DK speed/mobility

Urzigurumash · April 2021

ealdwin wrote: »

The funny thing is that Necros have zero mobility boosts in their class kit. They have the pull-armor, but that's it. The question then becomes, how are Necros able to survive and be competitive over the past few PVP metas, and what lessons could be learned that could then be applied to DKs. But, in a manner that makes sense within the class and doesn't make them just a copy of another class.

From my view, besides how OP Blastbones was with 30% Major Defile, it's Curative Curse and the 10% Mitigation on the Friendly Ghost skill. That's why I'm saying just double our HP Regen per slotted Draconic Skill and double our Blocking passive. Embrace our tankiness and buff it, rather than trying to find new ways to let us play effectively on sub-25k HP builds besides roll-dodging until Leap is ready.

@Sangwyne , forget the quotes, I'll address some of your points:

On class skills being useless: Noxious Breath is perhaps the best way to apply Breach in the game. It's more reliable than Deep Fissure, Caltrops, or Unnerving Boneyard. Volatile Armor is arguably on par with any other skill as a 360 degree AoE Decloak. I sorely miss those things on StamCro. If I've missed what I can use as a mobile 360 degree Decloak on StamCro, please let me know. Of course Fossilize is Fossilize. These latter 2 are MagDK skills, you may say, ok sure, but MagDK doesn't have Executioner.

On non-class skills being irrelevant: No, you have to factor in how the non-class skills relate to class passives and class utility skills.

Regarding class heals: I've had Green Dragon Blood slotted for 6 years, never once took it off my bars for any build. Say what you want about what that means about my skill level or whatever, but I use it and the only thing like it that's better is Arctic Wind - or for non-HP Scaled Instant Burst Self-Heals, Resistant Flesh on a MagCro and a MagCro alone. Except GDB buffs HP Regen, and Resistant Flesh nerfs it. Sure, Clannfear heal, but again that's really new for Stam. Dark Exchange has a cast-time, I prefer GDB. Both HP-scaled Heals and HP Regen were broadly derided as useless until the Malacath meta, when they were suddenly so OP that people who main evasive classes were saying these things were inherently imbalanced and must be removed from the game. They're strong, use them. GDB needs a tune-up to be on par with Arctic Winds or Resistant Flesh, yes, but it can be stronger than Vigor in the right situations on the right builds if you know how to use it.

Regarding StamDK being on par with StamDen: No, I never said that. My point was I'd rather rejuvenate our original identity, rather than go further down the path of becoming a Snakeblade.

Regarding StamDK not being decent at brawling: Right, so I flat out disagree that we're not decent at Brawling. Just because we're not as good as StamDens doesn't mean we're not vying for 3rd place along with StamSorc, and giving StamCro a run for its money - if there aren't any corpses around - because Scythe is trash, Necrotic Potency needs Corpses, Health Tether is stationary, and the other Living Death heals all scale off Spell Damage. Are you using Corrosive?

Urzigurumash · April 2021

And if your answer about Noxious Breath is that Pierce Armor provides more Pen, then we're not talking about the same thing. I'm talking about our role in small groups. If I was only concerned with 1v1 I'd play NB.

I didn't mean to say everything is fine, and that the class doesn't have glaring issues. But to say the class has no good skills, no good healing, and the only reason to run it is Leap - all of these things to me sound like somebody is ignoring the role of the class as a "pressure tank", and trying to be something we're not.

6 years in on Xbox, pretty sure DK has had the lowest scores on VMA every single week. Every single week, I swear. Maybe I'm wrong, but look, we're tanks, we all know it, so let's get over the Sorcs and NBs telling us how naughty we are for being tanks and discuss the finer points of playing a DK to its strengths.

Beffagorn · April 2021

Personally, i never thought DK needed delayed burst skills. Not every class should have access to one, and as someone that mains StamDK i wouldn't want to have one.

The class has a myriad of problems. Other posters have already listed what those problems are so there's no need to go over them again.

What has not been covered, though, is dot protection. In almost every single MMORPG dot classes always had some form of protection from getting their dots removed, and for good reason. There's no need for overly complex solutions or trying to reinvent the wheel when the biggest and most obvious problem with DKs can be seen from miles away by anyone with the barest of game knowledge. Addressing that should be the ZoS first concern when it comes to DKs.

Urzigurumash · April 2021

Beffagorn wrote: »

Personally, i never thought DK needed delayed burst skills. Not every class should have access to one, and as someone that mains StamDK i wouldn't want to have one.

The class has a myriad of problems. Other posters have already listed what those problems are so there's no need to go over them again.

What has not been covered, though, is dot protection. In almost every single MMORPG dot classes always had some form of protection from getting their dots removed, and for good reason. There's no need for overly complex solutions or trying to reinvent the wheel when the biggest and most obvious problem with DKs can be seen from miles away by anyone with the barest of game knowledge. Addressing that should be the ZoS first concern when it comes to DKs.

Not to mention, never mind swings in the overall balance between DoTs and Direct Damage, for Stam we've lost unique power on our DoTs by the removal of the ability of Corrosive Armor to buff DoTs. Since then this has been the thing above all others I want to be revised - especially or exclusively regarding Noxious Breath and Venomous Claw. Sure these DoTs were buffed around the same time (and then nerfed again), but I think these buffs and nerfs were done in proportional equivalence to other DoTs?

I made some reference above to a "Super Poisoned" or "Super Burning" status that we've discussed here in the past. One idea for this status is that after a certain amount of Flame or Poison DoTs are applied to the target, they are no longer able to remove any of these type of DoTs. If this were done the present state of Corrosive would probably be fine with me.

If Purges aren't presenting a problem for other classes, then it makes more sense DKs would receive a buff in this area rather than Purges receive a general nerf.

In general, I think all Status Effect DoTs - which are quite short in duration - should bypass all mitigation, since in my view the small percentile chance for these DoTs to apply represents a "saving throw" against the status afflicting the target.

gamma71 · April 2021

Sleevez340 wrote: »

I knownthat posting here is just thinking out loud. Devs don't read this consistently enough to see anything of outstanding value. However something that has felt off for a while is in yhe title here. Mobility and speed of the DK, more mag, but unless you're running medium and a bow. Then stam as well.

So sorc for instance has streak, and lightning form.. but almost no melee skill morphs in their class kit.

The DK class kit is all melee. But suffers from nearly no mobility. With the changes to armor that recently took place. Sorc and NB are the only classes that can actually use more than 2 pieces of Light armor and stand a chance at surviving getting hit with cc and escaping. So sk must wear heavy. Which takes away more mobility.

I'm not sure what I was hoping for here. But it would be nice to have something that provided a minor speed buff similar to hurricane.

You are 100 percent right. It makes no sense dk is a melle class with no mobility. We're as like you said sorcs have tons of mobility even as a stam class spec. We need a charge like gw2 warrior that can be used at any time like a streak basically.

lucky_Sage · April 2021

Dk is a over nerfed and/or reworked abilities and is just a shell of a week class that people play because of there ounce love for the class. They where all given to other classes.
FoO is now a crappy ability the you have no control over now stamsorcs have their old ability with a speed buff on it
Wardens for wings with a major heroism
Inhale is a shell of its self.
Dots have been over nerfed
All utility and and healing abilities have such a high cost with a nerfed shell of battle roar.
Zero tanking ability other than a ult that is only used as the oh **** button for tanks when the group dies
Dks are only used in groups a few buffed just a save a bar swap so the other classes can slot more of there good abilities and 2 synergies.
You get more survivability from slotting RaT than talons inhale wings and obsidian shield put together. RaT isn’t op everything else is just crap

Ythotha · April 2021

I agree with purge being more scarce of a mechanic since unless wardens are being overwhelmed by 2+ people or get bursted somehow, they are pretty much unkillable and hit hard with the bugs.

As to why necros having zero mobility but still being a good class is from the explody skeleton. It hits f hard and you can spam it. You force the enemy to block or dodge every 3 seconds. Dk just cannot put that pressure on the enemy especially if there is a cleanse happening every 5 seconds removing a dot that you desperately need to do anything ( Magdk). Also claw and spit dots are weaker than mages guild dot ability, which should probably be its own topic but i digress.

ArcVelarian · April 2021

Ythotha wrote: »

I agree with purge being more scarce of a mechanic since unless wardens are being overwhelmed by 2+ people or get bursted somehow, they are pretty much unkillable and hit hard with the bugs.

As to why necros having zero mobility but still being a good class is from the explody skeleton. It hits f hard and you can spam it. You force the enemy to block or dodge every 3 seconds. Dk just cannot put that pressure on the enemy especially if there is a cleanse happening every 5 seconds removing a dot that you desperately need to do anything ( Magdk). Also claw and spit dots are weaker than mages guild dot ability, which should probably be its own topic but i digress.

And that wouldn't be a problem if our Class DoTs did something special when purged like exploding in a 7m radius for the remaining damage.

Back back to the topic, adding Expedition to Wings or buffing Warmth significantly would address the issue. The latter of which would have positive implications for PvE as well.

For Warmth specifically it would have to go from
"When you deal direct damage with an Ardent Flame ability, you reduce the enemy's Movement Speed by 30% for 3 seconds"
to
"When you deal damage with an Ardent Flame ability, you reduce the enemy's Movement Speed by 50% for 3 seconds"

Veg · April 2021

Don't try to get mag DK's speed. The class is not built for it and it will never work without rebuilding the class. Speed only helps you when you can deal your damage in burst shots. Mag DK's still need to block like 90% of incoming damage to stay on target long enough to do anything.

Give mag DK's a new AoE burst damage ability. Could be doubling deep breath damage or just replacing wings or stonefist with a new skill.

Athan1 · April 2021

*cries in Templar*

ESO_Nightingale · April 2021

HowellQagan wrote: »

All we have is chains, which is sad. We need a speed buff on our wings too, like Wardens.

what DK has that warden doesn't is inherent stickiness via your directly applied snares and magicka gap closer. you also have better stuns. Warden does not have directly applied snares unless a it's a stamina warden using a weapon skill. stuns via arctic blast can be very hard to reliably land when used offensively, leaving us to use flame clench, which is a knockback, or dizzy swing if we are stamina because stamina's weapons are better than magicka's and solve these problems. I think this is fine. because your class has some things that we do not, you also have access to race against time. which everyone can use.

ESO_Nightingale · April 2021

Veg wrote: »

Don't try to get mag DK's speed. The class is not built for it and it will never work without rebuilding the class. Speed only helps you when you can deal your damage in burst shots. Mag DK's still need to block like 90% of incoming damage to stay on target long enough to do anything.

Give mag DK's a new AoE burst damage ability. Could be doubling deep breath damage or just replacing wings or stonefist with a new skill.

Exactly, speed isn't what magdk needs, it doesn't fit into their identity, they are already sticky. I can't say that i know what magdk's damage needs but i know that it definitely doesn't need speed beyond what it already has at the moment. Magicka Warden has easy access to major expedition because it doesn't have directly applied stickiness or an enemy gapcloser. this is what some people in this thread fail to see.

universal_wrath · April 2021

Veg wrote: »

Don't try to get mag DK's speed. The class is not built for it and it will never work without rebuilding the class. Speed only helps you when you can deal your damage in burst shots. Mag DK's still need to block like 90% of incoming damage to stay on target long enough to do anything.

Give mag DK's a new AoE burst damage ability. Could be doubling deep breath damage or just replacing wings or stonefist with a new skill.

Deep breath does a considerable damage, no need to increase its damage or replacing other skills. You can greatly buff dragon knight if you make deep breath scale with highest offensive stats as we as make it activate its big damage without the need of a target. Currently, you need to hit a target with small deep breath attack for the second attack to activate. You activate deep breath without hitting a target and you only get first small attack, second attack does not proc.

Sangwyne · April 2021

Athan1 wrote: »

*cries in Templar*

Why are you crying, you guys got buffed massively. Was Templar in a bad spot? Did it need help? Absolutely, and not a single one here disagreed. Misery loves company, and it was nice having a friend to commiserate with down here at the bottom of this abandoned mineshaft. But now Templar's regained its place in the light and gets to hang out with all the cool kids, and DK is still a discarded husk. Please don't use us as a footstool and push us down on your way up; we supported you when you were bad, and now DK needs some love too.

Sanguinor2 · April 2021

Sangwyne wrote: »

Why are you crying, you guys got buffed massively. Was Templar in a bad spot? Did it need help? Absolutely, and not a single one here disagreed. Misery loves company, and it was nice having a friend to commiserate with down here at the bottom of this abandoned mineshaft. But now Templar's regained its place in the light and gets to hang out with all the cool kids, and DK is still a discarded husk. Please don't use us as a footstool and push us down on your way up; we supported you when you were bad, and now DK needs some love too.

Massive buffs? Where? All that got a buff was templar pve tank.

Sangwyne · April 2021

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

Massive buffs? Where? All that got a buff was templar pve tank.

Luminous Shards now restores an extra 1980 of the off-stat, Living Dark now scales off the higher of your Max HP or Spell damage, Nova's synergy stuns for longer, Nova no longer has a target cap on the damage or synergy, Solar Prison's synergy damage was buffed, Solar Disturbance is now cheaper and applies Major Maim for up to 10 seconds instead of just 4, Cleansing Ritual can now be activated any time, Rune Focus now lasts longer, restores more resources and heals for 4.5% of Max HP every second, with Channeled Focus up to 25 seconds from 20, for a total of 112.5% Max HP healing, and finally Restoring Focus is cheaper, restores more, and grants 25% boost to the 4.5% of Max HP healed per second for a total of 5.625% every second.

Sure, Templar tanks got some love, but they were by far the most-requested aspect of Templar to be addressed. That's still a lot of buffs, both for tanks and other Templar archetypes. Meanwhile, DK is the worst healer and damage dealer in the game, and the only class in the game without a heal scaling off Max HP now that Templar has two. Why must everything be a competition for dead last? We don't want the title of crappiest class, you guys can honestly have it if you really want. We get it, Templar was bad, but it got buffed and now it's better. I'm glad Templar was buffed. Why can't they do the same for DK?

Urzigurumash · April 2021

universal_wrath wrote: »

Deep breath does a considerable damage, no need to increase its damage or replacing other skills. You can greatly buff dragon knight if you make deep breath scale with highest offensive stats as we as make it activate its big damage without the need of a target. Currently, you need to hit a target with small deep breath attack for the second attack to activate. You activate deep breath without hitting a target and you only get first small attack, second attack does not proc.

Yeah the thing is whether DK should have a role in optimized 12-man outside of the Tank Role.

This debate is years old in PvE, but attention to this issue in PvP has been increased by the removal of proc sets from Cyrodiil. DKs were, with the access to proc sets, only very slightly behind Warden and Necro, depending on whom you ask. The removal of procs narrowed what works to win in PvP, beyond just the selection of sets.

master_vanargand · April 2021

Sleevez340 wrote: »

I knownthat posting here is just thinking out loud. Devs don't read this consistently enough to see anything of outstanding value. However something that has felt off for a while is in yhe title here. Mobility and speed of the DK, more mag, but unless you're running medium and a bow. Then stam as well.

So sorc for instance has streak, and lightning form.. but almost no melee skill morphs in their class kit.

The DK class kit is all melee. But suffers from nearly no mobility. With the changes to armor that recently took place. Sorc and NB are the only classes that can actually use more than 2 pieces of Light armor and stand a chance at surviving getting hit with cc and escaping. So sk must wear heavy. Which takes away more mobility.

I'm not sure what I was hoping for here. But it would be nice to have something that provided a minor speed buff similar to hurricane.

DK has Warmth of passive skills. (30% enemy speed down)
If DK want mobility, remove DK's Warmth.

YandereGirlfriend · April 2021

DKs have a speed buff it's just appended to perhaps the least useful skill in the class kit that it could possibly be attached to in Chains. Either you gap-close to the target... in which case no more need for speed or you pull them to you... in which no more need for speed. Why is it included as a random toss-in to count for the skill's power budget? Nobody knows... but it really ought to be somewhere else (e.g. Wings).

It's true that DKs need buffs most of all but let's also not pretend like non-Tank Templars actually got fixed with this patch. The overwhelming majority of the changes are exclusive to Templar Tank so I would say that Templars of both specs are still down in the mine shaft hanging out with their DK friends. They just have a slightly larger cave to sleep in. Magblades are also in the mine shaft... crying in the corner by themselves.

TrinityBreaker · April 2021

master_vanargand wrote: »

Sleevez340 wrote: »

I knownthat posting here is just thinking out loud. Devs don't read this consistently enough to see anything of outstanding value. However something that has felt off for a while is in yhe title here. Mobility and speed of the DK, more mag, but unless you're running medium and a bow. Then stam as well.

So sorc for instance has streak, and lightning form.. but almost no melee skill morphs in their class kit.

The DK class kit is all melee. But suffers from nearly no mobility. With the changes to armor that recently took place. Sorc and NB are the only classes that can actually use more than 2 pieces of Light armor and stand a chance at surviving getting hit with cc and escaping. So sk must wear heavy. Which takes away more mobility.

I'm not sure what I was hoping for here. But it would be nice to have something that provided a minor speed buff similar to hurricane.

DK has Warmth of passive skills. (30% enemy speed down)
If DK want mobility, remove DK's Warmth.

You are aware that snares/immobilize has a cool down now, right? The warmth and even talons wont keep someone slowed/down 100% of the time like it used too.

Sangwyne · May 2021

master_vanargand wrote: »

DK has Warmth of passive skills. (30% enemy speed down)
If DK want mobility, remove DK's Warmth.

This is a joke, right? Other classes just have cc attached to their base abilities instead of having to lose a passive for it. Imagine losing a passive to apply 3s of a crappy 30% slow on a DOT ability that lasts 14s and only works in melee.

If we are melee-only, we should be the most mobile class, not the least. Currently there is zero benefit to us being melee, just downsides. Take more damage, deal less damage due to not being able to reach the target, less uptime on skills, less safety.

Every other class is ranged, or at least not restricted to melee, and yet most still have more mobility than us. Why?

Chilly-McFreeze · May 2021

Sangwyne wrote: »

If we are melee-only, we should be the most mobile class, not the least. [...]

Every other class is ranged, or at least not restricted to melee, and yet most still have more mobility than us. Why?

Many games have the thick armored melee knights be less mobile. Then again, those games let these classes have options to make up for it. And of course ranged classes or those with less face-tanking ability have to be more mobile then. But ZOS seems to only be slightly inspired by tradition gameplay designs, to say the least. So I have no idea if it's better to mash everything up and be same-same or go back to distinctive design patterns. Personally I'd go for option 2, but the first seems more likely "for balance reasons".

Urzigurumash · May 2021

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Sangwyne wrote: »

If we are melee-only, we should be the most mobile class, not the least. [...]

Every other class is ranged, or at least not restricted to melee, and yet most still have more mobility than us. Why?

Many games have the thick armored melee knights be less mobile. Then again, those games let these classes have options to make up for it. And of course ranged classes or those with less face-tanking ability have to be more mobile then. But ZOS seems to only be slightly inspired by tradition gameplay designs, to say the least. So I have no idea if it's better to mash everything up and be same-same or go back to distinctive design patterns. Personally I'd go for option 2, but the first seems more likely "for balance reasons".

This a concise explanation of why I think what DK needs for PvP, more than anything, is a buff to defensive passives, and maybe even a buff to the effectiveness of active tanking abilities. (The issue of not having high-damage AoE delayed burst being a larger issue not limited to DK)

DK works well for me when I play it "like a tank", even if built to deal damage. It's not a popular concept but it works for me, and it makes use of parts of the class kit designed to enable DK's core role.

TwinLamps · May 2021

Vevvev wrote: »

HowellQagan wrote: »

All we have is chains, which is sad. We need a speed buff on our wings too, like Wardens.

Moving the speed buff off chains and onto wings would be pretty neat actually.

Not for tanking, no.

Sangwyne · May 2021

TwinLamps wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Moving the speed buff off chains and onto wings would be pretty neat actually.

Not for tanking, no.

Movespeed on chains is the pits. If I am chaining, I am standing still to allow the melee mobs to come to me while trying to chain every ranged mob I can into a ball for the DPS to blow up. A crummy 4s movespeed buff on an ability I exclusively use for trash doesn't ever even factor into it. Movespeed on wings is not only the most sensible spot, but would give a much-needed buff to an ability that is currently just a completely inferior version of Warden's Shimmering Shield despite supposedly being one of our most iconic abilities.

Honestly though, I don't care WHAT they do to Wings, just make it a viable ability. Give it Minor Resolve, give it Major Evasion, Minor Protection, a shield, make it last longer, give it movespeed, whatever, just give us an ability that we can feel proud about. Warden has Netch for free purges, sustain, and Major Sorcery/Brutality, along with Sub Assault for two massive delayed bursts for 2k, along with Arctic Blast for damage, stun, burst heal and heal over time, along with Shimmering Shield for projectile shield, Magicka regain, and Major Heroism, but what do we have that even remotely compares to any of those? I would trade any single skill of ours in a heartbeat for any of those skills.

DK's skills have been nerfed to a point where even looking at them makes me sad. They're so pathetic and devoid of basic features compared to any single one of these other overloaded abilities that every other class seems to have. Streak for damage + unblockable AOE stun + teleport that doesn't require a target, PTS Channeled Focus for a 25s armor buff + 242 Mag/s + 4.5% Max HP/s that grants Minor Mending, 10% block mitigation, and costs less than every other armor skill in the game, Cloak, etc. What do we have that compares to that? Our most iconic abilities have been whittled down to nothing over the years, their features stripped away and given to other classes.