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Update 23 Combat Q&A

  • Ivan04
    Ivan04
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    I hope you won't just answer the questions from this thread, because I can't really think of anything besides asking for more balance to Vigor (slightly overnerfed in last pts patch).

    And perhaps more rework to the SnB line, since no one is going to be using power slam and morphs.
    Edited by Ivan04 on August 8, 2019 4:09PM
  • Vercingetorix
    Vercingetorix
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    Necromancer still needs work and none of these issues were even addressed yet have been mentioned through several PTS patches, both before and after Elsweyr launched. When can we see a fix to these issues?

    - Flame Skull and its morphs need their casting animation and projectile speed increased so that they don't cause weaving issues. This problem is also present on the Warden's Cliff Racer skill as well.

    - Corpse ground targeting is still not consistent. Siphon and Tether need to simply consume a nearby corpse and let the player place the effect where they want it. Corpses do NOT show up half of the time in Cyrodiil or even in dungeons. The skill is highlighted with an applicable corpse and yet the skill does not fire. Please, PLEASE change how these two skills work!

    - Bone Armor skill doesn't do much and the effect sometimes ends before the full 20 seconds are up. Summoner Armor's cost reduction isn't enough to warrant using it and Beckoning Armor interferes with tanks trying to do their job. By comparison, other classes' defense skills are strong spells: Templar's Rune, Sorcerer's Lightning Form, Warden's Ice Fortress do so much more and last longer for their cost and yet the Necromancer gets a shorter duration armor buff that literally does nothing else useful for the player. The Necromancer's armor skill needs to be brought up to the other class' buff standards - for consistency's sake at the very least. Thank you.
    “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
  • FrancisCrawford
    FrancisCrawford
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    If any, what's the PvE difficulty cutoff where you'd hope to:
    • Force tanks to wear "selfish" sets rather than DPS buffs such as Alkosh.
    • Have dedicated healers be required.
    • Have tanks and/or healers use defensive or healing ultimates.
    • Have DDs use defensive ultimates.

    You sometimes state or imply such things are goals, but rarely with much detail or context.

    I'm sure you can imagine many other versions of this question. Please answer whichever formultation(s) make(s) the most sense to you.
  • FrancisCrawford
    FrancisCrawford
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    Similarly, what are your top player "personas" or use cases as balance priorities? Possibilities include but are not limited to:
    • PvE score-chasers.
    • PvE endgame completionists.
    • PvEers who can handle normal versions of most or all endgame and vet versions of the easier stuff.
    • (Various PvP options that I won't enumerate.)

    Note: If you say you prioritize all players' balance equally, many people won't believe you, and those who do won't like the answer anyway.
    Edited by FrancisCrawford on August 8, 2019 4:21PM
  • sha-ext
    sha-ext
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    How important is class identity in your vision of this game?
    The uniqueness of classes is being watered down constantly (class abilities being weaker than other skills, class skills given away).
  • Zer0oo
    Zer0oo
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    • will bast bones get some tweaking to be more reliable? They are pets and pets have problems to work in an open world pvp setting. Die extreme easy, root, snares ....
    • Is there hope to make the tether skills of necros better for open combat? You need to first find a corpse and if you move the beam breaks. You always move, need to produce a new corpse at the new spot and you actually have to find corpse which is not so easy in heavy combat. It gets worse if the corpse is a player since if they just release, your tether breaks
    Ice Furnace: This item set now grants Spell Damage, rather than Weapon Damage for the 4 piece bonus
    - Update 23
  • FrancisCrawford
    FrancisCrawford
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    What are the most important areas where you feel "Please don't judge our work until other shoes drop?" And when are those shoes likely to arrive?
    Edited by FrancisCrawford on August 8, 2019 4:24PM
  • frostz417
    frostz417
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    Why haven’t you given classes like magwarden or magnecro a reliable class stun?
    Meanwhile you have classes like night blade, dragon knight, templar, and sorc with multiple class stuns to chose from. All at least 3. While warden and necromancer have literally almost nothing to chose from.
    Warden has arctic blast which is way too expensive for what it even does
    Necromancer has bone totem which takes 2 seconds to even fear people.
    You took away stun from clench which was what these two classes relied on heavily since their class abilities were awful. So now you have effectively left warden mostly and necromancer in a terrible state.
    These two classes do not have proper ultility like the other 4 have. They need a reliably decent class stun now that shock clench has lost its stun.
    Edited by frostz417 on August 8, 2019 4:34PM
  • FrancisCrawford
    FrancisCrawford
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    What do you envision for group cc on tanks that don't have that in the class toolkit? Bombard? Just do without and perhaps snare instead? Don't tank with that class?
  • Suddwrath
    Suddwrath
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    Let me start by saying thank you for taking the time to do this. Many of the changes have left us scratching our heads, and not being able to ask the devs for clarification on the changes didn't help alleviate the frustration/confusion. So this is a great opportunity for many of those questions to finally be answered and is great step in the right direction for communication :)

    Here are the questions I thought of off the top of my head:

    1) Why the change to the way healing orbs functions?
    What made the devs decide to allow a player to only use 1 orb at a time? Was it for performance-related issues? Was it to prevent orb spam? I would just like to know how the decision was reached and the reasoning behind it.

    2) Will the Master's Restoration Staff receive an adjustment to compensate for the changes made to Healing Springs?
    The Master's Resto was often used in stamina-heavy groups or fights as a means for stamina sustain, but now that Healing Springs can't be stacked/spammed it results in a loss of stamina return that the staff previously provided. The new Healing Springs change returns magicka over time to the caster rather than upfront the way that it used to function, so would it be possible to adjust the Master's Resto to function similarly and provides stamina return over time instead of only on the initial tick?

    3) Would it be possible to rework the Eye of Nahviintaas' 5 piece bonus the same way that Siroria's was completely reworked?
    Nahviintaas is a sustain set, yet it is easily outperformed by other easier to acquire sets like Worm or Hircines. Would it be possible to rework the way that it functions so that healers will actually be motivated to use it? For example: A unique effect which would make it much more beneficial for both the healer and group would be changing the effect so that it provides Minor Heroism to both an ally and the wearer whenever an ally activates the wearer's synergy.

    4) With the ongoing skill audits, what is the ultimate goal for standardization? Where does class identity fall in the audit?
    Are the devs trying to homogenize the classes? Is it more important for classes/skills to be more similar, or should each class feel distinct and have its own identity?

    5) Are class/weapon passives the next things to be audited?
    If so, will that audit take place with Update 24?

    6) When do you expect to start reworking/auditing the Champion Point system?
    Do you expect the current limit to remain the same? To raise it? Lower it?
    Edited by Suddwrath on August 8, 2019 5:17PM
  • BennyButton
    BennyButton
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    Few questions on the state of healers after this patch:
    1. Do you have any plans to create a more diverse healers platform for other classes? Brian Wheeler stated in his clarification post that we will be able to use Templar's Ritual to help us compensate for the healing changes to springs. This, coupled with the budding seeds change to make it a HoT make it undesirable to take any class other than Templar or Warden as a healer.
    2. Do you plan on revisiting your healing changes if it proves detrimental to the endgame portion of ESO? The number of players who engage in the endgame activities is abysmal as it is, so increasing the skill ceiling while decreasing the non-class based healing skills for the newer groups and players which can hinder new talent from entering into the endgame scene.
    Edited by BennyButton on August 8, 2019 5:02PM
  • TBois
    TBois
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    With the audit yall made sure many skills used by stamina and magicka builds scaled off of the appropriate cp for those builds. Sorcerer's critical surge and dark deal being magicka costing skills their heals scale off of cp like elfborn, but these skills are primarily used by stamina sorcerer. Do yall intend to keep this as is or is there a plan to make these skills scale off of something like precise strikes?

    Do yall intend to have more skills scale off of your character's max stats (not only scaling damage but also changing damage type) in the future, similar to the new soul trap?
    Edited by TBois on August 8, 2019 5:07PM
    Current Guilds: Fantasia
    Former Guilds: Decibel, Hagnado, Lemon Party

    PC/NA
    T-Bois (Stam Sorc since 1.4) - AD
    An Unsettling Snowball (Templar) - AD
    Bosquecito (Stam Sorc) - DC
    Peti-T-Bois (Stamden) - AD

    Youtube
  • redspecter23
    redspecter23
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    Would it be possible to know a long term goal for what classes are supposed to look like (according to ZOS). As players, we only know what we see on live and what info we have from the upcoming update. ZOS has much more info available and makes decisions based on future things we as players know nothing about.

    Up until this most recent pts cycle, I didn't know that ground based dots were overperforming. I didn't know that single target dots were underperforming. I didn't know that restoration staff healing was overperforming. I didn't know that stamina healing needed more sources like circle of protection.

    These changes seemingly come out of nowhere as players don't really know what class/role identity is other than what we can see and experience. If class/role identity is seen differently internally, perhaps this can be relayed to players in advance so that when we see a shift over time that is different than what we know, we have some reasoning for it and can perhaps understand changes from that point of view.

    Also, please do something about flappy flaps all over towns blocking interactions. Make them an illegal act in cities or alternatively make them disappear visually to all but the caster while in cities or make them auto unsummon near crafting areas, bankers, etc. Even something as simple as making them a bit smaller and forcing them to land (stop flapping) when not moving would be a welcome change.
  • EvilAutoTech
    EvilAutoTech
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    With the proposed changes to silver leash, are you discouraging tanking with all but DK?
  • KappaKid83
    KappaKid83
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    It seems as though a lot of these changes are being made with a much further reach in mind(i.e in preparation of a complete overhaul of the CP system), can we get some insight into whether or not this may be the case. And if it is the case can we get some explanation as to why that hasn't been conveyed up to this point.
  • BennyButton
    BennyButton
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    Few questions on the state of healers after this patch:
    1. Do you have any plans to create a more diverse healers platform for other classes? Brian Wheeler stated in his clarification post that we will be able to use Templar's Ritual to help us compensate for the healing changes to springs. This, coupled with the budding seeds change to make it a HoT make it undesirable to take any class other than Templar or Warden as a healer.
    2. Do you plan on revisiting your healing changes if it proves detrimental to the endgame portion of ESO? The number of players who engage in the endgame activities is abysmal as it is, so increasing the skill ceiling while decreasing the non-class based healing skills for the newer groups and players which can hinder new talent from entering into the endgame scene.

    Another question:

    Can you tell us what drives your decisions other than just "overperformance" with regards to skill changes?
    • Where are you getting your information from?
    • Do you know if the people you are getting the info from play PvP or PvE?
    • Are you listening to both sides?
    • Do you actually test the changes or is it just a mathematical formula that spits out an adjustment to the skill to make it perform more to your standards?
  • BennyButton
    BennyButton
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    SaltySudd wrote: »

    2) Will the Master's Restoration Staff receive an adjustment to compensate for the changes made to Healing Springs?
    The Master's Resto was often used in stamina-heavy groups or fights as a means for stamina sustain, but now that Healing Springs can't be stacked/spammed it results in a loss of stamina return that the staff previously provided. The new Healing Springs change returns magicka over time to the caster rather than upfront the way that it used to function, so would it be possible to adjust the Master's Resto to function similarly and provided stamina return over time instead of only on the initial tick?

    Just spam springs for master resto, it'll be OP

  • Nerftheforums
    Nerftheforums
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    Why did you decide to overbuff dots and certain hots so much?
    Are you aware of the power creep this has created in pvp (dude with no mag hots meets dude with dots, dude with no mag hots is a dead dude, dude)?

    Why did you overbuff vigor, just to make it worse than what it is on live 1 week before going live?

    Why did you decide to slow down the pace of combat by removing the possibility to cancel the animation of certain ultimates?
    Edited by Nerftheforums on August 8, 2019 6:02PM
  • No_Division
    No_Division
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    Would it be possible to know a long term goal for what classes are supposed to look like (according to ZOS). As players, we only know what we see on live and what info we have from the upcoming update. ZOS has much more info available and makes decisions based on future things we as players know nothing about.

    Up until this most recent pts cycle, I didn't know that ground based dots were overperforming. I didn't know that single target dots were underperforming. I didn't know that restoration staff healing was overperforming. I didn't know that stamina healing needed more sources like circle of protection.

    These changes seemingly come out of nowhere as players don't really know what class/role identity is other than what we can see and experience. If class/role identity is seen differently internally, perhaps this can be relayed to players in advance so that when we see a shift over time that is different than what we know, we have some reasoning for it and can perhaps understand changes from that point of view.

    Also, please do something about flappy flaps all over towns blocking interactions. Make them an illegal act in cities or alternatively make them disappear visually to all but the caster while in cities or make them auto unsummon near crafting areas, bankers, etc. Even something as simple as making them a bit smaller and forcing them to land (stop flapping) when not moving would be a welcome change.

    I agree. A nice list of the classes/roles would be amazing. Us templars are still using the old wrobel "house" design intent with our feedback, because that's all they gave us, and the small snippet on class creation screen lol.

    With that additional information on hand, we can provide more meaningful discussions and feedback.
  • Beardimus
    Beardimus
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    Tyrion87 wrote: »
    With the upcoming changes to power surge, do you plan to make the skill relevant to magicka sorcerers again, by e.g. adding major sorcery to critical surge morph?

    Fab thread thanks @ZOS_GinaBruno

    +1 on Power surge - an update on the logic behind removing a go to skill for DD PvE & PvP would be good

    And bar space issues this change creates for sorcs , in particular pet sorcs (single bar pet time?)
    Xbox One | EU | EP
    Beardimus : VR16 Dunmer MagSorc [RIP MagDW 2015-2018]
    Emperor of Sotha Sil 02-2018 & Sheogorath 05-2019
    1st Emperor of Ravenwatch
    Alts - - for the Lolz
    Archimus : Bosmer Thief / Archer / Werewolf
    Orcimus : Fat drunk Orc battlefield 1st aider
    Scalimus - Argonian Sorc Healer / Pet master

    Fighting small scale with : The SAXON Guild
    Fighting with [PvP] : The Undaunted Wolves
    Trading Guilds : TradersOfNirn | FourSquareTraders

    Xbox One | NA | EP
    Bëardimus : L43 Dunmer Magsorc / BG
    Heals-With-Pets : VR16 Argonian Sorc PvP / BG Healer
    Nordimus : VR16 Stamsorc
    Beardimus le 13iem : L30 Dunmer Magsorc Icereach
  • rothtwinsdad
    rothtwinsdad
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    I play PVP and PVE, my main PVE is pet sorc and main PVP is Magden. I understand that pets in PVP are overpowered but gutting an entire class identity is not the to fix it. I am sure there are ways to adjust battle spirit for pet damage and healing without rendering it completely useless in PVE. Or even make pets un-summonable in PVP all together. The changes to power surge are completely out of nowhere. The change to reach really hits magden hard in PVP as the class has no viable stun now as well as no execute. Warden in general was in no way overpowered in PVE or PVP yet nerfs to class skills. Please explain the direction combat is headed for these two classes in particular.
    PS4/NA
    Ace Ventura: Magsorc pve dps
    Bodacious Brutality: Stamblade pve dps
    Freezer Pops: Magden pvp DC
    Nature Boy: Stamden pvp DC
    Tramp Stampler: Magplar pve dps
    Sargent Slaughterfish: Magblade
    Unbreakable: Stampler pvp DC
    Combustible: DK pve tank
    Romancing The Bone: Stamcro pve dps/tank
  • SteamKitten01
    SteamKitten01
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    My questions:

    What are the plans for the future of the PVE magblade because it seems like pretty much everything that made them useful and unique has been nerfed?

    -While not technically a combat question, are there any plans to add significantly more guild traders to the game? Because multi-bidding doesn't help guilds secure guild traders if there's still far more guilds that want traders each week than traders available for hire.
    SteamKitten01- GM of The Traveling Torchbug (PC/NA)
  • SodanTok
    SodanTok
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    With the changes to abilities this patch and probably some other big remakes in future, is there some plan (I would ask when but that can be too specific) to adjust certain playstyles that are hurt more than others with these revisits. In particularly ranged stamina (so bow/bow) in PVE and PVP that always creeps to visibility because of certain overperforming mechanics (like spider synergy in PVE or even Snipe bugs in PVP) but when all is fixed and standardized, fall noticeably behind?
  • snarkomatic
    snarkomatic
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    Please address the healing changes; specifically, what the devs' vision is for healers in PvE content, and if it is intentional to see us pushed more towards support DPS roles, or discouraged from content altogether.
  • Derra
    Derra
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    Well well well - that´s very fortunate timing.
    Ehm UN fortunate of course ;)
    <Noricum>
    I live. I die. I live again.

    Derra - DC - Sorc - AvA 50
    Derrah - EP - Sorc - AvA 50

  • Rake
    Rake
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    Will hammer get deleted from Cyrodiil
    Will we see more stamina morphs for classes
    Will we get new pvp large scale map
  • Chrlynsch
    Chrlynsch
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    Qbiken wrote: »
    Why has all feedback regarding werewolf been ignored through the entire PTS cycle for Update 23? A lot of feedback has been made on why these changes (especially the self-heal and pack-leader) are too much. And why aren't any adjustments being made? (speaking from a PvP and PvE perspective)

    I second this exact question.

    Edited by Chrlynsch on August 8, 2019 6:41PM
    Caius
    Pack Leader of Scourge Alliance- First Fang of Hircine, The Beast of Bruma
    PC NA
  • Ajax_22
    Ajax_22
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    Adding cast times to ultimates appears to be a change most people here have reacted negatively to. Yet the combat team seems intent on going through with the change.

    Why are these cast times being added?
    What issue is the team attempting to solve with this change?
    Could those issues have been addressed in some way that does not effect the current flow of combat?
  • Bfish22090
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    when will you remove faction lock?
  • Beffagorn
    Beffagorn
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    As a stamDK i don't feel like i'm playing a DragonKnight, but rather a very generic warrior/fighter with a vague poison theme. Are there any plans to look at class identity and fantasy in the future?
This discussion has been closed.