Calling all PvP Magicka DKs - Document to the DEVs

Joy_Division · June 2016

Ishammael wrote: »

Lord_Hev wrote: »

Wrobel wants DKs to be unique in not having an execute and relying on DOTs. Alright, that's totally acceptable. But something needs to be improved upon with DOTs to make it viable in PvP. I think one of the ardent flame passives should allow -any- Dragonknight class skill that apply a fire DOT... to have it's damage per tick increase proportionally to the duration it lasts + amplified when a target stays within execute range.(kind of like what unstable flame stam morph does) This should be a class mechanic for DK. It should not be exclusive to a stamina morph for only 1 skill. By doing this, you allow DKs to fight a war of attrition in a meta that is all about burst. Now DKs have a niche. This would not affect PvE either.... since bosses are going to melt to radiant destruction, and every other execute that other classes can just spam.

What if you made the DK fire DoTs unpurgeable for 5s or so?

Don't think that is a good idea. I'd rather DK DoTs become more dangerous if not purged.

I know the perception is that all DoTs are purged in Cyrodiil are insta-cleansed, but that's not true.

Belicourt · June 2016

Thought id add this...
My suggestion is simple and I will outline why it is a good and necessary idea for the devs as I saw you asked that part to be included.

The idea is simple and it is not the only thing to come to fix mag dks but I feel strongly that it is the best and most sensible. The idea is that you completely rework one of the dk passives in which, while wearing heavy armor, the mad dk increases it’s damage mitigation based on max magcika.

1. This is good because pre- 1.5-1.6? the mag dk sustained merely on ult. Gen., if im not mistaken. The main reason it is good is because: you being one of the top tier dks could not completely own with this, but would be up there with the top tier night blades that are in easy mode for most of what passes for pvp in this game.

2. And this is really the more important part. This will fix the balance/sustain disparity that you have between the mag dk and the “others”. The disparity is that with a templar you can heal through your damage, nightblade has unmatched “avoidance”, and sorcs have their op shields, still. I don’t really think the argument that shields duration has decreased is a good one because, if you are a good sorc you should reapply them soon anyway…

Thus, it stands to reason the dk should be able to take the damage, outright.

Armitas · June 2016

Caution, the following may make you want to puke. Note: there is nothing OP about the NB passives or skills, the point is to show how far behind mDK is to another class.

Elder Dragon - Increase health recover by 5% for each draconic ability slotted.
vs
Refreshing shadows - increase stamina, health and magicka recovery by 15%

Hardened Armor Skill - requires a slot - - gives major resolve and ward.
vs
Shadow Barrier - Night Blade passive - Does not require a skill slot - Gives major resolve and ward for 4 seconds - refreshed on any shadow ability like fear, or concealed weapon or surprise strike so it can be almost always up without losing a skill slot. Longer duration for any heavy pieces.

Mountains Blessing - activating an earthen heart ability gives 3 ultimate every 6 seconds or 22 ultimate in 45 seconds.
vs
Catalyst - 20 ultimate for consuming a potion
Transfer - activating a siphoning ability grants 2 Ultimate every 4 seconds, or 42 ultimate in 45 seconds. (however the only real scenario in which it reaches that amount is with sap essence as everything else in the line is a long dot).
+ 10 Ultimate for every kill with soul harvest.
^ compare with DK who needs ultimate for an at best 100ultimate cast plus their sole source of magicka sustain.

Flame Lash - base damage 3916 base damage, + 10% more if you slot another skill (Engulfing flames).
vs
Surprise Strike - 4225 base damage and lowers physical defense by 5280 ( or 8% mitigation) for 17seconds.
^1 skill to do all that damage, or 2 skills to do less than that amount of damage.

So lets compare the slots used in that scenario.
DK
1 hardened armor
1 flame lash
1 Engulfing flame.

NB
1 Surprise strike. Gives more damage than flame lash, also gives same mitigation as hardened armor, and lowers all physical mitigation by 8%. Crazy right? We have to carry around sooooo much to compete.

Ishammael · June 2016

This thread needs to be up top.

Bashev · June 2016

Ishammael wrote: »

This thread needs to be up top.

This thread should be bookmarked by Wrobel and he must read it every night before he goes to bed and the first thing in the morning should be to check for new responses here

But I am wondering what is more likely to happen: god speaks with me or Wrobel comments here?

Moglijuana · June 2016

Bashev wrote: »

Ishammael wrote: »

This thread needs to be up top.

This thread should be bookmarked by Wrobel and he must read it every night before he goes to bed and the first thing in the morning should be to check for new responses here
But I am wondering what is more likely to happen: god speaks with me or Wrobel comments here?

God is going to take you out to dinner and a movie before @Wrobel ever shows his face in here.

AlexHo1982 · June 2016

Please add that already applied dots should not be dodgeable: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/274776/shuffle-and-its-relation-to-dots#latest.

This and purging skills ruin any pressure DKs could theoretically build up on a target, although burst damage is more viable anyway.

Armitas · June 2016

When they ever do finally take the time to bring our class into the modern era I wonder what sort of effort will be put into. Will it be a quickie or will they put tender loving care into it?

Over the past two years I have not experienced an impression of love for each class but rather a view of them as skill recepticles that can be mixed and matched with no real life of thier own. I don't see any passion for each individual class. I could be wrong because all that they do is in secret, but I can't help but get that impression after the whole puke animation we got. Every DK on the pts knew that it should have been green fire. We didn't have to think about it because we knew what sort of class we were and what we were not.

I worry that we will get a quick fix like TG and have to wait another half year for changes. They really need two class developers to keep classes up-to-date on a steady basis. One for sorcs and nbs and one for DKs and Templars. Getting updated shouldn't be bi-yearly or even quarerly. It should occur reguarly as needed because no one wants to be stuck with a bad situation for 3-6 months.

Bashev · June 2016

Did all of you like the new changes?
/sarcasm

FloppyTouch · June 2016

Buff StamNB pls am I right?

Kilandros · June 2016

Great job, @Wrobel. Way to take these suggestions seriously.

Master_Kas · June 2016

<- Disappointed that none of the needed changes for mDK's made it into the PTS/PTS patchnotes. And I don't even main a magicka DK.

I pity you guys

DKsUnite · June 2016

Master_Kas wrote: »

<- Disappointed that none of the needed changes for mDK's made it into the PTS/PTS patchnotes. And I don't even main a magicka DK.

I pity you guys

I wasn't expecting them to do any of this yet. Hopefully I can show them the light for an incremental patch

BlackMadara · June 2016

They did no class balancing at all. If they did other classes, and not DKs, then you should be disappointed. In this case, nothing is lost.

Bashev · June 2016

BlackMadara wrote: »

They did no class balancing at all. If they did other classes, and not DKs, then you should be disappointed. In this case, nothing is lost.

You are so wrong. Another 3 months will be lost for waiting for some changes. If we were on top of the food chain then it would be fine but when you dont have a working gap closer, a self heal and any form of defence because all your attacks are mele then we can be disappointed.

Plus this DLC is small and it is perfect for balancing changes.

Panth141 · June 2016

I posted a suggestion for dragon blood a while ago - I thought I would throw it in here, just to gauge the thoughts of those who are really focused on magicka DK as a class. The values may need tweaking, but here it is:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/266955/dragon-blood-a-detailed-discussion-suggestion

Moglijuana · June 2016

Bashev wrote: »

BlackMadara wrote: »

They did no class balancing at all. If they did other classes, and not DKs, then you should be disappointed. In this case, nothing is lost.

You are so wrong. Another 3 months will be lost for waiting for some changes. If we were on top of the food chain then it would be fine but when you dont have a working gap closer, a self heal and any form of defence because all your attacks are mele then we can be disappointed.

Plus this DLC is small and it is perfect for balancing changes.

Yeaaaa, you would think with no new content besides two dungeons and some QOL changes, they could tweak some class builds to bring them up to par with the rest...but NOPEEEE BALANCEBYWROBEL is already balanced...sike!

Tryxus · June 2016

I took my Mag DK out for some true PvP yesterday (been just doing duels so far)

- Chains... well I got no words for it. There's lag involved at times where you pull someone but they don't show up in front of you right away. And it's bugged: during a battle at Ash, I was on the same lvl as 2 AD near the side entrance. Chain wasn't reacting at all when I tried to use it.
- Dragon Blood? Forget about it. Resto Staff heals, Burning Embers & Draw Essence are better. This skill needs some major reworking in order to be viable again.
- Stone Fist and morphs? Just terrible.
- Personally, I think the Draconic Power passives need a bit of updating too. Especially Scaled Armor and Elder Dragon.

Some of the main issues that have been bothering me with my first PvP impressions of my Mag DK. Prob not that useful, just wanted to let you know

Natas013 · June 2016

I've not even read the spread sheet, and I'm scared too, and I'm already thinking WOW! That's not to say some of these I don't agree with, but a lot of it seems over the top, and makes my five suggestions for sorcs seem petty (I main as sorc and tinker with magDK).

Some of my suggestions are more general than magDK specific but here they go.

Battle spirit needs a change up. Restore damage, shields, and healing to normal levels. Keep the buff to health it gives. Increase mitigation cap in to 75%. Double armors resistance. This will fix dragon blood and a number of problems created by battle spirit and the new sharpened trait.

Purging DoTs shouldn't be as op as it is. This doesn't effect other classes as much as it effects DK's though. IMO a purged DoT should deal 20% of it's remaining damage. I feel this number is fair for all parties involved and not incredibly op.

I love the mobility of my sorc, in many ways it makes up for not being tankey. When I play my magDK though, I love the in your face style, and feel magDK could stand to be a little more tankey. I'm fine with the current mobility of the class save how broken empowering chains is. EC's current effect is great, but it could use a secondary effect as does unrelenting grip. If target is missed the chain hits the ground causing flames to errupt from the ground causing half damage in a 3m radius, CCing all hit, (I hesitate to say set all effected off balance, but that seem to fit well), and pulling you to the spot chains hit. Empower is lost should this transpire as no target was directly hit.

As for how to make magDK tankier w/o buffing stamDK as well, I have two ideas, though there may be some better ones. Change helping hands to a fixed amount of stam return. I was thinking 1.5-2k would be good. That's enough to keep it where it is for stam builds and buff it for mag builds. As for the other idea, hardened armor should grant additional armor and spell resistance relative to max magicka, instead of a damage shield. The amount of increase should be minimal at 9k magicka but worthwhile at 35k magicka. I'd be ok if the additional defense didn't last the entire 20s, half that would be great and I suppose 5s would be sufficient. Adding physical resistance to scaled armor and block cost reduction to iron skin are also great ideas that others have posted, and would love to see these as well.

lucky_Sage · June 2016

I thought that they where going to have a lot of balance changes this update do to its size

DKsUnite · June 2016

I like that helping hands suggestion for a fixed value. That would really he helpful

tennant94 · July 2016

Read comment below

tennant94 · July 2016

If dragon bloods heal is to remain as it is then I think spiked armor should be merged with dragon blood:

You get the heal and also major ward, major resolve.

This will free up a place for a new skill. Either an execute or a gap closer.

I was thinking gap closer. The animation could look similar to invasion but add the reflective scales animation to the gap closer, so you flap your wings and thrust toward your enemy knocking them down(similar to invasion. Not a leap like dragon leap).

Boom, solved the hardened armor/volatile armours underwhelming side effects and buffed dragons blood and added a reliable gap closer. Also we would get the cool animations from both dragons blood and spiked armor in one skill.

This change would not effect pve, would not effect stam dks it would be a pure buff to magicka dk.

Silver_Strider · July 2016

OMG that is a long list and most of the suggests are just really, REALLY bad. I agree some of the DK skills should be changed but not all in the suggested ways.

Shifting Standard - Grant it a HoT effect. This way, it actually has a useful benefit to the group as opposed to just being a very costly mediocre Ultimate. This is one of the few suggested changes I can completely agree with.
Change Inferno/morphs - I'm not sold on the fire cloak idea. I feel if Inferno was allowed to tick more often with a chance to apply a powerful DoT/Hot (depending on morph) it would be fine, even if you'd have to lower the initial damage/heal to compensate for the DoT/HoT component added. So like a 25% chance to proc the DoT/HoT with the rate of fire going from 1 every 5secs to 1 every 2.5secs.
Hardened Armor - Grant Minor Protection, remove shield. Another decent suggestion.
Change Stonefist/morphs - Buff up the damage on Stone Giant considerably. Change Obsidian Shard to be a straight up heal instead of the average heal with low damage and a knockdown that it is.

Sharee · July 2016

Silver_Strider wrote: »

OMG that is a long list and most of the suggests are just really, REALLY bad. I agree some of the DK skills should be changed but not all in the suggested ways.

It's just a brainstorming session. Good or bad does not matter so much, we are not designing the game, just giving devs ideas, and the more, the better.

DKsUnite · July 2016

I agree alot of the suggestions are over the top but it's more about giving ideas that they can tweak and not that they should implement everything.

Draxys · July 2016

BlackMadara wrote: »

A couple of things I'd like to point out.
1. You can't exclude one skill from battle spirit. That isn't balance.
2. Infinites wings is broken. You would be a perfect counter to range. Instead it should be all projectiles in 4 seconds or 4 projectiles over 20 seconds, if anything were to change.
3. DKs don't need a buff to whip. It barely does less damage than surprise attack and concealed weapon with equal stats, doing even more with power lash and/or engulfing flames on target.

Now the things I would like to see.
1. Change db so it heal x% of max health, increasing the heal value by up to 300% with .ore health missing (similar to how healing ward's shield scales). This would keep it health scaling for tanks, and its niche as an anti execute while being decent with battle sport debuff. Adjust the base amount so it heals less than BoL at high HP and more at low for similarly built classes (can be tricky if it still scales from HP) @Armitas123 I think we discussed this before.
2. Major evasion in cinder storm.

By having a percentage based skill cut in half by battle spirit, it is unbalanced. It would be balanced again for it to be excluded. In no way does making an exception to something equal an imbalance.

pcar944 · July 2016

read some things in the doc, and holy crap I see so much of it every time I'm playing on my mDK (the only class I PVP right now on)

a lot changes in group play though, which means that mDK really is only useful if running in a group, or 1v1

lack of heal is my biggest issue

there is nothing like fighting a Templar, getting them to 5% of their health and running almost out of resources in progress, then watch them BoL to full health and now I'm a sitting duck

some classes can just slot a random heal skill on their bar because they don't even use that resource, while mDK everything is Magicka, so when you are out or really low - you are dead

forzajuve212 · July 2016

@Wrobel @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_AlanG

Please consider this. It has been too long without mag dk balance changes.

Crizar · July 2016

Hey guys, thanks for the thread. Been maining mdk since the game came out and I just wanted to add my two cents.

Wish List:

1. Class Execute. Drop the mage light re-skin and give me something that actually does SOMETHING. I will even take a dot execute like poison injection as long as it passes for an execute. Saying Dks have dots so they don't need an execute is just pretending cleansing ritual, purge and mutagen don't exist. I know I just contradicted myself but at this point any class execute will do.

2. Chains. While chains has come a long way it still bugs out way too often to be reliable. Additionally, it sometimes seems to grant cc immunity to the target which would be fine if I could proc a power lash. One more thing, major expedition for 2 secs? Slightly walking faster after I just flew across the room for 2 secs is kind of silly. Give me a stun or something or at least disorient them. ANYTHING.

3. Make Dragon Blood Great Again. I was not a big fan of battle spirit back in the day but after having tried it on for a year and a half I think it was needed. However, I see no evidence of another skill that was so badly nerfed from BS as DB. Cutting something by a percentage that is already a percentage is in effect rendering it irrelevant unless said percentage is 100%. Make it a fixed amount that increases the lower your health goes. Disabling BS for this one skill is like asking to operate under a different set of rules.

4. Pitiful Pebble Pelting. Stonefist as a tool is useful but ask any experienced mdk player and they will tell you they would rather have fossilize (root after stun is broken for double stam burn) or invigorating drain (stun+damage+small heal+ulti regen) as their primary stun. Being able to cc someone from 28 meters (32 with reach) is not doing me a lot of good when it does no damage and heals for nothing. Plus, someone please tell me minor resolve has changed the outcome of your battle. It hasn't and wont because you likely will not be using this skill. I would prefer it if it was an aoe knockback centered on caster with the old animation. It doesn't even have to heal me or give me minor resolve.

5. Cinder Storm. I agree that this skill should change to be centered on caster and grant minor/major evasion (I'm not too proud to shuffle my way to victory.) 20/30% total dodge chance would be huge for mdks and help make us the juggernauts we were meant to be. Reduce the cost and give it a 6 second duration so we can time it with Mountain's Blessing and I would be more than happy to slot this skill. Reduced duration would also counter the "over-powered dk" arguments from the other class enthusiasts.

6. Elder Dragon. This passive MUST change. It is utilized by very few builds mainly directed at tanking. Add magicka and stam recovery to the perk and scale it down a bit if you like and Elder Dragon will be relevant.

7. Molten Whip. This is my last point so bear with me. This skill is patently utterly useless. There is no build - to my knowledge - that bases their entire strategy on this morph. For one, the yummy heal and extra damage Flame Lash delivers outshines 70+ spell damage any day of the year. IF that spell damage were multiplied by the number of class skills slotted on your bar in a way similar to what exists for other classes then I could see people using it as the increased spell damage would improve healing and damage from other sources. Otherwise, this morph is useless and a waste of space unless of course you were to make it stam then I would drop my complaints.

These are meant to be suggestions and I in no way mean to disagree with the points others have made. I think what the dk has now is better than before Thieves Guild but we still have some useless skills/passives that hurt us in a few ways. I like a lot of the points being raised by everyone and it helps me feel better that I'm not alone in my frustrations. DK and especially Magicka DK is the hardest class to play. Having to give up damage in order to survive provides a unique experience and I'm not necessarily asking to be easy-mode flavor of the month but I am asking for the tools I'm given to actually be useful. Thanks and cya in game!