chrightt wrote: »

Keep note that this takes into account all changes made up until Patch 5.2.4 on the PTS.
I am here to discuss some beneficial changes to each class (yeah, since I play them all) that I think are pretty much "buffs" to underutilized skills that can make things a bit more interesting without triggering anyone (hopefully). I am going to go over just 1 skill per class to see if this seems like a good change most people would prefer over the so called "class balance and class identity" that ZOS is giving us. Of course, I am keeping these changes as realistic as possible meaning I have to sort of predict what the heck ZOS wants as well to hopefully help them make positive changes that people enjoy. Do they even read this anyway (not skim, READ)?

DragonKnight
The first thing that comes to mind is Molten Weapons. This skill just feels quite out of place with most classes having ways to gain Major Brutality and Major Sorcery with a long enough duration. However, this skill actually has a similar "defensive" counterpart: Warden's Frost Cloak and morphs (Expansive Frost Cloak and the more commonly seen Ice Fortress).
My proposal:
Igneous Weapons: We don't need the increased radius from 28 => 36 meters. Instead, change this part of the ability to reduce magicka cost. With a lower magicka cost and a long duration, it actually looks possible for players who want to be able to make sure major sorcery/brutality is up for him/herself and teammate has a really high up time will find this skill useful. It is especially good for people who don't really remember to buff as often or prefer not to buff once per 20 seconds as current Igneous Weapon lasts 42 seconds on PTS. With Magicka cost being lowered from 4.3k to something like 2.7k I can see more people running this skill (especially for potential hybrid builds) as technically a long duration coupled with low cost means that you're getting a really cheap major sorcery/brutality + not needing to reapply it as often at the cost of not having other bonuses.
Molten Armaments: Current: Increase your own damage with heavy attacks by 50% => New: Increase heavy attack damage of all allies affected by Molten Armaments by 20% and increase the resource returned by 20%.
This change can be really useful in group battles rather than a magDK having to build him/herself towards using heavy attacks. I am pretty sure more people than not use heavy attacks as a means to return resources rather than to deal heavy damage (yeah I know the undaunted heavy attack builds are out there once in a while at low or even mid pvp tiers but even they can use a bonus for resource returned).

Necromancer
Frozen Colossus: Like a lot of people, I think the change to Frozen is not exactly a good change. For those that don't know, Major Vulnerability has 20s CD but it now lasts 8s. The duration is far too long for PVP if you manage to even land one hit with your colossus the target loses pretty much the majority of the chance at survival even if an ally heals for the target. As some experienced trial goers would point out, this doesn't reduce the need of necros in raids because often times you use necro ultis to clear trash packs much faster. This change actually makes them stronger at clearing trash packs I would say (or at least not any weaker). I would personally lower the major vulnerability to 5s for now but this class seriously needs a lot more tweaking than just 1 skill. Stamnecros are still king in PVE/trial DPS and magnecros are on the very bottom. How is a class balanced this poorly across mag and stam? For PVP, well they're actually not that bad now on dragonhold but some buggy skills needs some tuning still.

Nightblade
Blur To be honest, I see stamblades using shuffles because magicka cost for Blur (and of course its morphs Mirage and Phantasmal Escape is just a tad bit too high to justify running it over shuffle. I think it would be quite fair to reduce the base magicka cost of this ability from 3780 to 3000, wouldn't you? At least nightblades can slot Blur more often than shuffles making them feel like they are the elusive class. Wouldn't you agree?

Sorcerer
I actually have quite the fun suggestion for this one: Encase. Now this skill's change is dependent on something else mentioned at the very bottom of this thread in an attempt to alleviate some annoyances for PVPers at the moment while making this skill more useful.
Shattering Prison: Split this damage into two parts. First part is a DoT while enemy is encased deals X damage per second. The second part is the final damage that should do damage even if the opponent breaks free. Of course, this final burst damage should be lower than the damage it now is. As I said, some caveats are listed on the bottom of this thread as well.
Restraining Prison: Since ZOS wants to promote sorchealers so much that they made a whole new heal based power surge, why not give it to them? Currently, to gain Major Vitality the skill HAS to snare something and extends duration for each enemy snared. This makes the skill not very useful when there is say, only one boss. My proposal is to make Restraining Prison get 3 seconds of Major Vitality on cast, regardless of hitting an enemy or not (while retaining +1s per enemy hit up to 6). I think for a skill with 3.8k base cost this wouldn't be too much to ask. It would make this morph an interesting healer oriented morph that can be useful for both PVE and PVP.

Templar
I thought long and hard even as a templar player myself and I actually think both magplar and stamplars are working pretty well in dragonhold. Slot reserved for skill change but if I had to pick a class where all the skills seem pretty useful in one way or another and are actually being used here or there, I would pick templar for sure.

Warden
Frozen Gate: While I recognize I get to see frozen gate and morphs used once in a century, I really wish this skill is made a bit friendlier to use because it is such a cool utility skill. I think my biggest gripe with the skill is probably the radius. Extending radius from 5m => 6m would help a bit.
Next, I think instead of being able to spam this skill across the area (since we can have up to 3) a cool interaction (get the pun?) would be to be able to put only 2 portals down. However, if user of the ability steps on the older of the two portals, the user will be teleported to the location of the newer portal (this is to make the skill more mind-gamey, strategic, and a tradeoff between placement). This will be able to differentiate it from summon shade, but of course the retreat will be stuck with a 28m max radius for teleportation which can be another whole issue of awkwardness. Hey, I still think it would be quite fun.


General Fixes
Ok, one last thing I want to mention is I think snare immunity in general should have a slightly longer duration from skills and the roll dodging snare immunity should be increased from 2s -> 4s as well. This is to prevent a lot of CC frustration that PVPers are experiencing from easy sources of snare that frankly just make the match about CC rather than the "fast paced combat" a lot of people prefer. Like seriously, our roll dodge cost increase is on a 4s CD and our snare immunity is 2s?!?! Make snares more impactful sure but make it less spammy.

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Grianasteri wrote: »

chrightt wrote: »

Keep note that this takes into account all changes made up until Patch 5.2.4 on the PTS.
I am here to discuss some beneficial changes to each class (yeah, since I play them all) that I think are pretty much "buffs" to underutilized skills that can make things a bit more interesting without triggering anyone (hopefully). I am going to go over just 1 skill per class to see if this seems like a good change most people would prefer over the so called "class balance and class identity" that ZOS is giving us. Of course, I am keeping these changes as realistic as possible meaning I have to sort of predict what the heck ZOS wants as well to hopefully help them make positive changes that people enjoy. Do they even read this anyway (not skim, READ)?

DragonKnight
The first thing that comes to mind is Molten Weapons. This skill just feels quite out of place with most classes having ways to gain Major Brutality and Major Sorcery with a long enough duration. However, this skill actually has a similar "defensive" counterpart: Warden's Frost Cloak and morphs (Expansive Frost Cloak and the more commonly seen Ice Fortress).
My proposal:
Igneous Weapons: We don't need the increased radius from 28 => 36 meters. Instead, change this part of the ability to reduce magicka cost. With a lower magicka cost and a long duration, it actually looks possible for players who want to be able to make sure major sorcery/brutality is up for him/herself and teammate has a really high up time will find this skill useful. It is especially good for people who don't really remember to buff as often or prefer not to buff once per 20 seconds as current Igneous Weapon lasts 42 seconds on PTS. With Magicka cost being lowered from 4.3k to something like 2.7k I can see more people running this skill (especially for potential hybrid builds) as technically a long duration coupled with low cost means that you're getting a really cheap major sorcery/brutality + not needing to reapply it as often at the cost of not having other bonuses.
Molten Armaments: Current: Increase your own damage with heavy attacks by 50% => New: Increase heavy attack damage of all allies affected by Molten Armaments by 20% and increase the resource returned by 20%.
This change can be really useful in group battles rather than a magDK having to build him/herself towards using heavy attacks. I am pretty sure more people than not use heavy attacks as a means to return resources rather than to deal heavy damage (yeah I know the undaunted heavy attack builds are out there once in a while at low or even mid pvp tiers but even they can use a bonus for resource returned).

Necromancer
Frozen Colossus: Like a lot of people, I think the change to Frozen is not exactly a good change. For those that don't know, Major Vulnerability has 20s CD but it now lasts 8s. The duration is far too long for PVP if you manage to even land one hit with your colossus the target loses pretty much the majority of the chance at survival even if an ally heals for the target. As some experienced trial goers would point out, this doesn't reduce the need of necros in raids because often times you use necro ultis to clear trash packs much faster. This change actually makes them stronger at clearing trash packs I would say (or at least not any weaker). I would personally lower the major vulnerability to 5s for now but this class seriously needs a lot more tweaking than just 1 skill. Stamnecros are still king in PVE/trial DPS and magnecros are on the very bottom. How is a class balanced this poorly across mag and stam? For PVP, well they're actually not that bad now on dragonhold but some buggy skills needs some tuning still.

Nightblade
Blur To be honest, I see stamblades using shuffles because magicka cost for Blur (and of course its morphs Mirage and Phantasmal Escape is just a tad bit too high to justify running it over shuffle. I think it would be quite fair to reduce the base magicka cost of this ability from 3780 to 3000, wouldn't you? At least nightblades can slot Blur more often than shuffles making them feel like they are the elusive class. Wouldn't you agree?

Sorcerer
I actually have quite the fun suggestion for this one: Encase. Now this skill's change is dependent on something else mentioned at the very bottom of this thread in an attempt to alleviate some annoyances for PVPers at the moment while making this skill more useful.
Shattering Prison: Split this damage into two parts. First part is a DoT while enemy is encased deals X damage per second. The second part is the final damage that should do damage even if the opponent breaks free. Of course, this final burst damage should be lower than the damage it now is. As I said, some caveats are listed on the bottom of this thread as well.
Restraining Prison: Since ZOS wants to promote sorchealers so much that they made a whole new heal based power surge, why not give it to them? Currently, to gain Major Vitality the skill HAS to snare something and extends duration for each enemy snared. This makes the skill not very useful when there is say, only one boss. My proposal is to make Restraining Prison get 3 seconds of Major Vitality on cast, regardless of hitting an enemy or not (while retaining +1s per enemy hit up to 6). I think for a skill with 3.8k base cost this wouldn't be too much to ask. It would make this morph an interesting healer oriented morph that can be useful for both PVE and PVP.

Templar
I thought long and hard even as a templar player myself and I actually think both magplar and stamplars are working pretty well in dragonhold. Slot reserved for skill change but if I had to pick a class where all the skills seem pretty useful in one way or another and are actually being used here or there, I would pick templar for sure.

Warden
Frozen Gate: While I recognize I get to see frozen gate and morphs used once in a century, I really wish this skill is made a bit friendlier to use because it is such a cool utility skill. I think my biggest gripe with the skill is probably the radius. Extending radius from 5m => 6m would help a bit.
Next, I think instead of being able to spam this skill across the area (since we can have up to 3) a cool interaction (get the pun?) would be to be able to put only 2 portals down. However, if user of the ability steps on the older of the two portals, the user will be teleported to the location of the newer portal (this is to make the skill more mind-gamey, strategic, and a tradeoff between placement). This will be able to differentiate it from summon shade, but of course the retreat will be stuck with a 28m max radius for teleportation which can be another whole issue of awkwardness. Hey, I still think it would be quite fun.


General Fixes
Ok, one last thing I want to mention is I think snare immunity in general should have a slightly longer duration from skills and the roll dodging snare immunity should be increased from 2s -> 4s as well. This is to prevent a lot of CC frustration that PVPers are experiencing from easy sources of snare that frankly just make the match about CC rather than the "fast paced combat" a lot of people prefer. Like seriously, our roll dodge cost increase is on a 4s CD and our snare immunity is 2s?!?! Make snares more impactful sure but make it less spammy.

Some interesting thoughts. Well done for putting time and effort int.

I have no idea why more people do not use frozen gate more. On my Nord Warden ice tank, I use it instead of leash to pull adds in. For me its better because I do not require line of sight when surrounded by adds to pull the ranged adds or the ones harassing team mates to me, I can do this while in a crowd. And I can have 3 out gates out, fire and forget. I love them.

Also I do not think the radius needs altered, its huge, but I wouldnt say no since I use them all the time ;-)
.

Frozen device is not an issue. it's major maim is quite powerful. However, the other morph, Frozen Retreat is just not worth it at all. in pvp the synergy doesn't scale with distance of other 28m skills, making it always at 28m and making it feel very short range, in pve, it contradicts the playstyle that the tank should have. Pulling allies to you, when also trying to pull enemies to you, thus putting the ally in danger when the idea of the skill is that it allows them to "retreat". the synergy is fun, but a tank just isn't going to use that synergy to great effect especially when the other morph is really powerful, where as if the skill didn't pull enemies, thus becoming a root trap like a sorc mine and had a properly scaling synergy, it could be used to a greater extent by healers or group dps in pvp where it would have a niche.