PTS Update 35 - Feedback Thread for Combat Balance Changes

MindOfTheSwarm

virtus753 wrote: »

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.)

Flurry has been a DoT for years. If it shows orange numbers instead of white numbers, then it is a DoT. This was stated by ZoS themselves when DoT and direct damage numbers got standardized.

So if Flurry should not be getting bonuses to DoT damage then its damage number coloring needs to be changed. Also, do not forget the the ability is still channeled and so will get bonuses from Deadly Strikes regardless.

gariondavey

MashmalloMan wrote: »

This patch is a wash, you've messed up, I'm done being constructive for you (ZOS). Hours upon hours of testing by 100s of players doing free work for you.

You've shown your true colours. Your "knee jerk reactions" week to week of the PTS completely changing things like dots to empower to light/heavy's from 1 extreme to the other shows you have no idea what you're doing anymore.

None of the bugs or standardization issues I reported are fixed either. What is the point of standards if you don't actually use them?

I had hope you would bring back some class identity to Sorc because you specified us in the notes. Unfortunately you thought a small buff to Crystal Weapon as one of the worst spammables in the game now, coupled with an overbuff to Daedric Prey was enough. It wasn't. You only solidified pet sorc for pve dps is the only way to play them. Non pet sorc has been dead for years and stam sorc is stuck using pets now due to hybrid changes. Pvp sorc is in the can, we were hard carried by a few sets and instead of nerfing the sets, you nerfed the class. Thank you.

I'm not going to alpha test your game for another 3 months to just get ignored. Money talks, you'll notice what this patch has done to your revenue for the next 3-4 months. Thanks for nothing.

zos if you are getting this kind of response from mashmallowman, one of the most dedicated pts testers and someone who has been posting extremely detailed and insightful information on the forums for YEARS, it is a pretty good indication that this situation is very very very bad

virtus753

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

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.)

Flurry has been a DoT for years. If it shows orange numbers instead of white numbers, then it is a DoT. This was stated by ZoS themselves when DoT and direct damage numbers got standardized.

So if Flurry should not be getting bonuses to DoT damage then its damage number coloring needs to be changed. Also, do not forget the the ability is still channeled and so will get bonuses from Deadly Strikes regardless.

Flurry was changed in mid-2019, when the devs started writing things like Flurry being brought up in damage to better compete "with other skills, like DoTs." Not "other DoTs," just DoTs.

If Flurry is currently meant to be a DoT, why was it an "issue" that required a "fix" that Thaumaturge buffed it as of 6.3.4? It was supposedly fixed then, and the bug recurred.

Wouldn't that have been Master-at-Arms buffing it that was the issue if it was a DoT and not direct?

ETA: and Deadly Strike was changed at the same time that Flurry was changed to direct so that it would buff both DoTs and Channels. That way it still buffs both Jabs and Flurry, both of which are channels and neither of which is a DoT. This is not a new change.

Glantir

Why Sorcs and Warden still dont have a class skill with Empower?
This force them into 2 Hander (5sec), Mages Guild (3sec lol), Oakensoul or rely on a good Galenwe uptime...

Cfrags still will be better combined with Rapid Strikes or Crushing Weapon than Crystal Weapons....

WreckfulAbandon

Crystal Weapon is terrible now for PvP, basically back to square one with no useful stamina morphs for sorc again.

Falcon_of_light

You just killed pvp stamblade... Congrats, you made it, now for sure...

velt88_ESO

As a new player on the skill floor -- you guys have gutted my build. The nerfs to the oakensoul and light attacks completely screw me. I'm only doing like 10-25k DPS depending on how long a fight lasts, I'm just barely stepping into solo trials on normal.

You've also ruined my speedy farming set with the changes to concealed attack by changing the 25% move speed while sneaking to minor expedition. The Jailbreaker set is now just time I wasted.

You killed the only thing I was excited about with the 4 second crit on Surprise attack. 4 seconds on a guaranteed crit means nothing when I'm sitting at 45% crit -- so this buff was actually just a nerf.

You've ruined my self heal in my tanking setup because I value mobility. Not that it matters, because tanking in this game isn't fun and feels bolted on without an aggro system or built in AOE taunts/pulls without running specific sets of armor which limit your survivability. You pretty much just killed my desire to tank in your game, Shadowy Cloak was basically the only nightblade ability on my sword and board bar. So now my bar is just going to be full of generic abilities. That kills any excitement I had towards my own character.

These changes do NOTHING to help people like me. Every thing you've changed that touches my class affects me negatively. Nothing I was doing was broken, I wasn't anywhere near 100k DPS. I don't PVP. All I do is overlands, trials and tank dungeons.

Who is this patch even for? It seems like your end game players don't want it, and I'm new -- I'm half blind. I'm terrible at video games and I certainly don't want it.

SaintJohnHM

These new changes are almost universally hated. I'm not sure if it's worse that they don't see how bad these drastic changes are, or if it's worse that they aren't listening to the players and aren't admitting and stopping a mistake before it's too late.

Ash_ShadowDragon

Falcon_of_light wrote: »

You just killed pvp stamblade... Congrats, you made it, now for sure...

Sorry, but removing the stun from surprise attack is a great thing to do for stamblades that know how to play PvP. Surprise attack still gives off balance so a simple Med weave will stun, attacking from stealth will stun, and NB has a pretty good on demand stun as well.

Sadly, this really was the only real good change. Classes are still clunky because of cast times, and weird skill lag (Ambush). Templar jabs... I feel sorry for templar mains!

If you really think Stamblade has been "killed" then im sorry, but you really have no idea how to play Stamblade to its full potential. Removing the stun allows me to actually time a stun with a solid burst, not hope I get a stun when I really want to stun the enemy player.

Klingenlied

Guess it is too late now for anything. We will needa wait another 3 months to see any changes that might turn the game around. Until then, we might actually be left with one of the worst iterations of the game yet - relatively seen in regards what it could and should have been after all this time.

But guess that's what ye gettin' for ignoring player feedback and going through with a vision tat belies itself.

LeHarrt91

In regards to the buff to the weapon and spell damage of Screaming Cliff Racer......Its still not going to make me use it.

You have overloaded the skill with buffs and specific requirements and bonuses from passives, but the core function of the skill still does not feel enjoyable to use, it is very clunky and slow to use. Please adjust the animation of this skill, even if its just to cast from your characters hand, rather than swooping down from a portal in the sky.

Auldwulfe

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

In regards to the buff to the weapon and spell damage of Screaming Cliff Racer......Its still not going to make me use it.

You have overloaded the skill with buffs and specific requirements and bonuses from passives, but the core function of the skill still does not feel enjoyable to use, it is very clunky and slow to use. Please adjust the animation of this skill, even if its just to cast from your characters hand, rather than swooping down from a portal in the sky.

You know, goblin shamans do have a small green bird they cast from their hand at you... and it is fairly quick
I'd be happy to get what the goblins in this game, get.....

Auldwulfe

Falcon_of_light

Ash_ShadowDragon wrote: »

Falcon_of_light wrote: »

You just killed pvp stamblade... Congrats, you made it, now for sure...

Sorry, but removing the stun from surprise attack is a great thing to do for stamblades that know how to play PvP. Surprise attack still gives off balance so a simple Med weave will stun, attacking from stealth will stun, and NB has a pretty good on demand stun as well.

Sadly, this really was the only real good change. Classes are still clunky because of cast times, and weird skill lag (Ambush). Templar jabs... I feel sorry for templar mains!

If you really think Stamblade has been "killed" then im sorry, but you really have no idea how to play Stamblade to its full potential. Removing the stun allows me to actually time a stun with a solid burst, not hope I get a stun when I really want to stun the enemy player.

Sorry, butyou doesnt know what u saing about.
Nb have streak so have gapcloser\safe ability\afoe stun'unblockable? No they doesnt, or maybe nb can facetank like other classes? - no. So nb have usable gapclosers, stam cc (in already manathirsty class), tankiness or maybe spamable dot stacks? -nonononono, all nnightblade kit was balanced around SA and after patch like this nb just will dissapear from pvp, only bombers will be viable. And you know it, stop being hypocrite and get good if u think that nb are was needed this undeserved nerf, u will NOT be able to faceroll nb's cause nb will just dissapear from pvp, you clown.

Jazraena

I'd still avoid the bird tbh. Unless I'm playing some concept of an Ashlander Shaman, the Vvardenfell animals are just a smidge too strange for most chars.

Falcon_of_light

velt88_ESO wrote: »

As a new player on the skill floor -- you guys have gutted my build. The nerfs to the oakensoul and light attacks completely screw me. I'm only doing like 10-25k DPS depending on how long a fight lasts, I'm just barely stepping into solo trials on normal.

You've also ruined my speedy farming set with the changes to concealed attack by changing the 25% move speed while sneaking to minor expedition. The Jailbreaker set is now just time I wasted.

You killed the only thing I was excited about with the 4 second crit on Surprise attack. 4 seconds on a guaranteed crit means nothing when I'm sitting at 45% crit -- so this buff was actually just a nerf.

You've ruined my self heal in my tanking setup because I value mobility. Not that it matters, because tanking in this game isn't fun and feels bolted on without an aggro system or built in AOE taunts/pulls without running specific sets of armor which limit your survivability. You pretty much just killed my desire to tank in your game, Shadowy Cloak was basically the only nightblade ability on my sword and board bar. So now my bar is just going to be full of generic abilities. That kills any excitement I had towards my own character.

These changes do NOTHING to help people like me. Every thing you've changed that touches my class affects me negatively. Nothing I was doing was broken, I wasn't anywhere near 100k DPS. I don't PVP. All I do is overlands, trials and tank dungeons.

Who is this patch even for? It seems like your end game players don't want it, and I'm new -- I'm half blind. I'm terrible at video games and I certainly don't want it.

oaken is broken, dont justify broken things when they nerf balanced ones...

FedericoBiS

I'm an end-game player that's been playing ESO since the Tamriel Unlimited update, have 18 max leveled characters, geared out for vet trials HMs. Got a dps, tank and healer of every class and spec (stam/mag) so I can assure you that I'm familiar with combat and gameplay of ESO. Currently progging Planesbreaker and already have all the other trifectas. With the context out of the way...

Initial patch notes gave me a very bad impression, especially with all the drama attached to it. But I try to be level headed and I installed PTS to check it out myself. I only played for a few hours during week 1 and 2. Didn't do anything on week 3 cuz that when European server is copied over and I didn't have any toon set up there and not gonna bother creating a new toon and setting it up cuz its a waste of my time. And I promptly uninstalled PTS then because it wasn't worth the effort nor disk space. Week 5 came around and I'm just disappointed.

Now, to make bullet points of good, bad and final thoughts. This list is most likely incomplete and I'm only writing this off the top of my head.

Good:
- Jab animation. I liked it, but I see I'm a minority based on the few replies I read. Its much easier to weave and I missed only 1 LA according to CMX. Shortened channel duration helps a lot but the animation could be sped up, add another jab but maintain same duration. Its subjective.
- Standardized attro: Its good that it now has the most common/must have buffs that 99% of vet trial groups run, those that optimize of course. BUT! Doing this change during this tumultuous balance change really hinders our ability to compare to live.
- Carve: The 32s duration is good cuz it will help keep up the 3 stacks and time it up better with stampede.

Bad:
- DK whip hybrid cost. I don't like this change cuz feels too weird, its a 1st time having a skill cost like this. Eruption having a cost per sec is already weird but it works out cuz it helps sustain when moving/recasting it. With the new whip, it becomes harder to sustain Stampede, Carve and trap cuz stam runs very low. Mind that this is on my magDK with all points into mag, ulti pots can prob help with the stam issue.
- Flurry is now the BiS spammable? This is all kinds of wrong, weapon skills are supposed to be an alternative to playstyles that class skills can't provide. Animation wise, its a joke like other have pointed out.
- Class aoes are underperforming. Unique class aoes like Winter's Revenge and Twisting Path under perform. This spreadsheet approach and skill factors you are using... missed the mark terribly.
- Class diversity is out the window, forcing us to use weapon skill lines and even weapon types. Winter's Revenge does more dmg with a staff equipped? What happened to "play how you want"?
- Couldn't tell us the HP changes for bosses? I found this to be funny in a sad way. You expect the very few people in PTS to go in every trial, clear every HM in order to see for ourselves by how much you changed the values? The more I think about it, the more disrespectful it becomes. I didn't expect a list of every boss in every dungeon and trial, but at least, could've mentioned the harder ones, which are the ones end-game raiders are worried about like Xalvakka, Bahsei, etc.
- Walls of texts and super niched conditions for skills: Dark cloaks heals more if you stand still? Whip's hybrid cost? Winter's revenge buff with a staff? All these conditions just complicate the functionality and feel of the gameplay. Instead of improving accessibility, you're adding complexity to an already very complex game.
- Your stated goal of improving accessibility does not line up with your approach here. Other have pointed this out far better than I ever could. What I'm saying here, is that I agree with those people like Code's and others.
- Your goal of improving how to balance new content and its difficulty. Why not simply not make content that only 0.01% of players can clear? Skinnycheeks mentioned in a video that only a few hundred characters (not players) cleared vRG HM in a 3 month period, can't remember exact numbers but that's pretty low. Now, I like a challenge and can manage the current difficulty just fine, but I'm a super mega smol minority here.
- Empower SHOULDN´T buff medium attacks. Nobody wants medium weaving back. Either change it to buff LA and HA and everything in between, or make it buff fully charged HA only.
- Restoration staff HA is the strongest HA among all the staves? Genuine question cuz I don't know for sure, but if it is... it shouldn't. I know people will meme about this, but it still deserves to have another look.
- I could keep going but this are the things that came to my mind as I'm writing this on the fly.

Mixed
- Sticky dots and static dots now have different timers. Time will tell how this will play out, but now, instead of reapplying backbar dots, frontbar dots and spam till its time to refresh and start over, it will be backbar dots...check frontbar dots.. spam...check frontbar dots...backbar dots... and so on. This might only apply to static rotations which I rarely use. This is purely speculation from my part, most of it anyways. I did have to look at my bars more than before when parsing to adapt to the new durations, which might be longer but still are different from what I'm used to for a few years.

Final thoughts
Stop with the drastic changes every 3 months. Its been non stop for a few patches. First, finish up your hybridization process, still a few things missing. See how that fares before introducing even more changes that just throw everything off. I'm very tired of the meta, rotations, BiS sets, skills and group compositions changing so often. This is a 7 year old game, it really shouldn't be going thru an evolution every year.

To put some weight into the impact this drastic patch will have on the endgame community. I'm currently in 3 core groups, two are for Planesbreaker and a third for just a vRG HM clear. One of the cores has already announced that it will take a break when update goes live because people are quitting and it will need time to recruit replacements, among other reasons. There is talk of people leaving the 2nd PB core. I can't measure how much this will impact endgame community, but I can say that it definitely has. As for myself, I don't think I'll be quitting entirely but I'll definitely take break or logging in way less.

I accepted and embraced hybridization, even if it meant farming/reconstructing more sets, changing skill loadouts, etc. I DID NOT want account wide achievements to go live, and said so in the according feedback thread (in a constructive way of course). Now, I'm here doing it again, posting my feedback (in a constructive way I hope) to let ZOS know that the pushback is real.

This balance pass obviously was done over the course of many weeks if not months. When feedback arrived and came back negative, you decided to change even more stuff, even bosses HP. I don't believe that these last minute changes are gonna do any better to help raise the floor and reduce the ceiling. Too many pieces are moving at the same time. Its gonna end up being an inconsistent mess. To put it simply, these changes shouldn't go live, at least the vast majority of them. Instead, you should go back to square one, rethink this, change your approach and come back with a more consistent idea, instead of rushing a slew of changes that weren't tested properly, with a lot of inconsistencies (for example, backbar enchantments uptime dropping due to the AOE ticks being every 2s, which was reversed, I know), but the fact remains that this issue came up in the 1st place betrays that this wasn't thought of thoroughly.

Do smaller balances changes, or none at all, don't try to reinvent the wheel every 3 months. I love ESO, been playing it for years, met great people, enjoy the fast-pace combat and complex build making, but the last year has been a struggle. I hope that I'll keep enjoying it but frankly, the disconnect that devs have with what makes ESO combat being great, the community and feedback in general is concerning. Accessibility is very important, a very noble cause and goal, but sacrificing what makes the combat so good is the wrong way to go about it.

tldr: majority of patch bad, me no happy, pls no ban/delete.
p.s. I wrote this fast and English isn't my 1st language.

PrinceShroob

I do not understand why Advanced Species has not been reverted. If you are concerned about uncapped damage increases, Nightblade's Pressure Points and Dark Vigor passives, Sorcerer's Expert Mage passive, and Fighters and Mages Guild passives still provide "uncapped" increases to damaging stats.

If Advanced Species must be in puerile poetic parity with Frozen Armor, then alter Frozen Armor to provide 1% reduced damage taken per Winter's Embrace skill slotted. I do not believe that this would be a problem, as it would take six skills for a 6% reduction, a poor value compared to Revealing Flare's 10% reduction for a single skill slotted. And if it would be unbalanced... the ship is sinking. Who cares is some people are having fun in the water?

Alternatively, swap the functionality of Flourish and Advanced Species so that Advanced Species provides a static damage bonus for having a single Animal Companions skill slotted while Flourish provides a scaling magicka and stamina recovery bonus based on how many Animal Companions abilities are slotted.

React

Dark Cloak (morph):
This morph once again heals for Max Health per tick, rather than missing health.
Reduced the base healing by approximately 42% compared to the live version.
This morph has a new added functionality where the Heal over Time is increased by 150% when not moving.

The newest iteration of dark cloak is a mistake, in both PVE and PVP.

In PVP, this destroys the functionality of the skill for non-cloak nightblades. Brawlers, hybrids, and pure magicka nightblades relied on this skill to be a consistent heal over time. You simply cannot stand still in any meaningful situation in pvp. The only PVP playstyle this enables is pure troll tanking. What happened to "play how you want"? Why are we being forced to play nightblade either as a cloak spamming ganker or as a full troll tank?

In PVE, I have seen numerous tanks saying that they are too mobile to make use of a skill like this. It encourages them to stand in AOEs and sacrifice positioning to get a decent self heal, which seems redundant.

Many people would like for this to just be returned to a normal heal over time ability, rather than one with an unusable condition.

Jaraal

AJA wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Wardens and their Shalks dunked into the sun despite overwhelming community feedback (and data) that it was a poor idea.

What is the purpose of this thread again?

At this point I'm convinced that they don't read any of the feedback given

Our “knee jerk reactions are…. tiresome and disappointing.” Why would they want to read them?

IZZEFlameLash

velt88_ESO wrote: »

As a new player on the skill floor -- you guys have gutted my build. The nerfs to the oakensoul and light attacks completely screw me. I'm only doing like 10-25k DPS depending on how long a fight lasts, I'm just barely stepping into solo trials on normal.

You've also ruined my speedy farming set with the changes to concealed attack by changing the 25% move speed while sneaking to minor expedition. The Jailbreaker set is now just time I wasted.

You killed the only thing I was excited about with the 4 second crit on Surprise attack. 4 seconds on a guaranteed crit means nothing when I'm sitting at 45% crit -- so this buff was actually just a nerf.

You've ruined my self heal in my tanking setup because I value mobility. Not that it matters, because tanking in this game isn't fun and feels bolted on without an aggro system or built in AOE taunts/pulls without running specific sets of armor which limit your survivability. You pretty much just killed my desire to tank in your game, Shadowy Cloak was basically the only nightblade ability on my sword and board bar. So now my bar is just going to be full of generic abilities. That kills any excitement I had towards my own character.

These changes do NOTHING to help people like me. Every thing you've changed that touches my class affects me negatively. Nothing I was doing was broken, I wasn't anywhere near 100k DPS. I don't PVP. All I do is overlands, trials and tank dungeons.

Who is this patch even for? It seems like your end game players don't want it, and I'm new -- I'm half blind. I'm terrible at video games and I certainly don't want it.

If you don't want guaranteed crit every 4 seconds, then other classes would like to take it since you think it is a weak buff. The things other classes can do with that...

francesinhalover

K9002 wrote: »

So players who lost the most damage are the solo players who miss out on the many different group buffs. And the only enemies that had their health reduced were bosses in group content, while solo arenas were not adjusted?

Its funny, they kill endless hail duration to the point where i have to farm a perfected master bow and now they also forget to lower the arena's hp.

Enundr

Auldwulfe wrote: »

LeHarrt91 wrote: »

In regards to the buff to the weapon and spell damage of Screaming Cliff Racer......Its still not going to make me use it.

You have overloaded the skill with buffs and specific requirements and bonuses from passives, but the core function of the skill still does not feel enjoyable to use, it is very clunky and slow to use. Please adjust the animation of this skill, even if its just to cast from your characters hand, rather than swooping down from a portal in the sky.

You know, goblin shamans do have a small green bird they cast from their hand at you... and it is fairly quick
I'd be happy to get what the goblins in this game, get.....

Auldwulfe

kinda reminds me of vamp npcs vs player vamps.....XD

ESO_Nightingale

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

I think I'll just give them zero money until they actually fix this mess, preferably by rolling back u35 combat changes.

I won't resub until i feel like there's a reason to stick around playing the endgame. Combat was hurt very badly this patch so I'm going to put my money elsewhere.

siddique

Jaraal wrote: »

AJA wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Wardens and their Shalks dunked into the sun despite overwhelming community feedback (and data) that it was a poor idea.

What is the purpose of this thread again?

At this point I'm convinced that they don't read any of the feedback given

Our “knee jerk reactions are…. tiresome and disappointing.” Why would they want to read them?

Knees been jerking for a month with no relief in sight.

Oshea_OK

Been testing for the average guy.

Easy 2 bar setup on the PTS today: as easy as a one bar.
Mag Scor.
Sergeant Mail. Torug Pack (no monster) Maelstrom staff. (shock enchant)
30k health, 32 Magic. 2200 health recovery.

Front Bar, is just pets and Unstable Wall with Heavy Attacks. (For buffs just Inner light and Critical Surge).
It is weaker, but Unstable wall is still ok as a spammable AOE for clearing trash mobs when soloing and dungeons.
Back bar is I use Hunting curse and whatever heal or shied, or extra dsp you need.
With Champion points Harden Ward gives 16,000 damage shield.
Magic sustain is not an issue because heavy attack focus.

I was getting 45k + dps and it was super easy to do.
With a health enchant still getting 42k dps.

*Observation: (1) This is an easy dsp set up for average players and works good. My testing shows these types of builds will do well for the target audience.
(2) I did find it difficult to find health recovery sets that are good and easy to get for newer players like (Alessian Order). This type of set paired with a heavy attack set would be great. Thus, there needs to be more sets like this accessible to the target audience of this update.
(3)Unstable Wall was often recommend to me by content creators and players on discord, as a new and struggling player. As is on the pts, it is a little to weak as a skill used by struggling players, which is update is suppose to help raise the floor. I think about 30% was nerfed on the update; maybe only half of this would be a good compromise.
(4). I find timers on this update to only marginally better than before. The longer 20 second timers on buff skills for Spell damage and critical chance are better and easier to work with on the back bar. However, it is difficult to find longer 20 DSP skills to put on the back bar to be the same length as my buffs. This makes thinking about and working on the rotation more difficult, and I image new players will find it troublesome. The Maelstrom staff is meant for the back bar, but Wall of Elements and Unstable Wall are 10 seconds, when my other back bar buffs are 20. I believe if every class, and weapon had only one good 20 dps skill to put on the back bar, it would greatly help, and could scale well with each other and sets. Wall of Elements would benefit from 2 morphs, one 10 second and one 20.

I hope the devs find this helpful.

VictorDragonslayer

If you release Update 35 as it is right now, later you'll run around screaming: "What happened to our revenue?" Here is a short list of what went wrong so it will be harder to say that no one told you.
1) Communication and reputation.
You spectacularly failed here. Bad wordings and one twit provided a solid ground for animosity towards dev team. Kevin does his best to communicate with us, but initial damage was done. Communication with you looks like talking with a wall, because you don't engage in dialogue and simply dump your vision.
2) Intentions and reality.
The only thing I know about game balance is Riot Games musings. They told how to balance champions for different skill brackets: tweak base stats to buff / nerf that champion for all players, buff / nerf scaling (flat damage / cooldown) to affect pro players. And now I have one simple question: how can you nerf damage to make the game more accessible? Your "ticks every 2 seconds" looks like a cheap attempt to reduce load on the server. Why was it so hard to say something like "We want to see what performance gains we can achieve by reducing damage tick frequency" or "We don't like amounts of power creep in our game"? Unclear intentions sow distrust.
3) Consequences of changes.
When I first read week 1 patch notes, I thought that Falgravn HM will be much harder with nerfed healing. Yes, you can go defensive and say that you can't foresee everything, but here's a catch: if you can't foresee everything, then why do you think that such amount of changes can lead to good results? Nerfing damage without nerfing encounters makes game harder; nerfing encounters requires...
4) Time.
You need time to test everything. Oh, wait... Your paying customers need time to test everything. In order to test all veteran comtent you need a large sample of people from different skill levels, these people need to run the content both on live and on PTS and then report to you their progress / regress. Even with two huge assumptions - there are enough people and they will provide enough data in one week - you are left with one week to change, deploy and test unknown set of (let's assume the worst - all) encounters. You don't have enough resources for such feat. Claim whatever you want, I play this crown store launcher game and see where you had time for proper testing and polishing (DSR) and where you hadn't (ToT achievments).
5) Ego and reality.
You have exceptionally angry customers, half-baked release and less than 2 weeks before going live. What is the most logical solution? To [snip] go live anyway! What could possibly go wrong? Reputational damage, harder game for casual and mid-tier players, MA weaving for top players, Swashbuckler Supreme may become impossible... At least one of these things must be accessibility, I'm sure you'll figure out which one.

[snip]

[Edited for Inappropriate Language and Bashing]

exiledtyrant

Ran 3 sets of parses for Flurry + Whirlwind, Crystal Weapon + Whirlwind, Crystal Weapon + Flurry + Whirlwind.

Results:

Flurry + Whirlwind 66k DPS
Crystal Weapon + Whirlwind 64k DPS
Crystal Weapon + Flurry + Whirlwind 64k DPS

Video of Parses found here:

https://youtu.be/WXy6eLvbFMk

Conclusions:

The crystal weapon buff has closed the gap ever so slightly compared to flurry. My crystal parses are around 3-5% less overall damage vs the previous 5-7%. Honestly, it's gotten so close now I would consider it much like the 10 second vs 15 second AOE morphs where you could use either according to personal preference. I would have liked the damage to skew the other way, favoring the class-based spammable, but it's not a deal breaker. I assume this is the cost for the utility of 10% skill reduction and 1k armor shred. The current utility of crystal weapon could be a bit sharper but it no longer feels so weak it's not even worth putting on the skill bar.

I still feel Bound Armaments should be always on instead of a buff that falls off. Light weaving makes it impossible to clip and rebuff before it falls off. It also muddies the rotation with little to no payoff. Pets are easier to use, serve more utility, and have been putting up better numbers in my tests.

15 second back bar AOEs also feel wrong vs having 10 second and 20 second options to standardize around. Feel-wise clipping feels bad when I have to cut skills like hurricane, barbed trap, deadly cloak etc short just to keep back bar skills like endless hail up for an infused weapon glyph. More back bar options that proc back bar weapon glyphs could be a potential solution so builds aren't locked into a certain set of skills. Then players could pursue a 10, 15, 20, or 30 second rotation as they see fit.

Number-wise rotation clipping is negligible. It usually puts more of a strain on resources sustain rather than DPS and the cost reduction seems to have covered this issue.

renne

velt88_ESO wrote: »

Who is this patch even for? It seems like your end game players don't want it, and I'm new -- I'm half blind. I'm terrible at video games and I certainly don't want it.

This is the question I'd LOVE to see answered, with answers on how these changes actually help.

DairyCat

Please don't remove the stun from Nightblade Veiled Strike. It's been there for 8 years why remove it now? Guaranteed critical strike is IMO pretty pointless. Not only do Nightblade builds typically already have high crit due to the Assassin passive skills, but Shadowy Disguise already provides guaranteed crit.

For PvP NBs are also already at a slot disadvantage due to being the only class who has to slot a stealth ability, now they have to slot a CC ability as well just to retain their prior level of utility? Please ZOS don't do this.

PrinceShroob

PrinceShroob wrote: »

I do not understand why Advanced Species has not been reverted. If you are concerned about uncapped damage increases, Nightblade's Pressure Points and Dark Vigor passives, Sorcerer's Expert Mage passive, and Fighters and Mages Guild passives still provide "uncapped" increases to damaging stats.

If Advanced Species must be in puerile poetic parity with Frozen Armor, then alter Frozen Armor to provide 1% reduced damage taken per Winter's Embrace skill slotted. I do not believe that this would be a problem, as it would take six skills for a 6% reduction, a poor value compared to Revealing Flare's 10% reduction for a single skill slotted. And if it would be unbalanced... the ship is sinking. Who cares is some people are having fun in the water?

Alternatively, swap the functionality of Flourish and Advanced Species so that Advanced Species provides a static damage bonus for having a single Animal Companions skill slotted while Flourish provides a scaling magicka and stamina recovery bonus based on how many Animal Companions abilities are slotted.

Additional point: if you wanted to give Wardens a penetration bonus, why is it not attached to the passive called Piercing Cold?