PTS Update 43 - Feedback Thread for Classes & Abilities

ZOS_Kevin

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

ESO_Nightingale

Warden's Changes are not looking great. Will update post later with findings and further feedback.

EDIT: Its really hard to test right now due to combat metrics not working. will hold off a bit. The discovery that the frost script has been added to Wield Soul, Soul Burst and Shield Throw has made the warden changes hurt a lot less from a frost warden perspective, however, without getting into numbers (since that's not really easy to do without a detailed combat metrics breakdown), the Arctic Blast changes feel incredibly strange. i think wanting to change the skill to add upfront damage is fine, but when it offers a stun and healing its just too much on 1 skill. making the heal no longer instant is incredibly janky and i honestly think that should be reverted. either the stun or the heal should go, but either one will need to be replaced via a stun on, say a conal aoe on a skill like deceptive predator. or the healing replaced by making living trellis or enchanted growth significantly stronger. it should be noted that nerfing blast's damage per tick IN ADDITION to it's chilled proc rate is a pretty significant nerf. i'd much rather see the damage per tick returned to its previous value and the heal or stun just removed.

Further Edit:
After some testing, my build seems to be returning about 115-116k which is down 8k from the previous iteration of the build. the only difference with my normal build is that aeries cry seems to perform quite decently and so i've replaced Pillar of Nirn with it as i was getting even lower results with pillar of nirn.

116.9k




115.7k




Additional Points:
Arctic Blast is in a pretty horrible state at the moment.


This is the pitiful damage from the skill itself which i should note wasn't even a problem before since it was already mediocre, it's still heavily being propped up by its chilled proc rate which seems to only be around about 50% per tick now as opposed to it's old proc rate being extremely high on top of either stunning or healing randomly after 2 seconds which feels completely strange. This was not a good change and it needs to go back to the drawing board.

these changes have heavily hurt the frost warden playstyle since now there is next to no reason to use an ice staff at all on the class that people have championed as being unique due to its use of the ice staff. would it hurt to increase specifically our frost damage done to enemies?

i honestly think that if you want to add more tankiness to the line (for whatever reason) then you should update this absolutely useless passive, which is so bad and outdated (falcon's swiftness and betty purges) that everyone has effectively erased it from memory.

Skjaldbjorn

LOVE the Warden direction. Balancing the class rather than a very niche, jump-through-hoops aspect is perfect.

PrinceShroob

I'll wait and see with regard to Warden changes but tying Piercing Cold to health value is not a good idea. That low value of 30k means you could lose a damage passive in Infinite Archive with health bonuses and Maturation, and it'll functionally be unavailable in PvP where one's health is generally higher.

Despite Warden's generally poor performance in PvE I did like that it had a unique setup, using a frost staff and using Frost Reach as a spammable. Now with the changes to Piercing Cold, it seems Warden will become another Rapid Strikes user. I guess that might help the class' damage, but right now damage is irrelevant when everything is overshadowed by Arcanists' cleave, so it's sad to see a unique build disappear.

jaws343

I am assuming that the Sorcerer Deadric Curse writing is a typo:
"This damage can no longer be blocked, as this feature was never messaged on the ability and is not considered a Damage over Time, nor is its damage-based on other damaging events."

Since the Dev note says "In addition, we're removing some remnant balance behavior of the skill being unable to be blocked"

So max damage AOE, but now blockable?

Skjaldbjorn

PrinceShroob wrote: »

I'll wait and see with regard to Warden changes but tying Piercing Cold to health value is not a good idea. That low value of 30k means you could lose a damage passive in Infinite Archive with health bonuses and Maturation, and it'll functionally be unavailable in PvP where one's health is generally higher.

Despite Warden's generally poor performance in PvE I did like that it had a unique setup, using a frost staff and using Frost Reach as a spammable. Now with the changes to Piercing Cold, it seems Warden will become another Rapid Strikes user. I guess that might help the class' damage, but right now damage is irrelevant when everything is overshadowed by Arcanists' cleave, so it's sad to see a unique build disappear.

The PVP part is very much intentional. Most of Warden's heaviest PVE nerfs were due to crocodile tears in PVP. They had to add damage that didn't impact PVP much.

CameraBeardThePirate

Solid 9/10 on the Necro changes.

I do wish that the Skeletal Mage/Archer did a bit more damage (why were they nerfed with DoTs in U35 if they count as direct damage).

My only real "complaint" is that the Empowering Grasp morph is still practically worthless. Your pets almost never get hit by it, and when they do, the buff sometimes doesn't even get applied. Please allow your pets to receive the buff on cast, regardless of whether they get hit by it or not.

Editing to add: I do also strongly believe Blighted should still have some form of scaling like Stalking had, even at a lower value like 10-20%. Having your Blastbones stand around doing nothing for 4 seconds feels awful, and at least the Stalking consolation helped mitigate the loss of DPS by a delayed detonation.

Cast_El

Thank you for Undeath changes. Templar is still forgotten... This class don't have real delay burst ability. Scribing didn't provide it either.

Cast_El

Necro buff are definitely good.NB changes not sure it will be enough to balance the class for pvp... Passives changes for warden are welcome

xAlucardx92

Hardened Ward is still i joke, pls finally adjusts it.

Tommy_The_Gun

Daedric Curse:

"This ability and its morphs now deal their full damage in an area around the cursed enemy, rather than dealing full damage to the cursed enemy and half damage in an area around them."

So, umm... can some one explain to me if I am understanding this correctly ? I mean from the looks of it, if I understand this correctly, it means that Daedric Curse, Daedric Prey and Haunting Curse will no longer deal dmg to the target, but rather to every one around the target in the AOE.

So.... Technically, assuming it is true, then it kinda, sort off should no longer break invisibility/cloak/Invisibility potions and crouch stealth, cuz those are broken only on taking direct damage.

Joy_Division

About Arcanist's Abyssal Impact morphs, the nerf was not necessary.

The problem here is these two morphs are not competing with each other. Tentacular Dread competes with Fatecarver.
Cephaliarch's Flail builds crux. Tentacular Dread consumes it. I don't use Cephaliarch's because it is always better. I use it because it does not consume Crux. If I am beaming, I will never use Tentacular Dread not matter how much the other morph is nerfed (because I will use the unspectacular Runeblades to build Crux).

If the reason is Arcanists are already broken for DPS, then say that in the actual explanation, rather than a Red Herrring about morph choices. And then resolve the actual issue: the combination of specific gear combination of Deadly and Velothi coupled with the centerpiece of class's damage: the Beam. After all, that is what is competing with the Tentacular Dread morph that nobody uses.

Arcanist already have zero delayed burst skills in their kit, thus making them proc Bots for PvP. Cephaliarch's nerf will just unnecessarily hurt Arcanists - who nobody fears offensively in PvP - who actually want to use that morph for PvP.

Not necessary and the wrong approach to making the other morph desirable.

acastanza_ESO

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Daedric Curse:

"This ability and its morphs now deal their full damage in an area around the cursed enemy, rather than dealing full damage to the cursed enemy and half damage in an area around them."

So, umm... can some one explain to me if I am understanding this correctly ? I mean from the looks of it, if I understand this correctly, it means that Daedric Curse, Daedric Prey and Haunting Curse will no longer deal dmg to the target, but rather to every one around the target in the AOE.

So.... Technically, assuming it is true, then it kinda, sort off should no longer break invisibility/cloak/Invisibility potions and crouch stealth, cuz those are broken only on taking direct damage.

It will deal damage to the target and the area. The rule of thumb is that if there is an AOE the focus on the AOE counts as inside the AOE unless otherwise specified.

acastanza_ESO

jaws343 wrote: »

I am assuming that the Sorcerer Deadric Curse writing is a typo:
"This damage can no longer be blocked, as this feature was never messaged on the ability and is not considered a Damage over Time, nor is its damage-based on other damaging events."

Since the Dev note says "In addition, we're removing some remnant balance behavior of the skill being unable to be blocked"

So max damage AOE, but now blockable?

Yeah Kevin addressed this in another comment somewhere, but correct. Full AOE damage but blockable.

xDeusEJRx

Joy_Division wrote: »

About Arcanist's Abyssal Impact morphs, the nerf was not necessary.

The problem here is these two morphs are not competing with each other. Tentacular Dread competes with Fatecarver.
Cephaliarch's Flail builds crux. Tentacular Dread consumes it. I don't use Cephaliarch's because it is always better. I use it because it does not consume Crux. If I am beaming, I will never use Tentacular Dread not matter how much the other morph is nerfed (because I will use the unspectacular Runeblades to build Crux).

If the reason is Arcanists are already broken for DPS, then say that in the actual explanation, rather than a Red Herrring about morph choices. And then resolve the actual issue: the combination of specific gear combination of Deadly and Velothi coupled with the centerpiece of class's damage: the Beam. After all, that is what is competing with the Tentacular Dread morph that nobody uses.

Arcanist already have zero delayed burst skills in their kit, thus making them proc Bots for PvP. Cephaliarch's nerf will just unnecessarily hurt Arcanists - who nobody fears offensively in PvP - who actually want to use that morph for PvP.

Not necessary and the wrong approach to making the other morph desirable.

IMO the real issue is center focus on Crux creation and consumption. They really wanted to push usage of runeblades as a means of generating crux and while Scribing helps to give more cruxes via class mastery, Arc is still in that awkward spot of needing lots of crux.

If zos just unshackles Arcanist from runeblades being their primary means of creating crux, this problem wouldn't exist. Just allow any status effect generation generate a crux.

It seems status effect debuffing is the main playstyle of arcanist, considering their new Arcanist class set is about status effect debuffing, they want you do it. Just make status effects the main means to generate crux and that issue of being shackled to cruxes wouldn't exist.

Alaztor91

Could Necromancers receive the first-class citizen treatment for the Major Prophecy/Savagery and Major Sorcery/Brutality that is being added to Shocking Siphon and Skeletal Mage?

I'm talking about the ''while slotted on either bar'' treatment and everyone knows what Classes I mean by ''first-class citizen''.

Also, the change to Undeath is nice but won't this lead to the same situation in the past where everyone in PvE was a Vampire, but for damage reduction instead of stam/mag regen this time?

Tommy_The_Gun

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Daedric Curse:

"This ability and its morphs now deal their full damage in an area around the cursed enemy, rather than dealing full damage to the cursed enemy and half damage in an area around them."

So, umm... can some one explain to me if I am understanding this correctly ? I mean from the looks of it, if I understand this correctly, it means that Daedric Curse, Daedric Prey and Haunting Curse will no longer deal dmg to the target, but rather to every one around the target in the AOE.

So.... Technically, assuming it is true, then it kinda, sort off should no longer break invisibility/cloak/Invisibility potions and crouch stealth, cuz those are broken only on taking direct damage.

It will deal damage to the target and the area. The rule of thumb is that if there is an AOE the focus on the AOE counts as inside the AOE unless otherwise specified.

So that means that Sorc got a na insanely strong buff, as this will now deal twice the damage that it deals now on live server. I mean stuff like this is bound to be incorporated into Ball Groups (like 10+ people using it) with some proc set combo. Sorc is considered S tier due to recent shield changes, but now it will be like what S+ or S++ lol XD

Twohothardware

The changes to Necromancer are most welcome but some of these skills are pretty lacking in damage for PvP. Can we get some more burst damage added back in somewhere? Necro is still pretty gimped from the loss of Stalking Blastbones and the old synergy from Boneyard.

Joy_Division

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

About Arcanist's Abyssal Impact morphs, the nerf was not necessary.

The problem here is these two morphs are not competing with each other. Tentacular Dread competes with Fatecarver.
Cephaliarch's Flail builds crux. Tentacular Dread consumes it. I don't use Cephaliarch's because it is always better. I use it because it does not consume Crux. If I am beaming, I will never use Tentacular Dread not matter how much the other morph is nerfed (because I will use the unspectacular Runeblades to build Crux).

If the reason is Arcanists are already broken for DPS, then say that in the actual explanation, rather than a Red Herrring about morph choices. And then resolve the actual issue: the combination of specific gear combination of Deadly and Velothi coupled with the centerpiece of class's damage: the Beam. After all, that is what is competing with the Tentacular Dread morph that nobody uses.

Arcanist already have zero delayed burst skills in their kit, thus making them proc Bots for PvP. Cephaliarch's nerf will just unnecessarily hurt Arcanists - who nobody fears offensively in PvP - who actually want to use that morph for PvP.

Not necessary and the wrong approach to making the other morph desirable.

IMO the real issue is center focus on Crux creation and consumption. They really wanted to push usage of runeblades as a means of generating crux and while Scribing helps to give more cruxes via class mastery, Arc is still in that awkward spot of needing lots of crux.

If zos just unshackles Arcanist from runeblades being their primary means of creating crux, this problem wouldn't exist. Just allow any status effect generation generate a crux.

It seems status effect debuffing is the main playstyle of arcanist, considering their new Arcanist class set is about status effect debuffing, they want you do it. Just make status effects the main means to generate crux and that issue of being shackled to cruxes wouldn't exist.

You're not wrong.

Part of the problem is ZOS forgot how to make an interesting spammable. NBs love their Veiled Strike. Templars love their jabs. DK's love their whip. What Necro likes Skulls? Now that Cliff Racers can be dodged, many Wardens moved away from that. Runeblades is another one of the meh spammables that have little inspiration and has the further disadvantage of posing as a range skill and only reaching 22 meters, trying to compete against other range skills that go over 40. Now I got to use that to build my Crux for Tentacular Dread? Terrible.

Tommy_The_Gun

Regarding Nightblade skills shifting their skill trees, I would want to point something out as I feel like this is important and may have been overlooked and may be unintentional:

- Blur & Morphs: Costs Magicka
- Shadow Cloak & Morphs: Costs Magicka
- Path of Darkness & Morphs: Costs Magicka
- Aspect of Terror & Morphs: Costs Magicka
- Summon Shade & Morphs: Costs Magicka

Every single Shadow Skill costs magicka....

And more importantly - there is not a single skill that would cost stamina, that can be used to proc Shadow Barrier passive.

And this is important because this is an essential class buff, but Stamina NB will have a hard time keeping this passive up as they already have to spend magicka on other things & their mag sustain budget is already kinda full.

silky_soft

Thank you for fixing Elemental and entropy on cloak. Goes a long way helping us high ping nb that don't have the latency advantage our much hated low ping cousins have. Keen to test if it works.

Also the obvious skill reshuffle that should of happened years ago.

monkidb16_ESO

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Stamina NB will have a hard time keeping this passive up

With the base time doubling it's actually really easy now, just keeping up path gives you 100% uptime.

Tommy_The_Gun

monkidb16_ESO wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Stamina NB will have a hard time keeping this passive up

With the base time doubling it's actually really easy now, just keeping up path gives you 100% uptime.

Maybe but there is also this:

Every single Shadow Skill costs magicka.

And this is imho an anomaly and there is a solid chance that it maybe unintentional.

Edit:
I have created another character on PTS just to make sure and it is is true.
Not a single stamina morph to pick. Entire Nightblade shadow skill tree consists of exclusively magicka costing skills.

monkidb16_ESO

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

And this is imho an anomaly and there is a solid chance that it maybe unintentional.

Not really an anomaly.
DKs Draconic, Wardens Winter and Necros Living Death lines all have no stamina skills either.

jaws343

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Daedric Curse:

"This ability and its morphs now deal their full damage in an area around the cursed enemy, rather than dealing full damage to the cursed enemy and half damage in an area around them."

So, umm... can some one explain to me if I am understanding this correctly ? I mean from the looks of it, if I understand this correctly, it means that Daedric Curse, Daedric Prey and Haunting Curse will no longer deal dmg to the target, but rather to every one around the target in the AOE.

So.... Technically, assuming it is true, then it kinda, sort off should no longer break invisibility/cloak/Invisibility potions and crouch stealth, cuz those are broken only on taking direct damage.

It will deal damage to the target and the area. The rule of thumb is that if there is an AOE the focus on the AOE counts as inside the AOE unless otherwise specified.

So that means that Sorc got a na insanely strong buff, as this will now deal twice the damage that it deals now on live server. I mean stuff like this is bound to be incorporated into Ball Groups (like 10+ people using it) with some proc set combo. Sorc is considered S tier due to recent shield changes, but now I will like what S+ or S++ lol XD

It is the same damage single target, only the aoe portion is buffed. And the aoe portion was basically an afterthought. And the only way the aoe damage is going to be effective is if groups are stacked. Even then, now it is blockable

Twohothardware

I wish with Grave Grasp they would just copy and paste the animation and CC from the monster set Kjalnar's Nightmare.

This would give Necro’s a competing CC to other classes like Streak on Sorc and Fossilize on DK.

propertyOfUndefined

For what it's worth, I think the necromancer changes are great, and very long overdue. I've been posting for years and feel like the issues are finally being addressed. Hoping you can pass this on to the devs. Well done!

master_vanargand

Nightblade has many problems, but there are two main ones.

The first problem is that Nightblade is the worst performing PvE DPS.
Compared to PvE Top tier classes, Nightblade's single dps is over 10% worse.
Of course, AoE DPS is also at the bottom. And skill rotation is the most complex.
Has ZoS forgotten that they removed the "+10% damage buff" from the PvE DPS Nightblade in the old update?

Designed as a DPS when ESO started, Nightblade suffers as the worst DPS in its 10th anniversary.

There are many ways and ideas to solve this problem, but I think a simple solution is better.
Here are some simple ideas to buff PvE Nightblade DPS.

[Requests for improvements to Nightblade]

• Increase Death Stroke's duration and reduce its ult cost. (For example, if the Ult cost is 60 and the duration is 12 seconds, DPS increase is about 5% compared to the Live server. "Soul Harvest" does less damage than "Incapacitating Strike" and does not have the special effect of 120 ult, so few people seem to use "Soul Harvest" in PvE or PvP. There are many reasons why Nightblade uses "Incapacitating Strike" in PvE, such as when DPS often accumulate 120 ults while dealing with boss gimmicks, or when DPS want to get ahead of other DPS by attacking the first. Also, "Soul Harvest" does nothing even if a group member kills an enemy, so it cannot be expected to be effective in Trials. If "Soul Harvest" ult cost becomes 60 and effect duration becomes 12 seconds, PvE DPS Nightblade will choose "Soul Harvest". )
• Passive ability "Magicka Flood" increases stamina and magicka. (Rename it to "Power Flood". If this is not done, Cannot be called the hybridization. Also, please change the activation condition of the passive skill to "While slotted Siphoning skills on either bar".)
• Change passive abilitie "Hemorrhage" to "While slotted Assassination skills on either bar". (The current problem, PvE DPS Nightblade is forced to use Assassination ult skill on both bars. If only one bar is OK, without reducing DPS, NB can change the back bar ult slot to AoE Damage ult skill.)
• Increases passive abilitie "Pressure Points" from 438 (2%) to 657 (3%). (This is the easiest and most reliable way to increase the DPS of PvE Nightblade. Shadow's "Dark Vigor" and Siphoning's "Soul Siphoner" are 3%. Therefore, "Pressure Points" should also be change to 3%.)
• Need the duration of "Twisting Path" to be increased without reducing the DPS. (Namely, make it 15 sec instead of 12 sec. Making it the same time as the 15 second weapon skill on the backbar would make skill rotation easier.)
• Add the effect of "Effects additional enemies near your initial target. (+3 targets)" without reducing the DPS of "Cripple". (Making it a splitting skill increases the AoE damage. However, do not lower the damage below the current damage on the live server.)
• Add "Now deals its damage in an area around the initial target as well." to "Killer's Blade". (Anyway, since the AoE is lacking, need add splitting damage like "Reverse Slice".)
• Change all stamina morph skills of Nightblade such as Killer's Blade to "Bleed Damage" and unify them. (Incapacitating Strike, Killer's Blade, Ambush, Relentless Focus, Surprise Attack, Power Extraction. Being able to stack bleed damage status effect DoT would be revolutionary. Bleed damage matches Nightblade lore.)
• Changes and buff the effects of "Consuming Darkness and its morphs" probably the weakest ultimate skill in ESO. (I don't know how to make this better.)
• Need change Lotus Fan's Minor Vulnerability to 20 seconds. 10 seconds doesn't match the DoT's 20 seconds. (Scribing is unifies Minor Debuff to 20 seconds. Therefore Lotus Fun's Minor Vulnerability must also be set to 20 seconds.)
• Ambush is so bad like a joke skill. Ambush's hidden cast time using it in PvP is frustrating and a terrible feeling. So please at least buff it. I think need add stun for Ambush, just like in old ESO.
• The idea of ​​Shadow Cloak "While slotted on either bar, you gain Major Buff" is great.
  I wish the game creator would give that idea to the "Assassination" and "Siphoning" skills as well.
  I think need add "While slotted on either bar, you gain Major Brutality and Sorcery" to Siphoning Strikes.
  And remove the "Brutality and Sorcery" from Drain Power and give it buff something better.(For example, it would be great if you could give yourself and all 11 members of your group Minor Courage in Drain Power.)

The second problem is that of red light.
Grim Focus and its morphs will character glow red when equip in a skill slot.
This issue has been criticized by many players.

I think need change it only lights up red when stacked at five.

This problem is much more serious than ZoS thinks, so don't ignore it.
It is discussed in the thread below.

[Grim Focus Permaglow]

Jazraena wrote: »

Grim Focus now makes your weapons permanently glow just for having the ability slotted

Lastly, thank you for fixing the "Destroy stealth and invisible bug for Elemental Susceptibility and Structured Entropy".
Now that my trust in ZoS has been restored a little.
I hope ZoS will regain some of my perfect trust again.

Tommy_The_Gun

monkidb16_ESO wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

And this is imho an anomaly and there is a solid chance that it maybe unintentional.

Not really an anomaly.
DKs Draconic, Wardens Winter and Necros Living Death lines all have no stamina skills either.

Class do differ that is true, but if you look at NB, this class always had at least 1 stamina morph or health cost or toggle (no cost) to pick in every skill tree. Hence why I think it is something ZOS overlooked as it is too big of a departure from the original class design. They don't even mention this in dev comment, and for something like this they should mention something. Like "we want NB tanks to be only magicka or something" but nothing like this is there.

_Ahala_

Interesting direction with warden, will need to test further. Not sure it will accomplish anything other than pushing magden back to lightning staff in PvP. Opens up the possibility for different weapons and perhaps some low health glass cannon setups with fire/lightning staff or stam weapons. Maybe not though. Only thing I see with less than 30k health in PvP is some glass cannon nightblades or sorcs. Might be interesting, might be gimmicky, will probably kill ice staff PvP though…

master_vanargand

Don't change "Undeath" to vampire stage 1.
The current PTS forces everyone to be a vampire in PvP.

Max 10% damage reduction for free with almost no risk is a terrible idea.

"Undeath" should be vampire stage 3.
Don't penalize non-vampire players in PvP.