PTS Update 41 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

ZOS_GinaBruno

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

master_vanargand

I'm dissatisfied with the PvE DPS Nightblade.
Since "Major Berserk (damage +10%)" from "Concealed Weapon" has been removed in PTS, PvE Nightblade DPS needs a buff.

Game creators don't have to do anything difficult.

For example, if you reduce the ultimate cost of Nightblade's ultimate skill "Death Stroke" from 70 to 60 and increase the duration from 8 seconds to 12 seconds, this will result in a +5% dps increase.
For example, increasing Nightblade's passive skill "Dark Veil" from 2 seconds to 5 seconds will improve DPS and make skill rotation easier.
For example, increasing the "Pressure Points" of Nightblade's passive skill from 438 (Critical ratings +2%) to 657 (Critical ratings +3%) will improve dps.

DPS can be improved by simply changing Nightblade's skill numbers. Very easy, right?

Also for PvE Nightblade Tank and Healer, need the duration of "Minor Vulnerability" on "Lotus Fan" should be increased from 10 seconds to 20 seconds.
And for PvP Nightblade, need remove the useless "Empower" from "Ambush" and add "Stun". (the old ESO "Ambush")
Also for PvE Nightblade Tank, need give "Minor Courage" of "Power Extraction" to 11 people in the group and make it last 15 seconds.

These requests are the easiest and simplest way for game creators to improve their gameplay experience.
Just change the numbers. That alone will change for the better.
PvE DPS Nightblade needs love.

Treeshka

I did not even test the Necromancer on test server but can easily say that reworking their best damage and unique ability to something like this is not a good idea in my opinion.

No one in my raid team or people that raids complained about the rotation at all. People who wants to play Necromancer play it and do it well.

I hope this rework is revoked or moved to another skill that has less impact on the performance as damage dealer.

Zezin

The change to Necromancer Blastbones has a lot of problems with it's implementation. It reduced overall sustain for the classs, made the corpse mechanic more complicated than before, reduced the burst potential of the class(that was already the worst in terms of burst), removed the gameplay loop that made the class unique with it playing like a DK now.

CameraBeardThePirate

The Necro change needs another pass.

If the goal is a less intensive rotation - Sacrifice almost accomplishes this, but it makes Corpse gameplay even more complex than it was. Skills that need to consume corpses at the target's feet will now only have a corpse to consume at the player's location. That works fine for fights stacked on top of the boss, but for fights at range or with a lot of mobility, Mystic/Detonating Siphon will be nearly useless. You'll also still need to overcast Sacrifice in order to keep up with your corpse consumption, which goes against the entire idea of the change in the first place.

Besides the corpse gameplay aspect - Stalking Blastbones is the class' entire identity in PvP. Blighted simply doesn't do enough damage in PvP - so if you're absolutely insistent on changing one of the morphs, at the very least please consider adding the Stalking modifier to Blighted and give the ability a dynamic cost. If this week 1 PTS were to go live, Magcro would be completely dead in the water in PvP.

The change also simply misses the mark on what makes necromancer so "frustrating" to play. The Corpse Gameplay, and the offensive kit at large, is unintuitive, micro-managey, and lacks synergy overall. (Its also bugged currently: mob corpses show up as consumable but can't be unless theres a self-created corpse in the pile). There are so many abilities that this Sacrifice buff would have been better suited on - Empowering Grasp or either of the Skeletal Minions would've been a much better spot. If you still wanted to reduce the intensity of Blastbones on the rotation, why not add the Sacrifice buff to one of the minions and turn one of the Blastbones morphs into an AoE sticky DoT - something the class lacks?

Consider changing a Blastbones morph to an AoE sticky DoT, and moving the Sacrifice buff to a different skill. An AoE sticky DoT would round out DoT Necros without having to rely on DoT procs, and would accomplish the goal of having a simpler rotation without messing up your corpse gameplay/location of corpses.

Dubhliam

Arcanist Flail.

Not a word about Flail.

Working as intended...

Grim_Overlord

For the new change to Blastbones to work, Blighted Blastbones needs to offer something more given Stalking was the more powerful of the two in 99% of situations. A simple fix for this would be to add the damage buff from Stalking to it, but given the theming Necromancer has with DOT effects, it could be more interesting to have it deal 5% increased damage to enemies hit for each negative effect on them, similar to the Maarselok effect, up to 50%

More importantly though, even with the cost reduction, the stamina cost is still too heavy when considering that Blastbones is cast every three skills. This skill's cost needs to scale dynamically with the larger of the two resource pools. It would also be nice if its color changed to blue if cast with magicka and green when cast with stamina, but that is a lesser concern than hybridizing the casting cost.

The change to Stalking Blastbones also highlights the deficiencies of both Skeletal Archer/Arcanist and Ricochet Skull/Venom Skull. These skills, while doing alright damage, are still lower than most other damage over time and spammable skills respectively. Archer and Arcanist need to bring either increased damage, as right now they are slotted almost exclusively for the passives, or utility. Venom Skull's unique morph, being the cast count being influenced by all Gravelord casts, needs to become the base morph. Venom itself then would benefit from adding something else, such as every third cast releasing a pool of poison at the target's feet that lasts for a few seconds or dealing execute damage. Ricochet fairs slightly better with its bouncing, but the necromancer already has strong cleave. Even leaving the bouncing effect in tack, the skill would be far from overpowered to add a damage over time effect to the third cast on just the initial target that is similar to the Burning status effect in power as it exists on live.

That being said, the changes to Sorcerer look incredibly interesting and creative and I am super excited to see them function in a support role!

ZhuJiuyin

This buff to Encase looks good on paper, but in reality Shattering Spines, as a damage skill, still doesn't do enough damage.
According to usep's information: Shattering Prison (Old) deal [4765 / 4816 / 4869 / 4920] Magic Damage, and according to U41's instructions, it will increase the damage of Shattering Spines by 10%, which is 4920*1.1=5412.
But in comparison, Wardens' Scorch can cause [6641 / 6714 / 6787 / 6860] AOE magic damage (3 seconds delay) + [9223 / 9324 / 9426 / 9527] magic damage (6 seconds delay). Morphs even grant Major and Minor Breach.
Blighted Blastbones(old) (2.5 seconds delay) can cause [9529 / 9633 / 9737 / 9842] Disease Damage and give Major Defile.

Even compared with Cephaliarch's Flail, Cephaliarch's Flail is delayed by 0.3 seconds, causing
1.5303 damage (AOE)
2.healing
3.generating Crux
4.immobilized for 3 seconds
5. 5% increased damage
6. Execution (morph) or more damage (morph)
A total of 6 different effects are given. In contrast, Shattering Spines only has
1.Cause about 5412 AOE damage (delay)
2.immobilized for 4 seconds
3.Major Maim
Shattering Spines only has 3 effects, which is obviously completely lost to Scorch, Blighted Blastbones (in terms of damage), and Cephaliarch's Flail (in terms of number of effects)

I recommend:
1. Let Shattering Spines always give Overcharged(or Concussed) when it hits, and give the target another Overcharged(or Concussed) when it causes damage.
2. Or let Shattering Spines give the target an additional 10 seconds of magic damage after causing damage, making Shattering Prison worthy of being used in PVE.
3. Or gives [140 / 160 / 180 / 200] points of Weapon and Spell Damage after casting (similar to the 5% unique buff provided by Cephaliarch's Flail)
4. Or directly increase the damage of Shattering Spines by 40% (4920*1.4=6888), which is slightly higher than the [6574 / 6646 / 6718 / 6791] damage of Crystal Fragments. Considering that Shattering Spines is a delayed skill, it should be compensated for more damage.

Faulgor

Dev commentary on the Blastbones change:

We’re finally taking a stab at adjusting this ability to help Necromancers who don’t want to constantly manage a short duration ability, as it put a significant demand on creating complex and dynamic rotations in real combat. The reworked version will allow you to use the ability itself more dynamically, where you can continue to frequently activate it to produce and gobble up corpses or use it less frequently and simply enhance the rest of your toolkit, so you can focus on other elements of gameplay like spell slinging or tether interaction.

If your reasoning for changing the skill is to provide a less complex rotation option, I think a less drastic and more palatable change would have simply been to give one morph - preferably the less used one, Blightes Blastbones - a ramping DOT effect, similar to DK's Venomous Claw or Skeletal Archer. This way you would get the most out of it by letting it run its course for 10-20 seconds, having an easier rotation option while offering another class DOT for Necromancers, which is allegedly their niche.

xylena_lazarow

The Stinging Slashes nerf should be aligned with proc damage standards capping its effect at ~6300 WD.

I don't know where the 7815 number comes from, but I'd sure like to know!

dinokstrunz

Status Effect Changes
Status Effects don't need to be stronger than they already are.
People already have a crazy amount of free damage from status effects already on live thanks to overperforming abilities like Elemental Susceptibility. If anything it needs toning down big time, nobody wants PvP to be played like Infinite Archive with dull Ele Sus spamming.

katorga

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

The Stinging Slashes nerf should be aligned with proc damage standards capping its effect at ~6300 WD.

I don't know where the 7815 number comes from, but I'd sure like to know!

The point is to make Stinging Slashed not worth using. The change is because too many players are using it.

Hitting 6500wd on my tanky NB is pretty easy. Will I use the nerfed version? Nope, I don't use the pre-nerf version on live, NB is overloaded enough that it doesn't need to clutch on MastersDW/Vateshran like some of the other classes.

The classes that have to use masters DW to be competitive are out of luck.

Araneae6537

The changes to sorc look promising. I was hoping for more in non-pet damage, but better gradual adjustments than drastic changes.

The change to necro doesn’t seem to fit thematically or in utility (what useful abilities does it buff?). I would like to see necro have more DoTs and more useful minions. I’d rather the option to sacrifice the silly spammable skulls to boost DoTs (and ideally minions).

Dubhliam wrote: »

Arcanist Flail.

I hardly think it would be right to nerf both flail AND fatecarver, certainly not both at once!

Udrath

Nightblade is to strong in PVP and apparently it’s to weak in PVE. Just rework the whole class.

Dragonknight did not need another buff but sure why not. The class was fine.

Necromancer change is terrible. The class needs an entire rework and this isn’t a good start.

Sorcerer shield heal and daedric mines will make them insanely tough in PVP. Can easily obtain 40k worth of shields with battle spirit in PVP and keep them up.

Warden was fine, didn’t need a 50% damage bonus.

Arcanist was fine, and the changes should have been elsewhere.

Templar ????

Undeath ????

Ball groups cause lag, but unaddressed and buffed.

Elemental susceptibility free to cast even though status effects were buffed.

These developer comments only showed how out of touch they are with PVP, and makes me believe they have probably never played in Cyrodiil or battlegrounds regularly. People make post on the general discussion about PVP and they’re thrown away to a section no dev’s look at apparently.

Solariken

I can understand nerfing the Pragmatic Fatecarver shield, and maybe the damage too because it has a strong shield.

However, I think the other morph Exhausting Fatecarver should retain it's current damage since channeling carries SIGNIFICANT risk and rarely do you get the benefit of a full channel, especially in PvP.

Please consider.

Vaqual

dinokstrunz wrote: »

Status Effect Changes
Status Effects don't need to be stronger than they already are.
People already have a crazy amount of free damage from status effects already on live thanks to overperforming abilities like Elemental Susceptibility. If anything it needs toning down big time, nobody wants PvP to be played like Infinite Archive with dull Ele Sus spamming.

>Yes with the change to charged and the buff to status damage, the value from elemental susceptibility will be exacerbated. It was too efficient before and will definitively need adjustments now. 3k magicka for this would still be laughably cheap.

My opinion on other points:

>Edit: Changed my mind, I am actually on board with the status effect changes.
>Edit2: I think again the charged nerf is too steep if the proc chance off aoe dots, single target dots and direct damage aoe stays where it is at. They could either do with a small increase to their base proc chance, or charged should stay a bit higher. Direct single target can stay where it is.

>Siphoning Strikes changes look cool to me, making the ability more reliable for melee users, compared to the easily maintainable high uptime the current iteration has for ranged weapons. My favourite change so far.

>Stinging slashes change is appreciated, especially in light of the bleed damage buff.

>Otherwise I am a bit skeptical about the NB buffs. While I would like to see a bit more power added to the kit here and there, I do not think that you need to squeeze it into the abilities that are anyway effective in PvP (+ incap duration and damage and concealed minor expedition on both bars). The first time around when you made the unnamed 10 % proc off major expedition is when I thought you had the right idea and you really wanted to encourage players to work with path. In the end the buff was too effective and cloak basically provided sufficient uptime in PvP, so I would have expected you to shift some of that power away from concealed towards path.
I feel Refreshing Path is in a good spot, while Twisting Path has taken quite a hit since its last damage nerf. Ground based dots are quite useful in PvE and easily counteracted in PvP (they feel quite impotent in PvP at the moment). Rather than loading more power into incap and concealed, some could go to Twisting Path. It is not in a horrible state, but in many scenarios you don't really get a lot of value from it, as you usually want to relocate in scenarios where you need major expedition and then you don't really get to use the buff refreshes (generalizing of course). For that reason I think this is a more suitable candidate for buffing NB PvE performance.

>If time allows it, maybe you can revisit dark cloak once more? I thought for a while I can get the new iteration to work, but outside of full -on block tanking it consistently performs worse than other healing options, since the damage you can prevent by moving just far outweighs this abilities secondary functionality. The idea was ok, it just doesn't feel good to play with it.

>Sorc changes look cool to me as well, since I really don't like playing with the pets, but as NB main I am legally not allowed to discuss this.

All in all, really good first week. Changes look inspired, I like the energy.

xylena_lazarow

katorga wrote: »

The point is to make Stinging Slashed not worth using.

If that's true, that's absolute [snip].

[edited for profanity bypass]

RaptorRodeoGod

Treeshka wrote: »

I did not even test the Necromancer on test server but can easily say that reworking their best damage and unique ability to something like this is not a good idea in my opinion.

No one in my raid team or people that raids complained about the rotation at all. People who wants to play Necromancer play it and do it well.

I hope this rework is revoked or moved to another skill that has less impact on the performance as damage dealer.

I hated playing necro before, after testing on the dummy last night, the new skill feels really good

RaptorRodeoGod

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The Necro change needs another pass.

If the goal is a less intensive rotation - Sacrifice almost accomplishes this, but it makes Corpse gameplay even more complex than it was. Skills that need to consume corpses at the target's feet will now only have a corpse to consume at the player's location. That works fine for fights stacked on top of the boss, but for fights at range or with a lot of mobility, Mystic/Detonating Siphon will be nearly useless. You'll also still need to overcast Sacrifice in order to keep up with your corpse consumption, which goes against the entire idea of the change in the first place.

Besides the corpse gameplay aspect - Stalking Blastbones is the class' entire identity in PvP. Blighted simply doesn't do enough damage in PvP - so if you're absolutely insistent on changing one of the morphs, at the very least please consider adding the Stalking modifier to Blighted and give the ability a dynamic cost. If this week 1 PTS were to go live, Magcro would be completely dead in the water in PvP.

The change also simply misses the mark on what makes necromancer so "frustrating" to play. The Corpse Gameplay, and the offensive kit at large, is unintuitive, micro-managey, and lacks synergy overall. (Its also bugged currently: mob corpses show up as consumable but can't be unless theres a self-created corpse in the pile). There are so many abilities that this Sacrifice buff would have been better suited on - Empowering Grasp or either of the Skeletal Minions would've been a much better spot. If you still wanted to reduce the intensity of Blastbones on the rotation, why not add the Sacrifice buff to one of the minions and turn one of the Blastbones morphs into an AoE sticky DoT - something the class lacks?

Consider changing a Blastbones morph to an AoE sticky DoT, and moving the Sacrifice buff to a different skill. An AoE sticky DoT would round out DoT Necros without having to rely on DoT procs, and would accomplish the goal of having a simpler rotation without messing up your corpse gameplay/location of corpses.

The corpse mechanic isn't incredibly complex, there are only 2 damage skills that require corpses, and they're both DoTs. You don't need to over spam the new skill

CameraBeardThePirate

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The Necro change needs another pass.

If the goal is a less intensive rotation - Sacrifice almost accomplishes this, but it makes Corpse gameplay even more complex than it was. Skills that need to consume corpses at the target's feet will now only have a corpse to consume at the player's location. That works fine for fights stacked on top of the boss, but for fights at range or with a lot of mobility, Mystic/Detonating Siphon will be nearly useless. You'll also still need to overcast Sacrifice in order to keep up with your corpse consumption, which goes against the entire idea of the change in the first place.

Besides the corpse gameplay aspect - Stalking Blastbones is the class' entire identity in PvP. Blighted simply doesn't do enough damage in PvP - so if you're absolutely insistent on changing one of the morphs, at the very least please consider adding the Stalking modifier to Blighted and give the ability a dynamic cost. If this week 1 PTS were to go live, Magcro would be completely dead in the water in PvP.

The change also simply misses the mark on what makes necromancer so "frustrating" to play. The Corpse Gameplay, and the offensive kit at large, is unintuitive, micro-managey, and lacks synergy overall. (Its also bugged currently: mob corpses show up as consumable but can't be unless theres a self-created corpse in the pile). There are so many abilities that this Sacrifice buff would have been better suited on - Empowering Grasp or either of the Skeletal Minions would've been a much better spot. If you still wanted to reduce the intensity of Blastbones on the rotation, why not add the Sacrifice buff to one of the minions and turn one of the Blastbones morphs into an AoE sticky DoT - something the class lacks?

Consider changing a Blastbones morph to an AoE sticky DoT, and moving the Sacrifice buff to a different skill. An AoE sticky DoT would round out DoT Necros without having to rely on DoT procs, and would accomplish the goal of having a simpler rotation without messing up your corpse gameplay/location of corpses.

The corpse mechanic isn't incredibly complex, there are only 2 damage skills that require corpses, and they're both DoTs. You don't need to over spam the new skill

The new skill lasts 20 seconds. No matter how you slice it, you'll need to overcast it because Avid Boneyard needs a corpse every 10 seconds and Siphon needs a corpse every 20.

And besides- you've completely ignored the main point. Corpse gameplay becomes more complex with the new Sacrifice skill because you can no longer place a corpse at the Target's feet, only at your own feet. That's fine for parses or fights where you stack directly on the boss, but kills any sort of ranged build or fight because now you won't have corpses near the target for Siphon or Graveyard.

Remiem

Stalking Blastbones change:

Just scrap it... Don't change for the worst what is by far the the best damage skill of the class just because it was too hard for overland players to use it, like another vet PvE player said no competent player had issues with the rotation.
You left Blighted blastbones alone because you wanted to leave something for players who enjoy the classic way of playing necro but it hits nowhere near as hard and it costs stamina so even with the reduced cost it's still too expensive for magicka oriented characters, and why would the main damage skill of a class that belongs to the spellcaster archetype in most fantasy games cost stamina? As far I know the weapon Mannimarco wields is the "Staff of the Worm" not the "Greatsword of the Worms".
Some people (who mostly don't play the class) say "Well, it's something new" well it's also completely unoriginal on top of being bad, just another buff to keep up instead of something mechanically interesting.

You want to do something that would really help making old blastbones more reliable in both PvP and PvE? Make it untargetable because stuns, roots, snares, knockbacks, negates (even in PvE, the skill is annoying to use in Infinite Archive because of all the negates) etc... are the primary reason why the skill can feel so random.

RaptorRodeoGod

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The Necro change needs another pass.

If the goal is a less intensive rotation - Sacrifice almost accomplishes this, but it makes Corpse gameplay even more complex than it was. Skills that need to consume corpses at the target's feet will now only have a corpse to consume at the player's location. That works fine for fights stacked on top of the boss, but for fights at range or with a lot of mobility, Mystic/Detonating Siphon will be nearly useless. You'll also still need to overcast Sacrifice in order to keep up with your corpse consumption, which goes against the entire idea of the change in the first place.

Besides the corpse gameplay aspect - Stalking Blastbones is the class' entire identity in PvP. Blighted simply doesn't do enough damage in PvP - so if you're absolutely insistent on changing one of the morphs, at the very least please consider adding the Stalking modifier to Blighted and give the ability a dynamic cost. If this week 1 PTS were to go live, Magcro would be completely dead in the water in PvP.

The change also simply misses the mark on what makes necromancer so "frustrating" to play. The Corpse Gameplay, and the offensive kit at large, is unintuitive, micro-managey, and lacks synergy overall. (Its also bugged currently: mob corpses show up as consumable but can't be unless theres a self-created corpse in the pile). There are so many abilities that this Sacrifice buff would have been better suited on - Empowering Grasp or either of the Skeletal Minions would've been a much better spot. If you still wanted to reduce the intensity of Blastbones on the rotation, why not add the Sacrifice buff to one of the minions and turn one of the Blastbones morphs into an AoE sticky DoT - something the class lacks?

Consider changing a Blastbones morph to an AoE sticky DoT, and moving the Sacrifice buff to a different skill. An AoE sticky DoT would round out DoT Necros without having to rely on DoT procs, and would accomplish the goal of having a simpler rotation without messing up your corpse gameplay/location of corpses.

The corpse mechanic isn't incredibly complex, there are only 2 damage skills that require corpses, and they're both DoTs. You don't need to over spam the new skill

The new skill lasts 20 seconds. No matter how you slice it, you'll need to overcast it because Avid Boneyard needs a corpse every 10 seconds and Siphon needs a corpse every 20.

And besides- you've completely ignored the main point. Corpse gameplay becomes more complex with the new Sacrifice skill because you can no longer place a corpse at the Target's feet, only at your own feet. That's fine for parses or fights where you stack directly on the boss, but kills any sort of ranged build or fight because now you won't have corpses near the target for Siphon or Graveyard.

Well those reasons are why they kept one morph the same. And I'm not saying blighted blastbones doesn't need a buff or anything, but having a morph changed to be completely different is kind of a breath of fresh air for people like me that thought blastbones are clunky.

As you kind of pointed out, this new skill performs much better in melee because you can guarantee the corpse is where you need it, having a ranged vs a melee morph isn't necessarily a bad thing.

And casting it 3 times in 20 seconds is not super hard, considering how often blastbones needs to be cast on a normal necro build. If anything, they should add another corpse consuming mechanic to better incentivise over casting this skill

CameraBeardThePirate

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The Necro change needs another pass.

If the goal is a less intensive rotation - Sacrifice almost accomplishes this, but it makes Corpse gameplay even more complex than it was. Skills that need to consume corpses at the target's feet will now only have a corpse to consume at the player's location. That works fine for fights stacked on top of the boss, but for fights at range or with a lot of mobility, Mystic/Detonating Siphon will be nearly useless. You'll also still need to overcast Sacrifice in order to keep up with your corpse consumption, which goes against the entire idea of the change in the first place.

Besides the corpse gameplay aspect - Stalking Blastbones is the class' entire identity in PvP. Blighted simply doesn't do enough damage in PvP - so if you're absolutely insistent on changing one of the morphs, at the very least please consider adding the Stalking modifier to Blighted and give the ability a dynamic cost. If this week 1 PTS were to go live, Magcro would be completely dead in the water in PvP.

The change also simply misses the mark on what makes necromancer so "frustrating" to play. The Corpse Gameplay, and the offensive kit at large, is unintuitive, micro-managey, and lacks synergy overall. (Its also bugged currently: mob corpses show up as consumable but can't be unless theres a self-created corpse in the pile). There are so many abilities that this Sacrifice buff would have been better suited on - Empowering Grasp or either of the Skeletal Minions would've been a much better spot. If you still wanted to reduce the intensity of Blastbones on the rotation, why not add the Sacrifice buff to one of the minions and turn one of the Blastbones morphs into an AoE sticky DoT - something the class lacks?

Consider changing a Blastbones morph to an AoE sticky DoT, and moving the Sacrifice buff to a different skill. An AoE sticky DoT would round out DoT Necros without having to rely on DoT procs, and would accomplish the goal of having a simpler rotation without messing up your corpse gameplay/location of corpses.

The corpse mechanic isn't incredibly complex, there are only 2 damage skills that require corpses, and they're both DoTs. You don't need to over spam the new skill

The new skill lasts 20 seconds. No matter how you slice it, you'll need to overcast it because Avid Boneyard needs a corpse every 10 seconds and Siphon needs a corpse every 20.

And besides- you've completely ignored the main point. Corpse gameplay becomes more complex with the new Sacrifice skill because you can no longer place a corpse at the Target's feet, only at your own feet. That's fine for parses or fights where you stack directly on the boss, but kills any sort of ranged build or fight because now you won't have corpses near the target for Siphon or Graveyard.

As you kind of pointed out, this new skill performs much better in melee because you can guarantee the corpse is where you need it, having a ranged vs a melee morph isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It doesn't perform any better in melee range than before - it's the exact same in melee range. The only difference is it's impossible to set up corpses on a ranged build with it.

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

And casting it 3 times in 20 seconds is not super hard, considering how often blastbones needs to be cast on a normal necro build. If anything, they should add another corpse consuming mechanic to better incentivise over casting this skill

Further incentivising overcasting it would stray even further from the point of the skill change - which is to make it so that you don't have to cast it as often.

They could have accomplished the same by simply turning one of the morphs into an AoE sticky DoT - something the class desperately needs in all environments. It would fix the problem without screwing up corpse gameplay. Stalking Blastbones has the highest usage rate out of any of their skills - that alone probably indicates other things need changing in their kit.

RaptorRodeoGod

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The Necro change needs another pass.

If the goal is a less intensive rotation - Sacrifice almost accomplishes this, but it makes Corpse gameplay even more complex than it was. Skills that need to consume corpses at the target's feet will now only have a corpse to consume at the player's location. That works fine for fights stacked on top of the boss, but for fights at range or with a lot of mobility, Mystic/Detonating Siphon will be nearly useless. You'll also still need to overcast Sacrifice in order to keep up with your corpse consumption, which goes against the entire idea of the change in the first place.

Besides the corpse gameplay aspect - Stalking Blastbones is the class' entire identity in PvP. Blighted simply doesn't do enough damage in PvP - so if you're absolutely insistent on changing one of the morphs, at the very least please consider adding the Stalking modifier to Blighted and give the ability a dynamic cost. If this week 1 PTS were to go live, Magcro would be completely dead in the water in PvP.

The change also simply misses the mark on what makes necromancer so "frustrating" to play. The Corpse Gameplay, and the offensive kit at large, is unintuitive, micro-managey, and lacks synergy overall. (Its also bugged currently: mob corpses show up as consumable but can't be unless theres a self-created corpse in the pile). There are so many abilities that this Sacrifice buff would have been better suited on - Empowering Grasp or either of the Skeletal Minions would've been a much better spot. If you still wanted to reduce the intensity of Blastbones on the rotation, why not add the Sacrifice buff to one of the minions and turn one of the Blastbones morphs into an AoE sticky DoT - something the class lacks?

Consider changing a Blastbones morph to an AoE sticky DoT, and moving the Sacrifice buff to a different skill. An AoE sticky DoT would round out DoT Necros without having to rely on DoT procs, and would accomplish the goal of having a simpler rotation without messing up your corpse gameplay/location of corpses.

The corpse mechanic isn't incredibly complex, there are only 2 damage skills that require corpses, and they're both DoTs. You don't need to over spam the new skill

The new skill lasts 20 seconds. No matter how you slice it, you'll need to overcast it because Avid Boneyard needs a corpse every 10 seconds and Siphon needs a corpse every 20.

And besides- you've completely ignored the main point. Corpse gameplay becomes more complex with the new Sacrifice skill because you can no longer place a corpse at the Target's feet, only at your own feet. That's fine for parses or fights where you stack directly on the boss, but kills any sort of ranged build or fight because now you won't have corpses near the target for Siphon or Graveyard.

As you kind of pointed out, this new skill performs much better in melee because you can guarantee the corpse is where you need it, having a ranged vs a melee morph isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It doesn't perform any better in melee range than before - it's the exact same in melee range. The only difference is it's impossible to set up corpses on a ranged build with it.

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

And casting it 3 times in 20 seconds is not super hard, considering how often blastbones needs to be cast on a normal necro build. If anything, they should add another corpse consuming mechanic to better incentivise over casting this skill

Further incentivising overcasting it would stray even further from the point of the skill change - which is to make it so that you don't have to cast it as often.

They could have accomplished the same by simply turning one of the morphs into an AoE sticky DoT - something the class desperately needs in all environments. It would fix the problem without screwing up corpse gameplay. Stalking Blastbones has the highest usage rate out of any of their skills - that alone probably indicates other things need changing in their kit.

When I said better in melee, I don't mean better than before, I mean the skill itself would be better in melee, because your tether could be cast on you, and your avid boneyard would be cast on you, which you need to be in anyways if you want to trigger the synergy.

Again, I think new skill is a good alternative for those that DO NOT want to play with blastbones. Altering another skill instead would NOT achieve this effect.

I also do not disagree that the class needs other buffs, such as what you have suggested. I've mostly been looking at this skill in a vacuum here, and arguing for it in that sense.

Uvi_AUT

I just wanted to say "Thank you" for the Blastbones-Change. It sounds amazing and I cant wait to play it!

As for Arcanist. You posted you nerfed Fatecarver to "give room to other rotations". What do you mean by that? What is the idea? Another rotation without Fatecarver? What spells do you have in mind?

Grim_Overlord

Maybe the issue with Necromancer is that, over time, it has taken on trying to do too much. It serves as the only elementalist class as far as Elemental Catalyst is concerned. Sure other classes can make use of the set, but not in the way that Necromancer does naturally in its kit. It is also the class with the passive tying them to DOT effects, which makes sense for a class themed around death and decay. Finally, they are also a pet class, though those pets are temporary to help set them apart from the permanent pet classes of Sorcerer and Warden's ult. These three themes are incongruous with each other as the aesthetic demands one thing but the execution demands another.

The DOT focus is interesting but needs to be better represented within the class itself. My idea for this is adding smaller, short length dots to their class skills so that their bars aren't overloaded with the reworking of existing skills into a pure sticky DOT. While such a DOT would be appreciated, there currently isn't bar space for one, even with any version of Blastbones accounted for. The undead theme is purely visual, but would make more sense than the elementalist one. The class is a Necromancer. Its skills should prioritize the use of undead and occult magics such as curses.

The elementalist role, to me at least, is the odd one out of the bunch due to it not matching the aesthetic of the necro nor the passives that define the class. However, it is interesting if not aesthetically fitting beyond the magic, disease, and bleed damage because of what it allows the class to do in group comps through the variety of status effects and the EC set. That being said, of the three identities Necromancer has, it feels like the least pertinent because of how removed it is from the other two.

I don't mind the introduction of a new playstyle for the Necromancer with the Blastbones change even if I love the old rotation because of how unique it feels and how it has a uniquely active spin on what a Necromancer can be. However, that active use of undead is present in that one skill alone. All I'm saying is that when this change goes through, I hope it is accompanied by others that embrace the minion-manager aesthetic the Necromancer relies on within the Elder Scrolls as well as buffing the DOT focus that this change reinforces.

nokturnihs

I'd like to see something, anything that actually allows disabled players to participate in all parts of the game. We HAD that with one-bar builds but the sweaty, try hard Chad type player told us what we could and could not do and ZOS listened so now we can't have that. Maybe change directions ZOS and cripple the 2 bar light weaving players by changing the light attack time to 1 second, you know, balance the game for people without disabilities and those with. Sure would be nice.

Erickson9610

I'm super stoked to see that the bug with Salvation was fixed, as well as the bug with the Pursuit passive not reapplying after the goat minigame in the Infinite Archive. These Werewolf-related bug fixes are appreciated.

I wish Werewolf had received some other balance changes, though. I doubt Werewolf will get anything significant with the Scribing feature next update, so the lack of meaningful balance updates this update is disappointing.

The change to Expert Summoner is a fantastic buff to Sorcerer Werewolf, though — we get +10% Max Magicka/Stamina with Werewolf Berserker, or +10% Max Health with Pack Leader because of the dire wolves. Please don't disable this functionality with Werewolf! It makes Sorcerer an interesting choice for all Werewolf playstyles.

VinnyGambini

Guys, important question. Has anyone tried elemental susceptibility? Since chilled dmg is doubled, and concusion dmg is basically tripled, from my calculations you should be dealing very nice dps by just spamming LA->Elemental susceptibility. Add relequen, and you basically can reach 5k dps in PvP scenarios, WITHOUT ANY COST. Did anyone tested this?

acastanza_ESO

From both a PVP and PVE perspective, I would suggest swapping the Health and Max Stat bonuses on the new expert summoner passive. I know some people will disagree here, its definitely dependent on your specific sorc playstyle, but I think in general, swapping them will provide the best value for Sorcerer in the most scenarios.

Secondly, the Heal on Hardened ward needs to be a stronger HOT over the time you're shielded.

Third, the changes to buff Nightblade's HOT/resource return skill is extremely insulting considering the state of Dark Deal and Crit Surge. At MINIMUM, Dark Deal/Conversion needs the cast time removed, this is basically non-negotiable at this point. And to bring it up to parity, if you continue to refuse to give Sorc an in-class crit buff Surge needs to be reworked to proc off simply dealing damage instead of requiring crits.

Another suggestion is to take inspiration from the Arcanist pragmatic fatecarver which can't be interrupted (in theory) while the shield is up, instead of putting a heal on Hardened Ward, if you won't fix Dark Deal/Conversion like suggested instead make it so your class abilities can't be interrupted while Hardened Ward is active.

Finally, Haunting Curse needs Major Breach and a radius increase (and to apply that breach in an AOE on explosion). If you compare it to skills like Scorch it is laughable.

acastanza_ESO

Additional: with the changes to Status Effects it is LONG PAST time that Elemental Susceptibility gets a Cost assigned and a Duration reduction. The skill is extremely overpowered.