PTS Update 37 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

KlauthWarthog

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

it's week 3. it's safe to say at this point these are the final changes before live.
from here it's just bug fixes.

i'm glad the dk chains got nerfed. i'm sad wrecking blow is going to be the new meta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbICmSleqPs

ZOS_Kevin

Since there have been a few asked about follow up, we want to touch base now. We're going through everyone's feedback over the last week and a half and plan to touchbase with the dev team again. Just a little insight, it takes some time and multiple parties to go through feedback with detail, arrange a time to chat with the dev team after they've had a chance to read everything, and be able to discuss the feedback and get answers back. The intent is not to drop off communication here. They just take time to coordinate.

Our hope is to have more feedback over the next few days. We just want to make sure we have a chance to talk to all parties involved.

Nilandia

Billium813 wrote: »

Perfected Radial Uppercut

(2 items) Adds 1190 Offensive Penetration, Uppercut deals 45% of its damage to all enemies near your primary target.

ZOS, can we please get the description on Radial Uppercut improved to give the actual area size? It looks like it's 5-6m, but I'm not sure.

I'm not a dev, of course, but it appears to be a 5 meter radius.

Cloudrest

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Since there have been a few asked about follow up, we want to touch base now. We're going through everyone's feedback over the last week and a half and plan to touchbase with the dev team again. Just a little insight, it takes some time and multiple parties to go through feedback with detail, arrange a time to chat with the dev team after they've had a chance to read everything, and be able to discuss the feedback and get answers back. The intent is not to drop off communication here. They just take time to coordinate.

Our hope is to have more feedback over the next few days. We just want to make sure we have a chance to talk to all parties involved.

Do you know if there's going to be the changes on week 4 of PTS based around the pages of feedback on this thread alone, and the dozens of other threads detailing problems with Templar, Sorc, and Necro? I don't think any of us are keen on waiting until U38 in June to be able to actually play our classes and have fun on them.

The_Titan_Tim

@ZOS_Kevin, hey if your team could look into Sun Shield’s size being increased based off of highest stamina or magicka alternatively from health, as an either/or like Conjured Ward, that would be an incredible change to the utility of the skill, currently the ability is useless in PvP outside of being massively outnumbered.

Max resource scaling regardless of the resource would be great, weapon damage scaling would be even better… though it might be a long shot.

Edit; Also, adding a Stamina morph to Toppling Charge would be a godsend. Thanks.

PhoenixGrey

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Backlash and morphs are seriously underperforming in PvP right now. Templar's burst ability should be hitting for more than 2-5k damage against players. Please look at the several threads talking about how weak Templar is currently and address the issue properly for week three of PTS, or look at the several comments on this thread. Nerf beam too, please.

Nightblade is still overperforming due to the unique 10% damage buff attached to concealed weapon.

Sorc changes don't address the issues with the class in PvP.

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

@ZOS_Kevin Keeping this simple and focusing primarily on magicka sorcerer.

Sorc Defense
-Hardened ward is still too small. Scaling on other wards specifically in the light armor skill line which sorc is forced to use also needs a buff.

Sorc offense
Specifically mag sorc is forced to stack more magicka instead of spell damage so that we have decent defense through hardened ward. This greatly impacts the offensive potential

Spell damage can scale up 30-40% with class passives, armor passives, and buffs like major sorcery, minor sorcery, and continuous assault vs Max magicka can only be increased by small amounts (7% with mage light).

Example - Since NB and sorc both are burst classes I can explain this with meta builds which top pvp'ers run

Typical NB :
8K spell damage and 25K magicka is 105k worth of magicka in damage.

Typical Mag Sorc
50K max magicka and 2K spell damage is worth about 70K magicka in damage.

Conclusion : NB has 35-40K more magicka worth of damage. Damage scales up, and they have it.

In addition to this everything that @AdamLAD said is on point

Billium813

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin, hey if your team could look into Sun Shield’s size being increased based off of highest stamina or magicka alternatively from health, as an either/or like Conjured Ward, that would be an incredible change to the utility of the skill, currently the ability is useless in PvP outside of being massively outnumbered.

Max resource scaling regardless of the resource would be great, weapon damage scaling would be even better… though it might be a long shot.

Edit; Also, adding a Stamina morph to Toppling Charge would be a godsend. Thanks.

While I do agree that Blazing Shield is basically useless, in both PvE and PvP, I'm going to disagree about changing Radiant Ward. I like how both morphs are structured for totally different circumstances.

Currently, Radiant Ward scale off of crowd size, increasing in strength proportional to the number of enemies in the area. Seems perfectly clear in it's intention and usefulness to me. It seems more suited for classic Tanking builds, and shines best when surrounded by many ads.

Blazing Shield also scales off of crowd size, but it doesn't scale nearly as high as Radiant Ward. Instead, Blazing Shield has an extra damage component! Now, in PvE, that isn't really that necessary. It may have some extremely niche applications, but classically the DPS will handle damage and having the Tank use this would be unnecessary. Also, a DPS wouldn't find much use as the damage is far too low to grace a bar spot.

That really just leaves Blazing Shield for PvP! It activates a shield, it punches back with damage, and it scales off Health which is just as applicable as mag/stam for PvP, even more so! Sounds pretty good actually! So, why doesn't it show up in PvP? Well, I think there are 2 factors really:

1. Blazing Shield scales off crowd size
2. Living Dark

Having Blazing Shield scale off enemies hit in PvP is so non-sensical. 98% of the time, it won't catch more than 1-2 players in the fast paced, spread out environment of PvP. Plus, it just isn't that big of a shield even if you catch 4 players somehow. Blazing Shield feels caught in this weird state where you can't make it scale TOO much per player or it'll be better than Radiant Ward! Also, we have this looming shadow of Living Dark for PvP. This skill seems to get all the attention for balancing and playability. Living Dark seems to be the go-to shield for PvP Templars because it does everything... and because alternatives liek Blazing Shield are just tooo bad...

I like the idea of Blazing Shield being more for 1v1 applications and Radiant Ward being more for large groups. Think trash packs vs bosses; you can't run both, you have to pick a morph. What if Blazing Shield instead scaled proportional to the highest health among enemies it hits?

We can have Living Dark be the defensive shield and Blazing Shield be the offensive one. You pop Living Dark as you run in, but you pop Blazing Shield once you expect a counter attack.

proteinexe

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Since there have been a few asked about follow up, we want to touch base now. We're going through everyone's feedback over the last week and a half and plan to touchbase with the dev team again. Just a little insight, it takes some time and multiple parties to go through feedback with detail, arrange a time to chat with the dev team after they've had a chance to read everything, and be able to discuss the feedback and get answers back. The intent is not to drop off communication here. They just take time to coordinate.

Our hope is to have more feedback over the next few days. We just want to make sure we have a chance to talk to all parties involved.

Thank you for the response, it's much appreciated.

The_Titan_Tim

Billium813 wrote: »

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin, hey if your team could look into Sun Shield’s size being increased based off of highest stamina or magicka alternatively from health, as an either/or like Conjured Ward, that would be an incredible change to the utility of the skill, currently the ability is useless in PvP outside of being massively outnumbered.

Max resource scaling regardless of the resource would be great, weapon damage scaling would be even better… though it might be a long shot.

Edit; Also, adding a Stamina morph to Toppling Charge would be a godsend. Thanks.

While I do agree that Blazing Shield is basically useless, in both PvE and PvP, I'm going to disagree about changing Radiant Ward. I like how both morphs are structured for totally different circumstances.

Currently, Radiant Ward scale off of crowd size, increasing in strength proportional to the number of enemies in the area. Seems perfectly clear in it's intention and usefulness to me. It seems more suited for classic Tanking builds, and shines best when surrounded by many ads.

Blazing Shield also scales off of crowd size, but it doesn't scale nearly as high as Radiant Ward. Instead, Blazing Shield has an extra damage component! Now, in PvE, that isn't really that necessary. It may have some extremely niche applications, but classically the DPS will handle damage and having the Tank use this would be unnecessary. Also, a DPS wouldn't find much use as the damage is far too low to grace a bar spot.

That really just leaves Blazing Shield for PvP! It activates a shield, it punches back with damage, and it scales off Health which is just as applicable as mag/stam for PvP, even more so! Sounds pretty good actually! So, why doesn't it show up in PvP? Well, I think there are 2 factors really:

1. Blazing Shield scales off crowd size
2. Living Dark

Having Blazing Shield scale off enemies hit in PvP is so non-sensical. 98% of the time, it won't catch more than 1-2 players in the fast paced, spread out environment of PvP. Plus, it just isn't that big of a shield even if you catch 4 players somehow. Blazing Shield feels caught in this weird state where you can't make it scale TOO much per player or it'll be better than Radiant Ward! Also, we have this looming shadow of Living Dark for PvP. This skill seems to get all the attention for balancing and playability. Living Dark seems to be the go-to shield for PvP Templars because it does everything... and because alternatives liek Blazing Shield are just tooo bad...

I like the idea of Blazing Shield being more for 1v1 applications and Radiant Ward being more for large groups. Think trash packs vs bosses; you can't run both, you have to pick a morph. What if Blazing Shield instead scaled proportional to the highest health among enemies it hits?

We can have Living Dark be the defensive shield and Blazing Shield be the offensive one. You pop Living Dark as you run in, but you pop Blazing Shield once you expect a counter attack.

Currently Magicka Templar is being funneled into a Ranged Spec by the almost complete removal of its melee capability.

Having the base Sun Shield scale with either resource would allow Magicka Templars the ability to shield stack efficiently, something that is impossible to do without a Restoration Staff currently…

While having it scale with Health or Weapon & Spell Damage would benefit both Magicka and Stamina Templars, one important aspect to keep in mind, is there is an explosion when Radiant Ward goes off, and that damage hits harder than Blazing Shield on any build that has under 40k health. That aggressive scaling is extremely important for a melee build like Stamplar to remain in a fight.

My proposed change would have zero impact on tanking whatsoever, while enabling the ability to receive play in PvP on any and all builds.

Sun Shield was one of the most iconic abilities Templar had on launch; it’s been languishing since.

The morph Blazing Shield needs a complete rework because the ability has not worked since Battle Spirit halved it.

gariondavey

Cloudrest wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Since there have been a few asked about follow up, we want to touch base now. We're going through everyone's feedback over the last week and a half and plan to touchbase with the dev team again. Just a little insight, it takes some time and multiple parties to go through feedback with detail, arrange a time to chat with the dev team after they've had a chance to read everything, and be able to discuss the feedback and get answers back. The intent is not to drop off communication here. They just take time to coordinate.

Our hope is to have more feedback over the next few days. We just want to make sure we have a chance to talk to all parties involved.

Do you know if there's going to be the changes on week 4 of PTS based around the pages of feedback on this thread alone, and the dozens of other threads detailing problems with Templar, Sorc, and Necro? I don't think any of us are keen on waiting until U38 in June to be able to actually play our classes and have fun on them.

This is what I have been asking, and/or tagging @ZOS_GinaBruno and @ZOS_Kevin each week of this cycle, as well as many times during u35 and u36 pts cycles + live versions.
And I'm not the only one. People like you, @Cloudrest and @dekrypted and several others have make many insightful posts and comments and threads asking for zos to fix our class.
This has been going on for a significant period of time.
People want information. It shouldn't be this difficult to get some information. If after the massive blowback to u35 jabs + burning light nerfs, zos said "we have heard your concerns and will be making an adjustment in u36", then that would have been an honest and upfront course of communication and action.
Instead, all of our enquiries and pleas were met with silence.
And now in u37, this late in the cycle, they say (not shooting the messenger, Kevin, you know how I appreciate what you do) that they need time to talk with all parties.
This seems pretty unlikely that they will be making changes to templar this cycle. Waiting this long to say anything (and this is only because of incessant tagging from myself and others on this official forum thread) is pretty telling.

TechMaybeHic

I mean; it's bad enough jabs has been complained about 6 months, and Backlash completely worthless in PvP for 3 and the devs apparently still are not aware. Didn't want to be impolite a couple weeks ago when they asked but it definitely was a concern I had that they didn't have an idea already. Or at least ok with letting us believe they didn't

gariondavey

TechMaybeHic wrote: »

I mean; it's bad enough jabs has been complained about 6 months, and Backlash completely worthless in PvP for 3 and the devs apparently still are not aware. Didn't want to be impolite a couple weeks ago when they asked but it definitely was a concern I had that they didn't have an idea already. Or at least ok with letting us believe they didn't

Yup, exactly

Zastrix

I feel that the bloodmist nerf is too much actually, or rather it shouldn't have been nerfed at all. TBH the 100% was okay for me as you're not going to have too many people running blood mist at all as in PvP people are going to opt out for the evasion morph and in PvE you'll have less HP regen as a vampire so a 100% lifesteal was perfect.

Also, shouldn't it count as a teleport ability? Or allow it to proc rushing agony...

I had the same reaction as Nefas @5:45 https://youtu.be/XhBL-3g5WEI?t=345

Note: Would be cool if the vampire drain skill became an execute.

Extinct_Solo_Player

Cloudrest wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Backlash and morphs are seriously underperforming in PvP right now. Templar's burst ability should be hitting for more than 2-5k damage against players. Please look at the several threads talking about how weak Templar is currently and address the issue properly for week three of PTS, or look at the several comments on this thread. Nerf beam too, please.

Nightblade is still overperforming due to the unique 10% damage buff attached to concealed weapon.

Sorc changes don't address the issues with the class in PvP.

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

Hey, @ZOS_Kevin . It's really awesome to see that you guys are actually replying and having a conversation with players on the PTS feedback threads. It goes a long way to building trust with us, and I really appreciate you replying to my post. Here's a list of Templar's pain-points in PvP for the dev team. Again, please do let me know if you guys need combat metrics screenshots or gameplay clips of Backlash especially, as I'd like to demonstrate it for them to diagnose effectively and fix for us.

Backlash and Morphs

As someone in Mechanical Acuity, Perfected Olorime's, Balorghs with a Markyn Ring of Majesty pushing 7.2k spell damage and 19k spell penetration, my tooltip for Backlash and its morphs (Purifying Light, Power of the Light) in Cyrodiil WITH battle spirit applied sits at around 6273 in Cyrodiil. According to the tooltip, 200% of that should be 12,546 damage before mitigation (armor, CP) from another player.

Unfortunately, the ability is extremely underperforming in PvP. It's only hitting players for 3-5k damage even when I'm hitting them with 2-3 casts of jabs and a Dawnbreaker beforehand. There's a theory going around that battle spirit is being incorrectly applied to the ability, effectively "double mitigating" the damage it does in Cyrodiil, as the ability works FINE in PvE. With the stated goal to be changing how it functions to get rid of some problems whilst maintaining the same relative power level as before the rework, I'd like to see the ability hitting players again for at least 12-15k when FULLY stacked. But it's just not, and it's difficult to kill other players.

As it stands, it's just not worth slotting, as it's a high-effort low-reward ability. Templar has no effective burst damage built into the class right now in PvP, and it struggles killing players outside of beam-spamming from the back of a zerg which no-one finds fun.

Biting Jabs/Puncturing Sweeps

I'm sure you guys have seen the multitude of threads protesting the animation change. I'm not going to go on about it, but what I am going to raise is that nerf to the snare duration has made it difficult to consistently land them on other players, and the removal of an entire tick of damage and further nerfing the remaining three ticks by what, 22-24% has made the ability feel like hitting other players with a wet pool noodle than a spear of light.

Templar's spammable sorely needs some love. Ideally, reverting the ability would fix it outright, but if not, at LEAST some damage buffs to compensate for the entire lost tick of damage as before. A light attack doesn't make up for it in PvP, or in PvE.

Major Evasion

Along with Major Evasion being so much more prevalent in Cyrodiil now, the damage of Biting Jabs/Puncturing Sweeps is further mitigated by another 20% ontop of them already being lackluster.

Burning Light

This ability was hit extremely hard by the changes (something like an effective 70% nerf), and seriously needs some damage buffs to make up for how long it takes to proc this ability on another player in PvP.

Radiant Oppression

Look, beam is a cool skill. It looks awesome and feels awesome to use, but it's way overtuned right now to the point where the most effective thing to do on Templar is to spam it from the back of a zerg to kill players. The damage needs a nerf.

Healing

As it stands right now, and it's been pointed out by several people in other threads and also in this combat thread itself, Templar just isn't that amazing of a healer anymore. It's been overshadowed by warden and necromancer in that regard, and even nightblade in some instances. Templar's abilities cost an insane amount of magicka right now, and the cost of them could be reduced to make them a bit more viable and worth running in groups.

Pretty much this. To add, healing ritual and radiant aura should also be reworked somewhat as they are pretty useless in their current from.

Aces-High-82

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Backlash and morphs are seriously underperforming in PvP right now. Templar's burst ability should be hitting for more than 2-5k damage against players. Please look at the several threads talking about how weak Templar is currently and address the issue properly for week three of PTS, or look at the several comments on this thread. Nerf beam too, please.

Nightblade is still overperforming due to the unique 10% damage buff attached to concealed weapon.

Sorc changes don't address the issues with the class in PvP.

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

@ZOS_Kevin Keeping this simple and focusing primarily on magicka sorcerer.

Sorc Defense
-Hardened ward is still too small. Scaling on other wards specifically in the light armor skill line which sorc is forced to use also needs a buff.

Sorc offense
Specifically mag sorc is forced to stack more magicka instead of spell damage so that we have decent defense through hardened ward. This greatly impacts the offensive potential

Spell damage can scale up 30-40% with class passives, armor passives, and buffs like major sorcery, minor sorcery, and continuous assault vs Max magicka can only be increased by small amounts (7% with mage light).

Example - Since NB and sorc both are burst classes I can explain this with meta builds which top pvp'ers run

Typical NB :
8K spell damage and 25K magicka is 105k worth of magicka in damage.

Typical Mag Sorc
50K max magicka and 2K spell damage is worth about 70K magicka in damage.

Conclusion : NB has 35-40K more magicka worth of damage. Damage scales up, and they have it.

In addition to this everything that @AdamLAD said is on point

Well, nobody is forcing you to stack max mag, it's your choice to do so.
If you stack damage matriarch already crits up to 18k in nocp (the ugly bird still has its known downsides).
As damage, regen and HP are the best scaling stats atm regardless of a class, it's other areas of the sorcs kit that pale in comparison to other classes and nonsense like ramping up fatigue on streak just to name one.

maxjapank

Radiant Oppression does not need a nerf. I am all for buffing Backlash. And I am especially for buffing Jabs more. But I'd be completely against making Radiant Oppression hit as weak as it did before.

Billium813

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin, hey if your team could look into Sun Shield’s size being increased based off of highest stamina or magicka alternatively from health, as an either/or like Conjured Ward, that would be an incredible change to the utility of the skill, currently the ability is useless in PvP outside of being massively outnumbered.

Max resource scaling regardless of the resource would be great, weapon damage scaling would be even better… though it might be a long shot.

Edit; Also, adding a Stamina morph to Toppling Charge would be a godsend. Thanks.

While I do agree that Blazing Shield is basically useless, in both PvE and PvP, I'm going to disagree about changing Radiant Ward. I like how both morphs are structured for totally different circumstances.

Currently, Radiant Ward scale off of crowd size, increasing in strength proportional to the number of enemies in the area. Seems perfectly clear in it's intention and usefulness to me. It seems more suited for classic Tanking builds, and shines best when surrounded by many ads.

Blazing Shield also scales off of crowd size, but it doesn't scale nearly as high as Radiant Ward. Instead, Blazing Shield has an extra damage component! Now, in PvE, that isn't really that necessary. It may have some extremely niche applications, but classically the DPS will handle damage and having the Tank use this would be unnecessary. Also, a DPS wouldn't find much use as the damage is far too low to grace a bar spot.

That really just leaves Blazing Shield for PvP! It activates a shield, it punches back with damage, and it scales off Health which is just as applicable as mag/stam for PvP, even more so! Sounds pretty good actually! So, why doesn't it show up in PvP? Well, I think there are 2 factors really:

1. Blazing Shield scales off crowd size
2. Living Dark

Having Blazing Shield scale off enemies hit in PvP is so non-sensical. 98% of the time, it won't catch more than 1-2 players in the fast paced, spread out environment of PvP. Plus, it just isn't that big of a shield even if you catch 4 players somehow. Blazing Shield feels caught in this weird state where you can't make it scale TOO much per player or it'll be better than Radiant Ward! Also, we have this looming shadow of Living Dark for PvP. This skill seems to get all the attention for balancing and playability. Living Dark seems to be the go-to shield for PvP Templars because it does everything... and because alternatives liek Blazing Shield are just tooo bad...

I like the idea of Blazing Shield being more for 1v1 applications and Radiant Ward being more for large groups. Think trash packs vs bosses; you can't run both, you have to pick a morph. What if Blazing Shield instead scaled proportional to the highest health among enemies it hits?

We can have Living Dark be the defensive shield and Blazing Shield be the offensive one. You pop Living Dark as you run in, but you pop Blazing Shield once you expect a counter attack.

Currently Magicka Templar is being funneled into a Ranged Spec by the almost complete removal of its melee capability.

Having the base Sun Shield scale with either resource would allow Magicka Templars the ability to shield stack efficiently, something that is impossible to do without a Restoration Staff currently…

While having it scale with Health or Weapon & Spell Damage would benefit both Magicka and Stamina Templars, one important aspect to keep in mind, is there is an explosion when Radiant Ward goes off, and that damage hits harder than Blazing Shield on any build that has under 40k health. That aggressive scaling is extremely important for a melee build like Stamplar to remain in a fight.

My proposed change would have zero impact on tanking whatsoever, while enabling the ability to receive play in PvP on any and all builds.

Sun Shield was one of the most iconic abilities Templar had on launch; it’s been languishing since.

The morph Blazing Shield needs a complete rework because the ability has not worked since Battle Spirit halved it.

I'm confused what you are talking about. You want Sun Shield to scale off Health. Both PvE Tank and PvP builds have Health as the highest resource. No other roles will use this skill! If you change the shield to scale off Mag/Stam, it ruins it for both PvE Tank and PvP builds. Sun Shield isn't a skill remotely applicable to DPS magplars...

> is there is an explosion when Radiant Ward goes off, and that damage hits harder than Blazing Shield on any build that has under 40k health

??? Blazing Shield explodes, not Radiant Ward. I assume you got that backwards, but also the damage from Blazing Shield scales off absorbed damage, not max health. The max health scaling only boosts the initial shield portion for both. Something that Tanks, with tons of Health, care about and PvP builds, who mostly have more Health than resources.

Blazing Shield

Surround yourself with solar rays, granting a damage shield that absorbs up to 4800 damage for 6 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Max Health. Each nearby enemy increases the shield's strength by 4% when the shield is activated.

When the shield expires it explodes outward, dealing 30% of the damage it absorbed to nearby enemies

Radiant Ward

Surround yourself with solar rays, granting a damage shield that absorbs up to 4800 damage for 6 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Max Health. Nearby enemies take 1742 Magic Damage when the shield is activated, and each enemy hit increases the shield's strength by 20%.

gariondavey

maxjapank wrote: »

Radiant Oppression does not need a nerf. I am all for buffing Backlash. And I am especially for buffing Jabs more. But I'd be completely against making Radiant Oppression hit as weak as it did before.

It scaled to 480 before the recent buff of scaling to 500. Even if this change was reversed, it doesn't really change anything

ForumBully

maxjapank wrote: »

Radiant Oppression does not need a nerf. I am all for buffing Backlash. And I am especially for buffing Jabs more. But I'd be completely against making Radiant Oppression hit as weak as it did before.

It really doesn't. The only reason it gets complaints now is because building around beam is all Templars have left.

master_vanargand

@ZOS_Kevin

Playing as a "PvE DPS Stamina Nightblade" for many years, my complaint is that using "Surprise Attack (stamina morph)" makes it weaker.

Throw away "Surprise Attack (stamina morph)" and put the never spamed "Concealed Weapon (magicka morph)" into the skill slot, increase DPS, spam "Silver Shards".

That's very stupid.

Yes, the DPS was high, but assassin lost a cool design.
In PvE and PvP, "Concealed Weapon (magicka morph)" is too strong, and "Surprise Attack (stamina morph)" is too weak to garbage.
Is it the game creator's wish to turn an assassin who fights with a red blade into a "Crossbow man"?

If so, the game creators have succeeded in giving despair.
Need move Concealed Weapon's "When you leave Sneak, invisibility, or Major Expedition ends while in combat, your damage done is increased by 10% for 5 seconds" to Veiled Strike (base skill).
Why can't you do something as simple as this?

Hybridization? No, it's Magickaization.

Does stamina have no choice but to do tank in PvE?
But DK and Necro do tanks... goodbye NB tank.
DPS is magicka only, Healer is magicka only, goodbye stamina builds.
Throw away the 95% trash sets and use the 5% good sets.
Players use strong DK. Other classes? you have the right to be weak.

Aren't these "weird states of balance"?

ESO ended up being a very boring world with no infinite builds.
If game creators find ESO fun right now, I'm very disappointed.

[My request]

master_vanargand wrote: »

Why are you ignoring Nightblade in PTS?
Nightblade's Stamina DPS and Magicka DPS are currently "weird states of balance", with Stamina DPS suffering from identity loss in PvE and PvP.

master_vanargand wrote: »

Concealed Weapon is too strong and Surprise Attack feels weak.
When I saw a video of PvE stamina NB slotting a Concealed Weapon and spamming Silver Shards, I felt NB lost its identity.
Yes, the DPS in that video was quite high, but it looks like the assassin has lost cool design.

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

Honestly, Nightblade is in a very solid place relative to the other classes this patch, however there are 2 main concerns as an endgame PvE player;

1. Surprise Attack, the Stamina Morph of Veiled Strike, is never used by Stamblades. The extra damage bonus from Concealed Weapon (the mag morph) makes the stam morph obsolete for most optomized builds, even if the build itself only has Concealed on it's bar just for it's passive effects. I would like to see a small rework of this skill, as Stamina focused Nightblades should run the Stamina skill and not suffer damage loss
2. Relentless Focus, the Stam Morph of Grim Focus, is also made obsolete by it's mag counterpart Merciless Resolve. Merciless Hit's 33% harder, which is a lot, and the only down side is it shortens the buff duration from 1 minute to 40 seconds. 40 seconds is still a really long time, and thus even it being 20 seconds shorter is a very small downside. I would like to see Relentless get a buff, either by making the ability have some AoE damage (which Nightblade sorely lacks in Endgame PvE content), or perhaps increase the Weapon and Spell Damage given by the stacks of the ability

Now, Stamina Nightblade is weaker when using Surprise Attack (stamina morph) in PvP and PvE.
Concealed Weapons (magicka morph) have "When you leave Sneak, invisibility, or Major Expedition ends while in combat, your damage done is increased by 10% for 5 seconds", so even Stamina DPS will not use Surprise Attack (stamina morph).

Also, Concealed Weapons have "While slotted, you gain Minor Expedition, increasing your Movement Speed by 15%", so there is no reason to use Surprise Attack in PvP.
While Concealed Weapon has two big benefits of "+10% damage" and "+15% Movement Speed", Surprise Attack has only one small benefit.

And, Stamina Nightblade uses Merciless Resolve (magick morph) in PvE and PvP.
This is because Merciless Resolve (magicka morph) is better than Relentless Focus (stamina morph).
Do the math, Merciless Resolve does more damage than Relentless Focus. (Better in PvE because better damage allows you to shoot more in relation to execution time.)
and Merciless Resolve has higher heal than Relentless Focus.
This is why Stamina Nightblade does not use Relentless Focus.

Also, Siphoning Passive ability's Magicka Flood has "Increases your Max Magicka by 8% while a Siphoning ability is slotted".
Hybridization? Where is it?

This is the "Strange State of Balance".
And the source of the grief of the "Stamina Nightblade" who suffers from the loss of identity.

Is this an experiment to remove Stamina Nightblade DPS?
If not, please change it immediately.
Patience is the limit.

[Wish list]

1. Need move Concealed Weapon's "When you leave Sneak, invisibility, or Major Expedition ends while in combat, your damage done is increased by 10% for 5 seconds" to Veiled Strike (base skill).
2. Make Relentless Focus damage the same as Merciless Resolve.
3. Add "+8% Max Stamina" to Siphoning Passive ability's Magicka Flood. (may need to change the name)
4. Teleport Strike (and morph) is too weak in PvP and PvE. The old ESO, Teleport Strike have stun. Now age, need add stun to Teleport Strike.

shinry

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Since there have been a few asked about follow up, we want to touch base now. We're going through everyone's feedback over the last week and a half and plan to touchbase with the dev team again. Just a little insight, it takes some time and multiple parties to go through feedback with detail, arrange a time to chat with the dev team after they've had a chance to read everything, and be able to discuss the feedback and get answers back. The intent is not to drop off communication here. They just take time to coordinate.

Our hope is to have more feedback over the next few days. We just want to make sure we have a chance to talk to all parties involved.

Thanks for addressing this and taking the time to let us know you have read, considered, and relayed to the devs what I and others have said. Excited to see Templars get some love and be more welcome taking them to group content again ^ . ^.

PhoenixGrey

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Backlash and morphs are seriously underperforming in PvP right now. Templar's burst ability should be hitting for more than 2-5k damage against players. Please look at the several threads talking about how weak Templar is currently and address the issue properly for week three of PTS, or look at the several comments on this thread. Nerf beam too, please.

Nightblade is still overperforming due to the unique 10% damage buff attached to concealed weapon.

Sorc changes don't address the issues with the class in PvP.

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

@ZOS_Kevin Keeping this simple and focusing primarily on magicka sorcerer.

Sorc Defense
-Hardened ward is still too small. Scaling on other wards specifically in the light armor skill line which sorc is forced to use also needs a buff.

Sorc offense
Specifically mag sorc is forced to stack more magicka instead of spell damage so that we have decent defense through hardened ward. This greatly impacts the offensive potential

Spell damage can scale up 30-40% with class passives, armor passives, and buffs like major sorcery, minor sorcery, and continuous assault vs Max magicka can only be increased by small amounts (7% with mage light).

Example - Since NB and sorc both are burst classes I can explain this with meta builds which top pvp'ers run

Typical NB :
8K spell damage and 25K magicka is 105k worth of magicka in damage.

Typical Mag Sorc
50K max magicka and 2K spell damage is worth about 70K magicka in damage.

Conclusion : NB has 35-40K more magicka worth of damage. Damage scales up, and they have it.

In addition to this everything that @AdamLAD said is on point

Well, nobody is forcing you to stack max mag, it's your choice to do so.
If you stack damage matriarch already crits up to 18k in nocp (the ugly bird still has its known downsides).
As damage, regen and HP are the best scaling stats atm regardless of a class, it's other areas of the sorcs kit that pale in comparison to other classes and nonsense like ramping up fatigue on streak just to name one.

Pet is not a viable heal as it can be killed. Can I disable burst heals permanently on other classes ? Why should sorc suffer then ?

Pet is a one shot and then the sorc itself is a 2 shot as you are running close to no defense as you are building for a 18k crit.

I have 1vX’ed multiple spell damage mag sorcs in no cp.

There is no viable build with running a mag sorc without wards so you need to stack mag. Have you played other classes which have a billion healing, defense and damage passives to support the spell damage playstyle?

maxjapank

gariondavey wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

Radiant Oppression does not need a nerf. I am all for buffing Backlash. And I am especially for buffing Jabs more. But I'd be completely against making Radiant Oppression hit as weak as it did before.

It scaled to 480 before the recent buff of scaling to 500. Even if this change was reversed, it doesn't really change anything

In update 35, this was done. Radiant Destruction: Increased the base damage of this ability and its morphs by approximately 23% to ensure it stands up to execute abilities when looking at their ability to be more frequently weaved with. The base damage was buffed.

Aces-High-82

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Backlash and morphs are seriously underperforming in PvP right now. Templar's burst ability should be hitting for more than 2-5k damage against players. Please look at the several threads talking about how weak Templar is currently and address the issue properly for week three of PTS, or look at the several comments on this thread. Nerf beam too, please.

Nightblade is still overperforming due to the unique 10% damage buff attached to concealed weapon.

Sorc changes don't address the issues with the class in PvP.

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

@ZOS_Kevin Keeping this simple and focusing primarily on magicka sorcerer.

Sorc Defense
-Hardened ward is still too small. Scaling on other wards specifically in the light armor skill line which sorc is forced to use also needs a buff.

Sorc offense
Specifically mag sorc is forced to stack more magicka instead of spell damage so that we have decent defense through hardened ward. This greatly impacts the offensive potential

Spell damage can scale up 30-40% with class passives, armor passives, and buffs like major sorcery, minor sorcery, and continuous assault vs Max magicka can only be increased by small amounts (7% with mage light).

Example - Since NB and sorc both are burst classes I can explain this with meta builds which top pvp'ers run

Typical NB :
8K spell damage and 25K magicka is 105k worth of magicka in damage.

Typical Mag Sorc
50K max magicka and 2K spell damage is worth about 70K magicka in damage.

Conclusion : NB has 35-40K more magicka worth of damage. Damage scales up, and they have it.

In addition to this everything that @AdamLAD said is on point

Well, nobody is forcing you to stack max mag, it's your choice to do so.
If you stack damage matriarch already crits up to 18k in nocp (the ugly bird still has its known downsides).
As damage, regen and HP are the best scaling stats atm regardless of a class, it's other areas of the sorcs kit that pale in comparison to other classes and nonsense like ramping up fatigue on streak just to name one.

Pet is not a viable heal as it can be killed. Can I disable burst heals permanently on other classes ? Why should sorc suffer then ?

Pet is a one shot and then the sorc itself is a 2 shot as you are running close to no defense as you are building for a 18k crit.

I have 1vX’ed multiple spell damage mag sorcs in no cp.

There is no viable build with running a mag sorc without wards so you need to stack mag. Have you played other classes which have a billion healing, defense and damage passives to support the spell damage playstyle?

I am running (all following stats ~fully buffed) 6k spell dmg, 3.3mag/1.8stam regen, 13k pen, 29khp/26kmag/15kstam, 36k resi.
There ain't one single stam cost ability on my bars - guess I'm a magsorc then.
Yes, my pen is underwhelming but I can apply pressure for days whilst staying mobile.
As I wrote - matriarch has its known ugly downsides but to give a perspective on this unviable build: yesterday we ran small-scale and after 2 hrs of heavy action we looked at the logs: I had 191kills and zero deaths, my guildie running the similar build had even more kills without being downed once. We had a few fights being clearly outnumbered, some offensive siege fights with equal numbers and some outnumbered defenses (we don't run fury as it's a wasted barslot with how s..uboptimal the skill is).
Could ofc just be the server difference, which are you playing on?
And in addition I tell you a funny story: couple of weeks ago I play on warden in RW. I run potentates snb on back bar there, after ~30mins I burned through 30 ppl without being killed only to realize that I forgot to equip the sword bc I'm dumb.
You see, couldn't pull that off on sorc without all that missing passives on backbar - just to show what I mean by sorcs toolkit being pale in comparison to other classes.
Classic max mag shieldsorc died for me with the release of summerset. Thrassian enabled a very fun and rewarding but punishing play style which I adapted then since.

The_Titan_Tim

Billium813 wrote: »

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin, hey if your team could look into Sun Shield’s size being increased based off of highest stamina or magicka alternatively from health, as an either/or like Conjured Ward, that would be an incredible change to the utility of the skill, currently the ability is useless in PvP outside of being massively outnumbered.

Max resource scaling regardless of the resource would be great, weapon damage scaling would be even better… though it might be a long shot.

Edit; Also, adding a Stamina morph to Toppling Charge would be a godsend. Thanks.

While I do agree that Blazing Shield is basically useless, in both PvE and PvP, I'm going to disagree about changing Radiant Ward. I like how both morphs are structured for totally different circumstances.

Currently, Radiant Ward scale off of crowd size, increasing in strength proportional to the number of enemies in the area. Seems perfectly clear in it's intention and usefulness to me. It seems more suited for classic Tanking builds, and shines best when surrounded by many ads.

Blazing Shield also scales off of crowd size, but it doesn't scale nearly as high as Radiant Ward. Instead, Blazing Shield has an extra damage component! Now, in PvE, that isn't really that necessary. It may have some extremely niche applications, but classically the DPS will handle damage and having the Tank use this would be unnecessary. Also, a DPS wouldn't find much use as the damage is far too low to grace a bar spot.

That really just leaves Blazing Shield for PvP! It activates a shield, it punches back with damage, and it scales off Health which is just as applicable as mag/stam for PvP, even more so! Sounds pretty good actually! So, why doesn't it show up in PvP? Well, I think there are 2 factors really:

1. Blazing Shield scales off crowd size
2. Living Dark

Having Blazing Shield scale off enemies hit in PvP is so non-sensical. 98% of the time, it won't catch more than 1-2 players in the fast paced, spread out environment of PvP. Plus, it just isn't that big of a shield even if you catch 4 players somehow. Blazing Shield feels caught in this weird state where you can't make it scale TOO much per player or it'll be better than Radiant Ward! Also, we have this looming shadow of Living Dark for PvP. This skill seems to get all the attention for balancing and playability. Living Dark seems to be the go-to shield for PvP Templars because it does everything... and because alternatives liek Blazing Shield are just tooo bad...

I like the idea of Blazing Shield being more for 1v1 applications and Radiant Ward being more for large groups. Think trash packs vs bosses; you can't run both, you have to pick a morph. What if Blazing Shield instead scaled proportional to the highest health among enemies it hits?

We can have Living Dark be the defensive shield and Blazing Shield be the offensive one. You pop Living Dark as you run in, but you pop Blazing Shield once you expect a counter attack.

Currently Magicka Templar is being funneled into a Ranged Spec by the almost complete removal of its melee capability.

Having the base Sun Shield scale with either resource would allow Magicka Templars the ability to shield stack efficiently, something that is impossible to do without a Restoration Staff currently…

While having it scale with Health or Weapon & Spell Damage would benefit both Magicka and Stamina Templars, one important aspect to keep in mind, is there is an explosion when Radiant Ward goes off, and that damage hits harder than Blazing Shield on any build that has under 40k health. That aggressive scaling is extremely important for a melee build like Stamplar to remain in a fight.

My proposed change would have zero impact on tanking whatsoever, while enabling the ability to receive play in PvP on any and all builds.

Sun Shield was one of the most iconic abilities Templar had on launch; it’s been languishing since.

The morph Blazing Shield needs a complete rework because the ability has not worked since Battle Spirit halved it.

I'm confused what you are talking about. You want Sun Shield to scale off Health. Both PvE Tank and PvP builds have Health as the highest resource. No other roles will use this skill! If you change the shield to scale off Mag/Stam, it ruins it for both PvE Tank and PvP builds. Sun Shield isn't a skill remotely applicable to DPS magplars...

> is there is an explosion when Radiant Ward goes off, and that damage hits harder than Blazing Shield on any build that has under 40k health

??? Blazing Shield explodes, not Radiant Ward. I assume you got that backwards, but also the damage from Blazing Shield scales off absorbed damage, not max health. The max health scaling only boosts the initial shield portion for both. Something that Tanks, with tons of Health, care about and PvP builds, who mostly have more Health than resources.

Blazing Shield

Surround yourself with solar rays, granting a damage shield that absorbs up to 4800 damage for 6 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Max Health. Each nearby enemy increases the shield's strength by 4% when the shield is activated.

When the shield expires it explodes outward, dealing 30% of the damage it absorbed to nearby enemies

Radiant Ward

Surround yourself with solar rays, granting a damage shield that absorbs up to 4800 damage for 6 seconds. This portion of the ability scales off your Max Health. Nearby enemies take 1742 Magic Damage when the shield is activated, and each enemy hit increases the shield's strength by 20%.

Okay, first and foremost, I’m proposing an either or, which is obvious given the referenced change to Conjured Ward. One thing to keep in mind is that Max Health is going to take a hit in PvP sometime soon here, it’s inevitable. Max Health is the root of the majority of imbalance, so having the skill that already doesn’t work with Max Health, remain exclusively Max Health when proposing a fix for it, in all actually does nothing for it, leaving it set up to fail in a future patch while my “fix” would help bandaid it until a better look at the ability can be taken.

Radiant Ward’s initial explosion hits as hard as a ranged spammable, and costs less magicka, something that you aren’t in abundance of as a Stamplar while actually protecting you… this is a good thing, it‘s scaling based on proximity is an outdated system from when Templar’s used to be kings of AoE, this is no longer the case.

Pigeonholing people into Blazing Shield for any offensive capability, a ward that gets cut in half, then the damage that’s only a % of what’s dealt to the ward is getting cut in half again? You’re in all actuality getting 25% of its benefit in terms of damage… the double dipping kills it.

Sun Shield needs an overhaul, from the ground up, and simply making one scale offensively is not the answer, they both need to, as they are used when going offense, jumping into groups of enemies.

Edit: I’m also speaking from experience, I’ve been playing since 2015, before Battle Spirit killed Sun Shield, it used to be my favorite ability because it actually worked at what it was intended, you could reflect decent damage and instead of relying on Backlash, Sun Shield could be your burst tool as it was phenomenal.

katorga

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Cloudrest wrote: »

Backlash and morphs are seriously underperforming in PvP right now. Templar's burst ability should be hitting for more than 2-5k damage against players. Please look at the several threads talking about how weak Templar is currently and address the issue properly for week three of PTS, or look at the several comments on this thread. Nerf beam too, please.

Nightblade is still overperforming due to the unique 10% damage buff attached to concealed weapon.

Sorc changes don't address the issues with the class in PvP.

Hi all, we had a chat with the dev team about this and wanted to follow up. We've seen your feedback regarding Templar and Sorcerer feeling like they are underperforming compared to the other classes. We would like to get some clarity from you all defining what specifically you mean by "underperforming." Specific details and examples would be helpful. This will give the dev team better context around how the community sees these as underperforming, as that term is broad and can be interpreted differently based on each player's playstyle, build, equipment, played content, etc.

@ZOS_Kevin Keeping this simple and focusing primarily on magicka sorcerer.

Sorc Defense
-Hardened ward is still too small. Scaling on other wards specifically in the light armor skill line which sorc is forced to use also needs a buff.

Sorc offense
Specifically mag sorc is forced to stack more magicka instead of spell damage so that we have decent defense through hardened ward. This greatly impacts the offensive potential

Spell damage can scale up 30-40% with class passives, armor passives, and buffs like major sorcery, minor sorcery, and continuous assault vs Max magicka can only be increased by small amounts (7% with mage light).

Example - Since NB and sorc both are burst classes I can explain this with meta builds which top pvp'ers run

Typical NB :
8K spell damage and 25K magicka is 105k worth of magicka in damage.

Typical Mag Sorc
50K max magicka and 2K spell damage is worth about 70K magicka in damage.

Conclusion : NB has 35-40K more magicka worth of damage. Damage scales up, and they have it.

In addition to this everything that @AdamLAD said is on point

Well, nobody is forcing you to stack max mag, it's your choice to do so.
If you stack damage matriarch already crits up to 18k in nocp (the ugly bird still has its known downsides).
As damage, regen and HP are the best scaling stats atm regardless of a class, it's other areas of the sorcs kit that pale in comparison to other classes and nonsense like ramping up fatigue on streak just to name one.

Pet is not a viable heal as it can be killed. Can I disable burst heals permanently on other classes ? Why should sorc suffer then ?

Pet is a one shot and then the sorc itself is a 2 shot as you are running close to no defense as you are building for a 18k crit.

I have 1vX’ed multiple spell damage mag sorcs in no cp.

There is no viable build with running a mag sorc without wards so you need to stack mag. Have you played other classes which have a billion healing, defense and damage passives to support the spell damage playstyle?

There are realy no viable builds WITH wards either. Wards are on GCD. Block is not on GCD. Block casting a burst heal is way more reactive and effective than a ward. Which takes you back to the burst heal being tied to the pet and all of its issues.

Dark Conversion and morphs needs to be changed to a normal, instant cast heal, and ideally the heal needs to scale withs states like other heals. No excuse for a 1s cast time on that when compared to the sustain skills for other classes.

Or, regenerative ward morph needs to be changed from a shield to a burst heal.

casparian

katorga wrote: »

There are realy no viable builds WITH wards either. Wards are on GCD. Block is not on GCD. Block casting a burst heal is way more reactive and effective than a ward.

Great point, this is the core of the issue. ZOS' focus on quantitative parity -- making shield size comparable to amount of healing done -- obscures the fact that healing synergizes very well with other game mechanics but shields do not. Healing can tick (multiple times!) during other actions that take up a GCD, like block and dodge. Shields don't benefit from that mechanic in the same way.

That said, magsorc used to be very good despite lacking access to a burst heal. Old magsorc's defensive power came from synergy with HOTs -- shieldstacking and Streak both synergize extremely well with HOTs since they give HOTs time to act. That was a unique mechanic that really only magsorcs (and, briefly, magblade) could take advantage of. In recent years ZOS has decided they don't like that -- unique mechanics are too hard to standardize -- and backed away from letting sorc have its own defensive identity. That's fine I guess, but if they're going to take the standardization route and make the class rely on burst heals like every other class, they have to actually standardize and give the class heals that function like other classes' heals.

PrinceShroob

Per a discussion with a friend, with regard to combat generically, there really needs to be another look at boss health. [snip] you need to go back and hand edit the content, as it's absurd that trivial base game dungeons received as much of a nerf as teeth-clenching veteran dungeon hard modes. This would be an excellent opportunity to try to level out content's precipitous difficulty curve, such as group DPS being so high that it's pretty much impossible not to get the "Two-Moons Dance" achievement in Maw of Lorkhaj (that is, what was once an achievement is not notable at all) while harder content like Lord Falgravn hard mode has become even harder with the healing nerfs in Update 35, as damage taken wasn't adjusted.

Additionally, please reconsider not adjusting the health of enemies in arenas. There's really no excuse for not at least doing the token 10% nerf, at least.

[edited for bashing]

Grim_Overlord

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Since there have been a few asked about follow up, we want to touch base now. We're going through everyone's feedback over the last week and a half and plan to touchbase with the dev team again. Just a little insight, it takes some time and multiple parties to go through feedback with detail, arrange a time to chat with the dev team after they've had a chance to read everything, and be able to discuss the feedback and get answers back. The intent is not to drop off communication here. They just take time to coordinate.

Our hope is to have more feedback over the next few days. We just want to make sure we have a chance to talk to all parties involved.

I would like to start just by expressing appreciation for your continued engagement in this thread; it’s great to know that we are being heard and considered. For some context, I have been playing this game in PvE, and to a lesser extent PvP, since just before the drop of Elsweyr in 2019, first as a Sorcerer and then as a Necromancer. Since then, I have bounced between the two classes fairly evenly across all levels of play. However, with each subsequent patch, there are some glaring inconsistencies present in both classes compared to the standards set by both other classes and the universal skill lines.

Starting with the Necromancer, there are many skills which don't see use in any setting. The skill that used to be the most underused in the Necro's kit was Ruinous Scythe, however that was updated a few patches ago to be very useful, albeit mostly in PvE trash setups. The other skills that don't see much use are Flame Skull and its morphs and Grave Grasp and its morphs since the changes to Empower. Furthermore, the class lacks unique group utility since the loss of Empower buffing Light Attacks and Major Vulnerability no longer being unique to the class. I think it was a great decision to introduce Major Vuln in other ways to the game to make end game Trial groups less homogenized, however now there is very little reason to carry a Necro in optimized groups unless you need Major Vuln gaps filled. Even then, Necro DPS has very little value in such groups because again, it offers little other utility that isn’t found in either item sets or other classes.

Going back to abilities with Flame Skull, the main issue is that it just doesn't do enough damage or offer any utility to make up for that lack of damage. Silver Shards being the preferred spammable for Necromancers over their class spammable is unfortunate, to put it nicely. While this skill could use a straight base damage buff to make it compete with Silver Shards’s higher damage, it also needs something to compete with Shards’s cleave damage if we are using that skill as a baseline. Skulls already offers something unique with its cast count, though Venom Skull does this in a more interesting way through counting every Grave Lord skill cast rather than only Skull casts. The issue is that the unique part of Venom Skull’s morph, aside from it becoming poison damage, is that it feels like something that should have been part of the base morph already. For example, with a damage increase and moving Venom Skull’s counting every cast of a Grave Lord skill to the base morph, Ricochet Skull would likely be in a good place. This would also open up Venom Skull offer more unique utility as it would need a new morph effect. As an example, every third cast could apply a very short stick DOT. I understand that the main spammable of the class and the bulk of its damage is meant to come from Blastbones, however giving the Necromancer its Skull spammable in a usable form would help the class’s identity and move them away from the awkward DOT rotations which result in their top DPS rotations. Even if this skill were to be buffed, it wouldn’t break their DPS numbers because it isn’t even commonly used in the top rotations right now nor is it used in PvP because of how easy it is to dodge. Grave Grasp finds itself in a similarly underpowered place since the Empower nerf, but even when Empower worked on Light Attacks it was an awkward skill at best. In PvP, this skill seems like it is meant to be the Necro’s main access to Crowd Control, but it doesn’t pack enough of a punch to make it onto the Necro’s already crowded bar. Buffing one morph to help Necromancers more with crowd control in PvP settings and the other to focus around providing group utility in PvE could make this skill worth using.

Moving back to the uniqueness a Necromancer brings to group play, some of their passives have lost their allure since their release. For example, the Last Gasp passive, which gives 1250 health, became much less impactful once everyone’s base HP was raised. While this is a good reason for it to lose value, it feels more like something that ought to be tacked onto another passive such as Health Avarice so that every role has a reason to benefit from that passive. This would also open up Last Gasp to become a passive that grants a Minor Buff or Debuff unique to the class, such as Sorcerer’s Minor Prophecy or Warden’s Minor Toughness, as a means of bringing back a reason to run Necros in end game content without making them as overly represented as Major Vuln used to. Given Necros themeing and the focus around debuffs already somewhat present in the class, I think it would be interesting to have their uniquely sourced minor buff be a debuff easily applied by all roles. Something small, but overall impactful. Necromancer also has very few named buffs present across their native skills and passives. While this isn’t a huge issue in PvE, it is very detrimental to build diversity in PvP. Finally, player skill-sourced corpses don’t last long enough to have them be impactful beyond the tether skills. I understand not wanting them to stack enough to break Necrotic Potency, however doubling their duration would help the skills used more often by supports, such as Enduring Undeath, to be more impactful and powerful in single target encounters, especially considering the duration increases on Skeletal Mage and its morphs as well as that most supports don’t use Blastbones, which is the best corpse generating and placing skill. By allowing corpses to persist for a little longer, it would allow the skills that want multiple corpses present at once to be more reliable.

For Sorcerers, I know there has been a lot of both positive and negative spirited feedback of late regarding their place in the game. Having played Sorcerer for as long as I have, I think the main issue with it currently is how pets feeling mandatory. Stamina focused Sorcs used to feel entirely different from their Magicka brethren, but the focus around Daedric Prey as the main source of damage in PvE has resulted in that delineation and “playing how you want” to be harder to do. While I love the unique set synergies offered through Daedric Prey, the amount of damage Sorcs require pets to do is stilted compared to the rest of their skills. This is felt across both PvE and PvP, where in the latter pets are overall less effective. Part of alleviating this would be to buff some of the Sorc’s other damaging skills while also bringing Daedric Prey back down to 25 or 30%.

A prime candidate for such a buff or rework would be Lightning Splash and its morphs as they are seldom run at the moment due to the lack of bar space Sorcerer has as well as the prevalence and utility of Necrotic Orb. The other two least used skills in the Sorcerer’s kit are Rune Prison and its morphs and Encase and its morphs. They both seek to do such similar things that they already feel like branches of the same skill that, in the end, are all underwhelming. Given their similarities, they could use an extensive rework to both increase their utility across gameplay or they could be merged together to make room for a new skill to fill the void in the Sorcerer’s kit.

Finally for Sorcerers, the pets also feel outdated which is where part of the frustration comes with being relegated to using them for any amount of decent damage. The morph choices don’t feel all that impactful. Clannfear and Twilight Matriarch feel incredibly similar with the difference in healing being minor beyond Matriarch also hitting a second target. Simply making the Matriarch morph scale off of the higher of your Health or offensive stat pools would make it more versatile as well as allow for the Clannfear to be given something more unique that would allow it to compete with the Scamp morph on builds other than tanks. While the Scamp morph is alright damage-wise, the stun it has attached to it really offers nothing given it only goes off twice over its duration and is incredibly hard to time. It might as well not even be there. Going back to the Winged Twilight and its morphs, it would be interesting to see the base damage of the Tormentor applied to the Matriarch as the increased reverse execute damage of the Tormentor isn’t really worth the cast in PvE, even with Daedric Prey at its current value. Allowing Matriarch to have that higher base damage would increase the pitiful utility of the Sorcerer while also allowing for another morph to be created, possibly one that offers a different variety of daedra, similar to how the Unstable Familiar can morph into a clannfear or a scamp. Beyond this, it would also be quite nice if the texturing on the pets and lightning abilities were updated to match the quality of the textures of the lightning and daedra found in the Blackwood and Deadlands dlcs, just for the sake internal consistency.

The other half of Sorcerer’s performance issues across both venues is that their passives feel weak and outdated compared to those that have seen more attention over the years. Looking first at the Daedric Summoning line, Rebate essentially refunds 300 of the applicable resource when a pet dies, Bound Armaments ends after its long duration, or Curse ends, resulting in a very low amount of resource being returned in any of these scenarios. While I can understand that part of Sorcerer’s identity consists of low recovery stats compared to the other classes, this passive does effectively very little even in that regard, especially when looked at next to Dragonknight’s Combustion passive or Necromancer’s Death Gleaning passive as of this PTS cycle. Expert Summoner also feels very restrictive in terms of playing how you want, as it offers nothing to those who wish to embrace the storm or more purely arcane aspects of Sorcerer’s identity without the daedric pets. While the health boost is nice, it could be nice to have the passive also offer some other layer of utility. From the other two skill lines, Capacitor is the other passive that feels the least unique. Five of the Sorcerer’s passives across all skill lines are based around either cost reduction or recovery, and while I can’t imagine sustain functioning on the class without such dedication, these still feel outdated compared to others passives across classes. Capacitor is also very similar to Daedric Protection, being weaker due to the lack of condition. However, adding Magicka Recovery to Daedric Protection and making Capacitor perhaps function similarly with Concussed as Warden does Chilled could be an interesting boost to the Sorcerer given how much Shock damage is in its kit.

To summarize, Sorcerer and Necromancer both offer very little class utility after hybridization, recent skill changes, and the sets released over the last year or so. Addressing this for Necromancer looks like some form of buff to Flame Skull, Grave Grasp, and their morphs, increased corpse duration from player skills, as well as adding something in their passives that makes them a unique addition to group composition rather than just a Major Vulnerability gap filler. For Sorcerer, this looks like adding viability to non-pet based strategies and re-envisioning skills that are underpowered or useless. It would also be nice the Sorcerer’s lightning and pet textures quality to be updated to match those found in Blackwood going forward for the sake of internal consistency. For both classes, they need to be given some more power and utility through reworking and envisioning their outdated passives. Beyond just these two classes, it is time for a class refresh as the game has evolved over time and new avenues of play have become available in ways that their skills and passives either don’t function well with or don’t reflect. Again, thank you for your time and the work you all do.

Aces-High-82

Melzo wrote: »

[snip]

That was some well explained feedback [snip]

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]