PTS Update 20 - Feedback Thread for Dragonknights

Pr0Skygon · September 2018

Incoming shameless plugs

These surveys I'm conducting is to help everyone clearly view how the community is reacting to the new changes.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/436019/magicka-dragonknights-are-you-satisfied-with-the-new-changes-come-with-update-20#latest
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/436018/stamina-dragonknights-are-you-satisfied-with-the-new-changes-come-with-update-20#latest

Vaelen · September 2018

I don't see the reasoning behind the nerf to power lash cost, the stun removal, and the 3 range decrease, seems alittle much considering it's not that powerful a skill compared to several other things going on in PvP. Also mDKs lose 3% crit chance from spell precision getting nerfed too, can't get access to minor prophecy to offset the loss. Eruption buff seems situational since its not that effective vs mobile bosses in Trials and Dungeons, and in PvP it's easily avoided. Only good thing I can look forward to for mDKs is Light Armor passives now reduce sprint and snares, which needs more testing. Seems more nerfs than buffs for mDKs this patch.

Enslaved · September 2018

Changes are far from spectacular. On the other hand, these are some kind of a movement in right direction. We still have several dead and dated passives and also some kind of spammable for sDK would be a nice addition.

Carbonised · September 2018

The range of melee skills thing is just plain weird. Do you know how to harmonize skill length? Give them the same one! Like 8m for everything or whatever. You simply nerfed the range of one melee skill, then slapped a slight m increase on Elder Dragon and called it a day. Sloppy, and the job isn't even done. DKs still have different length to melee skills.

Just sod that change to Elder Dragon and give all DK melee skills the same range. You can rightly just remove the World in Ruins passive and give it a flat % increase to flame/poison damage instead, just like Wardens get a flat % increase to frost damage and sorcs get one for lightning and physical. Since you seem so hell bent on harmonizing whip procs to frag procs, why don't you go ahead and harmonize DK passives to sorc passives too.

Literally the only good thing in this patch is the much needed buff to Eruption, everything else is half nerfs, half buffs, and just changing around numbers that don't mean a thing in the end.

Engulfing and Embers are still all but impossible to land on any pvp'er who dances around you with expedition and swift jewels. You made jabs easier to land, why couldn't you have made Engulfing easier to land too? By the time you use it whether in pvp or pve, odds are the target has omved out of the cone area long time ago.

Wollust · September 2018

Moglijuana wrote: »

I'm honestly confused on where you guys come up with the decisions to continually destroy dks lol. Like seriously, who does your combat testing? A potato?

My guess is that someone very very high up got completely destroyed by pre 1.6 soft cap DKs and is still extremely salty about it.

Xvorg · September 2018

Kanar wrote: »

Does the World in Ruin stamina cost reduction apply to only class poison skills, or all skills? (Like bow lethal arrow and poison injection). Note wording is vague about that.

It applies to everything, BUT, the only decent poison abilities in this game, outside DK are the 3 in the bow line. Trapping webs is utter crap.

So, the DragonKNIGHT now carries a bow...

Xvorg · September 2018

JamesDX wrote: »

Why can't they just keep the range 8m on whip instead of nerfing it? Really really stupid change, I like the embers range buff, but reducing whip?? Slot force pulse everybody...

Got a dmg nerf too

Xvorg · September 2018

I said it previously and I'll say it again: GET RID OF POISON ON DKS!!!!

DKs were fine with flame based stamina skills. Even now, with MoA cp star it could be an option.

Poison is just like the weak brother of flame. It brings nothing to the table NOTHING. Not even increased dmg. Disease, shock, frost at least have a chance of getting a cool status that helps. DKs already have extra dmg on burning, so what's the *** point on giving poison dmg to DKs? Just because Dragons are snakes and snakes are venomous? WTF?

I don't want to enter into the discussion about the changes on mDK (because they are bad), but the changes to melee sDK are not going in the right direction. What's the point on reducing the cost of poison skills? Do sDKs now have to use a bow to do dmg? DragonKNIGHT... KNIGHT, KNIGHT!!!!

Why not just reducing the cost on all melee abilities instead? That would have synergyzed quite well with the range increase on all instant cast skills (sorry dizzy, you're not welcome here)... but instead we have the poison crap.

So, please, get rid of poison... poison is crap even for a class artificially build around that concept.

Now, if you want to make us a favor, increases our stam and magicka pool and give us the chance to be the only class that supports hybrid building... but idk why I bother giving you ideas you will never take.

Starlock · September 2018

Console user, so can't PTS, but would like to comment anyway (console lives matter!). I currently have one DK, who is a melee magicka build and queues as tank for the purposes of dungeoneering. I have never taken him into PvP and have no intention to do so in the future (not really into PvP).

While I understand the reasoning behind the Flame Lash changes, I'm not a fan. Sadistically whipping foes into submission is part of my DK vampire's thing. The range reduction also seems very weird and am also not a fan of this, because...
The changes to Elder Dragon are interesting, but it forces him to slot an ability from that tree. While he currently has that setup anyway, it doesn't seem right to reduce the range for flame lash and require players to slot an ability from an entirely different skill line to (almost) get that range back.
Nice change to Hardened Armor. The shield was far too short before to be very useful.
I love the changes to Ash Cloud, but wonder if this makes such a long lasting ability overtuned. Can't comment further without PTS access.
He doesn't use Obsidian Shield but I don't follow the reduction in damage shield strength. Was this to balance it with the new shield changes?

Galalin · September 2018

So let me get this right. Our class has gone from the mighty slayer of bowtards to the mighty bowtard slayers. Hmmmm So with reflect up does that mean we can land 6 snipes in 1 sec now vs other bowtards?

Onefrkncrzypope · September 2018

Xvorg wrote: »

I said it previously and I'll say it again: GET RID OF POISON ON DKS!!!!

DKs were fine with flame based stamina skills. Even now, with MoA cp star it could be an option.

Poison is just like the weak brother of flame. It brings nothing to the table NOTHING. Not even increased dmg. Disease, shock, frost at least have a chance of getting a cool status that helps. DKs already have extra dmg on burning, so what's the *** point on giving poison dmg to DKs? Just because Dragons are snakes and snakes are venomous? WTF?

I don't want to enter into the discussion about the changes on mDK (because they are bad), but the changes to melee sDK are not going in the right direction. What's the point on reducing the cost of poison skills? Do sDKs now have to use a bow to do dmg? DragonKNIGHT... KNIGHT, KNIGHT!!!!

Why not just reducing the cost on all melee abilities instead? That would have synergyzed quite well with the range increase on all instant cast skills (sorry dizzy, you're not welcome here)... but instead we have the poison crap.

So, please, get rid of poison... poison is crap even for a class artificially build around that concept.

Now, if you want to make us a favor, increases our stam and magicka pool and give us the chance to be the only class that supports hybrid building... but idk why I bother giving you ideas you will never take.

That would be the biggest Nerf. Poison is physical damage. How would a Stam dk even put it cp if it did all flame damage...

kojou · September 2018

Am I the only one that considers the 7m melee range change a good buff? You all do realize that this applies to *all* melee range skills? Pierce, rending slashes, reverse slice, etc. I'll trade 1 m of whip for that. I would rather have all be 8 m of course, but 7 m is actually pretty good for seeing mechanics better both as a tank and DPS.

Power lash nerf was unnecessary IMO.

I would like to see hardened armor shield buffed to 2 k.

Would like to see something added for Magicka sustain as well, but I don't think that is the direction ZoS wants to go.

zParallaxz · September 2018

The funniest thing is they make jabs easier to land no matter what direction you fave yet, I can still burning breath someone who is slightly out of my face and it won’t land.

Xvorg · September 2018

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

I said it previously and I'll say it again: GET RID OF POISON ON DKS!!!!

DKs were fine with flame based stamina skills. Even now, with MoA cp star it could be an option.

Poison is just like the weak brother of flame. It brings nothing to the table NOTHING. Not even increased dmg. Disease, shock, frost at least have a chance of getting a cool status that helps. DKs already have extra dmg on burning, so what's the *** point on giving poison dmg to DKs? Just because Dragons are snakes and snakes are venomous? WTF?

I don't want to enter into the discussion about the changes on mDK (because they are bad), but the changes to melee sDK are not going in the right direction. What's the point on reducing the cost of poison skills? Do sDKs now have to use a bow to do dmg? DragonKNIGHT... KNIGHT, KNIGHT!!!!

Why not just reducing the cost on all melee abilities instead? That would have synergyzed quite well with the range increase on all instant cast skills (sorry dizzy, you're not welcome here)... but instead we have the poison crap.

So, please, get rid of poison... poison is crap even for a class artificially build around that concept.

Now, if you want to make us a favor, increases our stam and magicka pool and give us the chance to be the only class that supports hybrid building... but idk why I bother giving you ideas you will never take.

That would be the biggest Nerf. Poison is physical damage. How would a Stam dk even put it cp if it did all flame damage...

The flame dmg you get from elemental expert is almost nothing. On a full 100 points you get just a 15% dmg increase. 43 points into that CP just give you 10% extra dmg. On a 10k skill is just 1k extra dmg.

On the other hand, the burning status outclasses poison status. Much more dmg.

StamDKs use to be the real Vampire Hunters of ESO before the poison crap came out.

Kanar · September 2018

Xvorg wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Does the World in Ruin stamina cost reduction apply to only class poison skills, or all skills? (Like bow lethal arrow and poison injection). Note wording is vague about that.

It applies to everything, BUT, the only decent poison abilities in this game, outside DK are the 3 in the bow line. Trapping webs is utter crap.

So, the DragonKNIGHT now carries a bow...

OFC I already use a bow in PvE, but I also use one in PvP. And I actually slot acid spray (aka NB buster) and occasionally snipe. 25% reduction is pretty huge.

Trapping webs does a *** ton of damage on the synergy, it's just got an idiotic "ranged only" element to it. That and the huge cost are why it's bad, but if it didn't cost much...you'd need to be in a decent group not a pug but it'd be good if someone can hit that synergy. Combined with harmony trait it would be brutal.

LiquidPony · September 2018

Is the Maelstrom DW stamDK back?

I'm excited by the possibilities.

IZZEFlameLash · September 2018

Quantum_V wrote: »

Hey all!

I'll be focused on taking a lot of feedback from this thread. Personally, I think most of the changes were in the right direction, but weren't changed fully or correctly.

As far as stamDK goes, it's good to see them starting to take small steps towards the right directions. A couple of changes to passives oriented towards stamDKs are welcome and a good indicator that ZoS is working on creating a more complete poisons synergy gameplay for stamDKs. I do feel changes were underwhelming though, few passives and the net evolution of the class isn't enough, still a decent way from giving stamDKs what they really need.

As far as mDK goes, things went both ways. Good change to burning embers range increase, nice changes regarding ash cloud for PvE DDs and healers. Removing powerlash stun is actually significant buff to mDKs, but quickly counteracted by adding a cost to the skill. MDKs are arguably the only class that runs Equilibrium for competitive sustained DPS in PvE and PvP sustain can be very tricky post battleroar nerf. I don't really understand the reasoning for this change as the only argument provided by ZoS was a sketchy magsorc comparison. Both classes behave and play very differently, using that as argumentation to implement a change like that isn't justified.

Our next meeting with ZoS is schedueled for Tuesday next week, lets do our best to test things on PTS before attacking/praising them. Please keep the feedback coming so that we can still promote more and better changes.

Thanks everyone!

Burning Embers still won't hit Swifts and so won't Flame Lash. Now worse yet, Power Lash will be just another useless skill that drains resource because it is dodgeable which means you lose your magicka anyways. If it was undodgeable and has no cooldown, this would've been acceptable. But this skill was already punished with 3 seconds of cooldown and made dodgeable. Only thing gained is that this skill won't hand out CC immunity. Now this costs magicka and to a class that need sustain help, we might as well get back to equipping 2 sustain sets. Also, with new sets, we will be constantly unable to heal for 5500 which means our expensive 'oh shiet' heal won't do anything twice. Tbh, this game is pointless if this makes it into live.

Toc de Malsvi · September 2018

@Quantum_V
World in Ruin is not working with Trapping Webs.

That said, I really am very happy with the changes to World in Ruin.

StShoot · September 2018

Vaelen wrote: »

I don't see the reasoning behind the nerf to power lash cost, the stun removal, and the 3 range decrease, seems alittle much considering it's not that powerful a skill compared to several other things going on in PvP. Also mDKs lose 3% crit chance from spell precision getting nerfed too, can't get access to minor prophecy to offset the loss. Eruption buff seems situational since its not that effective vs mobile bosses in Trials and Dungeons, and in PvP it's easily avoided. Only good thing I can look forward to for mDKs is Light Armor passives now reduce sprint and snares, which needs more testing. Seems more nerfs than buffs for mDKs this patch.

You mean like always. When was the last time dks were happy about a patch, but i cant complain atleast i dont play a sorc (zos you wrecked the sorc) but still pve will be a shithole for my magica dk with those shieldchanges. I guess its another Buff right ? So i cant loose to much magica through spamming the shield

Weps · September 2018

I'm very happy about the Ash Cloud / Eruption buff. I still wish it would provide a synergy somehow ( you know, like Conduits or Spear Shard ) or at least give Minor Evasion to the people standing in it but it's still an overall awesome change.

For the rest...meh. Usual collection of so and so things and the shortest amount of changes of any class despite having a lot of troublesome points. Some minor, some major, but still troublesome.

The change to the World in Ruin passive is so underwhelming.
Poison skills are already cheap, no need extra cost reduction.
I don't know...is that it?
I think so much more could've been done, starting from taking one second away from the Combustion passive cooldown if you really wanna help with sustain issues.

The change to the whip is ok.
I still think that instead of making this on par with the Crystal Frag, this should've remained free and the Frag should've became free. Same goes for the Spectral Bow etc etc etc.

The Elder Dragon change is also interesting but again...and then?
You talked about the balance between classes' sustain. And nothing was done to this passive.
I understand that a DK with a NB sustain is going to be stupidly strong but I think we can meet somewhere in between.

Nice change on the Hardened Armor. I still think the shield is too little but oh well.
At least is something.

The rest are fixes and bug correction.
I don't know. Interesting efforts but I feel like the DK might want some more love.

Much MORE love.

zParallaxz · September 2018

Patch after patch people keep trying on the forums. Guys I said this las patch and the patch before, what you see in this first pts in terms of dragon knight is what is going on live. No point in debating, any new changes that could happen will happen next major patch, that’s just how Zos logic works.

StamWhipCultist · September 2018

if reduced cost in poison skills is an indicator we will get stam whip, I am glad.
Also, volatile armor could deal poison or fire damage instead of magicka, it would have synergy with DK. I hope someone from zos reads this.

Screamo · September 2018

First of all i can only look at the changes from the pve side of the game:
The range nerv to whip is irrelevant because you had to stand at 5m range anyway for embers, so overhaul the hole range thing is just a straight up 2m buff.
The removal of the stun on powerlash also has no impact at all, the cost increase for powerlash also isn't that huge, because procing it was kinda unreliable anyway, it was like 1.5 powerlashes in 20s on average, which is like nothing in terms of sustain.
World in Ruin change is about 133 cost reduction per second if you use claw, breath and pi. so actually a pretty good change.
Longer hardend Armor shield i take it^^.
Cinderstorm healing increased nice for a DK healer but hey who would play dk healer anyway.
Eruption buff very good that skill was way behind most of the other class aoe dots.
Obsidian Shield nerved to 9% so thats a 27% HP igneous shield it is only used by tanks which are close to resistance cap anyway so taking in the change with shields using resis now its a huge buff. As a tank with ~40k hp we now get a 10.8k shield before the nerv it would have been 12k but then we get like 40% dmg reduction of resistances on top so its waaaaay stronger.

Conclusion for pve (my opinion): There is not a single change that is bad for stam, magDKs, TankDKs or even the occasional healer DK looking at it from a pve perspectiv. So you might think that dks need more buffs to be really competitive with other classes in pve, but don't act like we didnt get anything this patch.

In the end the only thing to say sry for my bad english^^.

Xvorg · September 2018

StamWhipCultist wrote: »

if reduced cost in poison skills is an indicator we will get stam whip, I am glad.
Also, volatile armor could deal poison or fire damage instead of magicka, it would have synergy with DK. I hope someone from zos reads this.

Please, stop with the stam whip. It could have been an option six patches ago, now it will be utter crap.

Dodgeable, without a stun, less range. Whip was never a great skill tbh, considering how slow and clunky it is. mDKs were able to use it mainly because of the heal flame lash gave you for free through power lash.

Molten whip is bad (I'm considering that's the morph that will be changed into stamina), it has always been bad (except some months after launch) and on top of that, you have to use magicka base skills to set the enemy off balance, so stamDK won't ever be able to put the enemy off balance through whip unless going S/B and using shield charge. Sure, you can try those magicka based CC like foss or talons, but it would force you to give away another magicka based utility like, mist, wings, hardened, FoO or Igneous.

If you want stamDK to be more or less relevant and with some identity in PvP, ask for something different (stone giant IS the option... a spammable that grants 100% uptime minor brutality will be quite cool). Whip would be apparently cool at the begining, but after some weeks you will realize it does less dmg than flurry, puncture or even reverse slash. If you don't believe me, just try a pelinal's build with everything into weapon dmg and magicka and slot molten whip. The numbers will be quite dissapointing

Weps · September 2018

Lol, who cares about stamwhip for PvP, it will be interesting for PvE.

Kanar · September 2018

I'd prefer they buff venomous claw instead of giving us a stam whip. Make claw do it's dot damage faster, like 5 or 6s. Then it could be used twice per rotation and be more effective in PvP. Or give it an execute component.

Weps · September 2018

Ven Claw is already the strongest DoT in the game, don't need to buff stuff that don't need buffs

Onefrkncrzypope · September 2018

Screamo wrote: »

First of all i can only look at the changes from the pve side of the game:
The range nerv to whip is irrelevant because you had to stand at 5m range anyway for embers, so overhaul the hole range thing is just a straight up 2m buff.
The removal of the stun on powerlash also has no impact at all, the cost increase for powerlash also isn't that huge, because procing it was kinda unreliable anyway, it was like 1.5 powerlashes in 20s on average, which is like nothing in terms of sustain.
World in Ruin change is about 133 cost reduction per second if you use claw, breath and pi. so actually a pretty good change.
Longer hardend Armor shield i take it^^.
Cinderstorm healing increased nice for a DK healer but hey who would play dk healer anyway.
Eruption buff very good that skill was way behind most of the other class aoe dots.
Obsidian Shield nerved to 9% so thats a 27% HP igneous shield it is only used by tanks which are close to resistance cap anyway so taking in the change with shields using resis now its a huge buff. As a tank with ~40k hp we now get a 10.8k shield before the nerv it would have been 12k but then we get like 40% dmg reduction of resistances on top so its waaaaay stronger.

Conclusion for pve (my opinion): There is not a single change that is bad for stam, magDKs, TankDKs or even the occasional healer DK looking at it from a pve perspectiv. So you might think that dks need more buffs to be really competitive with other classes in pve, but don't act like we didnt get anything this patch.

In the end the only thing to say sry for my bad english^^.

Very insightful post and agree on most things but the cost reduction on poison is much less than it sounds on paper. First of all if in a group caltrops>>>noxious breath in terms of DPS. Solo content puggy dungeons is the only place I use breath just because it's cheaper. To sustain caltrops and use a poison enchant I had to go all medium. So cost is even more irrelevant for the two skills on my bar. Pi gets it's own cost reduction as well so on live my claw costs 987 and my pi is 1726. So with new passive and ignoring diminishing returns I will save over a perfect 10 second constant uptime I would save only 67 Stam per second. That is horrid. I am tired of ZoS trying to add these weird obsfucated sustain changes to the dk, while every other class has cost reduction and recover passive(Sorc), cost reduction and active skills(Templar), recovery and active skills(wardens nightblades)

Weps · September 2018

We didn't have nothing this patch but compared to the rest of the classes it feels like the DK departement has gone on holidays and had to come up with something last minute for this patch.

I could understand if the class didn't have issues...but in the real world I'm expecting a little bit more in terms of sustain or damage.

OrphanHelgen · September 2018

I tried for a few days now on pts different builds (pve rotations). I tried 2 hander, dual wield and bow dps. Bow dps wasn't that bad actually, but the channel from snipe is a reason itself not to use. The acid spray fire quicker than other skills, but still share the same skill cooldown in the end, making it awkward to use in rotation.
The reduce cost of poison skills, even with using bow with acid spray and lethal arrow, was still not enough to sustain. There is still a lot of costy stam skills that you cannot ignore, like caltrops who is simply too good to not use, even in pure single target.
For unique builds it's still same issues. There is relequeen and thats it.. Even if the 5th bonus of relequeen doesn't charge up to its full damage, its still the highest damage set out there due to the stats it gives. I really hoped something unique could be used. It's sad there is so many sets and builds out there, but only one build works.
Now when you get 10% from minor brutality, you also lose a lot of stats by using 2 hander or bow, which again dual wield will win with it's high base weapon dmg and crit. The only good thing about bow, was the 100% of hawk eye passive, but will be lost if you use the Toxic Barrage ultimate.

The only skill from earthen heart used as stam dk, is molten armaments. It has a duration of 40 sec, but the minor brutality is 20 sec. There is no other earthen heart skill worth using in pve for stam dk, and spamming molten armaments every rotation doesn't feel right either. Solutions are ofc mag dk and dk tank, all though the logic where zenimax want other class to tank as well making the minor brutality in that case relied on the dd's. This won't be an issue in a 12 man trial, but for 4 man dungeons I actually see more and more non dk tanks lately, although it's annoying because no mobs are stacked correctly due to no chains. Also since mag dk is best to keep up the major brutality, doesn't make sense since magicka don't need brutality.

I also want to mention the removal of 6% dmg with poison aoe removal, was a stealth nerf to corrosive armor as well, since it doesn't benefit from the reduce cost and lost 6% damage. Would it be too OP to give reduce cost to poison ultimates as well?
No one use toxic barrage anyway, it's a dead skill. Losing hawk eye and get reflected in pvp.

To sum up, I'm not an expert here but will share my personal opinion. And the reason I'm not going with bow is simply because of the awkward channel animation of snipe and arrow spray. The increase range of melee abilities will help a bit, but you still need to put down rearming trap, which is 5 meter. Other trap morph or psijic skill accelerate, is not an option, and the good morph here has a channel as well. Stam dk's still rely on weapon skills, which is better on other classes due to their stats of increase physical damage and crit. Reduce cost on poison abilities will help archer dk's in pvp, but that's it.