DK Needed Buffs

Ragnarock41

ArcVelarian wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Also on an unrelated note to my other post, I've read your list of proposed buffs and they are a little too much, I don't think buffing Dk mitigation makes up for healthy gameplay, especially your suggestion for buffing Iron skin to %30 is just... Not a great suggestion, to put it politely.

Yes DK needs some buffs, but no it does not need to be unkillable. Its been there before a few times, and its not good gameplay for anyone involved. As for stonefist I think literallly everything BUT the tooltip is the problem with this ability. I don't see the point in giving it more damage when the ability feels clunky and disconnected from the rest of the class kit.

At this point ZOS is simply not going to un-cluck DK DoT DPS. Dialing up Stonefist's damage, removing its cast time, and buffing our other direct damage abilities is as good as we're gonna get unless ZOS replaces Brian Wheeler. Not to mention most PvPers would lose their marbles if DK DoTs were returned to Elsweyr levels.

As for the Iron Skin buff, 20% would put it back to where blocking for DKs was before the recent blocking mitigation nerf. 30% would make it better than it was before the nerf.

The 12% increased healing from Burning Heart isn't quite cutting it at the moment. Whether it's increasing that number to 15% or 20% (as a ceiling), or adding some other appropriate effect (increased healing to other players?), the idea here is to give DKs more reasons to slot their own class abilities.

First of all things, I disagree with the idea roaming around in forums that giving stamDk godly tankyness and sustain makes for a good class design or that its the only way to do things right for the class. For stamDk, the best identity they could go for is probably to make this class specialize around being a fighter, with conditional mobility and damage boosts that help it stick to its target and reward agression, passives that grant you bonuses based on your armor weights and weapon choices rather than giving you generic ''you block X more damage, you gain Y resistance because you made a DK, good job'' kind of passives that do not encourage theorycrafting at all. When you give DK tools to be a boring rock, it becomes a boring rock.

Its not my job to tell the devs what to do, but if I'm going to ask for changes, I'd rather ask for fun changes rather than boring ones. So you know who I want to be buffed? I want buffs for the guy who runs a 2h/bow stamDk in glorious outnumbered combat, not the sad zerg tanks that want to hold block all day and pretend to be useful. Wishful thinking in today's ESO, but I'll not approve Dk buffs any other way. Anything we both argue is very unlikely to catch developer attention either way so its pointless to get so emotional about it by the way. You just can't force ZOS to change something like this, it didn't work when Deltia asked ZOS not to gut templars in Morrowind, it will definitely not work when you give them a list of demanded buffs. They simply do not care.

The classes Stam Warden and Stam Necro are excellent duelists atm, perhaps a little too good for their own good. But they are also classes that are very adaptable with tons of stamina morphs and passives. Take warden for example, warden has a lot of passives that work well or don't work at all depending on what you slotted on your bars. In fact warden builds can feel vastly different based on what abilities are on your bar. What if StamDK had passives that worked based on the type of weapon abilities you slotted on your bars or the type of armor you wear? Now that would have been the kind of passive system I'd want to see on a supposedly ''fighter'' class. Thematically it would fit the fighter archetype, even though it doesn't play well with ZOS's ''earth identity'' for stamDK, which lets be honest is a big meme at this point.

Regarding stonefist, should we discuss why it exists to begin with for a second? The reason of this ability existing seems to have more to do with giving stamDk a reason to exist as a PvE damage dealer, rather than being a PvP spammable. It applies a raid debuff to the boss and thats what its balanced around. Alternatively, this debuff could be given to stamDk as a passive on hit effect when using DPS weapons, and it could scale off of stamina so that would prevent from tanks passively applying it to the same effect.

With the burden of stonefist being a raid enabler for sDk gone, devs then could focus on making stonefist something more purposeful and wouldn't have to bother with cast times anyways. It doesn't have to be spammable, honestly nobody really enjoys this as a spammable and its stomp being melee centric and the rest of it being projectile makes it really unwieldly regardless of the cast time. The Cast time is just icing on that really frustrating and not so delicious rock cake. Wanna make it popular? No damage buffs required. Just make it a melee spammable, give it a punch animation and voila, you have yourself a popular spammable.

AinSoph

Reduce Eruption's cost
Turn Inhale into a buff
Have Flame lash do the powerful lash every 3s as well as slightly buff it
Turn molten into the stam variant (the seething stack mechanic is one of the worst I've ever seen)
Inferno should tick every 3s
Buff combustion a bit
Give wings a CHANCE to reflect or reduce incoming projectiles damage while also reflecting the rest of the damage
Remove Obsidian Shard entirely

All my gripes

ResidentContrarian

AinSoph wrote: »

Reduce Eruption's cost
Turn Inhale into a buff
Have Flame lash do the powerful lash every 3s as well as slightly buff it
Turn molten into the stam variant (the seething stack mechanic is one of the worst I've ever seen)
Inferno should tick every 3s
Buff combustion a bit
Give wings a CHANCE to reflect or reduce incoming projectiles damage while also reflecting the rest of the damage
Remove Obsidian Shard entirely

All my gripes

Obsidian shard heals some people for 20K+, pretty sure they won't be happy about losing it...

AinSoph

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

AinSoph wrote: »

Reduce Eruption's cost
Turn Inhale into a buff
Have Flame lash do the powerful lash every 3s as well as slightly buff it
Turn molten into the stam variant (the seething stack mechanic is one of the worst I've ever seen)
Inferno should tick every 3s
Buff combustion a bit
Give wings a CHANCE to reflect or reduce incoming projectiles damage while also reflecting the rest of the damage
Remove Obsidian Shard entirely

All my gripes

Obsidian shard heals some people for 20K+, pretty sure they won't be happy about losing it...

If you're using a DK healer, you've already failed. Not to mention this skill has literally no utility unless you need to heal people like 50m away from you.

Urzigurumash

@Ragnarock41

Great points. A few quick notes -

So many of us are asking for buffs to sustain because that's the thing that holds us back the most. Molten Armaments' HA buff is, in theory, a sort of indirect unique sustain buff, but we all know the issues with that idea. I think for many of us this is more of an "internal" concern rather than about how our sustain relates to other classes. Unless we're playing tankishly and using Spell Symmetry ala a PvE tank, we're almost dependent on tripots to operate at maximal effectiveness.

About buffing the Block Mitigation passive - when we ask for this we're no more thinking about the Permablock role than people asking for Major Expedition on Wings are thinking about Scrollrunning. It's obvious that this passive is deficient in terms of giving DK a noticeable unique buff, and maybe it didn't used to be so deficient, especially in light of the revised Champion System which offers more Block Mitigation.

About Stone Giant, my belief, the reason sDK was given a new skill in the Earthern Heart line is the Ult Gen. For me, it would be ideal if this was made into an offensive version of Frag Shield, somehow, i.e., an offensive buff that's best casted every 6 seconds - for the Ult Gen.

Otherwise, for me the idea about asking for buffs to tankiness is predicated on the idea that the we could "cement" the basegame classes as being as good as any in the following way:

Sorc = MagDD
NB = StamDD
Templar = Healer
DK = Tank

It's not about what we all want for our individual playstle, it's more like - do the above four classes fill this role as well as any other class? For Sorc and NB, yes. For Templar, maybe, sort of. For DK - no. Obviously no, in PvP. Not that being a tank in PvP is all that fulfilling, it's just a simple and straightforward way of assessing whether a basegame class is situated where it should be. That's my idea about it all anyhow. Not saying it's a brilliant idea but it's an idea.

Ippokrates

@Ragnarock41

I concur, great points.

However... I disagree at one point - stonefist exist cause devs watched to much Avatar, when they decided to make fire & earth bender they called DK.

I am always laughing when I am playing my dragonbreathing Uncle Iroh... XD

*But seriosly, imho this is also affecting so-called class-identity, cause class of "Akaviri-Elementalist-Dragonborn Tanks" is the most ridiculous lore combo from all classes in the game.*

Ragnarock41

Ippokrates wrote: »

@Ragnarock41

I concur, great points.

However... I disagree at one point - stonefist exist cause devs watched to much Avatar, when they decided to make fire & earth bender they called DK.

I am always laughing when I am playing my dragonbreathing Uncle Iroh... XD

*But seriosly, imho this is also affecting so-called class-identity, cause class of "Akaviri-Elementalist-Dragonborn Tanks" is the most ridiculous lore combo from all classes in the game.*

Hahah, well if only earthen heart tree was half as cool as earth benders were. Unfortunately the developer team doesn't really have any time, passion or desire towards actually improving the class. It was just busywork for them. They probably needed to check a box that said ''class identity for stamDk done''. So they did the busywork as lazily and fast as they could and called it a day. That was the original stonefist stamina morph. At first it didn't even have a unique animation. Thats how lazy they were. When years of anticipation for a new stamina Dk ability was this lazy thing there was a big backlash and people started memeing the hell out of it, it would be an out of this world situation for stamdk to even receive such attention from community, yet it happened. So they reassured everyone with this blog post:

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/57025

And in another forum post they assured everyone that stonefist would definitely have its animation changed to have more ''earth identity'' or something along those lines. Next patch they gave it a cast time and made the first part an AoE stomp which made it a two stage spammable.

Two stage spammables and abilities in general are normally really fun and unique to use. MagDk whip is a great example of t his. Since you essentially get two abilities in one slot. Yet stonefist was an exception. Because it was made a two stage spammable to prevent Dk tanks from using it, rather than making it fun and interesting for stamDks. It didn't had any interesting synergy with the rest of the class kit. It was just a spam ability with no thought required.

Lets take a look together at what stone giant 2 earth boogaloo thinks it achieves:
1. cast timed AoE stomp
2. ranged spammable with not so much range.
3. Stagger mechanic as raid buff/enabler for stamDk DD
4. Dk earthen hearth passives enabler
5. Stamina stun for Dk

So as you can probably tell, the thing looks very, very overloaded, it seems like it does a lot of things, while in reality it does not much really.

DK identity: Done.
StamDK PvE raid enabler: Done.

And they moved on just like that. So why did I went on this rant anyways? I wanted to show you that there was no great passion or grand vision behind stonefist changes. Just like I originally anticipated, it was just done to check a corporate list somewhere that says ''Do X this patch''. Maybe they didn't have time to do it or other excuses that prevented them from delivering great results, but none of that matters to an audience that waited and supported their game for multiple years.

JayKwellen

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Ippokrates wrote: »

@Ragnarock41

I concur, great points.

However... I disagree at one point - stonefist exist cause devs watched to much Avatar, when they decided to make fire & earth bender they called DK.

I am always laughing when I am playing my dragonbreathing Uncle Iroh... XD

*But seriosly, imho this is also affecting so-called class-identity, cause class of "Akaviri-Elementalist-Dragonborn Tanks" is the most ridiculous lore combo from all classes in the game.*

Hahah, well if only earthen heart tree was half as cool as earth benders were. Unfortunately the developer team doesn't really have any time, passion or desire towards actually improving the class. It was just busywork for them. They probably needed to check a box that said ''class identity for stamDk done''. So they did the busywork as lazily and fast as they could and called it a day. That was the original stonefist stamina morph. At first it didn't even have a unique animation. Thats how lazy they were. When years of anticipation for a new stamina Dk ability was this lazy thing there was a big backlash and people started memeing the hell out of it, it would be an out of this world situation for stamdk to even receive such attention from community, yet it happened. So they reassured everyone with this blog post:

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/57025

And in another forum post they assured everyone that stonefist would definitely have its animation changed to have more ''earth identity'' or something along those lines. Next patch they gave it a cast time and made the first part an AoE stomp which made it a two stage spammable.

Two stage spammables and abilities in general are normally really fun and unique to use. MagDk whip is a great example of t his. Since you essentially get two abilities in one slot. Yet stonefist was an exception. Because it was made a two stage spammable to prevent Dk tanks from using it, rather than making it fun and interesting for stamDks. It didn't had any interesting synergy with the rest of the class kit. It was just a spam ability with no thought required.

Lets take a look together at what stone giant 2 earth boogaloo thinks it achieves:
1. cast timed AoE stomp
2. ranged spammable with not so much range.
3. Stagger mechanic as raid buff/enabler for stamDk DD
4. Dk earthen hearth passives enabler
5. Stamina stun for Dk

So as you can probably tell, the thing looks very, very overloaded, it seems like it does a lot of things, while in reality it does not much really.

DK identity: Done.
StamDK PvE raid enabler: Done.

And they moved on just like that. So why did I went on this rant anyways? I wanted to show you that there was no great passion or grand vision behind stonefist changes. Just like I originally anticipated, it was just done to check a corporate list somewhere that says ''Do X this patch''. Maybe they didn't have time to do it or other excuses that prevented them from delivering great results, but none of that matters to an audience that waited and supported their game for multiple years.

I heard Shang Tsung say fatality at the end there

Luckylancer

Veg wrote: »

OG_Kaveman wrote: »

Veg wrote: »

Just copy/paste this in every thread relating to class mechanics/balance...

if we are just looking at the damage part of that, you have to take into consideration the magic damage part of that, which adds sdamge to it. no idea where you are getting the damage numbers themselves there, on this, http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoSkills, with the default stat numbers. the damage looks like this-

Stir a group of shalk that attack after 3 seconds, dealing 5905 Magic Damage to enemies in front of you.

Summon a flaming skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds. The skeleton runs after the target and explodes when it gets close to them, dealing 6560 Flame Damage to all enemies nearby.Summon a flaming skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds.

Channel draconic energy to suck in the air around you, dealing 1587 Magic Damage to nearby enemies and healing you for 100% of the damage caused.

Any enemy hit that is casting is interrupted, set Off Balance, and stunned for 2 seconds.

After 2.5 seconds, you exhale fire, dealing 4099 Flame Damage to nearby enemies.

1587 + 4099 = 5686 which is almost the same as Deep Fissure(though you get the second hit, effectively doubling the damage from one cast) and only 15% lower then blastbones, which can be CCed and so on.

i believe this 15% is because the healing you get from the magic damage part, as has been said. healing skill always cost more then damage skills too, this is what make the magic cost so much higher.

Those are the base damage values. Without anything increasing them.

As for your claim that you can just add the initial hit damage to the the secondary... That make no sense. In PvP you need to deal all your damage in one go. The little damage at the initial hit is completely irrelevant after the 2.5s. Just compare actual damage done between the 3 skills in PvP. Deep Breath will top out at 5-6k on a glass canon build while Deep Fisher and Blast Bones are ranging between 9-13k on the same kind of build.

That's just the damage, Deep Breath also costs twice as much as the other skills and will do nothing if the initial cast does not have a target. It obviously needs to be buffed.

We're all asking for 4 things to be done to Deep Breath

• Further increase secondary hit base damage by 50-60% (this will match it with fissure and blast bones)
• Remove target requirement for activating the ability (no more wasting 4k magic)
• Remove the heal and initial magic damage
• Decrease cost down to 2500-300 magic

If you want burst damage for PvP why you don't use the best ultimate for it in the game? That ultimate is literaly "I win" button. It damages, it stuns, it AoEs, it sustains, also it is not expensive. Meanwhile wardens and necros can't jump higher than space bar jump + no super hero landing.

"All you are asking" requires a nerfed leap in my opinion. You can't have them both.

Urzigurumash

Luckylancer wrote: »

Veg wrote: »

OG_Kaveman wrote: »

Veg wrote: »

Just copy/paste this in every thread relating to class mechanics/balance...

if we are just looking at the damage part of that, you have to take into consideration the magic damage part of that, which adds sdamge to it. no idea where you are getting the damage numbers themselves there, on this, http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoSkills, with the default stat numbers. the damage looks like this-

Stir a group of shalk that attack after 3 seconds, dealing 5905 Magic Damage to enemies in front of you.

Summon a flaming skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds. The skeleton runs after the target and explodes when it gets close to them, dealing 6560 Flame Damage to all enemies nearby.Summon a flaming skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds.

Channel draconic energy to suck in the air around you, dealing 1587 Magic Damage to nearby enemies and healing you for 100% of the damage caused.

Any enemy hit that is casting is interrupted, set Off Balance, and stunned for 2 seconds.

After 2.5 seconds, you exhale fire, dealing 4099 Flame Damage to nearby enemies.

1587 + 4099 = 5686 which is almost the same as Deep Fissure(though you get the second hit, effectively doubling the damage from one cast) and only 15% lower then blastbones, which can be CCed and so on.

i believe this 15% is because the healing you get from the magic damage part, as has been said. healing skill always cost more then damage skills too, this is what make the magic cost so much higher.

Those are the base damage values. Without anything increasing them.

As for your claim that you can just add the initial hit damage to the the secondary... That make no sense. In PvP you need to deal all your damage in one go. The little damage at the initial hit is completely irrelevant after the 2.5s. Just compare actual damage done between the 3 skills in PvP. Deep Breath will top out at 5-6k on a glass canon build while Deep Fisher and Blast Bones are ranging between 9-13k on the same kind of build.

That's just the damage, Deep Breath also costs twice as much as the other skills and will do nothing if the initial cast does not have a target. It obviously needs to be buffed.

We're all asking for 4 things to be done to Deep Breath

• Further increase secondary hit base damage by 50-60% (this will match it with fissure and blast bones)
• Remove target requirement for activating the ability (no more wasting 4k magic)
• Remove the heal and initial magic damage
• Decrease cost down to 2500-300 magic

If you want burst damage for PvP why you don't use the best ultimate for it in the game? That ultimate is literaly "I win" button. It damages, it stuns, it AoEs, it sustains, also it is not expensive. Meanwhile wardens and necros can't jump higher than space bar jump + no super hero landing.

"All you are asking" requires a nerfed leap in my opinion. You can't have them both.

Leap was an I Win button, until they added its cast time, now it's a coin flip, it's either victory or death while you attempt to cast it. At least in my experience. I think this is why we see a star-rank DK here and there with Dawny or Meteor, or maybe some got stuck on these Ults because of the gap closer issue during the last Imp City event. That event was a great demonstration of the difficulties a class can find when they're entirely reliant on a single skill for burst.

Like I've said before, easiest way to buff DK is to nerf Dawny and Meteor.

INe_Saninus

Luckylancer wrote: »

Veg wrote: »

OG_Kaveman wrote: »

Veg wrote: »

Just copy/paste this in every thread relating to class mechanics/balance...

if we are just looking at the damage part of that, you have to take into consideration the magic damage part of that, which adds sdamge to it. no idea where you are getting the damage numbers themselves there, on this, http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoSkills, with the default stat numbers. the damage looks like this-

Stir a group of shalk that attack after 3 seconds, dealing 5905 Magic Damage to enemies in front of you.

Summon a flaming skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds. The skeleton runs after the target and explodes when it gets close to them, dealing 6560 Flame Damage to all enemies nearby.Summon a flaming skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds.

Channel draconic energy to suck in the air around you, dealing 1587 Magic Damage to nearby enemies and healing you for 100% of the damage caused.

Any enemy hit that is casting is interrupted, set Off Balance, and stunned for 2 seconds.

After 2.5 seconds, you exhale fire, dealing 4099 Flame Damage to nearby enemies.

1587 + 4099 = 5686 which is almost the same as Deep Fissure(though you get the second hit, effectively doubling the damage from one cast) and only 15% lower then blastbones, which can be CCed and so on.

i believe this 15% is because the healing you get from the magic damage part, as has been said. healing skill always cost more then damage skills too, this is what make the magic cost so much higher.

Those are the base damage values. Without anything increasing them.

As for your claim that you can just add the initial hit damage to the the secondary... That make no sense. In PvP you need to deal all your damage in one go. The little damage at the initial hit is completely irrelevant after the 2.5s. Just compare actual damage done between the 3 skills in PvP. Deep Breath will top out at 5-6k on a glass canon build while Deep Fisher and Blast Bones are ranging between 9-13k on the same kind of build.

That's just the damage, Deep Breath also costs twice as much as the other skills and will do nothing if the initial cast does not have a target. It obviously needs to be buffed.

We're all asking for 4 things to be done to Deep Breath

• Further increase secondary hit base damage by 50-60% (this will match it with fissure and blast bones)
• Remove target requirement for activating the ability (no more wasting 4k magic)
• Remove the heal and initial magic damage
• Decrease cost down to 2500-300 magic

If you want burst damage for PvP why you don't use the best ultimate for it in the game? That ultimate is literaly "I win" button. It damages, it stuns, it AoEs, it sustains, also it is not expensive. Meanwhile wardens and necros can't jump higher than space bar jump + no super hero landing.

"All you are asking" requires a nerfed leap in my opinion. You can't have them both.

I won't argue that leap is quite possible the best ult in the game.

...but that's all we got. And it has the most frustrating cast time of any skill. Half the time it will refuse to fire when you need it. My favorite is when it roars like it's fired but nothing happens and you're just setting there eating damage. This can happen multiple times in a row.

Class needs buffs BEFORE we even start talking about a nerf to leap.

Even with the "best" ult in the game, Stam DK sets at the bottom of the trash pile with Stamplar for open world pvp.

Urzigurumash

INe_Saninus wrote: »

...but that's all we got. And it has the most frustrating cast time of any skill. Half the time it will refuse to fire when you need it. My favorite is when it roars like it's fired but nothing happens and you're just setting there eating damage. This can happen multiple times in a row.

Yep, it's a nightmare. I appreciate the effort to increase counterplay to powerful skills like Leap, but the change made to Leap at Harrowstorm could use some adjustment.

gamma71

Does anyone use stone fist? I've never seen a more stupid skill ever. And what generally happens is there some Dev that thought it was a good idea and he's too stubborn to admit that it's all fail. So it probably won't change anytime soon.

Vevvev

AinSoph wrote: »

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

AinSoph wrote: »

Reduce Eruption's cost
Turn Inhale into a buff
Have Flame lash do the powerful lash every 3s as well as slightly buff it
Turn molten into the stam variant (the seething stack mechanic is one of the worst I've ever seen)
Inferno should tick every 3s
Buff combustion a bit
Give wings a CHANCE to reflect or reduce incoming projectiles damage while also reflecting the rest of the damage
Remove Obsidian Shard entirely

All my gripes

Obsidian shard heals some people for 20K+, pretty sure they won't be happy about losing it...

If you're using a DK healer, you've already failed. Not to mention this skill has literally no utility unless you need to heal people like 50m away from you.

Confused magDK healer noises

Granted, I only use Obsidian Shard in hardcore veteran boss fights. Otherwise the super insane burst heal that can hit everyone isn't needed. Still, it's a REALLY good burst heal. I wouldn't hate on it that much.

the1andonlyskwex

Vevvev wrote: »

AinSoph wrote: »

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

AinSoph wrote: »

Reduce Eruption's cost
Turn Inhale into a buff
Have Flame lash do the powerful lash every 3s as well as slightly buff it
Turn molten into the stam variant (the seething stack mechanic is one of the worst I've ever seen)
Inferno should tick every 3s
Buff combustion a bit
Give wings a CHANCE to reflect or reduce incoming projectiles damage while also reflecting the rest of the damage
Remove Obsidian Shard entirely

All my gripes

Obsidian shard heals some people for 20K+, pretty sure they won't be happy about losing it...

If you're using a DK healer, you've already failed. Not to mention this skill has literally no utility unless you need to heal people like 50m away from you.

Confused magDK healer noises

Granted, I only use Obsidian Shard in hardcore veteran boss fights. Otherwise the super insane burst heal that can hit everyone isn't needed. Still, it's a REALLY good burst heal. I wouldn't hate on it that much.

Not to mention that it can also proc burning (which procs combustion).

Rkindaleft

gamma71 wrote: »

Does anyone use stone fist? I've never seen a more stupid skill ever. And what generally happens is there some Dev that thought it was a good idea and he's too stubborn to admit that it's all fail. So it probably won't change anytime soon.

I use it because of lack of a better PvE spammable that actually does something for the group. Like lmao, even rapid strikes or rending slashes spam with Master DW is way stronger DPS wise but Stam DK has absolutely no group utility outside of poop fist.

It's direct damage needs to be buffed or the cast time needs to be removed for it to actually be of any use except for tanks or masochists like myself. I basically need to run it because nobody is taking a Stam DK into vSShm these days otherwise, and it's just a waste of a team slot without it.

Or you know, they could just give us a lime green stamina whip, and nobody would complain. Might even help with the awful sustain. But Zenimax hates Stam DK, that's why they've been the weakest class in the game since Dragonhold, at least.

GetAgrippa

Dk may have needed buffs but I just awoke to a nerf to whip. It no longer has a range of 7 meters. I have to be standing closer to use whip than to land talons.

Veg

Luckylancer wrote: »

Veg wrote: »

OG_Kaveman wrote: »

Veg wrote: »

Just copy/paste this in every thread relating to class mechanics/balance...

if we are just looking at the damage part of that, you have to take into consideration the magic damage part of that, which adds sdamge to it. no idea where you are getting the damage numbers themselves there, on this, http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoSkills, with the default stat numbers. the damage looks like this-

Stir a group of shalk that attack after 3 seconds, dealing 5905 Magic Damage to enemies in front of you.

Summon a flaming skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds. The skeleton runs after the target and explodes when it gets close to them, dealing 6560 Flame Damage to all enemies nearby.Summon a flaming skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds.

Channel draconic energy to suck in the air around you, dealing 1587 Magic Damage to nearby enemies and healing you for 100% of the damage caused.

Any enemy hit that is casting is interrupted, set Off Balance, and stunned for 2 seconds.

After 2.5 seconds, you exhale fire, dealing 4099 Flame Damage to nearby enemies.

1587 + 4099 = 5686 which is almost the same as Deep Fissure(though you get the second hit, effectively doubling the damage from one cast) and only 15% lower then blastbones, which can be CCed and so on.

i believe this 15% is because the healing you get from the magic damage part, as has been said. healing skill always cost more then damage skills too, this is what make the magic cost so much higher.

Those are the base damage values. Without anything increasing them.

As for your claim that you can just add the initial hit damage to the the secondary... That make no sense. In PvP you need to deal all your damage in one go. The little damage at the initial hit is completely irrelevant after the 2.5s. Just compare actual damage done between the 3 skills in PvP. Deep Breath will top out at 5-6k on a glass canon build while Deep Fisher and Blast Bones are ranging between 9-13k on the same kind of build.

That's just the damage, Deep Breath also costs twice as much as the other skills and will do nothing if the initial cast does not have a target. It obviously needs to be buffed.

We're all asking for 4 things to be done to Deep Breath

• Further increase secondary hit base damage by 50-60% (this will match it with fissure and blast bones)
• Remove target requirement for activating the ability (no more wasting 4k magic)
• Remove the heal and initial magic damage
• Decrease cost down to 2500-300 magic

If you want burst damage for PvP why you don't use the best ultimate for it in the game? That ultimate is literaly "I win" button. It damages, it stuns, it AoEs, it sustains, also it is not expensive. Meanwhile wardens and necros can't jump higher than space bar jump + no super hero landing.

"All you are asking" requires a nerfed leap in my opinion. You can't have them both.

Why would shield leap be viable as your only burst skill? If it was then we would be seeing Mag DKs over populating cyrodil as they click 1 button and do 30k+ damage. Why would Deep Breath + shield leap be over powered?

Why can wardens have shalk and db? why can necros have boneyard, blast bones and db or meteor? Both of those classes have better defense and sustain than Mag DK. Deep breath is not a stamina ability its purely for mag DK. Mag DK already has the crap morph of leap (higher cost, less damage and less range). What part about a good deep beath + leap is more powerful than a stam warden running around with high defence, speed and burst damage?

Mag DK would at least run the risks of low mobility, low defence (if using light armor for damage) and lower burst than stamina builds (stamina AoE bursts just have higher base damage than magic)

Do you really see a stam warden with more damage, defense, sustain and healing as less of a threat than a Mag DK with a proper deep breath?

HankTwo

Imo mag DK is getting undervalued a lot on the forums lately. The class was/is amazing in organized group play, like high mmr group bgs. Right now its a bit painful to play because of the block and elder dragon range bugs, but once they get fixed it will be a strong pick again.

If all of the ops suggestion would be implemented it would make DKs flat out op, but there are still some good suggestions in it. I also kinda disagree with people saying deep breath needs to have its damage buffed to the level of shalks or even blastbones. If that would be the case then mag DK would arguably have the strongest burst combo in the game with deep breath --> a skill like talons to bait dodge roll --> leap --> molten whip 3x. What a lot of people seem to forget is that wardens and necros dont have a burst skill like molten whip and they dont have the pressure of a mag DK has in their toolkit.

That being said, there are definitely some pain points I think that should be adressed:

1) I agree that molten whip stacks are a bit too annoying to keep up. Either any DK class skill should proc them, or the duration should be increased to ~ 8 seconds
2) Deep breath definitely needs to have its second explosion happening even if you dont hit anybody with the initial cast to make it more reliable and flexible to use
3) Magma shell needs to have its damage shield range for allies increased (~ to 12 meters) to make it more competitive with barrier as a support ult
4) Obsidian shard is an unreliable mess as a group heal skill in PvP, since it can be dodged and doesnt do anything then. Mag DK healer is far too niche as it is and should be looked at in general
5) I agree that ash cloud range is too small, so it probably should be increased. But then the snare needs to be reduced as well. 8 meter aoe with 70% snare is a no go

And in general, yes, sustain on mag DK is a bit too though, so it should be buffed slightly(!), imo by adjusting the cost of certain skills a bit (like they just did with coagulating blood). But definitely not by too much, because then mag DKs would be able to invest too much into damage and tankyness.

Stam DK on the other hand has a bit of a problem with its identity. There are some things I can think of on the top off my head, like:

1) Cauterize not giving major savagery
2) Poop fist still being a weird mismatched mess of a skill. It is not like it is crazy underpowered per se (if we look at the damage, cost and utility), but it is definitely clunky and unfun to use. Please rework again...
3) Corrosive armor not buffing the class dots stam DK has access to. Maybe they should just change it to give flat ~ 15k physical penetration, idk

But all in all stam DK just needs a more clear direction of what this class is supposed to be...

Ragnarock41

Nchuleftingth wrote: »

gamma71 wrote: »

Does anyone use stone fist? I've never seen a more stupid skill ever. And what generally happens is there some Dev that thought it was a good idea and he's too stubborn to admit that it's all fail. So it probably won't change anytime soon.

I use it because of lack of a better PvE spammable that actually does something for the group. Like lmao, even rapid strikes or rending slashes spam with Master DW is way stronger DPS wise but Stam DK has absolutely no group utility outside of poop fist.

It's direct damage needs to be buffed or the cast time needs to be removed for it to actually be of any use except for tanks or masochists like myself. I basically need to run it because nobody is taking a Stam DK into vSShm these days otherwise, and it's just a waste of a team slot without it.

Or you know, they could just give us a lime green stamina whip, and nobody would complain. Might even help with the awful sustain. But Zenimax hates Stam DK, that's why they've been the weakest class in the game since Dragonhold, at least.

In its first stamina version, stonefist was used by Dk tanks because the stagger mechanic had no stamina scaling at all. Stagger debuff was and still is, a flat number that doesn't scale. So ZOS, using their grand wisdom that us petty mortals can not hope to understand, gave it a cast time so now Dk tanks can't blockcast it.

Wow. Amazing.

Ragnarock41

HankTwo wrote: »

Imo mag DK is getting undervalued a lot on the forums lately. The class was/is amazing in organized group play, like high mmr group bgs. Right now its a bit painful to play because of the block and elder dragon range bugs, but once they get fixed it will be a strong pick again.

If all of the ops suggestion would be implemented it would make DKs flat out op, but there are still some good suggestions in it. I also kinda disagree with people saying deep breath needs to have its damage buffed to the level of shalks or even blastbones. If that would be the case then mag DK would arguably have the strongest burst combo in the game with deep breath --> a skill like talons to bait dodge roll --> leap --> molten whip 3x. What a lot of people seem to forget is that wardens and necros dont have a burst skill like molten whip and they dont have the pressure of a mag DK has in their toolkit.

That being said, there are definitely some pain points I think that should be adressed:

1) I agree that molten whip stacks are a bit too annoying to keep up. Either any DK class skill should proc them, or the duration should be increased to ~ 8 seconds
2) Deep breath definitely needs to have its second explosion happening even if you dont hit anybody with the initial cast to make it more reliable and flexible to use
3) Magma shell needs to have its damage shield range for allies increased (~ to 12 meters) to make it more competitive with barrier as a support ult
4) Obsidian shard is an unreliable mess as a group heal skill in PvP, since it can be dodged and doesnt do anything then. Mag DK healer is far too niche as it is and should be looked at in general
5) I agree that ash cloud range is too small, so it probably should be increased. But then the snare needs to be reduced as well. 8 meter aoe with 70% snare is a no go

And in general, yes, sustain on mag DK is a bit too though, so it should be buffed slightly(!), imo by adjusting the cost of certain skills a bit (like they just did with coagulating blood). But definitely not by too much, because then mag DKs would be able to invest too much into damage and tankyness.

Stam DK on the other hand has a bit of a problem with its identity. There are some things I can think of on the top off my head, like:

1) Cauterize not giving major savagery
2) Poop fist still being a weird mismatched mess of a skill. It is not like it is crazy underpowered per se (if we look at the damage, cost and utility), but it is definitely clunky and unfun to use. Please rework again...
3) Corrosive armor not buffing the class dots stam DK has access to. Maybe they should just change it to give flat ~ 15k physical penetration, idk

But all in all stam DK just needs a more clear direction of what this class is supposed to be...

Good list. Great points. I'd also say Stam Dk dots deserve some love aswell. Ideally less duration, less cost, higher potency. Or alternatively some kind of counter mechanic against purges. With dots brought up to relevancy, I wouldn't feel so bad about the corrosive nerfs.

ArcVelarian

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Or alternatively some kind of counter mechanic against purges.

The thought that comes to mind is that purging DK dots would cause an explosion for the remaining damage.

KhajiitLivesMatter

ArcVelarian wrote: »

Dragonknights have never been in a worse place than Update 30. DK's class design has been gutted and discarded, DK passive abilities are weak and outdated, DK survivability (especially in regards to tanking) is completely outshined by nearly every other class, DK healing is a bad joke, DK stamina DPS is at the bottom of the barrel in PvE and Magicka isn't fairing much better, and DK's sustain is the worst of all classes in the game...

This is a laundry list of buffs needed to bring DK back up to par:

1. Lava Whip (and both morphs) need to scale off of highest offensive stats.
2. Molten Whip's Seething Fury effect should be triggered by activating any other Dragonknight class ability as opposed to just Ardent Flame abilities.
   
3. Inferno (and both morphs) should really be activating every 1 or 2 seconds as opposed to 5 seconds.
4. Combustion needs to be providing Magicka and Stamina resource restoration per DoT tick in addition to some flat regeneration.
5. Warmth should be activated by both DoT Damage and Direct Damage.
6. Inhale needs a significant damage buff and a Stamina Morph.
7. Iron Skin needs to be doubled (to 20%), if not tripled (to 30%).
8. Burning Heart should increase healing received by 15% or 20% while a Draconic Power ability is active.
9. Draconic Power abilities need to have their costs reduced by between 15% and 20%.
10. Scaled Armor needs to provide 3300 Physical Resistance in addition to 3300 Spell Resistance. (It's silly this isn't already the case.)
11. Stone Giant's damage needs to be buffed by at least 20% and have its cast time removed.
12. Ash Cloud (and both morphs) needs to have its radius increased to 8 meters and Cinder Storm needs heal for significantly more.
13. Mountain's Blessing should generate 6 Ultimate every 3 seconds.

Reasoning:
1. This is the no brainer compromise to the Stamina whip morph that Stam Dks have been asking for since Stamina Ability Morphs became a thing.
2. More flexibility means more reason to slot a class ability over some weapon or guild ability.
3. This would make the ability more powerful and more reliable.
4. Combustion's current state is abysmal. Dks should be rewarded for maintaining class DoTs on targets, especially considering that they are purge-able in PvP.
5. Warmth in it's current state is pointless. This would be more effective and better compensate for DK's lack of mobility.
6. Inhale has been in a weak state since before Morrowind. The idea is to bring it up to par with abilities like Scorch and its morphs.
7. Considering the recent nerfs to blocking this would bring it back up to par. Blocking is fairly expensive at this point and is Active Damage Mitigation, so dialing up the effectiveness for DKs doesn't negatively affect overall PvP balance.
8. This just appropriately rewards DKs for slotting class abilities.
9. Magicka DKs have been asking for this for quite some time now. The justifications have all been laid out in other threads.
10. This brings it up to par with other damage mitigating passive abilities.
11. This would make it more appealing than Weapon Abilities. Due to Stone Giant's wonky functionality a damage buff at least 20% would not be an issue in PvP.
12. Ash Cloud (and morphs) are absolutely useless in their current form.
13. Again, this is for DK's abysmal resource regeneration, and mediocre DPS, and failing survivability. Faster ultimate generation paired with Battle Roar helps all 3 problems.

yea... no
in pvp dk still is good and this would make him op af
so no leave it as it is

and what i understand the least is the desire for more resources cause dk already has 1 of the best sustain ingame when i played him in pve i could use as little sustain as possible (without reg buffoos etc) while still having max stamina all the time (at a 6mio dummi so no shards) and in pvp i have under 2k reg which is increadbly low compared to my pther chars who have at least 3k+

ResidentContrarian

ArcVelarian wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Or alternatively some kind of counter mechanic against purges.

The thought that comes to mind is that purging DK dots would cause an explosion for the remaining damage.

That would not be good because it would lead to situations where players cannot do anything to counter. Certain DK builds are already powerful enough with direct damage that DoTs are only extra (like stacking DoT+leap+ pulsar can wiped out a group of people on live, with VD it can punish a faction on breach).

If DoTs did their immediate damage on purge, then when I stack searing strike (24k tooltip) and Fiery Breath + soultrap, I would just have to spam pulsar or whip after that and be guaranteed a kill because the enemy would die either way if they purged or not. If not that, just use ult, force them to block, petrify and they take damage from me, DoT, or purge and explode and...still take a large amount of damage.

There is also no cooldown on DoT application, so essentially you just have to do either the above or spam DoTs until they can't purge anymore or die trying; both negating the entire purge mechanic.

I do not find that kind of play healthy for PvP balance, or overall class balance. Such a mechanic would require some changes and those changes would almost certainly be in the form of nerfs...

Ragnarock41

ArcVelarian wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Or alternatively some kind of counter mechanic against purges.

The thought that comes to mind is that purging DK dots would cause an explosion for the remaining damage.

That punishes the target for doing what would be normal response against DoT builds. Not a very ideal solution.

Ippokrates

Alliance purge cost a lot. A LOT. And only Templar & Necro can have an alternative. Warden have purge too but rather week and he cannot control it.

So you just need to push it through purging. Everytime your enemy is purging he is not only losing a lot of resources but also not damaging you. And use at least two skills useful in your rotation, so netch would not manage to clean all

techyeshic

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

ThePlacidHatter wrote: »

My biggest problem with DK is no passive health sustain. Sorc has crit surge, Templar has a very powerful, AOE spammable which heals, Nightblade also has a pretty powerful spammable which heals.

DK just has to use healing skills.

I don't agree with this at all. If you really want passive healing, all you have to do is pick the right morphs (Flame Lash, Burning Embers, Hardened Armor, Draw Essence, Ferocious Leap). DKs also have the Burning Heart, Elder Dragon, and Battle Roar passives, all of which provide even more passive healing. Sure, it's not all built into a single ability, but it's absolutely available (in abundance even, compared to most classes).

The main problems with DK are awful sustain and lack of (non-ultimate) burst damage.

Edit: It's also worth noting that most of this thread consists of people asking to trade the passive healing on Deep Breath for lower cost and more burst damage.

I almost agree with you but power lash isn't bad. Maybe you refer to stam.

I find DK lack in sustain and, crazy enough; defense options. Maybe we define it as proactive mitigation to be more clear.

No purge, shield (of any value), streak, cloak etc. No minor protection, unless I am missing something; or major for that matter. Evasion? DKs have wings but even that for being a ranged defense; pales in comparison to Wardens and is just plain pathetic, really.

Vevvev

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

ArcVelarian wrote: »

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Or alternatively some kind of counter mechanic against purges.

The thought that comes to mind is that purging DK dots would cause an explosion for the remaining damage.

That punishes the target for doing what would be normal response against DoT builds. Not a very ideal solution.

Just have it deal a small explosion worth half of the remaining damage on the DoT so they're still knocking out some of it. Best of both worlds with that method.

KhajiitLivesMatter

.

AinSoph

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

AinSoph wrote: »

ResidentContrarian wrote: »

AinSoph wrote: »

Reduce Eruption's cost
Turn Inhale into a buff
Have Flame lash do the powerful lash every 3s as well as slightly buff it
Turn molten into the stam variant (the seething stack mechanic is one of the worst I've ever seen)
Inferno should tick every 3s
Buff combustion a bit
Give wings a CHANCE to reflect or reduce incoming projectiles damage while also reflecting the rest of the damage
Remove Obsidian Shard entirely

All my gripes

Obsidian shard heals some people for 20K+, pretty sure they won't be happy about losing it...

If you're using a DK healer, you've already failed. Not to mention this skill has literally no utility unless you need to heal people like 50m away from you.

Confused magDK healer noises

Granted, I only use Obsidian Shard in hardcore veteran boss fights. Otherwise the super insane burst heal that can hit everyone isn't needed. Still, it's a REALLY good burst heal. I wouldn't hate on it that much.

Not to mention that it can also proc burning (which procs combustion).

The problem is that it's ONLY a burst heal, the resto staff and nearly every other class has a much better burst heal which does other things besides heal. Also do you really need a combustion proc as a healer?