ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Yo @Jabbs_Giggity , I'm well versed in warden notes. I can give them:

Focus on Magden at the moment:

Major:

-Both pve DDs offer very little utility in pve.

-Magden is worse than stamden when it comes to damage numbers and is still one of the worst magicka classes.

-Magden has a severe lack of class damage skills and the ones that do exist are mostly raw damage with little utility to offer.

-Community wishes to be "ice mages"
Additionally, a whole bunch of reworks to winters embrace makes the most sense to implement the damage skills we need

- Class stun is absolutely horrible and will need several buffs

Minor:

-Warden tanks want old arctic blast back

-Wardens want animal companion's skill skins to make weird region specific animals have more variety.

- Magdens want a smaller non-bear execute

Thank you for the feedback! Would you mind touching on specifics when you mention things like old arctic blast vs new and what the class stun is? I think permafrost as class stun, maybe I'm wrong?
I will do some researching in the class rep thread as well.

thx man, I thought about writing this up too, but since feedback is usually ignored I actually didnt care anymore.

Can only provide the worst opportunities missed for magblade imo:

• swallow soul getting a flat heal instead of scaling damage
• healing path continuing to heal for 4 seconds after leaving
• sap essence being shifted to a tank skill with similar healing to inhale
  
• scrap all weird changes to grim focus and morphs in exchange

also give stamsorc access to its damn racial passives for gods sake

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Yo @Jabbs_Giggity , I'm well versed in warden notes. I can give them:

Focus on Magden at the moment:

Major:

-Both pve DDs offer very little utility in pve.

-Magden is worse than stamden when it comes to damage numbers and is still one of the worst magicka classes.

-Magden has a severe lack of class damage skills and the ones that do exist are mostly raw damage with little utility to offer.

-Community wishes to be "ice mages"
Additionally, a whole bunch of reworks to winters embrace makes the most sense to implement the damage skills we need

- Class stun is absolutely horrible and will need several buffs

Minor:

-Warden tanks want old arctic blast back

-Wardens want animal companion's skill skins to make weird region specific animals have more variety.

- Magdens want a smaller non-bear execute

Thank you for the feedback! Would you mind touching on specifics when you mention things like old arctic blast vs new and what the class stun is? I think permafrost as class stun, maybe I'm wrong?
I will do some researching in the class rep thread as well.

Old arctic blast was wanted back because it had a 30% chilled proc chance on enemies. It made the glacial pressence passive pretty helpful and it was a pretty flavourful tank heal.

All of that was taken away when that flavour was turned into the worst projectile stun in the game or New Arctic Blast. Because it was a tank heal, its heal is now given to magden, and in pvp where the skill is going to be used, battlespirit halves this further. You barely heal anything. On top of that, this is the class that lacks damage skills so this projectile that knocks down an enemy, does no damage! It is extremely expensive too at 4050 cost, and it does not make up for these shortcomings by being unblockable or undodgeable either. It was also an extremely slow projectile. But to keep up with the skill audit, they made its projectile speed the same as destro touch and it's morphs. Why they didn't touch any other aspect is beyond me.

Permafrost cannot be considered the class' main stun. Because its a 200 cost ultimate.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Y

-Community wishes to be "ice mages"
Additionally, a whole bunch of reworks to winters embrace makes the most sense to implement the damage skills we need

- Class stun is absolutely horrible and will need several buffs

It is pretty clear ZOS will never place Ice Mage as viable option. Currently Ice Mage is the only mildly effective build open to a Magden. Tellingly most of your skill bar completely ignores most of the Warden skills.

Despite very low DPS, an Ice Mage was very effective in PVE, dungeons, and PVP. Low DPS, but minor maim, snaring, AOE damage, really nice sustain of resources, ...

I joined a guild pug on a lark for Blackrose Prison when on my PVP Ice Mage build. Never ran it before, and then they made me do like 8 straight runs and I still get requests on guild chat to run BRP on a build that can barely get to 20k DPS.

ZOS is on a no snare, no CC, just everyone run, run, run around approach these days, all Stam and no Magicka. This is why they heavy hammered Frost in the upcoming release. They want it out of the game. Just deconned all my golded out Winterborn, Icy Conj, Ysgrs, ... First time in my playing time on EOS where ZOS has forced a mass deconning of golded sets. So much time and gold invested ... all down the drain now. Ouch, it really hurt doing it. And this is the second time I've experienced ZOS wiping out a nice niche play style that was effective but not overpowered that a small minority of folk were enjoying.

For Ice Mages to be a thing, ZOS will have to completely overhaul Frost first. They really don't like how Frost works currently at all.

Currently I've been desperately trying to salvage my Magden and playing her as a "plain ol' warden" animals, bear and all in PVP and it just doesn't work at all. On top of that, yet more Magden nerfs on the way. It's all I've every played and at this time I'm just going to mothball my one and only playing toon and start new with something else. Almost 2 years on a Magden and its all nothing now.

BrokenGameMechanics wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Y

-Community wishes to be "ice mages"
Additionally, a whole bunch of reworks to winters embrace makes the most sense to implement the damage skills we need

- Class stun is absolutely horrible and will need several buffs

It is pretty clear ZOS will never place Ice Mage as viable. Currently Ice Mage is the only mildly effective build open to a Magden. Telling most of your skill bar completely ignores most of the Warden skills.

Despite very low DPS, an Ice Mage was very effective in PVE, dungeons, and PVP. Low DPS, but minor maim, snaring, AOE damage, really nice sustain of resources, ...

I joined a guild pug on a lark for Blackrose Prison when on my PVP Ice Mage build. Never ran it before, and then they made me do like 8 straight runs and I still get requests on guild chat to run BRP on a build that can barely get to 20k DPS.

ZOS is on a no snare, no CC, just everyone run, run, run around approach these days, all Stam and no Magicka. This is why they heavy hammered Frost in the upcoming release. They want it out of the game. Just deconned all my golded out Winterborn, Icy Conj, Ysgrs, ... First time in my playing time on EOS where ZOS has forced a mass deconning golded sets. It is the second time I've experienced ZOS wiping out a nice niche play style that was effective but not overpowered that a small minority of folk were enjoying.

This is a legitimate pain point. This isn't a comment asking for suggestions. I know how Frost Warden is at the moment because i lead the ESO Frost Discord.

We aren't asking for more snares. We're asking for damage skill reworks on the one skill line our class has that has room for them, that also fills the frost mage pain point. Its about as likely or even less so to happen than #stamwhip, yet its a pain point from the community nonetheless.

Gilvoth wrote: »

SidewalkChalk5 wrote: »

Gilvoth wrote: »

this thread is all about what 1 guy or a few people want that clearly is not a buff, its a nerf.

I think you mean "literally everyone with an IQ above room temperature". Incap Silence is very clearly the single stupidest thing ever proposed in this game, even worse than High Elf stam regen and shield cast times. It is universally opposed by every single player with any grasp on game mechanics and PvP.

i said nothing about those two things and niether was my comment nor this thread about those 2 things.
this thread is about a Audit that was never requested by the devs.
it even says so in the title that this is an Audit.

at no time, (Accept for the dev created threads on the PTS asking how we felt about changes they recently made)
were we asked to make threads and conduct an audit of the skills in eso.
i never read a thread that was created by the developers asking for us to conduct and "Audit" nor anything asking for help on how to control and alter or change skills on the classes nor asking for any help on how to run balancing of the classes in eso,

every single day we see these threads and its been going on now for several Years, its destroying the balance in eso.
these types of things are in the hands of the developers, lets let them steer the ship.
they know alot more about this stuff than we do.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for current class balance and the class ability audit in this update. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Are there any changes you feel are against the spirit of the class?
• Are you able to weave abilities better or worse in this Update?
• Do you feel your class is stronger, weaker, or relatively the same with the standardization pass on class abilities?
• Do you feel we addressed abilities that in the past year have been over or under performing?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

Lawyered.

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

So, this patch is supposed to be about auditing Class Active Skills and Weapon Skills to reduce redundancies across similar skills - Aside from everything coming with the Elsweyr Chapter.

Based on majority of the PTS feedbacks, this "Audit" is not going so well. Let's gather the information and list it all out of major role definements that have been suggested and/or not addressed. You can make your conclusions from there, or as always add to the list!

In all honesty, having the same effects on multiple skills is not redundant. It gives more build diversity than forcing players to use specific skills to get buffs/debuffs. We don't want all of our bar setups to be exactly the same. It is predictable, not competitive.

I will be updating, at a later time, the post to include Class Pain Points in from their respective threads in Red, if not already redundant with listed bullet points.

Sorcerers

• Magicka versions seem Okay, most focus has been shifted towards Stamina versions of the Class - Not addressed.
• Stamina spammable - not addressed.
• Stamina sustain - not addressed.
• Stamina Passives - not addressed.

Nightblades

• Veiled Strike - should have simply been moved to Assassination Tree and left alone.
• Blur - should have been moved to Shadow Tree (To compensate Veiled Strike above).
• Mark Target - removing Major Fracture from Surprise Attack should have warranted this skill being able to cast on multiple enemies - Like PotL.
• Grim Focus - should have been left alone, or toned down damage.
• Incap - Should have only removed the Stun to balance it. Compensate the Major Defile redundancy on the next point.
• Mass Hysteria - should have toned down Defile to Minor > Good change on the Root option versus the "running away"
• Magicka versions should have been addressed - not addressed.
• Cripple - fairly balanced. Remove the Snare and skill is fine > can only affect one opponent is fair. Has this been tested? Do all effects of skill purge from target if new target is affected?

Dragonknight

• Magicka versions seem Okay, most focus has been shifted towards Stamina versions of the Class - Not addressed.
• Stamina spammable - not addressed.
• Stamina and Magicka sustain - not addressed.
• Stamina Passives - not addressed.
• Reflective Scales - Should have toned down the reflected projectiles to 2 from 4 (considering they are at a 20% damage increase), but reduce incoming projectiles 40% for duration.

Templar

• Missed so many opportunities to audit...
• Dark Flare - 0.1s channel reduction did not warrant 37% reduction.
• Puncturing Strikes - Templar threads have been flooded with evidence of poor performance across the board on this skill due to lack of identity and multiple reduction factors for damage output. This is one skill that should have thoroughly been reviewed and audited.
• Empowering Sweep - removal of Major Protection is unwaranted for a Physical skill. There are plenty of skills to go around that have both damage/defense abilities that were not addressed in comparison to this. Yes Major Protection is on Rememberence, but different application for different situation > a great tool that negates (Silence! See what I did there ) the need to reduce redundancies.
• Stamina and Magicka sustain - not addressed.
• Stamina Passives - not addressed.

Warden

• I am still gathering feedback, list is incomplete.
• Ice Mage identity - not addressed.
• Audit to Winter's Embrace line for more frost damage abilities - not addressed.

Necromancer

• I cannot, in good conscience, comment on this Class as I do not have the knowledge comprehension to fully address. Nor do I have access to PTS.

I'd disagree with some of your op, for example templar as a whole has amazing sustain compare to others (especially magicka), so an audit for that subject is unneeded. I'd consider the removal of minor berserk from Grim Focus a good change, since you can get it in PvE anyway with healer, and in PvP please run Slimecraw like everyone else if you want it (stamden may have a built in minor berserk, but it's not an overused skill such as Grim Focus, a lot of warden would rather run quick cloak).

But overall, good job summarize everything XD I really hope ZOS would pay attention on this.

Audit =/= Rework.
Base classes need a rework not an audit, mainly the stamina specs which were born rather awkwardly and late into Elder Staves Online.
Hopefully some future patch could address that as its main concern. This is not the time to get some half ***** stam crystal, stam stone giant, and stam hasty prayer. I'd prefer not to get muddled down in more class changes. The devs almost certainly didn't want to get this far into the weeds with the Nightblades as is.

Fixing Power of the Light for stamplar at least seems important though....

I am already building a stamina nightblade and a magicka sorcerer, since those are the only classes that get attention from devs.

VaxtinTheWolf wrote: »

Mass Hysteria caused minor maim. Is there something I misunderstand when you speak of defile when referring to that skill?

Did you mean to say that you'd have rather seen Minor defile on the ultimate instead of Major?

Thank you for correcting me, will update the OP.
Mass Hysteria is itself overloaded.
4s Stun (now increased to 6 targets from 2)
53% Snare for 4s after Stun ends
Minor Maim

If Incap retained Major Defile, but lost the Stun and lowered the increased damage from 20% to 10% or reduced the duration from 6s to 3s it would be balanced. It's a single target ability. Anyone know the chances of proccing Minor Defile (if possible) from Incap's disease damage?

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

So, this patch is supposed to be about auditing Class Active Skills and Weapon Skills to reduce redundancies across similar skills - Aside from everything coming with the Elsweyr Chapter.

Based on majority of the PTS feedbacks, this "Audit" is not going so well. Let's gather the information and list it all out of major role definements that have been suggested and/or not addressed. You can make your conclusions from there, or as always add to the list!

In all honesty, having the same effects on multiple skills is not redundant. It gives more build diversity than forcing players to use specific skills to get buffs/debuffs. We don't want all of our bar setups to be exactly the same. It is predictable, not competitive.

I will be updating, at a later time, the post to include Class Pain Points in from their respective threads in Red, if not already redundant with listed bullet points.

Sorcerers

• Magicka versions seem Okay, most focus has been shifted towards Stamina versions of the Class - Not addressed.
• Stamina spammable - not addressed.
• Stamina sustain - not addressed.
• Stamina Passives - not addressed.

Nightblades

• Veiled Strike - should have simply been moved to Assassination Tree and left alone.
• Blur - should have been moved to Shadow Tree (To compensate Veiled Strike above).
• Mark Target - removing Major Fracture from Surprise Attack should have warranted this skill being able to cast on multiple enemies - Like PotL.
• Grim Focus - should have been left alone, or toned down damage.
• Incap - Should have only removed the Stun to balance it. Compensate the Major Defile redundancy on the next point.
• Mass Hysteria - should have toned down Defile to Minor > Good change on the Root option versus the "running away"
• Magicka versions should have been addressed - not addressed.
• Cripple - fairly balanced. Remove the Snare and skill is fine > can only affect one opponent is fair. Has this been tested? Do all effects of skill purge from target if new target is affected?

Dragonknight

• Magicka versions seem Okay, most focus has been shifted towards Stamina versions of the Class - Not addressed.
• Stamina spammable - not addressed.
• Stamina and Magicka sustain - not addressed.
• Stamina Passives - not addressed.
• Reflective Scales - Should have toned down the reflected projectiles to 2 from 4 (considering they are at a 20% damage increase), but reduce incoming projectiles 40% for duration.

Templar

• Missed so many opportunities to audit...
• Dark Flare - 0.1s channel reduction did not warrant 37% reduction.
• Puncturing Strikes - Templar threads have been flooded with evidence of poor performance across the board on this skill due to lack of identity and multiple reduction factors for damage output. This is one skill that should have thoroughly been reviewed and audited.
• Empowering Sweep - removal of Major Protection is unwaranted for a Physical skill. There are plenty of skills to go around that have both damage/defense abilities that were not addressed in comparison to this. Yes Major Protection is on Rememberence, but different application for different situation > a great tool that negates (Silence! See what I did there ) the need to reduce redundancies.
• Stamina and Magicka sustain - not addressed.
• Stamina Passives - not addressed.

Warden

• I am still gathering feedback, list is incomplete.
• Ice Mage identity - not addressed.
• Audit to Winter's Embrace line for more frost damage abilities - not addressed.

Necromancer

• I cannot, in good conscience, comment on this Class as I do not have the knowledge comprehension to fully address. Nor do I have access to PTS.

I'd disagree with some of your op, for example templar as a whole has amazing sustain compare to others (especially magicka), so an audit for that subject is unneeded. I'd consider the removal of minor berserk from Grim Focus a good change, since you can get it in PvE anyway with healer, and in PvP please run Slimecraw like everyone else if you want it (stamden may have a built in minor berserk, but it's not an overused skill such as Grim Focus, a lot of warden would rather run quick cloak).

But overall, good job summarize everything XD I really hope ZOS would pay attention on this.

Thanks for the insight! Magicka sustain is reasonable for magicka Templar. However, you often have to go to outside resources (Ele Drain, Pots, flat sustain set) because if the extremely high Magicka costs with class skills. MagDK is the same way, only with less built in sustain tools for magicka.

Only problems I had with Grim Focus, for and against, is travel time is lazy at best and damage is way too high! No reason a procced active skill should out damage most Ultimates.

You just described pretty much every magicka class. Magplar has one of the best, if not the best built in sustain(for mag).

Every magicka class runs a sustain set or things like atronach etc, dont forget that magicka skill are more expensive by default than their stam counterparts.

Ele drain is run by a ton of ppl beacuse its free, and gives you breach as well as the magickasteal, amazing skill.
As for pots, i mean everyone runs pots.
Also next patch we will be able to apply 28M AOE minor magickasteal for free with Radiant Aura, so they are giving us another great mag sustain tool.

Grim focus hits hard, beacuse its limited by light/heavy attacks, and its not like you can spam or even use it as often as crystal frags.

usmcjdking wrote: »

SidewalkChalk5 wrote: »

I love the idea of swapping Veiled Strike and Blur, both of which make SOOO much more sense in the other tree. They wouldn't just fit the skill line themes better, but both would get more appropriate passives, too.

Same with Templar Sun Shield (which should be in Dawn's Wrath) and Eclipse (which is so mechanically flawed it should just be reworked entirely to make a spear-based thorns ability).

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Yo @Jabbs_Giggity , I'm well versed in warden notes. I can give them:

Focus on Magden at the moment:

Major:

-Both pve DDs offer very little utility in pve.

-Magden is worse than stamden when it comes to damage numbers and is still one of the worst magicka classes.

-Magden has a severe lack of class damage skills and the ones that do exist are mostly raw damage with little utility to offer.

-Community wishes to be "ice mages"
Additionally, a whole bunch of reworks to winters embrace makes the most sense to implement the damage skills we need

- Class stun is absolutely horrible and will need several buffs

Minor:

-Warden tanks want old arctic blast back

-Wardens want animal companion's skill skins to make weird region specific animals have more variety.

- Magdens want a smaller non-bear execute

Thank you for the feedback! Would you mind touching on specifics when you mention things like old arctic blast vs new and what the class stun is? I think permafrost as class stun, maybe I'm wrong?
I will do some researching in the class rep thread as well.

Old arctic blast was wanted back because it had a 30% chilled proc chance on enemies. It made the glacial pressence passive pretty helpful and it was a pretty flavourful tank heal.

All of that was taken away when that flavour was turned into the worst projectile stun in the game or New Arctic Blast. Because it was a tank heal, its heal is now given to magden, and in pvp where the skill is going to be used, battlespirit halves this further. You barely heal anything. On top of that, this is the class that lacks damage skills so this projectile that knocks down an enemy, does no damage! It is extremely expensive too at 4050 cost, and it does not make up for these shortcomings by being unblockable or undodgeable either. It was also an extremely slow projectile. But to keep up with the skill audit, they made its projectile speed the same as destro touch and it's morphs. Why they didn't touch any other aspect is beyond me.

Permafrost cannot be considered the class' main stun. Because its a 200 cost ultimate.

When you realize it is literally a copy of Javelin and instead of burning light, you get a chance to proc maimed.

It doesn't even proc minor maim because it doesn't deal any frost dmg. It's somehow even worse than javelin, which is also an awful skill.

Half of what you say seems objectively wrong but the rest is pretty solid TBH.

DKs are fine, sorcs are fine though Stam sorc could use some thematic love. Yeah they don’t been addressed but they don’t need to be adresssed. At least not yet.

Also Templar has one of the best sustain abilities in the game so I wouldn’t even bother saying addressed or not.