Refreshing Path not good enough in Murkmire, obviously better skill choices

Oreyn_Bearclaw · October 2018

This was an attempt to bring mageblade DPS in line, and allow healers to feel good about themselves. Well, the skill was just nerfed off NB bars, because 95% will just go twisiting path for the damage (which they already do on live). Only place good mageblades slot refreshing path currently is for downstairs in VCR because you need to out heal the oblivion damage (shields are useless there).

Funny thing is that is one piece of content where healers aren’t even an option (unless you run 4 healers which no one will do) so really nothing has changed. NBs will still run Twisting most of the time, and swap the morph when they run VCR.

crashen17b14_ESO · October 2018

As someone who started as a magblade dps, but gradually found myself shifting to healer i have to say i really hate these changes. I don't mean to be hyperbolic or overly emotional, but halving the damage of funnel health and straight up removing the damage of refreshing path make me seriously consider leaving the game.

I started as dps, but over time I noticed that I spent more and more time tweaking my build, skills, weapons and style to suit an aggressive healer playstyle. I found myself enjoying doing dungeons as a healer, where i would lay down refreshing path and wall of elements, maybe throw some orbs down the hallway, and then keep funnel health rolling on my group and more actively healing when we needed it. I started doing something in ESO that I have never liked in any other of the many, many MMOs I have played (except Warhammer Online). And that was be a dedicated and attentive healer. I actually enjoyed healing my group. I knew I would never top dps as a regular dps, and there are always way more damage dealers than anything else, so finding a way to get the satisfaction of actually fighting, while being able to seriously contribute meaningfully to the group as a healer was perfect.

Magblade healers have such a fun, unique and satisfying theme and are a great way for people who typically prefer to dps to play a healer. You get to fight and play aggressively, spilling blood and throwing shadows, while a traditional healer just stands back and heals, not really engaging much in the fight itself except to restore resources and apply some debuffs.

Additionally, the hybrid nature of magblade healers makes them excellent solo classes, and while they arent as hard hitting as pure dps, they can kill in a timely manner. The fact that much of their healing is based on their damage creates an extra level of satisfying complexity. You need to find a balance between directly boosting your healing, and indirectly boosting it by making your drains hit hard enough. Seeing Health Funnel crit, and knowing that is going to roll over into a nice HoT is satisfying. Walking that line between too healy and doing very little damage (might as well switch to a healing class with more utility then) and too damagey (might as well drop those healing skills and go full dps) was fun.

By cutting the damage out of two of the three "staple" aggressive healing skills, you cut out the thing that makes night blade healers unique. At that point what does a night blade healer offer that a templar or warden couldnt offer better? We wouldnt even reliably trigger the unique minor buff Night Blades offer, Minor Savagery. And that is provided by stamblades far more reliably.

Beyond that, Path of Darkness, having neither healing nor damage is just ridiculous. I know unmorphed skills are incomplete, but what new player would look at it and think "yeah, i want that on my bars". The expedition buff has always been the "nice to have" side benefit, not the main focus. To me the main reason to slot it was as a secondary layer of damage to go with wall of elements, and a secondary source of healing to go with my more focused heals.

Killing the damage on Health Funnel likewise kills the staple of the night blade healer. We heal our allies by harming our enemies. Its what separates us from all other healers. Its what makes us true hybrids and makes the transition from dps to healer. By cutting the damage of funnel health, and removing it all together on Refreshing Path, you force people to make hard commitments to either deal damage or to heal, which probably means people will go more towards damage, reducing healer population. I certainly will, because if I am being pigeonholed into a traditional healer role, or traditional damage role, I will go damage because I can at least solo.

Silver_Strider · October 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Silver_Strider wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

That is a lot of words op and I am still not 100% what the problem is. Twisting=DPS, refreshing=healers/tanks. If your main complaint as a healer using refreshing path is your team has to be in front of you, you are bad healer, as your team ought to be in front of you because of combat prayer.

You also can't compare springs. That is a spammable that stacks with itself. Regeneration is also not really comparable, you would have to cast regeneration 3 times to heal as many people as you can with one cast of refreshing path, as all AOE heals have a cap of 6 people healed at once. Comparing it to cleansing ritual is no bueno too, cleansing ticks every 2 seconds, refreshing hits every second. the areaof refreshing/twisting is the same size and wall and the same size as combat prayer, both of which have no trouble hitting their intended targets. And you are going to give everyone in it the major buff for speed.

By this logic, Cleansing Ritual and morphs should be given a similar treatment to Path. Remove the base heal from Cleansing, leaving only the purge Synergy to keep it as utility, much like Path only provides Major Expedition at base form. Ritual of Retribution should lose all healing it does for damage effects, save the purge synergy and Extended Ritual should have the HoT.

The trade off here being that Ritual has a much bigger radius so it only heals every 2 seconds vs Path healing every 1 second.

Such fun for all.

I would rather it went back to the way it was. Base morph is 2 debuff purged and 12 second heal(6 ticks), morph one is 5 debuffs purged on the 12 second heal(6 ticks again) and extended is 2 debuffs on a 24 second heal (12 ticks of healing). I was never a fan of damage in a heal tree. Again though, magic templar DPS never used ritual of retribution, just look around at DPS Templar builds, none of them had the skill on their bar. EVERY magic based nightblade had refreshing path. That is how good it was.

The issue was that Twisting was utter crap in comparison. The damage difference was negligible and it offered no utility; It was pitiful and all this change does is make Magblade selfish DPS with 0 utility and strips NB Tanks and Healers of the little utility they did offer. Take it a step further and now Templar Tanks can do the exact same thing NB tanks were doing with Refreshing Path but more effectively because Ritual of Retribution has a huge AoE vs Refreshing AND it does damage + purge synergy to boot.

It's b*******

Tonturri · October 2018

Previously, Refreshing Path was 'justified' - it both damaged and healed, but both the damage and heal were relatively weak.

It was like trading half the damage of wall of elements for healing, which is fine. The damage wasn't as strong as wall of ele, nor was the healing as strong as...other stuff.

Now that it does either one or the other, there need to be some changes to the numbers to compensate - it's weak otherwise (and tbh Twisting could use a bit of number-help, too).

The hybridization of the morph justified the relative weakness of the numbers it dished out. If the hybrid part is removed, then it's too weak and needs help in some way to compensate for the loss.

Edit: And the other changes are equally ridiculous. Why in the heck they thought it was okay to nerf Funnel Health into the ground (basically same healing, less damage, same amount of targets) is ridiculous. I seriously hope that they decide to give NB healers a bit...more than this, and at least give Funnel Health its two targets + caster back. It's currently not worth slotting over even Muta/Rapid.

FrancisCrawford · October 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

brandonv516 wrote: »

What's Siphon Spirit? Never heard of it lol.

I edited it. I meant Siphoning Strikes. I always do that for some reason. LOL

Did you play Guild Wars?

FrancisCrawford · October 2018

Sporvan wrote: »

They have removed the hybrid healer dps build that made a NB a successful off-heal and fun to play with. NB has two build right now, stam dps and mag dps. Everything else is getting removed if they implement this patch.

And overland thief.

But to your main point -- this patch is taking my interest in playing a magblade from very high to very low.

FrancisCrawford · October 2018

crashen17b14_ESO wrote: »

As someone who started as a magblade dps, but gradually found myself shifting to healer i have to say i really hate these changes. I don't mean to be hyperbolic or overly emotional, but halving the damage of funnel health and straight up removing the damage of refreshing path make me seriously consider leaving the game.

I started as dps, but over time I noticed that I spent more and more time tweaking my build, skills, weapons and style to suit an aggressive healer playstyle. I found myself enjoying doing dungeons as a healer, where i would lay down refreshing path and wall of elements, maybe throw some orbs down the hallway, and then keep funnel health rolling on my group and more actively healing when we needed it. I started doing something in ESO that I have never liked in any other of the many, many MMOs I have played (except Warhammer Online). And that was be a dedicated and attentive healer. I actually enjoyed healing my group. I knew I would never top dps as a regular dps, and there are always way more damage dealers than anything else, so finding a way to get the satisfaction of actually fighting, while being able to seriously contribute meaningfully to the group as a healer was perfect.

Magblade healers have such a fun, unique and satisfying theme and are a great way for people who typically prefer to dps to play a healer. You get to fight and play aggressively, spilling blood and throwing shadows, while a traditional healer just stands back and heals, not really engaging much in the fight itself except to restore resources and apply some debuffs.

Additionally, the hybrid nature of magblade healers makes them excellent solo classes, and while they arent as hard hitting as pure dps, they can kill in a timely manner. The fact that much of their healing is based on their damage creates an extra level of satisfying complexity. You need to find a balance between directly boosting your healing, and indirectly boosting it by making your drains hit hard enough. Seeing Health Funnel crit, and knowing that is going to roll over into a nice HoT is satisfying. Walking that line between too healy and doing very little damage (might as well switch to a healing class with more utility then) and too damagey (might as well drop those healing skills and go full dps) was fun.

By cutting the damage out of two of the three "staple" aggressive healing skills, you cut out the thing that makes night blade healers unique. At that point what does a night blade healer offer that a templar or warden couldnt offer better? We wouldnt even reliably trigger the unique minor buff Night Blades offer, Minor Savagery. And that is provided by stamblades far more reliably.

Beyond that, Path of Darkness, having neither healing nor damage is just ridiculous. I know unmorphed skills are incomplete, but what new player would look at it and think "yeah, i want that on my bars". The expedition buff has always been the "nice to have" side benefit, not the main focus. To me the main reason to slot it was as a secondary layer of damage to go with wall of elements, and a secondary source of healing to go with my more focused heals.

Killing the damage on Health Funnel likewise kills the staple of the night blade healer. We heal our allies by harming our enemies. Its what separates us from all other healers. Its what makes us true hybrids and makes the transition from dps to healer. By cutting the damage of funnel health, and removing it all together on Refreshing Path, you force people to make hard commitments to either deal damage or to heal, which probably means people will go more towards damage, reducing healer population. I certainly will, because if I am being pigeonholed into a traditional healer role, or traditional damage role, I will go damage because I can at least solo.

I agree completely. I've played sorcerer and templar and hence haven't made much time to also play magblade. But I was starting to really enjoy it. Now I don't see much point in bothering. I have a stamblade with a thief build for farming and new overland content, I don't need a solo character for much else, and the appeal of playing a magblade in groups has just gone waaaaaay down.

db0ssman · October 2018

I agree with a lot of what people have said. If you wonder why NB healers talk about removing it from the bar, just imagine if you had to choose between having a templar's shards with no synergy or an energy orb with no synergy. Both of those choices would be terrible. No one would want to waste the slots on a clunky spell that might get off about 3k aoe healing before being useless or waste a slot on an incredibly small aoe damage that doesn't add any other utility.

I actually didn't even have Refreshing Path on my bar until a while ago when they nerfed siphoning strikes into the ground (in my opinion strikes is now basically only a dps ability since a healer probably won't be LA weaving and you have to be too adaptive to know you will need 4k magicka in 20 seconds and an extra 100 magicka on a heavy attack definitely isn't worth the slot). It kind of grew on me because it became a steady source of boss damage while healing the tank who sometimes needed it during the main damage phase. These changes make it so it will only be a small tank/melee dps hot, and that really doesn't seem worth taking up the slot. Because, basically, this ability will only be useful in a select few boss fights and maybe not at all in NM content.

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

Maryal wrote: »

Refreshing path (as it is now on live) is a much needed utility skill for stamblades. It's important to look at 'how' this skill is used in order to understand it's value to stamblades like me:

Many stamblades are soloists (pve) and as such it isn't easy for us to sustain. Judging our ability to sustain based on target dummy parsing, ganker (pvp) builds, or builds that engage in vanilla pve content paints a false picture. It is difficult for stamblades to engage in (solo) sustained combat - a problem that began with the Morrowind patch.

Fast forward to today - stamblade sustain is going through another round of nerfs - our most powerful ability has virtually doubled in cost (nearly 4K stamina assuming the spectral bow procs 2x per cast) and our spammable execute got a 30% cost increase. Speed buff nerfs end up putting additional pressure on our ability to sustain.

What about heavy attacking? The bottom line is that you can't always heavy attack (multiple mobs clawing at your ankles, or too much 'red on the ground', etc.) When you can't heavy attack to regen stamina AND when you are low on health, you generally kite (trying to create distance between you and the mob in order to get a few tics of regen before re-engaging). But, kiting means sprinting and that costs stamina.

Just replace Refreshing Path with Siphoning Strikes, which costs magicka also but far cheaper and longer duration, to guarantee yourself the option of light attack healing greater than Refreshing Path, around 50% more on my magicka build and much more on stamina, or the option to heavy attack for even more when you have time.

Refreshing Path only works when you are in the field, which doesn't help stamblades that have to keep moving to avoid damage, especially when rolling.

Refreshing Path has become a joke since many other skills do the same job better now.

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

That is a lot of words op and I am still not 100% what the problem is. Twisting=DPS, refreshing=healers/tanks.

Twisting Path < Wall of Elements, but that's not the big issue here.

Refreshing Path < Siphoning Attacks...etc

Refreshing Path is much worse than Grand Healing.

On live servers, Refreshing Path used to do about 1000 healing per second on my nightblade as it is currently geared while also doing similar damage while Grand Healing has a tooltip of 1500 healing per second. They nerfed that down to about 800 healing on Refreshing Path. The PTS version loses all damage to regain the healing up to just 1000 healing per second. Siphoning Attacks does 1500 healing per light attack on live. Refreshing Path costs 3510 magicka while Siphoning costs half that, or less.

Refreshing Path is just a very bad heal now. It's too narrow and short range while healing for very little considering it requires you to stay in a small area, just like the Rune Focus for templar's that everyone felt was stupid for movement as the increased defense wasn't worth "being a sitting duck". It's the same problem and enemies and allies are always moving out of it.

Hell, we can't even keep ourselves in the path if the content is remotely difficult while in easy content we don't need the path at all. That's why it sucks now.

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

You also can't compare springs. That is a spammable that stacks with itself. Regeneration is also not really comparable, you would have to cast regeneration 3 times to heal as many people as you can with one cast of refreshing path, as all AOE heals have a cap of 6 people healed at once. Comparing it to cleansing ritual is no bueno too, cleansing ticks every 2 seconds, refreshing hits every second. the areaof refreshing/twisting is the same size and wall and the same size as combat prayer, both of which have no trouble hitting their intended targets. And you are going to give everyone in it the major buff for speed.

1) Healing Springs is an AoE HoT, not a spammable. It can't be stacked with itself unless it is broken and needs a nerf. It has an 8m radius which means 16m across in a full circle, which is bigger than the total area of Refreshing Path which barely goes forward 14 meters if that while being about 4-6 meters wide.

2) Twisting Path actually has a larger area of effect. It's part of the morph benefits. It's actually wider, not longer.

3) Wall of Elements is bigger than both Twisting Path and Refreshing Path, very obviously. Elemental Blockade is even larger because it has a wider area. Blessing of Protection/Combat Prayer is also a bigger area, longer especially.

4) Wall of Elements and Blessing of Protection/Combat Prayer also lay down where you crosshairs/cursor point, unlike Refreshing/Twisting Path that point where your character is moving towards such as directly left or right. This makes the Path variants much harder to coordinate with the weapon ground AoEs, if you don't also get the "invalid location" bug that is very common with Refreshing Path while Wall of Elements doesn't have that bug at all.

You've never used Refreshing Path and Wall of Elements together or you would know this. Just test it on a target dummy inching into range of Wall of Elements, on live servers, until the wall just starts ticking damage, then cast Refreshing Path or Twisting Path from the same spot and you will see no damage to the target dummy.
It's absolute garbage anyway because it does about half the damage of Wall of Elements even for Twisting Path, but it was useful as an added DoT so it wasn't useless. Now Refreshing Path is useless because of how small and weak it is.

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

HuawaSepp wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

That is a lot of words op and I am still not 100% what the problem is. Twisting=DPS, refreshing=healers/tanks. If your main complaint as a healer using refreshing path is your team has to be in front of you, you are bad healer, as your team ought to be in front of you because of combat prayer.

You also can't compare springs. That is a spammable that stacks with itself. Regeneration is also not really comparable, you would have to cast regeneration 3 times to heal as many people as you can with one cast of refreshing path, as all AOE heals have a cap of 6 people healed at once. Comparing it to cleansing ritual is no bueno too, cleansing ticks every 2 seconds, refreshing hits every second. the areaof refreshing/twisting is the same size and wall and the same size as combat prayer, both of which have no trouble hitting their intended targets. And you are going to give everyone in it the major buff for speed.

Have to agree with him.
Healers should not be useless and this was a necessary change to achieve this.
There are so many other meaningless NB nerfs.
This one I can agree with at least.

So they nerfed Refreshing Path which healers would have used but now don't use? That was wise. /sarcasm.

And yes, Refreshing Path had the same healing from PTS on live WITH damage before they nerfed it to lower the healing because of the damage. Now they just undid the healing nerf while taking away all the damage.
It's worse than it was.

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

Maryal wrote: »

Sustain has been a real issue ever since Morrowind and while it's improved slightly, it's still a major issue ... something we struggle with all the time.

Refreshing Path is worse healing than Vigor or Rally or even Regeneration from Restoration Staff even on a stamina character, all while costing a lot more than any of those options in magicka.
Refreshing Path is bad for sustain at 3510 magicka per cast.

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

brandonv516 wrote: »

What's Siphon Spirit? Never heard of it lol.

I edited it. I meant Siphoning Strikes. I always do that for some reason. LOL

Did you play Guild Wars?

That may be it. I did play that for a little bit before this.

RedRook · October 2018

crashen17b14_ESO wrote: »

As someone who started as a magblade dps, but gradually found myself shifting to healer i have to say i really hate these changes. I don't mean to be hyperbolic or overly emotional, but halving the damage of funnel health and straight up removing the damage of refreshing path make me seriously consider leaving the game.

I started as dps, but over time I noticed that I spent more and more time tweaking my build, skills, weapons and style to suit an aggressive healer playstyle. I found myself enjoying doing dungeons as a healer, where i would lay down refreshing path and wall of elements, maybe throw some orbs down the hallway, and then keep funnel health rolling on my group and more actively healing when we needed it. I started doing something in ESO that I have never liked in any other of the many, many MMOs I have played (except Warhammer Online). And that was be a dedicated and attentive healer. I actually enjoyed healing my group. I knew I would never top dps as a regular dps, and there are always way more damage dealers than anything else, so finding a way to get the satisfaction of actually fighting, while being able to seriously contribute meaningfully to the group as a healer was perfect.

Magblade healers have such a fun, unique and satisfying theme and are a great way for people who typically prefer to dps to play a healer. You get to fight and play aggressively, spilling blood and throwing shadows, while a traditional healer just stands back and heals, not really engaging much in the fight itself except to restore resources and apply some debuffs.

Additionally, the hybrid nature of magblade healers makes them excellent solo classes, and while they arent as hard hitting as pure dps, they can kill in a timely manner. The fact that much of their healing is based on their damage creates an extra level of satisfying complexity. You need to find a balance between directly boosting your healing, and indirectly boosting it by making your drains hit hard enough. Seeing Health Funnel crit, and knowing that is going to roll over into a nice HoT is satisfying. Walking that line between too healy and doing very little damage (might as well switch to a healing class with more utility then) and too damagey (might as well drop those healing skills and go full dps) was fun.

By cutting the damage out of two of the three "staple" aggressive healing skills, you cut out the thing that makes night blade healers unique. At that point what does a night blade healer offer that a templar or warden couldnt offer better? We wouldnt even reliably trigger the unique minor buff Night Blades offer, Minor Savagery. And that is provided by stamblades far more reliably.

Beyond that, Path of Darkness, having neither healing nor damage is just ridiculous. I know unmorphed skills are incomplete, but what new player would look at it and think "yeah, i want that on my bars". The expedition buff has always been the "nice to have" side benefit, not the main focus. To me the main reason to slot it was as a secondary layer of damage to go with wall of elements, and a secondary source of healing to go with my more focused heals.

Killing the damage on Health Funnel likewise kills the staple of the night blade healer. We heal our allies by harming our enemies. Its what separates us from all other healers. Its what makes us true hybrids and makes the transition from dps to healer. By cutting the damage of funnel health, and removing it all together on Refreshing Path, you force people to make hard commitments to either deal damage or to heal, which probably means people will go more towards damage, reducing healer population. I certainly will, because if I am being pigeonholed into a traditional healer role, or traditional damage role, I will go damage because I can at least solo.

This is the problem: something that was both unique to the nightblade class and fun to use is being removed from the game, to address a relatively minor discomfort a very small percentage of players were having. Magblade PVE dps will still be very good. Healers in PVE may feel more valued; the classic trinity may be slightly reinforced, if we're thinking this is a desirable outcome. And twenty percent or more of the player base loses a fun class skill.

They've done this before, and it sucks.

kaithuzar · October 2018

Please please tell me there will be entire groups trying to stack within a refreshing path!

I’ll have my bomber ready & waiting, & if not me then some guys with leap & dawn breaker.

GL

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · October 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

You also can't compare springs. That is a spammable that stacks with itself. Regeneration is also not really comparable, you would have to cast regeneration 3 times to heal as many people as you can with one cast of refreshing path, as all AOE heals have a cap of 6 people healed at once. Comparing it to cleansing ritual is no bueno too, cleansing ticks every 2 seconds, refreshing hits every second. the areaof refreshing/twisting is the same size and wall and the same size as combat prayer, both of which have no trouble hitting their intended targets. And you are going to give everyone in it the major buff for speed.

1) Healing Springs is an AoE HoT, not a spammable. It can't be stacked with itself unless it is broken and needs a nerf. It has an 8m radius which means 16m across in a full circle, which is bigger than the total area of Refreshing Path which barely goes forward 14 meters if that while being about 4-6 meters wide.

2) Twisting Path actually has a larger area of effect. It's part of the morph benefits. It's actually wider, not longer.

3) Wall of Elements is bigger than both Twisting Path and Refreshing Path, very obviously. Elemental Blockade is even larger because it has a wider area. Blessing of Protection/Combat Prayer is also a bigger area, longer especially.

4) Wall of Elements and Blessing of Protection/Combat Prayer also lay down where you crosshairs/cursor point, unlike Refreshing/Twisting Path that point where your character is moving towards such as directly left or right. This makes the Path variants much harder to coordinate with the weapon ground AoEs, if you don't also get the "invalid location" bug that is very common with Refreshing Path while Wall of Elements doesn't have that bug at all.

You've never used Refreshing Path and Wall of Elements together or you would know this. Just test it on a target dummy inching into range of Wall of Elements, on live servers, until the wall just starts ticking damage, then cast Refreshing Path or Twisting Path from the same spot and you will see no damage to the target dummy.
It's absolute garbage anyway because it does about half the damage of Wall of Elements even for Twisting Path, but it was useful as an added DoT so it wasn't useless. Now Refreshing Path is useless because of how small and weak it is.

I am not going to respond in a numbered format. That makes it look like you can't make coherent paragraphs.

You absolutely can stack grand healing. It is a must in trials. You simply can't heal 12 people without it. This is not a bug and absolutely hilarious that you would say that, If you ever played trials, you would know this. In the next patch, refreshing and twisting are the same size. Try it out. Having done what you asked, on live, you are right that twisting is like 3 meters shorter but if that causes you to have "much harder to coordinate with the weapon ground AoEs", I think that is a let to play issue. I have never had any problem hitting what I was aiming for, using either twisting or refreshing, after I figured out that as a DPS, I could do 60% of the damage in a dungeon AND do 40% of the healing with just 2 skills. That is crazy. What is this "invalid location" bug you speak of? I have played a magblade for over 3 years, in almost all content and have never seen that.

brandonv516 · October 2018

To clarify, do Twisting Path and Refreshing Path have the same width on the PTS?

Now that they are equals in regards to potency with heals or damage, the width should be the same if it isn't already.

Joosef_Kivikilpi · October 2018

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Sporvan wrote: »

They have removed the hybrid healer dps build that made a NB a successful off-heal and fun to play with. NB has two build right now, stam dps and mag dps. Everything else is getting removed if they implement this patch.

And overland thief.

But to your main point -- this patch is taking my interest in playing a magblade from very high to very low.

Same ^ ... I'm grateful I have a Mageblade Spellsword build going and loving, because pure Mageblade utility is getting trashed on HARD.

lucky_dutch · October 2018

This is a PvE change that has seriously damaging effects for PvP. Combined with swallow soul and healing ward nerf, Magblades got f-all healing in PvP now.

NyassaV · October 2018

lucky_dutch wrote: »

This is a PvE change that has seriously damaging effects for PvP. Combined with swallow soul and healing ward nerf, Magblades got f-all healing in PvP now.

preach

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

You also can't compare springs. That is a spammable that stacks with itself. Regeneration is also not really comparable, you would have to cast regeneration 3 times to heal as many people as you can with one cast of refreshing path, as all AOE heals have a cap of 6 people healed at once. Comparing it to cleansing ritual is no bueno too, cleansing ticks every 2 seconds, refreshing hits every second. the areaof refreshing/twisting is the same size and wall and the same size as combat prayer, both of which have no trouble hitting their intended targets. And you are going to give everyone in it the major buff for speed.

1) Healing Springs is an AoE HoT, not a spammable. It can't be stacked with itself unless it is broken and needs a nerf. It has an 8m radius which means 16m across in a full circle, which is bigger than the total area of Refreshing Path which barely goes forward 14 meters if that while being about 4-6 meters wide.

2) Twisting Path actually has a larger area of effect. It's part of the morph benefits. It's actually wider, not longer.

3) Wall of Elements is bigger than both Twisting Path and Refreshing Path, very obviously. Elemental Blockade is even larger because it has a wider area. Blessing of Protection/Combat Prayer is also a bigger area, longer especially.

4) Wall of Elements and Blessing of Protection/Combat Prayer also lay down where you crosshairs/cursor point, unlike Refreshing/Twisting Path that point where your character is moving towards such as directly left or right. This makes the Path variants much harder to coordinate with the weapon ground AoEs, if you don't also get the "invalid location" bug that is very common with Refreshing Path while Wall of Elements doesn't have that bug at all.

You've never used Refreshing Path and Wall of Elements together or you would know this. Just test it on a target dummy inching into range of Wall of Elements, on live servers, until the wall just starts ticking damage, then cast Refreshing Path or Twisting Path from the same spot and you will see no damage to the target dummy.
It's absolute garbage anyway because it does about half the damage of Wall of Elements even for Twisting Path, but it was useful as an added DoT so it wasn't useless. Now Refreshing Path is useless because of how small and weak it is.

I am not going to respond in a numbered format. That makes it look like you can't make coherent paragraphs.

You absolutely can stack grand healing. It is a must in trials. You simply can't heal 12 people without it. This is not a bug and absolutely hilarious that you would say that, If you ever played trials, you would know this. In the next patch, refreshing and twisting are the same size. Try it out. Having done what you asked, on live, you are right that twisting is like 3 meters shorter but if that causes you to have "much harder to coordinate with the weapon ground AoEs", I think that is a let to play issue. I have never had any problem hitting what I was aiming for, using either twisting or refreshing, after I figured out that as a DPS, I could do 60% of the damage in a dungeon AND do 40% of the healing with just 2 skills. That is crazy. What is this "invalid location" bug you speak of? I have played a magblade for over 3 years, in almost all content and have never seen that.

Umm...Wall of Elements is longer than Refreshing and Twisting Paths. Did you not see that in my original post I talked about it? That was of bigger concern than Twisting Path being larger than Refreshing Path, which on live is mainly wider than Refreshing Path. The reason it is so important to compare Wall of Elements to Twisting Path is because Wall is larger/longer and does nearly twice the damage, which is ridiculous.

Also, you can't have more than one AoE down for any other ground AoE ability. Healing Springs is apparently an exception which makes it a bug that a single player can repeat cast it all over. The only ground AoE that is definitely intended to have more than one down at a time is warden's pull Frozen Gate, which says up to 3 at a time in the tooltip.
That was my reasoning for Healing Springs being bugged if it does allow recast-stacking since nothing else allows that, not Cleansing Ritual for templars or Refreshing Path for nightblades which both do similar things. It's not fair to have one skill be allowed to be self-stacked while every other similar skill can't be.

FYI, I numbered things to separate them out as different facts and avoid having to use BBCode lists which are a hassle. There are other paragraphs not numbered, but you chose to be a "formatting-n.a.z.i"(intentionally left this way because of overzealous censoring).

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

What is this "invalid location" bug you speak of? I have played a magblade for over 3 years, in almost all content and have never seen that.

I can't believe you've played a nightblade that long if you haven't seen this bug, even though it is only as recent as Clockwork City or Horns of the Reach. It happens very often, but just random.
I see it very often when I am doing dailies in delves and anywhere the terrain is uneven in front of me, especially when there is a wall close in front. The Refreshing Path refuses to place on surfaces where it would cut half off inside a wall or rocks/containers and floor level changes split the path. It just doesn't show on the ground and the words "invalid location" pop up as an error in the upper right of my screen(with the default gamepad UI).
It's almost ridiculous with how often I see it.

The most common place I have noticed the bug is Hrota Cave in The Gold Coast when fighting enemies approaching the fallen rock secret doors.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · October 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

You also can't compare springs. That is a spammable that stacks with itself. Regeneration is also not really comparable, you would have to cast regeneration 3 times to heal as many people as you can with one cast of refreshing path, as all AOE heals have a cap of 6 people healed at once. Comparing it to cleansing ritual is no bueno too, cleansing ticks every 2 seconds, refreshing hits every second. the areaof refreshing/twisting is the same size and wall and the same size as combat prayer, both of which have no trouble hitting their intended targets. And you are going to give everyone in it the major buff for speed.

1) Healing Springs is an AoE HoT, not a spammable. It can't be stacked with itself unless it is broken and needs a nerf. It has an 8m radius which means 16m across in a full circle, which is bigger than the total area of Refreshing Path which barely goes forward 14 meters if that while being about 4-6 meters wide.

2) Twisting Path actually has a larger area of effect. It's part of the morph benefits. It's actually wider, not longer.

3) Wall of Elements is bigger than both Twisting Path and Refreshing Path, very obviously. Elemental Blockade is even larger because it has a wider area. Blessing of Protection/Combat Prayer is also a bigger area, longer especially.

4) Wall of Elements and Blessing of Protection/Combat Prayer also lay down where you crosshairs/cursor point, unlike Refreshing/Twisting Path that point where your character is moving towards such as directly left or right. This makes the Path variants much harder to coordinate with the weapon ground AoEs, if you don't also get the "invalid location" bug that is very common with Refreshing Path while Wall of Elements doesn't have that bug at all.

You've never used Refreshing Path and Wall of Elements together or you would know this. Just test it on a target dummy inching into range of Wall of Elements, on live servers, until the wall just starts ticking damage, then cast Refreshing Path or Twisting Path from the same spot and you will see no damage to the target dummy.
It's absolute garbage anyway because it does about half the damage of Wall of Elements even for Twisting Path, but it was useful as an added DoT so it wasn't useless. Now Refreshing Path is useless because of how small and weak it is.

I am not going to respond in a numbered format. That makes it look like you can't make coherent paragraphs.

You absolutely can stack grand healing. It is a must in trials. You simply can't heal 12 people without it. This is not a bug and absolutely hilarious that you would say that, If you ever played trials, you would know this. In the next patch, refreshing and twisting are the same size. Try it out. Having done what you asked, on live, you are right that twisting is like 3 meters shorter but if that causes you to have "much harder to coordinate with the weapon ground AoEs", I think that is a let to play issue. I have never had any problem hitting what I was aiming for, using either twisting or refreshing, after I figured out that as a DPS, I could do 60% of the damage in a dungeon AND do 40% of the healing with just 2 skills. That is crazy. What is this "invalid location" bug you speak of? I have played a magblade for over 3 years, in almost all content and have never seen that.

Umm...Wall of Elements is longer than Refreshing and Twisting Paths. Did you not see that in my original post I talked about it? That was of bigger concern than Twisting Path being larger than Refreshing Path, which on live is mainly wider than Refreshing Path. The reason it is so important to compare Wall of Elements to Twisting Path is because Wall is larger/longer and does nearly twice the damage, which is ridiculous.

I acknowledged that you were right, I tested it, read my post again. But that is also my point, I have never noticed that twisting/refreshing is shorter because I have always hit what I was aiming for. And you need to remember, when you are comparing the damage that wall does to twisting, that twisting lasts for 11 ticks and wall lasts for 8. That is almost 40% longer, which just about makes up for the "nearly twice the damage" of wall AND when you cast twisting, you get major Expedition in it and out of it for a time AND you get the major resistance buffs for 6-8 seconds. Wall is just damage. No other buffs.

Also, You can't have more than one AoE down for any other ground AoE ability. Healing Springs is apparently an exception which makes it a bug that a single player can repeat cast it all over. The only ground AoE that is definitely intended to have more than one down at a time is warden's pull Frozen Gate, which says up to 3 at a time in the tooltip.
That was my reasoning for Healing Springs being bugged if it does allow recast-stacking since nothing else allows that, not Cleansing Ritual for templars or Refreshing Path for nightblades which both do similar things. It's not fair to have one skill be allowed to be self-stacked while every other similar skill can't be.

Grand healing has always worked this way. It is intended. Healing in trials would not be possible if it didn't. You have no idea what you are talking about if you keep calling it a bug. Makes all your other opinions look suspicious if you don't even understand that fundamental element of healing. You do know that energy orbs stack too right? Just like the damage from mystic orbs do.

FYI, I numbered things to separate them out as different facts and avoid having to use BBCode lists which are a hassle. There are other paragraphs not numbered, but you chose to be a "formatting-n.a.z.i"(intentionally left this way because of overzealous censoring).

K.

SirLeeMinion · October 2018

Maryal wrote: »

I'm not talking about vMA - I'm talking about soloing difficult content - like soloing difficult group dungeons (start out soloing base game group dungeons on normal, then when you've mastered that, move up to vet...

This is my biggest issue with this balance pass. Changes to shields, changes to pets, the changes you mention, and looking back to Morrowind, the changes to sustain - all make the solo play style you are describing less possible and much less enjoyable. It is fun to clear dungeons solo or to bring along that frustrated guildie who has been in the DPS queue for 30 minutes. It's convenient to be able to try something both challenging and rewarding when real life doesn't allow joining a high-commitment group for over an hour. It's sad that they are, intentionally or not, strangling this end-game play style.

aeowulf · October 2018

twisting path vs razor caltrops:

costs the same

tiny vs huge AE

major expedition vs snare

shorter duration vs longer duration

twisting path has 3 damage ticks less

twisting path does less damage per tick

Cmon ZoS... refreshing needs to retain minor damage for the tanks that use use it. Also NB have 3 ways of getting major expedition, can you just remove it from this skill and put something tank useful on it? putting back minor vitality? immovable? some group utility please, which is what we've been crying out for. This skill is in the 'tank' skill line and you're turning it into a DPS or healer only skill.

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

You also can't compare springs. That is a spammable that stacks with itself. Regeneration is also not really comparable, you would have to cast regeneration 3 times to heal as many people as you can with one cast of refreshing path, as all AOE heals have a cap of 6 people healed at once. Comparing it to cleansing ritual is no bueno too, cleansing ticks every 2 seconds, refreshing hits every second. the areaof refreshing/twisting is the same size and wall and the same size as combat prayer, both of which have no trouble hitting their intended targets. And you are going to give everyone in it the major buff for speed.

1) Healing Springs is an AoE HoT, not a spammable. It can't be stacked with itself unless it is broken and needs a nerf. It has an 8m radius which means 16m across in a full circle, which is bigger than the total area of Refreshing Path which barely goes forward 14 meters if that while being about 4-6 meters wide.

2) Twisting Path actually has a larger area of effect. It's part of the morph benefits. It's actually wider, not longer.

3) Wall of Elements is bigger than both Twisting Path and Refreshing Path, very obviously. Elemental Blockade is even larger because it has a wider area. Blessing of Protection/Combat Prayer is also a bigger area, longer especially.

4) Wall of Elements and Blessing of Protection/Combat Prayer also lay down where you crosshairs/cursor point, unlike Refreshing/Twisting Path that point where your character is moving towards such as directly left or right. This makes the Path variants much harder to coordinate with the weapon ground AoEs, if you don't also get the "invalid location" bug that is very common with Refreshing Path while Wall of Elements doesn't have that bug at all.

You've never used Refreshing Path and Wall of Elements together or you would know this. Just test it on a target dummy inching into range of Wall of Elements, on live servers, until the wall just starts ticking damage, then cast Refreshing Path or Twisting Path from the same spot and you will see no damage to the target dummy.
It's absolute garbage anyway because it does about half the damage of Wall of Elements even for Twisting Path, but it was useful as an added DoT so it wasn't useless. Now Refreshing Path is useless because of how small and weak it is.

I am not going to respond in a numbered format. That makes it look like you can't make coherent paragraphs.

You absolutely can stack grand healing. It is a must in trials. You simply can't heal 12 people without it. This is not a bug and absolutely hilarious that you would say that, If you ever played trials, you would know this. In the next patch, refreshing and twisting are the same size. Try it out. Having done what you asked, on live, you are right that twisting is like 3 meters shorter but if that causes you to have "much harder to coordinate with the weapon ground AoEs", I think that is a let to play issue. I have never had any problem hitting what I was aiming for, using either twisting or refreshing, after I figured out that as a DPS, I could do 60% of the damage in a dungeon AND do 40% of the healing with just 2 skills. That is crazy. What is this "invalid location" bug you speak of? I have played a magblade for over 3 years, in almost all content and have never seen that.

Umm...Wall of Elements is longer than Refreshing and Twisting Paths. Did you not see that in my original post I talked about it? That was of bigger concern than Twisting Path being larger than Refreshing Path, which on live is mainly wider than Refreshing Path. The reason it is so important to compare Wall of Elements to Twisting Path is because Wall is larger/longer and does nearly twice the damage, which is ridiculous.

I acknowledged that you were right, I tested it, read my post again. But that is also my point, I have never noticed that twisting/refreshing is shorter because I have always hit what I was aiming for. And you need to remember, when you are comparing the damage that wall does to twisting, that twisting lasts for 11 ticks and wall lasts for 8. That is almost 40% longer, which just about makes up for the "nearly twice the damage" of wall AND when you cast twisting, you get major Expedition in it and out of it for a time AND you get the major resistance buffs for 6-8 seconds. Wall is just damage. No other buffs.

Also, You can't have more than one AoE down for any other ground AoE ability. Healing Springs is apparently an exception which makes it a bug that a single player can repeat cast it all over. The only ground AoE that is definitely intended to have more than one down at a time is warden's pull Frozen Gate, which says up to 3 at a time in the tooltip.
That was my reasoning for Healing Springs being bugged if it does allow recast-stacking since nothing else allows that, not Cleansing Ritual for templars or Refreshing Path for nightblades which both do similar things. It's not fair to have one skill be allowed to be self-stacked while every other similar skill can't be.

Grand healing has always worked this way. It is intended. Healing in trials would not be possible if it didn't. You have no idea what you are talking about if you keep calling it a bug. Makes all your other opinions look suspicious if you don't even understand that fundamental element of healing. You do know that energy orbs stack too right? Just like the damage from mystic orbs do.

FYI, I numbered things to separate them out as different facts and avoid having to use BBCode lists which are a hassle. There are other paragraphs not numbered, but you chose to be a "formatting-n.a.z.i"(intentionally left this way because of overzealous censoring).

K.

First, you're recasting Wall of Elements when it needs it. The increased duration of Twisting/Refreshing Path doesn't matter then, especially since enemies can also move out of that damage before the full duration.
More DPS is more each second which means more damage when not maximized and when maximized.

Twisting and Refreshing Path are just not nearly as good, but their point before this change was "additional DPS" because the 2 skills worked together well. The Path skils aren't as good anymore, especially Refreshing Path which outright sucks for the cost.

I didn't know Healing Springs/Grand Healing did self-stack because no other ground AoE does and I use other weapons and skills mostly since I tend to solo hybrid or tank. It still screams "bug" because of the fact that nothing else can be self-stacked.
Don't expect Healing Springs to stay able to self-stack. That makes it too good as it would end up, if spammed, about 5000 healing per second on even a lower magicka build. That's more power than Meditate for less problems and more power than the templar ultimate that roots them in place to heal.

No wonder group content goes from "easy" normal to "WTF, have to cheat to complete" veteran seemingly.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · October 2018

First, you're recasting Wall of Elements when it needs it.

Yup.

The increased duration of Twisting/Refreshing Path doesn't matter then

Nope. If you are casting twisting at the same time as wall, you are loosing DPS. The best magblade DPS use a dynamic rotation, which means basically only casting ablitys when they run out.

.especially since enemies can also move out of that damage before the full duration.

If enemies are moving out of your wall or your path, you have a bad tank. Unless it is a mechanic that forces the boss to move, you have no reason not hit them with a good tank. And don't bring PvP into this, all ground based aoes suffer there, as people are not going to stand in your aoe, no matter the size.

. More DPS is more each second which means more damage

Exactly. And if you cast twisting early, you are losing DPS, as you could have use your spammable and got higher dps.

. Twisting and Refreshing Path are just not nearly as good,

You feel this way because you are just looking at the damage. You get a quite a few other benefits from twisting that you don't get from wall. You just refuse to acknowledge them.

.I didn't know Healing Springs/Grand Healing did self-stack because no other ground AoE does and I use other weapons and skills mostly since I tend to solo hybrid or tank. It still screams "bug" because of the fact that nothing else can be self-stacked

I gave you another ground based aoe that does, both morphs of orbs, the damage one and the healing one, stack if you cast it multiple times.

.Don't expect Healing Springs to stay able to self-stack. That makes it too good as it would end up, if spammed, about 5000 healing per second on even a lower magicka build. That's more power than Meditate for less problems and more power than the templar ultimate that roots them in place to heal.

Grand healing has stacked since day 1. Since April 4, 2014. That is almost 4 and half years. 1646 days. You have only been around for a third of that. Properly stacked, it is closer to 15k hps. Again. If you ever healed trials, you would know this. There is almost no other way you could heal trials.

. No wonder group content goes from "easy" normal to "WTF, have to cheat to complete" veteran seemingly.

If you feel like it is cheating to both understand the game machanics and then you be able to learn to play with them, I don't know how to take you seriously.

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

First, you're recasting Wall of Elements when it needs it.

Yup.

The increased duration of Twisting/Refreshing Path doesn't matter then

Nope. If you are casting twisting at the same time as wall, you are loosing DPS. The best magblade DPS use a dynamic rotation, which means basically only casting ablitys when they run out.

WTF?
I'm not casting it at the same time. For one, that's impossible with the global cooldown and animation time. I'm casting Path when it runs out and Wall of Elements when it runs out, if I have both on the bar.

My problem is you only have 5 skills slots for regular skills. Which do you choose if you only have one slot for either Wall of Elements or Twisting Path?
You choose Wall of Elements every time because it has nearly double the damage per second and damage per second trumps everything else since the magicka cost is manageable.

Why can't you understand that?

Twisting Path is only used if there is nothing better than that to use in that skill slot and in that amount of time and enemies will be in the field long enough for it to not feel wasted.
Refreshing Path is the same and is nerfed into being much less worth slotting than many other skills so that it doesn't have a place on the limited bar.

Mystrius_Archaion · October 2018

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

.I didn't know Healing Springs/Grand Healing did self-stack because no other ground AoE does and I use other weapons and skills mostly since I tend to solo hybrid or tank. It still screams "bug" because of the fact that nothing else can be self-stacked

I gave you another ground based aoe that does, both morphs of orbs, the damage one and the healing one, stack if you cast it multiple times.

.Don't expect Healing Springs to stay able to self-stack. That makes it too good as it would end up, if spammed, about 5000 healing per second on even a lower magicka build. That's more power than Meditate for less problems and more power than the templar ultimate that roots them in place to heal.

Grand healing has stacked since day 1. Since April 4, 2014. That is almost 4 and half years. 1646 days. You have only been around for a third of that. Properly stacked, it is closer to 15k hps. Again. If you ever healed trials, you would know this. There is almost no other way you could heal trials.

First, orbs move. That's a whole different mechanic than "ground placed". In fact, they don't have a location choice circle. They just appear where you are facing like the path AoEs but also behave more, in the code, as pets or other NPCs that can move without the AI pathing changes. They're not easy to stack on the same spot like Grand Healing to have as much simultaneous healing power.

Second, I think I'm going to argue for a nerf to Grand Healing because of that. It doesn't work the same as other abilities that are placed on the ground with a targeting circle and is too powerful when stacked. It's causing content to be designed around that boring spam-a-single-skill gameplay that could be the very thing killing off enthusiasm for healing and making hits bigger and more one-shots to compensate for overpowered healing.

Don't expect things to stay the same just because they have been forever. Damage shields just got resistance benefit which they never had before. Welcome to "Everything iS changing Online".