The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/

Reworks for class iconic skills and more

AzurasCry
AzurasCry
✭✭
So, there are several skills - ultimate, active and passive that reworks rework and has been for years. Many of which has gotten rework, but are either usuable compared to the past or trash compared to the past version. But many of them has lost their charms that made them iconic and gave them a class identity. However, some still continue to provide class identity but has off balanced game mechincs.
So I request that the devs after this current class rebalance continues to delve into dragonknight and sorcerers for more skills to balance and make iconic. And I don’t want them to just look at the class and say, it’s a dps and this is a burst class. I want them to actually look at individual skills as it’s own identity and how they synergize with other skills - active passive and ultimate.

I’ll use a few simple examples.
Dragon’s Wings were one of its most iconic skilll and it worked, it was expensive and it hard countered a style of combat, making the opponent play smarter and different. But because it give 100% protection, it was considered Over powered and reworked into the pretty weak Wings that it is now. Also, the rework is probably party due to the lack of effort put by the players to adapt facing the dragon. Wings did need a rework because it provided 100% protection and reflected the attack back at full strength and more if you chose the other morph. But the current state of wings cost too much and provides less than the preferable damage reduction or utility for the cost. The damage from the fire balls are nice and every 0.5 sec is nice but doesn’t always happen, especially duels. The other morph reflective plate I believe it is called reworks more rework to make it iconic.

Now, nightblades have cloak. Another iconic skill. The rework for dark cloak has been interesting, and I like it. Great skill for tank, and decent for non-tanks. But I’m open to rework on that as well. Similarly, shadowy disguise is a great skill for all roles, especially pvp (maybe not so much for trials and dungeons). However, cloak like wings has flaws good and bad. Players can be kicked out of invisibility by multiple means to counter the mechanics but the problem is the other skills technically designed to counter cloak are not very viable. Magelight and evil hunter (morphs included) are not reliable for one simple reason, either the range is too small or the cost is too high. I think the cost is fine because it cost about the same as it cost to cloak. But the range is so short that you have to be holding hands with the guy. The fact that detection pots give you significantly more range and duration as well as effectiveness makes those to anti-stealth skills almost useless. Luckily, both of those skills provide utilities from the skill and passive from the skill line which are decent. The other more reliable way of getting players out of stealth is AOEs such as jabs and cleansing ritual. Both of those are particularly good skills and works good to counter cloak. So why should someone use anti-stealth skills such as mage light and evil hunter which has lower range? The only good reason would be that the player trying to return to stealth can not return to stealth for 3 seconds, which is not a long duration and both a positive and a negative. 3 seconds is enough to CC the player but the game is broken and someone placed the ring underneath the stealthjng player. Thus you cannot stun them sometimes. There is that support skill that works similar to magelight and evil hunter, but is also unreliable because the radius is too small for Cyrodil. It works better in the Sewers though.
Anyhow, back to shadowy disguise again, the skill is also a little too strong like wings when it had full counter to projectiles. This part I don’t hear people complain much because they maybe unaware. Before, players could take damage from dots when cloaking and it would break the cloak. That was a bad mechanic and I’m glad it changed. But now cloaking gives 100% damage mitigation from all dots for 3 seconds. That’s an issue, especially because you can cloak right away again. Fortunately, there are ways to make player get out of cloak, but the mechanics as mentioned above are not that reliable most of the time if players use the intended skills for anti cloak. And even if players use skills such as volatile armor to break cloak, nightblades can immidately return to cloak. So yeah, volatile armor wasn’t that useful other than to spot the nightblade location. So it’s not really an anti cloak mechanic. Jabs does wonderful though. Now, I think the damage mitigation shouldn’t be 100% from all dots, instead it reduces the damage while cloaking. Since Dragon Knoghy’s wings worked similarly and now reduces damage from projectiles. Shadowy disguise and the base morph (dark cloak is debatable) should reduce damages from dots by a X% like wings does to balance mechanics. This is also because shadowy disguise provides 100% crit chance on hit within 3 seconds as well. It was over performing when you could get critical heals for 100% chance as well and not use up the 100% crit hit chance when a player healed themself.
The other skill is mistform and it works similar to cloak and wings but is iconic and works differently than both skills. Mostfp doesn’t have 100% reduce but is still extremely powerful and you can be hit while in mistform but you don’t regenerate magicka. Unlike cloak, getting people out of mistform is nearly impossible unles using negates or eating yo their magicka. However, usually players that run mistform are able to sustain the ability for just enough to get out of heated situations. I’d like to say mistform also needs some reworks to balance with other skills but I’m not entirely sure on what should be changed and how it should perform. But I think, these 3 skills - wings, cloak, mist form play a similar role and should be balanced with each other in mind while maintaining their own personality.
Other classes also have skills that play similar roles but that’s a discussion I might add later. But for now, I’d like the devs to look into these few skills mentioned above and rework them to both balance them, make them better and make hem iconic.
  • AzurasCry
    AzurasCry
    ✭✭
    Sorry that the post isn’t organized this time. I’m a bit tired.
  • Darkenarlol
    Darkenarlol
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    TL;DR:

    "because mah wings nerfed

    nerf NB's cloack plox thx

    gonna bring all classes nerf

    in another post thx kissis bb"
  • AzurasCry
    AzurasCry
    ✭✭
    TL;DR:

    "because mah wings nerfed

    nerf NB's cloack plox thx

    gonna bring all classes nerf

    in another post thx kissis bb"

    Oh I knew someone was going to say that.

    For the record I play all classes and I have 3 of each classes. And I play them all and have been for a very long time.
  • AzurasCry
    AzurasCry
    ✭✭
    And I’m not asking to nerf everything, I want reworks. Skills that synergies with other skills but also has proper counters to them.
  • AzurasCry
    AzurasCry
    ✭✭
    Wings hive 50% damage reduction and have hard counter, non-projectile attacks. The damage reduction in wings is 50% which is low grows stronger the more people you fight that’s using projectile because it is 6 seconds duration compared to the 3 projectile which makes it good since you don’t need to cast as much.

    Cloak’s hard counter skills doesn’t even work most of the time. It’s not cloaks fault for that, it’s those skills aren’t reliable. I understand it magelight not working on distant targets, but detection potions have huge radius compared to magelight. Granted you can’t really spam your potions, but with the cool downs, you can keep it up for a decent bit.

    Most form has 75% damage mitigation from all attacks. That’s a lot, and it’s effective. You aren’t able to be CCed either but there has been a bug possibly, that causes snare to be applicable or Maybe it’s intended.

    Cloak as 100% damage mitigation from dots. It’s also 100% damage mitigation if you can’t break cloak. That’s fine, Cloak should be a bit challenging to counter like streak because it is your mobility and escape or can be a pressure move. But a 75-80% damage mitigation from dots sound reasonable to me. It won’t really hurt much because the reduction is so large and dots are getting nerfed. And the dots shouldn’t break cloak either.


    I love playing my nightblades, but even I feel like the skill needs some reworks when compared with other classes. Looking at the past changes and future goals from ZOS. ZOS wants to homogenize skills while maintaining a unique identity. These three skills have similar concepts but play uniquely however some are better than the others. Reworking the skill to be more iconic while balancing each of them to other skillls seems reasonable to me.
  • susmitds
    susmitds
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    AzurasCry wrote: »
    Wings hive 50% damage reduction and have hard counter, non-projectile attacks. The damage reduction in wings is 50% which is low grows stronger the more people you fight that’s using projectile because it is 6 seconds duration compared to the 3 projectile which makes it good since you don’t need to cast as much.

    Cloak’s hard counter skills doesn’t even work most of the time. It’s not cloaks fault for that, it’s those skills aren’t reliable. I understand it magelight not working on distant targets, but detection potions have huge radius compared to magelight. Granted you can’t really spam your potions, but with the cool downs, you can keep it up for a decent bit.

    Most form has 75% damage mitigation from all attacks. That’s a lot, and it’s effective. You aren’t able to be CCed either but there has been a bug possibly, that causes snare to be applicable or Maybe it’s intended.

    Cloak as 100% damage mitigation from dots. It’s also 100% damage mitigation if you can’t break cloak. That’s fine, Cloak should be a bit challenging to counter like streak because it is your mobility and escape or can be a pressure move. But a 75-80% damage mitigation from dots sound reasonable to me. It won’t really hurt much because the reduction is so large and dots are getting nerfed. And the dots shouldn’t break cloak either.


    I love playing my nightblades, but even I feel like the skill needs some reworks when compared with other classes. Looking at the past changes and future goals from ZOS. ZOS wants to homogenize skills while maintaining a unique identity. These three skills have similar concepts but play uniquely however some are better than the others. Reworking the skill to be more iconic while balancing each of them to other skillls seems reasonable to me.

    Cloak is fine. Hard counters should not even exist. Cloak and wings had nothing similar to begin with as Cloak can be broken and not Wings.
  • ThePedge
    ThePedge
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    All AoEs, Detect Pots, Magelight and Revealing Flare all hard-counter cloak.

    If you don't want to build to counter cloak then fine, that's a you problem not a cloak problem.
  • BNOC
    BNOC
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ThePedge wrote: »
    All AoEs, Detect Pots, Magelight and Revealing Flare all hard-counter cloak.

    If you don't want to build to counter cloak then fine, that's a you problem not a cloak problem.

    Lol
    vMSA - Magplar - Xbox EU - 15/11/16
    578,000 - 36 Minutes 58 Seconds (Top 2 World?)

    vMSA - Magplar - Xbox NA
    569,000 - 40 minutes (350CP, Non optimised runs)
  • SipofMaim
    SipofMaim
    ✭✭✭✭
    It's not that older skills are overloaded (I hate this concept) or overperforming so much as that so many skills have been nerfed to **** which makes the ones that haven't into outliers. Wings could have stayed or taken a much smaller nerf IF for example frags still had its stun, some genius hadn't decided that swallow soul was a reflectable projectile, etc.

    Everybody's been worn down and the new classes started out weakened, so let's wear everybody down some more to keep things roughly even. This is a bad spiral. It's pretty depressing to see the community embrace it and ask for more.

    Also, historically, whenever they adjust cloak they ****ing break it. And I mean break. Bugged or not functional for three months, or longer. Leave cloak alone.
  • Iskiab
    Iskiab
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭
    Cloak isn’t that good defensively, think you’re missing what people have been saying. Playing purely solo yea you can make it work, or especially against new players or duellers who play specs that are terrible outside 1v1 because they lack Aoe.

    Play BGs or cyrodiil non-solo and it’s main use is offense. Most people choose dark cloak in these settings.

    Then again, if NBs have been balanced with cloak in mind being a ‘powerful’ ability then yea change it. Cloak makes the class too much average in some settings and weak in others.
    Looking for any guildies I used to play with:
    Havoc Warhammer - Alair
    LoC EQ2 - Mayi and Iskiab
    Condemned and Tabula Rasa - Rift - Iskiab
    Or anyone else I used to play games with in guilds I’ve forgotten
  • idk
    idk
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    AzurasCry wrote: »
    Dragon’s Wings were one of its most iconic skilll and it worked, it was expensive and it hard countered a style of combat, making the opponent play smarter and different.

    I stopped at this first example as it is so very wrong.

    yes, Wings were a hard counter to a style of combat. That style was anything ranged that was not a channel which means it countered almost all ranted skill. Even the heavy attacks of a fire staff was reflected.

    It did not make opponents play smarter. It just forced them to go into melee. It was the DK that was able to play a with less skill.

    The skill was absurdly OP at launch. Lets at lest get our explanations correct. If you are talking about a more recent version of wings you do need to be specific.
    Edited by idk on October 11, 2019 1:43PM
  • deepseamk20b14_ESO
    deepseamk20b14_ESO
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    TL;DR:

    "because mah wings nerfed

    nerf NB's cloack plox thx

    gonna bring all classes nerf

    in another post thx kissis bb"

    Beat me to it.
    Hey everyone! Look! It's a signature!
  • BNOC
    BNOC
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    idk wrote: »
    AzurasCry wrote: »
    Dragon’s Wings were one of its most iconic skilll and it worked, it was expensive and it hard countered a style of combat, making the opponent play smarter and different.

    I stopped at this first example as it is so very wrong.

    yes, Wings were a hard counter to a style of combat. That style was anything ranged that was not a channel which means it countered almost all ranted skill. Even the heavy attacks of a fire staff was reflected.

    It did not make opponents play smarter. It just forced them to go into melee. It was the DK that was able to play a with less skill.

    The skill was absurdly OP at launch. Lets at lest get our explanations correct. If you are talking about a more recent version of wings you do need to be specific.

    I mean, even the new version is dodgy, I constantly see noobs run the other morph of wings for 50% mitigation and to send back 2-3k hits or whatever it is every time someone uses a projectile.

    Between the 50% mitigation and the damage they can fire back, they can still effectively shut down almost all ranged damage, especially if they're active in combat on that target as well. At the very least, they slow it right down to a point where it's near impossible to get enough burst.

    Crystallised shield sends damage back as well, but caps at X damage taken and only fires 3 - Wings released damage isn't based on anything other than being hit.

    It's not as noob friendly as it used to be but it's better than Crystallised so either that needs buffed to conform or wings needs it's ez mode taken down a notch.

    Can you imagine if Templar bubble was firing damage out per hit and mitigating 50% projectile damage at the same time, uproar.

    Dno why anyone's dealing damage for being hit anyway, wish they'd stop handing out free damage.
    vMSA - Magplar - Xbox EU - 15/11/16
    578,000 - 36 Minutes 58 Seconds (Top 2 World?)

    vMSA - Magplar - Xbox NA
    569,000 - 40 minutes (350CP, Non optimised runs)
  • hakan
    hakan
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    you forgot to say that cloak doesnt work too sometimes just like its counters.

    anyway as a player of both classes, they should have made wings reflect or absorb projectiles if the person spamming it is away 12m or more.

    also should have changed the skill swallow soul to be not a projectile
  • AzurasCry
    AzurasCry
    ✭✭
    Templar’s unstable core is a strong ability but I don’t like how the devs reworked it. It’s like the devs were lazy with it.
  • AzurasCry
    AzurasCry
    ✭✭
    The other issue I have with Templar is their access to snare, nearly everything snares with their skills. The snare is fine if it’s limited to some abilities or maybe add a cool down to snares or lower the potency. So the issue might actually be with how snares work in the game.
    Edited by AzurasCry on October 11, 2019 6:31PM
  • chrightt
    chrightt
    ✭✭✭✭
    Nice, obviously yet another thread that starts with DK’s bs wings perspective. “Makes enemy play smarter”. Clap clap you mean makes enemy unable to do *** simply because they’re ranged. Nice, of course another DK based thread pretending the class isn’t fine as it is.

    Tfw stone fist was always a skill but suddenly people *** on it just because it turned into a spammable. Great, just great. Especially because some streamers whose names I need not mention simply supports that stone fist is just a meme while laughing at the animation despite the skill being the same as the old one. Man, it seems like DK “mains” seriously love to complain despite saying they “play other classes” but still find “DK weak”. Lmfao, l2p a DK instead of telling others to l2p.
  • AzurasCry
    AzurasCry
    ✭✭
    chrightt wrote: »
    Nice, obviously yet another thread that starts with DK’s bs wings perspective. “Makes enemy play smarter”. Clap clap you mean makes enemy unable to do *** simply because they’re ranged. Nice, of course another DK based thread pretending the class isn’t fine as it is.

    Tfw stone fist was always a skill but suddenly people *** on it just because it turned into a spammable. Great, just great. Especially because some streamers whose names I need not mention simply supports that stone fist is just a meme while laughing at the animation despite the skill being the same as the old one. Man, it seems like DK “mains” seriously love to complain despite saying they “play other classes” but still find “DK weak”. Lmfao, l2p a DK instead of telling others to l2p.
    And you sound like the usually non DK main complaining about DKs. Not much differences here. And I never said I’m a DK main, you are jumping to conclusion. And I didn’t even mention stone fist in this post.
Sign In or Register to comment.