PTS Update 41 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

Grim_Overlord · February 6

katorga wrote: »

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.

Based on how the skills are currently set up, yeah this is accurate. However, why is the assassin class not tied to poison damage or the death magic class tied to disease? Given how scribing will open up damage types across classes in new ways next chapter update and how this current update is overhauling status effects, it wouldn't hurt for ZOS to rework the damage types of each class as it wasn't really updated after hybridization did away with the necessity of a physical/magical damage type split we saw prior to Blackwood.

Aldoss · February 6

PvP Necro Comment

Reiterating for posterity that necro only gets to have 10 total spaces for class skills (only 8 active skills) because they HAVE TO source Maj Brutality/Sorcery and Savagery/Prophecy from guild and weapon skill lines OR they have to sacrifice their resource pools by crutching on pots to give them those buffs, which will only ever grant them Maj Endurance or Intellect, not both.

Colossus got an okay buff, but the ultimate still takes too long to deliver the full extent of its power and is really easily telegraphed. For this reason, even magcros choose to slot DB because it boosts their weapon dmg, stuns on cast, has a high burst tooltip, does 10% more damage to vamps (of which 90% of pvpers are), and necro passives boost the already high dot.

Now we have 9 possible options when other classes get 12. Necro has no access to Minor Resolve and vigor is the single best HoT in the game anyway, so that must be slotted. Now we're down to 8 possible class skills.

Flame Skull is one of the worst spammable animations in the game, has awful travel time, and feels super clunky to use, so 90% of any pvp necro is going to use a weapon or guild spammable. Now we have 7 possible class skills.

Necro has no on demand stun, so if they need one, they will once again slot a weapon or guild skill. 6 possible class skills.

Necro has no access to cc immunity outside of its purge so Race Against Time must be slotted. 5 possible class skills.

Of those 5, major resolve needs to be one, so armor gets slotted. Blastbones has to be one of them. Necros sustain passive is tied to a summon, so the decision is between mender or archer/arcanist or suffer with a loss of this passive when blastbones isn't active. Mender's unnamed 10% dmg mitigation makes it not even a question, but that means a necro's only access to dismember is while blastbones is active. That leaves just 2 flex skills left to differentiate a "build", 1 of which is an ultimate.

And voila. Just like that, we've created the basis for 90% of all necro builds and we only have 3 active class skills, 1 ultimate, and 1 flex spot.

The devs clearly don't play this class and don't consider how global combat changes affect necro. The class got nerfed during the hybrid changes, got nerfed with the harmony changes, got nerfed by the dot homogenization changes, and got nerfed with the damage set scaling changes. None of those changes were about necro directly, but they 100% propped necro up into the meta at the time and the devs gave necro nothing in return for the loss. Now they're deleting the final class defining skill.

I hope necro was the primary focus this last week at ZOS HQ and that there are some useful ideas based off the plethora of great ideas that can be found on these forums as to what necro needs to be saved for this week 3 patch note dump.

As is, I'm satisfied knowing that I gave ZOS $0 last year and these patch notes have solidified my decision to maintain that. My wife and I spent about $500 in 2022 on this game. I would love a reason to open the wallet again.

Remiem · February 6

Aldoss wrote: »

PvP Necro Comment

Reiterating for posterity that necro only gets to have 10 total spaces for class skills (only 8 active skills) because they HAVE TO source Maj Brutality/Sorcery and Savagery/Prophecy from guild and weapon skill lines OR they have to sacrifice their resource pools by crutching on pots to give them those buffs, which will only ever grant them Maj Endurance or Intellect, not both.

Colossus got an okay buff, but the ultimate still takes too long to deliver the full extent of its power and is really easily telegraphed. For this reason, even magcros choose to slot DB because it boosts their weapon dmg, stuns on cast, has a high burst tooltip, does 10% more damage to vamps (of which 90% of pvpers are), and necro passives boost the already high dot.

Now we have 9 possible options when other classes get 12. Necro has no access to Minor Resolve and vigor is the single best HoT in the game anyway, so that must be slotted. Now we're down to 8 possible class skills.

Flame Skull is one of the worst spammable animations in the game, has awful travel time, and feels super clunky to use, so 90% of any pvp necro is going to use a weapon or guild spammable. Now we have 7 possible class skills.

Necro has no on demand stun, so if they need one, they will once again slot a weapon or guild skill. 6 possible class skills.

Necro has no access to cc immunity outside of its purge so Race Against Time must be slotted. 5 possible class skills.

Of those 5, major resolve needs to be one, so armor gets slotted. Blastbones has to be one of them. Necros sustain passive is tied to a summon, so the decision is between mender or archer/arcanist or suffer with a loss of this passive when blastbones isn't active. Mender's unnamed 10% dmg mitigation makes it not even a question, but that means a necro's only access to dismember is while blastbones is active. That leaves just 2 flex skills left to differentiate a "build", 1 of which is an ultimate.

And voila. Just like that, we've created the basis for 90% of all necro builds and we only have 3 active class skills, 1 ultimate, and 1 flex spot.

The devs clearly don't play this class and don't consider how global combat changes affect necro. The class got nerfed during the hybrid changes, got nerfed with the harmony changes, got nerfed by the dot homogenization changes, and got nerfed with the damage set scaling changes. None of those changes were about necro directly, but they 100% propped necro up into the meta at the time and the devs gave necro nothing in return for the loss. Now they're deleting the final class defining skill.

I hope necro was the primary focus this last week at ZOS HQ and that there are some useful ideas based off the plethora of great ideas that can be found on these forums as to what necro needs to be saved for this week 3 patch note dump.

As is, I'm satisfied knowing that I gave ZOS $0 last year and these patch notes have solidified my decision to maintain that. My wife and I spent about $500 in 2022 on this game. I would love a reason to open the wallet again.

Good summary.
Even that last flex spot skill slot you're talking of is barely one, it goes to either Mortal coil or Deaden pain most of the time because otherwise you're missing a large chunk of ult gen from the Corpse consumption passive, my backbar ult is more of a flex spot (Psijic or Vamp form because it's better than Goliath lmao).

Leia98 · February 7

Templar's light weaver passive(among others) needs to be updated immediately- its extremely rare that the whole group in a pve encounter will fall under fifty percent health, this passive does NOT work well with pillagers, which has been the meta since it was introduced
Either the percentage can be increased, or it could be that the passive is triggered when you overheal someone, obviously giving a time limit to the passive so it won't be too powerful

Another quick change has to be applied to the master ritualist passive- I don't know any scenario where the fifty percent chance of an empty soul gem getting filled would be useful, if there is, please let me know. It is preposterous that such a useless ability is even associated with a class in such an MMO

BladeSternly · February 7

As an arcanist main, I'm glad to see some reduction to Fatecarver. It's definitely overperforming in aspects and, while a fun skill, deserved to get tuned down a bit.

However, this was really the only reliable damage output and crux spender for DPS Arcanist. Without some adjustments to other places in their kit, much of the arcanist's kit will be left disjointed or underperforming.
Runeblades/Tentacular Dread still falls behind Cephaliarch's Flail/Nerfed Fatecarver and is losing survivability on the Pragmatic morph while still having worse resource sustain. This is a needed nerf to Stamina Arcanist but Magicka Arcanist was left out to dry.

Giving Cephaliarch's Flail's heal to some other aspect of Arcanist's kit (like a Soldier of Apocrypha skill) and a buff to Runeblades direct damage and/or Tentacular Dread to bring Magicka Arcanist in line with the Stamina counterpart is vastly needed. Especially if Cephaliarch's Flail is going to remain a crux generator and execute.

FoJul · February 7

Grim_Overlord wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

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.

Based on how the skills are currently set up, yeah this is accurate. However, why is the assassin class not tied to poison damage or the death magic class tied to disease? Given how scribing will open up damage types across classes in new ways next chapter update and how this current update is overhauling status effects, it wouldn't hurt for ZOS to rework the damage types of each class as it wasn't really updated after hybridization did away with the necessity of a physical/magical damage type split we saw prior to Blackwood.

Because the assassin class you speak of is supposed to be a magic based assassin. A dark mage/Assassin mage. Blood/Bleed generally makes more sense.

Tyrant_Tim · February 8

FoJul wrote: »

Grim_Overlord wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

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.

Based on how the skills are currently set up, yeah this is accurate. However, why is the assassin class not tied to poison damage or the death magic class tied to disease? Given how scribing will open up damage types across classes in new ways next chapter update and how this current update is overhauling status effects, it wouldn't hurt for ZOS to rework the damage types of each class as it wasn't really updated after hybridization did away with the necessity of a physical/magical damage type split we saw prior to Blackwood.

Because the assassin class you speak of is supposed to be a magic based assassin. A dark mage/Assassin mage. Blood/Bleed generally makes more sense.

Either that or Poison, I don’t really see the logic in Disease, where Necromancer screams pestilence.

Grim_Overlord · February 8

FoJul wrote: »

Grim_Overlord wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

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.

Based on how the skills are currently set up, yeah this is accurate. However, why is the assassin class not tied to poison damage or the death magic class tied to disease? Given how scribing will open up damage types across classes in new ways next chapter update and how this current update is overhauling status effects, it wouldn't hurt for ZOS to rework the damage types of each class as it wasn't really updated after hybridization did away with the necessity of a physical/magical damage type split we saw prior to Blackwood.

Because the assassin class you speak of is supposed to be a magic based assassin. A dark mage/Assassin mage. Blood/Bleed generally makes more sense.

I think Bleed also makes sense for a Nightblade, but if the magic-based part of their identity is your argument for the bleed, which is very physical, I am unsure of the logic there. Both Bleed and Poison make leagues more sense than Disease though.

hypnoticbeast · February 8

Greetings to one and all.
I have been a nightblade player for four years. And the resent changes where a start in the right direction.
But as it stands now we are taking 3 steps back. The idea of using ones own blood to buff is on brand for the class. Yet the skill as it is now is unplayable. Here is my recommendation for Syphoning Strikes. Remove the "ALWAYS ON" feature off. Adjust the rate of recharge-to-healing for each relative morph. Second remove major Brutality and Sorcery from Power Drain (More on that in a sec) and place it in Syphoning Strikes. It just makes sense. Next recommendation is for
Power Drain. The idea behind this skill is awesome but out dated. For base skill (pre morph) When the skill is used it give play a HUGE heal based on the number of targets you hit. That's it. Remember it's meant to keep YOU the player alive until you can master it and morph it. That being said on the to morphs. Power Extraction With this I will echo what has been said before. With the removal of B/S a change is needed. So the suggestion Of giving Minor Courage to a group six when there are targets to hit it TWO steps in the right direction. Oh and lose the empower there is no use for it on a NB. Now for
Sap Essence Remove the B/S buff and replace with a Form of Damage mitigation buff. We should have the skill give Minor resolve on 6 other players since the NB can proc it on themselves through another skill. By doing it this way it will stack lovely with the Wardens frost armor. Next we have good old Cripple How about the damage be changed to frost? This would give the devs a way to fix the overcharged night mare they have created. Then you can keep OC at the 10% and have a skill that match's what it is supposed to do. Now for the one you have all been waiting for the changes needed to,
Strife.
This skill needs to be a or at least have a CLEAVE. We have single target covered on two other skill trees.
Here is what we need to do. Job one: It needs to be an AOE attack that has a damage increase for the amount of targets you hit. So it will be ether a Cone or Rectangle so long as it can hit multiple targets. I think the DPS cap should be at 15% at a maximum of 3 targets for the buff and no more. And a critical chance buff for single targets. The base dps needs to be raised 10% and the heal with still work just fine. Heal you say? Funnel Health Really it just needs to have a Cone attack that you guessed it heals for more AND HEALS MORE PEOPLE when you have 3 or more targets to hit. DPS will be fine the way it is as it stands.
One more thing with this skill line. There should be a Skill cost reduction of 5% added to the Passive "Catalyst" it is needed and fits the skills line. The other skill lines I will post on later the changes that they need number three and will be much shorter then this. I would like to see the community's take on the above. Till next time.

Aeltharion · February 8

PvP is the real endgame in any mmo, this is what keeps players coming back and it’s very important for the game’s longevity. When PvE gets boring I go PvP when that gets boring I go PvE.

I play both PvE and PvP, I don’t understand people who say oh I am PvE or PvP only it’s weird and I have only experienced this on ESO.

I have been playing for almost 2 years I think, I came after the High Isle chapter and oakensoul nerf.

When I was new my worst nightmare was nightblades and it still is, this class is unbalanced. When you ask newer players why they don’t like PvP they always complain about getting 1shot out of no where and there’s only one class that does that.

Especially because most nightblades use the squishy finder add on to pick off easy targets

To counter this I have to build tanky, use sets that are not fun or don’t like but necessary and that still doesn’t work.

My suggestion to balance nightblade is

Remove guaranteed critical strike from cloak or give 33% increase cost per cast for cloak similar to streak or the vampire one.

That’s it, these changes would not affect it on PvE.

Aeltharion · February 8

One last thing

Buff human races because for Dps there is damage races and those that are not. Even when u need stronger heals elves, so they’re basically only tanking races. There is no stam or mag race, I hear it used to be different. On trials almost every stamina build is mostly high elf sometimes dark elf or to a lesser extent khajiit

I have had negative experiences on PvE as a dps because of the race I was using the damage difference is so drastic

It makes sense for elves to do more damage, with their longer lifespan and time to hone their skills but the difference shouldn’t be night and day. I say buff human races weapon and spell damage by 129 to bring them a bit closer, it’s kind of immersion breaking to have a character I don’t really like for trials and another for overland, dungeons and PvP

Templar

Please move the Templars major brutality and sorcery to solar flare/solar barrage so mag and stam can have it in class.

I understand pushing people towards the guild/weapon skills but this should be about flavour not by force

If you do that, change biting jabs to do full aoe damage to everything in the area to compensate.

Templars are associated with holy fire/burning light, it’s a miss that it’s skills don’t have a chance to apply burning besides sun fire or at least a bonus vs vampires

Necromancer

Please give the class major brutality and sorcery on the spirit mender.

For dps give the class a couple of sticky dots, the candidates are blastbones, boneyard, shocking siphon, skeletal mage (it refreshes its dot everytime it hits the same target). Basically keep the skills as they’re but give them damage over time that sticks on enemies on contact. Make death scythe an execute skill, it’s even on the name lol

For tanking it’s lacking a shield, for this you can use the deaden pain effect that looks like a shield. For this shield maybe scrap totem? Or one of its morphs or expunge since they already have cleans on renewing undeath. Maybe give them 10% block mitigation similar to Templar and dragon knight. A reliable crowd control maybe? Make grave grasp just immobilise targets on the whole area, have ghostly embrace immobilise and stun and keep the extra effects of empowering grasp the same

For healing maybe you can increase the radius for life amid death, leave the morphs as they are but remove the requirement for a corps on its initial healing over time but still be able to extend the duration with corps via the morphs. Make restoring tether’s heal stick to allies on contact. Spirit mender should heal every 1 second instead of 2 this will help it be more reliable when group healing especially on trials where there is more people

These changes would drastically improve the necromancer on both PvE and PvP

Other than that the rest of the class/combat changes are good, I have nothing to add there. Excited to try out a sorcerer on the next patch

Lazy_Voyager · February 8

Since you killed werewolf-tank's already niche viability by making the tormentor leap taunt a dice-roll, can we have a dedicated taunt now?

ClevererHail6 · February 8

For nightblades in pvp, when taking advantage of nb passives in pvp I struggle with the rotation. I wear one defensive set, 4 heavy armor, one offensive set. In my experience, the major resolve doesn’t last long enough. I can’t keep my eyes off my timers and just be in the fight. The other source of major resolve, equilibrium, costs too much health for dps in a pvp environment.
If you want to go glass cannon on the blade that is still viable: lots of damage and have to use cloak. But playing another way causes difficulties in rotation.

TL;DR In general the class is getting better. But its suffers from a steady/reliable source of major resolve and a difficult rotation in pvp.

Jestir · February 8

ClevererHail6 wrote: »

For nightblades in pvp, when taking advantage of nb passives in pvp I struggle with the rotation. I wear one defensive set, 4 heavy armor, one offensive set. In my experience, the major resolve doesn’t last long enough. I can’t keep my eyes off my timers and just be in the fight. The other source of major resolve, equilibrium, costs too much health for dps in a pvp environment.
If you want to go glass cannon on the blade that is still viable: lots of damage and have to use cloak. But playing another way causes difficulties in rotation.

TL;DR In general the class is getting better. But its suffers from a steady/reliable source of major resolve and a difficult rotation in pvp.

Perhaps I'm just not smart but doesn't keeping a morph of path up give you at least 50% uptime and using with 2 heavy pieces it's 75% and 4 is 100% and that's not including using a morph of aspect of terror and vield strike during normal gameplay.

I don't see how it's an issue to keep it up in melee as long as you use any of the 3 listed, especially path with 4 pieces of heavy armor as the uptimes match.

hypnoticbeast · February 8

@ClevererHail6 It sounds like you have been mislead on your build, gear, PVP rotation and role for the NB class.

First off you do not need more then two pieces of heavy armor. 9 seconds of major resolve per Concealed weapon hits is a great up time for MR. Second. Dark Cloak is a heal yes, but puts Minor Protection on at all times. You want to hide? Use a potion. Third. Refreshing path is a life saver and is more useful in PVP them most people think. Shadow Image gives you an escape from being overwhelmed and you will get hate whispers for using it. Mass hysteria stuns and DEBUFFS incoming damage. All of these skills can be placed between both bars and one is a spamable so you should have no issues keep MR up with these skills on your build. If you are running with mirage you will have both resolve's. Now I know what your thinking, "I am going to get snared and stunned". So use a set that prevents that. If that's not an option see above on MR skills.
On gear. For defense all your gear should be set to the HIGHEST crit damage resistance as possible Your two heavy pieces should be nirn honed. Remember the NB is the CRIT king and you can get your Crit dps maxed way easer then anyone else. So a little CC lost to ensure you live is a trade off your class can handle. Last is player race your two choices for a livable AND survivable PVP NB. First is a NORD. If you are getting hit a lot this race bonus will STACK on your NB Ultimate growth and nearly double it. Meaning more Soul Tethers and Circle of Protection drops. Thus more chances to live. Second it the Orc
They heal with then they hit so you will live a little longer but not as much as with a Nord.

P.S. One of the reasons you are dyeing so much is you are paying to much to the "TIMER" then you are to the fight.
Remember EVERY SWIPE OF CW refreshes that same TIMER you are focused on. If you are CLANKING around in a load of heavy Armor on a STEALTH CLASS your going to have issues. Worry not on how quickly you can die. But how fast you can get back to the fight. Try this build idea in the Infinite Archive if you wish to test it out first. That place is as close to PVP as you can get with out all the stress. Good Luck and Skill.

Jusey1 · February 8

Jestir wrote: »

Jusey1 wrote: »

Bleakz wrote: »

For necro changes

-maybe making boneyard last 20s so it only needs 1 corpse in that time frame is the simplest fix?

Or just don't gut blastbones to begin with? It's that simple. We shouldn't suggest more awful changes on top of an awful change that is ruining the class but rather suggest a better alternative altogether so that we don't get another awful change in the game.

Necro absolutely needs a complete rework and while I'm very happy they seen intent to keep one of the morphs the same to allow the same way of playing I also am looking forward to the class potentially getting dragged out of the gutter for the first time in years and if a new play style is how that's going to happen then I am all for it

They're gutting Necromancer's best damage ability and most iconic ability for the class to force it into a buff... A buff which can easily be stacked on one of other Necromancer's spells very easily, such as the Skeletal Arcanist, instead. There's no reason to gut Blastbones here. It's just all around a bad idea.

tomofhyrule · February 8

Caveat: I'm not a super theorycrafter, and the only character I play that gets sweaty is a DK tank. Still, a few thoughts about some classes:

Arcanist - I think one of the big issues with Arcanist currently isn't the beam, it's Cephaliarch's Flail. Right now, that skill is really overloaded: it's a

Crux builder
AoE spammable
Self heal
Immobilize
Execute
Gives unique damage taken debuff

No other class has anything that comes close. About the only thing we have close is Templar's Puncturing Sweep, which only heals based on damage done and also is channelled so it cannot be block cast.

That also means there's almost no reason to take the Tentacular Dread morph since it doesn't even do half of this, and the only benefit is that enemies take slightly more damage from you specifically in exchange for all your Crux (which means you need to recast something to take advantage of a Fatecarver). The only people who run Tentacular are the idiots like me who are like "but I want my Arcanist to have black tentacles instead of reddish ones!"

Cephaliarch's really should lose some of these factors. It could easily change the self heal to a 'heal on damage' like jabs, lose the execute scaling, and lose the Abyssal Ink debuff to bring it more in line with other classes. It would also be nice to give a bit more love to Tentacular, perhaps by making it's Abyssal Ink debuff more useful. I like the idea of what Azandar's version (Tendrils of the Colorless Sea) does by applying Minor Vulnerability. If the debuff granted by the Tentacular Dread morph would be changed to Vuln for X seconds based on Crux spent (or even a unique debuff, but that might be OP), that would make that morph more attractive to support Arcanists who want to apply a debuff to the enemy instead of just for themselves.
Obviously removing the execute scaling from Cephaliarch's would be annoying, but it could be fun to put the execute instead on one of the Fatecarver morphs, which could also make Exhausting Fatecarver more attractive if it got that whereas Pragmatic keeps the damage shield.

Necromancer - The removal of one of the Blastbones morphs to do this debuff is... questionable. Granted, I don't really play my necro much, but Blastbones is like the Necromancer skill, so to see it go is a bit sad. I mean, it's literally the skill that Zelvraak copies in Graven Deep, so we know it's important.
(sidenote - why didn't Arcanist ever get a copy ability from Zelvraak. I get that the HoF Facsimiles came out way before Necro and Arcanist, but Graven Deep's release only predated the Arcanist first announcement by 5 months, so they had to have known it was coming)

While they do need a buff, I don't know if this is exactly the buff they need. If this is sticking around, it should 100% get the damage buff from Stalking Blastbones to be combined onto the remaining Blighted morph (incidentally, did that damamge buff ever work in PvE in the first place? I don't think so - the blastbones never runs unless the target is also running away, which doesn't happen much in PvE). The other benefit to old Blastbones was the fact that it laid a corpse at the enemy's feet, which leads right into using a siphon. Now, the mag morph doesn't prep you for that anymore.
I also question the buff only helping skills from half of the lines, which leaves Scythe out as well.

That buff could fit nicely on something like Spirit Mender while still allowing the use of Blastbones.

ChronicGainz96 · February 8

Just something to put out there.

I did test how Grave Lord's Sacrifice works with the tether abilities of both Shocking Siphon and Restoring Tether.
For Shocking Tether it basically turns you to the center of the effect which is nice. For Restoring Tether, it does the same thing and I think Restoring Tether shouldn't target you as the corpse but I'm not sure if this will ever be a problem with how the ability works now anyways.
I will say I actually like the idea of the Blast Bone changes or rather I like the new effect in the Necromancer toolkit. I just think that we could use some changes or the effect could be use else where.

With how it is now, Grave Lord's Sacrifice should actually increase the damage and healing done by Necromancer Abilities and Damage Over Time effects by X% for 20 seconds. This effect would be nice for the Necromancer Toolkit.

However, when I was playing with Shocking Siphon and Restoring Tether with Grave Lord's Sacrifice I realized something.
Why not change how Shocking Siphon (and rename it, Grave Lord's Cloak sounds good) works while keeping the same idea going overall and increasing the potential of the class? Turn Shocking Siphon into a different ability that works similar to Lightning Form in that you create an aura of necrotic energy that deals X shock damage every X seconds for X seconds. It gives you Major Prophecy and Savagery for having it slotted (both bars) and when you consume a corpse it increases your damage done for the 5% it was giving you originally to have it slotted.

How does this change deal with Grave Lord's Sacrifice? Well you give this new ability the Sacrifice effect and you rework Blastbones into an ability that summons bone spikes from the ground instead of an animated corpse but it does create a corpse because Necromancer need corpse play for things to work and flow right for their kit.
Think the Warden's Scorch ability only with bone spikes and you some idea of what I'm going with.
This ability keeps the name Blast Bones and the its magic morph could become an execute (stamina Necromancers and really most stamina classes use other sources for executes already so I don't think they would need one in their kit either, just the magic version due to their not being an universal magic execute...yet).

ChronicGainz96 · February 8

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

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.

If they didn't change Encase how they did I would've said Encase would of been the best place for that buff, but Daedric Curse having this ability does sound nice. Not sure how well it would work though.

chessalavakia_ESO · February 9

Status Effects:

The changes do feel like they are more balanced and more unique but, they don't necessarily feel that great from the stand point of already having built characters that are slanted towards using the more effective options.

For example, one of my characters at times used bleed slanted builds. With the change to needing three stacks to get a good return I'll need to change my settings to display the number of stacks on enemies and I'll likely need to adjust my build to keep the stacks up more easily. Additionally, Mangle might not have been the most effective ability in PvE but it did a good job of feeling like it did something.

Buffs and Debuffs:

The changes are probably fine on a stat sheet but, might not feel great at first.

Defile and Vitality already don't feel like they do that much so having both take a hit when shields aren't in play isn't going to necessarily feel great.

Sorcerer

The new visuals for the changed abilities are quite nice. Effectiveness wise they might run a little bit behind the competition (The Daedric Refuge has a ton of theoretical power but, my usage didn't necessarily seem that effective due to my companion and I not necessarily hitting shields at ideal times) but, it's a big step up above the previous healing options for Sorcerer.

It might be beneficial in the long term to consider a UI option that shows what each skill morphs into before you get the skill. With some of the skills players might not actually unlock skills that might lead to something they want because they might not realize the skill ends up going in that direction without looking at a wiki.

Tormentor

It's a bit disappointing to see it change. The new change seems like it might be most effective on characters that aren't really meaning to be terribly tanky as you can get a sizeable amount of healing out of the new set if you are damage slanted.

gariondavey · February 9

Please buff jabs and potl

Cloudrest · February 9

Buff jabs and POTL

mmtaniac · February 9

I tell that again BUFF jabs and potl.

Pixiepumpkin · February 9

ARCANISTS DO NOT NEED CHANGES

The change to fatecarver makes an already weak ability (in PVP) that much weaker.
Because the skill does not track the enemy, it is very difficult to even target/hit them. Latanncy seems to also affect this. Lowering the damage just makes it worse.

In PVE it strong, but mostly due to being a solid AOE, which pads DPS.
Velothi UR/Stamina arcanists are strong, magicka not as much. The nerf affects magicka as well (and it should not).

The shield cap makes some sense, but even right now my shield gets blown through in a matter of seconds (in PVP). This issue is only going to be exponentially worse. And when you consider that the arcanists heal pales in comparison, you soon realize the importance of the shield from fatecarver.

mmtaniac · February 9

Major evasion is problem ability. It was better balanced before change to aoe reduction. Right now it's damage reduction is too high.

tomofhyrule · February 9

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

The shield cap makes some sense, but even right now my shield gets blown through in a matter of seconds. This issue is only going to be exponentially worse.

The shield is totally OP as it currently is.

I was in a vSCP trifecta recently where I was tank and we had 2 Arc DPS and a Templar DPS. At one point, Zaan picked me for Inferno's Hold twice in a row so I didn't have a magma up for the second one and needed the DPS to dip in and help out. One of the Arcanists just stood in front of her and beamed through it.

I'm pretty sure he cancelled the beam and reset the shield every other tick or so, but still - a fully-specced DPS should not be able to tank Zaan's full beam alone using just one skill (that also is damaging the boss at the same time).

Pixiepumpkin · February 9

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

The shield cap makes some sense, but even right now my shield gets blown through in a matter of seconds. This issue is only going to be exponentially worse.

The shield is totally OP as it currently is.

I was in a vSCP trifecta recently where I was tank and we had 2 Arc DPS and a Templar DPS. At one point, Zaan picked me for Inferno's Hold twice in a row so I didn't have a magma up for the second one and needed the DPS to dip in and help out. One of the Arcanists just stood in front of her and beamed through it.

I'm pretty sure he cancelled the beam and reset the shield every other tick or so, but still - a fully-specced DPS should not be able to tank Zaan's full beam alone using just one skill (that also is damaging the boss at the same time).

Not in PVP which what I was discussing.

Aldoss · February 9

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

The shield cap makes some sense, but even right now my shield gets blown through in a matter of seconds. This issue is only going to be exponentially worse.

The shield is totally OP as it currently is.

I was in a vSCP trifecta recently where I was tank and we had 2 Arc DPS and a Templar DPS. At one point, Zaan picked me for Inferno's Hold twice in a row so I didn't have a magma up for the second one and needed the DPS to dip in and help out. One of the Arcanists just stood in front of her and beamed through it.

I'm pretty sure he cancelled the beam and reset the shield every other tick or so, but still - a fully-specced DPS should not be able to tank Zaan's full beam alone using just one skill (that also is damaging the boss at the same time).

Not in PVP which what I was discussing.

Nah, it's approaching p2w status in PvP too. It's not, but it's definitely the closest ZOS has ever come. The very idea that someone can channel something, be off cooldown, but you can't bash them to interrupt is 100% game mechanic breaking. It never should have made it to live.

Last night I had a short 1v1 against an arc in a bg. My necro has 100% uptime on death's favor and undeath. Mender was up. I have 25k armor on my front bar. Arc started beaming and before I could break the shield (because los wasn't an option where we were), they hit me for 6 ticks for 17k dmg all while their back bar vate destro, master dw, and way of fire were ticking on me. BBs hitting them for 12k crits, but mostly getting absorbed by their shields.

I think all the arc mains right now should be thanking ZOS profusely for not taking their usual sledgehammer approach. The fatecarver nerf is incredibly conservative.

CameraBeardThePirate · February 9

Aldoss wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

The shield cap makes some sense, but even right now my shield gets blown through in a matter of seconds. This issue is only going to be exponentially worse.

The shield is totally OP as it currently is.

I was in a vSCP trifecta recently where I was tank and we had 2 Arc DPS and a Templar DPS. At one point, Zaan picked me for Inferno's Hold twice in a row so I didn't have a magma up for the second one and needed the DPS to dip in and help out. One of the Arcanists just stood in front of her and beamed through it.

I'm pretty sure he cancelled the beam and reset the shield every other tick or so, but still - a fully-specced DPS should not be able to tank Zaan's full beam alone using just one skill (that also is damaging the boss at the same time).

Not in PVP which what I was discussing.

Nah, it's approaching p2w status in PvP too. It's not, but it's definitely the closest ZOS has ever come. The very idea that someone can channel something, be off cooldown, but you can't bash them to interrupt is 100% game mechanic breaking. It never should have made it to live.

Last night I had a short 1v1 against an arc in a bg. My necro has 100% uptime on death's favor and undeath. Mender was up. I have 25k armor on my front bar. Arc started beaming and before I could break the shield (because los wasn't an option where we were), they hit me for 6 ticks for 17k dmg all while their back bar vate destro, master dw, and way of fire were ticking on me. BBs hitting them for 12k crits, but mostly getting absorbed by their shields.

I think all the arc mains right now should be thanking ZOS profusely for not taking their usual sledgehammer approach. The fatecarver nerf is incredibly conservative.

Stun them.

The shield prevents being interrupted. It doesn't prevent being stunned. Once stunned, you'll have a window of at least a couple globals before they have enough crux to be threatening again.

Or, you know, pop a RaT and get out of their beam.

Aldoss · February 9

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

The shield cap makes some sense, but even right now my shield gets blown through in a matter of seconds. This issue is only going to be exponentially worse.

The shield is totally OP as it currently is.

I was in a vSCP trifecta recently where I was tank and we had 2 Arc DPS and a Templar DPS. At one point, Zaan picked me for Inferno's Hold twice in a row so I didn't have a magma up for the second one and needed the DPS to dip in and help out. One of the Arcanists just stood in front of her and beamed through it.

I'm pretty sure he cancelled the beam and reset the shield every other tick or so, but still - a fully-specced DPS should not be able to tank Zaan's full beam alone using just one skill (that also is damaging the boss at the same time).

Not in PVP which what I was discussing.

Nah, it's approaching p2w status in PvP too. It's not, but it's definitely the closest ZOS has ever come. The very idea that someone can channel something, be off cooldown, but you can't bash them to interrupt is 100% game mechanic breaking. It never should have made it to live.

Last night I had a short 1v1 against an arc in a bg. My necro has 100% uptime on death's favor and undeath. Mender was up. I have 25k armor on my front bar. Arc started beaming and before I could break the shield (because los wasn't an option where we were), they hit me for 6 ticks for 17k dmg all while their back bar vate destro, master dw, and way of fire were ticking on me. BBs hitting them for 12k crits, but mostly getting absorbed by their shields.

I think all the arc mains right now should be thanking ZOS profusely for not taking their usual sledgehammer approach. The fatecarver nerf is incredibly conservative.

Stun them.

The shield prevents being interrupted. It doesn't prevent being stunned.

Or, you know, pop a RaT and get out of their beam.

This necro build lacks an on demand stun. I get it from scythe off balance. The point isn't that I should have won. Necro vs arc, all things even, the arc should win every time. The point is that my build has 19k armor after the arc's maj breach, 10% mitigation from mender, and 42% mitigation from undeath + death's favor and beam still did that much dmg per tick.

It's very powerful. Arguably too powerful. Therefore, I think the nerf is justified.