PTS Update 41 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

ChRiS_the_GaMeR · February 4

I wanted to give feedback on the necromancer in general aswell as on the newly included Sacrificial Bones and Grave Lord‘s Sacrifice morph.

First of all I totally get the reasoning for changing one of the blastbone morphs but I think the implementation is kind of unfortunate and somewhat misleading. For one I really like the general Idea of having a skill that buffs necromancer skills but to me that is the misleading part, because it just feels like a lazy attempt to fix multiple necromancer problems with one skill instead of focusing on the mentioned goal of making the necro rotation more accessible.

I don‘t know the developers opinion on the community‘s pain points with the class but the implementation of the Nobility in Decay set and now Grave Lord‘s Sacrifice morph kind of lead to the conclusion that the developers at least acknowledge the general opinion about necros stationary skills.It’s kind of normal that every class has some skills that are more viable in PvP and others are more viable in pve but in case of the necromancer it feels like to many skills are either to niche, to weak or to focused on either pve or PvP. I can’t confidently speak for pve but for PvP to many stationary skills reduce your options in PvP.

What i‘m trying to say is that the tether skills being stationary is the problem, therefore changing the skills should be the solution and not forcing the solution on to a set and or skill morph.

That’s my first criticism for the reworked skill, additionally it’s kind of unfortunate that the two morphs are now extremely different which I can‘t think of any other skill where that is the case. I my opinion that’s kind of contradictory to the idea of „play the way you want“. Let’s say both morph are finely balanced and are both viable but they are that different that it kind of feels like missing out on either morph and or playstyle by choosing one over the other because they are that different.

In my opinion it would have been better to implement the buffing part to either another skill or both morphs and to focus on only how to ease the rotation for the rework because I think where would have been less extrem changing options out there. You tried to achieve to many things with one skill and kind of lost your goal.

Many people already mentioned that the 20 second duration does not matter because you have to recast the skill more often to provide the necessary amount of corpses, additionally it’s kind of problematic that the corpses are now on your position and not on the enemy which kind of destroys the flow for other necro skills like the tether.

And to add a completely subjective side note, I like many others would like the necromancer to feel like being a summoner or master over his undead minions but having a skeleton running at it’s master and exploding neither feels like a „sacrifice“ nor like a thing a necromancer would do. Maybe have the skeleton follow you around for the 20 seconds duration or let it still run and explode at the enemy but rather than putting the buff on yourself you debuff the enemies.

I guess the change is kind of set in stone now and we have to focus more on how to make it work. I don’t really have any suggestions for the problems mentioned but one suggestion I do have to kind of solve the problem with not having enough corpses or corpses at the enemy is to add a corpse on every third cast of flame skull and it’s morphs.

James-Wayne · February 5

w002exp wrote: »

We might not get an answer on this but I would not be surprised if the change to tormentor had nothing to do with the AOE taunt but a rework of the taunting mechanics in the game itself.

Taunt has been getting a lot of tweaks, especially in regards to the behavior around over taunting, for several patches now. There were many more taunt related tweaks in U41 including inner fire and inner beast.

While we probably won't know for certain I think the player base may need to be prepared that this has nothing to do with tormentor and more to do with adjustments to the overall behavior of taunt on a macro level--possibly to prepare for scribing which is slated to contain new behaviors for taunt. It's possible many of these mechanics did not play well with some of the mechanics scribing will institute and they needed changed to support the new system.

Just a conjecture.... But one people should consider.

I agree that could be a possibility but if that's the case then just say that simple and in the same breath mention why Templar lost its only class crowd control ability and mark if Templar as a class will regain tanking ability in future. Just say yep its on the list everyone, we'll get there.

If the community had honest upfront communication all these discussions and frustrations just disappear.

OolongSnakeTea · February 5

Hybridization
This is written from the perspective of an end game player for PVE. I follow the Obey the Meta, but work within confinds of time, skill and effectivness (IE: using set A over set B for more effective damage, because maybe my hands can't work that perfect weave).

Breifly me and my observations in ESO over the years: I strive myself to be an all rounded in content- jack of all trades, master of none. I play healers, tanks and DPS equally each patch in turn based off my friend group's need that season. I average around 80k/100k parses on most classes, so I'm hitting numbers, and I understand what I'm doing in general when I put together things, or take feed back from people who are smarter at math and crunchier side of PVE think stuff. I generally refer to myself as a low APM high value player (I have played stam sorc since Thieves Guild, and have barely budged it off my 'main' list since). I perfer mostly stamina (especially solo), so these past few years of updates and changes, has made stamina feel great. However, I watch as 'mag' characters are forced to use classically 'martial weapons' to even get respectful numbers, punishing them further for the 'safty' viewed play style, all while they just wanted to play a lizard-wizard with a staff.

I really beg, ask, that you guys address this hybrization issuse for those who are primarily staff-users. It feels unfair and unbalanced in the PVE sandbox.Everyone is forced in PVE to get big number go up with daggers, two handers, and maybe inferno staff for safty. Bows kinda new, and has come in as well- which is great! But staves feel like you are throwing for your group if you are running say, a double-staff set up. With the acception of a few niche builds (IE: frost warden/brittendens)

Some side thoughts, still within the scope of Hybrization
Update the Mage Guild. Take the fighters guild for example. It adds SO much value, at a build-netural for its passives (camo, trap, hammer are common plays to get those beefy numbers for example)-both mag and stam play styles use this guild. But mage guild? Hardly. Why not take a page out of the armor weight update's book, and let the mage guild get something cool like pen/regen- like light armor? Right now, the mag-stack is a bit of an older meta, and doesn't add much damage value in either sandbox (PVE or PVP) unless playing very niche builds.

The Elephant in the Necro-room
Mag-cro in the tradtional double staff sense, feels like garbage. While I think 'Hugs the Blast Bone' is a good concept, it feel incompete and fustrating for those who like to play pure mag. I can normally solo my pledges for keys on most of my characters, but magcro? No. It is struggle, it is teeth grinding, and it is a pain in some of those dungeons. Dungeons I have mastered. Because they lack the burst for the short fights, and I have to have my bar-economy taken up by so many other moves to get any sense of damage value. All while say, my stam sorc can just run crit-surge and I get half a potion buff for free and healing value? Necro doesn't need a lower APM play style, it needs more value for its play style. It needs to get buffs from something somehow like the other classes do, so it doesn't have to run like mage guild degen/innerlight/cammo hunter to get potion buffs and more value added to it's tool kit. It need more bar economy.

Support Ultimates and the Garbage PVP Grind
While I don't think this will get addressed this year, I will protest my resentment for having to get PVP grind finished out for barrier and agressive warhorn on most if not all classes (with the acception of DK, Arcanist, Necromancer and kinda Warden) for PVE end game support characters. For truely hard end game content, the expectation is agressive warhorn and barrier. That means so much PVP for players who do not want to do PVP- even with war torts, special double/25% increased AP events and such, it just becomes chore. Its inflated and unfair game time being wasted on something that is viewed as a need to be sucessful in other aspects of the game that is actually enjoyed and wanted to be played. If i want to PVP, let it be because i want to PVP- not because I have a new tank, or a new healer and I need skill lines finished.
And no, I will not use crowns to buy them, that is also very distastful.

This support ultimate issuse can possibly be fixed either by provding us better ultiamtes that work for 12man content (IE: the joke that is the restro staff ultiamte????), or rethinking of the class-ultiamtes for their support roles that work for BOTH healers and tanks. Necro is a perfect example that their ulimtates work for both their support roles, have cool idendity and does not require them to grind hours of PVP. Because when you have a necro, you want that flesh atronoch for major vuln in PVE end game content. Nightblade comes to mind as the worst offender for their ultimates not working for the healer, but being 'ok I guess' for the tank in PVE end game content. DK healers also don't get much at all, other then 'woo I have budget-barrier I guess?'.

TLDR:
The meta feels stale and unbalanced. I am tired of the same weapons, same sets, same moves and same ultimates always being the go to plays for PVE end game content, reguardless of what class I am. Its juse extra blue, red or purple colors sometimes depending on the swaps. I'm always using daggers+whatever. And its always barrier + warhorn for supports.

FoJul · February 5

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

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.

Swallow Soul is under any other optional spammable for nightblade, in the game. With the new changes, Inner beast is a more suitable spammable than swallow soul.

Debilitate nerf was too much, the skill is useless now.

Dark cloak i unusable with the standing still mechanic.

Concealed weapon slightly over powered. An idea to fix this is give that damage bonus to every 2nd cast of concealed.

gariondavey · February 5

Jabs. Buff it. Please.

Grim_Overlord · February 5

OolongSnakeTea wrote: »

Hybridization
Some side thoughts, still within the scope of Hybrization
Update the Mage Guild. Take the fighters guild for example. It adds SO much value, at a build-netural for its passives (camo, trap, hammer are common plays to get those beefy numbers for example)-both mag and stam play styles use this guild. But mage guild? Hardly. Why not take a page out of the armor weight update's book, and let the mage guild get something cool like pen/regen- like light armor? Right now, the mag-stack is a bit of an older meta, and doesn't add much damage value in either sandbox (PVE or PVP) unless playing very niche builds.

Lots of good thoughts in the quoted post, but this part here I think needs reiterating. The Mage's Guild skill line needs a major overhaul. Yeah, its nice to get Major Brutality/Sorcery from a skill like Degen, but that isn't enough to justify the skill most times on the classes that need it such as Necromancer, who struggles with bar space unless you want to run Blastbones, a spammable, and 8 dots(which is ludicrous to actually keep up in PVE content might I add). Scalding Rune is an interesting skill, but again it gets dropped by classes with more loaded bars due to offering nothing beyond ok-ish damage. Giving it Minor Force, for example, to mirror Fighter's Guild trap, would go a long way. Inner Light and the other morph are fine, but hardly worth slotting even on Magicka characters compared to Camo Hunter because of how overtuned the FG passives are. Equilibrium is a decent utility skill, and Comet is one of the strongest ults in the game. I know scribing will add a new skill to use with this, but given the Mage's Guild insignia seen on a new armor set in the gameplay trailer for the next chapter, I'm hoping we also get a long overdue passives update to the Mage's Guild at the same time.

The skills all feel middling to play, but if the passives helped them be worth slotting like FG's passives do for their skills, this skill line might become competitive within the meta. Mage Adept gives a 15% cost reduction to non-ultimate MG skills effectively. Fighter's guild gets the same reduction on their RP skill, which also costs 1 less skill point to max if I remember correctly. Ok, aside from the annoyance of this costing more skill points than FG for the same effect and that somewhat being mitigated by the last perk of FG being a Cyro only thing, there are still less effects in MG passives than FG. Magicka Controller is vastly weaker than Slayer or Banish the Wicked which gives damage and ultimate respectively. The remaining MG perks give skill duration, which feels like it belongs on skills as they rank up as they don't apply outside of the skill line as FG perks do, and Max Mag and Mag Recovery. While less useless than Everlasting Magic, Magicka Controller feels like it either needs to be buffed to compete with Slayer or persist through bar swap to be relevant. Finally, the last passive is the most in need of an update as it was one of the few sources of empower that wasn't touched when empower itself was. It gives it for 2 seconds on casting a MG skill, of which 0 are cast often enough for this to be relevant even on the builds that want empower. There are 2 over 20 second dots, a skill that goes uncast, and a recovery skill. This passive isn't even worth buying. FG feels so overtuned even compared to most class or weapon skill lines. There is no reason for MG to be this far behind it and just giving the passives any kind of utility would help close that gap to the point where when scribing comes out, the MG skill isn't wholly ignored.

acastanza_ESO · February 5

The damage nerf to barbed trap is fine, but gutting its ability to apply Hemorrhaging feels super bad. It basically only works for Arcanists and Wardens now. Most classes simply do not have the ability to keep up this effect due to a complete lack of sources of bleed damage. This nerf is just super unnecessary combined with the nerf to charged and the nerf to the damage.
Stop doing multinerfs like this

Tannus15 · February 5

no, haemorrhage is just bad. it's a bad status and trap was covering up the fact that it's so bad now.
it needs to be reworked as it's too hard to build stacks on a rare damage type like that

honestly i'm glad they changed trap as long as this causes them to address the underlying issue

Leia98 · February 5

@ZOS_GinaBruno again, for the love of God;
Templar supports have been in a very bad shape for years. They contribute nothing to the group. Templar healers are completely ignored and templar tanks(lol) are literally the jokes of the community for years now.

Do SOMETHING, its really not that hard for the devs to figure out what is wrong or lacking

Tyrant_Tim · February 5

Good luck, @Leia98.

The very class with Temple in it’s name, holds it down as a tank arguably the worst out of every class in the game, and for healer it’s been on the decline for over a year now, ever since Pillager gave the healer spot to whatever class has the highest ult-gen.

Tyrant_Tim · February 5

Also want to add, that the change to Barbed Trap combined with the status effect change for Hemorrhaging is going to completely remove the skill from most classes.

While I understand the skill has been overperforming for some time, I don’t believe destroying it’s use for Templar right before you release a new skin for the skill designed for the very class is a great move.

So I would suggest changing Barbed Trap’s upcoming Cosmetic dropping Update 42 to either light blue or green for Wardens, as they are going to be one of the only classes running that skill if these changes go live, in hopes that whatever skill has our class’ color theme is actually one we will be using.

Foxtrot39 · February 6

There is a real need to rework some old skills and some ultimates, yet we are usualy seeing tweaking on skill that are used the most often or dont really needed tweaking

Skill with a good and better morph shouldn't be a thing, thats the point of a morph : make them distinct

Example cases being (for both outdated and bad morph design)

Rite of passage & morph for templar : you heal for more and can move or just grant major protection, no one is gonna use the morph that heal less and keep you rooted for a easely sourced buff

Consuming darkness for NB: one morph is essentialy the same as the base skill, the difference is keeping a easely sourced buff out of the AOE after leaving it, the other adds damage

Both ultimates only have one viable option and a mediocre one at that to boot as their strength was about entirely based on a buff that got gutted years ago without ever reworking them to remain relevent

Rite of passage heal is bad because other heals that can be spammed heals as AOE does more and give you a bonus on top

Its a pure healing ultimate that perform rather poorly at healing while leaving you defenceless and stuck like a sitting duck for the whole duration

Consuming darkness is bad because people have to go out of their way to go into the AOE to use a synergy that heals them while you, the caster, get nothing at all from it

The entire ult is just a burst heal on demand that remain for 20s, the invisibility and speed boost is useless in PVE and too niche to be good for PVP, in PVE a healer make it irrelevent, in PVP its only good to drop at fort's doors to help out ally rushing in

Its also overpiced in term of ult cost for what little it does

Major protection isn't an ultimate worthy buff, a sloted skill and sets make it already abbundant

Grim_Overlord · February 6

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Also want to add, that the change to Barbed Trap combined with the status effect change for Hemorrhaging is going to completely remove the skill from most classes.

While I understand the skill has been overperforming for some time, I don’t believe destroying it’s use for Templar right before you release a new skin for the skill designed for the very class is a great move.

So I would suggest changing Barbed Trap’s upcoming Cosmetic dropping Update 42 to either light blue or green for Wardens, as they are going to be one of the only classes running that skill if these changes go live, in hopes that whatever skill has our class’ color theme is actually one we will be using.

Was this cosmetic specifically templar themed? I thought the skill stylings were just color changes rather than specific themes. For example at most, I could change say Lightning Flood to orange lightning in place of the current white-blue, similar to the above trap image in your post, but not to appearing like fire or divine light. Would appreciate any clarification on that as frankly we got very little on it beyond this image and its existence.

Erickson9610 · February 6

Grim_Overlord wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Also want to add, that the change to Barbed Trap combined with the status effect change for Hemorrhaging is going to completely remove the skill from most classes.

While I understand the skill has been overperforming for some time, I don’t believe destroying it’s use for Templar right before you release a new skin for the skill designed for the very class is a great move.

So I would suggest changing Barbed Trap’s upcoming Cosmetic dropping Update 42 to either light blue or green for Wardens, as they are going to be one of the only classes running that skill if these changes go live, in hopes that whatever skill has our class’ color theme is actually one we will be using.

Was this cosmetic specifically templar themed? I thought the skill stylings were just color changes rather than specific themes. For example at most, I could change say Lightning Flood to orange lightning in place of the current white-blue, similar to the above trap image in your post, but not to appearing like fire or divine light. Would appreciate any clarification on that as frankly we got very little on it beyond this image and its existence.

The Skill Styles announced are not Class-specific. I think of them like Customized Actions, which can be used by any Class, and whose appearance doesn't change depending on your Class.

Tyrant_Tim · February 6

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Grim_Overlord wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Also want to add, that the change to Barbed Trap combined with the status effect change for Hemorrhaging is going to completely remove the skill from most classes.

While I understand the skill has been overperforming for some time, I don’t believe destroying it’s use for Templar right before you release a new skin for the skill designed for the very class is a great move.

So I would suggest changing Barbed Trap’s upcoming Cosmetic dropping Update 42 to either light blue or green for Wardens, as they are going to be one of the only classes running that skill if these changes go live, in hopes that whatever skill has our class’ color theme is actually one we will be using.

Was this cosmetic specifically templar themed? I thought the skill stylings were just color changes rather than specific themes. For example at most, I could change say Lightning Flood to orange lightning in place of the current white-blue, similar to the above trap image in your post, but not to appearing like fire or divine light. Would appreciate any clarification on that as frankly we got very little on it beyond this image and its existence.

The Skill Styles announced are not Class-specific. I think of them like Customized Actions, which can be used by any Class, and whose appearance doesn't change depending on your Class.

Correct, where it just so happens that the latest Barbed Trap skin coming out will have the same color as other Templar skills.

Yet the skill is receiving a nerf that will impact the usefulness of it for the very class who’s theme it’s mocking.

master_vanargand · February 6

Please change the stamina morph in Nightblade's skills to bleed damage.
Disease Damage is the Necromancer's identity, so it makes sense to make Nightblade's identity Bleed Damage.
PvE Nightblade DPS is the weakest DPS and should be buffed.

Tyrant_Tim · February 6

Not a bad request @master_vanargand, when Nightblade was given all of the Disease skills, there were no other sources of that damage type.

While the Diseased status effect would help Nightblade AoE now, Bleed damage would further establish them along their single target identity.

Twohothardware · February 6

Necromancer needs a lot more skill reworks if this new Blastbones change is going into effect. Like how is Magicka Necro even suppose to work in PvP?

Blastbones is your single source of burst damage and now you're left with the lower damage stamina morph or you go with the new Sacrificial Bones morph that buffs your Gave Lord skills... huh? What Grave Lord skills? The Boneyard AOE that doesn't attach to target and player can just side step out of? The Skeletal Mage that does practically zero damage in PvP? The Shocking Siphon skill that requires a corpose to use and again is majorly lacking in damage? All you have is Ricochet Skull which is nearly the worst spammable in the game for PvP because of the travel time to target.

Necro doesn't even have a source of Major Sorcery for crying out loud. Necro needs way more help than just a single change to a single morph that takes away all of the classes burst damage.

Voldrikk · February 6

Necro changes are game breaking for the class. Makes the class full of redundancies and inefficiencies, and utterly decimates the damage potential. This needs to be reworked from how is stands in the PTS. This class is severely lacking in class-centric dots and in any sort of burst potential as a result of the changes.

The necro has been due for polish for a while, please pay attention to the feedback received, which most people seem to be agreeing on. Also, one post suggested summoning multiple blastbones at a time using corpses, which would truly make for a very interesting way to use the corpses. Currently the only thing corpses are interesting for is tether play. And tether has been lackluster for a while anyway.

Turtle_Bot · February 6

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert I have submitted a few tickets providing some feedback regarding potential changes to "Lone-Wolf" Sorcerers that aims to raise awareness of and address potential issues being raised by some on the forums over some of the changes and to provide some ideas to address those concerns without undoing all the good work put into designing these much needed changes.

Some feedback from the team would be greatly appreciated regarding this feedback, especially for Lightning Splash and Bound Armor as these would go a long way to putting sorcerer into a good spot overall while reining in some of the outlying niche potential power extremes from a couple of specific niche builds.

Lightning Splash Feedback:
240206-000371

TL//DR:
The damage over time and the unmentioned cast time/cast delay are what is wrong with this ability. Removing that hidden cast delay (which is a remnant of the original 2014 design) and allowing the DoT to keep the concussed status effect ticking, will do much more in regards to making this ability worth running over other, better options. Another option could be to have enemies standing in it's AoE have a debuff applied to them that increases their shock damage taken by roughly 5%, giving the ability some unique functionality outside of just being an AoE DoT ability with a non-self-activatable synergy that is hogging all of its power budget.

Bound Armor Feedback:
240206-000480

TL//DR:
Others have raised concerns over the potential for niche builds to stack enough magicka to make the Hardened Ward morph into a very large shield with a reasonable heal attached and this being a potential issue exclusively in that specific niche build.

Since Sorcerer is now getting max magicka and stamina from the Expert Summoner passive, having it on bound armor and morphs as well is no longer required and only really serves to facilitate this niche, extreme stat stacking build that is raising concerns.

By replacing the max stats for slotting this ability/morphs on either bar with Major Prophecy/Savagery while slotted on either bar, this limits the extremes that stat stacking can reach, while also providing sorcerer with access to the 1 standard/common major buff that the class has been lacking that it is supposed to revolve around that being many critical strikes, even if they don't do a lot of additional damage (the class ONLY heal over time, critical surge, requires dealing critical damage to proc its heal).

This change also allows all sorcerers to get the most benefit from this ability, not just stamina DPS and magicka tank Sorcerers.
To add onto this and better define the different roles of the 2 morphs, having the daggers on the bound armaments morph grant a very small bonus to crit chance (+1% or +2%) per active dagger would help to give this morph it's own identity over the NB equivalent ability Merciless Resolve that is currently objectively superior to Bound Armaments. Especially since the daggers do not last indefinitely until cast like the stacks for Merciless Resolve do.

Overall, the changes to encase and morphs are very good. Radiant Shroud and the changes to Conjured ward/morphs definitely addresses the issues sorcerers have been having with regards to healing themselves when not running pets and while there are concerns over the potential of conjured ward, those concerns are limited to very niche builds (max stat stacking) where it's the potential for that level of stat stacking that needs addressing, not necessarily Conjured Ward itself.

The main thing that still needs addressing for lone wolf sorcerers, for PvE, is the fact that the pets are still just flat out better (and easier) to run in terms of raw damage.
Reining in some of the bonus damage that Daedric Prey gives (bring it down to roughly 25% or 30% from its current 45% bonus damage taken by pets) and some small changes to underused abilities such as lightning splash as outlined above would go along way to balancing out all builds of sorcerer.

Once again, thank you for showing some love to no-pet (Lone Wolf) Sorcerers after all this time, hopefully these few small adjustments can be considered to keep certain niche specs from getting out of hand while adding onto the good work that's already been done in bringing this playstyle back to life.

ZhuJiuyin · February 6

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_RichLambert I have submitted a few tickets providing some feedback regarding potential changes to "Lone-Wolf" Sorcerers that aims to raise awareness of and address potential issues being raised by some on the forums over some of the changes and to provide some ideas to address those concerns without undoing all the good work put into designing these much needed changes.

Some feedback from the team would be greatly appreciated regarding this feedback, especially for Lightning Splash and Bound Armor as these would go a long way to putting sorcerer into a good spot overall while reining in some of the outlying niche potential power extremes from a couple of specific niche builds.

Lightning Splash Feedback:
240206-000371
TL//DR:
The damage over time and the unmentioned cast time/cast delay are what is wrong with this ability. Removing that hidden cast delay (which is a remnant of the original 2014 design) and allowing the DoT to keep the concussed status effect ticking, will do much more in regards to making this ability worth running over other, better options. Another option could be to have enemies standing in it's AoE have a debuff applied to them that increases their shock damage taken by roughly 5%, giving the ability some unique functionality outside of just being an AoE DoT ability with a non-self-activatable synergy that is hogging all of its power budget.

Bound Armor Feedback:
240206-000480
TL//DR:
Others have raised concerns over the potential for niche builds to stack enough magicka to make the Hardened Ward morph into a very large shield with a reasonable heal attached and this being a potential issue exclusively in that specific niche build.

Since Sorcerer is now getting max magicka and stamina from the Expert Summoner passive, having it on bound armor and morphs as well is no longer required and only really serves to facilitate this niche, extreme stat stacking build that is raising concerns.

By replacing the max stats for slotting this ability/morphs on either bar with Major Prophecy/Savagery while slotted on either bar, this limits the extremes that stat stacking can reach, while also providing sorcerer with access to the 1 standard/common major buff that the class has been lacking that it is supposed to revolve around that being many critical strikes, even if they don't do a lot of additional damage (the class ONLY heal over time, critical surge, requires dealing critical damage to proc its heal).

This change also allows all sorcerers to get the most benefit from this ability, not just stamina DPS and magicka tank Sorcerers.
To add onto this and better define the different roles of the 2 morphs, having the daggers on the bound armaments morph grant a very small bonus to crit chance (+1% or +2%) per active dagger would help to give this morph it's own identity over the NB equivalent ability Merciless Resolve that is currently objectively superior to Bound Armaments. Especially since the daggers do not last indefinitely until cast like the stacks for Merciless Resolve do.

Overall, the changes to encase and morphs are very good. Radiant Shroud and the changes to Conjured ward/morphs definitely addresses the issues sorcerers have been having with regards to healing themselves when not running pets and while there are concerns over the potential of conjured ward, those concerns are limited to very niche builds (max stat stacking) where it's the potential for that level of stat stacking that needs addressing, not necessarily Conjured Ward itself.

The main thing that still needs addressing for lone wolf sorcerers, for PvE, is the fact that the pets are still just flat out better (and easier) to run in terms of raw damage.
Reining in some of the bonus damage that Daedric Prey gives (bring it down to roughly 25% or 30% from its current 45% bonus damage taken by pets) and some small changes to underused abilities such as lightning splash as outlined above would go along way to balancing out all builds of sorcerer.

Once again, thank you for showing some love to no-pet (Lone Wolf) Sorcerers after all this time, hopefully these few small adjustments can be considered to keep certain niche specs from getting out of hand while adding onto the good work that's already been done in bringing this playstyle back to life.

Good suggestion, but I think there's a good chance we won't see bound armaments changed in this patch. We should make more use of the new status effects in this patch, as well as the skills that have changed. I have mentioned the suggestion about Lightning Splash before, and I would like to repeat what I suggested before, about Encase, especially the Shattering Spines morph, which needs more buffs.
I mean, seriously, Shattering Spines has to wait 4 seconds to deal damage, but the damage it does is disproportionate to the delay.

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, and no unique 5% buff.

Compared with other professions that have Partially Disabling Effects skills:

Eruption: ummon a scorching cloud of ash at the target location for 15 seconds, dealing [4765 / 4816 / 4869 / 4920] Flame Damage immediately, reducing enemy Movement Speed by 70%, and dealing [846 / 855 / 864 / 874] Flame Damage in the area every 1 second. The eruptive damage can occur once every 10 seconds.

1.deal 4920+[874*15] damage (better than Shattering Spines)
2. Damage without any delay (better than Shattering Spines)
3.educing enemy Movement Speed by 70% (tied with the immobilize effect of Shattering Spines)
4.Range 22m (better than Shattering Spines of 18m)
5. The new Shattering Spines have one more Major Maim debuff (better than Eruption)

Total 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss (Eruption won)

Crippling Grasp: Sap an enemy's agility and wrack them with pain, dealing [3176 / 3211 / 3245 / 3280] Magic Damage and an additional [11536 / 11648 / 11778 / 11914] Magic Damage over 20 seconds, immobilizing them for 2 seconds, and reducing their Movement Speed by 30% for 4 seconds.

1.deal 3280+11914 damage (better than Shattering Spines)
2. Damage without any delay (better than Shattering Spines)
3.immobilizing (tied with the immobilize effect of Shattering Spines)
4.Range 28m (better than Shattering Spines of 18m)
5. reducing their Movement Speed by 30% for 4 seconds. (Incomparable to the Major Maim debuff of the new Shattering Spines, let’s call it a tie)
6.Shattering Spines is AOE (win)

Total 3 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss (Crippling Grasp won)

A simple comparison (without any buff)，We can find that the damage caused by Shattering Spines is still very low, even lower than Destructive Touch (the sum of first hit + dot).
But if Shattering Spines can overcharge the target when hitting and causing damage, the damage of Shattering Spines will be a little more than that of Crystal Fragments. (Calculated using Chilled instead of Overcharged, because there is no stable source of Overcharged), it is about 1760*2+11855=15375, which is greater than 14153.

Obviously, Shattering Spines needs more buffs to make it good enough to compete with other Partially Disabling Effects Skills.
My suggestion is to make Shattering Spines take more advantage of this patch's new status effects.

Let Shattering Spines always give Overcharged(or Concussed) when it hits, and give the target another Overcharged(or Concussed) when it causes damage.
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 4 sec delayed skill, And easy to dodge, it should be compensated for more damage. It needs to deal at least the same damage as Curse.

If could go further, I would hope to:

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.
Or gives 20sec [140 / 160 / 180 / 200] points of Weapon and Spell Damage after casting，or [1400 / 1600 / 1800 / 2000]max magic and Stamina (similar to the 5% unique buff provided by Cephaliarch's Flail)

KlauthWarthog · February 6

You know what would be fantastic to see on the PTS patch notes? Acknowledgement of the larger perceived player concerns.
Stuff like "We have seen the concerns regarding the changes to Necromancer, and are discussing them with the team", or "We have seen the concerns regarding the lack of changes to Templar, but do not intend to act on them for this release." (those are just examples, do not obsess over them).
As it currently is, I have no reason to believe giving feedback for the PTS changes has any value whatsoever.

tomofhyrule · February 6

Regarding werewolves and Tormentor:

While I'm not mad about losing AoE taunts since it was always not entirely intended, that change is messing up the (admittedly very off-meta and memey) WW tank build.

The major issue with WW tank is that they have no taunt, and such depend on Tormentor to do so. And since you only have one leap skill, you have to use Pounce to taunt.

Pounce will only proc once every 5 seconds, and then will become Carnage until it's ready again. That means WW tanks can only taunt once every 5 seconds, so they need to hope they grab the right thing. Brutal Pounce's AoE at least helped that if you could collect major enemies, you could keep them all taunted.

Once thing that would really help is if some of the WW skills could be changed to help with supports. Obviously it's still be a meme to use a WW support, but it is really a fun way to play around.

Set the Pounce skill to work similar to the DW Flying Blade morph: it will only become Carnage if you're targeting the same enemy, and otherwise it's the pounce when targeting a different enemy
Add a taunt to one of the morphs of Howl. Probably make the base morph offer the Feeding Frenzy synergy, and then the Howl of Despair be a taunt (maybe with the caveat on DK chains or Arcanist jolt where it can't overtaunt)
Give Hircine's Fortitude a heal others like Vigor

ceruulean · February 6

The DK, NB, and overcharged changes giving more sustain is nerfing human and and argonian races as PvE DDs. Right now those races are mostly supports, you are supposed to play an elf in higher end content. Giving more sustain is kinda a slap in the face.

mmtaniac · February 6

Jabs need changes to be usefull again. No more Major evasion interaction or something else to make it work in pvp. I would like to able to play jabs potl classic old build in older times this kind of easy build work ,right now it's useless.

katorga · February 6

master_vanargand wrote: »

Please change the stamina morph in Nightblade's skills to bleed damage.
Disease Damage is the Necromancer's identity, so it makes sense to make Nightblade's identity Bleed Damage.
PvE Nightblade DPS is the weakest DPS and should be buffed.

NB is the disease class. It doesn't need bleed too.

Necro is not the disease class. Necro has a complete lack of damage type focus.....it has bleed, disease, frost, poison, lightning, fire on its core skills.

gariondavey · February 6

mmtaniac wrote: »

Jabs need changes to be usefull again. No more Major evasion interaction or something else to make it work in pvp. I would like to able to play jabs potl classic old build in older times this kind of easy build work ,right now it's useless.

Please buff jabs and potl

Twohothardware · February 6

How are we still not getting a source of Major Sorcery/Brutality built into the Necro class toolkit? Having to slot degen from the Mages Guild skill line just feels bad.

Tyrant_Tim · February 6

Twohothardware wrote: »

How are we still not getting a source of Major Sorcery/Brutality built into the Necro class toolkit? Having to slot degen from the Mages Guild skill line just feels bad.

With the logic of the Blastbones change, they’re trying to incentivize you further into using Entropy with the new tacky 20% increase to all of your Damage-Over-Time on Necro.

danno8 · February 6

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

You know what would be fantastic to see on the PTS patch notes? Acknowledgement of the larger perceived player concerns.
Stuff like "We have seen the concerns regarding the changes to Necromancer, and are discussing them with the team", or "We have seen the concerns regarding the lack of changes to Templar, but do not intend to act on them for this release." (those are just examples, do not obsess over them).
As it currently is, I have no reason to believe giving feedback for the PTS changes has any value whatsoever.

Good luck.

Remember the change to the animation for Jabs that people were (and still are) upset about?

Not. One. Post.

Ever.