PTS Update 35 - Feedback Thread for Combat Balance Changes

Lalothen

sbr32 wrote: »

I don't remember how long that ridiculous idea was on the PTS, but the reaction was overwhelmingly negative, so much so that it is one of the only times that they pulled back and scrapped something they put on the PTS. It was not fun and was very unpopular. I can't see how that is either "kneejerk" or a "non-argument".

A lot of the negative sentiment boiled down to "mah deepz!" - i.e. kneejerk non-arguments because parse numbers were lower.

The other negative sentiment from people who actually spent time testing it and looking at the whole picture, was that the system as-was compounded the loss of DPS for LA builds because consecutive LAs were required to yield more appreciable resource returns, thereby reducing or even cutting spammable usage and making the tradeoff far too great. A compromise could've been found on that front, but the cries of "mah deepz!" constantly drowned out everything else to the point where ZOS decided to scrap it.

And that's my point here: we're now faced with a longer term consequence of community obstinacy over a change that was unpopular because it reduced peak DPS potential. DPS has to come down, it's been on ZOS' radar for years, and they're going to achieve it one way or another.

As for the second part, I'm not sure why you felt the need to create a straw man by putting words in my mouth and then rail against those, but ... yikes. I did not enjoy the proposed LA/HA changes from 2 years ago (or whenever) and wouldn't have played the game as much if they had gone through. They did not go through, so I continued to play the game and in that time I had a lot of fun and met lots of cool people, and none of that had anything to do with how much anyone's LAs hit for. It was because the game was fun so me and other cool people continued to enjoy it together.

Words in your mouth? Strawman? Ok, if not the ~90% reduction in LA damage, what exactly was your issue with the proposed change? In a similar vein, would you have met some of those cool people if the changes had gone through? Probably not, and that had very much to do with how much people's LAs continued to hit for, as I sort of doubt "LAs will yield resources now" constitutes the kind of earthshattering change that would cause anyone to cite it as "ridiculous", that it would "ruin the game", and that they planned to play less - or not at all - if it went through...

Tannus15

@Lalothen You stunningly incorrect about the issues of why dps is so high on live and the role light attacks play in that. This is what a lot of people are pointing out about the dps nerfs from PST1, the issue was never the light attack nerf, it was the changes to dots and over emphasis of spammables in addition to the light attack damage nerf.

everything except spammables got nerfed, which is why everyone is focusing so hard on spammable equity now. templars are "dead" because jabs isn't as good as rapid strikes? This only matters because everything else in the templar toolkit just got nerfed to irrelevancy.

the reason they are reverting the light attack nerf is not for light attack weaving. it's not revert the dps changes.
it's because they obliterated heavy attack builds. an entire playstyle that is only really popular in the mid to lower tier of dps was nerfed into the ground because of the changes they made. I promise you, you won't see lightning staff heavy attacks from a DPS in a top end trials group on live.

Everyone needs to understand the difference between nerfing light attack damage and light attack weaving. At no point in this PTS have they done anything to nerf light attack weaving. It's super important still, sets and skills are still heavily focused around it and casting more skills will always, Always do more damage than casting less skills.

You want to know what the biggest nerf to dummy dps is this patch? Stampede. Straight up, they could have nerfed stampede and maelstrom 2h and dropped 10k from the top parses.

Off the top of my head I could come up with half a dozen nerfs which would "lower the ceiling" and have almost no impact on everyone else. Put a global cool down on major slayer or major force to enforce a max 50% uptime. change PA to use major courage. put a global cooldown on major vulnerability. nerf zen, nerf mk, half a dozen options to limit the effectiveness of the top groups without affecting less organised groups if that was the objective.

Instead they choose to carpet bomb the entire combat system and wondered why they were left with nothing but ruins.

sbr32

Lalothen wrote: »

sbr32 wrote: »

I don't remember how long that ridiculous idea was on the PTS, but the reaction was overwhelmingly negative, so much so that it is one of the only times that they pulled back and scrapped something they put on the PTS. It was not fun and was very unpopular. I can't see how that is either "kneejerk" or a "non-argument".

A lot of the negative sentiment boiled down to "mah deepz!" - i.e. kneejerk non-arguments because parse numbers were lower.

The other negative sentiment from people who actually spent time testing it and looking at the whole picture, was that the system as-was compounded the loss of DPS for LA builds because consecutive LAs were required to yield more appreciable resource returns, thereby reducing or even cutting spammable usage and making the tradeoff far too great. A compromise could've been found on that front, but the cries of "mah deepz!" constantly drowned out everything else to the point where ZOS decided to scrap it.

And that's my point here: we're now faced with a longer term consequence of community obstinacy over a change that was unpopular because it reduced peak DPS potential. DPS has to come down, it's been on ZOS' radar for years, and they're going to achieve it one way or another.

As for the second part, I'm not sure why you felt the need to create a straw man by putting words in my mouth and then rail against those, but ... yikes. I did not enjoy the proposed LA/HA changes from 2 years ago (or whenever) and wouldn't have played the game as much if they had gone through. They did not go through, so I continued to play the game and in that time I had a lot of fun and met lots of cool people, and none of that had anything to do with how much anyone's LAs hit for. It was because the game was fun so me and other cool people continued to enjoy it together.

Words in your mouth? Strawman? Ok, if not the ~90% reduction in LA damage, what exactly was your issue with the proposed change? In a similar vein, would you have met some of those cool people if the changes had gone through? Probably not, and that had very much to do with how much people's LAs continued to hit for, as I sort of doubt "LAs will yield resources now" constitutes the kind of earthshattering change that would cause anyone to cite it as "ridiculous", that it would "ruin the game", and that they planned to play less - or not at all - if it went through...

K

X_K

Lalothen wrote: »

A lot of the negative sentiment boiled down to "mah deepz!" - i.e. kneejerk non-arguments because parse numbers were lower.

The other negative sentiment from people who actually spent time testing it and looking at the whole picture, was that the system as-was compounded the loss of DPS for LA builds because consecutive LAs were required to yield more appreciable resource returns, thereby reducing or even cutting spammable usage and making the tradeoff far too great. A compromise could've been found on that front, but the cries of "mah deepz!" constantly drowned out everything else to the point where ZOS decided to scrap it.

The only people that Cry "Mah Deepz" are the people that either don't do any in the first place, or are just hitting that 100k peak on dummy and substantially lower in content,

Not a single High end Endgame player i have seen Cry about the Target Dummy damage. if it was just the light attacks and slight stampede nerf. no-one would have cared. but using 22 spammables in a row isnt enjoyable at all.

combine that with the fact half the dots weren't worth casting in content at all due to how over long they were. it made situations where 80+% of your rotation are spammables.
If i wanted to play a class where i casted 2 dots and hit spammables the entire time i would have been playing stamplar for the last 4 years

They Gutted Twisting path to the point of irrelevancy. same with winters revenge.
Stamblade got Permacrit Surprise attack but that's objectively bad for the classes balance in content. you are forced into Surprise attack on Fights you can flank on, which wouldnt be so bad if they didnt have the classes only in kit Cleave Damage Obliterated SA Bow KB Incap and Shade are the only class skills you have barred now. and it goes directly against the Post they made in 2019 about class identity

Lalothen

Tannus15 wrote: »

@Lalothen You stunningly incorrect about the issues of why dps is so high on live and the role light attacks play in that. This is what a lot of people are pointing out about the dps nerfs from PST1, the issue was never the light attack nerf, it was the changes to dots and over emphasis of spammables in addition to the light attack damage nerf.

You are incorrect about what I'm talking about. Go back and read it again, page 32. Actually, I'll just boil it down:

1) ZOS attempted to lower the ceiling & improve sustain (badly) with a LA-HA switcheroo in March 2020.

2) Everyone cried about it and it got canned.

3) We're now in 2022 and ZOS are back again, and they're performing a more drastic set of combat changes - including changing LAs & HAs again - which is likely in part (not in whole, in part) due to the fact that they failed to lower the ceiling before, leading to a higher peak than would've been the case had the March 2020 update not been canned.

I mean, that's undisputable, is it not? Sucking 90% of the raw damage out of LAs back in 2020 would've seen the DPS peak around 15-20K lower than it is now (which is significant). I'm not weighing whether that sort of move would ever be the best way to lower the ceiling; it's a reflection on one of numerous reasons why we're likely where we are now with this monster that is U35, and why ZOS aren't prepared to just can the whole thing and go back to the drawing board.

Also you don't need to talk to me about HA builds being gutted when I'm the one who posted a data-centric breakdown of the fact that LA weaving constitutes as much as a 40% DPS increase over HA weaving on the PTS back on page 28 of this very thread. I'm the one who first brought up the fact 1 tic had been removed from the HA channel too. HA builds are my ESO life; I'm one of the few people eking enough DPS out of HA builds that it's currently viable for me to run one in a vDSR prog. I know exactly how much they've thus far been gutted by U35 in spite of ZOS' "we want better for you" statement, that's why I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how that changes with today's PTS update, and plan on providing ongoing feedback to highlight any continuing shortcomings. I want to see the best HA builds be around 15% or so behind the best LA builds at most, instead of the roughly 30%+ they are on Live.

X_K wrote: »

The only people that Cry "Mah Deepz" are the people that either don't do any in the first place, or are just hitting that 100k peak on dummy and substantially lower in content,

Not a single High end Endgame player i have seen Cry about the Target Dummy damage. if it was just the light attacks and slight stampede nerf. no-one would have cared. but using 22 spammables in a row isnt enjoyable at all.

Yes, I completely agree, spending half your time on spammables is boring as heck. Let me make something clear though: My last couple of posts weren't talking directly about U35. The point about people crying "mah deepz!" was not about U35, it was about U-whateveritwas in March 2020.

Tannus15

Lalothen wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

@Lalothen You stunningly incorrect about the issues of why dps is so high on live and the role light attacks play in that. This is what a lot of people are pointing out about the dps nerfs from PST1, the issue was never the light attack nerf, it was the changes to dots and over emphasis of spammables in addition to the light attack damage nerf.

You are incorrect about what I'm talking about. Go back and read it again, page 32. Actually, I'll just boil it down:

1) ZOS attempted to lower the ceiling & improve sustain (badly) with a LA-HA switcheroo in March 2020.

2) Everyone cried about it and it got canned.

3) We're now in 2022 and ZOS are back again, and they're performing a more drastic set of combat changes - including changing LAs & HAs again - which is likely in part (not in whole, in part) due to the fact that they failed to lower the ceiling before, leading to a higher peak than would've been the case had the March 2020 update not been canned.

I mean, that's undisputable, is it not? Sucking 90% of the raw damage out of LAs back in 2020 would've seen the DPS peak around 15-20K lower than it is now (which is significant). I'm not weighing whether that sort of move would ever be the best way to lower the ceiling; it's a reflection on one of numerous reasons why we're likely where we are now with this monster that is U35, and why ZOS aren't prepared to just can the whole thing and go back to the drawing board.

Yeah, I read what you wrote about the last time they attempted to nerfed light attack damage and you're wrong, it was terrible then and it's terrible now.

we would still have a huge power gap, we'd still have a massive delta between haves and have nots, and people would be relying on light attack weave as the primary form of sustain giving us a whole new bunch of problems. light attack weaving would be MORE important than live beceause it's a damage boost and sustain mechanic, so we'd be cutting all sustain in favour of damage, probably running green 6k mag or stam food.

heavy attack builds were dead on that attempt as they are on this attempt, because they are scaling them off light attack damage which is just wrong, and the more you nerf light attacks the worse it gets for heavy attacks unless you scale them of spammable damage.

everyone "cried" about it because it was objectively bad in every way and the best thing that happened was they canned it.

Varana

The proposed LA/HA changes back when were just objectively bad, regardless of DPS. They would've been bad if DPS would've stayed equal. Sure, maybe the backlash wouldn't have been as harsh, but in that case, ZOS did the game a service by tying the changes to heavy nerfs.

Just like they did now. Hadn't they nerfed damage so much across the board, focusing on the planned LA/HA change instead, they would've gotten away with it. Maybe even with the DoT changes, hadn't they insisted on effing over DoT damage at the same time.

As for bringing down DPS - half a year after the failed HA PTS, they nerfed the Major/Minor buffs considerably - that was a step in the right direction. But since then, they've introduced Brittle, Courage, made Major Vulnerability and Major Slayer widely available, and quite a lot of other sets and skill changes that resulted in coordinated group damage increasing substantially. There are at least conflicting goals at work here inside ZOS' teams.

Tannus15

@Varana I think their intent is to make it easier to have decent uptimes on the buffs and debuffs they have added and this should "raise the floor"

look at major vuln and Turning Tide. Casual groups don't have the luxary of saying "we need 3 necro's so you guys just swap to necro dps". you get what classes people main and hope for the best. so they add TT which helps that casual group, however the top end groups can run TT now too and bring the highest META dps instead of 3 necro for colossus and the ceiling goes up.

casual groups don't have a templar applying power of the light, so they add minor breach to peirce armour. now top end groups ditch the templar healer with PotL and run something else which helps even more.

every leg up they give the casual raid groups in an attempt to help them catch up, the score pushers will use and find another edge to leverage into even higher dps.

Lalothen

Tannus15 wrote: »

Yeah, I read what you wrote about the last time they attempted to nerfed light attack damage and you're wrong, it was terrible then and it's terrible now.

As I already mentioned I'm not weighing whether it was the right thing to do or not, I'm saying it would undisputably have cut DPS off the top end. The delta, large as it would have remained, would still be smaller than it currently is on Live - and that has had other knock-on effects like new HMs being geared to higher peak DPS.

we would still have a huge power gap, we'd still have a massive delta between haves and have nots, and people would be relying on light attack weave as the primary form of sustain giving us a whole new bunch of problems. light attack weaving would be MORE important than live beceause it's a damage boost and sustain mechanic, so we'd be cutting all sustain in favour of damage, probably running green 6k mag or stam food.

The concept as-was was problematic, that's not something I've disputed at any point here. What I'm saying is that few people tried to get ZOS to find a truly workable compromise. There was a lot more flat-out "bin this or we're walking" rhetoric - and I hold up my hand and include myself in that demographic - and comparatively little "Ok if we do it THIS way, then that could be a workable solution".

That's my point here: the community forced a total capitulation in 2020. Given peak DPS & the delta now are larger in part because of that capitulation, we're consequently faced with a more drastic set of changes in U35 as a result - and ZOS are more determined this time to get as many of those changes through as possible, in some shape or other.

tl;dr: The community engaged less in 2020 to find a workable solution, so the resultant mess we're dealing with now is bigger than it otherwise might've been. That's the only point I'm making here.

shadyjane62

Some changes raised the floor and some changes dropped the ceiling.

I got squished in the middle.

Faulgor

Empower: This buff now increases your damage against monsters with Heavy Attacks by 80%, rather than your damage done with Light and Heavy Attacks by 1800 from PTS v8.1.0 or 40% from the live servers.

If this solidifies as the new intended niche use for this buff, can you re-evaluate its sources?
For example, Wrecking Blow was a worthwhile spammable in PvE because it also buffed your light attack weaves, but I don't imagine many people are going to play Heavy Attack builds with a 2H. In contrast, skills like Molten Armaments are much more flexible in how they can be used in your build, and don't require you to weave particular skills.

x99KungFuTacosx

Interesting changes this week (PTS v8.1.3). I'm glad you're responding to player feedback but wish you had given the major changes from this PTS cycle some major thought and testing before pushing them onto the PTS. It would have prevented a lot of bitterness from the player base. Now you've walked back half the changes, but a lot of people who quit because v8.1.0 patch notes won't be walking back into the game.

I think the empower change makes sense for accessibility, even though it makes me cry as a former magsorc PvP main. I agree with other posts that the sources of empower may need to be reevaluated/tweaked.

Could you please add minor vitality to oakensoul as well? After the switch from major buffs to minor buffs, the PTS version is currently very mediocre for PvP. I think adding minor vitality in addition to the current buffs would help make it somewhat more viable for PvP, while keeping it from being way overtuned like the live version.

I look forward to seeing the sorc changes + the trial difficulty changes announced in previous posts.

NerfSeige

Just release the dungeon and work on the balance until next patch… no need for this messy changes.

seventyfive

Regarding set "Mara's Balm":

"When a negative effect is removed from you, restore 2111 Health. When you take damage and have 6 or more negative effects, cleanse all negative effects. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds."

The first portion of the effect - the heal - has no cooldown. I believe this is a technical error as it allows the set to absolutely eclipse similiar sets, like Wyrd Tree, by an immensely large gap.

Consequenses:

This set heals when any negative effect ends thanks to running out its duration or being reapplied, without any type of cleanse being involved.

The sets definition of "negative effects" include litterally everything - including CC (stuns), snares and status effects.

This set has the potential to become the most powerful set pvp has seen in multiple years, and possibly the most disliked and problematic set in the entire game.

YandereGirlfriend

While as a long-time MagDen I appreciate the scrapping of some of the Scorch timing changes - why did the initial tick of damage from this ability get nerfed AGAIN?!

As I understand it, when added to the previous 8% nerf found in the original iteration of the PTS, this is a cumulative ~25% nerf for the first tick of damage. That in insane. Nobody is sequencing combos 10 seconds out in PvP. Please stop trying to make this a thing. Imagine if Curse or Blastbones took 10 seconds to hit - nobody would use them.

If you want to "reward" players for waiting longer then allow the first tick to hit for its value prior to 8.1.3 and then add the bonus damage to the second tick (reduce the magnitude if need be for balance). MagDens are already a bottom-tier PvP class and you are nerfing their best ability even more. This is NOT the change that we were hoping for.

Styxius

Flurry should be adjusted VISUALLY to display as a Direct damage ability. With the changes in 8.1.3 this ability no longer scales with DoT's marked by the red box shown here.

To further elaborate on this reason as some seem confused about what channeled abilities are displayed. Channeled abilities don't determine where they are displayed here. Exact points to help the player base understand this

Jabs: .8s channel displays in the Green box, does not scale with DoT affecting abilities. Deadly buffed it because it's a channeled ability and did not but it before that.

Flurry: .8s channel displays in the red box where DoT's are shown in the game. But, since they removed the DoT buffs affecting Flurry this should be moved to Direct as it still contains a component of this and no longer has a DoT component.

Final counterpoint on this for those unaware:
Radiant oppression is also a channeled ability, displayed in the red box, and DOES scale with DoT effects. Flurry used to scale with these effects as well but no longer does. So should be relegated to the Green box with these changes.

Mr_Stach

Scorch:
This ability and the Deep Fissure morph now deal their damage after 3 and 9 seconds, rather than 4 and 10.
These abilities now hit with 2 unique damage sources – the first hit deals approximately 14% less damage while the second hit does 20% more damage.
Reduced the cost of these abilities to 2700, down from 3240, to help improve their ability to be recast early for more DPS or faking your opponent out.
Subterranean Assault (morph):
This morph continues to reduce the time it takes for the second hit to go off, but this second hit does not gain the extra damage.
Please note this ability is currently not working as intended and its timing is still 3 and 8 seconds, rather than the intended 3 and 6 seconds.
Developer Comment:

The changes to Scorch and their morphs were done in attempts to try and help the class feel less intensely focused on buff management and allow for other actions in combat, while still trying to retain their burst-oriented nature, to a more balanced degree when comparing them to other burst skills and taking their total time before impact better into account. The original PTS iteration was ultimately too disruptive to those who are familiar with the class, as it threw off the timing of the skill by a second, so we have brought it down back to the original duration while also keeping its overall timer divisible by 3s to help ensure a rhythm is felt with the class. By separating the damage, we can also better allow the skill to function as a burst skill or a sustained DPS skill, where recasting it earlier will result in more total DPS, whereas waiting for the bigger explosion will result in those dopamine printing burst combos.

First thing first let's set the stage with Week 1 because that lays the ground work,

Scorch:
This ability and its morphs now last for 10 seconds in total, detonating once after 4 seconds and again 6 seconds after that, rather than only once every 3 seconds.
Reduced the damage by approximately 8%.
Increased the cost to 3240, up from 2430.
Subterranean Assault (morph): This morph now reduces the time it takes for each damage event to occur, causing the damage to occur after 3 seconds and 5 seconds after that.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Gilliam

Is the damage nerf from Week 1 still in Place?

If so, this is extremely bad, if not this is kinda bad.

Why are you trying to reinvent this skill this patch, I do appreciate the timing change, I really do, the 6 second delay on Sub is a weird choice. But let's talk Damage.

Now Deep Fissure gets 20% damage Buff on second hit, which is interesting. But then Sub Assault doesn't get this. I have issues with this. Wardens are pretty bias when it comes to passives, we get extra Magic and Frost Damage, Deep Fissure has Major and Minor Breach. Also on top of this Advanced Species was switched to Pen, which favors Stam More, but I still think the Damage boosts the Damage more.

So the big question is what is the end goal here, are you planning on reverting the Advanced Species Passive?
Can you Clarify the Damage on here if it is overwriting the Nerf from Week 1 or not.

So far this is just another Nerf for Warden.

YandereGirlfriend

No, it is as bad as it looked. The 14% nerf stacks with the previous 8% nerf for Scorch.

My Deep Fissure tooltip plummets from 12700 on live to 10200 on the PTS for the first tick value. The second tick is 14200.

It's even worse for Sub Assault at 9300 for both ticks (since it's not buffed by the Magic Damage passive).

This skill got absolutely dunked into the sun and all Wardens along with it.

Mr_Stach

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Actually - I have to re-test this.

Let us know either way. Usually if they revert a nerf, they say so. If it is an oversight, it's a very big one.

meekmiko

I started progging vSR HM just last night with some of my friends.
We finished up vCA HM last week (what fun the last boss was... with all the nearly nonstop incoming damage and giant AOEs everywhere)

• Oh, by the by Sarydil, the boss fight with all the sniping and explosives, is bugged and has been bugged for nearly two patches now. @ZOS_Kevin, if you could please hand this information to the team who needs to see it. The target she puts on you over your head, the one that indicates she's gonna start dropping the AOEs on you never goes away anymore unless you die so you never know immediately if you or your teammates are being targeted until you're spreading the big 'ol explosive AOEs under your feet. This is bugged at least on HM, dunno about non-HM or normal. Don't wanna go back in that dungeon anytime soon.)

Anywho, so we decided to do vSR HM next. (We've cleared nearly all the HM dungeons in this game, just to be clear. So, I'd think we're pretty high-mid-tier or low-high-tier(?) I dunno what group we fall under exactly. We're not going and doing 130k parses that's fer sure, heck we can't even do 100k.. I'm lucky if I can get above 90k on a parse.)

So, we got to the Nazaray HM fight and the obscene amount of damage you have to do in such a short span of time to clear two of the Kindred Spirits, the adds she summons, needed to prevent an INSTA-KILL GROUP WIPE (because the AOEs cover the ENTIRETY of the play area) is just.... well, OBSCENE.

Now, what all this has to do with the upcoming changes on the PTS:
I main a StamSorc, which are still getting shafted next patch even after today's new PTS patch notes release. The other DPS is a MagBlade. (Tank is a Templar and Healer is a Necro) WTF are we gonna do about encounters such as THIS fight, which we on Live CAN currently kill the two adds needed, but it's really really tight, with lower overall DPS and lower incoming Heals?? (Don't even get me started on that Lurcher... that's some real nasty Debuffs to the Tank.)

• Also, speaking of lower Heals I don't even want to imagine the Ghost boss beforehand with the ghost adds he spawns draining your damage, armor, and heals.... and the Flesh Atronach that does some nasty massive sticks-to-you AOE damage permanently until you kill him...
• For anyone who hasn't seen this roadside circus of a boss fight(s), I suggest trying these HM for yourself to see exactly what I'm talkin' about, lawl.

There's so much damage you have to do..
I understand that the bosses are getting their health dropped down a bit in vet content in the last PTS patch next week... but WHY make fights like this where you HAVE to have high DPS and burn something down as quickly as possible if you want to lower damage output in the first place?

mmtaniac

Stamplar still crap ,0 effective class healing (costs too high not enough healing 4100 magicka cost for one heal with 13k magicka is suicide to your magicka) compared to magplar. I play imperial race .

Resource management is horror on stamplar, again magplar wins.

New jabs look is acceptable but damage nerf is little ridicoulus this ability is not that good. It's perfect noob slayer ability but only that. Against skilled player its hard to use. With damage nerfs will be even harder.
Damage feel clunky as hell like noodle fight ,work only with 18k armor penetration i can shred something ,wchich is another problem not source of major breach in class skills you need to use caltrops or stuhn. Power of the light should give major breach. Minor breach i have in jabs spamming from sundered debuff.

Purge cost to high again magplars have higher magicka its easier to manage cost should half half similiar to Dk new whip costs.

Stamina rune should be mobile healing not stay in place to get extra 10health more at the same time lose half hp bar.

I like changes to burning light it should proc from everthing from start. But its nice we get it now.

We have Hasty prayer ability , change it to stamina cost self healing with minor expedition. This way we get lour mobility we get some mobile identity as a stamplar.

ZOS_Kevin

@meekmiko The combat team is reading through the thread actively. However, we will make sure to ping them to make sure they see the most recent feedback. Thanks for the ping.

YandereGirlfriend

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@meekmiko The combat team is reading through the thread actively. However, we will make sure to ping them to make sure they see the most recent feedback. Thanks for the ping.

I would like to register the concerns of all Warden class players when I ask if the damage reduction made to Scorch is 8.1.3 is intended.

The first tick of Deep Fissure and both ticks of Sub Assault are currently taking the combined nerfs of 8% and 14%, rendering them extremely weak in basically any context.

The patch notes are ambiguous as to whether or not the 14% nerf was meant to replace or stack with the previous 8% nerf. MagDens especially are already one of the weakest classes in PvP and this change only makes their situation more dire.

Please tell them to leave Scorch alone for this patch cycle. We know that they are wanting to help but the current proposed changes to Scorch are hurting rather than helping us.

meekmiko

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@meekmiko The combat team is reading through the thread actively. However, we will make sure to ping them to make sure they see the most recent feedback. Thanks for the ping.

As always thank you so much, Kevin.

ESO_Nightingale

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@meekmiko The combat team is reading through the thread actively. However, we will make sure to ping them to make sure they see the most recent feedback. Thanks for the ping.

I would like to register the concerns of all Warden class players when I ask if the damage reduction made to Scorch is 8.1.3 is intended.

The first tick of Deep Fissure and both ticks of Sub Assault are currently taking the combined nerfs of 8% and 14%, rendering them extremely weak in basically any context.

The patch notes are ambiguous as to whether or not the 14% nerf was meant to replace or stack with the previous 8% nerf. MagDens especially are already one of the weakest classes in PvP and this change only makes their situation more dire.

Please tell them to leave Scorch alone for this patch cycle. We know that they are wanting to help but the current proposed changes to Scorch are hurting rather than helping us.

I honestly think it would be okay if they just scrapped the damage nerf portion of these notes. I appreciate the reasoning provided for the changes, but having the 9s tick on fissure hit for effectively 11% more than live but the initial 3 second tick be like 25% weaker, hurts so unbelievably bad that i just don't understand why the damage reduction was necessary. Casting more skills before the end of the duration is a nice idea. But. What skills? Are we supposed to spam our spammable for several seconds? We have no other delayed burst damage skills to combo with shalks. Not for 9 seconds anyway. The damage rebalance per morph just doesn't make sense to be honest. I'd honestly just make both hits on both morphs have the same damage that they had in week 1, or if they're feeling generous, revert any damage reduction changes at all.

virtus753

In a game that the studio head himself calls not an MMO (a genre label he has explicitly rejected for years) but an “online RPG,” it’s not just about how much damage we do but how we’re doing that damage. Class identity is particularly important in an ES RPG, and genericness is the antithesis of that. Classes become more generic the more generic the skills that make up their rotations, both in terms of how many times skills are cast and in terms of their damage contribution.

This is seriously threatened with the current state of templar, especially stamplar. If a PvE stamplar is not running Jabs because Rapid Strikes gives significantly more damage on the boss (which it does even without the Thaumaturge bug that was fixed today - at the same observed crit rate it's 8% better than Jabs for me), we’re down to essentially only a burst skill as the standard bearer for class identity, a skill that can't be cast more than once every 6 seconds and does at best 10% of the overall damage of a parse.

Jabs has been nerfed over 20% effectively.
Burning Light has been nerfed at least 67% - and that's just on paper. The losses are worse in my parses.
Ritual of Retribution was nerfed even worse than other ground-based DoTs and has gone neglected for the past two weeks when other ground-based DoTs got reverted. (I'm not talking about its long-time 2-second cadence but its heavy damage nerf and the increased scaling that only exacerbated that compared to the losses other ground-based DoTs took in Week 1.)
Solar Barrage's Empower got flatly erased for competitive PvE today.

We got compensated for any of this...where, exactly? You've barely even written the word "templar" this PTS cycle in patch notes or in comments here on the forums outside of nerfs - the only exception was when you reverted Spear with the rest of the ground-based DoTs (while, again, ignoring Ritual for the second week now).

When it comes to the question of class identity, it’s not just a matter of whether that class has a higher numerical ceiling than another. It might do decent damage in terms of pure numerical output when optimized (though that's a matter that will likely need serious attention in light of today's patch and whatever comes next week), but its class identity is threatened if it isn’t worth the name of templar in doing it. Being asked to choose between doing higher damage (for our own sake and to help the group) and preserving a decent sense of class identity isn't reasonable when it's eminently within the devs' power - and in fact arguably expected within the context of an RPG as a genre - to allow us to have both.

That doesn't mean every skill on our bars has to be class-based - I'd be happy if even half our power (as measured by skill casts and overall damage) in an optimized parse came from class-based sources to preserve a sense of class identity in PvE.

Since you want numbers instead of anecdotes, here's what I found in comparing parses today, noting that Rapid Strikes itself outparsed Jabs and the overall parse was higher as a result (both with and without accounting for the lost Piercing Spear passive by adding a Spear skill for the passive bonus):

Rapid Strikes as spammable: class-based damage was about 26% of the total damage done by active skills (not LAs), and just over 22% when considering LA damage as well; class-based skills were about 30% of non-LA casts (15.2% of all casts, including LAs).

Jabs as spammable: class-based damage was 55.1% of the overall total disregarding LAs, and still above 50% when considering LA damage; class-based skills were nearly 80% of the total non-LA casts (around 40% of all casts, including LAs).

That's an enormous difference in class identity: double the damage from class-based sources, and over 2.5x the percentage of class-based casts. It would still be so even if some of our non-spammables and passives were buffed to compensate for the nerfs to jabs, simply due to how often we're casting spammables.

You said years ago you didn't want a "class-agnostic meta." You're going to need to help templars out a bit here if you want your spreadsheets to support your vision instead of detracting from it.

Anhedonie

Honestly, I've been playing since beta and this is the most confusing patch I've ever seen. I just don't even know what to say.

PrinceShroob

While reverting Subterranean Assault’s timing and improving Cutting Dive is a start, you haven’t adjusted Winter’s Revenge or Advanced Species, and failed to adequately revert timing changes to Deep Fissure.

With regard to the timing of Deep Fissure, what most Wardens are used to is the timing between casts--that is, casting Deep Fissure every three skills--rather than its total time with a 10-second rotation.

I am growing disillusioned with the lack of change to Advanced Species--an ill-thought-out change that was made completely without developer comment. If it will not be changed, you must at least read the accused the charges and explain why it was altered.

If this is showing Wardens love, I’d hate to see what you’d do if you felt genuine opprobrium.

I would also stress listening to feedback about Nocturnal’s Ploy, as the change in 8.1.3 does not seem to have mitigated those concerns. I am not primarily a PvPer, so I can't really offer my own estimation, but, as they say, where there's smoke, there's fire.

How to put this? I'm holding out hope for the last week's patch, but not a lot of it. I have additional concerns, like the parity between morphs of Feral Guardian, but that's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic at this point.

x99KungFuTacosx

Forgot to mention, can you please reasses the nerfs to necromancer healing (especially the nerf to spirit mendor from week 1 PTS)? 48% nerf to the main healing ability for PvP necromancers is absolutely crazy.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

The first tick of Deep Fissure and both ticks of Sub Assault are currently taking the combined nerfs of 8% and 14%, rendering them extremely weak in basically any context.

Can you confirm from your testing that Sub Assault got the 14% nerf as well? To me, the week 4 patch notes read like Scorch and the Deep Fissure morph got a 14% nerf on the first hit, but Sub Assault was left alone.

Either way, I think the nerf of the first hit and the buff of the second hit are both bad ideas. Sub assault and deep fissure already had good morph distinctions after the week 1 pts notes. The 8% nerf was (arguably) warranted but this additional change makes the skill very unreliable. If my napkin math is right, the first hit will hit for ~21% less damage compared to live, and it already doesn't pack a ton of power on live.

YandereGirlfriend

x99KungFuTacosx wrote: »

Forgot to mention, can you please reasses the nerfs to necromancer healing (especially the nerf to spirit mendor from week 1 PTS)? 48% nerf to the main healing ability for PvP necromancers is absolutely crazy.

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

The first tick of Deep Fissure and both ticks of Sub Assault are currently taking the combined nerfs of 8% and 14%, rendering them extremely weak in basically any context.

Can you confirm from your testing that Sub Assault got the 14% nerf as well? To me, the week 4 patch notes read like Scorch and the Deep Fissure morph got a 14% nerf on the first hit, but Sub Assault was left alone.

Either way, I think the nerf of the first hit and the buff of the second hit are both bad ideas. Sub assault and deep fissure already had good morph distinctions after the week 1 pts notes. The 8% nerf was (arguably) warranted but this additional change makes the skill very unreliable. If my napkin math is right, the first hit will hit for ~21% less damage compared to live, and it already doesn't pack a ton of power on live.

Yes, Subs have received the same blanket nerf. It's applied to the base ability and inherited by the morphs.

Deep Fissure's modification is the increase in the second tick damage but Subs remain at the lowest value.