PTS Update 35 - Feedback Thread for Combat Balance Changes

YandereGirlfriend

Warden Shalks timing changes need to be reverted NOW!

acastanza_ESO

POST 8.1.2: Crystal Weapon is still nerfed into the dumpster and still completely useless and outright worse than Crushing Weapon - we've done the math on this publicly on the forums, you've completely ignored it. REVERT IT. CRYSTAL WEAPON was NOT what was overperforming, it was its synergy with Savage Werewolf and Bound Armament's Light Attack Damage boost, which you also nerfed into the ground.

You gave sorcerer's one interesting ability for one patch and now NO ONE will ever use this skill again. It is completely trash even in the 8.1.2 patch.

siddique

RIP

Sandman929

After week 3, and seeing that this might be close to going live, I hope it's not too knee-jerk to say that this is the worst update by miles in a long, long time.
Nocturnals Ploy alone sets the bar for worst ideas, every other bad idea in the update is just gravy...and there is sooooo much gravy.

shadyjane62

Tiresome and disappointing patch notes.

silentxthreat

I cant rap my head around the warden changes to shalks. It's now clunky and doesnt feel right at all. Wardens will have a even harder time in pvp if this change goes live as is. The instant stun will help but a 4 sec wait for the first hit of shalks that can be dodged is going to really suck

xylena_lazarow

8.1.2 Notes: no changes to nerfed single-target sticky DoTs, meaning the majority of these abilities will be worthless and unused in PvP. Are the devs happy with the state of these skills in PvP? Build archetype diversity is looking awful.

pklemming

James-Wayne wrote: »

TPishek wrote: »

People have been asking for .8 jabs for years. Jabs changes are bliss, the only good change of the update.

Faster Jabs is good but reducing the damage is not.

I remember the change from 0.92ms to 1 second on jabs and the reason they gave at the time. The reason being, "To better match the animation". Because 1 second matches a 1.55 second animation so much better.

We got used to the 1 second and apparently we now need it to be 800ms and a animation that looks like it was done by an intern on their first week, along with an equally confusing explanation

Flurry is also now the most ironic animation in the game.

Parasaurolophus

It's time to bring this thread up.
Also, any official feedback thread should be attached.

Mr_Stach

The 33% Nerf to Winter's Revenge + the Advanced Species Rework is still around a 45% Nerf to Winter's Revenge for Magicka Setups. Especially for Warden's wanting to lean into the "Frost Damage" Niche.

The Arctic Blast Change is nice and the Skill lasting the same as a general DoT is nice as well, I'm afraid that it's going to be changed in a near patch, it's a Burst Heal, Instant AoE Stun, 20s AoE DoT. It's kind of wacky....... Also since it's not a Sticky DoT, shouldn't it fall under the 10s DoT ruling? But whatever it's nice to have it as a Damage Skill. Been waiting years for it. Hope it lasts.

Largomets

My feedback to todays patch notes is this:

Necrotech_Master

Mr_Stach wrote: »

The 33% Nerf to Winter's Revenge + the Advanced Species Rework is still around a 45% Nerf to Winter's Revenge for Magicka Setups. Especially for Warden's wanting to lean into the "Frost Damage" Niche.

The Arctic Blast Change is nice and the Skill lasting the same as a general DoT is nice as well, I'm afraid that it's going to be changed in a near patch, it's a Burst Heal, Instant AoE Stun, 20s AoE DoT. It's kind of wacky....... Also since it's not a Sticky DoT, shouldn't it fall under the 10s DoT ruling? But whatever it's nice to have it as a Damage Skill. Been waiting years for it. Hope it lasts.

its probably counted as a self buff in regards to the timing, and it is a nice change, but actual working artic blast isnt really good when the rest of the class is still got its head buried in the ground lol

Styxius

Impaling shards was stated to be "back" to its original timer, the timer was 12, your notes say you put it to 10. Either a typo or... you can speculate.

Tyrion87

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

POST 8.1.2: Crystal Weapon is still nerfed into the dumpster and still completely useless and outright worse than Crushing Weapon - we've done the math on this publicly on the forums, you've completely ignored it. REVERT IT. CRYSTAL WEAPON was NOT what was overperforming, it was its synergy with Savage Werewolf and Bound Armament's Light Attack Damage boost, which you also nerfed into the ground.

You gave sorcerer's one interesting ability for one patch and now NO ONE will ever use this skill again. It is completely trash even in the 8.1.2 patch.

Exactly my thoughts.

This skill feels too complicated and unrewarding. I don't like it even on live. It makes the rotation messy, unforgiving and too much of a hassle. For me they butchered this skill with High Isle. At this point I would prefer the old Crystal Weapon with its true spammable nature.

seventyfive

Weakness to Elements procs the 5 piece bonus of Nocturnal's Ploy, tested on the newest version of the PTS.
With the hybridization of destruction staves, anyone can utilize it.

At the cost of zero magicka and a global cooldown, you may remove buffs like Major Resolve or Major Brutality, which are often the main selling point of skills costing 2000+ Magicka, as well as remove significantly harder to come by buffs like Major Mending or Major Heroism. Given a cooldown of 2 seconds and potentially multiple users of the set within range, one may find that maintaining buffs in battlegrounds or cyrodiil might not be resource effective, risking the removal of a core aspect of the combat.

This set will also perform significantly better or worse depending on your choice of class, with some being able to "naturally" proc it almost on cooldown without having to slot/spam suboptimal abilities.

Sandman929

seventyfive wrote: »

Weakness to Elements procs the 5 piece bonus of Nocturnal's Ploy, tested on the newest version of the PTS.
With the hybridization of destruction staves, anyone can utilize it.

At the cost of zero magicka and a global cooldown, you may remove buffs like Major Resolve or Major Brutality, which are often the main selling point of skills costing 2000+ Magicka, as well as remove significantly harder to come by buffs like Major Mending or Major Heroism.

This set will also perform significantly better or worse depending on your choice of class, with some being able to "naturally" proc it almost on cooldown without having to slot/spam suboptimal abilities.

Night Mothers on a constantly critting Suprise Attack from a NB will proc this on cooldown just for spamming your burst ability (which you'll be doing anyway since it crits 100%).
You can dish out damage and strip away mitigation, sustain, damage, etc. rather than spamming a free, but otherwise harmless ability.
Any other class can do the same using Crushing Weapon

vivisectvib16_ESO

WHY nerf Unstable Wall by 33%? Make it make sense.

Dogvahkiin

vivisectvib16_ESO wrote: »

WHY nerf Unstable Wall by 33%? Make it make sense.

Because it outperformed endless hail and stampede with their corresponding MA weapons.
It's a shame they nerfed the MA 2-hander. It was rightful on top of the three options, because melee and risky with only a small AOE.

vivisectvib16_ESO

Dogvahkiin wrote: »

vivisectvib16_ESO wrote: »

WHY nerf Unstable Wall by 33%? Make it make sense.

Because it outperformed endless hail and stampede with their corresponding MA weapons.
It's a shame they nerfed the MA 2-hander. It was rightful on top of the three options, because melee and risky with only a small AOE.

So tired of this nonsense.

Whiskey_JG

vivisectvib16_ESO wrote: »

WHY nerf Unstable Wall by 33%? Make it make sense.

I don't really understand the logic there.

Matteo11

I apologize ahead of time for the strong tone of this message. I wish only the best for this game, I think it is promising and unique. I must say though, that the direction of this game is so unhealthy and discouraging that its mindblowing.

So we have mediocre changes, and more big nerfs.

I'm VERY sad to see they have now nerfed Merciless Charge. A popular favorite among melee right now. It was nice to have a powerful option besides melee/bow we've been running for years.

I return for High Isle, farm and Upgrade the Maelstrom Weapon... immediately see it nerfed. Situations like this are far too common where balance means carelessly sweeping aside time, effort and practice.

Yet another example of how U35 seeks to drain the fun and the power fantasy out of ESO, by its very design... in ways that are utterly confusing.

Class defining spam abilities- in the trash on every job. How can we justify stripping these awesome, Class Power skills. We really want everyone using DoTs and Flurry?

Countless emergent sets and build that have been a blast to play- toast, and gone. Merciless Charge, Oaken Soul, Heavy Attacks. ZOS talks about making the game more accessible, then weeds out things that ease the clunky and demanding gameplay ESO presents.

The dps boost I gained from Merciless Charge was encouraging, and had me pumped to get back into raids. What items in U35 will even think about doing so? What line in these notes are we supposed to be excited or encouraged by?

Is this 'greater good' that you 'thought out' really more important that the fun and sense of accomplishment that people discover, quite recently even? ESO is really bad about dangling a carrot on a stick, then snatching it the very moment we bite.

Instead of giving us new Tiers of power, ESO takes away your power Tiers and expects you to continue grinding from a negative. It honestly baffles me how a team that plays this game with passion could accept this patch.

Well, I have read over these patch notes and see that ZOS wishes to do as little as possible to adjusted the long-term damage U35 is going to do. To their own guilds, who I wonder if they even bond and raid regularly with.

All of your best minds in the community have got up here and warned as best they could, along with dozens of us random players who have been paying and playing for many years. Are spreadsheet factors of balance really worth more than whatever trust is left?

This is the type of patch that we hear about in post-mortem vids about old MMOs. The type where absolutely the whole community hates it, and the devs stubbornly push through with really bad ideas.

Casdha

Styxius wrote: »

Impaling shards was stated to be "back" to its original timer, the timer was 12, your notes say you put it to 10. Either a typo or... you can speculate.

I've seen several posts like this but I'm using yours as an example for my question.

Does anyone know if the stated times in seconds from the patch notes are before any CP skill adjustments?

Maybe that could be the differences I see between stated and what posters are seeing in game.

PrinceShroob

Firstly, I'd like to thank y'all for listening to feedback and reverting many of the changes to ground damage over time effects. However, I did like that the previous changes made an attempt to standardize the duration of DoT skills, which would actually achieve the stated benefit of "raising the floor" by making rotations more static.

To that end, I would suggest changing Path of Darkness to 8 seconds (increased to 10 seconds with both ranks of the Dark Veil passive), Eruption to 17 seconds (increased to 20 seconds with both ranks of Eternal Mountain--note that Eternal Mountain increases the duration by 20%, so I think the actual duration would need to be 16.667 seconds to get exactly 20 seconds), and Winter's Revenge to 10 seconds. Blockade of Elements should become 20 seconds at maximum rank and Liquid Lightning should be increased to 20 seconds at maximum length.

Secondly, I strongly urge you to continue to look at feedback for Warden, particularly the timing on Scorch and the Advanced Species passive. I noted previously that Scorch's timing should not be altered to avoid drastically affecting muscle memory and the "feel" of the class (please note that Necromancer has a 3-second delayed burst skill and Sorcerer has a 6-second delayed burst skill, so the current timings across morphs are not outliers). I also noted that Advanced Species as-is on PTS is useless in PvE and perhaps too strong in PvP--a very dangerous combination.

I did not note a change to Summon Shade's duration in the patch notes, despite the Dark Veil passive increasing its duration to 22 seconds, which seemed unintentional.

PrinceShroob

Styxius wrote: »

Impaling shards was stated to be "back" to its original timer, the timer was 12, your notes say you put it to 10. Either a typo or... you can speculate.

The duration on the PTS is 12 seconds. Winter's Revenge is unaffected by any passives increasing duration, so it appears to be a typo in the patch notes.

Falcon_of_light

I think its time to delete nightblade, the only viable for stamblade is nerfed and get "bonus" what nb have in spamable... and after it we lost stun from SP... Nice, so sork can have deffence\offence mobility\cc\nonblockable\nondodgerolable ability but nb cant have *** cc as a rogue... Nice, assasin stamblade is officially the worst spec for pvp...

virtus753

I appreciate the acknowledgment that Flurry is inheriting DoT damage bonuses when it shouldn't. (I don't understand why it still does that after you claimed to have fixed it in 6.3.4, but that's another matter.)

What I'm struggling to find in today's patch notes is any indication that you understand that Flurry is still outperforming several class spammables regardless of Thaumaturge, which is one of many ways in which class identity is severely threatened with this update. I see zero attempts to address templar class identity at all, even though it was keelhauled with 8.1.0. I'm discouraged to hear from Wardens that they're continuing to see pain points on their end as well.

I'm also not seeing any indication that you've given any thought as to whether some content will actually be possible with this update. It's great that now we (probably) won't die to poor RNG on heal timing. But that's not going to clear Nahvi HM or Xalvakka HM or make up for the 1.5-2 minute margins on Swashbuckler. Is it your goal to make some of your content literally impossible to complete? Because that seems to be what you're accomplishing. You're certainly still taking content away from players at all levels to an obscene degree. My guilds and Discords are filled with players who are already leaving or who plan to because content is being taken away from them so soundly that they don't have a hope of getting back to where they were. If they can't do content, they see no point in continuing to play. I honestly can't disagree with them there.

The fact you only have three weeks left even to acknowledge, much less address, the meat of accessibility and class identity concerns is incredibly concerning. Please start acknowledging our words as well as screenshots of parses and death recaps.

WreckfulAbandon

Falcon_of_light wrote: »

I think its time to delete nightblade, the only viable for stamblade is nerfed and get "bonus" what nb have in spamable... and after it we lost stun from SP... Nice, so sork can have deffence\offence mobility\cc\nonblockable\nondodgerolable ability but nb cant have *** cc as a rogue... Nice, assasin stamblade is officially the worst spec for pvp...

ESO_Nightingale

Mr_Stach wrote: »

The 33% Nerf to Winter's Revenge + the Advanced Species Rework is still around a 45% Nerf to Winter's Revenge for Magicka Setups. Especially for Warden's wanting to lean into the "Frost Damage" Niche.

The Arctic Blast Change is nice and the Skill lasting the same as a general DoT is nice as well, I'm afraid that it's going to be changed in a near patch, it's a Burst Heal, Instant AoE Stun, 20s AoE DoT. It's kind of wacky....... Also since it's not a Sticky DoT, shouldn't it fall under the 10s DoT ruling? But whatever it's nice to have it as a Damage Skill. Been waiting years for it. Hope it lasts.

it is a sticky dot by their definition. similar skills are 20 seconds. if they remove anything from it in the future, it should be the stun but if that happens they absolutely should put it on something else in our kit that is on-demand.

Mr_Stach

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

The 33% Nerf to Winter's Revenge + the Advanced Species Rework is still around a 45% Nerf to Winter's Revenge for Magicka Setups. Especially for Warden's wanting to lean into the "Frost Damage" Niche.

The Arctic Blast Change is nice and the Skill lasting the same as a general DoT is nice as well, I'm afraid that it's going to be changed in a near patch, it's a Burst Heal, Instant AoE Stun, 20s AoE DoT. It's kind of wacky....... Also since it's not a Sticky DoT, shouldn't it fall under the 10s DoT ruling? But whatever it's nice to have it as a Damage Skill. Been waiting years for it. Hope it lasts.

it is a sticky dot by their definition. similar skills are 20 seconds. if they remove anything from it in the future, it should be the stun but if that happens they absolutely should put it on something else in our kit that is on-demand.

I went back and re-read their post thing from Friday and you're right, they did list Lightning Form as a Sticky DoT. So I guess that makes sense.

Alchimiste1

I have lost the little confidence I had that we would be having a good next patch.
No one asked for these drastic changes and hardly anyone is happy with them

Heres how you fix things. Most of the stuff on pts : get rid of it. I know someone spend a lot of time and effort on those changes but just no.

The changes we need.

Nerf oaken to be pve friendly, slayer instead of berserk, get rid of heroism, give minor force, and done. Or even better make it only usable in pve.
Don't touch weaving.
Get rid of nocturnals play.
Nerf savage ww and bow sorc( don't kill the whole class please).
caluurion nerf can stay.
nerf the heavy attack 1 shot builds in a way that doesn't screw normal light/heavys (look at sets and empower).


And that's it. No more changes/


Side note. The lesser damage on light attacks and heavy attacks is so noticeble on pts duels. Everyone kinda feels like a tank.