typically around 105-110% (from Elfborn, Shadow, Maj/Min Force). These days we have more (EC, Brittle, Khajiit, Backstabber, Maj Force buff) with 150% crit damage reasonably achievable. This means that in terms of power, crit chance is roughly 40% more valuable now, and 10% of 2019 crit chance would be equal to 7% of 2021 crit chance.

Th calculation above is assuming Shadow Mundus. Maybe Thief is more common currently, in which case crit damage drops to ~132% and 10% crit chance from 2019 would be equal to 8% crit chance now.

So maybe 7-8% crit chance per Grave Lord would be fair? But 4% is too low. Keep in mind this passive is Necro’s only form of execute ability.

Another way to look at it is by comparing to Nightblade’s crit chance passive: 2% per Assassination ability. Since Death Knell only applies to 25% of the fight, it could give 8% crit during this window and still average out to the same 2% crit chance as Nightblade. This also seems like a fair way to balance the passive.

4% crit chance with 25% uptime only averages 1% crit chance per Grave Lord skill. This has hardly any impact, and really waters down one of the most valuable and unique things about Necromancer. It also will homogenize builds since there’s very little diminishing return on the new crit peak, so everyone will just stack 5-6 Grave Lird skills front bar (previously builds would use 3-5 GL front bar to optimize crit on both bars, and it was dependent on gear choices).

Anyway, I believe 7-8% crit chance per Grave Lord ability would be balanced, without being overpowered, and retain the feel of the class “execute”.

Knowing zos in next patch notes we will see line "Nightblade crit chance passive was too powerful, now it gives 0,5% crit chance per assassination ability slotted,"
I'm tired of these nerfs and new broken op gear each patch tbh

nihoumab14_ESO

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

@nihoumab14_ESO I love your suggestions!

I'd forgotten to mention Magma Shell and definitely agree that it needs significant work in order to bring it up to par for a support ultimate.

At the very least, the shield needs to cover everyone in the group and not be capped at a mere 6 targets. Its closest analogue, Barrier, covers an entire 12-person group and provides additional benefits depending upon the morph. Losing the Flame Damage component for the caster seems like a fair trade in order to strengthen the group component of the morph.

For its secondary benefit, you could invert the ult-gen concept from Replenishing Barrier (that restores 4 ultimate and 1000 Magicka to the caster when each shield ends - for a total of 48 ultimate returned and 12000 Magicka returned) and instead provide ultimate to the shield recipients for each second that the shield remains active on them. Or you could de-couple the secondary effect from the shield and simply provide something like 15 seconds of group Major Heroism (e.g. 30 ultimate per group member).

For pure shielding, Barrier will always be superior since it scales to the moon with Weapon/Spell Damage and its duration is 3x longer than Magma Shell. Meanwhile, Magma Shell will always be inhibited by scaling with Maximum Health so appending some potent group utility is really the only means of it ever finding a home on a Healer's bar.

I would, however, leave Corrosive Armor alone as a damage morph. In fact, I would like to see Spell Penetration added to the morph so that magDKs might get some mileage out the morph as well.

I was maybe a little harsh about Corrosive Armor. I pretty much exclusively heal, and Dragonknight is my first character and still kind of my main, but playing Warden, Templar, and Necro just shows how far behind the curve DKs are not just in terms of healing, but also magicka and stamina damage dealing.

I also think it is very telling that the Skills Advisor for the Elder Dragon advises you to get Igneous Shield for healing, instead of Fragmented Shield.

I just want DK healers to not be laughed at when brought up in a discussion, there is still a huge stigma around DK healers and it isn't helped at all by ZOS allowing them to languish in their current state

actosh

nihoumab14_ESO wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

@nihoumab14_ESO I love your suggestions!

I'd forgotten to mention Magma Shell and definitely agree that it needs significant work in order to bring it up to par for a support ultimate.

At the very least, the shield needs to cover everyone in the group and not be capped at a mere 6 targets. Its closest analogue, Barrier, covers an entire 12-person group and provides additional benefits depending upon the morph. Losing the Flame Damage component for the caster seems like a fair trade in order to strengthen the group component of the morph.

For its secondary benefit, you could invert the ult-gen concept from Replenishing Barrier (that restores 4 ultimate and 1000 Magicka to the caster when each shield ends - for a total of 48 ultimate returned and 12000 Magicka returned) and instead provide ultimate to the shield recipients for each second that the shield remains active on them. Or you could de-couple the secondary effect from the shield and simply provide something like 15 seconds of group Major Heroism (e.g. 30 ultimate per group member).

For pure shielding, Barrier will always be superior since it scales to the moon with Weapon/Spell Damage and its duration is 3x longer than Magma Shell. Meanwhile, Magma Shell will always be inhibited by scaling with Maximum Health so appending some potent group utility is really the only means of it ever finding a home on a Healer's bar.

I would, however, leave Corrosive Armor alone as a damage morph. In fact, I would like to see Spell Penetration added to the morph so that magDKs might get some mileage out the morph as well.

I was maybe a little harsh about Corrosive Armor. I pretty much exclusively heal, and Dragonknight is my first character and still kind of my main, but playing Warden, Templar, and Necro just shows how far behind the curve DKs are not just in terms of healing, but also magicka and stamina damage dealing.

I also think it is very telling that the Skills Advisor for the Elder Dragon advises you to get Igneous Shield for healing, instead of Fragmented Shield.

I just want DK healers to not be laughed at when brought up in a discussion, there is still a huge stigma around DK healers and it isn't helped at all by ZOS allowing them to languish in their current state

Dk healer can do:
Stagger
Engulfing
Igneous
Zens

The way I see it dk has more than enough support offensively.

More unique utility isn't rly what the class needs.

Thraben

Only PvP related:

Nightblade:

- Needs a skill that scales with the targeted player's health if this Crimson/Vanguard health tank nightmare 2.0 starts again, as your itemization does imply
- Needs a non- ultimative synergy to be useful in group play, preferably something following the 6k AOE damage standard of mythic orbs.

general:
Due to the abuse of HoT stacking, either increase the potency of Borrowed Time (the anti- healing effect should now work even without the stun!), or replace every HoT in the game entirely by a new Major/ Minor Regeneration buff.

Other than that, you did a great balancing work in the last patch, and I think I should mention that as well

master_vanargand

Purge and Rapid Maneuver are destroying the game balance in PvP.
The ballgroup spams Purge and Rapid Maneuver.
This is god mode.
So Purge and Rapid Maneuver need to be nerfed.

[My request]
Change Purge's target to self only.
Change Rapid Maneuver's Major Expedition duration to 2 seconds.

Below is a place to discuss Purge and Rapid Maneuver.

master_vanargand wrote: »

Purge and Rapid Maneuver are destroying the game balance in PvP.
The ballgroup spams Purge and Rapid Maneuver.
This is god mode.
So Purge and Rapid Maneuver need to be nerfed.

[My request]
Change Purge's target to self only.
Change Rapid Maneuver's Major Expedition duration to 2 seconds.

YandereGirlfriend

Thraben wrote: »

Only PvP related:

Nightblade:

- Needs a skill that scales with the targeted player's health if this Crimson/Vanguard health tank nightmare 2.0 starts again, as your itemization does imply
- Needs a non- ultimative synergy to be useful in group play, preferably something following the 6k AOE damage standard of mythic orbs.

general:
Due to the abuse of HoT stacking, either increase the potency of Borrowed Time (the anti- healing effect should now work even without the stun!), or replace every HoT in the game entirely by a new Major/ Minor Regeneration buff.

Other than that, you did a great balancing work in the last patch, and I think I should mention that as well

I would absolutely LOVE your change to Borrowed Time.

That skill has so much potential but due to the prevalence of Unstoppable potions and other forms of CC-immunity it is basically never worth the channel time to cast it. Or even to slot it. Your change would bring that skill back into relevance immediately and it would be a powerful tool against large groups.

ESO_Nightingale

PureEnvelope35 wrote: »

Arctic Wind and morphs:

So been testing quite a bit and in both PvE Tank and PvP Magden testing (no procs because I am a Pure and innocent boy.) and man this change hurts a lot.

I was personally hoping for a nerf to Arctic Blast (Because of the sheer amount of healing it put out in PvP with a hard CC) but more in the lines of scaling off of Max Magicka/Spell Damage, removing the stun or just removing the damage altogether and keeping Polar Wind a strong HP based heal for you and nearby allies...

PvE wise its definitely a painful change in regards to Polar Wind, so far not tested in any trials but recovering from hard hitting bosses such as Arkasis or that weird secret hardmode boss in Black Drake that I forgot the name of hurts sustain a lot.

I am not sure if it is something to do with the fact that is a base 20% reduction on a heal that already scales off of health but I do hope that other Wardens feel that a different approach to nerfing the heal should have been taken.

If you change the scaling of arctic blast, all that does is give magicka warden it's 6th magicka based healing skill when we just don't need anymore. The healing efforts should be concentrated into green balance, and arctic blast should be reworked into an offensive based damage and stun skill

nihoumab14_ESO

actosh wrote: »

Dk healer can do:
Stagger
Engulfing
Igneous
Zens

The way I see it dk has more than enough support offensively.

More unique utility isn't rly what the class needs.

Zen is not something inherent to DKs. That is a set debuff, not a class debuff. Anyone can apply it. Stagger is a unique debuff, sure, but it is designed for stamDK, not healer DKs, and it takes the place of our class burst heal. Engulfing flames is unique, sure, but it is the only unique thing DK heals could provide, and you have to build for it. And igneous weapons isn't providing anything unique that most people don't already build in for their potion usage.

DKs as a whole suffer from sustain issues, that isn't something that is unique to DK healers. But DK healers in particular are bottom tier. And as someone who mains as a DK healer (I'm no pro player or anything, just like to do dungeons and battlegrounds), DK healers are bad healers because they don't have any unique utility attached to their heals. Just comparing to Wardens because I know them the best, they have Vines, which is a way better hot than cauterize, and you can morph it to either proc lifesteal or to do a small burst heal upon expiration, they have seeds, which is an aoe hot with a burst heal at the end that can grants a burst heal synergy, or alternatively can be morphed to apply major defile to enemies while still having the burst heal at the end and retaining the synergy, lotus to allow them to heal with light and heavy attacks, and nature's grasp, which allows them to swing around to allies to heal them. In addition, wardens offer Minor Toughness, and are the only source of it in the game. Those are on the healer skills.


What I want, and hope for DK healers isn't for them to be better than other healers, but to be brought potentially to par with at least the midrange ones

Shantu

RandomKodiak wrote: »

Sorc: Crystal Frags not fragging! 50 casts of Crystal frag and not one single instant for more damage. I know it's a 35% chance but literally 50 in a row without a single proc? Update 50 casts of Mages wrath and no procs for it either.

Same here. It's not proc'ing at all.

Urzigurumash

nihoumab14_ESO wrote: »

Magma Armor
This ultimate is the closest thing DKs have to a 'healer ultimate' but it falls so, so short. One of the morphs, Corrosive Armor, is trying to be a DPS ultimate while offering survivability. The other tries to be a healer ultimate while offering survivability. And I get this is also a tank ultimate as well, but I know of no tank builds that use this in high end play, and I've honestly never seen anyone aside from myself use it in group play in dungeons and small group pvp. I honestly feel Corrosive Armor should be removed, and this ultimate retooled. One morph could retain the 3% maximum amount of damage taken at a time and be allowed to refocus as a more 'tank survivability' tool. The other could be reworked to be more healing/support focused as an ultimate, and potentially offer a unique group benefit as well.

Just a note on Corrosive, since it's my favorite Ult, or about tied with Leap.

It's pretty much exclusively for PvP, or Solo PvE, since it gives Max Penetration. If it had some sort of function like, gives Max Penetration for the whole group against every target within the AoE DoT - then it might be something useful in Group PvE.

It's a great Ult, but it's not perfect. One thing about it that confronts every DK, that doesn't confront other classes too much - it's impossible to build for maximum damage while Corrosive is up, without lowering your damage when it isn't. Most of us have always run Mauls for the most part. I like the Max Pen effect, but this is is one small limitation it gives DK.

The big problem with Corrosive is that it lost its ability to grant its Penetration to DoTs, so that it had some parity with Onslaught. This has been especially disastrous for making the most of the full StamDK kit - not just because we lost that old Onslaught that restored Ult on kill, which was a dream come true for Solo DKs willing to take a gamble - but because our Apply-DoTs-and-Tank style offense has been losing power year by year for a range of other reasons, the last thing we needed was the StamDK DoT-Tank Ult losing relevance.

Still, it is strong, and along with Leap is one of the only 2 original StamDK skills, but they've both always really been PvP Ults.

Hotdog_23

nihoumab14_ESO wrote: »

actosh wrote: »

Dk healer can do:
Stagger
Engulfing
Igneous
Zens

The way I see it dk has more than enough support offensively.

More unique utility isn't rly what the class needs.

Zen is not something inherent to DKs. That is a set debuff, not a class debuff. Anyone can apply it. Stagger is a unique debuff, sure, but it is designed for stamDK, not healer DKs, and it takes the place of our class burst heal. Engulfing flames is unique, sure, but it is the only unique thing DK heals could provide, and you have to build for it. And igneous weapons isn't providing anything unique that most people don't already build in for their potion usage.

DKs as a whole suffer from sustain issues, that isn't something that is unique to DK healers. But DK healers in particular are bottom tier. And as someone who mains as a DK healer (I'm no pro player or anything, just like to do dungeons and battlegrounds), DK healers are bad healers because they don't have any unique utility attached to their heals. Just comparing to Wardens because I know them the best, they have Vines, which is a way better hot than cauterize, and you can morph it to either proc lifesteal or to do a small burst heal upon expiration, they have seeds, which is an aoe hot with a burst heal at the end that can grants a burst heal synergy, or alternatively can be morphed to apply major defile to enemies while still having the burst heal at the end and retaining the synergy, lotus to allow them to heal with light and heavy attacks, and nature's grasp, which allows them to swing around to allies to heal them. In addition, wardens offer Minor Toughness, and are the only source of it in the game. Those are on the healer skills.


What I want, and hope for DK healers isn't for them to be better than other healers, but to be brought potentially to par with at least the midrange ones

To me Minor Toughness make more sense on a DK than warden but whatever it's never happening. Sure would be a nice passive if they ever reworked DK's.

Stay safe and enjoy the journey 😊

PS. ZOS stop the micromanagement of the green tree 🥺