PTS Update 38 - Feedback Thread for Classes & Abilities

Luede

templars become more tanky, and sorcerers do more damage.

are you sure we're talking about the same game, or what do you actually smoke during brainstorming?

gariondavey

Jman100582 wrote: »

Can backlash stop being double hit by battle spirit please? I want to actually kill people in pvp not tickle them

This

gariondavey

Stx wrote: »

For Templar-

-I want jabs reverted to pre update 35, including the animation.
-I don’t want major protection added to a charge, I would rather major protection be added to another ability like Ritual that is useful in all areas of the game. Charge skills aren’t really useful in PvE unless it deals damage like stampede.
-5% class damage is very low. DKs get major berserk, nightblades get 10% flat damage to everything. If you want to make solar barrage more useful, just buff the damage, or make the class skills buff better; like 15%.
-Rune focus change is fine.

Agreed

1 bar for sorc pets please like necro pets or rework dark deal/dark conversion to be a reliable burst heal.

Thanks.

Glantir

Luede wrote: »

templars become more tanky, and sorcerers do more damage.

are you sure we're talking about the same game, or what do you actually smoke during brainstorming?

For PvE this buff is irrelevant because you get minor berserk out of combat prayer and beast trap is the better source for minor force.

in PvP you can interupt the 1 sec cast

Luede

Glantir wrote: »

Luede wrote: »

templars become more tanky, and sorcerers do more damage.

are you sure we're talking about the same game, or what do you actually smoke during brainstorming?

For PvE this buff is irrelevant because you get minor berserk out of combat prayer and beast trap is the better source for minor force.

in PvP you can interupt the 1 sec cast

with the post I rather wanted to suggest that with both classes not even rudimentary the problem is addressed, but simply something was thrown into the patchnotes, which was not even asked by the community

KainedED

Hi, Templar player here.

Im not asking for much. Just for the love of god either fix or revert Backlash (power of the light.

I has not been useable for almost 8-12 months in pvp now and its integral tool to the templar kit.

Im not math magician but a 6000 tooltip with a 200% modifier should be hitting harder than 2k (3-4k if criticals) even after battle spirit.

The two stage damage component to power of the light does not feel any good at all.

All other burst options for other classes (Blastbones, Shalks, Curse, ect ) all have higher tooltip damage by a large margin and provide its damage in AoE. Why is templars burst option still relegated to single target single application and bad damage? It really could use some love in this department.


Edit: Templar beam is not fun to use and having almost 90% of our class damage locked behind a clunky animation is super lame.

jecks33

I still don't understand why they put minor berserk on dark deal (and morphs) and not on daedric prey. Nobody in pve use dark deal except sorc tanks and they don't need berserk.

this change is clearly for pvp, if they put the buff on daedric prey both pvp and pve would benefit

Glantir

Luede wrote: »

Glantir wrote: »

Luede wrote: »

templars become more tanky, and sorcerers do more damage.

are you sure we're talking about the same game, or what do you actually smoke during brainstorming?

For PvE this buff is irrelevant because you get minor berserk out of combat prayer and beast trap is the better source for minor force.

in PvP you can interupt the 1 sec cast

with the post I rather wanted to suggest that with both classes not even rudimentary the problem is addressed, but simply something was thrown into the patchnotes, which was not even asked by the community

Ah ok, sorry for the misunderstanding ^^.
But you're right also with the Arcanist getting Shields and Healing, the Sorc uniqeness running thin

Melzo

The necromancer is ***. He needs to change the gameplay.

Turtle_Bot

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for current class balance and abilities. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance.

@ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_Kevin and @ZOS_BrianWheeler I hope that this gets passed on and that the team can seriously take this feedback onboard and put some very serious consideration into how they can implement balance changes that are much closer to what the players (your customers) are asking for, especially long time mains of the classes that likely have equivalent hours to actual class reps on their respective classes and who know what the class needs to feel balanced. Because it is getting ridiculous at this point with how ignored and neglected the players of the bottom 3 classes are feeling right now with the misdirected balance changes that have been pushed through by the team and just how blatantly more out of touch it seems the team gets (or chooses to be) with every new patch and change that is released.

Now, as for an answer to the original post by Gina,

Short answer:
It's still <snip>, heavily favoring DK, NB and having warden being decent with arcanist joining the DK and NB classes at the top of the pile and the other 3 classes only somewhat competitive when played by top tier players or mains who have dedicated thousands upon thousands of hours on mastering those classes.

Long answer:

Sorcs did not need more raw damage, what they needed was (and has been stated ad nauseum by now):
1. most important, a burst heal not tied to a killable pet that takes up 2 bar slots or an interruptible cast time, to allow access to block casting heals that other classes get to abuse to extreme effectiveness when defending themselves.
2. access to major prophecy/savagery in the class kit to allow their class HoT to actually function as one
3. update the out of date/non-synergistic passives that don't work with how the class fundamentally functions.

Plars did not need more defense, they needed
1. PotL to not be bugged in cyrodiil (it is being double reduced by battle spirit)
2. either jabs be buffed to half way between old jabs total damage and current jabs total damage or burning light procs on each damage instance of a class ability, not just once per 2 seconds.

Cros needed the most work, but even then, it wouldn't be that much to bring them up to a fun class to play again:
- giving them major sorcery/brutality in the class kit
- fixing blast bones AI
- increase the travel speed on skull projectile
- give the class a targeted DoT ability that works with their passives.

The sorc one is probably one of the most galling to consider when you look at what the arcanist gets in its kit compared to what sorc has been asking for, for ages now.
For context, arcanist gets:
- Hardened ward number 1 that can also shield allies
- hardened ward number 2 that has bonus effects on top of being a good shield
- bound armaments but as a spammable
- movable atro
- rune prison that has actual effects that do things
- defensive rune that has a heal
- a combination of curse + liquid lightning that for some reason has dark convergence pull on 1 morph and proxy det on the other morph
- straight up better versions of the rebate, capacitor and daedric protection passives
- a passive that buffs shield size and also reduces their cost significantly

This last passive for shields especially, sorcerers defense is apparently all about shields since they are apparently not allowed to have a proper burst heal like the other classes, yet they have no passives that boost their shields at all, let alone also reduce the cost of them on top of boosting their size....

You have asked for our feedback for almost a year now on balancing classes to make all of them feel fun to play (not even top tier, just fun to play) and even though pages and pages of information and data has been provided for you over months of discussions and has been narrowed down to 3-4 main points for each of the lower classes, that has all been completely thrown out the window in favor of pushing through changes that just don't make any sense because of the refusal to share what the team sees is the direction for each class.

TechMaybeHic

Templar buffs are not only wrong, outside maybe the sticky Rune Hot; they almost are nothing or a net loss

For the 5% class damage; you "fixed" the passive in stead of working for the templar, to only for allies. So that's kind of a nerf. For those trying to actually do pressure builds, it impacting crescent sweeps uptime probably more than washes away the 5%. You could go the other morph of sweep that now lasts longer; but that hits even weaker. Great for Radiant Oppression I guess to get even more damage; but the power budget going to that skill is beyond nonsensical. Templars were brawlers and now suddenly are a sorc with no burst, just a large scaling execute vs an AOE one, and a burst heal. Maybe if Sorc and Templar were combined, you'd have a class worth using

Major protection on charge is good but 4 seconds is pathetic considering a NB gets 10 seconds of a unique 10% damage buff just by pressing cloak now. Before that buff, they got 5 at least but it being so short is why Path was used. 4 seconds is worse. Following a gap closer that can easily desync you makes it almost non-existent. If you're going to tell me one class is more defensive, and the other offensive, OK; but it's still clearly uneven.

Luckily Snake in the stars set is awful with low uptime or the sticky HOT added to Rune would have made Rune unusable after an attempt to buff us to the fact that the damage from the set would outpace the heal tick. Almost like how the reapplication of snares by jabs on Mara's Balm makes it mitigate itself to go along with auto purging Backlash even though it's weak as heck under battle spirit. And evasion buffs passed out like candy making jabs even weaker.

See it's not just the nerfs that have dropped templar. It's the meta and things keep getting added with 0 consideration with interaction of everything else in game. I imagine it's hard to think outside the cell of the spreadsheet

LukosCreyden

Sorcerer, as a so called spell slinger, is not slinging many spells at all. Relying on running two pets, that must be double barred, feels awful. We were told that no-pet sorcerer may be getting revived, but when? Q3? Q4? Next year? That's an awfully long time to wait. Why not now, during this PTS?

strepsels

(pasting what I put in this thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/631723/the-state-of-necromancer-in-pvp-its-not-good/p1?new=1)

A new PTS has swept in and once again Necromancer and the feedback relating to it has been ignored. Whilst the buff to skull was appreciated (I will comment on this skill in a bit) this buff does not sufficiently address the issues of Necro that are currently present in PvP and I aim to explain my thoughts, and the thoughts of others which I have collated, in this thread. Please note I am only going to comment on Necromancer in PvP and not PvE - I will also mostly comment on Magicka-based Necro however a lot of what I will suggest does still relate to a Stamina-based spec.

The Buff to Skull:



Whilst the buff to this skill is appreciated, and I do intend on giving it a shot, the core issues of this skill still remain. The skull projectile is still far too slow, especially when compared to skills of similair ilk such as Crushing Shock or Cliff Racer (though this skill is also fairly slow). An increased travel time on this skill would be greatly beneficial as currently this skill is very easy to dodge and predict at ranged - at melee this is not a huge issue however this skill is classed as ranged and as such should be accomodated to suit that playstyle.

I would also possibly suggest adding some sort of small buff to each stack of this skill (similair to Molten Whip). I would suggest a small crit damage buff, maybe 5% per stack. This would make the skill combo more nicely with Necro's crit passive in the Grave Lord tree as currently Necro, despite having a massive 8% crit chance per Grave lord skill in execute, does not have any bonuses to crit damage (this issue is very similair to what we see on magsorc currently). This would just help the skill stand out a bit more and give it some unique flavour. If Molten Whip can have a permenant 300 weapon damage then I see no reason why skull cannot have crit damage attached to it.

Major Sorcery & Brutality:

The issue of no Major Sorcery/Brutality is unique to Necro as currently every single class (including Arcanist) has some skill which grants them this essential buff. I really see no reason why Necro cannot have this buff, it is essential to every build and currently Necro either has to slot a very average skill like Degeneration (Necro already has extremely tight bar space issues and this skill is not great) or is forced into 2H and Momentum, further removing build diversity or use the very outdated Spell/Weapon Alliance potions to gain this essential buff. Necro already suffers greatly with Hybrid sustain and the lack of Sorcery/Brutality contributes greatly to this as being able to run tri-potions would be of huge help to the class.

My suggestion would not be to attach this buff to a skill (and if I did I would probably put it on Healing Tether) but to put the buff onto a passive. Similair to Nightblade's free Major Resolve via passive Necromancer would gain Major Sorcery/Brutality via. a passive. I would suggest the "Death Gleaning" passive. This passive really serves very little purpose in PvP and I cannot see any use in PvE outside of wiping trash stacks. I would suggest it would proc via. casting an ability on a corpse and you could even have the passive apply to allies, such as the Mountain's Blessing passive on DK. This would give Necro a "unique" buff that it could offer to group too, allowing for PvE and PvP diversity. See below.

Current Version:


My Version:


Obviously these numbers and how the skill would function are not final and it is up to ZOS to tweak this how they best see fit.

Summoner's Armour:

This skill is extremely redundant now. A large portion of cost reduction for the same skill's this skill applies to is covered in the "Reusable Parts" passive, and this armour buff just feels extremely underwhelming. I would simply suggest adding some sort of ramping extra % damage effect to it. This skill should feel impactful and frankly I don't feel like a "Summoner" when I use it. If I were to change this skill I would give it a ramping damage effect per corpse used whilst the armour buff is up, up to a maximum of course. Numbers could look something like this:

2% additional damage per skill used on a corpse whilst the armour buff is up, up to a maximum of 10% (could do lower even). The additional damage would reset once the skill has been recasted, meaning you cannot maintain 10% damage at all times. If 10% seems too much you could half it to 5%. This would not necesarily guarantee you get all stacks either, as the skill only lasts 20 seconds and you would need to use 5 corpse skills in that time, which is not always realistic. This could even encourage synergy between Necromancer groups as they could coordinate corpses in order to get a small damage buff.

Beckoning Armour (the pull morph) can remain as is - I assume this skill is still used in PvE and being able to differentiate between PvP and PvE morphs would be great.

Major Prophecy/Savagery:

Not much to say here, another essential buff that Necro does not have access to. This could go on a skill, probably Mortal Coil again and could last for 12 seconds (the length of the skill) however the buff would retain if the tether was broken.

Ghost/Mender:

This was perhaps one of the most over nerfed skills in recent history. Intensive Mender was too strong before the nerf, there is no denying that, but the current change to this skill was very over the top. I would not never suggest reverting the skill however a small buff to its healing output would be much appreciated. Also making Spirit Guardian unkillable again would be a massive help to Necro in open world, this "kill" mechanic completely ruins the flow of gameplay and has no place in this game. This skill is also fairly buggy as it can ocasionally run off and refuse to heal you.

What would I nerf?:

Disdain Harm. This passive makes no sense ever since the DoT changes last year. The DoT damage passive (Rapid Rot) was nerfed to 10% whilst the DoT mitigation passive was kept at 15%. This is just too much (always has been). Just reduce it to 10% or even 6% to match current CP levels, there is no reason for Necromancer to have this over the top mitigation in my eyes.

Conclusion:

To conclude, these are some of the changes that I would personally make to Necromancer in order to boost its viability in PvP. There are other changes that I would see necessary for the class, such as the addition of a proper CC (the current options are extremely lackluster and serve no purpose in any content). I also would like to see a viable DoT skill on this class as currently the only DoT is damage tether which is by far the most useless damage skill currently in PvP. I also have no desire to see Harmony return to the class - it was very overtuned however a rework of Boneyard is definitely necessary - though I do not see this as a pressing issue.

*edited for formatting*

Melzo

Will there be feedback on the necromancer or will you again ignore it like in the previous patch?

Faulgor

I understand that there will be no significant changes this patch, so I will refrain from making long-winded arguments for certain changes and just quickly comment on the ones that have been made.

The Sunsphere buff for Templars is a) negligible in its magnitude, but worse, b) seems to tread similar ground as the Burning Light passive. It feels like instead of having one good passive, Templars have 2 lackluster ones that do more or less the same thing, one of which has to be activated with a skill. IMO, they could be consolidated into a better Burning Light.
My suggestion would be a ramping effect like the Bow's Hawk Eye, but by and for class ability damage - which retains the stacking idea of the current Burning Light as well as the class ability buff from Sunsphere, and would fit into the Templar theme of a brawler type that can stick on an opponent and gets stronger the longer the fight lasts.

I'm a bit disappointed in the nerf to Nightblade's Concealed Weapon, especially for Stamina builds in content with shorter encounters where it isn't warranted to first apply Major Expedition, then use Concealed Weapon once to buff your actual spammable. All of this seems a bit convoluted and warrants the question why, if the intent is to promote the active use of this ability, not just buff its damage directly? And where do you see the stamina morph Surprise Attack in this relationship?

KlauthWarthog

The current set of changes is quite small, which you explained on the patch notes.
Should we expect the brunt of the balance changes to happen on Q3 or Q4, @ZOS_GinaBruno ?

CameraBeardThePirate

Necromancer is struggling a lot, and while the change to Skulls might make the Venom Skull morph viable (in melee range), the skill still has major functional issues; the projectile is far too slow, and because the skill has three distinct animations it is much harder to weave.

The good news: Necro really doesn't need much; they just need a few things every other class already has access to, and maybe a few QoL changes to corpse/pet gameplay.

POSSIBLE ADDITIONS TO THE CLASS

The only things Necro really needs are basic buffs/skill types that every other class has access to. Necro lacks:
- Major Sorcery/Brutality
- Major Prophecy/Savagery
- An Execute ability (The Death Knell passive is decent, but without a reason to use many Grave Lord abilities the usefulness of the passive is diminished)
- An on demand stun (Bone Totem was already meh, and it's still bugged and often misses the first fear tick, meaning it doesn't stun for an entire 4 seconds. Beckoning Armor's recent buff makes it a great defensive stun, but it's still defensive in nature)
- Movement or a Gap Closer (every other class either has class snare removal or a gap closer of some sort. This one isn't nearly as important at the others but I figured I'd mention it nonetheless)

As a disclaimer, I dont think every single one of these should be added - this is merely to highlight the fact that they miss out on quite a bit that other classes have. This has the effect of forcing you to outsource a lot of abilities to non-class skills, meaning you miss out on class passives (as well as diminishing the "feel" of playing a necromancer). Adding even 1 or 2 of these things to their class kit would help even out the field for build crafting quite a bit.

QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS

- Corpse Gameplay Improvements (Things like the aforementioned wasted tether casts when a recently killed enemy respawns make the core crux of the class feel too micro-managey. Some of the corpse abilities are very powerful - the tethers recently got a nice buff. Other areas of corpse gameplay took a hit at the same time however - the fact that Arcanist/Archer last longer now means that you can't create new corpses as fast, as you have to wait half the duration of the ability. Corpses disappear too quickly in the heat of a fight)
- Single Target Sticky DoT (Necro has 2 DoT passives, yet for mobile boss fights and the vast majority of PvP scenarios, they get very little use out of their extra DoT damage since they only have 2 Class DoTs - both AoE, and one of which can only be used on a corpse. A sticky DoT would go a long way at helping this class. Additionally, Arcanist and Archer should count as DoTs and not direct damage like they do presently in order to get more use out of this passive.)
- Pet Improvements (As mentioned before, pets break a lot of rules in this game - necro pets even moreso. A lot of these rules are extremely outdated. For example, I don't see any reason why pets shouldn't be allowed to proc sets anymore. It needlessly hurts Sorc, Necro, and to a lesser extent Warden. Necro is already tight on bar space, and having to consider which skills to slot in order to proc sets further complicates things. Pet damage and Healing numbers should also be counted on the BG scoreboards - addons like Recount and Combat Metrics can already do this, so I see no reason why scoreboards shouldn't do the same. Blastbones has vastly improved targeting than it had in years prior, but recasting the ability should de-summon it to help fix situations where blastbones gets stuck, preventing you from casting the skill again for 6 seconds. Necro pets should be commandable - it feels awful to watch your Arcanist stand right in front of someone, not attacking. It feels even worse to save up 325 ult charge just to summon 3 sleeping blastbones that have no interest in attacking an enemy.)


All of that was a long post to say this: Necro needs basic quality of life improvements and more reason to use their currently inconsistent or mediocre class skills, as their lack of buffs/utility and the inconsistency of their class skills forces them to use a large amount of non-class skills. This hinders their ceiling, complicates buildcrafting, and hurts the fantasy of playing a Necromancer.

Greek_Hellspawn

As i stated in another thread my suggestions for the necromancer would be:

Skulls travel time same as force pulse.

Magicka blastbones applies major breach.

Arcanist/archer provide major sorc/brut and minor courage.

Change colossus to a target ultimate like ferocious leap so you can't accidentally miss, and reduce cost to at least 200/or make it that it pulls enemies like dark convergence also reduce cost to 200.

Bone totem stuns instantly, move the synergy to the actual ability, so instant stun + minor vulnerability + damage over time, remove the synergy.

Change scythe into a execute that scales like executioner/killer's blade at 50% hp.

Make siphon tethers cost magicka/stamina and change them to a single target cast so the class has access to a sticky dot.

Runefang

The change to Concealed Weapon to be used as an active ability is yet another of many contradictions we see by the combat team. I understand the team like abilities to generally be used as active, not on a bar just providing buffs, we've seen this comment many times in the past.

But then the Arcanist gets Major Brutality/Sorcery on a skill that can be back-barred and doesn't need to be cast at all. Either decide all skills should be active or just leave skills to provide passive bonuses alone.

And its insulting to see this 10% damage removed from the skill for PvE (unless you use it as a spammable which isn't always viable) and at the same time being told Nightblades are behind in single target damage. Its a net nerf overall, you made the situation worse. Not only do Nightblades struggle with cleave damage not ST, but you nerfed cleave damage more than ST damage due to the 10% damage nerf.

birdik

Cancel concealed weapon change, it is good how it is

Ecgberht_confused

Quite unhappy with the sorc changes. The devs reached out for feedback during u37 cycle and the feedback was clear and comprehensive that the damafe is fine but the class need access to a burst heal outside of pets. The devs then said they'll look into making no pet sorc more viable. U38 comes with a buff to pet and minor berserker on a cast time skill that's not very useful at all. This is completely unrelated to the feedback.

Similar thing happened to templars. Feedback was also clear that survivability is fine but the class needs more burst potential in pvp. U38 comes with a buff to survivability and hardly any change to offense. Again completely unrelated to feedback which was explicitly solicited by the devs...

xDeusEJRx

People have already said similar things, but I'll also chime in:

Necromancer needs a big overhaul:
- No sorcery/Brutality (only class that doesn't have this) - forcing necros to find an out of class source
- Flame skull change was fine but it needs faster travel time
- No class dot so the "rapid rot" passive is kind of redundant
- Intensive mender is still not good, it needs to heal slightly more to even be worth considering a bar slot. I would rather go out of class to get a heal over time than slot this skill.
- Better CC? Empowering grasp would probably do better as a conal aoe than going in a straight line

Wardens:
Please stop incessantly nerfing arctic blast, warden players have been asking for a stun forever and now it's being taken away again. I would rather a rework than having a delayed stun again.

Templars:
-Backlash has to be bugged in PVP, the damage is doing abysmal right now
- Focused charge, why major protection? Templars have never had a defensive problem, their damage is what's suffering now. They can't even make do anymore because of the recent backlash changes, it would be better to switch this with an offensive buff.
- Solar flare - This change is pretty good but it's not going to bring back templars, their entire class needs a looking at
- Puncturing strikes is too weak of a spammable now and the reduction in the snare on the skill makes it harder to stay on top of people
- Burning light hits incredibly weak now
I want to do more than use radiant destruction as a templar, that's the only offensive skill that is worth anything right now.

Sorcerer:
-Sorcerers outright just do not need the minor berserk and minor force changes. Sorcerers are in need of defense more than anything.
-Sorcerer would do better off having more in-class critical to make Surge a much more useful healing skill.

Syiccal

No one will slot focused charge any way, you get minor protection from the passivs and focused doesn't reliably stun so it's not worth the bar space

Aztrias

I hope the Crux runes disappear out of combat, it will be annoying visually to run around with those spinning around you all the time

Grim_Overlord

Regarding Sorcerer's access to Minor Force, the fact that it has a cast time makes it very hard to use in PVE situations when compared to Barbed Trap or Channeled Acceleration. While those each have a delay of sorts built into them, being the arming time for trap and the cast on Channeled, Dark Deal has a cast time and lasts only 10 seconds compared to Trap's 20 and Channeled's 60. While it will be nice to have a heal that also gives a valuable buff in PVE and an alternative way to get the narrowly distributed Minor Force buff, the cast time makes it far too clunky to use in a rotation every 10 seconds.

If you intend to go through with this change to Dark Exchange and its morphs, please remove the cast time and instead have the heal occur on a delay, perhaps a second after casting, or make Dark Exchange last 15-20 seconds closer to the other sources of Minor Force we see on skills so it can serve as an effective alternative for Sorcerers to Barbed Trap and Channeled Acceleration. I understand that if Dark Exchange has its duration increased or its cast time removed and replaced with a delayed heal and thus buff that the amount of healing received immediately will also need to be reworked. However, if the skill is to be useful in PVE contexts, then it will need to be altered to not be as disruptive in a rotation.

ESO_Nightingale

Warden feedback:

Can we have a developer comment on why you guys felt the need to remove the instant stun on arctic blast we begged for for years? If you feel the skill is overperforming, it's arctic blast's healing you should address. As arctic blast does several things all to a powerful level, it's understandable that you would want to nerf it, however we do have an entire healing line and burst healing skills in living trellis and fungal growth. Why not improve one of these burst heals and take the healing off of arctic blast in order to make the stun instant again in addition to reducing it's cost. This is still a significant nerf as it requires an additional skill slot on your build in order to do what arctic blast did before while also seperating the stun from the heal in the same GCD.

KiltMaster

I am glad that you are taking a look at templar, but I think you should rethink the defensive buff. As a templar, my chief complaint has never been 'it's not survivable' or 'I can't heal or keep myself defended'. Since the changes last year, it just straight up has been disappointing on the damage front.

Would much much rather get an offensive buff as opposed to a defensive buff. Not interested in being an unkillable tank if I can't do damage.

Mayrael

On one hand:
Death Stroke:
Increased the duration of this Ultimate and morphs’ debuffs to 8 seconds, up from 6.
Developer Comment:
For the masters of assassination, the Nightblade class is a little bit further behind in single target damage than we’d like. We’re increasing the uptime on this debuff to help Nightblades get more DPS and kill potential on priority targets.

And on the other hand:
Veiled Strike
Concealed Weapon (morph): This morph now grants its damage done bonus for 10 seconds if Major Expedition was active while it was cast, rather than for 5 seconds when Major Expedition ends or was refreshed, to ensure the skill is used actively rather than passively. The damage bonus still operates the same for leaving sneak or invisibility.



So you're adding 2s to the duration of Ultimate, but at the same time making it so that activating one of the more important NB bonuses during combat will only be possible in melee range and will require the use of an additional GCD to use the skill in what is already the most complicated rotation? Something doesn't quite add up here. It's a general nerf disguised as a not very significant buff.

For PvP, it won't change much for me, because I still have to stay in melee range anyway, but for PvE? Now keeping track of the NB rotation will be a nightmare.

Szalord

Dragonknight U38 Feedback

Quoting the Burning Talons change:
"Burning Talons: This morph's Damage over Time effect now will only apply if the target hit by the initial hit does not have a stack of the DoT active, similarly to Acid Spray, to help the skill shine more in Area of Effect situations where you are actively refreshing the skill. Note that it will still continue to stack from multiple targets."

I don't get it at all, what's the point in this? We can already spam talons in AoE situations just fine if we want to, and the direct damage portion of the ability goes off with no issues, there's nothing preventing us from doing so.

With this change, the only thing this achieves is making the ability clunky. Imagine the following situation: i apply Burning Talons on a mob, 2 seconds later another mob gets into my melee range, i want to reapply Burning Talons earlier. With this change, i'll have to wait until the dot from the Burning Talons on the first mob finishes before casting talons again... Please revert this change. I'd go as far as saying that Acid Spray has the same problem.

Making changes just for the sake of making something clunky is NOT ok.

Lavennin

Why is Surprise Attack so far behind Concealed Weapon in PvE?

If you think this change would make Stamblades not use Concealed Weapon, you would be wrong. It would simply mean a more complex rotation where the uptime of CW buff needs to be maintained actively, as if the rotation isn’t complex enough.

And with the overpowered LA mythic, LA weaving would feel quite pointless on a Nightblade, but we still have to do it because of how the class is designed. If you want to get rid of LA weaving just rework the whole system, instead of making certain classes feel less rewarding than others.