Thank you ZOS! You killed my DPS Stamina DK

Dragonnord · May 2017

I was having a lot of fun playing this game, and let me explain...

I completed almost all PvE content (I'm not much of a PvP fan) and, even when I had almost nothing new to do, I was still having fun soloing dungeons, world bosses, helping people get their achievements, helping people leveling up their characters in Skyreach, etc., and so remained strongly attached to TESO because, again, I was really having fun with my Stamina DK.

Using Vicious Ophidian + Spriggan + Velidreth, 20k health, 36k stamina and 11k magicka, I could engage (solo) a boss with a lot of adds, while having great survivability and great damage. I love fast combat, so I chose dual weild build and took my time to learn to survive (vMSA was great for this).

And there I was, entering a combat with a main boss and adds against me, starting with Caltrops and Volley + heavy attack/Poison Injection on boss, then Vigor (HoT) and Dragon Fire Scale (wings) to return ranged damage, then running directly to the boss/adds with Rearming, Noxious Breath to lower resistance, Venomous Claw (all this mixing light attacks), heavy attack to regain some stamina and then mixing Rapid Strikes on boss with Steel Tornado to help Caltrops and Volley AoE damage, drop ultimate, keep attacking (no more heavy attacks needed), Wings and Vigor again or X/Health/Stam potion if I needed health/stamina back fast, keep attacking, then roll dodge to avoid hits and enemy red AoE, wings again to return ranged damage, Vigor again, roll dodge again, wings again if needed and then back to attack, repeating process paying a lot of attention to enemy direct damage, DoTs on me and red AoE.

All of this was so fast, so fun, so the style I like to play... until Morrowind.

I tried my first solo content on Morrowind and my stamina run out in the middle of the steps I mentioned above. OK. No problem. I added The Serpent (stamina recovery) mundus stone (in exchange for damage) and still, my stamina run out easy. No problem, I added some recovery glyphs instead of weapon damage enchantments (so lost even more damage), and what happened was that, even when I had more stamina recovery, my damage was a lot lower and so mobs where not dyin. Trying to survive more, my stamina run out again.

Then I tried Skyreach. It was worse. Before Morrowind, I was doing the 3-steps run [starting to the right, grabbing all mobs untill the stairs when ghosts bosses are, then all mobs until chest (opening chest first then taunting all mobs in room) and finally all rest of mobs until the end. Again, I had great survivability, damage and resource management, but this time there was no way to avoid 20/25 mobs at the same time while flapping wings, roll dodging, roll dodging again, roll dodging again, Caltrops, Volley, Steel Tornado, etc. No way to spend 2/3 second charging a heavy attack in this type of situations when you have red all over the ground and 20/25 mobs on you. NO WAY! And so stamina run out, and so I died. Every single time I tried.

So, my fun is gone. I love PvE so I'm playing Morrowind until I get all its achievements. But then, when I finish Morrowind, I will be back to have almost all content complete again, only that this time, I won't be able to have fun as I had before Morrowind because you ZOS, have killed the fun in my Stamina DK...

PS: When I asked the boss and the mobs if they could wait a couple of seconds so I could use some heavy attacks to regain resources they just laughed.

Rainwhisper · May 2017

CarbonX wrote: »

...starting to the right, grabbing all mobs untill the stairs when ghosts bosses are, then all mobs until chest (opening chest first then taunting all mobs in room) and finally all rest of mobs until the end...

I know it's no fun when an MMO takes away the ability to do overpowered things like massive mob pulls and soloing of group content, but it always happens eventually.

raisedbydevil · May 2017

Question: Why are you still playing this game? It's owned by ZENIMAX. As themselves even said, "You dont have to be here". Leave the addiction mate.

Dragonnord · May 2017

raisedbydevil wrote: »

Question: Why are you still playing this game? It's owned by ZENIMAX. As themselves even said, "You dont have to be here". Leave the addiction mate.

After my explanation, that's what you could say? It's clear you don't understand nor feel what I feel after two years loving this game.

Rev Rielle · May 2017

Well take your time and enjoy Morrowind as much as you can.

Being able to roll through group content with ease is one reason that the changes were put in place. I know your don't mean it that way, but your post actually throws support and gives evidence to just why the changes we have were implemented in the first place.

The game is in a better place now. It was simply horridly unbalanced before.

ccfeeling · May 2017

Roll a new sorc , u will love it , zos son

Oakmontowls_ESO · May 2017

@CarbonX Your build seems to be one of the infinite sustain and high damage builds that ZoS targeted with this patch. They seem to want group content to require a group to complete and not just be facerolled solo. Unfortunately this leads to the game being less fun for some people you being one of them. Because of this you have three options. 1 is adapt and overcome the changes and find a new way of having fun in this game. 2 is whine on the forum about how the game has been destroyed. And finally 3 is to leave and find a new game to play. I for one don't like these changes anymore than the next guy but I am going to have to adapt if I want to continue having fun in this game I suggest you do the same.

Sigtric · May 2017

If you don't see the issue with power creep allowing you to solo group content, and can't get along with them trying to fix it...

--- I'll open the door for you on your way out.

Fingolfinn01 · May 2017

You need a dab of sauce, sauce is getting more buffs, Stamina DK will most likely end up like mustard that's gone off. And nobody wants stale mustard.

So go sauce and enjoy ruling Nirn

Mathius_Mordred · May 2017

Facerolling group content solo is exactly why you've been nerfed, your post supports the very reason why. I play a similar DW build to you and yeah, now it's much more difficult, but you know what, it should be, adapt or leave I guess is what they are telling us and I for one love a challenge.

SRTtoZ · May 2017

Honestly this is one of the reasons why sustain was nerfed like it was. Don't get me wrong, I was upset too when I saw the Templar changes but I signed in yesterday to test it out and I was fine, once again everyone overreacting *cough* Deltias *cough*. Breath of Life is still amazingly great, only this time you need to be looking in the general direction of the people you are healing, still has great range and burst healing. Yea I need to weave in more heavy attacks but they sped them up which is nice and it feels good not being able to just spam OP heals over and over with no consequence. Give it time, adapt or die, and also keep in mind this is an ever evolving MMO which means they arent done making changes, maybe this was a short fix and they eventually do the right thing in fixing the CP system and reverting some of the things they have done. Its a game, enjoy it if you have fun, don't play it if you don't.

GriMTriAd · May 2017

Rainwhisper wrote: »

CarbonX wrote: »

...starting to the right, grabbing all mobs untill the stairs when ghosts bosses are, then all mobs until chest (opening chest first then taunting all mobs in room) and finally all rest of mobs until the end...

I know it's no fun when an MMO takes away the ability to do overpowered things like massive mob pulls and soloing of group content, but it always happens eventually.

Which is then consistently followed by a mass exodus of players. Feel free to do the research on that, it's pretty easy to find the subscription number for WoW before and after Cataclysm where they decided they didn't like players pulling 10+ mobs at the same time. There are more cases of this, but you only get one freebie.

_WAter_

DMuehlhausen · May 2017

CarbonX wrote: »

raisedbydevil wrote: »

Question: Why are you still playing this game? It's owned by ZENIMAX. As themselves even said, "You dont have to be here". Leave the addiction mate.

After my explanation, that's what you could say? It's clear you don't understand nor feel what I feel after two years loving this game.

Sure he does, we all do...guess what though change happens. Look at it this way...YOU NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO THOSE PULLS and SOLO VET DUNGEONS OR TRIAL BOSSES!

Not sure why that is so hard for people to understand. Now I'm glad it's not like games like EQ where you would have to rest 5 minutes after every mob when you were solo or anything. This was something else Blizzard hit near perfectly when WoW launched. From the start you could take 2 maybe 3 mobs back to back. Once you got a little higher you could take 5-6 and maybe pull 3-4 at one time and live. You had to give it 20 seconds then be back at full life/mana (which was normally the run to the next pack) so you never really felt like you were slowing down.

However no other MMO have you been able to go in and solo entire Vet level dungeons, at least not until your character is 4-5 tiers above the content. This was a good change they made. Suck it up, deal with the changes or like others have said leave.

Vaoh · May 2017

Adjust your build. It is not the end of the world -_-

Just gonna put it out there that 99% of the content that was soloable before Morrowind is still soloable. There is only one fight I can think of that is no longer soloable in Morrowind, and it is not because of sustain changes.

Yes, it will naturally be tougher to solo stuff. Mainly, you'll have to time roll dodges better and not facetank everything coming your way as a full-specced DPS because there are times when you will want to Heavy Attack 1-2 times for resources.

MattT1988 · May 2017

Well you could do the group content with......you know...... a group. I reckon that might make things a bit easier for you.

Tannus15 · May 2017

Yep, ZoS has aimed these nerfs at exactly your play style and it's going to take some adjusting.

You're running 3 damage sets with everything pretty heavily built only for damage yet you're able to just take the hits and keep on coming.

The nerfs were designed to force you to choose between max damage and resource management. It's going to hurt a lot of us as we adjust to the fact that we aren't playing in god mode anymore (I solo vet dungeons for funsies too mate, I'm right there with you)

Either rebuild for solo from the ground up or, and I know this one is a shocking idea, form a group for group content.

Personally I'm swapping out of all DPS into heavy armour builds (knight errant, seventh legion brute) and they can bring all the damage they want. Because grouping? Really? Who wants to play with other people???? :P

DocFrost72 · May 2017

Genuine assistance here, to help if I can.

Don't use recovery stone or recovery glyphs. Stay with the thief (or whatever you had before) and run 3 stamina cost reduction glyphs.

Simply put, regen glyphs will increase your resources naturally returned every two seconds provided you do not block. That halves the value of resource return from them in essence. In PvE where you are casting an ability on cooldown, reduce cost is much more effective (and tbh, they're already more effective as they reduce cost by 200+ to regen's 170-something).

Put 50 points into tenacity, and use blade cloak. Blade cloak now helps stam toons with survivability big time. Imagine every red aoe suddenly being cut by 25% dmg. It's really effective, and even does damage!

Stam DKs are going to rely more on heavy attacks, but that doesn't mean you'll need to spam them. Even so, if the above isn't enough, replace your stam food with triple trifle pockets (health and stamina regen).

Try these changes before you think it's over, I promise you'll be impressed

kargen27 · May 2017

CarbonX wrote: »

I was having a lot of fun playing this game, and let me explain...

I completed almost all PvE content (I'm not much of a PvP fan) and, even when I had almost nothing new to do, I was still having fun soloing dungeons, world bosses, helping people get their achievements, helping people leveling up their characters in Skyreach, etc., and so remained strongly attached to TESO because, again, I was really having fun with my Stamina DK.

Using Vicious Ophidian + Spriggan + Velidreth, 20k health, 36k stamina and 11k magicka, I could engage (solo) a boss with a lot of adds, while having great survivability and great damage. I love fast combat, so I chose dual weild build and took my time to learn to survive (vMSA was great for this).

And there I was, entering a combat with a main boss and adds against me, starting with Caltrops and Volley + heavy attack/Poison Injection on boss, then Vigor (HoT) and Dragon Fire Scale (wings) to return ranged damage, then running directly to the boss/adds with Rearming, Noxious Breath to lower resistance, Venomous Claw (all this mixing light attacks), heavy attack to regain some stamina and then mixing Rapid Strikes on boss with Steel Tornado to help Caltrops and Volley AoE damage, drop ultimate, keep attacking (no more heavy attacks needed), Wings and Vigor again or X/Health/Stam potion if I needed health/stamina back fast, keep attacking, then roll dodge to avoid hits and enemy red AoE, wings again to return ranged damage, Vigor again, roll dodge again, wings again if needed and then back to attack, repeating process paying a lot of attention to enemy direct damage, DoTs on me and red AoE.

All of this was so fast, so fun, so the style I like to play... until Morrowind.

I tried my first solo content on Morrowind and my stamina run out in the middle of the steps I mentioned above. OK. No problem. I added The Serpent (stamina recovery) mundus stone (in exchange for damage) and still, my stamina run out easy. No problem, I added some recovery glyphs instead of weapon damage enchantments (so lost even more damage), and what happened was that, even when I had more stamina recovery, my damage was a lot lower and so mobs where not dyin. Trying to survive more, my stamina run out again.

Then I tried Skyreach. It was worse. Before Morrowind, I was doing the 3-steps run [starting to the right, grabbing all mobs untill the stairs when ghosts bosses are, then all mobs until chest (opening chest first then taunting all mobs in room) and finally all rest of mobs until the end. Again, I had great survivability, damage and resource management, but this time there was no way to avoid 20/25 mobs at the same time while flapping wings, roll dodging, roll dodging again, roll dodging again, Caltrops, Volley, Steel Tornado, etc. No way to spend 2/3 second charging a heavy attack in this type of situations when you have red all over the ground and 20/25 mobs on you. NO WAY! And so stamina run out, and so I died. Every single time I tried.

So, my fun is gone. I love PvE so I'm playing Morrowind until I get all its achievements. But then, when I finish Morrowind, I will be back to have almost all content complete again, only that this time, I won't be able to have fun as I had before Morrowind because you ZOS, have killed the fun in my Stamina DK...

PS: When I asked the boss and the mobs if they could wait a couple of seconds so I could use some heavy attacks to regain resources they just laughed.

This was the problem (as they saw it) and they fixed it. They meant those battles to be group battles. This being an MMO they want a game where players interact with other players. Being able to solo everything takes away from that.

HatchetHaro · May 2017

As a Stam DK main, I completely agree. My damage has been pretty much nerfed by 20% and it is a pain to do content now. The sustain issues are abysmal, and heavy attacks which everybody is now forced to use are clunky, annoying, and overall just not fun anymore. It's either heavy attacks and suffer a dps loss, or build for sustain and still suffer a dps loss.

In Homestead, as an Argonian stam DK, I've managed to breach 40k dps solo on a target skeleton. That's actually a really impressive feat, if I do say so myself; it translates to about 44k if I was a Redguard.
Now I can barely reach 33k.

Adapting and adjusting to the changes is easy. Liking it and having fun? Now that's a completely different question altogether.

I think I have completely lost my appetite for the game.

MartinDeShade · May 2017

To the people complaining about being able to go through group content solo. The problem with solo content before and still is that is annoying Easy. To give yourself a bit of a challenge you want to move up to harder content, but you can't with One Tamriel hit higher level content. So you start off with public dungeons, then you move up to Craglorn group delves, then World Bosses, then easy Group Dungeons. With these changes some class/builds will struggle just to do group delves, but don't even need to pay attention in a public dungeon.

Galwylin · May 2017

Obviously, you weren't one of the people complaining about being able to solo group content. They won. In the game where you can play any way you want, you're gonna play the way they want for the next little bit. Thankfully everything's harder except leaving. From what I've been hearing, that seems to have gotten a buff.

starkerealm · May 2017

So... uh... my high damage DK build actually got more vicious and melty with the patch...

Nemesis7884 · May 2017

Rainwhisper wrote: »

CarbonX wrote: »

...starting to the right, grabbing all mobs untill the stairs when ghosts bosses are, then all mobs until chest (opening chest first then taunting all mobs in room) and finally all rest of mobs until the end...

I know it's no fun when an MMO takes away the ability to do overpowered things like massive mob pulls and soloing of group content, but it always happens eventually.

Look the simple truth is that regardless of all the balancing and concept and bs that wrobel blurs out - in the end, the game needs to be FUUUNNNNNNN - if people have less and less fun, watch how fast this game is going to die

Fun needs to be the top priority - not idealism or concept or balancing FUN since that is what you are paying for - no fun - no players - no money

Mojmir · May 2017

raisedbydevil wrote: »

Question: Why are you still playing this game? It's owned by ZENIMAX. As themselves even said, "You dont have to be here". Leave the addiction mate.

You'd make a great developer,is that you rich lambert?

Nemesis7884 · May 2017

honestly i think the main issue is the games main tag line "play as you want" - the problem is that in reality, devs try to force you to play exactly the way they intend to and if you don't you get punished...

Despite · May 2017

So basically things are different and people are unwilling to adapt. Mmmk.

MrBeatDown_ · May 2017

Don't be that guy with the Imperial DK. You got the worst class race combo in the game right now

MaxwellC · May 2017

Lol people trying to say "you being able to solo is exactly why this game needed nerfs" umm mate listen to yourself again but slowly.. Why should content that you adapted to, with time and effort finally becomes easy, results in a nerf? If that's the argument then we might as well make every mob pull in the game difficult to do.

Pulling mobs in a dungeon and soloing dungeon that have been out from the start is fine. That content is old and new skills, armor sets, CP, etc influence how fast you move through it NOT THE CLASS. Unfortunately balance will remain based off of armor and CP rather than the class as a whole.

The idea that you utilize certain armor and CP results in a class nerf is stupid when the problem is easily identified.

Most people who are continuing to white knight at the do no evil see no evil ZOS will soon be crying come I think what June 6th. Till then Gg, Imma grab popcorn and laugh (if I'm not at work or school).

Sigtric · May 2017

starkerealm wrote: »

So... uh... my high damage DK build actually got more vicious and melty with the patch...

Mine felt really good before and is even better now, also

Qbiken · May 2017

Rev Rielle wrote: »

Well take your time and enjoy Morrowind as much as you can.

Being able to roll through group content with ease is one reason that the changes were put in place. I know your don't mean it that way, but your post actually throws support and gives evidence to just why the changes we have were implemented in the first place.

The game is in a better place now. It was simply horridly unbalanced before.

It´s not in a better place. Like OP here, myself also like to "faceroll" some content in PvE since that´s what I found fun about this game. I´m not playing this game to show of how much "skills" I have regarding resourcemanagement. Some people seems to think the game is about showing of your "skills".......when it is about having fun. The only time "skills" matters is when you go for leaderboard scores (PvP leaderboards included).If someone would say that the game is more fun now than due to the changes, that would be a more legit argument comparing to talks about: "Now you need to actually think and not brainlessly spam buttons" ....blablalba #skills. Everyone knows ZOS went overkill with the sustain-nerfs (some just have to much pride to admitt it though), some CP-changes would´ve been enough IMO, the rest of the game was in a good place.

Sheey · May 2017

Its funny how some players dont get that they can't run 3x damage on their juwelry anymore. Everyone needs to adjust to the patch and everyone does less damage in this patch and thats great. Built your build again and see what you can do better.