PTS Update 44 - Feedback Thread for Classes & Abilities

ikillforskooma

Why they give the set such a big delay? 1.3 seconds?
Myat pvp already gives a lot of conditions for evasion
Why not it only works from close attacks, for example? beause for sorcs absolutely nothing will change
Or why not just turn off the *** myat pvp?
The new mythic saint and seducer in synergy with myat immediately notifies the player about the presence of an enemy player nearby
I use nightmare as a primary set for my ganker and bomber
After the 44th update with a delay of 1.3 seconds, i can just throw it in the trash
The same was done with mechanical precision
I'm starting to get tired of this, the game is turning into a donation trash heap

huskandhunger

For werewolf some quality of life adjustments:

Pounce: for this ability and its morphs combine Carnage and the base ability into a single ability press for ease of use accessibility.

Claws of Life morph: separate out the healing of this morph to no longer be dependent upon damage. Instead make it a flat heal over time ~ 2000/second for 10 seconds.

🐺💕

MidniteOwl1913

I main a NB thief/assassin in PVE. It's fun to rampage thru Tameril killing and looting. I use cloak, a lot. I think the toggle would get in the way. If this is being framed as easier for a new player. Hmm, NB's are not an easy class. They have a large amount of variety in the toolset. It's powerful and complex. That's why I love it so much.

Don't mess with the core of this class please.

ioResult

MincMincMinc wrote: »

Please download and try it for yourself on pts. The toggle is fine and plays far more smoothly than old cloak. Itll be far easier to time combos into ganks since you do not need to recast every other gcd.

This doesnt even affect bow gankers, because 90% of the time you are sitting in crouch and would only use cloak for 1-2s during initiation....

Do you even play in Cyrodiil during prime time? The lag caused by ball groups definitely WILL cause the toggle off of this Cloak to fail in Cyrodiil just exactly like other toggles fail to toggle off in Cyrodiil.

Beyond this, the complete lack of Mag regen while it is on makes it extremely difficult for a squishy Nightblade to even just solo take a resource outside of a keep. Right now on Live when the guards all focus you, you can cast burst heal and then cast Cloak to be unseen for a couple of seconds while your Magicka regens and then continue attacking.

This is completely impossible to do on PTS because your Mag is not regening when you go into cloak. I know because I spent hours on PTS trying to do all the things Nightblades actually do in Cyrodiil, not just brawl while running around in towers or running around rocks - which is ALL the sweaties on these forums ever do no matter what class they are running.

So on PTS you end up having to completely back off and just crouch in the far distance from the flag, spamming Leeching just to get resources back. And because you're just crouching and guards have a RIDICULOUS stealth detection distance nowadays (yet another nerf ZOS implemented in the past), you have to try to get back into attack range again while they can suddenly see you.

Repeat this two or three times on PTS just to solo take a single resource or to solo the guards on the front door of a keep, where it was something any Nightblade could easily do before this stupidly ridiculous nerf to Cloak.

Then try to actually sneak into the open front door of an enemy keep while the zerglings are firing siege over & over at the front door. With Cloak toggled on and no Magicka regen, you can't HEAL yourself as you try to get inside because you have no Mag regen & the only burst heal available to the class is MAGICKA based.

So yes, those of us who have gone onto the PTS and tried to do all these things, have plainly seen them FAIL on PTS whereas they are easy things for the Nightblade to go do on Live.

This change doesn't affect Brawlerblades, which make up what maybe 10% or less of the Nightblade population in Cyrodiil but it completely BREAKS the class for 90% of the the Nightblades in Cyrodiil, most of whom are PvDooring, not trying to gank the sweaties.

This is a mindlessly stupid change to a class-defining skill that is unnecessary and unwanted by 90% of the people who actually play the class in Cyrodiil.

If sweaties want ZOS to nerf the class in a way that will actually help the sweaties defeat immortal Brawlblades, they need to go yell at ZOS about the Shadow Barrier passive. That is something that will actually make the Brawlblades that they cry are too OP, less so. But 90% of Nightblades are so squishy, this passive doesn't even matter to them and wouldn't care if they nerfed it.

And if ZOS wants to increase damage for PvE, there are a ton of skills in the Nightblade class trees that are never used in PvP which could be buffed for PvE in all sorts of ways.

But ZOS doesn't do that. It is completely evident now that they don't have a single person on the "Combat Team" who even remotely plays Nightblade at all, let alone in Cyrodiil PvP.

Sweaties on these forums all whine to us to play a Brawlblade. Guess what? Some of us do play one, but not in Cyrodiil. We play them in BGs where brawling is so much more necessary to win a BG whereas there are far more fun things to do in Cyrodiil - in open world PvP - than running around humping towers and licking grout as a Brawlblade. That Nightblade playstyle holds no appeal to 90% of the people who actually main a Nightblade overall for all the things they do in ESO.

So the sweaties on this forum can stop telling us how to play a class that we actually main every day but which they - at best - roll into Cyrodiil on occassionally to run around towers with their friends Ulti-dumping casuals Xv1 and calling themselves "S-Tier" or whatever other silly name they come up with to try to rank how sweaty each other are when we're just out there having fun with our friends.

Toggle + No Mag Regen for this skill is a death sentence for 90% or more of the people just trying to have fun playing the class in Cyrodiil.

Advice from sweaties is unwanted and unappreciated because we've not seen them play anything other than a Brawlblade. Or if we have seen them on a squishy Nightblade, they get clapped so hard so many times so quickly that the sweaties run back on their Afraid To Die classes like Warden, DK and Sorc so fast it'll make your head spin. Playing a squishy Nighblade in Cyrodiil is hard and none of the sweaties do it for long - if at all - so they can just stop trying to tell us how we play the game is wrong and bad and intolerable. Their opinion doesn't matter to us at all & shouldn't matter to ZOS either.

Skulptro

I have an Idea about Sun Shield. It's amount in PvP is already not too big, but asks for 6 enemies around you to get maximum capacity.
Let's s look at it from both tanking and PvP points. Tanks don't allways have 6 enemies on them. PvPer doesn't allways have 6 people in melee range on him.

What I suggest is to split the abount of bonuses unevenly. Total bonus may stay the same. For example, there is +120% in total, now on PTS. Let it be +70% per first enemy and +10% for each other enemy. So in total it is the same 120%. Exact numbers are up to combat team to tweak, but the idea is that even if there is an only enemy, but you stay on it, you get a good shield. In PvP, or as a Main Tank, you will not loose basically all the shield's strength. Yes, you can't get a fat shield if you are far away from your target, but if you play the way it's intended, you benefit.

Single-boss fights - templar tanks are happy not to be punished for having a single enemy, PvP templars are happy to have a new(old) shiny tool.

katorga

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

Its so funny to see nightblades overreacting to cloack change i cant stop laughing xD

Chill guys, your core concept hasnt been destroyed, it will be fine as a toggle, if anyone had play with vamps sating fury will understand that its not that bad, its easy to toggle in and out of that ability. And its as easy with a new cloack.

Seriously tho, only thing to complain its new cloak mana cost. As ZoS hadnt stated that ability rework was aimed at nerfing nbs ability to stealth mana cost should be adressed, as its is on pts drains mana ~50% faster thanks to recovery disable during toggle.

Now imagine you would've been trated as a necro, leaving healing morph of cloack on, and replacing invis cloack with a plain damage buff that also makes your every third surprise attack an aoe... God I hate GLS.

To be honest, yeah, they ruined it. ZOS should have gone the 33% increased cost patch like roll dodge and streak.

why exactly it is ruined outside of its cost issues?

Toggles don't work well in PVP lag for starters.

Losing 10 years of muscle memory.

I get what they are doing, removing gank as a viable playstyle, while attempting to leave bombing in as a playstyle.

acastanza_ESO

Since there is no thread for "Ill-considered combat balance adjustments" I'm going to repeat this here:

Revert the nerf to Azureblight Reaper

Azureblight Reaper is currently the ONLY set in the game that provides any counterplay at all to the abusive gameplay and disgusting shield and heal stacking of ballgroups. Deleting this set from PVP (make no mistake, that is exactly what this unjustified nerf has accomplished), is nothing but gift-wrapping Cyrodiil for these groups that everyone agrees need additional counters, not fewer.

To counter the dev comment, Plaguebreak does NOT fill the same niche, not at all. The entire point of Azureblight in PVP is that it is, literally, the only thing in the game capable of outputting enough damage to counter the absurd 60k+ shield stacks of Ballgroups that scribing and additional shield sets have enabled. Plaguebreak does NOTHING to this because the damage scaling is so in adequate that they can easily outshield it if it even manages to proc (they don't bother to purge it because it's damage is so pitiful, and they don't proc it by dying because the entire problem is that they can output so much disgusting shielding that they literally can never die).

Unless you're going to make actual meaningful nerfs to the undeniably out of control Shield and Heal stacking that Ballgroups have been empowered with though Scribing, this deletion of Azureblight from PVP MUST be reversed.

Vaqual

Without going into detail regarding the changes that have been made, I am positively surprised that many of the current main pain points have actually been recognized. I appreciate that you are trying to fix those things.

Erickson9610

huskandhunger wrote: »

For werewolf some quality of life adjustments:

Pounce: for this ability and its morphs combine Carnage and the base ability into a single ability press for ease of use accessibility.

Claws of Life morph: separate out the healing of this morph to no longer be dependent upon damage. Instead make it a flat heal over time ~ 2000/second for 10 seconds.

🐺💕

These would be welcome changes. In addition:

Can the combat team reconsider the Terrified effect? You get higher damage per second when you don't cast Ferocious Roar when you're playing solo. Roar and its morphs are crowd control abilities, which damage dealers shouldn't be using. If anyone should be crowd controlling and debuffing enemies, it should be the tank — so why doesn't Deafening Roar apply Terrified?

It doesn't make sense that damage dealers are intended to fear enemies for a Werewolf-only damage buff that doesn't do enough for lone wolves to justify its use.

CameraBeardThePirate

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Since there is no thread for "Ill-considered combat balance adjustments" I'm going to repeat this here:

Revert the nerf to Azureblight Reaper

Azureblight Reaper is currently the ONLY set in the game that provides any counterplay at all to the abusive gameplay and disgusting shield and heal stacking of ballgroups. Deleting this set from PVP (make no mistake, that is exactly what this unjustified nerf has accomplished), is nothing but gift-wrapping Cyrodiil for these groups that everyone agrees need additional counters, not fewer.

To counter the dev comment, Plaguebreak does NOT fill the same niche, not at all. The entire point of Azureblight in PVP is that it is, literally, the only thing in the game capable of outputting enough damage to counter the absurd 60k+ shield stacks of Ballgroups that scribing and additional shield sets have enabled. Plaguebreak does NOTHING to this because the damage scaling is so in adequate that they can easily outshield it if it even manages to proc (they don't bother to purge it because it's damage is so pitiful, and they don't proc it by dying because the entire problem is that they can output so much disgusting shielding that they literally can never die).

Unless you're going to make actual meaningful nerfs to the undeniably out of control Shield and Heal stacking that Ballgroups have been empowered with though Scribing, this deletion of Azureblight from PVP MUST be reversed.

They don't need to revert the nerf entirely, just re-enable the scaling against players. The set would be just as good against ballgroups, while not also being the strongest option against small-man groups with the new scaling. They literally fixed the problem by adjusting the numbers, but then also decided to remove the scaling in PvP. Why??

chessalavakia_ESO

I don't use my Templar much so feel free to disregard but, might it be worth having an option to not taunt with Focused Charge?

I could see myself at times accidentally forgetting about the taunt in group settings and annoying the tank. People that use tank companions might also find it a bit disruptive at times.

Maybe have one of the morphs not taunt or by having a hp threshold for the taunt (Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the does x at y hp threshold and it'd be a bit wordy but it would let people choose either morph)?

warm_blanket

The delay to tarnished is a start but not quite enough.

One of the major annoyances with the set is that it procs off dots. It's pretty funny that a player with this set on could tag you once and run away, yet the dot they stuck on you will continue to blast everything around with tarnished procs. They are actually buffing themselves via the sundered procs too, which is even funnier.

If anything this particular proc set of all of them shouldn't be able to trigger on dots given its disruptive audio/visual design - it's annoying and doesn't really fit for a slow burn dot to trigger sudden and loud explosions.

It really should only trigger off direct critical damage.

huskandhunger

warm_blanket wrote: »

The delay to tarnished is a start but not quite enough.

One of the major annoyances with the set is that it procs off dots. It's pretty funny that a player with this set on could tag you once and run away, yet the dot they stuck on you will continue to blast everything around with tarnished procs. They are actually buffing themselves via the sundered procs too, which is even funnier.

If anything this particular proc set of all of them shouldn't be able to trigger on dots given its disruptive audio/visual design - it's annoying and doesn't really fit for a slow burn dot to trigger sudden and loud explosions.

It really should only trigger off direct critical damage.

I agree, it may be better if it only proced on martial melee damage.

BasP

Some more Ghostly Embrace feedback

Now that the DOT portion of the skill has been fixed, I tried Ghostly Embrace again. I still think that the effects of the three patches should be additive and that the skill should receive some kind of buff, however. At the moment the skill deals a bit less damage than Acid Spray, which was mentioned in the Patch Notes, even if you consistently hit a target with more than one of Ghostly's patches every cast.

Admittedly the damage values were comparable in this parse, but Ghostly had more crits which helped:

Considering it'll be difficult to reliably hit moving targets with two patches in actual content, Ghostly Embrace is clearly inferior to Acid Spray. In my opinion it's also clunky to use Ghostly Embrace with Stampede on the back bar, because you then have to walk backwards in order to hit your target with two patches of Ghostly Embrace (seeing as hitting it with one patch isn't worth the magicka cost at the moment).

Hence, I would really appreciate it if the damage each patch deals by itself would be more similar to Acid Spray. Then you'd actually be rewarded if you manage to time/aim the skill so that you hit your target in that small area in which two patches overlap. So every patch should apply the DoT, and either the DoT or the Direct Damage portion of the skill should be buffed in my opinion. I think that it'd be "safer" to buff the DOT - otherwise the skill might become too strong situationally (against targets with large hitboxes so that all three patches hit it, for example).

necro_the_crafter

No need for ghostly emrace to be such a neusense. If you had removed all of its cc ability, why keep a 0.333 sec delay between circles? I thought that your aim was to make necros more acsesible, as your comment for GLS had shown, but such a unwieldy ability thats ask a player to learn without properly rewarding for situational use is hard to understand.

No logic in "hey guys you dont have to spawn a blastbones every 3 sec now" and "hey guys you have this very wierd ability that spawns first circle 5mx5m that deals damage and chill and then after 0.333 at 4m range from position at which you casted the ability you spawn second 5mx5m circle that deals damage and aplies DoT and then after 0.333 sec at 8m range from position at which you casted the ability you spawn a third 5mx5m circle that deals damage and creates a corpse".

At least in its live state its kinda setups for itself, slow setups for root follow up and root setups for stun follow up. And its still a gamble would hit 2/3 or 1/3, because to many variables are involved in any dynamic enviroment like solo arenas, 4 mans content or PvP. And speaking about PvP, as it is now on live ignores block mitigation and battle spirit, ghostly embrace is in its best condition. It feels rewarding to push your opponents back against a wall and have a stun and 9-12k damage dealt with ability that works in this specific situation and none other. Once new gravegrasp hits live it will go on a shelf of underwhelming necros abilitis right between Skulls and GLS, below the sythe.

Also I had an wierd conspirasy idea: What if necros boneyard had a collision at some point during development?
That will explain gravegrasp clunkines as it would be suited for a situation when you closed yoursef with enemy inside your graveyard, and force all three circles to spawn at enemy feet and follow up with a graverobber. Also enemy player would have a much harder time running away from blastbones, and sythe with its mediocre AoE would actually hit someone, as well as colossus would smash everyone inside, and bone totem would fear people that would struggle to find their way out of boneyard.

Nerhesi

monkidb16_ESO wrote: »

Why nerf Arcanist shield which lasts 1 second at full strength but leave Sorc with its broken 6 second shield?
Arc was already struggling in PvP and Sorc has been the best class for half a year now. Make it make sense to me.

This.

A lot of us are sitting here scratching our heads... Do you see the domination of Arcanists in PvP? Small scale? BGs? Cyrodil?
Or do you see a whole slew of sorcs doing so?

Lets ignore the above reality for a second. Hardened Ward is currently superior because it scales better, and lasts longer with a good strength, and heals without condition. Yet... you nerf... the worse one? On the class with less defensive options? (Bolt Escape/Streak, Critical Surge)

Very strange.

chessalavakia_ESO

Could adding an Interference debuff to Magicka Detonation make it a more viable option that would allow a bit more to larger groups?

Essentially, enemy players hit by the detonation would get a stack of Interference for every other player hit by the detonation for a period of time.

The healing and shielding that you can receive from allies would then be reduced based on the number of stacks you have.

The number of stacks that you could have applied to yourself would be capped with the size of your group you are in.

The intent is to make it so that the impact of the debuff increases the larger your group is if you hit the Detonation successfully.

madmufffin

If Ghostly Embrace is supposed to be comparable to talons, then it needs to be made so that the whole damage instance can hit one target. You're almost never going to be able to hit anything with two patches let alone all three patches. Give it a more reasonable radius that's thematically accurate and then it may actually be used. Otherwise, much like most of the sets in the game, it'll just stay in the trash can.

MashmalloMan

@ZOS_Kevin

Just chiming in again as it hasn't yet been addressed this week, hoping it is was pushed for next weeks big patch.

Please update the Sorc Signature Script to also require a permanent pet for its conditions to parallel the changes from week 1 for the Expert Summoner Passive and Beacon of Oblivion Class Set.

Thank you.

Calffrey

Adding A Taunt to Templar charge isn’t great for me stacking Magicka and using biting jabs. I can gap close now on Magicka but with change I’m forced to use a stamina based charge with the 2H. So now I have Stam sustain problem.

This means when I roll out of red I can’t heavy attack with destro staff, because now it’s a 2H.

I try to use all class abilities on my builds and a Templar with biting jabs is a complete package. But adding a taunt to my gap closer (which I need because of mobility problems) kinda ruins that.

MashmalloMan

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

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.

Patch 1: Chilled
Patch 2: Chilled + DOT
Patch 3: Chilled + DOT + corpse

Wanted to show support for this stacking idea, the current design lacks reliability. I'd take this one step further by coding it differently to behave based on number of hits rather than which patch hits, this way Chilled doesn't stack 3 times and the skill becomes easier to use and position with.

Example:

"Summon three patches of skeletal claws from the ground in front of you, each hit applying a unique effect. The first hit generates a corpse at your target, the second hit applies a Frost Damage over time effect for 5 seconds, the final hit guarantees the Chilled status effect. Each patch deals 898 Frost Damage.

This ability can only summon 1 corpse per cast."

This allows the user to be at any distance from the target to get the minimum effect, providing increasing bonuses in a predefined order reducing the reliance on RNG and hitbox size to get the most important aspect, generating a corpse. The effects have been reorganized in order of most to least important, a level of deminishing returns, while still rewarding good positioning. Also fixes the the problem of 3x chilled by applying it only on the last hit.

Generating corpses should never be unreliable because ESO is a game about queuing your next action before you actually do it, if the next action is to consume a corpse that doesn't exist, then the combat starts to feel clunky by wasting a GCD. This was prevelant when Blastbones did not jump directly to your target, somewhat resolved now. This is a similar scenario, lets not repeat past mistakes.

MashmalloMan

A lot of Templar's don't like the added taunt to both of their gap closers, I would suggest just dedicating 1 of the morphs to have taunt while the other does not, this way Templar's have an option instead of losing the skill entirely on DD or Healer to avoid messing with their Tank.

Can we stop making skill morphs nearly identical to each other? Specifically Templar has this issue on a lot of their skills.

Sun Shield morphs both deal damage, both apply minor maim, one has slightly better damage scaling, the other has slightly better shield scaling. I had a friend link me these morphs in game while I played my Sorc and I couldn't help but laugh at how pointless the morphs looked. In all cases, neither of these morphs are great at doing any of the 3 things it attempts to do, and neither stand out as meaningful choices from the other. What is the purpose of these morph choices?

Could apply the same logic for Puncturing Strikes, Radial Sweep, Focused Charge, Spear Shards, Backlash, Radiant Destruction, Sun Fire, Rushed Ceremony, Healing Ritual, and Rune Focus.

In my opinion, Templar has some of the worst class design in the game because the morph choices feel so 1 dimensional. Morphs are way too similar, as a result, 1 of them usually objectively stands out as the better option. Nothing you pick, even if it's the worse option, makes a substantial difference to HOW you play Templar.

IncultaWolf

MashmalloMan wrote: »

A lot of Templar's don't like the added taunt to both of their gap closers, I would suggest just dedicating 1 of the morphs to have taunt while the other does not, this way Templar's have an option instead of losing the skill entirely on DD or Healer to avoid messing with their Tank.

Can we stop making skill morphs nearly identical to each other? Specifically Templar has this issue on a lot of their skills.

Sun Shield morphs both deal damage, both apply minor maim, one has slightly better damage scaling, the other has slightly better shield scaling. I had a friend link me these morphs in game while I played my Sorc and I couldn't help but laugh at how pointless the morphs looked. In all cases, neither of these morphs are great at doing any of the 3 things it attempts to do, and neither stand out as meaningful choices from the other. What is the purpose of these morph choices?

Could apply the same logic for Puncturing Strikes, Radial Sweep, Focused Charge, Spear Shards, Backlash, Radiant Destruction, Sun Fire, Rushed Ceremony, Healing Ritual, and Rune Focus.

In my opinion, Templar has some of the worst class design in the game because the morph choices feel so 1 dimensional. Morphs are way too similar, as a result, 1 of them usually objectively stands out as the better option. Nothing you pick, even if it's the worse option, makes a substantial difference to HOW you play Templar.

I'd love to see dark flare reworked into a proper range spammable. Why does it have empower attached it it? Nobody using a heavy attack build is slotting dark flare.

Theist_VII

MashmalloMan wrote: »

A lot of Templar's don't like the added taunt to both of their gap closers, I would suggest just dedicating 1 of the morphs to have taunt while the other does not, this way Templar's have an option instead of losing the skill entirely on DD or Healer to avoid messing with their Tank.

Can we stop making skill morphs nearly identical to each other? Specifically Templar has this issue on a lot of their skills.

Sun Shield morphs both deal damage, both apply minor maim, one has slightly better damage scaling, the other has slightly better shield scaling. I had a friend link me these morphs in game while I played my Sorc and I couldn't help but laugh at how pointless the morphs looked. In all cases, neither of these morphs are great at doing any of the 3 things it attempts to do, and neither stand out as meaningful choices from the other. What is the purpose of these morph choices?

Could apply the same logic for Puncturing Strikes, Radial Sweep, Focused Charge, Spear Shards, Backlash, Radiant Destruction, Sun Fire, Rushed Ceremony, Healing Ritual, and Rune Focus.

In my opinion, Templar has some of the worst class design in the game because the morph choices feel so 1 dimensional. Morphs are way too similar, as a result, 1 of them usually objectively stands out as the better option. Nothing you pick, even if it's the worse option, makes a substantial difference to HOW you play Templar.

You can compare their new approach to morph choices compared to the vanilla developers just by looking at the morphs you mentioned and then taking a glimpse at Unstable Core (one of my favorite skills) and the morph we HAVE to take because of our horrible cast time spammables, Living Dark.

People are so riled up about Templar because it’s the last base game class to be brought up to the new standards, I mean look at it.

Templar doesn’t even have a class mechanic…

Dragonknight has seething fury stacks and stone fist would be great if it did damage.
Sorcerer has gamble machine frag with bound armament stacking.
Nightblade has spec bow, shade, and phantasmal escape with its roll dodge stack build-up.

Tcholl

DK mechs are good for nothing, since the class has no burst to finish any decent/build player. Not even using ultimate. You build stacks for the damage only and loses a lot of bar space since you must slot whip. Also, has to keep losing gcd without any burst damage on point and on demand. The combo with fireballs, leap and whip are hitting like a noodle even with an offensive build and balorgh. Good luck trying to kill a Sorc spamming streak and hardened ward with this combo. There is still the mech acuity build, where you sit duck with no mobility for ages trying to build ultimate.

To say DKs have the tools to be in the heat of the battle right now is an actual joke. The only thing the class still has that helps to survive is coag. DKs only real use in PvP now is for group support. You will be better with another class in almost any solo situation. Not even the bomber brawler build works anymore and all the good bombers are runnning NBs or Necros.

If you have a different opionion, please share the build. I have tried many and many options and they all seems very lackluster.

warm_blanket

The cloak changes seemed fine at first, but there's an annoying problem with disabling mag regen.

If a player happens to toggle cloak during a mag return tick they get no resources back, even if they cancel cloak immediately after. Trying to keep track of your return ticks and avoiding cloaking during them is finicky at best, in practice players will just have to deal with random ghosting of their mag ticks during fights with the current design. That's just annoying.

A better way of handling this is to remove the zero mag regen and keep the base cost of cloak the same as live. Since the new cloak ticks every 2s instead of 3s it is effectively 33% more expensive to use compared to live even with the same base cost.

Keeping the base cost the same also closes the loophole where toggling and immediately cancelling cloak to keep cloak buffs up is actually cheaper to do under the new cloak ruleset.

Another possible suggestion on top of this is to make the initial toggle into cloak cost extra, say 6k mag instead of the base 4.5k. This would make it more expensive to repeatedly cancel cloak purely to refresh the buffs it gives. It would also reward players who are using an active cloak counter by forcing their cloaking opponent to re-toggle cloak at the higher 6k cost if they want to escape.

MashmalloMan

warm_blanket wrote: »

The cloak changes seemed fine at first, but there's an annoying problem with disabling mag regen.

If a player happens to toggle cloak during a mag return tick they get no resources back, even if they cancel cloak immediately after. Trying to keep track of your return ticks and avoiding cloaking during them is finicky at best, in practice players will just have to deal with random ghosting of their mag ticks during fights with the current design. That's just annoying.

A better way of handling this is to remove the zero mag regen and keep the base cost of cloak the same as live. Since the new cloak ticks every 2s instead of 3s it is effectively 33% more expensive to use compared to live even with the same base cost.

Keeping the base cost the same also closes the loophole where toggling and immediately cancelling cloak to keep cloak buffs up is actually cheaper to do under the new cloak ruleset.

Another possible suggestion on top of this is to make the initial toggle into cloak cost extra, say 6k mag instead of the base 4.5k. This would make it more expensive to repeatedly cancel cloak purely to refresh the buffs it gives. It would also reward players who are using an active cloak counter by forcing their cloaking opponent to re-toggle cloak at the higher 6k cost if they want to escape.

Yeah something needs to be done about the preventing magicka recovery. It doesn't feel good.

I think the most simple solution is to imitate Vampire's Blood Frenzy dynamic where the cost stacks up over time, while having an initial higher cost to activate.

• Live: 3780 magicka for 3s
• PTS: 3240 magicka every 2s starting from 0 with no magicka recovery
• General idea: 3240 magicka to activate, while the toggle is active increase the cost to maintain it every 2s by +400 magicka up to +2000.

The basic premise is if you use the ability in a 3s window like you did before it will cost a little bit more than their PTS idea, but you now have magicka recovery to help mitigate that. It should be more expensive than live, but not more expensive than PTS.

On the other hand, it costs signifigantly more to keep active longer than 3 seconds. At 10s, the only way to mitigate the 5240/2s would be to spam Siphoning Attacks or use a dedicated sustain set.

Maybe even lower the initial cost, but increase the stacking, this way Stamina Nightblades can use it for burst, mostly relying on crouch for stealth, vs Magicka Nightblade that can keep it up longer.

Could take this 1 step further for the PVE side by using stacks that increase damage dealt to monsters by 1% per stack up to 5 (10s). So 10% on cast, up to 15%. Just adds a bit of a reward for those types of players that may utilize it in pve.

MashmalloMan

This highlighted part is very interesting, toggle and cost debate aside. I like that you guys are considering ways for classes to get PVE DPS that does not affect PVP. I'm aware you don't expect nightblades to juggle Shadowy Disguise, but it's great nonetheless to reward players that do use it in pve.

In my case, Nightblades are my alts, I just use them for occasional dungeons, overland, just to do something different, nothing competitive. I like to slot Siphoning Attacks and Shadowy Disguise on back bar for free healing, sustain, and crit chance via Major Savagery/Prophecy so I don't need Camo Hunter or expensive potions. I'm just thinking about how there is tons of situations where you're maybe transitioning between locations or waiting for a boss to change phases, in which I may actually cast Shadowy Disguise to get some improved damage before the fight begins where as previously I never touched the ability. It's a cool interaction, I really like this idea. I'm sure there is people that actually use it all the time in PVE which are going to love it.

In the past, there has been discourse about Nightblades PVE DPS balance being lackluster while their PVP performance has been high. Sorc is in a similar boat where their PVP balance is great, but their NO pet Sorc DPS is lacking. The question was always, how do you improve PVE DPS for these 2 classes without effecting their already great performance in PVP? Many suggestions have been given over the years, but based on this change I just wanted to reiterate one of my favourite ideas.

• Add x% damage done to monsters on Haunting Curse.
• Add x% damage done to monsters on Mark Target.

This would address the issues I raised, doesn't effect PVP, while also making these abilities worth their slots in PVE where right now they feel very bad to use. Both of these classes have identity and history in high single target, low aoe dps, so why not lean into that? Haunting Curse is the defacto No Pet Sorc skill since Pet Sorc is required to use Daedric Prey, they wouldn't drop 45% pet damage just for something like 10% monster damage dealt, although, I guess they could if they want, the point is it wouldn't improve their already high DPS.

Mayrael

KenaPKK wrote: »

Shadowy Disguise feels completely different to use and is significantly nerfed.

I understand wanting to make cloak more accessible/understandable to new players, but this change is confusing and enraging experienced nightblades. I haven't found one yet who enjoys or is indifferent to this change.

Instead of dumbing down the ability and nerfing NB sustain, how about teach newer players how to use the existing mechanics?

Learning and mastering mechanics = fun.

For me this change = break from ESO. This change only promotes permacloakers, because for me cloak was just a tool used once every 15-20s to break someone's combo/momentum, but now it is not intuitive to on/off it and it's 2x more expensive due to recovery halt.

I thought that this game is in a spot where slight balance changes can happen but not complete changes of how certain class is played, but here we are. AFTER 10 YEARS ZOS have figured it out that NB was not what it should be...

For me that's big no. I'm sick and tired of class skills rollercoaster.

Ezhh

Taunt on charge is leaving me unsure if I continue with my plar for some groups, since I often use it on DD. While it's not meta or great damage, it was a nice mobility skill. The changes mean I'd now be taking taunt if I run it, which would both make my and the tank's life a lot less fun. Adding CC to shards a while back was already frustrating enough. These are skills used by DDs. I'm happy for tanks to have their tools, but not at the price of existing playstyles.