PTS Update 35 - Feedback Thread for Combat Balance Changes

francesinhalover

Tannus15 wrote: »

crystal weapon + bound armaments

96k

crushing weapon + crystal frag

101k


this looks like pretty convincing evidence that sorc was over nerfed to me.

Bound armaments is objectively terrible now. you're better off running a 2nd spammable.

tbh the best way to nerf stam sorc, is making the flying twiligt unusable on stam. Because many hate it and don't use it, and the ones who use it get free dps that is getting sorcs other skills nerfed.
At this point id be happy if twilight was purely a healing pet.

francesinhalover

Nevidyra wrote: »

Templar - PvP/Duels

I did some testing on the PTS tonight. 800ms jabs is nice, but we lost an entire damage tick and the remaining primary damage was FURTHER nerfed by 21%. This is incredibly damaging to Templar's offensive kit in PvP and doesn't make sense. Sure, it's easier to weave now, but with the LA nerfs, it doesn't compensate for the loss of an entire tick AND a nerf to burning light ontop. The ability is one of the worst spammables in the game now.

Please get rid of the 21% nerf to primary damage and provide more damage to compensate for the ability only ticking 3 times now instead of 4, please. We don't want Templar going back to being a healer only class in PvP.

Use flurry, apparently some ppl tested and you get higher dps on templar with it.
has for my opinion on it? i'll never touch templar or rapid strikes again(sorry cough i meant light attacks done in a faster way lazy animation).

bluehomeos

dk's major brutality skill change to empower and empower change is enough to 1shot heavy attack build imo...
this patch ruined every light, heavy attack build. thats too merciless.

I Stamsorc melee main, this patch is horrible. i duel several times in pts and crystal weapon, bound armaments are really useless now. they are not better than any spammable. they are now just 1/2 * 2 spammable and normal spammable only can use after 4 light attack landing. if you guys not want bowsorc, just nerf them to except melee range. why just simply kill everything? i don't understand...

Anyway I'll answer your poll

Light and Heavy Attacks
Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?
yes

If you did, was it better or worse in your experience?
WORSE. in pvp, 655 light attack meaning nothing.

What activities did you primarily feel the differences in, if any (parsing, dungeons, overland, dueling)? Please feel free to include before and after images of metrics on data, such as combat logs, to showcase your point.
I was dueling and this feel really bad. light attack is nothing and this is just not funny. I main 2h melee, so using dizzy and heavy weaving, heavy weaving now deal 1200. thats really... horrible.

Do you feel like Light and Heavy Attacks still provide meaningful impact to your play experience after the adjustments? Please explain your reasoning.
now therer are no meaning.

Damage over Time
Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?
yes

If you did, was it better or worse in your experience?
I don't care about dots usually, so seems not bad. dk must be hurt.

Healing over Time
Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?
Yes

If you did, was it better or worse in your experience?
Firstly, I thought oh it was too bad! but keep playing, and feels better.

What activities did you primarily feel the differences in, if any (parsing, dungeons, overland, dueling)? Please feel free to include before and after images of metrics on data, such as combat logs, to showcase your point.
Dueling. cuz Every hots are nerfed so ttk seems less than before. ( except sorc )

After the balance changes, did you make changes to the amount of Healing over Time abilities your build utilized? Please explain any reasoning.
Yes. I remove some hots and adds defensive set.

While using Healing over Time effects, did you notice any other impacts on your play experience? np

How do you feel about the healing experience and its overall impact in your primary activities (PvP/Dungeons/Solo/Trials)? Has your sentiment changed based on these PTS adjustments?

Hard to survive but not much bad.

francesinhalover

Instead of hurting everyone, why not add a set that removes light attack damage by like 90% and adds 40-50% extra skill dmg?

Tsunahmie

Aldoss wrote: »

Just spent some time dueling on the pts.

The warden changes are absolute trash. This class needs BUFFS! We don't deserve these nerfs in the slightest.

It's literally all bad, minus the Falcon Swiftness change.

104% crit dmg, 16k pen against a target with 26k armor and shalks barely crits for 6k while Sea Serpent's is active... Let's not even discuss the timing change, but this is absolutely terrible damage. What a let down to be forced to operate completely around this ability, have to spend so much concentration to time it and to aim it, and to have it crit for less than some spammables in the game... an average hit over a several minute long duel is 3.2k.

Seriously, what are you doing?

Meanwhile, surprise attack hits me for 6k PER SECOND.

I'm so confused.

Arctic ticks for ~400 dmg now. The heal is only a little more than it was on live, but it still cannot be sustained as a burst heal. This heal needs to go completely. This skill needs a full rework. Back to the drawing board.

The LA/HA change is also a big nerf to Magden. On live I'm getting heavy ice crits for 7k when I proc off balance. One of our only reliable bursts atm, given the pitiful damage of shalks, is to proc off balance, load shalks, and heavy into a dive or frost reach as shalk goes off. The one extra second is already infuriating, but the largest crit heavy I got tonight was 2.2k.

These are massive nerfs. I don't even know what was going through your minds when writing this...

To anyone saying, "when everyone is upset, then the changes are fair": that only is true if all classes were balanced to begin with. Magden is already so bad. We needed massive changes to bring us back to even B tier. As the pts changes are, Magden will continue to be bottom tier, especially now that Nightblade got some incredible buffs.

It's lonely down here.

Magsorcs and probably Sorcs in general feel your pain Magdens have better defense than sorcs but sorcs have better offense. With the nerfs I'm not to sure what Sorcs have left so let's enjoy the struggle together lol

Sahidom

There is so many poor decisions with 8.10 combat changes. These patch notes reinforce the thankfulness for not buying the High Isle release or encouraging me to play ESO over other games.

The LA/HA changes is just horrible. The Fixed Damage without scaling hurts more than benefiting casual, non-Parse Warrior players. This change hurts parse numbers, but more importantly, the change severely impacts people trying to learn LA/HA "weaving," as this was one damage source, they could use to boost their overall parse. Besides the setbacks that will push more players out of trial groups, the ESO Devs are effectively nullifying the character attribute: Weapon and Spell Damage; I understand LA/HA scaled to the Offense Resource pool, however, now the attribute has no material value other than being a favored coefficient to certain class and skill lines. Why not remove the whole Weapon and Spell Damage attribute from the character sheet and item sets when ESO Devs are moving the game towards Offensive Resource pools instead?

ESO Devs train wrecked each and every class with these combat changes. Just pitiful. I thought I'd play again, but I have to thank the Devs for giving me a reason not to spend money on ESO. Thanks, Devs. Saved my wallet since our economy is not one to be wasteful with inflation abound.

AzuraFan

I'm a casual player (not in terms of hours, but in terms of activities I do) and after AwA I spend 98% of my time playing my main. I'm not on PTS, but from reading the patch notes, I'll have to change up a lot of what I do, or my DPS will probably be even lower than it is now. As a player who spends 99% of my time in overland, I shouldn't have to do that in an 8-year old game.

I play ONE character 99% of the time. A bow/bow warden. I see that LA and HA ranged dmg is nerfed compared to melee. The changes to the bear look bad to me, but I'm not into builds so maybe I'm missing something. All the DOTs nerfed. A fun set I love to wear apparently won't proc as often because players will be crit hitting less (according to what someone else said up thread). It sounds like I'll have to use one of the cutting dive morphs. I don't like that skill. It's always felt clunky to me. Will I have to spam it now?

I don't see how these changes will help a casual player like me. It sounds like I'll do less damage, and I certainly won't be able to play the way I want.

My motivation to play has taken a critical hit. My ESO+ renewal is coming up soon (weeks) and I'm thinking maybe it's time for a break. Really sad, because I do enjoy the game. I could change up the way I play to go along, but another massive patch will come along at some point that will blow it all away anyway. The game has been out for eight years and they're still trying to balance combat. Something stinks really bad.

divnyi

The saddest part of combat changes is that despite the insanely negative feedback you will still push it forward.

Ishtarknows

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

This is the best patch in years. Fixes so much stuff and reduces power creep. Unfortunately players are too attached to the power level of their characters and simply can’t handle being made “weaker” even if it makes the game significantly better. And that’s why this thread is filled with masses of people who haven’t even tested the changes threatening to quit

I don't need to test the patch to see that the nerf to healing where HoTs only proc every 2 seconds will make a huge difference to boss fights like Lord Falgravn HM whose damage to players ticks every 1 second. These ticks btw can go as high as 18k in progs where damage is slower and there have been deaths already.

Tell me why this is the best thing please

ShadowProc

Stncold wrote: »

Remathilis wrote: »

Warden's are mad. Sorcs are mad. Templars are mad. Necros are mad. DKs are furious. And NBs would be mad if there were any.

I'd say good job. When nobody's happy, everyone wins.

What the hell are NBs mad about? Surprise attack being an auto crit when flanking or killer's blade finally rivaling weapon executes? Two things they've wanted forever?

Lost a must have set for burst. caluurion was stealth nerfed to oblivion.

Ishtarknows

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Alaztor91 wrote: »

Is there any reason why Spirit Mender and Restoring Tether didn't have their durations adjusted?

Why is Spirit Mender still a 16/8 seconds duration skill and Restoring Tether a 12 seconds one when their damage counterparts(Skeletal Mage and Shocking Siphon) were changed to the ''10/20 seconds ruleset''

The problem with too many changes is that its easy to overlook thigns like this

Imagine vKA HM execute phase with HPS cut by half, fun times /s

Don't forget with dps also taking a hefty nerf this fight (and all fights) will be much longer allowing the damage tick to increase much more as the fight becomes prolonged.

NeillMcAttack

Vertun wrote: »

Pls just no... All i love is much action and high apm... APM is just dope for me

Did they extend the global cooldown!!? I must have missed that in the notes.

LordDragonMara

You literally kill the game for people that wanted to play MMORPG that require player skill, and not just everything be around getting top tier gearing.

This 100% is the beginning of the end for ESO, just like it was for any games that decide it's a good idea to lower the skill ceiling, and lower the skill gap.

Also stop calling lazy and bad players = new players and/or casuals.

I maybe fit into the casual compartment, cause i don't care about being optimal at every single thing, or playing 8 hours a day(more like i play 2-3 to 4 hours per day), and i always want a game to be challenging, a game to have a clear skill gap and clear learning curve, and players that put effort into something to be rewarded, this is in every single thing in life.
If you wanna be good at something, you need to grind it, you need to learn and understand it, to find the best and fastest way to improve on it, and so on.

Also people that are talking about 1% or 2% or things like that, that are far from reality. Virtual Gaming is just like real world sports.
There is billions of people playing football for example, but just that small % that are actually that good and play it professionally. So should the one charge decide to change the rules and make the game easier, because vast majority of football don't want to learn and get better at it ? It's the same for Table Tennis, or Tennis or Basketball or any given sport actually.
Instead of punish your loyal playerbase, that actually keep the game alive(it's well known fact that this is the so call hardcore people), you should reward them. Removing skill gap, and the learning curve, it's removing layers of the game.
Removing what makes ESO different compare to so many other games.

And when people start talking about %, and how you should not cater for which % of the player base, why you not think for 1 seconds, were the truly big % of the gaming player base is, and most importantly why ?
What is people watching also on Twitch, Youtube and so on, and why ?

FPS, Battle Royale, Mobba.

Reason are clear. People loves to prove themselves, and this genres offer player skill, and most of the things that happen is due to player skill. There is high skill ceiling, with large gaps between players, but everyone is grinding hard, cause people want to become better, learn, improve, etc.
Why people are watching them ? Obviously they wanna see the player skill in action. They wanna see that crazy aim, that crazy movement, and that crazy 1vs3 fights and so.
Why would they spend time watching someone who is killing this or that, not because of his skill, but because of the gear he had. They can do the same.

Continue catering to bad and lazy players, and MMORPG will continue downsliding. It's very simple. There is no more depth in MMORG, why should i stay in the game, when there is no clear skill gap and player skill involved?
Why in the blue hell should the guy that been in the game for a 1 week do the same damage as me, without actually care to improve or putting the work to do so, when i spend years off grinding and trying to improve my rotation and so ?

You are losing tons of potential player base by literally removing the skill gap/lowering the ceiling.
A lot of people don't play MMORPG, because they don't involve enough player skill, and are not skill-based, but rather character-based.

P.P. High APM is not 180-200, which was pretty much what was required for top. 350-400+ is what high APM is.

I can casually hit 250+ no problem. And this is also a skill and something that a lot of gamers try to improve on.
Also let's ..... on the people that give plenty of money for top end peripherals, hardware, connection and so, because some people have terrible ones. Great logic to punish this type of people that actually invest to be better in the game ....

DairyCat

Please consider making the bonus damage on heavy attack sets like Undaunted Unweaver and Noble Duelist etc scale rather than be static damage bonuses. These sets were never competitive for end-game content but added build and playstyle variety for mid-game PvE.

Nerhesi

These changes are on the right track...Assuming you reduce DD damage by half, and give everyone 10x life and reduce sustain by 10x.

In other words, these changes make sense if ESO was designed as a balanced, traditional RPG with absolute pool values being important. But you cant simply make dots and hots longer duration, and less damage, in a game where duration and attrition do not mean anything.

This game has always been (unfortunately), counterstrike with resetting healthpools every 4-5 seconds. If you want class diversity, relevant dots/hots, etc... you need to change the core so not everyone is trying to be a burst/heal/dps monster at the same time.

katorga

So now that spirit guardian is effective a damage shield that gives 10% damage reduction until you receive 30K damage, where does it fit in the mitigation calculation?

Do major/minor protection reduce incoming damage before it hits the guardian calcation?

Does armor rating reduce incoming damage to the guardian like it would a normal damage shield?

Pevey

I thought moving the regen from being smooth to very janky way back when was a mistake. Now the same treatment is being applied across the board. It makes combat feel a lot less responsive and like your character has less agency. 2 seconds is forever when the adrenaline is pumping. Every 2 seconds for damage and (especially) healing is a bad idea.

Malmer

Im Fine with the Light attack change or the increased dot duration... but i dont think its good nerfing dmg that much ( i know its to much in the game?) i disagree with that for the newer content this dmg will be needed probabley for the future one aswell the biggest issue in that case is that zos leave trials like there are ot even obly nerf it like vhof ... just give the older bosses more hp etc over work them its better theb always make big combat changes idk hiw thoose changes feel to ovp aswell? but i and other good top players what i know lost almost 20-30k dps i would be stil fine with dokng less dmg per light attacks and the longer durations but dps needs to be equal

even all endgame players will leave because breaking new scores etc will be impossible when it cones live like this

QueuesAsTanks

I don't know if accurate feedback on damage between Live / PTS will be possible now that the trial dummy's buffs don't match Live. That said, I've lost 20k MagCro DPS minimum across eight parses (and almost certainly more than that with the PTS dummy buffs taken into account). That effectively puts a firm end to my Rockgrove Hard Mode dreams, and might end up disbanding a prog group for same.

I assume that the heal-over-time changes may also be unbroachable hurdles for the Bahsei HM fight, at least for us. I can't offer log or CMX feedback on HPS because that would require getting eleven people into a PTS HM trial instance at the same time, but on paper, the HoT gap is a death sentence to tanking flesh atros on Bahsei HM.

That's a real bummer for me. I've met some hilarious people and have time and fond memories invested, and these runs are a highlight of my week. I don't think I'd leave the game over it but I'm certain a few friends might take a break due to frustration, and wind up not returning. We might end up getting it before the next month, but if not, it's over. It's just not very fun to think about and it sucks the energy and excitement of raiding right out of me.

Malmer

its would be way better have look on content where dps seems to be to high and rework the healthpools etc

exiledtyrant

Light and Heavy Attacks

Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?

Not particularly. Light attack impact is always something that's been hidden behind a parse so its hard to get a general feel unless looking at hard numbers. Its certainly lower. If anything heavy attacks didn't feel as punchy but number wise that may be fine.


What activities did you primarily feel the differences in, if any (parsing, dungeons, overland, dueling)? Please feel free to
include before and after images of metrics on data, such as combat logs, to showcase your point.

Parsing has definitely shown a decrease in damage, but not enough to exclude me from content I already play. I made a more detailed thread on my live vs pts performance here:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/611318/stamina-sorcerer-feedback-for-update-35-pts-1#latest

All in all I lost about 9% average DPS after changing m skills up. Leaving me well with the DPS band I need for normal and vet dungeons. This is al alongside a build that was open to improvement from several factors that I have yet to address (upgrading gear, set reallocation, and another skill swap or two).

Do you feel like Light and Heavy Attacks still provide meaningful impact to your play experience after the adjustments?

Yes. Without weaving you lose a noticeable percentage of overall DPS. Weaving helps dictate pacing /rhythm for a rotation, maintains ultimate generation, increases status effect application, and applies useful buffs via glyphs.

Damage over Time

Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?

Yes

If you did, was it better or worse in your experience?

My experience was excellent. I feel rotations are far easier to manage and a lot of skill choices have opened up to me as result.

What activities did you primarily feel the differences in, if any (parsing, dungeons, overland, dueling)? Please feel free to include before and after images of metrics on data, such as combat logs, to showcase your point.

I've only ran parses so far but the difference is noticeable. Again my live vs pts thread shows the data:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/611318/stamina-sorcerer-feedback-for-update-35-pts-1#latest

I can also supply the actual rotation if needed.

After the balance changes, did you make changes to the amount of Damage over Time abilities your build utilized? Please explain any reasoning.

Yes. I actually changed my build up skill wise after playing with the changes. The new rotation not only improved DPS but has encouraged me to once again try different set combinations. I especially like the bleed changes that were implemented.

While using Damage over Time effects, did you notice any other impacts on your play experience?

Outside of combat being more fluid and damage going down vs Live no.

HoundofTara

I really hope pride doesn’t get in the way of them reverting these ideas. Especially the dot changes.

DeathStalker

HoundofTara wrote: »

I really hope pride doesn’t get in the way of them reverting these ideas. Especially the dot changes.

You've never interacted with these devs before I take it

DuckFayth

I appreciate the intentions of this, and understand that some things may change, but I have some feedback and early concerns. My main one being that the overall combat experience is being brought down so far that it borders lethargy for some classes and roles. My second one is that this nerf will actually mostly affect new and learning players.

tldr; The game's combat is complicated and this nerf doesn't make it more accessible, just less engaging. Skip to bottom paragraph for suggestion(s).

The LA stuff, I don't mind much, endgame players will be okay because they know how to adjust, the damage nerf has been more than expected looking at parses but it's fairly minor in the scheme of things. I'm concerned that new players, however, won't be. Especially because it's in conjunction with a sweeping change to the length and strength of DoTs.

A 10 second rotation is indeed mentally demanding and difficult to master, but most rotations were not a full 10 unique abilities and doubling that has a profound affect on combat engagement. Let's look at one of the more complicated rotations, a DoT build, which let's describe it as about 8 DoTs and maybe a spammable in there, leaving one space for a bar buffer. The current state of things would mean that if you did your rotation perfectly, you would cast all 8 dots and 2 spammables within 10 seconds. Now I understand this is oversimplifying because it doesn't count for the variety of cooldowns on DoTs in the long run but you'll see where I'm going with it. In the new state, with most DoTs being 20 seconds, you would be casting 8 DoTs and then... 12 spammables. Not always in that order but you would essentially be spending 60% of your rotation on a spammable ability. What about something like sorc, which often times runs 2 pets on both bars leaving them with 6 total skills for their rotation. You're now at a potential of 5 abilities/DoTs and 15 spammables per rotation. In one-bar applications, which are considered more accessible, it would be 2 DoTs, then 18 spammables. We're now up to spending 90% of your time hitting the same button, which visually and effectively are usually not that exciting. Even on the low end, spending more than half your combat time hitting the same button sounds pretty meh. I don't know how many of you have stood there and done the same thing every second for 18 seconds but it becomes tedious.

Then consider not all roles even have a spammable. Healers have no spammable (though you could argue combat prayer is their spammable, but that would quickly become unsustainable with the changes last patch) for a 20 second HoT uptime (and many buffs being longer) you're asking a healer to adjust to a rotation where they cast 8-10 abilities and then stand there doing what, maybe heavy attacking I guess? For 10 seconds. The game already struggles finding support roles, but a good support was always doing *something* and I am very concerned that when players heal content such as a trial or a dungeon that 50% of their gameplay will be fluff that they're standing around twiddling thumbs for. Heck, many healing buffs and debuffs were already longer than 10 seconds so I don't see why a change was needed for them at all. Then poor Tanks, there's endgame content that really needs their heals to tick more than once per 2 seconds, plus they get to experience the same rotation issue as healers.

This nerf does indeed lower the dps ceiling, but it lowers the floor as well. Keeping in mind, I don't really object to this change for 99% of endgame, my biggest concern here is that early in the game many new players spam light and heavy attacks long before they learn their abilities. They're going to enter the game feeling this one very strongly. Then in conjunction with that, DoTs are being changed as well. Consider that the second skill learned for destro staff is a DoT, the second skill learned for dual wield is a DoT, the second skill in 2h has a DoT... you see where I'm going with this. Many of the earlygame skills that will be used by new players are going to lose a lot of power as well. A fairly new player has a strong chance of waking up morning after patch and doing half of the damage they were doing before. They're not going to understand how or why, and they won't get that in overland content a 20 second DoT is not feasibly useful. High dps players will continue to kill overland creatures in 1-2 spammable casts, low dps players are going to struggle further, that gap will only broaden once you get to group content.

When you look at these two things, it does not address the main problem that being *good* at combat in ESO takes a lot of very unintuitive knowledge that is never taught by the game and only other players. For example, how would a new player know the limited ways to proc a glyph? How would they know that abilities and light attacks are on a different global cooldown? How would a new player know which traits are better or if it's worth switching them for different builds? The advanced stats page was a fantastic step in the right direction, but it has been broken almost since release and doesn't update certain stats properly. There needs to be a good ingame resource to learn these things, that's why such a large gap exists. Add a battle simulation that spells out mechanics to practice or a stats page that actively shows what changing gear will do to your stats and damage potential. We've all seen them in other games, those green + numbers or red - numbers. A parse dummy that takes 10+ minutes for a poorly optimized player spits out one unintuitive damage number that doesn't cut it. If the game is going to be accessible, it needs to be well explained. If it's not going to be well explained, then it is only fair that people who work hard and do exhaustive research are rewarded for it.

HoundofTara

DeathStalker wrote: »

HoundofTara wrote: »

I really hope pride doesn’t get in the way of them reverting these ideas. Especially the dot changes.

You've never interacted with these devs before I take it

Oh I have lol, since day one of release.

offbymyself

QueuesAsTanks wrote: »

I don't know if accurate feedback on damage between Live / PTS will be possible now that the trial dummy's buffs don't match Live. That said, I've lost 20k MagCro DPS minimum across eight parses (and almost certainly more than that with the PTS dummy buffs taken into account).

Actually, the trial dummy technically got a buff on pts. Increased alkosh. Minor courage and major slayer have been added. So, the decrease in damage is actually bigger than you're seeing.

blktauna

ok I just did a quick cyrodil run, just to see...

my necro's HA was 93 on the guards... 93. WTF???

MCBIZZLE300

After a few tests I have found resolving vigor to be very lackluster in a pvp setting atleast. Given that this skill is the main healing ability for many classes I think it needs to perhaps be looked at again and given a slight buff to its current pts state.

master_vanargand

Need change Drain Power's Major Brutality and Major Sorcery to Siphoning Strikes.
Do not ignore such a small wish.

XarOzz

Please stop trying to fix anything, I have never had change fatigue so bad as with this game.