PTS Update 43 - Feedback Thread for Classes & Abilities

i11ionward · July 15

Normally, I want to use burst selfheal when I'm surrounded by enemies that are attacking me. Now I have to run away from enemies to heal myself? That's stupid. How do you even see game situations with this?
If you want to nerf the skill, remove the stun.
If you want to remake it, make it only an offensive or only a defensive skill, but for God's sake, let it be PREDICTABLE.

CameraBeardThePirate · July 15

Afterip wrote: »

I think the person who redesigned Stalking Blasbones was now working on Arctic Blast.

It's a simple matter of not actually playing the class in real content outside of dummy parsing.

No one that actually plays necro outside of dummy parsing would have thought GLS was a good idea. The same goes for Arctic Blast.

Like, what is the use case of Arctic Blast? It's such a hot mess hodge podge of effects, and doesn't do any of the things it tries to do well.

Dalsinthus · July 15

I'll add my voice to those saying that the new Arctic Blast is a complete mess. ZOS can't seem to decide what to do with this skill and as a result it is a muddled mix of poorly performing things. Heals need to be reliable and predictable. If the skill is doing too much, then remove the stun or adjust the damage. I won't be using it if it goes live like this.

CameraBeardThePirate · July 15

Blighted Blastbones needs to have, at minimum, a portion of the Stalking Blastbones time scaling added back.

The fact that sometimes necros will simply lose DPS because their main damaging skill decides to take a few seconds longer to work correctly is ridiculous. At least with the Stalking Blastbones buff, if Blastbones took a couple seconds extra to leap to the target, you were making up for the DPS loss of not getting to cast Blastbones again right away.

Add back the time based scaling, even if it's at a max of 25% instead of 50% due to the Defile effects. It needs that scaling to make up for the inconsistency of the ability.

_Ahala_ · July 15

My 2 cents as a long time dedicated warden PvP and PvE player. Feel free to disagree

Arctic Blast: remove heal, buff range, buff damage, add snare to facilitate lock down ice mage play style. Damage morph.

Polar Wind: remove ally heal or nerf ally heal to 40-50%. We have a healing line for healers. Allowing tanks to heal is unhealthy for the game. Support morph

Living trellis and Natures embrace: mega buff the recast heal of the first and the HoT of the second so warden can survive with low health while using the new arctic blast

Ice staff: add 6% flat damage, basically a midpoint between fire and lightning for more of a dot direct damage hybrid play style. Makes frost staff better for everyone not just magden.

Do something with frozen gate. I really don’t care what at this point.

Speed up cliff racer. You literally put a 400 weapon and spell damage buff on a spammable and people still won’t use it. If it’s not as fast as force pulse or frost clench it will forever be a dead skill. It just feels awful to use.

Damage types: make piercing cold also proc off bleed damage and consolidate all magic and poison damage morphs to frost and bleed respectively. Instant class identity.

Skjaldbjorn · July 15

_Ahala_ wrote: »

Ice staff: add 6% flat damage, basically a midpoint between fire and lightning for more of a dot direct damage hybrid play style. Makes frost staff better for everyone not just magden.

This is probably the healthiest road to bring Frost staves back for DPS. Wedge a flat % damage gain under like Tri-Focus for them and move on. Doesn't need to be chained to Warden. Could even give it the Health barrier they gave to Piercing Cold if they didn't want PVP tanks getting flat scaling with Frost staves in PVP.

Though I think an argument could be made that a ~5% damage buff to direct damage would be more balanced here. Wouldn't need the HP gate either.

codestripper · July 15

Yo can you guys stop joking around with Arctic blast now? The first PTS was funny, we all had a good laugh, but now I want to actually go and test my new warden build. So, if you want to nerf it, take the heal away entirely, buff the damage, whatever, i'll use another skill for healing. But don't make it so useless for both to where I have to find a replacement.

Think about it, when, in serious PvE content would you want to use this as a heal now? Fighting a boss? Nah you have to run away to heal, hopefully you can get away quick enough

Fighting trash? Good luck getting out of range I guess

The only way I can see using this as a heal is during something like Coral Aerie last boss, healing through coalescing shadows.... but even then, why not just use something else more fit for that fight?

Do you want like...videos of us trying to survive relying on that as our heal? I can do that...

FoJul · July 15

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

_Ahala_ wrote: »

Ice staff: add 6% flat damage, basically a midpoint between fire and lightning for more of a dot direct damage hybrid play style. Makes frost staff better for everyone not just magden.

This is probably the healthiest road to bring Frost staves back for DPS. Wedge a flat % damage gain under like Tri-Focus for them and move on. Doesn't need to be chained to Warden. Could even give it the Health barrier they gave to Piercing Cold if they didn't want PVP tanks getting flat scaling with Frost staves in PVP.

Though I think an argument could be made that a ~5% damage buff to direct damage would be more balanced here. Wouldn't need the HP gate either.

Then they would have to take away from the Defensives. Ice staff would be too loaded.

Alchimiste1 · July 15

Newest change for artic is still bad. No one wants a burst heal that isn’t reliable.

It’s okay to be wrong ZOS. Just undo the changes and revert it back to the live version. And if you really want to change something then look at polar wind which is the far more troublesome morph.

StarOfElyon · July 15

Alchimiste1 wrote: »

Newest change for artic is still bad. No one wants a burst heal that isn’t reliable.

It’s okay to be wrong ZOS. Just undo the changes and revert it back to the live version. And if you really want to change something then look at polar wind which is the far more troublesome morph.

If the history of Necromancer players shouting into the void about losing Stalking Blastbones for Gravelord Sacrifice serves a purpose, it's to inform us of how ZOS is likely to respond to Warden players shouting into the void about the changes to Arctic Blast.

StarOfElyon · July 15

i11ionward wrote: »

Normally, I want to use burst selfheal when I'm surrounded by enemies that are attacking me. Now I have to run away from enemies to heal myself? That's stupid. How do you even see game situations with this?
If you want to nerf the skill, remove the stun.
If you want to remake it, make it only an offensive or only a defensive skill, but for God's sake, let it be PREDICTABLE.

I can't figure out what the purpose of this skill is now. Why would I slot this instead of a guaranteed stun or a guaranteed heal. I don't want to play a minigame of being in a certain range of enemies to get what I want when I hit the button. What's crazy is that I understand what it does less now than I did last week.

StShoot · July 15

The Arctic blast change smells like spreadsheet balancing, for the love of god zos pls test your changes before you put them into the notes. Patch notes like these will loose you all trust you have remaining with the community. I realy dont mean this in a mean way.
You got the feedback that this skill is way to unreliable and you somehow found a way to make it even more unreliable.
You claim to make thoses changes because of pvp but where are the changes to the real problematic pvp topics everyone was asking for? Where is the shield nerf for sorcs?
Where are the adjustments to crosshealing ?
When do you plan to adress the insane burst of blades and their lack of dps in pve by moving some of their burst damage to groundbased aoe dots?
When do you plan to turn down Radiant Destruction (the first tick hits before the animation reaches you) and give templars some damage outside of the execute range?

CameraBeardThePirate · July 15

StShoot wrote: »

You claim to make thoses changes because of pvp but where are the changes to the real problematic pvp topics?

Not to mention the fact that 99% of Wardens use Polar in PvP, not Arctic, which they'd know if they actually played PvP, since it's blatantly apparent.

ESO_Nightingale · July 15

Holy **** what the hell am i reading ZOS????

No, that's absolutely not okay.

Please listen to us. Either completely remove the stun OR the heal and replace them accordingly and revert the damage loss which heavily effects pve dps.

Chosing to destroy Arctic Blast instead of Polar Wind is genuinely confusing and the direction you're going with it is even worse. Do not make the heal conditional.

Alaztor91 · July 15

I know ZOS usually doesn't make significant changes in week 2 of PTS, but I'm going to repeat it anyways, so that it hopefully makes it to live:

Make the Major Prophecy/Savagery and Major Sorcery/Brutality that is being added to Shocking Siphon and Skeletal Mage work ''while slotted on either bar''. It has been more than a year since Arcanist and the ''while slotted on either bar'' functionality released and you have already implemented it for other class skills like Inferno or Shadow Cloak. Having to wait another year for this would suck since apparently Q3 is the only time we get meaningful balance changes.

Also, Skeletal Mage should have its damage increased since it was stealth nerfed with the U35 DoT rework even though the skill is not a DoT.

Theist_VII · July 15

What I would do with pet build parity.

Sorcerer pets need to be one bar, Warden’s ultimate needs to be one bar, Necromancer pets need to be targetable and have health bars… same with Nightblade’s shade minion.

It’s about time we get an overhaul to how pets work in ESO, and some Scribing skills to create our own.

YandereGirlfriend · July 15

_Ahala_ wrote: »

My 2 cents as a long time dedicated warden PvP and PvE player. Feel free to disagree

Arctic Blast: remove heal, buff range, buff damage, add snare to facilitate lock down ice mage play style. Damage morph.

Polar Wind: remove ally heal or nerf ally heal to 40-50%. We have a healing line for healers. Allowing tanks to heal is unhealthy for the game. Support morph

Living trellis and Natures embrace: mega buff the recast heal of the first and the HoT of the second so warden can survive with low health while using the new arctic blast

Ice staff: add 6% flat damage, basically a midpoint between fire and lightning for more of a dot direct damage hybrid play style. Makes frost staff better for everyone not just magden.

Do something with frozen gate. I really don’t care what at this point.

Speed up cliff racer. You literally put a 400 weapon and spell damage buff on a spammable and people still won’t use it. If it’s not as fast as force pulse or frost clench it will forever be a dead skill. It just feels awful to use.

Damage types: make piercing cold also proc off bleed damage and consolidate all magic and poison damage morphs to frost and bleed respectively. Instant class identity.

You win the thread.

All of these ideas are chef's kiss material.

Pevey · July 15

The change today on arctic still makes it a useless heal. In what instance will you need a burst heal and can also be sure there is not an enemy within a few meters?

It's less and less relevant to me as I spend more and more time on my arcanist (just like everyone else), but it is still very disappointing to see these sorts of changes that do nothing to fix class balance and actually make it way worse.

EDIT: I know the pvpers would hate this, but maybe just remove the stun if this ability is doing too much. This skill is really all over the place. Warden pvers need it to help proc chilled, provide small dot, and provide the heal since warden toolbar is cluttered with necessary skills like netch. Netch does nothing but help bring dps and sustain up closer to where it should be by default. If that weren't the case, I would say moving the heal to a separate skill would be fine.

React · July 16

Pevey wrote: »

The change today on arctic still makes it a useless heal. In what instance will you need a burst heal and can also be sure there is not an enemy within a few meters?

It's less and less relevant to me as I spend more and more time on my arcanist (just like everyone else), but it is still very disappointing to see these sorts of changes that do nothing to fix class balance and actually make it way worse.

EDIT: I know the pvpers would hate this, but maybe just remove the stun if this ability is doing too much. This skill is really all over the place. Warden pvers need it to help proc chilled, provide small dot, and provide the heal since warden toolbar is cluttered with necessary skills like netch. Netch does nothing but help bring dps and sustain up closer to where it should be by default. If that weren't the case, I would say moving the heal to a separate skill would be fine.

The thing is, I don't know a single person that thought arctic blast was overperforming in a PVP environment. However, nearly every single PVP player that I know agrees that Polar wind is drastically overperforming.

It really makes no sense to me why they'd absolutely gut the lesser used morph while leaving the broken overpowered one untouched.

YandereGirlfriend · July 16

React wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

The change today on arctic still makes it a useless heal. In what instance will you need a burst heal and can also be sure there is not an enemy within a few meters?

It's less and less relevant to me as I spend more and more time on my arcanist (just like everyone else), but it is still very disappointing to see these sorts of changes that do nothing to fix class balance and actually make it way worse.

EDIT: I know the pvpers would hate this, but maybe just remove the stun if this ability is doing too much. This skill is really all over the place. Warden pvers need it to help proc chilled, provide small dot, and provide the heal since warden toolbar is cluttered with necessary skills like netch. Netch does nothing but help bring dps and sustain up closer to where it should be by default. If that weren't the case, I would say moving the heal to a separate skill would be fine.

The thing is, I don't know a single person that thought arctic blast was overperforming in a PVP environment. However, nearly every single PVP player that I know agrees that Polar wind is drastically overperforming.

It really makes no sense to me why they'd absolutely gut the lesser used morph while leaving the broken overpowered one untouched.

Right, chop the Stun, boost the damage, restore the Chilled proc chance to 15% and let Arctic be the self-targeted AOE DOT a la Hurricane that it was always meant to be.

MATH_COW · July 16

For god sake, stop making Artic Blast to not heal at all.
Reduce the healing done why not but do not make the heal happen only if the skill did not hit.
That doesn't change the problem, the heal will still be random and will be totally useless when you are in a melee where you will need to spam your heal... (like in every solo arena you know)

MATH_COW · July 16

React wrote: »

The thing is, I don't know a single person that thought arctic blast was overperforming in a PVP environment. However, nearly every single PVP player that I know agrees that Polar wind is drastically overperforming.

It really makes no sense to me why they'd absolutely gut the lesser used morph while leaving the broken overpowered one untouched.

First because Polar Wind is not overperforming (hello again lol) but mostly because their goal in this patch is to nerf the DD Tanky Warden in PvP, and in that case this is Artic Blast that is more a "problem" I guess. (even if not really true)

ESO_Nightingale · July 16

MATH_COW wrote: »

React wrote: »

The thing is, I don't know a single person that thought arctic blast was overperforming in a PVP environment. However, nearly every single PVP player that I know agrees that Polar wind is drastically overperforming.

It really makes no sense to me why they'd absolutely gut the lesser used morph while leaving the broken overpowered one untouched.

First because Polar Wind is not overperforming (hello again lol) but mostly because their goal in this patch is to nerf the DD Tanky Warden in PvP, and in that case this is Artic Blast that is more a "problem" I guess. (even if not really true)

Yeah but the "tanky warden dd" uses polar, not blast. So i don't understand why they're doing this. Do they know that blast's heal scales off weapon and spell damage?

MATH_COW · July 16

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

MATH_COW wrote: »

React wrote: »

The thing is, I don't know a single person that thought arctic blast was overperforming in a PVP environment. However, nearly every single PVP player that I know agrees that Polar wind is drastically overperforming.

It really makes no sense to me why they'd absolutely gut the lesser used morph while leaving the broken overpowered one untouched.

First because Polar Wind is not overperforming (hello again lol) but mostly because their goal in this patch is to nerf the DD Tanky Warden in PvP, and in that case this is Artic Blast that is more a "problem" I guess. (even if not really true)

Yeah but the "tanky warden dd" uses polar, not blast. So i don't understand why they're doing this. Do they know that blast's heal scales off weapon and spell damage?

Well because at some point it depend, depend how much the build balance you to a simple tank or to a DD.
When you are around 35k max HP with a good damage stat, the burst heal of Artic Blast is barelly the same as the burst of Polar Wind. You just have to choose between a HoT for your survy or a way to freeze to help killing people.

So when you got more HP you will maybe more be into Polar Wind but as they totally changed Piercing Cold passive they don't really need to touch to Polar Wind as those tanky build will already lose a lot of damage potential.
Actually as the Piercing Cold passive do not give damage when you have more than 30k max HP it even nerf every classic Warden pvp DD as you need at least 30k HP to survive correctly in PvP.
I already talked on another post about how stupid making that passive limit at 30k HP is, for PvP and solo archive.
But for that they did not changed anything on that week patch...

Alaya · July 16

I use Artic Blast on my wardens as a solo PvEr and I feel these changes are ridiculous. First of all the stun rarely, if ever, works (that I've noticed anyways) so you can take that off, and leave the heal and damage alone and it'll be fine. It's hardly used in PvP like others are saying. It's really not so OP as it sounds.

If it does get converted into a wholly damaging skill like someone else suggested earlier, I'd be fine with using it that way too. Just have to slot vigor again and make sure to keep up the netch for buffs and sustain. (Stamden mostly, I do have two frostdens too)

Turtle_Bot · July 16

@ZOS_Kevin Any chance we could get some quick comments here on the Arctic blast issue (instead of having to wait a full week for a very confusing developer note that doesn't explain much)?

In particular what the teams plans are for the skill and what do they envision the skill to be/it's intended use. The Developer comments in the patch notes have not helped this as they are not explaining the goal of the changes or what the team envisions the skills intended use case is supposed to be.

If we could at least get some word from the team as to what they envision for Arctic Blast so that we as players can help provide appropriate feedback to help achieve this goal in a way that is good for everyone, that would be very helpful.

Smexykins · July 16

The Arctic Blast changes just get worse and worse guys... can we please just forget this ever happened and go back to how it is on live?

Lucifer9th · July 16

Buff rapid regeneration to be equal to vigor, need to have a good alternative of vigor for magic

IncultaWolf · July 16

The necro buffs are great, I think that the skeletal minion needs to do more damage or at least be considered damage over time so they benefit from the necro rapid rot passive and the agony totem should be a self synergy like graveyard.

Empowering grasp needs help still, you should get the pet buff for simply having the ability slotted, or after casting the ability, regardless of it hitting your pets, which is very difficult to do in actual content as the minions move around when you do, and tend to stick to your flank.

I also feel like Grave Lord's Sacrifice should buff class heals as well, this morph feels a bit underwhelming compared to blighted blastbones.

Skjaldbjorn · July 16

MATH_COW wrote: »

I already talked on another post about how stupid making that passive limit at 30k HP is, for PvP and solo archive.
But for that they did not changed anything on that week patch...

Because they've made it abundantly clear what the purpose is. They don't want PVP Wardens stacking HP and still getting at % damage gains. I can maybe see them making it like ~32k, but I think expecting anything more than that is super unrealistic.